My grandad served on HMS Nelson during WW2, I have a number of photographs of him during this time and love looking at them. He was a gunner on the Pom-Pom guns.
"Those measures of displacement are unfair because they do not account for the special burden of having the world's largest empire on which the sun never sets." God bless the British diplomats who sold that, just brilliant!
Today, battleship displacement is measured in museum curator body sacks😂 ok, ok, may be, because americans measure still everything in body parts the brits invented.😮
Absolutely fantastic video! My Grandad served on HMS Nelson. I'm the youngest of 3 brothers, my oldest brother being born in 1969 and my 2nd oldest being born in 1971 and I was born in 1986, so they both got told more about Grandad's service on the Nelson that I did, my Grandad passed away in 1994 when I was 8 so I sadly was too young to truly understand much of what happened. Funnily enough, Grandad was briefly transferred to the Hood because a fellow sailor was wanting to go back to the UK which the Nelson was going to at the time due to their wife giving birth, Grandad offered to swap with him and so he served on Hood very briefly, transferring back to the Nelson literally weeks before the Hood was sunk. From what I've been told Grandad shared a good number of stories with my older brothers about where Nelson (Nelly as he used to call her) went and what he saw, really wish I got the chance to properly ask him myself. My brother has an amazing photo that Grandad took I believe on his wall and I often look at it fondly.
Hehehe! On my ASW Frigate in the early 1980s, an ET buddy kept a wheel of hard cheddar, a couple boxes of crackers and a bottle of Canadian Mist hidden in the AC ductwork in the Radar Equipment Room. We'd snack on them.
Standard displacement actually excluded reserve feed water for the boilers, not water in general. Water in the side protection system should have been counted.
Regarding the shock of firing the main battery; Many years ago I worked with someone who had served aboard Rodney, and I clearly recall him saying (and I quote) "What no-one tells you is that when they fire them guns, all the lights go out".
Faerie, I r remember reading in Sir Ludovic Kennedy's book, PURSUIT, which was about the sinking of the Bismarck, that the blast from Rodney's own guns cracked portholes and shattered light bulbs during the Bismarck's last fight.
I recall when we fired a broadside we often blew off dogged down doors on the bridge or the flag bridge. The ship would slip about 10 feet. I would love to have seen the HMS Nelson fire a broadside. USS Newport News CA-148 my service on cruisers 1968-72
AdamosDad, I was told by a veteran who served aboard the U.S.S. MISSOURI that when they fired a nine gun broadside that the entire ship would heel over and be blown slightly off course. From the numerous videos of the MISSOURI firing her guns, and the blast effect on the water near the ship, I can see how this could be true.
Yeah, that's what I've read as well. During the battle with Bismarck, they basically destroyed all the lightbulbs and all the plumbing fittings in the front half of the ship. Honestly, these ships were garbage. They couldn't sit on station for bombardment because they rendered huge portions of the ship basically unlivable just by firing their own guns. One firing session and they're done, and have to go back to port for repairs. As a practical weapon of war, they're probably the worst of the treaty battleships.
@@WardenWolf Actually, it was a little more complicated than that. From what Cecil (for that was his name) told me, they had to have someone with a number of light bulbs near all the essential lights, ready to replace bulbs between salvos. God alone knows how many light bulbs they must have had to keep in the stores !
And obviously the Warspite must also be included on this list, mainly because it spent it's whole life ramming things and the whole Last Stand against the Scrappies was also a thing...
I know many might disagree, but I think this is the best looking battleship. The bridge right at the back gives it a fast, sleek look. The slab sided superstructure looks brutal yet at the same time elegant.
You do it every time man!!!! 'Nelson made it her duty to run into every underwater threat imaginable...' I get the feeling our battleships were as mental as their crews, and a comedy series about them should definitely be in the works!!! Doesn't beat Warspite going sideways drifting through the Strait of Messina, I must say.🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of my favorite aspects of the Nelson-class’s 16” guns is how they affected what came after them. (Also, love the video, and can’t wait for you to cover good old Rod-ol!) Supposedly, the Royal Navy was so unhappy with the Nelsons’ 16-inch guns that they reverted back to a very conservative gun design for the King George Vs. However, in their haste to backtrack from their mistakes with the Nelsons, they went too far the *other* way. Rather than reuse the tried-and-true 15-inch guns used on the Hood and Queen Elizabeths, the British developed a new 14-inch gun that, though it was more accurate and had a longer barrel life, just didn’t have the same oomph as the 16” guns. The fact that King George Vs' guns had far *more* technical problems than the Nelsons' just added to the silliness of the whole situation. The British were at least somewhat aware of their issues with firepower before the war, and they tried to solve them by getting other nations to agree to limit themselves to a similar gun size. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t work: The rise of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan had changed the diplomatic situation that the earlier naval arms treaties were born from. France was engaged in a naval arms race with Italy, the Germans were making noise with their naval rearmament, and Japan would refuse to renew the naval treaties in 1936 following its wars of conquest in China and withdrawal from the League of Nations. In this climate where their most likely enemies weren’t respecting naval treaties, the United States and France weren’t interested in lowering their battleships’ firepower to satisfy Britain’s insecurity. Besides, the Americans had a 16-incher and the French a 15-incher that they were very happy with. If the Brits couldn’t get their big caliber guns to work, that was their problem. Years later, the final battle against Bismarck showed very clearly the power discrepancy between the guns of Britain’s newest battleships and the much-disparaged Nelsons. While King George V’s 14-inchers were largely “meh” against Bismarck’s armor, the old, lumbering Rod-ol’s 16-inchers completely took the German battlewagon to school. In less than 15 minutes of fighting Rodney took out half of Bismarck’s main battery and crippled the remainder, and within another half hour she completely silenced the German ship. That done, Rodney proceeded to trash pretty much everything above Bismarck’s main armor belt. It was such a one-sided ass-kicking that Bismarck’s main guns never landed a single hit during the fight. And throughout it all, King George V, the flagship of the Home Fleet, was essentially relegated to an ineffectual supporting role as Rodney curb stomped the pride of the Kriegsmarine into a watery grave. Afterwards, the public credit and honor for the victory went to every ship but Rodney (and the unlucky and underappreciated Prince of Wales): King George V, Ark Royal, the destroyer Cossack, and even Victorious all got the spotlight while Rodney was largely ignored. Iain Ballantyne, author of the excellent “Killing the Bismarck”, says that this was likely “a matter of not wanting to be reminded that it had taken the guns of a ship built in the 1920s to take Bismarck apart while the Home Fleet flagship’s 14-inch weapons were less effective” (p. 206).* The British would eventually get the 14-inch guns’ issues fixed and the King George Vs were still dangerous battleships (plus they had many other advantages over the Nelsons, like speed). All the same, it’s a bit amusing that the British seemed to give up on innovating with their guns and went back to the good old 15-inchers for their next battleship class. *The marginalization of Rodney and Prince of Wales wasn’t because King George V’s commanders were glory-hogs or anything. Following Bismarck’s sinking, Admiral Tovey received a call on board King George V from First Sea Lord Dudley Pound telling him that the Prince of Wales’ Captain Leach and Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker were to be court-martialed for withdrawing while engaging the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at Denmarck Strait. “Admiral Tovey was angered by this suggesting, considering Captain Leach, in charge of a new ship with severe teething problems, had done as well as could be expected. Despite serious hits Prince of Wales had, in fact, continued to shadow Bismarck. Had he been foolish enough to engage Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at close quarters, Captain Leach could have easily thrown the lives of his own sailors away on top of the dreadful loss of Hood’s. Admiral Tovey told his boss: ‘If the Admiralty is going to do that, then I will resign and act as Prisoner’s Friend, because I consider he did absolutely the right thing.’” (Ballantyne, p. 206) Thus, instead of a court martial, Leach and Wake-Walker received medals. ( *EDIT:* It's worth noting that Rodney was in desperate need of a refit at the time of the battle, so she wasn't even operating at 100% when she wrecked Bismarck. She was definitely the badass grandma of the British fleet, even with contenders like Warspite.)
Back when I watched documentaries on the matter, I was under the impression that the sinking of the Bismark was more akin to taking down a raid boss, with the British showering the Bismark with shells of every calibre in an attempt to take him down. After reading more on the matter, Now I think the event was more like am extremely brutal demolition, with good ol'Rodnol single-handedly pounding the Bismark into a blazing sinking scrap heap, whilst all the other ships kicked Bismark while he was down as revenge for the Hood. I guess the marginalization of Rodney may have something to do the tones of those documentaries I watched.
With all of the problems he faced both during and after the engagement Captain Leach did a remarkable job with POW never really getting the recognition he deserved. It was, after all, as a result of his hits on the Bismark that forced her to steer for France and along with Ark Royal's air strike, put her in striking distance of the RN. That and the loss of the Hood may well have given the British that extra motivation to go after her so vengefully.
@@pr9383 yeah most ships of the era had this measure. I believe one of the Iowa’s had one of there’s fail at one point which caused a 16 inch gun to obliterate one of the 5 inch gun turrets.
Love the Nelson Class - unique, beautiful and immensely powerful. They were also the only British battleship/battlecruiser class in WWII to not have a ship sunk.
The Iowa class BBs have roll down bridge windows. This abated the concussion problems. The New Jersey, during it's Vietnam period demonstrated the need for this when the ship fired it's first rounds during pre-commissioning exercises. I have a photo of reams of paperwork flying out of the bridge of Missouri when we fired our guns.
I could only imagine what it must have been like to be aboard when the 16 inchers fired. I got to go aboard the Mo many, many years ago during a friends and family day but, sadly, this was after the Iowa tragedy and there was a moratorium on firing the 16 inchers and so they were only allowed to fire their 5 inchers. Even still, the 5 inchers were pretty impressive but I'm sure they pale in comparison to the 16 inchers.
Big Smoke: I'll have 2 Number 9's A Number 9 Large, a Number 6 with extra dip, a Number 7, 2 Number 45's one with cheese a.... British Navy: Cheese is broken. Big Smoke: OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH
In Hans Von Luck's book Panzer Commander he describes the bombardment of the 21st Panzer Division by British and American battleships noting that even the heaviest of tanks would be lifted into the air even if the shell did not actually hit the tank. I recommend the book for the German perspective on the Normandy campaign and its consequences for Germany.
Read it several times and still have a paperback copy on my bookshelf. And Mellenthin, Rommel, Bradley, Stilwell, Ike, et al. And Liddel Hart, Churchill's "Ring" series, and a diverse set of supporting works. Anecdotal accounts can give the feel of the war, but not much in accurate detail. That usually requires meticulous examination of after action reports and other official documents. Military historians are often better at pulling all the pieces together, while commanders in action only see one of the pieces at a time.
C B there is a photo of Eisenhower visiting the front and on the photo depicting a Königstiger that literally has took off upside down on a near hill from a near miss from massive concussion from a battleship.i have no idea if the crew survived but surely most of them was seriously injured. Yet we are talking about a 72 metric tons. In the area of Cisterna behind Anzio outside the completely rebuilt town it can still be seen massive craters created by the shells from the battleships. It is quite impressive to see....
C B it was Rodney and her 16” guns that caused so much havoc at the Normandy landings,German soldiers who was I. Britain between the wars said,,I hated her then and I hate her now,as he sees another armoured vehicle being blown into the air
@@paoloviti6156 No tiger 2's or konigstiger were ever deployed in Italy they fought on the eastern front and the western front 1944 onwards so it was either a tiger 1 which were deployed in Italy or a misrepresentation which happened a few times with the allies. I interviewed a German panzer veteran when i was a lot younger he was in one of the first tiger 2's to enter service and stayed with them till the battle for Berlin where his crew abandoned their tank after it was out of ammunition and was taking fire from russian tanks. He was very clear if you wanted to crew a tiger 2 it was east or west he called Italy south and had served with a heavy tank unit briefly in a tiger 1 before transferring for training on the tiger 2.
My name is Peter Nelson and my father and his father before him were sailors till the day they died. I'm remembering my middle school day's, sitting in the library with books open to pictures of battleships ans especially the HMS Nelson. So mid 1960's to 2020, that 55 years ago and I still love looking at her. She's one of a kind in my mind. I did not go to sea, instead I became a Mechanical Engineer instead of a Marine Engineer or Chief Engineer like my Father. Heck, my dad ran away from home at a very young age and joined the Merchant Marine Navy in Pensacola Florida and then the U.S. Navy and served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He was away at Vietnam while he paid for my college education. He was in the war zone and his ship did get hit. I remember the communist trying to take over the entire student body one May around 1970. I stood up and I remembered that it was my father who was providing me with my college education and I spoke out against them and that was that my college was not taken over by the communists. Mind you, they tried, they even held another meeting at night and talked of forming "cell blocks" ...I was front and center and I looked into that man's eyes with such ferocity that he could not speak and just sat down thus completely putting an end to the communist take over of my college. I understand "Loyalty". You would have to kill me because there is no way you could make me do anything against my father! My dad was born in Mobile Alabama and lived in NY so he could be near the NYC Union Halls for the United States Merchant Marines. He's dead now, died two weeks before his retirement. It's going on 46 years later and I finally moved to Alabama to be near to his place of birth. Us children of life time sailors know what it's like to grow up with no father present in the house. Yet the time he was around he taught me well. God Bless All Sailor's Everywhere! Peter Nelson age 70. P.S. My father was born whilst his father was out at sea somewhere off the coast of South America in May 7, 1915. They "Signaled" the ship from Biloxi Mississippi, America using the "wireless" and asked what to name the boy. The reply came back "Signal" because of the great joy the signal had brought to my Grandpa Elias Nelson. So my Dad was named "Charles Signal Nelson" and that's the name on all his Seamanship papers. We called him "Sig" for short, but he sure had a name befitting a man of the Sea.
When Nelson and Rodney were under construction, an article in a French naval magazine erroneously postulated that they would have a flight deck aft; after all, why were the turrets all mounted forward? This led to wild rumours in the American press that they were hybrid warships that were somehow more powerful than any other vessels afloat. It was left to an American commentator who retained his composure to call the story "a ridiculous canard" in an article with a Drach level of snark.
For scale: Shipping 2000 extra tonnes of water in through your hull is the literal equivalent of dragging two Sumner class large Destroyers along with you. Any rough edges caused by the impact(s) that let all that water in would tend to help tear the hole(s) in your side wider, likely causing you to ship even more water. Examples are several, and Drachinifel has covered some of these already.
I still can't decide if the Nelson or the Hood was the most aesthetically pleasing warship ever built, and I've been thinking about it for over twenty years now.
“Ran aground in Portsmouth on its way to the Caribbean” That’s as spurious as “I hit a telephone pole on my way across the continent at the end of my driveway” You weren’t going anywhere.
@@nukclear2741 same difference. They're so far away we are discussing locations in hundreds, even thousands of miles. if I hit a telephone pole at the end of my driveway while setting off on a trip across a county, even a city, the grand trip never actually began because I never really left home
Thanks for another video Despite their flaws the Nelson class were very powerful ships and not to be ignored. Yours is the first I've seen which actually mention the highly effective method of using water as additional armour. This is usually ignored by so others due to limited research. In defense of the so called "cheating" by the British with the water displacement armour scheme I say it was perfectly legal and NOT cheating as ANY other Navy could have done the exact same thing IF they had thought of it. This is far, far different compared to the total lies and treaty violations done by the Japanese, Germans and Italians as their ships did exceed the Standard Displacement as defined by the Washington Treaty or the case of the Germans, The Anglo-German Naval Treaty.
Great series. Thanks. I've been a huge fan of warships since I was a little kid and I'm 60 now !! I always come back to it..and having avail on youtube is once of the benefits of the information age. Love that you cover ships like the KGVs and Nelsons. Keep it up. Lots of ships/classes to cover.
Dear @Drachinifel , you have made it again, an exellent video that goes deeper than just numbers. Your explanations of the conceptual considerations, limitations of the construction is exellent and gives an logical understanding of the very intresting context of the construction. To often the WEB is full of simplified ship vs ship comparisions, where the only logic would be that any built ships should be bigger, faster, heavier armed and better protected than the previos one as if any battle would take place in the open sea. Your analyzes gives an insight that warship contruction instead had to take a number of considerations into account, describing that also the Nelson-class was a kind of a genious construction given the conditions. In a theoretical reality where only ship vs ship on high seas is the scenery everyone would of course build an Iowa or Yamato, but in the more interesting real world that you describe with defesive/offensive tactical doctirines, need for range, political treatties and limitations, as well as geographical realities you actually make it intresting to understand the rationales of both UK to build Nelsons as well for lets say Finland to build an Illmarinen (and not an Iowa). So thanks again !!
I've always loved how these look similar in sort of relative dimensions to the Star Destroyers in Star Wars. All the main weapons forward with a large bridge and just engine and controls aft.
Thanks for the video. I have seen photographs of German tanks after the D-Day bombardment. Sixty ton Tiger tanks laying upside down like they had been thrown around by some giant toddler. Not a place you would have wanted to be at the time.
@@tenarmurk Schwere Abteilung 101 and Pamzer Lehr had Tigers and were in Normandy on D-Day. As to there exact locations and whether or not P. Lehr brought their Tigers the sources aren't super clear. Wittman had his big fight at Villers Bocage (which was just a few miles inland) a few days after the landings so I would surmise at least some of the Tigers were in range of the battlewagons. I've seen some photos of smashed Tigers in Normandy but they were attributed to being caught in the Goodwood bombing
Always liked the Nelson class. I like the look of the post war British Battleships and Battle Cruisers in general and that large tower design in particular. Love your videos!
@keith moore Among my favorite battleships as well. Having graceful lines was usually not a design requirement for battleships. Their purpose was to bring heavy guns into battle (while having effective armour). And the Nelsons look like living up to that purpose like few other battleships.
One of my favourite ship designs too! And I also like the look of the nelsons somehow. in my opinion its recognisable and "characteristic" ship. Her design is neither about graceful lines nor about following traditional rules but making the best out of the circumstances, its a treaty battleship that was planned to be powerful without completely ignoring the treaty, they actually tried to obey it while building an equally strong ship as other nations with other requirements (amount of fuel etc.) or completely ignoring the WNT. In my opinion that deserves some respect and, to be honest, i like the odd look; )
"...to prove that it isn't just American warships who are sometimes unclear about the depth of their own home waters..." I resent this, Drach. Can't contradict it, but I resent it just the same.
We Americans just have too much coastline for our own good. Atlantic coastline? Check. Pacific coastline? Check. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! The Great Lakes, and don't forget about Alaska's coastline with the Artic Ocean
I've read about the failed torpedo attack. I believe it was a smaller coastal type U-boat that stumbled onto the Nelson. The U-boat captain was PISSED! The Germans had the same problem with faulty torpedoes at the beginning of the war like the Americans did when they entered the war.
Yeah. Those magnetic influence detonators could not take into account the fact that the earth's magnetic field was not consistent and might be different at the location the torpedoes were fired than it was at the place the detonator was calibrated. Since these torpedoes were designed to run below the ship so that it would detonate right under it's keel - if the influence exploder failed to set it off - it ran harmlessly beneath the ship and on into oblivion. The other possibility was that the torpedoes would detonate to soon and explode before they were close enough to damage the target. I don't know about the German Torpedoes but the American one's also had faulty depth gauges so that they ran deeper than set and fragile contact detonators that would break if they hit the target squarely instead of setting it off. A glancing blow though would set them off - which contributed to the mystery of just what was happening. For the Americans the fact that the Admiral running the submarines had been the one to play a large role in the development of these torpedoes also hindered investigations as he didn't want aspersions being cast on his torpedoes and he blamed the sub commanders for lack of aggressiveness. .
@@rutabagasteu Hmmm. Is that in reference to normal targeting procedure - or on how to avoid breaking the detonator? My understanding was that it was the dead on shots that broke the detonator but that the glancing shots might not break it.
Similar, but no where near as bad. Using the contact fuses, average system fail rate was 30%, as opposed to 70% on U.S. (if i recall correctly. Been some years since i read that book XD)
Recently subscribed as a result of some chit chat in The History Guy's comments section. Really fascinating to learn about such design challenges. Enjoying your enthusiasm and humour.
It was HMS Nelson's sister ship, Rodney, that set a big torch to the Bismark - not so much King George V, as the movie "Sink The Bismark" would lead you to believe.
Thank you for this video, from now on whenever someone mentions cheese, I will think of HMS Nelson. I am slightly saddened by the fact that I was a little too late to serve on the more artillery oriented cruisers and destroyers of the royal Swedish navy as they were either mothballed or scrapped when I joined. But I think I can vividly Imagine the effects of firing away the main guns of a battleship, I have had the honour of visiting an artillery regiment when they were firing a full battery of 15.5cm howitzers with salvo fire. Impressive! And then scale this up is mind boggling. I have also had the dubious joy of being right under the 57mm Bofors MK III gun of a corvette when firing. I was out on my usual rounds checking equipment, hatches and integrity of the ship under an exercise. I then felt the need and positioned myself in the forward latrine right next to the ammunition hoists, that means only the thin deck separated me from the gun overhead and during my movement between two headset jacks they had ordered ready for AA action. Firing can be described as very conducive for a good bowel movement...
They had a similar window issue with the iowa class battleship. The ultimate solution was to just open the windows during firing. The problem is the pressure difference the blast from firing the guns creates, having the windows open allowes pressure to freely disperse inside the cabin.
Thanks to you, I can only think of “a particularly large and nice cheese” accompanied by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings whenever HMS Nelson is mentioned
I take it the image at 23:12 was taken well after Nelson''s retirement. The port side of the hull is so corroded that it has the aspect of a stone wall, giving the Nelson a fortress-like look.
Another great vid thanks! I've always liked the Nelson class, built the Airfix kit years ago. I read about the water armour in one of the Purnells books. Apparently, it was kept secret for decades after the war! The pictures of them being scrapped at Inverkeithing are very pretty sad.
My father’s first and favourite ship despite serving aboard the Rodney, Malay, U.S.S. South Dakota, and Valiant. He was aboard when it was torpedoed by an Italian S.M.79. Still have all his photos and memorabilia. 👍🏻🏴
What a fantastically interesting video, I really enjoyed it and will be watching a lot more of your videos. Also can I just say the gentleman doing the commentary has a perfect voice for this sort of thing. I wish there were more like him on other more boring commentaries.
Nelson is my ship, why? My father went to fight Rommel and Nelson escorted his convoy. His words " it would go away and come back later". Thank you Nelson you made my dad feel safer than without you.
Fun fact: Right after HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a u-boat in scapa flow the Nelson almost suffered the same fate. Even more intriguing is that Churchill was actually on board when the U-boat attack occurred. Only the torpedos being duds actually save the ship and perhaps the most important man in history from certain demise. It’s one of those “what if” moments in history. Sheer luck was clearly on the Brits side that day.
So I was playing the game Uboat and sunk Royal Oak in Scapa flow. I went back rearmed and was assigned to patrol the coast of Spain. The first morning after I arrived in the patrol grid I found Nelson unescorted with only a tanker with her. 2 Nelsons in less than a week.
Thanks! I always wondered how they got a battleship with 9 16 inch guns within that displacement. I didn't know they managed to get the torpedo bulges excluded.
I was just thinking about what you said concerning the penchant you have for obeying the treaty rules and liking every one to know about it. Funny the words just now popped in to my head, they being" that is what makes England such a great nation and allies.
The problem with the shallow belt is that, if the ship is at speed, or rolling, part of the hull will be exposed with no belt behind it. Even waves just a meter high would expose large parts of the unprotected belly. And a exploding armor piercing shell is not comparable to a torpedo. The explosive charge is not the dangerous part, the splinters are. And large splinters would just punch through the torpedo belt and reach the magazines or machinery spaces behind.
One aspect of the Nelson design that I have never seen discussed is the effect that placing all of the main armament forward on a relatively slow ship will have on the tactical use of the ship. I think that the Admirals/Captains only real option against another battleships is to fight until either they triumph or they are destroyed. This is because they cannot retreat as the ship are both too slow to escape and defenceless when sailing away from an enemy. Having said that the Royal Navy fostered an aggressive attitude in its officers so it may not have mattered.
I read somewhere that Nelsol or Rodol fired a shot to one end of a bridge somewhere - perhaps North Africa to provide troop support and hold back an advancing force while keeping the bridge intact. The range was enormous and I think they had to fire over some hills or something. The fire extremely accurate for the range apparently. I wonder if you can shed some light on this?
Nelson was at operation torch in north africa. Both Rodney and Nelson took part in the landings at Salerno. This maybe were an event you described took place.
@dakotaprojectify naval gunfire was used to break up tank attacks on beach heads on Sicily and Italy. There was even a through back vessel that looked like the monitor that used ballast to extend the range and hit a headquarters.
Even though the Nelson class wasn't considered the best design for the Royal Navy, I find this class my personal favourite British battleship, I think that the placement for their main armament was interesting, much similar to the Brooklyn class light cruisers of the US, and the heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. I may be obscuring other heavy cruiser/light cruiser designs that had similar placement of their main armaments, for which I apologise. Fascinating history of a unique battleship class. Thank you very much, for this incredible insight.
At the start of WW2, my grandfather was the 3rd officer of a merchant that was sunk at the entrance to Valletta. He was in the ship's boat motoring into the harbor to collect the pilot when he turned to look at his ship 100 yards behind him and saw it torpedoed. Shortly afterward he was then promoted to Captain and ended up commanding the supply ship that serviced both Nelson and Rodney. His merchant was fast enough to keep up with both ships and he carried dried stores and ammunition. Many of his friends were blown to pieces when their ships were torpedoed, but after that first incident at Malta, he was never attacked again, except when Nelson and Rodney came under air attack.
Very British things: your description of the North Sea weather and what someone once told me (incorrectly, but funny) about the ships unusual layout; "As the most powerful RN battleships, they would never have to run away from anyone, so all the guns were put forward for the attack."
I'd like to have had some information about the Nelson class' unique 25.4 inch torpedo tubes and their 'fish', the type fired at Bismarck and their apparent inspiration for the Jappanese 'long lance'.
My Grandad, John Hamilton McLeod served onboard HMS Nelson 1939 - 1943 until it returned to the UK at which point he was transferred to the Hunt Class Destroyer HMS Wensleydale until the end of the war. He was onboard Nelson when General Eisenhower and Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham boarded for a tour while moored up at Algiers Dock in Malta May 1943. There is a video on RUclips somewhere showing this.
I don't know why windage would effect steering so badly, since the superstructure looks almost ideally placed to me to negate crosswinds, pushing the stern of the ship downwind just slightly more than the bow, so that the ship should point just enough upwind to compensate for the sideslip, unless backing up. However, if such a ship loses power, it might turn sideways to the wind and waves, which is usually the least seaworthy orientation. This is why the mayflower had such a high stern, and might help some modern tankers as well.
I cant remember which ship but i remember hearing a tale where one of the sailors on board was using the toilet when they hit a mine. The toilet shattered due to the force of the mine leading to a quite an injury for the unlucky soul. You could say it was a pain in the arse.
The doctor asked the sailor what happened. The sailor said the blast effected his a*sehole and testicles . Rectum, said the doctor. Rectum, said the sailor. It nearly blew them off.
Just to show some love to these relatively slow battle-wagons, let me put it this way: if I were riding on Bismark while stuck making circles at less than 10 knots, the very last ship I'd want to see out the bridge window would be Rodney or Lord Nelson. I mean, THE last ship! Maybe a Yamato or an Iowa would be just as bad.
Grandmom still flies the flag she was given the day we buried that cheese.
They shall not grow mold
Underrated comment.
Touché
@Der Frosch-Prinz Aus Bayern *moldier*
We French citizen send you our deepest condolences for your loss..
My grandad served on HMS Nelson during WW2, I have a number of photographs of him during this time and love looking at them. He was a gunner on the Pom-Pom guns.
stevenmoody1983 Pom Pom guns?¿?
@@stonks6616 ; The QF 2-pounder naval gun was called Pom-Pom because of her cadence.
FirstDagger are they the guns that make little balls of smoke in the air
My great granda was a CPO on her sister ship HMS Rodney during ww2.
My respects to him and your family, trust all are safe virus wise
"Which was a positively American level of anti aircraft firepower." Yessss.
5peciesunkn0wn XDDDD
We like full auto stuff. It’s fun.
The rest of the World: How many AA guns do you REALLY NEED on your ships?
America: Yes and Yes.
The USN carrier group's AA output increased 11x between '42 and '44,
Not even that level of firepower is American enough.
"Those measures of displacement are unfair because they do not account for the special burden of having the world's largest empire on which the sun never sets."
God bless the British diplomats who sold that, just brilliant!
It was damned cheeky given that the two powers the line had to be mainly sold to - the US and Japan - had the massvie Pacific to worry about.
The far away bow reminds me of an oil tanker.
That was great humble-brag.
Fact with largest empires is that on the one hand the sun never sets, on the other hand it also never rises. So it kinda equalizes itself.
Today, battleship displacement is measured in museum curator body sacks😂 ok, ok, may be, because americans measure still everything in body parts the brits invented.😮
Absolutely fantastic video! My Grandad served on HMS Nelson. I'm the youngest of 3 brothers, my oldest brother being born in 1969 and my 2nd oldest being born in 1971 and I was born in 1986, so they both got told more about Grandad's service on the Nelson that I did, my Grandad passed away in 1994 when I was 8 so I sadly was too young to truly understand much of what happened. Funnily enough, Grandad was briefly transferred to the Hood because a fellow sailor was wanting to go back to the UK which the Nelson was going to at the time due to their wife giving birth, Grandad offered to swap with him and so he served on Hood very briefly, transferring back to the Nelson literally weeks before the Hood was sunk. From what I've been told Grandad shared a good number of stories with my older brothers about where Nelson (Nelly as he used to call her) went and what he saw, really wish I got the chance to properly ask him myself. My brother has an amazing photo that Grandad took I believe on his wall and I often look at it fondly.
My grandad also served. He was a radio operator.
The cheese story is an example of why I REALLY like this channel; there is always some tidbit that humanizes the shipboard experience.
Hehehe! On my ASW Frigate in the early 1980s, an ET buddy kept a wheel of hard cheddar, a couple boxes of crackers and a bottle of Canadian Mist hidden in the AC ductwork in the Radar Equipment Room. We'd snack on them.
Hilarious...
'Water doesn't count towards displacement'
*Uses water as armour*
Technically the Habbakuk ice carriers would be treaty-compliant :p
@@Drachinifel the next steps in water-armour technology: Ice armour! Then Pykrete!
Standard displacement actually excluded reserve feed water for the boilers, not water in general. Water in the side protection system should have been counted.
Drachinifel habbakuk wasn’t made of water I didn’t think but another frozen material.
@@gabrielm.942 Habakkuk would have been made from pykrete, a mixture of wood pulp and ice.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk#Pykrete
Regarding the shock of firing the main battery; Many years ago I worked with someone who had served aboard Rodney, and I clearly recall him saying (and I quote) "What no-one tells you is that when they fire them guns, all the lights go out".
Faerie, I r remember reading in Sir Ludovic Kennedy's book, PURSUIT, which was about the sinking of the Bismarck, that the blast from Rodney's own guns cracked portholes and shattered light bulbs during the Bismarck's last fight.
I recall when we fired a broadside we often blew off dogged down doors on the bridge or the flag bridge. The ship would slip about 10 feet. I would love to have seen the HMS Nelson fire a broadside. USS Newport News CA-148 my service on cruisers 1968-72
AdamosDad, I was told by a veteran who served aboard the U.S.S. MISSOURI that when they fired a nine gun broadside that the entire ship would heel over and be blown slightly off course. From the numerous videos of the MISSOURI firing her guns, and the blast effect on the water near the ship, I can see how this could be true.
Yeah, that's what I've read as well. During the battle with Bismarck, they basically destroyed all the lightbulbs and all the plumbing fittings in the front half of the ship. Honestly, these ships were garbage. They couldn't sit on station for bombardment because they rendered huge portions of the ship basically unlivable just by firing their own guns. One firing session and they're done, and have to go back to port for repairs. As a practical weapon of war, they're probably the worst of the treaty battleships.
@@WardenWolf Actually, it was a little more complicated than that. From what Cecil (for that was his name) told me, they had to have someone with a number of light bulbs near all the essential lights, ready to replace bulbs between salvos.
God alone knows how many light bulbs they must have had to keep in the stores !
20:00 Petition to have HMS Nelson as a honorary member of The American Battleships that Ran Aground in Their Home Waters Club.
Here Here!:-) 🖖
Not when my grandfather was her navigating officer! He was acknowledged as one of the best two navigating officers in the entire navy.
And obviously the Warspite must also be included on this list, mainly because it spent it's whole life ramming things and the whole Last Stand against the Scrappies was also a thing...
Not to mention the AA compliment!
When you have more battleships than any other nation on earth, you're going to run aground more often than anyone else on earth.
I know many might disagree, but I think this is the best looking battleship. The bridge right at the back gives it a fast, sleek look. The slab sided superstructure looks brutal yet at the same time elegant.
I wouldn't say it's my absolute faviroute but yeah love the superstructure looks like a castle
Warspite wore it better.
Seems to have quiet a few with you on that.
Yeah, she had a very unique look.
ChristophInns agreed.
I really wish we had kept a Nelson class as a museum ship, I would have loved to see one of them.
You do it every time man!!!! 'Nelson made it her duty to run into every underwater threat imaginable...' I get the feeling our battleships were as mental as their crews, and a comedy series about them should definitely be in the works!!! Doesn't beat Warspite going sideways drifting through the Strait of Messina, I must say.🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of my favorite aspects of the Nelson-class’s 16” guns is how they affected what came after them. (Also, love the video, and can’t wait for you to cover good old Rod-ol!)
Supposedly, the Royal Navy was so unhappy with the Nelsons’ 16-inch guns that they reverted back to a very conservative gun design for the King George Vs. However, in their haste to backtrack from their mistakes with the Nelsons, they went too far the *other* way. Rather than reuse the tried-and-true 15-inch guns used on the Hood and Queen Elizabeths, the British developed a new 14-inch gun that, though it was more accurate and had a longer barrel life, just didn’t have the same oomph as the 16” guns. The fact that King George Vs' guns had far *more* technical problems than the Nelsons' just added to the silliness of the whole situation.
The British were at least somewhat aware of their issues with firepower before the war, and they tried to solve them by getting other nations to agree to limit themselves to a similar gun size. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t work: The rise of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan had changed the diplomatic situation that the earlier naval arms treaties were born from. France was engaged in a naval arms race with Italy, the Germans were making noise with their naval rearmament, and Japan would refuse to renew the naval treaties in 1936 following its wars of conquest in China and withdrawal from the League of Nations. In this climate where their most likely enemies weren’t respecting naval treaties, the United States and France weren’t interested in lowering their battleships’ firepower to satisfy Britain’s insecurity.
Besides, the Americans had a 16-incher and the French a 15-incher that they were very happy with. If the Brits couldn’t get their big caliber guns to work, that was their problem.
Years later, the final battle against Bismarck showed very clearly the power discrepancy between the guns of Britain’s newest battleships and the much-disparaged Nelsons. While King George V’s 14-inchers were largely “meh” against Bismarck’s armor, the old, lumbering Rod-ol’s 16-inchers completely took the German battlewagon to school. In less than 15 minutes of fighting Rodney took out half of Bismarck’s main battery and crippled the remainder, and within another half hour she completely silenced the German ship. That done, Rodney proceeded to trash pretty much everything above Bismarck’s main armor belt. It was such a one-sided ass-kicking that Bismarck’s main guns never landed a single hit during the fight. And throughout it all, King George V, the flagship of the Home Fleet, was essentially relegated to an ineffectual supporting role as Rodney curb stomped the pride of the Kriegsmarine into a watery grave.
Afterwards, the public credit and honor for the victory went to every ship but Rodney (and the unlucky and underappreciated Prince of Wales): King George V, Ark Royal, the destroyer Cossack, and even Victorious all got the spotlight while Rodney was largely ignored. Iain Ballantyne, author of the excellent “Killing the Bismarck”, says that this was likely “a matter of not wanting to be reminded that it had taken the guns of a ship built in the 1920s to take Bismarck apart while the Home Fleet flagship’s 14-inch weapons were less effective” (p. 206).*
The British would eventually get the 14-inch guns’ issues fixed and the King George Vs were still dangerous battleships (plus they had many other advantages over the Nelsons, like speed). All the same, it’s a bit amusing that the British seemed to give up on innovating with their guns and went back to the good old 15-inchers for their next battleship class.
*The marginalization of Rodney and Prince of Wales wasn’t because King George V’s commanders were glory-hogs or anything. Following Bismarck’s sinking, Admiral Tovey received a call on board King George V from First Sea Lord Dudley Pound telling him that the Prince of Wales’ Captain Leach and Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker were to be court-martialed for withdrawing while engaging the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at Denmarck Strait. “Admiral Tovey was angered by this suggesting, considering Captain Leach, in charge of a new ship with severe teething problems, had done as well as could be expected. Despite serious hits Prince of Wales had, in fact, continued to shadow Bismarck. Had he been foolish enough to engage Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at close quarters, Captain Leach could have easily thrown the lives of his own sailors away on top of the dreadful loss of Hood’s. Admiral Tovey told his boss: ‘If the Admiralty is going to do that, then I will resign and act as Prisoner’s Friend, because I consider he did absolutely the right thing.’” (Ballantyne, p. 206) Thus, instead of a court martial, Leach and Wake-Walker received medals.
( *EDIT:* It's worth noting that Rodney was in desperate need of a refit at the time of the battle, so she wasn't even operating at 100% when she wrecked Bismarck. She was definitely the badass grandma of the British fleet, even with contenders like Warspite.)
Dude, you need your own blog. Or a RUclips channel. Essays are wasted in comment sections 😉
Thanks for taking the time to write this. 👍
Back when I watched documentaries on the matter, I was under the impression that the sinking of the Bismark was more akin to taking down a raid boss, with the British showering the Bismark with shells of every calibre in an attempt to take him down. After reading more on the matter, Now I think the event was more like am extremely brutal demolition, with good ol'Rodnol single-handedly pounding the Bismark into a blazing sinking scrap heap, whilst all the other ships kicked Bismark while he was down as revenge for the Hood. I guess the marginalization of Rodney may have something to do the tones of those documentaries I watched.
With all due respect, Bismark couldn't do much with a stuck rudder and defective targeting radar
With all of the problems he faced both during and after the engagement Captain Leach did a remarkable job with POW never really getting the recognition he deserved. It was, after all, as a result of his hits on the Bismark that forced her to steer for France and along with Ark Royal's air strike, put her in striking distance of the RN. That and the loss of the Hood may well have given the British that extra motivation to go after her so vengefully.
R.I.P to the Nelsons Inspecting Officers wheel of cheese...
*Nelson
F
F
F
They should be in dry dock for people to visit! 1 of the most powerful ships in the 2nd world war
RIP cheese, you will be missed
All cheese goes to heaven.
Did Drach play sad music for the cheese?
Do you think they sruck to naval tradition and gave it a burial as sea.
There are very fine cheeses on both sides
Blessed are the cheese Makers!
In the future can you give a trigger warning before a story where cheese is harmed. Some of us are Wisconsinites.
The tragic music truly painted a scene of the horrors of war.
Sorry for your loss
*plays taps for the cheese*
What was the cheese's name?
@@garymingy8671 Don't ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
Wish they hadn't scrapped her. She was a very unique design and I'd like to have toured her. The Warspite too for that matter.
@Kathleen Mcmanus I would love to, not least which that means I could afford a trip across the Pond without US military....ahem.... assistance 😂
@Kathleen Mcmanus well my goal is to visit the UK in the next few years so I will definitely go see the Caroline when I go 🙂
Darkhorse13Golf Gaming as an owner and restorer of larger wooden vessels, i learned a hard fact: you can't save them all.
Warspite should never have been scrapped. Amazing ship with an amazing story. Surviving 2 world wars and kicking serious ass doing it.
When the ship needs to sleep, it needs to sleep....
Imagine having to work in the middle gun turret knowing you have three 16" guns pointed directly at you and they might be loaded
In fairness it IS a great incentive to do your job right and not piss off any gunnery officers 😂
I'm certain there was some sort of lockout mechanism to prevent the guns from firing into any of the the ship's own structure.
@@pr9383 yeah most ships of the era had this measure. I believe one of the Iowa’s had one of there’s fail at one point which caused a 16 inch gun to obliterate one of the 5 inch gun turrets.
Why worry? You wouldn't feel a thing in the event of a misfire anyway.
Hehe Wallis is not gonna see this coming!
Love the Nelson Class - unique, beautiful and immensely powerful.
They were also the only British battleship/battlecruiser class in WWII to not have a ship sunk.
I had not thought about that. You are correct.
Ya I keep forgetting the Prince of Wales was a GKV
The Iowa class BBs have roll down bridge windows. This abated the concussion problems. The New Jersey, during it's Vietnam period demonstrated the need for this when the ship fired it's first rounds during pre-commissioning exercises. I have a photo of reams of paperwork flying out of the bridge of Missouri when we fired our guns.
I could only imagine what it must have been like to be aboard when the 16 inchers fired. I got to go aboard the Mo many, many years ago during a friends and family day but, sadly, this was after the Iowa tragedy and there was a moratorium on firing the 16 inchers and so they were only allowed to fire their 5 inchers. Even still, the 5 inchers were pretty impressive but I'm sure they pale in comparison to the 16 inchers.
I wonder if the paperwork was mourned by anyone?
@@MichalSoukup1995 only by the tree lovers and relatives of the trees used to make that paper....
Can you show the photo?
Thank you for doing this video. I'm a Brit and Nelson/Rodney are arguably my favorite battleships. So unique.
I'm always down for an all-forward turret battleship.
The Nelsons and the French Dunks/Richilues are my favorites.
Big Smoke: I'll have 2 Number 9's A Number 9 Large, a Number 6 with extra dip, a Number 7, 2 Number 45's one with cheese a....
British Navy: Cheese is broken.
Big Smoke: OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH
He turns that restaurant green one second later
Hallou Ni. X
In Hans Von Luck's book Panzer Commander he describes the bombardment of the 21st Panzer Division by British and American battleships noting that even the heaviest of tanks would be lifted into the air even if the shell did not actually hit the tank. I recommend the book for the German perspective on the Normandy campaign and its consequences for Germany.
Read it several times and still have a paperback copy on my bookshelf. And Mellenthin, Rommel, Bradley, Stilwell, Ike, et al. And Liddel Hart, Churchill's "Ring" series, and a diverse set of supporting works. Anecdotal accounts can give the feel of the war, but not much in accurate detail. That usually requires meticulous examination of after action reports and other official documents. Military historians are often better at pulling all the pieces together, while commanders in action only see one of the pieces at a time.
@Ian Greenhalgh that would then make it a 20 ton portable radio.....
C B there is a photo of Eisenhower visiting the front and on the photo depicting a Königstiger that literally has took off upside down on a near hill from a near miss from massive concussion from a battleship.i have no idea if the crew survived but surely most of them was seriously injured. Yet we are talking about a 72 metric tons. In the area of Cisterna behind Anzio outside the completely rebuilt town it can still be seen massive craters created by the shells from the battleships. It is quite impressive to see....
C B it was Rodney and her 16” guns that caused so much havoc at the Normandy landings,German soldiers who was I. Britain between the wars said,,I hated her then and I hate her now,as he sees another armoured vehicle being blown into the air
@@paoloviti6156 No tiger 2's or konigstiger were ever deployed in Italy they fought on the eastern front and the western front 1944 onwards so it was either a tiger 1 which were deployed in Italy or a misrepresentation which happened a few times with the allies. I interviewed a German panzer veteran when i was a lot younger he was in one of the first tiger 2's to enter service and stayed with them till the battle for Berlin where his crew abandoned their tank after it was out of ammunition and was taking fire from russian tanks. He was very clear if you wanted to crew a tiger 2 it was east or west he called Italy south and had served with a heavy tank unit briefly in a tiger 1 before transferring for training on the tiger 2.
22:27 Axis tanks: Exist.
HMS Nelson: Do be a splendid chap and hold my beverage for a moment.
It was 22:27
@@TycoonTitian01 Indee
d it was. I tyoped. :D
My name is Peter Nelson and my father and his father before him were sailors till the day they died. I'm remembering my middle school day's, sitting in the library with books open to pictures of battleships ans especially the HMS Nelson. So mid 1960's to 2020, that 55 years ago and I still love looking at her. She's one of a kind in my mind. I did not go to sea, instead I became a Mechanical Engineer instead of a Marine Engineer or Chief Engineer like my Father. Heck, my dad ran away from home at a very young age and joined the Merchant Marine Navy in Pensacola Florida and then the U.S. Navy and served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He was away at Vietnam while he paid for my college education. He was in the war zone and his ship did get hit. I remember the communist trying to take over the entire student body one May around 1970. I stood up and I remembered that it was my father who was providing me with my college education and I spoke out against them and that was that my college was not taken over by the communists. Mind you, they tried, they even held another meeting at night and talked of forming "cell blocks" ...I was front and center and I looked into that man's eyes with such ferocity that he could not speak and just sat down thus completely putting an end to the communist take over of my college. I understand "Loyalty". You would have to kill me because there is no way you could make me do anything against my father! My dad was born in Mobile Alabama and lived in NY so he could be near the NYC Union Halls for the United States Merchant Marines. He's dead now, died two weeks before his retirement. It's going on 46 years later and I finally moved to Alabama to be near to his place of birth. Us children of life time sailors know what it's like to grow up with no father present in the house. Yet the time he was around he taught me well. God Bless All Sailor's Everywhere! Peter Nelson age 70.
P.S. My father was born whilst his father was out at sea somewhere off the coast of South America in May 7, 1915. They "Signaled" the ship from Biloxi Mississippi, America using the "wireless" and asked what to name the boy. The reply came back "Signal" because of the great joy the signal had brought to my Grandpa Elias Nelson. So my Dad was named "Charles Signal Nelson" and that's the name on all his Seamanship papers. We called him "Sig" for short, but he sure had a name befitting a man of the Sea.
What an incredible story
When Nelson and Rodney were under construction, an article in a French naval magazine erroneously postulated that they would have a flight deck aft; after all, why were the turrets all mounted forward? This led to wild rumours in the American press that they were hybrid warships that were somehow more powerful than any other vessels afloat. It was left to an American commentator who retained his composure to call the story "a ridiculous canard" in an article with a Drach level of snark.
For scale:
Shipping 2000 extra tonnes of water in through your hull is the literal equivalent of dragging two Sumner class large Destroyers along with you. Any rough edges caused by the impact(s) that let all that water in would tend to help tear the hole(s) in your side wider, likely causing you to ship even more water. Examples are several, and Drachinifel has covered some of these already.
I still can't decide if the Nelson or the Hood was the most aesthetically pleasing warship ever built, and I've been thinking about it for over twenty years now.
Better not look at WW1's HMS Tiger then......
@@PaulP999I'll look that one up.
Well every other person this side of dirt knows which of the 2 they'd pick.
or the derfflinger class in WW1 or the hipper class cruisers in WW2
She's a beautiful ship
“Ran aground in Portsmouth on its way to the Caribbean”
That’s as spurious as “I hit a telephone pole on my way across the continent at the end of my driveway”
You weren’t going anywhere.
There is a Portsmouth in Virginia too.
there's one here in NH as well.
@@nukclear2741 same difference. They're so far away we are discussing locations in hundreds, even thousands of miles. if I hit a telephone pole at the end of my driveway while setting off on a trip across a county, even a city, the grand trip never actually began because I never really left home
@@redram5150 Running aground in Portsmouth, VA would be 70+% of the way to the Caribbean.
@@hailexiao2770 It doesn't change my point considering Virginia isn't local
My favorite battleship class, thought the engineering was brilliant. I liked the rakish sports car look.
The addition of solemn violins for the contaminated cheese anecdote was a nice touch.
This channel definitely has the best opening sequence on RUclips!
The Nelson-class were beautiful ships.
I disagree
I agree
I think they look like formidable fortresses, a clear warning for you to stay away, unless you want a 16 inch shell in the face
Holy crap I forgot this comment existed
they should have preserved these ships or at least one of them :/
The photos on this site are wonderful......sorry about the cheese
I felt great sadness about the cheese as well :(
May God save that cheese.
Mines.... Always looking for a ship to hug.🤗
They had chemistry!
Click, click 💥
Such is the power of mutual magnetism.
We all know the ships rarely if ever consent to this hugging, say no to mine hugs!
What if it were your battleship, how would YOU feel then?
@@ETAlnes Mines are evil tools used by shipophiles to murder them in a vicious and cruel way. Together, we can stop shipophiles.
Thanks for another video
Despite their flaws the Nelson class were very powerful ships and not to be ignored. Yours is the first I've seen which actually mention the highly effective method of using water as additional armour. This is usually ignored by so others due to limited research.
In defense of the so called "cheating" by the British with the water displacement armour scheme I say it was perfectly legal and NOT cheating as ANY other Navy could have done the exact same thing IF they had thought of it.
This is far, far different compared to the total lies and treaty violations done by the Japanese, Germans and Italians as their ships did exceed the Standard Displacement as defined by the Washington Treaty or the case of the Germans, The Anglo-German Naval Treaty.
now your passport will be pulled on your next visit in the UK because stating brits cheating!!
Great series. Thanks. I've been a huge fan of warships since I was a little kid and I'm 60 now !! I always come back to it..and having avail on youtube is once of the benefits of the information age. Love that you cover ships like the KGVs and Nelsons. Keep it up. Lots of ships/classes to cover.
Dear @Drachinifel , you have made it again, an exellent video that goes deeper than just numbers. Your explanations of the conceptual considerations, limitations
of the construction is exellent and gives an logical understanding of the very intresting context of the construction. To often the WEB is full of simplified ship vs ship comparisions, where the only logic would be that any built ships should be bigger, faster, heavier armed and better protected than the previos one as if any battle would take place in the open sea. Your analyzes gives an insight that warship contruction instead had to take a number of considerations into account, describing that also the Nelson-class was a kind of a genious construction given the conditions. In a theoretical reality where only ship vs ship on high seas is the scenery everyone would of course build an Iowa or Yamato, but in the more interesting real world that you describe with defesive/offensive tactical doctirines, need for range, political treatties and limitations, as well as geographical realities you actually make it intresting to understand the rationales of both UK to build Nelsons as well for lets say Finland to build an Illmarinen (and not an Iowa). So thanks again !!
I've always loved how these look similar in sort of relative dimensions to the Star Destroyers in Star Wars. All the main weapons forward with a large bridge and just engine and controls aft.
Except the theme as it passed by was probably Rule Britannia instead of the Imperial march.
It's gorgeous. I love it's profile staring down the bow. What a menacing beauty
Loved this guide and I can't wait for the HMS Rodney guide. Keep em coming m8!
A Very beautiful looking battleship
This ship kicks ass in World of Warships!
Thanks for the video. I have seen photographs of German tanks after the D-Day bombardment. Sixty ton Tiger tanks laying upside down like they had been thrown around by some giant toddler. Not a place you would have wanted to be at the time.
Except there was no heavy tank battalion in range to get shot at by naval bombardment
Ten Armurk yes there was
@@tenarmurk Schwere Abteilung 101 and Pamzer Lehr had Tigers and were in Normandy on D-Day. As to there exact locations and whether or not P. Lehr brought their Tigers the sources aren't super clear. Wittman had his big fight at Villers Bocage (which was just a few miles inland) a few days after the landings so I would surmise at least some of the Tigers were in range of the battlewagons.
I've seen some photos of smashed Tigers in Normandy but they were attributed to being caught in the Goodwood bombing
The main guns being forward, gave it an aggressive look, so well deserving the Nelson name.
Always liked the Nelson class. I like the look of the post war British Battleships and Battle Cruisers in general and that large tower design in particular. Love your videos!
One of my personal favourite ships😀😀
@keith moore One of my favourite jets is the F4 Phantom. It also did not have graceful lines but it was extremely capable of dealing with the enemy,
One of mine also.
Ben Poole shame they never built the n3
@keith moore Among my favorite battleships as well. Having graceful lines was usually not a design requirement for battleships. Their purpose was to bring heavy guns into battle (while having effective armour). And the Nelsons look like living up to that purpose like few other battleships.
One of my favourite ship designs too! And I also like the look of the nelsons somehow. in my opinion its recognisable and "characteristic" ship. Her design is neither about graceful lines nor about following traditional rules but making the best out of the circumstances, its a treaty battleship that was planned to be powerful without completely ignoring the treaty, they actually tried to obey it while building an equally strong ship as other nations with other requirements (amount of fuel etc.) or completely ignoring the WNT. In my opinion that deserves some respect and, to be honest, i like the odd look; )
"...to prove that it isn't just American warships who are sometimes unclear about the depth of their own home waters..."
I resent this, Drach. Can't contradict it, but I resent it just the same.
You and me both
Sometimes you just need to run tests to make sure the depth measurements are accurate...so, not a mistake, but a intentional test.
We Americans just have too much coastline for our own good. Atlantic coastline? Check. Pacific coastline? Check. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! The Great Lakes, and don't forget about Alaska's coastline with the Artic Ocean
@@f4fwildcat29 You left out the Gulf of Mexico... :)
So does the "show me state"
Got to be one of the best looking British ships out there!
Agreed. Unusual, unorthodox but undeniably handsome.
Yeah, in WW2 only KGV's, R's, QE's, Ren's and Hood looked significantly better, the brit battleships and battlecruisers counted.
Thanks for this. Like Ben, one of my favourite ships since I built an Airfix model as a child. We even coexisted for about a year!
I've read about the failed torpedo attack. I believe it was a smaller coastal type U-boat that stumbled onto the Nelson. The U-boat captain was PISSED! The Germans had the same problem with faulty torpedoes at the beginning of the war like the Americans did when they entered the war.
Yeah. Those magnetic influence detonators could not take into account the fact that the earth's magnetic field was not consistent and might be different at the location the torpedoes were fired than it was at the place the detonator was calibrated. Since these torpedoes were designed to run below the ship so that it would detonate right under it's keel - if the influence exploder failed to set it off - it ran harmlessly beneath the ship and on into oblivion. The other possibility was that the torpedoes would detonate to soon and explode before they were close enough to damage the target.
I don't know about the German Torpedoes but the American one's also had faulty depth gauges so that they ran deeper than set and fragile contact detonators that would break if they hit the target squarely instead of setting it off. A glancing blow though would set them off - which contributed to the mystery of just what was happening.
For the Americans the fact that the Admiral running the submarines had been the one to play a large role in the development of these torpedoes also hindered investigations as he didn't want aspersions being cast on his torpedoes and he blamed the sub commanders for lack of aggressiveness.
.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw Tth US. submarines were taught that a dead on shot was the way to do it and a glancing shot was to be avoided.
@@rutabagasteu Hmmm. Is that in reference to normal targeting procedure - or on how to avoid breaking the detonator? My understanding was that it was the dead on shots that broke the detonator but that the glancing shots might not break it.
Similar, but no where near as bad. Using the contact fuses, average system fail rate was 30%, as opposed to 70% on U.S. (if i recall correctly. Been some years since i read that book XD)
Recently subscribed as a result of some chit chat in The History Guy's comments section. Really fascinating to learn about such design challenges. Enjoying your enthusiasm and humour.
It was HMS Nelson's sister ship, Rodney, that set a big torch to the Bismark - not so much King George V, as the movie "Sink The Bismark" would lead you to believe.
It was only now that I understood how this unique 3 turret layout came about. Thanks for many clarifications!
Thank you for this video, from now on whenever someone mentions cheese, I will think of HMS Nelson.
I am slightly saddened by the fact that I was a little too late to serve on the more artillery oriented cruisers and destroyers of the royal Swedish navy as they were either mothballed or scrapped when I joined.
But I think I can vividly Imagine the effects of firing away the main guns of a battleship, I have had the honour of visiting an artillery regiment when they were firing a full battery of 15.5cm howitzers with salvo fire.
Impressive! And then scale this up is mind boggling.
I have also had the dubious joy of being right under the 57mm Bofors MK III gun of a corvette when firing.
I was out on my usual rounds checking equipment, hatches and integrity of the ship under an exercise. I then felt the need and positioned myself in the forward latrine right next to the ammunition hoists, that means only the thin deck separated me from the gun overhead and during my movement between two headset jacks they had ordered ready for AA action.
Firing can be described as very conducive for a good bowel movement...
They had a similar window issue with the iowa class battleship. The ultimate solution was to just open the windows during firing. The problem is the pressure difference the blast from firing the guns creates, having the windows open allowes pressure to freely disperse inside the cabin.
as a kid this ship always fascinated me because of the unique silhouette, whenever i think of the royal navy i think of this class of battleship!
A first class straight forward assessment.Thank you .
I absolutely love your videos, keep 'em coming.
Thanks to you, I can only think of “a particularly large and nice cheese” accompanied by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings whenever HMS Nelson is mentioned
3 elevated turrets poised to fire looks very impressive!
I take it the image at 23:12 was taken well after Nelson''s retirement. The port side of the hull is so corroded that it has the aspect of a stone wall, giving the Nelson a fortress-like look.
Another great vid thanks! I've always liked the Nelson class, built the Airfix kit years ago.
I read about the water armour in one of the Purnells books. Apparently, it was kept secret for decades after the war! The pictures of them being scrapped at Inverkeithing are very pretty sad.
Can you imagine the effort needed to tear one of those things apart??
My father’s first and favourite ship despite serving aboard the Rodney, Malay, U.S.S. South Dakota, and Valiant. He was aboard when it was torpedoed by an Italian S.M.79. Still have all his photos and memorabilia. 👍🏻🏴
What a fantastically interesting video, I really enjoyed it and will be watching a lot more of your videos. Also can I just say the gentleman doing the commentary has a perfect voice for this sort of thing. I wish there were more like him on other more boring commentaries.
Nelson and Rodol - truly unique, pugnacious and effective warships in the best British tradition.
Nelson is my ship, why? My father went to fight Rommel and Nelson escorted his convoy. His words " it would go away and come back later". Thank you Nelson you made my dad feel safer than without you.
Fun fact: Right after HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a u-boat in scapa flow the Nelson almost suffered the same fate. Even more intriguing is that Churchill was actually on board when the U-boat attack occurred. Only the torpedos being duds actually save the ship and perhaps the most important man in history from certain demise. It’s one of those “what if” moments in history. Sheer luck was clearly on the Brits side that day.
Well more like dodgy magnetic exploders on the German torps.
Yeah they were a bit unreliable in the beginning of the war but once the homing torps came out the game changed drastically!
So I was playing the game Uboat and sunk Royal Oak in Scapa flow. I went back rearmed and was assigned to patrol the coast of Spain. The first morning after I arrived in the patrol grid I found Nelson unescorted with only a tanker with her. 2 Nelsons in less than a week.
That is one beautiful ship
Thanks! I always wondered how they got a battleship with 9 16 inch guns within that displacement. I didn't know they managed to get the torpedo bulges excluded.
Bro they had 18 inch guns! She was a power house if the seas
@@roycorlett5778 No, only 16 inch guns. Yamato and Musashi were the only battleships ever to carry 18 inch guns
@@y0Milan Well, HMS Furious also had 18-inch guns. Sort-of.
I was just thinking about what you said concerning the penchant you have for obeying the treaty rules and liking every one to know about it. Funny the words just now popped in to my head, they being" that is what makes England such a great nation and allies.
The problem with the shallow belt is that, if the ship is at speed, or rolling, part of the hull will be exposed with no belt behind it. Even waves just a meter high would expose large parts of the unprotected belly. And a exploding armor piercing shell is not comparable to a torpedo. The explosive charge is not the dangerous part, the splinters are. And large splinters would just punch through the torpedo belt and reach the magazines or machinery spaces behind.
i have been looking forward to this before watching this i know its gonna be a great video keep up the great work
Nelson and Rodney were disparagingly referred to as "the Cherry Tree Class": CUT DOWN BY WASHINGTON!
One aspect of the Nelson design that I have never seen discussed is the effect that placing all of the main armament forward on a relatively slow ship will have on the tactical use of the ship. I think that the Admirals/Captains only real option against another battleships is to fight until either they triumph or they are destroyed. This is because they cannot retreat as the ship are both too slow to escape and defenceless when sailing away from an enemy. Having said that the Royal Navy fostered an aggressive attitude in its officers so it may not have mattered.
Quite possibly THE most impressive looking battleships of all time… bar none…
I read somewhere that Nelsol or Rodol fired a shot to one end of a bridge somewhere - perhaps North Africa to provide troop support and hold back an advancing force while keeping the bridge intact. The range was enormous and I think they had to fire over some hills or something. The fire extremely accurate for the range apparently.
I wonder if you can shed some light on this?
I can't find any reference to this.
Nelson was at operation torch in north africa. Both Rodney and Nelson took part in the landings at Salerno. This maybe were an event you described took place.
@dakotaprojectify naval gunfire was used to break up tank attacks on beach heads on Sicily and Italy. There was even a through back vessel that looked like the monitor that used ballast to extend the range and hit a headquarters.
In all her years of service, the HMS Nelson was never attacked from behind - what a lucky ship . ^^
I liked these ships.
They looked - and were - powerful.
And I loved the look of their tower superstructures.
☮
So been waiting for this! Thanks Drach 🙂
Even though the Nelson class wasn't considered the best design for the Royal Navy, I find this class my personal favourite British battleship, I think that the placement for their main armament was interesting, much similar to the Brooklyn class light cruisers of the US, and the heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. I may be obscuring other heavy cruiser/light cruiser designs that had similar placement of their main armaments, for which I apologise.
Fascinating history of a unique battleship class.
Thank you very much, for this incredible insight.
A unique class of ships with a unique history. Man I love these ships.
For me one of the most beautiful ship built for the royal navy...and a spectacular career during ww2!!!!
I personally love to refer the HMS Nelson in World of Warships was ISD Nelson due to its shape.
At the start of WW2, my grandfather was the 3rd officer of a merchant that was sunk at the entrance to Valletta. He was in the ship's boat motoring into the harbor to collect the pilot when he turned to look at his ship 100 yards behind him and saw it torpedoed. Shortly afterward he was then promoted to Captain and ended up commanding the supply ship that serviced both Nelson and Rodney. His merchant was fast enough to keep up with both ships and he carried dried stores and ammunition. Many of his friends were blown to pieces when their ships were torpedoed, but after that first incident at Malta, he was never attacked again, except when Nelson and Rodney came under air attack.
Very British things: your description of the North Sea weather and what someone once told me (incorrectly, but funny) about the ships unusual layout; "As the most powerful RN battleships, they would never have to run away from anyone, so all the guns were put forward for the attack."
I'd like to have had some information about the Nelson class' unique 25.4 inch torpedo tubes and their 'fish', the type fired at Bismarck and their apparent inspiration for the Jappanese 'long lance'.
"Which was a positively AMERICAN level of anti-aircraft firepower" ... you, sir, win the Internet for that comment.
merica....is the ship sinking yet? add more dakka then.
Tne Nelson was scrapped in March 1949. A month before I was born!!! How time flies.
My Uncle served on the HMS Rodney and was there when they chased Bismark and sank her. Another little bit of history in my family.
“The HMS Rodney “ For gods sake ! You don’t need the “the” .Its HMS Rodney !!
@@maryburnell7825 Thanks mommy for correcting me
Great ship, great video and great comments, thanks.
Another excellent video, please do HMS Vanguard, the last British battleship.
What a wonderful resource your channel is. Love it and subbed.
No other class epitomises what a battleship 'ought' to look like quite so much as this pair.
My Grandad, John Hamilton McLeod served onboard HMS Nelson 1939 - 1943 until it returned to the UK at which point he was transferred to the Hunt Class Destroyer HMS Wensleydale until the end of the war. He was onboard Nelson when General Eisenhower and Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham boarded for a tour while moored up at Algiers Dock in Malta May 1943. There is a video on RUclips somewhere showing this.
I don't know why windage would effect steering so badly, since the superstructure looks almost ideally placed to me to negate crosswinds, pushing the stern of the ship downwind just slightly more than the bow, so that the ship should point just enough upwind to compensate for the sideslip, unless backing up. However, if such a ship loses power, it might turn sideways to the wind and waves, which is usually the least seaworthy orientation. This is why the mayflower had such a high stern, and might help some modern tankers as well.
“Positively American level of firepower...” damn right sir and don’t you for forget it!
I cant remember which ship but i remember hearing a tale where one of the sailors on board was using the toilet when they hit a mine. The toilet shattered due to the force of the mine leading to a quite an injury for the unlucky soul. You could say it was a pain in the arse.
The doctor asked the sailor what happened. The sailor said the blast effected his a*sehole and testicles . Rectum, said the doctor. Rectum, said the sailor. It nearly blew them off.
Damn what a shitty situation
Just to show some love to these relatively slow battle-wagons, let me put it this way: if I were riding on Bismark while stuck making circles at less than 10 knots, the very last ship I'd want to see out the bridge window would be Rodney or Lord Nelson. I mean, THE last ship! Maybe a Yamato or an Iowa would be just as bad.