There are three major instances I can think of where an entire generation of otherwise quite capable capital ships across the globe had ended up being obsolete in their intended role before they’d even entered service and thus strategically wasteful; ships-of-the-line that entered service during and after the ironclad revolution, predreadnoughts that entered service after Dreadnought, and the 29 battleships and 2 large cruisers that entered service in the late 30s/early-mid 40s at the dawn of the carrier era. Which of these three instances do you see as the most unfortunate from the perspective of the nations that built these ships and found that they’d just built a capital ship that can’t be used as a capital ship?
I remember reading that when Fairbanks Morse, the major supplier of various US naval engines in WW2, tried to get into locomotive design, the railroads complained that FM's opposed Piston engines were too hard to work with, do you agree with the railway companies or is this just another case of laziness on their part (which actually happens alot)
Can we stop and appreciate the sheer quality of the pictures used for the video? Thank you Drach for sharing these magnificent historical documents with us!
Really handsome, well proportioned ships. The RN, right through to the 1930s, somehow produced some of the most aesthetically pleasing light cruisers of any navy.
HMS Blake's were named after Robert Blake, Parliamentary hero in England's last civil wars, and the man with the best claim to be the founder of the power of Britain's navy. A man that may be worth a video. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blake_(admiral)
not at all. Quite the contrary, actually. The battlecruiser derived directly and logically from the armoured cruiser, which was a far more powerful type of ship in protection and firepower compared to Blake. The role of Hms Blake as a hunter of commerce raiders (especially armed ocean liners, like stated in this video) is undeniably clear and has nothing to do with a battlecruiser.
Interesting ships and I think I can see some of the civilian influences in their design. The forward part of her superstructure and bridge, the cluster of high standing ventilation funnels, and her two slightly raked back stacks, make her resemble an express ocean liner of the period. See images of the RMS Lucania for an example.
A truly beautiful class of warships. It combines the lines and majesty of pre dreadnought vessels, but with a more purposeful and logical design than some them.
Great childhood memory - series of magazine articles with beautifully pictured cruisers, one of these about three 1st class protected cruisers: Blake, Edgar, and Powerful, and two armoured cruisers overleaf: Kent and Good Hope. We’d cut them off and pitch them against French or German cruisers and play shooting games strangely dropping pens aiming at the waterline. Blake was my favourite one
For all the egregious and cumbersome ships the RN was putting out to sea in those years, the Blakes make for a welcome change. Very pleasing lines to the naked eye and long serving careers. Thanks for sharing, Drach.
Funny how you could be on a ship in the royal navy named something like the indefatigable, the formidable or the queen Elizabeth. And then have a ship literally named blake
Why? Admiral Blake was one of the RNs best admirals and established English naval supremacy. He just happened to be a Parliamentarian so he never got all the recognition that he deserved.
The odds are good that the commanders and other conning crew wouldn't actually use the armoured conning tower in battle - officers almost universally preferred the unarmoured 'peacetime' bridges even in battle because they gave a much better view, thus allowing far better situational awareness. You see a cycle in warships from this time through to WWII where the navy's brass commission ships with minimal bridges to force the crews to use the armoured conning towers, as they would in battle, but over time extra bits get added for quality of life, and later classes get larger bridges until the next round of 'make them sail as they'll fight' happens. In the end the RN gives up on heavily armour conning towers, but other navies keep them, at least for battleships, until until the end.
If I remember correctly the longer a ship is and providing the weight and cross section remains the same the faster it will go. There was a formula but I can't find it. There was a 'k' factor which involved the shape of the hull, otherwise it was a doddle. Simply - less water to push out of the way.
You're not alone on that, she does have liner lines. So much so that I wonder if the RN ever thought about constructing a fake shell so she could be a Q-ship to deal with surface raiders
Aye, my first thought was also commerce raider crossed with a cruise ship. Given her to ability to carry whole ship crews to overseas stations, perhaps cruise ship is accurate though I doubt the crews felt it was all that comfy.
It seems like in some ways Admiral Fisher wasn’t as far ahead of his time as is said. His idea of a fast, heavily armed, and weakly armored ship to fight cruisers was an old idea that he modified to fit the era and pursued with energy.
Aye, your Majesty - but thy enemies do not - yet! This is what the armament of your ship, with which you have so graciously entrusted to my command, will so blessingly provide to the foul denizens of the Outer Realms!
And there I was hoping to see a history of "Snaky Blakey" one the RN's last cruisers. So nicknamed because apparently she had a flexible joint in her keel which led to a somewhat flexible wake.
Yup, very similar mission: large (for speed and range), armor and guns de-emphasized but still able to deal with ships that could catch up. Invincible was used well at Falklands, now so well used at Jutland. Blake would have been well or poorly used in the exact same ways. Blake seems to have had closer balance of guns and armor, like the German battlecruisers. If Moltke was a battlecruiser, so was Blake.
You know it strikes me that smoke used to be a big problem for being detected. If it was me I'd not have nice funnely uptakes - I'd have a Japanese aircraft carrier style exhausting on either side with backside blowers and a flap valve - have the valve as a control so the uptake only exhausts on the downwind side. Of course you'd need the right uptake capacity on both beam, but it'd make detection distance a lot shorter. And you get a smoke projector function for free...
Hey Drach, can you make a guide for the Akizuki class destroyers? The time japan actually made and equipped a class of ships with competent anti air armament.
It's always a bit of an adventure when discussing the basics of naval ships with newcomers to this history of the size of cruisers. To the layperson it's always "battleship big, cruiser small" well...That's an oversimplification.
I look in amazement at the early thinking. Of placing guns adjacent to boiler rooms and engines. When the first duty of an opposing ship. Is to silence the enemies guns.
There's really nowhere else to put them. HMS Blake was a large ship for her time, just under 400 feet long, but with so much engine and boiler space, the guns really couldn't go anywhere very far from the machinery.
@@rupertboleyn3885 In Vietnam I was a PBR forward gunner with a dual 50 caliber turret. I learned quickly to shoot at flashes. And continue shooting. Until there were no more flashes. It would be better to not have these relatively small guns. Than draw fire towards the ships most critical areas. They were built to move into range to use their main guns. Retreat out of range. And then move in again.
Lovely ships. I'vd a feeling the RN wasn't pleased about the Orlando's submerged armour belt being anither reason thst ghey stopped building armoured cruisers for some time.
I view this as a strange time, given it's transitional nature. Kinda like King Crimson in '70....🤔 I wonder how designers, high command and grunts alike, felt during that time. I wonder if they full well knew it was working toward something technologically superior in the future & it felt that way.....versus feeling like these were the best vessels that would ever ply the oceans. Hmmm. And bonus ? We were shortly after this given the tumblehome designs to marvel at century plus later. Heady (that's Headley...) days, for sure. Especially knowing that something like the Great Eastern rode the waves. 🚬😎
Could you consider doing an item on submerged torpedo tubes in large warships please? I am curious as to how they operate - does a launcher swivel to either beam? is there any aiming ability? where does their magazine locate? It would be great if you could track down some photos as well! (greedy..?)
Impressively, the six-inchers were on the main deck, and better able to operate in heavier seas. This seems to be The Thinking Approach, so why was this not more common in other classes of armored cruisers and capital ships?
Why did these and other nineteenth century ships have those giant air scoop/inlet things all over the place? Later ships don't seem to have them, though presumably they needed just as much, if not more, air for their boilers....
At this time mechanical forced draft ventilation not yet that developed so it was the ventilators and wind and/or motion providing relief or you suffocated below deck!
Only the British would make a protected cruiser look good! Next to them the Brooklyn class looked downright ugly. I might also add that the Brooklyns were also longer then the Texas and Maine battleships.
I'd have loved to see the size comparison between the cruising 4 cylinder engine versus the main 4 cylinder engine. Because this honestly sounds like a mechanical nightmare compared to Turbines
@@MrFb911 There's more to combat than stats, not that yours are correct. The Blakes have freeboard and guns, something the British were decidedly lacking. Monmouth doesn't even have 9.2" guns.
Rofl? A more innocent age. Look up Belgium in the Congo and the British Empire everywhere. The German Empire not so much because it basically consisted of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki... Innovative? Kind of. Disease riddled? Definitely. But there is no way of stretching the word "innocent", even with a crowbar and dire threats, that fits the C19th..
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Could you do a video on the French steam powered sail ship Napoleon?
How about an episode on USS Brooklyn CA-3, Spanish War veteran.
Or one on USS St. Louis CA18 or Cruiser No 20.
Wait haven't you already done the guide on Blake? It was 8mins one.
There are three major instances I can think of where an entire generation of otherwise quite capable capital ships across the globe had ended up being obsolete in their intended role before they’d even entered service and thus strategically wasteful; ships-of-the-line that entered service during and after the ironclad revolution, predreadnoughts that entered service after Dreadnought, and the 29 battleships and 2 large cruisers that entered service in the late 30s/early-mid 40s at the dawn of the carrier era. Which of these three instances do you see as the most unfortunate from the perspective of the nations that built these ships and found that they’d just built a capital ship that can’t be used as a capital ship?
I remember reading that when Fairbanks Morse, the major supplier of various US naval engines in WW2, tried to get into locomotive design, the railroads complained that FM's opposed Piston engines were too hard to work with, do you agree with the railway companies or is this just another case of laziness on their part (which actually happens alot)
As a Blake, I approve this episode. We make good-looking cruisers.
Can we stop and appreciate the sheer quality of the pictures used for the video? Thank you Drach for sharing these magnificent historical documents with us!
Really handsome, well proportioned ships. The RN, right through to the 1930s, somehow produced some of the most aesthetically pleasing light cruisers of any navy.
Agreed, though the six air intake funnels throw it off a bit.
But six intakes? That implies a heck of a lot of horsepower.
"Blake" wasn't a light cruiser by that Definition. Its a large protected cruiser.
@@TheNecromancer6666 True, I was stretching the point a little bit!
@@phaasch Though you are right about the role. Its more of a doctrinal light cruiser.
Dear derty bastids!!
HMS Blake's were named after Robert Blake, Parliamentary hero in England's last civil wars, and the man with the best claim to be the founder of the power of Britain's navy. A man that may be worth a video. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blake_(admiral)
HMS Blake seems to have been the foreshadowing of both the Dreadnought arms race and the development of the battlecruiser.
That’s what I was thinking, you beat me to it.
Same here
Ditto
not at all. Quite the contrary, actually. The battlecruiser derived directly and logically from the armoured cruiser, which was a far more powerful type of ship in protection and firepower compared to Blake. The role of Hms Blake as a hunter of commerce raiders (especially armed ocean liners, like stated in this video) is undeniably clear and has nothing to do with a battlecruiser.
@@MrFb911 I'm pretty sure he meant the response to the ship, not its lineage.
Interesting ships and I think I can see some of the civilian influences in their design. The forward part of her superstructure and bridge, the cluster of high standing ventilation funnels, and her two slightly raked back stacks, make her resemble an express ocean liner of the period. See images of the RMS Lucania for an example.
My, what a spectacular pair of funnels.
Praise Blake and all his Wisdom. Let his word guide us back to the Light of the League.
Battle Tech ?
"Or burn it down. Either works."
-WoB, probably
@@mbryson2899 WoB -probably-
Found the AT&T guy...
@@kilotun8316 Black Pants Legion can always sniff 'em out.
With their colour scheme, bow decorations and not super obvious gun positions, they kinda look like fancy yachts.
Damn if that isn't my favourite ever launch image at 5:29. Certainly in the "art" class. Gorgeous work. The ship class is pretty nice, too.
i love these short to-the-point lectures. you are to naval history, what The History Guy is to general knowledge. well done, as usual!
A truly beautiful class of warships. It combines the lines and majesty of pre dreadnought vessels, but with a more purposeful and logical design than some them.
Please Drach make a video about what improvements did the different generation dreadnoughts have. Would be awsome, keep up the good work. Cheers!
Just comparing the first and second generations would be very interesting, of course moving into super dreadnaughts would be a natural.
@@inyobill exactly
@@hunorpapp2982 of course, "Dreadnought", derr
Great childhood memory - series of magazine articles with beautifully pictured cruisers, one of these about three 1st class protected cruisers: Blake, Edgar, and Powerful, and two armoured cruisers overleaf: Kent and Good Hope. We’d cut them off and pitch them against French or German cruisers and play shooting games strangely dropping pens aiming at the waterline. Blake was my favourite one
For all the egregious and cumbersome ships the RN was putting out to sea in those years, the Blakes make for a welcome change. Very pleasing lines to the naked eye and long serving careers.
Thanks for sharing, Drach.
I like that you find such good images of these older ships. Thanks for doing these!
For me, an extremely interesting period of naval architecture.
Funny how you could be on a ship in the royal navy named something like the indefatigable, the formidable or the queen Elizabeth. And then have a ship literally named blake
Hey, at least the guy who named her didn’t have Dyslexia. Can you imagine HMS Bleak?
HMS Bloke
After Admiral Robert Blake from the 17th Century, I do believe. It was either that or caling HMS Suicidal Insanity. But the contract....
Why? Admiral Blake was one of the RNs best admirals and established English naval supremacy. He just happened to be a Parliamentarian so he never got all the recognition that he deserved.
Nelson, Anson, Howe, Rodney. Hood.
Getting in here 2 min after release, lucky :)
Me, ten minutes later, always behind the curve. (Sad face)
@@camberweller I just went on UA-cam and saw the video 1 min after release. Pure luck :)
A nice, sleek design; love how they give the officers 12" of protection and the PBG 6"..!
The odds are good that the commanders and other conning crew wouldn't actually use the armoured conning tower in battle - officers almost universally preferred the unarmoured 'peacetime' bridges even in battle because they gave a much better view, thus allowing far better situational awareness.
You see a cycle in warships from this time through to WWII where the navy's brass commission ships with minimal bridges to force the crews to use the armoured conning towers, as they would in battle, but over time extra bits get added for quality of life, and later classes get larger bridges until the next round of 'make them sail as they'll fight' happens.
In the end the RN gives up on heavily armour conning towers, but other navies keep them, at least for battleships, until until the end.
@@rupertboleyn3885 Yeah; I hope it was obvious I was commenting _tongue-in-cheek_ .
Those ships I imagine were a hell of a lot of fun to skipper.
Wow, could you imagine being assigned to such a ship at the tail end of WWI?
If I remember correctly the longer a ship is and providing the weight and cross section remains the same the faster it will go. There was a formula but I can't find it. There was a 'k' factor which involved the shape of the hull, otherwise it was a doddle. Simply - less water to push out of the way.
I had no idea of the HMS Blake's existence yet immediately saw its importance.
To be honest before it started I thought it was a converted liner.
You're not alone on that, she does have liner lines. So much so that I wonder if the RN ever thought about constructing a fake shell so she could be a Q-ship to deal with surface raiders
Aye, my first thought was also commerce raider crossed with a cruise ship. Given her to ability to carry whole ship crews to overseas stations, perhaps cruise ship is accurate though I doubt the crews felt it was all that comfy.
It seems like in some ways Admiral Fisher wasn’t as far ahead of his time as is said.
His idea of a fast, heavily armed, and weakly armored ship to fight cruisers was an old idea that he modified to fit the era and pursued with energy.
Given the name of the ship, what a pity it was not in Guide 7
Absolutely gorgeous ship!
What a nice looking ship!
Pretty boat.
Admiral Lord Ventilator, does your ship have enough ventilators?
Aye, your Majesty - but thy enemies do not - yet! This is what the armament of your ship, with which you have so graciously entrusted to my command, will so blessingly provide to the foul denizens of the Outer Realms!
Awesome thanks 👍👍
I started paying attention when I realized you said, "enemy raiders", and not, "enemy radars", lol, at the start.
Damn nice ship for the era.
solid video
And there I was hoping to see a history of "Snaky Blakey" one the RN's last cruisers. So nicknamed because apparently she had a flexible joint in her keel which led to a somewhat flexible wake.
You mean it wasn't because they let a bunch of BL apprentices weld the keel?
HMS Invincible: I am the genesis of the battle cruiser!
HMS Blake: That's cute, keep telling yourself that.
HMS Blake has nothing to do with battlecruisers
Yup, very similar mission: large (for speed and range), armor and guns de-emphasized but still able to deal with ships that could catch up. Invincible was used well at Falklands, now so well used at Jutland. Blake would have been well or poorly used in the exact same ways. Blake seems to have had closer balance of guns and armor, like the German battlecruisers. If Moltke was a battlecruiser, so was Blake.
Interesting ships
I find it hard to believe that you haven't done an Argonaut video yet. It's a pretty unique ship
Pretty ships.
Was she named after Admiral Blake ?
Yep
@@kristianfischer9814 thank you
You know it strikes me that smoke used to be a big problem for being detected. If it was me I'd not have nice funnely uptakes - I'd have a Japanese aircraft carrier style exhausting on either side with backside blowers and a flap valve - have the valve as a control so the uptake only exhausts on the downwind side. Of course you'd need the right uptake capacity on both beam, but it'd make detection distance a lot shorter. And you get a smoke projector function for free...
Hey Drach, can you make a guide for the Akizuki class destroyers? The time japan actually made and equipped a class of ships with competent anti air armament.
Awesome ship
It's always a bit of an adventure when discussing the basics of naval ships with newcomers to this history of the size of cruisers. To the layperson it's always "battleship big, cruiser small" well...That's an oversimplification.
I look in amazement at the early thinking. Of placing guns adjacent to boiler rooms and engines. When the first duty of an opposing ship. Is to silence the enemies guns.
There's really nowhere else to put them. HMS Blake was a large ship for her time, just under 400 feet long, but with so much engine and boiler space, the guns really couldn't go anywhere very far from the machinery.
@@rupertboleyn3885 In Vietnam I was a PBR forward gunner with a dual 50 caliber turret. I learned quickly to shoot at flashes. And continue shooting. Until there were no more flashes. It would be better to not have these relatively small guns. Than draw fire towards the ships most critical areas. They were built to move into range to use their main guns. Retreat out of range. And then move in again.
Lovely ships. I'vd a feeling the RN wasn't pleased about the Orlando's submerged armour belt being anither reason thst ghey stopped building armoured cruisers for some time.
Was there anything that in particular led to the demise of underwater torpedo launchers aside from just the internal space needed?
Fascinating!!!!
Where those guns mounted in bisters in hull below the deck line really very functional? I have my doubts.🤔
i guess next week will be the IJN Yubari :P
That ship would've been a wonderful muesum ship.
We need more pre dreadnaught ships
Agreed. He did cover the French pre-dreadnaught "floating hotels" a few years ago.
@@shauny2285 hotels go to war was a great video. The predreadnaught era is fascinating in the amount of unique designs that were created.
Dorade vents must have been on sale the week they designed this. 🤔
Look at all those air intakes!
Ironic that HMS Blenheim was at Gallipoli, on a campaign cooked up by a man born at Blenheim Palace.
This I interesting, also I have a suggestion for a ship from the Royal Thai navy, the Thonburi class, HTMS Sri Ayudhya.
I view this as a strange time, given it's transitional nature. Kinda like King Crimson in '70....🤔
I wonder how designers, high command and grunts alike, felt during that time. I wonder if they full well knew it was working toward something technologically superior in the future & it felt that way.....versus feeling like these were the best vessels that would ever ply the oceans. Hmmm.
And bonus ? We were shortly after this given the tumblehome designs to marvel at century plus later.
Heady (that's Headley...) days, for sure. Especially knowing that something like the Great Eastern rode the waves.
🚬😎
Could you consider doing an item on submerged torpedo tubes in large warships please? I am curious as to how they operate - does a launcher swivel to either beam? is there any aiming ability? where does their magazine locate? It would be great if you could track down some photos as well! (greedy..?)
..oh! do they weaken the armour underwater belt?
Best class of ship name
Havent you already done these, 3 years ago?
Apparently so, I missed that!
@@Drachinifel mistakes happen
Was thinking the same thing.
Purposeful protected cruiser built at Chatham dockyard.
Blakes 7!
Impressively, the six-inchers were on the main deck, and better able to operate in heavier seas. This seems to be The Thinking Approach, so why was this not more common in other classes of armored cruisers and capital ships?
Made me break out "Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts" again. "...some weapons have restricted fire arcs..." Dang it. William White knew stuff I don't.
Are those crickets that I hear in the background ?
What is the source of the name?
So the Royal Navy had Heavy Cruisers before Heavy Cruisers were a thing?
Yeah.
Greased up. Give it a twist.
✌️
1.6K views in 36 minutes
Beautiful looking in black, almost like a royal yacht, but in war time grey 😬, not so good.
HMS Balakay
An interesting match HMS Blake vs USS Olympia.
👍
Why did these and other nineteenth century ships have those giant air scoop/inlet things all over the place? Later ships don't seem to have them, though presumably they needed just as much, if not more, air for their boilers....
At this time mechanical forced draft ventilation not yet that developed so it was the ventilators and wind and/or motion providing relief or you suffocated below deck!
Have you done HMS JAMAICA? She was my god fathers ship when he joined up at 17, he served on her during the Korean war.
Only the British would make a protected cruiser look good! Next to them the Brooklyn class looked downright ugly. I might also add that the Brooklyns were also longer then the Texas and Maine battleships.
I'm early for once!
I'd have loved to see the size comparison between the cruising 4 cylinder engine versus the main 4 cylinder engine. Because this honestly sounds like a mechanical nightmare compared to Turbines
Isn't Blake guide 152?
HMS Duke of kent sail ship
Late 19th century he meant
Looks like the HMS Thunderchild from H.g.Wells war of the world's
Day 2 of asking to do more norwegian ships
He has a long list of ships already requested- it will be BBC a while until he gets to newly requested ones.
The long boat on 04-01-2023??
@@stuross85 ok what do you mean by bbc
@@scottgiles7546 not helge ingstad
@@Twisted_loona I think my fingers didn't type what my brain was thinking! Not sure where "BBC" came from! Sorry!
Could have used these at Coronel.
to sink even faster? "Good Hope" and "Monmouth" were faster, and significantly more armoured and armed than Hms Blake. Your statement is nonsense
@@MrFb911 There's more to combat than stats, not that yours are correct. The Blakes have freeboard and guns, something the British were decidedly lacking. Monmouth doesn't even have 9.2" guns.
HMS B'la'ke.
Amazing how much uglier the ship appeared when painted battleship gray. The original paint schemes harkens back to a more innocent age.
Rofl? A more innocent age. Look up Belgium in the Congo and the British Empire everywhere. The German Empire not so much because it basically consisted of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki...
Innovative? Kind of. Disease riddled? Definitely. But there is no way of stretching the word "innocent", even with a crowbar and dire threats, that fits the C19th..
69th, 11 March 2023
:)
My man lol
Need for Speed
3rd, not too bad ;-)
Not too different to ocean liners of the time, like RMS Campania AND Lucania.
except for the guns and the armour :D :D :D
Your videos always have a sad end for the ships ;)
I made the first comment.
Don’t listen to what the other heathens say!
First!
:'(
Too bad for misinfo ads
I'm ditching UA-cam for Patreon
And Rumble