A few years ago, I had a chance to talk to someone who served aboard an Iowa during WWII (it was long enough ago I don't remember which one). He made the comment that it was a common joke that any time they were in port, people would take note of anywhere on deck that a poker game was being played. Because if there was room for poker, there was room to put a 20mm mount!
To paraphrase a certain British gentleman: "[Additional AA batteries were fitted].....in keeping with tradition in the US Navy that every crewman be allowed to exercise his second amendment rights in the face of the enemy."
@@ommsterlitz1805 The Exocet, despite being close to 60 years old, is still better than any of the garbage Russia puts out like the fictional “Zircon.”
“How do I stop some mean Japanese pilot from tearing a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer, is a gun. If that don’t work, use more gun.” -US Navy
The VT fuze, like the Tube Alloys/Manhattan Project, is one of the perfect examples of the excellent US-UK cooperation that characterized the Allied war effort. The British come up with a clever idea and lay the groundwork, the Americans implement it, and the war gets a little bit shorter.
@N Fels more modern (1956~) Soviet Proximity fuses were developed from Swedish fuses sold to Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s it seems. The Soviets did get some of the american ones, but if that came though spies or from korea remains to be unlinked from what I've found.
@N Fels yeah, while the evidence was kind of sketchy for his participation in getting A-bomb info to the Soviets (my understanding is he supplied core construction diagrams that just confirmed what the Soviets already knew). However his stealing the VT was pretty open and shut, as he worked at Fort Monmouth, and had full access to it.
Penicillin is another example. British scientists discovered that mold could kill bacteria, and then US industry was able to synthesize the process to mass produce medicine.
The Vickers .50 machine guns initially mounted on Belfast used a completely different, less powerful 12.7x81 cartridge (.50 BMG at 12.7x99 has 15% greater MV) to the US .50 so no need to apologise to them.
@@GARDENER42 Officially, no. In practice, the US and UK were already planning on cooperating. For instance, most of the variations on War Plan Orange assumed a British presence in the Pacific against the Japanese.
The US started equipping ships with lots of guns, air radar, and fused rounds, long before Kamikaze attacks became common. Thanks much in part to Admiral Lee.
Yes the USN's 'suite' of flak guns really thickened up after Midway. Those 50 cals, and 1.1 inch guns were just no damned good. The 20 mm Oerlikons and 40mm Bofors (In double and quadruple mounts especially) were real 'killers'. During the carrier battles in the Solomons, particularly at Santa Cruz, even though the well trained, fearless and experienced dive and torpedo bomber crews from Shokaku and Zuikaku successfully delivered the ordinance, they usually still ended up getting blown to bits by Bofors round either before or after they dropped. I think I am not exaggerating when I say, the IJN's aircrew were 'bled dry' mostly by these battles and not Midway.
@@nickmitsialis Nobody says midway killed Japan's airforce. Midway killed Japans Carrier Task Force, the Japanese Airforce died in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
@@martijn9568 The imperial army air service was never given the license to produce/procure zeros. It didn't matter that they existed because the Naval forces and army DID NOT COORDINATE AT ALL. They competed and acted like entirely different militaries. The cohesion between French and British forces from 1939 to 1940 (when France Fell) was leagues better than that between the Japanese Army and Japanese Navy.
15:45 VT fuses. To give one an idea of how important the VT fuse was, consider these figures; the U.S. Navy said it took an average of 3,000 rounds to knock down an incoming plane before the VT fuse, however after the VT fuse was introduced it took an average of "just" 600 rounds to knock down an aircraft. Even if those figures are not one hundred percent accurate, it shows that the VT equipped rounds were roughly five times more effective!
Shame it can't lay some rounds into a certain large building that is close by. An election could replace those they were incapacitated and the country would be better off.
35 years ago I sat in one of those Bofors AA guns and cycled the handles one way to raise the barrels and one way to lower them. I remember proudly shouting to my father that when the gun was pointing downwards I was shooting at U-boats, when they were levelled I was gunning for other ships and when they was pointing upwards I was shooting down planes. I was 7 years old at the time.
The way you describe how every non-aircraft is a target always makes me chuckle. Never change, I love it. Also the bit about how US slapped on guns where there are empty space is so true that it is actually pretty funny and I think Drach would agree.
Excellent video! Now, while you're still in England, please do a similar video on HMS Victory. I am excited to learn about the effects of 32 pounder solid shot on a WW II torpedo bomber, and how upgrading the guns with grapeshot improves the ships defense against low flying cruise missiles in the modern age.
For anti-ship missile defence Ships of the Line actually relied more upon radar-reflective sailcloth so that incoming weapons would be seduced and pass harmlessly through the mizzen topsail.
Not to mention the advanced Stelth Tech...the ships utilized a inovotive construction tech in they made them mostly of wood! .. Thereby giving them a very low radar return!
0:28 "You can tell this is a British ship and not an American ship beacause -it does not have enough guns- you can still walk around on the deck." I love that my counrty is the Texas of the world.
Great content Chris, interesting to see what we 'brits' did to protect our ships from the kamikaze threat. Belfast is interesting when compared to some of the American ww2 vessels still around as museum ships. It's a shame that we didn't at least keep one battleship as a memorial to all those brave souls who served throughout the conflict. The other ship worth a visit is HMS Cavalier at Chatham dockyard in Kent. Best wishes from the UK 🇬🇧
Honestly: It's a crime that there's no British battleship left as a museum ship. The country with the greatest naval history of all pales in comparison to the museum ships of the USN.
Proximity fuse ..works otherwise! Imagine a metal finder...produces a tone...in the vicinity of a metal, the tone changes. That's the moment the fuse explodes. Always: metal close to a coil of an oscillator, the frequency changes...
This video made me realize that the Spider-Man movie marvel made in London didn't actually have this ship at all in the background for the Tower Bridge fight
Anyone who can speak at length about naval/ military matters, without even one "the" HMS faux pas, has my full confidence and attention. Well done. The mentioned FAA "Walrus" apparently had more than a few non fans when it came to flying it: See "Spitfire Sisters" at 15:00 for an expert WW2 plane driver's delicately phrased low opinion of it...
Just one point. When she was built, HMS Belfast was fitted with an athwartships catapult on the open deck space just behind the hangars. Thus a Walrus did not need to be lowered into the water for take off.
Thank you. I have wandered past this ship for over two decades on my way to work. I enjoy military history and that was such an interesting explanation of the developments from the end of WW2 to Korean conflict
It's kinda funny how those 6 inch guns look so small if you're used to looking at battleships with their 16 inch guns, but then you realize that they're all basically the equivalent of your typical heavier field artillery.
About two decades ago I was lucky to tour the Belfast. I enjoyed the tour. The tour guide did the usual thing to generate "audience participation" in our tour group and asked question after question. Being part of the crew of LPH-10 Tripoli from November 1977 to August 1978 on a WESPAC crew as a Marine (avionics technician) and the Blue Jackets Manual gave me the background to give correct answers. The Tripoli's anti-aircraft defenses of the Seventies were based on fighting the Kamikaze threat. Your video documents how anti-aircraft defenses evolved with a snapshot called HMS Belfast. Thank you .
VT fuses made for great shore bombardment and artillery fuses especially against infantry, more than a couple generals/admirals quickly figured out a fuse that explodes in proximity to something, might perfectly airburst above the ground
They ate a couple hundred Germans doing a counter attack during Torch. In full view of the top brass, who were testing that exact theory as a proof of concept. TR, jr. was there watching. Said it was a horrible mess. (As if regular artillery wasn't effective enough against troops in the open... but the VT fuzed shells just obliterated two companies outright in under a minute.) War is hell.
That was well done. When I was 12 I got to go aboard the _USS North Carolina_ Battleship Memorial. They let you man the quad 40mm's then (I don't know about now) so my brother and I were able to traverse and elevate those guns. Then I got to play with the Oerlikon's on the bow. Biggest toy I ever got to play with. We could go inside the 16" and 5".38's but - you couldn't operate those turrets ... You touched on some of the transitions made during WWII with the tremendous increase in AA on ships as aircraft came to dominate combat operations. The ships didn't just get more weapons for self defense - but - the primary focus for some ships shifted as the war progressed. Battleships roles changed from being decisive capital ships that determined battle out comes - to floating AA Barges whose purpose in life was to protect the Aircraft Carriers - that had taken on their former role. Here also - as with the _Belfast_ you had a change in the role of cruisers. Before - they had been the fleet's scouts. As such it was their job to move out and away from the fleet, as well as precede it to try and find the enemy. To this end - Cruisers had their own float planes as did Battleships. The impression I have though is that these aircraft changed their roles to such things and gunfire support spotters and rescue planes for downed fliers. The Japanese early in WWII - did their recon with Cruiser Float Planes - and ships such as the _Tone_ were optimized for that role. The Americans didn't do that. They used the planes on their carriers. The advantage to the Japanese way - was that it saved carrier aircraft for strike roles. There were problems though with both methods at Midway. The Yorktown launched an SBD Squadron to search for the Japanese - then - had to recover it before it could be used in a strike. For the Japanese - the cruiser responsible for the sector the Americans were in - had trouble with it's float plane and it got off late. Then that aircraft (iirc) had communications problems getting off it's report once it found the Americans. Another factor here - is that of who the report went to. I would assume each scout plane would report to it's own ship - rather that the Flag Ship - and then it's ship would report to the Flag Ship what it's planes had found. With the American way - the reports would have gone right to the Carrier which would lessen the likely hood of communications problems with the report being seen in a timely manner. Also - in assigning patrol duties - the carrier would be in direct verbal, personal communication with it's scout pilots prior to their launch - and not have to send search sectors out to each of the different cruisers by radio or signal lamp. For a planned operation where search sectors at specific points had all been assigned in advance this wasn't a problem for the Japanese - but - if things needed to be done on the fly - it was. The other thing was - that the cruisers launching and recovering these aircraft had to adjust their course and speed to do so. Now - the other thing that happened - is that the cruisers made a transition - like the battleships - from one role - to another - going from being Scouts - to also being Escorts. When that happened - there was much less need for float planes on cruisers. There was also a reluctance to have cruisers leave their screening stations for the purpose of launching or recovering sea planes - as their primary duties had changed from being Scouts to being Escorts. Those that still had planes could still do it - but - the priority of launching it's own aircraft had changed as the role of the ship changed. With the coming dominance of aircraft carriers as the arbiters of victory - ALL the other ships had their primary roles become that of protecting the aircraft carriers. Ships other than carriers adopted a layered defense of the fleet - centered on the carriers. The carriers were center most accompanied by their battleship escorts. The next layer out was the cruisers and the layer after that were the destroyers - who were of course - also looking for submarines before the submarines could get through to inner layers of the fleet. You also had Destroyers take on a sacrificial role as Radar Pickets - sent out alone or in small groups - along the anticipated approach route of enemy aircraft where they could provide early warning that they were on their way - enabling CAP's to vector out to intercept them far from the center of the fleet (and the carriers there) as possible. That was WWII, where a number of different transitions occurred. The nature of war on the land, sea and in the air - was well as technical innovation was drastically different at the end of it than they were at the beginning. Things today - are unknown. So far ... while there have been proxy wars between different powers and small scale wars - there has not been a full tilt conflict where entire alliances of nations were doing all they could to do each other in. The problem with a lot of today's military's is that no one really knows just how some of these things will really work if they interact with each other - if all the stops are pulled out and people really go at each other the way they did in WWII. .
Actually, even the .50 machine guns had the stopping power. The issue was more one of range. It probably felt good to shoot down a dive bomber or torpedo bomber AFTER it had dropped it's payload, the the load hit... Even the 20mm, which could chop up aircraft quite effectively, lacked the range. The need was for a weapon that could track the incoming aircraft effectively AND hit it hard enough to knock it down BEFORE it could drop it's weapon(s). Enter the 40mm. Especially enter the larger caliber weapons with fast mounts coupled with radar directed fire control later in the war. All these things took time to develop, and investment. The need was not understood well pre-war, even by the offensive minded Japanese. That solutions were developed as quickly as they were is a testament to human ingenuity under pressure. The development proceeded very quickly indeed - even as military bureaucracy did it's damned best to slow or stop it.
If I might add something, against a kamikaze the need was not to only shoot down the airplane but to physically prevent its wreck from falling down from the sky on its target. Even 20mm lacked some stopping power here. 40 mm was direly needed to litterally stop kamikaze mid air at range if possible like you said.
@@Maple_Cadian Laugh softly then. There are a LOT more .50 rounds. The point I made was that range was the issue. Perhaps you need to read the whole post before commenting.
if the thing you want to delete needs to get within kniferange to be harmed, they dont have enoguh stopping power. I can also by hand kill an airplane but the plane needs to land next to me so i can drag the pilot out of the cockpit and punch him in the face repeatingly.
fun fact in therms of shooting down planes: The US Anti Aircraft action report states that the US fast carrier taskforces needed on average 6000 rounds of 40mm Bofors fire to shoot down a single incoming Kamikaze aircraft. Thats 15 quad mounts fireing continuously for 1 minute, to shoot down a single plane. Also, Kamikazes are for the most part easier to shoot down than other attacking planes due to their more predictable paths. Now imagine a full scale conventional attack coming at your fleet. You will need a lot of ammunition and you still wont shoot down that many planes. The effictiveness of AA fire is often overstated (it still accounted for 1/3 of the japanese losses in the pacific though).
effectiveness of AA isn't just shootin down aircraft but to also dissade attackers, the heavier the AA barrage the more likely the attacking pilots will either pull off the attack or drop their weapeon loads earlier, which in turn increases the survivability of the ships. But of course the best air defense is still fighter interception
Effectiveness of AA isn't measured in how many enemies are shot down, but how few of them that succeed in their attacks. It's a shield, keeping you alive until you can run your sword through.
I once had the pleasure of touring this Town class 1936 in 2011 when I was 15 an I must say it was a nice thing to see while on a month long trip to Britain, although some german bloke touched my back while going up a flight stairs in the forward superstructure... Well it's a nice vessel indeed and I have one model IRL an two in games (WT & WoWS). It's astonishing how many different refits some vessels can go through ntm them keeping older vessels while scraping their younger vessels cruiser wise but Britain has always kept their older vessels like the Victory, Mary Ross, Caroline & M33. Nice video as always Bismarck.
Early in WW2 my father was on a ship in the south Pacific .The 20mm barrels got so hot that he would get a fire hose to help cool them.He never had to face kamikaze but his brother was on a gun crew that shot one down later in the war.I knew friends whose fathers brought back 20mm shells after the war. These were duds that would not fire(bad primers?).The ship that my uncle was on was an ammunition ship that they made stay away the main fleet for obvious reasons.His ship was a target for kamikaze.
I like the timing of the bird swooping in close over your head at 14:10, just as you said something about the gun being fired and the shell leaving the gun. :-)
During our visit to this ship many years ago I became so engrossed with things that my other half had to arrange a message to be sent over the public address system for me: "To to return to the stern area where your wife is waiting for you." Nearly got locked in the war rooms in Whitehall for the weekend too, as I remember!
My dad was on the USS Conklin (De). Supporting the sinking of 3 I-type submarines. Said he got his teeth nocked out buy a shell but loved the ice cream delivered from larger ships!
By the time of the last refit in 1959, even the latest Bofors with director control would have been largely obsolete against fast jets - missiles such as the Seacat were the way forward. Until we get to the Phalanx gun for close-in defence against ASM's (e.g. Exocets). Might such things be an interesting diversion for this channel?
My Uncle Jack served aboard the Belfast as a gunner. He was at the Battle of the North Cape against the Scharnhorst and at D-Day. He also served on other ships on Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Russian convoys. He was awarded a medal by the Soviet Union. When he attended the D-Day commemoration event in Normandy in1995 a senior RN officer approached him and said that in his opinion he was incorrectly wearing a foreign decoration (I don't know how it was incorrect). My Uncle said, "I earned this bloody medal mate! I ain't in your bloody navy anymore so you can stick your opinion up your arse!"
I mean if you think about, kamikaze attacks are basically guided anti-ship munitions that can vary their flight and attack pattern from sea-skimming to top-down attacks.
"Kate, if you wanna protect yourself getta double barreled shotgun... just walk out on the balcony... and fire two blasts. Buy a shotgun... buy a shotgun."
1:25 THANK YOU. I wish more historians would be so conscientious about correcting the glaring errors in our understanding of the war. Hint. The war did NOT start in 1939.
HMS Belfast is such a clean, and beautiful ship, and I see the USS New Jersey every weekday! British ships are not cluttered with all the light and medium AA of ours.
I know someone who was a loader on a boffors gun on the Belfast and who is proud that it left him a little deaf as he says showing he was showing doing his job
Wow I’ve been on this when I was a boy age 9! I lived 100 miles west from London and loved this ship , I remember it would have been torpedo inside the ship it was massive
I love the videos by dracinifel where he reads the after action reports of an american carrier (enterprise?). The first one states that they need a lot more AA guns. The second states - oh that's pretty good, now lets take the armor off and add more guns.
I visited this beautiful ship on the 50th anniversary of D Day, which she had participated in. On the navigation tables they displayed the maps and plans of the invasion. What a complex operation it was!
The additional AA guns on most ships had to do with the realization that aviation attack in general was a much greater threat to the ship than was expected when the ships were built. I would say it had little to do with kamikaze attacks specifically as most ships were upgraded before the suicide attacks became wide spread (there are always a few fanatics or desperate men here and there on both sides)
That one torpedo is their cqb knife defense they lift it by hand over into the water while someone needs to activate the prop just before they throw it in... Mk.1 Eyeball aiming at its best!
Interesting that the Royal Navy was still using the older L60 version of the Bofors as late as 1959 rather than the updated L70 which had been introduced in 1947. It provided not only superior ballistic performance and range but also doubled the rate of fire. Still in use today in upgraded versions
@4:25, "sorry America". The .50 caliber Vickers was not the 12.7X99mm Browning but rather a 12.7X82mm semi rim (Vickers 12.7X82SR) similar in weakness to the Italian 12.7mm aircraft MGs.
I believe the main battery on HMS Belfast was able of some limited AA fire with her Auto Barrage Unit? I know a lot of British cruisers had one, but I'm not sure if HMS Belfast in particular did. Although I don't know about the utility of the system, in the end it allowed for one salvo, perhaps two to be directed at an incoming attack.
Interestingly, US small boys still retain 5 inch VT fused rounds for their guns. Obviously its not the primary defensive weapon anymore, and everything involved is considerably more advanced, but somebody somewhere in the USN chain of command decided "We got SM-2/3 for long range, and CIWS for short range. What can we do for slightly longer short range?"
@@MrAnton275 is a good one but talks mainly about the big ships and doesnt have any video-tours (idk if thus is the correct term) around or inside the ships
@@estraextras3717 Drach does tours of museum ships. He will be making a US tour in Spring 2022. Consider the tiny percentage of museum ships in existance, out of all of history. Likewise, Chris does In the Cockpit, but there are only so many cockpits available.
They didn't use the crane to launch the Walrus Chris: the ships had a fixed athwartships gunpowder-powered catapult fitted on the deck behind the hangars. The aircraft were removed in order to use the hangar space for extra accomodation and equipment space (especially for electronics, which gobble up volume at a frightening rate) and this was possible because by that point in the war, sufficient carriers were available to provide superior recce aircraft.
A few years ago, I had a chance to talk to someone who served aboard an Iowa during WWII (it was long enough ago I don't remember which one). He made the comment that it was a common joke that any time they were in port, people would take note of anywhere on deck that a poker game was being played. Because if there was room for poker, there was room to put a 20mm mount!
Heh Poker AND suntans? Who says men can't multitask. heh.
Nerves of steel -- not even the slightest flinch when that aviation asset glide-bombed you around 14 minutes.
British ship, need to maintain that stiff upper lip
14:11
Kamikaze pigeon Did anyone see wheres its payload hit?
@@carrotsix must've been off camera
LOL! It actually made me flinch.
To paraphrase a certain British gentleman: "[Additional AA batteries were fitted].....in keeping with tradition in the US Navy that every crewman be allowed to exercise his second amendment rights in the face of the enemy."
Eww british ship, there is a serious lack of Exocet to sink this awful sight
@@ommsterlitz1805 The Exocet, despite being close to 60 years old, is still better than any of the garbage Russia puts out like the fictional “Zircon.”
@@jamesharding3459 Hypersonic Avangard missile coming to you in about 2 min to see if it's fictional or not.
@@ommsterlitz1805 Hmm, 2 minutes and I’m still here, I win this one.
@@jamesharding3459 Hey this Avangard missile just crashed through my roof and it has your name on it in Cyrillic. What the hell man?
“How do I stop some mean Japanese pilot from tearing a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer, is a gun. If that don’t work, use more gun.” -US Navy
This fifty caliber little number built by me. Tested, by me. And you best hope.... Not pointed at you.
**guitar strumming**
Some of the aircraft carrier had 20 20mm auto cannons basically a wall of bullets. You wouldn’t see that today even with a cwis.
Regio Navale Aquila: *AMATEURS*
Need more guns
The actual answer is send your own plane to shoot down the kamikaze.
Seriously, as good as American late-war AA was, it was still no match for CAP.
The VT fuze, like the Tube Alloys/Manhattan Project, is one of the perfect examples of the excellent US-UK cooperation that characterized the Allied war effort. The British come up with a clever idea and lay the groundwork, the Americans implement it, and the war gets a little bit shorter.
Then Julius Rosenberg gives the design to the Soviets and they build the SA-2🤨
@N Fels more modern (1956~) Soviet Proximity fuses were developed from Swedish fuses sold to Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s it seems.
The Soviets did get some of the american ones, but if that came though spies or from korea remains to be unlinked from what I've found.
@N Fels yeah, while the evidence was kind of sketchy for his participation in getting A-bomb info to the Soviets (my understanding is he supplied core construction diagrams that just confirmed what the Soviets already knew). However his stealing the VT was pretty open and shut, as he worked at Fort Monmouth, and had full access to it.
Penicillin is another example. British scientists discovered that mold could kill bacteria, and then US industry was able to synthesize the process to mass produce medicine.
@N Fels Aleksandr Feklisov confirmed that Rosenberg deliver the VT schematics.
Gotta say it, HMS Belfast is one handsome looking ship and I hope to visit one day.
The Vickers .50 machine guns initially mounted on Belfast used a completely different, less powerful 12.7x81 cartridge (.50 BMG at 12.7x99 has 15% greater MV) to the US .50 so no need to apologise to them.
Came here to say the same thing. The photo at about 4:30 showed Vickers 0.5 inch water cooled guns
@@jeremypnet Actually the same for me.
Allied standardization left something to be desired in 1939.
@@jamesharding3459 It must be remembered UK & US weren't allies until late 1941 so no incentive for standardisation.
@@GARDENER42 Officially, no. In practice, the US and UK were already planning on cooperating. For instance, most of the variations on War Plan Orange assumed a British presence in the Pacific against the Japanese.
14:10 A bold bird to buzz the ship like that. Do it again and the crew will blast it out of the air.
Another informative video Bis.
Bird Aerial attack
That pigeon is the ship's backup message system.
The US started equipping ships with lots of guns, air radar, and fused rounds, long before Kamikaze attacks became common. Thanks much in part to Admiral Lee.
Yes the USN's 'suite' of flak guns really thickened up after Midway. Those 50 cals, and 1.1 inch guns were just no damned good. The 20 mm Oerlikons and 40mm Bofors (In double and quadruple mounts especially) were real 'killers'. During the carrier battles in the Solomons, particularly at Santa Cruz, even though the well trained, fearless and experienced dive and torpedo bomber crews from Shokaku and Zuikaku successfully delivered the ordinance, they usually still ended up getting blown to bits by Bofors round either before or after they dropped. I think I am not exaggerating when I say, the IJN's aircrew were 'bled dry' mostly by these battles and not Midway.
He was an amazing person period
@@nickmitsialis Nobody says midway killed Japan's airforce. Midway killed Japans Carrier Task Force, the Japanese Airforce died in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
@@DSiren There's still the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service left though
@@martijn9568 The imperial army air service was never given the license to produce/procure zeros. It didn't matter that they existed because the Naval forces and army DID NOT COORDINATE AT ALL. They competed and acted like entirely different militaries. The cohesion between French and British forces from 1939 to 1940 (when France Fell) was leagues better than that between the Japanese Army and Japanese Navy.
oh the irony, the (arguably) second most coveted and discontinued ship in World of Warships has its own WoWS gaming room, hahaha
15:45 VT fuses. To give one an idea of how important the VT fuse was, consider these figures; the U.S. Navy said it took an average of 3,000 rounds to knock down an incoming plane before the VT fuse, however after the VT fuse was introduced it took an average of "just" 600 rounds to knock down an aircraft. Even if those figures are not one hundred percent accurate, it shows that the VT equipped rounds were roughly five times more effective!
First off I love England, From their literature to their global explorations. Thank you for the Radar as well.
5:45 HMS Belfast the world's heaviest aircraft.
Loved the video and how London looks from this mighty ship.
Shame it can't lay some rounds into a certain large building that is close by. An election could replace those they were incapacitated and the country would be better off.
And the lowest flying one
35 years ago I sat in one of those Bofors AA guns and cycled the handles one way to raise the barrels and one way to lower them. I remember proudly shouting to my father that when the gun was pointing downwards I was shooting at U-boats, when they were levelled I was gunning for other ships and when they was pointing upwards I was shooting down planes. I was 7 years old at the time.
"TÖÖÖ TÖ TÖ TÖ TÖ"
-boat
Translated: Work work work work work
@@deadzone4155 probably a German vessel
I'm walkin' heah!!
@@deadzone4155 translated by google
The way you describe how every non-aircraft is a target always makes me chuckle. Never change, I love it. Also the bit about how US slapped on guns where there are empty space is so true that it is actually pretty funny and I think Drach would agree.
I have been known to describe trains as 'predictable linear ground targets' in my local railways hobby shop, which also sells aircraft kits.
The Atlanta especially were mobile ambassadors to the world with enough guns for everyone in the local vicinity to exercise their right of dakka
Fun Video for Air and Water enthousiasts alike.
Well done for bringing both Fan groups together!
Excellent video! Now, while you're still in England, please do a similar video on HMS Victory. I am excited to learn about the effects of 32 pounder solid shot on a WW II torpedo bomber, and how upgrading the guns with grapeshot improves the ships defense against low flying cruise missiles in the modern age.
For anti-ship missile defence Ships of the Line actually relied more upon radar-reflective sailcloth so that incoming weapons would be seduced and pass harmlessly through the mizzen topsail.
Not to mention the advanced Stelth Tech...the ships utilized a inovotive construction tech in they made them mostly of wood! .. Thereby giving them a very low radar return!
@@stupitdog9686 hump? what hump?
@@skoniramont ??? I didn't mention "hump" ?? Maybe it's you that wants to "hump" everything...?
@@stupitdog9686 naah, I wanted to answer Old Man Gimp, pushed the wrong button.
hump refers to his avatar.
0:28 "You can tell this is a British ship and not an American ship beacause -it does not have enough guns- you can still walk around on the deck."
I love that my counrty is the Texas of the world.
And i love that my country now represent 70% of the current AA weapons designs
I am glad to see you expanding what type of content your channel offers. Hope that we will see the continuation of this trend.
The VT was the wonderweapon of the allies.
And unlike German wunderwaffles it actually made a difference in the war, and wasn’t a complete waste of resources.
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography and they had in enough numbers
VT fuesd shells were also used by allied artillery forces to great effect disrupting German ground formations. During and after DDay I believe.
Great content Chris, interesting to see what we 'brits' did to protect our ships from the kamikaze threat. Belfast is interesting when compared to some of the American ww2 vessels still around as museum ships. It's a shame that we didn't at least keep one battleship as a memorial to all those brave souls who served throughout the conflict. The other ship worth a visit is HMS Cavalier at Chatham dockyard in Kent. Best wishes from the UK 🇬🇧
Should've preserved _Warspite_
Breaking her up was criminal neglect of her historical significance IMO
Indeed👍 HMS Warspite or HMS Vanguard should have been preserved.
@@PeteCourtier Got to be Warspite (have your changed your underpants mein guter Herr?
@@rob5944 Ja, ich hatte mir in die Hose geschissen 😂😂😂
Honestly: It's a crime that there's no British battleship left as a museum ship. The country with the greatest naval history of all pales in comparison to the museum ships of the USN.
I'm fascinated about how GOOD the sound is for recording outside! Great work (and expensive equipment I believe ;) )
Why is a drawing of Yogi Bear labelled "Huck?"... The world wonders...
I think it is supposed to be Huckleberry Hound. It looks like Yogi, wearing Huck’s hat.🤷♂️
@@kenh5317 Ah, I think you may be right.
@@seafodder6129 Nice to know that my knowledge of sea-going cartoon characters could be a thing.
The HMS Belfast is one of my favorite light cruisers of WW2. Thanks for the video!
Proximity fuse ..works otherwise! Imagine a metal finder...produces a tone...in the vicinity of a metal, the tone changes. That's the moment the fuse explodes. Always: metal close to a coil of an oscillator, the frequency changes...
Thank You for keeping the Quality Up. Wish I could visit these places. Thanks.
This video made me realize that the Spider-Man movie marvel made in London didn't actually have this ship at all in the background for the Tower Bridge fight
Anyone who can speak at length about naval/ military matters, without even one "the" HMS faux pas, has my full confidence and attention. Well done. The mentioned FAA "Walrus" apparently had more than a few non fans when it came to flying it: See "Spitfire Sisters" at 15:00 for an expert WW2 plane driver's delicately phrased low opinion of it...
Just one point. When she was built, HMS Belfast was fitted with an athwartships catapult on the open deck space just behind the hangars. Thus a Walrus did not need to be lowered into the water for take off.
Thank you. I have wandered past this ship for over two decades on my way to work. I enjoy military history and that was such an interesting explanation of the developments from the end of WW2 to Korean conflict
It's kinda funny how those 6 inch guns look so small if you're used to looking at battleships with their 16 inch guns, but then you realize that they're all basically the equivalent of your typical heavier field artillery.
14:10 pigeon aspires to be a timed shell
As he speaks of anti-aircraft guns, he gets dive-bombed by a pigeon. Did anyone else catch that?
14:10
I was looking in the comments to find if someone noticed as well.. :D
Yeah! That bird is just showing off.
Or maby it was reconnaissance bird? You never know, birds are crafty bastards 🤨
Those .50 cal's, weren't US .50 BMG they were Vickers .50. It was a completely different round (much lower powered) fired from a modified vickers gun.
Even the US .50 was found to be lacking and quickly converted over to 20mm.
About two decades ago I was lucky to tour the Belfast. I enjoyed the tour. The tour guide did the usual thing to generate "audience participation" in our tour group and asked question after question. Being part of the crew of LPH-10 Tripoli from November 1977 to August 1978 on a WESPAC crew as a Marine (avionics technician) and the Blue Jackets Manual gave me the background to give correct answers. The Tripoli's anti-aircraft defenses of the Seventies were based on fighting the Kamikaze threat.
Your video documents how anti-aircraft defenses evolved with a snapshot called HMS Belfast. Thank you .
Nice editing this time👍🏻
Also nice to see more Flak videos.
VT fuses made for great shore bombardment and artillery fuses especially against infantry, more than a couple generals/admirals quickly figured out a fuse that explodes in proximity to something, might perfectly airburst above the ground
They ate a couple hundred Germans doing a counter attack during Torch. In full view of the top brass, who were testing that exact theory as a proof of concept. TR, jr. was there watching. Said it was a horrible mess. (As if regular artillery wasn't effective enough against troops in the open... but the VT fuzed shells just obliterated two companies outright in under a minute.)
War is hell.
That was well done.
When I was 12 I got to go aboard the _USS North Carolina_ Battleship Memorial. They let you man the quad 40mm's then (I don't know about now) so my brother and I were able to traverse and elevate those guns. Then I got to play with the Oerlikon's on the bow. Biggest toy I ever got to play with. We could go inside the 16" and 5".38's but - you couldn't operate those turrets ...
You touched on some of the transitions made during WWII with the tremendous increase in AA on ships as aircraft came to dominate combat operations.
The ships didn't just get more weapons for self defense - but - the primary focus for some ships shifted as the war progressed. Battleships roles changed from being decisive capital ships that determined battle out comes - to floating AA Barges whose purpose in life was to protect the Aircraft Carriers - that had taken on their former role.
Here also - as with the _Belfast_ you had a change in the role of cruisers. Before - they had been the fleet's scouts. As such it was their job to move out and away from the fleet, as well as precede it to try and find the enemy. To this end - Cruisers had their own float planes as did Battleships. The impression I have though is that these aircraft changed their roles to such things and gunfire support spotters and rescue planes for downed fliers.
The Japanese early in WWII - did their recon with Cruiser Float Planes - and ships such as the _Tone_ were optimized for that role. The Americans didn't do that. They used the planes on their carriers. The advantage to the Japanese way - was that it saved carrier aircraft for strike roles.
There were problems though with both methods at Midway. The Yorktown launched an SBD Squadron to search for the Japanese - then - had to recover it before it could be used in a strike.
For the Japanese - the cruiser responsible for the sector the Americans were in - had trouble with it's float plane and it got off late. Then that aircraft (iirc) had communications problems getting off it's report once it found the Americans. Another factor here - is that of who the report went to. I would assume each scout plane would report to it's own ship - rather that the Flag Ship - and then it's ship would report to the Flag Ship what it's planes had found.
With the American way - the reports would have gone right to the Carrier which would lessen the likely hood of communications problems with the report being seen in a timely manner. Also - in assigning patrol duties - the carrier would be in direct verbal, personal communication with it's scout pilots prior to their launch - and not have to send search sectors out to each of the different cruisers by radio or signal lamp. For a planned operation where search sectors at specific points had all been assigned in advance this wasn't a problem for the Japanese - but - if things needed to be done on the fly - it was.
The other thing was - that the cruisers launching and recovering these aircraft had to adjust their course and speed to do so.
Now - the other thing that happened - is that the cruisers made a transition - like the battleships - from one role - to another - going from being Scouts - to also being Escorts. When that happened - there was much less need for float planes on cruisers. There was also a reluctance to have cruisers leave their screening stations for the purpose of launching or recovering sea planes - as their primary duties had changed from being Scouts to being Escorts. Those that still had planes could still do it - but - the priority of launching it's own aircraft had changed as the role of the ship changed.
With the coming dominance of aircraft carriers as the arbiters of victory - ALL the other ships had their primary roles become that of protecting the aircraft carriers. Ships other than carriers adopted a layered defense of the fleet - centered on the carriers. The carriers were center most accompanied by their battleship escorts. The next layer out was the cruisers and the layer after that were the destroyers - who were of course - also looking for submarines before the submarines could get through to inner layers of the fleet. You also had Destroyers take on a sacrificial role as Radar Pickets - sent out alone or in small groups - along the anticipated approach route of enemy aircraft where they could provide early warning that they were on their way - enabling CAP's to vector out to intercept them far from the center of the fleet (and the carriers there) as possible.
That was WWII, where a number of different transitions occurred. The nature of war on the land, sea and in the air - was well as technical innovation was drastically different at the end of it than they were at the beginning.
Things today - are unknown. So far ... while there have been proxy wars between different powers and small scale wars - there has not been a full tilt conflict where entire alliances of nations were doing all they could to do each other in.
The problem with a lot of today's military's is that no one really knows just how some of these things will really work if they interact with each other - if all the stops are pulled out and people really go at each other the way they did in WWII.
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Actually, even the .50 machine guns had the stopping power. The issue was more one of range. It probably felt good to shoot down a dive bomber or torpedo bomber AFTER it had dropped it's payload, the the load hit... Even the 20mm, which could chop up aircraft quite effectively, lacked the range. The need was for a weapon that could track the incoming aircraft effectively AND hit it hard enough to knock it down BEFORE it could drop it's weapon(s). Enter the 40mm. Especially enter the larger caliber weapons with fast mounts coupled with radar directed fire control later in the war.
All these things took time to develop, and investment. The need was not understood well pre-war, even by the offensive minded Japanese. That solutions were developed as quickly as they were is a testament to human ingenuity under pressure. The development proceeded very quickly indeed - even as military bureaucracy did it's damned best to slow or stop it.
If I might add something, against a kamikaze the need was not to only shoot down the airplane but to physically prevent its wreck from falling down from the sky on its target. Even 20mm lacked some stopping power here. 40 mm was direly needed to litterally stop kamikaze mid air at range if possible like you said.
Since the solutions were that quick, I guess the Mk 14 torpedo dudes were on leave that week :-)
@@Maple_Cadian Laugh softly then. There are a LOT more .50 rounds. The point I made was that range was the issue. Perhaps you need to read the whole post before commenting.
@@dougerrohmer Probably a completely different set of dudes for sure.
if the thing you want to delete needs to get within kniferange to be harmed, they dont have enoguh stopping power. I can also by hand kill an airplane but the plane needs to land next to me so i can drag the pilot out of the cockpit and punch him in the face repeatingly.
fun fact in therms of shooting down planes: The US Anti Aircraft action report states that the US fast carrier taskforces needed on average 6000 rounds of 40mm Bofors fire to shoot down a single incoming Kamikaze aircraft.
Thats 15 quad mounts fireing continuously for 1 minute, to shoot down a single plane.
Also, Kamikazes are for the most part easier to shoot down than other attacking planes due to their more predictable paths. Now imagine a full scale conventional attack coming at your fleet. You will need a lot of ammunition and you still wont shoot down that many planes. The effictiveness of AA fire is often overstated (it still accounted for 1/3 of the japanese losses in the pacific though).
effectiveness of AA isn't just shootin down aircraft but to also dissade attackers, the heavier the AA barrage the more likely the attacking pilots will either pull off the attack or drop their weapeon loads earlier, which in turn increases the survivability of the ships. But of course the best air defense is still fighter interception
Effectiveness of AA isn't measured in how many enemies are shot down, but how few of them that succeed in their attacks.
It's a shield, keeping you alive until you can run your sword through.
@@johanmetreus1268 That is well put.
Although I'm an aircraft guy, at the very end of this wonderful video 'Drachinifel' is mentioned.
He has THE naval history channel in my opinion.
This is an extraordinary presentation even for you, Mr. Bergs, who are always excellent. Bravo-and thank you!
My wife and I toured the Belfast back in 1983 while on leave, very interesting, we loved London.
Thank you sir, a most interesting and informative lecture on this historical ship!
Nice! Love to see the collab with Drachinifel
Ah brilliant, just as i opened a nice bottle of wine i have recieved the notification of this video.
Cheers🍷🥂
I once had the pleasure of touring this Town class 1936 in 2011 when I was 15 an I must say it was a nice thing to see while on a month long trip to Britain, although some german bloke touched my back while going up a flight stairs in the forward superstructure...
Well it's a nice vessel indeed and I have one model IRL an two in games (WT & WoWS).
It's astonishing how many different refits some vessels can go through ntm them keeping older vessels while scraping their younger vessels cruiser wise but Britain has always kept their older vessels like the Victory, Mary Ross, Caroline & M33.
Nice video as always Bismarck.
Early in WW2 my father was on a ship in the south Pacific .The 20mm barrels got so hot that he would get a fire hose to help cool them.He never had to face kamikaze but his brother was on a gun crew that shot one down later in the war.I knew friends whose fathers brought back 20mm shells after the war. These were duds that would not fire(bad primers?).The ship that my uncle was on was an ammunition ship that they made stay away the main fleet for obvious reasons.His ship was a target for kamikaze.
Would love to see some IL-2 videos again. Just bought the game and having lots of fun.
I like the timing of the bird swooping in close over your head at 14:10, just as you said something about the gun being fired and the shell leaving the gun. :-)
Nice work Chris. Very well done. Thank you.
During our visit to this ship many years ago I became so engrossed with things that my other half had to arrange a message to be sent over the public address system for me: "To to return to the stern area where your wife is waiting for you." Nearly got locked in the war rooms in Whitehall for the weekend too, as I remember!
Legend
i love the fact that you refer to these as surface targets, what else would they be?
„When gun dont Work use more gun“
- General Patton
Automatically setting the proximity fuse when it's loaded is a clever idea.
My dad was on the USS Conklin (De). Supporting the sinking of 3 I-type submarines. Said he got his teeth nocked out buy a shell but loved the ice cream delivered from larger ships!
I spent half a day aboard this ship years ago, as the ticket lady told us: Come back tomorrow morning, and you will have more time aboard! And we did.
By the time of the last refit in 1959, even the latest Bofors with director control would have been largely obsolete against fast jets - missiles such as the Seacat were the way forward. Until we get to the Phalanx gun for close-in defence against ASM's (e.g. Exocets). Might such things be an interesting diversion for this channel?
My Uncle Jack served aboard the Belfast as a gunner. He was at the Battle of the North Cape against the Scharnhorst and at D-Day. He also served on other ships on Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Russian convoys. He was awarded a medal by the Soviet Union. When he attended the D-Day commemoration event in Normandy in1995 a senior RN officer approached him and said that in his opinion he was incorrectly wearing a foreign decoration (I don't know how it was incorrect). My Uncle said, "I earned this bloody medal mate! I ain't in your bloody navy anymore so you can stick your opinion up your arse!"
Looks like the bridge is all cleaned up good.
I've visited a number of museum ships and this is the best maintained I've ever seen.
Well worth a visit 😀
"The torpedoes were removed so I can't show you"
Me: "Actually..."
Drachinifel has some really good videos on the subject.
That tourist boat really got told off.
Well... It wasn't answered by those four inch guns, so no.
I mean if you think about, kamikaze attacks are basically guided anti-ship munitions that can vary their flight and attack pattern from sea-skimming to top-down attacks.
"Kate, if you wanna protect yourself getta double barreled shotgun... just walk out on the balcony... and fire two blasts. Buy a shotgun... buy a shotgun."
I'll, "Let's go Brandon!!" to that!!
With that hammer I thought you might be fixing wings to the ship. Proper flying boat.
As a Valheim player I thought he was going to start fixing stuff 😀
I've visited HMS Belfast when she was 43 years younger.
Thanks Chris, really enjoyed your video (& your humour). l remember visiting this ship when l was a kid, many years ago.
The Airfix model of the HMS Belfast is of excellent quality if interested.
I think this is the first time I’ve heard him say “ain’t.” Though I could be wrong…
1:25 THANK YOU. I wish more historians would be so conscientious about correcting the glaring errors in our understanding of the war. Hint. The war did NOT start in 1939.
HMS Belfast is such a clean, and beautiful ship, and I see the USS New Jersey every weekday! British ships are not cluttered with all the light and medium AA of ours.
@14:12 the legendary British dive-bomber Columba livia almost gets our fearless presenter.
I know someone who was a loader on a boffors gun on the Belfast and who is proud that it left him a little deaf as he says showing he was showing doing his job
I like how you politely told the other ship piss off
Great views of a very famous British warship,thank you for your excellent presentation.
Wow I’ve been on this when I was a boy age 9! I lived 100 miles west from London and loved this ship , I remember it would have been torpedo inside the ship it was massive
Not all the 40mm Bofors guns were retired to museums or scrapped as obsolete. Some navies still use them on smaller ships
I love the videos by dracinifel where he reads the after action reports of an american carrier (enterprise?). The first one states that they need a lot more AA guns. The second states - oh that's pretty good, now lets take the armor off and add more guns.
Damm good video from one history nut thank you thank you for it
I visited this beautiful ship on the 50th anniversary of D Day, which she had participated in. On the navigation tables they displayed the maps and plans of the invasion. What a complex operation it was!
The additional AA guns on most ships had to do with the realization that aviation attack in general was a much greater threat to the ship than was expected when the ships were built. I would say it had little to do with kamikaze attacks specifically as most ships were upgraded before the suicide attacks became wide spread (there are always a few fanatics or desperate men here and there on both sides)
Tha US Navy 5"/38 with their new improved Proximity fuse by mid-1942' and VT fuse was by far the Best Naval AA Gun in WWll.
19:00 RE: Bofors gun So two guys to point the gun and eight guys to load it.
That one torpedo is their cqb knife defense they lift it by hand over into the water while someone needs to activate the prop just before they throw it in... Mk.1 Eyeball aiming at its best!
"The 6-inch guns don't engage air targets"
not with _that_ attitude
The spacebattleship Yamato had a lot of anti-AA guns too.
Damn skippy, where there’s room guns can fit.
Interesting that the Royal Navy was still using the older L60 version of the Bofors as late as 1959 rather than the updated L70 which had been introduced in 1947. It provided not only superior ballistic performance and range but also doubled the rate of fire. Still in use today in upgraded versions
The proposed Royal Navy versions of the Bofors L70 were so delayed that they were cancelled in favour of Sea Cat.
Hey Bismarck I love your video. When you get back to hanging out with one Bo tell him hi from NC/VA
However the 5" 38 caliber guns coupled to the newest fire control made and using the Proximity Fuse was absolutely deadly.
@4:25, "sorry America". The .50 caliber Vickers was not the 12.7X99mm Browning but rather a 12.7X82mm semi rim (Vickers 12.7X82SR) similar in weakness to the Italian 12.7mm aircraft MGs.
I believe the main battery on HMS Belfast was able of some limited AA fire with her Auto Barrage Unit? I know a lot of British cruisers had one, but I'm not sure if HMS Belfast in particular did. Although I don't know about the utility of the system, in the end it allowed for one salvo, perhaps two to be directed at an incoming attack.
Interestingly, US small boys still retain 5 inch VT fused rounds for their guns. Obviously its not the primary defensive weapon anymore, and everything involved is considerably more advanced, but somebody somewhere in the USN chain of command decided "We got SM-2/3 for long range, and CIWS for short range. What can we do for slightly longer short range?"
This makes me wish for a channel like this but about boats and ships.
Drachinifel?
Go check out Drach. That's exactly what you're looking for.
@@MrAnton275 is a good one but talks mainly about the big ships and doesnt have any video-tours (idk if thus is the correct term) around or inside the ships
@@estraextras3717 Drach does tours of museum ships. He will be making a US tour in Spring 2022. Consider the tiny percentage of museum ships in existance, out of all of history.
Likewise, Chris does In the Cockpit, but there are only so many cockpits available.
There is USS New Jersey but it is literally kinda 85% the USS New Jersey Battleship
They didn't use the crane to launch the Walrus Chris: the ships had a fixed athwartships gunpowder-powered catapult fitted on the deck behind the hangars. The aircraft were removed in order to use the hangar space for extra accomodation and equipment space (especially for electronics, which gobble up volume at a frightening rate) and this was possible because by that point in the war, sufficient carriers were available to provide superior recce aircraft.
been on that ship!!.. the torpedoes surprised me, the size!
Really good video by the way. Thanks very much.