Pinned post for Q&A :) Head to brilliant.org/Drachinifel/ to get started for free with Brilliant s interactive lessons. The first 200 people will also get 20% off an annual membership.
In your Lion-class video you mentioned a “Large Lion” design around 1000ft long, displacing over 90,000 tons at combat load and intended to be invulnerable to all then-current weapons. How would this monstrosity stack up against the finalized Montana design?
Mabey a comparison of British Colonies/Commonwealth navies? Like Austalia, Canada , NZ, India and the like. What they contributed to the British Admiralty and why, any famous ships,strengths weaknesses ect.
Hi Drach, how would you rate Admiral Sturdee as a commander? And how different do you think things would have been if he was in command of the Battle Cruisers at Jutland?
As I have an old dreadnought rusting in the garage in the backyard, this video was very useful in approaching how to refit it. No LED light kits or spinner hubs for me, just good old fashioned increase gun elevation, convert from coal to Bunker C and slather on the deck armor.
I'm not sure this guy really has an old dreadnought, since he says it's both in the garage and the backyard. But if he does, I think spinners on the props and LEDs around the gun muzzles would look pretty cool. And hydraulics to make the barrels bounce up and down as you slowly cruise would be awesome.
@@mapmuncher5587 Well, I hope he doesn't live in one of those cities where they cite you for having nonrunning vehicles on the property. And if he gets it going, that big Confederate flag on the garage wall would look cool waving from the main mast.
I knew a gentleman, now deceased, who had served on USS Mississippi just before and during WWII. He described his ship as modernized on the outside but old on the inside. He then went on to describe the challenge of getting hot water (for bathing / washing) as a sailor. He compared this ship unfavorably (in terms of comfort for the common sailor) to the war-built ships he later served on.
I mean that is true even today, my Brother was an officer on USS Mitscher (DDG-57) and USS Truxtun (DDG-103) and boy oh boy, the things that an extra 15 years of wear and tear will do to a ship... Despite that he was significantly more fond of Mitscher than Truxtun.
@@MrNicoJac It's nothing really obvious. It's the smells, the dents and modifications that the crew has made over the years. little things that you didn't really notice until you end up on a different ship. An older ship just feels different to a newer one.
My dad served on uss iowa in the 80's, and worked in the distilling plant, he says the phrase they liked to use was " modernized from the main deck up "
Okay my day is saved. Some good distraction from all the bs in my life. Like all your stuff. Thanks for all that drach, you made a lot of terrible days much more enjoyable.
With respect to the modernized US ships it’s really a two part story. Prior to the outbreak of WWII we see the US taking advantage of the mass of material left over by all the cancellations driven by the Washington Treaty. Coal Burners get converted to Oil fuel and improved torpedo protection is definitely a significant goal with a lot of the older ships. Once the war starts the bulges being installed are not there primarily to improve torpedo protection but rather to add buoyancy to offset the mass of AA guns now being installed.
Thanks Drach If I'm going back to the 1930's to rebuild my Dreadnoughts I'm going to want to grab all my reference books but my preference is to actually grab Drach to come back with me. I can only imagine the fun he would have when turned loose with full knowledge, authority and hopefully finance's to refit to his hearts content. Maybe I'd better bring Lady Drach too, otherwise Drach would be sad. Yes Drach, just step into the big blue Police box, nothing to worry about, Honest!
You'd better bring a bunch of engineering/modeling computers (with software that you can use without logging in online) too, and some spare adaptors and batteries 😜 (also, some advanced medical books about antibiotics, and how they are pharmaceutically produced, would save many many more lives than... 'temporally borrowing' all US nuclear carriers)
My father repaired and refitted our old inter-war ocean liner, amongst others adding electro motors to the shafts. Now I have the vessel on private exhibition.
...Oh, I forgot to mention that it's a *ship yards' 1/87 scale model* (177 cm's) now exhibited in my living room.
Much eaelier than that, the ships with a full load of gunpowder also were prone to explode. For whatever the reason. Like the Maine, in Cuba. Also known as the USS Casus-Belli.
@@AnimeSunglasses I have an idea to propose a special that would detail Goeben/Sultan Yavuz and Breslau's actions in the Black Sea in WW1. Probably on Drach's list but it's a special I hope for soon.
I know it isn't the best rebuild or ship, but the Kongo-class rebuilds were quite an impressive undertaking. The sheer changes made are staggering. And the result was one of the most beautiful, in my opinion. While I do like the practical and utilitarian lines of the UK and US designs, the Kongo and Nagato class have this elegance I appreciate.
@@lafeelabriel while it's true war isn't a beauty contest, I'd argue that the purpose of a navy is twofold, to fight a war, and to provide a means of deterance and power projection. A function some modern ships really lack.. As much as some nations helicopter carriers may be practical, no one is particularly impressed by a warehouse placed on top of a destroyer hull.
@@overboss9599 Well looking good is never a bad thing, just as long as it doesn't hurt your ability to kick some and take some. ;) Also, absolutely agree with how piss poor post WW2 ship aestetics have (by and large) become.
my personal favorite is the Iowa class. I don't know what it is about the way the ships look but it just scratches my brain the right way. But I can definitely see why you like the look of the Kongo class.
With a few exceptions, I think the Japanese Navy in WW2 had the most asthetically pleasing ship designs afloat. They may not always have been the equal of their opponents in firepower or protection, but many of their ships were works of nautical art. The Italians had some very pretty ship designs as well; the US, British and German fleets have always struck me as more utilitarian in looks (although there are exceptions: Hood, Scharnhorst, and the (planned) Lexington CCs, for instance).
I do absolutely love stuff like this. Its niche stuff that basically no one but Drach covers. The Italian Dreadnoughts that were modernized are my favorites. They look absolutely fantastic and they were pretty competitive. But the US ones are almost not even the same ships anymore.
A friend of mine who unfortunately is no longer with us would have loved this he served on the Texas the most diverse of the Dreadnought and the only one still around.
I have always loved the looks of the post Pearl Harbor rebuilds of the Tennessee, California, and West Virginia. That South Dakota-like superstructure looks so cool.
I really like your docs, Drach - you cover complex and fascinating subjects in a serious manner without getting “cute” or dropping “humourous” snips and clips into the feed. There are several individuals whose “histories” I simply cannot stand to sit through as they think themselves so witty or cute that they clearly are being the “stars” of their production rather than the topics that they are ostensibly covering.
Another great one. Many excellent photos, as usual. Particularly liked the shots of the modernized West Virginia, in my opinion the winner hands down for "Best looking old ship after major refit". California and Tennessee got similar "Iowaesque" superstructure and secondary treatments and are close; but a childhood friend's father served on WV during the war and used to tell us stories; so she wins ;)
All of them look absolutely amazing, I really like the clean lines of the refit. Personally I prefer California and Tennessee, just because of the triple turret. In my opinion it looks a bit more proportional to the hull, can't beat personal history though.
@@kilianortmann9979 What I've wondered is this: First, rebuilding the California and West Virginia to that extent made sense because both had been sunk at Pearl Harbor. The Tennessee, on the other had, had very little damage at the attack, so why did she get that major rebuilding? If the war had continued into 1946 would the Maryland and eventually Colorado been rebuilt like the other three as well?
@@stuartaaron613 the Tennessee actually had a lot of fire damage but it didnt get any torpedo damage due to its location inboard on battleship row. So while not sunk it was heavily damaged
I agree. The West Virginia was by far the prettiest rebuild; even more so than the Cavours. Apparently she was regarded as even better at shore bombardment than the Iowas. Pity they couldn't add a few knots to her.
So my big takeaway from this is that dreadnought modernization is much like renovating your house. It's a lot of trouble if you want to do anything substantially different from what you've already got, and it would be much easier to start over if the building codes weren't so restrictive with regards to new construction.
56:10 - The Kongos were substantially lengthened in their final refit. I can see three options, extend the bow, lengthen their sterns or cut the ship in two, pull the parts apart and expand the middle of the citadel. How did the Japanese carryout the legthening?
I always wonder how much the Washington Naval Treaty allowed under the banner of "refit". Obviously you couldn't keep a single rivet and build a whole new ship around it, but where were the limits. Where in the game of Super Dreadnought Theseus was the line drawn? At some point you would be just taking the piss in regards to the battleship building holiday but at what point? If for example you cut the ship length ways and breadth, changed out the armour and torpedo defence system, up gunned the ship, ect. you'd end up with a very different ship. Ignoring the cost, what could you get way with?
I had never realised the Cavour's had a whole new bow section added on, i always kind of assumed it was just the original bow with a modified profile, and also I think the headline re-boring of the fore and aft guns and the removal of the central turret overshadow the extra length of bow section. The Italian's really did do an amazing job. There are times I look at the Before and After Cavour's and think if I didn't know they were the same ships, I wouldn't believe that they were!
The modernisation of battleships is a fascinating topic. Not only were there treaty restrictions, but some countries had rather...well...sad looking economies, so modernisation was looked upon as an excellent case of recycling!
Would love if some sort of identification could be put on your historical photo's. It would be really interesting to know the names of the ships and Dock yards shown.
Some of them do have the original annotations from the photographic section that took them, but most are hard to read due to the color used and the shorthand used at the time.
I have to express my sincere appreciation of the outstanding naval artwork you present here and, increasingly, in all of your videos. I took an art history course in college, wrote a term paper on the painting "The Wreck of the Medusa" by JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT, and very often watch your videos as if I'm taking a course in the history of naval art work.
@@jamesharding3459 Casemate is realy a wall of iron/stell with holes in it and guns sticking out of those holes, the guns are bolted on, or on carriages. The turret is a fully moving structure. So that would be a turret, just a bit lower then normal, well the thing with gun elevation came a lot later, so they got some (for today) strange locations for turrets earlier on.
Actually, since the casemate guns on the rebuilt Japanese BBs and CBs had an elevation of 30 degrees, they were given AA HE shells. And the British developed barrage directors for the casemate 6" guns for anti-torpedo bomber AA.
Like the mighty jingles says… “You can modernize these things all you want by rebuilding the superstructures, adding more aa guns, making the hull sleeker, adding torpedos bulges etc... But at the end of the day they’re still the old slow gas guzzling battlewagons that simply cost too much to operate, and were even more obsolete than the most modern fast battleships of the day, which even they were made obsolete by the aircraft carriers. In the early war the U.S. had to make a choice between the old battleships and the aircraft carriers, and wisely they chose the aircraft carriers.”
@@deeznoots6241 No I meant that the navy had to choose which ships to operate. The battleships were slightly more expensive to operate than the carriers, but yeah the carriers were almost equally as expensive. They had to choose between one or the other and wisely they choose the carriers that were the decisive weapon of the naval war.
@@stevenmoore4612 Then regressed by choosing not to cancel the Iowas: there were much, MUCH better options for carrier escorts. They had a chance not to make the same mistake everyone else had made and blew it.
@@bkjeong4302 And survive a Sovet missle onsualt what is a missle crusier going to do when out of AA missles engage them with pistols and rifles? Also Battleships have a huge advatage over carriers in one area... shore bombardment... One shell can't be more then $1K, a cruise missle is $1mil. And with China we best be putting these new fangled railguns or hybrid hyper long range shells to good use. By making new Super BBs to sail with the Super CVs as they don't have the armor, cheapness or frankly the range of what a modern 21st century battleship would have... Still though we should have keept the Iowas we had as a stop gap till we got their replacements... too late now though.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough And how is a battleship supposed to engage a missile cruiser when it’s not coming anywhere near its guns? And a missile strike with existing anti-ship missiles is going to mission-kill a battleship at minimum by tearing through the unarmoured superstructure, not to mention that people could just invent guided weapons systems that have AP capabilities (the Germans did, with the Fritz X). People keep bringing up how cheap a shell is compared to a missile and completely ignore that battleships cost a lot more to build and operate than most missile-equipped warships, negating that advantage.
I have come on holiday by mistake..... Managed to lodge myself in a pub with the internet and Drach releases a video with an engineering bent.... the day saved.
I think out of all the rebuilds the best where the Renown, QE class and West Virgina/Tennesee, all proved themselves in many combat operations following the refits, West Virgina still has the most impressive BB accuracy IMO becuase she hit first salvo and with every salvo after at Suriago Straight
@@mwnciboo It probably helps that the most accurate possible description of the Japanese taskforce at Surigao Strait is "fish in a barrel". It's hardly like WV was having to shoot maneuvering targets in rough seas is it?1
Has anybody else noticed how radically the superstructures changed on a lot of these ships were you started out with either a cage mask on the US battleships or maybe a tripod and then you got one of these crazy Tower Mats to house a more comfy bridge and have something sturdy enough to support the better fire control systems and later on radars? Look at the bridge structures that renown and warspite had as well as the Nelson Queen Anne's mansion style superstructures that the New Mexico class ended up with Also without rewriting the entire post you had the ginormous Pagoda style superstructures that the Japanese battleships had which on some of them when they think acted as a topside keel and prevented them from righting themselves on the way to the bottom when they were sunk(referencing something Robert Ballard said) Back to US battleships you had the rebuilt Tennessee class and the West Virginia which looked like mini South Dakota class battleships. Another thing that went away in terms of superstructure on a lot of ships was the heavy counting Tower the captains and the admirals didn't like being cooped up in those things even though there were a few instances where a shell or a bomb made its way into the bridge and capped the entire command crew (HMS Prince of Wales during the battle of the Denmark Strait) That's all I have attention deficit disorder so if I made any mistakes I ask nobody be too harsh
Thanks. That was very interesting. I was aware of some of it but not all. Probably the best investment in Torpedo Bulges was to _Saratoga_ ... There was actually a cartoon that was drawn where in a torpedo was headed towards the _Saratoga_ , a destroyer was racing to intercept the torpedo and an exaggerated illustration of the _Saratoga's_ Captain leaning out of the Bridge Yelling at the Destroyer _"I've got it!!!"_ ... American Naval Humor ... .
The only class of US Navy standard battleships to go through extensive modernization prior to Pearl Harbor was the New Mexico class. Completed by 1934 they were the most modern battleships in the USN until the arrival of the North Carolina class.
While I already have a subscription to Brilliant, and while it makes me sound rather pathetic, I can't tell you how happy I am and you have a sponsor! Yea! Also, you're intermissive commercial was done really well: ie. brief and to the point. I really wish other youtubers would follow your lead.
Drach, can you do a video on the observed effectiveness of armor in history? How many battleships or cruisers took hits from enemy shells and were saved by their armor?
You touched upon statistics and probabilities. Since naval gunnery seems to be a science unto itself, perhaps you could make an episode on to how the various nations navies performed at gunnery. Maybe something on range finders/computating equipment. Love your channel.
With the American battleship upgrades you forgot the single most important piece of kit, the ice cream factory. All those ice cream tubes take up a lot of weight, never mind the soda for floats, Hot fudge for sundaes, nuts, cherries and whipped cream. As you dig deeper, you can see how the weight piles on. Especially in the chief's and officers. Hehehe
I thought the Americans valued their ice cream because it could be traded for booze with British and Australian ships, although I can't believe that American ships were totally dry. Surely they must have had something to drink?
@@Dave_Sisson they did, believe me US sailors and soldiers primary skill set is finding booze in any situation. Plus the ice cream factory on board created the perfect bartering system. My understanding from my great uncle, who served aboard USS Missouri, is that there was an actual conversion ratio, for example a 5th of Scotch equaled X amount of Ice Cream. Same applied for cigarettes or tobacco. American cigarettes and tobacco being considered thek best available. The American soldiers, sailors and marines were rarely short of tobacco and coffee, so that was traded to their British allies for booze.
With the mention of the problems of improving the belt armour, I'm surprised you didn't mention that this was also against the clauses of the London treaty
You'r awesome Drach, I spent years working out modernization for older BB's and it gave me a huge warm fuzzy that you worked out the same things to basically the same numbers.
I've had this kind of video in my thoughts recently, interesting knowing of the thought process of "Which ship do we modernize and why?" and what ways different navies retrofit their ships. Very good video!
this is a really good discussion of a generation of ships we don't review as often as the latest ships in ww2, though they were still around and relevant at that time.
Damn! This video went by far too quickly!! I had the audio playing in the background as I did chores and mai Waifu was feeding our 18 month old son. A son who actually LOVES to watch military history videos with daddy. He can't get enough of battleships blasting away! Really shows the quality of your content when an hour long video feels like mere minutes. I salute you, Sir. o7
As with all of these, availability is key. A warship at port, destroys no enemies. The Enterprise did a quick and dirty refit for Midway, but perished in the conflict. Yet, its contribution was essential. Very often, good as can make it, in the short term, is the guiding star.
When you look at the difference between certain dreadnoughts before and after modernization, you see just how much they got changed, it's actually kinda fascinating.
21:20 concerning the weight/volume argument, space also makes for more storage/ballast. Ship's stores are important for organization and availability of mainly food, but also other consumables. More space = more comfort. Sailors will find things to put in those spaces.
2:39 Maybe you'd be thrown back in time to the early 1930s or something Got it. Saving this video in the event I've entered some freak storm that sends me back in time like in the movie The Final Countdown
Hi Drach, as a follow up I would love to see a more pre / post modernization comparision per ship / per nation video. maybe with pictures and 1:1 comparision of some of the mentionned aspects as a table per ship / navy. this would complement this very interesting video on the tradeoffs very nicely I believe. keep in mind that for us mortals keeping in mind all of the different involved classes and individual ships is quite difficult. anyway thanks for the comprehensive explanation on all the differnt options a modernization could be applied to and the why some navies preferred some options over the other.
Excellent video, I now know how to modernize a Pre-war dreadnought just in case I get magically teleported to the early 1900's with a teleporter that I totally don't own or possess and is NOT located in my back shed (looks nervously around the room)
Remember to grab a laptop with an internet free Cad/engineering program With a portable charger(s), battery pack(s), and large foldable solar cell(s)! I would also recommend nab a bunch of modern toilet paper as well, the stuff they had is like roofing felt!
The Kongo class were actually quite successfull ship when it comes to their effectiveness. Fast battleship on the Japanese strategic manual is a kind of raider ship, and the four Kongo class were the only Japanese battleships to actually create some headache to the USN counterparts as their very high speed allowed them to potentially disrupt the convoy war in the Pacific. They were not intended for "line battle" as the American WWI counterparts have been, and they were extremely good at what they did.
Through it all, there was always the consideration of the Washington and London treaties. Battleship construction had been halted, but upgrades where allowed, depending on the nature. This may explain why so some navies did upgrades that may well have been more expensive than building a new ship.
He said he wasn't touching political stuff in this one. He would have spent half the video talking about how the F*** in hell the Italians got away with breaking pretty much every modernization restriction in them if he had.
For every inch of deck armor added over vitals, like machinery and magazines on a (BB) (BC) (CB), adds around 480t of displacement. Adding a twin 5/38DP turret, adds about 85t per mount. I'm also using specs for US🇺🇲armor, it may be abit different with other nations like Japan🇯🇵, Germany🇩🇪, UK🇬🇧, or France🇫🇷.
Perhaps you also get more for your money in upgrading an older ship. The most up-to-date ships could probably only be upgraded a little bit to make them as good as they could be - whereas the older ships' capabilities, even if they can't be brought fully up to date, can likely still be improved significantly, relative to their capabilities pre-refitting/upgrading. So that might make it a tempting route to go down for the depression-weakened economies of the 1930's. (I apologize if you do say the same later in the video, as I'm typing this up while I'm watching)
Great video. Per the closing comments I wonder what a fully modernized Nelson/Rodney would have looked like and performed? Or maybe just a properly maintained one given how hard fought they allegedly were.
Well, the Nelsons already have good deck armour and reasonable torpedo defence. Unfortunately, their armour is already an all or nothing layout, so there's no weight saving to be made there. If I was modernising them in the 1930s, I'd want to try to get another knot or two out of their new machinery, so they could keep pace with the modernised QEs. Beyond that, I'd take out the 6" turrets, the 4.7" AA and the torpedo tubes (sorry, Rodney) and give them the QE style ten twin 4.5" turrets - I don't have figures for it, but I don't think ten twin 4.5" turrets will weigh more than six twin 6" turrets, two of them on top of superfiring barbettes. Remaining spare tonnage goes on electronics, fire control and as much light/medium AA as I can get on the superstructure and quarterdeck.
@@Dafmeister1978 Look at how many light/medium AA barrels Nelsnol deployed by 1945 - particularly on/around the octopoidal, but as 2-shaft ships I wonder how much additional speed using higher steam conditions could have provided.
I found myself guessing the names of the pictured ships. Some I knew for sure, some I was guessing country of origin, some I couldn't guess before the picture changed. It would add a lot to know each one. Wonderful download of complex data and choices!
Kongo class' "unbalanced upgrade" was worth it tho. They didn't just became the most useful capital ships in IJN service but also one of the most (if not the most) useful modernized WWI era dreadnoughts around during WWII. They didn't just escort the carriers most of the time but they also became the center piece of IJN task force during the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the early parts of the Guadalcanal campaign. They were always on the line especially at important IJN campaigns starting from the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Indian Ocean Raid, Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, until Haruna's demise at Kure on July 1945. They also did some sort of convoy escort when some of surviving major IJN ships returned to Japan late in the war.
The primary mission of the Kongo class was to blow a hole in the US Fleet's screen during the night and day torpedo battle under the "Decisive Battle" doctrine. Which the IJN never got the chance to execute because the USN was too smart to walk into that trap after 1935.
@@michaelsnyder3871 A lot of warships in WW2 spent most of their time doing something that hadn't been in The Plan. I've read an article from USNI Proceedings in the 1980s (?) arguing that the only US navy ships in WW2 that actually closely followed pre-war expectations were the minesweepers.
I would question the actual usefulness of the Kongos; I feel that in this aspect they’re the most overrated (though not the worst, that would be the Fusos and Ises) out of all the IJN capital ships. Yes, they served as carrier escorts. But big-gun capital ships are, strategically speaking, terrible carrier escorts, because they don’t actually fill a role as carrier escorts that other ships cannot fill at less cost. A fast carrier strike force isn’t ending up anywhere near enemy surface units unless the commander literally doesn’t understand the concept of a fleet carrier (see: Glorious), so the big guns are redundant. Between that and the lack of ASW capability the only thing that fast battleships/battlecruisers attached to fast carrier forces can really do is to provide AA cover, and AA support can be much more cost-effectively provided by subcapital units that are also fast enough to keep up with carriers. And while the Kongos were deployed the most often out of the IJN big-gun capital ships, they had very few successes to their name. The only one I can think of is Kongo and Haruna bombarding Henderson Field (which may, or may not, have been something that heavy cruisers could have done instead), and even that failed to have enough of an impact in the long run. The other two times that they got involved (as in, actually participated instead of merely being present) during the Guadalcanal campaign resulted in half the class being lost. And Kongo herself had a much worse track record at Leyte Gulf than traditionally thought-the vast majority of the hits she had against Taffy 3 were actually from other vessels (in particular, the hit that decapitated Johnston couldn’t have come from her because she wasn’t shooting at anything at that point: Yamato’s secondary battery is the most likely culprit for that hit). There is even a possibility that she may have been part of the reason for Chokai being lost with all hands (now that White Plains’s hit to her torpedoes has been disproven), as Chokai was in her line of fire when she suffered severe damage from something and a friendly fire incident is quite possible (though this could also be from being bombed).
@@bkjeong4302 With perfect hindsight, yes the Kongo class, indeed all battlecruisers and fast battleships, were not ideal as carrier escorts. In the early 1930s that was not obvious. (And yes there were visionary naval leaders on all sides who were saying by 1920! that big capital ships were obsolete.) The Japanese were limited by treaty to 12 heavy cruisers. The second Kongo upgrade that restored speed to 30 knots gave them four more big carrier escorts that otherwise they would not have. Even if they cost three times as much, a ship at sea always beats one that exists only on paper. Nearly all warships have very few or no successes to their name. Battles are rare at sea. It's especially difficult to judge escort / guard ships which don't actively hunt the enemy. Most of the Allied destroyers and frigates and escort carriers on convoy duty never actually sank a submarine: does that mean they were over-rated or a waste? For the Kongo class as carrier escorts, we know that in the early carrier battles in 1942 the US navy withdrew at night rather than stay in contact, even when they had won the carrier duel. And while I haven't studied this in detail, a couple of US historians state that this is because they were worried about night surface attack. Would the US have been more aggressive if the Kongo class had not been present? Maybe, maybe not.
Very interesting video. Whether it's the trade offs in redesigning a ship or the combat decisions admirals make I am always fascinated by Drachs review and explanations.
Veritasium just launched a new video on Analogue computers. I mention this here because there is a large section on Lord Kelvin's tide predicting machine and how this was used to accurately predict the tides for the D-Day invasions.
I knew it! Your video on armor is one of my favorites. I kept thinking. This guy is probably an engineer. I remember talking about all the metallurgy you discussed in my materials classes. Can we get more videos like those? I like the technical deep-dives.
I love the US Battleship refits, they are pretty awesome. My favorite has got to be the Post Pearl Harbor sinking ones... raised, fixed, refitted. The West Virginia looks like a South Dakota with an extra turret.
Just what is involved in replacing a major warships machinery. In terms of underwater protection one factor the US faced was transit through the Panama Canal. There are armor piercing bombs and there are armor piercing bombs. The converted 16" AP shells from the Nagato come to mind.
You're going to have to make a big enough hole in the ship to get the old machinery out and the new machinery in. I'm thinking you'd have to remove the superstructure above the machinery spaces to do that, and then replace it afterwards, so a major rebuild.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Replacing the engines in cruise liners is done fairly often - and this is done through the side of the ship. The battleships armor is a problem in this regard.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Head to brilliant.org/Drachinifel/ to get started for free with Brilliant s interactive lessons. The first 200 people will also get 20% off an annual membership.
Could you give us your top 5 or 10 best and worst First Lords of the Admiralty and why?
In your Lion-class video you mentioned a “Large Lion” design around 1000ft long, displacing over 90,000 tons at combat load and intended to be invulnerable to all then-current weapons. How would this monstrosity stack up against the finalized Montana design?
As to the bi-line in the title, wouldn't a tri-line be a rope or wire with two other ropes/wires as handholds, making the balancing a lot easier?
Mabey a comparison of British Colonies/Commonwealth navies? Like Austalia, Canada , NZ, India and the like. What they contributed to the British Admiralty and why, any famous ships,strengths weaknesses ect.
Hi Drach, how would you rate Admiral Sturdee as a commander? And how different do you think things would have been if he was in command of the Battle Cruisers at Jutland?
"You might get some AA outta casement-mounted guns if you ship is _halfway on its side_ "
-British humour and rigour at their best
I see Barham must have been engaging in temporary AA mode, she just seems to have forgotten to turn the back the other way around
Would probably still be more effective than the IJN's AA suites
[USS Texas has entered the chat]
@@EnsignGeneric Two degrees wouldn't make any significant change.
When your torps want to AA
As I have an old dreadnought rusting in the garage in the backyard, this video was very useful in approaching how to refit it. No LED light kits or spinner hubs for me, just good old fashioned increase gun elevation, convert from coal to Bunker C and slather on the deck armor.
Do you prefer a paint brush or roller for applying a coat of deck armor? which gives more consistent results?
I'm not sure this guy really has an old dreadnought, since he says it's both in the garage and the backyard.
But if he does, I think spinners on the props and LEDs around the gun muzzles would look pretty cool. And hydraulics to make the barrels bounce up and down as you slowly cruise would be awesome.
@@mikearmstrong8483 You have to consider that dreadnoughts tend to be quite large, and he may not have the biggest of garages.
@@mapmuncher5587
Well, I hope he doesn't live in one of those cities where they cite you for having nonrunning vehicles on the property. And if he gets it going, that big Confederate flag on the garage wall would look cool waving from the main mast.
Do a 'Will it run?" video!
I knew a gentleman, now deceased, who had served on USS Mississippi just before and during WWII. He described his ship as modernized on the outside but old on the inside. He then went on to describe the challenge of getting hot water (for bathing / washing) as a sailor. He compared this ship unfavorably (in terms of comfort for the common sailor) to the war-built ships he later served on.
I mean that is true even today, my Brother was an officer on USS Mitscher (DDG-57) and USS Truxtun (DDG-103) and boy oh boy, the things that an extra 15 years of wear and tear will do to a ship... Despite that he was significantly more fond of Mitscher than Truxtun.
@@adamdubin1276
Can you recall some examples of those really small but really annoying things?
(like, not classified or critical things, lol)
@@MrNicoJac It's nothing really obvious. It's the smells, the dents and modifications that the crew has made over the years. little things that you didn't really notice until you end up on a different ship. An older ship just feels different to a newer one.
@@adamdubin1276 I suppose it’s the “character” a ship gets as she ages.
My dad served on uss iowa in the 80's, and worked in the distilling plant, he says the phrase they liked to use was " modernized from the main deck up "
Okay my day is saved. Some good distraction from all the bs in my life. Like all your stuff. Thanks for all that drach, you made a lot of terrible days much more enjoyable.
Hang in there buddy. Times get better.
Sometimes you just grit your teeth and carry on. You do that buddy, at some point things will change. Hang in there.
@@Eire_Aontaithe you really should stop doing drugs
@@Eire_Aontaithe *reading too much into profile pictures and the meaning behind their choices.*
Stay strong! Hope your days will get better soon!
With respect to the modernized US ships it’s really a two part story. Prior to the outbreak of WWII we see the US taking advantage of the mass of material left over by all the cancellations driven by the Washington Treaty. Coal Burners get converted to Oil fuel and improved torpedo protection is definitely a significant goal with a lot of the older ships. Once the war starts the bulges being installed are not there primarily to improve torpedo protection but rather to add buoyancy to offset the mass of AA guns now being installed.
Thanks Drach
If I'm going back to the 1930's to rebuild my Dreadnoughts I'm going to want to grab all my reference books but my preference is to actually grab Drach to come back with me.
I can only imagine the fun he would have when turned loose with full knowledge, authority and hopefully finance's to refit to his hearts content.
Maybe I'd better bring Lady Drach too, otherwise Drach would be sad.
Yes Drach, just step into the big blue Police box, nothing to worry about, Honest!
Jackie, is that you? 😆
You'd better bring a bunch of engineering/modeling computers (with software that you can use without logging in online) too, and some spare adaptors and batteries 😜
(also, some advanced medical books about antibiotics, and how they are pharmaceutically produced, would save many many more lives than... 'temporally borrowing' all US nuclear carriers)
This comment is creepy
I just want the mark 14 to bloody work
My father repaired and refitted our old inter-war ocean liner, amongst others adding electro motors to the shafts.
Now I have the vessel on private exhibition.
...Oh, I forgot to mention that it's a *ship yards' 1/87 scale model* (177 cm's) now exhibited in my living room.
“Just how frequently did Battleships spontaneously explode?” So we can expect a video on the Mutsu?
I believe that between 1906 and 1943, there was 1 Japanese, 1 Italian, 1 British and 1 Russian.
@@michaelsnyder3871 I believe Mikasa exploded in port once as well.
@@bkjeong4302 - It only exploded once in port? How many times was the Mikasa supposed to explode?
@@michaelsnyder3871 and in 1955 another russian ex-italian (and by the way that ship was the sister of the exploded italian one)
Much eaelier than that, the ships with a full load of gunpowder also were prone to explode. For whatever the reason.
Like the Maine, in Cuba. Also known as the USS Casus-Belli.
If recent memory serves, this episode was a landslide vote by the Patreons. We rarely agreed so much on one topic :)
I send thanks to you all! I had been hoping for a video on this topic
I keep missing the patreon votes, but by Jove, it'd be hard to find a topic I'd vote for above this!
And Drach (as usual) did not disappoint one BIT!
@@AnimeSunglasses I have an idea to propose a special that would detail Goeben/Sultan Yavuz and Breslau's actions in the Black Sea in WW1. Probably on Drach's list but it's a special I hope for soon.
I know it isn't the best rebuild or ship, but the Kongo-class rebuilds were quite an impressive undertaking. The sheer changes made are staggering. And the result was one of the most beautiful, in my opinion. While I do like the practical and utilitarian lines of the UK and US designs, the Kongo and Nagato class have this elegance I appreciate.
The Cavour/Doria refits certainly also made for a much better looking ship than the one they had before.
Shame war is not a beauty contest.
@@lafeelabriel while it's true war isn't a beauty contest, I'd argue that the purpose of a navy is twofold, to fight a war, and to provide a means of deterance and power projection. A function some modern ships really lack.. As much as some nations helicopter carriers may be practical, no one is particularly impressed by a warehouse placed on top of a destroyer hull.
@@overboss9599 Well looking good is never a bad thing, just as long as it doesn't hurt your ability to kick some and take some. ;)
Also, absolutely agree with how piss poor post WW2 ship aestetics have (by and large) become.
my personal favorite is the Iowa class. I don't know what it is about the way the ships look but it just scratches my brain the right way. But I can definitely see why you like the look of the Kongo class.
With a few exceptions, I think the Japanese Navy in WW2 had the most asthetically pleasing ship designs afloat. They may not always have been the equal of their opponents in firepower or protection, but many of their ships were works of nautical art.
The Italians had some very pretty ship designs as well; the US, British and German fleets have always struck me as more utilitarian in looks (although there are exceptions: Hood, Scharnhorst, and the (planned) Lexington CCs, for instance).
I do absolutely love stuff like this. Its niche stuff that basically no one but Drach covers. The Italian Dreadnoughts that were modernized are my favorites. They look absolutely fantastic and they were pretty competitive. But the US ones are almost not even the same ships anymore.
AAAAAAAAH! Japanese torpedo aircraft on all quarters! More AA! More torpedo protection! AAAAAAAAH!
@@jeffreypierson2064 Is there a reason that 1" piece of deck is empty? NO!? THEN PUT A GUN THERE YOU DONUTS!
And after fitting so many 20mm oerlikan cannon that you consider removing belt armour to get the freeboard to put more on.
A friend of mine who unfortunately is no longer with us would have loved this he served on the Texas the most diverse of the Dreadnought and the only one still around.
I have always loved the looks of the post Pearl Harbor rebuilds of the Tennessee, California, and West Virginia. That South Dakota-like superstructure looks so cool.
I really like how the post-Pearl Harbor Pennsylvania and Nevada looked. Absolutely bristling with AA armament.
WeeVee is my favorite-looking standard type, returned from the defeated to present enemies with her load of new weaponry
I really like your docs, Drach - you cover complex and fascinating subjects in a serious manner without getting “cute” or dropping “humourous” snips and clips into the feed. There are several individuals whose “histories” I simply cannot stand to sit through as they think themselves so witty or cute that they clearly are being the “stars” of their production rather than the topics that they are ostensibly covering.
Another great one. Many excellent photos, as usual. Particularly liked the shots of the modernized West Virginia, in my opinion the winner hands down for "Best looking old ship after major refit". California and Tennessee got similar "Iowaesque" superstructure and secondary treatments and are close; but a childhood friend's father served on WV during the war and used to tell us stories; so she wins ;)
All of them look absolutely amazing, I really like the clean lines of the refit.
Personally I prefer California and Tennessee, just because of the triple turret.
In my opinion it looks a bit more proportional to the hull, can't beat personal history though.
@@kilianortmann9979 What I've wondered is this: First, rebuilding the California and West Virginia to that extent made sense because both had been sunk at Pearl Harbor. The Tennessee, on the other had, had very little damage at the attack, so why did she get that major rebuilding? If the war had continued into 1946 would the Maryland and eventually Colorado been rebuilt like the other three as well?
Nevada too
The standards were hot
@@stuartaaron613 the Tennessee actually had a lot of fire damage but it didnt get any torpedo damage due to its location inboard on battleship row. So while not sunk it was heavily damaged
I agree. The West Virginia was by far the prettiest rebuild; even more so than the Cavours. Apparently she was regarded as even better at shore bombardment than the Iowas.
Pity they couldn't add a few knots to her.
So my big takeaway from this is that dreadnought modernization is much like renovating your house. It's a lot of trouble if you want to do anything substantially different from what you've already got, and it would be much easier to start over if the building codes weren't so restrictive with regards to new construction.
56:10 - The Kongos were substantially lengthened in their final refit. I can see three options, extend the bow, lengthen their sterns or cut the ship in two, pull the parts apart and expand the middle of the citadel. How did the Japanese carryout the legthening?
The stern was extended, giving a slightly improved "hydrodynamic".
@@niclasjohansson4333- Thank you.
I always wonder how much the Washington Naval Treaty allowed under the banner of "refit".
Obviously you couldn't keep a single rivet and build a whole new ship around it, but where were the limits. Where in the game of Super Dreadnought Theseus was the line drawn? At some point you would be just taking the piss in regards to the battleship building holiday but at what point?
If for example you cut the ship length ways and breadth, changed out the armour and torpedo defence system, up gunned the ship, ect. you'd end up with a very different ship. Ignoring the cost, what could you get way with?
@@somethinglikethat2176 As I understand it they were allowed an extra 3k tons for upgrades.
@@somethinglikethat2176
Sounds like something you can easily capture under the max tonnage...
(but I haven't read the treaty, lol)
Thanks for that, Grandad served on HMS Malaya and it was interesting to see how she was brought up, with Queen Elizabeth, to scratch. Thanks.
Final workday of the year for me and I'm blessed with an hour of Drach being a nerd. 10/10
I'm working the rest of the week :-( and then off until after the new year. There will be much eating and drinking commencing Friday evening :-)
I had never realised the Cavour's had a whole new bow section added on, i always kind of assumed it was just the original bow with a modified profile, and also I think the headline re-boring of the fore and aft guns and the removal of the central turret overshadow the extra length of bow section. The Italian's really did do an amazing job. There are times I look at the Before and After Cavour's and think if I didn't know they were the same ships, I wouldn't believe that they were!
They were basically considered different ships by everyone. Probably because they effectively were.
The modernisation of battleships is a fascinating topic. Not only were there treaty restrictions, but some countries had rather...well...sad looking economies, so modernisation was looked upon as an excellent case of recycling!
USS West Virginia BB-48, my favourite rebuild! 😍😎
Same.
Considering how many of us are playing Ultimate Admirals now, this information is actually pretty useful, thank you.
Would love if some sort of identification could be put on your historical photo's. It would be really interesting to know the names of the ships and Dock yards shown.
Some of them do have the original annotations from the photographic section that took them, but most are hard to read due to the color used and the shorthand used at the time.
I have to express my sincere appreciation of the outstanding naval artwork you present here and, increasingly, in all of your videos. I took an art history course in college, wrote a term paper on the painting "The Wreck of the Medusa" by JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT, and very often watch your videos as if I'm taking a course in the history of naval art work.
The modernized Italian battleships may be too weak and too expensive, but man were they pretty.
Totally agree. Very handsome ships.
Pretty good target.
- HMS Warspite
(probably)
Italian engineering in a nutshell.
Have to agree... I think the Italian ships would win most beauty pageants!! Less capable but awfully pretty!!
Sort of like Italian aircraft design; elegant looking aircraft but not necessarily competent (Cr.42, G.50, Maachi C.200, etc.,)
47:12
Well thats pure british humour : casemate mounted AA-Guns :)
Drach you are a pure genius, keep up the good work and the even better humour.
I mean, if you set a cylindrical turret into the hull at deck level, does that count as a casemate?
@@jamesharding3459 Casemate is realy a wall of iron/stell with holes in it and guns sticking out of those holes, the guns are bolted on, or on carriages. The turret is a fully moving structure. So that would be a turret, just a bit lower then normal, well the thing with gun elevation came a lot later, so they got some (for today) strange locations for turrets earlier on.
@@tomaseidtner8116 I was joking. I know the difference. Humor really doesn't translate well into text, does it?
Actually, since the casemate guns on the rebuilt Japanese BBs and CBs had an elevation of 30 degrees, they were given AA HE shells. And the British developed barrage directors for the casemate 6" guns for anti-torpedo bomber AA.
@@michaelsnyder3871 Oh for the love of god….
Like the mighty jingles says… “You can modernize these things all you want by rebuilding the superstructures, adding more aa guns, making the hull sleeker, adding torpedos bulges etc... But at the end of the day they’re still the old slow gas guzzling battlewagons that simply cost too much to operate, and were even more obsolete than the most modern fast battleships of the day, which even they were made obsolete by the aircraft carriers. In the early war the U.S. had to make a choice between the old battleships and the aircraft carriers, and wisely they chose the aircraft carriers.”
Tbf carriers are hardly cheap, cheaper to build sure but much more expensive to operate
@@deeznoots6241 No I meant that the navy had to choose which ships to operate. The battleships were slightly more expensive to operate than the carriers, but yeah the carriers were almost equally as expensive. They had to choose between one or the other and wisely they choose the carriers that were the decisive weapon of the naval war.
@@stevenmoore4612 Then regressed by choosing not to cancel the Iowas: there were much, MUCH better options for carrier escorts. They had a chance not to make the same mistake everyone else had made and blew it.
@@bkjeong4302 And survive a Sovet missle onsualt what is a missle crusier going to do when out of AA missles engage them with pistols and rifles? Also Battleships have a huge advatage over carriers in one area... shore bombardment... One shell can't be more then $1K, a cruise missle is $1mil. And with China we best be putting these new fangled railguns or hybrid hyper long range shells to good use. By making new Super BBs to sail with the Super CVs as they don't have the armor, cheapness or frankly the range of what a modern 21st century battleship would have... Still though we should have keept the Iowas we had as a stop gap till we got their replacements... too late now though.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough
And how is a battleship supposed to engage a missile cruiser when it’s not coming anywhere near its guns? And a missile strike with existing anti-ship missiles is going to mission-kill a battleship at minimum by tearing through the unarmoured superstructure, not to mention that people could just invent guided weapons systems that have AP capabilities (the Germans did, with the Fritz X).
People keep bringing up how cheap a shell is compared to a missile and completely ignore that battleships cost a lot more to build and operate than most missile-equipped warships, negating that advantage.
I have come on holiday by mistake..... Managed to lodge myself in a pub with the internet and Drach releases a video with an engineering bent.... the day saved.
I think out of all the rebuilds the best where the Renown, QE class and West Virgina/Tennesee, all proved themselves in many combat operations following the refits, West Virgina still has the most impressive BB accuracy IMO becuase she hit first salvo and with every salvo after at Suriago Straight
Good Gunnery Officers, with good instincts.
country roads didn't take the IJN home
@@mwnciboo It probably helps that the most accurate possible description of the Japanese taskforce at Surigao Strait is "fish in a barrel".
It's hardly like WV was having to shoot maneuvering targets in rough seas is it?1
I don't know, the USS Nevada was a beauty after her rebuild and was also extremely difficult to get rid of too.
And pure radar guidance in the dead of night.
Has anybody else noticed how radically the superstructures changed on a lot of these ships were you started out with either a cage mask on the US battleships or maybe a tripod and then you got one of these crazy Tower Mats to house a more comfy bridge and have something sturdy enough to support the better fire control systems and later on radars?
Look at the bridge structures that renown and warspite had as well as the Nelson Queen Anne's mansion style superstructures that the New Mexico class ended up with
Also without rewriting the entire post you had the ginormous Pagoda style superstructures that the Japanese battleships had which on some of them when they think acted as a topside keel and prevented them from righting themselves on the way to the bottom when they were sunk(referencing something Robert Ballard said)
Back to US battleships you had the rebuilt Tennessee class and the West Virginia which looked like mini South Dakota class battleships.
Another thing that went away in terms of superstructure on a lot of ships was the heavy counting Tower the captains and the admirals didn't like being cooped up in those things even though there were a few instances where a shell or a bomb made its way into the bridge and capped the entire command crew (HMS Prince of Wales during the battle of the Denmark Strait)
That's all I have attention deficit disorder so if I made any mistakes I ask nobody be too harsh
Love the line "not going to be breaking any speed limits". Looking forward to seeing a traffic policeman going to pull the Warspite over...
Your ad read was one of the most honest and sincere ones I've heard, I don't mind ads when they are fitting to the channel.
Thanks. That was very interesting. I was aware of some of it but not all.
Probably the best investment in Torpedo Bulges was to _Saratoga_ ...
There was actually a cartoon that was drawn where in a torpedo was headed towards the _Saratoga_ , a destroyer was racing to intercept the torpedo and an exaggerated illustration of the _Saratoga's_ Captain leaning out of the Bridge Yelling at the Destroyer _"I've got it!!!"_ ...
American Naval Humor ...
.
The only class of US Navy standard battleships to go through extensive modernization prior to Pearl Harbor was the New Mexico class. Completed by 1934 they were the most modern battleships in the USN until the arrival of the North Carolina class.
Warspite forever! And nice Christmas, Drach.
These videos are great for listening to like a podcast. They are just nice to listen to when i'm doing something like making a model kit
Can't wait to get stuck into this. Its my birthday today so what a present. Thanks Drach.
Congratulations 🎉
Happy birthday stan🥳🥳🥳
Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday Stan, one thing we share. Also if you read todays date western style happy palindrome day.
Happy birthday.
Excellent as per norm. Great photos throughout the entire Rum Ration.
While I already have a subscription to Brilliant, and while it makes me sound rather pathetic, I can't tell you how happy I am and you have a sponsor! Yea! Also, you're intermissive commercial was done really well: ie. brief and to the point. I really wish other youtubers would follow your lead.
Your channel is consistently superior to your competition.
Drach, can you do a video on the observed effectiveness of armor in history? How many battleships or cruisers took hits from enemy shells and were saved by their armor?
You touched upon statistics and probabilities. Since naval gunnery seems to be a science unto itself, perhaps you could make an episode on to how the various nations navies performed at gunnery. Maybe something on range finders/computating equipment. Love your channel.
Great vid Drach, impressive work as always. If I could modernize a warship, I would attempt to modernize an Omaha class cruiser.
Merry Christmas Drachinifel! I've been enjoying your videos on background during lot of long night shifts! Keep up the good work!
With the American battleship upgrades you forgot the single most important piece of kit, the ice cream factory. All those ice cream tubes take up a lot of weight, never mind the soda for floats, Hot fudge for sundaes, nuts, cherries and whipped cream. As you dig deeper, you can see how the weight piles on. Especially in the chief's and officers. Hehehe
I thought the Americans valued their ice cream because it could be traded for booze with British and Australian ships, although I can't believe that American ships were totally dry. Surely they must have had something to drink?
@@Dave_Sisson they did, believe me US sailors and soldiers primary skill set is finding booze in any situation.
Plus the ice cream factory on board created the perfect bartering system. My understanding from my great uncle, who served aboard USS Missouri, is that there was an actual conversion ratio, for example a 5th of Scotch equaled X amount of Ice Cream. Same applied for cigarettes or tobacco. American cigarettes and tobacco being considered thek best available. The American soldiers, sailors and marines were rarely short of tobacco and coffee, so that was traded to their British allies for booze.
A comprehensive video on a comprehensive subject by a comprehensive author, merry Christmas all.
With the mention of the problems of improving the belt armour, I'm surprised you didn't mention that this was also against the clauses of the London treaty
France and Italy were allowed to improve vertical armor. and upgun main armament. As you say, those improvements were verboten to everyone else.
What upgraded belt armour? That's a part of our loaded displacement!
You'r awesome Drach, I spent years working out modernization for older BB's and it gave me a huge warm fuzzy that you worked out the same things to basically the same numbers.
Have you ever done one of these on the minesweepers of WWII? My father was on the USS Eager during the war, in the Pacific. Thanks!
That would be a good video. The cost of laying mines vs the cost of dealing with them made an interesting part of naval warfare.
Let's go! Finally I shall understand the modernisation process
This video is worth the watch just for the photos alone. Well done.
I shit you not, I let out an audible "Ooh!" and clicked immediately when this popped up in my feed. Cheers Drach 👌
I've had this kind of video in my thoughts recently, interesting knowing of the thought process of "Which ship do we modernize and why?" and what ways different navies retrofit their ships. Very good video!
this is a really good discussion of a generation of ships we don't review as often as the latest ships in ww2, though they were still around and relevant at that time.
Thumbs up on putting a break in between the intro and main video.
LOL 46:03 Doubling-down on the UP launchers! Never realized the Nelson class had these gimmicks installed. ...and so many!
Damn! This video went by far too quickly!! I had the audio playing in the background as I did chores and mai Waifu was feeding our 18 month old son. A son who actually LOVES to watch military history videos with daddy. He can't get enough of battleships blasting away! Really shows the quality of your content when an hour long video feels like mere minutes. I salute you, Sir. o7
Didnt Jedi Masters Shun from family life for fear of losing it and turning to the dark SIDE?
@@augustosolari7721 one of the greatest force users of all time had a family... So clearly this path must be superior.
As with all of these, availability is key. A warship at port, destroys no enemies. The Enterprise did a quick and dirty refit for Midway, but perished in the conflict. Yet, its contribution was essential. Very often, good as can make it, in the short term, is the guiding star.
?
In my opinion, Nevada got what was one of the best looking rebuilds.
When you look at the difference between certain dreadnoughts before and after modernization, you see just how much they got changed, it's actually kinda fascinating.
21:20 concerning the weight/volume argument, space also makes for more storage/ballast. Ship's stores are important for organization and availability of mainly food, but also other consumables. More space = more comfort. Sailors will find things to put in those spaces.
A most useful guide for those of us who have dreadnoughts!
2:39 Maybe you'd be thrown back in time to the early 1930s or something
Got it. Saving this video in the event I've entered some freak storm that sends me back in time like in the movie The Final Countdown
I've watched this twice now. When it was originally posted, and again tonight. I really enjoyed it both times.
Man Drach, you sure know your stuff. Impressive.
This is possibly your best video, Drach I have watched it several times and love every minute of it Cheers 🍻
Hi Drach,
as a follow up I would love to see a more pre / post modernization comparision per ship / per nation video. maybe with pictures and 1:1 comparision of some of the mentionned aspects as a table per ship / navy. this would complement this very interesting video on the tradeoffs very nicely I believe. keep in mind that for us mortals keeping in mind all of the different involved classes and individual ships is quite difficult. anyway thanks for the comprehensive explanation on all the differnt options a modernization could be applied to and the why some navies preferred some options over the other.
Just finnished the early WW2 sub ration. Saved these for return to my long lonely nightshift, post holiday.
Excellent video, I now know how to modernize a Pre-war dreadnought just in case I get magically teleported to the early 1900's with a teleporter that I totally don't own or possess and is NOT located in my back shed (looks nervously around the room)
Remember to grab a laptop with an internet free Cad/engineering program With a portable charger(s), battery pack(s), and large foldable solar cell(s)! I would also recommend nab a bunch of modern toilet paper as well, the stuff they had is like roofing felt!
Just two days before Christmas break. I need this before my brain boils from frustration. Thanks Drach!
The Kongo class were actually quite successfull ship when it comes to their effectiveness. Fast battleship on the Japanese strategic manual is a kind of raider ship, and the four Kongo class were the only Japanese battleships to actually create some headache to the USN counterparts as their very high speed allowed them to potentially disrupt the convoy war in the Pacific. They were not intended for "line battle" as the American WWI counterparts have been, and they were extremely good at what they did.
I will definitely be keeping these tips in mind next time I need to modernize a battleship
Drach - very thorough and a very logical approach. I expect some countries had neither of these applied to their efforts.
Through it all, there was always the consideration of the Washington and London treaties. Battleship construction had been halted, but upgrades where allowed, depending on the nature. This may explain why so some navies did upgrades that may well have been more expensive than building a new ship.
He said he wasn't touching political stuff in this one. He would have spent half the video talking about how the F*** in hell the Italians got away with breaking pretty much every modernization restriction in them if he had.
16:52 a KGV at speed, with all guns trained to starboard. Awesome picture.
Yes. And shipping half oceans of water on the bow section of the deck. 😊
To the Batcave er, SpringSharp! Thanks for another entertaining and enlightening hour!
For every inch of deck armor added over vitals, like machinery and magazines on a (BB) (BC) (CB), adds around 480t of displacement. Adding a twin 5/38DP turret, adds about 85t per mount. I'm also using specs for US🇺🇲armor, it may be abit different with other nations like Japan🇯🇵, Germany🇩🇪, UK🇬🇧, or France🇫🇷.
You've given me a lot to think about in my upcoming Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts campaign.
If they ever get finished making it.
Perhaps you also get more for your money in upgrading an older ship. The most up-to-date ships could probably only be upgraded a little bit to make them as good as they could be - whereas the older ships' capabilities, even if they can't be brought fully up to date, can likely still be improved significantly, relative to their capabilities pre-refitting/upgrading. So that might make it a tempting route to go down for the depression-weakened economies of the 1930's. (I apologize if you do say the same later in the video, as I'm typing this up while I'm watching)
Thank you for helping make my standby work tolerable
Great video. Per the closing comments I wonder what a fully modernized Nelson/Rodney would have looked like and performed? Or maybe just a properly maintained one given how hard fought they allegedly were.
Well, the Nelsons already have good deck armour and reasonable torpedo defence. Unfortunately, their armour is already an all or nothing layout, so there's no weight saving to be made there. If I was modernising them in the 1930s, I'd want to try to get another knot or two out of their new machinery, so they could keep pace with the modernised QEs. Beyond that, I'd take out the 6" turrets, the 4.7" AA and the torpedo tubes (sorry, Rodney) and give them the QE style ten twin 4.5" turrets - I don't have figures for it, but I don't think ten twin 4.5" turrets will weigh more than six twin 6" turrets, two of them on top of superfiring barbettes. Remaining spare tonnage goes on electronics, fire control and as much light/medium AA as I can get on the superstructure and quarterdeck.
@@Dafmeister1978 Look at how many light/medium AA barrels Nelsnol deployed by 1945 - particularly on/around the octopoidal, but as 2-shaft ships I wonder how much additional speed using higher steam conditions could have provided.
@@iansadler4309 Well, the Italians managed to get an extra six knots out of their old dreadnoughts while reducing them from four shafts to two.
I always enjoy witching videos like these. Thank you for putting them together!
This was awesome. I wanted to know more about why they did away with casement guns.
I found myself guessing the names of the pictured ships. Some I knew for sure, some I was guessing country of origin, some I couldn't guess before the picture changed. It would add a lot to know each one. Wonderful download of complex data and choices!
Another well done, informative, fascinating doc! Thank you.
Extremely comprehensive analysis.
Kongo class' "unbalanced upgrade" was worth it tho. They didn't just became the most useful capital ships in IJN service but also one of the most (if not the most) useful modernized WWI era dreadnoughts around during WWII.
They didn't just escort the carriers most of the time but they also became the center piece of IJN task force during the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the early parts of the Guadalcanal campaign. They were always on the line especially at important IJN campaigns starting from the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Indian Ocean Raid, Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, until Haruna's demise at Kure on July 1945. They also did some sort of convoy escort when some of surviving major IJN ships returned to Japan late in the war.
The primary mission of the Kongo class was to blow a hole in the US Fleet's screen during the night and day torpedo battle under the "Decisive Battle" doctrine. Which the IJN never got the chance to execute because the USN was too smart to walk into that trap after 1935.
Ye
@@michaelsnyder3871 A lot of warships in WW2 spent most of their time doing something that hadn't been in The Plan. I've read an article from USNI Proceedings in the 1980s (?) arguing that the only US navy ships in WW2 that actually closely followed pre-war expectations were the minesweepers.
I would question the actual usefulness of the Kongos; I feel that in this aspect they’re the most overrated (though not the worst, that would be the Fusos and Ises) out of all the IJN capital ships.
Yes, they served as carrier escorts. But big-gun capital ships are, strategically speaking, terrible carrier escorts, because they don’t actually fill a role as carrier escorts that other ships cannot fill at less cost. A fast carrier strike force isn’t ending up anywhere near enemy surface units unless the commander literally doesn’t understand the concept of a fleet carrier (see: Glorious), so the big guns are redundant. Between that and the lack of ASW capability the only thing that fast battleships/battlecruisers attached to fast carrier forces can really do is to provide AA cover, and AA support can be much more cost-effectively provided by subcapital units that are also fast enough to keep up with carriers.
And while the Kongos were deployed the most often out of the IJN big-gun capital ships, they had very few successes to their name. The only one I can think of is Kongo and Haruna bombarding Henderson Field (which may, or may not, have been something that heavy cruisers could have done instead), and even that failed to have enough of an impact in the long run. The other two times that they got involved (as in, actually participated instead of merely being present) during the Guadalcanal campaign resulted in half the class being lost. And Kongo herself had a much worse track record at Leyte Gulf than traditionally thought-the vast majority of the hits she had against Taffy 3 were actually from other vessels (in particular, the hit that decapitated Johnston couldn’t have come from her because she wasn’t shooting at anything at that point: Yamato’s secondary battery is the most likely culprit for that hit). There is even a possibility that she may have been part of the reason for Chokai being lost with all hands (now that White Plains’s hit to her torpedoes has been disproven), as Chokai was in her line of fire when she suffered severe damage from something and a friendly fire incident is quite possible (though this could also be from being bombed).
@@bkjeong4302 With perfect hindsight, yes the Kongo class, indeed all battlecruisers and fast battleships, were not ideal as carrier escorts. In the early 1930s that was not obvious. (And yes there were visionary naval leaders on all sides who were saying by 1920! that big capital ships were obsolete.)
The Japanese were limited by treaty to 12 heavy cruisers. The second Kongo upgrade that restored speed to 30 knots gave them four more big carrier escorts that otherwise they would not have. Even if they cost three times as much, a ship at sea always beats one that exists only on paper.
Nearly all warships have very few or no successes to their name. Battles are rare at sea. It's especially difficult to judge escort / guard ships which don't actively hunt the enemy. Most of the Allied destroyers and frigates and escort carriers on convoy duty never actually sank a submarine: does that mean they were over-rated or a waste?
For the Kongo class as carrier escorts, we know that in the early carrier battles in 1942 the US navy withdrew at night rather than stay in contact, even when they had won the carrier duel. And while I haven't studied this in detail, a couple of US historians state that this is because they were worried about night surface attack. Would the US have been more aggressive if the Kongo class had not been present? Maybe, maybe not.
Very interesting video. Whether it's the trade offs in redesigning a ship or the combat decisions admirals make I am always fascinated by Drachs review and explanations.
Veritasium just launched a new video on Analogue computers. I mention this here because there is a large section on Lord Kelvin's tide predicting machine and how this was used to accurately predict the tides for the D-Day invasions.
The Modded The Tennessee’s and some of the Colorado’s pretty well. Damn near new ships
I knew it! Your video on armor is one of my favorites. I kept thinking. This guy is probably an engineer. I remember talking about all the metallurgy you discussed in my materials classes. Can we get more videos like those? I like the technical deep-dives.
I've not watched in a while... Gotta say I forgot how good your videos are
It would have been interesting to see an R class reconstructed into a renown style ballecruiser /fast battleship....
I love the US Battleship refits, they are pretty awesome.
My favorite has got to be the Post Pearl Harbor sinking ones... raised, fixed, refitted.
The West Virginia looks like a South Dakota with an extra turret.
Just what is involved in replacing a major warships machinery.
In terms of underwater protection one factor the US faced was transit through the Panama Canal.
There are armor piercing bombs and there are armor piercing bombs. The converted 16" AP shells from the Nagato come to mind.
You're going to have to make a big enough hole in the ship to get the old machinery out and the new machinery in. I'm thinking you'd have to remove the superstructure above the machinery spaces to do that, and then replace it afterwards, so a major rebuild.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Replacing the engines in cruise liners is done fairly often - and this is done through the side of the ship. The battleships armor is a problem in this regard.
@@allangibson2408 What about warships of nowadays ? They don't have armor.
For this video i just love loved all the pictures. Just a splendid amount of eye candy in this one. :)
15:26 “it was believed that the HMS Hood could have hold on its own for a couple of years.”
Bismarck: We shall see about that. Ja?
RMS Hood? I didn't know she was a Royal Mail Steamer and had a second life as a Passenger liner
@@jonsouth1545 insert your conspiracy theory here
@@jonsouth1545 Wasn't that the one that struck an iceberg?
Bad luck, that’s all.
RMS Hoodtanic seems like a good sister name.
thank you this was very informative i will put some of these tips /ideas into my own ships in from the depths
Another great video, you are on a role at the moment.