The Drydock - Episode 277

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:52 - How effective would the Union and CSA ironclads be in other wars?
00:07:34 - What real differences would have come from the USN being better supported and financed in the years between the Civil War and WW2?
00:15:25 - Why were the Italians allowed to retain the two Andrea Doria class battleships post-WW2 when all the other surviving Italian Capital Ships (The two surviving Littorios and the Giulio Cesare) were given to the Allied countries as War Prizes?
00:20:07 - In the Guadalcanal campaign; is there a reason why Japanese keep going through "The Slot" rather than the south west path or easten path?
00:24:12 - If Algierie is the best treaty era heavy cruiser, what ship would be best treaty era light cruiser?
00:30:41 - How were the German parachute-dropped mines (The Luftmine A and B) intended to be used?
00:32:43 - Changes in ships during the interwar period?
00:36:05 - Of all the Hood designs that were proposed before her construction was finally approved, which one do you believe had the best chance of surviving the lucky shot that killed her?
00:40:52 - Which nations developed radar enough to assist in gunnery and/or blind fire capability?
00:44:56 - 'Protection vs Firepower' conundrum?
00:51:47 - When was the last dive bomber/torpedo bomber/other discontinued type of naval attack?
00:54:07 - During the Washington treaty negotiations, was there ever a push by the British to have Dreadnought encased in concrete like Mikasa in order to preserve her for posterity?
00:57:56 - During the period your channel covers, how common was it for the crew of a warship to supplement their diet through some sort of fishing; be it by hook and line, nets or otherwise?
01:01:01 - Air power, dominance and Operation Ten-Go?
01:12:01 - New Poster!

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

Drydock while driving is an excellent listen. You even have my eldest son as a captive audience!

[@micnorton9487]

I hope he's the one posting,, NEVER TEXT WHILE DRIVING 👍👍🎄

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

​​​@@micnorton9487Allow me to reiterate. *About to begin driving and commenting while sitting in the driveway.* Good advice regardless. 😊

[@TheShrike616]

Likewise with Bilgepumps, excellent whilst in a gridlock.

[@dougjb7848]

Wouldn’t that be … _dryve-dock?_

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

@@dougjb7848 Well said, sir.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

Until the Great War, there was an unspoken agreement that warships did not prey on the fishing fleet. There are many accounts of RN frigates on blockade duty sailing into a group of fishing vessels and the captain buying the day's catch as a treat for the crew. This went out the window when the KM began its unrestricted warfare - the fishing fleet was providing valuable food to the enemy and the goal was to starve Britain, both economically and in terms of calories. Things got so bad in 1917 that the Admiralty was informed that no more fishing vessels could be requisitioned. This led to the Admiralty ordering the Mersey, Castle and Strath class trawlers (post war, many were sold out commercially to replace war losses and elderly vessels) - 424of which were completed. In addition, 362 naval drifters were ordered to Admiralty specifications (and thus are often referred to as "Admiralty drifters"). Shipyards used to building fishing trawlers or drifters could easily switch to constructing naval versions. As a bonus these drifters could be sold to commercial fishing interests when the war ended. There were two basic types of Admiralty-built drifters, wooden hulled and steel hulled. The wooden hull vessels displaced 175 tons, were 86 ft (26.2 m) long, with a beam of 19 ft (5.8 m). They had a speed of 9 knots and carried one 6 pounder gun. 91 wooden hull vessels were launched 1918-20, and 100 similar Canadian-built craft were ordered in January 1917. The steel hull vessels displaced 199 tons, were 86 ft (26.2 m) long, with a beam of 18 ft 6in (5.6 m). They also had a speed of 9 knots and carried a 6 pounder gun. 123 steel-hulled vessels were launched 1917-1920, and 48 others were cancelled Similarly, in WW2, the USN had no compunction about sinking Japanese fishermen, although it did not hunt them down, but sank what they encountered while going after all Japanese shipping.

[@jamesschultz5865]

For the dive bombing, I'm thinking about Operation Preying Mantis when a U.S. Navy A6 Intruder dropped an unguided bomb on an Iranian Navy frigate. It wasn't the 60+ degree dive used by WWII dive bombers but they came in at better than 30+ degrees and landed the bomb straight through the funnel destroying the engine room and crippling the ship.

[@nicholasmiller3872]

ah, yes! the time when the USN decided to sink the Iranian navy in an eight hour work day.

[@jeremypnet]

On the subject of mines, the British also air dropped mines throughout the war. The mine laying raids were called “gardening” even though the missions could be quite dangerous. Mines had to be dropped with precision because they wouldn’t work if they were too deep or too shallow, so that meant low level bombing.

[@onenote6619]

The Americans used them around Japan also, with very serious results. The not-so-subtly named 'Operation Starvation'.

[@antoninuspius1747]

Worked with a navy vet who said when he was on a destroyer in the 70's they fished off the stern whenever in port and had downtime and occasionally the captain will throttle down to like 8 knots and they'd troll for tuna when in the open ocean. So I imagine they still do it today, but it's probably more a treat for a select few rather than feeding the crew.

[@hughgordon6435]

There was a fantasic joke in one of the UK papers during the Icelandic "cod wars" of a sailor at the captain's table, with a fishing rod in front of him??? And the captain's quote is along the lines of you're not really trying to Foster international relations .... are you smith?

[@maynardcarmer3148]

Yeah, we did that too in port and while on radar picket duty, steaming at around 5 knots. It was something to do. Sometimes somebody even caught something.

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

I remember a cartoon in Punch back in the days when Soviet "trawlers" would shadow NATO fleets. This one featured a trawler canted over at an alarming angle while its crew rushes about frantically. A watching RN officer remarks "Looks like they're in trouble, Sir. I think that they've caught some fish by mistake."

[@theawickward2255]

Last year, I got to tour a Coast Guard buoy tender and the USS Barry, and I asked if they fished off the deck. The coast guard ship definitely did (they also set crab pots), I think Barry did too, and the sailors on the Barry also said they used the helipad for cookouts.

[@maynardcarmer3148]

@theawickward2255 Twice, while on deployments, we had cookouts on the fantail- no helo deck, you see- and one of the times, a Russian destroyer closed up on our starboard quarter to see what the crazy Americans were doing. I got nice close-up pictures.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

36:05 it is all of them, as soon as something changes Hoods speed by a fraction of a knot, the lucky hit wouldn't have hit and Hood would have survived. I imagine one that brought it's gunnery accuracy, such as fire control more into line with the Prince of Wales would have been best seen as it had constant malfunctions and only 5 guns working at one time, yet was the most accurate vessel there and was the first to land a shot. Which for a green crew with a barely functioning gunnery system due to it still being worked on. Shows how amazing those guns accuracy and fire control were on the KGV's.

[@nathanielweber7843]

I found this channel in may of 2023 and I’ve been binging years of missed content. One thing I found in drydock 167 was a question answered about the impact of various canals not existing on naval design and strategy. The summary of Panama was that South American navies would probably be more significant and that the US Navy would likely have made alliances with one of the two prominent naval powers off its coasts before the world wars kicked off, specifically the second one. What would have happened if America had allied with the Imperial Japanese Navy before this point? Obviously, relations with England in this period aren’t great, but they are certainly a lot better than those with Japan. Assuming the less likely alliance is pursued, how would the lack of embargo’s affect Japanese design and would there potentially be a war of America and Japan vs England and France irrespective of the European conflict? And what other ramifications would this butterfly into?

[@BleedingUranium]

On the topic of carriers (or air power) and their decisive strength being range, I've had an interesting thought on the topic. It seems plausible to me that we could see technology advance such that certain defensive measures could potentially overcome this threat; I'm mainly thinking of lasers. With lasers having effectively infinite velocity and "rate of fire", if we can make them powerful enough they'd be the pinnacle of anti-aircraft/missile defence... to the degree that they may obsolete those forms of attack entirely (at least against targets large enough to house them and their power supply). However... Despite those strengths, the major weakness a laser has is it's a line-of-sight weapon; you cannot fire at things which are, say, over the horizon. And the horizon is actually far closer than most of us tend to appreciate, especially in terms of seeing other ships. And even if we can have lasers that are effective at crippling/destroying an aircraft or missile, developing a laser with enough energy to meaningfully affect a large, high-mass shell flying at far higher speed seems rather more difficult. Which means that suddenly, a ship armed with heavy cannons would not just be relevant, but _essential_ to this new situation. In short, if we want to bring back battleships, we need to stick lasers on them. :D

[@lukedogwalker]

The Protection vs Firepower question seems to be a roundabout way of reinventing the Queen Elizabeths. Fewer guns, more armor (plus some bonus speed) = a German version of QE.

[@comrade_commissar3794]

So you're saying a 6 gun version of a QE?

[@lukedogwalker]

@@comrade_commissar3794 pretty much. A German QE that put the last two guns and turret into armor would answer the original question, but even retaining 8 guns the QE design comes very close to proving the principle, and whilst retaining enough guns to be a good artillery platform (spotting, split salvoes and all that).

[@comrade_commissar3794]

@@lukedogwalker Personally, i am enamoured by the R class, the idea of a heavily armoured mass production battleship is awesome

[@lukedogwalker]

@@comrade_commissar3794 I agree 👍

[@ians.1746]

Drach is by far the best KZbinr. Great videos. Great q&a. Great consistency. Great content!

[@Aelxi]

Thks for answering both of my questions Drach!!

[@PaulfromChicago]

29:00 The Towns have underwater sensors and depth charges. While ideally not prosecuting attacks against submarines, they can. They can cruise. The American cruisers do not have underwater sensors and this leaves them badly exposed in a couple of instances. Otoh, the Clevelands have much much better legs. Like 5,000 miles and more. That creates a lot of options the Towns don't have

[@Drachinifel]

I discounted the Cleveland's for finishing over the 10k limit, although that wasn't cheating, the treaties had broken down by then. :)

[@PaulfromChicago]

​@@Drachinifel Did I say Cleveland's? I meant Brooklyn's. I'm a chowderhead.

[@bkjeong4302]

The Japanese also had the idiotic idea to put depth charge rails on Musashi (not sure if they did this for Yamato as well). Because a fast battleship is a viable or sensible anti-sub platform /s Both Yamato and Musashi also had passive sonar built into their bulbous bows.

[@PaulfromChicago]

@@bkjeong4302 Yeah, the Japanese did love their passive sensors. And honestly, we kind of underestimate the importance of passive sensors in the 21st century. If you don't have radar, passive sensors are really useful for spotting something in a fog or other weather. Passive sensors were useful for tracking Bismarck for example. It really was a pretty big mistake for the US not to put those on their cruisers. Functionally, I don't think US cruisers could cruise. They were just kind of halfway battleships really.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@PaulfromChicago They also had radar detectors (see Yukikaze at Kolombaranga for a case where this paid off)

[@mflashhist500]

Totally agree with @ManiusCuriousDenatus !! I live in Australia 🇦🇺 where as Drach has experienced for himself, “a drive to the museum ” can be a 500km round trip ! The Drydocks are absolutely indispensable for making the journey enjoyable!

[@flambegaming503]

Bought the HMS Victory poster I’m happy to give you my money drach can’t wait to meet you at one of the ships one day!

[@quinnfell3824]

Always shocked at the quality of your content! Thanks drach!

[@christianfranzen7854]

Thanks! Which 3 admiral Hood are in your totally logical opinion most likely to have the honor of having HMS Hood named after him, and what did they do to earn their spots in the Drach rankings?

[@duwop544]

Very nice summation on "Why Carriers?".

[@antonisauren8998]

I appreciate refference to time traveling JSDF ship showing up and shooting down your whole air wing. :D But even they took some casualties then.

[@grathian]

In the early 80s we (USS Koelsch FF-1049) spent months on a patrol in the Persian Gulf backstopping the AWACs watching the Iranians and Iraquis. 5kts for extended periods, the fishermen on the flight deck quite often brought in interesting supplements for dinner.

[@user-hw1qo2mu9e]

Thanks Drach.

[@73Trident]

Great Drydock Drach. Thanks.

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

for the record in relation to you curiosity about dive bombing: it's kinda been replaced by "toss bombing" (which in certain respects is just an evolution of dive bombing) where the plane tosses the bomb like an underhand throw, the on-board computer does all the aiming and physics will get the bomb the rest of the way.

[@AndrewPalmerMTL]

Regarding the torpedo in a missile comment you made at the end of the segment starting at 51:47 The American ASROC system was/is a missile carrying a torpedo, though it this system the torpedo is an anti-sub one and not suitable for anti-ship use, I believe. But the Soviet/Russian SS-N-14 was a similar "missile carried torpedo" and IIRC did have a potential anti-ship use as well as anti-sub. I suspect those are still in service with the Russian navy ...

[@onenote6619]

Ikara and Malafon were similar in concept, but used rocket-boosted gliders to drop an anti-submarine torpedo in the predicted area. Probably longer range, but a bit slower off the mark.

[@whodat7523]

At 46:20, the protection VS firepower question. The protection VS firepower question exists within a mental box of sorts, specifically the mindset of armor effectiveness VS gun effectiveness. Have you run across any post-age-of-sail prototypes or designs where the engineers stepped out of the box and said let's design a warship that has enough armor to stand up to any naval gun currently in use and then some, so that it may stand up to future guns as well, but let's not get painted into a corner design-wise by trying to outfit the ship with guns on par with the armor- instead, let's go the avenue of designing this ship so that it can waltz up to any warship afloat, simply brush off any gunfire with negligible damage, and hose the enemy warship down with fire (burning petrol, napalm, white phosphorus, magnesium, etc)? Such a ship would be diverting essentially all weight of naval guns, barbettes, and projectiles into armor and speed, while obviously space and weight comparable to the magazines and gun machinery would simply be used to store, move, project and ignite the flammable material onto the enemy ship. Similar idea to Greek fire ships, but adapted to the battleship era to be able to rush up to battleships, cruisers, destroyers, carriers, etc, shrug off even their hardest punches and proceed to incinerate them both on the exterior and interior (petrol or napalm to torch the exterior and penetrate into any openings, magnesium or white phosphorus to melt through horizontal surfaces to open up holes for further flaming petrol/napalm penetration into the interior. I wouldn't put it past Nazi or Japanese leadership to want such a ship in the 1930's and 1940's; nor would I put it past other naval powers to mull it over, but was such a ship explicitly forbidden by any international treaties at the time? And how might such a ship fare in modern warfare?

[@connormclernon26]

On the fishing thing. My dad said that on his frigate during the 80's, it was the job of the juniormost officer to fish when they were in port in order to supplement their food in order to avoid paying for their food

[@michaelpiatkowskijr1045]

America had the S-2 Viking which was a jet torpedo aircraft. As far as I know, it was never used in combat. As far as dive bombing, the A-10 does that. The 30 mm cannon is really good to attack pretty much anything. The biggest thing about dive bombing is that air defense is really deadly and accurate. The A-10 is well protected from this. While nothing was dropped or fired, an F-16 was called in to support troops under fire. They could not determine where the friendly forces were, he decided to dive and create a sonic boom. However, nothing was like what it was during WWII. These were shallow dives like the Corsairs did during Korea or Skyraiders during Vietnam. It's very similar to what fighter sweeps did over Europe.

[@billbrockman779]

Re the “Danger UXB” photo with the sea mines answer, I’d love to know what each one is thinking. Probably ready to leave the area.

[@JohnDoe-rw5um]

On the topic of torpedo bombers, ASW maritime patrol aircraft armed with torpedoes are still very much a thing.

[@davidmcintyre8145]

One issue with the Brooklyn class and indeed any of the five turret cruisers was the restricted arc of fire from one of the turrets; this is why when the RN was looking at the early designs for the Edinburgh sub class of the Towns a four gun turret was originally stipulated however unlike the French the RN lacked much experience with four gun turrets and they wound up with four three gun mountings

[@jackray1337]

Thank you.

[@skeltonpg]

Fishing from warships. Perhaps picking up fish after a successful depth charge attack was relatively important.

[@nicktrains2234]

I love the drydock, i just wish i was able to listen to them on a platform where I could download them to listen to offline. I can't afford yt premium

[@lewiswestfall2687]

Thanks Drach

[@Wolfeson28]

I've never quite understood why you think that Operation Ten-Go didn't clearly establish that carriers had entirely eclipsed battleships. Yes, the USN had utterly overwhelming firepower to throw at Yamato in the historical event. But, even if the fight had been restricted to equal tonnage on each side, two Essexes would still have handled Yamato easily as long as they don't start out within gun range. It would have taken longer with only two carriers' worth of aircraft, and probably more aircraft would have been lost, but Yamato would still have been just as helpless and just as doomed due to the exact factors you mentioned (vastly greater strike range, less degradation of hitting power from damage, minimal risk to the carrier itself, etc.). Simply the order-of-magnitude difference in striking range meant a battleship had no chance against even a remotely comparable carrier force (at least as long as the carrier commander doesn't pull a Halsey). Plus, since virtually every WWII fleet carrier was faster than any battleship, or at least *as* fast as the very fastest BBs, there's no way for the battleship to ever close the range even before it inevitably starts taking damage that hinders its speed even more.

[@geofftimm2291]

Would the war in the Pacific ended a year earlier, if the US Navy had functional torpedoes?

[@TheShrike616]

In my opinion not. The mere buildup of the ships and logistics needed for the island hopping campaign would have taken just as long as in the current timeline. It would probably have meant less prolonged resistance from Japanese forces on these islands as their logistics would come under ever more pressure from from more, and more experienced US subs. Less sub attrition on that front possibly. But no matter the increased succes of US subs there would not have been a posibility to get boots on Japanese invaded terrains earlier. Even then, Japanese forces on the islands might still be willing to fight to the very end with what they have, logistics be damned.

[@clarkevanmeter2676]

@@TheShrike616 Hundreds of ships would have been damaged and sunk if the torpedoes worked. Japanese ability to fortify their expansion would have been dramatically curtailed and events like Tarawa likely wouldn't have happened at all.

[@88porpoise]

​​@@clarkevanmeter2676The Allies are still going to have to fight their way through most of the islands they historically did, even if resistance is somewhat weaker. And if you increase the speed of advance you are going to also have the US with smaller, less well equipped and experienced forces. Finally, it wouldn't have changed the two biggest factors in the timing of the ending of the war with Japan: the success of the Manhattan Project and the defeat of Germany (which brought about the Soviet Manchurian campaign and freed up resources that would have been necessary for Downfall). Without forces from Europe, an invasion of Japan almost isn't happening. And without some combination nukes and the Soviets joining the war, Japan isn't going to surrender without being invaded. So even if you managed to get to where the war was at the start of August 1945 a year earlier, you are gonna be left picking things off on the perimeter hoping to damage Japan before you can do the full invasion. All that said, if they had promptly recognized the issues with the torpedoes and took corrective actions, let alone them being good from the start, it would almost certainly have saved a ton of lives.

[@clarkevanmeter2676]

@@88porpoise eh, way too many variables at play to make these assertions. I should know better than to get involved in the counterfactual bullshit.

[@TheShrike616]

@@clarkevanmeter2676 True, but that has no impact on the logistical timeline, only on the lives lost which, granted, might have been significantly reduced.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

When the RN fired 4 gun ranging salvos was it 1) The right hand gun in each turret with the left doing the next adjustment 2) Turrets A and B. then C and D 3) A and C, then B and D 4) A and D, then B and C ? Enquiring minds want to know. What did ships with nine guns do?

[@Trek001]

Regarding the fishing - the High Seas Fleet when interned did a lot of fishing partly to supplement the rations but also to see how deep the water really was for Paragraph 11

[@benwilson6145]

I would guess dropping the anchor gave the vessel a pretty good depth gauge!

[@Alex-cw3rz]

In the modern day Dive bombing is actually an effective tatic against manpads, you can start your run above their effective range, drop into a high speed dive and as you pull up you release flares to hopefully disrupt the heat seekers on the MANPAD and go max afterburner to get out of their range as quickly as possible.

[@onenote6619]

I think that the kind of 'dive' bombing you mention is not the same as WW2-era dive bombing. Those were near-vertical in order to achieve accuracy, and the aircraft were specially built and equipped to withstand the enormous stresses. Whether a modern aircraft could do that kind of thing and survive the pull-out is a question I could not answer.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

@@onenote6619 30 degree dive I'm thinking of so not as steep

[@792slayer]

The A-10 employs some similar tactics, although the dive angles are usually on the shallow side.

[@AndrewPalmerMTL]

Possible additional consideration for the HMS Hood question at 36:05 If Hood has 6 forward guns (with either 3 or 6 aft, in the two configurations you discuss) and she's in company with PoW who has 6 forward guns of 10 total, that means 12 guns in the forward arcs (instead of 10) out of 19 or 22 (instead of 18). With such a greater proportion, and simple weight, of firepower available, does Adm Holland choose to not turn to open the rear arcs until later perhaps? Thus making the "lucky shot" pretty much impossible?

[@michaelpiatkowskijr1045]

One other reason why there wasn't more battle divisions sent to England is because of oil. The way I understand it, battleships like the Arizona didn't go over because England didn't have fuel for them. A higher likely thing to happen if America made more ships in a class, the South Dakota class could have been made earlier along with the Lexington class battle cruisers. The best question with that is what would happen with the Washington Treaty? The Washington Treaty let America build three Colorado class battleships, but if they were already built, that couldn't be done. As for Lexington class, they depend on when they're started and what changes happen because of Jutland.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

The Hwachon Dam in Korea. The French were flying SBD's in Indochina

[@ssgtmole8610]

I think the main thing I'd be interested in as a former enlisted person would be superior technology for crew livability in any monitor. The descriptions of the CSA and Union monitors/riverine vessels was horrible for the conditions crew were subjected to. The phrase "SPAM in a can" comes to mind. 😓😓 Were they any better in British or French monitors of the period?

[@keithskelhorne3993]

the Hood wasnt sunk! it was scuttled by its own crew!!! waiting for the bismarkboos,,,,,,,,,,

[@michaelparry5265]

Here's a song about Captain Drachinifel's adventures on the high seas Captain Drachinifel, sailing the seas Frigate at his command, cannons blazing with ease Broadside after broadside, the enemy takes flight Drachinifel's on the hunt, for prizes in sight He sails the ocean blue, a hero of the sea Capturing ships and fame, etching his name in history Cannons roar and colors struck, as ahe takes the prize Drachinifel, the master of the seas, his legend never dies A first-rate ship of the line, in his sights so fine Drachinifel's frigate charges, with cannons aligned divine The enemy trembles, as hes boards with pistols and cutlasses. Victory is his, as the enemy surrenders his sword He sails the ocean blue, a hero of the sea Capturing ships and fame, etching his name in history Cannons roar and his ensign flys, as he takes the prize Drachinifel, the master of the seas, his legend never dies Prize after prize, his legend grows Drachinifel's name echoes, as the seas unfold A master of the waves, his tale will never fade His frigate sails on, as his legend's forever made He sails the ocean blue, a hero of the sea Capturing ships and fame, etching his name in history Cannons roar and colors struck, as he takes the prize Drachinifel, the master of the seas, his legend never dies His story told and retold, across the waves so wide Captain Drachinifel, forever in the tides A legendary sailor, a hero of the blue Drachinifel's name etched, forever true!

[@onenote6619]

While Japanese navy had radar, both the British and Americans had picked up a great deal of experience in jamming radars (and communications for that matter). I don't know if any of that jamming expertise was actually applied in the Pacific Theatre, but I should think it would have had overwhelming effect if so.

[@01ZombieMoses10]

On the subject of the cost of losing significant parts of a carrier strike package; While I agree in principle that taking heavy armor piercing shells to a battleship costs more lives, losing trained airmen is one of the things that did for the IJN. Do you think that the fuel situation contributed more to the problems with training new pilots for the IJNs carrier air groups or was it more of an institutional problem (i.e., not preserving enough battle-hardened pilots for training cadres or not expanding training programs as early or heavily as they should have?)

[@B1900pilot]

Drach...There was a LOT of dive bombing going during VietNam and to some extent Desert Storm, including S-3s dropping Rockeyes!

[@billyshakespeare17]

Definitely had dive bombing in Nam. A7 Corsair II's would do a lay down and loft method with 500 lbers. That entails coming in at an angle and pulling up and using centrifigul force to place the bomb on target without having to fly over the target.

[@792slayer]

The Avro Vulcan was designed to do that with a nuclear weapon, too.

[@onenote6619]

That's called 'loft bombing' or 'toss bombing'. Also 'The Idiots Loop' when throwing a nuclear weapon and converting the pull-up into a 180-degree turn with afterburners screaming to get out of the blast radius.

[@792slayer]

@@onenote6619 heh. The idiot's loop. I hadn't heard that one before.

[@marlinstout4180]

I think the battleship's drawbacks in the carrier-vs-battleship question can best be summed up by a quote from 'Murphy's Laws of War'. "If the enemy is in range, so are you." If you want to kill an enemy battleship with another battleship, then your ship has to get into range of the enemy's own weapons. Whereas, with a carrier, your *weapons* (ie, planes) have to get in range, but your *ship* doesn't. Yes, the AA weapons of the battleship can take a toll on the aircraft, but they can't reach the carrier unless it makes a very bad mistake. And, as pointed out, aircraft are much more easily replaced, and thus more expendable, than ships. Also, the carrier has a similar advantage in striking shore-based targets; a gun-ship has to, by definition, be close enough to the target in order to hit it for the enemy to have at least a chance to hit the ship in return. Whereas a carrier (WWII or modern) can hit the target from a range at which the enemy might not even know it's there, at least until the planes arrive. Granted, modern ASMs can extend the range at which a shore battery can kill a ship (just ask the missile cruiser Moskva, if you've got your Quija board handy), even with missiles, you can't hit what you can't detect. Ultimately, it isn't relative ability to dish out damage, or shrug it off, that made the BB obsolete. It's the lack of versatility, and the range limitations on surface warships vs aircraft. Plus, as Drach stated, a healthy dose of risk-management. After all, no military officer worth his paycheck wants a fair fight; he wants the fight to be as unfair as possible, in his side's favor.

[@bkjeong4302]

This. The battleship in a carrier-dominated environment is a very durable target that can’t fight back against the new capital ship (the carrier) and can only serve as a gigantic and every expensive destroyer or cruiser. In other words, no longer viable. Even if no battleship ever was sunk by carriers, the inability of battleships to engage the enemy in a war dominated by carriers fighting at ranges of hundreds of miles would have rendered them nonviable anyways. This is a fatal limitation of literally every battleship ever built, and the Japanese were hardly the only navy to end up building pointless new capital ships that couldn’t actually threaten the new dominant capital ships (I.e. be unable to serve as capital ships). Though I would argue that being unable to hit the enemy because of being massively outranged DOES fit the definition of being unable to dish out damage to the enemy and therefore being an useless and ineffective weapon.

[@Right-Is-Right]

You forget that pilots are hard to replace, and that a battleship can kill an aircraft carrier as iys aircraft are pinned down unable to take off. It would of been very interesting to see a battleship take in an aircraft carrier. It's just that no one ever tried it.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@Right-Is-Right The aircraft carrier can just stay out of the range of a battleship’s guns even if its aircraft cannot take off; keep in mind that carriers (with the exception of CVEs) were faster than even fast battleships, with some Japanese carriers being able to outpace even an Iowa (and most of the rest could still match an Iowa in speed), so as long as the battleship doesn’t magically teleport to within effective gunnery range the carrier isn’t at much risk of being run down and sunk. Also, pilots are still easier to replace than battleships, and unless you’re one of the Axis powers so can’t rotate pilots (which is a far bigger problem in and of itself), it’s not that hard to replace them. And even the Axis powers had an easier time replacing pilots than replacing entire capital ships. People did try using battleships to catch aircraft carriers (though Ten-Go was not an example) and the only times it actually worked out for the battleships were during training exercises and one time when the carrier never bothered to check where the enemy was (in spite of perfectly good visibility, meaning this had nothing to do with the limits of naval air operations in WWII) and decided to just sail towards enemy battleships instead of bothering to maintain range. As a whole, competent carrier strike forces simply proved to be too difficult for battleships (and other surface ships) to even find, let alone close the distance with.

[@mbryson2899]

​@@Right-Is-RightBattleships _have_ caught a carrier that was unable to launch; they murdered it. However, the commander of said carrier was completely incompetent, it was not a problem intrinsic to it being a carrier. Absent that, in the WWII era, a carrier will simply stay out of range and murder the battleship. Post WWII, missiles from any source will do the job.

[@Right-Is-Right]

@@mbryson2899 post WWII missiles would murder a aircraft carrier going by your logic. Then anain, the logic of someone that dismissed facts because they don't like them, is questionable at best

[@marckyle5895]

37:09 Therefore Prince of Wales was facing off Bismark and Prinz Eugen by herself, with maybe some support from Norfolk. Which means she would have been severely damaged (but not sunk IMO unless a golden BB was fated to happen) considering her armor & Bismark, but she might not have been able to form part of Force Z if she had been damaged to the extent I think would have happened. British shipyards were already packed and that would have delayed repairs.

[@grathian]

Didn't the Swedes build a number of Ericsson monitors into the mid 1870s?

[@onenote6619]

Do modern naval pilots still train for skip bombing? That was developed for the same reasons as near-vertical dive bombing - to improve accuracy with unguided bombs. While a high-altitude approach for dive-bombing would likely be suicidal against a ship equipped with modern AA missiles, a skip-bombing attack is fast and very low altitude. If you don't have a Harpoon missile to spare ....

[@GrocMax]

Having just watched the series on US Fleet Problems, how the the heck did they score these exercises? Especially ship vs. ship gun hits?

[@toddwebb7521]

In addition to the splendid cats being at risk at Jutland if Lutzow and Derrflinger are 35cm armed ships remember that Barham, Maylaya, and Warspite got shot up pretty bad and where at some risk at Jutland so one or more of those maybe getting lost is at least a possibility.

[@m8rshall]

Hi Drach - In scoping around the internet I came upon a curious tale of HMS Diamond Rock - certainly one of the more unique "ships" to ever be part of the royal Navy - do you have any particular details on this weighty sloop of war?

[@oloflarsson7629]

The latest case of dive bombing against a naval target might be operation Praying Mantis in 1988, where US A-6's droped cluster bombs on iranian Boghammars. Dropping of unguided bombs from tactical aircrafts, against moving targets will generally include some level of dive before bomb release. If nothing else, because it's the only way to get the target and reticle in the HUD at the same time.

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

more often though, it will be through "toss bombing" (which in many respects is just a form of dive bombing especially the Dive toss technique)

[@oloflarsson7629]

Tossbombing with unguided bombs would mainly be used against fixed and known targets. Like how Tornados used tossbombing with 1000 pound bombs to suppress iraqi Flak around airfields, just before Tornados with JP233 pods made their attack runs on the runways, taxiways and aprons. Du you know how the Buccaneers originaly intended to go after shipping with their nuclear bombs? I know that they intended to use low level bombing, but if you intend to nuke, you must also get away from the blast, so they must have planned and trained for toss bombing or low level, level bombing with drag shute and time delay. The later would require the aircraft to drop the bomb well ahead of the enemy ship, allowing the ship to run over the sinking bomb, while the Buccaneer was running for safety. @@themanformerlyknownascomme777

[@Seraphus87]

Dive-bombing is absolutely still a thing, Military Aviation History did a video on the subject of F16s operating as dive-bombers in Operation Desert Storm. "Smart plane, dumb bombs"

[@prussianhill]

There's a KZbin video of one of my fraternity brothers fishing off the stern of USS Nimitz during one of his deployments.

[@shadowwolf2608]

AFAIK aircraft diving on targets is still a thing today because if you dive on your target, you can get a more perpendicular angle of impact. If you hit at too shallow of an angle, your cannon rounds and bombs may not penetrate enough due to what is effectively sloped armor. Diving on a target fixes this. The aircraft that comes to mind as the most likely candidate to dive on a target and attack it is the A-10 Thunderbolt II.

[@CharlesStearman]

The A-10's gun is actually angled slightly downwards relative the the aircraft's centre-line so in theory it can hit a ground target from level flight.

[@shadowwolf2608]

@@CharlesStearman Well I certainly didn't know that. That said I kind of get it.

[@johnshepherd9676]

(1) Given that the US Navy designed the South Carolinas at the same time as Dreadnought do you think that they would have developed the all big gun battleship several years before Dreadnought had the Congress spent money on the Navy after the Civil War? (2) With the KGV class, the RN did take the approach of more protection over gun caliber even if it was driven by treaty. However in the end they produced a ship that their protection could be breached before they could penetrate their opponents. (3) I think the final questioner is right for the wrong reason. Operation Ten-Go stood no chance because Yamato had no air cover. She had no air cover because US carrier aviation eliminated Japanese naval air power.

[@laminat0996]

The aircraft carrier/missile carrier comparison would better work the other way around, as the latter came after the former, and as modern anti-ship missiles have comparable range to carrier-borne aircraft, putting the aircraft carrier at the same risk of destruction, aggravated by the fact that missile ship has far greater SAM battery to defend itself against an attack. Maybe losing a squadron of $67M Super Hornets can be more aptly compared to losing a salvo of $2M Tomahawks (especially a single-use aircraft), which would be expended anyways

[@Uncommoner]

If the US Navy had a more significant fleet do you think the tensions between the US & UK in the 20s & 30s could have boiled over into full-scale hostilities? The lack of strength compared to the Grand Fleet may have influenced the UK to dismiss the US as a real threat to the Empire apart from Canada. Could the US tried to annex Canada if they felt in a better place to fend off the UK?

[@caifrank7425]

I always play the WOWS , World of Warships

[@GrahamWKidd]

Drach the Prodigious!

[@SCjunk]

last dive bombers were naval type of the French not US Navy, but in Vietnam at Dienbeinphu 1953-4 being SBC -2 Hell Divers, the other types such as F4U Corsairs by both France and US were not dive bombers as such -more of Strike aircraft, in Korea and again in French Indo China with Armee De L'Air, again British Fairly Firefly Mk V during Korean War but still in Strike role not dive bombing and latter US A1D Skyraiders in Vietnam. so last use would be 1953-4.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

Were the Mauretania and Olympic still coal fired? That would have been a drawback in a war powered by oil and also required armies of stokers at a time of manpower shortages during a war

[@Trek001]

They were powered by oil at that point... Of the two, _Olympic_ was more likely to return as she could light all her boilers up even when she went for scrap and was being made ready for return to service

[@grathian]

20% firepower reduction Town vs Brooklyn? More like 50%. 12 guns @ 6rpm =72rpm, 15 guns @ 10rpm = 150 rpm. 6rpm for the towns is being generous, 10 rpm for the Brooklyns was on the low side.

[@MultiZirkon]

SEPECAT Jaguars did some dive bombing in Desert Storm. It kept them above small arm fire and AAA. Don't know details.

[@onenote6619]

I don't know about dive bombing, but they definitely did dive designation. The Jaguar was the only aircraft in inventory at that time with capability to carry a laser designator for guided bombs. By lasing the target in a shallow dive, it was easier to keep the designator on target while a completely different aircraft lobbed a LGB in that general direction.

[@MultiZirkon]

@@onenote6619 They started their dive or "dive" at 31000 ft. -- There had been a test for it in the seventies, and it was almost not done, because it was so stupid to test an aircraft for dive bombing in the cold war. But then fifteen years later they could pull the test results out and apply them.

[@skeltonpg]

Re more money for USN in late 19c. The USN was largely constrained by the strain of building the rr network on steel supply. Giving the USN more would delay the development of the west directly or indirectly.

[@Right-Is-Right]

Or, The US could of invested some more steel, into machinery to dig up more ore and coal, and have more steel.

[@skeltonpg]

@@Right-Is-Right The railroads were taking all the steel the industry could produce, increasing production was not really an option. (You might read Menkin.)

[@SCjunk]

Part of the reason for Italy being allowed to hold on to naval assetd after the end of WW2 and again in part the reason the Italian Peace Treaty being 1947 was the problems around Trieste and the Dalmation coast, with Titos Yugoslavia etc which up until 1950 could have gone hard line communist as Albania did to HM Royal Navys cost. FYI Peace Treaty for Germany was in 1990 as the so called final settlement.

[@meaty1079]

Regarding the old now unused weapons wouldn't you class asw aircraft as been able to torpedo bomb?

[@bjturon]

At least for the 1860s I would not say that the USA is technologically behind Britan and France, at least not by much that couldn't closed by a bit of money and effort. Given the RN's issues with the Armstrong 110-pdr BLR gun, the Union's XI and XV Dahlgren and Rodman MLSB guns are superior weapons. The Union would build iron hull ships during the war, including the over 300 ft "Big Ericsson Monitors" 'Dictator' and 'Puritan'. In armor plated the Union was inferior to the UK and France, but still 'New Ironsides' did have solid 4.5in wrought iron plate. Were the Union was mostly inferior to Britain and France was I think of course ship dockyard infrastucture to build large warships, and organizational capacity and experience, as witness in with the "Light Monitor Fiasco" of the Casco-class. The technogical gap really widens after the Civil War as naval investment collapses after the war, while the Europe develops steel ships, compound and steel armor, and breach loading guns. But in 1865, taking everything that existed in the USA in terms of technology and infrastucture, the US Navy could have build big armored frigates like HMS Warrior, or a true sea going monitor like HMS Devastation.

[@Drachinifel]

The thing is that technology was advancing so quickly that "technologically behind" means about 5 years or so, gun metallurgy, armour plate, boilers, powder and shot (iron vs steel) etc were all areas the US was behind in, but as above, it only took 4-6 years to catch up, but by then others had skipped ahead still further.

[@briancox2721]

51:47 modern strike fighters retain a sort of dive bombing capability in that the avionics will continue to provide bomb release guidance on the HUD that will cause aircraft to drive if followed. But the aircraft certainly aren't designed with dive bombing as a major mission capability. Whether and how much this is practiced is an open question when there are bomb refit kits which will turn an old dumb bomb into a GPS or laser guided weapon. Perhaps a better question is when the last time an aircraft designated as a drive bomber by the nation operating it dropped a bomb in anger?

[@greenseaships]

One thing about the USN getting the funding it wanted between the Civil War and WW2- what would have happened if the ROYAL NAVY had seen the USN growing as much as it wanted to in the late 19th/early 20th century?? Given that, even at the start of WW1, there was some confusion about which side the U.S. would support (lots of pro-German sentiment in the US at the time), it seems very possible to me that the massive arms race of the turn of the century could and WOULD have taken place between America and the UK. Not good for anyone...

[@hughgordon6435]

Re bthe fishing question?? One of the things I remember from my "age of sail " history was ,under the bow sprit, there was a metal spike that was called the dolphin spear I was told this spike was there to spear dolphins swimming in the bow wave??? To provide meat for the crew? True or false?

[@markschennum188]

The spar pointing down under the bowsprit was called either a ‘dolphin striker’ or a ‘martingale’ (not a ‘dolphin spear’. Its purpose was to allow a steeper downward angle to standing rigging running from the end of the bowsprit back to the bow, necessary to oppose the upward forces imposed on the bowsprit by the jibs. The tip of this spar would never touch the water unless in truly monstrous waves. The chances of it ever contacting a dolphin were infinitesimally small.

[@onenote6619]

Attacking a dolphin was considered bad luck by sailors. And they tend to take superstition pretty seriously even now.

[@bkjeong4302]

I agree with your/Brown’s point about why the battleship era ended, but with one caveat; I would argue that the massive range and cost-effectiveness advantage of carriers DOES actually make carriers superior platforms to battleships even with the battleship having literally every other advantages. The reason I say this is because those two advantages of carriers render all those advantages of battleships basically (if not actually) irrelevant, so that in a realistic scenario the carrier is effectively at a massive advantage even if on paper it appears to have far more disadvantages. Yes, a battleship has more firepower-which is useless when you can’t get in range. Yes, a battleship is far more durable-which doesn’t allow it to be any better at attacking the enemy. Yes, aircraft can be shot down, but that’s (relatively speaking) a far better trade than losing an entire ship. All of a sudden the battleship is in a situation where it has no way to attack the opposition, only being able to defend itself; if the carrier really wants to it can even just ignore the battleship and go after targets that actually can pose a threat to it (i. E. An enemy carrier), as both the Japanese and the Americans tended to do in WWII. This is why I’ve always said that the point where battleships become strategically obsolete is the point when airpower meaningfully outranged battleships (end-30s, early 40s at the latest). Because by that point carriers had those two advantages and that was enough to make battleships obsolete as capital ship outside of niche scenarios.

[@Right-Is-Right]

Interesting, you think aircraft are cheap, or you believe an aircraft carriers weapons are not part of the carriers cost.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@Right-Is-Right As Drach pointed out, losing a carrier’s entire air wing (which is unlikely) is still not as costly as losing a battleship. Not to mention that unless you’re the IJN and your pilot training program is garbage (which is already a problem in and of itself and something you should have dealt with) it’s a loss that can be replaced reasonably quickly. All the battleships to enter service in WWII, from all three Western Allies and all three major Axis powers, were strategically obsolete, pointless and wasteful upon commissioning. Nobody had realized that was the case just yet, but that doesn’t mean that wasn’t the case.

[@Drachinifel]

In WW2 the cost ratio was even more lopsided, an Iowa cost as much 15-20 carrier air groups worth of aircraft.

[@Right-Is-Right]

@@bkjeong4302 LOL, so in a direct fight, an aircraft carrier is better because it's aircraft are cheaper to replace than a whole balleship? But the aircraft carrier would then be killed. Or are you then going to argue that there are other ships to cover the carrier? Ignoring the battleship will have its own escorts.

[@Right-Is-Right]

@@bkjeong4302 Here is a fun thought exercise, how would the US have faired against the IJN if they had compare defence from aircraft? I contend the IJN would of had the defence to force the US to use battleships more aggressively, because they would not all been required to cover aircraft carriers, and we would know the answer to the question, which would win a head to head battle, an AC or BB

[@bigsarge2085]

✌

[@jeremybrowand5941]

Operation preying mantis, an a6 ran a dive bombing run on an Iranian frigate (1000 lb bomb).

[@Mildly.Squeued]

Its seems clear to me that U.S. based monitors were more of a nasty moveable island. Great for defense or annoying local enemies. Yet long distance or open ocean travel must at best have been comical. Englands' navy witnessing any of this must have spent hours at the pub poking fun at the U.S.. Seeing the crew barfing upon arrival gave the British newspapers substantial fodder as well. And sheparding across the Atlantic may be largely inaccurate. More than likely dragged.

[@benwilson6145]

England had ceased to have a navy long before the US Civil War

[@Revkor]

on the ten go thing. the reason the Iowa's were brought back in naim because it was cheaper to have them lob shells that cost a few thousand dollar then a jet and pilot cost a couple mil

[@bkjeong4302]

You’re ignoring the cost of the battleship and the fuel and manpower needed to run her.

[@johnshepherd9676]

The O&S costs of a battleship is less than a modern carrier and doesn't take a lot of aircraft losses to pay for the reactivation. As usual you don't know what you are talking about.

[@Revkor]

@@johnshepherd9676 Yes i DO know what I am talking about for that was the reason they brought 2 Iowa's back into the fleet since lobbing a 16 in shell at a target in range was cheaper and less risky then using a plane and pilot. So before you insult anyone DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH

[@Revkor]

@@bkjeong4302 manpower wise and aircraft carrier takes more to man then a BB even and Iowa BB. Fuel would not be a big issue if the enviro commies were ignored. now does this apply in all issues no. but anythign within I think 16 miles of the coast a BB can be more cost effective then a plane or even a missle

[@bkjeong4302]

@@johnshepherd9676 You’re ignoring that the Iowas had to be built in the first place back in WWII when another four Essexes would have been a better trade at that time. The Iowas got used (albeit in a far more limited capacity than often assumed) post-WWII because the USN needed to do something with their failed investment, not because building them back in WWII was a good idea in hindsight.

[@kurotsuki7427]

Torpedo tenderized fish

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

My-An-Ton-O-Mah

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

1)The Brooklyns didn't have to sacrifice a turret to improve close range AA fire, the Towns did 2) The Brooklyns were longer ranger by around 5000 miles 3) One Brooklyn was lost versus four Towns. One Brooklyn was severely damaged versus one Town.

[@merlinwizard1000]

12th, 17 December 2023

[@vespelian5769]

Two (Russian) classes.

[@thomasbernecky2078]

Would the Doctor like another flying fish? They're coming aboard in covies.

[@stephennmullins3989]

2024May23: .

[@Cbabilon675]

The town's class by a hair really LOL why isn't he just admit it it's because it's British😂😂

[@billyshakespeare17]

Not sure anyone exists who could challenge Drach on this or other yank vs pom comparisons. But if someone with a contra view and had the knowledge did exists, the debate would be delightful.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

@@billyshakespeare17 1)The Brooklyns didn't have to sacrifice a turret to improve close range AA fire, the Towns did 2) The Brooklyns were longer ranger by around 5000 miles 3) One Brooklyn was lost versus four Towns. One Brooklyn was severely damaged versus one Town.

[@billyshakespeare17]

@@ROBERTN-ut2il Great points Robert. I wonder if the Towns had ice cream machines? Pretty sure Brooklyns did as part of the original design?

[@Drachinifel]

@@ROBERTN-ut2il I don't think losses can really be used as a metric, the Towns faced the bulk of their losses and damage in the earlier part of the war when the US wasn't even involved, which is the period when AA defences were much weaker. A Brooklyn off Crete isn't going to do any better IMO.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

@@DrachinifelA Brooklyn would do much better

[@stanleyrogouski]

Why build the New Jersey or the Iowa if you weren't going to use them against the Yamato? They were massive overkill against the Kongos. A modernized Tiger could have handled a Kongo.

[@bkjeong4302]

Because the Americans really did think they needed something like the Iowas to fight the Kongos for whatever reason (the speed I can understand, but why that much firepower?). The Iowas really weren’t especially sensible procurement decisions, not just in light of what they ended up being used for but in light of their design premise. Something liked a beefier version of the Alaskas could have dealt with the Kongos even assuming that the Kongos really were a threat to American carriers (which they were not).

[@stanleyrogouski]

@@bkjeong4302 The standards wound up being completely useless in the Pacific, although a Tennessee or Colorado could have probably handled Kirishima as well as Washington in the confined spaces at Guadalcanal.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@stanleyrogouski The Standards did do a lot of shore bombardment work in the Pacific (and unlike the fast battleships, none of them took up additional dockyard space, materials or manpower to construct just to be used in a supporting role because they already had been built a long time ago-though many of them obviously did have to be refitted because of PH). And while the Standards couldn’t keep up with carriers, keeping up with carriers didn’t allow the fast battleships to actually engage the enemy alongside the carriers (because of, again, the extreme range difference between battleships and carriers), and you don’t exactly need 16” guns for AA duties either. If you really did need a capital ship dedicated for fast AA escort duties (which is itself questionable to say the least), why not make something with no main battery at all and only DP and AA weapons?

[@stanleyrogouski]

@@bkjeong4302 Yamamoto's plan at Midway was to draw Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown into his battle line. Washington and North Carolina had been commissioned in the Summer of 1941. I'm not sure where they were in June of 1942. But I suppose they were still experiencing the vibrating bow problems and would have been more trouble than they were worth.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@stanleyrogouski Yamamoto’s Midway plan was to have the Kido Butai kill the American carriers while luring the rest of the American force towards the battleships-and it was a terrible plan because it never would have caused the Americans to charge towards the Japanese battleline (because they wouldn’t have to charge towards the Japanese surface units to fight the Japanese; they were going to rely entirely on airpower to attack the Japanese and the battle was decided entirely through the carrier engagement). There was nothing to stop the Americans from simply staying away from any Japanese vessel while launching air attacks on the Kido Butai (as in the only Japanese force that could meaningfully attack the American carriers).