Pinned post for Q&A :)

@Hierachy

Жыл бұрын

Q: i hear a lot of people say that the british 15 inch gun was obsolete by ww2 standards, how so? and what modifications would you make to the design to bring them up to standard? also, why didn't the british continue using/developing the 15 inch gun for newer ships post ww1 like the nel/rods and KGV's?

@thesmoog734

Жыл бұрын

Did any nation conduct privateering operations during either World War?

@JohnRodriguesPhotographer

Жыл бұрын

Good Morning Drak! looking forward to weekly dose of history and tech

@sgtmarcusharris4260

Жыл бұрын

Q: would Bismarck be as remembered if the other axis battleships like yamato and the litorios did more stuff and actually had fights against other battleships

@hughgordon6435

Жыл бұрын

Why were manx "packets" mailships so important to the RN?

Your discussion of "vanta black" resonates with me. I painted my Cessna 172 in a blue used by USAF for vehicles in the past. I did paint some broad, yellow bands on the wings. Many people thought this a variation of "Blue Angels" colors. Tower controllers LOVED IT! I often received compliments from tower guys that they were able to see me at far greater distances than typical, "white with trim color" machines.

@MonkeyJedi99

4 ай бұрын

Vanta black = "None more black"

Drach, for your 'visual identification' question response, I'm surprised there was no mention of night recognition issues that the IJN had with recognizing USS Washington and South Dakota at the second night Battle of Guadalcanal. The INJ lookouts identified the two battleships as 'cruisers' until they trained searchlights on South Dakota, and a lookout on Atago identified Washington as a battleship just before she fired on the Kirishima.

@ricardokowalski1579

Жыл бұрын

57:18 USS Johnston laughs itself silly

@erikvandootingh7402

Жыл бұрын

In the book "Blazing Star, Setting Sun", the description of this battle includes multiple reports by Japanese destroyers from the earlier part of the action that correctly identified the US ships as battleships. Kondo repeatedly rejected these reports as inaccurate because 1) up until that point the US had never used battleship in Iron Bottom Sound, and 2) earlier reports during the day by Japanese scout planes had identified them as cruisers.

Regarding unusual items recovered from wrecks, I highly recommend the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia and their exhibits, particularly that of the USS Monitor. The objects they brought up from the Monitor's wreck (including the turret and its Dahlgren guns) and the ongoing preservation are fascinating.

RE one nation's planes landing on another's carriers. In a book I read about USS Enterprise (IIRC it was "The Big E" by Edwin Stafford, but I could be misremembering) there was an account mentioned from the Battle of the Phillipine Sea (the 'Turn on the lights' incident) where a Japanese plane attempted to land on the Enterprise. According to the account, it tried to land 3 times, apparently being foiled each time by differences between USN and IJN landing signals. The explanation was that essentially US LSO signals were meant to inform the pilot of his position relative to the carrier, and Japanese ones were intended to tell the pilot where to go. So if a US LSO holds his paddles high he's telling the pilot "You are high", whereas a Japanese LSO making the same gesture would mean "You need to climb". This would be the biggest issue, assuming the plane in question would be able to operate on a foreign carrier, to it actually doing so; Are the pilots and deck crews able to understand each other's signals? While there are plenty of similarities between how different nations' carriers operated in WWII, the Devil is in the details, and little glitches in communication can cause Bad Things to happen.

@sk43999

Жыл бұрын

In 1958, an Israeli helicopter pilot, short on fuel, landed on board the USS Wasp, which was on station in the eastern Mediterranean. When asked what he was doing landing on a US carrier, he replied "I thought it was one of ours."

@Dave_Sisson

Жыл бұрын

In WWII the British lent the Americans HMS Victorious when the USA was down to just one carrier. The Yanks promptly renamed it USS Robin and it had no trouble handling American planes fighting against the Japanese.

I imagine that the "What If Sealion" video will be an absolute beast to put together, but its definitely a Drach video that I will be looking forward to

@mikhailiagacesa3406

Жыл бұрын

It's a bear. Once ashore as the Germans, if the British want to screw the invasion (worst case scenario), they just start blowing up ports.

@aquila3958

Жыл бұрын

@@mikhailiagacesa3406somehow take out the RAF (replace Goering?), spam gliders and transport planes and train more paratrooper divisions, airlift everything, win?

01:17:16 Just an FYI: The eight Sealand SL-7 container ships of the 1970's (now Algol Class Fast Sealift Ships) with 120,00 Hp were capable of 33kts and operated at 27 kts. Likely the only cargo ships ever capable of such speed. When the fuel price increased in the 70's operating costs skyrocketed, and Sealand was never able to operate them at a profit. For sure speed comes at great cost. The Navy acquired them in the early 1980s, and are now part of the ready reserve fleet.

@ricardokowalski1579

Жыл бұрын

Time is money. How fast you want to spend? 😁

@dogsnads5634

Жыл бұрын

Meet the B-Class Container Ships for Maersk.....built from 2006 onwards...top speed 37 knots, cruise speed 29 knots... Similar story to the SL-7...most of them were laid up in Loch Striven when the financial crisis hit. But they've since been able to operate economically at lower speeds. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_M%C3%A6rsk_Boston

@SynchroScore

Жыл бұрын

When the _Kentucky_ was scrapped, the machinery was divided in two sets and used to power the _Sacramento_ and _Camden_ fast combat support ships. 53,000 tons full displacement, 100,000 hp on two screws, rated for 30 knots.

@davidvik1451

Жыл бұрын

@@SynchroScore Sucked fuel from both in 1972 & 73. I remember the Camden AOE2 had a placard that mimicked the AVIS ad of the time saying "We'er No.2 We Try Harder"

16:05 What Drach said here is broadly on point, but if you want more specific info on that, you can google the article: 'Bird-head devices on Mediterranean ships'. It is a study specifically aimed at akrostolion (pl. akrostolia, the bow ornament) and aphlaston (pl. aphlasta, the stern ornament), although the bottom lines remains there is still much argument as to their use and such longevity unchanged. Also it may be counterintuitive, but studies show for a given thickness of wood the ancient mortise and tenon construction is exceptionally stronger than more modern plank on frame. The main reason it was abandoned is that it requires a massive amount of material (planks need a minimum thickness for a slot to be cut into it without breaking), and very time-consuming. Planks on frames could be much thinner, and therefore easier to work with, and took less material than building a shell-first hull. So if anyone would have magically found enough wood to build a ship of line shell-first, it would have been stronger than a plank on frame hull. The caveat to that is, it would have been if the planks were the same thickness, but a ship like Victory has a hull about 60 cm (2 ft) thick, from four to six times the thickness of the largest shell-first plank ever found in a wreck.

27 knots on a merchant ship ;O that's like light speed for us! I started my career on a fruit carreer, that one sailign with cargo that can rot, and needs to go to market fast, topped out at 23 knots. Currently working on heavy lift carreers. we do indeed cruise in the 12 to 16 kn, depending on the schedule and contract and such. But absolute top is 18 knots but then we are overclocking the engine. But the hull is not designed for it, there is just extra power installed to push trough the ice if we go up north (or south) or to maintain speed longer in bad weather. I never did push the engine to that range tho, and cannot imagine situations that would be necesary other then SHTF situation, like being in the black sea in feb'22 that would be a: nope lets get out of here NOW situation, where fuel consumption could be ignored for a few hours.

@Dave_Sisson

Жыл бұрын

It's important to remember that one of the most successful German merchant raiders in the First World War started life as a banana boat called Pongo. Never under estimate the speed and power of fruit carriers!

@Colt45hatchback

Жыл бұрын

I thought this might be the case, i commented on that video saying i thought they went about 18 knots and had vast quantities of replys saying i was wrong and they go 27-30 so the refrigerator containers dont run out of diesel (thinks to myself, why not make them plug in to the ships electricity)

@Jacob-W-5570

Жыл бұрын

@Notmah Cuppatea reefer containers are indeed plugged into the electrical power supply on the ship! On shore/trucks they might be hooked up to their own generator module.

@Colt45hatchback

Жыл бұрын

@@Jacob-W-5570 excellent glad im not out of my mind on the topic haha

Alternate history: The Bismarck sinks everything! Drach: *roars*

@michaelpielorz9283

Жыл бұрын

big mistake!! we do not mention Bismarck on this channel.

@Mike-im5bo

Жыл бұрын

Either the Bismarck or a Tiger tank!!! 😂

@jlvfr

Жыл бұрын

@@Mike-im5bo tbf, even with all it's problems, and discounting the hype, the Tiger did far better than the Bismarck!

@Mike-im5bo

Жыл бұрын

@@jlvfr My post was for all of the Tiger tank fanboys! 😂

@jlvfr

Жыл бұрын

@@Mike-im5bo :D :D

Vantablack would have quite the psychological effect on your enemy, regardless of aiming problems; I'd certainly be creeped out if a large, vaguely boat-shaped shadow loomed up and started shooting at me.

@josepetersen7112

Жыл бұрын

Getting blow up would have psychological effects too. You might feel scattered.

@kevinvilmont6061

Жыл бұрын

Just the word vantablack is kinda creepy. 😬 Also it makes me think of The Count of Monte Cristo. Vampa was a character.

@RobinTheBot

11 ай бұрын

I think my first thought would be "That's a nightmare to clean!" Before making it worse.

R.E. intelligence gathering in Japan, Moe Berg, backup catcher for the Cleveland Indians, was on a barnstorming tour in Japan with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and others in 1934 and, as the story goes, secretly filmed the Tokyo skyline and harbor with a movie camera from the roof of a hospital building. How he came to do this or how the film was delivered to the US government is unclear, but it was allegedly used in planning the Doolittle raid.

@timschoenberger242

Жыл бұрын

Made pretty clear in the book "The Catcher Was a Spy." As I recall, Dept of Naval Intelligence was involved.

I come and see 1 view and 1 like. 100 percent approval.

@the_uglysteve6933

Жыл бұрын

Bore off

@fool1044

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/lImhzcaIZLyXpbw.html

0:22:36 I imagine that the Enlisted members of the Aurora were extremely happy to be interned by the US, especially if they were removed from the ship and put ashore in barracks! (A noticeable increase in the quality of the food they got to eat would be (just) the first major difference!)

@aceous99

Жыл бұрын

they can finally be safe from those pesky torpedo boats!

@Crazyfrog41

Жыл бұрын

@@aceous99 now I am just picturing some US marines finding a torpedo boat from somewhere, painting a Japanese flag on it, and parking it right outside the door

I always look forward to these to see what monstrosity of a name fletcher has put together this time

@Dave_Sisson

Жыл бұрын

He / she will be devastated when Drach eventually gives up and just calls him Fletcher no matter what he calls himself.

@arnoldwardenaar127

Жыл бұрын

@@Dave_Sisson not only he/she... But to be honest, I think Drach loves to be challenged and enjoys reading the name

25:00 the Japanese actually never stopped with the tradition of not armouring their battleships against their own main guns; the Yamatos had no immunity zone against their main battery (which says more about their guns than their armour to be honest), with the exception of their turret face.

@willpat3040

Жыл бұрын

May I ask where you got this information? As far as I've have heard the Yamatos did have an immunity zone against there own guns. Mostly at longer ranges as they had a thick 410 mm (16.1 in) angled belt at 20 degrees and very good deck armor. I'm interested to read any refences you have that say they didn't. Thanks. Edit: I found in two different places online: "immunity zone against 46cm (18.1″) shells at ranges between 21,800 and 32,800 yards." for the Yamatos. Again this could be incorrect but I can't find anything anywhere that practically says they "don't have an immunity zone against there own guns".

@bkjeong4302

Жыл бұрын

@@willpat3040 Did that analysis take metallurgy into account? Not that it’s the most important aspect of a warship’s protection-armour layout is far more relevant and the Yamatos got that right outside of their TDS-but it might still have influenced the results somewhat when it came to very specific calculations like this, especially given the massive AP capabilities of the Japanese 18.1” gun. If I recall it was this issue with metallurgy that led to the Yamatos having armour that was “only” quite well-protected (which is, frankly, still superior deck and belt protection than those of just about any other contemporary battleship design save the KGVs), instead of being insanely well-protected as on-paper stats would indicate.

@willpat3040

Жыл бұрын

@@bkjeong4302 Fair question. After reading your comment (which surprised me as I never heard such a thing) I went looking through my book collection (which is lacking) and online. Most places will have a section on armament (about the 18.1 inch guns) and the armor (which lists the thicknesses) but only two sites online and none of my books talked about the immunity zone against their own guns. Both sites did have the same numbers however, so that's good. Now many Drydocks back Drach talked about the difference in quality of the armor between the British and Germany (the best) through the Italians and the Americans, and finally the Japanese etc. If I remember correctly Drach stated (along with Ryan from Battleship New Jersey) that there isn't a HUGE difference. As in the British may be 5-10% more effective than the American and the American may be at most 5-10% above the Japanese but in the end there wasn't a "quantum leap" in how good the very best was over the very worse. Face hardened Krupp steel is still Face hardened Krupp steel. After looking it up further the Japanese only had trouble with the 22inch plus faceplate on there turrets. Only above 20 inches did they struggle with the quality of the amour. The deck and belt armor on the Yamato were of similar quality as you might find on everyone else's ships. There was just much more of it.

Re longbows: A big area for me as I am currently writing my second book (England's Livery Wars). I think Robert Hardy mentioned two longbows and two arrows surviving from the medieval period prior to the discovery of the Mary Rose.

In the case of alternate histories, one of the more interesting ones I've seen, is a series a friend of mine was working on. It centers around a rather plausible scenario where Hitler, and much of his inner circle, are killed in a plane crash just prior to the start of WW2. With the 'head of the snake' cut off, he's been toying around with what changes both politically and war wise that would bring about, as it makes Stalin the 'big bad' in the scenario. This has been used in a series of short stories, but also in our wargaming sessions to produce some very interesting, and plausible scenarios.

@CB-vt3mx

Жыл бұрын

I think alternate history is great fiction. It is not, by definition, history. What is really bad for understanding history are the revisionist BS artists (like the 1619 project) where historical facts are replaced by ideological or political propaganda. This kind of thing is never an introduction to historical study, but a gateway to silencing actual historical study. A great example of how that works is the "Lost Cause" mythology that has grown around the US "Civil" War. It takes the perspective of the entire war out of its actual historical context (that of a War of Secession to preserve slavery) to a twisted concept of a war for the preservation of "honor" or "state's rights". Both the 1619 project and the lost cause myths are great examples of ripping history out of a proper contextual setting to make a political movement grow, and ultimately they both do the same thing--turn the actual history into something it was not. This is not "alternate history" like the Turtledove novels, but really just propaganda, but both have been quite successful at stifling all actual historical discussion.

@mikhailiagacesa3406

Жыл бұрын

We had 'The Munich Disease'; flu outbreak in 1938 does in all major national leaders, ex. Stalin, Roosevelt and Hirohito. Used GDW's Grand Europa. Much fun.

@glauberglousger6643

Жыл бұрын

Always hearing more alternative history is great, especially accurate ones (though flukes do happen )

@Driver-ur9mf

Жыл бұрын

​​@@CB-vt3mx listen here bud, I like the idea of honor, and succession, while against the notions of owning people. That said, you have it backwards, and the confederate flag is not racist. I suspect you were not there, do not really know, just spouting some verses of a song you learned. You do understand victors write that history? Survivors tell their tales, but burning , raping, pillaging, is not Honorable, and freed none, My understanding is Drach has no love of politics and propaganda in his content, get yourself a teaching position and or a political office, those folks love that there.

I worked at Philly Shipyard, on the site of the former Philadelphia Navy Yard. Dry Docks 4 and 5 were built together and originally had the ability to share cranes, via a loop around the dry dock service building in the middle (Building 620) (Edit to add building number)

Hi Drach, Thank you for your comments on writing good alternate history (1:28:30). I've tried to be very careful with this when writing my 'Republic of Texas Navy' series, taking one basic change, (Texas remaining independent) and working out how thinks might change from that departure point. So far, the first two books have been fairly well received, which hopefully means I've been doing it right.

@DABrock-author

Жыл бұрын

P.S. If you haven't read them yet, I think you'll like how I handled Admiral Gensoul in book 2.

@squirepraggerstope3591

Жыл бұрын

@@DABrock-author Sounds intriguing, tbh. Both in general and specifically w.r.t. Gensoul (if you mean the WW2 officer commanding the French ships at Mers el Kebir?) Another typical French perspective on Albion perfide there! 😁

@DABrock-author

Жыл бұрын

@@squirepraggerstope3591 Thank you for your interest. I don’t want to post links on Drachinifel’s channel without his permission, but you should be able to find my books by searching Amazon / Kindle for my name and ‘Republic of Texas Navy’. And yes, I was referring to the French admiral from Mers el Kebir.

Ok my week is almost complete, my Sunday morning drydock @6am in Milwaukee WI area. Always great content 👍

A joy and mind opening sharing with our masterful prof.

The note about Vantablack at night reminded me that, in fact, ninjas wore BLUE clothing at night because it blended in better than black. so if you wanted to hide a ship at night, use blue. ...granted, painting a ship dark blue might cause issues in broad daylight and given the size and speed of the things, the likelihood of what time of day an engagement would happen would have to do with what time of year and what location it'd happen in. so maybe not the BEST idea...

Regarding visual similarities between vessels, I read somewhere that in the Bismark, Prinz Eugen / Hood, Prince of Wales encounter the Prinz Eugen was leading Bismark and the, at least initial British Salvos were concentrated on Prinz Eugen.

@phaasch

Жыл бұрын

First thing I thought of when that question came up.

@michaelpielorz9283

Жыл бұрын

Unfair germans!!

23:29 In WW I, the US left German caretaker crews on the German liners and merchantmen that we interned. After our declaration of war, those caretakers did cripple many of those ships, but only for a short term. The US put them to use and a number of liners ended up as US War reparations. Interpretation of international law was also interesting. The US interned those ships (maybe with Imperial Germany's approval), but didn't inter the cargo sub Deutschland, which made two trips to the US in 1916.

@michaelpielorz9283

Жыл бұрын

Those sailors were lucky because being interned in britain means getting medical treatment on coastal facilities is prohibited and you could be shot.

48:11 Interesting you pointed out the Corsairs. The British as I recall DID have to cut some length off the wingspans to let them fit under deck with their wings folded. So at its face, the Corsair DID have some issues operating from British carriers.

Happy to end up here a month later after I am sure I saw this. I love that youtube just finds your videos for me when I forget to choose what is next

The Vancouver Maritime Museum has some nicely put-together displays. Outside is a bathoscaph which was used to chart the Gulf--Stream. Inside, the original St. Rich, the first vessel to circumnavigate the Americas, I believe. RCMP vessel.

Always appreciate you answering my question (about 6th Battle Squadron), but you neglected to answer the second part: what would have happened if they came to blows.

@Drachinifel

Жыл бұрын

Sorry, I must've gotten carried away with the first part!

@glennricafrente58

Жыл бұрын

@@Drachinifel Maybe include it in the Alt History Livestream? (Where it might properly belong anyway.)

Time 52 minutes: PSNS in Bremerton WA has rail tracks for the cranes to navigate the shipyard. It makes sense that nearly all major shipyards would use this method. You know the track and size of mobile crane, therefore you can safely move 2 passed each other. Only problems we had were movements restricting foot travel while a crane was moved up or down a dock. Or the few times a crane hit a power line and knocked out our shore power. Incidentally, that happened in the first 10 minutes the 3 of us new guys arrived to USS OHIO. LOL entire room went dark, being part of engineering department, everyone but us had flashlights and that was the first tool I bought on my way home.

The range in WoW is ridiculously reduced by the velocity so the shells fired from 15"/42 actually land 45 degrees angle at 18 km which exaggerate the effectiveness of angling the ship. In the real world those angles and ranges the game forces players to play at, the shells are more likely penetrate than not. And I don't think the penetration physics are correct either. I vividly remember Normandie hit a Doria at 45 degree angle 6 km away with AP shells and everything bounced off.

@Tuning3434

Жыл бұрын

Many artifacts are created around map compression. Ballistics vs 'travel' distance is completely wack. I do think they kind of try to mimic the penetration ballistics a little bit (but scaled) in order to please the historical crowd a little bit, but 20km on the gun is not 20 km of in game distance, ship speed, or actual shell travel time. I am actually more surprised somebody might contemplate WoWs trying to be even a little realistic in the year 2023. Five years ago I can see the case, but just like WoT before her, WoWs has dropped all the charades and gone Free to Play - give us your wallet - Arcade. Are Drach and Alex II stil doing Armchair Admirals?

@bkjeong4302

Жыл бұрын

The other issue caused by the compressed range is that accuracy for battleship main guns is all wonky (far higher than they would have been at what was expected to be their main fighting ranges, but also far too low for what’s essentially their in-game point-blank range). Oh, and the carriers somehow even being on the map AT ALL, when they would be sailing around way off the map launching aircraft into the map area or at each other. People keep harping on about CV cancer when carriers in fact have been massively nerfed in that aspect compared to how they operated historically.

@natthaphonhongcharoen

Жыл бұрын

@@bkjeong4302 The biggest problem for wonky accuracy isn't just the range being short but rather the fact that the range is known and no rangefinding is needed. But the game kind of make this clear that they have no interest in realism.

@marlinstout4180

Жыл бұрын

Possibly the least accurate thing about WOWS is torpedoes. Not the damage they can do, but how even a dinky little WW1 torpedo boat (a) can reload its tubes in around a minute and (b) actually has reloads at all. I get that the devs wanted to balance things so that DDs could actually compete (and maybe even survive) in close action with BBs and cruisers, but historically one of the things that destroyer skippers were very conscious of was that they'd only get one shot from their torpedo tubes, so they really needed to pick a time when they'd have the best chance of getting hits, which is completely absent from the game. Mind you, I do like playing WOWS, I just always thought it could do a better job of reflecting actual naval combat in the period. The whole thing about not turning your side to the enemy in the game, when in real combat it's absolutely what you want to do, first because it lets you shoot more guns at the other ship, and second because shells that missed a target at medium to long ranges were more likely to fall short or long rather then missing left or right. So turning end-on to the target would both reduce your ability to respond by masking some of your own guns, and place your ship in a better space to collect some of those under- or over-shoots that would otherwise have missed.

@nomdefamille4807

Жыл бұрын

My main peeve when i was playing wow bbs (2 years ago, console version) was the comparatively overboosted ranges and accuracy of dd +cc arrnament, particularly compared to the derisory effect of secondaries on a bb. Torp autoloaders was obviously a technology that my ww1~ww2 books did not think worth mentioning.

00:57:18 - Did navies ever consciously design destroyers/cruisers/battleships to look similar to each other to confuse visual identification? Captain Langsdorff " We sighted two destroyers and another ship. It wasn't till we closed with them that I realized they were cruisers. By that time, we'd already joined them in battle. I couldn't take my eyes off them. They came at me like destroyers. They kept coming at me. I couldn't believe that they'd dare do this unless they were supported by bigger ships. I thought they were trying to drive me out into the guns of bigger ships." The Battle of the River Plate

@albertcamerato7673

Жыл бұрын

Nazi commerce raider Steir encountered the USS Stephen Hopkins in the south Atlantic. The USN Armed Guard fought two 37 mm antitank guns and a single 4” gun with the assistance of the merchant marine crew. After sinking the the Hopkins, the captain of the Steir determined the Hopkins gunfire had wrecked the Stiers engine room and he was forced to scuttle. Lucky for him a support vessel was able to take his crew and allied Pows aboard. When he filed his action report with the kriegsmarine, he claimed he has lost his ship to an Allied cruiser.

@albertcamerato7673

Жыл бұрын

Edit- USS STEPHEN HOPKINS WAS A LIBERTY SHIP

I can fall asleep thanks to those, life saving.

@51:00 Another point to be made in favor of movable cranes would be flexibility. If you're docks are full each individual crane can service multiple ships the same day. It's not like a ship needs a crane dedicated to it 24 hours/day and they can run those things 24/7 when necessary. 2 hours loading/offloading ship A, 6 hours loading/offloading ship B, etc...

Thanks for that beautiful shot of the Renown, not even my favorite British ship, The Hood followed by Vanguard. Beautiful camo scheme, whether it was good or not IDK?

1) Good to hear the Wisdom if Sir Humphrey. 2)During Desert Storm/Shield, I heard the same explanation, (Me against...) from a minor member of the Saudi royal family. He and I were classmates.

In theory WW1 warships could have carried a proto radar device invented by Hülsmeyer and patented in 1904 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_H%C3%BClsmeyer ). But the navy was not interested because the device was marketed as a tool to prevent ship collisions and it was argued that foghorns had a greater range than this. Given that is was a very early development it lacked the ability to give directions and the ranging was only rudimentary. So, in its original form it was of little use for warships in battle. Had it been developed further in the decade before WW1, it could have become a game changer but it was not and fell into obscurity so completely that (to my knowledge) no later radar invention took inspiration from it.

00:57:18 - The WWI Brummer-class minelaying cruisers were specifically designed to resemble the British Arethusa-class cruisers, so as to make it easier for these ships to operate in British waters. The disguise was also effective when both ships were used to waylay an allied convoy from Norway.

Brilliant explanation of the British/French rivalries/alliances. I hope people heard and listened.

The U boat crews referred to the rescue vessels on convoys as Knockensammeln - literally Bone Collectors - I believe.

At the question of spies in Japan, I was told to lace up naval boots horizontally and importantly, If one spotted a matelot wearing shoes laced at 45' he could well be a Japanese spy. I did think that there might have been more obvious give-aways.

@Dave_Sisson

Жыл бұрын

I gave you a like just because you used the slightly archaic word matelot. Personally I still use the work lascar.

Years ago, one of the history magazines (I'm not sure if it was Smithsonian or American Heritage,) devoted an issue to Alternative History; the consensus seemed to be that Alternative History could be good entertainment, but, because of all the "extra steps" required to get the desired results (Nazi victory in WW2, Confederate victory in the Civil War, etc.,) its only real value would be to show why events turned out the way they really did.

When I first started watching your channel some years ago I really didn't like it that much, being an old wargamer (I started the hobby back in 1971.) getting more historical information on some of famous battles that me my friends and me used to re-fight, at first on table tops and then via computer, just kept building my interest as time went by. At this this point I'm 65 year olds and have become quite the amateur historian thatnks in part to you and your webite. The last war game I played was a recreation of WW2 in the Pacific called naturally enough, War in the Pacific by MAtrix games. It came out in 2008 and each turn was a day in real time. It covers Naval, ground, and airforces in the Pacific theatre of WW2. Thanks for all of the information that you provided and the clarifications that came along with all of your episodes. BTW, this game covered all the ships in WW2 on all of combatant's sides from Pearl Harbor until September 1945 and eay of game times equalled. Great stuff really. I have played just about every type of naval warfare and the battles that went alongthat's occurred in history, from Actium up to and including Jutland. Modern warfare was covered mostly by a game called Harpoon. It's quite old now but it's still accurate enough historically to keep one's attention. Again thank you very much for all of the work that you've put in over the years. Keep it up, I'm not in any danger of getting board yet!

David Dawson who plays King Alfred in Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom would make a pretty darn good Nelson. Similar build, right age and a great actor. Having Sean Bean running around the movie as Sharpe would be fun even if historically ridiculous. See "Sharpe's Trafalgar "

Been here 4 about 5 years your stuff keeps getting better all t time across t borad cheer bro thanks alot you've given my naval knowledge a lot more depth and more rounded 😉 b4 watching Royal Navy the best in everything now not

Drach, I was shocked, shocked, to hear you say "irregardless" at 2:09:39 of Drydock 232 (Part 1). Disirregardless of its having crept into some dictionaries, "irregardless" isn't a word.

@Driver-ur9mf

Жыл бұрын

Interesting

During the "battle of Lofoten" the S&G was led by admiral Lutchens (the same guy that did all the misstakes with Bismarck). And even thou both sides had discoverd the enemyforces long before action started, the German ships held there fire for 6 minutes !, while beeing under fire from Renown ! Still Gneisenau scored a hit on Renown, after only 2 minutes of shooting back at the British ship, while it took over 8 minutes for the British BC to score its first hit on the Jerry. The weather was difficult indeed, but with a more agressive commander S&G might very well been able to mission kill Renown. The German surface navy was often hamperd by hesitant commanders, during the DS battle Hood and PoW opened fire several minutes before Lutchens gave the order to shoot at the enemy.

Your mention of the _Maersk Boston_ got me looking at some of their other ships, and they can be surprisingly fast. The Maersk E Class is rated at 25.5 knots on 149,000 installed horsepower. Not too shabby for what was the largest container ship in the world when built.

For the defense of Pearl Harbor, I agree with the need for several hours to bring the naval units up to full readiness to oppose the air strike, but even with less time much could have been done, to bring each individual ship to general quarters with guns manned and ready and full watertight integrity set, and at least destroyers could have been getting steam up and moving out of the harbor. This would go along with the message from the USS Ward (about attacking a submarine of the harbor mouth), which was sent at 0653 (about an hour before the start of the Japanese air attack), being quickly passed up to Admiral Kimmel, and him then ordering a full alert (and Admiral Bloch concurring for the 14th District installations). The real problem was that almost all of the army aircraft were parked "wingtip to wingtip" in the middle of the airfields for "security", and it would have taken at least 4 hours to get the fighters armed, ready and in position for takeoff. That would have been well before the Japanese strike group even took off.

Yay. I look forward to the long drydocks. I prefer the old way of having just one long one instead of two parts.

Been watching a bunch of shipwreck videos recently. I have probably a better answer for ancient ships raised sterns. Those are likely raised to protect them from following seas that can swamp the boat, same as raised bows protect against waves coming over bow. Apparantly following seas can actually be more dangerous to "small" boats the size triremes would've been.

2:44:00 Halsey also had various significant successes he could point to. Beatty, not so much.

59:00 I say they looked a lot like each other. Yes the battleship has large secondary turrets but I say they would be hard to differentiate.

1:50:00 Dr Mark Felton has extensive coverage about allied intelligence activities in the far East on one or both of His channels. Mark is to WWII history as Drach is to naval history, priceless !:-)

96k views but only 1.7k likes? I don't understand. Shouldn't that be 96k likes? Yes, yes it SHOULD be 96k likes. Come on, people! Get with the program.

Just as a point of interest, I thought I'd share something today. I live about 2 miles away, and on the same road, as Ft. Saulsbury, in Delaware, USA. Ft. Saulsbury held WWII German & Italian P.O.W.s. It remains largely intact, and it is the only current day privately owned former US fort installation. The P.O.W.s were used as labor in the immediate area in the '40s & earned a small amount for their labor, I'm told. A bus was used to take them into town where the older residents here can recall seeing them brought in to buy from the local shops, once or twice a week- under armed supervision. Ft. Saulsbury's current owner does not want to know from present day visitors on their property and, from what I've heard, are willing to assert their rights to keep people away- make of it what you will..... 🚬😎

RE: Atlanta as testbed. The USS Mississippi was used as the testbed for future weapons systems.

@jjhead431

Жыл бұрын

And then the USS Norton Sound.

@johnshepherd9676

Жыл бұрын

@@jjhead431 All hail the Snort'n Norton!

Time 1:52 Morrison reports that the Japanese forces on Betio Is in the Gilbert's were accurately predicted by a field sanitation document collected in the middle 30s by a military attache in Tokyo

Unfortunately for historical accuracy, and fortunately for newer players to the game, most of the original A-Hulls more likely to have been historically accurate have been removed from the World of Warships. The C-Hulls are now the B-Hulls and the B-Hulls now the A-Hulls. For example you can no longer mount the original 6 single-gun turrets on Furutaka. But it also helps with balancing and making the ships more friendly to play while streamlining the grind.

Regarding my question about the Diesel engine I have some more information for you which I assumed you where aware of (me working in interal combustion engine development might have something to do with that). For piston engines the power to weight ratio decreases with engine size (with a factor of roughly 1/D, D being the bore diameter). Hence the large marine Diesel engine have very low power to weight ratios of 30 W/kg or less while e.g. passenger car Diesel engine can go up more than 1000 W/kg. In contrast the power to weight ratio of turbomachinery does not depend on the size of the machine. E.g. I recall modern gas turbines having roughly 1-2 kW/kg regardless of whether it's a 300 kW aircraft engine or a 20 MW turbine for electricity generation. That's why for applications where weight is very important like aviation, turbomachinery will pull ahead at fairly low power requirements. From my rough calculation I had assumed that steam turbines of that time had higher power densities. For example: I calculate a Flechter-class to have 22.5 W per kg of standard displacent. I don't know how much of that displacement is taken up by the engines but assuming it is less that half the "old" steam turbine powerplant would still outperform modern Diesels in power density.

@myparceltape1169

Жыл бұрын

I remember looking at a marine engine in a museum. It was as big as my house. If they get big enough they will be too heavy to propel any raft big enough to support them.

@jbepsilon

Жыл бұрын

Interesting point about the 1/D scaling of power/weight of diesel engines. I don't work on this topic, so I trust your judgement more than my own, but I would have assumed sort of the opposite, namely some kind of volume (power generation in a cylinder) vs. surface area (structural things holding the engine together) scaling. Can you expand a bit on that comment and explain what causes this scaling?

@gibbel4619

Жыл бұрын

​@@jbepsilon The power of an ICE is P = p_me * i * n * z * V_h, where P is the effective power, p_me is the mean effective pressure, i is the number of engine cycles per revolution (0.5 for four-stroke engines, 1 for two-stroke engines), n is the engine speed, z is the number of cylinders and V_h is the displacement per cylinder (I'm using German abbreviations here because that's what I'm used to). p_me, i and z don't scale with engine size, V_h scales with D^3 and n scales with 1/D. This means that overall the engine power scales with D^2, while the engine weight scales with D^3 thus power density being P/m scales with 1/D. The critical part is the 1/D scaling of the engine speed which is caused by mechnical limitations of the cranktrain (connnecting rod and crankshaft in particular).

@Driver-ur9mf

Жыл бұрын

​@@gibbel4619 I like your formula, as a gearhead I looked at power as cubic inch, compression ratio, revolutions per minute. Sort of CIDxCRxRPM. I did drop small blocks when leaded went away as I lost CR rather focusing on CID albeit heavier. Love and learn, but I like your formula.

@gibbel4619

Жыл бұрын

@@Driver-ur9mf If you only look at naturally aspirated (NA) spark-ignition engines, it's a decent approximation since the mean effective pressure you can achieve with a NA engines increases with a higher compression ratio. For a turbocharged (TC) engine this no longer holds true because of knock. For TC engines the maximum mean effective pressure you can achieve is higher with a lower CR. As an example of this. The NA engine in the Porsche 911 GT3 (from 2016) has a CR of 13.3 and achieves 92 kilowatts per liter while the turbocharged AMG M133 engine (at least the version of it I had on the test bench) achieves 140 kW/l with a CR of 8.6.

Nelson's accent would be interesting. Lady Hamilton, despite how she was portrayed in the film 'That Hamilton Woman,' had a Lancashire accent. So should Nelson have been given a Norfolk accent.

Wow, thats the first I have seen of the Cigar Carrier Class… I would bet they would be quite popular in Miami amongst the cartels… .lol

"Raise the unit" I envisioned the English Navy dredging up an old ship to send the army over on :P

The question I'm most interested in as I hear it so often in these QandA's is what does the username "Texas and La shock" even mean, why was that chosen as a username?

@yvansirois1496

Жыл бұрын

Babylon 5

I would put the deep sixing of the the USS United States in 1949 as a ship that was killed by a rival service and it fits [barely] within the scope of the channel.

On main battery AAA: Bismarck famously and unsuccessfully tried firing all the main and secondary guns into the water at maximum depression in hope that the massive fountains thrown up would stop the rickety old Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers (and it probably could've worked, if they'd managed to nail the timing/aimpoint -- I'm no engineer, but I deffs wouldn't want to be in a Swordfish intersecting with the splash from an 1800lb shell, but would think an Avenger could make it through) that ultimately all survived and scored one hit amidships that led to the ship's doom -- the later torpedo hit that jammed the rudder is often credited for sealing Bismarck's fate, but the fuel leak and flooding in the boiler rooms from that first torpedo caused the run to Brest and the reduction in speed that allowed KGV and Rodney to catch up. On Vantablack: See the old joke about nuclear submarines -- "you won't hear the boat, but you can hear the hole in the background noise." Also, USAF bombers/attack aircraft are generally painted a rather dark grey for the same reason (since at least the '91 Gulf war, they tend to kick in the metaphorical doors in the middle of the night*), while the pure fighters are camouflaged in two much lighter shades to blend with daytime sky/clouds. *also good advice for people literally breaking into places in the middle of the night, if anybody's thinking of getting into the burglary business.

@DeliveryMcGee

Жыл бұрын

Also, on dark-but-not-black bombers, I'm working in Bossier City, LA for the next couple of weeks, I'm seeing/hearing them a lot, being maybe a mile away from the departure end of the runway of Barksdale AFB. Also, amusingly, trying to find out how far from the base I am, Google Maps just noped out for presumably national security reasons, but says I'm 1.6 miles from the museum. Which is, unfortunately, on base grounds so I'd have to Know Somebody or jump through hoops to get in. (I was there once on a Boy Scout trip way back in the day just before Desert Storm, when security was less stringent, and it was really cool, they even let us out onto the apron to see the active-service B-52s, and I got my picture taken with the crew of Better Duck II.)

The idea of your going to give Pearl harbor a warning at 4 AM on a Sunday? Half of the fleet and most of the Air corps were still sleeping off hangovers at 8 a.m.

@danhaas9730

Жыл бұрын

Even a hungover fighter pilot is better than no fighter pilot. Plus adrenaline tends to mitigate the effects of hangovers at least temporarily. The hammering of machine guns wouldn’t be nice tho

@WALTERBROADDUS

Жыл бұрын

@@danhaas9730 still, remember that the defense of Hawaii is still a split organization. It wasn't great communication Army and Navy. Not to mention the problems with long-range communications that day. It's a bit like 9/11. Even after we had ideas about the first hijacking, by the time we got planes in the air and on station. It was really too late to do anything.

HEY BROTHER I LOVE LOVE YOUR CHANNEL. DRACHINIFEL !! SOMETIMES I DON'T HAVE TIME TO WATCH YOUR VIDS IN ONE SITTING. BUT YOUR FORMAT AND MASS VOLUME OF SUBJECT MATTER YOU COVER AND ATTN. TO INTRICATE DETAIL IS BEYOND SUPERB !!!!! I'VE SEEN MANY OF YOUR VIDS. BUTTTTTTT THE RUSSIAN WW-1 FLEET VID WHERE THE FLEET COMMANDER RAN FROM HIS REINFORCEMENT FLEET AND THE COAL ON DECK DRAWING FIRES AND. " HALF THE CREW KNOWS NOTHING. THE OTHER HALF WHAT THEY KNOW IS ALL WRONG " THEY NEED TO BE TRAINED FROM SCRATCH OR WHATEVER. HILARIOUS !!!!! 😄 😂 😃 😁 🤣 😸 😄 NO PUNN ON YOUR FACTOIDS I FULLY BELIEVE YOU. IT WAS SIMPLY HILARIOUS W YOUR NARRATION N SUCH. I LOVED IT. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. BRAVO !!!!!! 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

40:16 Like that silhouetted spinning dancer GIF that you can 'see' rotating CW or CCW

drach, you are limiting your cast list, the forthcoming Walt Dismay version will no doubt have a trans poc

As well as Royal Marine and Naval Divisions fighting in France in WW1, many of the railguns were manned by the Royal Navy. The heavy calibre guns used, mostly various marks of the 9.2 inch, were usually supplied by the navy. The guns were later handed over to the British Army when the navy decided being on land this long was just not for them. The army was rather underwhelmed by the navies generosity.

Nice stax !

On the WoW German or Italian ships they have range finders on the top of the mast as well

Regarding Michael Griffith’s question (1:50.46) about U.S. and British intelligence gathering operations in Japan in the prewar years, you might wish to review the book “Secret Missions” (1946 Van Rees Press) by Rear Admiral Zacharias M. Ellis. Ellis provides interesting insight into U.S. efforts and unrealized plans to gather intelligence in Japan using methods other than code breaking, recounting his own visits to Japan during the 1920s, as well as his cultivation of relationships with mid-level and senior Japanese officers who had assignments in the U.S. I note that Ellis was regarded as something of a loose cannon. His pronounced racial views and factual assertions debunked in the years following war’s end make “Secret Missions” an uneven read, but the book is nevertheless fascinating.

Who do you think would win in a one ship say a razee frigate versus a similar ship between Nelson and Cochrane? Plus the same match up with each man commanding a a small squadron?

From a literary standpoint, alternative history is to history as science fiction is to science, a way of writing about current issues from a fictional perspective. Where alternative history turns into wishcasting is when you try to apply it to a political point of view. For example, American neo-isolationists present a world of unicorns and rainbows if only warmonger Wilson stayed out of WWI. However, there are an equal number of just as bad or worse outcomes if the Kaiser does not approve renewed unrestricted submarine warfare and involve the United States in the war.. There is also a subset of neo-isolationists who confuse the behavior of the Kaiserreich with the Third Reich but that is a different story. It can be useful to use alternative decisions to evaluate different possible outcomes either through wargaming or other means. Drach's recent what if for the Second Pacific Squadron and the Dogger Bank incident is a good example of a good use of alternative history. Beyond the operational level there are too many variables to say anything meaningful about alternative outcomes and alternative history becomes wishcasting.

29:40 Kaiser and König do not have any World War II hulls sadly. Kaiser's is the hypothetical modernization but with a pair of WWII era twin 8.8 cm DP guns and gets an extra pair on the upgraded hull. König is also only in her hypothetical modernization but her Hull A lacks the wackeltopf (those ball towers) but they show up on Hull B. König Albert, however, is pretty much historical WWI Kaiser-class model. As for the battlecruisers, Von der Tann, Moltke, Derfflinger, and Mackensen all appear to be in their WWI configurations through and through. But starting with Prinz Heinrich (Ersatz Yorck) and subsequent ships, it is 100% hypothetical modernizations. Out of all of their hypothetical modernizations for German ships, real or paper, the only ones I actually think are done accurately to what Germany would’ve done is Prinz Heinrich (Ersatz Yorck) and Prinz Eitel Friedrich (modernized Mackensen). Everything else just looks ridiculous or nonsensical, especially Anhalt and the battlecruisers with the Graf Zeppelin casemates. 2:36:30 If anyone wants to see this interesting design in full 3D, I recommend downloading the mobile game Naval Creed Warships (as there is, sadly, no wiki for the game). It is the battleship IJN Izumi in that game.

Nelson at Trafalgar = Michael Fassbender. Right age. Right size. Right accent. Right smirk.

33:40 - Um, where _is_ this updated table that includes the _Alaskas'_ guns? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Many car and truck repair places pay to have their waste oil removed by a Haz-Mat company to be safely disposed of. What the Haz-Mat companies do to safely dispose of the oil is to run it through a very course filter, mix in other petroleum to balance the mixture, then sell it to shipping companies as fuel.

...wait a moment. Nelson was reckless, a genius in a fight but utterly clueless in every other field... _Nelson is Goku._

What would have been the effect if the majority of Liberty and victory ships could travel between 17-20 knots?

A friend of the family, my mother joined the Navy in 1938, I think the date is correct. I have his Hammock, not the bag just the Hammock. When he joined the navy, u carried your Hammock from ship to ship. I also have a pillow case of the USS Pennsylvania dated 1919. When a sailor was stationed on a ship, they would send this pillow back to mom. I don’t have the stuffing, just the case. Can send a picture if u like. On Essex Class they hung aircraft from the ceiling of the hanger ceiling. What thought was cool, it was the Brit’s navy who learned how to land a F4U aircraft on a carrier. U can’t come from straight from behind the carrier, u can’t see ship. U landed by turning from port side turn and land your aircraft on stern so u can see carrier deck. U made a half circle to to land the plane on stern of ship. U understand what I’m saying yes?? Also I believe u can takeoff from hanger aircraft from hanger of Essex Class carrier. U know the US built a underground airstrip on Oahu, was under a pineapple field. Think it’s still there.

On ships disguising their profile didn't the WW1 German commerce raider SMS Emden (3 funnels) rig a fake funnel to look like a British 4 funneled cruiser?

Carrier-compatibilty: Not a space/mass consideration. Are aircraft somehow connected to the catapult for launch? And if so would those attachments be universal enough?

!:17:16 Even a merchant ship group going in the range 15 to 20 (or 21) Knots would make the Wolfpack tactic all but impossible, especially if they used some of. those hulls for C.V.E. conversion to prevent the U-Boats from running on the surface close to the convoy... (Even 12 to 15 knots with a sprint out to 20 to 21 knots, which could let them "side step" a U-Boat group detected via "Huff Duff" (High Frequency Direction Finding) methods!)

I was just on a cruise ship that said at lunch it was doing 17 Knots and we were overtaking a container ship at the time.

Drachinifel - where did you do the analysis of the penetration / hit probabilities? I can't recall the video, and don't see anything on the list. (that's re: question from 30:00 , 33:30)

On the measures taken to prevent interned ships escaping: isn’t it an unfriendly act to break/sneak an interned ship out of internment? If nothing else, isn’t it an uninvited warship in territorial waters, not exercising innocent passage, and therefore an act of war? I’ll try and look in to the current position that Drach wondered about at the start of the answer, but I don’t think my Law of Armed Conflict texts address the consequences of breaking/sneaking out.

Idris Elba would be perfect to play Lord Nelson in a movie.

Are there any good books to recommend about Operation Sealion and, What if scenarios?

"00:29:47 New battleship penetration tables by Bill Jurens". While I have not seen Drach's nor Jurens' WW II battleship penetration figures, I have my own from my fairly extensive research in my ballistics file. ere are the real power figures for the top 4 WW II BBS: (4) US South Dakota class (16/45", 2700 lb. projectile) with 222M ft. lbs of ME and 78-80% penetration (as compared to the Yamato class) across distances from 0 thru to 30K meters, (3) Italian Littorio class (15", 1951 lb. projectile) with 236M ft. lbs. and penetration percentages varying from 93%-77% (same ranges), (2) Iowa class (16/50". 2700 lb. projectile) with 262M ft. lbs., and penetration percentages from 96-83% (same ranges), and (1) Japan Yamato class (18.1", 3219 lb. projectile) with 328M ft. lbs., and penetration actual numbers between 34'-14' across the same ranges. Drach down played the Italian guns because they had two problems, (1) where the manufacturing of the power packs was rather shaky, and (2) it seems that the Italian guns over heated rather quickly as well, both relating to rather poor accuracy. But they made the best European guns of all, bar these limitations. Also, since Drach did mention the Bismark here in this video, its guns were 'relatively' rather weak, with a power rating of 198M ft. lbs., with a reasonably good relative penetration rating of 86-72%. I would sure like to see both Drach's and Jurens' penetration tables - where can I get these? Also, my ballistics file is available for free to whomever wants it (a PDF file). Just click on my name here, and the on 'About', and email me.

In WWII, What was the best-kept secret ship/weapon system that took an adversary by surprise? Who of the combatants in WWII had the most effective pre-war Naval Intelligence?

@bkjeong4302

Жыл бұрын

Type 93 torpedoes, VT fuses, etc… The Yamatos get a honorable mention in that they actually managed to hide their true specifications for quite a while, but this was irrelevant because that element of surprise only mattered against other big-gun capital ships. I have to wonder if the Shokakus were also similar secret weapons as they were intended to basically the carrier equivalents of the Yamatos (in the sense they were a massive jump above all previous Japanese carriers and above the various small and/or converted carriers most people were using).

I think the biggest difference for Halsey and Beaty is that even with the things you can rightly criticize Halsey also has great successes you can point to. Beaty doesn’t. Near as I can tell he essentially shit the bed in almost every major situation other than back room politics.

Regarding "The Man in The High Castle" my 2nd favorite show of all time next to "Chernobyl", I got to know the local Vancouver actor who played the PR/Marketing supporting character for the American Reich. In case if anyone was wondering if that character was modeled after "Don Draper [from Mad Men] in a horrific alternative existence" that is 100% accurate!

It is somewhat unclear whether Moe Berg was on an official mission or freelancing but he certainly did engage in intelligence collection while on the US All Star baseball team visiting Japan.

@richardmeyeroff7397

Жыл бұрын

He was on an official mission.

Long name fletcher has arrived as expected

Well pushed ahead because someone's pet project is definitely a good description of the Alaska class which was FDR's pet project. If it wasn't the POTUS' pet project I'm pretty sure King, Nimitz etc would rather have had the man hours and steel from those be put into finishing Illinois and Kentucky if it had to be spent on big gun ships or even better More Essex class

Captain Laurence's sea chest is on display at the Halifax Maritime Museum.

As a community would there any interest in saving the juno? See the mark felton video. I would but in america and dont know the legality of gofundme and buying a british ship