Battle of the River Plate, 1939
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Modern Era
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5 comments
| Henry Harwood versus Hans Langsdorff: A German pocket battleship under Langsdorff is hunting merchant shipping when he comes face to face with a British hunter cruiser squadron under Harwood. Whose force really is the hunter: Harwood’s fast cruisers or Lansdorff’s powerful pocket battleship? Click on images below to view battle; first image opens video presentation and the second image opens PowerPoint presentation.
This is one of the last naval confrontations between surface ships and merely confirmed why Britain dominated the global seas for so long.
Langsdorff’s pocket battleship was superior to Harwood’s cruisers but was outnumbered. This is an engagement in which each commander wished to win but neither was willing to risk defeat in order to do so. Langsdorff turned back at a critical moment while Harwood intended to turn back simply because he did not think his ship’s guns could harm the pocket battleship. Consequently, Harwood was able to maneuver Langsdorff into a poor situation and bluff his way to victory.
 Because this was the first naval battle I animated, I chose to animate this one in particular because it was simple and involved few ships. I discovered that animating naval battles is completely different from land battles and requires different procedures. Nonetheless, a naval battle should be animated once every two seasons at the minimum.
- Jonathan Webb
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            Tags: 1900s, Atlantic Ocean, britain, british, cruiser, envelopment of a single flank, Germans, germany, Hans Langsdorff, Henry Harwood, modern day Argentina, modern day Uruguay, Modern Era, naval, pocket battleship, Season 2, South America, World War II, World War II - Atlantic
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5 Comments to “Battle of the River Plate, 1939”
A good introduction to the action at the Battle of the River Plate. Please excuse me if my point is too pedantic but HMS Exeter really does need to be pronounced correctly. Don’t want to upset the locals in that part of the world!
By Neil Donaldson on Oct 16, 2009 at 9:07 pm
This is a Great Animation and a Great way to Make History More Interesting Although it does contain Several Errors Some More Serious Than Others That Let the animation down.
For a Full Account of the battle I recomend
The Battle of The River Plate By Dudley Pope
or The 1956 Film
Or If You Must Wikipedia
By John on Dec 4, 2009 at 12:36 am
An excellent and timely animation of an important naval battle, but ditto on the Exeter comment above, you really do need to correct the pronunciation there.
Lindsay Dempsey
New Zealand
By Lindsay on Dec 10, 2009 at 8:49 pm
The pronunciation will be corrected as soon as my narrator is available to ensure consistency. I advise everyone to view the PowerPoint animation as often as possible as opposed to the video animation. The PowerPoints have additional features which cannot be carried over into videos. The video animations are important for making the animations more rapidly available for those who do not have PowerPoint.
As for additional errors: it must always be remembered that no matter how reputable the source for a battle, its account will always have slight differences from equally reputable sources. Pope’s account was actually consulted for this animation. For future clarification on which sources I’ve consultec check out my Works Consulted page: http://www.theartofbattle.com/works-consulted.
By Jonathan Webb on Dec 10, 2009 at 11:05 pm
my uncle stanley was a stoker on the hms exeter and was hit by shapnel and died at the battle of the river plate i never met him but think about him a lot my granny recieved a medal from the queen at buck house and the plaque ended up in america.he was just 21 and it broke his mothers heart. this video is thenearest i have come to the horror of my young uncle.linda smith
By l.smith on Dec 20, 2009 at 2:47 pm