Thanks Drach. I've been interested in the Mark2 16in 50cal guns that were to be fitted to the Iowa's before the famous mis-communication issues forced them to design the Mark7, a smaller lighter gun. I'm most interested in the sacrifices that were made to fit the smaller gun and I would love some actual real numbers as all I have is my guess work. In my research into this I noticed that when the Mark6 16in 45cal guns went from being intended to use the lighter shell to the Super Heavy shell the powder that was to be used actually was increased and because of this I would assume it would be fair to guess that the Mark2 50cal guns would have at least not have the amount of powder decreased when going from the lighter to the Super Heavy Shells. Conservatively keeping the powder the weight the same, The Mark2 guns were to use 700 pounds of powder while the Mark7 guns used 660 pounds with the Super Heavy shell, 40Ib or around 6% less. Some back of the napkin math here, but assuming 6% more powder would give you around 6% more power and MV that would get the Super Heavy Shell to 2650 fps over the Mark 7's 2500 fps, 150fps more. That's nearly the same increase in MV the Mark7 have over the 45cal Mark6 guns at a 200 fps increase. This stuns me. Is there anyway to get an idea of how much power was actually sacrificed by going to the lighter Mark 7guns?
What’s the greatest insane destroyer battle in your opinion? Personally I go with Edsall’s last stand against the Kido Butai given that was probably the battle where the destroyer was most heavily outmatched.
In Drydock 303 you said you had found new information that made you change your stance on Rodney's torpedo attack from maybe to almost certain, are you planing to do addendum video this information and are there any other ships or battles you think need an addendum video might be good?
If Rodney _had_ aggressively pursued de Grasse's defeated force at the Saintes, a) how likely is it that he'd've been able to bag the entire deployed portion of the French battleline (as his critics afterwards alleged he'd passed up the opportunity to do), and b) if he _had_ managed to bag de Grasse's entire fleet, what effects would that've had going forwards?
When the allies overran German forces across France. What happened to any Kreigsmarine vessels still stationed in French Ports? Would they have been scuttled, used as floating AA in ports with German holdouts or make a run for neutral or friendly ports?
Hearing of a WWII naval commander that actually understood the capabilities and limitations of radar and used that knowledge to great advantage at Vella Gulf seems almost unbelievable after so many accounts on this channel where radar was dismissed, ignored, or generally misunderstood.
Italian frogmen would prefer their enemy continue to disregard them. "Pay no attention to the old freighter rusting in the dock near Gibralter. What's that, ships blowing up randomly in harbor? Perhaps you Brits should stop smoking near the ammo." The Italian military throughout WWII is much like Italian rugby today. Tough, determined, capable of victory, even though most of the time, they will lose to stronger opponents. That's a far different thing than cowardly and easy to defeat as they've been painted in popular culture.
@therealuncleowen2588 The biggest problem with the Italian and French military personnel, is poor leadership! Both militarily and politically! As individuals, they are quite capable and are a credit to their nation! Their leadership, not so much!
could we get a full video on the small boat war in the channel and bay of biscay? these were the vicious knife fights of naval combat. in particular seeing the battle of ushant would be gratifying.
While I see Drac has already put his seal of approval on the request, I gotta second this suggestion. The small boat actions have always fascinated me.
Drach, you do seem to take great joy when referring to Captain Manely Power when he pops up. Did he have a sufficiently significant career to do a special on him? The prospect of a Manely Power special is quite splendid
Power had a stellar career including being a major commander in nato,royal navy carrier commander, and carrier commander in the suez crisis. But I worry drach may consider that mostly outside the channel's time frame.
I remember reading the autobiography of the Shigure's Captain and his career during the war. He and his crew didn't realize that a torpedo had put a hole in the rudder until the ship was dry-docked MONTHS after the engagement. They chalked the destroyer's bad handling to mechanical issues after the battle due to how long the ship had gone without cleaning and refit.
The Regia Marina really does have all the weird and wild stuff happen. I'd love to hear more about that particular scuffle, because it seems so uniquely Italian!
The Germans really do come off as a vicious, ungrateful bunch of moustache-twirling villains who get their just desserts, while the Italians absolutely glow with honour as they convert their dismay and disgust at what's just happened into heroics (with the Bersaglieri storming the port) and a noble administering of righteous justice (Aliseo apparently waited until she was fired upon, even after being ordered to shoot, before taking the Germans apart). A very curious and fascinating incident all round.
First this action occurred after the problems had largely been fixed, hence the successful nature of this attack. Also, since it hit the rudder and punched a hole in it, it could be that the torpedo itself was not a dud, simply that it didn't meet enough resistance to set off the warhead. This also happened to an American cruiser of the Cleveland class. The only way they knew was hit was that she was sluggish to turn. Finally, an explosion on the rudder itself might have critically damaged Shigure, leading to her sinking. This would have preventing Shigure from being the sole survivor of several actions in the future.
@@MrTScolaro True - we would have lost Captain Hara Tameichi and not have his memoirs if Shigure was lost. BuOrd still deserves that award for all of their other torpedo shenanaigans, though.
I served on WII built destroyers in the 1960s with 5" 38 guns. WWII crews with practice loaders and lots of real experience could fire 20+ rounds a minute per gun. I would not have wanted to be on those torpedoed Japanese destroyers when the Americans switched to gunfire. Most of the shells probably hit. My experience in training and gunfire support in Vietnam showed we straddled or hit the target on the first round. The captain of the Shigure in his book stated US destroyers usually straddled his ship with the first salvo.
This was an excellent video. Despite the short duration of the recountings, they felt adequately covered. I would actually like to see a part 2 of this, describing more cruiser/destroyer battles. Again, a very excellent video.
@@ph89787 And so many others. A lot of them were Guadalcanal veterans too. Hell you had ships in the Solomons campaign become legends and then get sunk in the next battle, not to mention all the battles where the winning side failed to actually accomplish anything meaningful (which happened to both sides) because it failed to affect enemy troop movements.
The whole Wilderbeest-attacks-Sendai action can be played in a 2015 game, “Flying Tigers: Shadows over China” and despite being (essentially) an arcade game, you're forced to retreat before Sendai can be sunk - keeping things accurate to history.
Poor old Vampire. Won her spurs fighting in the Med, then escorted Prince of Wales and Repulse to their end and was with Hermes when she was sunk by dive-bombers off Trincomalee.
A video about the Haguro operation would be interesting, and I agree with you, The name Manley Power is probobly one of historys most fitting name of a naval officer!
Vampire slipped into bat form and flew away silently. Too bad her report on Japanese night fighting led to some complacency. So that was the ultimate fate of Arashi, the most important destroyer of WWII.
Of these battles the one I would most enjoy as a more detailed, stand alone video would probably be the German’s trying to seize Italian crafts and the Italians resistance to the thefts followed by the naval battle
The battle of Bastia sounds like something that's ripe for one of those old pocket WWII comics. Would love to hear more about that one and just general destroyer and cruiser melee in the Mediterranean would be a cool subject.
@@thomaskositzki9424 - i spent couple years working with a software package in a job few years back. i CANNOT remember the name that software unless someone names it to me. Human memory is a frail and capricious beast.
@@PlummySack79 I can empathisze with that. 😄 Deleted the last sentence. Maybe cut a bit on the weed? Did work out a great deal for me. I know that can be tricky, just wanted to say it can be done to find a sweetspot. 🙂
I, personally, would love a Wednesday video covering Bastia in detail. I mean, all of these would be the great subject of one, but that's probably the one I've heard the least about.
I am clearly too used to USN vs IJN fights in the Pacific, because I took the first action (Battle of the Bay of Biscay) like this: Drach: "Two cruisers versus 11 destroyers and torpedo boats" Me: "That sounds bad for the cruisers." Drach: "After lunch ..." Me: "Oh, in daylight and with room to maneuver. That's much better."
This video was really appreciated Drach. I have never heard of any of these battles as it's always the capital ship battles that are recognized, not of the tin cans or cruisers.
Thank you for a fascinating collection of small actions that are actually very interesting, especially about the false report that IJN were NOT good at night actions.
Of the engagements discussed, all are worthy of further exploration. However, if having to pick just one I'd say the Italian vs. Germany confrontation. The idea of the Germans attempting their treachery against the Italians but being thwarted is, for a lack of a better expression, "hilarious."
Captain Tameichi Hara gives a first-hand account of the Battle of Vella Gulf in his tremendous memoir "Japanese Destroyer Captain." He had particularly warned his squadron leader against the tactics of the night. It was months after the battle that Shigure went into drydock, and they found the reason their handling was so bad was their rudder had been pierced by that torpedo. I cannot recommend Hara's memoir highly enough. It ends with his captaining the cruiser that accompanied Yamato on Operation Ten Go.
Yay! Some great small actions covered here. Of course, you *had* to cover the Battle of the Bay of Biscay - had to, no question - but to see the little-discussed and curiously back-and-forth Action off Bastia discussed is an absolute delight! Not least of all because, when scratch-building some Italian escorts in 1/350 scale for gaming purposes, I chose the Aliseo for her glorious and honourable conduct at Bastia, and a very enjoyable build it was. I'm pretty proud of her, and she sank three MTBs on her first outing at the club - even if my opponent was using her and those were *my* MTBs she sank! (Sadly, I didn't have access to the lovely camouflage pattern details, so I chose to marry her to the legend of her older cousin Pegaso - the Orsa and Ciclone classes were practically the same hull - and so she, somewhat erroneously but very deliberately, wears a slight variation of Pegaso's 1942 splinter camouflage pattern with martial pride. Artistic licence there, and it allows me to use her as either ship if I want to. And yes, at the lower end of warship combat, she is an absolute *beast* - Bastia is a 'to do' game, as soon as my shore batteries and German MFPs are finished.) - As a footnote, Aliseo's captain, after defending and restoring his country's honour in battle, later on appears to have suffered a crisis of said honour over the general armistice terms and how that left his service & his country, and he sadly chose to take his own life.
The story of the sinking of the Haguro has some really interesting elements. At 10:50pm, Radar Operator Norman Poole on destroyer HMS Venus reported to the bridge: 'Bridge ... Plot, I have a good solid echo on that bearing, sir. Bearing zero-four-five, range *_sixty-eight thousand yards_* , sir.' This was far beyond the range of the destroyer's surface warning set. Complete disbelief was the result. However, Poole insisted that it was good contact, and as time passed, and the echo did not go away, the other radar operators and the ship's officers were forced to realize it was a legitimate contact despite the absurd range. At 11:15pm Poole was able to report the target had a speed of 25 knots, a reasonable speed for a cruiser. At 11:45pm Captain Power on HMS Saumarez ordered the destroyers into their battle formation. Venus was still the only ship that could see the target. At 11:48pm the target disappeared from the radar scope on Venus. No ship in the Allied force had a radar contact. But at 12:03am HMS Saumarez would pick up the echo for the first time at a range of 14 miles - and it was clearly the same echo as Venus had reported. At 12:35am all the destroyers had the target on their scopes. The early radar contact allowed the Allied destroyers to position themselves perfectly for a flotilla attack, long before the enemy had any idea they were present. It is now believed that a freak atmospheric condition allowed the radar signal from HMS Venus to follow the curve of the earth and thus achieve a much longer range. Poole would receive a DSM for being right - and insisting that he was right in spite of all disbelief and skepticism to the contrary from his peers and his superiors. But that wasn't the only advantage they had. According to one of the Haguro's surviving crew members (Lt Cmdr Isamu Motora), she had picked up the Allied ships on her radar at 20k meters - and her lookouts had confirmed the report at 18k meters. But something went wrong and the ship's response was badly delayed, allowing the British destroyers to close the range to 6k meters before Haguro's captain arrived on the bridge and gave the order to open fire. Whatever happened threw away the major advantages the cruiser had, it's long range guns, and long range torpedoes, and also limited the cruisers speed and maneuvering options. *_Nobody knows exactly what went wrong, as most of the Haguro's officers did not survive - and Motora arrived on the bridge just before the ship opened fire._* It was essentially a reverse of Savo Island, where the Japanese had been the ones with advanced warning due to their float planes operating at night and spotting the Allied warships for them, and the Allied officers were the ones caught unprepared for battle, responding late to the presence of the enemy and thus dooming their ships. Source: John Winton's book: "Sink the Haguro!: Last Destroyer Action of the Second World War".
Please do more of these. Sometimes I find Wiki links to such actions, but you probably know where to look much better, and these small ship actions are both new (compared to much-covered famous battles) and more energetic to listen to. It doesn't even have to be WW2. I would happily accept WW1, Napoleonic, age of steam, or anything in between!
The Alsterfuher was carrying Wolfram from Japan. A vital ingredient in the hardening of steel, particularly ball bearings. Her loss had a significant impact on production.
This is not a battle or engagement. Being on a destroyer in late 1944-1945 and receiving orders to join the picket line. This was the first line of defense protecting aircraft carriers and battle ships who were pounding Okanaua and the Japanese home islands. Almost every day, these men had to face swarms of Kamakazi, pilots, and bomber crews.😢Sorry, spelling. I am not sure how many ships were sunk and men killed. It does seem to be as dangerous a Naval duty a ship would have to perform. It is a very unreported part of the ally efforts to bring Japan to its knees. Personally, I would find an in-depth look at the picket lines very interesting.
The fleet was nicknamed 'THE FLEET THAT CAME TO STAY. Almost as many Navy files died offshore as did the Army and Marine grunts Only 1 other engagement had similar results...the Almost nightly fights in Iron Bottom sound
Drac please cover more of these, and ones of WW1 if there was any. I use your channel for my research and I love finding out more about smaller, less known battles/ engagements
These non popular but crucial surface actions are something deserves to be known. Esp battles between Axis lighter vessels like destroyers and cuisers and their Allied counterparts. German destroyers and cruisers are rarely cruised out of shore waters close to occupied Europe though. Naval battles of Narvik during Norwegian Campaign are something and first large defeat for German military in WW2
A thoroughly enjoyable set of stories, thank you. I'm coming to realise that rather than the hopeless posers I had always been told they were, the Regia Marina was a skillful, innovative and courageous navy that any country would be proud to posess - and one that produced a lot of entertaining stories too.
Thank you Drach, for that, ever since, as a boy watching Battle of the River Plate, comments made about the ships, involved, left me, with th impression, I was missing half the RN story, You have just joined Some of the dots
Brilliant! I would very much like to have you look at some of the destroyer flotilla actions during WWI as well as WWII. Thank you for a well informed episode.
I used to go fishing with a guy called bill welden he was the gunnery officer on hms hotspur or the hasty absolutely fascinating guy he could explain really technical in a way that you could understand he told me once he and another officer were effectively the government of Palestine for about 48 hrs as the war finished....
Small actions, not meriting their own shelf full of books, but nonetheless fatal for some of the crew involved, and well worth the time and effort to cover them.
My dad was radio operator on a Fletcher class in the Pacific theater. He was always very modest about his service, he always said he, "answered the phone and made coffee". He survived Typhoon Cobra and a near mine explosion but the closest he got to the Japanese was the invasion of Okinawa when some Japanese airplanes attacked nearby ships but not his own.
I get the impression that few veterans were ever very eager to talk of their time "in the trenches" so to speak (because war is horrific and traumatic), plus had a penchant for downplaying their role/involvement (because they lost friends alongside). That said, lots of servicemen and -women went through the war having been involved in very little of much consequence and/or fame - and while that might be distinctly lacking in "glory", I feel it's good to remember that being near glory also usually meant being in extremely dangerous and deadly situations. Most that got in that position probably would've preferred not to (in the grand scheme of things), as they usually lost a lot of friends from it, if not their own lives or good health. Remember, there's necessarily a very, very large number of people that never were born because their potential parent(s) got killed, maimed, or otherwise had their prospects destroyed in the war. I'd say it's a good thing that your old man's worst experience in the war might well have been Typhoon Cobra - although if he took that ride on a Fletcher class, that ought to have been harrowing enough 😬
Nothing says "fighting man" better than a USN or IJN WW2 destroyer captain. It always seems that the bigger the ship, the more the captain is concerned about preserving himself rather than smashing someone's face in. Destroyers? Well, it's their name.
Because the bigger the ship, the less navies were willing to risk them (since losing them means losing a lot of resources, and even using them successfully often wasn’t worth the expenditure), thus ironically making said ships less useful and less worth keeping around to start with. This particularly applies to battleships in WWII as the new combat paradigm of airpower meant that they really couldn’t do their jobs as capital ships even if you actively tried to use them as such (due to vastly increased battle ranges rather than due to being more vulnerable than other warships) and pretty much all of them were either effectively sidelined to supporting roles that failed to justify their expense (not a problem for older battleships that had already served as effective capital ships for a decade or two, but a massive strategic failure for newly built fast battleships), used in failed attempts at deploying them as capital ships alongside carriers (which all ended badly for the battleships because the range difference meant they never got to fire a shot while the carriers did all the actual capital ship stuff, leading to the same situation described above), or were just plain given up on because of their uselessness (for the Axis navies).
That's not what happened at Narvik. Crutchley and Whitworth took the battleship Warspite into the fjords and wiped out the German destroyers present - admittedly with the help of escorts. That's also not what the battlecruiser Renown did when she encountered Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway. Despite being outnumbered two to one, Simeon and Whitsorth had Renown attack the German battleships. After reading the gunnery officer's reports from S+G after the battle, I have no doubt that Renown would have sunk both ships had they not ran.
@@bluelemming5296oh, let's not be so Eurocentric and consider the capital ships of WW2 Atlantic relevant to history😂. If there had been a real German surface navy in WW2 (I know, I know, the "if" game) the Royal Navy would have followed it's WW1 precedent...another British admiral believing he can lose the war in an afternoon. To further a game of "ifs", do you believe that commander felt he was at a precipice? No, he assumed very few risks and none beyond his command and the lives of his men. No, surface actions in the WW2 Atlantic were nearly irrelevant. Nearly.
@@bkjeong4302another Eurocentric. My oh my. Let's consider the early Guadalcanal campaigns as well as the actions during both Phillippines campaigns. Maybe it has more to do with Royal Navy timidity? When IJN comanders displayed a Royal Navy level of daring, they were often dismissed to assigned to desks after poor performance. Sorry, but the Days of Nelson left the RN with the advent of Dreadnought.
@@JD-tn5lz You used the world 'always'. A single counter-example suffices to defeat an argument that uses the word 'always'. I provided two. :-) As for the relative importance of things, the surface warships provided a critical element in keeping the Arctic Convoys to the Soviet Union operational - which in turn kept the Soviet Union in the war - which in turn let the Soviets do the lion's share of destroying the Wehrmacht. I freely admit that most of the interesting naval battles happened in the Pacific or Med, but that didn't make the role of surface warships trivial or unimportant in the Atlantic. The early Arctic convoys were British - and the supplies delivered included tanks and other supplies that would be used in the battle for Moscow, helping to keep the Germans from capturing it. We know this because Soviet units operating with this equipment received commendations for their performance during the battle, which would become available to researchers and historians after the Cold War ended. There were 78 total Arctic Convoys. A large Arctic Convoy would contain about ~1 billion dollars in aid in today's money. The ships and close escort and crews would represent another ~billion dollars in investment - and that's not counting the distant escort containing the bigger warships. Those convoys were operated in the fall/winter/spring to take advantage of the bad weather and long Arctic nights to minimize the air threat. This meant that carriers were largely irrelevant as they couldn't operate in the bad weather. In WW1 the Germans largely wiped out a convoy from Norway escorted by destroyers and lighter ships using two cruisers. The presence of RN and USN cruisers and battleships in the North Atlantic, operating as 'distant escort', helped ensure they couldn't repeat that precedent in WW2, despite the notoriously bad weather in the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean which potentially provided raiders cover to operate without being spotted. Surface warships also helped ensure German surface raiders never had the chance to take out a troopship convoy. Nobody wanted to lose a troop ship that might be carrying 1k+ soldiers to a raider ambush. The loss of a troop convoy is a major strategic disaster. To transport a division and it's equipment typically required 10+ troopships. To protect troopships from raiders, you can't assume good weather or even daylight, which means carriers alone can't do the job. You need to have ships that can fight at night and in any weather - and that significantly outgun the enemy so they can destroy the enemy before the enemy can get within range of thin-skinned transports. So surface warships in the Atlantic were critical strategic assets that helped keep the Soviets in the war, and ensured the movement of troops to Europe and Africa to defeat Germany.
I have read somewhere that the action against the Haguro was taught in the RN naval college for many years as an example of a classic destroyer versus cruiser action.
With the setup, I thought you were going to talk about the Battle of Balikpapan on January 24th 1942, with US 4 piper destroyers sinking some transports.
It is so weird hearing Enterprise in a Surface Action i know of the cruiser but as an American Enterprise has always been an Aircraft Carrier its like cape Matapan with a carrier being in the battle line.
Funny you should mention the USS Enterprise in a surface battle. Because Dr Clarke, in an armchair admirals episode, joked about CV-6 getting involved in the night battles of Guadalcanal.
Funny you should mention a carrier in the battle line, because at Cape Matapan HMS Formidable actually did end up somehow in the battle line. She didn't do much, of course, as Adm. Cunningham's battleships did an adequate job of instantly turning their targets to scrap.
This is the best part of ww2 history- the stories of the small, less recognised actions that almost never get told. Thanks Drach. Btw when is Old Charlie going to knight you for services to Naval history? Sir Drach does sound nice...
MFP - Marinefahrprahm, or alternatively 'fast ferry barge'. (They weren't actually very fast, but 11 knots is what it is for a steel box with lorry engines and a ramp.) They could carry troops, cargo or three medium tanks. 75mm HA gun and one or two light flak. Italy used a variant of the type 'A' - similar to the one shown - as the Motozattera or MZ, built especially for Operation Hercules (the aborted Malta amphibious invasion). They ended up pulling vital duties along the Italy / North Africa routes, ferrying cargo to the beachheads in the face of powerful Allied air interdiction. MZs and the lengthened German type 'D' variants were up-gunned with copious light flak of all types from 1943 and spent the last years of the war running the coastal logistic routes in the Med and Western European theatres, where the Royal Navy and attached USN light forces knew them as "F lighters". Very hard opponents for PT crews. (Easier prey for the British LCGs following behind the PTs during combined patrols.)
There's an interesting link between the battle of Vella Gulf and the battle of Malacca Strait. The IJN squadron commander at Vella Gulf was Capt. Kaju Sugiura. Although his destroyer flagship was torpedoed and sunk, he survived this action, and was appointed to the IJN Haguro in Dec. 1943. He was still her CO 18 months later and was killed in action when she went down in the Malacca Strait.
One of the most interesting cruisers/destroyers actions of the war was the action off Pantelleria on 15 June 1942, part of Operation Harpoon. I am sure we will see a whole video/live about this on Poggiaroni’s channel at some point, but it would be great to hear the other side as well.
On the Italian side, two aspects of this encounter are particularly interesting: first, the meticulous preparation and elaborate deception conceived by Supermarina, which led to the 7th cruiser division intercepting the convoy escort at dawn after a high-speed night run. Second, the tactics adopted by Da Zara, who privileged high-speed manoeuvres to get to the best position relative to the opponents. On the British side, the use of smoke screens and the coordinated destroyer actions to launch torpedoes were much praised by Da Zara himself. All this is described in great detail in Da Zara memoirs ‘Pelle d’ammiraglio’. I don’t know if they were ever translated, if not it is a great pity.
Retired RCN here.... and I'm a huge fan of Drach. Love these videos! Like, comment, subscribe and hit the all notifications bell y'all.... send love Drach's way!
Great video, love the look at some of the small naval actions that get mostly ignored. As someone else already commented, a series about the post-Guadalcanal Solomons campaign in 1943 would be amazing. There are quite a few night battles that are at times very similar to the actions in Ironbottom Sound, but are talked about a lot less.
I always liked the Type 1936As, even if they weren't exactly the best designs. That twin 5.9" mount may have caused a ton of stability problems, but it was interesting and unique, nonetheless. Also one of the starter ships in Azur Lane is Z23, that may have something to do with it. Neat factoid though, she is able to equip light cruiser guns along with destroyer guns, but much like the actual Type 1936As, this is generally a bad idea, though for reasons of DPS rather than seakeeping.
I was happy to hear Nimi getting mentioned. Came down here to see if anyone else brought up AL. I didn't think about mentioning the CL guns. While they can give her unprecedented damage per salvo among DDs, her DPM suffers horribly.
@@CiaranMaxwellI believe Nimi also can only equip the twin 150s rather than actually every CL gun in the game. Regardless you'd use DD guns and even on CLs you'd prefer them where possible (like on San Diego).
I could never quite understand why you would not have a mixed load in your turret of one barrel being loaded with armor piercing, and the other being loaded with high explosive.
@@Drachinifel I understand! It would mean the fire control Director would need to be making two separate calculations for each salvo sent down range. That kind of double duty in a combat situation would probably get very messy. By the way, getting a direct reply from the man himself just made my day.
@@BlindMansRevenge2002what hes saying is both barrels elevate together. Its physically impossible for both to hit the same target due to the weight variance.
As a kid I would build historic ships out of Legos. I often wondered with as lightweight as the deck of an aircraft carrier is, why not just build more deck off the ends and sides for more space.
Because those lightweight decks needed the physical support provided under them by the superstructure of the ships they were built on. Unlike Legos, the metal and wood of aircraft carrier decking only have a limited ability to support the weight of an aircraft, without structural support.
These small battles between lighter warships are always interesting to me. Especially those fought in the Mediterranean Theater. They don't usually get much coverage, but were often quite sporty.
Please do a segment on the Naval Battle of Balikpapan (on the night of 24 Jan, 1942). USN 4-pipers successfully get the drop on relaxed Japanese forces in a night action.
Take a look at the Java Sea Campaign of early 1942. American, British, Dutch and Australian ships operated together against the Japanese in attempt to stop the Japanese advance. It did not go well for the Allied forces.
British Pacific Fleet were active with the US Navy around the Battle of Okinawa, suppressing enemy airfields and acting as the USN’s fighter shield during the campaign
In addition to what others have said ... There were many operations in the Mediterranean in WW2 where US and British PT-Boats/MTBs fought together. The US boats had radar, the British boats had superior torpedoes. This made for a very effective combination in night actions. US and British ships also worked together in amphibious operations such as North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normany, and the South of France (Dragoon). For example, the British provided the vast majority of the ~300 minesweepers for the Normandy invasion as well as providing warships to support the landings. At Omaha beach, a fair number of the landing craft had British crews, though American passengers. The British also provided two cruisers and three destroyers for gunfire support. At Utah beach, the British provided a monitor, three cruisers, and two frigates.
What fascinates me is who recorded accurately the blow by blow timeline of these engagements? Your commentary details not only the blows, but also the thoughts in some cases, and also the logistics. As every man and officer must have been fully occupied in fighting a small ship, who had the time, overview and intelligence to put all this down on paper?
@@rikk319 Thanks, but still not sure I understand. Battle histories often go into the finest detail, with exact timings, of dozens of decisions, by multiple commanders all made in the white hot heat of battle. Those officers can't remember everything, and they can't be sitting there with a notebook to diarise events and key moments. They can't be constantly dictating to a clerk on the bridge. And after the battle, if its part of an ongoing engagement, there's no opportunity for a group debrief. I swear this is a weakness in the Matrix. I'm surprised They let it slip through.
@@newscrews11 A sailor on the bridge would keep a log - that would be part of his job and he would be trained in how to do it (what to write down). Critical orders such as helm orders were always repeated by the recipient so there was time to write them down. These logs would then be used as the basis for reports after the battle. For more information, look up "An Introduction to Navy Deck Logs" and "Other Logs ... Rough and Smooth Logs" at the US National Archives site. Though the site is US-specific, this was a common practice for all WW2 navies as far as I know, the details probably vary in small ways from one navy to another. On warships there were formal ways of reporting certain types of information verbally, whether by lookouts on the bridge, or through the voice pipe systems. For example, 'masthead, bridge, , periscope sighted ', might be a sighting report over the voice pipe from the masthead lookout to the bridge for a WW2 RN/RAN ship. This formal process was primarily for clear, complete, and unambiguous communication, but would also help with keeping the log. At some point after the battle, there typically would be a group debrief to cover a ship's gunnery (and perhaps other things such as damage control), with problems noted and discussion of corrections that could be made in the future.
You clearly forgot the japanese torpedo boat operation in the beginning of the 19th century; stalking the second russian pacific squadron on their journey. A true logistical masterpiece by the empire.
I agree, I always like hearing about the biggest Jonah in modern history IJN Shiguri. Sailing with Shiguri was like putting on a red shirt and beaming down with Captain Kirk.
After torpedoing Arashi at Vella Gulf. Maury: Enterprise sends her regards. Edit: For context, Arashi and Maury were at Midway. Arashi we already know about. Maury spent that and the majority of 1942 escorting Enterprise.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Thanks Drach. I've been interested in the Mark2 16in 50cal guns that were to be fitted to the Iowa's before the famous mis-communication issues forced them to design the Mark7, a smaller lighter gun. I'm most interested in the sacrifices that were made to fit the smaller gun and I would love some actual real numbers as all I have is my guess work.
In my research into this I noticed that when the Mark6 16in 45cal guns went from being intended to use the lighter shell to the Super Heavy shell the powder that was to be used actually was increased and because of this I would assume it would be fair to guess that the Mark2 50cal guns would have at least not have the amount of powder decreased when going from the lighter to the Super Heavy Shells.
Conservatively keeping the powder the weight the same, The Mark2 guns were to use 700 pounds of powder while the Mark7 guns used 660 pounds with the Super Heavy shell, 40Ib or around 6% less.
Some back of the napkin math here, but assuming 6% more powder would give you around 6% more power and MV that would get the Super Heavy Shell to 2650 fps over the Mark 7's 2500 fps, 150fps more. That's nearly the same increase in MV the Mark7 have over the 45cal Mark6 guns at a 200 fps increase. This stuns me. Is there anyway to get an idea of how much power was actually sacrificed by going to the lighter Mark 7guns?
What’s the greatest insane destroyer battle in your opinion? Personally I go with Edsall’s last stand against the Kido Butai given that was probably the battle where the destroyer was most heavily outmatched.
In Drydock 303 you said you had found new information that made you change your stance on Rodney's torpedo attack from maybe to almost certain, are you planing to do addendum video this information and are there any other ships or battles you think need an addendum video might be good?
If Rodney _had_ aggressively pursued de Grasse's defeated force at the Saintes, a) how likely is it that he'd've been able to bag the entire deployed portion of the French battleline (as his critics afterwards alleged he'd passed up the opportunity to do), and b) if he _had_ managed to bag de Grasse's entire fleet, what effects would that've had going forwards?
When the allies overran German forces across France. What happened to any Kreigsmarine vessels still stationed in French Ports? Would they have been scuttled, used as floating AA in ports with German holdouts or make a run for neutral or friendly ports?
Hearing of a WWII naval commander that actually understood the capabilities and limitations of radar and used that knowledge to great advantage at Vella Gulf seems almost unbelievable after so many accounts on this channel where radar was dismissed, ignored, or generally misunderstood.
It’s always nice to see the Italians get recognized and not as the punchline to a joke.
The pasta power is real frfr
Italian frogmen would prefer their enemy continue to disregard them. "Pay no attention to the old freighter rusting in the dock near Gibralter. What's that, ships blowing up randomly in harbor? Perhaps you Brits should stop smoking near the ammo."
The Italian military throughout WWII is much like Italian rugby today. Tough, determined, capable of victory, even though most of the time, they will lose to stronger opponents. That's a far different thing than cowardly and easy to defeat as they've been painted in popular culture.
Beautiful ships. Poor air cover to protect sorties and convoys. No radar, scarce fuel, little help from Germany... they're basically doomed.
@therealuncleowen2588
The biggest problem with the Italian and French military personnel, is poor leadership! Both militarily and politically!
As individuals, they are quite capable and are a credit to their nation!
Their leadership, not so much!
Dealing with the RN for several years is no mean feat. Their special forces were also top notch.
Captain Manley Power is THE best name for destroyer captain ever.
should have a class of ships named after him.. Maybe the POWER class of frigates?
Manley Power, commander of Destroyers.
Cool as the name is for a naval officer, I imagine he had to fight for it, growing up.
Honestly they should have given him a battleship on the name alone.
@@andersjjensen
Why would they stick a guy like that on what would either be an old ship or a new but obsolete and useless ship?
could we get a full video on the small boat war in the channel and bay of biscay? these were the vicious knife fights of naval combat. in particular seeing the battle of ushant would be gratifying.
While I see Drac has already put his seal of approval on the request, I gotta second this suggestion. The small boat actions have always fascinated me.
Ya, I was disappointed he didn't cover the exploits of the HMCS destroyers :/
Manly Power: "There is no kill like overkill."
Over kill is underrated
@@CSSVirginiaALPHA MIKE FOXTROT
"There is no such thing as overkill. There is only 'Open fire!' and 'Reload!'"
Drach, you do seem to take great joy when referring to Captain Manely Power when he pops up. Did he have a sufficiently significant career to do a special on him? The prospect of a Manely Power special is quite splendid
Yes, we love our naval overachiever Captains.
Lee, Walker, Evans, Powers.
Outstanding leaders under extreme circumstances.
Power had a stellar career including being a major commander in nato,royal navy carrier commander, and carrier commander in the suez crisis. But I worry drach may consider that mostly outside the channel's time frame.
I think a good part of it is the name. I wonder if he has a brother named Maximilian.
@Macca17 this may be true, but I would vote he gets a special exemption for being a fan favorite.
If he was a UFC fighter he would have the greatest Bruce Buffer introduction of all time! 😂 Walkout song - "Now you're a man" (South Park) 😂
I remember reading the autobiography of the Shigure's Captain and his career during the war. He and his crew didn't realize that a torpedo had put a hole in the rudder until the ship was dry-docked MONTHS after the engagement. They chalked the destroyer's bad handling to mechanical issues after the battle due to how long the ship had gone without cleaning and refit.
Everybody's gangsta until a Captain actually named "Manley Power" shows up
When you’re born with a name like there are really only a couple ways you can go…
Major Dick Hammer ain’t scared.
Manley Power, Dick Hammer.
Both sound like names of gas station sex pills.
Never has a name been more determinant of destiny.
@@michaelfoster9964His brothers Jack and Turd aren't scared either.
I always like hearing about the destroyer skirmishes. They're so much more chaotic than the big line battles.
The Regia Marina really does have all the weird and wild stuff happen. I'd love to hear more about that particular scuffle, because it seems so uniquely Italian!
The Germans really do come off as a vicious, ungrateful bunch of moustache-twirling villains who get their just desserts, while the Italians absolutely glow with honour as they convert their dismay and disgust at what's just happened into heroics (with the Bersaglieri storming the port) and a noble administering of righteous justice (Aliseo apparently waited until she was fired upon, even after being ordered to shoot, before taking the Germans apart).
A very curious and fascinating incident all round.
Moosbrugger was one dud torpedo away from a Flawless Victory. BuOrd deserves a Imperial Japanese Unit Award. 😡
First this action occurred after the problems had largely been fixed, hence the successful nature of this attack. Also, since it hit the rudder and punched a hole in it, it could be that the torpedo itself was not a dud, simply that it didn't meet enough resistance to set off the warhead. This also happened to an American cruiser of the Cleveland class. The only way they knew was hit was that she was sluggish to turn. Finally, an explosion on the rudder itself might have critically damaged Shigure, leading to her sinking. This would have preventing Shigure from being the sole survivor of several actions in the future.
@@MrTScolaro True - we would have lost Captain Hara Tameichi and not have his memoirs if Shigure was lost. BuOrd still deserves that award for all of their other torpedo shenanaigans, though.
I served on WII built destroyers in the 1960s with 5" 38 guns. WWII crews with practice loaders and lots of real experience could fire 20+ rounds a minute per gun. I would not have wanted to be on those torpedoed Japanese destroyers when the Americans switched to gunfire. Most of the shells probably hit. My experience in training and gunfire support in Vietnam showed we straddled or hit the target on the first round. The captain of the Shigure in his book stated US destroyers usually straddled his ship with the first salvo.
This was an excellent video. Despite the short duration of the recountings, they felt adequately covered. I would actually like to see a part 2 of this, describing more cruiser/destroyer battles. Again, a very excellent video.
Agreed 👍
I’d actually like an entire series on the post-Guadalcanal Solomons night actions. IMO they’re about as crazy as any of the Slot battles.
RIP USS Helena.
Little Beavers
@@issacfoster1113 Arleigh Burke, the destroyer god.
@@ph89787
And so many others. A lot of them were Guadalcanal veterans too. Hell you had ships in the Solomons campaign become legends and then get sunk in the next battle, not to mention all the battles where the winning side failed to actually accomplish anything meaningful (which happened to both sides) because it failed to affect enemy troop movements.
Not to plug a different TH-cam channel but check out the unauthorized history of the pacific war. They did a great vid on the battle of kula gulf
The whole Wilderbeest-attacks-Sendai action can be played in a 2015 game, “Flying Tigers: Shadows over China” and despite being (essentially) an arcade game, you're forced to retreat before Sendai can be sunk - keeping things accurate to history.
Poor old Vampire. Won her spurs fighting in the Med, then escorted Prince of Wales and Repulse to their end and was with Hermes when she was sunk by dive-bombers off Trincomalee.
She was the Royal Navy's equivalent of the IJN's Shigure the Fleet Killer
Royal AUSTRALIAN Navy, thank you very much!
Sounds very similar to Yukikaze
A ship full of Jonahs.
I liked this video presentation. These small actions are often under reported and under appreciated. Thanks for this presentation.
A video about the Haguro operation would be interesting, and I agree with you, The name Manley Power is probobly one of historys most fitting name of a naval officer!
Vampire slipped into bat form and flew away silently. Too bad her report on Japanese night fighting led to some complacency.
So that was the ultimate fate of Arashi, the most important destroyer of WWII.
Of these battles the one I would most enjoy as a more detailed, stand alone video would probably be the German’s trying to seize Italian crafts and the Italians resistance to the thefts followed by the naval battle
When I think of small battle boats I cannot get over Taffy 3 and the insane amount of testosterone and guts.
USS Johnston and it's crew that had balls the size of Yamatos guns.
The ships that weren't really sunk by enemy gunfire, but actually by the ships losing buoyancy from the weight of the crew's balls
"Hah! And how well do Americans fight when they are the ones outgunned?" "Remember Taffy 3. Honey badger don't care."
The battle of Bastia sounds like something that's ripe for one of those old pocket WWII comics. Would love to hear more about that one and just general destroyer and cruiser melee in the Mediterranean would be a cool subject.
I was an ROV technician in 2016, we searched for the Alsterfuher for 4 weeks, didn't find her
You want to tell me you searched personally for the ALSTERUFER for four weeks (!!!) and still can't spell that name correctly?
@@thomaskositzki9424 - i spent couple years working with a software package in a job few years back. i CANNOT remember the name that software unless someone names it to me. Human memory is a frail and capricious beast.
@@thomaskositzki9424 I don't speak German and i smoke weed a fair bit. We can't all be grammatically gifted.
@@PlummySack79 I can empathisze with that. 😄 Deleted the last sentence.
Maybe cut a bit on the weed? Did work out a great deal for me. I know that can be tricky, just wanted to say it can be done to find a sweetspot. 🙂
I, personally, would love a Wednesday video covering Bastia in detail. I mean, all of these would be the great subject of one, but that's probably the one I've heard the least about.
I am clearly too used to USN vs IJN fights in the Pacific, because I took the first action (Battle of the Bay of Biscay) like this:
Drach: "Two cruisers versus 11 destroyers and torpedo boats"
Me: "That sounds bad for the cruisers."
Drach: "After lunch ..."
Me: "Oh, in daylight and with room to maneuver. That's much better."
of course Vampire was able to slip away into the night
This video was really appreciated Drach. I have never heard of any of these battles as it's always the capital ship battles that are recognized, not of the tin cans or cruisers.
The battles of Sirte would each merit a video in detail. Amazing work by the RN
Seconded. No pun.
One of my favorite overlooked battles. Moosebrugger is loose brother! Thanks, Drach.
I feel sorry for the moose.
Thank you for a fascinating collection of small actions that are actually very interesting, especially about the false report that IJN were NOT good at night actions.
Of the engagements discussed, all are worthy of further exploration. However, if having to pick just one I'd say the Italian vs. Germany confrontation. The idea of the Germans attempting their treachery against the Italians but being thwarted is, for a lack of a better expression, "hilarious."
Another Hit. This should be a regular series for the channel.
Captain Tameichi Hara gives a first-hand account of the Battle of Vella Gulf in his tremendous memoir "Japanese Destroyer Captain." He had particularly warned his squadron leader against the tactics of the night. It was months after the battle that Shigure went into drydock, and they found the reason their handling was so bad was their rudder had been pierced by that torpedo.
I cannot recommend Hara's memoir highly enough. It ends with his captaining the cruiser that accompanied Yamato on Operation Ten Go.
A good read! It's available as a free e-loan from the Internet Archive.
Thank You!
Yay! Some great small actions covered here.
Of course, you *had* to cover the Battle of the Bay of Biscay - had to, no question - but to see the little-discussed and curiously back-and-forth Action off Bastia discussed is an absolute delight!
Not least of all because, when scratch-building some Italian escorts in 1/350 scale for gaming purposes, I chose the Aliseo for her glorious and honourable conduct at Bastia, and a very enjoyable build it was. I'm pretty proud of her, and she sank three MTBs on her first outing at the club - even if my opponent was using her and those were *my* MTBs she sank!
(Sadly, I didn't have access to the lovely camouflage pattern details, so I chose to marry her to the legend of her older cousin Pegaso - the Orsa and Ciclone classes were practically the same hull - and so she, somewhat erroneously but very deliberately, wears a slight variation of Pegaso's 1942 splinter camouflage pattern with martial pride. Artistic licence there, and it allows me to use her as either ship if I want to. And yes, at the lower end of warship combat, she is an absolute *beast* - Bastia is a 'to do' game, as soon as my shore batteries and German MFPs are finished.)
-
As a footnote, Aliseo's captain, after defending and restoring his country's honour in battle, later on appears to have suffered a crisis of said honour over the general armistice terms and how that left his service & his country, and he sadly chose to take his own life.
The story of the sinking of the Haguro has some really interesting elements.
At 10:50pm, Radar Operator Norman Poole on destroyer HMS Venus reported to the bridge:
'Bridge ... Plot, I have a good solid echo on that bearing, sir. Bearing zero-four-five, range *_sixty-eight thousand yards_* , sir.'
This was far beyond the range of the destroyer's surface warning set.
Complete disbelief was the result.
However, Poole insisted that it was good contact, and as time passed, and the echo did not go away, the other radar operators and the ship's officers were forced to realize it was a legitimate contact despite the absurd range.
At 11:15pm Poole was able to report the target had a speed of 25 knots, a reasonable speed for a cruiser.
At 11:45pm Captain Power on HMS Saumarez ordered the destroyers into their battle formation. Venus was still the only ship that could see the target.
At 11:48pm the target disappeared from the radar scope on Venus. No ship in the Allied force had a radar contact.
But at 12:03am HMS Saumarez would pick up the echo for the first time at a range of 14 miles - and it was clearly the same echo as Venus had reported.
At 12:35am all the destroyers had the target on their scopes.
The early radar contact allowed the Allied destroyers to position themselves perfectly for a flotilla attack, long before the enemy had any idea they were present. It is now believed that a freak atmospheric condition allowed the radar signal from HMS Venus to follow the curve of the earth and thus achieve a much longer range. Poole would receive a DSM for being right - and insisting that he was right in spite of all disbelief and skepticism to the contrary from his peers and his superiors.
But that wasn't the only advantage they had. According to one of the Haguro's surviving crew members (Lt Cmdr Isamu Motora), she had picked up the Allied ships on her radar at 20k meters - and her lookouts had confirmed the report at 18k meters.
But something went wrong and the ship's response was badly delayed, allowing the British destroyers to close the range to 6k meters before Haguro's captain arrived on the bridge and gave the order to open fire. Whatever happened threw away the major advantages the cruiser had, it's long range guns, and long range torpedoes, and also limited the cruisers speed and maneuvering options.
*_Nobody knows exactly what went wrong, as most of the Haguro's officers did not survive - and Motora arrived on the bridge just before the ship opened fire._*
It was essentially a reverse of Savo Island, where the Japanese had been the ones with advanced warning due to their float planes operating at night and spotting the Allied warships for them, and the Allied officers were the ones caught unprepared for battle, responding late to the presence of the enemy and thus dooming their ships.
Source: John Winton's book: "Sink the Haguro!: Last Destroyer Action of the Second World War".
So what DID happen aboard Haguro to prevent her from responding to an attack she’d detected coming?
Please do more of these. Sometimes I find Wiki links to such actions, but you probably know where to look much better, and these small ship actions are both new (compared to much-covered famous battles) and more energetic to listen to. It doesn't even have to be WW2. I would happily accept WW1, Napoleonic, age of steam, or anything in between!
The Alsterfuher was carrying Wolfram from Japan. A vital ingredient in the hardening of steel, particularly ball bearings. Her loss had a significant impact on production.
tribology, an underrated study
@@user-to9ge8ii9n It slips past most people.
Isn't Wolfram an ore off tungsten?
Wolfram is the German (and historic English) name for tungsten. The chemical symbol for tungsten is W (from wolfram).
@@jeffbybee5207 the ore is Wolframite, mixed oxide of iron, manganese and tungsten (Fe, Mn)WO4
This is not a battle or engagement. Being on a destroyer in late 1944-1945 and receiving orders to join the picket line. This was the first line of defense protecting aircraft carriers and battle ships who were pounding Okanaua and the Japanese home islands. Almost every day, these men had to face swarms of Kamakazi, pilots, and bomber crews.😢Sorry, spelling. I am not sure how many ships were sunk and men killed. It does seem to be as dangerous a Naval duty a ship would have to perform. It is a very unreported part of the ally efforts to bring Japan to its knees. Personally, I would find an in-depth look at the picket lines very interesting.
The fleet was nicknamed 'THE FLEET THAT CAME TO STAY. Almost as many Navy files died offshore as did the Army and Marine grunts
Only 1 other engagement had similar results...the Almost nightly fights in Iron Bottom sound
Drac please cover more of these, and ones of WW1 if there was any. I use your channel for my research and I love finding out more about smaller, less known battles/ engagements
As a Tin Can Sailor, this brought back memories of my time at sea on a small boy; USS Semmes DDG 18 1983-84 and USS Kinkaid DD 965 1987-89...
Real sailors are Tin Can sailors....😎
These non popular but crucial surface actions are something deserves to be known. Esp battles between Axis lighter vessels like destroyers and cuisers and their Allied counterparts. German destroyers and cruisers are rarely cruised out of shore waters close to occupied Europe though. Naval battles of Narvik during Norwegian Campaign are something and first large defeat for German military in WW2
HMS Thanet, the only RN ship named after the Isle of Thanet, where I live.
Drach needs to offer a "Captain Manl(e)y Power" tshirt :P
A thoroughly enjoyable set of stories, thank you. I'm coming to realise that rather than the hopeless posers I had always been told they were, the Regia Marina was a skillful, innovative and courageous navy that any country would be proud to posess - and one that produced a lot of entertaining stories too.
Thank you Drach, for that, ever since, as a boy watching Battle of the River Plate, comments made about the ships, involved, left me, with th impression, I was missing half the RN story, You have just joined Some of the dots
Brilliant! I would very much like to have you look at some of the destroyer flotilla actions during WWI as well as WWII. Thank you for a well informed episode.
I used to go fishing with a guy called bill welden he was the gunnery officer on hms hotspur or the hasty absolutely fascinating guy he could explain really technical in a way that you could understand he told me once he and another officer were effectively the government of Palestine for about 48 hrs as the war finished....
Small actions, not meriting their own shelf full of books, but nonetheless fatal for some of the crew involved, and well worth the time and effort to cover them.
Would love to see the Haguro vs. North Cape veterans Sumaurez and Virago on their own video, but the Italians vs. The Germans is a worthy mention, too
My dad was radio operator on a Fletcher class in the Pacific theater. He was always very modest about his service, he always said he, "answered the phone and made coffee". He survived Typhoon Cobra and a near mine explosion but the closest he got to the Japanese was the invasion of Okinawa when some Japanese airplanes attacked nearby ships but not his own.
I get the impression that few veterans were ever very eager to talk of their time "in the trenches" so to speak (because war is horrific and traumatic), plus had a penchant for downplaying their role/involvement (because they lost friends alongside).
That said, lots of servicemen and -women went through the war having been involved in very little of much consequence and/or fame - and while that might be distinctly lacking in "glory", I feel it's good to remember that being near glory also usually meant being in extremely dangerous and deadly situations. Most that got in that position probably would've preferred not to (in the grand scheme of things), as they usually lost a lot of friends from it, if not their own lives or good health.
Remember, there's necessarily a very, very large number of people that never were born because their potential parent(s) got killed, maimed, or otherwise had their prospects destroyed in the war. I'd say it's a good thing that your old man's worst experience in the war might well have been Typhoon Cobra - although if he took that ride on a Fletcher class, that ought to have been harrowing enough 😬
That was a very interesting video, kind of like the frigate duel series. The small boys have all the fun. True in the 1800’s, true in present day.
Would love to get a full length video about the Italian vs. German skirmish, that sounds fascinating.
Nothing says "fighting man" better than a USN or IJN WW2 destroyer captain.
It always seems that the bigger the ship, the more the captain is concerned about preserving himself rather than smashing someone's face in. Destroyers? Well, it's their name.
Because the bigger the ship, the less navies were willing to risk them (since losing them means losing a lot of resources, and even using them successfully often wasn’t worth the expenditure), thus ironically making said ships less useful and less worth keeping around to start with.
This particularly applies to battleships in WWII as the new combat paradigm of airpower meant that they really couldn’t do their jobs as capital ships even if you actively tried to use them as such (due to vastly increased battle ranges rather than due to being more vulnerable than other warships) and pretty much all of them were either effectively sidelined to supporting roles that failed to justify their expense (not a problem for older battleships that had already served as effective capital ships for a decade or two, but a massive strategic failure for newly built fast battleships), used in failed attempts at deploying them as capital ships alongside carriers (which all ended badly for the battleships because the range difference meant they never got to fire a shot while the carriers did all the actual capital ship stuff, leading to the same situation described above), or were just plain given up on because of their uselessness (for the Axis navies).
That's not what happened at Narvik. Crutchley and Whitworth took the battleship Warspite into the fjords and wiped out the German destroyers present - admittedly with the help of escorts.
That's also not what the battlecruiser Renown did when she encountered Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway. Despite being outnumbered two to one, Simeon and Whitsorth had Renown attack the German battleships. After reading the gunnery officer's reports from S+G after the battle, I have no doubt that Renown would have sunk both ships had they not ran.
@@bluelemming5296oh, let's not be so Eurocentric and consider the capital ships of WW2 Atlantic relevant to history😂.
If there had been a real German surface navy in WW2 (I know, I know, the "if" game) the Royal Navy would have followed it's WW1 precedent...another British admiral believing he can lose the war in an afternoon.
To further a game of "ifs", do you believe that commander felt he was at a precipice? No, he assumed very few risks and none beyond his command and the lives of his men.
No, surface actions in the WW2 Atlantic were nearly irrelevant. Nearly.
@@bkjeong4302another Eurocentric. My oh my. Let's consider the early Guadalcanal campaigns as well as the actions during both Phillippines campaigns.
Maybe it has more to do with Royal Navy timidity?
When IJN comanders displayed a Royal Navy level of daring, they were often dismissed to assigned to desks after poor performance.
Sorry, but the Days of Nelson left the RN with the advent of Dreadnought.
@@JD-tn5lz You used the world 'always'. A single counter-example suffices to defeat an argument that uses the word 'always'. I provided two. :-)
As for the relative importance of things, the surface warships provided a critical element in keeping the Arctic Convoys to the Soviet Union operational - which in turn kept the Soviet Union in the war - which in turn let the Soviets do the lion's share of destroying the Wehrmacht.
I freely admit that most of the interesting naval battles happened in the Pacific or Med, but that didn't make the role of surface warships trivial or unimportant in the Atlantic.
The early Arctic convoys were British - and the supplies delivered included tanks and other supplies that would be used in the battle for Moscow, helping to keep the Germans from capturing it. We know this because Soviet units operating with this equipment received commendations for their performance during the battle, which would become available to researchers and historians after the Cold War ended.
There were 78 total Arctic Convoys. A large Arctic Convoy would contain about ~1 billion dollars in aid in today's money. The ships and close escort and crews would represent another ~billion dollars in investment - and that's not counting the distant escort containing the bigger warships.
Those convoys were operated in the fall/winter/spring to take advantage of the bad weather and long Arctic nights to minimize the air threat. This meant that carriers were largely irrelevant as they couldn't operate in the bad weather.
In WW1 the Germans largely wiped out a convoy from Norway escorted by destroyers and lighter ships using two cruisers.
The presence of RN and USN cruisers and battleships in the North Atlantic, operating as 'distant escort', helped ensure they couldn't repeat that precedent in WW2, despite the notoriously bad weather in the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean which potentially provided raiders cover to operate without being spotted.
Surface warships also helped ensure German surface raiders never had the chance to take out a troopship convoy. Nobody wanted to lose a troop ship that might be carrying 1k+ soldiers to a raider ambush. The loss of a troop convoy is a major strategic disaster. To transport a division and it's equipment typically required 10+ troopships. To protect troopships from raiders, you can't assume good weather or even daylight, which means carriers alone can't do the job. You need to have ships that can fight at night and in any weather - and that significantly outgun the enemy so they can destroy the enemy before the enemy can get within range of thin-skinned transports.
So surface warships in the Atlantic were critical strategic assets that helped keep the Soviets in the war, and ensured the movement of troops to Europe and Africa to defeat Germany.
I have read somewhere that the action against the Haguro was taught in the RN naval college for many years as an example of a classic destroyer versus cruiser action.
With the setup, I thought you were going to talk about the Battle of Balikpapan on January 24th 1942, with US 4 piper destroyers sinking some transports.
It is so weird hearing Enterprise in a Surface Action i know of the cruiser but as an American Enterprise has always been an Aircraft Carrier its like cape Matapan with a carrier being in the battle line.
Funny you should mention the USS Enterprise in a surface battle. Because Dr Clarke, in an armchair admirals episode, joked about CV-6 getting involved in the night battles of Guadalcanal.
Funny you should mention a carrier in the battle line, because at Cape Matapan HMS Formidable actually did end up somehow in the battle line. She didn't do much, of course, as Adm. Cunningham's battleships did an adequate job of instantly turning their targets to scrap.
Do something about the PT Boats of all sides and their effects in battle.
This is the best part of ww2 history- the stories of the small, less recognised actions that almost never get told.
Thanks Drach. Btw when is Old Charlie going to knight you for services to Naval history? Sir Drach does sound nice...
Great material for Victory at sea and Cruel seas! Such a cool name Manley Power.
19:22 Incredibly, I have never seen or heard of this type of German craft.
MFP - Marinefahrprahm, or alternatively 'fast ferry barge'. (They weren't actually very fast, but 11 knots is what it is for a steel box with lorry engines and a ramp.) They could carry troops, cargo or three medium tanks. 75mm HA gun and one or two light flak.
Italy used a variant of the type 'A' - similar to the one shown - as the Motozattera or MZ, built especially for Operation Hercules (the aborted Malta amphibious invasion). They ended up pulling vital duties along the Italy / North Africa routes, ferrying cargo to the beachheads in the face of powerful Allied air interdiction.
MZs and the lengthened German type 'D' variants were up-gunned with copious light flak of all types from 1943 and spent the last years of the war running the coastal logistic routes in the Med and Western European theatres, where the Royal Navy and attached USN light forces knew them as "F lighters". Very hard opponents for PT crews. (Easier prey for the British LCGs following behind the PTs during combined patrols.)
Ooooo this could give me some good ideas to play out in Victory at Sea
I just like falling to sleep with your videos. No pun intended. Your calm voice. Interesting topics. No anoying music. ❤
Very interesting. While some battles are smaller than others, they’re all “big” for those involved.
I think we could do with another such collection.
There's an interesting link between the battle of Vella Gulf and the battle of Malacca Strait. The IJN squadron commander at Vella Gulf was Capt. Kaju Sugiura. Although his destroyer flagship was torpedoed and sunk, he survived this action, and was appointed to the IJN Haguro in Dec. 1943. He was still her CO 18 months later and was killed in action when she went down in the Malacca Strait.
I appreciate these fantastic summaries!
One of the most interesting cruisers/destroyers actions of the war was the action off Pantelleria on 15 June 1942, part of Operation Harpoon. I am sure we will see a whole video/live about this on Poggiaroni’s channel at some point, but it would be great to hear the other side as well.
On the Italian side, two aspects of this encounter are particularly interesting: first, the meticulous preparation and elaborate deception conceived by Supermarina, which led to the 7th cruiser division intercepting the convoy escort at dawn after a high-speed night run. Second, the tactics adopted by Da Zara, who privileged high-speed manoeuvres to get to the best position relative to the opponents. On the British side, the use of smoke screens and the coordinated destroyer actions to launch torpedoes were much praised by Da Zara himself. All this is described in great detail in Da Zara memoirs ‘Pelle d’ammiraglio’. I don’t know if they were ever translated, if not it is a great pity.
I particularly enjoyed the casual Skyrim reference plopped in there as a fly-by. Well done.
Retired RCN here.... and I'm a huge fan of Drach. Love these videos! Like, comment, subscribe and hit the all notifications bell y'all.... send love Drach's way!
Great video, love the look at some of the small naval actions that get mostly ignored.
As someone else already commented, a series about the post-Guadalcanal Solomons campaign in 1943 would be amazing. There are quite a few night battles that are at times very similar to the actions in Ironbottom Sound, but are talked about a lot less.
I always liked the Type 1936As, even if they weren't exactly the best designs. That twin 5.9" mount may have caused a ton of stability problems, but it was interesting and unique, nonetheless.
Also one of the starter ships in Azur Lane is Z23, that may have something to do with it. Neat factoid though, she is able to equip light cruiser guns along with destroyer guns, but much like the actual Type 1936As, this is generally a bad idea, though for reasons of DPS rather than seakeeping.
I was happy to hear Nimi getting mentioned. Came down here to see if anyone else brought up AL.
I didn't think about mentioning the CL guns. While they can give her unprecedented damage per salvo among DDs, her DPM suffers horribly.
@@CiaranMaxwellI believe Nimi also can only equip the twin 150s rather than actually every CL gun in the game. Regardless you'd use DD guns and even on CLs you'd prefer them where possible (like on San Diego).
@@arieltimeshrine8137 Nope, just checked and it's any CL gun.
I could never quite understand why you would not have a mixed load in your turret of one barrel being loaded with armor piercing, and the other being loaded with high explosive.
Different shell weights mean they go on different arcs and thus different distances on the same elevation
@@Drachinifel I understand! It would mean the fire control Director would need to be making two separate calculations for each salvo sent down range. That kind of double duty in a combat situation would probably get very messy. By the way, getting a direct reply from the man himself just made my day.
@@BlindMansRevenge2002what hes saying is both barrels elevate together. Its physically impossible for both to hit the same target due to the weight variance.
Very interesting video. Bring on more like that one. Well done.
Last time I was this early to a Drach video, Adm King was still plinking with small caliber rifles.
Me too. I've never been this early either.
Absolutely fantastic video! Any of these would be great to have more details on.
As a kid I would build historic ships out of Legos. I often wondered with as lightweight as the deck of an aircraft carrier is, why not just build more deck off the ends and sides for more space.
Because those lightweight decks needed the physical support provided under them by the superstructure of the ships they were built on. Unlike Legos, the metal and wood of aircraft carrier decking only have a limited ability to support the weight of an aircraft, without structural support.
@@williestyle35 You also don't want to be top-heavy. See how Ryujo handled in heavy seas and how it required refitting to avoid capsizing.
Will you do a video on late war Japanese naval victories?
Will you ever do Battle of the Barents Sea?
Superb video btw.
Beautiful pictures, learned a lot. Great, mean looking ships those japanese heavy cruisers with 3 turrets on the foredeck...
These small battles between lighter warships are always interesting to me. Especially those fought in the Mediterranean Theater. They don't usually get much coverage, but were often quite sporty.
Please do a segment on the Naval Battle of Balikpapan (on the night of 24 Jan, 1942). USN 4-pipers successfully get the drop on relaxed Japanese forces in a night action.
How are you drac. Question was there ever a battle where the US and British fought together in the same battle group
Take a look at the Java Sea Campaign of early 1942. American, British, Dutch and Australian ships operated together against the Japanese in attempt to stop the Japanese advance. It did not go well for the Allied forces.
British Pacific Fleet were active with the US Navy around the Battle of Okinawa, suppressing enemy airfields and acting as the USN’s fighter shield during the campaign
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 For the most part, the Allies were fighting with antiques.
USS Wasp twice ran Spitfires into Malta as part of British operations to reinforce the island.
In addition to what others have said ...
There were many operations in the Mediterranean in WW2 where US and British PT-Boats/MTBs fought together. The US boats had radar, the British boats had superior torpedoes. This made for a very effective combination in night actions.
US and British ships also worked together in amphibious operations such as North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normany, and the South of France (Dragoon).
For example, the British provided the vast majority of the ~300 minesweepers for the Normandy invasion as well as providing warships to support the landings.
At Omaha beach, a fair number of the landing craft had British crews, though American passengers. The British also provided two cruisers and three destroyers for gunfire support.
At Utah beach, the British provided a monitor, three cruisers, and two frigates.
It should be illegal to give a ship a name as badass as "Vampire"
Well it was a V class so naturally someone was asked to think of something that began with V.
@@davidty2006Valim?
@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912do you mean Valium?
@@philgiglio7922 Oops! Yep. Didn't notice typo.
Great job drach
Drach, thanks for the summaries, photos and pictures of the action.
What fascinates me is who recorded accurately the blow by blow timeline of these engagements? Your commentary details not only the blows, but also the thoughts in some cases, and also the logistics. As every man and officer must have been fully occupied in fighting a small ship, who had the time, overview and intelligence to put all this down on paper?
After-action reports are a necessity for any commanders, whether land or sea. No one escapes from paperwork except the dead.
@@rikk319 Thanks, but still not sure I understand. Battle histories often go into the finest detail, with exact timings, of dozens of decisions, by multiple commanders all made in the white hot heat of battle. Those officers can't remember everything, and they can't be sitting there with a notebook to diarise events and key moments. They can't be constantly dictating to a clerk on the bridge. And after the battle, if its part of an ongoing engagement, there's no opportunity for a group debrief. I swear this is a weakness in the Matrix. I'm surprised They let it slip through.
@@newscrews11 A sailor on the bridge would keep a log - that would be part of his job and he would be trained in how to do it (what to write down). Critical orders such as helm orders were always repeated by the recipient so there was time to write them down. These logs would then be used as the basis for reports after the battle.
For more information, look up "An Introduction to Navy Deck Logs" and "Other Logs ... Rough and Smooth Logs" at the US National Archives site.
Though the site is US-specific, this was a common practice for all WW2 navies as far as I know, the details probably vary in small ways from one navy to another.
On warships there were formal ways of reporting certain types of information verbally, whether by lookouts on the bridge, or through the voice pipe systems. For example, 'masthead, bridge, , periscope sighted ', might be a sighting report over the voice pipe from the masthead lookout to the bridge for a WW2 RN/RAN ship.
This formal process was primarily for clear, complete, and unambiguous communication, but would also help with keeping the log.
At some point after the battle, there typically would be a group debrief to cover a ship's gunnery (and perhaps other things such as damage control), with problems noted and discussion of corrections that could be made in the future.
As usual your research and presentation is far superior to other TH-cam channels that cover warships. Thanks!
This was most interesting, I like to hear about other naval engagements that are not famous. Well done matey.
Thank you. Fascinating information!
Wow, those were brutal. Very much worthy of coverage.
I still remember and miss your original sound track at the beginning of your videos!😘🇺🇸🔥
Moosebrugger! Havent thought of that name in a long time . Had a bunch of friends and class mates who dads served on The USS Mossebrugger DD 980.
You clearly forgot the japanese torpedo boat operation in the beginning of the 19th century; stalking the second russian pacific squadron on their journey. A true logistical masterpiece by the empire.
It clearly states WWII. not overall actions of cruiser's and destroyers in the 20th century.
@@stephenanthony6508 that is an absolutely valid point which did not cross my mind.
I fantasize about a Drach video on Operation Berlin.. animated :) There's just very little info on it..
Excellent work as always, thank you.
The Barents Sea was mostly a very gallant destroyer action
I've never heard of the Battle of Bastia. It was certainly interesting to learn about!
Thank you Drach! What have got on US Navy Patrol Yachts like USS Sylph PY-12 of World War II Fame?
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Yes, more on Battle of Vella Gulf...
I agree, I always like hearing about the biggest Jonah in modern history IJN Shiguri. Sailing with Shiguri was like putting on a red shirt and beaming down with Captain Kirk.
After torpedoing Arashi at Vella Gulf.
Maury: Enterprise sends her regards.
Edit: For context, Arashi and Maury were at Midway. Arashi we already know about. Maury spent that and the majority of 1942 escorting Enterprise.
> destroyer with 16 torpedo tubes
> carrier escort
Why?