Shokaku vs Yorktown in an early age of sail style fight. No airplanes, just broadside vs broadside? How would it end up? Also nice videos, I really love it.
Hey o/ I was wondering if you could do a video about an incident where two Royal New Zealand Navy minesweepers destroyed a Japanese submarine. The en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNZS_Moa_(T233) and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNZS_Kiwi_(T102) fought en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-1 The Kiwi rammed the sub at one point.
I have just noticed that on a couple of pictures of the Tennessees there are markings all along the side of the turrets, the only other time I can remember seeing this was on the Invincible class battlecruisers, where numbers are painted along the entire side of the turret. Why was this done?
@@nguyenminhquan3584 Discounting if the Royal Navy makes a ship to match the H-class then compared to the other ships of the time they are quite powerful and may be better than some of them
I have always thought the Tennessee, California, and West Virginia with their post-refit, South Dakotaesque superstructures, were really good looking ships.
@chris younts Yep, the old battleships were not a priority unless it was unavoidable. The Tennessee, California, and West Virginia needed major repairs and yard time, so they got good refits. There is a picture, of I think the New York, coming back from the Pacific, in 1945, with a big-ass hole its side. It was apparently so low in the priority list, that it was not even temporarily repaired.
Another state could have bought Tennessee, but it would have been more interesting to have floated the ship up the Mississippi River to Memphis with a cutdown superstructure and then reattach it once it was in place.
@@Cubcariboo With the exception of the superfiring #3 turret aft, in silhouette the rebuilt ships look much like the newer South Dakota class ships. As one book I read said, with the exception of their slow top speed, Tennessee and California were rebuilt to 'modern' standards. I wouldn't go quite that far since they kept much of the original armor scheme, but if called upon to fight during the Battle off Samar I think they could have matched or possibly even overmatched any Japanese battleship short of Yamato, including the 16" armed Nagato. I agree, they were good looking battleships.
@@Odin029 I grew up in Memphis and the Tennessee was supposed to be put in Memphis. Unfortunately they took to long and let the ship rust to the point they were concerned about the Tennessee sinking in the Mississippi. It was decided to scrap the ship. I believe the Tennessee was in more engagements during WWII than any other ship or Battle Ship. She was next the Arizona at Pearl Harbor and sustained some damage but was repaired. She was refitted I believe at least two or three times. It was unfortunate she was neglected. The Tennessee Museum is very close to where I live in my old age in Scott's Hill Tennessee. There is a video that tells about the battles she was in.
1:10 The Americans were not the only people to conceive of a super-sized, massively armored torpedo boat. Kaiser Wilhelm II suggested a similar design to Admiral Tirpitz and kept pestering the naval designers to build one. Tirpitz and the engineers of the Kaiserliche Marine were horrified and they nicknamed the Kaiser's fantasy ship "The Homunculus." When the admiral finally convinced the Kaiser that the idea was unworkable, Tirpitz sent a cable to his relieved designers stating "The Homunculus is dead." I found the story in Robert Massie's book Dreadnought.
What the hell was their reasoning method? "Hey, we have a ship armed with guns that can fire at 20 km. Now we only need.....torpedos? Because we're going to get in close and personal with the enemy...?" That is, of course, if the enemy doesn't swarm you with torpedo boats. And if you have an escort to fight off those boats, how the hell are you going to launch those torpedos without hitting your own ships?
Source please. From what I know the Kaiser was mostly a better ship designer than Tirpitz. He wanted to give the Macksensens the 3 15 inch turrets, he was against wing turrets and he strongly supported the fast battleship design.
Not to sound rude, and apologies if it comes off as so, but you missed a rather humorous point in California’s history. There’s a reason why she was the only battleship launched on the western half of the US, the only ship yard big enough to build her at the time was at Mare Island in Vallejo. Problem is, the waterway at mare island is rather narrow for launching anything longer than a US sub for the time. So, when California was built, a special breaking system was developed to slow her launch. However, the cables meant to slow her, snapped about halfway though the launch and California slammed stern first into the Vallejo side of the bank, supposedly damaging some of waterside streets. Thankfully, she suffered little damage and was freed from the mud without further incident
That's not bad. What's really bad is the nuclear submarine they sank right alongside the dock at Mare Island. The only nuclear sub lost to enemy action ;)
@@charlieharper4975 ah yes, the sinking of the Guitarro. One would have thought that after that guard said “hey you guys should probably stop letting water into to the ballast tanks with the hatches open, you’re starting to flood the boat”, they would have done so. Perhaps Drac can do a special on embarrassing in port accidents some time
late reply, but this video is about USS Tennessee, not the Tennessee class, so he can still add that point of history to the video of the USS California if he ever redoes it (I just checked the video and he doesn't mention it).
Thank you for posting this and filling in some history that I was not aware of concerning BB-43. My father served on her 1940-1947. Topside when the attack started 7 December. Turret #2, he was "cap'n of the gun crew" for one of the 14 inchers. Put the charge in behind the shell. Had tinnitus for the rest of his life. Only real comment he ever made about the war was about afterwards, they went to Singapore. All the mama-sans came out on their little sampans to greet the arriving battleship all the while lighting off strings of firecrackers. He said "It was so loud, you would have thought you were in a war." I will never forget that for as long as I live.
@@toasterbathboi6298 I happen to like both, however I think the rebuild has an amazing silhouette and for some reason just looks 'right' to me, but that's the beauty of ship's looks, they're all subjective
@@johnmanning4577 don't get me wrong I love the look of the South Dakota/ Iowa class because they started from the get go looking like that. But the older ships looked better before being rebuilt.
Starting the day with a vid about my native state's ship, BB-43. Good start to what will be a very busy day. And yes that is the Tennessee i use as an avatar. Pic shown at 6:10
I understand that back in 80s the Australian frigates used the GE LM2500 and the hatches were not large enough to extract the engine and they cut a big hatch in order to do this.
Well, frigates don't have the armor decks (or, god forbid, the belt armor) to cut through and then have to repair afterwards without weakening the protection scheme. In addition, as the turbo-generators sit rather low in the ship, there are a LOT of other things that would also have to removed for access. This is also why many ships were never re-engined unless as part of a comprehensive refit/rebuild. (such as the one the Tennessee herself went through...)
When my ship, the USS Guam was in drydock, holes were cut in the hull to remove and replace various bits of equipment. There was a watertight door between the forward and after messdecks that had to be cut out of the bulkhead to move machinery. They did that 3 times when I was on that ship. I guess it never occurred to anyone to install a wider door.
Great video. These battleships did well in the Battle of the Surigao Strait, the high point of their careers. After their rebuilds they were inferior to the modern WW2 USN mostly only in speed, their protection and radar gunnery being superb.
There are always persons of low intellect and high emotions who dislike things on the interwebs on general principals, although many would struggle to define their principles. Generically they are called Trolls.
You Brits have a knack for history, especially naval history. I watch all your videos and find them fascinating. Keep up the good work. It’s appreciated here in NEW England.
Thankyou again for all your hard work and dedication to provide us with material with which we can satisfy our very human need for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
Congrats on 200 episodes! When I first clicked on this video I was kinda hoping it would be about the armored cruiser Tennessee from 1906 whose name was changed to Memphis in 1916 so they could name this class Tennesee. They were the last armored cruisers the American navy built and pretty interesting ships to talk about. Anyway good job on yet another video.
superb video - often wondered about this class - as a child and later, made frequent trips to the USS Texas with its 14" 45's - a real shame that more of these were not retained as museum ships. I know it's expensive !!!
1:23 Anyone else have the immediate reaction of "Oh God, it's HIDEOUS!" seeing that proposed armor scheme? I mean, that sloped belt literally could not be angled any more perfectly to allow shells at normal battle ranges to go right through it.
Guide 200 !! Congratulations to Drach !! Love your work from year to year, your videos are getting better and better :D P.S. I really really like your channel and it's very informative, happy to see the channel have grown from 8k sub to over 100k
Insofar as the post refit (Pearl Harbor} and the common design of the superstructures for California & Tennessee being similar in profile to the newer ships. My father served on the Tennessee from Guadal Canal to Tokyo Bay, to the day he died he could always pick her out of any pictures with multiple battleships in line, it always baffled me how he could do that when they all looked so similar.
I can't believe the state of California didn't save its namesake ship. A ship with so much history. How cool would it be to be able to walk the decks of a ship sunk at pearl harbor
What I find it interesting is how the pre-war ships had so many port holes and all but disappeared during the war and pretty much nonexistence on modern ship. Maybe do a short video on the case of the "missing port hole".
Air conditioning and ventilation became a thing after 1938. The reason for port holes was ventilation for the crew and equipment. Once you got freon air conditioning, for the equipment spaces and for some habitability use, portholes became redundant and rightly were seen as weak spots in the hull. and potential sources of flooding if the port is open or dislodged.
First time making a suggestion - I know she's outside your usual time period and primarily a river warfare vessel, but have you considered covering the US Civil War Ironclad USS Carondelet?
Wouldn't armour sloped like that of the 'ironsides' design, simply present a flatter and more easily penetratable target for incoming shells? P.S. Did you forget to put the pinned Q&A thread up Drach? ;)
I think that in the earlier years (1910s and 20s) shell arcs were more horizontal. It was only later as gun elevation and range increased that impact angles increased.
@@bluemountain4181 And especially as the design plans predated Jutland the USN may have assumed effective combat would be much closer range that it historically played out. (The German's made similar assumptions leading to their turtleback armor layout; though at least they kept a main belt too and not just the slope armor) Mind you with the Pacific to also worry about (with its generally calmer seas and better visibility compared to the North Sea) assuming the USN would only face short range fights seems shortsighted even in the 1910s.
@Nguyen Johnathan That was fairly exclusive to British AP shells, and even then they'd still not struggle to penetrate such a thin belt at such a favourable angle.
4 года назад+3
One of the problems with sloped side armor is the weight. Consider The cross sectional perspective of a Battleship (A. I_I) Now consider the same view of one with sloped armor (B. /_\). The sides of the rectangle formed by the A are shorter than the triangular profile of B. Or stated another way the hypotenuse is always the longest side of a right triangle. The point is that a sloped armor belt is perforce wider and thus heavier than a straight side belt. Sorry I'm trying to learn accurate descriptive writing and I don't consider this to be one of my better efforts.
At long ranges the \_/ scheme would actually increase the striking angle of incoming shells, increasing the deflection factor and giving a higher chance of ricochet. It's also a good way of increasing your ships armor profile without throwing on a ton of weight. That's how the belts of the South Dakota and Iowa classes were better rated against 16" shells compared to North Carolina despite being only 0.2 inches thicker, as they had a 19° angle compared to a 10° angle. However this armor layout only works at medium to longer ranges as the flatter trajectories from closer range reduces the angle of the striking shell, reducing the deflection probably.
Would you mind discussing at some point, the reasoning behind those clipper bows? I had hoped to hear about this in your hull-design video, but I missed it.
I'm no drachinifel, but it's my understanding that it cuts down on water coming over the bow, and that's always a good thing. Previous bows were built with the possibility of ramming in mind, but by this point that had FINALLY gone away.
@@jaytea2283 You're right. By both adding buoyancy and flaring the topsides out to push water and spray away, the foredeck was relieved somewhat of water freely flowing upon it. Somewhat. The difference between HMS Vanguard's fuller bow shape as compared to an Iowa class' pinched design was starkly demonstrated when Vanguard and one of the Iowa's were working together in the North Atlantic. My favorite American battleship design had her for'd turrets awash, something that apparently both amused and shocked our British allies... The Iowa's were designed for the Pacific Theater.
I know Drach has mentioned this recently (past month or 2.) I'd've wagered it was in the hull design video you mention, but that's only a guess The good news is: He's tagged your post, so attend well at the next _Drydock!_
@@77thTrombone Knowing myself, I may well have simply missed it, but I have been trying to listen for this, especially in the hull design video. What also makes the bow rake so interesting is how little it seems to be used. Up through WWII, the .standard seems to be a very slight rake.
It seems so. When you look at these US 14" ships, they seem to be small, but then I remember that they have 10 to 12 14" guns on them. That is crazy. Only the largest American/Japanese other then the Nelson class ships that were built years later had a larger broadside then any of the 12 gun 14" ships. I have gained new respect for them.
I remember reading how the "16-inch gun lobby" tried to get larger main weapons onto Tennessee and California. But it was pointed out that a 16" shell missing its target was no more powerful than a 14" shell missing. Therefore, a 12-gun salvo of 14-inchers had a better chance of scoring a hit than a 8-gun salvo of 16-inchers. (And a 14" AP round was a powerful munition)
@@ONECOUNT TheYamato wasn't is reserve for a decade or so, after a major refit, then scrapped. She went down guns blazing. Unneccassarily, but heroically.
@@karlvongazenberg8398 Karl when the Yamato was built they created a huge shed and built her in it, top secret you know. I didnt say she was mothballed.
@chris younts I understand they took major parts off Museum ships USS Massachusetts, USS Alabama, USS North Carolina. The rumor has it one of the parts was either a propellor or a propeller shaft or both.
Drach, A lesson on the Panama and Suez Canals would be very interesting as well. If American ships in the Western Pacific were to proceed to the US East Coast, and were oversized for the Panama Canal, would they transit the Straights of Magellan, Good Hope, or the Suez Canal?
Look at the wake this ship creates. It gives plowing through the sea new meaning. Wonder if anyone calculated how much faster it could have gone with a better hull design??
Wouldn't matter. The powers that be in the US Navy wanted every battleship to do 21 knots max. It wasn't a design flaw or anything, just what was ordered. I like the general idea of the so called "standard class" but it really could be a hindrance to innovation and progress.
Because they're practically the same thing and served together on most deployments. You even got one incident of collision. You get one, you get the other--Prune Barge and Rebel T.
At 3:56 the small ship in the foreground appears that it may be the USS St. Augustine (?) A millionaires yacht leased to the Navy in the early part of WWII and sunk on convoy duty off Cape May, NJ by a friendly freighter. Many men from the Newport RI area were among those killed. Narragansett Bay.
@chris younts the navy planned on keeping the Iowas in service post war. The standards were more or less relegated to second line duty or shore bombardment. 21 knot top speed before you add on a thousand tons or two of anti aircraft weaponry, radars, and the widened bulges means they are worthless as carrier escorts. Navy understood that doctrine had changed forever and ships that couldn't keep up with the carriers had a rapidly shrinking usable capacity. They would be the first to go post war. Since the germans were beat in the Atlantic relatively early the americans could "waste" a ship by making it too big to make it though the Panama canal and dooming it to be scrapped post war.
Naval Designer: "We're rebuilding the damaged Tennessee, California, and West Virginia. We need to improve their protection, so we're making them-" Roosevelt: " E X T R A T H I C C !!! " Naval Designer: ... Roosevelt: ... Naval Designer: "Mr President, that would be extremely impractical. It'll slow the ship down and we wouldn't be able to fit it through the Panama canal-" Roosevelt: "DO NOT QUESTION MY GENIUS!!!"
The Tennessees and Colorados were the only WWI vintage BBs to never see a major modernization prior to 1941. There was consideration, but the pushback by the early 30s was a combination of tight depression era budgets, and consideration that putting millions into these obsolete ships, vs building new, was a waste.
Admiral Yamamoto would have disagreed that the Standard Plan ships were obsolete or a waste of time modernizing. He determined them to be the lynchpin to U.S. Navy strategy in the Pacific (which they were pre-12/07/1941) and designed the Pearl Harbor strike to remove the battle line from the strategic equation, which it did. The much-vaunted superiority of aircraft carriers post-Pearl Harbor was the end result of necessity by the U.S. Navy to do something against the IJN forces, even without battleships. The older battleships' main weakness anyway was their fuel hog status; the carriers used less fuel, and the newer fast battleships used less fuel AND could move fast enough to screen the carriers in combat. Admiral Nimitz cited the fuel reasons plus the lack of oilers in the Pacific as to why he did not deploy repaired Standard Plan battleships to the Solomons in late 1942.
@@observationsfromthebunker9639 This is from the record of the US Senate, 1930: "Of the enormous total of $118,000,000, we have already spent or have been obligated to spend about $38,000,000, leaving $80,000,000 still to be appropriated if we are to modernize our battleship fleet, and then we do not obtain parity with Great Britain. According to the testimony, a new battleship would cost approximately $39,000,000. Hence we could match the Rodney and Nelson and make up our existing deficiency in battleship strength, which can not be done by modernization, by building two ships like the Rodney and Nelson with the money which it is proposed to spend for modernization." There you have it. Modernizing old BBs does not make them the equal of new-build. As we know, the Tennessees and Colorados never saw a rebuild, so were even farther off the pace compared to the Nagatos and modernized Kongos and Ises. Sure, a Tennessee or Colorado can hurt you, so you are better off sinking it into the mud of Pearl, but they are less of a threat than a KGV or North Carolina, because they are so obsolete. Of course, if I was in command in Japan, I would never have attacked Pearl in the first place. I would have taken the Philippines, preferably by infiltrating the Philippine government that was established in 1935, and rolled the dice that the US population would not support a war over the Philippines.
@@stevevalley7835 Good point for budgetary concerns, although I would enjoin you to remember that Tojo's government had a decided lack of reason in planning to fight the USA while simultaneously attacking European colonies. Anyhow, the old ladies were worth the $$$ in the thirties because they were the perceived arbiters of victory. The IJN planners certainly thought so, focusing on them as the locus of surface naval power they were at the time. Yamamoto had to deal with all the refurbed Standards in the here and now of 1941. The fast BBs were an unknown, but the Pacific Fleet's battle line of the Standards were a known quantity, and those eight could match the pre-Musashi IJN battle line, and then some. (Probably a decisive advantage, since the Kongos weren't up to a slugfest with them.) Those 8 old refurbs designed to win Jutland The Sequel had to go, quickly, before the massive USN buildup made a naval contest a mere mathematical formula in force reduction. Yamamoto sold the Pearl Harbor attack as crushing the American spirit, but his real concern was to remove 8 big BBs off the board and give the IJN time to secure the desired objectives without risking a Jutland II.
@@observationsfromthebunker9639 Yamamoto ALWAYS stressed they had to take out the US carriers. The three primary targets were the carriers, the dockyards and the fuel depots in the Japanese strategic plans. The battleships were priority targets but considered below the carriers. All the ships were primary targets from a tactical operation.
There were multiple reasons, but the single biggest was their turbo electric propulsions systems and the resulting layouts. The designs were so compact and compartmentalized there was no room to modernize the ships and bring their speed up to a useful level. There was no room in the hull for new equipment and upgrades. The US Navy went for the Turbo electric at the time because it offered more power per ton, better fuel efficiency, and certain handling advantages. It allowed boilers to operate at higher pressures in a stable pattern, but it was also much more compact and kept ship size down and costs lower. Gearing for ship turbines was simple at the time and the more advanced gearing used in the 30's was not yet ready for naval operations. When Japan and the RN modernized and replaced the engineering systems, they were able to free up huge spaces and tonnage for new systems. The old ships that could not free up space were never modernized by the big three (Revenge class, Fuso & Iso classes, standard class). What is sometimes missed about the QE class modernization is they received extensive torpedo protections and armament upgrades that added tonnage. Bulges helped offset some of it, but so did the modern lighter propulsion equipment while upgrading speed and cruising range. The US TE drive ships offered no path to a rebuild without major tonnage increases. Look at the bloated blisters they added for torpedo protection which turned the ships into snails. The same effort to compact the South Dakota class engineering spaces in the 1930's also created ships with no capacity to be modernized post WW 2. Their equipment was mostly worn out by 1946 and they were quickly mothballed and never considered for return to service whereas the North Carolinas were studied extensively for modernization. The irony is the US Navy did not want to modernize the worst damaged ships from Pearl. They were content with stripping West Virginia and California and scrapping them. The others were only supposed to get quick repairs until FDR stepped in. Politically, the admission of 4 battleships as total losses was too much and it made good propaganda for the public to repair them. As it was the most modernized ships missed most of the war because they were low priority. Another interesting tell is he US Navy did not buy new ammunition for their guns, using up existing stocks during the war. By September 1945, the last of the 14" ammunition was issued to the fleet and older ships were to be retired after the bombardments of Japan. Also it should be noted Oklahoma was scheduled to sail on January 5th for Bremerton for stripping and scrapping. Crew were already getting orders for transfers to new ships.
Has anyone found photographs or videos of the interior of the triple 14" turrets of a US Standard? The guns look to be so close together, I have a hard time imagining how they were worked efficiently.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Shokaku vs Yorktown in an early age of sail style fight. No airplanes, just broadside vs broadside? How would it end up?
Also nice videos, I really love it.
If the H-class battleships was to be launch, how would they compare to other ships?
Hey o/ I was wondering if you could do a video about an incident where two Royal New Zealand Navy minesweepers destroyed a Japanese submarine. The en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNZS_Moa_(T233) and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNZS_Kiwi_(T102) fought en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-1 The Kiwi rammed the sub at one point.
I have just noticed that on a couple of pictures of the Tennessees there are markings all along the side of the turrets, the only other time I can remember seeing this was on the Invincible class battlecruisers, where numbers are painted along the entire side of the turret. Why was this done?
@@nguyenminhquan3584 Discounting if the Royal Navy makes a ship to match the H-class then compared to the other ships of the time they are quite powerful and may be better than some of them
Congratulations on episode 200! Only thousands of ships remaining.
Here,here, Drach! 200!
...And paper ships.
I will drink to that
Will be sad the day he’s covered em all, no more new content lol
sniperjoe07 - games & whatever - it’s year 2045 welcome to the drydock episode 4568
I have always thought the Tennessee, California, and West Virginia with their post-refit, South Dakotaesque superstructures, were really good looking ships.
@chris younts Yep, the old battleships were not a priority unless it was unavoidable. The Tennessee, California, and West Virginia needed major repairs and yard time, so they got good refits. There is a picture, of I think the New York, coming back from the Pacific, in 1945, with a big-ass hole its side. It was apparently so low in the priority list, that it was not even temporarily repaired.
I can agree. Better looking than the Iowas in my opinion
Yeah, standard type BBs after modernization have the BEST looking among all BBs ever existed
The loveliest looking of the standards. Such a shame they were scrapped, I'd love to see Tennessee fully restored in all her glamour.
Another state could have bought Tennessee, but it would have been more interesting to have floated the ship up the Mississippi River to Memphis with a cutdown superstructure and then reattach it once it was in place.
I just love the lines of this class post modernization! Not sure I can put a finger on exactly why but they just look "right". 😎🤓
@@Cubcariboo With the exception of the superfiring #3 turret aft, in silhouette the rebuilt ships look much like the newer South Dakota class ships.
As one book I read said, with the exception of their slow top speed, Tennessee and California were rebuilt to 'modern' standards. I wouldn't go quite that far since they kept much of the original armor scheme, but if called upon to fight during the Battle off Samar I think they could have matched or possibly even overmatched any Japanese battleship short of Yamato, including the 16" armed Nagato.
I agree, they were good looking battleships.
Those lines are sleek indeed!
@@Odin029 I grew up in Memphis and the Tennessee was supposed to be put in Memphis. Unfortunately they took to long and let the ship rust to the point they were concerned about the Tennessee sinking in the Mississippi. It was decided to scrap the ship. I believe the Tennessee was in more engagements during WWII than any other ship or Battle Ship. She was next the Arizona at Pearl Harbor and sustained some damage but was repaired. She was refitted I believe at least two or three times. It was unfortunate she was neglected. The Tennessee Museum is very close to where I live in my old age in Scott's Hill Tennessee. There is a video that tells about the battles she was in.
1:10 The Americans were not the only people to conceive of a super-sized, massively armored torpedo boat. Kaiser Wilhelm II suggested a similar design to Admiral Tirpitz and kept pestering the naval designers to build one. Tirpitz and the engineers of the Kaiserliche Marine were horrified and they nicknamed the Kaiser's fantasy ship "The Homunculus." When the admiral finally convinced the Kaiser that the idea was unworkable, Tirpitz sent a cable to his relieved designers stating "The Homunculus is dead." I found the story in Robert Massie's book Dreadnought.
A great book - a grippig read by Massie.
I wonder if "Homunculus" is a conscious reference to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
@@stanleyrogouski Either that or Goethe.
What the hell was their reasoning method? "Hey, we have a ship armed with guns that can fire at 20 km. Now we only need.....torpedos? Because we're going to get in close and personal with the enemy...?" That is, of course, if the enemy doesn't swarm you with torpedo boats. And if you have an escort to fight off those boats, how the hell are you going to launch those torpedos without hitting your own ships?
Source please. From what I know the Kaiser was mostly a better ship designer than Tirpitz. He wanted to give the Macksensens the 3 15 inch turrets, he was against wing turrets and he strongly supported the fast battleship design.
Perfect pairing with my morning coffee.
Yea same here
Perfect pairing with my afternoon coffee
I am making my dinner here :D
Facts
Not to sound rude, and apologies if it comes off as so, but you missed a rather humorous point in California’s history. There’s a reason why she was the only battleship launched on the western half of the US, the only ship yard big enough to build her at the time was at Mare Island in Vallejo. Problem is, the waterway at mare island is rather narrow for launching anything longer than a US sub for the time. So, when California was built, a special breaking system was developed to slow her launch. However, the cables meant to slow her, snapped about halfway though the launch and California slammed stern first into the Vallejo side of the bank, supposedly damaging some of waterside streets. Thankfully, she suffered little damage and was freed from the mud without further incident
That’s pretty rude, dude.
That's not bad. What's really bad is the nuclear submarine they sank right alongside the dock at Mare Island. The only nuclear sub lost to enemy action ;)
@@charlieharper4975 ah yes, the sinking of the Guitarro. One would have thought that after that guard said “hey you guys should probably stop letting water into to the ballast tanks with the hatches open, you’re starting to flood the boat”, they would have done so. Perhaps Drac can do a special on embarrassing in port accidents some time
late reply, but this video is about USS Tennessee, not the Tennessee class, so he can still add that point of history to the video of the USS California if he ever redoes it (I just checked the video and he doesn't mention it).
Thank you for posting this and filling in some history that I was not aware of concerning BB-43. My father served on her 1940-1947. Topside when the attack started 7 December. Turret #2, he was "cap'n of the gun crew" for one of the 14 inchers. Put the charge in behind the shell. Had tinnitus for the rest of his life. Only real comment he ever made about the war was about afterwards, they went to Singapore. All the mama-sans came out on their little sampans to greet the arriving battleship all the while lighting off strings of firecrackers. He said "It was so loud, you would have thought you were in a war." I will never forget that for as long as I live.
Happy 200 Guides drach I am beyond Disbelief of how dedicated you are to your channel
In my personal opinion some of the best looking ships ever built
Which--as built or as re-built?
@@americanmade6996 I can't speak for him, but as built looks better than re built IMO
@@toasterbathboi6298 I happen to like both, however I think the rebuild has an amazing silhouette and for some reason just looks 'right' to me, but that's the beauty of ship's looks, they're all subjective
I'm spoiled by the Iowa. But that's just me. What I love about this channel is appreciation of evolution and the forces behind it.
@@johnmanning4577 don't get me wrong I love the look of the South Dakota/ Iowa class because they started from the get go looking like that. But the older ships looked better before being rebuilt.
Starting the day with a vid about my native state's ship, BB-43. Good start to what will be a very busy day.
And yes that is the Tennessee i use as an avatar. Pic shown at 6:10
Waking up to see my states ship, good way to start the day
Damn right
Volunteer State checking in!
Thank you for profiling the name sake of my home state! I know we can’t keep everything, but how I would love to visit this grand old lady today.
God bless lord drachinifel and those who served on these ships!
The guys at 5:57: holy sh... !
This photo gives us quite the impression of a battleship main guns' scale, too.
maybe of interest:
ruclips.net/video/MSgxpZD2qRw/видео.html
The 200th guide is about the Tennessee's. Is from Tennessee. Very Happy with you Drach Very happy with you
I understand that back in 80s the Australian frigates used the GE LM2500 and the hatches were not large enough to extract the engine and they cut a big hatch in order to do this.
Well, frigates don't have the armor decks (or, god forbid, the belt armor) to cut through and then have to repair afterwards without weakening the protection scheme. In addition, as the turbo-generators sit rather low in the ship, there are a LOT of other things that would also have to removed for access. This is also why many ships were never re-engined unless as part of a comprehensive refit/rebuild. (such as the one the Tennessee herself went through...)
When my ship, the USS Guam was in drydock, holes were cut in the hull to remove and replace various bits of equipment. There was a watertight door between the forward and after messdecks that had to be cut out of the bulkhead to move machinery. They did that 3 times when I was on that ship. I guess it never occurred to anyone to install a wider door.
Fine work Sir. The battles Narvis was very detailed humor and well done. Thanks.
Wonderful historic detail. Those were some crazy alternatives offered up during the design phase.
Great video. These battleships did well in the Battle of the Surigao Strait, the high point of their careers. After their rebuilds they were inferior to the modern WW2 USN mostly only in speed, their protection and radar gunnery being superb.
Who dislikes these??? Seriously
Excellent job as always sir
Folks who live so easy they have to find somthing to be disgruntled at is my guess, who knows 🤷
Drach always delivers IMO.
There are always persons of low intellect and high emotions who dislike things on the interwebs on general principals, although many would struggle to define their principles.
Generically they are called Trolls.
You Brits have a knack for history, especially naval history. I watch all your videos and find them fascinating. Keep up the good work. It’s appreciated here in NEW England.
Can’t wait for Hickok45 to do a review of the USS Tennessee
Kistler Clipz you what?? He doesn't? Really? Well, fancy that!
My uncle was part of the new crew that came aboard after the repairs and refit after Pearl Harbor. He said very little about his time on board.
I love your love for USN. We figured it out.
sold for scrap!!! good thing I saw the canoe size model at the Tennessee State Museum in the 1950's. The detail was amazing.
Thankyou again for all your hard work and dedication to provide us with material with which we can satisfy our very human need for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
Congrats on 200 episodes! When I first clicked on this video I was kinda hoping it would be about the armored cruiser Tennessee from 1906 whose name was changed to Memphis in 1916 so they could name this class Tennesee. They were the last armored cruisers the American navy built and pretty interesting ships to talk about.
Anyway good job on yet another video.
Hey, guide number 200 congrats!
Where's London?
@@nguyenminhquan3584 Resting in the port. This commander's currently busy traveling to another world.
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment who's this then>
@@nguyenminhquan3584 Lisa from Genshin Impact
@@Big_E_Soul_Fragment traitor
superb video - often wondered about this class - as a child and later, made frequent trips to the USS Texas with its 14" 45's - a real shame that more of these were not retained as museum ships. I know it's expensive !!!
@chris younts you are correct it is sickening - stinking politicians and an indifferent public too wrapped up in sex drugs and sports !!!
Congratz on the 200th episode Drach!
Thank you Drac . I have been waiting on this one :)
Congratulations on 200 guides!
Thanks for the work and the good videos
Perfect timing! I just finished the five hour dry dock yesterday evening!
1:23 Anyone else have the immediate reaction of "Oh God, it's HIDEOUS!" seeing that proposed armor scheme? I mean, that sloped belt literally could not be angled any more perfectly to allow shells at normal battle ranges to go right through it.
I know
Love this channel to bits. Another terrific episode.
Greatings from Oklahoma and Congratulations on 200 5 minute guides. A great paring to my breakfast this morning
I have been waiting literal years for this exact video
As always Great content. Thank you
Very informative as always. Thanks @Drachinifel!
Guide 200 !!
Congratulations to Drach !!
Love your work from year to year,
your videos are getting better and better
:D
P.S. I really really like your channel and it's very informative, happy to see the channel have grown from 8k sub to over 100k
Insofar as the post refit (Pearl Harbor} and the common design of the superstructures for California & Tennessee being similar in profile to the newer ships. My father served on the Tennessee from Guadal Canal to Tokyo Bay, to the day he died he could always pick her out of any pictures with multiple battleships in line, it always baffled me how he could do that when they all looked so similar.
Congratulations on a magnificent double century.
After rebuilding.
I think they were very handsome ships.
Compact, modern-looking and well balanced.
☮
the one downvote is from Kentucky
Happy 200th guide!
After their last refit this class are one of my favourite of WW2 battleships.
Congrats for guide 200 drach
Thank you for sharing.🙂🙂
A general guid of how the life of a ship goes from laying down to scrapping would be nice.
Photo at 6:44 amazing - never saw it before. Very cool though.
I can't believe the state of California didn't save its namesake ship. A ship with so much history. How cool would it be to be able to walk the decks of a ship sunk at pearl harbor
A Great-uncle of mine was a Plankowner of the USS Tennessee (BB-43). The ship was originally crewed entirely by Tennesseeans.
Drach vid day before my birthday, nice.
*"Witness the sight of true firepower!"*
I mean her blonde locks and bronze bod were something. TN Kai when?
That is a good looking ship; it exudes, "Try Me".
200th guide!!!
Wow the rebuilds were very good looking, I had no idea. You never see pictures of these ships after Pearl Harbor.
I’d like to see a video on the previous USS Tennessee, renamed USS Memphis to make room for this Tennessee. It had an interesting end,.
YASSSSS!!! MY FAVOURITE SHIP FOR 200!!!
I’m not first
I’m not last
Then I realized
No one asked
Are you first or last?
@@Thirdbase9 He's not sure
A short mature poem based on others childish behaviour
Poetry 100
You win all the internets for this.
Tennessee and Cali were THICCC!
Thanks another excellent video.
What I find it interesting is how the pre-war ships had so many port holes and all but disappeared during the war and pretty much nonexistence on modern ship.
Maybe do a short video on the case of the "missing port hole".
Air conditioning and ventilation became a thing after 1938. The reason for port holes was ventilation for the crew and equipment. Once you got freon air conditioning, for the equipment spaces and for some habitability use, portholes became redundant and rightly were seen as weak spots in the hull. and potential sources of flooding if the port is open or dislodged.
First time making a suggestion - I know she's outside your usual time period and primarily a river warfare vessel, but have you considered covering the US Civil War Ironclad USS Carondelet?
Tennessee looked totally badass post-rebuild.
Whoop whoop my home state!
Wouldn't armour sloped like that of the 'ironsides' design, simply present a flatter and more easily penetratable target for incoming shells?
P.S. Did you forget to put the pinned Q&A thread up Drach? ;)
I think that in the earlier years (1910s and 20s) shell arcs were more horizontal. It was only later as gun elevation and range increased that impact angles increased.
@@bluemountain4181 And especially as the design plans predated Jutland the USN may have assumed effective combat would be much closer range that it historically played out. (The German's made similar assumptions leading to their turtleback armor layout; though at least they kept a main belt too and not just the slope armor)
Mind you with the Pacific to also worry about (with its generally calmer seas and better visibility compared to the North Sea) assuming the USN would only face short range fights seems shortsighted even in the 1910s.
@Nguyen Johnathan That was fairly exclusive to British AP shells, and even then they'd still not struggle to penetrate such a thin belt at such a favourable angle.
One of the problems with sloped side armor is the weight. Consider The cross sectional perspective of a Battleship (A. I_I) Now consider the same view of one with sloped armor (B. /_\). The sides of the rectangle formed by the A are shorter than the triangular profile of B. Or stated another way the hypotenuse is always the longest side of a right triangle. The point is that a sloped armor belt is perforce wider and thus heavier than a straight side belt. Sorry I'm trying to learn accurate descriptive writing and I don't consider this to be one of my better efforts.
At long ranges the \_/ scheme would actually increase the striking angle of incoming shells, increasing the deflection factor and giving a higher chance of ricochet. It's also a good way of increasing your ships armor profile without throwing on a ton of weight. That's how the belts of the South Dakota and Iowa classes were better rated against 16" shells compared to North Carolina despite being only 0.2 inches thicker, as they had a 19° angle compared to a 10° angle.
However this armor layout only works at medium to longer ranges as the flatter trajectories from closer range reduces the angle of the striking shell, reducing the deflection probably.
Would you mind discussing at some point, the reasoning behind those clipper bows? I had hoped to hear about this in your hull-design video, but I missed it.
I'm no drachinifel, but it's my understanding that it cuts down on water coming over the bow, and that's always a good thing. Previous bows were built with the possibility of ramming in mind, but by this point that had FINALLY gone away.
@@jaytea2283 You're right. By both adding buoyancy and flaring the topsides out to push water and spray away, the foredeck was relieved somewhat of water freely flowing upon it.
Somewhat. The difference between HMS Vanguard's fuller bow shape as compared to an Iowa class' pinched design was starkly demonstrated when Vanguard and one of the Iowa's were working together in the North Atlantic. My favorite American battleship design had her for'd turrets awash, something that apparently both amused and shocked our British allies...
The Iowa's were designed for the Pacific Theater.
I know Drach has mentioned this recently (past month or 2.) I'd've wagered it was in the hull design video you mention, but that's only a guess
The good news is: He's tagged your post, so attend well at the next _Drydock!_
@@77thTrombone Knowing myself, I may well have simply missed it, but I have been trying to listen for this, especially in the hull design video. What also makes the bow rake so interesting is how little it seems to be used. Up through WWII, the .standard seems to be a very slight rake.
So that's what Fuso's were supposed to go against?
It seems so. When you look at these US 14" ships, they seem to be small, but then I remember that they have 10 to 12 14" guns on them. That is crazy. Only the largest American/Japanese other then the Nelson class ships that were built years later had a larger broadside then any of the 12 gun 14" ships. I have gained new respect for them.
I remember reading how the "16-inch gun lobby" tried to get larger main weapons onto Tennessee and California. But it was pointed out that a 16" shell missing its target was no more powerful than a 14" shell missing. Therefore, a 12-gun salvo of 14-inchers had a better chance of scoring a hit than a 8-gun salvo of 16-inchers. (And a 14" AP round was a powerful munition)
On the other hand, a 14" shell that's defeated by the enemy's armor is _also_ no more powerful than a miss.
I was sold for scrap in 1959, but the bell curve always has its way.
I love the old battlewagons.
Happy 200th!
Yeah, one can preserve a tank by smearing thick grease over it, an put it in a shed.
Ships do not fit into most sheds.
If your ship won't fit into your shed, you simply need... an entirely new dry dock facility, most likely with attached specialised industrial works.
Funny the Japanese had no problem with this when building the Yamato.
@@ONECOUNT TheYamato wasn't is reserve for a decade or so, after a major refit, then scrapped. She went down guns blazing.
Unneccassarily, but heroically.
@@karlvongazenberg8398 Karl when the Yamato was built they created a huge shed and built her in it, top secret you know. I didnt say she was mothballed.
@chris younts I understand they took major parts off Museum ships USS Massachusetts, USS Alabama, USS North Carolina. The rumor has it one of the parts was either a propellor or a propeller shaft or both.
Love these history lessons. But when will you do the SS Minnow?
Excellent and thank u
Drach,
A lesson on the Panama and Suez Canals would be very interesting as well. If American ships in the Western Pacific were to proceed to the US East Coast, and were oversized for the Panama Canal, would they transit the Straights of Magellan, Good Hope, or the Suez Canal?
Look at the wake this ship creates. It gives plowing through the sea new meaning. Wonder if anyone calculated how much faster it could have gone with a better hull design??
Wouldn't matter. The powers that be in the US Navy wanted every battleship to do 21 knots max. It wasn't a design flaw or anything, just what was ordered.
I like the general idea of the so called "standard class" but it really could be a hindrance to innovation and progress.
Out of interest, why does the video's title say "USS Tennessee" when the video is on the Tennessee Class?
What about her sister Thick California
Nar i prefer tennessee :) she my fav ship
@@Foxttellio
Well California is a Tennessee that went to Macdonald and Had way to many of the Dry GrandMac
I guess because thier is already a vid of California
Because they're practically the same thing and served together on most deployments. You even got one incident of collision. You get one, you get the other--Prune Barge and Rebel T.
Great video... I just eat this stuff up!
My home state!
At 3:56 the small ship in the foreground appears that it may be the USS St. Augustine (?) A millionaires yacht leased to the Navy in the early part of WWII and sunk on convoy duty off Cape May, NJ by a friendly freighter. Many men from the Newport RI area were among those killed. Narragansett Bay.
Ship too *THICC* for the Panama Canal damn
I like my women like I like my rebuilt 14inch standards, with a thick waist and a pretty face.
@@buck45osu Or in this case, a pretty superstructure. ^^
@chris younts the navy planned on keeping the Iowas in service post war. The standards were more or less relegated to second line duty or shore bombardment. 21 knot top speed before you add on a thousand tons or two of anti aircraft weaponry, radars, and the widened bulges means they are worthless as carrier escorts. Navy understood that doctrine had changed forever and ships that couldn't keep up with the carriers had a rapidly shrinking usable capacity. They would be the first to go post war. Since the germans were beat in the Atlantic relatively early the americans could "waste" a ship by making it too big to make it though the Panama canal and dooming it to be scrapped post war.
One of THE sexiest waifuboats in AL.
Can we get a guide for the City class ironclads, such as USS Cairo?
How about doing a story on the Wind class icebreakers and their efforts in WWII?
Naval Designer: "We're rebuilding the damaged Tennessee, California, and West Virginia. We need to improve their protection, so we're making them-"
Roosevelt: " E X T R A T H I C C !!! "
Naval Designer: ...
Roosevelt: ...
Naval Designer: "Mr President, that would be extremely impractical. It'll slow the ship down and we wouldn't be able to fit it through the Panama canal-"
Roosevelt: "DO NOT QUESTION MY GENIUS!!!"
I'm picturing Queen Fat Bottom Girls playing in the background as this conversation is going on.
@@toddwebb7521 This:
ruclips.net/video/GMOAemuZ3HY/видео.html
The Tennessees and Colorados were the only WWI vintage BBs to never see a major modernization prior to 1941. There was consideration, but the pushback by the early 30s was a combination of tight depression era budgets, and consideration that putting millions into these obsolete ships, vs building new, was a waste.
Admiral Yamamoto would have disagreed that the Standard Plan ships were obsolete or a waste of time modernizing. He determined them to be the lynchpin to U.S. Navy strategy in the Pacific (which they were pre-12/07/1941) and designed the Pearl Harbor strike to remove the battle line from the strategic equation, which it did. The much-vaunted superiority of aircraft carriers post-Pearl Harbor was the end result of necessity by the U.S. Navy to do something against the IJN forces, even without battleships. The older battleships' main weakness anyway was their fuel hog status; the carriers used less fuel, and the newer fast battleships used less fuel AND could move fast enough to screen the carriers in combat. Admiral Nimitz cited the fuel reasons plus the lack of oilers in the Pacific as to why he did not deploy repaired Standard Plan battleships to the Solomons in late 1942.
@@observationsfromthebunker9639 This is from the record of the US Senate, 1930: "Of the enormous total of $118,000,000, we have already spent or have been obligated to spend about $38,000,000, leaving $80,000,000 still to be appropriated if we are to modernize our battleship fleet, and then we do not obtain parity with Great Britain. According to the testimony, a new battleship would cost approximately $39,000,000. Hence we could match the Rodney and Nelson and make up our existing deficiency in battleship strength, which can not be done by modernization, by building two ships like the Rodney and Nelson with the money which it is proposed to spend for modernization." There you have it. Modernizing old BBs does not make them the equal of new-build. As we know, the Tennessees and Colorados never saw a rebuild, so were even farther off the pace compared to the Nagatos and modernized Kongos and Ises. Sure, a Tennessee or Colorado can hurt you, so you are better off sinking it into the mud of Pearl, but they are less of a threat than a KGV or North Carolina, because they are so obsolete. Of course, if I was in command in Japan, I would never have attacked Pearl in the first place. I would have taken the Philippines, preferably by infiltrating the Philippine government that was established in 1935, and rolled the dice that the US population would not support a war over the Philippines.
@@stevevalley7835 Good point for budgetary concerns, although I would enjoin you to remember that Tojo's government had a decided lack of reason in planning to fight the USA while simultaneously attacking European colonies. Anyhow, the old ladies were worth the $$$ in the thirties because they were the perceived arbiters of victory. The IJN planners certainly thought so, focusing on them as the locus of surface naval power they were at the time. Yamamoto had to deal with all the refurbed Standards in the here and now of 1941. The fast BBs were an unknown, but the Pacific Fleet's battle line of the Standards were a known quantity, and those eight could match the pre-Musashi IJN battle line, and then some. (Probably a decisive advantage, since the Kongos weren't up to a slugfest with them.) Those 8 old refurbs designed to win Jutland The Sequel had to go, quickly, before the massive USN buildup made a naval contest a mere mathematical formula in force reduction. Yamamoto sold the Pearl Harbor attack as crushing the American spirit, but his real concern was to remove 8 big BBs off the board and give the IJN time to secure the desired objectives without risking a Jutland II.
@@observationsfromthebunker9639 Yamamoto ALWAYS stressed they had to take out the US carriers. The three primary targets were the carriers, the dockyards and the fuel depots in the Japanese strategic plans. The battleships were priority targets but considered below the carriers. All the ships were primary targets from a tactical operation.
There were multiple reasons, but the single biggest was their turbo electric propulsions systems and the resulting layouts. The designs were so compact and compartmentalized there was no room to modernize the ships and bring their speed up to a useful level. There was no room in the hull for new equipment and upgrades. The US Navy went for the Turbo electric at the time because it offered more power per ton, better fuel efficiency, and certain handling advantages. It allowed boilers to operate at higher pressures in a stable pattern, but it was also much more compact and kept ship size down and costs lower. Gearing for ship turbines was simple at the time and the more advanced gearing used in the 30's was not yet ready for naval operations. When Japan and the RN modernized and replaced the engineering systems, they were able to free up huge spaces and tonnage for new systems. The old ships that could not free up space were never modernized by the big three (Revenge class, Fuso & Iso classes, standard class). What is sometimes missed about the QE class modernization is they received extensive torpedo protections and armament upgrades that added tonnage. Bulges helped offset some of it, but so did the modern lighter propulsion equipment while upgrading speed and cruising range. The US TE drive ships offered no path to a rebuild without major tonnage increases. Look at the bloated blisters they added for torpedo protection which turned the ships into snails. The same effort to compact the South Dakota class engineering spaces in the 1930's also created ships with no capacity to be modernized post WW 2. Their equipment was mostly worn out by 1946 and they were quickly mothballed and never considered for return to service whereas the North Carolinas were studied extensively for modernization.
The irony is the US Navy did not want to modernize the worst damaged ships from Pearl. They were content with stripping West Virginia and California and scrapping them. The others were only supposed to get quick repairs until FDR stepped in. Politically, the admission of 4 battleships as total losses was too much and it made good propaganda for the public to repair them. As it was the most modernized ships missed most of the war because they were low priority. Another interesting tell is he US Navy did not buy new ammunition for their guns, using up existing stocks during the war. By September 1945, the last of the 14" ammunition was issued to the fleet and older ships were to be retired after the bombardments of Japan. Also it should be noted Oklahoma was scheduled to sail on January 5th for Bremerton for stripping and scrapping. Crew were already getting orders for transfers to new ships.
I always thought these were really pretty ships.
Titan Up!
Naval historian John Keegan rated the Tennessee class the best of the super dreadnoughts.
American or super dreadnoughts in general? I would have thought the obvious answer would have been the Queen Elizabeths.
Request for a review of the USS New Mexico battleship class
Last time I was this early, they were still building HMS Vanguard the battleship.
Has anyone found photographs or videos of the interior of the triple 14" turrets of a US Standard? The guns look to be so close together, I have a hard time imagining how they were worked efficiently.
So, from the WW II on obessity was already becoming a problem, starting with battleships . . .
They followed the government "food " triangle for warships resulting in obese old farts that barely moved.
@@jamesb4789 Except they looked so sexy.
Is that the Presidential yacht at 4:05?
@Drachiniel would you be able to do a video about the Virginia class pre dreadnought Battleships?
Ship named after my state.
2 ships names after states I've lived in: Florida and Tennessee
Tennessee was my father's first ship when he enlisted in the early 30's. Always said it was his favorite of his 24 year career.
Big Tenn!