The Drydock - Episode 317 (Part 1)

[@bobmillar2099]

About those spikes … you have to remember the tidal range at la Rochelle is about six metres. You have to have defences that can’t be sailed over at high tide.

[@SteveShivik]

My grandfather was also at dachau as a liberator and from his reaction and demeanor the one time he told me about his experience it is most certainly real, and just as horrible as it’s chocked up to be, he also brought back pictures.

[@Andy_Ross1962]

Richelieu is standing on the causeway that links to the mainland. It's about 20ft under water at high tide. Those spikes have to be long enough to reach the surface at high tide.

[@SaskatoonMonsoon]

I read this comment before Drach got to the painting and I thought you were talking about the battleship Richelieu being sunk on a causeway.

[@ThatSlowTypingGuy]

Neat!

[@jeffbybee5207]

Saw 3 hours and was disippinted then saw part one and breathed easyer. Sometimes wonder when we'll run out of questions? Thankyou Drach!

[@SaskatoonMonsoon]

Oh don't worry then we can get into hypothetical, "How would you build a 2000 ton ship for duck hunting?"

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

We will never run out of questions while fanboys are aware of Bismarck, Iowa and Yamato. 😉

[@jozg44]

Just on the first question (RN officer examinations). The direct descendant of the old Examination for Lieutenant still exists as the Fleet Board. This is (usually) the final hurdle in the initial officer training pipeline and is still done by the candidate sitting before a panel of three officers (usually a Lt, LtCdr and Cdr) and being barraged by questions for about 40 minutes. Modern Fleet Board has other elements (a timed test of several hundred multiple choice questions and a presentation on a pre-given topic) but it still comes down to a board of officers asking increasingly searching questions to determine the candidate's level of knowledge. And like the classic Examination, it's a pass/fail - no commission and no Sub-Lieutenant stripe without it.

[@GrahamWKidd]

Only 3 hours. Super Easy!! Barely an inconvenience!!

[@joshuavinicombe5774]

Wow wow wow, wow

[@DavidBrown-yd9le]

Never an inconvenience

[@randomguy4616]

Watching drydock for 3 whole hours is tight!!!

[@SmilefortheJudge]

Part I is three hours… should be six at least. Yay!

[@shadowbotes581]

"I understood that reference!"

[@briannicholas2757]

My father was born in 1935, so was not old enough to join up during WWII. However, several of his older cousins did. I have the DOD records for one, who fought in Europe, and was reported as captured then MIA on the day before the Germans surrendered. The next day the Germans denied taking any prisoners, yet it was pretty much well known that they had shot their prisoners because they had no way of guarding, confining or even feeding them. Another cousin if dad's served in the pacific against the Japanese. He was 17 when he enlisted, and did not speak a word of Japanese. After a particularly heated battle, in which he had recovered a silk Japanese flag which I still have, he was given a Thompson. 45 and told to guard 6 Japanese soldiers which had been captured. He was a kid, alone, and tge 6 soldiers began speaking quietly to each other and making furtive glances at him. His report stated that they tried to rush him so he was forced to shoot them. It may have played out that way, or it could have been a scared, battle shocked kid who freaked out and thought they were going to jump him. Who knows. It's very easy in hindsight, and armchair quarterbacks love to present controversial ideas, to say that GIs, sailors or Marines committed war crimes, but we were not on those often brutal battlefields, nor did we actually witness the horrors of war that they did. Maybe those German soldiers shot my dad's cousin, and maybe his other cousin, half a world away, shot those Japanese prisoners out of fear and not an escape attempt, but certainly we, 80 plus years later, should not rush to judgement. A bunch of young kids, who had just seen a bunch of their best friends killed or wounded in a pitched battle, can not be held to the standard of angels.

[@johngregory4801]

On the War Crimes question, My Lai is pronounced Me Lie. (Although I try not to) I have a friend who, back in the 80's, had a teacher try to force his classes to accept that the Holocaust never happened. Unfortunately for that poor fool, my friend had seen the photos his grandfather had taken when his unit liberated a concentration camp. Dude told his gramps, who brought his photos to the principal, who then fired the teacher and made damn sure everyone in the faculty was aware... Denying the Holocaust wouldn't be tolerated in his school.

[@wilsonj4705]

It's crazy how these people think millions of people can somehow keep a secret when two can't

[@notshapedforsportivetricks2912]

​@@wilsonj4705 Indeed!

[@johnshepherd9676]

Unfortunately we now have a large number of people who want to do it again.

[@johngregory4801]

@@johnshepherd9676 I "thank" the Indoctrination, errrr, "Education" System, churning out Useful Idiot Activists.

[@gandydancer9710]

There's a similar phenomenon underway right now: Pro-HAMAS types claiming most of the Jews killed on 10/7/23 were killed by the IDF. Never mind that the terrorists said that they wanted to kill Jews, photographed themselves killing Jews, left piles of dead Jews....

[@JohnBianchi]

My father-in-law's unit, the 45 Infantry Division, liberated Dachau. He spoke about the incident a few times. The non-coms and the battalion CO who were charged were let off with a reprimand. My father-in-law pulled the duty of bringing citizens from the village up to the camp to see the conditions up close. The prisoners were still on site because there was no facility to move them to at that point.

[@roo4159]

I fall asleep to these uploads ! Best part I can play any one ( no matter how many times I have already ) and it is always new to me ❤

[@TacgnolSimulacrum]

Re: mechanical time fuses I believe you've made a mistake. My understanding is that there is some kind of lock/ratchet mechanism that prevents the "timer" from counting down until the acceleration of the shell down the barrel frees it. Setting a fuse that instantly starts counting down and hoping it leaves the barrel in time seems to be an INCREDIBLY bad idea, and would be a reversion to the "lets light this fuse on the cannon-ball shell just before we stuff it down the barrel oops we just dropped it" days. NavWeps even specifies that the US mechanical fuse setters could be set only as low as 0.80 seconds specifically to ensure that at the minimum time possible, the shell would clear the ship would clear the ship, which wouldn't be possible if that time started counting as soon as it was removed from the fuse-setter. Edited to add: I'm having a difficult time tracking down right now the specific fuse that would have been used on USN shells since google only returns VT fuse information, but the documentation I can find for Japanese Naval mechanical fuses (The US Navy technical report on fuses from Feb 1946) specifically calls out a desire by the IJN to increase safety by reducing the chance of a shell going off in the bore of the gun, and diagrams in the same document specifically call out centrifugal shutters/safeties on the fuses.

[@Curt_Sampson]

I definitely recall seeing fuse initiation mechanisms that relied on the centripetal force imparted by the rifling to enable a battery, which I am pretty sure was the VT fuses. According to Wikipedia, the earlier time fuses were initiated by the shock of firing. I'd be very interested to see a reference for time fuses being initiated _before_ firing, because that just makes no sense it all. Not only would it be _incredibly_ unsafe (what happens when a cease fire is ordered? or there's a loading issue?), but it would be useless for AA fire since even a half second variation on how long it takes to load and fire the shell would result in the shell bursting several hundred metres above or below the target altitude.

[@seanmalloy7249]

1:39:30 Taking hits doesn't compromise a submarine's ability to dive; it compromises its ability to *surface* again, which is objectively a great deal more important to its crew than whether it can submerge.

[@alganhar1]

Picky picky.... Though to be fair you are not wrong. Reminds me of the saying that 'all ships can be submarines. Once.'

[@73Trident]

Drach Outstanding DD. All your hard work and research makes for a wealth of insight to all the questions.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

Yeah, speaking of the Edmund Fitzgerald I was surprised to hear you even get a question about the ill fated ship but I wasn't surprised that you tried to answer it. The whole story was very sad. And I don't think people realized at the time just how dangerous it still really is to be at sea or in the Great Lakes. And I personally believe that it still is just as dangerous today as it was when the Edmond Fitzgerald went down. I think they call them the November witches. But they are also Noreaster's, I think. Where these storms come thru going North east but then basically turn around and come back towards where they just came from. And they think that the storm is going to pass BUT it turns & comes right back. And crew men already exhausted have to deal with the same storm all over again.

[@ghost307]

I also have an aversion to Manhattan Island, but I wanted to visit Intrepid. There is a large car park in Weehawken New Jersey at the ferry terminal. The ferry arrives at Manhattan Island only a few blocks from the ship.

[@johngregory4801]

Thank you. I've been in Manhattan once, back in '77. Made myself a promise I'd never go back, but a couple of blocks to walk from the ferry to USS Intrepid? I might be willing to do that.

[@stephenpeterson6676]

Intrepid was a great stop, it’s so imposing and massive seeing it from the walkway in front of the bow, and there’s a great array of aircraft on top as well as a space shuttle, it’s a great stop if you’re in the area

[@ghost307]

@@johngregory4801 Start at the Port Imperial ferry terminal in Weehawken and grab the Midtown/39th Street ferry. It also cuts right in front of the bow of the Intrepid so you can get some great pictures.

[@DIVeltro]

A comment for the question at 2:08. My Grandfather helped liberate one of those camps. His only comment about was "There's some things that should never be allowed to happen again. "

[@Claymore5]

My late Uncle was one of the first troops to reach Bergen Belsen. The only thing he ever said about it was how quiet everything was in the two or three miles before reaching the camp - no birdsong, nothing. He would never say anything else and you never asked him again.

[@dmphoenix973]

11:09 I would very much like to see an armoured "Cardinal Drach: KZbinur en Rouge" 👍 Very interesting insight on those structures.

[@nancydelu4061]

I appreciate your work for my Dad. He would have loved this!!

[@aetius9]

For the Honor Harrington Q-ship question, she faced a purpose-built Q-ship (really a spec-ops ship) in the first book, _On Basilisk Station_ . It was constructed to look like a freighter, but fitted with military propulsion, weapons, and defenses. in _Honor Among Enemies_ , she commands a Q-ship that is a real freighter modified to carry two squadrons of small combat craft, battleship-grade weapons, and a large missile complement. Their mission was counter-piracy, though she ends up going up against a battlecruiser and both ships are destroyed.

[@SkywalkerWroc]

Sounds like French Arras-class Avisos pushed to 11.

[@gerald5344]

Regarding war materials shipped to the Soviet Union via the Pacific, I've read close to 8,000 Lend-Lease aircraft were staged in Alaska and then flown to Siberia by Soviet pilots as a way around the problem noted by Drachinifel.

[@roberthilton5328]

While I don't disagree with your logic that the frigate battles of the War of 1812 had relatively minimal effect on the British Empire and their strategic conduct of the war for the reasons you state, from the American perspective they were far from a waste of men, material and time as asked by the question. The American frigate victories buoyed and buffered the American spirts against the struggles of the American army and the other pressures an extended war puts on that society. They were a major foundation for a Naval Tradition of victory, what was possible, that even senior Royal Navy officers recognized at the time would be the foundation of a respectable, and eventually formidable naval power. The American frigates were essentially neutralized as a threat by the end of the war as you said, but that naval power, that belief by them and their country, was never nipped in the bud. That seed of Naval Tradition was scantly nourished in the decades afterwards (also contributing to those battles' erosion in importance), but the seed didn't fail its promise when it received the proper nourishing and commitment from the country.

[@Drachinifel]

It's one of the things that makes them so interesting, they mean almost nothing and almost everything at the same time :)

[@johnshepherd9676]

The 6 Frigates start the American naval tradition but it had largely died out by the Civil War. After a brief resurgence with the Civil War the Navy fell back into into a state of neglect. The re-creation of the US Navy was largely the result of the efforts of Admiral David Dixon Porter.

[@roberthilton5328]

@@johnshepherd9676 Agree that the US Navy fell into a state of neglect for decades before the Civil War. However, it's minimizing the influence of the War of 1812 considering that David Dixon Porter was the son of USS Essex captain David Porter, and another major Union Admiral David Farragut was the foster son of the same David Porter and even served in the War of 1812 under Porter's command.

[@johnshepherd9676]

@roberthilton5328 That is true, but Porter the Younger's development is more influenced by technology than his naval heritage. I recommend Noel Gerson's "Yankee Admiral."

[@alganhar1]

@@Drachinifel I rather depends where you are. To the Americans the war of 1812 is very important to the early history of the USA as a nation. So those Frigate duels are of course of high importance. To us British however, not so much. If we consider the fact that at the time the Battle of Trafalgar was only ten years beforehand. Then you have the other great Naval battles of the Napoleonic Wars, and the simple fact that those Wars had lasted some twenty years. Your average Briton was hardly going to be particularly worried about a handful of frigate actions across the Atlantic when the Napoleonic Wars were still ongoing. So its a matter of perspective. In the US show me a US Citizen who has not heard at least something about the war of 1812. Conversely in the UK show us the average Brit that has even HEARD of the war of 1812, let alone could actually tell you about any of the battles or ship actions of that war..... So the war of 1812 means almost nothing, or everything, depending on where you come from. Hugely important to the history of the nascent USA, utterly irrelevant to the history of the UK....

[@Irascibanality]

Now that you mention it, i would also like a set of Richelieu's armor/cardinal's robes. A truly striking look.

[@SmilefortheJudge]

13:08 I never noticed there was boats in this ever. I am with Drach and I always dig how cool the cardinal looks. Richelieu? I can’t spell armour

[@brianbalster3521]

Japanese: We've sank Five out of Three Yorktowns.. hmm maybe there is a problem with our maths?

[@stevenhenry9605]

"One, two... five!" "Three, sir!" "Three!"

[@Trek001]

Another Saturday breakfast and another 24 hour advanced viewing of a Drydock... Life is good

[@monkofdarktimes]

Is Sunday

[@Trek001]

@@monkofdarktimes I get it on Saturday as a patreon supporter

[@monkofdarktimes]

@@Trek001 makes sense

[@stevevalley7835]

wrt the question about 1939 AA upgrades, iirc, one of the issues with the Vickers Pom-Pom was that no-one in the US made cordite, and the Vickers did not work right with USN smokeless. My preferred alternate would be the Browning designed, Colt refined, 37mm, that the US Army used. Add the refinements that were added later in the war: ammo feed from either side, and ammo in metal link belts, rather than clips, and the 37mm could have been used in the same style of mounts as the Vickers. So the USN could have had a locally produced Pom-Pom, that had better range than the Vickers.

[@camenbert5837]

Re engines on Iowas, as well as life in engine hours, the age in years would be an issue - you'd need to repack every steam joint, replace every bearing, verify every valve, etc etc. The sheer timecost of doing that would be enough to sink the project

[@patrickwhaley4111]

My father was a POW in Germany (WWII) and was liberated by Russian forces, after the Lambsdorf death march. There after he and the other British and Common Wealth prisoners were very much left on their own to make their way back to British/ US lines. They were reluctant to hang around with the Soviet Force least they ended up 'as guests' for political bargining purposes. Some of guards who'd given prisoners a hard time who attempted to mix in with refugees and forced labour when found were simply executed as were Waffen and Camp SS. This happened rather more than has ever been officially admitted.

[@j_taylor]

My grandfather never said much about his experiences on the front in Europe. He spoke about how friendly the Russians were, and that they (US Army) took a lot of German prisoners and there was mutual respect. He mentioned once that they never captured any SS. I was too young to understand.

[@beaker126]

As always, I love the Patreon dry docks. Perfect for a long session at the hobby bench.

[@Jimmy_CV]

A five hour twenty four minute drachinathon should get me through my workday nicely.

[@1joshjosh1]

This guy some sort of genius He knows everything

[@davidsachs4883]

YES YES Yes Video on competition to choose usa’s navy medium AAA where the Bofors won

[@syme9925]

I ALWAYS take Tappan Zee when heading from DC to New England. I'd rather stand still in traffic while the accident was sorted out than drive through the urban wasteland mess of NYC which rather than have 'roads' has decided to frame their potholes with a pattern of asphalt.

[@GrahamCStrouse]

I never had any trouble driving through NYC. I’ve got an excellent memory for numbers and pretty good reflexes. My spatial memory, however, is awful. Parking in New York, on the other hand…

[@philipdepalma4672]

I live in Manhattan and there are numerous bridges crossing the Hudson north of NYC including the Bear Mountain Bridge, the Mid-Hudson Bridge between Kingston and Poughkeepsie and the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge. The latter bridge carries I-84 over the Hudson and connects to I-95 which would be another way to get from the South to Boston without going through Manhattan.

[@Unreliablecaptionbot]

As a fellow Brit I really liked New York and would love to go back, also it was such a new experience to be staring down literal man made canyons to see the horizon. I was but a mere tourist however and did not have to commute.

[@steve-qc8hd]

00:52:07 Main thing that slowed the Bofors use in US service was changing from European metric to US imperial measurement so, transferring Daughtmanship copying facilities and ballistic calculation specialists to UK who in 1939 already were re-drawing Polish and Dutch 40 mm Bofors systems, may have allowed an earlier production start up but probably only months, debatable it would have made any difference for Pearl Harbour. 40mm Pom Poms were much less of a draughtmanship and ballistic calculation problem.

[@skeltonpg]

RE Fire control and rate of fire for BB's. By Jutland the Germans figured out that firing a ladder at relatively brief intervals resulted in earlier hitting. (Fire half your battery aimed over, the next somewhat shorter at half your best reload rate, continue. Within a few salvos you should observe short splashes. The advantage of high ROF is obvious.

[@rpick7546]

Wait! Samuel Pepys - that's how his name is pronounced - Peeps? I've read that name hundreds or thousands of times and have never heard it pronounced. Always assumed it was Peppies or some variation thereof.

[@spikespa5208]

Since first being introduced to Pepys by my mother (a hardcore anglophile if ever there was one) at age 16, always heard it pronounced "Peeps". Won't go into how long ago that was.

[@DouglasCarnall]

Peeps, yep

[@88porpoise]

Nobody would assume that was how it was pronounced without being told because it makes absolutely no sense. I would wager that, like many weird English place names, it is shortened from what it was historically.

[@DouglasCarnall]

@@88porpoise >makes no sense Welcome to English!

[@spikespa5208]

I have respect for anyone who learns English well as a second language.

[@sskuk1095]

Regarding the allied war crimes in WW2, I *highly* recommend to do research on operation Keelhauling, where the allies handed over huge amounts of russian citizens (Cossacks and often times individuals that were not even born in the USSR) to the Soviets, knowing very well what would happen to them! The same goes for Croatian refugees being handed over to the communist Yugoslavs!

[@sskuk1095]

(I know a quite bit about these incidents, because it happened close to where I'm from.)

[@MatthewDonald]

Actually, the most blatant Allied war crime would be the Battle of the Bismark Sea where life boats were machine gunned en masse. The slaughter of Japanese survivors was pre-planned, not a spur of the moment thing. It was authorized by both Douglas MacArthur and the Australian War Cabinet. By the way, the US and Australian air crews who performed the slaughter, were sufficiently traumatized by the experience to vomit either during the flights or shortly after returning.

[@Charliecomet82]

I'm sure we Yankees would have wanted any of our citizens who fought for the Nazis returned to us, if the situation had arisen...

[@greenseaships]

"Not exactly our finest hour" -James Bond

[@benwilson6145]

Not a War Crime!

[@TheRezro]

Speaking in context of SF. Q-ships could be really useful against piracy. In fact there is many cases during Age of Sail or even Somalia, when pirates confused warships with merchants. With really poor results for them. In this scenario military could have several refitted merchants (escorts/sloops) or even purposefully build ships looking like foreigners. Made with purpose of attracting pirates or covertly escorting civilians. But in case of war that would be rather ineffective, as I assume navy would have full list of safe ships. Or shot in sight in everything what is not identified as safe. Definitely they would not try board them. Still, those could be employed to some degree. Especially for sabotage in initial stages of the conflict. But like during the war itself that is rather not good idea.

[@michalsoukup1021]

Re:Honor Harrington, she fough a purpose build Q-ship in her first book and commanded a sqaudron of them much later when dealing with pirates, so she was on both ends of it.

[@tomhalla426]

And the Peep raiding squadron that eventually destroyed her ship.

[@quietman1972]

Re: Bored men tend to be troublesome men. Captain: So what are the men doing? Sailing Master: Improvising entertainment sir. Captain: Oh dear gods. Fetch the Sergeant at Arms, would you?

[@ssgtmole8610]

As an E-1 in the Air Force, we ran into some Air Force cadets in uniform and were cautioned not to salute them by our training NCOs. They don't have any rank because they haven't been commissioned yet - even if they are wearing cadet insignia so they can differentiate between each other. The hardest obstacle I had in distinguishing an officer was Colonel "Crash." I referred to him as such because that was what the vanity plate on his Corvette Stingray said. The rumor mill said he had an airplane crash on his record and would never make flag rank (general) because of it. He had his silver eagle insignia sewed directly onto his light blue uniform shirts which made them almost impossible to discern in the Texas noon day sun. I knew he was an officer because of several other hints on his uniform, but I was so pre-occupied trying to figure out his actual rank that I almost missed saluting him as I walked pass him in the opposite direction. 😳

[@MrNicoJac]

If you had not saluted because his rank was not immediately clear, how much trouble would you have been in? Especially if you explained you were looking, but just didn't see it in time due to the Texas sun?

[@ssgtmole8610]

@@MrNicoJac That depends on the officer. When I was in Technical School in Mississippi there was a medical officer there that was rumored to be a bit of an ass about their commission and would dress down enlisted airmen for not saluting. Even if you approached him in such a way that you were not required to salute him. He rounded on me once and called me out for not saluting when he was leaving the Base Exchange (store) at such an angle to me that I was not required to salute him. It may be that he had better than average peripheral vision. 🤔 Colonel Crash was a bit more easy going so nothing reportable would have come of it because he could probably see the expression of confusion on my face. I feel he would have stopped me and asked if I had not recognized him as an officer. Then I would have given him a salute, he would have returned it, and that would have been it. I never heard of an instance in my 5 years of enlistment of someone being given an Article 15 report on their record for not saluting - that should have been the limit for not recognizing an officer and offering proper courtesies. Knowingly disrespecting an officer could lead to a court martial.

[@ssgtmole8610]

My one experience of being on Manhattan Island in New York for about 5 days in 1984 left me to the conclusion that surface travel was maddening by car or bus, so take the subway.

[@bkjeong4302]

41:33 The big problem facing the battleship in modern warfare, and in WWII for that matter, isn’t survivability. It’s lack of offensive capability (due to limited range) and the fact it thus ends up being a capital ship mostly or entirely pigeonholed into supporting roles where any tactical value it has fails to justify the strategic expenditure. The big way to solve this would be to abandon the main battery entirely and replace it with something that has the range to pose a viable threat to the enemy, but then that’s no longer a battleship; it’s a Kirov.

[@theawickward2255]

Or an Iowa. Missouri was also quite useful in the Persian Gulf, since given it's a relatively small space she could show up wherever she pleased pretty quickly, and the Iranians tended to stay in port rather than try shenanigans when she was around.

[@nco_gets_it]

The lack of sea based artillery in the US Navy is a real problem for both the USMC and US Army in amphibious operations. Also, a modernized 16 inch artillery system paired with some form of a sea launched MLRS system is likely very useful. Another concept is turning the BB into a giant anti missile platform with the big guns replaced with a modern AEGIS system. IMO, that is a not great use of tonnage and armor, but a ship the size of a BB might be able to carry systems like Sprite or future systems of that size. It is a question of role, and a very large ship size obviously provides more capacity for systems in a given role. The fact that the US Navy is not in a hurry to even replace its more modern cruisers is likely a clue here.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@theawickward2255 The Iowas never really got to use their main guns to do anything other than a destroyer’s or monitor’s job. They weren’t viable capital ships, not due to design but due to being built after the writing was already on the wall. Now, if you ditched the 16” guns and assorted systems entirely and added even more anti-ship missiles with the freed-up space and tonnage, that might actually be fucking terrifying.

[@b-17gflyingfortress6]

@@bkjeong4302 No, it would be better and more useful to build a smaller ship with same armament than what if deep refit Iowa. I don't know why people fail to realise their age and hull form not being optimal for a good missile ship

[@theawickward2255]

@@bkjeong4302 Counterpoint: Operation Hailstone. That may or may not have been their job, but it certainly wasn't a destroyer's or a monitor's. Also, part of my point was that the Iowas provided a deterrent effect; what few nations actually had navies generally preferred to keep theirs in port rather than risk getting into a fight with a battleship.

[@davidmcintyre8145]

One other admiral who gave his all and died on the way home was Collingwood who had been second in command to Nelson at Trafalgar and who took over the fleet after Nelson was killed

[@steve-qc8hd]

00:15:38 The Germans & Italians supplied a lot of munitions and supplies through Tobruk after its loss, approximately 50K tons of various ammunition had been captured by allies during the Relief of Tobruk, and while not all came through Tobruk a fair bit would.

[@benwilson6145]

I read that was true, when the Italians occupied Tobruk during the siege the Australian found large quantities of Italian provisions buried. The loved the wine but complained that they needed real food not that Italian crap.

[@CSSVirginia]

What makes a good you tube historian? The ability to make a 3 hour q and a, in any wether.

[@planenut767]

If you go to Intrepid stay in NJ and take the ferry across. You also go see the USS Ling and make a video of "How not to run a museum ship". I'll drive😁

[@joshuasutherland6692]

Drach take the train to Intrepid the NYC subway system is wild. As an engineering enthusiest you'd probably like it.

[@GaldirEonai]

For the Honor Harrington question, she both fought against a purpose-built Q-ship and commanded one later. The former was essentially a warship built to look like a freighter and got used as part of a plot to take over a strategically important but very weakly defended star system (since the system was linked to the manticoran home system via wormhole it could have been reinforced very quickly so planners at the time didn't really bother to station more than early warning forces there, and the Q-ship could have taken those by surprise under the right conditions). It was pretty much exactly as dangerous as a warship of its weight class. The latter ship was a dedicated pirate-hunter built in response to demands by the shipping industry to do something about a particularly lawless region of space. It was built on a civilian hull but with all kinds of nasty surprises added to it, making it a glass cannon...extreme firepower but basically zero protection from battle damage aside from not getting hit.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

My gramps was right at the knife edge of going all war crimey. It was Gardalegen, I've mentioned before. Anyway... the whole town starting with the officials was put under threat from to the end of a barrel (some figuratively) for trying to cover-up an atrocity. If they didn't start exhuming bodies, they were to join them. He was very dispassionate recalling the mayor and whoever else bluster.

[@stargazer5784]

RE: Allied war crimes. My father-in-law served on a submarine chaser in the Pacific. They typically machine gunned Japanese sailors that they found in the water. He showed me some photos that he had gotten from a marine who had participated in the island hopping campaign. One that stuck in my mind showed a smiling marine crouching with his rifle in hand behind about a dozen or so Japanese heads lined up on the beach. During all out ruthless warfare against a fanatical enemy, previously rational men can be driven to act in a very ruthless manner themselves. It wasn't their fault considering the atrocities that they had witnessed. Seeing in person what the Japanese and some Germans were capable of would drive any sane man over the edge. It was a dark chapter in human history. 😣

[@ogscarl3t375]

Still forever patiently waiting for the end to the destroyer development series

[@alganhar1]

You are not the only one!

[@leftcoaster67]

Waiting for the Drach/Oceanliner Designs cross-over!

[@keefymckeefface8330]

Pls no!. OL is near clickbait. I had to unfollow him when he did a thing on the arc as a literal real as described in ye olde bible ship.

[@coldwarrior78]

Completely agree with your assessment of Manhattan. I'd add a hundred miles to my trip to avoid it. And I live here.

[@ROBERTNABORNEY]

1) Any modern battleship with its energy hungry lasers screams for nuclear propulsion. So I would insists on any new build vessel being a BBN. Also. NO ONE has the industrial capability to build guns or ammunition greater than 8 inch or anything except the lightest armor. 2) Given the time it would take to set up production of the two pounder and ammunition, I don't see any advantage complared to the 40mm Bofors in tems of actually getting guns on ships 3) I would suggest as Jellicoe's replacement "Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon, KCB, KCVO, DSO (6 September 1863 - 9 June 1947)] was an officer in the Royal Navy noted for his technical abilities. According to Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, twice First Sea Lord, he was at one time "acknowledged as the cleverest officer in the Navy".[ "Bacon was the first captain of the battleship HMS Dreadnought. In June 1906 he commissioned her for her trials and took her on a special cruise to the West Indies. In August 1907 he was appointed to the position of Director of Naval Ordnance succeeding Jellicoe. In July 1909 he was promoted Rear-Admiral.[14] In November 1909 he retired from the Active List as director of Naval Ordnance. He had been offered the appointment of managing director of the Coventry Ordnance Works (COW). During his time there, the Coventry works manufactured the QF 4.5-inch howitzer, the BL 5.5-inch Mark I naval gun and the Army's biggest gun to date, the BL 9.2-inch howitzer. On the outbreak of war, prompted by the German army's bombardment of the Liège forts, the Coventry factory privately designed the BL 15-inch howitzer, designed to be road transportable by three 105 hp Daimler-Foster Artillery tractors. The Army was unimpressed by its lack of range and didn't adopt the weapon, but Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, formed the Howitzer Brigade of the Royal Marine Artillery with the twelve guns. The first howitzer was shipped to France in February 1915 and Bacon was given a temporary commission in the Royal Marine Artillery as an extra Colonel 2nd Commandant. In April 1915 he was called to the Admiralty, where Churchill and Jackie Fisher were keen to send a single 15-inch howitzer to Gallipoli. He arranged for the howitzer (no. 3) to be transported, and a few days later was in Paris ready to start for the Dardanelles, when he was recalled to London by Churchill and made Commander-in-Chief, Dover, replacing Rear-Admiral Horace Hood." 4) The IJA built a ship specifically to carry heavy ordnance from scrapped warships from the yards to the emplacements - the Seishu Maru. 5) Small event big outcome. Pursuit of Goeben leads the Ottomans coming into the war - which leads to the collapse in 1918, te results of which we are still living with today. 6) Only one US weather ship was sunk in WW2. German sub skippers became VERY suspicious of small cargo ships circling a point in Mid-Atlantic with no escort as being Q-Ships.

[@timschoenberger242]

01:04:25 Quite a few comments of the airmen can be found in the "Winner's and Losers" chapter of Walter Lord's book Incredible Victory.

[@SamAlley-l9j]

Thanks Drach.

[@datgood121]

30:55 if i had known you needed more photos i would be willing to help since im a local of that city

[@loudcd]

Best racing yacht in 1902 was (and still is) Shenadoah of Sark

[@Dave_Sisson]

Is that named after the autonomous Channel Island or the Confederate raider, or both?

[@ivoryjohnson4662]

Yeaaaaa another excellent dry dock!!!!!

[@iainburgess8577]

Re the Q-Ship Question: the Honor Harrinton series is a Sci-Fi series, where the Q-ships is question are Extensively converted merchant hulls for anti-piracy operations in a "lawless" region: NOT a purpose built hull. this scenario is "necessitated" for a main trading region outside the major conflict area, because war is pulling all warship anti-piracy patrols out of the region (a failed confederacy). it is Very much a way to bring the WW1/WW2 US/Britiain/German merchant raiding dynamic into the HHu: DW seems a history buff and seems to derive a lot of his inspiration from historical events. (in the series, David Weber {ret US Navy} covers that regular warships Have the ECM capacity to sucker a pirate w no further modification: but various aspects of the sociopolitical situation lead to a Q-Ship design being mechanically viable). in the HHU, drives are complex: but think a modern megatanker vs an aegis missile cruiser. the merchant hulls are huge, but slow, the warship is faster, but smaller. in the HHU cannon, main warship weapons are "short range" beam weapons, anti missile defenses, and Long range missiles ( he range varies Wildly across star nations and centuries) hyperspace is a separate space w tweaked rules, regular space is all else. "subs" are "empty space" stealth, "false flag" warship ECM camouflage, ECM drones, or Q-ships, w One instance of a Civillian fast liner w active defenses and ECM. "Gravitiy Drives" have 2 modes: a hyperspace sail mode, and paired planes of gravity that draw a ship toward them, (gravity reactionless drive), that are such a steep gradient of gravity that physical objects cannot survive the shear forces, and lasers are scattered: IE, the anti-torpedo defence basically, DW did an in universe version of the converted Q-Ship you advised, w a hidden donkey kick that i can't explain without destroying a Lot of the development and narrative in the series' (theres.. 5 or more? different series in the HHu universe now, most as an interconnected extending around the latter HH narrative)

[@jame3shook]

~@1:35 on the Honor Harrington 'Q ship" question. As I recall, that command was a "Merchant Cruiser" aka cruiser/battlecruiser weapons and LACs on a merchant hull and power...

[@jonsouth1545]

When I was at Uni I was in the University Royal Naval units we were on small patrol boats and while we all had commisions as midshipman the XO was a Cheif Petty Officer even though the TO on board was a Full Lt as was the CO. O'Brien would definitly be in command. Even though he was a Full Lt the same as the CO the TO even had to defer to the XO who was a Cheif.

[@davidvik1451]

58:34 Not directly part of the topic, but if I'm not mistaken the object seen in the lower left of the picture is the right end of a "Rake", a device used for spotting shots while towing targets. With the center tine on the target an observer, at the end of the rake handle, would call the shot short or long by the number of tines off. I don't know what the per tooth angular calibration was or if they were made for a specific towing distance. I just recall watching a senior boatswain using one on the fantail during a shootex, calling off shot by the number of teeth long or short of the target we were towing.

[@garychisholm2174]

I want to see a Monty Python-esque court scene where the Admiral's statement is read out in court and it concludes with "Sucks to be me."

[@yannichudziak9942]

The Harrington peep Q-ship she faced was a military ship disguised as a merchant ship whereas she commanded a merchant ship that was equipped with massive firepower. Think something like a battle cruiser or battle ship disguised like a bulk carrier merchant ship versus a big bulk carrier with missile canisters and hidden fire support and sensor capabilities.

[@richardm3023]

I save these long ones for road trips.

[@MrVern814]

A Jersey, powered with a reactor

[@Tim.NavVet.EN2]

IIRC: The US Army 16" (L50) had an elevation of 55 degrees which allowed the shell to get into thinner air quicker and gave it an impressive range increase over the US Navy mount which was 45 degrees (figured out from the (Imperial) ?German WW1 "Paris Gun"

[@nathangillispie51]

Love drach even more after hus war crimes comments

[@PhilipVanEssendelft-zh7iv]

Hmm- i would have thought the the timed fuse was set with the mechanical timer, but initiated when the round was fired. Yesh- what if you set a rounds timer and than, for whatever reason don’t load and fire it? Pipe bombs in the 5/38 turret!

[@88porpoise]

Nothing would happen if the timer expired before the shell was fired. I don't know about how the timers worked, but certainly any 20th century artillery shell design would need to experience the forces of being fired (whether the acceleration, centrifugal forces, or deceleration after leaving the gun or some combination of them) to arm itself. Whether impact, time, or VT fused that step is still required to allow it to go boom. That doesn't mean shells and fuses never failed for one reason or another. But if you put a timed fuse and the gun failed to fire for some reason, it would not just blow up in the breach when the time expired.

[@johnshepherd9676]

A good comparison for build times for WWII battleships and carriers of similar displacement is an Iowa versus a Midway. An Iowa took 6-12 months longer to build the battleship

[@lexington476]

2:00:03 are some museums very easy to work with, they help you out they bend over backwards? Versus other museums are completely indifferent to you despite that you have a big KZbin channel? It's kind of the impression I get sometimes, like you go to the Cod the New Jersey other museums and it looks like they roll the red carpet out for you. versus like well you've never gone to intrepid, so it makes me wonder do they even acknowledge your existence....

[@kemarisite]

58:28 USS West Virginia's gunnery report from Surigao Strait shows 12 salvos over the perio 0352:10 to 0400:24, a period of 8 minutes and 14 seconds. This gives an average time of 41.17 seconds per salvo, consistent with the 41 seconds for the first 13 salvos specifically stated in the gunnery report. The stated 1.5 rounds per gun per minute would indicate 1 salvo every 40 seconds, and flight time to 20,000 yards is 30 seconds, so it would appear the Mark 8 radar did enable this ship to maintain its macimum rate of fire from the outset. Certainly faster than Bismark (admittedly 3.5 years earlier) firing 93 rounds over 13 minutes from the same arrangement of 8 guns.

[@johnshepherd9676]

Once you achieved a firing solution with Mk 8 the range and bearing error fit within the footprint of a battleship so you are always firing at the target. The error is less the error in the fall of shot. No need to correct fire. West Virginia achieved a firing solution at 32kyd but because of the reduced number of AP rounds, Oldendorff ordered the ships to open fire in the low 20kyds.

[@niclasjohansson4333]

I do not know if those 13 minutes of Bismarcks shooting at the DS battle includes the 3 - 4 minutes of Lutchens "hesitation" before opening fire, but I do know that they during this time switched target from Hood to PoW !

[@timothymaher5328]

Drach having the Homer Simpson experience in Manhattan.

[@onenote6619]

27:05 I would imagine that an airship would have to fly very low to make a towed array work. Even leaving aside the possibility of getting the array stuck or of hitting the water, the airship would be horrendously vulnerable to just about any enemy patrol or maritime strike aircraft in the vicinity. Or even to the submarine surfacing and opening up with the deck guns. 41:50 The main question for a modern battleship (that I can think of) is: Could it survive a couple of hits from serious air-to-surface missiles and keep on operating? If so, the sheer size and ability to carry huge amounts of armament would be helpful for operations that need extreme persistence (the Spratly Island situation immediately comes to mind).

[@dgthe3]

42:00 I'd disagree on the value of battleships. But I do think that gunboats would be very useful for the USMC. Possibly expanded into a family of 'naval fire support vessels'. About the size of a large US Coast Guard ship, have 3 variants: a gunboat with 155mm guns (perhaps tweaking the design of the Zumwalt's guns so they use standard 155mm ammo), one with MLRS-like rocket systems (& carries extra stock to reload launchers a few times without returning to port), and a medium-range air defence version. The intended role is to support amphibious and island-clearing operations. And a small collection of such vessels would (ideally) cost about as much as a single Burke-class destroyer. Maybe have all of them configured to be able to conduct anti-piracy patrols or similar missions as a secondary role. Aviation facilities would be limited to drones, but perhaps allow for helicopters to use them as a lily pad (let them land & refuel, maybe rearm; but no hanger or assigned aircraft). Sort of like what the LCS would be like, had the project not been done stupidly.

[@DurinSBane-zh9hj]

If there were a Royal Navy version of "The Final Countdown" where HMS Implacable (circa September 1945) were thrown back in time to just before the Battle of Jutland, how much damage could she inflict on the High Seas Fleet? Assuming she attacks solo, before Jellicoe and Beatty arrive

[@aurora4xabo665]

Question: In the age of sail, was there any doctrine on the direction and strnegth of wind, and how to sail with it when going into battle (thinking mroe big planned battle, not the small duels of opportunity)?

[@alexmoskowitz811]

I think an air/sea drone deployer is the most likely path for a battleship. High speed, highly survivable, and lots of storage room.

[@aquila3958]

Drydock Q&A question: Hypothetical (unhistorical) early 1941 german navy strikegroup sets sail consisting of Graf Zeppelin, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen, Hipper, Scheer and Lützow, what value would they serve in the atlantic and how could a battle of the Denmark Straits battle 2.0 look like

[@hughgordon6435]

when I was a kid , in Lossiemouth harbour ,there used to be a Naval rescue launch? was such launches permanently manned or did the crew have to come from the naval station?

[@napalmholocaust9093]

Dixie G. W. sells the cannon locks (and the cannons). Not sure if flint or percussion, probably both.

[@Bingo551]

Civilian vessels to military I can think of two the sebo and the Wolverine 2 steam liners turned into trainer carriers on the Great Lakes WWll.

[@CO27640B]

About 40mm, the Bofors had much better development potential as well as accuracy advantages - in effect the 40mm pom pom was the last iteration of the 'Maxim' gun action, and no further development potetntial was possible, while the Bofors was at the beginning of it's development arc - and indeed improved versions are still in production today.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

Speaking of battles that were small but important or big but unimportant. What I call "the Naval Battle of Samar" may not seem very important in the larger scheme of things. However, if Taffy 3 isn't there to oppose Kurita's Force then does Kurita go & shell the soldiers that have landed on Leyte? Yeah, he can't destroy troop ships cuz they are already ashore but that many battleships & cruisers doing a shore bombardment on the landing force could have been detrimental to the whole operation. Even if Admiral Lee gets back to the San Bernadino Strait & destroys the Center Force still Kurita could have caused major US casualties in the range of 10k- 20k if not more. I believe the US landed about 70k troops on the island unless I'm mistaken. So yeah, the Naval Battle of Samar was huge IMHO!!! Plus they saved most of the escort carriers from Kurita as well.

[@zstewart]

Believe me Drach, I avoid Manhattan (and NYC generally) as much as possible too -- and I work there. (Let's just say there's a reason I put up with an hour commute).

[@zstewart]

Also if the Tappan Zee was blocked I would either deal with the traffic or cross the hudson farther north rather than go through Manhattan :/

[@mitchm4992]

What kind of carrier could you have made out of Olympic if you were tasked with converting it in the interwar years?

[@michaelbourgeault9409]

I'm thinking the ventilation systems of the Tillman battleships would have been inefficient, yes?

[@mpetersen6]

Raising propellers. My first thought was salvage.

[@tombogan03884]

40:00The Cadet should not turn over command. It is after all what he is there to learn. However, The first knob of a good commander is to solicit advice from his senior NCO's .

[@miraclees]

On the Allied war crimes - so I assume that question is taken to be only about war crimes committed by Western Allies. Because if you included Soviet war crimes… the list would be loooong. Starting with Katyń (obviously not naval but question was general).

[@MrNicoJac]

2:10:00 (ish) Other (non-naval) Allied war crimes include: - every fire bombing, whether in Europe or Japan (incl nuclear) - any submarine sinking an axis vessel without giving them a chance to surrender first - all killings of POWs, whether in Europe or the Pacific Note: 1. Most of these things weren't done before WW2, and thus not officially regulated as war crimes (this only happened post-WW2). 2. Also, due to the nature of the war, the killing of POWs was (usually) done in retaliation, not out of actual malice. 3. Without fire/nuclear bombings, the war would've lasted longer, and probably cost many more casualties - so you _can_ argue the end justifies the means, in the case of WW2. As such, my list is more a completionist overview rather than a moralist argument :)

[@JKeays100]

Do we have any trace of pre-dreadnaught canon being use as land artillery by both side during WWI. Where they served by their own ship sailors.

[@randaldavis8976]

new battleship, lots of missiles (include icbm) shore bombardment guns, AA, a few small guns 6. phalanx and a nuclear power plant

[@anatolib.suvarov6621]

KL guards given the treatment they had gleefully been meeting out for years, sounds like justice to me!

[@alganhar1]

I saw a photo once, of a Camp Guard on the floor with an inmate standing over him, an allied soldier part in the view, can't remember whether the soldier was a Brit, American or Canadian, though I don't suppose it really matters... The caption went something like 'Last moments of a Camp Guard before being beaten to death by the former inmates.' I am paraphrasing the caption obviously, it was a long time ago when I saw that particular photo but I do remember it, and the general if not exact wording of the caption with it. Always stuck with me, some photo's do that. Like many, while it was a terrible thing, I really cant find it in me to dig out any sympathy for what happened to the kind of scum who guarded those camps. Or dig out any sense of blame for those who may have acted somewhat faster than the Law and saw that some got their just deserts perhaps a bit faster and more brutally than a tribunal may have wished .

[@AsbestosMuffins]

23:51 this thing would have shaken itself to pieces if it ever fired an 18" broadside

[@964cuplove]

I need a video on timed flak ammunition, I was assuming without any knowledge that the set time starts whrén the projektile is fired… it sounds like I was wrong there ?!

[@Halinspark]

If Richelieu is overseeing the completion of those spikes, why do a bunch of them have cannon damage with boats on fire in the back? I know paintings of the time aren't necessarily historically accurate, but that seems like an odd thing to devote so much canvas to if it's just commemorating some building work.