Drachinifel what would happen if two months prior to Archduke Frank Ferdinand’s assassination, the High Seas Fleet pre dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts were replaced with a dozen Tillman IIIs and two dozen Tillman IV-2s? All necessary infrastructure such as docks, harbors, gun barrel manufacturing, steel forges, hydraulic presses, etc. are upgraded in order to support, the Middleplate oil wells are tapped in order to provide fuel, crews that were initially aboard have the knowledge on how to operate the ships in their heads, in short all necessary improvements to Germany are made. I’m assuming the Admiralty of Britain goes nuts.
Fun fact: one of the key figures in the effort to restore Mikasa after WWII was none other than Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. While a junior officer stationed in the Far East, Nimitz actually met Admiral Togo at a reception following the Battle of Tsushima, and greatly respected Togo for his aggressive tactics.
@keith moore Congratulations, you managed to make a baseless accusation without contributing absolutely anything to the conversation, all the while making yourself look like a complete fucking dunce.
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment I assume they are commenting on if he was referring to Halsey and his decision to chase the Japense Carriers with everything he had while leaving the landing fleet grossly unprotected during the Philippines invasion. His reason, as he later claimed that he feared them being used as stepping stones to attack the fleet while not entirely unfounded was still a horrible decision and should have led to a disaster for the Americans yet I personally would not label him a complete idiot.
In VIckerstown at Barrow-in-Furness, there is a street called Mikasa Street named after the ship (Barrow-in-Furness is where the ship was built). During WWII the British government asked the townsmen if they could change the name to a more patriotic English name. The townsmen refused, citing the pride they have in building the ship.
Mikasa House stands on the old Armstrong Shipyard in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne. But I'd have thought that Yoshino or Hatsuse or Yashima [House] would have been more apt, those two being built on the Tyne, but still, its pretty bloody amazing to see. Sad footnote, all those three Elswick ships died by mine blasts off Port Arthur : ( RIP The Fallen: Tyneside to Korea-side.
Mr. D: The Mikasa was built at Barrow in Furness shipyard by Vickers and was a more advanced ship in specification than the RN ships of the time being designed by Vickers and not restricted by Admiralty thinking. I was a designer and builder of steam boats for the RN at Barrow before I retired and a famous predecessor of mine was Barnes Wallis who started there designing airships (built at Barrow) and then the Wellington bomber (there is a blue plaque on the drawing office wall outside for Mr, Wallis). The other interesting thing at Barrow is the shipyard model of the Mikasa (about 12' long) in the ship museum in Barrow along with other shipyard models (these models were 3D design references for the build); it is well worth going to see the museum, particularly if you are unable to go to Japan. There is a great history and tradition of famous ships and boats built a Barrow (including the X craft subs and virtually all the nuclear subs, apart from Conqueror) and I felt both proud and privileged to follow in the footsteps of so many great designers and characters from that yard and hopefully contributing in my small way to the continuance of such a great tradition; there is a lot of naval history there. Kind regards JohnH
Meh, the guns area all fake, much of the restoration is slipshod, most of the internal fittings have been removed, and there's nationalist BS presented as fact. Pass.
I agree. Went to see it about 2 weeks ago and it was an amazing sight to behold. I would like to go back and spend an entire day looking at all the exhibits. perhaps when i can finally read kanji....
A couple of additional points. It's the only surviving pre-dreadnought battleship in the world and the only surviving post ironclad British battleship of any kind. Well done the Japanese.
Minor complaint: The photo that appears at the 1:10 mark to explain the ideas of the Jeune École wasn't a torpedo boat. (Yes Drachinifel, I know it's still a creation of the Jeune École, but I want to have some fun with this.). The vessel in photo was built on a torpedo boat hull, but it was actually a prototype of a proposed; but never built, class of warships called bateau-canon (or cannon boat). It was armed with a single 5.5 inch gun (about 140 mm). You might think it was designed to counter enemy torpedo boats; which is a reasonable assumption to make, but an incorrect one. This little 70 ton craft; actually a swarm of these 70 ton boats with their single guns, were meant to attack enemy (read Royal Navy) battleships, or barbette ships, or ironclads. (Whatever you want to call them.) This wasn't just a French idea. Sir William George Armstrong; a noted 19th century engineer and artillery designer, had suggested a similar idea about twenty years before the French Navy thought they could make it work. The small size and high speed (about 20 knots) of these vessels would be their armor. Plus, this was about a decade before smokeless powder was introduced. Once the big ships started firing their main and secondary batteries, a defacto smoke screen would be created allowing the bateau-canon and torpedo boats to close with the enemy. It is reasonable to ask what a 5.5 inch gun could do to a Royal Navy capital ship of the 1870's and 80's which often had an armor belt up to 20 inches thick. The bateau-canon weren't going to fire at the armor belt or anywhere near it. The bow and stern of these ships were unarmored. In some cases the unarmored sections of ship were very long. The French had done experiments with new high explosive shells which suggested that the blast from even medium caliber shells; like the 5.5 inch gun would fire, were capable of collapsing water tight compartments in the unarmored bow and stern sections of enemy capital ships, at least slowing them down. (The interpretation of the results of these tests were probably overly optimistic.) The reason why the bateau-canon class was never built was because; as you might expect, when you fire a big gun (even WW1 destroyers didn't carry guns this large) on a very, very small vessel, the shock from firing the gun to port or starboard will make the vessel roll in the opposite direction and then correct and roll back the other way. Reloading and continuing to fire keeps the bateau-canon rolling back and forth making aiming close to impossible. So eventually the Gabriel Charmes; the name of the prototype, was converted into a torpedo boat.
I was there mid-July 2019. Beautiful ship. I had fun prowling the decks and training the 3 pounders (?) on the fake locomotive across the park (it never stood a chance). The rain was light and the wind swept the mist in from the harbor. It was quite a moment as I stood on the bridge. Considering the damage done at the behest of the grudge-bearing Russians after the war she is in amazing shape - fake turrets and all. Thanks to Adm. Nimitz and businessman John Rubin for their efforts at saving her. I went to pay my respects to Mikasa in the morning and the Hikawa Maru in the afternoon. It was a great day.
I found a rather interesting article in the archives of my local newspaper, dated about 1908, that mentions that "Ships of the Mikasa type" would have all of their six-inch guns removed in favour of 4 10-inch guns. Obviously this refit never happened, but i fount it quite fascinating. The article also mentioned an early incarnation of the Kongo class.
I had the chance to visit the Mikasa whilst visiting Japan in 1997. It is an amazing vessel and well worth a visit. Mind you, there has been a lot of building in the local area since then. Great videos - thanks.
. I hadn't realized that there were any pre-Dreadnought Battleships that had been preserved. This is awesome. I really wish some of the famous Ships of the past had been preserved, like HMS Dreadnought, USS Enterprise (CV-6), and HMS Warspite.
USS Essex & USS Newport News . . . . damn what losses. Should also add one of the Invincible CVL/TDCs from the RN. Would have made a lovely centre-piece to the RN North museum in Hartlepool with attendant aircraft onboard e.g. Harrier GR3/FRS1, a Super Etendard, A4 Skyhawk etc.
Just been to see this ship on holiday Upper works are starting get quite scabby but the museum on board is amazing -also the upper secondaries are still mechanically free and traverse very well!
@@andresmartinezramos7513Kadokawa that is behind Re:zero and Konosuba have an official UA-cam channel and here a link to trailer ua-cam.com/video/DKC4qGk5-io/v-deo.html
So, something I've been curious about for a while now (and you seem to be the best person I know to ask) it's what happened between the first world war and the second that turned Japan from a country that fought hard-as-hell but fought fairly and treated the vanquished honorably to... well, Nanjing.
I guess you've never heard of the Port Arthur massacre. A few hundred POWs the Russians were holding were maimed and disfigured when the Russians withdrew from the fort. The understandably angry Japanese took their vengeance out on the soldiers and inhabitants of Port Arthur. Newspaper reports paid no attention to the triggering event, and the Japanese reputation was henceforth tarnished going in to the 20th century and colored the limitations on the Japanese in the Naval Arms Treaty; Nanjing only confirmed suspicions already held by many. And to be accurate, Japan was not a socially progressive nation even after the Meiji Restoration. An aggressive imperial parliamentary Monarchy who entrusted the zaibatsu with tax collection, they were as conservative and prone to fascism as any European nation-state.
The Japanese knew what had happened to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya: all colonized by Europeans. They came out of their isolation in the 1860s hell bent on modernizing too fast to let that happen, and mostly succeeded, defeating Russia in 1905, sending destroyers to the Mediterranean during WW I, colonizing Taiwan and Korea, and were shocked to find they were still second class world citizens, such as California passing a law in 1924 (?) banning American citizens of Japanese ancestry from buying land. Japan is an island nation with almost no raw resources, so colonizing like Europeans was a very natural plan for the time when they began modernizing, even if beginning to got out of style by the 1920s. They decided that if aping the Europeans wasn't good enough to be accepted in the big boys club, they would go their own way. --- WARNING: This is my *simplified* understanding of their attitude. It at least holds together from a plausible "foreign to me" point of view. I know it is much simplified.
The pre dreadnoughts are neat Victorian era ships and it's too bad just one survives today. The only thing even remotely close to them I saw in person is the USS Olympia protected cruiser I visited in Philadelphia, probably around 1957 or '58 when I was 8 or 9 years old. I still have the bronze medallion made from the screws.
@@patricklenigan1650 Perhaps not intentionally. Maybe its like the Tower of London Ravens, that there must always be at least one raven living within the castle bounds or the whole edifice will come crashing down
The Chinese ironclads from the battle of Yalau river, Ding Yuen and Qing Yuan were quite powerful for the time, but to give you a sense of how bad corruption in Qing empire was at this point, the money for 12 such battleships had been granted and had "mysteriously disappeared."
About the naval battle during the first Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese fleet was not completely incompetent as you put it. Their gunnery was actually slightly better than the Japanese. The main shortcomings of the Chinese fleet was that their ships were fairly old and did not get any major refit. Especially in terms of quick firing guns, the Chinese only had 3 of them on one ship in the entire fleet while most Japanese cruisers had 10 to 12 such guns. A 4.7 inch or 5 inch quick firing gun can fire 5 to 6 round per minute, but the older 6 inch guns on Chinese ships can only fire once every minute. So in terms of firepower, the Chinese had been outgunned nearly 10 to 1 when you take the rate of fire into account. What happened at the battle was that the Chinese cruisers quickly died out because of overwhelming Japanese firepower. The two Chinese ironclads were better protected but they couldn’t do much damage to Japanese ships. These ironclads had 12 inch guns but can only fire once every 5 minutes plus the range was very limited because of short barrel. In the end, the Japanese felt they couldn’t sink those ironclads quickly so they just took off and left them alone. So, given the ships the Chinese had, I don’t think incompetence played any major role in the defeat. I doubt even the Royal Navy could squeeze much out of those outdated equipments.
Well in terms of gunnery accuracy on their main guns, the Japanese did perform better (at 15.3%) than the Chinese (4.1%). Although as you mentioned, the smaller QF guns was the decisive factor in the War. The problem of the Chinese in terms of gunnery was actually discipline and doctrine. The Chinese commenced firing at 5,700m, while the Japanese held their fire until they got into the range of 2,000-3,000m to increase the chances of a hit when they were crossing the Chinese "T". This paid off as these accurate hits incapacitated the Chinese Admiral early on in the battle.
The USS Texas was requested to fire on machine gun and sniper positions at Normandy. Getting a 14" HC shell dropped on your head would really ruin your day.
I was wondering if you could do a video on the naval fort of Nepean, on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria Australia, I have visited it many times and was hoping more people could learn about it and it’s very important history in the Great War, and it’s significance to Australia’s defence
Wish I saw this video before I went to Yokosuka last month for the day to check it out. Bought the 'Z' flag and will go there again next month when my father comes to Japan.
It would be lovely to see some more "Political Chump-Change" Spent on Naval History and it's Preservation, as Big Guns and Old Engine Rooms are a great way to encourage an interest in Learning! :)
Walking the decks of IJN Mikasa shows you how exposed the crew members were for the secondary battery. Along with the USS Olympia at Penns Landing, it is surprising how advanced these ships were for the 1890's.
What was the difference between the traditional gun turret and the modern one who is basically an armored cover over the back part of the gun and the loading system and ammo handling. It usually extend down into the ship or tank but that is not required.
When you do the county's in the next few days, could you maybe do HMAS Canberra or HMS Norfolk as well, like you have done with Warspite and Prince of Wales?
At about 22 seconds into the introduction it appears that the is some misadventure in the right hand gun in the turret in frame. Are you able to provide any information, please.
Ross Venner it’s blown up its bloomers. The exact same footage is used (and digitally colorized) in one of the Apocalypse World War I episodes, although a wider context is not given. Lots of big gun ships inflict “cosmetic damage” to themselves by merely firing their main armament.
@@jamesm3471 - Thank you, it certainly looks impressive. Is this purely cosmetic or does it imply damage to gun, mounting or even turret and crew? Can the gun continue to operate without interruption and what caused it to "blow up its bloomers?"
Ross Venner the thing that caused it to ‘blow its bloomers’ is just operation of the main guns, there is a very significant amount of shock damage sent into the ship by the guns firing, even many later Battleships like the Rodney had issues with this, in Rodney’s case it was much more severe due to mounting 16 inch guns
Deez Noots Old Rodney’s case of self inflicted damage was legendary, albeit no where near the Dante’s Inferno she inflicted on poor Bismarck at damn near point blank range. As Rodnol zealously eviscerated the German battle wagon with full broadsides of 16” shells, all hell broke loose throughout the ship thanks to shock. Walls denuded of all their tiles, anything and in some places, everything made of porcelain or glass exploding, just pure insanity.
I hope you are producing a video about the naval actions in the First Sino-Japanese War. It sounds like the tales of Qing corruption will be as entertaining as the incompetence of the Second Russian Pacific Squadron.
I'm imagining the engineering the preservationists have hopefully been able to fully implement in the prevention of rust in that deep concrete base hard by that body of very wet water. I'm imagining they're well funded and the engineering is something to be proud of... 'And wishing I could afford the ticket to go visit and vibe on such a rare specimen of global imperialist history.
Technical people don't know that this is Japan best battleship ever I would say her record were way better then yamato. In my opinion I prefer mikasa > yamato.
If I remember correctly, the author of AOT wanted to name a character after a warship because he belief that if a female character was named after a warship the series it is in will become successful
YOKOSUKA is pronounced in Japanese with three syllables - yo kos ka, with the second "o" slightly clipped. Get it right or we will pronounce Worchester with three syllables.
Wait, Worchester isn't pronounced with 3 syllables?! how is it pronounced? It's not like I can complain about hard to pronounce names, after all I am from Saskatchewan (sa-ska-chew-wan)
@@edwardteach3000 As I understand it, it's pronounced 'Woorster', the R half-way silent. Same for a few other similarly named places, like Gloucester(Pronounced 'Gloster'). Don't trust any English location names ending with 'chester/cester'. Quite many of them have their middle bit chopped off.
Drach, I'm a big fan of Mikasa. I want to visit her if I ever visit Japan. Where did you get the graphic at 4:50? I'd like to get it. Thx, and really enjoy all your vids and research.
Actually the Chinese gunners were well trained because their hit rates actually were better than Japanese. The problem was that they didn't have shells -- only had solid "shells' as this video already mentioned. Moreover, Chinese only had small number of quick-firing guns; therefore, their rate of fire was much lower than Japanese. Both factors doomed the Chinese.
Chinese filled their shells with pottery and cement? Is this some kind of secret ballistics experiment? If so, that would be a great subject for a video.
Any idea what happened to the 40 Cal 12 in guns that were replaced? I guess they were scrapped but considering they were the guns used against the Russians I would figure some historical significance and maybe used in land batteries?
There is a shrine (I can't remember where) in Japan were part of Mikasa's original guns, specifically the tip of the at least one of the barrels, is preserved and can be seen. I'm not sure if they mean her original 40-caliber or 45-caliber guns, but it is visible. Honestly, I've heard some sources say that the planned upgrade to 45-caliber guns was cancelled, while others said the guns were upgraded. I would love to get clarification on that.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
hi man
what is mess room for and what are they filled up with ?? i never had a battleship museum in my country
@@nitsu2947 A mess room is where the crew ate their meals.
Drachinifel what would happen if two months prior to Archduke Frank Ferdinand’s assassination, the High Seas Fleet pre dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts were replaced with a dozen Tillman IIIs and two dozen Tillman IV-2s?
All necessary infrastructure such as docks, harbors, gun barrel manufacturing, steel forges, hydraulic presses, etc. are upgraded in order to support, the Middleplate oil wells are tapped in order to provide fuel, crews that were initially aboard have the knowledge on how to operate the ships in their heads, in short all necessary improvements to Germany are made.
I’m assuming the Admiralty of Britain goes nuts.
i see
Fun fact: one of the key figures in the effort to restore Mikasa after WWII was none other than Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. While a junior officer stationed in the Far East, Nimitz actually met Admiral Togo at a reception following the Battle of Tsushima, and greatly respected Togo for his aggressive tactics.
keith moore
Idiot
@keith moore Congratulations, you managed to make a baseless accusation without contributing absolutely anything to the conversation, all the while making yourself look like a complete fucking dunce.
@keith moore what
Wolfeson28 Wow, that is pretty cool!
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment I assume they are commenting on if he was referring to Halsey and his decision to chase the Japense Carriers with everything he had while leaving the landing fleet grossly unprotected during the Philippines invasion.
His reason, as he later claimed that he feared them being used as stepping stones to attack the fleet while not entirely unfounded was still a horrible decision and should have led to a disaster for the Americans yet I personally would not label him a complete idiot.
In VIckerstown at Barrow-in-Furness, there is a street called Mikasa Street named after the ship (Barrow-in-Furness is where the ship was built). During WWII the British government asked the townsmen if they could change the name to a more patriotic English name. The townsmen refused, citing the pride they have in building the ship.
yes, Mikasa Street lies between Dominion Street and Avon Street
I just looked that up on Google Maps - that’s so cool!
Mikasa House stands on the old Armstrong Shipyard in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne. But I'd have thought that Yoshino or Hatsuse or Yashima [House] would have been more apt, those two being built on the Tyne, but still, its pretty bloody amazing to see.
Sad footnote, all those three Elswick ships died by mine blasts off Port Arthur : ( RIP The Fallen: Tyneside to Korea-side.
Mikasa es su casa.
...I'll show myself out.
@@godsowndrunk1118 :
Me too.
dammit, i was planning to post that when i saw the thumbnail
No, you can stay. We're enjoying the party.
Rim-shot, Drumbeat.....and drops the mic.
Mikasa knew how to 'dish' it out to China 😅😂😅😝😘
Mr. D: The Mikasa was built at Barrow in Furness shipyard by Vickers and was a more advanced ship in specification than the RN ships of the time being designed by Vickers and not restricted by Admiralty thinking.
I was a designer and builder of steam boats for the RN at Barrow before I retired and a famous predecessor of mine was Barnes Wallis who started there designing airships (built at Barrow) and then the Wellington bomber (there is a blue plaque on the drawing office wall outside for Mr, Wallis).
The other interesting thing at Barrow is the shipyard model of the Mikasa (about 12' long) in the ship museum in Barrow along with other shipyard models (these models were 3D design references for the build); it is well worth going to see the museum, particularly if you are unable to go to Japan.
There is a great history and tradition of famous ships and boats built a Barrow (including the X craft subs and virtually all the nuclear subs, apart from Conqueror) and I felt both proud and privileged to follow in the footsteps of so many great designers and characters from that yard and hopefully contributing in my small way to the continuance of such a great tradition; there is a lot of naval history there.
Kind regards
JohnH
I don't care much for brits, but your ships, were second to none, sir. Respect.
@@sjoormen1 Sometimes I don't care for my fellow Brits either.
Kind regards
Ahh the Mikasa, the last surviving "British" BB.
Exported Pre-Dreadnought permanently moored in a Concrete Pier in Nippon "The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire" ;)
Technically a B not a BB. But still the last of her kind
Everytime I hear this I want to rant about Warspite being scrapped.
@@s.31.l50 Or HMAS Australia being scuttled off Sydney Heads.
The last surviving Japanese, British and pre-dreadnought in the world. That's quite the title.
Love, that you still use the ''5 MIN'' tag for the intro. Proper British understatement, Sir.....awesome channel, Greetings from Germany
Been there and it was well worth it. They had the entire battle of tsushima play out with models. Also it was filled with beautifull shipmodels
Meh, the guns area all fake, much of the restoration is slipshod, most of the internal fittings have been removed, and there's nationalist BS presented as fact. Pass.
@@parsecboy4954 Went to the moon, was all dust. Not as good as Universal Studios. Meh.
Dunno what your point is - there are plenty of museum ships that are well done. Mikasa simply isn’t one of them.
I agree. Went to see it about 2 weeks ago and it was an amazing sight to behold. I would like to go back and spend an entire day looking at all the exhibits. perhaps when i can finally read kanji....
Is that why Azur Lane Mikasa likes models
A couple of additional points. It's the only surviving pre-dreadnought battleship in the world and the only surviving post ironclad British battleship of any kind. Well done the Japanese.
Minor complaint: The photo that appears at the 1:10 mark to explain the ideas of the Jeune École wasn't a torpedo boat. (Yes Drachinifel, I know it's still a creation of the Jeune École, but I want to have some fun with this.). The vessel in photo was built on a torpedo boat hull, but it was actually a prototype of a proposed; but never built, class of warships called bateau-canon (or cannon boat). It was armed with a single 5.5 inch gun (about 140 mm). You might think it was designed to counter enemy torpedo boats; which is a reasonable assumption to make, but an incorrect one. This little 70 ton craft; actually a swarm of these 70 ton boats with their single guns, were meant to attack enemy (read Royal Navy) battleships, or barbette ships, or ironclads. (Whatever you want to call them.) This wasn't just a French idea. Sir William George Armstrong; a noted 19th century engineer and artillery designer, had suggested a similar idea about twenty years before the French Navy thought they could make it work.
The small size and high speed (about 20 knots) of these vessels would be their armor. Plus, this was about a decade before smokeless powder was introduced. Once the big ships started firing their main and secondary batteries, a defacto smoke screen would be created allowing the bateau-canon and torpedo boats to close with the enemy. It is reasonable to ask what a 5.5 inch gun could do to a Royal Navy capital ship of the 1870's and 80's which often had an armor belt up to 20 inches thick. The bateau-canon weren't going to fire at the armor belt or anywhere near it. The bow and stern of these ships were unarmored. In some cases the unarmored sections of ship were very long. The French had done experiments with new high explosive shells which suggested that the blast from even medium caliber shells; like the 5.5 inch gun would fire, were capable of collapsing water tight compartments in the unarmored bow and stern sections of enemy capital ships, at least slowing them down. (The interpretation of the results of these tests were probably overly optimistic.)
The reason why the bateau-canon class was never built was because; as you might expect, when you fire a big gun (even WW1 destroyers didn't carry guns this large) on a very, very small vessel, the shock from firing the gun to port or starboard will make the vessel roll in the opposite direction and then correct and roll back the other way. Reloading and continuing to fire keeps the bateau-canon rolling back and forth making aiming close to impossible. So eventually the Gabriel Charmes; the name of the prototype, was converted into a torpedo boat.
Otherwise known as... "That meme secondary build at tier 2"
I was there mid-July 2019. Beautiful ship. I had fun prowling the decks and training the 3 pounders (?) on the fake locomotive across the park (it never stood a chance). The rain was light and the wind swept the mist in from the harbor. It was quite a moment as I stood on the bridge. Considering the damage done at the behest of the grudge-bearing Russians after the war she is in amazing shape - fake turrets and all. Thanks to Adm. Nimitz and businessman John Rubin for their efforts at saving her. I went to pay my respects to Mikasa in the morning and the Hikawa Maru in the afternoon. It was a great day.
I'm going to japan in may and Mikasa is on the list for the first visit on the first day.
I was there about 2 weeks ago. perhaps the 3 of us were on the ship at the same time and just passed each other while looking at all the models. =P
It's such wonderful thing Mikasa has survived time as many other older and and newer ships have either been sunk or scrapped.
I actually visited this ship when I was at Yokosuka, Japan in my Naval Service days. She is a pretty grand ship.
I was on the USS Reeves and was stationed there. Visited often... very nice
Probably my favourite ship. It's both beautiful and historically significant.
I have a morbid fascination with the battle of Tsushima and Mikasa in particular. Wonder if I'll get to visit it within my lifetime.
I remember going on Mikasa on one of my trips to Japan. It was actually pretty cool, but it was a long time ago, so I wish I could go back again.
She’s a really good looking ship, happy I got to see her
I found a rather interesting article in the archives of my local newspaper, dated about 1908, that mentions that "Ships of the Mikasa type" would have all of their six-inch guns removed in favour of 4 10-inch guns. Obviously this refit never happened, but i fount it quite fascinating. The article also mentioned an early incarnation of the Kongo class.
I had the chance to visit the Mikasa whilst visiting Japan in 1997. It is an amazing vessel and well worth a visit. Mind you, there has been a lot of building in the local area since then. Great videos - thanks.
A video about my favourite ship from my favourite UA-cam naval historian? I knew staying up unreasonably late had it's perks!
Ironically the last surviving British built battleship.
Well unless you count Ships-Of-The-Line like Victory, cruisers like Belfast and Caroline, or all the wrecked ones on the bottom of the sea of course
. I hadn't realized that there were any pre-Dreadnought Battleships that had been preserved. This is awesome. I really wish some of the famous Ships of the past had been preserved, like HMS Dreadnought, USS Enterprise (CV-6), and HMS Warspite.
Sadly most if not all of the iconic warships of yesteryear have been scrapped or used in Operation Crossroads.
USS Essex & USS Newport News . . . . damn what losses. Should also add one of the Invincible CVL/TDCs from the RN. Would have made a lovely centre-piece to the RN North museum in Hartlepool with attendant aircraft onboard e.g. Harrier GR3/FRS1, a Super Etendard, A4 Skyhawk etc.
I cant be the only one surprised it took this long for Mikasa to get a spotlight.
Just been to see this ship on holiday Upper works are starting get quite scabby but the museum on board is amazing -also the upper secondaries are still mechanically free and traverse very well!
Kamchatka: See, someone else saw torpedo boats! They're at 1:27 !
I see a video about pre-dreadnoughts and I leave a like...
Thanks for the video :D
These are happy days.
With so many new and updated videos in such short time.
The power of the Ackarrmann is strong
Great videos. Drachinifel's title music makes me want to go an play the Commandos games!
Heading to Japan this May, and the Mikasa is my first tourist stop! Exciting
I went to visit the Mikasa. It’s a bit out of the way from Tokyo but it’s a good and worthwhile day trip.
Re:zero season 2 announced and Darchinfel upload another video what good start to this day Yes Yes Yes Yes
uuu season 2, did they give a date or just said it'll come?
...YES! " ua-cam.com/video/sq_Fm7qfRQk/v-deo.html
Not the place i would have expected to hear this news, but I still welcome them
@@andresmartinezramos7513Kadokawa that is behind Re:zero and Konosuba have an official UA-cam channel and here a link to trailer ua-cam.com/video/DKC4qGk5-io/v-deo.html
So, something I've been curious about for a while now (and you seem to be the best person I know to ask) it's what happened between the first world war and the second that turned Japan from a country that fought hard-as-hell but fought fairly and treated the vanquished honorably to... well, Nanjing.
I guess you've never heard of the Port Arthur massacre. A few hundred POWs the Russians were holding were maimed and disfigured when the Russians withdrew from the fort. The understandably angry Japanese took their vengeance out on the soldiers and inhabitants of Port Arthur. Newspaper reports paid no attention to the triggering event, and the Japanese reputation was henceforth tarnished going in to the 20th century and colored the limitations on the Japanese in the Naval Arms Treaty; Nanjing only confirmed suspicions already held by many.
And to be accurate, Japan was not a socially progressive nation even after the Meiji Restoration. An aggressive imperial parliamentary Monarchy who entrusted the zaibatsu with tax collection, they were as conservative and prone to fascism as any European nation-state.
The Japanese knew what had happened to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya: all colonized by Europeans. They came out of their isolation in the 1860s hell bent on modernizing too fast to let that happen, and mostly succeeded, defeating Russia in 1905, sending destroyers to the Mediterranean during WW I, colonizing Taiwan and Korea, and were shocked to find they were still second class world citizens, such as California passing a law in 1924 (?) banning American citizens of Japanese ancestry from buying land. Japan is an island nation with almost no raw resources, so colonizing like Europeans was a very natural plan for the time when they began modernizing, even if beginning to got out of style by the 1920s. They decided that if aping the Europeans wasn't good enough to be accepted in the big boys club, they would go their own way. --- WARNING: This is my *simplified* understanding of their attitude. It at least holds together from a plausible "foreign to me" point of view. I know it is much simplified.
The pre dreadnoughts are neat Victorian era ships and it's too bad just one survives today. The only thing even remotely close to them I saw in person is the USS Olympia protected cruiser I visited in Philadelphia, probably around 1957 or '58 when I was 8 or 9 years old. I still have the bronze medallion made from the screws.
I would like to see a video on the HMS Devastation. Historically important in the development of the modern battleships.
Oddly enough the major misfortunes all happened after Admiral Togo had remove his flag from Mikasa.
it's official! he cursed the Mikasa! XD
@@patricklenigan1650 Perhaps not intentionally. Maybe its like the Tower of London Ravens, that there must always be at least one raven living within the castle bounds or the whole edifice will come crashing down
Absolutely love your videos bro! Keep up the great work
Excellent video about this Important ship!
Many thanks - I made a comment on your South American battleships about where the spare parts for the restoration of Mikasa came from ....
Love your videos. You teach me more things than school does lol. Keep up the good work and I hope you make it to number 1
Seeing her is on my bucket-list.
The Chinese ironclads from the battle of Yalau river, Ding Yuen and Qing Yuan were quite powerful for the time, but to give you a sense of how bad corruption in Qing empire was at this point, the money for 12 such battleships had been granted and had "mysteriously disappeared."
About the naval battle during the first Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese fleet was not completely incompetent as you put it. Their gunnery was actually slightly better than the Japanese. The main shortcomings of the Chinese fleet was that their ships were fairly old and did not get any major refit. Especially in terms of quick firing guns, the Chinese only had 3 of them on one ship in the entire fleet while most Japanese cruisers had 10 to 12 such guns. A 4.7 inch or 5 inch quick firing gun can fire 5 to 6 round per minute, but the older 6 inch guns on Chinese ships can only fire once every minute. So in terms of firepower, the Chinese had been outgunned nearly 10 to 1 when you take the rate of fire into account.
What happened at the battle was that the Chinese cruisers quickly died out because of overwhelming Japanese firepower. The two Chinese ironclads were better protected but they couldn’t do much damage to Japanese ships. These ironclads had 12 inch guns but can only fire once every 5 minutes plus the range was very limited because of short barrel. In the end, the Japanese felt they couldn’t sink those ironclads quickly so they just took off and left them alone.
So, given the ships the Chinese had, I don’t think incompetence played any major role in the defeat. I doubt even the Royal Navy could squeeze much out of those outdated equipments.
Well in terms of gunnery accuracy on their main guns, the Japanese did perform better (at 15.3%) than the Chinese (4.1%). Although as you mentioned, the smaller QF guns was the decisive factor in the War. The problem of the Chinese in terms of gunnery was actually discipline and doctrine. The Chinese commenced firing at 5,700m, while the Japanese held their fire until they got into the range of 2,000-3,000m to increase the chances of a hit when they were crossing the Chinese "T". This paid off as these accurate hits incapacitated the Chinese Admiral early on in the battle.
@@vrisbrianm4720 Wasn't he incapacitated by blast from his flagship's guns collapsing the bridge? That's the version I've heard.
I just keep coming back for the smart ass remarks. My favorite is the story bout the sniper getting counter sniped by a naval gun shell lol
The USS Texas was requested to fire on machine gun and sniper positions at Normandy. Getting a 14" HC shell dropped on your head would really ruin your day.
I was wondering if you could do a video on the naval fort of Nepean, on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria Australia, I have visited it many times and was hoping more people could learn about it and it’s very important history in the Great War, and it’s significance to Australia’s defence
Mikasa you say?
Wings Of Freedom intensifies.
I toured her in the 90s. She had fascinating museum of the Russo-japanese war inside.
looks like a trip to Japan is needed now!
Oh hey, I was there last month!
Wish I saw this video before I went to Yokosuka last month for the day to check it out. Bought the 'Z' flag and will go there again next month when my father comes to Japan.
Encased in concrete, fascinating.
Another vacation on the bucket list.
I have been waiting for this ship
Mikasa is like the Texas, A sole survivor and a grand old lady
BB35 the only one left
It would be lovely to see some more "Political Chump-Change" Spent on Naval History and it's Preservation, as Big Guns and Old Engine Rooms are a great way to encourage an interest in Learning! :)
@@bskorupk Luckily the Texas triple expansion steam engines were just restored
@@1TruNub Great News! I'll be looking up more about it! :)
Walking the decks of IJN Mikasa shows you how exposed the crew members were for the secondary battery. Along with the USS Olympia at Penns Landing, it is surprising how advanced these ships were for the 1890's.
What was the difference between the traditional gun turret and the modern one who is basically an armored cover over the back part of the gun and the loading system and ammo handling.
It usually extend down into the ship or tank but that is not required.
When you do the county's in the next few days, could you maybe do HMAS Canberra or HMS Norfolk as well, like you have done with Warspite and Prince of Wales?
I love this ship.
That intro had me literally spiting my tea
He'll get better with practice, but for a first attempt I reckon he does alright.
Mikasa!!!! Erin!!!!
seeingeyegod the power of the Ackarrman is strong
I love this ship sooo much
She’s fun to play in wows. Go full 2ndary spec and just sail into the enemy’s.
At about 22 seconds into the introduction it appears that the is some misadventure in the right hand gun in the turret in frame. Are you able to provide any information, please.
Ross Venner it’s blown up its bloomers. The exact same footage is used (and digitally colorized) in one of the Apocalypse World War I episodes, although a wider context is not given. Lots of big gun ships inflict “cosmetic damage” to themselves by merely firing their main armament.
@@jamesm3471 - Thank you, it certainly looks impressive. Is this purely cosmetic or does it imply damage to gun, mounting or even turret and crew? Can the gun continue to operate without interruption and what caused it to "blow up its bloomers?"
Ross Venner the thing that caused it to ‘blow its bloomers’ is just operation of the main guns, there is a very significant amount of shock damage sent into the ship by the guns firing, even many later Battleships like the Rodney had issues with this, in Rodney’s case it was much more severe due to mounting 16 inch guns
Deez Noots Old Rodney’s case of self inflicted damage was legendary, albeit no where near the Dante’s Inferno she inflicted on poor Bismarck at damn near point blank range. As Rodnol zealously eviscerated the German battle wagon with full broadsides of 16” shells, all hell broke loose throughout the ship thanks to shock. Walls denuded of all their tiles, anything and in some places, everything made of porcelain or glass exploding, just pure insanity.
How about an episode on the life of an Auxiliary like the USS Dixie (AD-14) or maybe even some more deserving tender/support ship.
USS Camden aoe2
Or the USS Kiowa. A fleet tug that, at one point, flew an admiral's pennant.
I play her a lot in World of Warships. Almost have a ten point captain to get the secondary build. Do a vid on the first BB Texas please.
could you do one on the "lucky" Indefatigable class Battle Cruiser HMS New Zealand
I assume you are now settling in your new abode and have so far remained squirrel free.
Interesting. Those fully armored barbettes (aka turrets) appear to be about two steps more modern than was the rest of the ship.
Well she was built in a highly transitional time after all
Nice! Been waiting for this
The sole survivor
I hope you are producing a video about the naval actions in the First Sino-Japanese War. It sounds like the tales of Qing corruption will be as entertaining as the incompetence of the Second Russian Pacific Squadron.
I'm imagining the engineering the preservationists have hopefully been able to fully implement in the prevention of rust in that deep concrete base hard by that body of very wet water. I'm imagining they're well funded and the engineering is something to be proud of... 'And wishing I could afford the ticket to go visit and vibe on such a rare specimen of global imperialist history.
Technical people don't know that this is Japan best battleship ever I would say her record were way better then yamato.
In my opinion
I prefer mikasa > yamato.
Mikasa from Attack on titan was named after IJN Mikasa if I remember correctly
don't even think about it
If I remember correctly, the author of AOT wanted to name a character after a warship because he belief that if a female character was named after a warship the series it is in will become successful
attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Mikasa_Ackerman its from the triva part of this wiki page
@@klipsfilmsmelbourne uh... why?
It was also the focus of an episode of Voltes V.
Mikasa boat is BEST boat.
I‘m in the top 100!
YOKOSUKA is pronounced in Japanese with three syllables - yo kos ka, with the second "o" slightly clipped. Get it right or we will pronounce Worchester with three syllables.
Wait, Worchester isn't pronounced with 3 syllables?! how is it pronounced? It's not like I can complain about hard to pronounce names, after all I am from Saskatchewan (sa-ska-chew-wan)
@@edwardteach3000 As I understand it, it's pronounced 'Woorster', the R half-way silent. Same for a few other similarly named places, like Gloucester(Pronounced 'Gloster').
Don't trust any English location names ending with 'chester/cester'. Quite many of them have their middle bit chopped off.
EREN!!
Nice video! Can you do one about the Colony class cruiser HMS Trinidad? AKA, the ship that torpedoed itself 😂
Mmmmm... I was there in 1997 on HMAS Hobart.. I walked around the park but never went on board..
Best girl... I mean ship
⊂(´･◡･⊂ )∘˚˳°
Are you planning on the Des Moines class at any point in the future?
All I can say is, she is absolutely beautiful in person.
You should do a video on the HMCS Sackville
I like this number 574. :)
So, the Japanese had a 6-6 Fleet Program before their 8-8 Program?
this also makes her the last british pre-dreadnought and the last british battleship
Viorel viorel the last british built battleship you mean
@@nordic5628
yes
OH NO!!! Japanese Torpedo boats! Don't tell the Kamchatka...
A video on the Battle of Tsushima ?
2 top fuel drag engines and we would be good to go
do a video on the HNLMS De Ruyter (1935) cruiser please
Drach, I'm a big fan of Mikasa. I want to visit her if I ever visit Japan. Where did you get the graphic at 4:50? I'd like to get it. Thx, and really enjoy all your vids and research.
Drop me an email :)
Actually the Chinese gunners were well trained because their hit rates actually were better than Japanese. The problem was that they didn't have shells -- only had solid "shells' as this video already mentioned. Moreover, Chinese only had small number of quick-firing guns; therefore, their rate of fire was much lower than Japanese. Both factors doomed the Chinese.
Mikasa es su casa.
I think that in the restoration they used pieces from a chilean or argentinian old battleship.
Chinese filled their shells with pottery and cement? Is this some kind of secret ballistics experiment? If so, that would be a great subject for a video.
Nah, just the Qing government being corrupt. I do hope Drach covers the Qing navy and the first Sino Japanese war someday though.
Sad to find out the chinese could've held out, if it wasn't for the ammunition.
Any idea what happened to the 40 Cal 12 in guns that were replaced? I guess they were scrapped but considering they were the guns used against the Russians I would figure some historical significance and maybe used in land batteries?
There is a shrine (I can't remember where) in Japan were part of Mikasa's original guns, specifically the tip of the at least one of the barrels, is preserved and can be seen. I'm not sure if they mean her original 40-caliber or 45-caliber guns, but it is visible. Honestly, I've heard some sources say that the planned upgrade to 45-caliber guns was cancelled, while others said the guns were upgraded. I would love to get clarification on that.