Pinned post for Q&A :)

@themanformerlyknownascomme777

2 жыл бұрын

In an alternative universe, either a pincer menuver gone wrong, or poor ammunition practices are fare more widespread or through some other means, Jutland goes horribly wrong for the British and the ships of the grand fleet are either lost or will be out for at least a year in repair shops. Given the short range of most of their ships, Is the high Seas fleet even capable of exploiting this opertunity? Also, I get the reference in the title and I must say, you have good tastes.

@bobwatson8754

2 жыл бұрын

Just a thought... maybe a future series on WW2 ship building locations. For instance, quite a few submarines were built in Wisconsin and thus a long way from possible harm. Others (British, Japanese, German) were under frequent attack.

@joshthomas-moore2656

2 жыл бұрын

I found a picture online of an explosion in Cherbourg in August 1944 with no explanation as to what happened, given the explosion happened after Germans surrender what happened?

@Aelxi

2 жыл бұрын

World of Warships' IJN Hizen and Iwami. Could they become Standard class ships for IJN just like US standard classes or could they be a fair match for later fast battleships? (ie. North Carolinas to Iowas) if they were ever built. And your own thoughts on them?

@brendonbewersdorf986

2 жыл бұрын

I know of a couple cold war designs for actual submersible aircraft carriers with aircraft capacity over 10 in some cases! was anything similarly bonkers planned for WW2? Was anyone crazy enough to consider such a design?

The USS Johnston counts for five additional destroyers all by itself.

@Deevo037

2 жыл бұрын

Yea, but that ship belongs in the capitol ship list.

@michaelbeale559

2 жыл бұрын

It's the only ship that can possibly stop spaceship Yamato

@rutabagasteu

2 жыл бұрын

There were several Taffy 3 dd and de that deserve that accolade.

@LupusAries

2 жыл бұрын

It is a honorary battleship after all... ;)

@nmccw3245

2 жыл бұрын

I’d rate it a BB.

This really shows the "Sleeping Giant" that Yamamoto feared.

@witeshade

2 жыл бұрын

It shows that the giant wasn't even asleep anymore by the time he was worried about waking the US up. It looks like even if they had managed to wipe out everything all at once early on and had free reign, by the time mid 43 came around we would have had enough ships to just steamroll through them anyway.

@bebo4374

2 жыл бұрын

Except Yamamoto probably never said that. No evidence backs up the quote. Hollywood invention.

@spikespa5208

2 жыл бұрын

Not only a sleeping giant, but a righteously p o'd giant ,after having been kicked in the ____s to start the war.

@PopeMetallicus

2 жыл бұрын

Haha Shipyard go brrrrrrrrrr...for 4 years incessantly

@seancarroll9849

2 жыл бұрын

Definitely. This has always been the strength of the US. We can easily go into the arms business without little problem; the industrial capacity is just too powerful. Put properly motivated people behind the controls? It's going to cause problems.

Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated, Drach. Those graphs are definitely worth it, shows *how* insanly outnumbered the japanese navy was...

@Warmaker01

2 жыл бұрын

Military History Visualized had a video a while back called "Why Japan had NO chance in WW2" It becomes quite clear with the numbers involved. The Pacific War was an industrial war. As MHV said in that video, you can march from Berlin to Moscow, but you can't swim from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo. You needed a navy. And to have a powerful navy, you needed a good industry and economy for it. Japan just couldn't compete with that for WWII. At the start of WWII, the Royal Navy was the most powerful navy in the world. They were so strong that they capably dealt with both the Italian and German navies by themselves, before the European Axis powers declared war on the USA. When it became open war with the US, the Axis magically made one of the already strongest pre-WWII navies an enemy. So now the Axis were fighting 2 of the 3 most powerful navies. And by the time WWII ended, the US Navy became clearly the strongest navy. In late 1944 the British wanted to send a strong naval force into the Pacific. Eventually the British Pacific Fleet started working with the US Navy in 1945. If you look up the BPF, you'll see it was one of the strongest single commands the Royal Navy has ever put together in its very long history, and it was sailing with the Americans. Japan really had no chance.

@richardtaylor1652

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly. And even if the Japanese built everything they were planning to the letter and tonnage, it still would not have come close to matching the US Navy's exponential growth, which they could sustain.

@asteropax6469

2 жыл бұрын

@@richardtaylor1652 not to mention what the US had plans to make near the start of the war. Of American capital ships, 6 Iowa class battleships, 4 Montana class battleships, and 36 Essex class carriers were planned. Only 4 Iowa and 24 Essex were built. That’s not counting the 4 South Dakota and 2 North Carolina that we’re built.

@richardtaylor1652

2 жыл бұрын

@@asteropax6469 Yeah *only* managed to. Not to mention the US also had a remarkable ability to repair damage which Drach has covered in past videoes. I am sure the Japanese would have loved to have 24 extra carriers available (not counting conversions of ocean-liners or the audacious but pretty useless Battleship-Carrier hybrids they made). But that leads to the next problem, personnel. The IJN struggled to train pilots and replacement specialists to keep up with their combat losses. They had a very poor structure of rotating veterans out after a certain period to train the next generation of combat pilots or support personnel. The USN seemed to have been able to churn out decent pilots and crew at a solid standard just as fast as they were pushing ships down the slipways.

@asteropax6469

2 жыл бұрын

@@richardtaylor1652 The Japanese training program for carriers was set up to take a full year early in the war. Once the battle of attrition started, the casualties mounted up, especially in the Solomon Island campaigns. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the point of no return: 90% losses to their aircrews in a 2 day battle after spending a year getting them ready.

Japanese navy: Sinks a US destroyer The US navy: “cut off one head, ten more shall take its place.”

@mikemcghin5394

2 жыл бұрын

We not Hydra

@nukclear2741

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikemcghin5394 that’s just what we wanted you to believe.

@Deevo037

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikemcghin5394 Some of you have been hailing something similar of late.

@paulsteaven

2 жыл бұрын

*Hail Hydra*

@admiraltiberius1989

2 жыл бұрын

Fletcher and Cleveland swarm- "Mine Mine Mine Mine Mine"

Anxiously awaiting part 3: Liberty and Victory Ships. Where the metric goes from quarters to weeks, or in some cases, days.

@richmcgee434

2 жыл бұрын

"How did you finish before you started?" "FTL workers. They're very motivated, but you may experience some causality issues."

@craigplatel813

2 жыл бұрын

Need to have maritime commission ships in there also. They built just about as many of them as liberty and victory ships

@5peciesunkn0wn

2 жыл бұрын

Merchant Navy graphs let's gooooo

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

@@craigplatel813 Libertys and Victories were MC ships, Maritime Commission types EC2-S-C1 and variants and VC2-S-AP1 or AP-3, AP-4 or AP-5

@craigplatel813

2 жыл бұрын

@@colbeausabre8842 yes. But most people don't think of them as it. So they typically just call them liberty ship and don't by their Maritime designations

The USS Gillette, DE-681, went from keel laid down to commissioned in 2 months and 3 days. Laid down in late August 1943, launched in late September, and commission in late October 1943. The secret to destroyer escorts is the same as for Liberty and Victory ships, they prefabricated parts off site and welded them together at the shipyard.

@loonatticat

2 жыл бұрын

@Edohiguma That’s as terrifying as it is impressive. Particularly to the people that would CREW a ship built in just four days. Do you think the crew was informed of that fact before accepting the commission? And how would such knowledge influence seamanship and decisions made under confidence limited by the unknowns? It’s an interesting intersection of human capability and psychology.

I used to work at Philly Shipyard, which was formerly the Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard. Their main building dry dock is Dry Dock 4, which was built in 1942. Before the dock was even completely finished, the Navy was already using it to build no less than six destroyer escorts at the same time.

@timengineman2nd714

2 жыл бұрын

About March 1982, Drydock 4 had the USS Forestal(?) and Drydock 5 had the Saratoga and you would walk up to the roof of the building in between them's roof to walk gangways/Brows to either ship! I know that the Sara was there, but I'm not sure about the name of the other ship.... Also, I forget the number of the building... ... ...

@MakeMeThinkAgain

2 жыл бұрын

Big difference between East Coast and West Coast Naval Ship Yards. On the West Coast the Naval Ship Yards (Hunters Point, Mare Island, Bremerton) were devoted to repairing war damage. New construction had to be done elsewhere.

@timengineman2nd714

2 жыл бұрын

@@MakeMeThinkAgain Yes, starting with the ships from Pearl Harbor, the West Coast Yards had their hands full. After all, if a U-boat hit a Destroyer with a torpedo, the destroyer rarely survived....

@wheels-n-tires1846

2 жыл бұрын

@@MakeMeThinkAgain True... Of course the east coast had been the home of American shipbuilding since the nations birth, and never really changed that much. The west coast yards were reactionary. Sad to see places like LBNS and the Kaiser yards here in Vancouver being just memories now...

@RCAvhstape

2 жыл бұрын

I remember in the 80s the Philadelphia yard had a humongous crane towering over it. You used to be able to see it from New Jersey as you drove up Hessian Avenue towards the river. I forget when they took it down, but it was a pretty iconic landmark back in the day.

Next video: graphs showing the number or 20 mm Oerlikons and 40 mm Bofors entering service in different years.

@JackBWatkins

2 жыл бұрын

Also need a graph of the USN Dental Gold procurement, inventory and use during 1938 to 1947 by month.

@michaelbeale559

2 жыл бұрын

Have to watch that one on a 65" inch TV at minimum for proper scale

@baconpwn

2 жыл бұрын

Enterprise - "More! We want a ship of floating 40mm!"

@MaxwellAerialPhotography

2 жыл бұрын

AA guns go Brrrrrrrr!

@philliprandle9075

2 жыл бұрын

Yes we need them on a graph!!

_"For they have sown the Wind and shall reap the Whirl Wind!"_ Thanks for doing this. I knew what the general trend was but seeing the figures graphically displayed was interesting. I once attended a presentation on the money Spent on WWI, WWII and WWIII. The presenter displayed a graph with three giant spikes in it representing US Defense Spending in the 20th Century. He put his pointer on WWI. _"This is World War One. We didn't spend the money - so we had to fight the war."_ He then put his pointer on the second vastly greater spike. _"This is World War Two. We didn't spend the money so we had to fight the war."_ Then he put his pointer in the even larger (in raw dollars) third Spike. _"This is World War Three. We spent the money so we didn't have to fight the war."_ .

My grandfather was hull superintendent on the USS Jarvis and USS Patterson at the Bremerton Navy yard. He passed away from cancer in '42 so my dad left high school in '43 at the age of 17 and joined the Navy. The destroyer he was assigned to was the USS Johnston.

@huskydogg7536

2 жыл бұрын

@@somercet1 Yes thanks! Search "USS Johnston Survivor's Story" on YT for his story.

I'm just going to double check all those numbers just to be sure Drach is correct. I'll be back in 5 years..

"Our ships will blot out the sun" -US Navy

@richardtaylor1652

2 жыл бұрын

"Why do I hear boss music from the otherside of the Pacific?" - Imperial Japanese Navy in 1944

@Big_E_Soul_Fragment

2 жыл бұрын

@@richardtaylor1652 everybody's gangsta until the waters sing Star Spangled Banner

@sodadrinker89

2 жыл бұрын

@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment More like Anchors Aweigh.

@richmcgee434

2 жыл бұрын

"Hey! That's our job! Keep your boats on the water (or under it for the submarine branch), please." - USAF

@samsignorelli

2 жыл бұрын

"Then we will get our asses kicked in the shade."

Fun fact: USS Cutlass, a Tench-class sub, is still in service today with the Republic of China's (Taiwan) navy as the ROCS Hai Shih. Pretty soon, it will be the longest-serving submarine in history.

@bsgtrekfan88

2 жыл бұрын

Man there must be some OG equipment that is so worn yet still ticking - wow!

@JoshuaTootell

2 жыл бұрын

My first ship, USCGC Sedge was built in 1945 and sold to Argentina in the early 2000's, still sailing last I checked.

@S0RGEx

2 жыл бұрын

The Balao-class ex-USS Tusk is still in service with the ROC as well, I believe.

@CaptainSeato

2 жыл бұрын

Armed Forces Philippines TO&E is a living museum of U.S. 1940's milsurp still in active service. Like M3 Greaseguns with modern suppressors, rails and red dots, etc.

@unluckyirish2763

2 жыл бұрын

@@CaptainSeato now I gotta google this...

"We are legion, our numbers will darken the sky of every world!" - Sovereign The craziest part of this is while all the navy stuff was being built there were also B-17's rolling off the line every 41 minutes at peak amongst the rest of the airplanes. I know there were over 50k Shermans built not sure what the metrics were looking like. Plus the 2.5t trucks, guns, etc. Just a complete isane amount of iron ore, tungsten, chromium and bauxite converted into weapons of war in a relatively short amount of time.

@richmcgee434

2 жыл бұрын

USN: "Which is why we've bolted AA guns on every available surface of our ships, newb." Sovereign: "Oh $%^&!"

@richardtaylor1652

2 жыл бұрын

So the US were able to in WW2: - Supply the UK/Commonwealth armies with planes, tanks, small arms and other logistics. - Supply the Soviet Union with planes, tanks, some small arms, trucks, food, medicine and other logistical nessesities. - Crank out Merchant shipping to supply the food, munitions and other war material to the UK and Soviet Union. - Produce planes, tanks, small arms and everything else for themselves at a sustainable, break-neck speed for fighting in Africa, Italy and Western Europe. - Requipping and rearming some of the co-beligerant forces as well (France, some Polish units, some Italian units to name a few). - Producing practically an endless supply of ships, planes, transports, fuel and other logistical needs for the Pacific Theatre. They did this all at the same time without really struggling. Sure some bumps here and there. But they were cranking everything out for literally everyone at the same time. Plus fighting across multiple fronts as well. The US Military-Industrial complex during WW2 goes down as a mindboggling feat that one country could pull this off.

@cp1cupcake

2 жыл бұрын

I remember hearing (though I don't know how accurate it is and can't really be bothered to check) but something like the peak US production was a fighter in 19 seconds, a tank in an hour, and a carrier in a month.

@JD-kl8hz

2 жыл бұрын

@@richardtaylor1652 Yes it's mind boggling what was accomplished. There was a guy I heard telling a story...my old brain can't remember where from, but he said you could have stuck a pin in the map in Cincinnati, Ohio and drew a circle with a 200 mile radius around it and inside that circle there was more production happening than the rest of the world combined during WWII.

@John.0z

2 жыл бұрын

J. D. Yes did not mention the *really* prolific vehicle - the Jeep! They were just pouring out of factories. My understanding is that the Liberator lines were producing more than the B-17 lines. I have a book on Aero engines - they were replicating whole factories, even as the originals were being expanded. Ford got their Merlin factory built and almost into production.

Looking at the laid down, launched then commissioned dates of some mid to late war cargo ships, destroyers etc is a good way to amuse yourself if you are feeling down.

The sub curves make perfect sense. I can't imagine that building subs could experience a Kaiser-like acceleration at qualified shipyards if any level of safety and quality control could be assured for a vessel operating deep and to avoid a Drach-predicted reef conversion.

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

Four shipyards built subs for the USN in WW2 of which, Electric Boat had built the first USN sub in 1900, Portsmouth Navy Yard (1920), Mare Island (1930's), In the Thirties, the USN was ordering 6 boats a year, 3 from Electric Boat, 2 from Portsmouth and 1 from Mare Island so they were experienced. The one war time yard, Manitowoc, was a long established civilian yard. "Shipyard President Charles C. West contacted the Bureau of Construction and Repair in 1939 to propose building destroyers at Manitowoc and transporting them through the Chicago River, Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Illinois River, and Mississippi River in a floating drydock towed by the tugboat Minnesota. After evaluating the plan and surveying the shipyard, the Navy suggested building submarines instead. A contract for ten submarines was awarded on 9 September 1940. The Navy paid for lift machinery on Chicago's Western Avenue railroad bridge to clear a submarine. The 15-foot-draft submarines entered the floating drydock on the Illinois River to get through the 9-foot-deep Chain of Rocks Channel near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Submarines left the drydock at New Orleans and reinstalled periscope shears, periscopes, and radar masts which had been removed to clear bridges over the river. Manitowoc had never built a submarine before, but the first was completed 228 days before the contract delivery date. Contracts were awarded for additional submarines, and the last submarine was completed by the date scheduled for the 10th submarine of the original contract. Total production of 28 submarines was completed for $5,190,681 less than the contract price. SS-361 through SS-364 were initially ordered as Balao-class, and were assigned hull numbers that fall in the middle of the range of numbers for the Balao class (SS-285 through SS-416 & SS-425-426).[4] Thus, in some references they are listed with that class. However, they were completed by Manitowoc as Gatos, due to an unavoidable delay in Electric Boat's development of Balao-class drawings. Manitowoc was a follow yard to Electric Boat, and was dependent on them for designs and drawings" Before schedule and below cost!

That submarine graph (if not all of your graphs, but I particularly like the pleasing symmetry of this one) could easily be subtitled "This is exactly what Yamamoto tried to warn you about!"

Yamamoto: "We've awakened a sleeping giant." Underling: "We can _slay_ a giant..." 9:40 : "No-- you can't."

Franklin D Roosevelt: Magnificent aren’t they?

@SamCogley

2 жыл бұрын

The absolutely surreal scale of US shipbuilding (and all other war WWII war production) made the use of FDR's "Shangri-La" comment about the Doolittle Raid as the name of an Essex-class carrier all the more perfect.

Drach, *IF* you were to do a future combined USN combatant graph, perhaps consider doing it by tonnage? Otherwise the sheer scale of the DD/DE/SS production would overwhelm any meaningful comparative value if you were to do it on a per-hull basis.

@ronstewtsaw

2 жыл бұрын

I strongly support this. If this series is supposed to indicate US industrial commitment, tonnage would be a useful metric.

@MaxwellAerialPhotography

2 жыл бұрын

It might be useful to compare, hulls, manpower, and tonnage.

@ronstewtsaw

2 жыл бұрын

@@MaxwellAerialPhotography Tonnage would be relatively simple. Not so much with manpower, I should think.

@franzenders344

2 жыл бұрын

I would suggest tonnage per day. For each ship, have the tonnage divided by the days between laydown and commission. That way one can see if the construction effort picked up with more tons being constructed per day even if the same number of hulls are being worked on at any one time.

It would be interesting (and hopefully a lot less work) to see something similar for the Royal Navy and IJN. Comparing those graphs with the ones for the USN would serve to visualize differences in industrial output and where priorities lay for different hull types.

@sugarnads

2 жыл бұрын

And not having to worry about being bombed day and night for 3 yearss prior...

@jeffreypierson2064

2 жыл бұрын

You want Drach to be doing this for years, huh?

@Tepid24

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeffreypierson2064 I'd be lying if I said I didn't.

@kentvesser9484

2 жыл бұрын

You might enjoy this video from Military History Visualized comparing the starting points of the US and Japan and then their wartime production. kzread.info/dash/bejne/nm2VyZSxY6a5abA.html

Something unrelated to the topic of the video: I am really impressed by your paid advertising. It shows off what you can actually do with the product with a practical real-life example that someone could actually use. It's the exact opposite of the usual "throw a bunch of buzzwords the advertiser requested around and hope something sticks". I know that doing ads like this actually takes some effort. I assume Squarespace is really happy about how this partnership is going and personally I have to say this is one of the few examples of ads that I actually sit through and watch, just because it's somewhat interesting. I hope this form of ads becomes more common in the future.

I remember playing an old Avalon Hill wargame called Victory In the Pacific that (heavily abstracted as it was) really hammered home the difference between USN and IJN shipbuilding during the war. The reinforcement tracks for the US are just insane by 1944, and the game doesn't even address destroyers.

Was not expecting a prince of Egypt reference this early in the morning

Good stuff Drach! In the popular history it’s boiled down to: once the US joins the war they out build the axis. However the details are interesting. Just looking at the numbers displayed in a graph like this shows Japan never really stood a chance in that war. Had their own logistics, training and building been more efficient they could have made victory in the Pacific a lot longer and bloodier but winning that war was just beyond them.

It might be interesting to look at TONNAGE produced and in service, instead of just HULLS produced and in service. I could see the heavy warship hull numbers being overwhelmed by the light warship hull numbers, but I think looking at the total tonnage is perhaps the more accurate way to see how much industrial effort is actually being applied at any one time, and gives a better sense of fleet "weight" in service than just total hulls.

"We destroyed your navy!" - IJN "Haha, dockyards go brrr!" - USN

@keyabrade1861

2 жыл бұрын

US, Terminator-style: "We'll be back."

@rhylieshifflett7114

2 жыл бұрын

We destroyed your navy! Which one?

@SamCogley

2 жыл бұрын

One of the most sobering factoids about WWII production, in my mind, is that USS Essex, CV-9, wasn't supposed to be launched (much less commissioned) until sometime in early 1944. When the war broke out, the contracts for CV-9, CV-10, and CV-12 were reworked for 24/7 construction, "get them done as fast as you can" (the same ended up applying to the other Essexes under construction, but I think they only rewrote those three contracts before the War Production Board jumped in). She was launched on 31 July, 1942, 15 months and 3 days after the keel was laid. Newport News cut *at least* 18 months off of her construction time - she spent significantly LESS TIME UNDER CONSTRUCTION THAN THE TIME THEY CUT OFF OF THE CONSTRUCTION ESTIMATE. That makes my brain hurt - badly.

I now imagine the USN blaring "The Plagues" from Prince of Egypt as they go into battle... "Let my people go~!"

@mikespangler98

2 жыл бұрын

This one? kzread.info/dash/bejne/hoCmk8Gvmse6l9Y.html

@joshuahadams

2 жыл бұрын

All through the Land of Egypt I send a pestilence and plague Into your house, into your bed, Into your streams, into your streets, Into your drink, into your bread. . Upon your cattle, upon your sheep, Upon your oxen in your field, Into your dreams, into your sleep, Until you break, until you yield. . I send the swarm, I send the horde, Thus saith the LORD. . I send the thunder from the sky, I send the fire raining down! I send a hail of burning ice on every field, on every town! I send the locusts on the wind, such as the world has never seen, on every field, on every stalk unless there’s nothing left of green. . I send my scourge, I send my sword, Thus saith the LORD.

@ryanswma

2 жыл бұрын

@@joshuahadams You who I called brother, why must you call down another blow? (I send my scourge! I send my sword!) Let my people go~! (Thus sayeth the Lord! Thus sayeth the Lord~!)

You did an amazing job. Thank you. It's very interesting seeing American industry at its finest. It's also interesting to see how Roosevelt and Congress could see war coming with the building of new ships. They also listened to the American people and tried to keep us out of the war.

I know I've fucked up when I've been awake long enough to see drach post a video.

@treyhelms5282

2 жыл бұрын

Drach vids are addicting, aren't they?

OK, here we go. One reason for the USN's dramatic cuts in ships under construction was that it had learned its lesson when it built up a huge fleet of Flush Deckers after the Kaiser War which were facing bloc obsolesence in the Thirties. Also, among the hangers on in the under construction category at the end of the WW2 Congress authorized that vessels 80 percent or more complete to be finished, vessels between 60 and 80 percent complete were to be suspended, less than 60 percent were to be scrapped. 1) All pre-war destroyers except two were either expended as targets at Bikini or scrapped. Two Porter class ships were converted as Radar Training ships and rated as miscellaneous auxiliaries (AG) but were scrapped in 1949. The four gun Benson and Gleaves classes went into mothballs, most never to return (some went to allied nations in the Fifties). The only active members of the class were those converted to 3 gun High Speed Minesweepers (DMS). They went into reserve after the Korean War (they were too vulnerable to modern mines) and had a paper re-rating to DD. Almost all the Fletchers also went into reserve, but a bunch were reactivated for the Korean War. Some were converted to ASW Escort Destroyers (DDE) with mount 52 replaced by a trainable Hedgehog or Weapon Able-Alfa, Mount 53 deleted in favor of a dual 3 inch gun and the torpedo tubes replaced by ASW tubes and an additional pair of dual 3 inchers. Many ended up their service being assigned to the Naval Reserve - a few in their 1945 configuration (maybe with updated radars) 2) All prewar subs were either targets at Bikini or were assigned as immobile (props removed) Naval Reserve dockside training ships rated AGSS. One reason for the number of subs remaining relatively high was the Navy was experimenting how to use them against something other than an island nation (Lookin' at you, Russia). It also converted a bunch to Fleet Snorkel, Guppy 1, Guppy 1A, Guppy 1B, Guppy Ii and Guppy III's. The Guppy 1's were a hurried conversion in 1945 - streamlined with more powerful batteries but no snorkel - designed to prove the concept and soon relegated to serving as ASW targets. The Fleet Snorkels were caused by a lack of funding to convert the number of subs desired to Guppy configuration. It removed the guns and installed a streamlined sail and snorkel. They retained their original batteries and unstreamlined hull, so had considerably reduced performance underwater compared to the Guppy's. Unconverted Fleet boats ended their careers as dockside trainers replacing the prewar boats and were eventually replaced by Fleet Snorkels and some Guppy's en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Underwater_Propulsion_Power_Program 3) DE's were called by Freidman a perfect example of a WAR ship and demonstrating the folly of building a ship of limited capability to perform one mission - ASW in this case. By WAR ship, he meant a ship that had value to a war time navy, but either none or limited value in the missions navies perform in peace time. In addition to the DE's, he also included the Vietnam "Brown Water Navy", the RN's Hunt class, which disappered after WW2, and its Coastal Forces. Maybe the Danes and Germans needed them to fight in Baltic, the RN didn't. They were a waste of money for Britain (Tip of the hat to Jackie Fisher and his reforms of the early 1900's). The USN's DE program was huge - 1005 (!) ships were authorized. Of that number, 564 hulls were completed with 94 (of a planned 100) being either converted or completed as APD's (a huge over-strength compared to need) and two suspended at the end of the War being completed in the Fifties as the only steam powered Radar Picket Destroyer Escorts (DER) - part of NOARD's network of radar stations in the Cold War. As early as the Autumn of 1943, the Vice CNO reported that the battle they were designed to fight - the Battle of the Atlantic - was won and there was going to be huge over supply of escorts, when what the USN needed was amphibious shipping. There was considerable debate (including the impact on morale at shipyards where workers had been told the ships they had been building were vital and were now going to be told were unneeded) as to what to do with a large number of seaworthy hulls and eventually the decision was made to complete the last as APD's. I know that may hurt some families who had relatives serve on DE's and APD's but I refer you to Friedman www.amazon.com/U-S-Destroyers-Revised-Illustrated-History/dp/1682477576

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

Here's a video of a Fletcher DDE employing Weapon Alfa

Yes, please, in relation to the total shipbuilding numbers! I also hope you keep going with this material until it turns into an USNI book.

I would really like to see part 2 of the US submarine campaign with news about torpedoes that actually function.

@michaelsoland3293

2 жыл бұрын

Definitely want to know more about this, especially with Mk18s, Mk 28s, and the good ol’ Mk 16 which was produced in limited numbers but not used

plotting ships sunk in wartime action would be a good addition to your charts

These are some of the best graphs I have seen to illustrate the "What were you thinking?" question that should have been asked of the Japanese Navy when they were contemplating an attack on the US. It says something when you have to point out the slight change in the slope of the lines for numbers of American hulls in service that represents the entire success of the Japanese in reducing their American adversaries, even when they were experiencing the most success.

@spudgamer6049

2 жыл бұрын

They were thinking, at least those who were thinking, that the USA wouldn't have the political will to wage a long war across an ocean, and temporarily reducing the pacific fleet via a first strike just a few hours after the war was declared* would render the US unable to wage a short term war over an ocean. Obviously, they severely underestimated the US's will to fight a war on the other side of the pacific. *Japan did send a declaration of war, but their embassy took too long to decode it, and after the attacks on Dec 7, the ambassador was prevented from officially delivering it by the US.

@jedimasterdraco6950

2 жыл бұрын

@@spudgamer6049 Technically that wasn't a declaration of war so much as Japan effectively saying there was no point in further negotiation regarding the US sanctions. Even if it had been officially delivered, it still wasn't a declaration of active hostilities.

@gregorywright4918

2 жыл бұрын

It was more a question of what the Japanese Army was thinking, as Yamamoto was already saying that he could run wild for six to twelve months but could not guarantee success after that. As it was he ran into Midway six months on, then stumbled into another six months of Guadalcanal and the Solomons, and then the swarm started to arrive. There is an element of national pride involved as well.

This video reminds me of a video by Military History Visualized call why Japan had no chance in ww2. He did a video which show you all of the ships the US and Japan built from December 1941 up until Japans surrender its worth a watch if anyone is interested.

@5peciesunkn0wn

2 жыл бұрын

It's a genuinely terrifying video.

@sugarnads

2 жыл бұрын

@@5peciesunkn0wn not from my perspective

@kpdubbs7117

2 жыл бұрын

I watch that one about twice a year just to remind myself of the absolutely insane mismatch that emerged by the end.

IJN : *Chuckles confusingly

@toawing

2 жыл бұрын

Only sane Japanese (Yamamoto), sweats profusely then goes for the bottle

Some time back, The History Guy (who deserves to be remembered) claimed that the US Army operated significantly more ships than the US Navy did. I assume most of these were transports of various types. It would be interesting to see a presentation on this sometime.

6:31 Please do. The support ships never get enough praise.

It would be interesting to visualize the losses by adding a red line above the orange line, as if those ships were still in service

Thank you very much for this work you've slaved over for us. A small suggestion I would make is PERHAPS see if you could include 4 vertical markers on the time-line. Those being September 1939, December 1941, April 1945 and August 1945. I only suggest these as I'm a bit more of a visual person and was trying to track these dates on your graph. My bRAin nOT wORk sO GooD soMe dAYs.

@ChurchHatesTucker

2 жыл бұрын

Really should have been bar graphs 📊 to reflect the granularity of the data.

US Navy:Can you build all those ships US ship builders answer: Yes

@cp1cupcake

2 жыл бұрын

To be fair, the US never finished the prewar plans for the expansion of the navy. Mostly because the Japanese attacked and they switched from battleships to carriers.

@kemarisite

2 жыл бұрын

US Bureau of Personnel: "but can you man all those ships?" Max Hastings points out that despite enlisting every man it could, and having some 4 million men in uniform, they would have needed about 5 million to provide crews for all the ships in existence and under construction.

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

​The US had a poulation of 137 million in 1943. 16 million men and women served in the US military in WW2. It would have been relatively easy to conscript another 5 million without affecting production by much. In 1945, the US was half of the world's industrial output and was not operating at full, emergency capacity.

Thanks Drach, great information! Then to add in the rebuilding of the merchant fleet shows the incredible industrial capacity the US had in ship building alone.

As an amateur historian of ww2, I thank you for all that work !

Nice reference to prince of Egypt. 👌

Who here wants to also see the graphs for merchant marine ship construction?

Wow, nice job. Well worth the effort, thank you. I would like to see a total warship construction graph with all the major participants of the war. I.E. United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. Then one with the world vs. US or Allies vs. Axis It would really show how significant the war production contributed to allied victory. Another idea would maybe join with another channel and compare both land and sea production. They do the same work you did with aircraft, tanks and guns. Keep up the good work.

@richardmeyeroff7397

2 жыл бұрын

Russia did very little ship building during WW2 most of those needs were supplied by US liberty ships transferred to the USSR so that the Japanese wouldn't interfere with lend lease.

**Prince of Egypt musical number intensifies**

Thank you for an Excel-lent presentation.

As staggering as these numbers are, the US was also building tanks/tank destroyers, planes, and non-combat hardware like liberty ships, trucks, and Jeeps.

@Halinspark

2 жыл бұрын

And things like guns, shovels, bayonets, tools, ammunition, boots, uniforms, cookware/utensils/etc.,

@lewiswestfall2687

2 жыл бұрын

@@Halinspark Who can forget the M1 can opener

@lewiswestfall2687

2 жыл бұрын

My bad P-38 and P-51 can opener

And this is just _pure warships_ . Then there's the over 2700 liberty ships, the landing ships/crat, the fleet & civlian tankers, the specialized ships, mobile docks, etc, etc, etc... what a monster this industry was...

The US production in WW2 was mind-boggling !

Reiterating my request for one of these on the non-com ships. Stuff like Liberty ships, fleet oilers, hospital ships, and other supply/support ships made for the USN

My Father worked at Bison shipyard in Buffalo NY. working as a welder. his description of working there was a welder every ten feet down the hull, to crank out the landing ships they were making. Cost Plus 10% contracts.

What Disney should have sung was "I send the swarm, I send the horde of angry Fletchers and Essexs"

As you noted, the number of DEs dropped off precipitously after WWII. But many served in various roles during the Cold War and during the Vietnam conflict. I believe it was mostly, if not totally, the diesel driven 3" gunned ships that survived the longest. Several were recommissioned in the early 50's and transferred to the USCG for a few years, decommissioned, then returned to service in the early 60's as DERs with the addition of long range air search radars, They were essentially sea going extensions of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line watching for Soviet bombers coming over the Artic in the event of nuclear war. Later they served off the coast of Vietnam as part of Operation market Time, otherwise called Market Time Patrol, with the mission of interdicting the seaborne flow of weapons, supplies, manpower, etc into South Vietnam. I served aboard one of these, USS LOWE (DER 325), during 1967-68. She was decommissioned for the last time in Sept, 1968 and scrapped a year later. She was a good ship, and my first one. The USN certainly got far more value and use out of her than it expected when she was launched in mid-'43. Former Naval Person

As always your depth of research , attention to detail, and obvious passion lead to an enlightening and enjoyable vid. Thanks Drach . I would say keep it up, but I doubt there is any stopping you.

This is absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for your work!

Big thanks for all your work. We appreciate it.

What a ton of work! Thank you Drach :)

Just think of how many fewer ships would have been needed if, we only equipped them with properly functioning torpedo's at first. I think that was the most embarrassing part of our war production back then, and it's sad that it took "Admiral level intervention" to get the issue corrected after many years of denial.

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

The USN construction program had nothing to do with what was needed. In every category it was build as much as you can as fast as you can

Excellent research and work. Thank you very much.

Thanks for doing all this extra work!!!

neat and hard work to see the curves Thanks

Nice work.

Just starting this episode, (part 2). Did you count the P.T. Boats? Don't forget, every single one had THREE Marlin-derived Packard engines. It was an extraordinary engine. It worked well in aircraft, tanks, (as the Meteor engine), and boats, as mentioned. There are so many types of ships made only for WWII that were scrapped or sold off after the war, never to be seen again. A huge shame. BTW, here in Portland, Oregon is a fully restored P.T. Boat that gives people rides and the crew explains how and why they did what they did during active duty. It makes for a fun and informative day. Possibly for your next trip to the States. We are also just a few hours from Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada

@nickdanger3802

2 жыл бұрын

Packard V12's in PT boats were not related to the Packard Merlin aircraft engine.

Thank you for the information you share. Even though some of it is very technical and specific, you present in a very entertaining and easy to understand

fabulous work !!!

*"But my lord there is no such force!"*

Wow! Reminds me of that famous photo of the B-24's under construction at Wlllow Grove and you realize this is One Week's production!

I enjoyed this series, thank you.

Thanks Drach!!

Another outstanding piece of research Drach. Great video, and yes I would really like to see the cumulative total in another video, once your eyes can deal again with all the lines of data in the Excel spreadsheets you created!

now we need the auxiliary ships and landing craft.

02:26 "The Data is Ready" Receives more Data at that exact moment, timing on the Discord notification sound was impeccable

Roosevelt wasn't kidding around when he said that the USA would become the Arsenal of Democracy. Aircraft Carriers, Escort Carriers, Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, Destroyer Escorts, Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, and the Tanker Equivalent, LST's, LCM's, Higgins Boats, PT Boats, Submarines and Tenders, Depth Charges, Trucks, Jeeps, DUKW's, Seeps, Half-Tracks, Semi-trucks, Tank Transporters, Wreckers, Mobile Cranes, Bulldozers, Towed Scrapers, Graders, Staff Cars and 4 x 4s, P-38s, P-40s, P-47s, P-51s, Aerocobras, the Bombers, B-17, B-24, B-29. Howitzers of various sizes, Anti-Tank guns, Anti-Aircraft guns, Bazookas, 50 Cal. and 30 Cal Machine Guns, for Infantry and Aircraft use. Garand Rifles, M1 Carbines, M1 Grease Guns. Pistols. Ammunition for all of the above. The Manhattan Project. Decription Machines analogue valve computers for the US Military and the British at Bletchley Park. Additionally there were also vital Ship Repairs and Upgrades being performed on badly damaged Allied Warships and Merchant vessels. I know that I have missed things on this list but this was just working off the top of my head. Speaking of the B-29 Program, it was apparently orders of magnitude larger and more expensive than the Manhattan Project in terms of the development process and the procurement process. Let's not forget the logjam of rushed factory building and the vast amounts of raw materials consumed. Mark from Melbourne Australia

@nickdanger3802

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for noticing. Grease gun was the M3 and variant. B29 program was about 50 per cent more than the A bomb project. The US was the only nation to spend more than Germany, 341 billion USD to 272 if the numbers are correct. As i understand it.

Methinks Drach forgot the point of Fun Friday videos. Does not sound like fun. That being said, interesting, very interesting, many thanks sir.

I have never experienced anyone enjoying data (datum?) as much as Drach!

Thank you, Drachinifel.

Auxilerys and second line ships!!! And the liberty victory ships too!!! And the mobile dry docks, everything….ev…ery…THING lmao

The most remarkable part of all of this is just how little impact the IJN had on the US Navy after 1942 in terms of ship numbers. The same thing was evident with the larger capital ships, it's even starker here.

@gregorywright4918

2 жыл бұрын

Hence Yamamoto's comment that he could run wild for 6 to 12 months but afterwards had no expectation of success. He read the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 and realized Japan could never build that many ships.

Was on lcs 102 today, not particularly talked about, but a very cool landing support craft!

I would like to see the auxiliary ship graphs as well

That last graph truly epitomizes the old Disney war film called The Spirit of '43. Worth a watch if you've never seen it, you can just search for it here on YT since it's technically public domain.

350 destroyers in-service with a crew of approximately 300 each is over 100,000 sailors and officers just for the destroyer fleet. Hard to wrap the brain around those kind of numbers. There must also have been quite the industrial process in place to get guys trained to crew these vessels.

Really good research, thanks heaps.

Very cool

As a parallel analysis, it would be interesting to learn more about how the USN in particular was able to meet the requirements for trained crews to serve on these hundreds of ships. Obviously, there were plenty of men available primarily as volunteers, but that is a long way from getting them trained in specialities as needed, making sure that experienced officers and chiefs could be pulled back from other duties to serve on the new ships, accommodating vastly expanded personnel at war zone and other bases even if they bunked on the ships, supply services, etc. Then there is the whole dry land administrative back end that had to be pumped up to deal with all of these new sailors that the new ships required,- cutting orders, providing health care, courts martial, on and on. It isn't as flashy as counting hulls, but there was no point in building 300 destroyers if you couldn't come up with 90,000 trained men to man them and another 180,000 who supported them in some way. Probably dry research, but of interest once summarized I think, Drach.

@gregorywright4918

2 жыл бұрын

Sad to think of, but they got a good start on that with several thousand men at Pearl Harbor on December 8th without a ship to sleep on.

Yes do the auxiliaries if time permits

Thanks Drach

Destroyer STONKS

I recall reading, possibly in Friedman's book on US destroyers, that the US destroyer escort program was bottlenecked by an inability to construct turbine gear sets as quickly as they wanted to. And this delayed the overall program enough that the DEs where not really appearing until the Battle of the Atlantic was mostly settled. Though they obviously still did a lot of good work during the war as convoy and slower carrier escorts and thus freeing up fleet destroyers for other tasks.

@colbeausabre8842

2 жыл бұрын

Kurt Over They got around that by using diesel-electric propulsion (Evarts and Cannon classes - essentially the same as on US subs), diesel direct drive (Edsall class) and steam turbo-electric (Buckley and Rudderow classes) Only the Butler class was driven by geared steam turbines (and, incidentally, were generally regarded as the best DE's)

Then there were 1000 LST's, 2710 Liberty ships and 534 Victory ships. 1000's of Higgins boats, Numerous minesweepers, tugs, oilers etc etc........ Massive effort.

it'd be neat to see a less numerical perspective on the building effort, discussing organizational and construction methods and the like that enabled them to pull off the sheer tonnage they did, rather than just the raw numbers.

@gregorywright4918

2 жыл бұрын

"Warship Builders" by Thomas Heinrich...

Question: in your opinion, how was the US Navy able to successfully manage the design, construction, and operations of what one could argue was the largest fleet ever assembled in history? What were the critical factors that enabled them to assemble such a large fleet and actually train enough people in order to operate it? Considering how the United States had consistently underfunded its navy for many decades, the fact that do US Navy was successful during World War II is astonishing.

@SlavicCelery

2 жыл бұрын

And after all of that, American industry helped rebuild a large portion of the world and help restart the global economy. The sheer scale of that all boggles the mind.

You The Man!

Nice work! Now... amphibious, auxiliaries and patrol! ;)

@stevebloom55

2 жыл бұрын

And probably most mind-boggling of all, merchant.

Fabulous video.and you need a DBA for those projects.

I was fortunate to spend a weekend on the USS Marsh (DE-699). It was a cruise by the Navy reserve out of San Diego. The Navy invited a few Explorer scouts for this. They let us play with the 3 inch guns, but wouldn't give us any ammo. They did let us take the helm and steer the ship. The sleeping accommodations left a lot to be desired. We did have the full run of the ship including the engine room. The real highlights were watching them fire off the hedgehogs and the depth charges. Then they did target practice with 3 inch gun. One of the unscheduled events was the fire in the engine room. The ship was decommissioned in 1962. What an experience, glad I went. Drach, any chance doing a video on the Buckley class DEs? Note it was laid down on the year I was born.