Naval Engineering - A Brief History of Turrets

[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@WarrantOfficerWill22]

during WW2, did the germans ever think of looking at the captured french fleet for inspiration into turret design? With the french's latest designs fitting three to four guns while the germans were still struggling with two, do any future version of German plans take any cures from the french for more efficient turret design?

[@Primarch359]

@@Drachinifel During the pre barbette period were there any 3 gun turrets? It seems that the style of the gun mounts in the diagrams would make this much less complex than in the age of dreadnoughts.

[@admiral5113]

How were ironclad and pre drednoughts reloaded was reloading the guns like that of modern battleships

[@ivvan497]

Not a turret question but... I can't find any info on the reason why carriers needed 3rd middle elevator and why putting it on the deck edge in the case of essex class was a large improvement. Thanks drachifiki.

[@jeffreyskoritowski4114]

You have some porn bots in the comment section.

[@RexsHangar]

Excellent, more naval engineering to listen to while I paint models :D

[@olivergs9840]

You, Drachinifel here, and Greg's airplanes and automobiles have been keeping me sane this week. I'm away from home for TAFE, and brought all my modelling supplies, but forgot kits! There's also no hobby stores for hundreds of kilometres

[@Hetstaine]

​@olivergs9840 Add Not a Pound for Air to Ground to your list and you get all the Cold War jets covered as well. ​

[@jeffreyskoritowski4114]

​@@HetstaineHe's got a killer channel.

[@jeffreyskoritowski4114]

​@@olivergs9840No Amazon where you are?

[@olivergs9840]

@@Hetstaine oh, him too. How did I forget both Not a pound for air to ground, Ed Nash's military matters, and the NAFO boys

[@ClimateScepticSceptic-ub2rg]

Never thought I would listen all the way through to an exposition of developments in turret design. Drach could make a history of toenail clippers into a fascinating saga. Well done sir!

[@Thom4ES]

So , ask...how did 1860s sailors clip their bedeviled toenails ?...mallet and chisel ?....(asking for a friend )!.

[@briannicholas2757]

Drach's 5 minute guide to removing sailors' belly button lint would be another interesting topic.

[@murrayscott9546]

​@@briannicholas2757Bet you know the answer to that one !

[@billynomates920]

ahh, the era of all big toe battle clippers with super snipping nail nippers fore and aft

[@skovner]

Someone wrote an entire book on the pencil, and it is quite absorbing

[@MarkStockman-b4j]

"English doesn't just borrow words from other languages; it follows them down dark alleys, clubs them over the head, and rifles their pockets for loose grammar."

[@undauntedthud6872]

My favorite comment of the day. I love when truth intersects with reality and pisses most of the world off.

[@GoranXII]

@@undauntedthud6872 Yep. The one thing we _can't_ seem to steal are correct place names.

[@robintaberner]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣true!

[@mkaustralia7136]

My French language teacher wife is still chortling

[@treyebillups8602]

It was mostly from French

[@trentmichalcik]

I just wanted to know a little bit about the battle of Jutland a while back and now I'm rabbit holed on this channel and it's been a couple months and I'm not mad about it😂😂love the channel uncle drach

[@robintaberner]

I remembered from 40 years ago a mention in a history class of the mad Russian plan to send the Baltic fleet to the Far East. And found Drach’s video on The Second Pacific Squadron…. I’ve been obsessed ever since.

[@andersjjensen]

@@robintaberner Drach's wit and snark were both dialed to 11 in that episode. I've rarely laughed so hard at historical events.

[@BishopStars]

​@@robintabernercan't tell you how many binoculars I've lost overboard since then.

[@Alterraboo]

It's a good day when a new Naval Engineering video appears

[@mitchm4992]

If I watched this in picture-in-picture mode, would I be watching a superimposed video about (eventually) superimposed turrets?

[@dougjb7848]

That would be _hyperimposed._

[@cpt_nordbart]

I suppose.

[@keithpennock]

That would be superfiring!

[@mitchm4992]

@@keithpennock sonuva... Yes, it would. My shame is great.

[@alltat]

You could be watching a video about an armored series of tubes via an unarmored series of tubes.

[@howardmaryon]

That was the shortest 31 minutes... so fascinating. In a previous life I must have been in the navy, everything Drach makes has my full attention.

[@OscarHernandez-xx2je]

In this life I was in the Navy and trust me, it’s not what you think it is.

[@StepSherpa]

Most of drachs videos use short seconds xD Not sure about being part of a navy though in a previous life, more just living by the sea

[@howardmaryon]

Completely explains how, when stricken warships roll over, the turrets and everything attached below immediately departs the ship and goes straight down to the bottom.

[@nigelhewitt]

Happened in the great scuttle at Scapa Flow. You can scuba dive the turrets that fell out of the SMS Bayern as she was raised to be scrapped. Nice dive and only 36m to the sand.

[@cringlator]

@@nigelhewittman I’ve gotta get out to Orkney. I keep hearing about so much cool stuff there.

[@phaasch]

Great stuff, Drach. A very complex subject rendered intelligible for the likes of me, and some really great photographs to go with it.

[@delurkor]

I had heard of the Eads turret long time ago, but did not know of it workings. Thank you for this overview. For the USN, triple to 3 gun occurs during development between the Pennsylvanias and the Idahos. And the change is while one is building but not in the water. Such is the rapid change during the late 1900s and 1910s

[@candle86]

You mean Pennsylvania and New Mexico, there is no Idaho class, the USS Idaho BB-42 was a New Mexico class ship

[@delurkor]

@@candle86 You are correct. Knew I should have checked. Thank you

[@timwerner7771]

@7:50..."The mangled remains of The French Turrete"...HA! love this

[@MarkStockman-b4j]

Is this where Tourette's Syndrome comes from?

[@Exkhaniber]

07:33 The English language doing to the French language, what the English navy was doing to the French navy.

[@bluelemming5296]

The English language has a lot of overlap with French that considerably predates the current topic: 'battery' is only one of a great many words from French. The Norman French that conquered England in 1066 spoke French as their primary language, though they also had a Viking (hence Germanic) heritage so they also had some words in common with the Anglo-Saxons. Both the rulers and ruled would pick up elements of the other's language over time. Andreas Simons has a nice article looking at this topic from a modern perspective, comparing background of words measured in terms of frequency of use, using open source data. In general, a lot of basic words in English overlap or are derived from Germanic languages, but a lot of "more sophisticated" or "more specialized" words in English come from French or from Latin (often via French), which might reflect the relative influence of the rulers / ruled in the process of linguistic evolution. In some cases, the blending of languages was incomplete, a fact that can create a lot of confusion today. For an example relevant to naval history, many people (and some messed up legal systems) treat 'dagger' (French, probably Celtic: dag, durg, dirk, etc) and 'knife' (Germanic: cnif, knifr etc) as different things but the linguistic evidence doesn't support that and it's likely the case that both words were being used often enough for the same thing that neither word 'won'. Hence, both simply survived to the present day as two distinct words for the same thing (which causes some folks to try to force different meanings on the words, but again that doesn't survive linguistic scrutiny). Hence a naval phrase like "Midshipman's Dirk" isn't as specific as one might assume or wish.

[@brucetucker4847]

@@bluelemming5296 In some US states the carrying of dirks and daggers is prohibited but not the carrying of knives, or in some cases knives below a certain length. Courts have had a lot of fun interpreting that.

[@bluelemming5296]

​@@brucetucker4847 Yes, it's interesting and a bit sad. Ultimately it's an example of something known as a 'systemic legal ethics problem', where avoidable complexity in the legal system creates an artificial demand for the services of lawyers, thus creating at least the appearance of conflict of interest - and the appearance of conflict of interest is all that is needed for a legal or governmental ethics problem to exist. This is very common in US law - the idea that the USA is the 'Land of the Lawsuit', suggesting there is something badly wrong, hardly even scratches the surface when it comes to describing the full scope of systemic legal ethics problems in US legal systems - where the plural is deliberate as there are federal, state, and local systems, all of which can and do exhibit these kinds of problems. I don't know how things are done today, but historically - through WW2 at least - in the RN sailors were required to routinely carry their knives when at sea (with a few exceptions). You can see orders to this effect in _Running a Big Ship: The Classic Guide to Commanding A Second World War Battleship_ [Rory O'Conor] and in period writing by naval authors such as JE MacDonnell (who served in the RAN aboard destroyers during WW2). Interestingly, they didn't have any significant problems with knife violence as far as I can tell, despite almost universal carry, under conditions of both crowding and often considerable stress. This suggests that cultural and situational factors and not access determine violence: correlation is not causation.

[@bluemarlin8138]

I was really hoping for the “spinning seal” video from the video on Hampton Roads in reference to Monitor’s turret issues.

[@Drachinifel]

So did I, sadly one of the worst predatory media companies bought the rights to it :(

[@undauntedthud6872]

I now know this is a thing. For me now it is a sad and happy day. Thx 07

[@Vtarngpb]

@bluemarlin8138 well played good sir! Here is a cookie for your troubles! 🍪

[@TomFynn]

A naval engineer who suffers from sudden, nervous turnings of his head is said to have turrets.

[@howardmaryon]

Very drole....

[@shanerobertson6267]

😂✌🏻

[@danubiosalas4231]

I thought the name goes with the condition of sudden oubursts of … strong words. Or maybe artillery shells.

[@TomFynn]

@@danubiosalas4231 "I have tourettes." "What caliber?"

[@suryia6706]

OUCH!!

[@DesOkun]

I am not sure if you and/or any of your viewers knew (of) Nathan Okun, who was knowledgeable about terminal ballistics. I just wanted to mention that this was the type of content he really enjoyed. Sadly he passed away in January of this year (2024). Thank you for your overview of turrets. I would have recommended your channel to my dad if he were still alive, if he didn't already know about it.

[@rupertboleyn3885]

Nathan did know about it, and used to post comments to some of Drach's videos from time to time. I'm sorry to hear of your father's passing, and you have my condolences. His work on guns and armour was always of interest to me.

[@kamikazeviking3053]

Hey I just want to tell drachiniffel and any anyone who might visit battleship Mikasa in the future: The 12 pounder guns on the starboard side (ocean side) of the ship's deck can actually be rotated and elevated. Horizontally, you have to push it manually, but elevation is hand cranked, so you could do it even by yourself! (I'm sorry for the tugboats crews who had a battleship gun aimed at them)

[@walterpleyer261]

"he found small arms fire disagreeable" Well, that's something we all should be able to agree on.

[@iangrapes6659]

Quiet you'll summon the Americans.

[@atpyro7920]

depends on which way the small arms fire is being pointed at, generally.

[@graybeardproductions2597]

Absolutely the most brittish thing I've heard in a while

[@AndrewBlucher]

Agree to disagree?

[@JamesThomas-gg6il]

​@@iangrapes6659too late ,we watch drach also.

[@billwatters4833]

!In 1958 I qualified as a l.sea QA1 at HMS Excellent. There were 6-inch turrets available for training but by then the 4.5-inch Mk6 twin AA turret was replacing the big-calibre weapons. I later spent time as a turret instructor at HMS Cambridge at Wembury Point. At that time the 3-inch gun was being developed and my colleagues and I marvelled at the gun's loading system. Some said it had been adapted from the Coca-Cola bottling system, which may be true. I left to join HMS Londonderry on her 1961 West Indiad tour and II to finish my 14 years of service.

[@Angrymuscles]

Technical, historical, and engineeringical. I couldn't ask for more. Filling in the gaps in my knowledge has become one of if not the central drive of my life. Thank you sir.

[@General_Cheese6]

“But Coles was determined he was going shell something, so he built a small raft instead. He then decided small arms fire was especially disagreeable, when it was directed at him.” That entire segment made me chuckle, thanks for a most informative and humourous video as always

[@NoewerrATall]

The original "angry raft"! 😂

[@Digmen1]

One of my favourite subjects. I always love looking at the shape of battleship turrets One of my unfufilled projects was to make a list of all the shapes in drawing or photo form

[@neilwilson5785]

At 08:32 I was reminded of my old physics teacher, who would always shout "CONSIDER MOMENTS ABOUT F" and then throw chalk at Steven Russel.

[@ogscarl3t375]

Still waiting for the end to the destroyer development series…

[@hughboyd2904]

+1

[@IainWigglesworth]

+2

[@Waldherz]

+3

[@leandrofiorot7804]

+4

[@leandrofiorot7804]

Late 40's / early 50' destroyers and torpedoes pleaaseee!

[@stargazer5784]

Love your light hearted style of writing. I get to laugh and learn something at the same time. 👍

[@JoinTheNoob]

Love these kind of videos. Please make more of them. Yes I know they are a lot of work and you have a lot more interesting bundles at home 😊 I watch nearly everything you put out. So thanks and keep up your amazing work!!! ❤

[@tulliusexmisc2191]

19:19 "...ideally therefore with really really big guns to compensate..." Yes, definitely compensating for something.

[@jeromethiel4323]

Interesting. The etymology of words has always interested me. And now i know where the term Turret comes from. Super cool!

[@cosmiccowboy_]

A torpedo tube/launchers video soon would be pretty interesting to go along with this!

[@UncleNavi]

This might be your most effective video I've watched in terms of "huh, interesting" per minute. Well done!

[@schnappyfilms]

Yes, I've been waiting for this topic! Thank you!

[@emitindustries8304]

Great video. Very educational, entertaining, with no fluff to pad the time.

[@F15A80]

Glad you referenced the Normandie Class for this 😁. "Show me the most French design for a multiple-gun gun turret". "Well, monsieur, you see we 'ave decided to mount two twin-gun turret mounts on each barbette. And each pair will 'ave a central bulk'ead between zem, in case ze gun crews 'ave a falling out over who is getting ze best wine rations." "No, that's too French..."

[@aslamnurfikri7640]

19:05 is also reference to HMS Victoria which combination of heavy front because of turret and her engines still working when sinking meant she went full speed to the bottom and making her one of the few vertical shipwreck

[@friedrichweitzer3071]

@@aslamnurfikri7640 The massive weight of the turret at the bow plus the leak there also helped. I wonder what the helmsman of HMS Camperdown was thinking? Maybe: "I'm just here to turn the wheel whatever foulish direction the officers wanted"

[@BalshazzarWastebasket]

oh hell yeah. just what i needed- a drach post about TURRETS!!!!!!!

[@Thirdbase9]

So the turret is just the top of a series of tubes?

[@sheepFP5]

Well, it's certainly not something you can just put things on, like a big truck...

[@candle86]

@@sheepFP5 well now i want to mount a turret in the bed of my truck

[@deezn8tes]

Shower, coffee, and Drach….the basis upon which I start my mornings.

[@deanrodgers29]

Thanks!

For me as a mainly tank nerd this was a particularly interesting Video. Because I find the connections bewteen armored ship design and Tanks fascinating :) Thanks for the Video

[@firstcynic92]

USS Monitor wasn't compared to a biscuit tin. It was compared to a cheesebox, as they are typically cylinders.

[@theTopCat-1]

i think it depended on who was doing the comparing and when......

[@seanmalloy7249]

"Cheesebox on a raft" is the characterization I remember from period accounts.

[@MarkStockman-b4j]

@@seanmalloy7249 And the crew of the CSS Virginia was quite surprised when said cheesebox on a raft ran out an 11" Dahlgren gun and fired.

[@brucetucker4847]

@@MarkStockman-b4j Not as surprised as they'd have been if the crew of said cheesebox on a raft had been using full powder charges.

[@craigkdillon]

It never occurred to me that adding armor to the hull helped to lower the center of buoyancy, making the ship more seaworthy. I only thought of the belt armor as just helping to protect the ship. Now I realize, that if a ship had more armor, it could also mount larger heavier guns. Nice.

[@billistefansson5309]

Greetings and Salutations! Thank you Drax for yet another fantastic video. I would like to make a suggestion. A discreet caption to the photos (and other illustrations) with the name of the ship and year. I noted that in your recent video about the HMS Rodney you included some photos of the Nelson, which is perfectly allright from my perspective, but I feel this might be an improvement. And finally, I must add that I think Carthage should be destroyed (wait, that has already been taken care of). Anyway, I want you to do a monograph on the history of HMS Ashanti. Also a history of Hvalfjord, Iceland; during WW2 would be intresting. Thanks again and all the best, Billi.

[@792slayer]

"Britain and France were in an arms race. Again." Lol. Nothing ever changes.

[@brucetucker4847]

Well, it eventually became Britain and Germany, and then Britain, the US, Japan, France, and Italy.

[@mchrome3366]

Great diagrams and the gift of explaining complicated concepts and hardware. Thanks

[@NeedlessPedantics]

Turret derived from Tourette, thank you so much for that tidbit! I love etymology.

[@kettelbe]

Tourelle in french

[@grandaddyoe1434]

@@kettelbe Tour-ette . . . . small tower.

[@kettelbe]

@@grandaddyoe1434 except nobody say that in french lmao. Also it s my 1st language so thx ;)

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

@@kettelbe ...does anybody build or use small towers in France? Vauban design fortifications are a long gone item. So, don't be surprised nobody say "tourette" in French. It's a thing of the past.

[@level98bearhuntingarmor]

Turrets that use a piston to sink into the deck is something that needs to be a thing in a steampunk game along with steam powered hammers for rams

[@michaeltempsch5282]

Ah yes, too many guns too high and rolling over - see the classic of the genre, the Vasa...

[@bigbaddms]

Was thinking the same thing.

[@genenoud9048]

That's how the mussem piece sunk...

[@michaeltempsch5282]

​@@genenoud9048 Yes, the [Regal ship] Vasa, in the Vasa museum,specifically built to house the salvaged ship. Some say that assymetries, stemming from Swedish and Dutch work teams involved using different inch "tum" measures also was a factor other than guns and their placement.

[@GoranXII]

I'm pretty sure the classic there is the _Mary Rose_ , even if it's sinking configuration was via modification, rather than initial design.

[@kamikazeviking3053]

"Brief history" *31 minutes You sir are a blessing to the world of history youtube

[@spikespa5208]

Blessed brevity. Drach covers the subject quickly and concisely. Compared to some books that would go on and on, ad infinitum, about the the metallurgy of the roller bearings.

[@bjturon]

Great Review! Love the Thumbnail photo of the stern deck of the USS California after her WW2 rebuild :D

[@gregorylumpkin2128]

Subtitle: Drach gets turrets syndrome. Good onya mate, another great video!

[@jameswyre6480]

Thank you, this was absurdly good and informative and listenable to boot. I grew up around naval documents as a relative had been a navy bigwig. Many classified documents were around but by the 70s and 80s nobody cared if our ww1 ship info was out there.

[@Michael-t3b5b]

Love Draco’s videos on the technology of modern warships. I thought about this video since the movie “Sink The Bismarck” was just on my cable TV and some of the best shots of inner turret workings were in this movie shot in HMS Vanguard’s 15” turrets. Watching the shots from all parts of the entire turret from handling rooms to the hoist cages to the guns themselves and listening to the crews chanting the drill as they load, ram, and close the breeches.

[@khoipham8303]

Yamato, when you build a Battleship so large, you need to build a specialised transport ship to ferry its gun turrets.

[@robertbamford8266]

Excellent presentation. Fascinating evolution.

[@SkipFlem]

my uncle was a turret cap't on the USS Indiana...he returned to Japan in '47 as a chaplin...for the American civil workers.

[@onenote6619]

Did he bring a walking stick, fake moustache and funny hat?

[@SkipFlem]

​@@onenote6619No...a bible and a rosary.

[@andrewmountford3608]

@@SkipFlemhe must have felt very underdressed

[@SkipFlem]

@@andrewmountford3608 it takes a very special person to berate a chaplin.

[@andrewmountford3608]

@@SkipFlem not really. Any Catholic alter boy can do that with immunity

[@danirizary6926]

This video explained so much to me.

[@spikespa5208]

And freed me from worrying about using the terms _twin_ , _triple_ , or _quadruple_ gun turrets.

[@guyplachy9688]

Thank you, Drach, most informative!👍

[@Lamprolign]

Wonderful video as always. Thank you.

[@MercuryIsHg]

Fascinating stuff as always. Thank you.

[@ralfgrunder1080]

Well, as someone . that was just interested in John Erikson former inventions...I ám a fan of your details. Thank you for your work for "Naval History" Thanks a lot. 👍

[@glennsimpson7659]

Thanks. You might also have commented on the effect of sighting hoods on RN reluctance to move to superimposed turrets, and the way 20th century turret design developed generally. Going to individually elevating guns, for example, meant turrets were more hexagonal shaped to accomodate the wider gun sleeves, like those on USS Nevada rather than square like USS Texas (or rounded, like British 12”-15” WW1 turrets). The turrets of USS Texas, unlike British practice, also located the elevation and training operators one level below the guns, with no outside view, and no real means of local control).

[@robertmills8640]

Thank You for this tutorial on barbette's &turrets. I never reall understood the barbettes very well.🤔👍👍👍

[@phaasch]

Same here, but how it makes sense. Good ol' Drach!

[@stanleyherosomewhereornot]

Thank you Drach - saw the title and cancelled my afternoon plans 😊😊 Really appreciate your amazing content. Just a heads up, it seems from Hong Kong the “donate link” doesn’t go through. Grabbed a screenshot if that helps; but we tried! 🙏🏻

[@Jonhistorymodel]

Brilliant video mate

[@Vinemaple]

This video is about the awkward teenage years of the modern warship, and I have been trying to get a grasp on this phase for years. It's just the turrets, but it's allowed me to work out so many other parts of the puzzle! Although I was surprised turret partitions weren't mentioned alongside separate elevation cradles... only a very few turrets had them, though, so it's understandable. It also would have been interesting to have a digression into the history of casemated secondary guns!

[@davidsachs4883]

One of your better videos Thank you

[@pedenharley6266]

Very nice, Drach. Thank you!

[@MichaelDozier-j1b]

The Monitor full scale model seen in the video is at the Mariners Museum in Norfolk VA. This is where the conservation of the original Monitor turret and engines is being done. They have a large exhibit there explaining how the Monitor was built incredibly in 100 days ! One of the plaques discusses how Theodore Ruggles Timby was the inventor of the rotating turret in 1841 and held a patent. Ericson paid Timby a royalty for each vessel with a turret. Highly recommend a visit !

[@AndrewTBP]

Drach took that drone footage for his video on _Monitor_

[@stevedrane2364]

Fascinating. . Thank you .

[@paullaw1438]

Excellent. Much appreciated 😊

[@krzysztofkosowski2102]

Watching naval history videos while playing naval history games (perfect experience)

[@Kilgorebass7]

Dude, I like your channel. I use the gun blasts from Rum Ration Wednesday to test my subwoofers that I build.🎉

[@brunoethier896]

Those engineering videos are my favorites. 👍

[@malcolmtaylor518]

Well researched.

[@kyk1682]

Good episode. Thanks drach

[@russellnixon9981]

An early iron clad turret with RLM ;s of large calibre can be found on Dover pier. It was steam powered but sadly that was scraped at some point . the turret is aprox 10M in diameter and 4M high.

[@trooperdgb9722]

Ive wondered for a long time why the gun ports on the Monitor style ships were different sizes. With two 11" Dahlgrens...why not identical gun ports?

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

They were identical. But the gun port covers worked in tandem, so that every time one is open, the other one is closed. That might make them look different.

[@ВасилийМорозов-л7х]

29:49 By the way, what is the reason behind these partial broadsides? I have seen them a lot, both in documentaries and in fiction and I am yet to understand why it was practiced. Was it a way to check rangefinding and position of all turrets without firing a full broadside?

[@kavemanthewoodbutcher]

New Naval Engineering video!!!! WOOOOOOOOO!

[@NLynchOEcake]

Have you ever played Warship Gunner 2? The painting at 24:35 looks exactly like one of the stills used during the game's story

[@MisterOcclusion]

Thanks. I was hoping you’d cover the whys and wherefores of barbettes, as that always had me curious. 👍

[@gbcb8853]

A feast of barbettes no less.

[@gyrene_asea4133]

Did anyone else note @ 25:20 the sailor on top of the turret appeared to be either dropping or raising his trousers? Seems an odd thing to do w/ all the officers on the starboard rail.

[@RB-qq1ky]

It does look like he's indeed mooning the officers, but I suspect he could be putting on/taking off overtrousers or perhaps a boiler suit/overalls. Or it could even a canvas tool bag resting on the turret roof as there looks to be some sort of handled tool being wielded by him on the darker rectangular awnings(?) spread out on the lighter coloured awnings toggled down onto the turret roof. When I look at it on a desktop monitor he appears to be wearing belted darker coloured trousers. He is obviously moving because of the lack of sharpness.

[@sir_dreadlord_on_blitz7042]

Maybe a Video on the development and function of dual use anti aircraft guns, especialy cruisers Main battery?

[@fredfarnackle5455]

Very interesting, Drach - thanks.👍🇦🇺

[@bigbaddms]

Excellent, thanks as always!

[@EtherealWonders1216]

1:54 those ships are gonna start sailing just from the amount of flags

[@zapfanzapfan]

Interesting and lots of nice cross section drawings. I like the inclusion of what was wooden belt armor. When did wood stop being used as armor on ships?

[@riderstrano783]

3:09 was anyone else’s first thought that it looked like a flying saucer?

[@tonyelliott7734]

Yep...😂

[@gwcstudio]

So the Eads turret looks to be by James Buchanan Eads, the engineer who designed the famous St Louis bridge, which was hugely influential in bridge-building.

[@murrayscott9546]

Keep this up and you'll eventually make " The Drydock " redundant ! Thanks, Drach.

[@PedroCosta-po5nu]

Could you do a short on the evolution of firing mechanisms (triggers, touchholes, fcs etc)

[@jacobdill4499]

I was a little surprised to hear Eads' name. He also built a bunch of fiver ironclads during the american civil war, an anti-silting system for the missippi river and aa bridge over the same river that was one of the first to use all steel framing.

[@NigelDeForrest-Pearce-cv6ek]

Brilliant!!!

[@Phehistyr]

The bots are out in force today

[@titanscerw]

Weight anchor and let us get under way with fire directors at the ready, then. :)

[@matthieucrettez2647]

Regarding classification of turrets as twin, triple, quadruple OR two, three, four guns according to mounting; how does french Richelieu and Jean Bart fit ? Two double two guns ?

[@dougjb7848]

Double twins, Basil …. DOUBLE TWINS!!

[@skovner]

A 31 minute brief video. Very interesting, though. I do wish that you had gone into the lower decks part of mid-20th century turrets, but then, this would not have been brief. And Ryan Symanski (sp?) on the Battleship NJ channel has done that.

[@65gtotrips]

@1:10 or so, what’s that large gray thing with the triangular arrow piece about midship ?

[@xavierdrake9791]

Looks to be the anchor fluke (I believe that's what it's called)

[@26betsam]

A question, were the 5"38 cal guns on BB's or other ships, slaved together or could they be elevated separately ?

[@stephenmeeks684]

Wonderful.

[@gbcb8853]

Hooray! A feast of barbettes at last.

[@johnfisher9692]

You have said preciously that the British 40mm Pom Pom only narrowly lost to the 40mm Bofors Do you think the reason the Bofors won was because it was a much newer design with the higher muzzle velocity required to deal with modern aircraft. Something which did not exist when the Pom Pom was created

[@dougjb7848]

I am eagerly awaiting his video about the contest between these two, as he is said it was an interesting and thorough contest ending in narrow victory.

[@kemarisite]

The 2-pounder shell used in WW2 was an improved, higher velocity shell. This took the muzzle velocity from about 1900 feet/sec to about 2400, which history shows was barely adequate to the task of addressing WW2 aircraft. Needless to say, the lower velocity WW1 shells would have offered much less competition to the Bofors.