French Interwar Cruisers - The Best of Ships, The Worst of Ships

[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@rhedosaurus2251]

If Kinkaid's fleet caught up with Kurita's, what would have happened? I say that the two Kongo's and Nagato would have been lost with Yamato being driven off suffering considerable damage, but not before sinking one battleship, with 2 more badly damaged.

[@AptWaffleMantis2278]

If the Japanese had one the decisive battle at the Philippines, what would the losses to the us navy looked like, and what would the us navy likely do in afterwards

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

I recently stumbled across the American's version of Surcouf, the Cruiser Submarine Type 2 (and Type 3) a 13,500 ton monster with eight 8 inch guns, do you have any further information on these vessels and how well they would have worked if they'd been built?

[@Fort_Master]

I had a thought resently about battle carriers, I know in real life the only one that were built were done in desperation, but do you think it could've been possible for the Battle carrier to have been the next evolution of the Battlecruiser? Given that the thought behind Battlecruisers was for them to out gun anything smaller then them while also being fast enough to outrun comparable battleships, You'd think that adding the capability to launch a couple of squadrons of fighters or other attack craft could help with scouting and harasing smaller ships.

[@baxter9725]

DAY 95 please could you dry dock on what if the Bismarck broke into the Atlantic

[@BalshazzarWastebasket]

im thinking what a giant drachinifel really is. he puts out content at about 3-4 posts weekly, researched, materials, ... and these are usually not tiny, pathetic 1-minute things, but very detailed vids indeed. a giant in our times!!

[@timhurtienne7760]

Truly

[@gbosman5874]

Hear hear!

[@PFCranssen]

Well said. He is indeed.

[@jeffholloway3882]

He is indeed

[@halkyuusen8626]

Truly a time bender

[@exF3-86]

"...blown up by an especially high speed seagull..." There is an ever so slightly disturbed side of me that would like to see that.

[@troysemrau3654]

i have the Randy Johnson exploding bird in my head now.

[@TomSedgman]

@@exF3-86 it was called the Shits-X

[@marckyle5895]

Jonathan Livingston Seagull has joined the chat "Short wings!"

[@michaelquinn9024]

That line made me spill my coffee! That's what I like about Drachinifel - informative and funny.

[@davidty2006]

Would this be the seagull floatplane or an actual seagull? Not like it would matter either way....

[@tehllama42]

I'm just waiting for "Especially High Speed Seagull" merchandise, particularly shirts.

[@alltat]

Would said shirts offer protection against especially high speed seagulls?

[@alexandermonro6768]

​@@alltat I believe that some of Drach's medieval reenactment mates are proficient in the construction of chainmail.

[@chrisf4659]

@@tehllama42 I'm STILL waiting for a shirt with the Kamtchaca on it with "Torpedo Boat!" Repeatedly splayed across it.

[@tehllama42]

@@alltat You're right... hoodies might make more sense

[@tomrecane6366]

Six years! Six and you still haven’t run out of ships to review. Amazing.

[@chrismaverick9828]

I started watching the first year of drydocks recently. 35mins.... :D

[@GrantWaller.-hf6jn]

Drac has said he literally has years of ships to review planned for.

[@Szopen715]

Rex and Drach uploading within 30 minutes, both on Interwar French designs? Wonderful!

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

Yep, this will be... engineeringly unusual😉

[@LaraineBouguer]

The heavy cruisers, interwar bomber development, the french pre-dreadnaughts... why is it that whenever the French try their hand at developing a series of military vehicles, the results make everyone else look at them and go, o_O;;;;?

[@alltat]

@@LaraineBouguer They did get it right sometimes. The French completely reinvented what a tank should look like, and everyone pretty much copies that design forever after.

[@luislealsantos]

France produced remarkable Ships, tanks and planes. They managed to be effetive and original on a budget.

[@SpenzOT]

Rex, Drach, and ConeofArch have my inter-war and WW2 equipment needs fulfilled.

[@turquoise9706]

It really is incredible how the French fleet turned itself around with such amazing designs going into the 1930s. It's a shame the Saint Louis wasn't completed, like you noted. I'm reading Jordan & Dumas' French Battleships, and the complete 180 from lagging behind to world-leading across the entire fleet is wild. It's so neat how just a few key design and philosophy changes - and the political will to commit to the changes - can make such a difference in what's built.

[@joshmostposh]

France rapidly went from some of the very worst WW1 designs to some of the very best WW2 designs. It’s crazy. It’s such a shame so much of their navy didn’t actually get to see much action.

[@quentintin1]

that's just the French military in a nutshell, either: -world leading -desperately outmoded no in betweens, the army was much the same, had some of the worst weapons designs for a modern industrial war, but a breadth of newer, extremely modern equipment was either on the verge of being produced in numbers, or in the end stages of designing so that full production by 1941 wouldn't have been out of the question

[@bkjeong4302]

The problem is that the actually excellent French designs came about at a time when they were becoming conceptually obsolete thanks to the rise of naval aviation…

[@quentintin1]

@@bkjeong4302 if you're talking about the lack of modern AAA, a better medium AA was planned, but hiccups in development delayed it's introduction, ships built from 1935 onwards were supposed to get a number of twin automatic 37mm mountings the obsolescence of big gun ships because of naval aviation wasn't realised yet either by anyone, it was still conceived as a support to the battlefleet. and they were also building modern carriers, the Joffre's keel had been laid just before the Germans did a rude, and her sister ship, Painlevé was planned to be built as soon as a suitable slipway cleared

[@bkjeong4302]

@@quentintin1 Yes, literally everyone ended up throwing money away on pointless new battleships, but in the case of the French it’s especially hilarious IMO because they managed a massive turnaround in naval design expertise only to have that be all for nothing.

[@antoninuspius1747]

Your mention of "nice to have", "could you do this", etc. at ~10:00 made my blood pressure rise. I worked in aerospace for 35 years, mostly satelltites but also missiles and aircraft. It annoys me to no end when I hear the press and congress berating a contractor for cost overruns. I would estimate 1/2 of all the cost overruns are due to customers doing just that, changing what they want from what was agreed to via contract. Real life example: A satellite program used a Digital Storage Unit (stores all the pictures and stuff for later download). The DSU was previously flown, fully qualified. Well, in the 3 to 4 years it takes to just design the satellite, the subcontractor came out with a brand spanking new unit with 3X the storage. Of course the customer says "we want that new one" even though the satellite design is well advanced. Well, it requires more power so we need more solar array area, weighs more so things may have to be moved around to keep the cg within limits, it's bigger so even more things need to be moved around, new harnesses to support the increased power and capacity, software updates, it isn't qualified for our environments so add an extremely costly qualification program that is run IN PARALELL with build to try to meet schedule and hoping it passes testing, and if it doesn't, even more work to be done. And that just scratches the surface. For something just like that you're probably talking about a $10 to $20 million dollar cost. Multiply that by 3 or 5 "wants" and now congress hears about it and doesn't understand the why's and the contractor gets blammed and bad press ensues. Sorry, had to vent....feel better now.

[@DornishVintage]

In my line of work, we do the pre-studies with the client, present a workable solution and then in the design phase work out specific requirements and if they are inside the project scope. Then we have them sign off on it. This is what you agreed upon. Anything else that comes up during the construction phase, we review if viable, and if so, detail the additional charge. Sometimes they agree, sometimes they go "oh on second thought, we don't really need that after all....".

[@GrantWaller.-hf6jn]

​@@DornishVintageyou guys are going to give Drac flashbacks to his civil engineering days. I personal didn't blame the builders. I blamed the government idiots that think they know more than people who do things for a living just because they are in government.

[@ExceptionallyCleverUsername]

@@DornishVintage I think when Douglas designed the A4 Skyhawk they had a clause in the contract that allowed them to reduce the aircraft's range if the navy demanded any changes that increased weight. In the end the design came out weighing about half of the original navy specification, so that clause must have made the navy guys think carefully about any last-minute demands.

[@ThePurplePassage]

Getting the recipient involved and informed of the costs and complications that these changes make is a fantastic idea which every government should do. The problem is a result of ignorance of what I'd call the boring but essential details and knowledge is the cure. If you don't know all the complications and compromises that some changes may entail, then it's only going to be natural to perceive a new component as having no downside, so naturally people will ask for it, as ignorantly as a child will see no downside in asking for more lollipops

[@camenbert5837]

The building trade says "hi!"

[@barleysixseventwo6665]

“If we drop the speed it’ll be vulnerable to battlecruisers!” ”By Napoleon’s taint! _It’s vulnerable to destroyers!_ “

[@bushidiru]

I think the addition of the tumblehome was done solely to ensure that everyone knew it was a French design.

[@F15A80]

Only the French built ships with tumblehomes so extreme that they looked like permanently surfaced submarines...

[@camenbert5837]

International hotel standards...

[@barelyasurvivor1257]

The best thing about Drachinifel is his honesty. If he doesn't know something he will say so. Well that and his ability to find and present the very obscure information in a way that is informative and very interesting.

[@GrantWaller.-hf6jn]

Yes and has made some of the collaborative videos more fun. Also some screen time for these other navel historians to talk about things they found in their country that is not easy for someone outside of that nation to get access to.

[@barelyasurvivor1257]

@@GrantWaller.-hf6jn True that.

[@theworldaccordingtotreris]

The Algerie is such a pretty ship. Very clean lines and not too cluttered. The tower seems slightly similar to the Dutch De Ruyter and the Graf Spee, but then certainly better looking than the De Ruyter.

[@Cailus3542]

And probably superior to both, considering Graf Spee's performance in battle.

[@ssanneru]

@@Cailus3542 No surprise there really, the Deutschlands were designed and built to even more arbitrary limits than the Treaty cruisers. Practicality did not get a vote.

[@Big_E_Soul_Fragment]

Duquesne-class really took "no armor is best armor" to heart

[@panzerschliffehohenzollern4863]

Funny that there were only a few battlecruisers in existence that can catch them, but a whole ocean of destroyers that can and will blow them out of the water instead.

[@micuu1]

@@panzerschliffehohenzollern4863 can't be sunk by battlecruisers if their destroyer escort sinks you first.

[@m0redread]

The only armor that matters is plot armor

[@dougjb7848]

Taken to a ludicrous place, “the best cruiser to have is not to have a cruiser at all.”

[@SpenzOT]

I think the wisest choice would have been to comprise at least half of the crew with cameramen, because we all know that they are invincible.

[@jimalexander8734]

I think the zebra camouflage pattern on one of the French cruiser's is just the best!

[@steppedtuba50]

I’d paint mine as a lion

[@andreaspedersen3952]

Sounds like De Grasse?

[@jimalexander8734]

Yes. That's the one

[@bthsr7113]

"Wonderfully Ruthless" is a superb way to describe the square cube law.

[@weldonwin]

It's ruined so many giant robot fantasies and Kaiju movies

[@bthsr7113]

@@weldonwin Ironically though, there are some times that it actually makes things more viable. Like Storage tanks to hold absurdly dangerous fuel for a tripropellant rocket engine.

[@WillowEpp]

Counterpoint: we don't have to deal with spiders the size of cars.

[@weldonwin]

@@WillowEpp Oh we used to have those on Earth, it's more the far lower oxygen content in the Earth's atmosphere compared to the Carboniferous period

[@Spursfan-jv3xw]

a ship that might be blown up by an especially high speed seagull.... i now have to mop up some tea that was spilt laughing at this.... love your vids.

[@Jayne22]

I also stopped my tea and had to cough. 😅

[@Spursfan-jv3xw]

@Jayne22 I should have learnt by now that humor may cause tea based issues.

[@BonsaiBlacksmith]

Beautiful deep dive into interwar French Naval thinking in regards to Cruisers. Thank you once again!

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

It was said that the German cruisers of the Königsberg class were freshwater ships. Something similar can be said about the cruisers of the Duquesne class, although they looked more elegant, were a little faster and better armed, but were less "armored" - and that's what they were. A duel between Dusquene and Königsberg would have been interesting - whether the German ship would break apart first or the French ship would be turned into a kind of steel Swiss cheese first would be exciting. The question of which were the worst cruisers of the interwar period is also open. To be fair, the German designers had to make do with 6000 ts, while their French colleagues had 4000 ts more at their disposal.

[@gianmarcodacol1820]

Our Trento class would be a great contender too 😂

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

@@gianmarcodacol1820 Yes, a real Tinclad.

[@RedXlV]

The Duquesne-class, for all their flaws, were at least seaworthy.

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

@@RedXlV Yes, the top-heaviness the Königsbergs were infamous for. Therefore, freshwater ships. Actually they were rather good sea boats, but with the dangerous potential to capsize if internal stores were improperly loaded. They were nevertheless very maneuverable.

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

Another way to put it is: ships that are far better on paper or in WoW than they would be on the Atlantic. Or the Pacific: On her last training cruise in 1936, Karlsruhe was badly damaged by a tropical storm in the Pacific Ocean, due to her structural weaknesses. This caused significant damage, and the cruiser was forced to put into San Diego for repairs.

[@grandadmiralraeder9608]

"might get blown up by an especially high-speed seagull if it hit the right area" That is a beautiful Drachism! (timestamp 13:39)

[@loficampingguy9664]

Oooh, this was super fun to listen to, and Drach's clear praise and admiration is seriously a pleasant vibe.

[@ach3909]

Eventually Drach is gonna have a full complete demonstration and tutorial of everything Squarespace.

[@riderstrano783]

17:45 literally translating to “Steam horses”

[@Backwardlooking]

Excellent. Hats off to naval architects. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@DrBovdin]

I saw your appearance on Times Radio History and came over here and was happy to see that you did have this, the in-depth coverage of French inter-war cruisers that I wanted, all ready for consumption. 😄👍🏻 Cheers

[@chrisf4659]

Just once at the end of the Squarespace tutorial I would like to hear Drach say "ideally for a midieval re-enactors web page"

[@maxart3392]

Great video as always, just one remark (as always, when talking about French navy): "Marine nationale" should be pronounced as "nasionale", not "nashionale".

[@BobSmith-dk8nw]

At one point in time in my youth - me and my War Gaming Buddies - held a Round Robin of the Worlds WWII Navies. We had all played the Avalon Hill _Jutland_ game but one of the guys in the group had created his own set of Naval Rules. Each side would have several Battleships, Cruisers and Destroyers. This was surface combat and Airplanes Ruined that - so no Carriers. . The First match up was between the French and Italians but I don't remember the details of the ships involved. It's to bad I can't remember any more about the French ships used as these may well have been among them. The Italians won - and went on to fight the British - who went on to fight the Germans - who went on to fight the Americans - who went on to fight the Japanese where they won as well. Of course - this wasn't just ship quality that determined the winner - as the players would be the major determinant. I don't believe we had any fixed teams. We'd just have a match at someone's house and choose up sides then. We all drank beer together every Friday Night (unless we had a date) and sometimes played War Games Saturday Night. Sadly, like most groups of young men - ours was destroyed by women. .

[@73Trident]

You are the best Drach. Thanks for all you do.

[@FrankBarnwell-xi8my]

Not to say my life revolves around Drachinifel videos, except for 4 days a week...

[@mcdaniel21mc]

Please do Italian and Japanese cruisers next Drach!

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

@@mcdaniel21mc Yes, Japan and Italy had her fair share of - eh - interesting cruisers, or simply faulty designs.

[@mcdaniel21mc]

@@martinmarheinecke7677 I would personally like to hear more about Italian cruisers such as the Trento's ,Zara's and all the extremely fast light cruisers built for the Regia Marina

[@martinmarheinecke7677]

@@mcdaniel21mcFast and elegant ships, indeed. Italian cruisers are quite similar to French: they typically trade protection for speed.

[@frankgleaves1084]

@@martinmarheinecke7677 Except for the Zara Class, with extensive 150mm armor against 6" guns. Unfortunately they weren't intended for night action, and ran into three radar-equipped Queen Elizabeths in the dark going to take their torpedoed sister the Pola under tow. Pola's crew broke into the vino locker while waiting...

[@christopherwalton8339]

Always interesting with a good helping of humour throne in . Always a great watch . Keep it coming and thanks for history and info.

[@GrumblingGrognard]

As a 60 year-old "wargamer" and treadhead, these are great stuff. Tanks I know...ships, esp. those of non-US navies, interwar...not much at all. Thanks!

[@arthurwong4386]

Wow I don't think I have been this early. Ah treaty ships, honestly a fun and eclectic mix!

[@dantc2403]

Excellent video! I just came from watching the interview you posted, so it's cool to see the content tie into a point you made there.

[@zedaprime]

We have a saying at work... the while you're at it syndrome.

[@AlanKornhauser]

My dad worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard for the first part of the war. They did repairs and modifications on some Free French cruisers. He said the deck plates were so thin that you could feel them flex when you walked on them.

[@r2dter]

Just a small correction at 6:52 a uniquely French requirement to transport large quantities of baguettes and cigarettes

[@JackFlame-pl9xj]

Drachinifel can you do a vid on the french lighter cruisers émile bertin and la galissonnière if you want

[@UthurRytan]

An interesting point I'd like to add is that Dupleix basically had the same weight on armour protecting the machinery and magazine spaces as Algerie. The only difference in the armour weight came from the better protected turrets and barbette in Algerie compared to Dupleix, it was just very inefficiently in the latter with a 60 mm inner belt and a 30 mm outer one laid all over the place and then when the French suddenly realised after ordering Dupleix they had the weight to spare for a far better protected ship. The French also considered adding the 80 mm deck and 660 lb torpedo protection to the La Galissonieres like with Algerie, but they cost 1200 tons and 400 tons respectively. They didn't want to burden the design with so much weight, even if they would still be treaty compliant after those modifications, at 9500 t standard with those changes, and didn't go through with eithee, with a simplier subdivisions comprised of 2 section outboard of the machinery. It might have also cut the programme to 5 ships due to the increased cost, which the French Navy didn't really want

[@Aelxi]

Which reminds me, Drach you need to do individual guides on these CA generations, Duequnes, Suffrens and Algierie

[@DeeEight]

They still use 1st and 2nd class to describe their warships. The first rank of "frigates" use Dxxx hull numbers, and while not using the destroyer word itself are effectively that while the second rank frigates are all Fxxx hull numbers.

[@bthsr7113]

When you mentioned them adding the sea plane (plus attending systems) and still not having spent weight on the powerplant yet, I almost literally threw up my hands.

[@robertsneddon731]

Cruisers in this period were expected to be the largest ship in a convoy escort or troop transport role and needed eyes in the sky for scouting. A destroyer screen could scout out a few dozen nautical miles around the fleet, a seaplane in good weather could cover hundreds of nautical miles. Radar also helped of course but that came after the time when the ships were being designed.

[@bthsr7113]

@@robertsneddon731 I get that it was a very useful addition, but that weight budget was being strained so hard, and a full plane plus attending gear is going to eat into it badly.

[@999theeagle]

"However....." is a thing I enjoy hearing.

[@SingMineshaftGapInAFlatMinor]

"Those French...they have a different word for Everything!" --Steve Martin

[@curtshelp6170]

I would love to hear a comparison of similar detail of this one between Algeria and hipper but substitute Wichita for Hipper, a far closer comparison.

[@Token_Civilian]

Great episode Drach.

[@warp9p659]

It's interesting that the Duquesne and Tourville survived the war and were even sent by the French on missions to Indochina afterwards.

[@PalleRasmussen]

The Algerie is such a beautiful ship also.

Fascinating Story.

[@JonathanSchattke]

As an engineer, I think that the Algeire could only be made by first building the failure.

[@pavelslama5543]

Duquesne design team: "Don´t touch that ship! Or maybe don´t even look at it! It´s fresh new, and very fragile!" Algerie design team: "This, my dude, this is the real pocket battleship!"

[@StuartPeacock-e2t]

An excellent disposition

[@quoniam426]

The subsequent and never built Saint Louis, C5 project had a lot of potential. On the biggest versions, that thing could have been fitted with up to 200 mm of belt armor ! Flirting along Battlecruiser specs in terms of protection.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

OK, I get that the higher ups in the French Navy don't want to sacrifice speed for armor. Well in that case they should have dropped a gun or two from the primary armament. Cuz having two extra guns aren't going to do any good if a destroyer can quickly & easily blow you out of the water! And they don't have the speed to runaway from a destroyer either. So being able to outrun a battle cruiser doesn't really matter when a destroyer can make short work of your cruiser before their battle cruiser even makes it to your ship.

[@michaelwolf564]

Captain Bill, It will be very very interesting to hear Seth's take on his rejection of your kind invitation. Cannot wait!!!!!!

[@Drachinifel]

???

[@puebespuebes8589]

Did you visit the "musée de la marine" at Toulon? It's both an Amazing museum and also just next to the arsenal of Toulon the biggest military port of the mediteranean. And of course as you can see in the picture of the time the landscape is beautifull.

[@SCWillson]

"... might be blown up by an especially high speed seagull..." 🤣

[@jamesharmer9293]

After Drach's previous French warship video which featured marble topped bars for the officers mess, large wine cellars and vast storerooms full of cheese, these warships are disappointingly competent.

[@camenbert5837]

The weight saving here was to drop grand crus and go with appellation controlée.

[@bkjeong4302]

I wouldn't call a cruiser that can be easily destroyed by the average destroyer "competent".

[@jamesharmer9293]

@@bkjeong4302 Competent is a relative term. These are French cruisers after all...

[@michaelibbetson1747]

Very interesting analysis on French heavy cruisers. Anything on french light cruisers?

[@morganbonici2134]

I would love to hear your take on the French 'light' cruiser designs from the Duguay-Trouin to the De Grasse and specifically the La Galissonnière Class on which my grandfather served on.

[@demos113]

Nice work. 🙂

[@shanehansen3705]

dock a few meters of the stern a meter or so from the bow widen the hull a bit to improve seakeeping and you could stick more armor on them or do what the others did and fudge the weight on the stats and build whatever you wanted edit that's what I thought for the Dugay class before the vid continued

[@AsbestosMuffins]

The French copy nobody, and nobody copies the French

[@Cailus3542]

Hilariously, the Americans are copying the French and Italian right now. The new Constellation class frigates are essentially just modified FREMM frgates, a class that is already in service in both the French and Italian navies.

[@GordonFreeman-sl6pi]

Everyone copies the French and the French did copy many. The metric system is French. FWD cars are French. Suspensions, vaccines, tubular steam engines, smoke-less powder for litteraly all modern firearms, guess what, it's French. There are hundreds of French inventions that were copied by the entire World, I have a hard time understanding why such a blatantly false statement is so widely spread.

[@johnedwards3198]

​@@Cailus3542the Americans have since extended and significantly modified said design at great expense and delay 🙈 I believe FREMM was also a joint development with the British until the Brits went towards the Type 45 and French Italians carried on in their way. I believe the Rafale/Euro fighter Typhoon were also a combined project before the designs split off

[@AndrewGraziani-k7d]

Hahaha, good one. Sounds like that could apply to the French auto industry as well.

[@grk31fr44]

@@johnedwards3198 yep, France split off because we needed an carrier able plane, while the other nations didn’t. The difference of requirements created two different planes. I wouldn’t be surprised if that story repeated itself with the current design process of the european stealth fighter

[@UchihaPercy]

"An Algérie with 60% more displacement to play with" Maybe they could've gotten really froggy with it. Triple Turret design, more armor......Hell, probably could just completely upscale her and make Algérie into a Large Cruiser.

[@RedXlV]

The smallest of the pro-Dunkerque designs that France considered was 17,500 tons, with 305mm/55 guns in two quad turrets and a projected speed of 35 knots. (That was the only option under the treaty system for a "large cruiser": to sacrifice some of your capital ship tonnage for it.) This was in 1926. With the better steel, more advanced machinery, and the use of welding, the Algerie designers probably *could* have achieved that on 16,000 tons. Though given the change in design philosophy they probably would've gone for increased armor in exchange for losing a couple of knots of speed.

[@BRIANJAMESGIBB]

Excellente

[@hailexiao2770]

Duquesne class: The enemy has battlecruisers? That's fine, we'll just build battledestroyers!

[@timandellenmoran1213]

Vert well done!

[@AptWaffleMantis2278]

Last time I was this early, the us was still building 4 stackers

[@johnprenis6059]

Those ships that went by zip-zip? One Austrian (SMS Novara) and four German light cruisers (SMS Kolberg, SMS Stralsund, SMS Regensburg, SMS Königsberg) From the Wikipedia article on the La Galissonnière class, which has very useful background on inter war cruisers.

[@CROM-on1bz]

Which proves that France is sometimes capable of the best and the worst, but always with class and distinction.

[@stephennewton2223]

I would think that the world war being fought largely in France had more to do with the lagging French steel infantry than any other cause.

[@matthewnewton8812]

The Algerie seems like a hell of a ship, actually, for a treat built ship…and a cruiser at that. Would have liked to know what she’d have been like in battle- if things had gone differently for France she absolutely would have participated with the British in all their myriad naval adventures during the war. Although I’m sure her crews are grateful they never had to find it.

[@TomFynn]

Actually the French initially did not plan for 21 new cruisers. Some jobsworth (being French) filed an order for 21 croissants. There was a typo and instead of admitting to the mistake the Marine National (being French) declared that this was the plan all along.

[@brianfiebig7403]

"especially high speed seagull...love it"

[@howardmaryon]

Around this time, there were top secret memos circulating in the British Admiralty concerning the development of new, highly secret high velocity tungsten cored ammunition for secondary warship batteries, codenamed “mouettes a grand vitesses”

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

Morning all.

[@silvanski]

French interwar ships and aircraft... I have a love-hate relationship with them.

[@Freedmoon44]

"Oh my god its so genius! But its so shit! But so f*cking good!"

[@jasonherring2419]

Would have loved to see Algerie’s task group catch Graf Spee..

[@Cailus3542]

That would be a short fight, given what Exeter and two Leanders managed.

[@МедведьКопатыч-х8н]

Хорошо и информативно, на мой взгляд

[@satagaming9144]

Say it with me everybody, "The French copy nobody, and nobody copies the French."

[@L0stEngineer]

I can understand French design philosophy I'm married to a French colonial, and she likes to turn the heat up in the house, and get a great many things done at speed. I'm constantly coming home after work and forced to plead with her to please put some armor on!

[@solarflare623]

Could you do a video on eastern vs western ship design in the age of sail?

[@greenseaships]

At this point the Duquesne is like "Just leave me alone and forget about me already!" :P

[@MM22966]

Making up their own cruiser classification is one of the more French things you can do.

[@gagounet83]

The world does not revolve around England and its offspring. Others are just as brilliant

[@adams4075]

French ships would have massive armor around the wine storage.

[@Chounubis]

The French Navy never having gotten to prove itself is - along with the totally undeserved dismissal of Italy's "Regina Marina" as bad - among the greatest of crimes.

[@tiger2eye]

I wonder if the Duquesne-class could have been better ships if they eliminated one of the aft turrets, shortened the ship and used the weight saved for either additional armor or a heavier DP battery, essentially making a French version of the HMS Exeter or IJN Aoba.

[@comicmoniker]

10:00 oh, is that all?

[@LaMarcheFutilé101]

A lot of French ship design is pretty criminal, but their treaty cruisers singlehandedly redeem the navy in both aesthetics and functionality. Algerie and Baltimore are basically the archetypical heavy cruisers in my opinion, and it's hard to argue that Algerie isn't the prettier of the two.

[@peterasp1968]

High Speed Seagull😂

[@kidpagronprimsank05]

Also, the countries were designed to fitted extra armour in case of war which they duly fitted when the war started

[@camenbert5837]

Vaguely dissappointed this didn't start with la Marseilles...

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Just imagine what Algerie's designers could have done if they had been given an extra 60% displacement to play with. Jean Marie! Add an extra wine cellar, tout suite!

[@Derfparade]

I went to Duquesne university in Pittsburgh, can you give us a short history of the name and why it is a university in Pittsburgh and a French ship class?

[@gregoryvigneault1824]

Seems like one of the safest ships on ecould serve on

[@preachyourstory3452]

Any views on the seaworthiness of Algerie? The bow looks like it might get 'wet'. Can we assume she was designed more for Mediterranean conditions and not Atlantic?

[@kidpagronprimsank05]

French more or less like Italian designed their ships against each others (although French did took German threat to some extent in design).

[@ethanmckinney203]

Could the colonial policing and troop transport roles have been accomplished by removing the aft guns and emptying the magazines, then using the space for either fuel tanks or very rough and ready accommodation? Ideally, you'd remove the aft turrets and possibly some of the hoists.

[@nmccw3245]

While listing mandatory French design requirements don’t forget the wine cellar. 🍷

[@abnurtharn2927]

Did he say, highspeed seagull? 🤣

[@Eulemunin]

The Algebre is pretty as well as balanced as well as powerfully armed, How France? And why not all the time?

[@Freedmoon44]

Money and politics, that resulted in ALOT of issue in France