It is incredibly noble of you to feel as though you need to use your TH-cam income to generate yet more TH-cam content. But you are under NO obligation to do so. The money you make from this channel is private income just like any other job you may have, and you may use it however you damn well please. :)
I remember watching dry docks in the low 100s. Keep up the good work Drach. I never had much interest in naval history until I stumbled upon your channel years ago. Truly fascinating stuff. I’m always impressed by your passion and extensive knowledge.
Speaking on behalf of many, we encourage you to visit Bermuda, together with the sea mine and the midshipman. Take lots of videos of the 9.2" gun though. In fact, we need a video on the ubiquitous 9.2" gun and Bermuda research would help.
Regarding vibration issues, one factor that needs more investigation is the use of STS, Special-Treatment Steel, in the US Navy. It is notable that it is the last generations of ships made with STS that have vibration issues more so than older ships made with more conventional structural steels. Also of note is that the other nation with notable vibration issues, Germany, also made extensive use of high-ductility steels, suggesting that the metal of the ships could be more of a factor than not.
Another advantage for Age of Sail commerce raiding/privateering: even your weapon systems can sometimes be resupplied from what you're raiding. Presumably most ships you're taking have *less* guns than you have, and they're definitely going to have variation in caliber...but they'll have some guns, some ammo for guns, and some powder...and you can pull *all three* off the ship you're pillaging for resupply - there's a max limit on the number of guns you'll want to add to your current ship of course, but if you're deep into a mission and low on ammo for what you set out with, you might be better off shuffling stuff around, dumping some ballast, sticking those original guns in the hold where the ballast was, sticking the other ship's gun's in your gun ports, and now you suddenly can use all of their ammunition. It'll be a downgrade if you're a warship and not a scrappy privateer, since. y'know, warship guns tend to be bigger than merchantman guns, but...having small guns with ammo is better than having big guns and no ammo. This is certainly a more involved procedure than just looting the food stores, but Age of Sail naval guns are *significantly* more portable than WWI naval guns, so it's at least hypothetically possible. And I'm pretty sure pirate crews did this semi regularly - accounts of pirate ships tend to suggest they had a lot more guns aboard than a ship that size should have had, and...I somehow doubt your average pirate was pulling into a proper shipyard and putting in an order for 50% more guns than any reasonable person would put on that ship. Just....doesn't seem like standard pirate behaviour. (Though there's probably some examples of privateers who got their start with a royal commission and a starting investment that would allow them to do exactly that.)
Another drawback of trying to torpedo a convoy escort would be that if you miss, the escort will be able to follow the trail of bubbles back to your location (and call his mates as well).
Drachism of the day: "Being treated better than a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army is such a low bar that you could probably dig down with s JCB for several days and still clear it"
It's always amusing reading about how General Marshall and Admiral King had to deal with MacArthur's constant demands for USN assets between themselves.
We can actually take a pretty good shot at estimating what the New Mexicos would have been like if the development was unconstrained. Remember, the Standards were "standard" largely because of the interference of SECNAV Josephus Daniels, who consistently vetoed the General Board's plans for improved battleship designs for cost reasons, instead favoring slight upgrades to the previous ship every year. The Pennsylvanians were pretty much as the General Board requested, as they were being conservative, having bigger plans for the *next* year's battleships. Without Daniels vetoing changes, the New Mexicos would have probably looked a lot like the design the General Board selected for them, and then asked for *again* with the Tennessees (and were again denied). I'd give the characteristics, but unfortunately, I'm in the middle of moving, and my copy of Friedman's US Battleships is currently in a box somewhere and I don't have the time or energy to dig it out right at this moment.
Hahaha yes, since we can't help move your stuff, we'll have to take on pushing the google button. But I'm guessing it'll be 16" guns, and maybe a knot or two.
Really, considering "fleet problems" rather than trying to work out how a battle would go, can be worked out on paper just as much as rolling dice. And neither is actually going to accurately tell how a battle will go just because of what I call "the Samar" factor! You'd never think that Taffy 3 along with planes from Taffy 1 & 2 could make the Center Force turn & run but IT HAPPENED! And so there are always going to be things that you can't really account for in EVERY battle! Just like you would have never thought that the Hood would go up in a magazine explosion when it happened. But the one thing that you can do is make sure that everyone knows what they are doing and how to do it. How to change from a traveling formation into a battle line. And what ships should proceed to the front of the line & which ships should take up the rear in doing so. How to break off of an engagement if the enemy is going to cross your T. And how to quickly engage if you manage to cross the T of the enemy. I mean nowadays that type of thing doesn't come into play but in the age of the Dreadnoughts it very much mattered. And it also mattered what your escorts did as well. You never can tell how a battle will happen. All you can do is train & practice and train & practice and try to be as ready as you can possibly be for whatever may happen. And try to stay as calm as possible and each person do the job they were trained to do. Each person can only do so much & if things start falling apart around you then help those you can & do your best is the most you can hope for. Idk, Fleet problems told the Japanese to attack on a Sunday morning! Thanks Admiral King!
Short was negligent in his readiness and dispositions so I think relieving him was justified. Since the Army was responsible for Hawaiian defense, including the naval facilities, Kimmel was a hostage to Short. However, Nimitz was already pre-selected for war time Pacific Command so Kimmel was going to replaced anyway. It was much easier to scapegoat and retire him even if it was just for the optics.
Yeah, I was thinking,(yes, I know, a very dangerous thing to do at times) but I was thinking that one of those M Class submarines with the 12" gun may have done well in the waters off of Guadal Canal. Considering that the Mark 14 torpedoes were having such troubles, as long as the sub could avoid friendly fire incidents it may have been quite an asset in Iron Bottom Sound! Since the sub would be difficult to spot in the dark, & that was when the Japanese came calling. They could basically let 2 subs set up, each one guarding a different direction of Savo Island & make sure none of the US ships come in that direction. Then any ship they draw a bead on they can blow it out of the water!!
With the complete confidence afforded by total ignorance I can say:let's do it! Your argument sounds like a plan of attack that could have been done, feasible doable. It could also confound the IJN in their determining what happened to their ships. For them to conclude that heavy artillery submarines were surely the cause ... hahaha, seems unlikely.
An idea 80 years too late! But the US never got crazy enough to put a 12" gun on a submarine. Salute to the Brits for dreaming that one up. If it wasn't actually documented, I'd believe it to be a fairy tale! Cuz, I wouldn't think a sub could stand up to be sturdy enough to be firing a 12" gun. But I guess that is WHY the submariners liked the subs because it was built VERY STURDY!
Another thing with surface raiders in the World Wars, was that there were effectively no semi-hostile “neutral” ports. Not having non belligerent ports to send prizes to, or resupply from, made quite a difference.
Not true, in WW2 the Germans had, and used Japan and her conquered lands to send "Prizes" to. The German used Spain as a resupply base. The Germans also used the Soviet Union as a supply and repair base prior to there invasion. Prior to the USA entry to WW2 the Germans used the USA to supply oil and other items. The Altmark loaded a full cargo of Texas Light Crude for supply to the Graf Spee as .bunkers. The Germans also used Vichy French occupied lads to support there war efforts.
Another reason the Japanese Navy might have been kinder is that worked with the Brit Navy pre war and somewhat modeled themselves on them. It might have been enough to soften their Bushido code.
The navy was also being fed. The army guards on the thai-burma railroad (where one of my uncles from 8div 2AIF died) were basically on the same ration as their prisoners. 2/10 of f all.
@@sugarnads It might be just a navy thing. The German Navy didn't go along with that anti Jew programs and protected them from reprisals. They were definitely the odd man out in the German military.
@@sugarnads That is something that is often forgotten, land armies tend to go through harrowing things that can result in incentivizing very poor treatment of "the enemy".
@@tim2024-df5fu Yeah, not to understate the suffering inflicted on any of the branches but as I understand the land armies tend to suffer through the more personally grueling experience, one that is usually something that can be very plausibly blamed on the men you are fighting. While at sea there tend to be more unifying environmental dangers at the very least.
Regarding MacArthur and control of the Seventh Fleet, I recently read Mark Stille's recent Leyte Gulf book. It may only be a matter of semantics, but Seventh Fleet ships communicated with Seventh Fleet HQ in the Manus. (Third Fleet with Nimitz's HQ). I didn't get the impression at any time the army was involved, other than 7th Fleet HQ was co-located with MacArthur's base in the Manus. Still, an extremely poor way of coordinating actions.
MTBs, PT Boats, Schnellboot all qualify as surface raiders - and all played very important roles in sinking coastal surface traffic, in multiple theaters. Not sure about Italian MAS boats - they existed, they were a threat, their crews were very courageous, but I don't have any data on how effective they were. Somebody else who knows more, feel free to contribute! Germany, Japan, and Britain all relied heavily on coastal traffic at various points in the war. Often these would operate at night and stay hidden by day: the Japanese in particular had a reputation for very good camouflage of their coastal traffic. The Japanese may have missed a bet in not coming up with a "Long Lance" version of this type of craft for use in the island chains they were planning to occupy - though the sheer size of those torpedoes would have created a design challenge. I imagine they could have hidden during the day, then attacked from shallow water at night, using the nearby landmass that made the water shallow to hide them from both sight and radar. The MTBs and PT Boats never really became obsolete during WW2, the Schnellboot arguably did due to Allied control of the air and due to radar guided/fused shells - if you can hit a plane, you can probably hit a much slower moving target like a Schnellboot. This is a bit ironic, in that the Schnellboot was probably the best design of any of these craft - the Germans seemed to be way ahead of everybody else when it came to small diesel engines for maritime use, which gave them major advantages over the gasoline engines used by the other powers (such as reduced flammability and longer range - DK Brown has some interesting comments on this in one of his warship design books). A Japanese version of the Schnellboot with German engines and Long Lance torpedoes would have been interesting (and scary). In WW2, British surface forces - specifically light cruisers and destroyers - also played important roles in sinking convoy traffic and thus functioned as surface raiders. For example, Force K out of Malta. Radar and SigInt played key roles here. A sub might be able to sink one or two transports in a convoy, but surface vessels could sink a lot more ships in a single encounter, which could have significant value if the convoy was really critical to an upcoming battle on land in places like North Africa. In WW1, on two occasions, German surface forces largely wiped out British Norwegian Convoys. On the first occasion, two fast 'cruiser-minelayers' largely destroyed a convoy with no escorts larger than a destroyer, and on the second occasion the Germans used a new destroyer flotilla. German surface vessels could have been much more effective as raiders in WW2, but problems in the naval high command and problems with the boss being an idiot tended to get in the way. Design flaws in some of their the ships also created problems for them, as did issues with their cruiser shells not exploding when they were supposed to. The Japanese did operate a few surface raiders in the Indian Ocean. The best known encounter is probably that between HMIS Bengal and the tanker Ondina and a pair of Japanese surface raiders. It's noteworthy because the naval crew manning the guns on Ondina managed to sink one of the surface raiders with some superb (and lucky) shooting.
"escorts can be replaced" Yep. The reason the escorts are with the convoy is that the escorts are more expendable than the contents of the convoy. If the convoy weren't vital enough to risk losing a destroyer, there wouldn't be a destroyer escorting it.
We're all familiar with the shell shortages of 1915 and 1944 for the armies. Has anything similar happened to a navy? Obviously, there were some cases like Crete where British ships were kept on station or sent back low on anti-aircraft ammunition and subsequently sunk, but I mean on a broader fleetwide level. While a fleet with limited ammunition could just decline to sail out, that also gives the enemy command of the sea for a while.
"What would the Colorado class have looked like without the 'Standard' Type being a thing?" If Congress didn't constantly meddle in the Navy's budget the Tennessee class would have had been the first with 16 inch guns and the 4 Colorado class would have ended up with 10 x 16 inch guns in 5 turrets in an New York class layout before going to the South Dakota class with 12 X 16 inch guns. What would have followed is vague but I read about designs of an up gunned South Dakota armed with 8 of the Mark 1 18 inch guns in 4 twin turrets (if intel of the No.13 and N3 battleships got out) or a fusion design. A South Dakota with Lexington's engines with a displacement over 50,000 tons.
Wouldn't the most common British submarine answer also depend on the theater you are looking at? I would think the answer would differ for Med vs. North Sea .
A convoy that looses all escorts and no merchant ship is a successful convoy. A convoy that sinks half a dozen U-boats and looses half the merchants is not. That said, RN/RCN lost quite a number of escorts to U-boats, wether on purpose or because they were simply "in the way" of a torpedo. Still, a torpedo that sinks an escort doesn't sink a merchant. Mission partially accomplished. Can anybody tell me about the troop transports and their escort ? I've read in a NOVEL that in case of an emergency the escorts were to "catch" any incoming torpedo if it was about to hit the transport. Is there any truth to that claim ? As for McArthur not being sacked: the Phillipines didn't go down without a fight. Pearl Harbor was a pants down kick in the balls on American "soil". Churchill sacked generals for loosing battles that he prematurely forced them into.
The allies were very concerned about having good escorts for troop transports in WW2. For example, the British used a lot of troops from Australian and New Zealand, so you'll see quite a bit of high level dialogue between Australia/New Zealand/Britain about the transport of troops across the Indian Ocean, concerning the need to have a proper escort. At various times during the war both German and Japanese surface raiders and subs did operate in the Indian Ocean and even off Australia so the escort would often include both a cruiser and an ASW screen. A typical transport could typically carry ~1k-2k troops and their equipment, depending upon size. Figure ~10-20 transports for an infantry division and it's supporting equipment, depending not only on the size of the size but also the size of the division - a reinforced division is about 2x the size of a regular division. So any single ship that's hit has the potential for massive casualties. Losses could be expected to be especially high in cold water or in bad weather. Losing that many troops to enemy action in a matter of minutes would have been a major political disaster, even aside from the human considerations. Losing multiple ships is an even worse disaster. So they put a lot of time and effort into making sure it didn't happen. This meant very strong escorts, including a battleship if there were enemy battleships unaccounted for, and possibly even a carrier (typically a CVE if one was available). Lots of ASW capability were included in the escort as well, and perhaps a dedicated rescue ship (once those became a thing). Troop transport convoys were much faster than other convoys carrying bulk goods. They used converted liners when they could, because these were often fairly fast and could easily be adapted for use with troops. Higher speed helped reduce the submarine threat. Some liners were fast enough (~30 knots) that they didn't need an escort for much of their journey. These ships could carry a lot more men than the usual transports (~10k-~15k). If you watch the movie Greyhound, the scene at the end where the troops are cheering is pure Hollywood - they would never have sent large numbers of troops across the Atlantic to Britain in a slow, weakly escorted convoy like that, at that point in the war. Despite all the effort put into protecting transports carrying troops, there were failures. Some well known transport losses include the loss of HMT Rohna in the Mediterranean (very heavy casualties due to the rough seas), the loss of USS Thomas Stone during Torch (the troops were moved into boats then later a corvette so few losses occurred), the loss of SS Dorchester in the Atlantic, the loss of SS Léopoldville in the English channel, and loss of a German transport Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic (this last was probably the worst maritime disaster in modern history). The Japanese were not nearly as good at protecting convoys and took some serious losses when their transports were sunk. A fair number of Allied POWs would also be lost on a number of occasions when Japanese ships were sunk. I don't know of any case where an escort deliberately rammed a torpedo to prevent it from hitting a transport. Typically escorts were relatively shallow draft, so torpedoes set to hit transports with their deeper draft might well go under the hull of the escort without hitting it. Also, it's pretty unlikely an escort would be in the right spot at the right time to ram a torpedo even if it was running shallow enough to make that possible.
Some people say things are always changing. My counter point is even in the old days of some of the largest war games played RNG was still a cruel and anger inducing thing.
Hmmm no pinned for Q&A post... To follow on to the question about surface raiders. Doesn't the US Entry in WWI and WWII make lone merchant vessels like armed merchant cruisers look highly suspicious? And would not that make the camouflage efforts less useful?
Why would they be suspicious, they have the right to be armed for self-defense if there's a chance they come under attack and beligenrent raiders must identify their target (inckuding nationality, obviously) before attacking. And I've no idea what you mean with camouflage becoming useless, it's designed to make a ship's shape identification and course detection as hard as possible, not to hide the ship from view!!
@@derrickstorm6976 Because after the US entered the war, there was essentially no neutral shipping outside the Baltic. And the Allies were using the convoy system (except initially near the US coast). So, what merchants would be on the sea. You should assume that ALL ships at that lone merchant vessels are enemy vessels.
@@derrickstorm6976 It depends on your disguise, I should imagine that the WW1 German AMC Cap Trafalgars disguise as the RMS Carmania would have raised some level of suspicion when she met the British AMC HMS Carmania.
49:00. How do you shave 3,000 tons off a G3 design? No problem. Imagine a Rodney with a 160,000 hp powerplant and 16 X 6" guns in 8 turrets. Now if you thought a Rodney that can go 23 knots was already scary. Think of one that can sprint at 32 knots with enough deck space aft of the tower superstructure to cram every light AA guns imaginable.
Regarding the last question on this episode of The Drydock (323). What is your opinion on why, during the refit/repairs on the Battleships that had turbo-electric drives, did they not update or refit new, more powerful motors i ro these ships? I should think that it would not be hugely complex, and would significantly benefit these ship?
Hmm perhaps we should start tying these to ships with the same hull number. Like DD-323 the USS Chase a Clemson class destroyer. I’d reference the RN but they don’t really do hull numbers.
Washington Treaty era alt history. Right in Steve's wheelhouse. Historical basis: The 1916 Navy Bill had a cost limit on the first four BBs, which we know as the Colorados. There was no cost limit on the following six BBs, which we know as the South Dakotas. USN priorities changed when the US entered the war, and capital ships were put on the back burner. In June 1918, Congress included an amendment in the annual Navy Bill, requiring the Navy Department to make a start on the ships authorized in 16, but not yet started. That would be the three remaining Colorados, Lexingtons and South Dakotas. SecNav Daniels proceeded per plan. The Steve alt: Daniels says the 42,000 ton design, which Congress had approved, made the Colorados obsolete, so building the remaining three would be a waste. He proposes completing Maryland with 14"/50s, as BuOrd head Strauss had ordered them in quantity far in excess of need. Skip the 16"/45, and go straight to the 16"/50, laying down the South Dakotas as soon as practicable. There is a South Dakota class drawing dated 5-3-18, planned to be laid down in 1919. That drawing shows the ships with a displacement of 42,500 tons. 400 tons of that being reserve boiler feed water, and 1600 was fuel, which were omitted from treaty displacement calculations. Historically, the UK was willing to accept an individual ship displacement of 42,000 tons, due to Hood, so the South Daktoas, per the 1918 drawing, are golden. The final construction drawings for the South Dakotas are dated April 25, 1919, approved by Franklin Roosevelt, as "acting" SecNav. So we are looking at them being laid down in late 1919, at the earliest. There is no way they would be complete before the treaty, just as the three later Colorados were not complete, historically. Japan demands to be allowed to complete Tosa, because of Hood, giving Japan three "post-Jutland" ships with 16" guns, one being of 40,000-ish tons. Given the 5:5:3 ratio, that would mean the US could complete 5 of the South Dakotas, but Japan objects to the US having that many ships of that size, and the US doesn't want to spend that much money. The compromise reached is the US completes two South Dakotas, and is allowed to up-gun Maryland, Tennessee, and California to the 16"/45, if it wants to, giving the US 5 "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships. The UK is then allowed to build one ship of up to 42,000 tons, and 3 32-35,000-ish ton "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships.
How can you immediately skip to Mark 7' from Mk 5's though, they're so different from each other with Mk 6 being an integral part of the development. Not to mention Mk 7 was completed only for the Iowas - and was a rush job design to make the guns fit a turret that was too small for the original design - so you would have ships sitting with no main guns for 2 decades
@@derrickstorm6976 the 16"/45 originally developed for the Colorados was the Mk 1, which started design in 1913. The 16"/50 designed for the South Dakota program of the 1920s was the Mk 2, designed in 1916. You might be confusing the South Dakotas that were cancelled in 1922, with the South Dakotas that were built at the start of WWII. The BuOrd 1918 annual report says the test program for the 16"/50 had been completed, and the production program for 104 guns had started. So both were in hand when SecNav Daniels could have told Congress to cancel the Colorados in June of 1918.
would it be at all possible to do a piece on HMS Whimbrel, she still survives in Egypt (kind of) and was a veteren of arctic convoys, western approaches, far east, med, saw it all really
Lotta weird bots in the comments... Who builds these things? Good for the algo I guess. Thanks for another vid Drach! Always look forward to these, even if they take me a few days to get through.
Japaneser treatment of POWs: A bit of a guess, but the traditions of the army were based on the Samurais, while the navy was populated initially by commoners, due to the mechanical knowledge required. This might be reflected in different treatment of POWs. This social distinction seems also to be the basis of some ot the discord between the Japanese army and navy.
The IJA very deliberately purged samurai influence during and after the meiji restoration. There is not a ton of continuity between the romanticised samurai idea used around ww2 and the historical samurai.
Footage of you DIVING ON A SHIPWRECK would be AWESOME imho!!! That would be very unique & great for the Chanel! I would guess you would also have to invest in a waterprooof camera too. I didn't know that you had been "previously" certified as a diver. But also you may want to see if flying to the US & then flying back & forth from the US to Bermuda would be less expensive. Meaning you could maybe spend time here in the US seeing something, fly to Bermuda & do stuff there & YOU & THE FAMILY could also take some extra time there for actual family vacation time too. All work & no play isn't good for the WHOLE FAMILY! But the US has a lot of nice beaches too & probably less expensive hotels too. But always try to spend time with the family! Your kid's youth is time you can NEVER replace!
Hey Drach, can you make more episodes of the Drydock available on TH-cam music? I've been listening to them while driving lately and I am almost finished with the 30 or so episodes that are available on TH-cam music
You mentioned needing to refresh your SCUBA certification. Who are you certified through? I am a Master SCUBA diver with certifcations from both PADI and SDI and ever certifcation I have ever gotten was good for life.
I've got a piece of paper somewhere that says I'm PADI open water certified. Not dived in 15, maybe 20 years? No way would I currently consider going diving today without a refresher course first. Skills are perishable and I'm not suicidal.
@@Whiplash47 I hot the basic certification about 15 years ago but haven't dived since 2014, so I want to refresh everything before heading into open water again
52:00 The Phillipines were always meant to be lost as per war plan orange Pearl Harbor? Was meant to be untouched That is what the " optics" demanded. The alternative was admiting war plan was wrong, and this cannot be done.
Did any other naval fleet have a "standard" fleet speed like the 21 kts. chosen for the US standard BBs? Weren't the US fleet subs also designed for 21 kts. surfaced with the idea to at least nominally keep the slowest combat components of a fleet together at flank?
00:51:43 It also has to be remembered that MacArthur was Chief Military Adviser (de facto C & C) to the Government of the Philippines, and that didn't change even after he was recalled to active duty with the US Army as Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. so probably more powerful position than Kimmel etc. and that panned out during the entirety of the War even to the point of who was in charge on September 1st 1945. Ideally not having MacArthur around probably would have led to a much reduce loss of US life in the Pacific, and maybe Japan at least isolated if not surrendered by Dec 1944. No invasion of Pelualu, no invasion of Philippines, subjugation of Formosa, early invasion of Iwo Jima while it was still largely unfortified possibly the same with Okinawa. So early 20th AF attack on Japanese homeland leading to an out of targets, by Dec 1944 rather than September 1945.
00:31:14 "Roll 12 D 6 .." so theoretically a 12th level Wizard with Fire Magic spells could take out a battleship so why weren't more Magic Users used in these fleet problems?
i think mcArther gets a by because he did the best with what he had. Kimmel and Short had more then enough to prevent the attack yet utterly failed. Though i blame short more then Kimmel for pearl harbor
00:51:43 A small quibble, however the prolonged defense of the Philippines was planned and expected by most everybody. It is likely the Pilipino and American forces could have held out longer if MacArthur had not been committed to a forward defense even after he was aware of the disaster at Pearl Harbor and after the reduction of his Army Air Corps (an event brought about to a some extent by his failure to issue effective orders to Brereton). Offensive air ops were staged out of Mindanao in early April (Royce Raid) and Corregidor fell on 6 May 1942, during the battle of the Coral Sea. MacArthur has been accused of many failings and all of them more or less deserved. corrigador ...
It seems to me merchant raiders were a dying breed as better communications limited their ability to hide indefinitely in the vastness of the oceans particularly with the lack of effective neutrality
By releasing the torpedoes at timed intervals. If the target was moving at 12 knots (20 ft per second) across the line of fire and the torpedoes were fired at 3 second intervals that would give an effective spread of 60ft between them when they reached the target.
I don't know if TH-cam is tweaking or maybe Drach hasn't put the QNA post up but... Drach, have you ever thought of doing an Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts campaign? I imagine life is busy for you and maybe gaming is not as likely, but it might be fun.
Recently I watched this guy being interviewed, the title was (Paraphrased) This ship - Bismarck-was not a super shop. WRONG. Too much opinion and little fact. At 41K tons, more than the newest Nelson class (British) battleship, those cleaver Germans designed a ship with 22 watertight bulkheads; each WATERTIGHT bulk heads were further subdivided in to watertight work spaces. Designed to withstand a 800 lb warhead of a torpedo. The British 21 inch torpedo had about 740 pounds of explosives. Germans set off their scuttling charges about 0939 (+/-). British fired over 2,500 shells and still could not sink Bismarck. British admiral finally gave up, headed for home and ordered Bismarck to be sunk by torpedo. No luck. Scuttling charges sunk the German "SUPERSHIP". Not the British. In 1989 Robert Ballard confirmed this with a deep dive underwater survey. 2001 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute verified Robert Ballard's findings. Everyone, from the PM, on down, were TERRIFIED of the Bismarck
MacArthur was the ultimate of political generals. He was disliked by most of the Army structure. He had retired and taken the job as commander in the Philippines from the President of the Philippines, not initially the US Army. He violated the war plans, lost men and supplies unnecessarily, and absolutely should have been relieved. Nobody wanted him back in the States, so we cursed the Australians with him. Sorry.
The Japanese navy murdered many of the people it rescued, cut there heads odd and threw them over the side. Read "Flyboys By James Bradley" The navy victims disappeared in the ocean and behind a screen of silence.
@benwilson6145 the IJN was absolutely guilty of atrocities and war crimes, but in the race to the bottom it seems the IJA was slightly more enthusiastic.
00:58:20 While that _may_ be the case for the actual IJN it has to be said much of the excesses in China had Navy involvement in particular those around Shanghai.
It is incredibly noble of you to feel as though you need to use your TH-cam income to generate yet more TH-cam content. But you are under NO obligation to do so. The money you make from this channel is private income just like any other job you may have, and you may use it however you damn well please. :)
I remember watching dry docks in the low 100s. Keep up the good work Drach. I never had much interest in naval history until I stumbled upon your channel years ago. Truly fascinating stuff. I’m always impressed by your passion and extensive knowledge.
Speaking on behalf of many, we encourage you to visit Bermuda, together with the sea mine and the midshipman.
Take lots of videos of the 9.2" gun though. In fact, we need a video on the ubiquitous 9.2" gun and Bermuda research would help.
Don't get Doritos while you get there, Drach!
I suggest you tie in Bermudas important history as a smugglers port especially during the American Civil War.
@@samsmith2635 indeed. Many pirates I expect.
@@PaulfromChicagoand, as we all know, every good story involves pirates in some way
Re Bermuda, a sunken floating drydock sounds like the perfect location for a floating sunken garden.
Regarding vibration issues, one factor that needs more investigation is the use of STS, Special-Treatment Steel, in the US Navy. It is notable that it is the last generations of ships made with STS that have vibration issues more so than older ships made with more conventional structural steels. Also of note is that the other nation with notable vibration issues, Germany, also made extensive use of high-ductility steels, suggesting that the metal of the ships could be more of a factor than not.
Another advantage for Age of Sail commerce raiding/privateering: even your weapon systems can sometimes be resupplied from what you're raiding. Presumably most ships you're taking have *less* guns than you have, and they're definitely going to have variation in caliber...but they'll have some guns, some ammo for guns, and some powder...and you can pull *all three* off the ship you're pillaging for resupply - there's a max limit on the number of guns you'll want to add to your current ship of course, but if you're deep into a mission and low on ammo for what you set out with, you might be better off shuffling stuff around, dumping some ballast, sticking those original guns in the hold where the ballast was, sticking the other ship's gun's in your gun ports, and now you suddenly can use all of their ammunition. It'll be a downgrade if you're a warship and not a scrappy privateer, since. y'know, warship guns tend to be bigger than merchantman guns, but...having small guns with ammo is better than having big guns and no ammo.
This is certainly a more involved procedure than just looting the food stores, but Age of Sail naval guns are *significantly* more portable than WWI naval guns, so it's at least hypothetically possible. And I'm pretty sure pirate crews did this semi regularly - accounts of pirate ships tend to suggest they had a lot more guns aboard than a ship that size should have had, and...I somehow doubt your average pirate was pulling into a proper shipyard and putting in an order for 50% more guns than any reasonable person would put on that ship. Just....doesn't seem like standard pirate behaviour. (Though there's probably some examples of privateers who got their start with a royal commission and a starting investment that would allow them to do exactly that.)
Another drawback of trying to torpedo a convoy escort would be that if you miss, the escort will be able to follow the trail of bubbles back to your location (and call his mates as well).
Drachism of the day: "Being treated better than a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army is such a low bar that you could probably dig down with s JCB for several days and still clear it"
It's always amusing reading about how General Marshall and Admiral King had to deal with MacArthur's constant demands for USN assets between themselves.
Drydock 323, now there's a symmetrical number!!!
AKA palindromic
Looks odd to me.
It's a palindrome, not symmetrical, since you can't make the 2 in the middle look symmetrical
Like a Mazda…
@@Unapologetically_apathetically Wondered that also.
We can actually take a pretty good shot at estimating what the New Mexicos would have been like if the development was unconstrained. Remember, the Standards were "standard" largely because of the interference of SECNAV Josephus Daniels, who consistently vetoed the General Board's plans for improved battleship designs for cost reasons, instead favoring slight upgrades to the previous ship every year. The Pennsylvanians were pretty much as the General Board requested, as they were being conservative, having bigger plans for the *next* year's battleships. Without Daniels vetoing changes, the New Mexicos would have probably looked a lot like the design the General Board selected for them, and then asked for *again* with the Tennessees (and were again denied).
I'd give the characteristics, but unfortunately, I'm in the middle of moving, and my copy of Friedman's US Battleships is currently in a box somewhere and I don't have the time or energy to dig it out right at this moment.
You guys can look up the detailed information from World of Warships wiki, a well-known fact-based simulator indie game :)
Hahaha yes, since we can't help move your stuff, we'll have to take on pushing the google button. But I'm guessing it'll be 16" guns, and maybe a knot or two.
Really, considering "fleet problems" rather than trying to work out how a battle would go, can be worked out on paper just as much as rolling dice. And neither is actually going to accurately tell how a battle will go just because of what I call "the Samar" factor! You'd never think that Taffy 3 along with planes from Taffy 1 & 2 could make the Center Force turn & run but IT HAPPENED! And so there are always going to be things that you can't really account for in EVERY battle! Just like you would have never thought that the Hood would go up in a magazine explosion when it happened. But the one thing that you can do is make sure that everyone knows what they are doing and how to do it. How to change from a traveling formation into a battle line. And what ships should proceed to the front of the line & which ships should take up the rear in doing so. How to break off of an engagement if the enemy is going to cross your T. And how to quickly engage if you manage to cross the T of the enemy. I mean nowadays that type of thing doesn't come into play but in the age of the Dreadnoughts it very much mattered. And it also mattered what your escorts did as well. You never can tell how a battle will happen. All you can do is train & practice and train & practice and try to be as ready as you can possibly be for whatever may happen. And try to stay as calm as possible and each person do the job they were trained to do. Each person can only do so much & if things start falling apart around you then help those you can & do your best is the most you can hope for.
Idk, Fleet problems told the Japanese to attack on a Sunday morning! Thanks Admiral King!
Short was negligent in his readiness and dispositions so I think relieving him was justified. Since the Army was responsible for Hawaiian defense, including the naval facilities, Kimmel was a hostage to Short. However, Nimitz was already pre-selected for war time Pacific Command so Kimmel was going to replaced anyway. It was much easier to scapegoat and retire him even if it was just for the optics.
Great DD Drach my Sunday off to a great start.
If you're into old shore fortifications, Bermuda is your place to be.
Yeah, I was thinking,(yes, I know, a very dangerous thing to do at times) but I was thinking that one of those M Class submarines with the 12" gun may have done well in the waters off of Guadal Canal. Considering that the Mark 14 torpedoes were having such troubles, as long as the sub could avoid friendly fire incidents it may have been quite an asset in Iron Bottom Sound! Since the sub would be difficult to spot in the dark, & that was when the Japanese came calling. They could basically let 2 subs set up, each one guarding a different direction of Savo Island & make sure none of the US ships come in that direction. Then any ship they draw a bead on they can blow it out of the water!!
With the complete confidence afforded by total ignorance I can say:let's do it! Your argument sounds like a plan of attack that could have been done, feasible doable. It could also confound the IJN in their determining what happened to their ships. For them to conclude that heavy artillery submarines were surely the cause ... hahaha, seems unlikely.
An idea 80 years too late! But the US never got crazy enough to put a 12" gun on a submarine. Salute to the Brits for dreaming that one up. If it wasn't actually documented, I'd believe it to be a fairy tale! Cuz, I wouldn't think a sub could stand up to be sturdy enough to be firing a 12" gun. But I guess that is WHY the submariners liked the subs because it was built VERY STURDY!
Another thing with surface raiders in the World Wars, was that there were effectively no semi-hostile “neutral” ports. Not having non belligerent ports to send prizes to, or resupply from, made quite a difference.
Not true, in WW2 the Germans had, and used Japan and her conquered lands to send "Prizes" to.
The German used Spain as a resupply base.
The Germans also used the Soviet Union as a supply and repair base prior to there invasion.
Prior to the USA entry to WW2 the Germans used the USA to supply oil and other items. The Altmark loaded a full cargo of Texas Light Crude for supply to the Graf Spee as .bunkers.
The Germans also used Vichy French occupied lads to support there war efforts.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Another reason the Japanese Navy might have been kinder is that worked with the Brit Navy pre war and somewhat modeled themselves on them. It might have been enough to soften their Bushido code.
The navy was also being fed.
The army guards on the thai-burma railroad (where one of my uncles from 8div 2AIF died) were basically on the same ration as their prisoners. 2/10 of f all.
The Japanese Army modeled itself on the German Army! Enough said!
@@sugarnads It might be just a navy thing. The German Navy didn't go along with that anti Jew programs and protected them from reprisals. They were definitely the odd man out in the German military.
@@sugarnads That is something that is often forgotten, land armies tend to go through harrowing things that can result in incentivizing very poor treatment of "the enemy".
@@tim2024-df5fu Yeah, not to understate the suffering inflicted on any of the branches but as I understand the land armies tend to suffer through the more personally grueling experience, one that is usually something that can be very plausibly blamed on the men you are fighting. While at sea there tend to be more unifying environmental dangers at the very least.
Regarding MacArthur and control of the Seventh Fleet, I recently read Mark Stille's recent Leyte Gulf book. It may only be a matter of semantics, but Seventh Fleet ships communicated with Seventh Fleet HQ in the Manus. (Third Fleet with Nimitz's HQ). I didn't get the impression at any time the army was involved, other than 7th Fleet HQ was co-located with MacArthur's base in the Manus. Still, an extremely poor way of coordinating actions.
MTBs, PT Boats, Schnellboot all qualify as surface raiders - and all played very important roles in sinking coastal surface traffic, in multiple theaters.
Not sure about Italian MAS boats - they existed, they were a threat, their crews were very courageous, but I don't have any data on how effective they were. Somebody else who knows more, feel free to contribute!
Germany, Japan, and Britain all relied heavily on coastal traffic at various points in the war. Often these would operate at night and stay hidden by day: the Japanese in particular had a reputation for very good camouflage of their coastal traffic.
The Japanese may have missed a bet in not coming up with a "Long Lance" version of this type of craft for use in the island chains they were planning to occupy - though the sheer size of those torpedoes would have created a design challenge. I imagine they could have hidden during the day, then attacked from shallow water at night, using the nearby landmass that made the water shallow to hide them from both sight and radar.
The MTBs and PT Boats never really became obsolete during WW2, the Schnellboot arguably did due to Allied control of the air and due to radar guided/fused shells - if you can hit a plane, you can probably hit a much slower moving target like a Schnellboot. This is a bit ironic, in that the Schnellboot was probably the best design of any of these craft - the Germans seemed to be way ahead of everybody else when it came to small diesel engines for maritime use, which gave them major advantages over the gasoline engines used by the other powers (such as reduced flammability and longer range - DK Brown has some interesting comments on this in one of his warship design books). A Japanese version of the Schnellboot with German engines and Long Lance torpedoes would have been interesting (and scary).
In WW2, British surface forces - specifically light cruisers and destroyers - also played important roles in sinking convoy traffic and thus functioned as surface raiders. For example, Force K out of Malta. Radar and SigInt played key roles here. A sub might be able to sink one or two transports in a convoy, but surface vessels could sink a lot more ships in a single encounter, which could have significant value if the convoy was really critical to an upcoming battle on land in places like North Africa.
In WW1, on two occasions, German surface forces largely wiped out British Norwegian Convoys. On the first occasion, two fast 'cruiser-minelayers' largely destroyed a convoy with no escorts larger than a destroyer, and on the second occasion the Germans used a new destroyer flotilla.
German surface vessels could have been much more effective as raiders in WW2, but problems in the naval high command and problems with the boss being an idiot tended to get in the way. Design flaws in some of their the ships also created problems for them, as did issues with their cruiser shells not exploding when they were supposed to.
The Japanese did operate a few surface raiders in the Indian Ocean. The best known encounter is probably that between HMIS Bengal and the tanker Ondina and a pair of Japanese surface raiders. It's noteworthy because the naval crew manning the guns on Ondina managed to sink one of the surface raiders with some superb (and lucky) shooting.
"escorts can be replaced"
Yep. The reason the escorts are with the convoy is that the escorts are more expendable than the contents of the convoy. If the convoy weren't vital enough to risk losing a destroyer, there wouldn't be a destroyer escorting it.
We're all familiar with the shell shortages of 1915 and 1944 for the armies. Has anything similar happened to a navy? Obviously, there were some cases like Crete where British ships were kept on station or sent back low on anti-aircraft ammunition and subsequently sunk, but I mean on a broader fleetwide level. While a fleet with limited ammunition could just decline to sail out, that also gives the enemy command of the sea for a while.
"What would the Colorado class have looked like without the 'Standard' Type being a thing?" If Congress didn't constantly meddle in the Navy's budget the Tennessee class would have had been the first with 16 inch guns and the 4 Colorado class would have ended up with 10 x 16 inch guns in 5 turrets in an New York class layout before going to the South Dakota class with 12 X 16 inch guns. What would have followed is vague but I read about designs of an up gunned South Dakota armed with 8 of the Mark 1 18 inch guns in 4 twin turrets (if intel of the No.13 and N3 battleships got out) or a fusion design. A South Dakota with Lexington's engines with a displacement over 50,000 tons.
So what you're saying, Drach, is that a modern surface raider is best to be nuclear powered. SS Savannah FTW!
Thanks Drach.
Wouldn't the most common British submarine answer also depend on the theater you are looking at? I would think the answer would differ for Med vs. North Sea .
That theme music keeps getting me tapping my foot.
A convoy that looses all escorts and no merchant ship is a successful convoy. A convoy that sinks half a dozen U-boats and looses half the merchants is not.
That said, RN/RCN lost quite a number of escorts to U-boats, wether on purpose or because they were simply "in the way" of a torpedo. Still, a torpedo that sinks an escort doesn't sink a merchant. Mission partially accomplished.
Can anybody tell me about the troop transports and their escort ? I've read in a NOVEL that in case of an emergency the escorts were to "catch" any incoming torpedo if it was about to hit the transport. Is there any truth to that claim ?
As for McArthur not being sacked: the Phillipines didn't go down without a fight. Pearl Harbor was a pants down kick in the balls on American "soil".
Churchill sacked generals for loosing battles that he prematurely forced them into.
The allies were very concerned about having good escorts for troop transports in WW2. For example, the British used a lot of troops from Australian and New Zealand, so you'll see quite a bit of high level dialogue between Australia/New Zealand/Britain about the transport of troops across the Indian Ocean, concerning the need to have a proper escort. At various times during the war both German and Japanese surface raiders and subs did operate in the Indian Ocean and even off Australia so the escort would often include both a cruiser and an ASW screen.
A typical transport could typically carry ~1k-2k troops and their equipment, depending upon size. Figure ~10-20 transports for an infantry division and it's supporting equipment, depending not only on the size of the size but also the size of the division - a reinforced division is about 2x the size of a regular division. So any single ship that's hit has the potential for massive casualties. Losses could be expected to be especially high in cold water or in bad weather.
Losing that many troops to enemy action in a matter of minutes would have been a major political disaster, even aside from the human considerations. Losing multiple ships is an even worse disaster. So they put a lot of time and effort into making sure it didn't happen.
This meant very strong escorts, including a battleship if there were enemy battleships unaccounted for, and possibly even a carrier (typically a CVE if one was available). Lots of ASW capability were included in the escort as well, and perhaps a dedicated rescue ship (once those became a thing).
Troop transport convoys were much faster than other convoys carrying bulk goods. They used converted liners when they could, because these were often fairly fast and could easily be adapted for use with troops. Higher speed helped reduce the submarine threat. Some liners were fast enough (~30 knots) that they didn't need an escort for much of their journey. These ships could carry a lot more men than the usual transports (~10k-~15k).
If you watch the movie Greyhound, the scene at the end where the troops are cheering is pure Hollywood - they would never have sent large numbers of troops across the Atlantic to Britain in a slow, weakly escorted convoy like that, at that point in the war.
Despite all the effort put into protecting transports carrying troops, there were failures.
Some well known transport losses include the loss of HMT Rohna in the Mediterranean (very heavy casualties due to the rough seas), the loss of USS Thomas Stone during Torch (the troops were moved into boats then later a corvette so few losses occurred), the loss of SS Dorchester in the Atlantic, the loss of SS Léopoldville in the English channel, and loss of a German transport Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic (this last was probably the worst maritime disaster in modern history).
The Japanese were not nearly as good at protecting convoys and took some serious losses when their transports were sunk. A fair number of Allied POWs would also be lost on a number of occasions when Japanese ships were sunk.
I don't know of any case where an escort deliberately rammed a torpedo to prevent it from hitting a transport. Typically escorts were relatively shallow draft, so torpedoes set to hit transports with their deeper draft might well go under the hull of the escort without hitting it. Also, it's pretty unlikely an escort would be in the right spot at the right time to ram a torpedo even if it was running shallow enough to make that possible.
@@bluelemming5296 I am speechless, Sir !
This must be the most elaborate answer to any question I've put up in 2024.
Thank you very much !
Some people say things are always changing. My counter point is even in the old days of some of the largest war games played RNG was still a cruel and anger inducing thing.
Thanks for the answer
Sunken floating drydock in water is crazy talk
Hmmm no pinned for Q&A post... To follow on to the question about surface raiders. Doesn't the US Entry in WWI and WWII make lone merchant vessels like armed merchant cruisers look highly suspicious? And would not that make the camouflage efforts less useful?
Why would they be suspicious, they have the right to be armed for self-defense if there's a chance they come under attack and beligenrent raiders must identify their target (inckuding nationality, obviously) before attacking. And I've no idea what you mean with camouflage becoming useless, it's designed to make a ship's shape identification and course detection as hard as possible, not to hide the ship from view!!
@@derrickstorm6976 Because after the US entered the war, there was essentially no neutral shipping outside the Baltic. And the Allies were using the convoy system (except initially near the US coast). So, what merchants would be on the sea. You should assume that ALL ships at that lone merchant vessels are enemy vessels.
@@derrickstorm6976 It depends on your disguise, I should imagine that the WW1 German AMC Cap Trafalgars disguise as the RMS Carmania would have raised some level of suspicion when she met the British AMC HMS Carmania.
US batteships are rectangles with bows.
49:00. How do you shave 3,000 tons off a G3 design? No problem. Imagine a Rodney with a 160,000 hp powerplant and 16 X 6" guns in 8 turrets. Now if you thought a Rodney that can go 23 knots was already scary. Think of one that can sprint at 32 knots with enough deck space aft of the tower superstructure to cram every light AA guns imaginable.
Regarding the last question on this episode of The Drydock (323). What is your opinion on why, during the refit/repairs on the Battleships that had turbo-electric drives, did they not update or refit new, more powerful motors i ro these ships? I should think that it would not be hugely complex, and would significantly benefit these ship?
Hmm perhaps we should start tying these to ships with the same hull number. Like DD-323 the USS Chase a Clemson class destroyer.
I’d reference the RN but they don’t really do hull numbers.
As a hull. Was that a pun on the term "as a whole?".
Washington Treaty era alt history. Right in Steve's wheelhouse. Historical basis: The 1916 Navy Bill had a cost limit on the first four BBs, which we know as the Colorados. There was no cost limit on the following six BBs, which we know as the South Dakotas. USN priorities changed when the US entered the war, and capital ships were put on the back burner. In June 1918, Congress included an amendment in the annual Navy Bill, requiring the Navy Department to make a start on the ships authorized in 16, but not yet started. That would be the three remaining Colorados, Lexingtons and South Dakotas. SecNav Daniels proceeded per plan.
The Steve alt: Daniels says the 42,000 ton design, which Congress had approved, made the Colorados obsolete, so building the remaining three would be a waste. He proposes completing Maryland with 14"/50s, as BuOrd head Strauss had ordered them in quantity far in excess of need. Skip the 16"/45, and go straight to the 16"/50, laying down the South Dakotas as soon as practicable. There is a South Dakota class drawing dated 5-3-18, planned to be laid down in 1919. That drawing shows the ships with a displacement of 42,500 tons. 400 tons of that being reserve boiler feed water, and 1600 was fuel, which were omitted from treaty displacement calculations. Historically, the UK was willing to accept an individual ship displacement of 42,000 tons, due to Hood, so the South Daktoas, per the 1918 drawing, are golden. The final construction drawings for the South Dakotas are dated April 25, 1919, approved by Franklin Roosevelt, as "acting" SecNav. So we are looking at them being laid down in late 1919, at the earliest. There is no way they would be complete before the treaty, just as the three later Colorados were not complete, historically.
Japan demands to be allowed to complete Tosa, because of Hood, giving Japan three "post-Jutland" ships with 16" guns, one being of 40,000-ish tons. Given the 5:5:3 ratio, that would mean the US could complete 5 of the South Dakotas, but Japan objects to the US having that many ships of that size, and the US doesn't want to spend that much money. The compromise reached is the US completes two South Dakotas, and is allowed to up-gun Maryland, Tennessee, and California to the 16"/45, if it wants to, giving the US 5 "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships. The UK is then allowed to build one ship of up to 42,000 tons, and 3 32-35,000-ish ton "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships.
How can you immediately skip to Mark 7' from Mk 5's though, they're so different from each other with Mk 6 being an integral part of the development.
Not to mention Mk 7 was completed only for the Iowas - and was a rush job design to make the guns fit a turret that was too small for the original design - so you would have ships sitting with no main guns for 2 decades
@@derrickstorm6976 the 16"/45 originally developed for the Colorados was the Mk 1, which started design in 1913. The 16"/50 designed for the South Dakota program of the 1920s was the Mk 2, designed in 1916. You might be confusing the South Dakotas that were cancelled in 1922, with the South Dakotas that were built at the start of WWII. The BuOrd 1918 annual report says the test program for the 16"/50 had been completed, and the production program for 104 guns had started. So both were in hand when SecNav Daniels could have told Congress to cancel the Colorados in June of 1918.
would it be at all possible to do a piece on HMS Whimbrel, she still survives in Egypt (kind of) and was a veteren of arctic convoys, western approaches, far east, med, saw it all really
Somehow the phrase "sunken floating dry dock" just made me laugh...
Lotta weird bots in the comments... Who builds these things?
Good for the algo I guess. Thanks for another vid Drach! Always look forward to these, even if they take me a few days to get through.
or are they
(Dramatic music and a dolly zoom into the Russian Admiral's face)
Torpedo Boats on the horizon!
Japaneser treatment of POWs:
A bit of a guess, but the traditions of the army were based on the Samurais, while the navy was populated initially by commoners, due to the mechanical knowledge required. This might be reflected in different treatment of POWs. This social distinction seems also to be the basis of some ot the discord between the Japanese army and navy.
The IJA very deliberately purged samurai influence during and after the meiji restoration. There is not a ton of continuity between the romanticised samurai idea used around ww2 and the historical samurai.
Footage of you DIVING ON A SHIPWRECK would be AWESOME imho!!! That would be very unique & great for the Chanel! I would guess you would also have to invest in a waterprooof camera too. I didn't know that you had been "previously" certified as a diver. But also you may want to see if flying to the US & then flying back & forth from the US to Bermuda would be less expensive. Meaning you could maybe spend time here in the US seeing something, fly to Bermuda & do stuff there & YOU & THE FAMILY could also take some extra time there for actual family vacation time too. All work & no play isn't good for the WHOLE FAMILY! But the US has a lot of nice beaches too & probably less expensive hotels too. But always try to spend time with the family! Your kid's youth is time you can NEVER replace!
Hey Drach, can you make more episodes of the Drydock available on TH-cam music? I've been listening to them while driving lately and I am almost finished with the 30 or so episodes that are available on TH-cam music
Could the British have implemented the add on tonnage like the Lexington class with the torpedo blisters on the G3’s?
You mentioned needing to refresh your SCUBA certification. Who are you certified through? I am a Master SCUBA diver with certifcations from both PADI and SDI and ever certifcation I have ever gotten was good for life.
I've got a piece of paper somewhere that says I'm PADI open water certified. Not dived in 15, maybe 20 years? No way would I currently consider going diving today without a refresher course first. Skills are perishable and I'm not suicidal.
@@Whiplash47 I hot the basic certification about 15 years ago but haven't dived since 2014, so I want to refresh everything before heading into open water again
52:00 The Phillipines were always meant to be lost as per war plan orange
Pearl Harbor? Was meant to be untouched
That is what the " optics" demanded. The alternative was admiting war plan was wrong, and this cannot be done.
10 seconds in, I dont even have to think about whether I'm hitting the like buttom
Did any other naval fleet have a "standard" fleet speed like the 21 kts. chosen for the US standard BBs? Weren't the US fleet subs also designed for 21 kts. surfaced with the idea to at least nominally keep the slowest combat components of a fleet together at flank?
Douglas Mac Arthur greatest ability was to be an superb PR-Manager of his own Image
The MacArthur bashing has become equal in this regard.
00:51:43 It also has to be remembered that MacArthur was Chief Military Adviser (de facto C & C) to the Government of the Philippines, and that didn't change even after he was recalled to active duty with the US Army as Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. so probably more powerful position than Kimmel etc. and that panned out during the entirety of the War even to the point of who was in charge on September 1st 1945. Ideally not having MacArthur around probably would have led to a much reduce loss of US life in the Pacific, and maybe Japan at least isolated if not surrendered by Dec 1944. No invasion of Pelualu, no invasion of Philippines, subjugation of Formosa, early invasion of Iwo Jima while it was still largely unfortified possibly the same with Okinawa. So early 20th AF attack on Japanese homeland leading to an out of targets, by Dec 1944 rather than September 1945.
8:50
Let yourself go.
:)
00:31:14 "Roll 12 D 6 .." so theoretically a 12th level Wizard with Fire Magic spells could take out a battleship so why weren't more Magic Users used in these fleet problems?
i think mcArther gets a by because he did the best with what he had. Kimmel and Short had more then enough to prevent the attack yet utterly failed. Though i blame short more then Kimmel for pearl harbor
00:51:43 A small quibble, however the prolonged defense of the Philippines was planned and expected by most everybody. It is likely the Pilipino and American forces could have held out longer if MacArthur had not been committed to a forward defense even after he was aware of the disaster at Pearl Harbor and after the reduction of his Army Air Corps (an event brought about to a some extent by his failure to issue effective orders to Brereton). Offensive air ops were staged out of Mindanao in early April (Royce Raid) and Corregidor fell on 6 May 1942, during the battle of the Coral Sea. MacArthur has been accused of many failings and all of them more or less deserved.
corrigador ...
It seems to me merchant raiders were a dying breed as better communications limited their ability to hide indefinitely in the vastness of the oceans particularly with the lack of effective neutrality
👍
How much of a ship's mass is paint? Presumably this percentage increases over time.
Let us remember....🙏The Edmund Fitzgerald goes down with all hands. NOV. 10, 1975. And happy birthday 249 to the USMC.🎂
hello. if you dont mind me asking, where do you get your naval footage from?
That was a beautiful photo of USS Colorado.
If the British could not angle their torpedoes, how did they fan a salvo? From a submarine.
By releasing the torpedoes at timed intervals. If the target was moving at 12 knots (20 ft per second) across the line of fire and the torpedoes were fired at 3 second intervals that would give an effective spread of 60ft between them when they reached the target.
I don't know if TH-cam is tweaking or maybe Drach hasn't put the QNA post up but...
Drach, have you ever thought of doing an Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts campaign? I imagine life is busy for you and maybe gaming is not as likely, but it might be fun.
45k Washington treaty, the British could get 3 ahips and mot have the hood mess it up, heck lets them add aome armor to her
Spambots sure seemed to like this video
Recently I watched this guy being interviewed, the title was (Paraphrased) This ship - Bismarck-was not a super shop. WRONG. Too much opinion and little fact. At 41K tons, more than the newest Nelson class (British) battleship, those cleaver Germans designed a ship with 22 watertight bulkheads; each WATERTIGHT bulk heads were further subdivided in to watertight work spaces. Designed to withstand a 800 lb warhead of a torpedo. The British 21 inch torpedo had about 740 pounds of explosives. Germans set off their scuttling charges about 0939 (+/-). British fired over 2,500 shells and still could not sink Bismarck. British admiral finally gave up, headed for home and ordered Bismarck to be sunk by torpedo. No luck. Scuttling charges sunk the German "SUPERSHIP". Not the British. In 1989 Robert Ballard confirmed this with a deep dive underwater survey. 2001 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute verified Robert Ballard's findings.
Everyone, from the PM, on down, were TERRIFIED of the Bismarck
(Insert Luke Skywalker 'Amazing, everything you just said was wrong' meme here)
MacArthur was the ultimate of political generals. He was disliked by most of the Army structure. He had retired and taken the job as commander in the Philippines from the President of the Philippines, not initially the US Army. He violated the war plans, lost men and supplies unnecessarily, and absolutely should have been relieved. Nobody wanted him back in the States, so we cursed the Australians with him. Sorry.
:)
13th, 10 November 2024
The Japanese navy murdered many of the people it rescued, cut there heads odd and threw them over the side. Read "Flyboys By James Bradley"
The navy victims disappeared in the ocean and behind a screen of silence.
@benwilson6145 the IJN was absolutely guilty of atrocities and war crimes, but in the race to the bottom it seems the IJA was slightly more enthusiastic.
Tyg
00:58:20 While that _may_ be the case for the actual IJN it has to be said much of the excesses in China had Navy involvement in particular those around Shanghai.