Patreon 58: Ruse de Guerre or Deception, disguises and decoys in naval warfare

6 thoughts on “Patreon 58: Ruse de Guerre or Deception, disguises and decoys in naval warfare”

1. You know, Dr. Clarke's singing/chanting is very reminiscent of the Cult Mechanicus…….

   Praise be the Omnissiah?

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2. Pulo Aura was not the first time the HEIC had pulled off that kind of bluff, there was an earlier incident off Bali in 1797 where an East Indies convoy bluffed French frigates into believing they faced ships-of-the-line. But the much more interesting incident took place on the 4th of August 1800 off the coast of Brazil. Three French frigates attached a convoy off the coast of Brazil, the convoy included one warship (HMS Belliqueux of Camperdown fame.) and five East Indiamen (Bombay Castle, Exeter, Dorcestshire, Coutts & Neptune). The convoy commander decided to run a bluff and scare the frigates off. As things turned out the bluff worked so well one of the French frigates (Médée) surrendered to the Exeter believing her to be a warship! I think this is the only case in the Napoleonic wars of a warship surrendering to a merchant ship. Interestingly the Exeters captain was also at Pulo Aura.

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3. Sorry missed the live, was assisting my son raid my storage container of furniture for ti's second year History Deg at John Moores Liverpool. As I have been off sick effectively for 30 months and not driven for 20 months by the time we had sorted and cleaned a small leather couch and loaded into the car, I was shattered! Then there was the walk through asking if he could have half a dozen more things with currently are being used for storage of books and other things of personal interest to me, he wants to go back again Saturday! I will see how I feel & how easily I can move about, I got home at 7pm and put on a pot of coffee next thing was me waking up a 00:15 feeling parched!!

   A most interesting discussion/lecture, a number of the earlier ones I had not read about. I imagine in the times where there were vast amounts of vessels at sea under numerous flags it could be easier for the master's or commanders to utilise their knowledge of different merchant and state naveys to achieve deceptions of the type you spoke of.

   Thank you too for the 360° (almost) of the office and how well you're progressing, I'm sure you will be really happy to have your books on the shelves in an order suitable to your filing preferences rather than stacks of them, where you have to recall when you accessed it last compared with the 30 + others!

   Could you give me some advice as to my lads options post BA, at the moment he doesn't know what he wants to do, other than something with History, either 20th Century European or American from Independence. If at the end of his 3rd year this has not changed would you suggest doing a MA with the possibility of a PhD after. At the moment he doesn't like the idea of teaching upto secondary level , i.e. GCSE's & A'Level. Post secondary education is more of a slim possibility but he feels that he would be too intolerant of people who don't understand what is being talked about or who argue that something didn't happen, despite witnessed accounts, etc, etc. In one debate he got so frustrated he told the opponent to shut TFU, stop talking out to their posterior and stay like that until they had done their research which could justify their earlier argument as so far they had wasted an hour and a half of his life he wasn't getting back. His course tutor said that although he agreed with the fundamental argument dismissing the individual, my boy should have a more tactful way of arguing and also not at at escalated the very of 6 out of 10 to begin with! Can's answer was unfortunately that is a problem he as always had, he doesn't pick up on nonverbal communication even from people he knows quite well and 6 is his default level when a rational argument is aspnswered with BS. So as you can see he is rather stuck for ideas of what he wants to do after BA. If you don't feel happy giving advice I will understand.

   Thanks, Paul

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4. With Operation Chariot wouldn't the German have thought, "If I'd have done this I'd have put a bomb on Camperdown. Let's stay away and see what happens."

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5. I vaguely remember another action similar to Pulo Aura where a pair of French national ships struck to a group of indiamen pretending to be a squadron ships of the line and then get butthurt and try to un -surrender when they realize they struck to indiamen.

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6. Strictly speaking Phasmids are an order of insects that do exactly as you indicated (Phasmida is the Order stick insects belong to). However, us biologists have a loathing for anyone outside the field so we term it as Mimicry, the organisms being mimics, in one of the few instances where we actually used something easy to say!

   Saying that I have heard the term being used by non biologists before to refer to mimicry, so really its much of a muchness. So long as people know what is meant the word used is not really important unless it happens to be in a field where that word has a specific definition. Hence why Scientists get so gnarly when people whine 'oh but its only a theory'. Calling them muppets and demanding they go look up the scientific definition of theory is the polite response!

   And yes, us Biologists are petty like that, we do not refer to camouflage but Cryptic Colouration. Though to be fair we may have to change that because it turns out some animals (like Zebra's) are not camouflaged against predators, but against biting flies (believe it or not!!!). So we need to come up with a suitably complex name for that!!!

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