Most Kriegsmarine warships (aside from those compliant with treaty restrictions such as the Konigsberg class) are accused to have an inefficient design compared to other ships of the period but can the german designers really be faulted when they basically hadn't developed battleships, cruisers and destroyers for 20 years? Or is the lack of those years of experience not a good justification for having developed such flawed designs?
In reading the book Flagship (HMAS Australia 2 and the RAN in general) during the battle of coral sea it is mentioned that when Japanese aircraft attacked Australia,Canberra and Chicago they claim to have sunk a QE and a California class. It is clear this was because of turret arrangement. Did similar mistakes occur in other navy’s or engagements?
given our personal hate towards the lack of a proper battleship museum ship for the UK, could centurion have / could be raised and restored, if i understand it right she was intensionally scutted and abandoned by the crew and not a wargrave, but honestly tryna find info is not our skillset. also think centurion is a great name
In your first answer where you talked about two extra Shokaku's I suspect the IJN would have taken Midway if 3 CV's had been lost on each side. In that case would the entire Solomon's champagne have even happened? The Russians used 4 pre-dreads to fight Goebin/Yavez in the Black Sea. Did anybody else try this like they did or at least talk about the possibility?
On pronunciations, at university I knew a lass whose Dad was Polish, escaped to Britain during WWII and continued the fight. She just got on with the fact that her surname, Zowada, was generally in Britain pronounced phonetically, Zo-wa-da. She explained how it should be pronounced, my best attempt at writing that down would be Zzva-da. So, once informed by her that's how we, her friends, pronounced her surname. Pretty much the rest of Britain stuck with Zo-wa-da. Props to those Eastern European immigrants to Britain who generally got a lot closer.
My general position is I will give my best guess based on spelling and if told I am wrong I will apologize and try to use the correct pronunciation. Occasionally it is just a sound combination that I cannot make and people have always accepted that I make an attempt. And as someone who regularly is having to guess how to pronounce international names due to my work it has been a thing for me to learn. The only people I would criticize are people that can't be bothered to make an attempt. The place I have gotten the most negative reactions is actually from determining the correct surname for people of Iberian descent. Most understand, but I have had a few that got right pissed.
When trying to pronounce a name from a foreign language, dialect or regional accent, as long as the speaker is making an effort to pronounce the word with respect, it's fine. As you pointed out, simply within any given english speaking nation there is an array of pronunciations in different geographical regions, much less over time. Getting bent out of shape over how to pronounce Albany, Olbany, Ahl-bany, or whatever goes beyond pedantic and into the realm of ignorant anal-retentive drunk posting. The historical channels I watch; Drach, Rex, Greg's Airplanes, Military History Visualized, The Chieftain, etc., will almost always lead with our follow up with "apologies for pronunciation," and that's all that needs to be said. If someone is deliberately mispronouncing your last name or nationality as a way of insulting you, fine, go throw your shoe at them, but that's not what's going on here.
I had a college professor from Poland who was endlessly fascinated by the American pronunciation of English. Sometimes we'd spend more time talking about language than we did Hydrology, the course subject. He was a great guy and those classes were very educational, but perhaps I'd need to brush up on the subject if I needed to actually know Hydrology.
Don't worry about your pronunciations as the two or three viewers you MAY lose won't matter in the big scheme of things. Karen's come in all forms......
Same here. There have been a few names or words that have caused me to stumble, but I recognize that regional variations are a thing and it's often very hard to recognize them from the written word, even with people who are native English speakers. Ask me how to refer to Chili, NY why don't you? Or Nunda. Even people relatively geographically close to those places often get surprised by the proper pronunciations. When you start dealing with unfamiliar languages and phonemes it goes sideways even more quickly.
Drach, I live in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan just outside of Detroit. You may mispronounce my town any time you want. I am strong enough to not be offended and am grateful that you provide continually educational and entertaining information on an almost daily basis. You are to be celebrated and not admonished for attempting to provide meaningful information continually. Thank you for being Drach!
I wonder what the commenter would think of Buena Vista, Georgia. Should everyone know its "Boo-na" Vista? Would he expect a Brit, a Spaniard, or even a New Englander to know that? And godforbid a Georgian attempt to pronounce Scituate or Gloucester, Mass. No patience for people who take offense at pronunciations
I moved from "Yankee" states like New York, and PA to GA when I was in the 8th grade. I swear to gawd those hicks in Columbus, GA, spoke some other language than "English". I could not understand them. Obviously they must have been stupid. Three years later I sounded just like them. So we then move to AK and nobody can understand me because I was clearly "stupid". Funny how that works. My advice is to get a girlfriend who speaks the local version of "stupid" and all will become clear very fast.
50:50 Specifically, the newly invented smokeless powders had more gradual burn compared to the spontaneous explosion of black powder. For black powder, because everything was burned immediately the initial pressure would be really high (less chamber volume since the shell hasn't move yet). So in order to increase the power the best solution was to increase the bore diameter and projectile weight while maintaining the same velocity. With smokeless powder the pressure can starts fairly low and remains that way since as the shell travel through the barrel there's more volume to fill and the burn rate that gradually increase keep the pressure at healthy level. This is why not only naval guns but small arms also transitioned to high velocity small bore guns. You can keep the same amount of energy with significantly smaller and lighter guns and bullets. Also the increased velocity means the bullet reaches the target faster with less drop. This make it more accurate since you need to lead the target a lot less and each yards of incorrect range causes less elevation change.
It was the slow burn rate that USN BuOrd did not fully appreciate when they switched to smokeless. The USN switched from a 13"/35 to a 12"/40 to take advantage of the slower burn rate, but the new 12"/40s, and the 8"/40s started blowing their muzzles and chases off. BuOrd found chamber pressures were as predicted, but pressure in the chase was far higher than expected. A rebuild program was instituted where the guns were given a strong liner and hooped to the muzzle to reinforce them.
Indeed! they must a truly cunning linguist! 😄The kind of Talented creature who needs something to complain about....Imagine getting so bent outta shape over pronunciation that you have to be needlessly rude about it. Smh, they Should take a ride on the Kamchatka.
As a Polishman when I hear your butchering of our names and words I feel deep compassion and great respect for brave standing up to the face of the enemy and trying. For the linguistic expert I wouldn't be so elaborate and gentle. Spierdalaj would be quite appropriate in my opinion. Pronounced as one like.
I'm seeing the Top Gear build being about close to shore fire support......Hammond storms up in a British MTB at full speed or American PT gun boat conversion and is immediately perturbed by an undersea disturbance as Clarkson surfaces M-1 before popping the hatch to mock Hammond for picking something matching his stature and saying he considered Scurcrof "but well its French!!" Hammond responds insulting Clarkson for only having one gun....Clarkson then points out that one gun is much longer then anything Hammond fields. They both then look seaward in amazement to see May trundling up in an Rocket Firing LCM. And both of them shake their heads making comments about were it possible for him to find anything slower. When May is finally even with them they give him guff for being slowest thing in the competition as per usual where then May points out he can put down heavier fire then Hammond almost as fast and can salvo fire much faster then Clarkson. They then proceed to get a bit lost and "Accidentally" fire up a popular bathing beach or conversely find themselves off a Nude Beach in Spain or the South of France and no firing is completed because they need to do alot more "Recon of this beach before engaging."
When my dad was in the USN in the 1950's he was assigned to brief operation of a radar set to sailors from the Royal Navy and the Bundesmarine. As it turned out, between my dad's deep Appalachian accent and a cornucopia of regional accents amongst the Royal Navy sailors, the folk from the Bundesmarine had to act as interpreters. As I recall from his telling of the story, none took offense and apparently there was a night at the pubs afterwards of which the story was "vague" at best.
The Hammond, May & Clarkson segment was brilliant! I laughed my head off! Well done Drach. By the way, I am sure you will have seen Jeremy Clarkson's two videos on Convoy PQ17 and the raid on St Nazaire. I think you and he would get on quite well.
Some say she used a dab of opposite lock to powerslide through the Straights of Messina because sideways looks better - others say she did two high speed doughnoughts infront of the entire German High Seas Fleet just to make things interesting - All we know is... it's HMS Warstig
Some people say that her rangefinnders are made out of actual human eyeballs. And that none of her crew can taste the flavour peppermint. All we know is she's callef HMS Warstig.
Regarding Japanese names being romanized: what you are typically looking at is something called "Romanji" which is a very specific ruleset for how Japanese kana (the syllabic characters that describe how a thing is pronounced, as opposed to Kanji which are less...directly related to what one must do to *say* the word represented and more related to the concepts being expressed by that term) are to be rendered in the Latin alphabet. Most of the time, having the Romanji ruleset is helpful and avoids confusion. It allows Westerners trying to interpret Japanese text to work with a consistent interpretation of letters, and for English speakers (who were a particularly high priority given the post-war occupation) it comes pretty close to providing characters that are phonetically quite similar to what they would expect. I know of 3 areas where Romanji falls somewhat flat: the -suke suffix, Tsu, and the R/L problem. The former is that it's quite common for Japanese names (and possibly words in general, I'm still learning fundamentals as yet) end in the kana representing "su" and "ke" and thus are romanized to "-suke"; but this gets compressed down to something that would be closer to "skay" in English. It's kinda just something you have to learn to recognize. Tsu and the R/L problem both stem from the fact that they're sounds that don't quite exist in English, but are close to. R and L are quite similar consonants - make an rrrr and a llll sound back to back, you'll notice the only change you need to make is the position of your tongue. The sound in Japanese is similar to both, but with the tongue at some point in between where it is for R and L. Tsu, similarly, is pretty close to what you do to say the sound in proper Japanese, but it's, again, slightly off. Overall, though, it's a pretty effective and intuitive system. It won't get you exact pronunciation for pretty much anything, there's a lot of very slight differences...but aside from a handful of pitfalls, it'll get an ordinary English speaker sounding close enough to Japanese to be intelligible. Which is more than can be said for some systems: Chinese in particular is notoriously difficult to interpret due to the fact that Chinese in particular contains a lot of sounds that are quite distant from sounds we're used to making. This leads to Pinyin, a system developed in the 1950s that features such oddities as the letter g representing an unaspirated k (as in "skill") and the letters j, q and x all representing sounds that just don't exist in English. This, too, is quite a good system for what it is, but it's significantly less intuitive to your average anglophone because you have to learn to interpret the familiar letters in entirely different ways. (And if you're doing history, then you have further complications in that Pinyin is two of *ten* distinct romanization schemes that have been devised over the years. (And yes, two - I've been talking about Hanyu Pinyin, which is used in relation to Standard Chinese and thus Mainland China. Tongyong Pinyin is a variant developed in Taiwan to romanize Mandarin there.) This is why we have cities like Beijing also being labelled Peking - the name didn't change, we just changed what Latin alphabet letters are used to represent its Chinese name) But yeah, romanization of languages that don't natively use the Latin alphabet is extremely difficult. And even when you're talking about a country that uses the Latin alphabet, you've got no guarantee that your pronunciation will be remotely accurate. Consider Polish, where you have Andrzej as a fairly common name - which seems to be pronounced closer to "Andrei" with just a hint of a z after the r....which is probably not what first came to mind to most anglophones when first encountering this name.
Marine Biologist here Drach, I have always used a long A in gato. Always. Not the short A. My students and colleagues generally do not care. And not US either, Brit, specifically Welsh....
The "Drachinifel Board Game" is kinda like Operation; every time you pronounce a ship's name, you get a shock and buzzing sound! No matter HOW you pronounce it!
Really wonderful analysis of pronunciation. I am a native Swedish speaker ("from Göteborg )who has lived in the US since 1976 and am a native American speaker as well (West Coast LA American) who studied Spanish in school and Mandarin Chinese at University and post graduate. With Chinese I stated with Wade-Giles ("Peking") transliteration and then we changed to Pinyin ("Being") Chinese transliteration. When someone legitimately mispronounces something all that shows me is they learned that word by reading! I NEVER make fun of someone's pronunciation but I will empathetically assist with the pronunciation if I know the correct pronunciation because learning something new is always wonderful 😉
Merely how people speak in China. You go through half a province and the dialects sometimes get so thick, native speakers themselves are like "He may have meant this word, but who knows". How many people do you think were still around from 1880s who know their way around fire-tube boilers?
Drach, as an Australian speaking english, mispronunciations of multiple languages noting the various countries and names of individuals you cover is normal. As you say Albany and Albany are spelt the same and many Australians get it wrong. Please ignore those who obviously have nothing better to do.
25:24 - People mispronounce things all the time, even in their native language. I certainly mispronounce things enough; personally I blame reading books rather than talking to people. People even mispronounce my name most of the time. It happens. If mispronouncing words is enough to get you offended, I'm unsure how you haven't yet died of some sort of aneurysm brought on by being constantly angry at everyone ever.
“The dock gates are too small to hit from the air” well i found this old destroyer and a couple thousand pounds of high explosives, we simply the gates with the destroyer then get on MTB’s and leave before it blows up
These are some riverine warships I know about off the top of my head. 1. USS Cario, a City class ironclad Gunboat, sunk in the Yazoo River during the U.S. civil war. discovered in 1956, salvaged in the mid 1960's and currently on display in Vicksburg Mississippi. 2. CSS Neuse, a steam powered iron clad ram, built on the Neuse River in North Carolina then scuttled to prevent capture. lower hull was recovered in the mid 1960's and is currently on display at the CSS Muesum in Kinston North Carolina. 3. CSS Arkansas, a Confederate casemate iron clad, scuttled by her crew after the engines broke down. Remains are currently under a levee on the Mississippi river near Baton Rouge Louisiana.
Thanks for answering my questions! I’d personally also have gone with the Matsushimas as well but figured Kitakami and the refit Ises were crazy enough to potentially take that dubious title. For the “two extra Shokakus” IMO the most likely scenario is that the Americans sacrifice Midway and keep the Yorktowns instead; the epic carrier battles likely happen in 1943 rather than 1942, with the Essexes backing up the Yorktowns against the beefed-up Kido Butai. No idea how bad the losses would be then, though; the Japanese would also have high-quality pilots left at that point since the Guadalcanal campaign didn’t happen, but with the Essexes coming online the Americans can put more carriers into service faster.
I was expecting the warships that were designed by Clarkson, Hammond and May, Clarkson: Absurd Speed and Power, but somewhat impractical Hammond: Starts off with a good idea, but fails due to flaws in hindsight and turns out isn't a good idea May: Very sensible design, coloured brown , but failed due to bad luck or sabotaging
I just want to see the three discussing the wonders of various power plants and the inevitable showing up of one of them with some nightmare german steam plant to the ridicule of the others. Liberty ships also sound like one of their build projects... especially with their habit of breaking apart due to shoddy construction.
Some people just have to be offended by trivial things because they're not happy unless they're miserable. Drach is a better person than I because I wouldn't even have bothered to answer the question of an obviously rude and miserable person.
If ADM King heard that Clark wanted to be the American Beatty he probably would have relieved him. In Illinois we pronounce the capital of Egypt as "Kayro" and the French Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles as "Marsails."
In regards to pronunciations, the American battle rifle of WW2 is usually said as "guh-rand", but the person it's named after is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "errand". Sometimes somebody just has to work out a word they've only read and everybody just runs with that. 🤷♂️
Re the river ships under land from the sea hunters by Clive cussler, the css Arkansas is under a parking lot on the west side of the Mississippi river above batton rouge. Also the css Manassas in under a levey and the corp of engineers dumped a load of pipe to hide it. Finally I believe I read the James river in Virgina may have shifted enough to have the capital fleet sunk in 1865 be now partly under the river bank
The Best is Nevada, MO. Not Nev-AH-Dah, nor Nev-a-Duh (short A), but in Mizzou, it is "Nev-AE-Duh, Mizz-OOH-Ruh".😂 Drach does his best, and that's good enough for 95% of it.
People complaining about pronunciation!! Who cares?! Regarding Yokosuka's pronunciation, in Japanese hiragana it is spelled exactly as it is transliterated, Yo-ku-su-ka (よこすか). The alternate pronunciation, I'm pretty sure, is like the way Gloucester is pronounced in English - not exactly the same as the spelling. I've heard similar changes in the names of Japanese-Americans I know. Hang in there, we know you're doing your best (almost all of us, anyway).
I don't know why, but these videos make me sleep better than any rain sounds or ASMR. I know very little about warships, but there's just something about the calming voice.
man, drach... you're the best. "don't worry, childhood zot. one day there will be this thing called the internet and there will be this guy who will tell you EVERYTHING about battleships. all you have to do is stay alive long enough. got it buddy? let's gooooo!" ❤
Re the IJN building two extra Shokakus. One consideration is that the USN knew the IJN was building the Yamatos and they would certainly have known that they were building those ships and it’s quite likely that knowing this they might have chose to build 3 more Yorktowns vice one or accelerated the Essex class. I doubt that they would just continue without any changes. Also re Midway remember Jon Parshall’s presentation on Point Luck as a risk control measure. I very much doubt he is going to just throw 2 or three carriers against 6 or 8 Japanese ones. In that scenario I suspect that Nimitz lets the Japanese have Midway and then turns the Island into an attritional sump. The shape of the war can’t help but be different but the final result is unarguably the same.
If a what-if scenario would involve an alternate Battle of Midway, better check if John Parshall's research in Shattered Sword would preclude it. In this case, he identified a serious deficiency in IJNAS air groups that plagued the Japanese Navy's air service throughout 1942: "A much more clear-cut problem was the number of planes in Nagumo’s air groups. The truth was that when it came to aircraft complements throughout the fleet, things weren’t just fraying around the edges, they were downright awful.37 The Pearl Harbor operation had resulted in aircraft being stripped from other units to beef up Kidō Butai. After the operation had concluded, some of those units had been returned, but many of the smaller carriers were still little better than paper tigers. These flattops were flying fewer aircraft than they could carry and in several cases were being forced to use planes that weren’t fit for frontline service. Japan had not started the war at a running start in terms of aircraft production, either. Of the major manufacturers devoted to carrier aircraft production-Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi-only Mitsubishi’s fighter line was running well. Rumor in the fleet had it that there were production problems back at the other two, because carrier attack aircraft in particular were in short supply.38 In fact, Nakajima had stopped production of the Type 97 altogether in anticipation of fielding the new Tenzan torpedo bomber and had to be asked to restart production to meet war needs. Aichi, the builder of the D3A Type 99 dive bomber, was in the same position. It was focusing all of its efforts on ironing out the production issues associated with the new D4Y and was neglecting production of the older platform. Consequently, by the middle of 1942, production of carrier bombers and attack aircraft had temporarily ground to a near halt and was completely insufficient to replace ongoing combat and operational losses. Japan would produce just fifty-six carrier attack aircraft during all of 1942-a pathetically low figure." From Shattered Sword, pg. 89. If Parhsall's figures from his 2005 publication are still accurate, there weren't enough 'Kates' and 'Vals' to form full attack groups aboard eight full fleet carriers. Not that they would have been useless, but with only 56 carrier attack aircraft built throughout 1942 a hypothetical third and fourth Shokaku-class carrier would probably have been fighter-only carriers until sufficient B5Ns, B6Ns, D3As and/or D4Ys could be produced (likely in 1943 onwards). However a hypothetical where two additional Shokakus were constructed would almost certainly necessitate prioritizing the IJNAS, so Aichi's and Nakajima's problems might have been avoided in this scenario...but far more problematic would be the American response in 1938 and 1940. In reality the Second Vinson Act of 1938 authorized 40,000 tons of carrier tonnage and 105,000 tons of battleship tonnage (likely envisioned as a third and fourth Yorktown-class carrier screened by the fifth through seventh South Dakota-class battleships), almost certainly because of the Shokaku and Yamato keel layings. Only Hornet, Iowa and New Jersey were ordered as a result of this law due to the tonnage limits, with the first 11 Essex-class carriers escorted by six Alaska-class cruisers, the rest of the Iowas and the Montana-class battleships authorized two years later by the Naval Expansion Acts, 14 June and 19 July 1940. With four Shokakus laid down, Carl Vinson's bill at minimum would have authorized four fleet carriers and rapidly sped up U.S. carrier production as a bottleneck would have been avoided. The four U.S. shipyards with previous carrier construction experience--Fore River (FRSY) with Lexington CV-2 and Wasp CV-7, New York Shipbuilding Corporation (NYSB) with Saratoga, Newport News (NNSD) with Ranger and the entire Yorktown-class run and Norfolk Naval Yard (NNY) with Langley--became bogged down in 1939-40 when each began building a South Dakota-class battleship. With multiple fleet carriers in the queue, it would be almost certain the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard would have built these battleships instead so FRSY and NNSD could begin racing to build an Essex-class carrier from keel laying to launch in under a year and less than three additional months to commissioning--the standard FRSY and NNSD set starting with USS Franklin and USS Hancock while also starting an arms race prewar. In such a hypothetical the Essex swarm might have begun building much earlier, or even supplanted with a swarm of Midways. But if we hand wave away these realities that sealed the IJN's fate, one factor above all would keep the impact of an expanded Shokaku-class limited--the 20 months the IJN carriers refused to engage in combat between the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Outnumbering the USN two to one and suffering no ships sunk compared to the loss of USS Hornet, the IJN established carrier dominance in October 1942 and then the Japanese carriers elected to do...nothing for almost two years. That dominance grew to a three-to-one advantage once Hiyo returned to service and Ryuho was commissioned in November 1942 and remained that way until Essex, Yorktown and Independence raided Marcus Island on 31 August 1943...but still the Japanese carriers acted like they were scared of their own shadows.
Try some names from Wisconsin. In all seriousness your topic covers such a broad spectrum its a miracle we get anything even close. Do not give this a second thought, ever again. I generally ASK people “How do you pronounce this?” If anyone doesn’t like your product let them go somewhere else. Otherwise, Drach, KEEP IT UP!
Take Oconomowoc - reading that name aloud sounds like running a stick along a picket fence... ...also one of the Electric Boat shipyards that built some very good US submarines was at a city on Lake Michigan, Manitowoc, Wisconsin :)
Riverine warship excavated from being buried in mud: USS Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro, after Cairo, IL). It was an armored central paddlewheel ship built for U.S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign. It currently is on display at the museum in the Vicksburg Battlefield National Park.
Re: Riverine ships lost in the River. The USS Cairo was sunk in the Yazoo River. It may have been the first ship sunk by an electrically detonated mine, December 12, 1862. Sometime around 1960, it was located and a salvage operation began. I was 4 years old at the time and visited the site. The salvage didn't go well. The first attempt to raise it in one piece with cable slings, cut it into three pieces. In the end, most of it was recovered and it sits at the Military Museum at Vicksburg MS. The CSS Arkansas, or what's left of it is somewhere south of Baton Rouge. It had engine problems which made it pretty much ineffective. It ran aground and the crew set it on fire. The Arkansas floated free an drifted down river. It is said the cannons fired as it passed Baton Rouge, just before the magazine exploded. It's present location, if there is one, is unknown. On December 7, 1968, the Coast Guard buoy tender White Alder was struck by a freighter and sank at Bayou Goula Bend. Only three men survived. Eighteen died and fifteen are still aboard. The river currents made immediate recovery too dangerous and by the time more resources were brought in, the current had scoured a hole in the river bottom. The White Alder slid into the hole and most of the hull was buried under the silt. It remains in place, today. The White Alder was built in 1943 and was launched as the tender YF-417
Albany is a real gotcha. It’s a very local thing for such a new country. Typically only the West Australians will pronounce it the that way (Al-bany instead of All-bany). Many east coasters will go with All-bany as it’s similar to Albury in NSW which is pronounced All-bury.
Hey Drach, I am surprised that you even took the name pronunciation question. Not even worth your time, but I must also say that your answer was handled with the your typical depth and professionalism. Well done!
For the record, you pronounced Yokosuka mostly right, I would say it's more like "Yo-kou-su-ka" with a short u behind the ko, I have not heard people pronunce it as "yo-kuu-ska" in regular Japanese. For Japanese words it's because of how adding a vowl behind a character can alter it's pronunciation, as well as how English percieve a "word" , and that does not translate well into romaji. The most obvious example is Myoko みょうこう, English reader will always say "My-o-ko" because they think My is a single character, it is(technically), but the actuall pronunciation is more like "Miyoo-kou" because みょう is a single word and theres short "u" at the end that somehow got dropped in the romaji name. Same problem persist into Chinese words as well because English does not have the concept of the four sounds (or even 9 if you are reading some dialect) and most time what comes out is the flattest sounding words that we can't understand very well (because a single character can have 4 or more ways to read it and all can be a different word, so not able to give the sound breaks it completely). It's just how different language works, I am definitly not able to pronunce Indefatigable without stuttering at least twice.
There evidence that Nimitz would have proceeded with Midway in a 5-2 situation, though he probably would have maintained a more conservative deployment point for them. I suspect 6-3 would have elicited the same response. Also, all scouting at Midway was done by the cruiser launched float planes. This was Japanese doctrine at the time so the scouting might not have been better. I do agree the Nagumo might have kept a Car Div of planes for antiship had he come with 6 or 7 carriers (Zuikaku was not badly damaged at Coral Sea but her air group had been mauled-that might not happen if the Japanese send 4 carriers down there)
America’s love to tell you how badly you mispronounce things. Especially names. I just tell them sorry you should have spelt it different then. It’s English not American so I’m right
The state I live in has two cities Marseilles and Versailles, pronounced Mar and Ver sails. Vienna is Vye enna, Cairo is Care-o. One city Bourbonnais has three pronunciations, by the citizens of the city. Your pronunciations occasionally make me giggle, but I am not complaining. As for Slavic names, I don't even know the correct pronunciation of my own last name.
Drach, as someone who has literally been across the U.S. from Florida to So. Cal, from Kentucky to Louisiana and up to Alaska, and having heard a dozen different ways to say the same thing, to hell with the language police. As long as you can clearly relay the information, it's all good! The vast majority of these people are actually looking for a reason to gripe and complain.
Drach - I am right behind you when it comes to pronunciation of place names or vessels. You can both right and wrong at the same time depending on where you are from. My favourite here in the UK is in the grand old county of Norfolk. There is a small town on the coast called Happisburgh and it is famous for it's lighthouse. Do you think it is pronounced that way - oh no it is pronounced Haisborough which is what you will see on a nautical chart when referring to the light. Then, if you travel towards Norwich in the same lovely county you will come upon Postwick - which of course is pronounced Pozzick. If you travel up to Yorkshire you can visit Slaithwaite which seems reasonable enough until you realise it's Sloughit (Slough as in the town with an added it). Don't get me started on Penistone which of course is Penniston!
Ignore the pronunciation. We appreciate the product you produce, and as a westerner (Montana, USA), I can laugh at myself and others. BUT I still have a tough time with those historians who call cavalry: calvary!!!
I think on pronunciations people also forget that it is extremely common in general for names of the same thing to change quite dramatically when exchanging languages. No one is going to say using "Germany" instead of "Deutschland" in English is incorrect obviously. Likewise you will also find cognates that share spelling and meaning yet are pronounced differently in between languages. Translations and pronunciations changing as it is transcribed across languages is a common and natural process that occurs over time, and being upset at it is just pointlessly getting angry and a natural human phenomenon. It has occurred to historical figures, places, names (Just look at all the variations of John there are across the European languages), and it will continue to occur in the modern day.
Regarding the USN's officer corps view of Beatty - while we can point to Admiral King's VERY negative view of him, my literal first exposure to the name Beatty was reading Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery's autobiographical works. I remember him mentioning a hypothetical version of Jutland about how it would have been a much bigger victory had Beatty & Jellicoe had had their roles reversed - which implies a lot about his opinion about the relative aggression and competence of the two officers. It's only one data point, but it does add to the impression that there were likely a number of WWII era USN command and flag officers with to modern understanding inflated opinions of Beatty's competence.
Well, if Jellicoe had been commanding the battlecruisers, you can be sure he'd have been sending constant reports detailing Hipper's position, course and speed, and his signalling would have been solid so 5th Battle Squadron wouldn't have spent so long under fire from the High Seas Fleet. On the other hand, the thought of what the combination of Beatty's "follow me!" style and Seymour's signalling would have done during the fleet's turn into line is to horrific to contemplate.
Now if I could turn the soviet river boat @6:30 into a livable space..and find a space to park it.... I always thought those things are cool even if they weren't particularly good and I wish there would be spoken about more.
Regarding pronunciations, I grew up in California just as Americans began wondering if respecting other cultures might be worth their time, and the fights that used to occur over the way to pronounce all the Spanish language place names were epic!
There are times when one encounters someone so pompous, malevolent and stupid that one really should simply ignore the offender rather than spend any precious time addressing the offender. You needn't launch into any defense or explanation regarding "miss-" pronounciations, for no one is so perfectly informed as to know exactly how any particular audience member wishes to hear any given word enunciated when spoken, and those pompous enough to give other people grief over such matters are not worthy of expending a single moment upon- time and life are far better spent upon others. Agreed?
It was certainly not a riverine warships but KMS Admiral Hipper is buried under one former harbour basin in Kiel after it capzised in the last phase of the war by british bombardment
hi Drach, regarding pronunciation, no one is going to be able to pronounce all the ship names of all these countries correctly, we know you try harder than most, and succeed better than most, and have nothing to apologize for
Whoever got on you about pronunciation is small minded, must not listen to much from outside their own country, and doesn't appriciate the effort needed to make these videos. Please continue doing your best to provide information and entertainment and rest assured the majority of use don't care about pronunciation.
There was a City class ironclad, the Baron de Kalb, that was mined and sunk in the Yazoo River in 1863; her sister ship the Cairo was sunk in 1862 in the same river but (badly) recovered early 1960s. I have no idea if the de Kalb is still present in the river or if the river has shifted so it's now embedding on land.
My sister lived in Worcester Mass., pronounced Wooster I live in Lancaster PA pronounced Lan-Cis-ter. In New Jersey where I grew up we would have pronounced it like you do in UK.
I appreciate your answer about speaking. Just some things I have run into in the past few years (these are mostly place names) on YT and live. I live in Northern California and there is the town of San Rafael. Locally it is called San Rahfell. It is easy to spot new people to the area by this pronunciation. I grew up in Upstate New York. North of Albany. Went to school in Western New York. In Western NY, Rochester is said Rah - chis - ter. Chili is said Chai - lye. In Eastern NY (and I got this from a review of one of the recent Battles of Saratoga videos), Greenwich is said Green - witch. Schuyler is said Sky - ler Bemis Heights is said Bee - miss Schaghticoke is said Scat - ee - coke
25:33 As Shakespeare wrote - "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" So in short to the questioner - get over it and move on, I'm a geordie and have had to put up with sh!t from almost everyone regarding me as a thicko, the reality I'd probably have to loose 60 IQ points to be as thick as the person who asked this offensive question.
IM(NS)HO, don't _ever_ sweat the pronunciaion of named things and places. No matter how "correct" you are some people will still be dissatisfied, and a few of them will whinge about it. FREX, I've never left the US, but I have traveled it extensively. We have a plethora of places that are spelled one way (often in tribute to another, older place) but are pronounced wildly differently. Cairo, Illinois and Mantua, Utah immediately spring to mind. Most locals ignore the mispronunciations, some will correct you, but few actually take it to heart. And if they do, one knows exactly what kind of person they are. In any case, I am sincerely grateful for everything you share with us, Uncle Drach, and I appreciate the hard work you put into your channel.
I have a several of points of view on people who make complaints about other peoples "Linguistic pronunciation " . 1: Some languages don't have certain vowel sounds and no natives find those sounds difficult to replicate- aka ask a non-native speaker of a language like Welsh to pronounce the name of towns like Llandudno, Rhyl or worse Llanfairpwllgwyngllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch! (Yes such a place exists in Wales and it has a railway station)- Understanding locals doesn't expect you to get it right, but they do like you to try even if they find your attempts a bit amusing- and then if you're interested in trying they will try to help you. 2. Pronunciation differences of vowel sounds in multiple languages, and he is where the problem Drac hi-lights happens with languages like Spanish. In my view if you are using a loan word like Gato or Sabot..... You pronounce it as the speaker of the language where it comes from, so those Americans who complained about the pronunciation are wrong, I would not be critical of their lack of knowledge but when they are corrected, I would expect them to change their attitudes to respect the language the word is loaned from unless it's a dialect thing in that country.......and please be kind and don't ask a Glaswegian to pronounce "Burglar Alarm"😂.
25:30 I'll criticise Drach's pronunciation of, for instance, Antonio Pigafetta (Magellan's voyage chronicler) when I'm able to pronounce the name of the city of Frome, England.
On tonight's show... Richard finds a Battleship loose on the high seas... James finds an artificer named Bob And I discover why its called the Poop deck
Anyone who would criticize you for not using American pronunciation of American-named vessels needs to go out and touch some grass. They need to get over themselves. The only time it can grate a little is when it happens constantly over multiple hours. I watched the entire 3+ hour Kings and Generals on Guadalcanal while painting figurines, and it got hard to hear Bull Halsey’s name pronounced “Hal see” again and again, when his name was pronounced “hall zee.” But I somehow survived. 😂
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Most Kriegsmarine warships (aside from those compliant with treaty restrictions such as the Konigsberg class) are accused to have an inefficient design compared to other ships of the period but can the german designers really be faulted when they basically hadn't developed battleships, cruisers and destroyers for 20 years? Or is the lack of those years of experience not a good justification for having developed such flawed designs?
In reading the book Flagship (HMAS Australia 2 and the RAN in general) during the battle of coral sea it is mentioned that when Japanese aircraft attacked Australia,Canberra and Chicago they claim to have sunk a QE and a California class.
It is clear this was because of turret arrangement. Did similar mistakes occur in other navy’s or engagements?
given our personal hate towards the lack of a proper battleship museum ship for the UK, could centurion have / could be raised and restored, if i understand it right she was intensionally scutted and abandoned by the crew and not a wargrave, but honestly tryna find info is not our skillset.
also think centurion is a great name
I got no problem with the way you speak partner. And on top of that, I get a good chuckle. When you get some of it wrong, so thank you😊😊
In your first answer where you talked about two extra Shokaku's I suspect the IJN would have taken Midway if 3 CV's had been lost on each side. In that case would the entire Solomon's champagne have even happened? The Russians used 4 pre-dreads to fight Goebin/Yavez in the Black Sea. Did anybody else try this like they did or at least talk about the possibility?
On pronunciations, at university I knew a lass whose Dad was Polish, escaped to Britain during WWII and continued the fight. She just got on with the fact that her surname, Zowada, was generally in Britain pronounced phonetically, Zo-wa-da. She explained how it should be pronounced, my best attempt at writing that down would be Zzva-da. So, once informed by her that's how we, her friends, pronounced her surname. Pretty much the rest of Britain stuck with Zo-wa-da. Props to those Eastern European immigrants to Britain who generally got a lot closer.
My general position is I will give my best guess based on spelling and if told I am wrong I will apologize and try to use the correct pronunciation.
Occasionally it is just a sound combination that I cannot make and people have always accepted that I make an attempt.
And as someone who regularly is having to guess how to pronounce international names due to my work it has been a thing for me to learn.
The only people I would criticize are people that can't be bothered to make an attempt.
The place I have gotten the most negative reactions is actually from determining the correct surname for people of Iberian descent. Most understand, but I have had a few that got right pissed.
When trying to pronounce a name from a foreign language, dialect or regional accent, as long as the speaker is making an effort to pronounce the word with respect, it's fine.
As you pointed out, simply within any given english speaking nation there is an array of pronunciations in different geographical regions, much less over time.
Getting bent out of shape over how to pronounce Albany, Olbany, Ahl-bany, or whatever goes beyond pedantic and into the realm of ignorant anal-retentive drunk posting.
The historical channels I watch; Drach, Rex, Greg's Airplanes, Military History Visualized, The Chieftain, etc., will almost always lead with our follow up with "apologies for pronunciation," and that's all that needs to be said.
If someone is deliberately mispronouncing your last name or nationality as a way of insulting you, fine, go throw your shoe at them, but that's not what's going on here.
I had a college professor from Poland who was endlessly fascinated by the American pronunciation of English. Sometimes we'd spend more time talking about language than we did Hydrology, the course subject. He was a great guy and those classes were very educational, but perhaps I'd need to brush up on the subject if I needed to actually know Hydrology.
My high-school shop teacher was a pole, his last name was spelt Pokrzywa, but was pronounced poke-shah-vah.
We all just called him Poke.
Drach don't listen to the knockers - I'm just grateful for the content. BTW great interview the other day.
Don't worry about your pronunciations as the two or three viewers you MAY lose won't matter in the big scheme of things. Karen's come in all forms......
don't worry about internet tough guys complaining about pronunciations. Even in Japan, place and ship names vary.
Just tell them to fock aff and see how important pronunciation is then!
Same here. There have been a few names or words that have caused me to stumble, but I recognize that regional variations are a thing and it's often very hard to recognize them from the written word, even with people who are native English speakers.
Ask me how to refer to Chili, NY why don't you? Or Nunda. Even people relatively geographically close to those places often get surprised by the proper pronunciations.
When you start dealing with unfamiliar languages and phonemes it goes sideways even more quickly.
A counterexample is (pardon the spelling) Featherstoneliegh and pronounced Fen-lee
That was a scarily accurate impression of the Top Gear team.
My wife is looking at me like I've lost my mind.
Was laughing as well :D
Drach, I live in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan just outside of Detroit. You may mispronounce my town any time you want. I am strong enough to not be offended and am grateful that you provide continually educational and entertaining information on an almost daily basis. You are to be celebrated and not admonished for attempting to provide meaningful information continually. Thank you for being Drach!
I wonder what the commenter would think of Buena Vista, Georgia. Should everyone know its "Boo-na" Vista? Would he expect a Brit, a Spaniard, or even a New Englander to know that? And godforbid a Georgian attempt to pronounce Scituate or Gloucester, Mass.
No patience for people who take offense at pronunciations
I moved from "Yankee" states like New York, and PA to GA when I was in the 8th grade. I swear to gawd those hicks in Columbus, GA, spoke some other language than "English". I could not understand them. Obviously they must have been stupid. Three years later I sounded just like them. So we then move to AK and nobody can understand me because I was clearly "stupid". Funny how that works. My advice is to get a girlfriend who speaks the local version of "stupid" and all will become clear very fast.
MICHIGAN! Bay City here. Great vid Drach!
Drach improving as the Top gear trio is something I didn't know I needed this week. Wish could see that more often
50:50 Specifically, the newly invented smokeless powders had more gradual burn compared to the spontaneous explosion of black powder.
For black powder, because everything was burned immediately the initial pressure would be really high (less chamber volume since the shell hasn't move yet). So in order to increase the power the best solution was to increase the bore diameter and projectile weight while maintaining the same velocity.
With smokeless powder the pressure can starts fairly low and remains that way since as the shell travel through the barrel there's more volume to fill and the burn rate that gradually increase keep the pressure at healthy level.
This is why not only naval guns but small arms also transitioned to high velocity small bore guns. You can keep the same amount of energy with significantly smaller and lighter guns and bullets.
Also the increased velocity means the bullet reaches the target faster with less drop.
This make it more accurate since you need to lead the target a lot less and each yards of incorrect range causes less elevation change.
It was the slow burn rate that USN BuOrd did not fully appreciate when they switched to smokeless. The USN switched from a 13"/35 to a 12"/40 to take advantage of the slower burn rate, but the new 12"/40s, and the 8"/40s started blowing their muzzles and chases off. BuOrd found chamber pressures were as predicted, but pressure in the chase was far higher than expected. A rebuild program was instituted where the guns were given a strong liner and hooped to the muzzle to reinforce them.
26:10 Drach does robot voice
>We want your live voice
Drach does live voice
>Waaaahhhh
Perhaps the rude pronunciation questioner can speak most languages on Earth perfectly such as to make a native marvel. What a talent!
As punishment for being rude, we should make them take a cruise with the 2nd Pacific Squadron
Indeed! they must a truly cunning linguist! 😄The kind of Talented creature who needs something to complain about....Imagine getting so bent outta shape over pronunciation that you have to be needlessly rude about it. Smh, they Should take a ride on the Kamchatka.
@@mastathrash5609 Has Drach got their first "Karen"?
@@mastathrash5609 I always thought, at least when I was younger, that I was a truly cunning linguist.
if that's the only sarky complaint Drach gets doing everything else OK? and chances are he couldn't pronounce Achiltibuie? or Milngavie?
As a Polishman when I hear your butchering of our names and words I feel deep compassion and great respect for brave standing up to the face of the enemy and trying. For the linguistic expert I wouldn't be so elaborate and gentle. Spierdalaj would be quite appropriate in my opinion. Pronounced as one like.
At the mental image of Richard Hammond riding a shell-delivery-train, I automatically sang the theme to Thomas and Friends...
A'la HMS _By Jove_ perhaps?
As long as it wasn't an electrically powered shell delivery train...
With Jeremy on the wheel saying more power.
@@johnbuchman4854 I dunno, I can easily imagine one of the others pointing that out and Hammond saying "oh, why'd you have to ruin it?"
HAMMOND!
I'm seeing the Top Gear build being about close to shore fire support......Hammond storms up in a British MTB at full speed or American PT gun boat conversion and is immediately perturbed by an undersea disturbance as Clarkson surfaces M-1 before popping the hatch to mock Hammond for picking something matching his stature and saying he considered Scurcrof "but well its French!!" Hammond responds insulting Clarkson for only having one gun....Clarkson then points out that one gun is much longer then anything Hammond fields. They both then look seaward in amazement to see May trundling up in an Rocket Firing LCM. And both of them shake their heads making comments about were it possible for him to find anything slower. When May is finally even with them they give him guff for being slowest thing in the competition as per usual where then May points out he can put down heavier fire then Hammond almost as fast and can salvo fire much faster then Clarkson. They then proceed to get a bit lost and "Accidentally" fire up a popular bathing beach or conversely find themselves off a Nude Beach in Spain or the South of France and no firing is completed because they need to do alot more "Recon of this beach before engaging."
James May: As you can see, I have done this properly.
I think that if they were going to accidentally-on-purpose turn up anywhere, if would be off Porto Belgrano. 😂
Just sayin'.
When my dad was in the USN in the 1950's he was assigned to brief operation of a radar set to sailors from the Royal Navy and the Bundesmarine. As it turned out, between my dad's deep Appalachian accent and a cornucopia of regional accents amongst the Royal Navy sailors, the folk from the Bundesmarine had to act as interpreters. As I recall from his telling of the story, none took offense and apparently there was a night at the pubs afterwards of which the story was "vague" at best.
"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"
The Hammond, May & Clarkson segment was brilliant! I laughed my head off! Well done Drach. By the way, I am sure you will have seen Jeremy Clarkson's two videos on Convoy PQ17 and the raid on St Nazaire. I think you and he would get on quite well.
Greatly appreciate the last question and the postulated Top Gear projects.
Some say she used a dab of opposite lock to powerslide through the Straights of Messina because sideways looks better - others say she did two high speed doughnoughts infront of the entire German High Seas Fleet just to make things interesting -
All we know is... it's HMS Warstig
HMS Warstig, my new favourite shipname! Would have to be a battlecruiser to get the speed. Or maybe a destroyer...
Some people say that her rangefinnders are made out of actual human eyeballs. And that none of her crew can taste the flavour peppermint.
All we know is she's callef HMS Warstig.
1:02:41- I was going to nominate HMS Marshal Ney for this but that's good enough! :D
Regarding Japanese names being romanized: what you are typically looking at is something called "Romanji" which is a very specific ruleset for how Japanese kana (the syllabic characters that describe how a thing is pronounced, as opposed to Kanji which are less...directly related to what one must do to *say* the word represented and more related to the concepts being expressed by that term) are to be rendered in the Latin alphabet.
Most of the time, having the Romanji ruleset is helpful and avoids confusion. It allows Westerners trying to interpret Japanese text to work with a consistent interpretation of letters, and for English speakers (who were a particularly high priority given the post-war occupation) it comes pretty close to providing characters that are phonetically quite similar to what they would expect.
I know of 3 areas where Romanji falls somewhat flat: the -suke suffix, Tsu, and the R/L problem. The former is that it's quite common for Japanese names (and possibly words in general, I'm still learning fundamentals as yet) end in the kana representing "su" and "ke" and thus are romanized to "-suke"; but this gets compressed down to something that would be closer to "skay" in English. It's kinda just something you have to learn to recognize. Tsu and the R/L problem both stem from the fact that they're sounds that don't quite exist in English, but are close to. R and L are quite similar consonants - make an rrrr and a llll sound back to back, you'll notice the only change you need to make is the position of your tongue. The sound in Japanese is similar to both, but with the tongue at some point in between where it is for R and L. Tsu, similarly, is pretty close to what you do to say the sound in proper Japanese, but it's, again, slightly off.
Overall, though, it's a pretty effective and intuitive system. It won't get you exact pronunciation for pretty much anything, there's a lot of very slight differences...but aside from a handful of pitfalls, it'll get an ordinary English speaker sounding close enough to Japanese to be intelligible.
Which is more than can be said for some systems: Chinese in particular is notoriously difficult to interpret due to the fact that Chinese in particular contains a lot of sounds that are quite distant from sounds we're used to making. This leads to Pinyin, a system developed in the 1950s that features such oddities as the letter g representing an unaspirated k (as in "skill") and the letters j, q and x all representing sounds that just don't exist in English. This, too, is quite a good system for what it is, but it's significantly less intuitive to your average anglophone because you have to learn to interpret the familiar letters in entirely different ways. (And if you're doing history, then you have further complications in that Pinyin is two of *ten* distinct romanization schemes that have been devised over the years. (And yes, two - I've been talking about Hanyu Pinyin, which is used in relation to Standard Chinese and thus Mainland China. Tongyong Pinyin is a variant developed in Taiwan to romanize Mandarin there.) This is why we have cities like Beijing also being labelled Peking - the name didn't change, we just changed what Latin alphabet letters are used to represent its Chinese name)
But yeah, romanization of languages that don't natively use the Latin alphabet is extremely difficult. And even when you're talking about a country that uses the Latin alphabet, you've got no guarantee that your pronunciation will be remotely accurate. Consider Polish, where you have Andrzej as a fairly common name - which seems to be pronounced closer to "Andrei" with just a hint of a z after the r....which is probably not what first came to mind to most anglophones when first encountering this name.
And then some Americans rock up, still using Wade-Giles which is based off of Cantonese and suddenly the complication level goes to 'yes'.
Marine Biologist here Drach, I have always used a long A in gato. Always. Not the short A.
My students and colleagues generally do not care.
And not US either, Brit, specifically Welsh....
Screw the guy giving you grief about pronunciation, but i respect you for answering it, much bigger man than me drach 🤣
That top gear part was litearly spot on. icould even visualize it in my heaad hahah
rememember Top Gear did build a rocket , that kinda landed like a V2, and the Germans did'nt put a Robin Reliant payload on theirs :)
The "Drachinifel Board Game" is kinda like Operation; every time you pronounce a ship's name, you get a shock and buzzing sound! No matter HOW you pronounce it!
With the quality and entertainment these videos provide us all, the only thing some folks can do is complain? Keep it up Drach, you are doing great!
Really wonderful analysis of pronunciation. I am a native Swedish speaker ("from Göteborg )who has lived in the US since 1976 and am a native American speaker as well (West Coast LA American) who studied Spanish in school and Mandarin Chinese at University and post graduate. With Chinese I stated with Wade-Giles ("Peking") transliteration and then we changed to Pinyin ("Being") Chinese transliteration.
When someone legitimately mispronounces something all that shows me is they learned that word by reading! I NEVER make fun of someone's pronunciation but I will empathetically assist with the pronunciation if I know the correct pronunciation because learning something new is always wonderful 😉
Merely how people speak in China. You go through half a province and the dialects sometimes get so thick, native speakers themselves are like "He may have meant this word, but who knows".
How many people do you think were still around from 1880s who know their way around fire-tube boilers?
Drach, as an Australian speaking english, mispronunciations of multiple languages noting the various countries and names of individuals you cover is normal. As you say Albany and Albany are spelt the same and many Australians get it wrong. Please ignore those who obviously have nothing better to do.
25:24 - People mispronounce things all the time, even in their native language. I certainly mispronounce things enough; personally I blame reading books rather than talking to people. People even mispronounce my name most of the time. It happens.
If mispronouncing words is enough to get you offended, I'm unsure how you haven't yet died of some sort of aneurysm brought on by being constantly angry at everyone ever.
the top gear spoof had me in stitches!
“The dock gates are too small to hit from the air” well i found this old destroyer and a couple thousand pounds of high explosives, we simply the gates with the destroyer then get on MTB’s and leave before it blows up
Regarding pronunciation: New Jersey and Delaware both have cities named Newark, but one is New-erk and the other is new-Ark.
These are some riverine warships I know about off the top of my head. 1. USS Cario, a City class ironclad Gunboat, sunk in the Yazoo River during the U.S. civil war. discovered in 1956, salvaged in the mid 1960's and currently on display in Vicksburg Mississippi. 2. CSS Neuse, a steam powered iron clad ram, built on the Neuse River in North Carolina then scuttled to prevent capture. lower hull was recovered in the mid 1960's and is currently on display at the CSS Muesum in Kinston North Carolina. 3. CSS Arkansas, a Confederate casemate iron clad, scuttled by her crew after the engines broke down. Remains are currently under a levee on the Mississippi river near Baton Rouge Louisiana.
I'm sure there are lots of lost riverboats on or around the Mississippi River area. All the way even up most of the tributaries.
The Chinese gunboat Zhongshan was recovered too.
Thanks for answering my questions! I’d personally also have gone with the Matsushimas as well but figured Kitakami and the refit Ises were crazy enough to potentially take that dubious title.
For the “two extra Shokakus” IMO the most likely scenario is that the Americans sacrifice Midway and keep the Yorktowns instead; the epic carrier battles likely happen in 1943 rather than 1942, with the Essexes backing up the Yorktowns against the beefed-up Kido Butai. No idea how bad the losses would be then, though; the Japanese would also have high-quality pilots left at that point since the Guadalcanal campaign didn’t happen, but with the Essexes coming online the Americans can put more carriers into service faster.
instead of Mrs. Drach typing away in the background, we now get the pupper dreaming ? dont know which is better?
28:00 I have the same problem with the english and all that letter salad for placenames like Wuster.
I was expecting the warships that were designed by Clarkson, Hammond and May,
Clarkson: Absurd Speed and Power, but somewhat impractical
Hammond: Starts off with a good idea, but fails due to flaws in hindsight and turns out isn't a good idea
May: Very sensible design, coloured brown , but failed due to bad luck or sabotaging
Near Brisbane Queensland we have the suburb of Albany creek we pronounce it as Allbany creek .
The majority of Australia pronounces Albany as Allbany, so that rude person was wrong anyway ..
Having been to Albany, I agree.
I just want to see the three discussing the wonders of various power plants and the inevitable showing up of one of them with some nightmare german steam plant to the ridicule of the others.
Liberty ships also sound like one of their build projects... especially with their habit of breaking apart due to shoddy construction.
Some people just have to be offended by trivial things because they're not happy unless they're miserable.
Drach is a better person than I because I wouldn't even have bothered to answer the question of an obviously rude and miserable person.
The Top Gear comparison is now classic Drach.
If ADM King heard that Clark wanted to be the American Beatty he probably would have relieved him.
In Illinois we pronounce the capital of Egypt as "Kayro" and the French Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles as "Marsails."
In regards to pronunciations, the American battle rifle of WW2 is usually said as "guh-rand", but the person it's named after is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "errand". Sometimes somebody just has to work out a word they've only read and everybody just runs with that. 🤷♂️
Re the river ships under land from the sea hunters by Clive cussler, the css Arkansas is under a parking lot on the west side of the Mississippi river above batton rouge. Also the css Manassas in under a levey and the corp of engineers dumped a load of pipe to hide it. Finally I believe I read the James river in Virgina may have shifted enough to have the capital fleet sunk in 1865 be now partly under the river bank
People should be thankful, especially those across the pond, be thankful that the Royal Navy never had(AFAIK) an HMS Cholmondeley!
Yokosuka...?
Oh, I bet that made the animated warship questioner perk up
USS Missour"e" or USS Missour"uh". Depends where you're at.
And not "Missour"i"... the way it's spelled.
Knew some guys who did basic or advanced individual training (or both) at Fort Leonard Wood who pronounced it Misery.
The Best is Nevada, MO. Not Nev-AH-Dah, nor Nev-a-Duh (short A), but in Mizzou, it is "Nev-AE-Duh, Mizz-OOH-Ruh".😂
Drach does his best, and that's good enough for 95% of it.
@@edwardloomis887"Misery"? 😊
People complaining about pronunciation!! Who cares?! Regarding Yokosuka's pronunciation, in Japanese hiragana it is spelled exactly as it is transliterated, Yo-ku-su-ka (よこすか). The alternate pronunciation, I'm pretty sure, is like the way Gloucester is pronounced in English - not exactly the same as the spelling. I've heard similar changes in the names of Japanese-Americans I know. Hang in there, we know you're doing your best (almost all of us, anyway).
I don't know why, but these videos make me sleep better than any rain sounds or ASMR. I know very little about warships, but there's just something about the calming voice.
Use this to go to sleep too!
Thanks for answering my questions Drach.
man, drach... you're the best. "don't worry, childhood zot. one day there will be this thing called the internet and there will be this guy who will tell you EVERYTHING about battleships. all you have to do is stay alive long enough. got it buddy? let's gooooo!" ❤
Re the IJN building two extra Shokakus.
One consideration is that the USN knew the IJN was building the Yamatos and they would certainly have known that they were building those ships and it’s quite likely that knowing this they might have chose to build 3 more Yorktowns vice one or accelerated the Essex class. I doubt that they would just continue without any changes.
Also re Midway remember Jon Parshall’s presentation on Point Luck as a risk control measure. I very much doubt he is going to just throw 2 or three carriers against 6 or 8 Japanese ones. In that scenario I suspect that Nimitz lets the Japanese have Midway and then turns the Island into an attritional sump.
The shape of the war can’t help but be different but the final result is unarguably the same.
I can see the Abdiel class minesweepers being the result of Clarkson screaming POWERR! COME OOOOOON!
Ww2 had its Beaty, his name was Halsey
If a what-if scenario would involve an alternate Battle of Midway, better check if John Parshall's research in Shattered Sword would preclude it. In this case, he identified a serious deficiency in IJNAS air groups that plagued the Japanese Navy's air service throughout 1942:
"A much more clear-cut problem was the number of planes in Nagumo’s air groups. The truth was that when it came to aircraft complements throughout the fleet, things weren’t just fraying around the edges, they were downright awful.37 The Pearl Harbor operation had resulted in aircraft being stripped from other units to beef up Kidō Butai. After the operation had concluded, some of those units had been returned, but many of the smaller carriers were still little better than paper tigers. These flattops were flying fewer aircraft than they could carry and in several cases were being forced to use planes that weren’t fit for frontline service. Japan had not started the war at a running start in terms of aircraft production, either. Of the major manufacturers devoted to carrier aircraft production-Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi-only Mitsubishi’s fighter line was running well. Rumor in the fleet had it that there were production problems back at the other two, because carrier attack aircraft in particular were in short supply.38 In fact, Nakajima had stopped production of the Type 97 altogether in anticipation of fielding the new Tenzan torpedo bomber and had to be asked to restart production to meet war needs. Aichi, the builder of the D3A Type 99 dive bomber, was in the same position. It was focusing all of its efforts on ironing out the production issues associated with the new D4Y and was neglecting production of the older platform. Consequently, by the middle of 1942, production of carrier bombers and attack aircraft had temporarily ground to a near halt and was completely insufficient to replace ongoing combat and operational losses. Japan would produce just fifty-six carrier attack aircraft during all of 1942-a pathetically low figure."
From Shattered Sword, pg. 89.
If Parhsall's figures from his 2005 publication are still accurate, there weren't enough 'Kates' and 'Vals' to form full attack groups aboard eight full fleet carriers. Not that they would have been useless, but with only 56 carrier attack aircraft built throughout 1942 a hypothetical third and fourth Shokaku-class carrier would probably have been fighter-only carriers until sufficient B5Ns, B6Ns, D3As and/or D4Ys could be produced (likely in 1943 onwards).
However a hypothetical where two additional Shokakus were constructed would almost certainly necessitate prioritizing the IJNAS, so Aichi's and Nakajima's problems might have been avoided in this scenario...but far more problematic would be the American response in 1938 and 1940. In reality the Second Vinson Act of 1938 authorized 40,000 tons of carrier tonnage and 105,000 tons of battleship tonnage (likely envisioned as a third and fourth Yorktown-class carrier screened by the fifth through seventh South Dakota-class battleships), almost certainly because of the Shokaku and Yamato keel layings. Only Hornet, Iowa and New Jersey were ordered as a result of this law due to the tonnage limits, with the first 11 Essex-class carriers escorted by six Alaska-class cruisers, the rest of the Iowas and the Montana-class battleships authorized two years later by the Naval Expansion Acts, 14 June and 19 July 1940.
With four Shokakus laid down, Carl Vinson's bill at minimum would have authorized four fleet carriers and rapidly sped up U.S. carrier production as a bottleneck would have been avoided. The four U.S. shipyards with previous carrier construction experience--Fore River (FRSY) with Lexington CV-2 and Wasp CV-7, New York Shipbuilding Corporation (NYSB) with Saratoga, Newport News (NNSD) with Ranger and the entire Yorktown-class run and Norfolk Naval Yard (NNY) with Langley--became bogged down in 1939-40 when each began building a South Dakota-class battleship. With multiple fleet carriers in the queue, it would be almost certain the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard would have built these battleships instead so FRSY and NNSD could begin racing to build an Essex-class carrier from keel laying to launch in under a year and less than three additional months to commissioning--the standard FRSY and NNSD set starting with USS Franklin and USS Hancock while also starting an arms race prewar. In such a hypothetical the Essex swarm might have begun building much earlier, or even supplanted with a swarm of Midways.
But if we hand wave away these realities that sealed the IJN's fate, one factor above all would keep the impact of an expanded Shokaku-class limited--the 20 months the IJN carriers refused to engage in combat between the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Outnumbering the USN two to one and suffering no ships sunk compared to the loss of USS Hornet, the IJN established carrier dominance in October 1942 and then the Japanese carriers elected to do...nothing for almost two years. That dominance grew to a three-to-one advantage once Hiyo returned to service and Ryuho was commissioned in November 1942 and remained that way until Essex, Yorktown and Independence raided Marcus Island on 31 August 1943...but still the Japanese carriers acted like they were scared of their own shadows.
Try some names from Wisconsin. In all seriousness your topic covers such a broad spectrum its a miracle we get anything even close. Do not give this a second thought, ever again. I generally ASK people “How do you pronounce this?”
If anyone doesn’t like your product let them go somewhere else. Otherwise, Drach, KEEP IT UP!
Take Oconomowoc - reading that name aloud sounds like running a stick along a picket fence...
...also one of the Electric Boat shipyards that built some very good US submarines was at a city on Lake Michigan, Manitowoc, Wisconsin :)
Riverine warship excavated from being buried in mud: USS Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro, after Cairo, IL). It was an armored central paddlewheel ship built for U.S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign. It currently is on display at the museum in the Vicksburg Battlefield National Park.
29:57 Just wait until the Polish navy launches the ORP Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz.
Re: Riverine ships lost in the River. The USS Cairo was sunk in the Yazoo River. It may have been the first ship sunk by an electrically detonated mine, December 12, 1862. Sometime around 1960, it was located and a salvage operation began. I was 4 years old at the time and visited the site. The salvage didn't go well. The first attempt to raise it in one piece with cable slings, cut it into three pieces. In the end, most of it was recovered and it sits at the Military Museum at Vicksburg MS.
The CSS Arkansas, or what's left of it is somewhere south of Baton Rouge. It had engine problems which made it pretty much ineffective. It ran aground and the crew set it on fire. The Arkansas floated free an drifted down river. It is said the cannons fired as it passed Baton Rouge, just before the magazine exploded. It's present location, if there is one, is unknown.
On December 7, 1968, the Coast Guard buoy tender White Alder was struck by a freighter and sank at Bayou Goula Bend. Only three men survived. Eighteen died and fifteen are still aboard. The river currents made immediate recovery too dangerous and by the time more resources were brought in, the current had scoured a hole in the river bottom. The White Alder slid into the hole and most of the hull was buried under the silt. It remains in place, today. The White Alder was built in 1943 and was launched as the tender YF-417
I just hope the Passaic class monitors get pronounced like how I'm used to. But I will be happy to hear about their history anyway! 😄
Albany is a real gotcha. It’s a very local thing for such a new country. Typically only the West Australians will pronounce it the that way (Al-bany instead of All-bany). Many east coasters will go with All-bany as it’s similar to Albury in NSW which is pronounced All-bury.
53:50
Do I hear a doggy in the room?
lol I was thinking that! At first I was like “what’s this weird creaky noise?” And then I realized my dog sounded like that when he slept
You are both wrong :)
Hey Drach, I am surprised that you even took the name pronunciation question. Not even worth your time, but I must also say that your answer was handled with the your typical depth and professionalism. Well done!
For the record, you pronounced Yokosuka mostly right, I would say it's more like "Yo-kou-su-ka" with a short u behind the ko, I have not heard people pronunce it as "yo-kuu-ska" in regular Japanese.
For Japanese words it's because of how adding a vowl behind a character can alter it's pronunciation, as well as how English percieve a "word" , and that does not translate well into romaji. The most obvious example is Myoko みょうこう, English reader will always say "My-o-ko" because they think My is a single character, it is(technically), but the actuall pronunciation is more like "Miyoo-kou" because みょう is a single word and theres short "u" at the end that somehow got dropped in the romaji name.
Same problem persist into Chinese words as well because English does not have the concept of the four sounds (or even 9 if you are reading some dialect) and most time what comes out is the flattest sounding words that we can't understand very well (because a single character can have 4 or more ways to read it and all can be a different word, so not able to give the sound breaks it completely).
It's just how different language works, I am definitly not able to pronunce Indefatigable without stuttering at least twice.
There evidence that Nimitz would have proceeded with Midway in a 5-2 situation, though he probably would have maintained a more conservative deployment point for them. I suspect 6-3 would have elicited the same response.
Also, all scouting at Midway was done by the cruiser launched float planes. This was Japanese doctrine at the time so the scouting might not have been better. I do agree the Nagumo might have kept a Car Div of planes for antiship had he come with 6 or 7 carriers (Zuikaku was not badly damaged at Coral Sea but her air group had been mauled-that might not happen if the Japanese send 4 carriers down there)
America’s love to tell you how badly you mispronounce things. Especially names. I just tell them sorry you should have spelt it different then. It’s English not American so I’m right
The state I live in has two cities Marseilles and Versailles, pronounced Mar and Ver sails. Vienna is Vye enna, Cairo is Care-o. One city Bourbonnais has three pronunciations, by the citizens of the city. Your pronunciations occasionally make me giggle, but I am not complaining.
As for Slavic names, I don't even know the correct pronunciation of my own last name.
Drach, as someone who has literally been across the U.S. from Florida to So. Cal, from Kentucky to Louisiana and up to Alaska, and having heard a dozen different ways to say the same thing, to hell with the language police. As long as you can clearly relay the information, it's all good! The vast majority of these people are actually looking for a reason to gripe and complain.
Drach - I am right behind you when it comes to pronunciation of place names or vessels. You can both right and wrong at the same time depending on where you are from. My favourite here in the UK is in the grand old county of Norfolk. There is a small town on the coast called Happisburgh and it is famous for it's lighthouse. Do you think it is pronounced that way - oh no it is pronounced Haisborough which is what you will see on a nautical chart when referring to the light. Then, if you travel towards Norwich in the same lovely county you will come upon Postwick - which of course is pronounced Pozzick. If you travel up to Yorkshire you can visit Slaithwaite which seems reasonable enough until you realise it's Sloughit (Slough as in the town with an added it). Don't get me started on Penistone which of course is Penniston!
Ignore the pronunciation. We appreciate the product you produce, and as a westerner (Montana, USA), I can laugh at myself and others. BUT I still have a tough time with those historians who call cavalry: calvary!!!
I think on pronunciations people also forget that it is extremely common in general for names of the same thing to change quite dramatically when exchanging languages. No one is going to say using "Germany" instead of "Deutschland" in English is incorrect obviously. Likewise you will also find cognates that share spelling and meaning yet are pronounced differently in between languages. Translations and pronunciations changing as it is transcribed across languages is a common and natural process that occurs over time, and being upset at it is just pointlessly getting angry and a natural human phenomenon. It has occurred to historical figures, places, names (Just look at all the variations of John there are across the European languages), and it will continue to occur in the modern day.
Regarding the USN's officer corps view of Beatty - while we can point to Admiral King's VERY negative view of him, my literal first exposure to the name Beatty was reading Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery's autobiographical works. I remember him mentioning a hypothetical version of Jutland about how it would have been a much bigger victory had Beatty & Jellicoe had had their roles reversed - which implies a lot about his opinion about the relative aggression and competence of the two officers.
It's only one data point, but it does add to the impression that there were likely a number of WWII era USN command and flag officers with to modern understanding inflated opinions of Beatty's competence.
Well, if Jellicoe had been commanding the battlecruisers, you can be sure he'd have been sending constant reports detailing Hipper's position, course and speed, and his signalling would have been solid so 5th Battle Squadron wouldn't have spent so long under fire from the High Seas Fleet. On the other hand, the thought of what the combination of Beatty's "follow me!" style and Seymour's signalling would have done during the fleet's turn into line is to horrific to contemplate.
Now if I could turn the soviet river boat @6:30 into a livable space..and find a space to park it.... I always thought those things are cool even if they weren't particularly good and I wish there would be spoken about more.
Regarding pronunciations, I grew up in California just as Americans began wondering if respecting other cultures might be worth their time, and the fights that used to occur over the way to pronounce all the Spanish language place names were epic!
There are times when one encounters someone so pompous, malevolent and stupid that one really should simply ignore the offender rather than spend any precious time addressing the offender. You needn't launch into any defense or explanation regarding "miss-" pronounciations, for no one is so perfectly informed as to know exactly how any particular audience member wishes to hear any given word enunciated when spoken, and those pompous enough to give other people grief over such matters are not worthy of expending a single moment upon- time and life are far better spent upon others. Agreed?
A Hilux with a Reliant Robin that has some wings and a rocket bolted on the back sticking up out of the bed.😂
I miss Top Gear.😔
It was certainly not a riverine warships but KMS Admiral Hipper is buried under one former harbour basin in Kiel after it capzised in the last phase of the war by british bombardment
hi Drach, regarding pronunciation, no one is going to be able to pronounce all the ship names of all these countries correctly, we know you try harder than most, and succeed better than most, and have nothing to apologize for
Whoever got on you about pronunciation is small minded, must not listen to much from outside their own country, and doesn't appriciate the effort needed to make these videos. Please continue doing your best to provide information and entertainment and rest assured the majority of use don't care about pronunciation.
I live in glasgow that glasgow comment made me burst out laughing.
Though glasgow is very diverse so we have lots of languages and accents here
There was a City class ironclad, the Baron de Kalb, that was mined and sunk in the Yazoo River in 1863; her sister ship the Cairo was sunk in 1862 in the same river but (badly) recovered early 1960s. I have no idea if the de Kalb is still present in the river or if the river has shifted so it's now embedding on land.
Australian pronunciation doesn’t count as it’s a colony of New Zealand as I understand it.
My sister lived in Worcester Mass., pronounced Wooster
I live in Lancaster PA pronounced Lan-Cis-ter. In New Jersey where I grew up we would have pronounced it like you do in UK.
See that guy on the other side of the Kelvin, he can't say Twechar right.
1:02:00 re the Hammond clarkson thing - didn't the Town class have a "railway" for moving the the A/A shells around.
I appreciate your answer about speaking. Just some things I have run into in the past few years (these are mostly place names) on YT and live.
I live in Northern California and there is the town of San Rafael. Locally it is called San Rahfell. It is easy to spot new people to the area by this pronunciation.
I grew up in Upstate New York. North of Albany. Went to school in Western New York.
In Western NY, Rochester is said Rah - chis - ter.
Chili is said Chai - lye.
In Eastern NY (and I got this from a review of one of the recent Battles of Saratoga videos), Greenwich is said Green - witch.
Schuyler is said Sky - ler
Bemis Heights is said Bee - miss
Schaghticoke is said Scat - ee - coke
Drachinifel meets Top Gear in a reasonably priced war ship vs the STIG!
Now I’m imagining a battleship decorated like an Indian bus with Jeremy Clarkson at the helm. Thank you 🙏 😊
25:33 As Shakespeare wrote - "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" So in short to the questioner - get over it and move on, I'm a geordie and have had to put up with sh!t from almost everyone regarding me as a thicko, the reality I'd probably have to loose 60 IQ points to be as thick as the person who asked this offensive question.
IM(NS)HO, don't _ever_ sweat the pronunciaion of named things and places. No matter how "correct" you are some people will still be dissatisfied, and a few of them will whinge about it.
FREX, I've never left the US, but I have traveled it extensively. We have a plethora of places that are spelled one way (often in tribute to another, older place) but are pronounced wildly differently. Cairo, Illinois and Mantua, Utah immediately spring to mind. Most locals ignore the mispronunciations, some will correct you, but few actually take it to heart. And if they do, one knows exactly what kind of person they are.
In any case, I am sincerely grateful for everything you share with us, Uncle Drach, and I appreciate the hard work you put into your channel.
Love you drach, thank you for the videos you make for us ❤
as a northeast person i'd agree with the aussies on albany
I have a several of points of view on people who make complaints about other peoples "Linguistic pronunciation " .
1: Some languages don't have certain vowel sounds and no natives find those sounds difficult to replicate- aka ask a non-native speaker of a language like Welsh to pronounce the name of towns like Llandudno, Rhyl or worse Llanfairpwllgwyngllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch! (Yes such a place exists in Wales and it has a railway station)- Understanding locals doesn't expect you to get it right, but they do like you to try even if they find your attempts a bit amusing- and then if you're interested in trying they will try to help you.
2. Pronunciation differences of vowel sounds in multiple languages, and he is where the problem Drac hi-lights happens with languages like Spanish. In my view if you are using a loan word like Gato or Sabot..... You pronounce it as the speaker of the language where it comes from, so those Americans who complained about the pronunciation are wrong, I would not be critical of their lack of knowledge but when they are corrected, I would expect them to change their attitudes to respect the language the word is loaned from unless it's a dialect thing in that country.......and please be kind and don't ask a Glaswegian to pronounce "Burglar Alarm"😂.
25:30 I'll criticise Drach's pronunciation of, for instance, Antonio Pigafetta (Magellan's voyage chronicler) when I'm able to pronounce the name of the city of Frome, England.
wo do need a crossover episode with drach, hammond, may and clarkson
We do not.
On tonight's show...
Richard finds a Battleship loose on the high seas...
James finds an artificer named Bob
And I discover why its called the Poop deck
My father served on HMS Indefatigable briefly during the war. He always pronounced it "In-dee-fatigue-able"
57:40 Were any of the torpedoes designed in the inter-war period to operate correctly and detonate at the target?
Drach doing Drach things, Drach saying Drach things, Drach seeing Drach things,
Some Guy: YOU SAID ARKANSAS WRONG!?!??!!! 😑
1:04:25
You could dub-in for Jezza!
Anyone who would criticize you for not using American pronunciation of American-named vessels needs to go out and touch some grass. They need to get over themselves.
The only time it can grate a little is when it happens constantly over multiple hours. I watched the entire 3+ hour Kings and Generals on Guadalcanal while painting figurines, and it got hard to hear Bull Halsey’s name pronounced “Hal see” again and again, when his name was pronounced “hall zee.” But I somehow survived. 😂
As for riverine warships intombed in silt, take a look at the USS Cairo.