The Drydock - Episode 238

[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@BHuang92]

In some civilian ships, there have bow thrusters to make the ship more maneuverable. Should some warships have them installed?

[@Hierachy]

I have heard people say the British 15 inch gun was outdated by ww2 standards, how so? and if you could, how did they compare with other 15 inch guns of the same period? and how would you improve them? and if you have time, how would the KGV's have faired in the variouse engagments they partook in if they had 3 triple 15 inch guns instead? thanks as always!

[@MrArtbv]

I have been here from the start. Literally. My gratitude is endless.

[@satern7473]

Did the british consider to modernise the nelson class? If so, what would those modernisation have looked like? Just new systems or a complete rebuild like with the QE’s

[@CanuckWolfman]

Would something akin to a superheavy 14" shell driven by a supercharge so that projectile weight and muzzle velocity comes closer to that of a 15" gun have been an effective way to keep to the letter of the calibre restrictions of the various naval treaties while violating the spirit of them?

[@mollybell5779]

"... at which point I'll probably develop complete multiple personality disorder and go mad, if I haven't already." 😂 Drach, you are just the best. The material is so interesting, your articulate delivery is a joy, and your dry humor is always perfectly timed. Never gets old. Thank you!

[@DaremoKamen]

After seeing those ship construction photos of Washington, I start to understand those multiple cases of warships losing their bows and not only surviving but being repaired and put back into service. The bow goes on almost like an afterthought.

[@jkull173]

“the front fell off”

[@joshm9750]

@@jkull173 well its not supposed to do that.

[@charlesparr1611]

I think we have a sort of subconscious idea of ships being built the same way they were built from wood, just using steel. Wooden ships (at least those of the age of sail, which seem to inform our image of 'shipness' the most) start with a keel, ribs, planking, all of which are joined and layered and essentially woven into a monolithic 'hull'. You probably could not sheer or blast the bow off the HMS Victory, as anything short of gods own bandsaw would simply crush the whole ship like an egg, rather than 'tearing the bow off'. The remaining ship would simply splay out flat and fall to the bottom. The timbers and planing that curve around to form the bow are integral to what amounts to a monocoque. The reality is that nowadays they're a bunch of metal boxes, with holes cut in the faces of the boxes for various cables and pipes, often internally already completed right down to furniture and carpets, which are then stuck together. Modern ships are a pile of modules, and I suspect they may even be designed so that the bows CAN be ripped clean off without losing the ship. After all, incidents resulting in such damage are somewhat common, and it's likely better to have a breakaway bow that exists mainly for hydrodynamic reasons, that can be quickly replaced. I doubt it was planned this way at the start, but I'm not qualified to opine on that.

[@scott2836]

It does seem that the “needle” bows on the US fast battleships does feel more like the hydrodynamic version of the spoiler/air dam on a car. Something more contributing to speed and maneuverability than survivability.

[@scottgiles7546]

Reading through should we start referring to the bow as the nose cone on steel ships?

[@--Dani]

It's nice being your own boss, first in the door and last out plus reap the rewards for good hard work.

[@alanansara2190]

I saw the documentary "Battleship" in a movie theater. So I know USS Missouri with a crew of docents would be able to take out an entire alien invasion singlehandedly! 😀The scary thing is that movie looks good when compared to some of what we're getting in the theater today.

[@mbryson2899]

I'm glad that you chose the channel over your trained vocation, and doubly so that it is an adequate alternative in terms of compensation. (I did in fact drive myself mad at mine, watching the bureaucrats steadily infest management to the detriment of our mission. I was then sacked without warning, then invited back once things had run off the rails; I declined. Goung mad is not as much fun as one might think.) Your channel is immensely informative and entertaining. You have my gratitude.

[@BleedingUranium]

42:16 I'm not sure about any of the others, but I do know (thanks War Thunder) that at least the Nagara-class Isuzu was indeed converted to an AA cruiser in 1944. After the refit, she was equipped with three twin Type 89s (5-inch), eleven triple and seventeen single Type 96s (50 total barrels), retained her torpedo tubes (one quad per side, no reloads), got additional radar, sonar, and depth charges, and lost her floatplane.

[@thelogicmatrix]

Always happy to listen to the weekly drydock :)

[@RedHellFire55]

Samee

[@12jazion]

Being self-employed does not lead to multiple personality disorder. I brought myself into the office yesterday and gave myself a stern talking to because my productivity has been lower than expected over the last month due to snow removal so now I have to come to work an hour early to deal with the snow before the shop opens and no, I am not paying myself for the extra hour I have to work, I actually threatened myself with a pay cut if I did not agree to come to work early.

[@richardmeyeroff7397]

Good Management!

[@allenparmet1016]

Early jets spooled up their engines quite slowly due to the axial flow compressors and no afterburner. I flew a jet like that in the 60s which took 18 seconds on a cool day to go from idle to full power. So the old F-84 had a compartment in the nose that contained a few pounds of rocks. As you approached the end of the runway, the pilot opened the compartment and dropped the rocks in front of the nose wheel. The Jet would think it had run out of runway, so it would agree to take off.........8-)

[@bobbenson6825]

Your saying "it was the management 3 or more levels higher" really hit home. I worked for a US insurance company for 26 years and my immediate supervisors, their managers and the 3 executives that overlooked them in my division over that period were good to excellent. They were personable and did a good job running interference for us while still creating an expectation of superior performance. The layers above them were bloated with incompetents and what can best be described as legacy executives that sent idiotic make work directives.

[@Philip271828]

@38:00 Many years ago I saw a full size plywood wing for, I think it was, an A320. It had been made to ensure that the design could be made and would go together as planned. CAD has come on a long way since then but it would surprise me if such things aren't still done.

[@Crosshair84]

Years ago, the A380 had a massive delay because it turned out that different teams were using different versions of CAD software, resulting in many wiring harnesses being a few inches too short.

[@oldbearbrian]

Love the image for the discussion of leaving working for (sp?) Crowden Council. 🙂

[@michaelkovacic2608]

While it is clear that the armored cruiser was made obsolete by the battlecruiser, I have always felt that some of the last armored cruisers were excellent ships, like Blücher, Rurik and Averoff. If WW1 had broken out a couple of years earlier, those ships could have played a much more prominent role since not too many battlecruisers would have been around yet.

[@TheFreaker86]

53:01 I don’t know how accurate the depiction of the process is, but in World of Warships there are dockyard events that show the ship building process with a short description of each phase.

[@alanzelanski7288]

The Imperial Navy had one light cruiser they updated the IJN Isuzu which was converted to anti air with three twin 12.7cm gun mounsts.

[@benwilson6145]

From the ONI Report. One torpedo struck amidships on the port side, one on the starboard quarter, and possibly a third on the port quarter; The torpedo which hit the starboard quarter wrecked the steering gear, jamming the rudders and causing the Bismarck to turn slowly in circles to the starboard. Frantic efforts were made to repair the damage: It was announced that the man who succeeded in freeing the rudders would be given the Knight Insignia of the Iron Cross. Divers succeeded in centering one rudder, but the other could not be freed, Efforts were made to steer the ship by her engines, but after a short period, instead of proceeding on her intended southeasterly course, the Bismarck was actually northwest of her position when the attack was made. There appears to have been further controversy among the officers. The captain, when asked by an officer whether he should try to blow off the jammed rudder, is reported to have replied, "Do what you like; I am through with it." The ship's best speed was now reduced to 10 to 12 knots.

[@scottgiles7546]

Just more proof that a swordfish sunk the Bismarck. Quite the plane.

[@astartesfanboy5294]

@@scottgiles7546 we all know the ORP Piorun truly sank the Bismarck.

[@stevevalley7835]

wrt the question about models vs drawings, in some applications, the model was built first, because of the difficulty of rendering 3-dimentional objects on 2-dimension drawings. When I worked in fluid handling in the 70s, it was routine to build a model of a refinery or chemical plant first, to work out all the pipe routing, then make up drawings from the model. It was routine to build full scale mockups of new aircraft for the same reason, to work out all the hydraulic and electrical conduits and possible interference with bulkheads. The Boeing 777 was the first aircraft to be designed entirely in computer, in the early 90s, because, 3D computer modeling had finally advanced enough.

[@lamwen03]

The IJN carriers at Midway had a full second strike complement armed and fueled in the hangars. They stopped doing that afterwards.

[@charlesjames1442]

Success has a hundred fathers, Failure is an orphan.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

00:31:23 One of the best "bugger off, I'm out" I've heard and wholeheartedly agreed upon. Something similar happened to me while working in the callcenter industry for twelve years and the six years I was a professional waiter. Too many gods and demi-gods in too small an Olympus. Work politics - not policies, politics - can kill a career faster than a badly drawn schedule and dodgy material selection and acquisition. Told everyone to take a hike eighteen months ago and started working as a translator for a company. Best decision I ever took. I'd like to believe at least 90% of your British viewers must have cheered at the idea of a council going broke. Following a couple of disaster channels, council always seems to be rowing against the current. Anyway, I digress. Cheers. Edit: From what I've searched, Parnaiba is the oldest military vessel in service capable of combat. A fine job by the Brazilian Navy if you ask me. On the other hand, they sent the carrier Sao Paulo to the bottom of the sea without proper cleanup or remediation. Oh, well.

[@JC622Kilo57J]

33:02 It's not just engineering. We have a senior manager at my current retail workplace who hasn't met a bus she wouldn't push one or more of her employees in front of. Actively undermines floor-level management, terrorizes the rank and file, preaches a genuinely toxic management style, all with a cheerful giggle and the unfriendliest of grins.

[@genericpersonx333]

00:37:45 - Despite the fact we had the capacity to make accurate blueprints to follow, people still made large mock ups of planned warships. What were they used for and what happened to them when the navy was through with them? Another use of some value is the ability to test aspects of Human Interaction with the ship. While used more for industrial purposes, scale models of "working places" such as ships were made to allow the placement of scale figurines of people to visualize better how people would be seeing and operating within that work space. Things like whether or not a person could grab a scalding-hot pipe, whether a hallway had a blind spot that might encourage collision between persons, and more could be tested by literally moving figurines through the model. In theory, this could be done by blueprint, but a lot of little detail are often better seen and dealt with via the model.

[@sewing1243]

00:07:17 Alaska/Blucher Would the 1v3 fight between the Admiral Graf Spee and HMS Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter at the Battle of the River Plate be a good representation of what could be expected if Alaska or Blucher went up against 3 cruisers from their eras?

[@kemarisite]

I'm thinking not, because the RN cruisers had an appreciable speed advantage over Graf Spee.

[@sewing1243]

@@kemarisite An Alaska, once engaged in a battle with cruisers equivalent to Ajax, Achillies, and Exeter, wasn't fast enough to disengage if it ever got within range of those cruisers main batteries.

[@KlausECD]

The Alaska is about twice the displacement of the Graf Spee, so, I’d think Alaska could take them If, say, out against “era equivalent” cruisers, such as maybe a Baltimore and a 2 Cleveland’s? (Although Leanders were small light cruisers, but, can’t think of equivalent off hand - Atlanta would just be sad) Instead of 5knots slower, same speed as the cruisers Instead of thinner Armor than even the light cruisers, close to double 50% more, and significantly more modern / better main batter guns in Alaska vs Graf Spee Better fire control than Graf Spee So, Alaska could stay out of range of 6” / 8” guns for longer, should hit more often (and harder), and be less impacted by hits I think would do much better If even caught in the first place given five knots faster

[@kemarisite]

@@sewing1243 I mention the speed because the British cruisers had an appreciable advantage over Graf Spee, giving them a lot more control over the range and shape of the engagement than they would have over an Alaska. However, the biggest advantage the Alaska would have over the Graf Spee is reliable fuses and a greater proportion of armor piercing shells in the magazines. Graf Spee had 200 nose-fused HE, 200 base-fused HE (which might provide some AP capability), and 200 AP. It fired 200 nose-fused HE, 184 base-fused HE, and 30 AP during the battle. German naval shells also had a notorious rate of failure for a variety of reasons.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

I'm pertty sure that an Alaska could eat a pair of Leanders and a York for breakfast. Ignoring the radar advantage, the reduced speed differential and the better ammunition (not to mention improved systems redundancy) give her rhe aboĺity to dictate the terms of the engagement. Mind you, an Alaska up against a couple of Towns and a County could be interesting.

[@greenseaships]

35:14- Drach decides he's going to get away from the administrational oversight environment.... and spend the rest of his days doing what we tell him to do....

[@ShuRugal]

@15:00 - the issue with early jets on takeoff wasn't so much the spoolup time as it was the very high velocity and low volume exhaust. spoolup time is negated as a problem for takeoff by holding brakes until the desired thrust is reached. That's a non-issue. However, early jet engines were all either pure turbojet (the only air in the exhaust was air used for combustion) or very low bypass (the overwhelming majority of the air in the exhaust was air used for combustion). Pure turbojets are good for top speed, because the velocity of the exhaust determines the speed at which thrust begins to taper off. However, they are horrible for acceleration. Since they move such a small actual mass of air, the resultant thrust of expelling it at a high velocity is pretty poor. Modern turbofan engines solve this problem by having a large bypass volume - the engine ingests far more air than is needed for combustion, and sends most of it straight around the engine, neither compressing it nor burning fuel with it. This has a few benefits. First, it increases the mass of air flowing, which directly increases the thrust. Second, it reduces the work wasted to compress air which is not going to be used for combustion (as much as 50% of the mechanical power produced in the combustion and turbine sections of a jet engine is used to compress the incoming air). Finally, it reduces the amount of air which must interact with the very high-drag components which the combustion air must necessarily engage with on its way through the engine. The practical upshot is that first generation jet engines behaved like a car stuck in overdrive. Great for maintaining a cruise speed, horrible for getting to that speed.

[@tomdolan9761]

The US after losing Lexington made it standard operating procedure to flush the aircraft refueling system with a neutral gas when under attack.

[@akatripclaymore.9679]

I was lucky enough to tour the USS MISSOURI When it was dry docked in Bremerton Wa. It was later put in commission during the 1st Gulf War. I saw her in the late/ mid 70's.

[@Thumpalumpacus]

Regarding your work/channel balance: Good on you for deciding to be happy. Life's too short to be unhappy at work -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

[@rogersmith7396]

The Smithsonian has a number of Naval archetects models and they are fabulous. I remember looking at USS Mississippi and it was correct down to the dogs on portholes and lifelines. I assume the Navy museum has some too. I know the Truman library has a USS Missouri built as a gift by the Japanese but I don't remember it. These models are all like 5 or 6 feet long. They are incredible for a modeler. In Master and Commander they had hull models to facilitate repair work on the wooden hulls.

[@johnshepherd9676]

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago also has builder's models along with a "1:1 scale model" of a Type 9 U-boat.

[@rogersmith7396]

@@johnshepherd9676 So does San Francisco. Been there done that. U Boats are pud.

[@seanmalloy7249]

Although I don't think anyone's going to beat the 1/10 scale model of the IJN Yamato at the Yamato Museum in Kure, more than 86 feet long and almost 13 feet wide. It's not an architect's model, given, but it's still impressive. And at least at that scale you're not going blind trying to glue all of the railings to the hull...

[@rogersmith7396]

@@seanmalloy7249 Sounds great. I know some people have ship models they can sit in and drive around in ponds. I have a 40 ft. sail boat. I guess I will stick with that. Would'nt mind having HMS Nelson to drive around the lake. Scare the power boat fools.

[@leftcoaster67]

Drach shows that local governments seem to be run the same way the world over. : ) Thanks Drach!

[@charlesparr1611]

Believe me, in the vast majority of cases, governments are models of efficiency and cooperation compared to private industry. Remember that in the modern age, the business practices and policies of governments are very public and very much overseen by interested parties. Private industry is opaque, secretive, insists on gag orders, fires employees who attempt to act in any form of solidarity, and literally exist to steal as much of the surplus value any employee creates through their labour and bestow it upon the owners of the business. I have worked in both public and private sectors, and both suck, they suck for different reasons and in different ways, but human beings have always been plagued by selfish power hungry parasites that due to their specific constellation of toxic mental disorders tend to rise to the top of any organization. There is an old story about how a mouse that fell in a bucket of milk refused to give up, and eventually the frantic swimming made a lump of butter that the mouse climbed onto and was saved. This works, if you think a hierarchical organization is like a buck of milk, where 'the cream rises to the top'. Problem is, hierarchical organizations are better modelled as chamberpots, what floats to the top is shit, and swimming frantically just liquifies it, and you drown.

[@airplanemaster1]

42:16 I completely forget I asked that question from what feels like forever ago lol. So imagine my surprise when Drach mention's me out of the blue while I have this on in the background.

[@Sakai070]

As soon as you say, I don't know if it's the same in other industries... Yes

[@BestAnswer12549]

I'm tearing up. What a good boy. And I think I have the answer to why those men cried. And you're half ago my father-in-law died of covid. My wife's mother's father who was a very stoic man didn't cry at all. A few months later the family dog died. A Japanese chin who lived to the old age of 20. And my grandfather-in-law cried then. I think they were using the emotions of the dog to cry about their fellow countrymen.

[@stretch3281]

Nice walrus 😉

[@indplt1595]

The lessons of Coral Sea clearly carried forward for the U.S. Navy, nearly saving Yorktown and Hornet in 1942 and definitely saving Franklin and Bunker Hill in 1945...but is it true of the IJN? "The first blow came from an unexpected source. At 2:01 on June 19, 1944, the Shokaku while 140 miles north of Yap Island was torpedoed three times by the U. S. submarine Cavalla. Damage to the carrier, already severe, was compounded by the outbreak of serious fires which soon enveloped the entire ship. The situation soon became hopeless as the ship settled rapidly by the bow. Water quickly reached the flight deck and spilled through the open No. 1 elevator into the hangar. Thus stricken the Shokaku lost stability, turned over, and sank. The Zuikaku was only slightly more fortunate than her sister and escaped destruction by only the narrowest of margins. During the course of the battle the carrier was hit several times by bombs from U. S. carrier planes and, while material damage was small, the bomb hits started fires in the hangar deck which speedily became unmanageable and threatened to spread over the entire ship. Damage control parties attacked the flames with bubble extinguishers but could make no progress and, when the flames continued to gain, the order to “Abandon Ship,” was given. However, before this command could be completely executed encouraging reports came from the fire fighters and the order was countermanded. Eventually the fires were brought under control and extinguished and the crippled carrier returned to Kure for extensive repairs." www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1952/june/shokakus-pearl-harbor-leyte-gulf Zuikaku nearly became the fourth Japanese carrier lost in the Philippine Sea in June 1944, and if she had, all four IJN carriers sunk would have been done in primarily by fire. Shokaku was engulfed from stem to stern by fires on 19 June 1944 before going down, very similar to Kaga and Soryu's sinkings, and Taiho was done for after fire brewed up after a single hit began a gasoline leak, similar to Akagi's loss. Hiyo, unlike Zuikaku, could not control her fires after a single TBF from Belleau Wood torpedoed the Japanese carrier and led to circumstances suspiciously similar to Taiho's fate, again harkening back to the death of Nagumo's flagship. Then there is Unryu, which was torpedoed exactly six months later. Her sinking is often exclusively attributed to the Okhas aboard exploding, but the first hit from Redfish started fires before the U.S. submarine plowed a second torpedo 15 minutes into the space adjacent to Unryu's forward aviation gasoline tanks. The explosions were so severe and the loss of life so great it stands to reason Unryu's fires were the result of torpedo and suicide rocket plane warheads exploding...or was the sequence the other way around? Given the propensity for Japanese carriers to burn profusely in 1944, not just on 4-5 June 1942, did the Japanese lose eight carriers primarily to raging fires?

[@bkjeong4302]

The issue with the answer to the “With hindsight, should anyone have built battleships in WWII?” question is that, as the answer itself points out, so much of the presumed need to build new battleships was due to the assumption they were needed to counter the new battleships the enemy were building, creating a bit of a circlejerk mentality across the various major navies. If one nation breaks out of that mindset and decides (probably correctly) that they don’t really need any more battleships, this would very quickly set off dominoes that would lead to other nations abandoning battleship construction as well. For example: if the Regia Marina decides to not build the Littorios, that could lead to greater cooperation with the Regia Aeronautica plus accelerated anti-ship air doctrine to compensate, which would allow for the Italians to be able to counter British battleships anyways, meaning that the lack of Littorios wouldn’t really be a problem (and may even be an advantage). Similarly, if the Germans figure that they should focus more on U-Boats and abandon capital ships entirely, that suddenly means the KGVs have far less of an excuse for existing, and they too might be cancelled in favour of ships better suited to deal with much more relevant concerns. And if the US and/or Japan take a look at these developments, that could in turn cause them to give up on battleships and focus entirely on building up carrier forces or land-based air units (the Japanese ended up historically doing this anyways after Force Z, which resulted in the cancelling of Shinano months before her conversion to gigantic support carrier was ordered; the decision came too late for Yamato and Musashi). Also, if you had full hindsight, wouldn’t the Americans also want to cancel at least the Iowas, considering that the scenario of the Kongos attacking American fleet carriers (the scenario the Iowas were specifically intended to stop) turned out to be unfounded in the end and that hindsight would reveal the Iowas never did anything in WWII that the Standards or subcapital units couldn’t have handled?

[@MrArtbv]

You're ignoring the issues of sunk costs AND inertia in military thinking...

[@bkjeong4302]

@@MrArtbv Sunk cost fallacy is a thing, you know. Just because you spent a bunch of money/resources/infrastructure already doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop throwing even more at a project that could turn out to be pointless.

[@MrArtbv]

@@bkjeong4302 Which is why I specifically mentioned "The inertia of military thinking"... I say this as a combat vet; US Army NCO Inf 82nd Abn...

[@jbepsilon]

I think one issue is that these big ship designs and builds take a long time. So in order to have a big impact on your fleet composition in WWII the decision to focus in carriers instead of battleships would have to be made in the early 30'ies, mid-30'ies at the latest. And in the mid-30'ies it would be a pretty huge gamble to say that air power will be able to sink battleship class vessels almost with impunity. Aircraft were developing very rapidly then, and the flimsy biplanes that were the norm for military aircraft then were a far cry from what we eventually saw in WWII.

[@Crosshair84]

It also presumes that ship-based aircraft would actually be capable of being the center of the fleet, which was not guaranteed at the time. People forget just how much of a leap aircraft technology took between 1935 and 1940. Only in the Pacific do carriers "replace" battleships. Even then, only during the day. In the North Atlantic, carriers have a difficult time operating even during the day.

[@IndianaDel1]

Is there any hope that the history of RN Ironclads (as well as other navies mentioned in the first video) will be taken beyond 1872?

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Yeah. I love the ironclads for their sheer absurdities. Theirs was the classic age of "a bloke in a shed has an idea". And I'm hunbly aware that I speak with the benefit of hindsight.

[@danielgarner2938]

The other big problem with RATO/JATO is that they are not particularly reliable. This is compounded by the fact that they are single use (thus can't be operationally tested). They primarily live on in multiple installations (famously the C-130) where one or two not working are not mortally consequential, or as last chance devices, such as on the Metro-IV.

[@joechang8696]

I have seen a clear explanation of the role and use of battlecruisers. My thought behind the British BC concept: in a fleet engagement, when the Germans realize the situation is unfavorable, they will try to disengage to preserve their fleet. The BC's need to race forward, cross the T to force the Germans to turn, giving time for the British fleet to catch up. For this they need BB size guns. The lack of armor can be mitigated by maneuver. Time of flight for big guns is on the order of 60 sec (2x vertical velocity/G). This is enough time for a 25kt+ BC (100k shp) to chase splash based on speed and shp per ton, but is less effective for a 22kt BB (30k shp). In this regard, the British big, lots of propulsion and little armor concept works. But at Jutland, the British BC just held steady course (for easier fire control?). US Destroyers in WWII definitely did practice chasing splashes, turn towards enemy if splash is short, and away if far. The US Alaska does look like a cruiser killer. What is the intent? Independent cruiser hunting missions do not make sense because the opponent will just withdraw against superior force. Heavy and light cruisers are capable of acting as scouts for the battle fleet. But enemy cruisers can also effectively screen your cruisers. I suppose an Alaska BC can force the enemy cruisers away to scout the battle fleet? Propeller cavitation for surface ships occurs around 40-50kt, so max effective speed is whatever that minus slippage? also fuel consumption. The DD's at Samar exhausted their fuel operating at flank speed for a few hours. Cruisers and BB's can operate at flank for longer

[@richardschaffer5588]

At Jutland the RN didn’t have a gun in service that could keep a shell in the air more than 35 seconds. As Jelicoe wrote in his book, the officers of the Grand Fleet drilled in various maneuvers with model ship abound the flagship, Beatty tossed that when he took over.

[@joechang8696]

@@richardschaffer5588 ok, I didn't recall the range at Jutland was only 15k yds? assuming 2600ft/s muzzle velocity. 6deg elevation translates to 272 ft/s initial vertical velocity, 2586 ft/s horizontal, time of flight 17sec, range 14.6kyd - not accounting for drag, meaning actual elevation for 15kyd is somewhat higher than 6deg. 35 sec travel time is 563 ft/s initial vert vel, requiring 12.5deg elevation at 2600 ft/s muzzle, 25kyd max range? I guess WWII ranges were significantly greater than WWI. On this, speed is no armor, what was Fischer thinking?

[@kemarisite]

If the battle cruisers race forward to cross the German T while the Germans are trying to escape the Grand Fleet battle line, the Germans will happily plow right through the battlecruiser line. They may try to adjust their angle to pass toward the stern of the battle cruisers with their rear turrets unmasked, but the simple fact is that the battlecruiser force, even with 5th Battle Squadron attached, is noticeably outnumbered by the High Seas Fleet and First Scouting Group. The Germans may not hang around long enough to utterly destroy the Battlecruiser Force, but the latter is simply not powerful enough to force the Germans to evade in a way that will allow the Grand Fleet to catch them.

[@justinkacyon6659]

I was talking to Ryan Szimanski aboard USS New Jersey a while back and I asked him if the ends (fore and aft) of the citadel were armored or if the designers simply counted on the mass and volume of the bow and stern to stop shells in those directions. He told me that they were armored (we were in fact within sight of one of the plates) and that these end plates were much thicker than the belt as a whole. Fast forward to last week's Drydock and the question about deck armor and incoming shells, where you said that the mass of a ship's superstructure mitigated the need for heavy deck armor. Why up-armor the ends of the citadel when it has this mitigating factor? Even making it the same thickness as the belt would have saved an ocelot of weight.

[@Drachinifel]

The citadel ends are acting much like the belt, and the fore and aft of a ship is generally pretty bare apart from the turrets, so a shell plunging in doesn't have far to go to reach the citadel. Whereas the deck armour runs mostly under the portion of the ship covered by superstructure and turrets, which will to varying degrees intercept the shell a lot earlier and initiate fuses.

[@vikkimcdonough6153]

1:01:38 - Wait, would that be the same Nathan Okun from NavWeaps? Also, ship request: the IJN's never-built A-150 battleships.

[@TrickiVicBB71]

Greatest table top game with mockup warships that scale

[@erikgranqvist3680]

Ship speed: I have allways imagined that things like small patrol boats and other small crafts would have a greater need for really high speeds then anything like destroyers and upwards.

[@tonym480]

As a footnote to Rocket Assisted take off on carriers, in the 1950's there was a proposed naval version of the mixed power Saunders Roe SR.177 fighter; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.177 This used a rocket motor for increased climb and intercept speed in addition to the de Haviland Gyron Junior jet engine.

[@allenparmet1016]

A note in the US. The word "Rocket" was forbidden. So we called them "Jet Assisted Take-Off" (JATO) on the B-47 and the laboratory in Pasadena is called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) although it was all rocket science.

[@markseelye494]

I miss the longer drydock. The good ole days when it was 3 or 4 or even 5 hrs

[@charlesparr1611]

That's okay, I don't think we have had an actual five minute guide to any warship yet, so we're still getting extra Drach for our money....

[@timengineman2nd714]

Re: 02:39 At first I was surprised that the IJN didn't put 50cm (19.685 inch) cannons on the Yamato. But I guess, that perhaps, they were worried that the size of the barrel sticking out of the turrets/gunhouses would be too obvious to pass for "16 inch".... But at the same time, the ships were Secret during construction and kept out of sight from non-Japanese eyes... And that big of ship would obviously be over 45,000 tons displacement so the big guns wouldn't really matter

[@frankfeitoza6211]

Gibbs and Cox had very extensive model shop, that became very expensive, and was phase out. The US Navy which paid for the models, brought a truck to NYC and selected the best and took them to Annapolis. We kept the rejects. Which was very many. They took most of them. Now what happened to them is anyone guess.

[@frankfeitoza6211]

I meant to say we didn't many of the models. Very few.

[@davidvik1451]

46:15. The greater problem would be that the propellant would slide down chamber away from the face of the obturator spindle resulting in unreliable priming . The M109 howitzer will elevate to 72deg and holds a rammed ~100lb 155mm shell just fine.

[@Crosshair84]

Yes. Reliable ignition of the powder charge would be the major concern.

[@richardmeyeroff7397]

He wasn't asking about elevation but declination.

[@johnfisher9692]

Thanks Drach If presenter Drach ever gets into an argument with executive Drach over anything, I guess both can appeal to the highest authority, Mrs Drach, and she will be able to sort it out. Either by a hard glare or if necessary, well you did say she knows how to use a knife, :)

[@NathanOkun]

The Japanese actually made a 48 cm (18.9") gun with Type 91 or the slightly modified Type 1 AP shells. The US found one of the shells at a proving ground after WWII. I have no other information. Thank you for your comment. By the way, when you delineated the kinds of armor employed, you left out some; (1) Wrought iron a few inches thick, either single slab or built-up lamination (through the early 1870s) (2) German Grüson extremely thick Chilled Cast Iron dome-shaped two-gun fort turrets with 3" wrought iron roofs (1868 to the waely 1890s). Krupp bought them out to use their info to make KC armor. (3) Wrought iron up to slabs 22" thick (1868 through mid-1870s). (4) French Schneider et Cie. hardened mild steel 22" thick (1876 on two Italian battleships through 1890). (5) British Compound hardened mild steel laminated to wrought iron back (late 1870s as Britain's answer to the French mild steel through 1890). (6) French Schneider et Cie. nickel-steel (4-7% nickel) that made Compound Armor obsolete (1890-1920 for some warships, such as US battleship protective deck laminated layers) and also used as the metal for armor bolts and nuts and washers holding thick plates. The rather good at right-angles French De Marre Armor Penetration Formulae was for this armor and, with the added "De Marre Coefficient" for later homogeneous, ductile steel armors, too. (7) US Harveyized *cemented" -- thin case-hardened carburized layer on the French nickel-steel (1891 through early 1900s) . Also could be applied to mild steel plate. Made in aoll thicknesses, including thin armor on land vehicle, gun shields and aircraft even today. (8) High-tensile extra-high-strength construction steel (1890s to today). Original type was mild steel with a little nickel added to toughness (reduced brittleness) in land and ship construction needing extra resistance to deformation under stress, such as high sea states. Later types also added small amounts of chromium or other strengthening alloys, such as British 1920 and after Colville Company "D-Steel" or US Navy BuC&R/BuSHIPS HTS.. In some navies, such as the British Navy,, used this kind of steel as light armor inside the hull, such as for horizontal single- or laminated multi-plate "protective decks", sloped "turtleback decks", verticle "splinter screens", and so forth, instead of using full-strength Krupp-type steel (see 9, below) for penetration protection. (9) Krupp nickel-chromium-steel used as all future homogeneous, ductile full-strenth armor in ships and land vehicles even today and as the material out of which Krupp Cemented (and face-hardened non-cemented variants like Japanese VH), the cemented types having both a thin Harveyized surface layer and a depp, though softer hardened face (face thickness varied by manufacturer and time made). First plate was Krupp Test Plate #420 of 1894, which, amazingly, was just as strong as post-WWII steel tank armor! Also used as a highest-strength (and most expensive) ship construction steel where either enemy projectile or fragment hits are expected or maximum strength is needed. And there are variations of most of these by various manufacturers who have their own ideas of what constitutes "armor".

[@vespelian]

There is an exhibition in Norwich of artefacts from the wreck of the Commonwealth era third rate Gloucester which sank conveying the Duke of York to Scotland in 1682. Given the topicality it would be a great topic for a ship bio.

[@ivoryjohnson4662]

Drach I totally agree about the managers and the upper management the get you and dint even give you a chance

[@stevevalley7835]

The discussions of "cruiser killers" brings a thought. Reading over the Washington Treaty, the Courageouses are not listed anywhere as capital ships, in spite of their battleship size guns and size. As we know, Fisher defined them as "light cruisers" to exploit a loophole in policy. The Washington treaty appears to have accepted them as "light cruisers". Can't help but wonder, if the Admiralty had retained the "Dreadnought armed cruiser" designation, would all the battlecruisers also have been exempted from the British capital ship quota? But then, would Renown and Repulse, classified as cruisers, be scrapped in the mid 30s to clear the tonnage for a greater number of treaty cruisers?

[@kemarisite]

Courageous and Glorious began conversion to aircraft carriers in 1924 under the conversion provisions of the treaty.

[@stevevalley7835]

@@kemarisite that is what the Wiki entry says, but I think it is wrong. The Courageouses are not listed in either the retention or disposal list for the RN in the Washington treaty. Saratoga and Lexington are in the US disposal list, and Amagi and Akagi are in the IJN disposal list. If the Courageouses were to be disposed of, if not converted, they would have been listed. The Courageouses were not that outrageous, compared to other armored cruisers, in either armament or displacement. They had been classified as cruisers since inception. Everything I see tells me the treaty regarded them as cruisers.

[@hughgordon6435]

Buccaneers were fitted with Rocket aided take off gear as "standard" for South African buccs? High heat , high altitude airfields?and were trialed on HM aircraft carriers as an aid to carrying full fuel and armaments?

[@hughgordon6435]

C' mon Drach? Don't hold back, tell us what you really think of higher management?

[@timengineman2nd714]

@ 37:45 I also wonder how many of these models were shown to the Politicians prior to construction to help loosen the purse strings.....

[@kaiczar1740]

I’m not sure if you’ve ever covered a video or questions regarding the ships of the ill fated Franklin Expedition but what was their effectiveness in their original role as bomb ships and were there any other ships in the Royal Navy that in your opinion had perhaps a better chance to serve in the expedition with success

[@Pusserdoc]

Use of RATOG: one of the reasons it went out of use was that they were used in pairs on either side of the aircraft: if one side fired and the other didn't it tended not to end well for the crew...

[@KlausECD]

Three Scharnhorsts with 15” guns and no Bismarcks 🙂 [edit: in twin turrets, so 3x2 15in. They were designed to be upgradeable to twin 15in turrets]

[@MrArtbv]

I think you mean 5 6x15in Scharnhorsts

[@jbepsilon]

Given that Germany was never going to build more, bigger and better battleships than the RN, not sure it would have been worth it. Something more like a "cruiser-killer" class of ships that they could build lots of relatively cheaply. That could be useful for commerce raiding, and also for forcing the allies to dedicate expensive battleships for convoy escort duty. Maybe something like a 20000 ton design with, say 3 triple 25cm turrets?

[@genericpersonx333]

A problem is that the tooling to make guns bigger than 283mm was not completed until ~1939, so there'd be no 15'' guns available until 1940-41 anyway. As Drach has pointed out before, big naval guns take a LONG time to make, and there is only so much you can do to speed things up. Germans didn't use the 283mm because they liked it; it was literally the biggest gun they could make at the time.

[@greendoodily]

3-5 15” Scharnhorsts and a couple of actual functional carriers to provide organic air support (take that pesky Swordfish!) would have given the Royal Navy some serious headaches and been of much greater utility than the two Bismarcks.

[@KlausECD]

@@genericpersonx333 - the first two would have been built with 11”, but they were designed to be refit with twin 15” turrets. They made at least 8 15” turrets 🙂

[@richardcutts196]

Anything the Japanese built instead of the Yamotos could hardly have been used less than the Yamotos.

[@hughgordon6435]

If battle cruisers had not been named such, would they have been expected to stand in the battle line? Or was it a size thing??

[@gerardmdelaney]

Would the lack of fuel have allowed the CV/CA/CL/DD/SS built instead of the three Yamato class BB to have been any more active than the BB were?

[@Knight6831]

I would like to point out that we have no idea when the Bismarck lost her port rudder for all we know, on the surface it was still attached but was ripped off when she hit the mountainside

[@Drachinifel]

The break point does seem to suggest a sudden shock was responsible, there should be more vertical impact damage and twisting from a seabed impact if that's how it went away, but you are right in that we don't 100% know for sure.

[@Knight6831]

Well just doubled checked we know the Swordfish did use a contact detonator which did destroy the port rudder as the torpedo hit her port on her stern which left a gaping hole left in the port side and did damage the rudder assembly for the port rudder, so if the Starboard had been sheared off unless what was left of the port rudder were locked 12 degrees and the drag from the gaping hole left in the port side were being countered by the force 8 winds or 34 to 40 knot and the sea state 6-to-7 might be enough to overcome especially given Bismarck is moving so slowly The problem is that like with a lot of things related to Hood and Bismarck is that the people we'd need to ask didn't make it so we'll never know

[@p35flash97]

What about the Guppy conversion submarines that are still in service with the Taiwanese navy? Those are pretty old and might still have a reasonable chance of being able to fight effectively?

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

Anyone who seriously wants to fight 80 year old ships in 2023 has a special kind of Faith going on.

[@stevewyckoff6904]

RE: Hobby to vocation. Did the pandemic play any part in your decision? I'm wondering if your subscriber base would have risen as fast in a non-pandemic period.

[@aaronjohn6586]

1 of the things the battle ships did especially in the pacific was providing massive protection for the carriers with their anti-aircraft protection. They did contribute with shore bombardment but as the war progressed and the Japanese changed tactics, USN found shore bombardment was less and less effective.

[@bkjeong4302]

But were they really necessary for providing that AA protection? You didn’t need 16” guns for AA. And while battleships had a lot of AA and DP guns that’s largely a result of their sheer size (meaning increased costs, build time, certain infrastructure restrictions, and increased manpower requirements). More AA-heavy subcapital units may well have been a better strategic trade there. Or even more Essexes to launch CAP.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

​@@bkjeong4302 I think even you would agree that the best AA defense; is a combat Air Patrol. Not a big ship popping flak in a limited arc of fire.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@WALTERBROADDUS Exactly

[@kingssuck06]

@@bkjeong4302 How many more troops would’ve been lost in island invasions without the shore bombardment? How many more kamikazes would’ve broken through to the carriers without the massive AA support? Its easy to sit here and say they weren’t necessary without proving otherwise in the real world

[@bkjeong4302]

@@kingssuck06 Shore bombardment could have been (and often was) done by using the old Standard battleships or even cruisers and destroyers, and cruisers and destroyers already dry had the AA mission covered. Neither of these roles justified construction of the fast battleships.

[@johnshepherd9676]

The US Navy looked at alternative Alaska designs with 12 8" guns. I imagine they rejected the design because the extra turret did not give much of a margin over a 9 8" gun layout. Do you think that if autoloading 8" was available would the Alaskas been armed with 12 8" guns? Given the rate of fire of the auto 8 mount were the Des Moines the cruiser killers the US Navy wanted?

[@Crosshair84]

The main advantage of the 12" gun is the increased range it offers. It doesn't matter how many autoloading 8" guns you have when the 12" armed ship can just sit outside your effective range and shell you with impunity.

[@johnshepherd9676]

@@Crosshair84 But the Alaskas were not designed to go after 12" gun armed units. They were cruiser killers. A 12 8" auto loading gunned Alaska could overwhelm two 8" or 6" gunned cruisers.

[@SCjunk]

I've certainly seen range target plates (smack plates for old 120 nn BAT RCL rifles) made out of armour perhaps from Town Class cruiser broken up locally (Blyth) which have tongue and groove and the standard set screws -I could end you a pic but I can't attach it to a a chat reply -You Tube are very lacking in this regard.

[@JevansUK]

I think plate keying came in with German and American ship in the 1910s, not sure if Hood has them but I'm pretty sure later British design do.

[@JevansUK]

I turned up the answer in the HMS Hood court of enquiry, evidence from member of RCNC state plates in Hood not keyed.

[@hughgordon6435]

During what time period was the line of battle actually obsolete? Steam power ships? Iron clads? And why did it persist as a major tactic?

[@bkjeong4302]

Honestly it didn’t truly become obsolete until the rise of naval aviation.

[@rogersmith7396]

I read somewhere about a Russian utility ship that was 90 years old and still in service or recently withdrawn.

[@AndrewTBP]

Drach has a video on Kommuna already.

[@thetorturepenguin]

What WW2 ship, had it not been sunk, would have had the most drastic effect on the rest of the war. E.G, would Bismarck have been an amazing asset for the Kriegsmarine- would Courageous/Glorious be used in the hunt for the Bismarck/operation Pedestal or would Lexington have been at Midway and other major naval battles?

[@TomLuTon]

I once sketched out an AH scenario where the Swordfish torpedoes don't take out Bismarck's rudder. The RN pursues her too close to the French coast, the Luftwaffe scramble to provide cover, and the resulting battle ends up being a fubar affair on all sides.

[@edwardscott3262]

If you could redesign the Iowa class battleship using modern materials, modern construction, modern everything to be the best ww2 battleship even though battleships turned out to be not that useful how exactly would you spec it out? Mind you, you couldn't put nuclear missiles on it but could do anything you want otherwise in terms of the main guns, secondary batteries and anti-aircraft.

[@Claymore5]

Dovetailing armour.....sounds a bit off kilter to me - even if it is only using the back of the plate. Do we know which navies and classes of vessels this was being done on?

[@BigPapaKaiser]

Yeah, that corporate management is a sad truth.

[@RedXlV]

Actually, Blücher didn't have the same guns as Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst had 21cm L/40 guns, while Blücher had 21cm L/45.

[@richardepping9748]

Can you do a video on Admiral the Ruyter? (Dutch)

[@stanleyrogouski]

If the Kongo's were so dangerous I still don't know why the British didn't modernize Tiger. It was basically a Kongo.

[@gillesmeura3416]

"Executive level interference"... it seems indeed to have become a general problem 🙄

[@sundiver137]

I work at a US university and management at every level is utterly incompetent. I've seen the epitome of the Peter Principle.

[@tomdolan9761]

I wonder if the Alaska class could have effectively outranged Japanese heavy cruisers considering how effective night fighters they were and their utilization of the ‘Long Lance’ torpedo.

[@bkjeong4302]

By the time the Alaskas entered service the USN had adopted IJN night fighting tactics, except with FC radar. And while the Long Lance was good (certainly one of the best torpedoes of the war) it wasn’t THAT good, given that it was an unguided torpedo like all other early-war torpedo designs making it inaccurate at longer ranges (which is a problem with unguided torpedoes in general rather than the Long Lance specifically; in fact the others would be even worse at longer ranges because they couldn’t even go that far). Of course, by the time the Alaskas entered service, big-gun capital units in general were obsolete outside of niche scenarios, so.:::

[@tomdolan9761]

Certainly the ultimate ‘Cruiser Killer’ was air power but I still think had the Alaska’s been available during the Guadalcanal campaign they might have fallen victim to the unguided ‘Long Lance’ as many other US ships did during those furious night actions.

[@underworldgameshd69]

I wonder, with today’s technology, would modern battleship guns if they were a thing, wouldn’t they be really accurate?

[@rogersmith7396]

Fast heavy cruisers for Germany would have caused as much problems for the allies used as commerce raiders as anything.

[@bigsarge2085]

✌️

[@MrTScolaro]

With respect to the Japanese carriers at Midway, didn't the enclosed hangars contribute to their flammability?

[@Crosshair84]

Enclosed hangars made it harder to vent fumes. A well designed ventilation system can compensate for that though.

[@MrTScolaro]

@@Crosshair84 Agree that the enclosed hangar, with the appropriate ventilation, would not greatly increase the flammability (appropriate in 1942 under combat situations was something yet to be fully defined). But really, I said flammability and I was thinking explosiveness. In American carriers, there is no hangar box, it is all effectively open, any blast goes out the side. The Japanese (and the RN) had box hangars. There was no where for the fuel/air explosion to go, so it increased the damage to the ship. Since the path of least resistance for the explosion is up, it resulted in blowing out the flight deck, as seen in the famous Hiryu photo.

[@garfieldfarkle]

At 33 knots, I don't think the Alaskas had a deficiency in speed. I also think there is too much pedantry around the terms, "heavy cruiser" and "battle cruiser." I see them as pretty much the same.

[@hughgordon6435]

Apprentice models??

[@gbcb8853]

00.56 oldest ship in commission able the combat. Surely HMS Warrior. Masts intact, sails possible, cannon intact. Combat, but not as we know it in the 21st century.

[@Pusserdoc]

It's my understanding Warrior's engines are mock-ups and hence aren't actually functional

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

And her guns are fibreglass, which would make them somewhat exciting to fire.

[@Pusserdoc]

@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 Forgot that one: good point 👍

[@gerardmdelaney]

Would not Constitution be combat ready if supplied with an adequate number of 24 pound guns and 32 pound carronades (and appropriate shot and powder)?

[@jonsouth1545]

I disagree with your comment about the Alaskas not being able to close down on enemy heavy cruisers while the Alaska doesn't have a significant top speed advantage over something like an Ibuki and is on paper slower the cruising capability of the Alaska is significantly better at 22,000km at 15 knots compared 11,000km at 17 Knots all the Ibuki does is die tired. The Alaska is a persistent hunter no contemporary cruiser can outrun her just like a Gazel may be faster than a Kenyan with a spear but the Kenyan is going to catch up and get the kill. This is also why I personally think Hood was a battlecruiser as when you compare her cruising capability to the contemporary top-of-the-range cruisers she can cover the same distance as a Hawkings or an E class but at double, the speed even though the E's on paper where the fastest cruisers in the world at the time.

[@Drachinifel]

True to a degree but there is only so much ocean, a cruiser with enough speed could usually expect to run to a friendly port or fleet before it ran out of fuel

[@jonsouth1545]

@@Drachinifel True but the vast difference in cruising capability would also indicate a similar disparity when running at top speed thus massively reducing the distances and timescales involved and in the Pacific there is a lot of Ocean and if you get caught a day or two's sail from the nearest base you are royally screwed.

[@dmcarpenter2470]

LST325, SS Jeremiah O'Brien and SS John W Brown can still perform their missions, albeit not exactly ship to ship combat.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

How does that work in a container ship universe?

[@dmcarpenter2470]

@@WALTERBROADDUS Today's tech was not part of the question. It was how many could perform their designed missions.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

@@dmcarpenter2470 that's just it. They don't fit in a modern cargo moving world today.

[@dmcarpenter2470]

@@WALTERBROADDUS You miss the point, by a mile.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

@@dmcarpenter2470 and that point is what, they float?

[@chpet1655]

Why are there so many questions about the Kongo class ? I just don’t find them that interesting I guess PS and I mean at least one or two every week

[@kemarisite]

Probably because they're the only Japanese capital ships that actually do much in WW2. Yamato and Musashi are big and catch attention, but the other six get little notice because they did very little aside from, as the Yamatos, cruising in distant support of an active operation. Kongos were present as carrier escorts in battles throughout the war, and actually engaged in surface gunfire at a time when it could matter (unlike Samar). The people who actually play are always going to get more attention than the bench warmers.

[@scottgiles7546]

"Once the keel is laid what's next?" Does it get a cigarette to smoke? Do you call it the next morning or is it straight on to the next keel?

[@fidjeenjanrjsnsfh]

25:46 if you want to preserve your colonies (stop them from declaring independence) you definitely need battleships.

[@bkjeong4302]

Or you can build other, more useful stuff that can still keep your colonies in line.

[@fidjeenjanrjsnsfh]

@@bkjeong4302 nothing that will simultaneously support any further acquisition of colonies.

[@ReverendHowl]

Thirty one minutes... Do the channel, do the channel, DO THE CHANNEL!!! Plîs.

[@rogersmith7396]

I know architects of large buildings make detail models probably as much a part of their sales pitch as anything.

[@merlinwizard1000]

4th, 12 March 2023

[@salty4496]

:)

[@bobstitzenberger1834]

It seems that the last generation of battleships didn't provide good value for taxpayers. The money spent on Iowas could have made a lot of submarines and destroyers, or aircraft carriers. They really didn't contribute much, except as fuel trucks for destroyers

[@MrWhy6]

question why do they call it drydock when water is still there? Answer me that MR" naval expert".

[@Crazyfrog41]

I know you are probably joking... to give it a somewhat serious answer anyway: It's still a dryERdock than if the ship was docked normally

[@fidjeenjanrjsnsfh]

Becausr you can dry out a drydock?

[@stevewhite3424]

Maybe go take a look at all the current pics of the USS Texas in a floating dry dock will answer your question.

[@papajohnloki]

my dr quit drinking

[@kemarisite]

My first reaction to Croydon Council going bankrupt 2-3 times was "Isn't that a municipal government or something similar, how can they go bankrupt?". Then I remembered Bell, California. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_scandal

[@michaelhart7569]

Our local council (Northamptonshire) also had the central government administrators sent in. Scotland, I read, is the most corrupt and incompetent of all. If it was an English council then most of their politicians would be either in prison or barred from office. Political considerations mean that will probably never happen.