what would the implications be if hms royal oak wasn't sunk in scapa flow , being that she was the most modernised of the r class would she have seen an interesting service or would she largely be on convoy escort like the rest of the r class
My grandfather worked at Rosyth Dockyard when Lion was stripped of her fittings prior to final scrapping. He "Liberated" the armchair from the Admiral's cabin. We still posses that buffalo hide covered chair, a bit the worse for wear now, but once, no doubt, graced by Beatty's derriere!
I feel it necessary to state that I was fairly drunk (by my “f@#$ing lightweight” standards, anyhow) last night, and I just woke up about half an hour ago. So now that you know this, it will perhaps not come as a surprise that my first thought on seeing this video was “Wait, hasn’t he already done this one?” Followed by the realization that I was thinking of the video on HMS *Tiger.*
Did I correctly understand that at Jutland HMS Lion received the Lion's share of the battle damage? That would be appropriate. Sorry. I'll go take my meds.
In a perfect world the 3 remaining 'Splendid Cats would have the midship turrets removed (including the barbette) small tube boilers and modern steam turbines (similar to the HMS Glorious) to fill a 25 % larger internal space and rational ducting leading up to two large stacks (like HMS Hood). All this would free up space for a larger bridge a full set of modern 4 to 5.5 inch DP guns in modern gun houses and a ton of AA. The 13.5 inch cannon would be replaced by 14 inch guns that would rest in the existing mounts modified for 30 degree elevation. These mods would bring all three sisters together as a class give them the look of the Renowns and, with oil burning speed of 30 knots or so, send them out to defend the far reaches of the British Empire. And I believe its time to toast His Majesty!
An entertaining idea, but at the end of the day, the royal navy had ships: Malaya, Hood and Repulse which were much more capable but weren't modernized because of a lack of dock space and funds...
But the logistics of making a separate size of shell for just 3 capital ships isn't economical. The rest had 15 inch guns except for the 16's on Rodney and Nelson.
As a side mention HMS tiger should have been converted into a full deck carrier to replace hermes and eagle... take their time... then when ww2 looms... just keep the lot ...
Now there's a thought! That would have been an imaginative and creative use for an excellent large hull with powerful engines and good protection. Great shame she was scrapped before her time.
Saw that the Lion class was the featured article of the day on Wikipedia, so I figured one of my favorite RUclips Channels would probably have a good video on it. I am satisfied.
I've published my great-uncle's diary online, if anyone is interested. He served on the Lion throughout WWI. I won't put the link up until I get approval. There are no ads on the site, it's just for historical use.
Thanks for an excellent and informative video of these ships. They are often unfairly criticized compared to their German counterparts but in service they did everything asked of them and withstood the test of battle in good order. Unlike their supposedly superior opponents they were eager and able to continue the fight the following day only to find the enemy had fled the scene. The biggest falw would seem to be their poor luck when it came to being hit in battle, the Germans having the uncanny and very lucky ability to land hits on turrets.
Well, the German battlecruisers took a far heavier pounding than the British, facing sustained fire not just from the British battlecruisers but also the 15-inch guns of the 5th Battle Squadron and then roughly 25 minutes as the main focus of almost the entire British battle line. Just looking at the most modern ships at Jutland, the German battlecruisers Seydlitz, Derfflinger, and Lutzow took 21, 21, and 24 hits respectively (and from larger shells) compared to 14, 9, 5, and 18 for Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, and Tiger. Five hits were enough to sink Queen Mary, and Lion would have been sunk by the third shell if not for Major Harvey. Considering the German ships had numerous turrets knocked out by the end of the battle as well, I don't think the Germans had any sort of uncanny luck in hitting British turrets. It's simply a normal occurrence in battle, and one that the British ships weren't as protected against as they needed to be. Remember, however lax ammunition handling practices might be, none of that matters unless enemy rounds can actually penetrate the turret.
@@Wolfeson28 I have to disagree, there are many, many vital things you are skipping. The lax ammunition handling practices so many gleefully point out also existed in German ships prior to Dogger Bank. There Seydlitz was nearly destroyed by the same thing that happened to the British ships at Jutland and only the brave and fast action by her turret crew saved the ship, thereby the Germans learned of the dangers the reinstated the safety features while the British remained ignorant, which led the the losses. The boast of better ships is counterbalanced if you consider the British heavy AP shells were defective and exploded outside the armour while the German AP shells worked as designed. So lighter but effective German shells against thinner British armour Vs heavier but defective British shells against heavier German armour. IMO the British BC;s proved their toughness in battle more so than the Germans, who should have been in better fighting condition when taking that into account. So Lutzow took only six more hits from defective shells than Tiger and was hors de combat while the slighgly less hit Tiger, hit with working shells was still looking for a fight the next day. Tiger for the win. Add in the German advantage of being designed for limited short duration cruises in the North Sea while British ships had to be able to operate anywhere in the world, so German ships could afford to be more closely subdivided than ships of other Navy's. In harbour German crews left the ships and lived in barracks ashore, again not something other Navy's did. And at the rangers the guns were firing at, you're lucky to hit the ship at all, much less the turret as the Germans had a habit of doing, It's a combination of excellent training, excellent optics, a bit of good fortune where the shells hit and the sun favoring the German ships at the start of the battle. It all adds up. Another point few research is how German gunnery quickly worsened as battle wore on due the the intense strain of using their excellent rangefinders while the British system took longer to get on target but once there it stayed on target as the system was easier to use, or more user friendly in today's parlance.
You keep bringing up this idea the Germans fled because their ships were more damaged when they were going to flee no matter what. Jutland started out as one of those missions to whittle down the British battlecruiser forces, they were NEVER trying to fight the whole Grand Fleet and break the blockade on that day.
When you see the press coverage of the day, the prominent media darling often seems to have been Beatty in favour of Jellicoe. Perhaps it was his good looks, millionaire wife or fancy tailored uniform with the extra buttons but it seems quite obvious that there was a very good reason why Jellicoe was the guy in charge and not Beatty. Can you comment on whether there was an open rivalry between them or if that was just the media?
Beatty moving in the right social circles probably helped his public perception, but undoubtedly the biggest factor was simply that Beatty was perceived as being in the "Nelson-like" officer mold which the British public expected their naval commanders to be. He was a fast-riser in the ranks (quite young for senior command), looked the part in uniform, and had the reputation of being bold and aggressive. In reality, of course, Beatty was no Nelson, but he checked the right boxes for the public to think of him in that way.
@@Wolfeson28 Which is why he replaced Jellicoe after Jutland despite making a complete hash of things. If it wasn't for Jellicoes last minute decision to deploy his ships into line astern, his recon forces failure to keep him up to date on the German's position could have swung the battle against him in short order. As it was, their continued failure to do so allowed the Germans to sneak across the stern of the British line during the night and escape.
I served on the next HMS Lion C34 a fast,noisy ship built too late in the 60s luckily she wasn’t converted, saw in the Independence of Malta 1964 60 yrs ago this year. Back aft in the Admirals quarters there was lots of echos of Beatty including furniture etc. Wonder where that ended up. Charles Davis ex Rn 62-90
It made some sense in the earlier years when ship engagements were closer affairs, and the capital ships of the battle line would be in an ideal position to engage the enemy battle line with torpedoes. However gunnery got more accurate and engagement distances increased so that battleship torpedoes eventually became pointless.
@@estoyaqui5386 you seem to be using a curious definition of the word "work". You acknowledge that Rodney scored a torpedo hit, but argue that it didn't "work", why? It certainly wasn't a dud. Is it because the torpedo didn't make a big difference in the charnel house that Bismark had!d already become? By that standard, the last few score 14" and 16" hits did not "work" either, as Bismark was already utterly ruined and slowly sinking, with gun hits merely rearranging the wreckage and blasting the bodies into smaller kibbles.
Only because of the heroic act of a turret commander and some hands i guess, HMS Lion could take the "Beatt(y)ing". With the Lion having more shaft hp than her sister, but being a tad slower could mean the shafts rpm were higher and thus bringing the propellers in range of cavitation at full speed.
Its also possible that the lines of the hull were subtly different allowing the Princess Royal to achieve a higher speed on less power. But yes, thats an interesting hypothesis I wouldn't have considered.
This is an interesting comment. I checked the current fleet size compared to RAN, I would say RAN was roughly 2/3 the strength of the RN. I don't think this says that the RN is too small, but that the RAN is too small and the RN a better size, given the nation's relative current strategic threats.
@@indyrock8148 Meanwhile,we in germany still pay the "Schaumweinsteuer"..an understandable english term would be "Champagne tax"..yes...it does mean the prickly wine stuff...meant to finance our fleet...
I hear the phrase "British battlecruiser" and immediately think of a violent fireball. Which isn't fair, that only happens with the phrase "British battlecruiser took a shell hit."
@@AdamMGTF Yeah. Plus the Hood, 20 years later, the only ship of that type that faced an equally armed warship in much the same fashion as the battlecruisers of WWI before it. Other nations had battlecruisers that worked. Particularly Japan. British battlecruisers operated on the fundamentally flawed idea that speed would be their armor, rather than adopting a more efficient armor scheme. Lots of ships got hit by battleship caliber shells, but few had the disastrous performance of British battlecruisers.
@@magisterrleth3129 the design intent was Hunter killers to chase and destroy cruiser formations that could outrun their normal battleships. The fact they would deploy battleship caliber weapons against battleships regardless of armour wasn't originally intended to be a thing..... Originally anyway.
Japan? Their Kongos were analogous to Tiger, and they hardly 'worked'. They did precious little besides patrolling in WW1, and their refits to 'fast battleships' in the interwar were of dubious value, and certainly didn't make them equal to more modern battleships, as Kirishima proved when Washington tore her a new one. IIRC None of them ever stood up to anything like Jutland in either war. The issues with British Battlecruiser at Jutland were far more due to doctrinal issues around ammunition handling and stowage, rather then fundamental design issues, as can be see in the way that both the ships in this video, and the previous one on Tiger, showed that they were perfectly capable of taking multiple impacts from battleship calibre guns and surviving, as long as the idiocy of Beatty's bad doctrine didn't result in magazine detonations. As for Hood, again, that really was an unlucky one off. The quick detonation, I mean, nobody should really have been surprised that Hood, a 20 year old ship with knackered, worn out machinery and outdated (iirc) fire control would struggle vs a bigger, brand new ship like Bismarck.
The good news is the Lion to not explode at Jutland due to the suicidal bravery of a Royal Marine Major. The bad news is the Lion did not explode at Jutland and kill the Admiral was fault it was 3 British battlecruisers exploded at Jutland.
Different navies had different names for their turrets. The Germans, ever logical, simply went A, B, C, D etc. from bow to stern. According to wikipedia the Americans similarly went 1, 2, 3, 4 etc, bow to stern, but no citation is given for this.
The Lion ! What ship can take a direct hit from 14 inch 1100 lb HE shell ? Even a light hit would buckle your armor knock the crew senseless , rapture blood vessels lungs. Nose , organs unconscious.
They are anti-torpedo nets. Made of material resembling very heavy chain link fence, they were deployed when a battle developed or when there was a submarine risk. There's a good article about them along with some pictures of the nets deployed at www.gwpda.org/naval/nets.htm.
My understanding of torpedo nets is they could not be applied at speed, only at low speeds otherwise they would be torn off. But at low speeds entering a port they could if fearing torpedo boats. Usually? Only used at anchor.
I'm not sure how to ask this question in an understandable way but I'll give it a try. What are those angled pipes down the sides of WW1 era warships that look like folded outriggers?
They are the booms that held the anti-torpedo net out and away from the side. They were removed once war was joined as newer torpedoes could pierce them and there was a danger that in battle they could be blown off and trail in the water tangling the props, etc. (IIRC this happened to a German BC at Dogger Bank and it stopped and the trailing net was chopped away.) Edit: what am I saying, no german ships 'stopped', it must have been fixed under motion.
I would suggest those interested in gaming and naval warfare simulations, to check out the new offering called Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts. I've been checking out various YT vids on it, in particular by a gent name Alekius (primarily because, unlike others, he seems to have a clue regarding ship design and naval warfare). My impressions so far, is once it is fully developed, it will be a much improved version of Rule The Waves. It is scheduled for early access release on Steam in early 2020, or one can buy into the alpha test version directly from the developer (currently only the Naval Academy scenarios playable). It looks well enough along, and I'm impressed enough with what I've seen, I'm seriously considering ponying up the $50 to get into the alpha version. Here's a link to the first of the Naval Academy vids posted by the gent I mentioned above - ruclips.net/video/IEWdYbcHWW8/видео.html
Looking at the 2 forward funnels, I get the distinct impression the the forward engine rooms were very close together and hence vulnerable to torpedo damage?? Without truely knowing the engine layout and if they were compartmentalized so as to reduce the chance of multiple engines being taken out in a torpedo hit. I'll just have to ponder that question
All of the Lion-class boilerrooms (BRs) contained 6 boilers, 7 rooms of 6 boilers = 42. The most forward BR, A, was the width of the ship. A water-tight bulkhead (WTB) separated it from B & C BRs which were placed either side of a centreline WTB. E & F came next and then, iirc, there was another athwartship WTB dividing the BRs from Q turret.
Why, use a Q position turret, instead of an X turret? Presumably both turrets take up the same amount of space in the hull, so no real space saving by keeping Q but dropping X. Putting a turret in Q position means machinery has to be arranged around Q turret, and Q magazine has to be given extra insulation because of the heat. Not to mention the restricted arcs of fire for Q turret compared to the X position (see HMS Tiger and virtually every other 4 turret ship). In fact (to me at least) Q only makes sense if you intend to include X from the start. Perhaps the truth is that was the case, and when it was rejected, they had not bothered to create a alternative 4 turret design (ABXY), and went with the ABQY because they'd messed up and didn't have time to create a better design.
Having the machinery together may be disabled in one blow. Separating them mitigates that chance. Same for knocking out guns in one salvo. At least that was the theory.
@@richardcutts196 Possibly, and I'm no expert, it was for weight distribution reasons? As in, moving the turret further aft would have made her stern heavy which isn't ideal. Just my 2 cents worth.
@@katrinapaton5283 When they built Tiger (basically Lion class with 6" secondaries) and the Japanese ordered the Kongo class they put the third turret in the X position and not in Q position amongst the machinery. As Drac mentioned there was an option to build Lion with 5 turrets ABQXY positions, but it was rejected for financial reasons (cost of ship, and it would have required increasing the size of the docks and other infrastructure).
Considering the British wouldn't have seen themselves running from anything short of the entire German High Seas Fleet, and most engagements being stern chases or slugging it out broadside to broadside I'd guess it was certainly useful. I was wondering why it wasn't placed in X position rather than amidships but I've recently discovered the importance of ship balance so maybe thatd be too much weight aft?
Hi again, I thoroughly enjoy your warship information videos. I am a retired decal producer / model retailer, through which I have a large selection of high quality, model warship photographs. It would be a privilege to freely share these with you. Kindly respond if you are interested.
Anti-torpedo net booms. Basically a fence to keep the ship safe in harbor. The booms were extended out and a fence was dropped into the water to keep torpedoes from hitting the hull.
See, their ability to survive without having any of their main belt armor penetrated, along with HMS Tiger, proves the battlecruiser was NOT a glass jawed warship type. It annoys me greatly when some ignoramus spouts that utter bullshit.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
How would a battle between every UK battleship and battlecruisers vs every US battleship and battlecruisers?
what would the implications be if hms royal oak wasn't sunk in scapa flow , being that she was the most modernised of the r class would she have seen an interesting service or would she largely be on convoy escort like the rest of the r class
Nelson vs Iowa with Iowa on convoy escort?
Would the germans have still built the bismark If the Washington naval treaty never existed and the UK built the G3 and N3?
Please expand on your comments on the dangerous practices introduced by Beatty. Whats your opinion on his performance as a commander.
My grandfather worked at Rosyth Dockyard when Lion was stripped of her fittings prior to final scrapping. He "Liberated" the armchair from the Admiral's cabin. We still posses that buffalo hide covered chair, a bit the worse for wear now, but once, no doubt, graced by Beatty's derriere!
Pic somewhere please
Would´ve burned that thing just because Beattys ass was on it..
"...graced by Beatty's derriere" ? Please accept my condolences.
*Yoink.mp4*
Bullshit…No he didn’t
_"...Lion would cop the worst of it."_
Does that mean she got... _The Lions Share?_
alright you just earned ya oneway ticket to Davy Jones Locker yer ride will arrive in the form of the battlecruiser HMS Invincible have a nice day.
would be lion if that wasn't true
HMS Lion's official motto - We're what the Indefatigable Class was supposed to be.
They could have almost said:
If you are not satisfied with your Indefatigable, just call us. We will take on the job
Drachism of the Day
6:54: "poorly armored firecrackers"
"Landing the crippling hit on SMS Blucher"
*horses whinny in the distance*
Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman are spinning in their graves !
Is this a Young Frankenstein reference?
I have to say the British 13.5 inch battlecruisers are some of the best looking ships there are.
Concur. Tiger might well be my all-time favourite.
@@stanleyrogouski if only for the aesthetics
Yes, german BCs of ww1 look like their superstructures were a un-planned, ad-hoc arrangment.
Maj Havey RM won the VC for his action to flood the mags. As a former RM, worth noting.
I feel it necessary to state that I was fairly drunk (by my “f@#$ing lightweight” standards, anyhow) last night, and I just woke up about half an hour ago.
So now that you know this, it will perhaps not come as a surprise that my first thought on seeing this video was “Wait, hasn’t he already done this one?” Followed by the realization that I was thinking of the video on HMS *Tiger.*
HMS not exploding on the job
Due to the suicidal bravery of a junior officer.
@@jamesricker3997 A Major is not usually considered a junior officer.
It's only a matter of time before there'll be another HMS Lion. Wonder what that one will be like (probably a starcruiser at this rate lol)
Waking up and seeing Drachinifel has new video puts a +1 modifier on my day..
I love the look of British battlecruisers to me they are just beautiful looking ships.
Wasn't my fault I swear
That is a load of bull
Check you flag officer before you brush off your smartly custom tailored uniform :-)
Nobody:
Lion: *boom*
What's that? "I'm salty, that wasn't fair"?
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"
Funny cos I was reading about the battle of dogger Bank just yesterday, and found myself reading the wiki page for lion ❤️ thanks drac.
Did I correctly understand that at Jutland HMS Lion received the Lion's share of the battle damage? That would be appropriate. Sorry. I'll go take my meds.
That was Dogger Bank.
In a perfect world the 3 remaining 'Splendid Cats would have the midship turrets removed (including the barbette) small tube boilers and modern steam turbines (similar to the HMS Glorious) to fill a 25 % larger internal space and rational ducting leading up to two large stacks (like HMS Hood). All this would free up space for a larger bridge a full set of modern 4 to 5.5 inch DP guns in modern gun houses and a ton of AA. The 13.5 inch cannon would be replaced by 14 inch guns that would rest in the existing mounts modified for 30 degree elevation. These mods would bring all three sisters together as a class give them the look of the Renowns and, with oil burning speed of 30 knots or so, send them out to defend the far reaches of the British Empire. And I believe its time to toast His Majesty!
An entertaining idea, but at the end of the day, the royal navy had ships: Malaya, Hood and Repulse which were much more capable but weren't modernized because of a lack of dock space and funds...
But the logistics of making a separate size of shell for just 3 capital ships isn't economical. The rest had 15 inch guns except for the 16's on Rodney and Nelson.
@@Slicker1138 Incorrect. Tha KGV class had 14" gun's.
As a side mention HMS tiger should have been converted into a full deck carrier to replace hermes and eagle... take their time... then when ww2 looms... just keep the lot ...
Now there's a thought! That would have been an imaginative and creative use for an excellent large hull with powerful engines and good protection. Great shame she was scrapped before her time.
Would have been a good way to get around the naval treaty too
Great job drach keep up the amazing work
Saw that the Lion class was the featured article of the day on Wikipedia, so I figured one of my favorite RUclips Channels would probably have a good video on it. I am satisfied.
I've published my great-uncle's diary online, if anyone is interested. He served on the Lion throughout WWI. I won't put the link up until I get approval. There are no ads on the site, it's just for historical use.
Go for it
@@Drachinifel Cool, here you go: ww1diary.com/ (should have made it a .org but .com was cheaper).
Bucking the trend and not exploding under fire. Well done.
Thanks for an excellent and informative video of these ships.
They are often unfairly criticized compared to their German counterparts but in service they did everything asked of them and withstood the test of battle in good order.
Unlike their supposedly superior opponents they were eager and able to continue the fight the following day only to find the enemy had fled the scene.
The biggest falw would seem to be their poor luck when it came to being hit in battle, the Germans having the uncanny and very lucky ability to land hits on turrets.
Well, the German battlecruisers took a far heavier pounding than the British, facing sustained fire not just from the British battlecruisers but also the 15-inch guns of the 5th Battle Squadron and then roughly 25 minutes as the main focus of almost the entire British battle line. Just looking at the most modern ships at Jutland, the German battlecruisers Seydlitz, Derfflinger, and Lutzow took 21, 21, and 24 hits respectively (and from larger shells) compared to 14, 9, 5, and 18 for Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, and Tiger. Five hits were enough to sink Queen Mary, and Lion would have been sunk by the third shell if not for Major Harvey. Considering the German ships had numerous turrets knocked out by the end of the battle as well, I don't think the Germans had any sort of uncanny luck in hitting British turrets. It's simply a normal occurrence in battle, and one that the British ships weren't as protected against as they needed to be. Remember, however lax ammunition handling practices might be, none of that matters unless enemy rounds can actually penetrate the turret.
@@Wolfeson28 I have to disagree, there are many, many vital things you are skipping.
The lax ammunition handling practices so many gleefully point out also existed in German ships prior to Dogger Bank. There Seydlitz was nearly destroyed by the same thing that happened to the British ships at Jutland and only the brave and fast action by her turret crew saved the ship, thereby the Germans learned of the dangers the reinstated the safety features while the British remained ignorant, which led the the losses.
The boast of better ships is counterbalanced if you consider the British heavy AP shells were defective and exploded outside the armour while the German AP shells worked as designed. So lighter but effective German shells against thinner British armour Vs heavier but defective British shells against heavier German armour. IMO the British BC;s proved their toughness in battle more so than the Germans, who should have been in better fighting condition when taking that into account. So Lutzow took only six more hits from defective shells than Tiger and was hors de combat while the slighgly less hit Tiger, hit with working shells was still looking for a fight the next day. Tiger for the win.
Add in the German advantage of being designed for limited short duration cruises in the North Sea while British ships had to be able to operate anywhere in the world, so German ships could afford to be more closely subdivided than ships of other Navy's. In harbour German crews left the ships and lived in barracks ashore, again not something other Navy's did.
And at the rangers the guns were firing at, you're lucky to hit the ship at all, much less the turret as the Germans had a habit of doing, It's a combination of excellent training, excellent optics, a bit of good fortune where the shells hit and the sun favoring the German ships at the start of the battle. It all adds up.
Another point few research is how German gunnery quickly worsened as battle wore on due the the intense strain of using their excellent rangefinders while the British system took longer to get on target but once there it stayed on target as the system was easier to use, or more user friendly in today's parlance.
You keep bringing up this idea the Germans fled because their ships were more damaged when they were going to flee no matter what. Jutland started out as one of those missions to whittle down the British battlecruiser forces, they were NEVER trying to fight the whole Grand Fleet and break the blockade on that day.
"The need... for speed!"
*BOOM!!!!!!!*
Good morning Drach!🌞
Thanks to the efforts of Room 40 - you almost said, Ewing, there...
Feeling the need for speed. Nice one Drach 🤗
I would like to see coverage of the history of the Casablanca class escort carriers
When you see the press coverage of the day, the prominent media darling often seems to have been Beatty in favour of Jellicoe. Perhaps it was his good looks, millionaire wife or fancy tailored uniform with the extra buttons but it seems quite obvious that there was a very good reason why Jellicoe was the guy in charge and not Beatty. Can you comment on whether there was an open rivalry between them or if that was just the media?
Beatty moving in the right social circles probably helped his public perception, but undoubtedly the biggest factor was simply that Beatty was perceived as being in the "Nelson-like" officer mold which the British public expected their naval commanders to be. He was a fast-riser in the ranks (quite young for senior command), looked the part in uniform, and had the reputation of being bold and aggressive. In reality, of course, Beatty was no Nelson, but he checked the right boxes for the public to think of him in that way.
@@Wolfeson28 Which is why he replaced Jellicoe after Jutland despite making a complete hash of things. If it wasn't for Jellicoes last minute decision to deploy his ships into line astern, his recon forces failure to keep him up to date on the German's position could have swung the battle against him in short order. As it was, their continued failure to do so allowed the Germans to sneak across the stern of the British line during the night and escape.
Thank you.
Interesting and informative. Thank you.
i sight for a sore eyes you are Drachinifel :)
I served on the next HMS Lion C34 a fast,noisy ship built too late in the 60s luckily she wasn’t converted, saw in the Independence of Malta 1964 60 yrs ago this year. Back aft in the Admirals quarters there was lots of echos of Beatty including furniture etc. Wonder where that ended up. Charles Davis ex Rn 62-90
Get HMS Princess Royal in WoWS!
I always wondered why torpedo tubes were fitted to this capital ships
The idea was that ships engaging broadside to broadside would finish the other off with torpedos. It never really turned out that way.
And it did work, maybe, once: Rodney may have torpedoed Bismarck
It made some sense in the earlier years when ship engagements were closer affairs, and the capital ships of the battle line would be in an ideal position to engage the enemy battle line with torpedoes. However gunnery got more accurate and engagement distances increased so that battleship torpedoes eventually became pointless.
@@DamianMaisano it did not "work"; the hit did nothing to the Bismarck.
@@estoyaqui5386 you seem to be using a curious definition of the word "work". You acknowledge that Rodney scored a torpedo hit, but argue that it didn't "work", why? It certainly wasn't a dud. Is it because the torpedo didn't make a big difference in the charnel house that Bismark had!d already become? By that standard, the last few score 14" and 16" hits did not "work" either, as Bismark was already utterly ruined and slowly sinking, with gun hits merely rearranging the wreckage and blasting the bodies into smaller kibbles.
I love this design of battlecruiser
Comming this ship to wows?
Only because of the heroic act of a turret commander and some hands i guess, HMS Lion could take the "Beatt(y)ing".
With the Lion having more shaft hp than her sister, but being a tad slower could mean the shafts rpm were higher and thus bringing the propellers in range of cavitation at full speed.
Its also possible that the lines of the hull were subtly different allowing the Princess Royal to achieve a higher speed on less power. But yes, thats an interesting hypothesis I wouldn't have considered.
The good old days when people wanted you to expand the navy
why hasn't Drach liked this comment yet??!!?
This is an interesting comment.
I checked the current fleet size compared to RAN, I would say RAN was roughly 2/3 the strength of the RN.
I don't think this says that the RN is too small, but that the RAN is too small and the RN a better size, given the nation's relative current strategic threats.
@@indyrock8148 Meanwhile,we in germany still pay the "Schaumweinsteuer"..an understandable english term would be "Champagne tax"..yes...it does mean the prickly wine stuff...meant to finance our fleet...
@@NashmanNash you guys were drinking enough champagne the tax paid for your navy?
Ah yes, one of Admiral Beatty's Splendid Cats. Splendid!
Did British battle cruisers see more action than battleships in WW1?
Nothing wrong with these ships, lion proved it, center line turret, and bravery of a marine who flooded the magazine, and a VC.
I hear the phrase "British battlecruiser" and immediately think of a violent fireball. Which isn't fair, that only happens with the phrase "British battlecruiser took a shell hit."
Only when you leave ammunition out for feeding the flames in the turrets. When they avoided that they proved fairly difficult to sink regardless.
And only in ww1... At one battle.... But all that 'truth' sort of ruins the 1 liner
@@AdamMGTF Yeah. Plus the Hood, 20 years later, the only ship of that type that faced an equally armed warship in much the same fashion as the battlecruisers of WWI before it. Other nations had battlecruisers that worked. Particularly Japan. British battlecruisers operated on the fundamentally flawed idea that speed would be their armor, rather than adopting a more efficient armor scheme. Lots of ships got hit by battleship caliber shells, but few had the disastrous performance of British battlecruisers.
@@magisterrleth3129 the design intent was Hunter killers to chase and destroy cruiser formations that could outrun their normal battleships. The fact they would deploy battleship caliber weapons against battleships regardless of armour wasn't originally intended to be a thing..... Originally anyway.
Japan? Their Kongos were analogous to Tiger, and they hardly 'worked'. They did precious little besides patrolling in WW1, and their refits to 'fast battleships' in the interwar were of dubious value, and certainly didn't make them equal to more modern battleships, as Kirishima proved when Washington tore her a new one. IIRC None of them ever stood up to anything like Jutland in either war.
The issues with British Battlecruiser at Jutland were far more due to doctrinal issues around ammunition handling and stowage, rather then fundamental design issues, as can be see in the way that both the ships in this video, and the previous one on Tiger, showed that they were perfectly capable of taking multiple impacts from battleship calibre guns and surviving, as long as the idiocy of Beatty's bad doctrine didn't result in magazine detonations.
As for Hood, again, that really was an unlucky one off. The quick detonation, I mean, nobody should really have been surprised that Hood, a 20 year old ship with knackered, worn out machinery and outdated (iirc) fire control would struggle vs a bigger, brand new ship like Bismarck.
Great video.nicr
"...under the command of Rear-Admiral Beatty."
"This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
I'm sorry to ask again But you made a comment that I would like an answer to HMS Captain ?
The good news is the Lion to not explode at Jutland due to the suicidal bravery of a Royal Marine Major. The bad news is the Lion did not explode at Jutland and kill the Admiral was fault it was 3 British battlecruisers exploded at Jutland.
lol
The losses of the British battlecruisers is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the dreadnought era.
What are the letters used for multiple main battery turrets amidship, like on IJN Fuso?
'P' and 'Q'
@@Yunodruid thanks!
A, B, P, Q, X, Y
Those six-turreted ships always were well-mannered ships, minding their Ps and Qs.
(I'll let myself out.)
Different navies had different names for their turrets. The Germans, ever logical, simply went A, B, C, D etc. from bow to stern. According to wikipedia the Americans similarly went 1, 2, 3, 4 etc, bow to stern, but no citation is given for this.
A salute to Francis Harvey, might be kin to me
The Lion ! What ship can take a direct hit from 14 inch 1100 lb HE shell ? Even a light hit would buckle your armor knock the crew senseless , rapture blood vessels lungs. Nose , organs unconscious.
What are the diagonal pipes running along the sides of early battleships?
They are anti-torpedo nets. Made of material resembling very heavy chain link fence, they were deployed when a battle developed or when there was a submarine risk. There's a good article about them along with some pictures of the nets deployed at www.gwpda.org/naval/nets.htm.
My understanding of torpedo nets is they could not be applied at speed, only at low speeds otherwise they would be torn off. But at low speeds entering a port they could if fearing torpedo boats.
Usually? Only used at anchor.
Review S.S Beaver next
I'm not sure how to ask this question in an understandable way but I'll give it a try. What are those angled pipes down the sides of WW1 era warships that look like folded outriggers?
They are the booms that held the anti-torpedo net out and away from the side. They were removed once war was joined as newer torpedoes could pierce them and there was a danger that in battle they could be blown off and trail in the water tangling the props, etc. (IIRC this happened to a German BC at Dogger Bank and it stopped and the trailing net was chopped away.)
Edit: what am I saying, no german ships 'stopped', it must have been fixed under motion.
I would suggest those interested in gaming and naval warfare simulations, to check out the new offering called Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts. I've been checking out various YT vids on it, in particular by a gent name Alekius (primarily because, unlike others, he seems to have a clue regarding ship design and naval warfare). My impressions so far, is once it is fully developed, it will be a much improved version of Rule The Waves. It is scheduled for early access release on Steam in early 2020, or one can buy into the alpha test version directly from the developer (currently only the Naval Academy scenarios playable). It looks well enough along, and I'm impressed enough with what I've seen, I'm seriously considering ponying up the $50 to get into the alpha version.
Here's a link to the first of the Naval Academy vids posted by the gent I mentioned above - ruclips.net/video/IEWdYbcHWW8/видео.html
Looking at the 2 forward funnels, I get the distinct impression the the forward engine rooms were very close together and hence vulnerable to torpedo damage??
Without truely knowing the engine layout and if they were compartmentalized so as to reduce the chance of multiple engines being taken out in a torpedo hit. I'll just have to ponder that question
All of the Lion-class boilerrooms (BRs) contained 6 boilers, 7 rooms of 6 boilers = 42.
The most forward BR, A, was the width of the ship. A water-tight bulkhead (WTB) separated it from B & C BRs which were placed either side of a centreline WTB. E & F came next and then, iirc, there was another athwartship WTB dividing the BRs from Q turret.
Why, use a Q position turret, instead of an X turret? Presumably both turrets take up the same amount of space in the hull, so no real space saving by keeping Q but dropping X. Putting a turret in Q position means machinery has to be arranged around Q turret, and Q magazine has to be given extra insulation because of the heat. Not to mention the restricted arcs of fire for Q turret compared to the X position (see HMS Tiger and virtually every other 4 turret ship). In fact (to me at least) Q only makes sense if you intend to include X from the start. Perhaps the truth is that was the case, and when it was rejected, they had not bothered to create a alternative 4 turret design (ABXY), and went with the ABQY because they'd messed up and didn't have time to create a better design.
Having the machinery together may be disabled in one blow. Separating them mitigates that chance. Same for knocking out guns in one salvo. At least that was the theory.
David Kaminski Except, the turret doesn’t separate the machinery, it is in the middle of it. That’s why it was so hard to delete that section.
@@richardcutts196 Possibly, and I'm no expert, it was for weight distribution reasons? As in, moving the turret further aft would have made her stern heavy which isn't ideal. Just my 2 cents worth.
@@katrinapaton5283 When they built Tiger (basically Lion class with 6" secondaries) and the Japanese ordered the Kongo class they put the third turret in the X position and not in Q position amongst the machinery. As Drac mentioned there was an option to build Lion with 5 turrets ABQXY positions, but it was rejected for financial reasons (cost of ship, and it would have required increasing the size of the docks and other infrastructure).
@@richardcutts196 Yes, exactly, this layout doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.
Please do the HMS Black Swan
What is the purpose of the diagonal fixtures on the side of the hull?
anti torpedo nets, abandoned before WW1 I think?
I’d love to see something about Betty…
State of the art to scrap in 12 years.
Was the middle turret actually that useful? Could it have been omitted?
Considering the British wouldn't have seen themselves running from anything short of the entire German High Seas Fleet, and most engagements being stern chases or slugging it out broadside to broadside I'd guess it was certainly useful. I was wondering why it wasn't placed in X position rather than amidships but I've recently discovered the importance of ship balance so maybe thatd be too much weight aft?
But did this iron Lion ever visit Zion?
Nice
Could someone tell me what the 'pipes' are on the side of the early British battleships?
Poles that deploy anti-torpedo nets.
@@glennricafrente58 Thank you
7:15 I'm loosing my mind at all those shells on the deck. If my old gun chief saw that he'd Implode. (Marine Artillery - Not navy)
PLEASE DO THE AMERICAN PRE DREADNOUGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and can you do them like the french ones
🦅👍
WOW
7:10 Ironic.
Hi again, I thoroughly enjoy your warship information videos. I am a retired decal producer / model retailer, through which I have a large selection of high quality, model warship photographs. It would be a privilege to freely share these with you. Kindly respond if you are interested.
:)
What are those roots alongside the hull?
Anti-torpedo net booms. Basically a fence to keep the ship safe in harbor. The booms were extended out and a fence was dropped into the water to keep torpedoes from hitting the hull.
See, their ability to survive without having any of their main belt armor penetrated, along with HMS Tiger, proves the battlecruiser was NOT a glass jawed warship type. It annoys me greatly when some ignoramus spouts that utter bullshit.
Great video.nicr