The Drydock - Episode 197 (Part 1)

[@Drachinifel]

02:32:28 - Which of the battle ships preserved as museum ships in the US was the best relative to other nations ships at the time it was launched? 02:35:54 - What did the carrier USS Ranger do to become the red headed stepchild of the US navy? 02:39:28 - Wind tunnels on multi-flight-deck carriers? 02:42:08 - In your opinion, was Admiral Somerville’s plan for combat in the Indian Ocean during 1942 a realistic combat strategy, or a bit mad? 02:46:49 - If you were an American merchantman before 1812, how likely was it for a British warship to pull up next to your merchant ship and say "Congrats! You're now all British sailors!"? Where the British so hard up for sailors that they had to resort to slavery? 02:54:14 - Maximum viable gun size in the ironclad era?

[@craighagenbruch3800]

Was watching a documentary on the golden hind and they showed/mentioned how drake basically stuffed the hold with gold and silver that he "helped" himself too from what i could see it wasn't really thst roomy to begin with so how on earth did the crew of the golden hind manage to find a spave big enough to sleep?, also they mentioned how a lot of sailors could not swim why was this discouraged was there a fear that some might jump ship if it was heeding into battle?. Edit one more question On carrier's to day they'll conduct aircraft engine maintenance and bolt them down to the rear of the ship start them up and run them to makw sure they are in perfect working order was this the same in ww2 or even inbetween the world wars?.

[@lordgarion514]

Sorry I have to unsubscribe from your channel. YT insists on putting videos in autoplaying playlists on the notifications page. Like most people, my high-speed data is capped, even if my data is unlimited. And I already push that limit hard every month. Having extra ads playing for videos I've already seen is just burning up my data. And since I come to KZbin to relax, I don't really want to have to jump at the end of videos to stop them right before the very end so another ad doesn't start playing. And I definitely don't want to have to pay for extra data, just so YT can make a few extra pennies off of me. I'll still be watching your videos though, because YT puts them in my home feed since I watch them already.

[@teddyboragina6437]

I don't suppose there's ANY way I can convince you to keep doing this in "parts". It is WAY easier, as a viewer, to consume these in 2 or 2.5 hour chunks every week vs one massive 5 hour episode and 3 smaller 1 hour episodes (over a month)

[@teddyboragina6437]

@@lordgarion514 I'm not sure what the notifications page is (never use it myself) but the subscription page ( kzbin.infosubscriptions ) will only show you the videos from people you've subbed to, and never put anything in a playlist.

[@Archie2c]

@@teddyboragina6437 I never see ads w drach

[@nathangillispie51]

Kudos for not starting drama with another channel

[@rickkephartactual7706]

I'm impressed with your position on reacting to other channels video's. It speaks quite well of you.

[@NorthWestV6]

Very classy.

[@reginaldbentworth9159]

When does he speak on this I can’t seem too find it

[@chucknut270]

@@reginaldbentworth9159 around the 22 minute mark

[@ryand1981]

You know, I felt as though it was arrogant honestly. You're assuming that it will require some sort of criticism. Perhaps the person asking the question just wants your thumbs up, a they look good, they know their stuff.. instead it's always criticism. No disrespect meant, honestly I'm frequently in the same group. It took me a while to embrace this and chamber my thinking

[@rayshewmaker34]

On a ships architecture. One person couldn't find the comment. He refers to Smells, Quite Often. The design of Warships are specifically limiting to Air, and Water transfer from one space to another. When He spoke of smells from other spaces, just not going to occur. Now being a Museum unit can garner smells. But Engine room to berthing, or Combat control areas. Not happening.

[@454k30]

I’m a career US Navy sailor. That smell on those ships comes from feet and a**. The smell has permeated the layers of paint and are part of the legacy.

[@WillMoody-crmstorm]

I'm a career UK IT consultant. This make me laugh!

[@Pyresh]

Drach, I've been sick lately and only your soothing long rambling podcast is keeping me going sometimes. Thank you for all that you do.

[@charliecoesr7921]

I took have been struggling with my health.i am now blind and can't see the video.his videos are easy to listen to and calm my mind.i can still learn from them because he explains it so well. I miss the smell of the ocean and the salt spray in my face.this takes me way back to another time and place.i don't know drach but he seems to be a man with a love of history and a gentleman with an old soul.just my take on his work.

[@CocoaBeachLiving]

I really enjoy your videos. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, we didn't have this kind of discussion, now available to anyone with the internet. I appreciate how you can bring, at this point, distant history into focus for those interested in this period. There's so much more to talk about. I so much appreciate your intellectual honesty when you present 👍

[@lunatickoala]

For the museum ships I've been on, the smell reminds me of a machine shop, so maybe it's machining oil or some other sort of oil for lubrication or preservation?

[@allangibson8494]

Oil and oil based paint…

[@johngregory4801]

If things had gone south for Admiral Somerville, we know one thing... HMS Warspite would survive, no matter how bad her battle damage was, and the Japanese would curse her as one of their mythical indestructible sea creatures, the British naval version of Godzilla.

[@davelewis3255]

I served in the early 70s and found that the couple of active ships I was on board had that very characteristic "ship smell". I always put it down to a combination of paint, lubricants, cooking, fuel oil (that old USN bunker oil stunk), bodies, and the lack of sunlight. I've noted the same smell in museum ships but it isn't as prominent, perhaps indicating that once that smell gets into the structure of the ship it never goes away. It was there on the Texas which hasn't been inhabited or under way in almost 80 years.

[@brookeshenfield7156]

My father commanded an LST along the coast of New Guinea for, as he put it “three sweaty years”, survived the war and in later years was a director of the USO. His old XO ended up an Admiral, and so in the 70s my dad wrangled my brothers and I a cruise on the USS William Stanley. As we boarded that beautiful and deadly cruiser, my father turned to me and said “it smells just like I remember”. After three of the most exciting days of my young life on board, I will never forget that smell. It is on every ship I have ever visited - from Iowas to Balaos to Fletchers to the awesome Stennis - it was even on the SSBN USS Alabama. It is the Navy Smell…

[@Ricky40369]

I would also throw in a good measure of cosmoline.

[@rgraze911]

Having visited my ship BB62, I noticed the same smell as when I was on her in active duty. I brought this up to one of the caretakers and they attribute it to the fuel oil and that smell will never leave.

[@mmmdesignllc]

I did ship checks on ssn’s. I know that smell. I heard wives say the duffle bags of clothes that came home from a tour had that smell.

[@prussianhill]

My grandpa helped operate a LCVP (Higgins boat) in the Pacific. The advantage that an LVT has on crossing coral reefs cannot be overstated. Conventional landing craft would drop their ramps upon reaching coral reefs (tide dependent), least they tear open their bottoms. This in turn means the marines were dropped off in deeper water than preferable; which sometimes resulted in marines drowning if they so much as made one wrong step walking in from that depth. LVTs could ignore both the tide and the reef.

[@stevewindisch7400]

My great uncle had the same job (crew on a Higgins boat), for Saipan and several other combat landings. He once told me he got that job as punishment (he was previously in a boiler room of a transport and in the 120 degree heat, got in a fight and punched a petty officer). I was wondering if your grandfather had any similar experience or if he mentioned how he ended up there. Something he may not have mentioned, and my uncle only revealed once when drunk and only after pressing him, was how he sometimes had to pull a pistol and threaten to shoot frightened boys if they did not exit the boat on the beach or reef. He then saw some of these boys killed immediately afterwards. It was a horrible experience that scarred him for life.

[@88porpoise]

Yep. Different tools for different jobs. Need to cross a river or over reefs/sand bars? The Amtrac was the king. However, if you had a good, accessible beach, the Higgins boats could simply get more men on the beach faster than Amtracs could.

[@prussianhill]

@@stevewindisch7400 As far as I am aware, my grandpa did not have any disciplinary issues. There was a humorous story during his transit from the Great Lakes naval base to the west coast that involved wilderness fire fighting (apparently some sailors in transit to the pacific were diverted to firefighting), but nothing that would arise to a disciplinary problem. My grandfather may have been in the Marianas, but I haven't been able to confirm (he would have gone through boot camp spring '44), so there is a chance your uncle and my grandfather crossed paths. He once commented he felt for the engine crews on the transports, as they would've had a harder time abandoning ship. My grandfathers primary duty was as a AA gunner, so he usually manned the machine gun on a Higgins boat. Some of his post-war experiences and stories lead me to believe that he at least learned small craft handling during the war though.

[@prussianhill]

@@88porpoise For the firefighting story... I believe a petty officer asked the sailors if any of them assembled were truck drivers. Evidentally a lot of sailors volunteered, without regard to qualification, out of belief that the truck drivers would be relieved of physical exertion. Those men were taken aside and introduced to their trucks. Wheelbarrows all of them. It is unclear whether my grandfather (who really did have experience pre-enlistment as a truck driver) "volunteered" or not.

[@gibsonfenderbacker2374]

I visited the Massachusetts. The funk reminded me of an old time auto repair shop. The ones with an actual pit.

[@kemarisite]

Its worth mentioning that a number of early WW2 carrier aircraft (Aichi D3A "Val" and Douglass SBD, for two examples) do not have wing folding mechanisms because of the need for aircraft like dive bombers to have strong wings and the possibility that a folding mechanism will weaken the wing too much.

[@christophersmith8316]

I think the Val can fold up a small bit at the end of the wing

[@kemarisite]

@@christophersmith8316 you are correct. Parschal and Tully (Shattered Sword) state the D3A had a folding section placed "very near the wing tip." Yes, I overlooked that when I made my comment, although P&T go on to state that the placement of the folding section made storage complicated.

[@Wolfeson28]

@@kemarisite That same issue also limited where the Val could be used, as some of the IJN's smaller carriers didn't have any elevators large enough for the Val to fit.

[@kemarisite]

Accurate shore bombardment is the most important part of shore bombardment, because all too often the defenses (especially by WW2) the defensive positions will be essentially immune to anything other than a direct hit. At Omaha beach, some of the most important shore bombardment came from destroyers coming into rifle range from the beach, about 1,000 yards. Steven Ambrose mentions a destroyer that used a tank ashore as a spotter, watching the tank's fall of shot and supplementing the 3"-ish tank shell with a salvo of 5" shells (IIRC it was a US destroyer).

[@josephwhiskeybeale]

I worked in the skyscraper directly across from the Wisconsin, what a beautiful sight it was in the early morning fog that Norfolk is known for.

[@robandcheryls]

Fantastic point. As an Army Veteran, I learned to just realize it’s my life and I’m not ashamed. Of course I do not share EVERYTHING, but who does. 🇨🇦

[@BlindMansRevenge2002]

As far as ships being saved my vote would’ve been for the USS Pennsylvania! Not just because I come from Pennsylvania but more so for the fact that Pennsylvania was Arizona’s sister ship. Not to take anything away from the accomplishments of the Missouri or the Iowa class in and of itself it just would be so much more meaningful if Arizona’s sister ship was standing eternal watch over her at Pearl Harbor

[@justin3415]

I'm from pa as well and the Pennsylvania should have been saved and your idea of her being at pearl is fitting and standing guard over her sister is wonderful and touching .love the mighty mo and what was saved.but the Pennsylvania was a great ship too she fought hard in the war.

[@BlindMansRevenge2002]

@@justin3415 glad to know that I am not the only one who thinks this way! Completely ridiculous that the PA was sacrificed to those atomic bomb tests at bikini atoll. A waste of history!

[@justin3415]

@@BlindMansRevenge2002 Your not the only one.Yes it was a waste to use the Pennsylvania and even Nevada that way,i understand the testing.But those two ships had so much history and could have been used in a much more fitting manner and tribute to the times and those who served on them and to all those who fought and to all those who where sadly lost during that war.

[@onecertainordinarymagician]

3 hours part one? Oh this is good isn't it

[@jlvfr]

That "part 1" stunned me... we are getting stuff to watch for the week!

[@charliecoesr7921]

I love the long ones best too

[@pedenharley6266]

Regarding a Standard-type Battleship as a museum. Recently in a dry dock Drach gave a good reason why North Carolina was saved and Washington wasn’t. North Carolina was a larger state with more people to advocate for and give money for saving the ship. Unfortunately West Virginia suffers from being named after a smaller inland state - with the best will in the world, the battleship wasn’t going there, and until the Iowas much later on, all the battleships were preserved by their namesake state. While I would have loved to see Pennsylvania saved, it sent for operation Crossroads. I think California is the most plausible candidate. She was not scrapped until the end of the 50’s and is named after a large, wealthy state.

[@colinsdad1]

Greg's Planes and Automobiles is to WW2 aircraft what Drach is to WW2 Ships. If you enjoy learning minutae about various aircraft, with some occasional 50s-early 70s muscle cars thrown in, (mostly about drivetrains) I would seriously give his Channel a peek. Well handled on the response to the question about the aforementioned Channel Drach! 😎

[@colinsdad1]

Thank you for the Like and, it was very nice meeting you and Mrs. Drach on the USS Massachusetts!

[@thepewplace1370]

100% this^ Like Drach's channel is the highest tier of naval content, Greg's channel is the highest tier of aviation content on youtube (I'm sure the auto stuff is good too, just not what I'm after) and I was pumped when I heard Drach mention him. These are the channels others should aspire to (and unfortunately there are only a few of) : niche expertise, meticulous research using primary/reliable sources, obvious passion for the topics, and excellent, concise presentation quality. A collab between Drach and Greg, with each applying their subject-specific expertise, would be about as good as it could get for a naval aviation video. Imagine a Drach/Greg series on the Royal Navy fleet use of the F4U in the Pacific: it's a little known and oft overlooked part of the war, the RN enabled the USN to finally use the F4U on carriers, both the RN and the Corsair have hugely devoted fans, etc.

[@colinsdad1]

@@thepewplace1370 NEEDS to happen!

[@thepewplace1370]

@@colinsdad1 that'd be epic. And I'm sure there's quite a few fans of both channels here. I figure most of us aren't just focused on one aspect of military history...

[@colinsdad1]

@@thepewplace1370 I'm a USAF Veteran who STILL cannot get enough aviation info! I realized I had a large gap in my knowledge about Naval matters, thus why I follow Drach so closely. Nothing like an Englishman educating an American on USN Ships!😎 In fact, I'd love to see Military Aviation History, Drach and Greg get together for some discussion on minutae. Definitely the right group of gentleman for that discussion!

[@The_Vanished]

Dang, just landed on this video, im stoked for the long form videos here

[@benwilson6145]

MV Ondina a tanker built in 1939 while in company with the HMIS Bengal was involved in a battle with two Japanese Merchant Raiders in the Indian Ocean. The Aikoku Maru (Captain Oishi Tamotsu) and Hokoku Maru (Captain Imazato Hiroshi) commenced firing at 1200 hours, and soon straddled the Ondina with their cruiser-armament. The first hit on Ondina ripped off a part of the main mast, leaving only a stump standing. The Ondina herself had her answer ready: the third shell fired by Ondina was a direct hit in the superstructure of Hokoku Maru, but apparently it did little to affect her speed or armament. Content with the hit, the gun captain then ordered the gunners to concentrate their fire on the stern. Only a few moments later, a lucky hit on the starboard torpedo mount turned the Hokoku Maru in a ball of red and yellow flames, and as the ship emerged from the smoke, she was listing heavily to starboard, and simultaneously started to settle by the stern. The explosion ripped off the stern and threw her two floatplanes overboard, while massive fires raged in the superstructure. The Ondina and the Bengal continued shooting at the Aikoku , until they ran out of ammunition. The HMIS Bengal sailed away and the Ondina was set on fire by the Aikoku, they abandoned ship in the lifeboats. The lifeboats were machine gunned by the Aikoku who rescued the survivors of the Hokoku and departed. The surviving crew reboarded the Ondina , extinguished the fires and sailed back to Fremantle. So a merchant Tanker sank a Japanese Merchant Cruiser.

[@Rocketsong]

Re: 500 lb vs 1000 lb bombs. US doctrine (at the time) assumed that it would take three hits with a 500 lb bomb to disable/mission-kill a Japanese carrier. Dick Best took out Akagi with a single 1000 lb bomb.

[@NathanOkun]

(FROM COMMENT BELOW) Having been burned by this failure, BuORD went back in 1939 to develop and test a somewhat simpler (though not in its safety measures prior to firing) base detonating fuze with a fixed delay (nominally 0.035 second, but 0.033 second average in practice), the Mark 21 BDF. It was based on a modified form of the recently-introduced Mark 17, Mark 18, and Mark 19 BDF used in the new HC and existing base-fuzed Common and AA Common shells then being introduced. These BDF all had the same forward-moving on impact firing pin hitting the primer, with only one of them for the large 14" and 16" HC shells having a short (0.01-second) delay with a second detonator after the delay to set off the boosters; the others had the booster set off directly by the primer blast. All of these non-AP fuzes were very reliable and were designed to take hitting up to medium-thickness armor at up to 30 degrees or so obliquity when used to penetrate targets a short distance before exploding and still almost always work. BuORD also had added a very tough oblique impact requirement to all of its new AP shells, 35-40 degrees against roughly 0.75-caliber Class "A" (face hardened) armor plate, the toughest such requirement of any nation ever. The fuze had to remain functional even under such distorting forces. They decided to make this fuze work regardless of the spec, no matter what. First, the Mark 19 BDF lipstick-can body was reinforced. Second, it was decided that firing the fuze with the firing pin would occur at first impact, not be delayed until after the armor was penetrated, as with the Mark 11 BDF, since damage to the fuze during the armor penetration could make the firing pin not move properly. The delay had to already burning when the armor was being penetrated, reducing failure points. Third, the internal fuze path of the flame from the delay element to the detonator to the two Tetryl boosters should be as short as possible with all possible aids to make sure that the flame hit the inner end of those boosters and thus make the full-power blast of the shell more likely. To do this, they made the primer somewhat more powerful and had the delay element and detonator be mounted into a movable steel block that the pressure of the primer blast would move upward just behind the boosters and jam into the final locked and fully armed position with all of the passages from the delay to the boosters now aligned and immovable (another extra safety measure prior to firing). Fourth, they filled the gap between the detonator and the boosters with tiny TNT pellets, so that when the detonator went off after the delay, the blast would be enhanced until it was absolutely impossible for the Tetryl boosters not to go off maximum-power into the main Explosive "D" (extremely insensitive ammonium picrate) filler charge. Thus, on initial impact prior to the projectile moving more than at most a couple of inches into the armor, the primer blast would move the active part of the fuze into the upper end inside the filler charge, being a locked and immovable block, so that damage from the bending/breakage of the base and base plug would have minimum chance of stopping fuze action during and after the delay. Angled impacts would have less of an effect with this, also. A large number of tests also showed that the short distance between the firing pin and the primer used in this design to blow the primer as soon as possible after impact to lock the mechanism also made the fuze more sensitive, so that it would go off on a 0.07-caliber steel plate at right-angles, getting even thinner as impact angle increased and the forces generated lasted longer. The Mark 21 BDF seemed to be fine until the 1942 Operation TORCH against the French in North Africa when the USS MASSACHUSETTS had a dual with the incomplete battleship JEAN BART and sank the French ship at its dock. After the battle, it was discovered that a much higher-than-acceptable number of the US 16" Mark 8 AP shells had fuzes that did not work properly, being duds or partial explosions instead of full-power detonations. An immediate trouble-shooting effort was set in force to fix this. (BuORD fuze people were NOT BuORD torpedo people!). Many tests later, by the middle of 1943, they had found the culprit: Corrosion. Older fuzes had no really tight tolerances for the movement of the inner parts during arming and firing and the fact that Explosive "D" corroded steel was fixed by simply adding a layer of lacquer to any steel that touched the filler. However, nothing was done to stop FUMES. The blast of the primer to seat and lock the delay/detonator block required a tight interlocking fit, now though and any corrosion could and did interfere with said locking. After some trials, it was found that simply dipping the completed fuze into a vat of liquid Bakelite (hard when dry) plastic created a fume-tight covering. All future fuzes were so dipped. End of problem. Not all BuORD people were fools... I worked for 41 years for NAVSEA, the successor to combined BuORD and BuSHIPS, and today the person aboard ship who has ANY problem is #1 and has to be responded to ASAP and his problem investigated and fixed, also ASAP. I was sent from California to Virginia twice to solve two different ship-related problems the ship couldn't figure out. "Tomorrow you will be in Virginia. Pack your bags tonight." And, POOF, I was...

[@Rammstein0963.]

As far as the MVP for the Germans at Jutland? I'd personally give it to the iron dog, Derfflinger.

[@cultureshock5000]

fun ship in wow

[@cultureshock5000]

my flagship

[@535phobos]

As much as I love Derfflinger, Seydlitz tanked even more (including a torp), and Moltke started the battle with superb shooting, single handedly outscoring all of Beattys BCs on the Run to the South. All the German BCs deserve praise for their performance that day. I think, had Lützow survived (so, maybe 1 or 2 hits less), she should have been MVP. Tanking more than any other ship, and sinking at least Invincible, while scoring a lot of hits herself.

[@chrisbell52310]

1:33:58 Ian McCollum and C&Raresenal have mentioned that the French Navy pushed repeating rifles for Marines. The Mauser C96 was "saved" from obscurity by the Italian Navy adopting it and specifically the shoulder stock.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

Churchill being a fan helped too.

[@88porpoise]

Often navies were at the forefront of adopting magazine rifles and self-loading pistols. Naval ground forces were generally more likely to be outnumbered, so benefitting more from the firepower, and going to be on long campaigns away from their supply base and armoury less so they didn't need to worry about maintenance and supply issues armies worried about. The smaller numbers needed likelihood would also mitigate the cost issues of adopting them. The Royal Navy was a driving force between the British program that eventually adopted the Lee-Enfield. And in many other cases navies played a key role in development of them alongside the army. The US Navy adopted the Remington-Lee before the US Army got serious about a magazine rifle. The French Navy adopted the Kropatschek while the Army was still happy with their single shot Gras (the Army's Lebel rifle would later marry the Kropatschek magazine to the Gras system). The German Navy adopted the Luger several years before the Army would.

[@paulcroshier6708]

@@88porpoise This resulted in the Marines in Cuba with the 6mm straight pull Lee doing better against the Spanish Mausers than the Army did with ,the Krag-Jorgensen.

[@graveyard1979]

Somehow Jutland spawned the stereotype of battlecruisers being glass cannons in spite of the most durable ship there being a battlecruiser (albeit a bit heavy with the armor by RN standards).

[@watchm4ker]

It was literally the battle they were not designed to fight. BCs specifically trade battleship grade armor for speed, so a line battle against fleets of BBs is about as suicidal an engagement they could get, with the weapons of the time. Well, that, or sending them against submarines.

[@graveyard1979]

@@watchm4ker British ships exploding at Jutland was more infamous school of speed gunnery rather than their build. Should the worst happen with fire door closed between reloads as they should be, it'd be only a single turret totaled instead of the entire ship. Kaiserliche Marine had close call at Dogger Bank because of similar practices. By the time Jutland happened they knew better than doing this again. A battlecruiser should not be staying in an exchange with a battleship, but she could always escape, albeit badly beaten. Provided she's not going to explode first.

[@88porpoise]

@@watchm4ker That is, complicated. The first battle cruisers were never intended to face battleship grade weaponry. But that changed over time and by WWI the German and British battle cruisers were intended to be a core element of the battle fleet which would entail facing battleship guns, either on battleships or opposing battle cruisers.

[@oriontaylor]

Regarding naval small arms development, navies did indeed generally jump ahead of their land cousins. The Marine Nationale adopted magazine repeaters long before the army did, while the Regia Marina purchased semi-automatic pistols more than a decade before the army did. The US Navy played around with several designs with Remington-Lee box magazine rifles, along with the famous US 'Lee Navy' straight-pull bolt-action. Just to name a few examples. It helped increase the variety that virtually no one had a general 'defence ministry' that oversaw both branches, so often they felt little need to co-ordinate purchases of small arms, and sometimes not even adopting the same calibres.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

The thing about impressment is if you are at sea & have just lost a battle to the English & you managed to survive. Well once you surrender the ship belongs to the English. They could just kill you and toss you overboard. You are at sea, they could just put you overboard & say "good luck mate." Or if there are any serviceable dingy's left they could put you in that & let you go. They could make you a POW & put you in the stockade, where at sea, food & water is NOT plentiful, so your not going to get much. Or Hey, the Brits only had crew for one ship & now they have two. And if you help crew the ship you get food & water with the rest of the crew & have a much better chance of making it back to land as a healthy human being. Plus being in the "stockade" of a ship & there is a lot of people in the stockade. It's not going to be very clean & chances of you getting some horrible disease COULD be an issue as well. I think I'd much rather help sail the ship. BUT I would also make it clear that if they were to go into battle against another ship of my countrymen, then please don't ask or expect my help for such a battle. Since I've already surrendered to you, I will not hinder you. For I don't mind helping to sail the ship, I refuse to fight against my own country even if it means my life. And I believe MOST reasonable & intelligent men would find that acceptable & put you in the stockade if it's clear that they are going into action against a ship of your nation.

[@SynchroScore]

And with that last bit, now you've got me thinking of _Great Eastern_ carrying some stupidly-large guns fore and aft, with a number of casements down the sides, blasting away or simply running over lesser ships.

[@christopherconard2831]

For the effect of a boiler explosion on a ship, look up the Sultana during the US Civil War. Overloaded ship plus overloaded boiler equaled nearly 1,200 dead.

[@michaelmorley7719]

With respect to preserving a Standard Battleship, I've always thought Nevada should have been preserved. She was at Pearl Harbor, she was the only battleship there to get underway, she provided shore bombardment in the Aleutians *and* D-Day *and* Operation Dragoon *and* Iwo Jima *and* Okinawa.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

I'll vote Pennsylvania. 😤

[@ComradeBenedict]

@@WALTERBROADDUS Hey on the upside, two of the barrels from Pennsylvania are still on display in centre county for what it's worth

[@nickklavdianos5136]

I'll vote West Virginia.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

@@ComradeBenedict Born and bred PA resident bias.😜

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

@@nickklavdianos5136 I have to support the home team... PA land of Weather Groundhogs and WAwa.😜

[@patrickkelly7838]

Hi, love your videos. Have you ever done anything on the 1st HMS Victory? I have never been able to find anything about it. It was located (the wreck) in the channel several years ago.

[@stevepuls8532]

When I went on board the USS Cod there was a light smell of machine oil, i'm pretty sure all WW 2 submarines have that smell. Love the channel

[@mightaswellbe]

Small note on US small arms back in the day. When Colt started selling revolvers to the military the Army model was .44 caliber and the Navy version was .36 caliber. Not sure of the logic there but that the way it was. We are talking about the original Cap & Ball revolvers, 1860 time frame.

[@unemployed_history_major4795]

I am really surprised by your views on the Transportation element of the Spanish American War. I’m a US Army logistics officer. Prior to becoming “Logistics” we do a few years as a basic branch, for me, Transportation. During my initial schooling after becoming a Lieutenant, we were taught the transporting of men and materiel from Florida to Cuba was one of the US Army Transportation Corps finest hours. I have never heard anything from foreign observers points of view on it, however. I’d be very interested to see a deep dive on this subject in the future and more from foreign observers. The point of view expressed at school was, we were a peacetime army and the transportation corps was barely a thing, relying primarily on horse and carriage. Thus, it was a massive undertaking to learn on the fly, transporting men and materiel to Florida and then get the ships needed to take them to Cuba and keep them supplied. Basically, we adapted well and learned quick, doing the best we could with what we had. Would love to hear your thoughts!

[@Drachinifel]

Definitely something for a more detailed look!

[@robbiereilly]

I wonder if the 'museum ship smell' might be Cosmoline. It has been used to preserve guns, aircraft engines and parts and essentially anything exposed to salt water. The US military has been using it since WW I.

[@davidharner5865]

Why would the military be involved with warships?

[@NathanOkun]

US Navy BuORD in WWII. The totally abominable way it failed to handle the Mark 14 submarine torpedo problems (and those of any other torpedo with major "improvements" at the beginning of WWII) had impact (literally) for decades afterward since submariners had long memories and were REALLY "pissed off". On the other hand, the WWII BuORD division that handled the new AP projectile base fuzes (all AP shells from the new 6" and 8" to the new 14" and 16" were supposed to use the same fuze at any given time) was quite good and fixed serious problems rapidly. There were two new fuzes developed by this organization, the first, the Mark 11 Base Detonating Fuze (BDF), introduced in the late 1930s and, replacing it, the Mark 21 BDF, beginning in the year 1040 through well after WWII. The Mark 11 BDF was a radical design to allow the fuze to be cocked on impact using a powerful spring holding the firing pin that was pressed forward by the deceleration of the projectile after its initial impact, whether on the water surface or when it hit a steel plate. Only when the force due to deceleration of the projectile stopped would the firing pin be thrown forward into the primer, setting it off and beginning the fuze delay before detonation. It also had an extra- strong and complex arming system to prevent the fuze firing until after fired from the gun, as with all post-1930s. This part of the fuze was not specifically designed for high-angle impacts, however, and theoretically could be caused to malfunction due to sideways fraction if the projectile went through heavy armor, though it was better than most designs in this regard since the final firing pin motion did not occur until the spring-cocking forces had dropped considerably. This design concept was what the Japanese Type 88 and Type 91 "diving" AP projectiles -- and the French AP designs that they were based partially on -- should have been equipped with. This part of the fuze seemed to work fine. However, the Mark 11 BDF design were "a bridge to far" in its design by trying an additional somewhat useful delay-action-portion change, also unique. It was this part of the fuze that failed when mass production was attempted. When the fuze hit a thick armor plate, it could be assumed that the target was a battleship or battle-cruiser, which were large ships roughly 100 feet (30.5m) in width and roughly 30 feet (9m) of underwater hull). But if the fuze hit a thinner plate, the ship would be smaller, down to an even smaller ship if a steel plate just barely thick enough to set off the fuze was hit (circa 0.1 caliber, I estimate). At the full 0.035-second total fuze delay after the spring had fired the primer when the fuze exited the inside of the thickest expected armor plate and, if used, backing hit, the projectile at close range might still be going close to 1000 feet/second (305m/sec) and, at 0.035 second, go 35 feet (10.7m). (There would be a moderate variation from shell to shell by about 10 feet (3.6m)) around this spec distance for the expected 90% of the fuzes that functioned properly on impact.) This distance would make a shell that hit thin armor on a small ship pass right through it as a solid shot projectile in many cases, causing minimum damage unless it by sheer chance hit something important. This was considered something to correct since, at this time, the US Navy had not yet finished its design of the new large-caliber nose-fuzed High Capacity (HC) HE-type projectiles with multiple fuze options for use against other than armored targets (HC shells were used in considerable numbers during WWII, most especially for shore bombardment). To shorten the fuze delay if the shell directly hit a lightly-armored (assumed small) ship, they came up with a unique idea. (Note that the AP shell would move rather far underwater in more-or-less an upward-curving line -- the minimum angle of fall to stay underwater with a pointed shell is about 12 degrees -- due to the still-pointed US AP shell (the windscreen required a strong impact force to knock it off and usually ocean hits were not enough) moving less than 50 feet (15.2m) before yawing wildly and flipping into a stable base-first orientation, which would allow the spring-loaded firing pin to set off the primer then.) The black-powder delay was put into a tuber with a hollow needle connecting the primer to the base of the needle and the needle free to move forward into the tube, but with a thin layer of black powder in the gap between the needle outside surface and the inside of the tube as the needle moved forward and forward (no black powder would fit into the narrow inside of the tube). The deeper the needle went into the tube due to higher, longer-lasting deceleration forces (thicker armor). The primer blast wend down the inside of the needle, hit the far end and set off the black powder, which then burned backward in the gap outside the needle -- the less armor hit, the the less the needle had moved forward and the shorter the delay until about a 0.003-second or so minimum with no black-powder delay at all -- and into the detonator, which set off the two rocket-nozzle Tetryl boosters on each side of the fuze tip and thus the main filler. At least in theory. Unfortunately, severe impact forces on armor made the mass-produced Mark 11 BDF distort or break the thin needle/tube mechanism and many duds or non-uniform delays occurred.in later testing so the fuze was considered a failure. The rather large number of already-made fuzes were declared non-serviceable and put into storage. (CONTINUED ON NEXT COMMENT ABOVE)

[@pompeottervik8699]

Swedbank bought 2 Spica-destroyers from Italy 1940. They were temporarily held by brittisk navy. Would be interesting to learn more about Spica and perhaps the deal Sweden-Italy.

[@Hvitserk67]

Regarding Endurance and Fram (both originally Norwegian ships), it is worth mentioning that the designer behind Fram was Colin Archer. He was a Norwegian citizen, but had parents who had emigrated to Norway from Scotland. Archer designed a number of ships (pilot ships, rescue boats, schooners, brigantines, yachts and polar ships) and common to all of these were excellent seaworthiness and extremely strong constructions. Before becoming a ship designer/builder in Larvik, Norway, Archer was, among other things, a farmer and administrator in Queensland, Australia. Aprox 35 of Archer's ship designs are constantly sailing and a number of replicas continue to be popular leisure boats.

[@benwilson6145]

Endurance was recently rediscovered.

[@jjs113]

Re. passage through Suez Canal - Ramillies an interesting case study, and also another example of how iterative additions impacted on seakeeping. In 1939 her draught was 29 1/2 ft and she handled very well by the account of her captain. By 1943, her draught had increased to 34 1/2 ft due to all of her wartime additions, and her handling had significantly worsened as a result. She ran aground 4 times on her last passage through Suez, despite the presence of tugs.

[@Matt-xj2bx]

i work on uss lexington or did at least under aircraft restoration. totally love that smell. its a mixture of 1000s of diff chemicals and yes we keep diesal and gas on board for forklifts and so on, painting by the way is a constant 365 days of the year job since the lexington is on the oceon, constant sand blasting and painting.

[@gangfire5932]

I've been telling folks for years that those 16" shells aren't all that heavy, thanks for the photo! :P

[@jetdriver]

Re the smell of museum ships in the US. The ships smell pretty much like they did when in active service. It’s the smell of various lubricants and other materials. As a former US Naval Officer the smell really hits me when I go aboard a museum ship today. It’s like going back to see again.

[@lesliemitchell4984]

# Boring Cornbread # * 1½ cups of yellow cornmeal or uncooked polenta * 1 - 1½ cups milk * 2 teaspoons baking powder * 1 egg * 1 teaspoon onion salt or garlic salt 1. combine the wet ingredients. 2. combine the dry ingredients. 3. mix (1) with (2) -- you want consistency of melted ice-cream. A few lumps are fine. 4. pour into oiled brownie pan immediately 5. bake at about 200°C until cracks form on top and it passes the skewer test. To make it less boring, try: * buttermilk or soured milk instead of milk * herbs, lots of herbs * sharp cheese * grated onion * chunks of cooked sweetcorn

[@Uncle_Neil]

Re: Ship Smells or odor. Okay, any of these ships will have petroleum based lubricants and oils (POL) which have many organic constituents (and yes I am a chemist). Now, whereas most of us are familiar with the smells of these chemicals (diesel or petrol) which tend to have a "sweet" smell that aroma is largely driven by cyclic or polycylic hydrocarbons. So, in an older ship over time these more volatile constituents of POL will be lost to evaporation or chemical degradation by water, acidic substances and bacterial agents. Some of these reactions proceed quickly but some do not and are often driven by the availability of light and/or air. So in little words old ships rot chemically as well as biologically. This manifest itself in some unique odors that one seldom encounters in more common environments where air flow and variant light conditions are in play. I grew up in Texas (Houston ship channel, not far from where USS Texas was berthed) and I know these smells quite well. Most are not too terrible and I can identify many from prior experience and exposure. I suppose one of these days someone will make a study of these chemicals by concentration onboard a ship, there are at least 70 to 200 potential compounds possible at measurable levels and most are considered an environmental hazard if one is exposed for long periods of time. However, for the length of a tour it is of no concern. Thanks to Uncle Drach from a longtime viewer and fan.

[@johnevans7261]

A non-wing-folding aircraft that took up more deck space than the folders - and thank goodness it did - was the Douglas SBD 'Slow-But-Deadly' Dauntless scout-dive-bomber.

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

34:00 - In many engineering disciplines, especially in the pre-calculator days.there are both books of tables, and specialized slide rules. In old math books, in the back, there were appendices with trig & log tables. You're cheap scientific calculator did away with that. In the back of engineering books, there are specialized "slide rules", called "nomographs". Each representing a particular equation. These could work with 2 or 3 input variables. For larger numbers of inputs (variables), that's where fancier fire control computers come into play.

[@andrewfanner2245]

Aha, Sunday afternoon sorted:-)

[@captain61games49]

Huh only got recommended this now after you uploaded part 2

[@captainswoop8722]

Small Arms. The Royal Navy adopted the Webley Automatic pistol before WW1 while the Army was still ordering revolvers. Also the Navy adopted the Lanchester Sub Machine Gun before WW2 and they were still in service in to the 60s at least. Both Forgotten Weapons and C&Rsenal have videos on the Webley Automatic and Forgotten Weapons has one on the Lanchester.

[@selachianseas999]

Another one was the M1895 Lee Navy rifle, which the US Navy adopted instead of the license-produced Krag-Jørgensen used by the US Army at the time.

[@captainswoop8722]

@@selachianseas999 Yes. C&Rsenal have a video on the Krag and Forgotten Weapons one on the Navy lee.

[@tombuchanan379]

In regards to the US troop movement to Cuba. The embarkation from Tampa to Cuba can be best described as "Who can get there the fastest" You had Volunteer units stealing other units ships...Yes Teddy I am talking to you..in order to get to Cuba. It was a logistical nightmare. The fact that it worked was a testament to a weak opponent and guts. Not something you can always rely on. Knowing when to roll the dice on those factors has changed the world.

[@michalsipocz5138]

great torpedo question, great torpedo answer, thanks

[@bronco5334]

*ahem* we like to call them torpedo SOLUTIONS, kthxbye ;)

[@alecblunden8615]

concerning Naval small arms, the RN adopted Webley and Scott semi-automatic pistols while the Army stuck to revolvers Also, the RN used the Lanchester SMG in substantial numbers. I don't think they were developed specifically for the RN, but that was where they served.

[@PaulfromChicago]

1:03:30 I had an ancestor on Sultan. He was a POW for a few weeks in Andersonville, captured by the Southern traitors. He was very badly injured in the explosion and died of infection back home in Iowa over a year later. Boiler explosions are bad on land. But everything bad that happens on land is worse on water.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

I suppose you dislike patreon as well?

[@VersusARCH]

1:47:58 - During the War of the Pacific Peruvian civillian boat packed with explosives (effectively turned into a mine) sank the Chilean steam sloop Covadonga (the hero of the Battle of Punta Gruesa). During the First Balkan War the Greek merchant ship Trifimia turned ad hoc troop transport for the Serbian Army saw the Ottoman protected cruiser Hamidiye off with fire from a lone Serbian gun which was being transported and set up by the gunners on the deck of the ship to face the threat.

[@1982nsu]

1:03:01 Echoes of the Sultana although it was not a warship but rather a steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,168 people.

[@schrodingersgat4344]

"Decided to go with 8 gun ships to buy speed"? If I were going to buy speed that's how I'd show up. 😁

[@harrymurphey2634]

... you can argue for the West Virginia ... but ... I would have saved ... "the ANGRY SISTER" ... the USS Pennsylvania ... she was at Pearl Harbor, and was the first to return fire ... she fired the fastest and largest amount of shells in support of an Island invasion ... ( thereby earning the "nickname", the "Angry Sister" ) ... fought through the whole of WWll from the opening shots till the end ... but above all else ... she was the elder class sister ship to the USS Arizona ... is there a better reason ???

[@johnshepherd8687]

The problem with the Midway was that NAVSEA engineers made a mistake in their calculations for fitting bulges to decrease the ships tendency to roll. If I remember correctly it was a simple +- mistake and they ended up increasing the roll rate.

[@RedXlV]

With regard to German dreadnought gun calibers, they did have the 35cm (13.8"), but were only intended for battlecruisers. As for Britain going from 13.5" to 15" while also reducing the number of guns, aside from the early consideration of 10x 15", there's also the fact that the square-cube law makes the jump from 13.5" to 15" a bigger one (in terms of the shell's weight and the weight of its bursting charge, and by extension the weight of broadside) than was the jump from 12" to 13.5". And the same would've been true of the initial plan for G3 to use a 16.5" gun, before they ultimately decided 16" like everybody else was adopting was a really good size. Oh, and the navy using dreadnoughts that opted to make the biggest jump in gun size (at least as planned) was Italy, going from 13x 12" on the Cavour and Duilio classes to 8x 15" for Caracciolo. And such a large jump in caliber almost doubled the shell weight, and thus would've had a heavier broadside despite such a large reduction in the number of guns.

[@RedXlV]

With regard to preserving one of the Standard-type battleships, my first inclination would actually be USS Nevada, the original Standard. She was similarly refitted to West Virginia as well. But realistically, the best chance of getting a Standard preserved would've been choosing a ship named for a coastal state. You'd have a much easier time fundraising for preservation of a ship from people in the state it's named for and if it can actually be brought to that state for permanent mooring. Which is a bit of a problem since most of the Standards were named after inland states. This criteria would narrow it down to just Mississippi (New Mexico-class), California (Tennessee-class), and Maryland (Colorado-class). Mississippi can be counted out right away because her conversion to a gunnery/missile test ship made her too ugly for a museum ship. California would've probably been the best candidate on account of her namesake being a huge and wealthy state. However, both California and Maryland would have the huge downside of being on the wrong coast when they were decommissioned, greatly increasing the expense of bringing them to their states. California was put in reserve at Philadelphia, while Maryland was in Bremerton, WA. Mississippi was in the most convenient location to tow her to her namesake state (being based in Norfolk), but again she looked like this: www.navsource.org/archives/01/014103.jpg

[@mancubwwa]

On increasing calibers, it is also worth noting that while the British drop two guns going from 13.5" Iron Dukesto 15" QEs, Americans drop four between 14" New Mexicos and 16" Colorados

[@willarth9186]

Ahh, what's better than a slow afternoon and a long Drach lesson?

[@suflanker45]

Another ship that could be the MVP for the Germans would be the Von Der Tan. Despite all her main guns being put out of action her captain kept her in line to draw fire from the other battlecruisers.

[@535phobos]

At this point we can just give the whole 1. Scouting Group the MVP award.

[@AndrewPalmerMTL]

Regarding the comment at 12:50 and subs regarding maintaining the throw weight when upgrading a capital ship. Assuming shell weight increases as the 2.5th power of the calibre (not fully a "cube law" in other words) then the British ships maintaining their number of guns would increase broadside weight by about 33% and the US ships dropping two guns would increase by about 25%. Both are a significant increase (and using the true shell weights would probably make for slightly different numbers but a similar magnitude). The QE case works out as effectively neutral with similar assumptions.

[@curlyjoh9055]

16.51 Raleigh, Revenge maybe. HMS Jervis Bay built for the Commonwealth Line for the Australian run. The RAN commissioned HMAS Jervis Bay in 1977. I don't know if she was named after the township but her motto Strive Valiantly tends to feed my bias that she was named after the armed merchant cruiser.

[@ogscarl3t375]

Personally I feel the USN's Tennessee Class battleships don't get enough love and the West Virginia's whilst great ships ( I have a soft spot for them too ) are given way more attention then maybe they should. If there's any ship that I'd argue should've been preserved it'd be USS Tennessee herself she had the classic standard battleship look and she had the same caliber of guns that the USS Texas has but in a more efficient and workable layout.

[@chris_hisss]

The question about the guilt, not sure that you had answered with the power of justification, in that especially in WW2 there was a clear evilness about the axis and that was eradication to be dealt with. I think that the basic training also drives right at the heart of that, to kind of show the primal nature of people to each other and the stripping of humanity, so that when tasked with these harrowing acts, it is is 1st nature. This is all the way down to the uniform and life changing that happens through basic, tore down and re-assembled, for a good soldier to be obedient, they are re-structured to value and have pride in the nature that is capable of doing those things, if needs be. Wars such as Vietnam however there wasn't as clear of an enemy, especially as war progressed to impotency, that it was really really hard to convince anyone, much less those that were on the fence about it. Of course there are always duty first types that thrive in that kind of environment, and that cost of life is just a part of it. Certainly impersonal like you mention for the most part, but there is always the chance for actually seeing the people suffering, like burning bodies jumping out of ships, which might affect the next shell but if you are in survival mode with a strike and counterstrike kill or be killed there is a mission to be done, and you follow orders, people deserving it, can be a powerful force that a lot of times isn't dealt with until later. Interesting topics and answers in this one, thanks!

[@indplt1595]

In regards to the LVT, known exclusively as the amtrac in the Pacific Theater of Operations, it is interesting that the US Marine Corps developed the first effective APC/IFV hybrid, that was amphibious to boot. The USMC and PTO U.S. Army forces used M4 Shermans liberally, just as ETO formations did, but the first troops coming ashore in every invasion in the Pacific, starting with unarmed LVT-1s at Guadalcanal, nevertheless had much better cover and protection due to Marine-operated (and later PTO Army-operated) amtracs that would push inland with the forces (often with marines and soldiers still inside), unlike ETO troops that were discharged from Higgins boats into machine gun fire on Omaha Beach. This was partly because of the amtrac's increased capability to overcome obstacles with its tracks, but was principally because the USMC in the 20 years they were expanding and perfecting Major Pete Ellis' amphibious warfare doctrine. For the 1920s and '30s USMC, anticipating Omaha Beach debacles, even the Higgins boat clearly was insufficient in assaulting contested beaches. Enter the Alligator: www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/roeblings-gators/ The Amphibious Vehicle, Tracked (amtrac, or LVT) was developed from the Alligator both for its superior capability under fire and because of inerservice rivalry. The LCVP was operated by Allied naval personnel worldwide up until the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, while the amtrac was and its successors like the AAVP remain an integral part of the Marine Corps inventory and operational capability. The fact that Marine formations were absent in Torch, Husky and Overlord says far more about why amtracs were eschewed in the ETO, not an inferior capability. By June 1944 USMC and PTO Army amtracs were heavily armed and armored against small arms, with the additional innovation of discharging troops out of the rear of the vehicle. While the Japanese had given up on banzai charges and fighting the Allies at the water's edge as wholly ineffective, Rommel based his strategy on throwing the Allies back into the sea. This supposedly was a lesson Rommel learned in Africa after the Americans had landed, in response to extremely heavy artillery fire. Notably, the Marines weren't in Africa in force in 1942-43. The distinct fact that one of the U.S. armed forces was conspicuously absent in force from Europe, the USMC, wasn't an accident. George Marshall and most GHQ (General Headquarters, U.S. Army, becoming Headquarters, Army Ground Forces in 1942) brass did not take kindly to the honors bestowed on the Marines in 1918 in places like Belleau Wood, and fought successfully to keep USMC formations larger than raiders and embassy guard detachments out of the ETO. The lack of specialized amphibious warfare training and knowledge from experts like the USMC was especially telling when US Army forces in Operation Avalanche, the September 1943 amphibious invasion at Salerno, were nearly pushed into the sea by violating a cardinal rule of amphibious warfare: heavy aerial and naval bombardment is crucial. Mark Clark's forces instead relied on surprise, the Army brass refusing to allow Allied bombardment of any kind prior to the landings. While the Germans were hampered from routing 5th Army in part by their own minefields, the day was delivered by the guns of HMS Valiant and (naturally) Warspite: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09683445211022765. This paradigm continued the whole war. Essentially, the American forces in the ETO operated under the War Department while the PTO operated unter the Navy Department. From August to November 1942 the only American ground forces to see combat were U.S. Marines, exclusively in the Pacific, and the arrival of U.S. Army Ground Forces formations in the PTO was such an afterthought the American soldiers were placed under the command of USAAF generals. The presence of ANY US Army forces in the PTO was necessitated initially only because the USN and USMC lacked the long range land-based striking power of USAAF heavy and medium bombers. This bizarre American arrangement cost the Allies dearly well into 1944. Overlord was so low on the Navy Department's radar that King and Nimitz planned the Marianas operation almost simultaneously with the Normandy campaign, requiring the Royal Navy to take up the slack by employing LCAs to transport the 2nd Rangers to Pointe du Hoc on D-Day, the assault made famous in Saving Private Ryan. But the culminating disaster excluding USMC amphibious warfare doctrine from the ETO had to be Omaha Beach, where the inclusion of second-hand amtracs alone would have saved countless lives. After Tarawa, every Marine battalion would swap out their entire amtrac force after the unit and vehicles were employed in an amphibious invasion in the Pacific. While these LVTs certainly would be suspect to send to the ETO, the fact remains that LVTs were constantly in production in anticipation that 300 new amtracs per battalion would be sent to the Pacific after every Marine battalion saw combat, a policy that PTO Army units also adopted. As such, there were thousands of LVTs that were constructed to replace the vehicles sent in to take Saipan, Tinian and Guam in June 1944. Certainly some of these could have been employed at Omaha and Utah; considering the official policy of Germany First, they should have been. Had the Americans adopted their battle-tested amphibious warfare doctrine, Omaha and Utah would have been swarming with amtracs that morning while freeing up some or all LCVPs to land artillery and additional vehicles in accordance with Major Ellis' doctrine. It isn’t inconceivable that British and Commonwealth forces might have requested second-hand LVTs if they had seen the capability, almost certainly reducing casualties on Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches. While they might have been mechanically suspect, the probability of any amtrac to stop a 7.92mm slug is infinity higher than the air in front of a Higgins Boat ramp after it crashes into the water. In accordance with USMC policy, every amtrac should have been replaced after D-Day, rendering the question of what the Allies would have done with hypothetical amtracs after D-Day a moot point. Nevertheless, it is easy to imagine American, British, and Canadian troops traveling overland after Normandy becoming rather attached to the amphibious APC/IFV hybrid, especially compared to those that had witnessed what coming ashore on a Higgins Boat had suffered. All in all, it was a tremendous lost opportunity that probably would have saved thousands of Allied lives had the Navy and War Departments been merged into the DOD and the U.S. had set a unified military policy in 1941, not 1947.

[@StrategosKakos]

@ Aiming torpedoes in WW2: If you want to try your hand on using a WW" torpedo computer: I can recommend the game UBOAT and using the TDC mod. The game faithfully simulates a Type VII boat and the mod adds the "historically correct" TVH-RE/S3 torpedo computer; including a manual on how to use it.

[@Chironex_Fleckeri]

A modern HMS Camperdown should be a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine. Imagine being sunk by a sub named the "Camperdown"

[@kaijudirector5336]

On the Jutland German MVP: what about Derfflinger?

[@victorydaydeepstate]

Drach, could you do videos on the WW2 shipwrecks? You could just play the videos and do the voice over. You could be the curator of the Deep!!! C'mon man! Having an HD video about ships is much more visually powerful than an old, blurry black & white photo that is of Bigfoot quality

[@readingrailroadfan7683]

I notice the museum ship smell more on submarines compared to surface ships.

[@yaldabaoth2]

Preserved submariner sweat.

[@becauselifts9913]

@@yaldabaoth2 Was about to say similar: It's vacuum sealed and self contained for 6 months at a time, kinda gets into everything.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

The Russian wings or whatever it's called series from the 90's is all on yt. It has the history of the wig-V from conception. They came up with it in the 50's rapidly from models. They wanted massive troop carriers for the inland seas that could go 300mph and under radar. They finished by strapping every jet engine they could find and as many icbms as they could bolt on. The KSM (csm?), the apex was abandoned.

[@toddwebb7521]

Well with naval small arms the German Navy adopted the Luger in 1904before the German Army in 1908. The British Royal Navy also adopted the Webley model of 1913 automatic and the British Army didn't adopt an automatic pistol until after WWII

[@CSSVirginia]

3:48. When I visited USS NC it smelled like an old Jon Deere combine harvester we had as a kid. I reckoned it was old grease.

[@drakenred6908]

This, plus if your talking about the difference between the smell of a active duty vs Museum ship, esp Ships that are at sea for days or weeks esp right after they get back to port, your smelling crew funk.

[@CSSVirginia]

@@drakenred6908 NC, fully crewed, no AC in the south Pacific probably did have a different smell!

[@drakenred6908]

@@CSSVirginia I’m talking from personal experience, we were aboard the ‘Bama then a couple of days later aboard one of the Arleigh Burke destroyers when it payed a good will visit ( aka they probably gave some of the crew shorleave)when it came in from a Carrier escort tour. Even mother commented on it despite how clean the ship was otherwise.

[@1982nsu]

103:01 Echoes of the Sultana although it was not a warship but rather a steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,168 people.

[@ImpmanPDX]

It's not applicable for more modern museum ships, but wooden ships have their hulls loaded with cresote which gives them a very distinct smell.

[@luvr381]

Wasn't part of the reason early dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts had so many main caliber guns because they hadn't yet figured out how to match the accuracy of barrels to each other, so it was almost like a shotgun effect, but once they accuracy matched guns the number of barrels and size meant more for throw weight and rate of fire?

[@NathanOkun]

USS WEST VIRGINIA as a museum ship. I instantly came up with it for the same reasons. Too bad it never happened...

[@comeslittorissaxonici7395]

Harper's 7-barrelled Nock gun was naval-pattern iirc. Also, the RN took all the Lanchester carbines in WW2. Didn't the RN Div start off with Arisaka rifles?

[@88porpoise]

The Arisakas were first acquired to free up Royal Navy Lee Enfields to send to the Army. The Lanchester was developed for the RAF, but the RN joined them because the Army bought up all the Thompsons and they would get priority on the Sten project. Of course the Lanchester itself was just a copy of the MP-28 (itself a slightly updated MP-18). While the Sten was essentially an MP-28 modified for rapid production.

[@comeslittorissaxonici7395]

@@88porpoise The army actually turned down the Lanchester, preferring to buy the much more expensive Thompson guns. iirc the RN was still using a few Lanchesters into the 1970s, though we only used Sterlings in my time.

[@88porpoise]

@@comeslittorissaxonici7395 Which makes sense. They literally bought every Thompson available in 1940, not because the Thompson was awesome (it wasn't by WWII), but it was the only SMG available on the market in significant quantities right then both with finished guns and tooled up production lines. By the time the Lanchester was available, the Army already had the Sten well under way, which was much better suited to their need of getting a ton of SMGs in the field as quickly as possible. And by the time they were comfortable looking for something better and slower to produce, it made far more sense to look forward to the Sterling (or as it was known in WWII, the Pratchett) than back to the Lanchester.

[@DanielsPolitics1]

Proposal for smallest battle with a RN ship named after it: Royal Oak, a tactical retreat/SERE action between two combatants.

[@TrickiVicBB71]

You need to make a Suez Canal special

[@rickevans3959]

A friend ofmine was on a destroyer. In a big storm they just pointed the nose into. The wave and practiced being a submarine and bored through the waves.

[@martinhill486]

Thanks for the laugh - the IRS comment at 2:51. Was brought to US when parents immigrated from UK in '62 when I was two and tehy actually get retirement from both UK and USA.

[@cp1cupcake]

1:47:56 It didn't really do anything active, but the last time a warship was sunk by a civilian ship was 2020 at the latest. A Venezuelan patrol boat rammed a ice class cruise ship. The cruise ship was more or less fine, and the patrol boat sank.

[@joshkamp7499]

Undead monkeys have proven the most effective ad hoc shot replacement

[@benwilson6145]

The Suez Canal was owned the Suez Canal Company a joint British French venture. So it was a commercial operation, not a Goverment one, unlike the Panama Canal.

[@josephwhiskeybeale]

The Wisconsin is probably the best way to set up a museum ship

[@SCjunk]

The only use of LVTs were the Schelt operations and the Rhine crossing.

[@crazylegssw]

Okay, it's been 2 years, you and Greg need to do a video

[@crazylegssw]

He'd got serious thoughts about drop tanks developed in Australia for P-47s

[@mikolajgrotowski]

For best proof for "better folding wings not matter that much in case of a number of aircraft on the carrier" is a fact so in later time decision of making carrier plane wing folded or not was make on measurement carrier lifts only. Because this A4 Skyhawk has no folded wings, because has wing enough small to fit on carrier lifts, so Navy decided to simplify construction and not equip him in the folded wings.

[@PelhamExpress]

Maybe you should break these up into two part episodes. Easier to do 3 hours at a time than 6.

[@petershappy4473]

welcome back

[@johnevans7261]

One famous transport that was an ex paddle-steamer warship springs to mind: 'women and children first' Birkenhead.

[@SuperchargedSupercharged]

over 350k subs, I remember when he got to 5k. Wow!

[@gizmophoto3577]

I encourage you to get in touch with Greg. He obviously tries very hard to use authoritative source material and takes pains to be as accurate as possible.

[@Archie2c]

The Zero only folded its Tips vs the Wildcat folded almost at the Root so you might get more cats to zeros better mechanism.

[@MrSweetwords]

I have read numerous references to "fabulous" shrapnel bursts on Gallipoli fired by Queen Elizabeth. I have often wondered whether this was a soldier's interpretation of events or whether battleships actually carried a fit out of 15-inch shrapnel. Seems a bit wasteful and risky.

[@535phobos]

Shell fragments are called shrapnels as well (if officially or not, I dont know), so probably that soldier was referring to HE going off throwing splinters all over the place.

[@ShuRugal]

"unless your wing folding mechanism is disastrously inefficient" *F/A-18 has entered the chat*

[@ShuRugal]

@1:00:00 - i feel like being super firepower dense is desirable only when treaty limitations are at play. if you can build a ship with spare tonnage, it's always going to be better than the same ship built "lean"

[@mancubwwa]

there are other reasons: If you have neither slipways nor drydocks to maintain bigger ships, but have to compete in terms of firepower it might be your only option I.E.