The Drydock - Episode 204 (Part 2)

[@alganhar1]

The unit 'scroungers' are useful and valued members of ANY military unit, not just ships! My father was British Army for 36 years, first as Infantry then transferred to Int Corp. Some of the funniest stories he tells are about the various 'expert scroungers' he has served with over the years, most of whom operated in a kind of grey area between legality and illegality, many of whom were utter scoundrels, and all of whom were treasured and protected by their units..... Including their officers.... The sensible ones at any rate!

[@timengineman2nd714]

Watch out for the Officer or NCO with a clipboard!!! They can go in, act like they're under orders from a 4 star Admiral (or General depending on the branch) and load up a truck!! You will note that any paperwork they have either has no signature, or that area is so smudge you can't make out any name! (Added in Edit: I plead the 5th on my knowledge of such actions!)

[@jds6206]

I am a career US Marine and had "expert scroungers" around me in every unit I served. They are INVALUABLE to a unit's Readiness, even today. So many funny stories about their adventures and antics in "military procurement". 😉

[@rackstraw]

@@timengineman2nd714 I know nothing of this practice.

[@christopherrowe7460]

@@jds6206 My grandfather mentions in his memoirs helping Marine Colonel Bert Bone serving under him scrounge a couple tanks from the Army. He was a Navy Captain in command of Palmyra Naval Air Station in 1942 with the Marine 1st Defense Battalion in charge of defense, and they had put in a request for tanks to help defend the Atoll. With nothing arriving soon, he was awoken by the Colonel in the middle of the night and asked for help "borrowing" a couple of Army M3 Stuarts that couldn't be unloaded at Kiritimati (Christmas) Island. To quote his memoirs, "I have said that the Marines on their own are great thieves, but when aided and abetted by the Navy they're terrific. 'Colonel,' I suggested, 'if you move the crane out onto the old oil barge and put the barge outboard of the ship, I'm sure you'll have no trouble.' The Colonel was gone in a flash and within twenty-four hours two tanks were using the [air]strip for a training ground." One of those tanks nearly ran over my grandfather and Nimitz while driving the Admiral around during a subsequent inspection, but that's a story for another time.

[@hokutoulrik7345]

The E-4 Mafia. If you need something and don't really want to know how it suddenly appears, then they are the ones to go to.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

51:00 Degassing *Short answer* Drach is right, by the time the navy gets the bunker fuel it is already de-gassed. It happens before distribution. *Long answer* *Crude oil* has hydrocarbon gas in solution, refined fuel and destilate products have little or no gas in solution. Crude oil inside the reservoir is under pressure, and gases are dissolved in the crude oil, held in solution by the pressure. During production, as crude oil travels UP the wellbore the hydrostatic pressure is reduced. A lot of gas comes out of solution as pressure is reduced. (think opening a bottle of soda that forms a lot of bubbles suddenly when it is opened). The first step of De-gassing is what is called a "gas separator", usually at the well site. The gas separator is a primitive device, simply a tall cylinder with baflles inside to allow the gas to vent to the top, and liquid to collect on the bottom. The crude oil that comes out of the separator is called "unweathered". The *unweathered crude* is then pumped into pipelines under some (lower) pressure. In the refinery the crude is then passed thru a vacuum Degasser to capture valuable gas (these gases are feedstock for chemicals or used as fuel) The *degassed crude* is now passed thru a distillation column, where the different fractions of hydrocarbons are separated by their condensation temperature (pretty much a large moonshine still). The liquids that are extracted from the distillation column are called distillates and have negligible amounts of gas in solution. The most valuable fractions become gasoline or diesel. The less valuable are called BUNKER FUEL. Bunker fuel is just a notch above asphalt and tar. Ship's boiler run on bunker fuel. Bunker fuel usually has to be heated to thin it out and pump it, use it in burners for boilers. This is why ships have fuel heaters and pre-heaters. Beware that distilates are still volatile, they can evaporate and become gaseous (gasoline in open jars will evaporate)... but this is a change in phase, not release of solution gas. Cheers.

[@benwilson6145]

There was several explosions on diesel powered Greek Flag tankers in the 70's/80's when they piped light crude from the cargo into the engine room and burned in the main engines.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

@@benwilson6145 Ja Ja .. not the smartest thing to do... 😝

[@jbepsilon]

@@benwilson6145 I recall reading that towards the end of WWII the Japanese Navy was running on crude oil, as their refinery capacity had been destroyed. The concern was that the high salt and dirt content of the fuel would severely reduce the life of the boilers, but of course by that time the life expectancy of Japanese naval vessels wasn't that great in any case.

[@2526ac]

And from Battleship New Jersey's boiler video this week it was mentioned that the evaporators degassed water destined to be boiler feed water, as well as purifying that water to remove any dry residue minerals which are not good for boilers.

[@allangibson2408]

@@ricardokowalski1579 Virtually all crude oil tankers now burn the gases coming off the tanks in engines now. Current crude tanker burn almost zero fuel from the fuel tanks on outbound voyages as a result. Care is however required to prevent flashbacks to the tanks. All LNG and LH tankers always burn off gas from the tanks in both directions because the tanks are never emptied (to maintain temperature in the tanks).

[@jeffwaddell66]

I just wanted you to know my niece who is 8 years old is a fan of yours. since I was in the Navy she always wanted to watch azur lane. when she comes to visit me. and do to some historical accuracy in the cartoon. I have had to check on your channel to see if it is right. she watches your videos with me and then goes home to tell her father all about the ships. We think she will be a sailor when she grows up. thank you for all you do.

[@untruelie2640]

French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and other leaders like Charles de Gaulle wanted to continue the fight against Germany and Italy even after the forseeable fall of mainland France. I think the evacuation of the french gold reserves to Canada was done with this goal in mind. Reynaud planned to move his government over to Algeria and de Gaulle was in contact with Churchill about the continuation of french involvement in the war. However, Reynaud was forced out of office by the armistice supporters lead by Pétain and when de Gaulle returned from London to Bordeaux, it was already too lade to stop the armistice process. All he could do was to fly back to London and organize his own resistance movement. Had Reynaud managed to stay in power, it is quite likely that he would've formed a french government "in exile" (not really in exile because Algeria was officially part of France proper, not a colony) and that he would've continued the fight on the side of the British. In this case, the combined naval power of France and Britain in the Mediterranean probably would've made it much more difficult for the Italians to salvage the situation in Libya. It's even possible that there never would've been a german Africa Corps or a north african campaign. Perhaps the Allies would've been able to hold on to some parts of Greece as well.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

never underestimate Musilini's ability to screw things up, they would have probably still invaded greece because it was one of his war goals, but ya having a royal navy and a free french navy in the region would have made it much worse (not that it went well for italy anyways)

[@E-Brightvoid]

L

[@untruelie2640]

@@AsbestosMuffins But that's my point. 🤨 Of course Mussolini would've invaded Greece, he mostly did it because Hitler hadn't consulted him about his previous war plans and he wanted to set a fait accompli himself for once. Sort of "Look, we can do this too!". Quite childish and it did cost many lives.

[@davidvik1451]

00:50:58 The US Navy requires that all shipboard propulsion and aircraft fuels have a closed cup flash point over 140 deg F. When receiving fuel from a Navy source no testing is required since the product was tested had to meet spec upon delivery to the fuel facility. Degassing is done at the refinery to remove the volatile fraction raising the flash point and reduce the risk of explosive vapors. Shipboard testing was only done to determine atomization temperatures for heavy bunker fuel, and when receiving fuel from a none Navy source.

[@davidbryden7904]

Basically the same thing as for commercial aviation fuel?

[@IzzyVeed]

Almost 50k views and it is a two hour long video proof Drachinfiel is a history buff happy place.

[@Wolfeson28]

1:43:55 There's a similar passage in Band of Brothers talking about some gambling that sprung up among the soldiers while in camp, which would involve soldiers bringing different combinations of nearly every currency in western Europe, plus US dollars: "The arguments about the exchange rates around those craps games were intense; somehow these guys, most of whom had hated - and mostly flunked - math in high school, figured it out."

[@OtakuLoki]

One of the things that I was both grateful and humbled to see in the National Archives in College Park, MD, was sometimes a researcher who has gone before will set up their own subject index of the records they'd found, what the National Archive record number might be, and why they found that item relevant. It was amazing to see.

[@jayfrank1913]

Did you know that alcohol was allowed on US Navy ships for two reasons: Medicinal purposes, which is why many admirals brought their best-friend drinking buddy doctor who has unlimited access to booze. Halsey was famous for having the best bar in the fleet. The other exception was for "food flavoring" (desserts, etc..) which tended to disappear pretty quickly in the bowels of the galley. Halsey's doc once said, "I prescribe this shot of whiskey because you're not nearly as drunk as i am."

[@jayfrank1913]

Kind of like the Prohibition. Doctors would happily prescribe booze for a price. Now you cant have it prescribed at all.

[@timengineman2nd714]

@@jayfrank1913 And some "family members" had first names like: Mittens, Socks, Sir Barks-A-Lot, Fluffy, etc., for Prohibition Doctors to fill out their Scripts!!!

[@jayfrank1913]

I wish you could get alcohol prescribed. Then my insurance company would pay for a 6-pack a week.

[@dave8599]

In recognition to the fact of the American Navy not winning the War of 1812, this American wants to wish my British friends a Happy Fourth of July!!!

[@KarlfMjolnir]

1:33:45, mention of Stargate SG1. Knew you were awesome, Drach!

[@kurumi394]

24:55 A bit of extra information about the 1876 Korean-Japanese treaty: Korea at the time had _no_ idea about what a modern (at the time) treaty looked like. They thought they were just updating their trade agreement with Japan that had been going on since the early 1600s, while Japan was actively trying to force an uneven trade agreement to gain an economic advantage by forcing the Koreans into a losing bargain. Eventually the Koreans did figure out what was going on and managed to renew the treaty, but by this point (the early 1880s) Japan was already out of reach both militarily and economically from Korea's capabilities, and the rest is history.

[@20chocsaday]

Iceland was also a listening post for radio transmissions. Operators wore silk gloves to prevent their skin sticking to metal and heavy gloves to keep their hands warm during winter. Unsurprisingly there were sticky accidents happening to lone operators. The radio hut was away from the living quarters to avoid electronic interference. Ireland had another listening post.

[@timengineman2nd714]

@ 12:45 You were talking about Steam Turbines. Another issue was precision balance!!!! Each blade not only have extremely tight tolerances to length, width, "airfoil" shape, But also weight, if you had one blade slightly heavier than the one on the opposite side, it would cause trouble by causing vibration and the fact that it would try to shift the shaft in it's direction. Same thing with Reduction Gears! Extremely Delicate Balance considering the speed of rotation of parts!! As for VTEs, ATEs, etc., remember most people had seen a steam locomotive, so the idea of a steam cylinder moving back & forth (or up& down) wouldn't be such a big surprise. In fact I've heard stories about mainly Canada, but to a lesser degree the US looking for Railroad Engineers and Locomotive Repairmen for service aboard VTE powered ships.... (truth? don't ask me, but it just might be worthwhile to research "one of these years" since I do know you're extremely busy!)

[@jonathan_60503]

Also, while the conditions inside a steam turbine isn't as extreme as those inside a gas turbine, I still suspect that you had to be a lot more careful with the metallurgy of those relatively small and thin turbines blades than you did with the giant chunky steam piston heads of a VTE engine. A little flaw in your allow mixture and you might have blades start failing on you! So that's one more thing you need to reverse engineer or independently develop and then quality control to make these newfangled turbine things :D

[@sundiver137]

​@@jonathan_60503In the US, turbines were already in use in power plants. I think the US had a problem getting reliable reduction gears, so the USN resorted to turbo-electric drives .

[@jbepsilon]

@@sundiver137 Lexington and Saratoga had turbo-electric drives, any other class? Somewhat ironically, electric drives are making a comeback on some civilian ships these days, with diesel generators powering electric Azipod propulsion units. And yes, gas turbines blades are engineering marvels, from the carefully CFD-designed shapes of the blades, the thin film of cooling air preventing the gases that are hotter than the melting temperature of the blades from melting them, to the manufacturing process producing single crystal blades. No wonder they cost a fortune.

[@rackstraw]

@@jbepsilon Turbo-Electric drives were pioneered in USS Jupiter (AC-3), later converted to USS Langley (CV-1). Other USN ships equipped with Turbo-Electric drives are listed here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-electric_transmission

[@sundiver137]

@@jbepsilon I think the Colorado, Tennessee and New Mexico classes had turbo-electric systems.

[@StarlightSocialist]

Drach, could we have an episode on naval turret design, please? In particular I would love to hear how you rate the aesthetics of various turrets and gun emplacements.

[@robertmatch6550]

Thanks for both sections. You're a man of parts.

[@mbr5742]

On the torpedos: It seems that the german WW2 surface ships and subs used the same torpedo (G7a and G7e)

[@johnfisher9692]

Thanks Drach for more outstanding information. I do wonder how you do all this as well as your other hobbies AND pay the proper amount attention to Mrs. Drach. One point is the question about Turbine engines is you stated the Helgoland's had steam turbines whereas my information says they had VTE engines. The first full German Dreadnoughts to have turbines were the Kaisers while Von Der Tann and the 'light' battleships comprising 1stSG had turbines.

[@Drachinifel]

You are of course correct :)

[@ant4812]

53:46 During the Napoleonic Wars there was also a yellow squadron. It was used to move on over-old post captains who could be promoted to "Rear Admiral of the Yellow" and immediately put on the retired list without ever serving in that rank.

[@StrategosKakos]

And the fact that it is yellow squadron has nothing to do with age-induced incontinency, honest guv'nor :D

[@seanmccann8368]

00.35 The actions of the French Navy before the fall of France. It's amazing that the idea persists in Britain (mostly) that France and it's military did little or nothing in two world wars. The BEF of WW1 is hero worshipped for the Retreat from Mons while the French who had been fighting alone for weeks are bad mouthed as useless idlers. The same is said of the French in WW2 - the BEF held the Germans and no one did anything on the French side. Glad to see you give some balance to the story.

[@riverraven7359]

WW1 France is a completely different animal to WW2 France. As a Brit myself I will fully respect the contribution they made. But fuck De Gaulle...

[@alganhar1]

Actually you are wrong at least when it comes to WWI. It is broadly understood by most in the UK that the French shouldered almost all of the burden during the first few years of WWI, at least among us Brits who have a more than passing knowledge of WWI. I would also argue that is it NOT mostly in the UK that the French did little to nothing in both World Wars, you ask the average American what France did in both World Wars and they are likely to be even LESS well educated than the average Brit. The unfortunate fact is that in the UK most education when it comes to WWI these days is sadly lacking even when it comes to BRITISH involvement. For example, the perception in the UK of the Battle of the Somme literally ends after day 1, day 1 of a battle that lasted FOUR MONTHS. In most schools if they even TEACH the Somme in the first place the coverage literally stops on day 1. Fact is the French themselves are also very disparaging of the BEF's achievements' during WWI. Lets look at what many British Historians call the 100 days Offensive. Many place the start of this as the Battle of Amiens, which annoys the French as it ignores the second Battle of the Marne approximately two weeks prior. I actually happen to agree with that, I personally believe that the start of the so called hundred days offensive should start from the date of the second Battle of the Marne rather than the battle of Amiens. However that is by the by. The IMPORTANT point, is that in the 100 Days Offensive the British Army captured as many prisoners, machineguns and artillery pieces than the French, American and Belgian armies combined. Why is that important? Because those figures show Operational Tempo. The British in those last 100 days conducted HALF the Offensive actions of the Entante on the Western Front, and numbered around a quarter of the actual troops..... Your argument goes BOTH ways, depending on WHEN during WWI you are looking at. As for WWII, after the Fall of France the French forces were essentially irrelevant. You can sugar coat it as much as you wish, but it was not until close to Operation Overlord, and especially AFTER Operation Overlord that serious numbers of French started actually joining the fight. And do not start on the French Resistance, too many British Agents were literally BETRAYED to the Gestapo by the French Resistance to even consider most of those Resistance Cells anything close to effective. And another fact is that the Naval war of the first 8 or so months of WWII is essentially ignored by pretty much EVERYBODY, the Brits are not the ONLY ones. You also CONVENIENTLY ignore the fact that in BOTH wars the British had to go from a small peace time professional Army of around 250 - 300,000 troops to an army millions strong. The British Military WAS NOT BASED ON THE CONTINENTAL MODEL OF MASS CONSCRIPT ARMIES. You might want to get THAT fact through your head.... It takes TIME to train those soldiers. In short, you made a mass assumption and you are wrong. The French were NOT in fact fighting alone for weeks by the time of the Battle of the Mon's, the PROBLEM was the BEF WAS FUCKING TINY. 83,000 total infantry, around 125,000 including support and logistics. They fought against an enemy that was anywhere between 4 - 8 TIMES their numbers. By the start of 1915 the tiny professional British Army had suffered 90,000 casualties amongst its rifle battalions, a number you might note is more than the ENTIRE rifle strength of the BEF in 1914.... In the context of actual scale, those British Professionals actually suffered FAR higher casualties than the French Army did over the same period. Was the absolute number as high? Most certainly not, but as a proportion of the military strength available those casualties amongst the British Regulars were crippling and represented almost ALL of their rifle strength pre war..... While the French suffered far more casualties in an absolute sense, they mobilised damned near 2 MILLION riflemen in 1914, and a total of almost 4 million into the army.....

[@CanalTremocos]

That's more of an "anglosphere" thing. There are big misconceptions running around English-speaking enthusiasts that you won't find in other languages' online communities. (Unfortunately they will hold their own myths). "French are weak fighters" is one of the worst myths. It starts with the myth of the English longbow in the 100 Years War, even though France won that war, and goes up to the Indochina wars, even though the might of the American army ended up having the same results the French had before them.

[@lachlanv.b.7783]

@@alganhar1 also worth noting regarding french resistance is that there very much wasn't a French Resistance command. There were lots of cells or movements that were often violent ideological rivals. Communists, nationalist, unionist, royalist, fascist, anarchist. Resistance cells would be more hen happy working with the germans against the british or french if it meant furthering their own goals. It became quite common for cell to stockpile all the resources they could not to fight the Germans but to fight what they thought was an inevitable civil war.

[@seanmccann8368]

@@CanalTremocos I agree with you completely.

[@timengineman2nd714]

@ 50:08 (I'm not an "Oil King", but my Rating did have me know parts of various tests needed for DFM & JP-5. (Distillate Fuel Marine, and Jet Petrol #5.) As a Water King I do know how Sub-Atmospheric Pressures will cause separation. (Bunker C was a few decades before my time, however, on a old ship I did see the paper work for testing! But unfortunately the standards listing was no longer there....) I imagine they did the "Flashing" at Refineries so that various other fuels could use the vapors and what was left would be Bunker C. I don't think you can "Evap" off AvGas (of various Octanes), or even MoGas (which was 50 Octane), and I'm also doubtful about Diesel fuel (~30 Octane). Here's a bit of explanation of the two ways to rate a fuel: Octane is a measure of Resistance to Detonation, which explains why Diesel fuel has such a low Octane Rating since it relies on only the compression of the engine to allow the injected (basically directly injected into the cylinder) to ignite the fuel. The difference between JP-5 & JP-8 is that JP-5 has a higher Flash Point (not sure if they did a partial evap/flash on it, or added chemicals (or a bit of both), JP-8 also has some lubricants added to it that JP-5 doesn't have..... Another way of rating fuel is the Cetane Number. This is a measure of potential energy of the fuel, so you want Bunker C and Diesel Fuel to have a hit Cetane Number! (I imagine that Bunker C, after having the volatiles "evaped" or "flashed" off would have a high Octane as well as a high Cetane Number! DFM, since it is used for Diesel Engines aboard ships and for the Gas Turbines (Navalized Propulsion version of a jet engine) Note: by adding a lead compound that was marketed as Ethyl, you can raise the Octane Rating pass 100, but also cause health, sometimes serious health issues from inhaling the exhaust or even direct contact with the gasoline. (This would be in addition to the issues caused by exposure to the petroleum "spirits" due to spills or inhaling the vapors of unburnt gasoline (and diesel)!!!)

[@patttrick]

WRENS My Aunt Margaret was the secretary to Donaldson at GCHQ. I'm named after her husband Patrick who was a radio operative who used to spy on German HQ units . I think he arranged the air attack on the German Panzer HQ in the desert , it killed a German Radio sgt, the only thing he ever regretted was he coulden't let the Germans know that he knew that he was dead,.Uncle Pat used to read his morse the sgt was a sgt Bilko type Uncle Pat liked him. At VE day party the head of enigma Japan wanted Aunt Margaret to be his personal sec, she said no she was getting married to uncle Pat. They both worked at GCHQ till they retired Pat lived to 99 Margaret to 97.

[@davidvik1451]

00:05:26 C. S. Forester's 1957 "The Naval War of 1812". Published in the US as "The Age of Fighting Sail". Explains why the war should have never happened, the geopolitical situation, many ship to ship engagements, and how both sides for the most part were back to where it all started by the time it was over.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

it really was a war of stupidity on all sides though the US probably ended up worse for wear with the fighting happening here but better off geographically since we were then free to expand westward along the great lakes unimpeded by the british

[@spartan5157]

With regards to target ship crew, it seems like even within an armored citadel there would be high danger - flooding, fire, blast effect, and especially high danger when fixing damage to the ship afterwards. Was it common for members of these crews to lose their lives very often, or at all? Was the position especially high paid or have other incentives that encouraged the crew?

[@lexington476]

1:10:34 out of curiosity, the misfiled records did you report them or give them to the librarian/archivist?

[@Drachinifel]

I did leave a note when I returned them :)

[@lexington476]

@@Drachinifel you did your bit for Queen and Country.

[@strydyrhellzrydyr1345]

Ahhh... Thank you for explaining the different sizes of Torpedoes... And their uses... Honestly have wanted to know that for a while.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

Fuel on ships doesn’t need to be degassed. Even in a Diesel engine, you’re just burning it. Fire isn’t exactly a finicky process. It’ll go just fine regardless of whether or not there’s air dissolved in it. In general, deaeration isn’t a thing that matters at macro scale. Boiler feed water is deaerated, though, to avoid oxygen corroding the inside of the boiler. This is accomplished by the deaerating feed tank, which uses steam to heat the feed water to strip the air out of it.

[@thevictoryoverhimself7298]

This is less true in engines that burn things more fine than diesel or oil like kerosine or petroleum as a lean condition (too much oxygen in the fuel mixture) makes it less controlled fire and more blowtorch and can actually melt or at least seriously damage the metal bits containing and creating the fire. Oil fires burn differently

[@officernasty1111]

You know any diesel fuel you get your hands on has been degassed, right? Pretty much any petroleum product has been degassed by the time it reaches consumers

[@allangibson2408]

Boiler feed water is deaerated in boilers with carbon steel tubes. Ammonia or Urea is added to scrub residual oxygen. In boiler with stainless steel, copper alloy or aluminium tubes oxygen is added to the water to prevent corrosion. Stainless steel depends on the oxygen in the water to maintain an oxide film to prevent corrosion.

[@benwilson6145]

This has been proved wrong. Many Greek Tankers stole crude oil from the cargo during the 70s/80s and blew us there diesel engines.

[@officernasty1111]

@@benwilson6145 "Stole crude oil" + "blew up thier diesel engines". Umm, yeah, because diesel engines don't run on crude and crude hasn't been degassed like diesel has...

[@lexington476]

7:58 ships of Oak guns of iron is a very good book about the War of 1812.

[@mojorasin653]

Trade of items was quite common among ships on extended deployments. It was never a Black Market situation, but ice cream was a delicacy often traded for movies that had been watched over and over on one ship if the other ship had something newer. Coffee was always useful as trade when in port for certain spare parts or services. Once in Hong Kong we gathered up all the loose brass on board and traded it to some Chinese to paint the outside hull of our destroyer. We provided the paint and they provided the labor. They painted with rags, not brushes by dipping the rags into the buckets up to their elbows. The painters were almost entirely female.

[@murderouskitten2577]

23:00 damm , i would LOVE to have that ship in that shape. it looks just perfect for me.

[@NathanOkun]

Concerning problems finding things at National Archives. I discovered a document at the US National Archives in the US Navy BuO)RD files that was entitled "The Mark Twain Scrapbook" (one of the famous author Samuel Clemens' business ventures making 3x5" photo albums}. No other ID. I asked the personnel there what was in it and they had no idea. As I was visiting the Washington, D.C. main archives at the time, I asked them to send it to my table so that I could look at it and they did. It was indeed a photo album. Inside the cover it stated that it was a set of annotated pictures made at the US Naval Proving Ground, Indian Head, Maryland in 1917. (This was the last year that the NPG was there, moving to Dahlgren, Virginia, its final location, in 1918.) It had no other information, so I looked through the pictures to see what it contained. It was filled with Carnegie Steel Company Class "A" (face-hardened) naval armor plate photos that had been fired on by US Navy 12" and larger AP projectiles, carefully annotated concerning the test striking velocities, plate thicknesses, and other test conditions, including photos of the projectiles after th3e impacts, many of them reduced to a pile of broken pieces. Many such pictures were included. I suppose that it once had a label on the cover that had fallen off and now there was nothing to identify its contents unless you looked inside yourself. This document is one of the most important resources in identifying in detail what really happens to AP projectiles of that time period when they hit face-hardened armor, allowing the investigator to sort out the details concerning the different kinds of damage inflicted on US AP shells by such impacts -- descriptions from observers at the time were markedly lacking in such details (test personnel comments like "the projectile broke" or "the projectile broke badly" are maddingly lacking in needed information!). There seems to be a need to go through the files one is sorting through at the building itself by personal inspection rather than just look at catalogs, if this is an example of what kind of files are there...

[@richardschaffer5588]

R.I. P. Nathan :(

[@allangibson2408]

Oil from oil wells consists of a mixture of Gases (both inert and flammable), Oils (from things heavier than bitumen on down), water and sand. The water and sand are separated from the oil and gases in a production separator which is basically a big pressure vessel with a weir in it. The bulk water and sand are drawn off from the upstream side of the weir, the oil from the downstream and the gases off the top. From there is where it gets complicated as you need to separate the non-flammable gases from the flammable gases (unless you just flare them) and the residual oil from the water. Oil on ships falls into two categories - Bunker C (or even worse Vacuum Bottoms) which needs to be heated well above 100C to flow at all (and hence doesn’t have a water content problem) and everything else. The lighter oils (including lubricants) are centrifuged to separate the water in equipment very similar to cream separators (usually made by the same companies in fact) to encourage the more dense water to settle to the outside and be drawn off while the oil on the inside is skimmed for use by the engines and gearboxes. Dissolved gas is not a problem for engines as a rule - it just gets burnt. A lot of modern oil tankers actually run on the off gas from the oil tanks in transit in fact - they only take on fuel for the empty return runs. LNG and LH cryogenic tankers always run on off gas in the tanks.

[@johnchristensen4002]

With regard to the service of women, which applies to both the USN and RN as also in all the services. Women carried out much vital work and played a major part in the victory. Especially in jobs that did not need a man and releasing more men for the front line. There is no way we could have made it without them. However, having them in the front line is totally different story. I served 32 years in the USN of which 4 was on loan to the RN. Little more than half of that service was without women on ships and the rest more or less with women on front line ships. I was also drafty /Rating assignment detailer and was a ship working up instructor at GTMO. The same routine that UK ships go through at FOST. The performance of the all-male ships vs the coed ships was clear. The all-male ships outperformed the coed every time. It is without a doubt putting women on the ships with the men was/is a disaster. Women are smart and capable; however, Men and women are not the same and the men behave quite different when they are with other men and when with women. As detailer I saw all the problems uncensored and unfiltered. There are 2 huge problems that have no solutions The womans physical and emotional limitations and then there is fraternization. The USN has discharged thousands of men and women from the lowest ranks to Admirals due to fraternization, throwing away their carriers. It cannot be stopped, it can't be trained out, punished out, counseled out no matter what anyone can do. We did a study to determine the cost, by adding all the wages, benefits, cost of training and lost experience from all those people discharged. It went into the billions. Then there was the cost to provide female friendly berthing on the ships. The RN recently spent 3 million pounds on each and every submarine so they could accommodate 3 women. Then there was the detriment to readiness as many women would get themselves pregnant just to get out of deployment leaving their ship shorthanded. There are many other things that can be said. There is an important place for women in the military, but not on the front line or aboard warships.

[@blu___1612]

ty enjoying this new format

[@brucewilliams1892]

R 01:0:41 - There is a book, 'A Game of Birds and Wolves' by Simon Parkin about the WRENS' part in training in Liverpool.

[@camrsr5463]

11:07 That picture says a lot about life.

[@andrewfanner2245]

On misfiling and they may have done a review, while volunteering in the NMRN archives a good few years ago I found, in a box of personal papers, a folder of prisitne condition examples of Japanese occupation money from more or less everywhere in the Co Prosperity Sphere. Some were specially designed notes, some original local currency with over prints. Included were US dollars and UK pound notes, presumably from the Philippines and Singapore although I'm not sure if those even circulated there. Archivists are only human :-)

[@RedXlV]

1:24:17 Actually, the Zara-class cruisers *didn't* have torpedoes. Those were deleted during the design process as a weight-saving measure.

[@Drachinifel]

They had a destroyer or two along though 😀

[@zache5486]

‘Just cut out the outnumbered part Never outgunned’ could be our national motto.

[@808bigisland]

How does it feel to be a province of the American Empire 🤣. Or the rest of Agincourt archers stomped into the ground by Swiss infantry at Morat? Dunkirk? Hong-Kong, Singapore? BTW Americans won the war and Churchill handed over the empire. That's what lend and lease ment. outgunned and outsmarted

[@JamesF0790]

@@808bigisland Your grasp of history is clearly limited. Churchill didn't hand over the empire. He rallied it to fight with its all against an evil empire while the US sat around whistling.

[@808bigisland]

@@JamesF0790 who owns the empire now? Be honest to yourself. Financial and military control and occupation of britan is compllete. You even left the EU to welcome a US fiefdom.

[@JamesF0790]

​@@808bigisland Not how that works. First of all, I'm not British and second, there is no empire. The US certainly is the only remaining superpower but that doesn't make it an empire. The UK isn't a fiefdom, a US state or a US subject. It's a US ally. I really don't think you know what an empire really is.

[@808bigisland]

@@JamesF0790 It is what it is - a crumbling empire.

[@dvpierce248]

1:25:00 - the trivia tidbit about peacetime vs. wartime fuel consumption which I always thought was interesting was that the search for Amelia Earhart consumed the USN's entire 1937 fuel budget.

[@M167A1]

One thing that isn't widely appreciated is that during world war II there was something approaching an anti-war movement in the United States, particularly toward the end with the probable invasion of Japan looming and of course the example of the casualties at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

[@CABOOSEBOB]

“If I gave a fletcher a working mark 14 torpedo” I see an issue with the premise here

[@seanmalloy7249]

1:01:54 The Chieftain makes a reference to this with the National Archives, where a search will usually tell you where to find what you're looking for... to an accuracy of a half-dozen or so file _boxes_, which themselves are uncategorized, so that it is up to you to request these boxes and then search them by hand to hopefully find the single document you're looking for. And the documents will have been filed under the turgid and stilted terminology in use at the time, so if you're not familiar with the way that documents were titled, it renders your ability to make a correct search in the first place even less likely.

[@mikemullen5563]

Re conflicting accounts of the same battle: I seem to recall reading --I think in one of Keegan;s books-- that battle is an extremely personal thing, and it is common to find different first-hand accounts of the same engagement which seem to me completely different battles.

[@wom_Bat]

You are the perun of ships x100. Love the insight.

[@vikkimcdonough6153]

1:19:38 - A storm of that strength striking the British Isles in November is very very unlikely to have been a hurricane; it'd almost certainly've instead been an extratropical cyclone of some description.

[@timengineman2nd714]

@ 1:52:20 I'm not too sure, but wouldn't the Bulges that raised the USS Miidway up, increase the height of her hull (and Flight Deck, Island, etc.) above the waterline, causing the instability in rough weather? I'm trying to remember which class of ships (and even which country had them!) had similar issues when the put Bulges on them along with more AA. (Pretty much all navies did add Medium and Light AA, except of course the Japanese since they only had Light and Heavy AA, and never really had a Medium AA gun, except for a limited number of captured ships, or ships (including U-Boats) that got turned over to them after Germany surrendered....) And perhaps it happened to more than one class of ship, and to more than one country now that I've thought about it more!

[@benwilson6145]

If the bulges increase the waterplane area then stability is increased. It is easy to ballast down a ship, with either Fuel, Potable Water or Sea Water.

[@timengineman2nd714]

@@benwilson6145 Some are designed with flat bottoms & tops to help resist rolling, others are more streamlined to limit their effect on a ship's speed...

[@simonnance]

My grandmother was a WREN, served at the D-day HQ at Southwick house. Sharp as a tack till she passed in her late 80s. Ironically my dad then served there (HMS Dryad, Maritime Warfare School) nearly 60 years later.

[@jlvfr]

My brain is going gaga... took me almost 20mn before I separated _degassing_ from _degaussing_ ... I was really stuck "wth why does fuel need this?! Is fuel metalic?!" That'll teach me to see this on a monday...

[@FandersonUfo]

omg over 5 hrs worth of content today

[@18robsmith]

Oh yes.... Drydocks are getting to be a bit like buses. None for days then two in quick succession.

[@TrickiVicBB71]

Somehow I only got notification for Part 2. Better scroll my news feed for Part 1 and watch it

[@FandersonUfo]

@@TrickiVicBB71 - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jYqrn4iIhK2al9U

[@rupertboleyn3885]

My candidate for 'excessively' fast ships that were successful would be the Abdiel-class minelayers.

[@apparition13]

Yup. Super flexible ships. I wonder what the RN might have been able to do with a couple dozen of them. Supplying Malta may have been easier. :)

[@CharlesStearman]

Following on from the Great Storm of 1703, I read an account of a severe storm in 1782 in which HMS Centaur, HMS Ramillies and a number of merchant ships were lost from a convoy. It was significant because the subsequent inquiry, and a follow-up examination of other Royal Navy ships, revealed that the hulls had been seriously weakened by galvanic action between the copper hull sheeting (which was then a relatively new idea) and the iron nails holding the timbers together, and this led to action being taken to prevent this occurring in the future.

[@sammybaugues1260]

Ahhhh the Art of pugiliscm!!...great video as usual Drach

[@tombogan03884]

11:48 Were the rat guards there to keep the rats off?Or were then meant to prevent the moral damage of the rats sudden departure ?

[@dave8599]

1:37:00 Ships seen at night... With sails, I see white as the most common color sail. So a stealth run at night, a moon lit night, was a dark sail, perhaps black or dark "burlap" tan color sail used to reduce visibility? It seems to me the white sail on a bright night will be very easy to spot.

[@allangibson2408]

Pirates often ran with black sails…

[@agesflow6815]

Thank you, Drachinifel.

[@jonathan_60503]

In addition to using airfields on Iceland to base long range patrol aircraft they were also used as part of the North Atlantic Ferry Route, which allowed aircraft, or priority supplies carried by aircraft, to be shuttled from North America to the UK. The long range patrol or bomber aircraft were generally able to be configured into a fuel heavy ferry configuration and make it from Newfoundland to the UK direct, but short ranged (or more heavily loaded) aircraft had to make stops in Greenland and, or, Iceland to refuel in order to make it across. Also I believe weather stations in both Greenland and Iceland were critical for predicting the weather in the European theater of operations. D-Day, for example, was scheduled for June 6 in part based on a forecast that the weather would improve enough by then to make the invasion, and immediate follow-on operations, feasible; a forecast that would have been harder to make accurately without access to meteorological stations set up in Iceland.

[@karlvongazenberg8398]

19:40 Italians during WW2 used at least one 45 cm "subcaliber" torpedo in their 21" tubes, with some - navweaps did not detail - extra apparatus in the tubes. AFAIK it was due to ammo shortage as well as having a bigger payload and that Mediterraen merchantmen were smaller, this an 18" torpedo hit sent them to bottom as well as a 21".

[@egocyclic]

Yes, more content on 20th century British monitors please. The ones with capital ship grade guns.

[@harrisonrawlinson5650]

I’ve had hydraulic lines rupture after a fitting got smashed off. It’s not as hot as superheated steam would be. But it still scolds and burns.

[@tombuchanan379]

The picture at 1:36 is amazing. What is it called?

[@michaelimbesi2314]

In terms of most successful ship with excessive speed, I would say the Iowa class. Their speed was quite excessive for a battleship and it required them to increase their displacement by 10000 tons. But that speed allowed them to keep up with carrier battle groups, which allowed them to stay in service for decades longer than any other battleships.

[@lukazokalj8934]

Will you do a video about the furst bismarck?

[@Pusserdoc]

Navigation: suggest the point has been missed: one of the key reasons for bespoke navigation officers is to provide a tactical advantage by getting ships to the right place at the right time where/when their opponents can't: especially if there's lots of navigation hazards that aren't well charted... and the ship has to thread her way through at high speed. Navigators also clearly have a crucial in operational planning.

[@nonna_sof5889]

Ryan over on Battleship New Jersey recently mentioned degassing their boiler feed water, so presumably he'd be a good source for that question.

[@vernonfindlay1314]

When I was in grade 12 our history teacher who was my Dad's second cousin would say Canada won 1812. He would get so bent out of shape saying the American goal was Canada 🇨🇦, guess what, we still here.Your channel, awesome, 👍👌,happy Sunday from across the pond. Yes I am Scottish ancestry from Nova scotia, or could say New Scotland. Blessings.

[@strydyrhellzrydyr1345]

Goal was what about Canada. Guessing what... What are they still here meaning..??? I'm just a bit confused.. sorry... If you could elaborate a little for me.. if not I get it... Thanx

[@jamesmaclennan4525]

@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 He means that one of the the US war Goals was to conquer Canada and the fact that Canada still exists gives proof to the failure of that War Goal. The Americans have a habit of claiming they won the War of 1812 but as the Treaty that ended it restored the "status Quo ante bellum" it was in reality a defeat.

[@vernonfindlay1314]

@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 yes,bit more clear,and even in the American Civil War maybe on this channel heard the British sent over ships. You have a good remainder Sunday and good week.

[@tomhalla426]

Basically no one in the War of 1812 achieved their war aims.

[@drewdederer8965]

The "de-gassing" stories probably match up with the issues the Japanese had taking bunker fuel (at least) directly from Indonesian oil wells, and the worries this caused with vapors etc. (which considering what happened with Shokaku and Taiho, may have been warranted).

[@ronaldfinkelstein6335]

The subbing British ships vs. Japanese ships-I thought it was referring to the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, part 1[The Barroom Brawl]. You talked about what sounded like Savo Island.

[@oilman5578]

Degassing in oil and gas early on and still now is part of 2 or 3 phase separation those being oil, gas, and water. Typically this is accomplished with gravity separation in the cylinder and mesh knock outs to collect finner spray of the fluids. Once it's in a ship I would imagine it's a pressure containing vessel with a bleed valve of some sort but the oil in the ship should already be separated fairly well after being sold? Then gas would be vented or flared, likely vented since ships don't seem to have flare stacks?

[@hughgordon6435]

Know anything about ferrets on board, for vermin control?

[@dougbillman2333]

I painted a dry dock, when I was in the brig, subic bay……back in 1980…..

[@fire304]

Light/Lamp trivia: ships and navigation aids use red green yellow and white lights... But no blue or orange. This is because early lamps used whale oil as their fuel, which tends to burn with a yellowish flame. If you put a blue lens in front of a yellow flame you get a green light and in fact many older green running lights actually have blue lenses. When using a yellow flame it is very hard to distinguish between orange and red so orange is not really a viable color in lights.

[@kemarisite]

Come on Drach, I'm sure your familiar with the observation that one woman can produce one baby in nine months, so nine women can obviously produce one baby in one month. That would apply to the Essex/Midway question just as well.

[@caelestigladii]

Laughs in multiple births.

[@Plastikdoom]

Definitely…it’s science!

[@johnshepherd8687]

The cause of the increased instability in the Midway was an error in NAVSEA's calculations for the bulges. If I remember correctly it was literally a mistake in a sign.

[@readhistory2023]

@02:08:22 Odd that they wanted to keep the two tracks seperate. You'd think knowing both jobs would make a more rounded officer.

[@thomaslinton5765]

Ah, yes. Guessing what words were used to describe an event or topic. "MIA - missing in Archives. Such a delight. 0___0

[@kalynstalinski8375]

1:41:00…. Jenkins must be every sailor’s favorite shipmate 😜

[@harrisonsaynor8568]

Where's that catchy intro theme come from?

[@jankosi6882]

I love the Jenkins story with ice cream trade

[@pablosqra]

What was the point of these big clocks on capital ships? I've seen it on quite a few photos You are using in drydock and 5 minutes guides.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

They're range clocks, designed to show other ships in a squadron the calculated range to a target in thousands and hundreds of yards. I'm sure that Drach has answered this one in an earlier Drydock.; just don't ask me which one.

[@pablosqra]

@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 Thanks. Yeah, looking for answer through 200+ drydocks would require fair amount of time to spare ;). But, I don't know if I missed it, or are these clock mount only in front of superstructure? I think it would be nice to show range in both directions

[@allangibson2408]

They aren’t clocks - the scale is 0-10 not 0-12… The Battleship New Jersey’s KZbin channel has a video on them.

[@billbolton]

Thanks Drach.

[@kemarisite]

How can you mention cutlasses as a sidearm for boarding parties without mentioning the Altmark Incident?

[@kornaktanker7633]

Rat guards, was the issue of rats chewing on electrical wiring a spur to their introduction ?

[@leogazebo5290]

So I wanna ask, what are the chances of the plan of rescuing Napoleon with a submarine. Would that be a disaster or do they have a chance a bit a small one?

[@matthewsierleja2193]

The tyranny of causal over determinanality has triggered a perpetual stress response in history folks since the invention of accuracy.

[@davemacnicol8404]

Ps Drach just said that USS Galena was the most efficient, successful example of innovative shipbuilding and talent. Well folks you heard it here first. (Quietly walks picking up speed as far and fast away from the crowd as possible before Drach puts the green light on my head 😮)

[@hrunchtayt1587]

26:37 Discord notification made me flinch thinking someone DM’d me.

[@jackray1337]

Same here.

[@kkupsky6321]

Thanks drach and much thanks to cab Calloway for that opening jam

[@grathian]

I do remember reading of US Submarines rearming with British Torpedos in Australia at one point.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

I can summerize the General Sherman's expedition: BEHOLD OUR MIGHTY TRADE SHIP, wait how deep is the river here? What's that fire on the horizon?

[@ronaldfinkelstein6335]

A question: Why didn't the Royal Navy/Fleet Air Arm use more US carrier aircraft? Was it that the US didn't want to supply more? Anglophilia? Or some other factor? The American carrier aircraft were already adapted to that use[including low stall speeds-important for carrier landings]. And the later fighters(Hellcats and Corsairs) were on a par with German fighters.

[@jbepsilon]

Back then the world was considerably more 'protectionistic' than today. The UK wanted home-grown planes. Also the stipulations of the Lend-Lease treaty apparently meant that US equipment in British hands after the war had to be paid for, and the UK was more or less broke. So there were apparently plenty of cases where US lend-lease carrier planes 'accidentally' tipped over the side of the carrier towards the end of the war.

[@rackstraw]

The FAA did use US carrier aircraft extensively. Numbers of aircraft transferred under Lend-Lease: F4F/FM-1/FM-2 Martlet/Wildcat: 1,200 F6F Gannet/Hellcat: 1,263 F4U Corsair: 2,012 TBF/TBM Tarpon/Avenger: 1,070 Notably, the FAA deserves credit for working out the Corsair's issues with carrier operations.

[@allangibson2408]

The Royal Navy carriers were short of hangar headroom. A number of US built aircraft had to have the wings shortened to physically fit in the hangars as a result. Corsairs are an example with USN one’s having round tips and RN ones having noticeably squarer tips where they were cut down.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

The successful lopsided armor ships have to be the US civil war ironclads, they were nearly impervious to almost all ordinance of the day and if they decided to sail one at your fleet of ships, you had to basically find your own ironclad to send out to stop it

[@larrymcgraw8469]

The dissolved gasses are not as big a problem as water in ship fuels. Most ships have a centrifuge on board to remove the water and any dirt particles before use.

[@quixoticPrancer]

You should do a special on the HMT Rohna and associated casualties

[@russnelson8867]

I was watching your video on the first (and last) mission of the Bismarck again and I was wondering

[@russnelson8867]

When the British cruisers were reporting the Bismarck's position to the Admiralty, do they use Greenwich Mean Time?

[@lewiswestfall2687]

great video

[@18robsmith]

Ah, the delicate art of the provo raid.....To be performed when "the other side" don't want to partake in the trading, and normally to the detriment of "the other side".

[@nickdanger3802]

HMS Rockingham The Clemson class destroyer was built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum Victory Yard in the USA in 1919.

[@benwilson6145]

Star Sights are not taken at night, they are taken at Dawn and Dusk.

[@PaulfromChicago]

Well done saying Cairo correctly!