Why were casement guns kept in designs for so long? They knew with increased speed they were having trouble keeping them dry. Yet most navies kept designing them into their ships until the time of the North Carolinas.
If the german navy at jutland got reenforced by the modern german navy as it exists in 2021, would it have made a difference or are the modern friggates and corvettes not able to do anything there? And would the modern submarines be of any use in such a fleet action?
Alternate history question for you, what do you think would have happened if the USN would have gone through with their plan to reinforce the Maines at Wake Island?
A quad Bofors gun for AA on their subs might have worked. At least for close up work and it seems they'd be sufficient for anti merchant shipping duties.
As I understand it, the unusually "flat" turrets of the KGV's was a feature intended to improve effective protection at longer ranges: would it have been viable to build a turret with an inclined turret face to further maximise protection at medium to long range...? Would it be fair to say this would create a lot balancing issues and possibly cause a kind of shot trap that would make it more likely for shells to ricochet down into the armoured deck above the magazines...?
One quality of your responses that I think we all take for granted is how, well, responsive they are. So very on point, no tangents, no redundancies, no superfluity; just concise, well reasoned, rhetorically effective packets of information that answer our questions. It's rare, and I for one do notice and am very appreciative.
@@toothedacorn4724 Lindybeige has a totally different approach to his videos, and can be shaky on the details, but I do enjoy them. I think of them as rambling dissertations that I may or may not agree with. In some ways the ones I disagree with are the best, because they cause me to go away and reassess my opinion. Sometimes I think "No Lindy, you're wrong on that", other times I think "Mm, interesting point...". I'm happy both channels exist.
I find it amazing that USS Texas, which, as you mention, was considered obsolete to be in the battle line in the 1920’s, still exists today as the last dreadnaught.
@@timberwolf1575 Yup, for instance in Evansville Indiana there's one of the last remaining LST craft. It's a unique vessel to visit since it participated in the Normandy Landings. But, there were a number of inland shipyards that could filter ships down the river system to the Gulf of Mexico. Not battleships, but lots of the support craft with shallow drafts.
It also depends on the type of antiaircraft guns mounted on a sub. The quad 20 mm mounts on U Boats did a good job of sending enough metal downrange that attacking aircraft, if not shot down, were at least thrown off the accuracy of their bomb runs. As you say, once Coastal Command figured out the limitations of those mounts and changed their routes of attack, being attacked by three or more aircraft was almost always a death sentence for the sub, even if they shot down one or two of the attacking aircraft. In addition to bombs and depth charges strafing was a killer for surfaced subs. Since the AA guns had very little in the way of splinter protection, strafing would disable or kill many of the members of the gun crews, and they couldn't be replaced fast enough to drive off all the attackers. The idea of the Flak U Boat (U-flak) was only tested on four boats. While there was some limited success by the first two U-flaks (U-256 and U-441), they and the other two that were actually converted suffered heavy damage and lost 10-20 crew during the attacks by the RAF. Once the U-flaks were repaired, they were returned to service as normal VIIC boats when it was obvious that the idea was a failure. The US experience in the Pacific was quite different. All the fleet boats had at least one 40 mm Bofors, and many had two. The most heavily armed boat I've been able to find was USS _Balao_ a boat whose captain seemed to delight in collecting guns. It had two 5"/25 guns, two 40 mm, at least two and sometimes three 20 mm cannon, four .50 Browning machine guns, and, although I don't know how many times this loadout was used, stanchion mounts for another four or five .30 Browning machine guns. In the case of the USN, this wasn't really in response to Japanese air attacks (although somewhere around 100 aircraft were shot down during the war) but to strafe Japanese armored barges that were resupplying stranded Japanese troops. Their draft was too shallow to sink with a torpedo, so subs often teamed up with PT boats to use their radars to locate and attack these barges. All the boats would use their smaller guns to keep Japanese gun crews away from their heavy armament until the sub could bring it's 5" guns to bear. It was the only weapon in the absence of a destroyer that could sink a barge, and most barges kept to shoal waters where the destroyer couldn't follow them. My dad served on a PT boat, and his boat was involved in these "combined operations". Being a much braver guy than me. he said it was the most fun he'd ever had during his service while he was still vertical. :-)
AA equipped sub vs. one aircraft - advantage sub. AA equipped sub vs. two aircraft - even match. AA equipped sub vs. three or more aircraft - final dive for sub.
I've read that one of the reasons RAF Coastal Command developed the use of rockets against submarines was that they allowed the aircraft to attack from outside the range of light AA.
Mentions the repeated references to HMS Pinafore Talks through part of a song from The Pirates of Penzance We need to cut back on how much time you spend with Jingles...
I had the pleasure of interviewing a WW2 vet for a school project. He was a supply officer on some type of LST or other transport ship in 1944-45. I didn't talk to him about battles he was in, unfortunately. I think he was attacked by air a few times, but I didn't get into it. He actually spent most of the war organizing Harvard University to teach officers about supply management. After the war he was a base commander in Arizona (yes, a US navy base in Arizona - desert air and no rain means easy storage) before going back to Harvard as an admissions person. Mostly we talked about Operation Magic Carpet and bringing men home.
My father was a Ltjg aboard the U.S.S. Washington during it's shoot out at Guadalcanal. He was in the Fire Control Room that was in charge of 3 of the twin 5" gun-houses. (From what I understand what the USN calls a funhouse the RN calls a turret, and what the RN calls a gun-house the USN calls a turret!) He told me that they were very busy doing star-shells and looking for torpedo wakes (not knowing that the IJN had "wake-less" Long Lance torpedoes!) and so forth... He did mention, however, that someone on the bridge or "Christ I'm Confused" (C.I.C. = Combat Information Center) was using the 1MC to let the whole ship know of some of the things that was happening "out there" like we just scored a direct hit on the IJN Haruna (actually it was one of her sister sips the IJN Kirishima!) and reported that the next broadside hit her and the IJN Haruna was severely damaged (radar shows her to be heavily damage (i.e. missing a lot of stuff above the waterline...) and we think she's sinking... When he became an XO aboard a Large Slow Target (Landing Ship, Tank aka LST nickname) he did the same over his ships 1MC since he saw that it helped everyone's morale aboard the USS Washington! (He eventually became the CO of a LST and was scheduled to be in the first wave of Operation Olympic, the first invasion of the Japanese Home Islands!)
To add to the AA positioning discussion, in 1943/44 all USN fleets adopted use of hybrid AA/AS Cruising Dispositions 3-V (AA), 4-R (AA/AS), 4-N (AA/AS), 4-S (AS), 5-R (AA/AS), 5-V (AA), 5-LS (AS), 5-X (AA/AS), 5-XT (AS), 6-R (AA/AS), 6-S (AS). These are ringed dispositions with defensive bands of increasingly stronger AA fire around capital ships. The specific disposition will depend on availability of ship types in each task force or fleet and the number of screening vessels. 4-R, 5-R, and 6-R (Ready Dispositions) are the most common, as they have more flexibility to quickly transition into the other dispositions. All bearings and ranges listed are relative to the formation's center or axis, or the ship serving as formation guide. The various dispositions are similar with slight variations on stations for certain ships with specific tasks, but they are generally as follows. Destroyer squadrons form the outermost ring and serve as pickets at 10,000 yards. In a smaller force, this range is 8,000 yards. If sufficient destroyers are present, they form a complete circle, otherwise they are oriented to the formation's course, or whichever direction an attack is most likely to develop from. Cruisers are stationed around the optimal torpedo attack sectors around the center formation to present maximum duration and concentration of AA against torpedo bombers, which were considered the more serious threat. These are the sectors around the port and starboard bow, and port and starboard quarter (Bow Right Flank: Sector 040-060 degrees, Quarter Right Flank: 120-140 degrees, Quarter Left Flank: 220-240 degrees, Bow Left Flank: 300-320 degrees). Torpedo bombers and submarines prefer to attack from these 45 degree directions, as any evading ship trying to turn parallel into or away from the torpedoes will expose their beam and be broadside to torpedoes coming now at 90 degrees, the "hammer-and-anvil" attack, when performed from both sides. If sufficient cruisers are present, the quarter sectors will be formed as well, otherwise only the bow sectors or whichever direction an attack is most likely to develop from. Aircraft attempting a "hammer-and-anvil" attack will be subject to the highest concentration and longest duration of AA fire. Some dispositions just have the cruisers in a ring. Cruisers were expected to be well-positioned to deal with torpedo bombers, so dive bombers were left for capital ships to prioritize. If sufficient destroyers are present, they form an additional AA/AS screen between the cruisers and battleships in case anything slips by the outer screens. Capital ships stationed in the center by division, with 1,000 yards between ships and 3,000 yards between divisions, with carriers as centrally as possible if present. In a smaller force, this range is 600 yards and 1,000 yards, respectively. Some dispositions will place the battleships in the leading half of the circle, with carriers in the trailing half. If a train or other vessel is being escorted, they will be between the battleships and carriers. Cruisers were expected to be well-positioned to deal with torpedo bombers, so capital ships prioritized AA against dive bombers. Note that some of the dispositions will simply scatter cruisers and battleships in a general circle around the carriers as well. It is also mentioned that the cruiser doctrines USF-20: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS - CRUISERS (1941) USF-16: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS - BATTLESHIPS (1943) CBP 13-44: COMMANDER BATTLESHIPS, PACIFIC FLEET OPERATIONS ORDER 13-44 (1944) USF-10A/B: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS AND DOCTRINE (1945)
@@barrylucas8679 Haha thanks! I have a huge wall of books mainly on the Pacific War, but Drac definitely knows a LOT more than I do. I couldn't tell you much about the European navies.
@@whiskeytangosierra6 Most of mine are physical copies, but here is a link to a partial digital set: www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/ I can't find a full PDF of USF-10A/B and CDP 13-44, but here is a partial summary with diagrams of the 4-series dispositions as example: www.admiraltytrilogy.com/read/USN_BB_CB_Tactical_Orders.pdf
Regarding Ballast, the returning liberty Ships from Bristol to New York used rubble from the Blitz as ballast. A lot of the East River coastline of Manhattan including the UN building is built on Bristol.
Also regarding ballast, there's currently a *big* fight between saltwater sailors and the governments of Ontario and the US states bordering the Great Lakes because it has been found that various invasive species, including zebra mussels, have been introduced into the Great Lakes by "salties" (oceangoing freighters) that discharge ballast water from the ocean into the Lakes, causing many ecological problems.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. To all my fellow servicemen of the coalition, thank you for your service- remember this day.
I have caught up! I have watched or listened to every single Drydock! And am even rewarded with some lyrics. Thank you for your great work Drachinifel.
Congratulations, Se No. It IS a bit like climbing Everest, especially when you encounter one of those five hour monsters (Drach's equivalent of the Abominable Snowman). Now you can start on the livestreams!
“The Best Years of Our Lives” addressed the disconnect that some sailors had from the fighting that their ships experienced. Homer, the character who had lost both of his hands, was assumed to have seen fighting. He said something like “My job was down in the machine shop. We were in lots of battles, but I never saw a Japanese.”
My grandfather was a pharmacist mate on the USS Makin Island during WWII. His battle station was on the the bridge next to the admiral's chair. He was to provide the admiral with first aid in the event he was injured during battle. This was his battle station whether or not the admiral was on the bridge at the time. One of his favorite stories to tell was the time he fell asleep in the admiral's chair after being at battle stations for a few hours without the admiral present only to be woken up by the admiral. The admiral would usually only be present on the bridge if there was a good chance the ship was about to go into action. Battle stations were called every day at dawn and dusk and the admiral was usually not there for these times.
Hey Drach .. regarding the Modern Major General. He is actually from the Pirates of Penzance. The admin oaf from Pinafore was The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, First Lord of the Admiralty modeled on the actual First Lord W. H Smith
Re: the question about anti-aircraft guns on submarines. The answer brings up the sometimes surprising point that that *vast* majority of munitions fired in any war comes under the heading of "harassing fire" for the simple, yet effective, point of keeping your enemy from firing effectively back at you.
I wish that Drach wouldn't mention the German cruiser sunk during the Norwegian campaign by name: it drives my horses in the corral crazy every time that they hear it.
My favorite quote from this episode: "15 inch shells that kill fish don't affect battles that much." Thanks, great episode - including the musical finale!🎤👍
19:10 I think you could have worded this more carefully. Oftentimes the air attacks against Uboats are made out to almost seem like it was a onesided affair. And obviously it was when the boats didn't fight back, but when they did it was actually a pretty dangerous affair. The guys over at uboat.net have compiled the most clear instances (as there were a lot of mutually destructive fights), and they came out with a tally of 117 planes shot down by 97 boats for the loss of 31. It should be noted that this only accounts for known fights where the planes were shot down, there were obviously more sinkings where the boat tried to fight back but didn't cause appreciable damage. Coastal Command alone sank about 220 boats (the Royal Navy air forces and the Americans obviously sank some too). Anyway, aircraft were dangerous, and cheaper, but it wasn't anywhere near a safe attack. The Fight Back order from May 1943 resulted in 26 boats sunk and 28 planes lost. A clear victory for the planes, but certainly not something I would like to go into as part of an aircraft crew.
Or swan around out of range till it was ready to dive and then go in. Meanwhile ships are on their way and your batteries are limited. It was good of Spain to maintain radio location lines for the u-boats. Whether they expected aircraft to fly up and down them is unknown, but surely the fascist leader there was not thinking so far ahead. The future when he could get British tourists as well as German.
Re: The sinking of the Blücher. A number of German dissidents had gotten refuge in Norway and the Gestapo detachment with the arrest lists was on the Blücher. Her loss delayed their persecution and not doubt saved some of them. One of them later became the 4th chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
One note. The British also had 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron (Invincible, Inflexible, Indomitable) with which to fill out the Battle Cruiser Fleet's numbers post-Jutland. Granted these are older ships with only 12" guns and cruiser armor, but that squadron plus New Zealand and Princess Toyal/Queen Mary still matches First Scouting Group for numbers. With the addition of Renown and Repulse, the British might even be willing to fight another battle cruiser engagement.
If you see this Drach, for the Anti-Ship missile question I would have explicitly called out the P-15 Termit/SS-N-2 Styx line of anti-ship missiles. You used a photo of one, and while (high) subsonic that thing weighs 2,580kg and has a 454kg HEDP shaped charge warhead *specifically* designed to completely penetrate whatever belt or turret face armor they may run into. And for good measure it was mounted behind the (very large) fuel tanks, to ensure that ignites and is shot into the hole in the armor. After all, in the 50s when it was developed, there were quite a lot of WW2 era heavy armor capships still around. The combined huge shaped charge and spray of ignited fuel must have been quite spectacular. Three of them hit the Ex-HMS Zealous INS Eliat, and broke her apart to such effect she sunk in under 2 minutes, with almost all crew dead or injured.
For what it's worth, Drach; your singing is much better than my could ever be. If I try to sing: glass scatters, food curdles, animals stampede, and people go sterile...😱
About merchant ships carrying building materials as ballast, a cousin of mine in Edinburgh found out about this in an interesting way. When he and his wife moved out of thier house, they decided to do a repair on their tile roof. However, the house was listed (dunno what grade) and the roof tiles were sourced from the Netherlands in the 17th century when they had been carried over as ballast. He was only able to find suitable tiles to repair the roof by buying tiles salvaged from a wrecked merchant ship at a steep price.
Re: Forced Labor & Concentration Camp Labor, when Israel was arming itself for it's first war. They did tests & quality control inspections and found out that the vast majority of firearms made after mid-1944 had all their sights misaligned! Namely your rifles wouldn't hit accurately past 200 or so yards, and at shorter ranges would likely wound .vs. kill and other issues... MPs & MGs would have to burst on to target limiting surprise and giving away the shooters position faster, etc.
In regards to ballast on a warship. I did all the piping runs for the DDG-51 Fuel tanks. The system we used was all the tanks were fuel/ballast, except potable water tanks. What I mean to say was as the fuel was used the tanks were filled with Seawater. Using the difference between spec. gravity of the to liquid to keep them separate. This was an on going operation, the tanks were never to be empty. There were oil/water separator's to clean the fuel before using. In this way the ship was always ballasted
In "Armageddon", chapter 4, Hastings says "Good commanding officers broadcast frequently, telling their crews everything they knew about what the ship and the fleet were doing. This was especially important in action, to hundreds of men imprisoned in steel compartments far belowdecks. For their very sanity, they needed to know what a huge, unseen detonation meant; whether their team seemed to be winning; sometimes, whether damage to their own ship was as grievous as concussions, screams, smoke pulsing through ventilators made it seem."
In regards to your "Sailor's Dislocation" answer at 1:08, I have a similar first hand account to match. My Grand-Uncle was in the battle of Jutland aboard the Hercules and he said that the whole battle for him as a turret gunner was not that big a deal since he never did fire his secondary gun turret during the battle and it was to him just like a fleet exercise where to him not much happened. It probably would of been different if he was stationed on, say, the Warspite, but to him it wasn't much of a big deal.
Okay you got me :O) I don't subscribe to many channels for productivity reasons. But your obvious effort to make valuable content is worth a good watch and/or listen. Just want to say you have another fan. I'm subscribing, hitting the bell and promise to always press the like thumb!!
Another note about quad or larger turrets is that 4 guns in 1 turret is a large loss of firepower if for some reason theres damage, malfunction etc. 4+ guns in 1 turret also creates a dispersion problem to solve and the design of the turret, barbette and surrounding parts of the vessel need to be done so in a way that the shock of 4 guns firing in close proximity doesnt do more damage to the firing vessel than the target.
On ballast, One of the reasons that a lot of the sea ports on the East Coast have red pan tiles on building roofs is because ships returning from the ‘The Low Countries’ used the tiles as ballast.
Just wanted to wade in a bit with the missile question. The range of weights for these missiles has to be seen to be believed. For example the Sea Skua was pretty small with a total weight of just 145kg. The warhead contains several materials but the explosive part is a mere 9kg of RDX. The rest is copper etc for directing blast as it has a shaped charge. It most likely could punch through armour on a WWII battleship but the hole would be about the size of a pea. That is absolutely diddly to a 50,000 tonne ship. You would probably need 1000 or so to give the Yamato a headache. At the other end you have the "Shaddock" which has a roughly 1 tonne warhead with possibly 400kg being explosives and the rest being penetrating cap and fragmenting casing. If one of those was set to sea skim it would most likely punch a 60cm hole half way through the Yamato and the 1kg roughly fragments would make a hell of a mess of any machinery they hit. Missiles like Harpoon do things in a different way and are designed to take out superstructures. Specifically they sea skim to about 2000 meters from the target then climb hard and do a plunging almost vertical dive. The warhead is 220kg roughly and it's designed to be volley fired in 3 to 6 missiles. The Yamato would still easily be afloat but I doubt there would be any command and control after being hit by 6.
In Price's book 'aircraft vs submarine', in 1943 submarines crossing the Bay of Biscay had some submarines were altered with reinforced conning towers and anti aircraft guns. The outcome, British airmen were not detered and even when the submarines were not sunk they were heavily damaged and unable to submerge requiring extensive repair. Submarines had their AA guns removed as they failed to protect. This book is an excellent read.
A lot of modern warships, in addition to the various forms of liquid variable ballast mentioned, make significant use of fixed ballast, usually in the form of lead or concrete.
My Dad (CAPT USN) spent his whole career in destroyere, starting in 1941. He once mentioned that his current ship (sorry, not sure which, but probably Bordelon DD(R)881) was ballasted with tons and tons of pig iron bars. Wish he was still around, I could ask him how much.
I know the Dutch East India company required ships returning from Asia to carry ballast that would net at least 100% gross profit. They turned to using Japanese copper as ballast for a while to meet this requirement.
Re: ASCM vs. Pre-dreadnought/Dreadnought: The Kamikaze was essentially the Anti-Ship Cruise Missile, Block Zero, so a starting point of analysis would be November 1944 - June 1945, where 11 battleships were struck a total of 18 times. These ships covered almost the entire range of US battleships in service, from USS New York to USS Missouri.
At about 17 minutes: per The U Boat Net; 116 aircraft were shotdown by 97 individual U-boats for the loss of 31 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk. In total 249 U-boats were sunk by aircraft alone (including carrier-based aircraft) and 37 more were sunk by aircraft and ships together so the odds are pretty grim for a U boat, 286 of them to 97 aircraft. Furthermore this doesn’t count U Boats damaged or forced to submerge. In ‘The Shattered Sword’ the authors state that IJN relied on maneuver, and the carriers AA whil(st)e keeping their DDs farther away as a warning screen. The Japanese DDs had no early warning radar and weak AA anyway. The USN with more AA kept the screen closer which limited maneuvering. Before the advent of the (British invented)VT fuze, better fire control and massive AA increases the two tactics were roughly equal but as the war continued AA became dramatically more effective. So the USN tactics prevailed.
Pro Tipp: When you build the Cobi Warspite, have an exacto knife or better a thin not so briddle blade ready, or be very concentrated and putt all slopes into the right place. Mine is georgous and a very good Melee Weapon. Cobi Bricks are way more harder to seperate, then normal lego but they wear more out.
He said "massive death bubble" 11.04. I wonder if the Kamikazi pilots thought "I see you massive death bubble, I'm not afraid of you". On a more serious note, my father was on his landing craft (LCM crew member off Juno) when the fleet opened fire at targets on the french coast on D-Day. He remembered the sight and sound of it being "absolutely terrifying". He said the whole horizon looked to be on fire, with the sound of the shells going overhead like banshees (apparently a banshee sounds like a large artillery shell) So someone 'stuck down below' with nothing to see and only muffled bangs to hear, might actually be considered fortunate. On an LCM there is nowhere to go for the crew to get under cover as such, other than a very small engine compartment. It's no wonder men could go mad from shell shock in wartime, even if they weren't being shot at themselves.
Hey Drachinifel! I've been told the old jokes of how I have: 1) a Kind singing voice. The Kind that the Geneva Convention Banned! 2) a Locked singing voice. I'm always searching for the key!
AA guns on subs could still be useful against really small targets. A 40mm bofors on a US fleet boat would make quick work of Japanese barges, sampans, and trawlers.
Admiral Lockwood, commander of subs in the pacific fleet was opposed to significant anti-aircraft armament. Admiral King wanted more heavy armament, ala the Germans, but Lockwood felt that a quick dive was better than shooting it out. He was, though, in favor of a better deck gun for dealing with those smaller boats.
anti ship missiles as I understand, are generally built to pop up at the last moment and hit the deck armor instead of the side armor, so theoretically it'd be at a minimum like taking a battleship shell to the deck
History Channel went over this question “Sailors disconnection from the battles their ships fought?” Battle 360 USS Enterprise What’s the part about the guy saying to the rest of people with him anybody want an olive? Look up that episode it I think it does a fairly good job at entering this.
Very true, and that episode captures it correctly. I'm a vet, people act strange under curtain conditions...joker's like that guy with his olives hold it all together. Gallows humor is a thing.
The sailor in charge of Damage Control on the USS Archer-Fish went to his bunk and went to sleep when the Shinano was sighted. His bunk was relatively central to the sub, and he knew that he would be easily found there if he was needed. He slept through the entire encounter and sinking of the Shinano.
inre: antiship missiles- when USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles, the missile that detonated blew a 10x15 ft hole in the ship. It was said at the time that if it had struck an Iowa-class, it would have done little more than damage the paint.
Remember that the Iowa class has an interior armor belt behind about 1.5" of STS. I suspect an Exocet or similar sea skimming missile would do bupkes to the belt, but would blow a similar hole in that exterior shell.
One thing that also really deteriorated during the interwar period for the British was the availability of draughtsmen to actually draw the plans and blueprints. This affected the development of both ships and weapons.
@@wierdalien1 Bad economy during the Great Depression, not much naval construction so they all moved on to greener pastures. Was actually a big factor in the KGV's turret design problems.
12:35 but thats because Scheer tried to disengage immediately and barely any of the HSF tried to fire at the Grand Fleet. Stick Baden and Bayern in there and Scheer might be more willing to confront the British instead.
He didn't 'try.' He implemented an immediate battle turn away after his T had been crossed and his ships were being hammered. Neither Baden nor Bayern were operational at the time. Moreover, adding two ships was hardly likely to tip the balance.
"How does the Germans win the battle of Jutland?" Drach: "Well if Hipper and Scheer blow up Beaty, his legacy and sink the precious ships he was in charge of"
Extending on the modern major general: On the civilian/political side there was W. H. Smith, also immortalised by Gilbert and Sullivan ("When I was a lad", Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore).
Am I the only one who'd noticed the Fairy to the left of the photo waving her magic wand at Blucher ? No doubt thinking to herself " That'll teach them for not clapping and letting my friend Tinkerbell buy the farm ! "
What if the Brits had Greenboys at Jutland? We'd still have the grand lady herself, HMS Warspite, sending out 15" rebukes for being forced to endure the hardships of war... And all is still well.
I remember hearing that during Bismarks fight with hood the officers where narrating what was happening over the intercom to the crew. I believe I heard this from a documentary saying that one of the bismark survivors mentioned it, so it might not be accurate, but if true that seems like the extreme in the crew knowing what was happening in a fight.
Well if the High Seas fleet did pull off the unquestioned victory described that opens up a whole can of butterflies as without the same amount of badly damaged ships there's a possibility of some of the not historically finished ships being finished because the dock space isn't tied up so bad with repairs. Some Mackensens or more than the 2 Bayerns would definitely make any post Jutland small battles interesting. Also if Lutzow doesn't go down actually having 3 Derrflingers creates them by itself.
In regards to modern missiles, the larger, extremely-high-speed (supersonic and even low hypersonic) anti-aircraft missiles -- US TALOS (beam-rider with, later, terminal homing added), TERRIER (improved homing versions) and TARTAR (always homing), SM-1 (TERRIER and TARTAR replacements), SM-2 (SM-1 ditto), Aegis (SM-2 variant), and the latest Aegis SM-6 (fully-active improved SM-2) (SM-3 is primarily an anti-ballistic-missile variant) -- have rather small warheads by cruise missile standards, but their very high speed and 18"-battleship-shell size and weight gives them rather a high penetration capability, even though they do not have the thick hardened bodies of AP shells. Against no armor or lighter armor they can literally tear entirely through a warship LENGTHWISE (I have seen tests where this happens) so even an armored ship will have problems with such large missiles (shatter on impact does reduce penetration at under-45-degree angles from normal, but the extreme velocity of these weapons more than makes up for this reduction, while at higher impact angles, shatter actually can IMPROVE penetration by suppressing any ricochet tendencies that intact missiles might feel). All-in-all, the anti-ship modes of these AA missiles are quite lethal to smaller ships and even large, heavily-armored warships may suffer greatly from such hits. "Quantity (extreme speed and large size), has a quality all its own."
@@mikemullen5563 A missile hit will do EVERYTHING to a ship as the missile, which, other than its engine volume at the rear, is made of rather thin material stressed to resist forces down its centerline, but not sideways forces, is torn apart as it rips through its target, plus the initial blast from its warhead on impact located just behind the homing nose electronics and antenna. The warhead blast would destroy anything nearby that is unprotected by heavy steel bulkheads or armor and the forward velocity would punch through a LOT of material, including armor, even if the the missile body is crushed in the process. It would be like a giant shotgun blasting the area at point blank on top of a hand grenade going off in the center of that blast, but much larger. The momentum of such a super-high-velocity, compared to a regular gun projectile, missile would split armor open and physically punch the plate hit backwards, tearing out its supports, rivets, and bolts. The impact shock effects to the ship structure would be worse when hitting rigid armor than if it just hit thin material and tore it open, continuing on until it exited the other side of the ship. Note that in the later missiles, they have special surface modes that use a steep downward trajectory so that if they keep going, they will punch a hole through the bottom of the ship, on top of the damage done on the way there. These missiles, though much shorter range than most specialized anti-ship cruise missiles, are bad news squared if you are close enough to be hit by them.
@@nathanokun8801 Not saying it can't be sunk, just that it doesn't have to sink it. If you destroy it's fighting capability, it's just a liability for the owner --you have to protect her and her crew, while it can't attack anything not at point=blank range. Same goes for a modern torpedo. You don't have to defeat the armor belt, just hit the props and rudders.
@@mikemullen5563 Modern anti-ship (as opposed to small anti-submarine) torpedoes do not "just hit the props and rudders". Anti-ship torpedoes of current types BLOW SHIPS IN HALF, even WWII heavy cruisers used as targets. You do not realize the power of most of these modern major weapons. There are some smaller anti-ship missiles, but the first Soviet one, the STYX, was designed TO SINK AIRCRAFT CARRIERS with a one-ton semi-shaped-charge warhead. It had poor guidance, but when first used against some Israeli warships who were not expecting it, it worked perfectly. HARPOONS and TOMAHAWKS are not armor-piercing per se, but they do have large warheads that can ruin and, especially in the latter, sink a ship with a single hit, depending on how big the ship is and where it is hit. While you are correct that cruise missiles, torpedoes, and AA missiles in surface mode don't have to sink the ship to put it put out of action, unless you are a very large ship, even a single hit CAN sink you.
@@nathanokun8801 I don't think we are in disagreement. In short, I was saying that a lot of the smaller weapons we have can deliver a mission kill without having to sink the target; that is, the BBs are much more vulnerable than you would expect with all that armor. Obviously, we can sink it, but we don't need to, and it may be better to force the opponents to guard the cripple.
related to chipping away 10years of paint and removing the luxury fittings from cruisers especially. Even the official USN historian of WWII points to ship's death by fire caused by trying to keep them 'Parade' ready instead of battle ready.
Hi If you already haven't, could you dedicate a post to the financial costs of running the ships over the years. What does it cost to run a battle ship for a month ? Keep up the good work. Thanks.
for purifing fuel from solids and water all modern diesel commercial vessels have a number of vertical disc stack centrifugal separators to pass through the fuel before feeding it to the main diesel engines , and as far i know they have deticated balast tanks seperate from the fuel tanks , sea water tends to decreasing expencive machinery's life time
re the 6:6:4 question: the point of the treaty was to STOP the building programmes; adding wiggle room to allow continued building basically derails the treaty.
Yes and no, stopping building was not the issue it was to prevent a continued arms race that would have ruined one of the powers eventually - that ruination would cause destabilisation
@@bengrogan9710 OK, good point. But allowing continued building would have led to a degree of escalation as everyone tried to see what they could get away with. It was bad enough with what was permitted. The battleship holiday was probably the biggest "win" out of the treaty - if you didn't have that, then people might wonder what the point really was.
Fun, thought provoking and informative as always...I know you have questions to answer already for the rest of the decade, but would you consider taking on battlefleet gothic? Games Workshop, bless them, have a tendency to over, over, over complicate rules for their games, (I'm looking at you warhammer 40k). With your knowledge of naval tactics and love of table top war I bet you could streamline and simplify the heck out of this old game. I'm afraid WH40K is a lost cause. Love the channel.
Drach at 52 min Speaking of battle stations being away from the actual battle come on I met a US navy sailor who served on the langley during world war 2. His battle station was 3 decks below the water line. Hi and the 3 other men at the battle station, and event of water beginning to come in was to shut their door Make sure water lines and valves and other parts of the ship or functioning. He said they knew that if they had to shut the door they weren't making an out alive. He said that during battle stations they would sit down there shut the door and read comic books
No. The angle that they are to each other means that two torpedoes would have to occupy the same space at the same time. I am told this is impossible. My guess is water and pressure tight storage for ready ammunition for the gun.
How about the hms campania a liner converted to aircraft carrier in ww1 should have been at Jutland but sumbody missed a signal? It lies near me off Burntisland stil there
01:04:31 If battleships were still relevant to sea dominance by time guided missile became primary ship-sinking weapon, it would simply result in rocket assisted torpedos being developed as both anti-submarine and anti-surface weapon.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Of course, and for a reason. Torpedo was the most feared weapon of sea at a time, not only because of its killing capacity, but also because it could be carried by pretty much any vessel, unlike large caliber guns that required entire battleship to carry.
32:19 - If you ask me - the Germans were unquestionably victorious at Jutland. Hipper mauled Beatty, while Scheer avoided destruction at the hands of Jellicoe. Many damaged German capital ships, but few sunk. Repair and hit them again... A plausible scenario that results with a greater German victory is a major, successful U-boat ambush that sinks a few British capital ships. The Germans actually tried and counted on this, but it failed.
A tactical victory to Germany, yes. It was however a strategic victory for Britain. The Grand fleet was ready to sail again in days, for the High Seas fleet it was months, and it never happened.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 10 out of 16 capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were in fighting condition after Jutland too. British losses were mostly permanent (sunk). German losses were mostly repairable (damaged). The battle itself was a German victory. Greater British ship-building capacity and the fact that the RN was larger anyway was a consequence of macroeconomic circumstances over the preceding centuries, not the battle itself. Otherwise every battle won by the side that ultimately lost the war could be labeled strategic victory for the ultimate victor.
Um, no. Drach’s scenario would have been a clear German victory, as it would have changed the actual balance of forces in a significant manner that could have affected the strategic plans of both sides. But that didn’t happen in real life. The result of the battle didn’t significantly impact the course of the naval war. The HSF achieved a minor tactical victory at the very best.
@@VersusARCH If the ships are repairable but you don't have the resources to repair them they are essentially the same a total loss - this is why the Germans didn't Sally out again. This is why the ww2 surface raiding efforts of the Germans where also limited - the economic value of the repairs is part of the consideration as to if its a strategic victory or not
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Why were casement guns kept in designs for so long? They knew with increased speed they were having trouble keeping them dry. Yet most navies kept designing them into their ships until the time of the North Carolinas.
If the german navy at jutland got reenforced by the modern german navy as it exists in 2021, would it have made a difference or are the modern friggates and corvettes not able to do anything there? And would the modern submarines be of any use in such a fleet action?
Alternate history question for you, what do you think would have happened if the USN would have gone through with their plan to reinforce the Maines at Wake Island?
A quad Bofors gun for AA on their subs might have worked. At least for close up work and it seems they'd be sufficient for anti merchant shipping duties.
As I understand it, the unusually "flat" turrets of the KGV's was a feature intended to improve effective protection at longer ranges: would it have been viable to build a turret with an inclined turret face to further maximise protection at medium to long range...? Would it be fair to say this would create a lot balancing issues and possibly cause a kind of shot trap that would make it more likely for shells to ricochet down into the armoured deck above the magazines...?
One quality of your responses that I think we all take for granted is how, well, responsive they are. So very on point, no tangents, no redundancies, no superfluity; just concise, well reasoned, rhetorically effective packets of information that answer our questions. It's rare, and I for one do notice and am very appreciative.
Hmmm... lindybeige
@@toothedacorn4724 Really? Lindy is the king of tangential digressions! But perhaps, if he did Q&A videos, he might be more concise.
@@toothedacorn4724 Lindybeige has a totally different approach to his videos, and can be shaky on the details, but I do enjoy them. I think of them as rambling dissertations that I may or may not agree with. In some ways the ones I disagree with are the best, because they cause me to go away and reassess my opinion. Sometimes I think "No Lindy, you're wrong on that", other times I think "Mm, interesting point...". I'm happy both channels exist.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 I was just saying lindy likes tangents, I like both channels
@@toothedacorn4724 Fair enough, we agree then :-)
I find it amazing that USS Texas, which, as you mention, was considered obsolete to be in the battle line in the 1920’s, still exists today as the last dreadnaught.
He has a nice standalone video on the Texas.
Obsolete here is not able to go up against an WW2 battleship.
She worked very well to protect convoys against cruisers and shore bombardment.
@Admiral Tiberius ...and that it's not landlocked. 😉
@@thomas316 You would be shocked at the number of inland museum ships.
@@timberwolf1575 Yup, for instance in Evansville Indiana there's one of the last remaining LST craft. It's a unique vessel to visit since it participated in the Normandy Landings. But, there were a number of inland shipyards that could filter ships down the river system to the Gulf of Mexico. Not battleships, but lots of the support craft with shallow drafts.
It also depends on the type of antiaircraft guns mounted on a sub. The quad 20 mm mounts on U Boats did a good job of sending enough metal downrange that attacking aircraft, if not shot down, were at least thrown off the accuracy of their bomb runs. As you say, once Coastal Command figured out the limitations of those mounts and changed their routes of attack, being attacked by three or more aircraft was almost always a death sentence for the sub, even if they shot down one or two of the attacking aircraft. In addition to bombs and depth charges strafing was a killer for surfaced subs. Since the AA guns had very little in the way of splinter protection, strafing would disable or kill many of the members of the gun crews, and they couldn't be replaced fast enough to drive off all the attackers. The idea of the Flak U Boat (U-flak) was only tested on four boats. While there was some limited success by the first two U-flaks (U-256 and U-441), they and the other two that were actually converted suffered heavy damage and lost 10-20 crew during the attacks by the RAF. Once the U-flaks were repaired, they were returned to service as normal VIIC boats when it was obvious that the idea was a failure.
The US experience in the Pacific was quite different. All the fleet boats had at least one 40 mm Bofors, and many had two. The most heavily armed boat I've been able to find was USS _Balao_ a boat whose captain seemed to delight in collecting guns. It had two 5"/25 guns, two 40 mm, at least two and sometimes three 20 mm cannon, four .50 Browning machine guns, and, although I don't know how many times this loadout was used, stanchion mounts for another four or five .30 Browning machine guns. In the case of the USN, this wasn't really in response to Japanese air attacks (although somewhere around 100 aircraft were shot down during the war) but to strafe Japanese armored barges that were resupplying stranded Japanese troops. Their draft was too shallow to sink with a torpedo, so subs often teamed up with PT boats to use their radars to locate and attack these barges. All the boats would use their smaller guns to keep Japanese gun crews away from their heavy armament until the sub could bring it's 5" guns to bear. It was the only weapon in the absence of a destroyer that could sink a barge, and most barges kept to shoal waters where the destroyer couldn't follow them. My dad served on a PT boat, and his boat was involved in these "combined operations". Being a much braver guy than me. he said it was the most fun he'd ever had during his service while he was still vertical. :-)
Sure that boat's captain wasn't green, big and tusky?
I'd love to see pictures of that sub. Do you know how they mounted the 5" guns?
The V class boats mounted two 6" guns, because light cruiser armament on a submarine because America.
AA equipped sub vs. one aircraft - advantage sub. AA equipped sub vs. two aircraft - even match. AA equipped sub vs. three or more aircraft - final dive for sub.
I've read that one of the reasons RAF Coastal Command developed the use of rockets against submarines was that they allowed the aircraft to attack from outside the range of light AA.
Loved the musical finale!
Mentions the repeated references to HMS Pinafore
Talks through part of a song from The Pirates of Penzance
We need to cut back on how much time you spend with Jingles...
Need more!
We demand more singing by Drach
I had the pleasure of interviewing a WW2 vet for a school project. He was a supply officer on some type of LST or other transport ship in 1944-45. I didn't talk to him about battles he was in, unfortunately. I think he was attacked by air a few times, but I didn't get into it. He actually spent most of the war organizing Harvard University to teach officers about supply management. After the war he was a base commander in Arizona (yes, a US navy base in Arizona - desert air and no rain means easy storage) before going back to Harvard as an admissions person. Mostly we talked about Operation Magic Carpet and bringing men home.
The mundane details of doing things well. Thanks for that recollection of someone who made a difference.
The largest naval base in the world is in the Mojave desert adjacent to Death Valley.
My father was a Ltjg aboard the U.S.S. Washington during it's shoot out at Guadalcanal. He was in the Fire Control Room that was in charge of 3 of the twin 5" gun-houses. (From what I understand what the USN calls a funhouse the RN calls a turret, and what the RN calls a gun-house the USN calls a turret!) He told me that they were very busy doing star-shells and looking for torpedo wakes (not knowing that the IJN had "wake-less" Long Lance torpedoes!) and so forth...
He did mention, however, that someone on the bridge or "Christ I'm Confused" (C.I.C. = Combat Information Center) was using the 1MC to let the whole ship know of some of the things that was happening "out there" like we just scored a direct hit on the IJN Haruna (actually it was one of her sister sips the IJN Kirishima!) and reported that the next broadside hit her and the IJN Haruna was severely damaged (radar shows her to be heavily damage (i.e. missing a lot of stuff above the waterline...) and we think she's sinking...
When he became an XO aboard a Large Slow Target (Landing Ship, Tank aka LST nickname) he did the same over his ships 1MC since he saw that it helped everyone's morale aboard the USS Washington! (He eventually became the CO of a LST and was scheduled to be in the first wave of Operation Olympic, the first invasion of the Japanese Home Islands!)
Thanks for sharing! That was a cool read. I love hearing these first hand accounts.
To add to the AA positioning discussion, in 1943/44 all USN fleets adopted use of hybrid AA/AS Cruising Dispositions 3-V (AA), 4-R (AA/AS), 4-N (AA/AS), 4-S (AS), 5-R (AA/AS), 5-V (AA), 5-LS (AS), 5-X (AA/AS), 5-XT (AS), 6-R (AA/AS), 6-S (AS). These are ringed dispositions with defensive bands of increasingly stronger AA fire around capital ships. The specific disposition will depend on availability of ship types in each task force or fleet and the number of screening vessels. 4-R, 5-R, and 6-R (Ready Dispositions) are the most common, as they have more flexibility to quickly transition into the other dispositions.
All bearings and ranges listed are relative to the formation's center or axis, or the ship serving as formation guide.
The various dispositions are similar with slight variations on stations for certain ships with specific tasks, but they are generally as follows.
Destroyer squadrons form the outermost ring and serve as pickets at 10,000 yards. In a smaller force, this range is 8,000 yards. If sufficient destroyers are present, they form a complete circle, otherwise they are oriented to the formation's course, or whichever direction an attack is most likely to develop from.
Cruisers are stationed around the optimal torpedo attack sectors around the center formation to present maximum duration and concentration of AA against torpedo bombers, which were considered the more serious threat. These are the sectors around the port and starboard bow, and port and starboard quarter (Bow Right Flank: Sector 040-060 degrees, Quarter Right Flank: 120-140 degrees, Quarter Left Flank: 220-240 degrees, Bow Left Flank: 300-320 degrees). Torpedo bombers and submarines prefer to attack from these 45 degree directions, as any evading ship trying to turn parallel into or away from the torpedoes will expose their beam and be broadside to torpedoes coming now at 90 degrees, the "hammer-and-anvil" attack, when performed from both sides. If sufficient cruisers are present, the quarter sectors will be formed as well, otherwise only the bow sectors or whichever direction an attack is most likely to develop from. Aircraft attempting a "hammer-and-anvil" attack will be subject to the highest concentration and longest duration of AA fire. Some dispositions just have the cruisers in a ring. Cruisers were expected to be well-positioned to deal with torpedo bombers, so dive bombers were left for capital ships to prioritize.
If sufficient destroyers are present, they form an additional AA/AS screen between the cruisers and battleships in case anything slips by the outer screens.
Capital ships stationed in the center by division, with 1,000 yards between ships and 3,000 yards between divisions, with carriers as centrally as possible if present. In a smaller force, this range is 600 yards and 1,000 yards, respectively. Some dispositions will place the battleships in the leading half of the circle, with carriers in the trailing half. If a train or other vessel is being escorted, they will be between the battleships and carriers. Cruisers were expected to be well-positioned to deal with torpedo bombers, so capital ships prioritized AA against dive bombers.
Note that some of the dispositions will simply scatter cruisers and battleships in a general circle around the carriers as well.
It is also mentioned that the cruiser doctrines
USF-20: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS - CRUISERS (1941)
USF-16: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS - BATTLESHIPS (1943)
CBP 13-44: COMMANDER BATTLESHIPS, PACIFIC FLEET OPERATIONS ORDER 13-44 (1944)
USF-10A/B: CURRENT TACTICAL ORDERS AND DOCTRINE (1945)
Holy cow! Somebody cloned Drac!
Can you provide a url that discusses and hopefully has diagrams of the various formations you reference???
@@barrylucas8679 Haha thanks! I have a huge wall of books mainly on the Pacific War, but Drac definitely knows a LOT more than I do. I couldn't tell you much about the European navies.
@@whiskeytangosierra6 Most of mine are physical copies, but here is a link to a partial digital set: www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/
I can't find a full PDF of USF-10A/B and CDP 13-44, but here is a partial summary with diagrams of the 4-series dispositions as example: www.admiraltytrilogy.com/read/USN_BB_CB_Tactical_Orders.pdf
Regarding Ballast, the returning liberty Ships from Bristol to New York used rubble from the Blitz as ballast. A lot of the East River coastline of Manhattan including the UN building is built on Bristol.
Also regarding ballast, there's currently a *big* fight between saltwater sailors and the governments of Ontario and the US states bordering the Great Lakes because it has been found that various invasive species, including zebra mussels, have been introduced into the Great Lakes by "salties" (oceangoing freighters) that discharge ballast water from the ocean into the Lakes, causing many ecological problems.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. To all my fellow servicemen of the coalition, thank you for your service- remember this day.
Aye aye, sir. 😎🇺🇲
hooah!
I was on Op Granby lol, but proud to have served with all Nations out there
I had a boring job in it, but the Desert Shield buildup was awesome, and I am proud to have contributed
I have caught up! I have watched or listened to every single Drydock! And am even rewarded with some lyrics. Thank you for your great work Drachinifel.
Congratulations, Se No. It IS a bit like climbing Everest, especially when you encounter one of those five hour monsters (Drach's equivalent of the Abominable Snowman).
Now you can start on the livestreams!
“The Best Years of Our Lives” addressed the disconnect that some sailors had from the fighting that their ships experienced. Homer, the character who had lost both of his hands, was assumed to have seen fighting. He said something like “My job was down in the machine shop. We were in lots of battles, but I never saw a Japanese.”
My grandfather was a pharmacist mate on the USS Makin Island during WWII. His battle station was on the the bridge next to the admiral's chair. He was to provide the admiral with first aid in the event he was injured during battle. This was his battle station whether or not the admiral was on the bridge at the time. One of his favorite stories to tell was the time he fell asleep in the admiral's chair after being at battle stations for a few hours without the admiral present only to be woken up by the admiral. The admiral would usually only be present on the bridge if there was a good chance the ship was about to go into action. Battle stations were called every day at dawn and dusk and the admiral was usually not there for these times.
Drach, talking about V2 production and beauricatic mess.....
Shows picture of V1
The trolling at this level is legendary.
Delta-V :)
Aggregat 4
And British Beauricrats decided that V2 would be too heavily to lift off.
The thought they were dealing with naval shells.
Hey Drach .. regarding the Modern Major General. He is actually from the Pirates of Penzance. The admin oaf from Pinafore was The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, First Lord of the Admiralty modeled on the actual First Lord W. H Smith
Thx...........
now im humming stuff... :)
Re: the question about anti-aircraft guns on submarines. The answer brings up the sometimes surprising point that that *vast* majority of munitions fired in any war comes under the heading of "harassing fire" for the simple, yet effective, point of keeping your enemy from firing effectively back at you.
I wish that Drach wouldn't mention the German cruiser sunk during the Norwegian campaign by name: it drives my horses in the corral crazy every time that they hear it.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
My favorite quote from this episode: "15 inch shells that kill fish don't affect battles that much." Thanks, great episode - including the musical finale!🎤👍
19:10 I think you could have worded this more carefully. Oftentimes the air attacks against Uboats are made out to almost seem like it was a onesided affair. And obviously it was when the boats didn't fight back, but when they did it was actually a pretty dangerous affair. The guys over at uboat.net have compiled the most clear instances (as there were a lot of mutually destructive fights), and they came out with a tally of 117 planes shot down by 97 boats for the loss of 31. It should be noted that this only accounts for known fights where the planes were shot down, there were obviously more sinkings where the boat tried to fight back but didn't cause appreciable damage.
Coastal Command alone sank about 220 boats (the Royal Navy air forces and the Americans obviously sank some too).
Anyway, aircraft were dangerous, and cheaper, but it wasn't anywhere near a safe attack. The Fight Back order from May 1943 resulted in 26 boats sunk and 28 planes lost. A clear victory for the planes, but certainly not something I would like to go into as part of an aircraft crew.
Or swan around out of range till it was ready to dive and then go in.
Meanwhile ships are on their way and your batteries are limited.
It was good of Spain to maintain radio location lines for the u-boats. Whether they expected aircraft to fly up and down them is unknown, but surely the fascist leader there was not thinking so far ahead. The future when he could get British tourists as well as German.
@@myparceltape1169 Indeed. That was the practice they started employing with the U-Flaks. A sunk boat is a sunk boat, doesn't matter who does it.
Bravo, sir! Magnificent! Thou art the very model of a modern major general!
Thank Uncle Drach, you put a big smile on my face! I am not permitted to sing at home unless I'm alone.
Oh! He was singing.
@@barrylucas8679 , he gives us more than we deserve, as per usual.
Re: The sinking of the Blücher. A number of German dissidents had gotten refuge in Norway and the Gestapo detachment with the arrest lists was on the Blücher. Her loss delayed their persecution and not doubt saved some of them. One of them later became the 4th chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
One note. The British also had 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron (Invincible, Inflexible, Indomitable) with which to fill out the Battle Cruiser Fleet's numbers post-Jutland. Granted these are older ships with only 12" guns and cruiser armor, but that squadron plus New Zealand and Princess Toyal/Queen Mary still matches First Scouting Group for numbers. With the addition of Renown and Repulse, the British might even be willing to fight another battle cruiser engagement.
Who knew you'd have such a lovely speak-singing voice, Drach. Bravo!
If you see this Drach, for the Anti-Ship missile question I would have explicitly called out the P-15 Termit/SS-N-2 Styx line of anti-ship missiles. You used a photo of one, and while (high) subsonic that thing weighs 2,580kg and has a 454kg HEDP shaped charge warhead *specifically* designed to completely penetrate whatever belt or turret face armor they may run into. And for good measure it was mounted behind the (very large) fuel tanks, to ensure that ignites and is shot into the hole in the armor.
After all, in the 50s when it was developed, there were quite a lot of WW2 era heavy armor capships still around. The combined huge shaped charge and spray of ignited fuel must have been quite spectacular. Three of them hit the Ex-HMS Zealous INS Eliat, and broke her apart to such effect she sunk in under 2 minutes, with almost all crew dead or injured.
For what it's worth, Drach; your singing is much better than my could ever be.
If I try to sing: glass scatters, food curdles, animals stampede, and people go sterile...😱
When Drach launched into song one line from Babylon 5 came directly to mind, " That your honour was when I shot him".
About merchant ships carrying building materials as ballast, a cousin of mine in Edinburgh found out about this in an interesting way. When he and his wife moved out of thier house, they decided to do a repair on their tile roof. However, the house was listed (dunno what grade) and the roof tiles were sourced from the Netherlands in the 17th century when they had been carried over as ballast. He was only able to find suitable tiles to repair the roof by buying tiles salvaged from a wrecked merchant ship at a steep price.
Re: Forced Labor & Concentration Camp Labor, when Israel was arming itself for it's first war. They did tests & quality control inspections and found out that the vast majority of firearms made after mid-1944 had all their sights misaligned! Namely your rifles wouldn't hit accurately past 200 or so yards, and at shorter ranges would likely wound .vs. kill and other issues... MPs & MGs would have to burst on to target limiting surprise and giving away the shooters position faster, etc.
In regards to ballast on a warship. I did all the piping runs for the DDG-51 Fuel tanks. The system we used was all the tanks were fuel/ballast, except potable water tanks. What I mean to say was as the fuel was used the tanks were filled with Seawater. Using the difference between spec. gravity of the to liquid to keep them separate. This was an on going operation, the tanks were never to be empty. There were oil/water separator's to clean the fuel before using. In this way the ship was always ballasted
In "Armageddon", chapter 4, Hastings says
"Good commanding officers broadcast frequently, telling their crews everything they knew about what the ship and the fleet were doing. This was especially important in action, to hundreds of men imprisoned in steel compartments far belowdecks. For their very sanity, they needed to know what a huge, unseen detonation meant; whether their team seemed to be winning; sometimes, whether damage to their own ship was as grievous as concussions, screams, smoke pulsing through ventilators made it seem."
Excited to watch the build!
In regards to your "Sailor's Dislocation" answer at 1:08, I have a similar first hand account to match. My Grand-Uncle was in the battle of Jutland aboard the Hercules and he said that the whole battle for him as a turret gunner was not that big a deal since he never did fire his secondary gun turret during the battle and it was to him just like a fleet exercise where to him not much happened. It probably would of been different if he was stationed on, say, the Warspite, but to him it wasn't much of a big deal.
Okay you got me :O) I don't subscribe to many channels for productivity reasons. But your obvious effort to make valuable content is worth a good watch and/or listen. Just want to say you have another fan. I'm subscribing, hitting the bell and promise to always press the like thumb!!
Another note about quad or larger turrets is that 4 guns in 1 turret is a large loss of firepower if for some reason theres damage, malfunction etc. 4+ guns in 1 turret also creates a dispersion problem to solve and the design of the turret, barbette and surrounding parts of the vessel need to be done so in a way that the shock of 4 guns firing in close proximity doesnt do more damage to the firing vessel than the target.
On ballast, One of the reasons that a lot of the sea ports on the East Coast have red pan tiles on building roofs is because ships returning from the ‘The Low Countries’ used the tiles as ballast.
Just wanted to wade in a bit with the missile question. The range of weights for these missiles has to be seen to be believed. For example the Sea Skua was pretty small with a total weight of just 145kg. The warhead contains several materials but the explosive part is a mere 9kg of RDX. The rest is copper etc for directing blast as it has a shaped charge. It most likely could punch through armour on a WWII battleship but the hole would be about the size of a pea. That is absolutely diddly to a 50,000 tonne ship. You would probably need 1000 or so to give the Yamato a headache. At the other end you have the "Shaddock" which has a roughly 1 tonne warhead with possibly 400kg being explosives and the rest being penetrating cap and fragmenting casing. If one of those was set to sea skim it would most likely punch a 60cm hole half way through the Yamato and the 1kg roughly fragments would make a hell of a mess of any machinery they hit. Missiles like Harpoon do things in a different way and are designed to take out superstructures. Specifically they sea skim to about 2000 meters from the target then climb hard and do a plunging almost vertical dive. The warhead is 220kg roughly and it's designed to be volley fired in 3 to 6 missiles. The Yamato would still easily be afloat but I doubt there would be any command and control after being hit by 6.
In Price's book 'aircraft vs submarine', in 1943 submarines crossing the Bay of Biscay had some submarines were altered with reinforced conning towers and anti aircraft guns. The outcome, British airmen were not detered and even when the submarines were not sunk they were heavily damaged and unable to submerge requiring extensive repair. Submarines had their AA guns removed as they failed to protect. This book is an excellent read.
A lot of modern warships, in addition to the various forms of liquid variable ballast mentioned, make significant use of fixed ballast, usually in the form of lead or concrete.
My Dad (CAPT USN) spent his whole career in destroyere, starting in 1941. He once mentioned that his current ship (sorry, not sure which, but probably Bordelon DD(R)881) was ballasted with tons and tons of pig iron bars. Wish he was still around, I could ask him how much.
I know the Dutch East India company required ships returning from Asia to carry ballast that would net at least 100% gross profit. They turned to using Japanese copper as ballast for a while to meet this requirement.
Re: ASCM vs. Pre-dreadnought/Dreadnought: The Kamikaze was essentially the Anti-Ship Cruise Missile, Block Zero, so a starting point of analysis would be November 1944 - June 1945, where 11 battleships were struck a total of 18 times. These ships covered almost the entire range of US battleships in service, from USS New York to USS Missouri.
In ww2 during evacuation of Philippines. There was a sub which took precious metals on as ballast to keep away from Japan.
At about 17 minutes: per The U Boat Net; 116 aircraft were shotdown by 97 individual U-boats for the loss of 31 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk. In total 249 U-boats were sunk by aircraft alone (including carrier-based aircraft) and 37 more were sunk by aircraft and ships together so the odds are pretty grim for a U boat, 286 of them to 97 aircraft. Furthermore this doesn’t count U Boats damaged or forced to submerge.
In ‘The Shattered Sword’ the authors state that IJN relied on maneuver, and the carriers AA whil(st)e keeping their DDs farther away as a warning screen. The Japanese DDs had no early warning radar and weak AA anyway. The USN with more AA kept the screen closer which limited maneuvering. Before the advent of the (British invented)VT fuze, better fire control and massive AA increases the two tactics were roughly equal but as the war continued AA became dramatically more effective. So the USN tactics prevailed.
00:41:56 The way you described their mindset sounds eerily similar to the way the current economy works...
Pro Tipp: When you build the Cobi Warspite, have an exacto knife or better a thin not so briddle blade ready, or be very concentrated and putt all slopes into the right place. Mine is georgous and a very good Melee Weapon. Cobi Bricks are way more harder to seperate, then normal lego but they wear more out.
He said "massive death bubble" 11.04. I wonder if the Kamikazi pilots thought "I see you massive death bubble, I'm not afraid of you".
On a more serious note, my father was on his landing craft (LCM crew member off Juno) when the fleet opened fire at targets on the french coast on D-Day. He remembered the sight and sound of it being "absolutely terrifying". He said the whole horizon looked to be on fire, with the sound of the shells going overhead like banshees (apparently a banshee sounds like a large artillery shell) So someone 'stuck down below' with nothing to see and only muffled bangs to hear, might actually be considered fortunate.
On an LCM there is nowhere to go for the crew to get under cover as such, other than a very small engine compartment. It's no wonder men could go mad from shell shock in wartime, even if they weren't being shot at themselves.
Better than a fresh deck of cards to a prestadigitarion!
Awesome. I have a Cobi Warspite being shipped to my home as well.
Thank you
Hey Drachinifel! I've been told the old jokes of how I have: 1) a Kind singing voice. The Kind that the Geneva Convention Banned! 2) a Locked singing voice. I'm always searching for the key!
AA guns on subs could still be useful against really small targets. A 40mm bofors on a US fleet boat would make quick work of Japanese barges, sampans, and trawlers.
Admiral Lockwood, commander of subs in the pacific fleet was opposed to significant anti-aircraft armament. Admiral King wanted more heavy armament, ala the Germans, but Lockwood felt that a quick dive was better than shooting it out. He was, though, in favor of a better deck gun for dealing with those smaller boats.
anti ship missiles as I understand, are generally built to pop up at the last moment and hit the deck armor instead of the side armor, so theoretically it'd be at a minimum like taking a battleship shell to the deck
History Channel went over this question “Sailors disconnection from the battles their ships fought?” Battle 360 USS Enterprise What’s the part about the guy saying to the rest of people with him anybody want an olive? Look up that episode it I think it does a fairly good job at entering this.
Very true, and that episode captures it correctly. I'm a vet, people act strange under curtain conditions...joker's like that guy with his olives hold it all together. Gallows humor is a thing.
Bravo!!!
And now, something completely different!!!
The Cobi builds are great. Starting to run out of room though😅. Next release is Prinz Eugen followed by HMS Belfast later this year
You missed your Jimmy Carr moment. You could have said, “so you can take something else big and heavy on your return voyage, like your mom.”
45:48 - Did anyone else hear startled horse-neighing at the mention of the Blucher? Just me? OK.
The sailor in charge of Damage Control on the USS Archer-Fish went to his bunk and went to sleep when the Shinano was sighted. His bunk was relatively central to the sub, and he knew that he would be easily found there if he was needed. He slept through the entire encounter and sinking of the Shinano.
inre: antiship missiles- when USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles, the missile that detonated blew a 10x15 ft hole in the ship. It was said at the time that if it had struck an Iowa-class, it would have done little more than damage the paint.
Remember that the Iowa class has an interior armor belt behind about 1.5" of STS. I suspect an Exocet or similar sea skimming missile would do bupkes to the belt, but would blow a similar hole in that exterior shell.
One thing that also really deteriorated during the interwar period for the British was the availability of draughtsmen to actually draw the plans and blueprints. This affected the development of both ships and weapons.
Why?
@@wierdalien1 why what?
@@cwjian90 why was there a lack of draughtmens. . . Never mind.
@@wierdalien1 Bad economy during the Great Depression, not much naval construction so they all moved on to greener pastures. Was actually a big factor in the KGV's turret design problems.
@@cwjian90 i had worked that out. Plus I cant imagine the war did them any good
12:35 but thats because Scheer tried to disengage immediately and barely any of the HSF tried to fire at the Grand Fleet. Stick Baden and Bayern in there and Scheer might be more willing to confront the British instead.
He didn't 'try.' He implemented an immediate battle turn away after his T had been crossed and his ships were being hammered.
Neither Baden nor Bayern were operational at the time. Moreover, adding two ships was hardly likely to tip the balance.
"How does the Germans win the battle of Jutland?"
Drach: "Well if Hipper and Scheer blow up Beaty, his legacy and sink the precious ships he was in charge of"
Extending on the modern major general: On the civilian/political side there was W. H. Smith, also immortalised by Gilbert and Sullivan ("When I was a lad", Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore).
A fun fact is that a lot of the older roads in savanna Georgia are made of ballast stones from ships that didn’t need them
I love my new job weekends off 👍 coffee and naval history by Uncle Drach.
Am I the only one who'd noticed the Fairy to the left of the photo waving her magic wand at Blucher ? No doubt thinking to herself " That'll teach them for not clapping and letting my friend Tinkerbell buy the farm ! "
What if the Brits had Greenboys at Jutland? We'd still have the grand lady herself, HMS Warspite, sending out 15" rebukes for being forced to endure the hardships of war...
And all is still well.
Even worse than going aground or capsizing, the ship might wind up becoming disagreeable
I remember hearing that during Bismarks fight with hood the officers where narrating what was happening over the intercom to the crew. I believe I heard this from a documentary saying that one of the bismark survivors mentioned it, so it might not be accurate, but if true that seems like the extreme in the crew knowing what was happening in a fight.
Well if the High Seas fleet did pull off the unquestioned victory described that opens up a whole can of butterflies as without the same amount of badly damaged ships there's a possibility of some of the not historically finished ships being finished because the dock space isn't tied up so bad with repairs.
Some Mackensens or more than the 2 Bayerns would definitely make any post Jutland small battles interesting. Also if Lutzow doesn't go down actually having 3 Derrflingers creates them by itself.
1:05:13 - Kamchatka shivers in fear
Ahh Drach. Your the greatest ^^
*you're
In regards to modern missiles, the larger, extremely-high-speed (supersonic and even low hypersonic) anti-aircraft missiles -- US TALOS (beam-rider with, later, terminal homing added), TERRIER (improved homing versions) and TARTAR (always homing), SM-1 (TERRIER and TARTAR replacements), SM-2 (SM-1 ditto), Aegis (SM-2 variant), and the latest Aegis SM-6 (fully-active improved SM-2) (SM-3 is primarily an anti-ballistic-missile variant) -- have rather small warheads by cruise missile standards, but their very high speed and 18"-battleship-shell size and weight gives them rather a high penetration capability, even though they do not have the thick hardened bodies of AP shells. Against no armor or lighter armor they can literally tear entirely through a warship LENGTHWISE (I have seen tests where this happens) so even an armored ship will have problems with such large missiles (shatter on impact does reduce penetration at under-45-degree angles from normal, but the extreme velocity of these weapons more than makes up for this reduction, while at higher impact angles, shatter actually can IMPROVE penetration by suppressing any ricochet tendencies that intact missiles might feel). All-in-all, the anti-ship modes of these AA missiles are quite lethal to smaller ships and even large, heavily-armored warships may suffer greatly from such hits. "Quantity (extreme speed and large size), has a quality all its own."
Read once that the problem is not just being sunk, but suffering a 'mission kill' by knocking out gun directors, radar and communications, and bridge.
@@mikemullen5563 A missile hit will do EVERYTHING to a ship as the missile, which, other than its engine volume at the rear, is made of rather thin material stressed to resist forces down its centerline, but not sideways forces, is torn apart as it rips through its target, plus the initial blast from its warhead on impact located just behind the homing nose electronics and antenna. The warhead blast would destroy anything nearby that is unprotected by heavy steel bulkheads or armor and the forward velocity would punch through a LOT of material, including armor, even if the the missile body is crushed in the process. It would be like a giant shotgun blasting the area at point blank on top of a hand grenade going off in the center of that blast, but much larger. The momentum of such a super-high-velocity, compared to a regular gun projectile, missile would split armor open and physically punch the plate hit backwards, tearing out its supports, rivets, and bolts. The impact shock effects to the ship structure would be worse when hitting rigid armor than if it just hit thin material and tore it open, continuing on until it exited the other side of the ship. Note that in the later missiles, they have special surface modes that use a steep downward trajectory so that if they keep going, they will punch a hole through the bottom of the ship, on top of the damage done on the way there. These missiles, though much shorter range than most specialized anti-ship cruise missiles, are bad news squared if you are close enough to be hit by them.
@@nathanokun8801 Not saying it can't be sunk, just that it doesn't have to sink it. If you destroy it's fighting capability, it's just a liability for the owner --you have to protect her and her crew, while it can't attack anything not at point=blank range.
Same goes for a modern torpedo. You don't have to defeat the armor belt, just hit the props and rudders.
@@mikemullen5563 Modern anti-ship (as opposed to small anti-submarine) torpedoes do not "just hit the props and rudders". Anti-ship torpedoes of current types BLOW SHIPS IN HALF, even WWII heavy cruisers used as targets. You do not realize the power of most of these modern major weapons. There are some smaller anti-ship missiles, but the first Soviet one, the STYX, was designed TO SINK AIRCRAFT CARRIERS with a one-ton semi-shaped-charge warhead. It had poor guidance, but when first used against some Israeli warships who were not expecting it, it worked perfectly. HARPOONS and TOMAHAWKS are not armor-piercing per se, but they do have large warheads that can ruin and, especially in the latter, sink a ship with a single hit, depending on how big the ship is and where it is hit. While you are correct that cruise missiles, torpedoes, and AA missiles in surface mode don't have to sink the ship to put it put out of action, unless you are a very large ship, even a single hit CAN sink you.
@@nathanokun8801 I don't think we are in disagreement. In short, I was saying that a lot of the smaller weapons we have can deliver a mission kill without having to sink the target; that is, the BBs are much more vulnerable than you would expect with all that armor. Obviously, we can sink it, but we don't need to, and it may be better to force the opponents to guard the cripple.
NYC Streets used Belgian Blocks for street pavers for years
Always remember "Cleanliness before Battle readiness."
related to chipping away 10years of paint and removing the luxury fittings from cruisers especially. Even the official USN historian of WWII points to ship's death by fire caused by trying to keep them 'Parade' ready instead of battle ready.
Clean underwear won't take so much bacteria into your body when the cannonball hits.
What's the phrase, "No combat ready unit ever passed inspection. No inspection ready unit ever passed combat"?
About fleet antisircraft use: it is tactics that are being discussed, not strategy.
Hi
If you already haven't, could you dedicate a post to the financial costs of running the ships over the years.
What does it cost to run a battle ship for a month ?
Keep up the good work.
Thanks.
drach can you talk about the benefits/drawbacks of port holes in ships under fire, it seems a tad daft to have holes in the ships, thanks man
@Drachinifel. Ever thought on doing a co-op with Ryan from the Battleship New Jersey channel and later a video battleship tour on USS New Jersey?
Could Tiger have been refitted much like Renown and given 14 inch guns like the KGV class?
for purifing fuel from solids and water all modern diesel commercial vessels have a number of
vertical disc stack centrifugal separators to pass through the fuel before feeding it to the main diesel engines , and as far i know they have deticated balast tanks seperate from the fuel tanks , sea water tends to decreasing expencive machinery's life time
Ah my Sunday dose of culture
Dang..at exactly 1:07:52.. the audio on my t.v. went off.. what did I miss?
Where did you get that render of a refit Hood?
Drydock time! Drach becoming an institution :)
Beats the Sundsy Morning shows and Football Pre game.
Indeed, it seems like it should be preceded by the BBC Shipping Forecast. 🤔
30:14 two gun turrets seem to have a better chance to absorb damage.
re the 6:6:4 question: the point of the treaty was to STOP the building programmes; adding wiggle room to allow continued building basically derails the treaty.
Yes and no, stopping building was not the issue it was to prevent a continued arms race that would have ruined one of the powers eventually - that ruination would cause destabilisation
@@bengrogan9710 OK, good point. But allowing continued building would have led to a degree of escalation as everyone tried to see what they could get away with. It was bad enough with what was permitted. The battleship holiday was probably the biggest "win" out of the treaty - if you didn't have that, then people might wonder what the point really was.
Fun, thought provoking and informative as always...I know you have questions to answer already for the rest of the decade, but would you consider taking on battlefleet gothic? Games Workshop, bless them, have a tendency to over, over, over complicate rules for their games, (I'm looking at you warhammer 40k). With your knowledge of naval tactics and love of table top war I bet you could streamline and simplify the heck out of this old game. I'm afraid WH40K is a lost cause. Love the channel.
Didn't the mk 14 mess up cause a lot of people to not die?
Victory!
YES, singing Drach. Achievement Unlocked
Drach at 52 min Speaking of battle stations being away from the actual battle come on I met a US navy sailor who served on the langley during world war 2. His battle station was 3 decks below the water line. Hi and the 3 other men at the battle station, and event of water beginning to come in was to shut their door Make sure water lines and valves and other parts of the ship or functioning. He said they knew that if they had to shut the door they weren't making an out alive. He said that during battle stations they would sit down there shut the door and read comic books
17:40 are those two torpedo tubes poking out under the gun platform?
No. The angle that they are to each other means that two torpedoes would have to occupy the same space at the same time. I am told this is impossible.
My guess is water and pressure tight storage for ready ammunition for the gun.
Nope
No, most likely emergency boats.
Cylindrical shape for simple pressure resistance
32:24 easy, fight a night engagement and the HSF crushs the Grand Fleet outright
Nonsense. What arguments do you think you have in support of this claim?
How about the hms campania a liner converted to aircraft carrier in ww1 should have been at Jutland but sumbody missed a signal? It lies near me off Burntisland stil there
01:04:31 If battleships were still relevant to sea dominance by time guided missile became primary ship-sinking weapon, it would simply result in rocket assisted torpedos being developed as both anti-submarine and anti-surface weapon.
Except they were designed with torpedo protection too.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Of course, and for a reason. Torpedo was the most feared weapon of sea at a time, not only because of its killing capacity, but also because it could be carried by pretty much any vessel, unlike large caliber guns that required entire battleship to carry.
32:19 - If you ask me - the Germans were unquestionably victorious at Jutland. Hipper mauled Beatty, while Scheer avoided destruction at the hands of Jellicoe. Many damaged German capital ships, but few sunk. Repair and hit them again...
A plausible scenario that results with a greater German victory is a major, successful U-boat ambush that sinks a few British capital ships. The Germans actually tried and counted on this, but it failed.
A tactical victory to Germany, yes. It was however a strategic victory for Britain. The Grand fleet was ready to sail again in days, for the High Seas fleet it was months, and it never happened.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 10 out of 16 capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were in fighting condition after Jutland too. British losses were mostly permanent (sunk). German losses were mostly repairable (damaged). The battle itself was a German victory. Greater British ship-building capacity and the fact that the RN was larger anyway was a consequence of macroeconomic circumstances over the preceding centuries, not the battle itself. Otherwise every battle won by the side that ultimately lost the war could be labeled strategic victory for the ultimate victor.
@UNSCForwardontodawn Exchanging 1 capital ship to Britain's 3 Pyhrric? With 4 more Jutlands Germany would have arguably achieved fleet pairity...
Um, no. Drach’s scenario would have been a clear German victory, as it would have changed the actual balance of forces in a significant manner that could have affected the strategic plans of both sides. But that didn’t happen in real life. The result of the battle didn’t significantly impact the course of the naval war. The HSF achieved a minor tactical victory at the very best.
@@VersusARCH If the ships are repairable but you don't have the resources to repair them they are essentially the same a total loss - this is why the Germans didn't Sally out again.
This is why the ww2 surface raiding efforts of the Germans where also limited - the economic value of the repairs is part of the consideration as to if its a strategic victory or not
54:00 what the the guy in the back doing? posing to the camera :)
Any chance you can make a video that reviews each ship in your intro?