00:00:00 – Intro
00:00:42 – Had the US actually completed/retained their previous line ships up to the war of 1812, how would they have affected the Royal Navy’s efforts?
00:09:53 – In general, how long would it take to build or upgrade a capital ship-sized drydock?
00:13:57 – The Royal Navy and the proximity fuse?
00:17:59 – What if CSS Pennsylvania was a thing?
00:21:39 – Throughout your videos, there seems to be a centuries-long continous thread that the nebulous “Admiralty” manages to conspire to make the worst possible decisions for admirals at sea. What actually is the Admiralty, both in British and non-British context, if applicable?
00:29:50 – The French Navy before the Armistice?
00:35:02 – In a previous drydock, you discussed how different nations may have different standards when classifying subclasses or separate classes, especially with changes in armament and structure. Could it be argued that the South Dakota was a subclass from her 3 sisters, given the changes to act as a flagship? Similarly, could Edinburgh and Belfast be considered as separate class from the rest of the Towns?
00:38:32 – What are your top 3 inventions from the Common British Back Garden Shed?
00:40:03 – People often describe ships in terms of the speed/protection/firepower triangle. Are there any examples that took one of those aspects to the absolute limit, at the expense of the other two? How well did they do?
00:42:35 – Jon Parshall has said that had Mitscher not sent Hornet’s Air Group off on the flight to nowhere. Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu could be wiped out in one hit. Had this happened. How would the USN and IJN go forward for the rest of the battle?
00:46:16 – Are there any specific reason that the European navies seemed to focus on guns that were odd sizes, 13 and 15 inch, and the USN and IJN seemed to focus on gun sizes that were even in numbers, 14, 16 and 18 inch?
00:54:27 – Could you get a 3 triple turret 15″ Scharnhorst?
00:59:03 – Could a ship trying to make a fleeting escape from an adversary point all of its main armaments aft (or as aft as aft as each turret will go), coordinate firing the guns, & gain any sort of a speed boost?
40 Comments
24:54 – quoting Gilbert and Sullivan “I thought so little — they rewarded me — by making me the ruler of the Queen’s navy”
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your day is shortly after the death of dinosaurs
37th, 4 August 2024
"the treasury is the mortal enemy of any sane defense organization"
I read several books on the Falklands War and one thing that is mentioned in almost all of them was that commanders suddenly got stuff delivered from the arsenal that beforehand would have taken a metric f*ckton of forms filled out. In triplicate. And forms to order the forms. So, if you are an Admiral at war with the treasury, it's best to go out and find yourself some war elsewhere.
🙂
Thanks Drach.
Would the reduced weight from having a salvo less shells and charges onboard do more for your speed?
The British Admiralty is technically "The Board of Commissioners For Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of England" The Admiralty included civil servants including the famous Samuel Pepys of "Diary" fame who was Clerk of the Acts and Evan Nepean 'On 3 March 1782 (aged 29) he was appointed Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. In this position, he came to have responsibility for naval and political intelligence which led to him running a network of spies across Europe. [3] He served there until December 1791, when he became Under-Secretary of State for War in 1794, Secretary to the Board of Admiralty 1795–1804, Chief Secretary for Ireland 1804–1805, Commissioner of the Admiralty, and then Governor of Bombay 1812–1819."
I think Lord Kitchner, the architect of the amazing expansion of the British Army in the Great War as Secretary of State for War, was a pretty serious figure in British history. He's just one . How many ex-Admirals have been prime minister, like Wellington?
Thanks Drach.
24:15 "Secretary of the Navy"
Carlos Del Toro is the current sitting secretary, but there was a tweak put into the chain of command in 1947 (Went into effect in 1949) that removed the various secretaries (Army / Navy / Air Force) from the Presidents cabinet to the office of the Secretary of Defense.
So, pre-1949, the Secretary of the Navy could wander down the hall to chat with the President (Figuratively speaking) and now, they e-mail across the complex to one of the SECDEF aides.
Curious how the Navy essentially stopped building sensible surface ships? Curious at how the Littoral Combat Ships got built? Yeah… SECDEF just says "I never got the memo…"
It's also based on what your foundries, and metallurgy can handle. So it's partly what you are able to build?
German and French guns were in metric as well. Dunkerque class was 330 mm (13"), Richelieu class and Bismarck Class, 380mm ( 1mm short of 15"). Scharnhorst was 280 mm (11"). Germany lost the industrial capacity to make 380mm that the Bayern class had, so they started with 11" in the 1930's and gradually went back to making 15". So there's reasons for the odd sizes.
did you get your 500k award from youtube??
re: the US has ships of the line at the beginning of the war of 1812. How would they have affected the US's two naval wars between the revolution and the war of 1812? If, as seems likely, the US had had a stronger fighting reputation as a result would that have affected England's attitude to the US? Would the silly war of 1812 even have happened?
One note for the CSA Navy, manpower was never the issue as close to half the crews of the US navy resigned to join the south without the ships. The majority of navy trained men ended up manning artillery either in the field or in a fort. A few even left for Europe to man a couple foreign built Confederate cruisers that ended up harming the west coast whaling fleet with little actual impact on the war but economic damage that was mainly felt post war.
I think fire all guns aft might be a bit of help getting up to speed has the engines are already at full flank. then it is to get more speed when at speed
I still would have loved to have seen an epic fight between Bismarck and the French fast battleships. As a free french navy😊😊
00:54:27 Given that Scharnhorst was designed to be upgraded to two gun 15" turrets, wouldn't the real question be, would a triple screw breach 15" turret fit in the same mount intended for the standard German two gun 15" turret. And what extra modifications would need to be done to make it so? The Germans had already planned to add an extension to her bow section so, to me, the question is what extra weight if any would be added by the switch from Krup breaches to standard screw breaches other than an extra barrel, additional mount, and loading mechanism.
On the last question, while it would still be less than ideal to gain a small bit of speed for a battleship to use the guns to add to the screws, I wonder if overloading the guns without a shell or an alternate explosive would allow a gun to serve as a rocket booster. Likewise could a main gun be adapted for other uses like a flame thrower (perhaps with a floating agent that would burn for a while making a strip of water unpassable to block a straight or harbor) Could be like a stream of flame or more like a fire bomb/cluster bomb. We know the US army converted such a gun to use on land with a nuclear shell (called Atomic Annie in honor of the female gunfighter Annie Oakley) Also would such a shell find a place in the magazine if ever the big guns brought back on a navy ship or some forms of shot. For example Instead of shelling a coastal area would a buckshot like round with a wider spread ever be more effective. (thinking back to special rounds used in cannon during the days of sail)
Anyone want to take a shot at identifying some of the ships in the vid clips from the turn of the 19th/20th centuries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GFp_pVkzoQ
Drach, The Fat Electrican has a phase that suits Admiral Cochrane. "Its never a war crime the first time"
Thanks for answering my question
@Drachinifel Thanks for the answer, Drach. I was curious about that since I knew the proxy fuse had worked out really well defending against the V1 and had never heard anything about the Pacific difficulties before.
38:32 Would you count the earliest iterations of either the Harrison chronometer, or the Pollen/Argo fire control 'clock' (and/or its more successful rival, the Dryer Fire Control Table), as being back shed inventions (even if they predate the typical home sheds of later eras)?
I think the trouble with a triple 15inch Scharnhorst is anyone believing the German lie about them being 26,000 tons when the triple 11 version was well over 32,000 tons.
If they did build the bigger ship I think the French would rush the building of the Richelieu's and the British would have built the triple 15/45 version of the KGV and likely have scheduled Hood for her rebuild ASAP and maybe refitted Repulse along Renown lines.
Facinating.
In the UK before the creation of the MoD, the First Sea Lord was a cabinet position in charge of the Navy (Churchill held it a the beginning of both world wars). The Admiralty was a department of State, staffed by naval personnel and civil servants. The Army's equivalent was the War Minister, while the RAF had the Secretary of State for Air.
Both of these were also Cabinet posts, but not so prominent nor influential as that of the First Lord.
There were often clashes when the naval professional viewpoint conflicted with political demands. The confrontations between Churchill and Fisher make for interesting reading.
The Question about Gun Size Numbers in Inches for different Navies are missleading because the French, Italian, Russian and German Fleets were not using inches but centimeters as everybody else who used the metric system would be
Hello Drachinifel, I am huge fan of your channel, I really like your 5 min video to the Type 1936A class, I was wondering if you could do a 5 min guide to the Type 1934 class and the Type 1934A class destroyers.
Don't the gun's recoil compensators just spread out the impulse over a longer period of time? Some of the reaction of firing those guns would be lost, but what the compensators absorb at the time of firing still has to go somewhere. Or am I misunderstanding how the Yamato's recoil compensators work? Were they ports redirecting gas pressure forward or something? I guess I'm envisioning immense springs that compress when the gun is fired in much the same way as the springs in a car's suspension.
Wrt the question about why nations generally bumped out sizes of main guns by 1.5-2" at a time, that logic makes the Italian 12.6", mentioned in drydock 308 part 1, even more perplexing. Hard to see how that boring made much sense in retrospect.
Google wants us to bend the knee….
Free thought is discouraged according to the Alphabet Mafia…………….
Drach – have you ever done an episode on “Force Benedict”? Yes, I know it was the op to move RAF aircraft to Russia (a friend of mine’s father was a RAF Pilot that took part) BUT there was a considerable “remodeling” of naval assets to make it happen.
Thanks for all you do. I enjoy your work very much.
Hey Drach, i just want you to know I've listened to your Dry Dock series EVERY NIGHT to fall asleep for the last ~4 years, barring a few extenuating circumstances. Your voice is so soothing and calm, and i wake up mysteriously knowing things about the age of sail, it's great! Thank you.
Look up British L96 Sniper Rifle, MOD we wanted to meet with you make sure your not making these in a back garden shed, inventor ah can I take you guys to lunch at the pub instead? One of best sniper rifles in world accepted.
The question about wondering if a ship could obtain a higher speed by firing their guns aft was imho hilarious! And while I could see someone actually being curious enough to wonder if something like that work. But even on a much smaller scale say like something on wheels it still wouldn't be enough to cause a large difference.
In the last question what should be considered is not the energy ((m*v^2)/2) of shells, but the impulse (m*v), which does actually transfer to the ship nearly perfectly, but also drops the resultant boost from a few knots to a centimeter per second
A wonderful hour. Thank you!
For the last question, how much would the lost weight (due to shells and powder no longer being on board) contribute so said negligible speed gains?