I was honored to know a Pearl Harbor survivor. He served the entire war in the Pacific and swam the lagoon at Bikini during Operation Crossroads. He served on Guadalcanal in a combat role alongside the Marines. Are there records I could look up in regards to USN Sailors outside medics becoming infantry and serving in said role? Later in the war he went to BUDS school and became a UDT Frog man. Thanks
@leftyo9589 he was a frog man, at least what he called it swam into alternating invasion beaches and was preparing for Operation Downfall when the nukes were dropped.
@flayrex3919 Probably any history of the US Navy Seals would include a section on the WW2 'frogmen', the forerunners of the Seals. If memory serves, the use of 'combat swimmers' started for the USA primarily as a result of the lessons learned at Tarawa [November 1943], but perhaps also influenced by the landing at Attu [May 1943]. At Tarawa a lot of the marine landing craft were trapped on the reef a long distance from shore - which led to very high casualties because of the long distance required to get to the beach, under fire, and possibly requiring the marines to go through deep water with heavy gear. During the Attu landing, they had issues with the sand not being able to support heavy equipment, which meant stuff got stuck on the beach and couldn't be moved inland where it was needed. All that made it clear that they needed to be able to scout the beaches and the reefs before any amphibious landing to know a) how deep things were in various places and b) what the characteristics of the beach were - preferably without letting the enemy know it was happening. I think it wasn't just swimming, sometimes they used small boats like canoes. If I recall correctly, one of the main terms used for the people who did this was 'Scouts and Raiders'. I think in the ETO they worked with or alongside the British Commonwealth groups known as 'Combined Operations Pilotage Parties'. Not sure what would have been going on at Guadalcanal [presumably 1942] - maybe somebody else can speak up.
There's another sense of the word "stiff" which applies to sailing vessels. A stiff sailer is one which doesn't heel as much as a "tender" boat. Having a stiff sailer means that the sails can take more wind before they need to be reefed, and that presumably means that a stiff boat would go faster than a tender one. When you mentioned that the big American frigates were stiff sailers, I thought that the comment might be about this property of sailing ships.
For those who are interested. Of Islands, Ports and Sea Lanes: Africa and the Indian Ocean in the Second World by Ashly Jackson helps fill some of the history of the importance of this theater.
2:19:26 This has to be the greatest take down of one of Cody’s videos I have ever seen. You explaining how Napoleon army and navy would be decimated by the rest of the Royal Navy or the terrain advantage the British army would have was very entertaining
@ 1:10:05. Bomb & Shell Filler: A high brisance explosive could probably pop a Lot of Rivets! Riveted construction was used through-out WW2 even on modern battleships (like the USS Massachusetts). If a riveted hull hs a few rivets "popped" and the steel distorted then you have a hard time stopping water coming in!
Regarding the "stiffness" of a sailing vessel... the term usually refers to her susceptibility to heeling in a beam wind ( how much wind and waves from the side makes them tilt over). Ships that have excessive heel, are called "crank" Those that heel much less, are called "stiff". So it depends on the context.
@@AgentTasmania YW. "Heel" is not the same as roll, as the incline is a steady state as long as the wind, sail trim, and course remain the same. Roll is about hull design; some sailboats can roll horribly at anchor while being fairly stiff when pointing or on a beam reach.
Hull stiffness shows itself as vibration or clunking or deflection when running into swell. Mid engined hulls with center helm ride best. Nothing beats a large full tanker plowing the ocean.
Iowa class HMS Conquerer and Thunderer would be absolutely dope. Also, w/r/t Ranger's movable funnels, someone needs to 'shop them into the scene in Battleship where Hopper and Nagata are looking at the alien ship and one of them says "I didn't think that one moved".
Wire wound barrels - that's not really the hows and whys of it. The core of the problem is that making a simple hollow cylinder thicker (of given internal bore and subject to internal pressure) adds ever less 'strength' proportional to the thickness of material added to the outside. Physics dictates that outer layers can never get to carry significant load before the inner layer becomes over-stressed. Hence the older very fat barrels - a lot of outer material needed for even a small benefit to withstanding the pressure. The solution is to permanently and precisely modify the 'no-load' stress profile in the barrel walls before use, so that when under load the stress is more evenly distributed throughout the thickness. For this, shrunk-on hoops/tubes, tensioned wire winding or autofrettage were used - which essentially all exploit similar effects. The latter method is fundamentally better but required (initially) monobloc construction and hence impracticably large forgings for big guns. Improving metallurgy certainly helped but that's a separate, parallel issue.
Same, I use drachs amazing voice and the calm non political or doomsday content to go to sleep. But I'm also interested in the content, so I need to listen for multiple times.
Regarding wind over the deck for landing aircraft, it's all about the relative wind speed and direction. Back in 1987 on USS Constellation CV-64, the bridge watch computed for true and desired wind every 15 minutes. I think the desired wind was 10 degrees to port at 25 knots for the landing cycle. Unlike an airport ashore, you can adjust the heading as long as sea room is available.
Thank you for the personal insight. Comments like yours are helpful for us non navy (I was US Army) Drach fans to learn even more on a topic. I appreciate it.
You don't have to imagine how much space an Iowa would take on battleship row. Missouri is moored there. Addition (not a response to Drach below.): I did not want to write a seperate post): I think the post war view on the utility of battleships is colored by Halsey's failure to send Lee to Guard the San Bernadino Strait. Had Lee been left behind Leyte would have been have decided primarily by surface action with an assist from the escort carriers and would have provided battleship admirals a talking point to defend their assets. In any case, battleships were still in commission into late 1950s. The Iowa and Wisconsin were not decommissioned until 1958. What killed the battleship was the lack of battleships to fight. They were too costly to keep in commission.
To quote John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent " I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea". And in 1940 just change the word French.
The real question regarding Ranger's funnels for me has always been "why?" Why accept all that extra mechanical complexity rather than just building the ship with fixed funnels in the downward position?
You might have problem with smoke pouring out over the deck and sides of the ship when steaming in a crosswind. There were a lot of weird and wonderful funnel arrangements for carriers, until everybody sort of figured out that the best solution is to put the funnels in the island.
Ok Drach I'm late to this, but Iowa's renamed, in 1:20:57, how about one of the shis named for Lake Superior, since it represents such a large shared border. HMS Superior has a nice ring to it
Russia and Japan had a friendship pact until Hiroshima when Stalin declared war on Japan. An enormous quantity of lend lease floated across to the ice free ports. Thousands of planes flew over. So long as a soviet flag fluttered, it was delivered. The study of all these side deals is truely fascinating. The Solutions go further west than New Zealand. The great US Marines southern base. The Indian Ocean saw two grand Japanese Q ships, persue a Dutch tanker, escorted by an Australian "boat". One Q Ship was lost as the second was disabled as the tanker and her guardian were quickly fixed and continued about their business.Medles on every breast.
39:45 On the larger ships in Pacific waters, I would imagine that the retrofits carpeting them with 20mm and 40mm guns (plus ammo) would have had a significant effect on weight and speed. 1:10:40 Torpex/Minol/Trialen were themselves a deliberate step toward lower brisance and higher blast effect. I don't know if they were used in naval shells, but Tallboy and Grand Slam could reasonably be considered armour-piercing munitions and they definitely did use Torpex. 2:10:10 The Seeteufel concept might have made more sense if the tracks were on a separate amphibious carrier that could take the sub into the sea and then leave it behind. The fixed tracks would be a terrible parasitic weight in the water and prolonged immersion would surely corrode them into uselessness. Still, if it kept the designers off the Eastern Front, I am sure that this (and other crazy concepts) served its purpose. 2:41:40 Very touristy and only tangentially related to the channel - but given the HMS Thunderchild merch, there is the War of the Worlds experience not far from Tower of London.
Regarding the Chilean boilers question. Could another part of the reason why Chile might want such a maintenance-assisting option be the relatively small number of total ships. With a large-ish fleet of ships, having one or two down for an extended maintenance period isn't the end of the world; for a navy with only a handful of ships, any loss for a maintenance downtime is a significant impact to the fleet size. Thus being able to keep their small number of units active at all times could be a factor too?
HMS Bronington deserves to be preserved, not only as an example of ships of her era, but because the Ton class were so damned cute. They look like they should be pottering around the island of Sodor and having adventures with Thomas the Tank Engine.
When time permits, could you please make an episode about the systems for aiming the big guns of WW1-WW2 era capital ships? The gear for calculating a firing solution, but also the power systems involved in physically moving the guns. We frequently see a quote that one of Yamato's main turrets was heavier than an entire Fletcher-Class Destroyer. I presume there must be a lot of seriously powerful machinery under there for rotating the turret and elevating the guns. Where does the power for that come from? Who controlled it and how? (All of the fire control tables and stereo rangefinders and other gear involved in knowing where to aim the guns would be fascinating also! )
London attractions: there's also HMS Wellington, which has been adapted over the years and was for a while a headquarters ship, but is a sloop that served throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. I've not been though since it stopped being a headquarters ship so no idea what it's currently like, and it's also got limited opening at the moment while they fundraise.
Of course drach answers my questions when my hands are full of cookie dough and I can’t write down his suggestions 😂😂 definitely gonna go to the lord Nelson pub 🎉
39:54 Ships speed reduced - On the US Navy ship I was aboard, we had to frequently clean the seawater side (both sides, but especially seawater side) of tubes in coolers (heat exchangers) due to hard material growth that a) reduced water (coolant) flow, and b) degredation of heat transfer (like adding insulation). This noticeably affected the ships capability of reaching rated speed. Once cleaned, we were right back up to spec.
2:04:00 I think in English language nowadays the term also tied to the "missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce" part of US Destructive Device law so anything from 20mm or above are sometimes called cannon. Like 20mm autocannon.
The original requirement is from the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which banned explosive payloads in anything under 400g. Also, it becomes a bit impractical in smaller projectiles to have a useful fuse and meaningful explosive payload at the same time. Of course, you can do without the fuse by using impact-sensitive explosives, but nobody sane wants to consider storing thousands of rounds of such.
@@natthaphonhongcharoen Maybe yes. To an extent it's just a line drawn in the sand. Given that it's pretty empty between the Russian/Soviet 14.5 and the wide variety of 20mm calibers all over the world, I guess it wouldn't make much difference whichever number between those two one chooses as the dividing line.
In Trafalgar Refought..., written 1896...the Predreadnaughts lowered all boats before the engagement, aware they would be splintered and needed. I don't know how accurate that was...but it's something they considered
Drach certainly answered the question about the power required to move the funnels. The question I have, is did the power of the engines change when the funnels were in the up or down position. It seems as if the draft would be less natural with the funnels in the down position, potentially reducing the power of the engine.
HMS Dreadnought revolutionaised the design of battleships, was there any single event or mission that proved that the design was superior, or was it a collective realisation of common sense by everyone that adopted the design improvements going forward?
2:29:40 "Worst Idea in the long sad history of bad ideas" Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well. I'm not sure if Jurassic Park 2 coined that term, but I'd like to think it did.
2:33:36 Dave Collier's question about SS Great Britain's ensign made me wonder what USS Constitution uses. It turns out her crew can either use today's standard ensign as the oldest U.S. ship in commission, or she can use the 15-star, 15-stripe flag in use during the War of 1812 (Congress would later limit stripes to 13 for the original states, while allowing the star field to add stars as new states were added)
@Drachinifel Thanks for the tour around Sussex regarding the Napoleon invasion question. Yes I think advancing over the south downs would be a grim fight through the hills. Also Lewes is pronounced the same as Lewis.
I saw a wwii veteran jump into a scalding hot boiler wearing boots, a leather apron, a welding visor and nothing else to do repairs. Normally fire watch and hole watch are mind numbingly boring. When you don’t want to watch it’s oh so much worse.
Here is an alternative deployment if the French Battleships fight on. The 15" armed stay woth the Home Fleet until Tirpitz is neutralized and no US fast battleships deploy to the ETO. If there are no major French surface combatants in North Africa for Torch there is no need for the Massachusetts to be there. You could substitute either a New Mexico or a Colorado for the bombardment force since there will be no fast battleship to contend with. Having four South Dakotas in the Pacific by November 1942 could have a major impact on the course of the Guadalcanal campaign.
Apparently they're hoping to improve pedestrian access from Portsmouth Harbour Station to Gunwharf Quays. I wonder if they could do it in a way that would allow Bronington to "return home" to HMS Vernon as an 'outpost' of the NMRN.
I agree the video on Napoleon invading England was a bit slap dash in how it dealt with the Royal Navy. Even assuming Deus ex Machina levels of good fortune at Trafalger the British would have had a lot of ships left to oppose a landing. Even without Nelson they had a dozen years of warfare and over a century of tradition making them pretty darn aggressive even when outnumbered. Napoleon's plan to get them out of the way for a while was probably the best chance of getting across even if it required an unreasonable amount of luck to pull off in one try. Setting aside the idea of the wisdom of an invasion of Ireland when you have no Naval assets to spare. Sending two Marshalls of equal rank off on a diversion so there would be no unity of command would have probably worked as well as it did in Spain (even if you agree those two were Napoleon's best). If Napoleon could have gotten 80,000 to 100,000 men across the Channel intact, even if cut off later, England would be lost. Despite Drach's military appreciation of the terrain in Kent, it was nothing that the French hadn't dealt with before in their victories in Bavaria and North Italy. You also can't assume brilliant use of terrain because Wellington would have been leading a brigade or at most a division of that army. Moore would have been in charge of a Division or at most, a wing (no British Corps yet) of it. The most likely candidates for command would have been the Duke of York (Low Countries 1793-95 & Holland 1799), Dundas (served with York in his campaigns and replaced him as head of the Army in 1809) or possibly Cathcart (Hannover 1805 & Copenhagen 1807). Cathcart was the most junior and probably would have led a wing of the army. He would have the most (still limited) success in field command of those three historically.
Why was the Enterprise scrapped rather then turned into a museum ship like the Iowas? At times it seemed as if Enterprise was single handedly fighting the pacific war on her own and saw far more action than most of the Iowas.
It was a scrapping of Enterprise And, the demolition of old Penn station that started all of this preservation. And you have to understand that the Iowa's were still active units. For the US, most of their museum ships were active service units throughout the Cold war.
Ironically the most appropriate Ton class minesweeper to be preserved already is that being the Ton class derivative HMS Wilton the very first GRP warship ever built
03:16:27 At a time when American and British commanders seemed to honestly believe they could stop the Japanese with the resources at hand Hart appeared to have a better appreciation of the actual situation. While the British were reinforcing Hong Kong Hart was planning on drawing down the Shanghai Marines whether he was ordered to or not. And while MacArthur held to a forward defense, even without an Army Airforce, Hart seemed to adopt a bend don't break, keep a fleet in being until more ships arrive attitude. ABDA float early on was without Boise and Marblehead (almost certainly fortunate for them) but Hart was able to score perhaps the only clear victory of that part of the war when his destroyers raided Japanese transports at anchor (and after they had unloaded) but did significant damage to the enemy with little loss to themselves (if only those torpedoes had worked). Hart is poorly treated by history and fell victim to the Vigorous men under 60 dictum of the US military.
23:15 @Drach Why was is hard to forge big ingots of high-quality steel, but had wires been made for a long time already? Presumably, you'd need miles and miles of wire for a single gun barrel. I don't grasp why it would be easier to make that length of material of a homogeneous quality than it would be for an ingot. (also: how was the wire made, if not from ingots?🤔)
Intriguing speculations re one more generation of BBs. Though t.b.h. it does still seem very unlikely in view of quickly evolving US priorities (with ongoing experience in the Pacific already pointing to a future with fleet task forces each centered overwhelmingly on several fast-carriers) that the Montanas would have been the Americans input to that mix. Instead and for obvious reasons, a final iteration on the Iowas looks much more likely. So the last gen of US BBs would've featured somewhat enhanced-in-build realisations of the already laid down 5th and 6th ships and maybe an additional pair as well.
The Pearl Harbor map makes me wonder a thought that I never wondered before. How did they park the ships? Did they go around Ford Island or did they turn around and tugs backed them in? Sort of like maneuvering at a petrol station.
In the video you did on HMCS Sackville you mentioned the model kit Airfix and Revell did on HMCS Snowberry, would you consider doing a review of this kit as you made a comment on this kit and just curious as to your experience with it.
Gun vs. Cannon I remember the description of the of the gun on the M109 self propelled 155mm howitzer went something like this, it was the M### "cannon" mounted in an M### carriage and recoil system. This makes it sound to me that the barrel alone was a cannon and when mounted in the carriage the two became the gun?
@drachinifel The Chap coming to London is presumably into bosts/ships. Well here on the Isle of Dogs we have two of the Little ships that went to Dunkirk The Portwey & The Maasey Shaw
Thought in French using balloons to look out for the British fleet. Could a tethered ballon act as a super tall spotting tower and spot ships while they’re still over the horizon? Or would ships appear to small at such distances?
A tethered balloon might work to a degree, assuming you can also get a telescope up there and get the whole setup stable enough. But any reasonable tethered balloon in the early 1800's isn't going to give you all that much more notice that just sticking someone with the same telescope on a tower in Calais.
Wonder what the diameter of the wire used on the wire wound guns? Was the diameter the same for the 12 inch , 15 inch and 16 inch guns? The 14 inch guns of the KGV class were not wire wound unless I am mistaken ?
Spare boilers are a complete waste of tonnage. You can shut down a boiler and clean it any time. You don't need your full boiler plant if you aren't steaming at full speed.
By the 1930s, spare boilers were essential. As an engineer, I'm probably in the minority that feels the power plant is as interesting as Armor or Gunnery. This technology is very important. Complicated (and very technical) German and crazy powerful Japanese SHP in their warships.
@@richardbennett1856 But they weren't essential. Unless you are steaming at full speed there is always spare capacity to let you take a boiler off line to clean it. My dad was a marine chief engineer, he started in the 50s on triple expansion engines. I got an interest in all things steam from him and in the 70s helped him to refit the last RN WW2 Scotch boiler and triple expansion engine aboard an Isles Class trawler operating as a tank cleaning ship. They were much bigger than any actual trawler and more like small corvette. I have also worked on steam locomotive refits at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Once the fire is dropped on one of those the grate can be picked and cleaned of ash while it's still hot and the firetube ends cleaned. anything more needs a cold boiler. A boiler in the 30s could be taken off line cooled, cleaned and fired up again in around 8 hours.
A serious question here. We Americans loved and respected the late Queen. Would it be in bad taste for us to name a ship to honor her? such as USS Queen Elizabeth II.
There is the small problem of the United States mutiny against their rightful King 250 years ago. But our current king is a forgiving man, so if the USA apologized for the behavior of their ancestors, I'm sure our King would allow you to rejoin the Empire and permit you to name a ship after our late Queen.
@@Dave_Sisson technically according to European feudal law he was not their rightful king as the title “Kingdom of America” or an equivalent to it was never officially created
@@Dave_Sisson yes, because Australia was raised to full dominion status and the monarchs are recognized as kings of the “commonwealth” (kingdom) of Australia. The government of Australia is His Majesty’s government in Australia. There was never an American prime minister or a commonwealth of America (just a bunch of individual colonies), thus according to traditional rules governing de jure titles, no king of Great Britain was ever rightful “king of America”. His realm controlled it, but not he was was not the de jure ruler of it
Thunderer and Conqueror are great names, probably better names, but if you wanted them to be splendid cats, how about the North American big cats? HMS Cougar or Puma and HMS Jaguar?
Considering the question about tritinol and why it wasn't used more during WW2. I mean I felt like your answer was obvious. Or I guess what I'm trying to say is that the person that asked the question should have realized that just because someone developed a certain type of explosive at a certain time ìn history you'd think that they would have a need to do an EXTENSIVE amount of testing to be able to use the explosive. Because whomever developed the product is going to need to know a wide range of information about it. Because explosives are known to degrade over time then it's going to take time to know that. And numerous other things that are going to need to be known. And idk, you'd think that would be obvious to most people. And I also feel that the person asking that would do a bit of their own research before asking the question. But I guess that might be expecting too much from someone I don't know!
Regarding the 'rules or war' about a surrendered ship I do wonder what was the reaction of other US captains and crew if/when they heard about Decatur and his dishonorable actions in trying to run off after his surrender? Were they appalled at his actions or think it was just British propaganda?
Alternate History Hub's video was actually an idea by someone else, and the research was done by several groups through a competition, the POD was something we (The British Side) complained about, and honestly, the entire thing felt rigged. I am still mighty pissed by that entire thing.
to the HMS Bronington question… perhaps His Majesty Charles III could pony up a couple of (million) quid to help with that. I mean, his personal worth is in the hundreds of millions, so it’s not like it’d really eat into that. and it’s his, as in His Majesty’s Ship. right? (suffice it to say, I'm a roundhead)
Ah yes, another roundhead who doesn’t understand the concept that the vast vast vast majority of the royal family’s wealth is not liquid cash just sitting in some vault or pocketbook. The great majority of it is held in assets and properties that aren’t able to be sold by law
Ì remember watching war stories maybe Germany were working on a 4 engine bomber. Someone couldn't keep their nose outta things,seem to remember it didn't work out,am I remembering correctly. 🇨🇦
@@vernonfindlay1314 Yep, two engines, one behind the other in each wing nacelle. As @johnfisher9692 has said, very prone to catching fire. Requirement was also that it should be capable of diving bombing which just complicated things even further...
@gwtpictgwtpict4214 remember all that plus think it was a German ww1 ace who liked the sauce wanted it be a dive bomber. I am just history nut,anything historical. Family in both wars,Korea and Bosnia, in my blood. Have a good week.
maybe its my eyes, but im pretty sure the Seeteufel is an AI image of some kind. I dont doubt it exisited.,... Once before you showed "hungarian chemical warfare suits?? (could have got that wrong) and that looked super AI too... are these images from long before AI? .
I was honored to know a Pearl Harbor survivor. He served the entire war in the Pacific and swam the lagoon at Bikini during Operation Crossroads. He served on Guadalcanal in a combat role alongside the Marines. Are there records I could look up in regards to USN Sailors outside medics becoming infantry and serving in said role? Later in the war he went to BUDS school and became a UDT Frog man. Thanks
BUDS doesnt exist until the 1960's.
It was actually called UDTRA in the 40s and 50s
@leftyo9589 he was a frog man, at least what he called it swam into alternating invasion beaches and was preparing for Operation Downfall when the nukes were dropped.
@flayrex3919 Probably any history of the US Navy Seals would include a section on the WW2 'frogmen', the forerunners of the Seals. If memory serves, the use of 'combat swimmers' started for the USA primarily as a result of the lessons learned at Tarawa [November 1943], but perhaps also influenced by the landing at Attu [May 1943].
At Tarawa a lot of the marine landing craft were trapped on the reef a long distance from shore - which led to very high casualties because of the long distance required to get to the beach, under fire, and possibly requiring the marines to go through deep water with heavy gear.
During the Attu landing, they had issues with the sand not being able to support heavy equipment, which meant stuff got stuck on the beach and couldn't be moved inland where it was needed.
All that made it clear that they needed to be able to scout the beaches and the reefs before any amphibious landing to know a) how deep things were in various places and b) what the characteristics of the beach were - preferably without letting the enemy know it was happening.
I think it wasn't just swimming, sometimes they used small boats like canoes.
If I recall correctly, one of the main terms used for the people who did this was 'Scouts and Raiders'. I think in the ETO they worked with or alongside the British Commonwealth groups known as 'Combined Operations Pilotage Parties'.
Not sure what would have been going on at Guadalcanal [presumably 1942] - maybe somebody else can speak up.
Maybe see if you can do a National Archives request. You need certain information to do it, but if you have it that may be a good option for you.
There's another sense of the word "stiff" which applies to sailing vessels. A stiff sailer is one which doesn't heel as much as a "tender" boat. Having a stiff sailer means that the sails can take more wind before they need to be reefed, and that presumably means that a stiff boat would go faster than a tender one. When you mentioned that the big American frigates were stiff sailers, I thought that the comment might be about this property of sailing ships.
For those who are interested. Of Islands, Ports and Sea Lanes: Africa and the Indian Ocean in the Second World by Ashly Jackson helps fill some of the history of the importance of this theater.
2:19:26 This has to be the greatest take down of one of Cody’s videos I have ever seen. You explaining how Napoleon army and navy would be decimated by the rest of the Royal Navy or the terrain advantage the British army would have was very entertaining
Drach always going the extra mile with his answers. Thank you for your answer to my question on German bombing
Thanks Drach, your devotion to your audience and history is to cry for, love your work and keep it up mate!
@ 1:10:05. Bomb & Shell Filler: A high brisance explosive could probably pop a Lot of Rivets! Riveted construction was used through-out WW2 even on modern battleships (like the USS Massachusetts). If a riveted hull hs a few rivets "popped" and the steel distorted then you have a hard time stopping water coming in!
Regarding the "stiffness" of a sailing vessel... the term usually refers to her susceptibility to heeling in a beam wind ( how much wind and waves from the side makes them tilt over). Ships that have excessive heel, are called "crank" Those that heel much less, are called "stiff". So it depends on the context.
Drach does briefly mention 'rolling stiffness' but without this elaboration, so thank you.
@@AgentTasmania YW. "Heel" is not the same as roll, as the incline is a steady state as long as the wind, sail trim, and course remain the same. Roll is about hull design; some sailboats can roll horribly at anchor while being fairly stiff when pointing or on a beam reach.
Hull stiffness shows itself as vibration or clunking or deflection when running into swell. Mid engined hulls with center helm ride best. Nothing beats a large full tanker plowing the ocean.
Iowa class HMS Conquerer and Thunderer would be absolutely dope.
Also, w/r/t Ranger's movable funnels, someone needs to 'shop them into the scene in Battleship where Hopper and Nagata are looking at the alien ship and one of them says "I didn't think that one moved".
Surely some wag at the Royal Navy's naming committee would have pushed for HMS _Thunder Child_ simply for the mirth
Wire wound barrels - that's not really the hows and whys of it. The core of the problem is that making a simple hollow cylinder thicker (of given internal bore and subject to internal pressure) adds ever less 'strength' proportional to the thickness of material added to the outside. Physics dictates that outer layers can never get to carry significant load before the inner layer becomes over-stressed. Hence the older very fat barrels - a lot of outer material needed for even a small benefit to withstanding the pressure. The solution is to permanently and precisely modify the 'no-load' stress profile in the barrel walls before use, so that when under load the stress is more evenly distributed throughout the thickness. For this, shrunk-on hoops/tubes, tensioned wire winding or autofrettage were used - which essentially all exploit similar effects. The latter method is fundamentally better but required (initially) monobloc construction and hence impracticably large forgings for big guns. Improving metallurgy certainly helped but that's a separate, parallel issue.
Yay! Part 2. I just finished part 1. I also put these on a playlist and loop them several times...quite a few times really.
Same, I use drachs amazing voice and the calm non political or doomsday content to go to sleep. But I'm also interested in the content, so I need to listen for multiple times.
Regarding wind over the deck for landing aircraft, it's all about the relative wind speed and direction. Back in 1987 on USS Constellation CV-64, the bridge watch computed for true and desired wind every 15 minutes. I think the desired wind was 10 degrees to port at 25 knots for the landing cycle. Unlike an airport ashore, you can adjust the heading as long as sea room is available.
Thank you for the personal insight. Comments like yours are helpful for us non navy (I was US Army) Drach fans to learn even more on a topic. I appreciate it.
You don't have to imagine how much space an Iowa would take on battleship row. Missouri is moored there.
Addition (not a response to Drach below.): I did not want to write a seperate post): I think the post war view on the utility of battleships is colored by Halsey's failure to send Lee to Guard the San Bernadino Strait. Had Lee been left behind Leyte would have been have decided primarily by surface action with an assist from the escort carriers and would have provided battleship admirals a talking point to defend their assets. In any case, battleships were still in commission into late 1950s. The Iowa and Wisconsin were not decommissioned until 1958. What killed the battleship was the lack of battleships to fight. They were too costly to keep in commission.
@@johnshepherd9676 true, but the other battleships aren't taking up their berths as well
@@Drachinifel There is one still there. You won't get a 3D sense of scale but you will get comparative length.
To quote John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent " I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea". And in 1940 just change the word French.
The real question regarding Ranger's funnels for me has always been "why?" Why accept all that extra mechanical complexity rather than just building the ship with fixed funnels in the downward position?
You might have problem with smoke pouring out over the deck and sides of the ship when steaming in a crosswind. There were a lot of weird and wonderful funnel arrangements for carriers, until everybody sort of figured out that the best solution is to put the funnels in the island.
Ok Drach I'm late to this, but Iowa's renamed, in 1:20:57, how about one of the shis named for Lake Superior, since it represents such a large shared border. HMS Superior has a nice ring to it
About the minesweeper... write to the King. He just got a payrise.
Really? Man, what a waste of money.
I'd say go for a petition to have the Duchy of Lancaster cover the costs, they could easily do that.
Well done. Top notch work you do
Well Drach it took parts of three days to finish but well worth every minute. Thanks for all your hard work on these brilliant drydocks.
Russia and Japan had a friendship pact until Hiroshima when Stalin declared war on Japan. An enormous quantity of lend lease floated across to the ice free ports. Thousands of planes flew over. So long as a soviet flag fluttered, it was delivered. The study of all these side deals is truely fascinating. The Solutions go further west than New Zealand. The great US Marines southern base. The Indian Ocean saw two grand Japanese Q ships, persue a Dutch tanker, escorted by an Australian "boat". One Q Ship was lost as the second was disabled as the tanker and her guardian were quickly fixed and continued about their business.Medles on every breast.
39:45 On the larger ships in Pacific waters, I would imagine that the retrofits carpeting them with 20mm and 40mm guns (plus ammo) would have had a significant effect on weight and speed.
1:10:40 Torpex/Minol/Trialen were themselves a deliberate step toward lower brisance and higher blast effect. I don't know if they were used in naval shells, but Tallboy and Grand Slam could reasonably be considered armour-piercing munitions and they definitely did use Torpex.
2:10:10 The Seeteufel concept might have made more sense if the tracks were on a separate amphibious carrier that could take the sub into the sea and then leave it behind. The fixed tracks would be a terrible parasitic weight in the water and prolonged immersion would surely corrode them into uselessness. Still, if it kept the designers off the Eastern Front, I am sure that this (and other crazy concepts) served its purpose.
2:41:40 Very touristy and only tangentially related to the channel - but given the HMS Thunderchild merch, there is the War of the Worlds experience not far from Tower of London.
Thanks!
Regarding the Chilean boilers question. Could another part of the reason why Chile might want such a maintenance-assisting option be the relatively small number of total ships. With a large-ish fleet of ships, having one or two down for an extended maintenance period isn't the end of the world; for a navy with only a handful of ships, any loss for a maintenance downtime is a significant impact to the fleet size. Thus being able to keep their small number of units active at all times could be a factor too?
HMS Bronington deserves to be preserved, not only as an example of ships of her era, but because the Ton class were so damned cute. They look like they should be pottering around the island of Sodor and having adventures with Thomas the Tank Engine.
When time permits, could you please make an episode about the systems for aiming the big guns of WW1-WW2 era capital ships? The gear for calculating a firing solution, but also the power systems involved in physically moving the guns.
We frequently see a quote that one of Yamato's main turrets was heavier than an entire Fletcher-Class Destroyer. I presume there must be a lot of seriously powerful machinery under there for rotating the turret and elevating the guns. Where does the power for that come from? Who controlled it and how?
(All of the fire control tables and stereo rangefinders and other gear involved in knowing where to aim the guns would be fascinating also! )
How did you predict the next video upload?!
London attractions: there's also HMS Wellington, which has been adapted over the years and was for a while a headquarters ship, but is a sloop that served throughout the Battle of the Atlantic.
I've not been though since it stopped being a headquarters ship so no idea what it's currently like, and it's also got limited opening at the moment while they fundraise.
Of course drach answers my questions when my hands are full of cookie dough and I can’t write down his suggestions 😂😂 definitely gonna go to the lord Nelson pub 🎉
What a trooper you are . Enjoyed every second esp the off shore AA bunkers, well done Sir. Thak you.
39:54 Ships speed reduced - On the US Navy ship I was aboard, we had to frequently clean the seawater side (both sides, but especially seawater side) of tubes in coolers (heat exchangers) due to hard material growth that a) reduced water (coolant) flow, and b) degredation of heat transfer (like adding insulation). This noticeably affected the ships capability of reaching rated speed. Once cleaned, we were right back up to spec.
Here's an off-the-wall idea - do you think King Charles would fancy having HMS Bronington as his Royal Yacht?
That tracked sub thing is so cool! :D
2:04:00 I think in English language nowadays the term also tied to the "missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce" part of US Destructive Device law so anything from 20mm or above are sometimes called cannon. Like 20mm autocannon.
The original requirement is from the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which banned explosive payloads in anything under 400g. Also, it becomes a bit impractical in smaller projectiles to have a useful fuse and meaningful explosive payload at the same time. Of course, you can do without the fuse by using impact-sensitive explosives, but nobody sane wants to consider storing thousands of rounds of such.
I think the contemporary NATO terminology is that anything over 15mm is an (auto)cannon, below that a machine gun.
@@jbepsilon Could be 14.5 as that is the smallest catridge under 23mm in Soviet standard use.
@@natthaphonhongcharoen Maybe yes. To an extent it's just a line drawn in the sand. Given that it's pretty empty between the Russian/Soviet 14.5 and the wide variety of 20mm calibers all over the world, I guess it wouldn't make much difference whichever number between those two one chooses as the dividing line.
'Der Seeteufel' !!! a German Count Luckner at times of WW2, who was a captain/ man of enormous bodily strength...
In Trafalgar Refought..., written 1896...the Predreadnaughts lowered all boats before the engagement, aware they would be splintered and needed. I don't know how accurate that was...but it's something they considered
Drach certainly answered the question about the power required to move the funnels. The question I have, is did the power of the engines change when the funnels were in the up or down position. It seems as if the draft would be less natural with the funnels in the down position, potentially reducing the power of the engine.
HMS Dreadnought revolutionaised the design of battleships, was there any single event or mission that proved that the design was superior, or was it a collective realisation of common sense by everyone that adopted the design improvements going forward?
Thank you Drach.
Regarding 02:41:28 - some excellent ideas there which I will shortly be acting on (even if it wasn't my question). Thanks!
2:29:40 "Worst Idea in the long sad history of bad ideas"
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.
I'm not sure if Jurassic Park 2 coined that term, but I'd like to think it did.
Drach: I live in this part of the UK and I’ve fought the Offensive Action of trying to get into London from here, and let me tell you…
Just a note on the French Predrednoughts boats, they were also designed at a time when colonial possessions were common
2:33:36 Dave Collier's question about SS Great Britain's ensign made me wonder what USS Constitution uses. It turns out her crew can either use today's standard ensign as the oldest U.S. ship in commission, or she can use the 15-star, 15-stripe flag in use during the War of 1812 (Congress would later limit stripes to 13 for the original states, while allowing the star field to add stars as new states were added)
@Drachinifel Thanks for the tour around Sussex regarding the Napoleon invasion question. Yes I think advancing over the south downs would be a grim fight through the hills. Also Lewes is pronounced the same as Lewis.
I saw a wwii veteran jump into a scalding hot boiler wearing boots, a leather apron, a welding visor and nothing else to do repairs.
Normally fire watch and hole watch are mind numbingly boring. When you don’t want to watch it’s oh so much worse.
Wow, I can’t believe I listened to the whole thing!😅
Here is an alternative deployment if the French Battleships fight on. The 15" armed stay woth the Home Fleet until Tirpitz is neutralized and no US fast battleships deploy to the ETO. If there are no major French surface combatants in North Africa for Torch there is no need for the Massachusetts to be there. You could substitute either a New Mexico or a Colorado for the bombardment force since there will be no fast battleship to contend with. Having four South Dakotas in the Pacific by November 1942 could have a major impact on the course of the Guadalcanal campaign.
I found a photo showing lowering and raising the chimney on USS Ranger, but UA-cam removed the link to it
Apparently they're hoping to improve pedestrian access from Portsmouth Harbour Station to Gunwharf Quays. I wonder if they could do it in a way that would allow Bronington to "return home" to HMS Vernon as an 'outpost' of the NMRN.
I don't know how it does for views. I'd love to see a Gamma World character building guide for the version you run
I agree the video on Napoleon invading England was a bit slap dash in how it dealt with the Royal Navy. Even assuming Deus ex Machina levels of good fortune at Trafalger the British would have had a lot of ships left to oppose a landing. Even without Nelson they had a dozen years of warfare and over a century of tradition making them pretty darn aggressive even when outnumbered. Napoleon's plan to get them out of the way for a while was probably the best chance of getting across even if it required an unreasonable amount of luck to pull off in one try.
Setting aside the idea of the wisdom of an invasion of Ireland when you have no Naval assets to spare. Sending two Marshalls of equal rank off on a diversion so there would be no unity of command would have probably worked as well as it did in Spain (even if you agree those two were Napoleon's best). If Napoleon could have gotten 80,000 to 100,000 men across the Channel intact, even if cut off later, England would be lost. Despite Drach's military appreciation of the terrain in Kent, it was nothing that the French hadn't dealt with before in their victories in Bavaria and North Italy. You also can't assume brilliant use of terrain because Wellington would have been leading a brigade or at most a division of that army. Moore would have been in charge of a Division or at most, a wing (no British Corps yet) of it. The most likely candidates for command would have been the Duke of York (Low Countries 1793-95 & Holland 1799), Dundas (served with York in his campaigns and replaced him as head of the Army in 1809) or possibly Cathcart (Hannover 1805 & Copenhagen 1807). Cathcart was the most junior and probably would have led a wing of the army. He would have the most (still limited) success in field command of those three historically.
Thanks Drach.
Why was the Enterprise scrapped rather then turned into a museum ship like the Iowas? At times it seemed as if Enterprise was single handedly fighting the pacific war on her own and saw far more action than most of the Iowas.
It was a scrapping of Enterprise And, the demolition of old Penn station that started all of this preservation. And you have to understand that the Iowa's were still active units. For the US, most of their museum ships were active service units throughout the Cold war.
Yes. The Enterprise was THE U.S. ship of the war. (USS Samuel B. Roberts & USS Johnston being unavailable.)
Ironically the most appropriate Ton class minesweeper to be preserved already is that being the Ton class derivative HMS Wilton the very first GRP warship ever built
03:16:27 At a time when American and British commanders seemed to honestly believe they could stop the Japanese with the resources at hand Hart appeared to have a better appreciation of the actual situation. While the British were reinforcing Hong Kong Hart was planning on drawing down the Shanghai Marines whether he was ordered to or not. And while MacArthur held to a forward defense, even without an Army Airforce, Hart seemed to adopt a bend don't break, keep a fleet in being until more ships arrive attitude. ABDA float early on was without Boise and Marblehead (almost certainly fortunate for them) but Hart was able to score perhaps the only clear victory of that part of the war when his destroyers raided Japanese transports at anchor (and after they had unloaded) but did significant damage to the enemy with little loss to themselves (if only those torpedoes had worked). Hart is poorly treated by history and fell victim to the Vigorous men under 60 dictum of the US military.
Thank you for the interesting insight into surrendering and taking back the surrender..
Thats mostly what I thought it was.
23:15 @Drach
Why was is hard to forge big ingots of high-quality steel, but had wires been made for a long time already?
Presumably, you'd need miles and miles of wire for a single gun barrel.
I don't grasp why it would be easier to make that length of material of a homogeneous quality than it would be for an ingot.
(also: how was the wire made, if not from ingots?🤔)
So if you could _very briefly_ elaborate why the wire stuff was known, I'd highly appreciate it ^^
The Pueblo was captured during the Vietnam War, not the Korean War.
Intriguing speculations re one more generation of BBs. Though t.b.h. it does still seem very unlikely in view of quickly evolving US priorities (with ongoing experience in the Pacific already pointing to a future with fleet task forces each centered overwhelmingly on several fast-carriers) that the Montanas would have been the Americans input to that mix. Instead and for obvious reasons, a final iteration on the Iowas looks much more likely. So the last gen of US BBs would've featured somewhat enhanced-in-build realisations of the already laid down 5th and 6th ships and maybe an additional pair as well.
"extremely sarcastic British" guy is very redundant. :)
New guadalcanal style series, please! Great video
The Pearl Harbor map makes me wonder a thought that I never wondered before. How did they park the ships? Did they go around Ford Island or did they turn around and tugs backed them in? Sort of like maneuvering at a petrol station.
In the video you did on HMCS Sackville you mentioned the model kit Airfix and Revell did on HMCS Snowberry, would you consider doing a review of this kit as you made a comment on this kit and just curious as to your experience with it.
Gun vs. Cannon
I remember the description of the of the gun on the M109 self propelled 155mm howitzer went something like this, it was the M### "cannon" mounted in an M### carriage and recoil system. This makes it sound to me that the barrel alone was a cannon and when mounted in the carriage the two became the gun?
@drachinifel The Chap coming to London is presumably into bosts/ships. Well here on the Isle of Dogs we have two of the Little ships that went to Dunkirk The Portwey & The Maasey Shaw
Admiralty impression 11:30 😂
I was half asleep...
I LOST IT 😂
Thought in French using balloons to look out for the British fleet. Could a tethered ballon act as a super tall spotting tower and spot ships while they’re still over the horizon? Or would ships appear to small at such distances?
A tethered balloon might work to a degree, assuming you can also get a telescope up there and get the whole setup stable enough. But any reasonable tethered balloon in the early 1800's isn't going to give you all that much more notice that just sticking someone with the same telescope on a tower in Calais.
Wonder what the diameter of the wire used on the wire wound guns?
Was the diameter the same for the 12 inch , 15 inch and 16 inch guns?
The 14 inch guns of the KGV class were not wire wound unless I am mistaken ?
Spare boilers are a complete waste of tonnage.
You can shut down a boiler and clean it any time. You don't need your full boiler plant if you aren't steaming at full speed.
By the 1930s, spare boilers were essential. As an engineer, I'm probably in the minority that feels the power plant is as interesting as Armor or Gunnery.
This technology is very important.
Complicated (and very technical) German and crazy powerful Japanese SHP in their warships.
@@richardbennett1856 But they weren't essential. Unless you are steaming at full speed there is always spare capacity to let you take a boiler off line to clean it.
My dad was a marine chief engineer, he started in the 50s on triple expansion engines. I got an interest in all things steam from him and in the 70s helped him to refit the last RN WW2 Scotch boiler and triple expansion engine aboard an Isles Class trawler operating as a tank cleaning ship. They were much bigger than any actual trawler and more like small corvette.
I have also worked on steam locomotive refits at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Once the fire is dropped on one of those the grate can be picked and cleaned of ash while it's still hot and the firetube ends cleaned. anything more needs a cold boiler. A boiler in the 30s could be taken off line cooled, cleaned and fired up again in around 8 hours.
A serious question here. We Americans loved and respected the late Queen. Would it be in bad taste for us to name a ship to honor her? such as USS Queen Elizabeth II.
Yes. A ship named for a foreign hero is one less ship named for a domestic hero
There is the small problem of the United States mutiny against their rightful King 250 years ago. But our current king is a forgiving man, so if the USA apologized for the behavior of their ancestors, I'm sure our King would allow you to rejoin the Empire and permit you to name a ship after our late Queen.
@@Dave_Sisson technically according to European feudal law he was not their rightful king as the title “Kingdom of America” or an equivalent to it was never officially created
@@Edawgpilot Charles III is legally the King of Australia even though that country's full name is Commonwealth of Australia.
@@Dave_Sisson yes, because Australia was raised to full dominion status and the monarchs are recognized as kings of the “commonwealth” (kingdom) of Australia. The government of Australia is His Majesty’s government in Australia. There was never an American prime minister or a commonwealth of America (just a bunch of individual colonies), thus according to traditional rules governing de jure titles, no king of Great Britain was ever rightful “king of America”. His realm controlled it, but not he was was not the de jure ruler of it
Thunderer and Conqueror are great names, probably better names, but if you wanted them to be splendid cats, how about the North American big cats? HMS Cougar or Puma and HMS Jaguar?
Considering the question about tritinol and why it wasn't used more during WW2. I mean I felt like your answer was obvious. Or I guess what I'm trying to say is that the person that asked the question should have realized that just because someone developed a certain type of explosive at a certain time ìn history you'd think that they would have a need to do an EXTENSIVE amount of testing to be able to use the explosive. Because whomever developed the product is going to need to know a wide range of information about it. Because explosives are known to degrade over time then it's going to take time to know that. And numerous other things that are going to need to be known. And idk, you'd think that would be obvious to most people. And I also feel that the person asking that would do a bit of their own research before asking the question. But I guess that might be expecting too much from someone I don't know!
Regarding the 'rules or war' about a surrendered ship I do wonder what was the reaction of other US captains and crew if/when they heard about Decatur and his dishonorable actions in trying to run off after his surrender? Were they appalled at his actions or think it was just British propaganda?
I'm wondering which battleship is pictured in the first segment. Anyone know? Thx in advance
Alternate History Hub's video was actually an idea by someone else, and the research was done by several groups through a competition, the POD was something we (The British Side) complained about, and honestly, the entire thing felt rigged.
I am still mighty pissed by that entire thing.
Who thought uo the balloons with their own propulsion systems and/or radio? 😀
@@Drachinifel I can go check.
@@Drachinifel Right, I found the French essays: docs.google.com/document/d/15HmEfb0kbn_A4x_bxeVMLTFcxdiFWxsj22OHSc23s5U/edit
Pair war battleship construction? Oh I know where this is going.
to the HMS Bronington question…
perhaps His Majesty Charles III could pony up a couple of (million) quid to help with that.
I mean, his personal worth is in the hundreds of millions, so it’s not like it’d really eat into that.
and it’s his, as in His Majesty’s Ship.
right?
(suffice it to say, I'm a roundhead)
Ah yes, another roundhead who doesn’t understand the concept that the vast vast vast majority of the royal family’s wealth is not liquid cash just sitting in some vault or pocketbook. The great majority of it is held in assets and properties that aren’t able to be sold by law
Could there be a next generation of battlecruisers under the section where it is assumed WWII happening is ignored
“It’s all very logical and therefore probably wouldn’t have happened as a result.” That one made me lol.
Edit: can’t fault the logic, though.
The UK state department will want to have some words with you at the airport when you return from N. Korea.
Re 2:27:54 William of Normandy has entered the chat.
Marines carry rifles or pistols for combat, their guns are for companionship…
God damn it, Drach I use your videos to fall asleep to, you fucking scared the shit out of me lmao
HMS Defiant!
Ballon observers with carrier pigeons.
3:19:02 *ask, not asks! They're TWO squirrels in a trench coat.
Seriously facetious? Or facetiously serious?
@@spikespa5208 I take my squirrels in a trenchcoat VERY seriously, good sir
As should all.
There's a very good Irish TV historical drama series about the 'invasion' of 1796. It's called 'The Year Of The French'
It's worth tracking down.
Ì remember watching war stories maybe Germany were working on a 4 engine bomber. Someone couldn't keep their nose outta things,seem to remember it didn't work out,am I remembering correctly. 🇨🇦
I guessing you might be thinking about the He 177 Greif. Not a successful aircraft due to the habit of it's engines bursting into flames.
@johnfisher9692 that's the one,were they ones double stacked or something.
@@vernonfindlay1314 Yep, two engines, one behind the other in each wing nacelle. As @johnfisher9692 has said, very prone to catching fire. Requirement was also that it should be capable of diving bombing which just complicated things even further...
@gwtpictgwtpict4214 remember all that plus think it was a German ww1 ace who liked the sauce wanted it be a dive bomber. I am just history nut,anything historical. Family in both wars,Korea and Bosnia, in my blood. Have a good week.
Just here to try to fall asleep.
Is it disrespectful to refer to Sean Connery as mister instead of sir?
I so hate 'what it's why?
Shisnos! 😂😂😂
maybe its my eyes, but im pretty sure the Seeteufel is an AI image of some kind. I dont doubt it exisited.,... Once before you showed "hungarian chemical warfare suits?? (could have got that wrong) and that looked super AI too... are these images from long before AI?
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8th, 28 July 2024