The Drydock - Episode 289

00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:04 - How much do scrap warships cost?
00:05:22 - Why did the IJN have so much difficulty designing the oxygen system for the Type 93 torpedo?
00:10:38 - When you see the cut down rear funnels on RN destroyers, apparently to improve their AA gun arcs, does this have any impact on their steaming?
00:15:01 - Japan's well deserved reputation for awful POW treatment was thoroughly documented by the end of WW2. Was their treatment of foreign prisoners always so bad? Or did it steadily get worse as the military dictatorship took over?
00:21:47 - What happened to IJN gunnery by the time of Leyte Gulf?
00:26:47 - Is there still a risk of radioactive contamination on the Operation Crossroads wrecks?
00:31:31 - How much more capable would Allied designs be if built to the same displacement as Kriegsmarine ships?
00:37:11 - Did ships use other material before the metal plating in order to slow down/disrupt the incoming projectile.
00:40:37 - Type of welding used on ships?
00:43:08 - Should the USN have focussed on battlecruisers instead of battleships in the later 1910's?
00:46:54 - SMS Emden commandeering the Cormoran?
00:49:17 - Questions about boilers?
00:54:39 - In the movie Nate and Hayes, a German iron ship with single gun turret is disabled by placing a shell at the turret rotation stop, which detonated when the turret is rotated to contact its fuse. Was this even a possibility with such shells of this or any period?
00:56:47 - Could you tell us a bit the painting “The Fighting Temeraire” by JMW Turner and the context in which it was painted?
01:00:31 - How hot would a gun have to be to cook off a round?

[@0ld.Richard]

From my experience with a converted Baltimore (CG-11), we used 2 boilers feeding all 4 shafts for normal steaming, all 4 boilers with a split plant for battle, with the ability to cross-connect any combination of boilers and engines if circumstances required.

[@leftyo9589]

i saw the chicago cut up in 93, we were right next to her for our yard period. last time i saw it, all that was left looked like a tiny canoe in the water.

[@DaremoKamen]

Gun cooking off: 2 observations. 1, If the heat is uneven rather than uniform it might make parts of the gun distort, or even heating might make the metal more malleable so it could distort under outside forces, and even small distortions might require more effort and time to drive the propellant charge home or seal the breach. 2, the Air National Guard wing I was member of was chosen to field test a newly developed system for loading the ammunition drums of Vulcan aircraft cannon, a system that was later adopted as standard. While the GE engineers were on base one of them told us an anecdote about a test to destruction of an M61 Vulcan where they set it up with an ammunition supply that would let it fire continuously until failure. At failure he said the barrels were glowing, they were more flopping around than spinning and the shells where coming out through the sides of the barrels where they bent. He also said that after they stopped and let it cool down they also found that everything other than the barrel assembly was still in safe operating condition and that replacing the barrels had the gun fully functional again.

[@user-bu2ro8vg8b]

Cooking off rounds in a gun. Ok I am no expert, the cooking off must be conditional to a number of factors. 1. The temperature, duh, of the ammo, the gun material in contact with ammo as drac explained. 2. What the ammo is made out of. Loose black powder, or a brass bullet or other what temperature is needed to cook off the round. Which might be the primer, the powder the shells contents say jts an illumination round. 3. Time. To allow heat transfer. As mentioned by drac So for your multi barrel high rate of fire gun, the time a round is in the gun before firing is a fraction of a second . The heat transfer from the parts of the gun in contact with the round must necessarily be minimal. Now if a round had been left in the gun after the test it might well have cooked off. Now a black powder cannon would need much more time in the gun before firing and a lower temperature before it cooked off, which is one reason they sponged out the gun after firing to extinguish any stray particals. As they would get a misfire during loading. Flaws in the ammo say a split bag, a defective round, a contaminated round say by a round being coated with powder from a split round , excessive grease oil might well also cause failures.

[@captiannemo1587]

In the 1945/46 Summery Report on Hypervelocity by the NDRC National Defense Research Council they have an extensive section on ammunition cooking off due to rapid firing. PDF exists on the DTIC and NTRL sites.

[@kkupsky6321]

Mrs drach must be a saint to hear Drach go on about “let’s get a scrap battleship to live on!” “I need the turrets so I can see when the post man it coming and that means we’ll need turrets!”

[@derrickstorm6976]

Don't you need the conning tower to spot and rangefind the post man? Or is that for the dog (because it will attack the postman)?

[@The_ZeroLine]

That was my first thought. lol

[@timsimms65707]

Drach I sincerely hope that one day you acquire an ex RN vessel. It would make an interesting series of vids, the acquisition process, moving it, setting it up etc. Good hunting Sir.

[@imperium3556]

For the first question, it's worth mentioning that at various points in the past (I'm especially thinking of the mass disposal of unwanted Allied warships at the end of WW2) it was a lot easier to get hold of a retired warship for your own use. Perhaps most famously, the Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis bought a River-class frigate, HMCS Stormont, for the bargain price of $34,000 to turn into a private superyacht which now sails under the name "Christina O." It's not just buying the ship which is the only issue though - the maintenance costs are unbelievable!

[@pauls4002]

Thanks for this, I did a little more looking into it, very interesting! It seems you need to be a multimillionaire to own one of the big ones. Plus the original ship had a compliment of 157. Many of those people would not be needed, but even pared down its still a lot.

[@hannesromhild8532]

Or jacques cousteau's Calypso. She was a YMS-1 Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper.

[@Trek001]

Drach, if you are still in the market for ex-RN hulls, there will be a couple of P2000 class ships used the navy's university squadrons up for grabs in a few years. They would work well as a houseboat and quite roomy inside - I've spent many a happy hour onboard one

[@shalafi4]

Weld engineer chiming in on the oxy welding question. Short version: Oxy welding takes too much time on naval scales. It is possible to build up layers in Oxy welding. Just like the photo shown with stick welds. However *handwaving* each additional layer you go up, you loose 20~25% of your time. Reason being there is a significantly larger band thar needs to be pre-heated/melted per layer. Whereas SMAW you just weave the stick over a little farther and you're good. (sub 5% time increase per layer) Oxy welding hulls quickly becomes "yes we can but we'll go broke trying it"

[@burcman2666]

I was thinking the same thing. By no means an expert in oxyfuel, but I have done it when needed. My guess was that the cost of getting a good oxyfuel weld vs a stick weld was much higher, and so riveting was the best option until stick welding became common

[@shalafi4]

@@burcman2666 You got it right on the nose. As a modern welding method basically uses a little crawler that welds the entire depth of the weld in a single pass. It's slow but it's pretty much a "set and forget" type of operation.

[@eusabian8509]

Sir Drach... you have been one of KZbin's favorite things to autoplay to me as I sleep. Hours upon hours, your smooth, polite, and logical narration. As I've listened to your channel, I've thought more about the post Dreadnought, 20th century sea battles. I find myself thinking, has there ever, Sino-Russian until today, ever been an actual battle between Battleships? Not Battle cruisers but actual Ships of the Line. Straight up slugfest between them? These behemoths of steel, that untold fortunes of resources have been consumed to create them. The spark of WW1 was a pistol shot in the Balkans, but the powder keg it lit was the Battleship race. And out of all that, did BB vs BB actually ever happen?

[@Tuning3434]

40:55 not claiming the truth, but some general stuff I've picked up as a mechanical engineer studying generalized version of welding. - It more difficult to control the flame in an outside environment like a river side drydock when using oxy-fuel welding compared to SMAW (stick welding). Same applies for other gas shielded methods in outside environments (exceptions aside, because I think automatic welders in ship construction due use a gas shielded arc on a moving mechanism), wind tends to blow the shielding gas away from the melt pool. In oxy-fuel it is the combustion products that provide the shielding against oxygen. - SMAW has the amazing benefit of adding the proper amount of filling material + depositing a shielding slag over the fresh weld, allowing it to cool down without oxygen and other contaminants to reduce weld quality. What I can deduce, for oxy-fuel welding the welder would needed to add filler material itself, which is fine for small cm long welds, but I would imagine to become unbearable for meters long welds, because it is quite a precise process to handle AND keep the melt pool ok. \ - SMAW is somewhat able to over the head welding, where I would imagine oxy-fuel welding would just result in the weld pool of molten metal falling out under gravity, especially with the added influence of a oxy-fuel flame. Modern day building practices introduced modular building process, that allow segments build in rotating rigs to maximize under the hand welding, but that practice is far removed from traditional building practices as used in that era. - In ship building you REALLY want to deposit material, because tolerances leave in gaps. SMAW is great in that rough construction work, because the stick provides the filler, if you need more material, just lay another bead. I would imagine for oxy-fuel welding, you are dealing with a fine balance of making a weld big enough, but not punching through the materials such that the weld pool falls through. Backing plates can help, but I would imagine that would be quite a hassle in large scale ship building. For sure everything I've said above can be solved by a handled by a properly skilled welder, care and patience. But ship building really relies on making meters, as fast as possible, and as consistent as possible. Introduction of SMAW really helped to make these practices available for the shipyard workers.

[@derrickstorm6976]

What an interesting read for someone who doesn't know anything about welding, thank you very much!

[@timkohchi2048]

Oh my god, if you aren’t a welder or someone with actual practical knowledge of the use of welding in shipbuilding WHY comment at length? Yup, you got a lot wrong there, such as that you can oxy-fuel weld overhead, and the biggest reason by far arc welding overtook oxy-fuel was it is MUCH faster, a way higher energy intense process, not that it is susceptible to the wind. Obviously you have never welded with o2

[@SuperFunkmachine]

Really the main issue was never the ability of the process but how can you use it to make large quality welds quickly and can you design a ship to be built by welding.

[@robertibert9269]

High spec heavy steel welding requires extensive amounts of heat input. Thick plate and high strength steel require pre-heating often using chained ceramic heating blankets, each powered by a significant source. Welding heat range is window, hot to allow fusion but not too hot to alter steel properties. However no matter how well temp is controlled a heat effective zone is created and fatigue must be considered, which is not the case with rivets.

[@layseebalsam]

I served on a minesweeper, and two friends bought a couple for scrap a few years later. They were old, oak. They actually contained a lot of valuable metal and alloys, due to their non-magnetic requirements. And apart from weaponry, everything was still there. Both engines and generators for high current sweep. Not to speak of degaussing cables all around the hull. But it proved quite a job to break the hull, thick oak and ribs every two feet. They probably made some money, but got a lot of bad press as Tyrkey bought some spares. Even as a Nato country, exporting to them in the 90s was not popular.

[@philcretired5143]

In Oxy-acetylene welding a filler rod is also used to add metal to the joint and fill the gap. And multiple passes can be done. However, it is very slow and the 'heat affected zone' is much larger than for stick welding thus altering the strength properties of the part being joined much more than stick welding. In both cases a small depth of the base metal of the parts much be melted in order for the weld to truly fuse the pieces and not just 'glue' them together.

[@Christopher-ix8ql]

@Drachinifel For the welding question. Between Oxy and stick welding the biggest difference would be the speed and skill requirments to make a weld. As you can see in the picture you put up of someone's 3g certification plate (har har), the bevel on the sides of the join provide a way of getting more than surface penetration on the front. In this case they are doing a root pass, multiple stringers and cover passs. Which would require half a dozen sticks and some time between 30 minutes and 2 hours depending on materials, skill set, heat, ect ect. Thats to get 10 inches of multipass weld. The thicker the plate the more passes you will need. Now because Oxy uses filler rods similar to TIG Suddenly you have to use both hands. Your face is closer to the weld because visability is more important. It's more intense, requires more skill, and gernerally is slower. Also the time it takes for heat to transfer between your torch and plate is longer. So now you are looking at truely stupid times to fill that in.

[@skeltonpg]

Re Japanese gunnery - visual range-finding is very demanding on vision and concentration. How much sleep the practitioners have had recently makes a big difference. (The RN destroyers that kept B at high readiness all night did Tovey a favour.)

[@bluelemming5296]

Yet another reason why having a 'fall of shot' radar capability can make a big difference in effectiveness, whether at night or in daylight. I imagine it's a lot easier to read the radar sets at that level of sophistication than to try to figure out what the optical systems are telling you, under the same conditions of fatigue.

[@skeltonpg]

@@bluelemming5296 That brings up another issue. If more than one ship is firing at a target, telling whose shot caused a splash becomes difficult.

[@bluelemming5296]

@@skeltonpg Good point. They could use dye on the splashes for optical range finding, but nothing equivalent existed for radar.

[@DavidLopez-nc5pq]

Re pure oxygen driven torpedoes, pretty sure BuOrd could have made one successfully, bc they had such an amazing record of making torpedoes that didn't explode no matter what you did with them. :D

[@williammorris584]

I wish I were more cheery in outlook, someone else is always finding the silver lining.

[@davidvik1451]

As for using a projectile to disable a turret in the manner described, even a Point Detonating fuze has a problem. Larger projectiles (over 40 mm) are likely "Bore Safe" meaning that the fuze is unable to function until it has clearing the muzzle by a safe distance. Usually this is done by a blocking pin that in combination with set-back and centrifugal force moves the pin out of the way unblocking the firing train making sure that the projectile cam do damage to an enemy without doing damage to you. Yes, many things make for good theater that in reality could not have happened.

[@johnfisher9692]

Thanks Drach And welcome back our old friend Mr Square Cube Law, it has been some time since we have been graced with your presence. I loved the comparison between the German heavy cruisers and potential Allied cruisers displacing the same, I also thought the Baltimore's were a far fairer opponent to a Hipper than a Treaty compliant County or US ship. Hmmm a 16,000 ton county would be interesting.

[@kkupsky6321]

Best theme song on this whole wretched platform. Omg I love that song. It wouldn’t be Sunday without like 5 years of cab Calloway slaying the intro tune.

[@thcdreams654]

Amazing work as always. Thank you.

[@TheKencoffee]

I'm always amazed at how quickly you pump out these videos with so much detail and accuracy!!

[@The_ZeroLine]

That’s what’s possible when you know most of this stuff without having to research answers for each question.

[@danielkorladis7869]

I've actually often thought about the role that being humiliated, isolated, and really quite honestly the perception of being disrespected in Washington Treaty fueled Japan's... I guess fascisization, I guess you could call it. Because I had also been struck by the complete reversal of POW treatment and also just general respect for humanity between the Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent wars in the 30s and 40s. Because while yes, Togo and Rozhestvensky were both high ranking officers, the former's visit to the latter in the hospital is still a great example of the general attitude of Japan's military at the time, and as you said, the Red Cross inspected the POW facilities and found them to be a world standard. Really good analysis on this subject.

[@davidvik1451]

The Fletcher Class DD's had two Fire Rooms with two boilers each normally operating with fwd fire room to fwd engine room and aft fire room to aft engine room. However as long as the piping was intact any boiler could supply steam to any engine room if required.

[@paulgoyne6926]

I suddenly feel a burning need for an artisanal hand-crafted torpedo!

[@riderstrano783]

As for the cost of buying ex-military craft, at least in the Pacific Northwest, there’s a 105’ navy tug for sale for about $110k last time I checked, fully operational too as far as I know

[@Mildly.Squeued]

Drach, please dont forget your gunnery doesnt usually get better after being hit by the opposing gunnery. Sort of shakes one up seeing a 15" or 16" blast a hole in your funnel or armor belt. At least now I am curious as to the hit percentile after just taking a round… ie; Giulio Cesare v. Warspite or any other engagement. The enegy absorption from a larger round alone might shift your course one would think. Drach ??? And, as far as material thickness of OxyAcetylene.Welding it was normal for me to see upto 3/8" hand welded plate but by machine, even highly specialized machines could weld 1.00" to 1.25" often enough. My post military nuke weld inspection gig wasnt any fun at all. The job was ok, the Iridium192 and Cobalt60 not so much. And again the Inverse Square Law comes out to play with radiation intensity. Gotta love time, distance and shielding.

[@davefranklin4136]

WRT POW treatment, one of the things I thought darkly humorous in Bywater's The Great Pacific War was his description of Japan's good treatment of POWs. He's lauded as being prescient in many ways, but he was certainly wrong about that...

[@skeltonpg]

Bywater wrote in the early '20's. As Drax explained, he was correct for that time.

[@bluelemming5296]

@Drachinifel Sounds like you need to buy a small used tug, then use that to tow the other vessel. The prices for small used tug boats don't seem that bad. But I suppose 'buyer beware'. As long as you had the right friends - people with the right experience who would be willing to help with all the details of the purchases, doing the tow, and learning how to get things running and do the maintenance - it seems doable though certainly not easy and probably something of an adventure. Likely some local regulations you would have to learn about, such as having to hire a pilot for part of the tow, and whatever building codes are applicable. Keep the tug as your 'river day trip' vessel, tied up to the dock you build, or directly to the houseboat, or even in a boathouse (perhaps one you build). You might even be able to butter up the local government by occasionally using it to help with their projects.

[@Hendricus56]

Regarding how to pronounce Geier: The 2nd attempt was relatively close. Less focus on the i, more on the e (it's basically pronounced like the word eye) and the er is relatively close to air

[@pauls4002]

Thanks for fielding my question about buying surplus navy ships. I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks it might be fun to remodel one into a house, but as mentioned elsewhere I’m sure the maintenance costs would be eye watering.

[@johnjephcote7636]

I cannot imagine my old minesweeper being a house boat. The deltic engine would have to go...far too much power and took up a lot of room. Not much livingspace and a wooden hull which would not be too good lying idle for years up some backwater.

[@hazchemel]

Regarding the question on the treatment of prisoners by the Japanese: from what I've seen around the world, every ethnicity reserves a special specialness for itself. Claims of exclusivity abound, as in "your people may be x, but we are x+y+z." or, claiming sole possession of a virtue that is actually widespread. We know this perhaps strangely, through battle. We see bravery on both sides, when studied at the small unit and individual level.

[@alganhar1]

True, and unfortunately it is not something that is going away. I have been told, too my face, that I am racist and sexist simply due to my biological sex and skin colour. Unfortunately Bigotry is not something limited to specific demographics as that person tried to claim, but universal amongst humanity. That being said, this also applies to the more uplifting human traits as well, altruism, self sacrifice, loyalty and courage to name but a few. Like our baser, less attractive traits they too are not limited to specific demographics, but are truly human....

[@hazchemel]

@@alganhar1 and there is simply choice, preference. and because I choose this woman or this man, does not imply scorn for the rest of humanity nor racism sexism and all the other fake bs names.

[@marlinstout4180]

About the shell cooking off on USS Johnston; what if it wasn't the powder charge itself that 'cooked off', but the primer? If the gun itself is red-hot, then the breechblock would almost have to be just as hot as well; could contact with metal that's that hot cause the primer to go off prematurely, thus setting off the main charge? Alternatively, if the gun/breech was that hot, could it have made it enough harder for the shell to get fully seated, and the act of closing the hot breechblock put enough pressure on the primer to set it off? Since the gun is power-rammed and the breechblock closes automatically, could a shell that isn't rammed quite all the way expose it's primer to premature triggering, either by the rammer plate trying to shove it in past the obstruction, or by the brrechblock sliding up into/across the primer?

[@scooterdescooter4018]

what a wonderful start to a sunday!

[@kmech3rd]

02:19 Mrs. Drach's plan... I love this idea in ways I can't describe. It's like Pound Shop Sealand :)

[@derrickstorm6976]

Just for clarification, he said, "me and Mrs Drach's" :)

[@kmech3rd]

​@@derrickstorm6976Thanks, good catch.

[@caminojohn3240]

Regarding "Sold for Scrap." The reason why they need to be turned into scrap is the explicit understanding that anything nasty aboard, like asbestos, leaded paint, PCBs, etc., would have to be mitigated and properly disposed of during the scrapping process. Yes, buying a ship that's listed for scrap for conversion into some other use does sound nice; however, the cost of remediation, which numerous local, national, and international treaties cover, would make the process very very very expensive. Hence, the price paid for scrapping also bundles the cost of the remediation. Granted if I wanted to score a warship or auxiliary craft for personal use, I would follow client states who purchased vessels from the US, England, or Russia that hit their end of life limit. If I recall, several landing ships of WWII vintage were purchased from these client states for conversion into museums.

[@PeterSt1954]

A basic problem with gas as opposed to electric welding is that gas welding puts much more heat into the metal. I don't know if this is the reason why it wasn't used but it is one of the major differences between the two methods.

[@f-xdemers2825]

I much prefer relatively technical set of questions as addressed in this episode rather than gossipy human interest speculations based on tales and conjectures about what would have happened if who did this in place of that etc.

[@stevenboyd5044]

Love a dry dock.

[@christopherberry9496]

Just learned from the channel "Maritime Horrors" that a great lakes freighter was cut down and used as a house. The "Benson Ford". So there may be hope for you and Mrs. Drach yet!

[@OtakuLoki]

The USN's SWATH hull test prototype recently (i.e. last three years or so) went up for sale on the GSA auction site as-is, no restrictions. They were asking on the order of $100K for it. Which if the hull and motors were in reasonable condition, would be a steal for any kind of SWATH hull. I mourned the state of my financial resources. And stopped trolling the GSA auctions sites after that.

[@graveyard1979]

I think selling ships for scrap only is because of modern regulations concerning how all substances on the ship should be disposed. I do not think asbestos was ever used (but I wouldn't be surprised if it was, depending on the date of the build of the ship), but I recall reading about ships sacrificed in SinkEX exercises being gutted out of everything that shouldn't end on the seabed.

[@brucefelger4015]

The worst part of buying a "scrap" war ship, is that they typically come with all the fluids that remained to take care of. 1.4 million gallons of fuel oil on one old Aircraft transport that I read years ago. The US navy would also require a lot of the armor plate back, cut into very specific sized plates.

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

With regard to the question on Japanese behaviour toward prisoners of war during WWII, I highly recommend Dan Carlin's podcast Hardcore History and the Supernova in the East series.

[@morganmckenzie1303]

I came here to post the exact same thing. Fantastic including the psychology behind Japan after the Russo-Japanese war.

[@arkdeniz]

A question about Nate and Hayes! Coincidence! I was just this morning thinking of asking a question about that film. (Bad film but so much fun)

[@tent7014]

i only come here to play along to the intro music....................especially the cymbals !

[@SCjunk]

54:40 No a shell even with a nose fuse could not explode by being crushed in the manner mentioned. To arm a fuse (either base or nose fuse) the shell has to rotate along the barrel at speed - or in the case of modern smooth bore (like Russian 2A46 125 mm gun) by the velocity itself causing the safety to throw out to allow the striker to hit the accelerator pellet. Even rolling shells along planks to guns wouldn't arm the fuse. In WW2 the British forces captured thousands of tons of German ammunition of numerous types during the 2nd invasion of Lybia, including a huge stock of German 75 mm L/24 tank shell (PzGr 39 APCBC) and decided to re-manufacture it as it was better shell than the M72 shot of the 75 mm M2 gun of the recently introduced Grant tank (the M61 shell APC round was not fully readied). So to use the captured German shell it was refitted to an M3 / M1897 cartridge case after it had the driving band lathed down by a few thousands of an inch to conform to the M2 gun and the fuse (in this case a 'BDZ' base fuse) was not removed during that process, though the artificers were told not to exceed the specified rotational speed, although it was unnecessary in point of fact. Even in a nose fuse there is so much metal involved the ability to crush the pellet is negligible. However one projectile that can be contact detonated by even foot contact are mortar bombs, and the majority of RPG projectiles like RPG 7 /16 and the old British PIAT.

[@myparceltape1169]

You're right about the fuse not being activated by rolling along the deck. It shouldn't happen. We have got to imagine a circumstance where the fuse was activated, probably by centrifugal force, when it spun up the barrel. But something went wrong and the final part didn't work. Inside that fuse there was a tiny break and once it was moved that fraction of an inch it fired. No, I do not write games and if you want to use this go ahead.

[@SCjunk]

@@myparceltape1169 The only thing I've come across is a fuse pre detonating because the fuse was assembled improperly. But it is more likely they fail the other way in that no amount of momentum or loss of momentum in the case of a base fuse will cause the fuse to trip the firing plunger onto the accelerator pellet, it was quite a normal gallows humour if a shell landed nearby and failed to detonate for some-one in a company pr platoon to say "My Moms an ROF worker she probably made that one"

[@myparceltape1169]

@@SCjunk Agreed. But if you remember valve radios you might have tapped yours if it wasn't working. Sometimes that worked!

[@keithrosenberg5486]

The Japanese often treated their own people badly as well. The Kempeitai was a lot like the Gestapo and NKVD. quote> If there is one lesson to be learnt from all this, then that lesson is also a warning - human beings take considerably more of their ethical values from the particular system they happen to be in at the time than you would ever have thought possible. Laurence Rees - “Horror in the East - Japan and the Atrocities of World War II”

[@The_ZeroLine]

That’s a really good quote and a succinct way of saying it’s not the people, it’s the system, which is most often the truth.

[@TheMagus54]

I see the image @38:20 so often in Drachs video's but I think it may be my favourite!

[@unraisinable]

After the IJN Gunnery portion of the video, I looked up a bit more history on Chokai, and read about the actions of USS Darter and USS Dace on the 23rd of October and their sinking of 2 of the Takao class cruisers and significant damage of a 3rd. That story seems like a great idea for a video, including One of the subs running aground and refusing to be scuttled.

[@kemarisite]

Regarding POW treatment, I remembering hearing (although I vannot recall where or comment on the validity of this notion) that the Japanese Army was unhappy with the willingness of its soldiers to surrender during the Russo-Japanese War, that some surrenders where "unnecessary" and shouldnt have happened. The result was a deliberate decision to toughen the Japanese soldier and indoctrinate them with a code of bushido that is only somewhat historical. Historically, it isnt so much that it was shameful for peasant conscripts to surrender, just that there was little point because the surrender was inlikely to be accepted so you might as well flee instead of surrender. This kind of naturally lead into treating the enemy just as badly as their own troops, or even worse. Regarding Prinz Eugen, fission fragments decay away to background over about five centuries. That doesn't mean they have undergone a series of decays to stability, but have undergone a series of decays to a swt of daughter products that would be indistinguishable from natural background.

[@toby2138]

John Wayne’s yacht was a converted mine sweeper if i remember correctly

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

The real question is why did every other nation FAIL to develop an oxygen fed torpedo?

[@paultrappiel9943]

The fact that pure oxygen is nasty to store and transfer might be the reason. Ships are constantly bumped about and notoriously difficult to escape from also. 😬

[@teenyweenyOwen]

The wonderful book “Ignition” describes the reaction of naval Admirals to the idea of liquid oxidizers on their ships. Add high pressure to the list and you can easily understand why nobody else would develop the technology.

[@gwtpictgwtpict4214]

I suspect it was more of a case of decided not to. Take a hit to a mount containing oxygen fueled torpedoes and you are going to have a really impressive explosion amidships. The Japanese decided it was worth the risk, other Navies thought 'Nah, maybe not'.

[@zacharythode3601]

Probably the developers all had the same view that such a thing was obviously too dangerous and so nobody even considered it

[@user-hw1qo2mu9e]

Thanks Drach.

[@leogazebo5290]

Its really fascinating how Japan shift from Pre-WW1, interwar, and to WW2 in terms of mentality. Will you make a dedicated videos for other such topics? And can you recommend books/papers in those particular topics? Thanks.

[@Shadooe]

I know they're spam, or bots, or whatever, but one of the "ladies" made a comment below: "It's not just content; it's a source of inspiration. Thanks for the bright moments!" So even if they aren't human, they're not wrong. Cheers.

[@chrisgoffa8129]

Hey Drach, you and Ryan szymanski on new jersey have talked about the analog fire control computers, but as an industrial worker I would love to know more about who designed them how and where they were made and how they work

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

"Geier was still en route to the German base in Qingdao when war broke out in Europe in August 1914. Slipping out of still-neutral British Singapore days before Britain declared war on Germany, she crossed the central Pacific in an attempt to link up with Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron. While at sea, she captured one British freighter, but did not sink her. In need of engine repairs and coal, Geier put into the neutral United States port at Honolulu, Hawaii, in October 1914, where she was eventually interned. After the American entrance into the war in April 1917, the US Navy seized Geier, commissioned her as USS Schurz, and placed her on convoy duty. She was ultimately sunk following a collision with a freighter off the coast of North Carolina, with one man killed and twelve injured. She rests at a depth of 115 feet (35 m) and is a popular scuba diving site."

[@Drachinifel]

Thanks, turns out I was thinking of SMS Eber, which was stripped to arm and crew the Cap Trafalgar :)

[@TheDoctorMonkey]

54:38 honourable mention to Captain Dalrymple Hamilton and HMS Rodney chasing Germans?

[@derrickstorm6976]

20:40 I think a better conclusion would be, "We've shown you great honor for decades, yet you've shown us none in return, so we will stop treating you honorably because you've abandoned your honor (as in treating everyone honorably)" Basically I don't think it's psychologically possible to do an instant 180 and start treating 'others' as sub-human, unless somehow everyone in Japan was a sociopath, but it would be a paced descent into that

[@bkjeong4302]

21:41 I was frankly shocked that they used the Guadalcanal campaign as an example when both sides were shooting at ranges that were so close it was impossible to miss: ANYBODY can score a lot of hits at those ranges.

[@silincer5186]

Well I guess people don't visualized the distances due to lack of properly made engagement ranges or Comparison with other battle ranges, when you are just given numbers, it might be hard to visualized how long the distances are. Guadalcanal was at close ranges, When Hiei and Akatsuki light up their searchlight at Atlanta it was at 3000 yards or 2700 m. or Washington when she fired at Kirishima was at 5,800 yards or 5,300 m. At Samar when Yamato started shooting at White Plains was at Extreme ranges 34,500 yards or 31500 m . Yamato landed a hit on her first salvo with her 18.1-inch (46 cm) shell smashed through Gambier Bay's hanger bay at 22,000 yards or 20100 m By the time she was shooting at Johnston it was still at around 19000m, much further than the ranges at Guadalcanal Naval battles. (the distance conversion might not be 100%accurate)

[@wierdalien1]

Ive had an argument with the guy who asked. . . He chalks it up to american racism.

[@kemarisite]

​@@wierdalien1you could reply with this meme, which I just saw today: "Your race card has been declined. Do you have another form of argument?"

[@wierdalien1]

@@kemarisite 😂

[@bkjeong4302]

@@silincer5186 I’d frankly argue that Yamato’s accuracy at Samar was better than that of various Japanese (and even some American) ships during the Guadalcanal night actions when adjusted for range.

[@keithmoore5306]

Drach on base fuses, is there a covering driver plate over the fuse is it installed on loading the shell onboard the ship or in the firing sequence?

[@SCjunk]

5:16 certainly buying US surplus generally requires completely demilitarisation for example AFVs were demiled at buyers expense and the plasma cutting must displace a minimum of 3/4 inch of material - so you can't "cut and shut" it when yo get it home and vehicles like M151 mutts (post Vietnam era jeeps) were cut in half and had the rear body crushed to prevent anyone re-activating them, evidently the original requirement was to cut the damn things in half behind the front seats and buba were just welding them back together, and they were pretty dangerous even in one piece, they even had a sign next to the steering wheel that said "Sudden turns means sudden death".

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

1) M151 was Vietnam Era 2) Nobody but Wannabes calls it the "MUTT" - which was dreamed up by Ford's PR department. I spent 25 years in the US Army on active duty and NOBODY ever called it that. It was a "One-Five-0ne", "Quarter Ton" or "Jeep"

[@chrisschmalhofer4348]

Not as a houseboat, but I had a flash of the PT boat that McHale used as a personal craft in the TV Show/movie…

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

Given the current state of the Exchequer, and their current states, I reckon that a five figure offer on a Queen Elizabeth would receive active consideration. It might take a while for the JCB to dig the hole in the river bank mind; though you could afford to receive the local council's orders to remove it with a degree of sang froid.

[@onenote6619]

Using pure, pressurised Oxygen for torpedoes back in the 30s would have excluded any of the usual gasket materials (like oiled leather or rubber), so any supply tubing would have to be welded metal and the technology was very tricky for moving objects of war, as you say. The Me163 rocket interceptor had similar issues with Hydrogen Peroxide tankage. A distressing number of pilots got dissolved alive when pipe welds gave way on impact, spraying the aircraft interior with High-Test Peroxide under pressure. This in addition to all the horrible ways that working with pure Oxygen can go horribly wrong when ordinary seamen under pressure of war make a mistake. As to the Walther turbine U boats and HMS Meteorite, I can only assume they left a trail of brown behind themselves while proceeding at maximum underwater speed.

[@timkohchi2048]

Multiple ways to join pipe and tubing without gaskets or welding had been developed by the 20s such as flair fittings and taper metal to metal fittings as used on welding tanks

[@onenote6619]

@@timkohchi2048 Not saying otherwise, but gaskets and the like give joints some play and shock resistance. If a mass-produced pipe weld is subjected to the kind of impact Drach discusses, any imperfections are going to have to absorb it without any kind of mitigation. Welding tanks don't generally get fired off the side of a destroyer by high-pressure compressed air and then hit the water almost broadside-on.

[@davidvik1451]

On a 5"/38 the powder case and projectile are rammed in one stroke with the breach block rising at the end of the stroke. If the charge was to sit in the chamber for some time after loading it could "cook off" but the breach would be closed. If your talking about the projectile cooking off that would have significant issues even though the breach is closed.

[@Drachinifel]

I mean, with a red hot glow I could imagine the expansion causing the whole train to slow or snag briefly, and at that temperature the charge might initiate before making it all the way in.

[@thatsme9875]

Drach, at 13:40 you discuss the use of blowers or Forced Draft (FD) fans, but what about Induced Draft (ID Fans) ? these are used on large coal fired boilers in power stations, but did ships ever use ID Fans?

[@SCjunk]

37:00 spaced armour only worked for decapping even on the comparatively light armour in tanks, for example the first spaced armour on A10 and A13 turrets and a similar iteration on Panzer IV Ausf D and E, caps were just coming in at that time however both German and probably British designs may have been to negate the effect of Przeciwpancerny wz. 35 (the Polish Anti tank rifle) The German spaced armour being a result of the damage the wz 35 could do and the British may have attached spaced armour being aware of the Polish weapon -against it's re-deployment of the thing by Germans. The Wz 35 was smuggled out of Poland in late September 1939 and handed to the British, who said "Meh!" being that they were already aware of the system that the weapon used and were fairly disinterested. Wz 35 was a lead based form of a squash head shot / shell.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

57:30 naval history and art school 😊 Recommended: a channel called "the arts hole" has a decent video on Turner

[@michaelblum4968]

There's probably a maximum size limit to a coal-fired boiler, due to stokers having to distribute (toss and rake) the coal across the whole firebox; an oil-fired boiler has burners wherever needed.

[@phaeronseherekh1754]

Of some minor note with Japanese treatment of prisoners during the second world war it was in decent part about the "revived" (though more redeveloped as the newer culture of the dictatorship would have probably been seen as odd to 1400s Japan) cultural connotation of how surrender is extremely dishonorable in Bushido(?) and as such it was generally expected that an honorable soldier would never surrender and if one did any honor that individual had was moot, which occasionally (and I mean it when I say occasionally) if someone was captured when they were unconscious due to injury and thus had no say in surrender they were treated notably better.

[@Tuning3434]

coffee-nated, ready to recieve Drydock

[@BronZeage]

John Wayne's personal yacht was a surplus PT boat, which he named the Bataan.

[@tomdolan9761]

The USS Kitty Hawk and the USS John Kennedy were sold for $1. dollar a piece to the scrapper in Brownsville, Texas

[@timkohchi2048]

electric arc welding is MUCH more “concentrated”, a much higher energy density process than oxy-fuel. A much faster and therefore practical way to heat thick metal to the melting point. With oxy-fuel, thick steel is conducting the heat you apply Away from the joint almost as quickly as you are inputting it, This makes it throughly impractical to weld ship hulls of any type (let alone battleships). As to your reasoning, actually the joint preparation is similar for gas and arc welding, you are beveling the edges and heating both to melting and adding metal to fill, same basic procedure, the Sorce of heat and it’s intensity is the main difference. Also a note on pure oxygen, tanks for welding were mass produced by the 20s so no, other uses were not “artisanal”. Putting them in a tube with high explosives and fuel that gets tossed about did obviously create hazards though!

[@TrickiVicBB71]

Mrs Drach is definitely special. Allowing you to buy an ex-military vessel. If I was a multi-millionare, probably buy an old re-supply vessel or frigate. Speaking of which... I hear the Royal Navy is selling off one of its Tide Class tankers 🤔🤔

[@andrewpease3688]

Mrs Drach is almost certainly the a reason Mr Drach doesn’t own a warship

[@seanquigley3605]

Question on the shell splashes near USS Gambier Bay....it seems based on the visual area they cover in the photo had they hit they would have obliterated the CVE. Is this due to the incompressability of water? Obviously had the exploded in the air or the ship it would have left quite a negative impression on the ship and any of the crew they contacted. But would it have been as impressive as the shell splashes look? Also it seems there is one smaller caliber hit shown. On the port side of the carrier a bit forward it seems like a small island structure. However we only built them to Starboard and there seems to be a small gap between it and one of the smoke cloulds above it. Is that perhaps a cruiser shell hitting?

[@bluelemming5296]

Water is relatively light, so the explosion can throw it a long distance. Think of being in the pool: if you know how to splash somebody, then it's pretty easy to move large amounts of water - and your hands are far less powerful than a naval shell. You can get an idea of how much damage hits do by looking at the many studies on warship damage. It's nothing like computer games, so don't use those as a reference. When individual 18 inch shells from Yamato exploded inside a ship, they would have done a lot of damage but maybe not as visually impressive as the water splashes. Had an entire salvo hit I suspect it would have been quite visually impressive, but I'm not sure anybody ever achieved a full salvo hit in any battle of the war expect (possibly!) at point-blank range. The biggest explosions happened when something naturally explosive was triggered to explode, such as ammunition ships were hit, or a magazine, or a high pressure boiler, or something like the post-war Texas City disaster. When USS Juneau exploded off Savo Island earlier in the war (1942) it was due to a magazine explosion triggered by a torpedo hit - many eyewitnesses assumed there could be no survivors but in fact there were many. The video of HMS Barham sinking is one well known reference for what a ship exploding looks like.

[@caseyprice5061]

ITS THAT TIME OF THE WEEK

[@sejtam]

"Geier" (vulture in German) is pronounced Ga-yah

[@johnjephcote7636]

Turner dekiberately placed the tug's boiler and funnel for'ard, for artistic effect. Someone corrected it with a print but Turner had to explain why it should not be so reproduced.

[@liambrooks2330]

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong; The welding would have been a oxy/acetylene torch with a flux rod held separately from the torch I've done it that way anyhow and it makes sense due to the lack of electrical current around or in water

[@antiochman8222]

I think the change in attitude of the Japanese towards prisoners was in least part facilitated by the war in China and elsewhere before 1941when they had imbued an attitude of obedience, brutality and strict punishment towards their own people which could be summarised as “victory or death”.

[@craigfazekas3923]

When speaking of the Japanese will of the people back then ? It also shows a possible willingness to overcompensate/letting the pendulum swing way, way wide- versus an approach of measuredness/moderation....at least where war is concerned. Such a turn around in a historically short period is kind of stunning, isn't it ? 🚬😎👍

[@GrahamWKidd]

289!! Nur elf bis drydock dreihundert folge!!

[@isthatrubble]

57:00 grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap......

[@Norbert_Sattler]

49:00 Geier is German for vulture. The 'gei' part is near enough spoken like the English 'guy' and then you just put 'er' at the back. Or take the 'geiger' from geiger counter and leave out the second g.

[@tokencivilian8507]

Hipper or Prinz Eugen vs a Des Moines. Now that would be fun ton-for-ton fight. Flab-tastaic overweight vs lean, better armored and harder hitting.

[@niclasjohansson4333]

The Des Moines was 9 years newer and 3000 tons heavier so it would be strange indeed if it was not any better !

[@bluelemming5296]

In general I'd put my money on the US ship, even if it was the older Baltimore class. But remember that the Hipper class had 12x21 inch torpedoes and the Baltimore/Des Moines class ships had no torpedoes, so it's very situational.

[@stevevalley7835]

wrt the question about USN battlecruisers, prior to the SecNav's proposal in 1915, which was adopted in the 1916 Navy Bill, formal requests by the SecNav for battle cruisers were made for 1, along with 2 battleships, in 1911, and for 2 battlecruisers, along with 4 battleships, in 1912. Battleships were always given priority, to replace obsolescing battleships, to maintain strength. As we know, Congress only approved 1 battleship in 1912, Pennsylvania, and 1 in 1913, Arizona. If battlecruisers had been authorized in 12 and 13, the design prepared by C&R in late 1912 was 920ft long, 97ft beam, 42250 tons, 10" armor belt, 8-14" guns, 16-6" guns, and turbine power providing speed of 29kts. This is a significantly larger ship than either Tiger or Kongo.

[@greenseaships]

57:18- it's the bloody big ship from Skyfall.

[@VictoryForCake]

While you touch upon how the Japanese treated the Russian POW's well in the Russo Japanese war, a significant part of the changing Japanese attitudes was the international condemnation and reaction to the Japanese treatment of Chinese POW's and civilians during the first Sino-Japanese war, in particular the massacre at Dalian/Port Arthur which also played into the racism and prejudice various national and ethnic groups held in the late 19th and early 20th century.

[@tombogan03884]

20:00 Your theory about Japanese conduct falls apart when you realize that they started on the Chinese which throws the whole "reaction to racism" bs right out the window. 41:00 Gas welding can't generate the heat accurately enough for proper penetration.

[@Drachinifel]

The interwar Sino-Japanese conflict started well after Washington.

[@henrikoldcorn]

I think you’re misusing the phrase “square-cube law”. That refers to the area of an object growing with the square of its radius while the volume grows with the cube; the example here of the mass of a projectile…that’s just the cube, no square involved.

[@Drak976]

Omg I want to live on a beached navy ship now.

[@maxmacdonald7174]

Maybe you can get a Royal Navy aircraft carrier for a new home.

[@kellyschram5486]

Imagine them bring her up and having price eugen as a museum ship that be a uneck think in the world and one think vary vary worth it. She is still there and they could salvage what there and it's more then any other German ship can be salvaged. Minis some of the smaller craft

[@ROBERTN-ut2il]

1. Spaced armor - Ahem....what about anti-torpedo bulges? 2. If the Lexingtons are escorting your fast carriers, where are your first generation fast carriers coming from?

[@Drachinifel]

Well, they were building 6, so you could have two carriers and up to 4 battlecruisers :)

[@calvingreene90]

If the USofA Navy had several Battlecruisers instead of Battleships there would have been more drive for fast oilers.

[@rackstraw]

00:01:04 You can always take a page from Jacques Cousteau, buy a warship, and go into the family business of oceanography.

[@The_ZeroLine]

How many sailors joined the navy after misunderstanding what “the engine rooms have full time blowers” meant?

[@derrickstorm6976]

Anyone know what the ship in the standard-background picture Drach uses is?

[@Dave_Sisson]

Look very closely and you will see "Oregon" written on the ship.

[@geoguy001]

For sociological changes in Japanese military see "Warriors of the rising Sun: A History of the Japanese Military" by Robert Edgerton. Westview Press 1977.