The Drydock - Episode 266 (Part 2)

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

When my battalion of Army infantry went through amphibious training at NAB Coronado in 1976, we officers got additional training at night. One of the things we were introduced to was the ANGLICO (Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) designed to be attached to an Army or Allied division to provide experts on the subject. Our chief instructor was the company First Sergeant. He had been a PFC in an Anglico ancestor (JASCO) on Okinawa, a sergeant in an Anglico in Korea and a master sergeant in an Anglico in Vietnam. I asked him after class what his favorite fire support vessel. The answer was instantaneous - it was the Cleveland class cruiser. It's weight of shell and rate of fire made it perfect.

[@HEDGE1011]

Thanks so much for this recollection! I definitely give credit to someone with actual experience, and wow, what a history of actual experience he had to call on.

[@88porpoise]

On Axis code breaking, probably the most famous is the American Black Code and Colonel Fellers. The Italians broke the US Black Codw by getting the keys from a local cleaner, walking into the embassy and taking photographs. Separately the Germans cracked the code themselves via other means. Fellers was the US liason in Cairo and he was provided with extremely detailed indormation on basically all North Africa and Mediterranean operations which he meticulously reported to Washington using the State Department codes he was ordered to use. As a result, from late 1941 (even before Pearl Harbor) until the end of June 1942 the Germans and Italians got pretty much daily updates on everything that was going on in the Mediterranean. This information was extremely useful to Rommel and also directly lead to the Axis decisively defeating the Operations Harpoon and Vigorous convoys to Malta. Eventually Ultra intercepts revealed the Germans had a source in Cairo and they tracked it back to Fellers' communications.

[@tomdolan9761]

It might be interesting to do a video about the six dry docks constructed at Yokosuka, Japan between 1864 and 1940. They’re all still in use today and are the principal construction sites of many of the iconic ships of the Imperial Navy.

[@tomdolan9761]

IJN Shinano for example was built in Drydock Six. The continued availability of these dry docks is the reason the USN is able to forward deploy a Carrier Task Force permanently in Japan

[@Toneman012000]

The photograph is magnificent. The power it captures is manifest. The person who took it is brave indeed, as are the men involved in this particular action. This photograph, while obviously a piece of brilliant art, needs to be seen as an affirmation of the courage of those who fought for the freedom of speech I am engaging in by writing this comment. Enjoy, all.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war. The B-Dienst, created in the early 1930s, had broken the most widely used British naval code by 1935. When war came in 1939, B-Dienst specialists had broken enough British naval codes that the Germans knew the positions of all British warships. They had further success in the early stages of the war as the British were slow to change their codes. The B-Dienst could regularly read the Broadcast to Allied Merchant Ships (BAMS) code, which proved valuable for U-boat warfare in the early phases of the Battle of the Atlantic. In February 1942, B-Dienst broke the code used for communication with many of the Atlantic convoys.

[@clairekholin6935]

Interestingly, where I grew up in Wisconsin, it is relatively common for playgrounds to have simple voice tubes and I can attest to them working pretty well.

[@jeffsaxton2051]

According to a document supplied to writers for Star Trek way back when, there were to be 14 Constitution class starships: Constitution, Constellation, Enterprise, Yorktown, Lexington, Farragut, Republic, Intrepid, Exeter, Hood, Excalibur, Valiant, Kongo, Potemkin

[@iancarr8682]

Warspite is a strange omission from that list.

[@richtysoe6393]

@@iancarr8682It's a cool name, but possibly a little aggressive for the "we're an exploration organisation, not a military, honest guv" Starfleet.

[@BleedingUranium]

There are a lot of warship names in Trek, but another that feels relevant is the Galaxy-class USS Yamato (sister to the Galaxy-class Enterprise), which was rather dramatically destroyed, one of extremely few times a Galaxy has been visibly seen to be lost.

[@BleedingUranium]

@@iancarr8682 There is now a Warspite, she's a Sovereign-class ship, like the Enterprise-E. :)

[@Archie2c]

Make sure that history never forgets the name Enterprise.

[@raverdeath100]

quite right - HMS Enterprise, damn fine frigate, sloop, survey vessel, paddle gunboat, ironclad sloop and light cruiser. i believe the US has had a few ships named that as well. joking aside, it's interesting that the name started with the French L'Enterprise, passed to the British by being captured and named HMS Enterprise and then it's namesake, the 1775 tender was captured by the Americans thus starting the American navy's legacy.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

I think Gene Roddenberry has heard you?

[@tomdolan9761]

The new carrier Enterprise will not only have pieces of CVN 65 included in her construction but also will have an interior bulkhead with three portholes from CV 5

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

@@tomdolan9761 I care more about it going to cost probably the retirement of the next three generations.💰

[@TheLiverTea]

​@@WALTERBROADDUSi think we're already past that point

[@roguejoe]

53:50 Though its outside the time period the channel covers, I can tell you that Los Angeles Class Submarines got significant upgrades during the Global War on Terror in order to operate in warm, shallow seas. Having been designed during the Cold War for Atlantic and Arctic duty, they needed additional machinery to handle warm water intake (as opposed to the ice cold water of the North Atlantic).

[@Archie2c]

All the axis powers service branches apparently listed each other as worse enemies than the allies

[@nektulosnewbie]

The same was for Allied militaries as well, they were just absolute buddies compared to the arned forces of Germany and Japan. The Japanese army and navy were rival factions, but in Germany, the Nazi government was designed to produce conflict and hostility for one very important reason. It was done that way to make sure that everyone had to go to the Fuhrer to get things done, and H then was indispensable to everyone as the only person who everyone had to obey which could bulldoze intergovernmental tribalism. Think of the Nazi inspirations in Star Wars. It's Sith Thinking 101.

[@XIXCentury]

@@nektulosnewbieThe Japan part is true, but the Hitler stuff was dreamt up by a pop historian to sell a boring book.

[@nektulosnewbie]

@@XIXCentury the way each branch had was a fiefdom and jealously guarded it has an element of truth to it. It may not have been intended, but often only Hitler could overcome those rivalries.

[@chpet1655]

@@nektulosnewbie and the allies had the same kinds of internal rivalries especially in the USSR but the US had lots of internal fighting for resources it wasn’t as blatant as say the SS vs the Wehrmacht but it was still there to some degree.

[@nowthenzen]

Sure, and that is why the Nazis had and Army and an Air Force Army and a special political Army bc they didn't want conflict and tribalism. @@XIXCentury

[@timengineman2nd714]

@ 39:19 Strange fact about the Spanish-American War is that probably the most killed and wounded Rating in the US Navy were the Photographer's Mates, since they had to have their heads and at least forearms outside of the armored parts of the ship to take the combat photos! (Add to it the size of the cameras back then, and the "slow speed" of the film, requiring more time exposed per photo, plus the time for winding the camera (or changing the plate) for the next picture, you can see why this is...) Please also remember the disparity between the penetration capabilities of the majority of the Spanish guns .vs. the armor of the US ships.

[@jonsouth1545]

even in the 2010s the patrol boats I worked on in the RN had voice tubes and I loved using them

[@OtakuLoki]

I can't confirm when pre-heating feedwater became common in USN ships. What I can say is that I've seen the Deaerating Feed Tank (DFT) aboard the USS The Sullivans. This tank collects the condensate water coming from the condensers, and while the tank is named for removing any entrained air/oxygen from the water before it gets put back into the steam boiler where free oxygen against the very high temperature water tube surface is a BAD THING for potential corrosion, it's also an important part of the efficiency of the steam plant allowing low pressure steam to remove entrained air from the water, while heating the condensate water from the generally near-room temperature condensate water to some higher temperatures. So, you'd have a low pressure (for values of low pressure when compared to the operating pressures of a Fletcher-class steam plant - so under 40 PSIG) bubble of steam over the feed water in the tank. The condensate returning from the tank would be fed into the tank through a nozzle that would separate the incoming feed water into smaller particle stream - allowing for more efficient heat transfer into the incoming water. Between that, and the bubble of steam over the water in the tank, the DFT would preheat the now pressurized water to above boiling temps for atmospheric pressure. This tank also provided positive suction pressure (head) for the feed water pumps so they wouldn't have to expend energy sucking the water into the pump - just pushing from the pump into the boilers. The volume of water in the tank further provides a buffer for demand as the plant speeds up or slows down. One quirk of the DFT: By going from a high rate of speed on the main turbines, to a much lower one, you can vastly increase the condensate water coming into the DFT. Which means you're adding a lot more cold water mass into the tank, at the same time as the bubble of steam above the water in the tank starts to shrink to account for the greater volume of water being stored in the tank. If you drop power drastically enough, you can condense that steam bubble I mentioned. This is known as, "Quenching The DFT." This is a BAD THING and can make the DFT try to jump around as the pressure inside the vessel goes from positive pressure, to vacuum, and back again in very short order. It's loud and makes a lot of dust fall down from the insulation around the piping. DFTs are still used in most USN surface steam plants, to the best of my knowledge.

[@stephenroyal1619]

I was told by a gentleman that made some of the voice tubes on the Battleship Massachusetts that the thickness of the metal was critical for the tube to work properly. He also spoke of packing them with sand to make the bends. Those tubes were a copper alloy, brass I think. It could have been an earlier Fore River Shipyard ship though. memories fade.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

The wall thickness might impact resonance, but I would think the inside diameter (and gentle curves over sharp turns) are as important if not more so. You want your wave carrier to be appropriate for the typical frequency of the signal it is carrying. Kind of like how it is easier to understand when someone speaks through a paper towel tube than drinking straw.

[@briannicholas2757]

This has been a perfect Naval weekend for me. We've had new Drach videos and on Saturday I got to attend a ship Commissioning Ceremony. I live in coastal Maine, USA, and the city of Eastport hosted the Commissioning of the New USS Augusta (our state capital name), LCS 34. It was quite the event. Despite the Littoral Combat Ships being a very bad design with a lot of issues, I must say she looked very impressive up against the pier. We haven't had a surface ship named Augusta since the WWII era Northampton Class Heavy cruisers. And that Augusta had a good career, even carrying Presidents Roosevelt and Truman across the Atlantic for allied conferences. So a perfect weekend, great naval history and some modern navy stuff as,well. Thanks Drach

[@ivanthemadvandal8435]

Enterprise just rolls off the tongue much better than Yorktown. DS9 also heavily featured the Defiant

[@matthewpalmer7184]

1:08:28 I actually sent you an email on this subject a couple months ago, but I know you've been busy/it probably didn't get read, so I figure I'll post here since you've brought the topic up. Dr. Donald Mitchener at the University of North Texas (where I just graduated with my doctorate) actually wrote a book (published 2021) on this topic, "U.S. Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific War: A Study of the Development and Application of Doctrine." He would probably be very willing to do a discussion with you on the development of Naval Gunfire support and its doctrinal systems/changes during the war, if you got in touch with him!

[@dougjb7848]

Vote for this

[@kkupsky6321]

I hope so. What’s an email? The postman?

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

From my training at NAB Coronado in 1976, USN doctrine was one destroyer in direct support of a battalion, a heavy or light cruiser in general support of a regiment or brigade and a heavy cruiser or battleship in general support of a division.

[@nathanokun8801]

The Krupp armor from OSTFREISLAND was tested at the US Naval Proving Ground. There had been some later improvements in Krupp Cemented armor in the later BADEN battleship tests by the British (I have enough data to be able to correlate British APC with US AP as to penetration ability) though the improvement was not by a lot. Pre-1930 KC armors were between 10 and 20 percent lower in penetration resistance (thickness for equal resistance to a given projectile) than WWII KC armor types. The older KC was also more brittle and even a very thin "Hood" (form-fitting soft-steel thin soldered-on nose caps), that witr used in the later base-fuzed SAP/Common projectiles to allow long pointed windscreens to be screwed on without damaging nd thus weakening the projectile nose by cutting threads directly into it, could in many cases keep these shells from being destryed on KC impact if hitting at a high-enough impact velocity. Post-1930 KC, in most types, wouold shatter such improved SAP/Common shells as if they were completely bare-nosed by having some small ability do bend slightly under impact, at least enough to cause the shell nose to begin breaking first. Only Japanese WWII Vickers Hardened (VH), a new improved non-cemented type of their prior Vickers Cemented -- from KONGO made in Britain in in 1912 -- now only used in thick plated of the YAMATO Class battleships, was not so improved (basically it was so thick that they never thought to improve its toughness in such a manner -- who would be firing SAP shells at these ships big enough to worry about?).

[@tomdolan9761]

Interesting, one war later the US Naval Proving ground tested the armor never used when IJN Shinano was converted to an aircraft carrier

[@richardschaffer5588]

RIP Nathan😢

[@nathanokun8801]

BUSNARCJ's shallow-sloped armored turtleback Wh-steel deck edge (68 degrees backslope from vertical) is very difficult to penetrate from the side after getting through the 12.6" vertical KC n/A belt armor plus the thin wood (?) support and hull plating behind the belt. In most cases at shorter ranges the engines, boilers, and magazines under the sloped deck are invulnerable -- only steeply-falling bombs or plunging gunfire with SAP or AP projectiles could usually get through that deck.

[@SCjunk]

Most shells have a rotating armed fuse - it runs up a barrel being turned by rifling and flies through the air (still totating) the until the fuse arms . To give an idea how insenstive fuses are - in WW2 during the desert campaign the British spun down a captured stock of German 7.5 cm KwK 24 AP shells on a lathe to reduce the driving bands to make an interim AP Shell for Grant tanks and the lathe speed was know to be inadequate to arm the fuse.

[@BleedingUranium]

Part of me understands why this is safe, the other part finds the idea of grinding down live shells on a lathe to be... not an ideal job.

[@CharlesStearman]

For what it's worth, I've always taken the quoted scene from "The Cruel Sea" as representing the characters' limited understanding of hedgehog, which they had presumably heard of but not yet seen in action.

[@SamAlley-l9j]

Thanks Drach.

[@480pilot]

Welcome back to the world Drach!

[@jasperfromming6633]

5h+ my day is perfect

[@johngregory4801]

On the question about naming the Federation Starship Enterprise, "Warspite" would have been an AWESOME name for a ship of the Defiant or Akira classes in Deep Space Nine... As long as she has impenetrable plot armor. Concerning the Black Prince question... Senator Tillman would like a word with you. 😂

[@18robsmith]

WoW, head cold or not five hours in total is a fair marathon 🙂

[@thcdreams654]

Excellent work. Thank you.

[@Ryvaken]

The American equivalent to Enigma, the Sigaba, was not successfully broken while it was in service. The machine was also so overengineered that it was impractical in the field and better suited to use by the navy than the army, but cryptologically it was a BEAST.

[@Lairo76]

I hope Drach does a Halloween special telling Ghost tales/stories from warships.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Seconded

[@clairekholin6935]

THIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Gordon519]

Dam right

[@onenote6619]

'The Code Breakers' by David Kahn mostly deals with Allied codebreaking, but does include some detail on Axis work. As Drach points out, the major Axis failing was that people tended to build their own little empires and those empires would never co-operate. Looking at the Fischer-Tropf process for coal-to-liquid fuel conversion, the factories required are not small and the reaction requires both high-ish temperatures and high pressures. To make a big expansion of capacity feasible, those factories would need to be built close to the coalfields and would have made superb targets for Bomber Command / USAAF. Looking at Wikipedia, it suggests that Germany used the Fischer-Tropf process to convert coal into edible (?) oils. 60kg of coal for 1kg of maybe-sorta butter-oid. If that is true, it suggests that synthetic oil is on the same order of efficiency as tar sands or oil shales, which is to say really, really bad ROI.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

The admiral summons the rowers of he Imperial flagship to muster on the main deck. "His Imperial Majesty has issued a decree. Do you with to hear the good news or bad news first." An old hand replies, "good news, you worship." "Very well, today you will feast on the finest food and drink known to man, joined by some of the most beautiful women in the Empire". Wild cheering. But after things calm down, the old sailor asks" What is the bad news?" The Admiral replies "Tomorrow his Imperial Majesty is going water skiiing"

[@jackgee3200]

The turret train systems were hydraulic for the RN & USN heavier batteries. ie, variable speed hydrostatic drives - latterly, with full servo loop control to keep the turret trained to the angle set on the dials. Other navies mostly similar. The hydraulic pumps were indeed often driven electrically with constant speed induction motors. But those motors did not directly move (or *control* the movement of) the turret. Similarly with gun elevation.

[@ernestcline2868]

It took me a while to realize Drach was speaking of a ship named after the Roman goddess Proserpine rather than a tree called a Proser Pine.

[@nowthenzen]

It's his Damn British Accent. Why Don't he Talk Right!

[@ernestcline2868]

@@nowthenzen I don't think it was an accent issue. I think he just sounded out the word based on its spelling, but he used English rules rather than Latin.

[@dougjb7848]

Was she wearing her car keys?

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

US ships used economizers to preheat their feed water. Many were separately fired from the boilers. In boilers, economizers are heat exchange devices that heat fluids, usually water, up to but not normally beyond the boiling point of that fluid. Economizers are so named because they can make use of the enthalpy in fluid streams that are hot, but not hot enough to be used in a boiler, thereby recovering more useful enthalpy and improving the boiler's efficiency. They are a device fitted to a boiler which saves energy by using the exhaust gases from the boiler to preheat the cold water used to fill it (the feed water). Steam boilers use large amounts of energy raising feed water to the boiling temperature, converting the water to steam and sometimes superheating that steam above saturation temperature. Heat transfer efficiency is improved when the highest temperatures near the combustion sources are used for boiling and superheating, while using the residual heat of the cooled combustion gases exhausting from the boiler through an economizer to raise the temperature of feed water entering the steam drum. An indirect contact or direct contact condensing economizer will recover the residual heat from the combustion products. A series of dampers, an efficient control system, as well as a ventilator, allow all or part of the combustion products to pass through the economizer, depending on the demand for make-up water and/or process water. The temperature of the gases can be lowered from the boiling temperature of the fluid to little more than the incoming feed water temperature while preheating that feed water to the boiling temperature. High pressure boilers typically have larger economizer surfaces than low pressure boilers. Economizer tubes often have projections like fins to increase the heat transfer surface on the combustion gas side. On average over the years, boiler combustion efficiency has risen from 80% to more than 95%. The efficiency of heat produced is directly linked to boiler efficiency. The percentage of excess air and the temperature of the combustion products are two key variables in evaluating this efficiency.

[@richardschaffer5588]

Great commeny

[@neilatkinson5142]

I've had the tour of the underground ww2 armament factory at corsham and the railway platform there has lots of partial circular pockmarks caused by shells being dropped during loading according to our tour guide.

[@TheMotorGuyDirect]

I always thought the photographers were expected to take pictures of the actual battles so they could be used by intelligence. Particularly enemy ships being hit and damage on their own ship or ships around them.

[@richardschaffer5588]

I think bomb burst photo was taken by a Photographers Mate. Obviously this kind of picture is useful for propaganda, so the armed forces want to control it.

[@tomdolan9761]

The fourth Yamato class battleship was canceled in March 1942 at about 30% complete. She was unnamed and officially designated Warship 111. She was scrapped in place with some of her being used in the conversion of the two battleships to hybrid carriers

[@keithstudly6071]

RE; Enterprise The US Navy had done their best to promote USS Enterprise to overcome complaints about the cost of the first nuclear powered carrier. Remember it was the last CVN commissioned until Nimitz over a decade later. Unfortunately most of the audience is too young to remember the public relations campaign the US Navy put on to convince the public how revolutionary CVN-65 was and how it was something amazing and futuristic. Gene Roddenberry was just using the 'gee-wiz' image that the navy had been promoting over the name "Enterprise". Being the only nuclear powered carrier and the only one of it's type it's name always carried a special 'cashet', especially in the early 1960's

[@lancejohnson1406]

In the Star Trek universe, there are TONS of ships with names of earth warships. Yamato, Bismarck, Musashi, Ark Royal, Warspite and in the same class as Enterprise were were the starships Constellation, Constitution, New Jersey, Exeter, Potemkin, Hood, Lexington, Intrepid, Yorktown, just off the top of my head. Enterprise was an ideal choice for the show, but the writers (meaning with Rodenberry's ok, used lots of famous ship name, and the gamers/non-canon ships seem to keep this up

[@chiseldrock]

the turret question is one I also was curious about!

[@eskhawk]

My theory about USS ENTERPRISE being used on Star Trek was because USS ENTERPRISE CV-65 was the only nuke carrier at the time. Also the class of starships it belonged were the CONSTITUTION-class

[@michaelpiatkowskijr1045]

You are correct about the Enterprise nuclear carrier. However, the Enterprise was used because of the technical advancement. It was also well known. It was a huge American media tool. The meaning of enterprise is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as "eagerness to do something new and smart, despite the risk." It is also defined as a business adventure and a venture between two countries. With that being said, he was a bomber pilot in the USAAC during WWII. The change may have been a group idea. There was the USS Enterprise that was known worldwide and a technical marvel. It was also at this time CV-6 Enterprise had just been scrapped. There is also the actual definition of enterprise. It was a venture to make money. They were also doing something new and smart with risk. The series also showed world unity and race wall breaking. They had many races and nationalities.

[@gwtpictgwtpict4214]

If you're in the area Portchester castle is worth a look. It's at the top of the inlet that Portsmouth harbour sits at the entrance to. Basically just a keep at one corner of a roughly square curtain wall enclosing an area of land including a chapel. It's sat in one corner of what was originally a Roman fortification. Built by the Normans.

[@axelrajr]

8m11s: i would like to add in that that those mechanical and electro-mechanical control systems can be achingly clever at times. Tom Scott, the older one over at Battleship Texas is going through the ship on his yuotube channel and covers in detail various facets of the ships design, construction, and operation. i would like to call special attention to the videos on the piece of mechanical art that is the ship's steering gear which also covers its 3 control systems, the engine rooms and what are probably some of the most sophisticated reciprocating steam engines produced, the turrets (which covers how they are trained), and notably, the video about the ship's fuel system which also covers a lot about the modernization. also fun was the video that covered how the ship's aviation fuel supply worked.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Bounty would have been a great name for the star trek space ship; as well as providing some fun plot twists.

[@pavelslama5543]

33:12 The warhead of each shell contained an interrupter - a device that physically prevent the detonation of the main charge as long as it was screwed in, or as long as the enemy didnt hit the main charge with another shell.

[@tcpratt1660]

I'd definitely chosen the Endurance for Captain Janeway's ship, whilst still being able to call the program "Star Trek: Voyager"...

[@Andy_Ross1962]

The benefit of a voice tube is it doesn't need power to operate

[@kanrakucheese]

0:44:30 "Beagle" would have fit the themes of the series, but would sound pretty silly to anyone who didn't get the name's origin (It did wind up used for an offscreen ship in the episode 44, Bread and Circuses). Trinidad (or the translation "Trinity") would also work while being less silly.

[@richardhartman5234]

Time Team Season 10, Episode 17, dug the Governors Green in Portsmouth. They fixed the location of the Royal Garrison Church, dating back to maybe 1212, and our buildings on the site.

[@geoguy001]

Ten -Go Scenario with Shinano puts even more strain on Japanese fuel supplies

[@crd260]

There's a playground close to my house that my kids have played at for years. There is a voice tube that goes underground, on the surface, the two ends are about 90 feet apart. You can clearly hear someone whisper into the pipe when listening on the other end.

[@Andy_Ross1962]

Large ships of most nations often had full time photographers aboard as part of the crew and war correspondents were also aboard. It was their job to take dramatic photographs and film footage.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

Speaking of combat camera. Supposedly that is how John Ford, injured his eye. He was wounded while filming the Battle of Midway.

[@normfinn8422]

RE caliber: Caliber *always" means the diameter of the bore. Caliber is used as the unit used to measure barrel length; it is not the length, itself. A 5-inch 38-caliber gun has a caliber of 5 inches and a barrel length of 38 calibers (190 inches). This is exactly the usage as, "a 5-foot plank" vs. "a plank 5 feet long".

[@philiphumphrey1548]

In Star Trek a lot of the Federation Starships seem to be named after world war 2 warships including Hornet, Yamato and Hood.

[@MrGunlover12]

And akagi and Exeter

[@ph89787]

1:40:14 if Yamato and Shinano are still afloat and moving once the sun goes down. Enterprise’s Night Group 90 and the British Pacific Fleet carriers will move in.

[@bkjeong4302]

Agreed. The Illustriouses might move in for the kill as well.

[@jonmack5359]

theb word calibre itself: probably was formed in French from Medieval Latin qua libra "of what weight"

[@Moman46250]

"Submarine modifications that made their way into civilian use?" - Submarines in general used the diesel engines to generate electricity to power electric motors. Modern train locomotives use a similar system. Which came first?

[@B1900pilot]

To my knowledge the only air conditioned spaces that I’ve read about were installed in aircrew ready rooms…Essex-class

[@Trek001]

2:01:36 - that anime warship is "curious" again... I honestly think its their favourite word

[@mpetersen6]

Roddenbury actually had a twofer with Enterprise. She's a Constitution Class vessel. HMS Amelia. In proper British tradition for the Napoleonic Era built in a French yard. When the RN took possession of QEll they should have sent a cutting out expidition into the harbor.

[@contantknots]

If yamashiro was replaced with a Yamato class at the battle of surigao, could she have held her own for longer?

[@skeltonpg]

Re adaptation of ships for environment. RN pre-war ships did not have heating systems, a source of significant bitterness on the North Atlantic run. (The RCN destroyer purchases in the late thirties were adapted, this is well documented.) Ships used on the Murmansk run generally had heating systems,

[@tomdolan9761]

I believe IJN Shōkaku was constructed in a slipway with a gantry crane whereas IJN Shinano was constructed in a brand new drydock (#6) which was finished in 1940.

[@pedenharley6266]

Re the location of the Washington photo: I think BB55 has three hatches on the centerline on the forecastle deck near the bow. My guess - assuming BB56’s 1942 layout was the same as BB55 now - is that the photo was taken just beside one of the hatches. I’ve put a couple photos in the General section of the discord chat to show what I mean. I don’t have an exact match for the photo, but now I’d like to get one! (And it would be rather sporting of the BB55 team to rotate the turrets to starboard for the effort!)

[@bryanraftery1352]

The photographer who took the night battle photo shown may have stood behind the wave breaker thing

[@l7986]

If the guy that took the photo of Washington unloading Kirishima could ever hear again I would be surprised.

[@jackvonkuehn9038]

Its very likely that the photo was taken by one of the PH1's The credits would be based on their rank at the time of the cruise. So even if they made CPO in the interim years they would be cited by rank at the time

[@IC3XR]

Could you make a video on the HMAS Vampire? It’s Australia’s largest museum ship, if I remember correctly

[@Cbabilon675]

Yamato: we won't survive Firepower of that magnitude at that closer range for long. Black prince: we didn't survive at all😅😅

[@jlvfr]

re: torpedo problems. For anyone that can read french, the *_LOS_* magazine issue 69 has an excelent article on the problems the germans had with their torpedoes.

[@pauldietz1325]

Did the Washington photo appear in any US newspaper during the war?

[@bkjeong4302]

It’s questionable if the IJN would have completed Shinano as the battleship even without Midway; even in the Shinano video, it was mentioned that work on her continued mostly for the sake of freeing up her dock, partly because the Japanese didn’t expect she would be complete in time and partly because Force Z indicated they didn’t need the Yamatos (at least not as much as they’d thought previously.) The second scenario where Shinano gets laid down right after Shokaku gets launched is thus the more likely scenario to result in Shinano being built as a battleship.

[@tomdolan9761]

My understanding is that IJN Shinano was laid down immediately after Drydock #6 was completed in March 1940 at Yokosuka whereas IJN Shokaku was built at Yokosuka in a slipway with a gantry crane in the late 30s. The fourth Yamato , designated Hull #111 was being constructed at Mitsubishi and was cancelled and eventually scrapped at about 30% complete with some of the material being used to convert the two hybrid carrier/battleships.

[@phuquocbui1979]

39:19 You would probably need to know the focal length of the lens the photographer used, as the same FOV on different focal lengths means the distance to your subject is different. Judging from the picture I would guess that it's a 50mm focal length lens as it's the most popular focal length in use in photography. I must wonder what ISO and shutter speed he used and how much light the muzzle flash of a 16-inch naval cannon can output (naval cannon muzzle flash as studio light anyone?).

[@dangarrett8676]

Maybe the TBI from that photo got the original photographer retired

[@88porpoise]

00:44:30 The only one thay comes to mind as omparable is Constellation. The name doesnt have as much hsitory, but is still recognizable. In exchange it has the space aspect in the name.

[@MrTScolaro]

For the best Italian surface action shouldn't it undoubtedly be the sinking of the SMS Szent Istvan?

[@DubGathoni]

Speaking of electrics on ships, in general, do capital warships use AC or DC systems in the Royal Navy? Other Navies? Were ships like submarines requiring of different systems?

[@timothysullivan2997]

Best Italian Navy success, wouldn't that be the attacking and sinking of the HMS Queen Elizabeth and Valiant in Alexandria harbor?

[@forksandspoons7272]

I'm wondering. Had the modern sabot rounds like those used by many tanks been invented during the big gun era, would there have been any advantage for naval use? The only one I i can think of is simplified gun manufacturing, at least for barrels. Smooth bore is essentially just a really strong chunk of pipe.

[@tankdriver67m64]

Vincent is called “Battlestar”? I pretty sure the F-16 is called “Viper” for similar reasons

[@nomdefamille4807]

if you only have the lower part of a 'reme remaining i understand that it gives an idea of the beam but how do you know how many "layers" there were for the individual ship ? The Ben Hur film "Roman" trireme uses one layer whilst I think the 1980's Greek build used three (with the face of the lower right next to the arse of the mid, which explains the fart comment by Aristophanes, though any arrangement in an enclosed space would presumably suffer much the same).

[@GrahamWKidd]

Ah yes Ladies and Gentlemen, at 1h 40m 50s, the RAN 80's Classic: FFBNW - Fitted For But Not With!!

[@MrTScolaro]

In redoing the Kongo, wouldn't it also be possible to evolve to a all or nothing scheme? Wouldn't that provide greater protection?

[@frederf3227]

I doubt instant and delayed action fuzes had significant differences in sensitivity. The delay element is usually a pyrotechnic which adds a time between activation and detonation. An event which sets off would likely set off the other, especially if they share common manufacture, a few milliseconds notwithstanding.

[@becauseimbatman5702]

Petition to rename the Enterprise drift to the Solomon Islands Slalom. 40:20

[@allangibson8494]

The German Post Office nuclear weapons program probably deserves coverage too…

[@nichtvorhanden5928]

Keep in mind that the Post office in Germany was also responsible for the telephone network so having a decription office isnt that unnatural for them

[@allangibson8494]

@@nichtvorhanden5928 The British General Post Office (GPO) also built the first generation of code cracking computers for the Bletchley Park operation…

[@nichtvorhanden5928]

@@allangibson8494 didnt knew that

[@porksterbob]

Note that the Japanese were very successful in breaking Chinese codes. This greatly hampered the Chinese effort as it was a major factor in them using telephones as a way of transmitting orders.

[@charlespfaff6585]

00:44:30 - I would of chosen Lexington, but I'm prejudiced.

[@jgjgjg739]

To be fair the cameraman never dies. edit: almost never

[@kemarisite]

Photographers Mate Robert F. Read was not killed by the bomb detonation that is sometimes said to have killed him, including (mistakenly) by Drach. He was actually killed in Enterprise's starboard aft gun gallery about 1645. The photograph of the third bomb going off on the flight deck, which is actually in low order, comes about a minute later at 1646 and that detonation caused no fatalities.

[@kkupsky6321]

I checked. Star Trek is way beyond the scope of the channel. I’m starting to wonder about how i understand time…

[@surf7lakemich1]

Best account of an oared ship, specifically a French galley of the 1600's, is in "The Splendid Century" by WH Lewis. The oarsmen were made up of criminals, slaves, and the occasional Huguenot. Each oar in turn rowed only for an hour and a half typically and sail was used whenever possible, except in the heat of battle.

[@gerardmdelaney]

John Knox was sentenced to death for heresy, but Marie Guise (Mary Stewart’s Mother and Regent in Scotland while she was the Queen of France) commuted him to the galleys. From which he escaped, made his way to Geneva and sat at the foot of Calvin. What trouble would have been avoided if he had met the executioner, instead?

[@bull614]

Do you think the Harwich Force could have made a difference at Jutland????

[@whigparty6180]

Drach's response shows the excellent basis for its response

[@Ryvaken]

In the fifth season of Star Trek the Next Generation, first episode, the Enterprise is the flagship of a fleet used in a blockade. Ships named in that fleet are Excalibur, Tianamen, Hermes, Sutherland, Hornet, and Akagi. The last two always jump out at me, especially given that they fly in formation. USS Hood makes several appearances throughout the series as well. USS Yammato was sister ship to the Enterprise-D. The series wasn't afraid to dig into military history for names at that point.

[@TheWareek]

On the question do shells explode when they hit things. I can tell from personal experience that they do not. Was loading 5inch shells onto HMAS Hobart and we dropped one from upper deck to shell store and no it did not go BOOM. There was no earth shattering explosion, thank god.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Though I suspect that a certain amount of dhobeying was required by all involved.

[@TheWareek]

just a terrible slip up that was never repeated.@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912

[@thomaslinton5765]

USS ENTERPRISE - THE "BIG E."

[@kkupsky6321]

Is a barbette calling barbs girls? Geez Drach. Ohhh barbet. Like a lady barber. I once knew a Barbara and she preferred “cosmonaut”. Or was it cosmetician? My dentist is a barber surgeon.

[@johnloman2098]

In America if there isnt pictures it didn't happen when we stole a type 9 that was dead in the water one of the nine people they decided to take onto the ship try to save it which they did and it's in Chicago now was a photographer