These 3d videos are extremely difficult to make both in terms of time investment and money. Unfortunately, they are also not reaching the number of views other videos are getting. Please, consider liking, commenting, and sharing - it helps immensely. :-)
Literally watched Tora! Tora! Tora! Last night and when Yamamoto talks about the raid and how the British had managed I was thinking I would like to know more about how the British achieved this. Thanks Kings and Generals you never disappoint!!!
I remember how my grandpa used to talk about this in particular. Many inhabitants of Taranto came seeking refuge in the surrounding cities after the bombardment. He remembered dimly his entire house packed with desperate strangers, completely terrorized and hopeless. Not to mention all the devastation that came after in the period of the civil war.
My grandmother was from Formia, and the town received bombardments by both Germans and American forces; she’d take refuge under an old walkway that connected a school to another building, and led-down to a covered courtyard; it’s still there, and the cracks it sustained, though since covered, are made evident from the scraggly fig trees that are growing out of them.
The wire holding the torpedo up to belly flop was new for me, good to know! Also glad to see the Italian "fleet in being" concept laid out! Italy was at its best when it was strategically taking into account its lack of industrial base and resources.
@@sofiapellegrini7094 Consider All Ethnic Turks of the World. All Turks Are Far From Each Other For example, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs Ancestors are Mongols, but they are all Turkified, for example, some Greeks and Armenians living in Anatolia. Some Georgians, Slavs (Azerbaijan) Living in the Caucasus have become Turkified, So Turks are not an ethnically separate nation, a pure race. But today's purest Turks are the Uyghurs and the Altai (living in Russia) Turks. Also, no nation in the world is pure. The Anatolian people, who are descendants of the Göktürks, Seljuks and Ottomans, most deserve the real Turkish name and Turkish name and represent Turkishness in the best way.
Trento: How to be incredibly lucky... A dud bomb crashing through a fuel tank? Had it exploded the Trento would have been ripped apart and its crew would likely have all died.
This is the first video i'm watching on this channel. It will not be the last. Boy is it good to see everything spelled out so clearly. The animations make the importance of all those little details so very clear and help keep everything in my head. Great work guys.
This has got to be one of the highest quality productions I've seen on this Battle. I've read about it and learned of its results and its influence on the Pearl Harbour attack. Alot of us probably already knew The where, the what, the when and the Why. But this video excels because it shows HOW this battle took place. And I must say in great detail. A superb video!
I wonder if guys from @Kings and Generals are interested in making a video or even a whole series on Yugoslav wars in the '90s. There were some big battles in the war, like the Siege of Vukovar in Croatia or the Siege of Sarajevo a year or less later. I think that a lot of people would be interested in the events that occurred back then :) Other than that, great video! I really did enjoy it!
The Royal Navy was indeed performing at its peak in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. There loss in the Pacific was mainly because the Royal Navy was far too outstretched to fight against the IJN properly
In December 1941, the Royal Navy was fighting the Kreigsmarine and Regina Marina, trying to maintain naval superiority across the Atlantic, Arctic, Meditterreanean and Indian oceans. They simply didn't have enough ships left over to fight the Japanese, unfortunately. It wouldn't be until 1945 that the Royal Navy could spare a serious battle fleet to fight in the Pacific.
Whilst they had disadvantages, the Royal Navy's carriers with armoured decks survived kamikaze attacks with little damage, the worst being damage from a bomb which missed but exploded close to the hull. An American liaison officer remarked that while an American carrier had to go in for repairs after a successful hit, the British carriers just sent out someone to sweep the debris off the deck.
@@grahvis true, but for every carrier that was damaged or sunk, 4 took its place. By 1944, the US Navy had the largest amount of carriers in the world.
If we are to look at overlooked moments in ww2, the commando raid of St Nazaire is definitely one to look at. It was a plan that was so ludicrously impossible, yet it achieved everything. Instrumental to the Atlantic theatre as well
The French battleship Richelieu was not at Mers-el-Kebir. Nor was HMS Hermes. These two ships engaged in a separate action in July 1940 off of Dakar in West Africa.
@@jeffreyestahl It was a stroke of genius navigating a fleet past the Danish batteries, through the shallows/shoals and then beating the Danish fleet at the end of it. Don't play it down
@@royalhero4608 TBH, never really said it wasn't brilliant. It's just that the Royal Navy kept using Nelsonian tactics for a long time, and arrogantly assumed those tactics would always keep the RN on top of its foes. It certainly served them well, especially the concept "My plan of attack is to attack" first and foremost, though that forward thinking burned them against the Japanese initially in WWII. (I'm also saying that one of the reasons the IJN and IJA did so well initially was partly due to the prejudice the Western powers against Japan; they assumed it was just a small version of China which they'd been exploiting for decades) They did learn better and did significantly better over the course of WWII. However, my beef is with too many people (and certainly a number of Brits) who think that the RN had some kind of 'Morale Ascendancy' was attained over the RM after Taranto and Matapan. That simply wasn't true. Additionally, I grew up hearing the stories about the 'cowardice' of Italian soldiers, but when I read about the aftermath of 2nd El Alamein where the Italian Ariete division basically fought to its near destruction covering the withdrawal of the DAK and XX Army against the entire British 8th Army, I realized the Italians were likely getting a bunk deal. They weren't cowards. They did the best they could without the resources the British Empire had (and the Germans also who weren't sharing with their ally). The were saddled with lousy generals, but then again, many countries were. Despite how brilliantly done Taranto was performed, it was largely negated by the even more brilliantly performed raids by the X MAS. It does serve as an interesting exercise to try to determine what would have happened if the RM had had the resources to take advantage.
From America to Italy and the United Kingdom; it’s great to have friends and allies with the martial history and quality of both your nations. Great video.
This has brilliantly illustrated how Taranto was played out- a superb animation and commentary. Plus, the wire- drop system, and the use of magnetic pistol detonators is all new to me, so really first rate content. It seems incredible how a handful of biplanes using completely untried methodology, at night, could completely change a whole theatre of war. Brilliant minds, and balls of steel.
This is a great video. I can only imagine the carnage as a civilian just waking up to explosions and at the end of it there are shells and rounds scattered about.
This is one of my favorite attacks of WW2. Well done K&G. Your visual doc completed the action and the events building up to the attack. The old "string bag" pulled some surprising results in ww2. I gotta purchase a model kit of the Swordfish.
I thought that Biplanes were ancient war machines of WW1 irrelevant to the modern battlefield of WW2.... This proves that it is not only about having modern equipment, but of cunning and application into practice....
Well the Swordfish was obsolete by the start of WW2. It's replacement was already in production, but the battle of britain meant that all available resources went to the Royal Airforce instead of the Fleet Air Arm.
I would recommend reading up on the Millennial Challenge, where the US performs a military exercise against Iranian forces lead by a US Marine General veteran of Vietnam. He utterly humiliated the US force with asymmetrical unconventional warfare.
The Swordfish, although obsolete even early in the war, would play a vital role in 2 clashes - the attack on Taranto in 1940 and the hunt and destruction of the Bismarck in the spring of 1941. A plane that punched far above its weight.
British: concentration camps in South Africa Hitler: write it down, write it down and we'll improve them British: aerial attack on Taranto Japan: sends an envoy to copy that and definitively improve that with kamikazeeee
@@xmaniac99 Nope. 1) the term concentration camp was first used by the Spanish to describe there own camps in 1898. 2) America has been using camps since the 1830s, and even then it’s nothing new. 3) Britain didn’t intentionally kill anyone in the camps, the deaths were due to incompetence and disease, all of which were fixed by campaigning from Britain itself.
@@xmaniac99 yikes, never seen anyone more confident yet more wrong. The purpose of the camps was to never to exterminate, don’t be so stupid. Explain to me the wooden doors in the camps and the massive relief efforts made by the government after people started dying
modern warfare 3D videos are very fascinating with high quality graphics. they are my personal best keep the good work. thank you very much kings and generals
What is mind boggling about the British carriers was they were doing night operations when the US hadn't even thought of them but they were still using biplanes.
Splendid job as always. I must say the production quality of these videos just keeps getting better and better. Best wishes to the Kings and Generals + the Cold War team.
Long time watcher here K&G I have a special request that I haven't seen much of on TH-cam. I would love to see content relating to natives in North America, specifically the Pacific Northwest which remains a tough topic for youtubers like yourself. I have read absolutely mind blowing accounts of warfare between groups like the Haida which I think will really educate a lot of people here. Not to mention the northwestern wars between the USA and Canadian governments and the First Nations living in modern day Oregon, Washington state, and British Columbia.
Amazing video! I think a special shout out is in order for the British intelligence, for them to collect such information for the torpedos to be developed specifically to destroy the ships in the harbor, as well as obtain as much information about the entire layout of the harbor and city is amazing. The pilots had secondary targets which they destroyed (the seaplane base) and the fuel/oil tanks is impressive, especially in 1940 Italy.
This video should elaborate that the Raid on Taranto was only a temporary respite for the Royal Navy as the Regina Marina five days later would successfully deploy several of their warships to disrupt a convoy off of Malta in Operation White. The Battle of Taranto was meant to disrupt the threat of the Regina Marina but it only mitigated the Italian operations.
Please do a breakdown of pearl harbor using this sort description. I would love to see it described this way. It was outstanding being able to visualize so well
Thanks again Kings and Generals for your great content ! I have spotted a mistake in the video, although the main attack of operation catapult was at Mers El Kebir (Algeria), the attack on Richelieu by HMS Hermes was in Dakar (Senegal). French Battleships/Battlecruisers at Mers El Kebir were Strasbourg, Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne while the british had HMS Resolution, HMS Valiant, HMS Hood and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. Best regards
Italians feeling safe, cause torps could not be launched in their shallow waters Italians after : suprised face USA after : what a noobs, we would never be so foolish lol
The Yorktown wasn't really repaired properly though, more just patched up enough so she could take part in the Battle of Midway. The repair crew were still working when she left Pearl Harbour and the ship was lost in that battle anyway. Does anyone know if the Americans had the time to repair her properly she could have survived the damage taken at Midway?
@@jakerolfe7689 Nobody is certain. It was a long voyage from Midway back to Pearl Harbour, and Yorktown was effectively a floating wreck after the last Japanese attack. The carrier might well have foundered en route, and even if it had made it, Yorktown would've been under repair for a very long time indeed.
I played world of warships a year ago, idk if it was “legends” but I think it was a video of yours the got me to get it. I didn’t get the bonus promised in your video because frankly i didnt have a pc that was for gaming a year ago. I still appreciate the introduction, and, I was able to play on my Ipad without a youtube sponsored referral however. Thank you and perhaps now is the time I get the game on my new pc
Sir, I really appreciate your work in the field and would like to request you to make a video on the epic KARGIL WAR. The war has many hero and great lore. One might find very interesting. Thank you. 🇮🇳
The original plan for the Taranto raid was to have 2 carriers, HMS Illustrious and the older HMS Eagle. Eagle’s fuel plant shit the bed right before the op and her planes were sent to Illustrious instead
My grandfather is from a little town on the hills near Taranto. He was 7 years old during the attack. His family was a fairly wealthy farmers family with a nice homestead. They woke up that night and he clearly remembers the AA rounds in the sky, and to him they were majestic like fireworks. He never suffered a lot for the war, because they grew their own food and always said that German allied left without fighting and Americans arrived peacefully (in that area).
Hello, I am from Taranto! My grandfather used to say that on the morning after the bombing, you could not see the water near the shore because it was covered by dead fishes. Also! Most of the British aircrafts were safe because the anti-aerial artillery from the Italian ships just couldn't fire below a certain angle, so every aircraft that flew right above the water was virtually immune.
You have to admire the echoes of history in how effective torpedoes launched by light and mobile planes were in the place that gave birth to the Tarantine cavalry.
What gets missed out of accounts of this attack was that the Swordfish only had a crew of two - one crew member had to make way for a 6-foot by 3-foot fuel tank in the rear cockpit. Nice depiction, well beyond my skills, but please, bearing in mind what HMS stands for, you don't need to add 'the' in front of it.
It'd be interesting to see what shape Pearl Harbor would have taken if the magnetic pistols had the issues that plagued them on the Sheffield strike during the Bismarck Hunt.
Very nice video - though I would, with the intent for constructive criticism, advise that you guys are making some factual errors that are of varying consequence. Ex, Italy only had seven heavy cruisers, so there were definitely not nine at Taranto - though that's a pretty minor one. Another example is the noteworthy lack of employments of the available searchlights by the Italian defenses, and the fact that many of the machine gun/autocannon emplacements were commanded by less experienced officers that night that also helped create a weaker defense. Looking more at the attack itself -though you correctly note that the duplex pistols allow the British torpedoes to magnetically trigger the warheads under the target, you go on to then report the damage to Conte di Cavour and Duilio (also - note that Duilio is just 'Duilio', rather than 'Caio Duilio' as being holes in the side of the ship - this was not the case, the torpedoes actually blew up underneath the ships and holed the bottoms - and is quite significant as this meant the torpedoes entirely bypassed the torpedo defense system (no ships were ever built with a torpedo defense system to protect their keel). Additionally, on Cavour the delayed decision to ground her in more shallow waters proved decisive in making flooding and the overall level of damage on her more serious than Duilio, who had otherwise been hit in a similar manner. Littorio did not ground after the hits from the first wave, and in fact her buoyancy was actually not threatened by the first two torpedo hits at all. It is notable, also, that pretty much all the torpedoes that hit Littorio struck against the side of the ship rather than exploding under it as with Conte di Cavour and Duilio, which allowed the torpedo defense system to play a role. The first hit at 23.15 exploded between the no.1 & 2 turrets on the port side, against the torpedo defense system, and was absorbed by it, causing negligible damage aside from a minor crack in one of the bulkheads that allowed a small amount of flooding (though it did weaken the bow structure which played a role in the results of the third hit). The second hit came mere moments afterwards, striking the extreme stern and causing severe damage to the rudder (blew off a third of it), though causing no damage the auxiliary rudders and propellers & shafts. Littorio did list 2° to starboard due to flooding into the TDS from the first him, but had essentially no change in trim and before the third torpedo hit the list had been reduced to 1.5° to starboard. The third torpedo hit, at 23.59 (44 minutes after the first two) was the most serious hit, striking forward of the first hit and outside of the citadel, and thus where there was no torpedo defense system. This is what caused heavy flooding, which was difficult to contain due to the failure of the forward pumps caused by the torpedo damage (the diesel generator room that powered them was flooding and a short circuit cut the power). Despite this, the ship's buoyancy remained fine until 03.15 the next morning, a full four hours after the first torpedo hit, and at 04.00 it finally became a serious issue, and the decision was made to ground the ship. This was accomplished at 06.27, over seven hours after the first torpedo hit, and it is only after this grounding, when the ship sank 1.5 meters into the mud, that the bow finally went underwater. Perhaps most consequential in her sinking was shortcomings in the damage control arrangements of the ship, both due to the design failures that allowed the high capacity pumps responsible for the bow section (there were two, both capable of pumping 800 tonnes of water per hour) to be disabled by a loss of power locally (it was not possible, due to the layout of the electrical system, to supply power from other areas of the ship to these pumps, something addressed as a result of the Taranto attack), and the lack of portable pumps on the ship to bring to the affected area. Flooding was also able to spread past watertight bulkheads because of inadequately insulated electrical cable passages between bulkheads, an issue faced by all battleships in this era. As a result of Taranto the Regia Marina had to revise many of these arrangements, with the lessons from Taranto being reinforced by the damage suffered by Vittorio Veneto during Operation Gaudo in March 1941, which proved to have high dividends later in the war - Littorio, for example, suffered an almost identical hit to the third hit at Taranto while at sea in June 1942, but as a result of the damage control improvements the result was negligible and the ship didn't even need to leave formation. Repairs only took two months, versus the four months taken after the attack on Taranto. You also severely overstate the damage inflicted on harbor facilities, describing the seaplane hangar, oil depots, and facilities in general as being seriously damaged, but these were only negligibly damaged by the raid - in fact, the entire conventional bombing part of the raid generally failed (in large part due to the 250 lb SAP bombs used against the ships failing to explode - Trento was only damaged by the physical impact of a bomb to one of the 100mm twin mounts, and in any case was involved in multiple actions afterwards in the very same month). Overall, while I would stress that this is still a great video for visualizing the battle, and that you guys have done an excellent job and I hope to see more like them in the future; I think you are greatly overstating the bombing damage inflicted by the British in several cases, and also neglecting to look at the errors and shortcomings on the Italian side of the battle that helped create the British success (though by no means should that distract from the fact that it was a well planned and executed attack on the part of the British). You did a good job of covering the Italian passive defenses (torpedo nets, barrage balloons) and their shortcomings, but largely did not mention the failures in active defenses (the failure of the sound-based early warning systems, lack of employment of the searchlights, and the fact that many of the AA batteries of the harbor were directed by less experienced officers in addition to other fire control shortcomings), or why the torpedo hits were so effective against the older battleships (Conte di Cavour & Duilio) as well as the damage control shortcomings on Littorio, all of which were quite important to the success of the attack in the end. This would have allowed for a more complete coverage of the attack itself, and might have prevented some of the factual errors that were presented.
Truly incredible, it's so good because the length of the video is not long enough by far, yet just long enough to whet the thirst so to speak, and the detail and complexity conveyed by the narration and the animation is captivating and immersive, yet again we only get just enough to become awed by how much detail and complexity the real world contained around the time and place of the actual Battle of Taranto. I mean Kings & Generals always been super interesting but as a documentary video this thing is a masterpiece and certainly one of your best yet, bravo!
These 3d videos are extremely difficult to make both in terms of time investment and money. Unfortunately, they are also not reaching the number of views other videos are getting. Please, consider liking, commenting, and sharing - it helps immensely. :-)
Well, I appreciate all your efforts. Interesting video.
✊
لطفا زیر نویس فارسی😭😭😭
Ok
Just perfect 😊👍🙂
It's so satisfying to see what the tactics look like animated on a map. This is the best.
it's gonna be so cool in 20-30 years when we can watch the entire war in an accurate real-time simulation
@@Old299dfk and possibly participate???
@@slimpickens9103 "If i were there things would've been different"
Japanese Navy: Write that down, WRITE THAT DOWN
The Japanese navy
@@noobatthetower8747 The Imperial Japanese Navy
The funny thing is, the US wrote it down too, they just couldn't be bothered to care afterwards.
and the british after pearl harbor: Leonardo Di Caprio pointing
@@sofiapellegrini7094 Central Asian Turks = Some mongol Some Slav and some Turk
Anatolian Turks = Some Greek Some Turk
So Turks arent Arab stupid
Literally watched Tora! Tora! Tora! Last night and when Yamamoto talks about the raid and how the British had managed I was thinking I would like to know more about how the British achieved this. Thanks Kings and Generals you never disappoint!!!
So Pearl Harbor is the Brits fault. it all makes sense now.
@Yourda Yourma Turks are Arab?
@@rosameltrozo5889 Turks are Arab?
@@medivelmack Turks are Arab?
@@sofiapellegrini7094 Ah stupid🤦♂️ Wait me I'll come
I remember how my grandpa used to talk about this in particular. Many inhabitants of Taranto came seeking refuge in the surrounding cities after the bombardment. He remembered dimly his entire house packed with desperate strangers, completely terrorized and hopeless.
Not to mention all the devastation that came after in the period of the civil war.
My grandmother was from Formia, and the town received bombardments by both Germans and American forces; she’d take refuge under an old walkway that connected a school to another building, and led-down to a covered courtyard; it’s still there, and the cracks it sustained, though since covered, are made evident from the scraggly fig trees that are growing out of them.
The wire holding the torpedo up to belly flop was new for me, good to know! Also glad to see the Italian "fleet in being" concept laid out!
Italy was at its best when it was strategically taking into account its lack of industrial base and resources.
The airmen inside those biplanes have a massive balls of steel.
Explains why the planes were so slow!
They were naval officers inside those biplanes
They were indeed airmen. Part of the Royal Navies Fleet Air Arm.
Titanium, steel would put them over max takeoff weight.
@@sofiapellegrini7094 Consider All Ethnic Turks of the World. All Turks Are Far From Each Other For example, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs Ancestors are Mongols, but they are all Turkified, for example, some Greeks and Armenians living in Anatolia. Some Georgians, Slavs (Azerbaijan) Living in the Caucasus have become Turkified, So Turks are not an ethnically separate nation, a pure race. But today's purest Turks are the Uyghurs and the Altai (living in Russia) Turks. Also, no nation in the world is pure. The Anatolian people, who are descendants of the Göktürks, Seljuks and Ottomans, most deserve the real Turkish name and Turkish name and represent Turkishness in the best way.
Shout out for the graphics guys. Dazzling animations.
Trento: How to be incredibly lucky... A dud bomb crashing through a fuel tank? Had it exploded the Trento would have been ripped apart and its crew would likely have all died.
You only have to think of the USS Arizona's fate to imagine it.
This is the first video i'm watching on this channel. It will not be the last. Boy is it good to see everything spelled out so clearly. The animations make the importance of all those little details so very clear and help keep everything in my head. Great work guys.
The animator deserves a raise.
can't believe this is free to watch, this should be played in history class.
no....don't. don't dare the fate
Ain't gonna happen... they're too busy pushing that "Woke" shit.
This is what I always wanted from my History teacher and never got. Thanks
And for a good reason. When it comes to history in global terms, it is the result and the aftermath what it counts.
Because in an educational context military history is entirely useless? The aftermath matters, not the action itself...
@@noobster4779 yeah. Education today is retarded. A disservice to the brave.
This has got to be one of the highest quality productions I've seen on this Battle. I've read about it and learned of its results and its influence on the Pearl Harbour attack. Alot of us probably already knew The where, the what, the when and the Why. But this video excels because it shows HOW this battle took place. And I must say in great detail.
A superb video!
I wonder if guys from @Kings and Generals are interested in making a video or even a whole series on Yugoslav wars in the '90s. There were some big battles in the war, like the Siege of Vukovar in Croatia or the Siege of Sarajevo a year or less later. I think that a lot of people would be interested in the events that occurred back then :)
Other than that, great video! I really did enjoy it!
While I'm sure it's interesting, I'm not sure his comment section would survive.
Excellent visuals for a naval engagement, especially the small details like flares and torpedo netting.
Britain: uses torpedo bombers to cripple a fleet in harbor.
Japan, "Write that down! Write that down!"
The Royal Navy was indeed performing at its peak in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. There loss in the Pacific was mainly because the Royal Navy was far too outstretched to fight against the IJN properly
In December 1941, the Royal Navy was fighting the Kreigsmarine and Regina Marina, trying to maintain naval superiority across the Atlantic, Arctic, Meditterreanean and Indian oceans. They simply didn't have enough ships left over to fight the Japanese, unfortunately. It wouldn't be until 1945 that the Royal Navy could spare a serious battle fleet to fight in the Pacific.
Whilst they had disadvantages, the Royal Navy's carriers with armoured decks survived kamikaze attacks with little damage, the worst being damage from a bomb which missed but exploded close to the hull.
An American liaison officer remarked that while an American carrier had to go in for repairs after a successful hit, the British carriers just sent out someone to sweep the debris off the deck.
@@Cailus3542 By that time, the US Navy took care of the IJN.
@@grahvis true, but for every carrier that was damaged or sunk, 4 took its place. By 1944, the US Navy had the largest amount of carriers in the world.
The US Navy overtook the Royal Navy by sheer industrial power to mass produce ships and planes.
The battle that inspired the tactics used in Pearl Harbor, animated! Thank you 🙂
If we are to look at overlooked moments in ww2, the commando raid of St Nazaire is definitely one to look at. It was a plan that was so ludicrously impossible, yet it achieved everything. Instrumental to the Atlantic theatre as well
The French battleship Richelieu was not at Mers-el-Kebir. Nor was HMS Hermes. These two ships engaged in a separate action in July 1940 off of Dakar in West Africa.
Good presentation on the attack on Taranto itself though, KNG.
Britain : sometimes my genius is almost frightening
Was that the quote from Jeremy Clarkson?
@@muhammadnursyahmi9440 yes
Not so much. This is similar to what they did (twice) in Copenhagen during the Napoleonic War.
@@jeffreyestahl It was a stroke of genius navigating a fleet past the Danish batteries, through the shallows/shoals and then beating the Danish fleet at the end of it. Don't play it down
@@royalhero4608
TBH, never really said it wasn't brilliant. It's just that the Royal Navy kept using Nelsonian tactics for a long time, and arrogantly assumed those tactics would always keep the RN on top of its foes. It certainly served them well, especially the concept "My plan of attack is to attack" first and foremost, though that forward thinking burned them against the Japanese initially in WWII. (I'm also saying that one of the reasons the IJN and IJA did so well initially was partly due to the prejudice the Western powers against Japan; they assumed it was just a small version of China which they'd been exploiting for decades) They did learn better and did significantly better over the course of WWII. However, my beef is with too many people (and certainly a number of Brits) who think that the RN had some kind of 'Morale Ascendancy' was attained over the RM after Taranto and Matapan. That simply wasn't true. Additionally, I grew up hearing the stories about the 'cowardice' of Italian soldiers, but when I read about the aftermath of 2nd El Alamein where the Italian Ariete division basically fought to its near destruction covering the withdrawal of the DAK and XX Army against the entire British 8th Army, I realized the Italians were likely getting a bunk deal. They weren't cowards. They did the best they could without the resources the British Empire had (and the Germans also who weren't sharing with their ally). The were saddled with lousy generals, but then again, many countries were. Despite how brilliantly done Taranto was performed, it was largely negated by the even more brilliantly performed raids by the X MAS. It does serve as an interesting exercise to try to determine what would have happened if the RM had had the resources to take advantage.
From America to Italy and the United Kingdom; it’s great to have friends and allies with the martial history and quality of both your nations. Great video.
This has brilliantly illustrated how Taranto was played out- a superb animation and commentary. Plus, the wire- drop system, and the use of magnetic pistol detonators is all new to me, so really first rate content.
It seems incredible how a handful of biplanes using completely untried methodology, at night, could completely change a whole theatre of war.
Brilliant minds, and balls of steel.
Kings and Generals posted!! Gonna be a damn good day!
This is a great video. I can only imagine the carnage as a civilian just waking up to explosions and at the end of it there are shells and rounds scattered about.
This is one of my favorite attacks of WW2. Well done K&G. Your visual doc completed the action and the events building up to the attack. The old "string bag" pulled some surprising results in ww2. I gotta purchase a model kit of the Swordfish.
animations and maps become more and more perfect every time
The animations are phenomenal!
Dude those 3D maps of the planes was incredible I was so satisfied the whole time! More air stuff!!!
I'm from Taranto, remember this always makes me sad😪
Quick correction, Richelieu was in Dakar, not Mers el Kebir, when it was attacked by the Swordfish from Hermes.
Awesome way to start my Sunday morning.
14 seconds ago and here I am. A new record!
14 sec after the video it self was posted should be the record you try 4...good luck
Try 13 secs
Always happy to get a video from Kings 👍
Bro i see you everywhere
This connects with "History Buffs" recent videos about Midway and Pearlharbour. Magnificent as always
Fantastic work on a hugely underrated battle!
"Carriers will make the game more fun ..." Ah I see someone hasn't heard of the fun police 🚨 💀🚨
A video on 2nd punic wars would be very appreciated.
I agree. However the 2nd Punic War took almost 20 years. We need a series not just one video. It would be awesome though
@@dorn0531 yeah a series
Invicta has an amazing series on the first Punic war. Worth the watch. I wish he would do the 2nd punic war
I thought that Biplanes were ancient war machines of WW1 irrelevant to the modern battlefield of WW2....
This proves that it is not only about having modern equipment, but of cunning and application into practice....
Well the Swordfish was obsolete by the start of WW2. It's replacement was already in production, but the battle of britain meant that all available resources went to the Royal Airforce instead of the Fleet Air Arm.
That "obsolete" torpedo bomber was in *frontline* service throughout the war.
The Russians employed "Night Witches" in biplanes to harass the Heer around the clock. Even megadoses of Pervitin couldn't overcome lack of sleep....
I would recommend reading up on the Millennial Challenge, where the US performs a military exercise against Iranian forces lead by a US Marine General veteran of Vietnam. He utterly humiliated the US force with asymmetrical unconventional warfare.
The Swordfish, although obsolete even early in the war, would play a vital role in 2 clashes - the attack on Taranto in 1940 and the hunt and destruction of the Bismarck in the spring of 1941. A plane that punched far above its weight.
wow!! thanks for the effort, its like a movie already!
That was sheer class in information and the way it was presented. 👏
British: concentration camps in South Africa
Hitler: write it down, write it down and we'll improve them
British: aerial attack on Taranto
Japan: sends an envoy to copy that and definitively improve that with kamikazeeee
You realise britain didn’t invent concentration camps right?
@@xmaniac99 Nope.
1) the term concentration camp was first used by the Spanish to describe there own camps in 1898.
2) America has been using camps since the 1830s, and even then it’s nothing new.
3) Britain didn’t intentionally kill anyone in the camps, the deaths were due to incompetence and disease, all of which were fixed by campaigning from Britain itself.
@@xmaniac99 yikes, never seen anyone more confident yet more wrong. The purpose of the camps was to never to exterminate, don’t be so stupid. Explain to me the wooden doors in the camps and the massive relief efforts made by the government after people started dying
modern warfare 3D videos are very fascinating with high quality graphics. they are my personal best keep the good work. thank you very much kings and generals
I've seen this story told many times, but this is far above excellent - oustanding work!
Most exciting video I've watched in a long time! Great animations, music, and narration! Had me on the edge of my seat!
Awesome video! Please more naval battles! It’s crazy to see in early WWII the old slow bi - planes being used effectively.
What is mind boggling about the British carriers was they were doing night operations when the US hadn't even thought of them but they were still using biplanes.
One of the best youtube channel. Amazing animations.
Splendid job as always. I must say the production quality of these videos just keeps getting better and better. Best wishes to the Kings and Generals + the Cold War team.
Long time watcher here K&G I have a special request that I haven't seen much of on TH-cam.
I would love to see content relating to natives in North America, specifically the Pacific Northwest which remains a tough topic for youtubers like yourself. I have read absolutely mind blowing accounts of warfare between groups like the Haida which I think will really educate a lot of people here. Not to mention the northwestern wars between the USA and Canadian governments and the First Nations living in modern day Oregon, Washington state, and British Columbia.
Amazing video! I think a special shout out is in order for the British intelligence, for them to collect such information for the torpedos to be developed specifically to destroy the ships in the harbor, as well as obtain as much information about the entire layout of the harbor and city is amazing. The pilots had secondary targets which they destroyed (the seaplane base) and the fuel/oil tanks is impressive, especially in 1940 Italy.
This video should elaborate that the Raid on Taranto was only a temporary respite for the Royal Navy as the Regina Marina five days later would successfully deploy several of their warships to disrupt a convoy off of Malta in Operation White. The Battle of Taranto was meant to disrupt the threat of the Regina Marina but it only mitigated the Italian operations.
The animation looks amazing!
The quality is so so so good. Keep it up
Thank you , K&G .
Please do a breakdown of pearl harbor using this sort description. I would love to see it described this way. It was outstanding being able to visualize so well
Thanks again Kings and Generals for your great content !
I have spotted a mistake in the video, although the main attack of operation catapult was at Mers El Kebir (Algeria), the attack on Richelieu by HMS Hermes was in Dakar (Senegal).
French Battleships/Battlecruisers at Mers El Kebir were Strasbourg, Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne while the british had HMS Resolution, HMS Valiant, HMS Hood and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.
Best regards
Wow the details of the events is outstanding with the animation bravo K&G
Excellent.
This video is amazing. You guys really out did yourselves, so glad to see out support used so expertly.
Good production value
If you will, make another video about the kingdom of Naples/Two Sicily, please.
Thanks for your work :)
Italians feeling safe, cause torps could not be launched in their shallow waters
Italians after : suprised face
USA after : what a noobs, we would never be so foolish lol
I think Adm. Ernest King himself launched a simulated attack on Pearl harbor using Lexington and won.
@Idk Idk nuking civilians, something to be proud of!
Excellent research and story telling!
@ 15:50
Italian Navy when a ship got hit by unexploded bomb : 1 month repair
US Navy when Yorktown got hammered by Japanese : *48 hours* repair
The Yorktown wasn't really repaired properly though, more just patched up enough so she could take part in the Battle of Midway. The repair crew were still working when she left Pearl Harbour and the ship was lost in that battle anyway. Does anyone know if the Americans had the time to repair her properly she could have survived the damage taken at Midway?
@@jakerolfe7689 Nobody is certain. It was a long voyage from Midway back to Pearl Harbour, and Yorktown was effectively a floating wreck after the last Japanese attack. The carrier might well have foundered en route, and even if it had made it, Yorktown would've been under repair for a very long time indeed.
This was highly interesting. It's incredible how a single night can change the course of history.
I played world of warships a year ago, idk if it was “legends” but I think it was a video of yours the got me to get it. I didn’t get the bonus promised in your video because frankly i didnt have a pc that was for gaming a year ago. I still appreciate the introduction, and, I was able to play on my Ipad without a youtube sponsored referral however. Thank you and perhaps now is the time I get the game on my new pc
Amazing video as usual. Proud to be a loyal patreon! You guys are just getting better and better!
Excellent animations and narration! Captivating! Good job crew!
ONE OF THE BEST PRESENTATIONS !
0:24 you guys can’t be serious about this, right? that the Japanese strategy was influenced by some British fantasy novel?
Fantastic vid
It is one thing to read about an engagement....seeing it like this is a whole new experience.
Happy British noises
Angry Italian noises
Impressed Japanese noises
Sir,
I really appreciate your work in the field and would like to request you to make a video on the epic KARGIL WAR.
The war has many hero and great lore. One might find very interesting.
Thank you. 🇮🇳
Thanks for the video
Thank you Kings and Generals Team!
The original plan for the Taranto raid was to have 2 carriers, HMS Illustrious and the older HMS Eagle. Eagle’s fuel plant shit the bed right before the op and her planes were sent to Illustrious instead
My grandfather is from a little town on the hills near Taranto. He was 7 years old during the attack. His family was a fairly wealthy farmers family with a nice homestead. They woke up that night and he clearly remembers the AA rounds in the sky, and to him they were majestic like fireworks. He never suffered a lot for the war, because they grew their own food and always said that German allied left without fighting and Americans arrived peacefully (in that area).
An amazing battle, thanks for covering it in such beuty with the amazing animations and maps!
Hello, I am from Taranto! My grandfather used to say that on the morning after the bombing, you could not see the water near the shore because it was covered by dead fishes.
Also! Most of the British aircrafts were safe because the anti-aerial artillery from the Italian ships just couldn't fire below a certain angle, so every aircraft that flew right above the water was virtually immune.
Never heard of this attack before, fantastic video!
Love ur content very informative and entertaining. Ty!
The maps are always so beautifully done
Thanks for making this video
"Ships are safe at port but that's not what Ships are for"
Absolute CHAP in a biplane: "you couldn't be more wrong"
Too nice video about Tarantino marine attack between English navy & Italian navy interesting video thanks for sending
Why have I not seen this channel before?? The animations are fantastic! Subbed
I hope to see one of these on the Battle of Cape Matapan soon.
You have to admire the echoes of history in how effective torpedoes launched by light and mobile planes were in the place that gave birth to the Tarantine cavalry.
Excelent work. Congratulations from Brazil.
I've been looking forward to this.
Another great video. Please make a video about brazilian expeditionary force, and the fight for Montese. A cobra vai fumar!
Spectacular video 🔥
What gets missed out of accounts of this attack was that the Swordfish only had a crew of two - one crew member had to make way for a 6-foot by 3-foot fuel tank in the rear cockpit. Nice depiction, well beyond my skills, but please, bearing in mind what HMS stands for, you don't need to add 'the' in front of it.
It'd be interesting to see what shape Pearl Harbor would have taken if the magnetic pistols had the issues that plagued them on the Sheffield strike during the Bismarck Hunt.
Very nice video - though I would, with the intent for constructive criticism, advise that you guys are making some factual errors that are of varying consequence. Ex, Italy only had seven heavy cruisers, so there were definitely not nine at Taranto - though that's a pretty minor one. Another example is the noteworthy lack of employments of the available searchlights by the Italian defenses, and the fact that many of the machine gun/autocannon emplacements were commanded by less experienced officers that night that also helped create a weaker defense.
Looking more at the attack itself -though you correctly note that the duplex pistols allow the British torpedoes to magnetically trigger the warheads under the target, you go on to then report the damage to Conte di Cavour and Duilio (also - note that Duilio is just 'Duilio', rather than 'Caio Duilio' as being holes in the side of the ship - this was not the case, the torpedoes actually blew up underneath the ships and holed the bottoms - and is quite significant as this meant the torpedoes entirely bypassed the torpedo defense system (no ships were ever built with a torpedo defense system to protect their keel). Additionally, on Cavour the delayed decision to ground her in more shallow waters proved decisive in making flooding and the overall level of damage on her more serious than Duilio, who had otherwise been hit in a similar manner.
Littorio did not ground after the hits from the first wave, and in fact her buoyancy was actually not threatened by the first two torpedo hits at all. It is notable, also, that pretty much all the torpedoes that hit Littorio struck against the side of the ship rather than exploding under it as with Conte di Cavour and Duilio, which allowed the torpedo defense system to play a role. The first hit at 23.15 exploded between the no.1 & 2 turrets on the port side, against the torpedo defense system, and was absorbed by it, causing negligible damage aside from a minor crack in one of the bulkheads that allowed a small amount of flooding (though it did weaken the bow structure which played a role in the results of the third hit). The second hit came mere moments afterwards, striking the extreme stern and causing severe damage to the rudder (blew off a third of it), though causing no damage the auxiliary rudders and propellers & shafts. Littorio did list 2° to starboard due to flooding into the TDS from the first him, but had essentially no change in trim and before the third torpedo hit the list had been reduced to 1.5° to starboard.
The third torpedo hit, at 23.59 (44 minutes after the first two) was the most serious hit, striking forward of the first hit and outside of the citadel, and thus where there was no torpedo defense system. This is what caused heavy flooding, which was difficult to contain due to the failure of the forward pumps caused by the torpedo damage (the diesel generator room that powered them was flooding and a short circuit cut the power). Despite this, the ship's buoyancy remained fine until 03.15 the next morning, a full four hours after the first torpedo hit, and at 04.00 it finally became a serious issue, and the decision was made to ground the ship. This was accomplished at 06.27, over seven hours after the first torpedo hit, and it is only after this grounding, when the ship sank 1.5 meters into the mud, that the bow finally went underwater.
Perhaps most consequential in her sinking was shortcomings in the damage control arrangements of the ship, both due to the design failures that allowed the high capacity pumps responsible for the bow section (there were two, both capable of pumping 800 tonnes of water per hour) to be disabled by a loss of power locally (it was not possible, due to the layout of the electrical system, to supply power from other areas of the ship to these pumps, something addressed as a result of the Taranto attack), and the lack of portable pumps on the ship to bring to the affected area. Flooding was also able to spread past watertight bulkheads because of inadequately insulated electrical cable passages between bulkheads, an issue faced by all battleships in this era. As a result of Taranto the Regia Marina had to revise many of these arrangements, with the lessons from Taranto being reinforced by the damage suffered by Vittorio Veneto during Operation Gaudo in March 1941, which proved to have high dividends later in the war - Littorio, for example, suffered an almost identical hit to the third hit at Taranto while at sea in June 1942, but as a result of the damage control improvements the result was negligible and the ship didn't even need to leave formation. Repairs only took two months, versus the four months taken after the attack on Taranto.
You also severely overstate the damage inflicted on harbor facilities, describing the seaplane hangar, oil depots, and facilities in general as being seriously damaged, but these were only negligibly damaged by the raid - in fact, the entire conventional bombing part of the raid generally failed (in large part due to the 250 lb SAP bombs used against the ships failing to explode - Trento was only damaged by the physical impact of a bomb to one of the 100mm twin mounts, and in any case was involved in multiple actions afterwards in the very same month).
Overall, while I would stress that this is still a great video for visualizing the battle, and that you guys have done an excellent job and I hope to see more like them in the future;
I think you are greatly overstating the bombing damage inflicted by the British in several cases, and also neglecting to look at the errors and shortcomings on the Italian side of the battle that helped create the British success (though by no means should that distract from the fact that it was a well planned and executed attack on the part of the British). You did a good job of covering the Italian passive defenses (torpedo nets, barrage balloons) and their shortcomings, but largely did not mention the failures in active defenses (the failure of the sound-based early warning systems, lack of employment of the searchlights, and the fact that many of the AA batteries of the harbor were directed by less experienced officers in addition to other fire control shortcomings), or why the torpedo hits were so effective against the older battleships (Conte di Cavour & Duilio) as well as the damage control shortcomings on Littorio, all of which were quite important to the success of the attack in the end. This would have allowed for a more complete coverage of the attack itself, and might have prevented some of the factual errors that were presented.
Dear KnG, I like your modern warfare! Thanks!!!
Truly incredible, it's so good because the length of the video is not long enough by far, yet just long enough to whet the thirst so to speak, and the detail and complexity conveyed by the narration and the animation is captivating and immersive, yet again we only get just enough to become awed by how much detail and complexity the real world contained around the time and place of the actual Battle of Taranto. I mean Kings & Generals always been super interesting but as a documentary video this thing is a masterpiece and certainly one of your best yet, bravo!
The first air battle I've enjoyed watching! Thanks K&G!!!👍🍿🥤