This may be a bit redundant or stupid, but listening to this, with the K-class, did no one, at any point, stop to question whether designing a sub whose crush depth was less than the length of the sub itself might have been a poor design choice? What was the rationale for the dive depth being so shallow?
Would wood from the West Australian Jarrah tree have made good timbers for wooden warships? It is a very heavy hard wood that is very hard to burn ( as I know from trying to burn it in winter)
Hey drach! How about you show us your ideal designs on games such as Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought or if you feel confident something much more complex like Naval Art?
Ooh! Ooh! "The Royal Navy's last civilian designed ship." Aside from the Type 21 Amazon Class Frigates, designed and built by Vosper Thorneycroft. Sunk by the Argentine Air Force.
Hi Jingles, hope you are well. During the Falklands War our ships were basically made of paper and had zero resistance to bombing. Our missile defence was out of date and badly set up. We had poor AA missiles and few Harriers. Despite that, those ships stood their ground in San Carlos Sound and took everything that was thrown at them to land the troops. My overriding memory of that operation was of Canberra, like a white ghost, just visible through the haze of fire and smoke. The Muppet, in this case, was a so called expert who announced on BBC News that the Argies were not setting their bombs properly and then proceeded to explain how they could. We were at war and he should have been shot for treason. I know that this is not what you were commenting about but I feel strongly about these actions. Also, I greatly appreciate your knowledge and entertainment that you provide. This is why The General Belgrano had to be sunk. An armoured light cruiser, similar to HMS Belfast, could have torn our fleet to shreds with it's 6 inch guns. I don't care who sunk our ships in San Carlos. The blame is with our Government who sent the fleet out with outdated armament. In my view the wrong guy resigned. John Nott was in the process of reducing our Naval strength. Finally, Conqueror fired WW2 torpedoes at the Belgrano because the Captain did not trust the newer ones. I think that says it all.
"You could have 50 foot of the submarine sticking up out of the water... in the air... and the bow would still reach crush depth and implode." That's an HMS Captain level of design flaw, but also a morbidly amusing mental image.
I'm curious- did something like this ever happen? Not that extreme, obviously, but the scenario he mentions where the dive controls screw up and the submarine sticks its bow under the crush depth, damaging itself. Is this just a hypothetical, or did it actually occur ever?
I also can't help but think of the FLIP, that research vessel that can tip itself 90 degrees to submerge its instruments for... whatever research it does.
The K-boats might have been the only submarines that were longer than their own absolute crush depth, but weirdly, they were _not_ the only submarines longer than their _test_ depth. The Japanese _I-400_ -class aircraft-carrying submarines had a 100-meter test depth and were _significantly_ longer than that at 122 meters, meaning that they didn't have to have suffered a verticality mishap to exceed it at one end while still on the surface at the other--a sufficiently aggressive crash dive would have done it. (They were also better at turning to port than starboard thanks to their off-center conning towers. Really quite unwieldy overall. On the other hand, they pioneered the concept embodied in today's guided-missile submarines, and nobody ever gets something completely right on the first try. :)
@@ZGryphon Well not even that, the I-400 had such borked hydrodynamics that "forward" was actually with the rudder turned slightly to one side. Also had appalling crew provisions including only one toilet. And what "concept" did they pioneer? People had been trying to launch planes off submarines for over a decade by that point.
I do get a chuckle envisioning the Muppets designing a battleship, surely there would be some shenanigans and it would be a floating disaster, but we'd love it anyway.
@@aaronbasham6554 statler and Waldorf would be once brilliant now senile admirals , Kermit would be a competent yet ignored captain , the Swedish chef would be some kinda hybrid of Scotty and the engineer from Canopus , miss Piggy would be either a nurse or a wren secretary to Kermit or some flag lieutenant. Scooter would be an ensign, gonzo would be a ship designer all others would be lieutenants and lieutenant commanders I could see them do ‘ I am the monarch of the sea’ With Statler and Waldorf going I remember that guy Yeah he was brain dead He still did a better job that they are.
Me before seeing this: I bet the Omaha is in this list. Me after hearing the first ship's armor belt was underwater: The Omaha isn't going to be in this list.
In fairness to the Omahas, they were designed intending to play the role that many thought light cruisers would play coming out of WWI, namely scouting and leading groups of destroyers. They would obviously be completely supplanted in the former role by aircraft (whether they be land-based, carrier aircraft, sea planes, or even catapult aircraft) and advances in destroyer designs (particularly the trend brought on by Japan's Fubuki-class) meant that in many navies, the light cruisers expected to lead squadrons of destroyers would sometimes be weaker in terms of firepower than the ships they were expected to lead, and this wasn't something exclusive to the Omahas. The United States would really only develop a new line of thinking in regards to light cruisers (basically having similar size and protection as heavy cruisers, but having 6" guns) when they learned about Japan's Mogami-class, which were basically just Japan trying to loophole their way through the WNT and not meant to introduce a new style of light cruiser design.
@@rocketguardian2001 Marblehead is overrated. She took two bomb hits once and never saw combat again. If anything, USS Richmond proves that point, managing to outshoot the modern heavy cruiser Nachi, badly damaging her with five 6-inch shell hits without being hit once.
I still go with Vasa for number 1. Even during a test at dockside, when sailors ran from one side of the ship to the other.... the test had to be stopped as everyone was afraid that Vasa would roll over. No-one dared to tell the King. Secondly, when the ship left the dockside, she did not have either her full complement on board, or her full load of stores, which would have made her freeboard higher than normal. That still wasn't enough to prevent the ocean from flooding in through the lower gunports when Vasa heeled over a bit in a light breeze. So, designing a ship with holes in it's side that would be effectively UNDERWATER in any kind of weather, seems to me to be THE number 1 engineering SNAFU. Apologies for the added emphasis but I've seen Vasa up close and personal and I think it's a crying shame she was ever built. Her only use in the end, was as an underwater storehouse of unparalleled archaeological significance.
The Furutaka and Kako of the planned 4 ship Furutaka class. These guys have portholes near sea level. At steam, any wave would enter said portholes and drench the crew. The 2nd batch of the class, Aoba and Kinugasa were redesigned to eliminate said portholes and reconfigure the gun layout to a more usable one. They in turn became the new Aoba class. The performance of the new sub sisters were so good that the 2 older ones were sent to the docks to be remodeled, retaining some superstructure but completely rebuilding the gun layout and patching those said portholes.
I wondered if the Idea was that such a submarine would not dive at speed but rather sink on the spot, laying still in the water. More like an elevator? No diving like in "hunt for red october", which is more like an underwater dogfight.
@@SephirothRyu okay but let's be serious, Kermit could've seen the problem with Indefatigable. Actually, that'd make an amazing Kermit also Kermit meme come to think of it.
@@bo7341 But this wasn't Kermit. This was Gonzo or Dr. Bunsen Honeydew designing a battlecruiser. "Let's put Captain Beaker on board and send her against battleships of the Imperial German Navy!" "Meem-meem-meem!..." (KA-BLAM!) "MEEEEEEEEMM!" "Why, that didn't go very well at all. What was wrong with Captain Beaker?"
Too many years ago to remember, I had a paperback about the 'K' Class subs. At the time I had no real interest in them but the quote from a 'K' class captain on the back cover caught my eye - while inspecting his boat, he contacted the control room with the message " I say No.1 my ends diving - what's your end doing?" Of course I had to buy the book... :)
"The "Well there's your problem" podcast needs drach on their show" it was exactly my first thougt, but i dont know where is drach on political compass and how he will stand Alice's rants on britain - whatever it would be epic
Those IJN battlecarriers would make an awesome museum ship in that the stern of the ship would hold a fabulous naval air museum. Maybe their designers had that in mind.
Why this long flat bit? Oh after the war it's going to be a museum pavilion. What? Yeah will put the gift shop in the commissary and the guest can use the actual cafeteria I think the blueprint ink has gotten to you
Aait boys, we got this in the bag, museum ship building time! Battlecarriers, giant portable airport with aircraft repair plant, carrier submarines. Our ship museum's gonna be lit.
Let's also give them credit for inspiring one of the better looking (although doubtless terribly ineffective) spaceships in Star Blazers. Hell, there's even hybrid battlecarrier in the old Starfleet Wars Terran ship range (Monday Knight Productions makes them these days) if you want to see what a Star Wars Imperial take on the idea would look like. There's obviously something hypnotically appealing about combining a flight deck and battleship turrets, no matter how silly an idea it is.
@@michaelpielorz9283 Cressy class was no worse than any other armored cruiser; the loss of three of them to one submarine in one afternoon was not due to any flaw in the design, it was a failure of situational awareness and combat decision-making. Any ships of the time short of a Dreadnought would have been lost the same way.
@@brucetucker4847 Cressy class is a fine example of the british intention " we are the best,we do not question our designs "the longitudinal seperation of the engine rooms was a typical british design-Fflaw. that intention lead to the jutland desaster. the Doggerbank battle showed on both sides the design flaws of the turrets.the germens immediately made some improvements. acertain mr Churchill forbid the same,for propaganda reasons he wanted an immaculate victory:after jutlandthewith the loss of thousands crew to save him from being court martialed the myth of the open doorswas created,an unbelievable insult of the crews!!
Me, I'd have described it as Drachinifel trying his best not to erupt into expletives as he describes these increasingly idiotic crimes against naval design, and maybe fighting a growing need to flee to the bathroom because of it.
I likw how in the last slot you can hear Drach lose his sanity point by point.Also a video for economical or stratigical disasters would also be cool to see
"Sir we hit the enemy armored cruiser, but it does no damage!" "What? Oh you mean you hit the 5.5ft armor belt? You're a sniper son! Get this man a gunnery medal"
I would like to have seen the look on the face of the first person who ran the numbers on the K class and realized you could exceed crush depth while still partially surfaced.
when you look at it's stats... aside from the crush depth issue, and use of a steam turbine, it doesn't look like a fully terrible idea. However, both of those are terrible design flaws.
In a way, you could argue that Indefatigable was lucky in being destroyed by gunfire that she was never supposed to withstand, as opposed to gunfire that she SHOULD have withstood but didn't (then again, wasn't it magazine handling shortcuts which did for all three of the British BC's at Jutland?) On the topic of "Who the hell thought of this?", it would be interesting to see you cover the history of the capital ship-mounted ram in the 19th Century ironclad era, especially given the number of own-goals it caused (and I'm not just talking about the Victoria).
Well, the German BCs, Sedylitz and the Defflingers in particular, did have speed and armor at the cost of one less turret. If anything, those are what battlecruisers should be, in my opinion.
No, it was only 2 of the 3 battlecruisers lost at Jutland that were doomed by unsafe ammo handling practices. Invincible was in the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron, which had been detached to the Grand Fleet and thus participated in the Grand Fleet's regular gunnery exercises at Scapa Flow. As such, her crew didn't try to make up for inability to practice long-range gunnery via the "throw enough shit at the wall" tactic the way Beatty's fleet did, and instead actually used the flash doors on their magazines. (Unlike the 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons under Beatty, Invincible and her sisters also showed excellent gunnery when they arrived at Jutland. It's quite unfortunate that *all 3 battlecruiser squadrons* weren't at least rotated through Scapa flow periodically, so that everybody would get at least *some* proper gunnery training of the sort that wasn't possible at Rosyth.) Invincible was doomed because she was fighting above her weight class, and her 6" armor was simply insufficient to stop Lützow's 12" AP shells.
Yes! Of course the British K(offin) class will get a mention. The steam-powered submarine that was more a death threat to their crews than to the enemy.
German UBoat Type VIIc, the toilet is more deadly than the propulsion or the battery system. U-1206 would agree with me as they have a qualified toilet personel called "Scheisseman" to vent or dump the poop out of the submarine. It was such a state of the art that it required a qualified crew to correctly vent the waste out, probably the most German thing to do.
It reminds me of the lady of the Australian desk asking the admiral if the French submarines can stay more than 20 minutes under water as they are not nuclear 😂 The guy seating next to the admiral had difficulties not to burst in laughters 😇
@@khaelamensha3624 I believe you're referring to Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who's regarded as a complete idiot by many Australians. The video of RAN Rear Admiral Greg Sammut explaining that she had no idea what she was talking about is still amusing to watch, although recent history has proven his comments about Naval Group and the Barracuda class to be a bit unfortunate.
I have to say : almost every submarine since the USA civil war era CSS Hunley (hand cranked propeller) attack sub has been able to beat that 20 minutes time, as high pressure air pumps & flasks storage tech was known as early as the 1600's. Look up the history of air guns, and being used on the Lewis & Clark expedition of 1803 to 1806 to chart a path across North America to the Pacific Ocean, and well before that in Europe. Truly, the Hunley could have been propelled by a compressed air motor of some type, been much faster, safer (the exhaust air from the motor being breathable for the crew & lighting, and ballast control), and reduce the crew to only 2 or 3 needed & at risk. However, the serendipity of information clearly wasn't there in time!
The top three places go to: 1) the Vasa 2) the Vasa 3) the Vasa Seriously, on her maiden voyage, she sailed no more than 1300 meters before "heeling to port and filling with water". Blub blub blub.
The Mary Rose had a similar issue except for the extra embarrassment of floating normally until the enemy showed up, where it decided "nah, I don't want to float any more", rolled over and sank almost immediately. Right in front of the enemy.
@@chrisoddy8744 He touched on that but Mary Rose also managed to sail for over 3 decades before she decided to sink not on her first voyage. This was also after they "upgraded" her. Arguably if the upgrade causes the ship to sink is it really and upgrade.
Galena's weak armor resulting in her going into situations over her head reminds me of a guy I knew who, when asked if they taught him hand to hand fighting in the Army, replied, "They teach you just enough to get your ass kicked."
You have the best naval history content on UA-cam, hands down. Over the past 6 months, I've learned more from you than I have in all of my years of personal study- presented in easily digestible nuggets with humor injected where appropriate. You keep things fresh and insightful, even with what many could consider to be 'old, tired concepts.' Cheers man, it's definitely appreciated.
As a French, that was my first thought too! We designed predreadnough with wine cellar but WITHOUT cheese cellars!! How can something be worse in design!!! Regards 😉😇😂
As someone who eschewed the chance to get his dolphins by going the sub route, I would like to point out that any ship that sinks on purpose has an uncomfortably large chance of not correcting their surface to dive ratio. The K-Class does seem to take that to ridiculous extremes, even by the standards of the day.
Can you imagine the egg on the British Navy’s face had Von Spee run up against the [#1 Ship Name], destroyed it, and actually made it back to Germany or interned in a South American nation’s port? British Naval Pride would’ve been in shambles!
I think the British would have been so incensed that they would have violated said South American country’s neutrality and sovereignty by attacking the offending German cruiser in its South American harbour. (Example: Mers El Kebir attack on newly neutral French fleet, July 1940.)
It's extremely unlikely that Von Spee could've made it back to Germany. At most, he might've been able to sacrifice Scharnhorst and Gneisenau by aggressively charging into Stanley Harbour while the British ships were still building up steam, allowing his light cruisers to flee. That would've brought him into close enough range that his guns would be an actual threat to Invincible and Inflexible. And more importantly, once his ships were inevitably sunk by the superior British force, their wrecks would likely block the Narrows and keep the British battlecruisers and armoured cruisers from leaving until the wrecks were cleared. this would likely give his own light cruisers enough time to escape. And the light cruisers might have been small and fast enough to slip through the British blockade once they reached the North Sea. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would not have been.
@@RedXlV I think he could have done it. His light cruisers were doing pretty good work as raiders. Coaling/resupply was a problem, but not insurmountable. I think they could have gotten enough provisions/coal together to make a dash for Germany. There's a book called Graf Spee's Raiders by Keith Yates. (highly recommend!) Nobody can deny Von Spee raised a lot of hell and kept a lot of British ships tied down. Had he steered clear of the Falklands, he might have been able to make it home.
50:42 Thankfully my third great grandfather had one child before the lousy decision making that led to that awful ship HMS Caption took his life. My second great grandmother was 10 months old when the Captain succumbed to poor design and thanks to her I am here typing a comment on the HMS Captain. It is even noted on her birth certificate: Occupation of Father; Seaman on H.M.S. Captain. I've recently picked up a book, HMS Captain by Arthur Hawkey 1963, now on the hunt for a copy of 'The Narrative of the loss of H.M.S. Captain' by James May (one of the survivors) publish 1872.
I must say I was one of those people. Courageous and the Königsberg classes may have been bad. But at least they didn’t sink while at sea from a little bit of bad weather
I guessed Captain, British battlecruisers in general (which could be said to include Courageous and Indefatigable), Vasa and the K class. Did miss the Königsberg, mind.
Okay I get the problems with the Courageous class, but they are very elegant, beautiful ships and look very cool like an ultimate Pre Dreadnought (ignoring the armour). Just don't let them go into battle, just have them around so we can admire them
As spaniard myself I think you don't know how the navy procurement of Spain worked untill 1980's. Let me explain, 1st took a proven (ie obsololete) foreing desing, so as being obsolete we got licensing cheap. 2nd build it cutting corners as far as you can so you make it even cheaper. 3rd now the money saved on the building goes to the pocket of the king, the minister, the dictator, the admirall who endorsed it
Considering how many U-Boats were built and how successful they were, the "toilet" issue may have been a maintenance problem and generally the engineering was awesome.
Until I came across this channel I never had all that much interest in naval history but now I am hopelessly hooked! The narration is what caught my attention at first but the content is just so fascinating that I find myself glued to each video. The narration itself has a delightfully different style that blends with the video content in such a way as to make this channel incredibly entertaining! Keep up the good work, I for one can't seem to get enough!
The rant following the description of faullt on first place is so terribly british in all regards, I love it. How different might WWI have turned out if Indefatigable would have been in place and sunk at the battle of the Falkland Islands? Spee still wouldn't have made it home, but probably would be remembered even more for taking down a ship, one specially designed to hunt his squadron, in his last engagement. Also the British might consider their usage of Battlecruisers quite differently, maybe giving the rest of the class a smaller uparmouring, or not letting them participating at Jutland in parts or at all, which would give that quite a different outcome, Beatty being slowed down after turning back, probably with more casualties, or not being there, so either a full on fleet clash when both main lines clash without prior scouting, or a complete decline of battle if the german battlecruisers can make early contact and advise the main fleet.
For starters, I imagine the Renowns (laid down a month and a half after the Falklands) would've immediately had their construction delayed long enough to do away with the bizarre design decision of a 6" armor belt. At an absolute minimum, they'd revert to a 9" belt like the Lions and Tiger already used. ie what they historically were given in 1920s refits. Or possibly even the Design Y battlecruiser (the "Super Tiger", with 11" belt and 4x2 15" guns) would've been built instead. Possibly the funding that went to 2 Renowns and 3 Courageouses historically would've gone to 4 Super Tigers. Or just 4 up-armored Renowns. Aside from Indefatigable being in immediate need of replacement, there'd be a perception that her sister ships are inadequately armored, while Germany's own battlecruiser fleet would still need to be countered. Adding 4 instead of 2 15" armed battlecruisers would allow Australia and New Zealand can be sent to safer duties than directly confronting their German counterparts, while still directly upgrading the fleet's strength. Though of course Jutland would happen before any of the new ships would be complete, so this plan wouldn't have a chance to be put into practice. When it comes time for Jutland, the 2nd and 3rd Battlecruiser Squadrons would probably have been rearranged to account for Indefatigable's loss. Most likely it would be the now under-strength 3rd (consisting only of Australia and New Zealand) that gets detached to the Home Fleet, leaving the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (the 3 Invincibles) at the tail of Beatty's battle line. No way to know whether the collision between Australia and New Zealand would still happen when they're up at Scapa Flow, but it's possible that New Zealand will be the only battlecruiser attached to the Grand Fleet at Jutland. This would actually be an upgrade to Beatty's force, though whether he'd gain any advantage out of this is questionable, since it's Beatty.
@@RedXlV I have to agree to that, as I have no idea to the constructions and timelines there. Beatty being Beatty, yes, might not make use of any advantage given to him or even invite a more foolish sense of security. I wonder if on the german part Spee's small rebuttal will change anything attitudewise and accelerate events. Scheer replacing von Pohl due to illness is probably a fixed event, but questionable if his replacement of von Ingenohl might change and lead to an earlier Jutland, but thats very much unlikely and pure speculation.
Idk, the RN has always been considerably more bloody minded about losses potential or actual than its contemporaries. You might be right, but it's just as likely the outcome would have been limited to some stoic references to omelettes and eggs, and Beatty would still have steamed right in. By way of example, much is made of what a beating the US cruiser force took in the Pacific; but then consider that the RN lost three times as many cruisers in WW2 than the USN did, and by 1944 were still running them up to the Normandy coast to take on the shore batteries (and E boats, and U boats, and mines). If anybody was wondering whether they were optimally designed for the task, it wasn't stopping them from being committed whenever and wherever they could be of use.
Well we all know that this list isn’t entirely complete. Drach made such a nice list…a list that completely refuses to admit that the French predreadnoughts even exist. Half the list could consist of them. Nope, Drach refuses to look at them again, because then he would have to admit to himself that yes, those ships did exist. Unfortunately. If France Really wanted to troll English naval historians, they should have kept one around as a museum. Thus forcing English historians to not only visit France, but also having a battleship museum ship that the English don’t have.
Like Helena. But will you then pronounce Thames like James? With the e at the end making the previous vowel long? They do in Newport, RI, but I believe the UK goes against that phonetic rule.
As a native born Illinoisan, it's "gah-lee-nah", but since the USS Galena would have served a more useful purpose in the IJN and IJA in most efficiently and expeditiously sending their warriors to meet their honoured ancestors in the afterlife, you can pronounce Galena however you want, the muppets who designed this nautical abomination can't object! Oh, HMS Indefatigable - and here I thought your introduction to the I-400 was the ne plus ultra of your wordplay...so help me Jellicoe, I am going to make some portion of that monorant my voice mail message! (Even better, how much would I have to pay for you to record the unexpurgated and uncensored version of that monorant about the HMS Indefatigable?)
The last version of my command sounded rude so here is the more nice version. Maybe in Illinois you pronounce it that way, but for European scholars of history who often need to study or at least know latin it is more natural to pronounce it Gah-Leh-Nah, as in Latin there would be an I instead of an e if it were a long vowel. And the word is by origin latin.
@@NießbraucherNick True, but it is an American ship, so in english the original or 'home' pronunciation could be important for the distinction. It is equally important for European scholars of history to be able to tell which version of a word is being used when the spelling is the same.
@@faithnfire4769 I see were you coming from. I justed wanted to point out, why when you are in a hurry (or speaking for a long time) Drach maybe fall into eurocentric pronounciation. I mean he is putting out a lot of content.
H.I. Sutton over on Covert Shores actually did a fairly good explanation on the Steam-Powered fleet submarine concept. His main take away was that the Kalamity's were of sound concept for the period in which they existed, his main critique is the way in which the Royal Navy utilized them and he believed that that was a big part of the class's less than Stirling reputation.
I must say, I appreciate how you usually do not make word choice errors and don't load your vids up with a bunch of "uh" "um" and confused "I don't know" ramblings. Even when you are asked a complex question, you've done the minimum of trying to find the answer, and report what you could find glibly.
A couple of notes regarding the Ise-class conversions: 1. Hyuga's No. 5 turret was apparently wrecked by an ammo accident in 1942, and the No. 6 turret had elevation issues from the start - so to an extent the conversion was motivated by the Navy deeming it less useful to replace two already broken turrets and to instead add the catapult for aircraft. 2. Almost all documentation strongly indicates the ships could only _launch_ planes. Returning aircraft could not land on either ship. As a result, they were both equipped with float planes - which by default were not great fighter aircraft as the floatation systems tended to weigh down the plane for maneuvers. 3. Japanese doctrine actually assigned all of their scout aircraft (many of which were sea planes and strike aircraft) to the cruisers escorting the carriers. The Tone-class in particular exemplified this. After Midway - where a failure in scouting by the Tone was a major cause of the defeat - it is very likely that Ise/Hyuga were converted to serve more as oversized Tones, rather than as a truly independent strike carrier force. Likewise - note that the Japanese had no idea that the US would end up making so many carriers. Midway was a devastating defeat for Japan, but by Santa Cruz the USN had likewise been reduced to just the carrier Enterprise in the Pacific. Without the massive American shipbuilding industry coming to the rescue Japan in fact had some room to believe they would face the Americans on relatively even terms in 1943/44, and in these new battles shoring up the scout group complements would have made sense. It is also worth noting that these small scout groups still nonetheless did admirable work under the circumstances. Mogami for instance had a similar conversion - which gave Nishimura's force accurate scouting in the lead up to the Battle of Surigao Strait. Trouble is, it turned out that Nishimura had been ordered from the start to embark on a suicide mission and he was deliberately just bait to draw 7th Fleet's battleships away from the Leyte Gulf transports, whereas everyone in the Western world assumed he had simply blundered into an ambush (at least until Parshall's Battle of Surigao Strait uncovered Japanese documents that showed Nishimura in fact had the clearest idea of any of the Japanese commanders of what they were facing, and was basically told to proceed anyway in a manner similar to the final sortie of the Yamato).
Good points except for the one about US shipbuilding. Japan was well aware of US manufacturing capacity, and Yamamoto was very vocal in warning the powers that be about this. Moreover, many of these US carriers and battleships had already been ordered and laid down by 1941, so Japan definitely knew about those. Japan might have slightly underestimated the time it would take the US to complete them, but their whole strategy was to hit the US hard and pray for a negotiated peace that allowed them to keep some of their gains before the US had time to regroup. I’d say the USN was fighting on relatively even terms in early-mid 1943, but by late 1943 and 1944 the floodgates had started to open. I wouldn’t say “everyone” in the Western world assumed the Japanese had blundered into an ambush at Surigao. Admiral Lee and some other USN officers had a pretty good idea of what was happening and when. They just couldn’t convince Halsey of it.
Fun fact: When her crew realized she was the only operational U.S. carrier left in the entire Pacific theater, they responded by putting up a banner on her island that said "ENTERPRISE VS. JAPAN!" And she won, too.
I know this horse is beaten well into the zombie state by now, but I still think the Charles Martel class warrants a honorable mention. Not so much for being a well-known comic relief, but for colossal waste of taxpayer money ending in a bunch of things that were dangerous to serve on. It's not even a matter of the tumblehome hull because Tsesarevich proved you can build it survivable (and within a reasonable amount of time provided you are properly motivated by your customers breathing down your neck). Good thing only Bouvet got herself into position to show how bad those ships were. If those truly were pioneering designs, but after Hoche and Brennus none of this should happen. It's unlikely their crews ever considered them funny, unless in a very gallows humor way the Kalamity class submariners considered theirs.
The level of 'cranky' you have at the end of this video is *delightful*. (I know it's old, I don't know how I missed it when you put it out originally, but I did.)
Glad to hear you mention the little-known battle of Drewry's Bluff. My great-great-grandfather was with the Confederate 26th Virginia Infantry supporting the guns in Fort Darling at that battle.
The Indefatigable class was fitted for, but not with, magic armor. HMS New Zealand had hers installed during her world cruise. HMS Indefatigable never had hers fitted. With magic armor in place, you don't need 6" or 9" or even 12" of armor belt.
16:12 "But if you're in a situation where the enemy battleships have arrived in gun range of the carrier group you're escorting, you probably have larger things to worry about like; where are your dedicated battleships, and why are they on fire?" Absolute comedic gold with that deadpan delivery 😂
17:21 the IJN doctrine states that battleships and cruisers have to provide for their own recognition: carriers do not carry any recce plane on board. Later in the war the carrier number was becoming scarce and it was understood that providing recce intel with just cruisers and battleships mounted planes was not feasible. Ise was an attempt to provide eyes to the fleet without losing hit power on the few remaining carriers. Ise and Hyuga were "FLOATPLANES" carriers anyway. They were too slow to be effective but I can see the reasoning behind the conversion; they could have removed the useless two stern guns remaining but we have to understand that "ballance" in a hull buoyancy is also a thing and a single turret assembly can weight thousand of tons alone, and especially in such a stern armed ship, removing everything could have caused too many issues. A failed experiment out of desperation but not among the worse, expecially with the USN operating such odd monstrosities as the fat short WWI era battle barges across the Pacific. Strike aircrafts have longer legs then fighters, with usually 2 or more pairs of eyes and hands not flying the plane, and because they have to be floatplanes, as fighters they would be useless as fighters in 1943, so IJN chose to have recce planes that could damage things if opportunity arose. Among the failures I would have put Tegethoff class: the B turret with three guns could warp the hull just by firing due to severe undersizing of the hull structure. The crew of the main turrets could choke to death, not being allowed to fire for more then 15 minutes before opening all the bulkheads and portholes to allow air in. The crew was so sacrificed quarter wise that the ship was unfitted for more the a week out of the port, having to literally sleep among the machineries, while the officers quarter were as luxurious as in a line ship first class, if not more: talk about priorities! The roof of the main turrets were so under armoured that a glancing shot from a 12" gun could have ripped it straight off the ship. The Tsaint Istvan was built in Croatia for political reasons and the execution was so poor that it should have been rejected straight off but the Hungarians refused to do that forcing the Austrians to put it in service.
I’d take the fat short WWI-era battle barges over any of the Japanese battleships with the exception of the Yamatos in a straight gunfight. The Japanese ships were somewhat faster, but the US standards had substantially thicker and better quality armor as well as markedly superior guns (after the original guns were replaced in the 1930s). Even if you throw escorts with torpedoes in the mix, considering none of the WWI-era Japanese ships besides the Kongos were going to have a prayer of outrunning the escorts, and considering the Standards were highly maneuverable, it might not make much difference. Japan would have some advantage in an early-war night engagement, but I’m sure the USN would do everything possible to avoid it (since they probably wouldn’t be in a confined area defending a fixed position like at Guadalcanal). But the USN also knew that the old BBs weren’t well-suited for fleet operations anymore, so they relegated them to second line duty. The Japanese seemed to recognize the same about their old ships (except the Kongos), and didn’t use them in likely surface battle scenarios until they were desperate at Leyte. As for carriers not carrying recon aircraft, they didn’t carry dedicated recon aircraft, but it’s not hard to send out a few fighters as scouts if the captain is so inclined.
If it was only about having scout seaplanes, they probably would have gotten a better mileage out of building more Tones instead of battlecarrier conversions. But the IJN had some bloody stupid ideas on how to do things anyway. Like putting the Tones together in one Cruiser Squadron instead of assigning each to a different Carrier/Battleship Division.
The biggest Advantage the Imperial Japanese Navy had over the United States Navy was the range of their strike aircraft By using shorter ranged float planes for reconnaissance, they negated that advantage
@@bluemarlin8138 US Navy Standards didn't really receive new and better guns in the 1930's, they had the barrels chrome lined for better wear characteristics. The Japanese 14" guns were also a fairly good gun, being a Vickers design. Both the US Navy and the IJN designed better shells, and for AP rounds, were pretty good on both sides. The quality of Japanese armor on the older ships was also just fine, being very similar to British armor. This is actually somewhat better quality wise than US Navy battleship armor. Japanese armor quality fell off sometime after the Nagato's, when the Japanese had issues with getting the alloying elements like Nickle or Chromium in the 1930's.
Many years ago, I was selected to give a group of naval architects familiarisation training on the 9mm pistol. After the classroom portion, we went down to the range. I passed out the magazines and several boxes of 9mm ammunition and told them to load their magazines. After a bit, one guy raised his hand and said he had a problem. I walked down the line and asked what was the problem. He held up a magazine and told me he couldn't get it to hold more than five. He had managed to load it backward and I had to disassemble the magazine to unload it. I told him to think of it as a ship, you want the pointy end to face forward.
It gets worse. As Drach recounts in his video about the K-boats, on her very first venture K3, the first to be commissioned, dug her bow into the sea bottom while stickibg her stern into the air. She was soon put to rights, which was very good for her special guest, then Prince Albert ... who would reign as King George VI.
Drachism of the day : rigidity of a wet noodle! How to make a great video an amazing one! Drach should be knighted by the queen! I do not know how to thanks him for his amazing work!
Modern attack submarines are very much "fleet submarines" in their role escorting carrier strike groups. In the very, very long run, the concept worked out :D
@@oskarrasmussen7137 A large diesel boat could comfortably keep up with a non-nuclear carrier, I suspect. Nuclear power isn’t magic, it just significantly expands strategic mobility.
@@jamesharding3459 This little "just" is, basically, the biggest magic in the environment of the modern warfare, cause diesel fuel need to be loaded safely, stored and delivered safely, delivery systems also need fuel and maintenance, with qualified personal. Maintenance eqipment itsel often also required fuel and spare parts and trained operators, and all this quickly spirals in usual hellish madness of keeping your fleet in somewhat operational state.
@@nickyevdokymov5526 The fueling is irrelevant. What nuclear power did is allow the subs to travel at comfortable speed underwater indefinitely. This is the part necessary for a "fleet submarine" role.
As far as the hybrid BB/CVs go, I think fighters would actually use more fuel, not less. The reason being that your fighters need to be in the air before the enemy arrives. Otherwise, by the time you get them prepped to launch, launched, and they get up high enough in altitude, it'll be far too late. So you need to launch them if enemy contact is possible, and keep them up all the time from that point on. And that means they fly a lot more, which in turn means more fuel use, more maintenance. With the strike craft, you only launch them when you have something to strike. And with the how the Japanese fortune was at the time, you don't even have to recover them ;)
I don’t think you covered the Battle Of Rennell Island quite clearly enough. That was the Chi-Town that went to the bottom. We, aboard Chicago (CG-11) laid a wreath over that Posit. during West-Pac 79’. The water was black, literally. I did cry, although I knew none of those good bastards. Be advised, I like your presentations and am a fan.
You, Sir, have the perfect voice. I can listen to you as my main activity, to keep me focussed while driving and weirdly at night time to fall asleep. It's amazing!
This is a really good list. I would put the K-Class submarine a bit higher because out of all of them, that design is the only one that is sheer madness. A steam-powered submarine, Jesus. I know a lot about submarines, they are my speciality and I don't even know where to begin with that one.
Mind you, many postwar subs are essentially steam-driven. On the other hand, if you need ATOMIC POWER or something almost as sophisticated to make an idea work ...
Huh, today I learned there were steam-propelled submarines before nuclear power came onto the scene. I'm morbidly curious now to look into the rest of the engineering challenges and problems that came along with what must've been an incredibly complicated propulsion plant.
Look up Fredrick Knudsen's video on the "battle" of May Island. Battle being a euphemism because it was just a training exercise, wherein an almost comedic (were it not for the tragedy of the lives lost) series of mishaps, something like 5? 6? K-Classes were damaged or even sunk by running into other British ships, each other, etc.
Fredrik Knudsen's "Down the Rabbit Hole" made a documentary that covers "The Battle of May Island", which covers the K-Class submarines and how terrible they are. The whole situation is basically a horror film directed by The Three Stooges.
Essentially the K class can be summed up in 3 quotes: 'Too many damned holes' 'I say, Number 1, my end is diving. What the hell is your end doing?' 'The speed of a destroyer, the turning circle of a battle cruiser and the bridge control facilities of a picket boat.'
Confederate engineers designed the first motor torpedo boats to defend Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. The boats were semisubmersible so resembled the K class except the bridge was open with the boiler's firebox smoke stack poking out.
Interesting detail: at 18:58 you can see The photographer writing 1945, but 4 is a bit scribbled. It seems like The writer mistakenly wrote 3 instead of 4 and The corrected 3 into 4. I dont know i think its interesting to see people being people 80 years ago
A couple more "engineering disasters": - French Surcouf: What was its purpose? - German Scharnhorst: It was a way of "using up" triple 11 inch turrets from 3 cancelled Graf Spee" class ships but... - Prinz Eugen: Good looking but dreadfully overweight, complicated and expensive to build. Also those steam turbines were problematic. - German WW2 destroyers: Good firepower and speed but poor seagoing qualities and problematic steam turbines. See HMS Nonsuch report. To be fair of course, with hindsight every fault is clear. Thanks for a very interesting video. Keep up the great work.
The K Class. Isn't that the one where two submarines were lost when one rammed another? (reads wiki page) Engine room flooded... sank... sank... just disappeared... collided... run over by a cruiser... ran aground... sank in harbour!? Jeez, but that was a cursed class.
As some good friends have said over the years, “please stop sugar-coating it and tell us what you Really think!” I think Drach was a touch inflamed by the design choices for the Indefatigable. Properly-so.
HMS Indefatigable- fast, agile, had a great punch, but had a glass jaw... I have watched a few of your videos now, have enjoyed them all, and have now subscribed.
When I was young, I was really into WW1 aircraft. I happy to report that in my leisure of retirement, I really am enjoying the War Ships You discuss. They are very interesting and the engagements They fought are certainly movers and shapers of the outcome of the Wars. Thank You.
That bit about the K-class being able to be arse-up in the air and still have its bow get below crush depth, that's just... wow. Absolutely insane. Only topped by the Indefatigable. Just... how do you make things WORSE? [Looks at LCS] Oh.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
If it is possible to create a naval gun bigger than 18.1", how much would a 20.8" 9-gun fast battleship weigh?
This may be a bit redundant or stupid, but listening to this, with the K-class, did no one, at any point, stop to question whether designing a sub whose crush depth was less than the length of the sub itself might have been a poor design choice? What was the rationale for the dive depth being so shallow?
If Montana would have been build, will she be fast enough to be with the carrier fleet just like the fast battleships ?
Would wood from the West Australian Jarrah tree have made good timbers for wooden warships? It is a very heavy hard wood that is very hard to burn ( as I know from trying to burn it in winter)
Hey drach! How about you show us your ideal designs on games such as Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought or if you feel confident something much more complex like Naval Art?
Ooh! Ooh! "The Royal Navy's last civilian designed ship." Aside from the Type 21 Amazon Class Frigates, designed and built by Vosper Thorneycroft. Sunk by the Argentine Air Force.
Actually Jingles, Ardent was sunk by Argentine Navy A-4Qs 😉
@@MrFinalresistance So they claim... the Air Force differs
@@josemariaserrano181 No surprise there.
@@josemariaserrano181 You take claim of air force against that of the actual military?
Hi Jingles, hope you are well. During the Falklands War our ships were basically made of paper and had zero resistance to bombing. Our missile defence was out of date and badly set up. We had poor AA missiles and few Harriers. Despite that, those ships stood their ground in San Carlos Sound and took everything that was thrown at them to land the troops. My overriding memory of that operation was of Canberra, like a white ghost, just visible through the haze of fire and smoke. The Muppet, in this case, was a so called expert who announced on BBC News that the Argies were not setting their bombs properly and then proceeded to explain how they could. We were at war and he should have been shot for treason. I know that this is not what you were commenting about but I feel strongly about these actions. Also, I greatly appreciate your knowledge and entertainment that you provide. This is why The General Belgrano had to be sunk. An armoured light cruiser, similar to HMS Belfast, could have torn our fleet to shreds with it's 6 inch guns. I don't care who sunk our ships in San Carlos. The blame is with our Government who sent the fleet out with outdated armament. In my view the wrong guy resigned. John Nott was in the process of reducing our Naval strength. Finally, Conqueror fired WW2 torpedoes at the Belgrano because the Captain did not trust the newer ones. I think that says it all.
"You could have 50 foot of the submarine sticking up out of the water... in the air... and the bow would still reach crush depth and implode." That's an HMS Captain level of design flaw, but also a morbidly amusing mental image.
I'm curious- did something like this ever happen? Not that extreme, obviously, but the scenario he mentions where the dive controls screw up and the submarine sticks its bow under the crush depth, damaging itself. Is this just a hypothetical, or did it actually occur ever?
I also can't help but think of the FLIP, that research vessel that can tip itself 90 degrees to submerge its instruments for... whatever research it does.
@@suspectsn0thing Look up "the Battle of May Island" - just don't mention it in naval pubs..
The K-boats might have been the only submarines that were longer than their own absolute crush depth, but weirdly, they were _not_ the only submarines longer than their _test_ depth. The Japanese _I-400_ -class aircraft-carrying submarines had a 100-meter test depth and were _significantly_ longer than that at 122 meters, meaning that they didn't have to have suffered a verticality mishap to exceed it at one end while still on the surface at the other--a sufficiently aggressive crash dive would have done it.
(They were also better at turning to port than starboard thanks to their off-center conning towers. Really quite unwieldy overall. On the other hand, they pioneered the concept embodied in today's guided-missile submarines, and nobody ever gets something completely right on the first try. :)
@@ZGryphon
Well not even that, the I-400 had such borked hydrodynamics that "forward" was actually with the rudder turned slightly to one side. Also had appalling crew provisions including only one toilet. And what "concept" did they pioneer? People had been trying to launch planes off submarines for over a decade by that point.
When Drach says "in Theory...." you know he is going to explain how reality is going to wreak havoc on an otherwise elegant hypothesis.
The voice of reason, so often lacking in Naval procurement.
HMS Inflammable was canceled after Jutland. The designer quietly shelved his pitch to use the ships magazines as anti-torpedo defences.
Are you sure? I think that was HMS Invincible original designation...
The HMS Inflammible was the KZ class battleship submarine. It was a collaboration between the K class and Indefatigable designers.
@Random Pickle No, that was HMS Invulnerable.
@@trauko1388 surely you mean HMS Imperviable? I thought we were talking about HMS Impressionable.
This thread is HMS Insufferable.
"slow clap for the Muppet that designed the indefatigable" sent me into a laughing crying coughing fit. well done Drach 👏
I just imagine muppets in naval uniforms clapping now.
Would actually like to see that as some sort of skit now
I do get a chuckle envisioning the Muppets designing a battleship, surely there would be some shenanigans and it would be a floating disaster, but we'd love it anyway.
@@aaronbasham6554 statler and Waldorf would be once brilliant now senile admirals , Kermit would be a competent yet ignored captain , the Swedish chef would be some kinda hybrid of Scotty and the engineer from Canopus , miss Piggy would be either a nurse or a wren secretary to Kermit or some flag lieutenant. Scooter would be an ensign, gonzo would be a ship designer all others would be lieutenants and lieutenant commanders
I could see them do ‘ I am the monarch of the sea’
With Statler and Waldorf going
I remember that guy
Yeah he was brain dead
He still did a better job that they are.
I think Pepé the King Prawn would be a good choice as an Officer. He is a prawn, excuse me, King Prawn after all and they come from the ocean.
If we’re going to do a “muppet naval channel”, who’ll be Seymour?
Me before seeing this: I bet the Omaha is in this list.
Me after hearing the first ship's armor belt was underwater: The Omaha isn't going to be in this list.
In fairness to the Omahas, they were designed intending to play the role that many thought light cruisers would play coming out of WWI, namely scouting and leading groups of destroyers. They would obviously be completely supplanted in the former role by aircraft (whether they be land-based, carrier aircraft, sea planes, or even catapult aircraft) and advances in destroyer designs (particularly the trend brought on by Japan's Fubuki-class) meant that in many navies, the light cruisers expected to lead squadrons of destroyers would sometimes be weaker in terms of firepower than the ships they were expected to lead, and this wasn't something exclusive to the Omahas.
The United States would really only develop a new line of thinking in regards to light cruisers (basically having similar size and protection as heavy cruisers, but having 6" guns) when they learned about Japan's Mogami-class, which were basically just Japan trying to loophole their way through the WNT and not meant to introduce a new style of light cruiser design.
Radar OP, planes OP and Haxx, Omaha has both.
Marblehead kind of mitigates that argument
@@rocketguardian2001 Marblehead is overrated. She took two bomb hits once and never saw combat again. If anything, USS Richmond proves that point, managing to outshoot the modern heavy cruiser Nachi, badly damaging her with five 6-inch shell hits without being hit once.
@@metaknight115 It's all about circumstances isn't it? Both ships and their crews performed admirably when they were pressed. This isn't a contest.
“Where are your dedicated battleships and why are they on fire?” I’m dead.
Do agree, another Drachism of the day😂
So are the battleships
"Where are your dedicated battleships?"
On the ocean floor
@@MrGunlover12 At least they're not on fire any more!
[doesn't know where battleships are; knows they are on fire]
I still go with Vasa for number 1. Even during a test at dockside, when sailors ran from one side of the ship to the other.... the test had to be stopped as everyone was afraid that Vasa would roll over. No-one dared to tell the King. Secondly, when the ship left the dockside, she did not have either her full complement on board, or her full load of stores, which would have made her freeboard higher than normal. That still wasn't enough to prevent the ocean from flooding in through the lower gunports when Vasa heeled over a bit in a light breeze. So, designing a ship with holes in it's side that would be effectively UNDERWATER in any kind of weather, seems to me to be THE number 1 engineering SNAFU. Apologies for the added emphasis but I've seen Vasa up close and personal and I think it's a crying shame she was ever built. Her only use in the end, was as an underwater storehouse of unparalleled archaeological significance.
The Furutaka and Kako of the planned 4 ship Furutaka class. These guys have portholes near sea level. At steam, any wave would enter said portholes and drench the crew. The 2nd batch of the class, Aoba and Kinugasa were redesigned to eliminate said portholes and reconfigure the gun layout to a more usable one. They in turn became the new Aoba class. The performance of the new sub sisters were so good that the 2 older ones were sent to the docks to be remodeled, retaining some superstructure but completely rebuilding the gun layout and patching those said portholes.
@@kimpatz2189 This is worse,but only because the Vasa was built first and someone should've learned from that.
@@kimpatz2189 portholes could be closed and sealed no?
He literally said at the start of the video that it wasn’t a ranking
Would it have at least be decent if the lowest ports could be sealed in rough seas? Ideally you’d fix it before but if it’s too late…?
"Or perhaps Achilles being some horrible mutant hybrid monster that was 25 percent heel by volume." What a wonderful sentence!
That one had me dying.
I immediately got a family guy style sketch in my head of a foot going "what the hell man"
Hrrrrrnnnnnnngh, Patroclus, I’m trying to breach the Walls of Troy, but I’m dummy thicc and the clap of my heels keeps alerting the archers
"Sir the submarine is sinking!"
"I know, its supposed to do that."
"Ya but we're at cruise, not drill."
I wondered if the Idea was that such a submarine would not dive at speed but rather sink on the spot, laying still in the water. More like an elevator? No diving like in "hunt for red october", which is more like an underwater dogfight.
“Sir, are submarines supposed to dive backwards?”
When I was looking at joining the Navy, I was considering the sub service until a buddy said "dude, you wanna get on a boat DESIGNED to sink?"
Imagine it sinks because of toilet issue
@@ramal5708 The crew of U-1206 agree.
Drach ripping into Indefatigable was among the funniest things I've heard on his channel.
Turns out, you don't want muppets designing ships.
@@SephirothRyu okay but let's be serious, Kermit could've seen the problem with Indefatigable. Actually, that'd make an amazing Kermit also Kermit meme come to think of it.
Dry British humor at its best....like "Blackadder IV"
@@bo7341 But this wasn't Kermit. This was Gonzo or Dr. Bunsen Honeydew designing a battlecruiser. "Let's put Captain Beaker on board and send her against battleships of the Imperial German Navy!" "Meem-meem-meem!..." (KA-BLAM!) "MEEEEEEEEMM!" "Why, that didn't go very well at all. What was wrong with Captain Beaker?"
He destroyed her more thoroughly than von Spee did.
Too many years ago to remember, I had a paperback about the 'K' Class subs. At the time I had no real interest in them but the quote from a 'K' class captain on the back cover caught my eye - while inspecting his boat, he contacted the control room with the message " I say No.1 my ends diving - what's your end doing?" Of course I had to buy the book... :)
Is it the meaning of the expression "loose ends"
"The K Boats" by Don Everitt- a damn good book, yes. Should be able to find it for cheap still!
God I love British humor.
K for kalamity
The "Well there's your problem" podcast needs drach on their show for engineering disasters!
Could have been done in 60 seconds Drach points at the russian navy , and done.
Omg yes!!! Drach and the crew if WTYP sooooo need to do an episode together!
It in itself will be a disaster.
That would be an episode and a half
"The "Well there's your problem" podcast needs drach on their show" it was exactly my first thougt, but i dont know where is drach on political compass and how he will stand Alice's rants on britain - whatever it would be epic
Those IJN battlecarriers would make an awesome museum ship in that the stern of the ship would hold a fabulous naval air museum. Maybe their designers had that in mind.
Why this long flat bit?
Oh after the war it's going to be a museum pavilion.
What?
Yeah will put the gift shop in the commissary and the guest can use the actual cafeteria
I think the blueprint ink has gotten to you
Aait boys, we got this in the bag, museum ship building time! Battlecarriers, giant portable airport with aircraft repair plant, carrier submarines. Our ship museum's gonna be lit.
Let's also give them credit for inspiring one of the better looking (although doubtless terribly ineffective) spaceships in Star Blazers. Hell, there's even hybrid battlecarrier in the old Starfleet Wars Terran ship range (Monday Knight Productions makes them these days) if you want to see what a Star Wars Imperial take on the idea would look like.
There's obviously something hypnotically appealing about combining a flight deck and battleship turrets, no matter how silly an idea it is.
@@triggerunhappy. Hilarious!
I always assumed they were for scouting or spotting aircraft.
They are a splendid success for modeling……
I am amazed by the quality AND quantity that you have in this very niche historical topic. Thank you very much!
‘🎵And so say all of us, and so say all of us🎵’
Drachs the best! 👌👍
When I want to know about the big boats I come to Drach!
Drachinifel is the best
Totally addicted! Love this channel!
10. "Infanta Maria Teresa" armored cruisers. (1880's Spain)
9. "Ise" class battleships with rear aircraft carrier deck. (1940's Japan)
8. "Courageous" class "large light cruisers." (1915 UK)
7. "K Class" fleet submarines. (1917 UK)
6. "Courbet" class dreadnoughts (1913 France)
5. "Konigsberg/Leipzig" class light cruisers (1927 Germany)
4. "U.S.S. Galena" ironclad (1862 US)
3. "Vasa" (1627 Sweden)
2. "HMS Captain" Ironclad (1869 UK)
1. "HMS Indefatigable" (1909 UK)
10. sorry to say but it was a british design by jarrow. justfair from the british not to claim all 10 spots, not to mention the famous Cressy class.
#11 (or #0 perhaps) would no doubt be the Nassau's :3 .
@@michaelpielorz9283 Cressy class was no worse than any other armored cruiser; the loss of three of them to one submarine in one afternoon was not due to any flaw in the design, it was a failure of situational awareness and combat decision-making. Any ships of the time short of a Dreadnought would have been lost the same way.
@@brucetucker4847 Cressy class is a fine example of the british intention " we are the best,we do not question our designs "the longitudinal seperation of the engine rooms was a typical british design-Fflaw. that intention lead to the jutland desaster. the Doggerbank battle showed on both sides the design flaws of the turrets.the germens immediately made some improvements. acertain mr Churchill forbid the same,for propaganda reasons he wanted an immaculate victory:after jutlandthewith the loss of thousands crew to save him from being court martialed the myth of the open doorswas created,an unbelievable insult of the crews!!
Somehow Project 26 evaded this list.
The ever so gradual loss of of sanity and patience as the list goes on is truly a beautiful thing to behold.
Me, I'd have described it as Drachinifel trying his best not to erupt into expletives as he describes these increasingly idiotic crimes against naval design, and maybe fighting a growing need to flee to the bathroom because of it.
I am blessed on this fine Wednesday, a Drach special on Naval Engineering!
I likw how in the last slot you can hear Drach lose his sanity point by point.Also a video for economical or stratigical disasters would also be cool to see
"Sir we hit the enemy armored cruiser, but it does no damage!"
"What? Oh you mean you hit the 5.5ft armor belt? You're a sniper son! Get this man a gunnery medal"
I would like to have seen the look on the face of the first person who ran the numbers on the K class and realized you could exceed crush depth while still partially surfaced.
when you look at it's stats... aside from the crush depth issue, and use of a steam turbine, it doesn't look like a fully terrible idea. However, both of those are terrible design flaws.
"The designers knew better than that, and did it wrong anyway."
Enhancing your user experience, naval version. 🤬🤬
Slow 👏👏
In a way, you could argue that Indefatigable was lucky in being destroyed by gunfire that she was never supposed to withstand, as opposed to gunfire that she SHOULD have withstood but didn't (then again, wasn't it magazine handling shortcuts which did for all three of the British BC's at Jutland?)
On the topic of "Who the hell thought of this?", it would be interesting to see you cover the history of the capital ship-mounted ram in the 19th Century ironclad era, especially given the number of own-goals it caused (and I'm not just talking about the Victoria).
Well, the German BCs, Sedylitz and the Defflingers in particular, did have speed and armor at the cost of one less turret. If anything, those are what battlecruisers should be, in my opinion.
he kind of did in the Battle of Lissa.
No, it was only 2 of the 3 battlecruisers lost at Jutland that were doomed by unsafe ammo handling practices.
Invincible was in the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron, which had been detached to the Grand Fleet and thus participated in the Grand Fleet's regular gunnery exercises at Scapa Flow. As such, her crew didn't try to make up for inability to practice long-range gunnery via the "throw enough shit at the wall" tactic the way Beatty's fleet did, and instead actually used the flash doors on their magazines. (Unlike the 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons under Beatty, Invincible and her sisters also showed excellent gunnery when they arrived at Jutland. It's quite unfortunate that *all 3 battlecruiser squadrons* weren't at least rotated through Scapa flow periodically, so that everybody would get at least *some* proper gunnery training of the sort that wasn't possible at Rosyth.)
Invincible was doomed because she was fighting above her weight class, and her 6" armor was simply insufficient to stop Lützow's 12" AP shells.
Yes! Of course the British K(offin) class will get a mention. The steam-powered submarine that was more a death threat to their crews than to the enemy.
The peroxide-fueled subs were a treat, too.
Ah yes that Battle of May Island was a fierce old conflict...
@@cogidubnus1953 Well, I was thinking of these: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer-class_submarine
@@WalterReimer I was referring to the biggest debacle of the "K"s, but yes...
German UBoat Type VIIc, the toilet is more deadly than the propulsion or the battery system. U-1206 would agree with me as they have a qualified toilet personel called "Scheisseman" to vent or dump the poop out of the submarine. It was such a state of the art that it required a qualified crew to correctly vent the waste out, probably the most German thing to do.
#3 was secretly the first prototype submarine and was functioning as designed, until the crew noticed that they and it needed to have air to survive.
It reminds me of the lady of the Australian desk asking the admiral if the French submarines can stay more than 20 minutes under water as they are not nuclear 😂
The guy seating next to the admiral had difficulties not to burst in laughters 😇
@@khaelamensha3624 I believe you're referring to Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who's regarded as a complete idiot by many Australians.
The video of RAN Rear Admiral Greg Sammut explaining that she had no idea what she was talking about is still amusing to watch, although recent history has proven his comments about Naval Group and the Barracuda class to be a bit unfortunate.
@@khaelamensha3624 i dont get it, thats a valid question
@@Blox117 the admiral wasn’t laughing
I have to say : almost every submarine since the USA civil war era CSS Hunley (hand cranked propeller) attack sub has been able to beat that 20 minutes time, as high pressure air pumps & flasks storage tech was known as early as the 1600's. Look up the history of air guns, and being used on the Lewis & Clark expedition of 1803 to 1806 to chart a path across North America to the Pacific Ocean, and well before that in Europe. Truly, the Hunley could have been propelled by a compressed air motor of some type, been much faster, safer (the exhaust air from the motor being breathable for the crew & lighting, and ballast control), and reduce the crew to only 2 or 3 needed & at risk. However, the serendipity of information clearly wasn't there in time!
The top three places go to:
1) the Vasa
2) the Vasa
3) the Vasa
Seriously, on her maiden voyage, she sailed no more than 1300 meters before "heeling to port and filling with water". Blub blub blub.
Yes but it was a glorious view the first 1299 meters
The Mary Rose had a similar issue except for the extra embarrassment of floating normally until the enemy showed up, where it decided "nah, I don't want to float any more", rolled over and sank almost immediately. Right in front of the enemy.
@@chrisoddy8744 He touched on that but Mary Rose also managed to sail for over 3 decades before she decided to sink not on her first voyage. This was also after they "upgraded" her. Arguably if the upgrade causes the ship to sink is it really and upgrade.
Mushroom, mushroom, a ship, a ship, oh it's a ship...
Galena's weak armor resulting in her going into situations over her head reminds me of a guy I knew who, when asked if they taught him hand to hand fighting in the Army, replied, "They teach you just enough to get your ass kicked."
It is pretty much a rule, any ship fighting against a fort , is in over its head.
She was more effective than the USS Monitor at Brewery's Bluff.
You have the best naval history content on UA-cam, hands down. Over the past 6 months, I've learned more from you than I have in all of my years of personal study- presented in easily digestible nuggets with humor injected where appropriate. You keep things fresh and insightful, even with what many could consider to be 'old, tired concepts.'
Cheers man, it's definitely appreciated.
But Drach! You’ve already done French Pre dreadnoughts!
They did achieve something though, inspiring the Russians to get some...
As a French, that was my first thought too! We designed predreadnough with wine cellar but WITHOUT cheese cellars!! How can something be worse in design!!! Regards 😉😇😂
As someone who eschewed the chance to get his dolphins by going the sub route, I would like to point out that any ship that sinks on purpose has an uncomfortably large chance of not correcting their surface to dive ratio. The K-Class does seem to take that to ridiculous extremes, even by the standards of the day.
K Class "about as agile as a brick" love this Drachinifel your commentary is gold 😂
Can you imagine the egg on the British Navy’s face had Von Spee run up against the [#1 Ship Name], destroyed it, and actually made it back to Germany or interned in a South American nation’s port?
British Naval Pride would’ve been in shambles!
I think the British would have been so incensed that they would have violated said South American country’s neutrality and sovereignty by attacking the offending German cruiser in its South American harbour. (Example: Mers El Kebir attack on newly neutral French fleet, July 1940.)
It's extremely unlikely that Von Spee could've made it back to Germany. At most, he might've been able to sacrifice Scharnhorst and Gneisenau by aggressively charging into Stanley Harbour while the British ships were still building up steam, allowing his light cruisers to flee. That would've brought him into close enough range that his guns would be an actual threat to Invincible and Inflexible. And more importantly, once his ships were inevitably sunk by the superior British force, their wrecks would likely block the Narrows and keep the British battlecruisers and armoured cruisers from leaving until the wrecks were cleared. this would likely give his own light cruisers enough time to escape.
And the light cruisers might have been small and fast enough to slip through the British blockade once they reached the North Sea. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would not have been.
@@RedXlV I think he could have done it. His light cruisers were doing pretty good work as raiders. Coaling/resupply was a problem, but not insurmountable. I think they could have gotten enough provisions/coal together to make a dash for Germany. There's a book called Graf Spee's Raiders by Keith Yates. (highly recommend!) Nobody can deny Von Spee raised a lot of hell and kept a lot of British ships tied down. Had he steered clear of the Falklands, he might have been able to make it home.
"It meant that the Courbet's secondary battery could fire further, by a considerable margin than the main battery could."
WARGAMIIING!
Keep in mind though Wargaming gives you 8km sight in a typhoon. The reality would be 1km and 5km in every day fog.
50:42 Thankfully my third great grandfather had one child before the lousy decision making that led to that awful ship HMS Caption took his life. My second great grandmother was 10 months old when the Captain succumbed to poor design and thanks to her I am here typing a comment on the HMS Captain. It is even noted on her birth certificate: Occupation of Father; Seaman on H.M.S. Captain. I've recently picked up a book, HMS Captain by Arthur Hawkey 1963, now on the hunt for a copy of 'The Narrative of the loss of H.M.S. Captain' by James May (one of the survivors) publish 1872.
@@historytank5673 Guess english isn't your first language and what little of that weird comment which is cognitively legible is indeed rude.
@@jaytaylor9232 many apologies I have withdrawn my comment and apologies for upsetting you
That's remarkable, thanks for commenting.
Wonder how many of viewers thought when they saw this, "HMS Captain I wonder what the other 9 are"
Reporting for duty!
I must say I was one of those people. Courageous and the Königsberg classes may have been bad. But at least they didn’t sink while at sea from a little bit of bad weather
I guessed Captain, British battlecruisers in general (which could be said to include Courageous and Indefatigable), Vasa and the K class.
Did miss the Königsberg, mind.
@@chrisoddy8744 i guessed popoff/novgorod (go look them up they definitely were as big an engineering failure as some of the stuff here)
Yes, number one with flying colours.
Okay I get the problems with the Courageous class, but they are very elegant, beautiful ships and look very cool like an ultimate Pre Dreadnought (ignoring the armour). Just don't let them go into battle, just have them around so we can admire them
Pretty deathtraps, just what every Navy needs!
Lmao Hotel with guns .
@@issacfoster1113 I'm surprised the French didn't build an armada of these!
Looks don’t win wars
Around as in a dry-docked tourist attraction?
As spaniard myself I think you don't know how the navy procurement of Spain worked untill 1980's. Let me explain, 1st took a proven (ie obsololete) foreing desing, so as being obsolete we got licensing cheap. 2nd build it cutting corners as far as you can so you make it even cheaper. 3rd now the money saved on the building goes to the pocket of the king, the minister, the dictator, the admirall who endorsed it
Well, to be fair, he was _Generalísimo_ Franco, not _Almirantísimo_ Franco.
Can we talk about that German U Boat that was sunk because of toilet issue? technically it's an engineering problem. Toilets can be deadly, you know
Lethal weapon 2... 😂
U-1206?
The idea with any sub. At least yours or your allies subs. Is to balance the equation of submergence and surfacing
no an engineering failure but the only kill of a dreadnought class was a ram attack on a u-boat
Considering how many U-Boats were built and how successful they were, the "toilet" issue may have been a maintenance problem and generally the engineering was awesome.
Until I came across this channel I never had all that much interest in naval history but now I am hopelessly hooked! The narration is what caught my attention at first but the content is just so fascinating that I find myself glued to each video. The narration itself has a delightfully different style that blends with the video content in such a way as to make this channel incredibly entertaining!
Keep up the good work, I for one can't seem to get enough!
The rant following the description of faullt on first place is so terribly british in all regards, I love it. How different might WWI have turned out if Indefatigable would have been in place and sunk at the battle of the Falkland Islands? Spee still wouldn't have made it home, but probably would be remembered even more for taking down a ship, one specially designed to hunt his squadron, in his last engagement. Also the British might consider their usage of Battlecruisers quite differently, maybe giving the rest of the class a smaller uparmouring, or not letting them participating at Jutland in parts or at all, which would give that quite a different outcome, Beatty being slowed down after turning back, probably with more casualties, or not being there, so either a full on fleet clash when both main lines clash without prior scouting, or a complete decline of battle if the german battlecruisers can make early contact and advise the main fleet.
For starters, I imagine the Renowns (laid down a month and a half after the Falklands) would've immediately had their construction delayed long enough to do away with the bizarre design decision of a 6" armor belt. At an absolute minimum, they'd revert to a 9" belt like the Lions and Tiger already used. ie what they historically were given in 1920s refits. Or possibly even the Design Y battlecruiser (the "Super Tiger", with 11" belt and 4x2 15" guns) would've been built instead.
Possibly the funding that went to 2 Renowns and 3 Courageouses historically would've gone to 4 Super Tigers. Or just 4 up-armored Renowns. Aside from Indefatigable being in immediate need of replacement, there'd be a perception that her sister ships are inadequately armored, while Germany's own battlecruiser fleet would still need to be countered. Adding 4 instead of 2 15" armed battlecruisers would allow Australia and New Zealand can be sent to safer duties than directly confronting their German counterparts, while still directly upgrading the fleet's strength. Though of course Jutland would happen before any of the new ships would be complete, so this plan wouldn't have a chance to be put into practice.
When it comes time for Jutland, the 2nd and 3rd Battlecruiser Squadrons would probably have been rearranged to account for Indefatigable's loss. Most likely it would be the now under-strength 3rd (consisting only of Australia and New Zealand) that gets detached to the Home Fleet, leaving the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (the 3 Invincibles) at the tail of Beatty's battle line. No way to know whether the collision between Australia and New Zealand would still happen when they're up at Scapa Flow, but it's possible that New Zealand will be the only battlecruiser attached to the Grand Fleet at Jutland. This would actually be an upgrade to Beatty's force, though whether he'd gain any advantage out of this is questionable, since it's Beatty.
@@RedXlV I have to agree to that, as I have no idea to the constructions and timelines there. Beatty being Beatty, yes, might not make use of any advantage given to him or even invite a more foolish sense of security. I wonder if on the german part Spee's small rebuttal will change anything attitudewise and accelerate events. Scheer replacing von Pohl due to illness is probably a fixed event, but questionable if his replacement of von Ingenohl might change and lead to an earlier Jutland, but thats very much unlikely and pure speculation.
Idk, the RN has always been considerably more bloody minded about losses potential or actual than its contemporaries. You might be right, but it's just as likely the outcome would have been limited to some stoic references to omelettes and eggs, and Beatty would still have steamed right in.
By way of example, much is made of what a beating the US cruiser force took in the Pacific; but then consider that the RN lost three times as many cruisers in WW2 than the USN did, and by 1944 were still running them up to the Normandy coast to take on the shore batteries (and E boats, and U boats, and mines). If anybody was wondering whether they were optimally designed for the task, it wasn't stopping them from being committed whenever and wherever they could be of use.
Well we all know that this list isn’t entirely complete. Drach made such a nice list…a list that completely refuses to admit that the French predreadnoughts even exist. Half the list could consist of them.
Nope, Drach refuses to look at them again, because then he would have to admit to himself that yes, those ships did exist. Unfortunately.
If France Really wanted to troll English naval historians, they should have kept one around as a museum. Thus forcing English historians to not only visit France, but also having a battleship museum ship that the English don’t have.
Like Helena.
But will you then pronounce Thames like James? With the e at the end making the previous vowel long?
They do in Newport, RI, but I believe the UK goes against that phonetic rule.
A proud Englishman would rather die than set foot in the accursed nation of Fr*nce!
Loved It.... Especially when you referred to the designer as a Muppet. Absolutely golden
Keep up the great work!!!!!
Greeting from the all of us coming off of night shifts in the US Drach . May all your Boats stay Afloat and all your coffee be strong and dark !
As a native born Illinoisan, it's "gah-lee-nah", but since the USS Galena would have served a more useful purpose in the IJN and IJA in most efficiently and expeditiously sending their warriors to meet their honoured ancestors in the afterlife, you can pronounce Galena however you want, the muppets who designed this nautical abomination can't object!
Oh, HMS Indefatigable - and here I thought your introduction to the I-400 was the ne plus ultra of your wordplay...so help me Jellicoe, I am going to make some portion of that monorant my voice mail message!
(Even better, how much would I have to pay for you to record the unexpurgated and uncensored version of that monorant about the HMS Indefatigable?)
I’m also native Illinoisian. I always thought it was pronounced:
“ha•LAY•nah” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The last version of my command sounded rude so here is the more nice version. Maybe in Illinois you pronounce it that way, but for European scholars of history who often need to study or at least know latin it is more natural to pronounce it Gah-Leh-Nah, as in Latin there would be an I instead of an e if it were a long vowel. And the word is by origin latin.
@@NießbraucherNick True, but it is an American ship, so in english the original or 'home' pronunciation could be important for the distinction. It is equally important for European scholars of history to be able to tell which version of a word is being used when the spelling is the same.
@@faithnfire4769 I see were you coming from. I justed wanted to point out, why when you are in a hurry (or speaking for a long time) Drach maybe fall into eurocentric pronounciation. I mean he is putting out a lot of content.
The Defenders at Fort Darling: “Yes, USS Badly Needed Target Practice.”
H.I. Sutton over on Covert Shores actually did a fairly good explanation on the Steam-Powered fleet submarine concept. His main take away was that the Kalamity's were of sound concept for the period in which they existed, his main critique is the way in which the Royal Navy utilized them and he believed that that was a big part of the class's less than Stirling reputation.
I must say, I appreciate how you usually do not make word choice errors and don't load your vids up with a bunch of "uh" "um" and confused "I don't know" ramblings. Even when you are asked a complex question, you've done the minimum of trying to find the answer, and report what you could find glibly.
If I didn't know any better I'd say this video is a perfect starting point for Drach's own book on world's worst warships
A couple of notes regarding the Ise-class conversions:
1. Hyuga's No. 5 turret was apparently wrecked by an ammo accident in 1942, and the No. 6 turret had elevation issues from the start - so to an extent the conversion was motivated by the Navy deeming it less useful to replace two already broken turrets and to instead add the catapult for aircraft.
2. Almost all documentation strongly indicates the ships could only _launch_ planes. Returning aircraft could not land on either ship. As a result, they were both equipped with float planes - which by default were not great fighter aircraft as the floatation systems tended to weigh down the plane for maneuvers.
3. Japanese doctrine actually assigned all of their scout aircraft (many of which were sea planes and strike aircraft) to the cruisers escorting the carriers. The Tone-class in particular exemplified this.
After Midway - where a failure in scouting by the Tone was a major cause of the defeat - it is very likely that Ise/Hyuga were converted to serve more as oversized Tones, rather than as a truly independent strike carrier force.
Likewise - note that the Japanese had no idea that the US would end up making so many carriers. Midway was a devastating defeat for Japan, but by Santa Cruz the USN had likewise been reduced to just the carrier Enterprise in the Pacific. Without the massive American shipbuilding industry coming to the rescue Japan in fact had some room to believe they would face the Americans on relatively even terms in 1943/44, and in these new battles shoring up the scout group complements would have made sense.
It is also worth noting that these small scout groups still nonetheless did admirable work under the circumstances. Mogami for instance had a similar conversion - which gave Nishimura's force accurate scouting in the lead up to the Battle of Surigao Strait. Trouble is, it turned out that Nishimura had been ordered from the start to embark on a suicide mission and he was deliberately just bait to draw 7th Fleet's battleships away from the Leyte Gulf transports, whereas everyone in the Western world assumed he had simply blundered into an ambush (at least until Parshall's Battle of Surigao Strait uncovered Japanese documents that showed Nishimura in fact had the clearest idea of any of the Japanese commanders of what they were facing, and was basically told to proceed anyway in a manner similar to the final sortie of the Yamato).
Good points except for the one about US shipbuilding. Japan was well aware of US manufacturing capacity, and Yamamoto was very vocal in warning the powers that be about this. Moreover, many of these US carriers and battleships had already been ordered and laid down by 1941, so Japan definitely knew about those. Japan might have slightly underestimated the time it would take the US to complete them, but their whole strategy was to hit the US hard and pray for a negotiated peace that allowed them to keep some of their gains before the US had time to regroup. I’d say the USN was fighting on relatively even terms in early-mid 1943, but by late 1943 and 1944 the floodgates had started to open.
I wouldn’t say “everyone” in the Western world assumed the Japanese had blundered into an ambush at Surigao. Admiral Lee and some other USN officers had a pretty good idea of what was happening and when. They just couldn’t convince Halsey of it.
80 YEARSLATER it is a shame we still know very little of this history FROM THE JAPANESE!!!!!
One of the best comments Yet about the Ise class.
Fun fact: When her crew realized she was the only operational U.S. carrier left in the entire Pacific theater, they responded by putting up a banner on her island that said "ENTERPRISE VS. JAPAN!" And she won, too.
I know this horse is beaten well into the zombie state by now, but I still think the Charles Martel class warrants a honorable mention. Not so much for being a well-known comic relief, but for colossal waste of taxpayer money ending in a bunch of things that were dangerous to serve on. It's not even a matter of the tumblehome hull because Tsesarevich proved you can build it survivable (and within a reasonable amount of time provided you are properly motivated by your customers breathing down your neck). Good thing only Bouvet got herself into position to show how bad those ships were. If those truly were pioneering designs, but after Hoche and Brennus none of this should happen.
It's unlikely their crews ever considered them funny, unless in a very gallows humor way the Kalamity class submariners considered theirs.
The level of 'cranky' you have at the end of this video is *delightful*. (I know it's old, I don't know how I missed it when you put it out originally, but I did.)
Glad to hear you mention the little-known battle of Drewry's Bluff. My great-great-grandfather was with the Confederate 26th Virginia Infantry supporting the guns in Fort Darling at that battle.
The Indefatigable class was fitted for, but not with, magic armor. HMS New Zealand had hers installed during her world cruise. HMS Indefatigable never had hers fitted. With magic armor in place, you don't need 6" or 9" or even 12" of armor belt.
16:12 "But if you're in a situation where the enemy battleships have arrived in gun range of the carrier group you're escorting, you probably have larger things to worry about like; where are your dedicated battleships, and why are they on fire?"
Absolute comedic gold with that deadpan delivery 😂
Alternate title - How to design a single-use coral reef
It still could be multi use...
Just lift it up from the sea floor...
That might not work to well if the magazine turns the ship to confetti and memories when someone sneezes on it
17:21 the IJN doctrine states that battleships and cruisers have to provide for their own recognition: carriers do not carry any recce plane on board. Later in the war the carrier number was becoming scarce and it was understood that providing recce intel with just cruisers and battleships mounted planes was not feasible. Ise was an attempt to provide eyes to the fleet without losing hit power on the few remaining carriers. Ise and Hyuga were "FLOATPLANES" carriers anyway. They were too slow to be effective but I can see the reasoning behind the conversion; they could have removed the useless two stern guns remaining but we have to understand that "ballance" in a hull buoyancy is also a thing and a single turret assembly can weight thousand of tons alone, and especially in such a stern armed ship, removing everything could have caused too many issues. A failed experiment out of desperation but not among the worse, expecially with the USN operating such odd monstrosities as the fat short WWI era battle barges across the Pacific.
Strike aircrafts have longer legs then fighters, with usually 2 or more pairs of eyes and hands not flying the plane, and because they have to be floatplanes, as fighters they would be useless as fighters in 1943, so IJN chose to have recce planes that could damage things if opportunity arose.
Among the failures I would have put Tegethoff class: the B turret with three guns could warp the hull just by firing due to severe undersizing of the hull structure. The crew of the main turrets could choke to death, not being allowed to fire for more then 15 minutes before opening all the bulkheads and portholes to allow air in.
The crew was so sacrificed quarter wise that the ship was unfitted for more the a week out of the port, having to literally sleep among the machineries, while the officers quarter were as luxurious as in a line ship first class, if not more: talk about priorities!
The roof of the main turrets were so under armoured that a glancing shot from a 12" gun could have ripped it straight off the ship. The Tsaint Istvan was built in Croatia for political reasons and the execution was so poor that it should have been rejected straight off but the Hungarians refused to do that forcing the Austrians to put it in service.
I’d take the fat short WWI-era battle barges over any of the Japanese battleships with the exception of the Yamatos in a straight gunfight. The Japanese ships were somewhat faster, but the US standards had substantially thicker and better quality armor as well as markedly superior guns (after the original guns were replaced in the 1930s). Even if you throw escorts with torpedoes in the mix, considering none of the WWI-era Japanese ships besides the Kongos were going to have a prayer of outrunning the escorts, and considering the Standards were highly maneuverable, it might not make much difference. Japan would have some advantage in an early-war night engagement, but I’m sure the USN would do everything possible to avoid it (since they probably wouldn’t be in a confined area defending a fixed position like at Guadalcanal). But the USN also knew that the old BBs weren’t well-suited for fleet operations anymore, so they relegated them to second line duty. The Japanese seemed to recognize the same about their old ships (except the Kongos), and didn’t use them in likely surface battle scenarios until they were desperate at Leyte.
As for carriers not carrying recon aircraft, they didn’t carry dedicated recon aircraft, but it’s not hard to send out a few fighters as scouts if the captain is so inclined.
If it was only about having scout seaplanes, they probably would have gotten a better mileage out of building more Tones instead of battlecarrier conversions. But the IJN had some bloody stupid ideas on how to do things anyway. Like putting the Tones together in one Cruiser Squadron instead of assigning each to a different Carrier/Battleship Division.
The biggest Advantage the Imperial Japanese Navy had over the United States Navy was the range of their strike aircraft
By using shorter ranged float planes for reconnaissance, they negated that advantage
the fact that they wasted all that STEEL alone is a crime. Thy had none to spare.
@@bluemarlin8138 US Navy Standards didn't really receive new and better guns in the 1930's, they had the barrels chrome lined for better wear characteristics. The Japanese 14" guns were also a fairly good gun, being a Vickers design. Both the US Navy and the IJN designed better shells, and for AP rounds, were pretty good on both sides. The quality of Japanese armor on the older ships was also just fine, being very similar to British armor. This is actually somewhat better quality wise than US Navy battleship armor. Japanese armor quality fell off sometime after the Nagato's, when the Japanese had issues with getting the alloying elements like Nickle or Chromium in the 1930's.
The Indefatigable-class weird concept , even the dutch Zeven provincien class had a better or equal armour protection .
Ship capsizes: Well There's Your Problem!
Tumblehomes
It was not in the requirements 😂
Many years ago, I was selected to give a group of naval architects familiarisation training on the 9mm pistol. After the classroom portion, we went down to the range. I passed out the magazines and several boxes of 9mm ammunition and told them to load their magazines. After a bit, one guy raised his hand and said he had a problem. I walked down the line and asked what was the problem. He held up a magazine and told me he couldn't get it to hold more than five. He had managed to load it backward and I had to disassemble the magazine to unload it. I told him to think of it as a ship, you want the pointy end to face forward.
Some Mediterranean fishing boats have two pointy ends... I see problems at the horizon 😂
Did he go on to work for HK? (Google if you don't know).
Sansa in Game of Thrones. Aim with the pointy end.
@@johnjephcote7636 Arya* 😁
Ok so the K Class is impressive, I've never heard of a submarine that could hit it's crush depth whilst surfaced before.
Japanese I-400 series could do it too.
It gets worse. As Drach recounts in his video about the K-boats, on her very first venture K3, the first to be commissioned, dug her bow into the sea bottom while stickibg her stern into the air. She was soon put to rights, which was very good for her special guest, then Prince Albert ... who would reign as King George VI.
Drachism of the day : rigidity of a wet noodle! How to make a great video an amazing one! Drach should be knighted by the queen! I do not know how to thanks him for his amazing work!
*wobble wobble*
Rigidity of a wet noodle? You obviously have not seen ThisOldTony breaking his bending vise trying to bend a wet noodle sir.
An entire hour on naval engineering disasters?
_lights fire and sips coffee_
Coffee witn a bit of rum of course 😇
@@khaelamensha3624 sun’s over the yardarm somewhere
Truly a good day when we get a special to listen to while going about our commutes and such
Only Drach would have the imagination to compare the Death Star to WW1 era naval engineering failures and have it make perfect sense! Bravo Zulu Mr D
Modern attack submarines are very much "fleet submarines" in their role escorting carrier strike groups. In the very, very long run, the concept worked out :D
It only required the invention of the nuclear reactor.
@@oskarrasmussen7137 A large diesel boat could comfortably keep up with a non-nuclear carrier, I suspect. Nuclear power isn’t magic, it just significantly expands strategic mobility.
@@jamesharding3459 This little "just" is, basically, the biggest magic in the environment of the modern warfare, cause diesel fuel need to be loaded safely, stored and delivered safely, delivery systems also need fuel and maintenance, with qualified personal. Maintenance eqipment itsel often also required fuel and spare parts and trained operators, and all this quickly spirals in usual hellish madness of keeping your fleet in somewhat operational state.
Well they are still steam ships, just how they make the steam has changed.
@@nickyevdokymov5526 The fueling is irrelevant. What nuclear power did is allow the subs to travel at comfortable speed underwater indefinitely. This is the part necessary for a "fleet submarine" role.
As an engineering student, this is very entertaining and insightful
I haven't looked forward to a Drach video this much in QUITE a while, and that's a high bar to clear!
As far as the hybrid BB/CVs go, I think fighters would actually use more fuel, not less. The reason being that your fighters need to be in the air before the enemy arrives. Otherwise, by the time you get them prepped to launch, launched, and they get up high enough in altitude, it'll be far too late. So you need to launch them if enemy contact is possible, and keep them up all the time from that point on. And that means they fly a lot more, which in turn means more fuel use, more maintenance. With the strike craft, you only launch them when you have something to strike. And with the how the Japanese fortune was at the time, you don't even have to recover them ;)
Hey thanks a lot for the videos! They're really good and interesting to listen to.
Your calm voice helps me a lot to relax before going to bed.
I don’t think you covered the Battle Of Rennell Island quite clearly enough.
That was the Chi-Town that went to the bottom.
We, aboard Chicago (CG-11) laid a wreath over that Posit. during West-Pac 79’.
The water was black, literally.
I did cry, although I knew none of those good bastards.
Be advised, I like your presentations and am a fan.
You, Sir, have the perfect voice. I can listen to you as my main activity, to keep me focussed while driving and weirdly at night time to fall asleep. It's amazing!
I don't know why he initially used the annoying robo-voice.
This is a really good list. I would put the K-Class submarine a bit higher because out of all of them, that design is the only one that is sheer madness. A steam-powered submarine, Jesus. I know a lot about submarines, they are my speciality and I don't even know where to begin with that one.
Mind you, many postwar subs are essentially steam-driven. On the other hand, if you need ATOMIC POWER or something almost as sophisticated to make an idea work ...
Huh, today I learned there were steam-propelled submarines before nuclear power came onto the scene. I'm morbidly curious now to look into the rest of the engineering challenges and problems that came along with what must've been an incredibly complicated propulsion plant.
Look up Fredrick Knudsen's video on the "battle" of May Island.
Battle being a euphemism because it was just a training exercise, wherein an almost comedic (were it not for the tragedy of the lives lost) series of mishaps, something like 5? 6? K-Classes were damaged or even sunk by running into other British ships, each other, etc.
Fredrik Knudsen's "Down the Rabbit Hole" made a documentary that covers "The Battle of May Island", which covers the K-Class submarines and how terrible they are. The whole situation is basically a horror film directed by The Three Stooges.
Essentially the K class can be summed up in 3 quotes:
'Too many damned holes'
'I say, Number 1, my end is diving. What the hell is your end doing?'
'The speed of a destroyer, the turning circle of a battle cruiser and the bridge control facilities of a picket boat.'
@@chrisroach8345 LMAO. That makes sense though- those things had to have more holes in them than even nuclear-powered subs do now.
Confederate engineers designed the first motor torpedo boats to defend Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. The boats were semisubmersible so resembled the K class except the bridge was open with the boiler's firebox smoke stack poking out.
Anyone else get hype when you hear the intro music and the guns firing off?
As WTYP Pod would say about the courageous class, Make the ship more rigid!
*alice starts pouring concrete into the bilges*
Gotta use the high strength steel
@@paulochikuta330 Roz “I would simply not make such a bendy ship”
Had expected to see the "The existence of the kamtschatka" as one of the failures 🤣
There was nothing wrong with the Kamchatka as far as engineering was concerned. That was all down to operator error.
@@Isolder74"Operator error" hardly begins to describe what was wrong with the crew of the Kamchatka. Do you see torpedo boats?
The way your tone shifts to pure disappointment makes this video so perfect omg
Interesting detail: at 18:58 you can see The photographer writing 1945, but 4 is a bit scribbled. It seems like The writer mistakenly wrote 3 instead of 4 and The corrected 3 into 4. I dont know i think its interesting to see people being people 80 years ago
Very amusing commentary, especially when it came to Vasa or Vaasa?
Loved it all, start to finish! Thankyou.
Because beating down on HMS Captain never gets old.
A couple more "engineering disasters":
- French Surcouf: What was its purpose?
- German Scharnhorst: It was a way of "using up" triple 11 inch turrets from 3 cancelled Graf Spee" class ships but...
- Prinz Eugen: Good looking but dreadfully overweight, complicated and expensive to build. Also those steam turbines were problematic.
- German WW2 destroyers: Good firepower and speed but poor seagoing qualities and problematic steam turbines. See HMS Nonsuch report.
To be fair of course, with hindsight every fault is clear.
Thanks for a very interesting video. Keep up the great work.
"...they were designed to hunt down enemy cruisers, *_kill them horribly_* and secure the high seas for British trade"
You killed me x'D
The ghosts of S & G whisper "Whitnesss ussss".
Which, unfortunately, would have been the only way that ship killed anyone.
Is it just me or did he seem rather adamant about No. 1 LOL. Enjoy your videos immensely Drach thanks bunches.
Maybe a video about Royal Navy steam submarines would be an idea. They all lie at the bottom of the river Forth.
The K Class. Isn't that the one where two submarines were lost when one rammed another?
(reads wiki page) Engine room flooded... sank... sank... just disappeared... collided... run over by a cruiser... ran aground... sank in harbour!?
Jeez, but that was a cursed class.
@@harbl99 and K13 went down on trials, with some shipyard workers.
I have a feeling someone has been watching Sacred Cow Shipyards. This is lovely.
First how to design, and now how not to design, great Drach!!!!
Me as a german who knows your channel for a while am positively surprised that the Nassau and Bismarck class did not make it
Going in, I was expecting this to just be listing HMS Captain ten times over, but it turns out some other ships were not that great either!
"Just enough armour to be a problem and not enough to be of any use."
You need to make a drach’s top ten playlist I love this
As some good friends have said over the years, “please stop sugar-coating it and tell us what you Really think!”
I think Drach was a touch inflamed by the design choices for the Indefatigable. Properly-so.
An hour long naval engineering video? You spoil us Drach.
Remember boys and girls, everything can be a submarine once.
HMS Indefatigable- fast, agile, had a great punch, but had a glass jaw...
I have watched a few of your videos now, have enjoyed them all, and have now subscribed.
The Ise battle carrier were sort of failures but they are great fun to build. The Fujimi 1/350 model kits make for some great fun.
Love your intro footage & music, absolutely BADASS, cold chills every time.
Hour long video? About engineering disasters? Today is a good day, everybody.
@Yuri Setsuna you too
My favorite show on cable. Engineering disasters…. Thanks Drach :)
When I was young, I was really into WW1 aircraft. I happy to report that in my leisure of retirement, I really am enjoying the War Ships You discuss. They are very interesting and the engagements They fought are certainly movers and shapers of the outcome of the Wars. Thank You.
7am release for Eastern US makes my coffee this morning a little more savory. Cheers!
That bit about the K-class being able to be arse-up in the air and still have its bow get below crush depth, that's just... wow. Absolutely insane. Only topped by the Indefatigable. Just... how do you make things WORSE? [Looks at LCS] Oh.