@@mbryson2899 two of The greatest mounts ever. Is it original Cab Calloway with hammers? Don’t forget Dapple. I always thought Dapple was the best haha. I bet he could carry nine 16” guns…
Same and I have a theory about it too. It’s the British accent and it’s long format. Couple it with a easy going demeanor and it’s just relaxing. Glad he did that episode with C&Arsonal so I could find his channel.
Me too lol (also thanks for not jamming ad’s in the middle of these Drach, really helps to not get woken up by a booming ad every 15-30 mins like other channels suffer from)
I get so happy when i see a new episode of drydock Put my phone under my pillow and listen and learn It has turned me into a ship fan as from childhood om I was always an avation geek Now i am both Ty mr Drach !
11:18 in the first combat experience with a steam powered vessel which occured during the Greek War of Independence in 1826 onwards. By the greek ship Kartería captained by a formally Royal Navy officer called Frank Abney Hastings, (interestingly the ship was partly funded by him). They would use sail to get to battle and then switch to steam power which allowed the ship to go against the wind, unlike it's opponents which was highly useful. I believe they would also spin the ship on the spot at times so they could have continous fire of guns. The other advantage of steam power was heated shot Hastings had developed a safe way of using heated shot (they fired 18,000 cannon balls in 1827 without a barrel explosion), which had a devastating effect. One of the other tactics which was because it was the only steam ship in the greek fleet they would use the ship to draw fire away from the rest of the fleet that could then with relative impunity hit the ottoman vessels.
How did we get through a "failed class" question without indefatigable being mentioned once. I was holding on for a classic Drach rant about them! Never mind, Great content as always!
The question on munitions. I personally have fired M-1 .30-06 ball ammunition manufactured in 1917 through a U.S. Model 1917 rifle (the U.S. version of the P-14 Enfield), in the late 1970s. We choreographed the ammo, and it had only lost 120FPS over its factory spec from 1917. It used an early IMR (Improved Military Rifle) Propellant, that is no longer available, but is similar in performance to IMR 4064. The ammo had been stored in a wooden ammo box, in bandoleers on 5 round stripper clips wrapped internally in sealed waxed brown paper. There were twelve of these wooden boxes on a small wooden skid in the back of a standard concrete ammo bunker buried under 6 feet of dirt in a large ASP (Ammo Supply Point) on a CONUS (Continental U.S.) Army post. Not absolutely certain, but all available evidence seems to indicate that this skid had been placed in the bunker upon arrival from the arsenal that manufactured the ammo (Frankford Arsenal), and had been undisturbed since. My unit took over this bunker in 1978, and I began to clean it out of all the old stuff in it. Many treasures most of it WWI, and WWII vintage ammo. The WWII dated ammo was in steel ammo cans and had lost no performance at all. Point being, if properly packaged, and stored, ammo can last for many decades.
Love it when you mention the Bremerton Naval Yard. In WWII, my grandfather and uncle both worked there. Other distant relatives also did their part in the area. I love to go to this city and area, and I have fond memories of seeing WWII ships in mothball, and during the Seattle World Fair in 1963, I got to tour the USS Missouri and this probably was a significant factor in my love of Naval history and appreciation of this and other like channels.
Regarding ships dodging torpedoes, remember that the torpedo had to be aimed ahead of the ship, at the place it would be when the torpedo reached it assuming it maintained its present heading and speed. So (depending on the length of the ship and the angle from which the torpedo is approaching) it may not need a very large change of course to make the torpedo miss.
Not to mention that also if you cut your speed by a third & turn away you could have an even better chance of dodging said torpedo. The drop in speed will help the ship turn faster & once you are completing say a 45° turn you can start accelerating again. The larger the ship the more it will slow & the turn away will cause even more loss of speed & with any luck the torpedo will pass in front of you or to your starboard if you're turning to port. If you're NOT so lucky you may catch it with your stern or propeller shafts.
38:40 those are both contributory factors, but the admirals were just overworked. The Royal Navy did not have adequate staff until World War II. One of the reasons Churchill ran rampant was the lack of staff at Admiralty. There was a lack of needed bureaucracy. You need people to create reports, collate information, and manage systems. But guys like Henderson had to do a lot of it by themselves. Hell, if you look at the Falklands campaign, you could argue that they did not have adequate staff then. Clapp damn near worked himself to death. A couple more lieutenants would have solved a lot of problems.
I remember in Hornblower they were quite annoyed at a midshipman who had to use a signal book to read the signal and another midshipman had to step in to say what the signal meant without consulting a book. I know it's fiction but it uses a lot of first hand information and as you say, it would not be hard to know some signals off by heart especially common ones.
An interesting instance of rotating torpedo tubes on a sub is the Swedish Sjölejonet-class which sported a pair of external rotating tubes at its aft. Rather than being a particularly large submarine, the Sjölejonet-class was rather small and I believe the use of rotating external tubes came down to a lack of space in the bow to carry more tubes. Why they weren't fixed to the rear and instead made rotating I'm not sure, maybe they thought they might as well since there would be no issue of pressure hull penetration anyway
2:20:00 Re firearms for marines significantly for land service rate of fire was a priority French Marines, were the first French forces to be issued with magazine fed weapons over single cartridge loading rifles -so French army had Gras 1873 in 11 mm single shot where as the marines by 1878 had replaced their 1866 Chasepots with an 11 mm Gras fitted with a Kropatschek tubular magazine holding 8 rounds called the Fusil de Marine Mle 1878, (it took France land forces until 1884 to catch up). Reason is logical Marine landing parties are generally out numbered so nead a command presence in rapid shooting firepower. So it is true that marines probably in all countries valued higher fire rate above other considerations, in fact the French Navy had considered using suplus 1865 Spencer Carbines bought by France during the Franco -Prussian War for Marine service -so back to the smooth bore muzzle loading muskets rate of fire over accuracy and range of the fired muzzle loader.
And with the ammo consumption arguments that slowed adoption of repeaters for land forces, Marines would not be far from a ship that could trivially carry more small arms ammo than the marines could ever fire
I would argue it goes a bit further than that. Prior to clip loading, the advantage of a magazine in a drawn out battle is greatly reduced. It provides you a brief burst of rapid fire before reverting to essentially a single shot rifle. Navies would expect brief, high intensity fights rather than drawn out engagements making that short period of rapid fire far more valuable. In addition, one concern with adopting repeating rifles was reliability and maintenance. Marines generally wouldn't travel too far from their ships, which would be equipped to maintain and repair such mechanical devices. Army troops could be send out to the middle of nowhere far from the nearest armourer and machine tools. So they could better leverage the advnatages of a pre-clip repeater while being less impacted by the disadvantages.
@@88porpoise @AgentTasmania Fair point by both, however the premier point I made is the overwehlming initial firepower, of the Kropatschek magazine, it is the impact of that 8 rounds down range followed by single shot fire, - historically single shot rifles were preferred against any repeater because in the French Army in particular officer command was the primary control, there was no fire at will (this even was he case against automatics/self loaders) because command regarded those both repeaters and later self loaders as wasteful of ammunition. As to support both Army and Marine soldiers tended to carry a similar ammuntion load out, be they close to ship/ barracks or on long march, and oriental troops were issued with even lower loadout (for example those native contingent involved in Indo-China). As to maintenance almost no troops did anything with failed weapons again epsecially in French service -they were extremely under strict control of officers so - irrelenvant whether it was "armie" up country in Tunisia or Marines landing troops, and the idea French Marines didn't range far from their home ships is far from reality.
IIRC another problem with Billy Mitchell's tests is that the agreed testing format was for lengthy pauses between bomb runs to allow survey parties to board the bombed ships and conduct a detailed bomb damage analysis - and maybe even address slow progressive flooding. That data was supposed to help the navy design better bomb defenses for new ships, and the army air corps to learn how well their current bombs and deliver profiles worked (and thus if they could be improved). But Billy was so gung-ho for the 'battleship sunk by aircraft' headline that he violated the format and just kept up the bombing -- basically turning the test into a publicity stunt by blocking any ability to gather the hoped for data.
Kinda like the publicity stunt the navy pulled in their own test prior to Project B? Look it up. The navy wanted to strangle air power in its cradle and Mitchel was determined to not let that happen. Mitchel was right. History has proven that and trying to foist it off on "level bombing" is just pure cope.
Relative health of R.N. officers -as with enlisted men wartime service in WW1 (and in WW2) has an adverse effect on longevity, four years active service as a rule reduces life expectancy by around ten years, and a comparison can be made with personnel in REMF and of course those who remain in civilian life who may be suffering from stress and in rank and file less food stuff, Germany in WW1 a prime example.
1:32:54 One of my favourite butterflies is a further branch off of this. If the Spanish-American War hadn't taken place, the Americans wouldn't have ended up with the Philippines, which in turns means no American possessions in Southeast Asia in the late-30s, thus no need for Japan to preemptively attack the US fleet alongside their invasion of that area. While the US and Japan may have ended up in open war later on anyway, it wouldn't have been at this time, thus the US also doesn't declare war on or (as openly) support Britain and/or the Soviets at this point either, as the American public sure as heck isn't going to be interested in fighting for some far-off European colonies. What this does to things like the North African theatre (no Torch) or if there's even an invasion of Italy at all (at least any time close to historical), thus keeping Italy in the war longer, could be very interesting.
The Mark 14 torpedo was set to arm itself at about 500 yards. The Mark14's Mark 6 fuse besides the obvious malfunctions of premature explosions before it either hit the target or passed under it, had nasty habit of exploding as soon as they armed. This not only scared the hell out of the crew but alerted the enemy to their approximate position with the obvious results
The British (and Australian) E class subs in WW1 had beam torpedoes inside the pressure hull and weren't that large for submarines. If you look at the diagrams they look extremely awkwardly placed and almost certainly have a very serious impact on maximum diving depth/structural integrity... All for not much gain. A single shot amidships is pretty lightweight.
2:33:23 Accurate as dodging those torpedoes may have been for WWII-era ships, I've seen an utterly hilarious case where writers tried to apply that in the modern day, with the tv series The Last Ship. It essentially follows the crew of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in a post-apocalyptic world (massive global plague) - moderately entertaining overall, but some of the naval combat scenes were ridiculously dumb. In one case, the destroyer is going up against an Astute-class submarine that
You mention that Dudley Pound died of an undiagnosed brain tumor during WW2. Looking it up, apparently Roger Backhouse *also* died of a brain tumor. Which makes me wonder, was there something in the Admiralty that was causing brain cancer? That's a fairly unusual cause of death, and for it to take two First Sea Lords in a row seems quite odd. Did any other British admirals from this period also have brain tumors? Smoking certainly causes cancer, but that's normally in the lungs, not the brain.
Idk for sure, but if I had to hazard a guess. Maybe a certain type of ink that they were using. Or it could also maybe be an over exposure to mercury? Someone that eats a lot of fish can have an over exposure to mercury without realizing it. Or maybe the combination of all of what Drach was saying along with those things. Lead paint was found to be toxic and was used a lot back then. Back in that era there were a large amount of toxins that were in things that people just didn't know about that it would be difficult to pin point the exact one causing brain tumors.
2:40:36 also, according to my friend, who did some amount of ship design in college De urodynamic effects of the funnel or anything are actually pretty major, because not only do they slow the ship down but the amount of force it takes to slow the ship down is now being imparted through that piece. The force it takes to slow down a battleship now imagine that the base of the funnel needs to be strong enough to support that
Japanese could have had A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplanes aboard these ships. The floatplane version of the Zero had enough performance to be a threat to strike aircraft, as well as firepower [like a Zero]. Or, later, N1K1 "Rex" floatplane fighters, which later became the N1K1-J "George" land based fighter. twelve Rexes would have been something to ge the attention of the USN aircraft.
The AR-196 was no slouch, either. I read an account of one that got bounced by ten Spitfires, downing one, damaging one. In another account one was attacked by many British fighters; it used the walls of a fjord to limit paths of attack, then proceeded to down some, damage others, and survive. 20mm cannon are not to be trifled with.
1:10:44 that merchant vessel inexplicably carrying valuable code books, reminds me of the numerous army battle plans lost by officers reconnoitering enemy lines. D’oh!
Water as hydraulic fluid on war ships does have the advantage of not being highly flammable. Spraying high pressure water into a breached turret is not entirely bad either.
The USN ramp up to war began in earnest with the Congressional Two Ocean Navy act. The USN need every kind of ship, Battleships, Carriers, Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers and Destroyer. They were desperate need of fast fleet oilers in particular, plus every kind of naval auxiliary. The building program prioritized ships based on build times. The assumed they could catch up on destroyers. The funny thin was that Admiral King, yes that one, advocated a crash program to build Flower Class corvettes in US yards for the USN!
Thanks for answering my Halsey question. It almost seems like Halsey was a kind of "Nelson-spirit" in terms of confidence and aggression. That sort of thing can easily make newspapers happy.
@@evh1734 To me, he is the Navy's Patton. You want to give him a big stick and push him towards the enemy. There were few better for that job. But if there are other concerns, there are much better options.
A big part of that is that asbestos being somewhere is mostly safe. It is only when you get small bits in the air that it is problematic. For example, if there is asbestos in your home, it isn't anything to worry about unless you start cutting into the walls containing it or something. So the main people I packed would be those that worked with it. Beyond that, there are two big items why it wouldn't stand out: 1) It wasn't a navy thing, pretty much everyone was in regular proximity and contact with asbestos and a lot of industrial workers would see far more exposure to dangerous asbestos than most sailors. So any impact of it would likely be hidden within the general life expectancy. 2) They would be exposed to so many carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals that asbestos would probably be covered by other things, even as simple as cigarette smoke.
On the question of the change in tactics after steam propulsion is available, the selection of the angle of the wind to clear the smoke of the gunfire so as to keep spotting the enemy and the fall of shot around the enemy also was important. It was certainly so at the Falklands - many years later than the question posited - but it must have been useful earlier once ranges were beyond point blank. In addition, one could also possibly time a battle to take advantage of the sun; the enemy backlit and you in darkness except for muzzle flash, or the enemy looking directly into the sun.
Biggest thing that creates a change in class is a redesign of a ship. Either classified as a new design by the government or the naval office in control of the ship. In the case of government or naval classification would be the US standard battleships, which had settle differences. The Ticonderoga class completely changed from arm launchers to vertical launchers. How many flights are there of the Aleigh Burke class is there? Go back to WWII, you had the Gearing class and Sumner class that was pretty much the same ship.
The Me 109 that were being built for carrier operation were longer winged to improve takeoff off and landing performance. 3/4 complete when the carrier was cancelled they were completed with high altitude engines and performed well as high altitude fighter and the take-off and landing performance was reported as being better but probably not up to launching from a ship without a catapult but as the USS Gerald R Ford demonstrates that is not an incapacitating problem.
@58:50 Bob Hedges if he's a Brit living in Kent somewhere close to the Medway, May want to think on carrying a steel helmet(1 for the use of)as the sunken Munitions ship could blow at anytime, So if you hear duck, don't look up 😉😉😉
I’m thinking specifically about the Essex class which have such serious modifications that by the time they get to USS Ticonderoga they’re distinguishing them as long hull version.
In the end, the point of defining classes is to provide useful grouping and categorization for various purposes and people will define classes however works for them for that purpose.
There were efforts to improve the chances of marines hitting targets with their muskets, but the example that I am aware of focuses on ammunition rather than rifling: The USMC at some point went from loading single musketballs to loading "buck an ball" cartridges: 1 normal musketball plus 3 or 4 (i think) buckshot pellets. The idea being that the musketball would do its thing in the usual manner and that the small number of pellets would raise the chances of scoring a hit if the aim was a bit off. This practice required no changes to the actual muskets, just the addition of buckshot pellets to the prepacked cartridges.
I'd like to add to the Battle of the Nile alternate history that, if the french are stopped before the Egypt campaign, then the Rosetta stone probably won't be discovered, with knock on effects on archaeology, linguistics and history.
9:58. Surely classifying messages that are somewhat secret is a fraught process ... asking cryptographers if a partial message is "2B" or "not 2B". That is the question.
While I do like having these split into multiple parts because each can have a time stamp for each question and not hit the limit I do sometimes miss being able to put a single 6 hour long video on in the background while I paint my Adeptus Mechanicus army. All hail the omnissiah!
expanding on the warrior vs wooden 1st rate question. how loud would 100+ rounds of solid shot impacting the armor in quick succession be? would it be incapacitating to the crew?
@ 1:41:48 There was NO "Third Wave". After the second wave left around 7AM the only planes left on the Kido Butai flight decks were CAP fighters, I'm not sure how many but I think two chutais or around 18. IJN carrier attack doctrine was the massed strike composed of two parts, each part being half of the attack strength of each carrier, because (simplistically) only about half of the full complement of planes could be fit on the flight deck for a single launch (allowing enough take-off room at the forward end). Carriers were matched in pairs, and each unit would contribute an entire squadron of either dive bombers or torpedo bombers (which doubled as horizontal bombers when needed, particularly for land attacks), sending the other squadron up with the second half of the strike. The fighter squadron was split between escort fighters going with the strike and CAP fighters that stayed back to defend the fleet. When people theorize about a "Third Wave" what they really mean is a second strike by what was the First Wave, after it flew back, landed, refueled and rearmed, and was spotted and launched again - which would take about 2-3 hours, counting flying time. This was the big problem at Midway - the First Wave was on its way back while the Second Wave was still in the hangars, armed for anti-ship strike in case anything threatening was discovered by recon. The commander of the First Wave called for a second strike on Midway, and Nagumo ordered the rearming of the attack planes with land-attack weapons (swapping torpedoes for bombs), when the first report came in of USN ships in the area. The big problem was what to do then - send off the second wave to hit the ships with the wrong weapons while the first wave circled the carriers, or landing the first wave while rearming the second wave again and then launching the rearmed second wave. Note also that the original question was pitched as to what the Enterprise could have done on the EVENING of Sunday the 7th, ie after the KB had already started heading north. I don't know if Enterprise could have caught them, particularly since her planes did not have the longer range of the lighter IJN planes and she would be approaching from the southwest at a diagonal.
The earth's Magnetic field varies locally all oiver the earth. Not only based on polarr distance but there are fairly strong anomalies in many areas ( the South Atlantic anomaly specifically.). Some types of igneous rock and large faults in the crust can be found by using a magnetometer. Magnetic surveys are used by Geologists as part of geophysical studies. What with the wandering of the magnetic poles and variations in the earth's field from year to year, it's no wonder that magnetic exploders didn't work. The magnetic field of the earth was not well understood at the time and it is not well understood today.
Regarding the alt-hist about Maine not exploding (1:33:00), would that have affected the Panama Canal? I thought a huge part of the impetus for that was naval strategy.
Agreed that the F3s might have proven handier ships than the Nelsons in WW2, especially if the six-inch secondaries had been replaced with 5.25-inch dual-purpose guns and with increased AA armament. Now, if the RN had only built them.
A refit replacing the 6" twin turrets with 5.25" dual-purpose mounts (or 4.5" BD as on Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, and Renown for that matter) would've been fairly unlikely, just like how it was for the real-life Nelsons. Because as the newest capital ships, they'd be near the back of the line for getting a major refit. That said, even with fairly minimum refits pre-WW2, the F3s would've been extremely useful ships, on account of being easily fast enough to keep pace with the KGVs. Plus, it would've been a great help to logistics, since the 15"/50 would've used the same shells as the existing 15"/42. And given the highly questionable lightweight shells that were chosen for the IRL Nelsons' 16"/45, the reduction in firepower by using the 15"/50 instead is isn't nearly as bad as you'd expect from an inch smaller caliber. The British 16" shell is only 110 lb heavier with 2.7 lb larger bursting charge compared to the new 15" shell that the Royal Navy adopted in the interwar period. The other potential impact of the Nelsons being built to the F3 design is that with another pair of impressively well-armed fast capital ships to send around the world, Hood's workload should probably have been reduced during the interwar period. Meaning she both would've have gotten as worn down and would've probably gotten an additional refit at some point pre-WW2. Oh, and also the potential impact on the King George V class. If 15" was already the *only* caliber used by the Royal Navy's capital ships, I wonder if there would've been significantly harder push to adopt one of the designs with 15" rather than 14" guns. If that *did* end up happening, that removes the considerable teething problems that the KGVs' quad turrets had. Which might have led to much better performance by Prince of Wales at Denmark Strait, since the new 15" guns and triple turrets would simply need to be refinements of the by then well-proven weapons of the F3s. And if Hood were also replaced in that battle by an F3, with its superior firepower and protection? Bismarck would've probably fared very poorly, having no viable option other than using her 2 knot speed advantage over PoW in an attempt to flee.
@@RedXlV Agreed on all your points. Much as I would have loved to have seen an upgrade, had the F3s been built, to have the 6" replaces with twenty or twenty-four 4.5" DP guns in a Renown-style layout. As you said, unlikely, but wouldn't it have been nice? Dr. Clarke mentioned the RN going with 16" guns on the Nelsons was to some extent an exercise in prestige. Much as I can also understand this point, the more I look at the F3s, the more I think, "Why didn't you build these instead?" They make much more sense for the battlecruiser's roles of trade protection and interdiction and for showing the flag as Hood did. No wonder these are the ships Beatty as First Sea Lord wanted built.
1h37m45s: electro-hydraulic systems are the thing on modern ships, mostly because they arent using steam anymore of course, but even with on the modern nuclear carrier i was on, steam had been replaced wherever they could to get rid of the dangers from the steam lines, especially for lightly used things such as capstans. I was on two carriers from different eras; Constellation (CV64) had a variety of steam accessories scattered about the ship such as the catapults, hot water systems, the kitchens, capstans, and the anchor windlasses. Truman (CVN75) on the other hand, outside of engineering, the only things using steam were the catapults and the hot water heater heaters and maybe the large cooking pots in the kitchens. Everything else was electric, electro-hydraulic or air. And even teh electrical system was ruthlessly simplified, they only had 3 voltages, the high voltage backbone from the generators to the load centers that make single phase 120 and and 3 phase 480 for the ship. any other power that may be needed is made locally with a motor-generator set. personally, with the near elimination of steam lines on Truman, I think it was a toss up between the sewage system and the high pressure air lines as being the most dangerous pipe network remaining on the ship. and I think this trend is going to continue. Those early turbo-electric ships were probably too far ahead of their time to fully see the benefits over the weight penalties they had in that in the 20’s and 30s, the ships still didn’t have a large number of electrical system, so outside of providing emergency power to a city (which is always good press), its going to lose against high performance boilers and turbines. And at the end of the war, I think steam turbine tech was just too good for anyone to be interested in turbo-electric drives. while I know its post channel, when steam starts to disappear in favor of gas turbines and then diesels, I believe that’s when the electric drive starts to become interesting again. The ships had large and growing electrical needs and this configuration lets you have as many diesels-gen sets as you want and you can turn them on and off just like how varying the number of boilers are online lets you tailor the output and fuel burn to keep up with the ship’s needs. And having ‘combined diesel and gas’ or ‘combined diesel and diesel’ is simple, it’s just electricity as far as the motors are concerned. This makes the old idea of cruise and sprint engines much just as easy as any of the other configuration.
On the Naval Convergent Engineering Question the image you used appears to have the hull of a ship with one large circle painted, whereas the rest is not (or at least has not YET). Why was this circle painted before the rest? Is it the location of some specific piece of equipment or something?
The Messerschmitt 109 was always officially the Bf109. IIRC Willy Messerschmitt tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get the RLM to redesignate it to the Me109 but they refused.
@@hazchemel Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (Bavarian Aircraft Factory) was the name of the company when the Bf 109 was developed and adopted. Its aircraft were designated "Bf". The company would be renamed Messerschmitt AG in 1938, at which time the Me designation began to be used for its new aircraft.
I'm late to this, but you confused the Naval Act of 1916, sometimes refereed to as the "Big Navy Act" and the Two-Ocean Navy Act, sometimes refereed to as the "Vinson-Walsh Act" at about 1:33:00. The former was in 1940 and was in response to the fall of France and the threats the US saw in the world at that time, while the Big Navy act was to protect US interests during WWI.
I remember that four pack (of cigarettes) a day men were considers chain smokers. Google says typical cigarette is smoked over 5 minutes. Four packs of 20 makes for 80 cigarettes. 400 minutes is 6 2/3 hours a day smoking. He refers to five of six packs a day makes for 10 hours of having a lit cigarette on hand. My grandfather and his twin were semi chain smokers. One would have a lit cigarette, as his went out the other would pull out a pack to light up. I never saw both smoking at the same time, but one or the other usually had a lit cigarette on hand.
They not be particularly large Bavarians but I had no idea that compasses had Bavarians. Percentage wise the Bavarian is one arbitrary example..usually they point north. Accounts for Bavarians. Bayern.
One then asks in reference to this, hand waving the issue of knowing where to look, could one reset the magnetic fuse to new normal of the operational area in question?
And a 2nd (and I believe completely unintentional movie reference) 2:11:15 - the maths class in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, when the teacher was trying to explain percentages to Charlie
Is there any music or written notation pertaining to the drums aboard Mary Rose or trumpet music? Musical script had some development yet but I didn’t know if extant examples still existed and what these drums would have communicated. I’ll keep asking every video.
Back in the Middle Ages drum patterns were not typically notated, unless the drum formed part of a larger ensemble. Solo drum patterns are believed to be simple step-keepers or time keepers (subtle difference, step-keeping for keeping an army together, time-keeping for keeping other musicians in-time(ish)). Basically the new drummer would be drilled by a more senior drummer to keep the correct pace and pattern, and that pattern would be very simple. One of the more common, but still quite rare, drum notation employed strokes and dots, all on one "line" thus "///...///" would be three regular beats, wait three "beats", then another three beats. Trumpets - here a lot of fun can be had. There were several different notations around, some would just indicate the relative duration and pitch of a note, while others were more like modern notation. Over the years people have translated and transcribed from these "interesting" notations. Over the years I have sung(?) in a couple of Medieval recreation choirs, one of the many hurdles to be overcome is that you don't know where to pitch the first note, and thus what part-line you are looking at (and there can be over a dozen part-lines to pick from!!!), here one tends to look at the number of syllables in a given musical phrase and assume that the more syllables the higher the register of the voice (but that's only a general rule). The "good" thing for trumpets (and other fixed tuning instruments) is that the pitch is fixed and the range of notes is very limited. Oh how easy it is to place a part when encountering modern notation........
@@18robsmith I love it. Thanks mate. Great explanation. I dunno will my wife let me marry you? Imagine tho the timbre across the sea as they are used on land. I’m curious not f particular notation but blasting a bass drum and snare seems more than a horn and I’m partial. I love my drums. Like not that we have notation but for land armies we know the cadences.
@@18robsmith how many musician mates or musicians were on victory or anything within the scope of the channel. Et ca et cetera however although et cetera
Related to the question about old munitions: At the end of WW2 the USN had over 100,000 20mm Oerlikons cannons reaching obsolescence. What happened to them? In Vietnam many small gunboats were equipped with aircraft 20mm cannons that required more maintenance. The old Oerlikons, requiring less maintenance, would have served the small craft better and there must have been 10’s of millions of rounds or ammunition stored somewhere at the end of 1945.
Another big butterfly effect of the USS Maine explosion is the Phillipines... Too many what-ifs but if it was not ceded to the US by Spain does it become truly independent, and either aligns with Japan (doubtful) or is invaded by Japan in the mid-1930's and they set up a much bigger military infrastructure than they could do after invading in 1941? That could make a Pacific war extremely hard on the US.
It also makes the preemptive strike on Pearl unnecessary (at least at that point), as the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia would not be attacking any US holdings. This in turn means the Americans don't get involved in the war in Europe at this point either, which has all sorts of interesting further butterflies (Torch, Italy landings, lend-lease, etc).
Isn't class more a matter of how the ships were ordered - especially in the of Royal Navy J.K,L M, N and O destroyers were all pretty much a muchness, except ordered as on going improvements.
A new class is defined by planning, logistics and training. If planners will need to separate two similar ships because their capabilities diverge sufficiently to notice at a tactical or strategic planning level = new class. If enough equipment is different that a bespoke spares and maintenance pipeline is required from other members of the same class = new class If crew transferring from a supposed sister ship need retraining to operate the new ship = new class
Don't forget there are also political reasons to define something as a new class or improvement to an old class. I.e. congress (or treasury or whomever) might not be willing to fork over the money for a whole new class, but is more willing to pay for a "slight" re-design of an existing class
And if Maine hadn't blown up, then the US would not have acquired the Philippines, which means that the US would not have been directly in the way of Japan's southward expansion leading up to WWII. Would Japan have needed to attack the US, given that situation? If not, how would the US ever have been brought into WWII?
I do have a hard time to believe that an Essex class CV would have been as expensive to build as a NC class, or any contemporary BB for that matter ? An Iowa for example is often officially quoted to have costed 100 M $, but thats (supposedly) without the armour, armoury etc, witch is for some reason counted separatly, for a total of 200 - 225 M $. After all, large caliber guns, and armour steel tend to be very expensive.
Just googled costs for some WW2 warships The battleship North Carolina cost $70 million An Essex class carrier 68 to 78 million dollars, can’t say if the earlier or latter were cheaper/costlier
For comparison, Yamato cost around $75 million in Late 1930s US dollars (keeping in mind her construction began in 1937). Not sure if that includes the ammunition though.
@@niclasjohansson4333 I’m not sure I can buy that actually TBH; maybe they got confused with displacement? And at any rate not building the Yamatos doesn’t give you their displacements’ or costs’ worth of Shokakus because of infrastructure limitations.
@@bkjeong4302 Another example is Graf Zeppelin, it was basicly compleated after all, and did cost only half as much as Bismarck ! Even thou it had more powerful engines.....
00:51:53 Drach really has a blind spot about this. Japanese level bombers did score hits on Force Z and Houston. To say bc Mitchell did not prove aerial bombs could sink warships under operational circumstances he proved nothing is simply not true. By the time of Mitchell's test there were the facts of the rapid development of aircraft from literal kites to war machines, armoured tanks from imagination to battle winning tech, and there were people still alive who served on wooden war ships with masts and sails. The criticism that Mitchell wildly over claimed the effectiveness of his tests is a (probably justified) personal critique of Mitchell not a criticism of the implications of his tests.
I said level bombing hardly ever sank ships, occasionally hits were scored but the ratio of bombs dropped by level bombers to hits scored is massive compared to dive and torpedo bomber hit percentages.
Hi Drach and thanks for your attention to my quibble. However that wasn't my only critique. prior to 1903 aeroplanes where literally kites. In 1921 1000 lb bombs were invented to test dropping them on ships and in 1943 remote controlled glider bombs were deployed from high performance twin engine aircraft to sink ships. Anyone who viewed the 1921 tests and thought the case emphatically proved in favor of the big ships was sorely lacking in imagination. @@Drachinifel
Guns tended to be of certain calibre effectively are a result of tradition prime example 4.7 inch = 120 mm gun = 12 pdr (Smooth bore age of sail) 5.5 inch = 138 mm = 18 pdr. 6 inch =152 mm = 24 pdr. This continued into rifled calibre weapons but weights changed markedly 5.5 inch in British land service varried by type between separate charge weapons with 80 lb and 100 lb shells the naval Mk 1 was 82 lb. same with others but still tended to retain bore size - most likely down to very expensive lathing and boring machines - so 4.7 inch = 120 mm persisted well into 20th C in not only British service but -related service such as Italy and Japan (4.7 inch Elswick pattern in both cases but significantly the US use 4.7inch only on imported Spanish War emergency purchases) and 120 mm in France by tradition, not by related manufacturing. But Russia used French 120 mm designs and 4.7 inch Elswick in Army service.
You mention that a royal navy sailing 24 hours late would beat the french navy at a not battle of the nile at sea, but would the royal navy be likely to win this engagement? From what I understand, the battle of the nile went so poorly in large part because the french had very few sailors on board its ships, but had a superior fleet overall
In Spain, wee even call our destroyers frigates, legen says It because destroyer sounds too beligerant. And they are arleigh burke hulls under license, not even a Matter of weight, shape or intended use.
Most European nations seem to favor the frigate designation even if there isn’t any really substnatial difference in size and function between their frigate and American (or British, Russian, Chinese, Japanese) destroyers. I’ve been wondering about that for a while. Your theory makes a decent amount of sense, actually…
What was the maximum drepression of any ship of the line guns? ie could a ship of the line in any era depress their guns to negative degrees and if so , why??? No replies from walter boardus please?
@ 0:42:13 The RN 4.5 inch shells have been stated to be 4.45 inch in diameter. Is this a case of the Lands of the rifling being 4.45 inch and the groves 4.5 inch? Or just rounding from Metric ( based on bore or shell weight) to Imperial (bore)?
With reference to the signals question; I remember reading many years ago that Commonwealth / Restoration Commanders used to pass messages by listing chapter & verse from the Bible. (King James version).
The first John McCain (VADM) also died four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony ala Lee and two years before Mitscher. Pictures of him at the end show a very tired, worn-out person.
If Maine doesn’t explode, another big change is that the US never gets the Philippines; this not only affects things decades later but also means Japan has less of an excuse for annexing Korea, as the US was historically perfectly willing to throw Korea away in exchange for Japan letting them keep the Philippines. For “failed classes” I would also include ships that were built for a mission that never existed or no longer existed by the time they entered service (looking at you, Alaska), or ships whose actual strategic value didn’t make up for the investment put into designing and building them (things like the various semidreadnoughts that wound up obsolete soon after or even before they entered service, or the end-gen battleships, which partially also fit the above category of “no mission”.)
I would say that this viewpoint and reasoning is very much made with hindsight as its primary argument. The Alaska technically had a mission for as long as any non-battleships existed since it essentially was a reimagining of the battlecruiser, the semi dreadnoughts were obsolete quite quickly but if you call them a failure then most early dreadnoughts are failures as well, and late predreads, and the very last battleships built still had a mission, surface combat and escort duties. Just because the US had a very good run of being able to throw carrier after carrier at the end of WW2 is more strategically circumstantial than anything else, gun ships were not obsolete up until second generation anti ship missiles came into service or maybe even later, there simply was no war for them to actually fight, by the same reasoning the entire cold war US carrier fleet has no mission since there was no navy for them to 1v1 for most of it.
@@domaxltv I’d argue that hindsight is actually required to determine if a class of ships is a failure or not, because nobody intentionally goes about trying to build failed classes of ships; the only way we can determine if they were failures is by seeing if they can deliver on their intended goals and if those goals are strategically sensible. The York-class mentioned by Drach is a good example of this. And the very last battleships didn’t really have a mission other ships couldn’t do better; surface combat (especially against the other capital ships they were supposed to deal with) was a thing of the past outside of unusual scenarios, and as carrier escorts AA and ASW capabilities were what were actually needed-sure, battleships could do AA but it’s an incredibly costly way to add more AA cover when alternatives existed, and they couldn’t handle ASW at all. As for shore bombardment, the majority of that in WWII was handled by old battleships or by subcapital units, further minimizing the need for fast battleship construction.
But then presumably the Philippines would’ve still been a Spanish colony, wouldn’t a Japanese attack put Franco in a very interesting position? If Spain enters -is forced into- the war on the Allies’ side, a lot more changes than that.
@@matehavlik4559 That does put Franco in an interesting position, but Japan might not view the Philippines as being a priority in this timeline depending on how powerful this alternative Spanish navy is (or bomb PH for that matter, with a much smaller USN), and head straight for the DEI.
@@matehavlik4559 It is an interesting question. After the US took the Philippines and Guam, Spain sold the rest of it's Pacific holdings, the balance of the Marianas, the Carolines, and a couple other bits to Germany. When WWI started, Japan, being allied with the UK, occupied the German colonies. After the war, the League of Nations gave Japan a mandate to hold all the former German colonies north of the equator. So, would Spain have held all of it's Pacific colonies until 1941, or sold everything, including the Philippines and Guam, to Germany? If Spain sold everything to Germany, then Japan would have held the Philippines and Guam in 1941.
Re....Graf Zeppelin.....I remember reading a fictional book where the Japanese bought the Graf Zeppelin, and as a bare bones carrier went to attack New York on December 6 1942 sadly it was over thirty years ago and I don't remember the title or author.
The question about how far downtime does a gun-armed capital ship have to go to be considered a final boss reminds me of various questions I’ve seen (on this channel and elsewhere) involving uptimers vs. Downtimers. Going from least one-sided to most one-sided: - All Axis WWII fast battleships (plus the historical German force) vs. Historical British force at Jutland - All WWII-era big-gun capital ships vs. combined British and German force at Jutland (this one was mine, as I assumed the sheer numerical disparity could allow some of the downtimers to survive this onslaught) - Sovetsky Soyuz (don’t ask me how she’s afloat) vs. Japanese force at Tsushima - Yamato (and 10 destroyers for escort) vs. Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima - TF38/58 vs. Historical German force at Jutland - Bismarck vs. 17/18th century ships of the line - Dreadnought vs. Spanish Armada - Yamato and Musashi vs. Spanish Armada - the entire IJN circa early 1942 vs. Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima - Enterprise (CVN-65) plus historical American forces vs. Japanese Pearl Harbor force - the current HMS Queen Elizabeth vs. Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar - modern Greek missile frigate vs. Ottoman fleet at Lepanto
The fact that the navy of all people didn't understand the geographic variances when designing the magnetic detonators baffles and infuriates me. The Royal Navy had extant publications on this exact topic in 1772. It implies a complete disconnect between the designers and engineers of the detonator and the navy itself, which at least in the American case we know was the case with the rampant denial and ignorant arrogance of those in charge.
Mitchell's tests took place in 1921 and 1923, and he had what he had to attempt to prove his theory. I personally do not like the man as he bombed striking American workers with tear gas. However, it is important to accurately represent the full implications of Mitchell's theory, which was that aerial attack would soon become the dominant factor in naval warfare. 20 years after the tests, Mitchell's theory was shown to be 100% correct. I don't think anything else about the man is relevant to this discourse.
I agree. Love or hate the man, his theories and practice in the interwar period put the US Navy on a naval aviation footing to be able to fight the Japanese and win the Pacific War. Drach is rarely off, but he seems to have a pretty bad anti-Mitchell bias. I can understand why. The British Empire was pretty pathetic in the Pacific War. It ended up being a Japanese/ US/ Anzac war, and the Brits played a very minor part.
@ 1:09:55 much has been said/written about the Enigma machine being captured ??? In my Memory the original machine/design was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia in 1938/9 but was not believed by Military Intelligence(the truth is in the name)until a technician studied the machine, So either of these stories could be smoke and mirrors, As was Turin even after his death
Its a lot more complicated than that. First, Enigma machines varied widely. For example, there were commercial Enigma machines that companies could buy, which had the rotors but lacked the plugboards. Even within the military different versions of Enigma were used with the Navy's generally being the strongest. The British bought one of those in the 1920s and would actually deceypt Italian Navy communications using commercial enigma machines during the Spanish Civil War. The Poles would make the first real headway in breaking enigma, but that relied on poor German procedures which were soon improved. The French, however, had a spy who got them Enigma manuals which they provided to the British and the Poles. Thr Poles would then build their own Enigma machine and develop means to crack Enigma. Over time there was an arms race as the Germans improved procedures and the Poles found a new way to crack them, eventually leading to the first Bombe but that method was soon made unfeasible by the Germans adding more rotors (they needed one Bomba for every rotor order). Then Poland was evaded and their team moved to France and then to the UK in 1940. They had already been sharing all their work with both countries prior to the start of the war. By then they relied almost entirely on poor operator procedures and cribs (for example a captured radio operator told them the most common word in virtually any communication was "eine", one) to break messages in a useful time period. And that provided the basis for Turing's work and eventually the US mass producing Turing's Bombes to complete the great international effort to crack Enigma. Through all of this the German Navy consistently maintained better procedures and indrodced improved their machines more frequently. The first captured Enigma machine in 1940 provided confirmation of various mechanical aspects that had been updated as well as including code books, procedures manuals, and messages in both clear and cypher text which enabled them to understand all of how the Enigma was used. Other captures in 1941 and 1942 were similarly useful, not so much for the machine but for the other materials, either code booka to directly decrypt messages in the short term or to understand procedures that would facilitate cracking codes long term. In particular captured materials from U-559 provided the information needed to crack the four rotor enigma.
Level bombing as an anti-ship tactic. I guess the RAF did not quite catch on to this falsity in Billy Mitchel's tests. Seems that they spent a lot of sorties on Tirpitz and other ships. As for attacking a ship not underway and incapable of mounting a signifigant AA defense, I guess the Japanese also did not realize Mitchel's folly that such a situation would never occur or else why attack Pearl Harbor. British either else why go into Taranto. Mitchels hands were tied. No dive bombers, no torpedo bombers. He knew how hard level bombing would be to hit a moving ship, he also knew that to level bomb a ship and actually have a chance of hitting it the planes would have to be flying at mast top level where they would be slaughtered. But he had to get the PTB off their duffs to realize that ships could indeed be damaged by air power.
I think you missed one, if the Spanish American War did not happen, the U.S. would not have had the Philippines, so no Macarthur there, and the U.S. - Japan naval battles there wouldn't have occurred.
Would a Naval conversion of the Fw-190 been better than the Me-109? (Wider landing gear, lower wing loading, and even more firepower...) Which of course also raises the question of: Willy Messerschmitt's connections)
The FW-190's airfeame and landing gear were also sturdier as demonstrated by their rough field performance on the Eastern Front. Willi did indeed have more than enough boot polish on his tongue, though.
Although the naval budget circa 1876 is basically nothing the US has a large occupation army in the former CSA states for reconstruction at this time so a land invasion of Canada isn't entirely out of the cards although the US would largely be using leftover Civil War surplus instead of cutting edge hardware. If a war didn't break out until 1877 the US demobilizes the reconstruction troops so puny army but 1876 the reconstruction troops could be marched North
I’d love to know what the sergeant is thinking while the officers inspects the Royal Marines in the photo at 02:21:19 illustrating that question. He’s looking off to the side with a funny facial expression.
Best opening song on TH-cam
Ding ding~
I always sing along!
_Bucephalus and Rocinante!_
_Bucephalus and Rocinante!_
_One horse was real..._
_One is make believe_
@@mbryson2899 two of The greatest mounts ever. Is it original Cab Calloway with hammers? Don’t forget Dapple. I always thought Dapple was the best haha. I bet he could carry nine 16” guns…
Agreed
DRACH has cured decades of horrible insomnia. For about 5 years now, I turn TH-cam mix on and sleep soundly to 8 hours of DRACH
You know I hate to say it but same here really does help
Same here, also 5 years now i sleep to Drydock episodes
Lol same
Same and I have a theory about it too. It’s the British accent and it’s long format. Couple it with a easy going demeanor and it’s just relaxing. Glad he did that episode with C&Arsonal so I could find his channel.
Me too lol (also thanks for not jamming ad’s in the middle of these Drach, really helps to not get woken up by a booming ad every 15-30 mins like other channels suffer from)
Nothing better than hearing the drydock intro song on a rainy sunday morning, thanks bro.
I get so happy when i see a new episode of drydock
Put my phone under my pillow and listen and learn
It has turned me into a ship fan as from childhood om
I was always an avation geek
Now i am both
Ty mr Drach !
11:18 in the first combat experience with a steam powered vessel which occured during the Greek War of Independence in 1826 onwards. By the greek ship Kartería captained by a formally Royal Navy officer called Frank Abney Hastings, (interestingly the ship was partly funded by him). They would use sail to get to battle and then switch to steam power which allowed the ship to go against the wind, unlike it's opponents which was highly useful. I believe they would also spin the ship on the spot at times so they could have continous fire of guns. The other advantage of steam power was heated shot Hastings had developed a safe way of using heated shot (they fired 18,000 cannon balls in 1827 without a barrel explosion), which had a devastating effect. One of the other tactics which was because it was the only steam ship in the greek fleet they would use the ship to draw fire away from the rest of the fleet that could then with relative impunity hit the ottoman vessels.
How did we get through a "failed class" question without indefatigable being mentioned once. I was holding on for a classic Drach rant about them! Never mind, Great content as always!
The question on munitions. I personally have fired M-1 .30-06 ball ammunition manufactured in 1917 through a U.S. Model 1917 rifle (the U.S. version of the P-14 Enfield), in the late 1970s. We choreographed the ammo, and it had only lost 120FPS over its factory spec from 1917. It used an early IMR (Improved Military Rifle) Propellant, that is no longer available, but is similar in performance to IMR 4064.
The ammo had been stored in a wooden ammo box, in bandoleers on 5 round stripper clips wrapped internally in sealed waxed brown paper. There were twelve of these wooden boxes on a small wooden skid in the back of a standard concrete ammo bunker buried under 6 feet of dirt in a large ASP (Ammo Supply Point) on a CONUS (Continental U.S.) Army post. Not absolutely certain, but all available evidence seems to indicate that this skid had been placed in the bunker upon arrival from the arsenal that manufactured the ammo (Frankford Arsenal), and had been undisturbed since.
My unit took over this bunker in 1978, and I began to clean it out of all the old stuff in it. Many treasures most of it WWI, and WWII vintage ammo. The WWII dated ammo was in steel ammo cans and had lost no performance at all.
Point being, if properly packaged, and stored, ammo can last for many decades.
Love it when you mention the Bremerton Naval Yard. In WWII, my grandfather and uncle both worked there. Other distant relatives also did their part in the area. I love to go to this city and area, and I have fond memories of seeing WWII ships in mothball, and during the Seattle World Fair in 1963, I got to tour the USS Missouri and this probably was a significant factor in my love of Naval history and appreciation of this and other like channels.
Regarding ships dodging torpedoes, remember that the torpedo had to be aimed ahead of the ship, at the place it would be when the torpedo reached it assuming it maintained its present heading and speed. So (depending on the length of the ship and the angle from which the torpedo is approaching) it may not need a very large change of course to make the torpedo miss.
Not to mention that also if you cut your speed by a third & turn away you could have an even better chance of dodging said torpedo. The drop in speed will help the ship turn faster & once you are completing say a 45° turn you can start accelerating again. The larger the ship the more it will slow & the turn away will cause even more loss of speed & with any luck the torpedo will pass in front of you or to your starboard if you're turning to port. If you're NOT so lucky you may catch it with your stern or propeller shafts.
Love the Marko Rameus reference.
38:40 those are both contributory factors, but the admirals were just overworked.
The Royal Navy did not have adequate staff until World War II. One of the reasons Churchill ran rampant was the lack of staff at Admiralty. There was a lack of needed bureaucracy. You need people to create reports, collate information, and manage systems. But guys like Henderson had to do a lot of it by themselves.
Hell, if you look at the Falklands campaign, you could argue that they did not have adequate staff then. Clapp damn near worked himself to death. A couple more lieutenants would have solved a lot of problems.
I remember in Hornblower they were quite annoyed at a midshipman who had to use a signal book to read the signal and another midshipman had to step in to say what the signal meant without consulting a book. I know it's fiction but it uses a lot of first hand information and as you say, it would not be hard to know some signals off by heart especially common ones.
An interesting instance of rotating torpedo tubes on a sub is the Swedish Sjölejonet-class which sported a pair of external rotating tubes at its aft. Rather than being a particularly large submarine, the Sjölejonet-class was rather small and I believe the use of rotating external tubes came down to a lack of space in the bow to carry more tubes. Why they weren't fixed to the rear and instead made rotating I'm not sure, maybe they thought they might as well since there would be no issue of pressure hull penetration anyway
2:20:00 Re firearms for marines significantly for land service rate of fire was a priority French Marines, were the first French forces to be issued with magazine fed weapons over single cartridge loading rifles -so French army had Gras 1873 in 11 mm single shot where as the marines by 1878 had replaced their 1866 Chasepots with an 11 mm Gras fitted with a Kropatschek tubular magazine holding 8 rounds called the Fusil de Marine Mle 1878, (it took France land forces until 1884 to catch up). Reason is logical Marine landing parties are generally out numbered so nead a command presence in rapid shooting firepower. So it is true that marines probably in all countries valued higher fire rate above other considerations, in fact the French Navy had considered using suplus 1865 Spencer Carbines bought by France during the Franco -Prussian War for Marine service -so back to the smooth bore muzzle loading muskets rate of fire over accuracy and range of the fired muzzle loader.
And with the ammo consumption arguments that slowed adoption of repeaters for land forces, Marines would not be far from a ship that could trivially carry more small arms ammo than the marines could ever fire
I would argue it goes a bit further than that.
Prior to clip loading, the advantage of a magazine in a drawn out battle is greatly reduced. It provides you a brief burst of rapid fire before reverting to essentially a single shot rifle.
Navies would expect brief, high intensity fights rather than drawn out engagements making that short period of rapid fire far more valuable.
In addition, one concern with adopting repeating rifles was reliability and maintenance. Marines generally wouldn't travel too far from their ships, which would be equipped to maintain and repair such mechanical devices. Army troops could be send out to the middle of nowhere far from the nearest armourer and machine tools.
So they could better leverage the advnatages of a pre-clip repeater while being less impacted by the disadvantages.
@@88porpoise @AgentTasmania Fair point by both, however the premier point I made is the overwehlming initial firepower, of the Kropatschek magazine, it is the impact of that 8 rounds down range followed by single shot fire, - historically single shot rifles were preferred against any repeater because in the French Army in particular officer command was the primary control, there was no fire at will (this even was he case against automatics/self loaders) because command regarded those both repeaters and later self loaders as wasteful of ammunition. As to support both Army and Marine soldiers tended to carry a similar ammuntion load out, be they close to ship/ barracks or on long march, and oriental troops were issued with even lower loadout (for example those native contingent involved in Indo-China). As to maintenance almost no troops did anything with failed weapons again epsecially in French service -they were extremely under strict control of officers so - irrelenvant whether it was "armie" up country in Tunisia or Marines landing troops, and the idea French Marines didn't range far from their home ships is far from reality.
IIRC another problem with Billy Mitchell's tests is that the agreed testing format was for lengthy pauses between bomb runs to allow survey parties to board the bombed ships and conduct a detailed bomb damage analysis - and maybe even address slow progressive flooding. That data was supposed to help the navy design better bomb defenses for new ships, and the army air corps to learn how well their current bombs and deliver profiles worked (and thus if they could be improved).
But Billy was so gung-ho for the 'battleship sunk by aircraft' headline that he violated the format and just kept up the bombing -- basically turning the test into a publicity stunt by blocking any ability to gather the hoped for data.
Kinda like the publicity stunt the navy pulled in their own test prior to Project B?
Look it up. The navy wanted to strangle air power in its cradle and Mitchel was determined to not let that happen.
Mitchel was right. History has proven that and trying to foist it off on "level bombing" is just pure cope.
Relative health of R.N. officers -as with enlisted men wartime service in WW1 (and in WW2) has an adverse effect on longevity, four years active service as a rule reduces life expectancy by around ten years, and a comparison can be made with personnel in REMF and of course those who remain in civilian life who may be suffering from stress and in rank and file less food stuff, Germany in WW1 a prime example.
1:32:54 One of my favourite butterflies is a further branch off of this. If the Spanish-American War hadn't taken place, the Americans wouldn't have ended up with the Philippines, which in turns means no American possessions in Southeast Asia in the late-30s, thus no need for Japan to preemptively attack the US fleet alongside their invasion of that area. While the US and Japan may have ended up in open war later on anyway, it wouldn't have been at this time, thus the US also doesn't declare war on or (as openly) support Britain and/or the Soviets at this point either, as the American public sure as heck isn't going to be interested in fighting for some far-off European colonies. What this does to things like the North African theatre (no Torch) or if there's even an invasion of Italy at all (at least any time close to historical), thus keeping Italy in the war longer, could be very interesting.
The Mark 14 torpedo was set to arm itself at about 500 yards. The Mark14's Mark 6 fuse besides the obvious malfunctions of premature explosions before it either hit the target or passed under it, had nasty habit of exploding as soon as they armed. This not only scared the hell out of the crew but alerted the enemy to their approximate position with the obvious results
The British (and Australian) E class subs in WW1 had beam torpedoes inside the pressure hull and weren't that large for submarines.
If you look at the diagrams they look extremely awkwardly placed and almost certainly have a very serious impact on maximum diving depth/structural integrity... All for not much gain.
A single shot amidships is pretty lightweight.
2:33:23 Accurate as dodging those torpedoes may have been for WWII-era ships, I've seen an utterly hilarious case where writers tried to apply that in the modern day, with the tv series The Last Ship. It essentially follows the crew of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in a post-apocalyptic world (massive global plague) - moderately entertaining overall, but some of the naval combat scenes were ridiculously dumb. In one case, the destroyer is going up against an Astute-class submarine that
You mention that Dudley Pound died of an undiagnosed brain tumor during WW2. Looking it up, apparently Roger Backhouse *also* died of a brain tumor. Which makes me wonder, was there something in the Admiralty that was causing brain cancer? That's a fairly unusual cause of death, and for it to take two First Sea Lords in a row seems quite odd. Did any other British admirals from this period also have brain tumors? Smoking certainly causes cancer, but that's normally in the lungs, not the brain.
Idk for sure, but if I had to hazard a guess. Maybe a certain type of ink that they were using. Or it could also maybe be an over exposure to mercury? Someone that eats a lot of fish can have an over exposure to mercury without realizing it. Or maybe the combination of all of what Drach was saying along with those things. Lead paint was found to be toxic and was used a lot back then. Back in that era there were a large amount of toxins that were in things that people just didn't know about that it would be difficult to pin point the exact one causing brain tumors.
2:40:36 also, according to my friend, who did some amount of ship design in college De urodynamic effects of the funnel or anything are actually pretty major, because not only do they slow the ship down but the amount of force it takes to slow the ship down is now being imparted through that piece. The force it takes to slow down a battleship now imagine that the base of the funnel needs to be strong enough to support that
Japanese could have had A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplanes aboard these ships. The floatplane version of the Zero had enough performance to be a threat to strike aircraft, as well as firepower [like a Zero]. Or, later, N1K1 "Rex" floatplane fighters, which later became the N1K1-J "George" land based fighter. twelve Rexes would have been something to ge the attention of the USN aircraft.
The AR-196 was no slouch, either. I read an account of one that got bounced by ten Spitfires, downing one, damaging one. In another account one was attacked by many British fighters; it used the walls of a fjord to limit paths of attack, then proceeded to down some, damage others, and survive.
20mm cannon are not to be trifled with.
1:10:44 that merchant vessel inexplicably carrying valuable code books, reminds me of the numerous army battle plans lost by officers reconnoitering enemy lines. D’oh!
Water as hydraulic fluid on war ships does have the advantage of not being highly flammable. Spraying high pressure water into a breached turret is not entirely bad either.
The USN ramp up to war began in earnest with the Congressional Two Ocean Navy act. The USN need every kind of ship, Battleships, Carriers, Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers and Destroyer. They were desperate need of fast fleet oilers in particular, plus every kind of naval auxiliary. The building program prioritized ships based on build times. The assumed they could catch up on destroyers. The funny thin was that Admiral King, yes that one, advocated a crash program to build Flower Class corvettes in US yards for the USN!
Thanks for answering my Halsey question. It almost seems like Halsey was a kind of "Nelson-spirit" in terms of confidence and aggression. That sort of thing can easily make newspapers happy.
He's a strange figure. Kind of America's best and worst admiral at the same time. An enigma one way or the other.
@@evh1734 I will say that there was a distinct pattern of fortune which attended Nelson's gambles which Halsey didn't seem to have.
@@evh1734 To me, he is the Navy's Patton. You want to give him a big stick and push him towards the enemy. There were few better for that job.
But if there are other concerns, there are much better options.
@@88porpoiseHalsey wasn’t quite as psychopathic as Patton…
I'm surprised that all the asbestos floating around in ships of the era _didn't_ factor into the short lifespans of 1930s Royal Navy officers.
To quote an old chemist I knew very well: "Back in these days things weren't as poisonous as they are today. We used to wash our hands in benzene."
A big part of that is that asbestos being somewhere is mostly safe. It is only when you get small bits in the air that it is problematic. For example, if there is asbestos in your home, it isn't anything to worry about unless you start cutting into the walls containing it or something. So the main people I packed would be those that worked with it.
Beyond that, there are two big items why it wouldn't stand out:
1) It wasn't a navy thing, pretty much everyone was in regular proximity and contact with asbestos and a lot of industrial workers would see far more exposure to dangerous asbestos than most sailors. So any impact of it would likely be hidden within the general life expectancy.
2) They would be exposed to so many carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals that asbestos would probably be covered by other things, even as simple as cigarette smoke.
Don't forget coal dust and coal smoke from the WWI and earlier coal burners they had served on
On the question of the change in tactics after steam propulsion is available, the selection of the angle of the wind to clear the smoke of the gunfire so as to keep spotting the enemy and the fall of shot around the enemy also was important. It was certainly so at the Falklands - many years later than the question posited - but it must have been useful earlier once ranges were beyond point blank.
In addition, one could also possibly time a battle to take advantage of the sun; the enemy backlit and you in darkness except for muzzle flash, or the enemy looking directly into the sun.
Biggest thing that creates a change in class is a redesign of a ship. Either classified as a new design by the government or the naval office in control of the ship.
In the case of government or naval classification would be the US standard battleships, which had settle differences. The Ticonderoga class completely changed from arm launchers to vertical launchers. How many flights are there of the Aleigh Burke class is there? Go back to WWII, you had the Gearing class and Sumner class that was pretty much the same ship.
Yamato's funel is iconic. Really nice design
The Me 109 that were being built for carrier operation were longer winged to improve takeoff off and landing performance. 3/4 complete when the carrier was cancelled they were completed with high altitude engines and performed well as high altitude fighter and the take-off and landing performance was reported as being better but probably not up to launching from a ship without a catapult but as the USS Gerald R Ford demonstrates that is not an incapacitating problem.
@58:50 Bob Hedges if he's a Brit living in Kent somewhere close to the Medway, May want to think on carrying a steel helmet(1 for the use of)as the sunken Munitions ship could blow at anytime, So if you hear duck, don't look up 😉😉😉
Even classes of ship have significant modifications in new construction from initial vessel to subsequent constructions.
I’m thinking specifically about the Essex class which have such serious modifications that by the time they get to USS Ticonderoga they’re distinguishing them as long hull version.
In the end, the point of defining classes is to provide useful grouping and categorization for various purposes and people will define classes however works for them for that purpose.
Thanks Drach.
There were efforts to improve the chances of marines hitting targets with their muskets, but the example that I am aware of focuses on ammunition rather than rifling:
The USMC at some point went from loading single musketballs to loading "buck an ball" cartridges: 1 normal musketball plus 3 or 4 (i think) buckshot pellets. The idea being that the musketball would do its thing in the usual manner and that the small number of pellets would raise the chances of scoring a hit if the aim was a bit off.
This practice required no changes to the actual muskets, just the addition of buckshot pellets to the prepacked cartridges.
I'd like to add to the Battle of the Nile alternate history that, if the french are stopped before the Egypt campaign, then the Rosetta stone probably won't be discovered, with knock on effects on archaeology, linguistics and history.
9:58. Surely classifying messages that are somewhat secret is a fraught process ... asking cryptographers if a partial message is "2B" or "not 2B". That is the question.
While I do like having these split into multiple parts because each can have a time stamp for each question and not hit the limit I do sometimes miss being able to put a single 6 hour long video on in the background while I paint my Adeptus Mechanicus army. All hail the omnissiah!
Drach has a Franz Ferdinand appreciation for armoured cars because we wanna see Jackie have fun. Cars. So pedestrian
expanding on the warrior vs wooden 1st rate question. how loud would 100+ rounds of solid shot impacting the armor in quick succession be? would it be incapacitating to the crew?
That is more or less what the foot and a half of teak behind the iron plate was for.
@ 1:41:48 There was NO "Third Wave". After the second wave left around 7AM the only planes left on the Kido Butai flight decks were CAP fighters, I'm not sure how many but I think two chutais or around 18. IJN carrier attack doctrine was the massed strike composed of two parts, each part being half of the attack strength of each carrier, because (simplistically) only about half of the full complement of planes could be fit on the flight deck for a single launch (allowing enough take-off room at the forward end). Carriers were matched in pairs, and each unit would contribute an entire squadron of either dive bombers or torpedo bombers (which doubled as horizontal bombers when needed, particularly for land attacks), sending the other squadron up with the second half of the strike. The fighter squadron was split between escort fighters going with the strike and CAP fighters that stayed back to defend the fleet.
When people theorize about a "Third Wave" what they really mean is a second strike by what was the First Wave, after it flew back, landed, refueled and rearmed, and was spotted and launched again - which would take about 2-3 hours, counting flying time. This was the big problem at Midway - the First Wave was on its way back while the Second Wave was still in the hangars, armed for anti-ship strike in case anything threatening was discovered by recon. The commander of the First Wave called for a second strike on Midway, and Nagumo ordered the rearming of the attack planes with land-attack weapons (swapping torpedoes for bombs), when the first report came in of USN ships in the area. The big problem was what to do then - send off the second wave to hit the ships with the wrong weapons while the first wave circled the carriers, or landing the first wave while rearming the second wave again and then launching the rearmed second wave.
Note also that the original question was pitched as to what the Enterprise could have done on the EVENING of Sunday the 7th, ie after the KB had already started heading north. I don't know if Enterprise could have caught them, particularly since her planes did not have the longer range of the lighter IJN planes and she would be approaching from the southwest at a diagonal.
At 1:39 The Great White Fleet showcased something else.
Think what the same crews could have done with "modern" ships! 😁
The earth's Magnetic field varies locally all oiver the earth. Not only based on polarr distance but there are fairly strong anomalies in many areas ( the South Atlantic anomaly specifically.). Some types of igneous rock and large faults in the crust can be found by using a magnetometer. Magnetic surveys are used by Geologists as part of geophysical studies. What with the wandering of the magnetic poles and variations in the earth's field from year to year, it's no wonder that magnetic exploders didn't work. The magnetic field of the earth was not well understood at the time and it is not well understood today.
Regarding the alt-hist about Maine not exploding (1:33:00), would that have affected the Panama Canal? I thought a huge part of the impetus for that was naval strategy.
Thank you
Agreed that the F3s might have proven handier ships than the Nelsons in WW2, especially if the six-inch secondaries had been replaced with 5.25-inch dual-purpose guns and with increased AA armament. Now, if the RN had only built them.
A refit replacing the 6" twin turrets with 5.25" dual-purpose mounts (or 4.5" BD as on Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, and Renown for that matter) would've been fairly unlikely, just like how it was for the real-life Nelsons. Because as the newest capital ships, they'd be near the back of the line for getting a major refit.
That said, even with fairly minimum refits pre-WW2, the F3s would've been extremely useful ships, on account of being easily fast enough to keep pace with the KGVs. Plus, it would've been a great help to logistics, since the 15"/50 would've used the same shells as the existing 15"/42. And given the highly questionable lightweight shells that were chosen for the IRL Nelsons' 16"/45, the reduction in firepower by using the 15"/50 instead is isn't nearly as bad as you'd expect from an inch smaller caliber. The British 16" shell is only 110 lb heavier with 2.7 lb larger bursting charge compared to the new 15" shell that the Royal Navy adopted in the interwar period.
The other potential impact of the Nelsons being built to the F3 design is that with another pair of impressively well-armed fast capital ships to send around the world, Hood's workload should probably have been reduced during the interwar period. Meaning she both would've have gotten as worn down and would've probably gotten an additional refit at some point pre-WW2.
Oh, and also the potential impact on the King George V class. If 15" was already the *only* caliber used by the Royal Navy's capital ships, I wonder if there would've been significantly harder push to adopt one of the designs with 15" rather than 14" guns. If that *did* end up happening, that removes the considerable teething problems that the KGVs' quad turrets had. Which might have led to much better performance by Prince of Wales at Denmark Strait, since the new 15" guns and triple turrets would simply need to be refinements of the by then well-proven weapons of the F3s. And if Hood were also replaced in that battle by an F3, with its superior firepower and protection? Bismarck would've probably fared very poorly, having no viable option other than using her 2 knot speed advantage over PoW in an attempt to flee.
@@RedXlV Agreed on all your points. Much as I would have loved to have seen an upgrade, had the F3s been built, to have the 6" replaces with twenty or twenty-four 4.5" DP guns in a Renown-style layout. As you said, unlikely, but wouldn't it have been nice? Dr. Clarke mentioned the RN going with 16" guns on the Nelsons was to some extent an exercise in prestige. Much as I can also understand this point, the more I look at the F3s, the more I think, "Why didn't you build these instead?" They make much more sense for the battlecruiser's roles of trade protection and interdiction and for showing the flag as Hood did. No wonder these are the ships Beatty as First Sea Lord wanted built.
perfect for listening too as I prep for tomorrow's game of Pathfinder.
...how many players are swashbucklers?
@@AnimeSunglasses In this game none. I am actually a player in its kingmaker. I'm printing maps up for the game master because his printer is down.
Good luck and happy gaming today :) I have my own 5e game as a party of playable Dragons today :)
@@bryanstephens4800 well now I feel invested beyond the joke, what IS everyone playing?
Well, we have several games. I also run Travaller as well
1h37m45s: electro-hydraulic systems are the thing on modern ships, mostly because they arent using steam anymore of course, but even with on the modern nuclear carrier i was on, steam had been replaced wherever they could to get rid of the dangers from the steam lines, especially for lightly used things such as capstans.
I was on two carriers from different eras; Constellation (CV64) had a variety of steam accessories scattered about the ship such as the catapults, hot water systems, the kitchens, capstans, and the anchor windlasses. Truman (CVN75) on the other hand, outside of engineering, the only things using steam were the catapults and the hot water heater heaters and maybe the large cooking pots in the kitchens. Everything else was electric, electro-hydraulic or air. And even teh electrical system was ruthlessly simplified, they only had 3 voltages, the high voltage backbone from the generators to the load centers that make single phase 120 and and 3 phase 480 for the ship. any other power that may be needed is made locally with a motor-generator set.
personally, with the near elimination of steam lines on Truman, I think it was a toss up between the sewage system and the high pressure air lines as being the most dangerous pipe network remaining on the ship.
and I think this trend is going to continue. Those early turbo-electric ships were probably too far ahead of their time to fully see the benefits over the weight penalties they had in that in the 20’s and 30s, the ships still didn’t have a large number of electrical system, so outside of providing emergency power to a city (which is always good press), its going to lose against high performance boilers and turbines. And at the end of the war, I think steam turbine tech was just too good for anyone to be interested in turbo-electric drives.
while I know its post channel, when steam starts to disappear in favor of gas turbines and then diesels, I believe that’s when the electric drive starts to become interesting again. The ships had large and growing electrical needs and this configuration lets you have as many diesels-gen sets as you want and you can turn them on and off just like how varying the number of boilers are online lets you tailor the output and fuel burn to keep up with the ship’s needs. And having ‘combined diesel and gas’ or ‘combined diesel and diesel’ is simple, it’s just electricity as far as the motors are concerned. This makes the old idea of cruise and sprint engines much just as easy as any of the other configuration.
On the Naval Convergent Engineering Question the image you used appears to have the hull of a ship with one large circle painted, whereas the rest is not (or at least has not YET). Why was this circle painted before the rest? Is it the location of some specific piece of equipment or something?
The Messerschmitt 109 was always officially the Bf109. IIRC Willy Messerschmitt tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get the RLM to redesignate it to the Me109 but they refused.
Bf 109 was always on the plane itself. But the two names were used interchangeably in official documents, with some documents using both names.
The bf, does it designate anything in particular, or simply the filing system of RLM?
@@hazchemel Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG (Bavarian Aircraft Factory) was the name of the company when the Bf 109 was developed and adopted. Its aircraft were designated "Bf".
The company would be renamed Messerschmitt AG in 1938, at which time the Me designation began to be used for its new aircraft.
@@88porpoise aaah. Thank you.
I'm late to this, but you confused the Naval Act of 1916, sometimes refereed to as the "Big Navy Act" and the Two-Ocean Navy Act, sometimes refereed to as the "Vinson-Walsh Act" at about 1:33:00. The former was in 1940 and was in response to the fall of France and the threats the US saw in the world at that time, while the Big Navy act was to protect US interests during WWI.
@ 0:0:32 Another example would be the USN's Summer .vs. Gearing destroyers (since some describe Gearings as "long hull Summers"!)
Was an "as you bare" raking of the stern more dangerous to wooden ships than a carronade raking?
I remember that four pack (of cigarettes) a day men were considers chain smokers. Google says typical cigarette is smoked over 5 minutes. Four packs of 20 makes for 80 cigarettes. 400 minutes is 6 2/3 hours a day smoking. He refers to five of six packs a day makes for 10 hours of having a lit cigarette on hand.
My grandfather and his twin were semi chain smokers. One would have a lit cigarette, as his went out the other would pull out a pack to light up. I never saw both smoking at the same time, but one or the other usually had a lit cigarette on hand.
They not be particularly large Bavarians but I had no idea that compasses had Bavarians. Percentage wise the Bavarian is one arbitrary example..usually they point north. Accounts for Bavarians. Bayern.
One then asks in reference to this, hand waving the issue of knowing where to look, could one reset the magnetic fuse to new normal of the operational area in question?
And a 2nd (and I believe completely unintentional movie reference) 2:11:15 - the maths class in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, when the teacher was trying to explain percentages to Charlie
2:58:11 I presume that's USS Colorado in the next berth over, behind Warspite?
Is there any music or written notation pertaining to the drums aboard Mary Rose or trumpet music? Musical script had some development yet but I didn’t know if extant examples still existed and what these drums would have communicated. I’ll keep asking every video.
Back in the Middle Ages drum patterns were not typically notated, unless the drum formed part of a larger ensemble. Solo drum patterns are believed to be simple step-keepers or time keepers (subtle difference, step-keeping for keeping an army together, time-keeping for keeping other musicians in-time(ish)). Basically the new drummer would be drilled by a more senior drummer to keep the correct pace and pattern, and that pattern would be very simple. One of the more common, but still quite rare, drum notation employed strokes and dots, all on one "line" thus "///...///" would be three regular beats, wait three "beats", then another three beats.
Trumpets - here a lot of fun can be had. There were several different notations around, some would just indicate the relative duration and pitch of a note, while others were more like modern notation. Over the years people have translated and transcribed from these "interesting" notations. Over the years I have sung(?) in a couple of Medieval recreation choirs, one of the many hurdles to be overcome is that you don't know where to pitch the first note, and thus what part-line you are looking at (and there can be over a dozen part-lines to pick from!!!), here one tends to look at the number of syllables in a given musical phrase and assume that the more syllables the higher the register of the voice (but that's only a general rule). The "good" thing for trumpets (and other fixed tuning instruments) is that the pitch is fixed and the range of notes is very limited.
Oh how easy it is to place a part when encountering modern notation........
@@18robsmith I love it. Thanks mate. Great explanation. I dunno will my wife let me marry you? Imagine tho the timbre across the sea as they are used on land. I’m curious not f particular notation but blasting a bass drum and snare seems more than a horn and I’m partial. I love my drums. Like not that we have notation but for land armies we know the cadences.
@@18robsmith into the archives….
@@18robsmith how many musician mates or musicians were on victory or anything within the scope of the channel. Et ca et cetera however although et cetera
Related to the question about old munitions:
At the end of WW2 the USN had over 100,000 20mm Oerlikons cannons reaching obsolescence. What happened to them? In Vietnam many small gunboats were equipped with aircraft 20mm cannons that required more maintenance. The old Oerlikons, requiring less maintenance, would have served the small craft better and there must have been 10’s of millions of rounds or ammunition stored somewhere at the end of 1945.
is here, gave you a 👍! My notifications are on. I am a subscriber. I have received notification of your video 🙂. Audio video is good.
Another factor that adds to the cost of operating an aircraft carrier is the cost, in both money and time, of training aircrew.
American "skip " bombing in the Pacific 40s?? Was it used before the bouncing bombs of the Brittish, or was it a seperate development?.
Another big butterfly effect of the USS Maine explosion is the Phillipines... Too many what-ifs but if it was not ceded to the US by Spain does it become truly independent, and either aligns with Japan (doubtful) or is invaded by Japan in the mid-1930's and they set up a much bigger military infrastructure than they could do after invading in 1941? That could make a Pacific war extremely hard on the US.
It also makes the preemptive strike on Pearl unnecessary (at least at that point), as the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia would not be attacking any US holdings. This in turn means the Americans don't get involved in the war in Europe at this point either, which has all sorts of interesting further butterflies (Torch, Italy landings, lend-lease, etc).
Japan might actually get their co-prosperity sphere….FUCK
Exactly. @@BleedingUranium
Has any navy tried to have a similar magazine to small arms magazines? Eg tube magazines or box magazines? And why could they not scale up ????
Isn't class more a matter of how the ships were ordered - especially in the of Royal Navy J.K,L M, N and O destroyers were all pretty much a muchness, except ordered as on going improvements.
steam and freedom of action - wasn't the over-riding consideration transforming to trying for the best visibility situation?
A new class is defined by planning, logistics and training. If planners will need to separate two similar ships because their capabilities diverge sufficiently to notice at a tactical or strategic planning level = new class.
If enough equipment is different that a bespoke spares and maintenance pipeline is required from other members of the same class = new class
If crew transferring from a supposed sister ship need retraining to operate the new ship = new class
Don't forget there are also political reasons to define something as a new class or improvement to an old class. I.e. congress (or treasury or whomever) might not be willing to fork over the money for a whole new class, but is more willing to pay for a "slight" re-design of an existing class
And if Maine hadn't blown up, then the US would not have acquired the Philippines, which means that the US would not have been directly in the way of Japan's southward expansion leading up to WWII. Would Japan have needed to attack the US, given that situation? If not, how would the US ever have been brought into WWII?
I do have a hard time to believe that an Essex class CV would have been as expensive to build as a NC class, or any contemporary BB for that matter ? An Iowa for example is often officially quoted to have costed 100 M $, but thats (supposedly) without the armour, armoury etc, witch is for some reason counted separatly, for a total of 200 - 225 M $. After all, large caliber guns, and armour steel tend to be very expensive.
Just googled costs for some WW2 warships
The battleship North Carolina cost $70 million
An Essex class carrier 68 to 78 million dollars, can’t say if the earlier or latter were cheaper/costlier
For comparison, Yamato cost around $75 million in Late 1930s US dollars (keeping in mind her construction began in 1937). Not sure if that includes the ammunition though.
@@bkjeong4302 Supposedly a Yamato did cost as much as 2,5 Shokakus, including the aircrafts !?
@@niclasjohansson4333
I’m not sure I can buy that actually TBH; maybe they got confused with displacement?
And at any rate not building the Yamatos doesn’t give you their displacements’ or costs’ worth of Shokakus because of infrastructure limitations.
@@bkjeong4302 Another example is Graf Zeppelin, it was basicly compleated after all, and did cost only half as much as Bismarck ! Even thou it had more powerful engines.....
00:51:53 Drach really has a blind spot about this. Japanese level bombers did score hits on Force Z and Houston. To say bc Mitchell did not prove aerial bombs could sink warships under operational circumstances he proved nothing is simply not true. By the time of Mitchell's test there were the facts of the rapid development of aircraft from literal kites to war machines, armoured tanks from imagination to battle winning tech, and there were people still alive who served on wooden war ships with masts and sails. The criticism that Mitchell wildly over claimed the effectiveness of his tests is a (probably justified) personal critique of Mitchell not a criticism of the implications of his tests.
I said level bombing hardly ever sank ships, occasionally hits were scored but the ratio of bombs dropped by level bombers to hits scored is massive compared to dive and torpedo bomber hit percentages.
Hi Drach and thanks for your attention to my quibble. However that wasn't my only critique. prior to 1903 aeroplanes where literally kites. In 1921 1000 lb bombs were invented to test dropping them on ships and in 1943 remote controlled glider bombs were deployed from high performance twin engine aircraft to sink ships. Anyone who viewed the 1921 tests and thought the case emphatically proved in favor of the big ships was sorely lacking in imagination. @@Drachinifel
Guns tended to be of certain calibre effectively are a result of tradition prime example 4.7 inch = 120 mm gun = 12 pdr (Smooth bore age of sail) 5.5 inch = 138 mm = 18 pdr. 6 inch =152 mm = 24 pdr. This continued into rifled calibre weapons but weights changed markedly 5.5 inch in British land service varried by type between separate charge weapons with 80 lb and 100 lb shells the naval Mk 1 was 82 lb. same with others but still tended to retain bore size - most likely down to very expensive lathing and boring machines - so 4.7 inch = 120 mm persisted well into 20th C in not only British service but -related service such as Italy and Japan (4.7 inch Elswick pattern in both cases but significantly the US use 4.7inch only on imported Spanish War emergency purchases) and 120 mm in France by tradition, not by related manufacturing. But Russia used French 120 mm designs and 4.7 inch Elswick in Army service.
You mention that a royal navy sailing 24 hours late would beat the french navy at a not battle of the nile at sea, but would the royal navy be likely to win this engagement? From what I understand, the battle of the nile went so poorly in large part because the french had very few sailors on board its ships, but had a superior fleet overall
In Spain, wee even call our destroyers frigates, legen says It because destroyer sounds too beligerant. And they are arleigh burke hulls under license, not even a Matter of weight, shape or intended use.
Most European nations seem to favor the frigate designation even if there isn’t any really substnatial difference in size and function between their frigate and American (or British, Russian, Chinese, Japanese) destroyers. I’ve been wondering about that for a while. Your theory makes a decent amount of sense, actually…
What was the maximum drepression of any ship of the line guns? ie could a ship of the line in any era depress their guns to negative degrees and if so , why??? No replies from walter boardus please?
@ 0:42:13 The RN 4.5 inch shells have been stated to be 4.45 inch in diameter. Is this a case of the Lands of the rifling being 4.45 inch and the groves 4.5 inch? Or just rounding from Metric ( based on bore or shell weight) to Imperial (bore)?
With reference to the signals question; I remember reading many years ago that Commonwealth / Restoration Commanders used to pass messages by listing chapter & verse from the Bible. (King James version).
The first John McCain (VADM) also died four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony ala Lee and two years before Mitscher. Pictures of him at the end show a very tired, worn-out person.
Instead of comparing the Sumner’s to the Fletcher’s how about the Gearing’s and the Sumner’s?
If Maine doesn’t explode, another big change is that the US never gets the Philippines; this not only affects things decades later but also means Japan has less of an excuse for annexing Korea, as the US was historically perfectly willing to throw Korea away in exchange for Japan letting them keep the Philippines.
For “failed classes” I would also include ships that were built for a mission that never existed or no longer existed by the time they entered service (looking at you, Alaska), or ships whose actual strategic value didn’t make up for the investment put into designing and building them (things like the various semidreadnoughts that wound up obsolete soon after or even before they entered service, or the end-gen battleships, which partially also fit the above category of “no mission”.)
I would say that this viewpoint and reasoning is very much made with hindsight as its primary argument. The Alaska technically had a mission for as long as any non-battleships existed since it essentially was a reimagining of the battlecruiser, the semi dreadnoughts were obsolete quite quickly but if you call them a failure then most early dreadnoughts are failures as well, and late predreads, and the very last battleships built still had a mission, surface combat and escort duties. Just because the US had a very good run of being able to throw carrier after carrier at the end of WW2 is more strategically circumstantial than anything else, gun ships were not obsolete up until second generation anti ship missiles came into service or maybe even later, there simply was no war for them to actually fight, by the same reasoning the entire cold war US carrier fleet has no mission since there was no navy for them to 1v1 for most of it.
@@domaxltv
I’d argue that hindsight is actually required to determine if a class of ships is a failure or not, because nobody intentionally goes about trying to build failed classes of ships; the only way we can determine if they were failures is by seeing if they can deliver on their intended goals and if those goals are strategically sensible. The York-class mentioned by Drach is a good example of this.
And the very last battleships didn’t really have a mission other ships couldn’t do better; surface combat (especially against the other capital ships they were supposed to deal with) was a thing of the past outside of unusual scenarios, and as carrier escorts AA and ASW capabilities were what were actually needed-sure, battleships could do AA but it’s an incredibly costly way to add more AA cover when alternatives existed, and they couldn’t handle ASW at all. As for shore bombardment, the majority of that in WWII was handled by old battleships or by subcapital units, further minimizing the need for fast battleship construction.
But then presumably the Philippines would’ve still been a Spanish colony, wouldn’t a Japanese attack put Franco in a very interesting position? If Spain enters -is forced into- the war on the Allies’ side, a lot more changes than that.
@@matehavlik4559
That does put Franco in an interesting position, but Japan might not view the Philippines as being a priority in this timeline depending on how powerful this alternative Spanish navy is (or bomb PH for that matter, with a much smaller USN), and head straight for the DEI.
@@matehavlik4559 It is an interesting question. After the US took the Philippines and Guam, Spain sold the rest of it's Pacific holdings, the balance of the Marianas, the Carolines, and a couple other bits to Germany. When WWI started, Japan, being allied with the UK, occupied the German colonies. After the war, the League of Nations gave Japan a mandate to hold all the former German colonies north of the equator. So, would Spain have held all of it's Pacific colonies until 1941, or sold everything, including the Philippines and Guam, to Germany? If Spain sold everything to Germany, then Japan would have held the Philippines and Guam in 1941.
Re....Graf Zeppelin.....I remember reading a fictional book where the Japanese bought the Graf Zeppelin, and as a bare bones carrier went to attack New York on December 6 1942 sadly it was over thirty years ago and I don't remember the title or author.
The question about how far downtime does a gun-armed capital ship have to go to be considered a final boss reminds me of various questions I’ve seen (on this channel and elsewhere) involving uptimers vs. Downtimers. Going from least one-sided to most one-sided:
- All Axis WWII fast battleships (plus the historical German force) vs. Historical British force at Jutland
- All WWII-era big-gun capital ships vs. combined British and German force at Jutland (this one was mine, as I assumed the sheer numerical disparity could allow some of the downtimers to survive this onslaught)
- Sovetsky Soyuz (don’t ask me how she’s afloat) vs. Japanese force at Tsushima
- Yamato (and 10 destroyers for escort) vs. Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima
- TF38/58 vs. Historical German force at Jutland
- Bismarck vs. 17/18th century ships of the line
- Dreadnought vs. Spanish Armada
- Yamato and Musashi vs. Spanish Armada
- the entire IJN circa early 1942 vs. Second Pacific Squadron at Tsushima
- Enterprise (CVN-65) plus historical American forces vs. Japanese Pearl Harbor force
- the current HMS Queen Elizabeth vs. Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar
- modern Greek missile frigate vs. Ottoman fleet at Lepanto
The spithead reviews are even more outlandish than the white fleet because the Royal Navy did this every single year
What's a raid boss?
The fact that the navy of all people didn't understand the geographic variances when designing the magnetic detonators baffles and infuriates me. The Royal Navy had extant publications on this exact topic in 1772. It implies a complete disconnect between the designers and engineers of the detonator and the navy itself, which at least in the American case we know was the case with the rampant denial and ignorant arrogance of those in charge.
Mitchell's tests took place in 1921 and 1923, and he had what he had to attempt to prove his theory. I personally do not like the man as he bombed striking American workers with tear gas. However, it is important to accurately represent the full implications of Mitchell's theory, which was that aerial attack would soon become the dominant factor in naval warfare. 20 years after the tests, Mitchell's theory was shown to be 100% correct. I don't think anything else about the man is relevant to this discourse.
I agree. Love or hate the man, his theories and practice in the interwar period put the US Navy on a naval aviation footing to be able to fight the Japanese and win the Pacific War. Drach is rarely off, but he seems to have a pretty bad anti-Mitchell bias. I can understand why. The British Empire was pretty pathetic in the Pacific War. It ended up being a Japanese/ US/ Anzac war, and the Brits played a very minor part.
Do I get to be the first comment when the video goes public?
Looking forward to the theme poll when its ready!
@ 1:09:55 much has been said/written about the Enigma machine being captured ??? In my Memory the original machine/design was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia in 1938/9 but was not believed by Military Intelligence(the truth is in the name)until a technician studied the machine, So either of these stories could be smoke and mirrors, As was Turin even after his death
Its a lot more complicated than that. First, Enigma machines varied widely. For example, there were commercial Enigma machines that companies could buy, which had the rotors but lacked the plugboards. Even within the military different versions of Enigma were used with the Navy's generally being the strongest.
The British bought one of those in the 1920s and would actually deceypt Italian Navy communications using commercial enigma machines during the Spanish Civil War.
The Poles would make the first real headway in breaking enigma, but that relied on poor German procedures which were soon improved.
The French, however, had a spy who got them Enigma manuals which they provided to the British and the Poles. Thr Poles would then build their own Enigma machine and develop means to crack Enigma. Over time there was an arms race as the Germans improved procedures and the Poles found a new way to crack them, eventually leading to the first Bombe but that method was soon made unfeasible by the Germans adding more rotors (they needed one Bomba for every rotor order).
Then Poland was evaded and their team moved to France and then to the UK in 1940. They had already been sharing all their work with both countries prior to the start of the war.
By then they relied almost entirely on poor operator procedures and cribs (for example a captured radio operator told them the most common word in virtually any communication was "eine", one) to break messages in a useful time period. And that provided the basis for Turing's work and eventually the US mass producing Turing's Bombes to complete the great international effort to crack Enigma.
Through all of this the German Navy consistently maintained better procedures and indrodced improved their machines more frequently.
The first captured Enigma machine in 1940 provided confirmation of various mechanical aspects that had been updated as well as including code books, procedures manuals, and messages in both clear and cypher text which enabled them to understand all of how the Enigma was used. Other captures in 1941 and 1942 were similarly useful, not so much for the machine but for the other materials, either code booka to directly decrypt messages in the short term or to understand procedures that would facilitate cracking codes long term. In particular captured materials from U-559 provided the information needed to crack the four rotor enigma.
With respect to a ship heeling over, isn't load (e.g. fuel) also a factor?
Level bombing as an anti-ship tactic. I guess the RAF did not quite catch on to this falsity in Billy Mitchel's tests. Seems that they spent a lot of sorties on Tirpitz and other ships. As for attacking a ship not underway and incapable of mounting a signifigant AA defense, I guess the Japanese also did not realize Mitchel's folly that such a situation would never occur or else why attack Pearl Harbor. British either else why go into Taranto.
Mitchels hands were tied. No dive bombers, no torpedo bombers. He knew how hard level bombing would be to hit a moving ship, he also knew that to level bomb a ship and actually have a chance of hitting it the planes would have to be flying at mast top level where they would be slaughtered. But he had to get the PTB off their duffs to realize that ships could indeed be damaged by air power.
F3 for the win!!!!
I've always considered F3 to be a rather brilliant design, that the Royal Navy would've been wise to adopt instead of O3.
I think you missed one, if the Spanish American War did not happen, the U.S. would not have had the Philippines, so no Macarthur there, and the U.S. - Japan naval battles there wouldn't have occurred.
new dock !
هل ترى تلك المدافع على هذه البارجة القديمة ، ليس لدينا مثلها ، لماذا ؟! اسأل من تعمل عندهم وتحرسهم
Algorithm Engagement Comment.
I have to say this so that the algorithm will share this video with more people!
Would a Naval conversion of the Fw-190 been better than the Me-109? (Wider landing gear, lower wing loading, and even more firepower...) Which of course also raises the question of: Willy Messerschmitt's connections)
The FW-190's airfeame and landing gear were also sturdier as demonstrated by their rough field performance on the Eastern Front.
Willi did indeed have more than enough boot polish on his tongue, though.
@@mbryson2899 I think you're confusing brown boot polish with what (figuratively) was on Willie's tongue!!! And his lips!!!!!!
Although the naval budget circa 1876 is basically nothing the US has a large occupation army in the former CSA states for reconstruction at this time so a land invasion of Canada isn't entirely out of the cards although the US would largely be using leftover Civil War surplus instead of cutting edge hardware.
If a war didn't break out until 1877 the US demobilizes the reconstruction troops so puny army but 1876 the reconstruction troops could be marched North
I’d love to know what the sergeant is thinking while the officers inspects the Royal Marines in the photo at 02:21:19 illustrating that question. He’s looking off to the side with a funny facial expression.
2:30 "Try saying That Six Times Quickly" ... That, six times quickly .. what's the big deal?