Q-ship

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Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant shipswith concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them. The use of Q-ships contributed to the abandonment of cruiser rules restricting attacks on unarmed merchant ships and to the shift to unrestricted submarine warfare in the 20th century.[1]

A solution to this was thecreation of the Q-ship, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.Their codename referred to the vessels' home port, Queenstown, in Ireland.[4] These became known by the Germans as a U-Boot-Falle ("U-boat trap"). A Q-ship would appear to be an easy target, but in fact carried hidden armaments. A typical Q-ship might resemble a tramp steamer sailing alone in an area where a U-boat was reported to be operating….

British First World War Q-ship HMS Tamarisk

They were used by the British Royal Navyand the German Kaiserliche Marine during the First World War and by the Royal Navy, the Kriegsmarine, the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the United States Navy during the Second World War (1939–45).

Etymology

Short for Queenstown in Ireland, as Haulbowline Dockyard in Cork Harbour was responsible for the conversion of many mercantile steamers to armed decoy ships in World War One, although the majority appear to have been converted in larger navy yards such as Devonport. [2]

Early uses of the concept

In the 1670s, HMS Kingfisher (1675) was specially designed to counter the attacks of Algerian corsairs or pirates in the Mediterranean by masquerading as a merchantman, hiding her armament behind false bulkheads. She was also provided with various means of changing her appearance.[citation needed]

During the French Revolutionary Wars, a French brig disguised as a merchantman, with hidden guns and most of her crew below decks, was beaten back by the privateer lugger Vulture out of Jersey.[3]: 183 …

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship

False flag

Use in warfare

In land warfare, such operations are generally deemed acceptable under certain circumstances, such as todeceive enemies, provided the deceptionis not perfidious and that all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy. Similarly, in naval warfare such a deception is considered permissible, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle.[8] Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ships, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. Such masquerades promoted confusion not just of the enemy but of historical accounts. In 1914 the Battle of Trindade was fought between the British auxiliary cruiser RMS Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar, which had been altered to look like Carmania. (Contrary to some accounts, the RMS Carmania had not been altered to resemble the Cap Trafalgar.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

Getting the Idea of Government and Political Authority Out of Your Mind

Political authority, or the authority of State, or the authority of Government, is something the average person virtually never questions. Most people go through their entire lives believing that their Government – although almost composed of provable criminals, cheats and liars – still has a solid basis for its political authority. Most people, whether left wing, right winigor anywhere in between on the political spectrum, are Statists: they think that Government has an inherent right to rule, using coercion if necessary.

Yet, even a cursory examination shows that, if a normal person acted like Government, they would be characterized as cunning, secretive and manipulative, and either be diagnosed as insane, or locked up as a danger to society, or both. So why do people allow and consent to such a situation?

David Hume on Government and Political Authority

The 18th century British philosopher David Hume attested to this situation when he wrote that:“Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.”

Hume was clearly one of those rare few who took the time to closely examine the origins and political authority of Government. Interestingly, he was propagating many of these ideas during the mid-1700s, a few decades before the time of the American and French Revolutions.

Hume realized that most Government is formed and is held together by war. History teaches us this over and over again, including politicians’ inventions of fictitious enemies to justify a State’s existence:

“Most governments are not formed by contract but rather through conquest and war.”

“The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.”

“It is probable, that the first ascendant of one man over multitudes begun during a state of war; where the superiority of courage and of genius discovers itself most visibly, where unanimity and concert are most requisite, and where the pernicious effects of disorder are most sensibly felt. The long continuance of that state, an incident common among savage tribes, enured the people to submission; and if the chieftain possessed as much equity as prudence and valour, he became, even during peace, the arbiter of all differences, and could gradually, by a mixture of force and consent, establish his authority….

Hume warned that authority should never become too uncontrollable over liberty:

In all governments, there is a perpetual intestine struggle, open or secret, between Authority and Liberty; and neither of them can ever absolutely prevail in the contest. A great sacrifice of libertymust necessarily be made in every government; yet even the authority, which confines liberty, can never, and perhaps ought never, in any constitution, to become quite entire and uncontrollable.”

Lastly, Hume explicitly stated that a State’s supposed political authority could not hold water when investigated closely:

“No maxim is more comfortable … than to submit quietly to the government, which we find establish’d in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin and first establishment. Few governments will bear being examin’d so rigorously.”

Is political authority merely based on opinion?

“It is on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.”

As we shall see, this last quote rings true, and is especially interesting given that it flatly contradicts the widely held notion put forth by Hume’s fellow British philosopher John Locke, who proposed that their was some kind of social contract from which the State justly derived its powers….

https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/dB7jeC