I'm surprised the swedish warship Vasa isnt mentioned on this list. It sailed roughly 1400yards before sinking on her maiden voyage, and what should have been the mightiest warship in the swedish navy was defeated by a gust of wind...
Mary Rose also had problems similar to the Vasa - poor stability, overloaded with artillery, also tilted due to a gust of wind, scooped up water with open gunports and quickly sank.
@@StazherEzhov But Mary Rose was over thirty years old when she capsized, and had enjoyed an apparently successful career up to that point. Her demise wasn't so much a design flaw as poor management of weight distribution and loading.
@@davidjones332 Refreshed the Mary Rose story and, yes, you're right. I wrote the comment above purely based on memory, and I read about this ship for a long time, about 15 or 20 years ago.
Mr. Brady, I thoroughly enjoy how you talk "to" your audience rather than "at" your audience. Your articulate and informative style makes it seem like you are a friend/guest in my home, rather than a disembodied voice on a video. All of the hard work you put into your videos is apparent. Thanks for caring about your audience as much as you care about the quality of your work/content. Kudos all around.... Enjoy your day, sir.
While I agree that the content of his videos is pretty good, I have to admit that I feel he comes across as a bit try hard in his overly formal dress and a bit creepy when he says that he is our friend, when he has never met us. Things like that might work well with an American audience, but it puts me off him a little bit.
@@Dave_Sissonas an American… yes, he probably had us in mind as his target audience. That or the Canadians. Maybe both. However, once you have been watching his videos for a while, I would assume that the creep factor him being so friendly would dissipate.
@@dylandepetro4187 I do wish him well with TH-cam, but he's relatively new and I tried to phrase my previous comment as polite constructive criticism rather than just being nasty.
The Tomozuru story and others like it are some of the most terrifying in my opinion. Just finding a ship fully capsized and floating on the surface symbolizes the ultimate danger of what can happen on the sea (or Great Lakes).
What is probably even more terrifying was, when the Tomozuru was eventually found, it was capsized so badly, that the ship that found her can only saw her rudder and part of the stern, and therefore initially thought they were watching a surfaced submarine's conning tower!
Funny you mention the Great Lakes, as the Charles S Price was found like that after the big storm of 1913. Searchers stumbled upon just the very bow of the nearly intact ship floating above the water. The stern had already sunk to the bottom, but enough air remained trapped to keep the bow end afloat for over a week before finally sinking.
@@PhantomP63 I still remember the first time I saw a photo of the Price upsidedown. We've all seen the Poseidon Adventure I'm sure, I just imagine that but in the dark and much, much worse.
A case can B made that Tomodzuru was 1 of the greatest designs ever, 'cuz she finally got thru 2 Japanese command that the Entire treaty fleet was topheavy & needed 2B completely refit
He did not have much of childhood - his father, a shipwright, sent the boy to the navy school at the age of 9. Anyway, the sole purpose of popovkas was was to circumvent the ban on capital ships imposed by the Paris Treaty... which was de-facto lifted even before construction began. But the "troublesome admiral" nevertheless managed to get two ships built.
Novgorod's guns didn't actually cause the entire ship to spin on its axis. Each gun was mounted on a turntable that allowed it to rotate independently from the other. However, the turntable's locking mechanism wasn't very good. Firing one of the guns caused the gun to spin wildly on its own turntable, not the entire ship. It's a common misconception.
Yeah pretty much that, also her steering problem was later somewhat mitigated by using the propellers instead of bothering with the rudder. This way the ship reportedly achieved some pretty good agility, apparently so much so that during the turn some sailors would become dizzy, even though putting half of your engines at full ahead and the other half at full reverse unsurprisingly slowed her down to a crawl.
You know something is bad when a guy like me with no background in engineering, naval architecture, etc. can take one look at a ship and spot multiple design flaws that render a ship seeming destined to fail. Lovely work as always Mike, your videos and streams are always fascinating.
@@tarstarkusz Your eye has been trained by the much more successful warships of WW1, WWII and later, they have a certain look … and these ships look different. Remember that back then the people did *not* have all these proven examples. You go tell me if a helicopter design with no tail rotor or similar, but with 2 main rotors, slightly tilted outwards and mounted next to each other, side by side, less than a foot apart - obviously intermeshing - can be a viable design.
Engineer here. Finding the perfect center of weight is still painfully complex by todays methods. Whenever i design a machine with my programm and have to find out where the mass is to find any potential for unwanted vibrations or structural weakness i have to assign every little piece a material, have my programm do the basic calculations and then give it to the boys from statics.....its still not a 100% perfect process even will all of our modern computers and stuff. For me the first though i had when looking at that french ship was "heavy armor, underwater, thinner lighter armor on top. I understand why you laugh at the ship but i can absolutely believe that finding the center of mass on the Z axis and just as important on the X axis must have been a true fricking nightmare back then when you had to do everything with your bare hands. These boys did not even have a calculator.
@@andrefasching1332 Calculators were available in 1880: - 1642: Pascal's calculator/the arithmetic machine/Pascaline. - 1851, production begin of Thomas de Colmar’s arithmometer - since “forever”: the abacus, not a calculator per se, but still fast as f. - 1850, known since the early 17th century in many variations but now exploding, especially in France: the slide rule. And of course you could always build a boilerplate scale model … and reduce masses to point masses (and their not so point physical representations). 100% accurate? heck no, but usable. How accurate do you have to be to calculate the metacentric height to +/- 2%
Funny thing is SMS Viper, one of the Wespe class, was converted into a crane ship and survived at least until 1967. There's no record of her being scrapped so there's a small chance of her being still around
@@yuurichito1439 When rebuilt into a crane, the appearance of the vessel could change dramatically, up to almost complete unrecognizability. In Russia in 2013, the Baltic Fleet put up for auction a decommissioned floating workshop, which was originally a "Strelets" monitor built in 1864. If it weren’t for the surviving documents, no one would ever have thought that it used to be a monitor - the ship was so heavily rebuilt (in fact, the publicity of the fact of the existence of a 1864 monitor, albeit rebuilt, saved it from cutting). It is possible that SMS Viper could also have undergone a radical "transformation".
In addition to the video itself, I also LOVE how the comments on these often contain personal stories or other more technical information to do with the subject of the video. Really adds a lot. Thanks to all of you.
To be fair Massachusetts sister ship Oregon performed superbly during the Spanish American War. First she had to steam from the Pacific to Florida and since this was before the Panama Canal was built she had to sail down to South America and round Cape Horn. She did it in 66 days without any major mechanical issues. During the war she was blockading the port of Santigao de Cuba where the Spanish squadron was holed up. Seeing that part of the American fleet had sailed away for resupply the Spanish saw there chance to break out. The Oregon was the only US warship that had steam up to begin immediate pursuit. The chief engineer had been holding in reserve the best quality coal and now began using it. Leading the rest of the US fleet they began to run down and destroy the Spanish fleet. Between her long trip from the Pacific and chasing down the Spanish fleet the chief engineer would make Scotty proud.
The hate for and legend of the 'worst battleship' USS Massachussetts is a very very recent one. It doesn't seem to be borne out by the ship's career or relationship with its two surprisingly successfully seagoing 'coastal battleship' sisters. If I had to guess, I would put this one down to an 'Internet whisper' possibly originating on Reddit. The Hoche, likewise, had an absolute hatchet-job done on her in the early 1990s in a book written for Guinnes about naval blunders, wherein it was written that she rammed and sank the packet steamer Marechal Canrobert (as apparent proof of her shoddiness?) with the loss of 103 souls aboard the Canrobert. This became the basis of all internet articles about her - and thus 'fact'. Actually, however, some original research by myself uncovered newspaper reports of the time which revealed that Canrobert had been carrying 103 souls and that 3 were lost in the collision. In fact, the whole episode was the fault of the Canrobert's captain;. He had attempted to give his passengers a splendid up-close view of the Mediterranean squadron firing their guns on maneouvres, after he sighted them whilst approaching Marseilles. He clearly got *way* too close and, in the smoke of the gun discharges, the mail/passenger steamer inadvertently crossed the bow of the battleship nearest on the end of the squadron's line abreast (Hoche). Hoche's captain, on the other hand, whilst having to keep station as this onlooker hung around, clearly saw the danger and, at the last moment, seems to have been prepared for the collision. The clue is that, as soon as the crash had ocurred, the battleship stopped and her myriad boat-cranes were swung out; the Canrobert was hurriedly lashed alongside & supported by the cranes while all survivors were taken off. Then the traces were cut and she was allowed to take her final plunge (her wreck can be dived today). No-one was lost in the actual sinking - only the three in the ramming - mainly thanks to the skill and professionalism of Hoche's command team. Once you look deeper into it, the story is usually more sobering and believable. But people of the early 21stC just love to mock these crazy old Victorian things.
@@planescaped But why exactly? What about it made it into the deathtrap you think it was? Why were her two identical sisters such effective battleships when they saw actual, real, face-to-face battle with the enemy' warships? Why didn't they just roll over and sink under the weight of their stupid guns and stupid turrets, or else roll over under the impulse of the recoil of their stupid guns? Answer: Because there was *absolutely nothing wrong with them* apart from a little lower freeboard than an ocean-spanning navy of the time would have preferred in their battleships. What you've done, is bought into a modern myth. This absolute garbage is not from the historical record - it's brand-new and it's completely made-up. Do not believe such utter rubbish. Do yourself a massive favour and read about the USN's Spanish-American War service and especially the Battle of Santiago de Cuba - one of America's most spectacular and decisive naval victories. (You can forget all about Dewey and Manila Bay; Santiago de Cuba was the real deal).
@@AndrewGivensthere was no myth of problems existing that existed onboard the Indiana class, but, I do doubt they were death traps either, all battleships have their own faults after all, but that doesn’t completely make them a bad ship. The hate may more likely stem from the criticism from the design aspects, as her service records along with the other sisters were quite good, but design-wise, they did have to get bilge-keels installed during their service life since one of them had their clamps snap and sailed to port when the crew were worried they will snap again in a different journey -having occurred 4 months later after the first incident-, and the cases where the ships do indeed lean with their gun’s positioning being another problem, and a few other faults, weren’t as wonderful. These particular flaws wasn’t recent, having been documented in the 1980s in Reilly & Scheina’s “American Battleships 1886-1923: Predreadnought Design and Construction.” Book. Fortunately, several of the flaws were fixed, improving their characteristics. The other problems did not hold back the three from getting embalmed into history, and for all it’s worth, demonstrate the class’s ability to serve even with their issues.
@@AlexanderVonish Now that's far more like it. A much more balanced view. I dislike it when i have to come down hard on one side of a discussion, because it's not being dealt with in a mature, informed or nuanced way, but that's how it is sometimes. If it promotes a better-balanced view coming along, like yours, and an informed view at that, then i'm glad to have done it. Ultimately, it's not as though, as you say, a great many ships didn't have their issues, but these were generally not fatal flaws. Rather, they were quirks - and some gave more headaches than others, but they're quirks. What I will say, in light of your comments, is my true feeling about the Indianas is that they were a first attempt at a first-class battleship and they attempted a lot for the displacement - and were too ambitious. Iowa was clearly an improvement, but doesn't invalidate the qualities that the Indianas, as fixed, clearly had. But they were very clearly superior in many regards to either of the Texas or Maine, whilst still falling short of contemporary European standards & trends. But look where the USN was with BB design five years on. Doing well. You'd hate my take on the Orlando-class cruisers...
The very distinctive shape of the canopy/awning at 2:24 makes the gunnery platform look _uncannily_ like a carousel that happens to have giant cannons instead of the usual painted horses, which is fitting, since it sounds like the _Novgorod_ was basically a carnival ride from Hell. :)
Another excellent video! I have to say, I find your style absolutely excellent, both in your topic and more importantly the way you cover the topic. Your style of speaking and narration is seriously brilliant. Everything is clearly thought-out and well-spoken so that the audience can perfectly understand what you are saying. I'm a tour guide here in the US and I often use your style as one of my examples to emulate how I handle my programs.
When you said USS Massachusetts, I was ready to lob some tomatoes in the general direction of Australia. Then, I realized that you weren’t talking about the much more laudable BB-59 😅
Iirc the SoDaks are considered to be some of the best treaty era battleships; their only real issue was how cramped they were, which is one reason why they didn’t see much use after the war was there was little room for improvement like the Iowas or even, to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas
@@OceanlinerDesigns What about your Connecticuts and Mississippis? Last American pre-dreadnoughts. Pre-dreadnoughts never get enough love. I think people don't understand them or even how they were intended to be used back in the day. Not to mention their age means that there isn't nearly as much film or as many photos of them. With only one still left in the whole world. Mikasa in Yokosuka, Japan. (BB-18, 19, 20, 21, 22 & 25 + BB-23 & 24, take your pick on which is the last of the American pre-dreadnoughts, laid down & launched dates favor the Connecticuts, commissioning says Mississippis, but the Mississippis are scaled down Connecticuts, while New Hampshire, the last of the Connecticuts and launched after the Mississippis was basically the evo model of the Connecticut class.) I was born in one of those states, my father in the other. Kind of a weird connection, but then he was also born the day the Germans basically surrendered, the day before the actual end of the war in Europe (as in the day before, not the anniversary of)... I was born on the anniversary of the day Germany and Italy declared war on the US (and my sister missed being born on July 4 by 3 days) On the note of BB-59 Massivetwoshits (I'll give you one guess what state I'm in :P), I live 2 hours from Battleship Cove but I have never been there. Shame on me. (and yes, I have known about Battleship Cove since a looooong time ago, so even more shame on me)
@@sirboomsalot4902 That’s right. There was actually some thought put toward reactivating North Carolina post war, though that never happened, obviously. None of the SoDaks were ever considered for that due to how cramped they were, which also meant far less room and reserve of buoyancy for upgrades, unlike the Iowas which had both aplenty
Despite their obvious design flaws, I must admit that the USS Massachusetts and the Osh (hope I spelled that right) had a pleasingly positive Steampunk-ian vibe that I admire. I STILL say a collaboration between Mike and Drachifinel would be EPIC!!!
"Hoche", although as a French name, the 'H' is silent and it is therefore pronounced "osh" as you wrote. I absolutely f**k'n *love* the Hoche; have modelled her in small scale, wargamed with her and extensively researched her infamous collision (which totally exonerates her captain & crew, as well as the designers). She's an utter classic of the genre.
My favorite warship of all time was the Czechoslovakian Sicherungsboot 43, armed with a German Panzer IV 75mm tank turret the ship was the largest ship ever used by a landlocked nation. Its only range of operation was a tiny sliver of the River Danube that formed a small fraction of the nation's southern border. Ultimately the Soviet Union superceded the naval presence on the Danube and the ship was removed from service.
I thought the President Masaryk (Also Czechoslovakian) was the largest one. The Sicherungsboot 43 was a patrol boat with one Flakvierling and one Panzer IV turret, while the President Masaryk had two twin 66mm guns and four heavy machine guns. A later modification by the Germans gave it two 88mm Flak, one 37mm AA gun, and five 20mm AA.
Left out the HMS Captain, basically the 1869 OceanGate; obsessed with having two turrets and the lowest possible freeboard, Cowper Coles twisted a few arms, got his ship, went out to sea... and died when she rolled over in a storm and sank.
I've also heard about another IJN crackpot design, a ship designed by a man named Kaneda, it was supposed to be a 500,000 ton ship, outfitted with 50 heavy guns and hundreds of more secondary guns, obviously it never made it off the drawing board but it did show the origins of the thinking that would become Yamato, one ship to do it all, one crucial detail Mr. Kaneda had forgotten however, the ship was never designed to be fitted with anti air weapons, as air wasn't really considered in 1912
Small correction regarding the Popov, firing the the guns did not cause the whole ship to spin. Rather it caused the the turntable that the guns were mounted on to spin around because the locking mechanism for the rotating equipment were not strong enough to handle the recoil of the guns.
Great one Mike! Thanks for posting! SMS Wespe strikes me as more of a crew-served weapon than a functioning sea-boat. What I mean by this is when needed it's manned, goes out to fight, then comes back in to re-arm and refuel, hence the poor crew accomodations. It didn't work anyway but we can see that "crew served weapon" idea in the way the U-Boots of WW1 and WW2 were built. Crew accomodations weren't so great on them either. Confederate ironclads during our Civil War were built with the "crew served weapon" mentality as well.
Great comment - it's the key difference between the offensive and coast-defence 'boats', as opposed to cruising 'ships'. Such minor vessels either operated from a base for missions, or operated from a tender (a mothership at anchor full of supplies). They were far closer to concept of a bomber squadron operating from an airfield in this respect, returning after the mission instead of continuing a voyage. The Wespe class were conceived and built around the same time as the four Sachsen-class ironclads, which are often viewed as battleships or central-citadel ironclads, but were in fact rated by the Germans themselves as 'sortie corvettes' - indicating their lowlier status compared to the broadside ironclads, deriving from their strictly coast-defence mission as conceived, and all part of a grander coastal 'defence in depth' based around several key coastal 'fortified areas' (and which also involved the army) in case of invasion or aggression by a rival.
I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing at the idea of a circular ship spinning around and around like one of those spinny bowl chairs you find in a children's playground
The thing is that never appears to have actually happened. The only things that spun were the guns, and that's entirely cause the locks for the guns as they were initially designed were entirely too weak to handle the guns firing.
@@nukclear2741 The money management of a Navy has nothing to do with the record of a ship, just how many peer battleships did Texas see? Just how many Fritz Xes did Texas take? Which battleship holds the longest range hit between 2 fighting battleships? Which ship was still relevant for anything more than shore bombardment 20 years after she was launched? Which ship wielded a swordfish to sink another ship?
Hello Mike 👋🏼 New follower from England here. I have recently come across your channel. I’ve been watching and enjoying several of your posts, while I’ve been receiving chemotherapy. Not only have you reignited my fascination in Titanic and brought other great ships of the past to my attention, you’ve also helped to make the last several days a lot more pleasurable. Thanks for that mate. Keep up the great work. Your friend. Ben.
Hi Ben, just wanted to wish you well during your cancer treatment. I can relate to how much a good TH-cam channel like Oceanliner Designs can help. I was ill and basically bedridden for a month before discovering my problem wasn't severe vertigo, but a brain tumor (benign), but lucky me they also found pancreatic cancer at the same time. I'm still recovering from brain surgery and some complications (chemical meningitis) and have yet to begin my cancer treatment. Having something fun and interesting to watch, especially when presented by someone who truly feels like "my friend, Mike Brady" makes everything seem a bit more tolerable. Hoping you are doing well and your chemo isn't too rough on you.
@@jenniferk9242wow!! You’ve really been through a rough time!!! 😞 I really hope that you’re on the mend & you’re coming out of all of this on a positive note? I was diagnosed with COPD & interstitial lung disease just under 3 years ago, so was really struggling with that. Then In October last year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Unfortunately my illness is terminal but I try my best to not let things get me down. I have an amazing wife & beautiful 5 year old daughter that keep my spirits up 🙂 Mike seems like a cracking bloke & the videos he puts together are truly amazing!! 👏🏼👏🏼 I’ve really enjoyed binge watching his previous posts from months/years gone by over the last several days 🙂 I really hope that you can start your treatment soon & then start to get your health & strength back Jennifer. Take care & keep up the fight! ❤️🩹
Hi Mike! Great video as always. Your channel helped me get into maritime history. Would you ever do a video on the story of whaling ships; or more specifically a video on the tragedy of the Essex?
I like the way these videos contain relevant stills when necessary - unlike others which fill in with loads of irrelevant and misleading footage. Thanks!
Hoche wasn't the only French battleship that followed the "floating hotel" design aesthetic, most of the French pre-dreadnoughts followed a similar design with one of the worst offenders in my opinion being the Massena which was some how based on the completely acceptable design of Brennus. It is a combination of the pronounced tumblehome and high unwieldy superstructure that truly makes these ships some of the ugliest to ever sail. There was also the French shipyards need to constantly innovate and make additions to ships under construction leading to ships that were supposed to have similar parameters in terms of displacement, main armament, machinery and speed to be wildly different from one another.
The core problem was that France, at the time, was building its navy on the basis of commercial competition. So, a programme for one battleship, would get the best single design - witness the Brennus. A programme for *four* similar battleships, however, would get the best design, and the second best one... and the third best, as well as the fourth best one. Ouch. And that's how you get the mess of the Charles Martel 'type', where there are some decent enough ships and some less so... and the Massena. BTW, I find the French aesthetic of that time very appealing - the fierce face does exactly what it says on the tine and they looked ferocious, as a warship might. Interestingly, despite the insistence in certain sources that the Massena design was 'based on' the Brennus, the earlier ship was actually designed by Huin and built by Lorient, whilst the later Massena was designed by de Bussy and built by Chantieres de la Loire. None of the original four in the Charles Martel group were Lorient products. The fifth, follow-on unit, however would be designed by Huin and built by Lorient - and that was the far more austere and conservatively-styled Bouvet. Easily the best of the five too and with aesthetic cues which absolutely do bear comparison with Lorient's earlier battleship. That she was allowed to degrade so and that this made her end so swift in 1915 was tragic.
@@AndrewGivens yes but the fact that the tumblehome would have serious stability issues when damaged as well as the fact that the ships tended to be a bit overweight at full load leading to their armor belts being mostly underwater make the design concept questionable, I mean I understand that the tumblehome offered greater stability in ideal conditions and allowed the Ship’s guns to be mounted higher but I don’t think that outweigh the other issues. Also a tumblehome looks nice on an age of sail ship of the line, more modern ships of steel and iron… it looks out of place especially when done like the French did it.
@@adamdubin1276 I'm not especially defending extreme tumblehome from a practical or technical perspective, just saying that, as a floating dark fairytale castle of doom it *looks* amazing to my eyes. I'm really not certain that there are any serious claims that this exaggerated form of tumblehome had any positive effect on stability under any conditions whatsoever - Reed's treatise on the subject in 1869 totally suggests that it would have been stability-neutral at best, for it puts no very little additional displacement (and thus upthrust) onto the side heeling beneath the surface of the water, whilst the side rolling upwards is moving it's mass towards the centreline as much as above the centre of gravity when compared with a less drastic form such as in the Royal Sovereign. I think what the French really did gain from it was the ability to indulge in very heavy bow fire, since the huge cut-away which was the totality of the negative space above the waterline on each side allowed for easy dissipation of blast along the fore & aft axes from all those beam-mounted guns. This is something which more 'straight-sided' central-battery ironclads of earlier British type didn't manage to do with their close and very hard-edged embrasures. And bow fire was something which not only the French were heavily into during the 1880s & 90s, but the French made it an essential part of their fleet tactical doctrine for a while. If you look at the later French central-battery ironclads, from Colbert up to Devastation, they all show the exaggerated double-curve cross-section, with their main box battery projecting from the ship's side and with no deck above or below to feel the effect of firing at the muzzle, but with full buoyant support of the same battery structure from the very broad beam immediately beneath. I'm pretty certain that this was what the French were doing, all the way from the mid-1870s to the turn of the century; allowing for axial fire from the heaviest possible guns without incurring excessive self-harm from the blast. It's a really interesting design choice though, I think we can both agree on that.
The IJN had a so called shadow fleet of which Tomozuru was but a small part. Several sub tenders built to be hastily converted to light carriers, Mogami class built as light cruisers designed to be upgraded to heavy cruisers, Tone class originally laid down as light cruisers and upgraded to heavy during construction. The Ryujo light cv was originally built to be less than 10k tons to get around treaty restrictions.
USS Massachusetts' sistership USS Oregon also has a lasting legacy - she's the ship used as background between questions on Drachinifel's weekly Drydock episodes.
Oregon was also used as an ammunition ship until being apparently scrapped overseas at the end of WWII. Can’t seem to find any specific information, however..
@@PhantomP63she was stripped of her superstructure and guns before being used as a towed ammunition barge…that was after she was supposed to be decommissioned and become a museum and had already sailed north to her new home
Boris, how do you like ship? Not good, Ivan. What is wrong? Ship doesn't turn quickly enough. Is that all? Nyet, ship also turns too quickly. Boris, are you drunk again? No, just dizzy from the ship spinning uncontrollably in storm.
Maybe a topic for Halloween but how about a video about cursed or unlucky ships? One that came to mind while watching this was the Scharnhorst, Back in the distant 80's when I was in high school I had a book about ghosts and other paranormal topics (sadly I can not remember the title) and the book had a chapter on cursed objects and it told the tale of how odd occurrences like rolling over during construction, faulty ventilation leading to deaths etc.
Great job Mike, but the "fast attack" US submarines of the Cold War should be added to the list. I only had a tour of one of these during my time in service, and "crarmped" is a HUGE understatement. For instance, the galley was just barely, and I do mean, just barely, big enough for one person. Then there is the matter of "hot racking." Hot racking is when a sailor uses the bunk for 8 hours, then folds up his linens (and stores them) so that another sailor can use the bunk (3 men sharing one bunk). If there are any fast attack sailors out there, they can elaborate more. Note: The US now uses much larger subs to do what the fast attacks did (detect and follow subs from another navy).
I spent weekends in high school working on the old USS Roncadore hoping we could open her to the public at Redondo Beach Pier. It was never to be but I did get to spend a lot of time pier side in a WWII Fleet Boat and knew them inside and out to an degree. Later on as a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy I had an opportunity to tour a Permit class SSN. I was stunned at how cramped they are. Despite being so much larger than a WWII sub they are jam packed inside with equipment. Living and working spaces are super tight. Mess decks are so small the crew has to eat in shifts. You have ten minutes to swallow your chow and get out so someone else can eat. Crew members hot rack or some just use a sleeping bag in their workspace. The old Fleet Boats were roomy and comfortable by comparison. Now I am sure underway with diesels running they were noisy, smelly and unpleasant where a nuke boat has an almost antiseptic scrubbed atmosphere.
HMS Rodney and Nelson are my favourite "weird" looking warships, that 3 turrets at the front looks kinda goofy but gives the two ships such a unique and kinda mean look
Those all forward designs make a lot of sense... but frankly put, they are fugly. Not elegant in the least. If they are mean looking, they are mean looking in the way a bruiser with a missing eye, a ton of scars and one leg being longer than the other is. (I can think of one example of a person who was badass who looked like this btw, Philip II of Macedon, aka Alexander the Greats dad.) edit: Fun thought; one of the reasons I find that a lot of people find HMS Hood to be aesthetically pleasing, is the low freeboard she had. This was not the best feature in terms of being a warship as she rode really low in the water compared to where her armor was. Not as bad as some ships that would put the belt completely underwater, but its not all that good either. She was overweight. So people find the all forward designs, which are actually a good design, to be weird, but they find Hood and her overweight ass riding low in the water, to be nice.
The Tone-class cruisers were also like that; they had four turrets placed on the bow with the stern dedicated entirely to the handling of seaplanes. They looked like they were destined to fail, but they ended up being arguably the most useful Japanese cruisers of the war due to their scouting ability, and very nearly survived the war (Chikuma was sunk by Taffy 3 while Tone survived lone enough to be sunk in Kure in 1945)
There was also a fourth ship that followed the Massachesets/Indiana/Oregon, USS Iowa (BB-4), which carried actually could work on open water. After watching this video, it was interesting to pull up pictures of Iowa alongside the others and see how many small details were different that all combined to cut down on the weight and increase the freeboard of what at first glance looks like the same ship.
I know aesthetics don't really matter when designing a warship, but since capital ships are supposed to be a source of national pride, I'd be particularly embarrassed to have been French when they had the Hoche. Good lord that thing is hideous.
Another weakness of the circular ships were that the beams supporting the hull spread out from the centre and were therefore the furthest apart on the outside where the waves would attack the ship. The imperial yacht suffered serious damage during her high sea travel due to this.
Just one year after Tomozuru Incident (友鶴事件), 4th Fleet Incident (第四艦隊事件) concluded that you should not perform fleet exercise in the typhoon, and your new technologies of ship building for treaty loopholes really can't up the tasks.
On the Russian Ironclad, I fondly remember seeing it in a DK book (or something similar) on ships and was dumbfounded by its look. Had no idea it was an actual warship until now.
The story of the Novgorod and Vitse-admiral Popov spinning from the recoil of their guns is incorrect. What actually happened is that the turntable for the guns wouldn't lock into place strongly enough to handle the recoil and *it* was prone to spinning after the guns were fired.
Hi Mike,I have an interesting story of the Confederate sea raider C.S.S. Alabama & the U.S.S. Kearsarge in1864..it's an often overlooked episode of American Civil War history..
The Russian circular river monitors weren't nearly as terrible as people say. They actually had no real problem sailing upriver, and the steering problem was simply fixed: simply slow or reverse one engine. By all actual accounts, they performed well.
As always, excellent content. How you managed not to crack up describing the first warship (round Russian one) spinning in circles when the guns were fired and giving the crew vertigo, I'll never know. I cracked up for a good 5 minutes envisioning this.
@@OceanlinerDesignsunfortunately, that's actually a major misconception with the two ships. This is even covered by Drach himself. The problem with claiming the ship spinning with every shot is that the guns are in the center of the ship, not the side, secondly, the myth actually came from something that did actually freely spin on the ship after the guns fired *when the ship was completed*, and a problem that would be fixed later, the guns themselves. When initially built, the gunlocks couldn't take the force of the guns being fired, and broke, causing the guns to spin back and forth on the tracks, as there was no turret for the vessel.
Just a few weeks ago I saw a model of the Russian Ironclad in the maritime museum in Hamburg. I asked my friend; would this even float properly? it looks like a swimmingpool toy. Well; here is my answer 😆
Nice vid thanks for sharing. Are you familiar with the British K class submarine? Steam powered and as a result required funnels! Took a good 30 minutes to dive as the boiler needed to be put out and the funnels secured first. A large wave could be enough to put out the boilers by entering through the funnel while on the surface. Not our nation's finest hour but an interesting design.
Interesting take on the Massachusetts, the Indiana and the one I'm going to talk about my home state Oregon, BB3 may have been flawed but that being said you might have mentioned that the Oregon had a legendary role in the Spanish -American war, her legendary 67 day run from San Francisco to Cuba in time to have a large hand in the final defeat of the Spanish fleet at Santiago... FYI
For the next version of these (if you do another version of these), you need to include the USS _Galena._ She was an ironclad that was so bad at the job of being an ironclad that her iron armor was stripped off.
You could also include the Huntsville Class of Ironclads the Confederacy cooked up. Though it didn't see any service (I don't think any were completed, I am not sure). However, the CSS Nashville Ironclad did, and is a cool story to read.
Maybe I've seen too many Looney Tunes shows, but I saw the issue with the Popovs from the minute I saw the design. I was like 'You fire a gun, that thing's going to spin like a top'.
Faulty naval designs didn't end with the Vasa, some engineers and designers didn't understand that ships need enough draft to balance what is above the waterline. By the way, they have now found the wreck of Vasa's sistership Äpplet (1629) and found that some amendments were made to the hull that made her different from her sister. The master shipbuilder must have seen the flaws during the construction. One can wonder why he let her sail.
The draft of the ship per se has nothing to do with "what was above the waterline". The center of gravity has to be lower than the center of buoyancy. As long as there was enough weight in the bottom of the ship, the center of gravity would be sufficiently low. A deeper draft would be one way to help achieve this, but keeping heavier items (e.g., guns) lower on the ship helps as well.
Would love to see you do so more videos on warships. I never really cared about ships much before I found your channel, but you make it absolutely fascinating and now I look forward to each post of yours :)
The IJN spent time trying to circumvent the Washington Naval Treaty, and ultimately simply withdrew from the treaty... they considered it one-sided, that is, that they were more restricted than the other signatories to the treaty, and, to be fair, they were not wrong. But, as World War 2 worked out... the Naval Treaty was not the limiting factor, but, rather simple industrial capacity, in which the U.S. was unmatched. (God is, as they say, on the side with the bigger battalions.)
Hey Mike! I really got into Boats and Oceanliners specifically because of you. I was wondering if you could do a video on the difference between Oceanliners and Cruise ships, I understand the basics and can identify the two but it would be nice to have more of an in-depth explanation. If you have already done it I am sorry, I have been slowly going through your videos and have not managed to hit all of em yet.
Going out on a limb here, ocean liners can tackle rougher seas and are designed for multiple tasks. Cruise ships are less stable and are designed for one thing only. Cruising 🚢!
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I'm surprised the swedish warship Vasa isnt mentioned on this list. It sailed roughly 1400yards before sinking on her maiden voyage, and what should have been the mightiest warship in the swedish navy was defeated by a gust of wind...
Too too-heavy. The old story …
We should suggest that to him for Part 3 of this video series. XD
Mary Rose also had problems similar to the Vasa - poor stability, overloaded with artillery, also tilted due to a gust of wind, scooped up water with open gunports and quickly sank.
@@StazherEzhov But Mary Rose was over thirty years old when she capsized, and had enjoyed an apparently successful career up to that point. Her demise wasn't so much a design flaw as poor management of weight distribution and loading.
@@davidjones332 Refreshed the Mary Rose story and, yes, you're right. I wrote the comment above purely based on memory, and I read about this ship for a long time, about 15 or 20 years ago.
Mr. Brady, I thoroughly enjoy how you talk "to" your audience rather than "at" your audience. Your articulate and informative style makes it seem like you are a friend/guest in my home, rather than a disembodied voice on a video. All of the hard work you put into your videos is apparent. Thanks for caring about your audience as much as you care about the quality of your work/content. Kudos all around.... Enjoy your day, sir.
While I agree that the content of his videos is pretty good, I have to admit that I feel he comes across as a bit try hard in his overly formal dress and a bit creepy when he says that he is our friend, when he has never met us. Things like that might work well with an American audience, but it puts me off him a little bit.
@@Dave_Sissonas an American… yes, he probably had us in mind as his target audience. That or the Canadians. Maybe both. However, once you have been watching his videos for a while, I would assume that the creep factor him being so friendly would dissipate.
@@dylandepetro4187 I do wish him well with TH-cam, but he's relatively new and I tried to phrase my previous comment as polite constructive criticism rather than just being nasty.
He has a style for his channel and to go with his historical content. I like it and have never found it creepy. 🤷♀️
I agree totality. I love his friendly demeanour.
The Tomozuru story and others like it are some of the most terrifying in my opinion. Just finding a ship fully capsized and floating on the surface symbolizes the ultimate danger of what can happen on the sea (or Great Lakes).
What is probably even more terrifying was, when the Tomozuru was eventually found, it was capsized so badly, that the ship that found her can only saw her rudder and part of the stern, and therefore initially thought they were watching a surfaced submarine's conning tower!
Imagine same thing happened to IJN Ryujo (carrier at 20:20)
Funny you mention the Great Lakes, as the Charles S Price was found like that after the big storm of 1913. Searchers stumbled upon just the very bow of the nearly intact ship floating above the water. The stern had already sunk to the bottom, but enough air remained trapped to keep the bow end afloat for over a week before finally sinking.
@@PhantomP63 I still remember the first time I saw a photo of the Price upsidedown. We've all seen the Poseidon Adventure I'm sure, I just imagine that but in the dark and much, much worse.
A case can B made that Tomodzuru was 1 of the greatest designs ever, 'cuz she finally got thru 2 Japanese command that the Entire treaty fleet was topheavy & needed 2B completely refit
I like to think Popov fantasized about riding giant turtles as a child, and those circular-hulled ships were the closest he could get to that dream.
It was Scottish dream initially, though. Lots of people were liking turtles, apparently.
Gamera!
I've ridden very large tortoises. The dream is highly overrated...
😉🐢
He did not have much of childhood - his father, a shipwright, sent the boy to the navy school at the age of 9.
Anyway, the sole purpose of popovkas was was to circumvent the ban on capital ships imposed by the Paris Treaty... which was de-facto lifted even before construction began. But the "troublesome admiral" nevertheless managed to get two ships built.
Wild to think those ships were put through sea trials and were steaming around at one point for a very brief moment
Novgorod's guns didn't actually cause the entire ship to spin on its axis. Each gun was mounted on a turntable that allowed it to rotate independently from the other. However, the turntable's locking mechanism wasn't very good. Firing one of the guns caused the gun to spin wildly on its own turntable, not the entire ship. It's a common misconception.
Yeah pretty much that, also her steering problem was later somewhat mitigated by using the propellers instead of bothering with the rudder. This way the ship reportedly achieved some pretty good agility, apparently so much so that during the turn some sailors would become dizzy, even though putting half of your engines at full ahead and the other half at full reverse unsurprisingly slowed her down to a crawl.
Yes, there are a lot of myths about these two ships!
There was a reason they lasted for 30 years!
@@mahbriggsYes, and a big one was "we don't have the money to replace them!" (a very long standing Russian naval tradition).
You know it is going to be a good day when Oceanliner Designs posts
It’s more of a you know he’s famous, when this meme makes it to his channel
Babe wake up new Oceanliner Designs dropped
@@rumblepuss8848 Relatable
Yes agreed
Yup, this is a great channel. This channel and Part-Time Explorer are my go-tos for this sort of thing
You know something is bad when a guy like me with no background in engineering, naval architecture, etc. can take one look at a ship and spot multiple design flaws that render a ship seeming destined to fail. Lovely work as always Mike, your videos and streams are always fascinating.
Myself, also a complete naval ignoramus took one look at that ship and my very first thought was "gee, that looks top-heavy"
@@tarstarkusz Your eye has been trained by the much more successful warships of WW1, WWII and later, they have a certain look … and these ships look different.
Remember that back then the people did *not* have all these proven examples.
You go tell me if a helicopter design with no tail rotor or similar, but with 2 main rotors, slightly tilted outwards and mounted next to each other, side by side, less than a foot apart - obviously intermeshing - can be a viable design.
Did I spot patio doors and a balcony on that french ship? Strewth.
Engineer here. Finding the perfect center of weight is still painfully complex by todays methods.
Whenever i design a machine with my programm and have to find out where the mass is to find any potential for unwanted vibrations or structural weakness i have to assign every little piece a material, have my programm do the basic calculations and then give it to the boys from statics.....its still not a 100% perfect process even will all of our modern computers and stuff.
For me the first though i had when looking at that french ship was "heavy armor, underwater, thinner lighter armor on top. I understand why you laugh at the ship but i can absolutely believe that finding the center of mass on the Z axis and just as important on the X axis must have been a true fricking nightmare back then when you had to do everything with your bare hands. These boys did not even have a calculator.
@@andrefasching1332 Calculators were available in 1880:
- 1642: Pascal's calculator/the arithmetic machine/Pascaline.
- 1851, production begin of Thomas de Colmar’s arithmometer
- since “forever”: the abacus, not a calculator per se, but still fast as f.
- 1850, known since the early 17th century in many variations but now exploding, especially in France: the slide rule.
And of course you could always build a boilerplate scale model … and reduce masses to point masses (and their not so point physical representations).
100% accurate? heck no, but usable. How accurate do you have to be to calculate the metacentric height to +/- 2%
Funny thing is SMS Viper, one of the Wespe class, was converted into a crane ship and survived at least until 1967. There's no record of her being scrapped so there's a small chance of her being still around
Imagine, but wouldn't it be easy to find given it's design?
@@yuurichito1439 When rebuilt into a crane, the appearance of the vessel could change dramatically, up to almost complete unrecognizability. In Russia in 2013, the Baltic Fleet put up for auction a decommissioned floating workshop, which was originally a "Strelets" monitor built in 1864. If it weren’t for the surviving documents, no one would ever have thought that it used to be a monitor - the ship was so heavily rebuilt (in fact, the publicity of the fact of the existence of a 1864 monitor, albeit rebuilt, saved it from cutting). It is possible that SMS Viper could also have undergone a radical "transformation".
What was the name of the russian vessel?
@@thecatalyst6212 Strelets
@@thecatalyst6212 "Strelets", "Uragan" type monitor, construction started in 1863, launched in 1864.
As Drachinifel remarked in his video on French predreadnoughts, the Hoche is definitely a "hotel that went to war"
Tumblehome
@@jasonrusso9808 The Tumblehome design is very aesthetically pleasing IMO. It would fit nicely into a "pulp sci fi/steampunk" universe.
In addition to the video itself, I also LOVE how the comments on these often contain personal stories or other more technical information to do with the subject of the video.
Really adds a lot. Thanks to all of you.
I love it too! 🖤
To be fair Massachusetts sister ship Oregon performed superbly during the Spanish American War. First she had to steam from the Pacific to Florida and since this was before the Panama Canal was built she had to sail down to South America and round Cape Horn. She did it in 66 days without any major mechanical issues. During the war she was blockading the port of Santigao de Cuba where the Spanish squadron was holed up. Seeing that part of the American fleet had sailed away for resupply the Spanish saw there chance to break out. The Oregon was the only US warship that had steam up to begin immediate pursuit. The chief engineer had been holding in reserve the best quality coal and now began using it. Leading the rest of the US fleet they began to run down and destroy the Spanish fleet. Between her long trip from the Pacific and chasing down the Spanish fleet the chief engineer would make Scotty proud.
The hate for and legend of the 'worst battleship' USS Massachussetts is a very very recent one. It doesn't seem to be borne out by the ship's career or relationship with its two surprisingly successfully seagoing 'coastal battleship' sisters. If I had to guess, I would put this one down to an 'Internet whisper' possibly originating on Reddit.
The Hoche, likewise, had an absolute hatchet-job done on her in the early 1990s in a book written for Guinnes about naval blunders, wherein it was written that she rammed and sank the packet steamer Marechal Canrobert (as apparent proof of her shoddiness?) with the loss of 103 souls aboard the Canrobert. This became the basis of all internet articles about her - and thus 'fact'.
Actually, however, some original research by myself uncovered newspaper reports of the time which revealed that Canrobert had been carrying 103 souls and that 3 were lost in the collision.
In fact, the whole episode was the fault of the Canrobert's captain;. He had attempted to give his passengers a splendid up-close view of the Mediterranean squadron firing their guns on maneouvres, after he sighted them whilst approaching Marseilles. He clearly got *way* too close and, in the smoke of the gun discharges, the mail/passenger steamer inadvertently crossed the bow of the battleship nearest on the end of the squadron's line abreast (Hoche).
Hoche's captain, on the other hand, whilst having to keep station as this onlooker hung around, clearly saw the danger and, at the last moment, seems to have been prepared for the collision. The clue is that, as soon as the crash had ocurred, the battleship stopped and her myriad boat-cranes were swung out; the Canrobert was hurriedly lashed alongside & supported by the cranes while all survivors were taken off. Then the traces were cut and she was allowed to take her final plunge (her wreck can be dived today).
No-one was lost in the actual sinking - only the three in the ramming - mainly thanks to the skill and professionalism of Hoche's command team.
Once you look deeper into it, the story is usually more sobering and believable. But people of the early 21stC just love to mock these crazy old Victorian things.
Thing looks/sounded like a deathtrap to me.
I'd have hated to be assigned to it.
@@planescaped But why exactly? What about it made it into the deathtrap you think it was? Why were her two identical sisters such effective battleships when they saw actual, real, face-to-face battle with the enemy' warships? Why didn't they just roll over and sink under the weight of their stupid guns and stupid turrets, or else roll over under the impulse of the recoil of their stupid guns?
Answer:
Because there was *absolutely nothing wrong with them* apart from a little lower freeboard than an ocean-spanning navy of the time would have preferred in their battleships.
What you've done, is bought into a modern myth. This absolute garbage is not from the historical record - it's brand-new and it's completely made-up. Do not believe such utter rubbish.
Do yourself a massive favour and read about the USN's Spanish-American War service and especially the Battle of Santiago de Cuba - one of America's most spectacular and decisive naval victories. (You can forget all about Dewey and Manila Bay; Santiago de Cuba was the real deal).
@@AndrewGivensthere was no myth of problems existing that existed onboard the Indiana class, but, I do doubt they were death traps either, all battleships have their own faults after all, but that doesn’t completely make them a bad ship. The hate may more likely stem from the criticism from the design aspects, as her service records along with the other sisters were quite good, but design-wise, they did have to get bilge-keels installed during their service life since one of them had their clamps snap and sailed to port when the crew were worried they will snap again in a different journey -having occurred 4 months later after the first incident-, and the cases where the ships do indeed lean with their gun’s positioning being another problem, and a few other faults, weren’t as wonderful. These particular flaws wasn’t recent, having been documented in the 1980s in Reilly & Scheina’s “American Battleships 1886-1923: Predreadnought Design and Construction.” Book. Fortunately, several of the flaws were fixed, improving their characteristics. The other problems did not hold back the three from getting embalmed into history, and for all it’s worth, demonstrate the class’s ability to serve even with their issues.
@@AlexanderVonish Now that's far more like it. A much more balanced view.
I dislike it when i have to come down hard on one side of a discussion, because it's not being dealt with in a mature, informed or nuanced way, but that's how it is sometimes. If it promotes a better-balanced view coming along, like yours, and an informed view at that, then i'm glad to have done it.
Ultimately, it's not as though, as you say, a great many ships didn't have their issues, but these were generally not fatal flaws. Rather, they were quirks - and some gave more headaches than others, but they're quirks.
What I will say, in light of your comments, is my true feeling about the Indianas is that they were a first attempt at a first-class battleship and they attempted a lot for the displacement - and were too ambitious. Iowa was clearly an improvement, but doesn't invalidate the qualities that the Indianas, as fixed, clearly had.
But they were very clearly superior in many regards to either of the Texas or Maine, whilst still falling short of contemporary European standards & trends. But look where the USN was with BB design five years on. Doing well.
You'd hate my take on the Orlando-class cruisers...
The very distinctive shape of the canopy/awning at 2:24 makes the gunnery platform look _uncannily_ like a carousel that happens to have giant cannons instead of the usual painted horses, which is fitting, since it sounds like the _Novgorod_ was basically a carnival ride from Hell. :)
This is how a video should be. Straight, to the point, accurate, and without all the fake fluff that so many creators feel they need to add.
Another excellent video! I have to say, I find your style absolutely excellent, both in your topic and more importantly the way you cover the topic. Your style of speaking and narration is seriously brilliant. Everything is clearly thought-out and well-spoken so that the audience can perfectly understand what you are saying. I'm a tour guide here in the US and I often use your style as one of my examples to emulate how I handle my programs.
When you said USS Massachusetts, I was ready to lob some tomatoes in the general direction of Australia. Then, I realized that you weren’t talking about the much more laudable BB-59 😅
No sir, we love our South Dakotas and Iowas here at Oceanliner Designs!
Iirc the SoDaks are considered to be some of the best treaty era battleships; their only real issue was how cramped they were, which is one reason why they didn’t see much use after the war was there was little room for improvement like the Iowas or even, to a lesser extent, the North Carolinas
@@OceanlinerDesigns What about your Connecticuts and Mississippis? Last American pre-dreadnoughts. Pre-dreadnoughts never get enough love. I think people don't understand them or even how they were intended to be used back in the day. Not to mention their age means that there isn't nearly as much film or as many photos of them. With only one still left in the whole world. Mikasa in Yokosuka, Japan.
(BB-18, 19, 20, 21, 22 & 25 + BB-23 & 24, take your pick on which is the last of the American pre-dreadnoughts, laid down & launched dates favor the Connecticuts, commissioning says Mississippis, but the Mississippis are scaled down Connecticuts, while New Hampshire, the last of the Connecticuts and launched after the Mississippis was basically the evo model of the Connecticut class.)
I was born in one of those states, my father in the other. Kind of a weird connection, but then he was also born the day the Germans basically surrendered, the day before the actual end of the war in Europe (as in the day before, not the anniversary of)... I was born on the anniversary of the day Germany and Italy declared war on the US (and my sister missed being born on July 4 by 3 days)
On the note of BB-59 Massivetwoshits (I'll give you one guess what state I'm in :P), I live 2 hours from Battleship Cove but I have never been there. Shame on me. (and yes, I have known about Battleship Cove since a looooong time ago, so even more shame on me)
@@sirboomsalot4902 That’s right. There was actually some thought put toward reactivating North Carolina post war, though that never happened, obviously. None of the SoDaks were ever considered for that due to how cramped they were, which also meant far less room and reserve of buoyancy for upgrades, unlike the Iowas which had both aplenty
@@whyjnot420 I live 10 minutes from battleship cove i have been there many times well worth the 2 hour trip
Despite their obvious design flaws, I must admit that the USS Massachusetts and the Osh (hope I spelled that right) had a pleasingly positive Steampunk-ian vibe that I admire.
I STILL say a collaboration between Mike and Drachifinel would be EPIC!!!
Last month Drach had a fan dinner in the city this man lives in and he didn't turn up, so I think we can be confident that he is not interested
"Hoche", although as a French name, the 'H' is silent and it is therefore pronounced "osh" as you wrote. I absolutely f**k'n *love* the Hoche; have modelled her in small scale, wargamed with her and extensively researched her infamous collision (which totally exonerates her captain & crew, as well as the designers). She's an utter classic of the genre.
My favorite warship of all time was the Czechoslovakian Sicherungsboot 43, armed with a German Panzer IV 75mm tank turret the ship was the largest ship ever used by a landlocked nation. Its only range of operation was a tiny sliver of the River Danube that formed a small fraction of the nation's southern border. Ultimately the Soviet Union superceded the naval presence on the Danube and the ship was removed from service.
I thought the President Masaryk (Also Czechoslovakian) was the largest one. The Sicherungsboot 43 was a patrol boat with one Flakvierling and one Panzer IV turret, while the President Masaryk had two twin 66mm guns and four heavy machine guns.
A later modification by the Germans gave it two 88mm Flak, one 37mm AA gun, and five 20mm AA.
Left out the HMS Captain, basically the 1869 OceanGate; obsessed with having two turrets and the lowest possible freeboard, Cowper Coles twisted a few arms, got his ship, went out to sea... and died when she rolled over in a storm and sank.
Today is a good day, I had a trip to get some natural teas and then Mike uploads 😊
I've also heard about another IJN crackpot design, a ship designed by a man named Kaneda, it was supposed to be a 500,000 ton ship, outfitted with 50 heavy guns and hundreds of more secondary guns, obviously it never made it off the drawing board but it did show the origins of the thinking that would become Yamato, one ship to do it all, one crucial detail Mr. Kaneda had forgotten however, the ship was never designed to be fitted with anti air weapons, as air wasn't really considered in 1912
Small correction regarding the Popov, firing the the guns did not cause the whole ship to spin. Rather it caused the the turntable that the guns were mounted on to spin around because the locking mechanism for the rotating equipment were not strong enough to handle the recoil of the guns.
Great one Mike! Thanks for posting!
SMS Wespe strikes me as more of a crew-served weapon than a functioning sea-boat. What I mean by this is when needed it's manned, goes out to fight, then comes back in to re-arm and refuel, hence the poor crew accomodations. It didn't work anyway but we can see that "crew served weapon" idea in the way the U-Boots of WW1 and WW2 were built. Crew accomodations weren't so great on them either.
Confederate ironclads during our Civil War were built with the "crew served weapon" mentality as well.
Great comment - it's the key difference between the offensive and coast-defence 'boats', as opposed to cruising 'ships'. Such minor vessels either operated from a base for missions, or operated from a tender (a mothership at anchor full of supplies). They were far closer to concept of a bomber squadron operating from an airfield in this respect, returning after the mission instead of continuing a voyage.
The Wespe class were conceived and built around the same time as the four Sachsen-class ironclads, which are often viewed as battleships or central-citadel ironclads, but were in fact rated by the Germans themselves as 'sortie corvettes' - indicating their lowlier status compared to the broadside ironclads, deriving from their strictly coast-defence mission as conceived, and all part of a grander coastal 'defence in depth' based around several key coastal 'fortified areas' (and which also involved the army) in case of invasion or aggression by a rival.
@@AndrewGivens Thanks! I was hoping I wouldn't be misunderstood.
I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing at the idea of a circular ship spinning around and around like one of those spinny bowl chairs you find in a children's playground
Floating pancake
Floating hockey puck XD
Pizza cutter.
Tossing pizza dough
The thing is that never appears to have actually happened.
The only things that spun were the guns, and that's entirely cause the locks for the guns as they were initially designed were entirely too weak to handle the guns firing.
USS Texas won't be on this list. It's the most gangster battleship of all time.
Too right!
Uss texas doing the most texan actions
Until Warspite shows up, licking her wounds and says "Hold my rum"
@@FltCaptAlanI'm sorry, but I have to do this.
Where is she?
@@nukclear2741 The money management of a Navy has nothing to do with the record of a ship, just how many peer battleships did Texas see? Just how many Fritz Xes did Texas take? Which battleship holds the longest range hit between 2 fighting battleships? Which ship was still relevant for anything more than shore bombardment 20 years after she was launched? Which ship wielded a swordfish to sink another ship?
Hello Mike 👋🏼 New follower from England here.
I have recently come across your channel. I’ve been watching and enjoying several of your posts, while I’ve been receiving chemotherapy. Not only have you reignited my fascination in Titanic and brought other great ships of the past to my attention, you’ve also helped to make the last several days a lot more pleasurable.
Thanks for that mate. Keep up the great work.
Your friend.
Ben.
Hi Ben, just wanted to wish you well during your cancer treatment. I can relate to how much a good TH-cam channel like Oceanliner Designs can help. I was ill and basically bedridden for a month before discovering my problem wasn't severe vertigo, but a brain tumor (benign), but lucky me they also found pancreatic cancer at the same time. I'm still recovering from brain surgery and some complications (chemical meningitis) and have yet to begin my cancer treatment. Having something fun and interesting to watch, especially when presented by someone who truly feels like "my friend, Mike Brady" makes everything seem a bit more tolerable. Hoping you are doing well and your chemo isn't too rough on you.
@@jenniferk9242wow!! You’ve really been through a rough time!!! 😞 I really hope that you’re on the mend & you’re coming out of all of this on a positive note? I was diagnosed with COPD & interstitial lung disease just under 3 years ago, so was really struggling with that. Then In October last year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Unfortunately my illness is terminal but I try my best to not let things get me down. I have an amazing wife & beautiful 5 year old daughter that keep my spirits up 🙂 Mike seems like a cracking bloke & the videos he puts together are truly amazing!! 👏🏼👏🏼 I’ve really enjoyed binge watching his previous posts from months/years gone by over the last several days 🙂 I really hope that you can start your treatment soon & then start to get your health & strength back Jennifer. Take care & keep up the fight! ❤️🩹
Hi Mike! Great video as always. Your channel helped me get into maritime history. Would you ever do a video on the story of whaling ships; or more specifically a video on the tragedy of the Essex?
There’s no way you’ve seen the entire video yet…
@@kaffemachine102?
"She started out her life, already at a disadvantage, having being ordered by the French . . ." -Oceanliner Designs, speaker of truths.
I like the way these videos contain relevant stills when necessary - unlike others which fill in with loads of irrelevant and misleading footage. Thanks!
Can’t wait to watch this later tonight Mike. I always look forward to your videos. 👍😊
Hoche wasn't the only French battleship that followed the "floating hotel" design aesthetic, most of the French pre-dreadnoughts followed a similar design with one of the worst offenders in my opinion being the Massena which was some how based on the completely acceptable design of Brennus. It is a combination of the pronounced tumblehome and high unwieldy superstructure that truly makes these ships some of the ugliest to ever sail. There was also the French shipyards need to constantly innovate and make additions to ships under construction leading to ships that were supposed to have similar parameters in terms of displacement, main armament, machinery and speed to be wildly different from one another.
The core problem was that France, at the time, was building its navy on the basis of commercial competition. So, a programme for one battleship, would get the best single design - witness the Brennus. A programme for *four* similar battleships, however, would get the best design, and the second best one... and the third best, as well as the fourth best one. Ouch. And that's how you get the mess of the Charles Martel 'type', where there are some decent enough ships and some less so... and the Massena.
BTW, I find the French aesthetic of that time very appealing - the fierce face does exactly what it says on the tine and they looked ferocious, as a warship might.
Interestingly, despite the insistence in certain sources that the Massena design was 'based on' the Brennus, the earlier ship was actually designed by Huin and built by Lorient, whilst the later Massena was designed by de Bussy and built by Chantieres de la Loire. None of the original four in the Charles Martel group were Lorient products.
The fifth, follow-on unit, however would be designed by Huin and built by Lorient - and that was the far more austere and conservatively-styled Bouvet. Easily the best of the five too and with aesthetic cues which absolutely do bear comparison with Lorient's earlier battleship. That she was allowed to degrade so and that this made her end so swift in 1915 was tragic.
@@AndrewGivens yes but the fact that the tumblehome would have serious stability issues when damaged as well as the fact that the ships tended to be a bit overweight at full load leading to their armor belts being mostly underwater make the design concept questionable, I mean I understand that the tumblehome offered greater stability in ideal conditions and allowed the Ship’s guns to be mounted higher but I don’t think that outweigh the other issues. Also a tumblehome looks nice on an age of sail ship of the line, more modern ships of steel and iron… it looks out of place especially when done like the French did it.
To be honest, I really like the French designs. Something about their looks screams like diesel punk + sky pirates combined.
@@adamdubin1276 I'm not especially defending extreme tumblehome from a practical or technical perspective, just saying that, as a floating dark fairytale castle of doom it *looks* amazing to my eyes.
I'm really not certain that there are any serious claims that this exaggerated form of tumblehome had any positive effect on stability under any conditions whatsoever - Reed's treatise on the subject in 1869 totally suggests that it would have been stability-neutral at best, for it puts no very little additional displacement (and thus upthrust) onto the side heeling beneath the surface of the water, whilst the side rolling upwards is moving it's mass towards the centreline as much as above the centre of gravity when compared with a less drastic form such as in the Royal Sovereign.
I think what the French really did gain from it was the ability to indulge in very heavy bow fire, since the huge cut-away which was the totality of the negative space above the waterline on each side allowed for easy dissipation of blast along the fore & aft axes from all those beam-mounted guns. This is something which more 'straight-sided' central-battery ironclads of earlier British type didn't manage to do with their close and very hard-edged embrasures. And bow fire was something which not only the French were heavily into during the 1880s & 90s, but the French made it an essential part of their fleet tactical doctrine for a while.
If you look at the later French central-battery ironclads, from Colbert up to Devastation, they all show the exaggerated double-curve cross-section, with their main box battery projecting from the ship's side and with no deck above or below to feel the effect of firing at the muzzle, but with full buoyant support of the same battery structure from the very broad beam immediately beneath. I'm pretty certain that this was what the French were doing, all the way from the mid-1870s to the turn of the century; allowing for axial fire from the heaviest possible guns without incurring excessive self-harm from the blast.
It's a really interesting design choice though, I think we can both agree on that.
It's call fine art, and not everyone has the patrician tastes to appreciate them...
Great vid as always Mr Brady always love seeing and learning about some strange warships
As always great content and learning more about the strange and unique in the oceanliner world, 1st rate Mike!
The IJN had a so called shadow fleet of which Tomozuru was but a small part. Several sub tenders built to be hastily converted to light carriers, Mogami class built as light cruisers designed to be upgraded to heavy cruisers, Tone class originally laid down as light cruisers and upgraded to heavy during construction. The Ryujo light cv was originally built to be less than 10k tons to get around treaty restrictions.
another great one Mike. Had no idea the Russian's ever built battle plates!
Always so much great content on this channel. And that’s why I’m a subscriber!
Great work OceanLiner Designs! Fascinating information, yikes that French ironclad looked weird.
Regarding your covering of the French battle ship I was reminded of Drachinifil’s line, ‘When hotels go to sea’.
Hi mike! I’m Iove with your videos! It’s always exciting when I see you have a new video!
USS Massachusetts' sistership USS Oregon also has a lasting legacy - she's the ship used as background between questions on Drachinifel's weekly Drydock episodes.
Oregon was also used as an ammunition ship until being apparently scrapped overseas at the end of WWII. Can’t seem to find any specific information, however..
@@PhantomP63 Oregon lasted until the 1950s. Today the only parts left of her is her wheel, mast and her funnels.
@@PhantomP63She sank while being towed.
@@PhantomP63she was stripped of her superstructure and guns before being used as a towed ammunition barge…that was after she was supposed to be decommissioned and become a museum and had already sailed north to her new home
@@jeffreyskoritowski4114…back, after the war and well after being stripped down to her single deck
My favorite channel, Warship Designs!
Yessss what a brilliant video to watch after I’ve finished work!
LOVES THESE!!! Please keep making more of these (and a special on the SS Great Eastern please)
Boris, how do you like ship?
Not good, Ivan.
What is wrong?
Ship doesn't turn quickly enough.
Is that all?
Nyet, ship also turns too quickly.
Boris, are you drunk again?
No, just dizzy from the ship spinning uncontrollably in storm.
Maybe a topic for Halloween but how about a video about cursed or unlucky ships? One that came to mind while watching this was the Scharnhorst, Back in the distant 80's when I was in high school I had a book about ghosts and other paranormal topics (sadly I can not remember the title) and the book had a chapter on cursed objects and it told the tale of how odd occurrences like rolling over during construction, faulty ventilation leading to deaths etc.
More warship videos please, you are on your way to rival Drachinifel
Drach is still warship king 😎
Damn right
@@OceanlinerDesignscolab when 😭😭😭😭
Thought I had clicked on a Drachinifel video by mistake when the video started playing :D It looked like his intro minus the sound
Oh hell yeah, a follow up to one of my favorite videos!!!
Perfect thing to find in the middle of an anxiety attack. 😅
Great job Mike, but the "fast attack" US submarines of the Cold War should be added to the list. I only had a tour of one of these during my time in service, and "crarmped" is a HUGE understatement. For instance, the galley was just barely, and I do mean, just barely, big enough for one person. Then there is the matter of "hot racking." Hot racking is when a sailor uses the bunk for 8 hours, then folds up his linens (and stores them) so that another sailor can use the bunk (3 men sharing one bunk). If there are any fast attack sailors out there, they can elaborate more.
Note: The US now uses much larger subs to do what the fast attacks did (detect and follow subs from another navy).
I spent weekends in high school working on the old USS Roncadore hoping we could open her to the public at Redondo Beach Pier. It was never to be but I did get to spend a lot of time pier side in a WWII Fleet Boat and knew them inside and out to an degree. Later on as a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy I had an opportunity to tour a Permit class SSN. I was stunned at how cramped they are. Despite being so much larger than a WWII sub they are jam packed inside with equipment. Living and working spaces are super tight. Mess decks are so small the crew has to eat in shifts. You have ten minutes to swallow your chow and get out so someone else can eat. Crew members hot rack or some just use a sleeping bag in their workspace. The old Fleet Boats were roomy and comfortable by comparison. Now I am sure underway with diesels running they were noisy, smelly and unpleasant where a nuke boat has an almost antiseptic scrubbed atmosphere.
Our friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner designs saves this rainy Sunday. Greetings from Germany ✌️
Greetings from the uk. I can also confirm this rainy, miserable Sunday has been lightened by your highly anticipated uploads
But nothing a cup of tea ☕️ can’t fix, cheer up lads it will come to pass
HMS Rodney and Nelson are my favourite "weird" looking warships, that 3 turrets at the front looks kinda goofy but gives the two ships such a unique and kinda mean look
Those all forward designs make a lot of sense... but frankly put, they are fugly. Not elegant in the least. If they are mean looking, they are mean looking in the way a bruiser with a missing eye, a ton of scars and one leg being longer than the other is.
(I can think of one example of a person who was badass who looked like this btw, Philip II of Macedon, aka Alexander the Greats dad.)
edit: Fun thought; one of the reasons I find that a lot of people find HMS Hood to be aesthetically pleasing, is the low freeboard she had. This was not the best feature in terms of being a warship as she rode really low in the water compared to where her armor was. Not as bad as some ships that would put the belt completely underwater, but its not all that good either. She was overweight. So people find the all forward designs, which are actually a good design, to be weird, but they find Hood and her overweight ass riding low in the water, to be nice.
I will always hold a special place in my heart for them. They were janky, yes, but they were a memorable janky.
The Tone-class cruisers were also like that; they had four turrets placed on the bow with the stern dedicated entirely to the handling of seaplanes. They looked like they were destined to fail, but they ended up being arguably the most useful Japanese cruisers of the war due to their scouting ability, and very nearly survived the war (Chikuma was sunk by Taffy 3 while Tone survived lone enough to be sunk in Kure in 1945)
I'm trying to imagine the look of a battleship with 3 turrets in the REAR.
Thank you for including metric units!
There was also a fourth ship that followed the Massachesets/Indiana/Oregon, USS Iowa (BB-4), which carried actually could work on open water. After watching this video, it was interesting to pull up pictures of Iowa alongside the others and see how many small details were different that all combined to cut down on the weight and increase the freeboard of what at first glance looks like the same ship.
Gotta love BB4 Iowa to kickoff effective battleships that ironically ended with the Iowa Class Battleships
The closed captions in this vidoe are perfect. It's so rare to find a creator who has good captions. Just one more reason I love this channel
The Hoche and other French Pre-dreadnoughts end up inspired a lot of Miyazaki's works, which is a greater legacy than most of her contemporaries...
Thanks for your channel, research and knowledge. High spot for the week.
I know aesthetics don't really matter when designing a warship, but since capital ships are supposed to be a source of national pride, I'd be particularly embarrassed to have been French when they had the Hoche. Good lord that thing is hideous.
I’m glad a found someone who has a love for ships as I do
Fascinating as always, thank you again Mike.
I'm astounded that the French went from Hoche to the very sleek and beautiful Richelieu and Jean Bart.
Indeed.
They like to keep people guessing.
I propose we name large battleship windows "Hoche-holes"
Most i nteresting topic! Well presented, interesting and informative!!! Thanks 👍
Another weakness of the circular ships were that the beams supporting the hull spread out from the centre and were therefore the furthest apart on the outside where the waves would attack the ship. The imperial yacht suffered serious damage during her high sea travel due to this.
Just one year after Tomozuru Incident (友鶴事件), 4th Fleet Incident (第四艦隊事件) concluded that you should not perform fleet exercise in the typhoon, and your new technologies of ship building for treaty loopholes really can't up the tasks.
On the Russian Ironclad, I fondly remember seeing it in a DK book (or something similar) on ships and was dumbfounded by its look. Had no idea it was an actual warship until now.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing!
The story of the Novgorod and Vitse-admiral Popov spinning from the recoil of their guns is incorrect. What actually happened is that the turntable for the guns wouldn't lock into place strongly enough to handle the recoil and *it* was prone to spinning after the guns were fired.
Great video :)
Hi Mike,I have an interesting story of the Confederate sea raider C.S.S. Alabama & the U.S.S. Kearsarge in1864..it's an often overlooked episode of American Civil War history..
USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) was in Helsinki Finland Last summer.
Guys wake up! Ocean liner designs just posted!
As a model-builder, I always liked weird-looking ships.
Anyone else find mikes videos so relaxing they fall asleep almost every time? Just me? Ok.
You should cover HMS Victoria's sinking. Truly a fascinating episode.
John Jellicoe was on that.
HMS Victoria was a beautiful ship. He suffered so much damage that any other shit would have sunk too.
The Russian circular river monitors weren't nearly as terrible as people say. They actually had no real problem sailing upriver, and the steering problem was simply fixed: simply slow or reverse one engine. By all actual accounts, they performed well.
Is that my name at the end of this one?! Thank you! Love it! Kinda low key like those round ships. Can’t put my finger on it but I like em
I'm surprised the K-class submarines didn't get a mention, they really were a cursed design.
It's mainly because they were attributed the wrong tasks for submarines. It just strained their capacities. To the impossible nothing is bound.
Another great video
Really great stuff here👍
that French thing doesn't even look like a ship
Not to mention the Russian flapjack!
The French thing is a GREAT facility to sign an instrument of surrender, though.
Your discussion of the French pre-dreadnought reminded me of Drachinifel’s video “French Pre-Dreadnoughts - When Hotels go to War.”
As always, excellent content. How you managed not to crack up describing the first warship (round Russian one) spinning in circles when the guns were fired and giving the crew vertigo, I'll never know. I cracked up for a good 5 minutes envisioning this.
Lots of self control and the magic of editing :)
@@OceanlinerDesignsunfortunately, that's actually a major misconception with the two ships.
This is even covered by Drach himself.
The problem with claiming the ship spinning with every shot is that the guns are in the center of the ship, not the side, secondly, the myth actually came from something that did actually freely spin on the ship after the guns fired *when the ship was completed*, and a problem that would be fixed later, the guns themselves.
When initially built, the gunlocks couldn't take the force of the guns being fired, and broke, causing the guns to spin back and forth on the tracks, as there was no turret for the vessel.
In American navy, you turn ship. In Russian navy, ship turn YOU!..😉
I know always a great day when he posts. And when you don’t hear from him, it’s like all points bulletin for our good friend Mike Brady.😆
Just a few weeks ago I saw a model of the Russian Ironclad in the maritime museum in Hamburg. I asked my friend; would this even float properly? it looks like a swimmingpool toy. Well; here is my answer 😆
Hi, I'm a big ironclad fan from the Netherlands. Got some models of the era. May I ask you what Russian shipmodel was that?
❤
Russian Navy: "Release the Roombas!"
[one hour later]
"Roomba requires assistance"
Cant wait to watch this video ❤
God i always jump out of my seat everytime i see a new video
Awesome video Mike
Nice vid thanks for sharing. Are you familiar with the British K class submarine? Steam powered and as a result required funnels! Took a good 30 minutes to dive as the boiler needed to be put out and the funnels secured first. A large wave could be enough to put out the boilers by entering through the funnel while on the surface. Not our nation's finest hour but an interesting design.
I saw the opening footage and had to double check the channel
The Hoche had a major disadvantage even before she was launched. She was French.
The French copy no one, and no one copies the French.
Interesting take on the Massachusetts, the Indiana and the one I'm going to talk about my home state Oregon, BB3 may have been flawed but that being said you might have mentioned that the Oregon had a legendary role in the Spanish -American war, her legendary 67 day run from San Francisco to Cuba in time to have a large hand in the final defeat of the Spanish fleet at Santiago... FYI
For the next version of these (if you do another version of these), you need to include the USS _Galena._ She was an ironclad that was so bad at the job of being an ironclad that her iron armor was stripped off.
The Mainmast from the USS Oregon survives, and the USS Olympia survives as one of the only ships of that era in Philadelphia.
You could also include the Huntsville Class of Ironclads the Confederacy cooked up. Though it didn't see any service (I don't think any were completed, I am not sure). However, the CSS Nashville Ironclad did, and is a cool story to read.
Maybe I've seen too many Looney Tunes shows, but I saw the issue with the Popovs from the minute I saw the design. I was like 'You fire a gun, that thing's going to spin like a top'.
Faulty naval designs didn't end with the Vasa, some engineers and designers didn't understand that ships need enough draft to balance what is above the waterline. By the way, they have now found the wreck of Vasa's sistership Äpplet (1629) and found that some amendments were made to the hull that made her different from her sister. The master shipbuilder must have seen the flaws during the construction. One can wonder why he let her sail.
The lead designer of the Äpplet died halfway mid-construction. The changes to the design were made by a new building chief.
The draft of the ship per se has nothing to do with "what was above the waterline". The center of gravity has to be lower than the center of buoyancy. As long as there was enough weight in the bottom of the ship, the center of gravity would be sufficiently low. A deeper draft would be one way to help achieve this, but keeping heavier items (e.g., guns) lower on the ship helps as well.
Would love to see you do so more videos on warships. I never really cared about ships much before I found your channel, but you make it absolutely fascinating and now I look forward to each post of yours :)
Love these vids
Something comfy to listen to before i sink into a nap
The Hoche looked like you could sink it, by merely crossing-the-T, and let your wake take care of the rest.
One of those unfortunate designs that appear to be sinking even when undamaged, lightly-loaded, and under full steam...🙁
Really glad you posted today, Mike. Having a bit of a rough one 🖤🖤
P.S Love the glasses 🖤
Hope your day gets better!
The IJN spent time trying to circumvent the Washington Naval Treaty, and ultimately simply withdrew from the treaty... they considered it one-sided, that is, that they were more restricted than the other signatories to the treaty, and, to be fair, they were not wrong. But, as World War 2 worked out... the Naval Treaty was not the limiting factor, but, rather simple industrial capacity, in which the U.S. was unmatched. (God is, as they say, on the side with the bigger battalions.)
IJN Tomozuru is cute, and I just realized why: it looks like the _Hellenic Prince!_
Next time you do a "fix this ship," you should do Tomozuru!
Hey Mike! I really got into Boats and Oceanliners specifically because of you.
I was wondering if you could do a video on the difference between Oceanliners and Cruise ships, I understand the basics and can identify the two but it would be nice to have more of an in-depth explanation.
If you have already done it I am sorry, I have been slowly going through your videos and have not managed to hit all of em yet.
Not a full video but he has a short about it th-cam.com/video/YQfD5wuv59k/w-d-xo.html
Going out on a limb here, ocean liners can tackle rougher seas and are designed for multiple tasks. Cruise ships are less stable and are designed for one thing only. Cruising 🚢!
@@samholdsworth420it would be interesting to see size & power & accommodation differences. Thank fir sharing mike as always interesting