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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

"Throws light on German Manoeuver"


mbriscoe

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I always thought that the Caledonian Canal went from Inverness to Fort William and quite possibly back again, not to the Firth of Forth.

But, hey, what do I know about boats or ponies?

Edited by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr
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Inverness connects to the Moray Firth via the River Ness, so whether they simply got their firths confused ... ?

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It's very much easier to believe in the conventional theory that the east coast raids were intended to draw out groups of battlecruisers and fast battleships from the Forth and Scapa onto the guns of the whole HSF, so as to reduce or annihilate the RN numerical superiority. 

 

The idea of the German fleet penetrating the confined waters of the canal would have been even more suicidal than the RN trying to Copenhagen the HSF in Wilhelmshaven.

 

Edited by MikB
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I presume they were thinking of sending submarines or MTBs through the canal but perhaps someone in German just presumed it could take large vessels.

 

 

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So ‘fake news’ existed back then too!

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16 hours ago, mbriscoe said:

I presume they were thinking of sending submarines or MTBs through the canal but perhaps someone in German just presumed it could take large vessels.

 

 

Well, I'd heard somewhere it was supposed to take pre-dreadnought battleships - which usually ran around 10,000 tons, but that could've been on a canal holiday programme or something. Looking at the Wikipedia entry now, showing a max. ship length of 150 ft. and beam of 35, only small U-boats and torpedo boats could navigate it if the capacity in 1914 was similar.

 

Fake news? Well, of course, there were plenty of veterans of Victorian wars still around then, putting about their ideas of how the war might be fought by their own or opposing sides...

Edited by MikB
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Yes but.

Whatever the maximum size of boat/ ship able to traverse the Caledonian Canal, they would rather be sitting ducks in a row wouldn't they?

I think these are the rantings of an eccentric who has the Clyde/ Firth of Forth canal in mind.

The writer says that 'The Firth of Rosyth is at the other end of the canal', whether that is what the pony breeder wrote, we can't say, or whether that is a helpful but incorrect footnote by the journalist.

If the writer, or even the Germans thought it was feasible  to enact a plot to attack Rosyth via the back door of the Clyde/Forth canal, then they would all need their heads read.

The important stats of this canal are:

39 locks

and

The overall ruling dimensions are length: 68 feet 7 inches (20.90 m); beam: 19 feet 9 inches (6.02 m); draught: 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 m); headroom: 9 feet 1 inch (2.77 m), but at the western end larger vessels may use the Bowling basin.

 

Just about feasible for a fleet of invisible rubber dinghies.

Edited by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr
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11 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Yes but.

Whatever the maximum size of boat/ ship able to traverse the Caledonian Canal, they would rather be sitting ducks in a row wouldn't they?

I think these are the rantings of an eccentric...

...

Just about feasible for a fleet of invisible rubber dinghies.

 

Absolutely. They'd also be isolated in enemy territory with no prospect of effective support.

Don't know what the rubber dinghies would do when they reached their objective either.

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