The Drydock - Episode 268
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- 00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:53 - Were flat-side first rates a bad idea?
00:04:47 - How do you replace the guns on a ship of the line?
00:07:29 - Had America lost the revolutionary War, what impact would its resources have on the British Navy during the Napolonic wars?
00:12:04 - In the 1830's/1850's, did the combination of (potentially) sparking funnels and sails in close proximity actually pose a problem?
00:14:10 - Why were naval mines once called 'torpedos', and how, why, when, etc did the nomenclature change to the modern definition of, and distinction between 'mines' and 'torpedoes'?
00:17:35 - Why was USS Iowa restricted to full speed only in water greater than 600ft deep?
00:20:38 - If the US Navy wasn't able to acquire the 20mm oerlikon or the bofors 40mm do you see there being a timeline where they would press the US army's 37mm M1 auto cannon into service in a navalized form? Or would they try to upgrade the 1.5inch Chicago piano?
00:21:59 - Do we have solid information on the ratio of flowers destroyed compared to submarines destroyed during the war?
00:23:32 - How many ships in the Royal Navy actually had "Royal" in their name?
00:26:56 - When was the first Naval battle in 'the new world' post 1492, and which war was the first to feature a major Naval theater in the America's?
00:29:38 - Which would have had a higher impact factor on the naval war in the Mediterranean: better leadership in the Regia Marina early in the war, or better quality control in the factories that produced naval ammunition?
00:32:18 - What is the difference in role and equipment between a navy yard, fleet base, section base, and other levels of naval bases?
00:36:22 - How do time fused shells work?
00:39:39 - I recently discovered that the Papal States intermittently had its own navy over the course of several centuries prior to Italian unification. Could you perhaps discuss its history, briefly?
00:43:48 - Were there any two enemy warships that fought each other more times than USS Enterprise (CV-6) and the IJN's Zuikaku in history?
00:45:26 - What damage did Yorktown take to Midway from Coral Sea?
00:51:18 - How much air conditioning capacity would it have taken to keep Prince of Wales and Repulse's fire control functioning?
00:53:28 - Why did the UK try to save HMS Conway and not Implacable or Warspite?
00:57:46 - How dramatically would daily life for a sailor differ today compared to a common sailor in the dreadnought/Great War era?
Having been here since a few days after Drydock 1 released, it's still amazing how many *good* questions had not yet been asked of the channel in all these years.
Well, if we started grading questions and only took the absolute best... with how long the time period drach covers is we have still barely scratched the surface. So to me that is not really surprising. Oh god I'm going full on Autismus prime brain again😅😂
@@adenkyramud5005 I actually do believe, personally, there are lots of fans of this channel with autism (I do have a social psychology degree!), I can tell with the incredibly intense and directed questions, often with lots of preamble, but it's great for them to have a safe platform here for the hobby and Drach treats every question with respect.
Dragging a cannon out through a gun port sounds like a great way to create a very small artificial reef very quickly.
Privacy of space dramatically improved for crews since turn of century. The crew of USS Olympia slept in hammocks and had a shoebox of personal storage on the gun deck versus the relatively spacious quarters on USS Lexington.
My dad served aboard the USS San Jacinto inn WW2. He slung a hammock in a passageway and lived out of his sea bag until he made Petty Officer 3rd and rated a bunk and a locker
@@ROBERTN-ut2il def won’t argue, I know during WWII ships were frequently over their planned capacity and men were frequently atop one another.
Merely pointing out Olympia was hammocks from the rafters unless you were an officer. Like a warship of age of sail, it was essentially an open floor plan - no separation of living space from eating space/work space/combat space.
The crews of wooden sailing warships were astoundingly high. I cannot fathom how 700 men were accomodated on a first rate.
Thanks again Alex for an entertaining hour while i make coffee and breakfast us. Cheers to you and the missus! Hope to visit with you next year after we travel across on on the QE2!
A school friend told me that his father helped build that ship. Using aluminium.
Regarding reasons for a ship reducing speed when in shallow water, I've got an old book called "Supership" by Noel Mostert (Book Club Associates, 1975) which is about the challenges of operating the then-new generation of supertankers of 100,000 tons and over. Among other things, it states that studies had shown that the turning circle of such large ships increased sharply (by double or more) when the depth of water under the keel was less than 40% of the ship's draft, and with less than 3 feet under the keel the ship may become virtually uncontrollable. I don't know if this would also apply to a ship of Iowa's size.
Indeed, on July 18, 2006 the cruise ship Crown Princess went out of control due to sailing too fast in shallow water. Twenty-four passengers were seriously injured as the ship heeled up to 24 degrees to starboard in 10 seconds (NTSB report at www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/MAR0801.pdf; see p24 for a description of the shallow water effects). It doesn't seem to be an effect limited to only super-giant ships, but tends to be more extreme with greater displacements. With length x beam x draft of 947 x 118 x 27 feet, the Crown Princess seems comparable to USS Iowa.
The story of css virgina also notes steering difficulties when it had just a couple feet of water under the keel
25:47 Interesting fact the HMS Royalist on screen a Dido class Anti-Aircraft cruiser was earmarked to work with the battleship HMS Vanguard, as britains anti-Sverdlov task force. I believe it even had a refit to make it better in this role. However some bright spark politician thought I know what would be equivalent to one of the most sophisticated and advanced battleships on the planet and a recently refitted heavily armed Anti-Aircraft crusier, Two aging light cruisers.
Ah yes, the age ole good idea fairy.
Still of the opinion that Cape Engano was a missed opportunity by both the USN and IJN for Enterprise and Zuikaku to have a one on one carrier battle.
Halsey would have never allowed it. He was of the opinion that he would make the japanese language nothing more than a memory. Plus, a fair fight in warfare is remarkably unwise. Bring the the whole hammer, not just the handle
No it wouldn't the IJN was out of plane and out of pilots. It would have been an execution, not a battle
Wasn't Cape Engaño (coincidentally, not ironically, translated to deceit) set specifically because Zuikaku no longer had decent pilots?
@@baronvandragon2427😂
@@baronvandragon2427but if you bonk them once with the hammer they go down immediately, if I bring just the handle i can bonk them multiple times. More bonk means more fun 😂
It was mentioned in WW 2 in real-time channel that at battle of Philippine sea Japanese attack required the combined efforts of land and carrier based aircraft for any chance of success but the land based ones suffered heavy casualties leading up to the battle but the army conveniently forgot to tell the navy. What would have happened if the IJN knew would they call off the operation?
Regarding the lot of the common sailor's life in Great War warships vs. more modern ones: Based almost solely upon my recent reading of HMS Royal Sovereign and her Sister Ships by Peter C. Smith, and comparing it to my experience in the early 90s aboard a USN CGN, the biggest difference I could see was ventilation & air conditioning. The Virginia class had had ship-wide AC built into the ship, including all berthing areas.
There was also a big difference in where the crew was expected to bunk. At least on the R-class, the accounts in that book suggest that large numbers of enlisted were sleeping in what would have been mess areas, which is very different from what I saw in my ship. (or even any "modern" USN museum ship I'd ever seen.)
Mess decks would be available outside of meal times for crew to hang out, socialize, read, run lectures for some things (I did a few All Hands Radcon lectures in our mess decks when the division in question lacked a space open enough for most of the division's personnel to gather in one place.) but they weren't where any crew were expected to be sleeping or stringing hammocks, which is how In interpreted some of the passages in the Peter C. Smith book.
Rooster tails. There can be a significant negative to high speed operations in shallow water. In WWII, Dad said he was escorting a convoy to Rio de Janerio, and the skipper decided to impress someone by doing a high speed run near the port. They quickly developed "condenseritis', and, after inspection, spent the next several days pulling buckets of small shells out of the innards.. (He also mentioned that on the return, they got a strong periscope signal on the radar, and started a high speed run to depth charge, which almost had them collide with a recently sunken freighter with the upper masts above water. Oops.
@ 51:18: Air Conditioning aboard ship uses "Chilled Water" where an electric powered refrigeration plant cools water down and then you pipe the water to and from what is basically a car/truck's radiator (Bath) with a fan to cool what you want to be cooled.
So, find a way to run a pair electrical cables to an area above decks (so you can have the refrigeration plant can have an air cooled condenser .vs. a sea cooled heat exchanger. Unless you plug it into part of your fire main than you just have to find somewhere that has enough room!). And then run the supply and return pipes to the space and put in a "head basher" somewhere in the overhead and hope that the space is crewed by average height or shorter people!
Drach, about a few month ago I posed to one of your pinned comments for Q&A a question about shipboard newsletters/newspapers that were operated by the ship's crew: asking how prevalent were ship newspapers, which navies allowed them and when? And who had control over the contents? But it seems it hasn't been discussed, is that a question that will be looked at at some point in the future still? I posed this after I started collecting originals of USS Oklahoma's Powwow, and the weekly newsletters that were also sometimes published. These ships newspapers are absolutely amazing!
At 36:44- time fuse shells. Supplement to Drach's discussion of time fuses. One must be careful not to confuse the fuse arming mechanism and the fuse detonation mechanism. Variants of both can involve timers, for different purposes. I don't recall the date, but coincident with rifled gun barrels came the fuse arming mechanism which operates using the centrifugal force of the projectile spinning as it exits the gun barrel- at a design-determined threshold of centrifugal force or rotational speed, the fuse physically is enabled to function and awaits its detonation trigger. This arming mechanism was used with both contact and proximity fuses. With contact fuses, an added timer could set a detonation delay to allow the projectile fractions of a second to penetrate armor and/or penetrate into the target's interior space, and so this combination could be used against varied armor protection simply by setting the delay time from 0 to various fractions of and whole seconds, with the delay time chosen based on expected armor type and thickness, or lack of- hence was used on various projectiles including but not restricted to shipboard and land-based HE and armor piercing shells. My guess would be that it was developed after purely time-based fuse arming, which was developed after straight up delayed detonation fuses lacking any arming mechanism. The arming mechanism was introduced to render explosive projectiles and their very sensitive fuses safe to store and handle without unexpected detonation. The arming mechanism is why you can drop a projectile even from great height and not get a detonation, something which can't be said of projectiles manufactured before arming mechanisms were invented. That said, even the best arming mechanism can't stop an unusually and overly sensitive primer, fuse or main charge explosive from going off, which is another discussion point on specific explosives, manufacturing quality control, storage conditions and duration, and environmental hazards such as high heat, high-frequency vibration, and EM fields, radiation and discharges.
43:48 In particular, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War a personal rivalry between Edward Spragge and Cornelis Tromp extended to their ships, the Prince Royal and Gouden Leuw which finally ended with Spragge's death.
As for later examples: during the Russo-Japanese War IJN Fuji participated in 3 attacks on Port Arthur and the Battle of Yellow sea facing Russian battleships like the Pobieda there.
The food on a WW1/WW2 ship may not have been up to modern standards but I bet any age of sail sailor would not have complained.
Sailors always complain about the food!
@@benwilson6145I don't think it is limited to sailors. 😊
My dad was on a carrier in WW2. Many times he would finish up fixing a piece of electronic gear at Zero Dark Thirty Bells in the Night Watch and go down to the galley to beg. If the cooks had the time, they would slice a thick slice of Spam, mate it with an equally thick slice of canned cheese (American, Cheddar, Pimento - What ever the Store Ship had that day they resupplied) on still warm from the oven bread. That was considered good eating in the Western Pacific circa 1944-45. Still it was better than what my Aunt Rose, an Army Nurse, was eating on the Burma Front - C or K rations if they were lucky, the dreaded British "Compo" rations if they weren't
At the time of the union of british ctowns? How many Scottish Navy ships were added to the Royal Navy?, and how easy were they integrated?
I’d say the Yorktowns and Shokakus as a whole might take the record for being nemesis ships at the level of classes.
Chief Yeoman Bill Norberg mentioned that Enterprise’s crew was cheering when word got back to them about Shokaku’s loss at Philippine Sea. Later Zuikaku was at the top of Enterprise’s hit list at Leyte Gulf and a VT-20 pilot mentioned that when he passed Zuikaku when it was going down. He gave “final honours” to them.
That last picture with all the guys in their bunks pretty much shows how packed a warship could be. Not much room at all, but once you were actually asleep it probably didn't matter for most.
Depending on how quickly the American Revolution failed, there might never have been a French Revolution and thus no Napoleonic Wars. A major impetus for the French Revolution was the need to call the Estates General to deal with the horrible fiscal mess the French Crown was in after aiding the American rebels. Less aid means less need to call the Estates General, and thus less chance of a French Revolution.
France not paying a ton of money to aid the colonies/fight Britain themselves might have delayed the French Revolution, but I doubt it could have prevented it. The French political and financial system was so irrevocably broken by the late 18th century that I think a French Revolution in some form based on the same historical factors was virtually inevitable.
Plus, even if France misses out on that particular chance to fight an expensive war against Britain, how long do you really think it would be before they found another opportunity. :)
Very much enjoyed your comments on HMS Conway - could you take a few moments in a future Drydock to talk about the attempted preservation and loss of USS Hartford, Farragut's flagship at Mobile Bay? She held on until 1956 before sinking at dockside. Best regards from the US -
Drydock up! Begin loop.
15:52 Another archaic term that, like 'torpedo', got re-generalized was 'dirigible' (able to be steered or guided) -- Louis Brennan's invention of the 'dirigible torpedo', powered by pulling wires off spools in the body of the torpedo, was the original usage for torpedos; 'dirigible' became the defining term when "dirigible airship", the term for any powered lighter-than-air vessel capable of directing its motion (as opposed to drifting balloons) had "dirigble' come to be synonymous with 'rigid airship' (like zeppelins), even though it wasn't the structure, but being able to be steered, that was the distinguishing factor -- blimps are dirigibles, too. Just one more case of the populace latching on to the wrong part of a term and misusing it enough that it becomes common usage.
I love the jaunty ding-ding opening jingle
14:15 but for the invention of the locomotive torpedo, and then the adoption of "mine", we would have specialized "torpedo-sweeper" ships. The badges of such ships would had been beautiful
I find notable that english language had to make distinction between "sea-mine" and "land-mine", even when the original mine/mining was always done on land.
23:56
Shore bombardment was a major factor in the war against the Aztecs. Some of the mutiny attempts under Cortés and his on-off relationship with his government might also be called naval battles.
Made my own comment about this before I saw you beat me to it. :)
26:56 There was also the naval campaign on Lake Texcoco during Cortes' conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Obviously much smaller in scale than a blue-water fleet action, but certainly significant.
Depending on what you accept as a naval battle, the fighting on Lake Titicaca during the Siege of Tenochtitlan might push the earliest New World naval battle a few decades further back.
Drach- regarding sailor free time, can’t speak for other navies, but USN doctrine is to keep them busy for all waking hours other than meals, a couple hours on Sunday, and maybe a half hour before bed. Clean, maintain, document, prepare. If you’re just standing about a chief will rapidly put an end to it. Idle sailors are considered trouble waiting to happen, and besides, on modern budgets crews aren’t big enough to have anyone not working.
probably the most famous ship to serve in the papal navy was the San Paulo which had previously been HMS Speedy under the Command of Lord Cochrane
Just a little clarification on "Naval Base". It's not consistently applied in the naming of facilities in the US with regards to ships; can't speak for other countires. In the US technically a "Naval Base" is where "operations" can occur, but not necessarily involving ships. For example, China Lake in California is in the middle of the desert but is listed as a "Naval Base" as it is used for naval training, primarily weapon systems. It's officially named a "Station", but officially listed as a "Base". Another example is "Joint Base Andrews" in Maryland which obviously has base in the name but is likewise landlocked and also for naval air operations training. So it gets a little mushy.
I should add that the US navy's way of referring to "bases" in daily conversation is also quite different. I worked for an aerospace contractor and occasionally supported naval projects. I remember one time I needed to set up a meeting and was to invite an admiral. I asked his coordinator when he'd be available and the reply was 'Admiral XYZ will be on base (at the facility) the week of XYZ'. Even though it was an engineering facility and not a "base" by any real definition, they often would call it a "base". Interestingly I also never figured out the exact protocol of calling someone by rank. Even though he was an admiral, sometimes he was refered to as "Captain". I asked about it and was told as a civilian I am to always call him admiral (or his official rank) but at times he was refered to by uniformed personnel as "Captain" as he was the highest ranking person at that facility. Even a lieutenant would be called captain in certain circumstances if at that time he or she was the highest ranking person at the facility. Since I knew what I was suppose to call him, I didn't ask any more about it but there was some protocol as to when you call him admiral and when you call him captain.
@@antoninuspius1747I'm guessing the captain thing comes from how things are on a ship where the captain does not necessarily have the rank of captain but is still referred to as such because that is his position on that ship. And with the position of captain usually being the highest ranking position aboard, one can easily see how it could become tradition to address the highest ranking naval officer as captain without any regard for their actual rank.
The Yorktown class machinery is a very interesting gap in USN steam plants in that 3 of her boilers were exclusively just for superheating the steam from the 6 other boilers, at least thats what I can gather there is very little information I have been publicly able to find on them. Supposedly the 2 boilers damaged at Coral Sea were the superheat boilers. If she was running only 1 superheat boiler for her main engines, I imagine it would cause her speed to drop to 20 knots at best. If the other 2 were duct tape repaired to get her up to 27 or 30 knots. As an interesting aside, the cruisers Quincy and Vincennes had the same machinery type, with 2 of their 8 boilers being describes as Superheat boilers.
Can you do a British naming conventions in the 20th century. Battleships seem haphazard and yet the County and flower classes and makes clear sense.
It's perfectly logical as long as you have a classical education, a working knowledge of previous naval uses of names, and good knowledge of mediaeval history, and went to the same school with the chap doing the naming. On the plus side, it's probably kept classics and british history professors around the world with secret service stipends as Britannia's enemies tried to figure out the underlying logic.
My family was one of the ones who immigrated to Canada during the revolution. We didn't return to the us until near about 1820
wrt the question about substitutes in the absence of the 20mm and 40mm guns, in my reading about the navy's AA gun competition, while the Vickers performed fairly well, apparently it did not function well using USN smokeless powder, and no-one in the US made cordite. Given that issue, I'm thinking they would have gone with the 37mm. The 37 apparently had a tendency to jam, but a proper cooling jacket may have solved that. The army version had a water chest, and, the crew was supposed to stop firing every 60 or 90 rounds, and flush water through the gun to cool it. The manual for the gun says if it jams, it's because it's too hot. The 37 was developed into a model that could be fed from either right or left, with simple modification, and switched from rigid clips, to metal belt ammo. The 37 has a significantly higher ceiling than the Vickers, though not quite as high as the Bofors. Given that the gun and ammo were already in production in the US, I would think logistics would have won the day and the 37mm would have been adapted. The 20mm Hispano never seemed to work right for the US, which is why US fighters tended to have .50 cal machine guns instead. Here's an odd thought. The aircraft version of the 37mm was light enough to use on a free mount, as was done on PT boats. A while back I looked at the numbers, and, iirc, the aircraft 37mm had range performance competitive with the 20mm. While it's rate of fire was slower, the weight of the shells was greater, so each would do much more damage to the target. If I was running BuOrd, I could see the M1 in twin and quad mounts replacing the Bofors, and the M4 replacing the Oerlikon.
What wasn't restored on USS Yorktown was some of her super heaters on her boilers. The biggest problem was her watertight integrity. When she took the first torpedo her list was very quick. Captain Buckmaster ordered abandon ship as he was concerned she would capsize. When she didn't he reboarded her with a damage control/salvage team. Captain Buckmaster was criticized for abandoning ship too early. He was exonerated by a navl board convened for the mater. Captain Buckmaster later achieved flag rank.
Dry Dock on a Saturday morning. Ahhhhh
One of the big quality of life factors in the USN is the ever greater pressure to reduce staffing levels. In part this is driven by the simple fact of personnel expense and part through the increase in automation. Anyone living in a "do more with less people" operating environment knows that true leisure time gets squeezed.
Drach could (maybe should!) do a "Navy Trivia Book"
maybe get guiness to sponsor it?
How's about a series of books on FAQs in dry docks, their initial answers, and the timeliness of answers that lead to the longest threads?
Between the burning external fuze (which was cut to length - which is why artillerymen speaking of "cutting the fuze" to this day when they are setting the timing on a modern fuze) and the mechanical time fuze there was a period where the timing device was a chain of powder inside the fuze body. The shock of firing would fire a small primer which set fire to a train of powder or delay pellets. Before firing, the head of the fuze was twisted to bring a port leading to the detonator to a spot on the powder chain corresponding to the desired time of flight. Once the fuze burned to that point, flame would flash down the tube, causing the detonator to explode which set off the main charge.
I read that the "shock of firing" could be the centrifugal force caused by spinning up the barrel and that would release the safety mechanism and give a start time for over runs to destroy the shell. Don't know what they do with smooth bores.
Brilliant observation on time availability on board. Modern times not always better.
@ 45:26: The difference in speed(s) could be due to the Boilers and the Turbines "riding the 130s", where you bypass the 110% & 120% Safety (Relief) Valves and run the ship at 125% (i.e. 25% OVER Rated) pressure.... So normally we're limited to X knots speed, when we're in combat we are going to go a bit faster!
Till you don't. But death only comes once, just wait,
No way to prove this, but my uncle (since passed) was aboard Kittyhawk when Kennedy was assassinated. His story was that they sailed north towards Kamchatka at 42 knots. WAY beyond even what people speculate was the classified top speed.
re: Roostertails. In 1981 I saw a Spruance class destroyer at OMFG emergency flank, and she was throwing 15 to 20-foot high roostertails. Her fantail was either awash or nearly so, and the bow spray was obscuring the bridge. This was in fairly calm seas, which was highly unusual for the Indian Ocean at that time of year. In any case, it was definitely not shallow water. That said, could a large, pre-1950 warship even do that? I know that the Adams class destroyer I was on most certainly could not, and she was 1960.
20:30 my understanding from this was the rosster tail was not the issue but sympathic vibrations reflecting back would make the ongoing high speed vibrations worse. The Nimitz class and the Enterprise had no such restrictions and at 33+ knots the rooster tail would be higher then fan tail about one hundred feet aft of the stern.
Alway wondered, in the age of gunpowder - where did it all come from? How much could a nation like England or France produce?
Britain had the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich
"An ammunition laboratory (i.e. workshop) was set up at the Warren in 1695, overseen by the Comptroller of Fireworks. Manufacture of ammunition had previously taken place within a Great Barn on the tilt-yard at Greenwich Palace (an offshoot of the royal armoury there); but in 1695 construction of Greenwich Hospital began on the palace site, so the laboratory was relocated downstream at Woolwich (the barn building itself was even disassembled and rebuilt at the Warren). In 1696 Laboratory Square was built to house its operations, which included manufacture of gunpowder, shell cases, fuses and paper gun cartridges; it consisted of a quadrangle with a gateway at the north end, buildings along either side and a clock tower at the south end, beyond which further buildings were ranged. The manufacturing process was conducted by hand, overseen by a Chief Firemaster; early paintings show artisans at work in the courtyards among pyramid stacks of shells. A pair of pavilions, which once faced each other across the centre of the courtyard, are now the oldest surviving buildings on the Arsenal site; they were being restored for residential use in 2013.
The Comptroller, Royal Laboratory, had oversight of the Royal Gunpowder Mills in addition to the Woolwich manufactory. From time to time there were public demonstrations of the work of the Laboratory, often in Hyde Park, and by the mid-18th century it was customary for the Royal Laboratory to provide an official 'fireworks display' on occasions such as coronations, peace treaties, royal jubilees etc"
"In the 1780s there was fresh concern over security, quality and economy of supply. The deputy comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, Major, later Lieutenant General, Sir William Congreve advocated that the Waltham Abbey Mills should be purchased by the Crown to ensure secure supplies and to establish what would now be called a centre of excellence for development of manufacturing processes and to establish quality and cost standards by which private contractors could be judged. In October 1787 the Crown purchased the mills from John Walton for £10,000, starting a 204-year ownership. Congreve was a man of immense drive and vision, a pioneer of careful management, quality control and the application of the scientific method. Under his regime manufacture moved from what had been a black art to, in the context of its day, an advanced technology. The distinguished engineer John Rennie coined the phrase ‘The Old Establishment’ in his 1806 report on the Royal Gun Powder Factory. The term refers to the gunpowder mills when they were still privately owned, before they were acquired by The Crown in 1787.
Reflecting this, the mills were able to respond successfully in volume and quality to the massive increases in demand which arose over the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars from 1789, culminating in the victory at Waterloo in 1815. In the years following Waterloo the Mills entered a period of quiet with a steep decline in staff numbers and production levels. However, there was a steady advance in machinery and process development"
Fifty years or so ago I went for a walk on Dartmoor through a place called Powdermills, near Two Bridges. You could still pick up little bits of sulphur scattered on the ground.
Norfolk Naval Base and Norfolk Naval Shipyard are actually seperate organizations. Not really co-located: NNSY is actually in Portsmouth, VA. (BTW, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is in Kittery, Maine),
RE: mines. I believe the use of sappers to dig under castle walls and cause them to fail by removing their supporting foundation - to undermine them - predates the use of explosives.
that is true (AFAIK) the technique was as you dug you had to brace the roof and sides. the final end was filled with flammables and set alight. This burnt out the bracing causing your own mine to collapse. The material falling down made a gap above causing a chain reaction of material falling down until hopefully enough of the wall came down that you a "practical" breach. While not clear that means not needing specialized gear like ladders so every infantry can now just run in... possibly to find the defenders fell back to the next line of defense.
33:30
Are those _New York_ and _Texas_
The 57mm/60 Bofors was adopted by Sweden and the Netherlands in 1950 IIRC although it would not enter service until 1953. In France (with their own mounting) it was adopted in 1951. Development I suspect started near the end or shortly after WWII. There was a single land-based towed version adopted in 1954 and used by Sweden and Belgium.
Prior to that Sweden had a 57mm AA gun. These were old Bofors low-angle anti-torpedo boat guns (Model 1906 IIRC) which were installed on twin 40mm hand-worked mountings and given semi-automatic vertical sliding wedge breech blocks. Installed on old coastal defense vessels which could not take larger and more effective guns, I have to question their value. I have no idea if the ammunition used in the later automatic 57mm L60 is similar or the same. The later L70 gun uses the same ammunition as the L60, just fired from a longer barrel to improve ballistics.
@ 53:28: I think that they could have saved HMS Queen Elizabeth (convert her now unused boiler room(s) into a compartment for instruction, etc.)
This is based on who was the oldest child of the (then sovereign) King George VI and his obvious successor, plus the Queen she was named after.....
I've been on both Victory and Warrior. Crews accommodations looked the same with a little more room it seemed on Warrior. Spent a weekend many years ago on Yorktown, CV-10. We were in a crew berth around the forward elevator well. Looked a lot like the last picture he showed but with a bit more room.
In a lot of the"alt history" questions you get you are asked to time travel? So , is there a time/ person you " concider" that may of been a naval time traveller? Eg some naval personnage who was so "ahead" of their time, either in tactics or weaponary, they could be from the future?
Based on my experience in the USN in the 1977-1996 timeframe, time at sea for the ship's company in the USN consists of a work day and standing your watches. Outside of those, you time, such as it was, was yours to do with as you pleased. Reading, playing cards, extra training (such as ESWS), sleep, etc.
The work day is pretty much what it sounds like. 0730 muster for quarters and then 0800-1600 work day with an hour for lunch. "Work" consisting of doing maintenance on equipment, painting, cleaning, etc...
As far as standing watches, if you were lucky you'd have 3 watch sections so you would have a 4 hours on, 8 hours off watch rotation. If you weren't so lucky and you only had 2 qualified watchstanders for that station, they'd be doing a 6 on, 6 off rotation. The plus side of a "port and report" like this is you didn't have a work day. Yeah, if you're on a 4 and 8 rotation, you have the work day in addition to the watches. If you happen to have the 4-8 watches, you're standing watch/working from 0400 until 2000. Though you could try and catch a nooner at lunch. Some folks actually preferred that watch rotation as it gives you the largest contiguous slice of time off (I wasn't one of them because I understand math).
Thanks Drach.
New drinking game: Drink anytime Drach says "In any case..." PS. Absolutely love all your work!
On the Flower class causality comparison a hidden contribution is that for each Flower a sector of defense could be covered. Each of those was either freeing up a better hunting vessel or quite often being a position that would never have had a defense at all.
How much of a headstart did Villeneuve actually have and how much did Nelson claw back? And how? Better sailing characteristics? Or something else?
Nelson never caught up, The Allied Fleet was safe in Cadiz by the time Nelson made it back from his vacation in the Islands. News that his replacement was enroute caused Villeneuve to sortie, resulting in Trafalgar
I would say it is a lot more complicated than that. From my (probably not 100% accurate) recollection:
Nelson managed to get into the Caribbean with Villeneuve thinking he was still in the Mediterranean. The French just happened to catch some British merchant ships in time for the crews to tell them that Nelson had arrived.
Nelson arrived at Bermuda while Villeneuve was off Antigua. Assuming Villeneuve would flee the British fleet, there were two possible routes for the French to take from Antigua to go back to Europe, the British guessed wrong and sailed past Villeneuve arriving in Antigua the day after the French left.
Nelson then guessed that Villeneuve would go to Cadiz and when he reached Gibraltar with no sign he decided to go back to England.
Meanwhile, the French were going to Galicia. Villeneuve encountered a different British fleet and fought an inconclusive action (Cape Finisterre) which kept him from reaching the Northern coast of Spain from which he could travel to Brest. When he next attempted to reach France, he saw a small detachment of British ships, and assuming it was part of a large fleet, withdrew to Cadiz to rest, repair, and refit. While the French were undergoing repairs, a hastily assembled British force blockaded Cadiz and word went to Nelson who sailed off to the fateful encounter.
So it wasn't like a car race with one trying to catch up to the other and the other trying to stay ahead while moving down the same path, it was more of a mobile game of hide and seek.
Good - just in time for lunch.
Thanks Drach
US losing Revolution and Napoleonic Wars I think the biggest impact would be the louisiana land purchase never happening so Napoleon would run out of money pretty quick
I think France selling the Louisiana Purchase to England to finance a war against England to be pretty funny. Even funnier than what actually happened.
Major General Sir Andrew Jackson led a force which won the battle of New Orleans and then fought a campaign that stamped out all French resistance in Greater Louisiana. The big losers were the Iroquois and the other tribes that sided with the British. No longer needing them to help counter the French (and with the 13 colonies British), they were abandoned and left to the tender mercies of the colonials. Jackson, by now a baron and lieutenant general led an American division under Wellington in the Penninsula (His Indian Scouts terrified the enemy and formed a close bond with the 95th Foot) and they fought again at Waterloo before returning home. Jackson was appointed Governor General of British North America in 1829. BNA and Canada were merged into the Dominion of North America by the British North America Act of 1867. Mr Benjamin Disraeli then became its first Viceroy, succeeded by Crown Prince Edward. .
"How many ships in the Royal Navy actually had "Royal" in their name? "
HMS Royal Pain?
Can anyone elaborate on the problems suffered by the fire control systems on Prince of Wales and Repulse that were alluded to in the question? This is the first I’ve heard of this.
Is it a coincidence that Drach and Important History have both posted video's about HMAS Australia at the same time, or am I missing something?
To cheer them up after the rugby world cup
Just how, as the " senior service" did the Royal Navy lose control of the Naval Air Service?
It was unaffordable compared to the solution provided by the RAF. However the solution was/is impracticable.
Two part Question for the dry dock the during world war II, the Iowa class battleships fired colored shells to indicate Which ship was firing? I will find orange New Jersey fireblue Missouri fired red Wisconsin fired green. So if the Illinois and Kentucky would have been completed, what are the shells you think they would have fired either black, purple or yellow shells? And bid you notice the pattern as well?
59:50 The wider availability of entertainment available to more modern sailors harkens back to a point in the age of sail when the amount of sailor's craft art -- scrimshaw, decorative knotwork, etc. -- declined significantly, driven by the increase in the literacy rate of sailors, with reading taking the place of the individual crafts that they would use to occupy their time. It didn't disappear entirely, because even on large ships, the number of books in the ship's library would be limited, but it tailed off as other diversions for off-duty sailors became more widely available.
On the subject of bunk and accommodation space the newer ships , QEC, T26 etc have plenty more space than the WW2 aged vessels
the bofors 57mmL60 was developed in the end of the 40-ties. it was first deployed in -52, it was one of the solutions bofors looked at for improvintg the 40mmL60 (the other one was the 40mmL70) both were as response to the faster jet planes starting to be deployed.
The twin mount shown looks to be the 1939/1950s* De Ruyter class. That mount is sort of a one-off only used on the Hallands and the De Ruyters. Later Bofors 57mms were L70 and based on a different design.
*laid down in 1939, build interrupted during the war, then post-war finished with design improvements.
Question for the Drydock.
Is there any particular reason as to the way you pronounce Sir Walter Raleigh's name? I was reading a book earlier this year about the late Elizabethan era, and it made it quite clear that his last name was pronounced closer to "raw-lee".
@34:14 Norfolk Navy Yard (actually Norfolk Naval Shipyard) and Norfolk Naval Base (Norfolk Naval Operations Base - NOB) are separate facilities. NOB does house Norfolk Naval [Air] Station.
I'm just trying to imagine British sailors serving at a base called "nob". If you don't know what that can mean in British English, ask a sailor... And yet we eat spotted dick...
You forgot the "Royale wit' Cheese".*
*After some thought, I've realized this is most likely a French ship.*
Perhaps some hefty sheer legs over the open hatches would have lifted the gun barrels - with the crew pulling a hawser (or turning a capstan winch) through pulleys?
How then do you get the cannon ashore?
You’d be winching it to deck level, over an open hole, then have to rotate / swing it and lower to the deck (assuming the deck would bear the weight), and then attach the cannon to a second crane / winch, either shore-based or cantilevered off the mast, to lift the cannon again and swing it ashore.
As Drach said: deck or shore-based crane pulls the cannon up through the hatch, higher than the railings, and swung ashore.
personally should have been named after stinger ray much scarier
On the WW2 history channel this week they said between Formosa and the Ryukyu island chain there is up to 1500 Japanese aircraft available for defence imagine they could combine their efforts and all attack at once? Is that realistic is anyway?
Do you know of any cases where battleships accidentally or purposely shot HE shells instead of AP at other battleships? Would the shells have been effective for disabling the ship?
Effective at tasking out the fire control systems which were only lightly armored
Kirishima and Hiei fired sanshiki shells at the US forces at 1st Guadalcanal is the closest I can think of. Largely they were not expecting the US formation and just fired them off because that was what was ready.
You could argue the whole Japanese fleet at Tsushima was essentially doing that.
The US adapted the 20mm oerlikon at the behest of the RN. There was a rule in lend lease that the US could not build anything for another country unless it had adapted it themselves.
So did that mean that the Sherman tanks that the US used & supplied to the UK also came with tea-urns? If so, how civilised.
@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 British Tea making during the war was mostly made with modified fuel tins actually. Modern conveniences such as the BV were not introduced until very near the end of the war.
@@DuraLexSedLex Thanks. I thought that it was done fairly early in WWII. Still, better late than never.
@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 It was arguably what led to it really, as tank crews would go out of the tank to make tea with a benghazi burner (it was typically the hull MGunner's job), and most tank crew casualties were when they were outside of the tank. A BV lets them do this while still under armour.
Drachinifel I know that this might not get seen but I have a question. Russia is currently at war with Ukraine and the Russian Navy is currently getting there arses kicked by the Ukrainians who do not have a navy. Have there been any instants of a navy loosing to someone who has no navy ?
Drach. Does your seat squeak? Or is it Floopy chewing on a squeaky toy??
Drach,sir? What exactly are Belaying pins and why are they mentioned so much as melee weapons?
I believe Belaying pins were used for securing rigging that people pulled on. They were large and somewhat Truncheon shaped, which made them useful for hitting people over the head with. And as they would be relatively close to hand - and people being people - seeing a nice solid item and heads that needed to be hit, they were used for such work when the need arose lol.
@@zednotzee7 thanks
They were thick at one end and tapered smoothly to rounded point. The point was for working the pin into a knot or twist in rope.
The purpose was to ease a part of rope apart either permanently or to allow a different piece of rope to join in. It can make a very good splice if you know how to use it.
My father explained that strange word to me and how it can also be used for twisting and tightening. (Capital Punishment was still in use.)
Then he fished out his pocket knife, heavy, crosshatched black handle, a heavy blade folded into it and on the other side a steel rod tapering to a point.
Consider something like a two foot long hardwood rod tapering to a point readily available for immediate use in several places around the ship. A club and a nasty puncturer in one item.
It serves essentially the same function as a horned cleat, like you'd see on most docks and ships today (the type of knot you'd use to secure a rope is almost identical for both). The main difference (aside from materials and being vertical vs. horizontal) was that belaying pins were detachable, which meant a whole rack of heavy durable potential clubs was always just a few steps away from any sailor.
nice pic of hms ulysses 🧐
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Nelson, Drake, Togo,or Cachraine?
Imagine the 13 colonies remaining "mostly loyal", but also in many cases slave holding... What happens when Britain decides to interdict the slave trade and to abolish slavery?
Would there have been the same pressure. Part of the effect of the Napoleonic etc wars was the need to admit more "radical" voices to the political tent. Without the need to fund the war, (and the fact that the industrialisation that it drove was understood and run largely by non-conformists, which heavily increased their influence), would the desire to get rid of slavery?
How well do you think the Iowa from the 80s would do in the second world war?
Um. Very well? Even without Harpoon, her surface and (especially) air search and fire control capabilities would have made her a sky-scouring mutha.
@@dougjb7848 phalanx vs ww2 aircraft is almost unfair...
Do I hear "Thunderstruck" playing? :)
The bars and stripes.
Welcome to the commonwealth yanks.
Hit the nail on the head?
Drach out here dropping bombs on the poor nail w that last comment 1:00:54
How come no HMS King George VI instead of Prince of Whales in the latest generation of RN Capital ships? After all., he had served as a naval officer, fighting at Jutland aboard HMS Collingwood (Big brother Edward was deliberately kept out of danger by Haig, who assigned the largest sergeant in the BEF to sit on him if he tried to go anyway near the front, supposedly, like Richelieu in the Three Musketeers, providing him with a Lettre de Cachet saying "This individual did what had to be done" so he wouldn't get shot for committing Lese Majeste by laying hands on the future King) and was a splendid wartime king.
I believe that it was because KGV was launched soon after the abdication and it was thought that naming her KGVI, though traditional, might have been a bit sensitive. Selecting the names KGV, PoW and DoY seemed like a nice compromise.
@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 But ninety years later?
So you don't have to look it up
In his novel The Three Musketeers, Dumas describes Richelieu giving the following paper to Milady de Winter:
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du present a fait ce qu'il a fait.
3 decembre 1627.
Richelieu
Translated into English:
Dec. 3, 1627
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.
Richelieu
@@ROBERTN-ut2il oops, sorry. I misread your original post.
The argument holds for 1936 but not today, obviously. It did mean however that ship naming and reigns are now out of synch. I believe that one of the RN's new subs will be named KGVI, but no news on a QEII, which might be a bit confusing anyhow, given that there is already a QE carrier
:)
Royal List is a terrible name for a ship.
19th, 15 October 2023
Fermenting hotbed of rebellion.
Home Sweet Home ❤🔥❤🔥