2:09:08: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a battleship firing her main guns after 1980. As a groundpounder, I had my doubts about the reactivation of the Iowas, but between operations off Lebanon and Saddam invading Kuwait, I was so glad the Marines could call for Volkswagen-sized HE rounds, not to mention the Tomahawks they launched.
The Iowa class is out of date but the role is still needed but a change in weaponry is in order. The missile arsenal idea went too missile heavy to be built but a Nuclear Powered Battleship with 2-3 times the load of a missile cruiser would be a good start. Add rail/energy weapons in place of the main guns that uses that power instead of the large powder mags. (reducing a couple major risk in the Iowas from the mags and turret one weak spot) Aft I would add a proper hanger for 4-6 aircraft for the fantail ops and a small version of the sea launching well used by landing assault carriers (for use by special forces in independent or supporting action away from the main forces. should also be able to handle a mini sub like a DSRV or a robotic sub system) Also double up on the CWIS and keep some 5" for secondaries. Might also reduce exterior armor a bit for extra speed, and reserve buoyancy in the citadel since no one is using the large conventional guns anymore.
The Iowa class is out of date but the role is still needed but a change in weaponry is in order. The missile arsenal idea went too missile heavy to be built but a Nuclear Powered Battleship with 2-3 times the load of a missile cruiser would be a good start. Add rail/energy weapons in place of the main guns that uses that power instead of the large powder mags. (reducing a couple major risk in the Iowas from the mags and turret one weak spot) Aft I would add a proper hanger for 4-6 aircraft for the fantail ops and a small version of the sea launching well used by landing assault carriers (for use by special forces in independent or supporting action away from the main forces. should also be able to handle a mini sub like a DSRV or a robotic sub system) Also double up on the CWIS and keep some 5" for secondaries. Might also reduce exterior armor a bit for extra speed, and reserve buoyancy in the citadel since no one is using the large conventional guns anymore.
As someone who made AI for living,I fully agree that please don't use LLM as a source for anything. Hallucination is a big problem and really difficult to fix.
SO YOUR BUILDING YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION. AI has already started killing people including self driving cars starting up selecting drive to pin and murder an actor trying to change its oil. RIP Anton. Also the US military has had one operator murdered when the stand down order was given in an training exercise and the AI refused to stop.
@@More_Row One of the recent thing I made is detecting diabetic retinopathy. Basically something that can process massive volume of retina images and flags the ones that potentially have issues. The most useful one maybe is super resolution. You can google what it is. The proudest one is detecting parasitic eggs from microscopic slice and made it usable as a chatbot. The word AI made people automatically assume it's LLM since ChatGPT had such a big impact on general populace. But in reality it's just a small subset of machine learning.
Two things... First, I LOVE that Jackie Fisher impersonation! Please do one where he sees a Midway-class carrier or a late war British carrier. Second, in the 'no air-dropped torpedos' scenario, I can see that spurring development of guided bombs, probably manual (Fritz-X, RAZON. etc) at first then IR / radar homing as those technologies develop.
I think a better sci-fi analogy for the "I'm taking command of the fleet" would be Picard taking command at the Battle of Sector 001 after learning the Admiral's flagship has been destroyed.
I love that nearly all the federation starships are named after World War II battleships and carriers (including Hood and Yamato). No Scharnhorst, Bismarck or Tirpitz, though.
48:09 I seem to recall that there is significant speculation that the aircraft that caused this damage was one of thouse "conventional strike craft" (or possibly a fighter escort) who only became a Kamakazi after his aircraft suffered fatal damage, and that is why he hit so low and did so little damage.
A classic problem of historical analysis is applying one known motivation to similar actions without qualifying the circumstances. As you say, just because Japan would create formal suicide-warrior units didn't mean every warrior who suicided in battle was TRYING to do so. I note that Germany had a LOT of well-supported stories of soldiers performing suicide attacks, but we don't default to saying every German soldier who blew himself up attacking something was intending to blow himself up in the process. One day, someone needs to do a more comprehensive study of all the known "kamikaze attacks" and actually better determine how many were supposed to be kamikazes by tracking those units back on the Japanese side. To this day, far too many historians are not reading the Japanese documents to see what the Japanese were doing.
@@genericpersonx333 well at least in the photo's case, there were plenty of confirmed Kamakaze's who struck other ships in the formation in the attack.
A classic problem of historical analysis is applying one known motivation to similar actions without qualifying the circumstances. As you say, just because Japan would create formal suicide-warrior units didn't mean every warrior who suicided in battle was TRYING to do so. I note that Germany had a LOT of well-supported stories of soldiers performing suicide attacks, but we don't default to saying every German soldier who blew himself up attacking something was intending to blow himself up in the process. One day, someone needs to do a more comprehensive study of all the known "kamikaze attacks" and actually better determine how many were supposed to be kamikazes by tracking those units back on the Japanese side. To this day, far too many historians are not reading the Japanese documents to see what the Japanese were doing.
@@genericpersonx333 well at least in the photo's case, there were plenty of confirmed Kamakaze's who struck other ships in the formation in the attack.
46:01 I’ve always been a little skeptical of that photo of the kamikaze hit on that British armor belt. It just looks too neat and tidy, like a Road Runner cartoon. I suspect the ship’s crew may have “enhanced” it.
I have just looked on IMDB and it says that in the early part of the film the "Yangtse Incident" HMS Amethyst played herself. Unfortunately some enthusiastic special effects damaged her so much that she had to be withdrawn, eventually being sent to the breakers, and replaced by HMS Magpie.
Then there is the case of Miles Browning who was given command of the USS Hornet in the expectation that he would screw up so badly that he could be gotten rid of.
46:12 -- It should be noted that the mark on the hull of HMS _Sussex_ left by the kamikaze strike was after the Ki-51 had snagged a wingtip in the water and lost the bomb it was carrying, so all the ship had to resist was the impact of the aircraft itself, not the aircraft plus the 250kg bomb it had been carrying. As the _Sussex_ did not have belt armor, the 1" of steel plating would have been much less likely to have come off with so little damage had the bomb remained on the aircraft.
on the subject of Captain Gilbert Hoover, it's worth looking at his experience in the war prior to the Battle of Friday the 13th. He opened the war commanding DesDiv 25 in the Atlantic, then went to the Pacific commanding a destroyer division in Task Group 17.5 for Coral Sea, then commanding Task Group 17.4 screening USS Yorktown at Midway. He only took command of USS Helena in September of that year and was relieved of that command by the end of November.
2:01:12 I imagine seen as when he died, the Royal Navy was looking at the G3 and N3. 20 years later he'd be looking at a ship with a similar speed, worse armour and a main armament that is a step down from the battleship. Although now can be conventional in armament layout. He'd probably be a little disappointed at the progress.
The video is great, especially the comparison between different attack strategies. However, I feel you overlooked an important factor: the role of modern radar systems in coastal defense strategies. #TheWeaponChroniclesX
Hi Drach. Denmark pretty much pulled back to Seeland to defend the capital in WW1. So a stop over should have been at Nyborg ,Funen. A natural harbour. But landing on the shallow Baltic coast of Germany, that long away from supply and the Germans got the Kiel canal. They can shift the entire fleet relative fast.
Hey Drach I would like for you to give your take on a question. "Who would win Uss Constitution, or Hms Indefatigable?" I think it would be interesting to see who you think would win.
The Sverige class sits in an unusual spot as far as Costal Battleships are concerned since they were designed first and formost for operations in the open Baltic. Essentially they were the original Deutschlands in that they were supposed to be faster than anything that was stronger and stronger than anything faster. Unfortunately the whole design, procurement and building process took so long that their design had been rendered obsolete by the Dreadnought and the naval arms race. By 1918 the Swedish navy had in fact, begun to discuss moving away from large gun ships altogether. It was only the limitations imposed on the Germans and the wretched state of the Soviet Baltic Fleet that kept the Sveriges useful in the Baltic. Once the Deutschlands turned up and the Soviets improved things got difficult but a lack of funding and a constant internal debate meant that the Swedish navy could ever settle on a new solution before 1939. Once the war was a fact construction of new costal defence ships was halted in favour of destroyers and submarines as Sweden had an acute shortage of those compared to what the fleet needed.
A good reminder of the hazards of naval procurement. When it takes years to design and make ships at great expense and yet it can only take weeks for the geopolitical situation determining strategy to change, the real surprise is how useful many ships remain DESPITE it all.
Yamato second rudder. There was thought about this in Britain before WWI. The R's were equipped with a very similar set-up (I don't know about other classes). They were not seen as useful in practice, some were removed, (My notes say Raven and Roberts, they're 20 years old MMV) At that time the RN and the IJN had friendly relations, I wonder if this had some influence on the Yamato design.
@ 0:45:37 (Kamikazes) Are you ever going to do a video, or even an "Honorable Mention" of the USS Aaron Ward (DM-34)? Especially her surviving on Picket Line ? The "Before and After" pictures of her are striking!!!
If it's not too much trouble, could you add captions to the photos you use identifying the ship or scene being shown? I often wonder what I'm looking at and would like to know.
@Andy_Ross1962 You can't always rely on them in a WW2 context, bad weather or night conditions for example. Whereas ships, mines and coastal guns should always work
The aesthetics of naval architecture. It would make an interesting theoretical essay on industrial design. I was on the West Side of Manhattan the other day. I saw Intrepid sitting next to a gigantic new cruise ship. The Intrepid had a clean industrial design that was almost beautiful. The Cruise ship was much larger but hideous. How does this reflect the differences between high modernist capitalism and late neoliberal capitalism?
1:57:15 I wonder if another reason for not issuing cutlery to seamen in the Age of Sail is similar to the reason that alcohol used to be served in the Falkland Island entertainment complex in plastic cups rather than glass. Just as it is hard to seriously mess some up with a plastic cup, it's harder to escalate a drunken brawl with a wooden plate.
Ha. I sat across a table (at a NATO fast=jet meet) from my crew mate who was seated next to a VERY drunk R Dan AF Draken driver in his flight suit. Next,a sharp knife appears, cutting the threads from the "patches" of my pals uniform! Momentary sharp intakes of breath!
@@paulmartin4168 I did some time at RAF Leuchars (as a civilian) several decades ago, when there was a serious dress code in force in the Officers Mess. So I turned up for breakfast (smart trousers, shirt and tie) and there was a guy in jeans and a casual shirt. I thought 'WTF, this guy is in for a smackdown'. He ate breakfast without incident and left. This happened 5 days in a row. On my last day, I asked the guy next to me what was going on. The individual in question was the Station dentist. Nobody sane (especially on a flying station, where low-pressure issues were a thing) was going to mess with a dude who might one day be elbow-deep in your jaws (with spiky pliers) and could skimp on the anaesthetic.
Regarding the ships portraying herself question, I can think of maybe USS Missouri in Battleship. Edit: nvm you mentioned Missouri in Battleship. Not sure about any other movies. Maybe a Tom Clancy films with a carrier?
An Invasion of Germany via the Baltic would be a huge risk for the British Army and Royal Navy. There were many good reasons why any of Fishers speculative Baltic Plans were never realized. Even there would be enough Troops available in 1915/1916 for an Invasion and a Landing on the coast of Pomerania would be succesfull without much casualties and even to assume the Britsh Army would have captured Stettin/Szcezin as a Base there is now way to believe that such a coup would make it possible to conquer Berlin and break down the Imperial German Goverment rapidly before the German Army would have sent reinforcement fron the Western or Eastern Front to block any easy British route to Berlin. In this situation several British Army corps would have a very vulnerable position deep inside Germany with a very long suppy line via sea and without any direct support from French or Russian Troops.. The only viable window of opportunity for a Invasion of Germany via the Baltic Sea would have been in 1915 instead of the Gallipoli campaign when the Russian Army still hold a frontline Poland, Galicia and Eastern Prussia to support such an Invasion plan. After the failure Gallipoli, which was an operation on a much smaller and easier scale than any similiar landing operation to invade Germany there was no one on the British Goverment or Military Command who wanted to take such an gamble. To avoid any of Fishers ideas for a Baltic Invasion was a reasonable decision because it would hace ended in defeat most likely
During replenishment at sea you cannot have three ships maneuvering independently without having a disaster. It is normal for the tanker to keep course and speed and allow the warships to change course and speed to keep position. I have never seen a tanker not discharge its own oil. To use a shore based system would require hoses spread over the deck with many tank lids open, not ideal and control of the shore based equipment potentially dangerous.
What are some warships that in your opinion should have survived the war, IE warships that had extremely successful careers before being sunk, and they should have managed to survive to become museums or something. IJN Amatsukaze, USS Albacore, USS Tang, IJN Haguro, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Legion, and KMS Admiral Hipper would be on my list.
Why would you preserve the Hipper of all things? Preserving a typical WW2 heavy cruiser, ok - would be nice, but there would have been much better candidates (not even mentioning the damage) In terms of design one of the worst heavy cruisers of her age (hardly surprising with 2 decades of cruiser development missing), in terms of "success" hardly any better: yes, she sank a few minor warships and a few freighters/tankers/transports - but nothing spectacular there, in general her operations range between "acceptable" and "bravely ran away". HMS Norfolk would have been a much better chance: as highlights she was the stalker that shadowed Bismark untill it's end, she was in the battle where Sharnhorst was sunk and for extra historical significance she brought the Norvegan king back home.
Would anyone happen to know the name of this author with the sage knowledge of American battlecruiser designs, and whether or not he has a book on the subject?
As an American "A rifle behind every blade of grass, with a pistol and a pair of knives backing each rifle up) On average in the US it is 4-5 guns per person in private civilian hands.
It does seem surprising that such a critical system as the ship's rudder has no redundancy in most battleships, or like Bismarck the twin rudders were placed so that a single hit took both of them out. Battleships have multiple rangefinders, steering positions and most other things to give resilience in battle.
Hindsight is a gift. I do not doubt that twin rudders were considered but were not fitted after evaluation of advantages and disadvantages. Another wonderful piece of hindsight was for Hood to extend its armor a little deeper and that would have saved her. A third great piece of hindsight was Graf Spee to locate its fuel purification system behind the armored hull. I'm sure we could come up with another 50 useful items and only add 1500 tons to the weight of the vessel. I have from experience with a ship with twin props and a single rudder found that we lost steering below 3 knots, twin rudders would have given more maneuverability.
@benwilson6145 In the case of Bismarck, sea trials in the Baltic had already shown Bismarck to be almost unmaneuverable by engines alone, but little could be done about it at that stage. In the case of Graf Spee it was an 8 inch shell from Exeter that did the damage, which was capable of penetrating Spee's armour at close range anyway. Langsdorrf should have obeyed his orders and on sighting three British warships with no convoy in sight, turned round and scarpered at full speed. If the British came after him, he could have fought at extreme range where his 11" guns had a huge advantage.
I won't trust AI until they start showing strong evidence of an "understanding" of the physical world. Six fingers (on anyone other than Count Rugen in The Princess Bride) is one of the most-obvious examples of this.
Concerning a completely wiped out convoy: during Operation Juno the german Task Force (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Adrmial Hipper and 4 DD) encountered a small convoy consisting out of the troop transport Orama, the tanker Oil Pioneer and the hospital ship Atlantis, guarded by the trawler HMT Juniper. All but the hospital ship were sunk. Not part of the Battle of the Atlantic, but would it qualify as a wiped out convoy?
If you watched the bonus materials every one of the real pilots said they would disobey a recall order if they could kill the Japs. IMHO they could have killed at least a third of the jap planes and hit the carriers to start WWII with an even footing despite the attack. I doubt they could stop the attack itself due to limits of a single loadout and about 8X the jap aircraft (Two Zeros would take the space of one of the 1980~ aircraft. With at least 4 of the Jap carriers sunk the remaining aircraft wouldn't have room to land. With the damage to Pearl the 1980~ US aircraft might also have troubles landing but even ditching near the beach would save the pilots and place planes close enough to recover for a tech jump. Imagine instead of P51 Mustangs the war construction started building A6 intruders in those numbers. (F14 might be beyond the tech base of 1942 but the A6 with a template would not be.) I could picture A6's with invasion stripes dropping napalm runs on Nazi lines and missiles on gun bunkers like in Vietnam to soften the ground for Normandy largely unopposed in the air. On the Jap side imagine the black sheep squadron in a jet corsair instead of a prop corsair.
15:00 I would hardly believe a country would let all its citizens run around with anything they could use to defend themselves. 2nd amendment? Balderdash. From the same country that cried foul that US forces in WWI were using typical bird hunting devices against them.
But maybe the guns that were not used in the Atlantic Wall were extremely effective... As a deterrent. There is a reason the Allies did not land THERE.
Typical STEM bro Drach dismisses the experience a liheral arts degree woild give him in narrowing down research in the 1:10 questiok yet also has 0 grasp of the political and historical context drivinh naval budgets. I love your content man but just like your engineering degree gives you special insight you should heed social studies more
2:09:08: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a battleship firing her main guns after 1980. As a groundpounder, I had my doubts about the reactivation of the Iowas, but between operations off Lebanon and Saddam invading Kuwait, I was so glad the Marines could call for Volkswagen-sized HE rounds, not to mention the Tomahawks they launched.
As someone who made AI for living,I fully agree that please don't use LLM as a source for anything. Hallucination is a big problem and really difficult to fix.
2:09:08: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a battleship firing her main guns after 1980. As a groundpounder, I had my doubts about the reactivation of the Iowas, but between operations off Lebanon and Saddam invading Kuwait, I was so glad the Marines could call for Volkswagen-sized HE rounds, not to mention the Tomahawks they launched.
The Iowa class is out of date but the role is still needed but a change in weaponry is in order. The missile arsenal idea went too missile heavy to be built but a Nuclear Powered Battleship with 2-3 times the load of a missile cruiser would be a good start. Add rail/energy weapons in place of the main guns that uses that power instead of the large powder mags. (reducing a couple major risk in the Iowas from the mags and turret one weak spot) Aft I would add a proper hanger for 4-6 aircraft for the fantail ops and a small version of the sea launching well used by landing assault carriers (for use by special forces in independent or supporting action away from the main forces. should also be able to handle a mini sub like a DSRV or a robotic sub system) Also double up on the CWIS and keep some 5" for secondaries. Might also reduce exterior armor a bit for extra speed, and reserve buoyancy in the citadel since no one is using the large conventional guns anymore.
The Iowa class is out of date but the role is still needed but a change in weaponry is in order. The missile arsenal idea went too missile heavy to be built but a Nuclear Powered Battleship with 2-3 times the load of a missile cruiser would be a good start. Add rail/energy weapons in place of the main guns that uses that power instead of the large powder mags. (reducing a couple major risk in the Iowas from the mags and turret one weak spot) Aft I would add a proper hanger for 4-6 aircraft for the fantail ops and a small version of the sea launching well used by landing assault carriers (for use by special forces in independent or supporting action away from the main forces. should also be able to handle a mini sub like a DSRV or a robotic sub system) Also double up on the CWIS and keep some 5" for secondaries. Might also reduce exterior armor a bit for extra speed, and reserve buoyancy in the citadel since no one is using the large conventional guns anymore.
As someone who made AI for living,I fully agree that please don't use LLM as a source for anything. Hallucination is a big problem and really difficult to fix.
Why would you make those things
@@More_Row why not? It's happening.
SO YOUR BUILDING YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION. AI has already started killing people including self driving cars starting up selecting drive to pin and murder an actor trying to change its oil. RIP Anton. Also the US military has had one operator murdered when the stand down order was given in an training exercise and the AI refused to stop.
Turd.
@@More_Row One of the recent thing I made is detecting diabetic retinopathy. Basically something that can process massive volume of retina images and flags the ones that potentially have issues. The most useful one maybe is super resolution. You can google what it is. The proudest one is detecting parasitic eggs from microscopic slice and made it usable as a chatbot.
The word AI made people automatically assume it's LLM since ChatGPT had such a big impact on general populace. But in reality it's just a small subset of machine learning.
Two episodes on a stormy day in in West of Ireland!
Excellent🎉🎉
Two things...
First, I LOVE that Jackie Fisher impersonation! Please do one where he sees a Midway-class carrier or a late war British carrier.
Second, in the 'no air-dropped torpedos' scenario, I can see that spurring development of guided bombs, probably manual (Fritz-X, RAZON. etc) at first then IR / radar homing as those technologies develop.
I've always called the Missouri's kamikaze damage a "hail dent".
46:10 This is the best "I was here" sign I have ever seen.
Cartoon way to go.
Cartoon way to go.
I think a better sci-fi analogy for the "I'm taking command of the fleet" would be Picard taking command at the Battle of Sector 001 after learning the Admiral's flagship has been destroyed.
I love that nearly all the federation starships are named after World War II battleships and carriers (including Hood and Yamato). No Scharnhorst, Bismarck or Tirpitz, though.
But doing so would introduce an unstable element to a critical situation. Perhaps it would be best to patrol the neutral zone.
@@dmphoenix973and don’t forgot about the Prime Directive!
@@dmphoenix973 and don’t forgot about the Prime Directive!
But doing so would introduce an unstable element to a critical situation. Perhaps it would be best to patrol the neutral zone.
I'm old enough to remember British Rail cutlery. Like a lot of people of that time, I've still got some of it in a drawer somewhere.
Another great DD, back to back. Thanks Drach.
Also worth noting that the 15 inch guns intended for the J3 design was also 15"/50.
48:09 I seem to recall that there is significant speculation that the aircraft that caused this damage was one of thouse "conventional strike craft" (or possibly a fighter escort) who only became a Kamakazi after his aircraft suffered fatal damage, and that is why he hit so low and did so little damage.
A classic problem of historical analysis is applying one known motivation to similar actions without qualifying the circumstances. As you say, just because Japan would create formal suicide-warrior units didn't mean every warrior who suicided in battle was TRYING to do so.
I note that Germany had a LOT of well-supported stories of soldiers performing suicide attacks, but we don't default to saying every German soldier who blew himself up attacking something was intending to blow himself up in the process.
One day, someone needs to do a more comprehensive study of all the known "kamikaze attacks" and actually better determine how many were supposed to be kamikazes by tracking those units back on the Japanese side. To this day, far too many historians are not reading the Japanese documents to see what the Japanese were doing.
@@genericpersonx333 well at least in the photo's case, there were plenty of confirmed Kamakaze's who struck other ships in the formation in the attack.
A classic problem of historical analysis is applying one known motivation to similar actions without qualifying the circumstances. As you say, just because Japan would create formal suicide-warrior units didn't mean every warrior who suicided in battle was TRYING to do so.
I note that Germany had a LOT of well-supported stories of soldiers performing suicide attacks, but we don't default to saying every German soldier who blew himself up attacking something was intending to blow himself up in the process.
One day, someone needs to do a more comprehensive study of all the known "kamikaze attacks" and actually better determine how many were supposed to be kamikazes by tracking those units back on the Japanese side. To this day, far too many historians are not reading the Japanese documents to see what the Japanese were doing.
@@genericpersonx333 well at least in the photo's case, there were plenty of confirmed Kamakaze's who struck other ships in the formation in the attack.
46:01 I’ve always been a little skeptical of that photo of the kamikaze hit on that British armor belt. It just looks too neat and tidy, like a Road Runner cartoon. I suspect the ship’s crew may have “enhanced” it.
At 2:01:12: Drach, how come you're not a professional stand-up comic? Your Jackie Fisher impersonation is downright hilarious.
1:27:54 THAT NAME HAHAHAHAHAHAHA gosh I laughed for a good 5 minutes at that
Thanks for a great episode. I know from your answer it's very complicated, but a video about the Baltic Plan would be interesting!
I have just looked on IMDB and it says that in the early part of the film the "Yangtse Incident" HMS Amethyst played herself. Unfortunately some enthusiastic special effects damaged her so much that she had to be withdrawn, eventually being sent to the breakers, and replaced by HMS Magpie.
Then there is the case of Miles Browning who was given command of the USS Hornet in the expectation that he would screw up so badly that he could be gotten rid of.
The only Browning I care about is John Browning.
USS Ranger played the Enterprise in Star Trek 4 the Voyage Home.
I was there. Also, some of Top Gun was filmed onboard.
@frednone awesome Navy.
1:27:54 Bloody Brilliant! Brilliant name!
46:12 -- It should be noted that the mark on the hull of HMS _Sussex_ left by the kamikaze strike was after the Ki-51 had snagged a wingtip in the water and lost the bomb it was carrying, so all the ship had to resist was the impact of the aircraft itself, not the aircraft plus the 250kg bomb it had been carrying. As the _Sussex_ did not have belt armor, the 1" of steel plating would have been much less likely to have come off with so little damage had the bomb remained on the aircraft.
334 Part Deux!!
Merci!!
Thanks Drach.
on the subject of Captain Gilbert Hoover, it's worth looking at his experience in the war prior to the Battle of Friday the 13th. He opened the war commanding DesDiv 25 in the Atlantic, then went to the Pacific commanding a destroyer division in Task Group 17.5 for Coral Sea, then commanding Task Group 17.4 screening USS Yorktown at Midway. He only took command of USS Helena in September of that year and was relieved of that command by the end of November.
2:01:12 I imagine seen as when he died, the Royal Navy was looking at the G3 and N3. 20 years later he'd be looking at a ship with a similar speed, worse armour and a main armament that is a step down from the battleship. Although now can be conventional in armament layout. He'd probably be a little disappointed at the progress.
The video is great, especially the comparison between different attack strategies. However, I feel you overlooked an important factor: the role of modern radar systems in coastal defense strategies. #TheWeaponChroniclesX
Hi Drach.
Denmark pretty much pulled back to Seeland to defend the capital in WW1.
So a stop over should have been at Nyborg ,Funen. A natural harbour.
But landing on the shallow Baltic coast of Germany, that long away from supply and the Germans got the Kiel canal. They can shift the entire fleet relative fast.
Thank you.
For ships playing themselves, there’s RFA Argus playing a fictional USS Argus in World War Z. Not exactly the same ship perhaps but similar.
1:15:00
Attack Pattern Delta … Red Five Standing by
In the picture used in the oiler/tanker discussion, with the ship to the right, am I seeing an optical distortion of the bow?
Hey Drach I would like for you to give your take on a question. "Who would win Uss Constitution, or Hms Indefatigable?" I think it would be interesting to see who you think would win.
In the RN whoever is higher in the Navy List is senior.
Can we get a video exploring the history and operation of the spanish treasure fleet?
The Sverige class sits in an unusual spot as far as Costal Battleships are concerned since they were designed first and formost for operations in the open Baltic. Essentially they were the original Deutschlands in that they were supposed to be faster than anything that was stronger and stronger than anything faster. Unfortunately the whole design, procurement and building process took so long that their design had been rendered obsolete by the Dreadnought and the naval arms race. By 1918 the Swedish navy had in fact, begun to discuss moving away from large gun ships altogether. It was only the limitations imposed on the Germans and the wretched state of the Soviet Baltic Fleet that kept the Sveriges useful in the Baltic.
Once the Deutschlands turned up and the Soviets improved things got difficult but a lack of funding and a constant internal debate meant that the Swedish navy could ever settle on a new solution before 1939. Once the war was a fact construction of new costal defence ships was halted in favour of destroyers and submarines as Sweden had an acute shortage of those compared to what the fleet needed.
A good reminder of the hazards of naval procurement. When it takes years to design and make ships at great expense and yet it can only take weeks for the geopolitical situation determining strategy to change, the real surprise is how useful many ships remain DESPITE it all.
Yamato second rudder. There was thought about this in Britain before WWI. The R's were equipped with a very similar set-up (I don't know about other classes). They were not seen as useful in practice, some were removed, (My notes say Raven and Roberts, they're 20 years old MMV) At that time the RN and the IJN had friendly relations, I wonder if this had some influence on the Yamato design.
So if the crew didn't have cutlery, do they eat with their hands or they simply had to buy their own?
Had the Japanese designers been SO clairvoyant, maybe they would have not built Yamato at all.
They would still sacrifice themselves for the God-Emperor.
@ 0:45:37 (Kamikazes) Are you ever going to do a video, or even an "Honorable Mention" of the USS Aaron Ward (DM-34)? Especially her surviving on Picket Line ? The "Before and After" pictures of her are striking!!!
If it's not too much trouble, could you add captions to the photos you use identifying the ship or scene being shown? I often wonder what I'm looking at and would like to know.
You missed out Torpedo and Dive bombers from the question about coastal defence ships.
@Andy_Ross1962 You can't always rely on them in a WW2 context, bad weather or night conditions for example. Whereas ships, mines and coastal guns should always work
The aesthetics of naval architecture. It would make an interesting theoretical essay on industrial design. I was on the West Side of Manhattan the other day. I saw Intrepid sitting next to a gigantic new cruise ship. The Intrepid had a clean industrial design that was almost beautiful. The Cruise ship was much larger but hideous. How does this reflect the differences between high modernist capitalism and late neoliberal capitalism?
“Not an Omaha fan?” I may have to cancel my subscription.😢
I like what they accomplished but the mixed casemate/turret layout is a bit of an objectove nightmare 😀
don't touch our boats XD
1:57:15 I wonder if another reason for not issuing cutlery to seamen in the Age of Sail is similar to the reason that alcohol used to be served in the Falkland Island entertainment complex in plastic cups rather than glass. Just as it is hard to seriously mess some up with a plastic cup, it's harder to escalate a drunken brawl with a wooden plate.
Ha.
I sat across a table (at a NATO fast=jet meet) from my crew mate who was seated next to a VERY drunk R Dan AF Draken driver in his flight suit.
Next,a sharp knife appears, cutting the threads from the "patches" of my pals uniform!
Momentary sharp intakes of breath!
@@paulmartin4168 I did some time at RAF Leuchars (as a civilian) several decades ago, when there was a serious dress code in force in the Officers Mess. So I turned up for breakfast (smart trousers, shirt and tie) and there was a guy in jeans and a casual shirt. I thought 'WTF, this guy is in for a smackdown'. He ate breakfast without incident and left. This happened 5 days in a row. On my last day, I asked the guy next to me what was going on. The individual in question was the Station dentist. Nobody sane (especially on a flying station, where low-pressure issues were a thing) was going to mess with a dude who might one day be elbow-deep in your jaws (with spiky pliers) and could skimp on the anaesthetic.
You just need to go to a Student Union in the 70s to the 90s to get the same.
Regarding the ships portraying herself question, I can think of maybe USS Missouri in Battleship. Edit: nvm you mentioned Missouri in Battleship. Not sure about any other movies. Maybe a Tom Clancy films with a carrier?
An Invasion of Germany via the Baltic would be a huge risk for the British Army and Royal Navy. There were many good reasons why any of Fishers speculative Baltic Plans were never realized. Even there would be enough Troops available in 1915/1916 for an Invasion and a Landing on the coast of Pomerania would be succesfull without much casualties and even to assume the Britsh Army would have captured Stettin/Szcezin as a Base there is now way to believe that such a coup would make it possible to conquer Berlin and break down the Imperial German Goverment rapidly before the German Army would have sent reinforcement fron the Western or Eastern Front to block any easy British route to Berlin. In this situation several British Army corps would have a very vulnerable position deep inside Germany with a very long suppy line via sea and without any direct support from French or Russian Troops.. The only viable window of opportunity for a Invasion of Germany via the Baltic Sea would have been in 1915 instead of the Gallipoli campaign when the Russian Army still hold a frontline Poland, Galicia and Eastern Prussia to support such an Invasion plan.
After the failure Gallipoli, which was an operation on a much smaller and easier scale than any similiar landing operation to invade Germany there was no one on the British Goverment or Military Command who wanted to take such an gamble. To avoid any of Fishers ideas for a Baltic Invasion was a reasonable decision because it would hace ended in defeat most likely
In the "Swedish Additive" picture, i see a black chain and a white chain? What is the difference?
During replenishment at sea you cannot have three ships maneuvering independently without having a disaster. It is normal for the tanker to keep course and speed and allow the warships to change course and speed to keep position.
I have never seen a tanker not discharge its own oil. To use a shore based system would require hoses spread over the deck with many tank lids open, not ideal and control of the shore based equipment potentially dangerous.
Remember that a lot of WW1/WW2 era tankers were 10,000t or less, much smaller than today, and some, especially the early ones, we're quite crude.
An inverted Philippine flag signals the country is in a state of war.
The carrier in FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER was supposed to be the fictional SHILOH...INDEPENDENCE was used for the film
What are some warships that in your opinion should have survived the war, IE warships that had extremely successful careers before being sunk, and they should have managed to survive to become museums or something.
IJN Amatsukaze, USS Albacore, USS Tang, IJN Haguro, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Legion, and KMS Admiral Hipper would be on my list.
Why would you preserve the Hipper of all things? Preserving a typical WW2 heavy cruiser, ok - would be nice, but there would have been much better candidates (not even mentioning the damage)
In terms of design one of the worst heavy cruisers of her age (hardly surprising with 2 decades of cruiser development missing), in terms of "success" hardly any better: yes, she sank a few minor warships and a few freighters/tankers/transports - but nothing spectacular there, in general her operations range between "acceptable" and "bravely ran away".
HMS Norfolk would have been a much better chance: as highlights she was the stalker that shadowed Bismark untill it's end, she was in the battle where Sharnhorst was sunk and for extra historical significance she brought the Norvegan king back home.
Good Norwegian pronunciation 1:15
Movies about ships playing themselves. Watch Follow the Fleet with Fred Astaire. Some of it was filmed on the standards in the 1930s.
Would anyone happen to know the name of this author with the sage knowledge of American battlecruiser designs, and whether or not he has a book on the subject?
As an American: "A rifle behind every blade of grass.". 😘
As an American "A rifle behind every blade of grass, with a pistol and a pair of knives backing each rifle up) On average in the US it is 4-5 guns per person in private civilian hands.
Polish flag upside-down is the Indonesian flag
⚓️
It does seem surprising that such a critical system as the ship's rudder has no redundancy in most battleships, or like Bismarck the twin rudders were placed so that a single hit took both of them out. Battleships have multiple rangefinders, steering positions and most other things to give resilience in battle.
Hindsight is a gift. I do not doubt that twin rudders were considered but were not fitted after evaluation of advantages and disadvantages.
Another wonderful piece of hindsight was for Hood to extend its armor a little deeper and that would have saved her.
A third great piece of hindsight was Graf Spee to locate its fuel purification system behind the armored hull.
I'm sure we could come up with another 50 useful items and only add 1500 tons to the weight of the vessel.
I have from experience with a ship with twin props and a single rudder found that we lost steering below 3 knots, twin rudders would have given more maneuverability.
@benwilson6145 In the case of Bismarck, sea trials in the Baltic had already shown Bismarck to be almost unmaneuverable by engines alone, but little could be done about it at that stage. In the case of Graf Spee it was an 8 inch shell from Exeter that did the damage, which was capable of penetrating Spee's armour at close range anyway. Langsdorrf should have obeyed his orders and on sighting three British warships with no convoy in sight, turned round and scarpered at full speed. If the British came after him, he could have fought at extreme range where his 11" guns had a huge advantage.
@@philiphumphrey1548 What ship is maneuverable with engines alone. None other than small very powerful boats. What changes did they make to Tirpitz?
I won't trust AI until they start showing strong evidence of an "understanding" of the physical world.
Six fingers (on anyone other than Count Rugen in The Princess Bride) is one of the most-obvious examples of this.
Concerning a completely wiped out convoy: during Operation Juno the german Task Force (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Adrmial Hipper and 4 DD) encountered a small convoy consisting out of the troop transport Orama, the tanker Oil Pioneer and the hospital ship Atlantis, guarded by the trawler HMT Juniper. All but the hospital ship were sunk. Not part of the Battle of the Atlantic, but would it qualify as a wiped out convoy?
Wait. You are saying "The Final Countdown" is not a historical documentary?
"Splash the Zeros. I say again, splash the Zeros..."
If you watched the bonus materials every one of the real pilots said they would disobey a recall order if they could kill the Japs. IMHO they could have killed at least a third of the jap planes and hit the carriers to start WWII with an even footing despite the attack. I doubt they could stop the attack itself due to limits of a single loadout and about 8X the jap aircraft (Two Zeros would take the space of one of the 1980~ aircraft. With at least 4 of the Jap carriers sunk the remaining aircraft wouldn't have room to land. With the damage to Pearl the 1980~ US aircraft might also have troubles landing but even ditching near the beach would save the pilots and place planes close enough to recover for a tech jump. Imagine instead of P51 Mustangs the war construction started building A6 intruders in those numbers. (F14 might be beyond the tech base of 1942 but the A6 with a template would not be.) I could picture A6's with invasion stripes dropping napalm runs on Nazi lines and missiles on gun bunkers like in Vietnam to soften the ground for Normandy largely unopposed in the air. On the Jap side imagine the black sheep squadron in a jet corsair instead of a prop corsair.
15:00 I would hardly believe a country would let all its citizens run around with anything they could use to defend themselves. 2nd amendment? Balderdash.
From the same country that cried foul that US forces in WWI were using typical bird hunting devices against them.
I knew Lorne Greene. Very nice man. Battle Star was a very shity show. I tried to warn him about doing that show, but well...
I still miss him.
Eh, he got a pay check in the end.
Ignore this comment
No
But maybe the guns that were not used in the Atlantic Wall were extremely effective... As a deterrent. There is a reason the Allies did not land THERE.
14th, 26 January 2025
Typical STEM bro Drach dismisses the experience a liheral arts degree woild give him in narrowing down research in the 1:10 questiok yet also has 0 grasp of the political and historical context drivinh naval budgets. I love your content man but just like your engineering degree gives you special insight you should heed social studies more
How would social studies help explain how a coastal battleship is objectively supposed to work?
I agree with Drach on this one, plus your critique is full of typing and spelling errors. The argument also appears to miss logic entirely.
2:09:08: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a battleship firing her main guns after 1980. As a groundpounder, I had my doubts about the reactivation of the Iowas, but between operations off Lebanon and Saddam invading Kuwait, I was so glad the Marines could call for Volkswagen-sized HE rounds, not to mention the Tomahawks they launched.
As someone who made AI for living,I fully agree that please don't use LLM as a source for anything. Hallucination is a big problem and really difficult to fix.