The Drydock - Episode 278

00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:45 - What is the difference between the Triple Expansion engines used in ships and the "triplex" steam locomotive? Why were triple expansion engines successful in both warships and civilian vessels while every attempt at a triplex locomotive failed?
00:06:36 - How effective would a quadruple expansion steam engine have been compared to early steam turbines would it have been more cost effective for some navies to have tried to use these instead of early turbines given some countries had monopoly on their production?
00:12:08 - What is your opinion about the viability of launching vengeance weapons from U-Boats?
00:18:50 - A Russian battlecruiser designer also designed SS Normandie?
00:22:17 - Would it have made any real difference for the Armada if the Spanish had copied the English designs when prepping for the invasion?
00:27:00 - Given that sailors have always been superstitious and having a Jonah aboard is thought to be bad luck, is naming a ship Elizabeth Jonas (aka Jonah) really good idea?
00:33:21 - Could you describe the type of guns aboard the Mary Rose and Tudor navy?
00:38:57 - Why didn't the Armada make for the Firth of Forth to resupply and reassemble? Surely that should have been a back up plan?
00:42:25 - Have the Russian's ever had a good navy?
00:47:55 - What moment or era during the period the channel covers had the biggest power gap between the world's two strongest navies?
00:51:59 - With the benefit of hindsight, what was the optimal composition of US fast carrier task forces in WW2?
00:56:23 - Prizes in WW2?
01:02:56 - HMS Coassack and cutlasses?

[@SynchroScore]

So, amateur railroad historian here (I'm actually typing this before going off to work as a streetcar conductor at a museum) and I can confirm what was said in the video is generally accurate. The triplex locomotives were built between 1914 and 1916, at a time when most freight cars were at least partially built of wood. Railway couplings (whether automatic couplers or chain-and-buffer couplings in Europe) have slack in them, and railways at the time relied on this to gradually jerk the cars along when starting the train. Too much force at the front could break the couplings, and so Triplex locomotives were quickly relegated to helper (Britain: banking) duty, pushing trains uphill from the rear. Even then, too much force at the rear could cause cars in the middle of the train to pop off the track on curves. This was low-speed work, and they didn't have the boiler capacity to feed the cylinders at speeds above 10 mph anyways. There are two other flaws with the Triplex design that meant they could never reach their full potential: Adhesion, and drafting. Locomotives must be sufficiently heavy to prevent the steel wheel from spinning on the steel rail. (There are some interesting early experiments by people who didn't think this would work, including locomotives engaging gear racks or fitted with shoes that pushed along the rail). Ideally, the factor of adhesion (weight on drivers divided by starting tractive effort, both measured in pounds) should be at least 4. But putting driving wheels beneath the tender means that, as coal and water are consumed, the weight on that set of drivers decreases, which either reduces available tractive effort or increases the chances of wheelslip. When the rear engine slipped, it would consume all the low-pressure steam available, meaning the front engine would stall out as well. Drafting is the other problem. You've mentioned how that works with steamships, and it's also critical for locomotives. The reason steam locomotives make that chuffing noise is because the steam exhausted from the cylinders is directed up a blast pipe below the stack, into the open space of the smokebox, and so the blast pulls fresh air through the firebox. More speed = more draft = hotter fire = more power, a natural feedback loop. On a conventional compound locomotive, all the exhaust steam from the low-pressure cylinders is directed up the blast pipe, contributing to draft, and so compound articulated locomotives (named Mallets after their French inventor) were generally successful. But with Triplexes, the rear engine exhausted through a separate stack on the tender, and so did not contribute to the draft, which further limited the amount of steam the boiler could generate.

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

Thank you!

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

"Amateur." Certainly not. Thanks for the contribution. Very interesting. I had a student absolutely fascinated with locomotives. I'll have to share this with him.

[@mbryson2899]

@SynchroScore, thank you for the very clear and understandable summary. 👍

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

on that note about helper/banking duty: I want to mention that the Triplex's use in this role is not a bad thing (infact, the Eire Triplex that is shown in this video was designed for the express purpose of helping/banking up a certain grade on the Eire mainline) so that low-speed high torque is not a bad thing in this scenario.

[@dougjb7848]

Do you have channel for steam powered locomotive history? If not, I think you should start one. I bet there are tools out there that would help you … perhaps tools used right now by somebody who creates naval history content …

[@davidbrennan660]

Best wishes to Drach, Mrs Drach, Channel and fellow Subscribers lurking and in the chat...take care enjoy.

[@lunatickoala]

Trying to load 5 tonnes of liquid oxygen onto a V-2 from a U-boat sounds like a lot of fun and has no chance of going horribly wrong. Little Boy was 4400 kg and the V-2 had a warhead of 1000 kg so they'd have had to Kerbal together five V-2s to have enough lift for a WW2 nuclear weapon, and nothing ever goes wrong when you try to Kerbal together a rocket like that.

[@chrissouthgate4554]

They got as far as testing a dummy container in the Baltic. The U-boat Captain reported that it slowed the sub down & made steering & depth keeping hazardous/dangerous. Please forget the idea.

[@scooterdescooter4018]

"moar boosters"-Jeb

[@nvelsen1975]

It just needs more boosters. Everything gets better with more boosters.

[@benwilson6145]

The US took the plan seriously. The crews of U Boats captured of the US Coast in 1945 were tortured to extract knowledge on this plan.

[@craigplatel813]

Of note, Mark Felton just released a new video covering KG-53 and the German's 1944 Christmas attack of 30+ v-1's launched from modified He-111's. From summer of 44 to Jan 45 KG-53 launched hundreds of v-1's against England. Very poor accuracy due to not having a good location of the aircraft when launching the v-2.

[@bryanstephens4800]

Merry Christmas everyone

[@MrAjfish]

This channel and the community around it are just fantastic. Merry Christmas to you too, good sir.

[@paulamos8970]

Thank ypu Drach for another brilliant Drydock. Wishing you Mrs Drach and all your subscribers a very Merry Christmas.

[@edroosa2958]

Thanks Drach for another year of excellent videos. You do a great job of making this a “well balanced” channel. You mix not only different time periods but also content (engineering, battles, history, military politics, logistics, etc..). I wish you and your family a very Happy and Safe Holiday Season. Safe travels if you are traveling. Take care and see you next year.

[@duwop544]

Well said! Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!

[@williamlloyd3769]

Checkout the USS Grayback (SSG-574) that the USN built after the war. Designed as an attack submarine, but was converted in 1958 into a guided-missile submarine (SSG-574) armed with the Regulus nuclear cruise missile. There is a Regulus missile displayed at Missile Park, next to Point Mugu Naval Air Station in Ventura County, CA. USN version of a V-1, called a Loon is also on display.

[@genericpersonx333]

00:33:21 - Could you describe the type of guns aboard the Mary Rose and Tudor navy? Important thing to note is that Bronze is not significantly "weaker" than iron. With the right working, bronze can comfortably substitute for iron and even many steels in many applications. The two are highly competitive as structural materials, and the much lower energy requirements to make bronze is a big bonus in an age, like the Elizabethan when charcoal is your main energy source for forges. The issue with bronze is that it requires two relatively rare elements to be made, with there being several times more iron in the world and in more places than copper or tin, especially tin. Thus, it became more economical to develop better energy sources to work iron, despite the much higher energy demands, because it was more practical to do that than find more copper and tin to make the demanded quantity of metalwork. It also eventually came to pass, with improvements in energy, that making steel became more practical, and it was far easier to make a steel stronger than bronze than making a stronger bronze, leading to the eventual replacement of bronze for most practical purposes. If there was as much copper and tin as there is iron in the environment, it is likely iron would be far less popular than it is.

[@onenote6619]

Good bronze beats bad iron. But once you work out how to smelt iron, the ore can be found just about everywhere, whereas copper ore is rarer and tin ore much more so. During the bronze age, trading tin over long distances was a big deal.

[@user-hw1qo2mu9e]

Thanks Drach.

[@sadwingsraging3044]

Merry Christmas Drach and family! Keep up the good work lad.🎄☃🚢

[@jillatherton4660]

MERRY CHRISTMAS. 👍

[@Zeppflyer]

I'd add a few points to the locomotive discussion. First, the triplexes were typically intended as 'banking' engines which assisted heavy coal trains up steep grades. They were neither intended to go fast nor keep up steam indefinitely. Another big issue is starting torque. A double+ expansion engine has to be started from a specific spot in its cycle and doesn't develop full torque until steam has worked its way through the whole system. On a warship or stationary engine, a small jacking motor can rotate the main engine into this position. A locomotive, though, needs to develop full torque from a dead stop and from any point in its cycle. Duplex locomotives often had a 'simplex' valve, which allowed them to operate as a simple engine at startup, converting into a double expansion system once they were up to speed. This was already a complex, maintenance-intensive system and trying to build one for a triple-expansion engine would have been even more difficult for diminishing returns in efficiency.

[@scott2836]

Protestants and Catholics did not get along in the time of the Armada? Drach, you astonish me. Next you will tell me that the French and English have not always been the best of friends… 😂

[@hmsverdun]

Thank you for your hard work throughout the year and a Merry Christmas to you Drach and your house!

[@agesflow6815]

Thank you, Drachinifel.

[@greenseaships]

58:21, For one thing, you've told us that after Cape Matapan, the British were considering towing the surviving Italian ships as prizes but scuttled them because of the threat of follow-up air raids.

[@DurkaDurkaDunk]

Another Great Drydock! One thing on expansion engines over the turbine question. Per my personal research and my source books on steam engineering one such is the USNI textbook for Naval Machinery published 1935-37 and my copy of steam engineering from the ICS in 1902. One topic that was the main factor to go to turbines was lubrication. On a vertical engines at the time you commonly (until very late produced expansion engines) found waste oil systems or total loss oil systems, meaning all oil for lubrication was used once and lost, not recirculated. So the higher your rpm more oil waste of the limited lubrication oil on the ship. This also meant that at high rpm you had oil spraying and vaporizing into open air in machinery spaces, covering everything and everyone. As well as the higher center of gravity and the notion that vertical engines will shake themselves apart, if ran at high rpm for extended times, causing wear on hull and engine components. Thank You Drac for more great content!!

[@christinedempsey8572]

Merry Christmas man, you have a good time this festive season.

[@mhmt1453]

Merry Christmas Drach! And, of course, Merry Christmas to Mrs. Drach and the dog..

[@richardw2566]

Merry Christmas Drach and everyone

[@TheDoctorMonkey]

If only you had friends who WERE train geeks... like the other two of the ShipShape crew 😉

[@admanpaulandrew]

Thank you for informing and entertaining me for another year. Though I have been a land warfare historian since my university days and before, you have persuaded this old man to take a very keen interest in the art of war afloat. Hope you had a great Christmas with Mrs Drach. Cheers mate from Australia.

[@rickstersherpa]

6:20 I want to thank you for all the great naval documentaries. Wish you a happy new year 🎉

[@coldwarrior78]

Thanks for another year of excellent videos. Hope all is well with you and yours. Best wishes for the New Year.

[@johnbuchman4854]

Russian navy had the best lookouts -- able to spot torpedo boats at incredible distances...

[@JKeays100]

Thank you for the answer on the Mary Rose. It has bugged me for so many years

[@Geoff31818]

Merry Christmas Drach! Have a good one

[@Wolfeson28]

Merry Christmas, Drach, and the whole family. Thanks for another year of great naval content.

[@thomasbernecky2078]

Happy holidays to Drach and family, and to all 467k subscribers too. It's only here I can find the definitive answer that the RN used cutlasses in WW2? I'm currently enjoying reading the Aubrey Maturin audiobooks, so it doesn't seem odd at all?

[@user-to9fw1wv9l]

“Merry Christmas to you and your family.” 🌟🎄❄️☃️🎁

[@CB-vt3mx]

Merry Christmas Drachland!

[@jonginder5494]

Drach must be one of the hardest working KZbinrs. Hats off.

[@73Trident]

Thanks Drach and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

[@jonathansmith6050]

Re: "probably hit the state you were aiming at" :D Actually several of the plausible target east coast cities for u-boat launched V weapons, like New York, Philly, or DC, are right against a state line so the weapons would have about an even change of hitting the next state over :D

[@kommandantgalileo]

Merry Christmas Drach.

[@williestyle35]

42:25 It could be said that the Russian Navy's best moment (wax rather violently type moment) was during the October Revolution. The cruiser _Aurora_ was the Russian ship that fired the first shots that signaled the revolt that would eventually lead to the creation of the U S S R (or CCCP, depending on language or definition). Thanks Drachinifel ! 🧙 🎄 Merry Christmas to all 🎄

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

IIRC, Medieval and Tudor built up guns were hammer welded as well as being bound by hoops. AS far as guns exploding, it was not uncommon. In 1460, James II of Scotland was besieging Roxborough Castle. " On 3 August, he was standing near one of these cannons when it exploded and killed him. Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie stated in his history of James's reign that "as the King stood near a piece of artillery, his thigh bone was dug in two with a piece of misframed gun that brake in shooting, by which he was stricken to the ground and died nastilie"

[@glenchapman3899]

I bet the auto correct gave you a lot of nastilie grief when you tried to type that sentence lol

[@amerikanish07]

Thank you so much for yet another year's worth of incredible content, Drach! I don't know how you do it, but I'm immensely grateful that you do!

[@Ensign_Nemo]

@ 12:08 The US version of the V-1 was the JB-2, or Jet Bomb 2. The US built about 1400 and had plans to use them as harassment weapons to bomb Japan after the US had seized a beachhead on the island of Kyushu, especially during poor weather when the B-29 bombers were grounded. The US added remote radio control, which gave them an estimated accuracy of about 1/4 mile at a range of 100 miles, or 400 m at a range of 160 km. This wasn't precision bombing by modern standards but it could have allowed a mass attack at a large target such as an industrial plant with a good chance of doing enough damage to matter. It was a significant improvement over the V-1, but wasn't quite good enough to make it a dependable method of bombing.

[@damienparoski2033]

Merry Christmas to you all and to all a good sailing!

[@johnbenson4672]

Re the question "What moment or era during the period the channel covers had the biggest power gap between the world's two strongest navies?" I wonder how the post WWII Royal Navy compared to the U.S. Navy.

[@Wolfeson28]

Ya, 1945 would have been my guess, too. The RN wasn’t that far behind in battleships, but the USN had VASTLY more carriers of all types, and similar numbers advantages in cruisers/destroyers/submarines.

[@kenharrison3409]

KZbin is finally getting my Drach mix correct. Recently, they started putting the most recent content with several hours of various past episodes listed behind it. Every night 🌙, they post it first. Lately, I haven't had to hunt through my feed to find it.

[@danieltaylor5231]

No, no. Jonas was dead, but he got better. Merry Christmas Drach, Mrs Drach and doggo Drach.

[@scottmason2557]

Merry Christmas Drach

[@telesniper2]

Well if you're really interested in alternate history scenarios, consider this. Japan successfully completes an infrared seeking guidance system before the outset of hostility (OTL, it was only partially completed before the end). Then take either MXY-7, a Henschel HS293 or V-1 copy (Japanese had plans for both) and fit the IR seeker for use as a pioneering anti-shipping missile. Then instead of carrying Yokosuka E14Y or Serans; your B1 types, AM Types and I-400 class submarines could carry those. There probably would be better platforms to fire those hypothetical weapons from though, and they'd be more successful the more were fired at one time.

[@williamharvey8895]

Drach now has an excuse to visit the Mary Rose to take pictures of the iron guns.😂

[@johnfisher9692]

Thanks Drach for all the entertainment and knowledge Hope you and Mrs Drach have a wonderful Xmas and don't give in to the "I'm starving" looks from Floppy. Well not too much anyway/

[@greenseaships]

MERRY CHRISTMAS DRACH!

[@stuartwald2395]

The issue arising from a handful of V-1 attacks from U-boats is not the damage that they could have directly inflicted, but the scale of the resources that would have been diverted for additional defensive deployments on the US east coast (fighters, guns, barrage balloons, radar installations, etc.).

[@onenote6619]

Alternatively, they might have thought of a better idea - diverting bomber resources toward turning the U-boat bases into a moonscape. Note also that Japan came up with a similarly hare-brained and ineffective concept, the Fu-Go balloon bombs. A number of these made it to American soil and this occurrence was censored by the government for pretty much exactly the reasons you describe. They achieved pretty much nothing.

[@dougjb7848]

@@onenote6619 The RAF and USAAF devoted _enormous_ resources to attacking submarine bases directly, via vertical bombing, to little effect. The sub pens were built into natural caves or drilled tunnels through seaside cliffs, meaning they had 10s to 100s of feet of natural rock above them, almost perfect protection from even Tallboy type bombs. Adding, or even multiplying, more conventional type high altitude bombing would have contributed little more. If war had continued into 1946, perhaps the Allies would have developed and used semi-guided “skimming” weapons, flying them directly into the sub pen entrances. The KM may have responded by creating completely underwater entrances to the sun pens, forcing the Allies to develop a weapon that could travel underwater, into the sub pen, and explode underwater and “air pressure blast” the above-water areas. If it had gone that far the US may have tried getting a small nuclear torpedo into the sub pen entrances …

[@AtomicBabel]

​@dougjb7848 yes, and they world have had to divert more. Plus, planning a Naval or Amphibious Assault at the U boat pens would occur which will draw those resources. An airborne assault? Diverting the land campaign towards the capture of the pens? All of the above would throw a wrench or a resource drain into the European campaign and thus delaying the progress. An analogy would be the Doolittle Raid not causing much military damage, but did changed the IJN's plans for 1942.

[@williestyle35]

​@@dougjb7848 I do not know where you got your information....but ; While a large number of airborne bombing raids on the Kriegsmarine submarine "pens" at several bases had little to no effect, and often missed their intended targets - it is not true the bombing raids had no effect. Even when the pens themselves survived, major and minor support, repair, building, and associated manufacturing facilities would be damaged or destroyed. The *Tallboy* bomb you mentioned was deployed staring August 1944 and would begin making real inroads into rendering some submarine pens and facilities severely damaged, unusable, or lightly damaged (which would accumulate and lead to more serious damage). The Grand Slam bomb and the United States rocket assisted bombs, other... "guided devices" would add more damage to German submarine facilities over the next eight to nine (final) months of WWII. The Allies did commit massive amounts of air power to bombing Nazi submarine pens and facilities, they also did get some of the results desired, both mid war and later - see ; the August 1944 raids on Brest - bombs penetrated the roofs and caused damages, the January 1945 raid on Bergen, the March 1945 raid on Bremen, the 9th / 10th April 1945 raid on Keil, and the highly successful 18th April 1945 raid on Heligoland that successfully attacked the Naval base, airfield, and town, that almost created a "crater-pitted moonscape" of the area, leading it to evacuated. When the Allies had the correct weapons and tactics, they did have some success in dealing with the Nazi's submarine bases and pens. Shame that happened so late in the war, but it did have a measurable effect. I do not believe there were many of the major submarine pens and facilities built as you describe. The bases at Lorient, Saint - Nazaire, Bergen, Keil, and Bremen all seem to be built lately of reinforced concrete in an excavated area - not "natural caves or drilled tunnels...". The majority of pictures I ever have seen of a Kriegsmarine U - boat pens are man made structures with massive concrete layers. While these structures often survive airal bombing raids (and many at least partly survived the warr) damage to their systems and surrounding facilities could be as useful as destroying the pens themselves, on some occasions. But your point is well taken : when U-boats were doing the most damage to Allied shipping, their "home bases" were themselves largely safe from severe damage by Allied air forces. Got any sources for U-boat pens dug into natural caves or tunnelled into sea side cliffs (outside of Norway, where I know they were sometimes dug into parts of Fjords) ?

[@nektulosnewbie]

The period when one navy is dominant is the post-Trafalgar Napoleonic War. I forget the exact number, but NAM Rogar stated in Command of the Ocean that in the latter stages some crazy number like upwards of 90%+ of ALL the world's shipping was British flagged with very few warships left that weren't in the RN. What other nations had meant little at a stage when the RN had several hundred ships of the line and over a thousand frigates, not to mention countless smaller unrated craft.

[@edroosa2958]

Fueling questions: 1 - Were there instances during WW2 where ships actually ran out of fuel like many instances where tanks and other vehicles were abandoned when they ran out of fuel. 2- Was the lack of refueling ships ever the main reason for the cancellation of any major allied naval operation?

[@SCjunk]

Possibly cutlasses weren't used and most like the boarding crews may have de-mounted the bayonet of the Lanchester submachine gun = the 1907 pattern 457 mm (blade length) and yes Wilkinson Sword manufactured like most UK edged weapons. Bayonets tended to be fixed only during guarding prisoners after a boarding action, for poking an uncooperative PoW, not for active operation as even working on the basis that a Lanchester is somewhat shorter than a SMLE or No. 4 it looses that handiness when a 457 mm pointy stabby thing is mounted and companion ways are not an ideal environment especially if some-on has cut the power.

[@jeffsaxton2051]

So regarding the Triplex locomotives. In addition to everything you say, the primary reasons they failed were that they simply couldn't produce enough steam from the already huge boiler to supply enough steam to keep them moving at any speed faster than a walking pace. It ended up having to stop and build up steam too often to allow it to do anything other than low speed heavy duty shunting.

[@Andy_Ross1962]

The extra complication and resulting maintenance needed on a locomotive using compounding or triple expansion cost more than was saved in fuel. Compounding was popular in the late 19th and early 20th century but fell out of favour and most of compound engines were rebuilt as simples. On the North Eastern Railway compounding was popular for the heavy mineral hauling engines. Superheating was shown to give performance on simple engines and the compounds were all rebuilt as superheated simples. Compounding seems to have lasted longer on passenger locomotives but even here it fell out of use by the 30s.

[@evafan002]

merry christmas Drach

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

They were destroyer men @Drachinifel so I bet some went over the rail with one of those long bayonets in each hand and one in their teeth.

[@DaremoKamen]

Besides mistaking bayonets for cutlasses, I wonder if it would be possible to mistake machetes for cutlasses? Not that I would expect Cossack or her crew to be carrying machetes, but if some random crewman of any ship wanted to bring his own blade on board I would think a machete would be more affordable than an actual cutlass.

[@TheDoctorMonkey]

Harder to get a machete in Britain unless stationed in the right place (West Indies etc) but at this sort of time cutlasses may well be available as "military surplas" From what I can tell, the distinctions between these different swords/knives is... flexible.. although cutlasses might look more like sabres than machetes or falchions. The real "hacking" power on a ship in terms of handheld weapons being provided by axes.

[@benwilson6145]

The appropriate weapon would have been a Shashka.

[@trx4ever]

Another reason for using a triple steam engine on ships is the access to water. Sea water cannot be used in a steam engine, so therefore the most efficient engine is used, whereas a locomotive can "just" fill with water at the nearest tap

[@SCjunk]

27:00 Considering Elizabeth Jonas -perhaps the more relevant biblical story of Daniel cast into the lions den (Daniel 6:22) saved by the Almighty because he was blameless would have been a better allegory, -rather than Jonah who was a G'd defying t*at who needed a good sorting by keel hauling then confinement in a big fish, but then referencing that very accurate historical series Blackadder 2, Elizabeth seemed to be a few shilling short of a full sovereign.

[@Drachinifel]

True, perhaps it was the sea related aspect of it for the ship :)

[@grathian]

Optimal US Carrier Task force: Easy. 8 Fletchers on circle 7. Iowa, San Juan, and two Clevelands on circle 5. 3 Essexs on circle 3. Princeton as guide. 1945 airgroups with Corsairs, Hellcats, Avengers and Helldivers.

[@SCjunk]

38:00 most of Low land Scots were Protestant by the time of the Armada, but were still enemies of the English, but opportunists in the event of England being weakened by former Continental Allies (the French in particular). However it still is strange that the rump of the Armada was wrecked off North West Scotland and Ireland, being largely Catholic at the time and even well into the 18th C ( Jacobitism) perhaps coming to a negotiated safe sanctuary in the fealty of the Lord of the Isles might have been an idea, with all the gold carried I'm sure something could have been facilitated -after all hard currency or even off loading some cannon would always be welcome.

[@t.r.a.e.3218]

On the US Triplex engines made by Baldwin Locomotive Works, aside from the steam pressure issue you note and how the power was so great as to exceed most of the era's rail cars draft gear, meaning pulled couplers and broken wooden frames, even after this period of wooden cars into the all-steel car construction, the disadvantage of these engines was their high maintenance cost and low availability mainly from the fact that unlike a steam engine on a ship, which could have fixed couplings, the flexible nature of locomotives made keeping these monsters running very difficult.

[@808bigisland]

The lenght of a train locomotive is limited or you can’t go around corners. The solution is to hook two locomotives inline which makes it an 8 boiler triple expanding tractor.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

There was the option of combined reciprocating and turbine power. Example, a three screwed ship might have reciprocating engines on the outboard shafts with their exhaust steam driving a center line low pressure turbine. (A four shaft ship might be two and two). The exhaust from the turbine would resemble a warm fog with every BTU of energy having been squeezed from it. Here's the details from RMS Titanic "Titanic's propulsion was supplied by three main engines-two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine-each driving a propeller. The two reciprocating engines had a combined output of 30,000 horsepower (22,000 kW). The output of the steam turbine was 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW). The White Star Line had used the same combination of engines on an earlier liner, Laurentic, where it had been a great success. It provided a good combination of performance and speed; reciprocating engines by themselves were not powerful enough to propel an Olympic-class liner at the desired speeds, while turbines were sufficiently powerful but caused uncomfortable vibrations, a problem that affected the all-turbine Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania. By combining reciprocating engines with a turbine, fuel usage could be reduced and motive power increased, while using the same amount of steam." To expand on Drach's point about the size of marine powerplants, Titanic's0 VTE engines weighed considerably more than any steam locomotive ever built "The two reciprocating engines were each 63 feet (19 m) long and weighed 720 tons, with their bedplates contributing a further 195 tons." Happy holly daze to all ! PS - Take a look at the last generation of reciprocating aero engines, some of which were turbo-compound with a turbine driven by the reciprocating engine exhaust helping to turn the prop - no wonder they needed a flight engineer! Of course, turbocharged reciprocating engines are common.

[@Thirdbase9]

No one expects the Spanish Armada...

[@dougjb7848]

I know, I know! Nobody expects the Spanish Armada. In fact, those who do expect -

[@davewolfy2906]

1:02:30 surprised you did not mention the German ship Hanover, caught by the British.

[@robertphillips9017]

One potential issue with mallet engines is that the engines (cylinder and rods) are not synchronized. With a ship-board triple expansion the cylinders are connected to the same crankshaft. The passage of steam between cylinders cannot be optimized on the locomotive.

[@laminat0996]

18:15 wonder how one ton of radioactive payload would work out. Probably wouldn't influence the course of war much like a nuke, but would be an extremely nasty "vengeance from the grave" in the long run

[@jbepsilon]

On the topic of steam engines vs turbines, the WWII Casablanca-class escort carriers used steam engines, an uniflow compound type engine made by Skinner. This was supposedly a very efficient engine.

[@AndrewPalmerMTL]

Regarding the RN prizes in WW2. Since you say at approx 57:00 that all prize money was paid out at the end of the war and thus presumably tallied up to do that, it shouldn't be a lot of work for someone to just find the payout calculations, rather than unearth all the prizes themselves?

[@niallcunningham642]

The total prize money paid out was £5,250,000 - of this £1,250,000 went to the RAF. The RAF money was given to various service charities and welfare organisations. The remaining £4 million was shared out between all RN personnel who had served at sea for at least 6 months to include people like Royal Artillery gunners who has served at sea. The estimated payout was between £4,10s-£5 for an Ordinary Seaman, £18-£20 for a Captain and £45-£50 for an Admiral of the fleet. That was about 2 1/2 weeks pay for an Ordinary Seaman. By comparison the RN share of prize money for WW1 was approx £15million You can find full details in Hansard - Vol159 - Discussion of the Prize Bill - 7th Dec 1948

[@vikkimcdonough6153]

10:44 - On the other hand, when they _do_ occur, failures of turbine engines tend to be far more catastrophic than failures of reciprocating engines.

[@michaelrussell2891]

i beleive the cutlass was the longest serving weapon in the navies arsenal

[@bigsarge2085]

👍👍

[@sweaspurdoddd5466]

I just inherited a bunch of old 1930s navy books from my grandpa, I'll try to find something interesting.

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

Isn't "Waiting for Parma" a play by Samuel Becket ?

[@toddwebb7521]

Hope you had a merry Christmas and whatever boxing 🥊 day is

[@carloschristanio4709]

V1 and the i500? Or the cruiser subs of the ijn

[@stefanj1610]

Speaking about commercial size expansion engines, or more generally steam piston engines, I do wonder whether we would actually be able to design and build new ones? Including boilers and all the periphery? Engineering tends to involve a fair bit of tribal knowledge and implicit specifications which tend to get lost even when a manufacturer goes defunct. Discontinuing whole lines, classes and types of products should be even worse. Original plans (if available) and other design data only gets one so far. Even rebuilding existing ones during restorations seems to be a bit of a challenge. Live steam scale models might not scale all that well either. Otherwise reverse engineering would be lot easier. Provided there ist something left to reverse engineer in the first place.

[@rlosable]

18:32 I think you downplayed the excitement that would be fuelling a V2 from a U-Boat within range of airborne anti-sub patrols. First reaction would likely be some radar equipped long range aircraft. And while they might not be ideal against a mobile sub, a stationary sub fuelling up a missile would be a very nice straffing target. Combine that with the American love for .50 cal and you have found a very spectacular way of disposing of a U-Boat

[@Niels_Larsen]

46:44 I think you really underestimated France. What of France you're underestimating, I'm not saying.

[@davidlewis9068]

Very good drydock Loon and V2 launches from diesel subs not practical like you have said.

[@davidfuller581]

The Triplex locomotives failed because even with their massive fireboxes they just couldn't make enough steam - plus the tender lost adhesion as fuel and water were used.

[@coreybooker8383]

based

[@darwindemartelaere3195]

What if Germany had developed a fritz X type of guided missile with a booster stage, could it be lauched and guided from a u boat ?

[@domaxltv]

The problem with that comes with either having to make a long range way to realtime, duplex transmit command inputs and targetting output or just try to eyeball that shit. While theoretically feasible it would not be a practical enough weapon for the technology of the time, simply put you only start seeing this stuff in the 70s and later However a concept like this could possibly be semi feasible with a cruise missile like design for striking at a port suddenly with a low flying, remotely guided suicide plane, however you would need to mass fire them for significant effect, and it would likely be easy to counter with increased ASW patrols unless you reaaaaaaaaally make it massive and long range

[@dougjb7848]

I’m sure they could have developed a surface-launched FritzX (which was basically what the Allies did after 1945 to develop their first surface-launched weapons). Issue is that, without an airborne guidance system, you have no over-the-horizon capability. That plus the launching UBoat must remain on the surface for the entire duration of the weapon’s flight …

[@johnshepherd9676]

​@@domaxltvThe US Navy did employ remotely piloted UCAVs in late 1942-43 against Rabaul. Rex's Hanger has a video on it. The UCAVs were guided by specially equipped Avengers. Both two way and one way strikes were employed.

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

(In response to my question's awnser at the beginning of the video) now that I know the difference I must say that I find it particularly stupid that the designers wouldn't go for triple expansion, because on that note about Triplex Locomotives being High torque low RPM monsters: I want to mention that the Triplex's use in this role is not a bad thing (infact, the Eire Triplex whose picture you show in this video was designed for the express purpose of helping/banking up a certain grade on the Eire mainline) so that low-speed high torque is not a bad thing for the railroad, infact, it would actually be incredibly on-brand for the railroad. having a triple expansion engine shouldn't have been a huge stretch for them as they were actually incredibly experienced with double expansion (which they just called "compounding") infact, a few later articulated engines would actually have the ability to go into a 'compound mode' and switch between that and 'simple mode' (where steam went directly into all 4 cylinders) so in theory compensating for a third stage of compounding shouldn't have been difficult whatsoever.

[@SCjunk]

56:31Hilfskreuzer such as Komeran and Atlantis had additional crews to take over Merchant prizes so expectations of seizing ships was still high in the mindset of the various command structures.

[@onenote6619]

Sending a submarine all the way across the Atlantic to launch maybe two V1s or one V2. Neither of which has anything even approaching good accuracy and going to really, really annoy the people currently bombing the crap out of your cities. As schemes go, it's pretty dumb. But the V2 (while a technical marvel) was absolutely terrible on the bang per buck ratio, and V1 not much better.

[@Rammstein0963.]

Only way I could see it being viable (other than a dirty or bio warhead) is in some alternate universe where Germany develops subs more akin to modern nuclear missile boats (Ohio, Oscar, etc) and the technology to build more powerful missiles, and guide the missiles to the target.

[@wierdalien1]

Joseph also is the other famous biblical story

[@merlinwizard1000]

40th, 24 December 2023

[@patttrick]

Steeleye Span - 'Gaudete' (Live) kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3XGY3l6Ytusbq8si=mTJ3XXLB74IpT34F

[@kimmoj2570]

Russia has never had navy worth 1 cent when they go themselves. The times when they had decent navy, it was lead by officers from Britain, Baltic Germans and Finns. Without these professionals they were, and ARE lost. Average Russian 19 year old kid has never seen sea, and find it alien environment.