OpenTube

The Drydock - Episode 412 (Part 1)

Drachinifel

54,682 views

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:29 - 16" shell vs modern anti-ship missile?

00:04:36 - Battleship gun development steps?

00:08:59 - If proximity fuzes and advanced radar / fire control had been available in 1940, how do you think force structure and tactics would have changed the Pacific Campaign in regards to the primacy of aircraft carriers?

00:15:03 - The genesis of high pressure pneumatics in naval systems?

00:18:44 - Frigates vs Ship of the Line?

00:23:43 - Modern books on the USN's Atlantic Campaign?

00:25:34 - What happened to all the naval infrastructure built by the Germans in the territories they occupied after WWII?

00:30:37 - What equipment, tactics, and doctrine did the High Seas Fleet use to become so good at night combat in WWI?

00:36:34 - If the Surcouf had survived World War II, what are the chances that it would have gotten its 8-inch guns removed?

00:39:13 - BattleTech warships?

00:42:27 - Naval-led programs with primarily non-naval applications?

00:46:04 - Ironnest artillery simulator?

00:52:14 - Extending battleships?

00:54:23 - What were the first practical uses of electric motors on warships?

00:58:44 - How much did ships crews adopt local cuisines and why was there not more of an influence in naval rations from time spent on colonial station?

01:03:16 - Given their relatively limited surface fleet but no less ambitious maritime goals, did the Germans make notable use of any captured warships?

01:06:53 - Do we know what condition Novorossiysk was in when she famously sank in 1955?

01:09:09 - British Monarchs that haven't had a ship named for them?

01:14:09 - In your opinion, to what extent was the overall historical success of Britain as a naval power up to 1945 a product of geography?

01:18:26 - Warships and rogue waves?

01:23:11 - What was the "gateway" technology to carronades?

01:28:59 - Do you have any examples of when the bean counters got it right, when they blocked spending on a proposal that was unnecessary, exorbitant, or just stupid?

01:33:24 - Total rebuild clause in the WNT?

01:37:39 - Given the tech limitations of the 1930s and 1940s, how exactly do you make a pressure hull for submarines?

01:40:13 - What if Germany was allowed to keep 3 Dreadnoughts after WW1?

01:44:30 - Who would've been worst off without the Washington Naval Treaty?

01:47:04 - Promote/Demote ships in their classifications?

01:49:16 - Would KGV class had same issues with turrets if class would ve designed with 3x3 layout?

01:52:56 - Submarine hunter-killer groups based around an Independence class?

01:56:46 - Forcing sailors to take showers?

02:01:02 - Super-heavy vs moderately heavy shells?

02:04:46 - What lessons were not learned post-WWII by the US/UK/France in terms of submarine warfare?

02:07:19 - Freedom of 19th century naval officers?

02:10:11 - Were there any major lessons that the RN learned from other nations through its naval attaches that helped reform the RN in a pivotal way?

02:12:39 - How far back in the history of warships was the concept of using their artillery for shore bombardment considered?

02:14:21 - USN Destroyer siren?

02:16:03 - Were convoys used in the Pacific theater in WWII?

02:19:48 - Putting aside political and psychological effects, how valuable for Britain were the 50 destroyers transferred in 1940, and the bases to the US?

02:23:04 - Tank type battleship?

02:26:55 - Buying a warship with private funds?

02:34:04 - Why did Admiral Nagumo not have private quarters etc at Midway?

02:38:08 - What destroyed Mutsu?

02:43:05 - Is there any reliable source or sources that provide data for the amount of money recovered by HM government or the U.S. government when vessels were scrapped/sold out of service?

02:48:19 - Differences between ships boats?

02:53:29 - Hypothetical New Mexico class vs Bismarck engagement?

03:00:03 - Captain William Hoste?

20 Comments

@DardanellesBy108 1 month ago

The shower question reminds me of a tiny number of sailors I had met in the US Navy back in the 80’s that had zero concern for personal cleanliness. A common theme is they were all a bit daft. Sailors that didn’t clean themselves sometimes got “Invitations to Scrubbing Parties”. This is where a filthy sailor was grabbed in the middle of the night, dragged to the showers, and scrubbed down. The filthy sailor’s later complaints about the forced cleaning were ignored. “Scrubbing Parties” were only done in extreme situations and everyone felt the individual had it coming.

@cynthiaherbst3909 2 months ago

I will forever enjoy the alliteration tongue twister user handles

@onenote6619 2 months ago

Some of the post-war anti-ship missiles were expecting to meet real armour and, as Drach says, carried some pretty gargantuan HEAT warheads. The P15 Termit was 500kg, which would probably evaporate a tank. On top of that, if the missile does penetrate there's the issue of any remaining fuel (which includes Red Fuming Nitric Acid for the P15) if it does get inside the ship. Accounts from HMS Sheffield during the Falklands war suggest that the Exocet missile that killed her did not actually explode, but fires set by the rocket motor combined with kinetic damage to firefighting systems led to her being lost.

@Andy_Ross1962 2 months ago

When I was in the Royal Navy in the 80s a Whaler was used as the 'Sea Boat'. They were 27ft and powered but could also be rowed.
They were used at sea as a rescue boat if anyone went overboard. They were very good in a following sea as the stern was the same form as the bow.
The other boat we had was a motor launch. These were 32 ft and had a small cabin. Used in port or at anchor as a general purpose boat.

@bluelemming5296 2 months ago (edited)

Regarding the hunter killer group question, a key point is that strategic speeds are very different from maximum speed, because of fuel efficiency issues. The CVL and CVE will typically have pretty similar strategic speeds for this reason, somewhere in the 10-15 knot range. Admittedly, in special situations the CVL can go a bit faster if you have an oiler handy to refuel it.

A good reference is War Service Fuel Consumption of U.S. Naval Surface Vessels [FTP 218, 1945 - free to read].

The real advantage of the CVL over the CVE is the longer flight deck and the greater wind over the flight deck that can be obtained from the high speed that ship can achieve.

In other words, they run the ship for a short time at a much higher fuel consumption rate - one that simply wouldn't be practical on a strategic scale - in order to launch heavier aircraft.

Here, heavier aircraft can refer to the plane itself, it's onboard electronics and crew, it's fuel load, and it's munitions. A CVE might have to compromise the expendables to launch a heavier aircraft, if it can do it at all, a CVL can do a bit more.

So the CVL can operate bigger and more heavily loaded aircraft than the CVE, and if not doing that, it will likely have a slightly lower accident rate as the longer flight deck and higher speeds gives a bit more margin.

This, incidentally, is one of the (several!) reasons why you can't simply replace a fleet carrier with several CVLs and expect to get the same performance out of them. Just as the CVLs are superior to the CVEs in most respects, so too are the fleet carriers superior to the CVLs.

Given the long ranges at which carrier combat could take place, aircraft from a CVL might not even be able to reach the enemy, or might have to compromise the munitions load to do so, while in the same circumstances aircraft from a fleet carrier could not only reach the enemy but carry a heavy munitions load. A lot of this depends on how much fuel you have aircraft burn getting organized.

Note that the Sangamon class CVEs apparently had a larger amount of usable hanger space than the CVLs, due to the shape of the tanker hull. Also, they can stay on station far longer than the CVL (almost 3x as long at 14 knots) as they still had some tanker capacity built into the ships (and were often to used to refuel other ships in addition to providing air support!). A really nice design.

@johngregory4801 2 months ago

So you're saying that Admiral Nagumo suffered from "Jafar Syndrome" as Admiral of the Kido Butai...

Amazing cosmic power...
Itty-bitty working space.

@rob_crane 2 months ago

Hoste was also responsible for introducing cricket to Vis - who knew that Croatia now has a national cricket team?

@natthaphonhongcharoen 2 months ago

45:50 That is actually the way it work in modern artillery. It has many uses like adjusting angle of fall for underground bunker targets or Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact (MRSI). The dev (yes, one person) specifically said those are planned but may not be on launch.

@RacerXMule 2 months ago

My grandfather served on the Evans during the period of the mentioned anti-aircraft statistic at 9:00. They shot down 23 aircraft and were hit by 4 kamikaze during a radar picket mission. His story of the aftermath, and his journey home as part of the skeleton crew being towed across the pacific was bone-chilling. 🕊️

@Zajuts149 2 months ago

The U-boat pens in Trondheim(Dora I and II) were attempted to be dismantled post-war, but the cost was deemed prohibitive, and the amount of dynamite need was so large there could be no guarantees of not harming nearby civilian buildings.

@MGBait 2 months ago

Regarding using ships against shore defences in ancient times, William Murray in 'The Age of Titans' makes the case that the gigantic oared warships (10s, 12s, etc) were not just kingly vanity but served a tactical purpose. Hellenistic monarchs used them to attack fortifications at harbours or city walls when they went down to the water. A heavy warship could ram through a defensive chain barrier blocking off a harbour or in some cases ram and destroy a portion of a city wall if it reached down to the water. He also explained the reason all those big polyremes disappeared is because the Romans had the engineering skill to capture cities without needing to breach via the harbour. Mark Antony's fleet wasn't just vanity but the last of the old Hellenistic style navy brought to possibly capture Italian harbours in his (very aborted) conquest of Rome from Octavius/Augustus.

@PaulfromChicago 2 months ago (edited)

2:34:00 I seemed to recall an East Indiaman getting converted into a Royal Navy fourth rate and then getting sold back to John Co. But when I looked through lists of Indiaman thus converted, it appears the Admiralty would only sell them on the condition they were broken up. Edit - that is to say I was mistaken.

@warspite1515 2 months ago

Drydock 412 ... The Steel City Drydock. Pitt grad ('95), and Pittsburgh was an awesome city to live in for six years. USS Requin is on the North Shore outside the stadium complexes and is worth the tour. As always ... Thanks Drach!

@CharlesStearman 2 months ago

Re: riveted pressure hulls, boilers would also have been riveted and were designed to resist considerably higher pressures than a submarine hull, though of course they were smaller and the pressure was internal rather than external.

@jimtaylor294 1 month ago

The answer to the Missile vs Armour question is "A Firecracker makes for a Lousy Auger".

Case in point: you can crash a Fighter Plane at high speed into a concrete wall and not penetrate it, yet a 6" gun can punch right through the same wall.
(IIRC they actually tested this at some point)

To my knowledge no armoured Capital Ship has never been penetrated by a Guided Missile *, so we don't know for sure re' penetrative ability, nor are likely to

*Fritz X of course wasn't a Missile, rather a radio guided bomb)

@Tuning3434 2 months ago

Coffee and time, ready to recieve the July monster drydock.

@stefanpajung113 2 months ago

In addition to ZH-1, which the Germans took over from the Dutch navy, they also used the Greek destroyer Vasilefs Georgios, which they captured in 1941. She was used as a convoy escort in the Mediterreanean in 1942-43, sank the submarine HMS Splendid in April 1943, but was shortly thereafter attacked by allied planes, which left her crippled. She was scuttled as a blockship in Tunis in May 1943. She was the largest ship which the Kriegmarine operated in the Mediterreanean during WW2. However, the Germans took over a number of smaller Italian destroyers and torpedo boats after the Italian armistice, and used them as escort vessels until the end of the war under the designation TA (Torpedo Boot, Ausland)

@Vonstab 2 months ago

The Mutsu situation reminds me a bit of the Hårsfjärden disaster where several moored Swedish destroyers exploded. The investigation did reach its conclusion of sabotage as the likely cause as quickly as the Japanese one but it is noteworthy how they went with that conclusion even though there was considerable evidence that pointed to a practice bomb accidentally dropped by an airforce aircraft as the likely cause. Not only was there a considerable number of eyewitnesses who had seen something fall from an aircraft but one of the Heinkel aircraft conducting training exercises over the Hårsfjärden anchorage that day had already lost a practice bomb during an earlier exercise due to a malfunction with its bomb rack.

As with Mutsu the changed operational behaviour after the event almost says more than the official conclusion by the investigation.

@Holagringo67 2 months ago

Re the "adopting local cuisine on board" question, the Royal Netherlands Navy still serves Indonesian rice table every Wednesday on all ships and most shore installations to this day.

@kharacon 2 months ago

Regarding two former U-boat pens the one in Bordeaux, Bassins des Lumières, is quite interesting as an experience and has context from its construction but the Saint Nazaire pens are easier to view around the port, and explore to see the features of these massive bunkers.