OpenTube

The Drydock - Episode 161

Drachinifel

153,891 views

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:34 - With and without hindsight, how did the scales between battleships and carriers balance in mid december 1941?

00:06:39 - The decoration of sail ships?

00:11:17 - What if Seppings had been born earlier?

00:18:08 - Medical Capabilities of WWII navies

00:21:51 - How exactly would a navy go about selling used warships? How does this process differ between selling a ship for scraping, civilian conversion, or use by another navy?

00:25:56 - U-Boat co-ordination with Bismarck's break-out?

00:29:56 - Why the comparative lack of RN factionalism in WW1 and the Interwar years?

00:33:44 - Why would a warship be carrying the flag of an enemy nation onboard?

00:36:27 - How large could you build a capital ship be it a ship of the line or a battleship?

00:40:16 - Level bombing warships

00:43:28 - Admiral Lee, sniper

00:45:44 - Rich people buying ships for the navy?

00:49:48 - Railways and navies

00:52:37 - Godfroy and Gensoul switch places?

00:58:02 - Best Royal Navy Destroyer commanders of WWII?

01:00:42 - REAL naval actions of WWII you think would make good movies?

01:03:23 - Exclusive to sea-service side-arms?

01:05:55 - How do you rate the 'first' dreadnoughts?

01:12:43 - Interwar long-range gunnery ideas

01:19:34 - What was home life like for an ordinary competent seaman (and his family) during the age of sail?

01:25:31 - Casablanca class as ferries post-war?

01:28:44 - Did sail quality matter significantly and where there specific places that made the best sails for ships?

01:32:03 - Rotor-kite effectiveness?

01:35:41 - HMS Malaya at Jutland

01:43:57 - IJN kill over-claiming?

01:48:18 - When loading big guns with a power rammer, how did the operator know how far to push the shell and charges? What happened if he stopped short or pushed things too far?

01:49:53 - Reversing engines/rudders?

01:52:42 - Steel crush tube effectiveness?

01:55:46 - 500lb and 100lb bombs on naval aircraft?

02:00:41 - What did the IJN have to respond to the Doolittle raid?

02:02:54 - In the opening scene of film Master and Commander, the Surprise puts some boats in the water after beating to quarters but before the Acheron fires. Why is that?

02:04:19 - When stripping toxic-burning paint from ships during WWII, what was it replaced with, if anything?

02:06:03 - Maximum size wake?

02:08:45 - Survivability of conning towers?

02:13:24 - Landlocked navies?

02:15:49 - What were the worst mistakes in the British pre-WW1 building program, and what options do you think would have been better and why?

02:21:20 - Matress/hammock protection on IJN ships?

02:22:40 - How did the life/conditions for Royal Marines aboard ship differ from that of their sailor counterparts, especially during the age of sail?

02:24:05 - Helena accompanying Lee?

02:27:57 - What exactly was it about their design and construction that made the Yorktowns so tough?

02:30:38 - What do we know about how the US planned to use nuclear artillery shells on the Iowas?

02:32:24 - Size and capability of ships boats

02:37:22 - How challenging was gunnery on coastal defense ships in the pre-dreadnought period?

02:40:55 - Most unlucky ship name?

02:42:40 - Elco 'Thunderbolt' turrets

02:46:28 - Can you describe the various type of naval shells used by the Japanese and American Navy in 1944?

02:50:12 - Admiral Craddock and Coronel

02:54:06 - Supply Axis forces via the Black Sea - Mk 2

02:58:06 - Who is your favorite unsung figure in naval history and why?

02:59:11 - Propellor shafts and their positioning

03:01:41 - USS Canopus and sneaking around

03:07:59 - Could a Fleet Carier like a Yorktown class win against a Destroyer in a 1v1 without any planes?

03:10:03 - Eary history of shipboard radio?

03:14:00 - Helldivers at Midway?

03:16:39 - Early Two-Ocean Navy Act?

03:19:09 - Could the Pacific Campaign have been prosecuted more aggressively?

03:21:35 - The sinking of the White Ship

03:28:53 - Slipways and angles

03:33:03 - Practicality of large MLR's?

03:35:42 - Why no smoothbore dreadnought-era guns?

03:39:42 - Shaped charge torpedo warhead?

03:41:51 - Optimum placement for a starshell?

03:44:52 - French pre-dreadnoughts video thoughts?

03:46:16 - Alternative refits for the IJN?

03:51:09 - Did Nelson try to get himself killed?

03:54:28 - Why no Italian 16" guns?

03:57:02 - Oil for oil spraying?

20 Comments

@Drachinifel Creator 5 years ago Pinned

04:01:37 - What is the power-dynamic between a captain and a First Officer in the Royal Navy like? For example, in which cases could the First Officer releave the Captain of command? Did this change over time?

04:03:51 - Top speed in reverse?

04:06:23 - Quality of US coal?

04:09:03 - How would HMS St Lawrence compare to other ships of the line?

04:11:46 - Protocol for changing codebooks?

04:14:20 - How good was Admiral Ushakov?

04:17:07 - Battle of Campeche, luck or skill?

04:20:42 - Counter-radar measures for night action?

04:23:23 - Battle of Navarino effects?

04:28:31 - To what extent were the jamming issues that the quad turrets of PoW and KGV suffered during the pursuit of the Bismarck solved later in the war on the surviving KGVs, and did the French quad turrets on the Dunkerques and Richelieus suffer similar problems?

04:31:09 - History of torpedoes?

04:32:41 - What navy man saw the most impactful changes through their navy career?

04:34:37 - Ironclads under sail and steam

04:38:22 - WW1 British railguns

04:41:05 - How much cross-polination was there between development of Railway and Naval steam engines?

04:45:31 - What kind of paper work were there on the age of sail ships, and were there any diffrence between peace time and war time?

04:46:58 - What where the politics surrounding the u.s navy budget in its early years, why was it seen that having a navy was unnecessary?

04:51:35 - What did HMS Royal Sovereign do in Soviet service?

04:52:46 - Could you briefly explain the titles of Admiral of Red, White and Blue and where each Admiral would likely be in a fleet engagement?

04:55:50 - Would the USN have benefited overall from deploying additional modern cruisers and destroyers to the Asiatic Fleet, or would additional ships have just attracted more and heavier attention from the IJN?

04:58:19 - Tankfest / US Travel

@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 5 years ago

Hi Drach, if you're going to make a sequel to the much-loved "When hotels go to war", might I suggest the title "When the concierge calls"?

@mamarine81 5 years ago

We'll roll out the welcome mat whenever you can get over here, Drach.

@Archangelm127 5 years ago

1:05:00 - Very minor but interesting point. I'm a WWII reenactor, and we have quite a number of M1 Garand rifles to outfit people at events. One of the ones we've acquired has this checkering pattern carved into the wood of the foregrip, and for a while we couldn't figure out why. It was obviously done at a factory. Turns out it's a naval-variant M1; apparently the Navy was concerned about keeping hold of the rifle if it was damp or wet.

@johngregory4801 5 years ago

Does an admiral hurling his binoculars at the nearest ship count as wireless communication?

@JohnRodriguesPhotographer 5 years ago

Drach, just got a rescue Bull Mastiff. Sweet dog. When Graff Spee's picture came up he started growling and barking softly. He must have an English heritage!😂😄😉

@robertsantamaria6857 5 years ago

The only thing about Jutland that amazes more than the number of ships that detonated is the number of ships that very nearly detonated but didn't due to the selfless actions of just one or two crewmen.

@jon-paulfilkins7820 5 years ago

I name this ship Invincible!
- Fate rubs its hand "Challenge accepted"

@williamswenson5315 5 years ago

"The lesser of two weevils..." That sly reference in passing deserves the brief insertion of a dinner scene from a rather well-known nautical adventure movie.

@CurtisWebb-en5kh 20 hours ago

Thank you on behalf of the blind committee.

@georgewnewman3201 5 years ago

REmember, Army Bomber crews usually bombed stationary targets and that is one thing navy ships at sea usually aren't

@Meatwadsan 5 years ago (edited)

I can confirm that information about the Curtiss Helldiver being the standard IJN reference for USN dive bombers. The IJN was trained extensively on Curtiss Helldiver recognition, and even used the 1932 Hell Divers film as training footage. I believe the person who asked the question was referencing Fuchida's personal account of Midway. While Fuchida has lots of questionable recollections of Midway, he does have corroborating testimony regarding Helldiver references from other IJN personnel captured during the war, and postwar interviews. They said the references to Helldivers stuck even more after Midway, as they had previously been taught that Americans were cowards, but between the B-26 that almost took out Akagi, the torpedo bombers that made seemingly suicidal runs, to the dive bombers holding their dives down very low, many sailors had been impressed by the flying of the American pilots at Midway.

@jmack7615 5 years ago

Surely I am not the only one that gets really excited when i hear Drach say "we are going to be here for awhile" ????

@ricklotter 5 years ago

Drach, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy and appreciate your content. I have been using your informative, exhaustive, and engaging videos to keep my sanity for the covid work-from-home period. Thank you so much!

Whenever you do make it back to the States, if you are anywhere near me in the US I will definitely swing over and thank you personally. Take care, best luck.

@danieltaylor5231 5 years ago

You should have that on some merch. The "I survived Drach's patreon Drydock in one sitting" shirt, mug or maybe a challenge coin.

@whyjnot420 5 years ago (edited)

In the context of the bit about level bombing, sure the travel time is far longer than most people think (something with a terminal velocity of 1100 feet per second (like a thousand pound bomb) falling at that speed for the entirety of its descent would take almost 20 seconds to get from 20,000 feet to sea level.... it seems obvious when you see it written out as 20,000/1,100 = 18.18..., and obviously it takes time to accelerate to terminal velocity so the actual time would be even longer and there are effects of drag and buoyancy and all that jazz as well, but a lot of people just do not think about how long this really is). The other thing people do not tend to realize, is just how maneuverable these big ships really are. People see photos of speed trials a lot, but you tend to not see anywhere near as much video or film of it, esp from a vantage point such as being on the flight deck of a carrier during said trials or while actually being bombed. I have blown quite a few minds over the years by showing film/video taken of carriers in hard turns from the flight deck so they can see just how fast the water is moving from one side of the frame to the other.

While the photo used for this part of the video does a nice job showing a large ship avoiding bombs, due to it being a still image it doesn't do that good of a job of showing the length of time it took to make the turns. You can get some idea from looking at the wake the ship left, but this is nowhere near as good as film of the same event would impart the viewer. Especially when the viewer is not decently versed in naval matters. Also, without knowing the length of the ship in the photo, you cannot tell the size of those turns as there are no real points of reference for the average person to look for (like the people littered around the Oregon in the official drydock background image).

edit: just in case people don't want to check and/or do the math, 1100 feet per sec is 750 mph, which is just shy of mach 1 at typically cited numbers (such as say, 68F @ sea level where it is something like 768 mph) and as we all should know, what mach 1 is changes based on things like temp and density of whatever medium you are looking at.

also a caveat: that velocity of 1100 feet per second is used more as a rough number representing a streamlined dumb bomb, and used because it makes it easy to visualize at the same time, just as the height of 20k feet was used as a general description of altitude as well as being easy to visualize given the altitude that modern jets typically fly at. I only mean that bit about velocity as a method of showing just how long the delay between dropping and hitting something can be rather than an accurate description of any one example of this.

@nickjames2370 5 years ago (edited)

Drach. On co-operation between railways and navys. I was amused that you illustrated this with a photo of an RAF narrow gauge train. Being a narrow gauge railway geek, I do find it crazy that, although the Navy, RAF and Army all used narrow gauge railways in ammunition depots in WWII (and until relatively recently) they were incompatible. The Navy used 2 ft 6 inch gauge. The RAF and Army used 2 ft gauge but the coupling types were incompatible so wagons could not be swapped between the services. The Royal Navy's narrow gauge railways were arguably the best specified, as to be expected :-)

@NathanOkun 5 years ago (edited)

Spalling (throwing off chunks of armor from the inside surface when hit on the outside by a non-completely-penetrating shell, either by impact inertia or contact blast of the filler) can be reduced by making sure that the steel is soft and tough enough, which means that homogeneous, ductile armor is best for this and the thicker the plate, the lower the hardness should be to prevent such effects. For this result, in US WWII battleships, 18" conning towers and turret faces were of Class "B" homogeneous, ductile steel of only circa 200-210 Brinell Hardness, Number as opposed to circa 225 BHN for typical deck armor and the armor of secondary gun mounts and the like. While using homogeneous armor for such places instead of the more usual KC-type face-hardened armor, the armor was slightly less protective than would be true against lower quality capped AP projectiles, but when protecting against the high-quality, damage-resistant US hard-capped AP shells, the resistance would have been less using such thick KC armor since the brittle face would be much less resistant when it cannot damage the impacting shells.. Originally, this was due not having the ability to make such thick face-hardened plates reliably, but the softer plates were found in tests to be at least as good as the face-hardened ones would have been against the new US AP shells, so the soft armor continued to be used even after the face-hardened plate thickness limitations had been removed. The lack of spalling was just icing on the cake, as it were.

@stevewyckoff6904 5 years ago

Can you imagine being part of the Saratoga's design and being told "Oh, um, how fast can you make a few changes to turn this into a carrier?"

@lancejohnson1406 5 years ago

The Japanese crewman screaming Helldiver at Midway may have another origin, Hell-diver was a name identified with dive bombers via movies. The Japanese were nuts for Hollywood movies. 1931, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable MGM movie HELLDIVERS, using the F8C Helldiver.