Drach's F.A.Q. - Just what are those lines on battleships?
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00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:28 - What are those horizontal Lines on WW1 era ships?
00:04:50 - Why not use a HEAT/HESH round against a battleship?
00:09:08 - What is 'calibre' when talking about warships?
00:12:34 - What are knots and nautical miles?
00:14:55 - Why do WW1 battleships have large clocks on their masts that only go to "10"?
00:16:38 - Why en-echelon turrets?
00:19:48 - What are the different generations of battleship armor?
00:23:30 - What is this odd torpedo shaped object sitting on my battleship?
00:25:15 - Torpedo boats/missile boats/Jeune Ecole/Asymetric Warfare at sea?
00:28:30 - Why don't we bring back battleships/armour?
00:32:22 - What is super firing turret?
00:35:35 - Why do you use ship prefixes for navies which historically did not use them?
00:45:14 - What is the era the channel covers and why do you stop where you do?
00:52:23 - Will you/Are you/When are you going to do (Ship name/thing)?
00:57:30 - What is your schedule and how do videos come out?
Pinned post for Q&A :)
I have a question. Why was it so hard for individual ships in a class of cruisers to become famous and well known. Whenever an individual cruiser does something amazing, they go completely unrecognized for their feats, and their achievements are just attributed to their ship class as a whole? For two examples, you often see people talk about how "the New Orleans class cruisers are so cool" or "the Takao class is so cool", but you never hear people say "I love how USS San Francisco helped to sink the battlecruiser Hiei during the battle of Guadalcanal" or "I love how IJN Chokai led the most devastating naval defeat in US history". Why is that? Why was it so hard for cruisers to distinguish themselves from the other ships of their class?
Thoughts on the anthropomorphization of ships (the personifying of ships as human with human traits) and the proud naval tradition of considering ships "she" as opposed to "it?" It seems that the tendency to do so goes as far back as written records exist and probably even further back than that.
Question on the heat/ hesh/ jet rounds. Why didn't they use them on destroyers? They're pretty useless against battleships, but these shells would give them a useful punch against battleships. The range they could possibly get in would give them an accuracy advantage which means they could target the turrets possibly knock it out.
Yes, Drachinifel, things were definitely of their time. And totally impossible to get in their mindset. Historians try and understand, and you are one of the best.
Standard UK “Residential” speed limit (unmarked by repeater signs) is often now 20mph Drach. So the Battleship captain could be fined 150% of his income and get 6 points on its licence. Possibly even banned if this occurs over multiple streets. You should pay care and attention to this before next taking your battleship out.
Hey Drach a small correction. KDM " Den Kongelige Danske Marine" does not mean "his/hers danish majesty ship" (that's just our own, translation for international use) it means "The Royal Danish Navy". -That's because it is the kingdom (the state) who owns the ship, not the monarch.- However in the document about the appointment of the first chief of the navy, the ships are referred as "the majesty's ships"
Was going to make the same correction, guess I don't have to now.
There is nothing wrong with using initials instead of using all the words spoken out . Please already...... Great job Drach
Unless the I missed something, I was always under the impression that the state and Monarch and not separate entities but are one and the same and thus why things are called His/Her Majesty's Air Force, Navy, Army, etc
@@davidbatinich1528 What? I didn't write anything about Drach couldn't use prefixes, or couldn't use the international danish prefix. I pointed out a translation error.
@@ParagonRex The state and monarch are considered two separate entities. The monarch is the head of state, not the state. But I did make a mistake. In the document about the appointment of the first chief of the navy, the ships are referred to as "the majesty's ships"
I dearly love your refusal to engage in modern politics, it gives a lovely breath of fresh air compared to most channels, especially historical channels. It’s awesome.
When you were explaining about, "knots", you said that, "in the old days they would chuck a log or other floaty bits . . .". I got the mental snapshot of the American comedic actor Don Knotts being thrown overboard with a rope around his waist to measure the ship's speed.
Crewman: "We're at six Knotts', Captain."
Okay, THIS one cracked me up. Thank you.
"Speed trial" may be the worse sentence that sailor could hear...
@@bolasdefraile Especially stokers and other members of the Black Gang.
47:28
"'End parliament,' I wish"
Still one of my favorite Drach-isms
As a former US Navy nuke, I would love to see you do a video on Admiral Rickover. However, I am aware that, while his career started during the period that this channel covers, most of his accomplishments occurred after said time period.
@Fluesterwitz indeed as he butted heads with just about everyone. Don’t get me wrong, his attitude is why the Navy has an unparalleled safety record and reputation in regards to nuclear power, but he never played any political games. In fact, not playing one such game ended his career. Read up on his fight (ended up being right in the end) with Electric Boat.
@Fluesterwitz There is no keeping out of politics in life sadly, from if a lamp post is installed near your bedroom window, to how many people are allowed on an airplane, to if dangerous train cargo is allowed through your town without requiring extra safety precautions... you get my point, life is politics. One can try to ignore this fact, but everything we do even breathing (if air is clean or full of horrible pollution) is based upon politics. I wish this wasn't the case but it is. Politics from our circles of friends to who our leaders are, we are surrounded by it.
@@plasmaburndeath well that's depressing. Thanks for that
@@sawspitfire422 *attempt two on this reply I hate the Back button on MICE* - I completely understand Spitfire, this topic is just behind that whole "You don't really have freewill due to physics" thing... - that all our understanding and possible computations even in our brains, is all based upon the outcomes of all prior physics and thus our responses are limited and also based upon same forces. So because of that I try to give people better inputs so they might have the ability to have slightly better outcomes in their lives.
:)
My late Father was career Navy in the submarine force (both Pacific and Atlantic) during the mid to late Cold War years (70s to early 90s). As a dependent I remember hearing conversations about Admiral Rickover. Especially when our family was deployed to Groton.
As a regular viewer for many years (and educated about naval history almost solely through this channel), it was fun to pause at every question and try to answer it myself first. Turns out your videos imparted a lot of knowledge. 😀 Thank you, professor Drach! 🥂
I feel this way about Forgotten Weapons, too! A few years ago I knew nothing about firearms, but now I find it fun to see if I can identify the operating system from just looking at the outside of the gun in question.
Having served as an officer of the deck on all four of the Iowa class, I would like to point out that all four of the ships achieved 35+ knots as it was recorded, on their trials. During my time on board, Wisconsin and Iowa, speed tests were performed, and we easily exceeded 35, but terminated the exercise so as not to stress 1940 vintage components.
I wish I had met you when the ships were in commission, I was on the NGFS recert. Team , before they were recommission.
"Right, kiddies. Sit around, Drach's Academy is about to begin. Yes, there will be a test on the subjects covered."
Cover the basics, make people interested.
Great starter video, Drach.
Earliest shop covered “Floaty Log with Spear, better with Bow”...I remember that video.
LOL .... just the thought of seeing an Iowa-class battleship barreling down the street of a residential area while breaking the speed limit is marvelous.
Joe Friday: "6:33 pm. We drove on Santa Monica Boulevard when we saw the USS Iowa making 32 knots in a 30 zone, driving toward Long Beach."
Ben Romero: "Is she on the hot sheet, Joe?"
Friday: "Yeah, she's hot, all right..." (lights a Fatima cigarette.)
Romero: (waves arm outside window, signaling Iowa past unit 1K80) (puffs his own Fatima) "Yep..."
Drach, a small correction. The German navy is no longer called the Bundesmarine. Since 1995, the name has been changed to „Deutsche Marine“ ( German Navy).
The reason: from 1949-1990, there were two German navies, the East German „Volksmarine“ ( people’s navy) and the west German Bundesmarine (Federation Navy, since Germany is a Federal Republic ). Both were German navies, making it difficult to understand which one you were talking about. After reunification it took a few years to integrate both navies into one. Officially, that process was finished in 1995, and, since then, the German Navy is called “Deutsche Marine”, since there is only one left.
Indeed, but I will note a lot of people, even active-duty D-Marine personnel, still informally call it the Bundesmarine because it goes with the continuance of the term Bundeswehr for the whole of the German military. So far as I know, the only service that doesn't regularly get prefixed with "bundes" in informal conversation is the Luftwaffe, probably because saying Bundesluftwaffe is more of a mouthful than even Germans want to deal with.
@@genericpersonx333 I'd guess the reason for the Luftwaffe never getting that is because there is nothing else that has a name that is somewhat close. For example one might use the term handelsmarine - Merchant navy (read that in a few books that I can't remember the titles of - I love my adhd brain...) but nobody would ever use the term handelsluftwaffe because the term includes the word Waffe (weapon) so the military part is already included xD
But that's beyond the scope of this channel.
Pish Posh I say!!!!...They need to bring back the KriegsMarine. much better name😄
@A'den Kyramud its quite funny that during WW2, the Germans used their own, very special vocabulary to describe enemy forces, for example calling the RAF the "English Luftwaffe" or the Red Army the "Soviet Wehrmacht"
This proves it….Drach has even more answers than we have questions🤓
Concerning the question of caliber and the uncertainty of the efficacy of barrel length determining performance...
HMS Warspite, with her excellent 15"/42 guns, and KMS Scharnhorst, with her 11"/54.5 guns, share the record for longest hit by a battleship at ~26,000 yards. While there's no doubt that the 15" shell from the Grand Old Lady had more authority than Scharnhorst's 11" shell, Glorious got just as sunk and Giulio Cesare was mission killed for the rest of Italy's war. If the German gun wasn't as long as it was, I doubt it could have reached out as far as a 15"/42, but both showed accuracy unmatched by any other battleship.
Hey Drachinifel, Thank you for the HOURS of enjoyment!! Todd Edeker, MSgt(r) USAF. RAF Feltwell & RAF Lakenheath 1992-1999…. A big salute to my British Cousin in your military services!! Miss you ALL!!
0:25:30 The Jeune Ecole always reminds me of Moneyball in baseball.
One team found a way to build a roster on a low budget that could compete with the big budget teams by finding undervalue players through deep statistical analysis instead of the traditional scouting that was being done. And it worked great. For a few seasons.
Then some big budget teams, seeing their success, started doing the same statistical analysis and paying more for the formerly undervalued players and this was highly successful for them.
Pretty soon everybody was doing the same stuff and we effectively ended up back where things were before Moneyball was implemented, just with statistcal analysis replacing many traditional scouting ideas.
Moneyball wasn’t the most honest movie. The As did hate paying guys but that had a lot to do with having a cheap owner. The reason they won those divisional titles had less to do with a couple mediocre from a converted catcher & more to do with their three 18-20 game winning pitchers & their steroid-fueled infield with included a SS putting up MVP numbers in the traditional counting stats.
Bean does hunt statistical inefficiencies like a dog but he also did a lot of traditional scouting.
Same happened in basketball
It's almost as if people didn't know what they were doing before hey learned about statistics and once everyone figured it out it went back to the status quo.
Great analogy.
In the book, Bean actually says this. That he's happy the other owners/GM's in the league think his ideas are crazy. Because it gives him more time to operate. He knew once someone with money showed up the "free ride" was over. Once the baseball market figured out the actual worth of the players he was targeting (and more specifically what he was looking for) he wouldn't be able to afford them any more.
You can see the same kind of thing in the oil extraction markets in the US. Small producers started fracking while the major US oil companies didn't think it would be a useful or worthwhile investment. So lots of shale land was leased cheap by these small guys, once the tech was proven, it got real expensive in shale plays real quick.
On question #4: @12:34 you tossed around a lot of numbers and I feel that may have been a bit confusing. Let me try to show you how we do it in the navy (US). A land/statute mile is 5280 and that's a pain to remember, but a nautical mile is 6000 feet (we don't care about the little bit extra). 6000 feet or 2000 yards. Which does correspond to one minute of latitude. Also one minute of longitude at the equator and two minutes at 45 degrees north. This is very handy for snap estimates and rule of thumb stuff. I hope that helps someone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile
Wait... So freedom units ARE a pain in the arse and round numbers like say metric are better?! 😁
I am just messing btw. Friendly banter is all 🤗
@@robertkelley3437 thanks for the link, brother. Next time the captain snaps out, "time and distance to point Delta?" I'll pass him the link and tell him to figure it out.
@@MoA-Reload... lol a system by and for ppl who can only count to ten is a lot easier to remember. BTW, how is the Br'ish space program going?
@@weedwacker1716 You say that as if NASA doesn't use Metric, like most american industries and government works do. I worked in a metal shop for years. Everything, every plan, blueprint, design guide, was in Metric. It's *objectively* better to use for measurements. Our DOD files were sent to us in metric, when we got government contracts.
One of the things I enjoy about how you run your 'channel' is that you've establish fairly firm boundaries and then keep to them. Many of us would do well to heed such discipline to our efforts.
Thank you so much for your videos, they helped me through my cancer operations last May and will help me through my open heart surgery this coming week. My father served on the USS Pensacola, and the very famous USS Enterprise in WW2 in the Pacific.
Godspeed and calm seas and whatever you do ! ❤️
See ya next week...
Best of luck, make sure to stick around to keep watching!
Small correction - in Germany, the Bundesmarine ceased to exist when the reunification happened. Nowadays the official name is "Deutsche Marine" (although many Germans are unaware of this name change and I personally prefer the older name)
When was reunification? It seems a long time ago.
@@myparceltape1169 1990
The discussion of prefixes brings to mind the British battle cruiser York, and the German battle cruiser Yorck ;)
Always wondered what those were for, the booms for torpedo nets. Learn something new every day...lol. 👍
A giant HEAT round doesn't make sense, but a small HEAT round in the otherwise dead-space under the aerodynamic cap should act as a nice pilot drill for the main AP round behind it. To me, it could elevate the armor penetration of a 12" round up to that of 15, 10 up to 12, 8 up to 10, etc. If it is something that occurred to me, then I would guess that it also occurred to others during WWII. But then again, like the torpedo nets, what seems like a good idea on paper might not be as good in practice. Still curious if someone did look at the feasability of a duplex-type shell.
A classic Fun Friday video was Drach's video on Ship's Cats
10:05 I love the idea of someone talking about 66 feet caliber guns.
I thing there is a movie about it. Star wars.
Have you ever done a show on "The Court of Neptune" (crossing the equator ceremony?) That would be a fun one!
tsk what happens at the court of neptune is for the eyes and ears of those pressent only :P
I have my grandfather's certificate, signed by the captain of the USS Nevada, from his first equator crossing. It's the first page of his leather bound cruise album, featuring a hand-sown representation of the battleship on the cover. It's one of my favorite mementos of a dear old fellow that I still miss every day of my life. 😢
A suggestion for 2 future battles (from remote past): the so-called "Guerra di Chioggia" and the battle of Lepanto.
Pls continue the ironclad series! The first two parts was very VERY interesting. But i wouldn't wonder if this series is difficult to produce:)
This is a great FAQ video, Drach. Put it somewhere where it will always be visible on your main page. Oh, and Drydocks are *1-hour* videos? Bwa ha ha ha!!! 🤣
I have a question. Why was it so hard for individual ships in a class of cruisers to become famous and well known. Whenever an individual cruiser does something amazing, they go completely unrecognized for their feats, and their achievements are just attributed to their ship class as a whole? For two examples, you often see people talk about how "the New Orleans class cruisers are so cool" or "the Takao class is so cool", but you never hear people say "I love how USS San Francisco helped to sink the battlecruiser Hiei during the battle of Guadalcanal" or "I love how IJN Chokai led the most devastating naval defeat in US history". Why is that? Why was it so hard for cruisers to distinguish themselves from the other ships of their class?
I think you've answered your own question. In all your examples the cruisers either helped or lead an attack rather than being seen as solely responsible, if you compare this to Warspite sank a bunch of destroyers at Narvik or Washington sank Kirishima more emphasis is put on the event and the ship involved is just seen as a side note
"Welter Weights" [ cruisers] don't get the attention that "Heavy Weights" [ battle wagons] attract, the oddity is welter weight boxing matches are often more exiting
Johnston fighting way out of weight class should be a common story told to children
USS Indianapolis *exists*
Oh, that's easy.
Cruisers are typically built in relatively large numbers, whereas capital ships are built in relatively fewer numbers because of their far greater size and cost.
With each class of battleships/battlecruisers consisting of something like 2-4 vessels, and each class of cruiser consisting of something like 6-12 vessels, and capital ships in general being far less numerous than the smaller vessels, it's simply easier to keep track of the big battlewagons than it is to remember all of the small fry.
Plus they had much bigger crews, so more people would know somebody who was on "Battleship A" than somebody on "Cruiser A", so if either of the two ships did something, the battleship's feats would inherently become more well-known due to more people being involved in the event and sharing their stories with the world afterwards.
Hood's a great example; she was absolutely enormous for her time, and she was the only Admiral-class battlecruiser/fast battleship to be completed. Consequently, she was immediately recognizable wherever she went, and once she blew up, her name was already sufficiently well-known to the general public that her demise only added to her mythos.
Same with Bismarck and Tirpitz; germany only had three battleships when bismarck set out (no, the pre-WWI ships don't count), so... you know, it was a big deal when 1/3 of the german battlefleet just ceased to exist over the course of a few days without the german government even being informed about the operation until after the ship had already sailed.
Tirpitz, once she entered service, again put the german battlefleet at 3 vessels... and then she went up to Norge and just sat there. Menacingly. For several years. And everybody was just terrified of her because she *MIGHT* have done something absolutely amazing and /or terriying at any moment.
Cruisers did stuff all the time, but there were always more of them which made them individually less recognizable, and they had fewer people aboard with fewer relatives at home, and and so on and so forth.
And when they did show up on a friendly visit, the reaction amongst the average citizen might at first be "damn, that thing looks awesome", but it will eventually morph into "wait, if *that* was a 10'000-tonne warship, what in the seven hells does a 35'000-tonne warship look like?".
Cruisers just can't win here.
As a suggestion to your already long list, you will probably be interested in doing a video about Brazilian Navy (Rear) Admiral Custódio de Mello, an ancestor of mine, and the Revolta da Armada. I don't know how much in terms of English language material is available but I think it is a very interesting topic.
I keep tuning in, hoping that someday you'll do an in depth video about Operation Crossroads and the history of the ships involved (both actively supporting the tests and passively as targets), but until that day I guess I'll have to content myself with an unparalleled plethora of other naval history.
Several of the "5" Minute Guides end with the ship suffering the indignity of ending their days there. Some that sank in the lagoon are diveable now.
Drach your explanation of the cut off date for your channel,,,is felt the same way. Thanks for your work & bringing us entertainment!!!
Idea for future Wednesday videos :
The 250th Anniversary of the American war of independence is coming up. During that war there were several major naval battles between France and Britain (also other states). The 250th anniversary of a naval battle would make a good video of the week.
Personal preference are battles where the wind shifted as I find it harder to follow the action in those battles as I’m a non-sailor
2:40 That German Battlecruiser is SMS Goeben, by the way. Seen here leaving Germany for the last time heading into the Mediterranian to become the longest serving battlecruiser of them all.
A couple of these I knew only a little about.
But the echelon turret answer I was UTTERLY, clueless about.
I thought they were just poorly designed or the navies were worried that superimposed turrets would damage the lower turrets too much.
Thank you for this video.
☮
The ships shown in the remarkable closing image are five of the six large WW1 British monitors. They were used for bombarding German coastal positions in Belgium. The two nearest ships are, it looks like, HMS General Craufurd and HMS Sir John Moore. The others would be the Marshal Soult, Erebus and Terror.
Monitor designs are so interesting. During the early 1920ies, the Germans drew up plans for 10.000 ton monitor-like battleships armed with four 380mm guns, using the same twin turrets as those carried by the Bayern-class.
I love these! Sort of apocalyptic things. Can make a no man's land anywhere within range. Also it's have been neat to serve on one off Zeebrugge or such. Torpedo proof and you get to fire that thing off.
Very happy that your channel stays away from modern conflicts. Though I don't or wouldn't mind interviews of people that are experts on modern equipment. Or people that have served on modern ships just wanting to talk about their service.
I am more and more "flashed" by this channel. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! A lot of questions I "carried around" with me for a long time are answered by this clip and others. Gold mine!!! Tank you!!
As a relative neophyte to the naval history world, the unofficial prefixes for ship names are greatly appreciated.
What a lovely video. It's great to see that you take care of new viewers. You could just send them to old videos where you explain things in much more detail. But instead you make video like this where people feel seen/heard and are much more encouraged to learn more.
Great job, love you, please don't stop :D
I look forward to your series on the various classes of trireme used in the Peloponnesian War.
Thanks for the torp net answer, being a war history lover of all 3 major states of being ( ground, naval, aerial) when I was younger and first got into naval history I always wondered what they were...
Drach has ruined the answer I often give to people who ask what they were... They are oars, because ships in that period often ran out of coal and they had to have back up propulsion. I'm not sure if anyone believed me though.
There is a complication in that the Austro-Hungarian navy (such as it was) used the same prefix SMS for their ships for the same reason.
Drach is the hardest working creator on TH-cam.
I just watched this video, drach, and I wanted to tell you that I took the North harbor tour in San Diego a couple of months ago and we passed by some of the submarine pens and they are still using torpedo nutting based on booms and towed into place by Little harbor craft to protect the boomers and attack subs there. Thanks for the information on the torpedo booms on. I had always wondered about them
Huge props to you for not using Squarespaces's standard script but instead showing a real example. Well done.
Edit: Yes, my ears were bleeding a bit when you tried to spell out SMS. That 'ä' is a similar to the 'e' in let's say tether.
The Japanese are also reusing ship names but many of those would be outside your scope.
Do you think you can exhaust you backlog in your lifetime?
Not sure if you already did but have you considered the naval part of the Imjin War? And already answered. ;) If you do it, try to get the Japanese side too.
Just a quick shoutout to HypoHystericalHistory who does videos about modern naval (and other) warfare with Drach levels of detail and knowledge.
46:45 Time travelling Drachinifel arrives al 1950. Orders full stop, drops anchor, raises Mike flag, and orders rum drinks with little colored umbrellas for all the crew.
Thanks for your explanation at 02:28. Often wondered about those torpedo nets, which I didn't know were torpedo nets!
I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. There was a large model in the library's entrance lobby of the USS Fargo. I believe she was a light cruiser. Would love to see a short video on her history.
USS Fargo would be good for a "5 Minute Guide".
Exemplary ! that's all I can say about Your answers this episode , it answered questions I hadn't even thought about in regards to this channel , particularly Your understandable reluctance to venture into more modern warships , but also the so real but equally understandable dislike of political matters & politicians in general that many of us share simply because of their calibre or lack of it ( pun intended) and for the divisive nature of politics in general . Thanks Drach , please Never Change what You do .
When I tour modern museums, I have fun speculating on what went into the blank panels on missile fire control displays and air defense radar exhibits. You've recently toured museum battleships that had some of their classified equipment either removed or securely locked up out of public view.
FAQs is a brilliant idea.
And now we will be a
have to endure the responses to questions being "check the FAQ" or some.derivation of same. Usually 2 or 3.times per offending question to the point where it becomes simpler and faster to just answer the bloody thing. No hate, just seen it happen over and over again.
🤣 🤣🤣
Reinforcing the answer to the second question: the first time I encountered a naval shell was one of the few times my jaw literally dropped in astonishment. Many years ago I was fortunate enough to visit Ypres, Belgium. A friend of my father's had an interesting table in his foyer. What was that, teenage me inquired. The casing of a WWI battleship shell. Insert cartoonish eyepopping and mouthdropping here.
What a great idea for a video! I'm sure there are plenty more commonly asked questions that would warrent a video(s). Top work, Drach!
I know they're a little outside the general time period the channel covers, but I would enjoy some videos about the US's nuclear-powered cruisers. Particularly the early ones like the Long Beach, Bainbridge, and Truxtun.
thank you very much for this! it answered a few questions i also had, and even though i often went "ah, i assumed so" it's nice to know for sure!
Thanks Drach as always, you did answer 3 questions that I've wondered about!
Drach, great posting! As someone from the USA loved the trio of ships and I hope others can appreciate the same prospective between an Iowa class, WW2 CA and DD.
Also, I would love to see the story of the Korean admiral, but more importantly, a Falkland Wars deep dive. Preferably with some live veteran Naval historians/combatants. And I know there has been some vids with the Argentine veterans but however you could do it I think would be a wonderful post covered era "project". Thanks!
Thank you for making your videos and sharing them with us all, I have learned so much and have had such fun doing so, top marks great work 👍
I'd love a history of sail technology. There's got to be quite a bunch of change in the last 1000 years or so?
And all the domain specific terminology etc?
I love that there's sections. Incredibly useful!
Would love to see you do something on ships like the SS Borinquen which spent WWII operating as troop transports for the US military. The Borinquen is of particular interest because it carried my father to Iceland when the US entered the war. He was in a Heavy Engineering Unit and built bomber bases. I know the SS Borinquen started as a passenger liner 24 September 1930 for AWGI lines, was requisitioned for the war in 1941 and returned to private service in 1946. She was sold to several different cruise lines until she ran aground on the California coast during a storm in 1970, under the name La Jennelle. The last I heard, part of the wreck is still on the shore in California.
Nicely done enjoyed the Q&A format.
Your channel is becoming more and more my favorite to view. I enjoy your work and presentation of the information. Thank you for all your efforts.
The only two ships I would be interested in would be the William D Porter and the USS Olympia. And you've already done them. Thank you so much for all your videos, thumbs-up and have a nice day.
I've spoken to sailors who served on the Iowa class battleships in the 80s, and it seems pretty clear that they could go faster than 33 knots when they were kicked in the ass. My dad served on the Essex class carrier Shangri-La in the 60s and he told me they got her up to 38 kts during a drill one time. He said she couldn't keep it up for very long, and that there was damage to the ship from vibration, but she could do it in an emergency. So I believe the Iowa sailors' stories about those battleships and the general build quality of US Navy warships in the 1940s.
Just a suggestion from a regular viewer, but I think you should probably put these FAQs into a series of very short, very concise videos.
As much as I love longer videos like this, this will not help much with searching for a specific questions within your massive catalogue of videos.
I think it would be helpful to make short videos answering these questions individually, and also it might attract some viewers with shorter attention span, but I digress.
Agreed. I, myself, often pass over videos that I deem too long, or as I often say, "longer than my interest in the subject." While this doesn't include naval history for me personally, shorter videos might help keep others with less enthusiasm for naval matters in general than the likes of Drach and myself around the channel a bit longer. And who knows, the shorter videos may lead to increased interest in, and a newfound tolerance for, the longer videos. The decrease in attention span of modern audiences is a sad reality, but is nonetheless an actual reality that must be handled accordingly.
An excellent video. It answered many of the odd questions I had. Thank you.
I'd argue that the core principle of the Jeune Ecole was spectacularly successful: it's just that aircraft are smaller, cheaper and faster than small ships, so those are what has obsoleted the big heavily armoured targets.
Same could be said for missiles in the modern age, they guns as primay weapons obsolete because of ther longer range.
I've been an avid viewer of your content since back in the robo-voiceover era and I'm fairly certain I've watched every video at least once or more (Battle of Textl, the Jutland series, the journey of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, the voyage of the Great White Fleet to name just a few I watch/watched repeatedly), and based on my recollection of what you've shared about your personal life and background, you laid the foundation of your engineering credentials via the university route, correct? However, it's my recollection that re: naval history you don't have a university background, except perhaps tangentially as it relates to engineering.
·-----My Question! -----·
So, am I correct that you're credentials as a naval historian (which as far as I can tell are rather well respected in the field) have been earned/established by simply doing it and doing it damn well?
If so, that's absolutely über awesome and incredibly impressive and inspiring.
I really have been watching since the robo v/o days (under my MFDamien acct), so I'm amazed at where you are now; your channel has become one of, if not the most popular and respected TH-cam channels in the genre of naval history. It's really cool to see all the new navy & naval history related content/channels (the more the better!) many obviously drawing inspiration from your channel, and few sad, wanna Drach's. 😆🤦🏻♂️.
Engineering is a state of mind and a way of life.
Get things wrong and they break or just don't work.
You've got to be thorough and rigorous.
Perfect for a historian.
Trust me I'm an engineer!
Pretty much, I call myself a historian these days because very respected historians have called me one 😀
Something I love about battleships is that although most of these ships never got to fire their guns at an enemy, every piece of machinery, structure design and object has a purpose to be ready for absolutely any kind of situation
Remember what happened to the USS Arkansas/BB-33 on 25 July 1946? I was privileged to meet a crewman from that ship a few years ago at the Hill Aerospace Museum's Plane Talk. Battleships are compromises between firepower, protection, and mobility--and there are also communications, sensors, and computers since the days of sail. Modern warships can reach out a thousand miles or more with weapons that can affect an area miles across or have enough precision and maneuverability to hit a moving enemy warship. "Protection" includes camouflage paint (messes with sensors) and smoke--and the modern electronic gizmos. Electronic warfare at sea goes back at least to the First World War.
A modern line of battle ship fights under much different conditions than before with over the horizon being the new normal. Ships that see each other at sea are usually showing off.
11/10! For a really excellent effort.
Thank you so much for all that you do for free, I will always be grateful. Grazie Mille.
Hee, the picture in the bit about superfiring turrets, with the 5" guns pointed all over the place. The 16" would all be pointed in the same general direction, but the AA guns gotta cover a hemispherical bubble, so they would be at crazy angles as shown while the main guns did their thing. On point #12: Every ship the US Navy currently operates is "30+ knots", and anything with a nuclear reactor is probably rather a lot +, according to people who have served on them.
Suggested subject for future video - sinking of the Hospital Ship Centaur by a submarine of the IJN off Stradbroke Island (near Brisbane) on the East Coast of Australia.
Well, regarding reusing of names from the Kaiserliche Marine to the Kriegsmarine, the difference between SMS Scharnhorst/Gneisenau to WW2 S/G would be enough for most who know a bit about prefixes to know which ship is which. SMS prefix? Imperial era. No prefix? Post WW1 (apart from modern ships with FGS but you already mentioned that + not topic of this channel). So it can work without KMS/DKM plus it kind of sets a precedent where people may think, Germany used these during WW2.
Btw, Bundesmarine isn't used anymore since 1995, it is now Marine (since Germany only has one navy anyway) or internationally Deutsche Marine. Something I missed myself for a while
Thank you for a very informative presentation on warships.
Learned something in the first 90 seconds. Thanks for posting!
Great idea! I bet this is gonna save you a lot of time. I bet you've been just itching to get the ship's prefix subject settled.
Keep it up drach love every thing you do
On the torpedonets i have corect the use in WW-II. Merchant Ships did deploy torpedonets while underway! Booms and nets were fitted to a few ships in August 1941, and by the end of the Second World War they had been fitted to 700 ships. The nets did not protect the whole of a ship, but protected from 60 to 75 percent of each side. 21 ships so equipped were subject to torpedo attacks while the nets were deployed. 15 ships survived as the nets succeeded in protecting them. The other six were sunk because a torpedo either penetrated a net or hit an unprotected part of a ship.
Drach, you're the best man. Keep at it.
Great vid, hope it helps not only yourself but any who are new to your channel. If you pinned this or left a link to it on the page, my guess is it will slowly become one of the most watched videos. For me I have family who've served, had an enormous interest because of that and wanted to know more but nobody nor any documentary has ever covered things the way you do. Hell I thought they were rubber rafts, nope they're carly floats and you stand up in them. Who knew, anyway appreciate the knowledge you pass on and the way you do it (lil sarcasm never hurt anyone) Thanks a bunch.
I've been wondering this for a long time. Good job.
Thanks Drach great session.
Love all your videos. My Dad was on the USS BIRMINGHAM in WW2. When you did the video 3 Strikes and not out i was amazed, wish he would of been alive to watch it. He only mentioned small parts of it to me and didnt want to talk about it now i know why, must of been horrifying at times. He did say their favorite time was shore bombardment, gettin even!
I have listened to approximately 98% of your non Drydock videos. I am currently about 90 behind on those. Not bad for 18 or so months. Keep up the great work!
Weirdly I am at the opposite with mostly listening to drydocks and the series. I guess I am currently less interested in particular ships and more the strategic/operational/tactical reasoning.
It is more common when discussing naval weaponry to refer to barrel internal diameter as a bore measurement, with caliber virtually always referencing barrel length divided by bore diameter. Using caliber as a bore measurement term, is most commonly heard when describing man portable weapons.
Very enjoyable and instructive as always. I was a service warfare officer, but a ship driver, not a gunnery expert, but I do know that people confuse caliber vice calibers, enable guns, all of the time, particularly those familiar with land artillery.
My rule of thump is, when the word "Caliber" is used, its bore diameter.
While when its "Calibers" (Plural) is used, its barrel length.
It once took a bit of explaining from me to a former work college, what the difference between a North Carolina class and a Iowa class battleship was, in regards to their weapons outfit, as he initially couldn't understand that one had 16" 45 calibers and the other 16" 50 calibers main guns.
In his mindset he mistook the 50 calibers as the fifty caliber M2 machine gun. Which is a much smaller weapon than a 16" gun.
But hey, one shouldn't expect everybody to be a naval buff. 😊
I must say that the torpedo nets on ships looked pretty bad!!
Bad ? Trad bad or badass ?....Hadda ask.
🚬😎
The ship used to explain the torpedo nets for the first question is the SMS Moltke if anyone was wondering
This was genuinely and maybe unsurprisingly, entertaining.
The lines!
I'm looking for that answer for almost half a year now!
Best guess I has was some kind of streamlines.
Thakns mate 🙂
Those lines, young Drach, are sailors waiting to walk the plank rather than enduring long periods of seasickness, being shelled (wrong word for naval tiffs?), being scared or bored shitless the entire time, and then having to queue up for the bog because of crook cooks.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
I really needed to know this but had no idea how to reffer to "diagonal lines in battleships" effectively. Thank you!
On the question of battleships:
At one point I did a Nation RP game with some friends set in 2030. I was Germany, and I decided my best bet to actually make it anyplace was by going all in on European federation, but I knew I would need time for the R&D on carriers, and even then I might not be able to field as many carriers as the USA, or enough carriers to actually make a difference in naval power terms against hull-spam fleets like the Sino-Russian fleet. Therefore, I needed to get creative. What I came up with was, I think, pretty realistic. I had to work out quickfiring Railguns, with about half the range of your anti-ship missiles, as well as advanced fire-control and countermeasures to put my plan into action, and by then I figured 'Why not make it nuclear powered for good measure?' What I came up with was a huge, fast, nuclear-powered hull with two dual-amounted railgun turrets for shore bombardment or alternately oblitterating anything in the thousands of tons range that got too close, an advanced fire control suite something like the Israeli Iron Dome used to coordinate a ridiculous secondary armament of 30mm Orlakkans meant to light up the sky with enough tracer fire to, in small bursts for single missiles or in huge displays with turrets working in ones and twos on individual missiles, to shoot down or otherwise render inoperable the missiles being thrown against it such that the useless projectiles would ping off thick (by 21st century standards) armor. Theoretically these armaments could have been used against the odd Somalia pirate but it was deemed the picket ships were most likely to get to them first. This system of gun-counter-missile was meant to be strengthened by the fleet plan of coordinating both the positioning of ships and the general antimissile firestorm to be coordinated on the capital ship, or fleet centerpiece, adding greater warning times for incoming missiles and greater amounts of guns availible to defend against incoming missiles. The ship was also meant to act as essentially a Moskva-style missile barrage frigate on a much grander scale. For those who don't know the design philosophy behind the Russian *Moskva* the idea was to be able to shell out enough missiles to be able to overwhelm the missile defenses of a NATO carrier task group. What I will say is, while my knowledge of naval technology is limited, the Europa-Class Battleships were exquisite showcases of German, and later once I was able to manage a proper European Federation, European power. One of the people running the game, much more knowledgeable of weapons systems than I was, said on a NATO fleet demonstration exercise where the German contingent was selected to make up a large amount of the op-for in order to test conventional Carrier Battlegroup doctrine against a *Europa* and her picketing fleet, the *Europa* essentially had enough weapons systems and the capability to use them to take apart the NATO task force on even terms, huge flights of anti-air missiles decimating air groups as nothing could touch the *Europa* and only a few of her escorts took hits. Apparently the concerted anti-ship missile barrages wouldn't do too much until, given just slightly superior speed against the NATO task force, the railguns could begin to speak, against which there isn't a great counter aside from having one's own railguns. From there, as the numbers of pickets for the task force dwindled, it was supposed to have been an Op-for victory and a great feather in the German cap. They also saw great service against the Russians but that is a story for another time. Anyway, they seemed and still do seem to me like the most viable method of bringing back something battleship-adjacent, being a revival of 'the big ship with all the guns' albeit in a more gun-platform sense than the maneuver and broadside sense of the term we're used to in historical contexts.
I actually looked up what you meant by caliber the other day. I like this faqs vid