“It is our turn now. So long. The captain and crew of SS Beaverford.” - Captain Pettigrew of SS Beaverford, charging the Admiral Scheer after it had already sunk HMS Jervis Bay, giving the convoy even more time to scatter. He was not Royal Navy, but he did command a merchant ship with guns, so naval in spirit.
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." - Admiral Cunningham Yes, that is badassery.
@VintageCarHistory I'm from a Marine family, so you can probably guess most of my heroes, lol. The one thing my family from that generation always did was to make sure I understood how important allies were and are.
While not at war at the time, rumor has it that a Frenchman (with an outrageous accent) once yelled down at a passing British frigate captain that "his mother was a hamster and his father smelled of elderberry"
I am quite surprised to not hear you mention the quote by Oberst Eriksen commanding Oscarsborg at the battle of Drobak Sound: "Either I will be decorated or I will be court martialled. Fire!"
@@DrachinifelBut the question didn't say 'ship'. Granted it does say 'naval officer' and he was a Colonel in coastal artillery, which might be 'naval adjacent' but I agree isn't actually 'naval'.
Unsinkable coastal defence ship? @@Drachinifel He was on a piece of land smaller than 5 aircraft carriers, and one-shotted the biggest German ship around, so he at least gets honorary navy status?
Concerning “friendly fire” from AA, there’s a photograph of USS Bunker Hill during a kamikaze attack showing the muzzle flash of a twin 5” 38. One of the shells struck USS Astoria very near the photographer, wounding a nearby chaplain. The photographer aided the wounded chaplain, who survived. In the book “Days of Steel Rain” the photo is reproduced.
My grandfather used to say that there was bulletin posted aboard his destroyer that stated, if aircraft got past the outer screen then friendly AA fire was a definite concern for your safety. As I watched the video further I wanted to add that his ship had a total of three casualties throughout the war. You know, one man had a heart attack.Another man fell overboard and the third was killed by friendly anti aircraffire as far as they could tell.
“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can” from Lt. Commander Copeland of the Sammy B takes it for me. Since it wasn't battle related, “This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now” from Johnston's Commander Earnest Evans gets an honorable mention. For fiction it has to be Delenn from Babylon 5: "Only one Human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!" Cunningham's "the evacuation will continue" is probably the winner though, since it it isn't just badass, it's also shows an awareness of their collective responsibility to uphold the ideals and institutions of the navy.
The first one’s been hilariously misused though in various narratives, because Samar was only against overwhelming odds when it came specifically to Taffy 3’s survival; the Americans didn’t have much at stake when it came to the larger operation seeing as the Japanese were five days behind schedule and seeing as the main body of Seventh Fleet wasn’t too far away (the fleet that was lured away was Third Fleet).
@@wierdalien1 Mind, most US Navy ships of the 1940s had a safety factor of 120% for their propulsion systems, as in they were designed to safely run at 120% of intended power without catastrophic failure. Thus, most all US Navy ships could go a knot or more faster than their designed speeds in exchange for significantly reducing the service life of the system. This is how New Jersey set the battleship speed record, doing just over 35 knots in the 1960s. To prove to doubters that the old powerplant was still up to standard, the Captain authorized 120% power for six hours, silencing naysayers and getting a record in the process.
No Wehraboo but I like Lindemann's order while waiting for Lütjens to make up his mind: "I'm not letting my ship get shot out from under my arse. Open fire."
I think I heard captain of Graff Spee had some words after being informed that Ajax and Achilles were not destroyers as thought initially but light cruisers
Mu understanding is that Hood's gunnery wasn't exactly *bad*, just not as good as that of the other ships, so if she hadn't blown up there's every reason to think that two battleships (with heavy cruisers possibly joining later) vs one battleship and a heavy cruiser would not go in the latter force's favour.
While important in US history that's not really a fighting quote. The context of it is that it was sent after the battle to inform the commander of US army units that the navy had triumphed and destroyed the British naval forces. Therefore, he should attack the British land forces because they were unsupported and would be forced to retreat. The point being that it was sent aftet the battle to military forces not directly involved in the battle it was about.
Tordenskjold is hands down one of the most epic naval characters the world has seen. Had he been born into the british navy, he would be up there with the top tier captains!
The question of how close the Kriegsmarine came to starving out Britain raises a related question: COULD they? "Away from nutritional tables, the outbreak of the war got Widdowson and McCance thinking about how to help. Widdowson explained their proposal in her 1980s lecture: ‘we in common with many other people felt we ought to do something … so anticipating that there would be a shortage of food we made an experimental study of rationing’. They knew that if Germany cut off British ports, the country could not rely on imports and would have to sustain itself. Based on the likely availability of food in this scenario, Widdowson and McCance calculated the available weekly rations for an individual. They then planned to stick to this diet for three months, as did five other volunteers. The weekly portions were meagre, to say the least: 1lb (about 450g) of meat and fish, 5oz (about 140g) of sugar, 4oz (about 110g) of fats, 4oz of cheese, and a single egg. 6oz (about 170g) of fruit was permitted, as long as it was not imported. Finally, milk was limited to a quarter of a pint per day. Fresh British-grown vegetables and bread were not rationed during the experiment, so you could at least eat all the potato sandwiches you wanted. There was some expectation that a diet this restricted would be entirely unsustainable. These rations represented less than half, and in some cases less than a third, of the average weekly consumption in Britain before the war begin. In reality, Widdowson recalled, ‘we found the diet rather filling, containing as it did so much bread and potatoes and so little fat and sugar’. At the end of the experiment, the group spent ‘a glorious fortnight in the Lake District in January 1940, still living on the rations. We walked and climbed as we have never done before or since’. This demonstrated that a properly rationed diet could still provide people with enough energy to work effectively and remain healthy: ‘The principle that we adopted of having bread and vegetables unrationed was important because it ensured that those with high energy requirements would obtain enough’. These findings were a key influence behind the government’s decision to leave bread and vegetables unrationed during the War, though supplies of both were still limited." royalsociety.org/blog/2020/01/world-war-food/ No, the Germans apparently could not--this wartime study demonstrated domestic British agriculture was capable of producing enough food without imports to keep the population fighting fit, and as such guided British rationing when instituted in early 1940. Just as the lessons of 1918 led to the Royal Navy began convoying merchant ships immediately after war broke out in 1939, a system was set up copy the successful rationing of 1918: "A Minister of Food has been appointed to take charge, as from the outset of the war, of the food supplies of the country as a whole. … The need for food control was shown by the experience gained in the last war. Economy and orderly distribution at fair prices are vital to the Home Front in war. … During 1917 schemes for the distribution of the main commodities were in process of formation. The difficulties were also growing. In the autumn of 1917 successive shortages appeared in several important commodities, apart from sugar which had been in short supply for many months. The visible result of these shortages were the queues outside retail shops. They began in a few places for tea and bacon. The main commodities in short or irregular supply were butter, margarine and potatoes, and finally meat. … Rationing began for sugar in January, 1918, was extended gradually and locally during the next few months to meat, including bacon and fats. It did not become general even for those foods until July, 1918. It developed piecemeal out of schemes administered by local Food Control Committees." www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/home-front-1939-1945-part-two/the-need-for-food-control/ The 'business as usual' policy of 1914-17 was highly problematic, though food inflation had become a major problem on both sides of the Atlantic even before the U.S. declared war on Germany: "The bulletin’s data showed the reason for the League’s concern: although the price of several staples had fallen from January to February, meat prices were up. Moreover, most meat prices were considerably higher in 1913 than they were throughout the 1890s. Smoked bacon had increased 111.6 percent, for example. Round steak had risen 84.5 percent.2 Whatever the home farmers may or may not have done, however, the coming years would produce more price increases. When the CPI was finally created in 1921 and a time series back to 1913 was established, it would show food prices more than doubling from 1913 to 1920. Only a sharp recession in 1921 would produce a decline." www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consumer-price-index-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm As a result of memory of 1910s inflation, both America and Britain instituted rationing early during the Second World War and vastly increased agricultural production. The acreage under cultivation increased 50% in Britain during the war, seeing a vast increase in wheat and potato consumption as meat fell by a third. Diets were definitely affected by the war, but this pales compared to the German experience of K-brot and the Turnip Winter leading the Germans to impose rationing beginning on 1 January 1937 and waging a war for food, imposing the Hunger Plan on the USSR during the 1940s so Germany could experience a 'business as usual' until the Allies rolled over German farms in 1944-45. Short of Operation Sea Lion, literally starving out Britain wasn't in the cards. Oil, on the other hand...
Not just oil - what about all the components and machinery needed to operate UK domestic agriculture, and the distribution logistics, at a level to sustain the nation’s population indefinitely? Certainly the UK of 1940 was less mechanized than any time after, but the system still relied on the ability to transport all that food grown on farms “way out there,” where there were more farms and fewer people, to “over here,” where there were fewer farms and more people. Could Britain produce enough trucks and cars and track and engines domestically?
@@dougjb7848 basic agricultural machinery? Sure. Great Britain, even today, has extensive reserves of coal, iron, lead, zinc, copper, etc. However I think the more esoteric stuff required for high tech weaponry (even by WW2 standards) would be a problem. Rubber, tungsten, molybdenum, etc. I don’t think they could _literally_ starve us to death, but the U-boats could certainly have crippled the UK such that we weren’t a significant military threat. And in that dire a situation, there would probably be substantial public pressure to agree terms (much like where both Russia and Germany ended up at the end of WW1).
42:02 Concidentally enough, considering the ongoing series on Johnnie Walker, he also gave the General Chase order in 1943 to the Second Support Group to run down three U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.
I've got three quotes. One from Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, the admiral that commanded the Georgios Averof in the Balkan Wars and two from Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher at Midway and Eastern Solomons respectively. At one point during the Balkan Wars, Kountouriotis sent a telegram to his Ottoman opponent that read: "We have captured Tenedos. We await the exit of your fleet. If you need coal, I can supply you." When the Japanese dive bombers at Midway approached USS Yorktown and Fletcher was informed of this, he put his arms over his head and said: "Well, I've got on my tin hat. I can't anything else now." Then he stepped outside of the bridge to observe the enemy attack himself. At the end of the battle of the Eastern Solomons when Fletcher decided to retreat in order to deny the Japanese the opportunity of a night battle, he joked: "Boys, I'm going to get two dispatches tonight, one from Admiral Nimitz telling me what a wonderful job we did, and one from King saying 'Why in hell didn't you use your destroyers and make torpedo attacks?' and by God, they'll both be right."
00:12:04 20 mm Oerlikon as a rule during WW2 didn't have a means of self destruct. Mainly because SD in small calibre is related to the burn time of the tracer, it burns until it reaches the explosive content sometimes by flame in Germany by heat transfer - then bango, some later ammunition in pacific campaign may have had this type of SD but a debatable point especially as AP solid shot is part of the ammunition mix. 20 mm has a alleged 1.1 km range personally I rather not be down range of a 20 mm without multiplying that by at least x 2. and remember MGs were common place until 1943 and were generally all solid shot or incendiary with or without tracer, All German 20mm and larger had a SD destruct by either tracer and alternately spin decay. and this would include their Oerlikons (Flak 28) which were generally all land service. For the allies 2pdr pom pom and 40 mm were SD tracer destruct for all HE ammunition - obviously an AP solid shot isn't going to be SD but not part of Naval load out. For UK service 40mm Bofors has an SD at 3,400 and 5,500 yards depending on the tracer. similar with 2 pdr pom pom. All that said it doesn't stop failures, sometime the tracer or spin decay fails - I came across one locally in the late 1970s when a "thingy bomb" was found in a roof of a building during demolition, it turned out to be a face draining 40 mm Bofors, but must have been a real friday afternoon special as it had gone up 7000 metres and back down pierced a slate roof and embedded itself neatly in the large timber of the roof structure and probably the home owner thought they had lost a slate, but EOD guys are wonderful people 😉 However one weapon that was a safety pain was the 2 inch rocket which had No SD and some were fitted to Merchant ships, but mainly used for Star shell illumination, for land use they were set up as overwatch on South coast and Estuaries because no-one wants a big firework coming back to earth in a built up area or even over farm land. All this in brief but that said there is a load of bollocks out there, including one book by an annoying right wing "historian" who says that more civilians died because of blue on blue A/A gunnery than where killed by Luftwaffe , but has no clue as to what No 207, 208, or 214 fuse is/was and its functionality (and he should because he is British). Vanity publication and latterly the Internet has a lot to answer for.
There is a great write up with an Imperial engineer saying I manage to vent all of the heat from this huge spaceship through this tiny hole. It took a magical space wizard to be able to hit it BUT NO! It’s all my fault.
"Could USS Wyoming be refit to be a fast AA Battleship?" Drach's short answer: You're better off spending the money and resources building another Atlanta-class cruiser.
One could only imagine the monstrosity Hitler would have requested had he heard about Britain planning to build a 6000ft Habbakuk. See that Island, make it float.
Nice job as always I am sure everyone in drach nation is excited for number 300 hard to believe it came so quick looking forward to another 300 with our question and your extremely hard work I would like to tell you and miss drach congratulations on the little bundle of joy you guys are so lucky for such a beautiful baby🎉
Omg best opening tune on UA-cam and I wish I could afford to see you today. You’ve been here before. Make sure you just New Jersey right back. It’s sweet you have a channel island named after us.
I graduated from Norwich University, which is our oldest private military college. The Corps of Cadets had a strict honor code, and theft was punishable by expulsion. During the first portion of our first (freshmen) year, we were called Rooks, and we were not permitted to lock our doors, etc. We also weren't permitted to have very many personal possessions, just a watch, calculator, that sort of thing. One of my fellow Rooks reported to our upperclassmen cadre that his watch had been stolen, and they immediately conducted a thorough room search, military style. The watch was discovered in a fellow rooks possesion. In addition to being brought before the Honor Board, we were informed by our cadre at a formation, that they would not be present on the dorm floor for the next 15 minutes, and we should not take matters into our own hands (wink, wink). Needless to say, the thieving Rook, accidentally and repeatedly slipped and fell whilst in the shower. He was then expelled three days later. Problem solved, problem staying solved, army style.
I’d like to add the following to the badass naval quotes section; “Before we are done with them, the Japanese language will only be spoken in Hell!”-Halsey in the aftermath of PH. “Those who seek death shall live, those who seek to live shall die”- Yi, to his men the night before the Battle of Myeongnyang. “We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that is that.”- Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy, aboard Rawalpindi vs. The Twins. And of course, “England expects that every man shall do his duty.”
For the ostensible reasons for building a big fast ferry class of some kind with the intention of converting them to a carrier later, for the Japanese it might be for trade between the main islands and Korea, possibly Hokkaido if they had developed Hokkaido faster, and their trading community in the Phillipines. But the navy that seems to me to have the best excuse for such a ship class would be the Marine National for trade between Metropolitan France and Algeria.
Re: borrowing ammunition from the enemy - I've read a similar story about a British patrol ambushed in the Khyber Pass who ran out of ammunition and were then offered more ammo by the ambushers who wanted the battle to continue.
Kongos at Jutland, could the Japanese 14 inch shell do more damage than the British 13.5 shell because we know about the trouble with the British shells
In terms of the possible reason for having a speedy long range train ferry could be an early form of a roll on roll off where you could just attach the rails on the ship to rails on shore. This might work for shipping coal or other commodity that would not be needed in the port area but further into the interior of the receiving country.
When firing age of sail cannon, was the barrel of the gun damaged by the cannon ball as it accelerated up the barrel given the amount of windage allowed?
Having been to the naval museum in Washington, it is really pretty incredible. When we were there (US citizens), we all had to have out background checked at the gate, but otherwise it wans't a big issue for me. It's got an enormous amount of builder's models, as well as the test piece of Yamato armor that was penetrated by a 16" superheavy. I really hope you have to opportunity to make it.
Re. ship-related legacy names, our local pub the Amethyst is just across the road from where Alexander Stephen's Shipyard was located ,the yard where she was built.
Regarding the US electric torpedo, it also had a dangerous risk. The batteries could create free hydrogen, which had to be well ventilated out of the insides of it while being serviced. A 19 year old Torpedoman 3rd class might not heed this, and a fire could result. USS Cod on a war patrol suffered such a fire that nearly sank her; only the extreme heroism of crew members in a compartment full of black smoke manhandling the blistering-hot torpedo into a tube to eject it saved the boat... moments before the warhead could cook off.
Do you have any book recommendations about the Royal Navy in WWII? Mainly interested in the Mediterranean and pacific but an entire history would be great as well
Dear Drach, I’m a Frog from the other side of the Channel and had no issues, as a tourist and a civilian, in visiting the Navy Yard iMuseum n DC. It was 10 years ago and I just had to produce my French pass at the gate. I even visited the Capitol, entering both the House and the Senate chambers on the public gallery.
A contender for farthest Chinese ship might be the Hai Chi which sailed from China to Britain in 1911 to participate in the fleet review for George V, and then sailed on to New York afterwards, I cannot find information on how the ship got back to China, but when she returned the Qing dynasty had been overthrown.
re 08:56, sub-calibre munitions. I read the following yonks ago: I have long forgotten where. Sabot means clog, ie a shoe carved from a block of wood. Sub-calibre cannonballs were fired sat in/on wooden blocks, called sabots from their shape. I assume it was relatively easy to carve or turn the wood to an accurate fit. The two would come apart when fired. I assume the word was of French or Netherlands origin.
was the Graf Spee handeled well during combat with the British cruisers? I've always thought mo. might be fun to layout a table top scenario of the battle and come up with a better battle plan
It's not easy. Not only has the local wargaming group "to which I have the honour to belong" (a phrase taught to a junior cavalry officer) run this scenario, many years ago; but reputedly prewar the RN ran a similar game. Which is partly why they fought the action that way!
01:50:03 Largest Bronze gun for 'modern era' was the 1881 Uchatius Steel Bronze Coastal Gun in 28 cm calibre, Field Marschal lieutnant Uchatius - the guns designer self deleted on the morning of its first test -Austro-Hungarian aristocracy were some-what prone to mental illness😮. Steel Bronze was a bronze hardened by process and was reasonably equivelent to an 1880s gun manufactured in steel opposed to Cast Iron which was really the 1880 alternate -for example the Italian 149G /23 hippopotamus, In Austo-Hungarian Empire steel bronze survived into 1918 with 8 cm 1905 field guns etc and beyond that in service with small central European Nations like Slovakia until 1945. The KuK in WW1 still used older Steel Bronze guns like the 12cm and 15 cm M1861 which were mainly fortress and siege guns. Also components of guns such as breach blocks and cradles often were bronze fairly standard well into WW2 for various mechanical reasons -for example A22, A27 and A30 Tanks had bronze cradles -hence when salvage of wartime targets for restoration in the 1980s and 1990s many where denuded of the valuable gun cradles.
Regarding Anglo-American relationship post-WW1, a historian pointed out in a recent video that the United States wasn't technically an ally of the U.K. and France, but a co-belligerent. Also, we never declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
00:28 this question is far wider, UK in WW1 was less organised than in WW2 -things like rationing from the outset and although now derided the "grow your own campaign" was very successful and not just materially it worked well for civilian morale. So debatable whether the KM could have put a true strangle hold over UK, although US against Japan a different matter, a disorganised nation subject to blockade but much of the blockade in late 1944 onwards (at the same time of the torpedoes that worked) mines was down to coastal mining -again much neglected historically but look at the number of B-29 missions were mining operations.
you've gone into some detail denigrating Vickers for trying to always get their 14 inch gun on almost everything?! what records have you about its first inigrations and for how long did they try to sell it?
Regarding tensions between Britain and the USA, one important tension not mentioned was the USA being extremely protectionist while Britain being extremely free trade. This had all sorts of negative impacts on Britain's economy and ability to pay off war debt. As implemented, these policies probably had just as strong a negative impact on the US economy (and may very well have contributed significantly to both the depth and duration of the US Great Depression) but not enough people back then understand that - or maybe the politicians were just too corrupt to care how much harm they were doing to their own people, and too busy buying votes to pay attention to doing their jobs well. Since this issue ultimately concerned sea-borne trade for both Britain and the USA, it funneled directly into the potential for war resulting from the naval arms race. It's hard for us to imagine today, but people had very strong feelings on this issue back then. It's not that all protectionism is bad under all circumstances, but it has to be something done with care and moderation if it's not going to create more problems than it solves - and hindsight shows that neither of these was a big part of the US decision making process on this issue, going back at least to the US Civil War. The Era of Extreme Protectionism started to end with the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 - though it would be a very slow process.
I'd hold off visiting the U.S. Navy Yard/National Museum of the U.S. Navy until the new building is completed in a few years (hopefully). They barely have anything on display at the original museum since they've consolidated their collection in preparation for the new building.
I know this is at the edge of the time period you cover, but: How do you rate the US 6"/47 DP autos? As in general use and perhaps for various up-gunning BBs AA armament? (Including "pure AA" ships). And the same question for the first generation of the 5"/54 in similar use....
By the time the 6”/47 reached active service, aircraft were so fast and anti-ship weapon standoff ranges were so great that direct-fire AA was insufficient and replaced as a principle by guided SAM and friendly airpower as the defense against attack aircraft.
@@dougjb7848 I meant if they realized at first that a dual purpose of that size needed to have two systems for Autoloading (LA & HA). They may have been able to get it into service prior to the 5"/54! Hence my question to Drach
Interesting comments on the post ww1 Anglo-American rivlary. Your perspective adds considerably to my understanding of the situation, thank you. If, whatever, you poked about in non-naval areas like, American corporate and government activity abroad, and especially in the Empire, there was a lot of pretty sharp corporate government thrusting, even in England itself. Anyway, 2 or 3 videos on this economic and financial side of it at you tube channel Academic Agent, a Cambrio/Persian Englishman.
Drach Read Alexander Kent's Sloop of War, one of the best. Alexander Kent - Bolitho Dudley Pope's - Ramage Julian Stockwins - Kidd Dewey Lambdin's - Lewrie Are all better series than the OBian's Aubrey books which spend too much time on the doctor. I will say that all the series are more enjoyable before the main character becomes an Admiral.
2:41:43 I would also cation against placing our morals today, in the past. We have them today because of what we learned in the past. This is a problem I see time and time again. I don't condone it, but at the time, it was accepted. We learn and evolve.
2:43:27 Though not enemy combatants I once heard that after HMS Iron Duke had been deliberately run aground at Scapa Flow in WW2 it had an amusing conversation with another RN ship that had also run aground. Iron Duke: You have run aground. Other ship: So have you, so what?
Most people will let you use the old bills because the collector value is worth many times more than what’s on the face of the note. I still understand what you were saying.
00:12:04 - What were the chances of friendly fire from descending AA shells that hit nothing but air? One of the critical features of Ship AA is that it was quite disciplined. Movies like to have the AA guns just blazing away like crazy, but actual AA gunners had a lot more control of their fire going on than might seem the case. Most guns also only fired on command under direction usually with pre-defined arcs of fire that were rigorously observed. Gunners rarely were given the freedom to pick their targets and "fire-at-will," because doing so encouraged chaos and inefficiency as guns interfered with each other and, of course, risked sweeping friendlies as they lost perspective. Gun Directors, be they simple fellows literally pointing or shouting complex instructions over intercom, were critical to ensuring safe and efficient AA gun handling, and they spent a lot of time in and out of action rigging the system to keep guns and gunners from aiming places they shouldn't be aiming for whatever reason. For example, gun directors usually spent a lot of time setting the mechanical blocks on their guns, which were not just to keep the guns from sweeping their own ship, but usually could be adjusted to keep the guns on specific arcs of fire with a mind to the down-range as well. Provided fleets kept their formations, AA guns could generally be adjusted to ensure that ships were not likely to be where falling shells went.
I wish you’d speak about jazz bands like you’ve done episodes on ice cream. They do that with jazz bands to this day and poor Glenn Miller. I just saw a band under a turret last July 4. So awesome. Besides signals can you elaborate on the jazz bands on carriers and battleships
Re. ship-related "legacy names" there are a number of rocks and reefs named after the ships that "discovered" them by running into them. (Edit) There is also the Royal Charter Storm of 1859 which is still known by the name of a passenger ship that was wrecked in the storm with great loss of life.
"Damnation seize my soul if I shall offer you any quarters, or accept any from you!" - Blackbeard. Edit : since you mentioned 40k "Nobody runs from the Conqueror. FIRE THE URSUS CLAWS!" Lotara Sarrin , Flag Captain of the World Eaters.
On Hood vs. Bismark, just make Prince of Wales the lead ship. She was better protected and could absorb the hits. Also at Mers el Kibir Hood's fire was plenty accurate. Tim
Theft: "I don't know sir! I think he fell down four or five times...." "Exactly how far?" "Four or Five Decks, Sir" "We've only got 3 decks" "Well, he is a thief sir, perhaps he stole 2 decks" (US NavVet)
2:15:00 One thing on WWI to note is that the US was not one of the "Allies" they were a "co-belligerent" or "associated power". For example in the naval section of the Armistice it always refers to "the Allies and the United States of America". While it may just be semantics today, it was important at the time as it clearly stated to Britain and France "we are not your friend, were are merely the enemy of your enemy" (and said the same to the American people).
I can highly recommend the Richard Bolitho series of books. I greatly enjoyed them. Well, right up until the author passed the main characters sword, after the death of the main character, to his nephew. They went down hill form there.
On Warspite’s guns - it seems to me that if you look at the long term, removing and replacing guns very many times, the trend would be for guns to become evenly distributed among the fleet, so the chance of picking any one gun becomes pretty random. Given that the ship was indeed old, that ought to simplify any calculation, but the question as asked is complex. It would be simply if it were “- at least one of the original guns”. A very rough calculation and using wikipedias 8 guns on warspite, 186 total guns made - I’ve simplified more because I’m doing this on my phone - gives me chance of not picking an original gun, per gun of 178/186, the eighth power of that, subtract from 1, about 30% chance it did have an original gun on board. Not the actual question asked though, and given the simplifications I made this is probably all bollocks - please point out why!
Presentation Colt 1851 Navy Revolver to Admiral Thomas Cochrane at auction. A(The) cased presentation Colt 1851Navy 36 cal Percussion revolver manufactured in 1853 in London, and presented to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane (1775 - 1860) is in the Rock Island Auction June 21 ( Auction No 1046 and Lot No 265) estimate $30,000 to $50,000. As much as I would like it it is well out of my price range! For any one interested in the UK then an FAC is not required unless you wish to shoot it. VAT/import tax may be levied.
Are we getting a sort of "Fisher's Fishing..." thing going on with Yokosuka Girls Marine High School Training Vessel Harekaze now, Admiral Drach? They do seem to be tiring you out with their long name... Cities/Town made out of ships - the port in Peter Pan is said to be made up of old ships and the film Hook shows this in great detail (fictional, I know, but hey..."
When the Wyoming was replaced by the Mississippi as the USN's gunnery training and experimental vessel, the two ships were moored on opposite sides of a pier and the crew were transferred as a body from one to the other. They were then given one week to transfer anything they thought appropriate from the Wyoming to the Mississippi., resulting in wrenches, screwdrivers and other tools being employed deep into the night. BTW, the Mississippi was instrumental in conducting the trials of the USN's "3T" missiles which weere developed into today's standard system.
“It is our turn now. So long. The captain and crew of SS Beaverford.”
- Captain Pettigrew of SS Beaverford, charging the Admiral Scheer after it had already sunk HMS Jervis Bay, giving the convoy even more time to scatter. He was not Royal Navy, but he did command a merchant ship with guns, so naval in spirit.
"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue." - Admiral Cunningham Yes, that is badassery.
It is truth.
@@PalleRasmussen it is the way.
Even as a kid in the 80s and 90s, I had heard of him and considered him one of the finest ever, and I'm in America lol
@@bull614 I'm an American myself- though distantly related to the Admiral. He and Farragut were two of my heroes during my Naval career.
@VintageCarHistory I'm from a Marine family, so you can probably guess most of my heroes, lol. The one thing my family from that generation always did was to make sure I understood how important allies were and are.
While not at war at the time, rumor has it that a Frenchman (with an outrageous accent) once yelled down at a passing British frigate captain that "his mother was a hamster and his father smelled of elderberry"
Congratulations on having "Baby Drac"
I am quite surprised to not hear you mention the quote by Oberst Eriksen commanding Oscarsborg at the battle of Drobak Sound: "Either I will be decorated or I will be court martialled. Fire!"
Technically he wasn't on a ship :)
@@DrachinifelBut the question didn't say 'ship'. Granted it does say 'naval officer' and he was a Colonel in coastal artillery, which might be 'naval adjacent' but I agree isn't actually 'naval'.
@@DrachinifelWe'd end up with what somebody overheard in a port pub once
Unsinkable coastal defence ship? @@Drachinifel
He was on a piece of land smaller than 5 aircraft carriers, and one-shotted the biggest German ship around, so he at least gets honorary navy status?
“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."
Cmdr Evans!!
Concerning “friendly fire” from AA, there’s a photograph of USS Bunker Hill during a kamikaze attack showing the muzzle flash of a twin 5” 38. One of the shells struck USS Astoria very near the photographer, wounding a nearby chaplain. The photographer aided the wounded chaplain, who survived. In the book “Days of Steel Rain” the photo is reproduced.
My grandfather used to say that there was bulletin posted aboard his destroyer that stated, if aircraft got past the outer screen then friendly AA fire was a definite concern for your safety.
As I watched the video further I wanted to add that his ship had a total of three casualties throughout the war. You know, one man had a heart attack.Another man fell overboard and the third was killed by friendly anti aircraffire as far as they could tell.
😅😅😅😅😅😅😮😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
@@Sakai070thanks for relating that very fascinating period of your family's history.
Appreciate your tapping that story for us.
“Department of redundancy department” made me laugh audibly
“Stand aside. I’m coming through. This is Ching Lee.”
Fun fact: background static during that transmission spontaneously arranged into the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
I came to the question waiting for that quote.
“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can” from Lt. Commander Copeland of the Sammy B takes it for me.
Since it wasn't battle related, “This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now” from Johnston's Commander Earnest Evans gets an honorable mention.
For fiction it has to be Delenn from Babylon 5: "Only one Human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!"
Cunningham's "the evacuation will continue" is probably the winner though, since it it isn't just badass, it's also shows an awareness of their collective responsibility to uphold the ideals and institutions of the navy.
The first one’s been hilariously misused though in various narratives, because Samar was only against overwhelming odds when it came specifically to Taffy 3’s survival; the Americans didn’t have much at stake when it came to the larger operation seeing as the Japanese were five days behind schedule and seeing as the main body of Seventh Fleet wasn’t too far away (the fleet that was lured away was Third Fleet).
The Copeland quote was a good one! A slow-footed DE charging cruisers and battleships. Overwhelming odds indeed.
@glennricafrente58 26 knots out of a ship that should have only been able to 23
Evens was awarded the CMH posthumously.
@@wierdalien1 Mind, most US Navy ships of the 1940s had a safety factor of 120% for their propulsion systems, as in they were designed to safely run at 120% of intended power without catastrophic failure. Thus, most all US Navy ships could go a knot or more faster than their designed speeds in exchange for significantly reducing the service life of the system.
This is how New Jersey set the battleship speed record, doing just over 35 knots in the 1960s. To prove to doubters that the old powerplant was still up to standard, the Captain authorized 120% power for six hours, silencing naysayers and getting a record in the process.
No Wehraboo but I like Lindemann's order while waiting for Lütjens to make up his mind: "I'm not letting my ship get shot out from under my arse. Open fire."
Good one!
I think I heard captain of Graff Spee had some words after being informed that Ajax and Achilles were not destroyers as thought initially but light cruisers
Mu understanding is that Hood's gunnery wasn't exactly *bad*, just not as good as that of the other ships, so if she hadn't blown up there's every reason to think that two battleships (with heavy cruisers possibly joining later) vs one battleship and a heavy cruiser would not go in the latter force's favour.
For an American, Farragut's "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead", has to be at the top of the list of bad ass naval quotes.
"We have met the enemy and they are ours" is another good one.
@@Charliecomet82 We have met the enemy and he is us. - Pogo
While important in US history that's not really a fighting quote. The context of it is that it was sent after the battle to inform the commander of US army units that the navy had triumphed and destroyed the British naval forces. Therefore, he should attack the British land forces because they were unsupported and would be forced to retreat. The point being that it was sent aftet the battle to military forces not directly involved in the battle it was about.
Not even a half hour in… I’m running out of vodka but if drach mentions square cube law you have to drink. It’s a game you can’t lose. ^2 ^3 🥴😵💫😴
Chop your edible into 8ths and eat a piece every time he says it.
Both great advice for celebrating 300 next week. Cheers!
Thank you for the amazing answer about Wyoming. You always find the most amazing pictures, I didn't even know existed!
"RECHT IN HERZ DEM FIENDEN!!! RAN!!!!" - "RIGHT INTO THE ENEMY'S HEART!!! CHARGE!!!" Hipper at Jutland.
Bada** naval quote: "We're suckering them into 40 mm range!", unknown escort carrier officer, Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944.
Along with, “Damm!t boys, there getting away!”
@@Chew1964 I think autocorrupt got you the wrong "they're"
@@Chew1964and that one is fully documented
Tordenskjold is hands down one of the most epic naval characters the world has seen. Had he been born into the british navy, he would be up there with the top tier captains!
Ryan on battleship New Jersey has a video showing the armored grates in the lower part of the funnel
The question of how close the Kriegsmarine came to starving out Britain raises a related question: COULD they?
"Away from nutritional tables, the outbreak of the war got Widdowson and McCance thinking about how to help. Widdowson explained their proposal in her 1980s lecture: ‘we in common with many other people felt we ought to do something … so anticipating that there would be a shortage of food we made an experimental study of rationing’.
They knew that if Germany cut off British ports, the country could not rely on imports and would have to sustain itself. Based on the likely availability of food in this scenario, Widdowson and McCance calculated the available weekly rations for an individual. They then planned to stick to this diet for three months, as did five other volunteers. The weekly portions were meagre, to say the least: 1lb (about 450g) of meat and fish, 5oz (about 140g) of sugar, 4oz (about 110g) of fats, 4oz of cheese, and a single egg. 6oz (about 170g) of fruit was permitted, as long as it was not imported. Finally, milk was limited to a quarter of a pint per day. Fresh British-grown vegetables and bread were not rationed during the experiment, so you could at least eat all the potato sandwiches you wanted.
There was some expectation that a diet this restricted would be entirely unsustainable. These rations represented less than half, and in some cases less than a third, of the average weekly consumption in Britain before the war begin. In reality, Widdowson recalled, ‘we found the diet rather filling, containing as it did so much bread and potatoes and so little fat and sugar’. At the end of the experiment, the group spent ‘a glorious fortnight in the Lake District in January 1940, still living on the rations. We walked and climbed as we have never done before or since’.
This demonstrated that a properly rationed diet could still provide people with enough energy to work effectively and remain healthy: ‘The principle that we adopted of having bread and vegetables unrationed was important because it ensured that those with high energy requirements would obtain enough’. These findings were a key influence behind the government’s decision to leave bread and vegetables unrationed during the War, though supplies of both were still limited."
royalsociety.org/blog/2020/01/world-war-food/
No, the Germans apparently could not--this wartime study demonstrated domestic British agriculture was capable of producing enough food without imports to keep the population fighting fit, and as such guided British rationing when instituted in early 1940.
Just as the lessons of 1918 led to the Royal Navy began convoying merchant ships immediately after war broke out in 1939, a system was set up copy the successful rationing of 1918:
"A Minister of Food has been appointed to take charge, as from the outset of the war, of the food supplies of the country as a whole.
…
The need for food control was shown by the experience gained in the last war. Economy and orderly distribution at fair prices are vital to the Home Front in war.
…
During 1917 schemes for the distribution of the main commodities were in process of formation. The difficulties were also growing. In the autumn of 1917 successive shortages appeared in several important commodities, apart from sugar which had been in short supply for many months. The visible result of these shortages were the queues outside retail shops. They began in a few places for tea and bacon. The main commodities in short or irregular supply were butter, margarine and potatoes, and finally meat.
…
Rationing began for sugar in January, 1918, was extended gradually and locally during the next few months to meat, including bacon and fats. It did not become general even for those foods until July, 1918. It developed piecemeal out of schemes administered by local Food Control Committees."
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/home-front-1939-1945-part-two/the-need-for-food-control/
The 'business as usual' policy of 1914-17 was highly problematic, though food inflation had become a major problem on both sides of the Atlantic even before the U.S. declared war on Germany:
"The bulletin’s data showed the reason for the League’s concern: although the price of several staples had fallen from January to February, meat prices were up. Moreover, most meat prices were considerably higher in 1913 than they were throughout the 1890s. Smoked bacon had increased 111.6 percent, for example. Round steak had risen 84.5 percent.2
Whatever the home farmers may or may not have done, however, the coming years would produce more price increases. When the CPI was finally created in 1921 and a time series back to 1913 was established, it would show food prices more than doubling from 1913 to 1920. Only a sharp recession in 1921 would produce a decline."
www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consumer-price-index-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm
As a result of memory of 1910s inflation, both America and Britain instituted rationing early during the Second World War and vastly increased agricultural production. The acreage under cultivation increased 50% in Britain during the war, seeing a vast increase in wheat and potato consumption as meat fell by a third.
Diets were definitely affected by the war, but this pales compared to the German experience of K-brot and the Turnip Winter leading the Germans to impose rationing beginning on 1 January 1937 and waging a war for food, imposing the Hunger Plan on the USSR during the 1940s so Germany could experience a 'business as usual' until the Allies rolled over German farms in 1944-45. Short of Operation Sea Lion, literally starving out Britain wasn't in the cards.
Oil, on the other hand...
Not just oil - what about all the components and machinery needed to operate UK domestic agriculture, and the distribution logistics, at a level to sustain the nation’s population indefinitely?
Certainly the UK of 1940 was less mechanized than any time after, but the system still relied on the ability to transport all that food grown on farms “way out there,” where there were more farms and fewer people, to “over here,” where there were fewer farms and more people.
Could Britain produce enough trucks and cars and track and engines domestically?
@@dougjb7848 basic agricultural machinery? Sure. Great Britain, even today, has extensive reserves of coal, iron, lead, zinc, copper, etc. However I think the more esoteric stuff required for high tech weaponry (even by WW2 standards) would be a problem. Rubber, tungsten, molybdenum, etc. I don’t think they could _literally_ starve us to death, but the U-boats could certainly have crippled the UK such that we weren’t a significant military threat. And in that dire a situation, there would probably be substantial public pressure to agree terms (much like where both Russia and Germany ended up at the end of WW1).
42:02 Concidentally enough, considering the ongoing series on Johnnie Walker, he also gave the General Chase order in 1943 to the Second Support Group to run down three U-boats in the Bay of Biscay.
I've got three quotes. One from Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, the admiral that commanded the Georgios Averof in the Balkan Wars and two from Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher at Midway and Eastern Solomons respectively.
At one point during the Balkan Wars, Kountouriotis sent a telegram to his Ottoman opponent that read: "We have captured Tenedos. We await the exit of your fleet. If you need coal, I can supply you."
When the Japanese dive bombers at Midway approached USS Yorktown and Fletcher was informed of this, he put his arms over his head and said: "Well, I've got on my tin hat. I can't anything else now." Then he stepped outside of the bridge to observe the enemy attack himself.
At the end of the battle of the Eastern Solomons when Fletcher decided to retreat in order to deny the Japanese the opportunity of a night battle, he joked: "Boys, I'm going to get two dispatches tonight, one from Admiral Nimitz telling me what a wonderful job we did, and one from King saying 'Why in hell didn't you use your destroyers and make torpedo attacks?' and by God, they'll both be right."
Thanks for tapping these stories for us.
No point in noting a historian is "right wing" Such conflation is illogical. How about just calling him an ignorant douche?
@@CharlesYuditsky While I agree with you, I think you posted this on the wrong comment...
@@carlborg8023 By golly you are correct, good sir. No idea where is the post I intended to reply to.
@@CharlesYuditsky It was three or four above as of when I posted.
For unusual legacy names, I would choose "USNS Bismarck".
Enterprise Rent-a-Car is also an interesting one.
Was going to mention these two.
00:12:04 20 mm Oerlikon as a rule during WW2 didn't have a means of self destruct. Mainly because SD in small calibre is related to the burn time of the tracer, it burns until it reaches the explosive content sometimes by flame in Germany by heat transfer - then bango, some later ammunition in pacific campaign may have had this type of SD but a debatable point especially as AP solid shot is part of the ammunition mix. 20 mm has a alleged 1.1 km range personally I rather not be down range of a 20 mm without multiplying that by at least x 2. and remember MGs were common place until 1943 and were generally all solid shot or incendiary with or without tracer, All German 20mm and larger had a SD destruct by either tracer and alternately spin decay. and this would include their Oerlikons (Flak 28) which were generally all land service.
For the allies 2pdr pom pom and 40 mm were SD tracer destruct for all HE ammunition - obviously an AP solid shot isn't going to be SD but not part of Naval load out. For UK service 40mm Bofors has an SD at 3,400 and 5,500 yards depending on the tracer. similar with 2 pdr pom pom. All that said it doesn't stop failures, sometime the tracer or spin decay fails - I came across one locally in the late 1970s when a "thingy bomb" was found in a roof of a building during demolition, it turned out to be a face draining 40 mm Bofors, but must have been a real friday afternoon special as it had gone up 7000 metres and back down pierced a slate roof and embedded itself neatly in the large timber of the roof structure and probably the home owner thought they had lost a slate, but EOD guys are wonderful people 😉
However one weapon that was a safety pain was the 2 inch rocket which had No SD and some were fitted to Merchant ships, but mainly used for Star shell illumination, for land use they were set up as overwatch on South coast and Estuaries because no-one wants a big firework coming back to earth in a built up area or even over farm land.
All this in brief but that said there is a load of bollocks out there, including one book by an annoying right wing "historian" who says that more civilians died because of blue on blue A/A gunnery than where killed by Luftwaffe , but has no clue as to what No 207, 208, or 214 fuse is/was and its functionality (and he should because he is British). Vanity publication and latterly the Internet has a lot to answer for.
1:15:20 so the death star had poor funnel design?
There is a great write up with an Imperial engineer saying I manage to vent all of the heat from this huge spaceship through this tiny hole. It took a magical space wizard to be able to hit it BUT NO! It’s all my fault.
Congratulations on your new arrival. Part 1 done and 1 to go.
The next drydock needs to have at least one mention of the Spartan Navy or of HMS Thermopylae.
"Could USS Wyoming be refit to be a fast AA Battleship?"
Drach's short answer: You're better off spending the money and resources building another Atlanta-class cruiser.
Oh, by the way, heart felt congratulations on the new addition to the family!!!
57:14 great deja vu to the armored vs unarmored carrier vid. One of the first I saw on this channel!
One could only imagine the monstrosity Hitler would have requested had he heard about Britain planning to build a 6000ft Habbakuk. See that Island, make it float.
"Either I will be decorated, or I will be court-martialed. Fire!" Birger Kristian Eriksen commander of Oscarsborg Fortress, 9 April 1940
Love how you collect such wonderful stories.
Nice job as always I am sure everyone in drach nation is excited for number 300 hard to believe it came so quick looking forward to another 300 with our question and your extremely hard work I would like to tell you and miss drach congratulations on the little bundle of joy you guys are so lucky for such a beautiful baby🎉
Congrats on the new baby Drac and Mrs. Drac!
Nicely diplomatic description(s) of US and British interwar relations. Always very good with these.
"Rudder!Hard Left!"
--Captain Earnest Evens at Samar.
In the Terry Pratchett Diskworld books he explains how the mountain called "Your finger you fool" got it's name.
You can guess why.
LOL. Currently reading though those books at about a couple a week. I think I'm at about book 27 or so.
@@Les537 Damn alzheimer's for stealing minds like his.
Loved that explanation of how places were named! 😂 GNU Sir Terry
Omg best opening tune on UA-cam and I wish I could afford to see you today. You’ve been here before. Make sure you just New Jersey right back. It’s sweet you have a channel island named after us.
I graduated from Norwich University, which is our oldest private military college.
The Corps of Cadets had a strict honor code, and theft was punishable by expulsion.
During the first portion of our first (freshmen) year, we were called Rooks, and we were not permitted to lock our doors, etc. We also weren't permitted to have very many personal possessions, just a watch, calculator, that sort of thing.
One of my fellow Rooks reported to our upperclassmen cadre that his watch had been stolen, and they immediately conducted a thorough room search, military style. The watch was discovered in a fellow rooks possesion.
In addition to being brought before the Honor Board, we were informed by our cadre at a formation, that they would not be present on the dorm floor for the next 15 minutes, and we should not take matters into our own hands (wink, wink).
Needless to say, the thieving Rook, accidentally and repeatedly slipped and fell whilst in the shower. He was then expelled three days later.
Problem solved, problem staying solved, army style.
Surcouf's retort was saltier than the Dead Sea.
I’d like to add the following to the badass naval quotes section;
“Before we are done with them, the Japanese language will only be spoken in Hell!”-Halsey in the aftermath of PH.
“Those who seek death shall live, those who seek to live shall die”- Yi, to his men the night before the Battle of Myeongnyang.
“We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that is that.”- Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy, aboard Rawalpindi vs. The Twins.
And of course, “England expects that every man shall do his duty.”
O God, the Rawalpindi man was raw.
@@hazchemel
Captain Edward C. Kennedy, as it turns out.
@@bkjeong4302 raw was probably his secret name
The fact that HMS Garry stopped shooting once they were visible to others implies they knew they were doing wrong.
What speed did HMS Rodney achieve while on the way to paste Bismarck?
For the ostensible reasons for building a big fast ferry class of some kind with the intention of converting them to a carrier later, for the Japanese it might be for trade between the main islands and Korea, possibly Hokkaido if they had developed Hokkaido faster, and their trading community in the Phillipines. But the navy that seems to me to have the best excuse for such a ship class would be the Marine National for trade between Metropolitan France and Algeria.
Legacy names: CF Martin named it's largest, loudest (most powerful) guitar a dreadnought, after Fisher's Dreadnought.
is this pig? im not calling you that im asking if your him. the whereboo thing made me think
25:17 An outstanding and excellent explanantion on this subject. Thank you
Re: borrowing ammunition from the enemy - I've read a similar story about a British patrol ambushed in the Khyber Pass who ran out of ammunition and were then offered more ammo by the ambushers who wanted the battle to continue.
I bet the Death Star wishes it had exhaust port armored grates
Congrats on the baby!
Kongos at Jutland, could the Japanese 14 inch shell do more damage than the British 13.5 shell because we know about the trouble with the British shells
In terms of the possible reason for having a speedy long range train ferry could be an early form of a roll on roll off where you could just attach the rails on the ship to rails on shore. This might work for shipping coal or other commodity that would not be needed in the port area but further into the interior of the receiving country.
When firing age of sail cannon, was the barrel of the gun damaged by the cannon ball as it accelerated up the barrel given the amount of windage allowed?
1 Drydock and 2 K subscribers to Go!!
You can taste it!!
You were mentioning the 15’ guns lost on HMS Barham, HMS Hood, HMS Repulse…
What about the guns from HMS Royal Oak ?
Having been to the naval museum in Washington, it is really pretty incredible. When we were there (US citizens), we all had to have out background checked at the gate, but otherwise it wans't a big issue for me.
It's got an enormous amount of builder's models, as well as the test piece of Yamato armor that was penetrated by a 16" superheavy. I really hope you have to opportunity to make it.
Re. ship-related legacy names, our local pub the Amethyst is just across the road from where Alexander Stephen's Shipyard was located ,the yard where she was built.
Regarding the US electric torpedo, it also had a dangerous risk. The batteries could create free hydrogen, which had to be well ventilated out of the insides of it while being serviced. A 19 year old Torpedoman 3rd class might not heed this, and a fire could result. USS Cod on a war patrol suffered such a fire that nearly sank her; only the extreme heroism of crew members in a compartment full of black smoke manhandling the blistering-hot torpedo into a tube to eject it saved the boat... moments before the warhead could cook off.
Do you have any book recommendations about the Royal Navy in WWII? Mainly interested in the Mediterranean and pacific but an entire history would be great as well
we've all seen the wall of AA pictures? ( american ships in the pacific) with that amount of flack in the air how were "kills" accredited?
A third factor in the Gary/UB-110 affair. The accused were on the winning side, and as we all know, only the losing side commits war crimes.
Dear Drach,
I’m a Frog from the other side of the Channel and had no issues, as a tourist and a civilian, in visiting the Navy Yard iMuseum n DC. It was 10 years ago and I just had to produce my French pass at the gate. I even visited the Capitol, entering both the House and the Senate chambers on the public gallery.
Very best wishes for the new baby Drach!
And sorry, but that anchorage (1:56) isn't Scapa Flow. From the awnings I would suggest its the Med ?
A contender for farthest Chinese ship might be the Hai Chi which sailed from China to Britain in 1911 to participate in the fleet review for George V, and then sailed on to New York afterwards, I cannot find information on how the ship got back to China, but when she returned the Qing dynasty had been overthrown.
re 08:56, sub-calibre munitions. I read the following yonks ago: I have long forgotten where.
Sabot means clog, ie a shoe carved from a block of wood. Sub-calibre cannonballs were fired sat in/on wooden blocks, called sabots from their shape. I assume it was relatively easy to carve or turn the wood to an accurate fit. The two would come apart when fired.
I assume the word was of French or Netherlands origin.
02:30:43 I think there may be some footage of Italian warships firing shore bombardment during the Italian-Turkish war of 1912 ish
was the Graf Spee handeled well during combat with the British cruisers? I've always thought mo.
might be fun to layout a table top scenario of the battle and come up with a better battle plan
It's not easy. Not only has the local wargaming group "to which I have the honour to belong" (a phrase taught to a junior cavalry officer) run this scenario, many years ago; but reputedly prewar the RN ran a similar game. Which is partly why they fought the action that way!
01:50:03 Largest Bronze gun for 'modern era' was the 1881 Uchatius Steel Bronze Coastal Gun in 28 cm calibre, Field Marschal lieutnant Uchatius - the guns designer self deleted on the morning of its first test -Austro-Hungarian aristocracy were some-what prone to mental illness😮. Steel Bronze was a bronze hardened by process and was reasonably equivelent to an 1880s gun manufactured in steel opposed to Cast Iron which was really the 1880 alternate -for example the Italian 149G /23 hippopotamus, In Austo-Hungarian Empire steel bronze survived into 1918 with 8 cm 1905 field guns etc and beyond that in service with small central European Nations like Slovakia until 1945. The KuK in WW1 still used older Steel Bronze guns like the 12cm and 15 cm M1861 which were mainly fortress and siege guns. Also components of guns such as breach blocks and cradles often were bronze fairly standard well into WW2 for various mechanical reasons -for example A22, A27 and A30 Tanks had bronze cradles -hence when salvage of wartime targets for restoration in the 1980s and 1990s many where denuded of the valuable gun cradles.
Regarding Anglo-American relationship post-WW1, a historian pointed out in a recent video that the United States wasn't technically an ally of the U.K. and France, but a co-belligerent. Also, we never declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
00:28 this question is far wider, UK in WW1 was less organised than in WW2 -things like rationing from the outset and although now derided the "grow your own campaign" was very successful and not just materially it worked well for civilian morale. So debatable whether the KM could have put a true strangle hold over UK, although US against Japan a different matter, a disorganised nation subject to blockade but much of the blockade in late 1944 onwards (at the same time of the torpedoes that worked) mines was down to coastal mining -again much neglected historically but look at the number of B-29 missions were mining operations.
Hi Drach, when it comes to Funnel armoured grates, Ryan has photos of NJ showing these in answer to a viewers question.
you've gone into some detail denigrating Vickers for trying to always get their 14 inch gun on almost everything?! what records have you about its first inigrations and for how long did they try to sell it?
any special plan for the 300th episode next week?
Regarding tensions between Britain and the USA, one important tension not mentioned was the USA being extremely protectionist while Britain being extremely free trade. This had all sorts of negative impacts on Britain's economy and ability to pay off war debt.
As implemented, these policies probably had just as strong a negative impact on the US economy (and may very well have contributed significantly to both the depth and duration of the US Great Depression) but not enough people back then understand that - or maybe the politicians were just too corrupt to care how much harm they were doing to their own people, and too busy buying votes to pay attention to doing their jobs well.
Since this issue ultimately concerned sea-borne trade for both Britain and the USA, it funneled directly into the potential for war resulting from the naval arms race. It's hard for us to imagine today, but people had very strong feelings on this issue back then.
It's not that all protectionism is bad under all circumstances, but it has to be something done with care and moderation if it's not going to create more problems than it solves - and hindsight shows that neither of these was a big part of the US decision making process on this issue, going back at least to the US Civil War.
The Era of Extreme Protectionism started to end with the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 - though it would be a very slow process.
I'd hold off visiting the U.S. Navy Yard/National Museum of the U.S. Navy until the new building is completed in a few years (hopefully). They barely have anything on display at the original museum since they've consolidated their collection in preparation for the new building.
I know this is at the edge of the time period you cover, but:
How do you rate the US 6"/47 DP autos? As in general use and perhaps for various up-gunning BBs AA armament? (Including "pure AA" ships). And the same question for the first generation of the 5"/54 in similar use....
By the time the 6”/47 reached active service, aircraft were so fast and anti-ship weapon standoff ranges were so great that direct-fire AA was insufficient and replaced as a principle by guided SAM and friendly airpower as the defense against attack aircraft.
@@dougjb7848 I meant if they realized at first that a dual purpose of that size needed to have two systems for Autoloading (LA & HA). They may have been able to get it into service prior to the 5"/54!
Hence my question to Drach
Battleship New Jersey did a video that showed the armored grate in one of the funnels.
Interesting comments on the post ww1 Anglo-American rivlary. Your perspective adds considerably to my understanding of the situation, thank you.
If, whatever, you poked about in non-naval areas like, American corporate and government activity abroad, and especially in the Empire, there was a lot of pretty sharp corporate government thrusting, even in England itself.
Anyway, 2 or 3 videos on this economic and financial side of it at you tube channel Academic Agent, a Cambrio/Persian Englishman.
Drach
Read Alexander Kent's Sloop of War, one of the best.
Alexander Kent - Bolitho
Dudley Pope's - Ramage
Julian Stockwins - Kidd
Dewey Lambdin's - Lewrie
Are all better series than the OBian's Aubrey books which spend too much time on the doctor.
I will say that all the series are more enjoyable before the main character becomes an Admiral.
2:41:43 I would also cation against placing our morals today, in the past. We have them today because of what we learned in the past. This is a problem I see time and time again. I don't condone it, but at the time, it was accepted. We learn and evolve.
2:43:27 Though not enemy combatants I once heard that after HMS Iron Duke had been deliberately run aground at Scapa Flow in WW2 it had an amusing conversation with another RN ship that had also run aground.
Iron Duke: You have run aground.
Other ship: So have you, so what?
Once the war ended and all the cooling turned off/materials salvaged, I wonder just how long the Habakkook would have survived in the North Atlantic
Most people will let you use the old bills because the collector value is worth many times more than what’s on the face of the note. I still understand what you were saying.
00:12:04 - What were the chances of friendly fire from descending AA shells that hit nothing but air?
One of the critical features of Ship AA is that it was quite disciplined. Movies like to have the AA guns just blazing away like crazy, but actual AA gunners had a lot more control of their fire going on than might seem the case.
Most guns also only fired on command under direction usually with pre-defined arcs of fire that were rigorously observed. Gunners rarely were given the freedom to pick their targets and "fire-at-will," because doing so encouraged chaos and inefficiency as guns interfered with each other and, of course, risked sweeping friendlies as they lost perspective.
Gun Directors, be they simple fellows literally pointing or shouting complex instructions over intercom, were critical to ensuring safe and efficient AA gun handling, and they spent a lot of time in and out of action rigging the system to keep guns and gunners from aiming places they shouldn't be aiming for whatever reason.
For example, gun directors usually spent a lot of time setting the mechanical blocks on their guns, which were not just to keep the guns from sweeping their own ship, but usually could be adjusted to keep the guns on specific arcs of fire with a mind to the down-range as well. Provided fleets kept their formations, AA guns could generally be adjusted to ensure that ships were not likely to be where falling shells went.
Working on spread sheets that make my brain hurt.....good part is Dry Dock makes less so
I wish you’d speak about jazz bands like you’ve done episodes on ice cream. They do that with jazz bands to this day and poor Glenn Miller. I just saw a band under a turret last July 4. So awesome. Besides signals can you elaborate on the jazz bands on carriers and battleships
Re. ship-related "legacy names" there are a number of rocks and reefs named after the ships that "discovered" them by running into them.
(Edit) There is also the Royal Charter Storm of 1859 which is still known by the name of a passenger ship that was wrecked in the storm with great loss of life.
Enterprise Rental Car Co. Founder Jack Taylor selected the name Enterprise as a salute to the WWII aircraft carrier he served on, the USS Enterprise.
"Damnation seize my soul if I shall offer you any quarters, or accept any from you!" - Blackbeard.
Edit : since you mentioned 40k
"Nobody runs from the Conqueror. FIRE THE URSUS CLAWS!" Lotara Sarrin , Flag Captain of the World Eaters.
On Hood vs. Bismark, just make Prince of Wales the lead ship. She was better protected and could absorb the hits. Also at Mers el Kibir Hood's fire was plenty accurate.
Tim
Theft: "I don't know sir! I think he fell down four or five times...."
"Exactly how far?"
"Four or Five Decks, Sir"
"We've only got 3 decks"
"Well, he is a thief sir, perhaps he stole 2 decks"
(US NavVet)
2:15:00 One thing on WWI to note is that the US was not one of the "Allies" they were a "co-belligerent" or "associated power". For example in the naval section of the Armistice it always refers to "the Allies and the United States of America".
While it may just be semantics today, it was important at the time as it clearly stated to Britain and France "we are not your friend, were are merely the enemy of your enemy" (and said the same to the American people).
I can highly recommend the Richard Bolitho series of books. I greatly enjoyed them. Well, right up until the author passed the main characters sword, after the death of the main character, to his nephew. They went down hill form there.
On Warspite’s guns - it seems to me that if you look at the long term, removing and replacing guns very many times, the trend would be for guns to become evenly distributed among the fleet, so the chance of picking any one gun becomes pretty random. Given that the ship was indeed old, that ought to simplify any calculation, but the question as asked is complex. It would be simply if it were “- at least one of the original guns”.
A very rough calculation and using wikipedias 8 guns on warspite, 186 total guns made - I’ve simplified more because I’m doing this on my phone - gives me chance of not picking an original gun, per gun of 178/186, the eighth power of that, subtract from 1, about 30% chance it did have an original gun on board. Not the actual question asked though, and given the simplifications I made this is probably all bollocks - please point out why!
Presentation Colt 1851 Navy Revolver to Admiral Thomas Cochrane at auction.
A(The) cased presentation Colt 1851Navy 36 cal Percussion revolver manufactured in 1853 in London, and presented to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane (1775 - 1860) is in the Rock Island Auction June 21 ( Auction No 1046 and Lot No 265) estimate $30,000 to $50,000. As much as I would like it it is well out of my price range!
For any one interested in the UK then an FAC is not required unless you wish to shoot it. VAT/import tax may be levied.
"Pubs that are named after ships they are built of." Damn, talk about reperposing
funnel protection the original cope cage?
Ah yes, BuOrd getting hit with the Good Idea Bat. If only they then got hit with the Hat of Discipline.
Are we getting a sort of "Fisher's Fishing..." thing going on with Yokosuka Girls Marine High School Training Vessel Harekaze now, Admiral Drach? They do seem to be tiring you out with their long name...
Cities/Town made out of ships - the port in Peter Pan is said to be made up of old ships and the film Hook shows this in great detail (fictional, I know, but hey..."
When the Wyoming was replaced by the Mississippi as the USN's gunnery training and experimental vessel, the two ships were moored on opposite sides of a pier and the crew were transferred as a body from one to the other. They were then given one week to transfer anything they thought appropriate from the Wyoming to the Mississippi., resulting in wrenches, screwdrivers and other tools being employed deep into the night. BTW, the Mississippi was instrumental in conducting the trials of the USN's "3T" missiles which weere developed into today's standard system.