Royal Navy Fleet Exercises - 1929 (Exercise MA & MZ)
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2023
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Today we look at some key highlights in Allied night-time carrier operations in WW2 to determine the problems involved with night-flying and some of the solutions used.
Sources:
ADM/186/72
US National Archive Videos:
CBSWWI-46
MTT-494SS
MTT-724FGH
MTT-723ZZ
MTT-724AB
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'Legionnaire' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Pinned post for Q&A :)
If you were placed to Design the Bismarks for the Kriegsmarine and the Führer in his Infinit Wisdom decided that Germany really neeeded predreadnought style Battleships, how would you build an actual useful Battleship? Since the upper echelons of the Party are not versed in Navy shipbuilding, everything that looks like a predreadnought works.
I know we make fun of bearn alot for being the ugly duckling of early carrier designs but I don't recall anyone ever asking about how to fix her given a fairly generous budget since historically France wasn't able to build the other carriers it wanted anyway how would you make bearn into a more useful carrier?
After working in the small arms ammunition industry for a awhile. I was curious, small arms bullets like 9mm .308 etc these days use mostly copper jacketed over lead bullets. What about the big shells. The 20mm, the 40mm bofors, And then it looks like the 5 inch shells and all the way up to say the big shells(15, 16 inch) seem to have a rough surface rather than copper or brass. What were the reason for this? I'm guessing that the surface didn't need to be smooth cause of the driving bands to help with accuracy? and if they were platted would it worth the cost/benefits to the user. But also probably not cause of all the moving and handling. The shell hoists would probably wreck them any way?
Assume the French and Italians were informed and amenable to the second exercise, taking place adhacent to their coasts?
In the interwar era and WWII, U.S. and Japanese aircraft carriers had open-sided hangars, while British carriers tended to have sealed hangars. The open-sided hangar provided ventilation, allowing aircraft to be started and warmed up in the hangar and thus allowing for a faster aircraft-launch cadence, but it constitutes a massive vulnerability if the carrier comes under attack (it's easy to imagine skip-bombing attacks, air-launched rockets, glide bombs, kamikazes, etc., sailing into the huge openings in the side of the hangar and making lots of flammable and explosive stuff down there go boom) and poses the risk of high seas coming in through the side openings and washing the hangar clean of aircraft; the British sealed hangar eliminated the huge vulnerable openings in the side of the hangar, but its greatly-reduced ventilation capacity required aircraft to be started and warmed up on the flight deck to avoid asphyxiating the hangar crew, which slowed down flight operations. Why didn't anyone use a sealed hangar with high-capacity mechanical ventilation, to avoid the massive drawbacks of the open-sided hangar while still allowing aircraft to be started and warmed up in the hangar? Mechanical ventilation systems with sufficient airflow capacity for internal-combustion-engined vehicles to safely operate in the ventilated space were already a mature technology by the time of WWII (for instance, consider that the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927).
Drach, I'm not even a quarter way through and I can confidently say that you can get started on follow up videos about British Fleet Problems
Totally agree. Fascinating video!
Yes, you can follow that up when suitable. It was good, even though I don't know of all these ships.
Homework.
Absolutely worth continuing! Aside of the exercises themselves, the 'game design' aspect is fascinating.
Yep. Brilliant.
As soon as he asked the question, the answer was: YES YES OH MY GOD YES DRACH! YES PLEASE!
In an exercise, is the admiral issued practice binoculars to throw into the sea, or does he use the real thing?
Sir sir sir....I see torpedos!
Only when your Russian.
Damned invisible Japanese torpedo boats!!!
😂😂😂
Yes. They'll be represented by a pair of fanta cans sticky taped together.
It doesn't matter if I leave a comment. You tube never tells me when drach releases a new video. Been watching solid for at least 6 years
Edit: I owe drach for at least 6 years of good bed time stories. Best channel on the tube. Ty drach
Good thing he's only been on UA-cam for 5 years
One gen x at a time! 😂
Same
Best way to not miss any of your favourite channels' uploads is to switch your UA-cam bookmark/etc to the Subscriptions page instead of the worthless Home page. It lists all uploads by all channels you're subscribed to in chronological order, and without any annoying "recommended/popular" entries.
Yea, as soon as I hear Drach's voice, I feel sleepy
More in this series, please. Given your recent video on night carrier actions, it is interesting to hear that Furious's pilots wanted to launch a night attack this long before WW2.
The RN took the lessons of the night action at Jutland and in inter war period developed night fighting and practiced it. The pay off was at Matapan and other places.
I like how the two fleets were following Nelson's recommendation, that you can't go wrong by placing yourself close to the enemy.
I also noticed how keenly the admials tried to get information on the "enemy fleet".
The USN fleet problem series was excellent. I’m glad to see a RN follow up!
Ah yes drach, coffee, and steaming down the river to go haul my traps... a pretty good way to start the morning!
Yes, this is absolutely worth a series! There are too few stories of actual battles these ships fought in for the liking of many of us history enthusiasts, so these are an opportunity for us to enjoy the what-ifs and such in entertaining style while we learn real lessons about the theoretical capabilities and tactical considerations alongside the officers of the time. Keep it up! :)
I swear on my life your channel is the best. I am not smart enough to ask a good question. Thank you all for your great questions
I've been playing Rule The Waves 3 all day and it's great to have a drac video to listen to while playing it
The series on US Navy Fleet Problems was entertaining, and illuminating. You're continuing the tradition here, with Royal Navy Exercises. More, please!
I was trying to find the military records of my paternal grandfather who fought at the Somme and Passchendaele but they were also destroyed during the Blitz.
I was trying to find my grandfathers from WW2, but the a great deal of US military records went up in a fire in 1973.
@cpcupcake
Same here. I tried to find the records of an uncle who was killed at the tail end of WWII, but they were lost in that fire.
It gives a greater understanding like with the adage "Train like you Fight Fight Like you Train" or the Japanese "Train Hard Fight Easy."
Having watched the entire series on the USN Fleet Problems this provides a fascinating contrast between the two navies. The Americans seemed to focus heavily on amphibious operations while with the the British convoys and control of sea lanes seems to be the governing factor. They say that armed forces prepare to re-fight the last war, but in this case it seems these two navies actually seemed to prepare for the war that they actually did end up fighting.
They may have gotten some details wrong - but the mind-set was certainly forming.
Yes. Please continue the series. Most trusting to allow individual ships to assess their own damage.
49:15 If anybody was wondering about the identity of the Red commander, at least we know it wasn't Beatty...
Yes, who were all these people?
This was a welcome addition to the US fleet problems. Please keep it going!
Another absolutely fascinating video. The archive film that you have used, and your research, is exemplary as always. Thank you, Drach!
More, much more of these, purity,pretty please
I think this series is absolutely fascinating as it helps understand the context of why navies entered WWII with the doctrines they did. I’d love this expand into the German and Japanese navies (even considering the lack of information) as well as the French and Italian navies, perhaps even minor navies such as the Polish, Dutch and Greek navies, again records permitting.
Dutch would be a good one. They had a pretty decent showing in WWII considering everything.
When the submarine loses depth control and allows the sail to get a bit of sunshine. we say that the boat has broached. We don't think of it as a breech birth, we think of is as an attempt by the OOD/Diving Officer to fly the boat among the clouds. Whosoever shall broach a submarine shall be awarded flight wings, to their everlasting shame.
Yes, Drach. We want all the RN exercises. You must be running low on 'Bru to think otherwise :)
Some nice original photography of these battleships
I like this music!
I am loving the totally irrational names of the 1929 exercises. You can imagine spies going "MA, MZ, where are MB-MY...?""
Love these looks back into how navies practiced and learned!
Drach, I think it would be great if you keep a 6-to-8-week schedule on Fleet Exercises. Were there similar exercises prior to the First World War?
There were, going back to the 1880s. Fingers crossed that Drach is planning a series on them at some point.
I don't totally understand why I find Drach's videos so interesting but I do; I've always been interested in war ships, guns, etc. but I enjoy hearing about the tactics too and have even learned some things about engineering as well. 😄😄👍👍👍
Good stuff. And the MZ Exercise fits well with my current reading of _Fighting At Night_ (Set of essays on night naval combat edited by O'Hara and Hone.)
Absolutely keep going with these please Drach. Some of your best work.
Continue this wonderful series about the Royal Navy. The lessons and developments that come from fleet problems are interesting when they're available.
These fleet exercise videos are fun, entertainig and very interessting, to watch the process of learning by failing in sometimes humongous formats with the limited but developing technology of their time.
Please do more, if you can.
"The Red Admiral could change that"
Ah, the butterfly effect.
Yes please. More fleet exercises!
After WW1, with the disappearance of the Imperial German, the Imperial Russian and the Imperial & Royal Austro-Hungarian Navies, and the complete atrophy of the French, the RN was left with Italy, the US and Japan. Italy was sunk in domestic politics and British statesmen decided any war with the US would be self-defeating and that left Japan. It helped that Japan had tried to eliminate the other Great Powers access to China with the Twenty-One Demands in 1915. Britain held both 40% of China's debt and around the same amount of the Chinese domestic market. Japan's attempt to turn China into a satellite directly threatened that economic investment. The British didn't need a lot of push from the US at the Washington Conference in 1922 to drop the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. The US didn't know that the secret codicil prevented the British from aiding the Japanese in any war between Japan and the US.
So after Jellicoe's defense tour of the Empire, the British identified Japan as the most likely enemy and the RN planned accordingly. Imperial defense planning and strategy, and the RN's operational and tactical surface, subsurface and aviation planning, doctrine, infrastructure development and training was formed around confronting Japan in the Far East until 1935 and the crisis over Ethiopia and the possibility of war in the Med and the rise of the KM as a threat to British trade and allies. This decision informed the decision to make Singapore a major fleet base. This then caused much of the planning to revolve around securing Singapore at the cost of other options.
It also eventually informed British battleship design. In the 1920s, the British, like the US and Japan, experimented with aerial spotting for gunnery, even designing and producing special aircraft for the mission. Then, despite the continued development of long range spotted gunfire by the Japanese and the USN, the British decided long range gunnery was a waste and adopted a decisive gun range of 12 to 15kyd. The British expected the Japanese to open fire at 30 kyds and any future design would have to have an armored deck able to resist 16" projectiles until the British could close to decisive range. It would also have to be fast enough to force an engagement on the Japanese battle line that was slowed by RNAS torpedo attacks.
British strategic planning paralleled the USN's Orange Plans. The Fleet would close on Singapore. From there, the British would advance into the South China Sea and defeat the IJN's attrition attacks and its battle line. Hong Kong would be recaptured and a blockade instituted on Japan which would bring it to the table for a peace treaty. This also informed RN submarine designs with the large long-endurance cruiser and mine-laying subs for the assault on the Japanese fleet and trade.
With Italy turning away from Britain and France after the Ethiopian debacle and the rise of Hitler's Germany, the RN had to focus on the threat nearer home. The London Treaty of 1936, the Anglo-German Naval Treaty and the French Navy became important parts of the British strategy. Holding the Japanese to 60% and the Germans to 35% and with the French balancing the Italians, the British might still have the strength in reserve to secure the Far East. That strategy collapsed with Japan withdrawing from the treaty structure in 1936 while refusing to negotiate further, Hitler's rejection of the Treaty in April 1939 and the fall of France in 1940. Finally reaching an understanding with the US in 1941 was expected to contain Japan until the US Fleet's battle line in the Pacific was temporarily eliminated in December 1941. Then technology and the underestimation of the capabilities of the Japanese led to the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse and the British SEA and the NEI.
Fleet exercises are really interesting. Some of the things show up in the following war.
Spitfire 1A X4009 was the 945th Spitfire built and first flew on 24/7/1940 and went to 37 Maintenance Unit on 28/7/1940. It was allocated to 2434 Squadron on 19/8/1940. On 7/9/1940 it was shot down by a Bf-109 over south-east London and its pilot Flight Lieutenant Hughes was sadly killed. X4009 was struck of charge by the RAF on 30/9/1940.
Excellent views of both Nelsons underway. Thanks
Interesting overview of the work and answers derived from these exercises. Would enjoy seeing one of these every couple of months. Respect the amount of work required to source and turn this material into a usable format for video. Thank you.
Definitely fun to learn about these.
Would love to hear a bit more commentary concerning how the results were used in doctrine alteration and research changes.
Great work as usual Drach. Keep up the great work. Cheers
Very interesting. Also outstanding historic video clips. Thanks Drach!
This is fascinating! Gives me an idea of what people were thinking pre-war.
Great video Drach ... Fantastic footage of the ships too .. Thank you
Always entertaining and informative. Love the pictures too. Thanks for everything man.
More of this please.
More! I love listening to these exercises.
Thank you Drach! Please continue the with a series of Royal Navy Fleet Exercises. I look forward to more of this and the rest of your channels content.
Great video and so interesting seeing how these went and the lessons learned.
I love these fleet exercises summaries. So much can be gleaned from them. Thank you.
Excellent work. Thank you. Look forward to more.
I note that while the Subs did attempt an attack on the convoy directly in 1st exercise, they chose to stay in fight with escort fleet in 2nd exercise. The Convoy was well covered in 1st exercise but appeared open to some submarine attacks in 2nd exercise. Carriers also seemed to ignore the convoy itself in favor of the escort. While taking out the escort is important & likely should have been a larger concern in WW2 for the Germans, the survival of the Convoy as a whole became an automatic victory in the fleet exercises.
Now, i dont know which of the 4 musics we are supposed to vote, but I vote for that one for sure
Thanks Drach!! great work
Notice that the exercises replicated the RN's "worst fear" coming out of Jutland and WW1, that of an enemy fleet/battle line that was faster and could refuse to give the RN the decisive battle it was seeking. The published information in "open" sources gave the Japanese battle line a speed of 22.5 knots. While the Nelson, Rodney and the "Queen Elizabeth" class could sustain 23 knots, the "R" class was limited to 20-21 knots. The IJN's 26 knot battlecruisers (or from 1928, "fast" battleships) would shield the IJN battle fleet from the RN's battlecruisers. Thus the importance of the RNAS. The RNAS scouts would find the IJN's fleet force. Then the torpedo bombers would slow the IJN battle line enough that the RN battle line could overhaul and destroy it. That at least was the plan.
Yes Please! Please Continue with this series as well!
Knowledge is ALWAYS a worthwhile endeavor!
Yes please do more of these videos. Gives us better insight to the thought process of the time
Absolutely more of these, they are facinating and the diagams on screen are absolutly fabulous for showing what's going on
Utterly fascinating. A worthy companion to your fleet problem videos. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. 💯
It would be fun to see a comparison of french and italian inter-war exercises, though I appreciate the practical difficulties of doing this.
Have only just started watching but have to say your new intro music is excellent. Loud too!
As soon as your first fleet problem video, this is much anticipated. Thanks very much.
Umpires righty recognised the sharp spotting of the wallowing submarine.
Very well done, Drach. Keep-em coming!
One thing I d like to see is more charts with longer dotted lines behind the ships to show where they had sailed.
Please continue the series, enjoyed this one very much.
Excellent review of the British Fleet exercises...I enjoyed the American video also. Please continue with these illuminating videos.
Definitely want more of this, the US series was good and this one is shaping up pretty well too!
This was fantastic, please continue
Jolly good show! Carry on, that man!👍
Yes, please continue this series!!!!
2:45 Geez Drach, Quit blaming the burned records on the poor Japanese.
Curtis LeMay deserves his share of the blame as well. LOL
Bombs Away LeMay.
Just noticed the updated intro music, much more epic love it!!
Definitley like to see more regarding these, thank you.
This is my favorite UA-cam channel. It involves naval history and Drach wants to make it. It is more than worth watching!
I grew up with my Families' collection of books with the big fold-out maps of Naval actions, so this was Bliss for me!
Truely superb presentation Drach, definately a series to continue. The accompanying photos, film clips and diagrams really aided with understanding what happened and the assessment of the after Exercise damage by the ships officers was enlightening. I'd be interseted if you think that the allocation of damage was much lower than actually would have been the case and if this is an overconfidence of a ships fighting caperbility and it's ability to take damage?
Keep them coming!
Well Done! Must have more.
This is hands down the best channel on UA-cam
Always an enjoyable topic
Yes, more exercises please. Have to keep our fleets fit and trim...
Would be great to see this continued!
Did they actually try using genuine merchantmen to establish the problems of working with them and their ships? I have read somewhere that it was too expensive, but that sounds ridiculous.
This is fascinating, thank you.
Would definitely like more . Very interesting.
Yes more off these please.
Yes, more please!
It is frighting to think how long ago this exercise occurred.... as is how Radar was an era game charger..fascinating.. thanks Drach great video, as ever.
Please continue this series. It's going to be good 👍
Ok this is better than the original intro music! This Wins!!! Go with this!
Everytime you said "Blue Admiral" I kept seeing Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars 😂. A very concise analysis of the exercises, you can see how they rapidly learn't from and evolved tactics and designs the moment the Battle of the Atlantic began.
Love these
Yes, more like this please. Love your channel and your knowledge. Has anyone requested that you narrate audiobooks? You have a wonderful voice. I can picture you reading "Shattered Sword", for example.😂❤🚢🇬🇧
Beautiful footage of nelson or rodney
Would definitely want to see more videos like this
Please continue!
Yes, more please! 👏
Yes please continue this
I love hearing these stories because you can then see the lessons of the exercise being played out when the war begins.
Thanks Drach.
Another drac video? Don't mind if I do!!
Thankyou