HMS Arethusa - Guide 281
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- The Arethusa class, light cruisers of British Royal Navy, are today's subject.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
Was Warburton-Lee over confident when he went into Narvik after he was informed by the Norwegian pilots he was facing six German destroyers not the four he originally thought and that the weather was closing in, couldn't he have waited for HMS Penelope or more destroyers to arrive?
If you could be like the Three Eyed Raven from GoT- and see over any shoulder during any period- which three ships or admirals would you watch? Which battles would you partake?
I ran across references to the battleship Richelieu (and some other Free French ships with the same 6" guns) using modified shells from the US 6"/47 Mark 16. Modified how, exactly? Bursting charge is the same, but shell weight is slightly reduced. Were the US shells precisely 6" (152.4 mm) and had to be machined down to precisely 152.0 mm? And is there any data available for comparing penetration of the French SAPC shell to the US AP shell from these guns?
Was this vessel part of Force K that was based at Malta?
How effective were french light cruisers compared to their contemporaries?
Royal Navy: "We need some light cruises for secondary line duty, convoy protection and the like. Would only send into front line battle if absolutely necessary."
Also Royal Navy: "Send the light cruisers into the heaviest of the front line battle. I'm sure it'll be fine."
To be fair, the British did consider the Mediterranean to be a secondary theatre of the naval war, so technically all actions there were "secondary line duties" even if it just happened to be against the second largest naval power in Europe at the time. :)
@@genericpersonx333 since the Kreigsmarine had something bigger than a captured destroyer in the mediterean sea, it wasn't the second naval power in europe, not in the med, at least.
and the mediterrean sea was more than vital for the Brits, because if the axis took the suez canal and the middle east would have been a mess.
@@serjacklucern4584 I was talking about Italy being the second great naval power in Europe, since Germany's naval power was almost entirely tied up in U-boats, especially by 1942. That is the irony, hence the amusement, that the British treated the Mediterranean as a secondary theatre even though the bigger enemy navy was there.
@@genericpersonx333 italy navy.... Uh do you mean allies bomber trainer target? Second navy of europe was the american's one, and the soviet's one was the third. Spain and portugall was after them, italy navy was pointless because the italian used the excuse of low fuell to not facing the brits and cover their Cowardice. Either way a navy that can't move is not even worth to be Mentioned.
Ciborium Sounds vaguely similar to the thinking about battlecruisers in WWI.
My Grandfather was on the USS Massachusetts and he loved warships and he always told me the most beautiful warships he ever saw were the HMS Renown and HMS Penelope, he said there was something about the lines of 3 twin gun turrets not as busy or crowded as a triple or fourth turret. He always said he never got to see the Exeter or York but always talked about Renown and Penelope. Tomorrow is the 19 years since his passing so the timing of this was perfect. Thank you Drach.
Now days it seems men rarely speak with kind deference to things that have impressed them in the past. Your grandfather seems to have left a positive impression on you too. Thank you for his service on this 2022 Memorial Day.
I agree with your grandfather. Three turret designs have a "look". Exeter was a better looking design than York in my opinion.
Aurora also carried King George VI from North Africa to Malta in early 1943. She had a saluting platform hastily installed over B Turret so the excited population gathering on the ramparts around the Grand Harbour could see His Majesty as Aurora sailed in. The Maltese had been given the shortest possible notice of the royal visit - security obviously. I saw the George Cross in a museum in Malta - the Maltese are still very proud of the honour.
Arethusa was the ship that controlled naval gunfire support on D-Day. Pretty key role.
An excellent and timely video, Drach! I just received my 1/350 scale HMS Arethusa because you never know what your neighbors are building....
@N Fels 6 inch, my dear sir. But with the right amount of guile I can convince my neighbors my HMS Arethusa carries 10 inchers.
@N Fels My apologies. Always dangerous to text so early in the morning. Should I "up gun" to 1/100 scale? 😉
Great video Drach
For ships never meant for front line service they certainly gave better than they got
As always, the little details are wonderful. Going through AA barrels while docked, wonderful stuff.
Ladies and gentelment, we have found a new way to tourture Drach, now we need to have a video about the Chinese navy during both WWs so that he need to read out the whole list of romanized chinese names.
Or the ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy during First Sino-Japanese War
Never underestimate Drach.
He could name all Chinese ships bore us to death and have fun doing it.
@@obelic71 You mean like how he did with the French Kinetic Sculpture Race?
@N Fels One of the stratenmakeropzee party class vessels of the Royal Dutch Navy
"Chungking" and "Chongqing" are exactly the same things in Chinese, "重庆”(simplified) or ”重慶“(traditional). It's named after the wartime capital of China, which the nationalist government moved to after Nanjing got, well, raped. The name Chongqing was later carried by a type 051 destroyer that is currently a museum ship in Tianjin across from the aircraft carrier Kiev. It is unclear what the next ship to carry that name would be since was designated a direct-administered municipality(DAM) in the late 1990s. The naming guidelines of the PLAN does not mention DAMs and no ship has been named after one yet. So it is not known if they are going to be treated like provinces (used for naming aircraft carriers and amphious assault ships) or cities(used for naming destoiers and frigates).
So they just switched the way of latinising the name at some point?
@@rolfs2165 It's actually called Romanizing, but yes. Chongking is the romanized version that dates from the early 20th century, Chongqing is the current version. Wiki "Romanization of Chinese" for more info
@@TomLuTon If we're doing "well, akshually", it's called _conversion._ ;)
Romanising and latinising are both appropriate for conversion into the Latin alphabet.
@@rolfs2165 back in the 30s Chinese is translated using Postal Romanization invented in 1890 I think was by a German. once PRC is established in 1949, in order to teach massive number of poor peasants population in China who could not write, an easier version called pinyin was invented and used as of today. The difference has caused few incidents recent days such as the KMT leader 蒋介石 Chiang Kai-Shek, this is in postal romanization, in pinyin is Jiang Jieshi. Some academic in China trying to translate a book with Chiang in Postal Romanization English to Chinese instead invented him a new name using the closest sound in pinyin as 常凯申
Thanks for the information, romanizing Chinese language depends on the system used. Pinyin is if I am correct the classic one now but it was not always the same before. In France we had Pékin and Beijing for example...
Also Drach Arethusa...
Thus. 😜
Well played, sir!
Thank you for this video, I've been waiting for this one for a while as this was my grandads ship in WW2. If anyone else had relatives on board during that time please drop me a message.
Hi , ,Saward, killed by mine I believe
My grandfather was a Chief Petty Officer aboard the HMS Aurora, prior to serving aboard her he was on two other ships that I don't think his diaries recall and had them both sunk out from under him. For the rest of his life he hated birthday candles and bacon, because they reminded him of when ships were hit and bodies were burning.
Apparently he was on one of the ships that was hit by a Fritz-X, and had been talking to some friends on an AA mount and had ducked inside when the bomb hit. He survived, but his friends and the AA mount were gone.
Okay, we're gonna a video on the life of HMS Aurora. Sounds interesting
Actually not that interesting, basically spending the later life constantly humping the seabed because both sides wanted it dead when it changed flag
Aurora did have quite the interesting career during the second world war. The highlights are probably when she, along with Penelope and two L class destroyers destroyed an Italian convoy escorted by a bunch of destroyers and heavy cruisers and when she bullied French destroyers during operation Torch.
I've been waiting for you to review the Arethusa-class. Even though I've been into World War II stuff since I was a kid, I've only learned about this ship class a couple years ago (and through a game). Even though not as well known as the Town-class (like Belfast and Edinburgh), the Arethusas are interesting.
Interesting facts I've also heard was that Galatea (personally my favorite of the four, sad that she was the first of her sister ships to go) was on patrol during the Spanish Civil War and encountered the Graf Spee. Both she and Arethusa were also a part of the Dunkirk evacuation. And strangely, the U-557 was sunk 2 days after sinking Galatea, friendly collision with an Italian torpedo boat.
Also, Arethusa was with Hood at Mers el-Kebir, firing torpedoes at Strasbourg.
The 'Towns' were actually known at the 'Southampton' class. I have never worked out why they tend to be call 'Towns' as they were all named after cities!
HMS Penelope to HMS Antelope, "At last HMS Pennyloap meets HMS Antellypee."
What amuses me is that they go through the trouble to develop this lightest of light cruisers, on the theory that they will make up for their shortcomings with the great numbers that can be built, and then they only planned six. I imagine they expected to order more ships of similar size and design later, but it amuses me all the same that the ship designed for great numbers was, well, not numerous to start with.
The war started a few years earlier than the British thought and had planned for
Timing is everything. If WW2 started in September of 1943 instead of September 1939, I am sure there would be more ships in this class, and we would have the Lions. Sigh.
The RN tended to order relatively small classes, and repeat them with any improvements they came up with. You see that with the wartime emergency destroyer classes. By USN standards many of these classes would all be one class with detail changes.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Good to know where Kenneth More did his research for "A Night to Remember" and "Sink the Bismarck".
Love these small cruisers!
My favourite cruiser class
My grandfather was CPO J Harvie, Chief Petty Officer In Charge of Ordinance, HMS Arethusa. I have a U.S. Nickel from his collection which he'd received while in NYC for repairs after the torpedo.
It seems that both Arethusa classes saw quite a bit of action in both of their respective wars.
Morning, sir! Thanks for the wonderful start to the day!
Me: is it bedtime?
TH-cam: Drachinifel has published a new video
Me: guess so.
From what I know of Kenneth More, I'm not surprised he would be giving a blow-by-blow of those dastardly swine attacking one of HM's ships during action.
Would have been unfortunate if he'd been knocked off while doing so. Cue a certain South Park quote...
wish one of them was still around today. beautifull ships
My grandfather served as a stoker on the HMS Arethusa
3:48 The scouting plane is fitted with wheels!! 😲
That means my eyes are still ok. I've spotted that, too.
LOL'd at Kenneth More narrating a battle for the rest of the crew.
Take the Arethusa from WHSB and put her with the Home Fleet.
I hope you're enjoying the US!! Safe travels!
Good morning
Last time I was this early Beatty still hadn't sent any information to Jellicoe
,,,,and Kamchatka was still seeing torpedo boats.
great video
What a beautiful ship
There were plans about Arethusa would be lent/sold to Norway after the war. Also, could you look into the Norwegian Draug and Sleipner classes, and the emergency S-class destroyers,since two of these were the HNorMS Stord and Svenner?
I call these the HMAS Sydney classes
For my fellow American history nerds, this class was roughly a full pre-war destroyer's displacement smaller than the American OMAHA class cruisers!
And three quarters of a museum ship curator size narrower in the beam.
HMS leviathan from WW1 - my grandfather served on it
Now that is a sexy cruiser.
The Good Doctor C will be liking this... .
"Unrotated projectile launchers"?? Would someone translate that? Thanks.
An early British experiment with anti-aircraft rockets, notably unsuccessful.
@@Philistine47 hey thanks!
As designed, the rocket would be launched above an aircraft's expected flight path, then descend on a parachute attached to a long cable. If the aircraft hit the parachute cable, the cable would pull the warhead into the aircraft and the impact fuze would fire.
UP rockets were used for some early proximity fuze testing because they didn't put as much stress on the fuze as a gun would. If the VT fuze hadn't worked in guns by the end of the war, you might have seen proximity-fuzed rockets make a comeback.
I knew Kenneth Moore had been in Navy but never read anything else about him. His portrayal of the Navy Commander in charge of finding the Bismark was very good, in fact all of the Naval personnel were well played with respect and realism. I have a question; if the ships were designed to be as light as possible to build as many as possible, why weren't more built? Did the navy have a personnel problem? Did they realize, as America did with their "tin clads" , that they had made a grave error? Or did the navy decide they needed more destroyers and escorts?
Of course the Naval personnel were played with realism, Esmond Knight, who played the Captain of HMS Prince Of Wales, was a gunnery officer aboard Prince Of Wales during the battle of the Denmark Straights. I believe it cost him an eye.
@@nicksykes4575 British Actor Richard Todd who played Maj John Howard at Pegasus Bridge actually was at Pegasus bridge. He actually to reports to himself in The Longest Day.
@@johnshepherd8687 Yep, I know, he actually wore his own airbourne beret in the film.
My HMS Aurora has a Chinese captain, strange. Great video as always.
Have you covered HMS MANXMAN or her sisters yet
IIRC HMS Penelope was "Penny lope" ...
Hello Drach, by chance have you read "A home on the rolling main" by AGF Ditcham? It's a great little book full of drama, humour and can be surprisingly emotive at times.
did they ever try using the 20mm hispano cannons that spitfires carried as anti aircraft guns?
From navweaps on the 20 mm Oerlikon:
"One of the largest advantages of this weapon from a maintenance point of view was that, unlike the contemporary Hispano-Suiza 20 mm gun, the forces used to operate the automatic mechanisms were quite high, which meant that such factors as friction, insufficient lubrication, cold weather, different elevations, rain and the like were small in proportion to the operating forces involved and therefore unlikely to cause stoppages. In addition, the barrel on the Oerlikon gun could be changed in 30 seconds or less while it took about an hour to change barrels on the Hispano-Suiza."
Say goodnight boys, goodnight!
At 4:00 are those wheels on that airplane? And if so, how would that work on a cruiser?
If the nelsons had been refitted then their 12 secondary turrets could have been used in 4 of these.. I wonder what sort of rework would be required ... and how much this would have saved to be spent on the nelson refits..
problem is with refits is you basically rip the ship up down to the deck and rebuild it back up. The lack of ships kind of also made refitting the nelsons (and hood) impossible since they needed them constantly deployed to wave the flag at the increasingly ill tempered neighbors. ironically, had they been able to build all the ships they wanted at the tonnage they wanted they could have pulled the nelsons to refit and also not build these compromised ships
Q: So when your ships use hard to reach foreign made weapons like Bofors and Oerlikons how do you acquire them in wartime?
The United States received plans on how to build them. Along with plans for the ammo. Not still in print, but the book 'Wheezers and Dodgers 'details a number of ww2 weapons created by the British organization and how the US got involved in making some of it.
They were license built in the UK and US
The Type 31 of the 1930s?
In hindsight, why did Britain enter into the treaty? Didn’t seem to be in their best interests.
After WW1 UK was heavily in debt and couldn’t afford a shipbuilding arms race.
The US was probably in the best economic condition after WW1 and could have out-built UK and Japan. UK still considered US a sea power rival then.
To avoid a naval arms race. The US had decided to build a navy 'second to none'. The British government really didn't want to have to pay for a bigger navy than it needed, as it was trying to pay down war debt as fast as possible. The US government didn't want to either, and so was willing to join a treaty as long as it could be 'second to none', so that just left persuading the Japanese, French, and Italians that it was in their best interests to sign up.
The devil was in the details - the major US shipyards were government owned, so they could keep their ship builders even in times of no building is they wished (and they managed to do so). The British largely relied on private yards, and thus with no major warship construction they laid off their workers and down-sized. When major warships started being built again in the mid-30s, the British had a major skill shortage and lack of plant for armour and gun making. That was probably the biggest cost to Britain of the treaties.
HMS Janus (F35)
Elliott
Why did Britain keep on keeping to ship size/type restrictions when other nations blatantly disregarded them. Surely they could build a ship with a certain gun type that could be upgraded quickly when war came about. I.e. 8 inch guns that could be replaced by 12 inch.
Errmm, because we play by the rules ? Anyway, if "Johnny Foreigner" disgraces himself by cheating then upon his own head be it !
* As the world's most prestigious naval power, Britain would suffer more consequences from being publicly labeled as a cheater. As long as British ships were seen as fair, the cheaters would have an incentive to keep their ships within a plausibly deniable margin over the treaty limits.
* The demand for numbers was more of a factor in Britain than anywhere else. Even before the London treaty limited the total tonnage of cruisers, they had already built the undersized heavy cruisers York and Exeter just to get more ships out of their budget. It would be counterproductive to plan to spend money upgrading existing ships when the greatest need was for more hulls in more places.
* 10,000-ton cruisers with 8-inch guns were already in the barrel-count sweet spot with eight or nine guns. "Upgrading" them to six larger guns would be a mixed blessing, especially with the difference in rate of fire between 8-inch and 12-inch guns.
We must remember that when Japan left the Treaty, the British just happened to find in their yards armor plates that surprisingly perfectly fit the counties. 🤔
Blue-haired and tsun-tsun... and hidden sleeve cannons!
"BAKA!"
Ah, a fellow Azur Lane player.
Personally, Galatea's my favorite.
It's lucky Kenneth More wasn't a Football Comentator. It was a ship of two halfs, Port and Starboard, we wus bombed.
4inch Guns on a Cruiser dosen't seem right. Were there others?
The main guns were 3 twin-mount 6 inch guns (one twin aft and 2 twins super-firing forward) with the 4 inch guns as secondary and AA defence.
@@TheCaptainbeefylog Oh! Obvious wasn't concentrating. Thought it was daft. Thanks.
Main battery was six 6" guns. 4" was the heavy anti-aircraft gun, and was absolutely normal for British cruiser AA.
@@jamesgoacher1606 np. It happens lol.
From personal experience...coffee first, then post 😄
Why do we british always seem to be fighting countries we have should our weapons and ships to? Shortly after the Chinese took her was the Korean War. In the Falklands the Argentines had type 42 destroyers which were state of the art. They had a British aircraft carrier etc. Why does history repeat itself like this
There is a chow mein joke in there somewhere. You already have the collander. th-cam.com/video/K4_fLIPAfoY/w-d-xo.html
I think this pandemic has taught people the importance of multiple streams of income, unfortunately having a job doesn't mean security rather having different investments is the real deal.
Very pretty ship the Arethusa, I’ve been wanting a guide on it from you for quite a while now. Thanks Admiral!
They are. I think that it's the twin funnels that gives them a nice, balanced profile (rather like the Amphions). So much more attractive than the rather squat-looking Leanders.
(¡ರ_ಠ)𑑍🍵 Myes, quite.
Aesthetically pleasing, indeed.
Actor Kenneth Moore was a true method actor. Enlisting in the Navy and serving on the Aurora purely to study for his role in "Sink the Bismarck!"
@@Kamina1703 His version of The 39 Steps is an underrated gem!
He was not a method actor.
The HMS Penelope, quite a tough ship she is. Survived the Luftwaffe for 4 years, only to be sunk by the Kriegsmarine. I guess sometimes you just need to let the navy give it a try. No disrespect to the Luftwaffe, I'm sure you guys tried your best.
One of the few ships in history to have a novel written about her, of course.
The Town-class vessel you'd mentioned ? HMS NEWCASTLE (C-76) was commanded by Mike Rutherford's (Genesis) father in the early 1950s. Apropos of nothing, really- just thought I'd toss that out there for consumption !!
🚬😎
Kenneth More the actor also survived "A Night To Remember", and he led the effort to "Sink the Bismark"...
But not before he'd lost both his legs in a Bristol Bulldog.
My Grandfather served on the Arethusa great to see you finaly do a video on her
Arathusa was attacked in the Mediterranean and limped back to Alexandria. 153 crew members were killed . My father survived but was traumatised for much of his life.
Such a high human cost to these damn wars. I hope he found peace in his later years.
@@davidb6576 I think he did, but thank goodness they recognise PTSD these days. We send young men to war, to see and experience things that we can't even imagine, and expect them to carry on as if nothing had happened.
@@jillyc8589 My grandfather served as Petty Supply Officer on Arethusa during the torpedo attack. There's a story about him bringing crates of oranges up from the hold to distribute amongst the men doing damage control as the fresh water was contaminated by the explosion. Something simple to sustain them while they continued to fight the fires. Perhaps your father ate one of these oranges!
@@arethusawatchco.9966 It would be lovely to think that he did eat your grandfather's orange. What a nice thing to do. 🙂
Brave little buggers the Arethusa's. The Admiralty got great value for money from them.
Thanks for reviewing this class of light cruiser. This brings back memories of reading C.S. Forester's novel The Ship about the fictitious HMS Artemis which pays tribute to HMS Penelope. I will have to look for an old copy now.
Actually Artemis is slightly different from the standard Arethusa class, if my reading is correct her gun layout is A,B & Y, rather than A, B & X (e.g. the aft turret is one deck level higher.)
The brits where so scared of not having enough cruisers under the allowed displacement that they made smaller and weaker versions of almost every cruiser class they launched "to build more of them" but ended up building these in even less numbers
There is a funny in 'Fleets of World War II" by Richard Worth:
"The British criticized [USN] insistence on large designs, claiming that American cruisers lacked the vital quality of expendability. The Royal Navy prized its expendable cruisers, and proceeded to expend them in large numbers." (p. 303)
@@markmaki4460 That's worthy of a Drachism, or perhaps it's were he draws inspiration?
Actually they needed large numbers of cruisers for trade protection. Under the terms of the various treaties limiting total tonnage, the smallest cruisers able to do that job were the best choice!
It wasn't what the Royal Navy wanted to build if they had a choice, what they could build!
Other Nations such as the U.S.A., Japan, and Italy didn't not have the large geographical area or merchant ships to defend, and could use their allotted tonnage to build larger more capable cruisers.
@@mahbriggs sure, but my point is that if you build it in an handfull of units you're kinda defeating te purpose of a small and cheap cruiser ment to be mass produced
@@gabrieledondoni6371
They got overtaken by events. The Japanese started building larger cruisers, and since the Pacific was one of the areas they needed to protect, they had to start building larger cruisers.
The problem was they needed numbers of effective ships for commerce protection. When the Arethusa was designed and laid down, it was thought to adequate for the time. When events overtook them, the British, rather than continue to build ships that were too small to do their mission, started building larger ships to counter them.
The interaction of the various treaties, commerce and fleet requirements, and what other potential adversaries built, was a very complex! No wonder they sometimes failed to read the tea leaves correctly.
I think HMS Penelope was one of the ships my grandad served on after coming of HMS Suffolk. “Pepper pot” was the name my dad always used, but we didn’t know the name of the ship until now. Thanks Drach!
iirc C S Forrester gathered most of the background info for "The Ship" from HMS Penelope, and based HMS Artemis on her. One edition has an intro about his time in her. Apparently drinking tea with the ratings was the best way of gathering material for the book.
@@iansadler4309 Thanks for that information. I'll have to look for that one.
my Grandfather served aboard the Penelope as well!
@@gyrene_asea4133 Pretty sure it was the Readers Digest Condensed Books version.
@@iansadler4309 I'll try to find an original published version of Forrester's work. RDCondensed isn't my cuppa.
Arethusa was the ship my grandfather served on! Always told us how the king was carried to the beaches on her.
This is true, on D-Day plus 10!
Very interesting Tim. My grandfather also served on her during that period. Sadly he passed away 8 years before I was born and his memories died with him as far as I know.
Ah cool, arethusa is my main light cruiser in war thunder atm whilst im researching up. Absolute tank of a ship in game, i genuinely managed to win a firefight against prinz eugen sailing it. Was absolutely amazed that not only did i win and sink her, but prinz didnt get any accurate main caliber fire on me either
I am assuming the play by play of the attack was not recorded. I would love to hear it. I wonder if the actor used any of that famous dry English humor.
No wonder both a cruiser and a carrier never got to carry the name. Everyone knows any Polyphemus would have had to be refitted as a torpedo ram to rightly wear the name.
Hello, Drach. Nice piece on Arethusa class, thank you. Any chance of a piece on the history and vessels of the Royal Naval Patrol Service some time ? They also do their business in great waters who go down to the sea in little ships.
My Saturday is now complete! Seriously tho I'm always ao grateful for what you offer us here and wish you and your family the very best 👍
A video on HMS starling of the black Swan class would be interesting, it's had a pretty eventful career and well known captain
GREAT crews. Mediocre kit. Typical Brit setup.
They were fine ships for their intended role, and proved effective even in roles they weren't intended for. Hardly 'mediocre'. While some features weren't the best (the AA gun magazines were poorly sited vis a vis the guns), they had some good features too, such as shelters for the AA gun crews so they could stay near their guns but in shelter when not actually firing them.
They proved to be very satisfactory in service. One thing that's often forgotten about ships is that habitability and sea-keeping make a huge difference to actual effectiveness, but they don't show up on a simple spec sheet and so they're easy to overlook.
Handsome ships, but like many Royal Navy light cruisers found themselves punching above their weight. Tough little ships too though like most cruisers very vulnerable to torpedo damage.
What a useless class of ship. 6x6” guns? I’d take a pair of destroyers against her, so just build a pair of destroyers.
Please could you review good hope and Monmouth?
Thank you
Livestreamed Attack?
Way ahead of her Time!
One of my residents father was aboard the ship
3:52 Is that a Hawker Osprey with wheels on the catapult?
Certainly looks like Hawker fin. Wheels, not float/s - perhaps trialling catapult or aircraft?
Or maybe a quick ride ashore for the embarked Flag Officer?
I thought this was the ship from ww1 lol
Good morning.
They were tough.
good video
Morning, I am a new viewer.. I am beginning to become interested in the History of Warships...
you've found the right place!
You've got a lot of catching up to do. Good luck.
Cruisers were useless - especially to the Royal Navy from 1919-1945+ - imo.
200,000 tons plus 15 heavy cruisers (say 150,000 more) = 350,000 tons.
The Royal Navy used these largely to protect her shipping, show the flag in foreign ports and protecting her foreign possessions.
None of these duties require great speed - 21-23 knots would do fine in these mostly, defensive tasks.
So, forgetting the Treaties for a minute, just build ten, 35,000 ton, 'treaty' 28-30 knot battleships instead of all these silly cruisers.
Or, twelve, 29,000 ton battleships with 25 knot top speed's (like the Queen Elizabeth's).
Or, fourteen, 25,000 ton battleships with 21 knot top speed's (perhaps with 6 instead of 8x15 inch guns).
These would make FAR, more sense.
1) during war, shipping would be in convoys. Thus, there would be a need for far less, protection warships. And no need for great speed.
Plus, no commerce raider or cruiser would attack a convoy so protected. Whereas they might try and attack one protected by only a cruiser.
2) showing the flag would look far better with a battleship than a cruiser.
3) protecting a foreign possession would be far easier with a battleship than a cruiser.
I think - in wartime - these 10-14 battleships could have taken care of the Royal Navy's needs (on top of the Home Fleet) in foreign waters.
And what about in battle?
Cruisers are still useless.
They cannot attack battleships and expect to survive for long.
Plus, destroyers are smaller, faster to launch torpedo attacks (heck, US Navy cruisers did not even carry torpedo's except for the Atlanta's).
All cruisers can do is take on other cruisers or destroyers.
But the secondary guns of a battleship can deal with destroyers...rendering cruisers superfluous in fleet battles.
So cruisers were silly, IMO.
Too weak to take on battleships.
WAY overbuilt to fight destroyers/submarines.
The only two classes of 1000+ ton, surface, combat ships needed back then were battleships and destroyers.
BTW, I enjoyed - as per usual - your video.
You have a great way with words (imo).
Thank you.
The Arethusa class were inferior on paper. However, they operated on the sea, not on paper.
Can you do the Walter B Cobb (APD-106) my grandfather was pretty high rank on that ship. I have never seen anything on it
this is a design i would love to see in ua dreadnought since the british lack light cruiser designs
HMS _Aurora_ needs to return
Thanks for the great work Sir
Wasnt Penelope the one that ended up being nicknamed HMS Pepperpot due to the amount of damage she took (and survived) while at Malta?
Found my question answered in the video, lol.
always had a soft spot for these little cruisers. and they are rather small but big enough to be effective. but really you do need 8 guns in proper turrets at least in the world after WW 1
The problem was trhe 1930 London Naval Conference restricted the RN to 15 heavy cruisers and the USN to 18. Maximum cruiser tonnage for the RN was set at 339,000.