The Drydock - Episode 204 (Part 2)

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:25 - American heavy cruiser turrets?

00:02:45 - How did the 1st London Naval Treaty handle limitations on seaplane tenders?

00:05:26 - USN in the War of 1812 Resources?

00:10:55 - Rat Guards, origins?

00:12:45 - You've mentioned in several dry docks and other videos That Germany and the United States both struggled with building turbine engines in the 1900's what is it about turbine engines that made them so difficult to make?

00:16:32 - How cross compatible were torpedoes?

00:19:57 - Target ships and their engines?

00:21:59 - Cutting the Essex class to accelerate Midway/Kentucky?

00:24:55 - Can you give a rundown of the Marines invading Korea in the 1800s?

00:28:14 - What are the limiting factors for the Dreadnought through WW2 period when it comes to deployed fleet size?

00:32:17 - Was it true that USS Laffey was opened up to the public after the Kamikaze attack on April 16th so the public could view the damage done to the ship?

00:33:33 - The loss of the destroyer HMS Rockingham in 1944

00:35:41 - What did the French Navy do between September 1939 and June 1940?

00:39:29 - USS Wyoming AA refit?

00:42:47 - How does history rate Admiral James Somerville?

00:48:30 - Cases of a ship or person becoming the embodiment of an idea or doctrine?

00:50:58 - Degassing fuel oil?

00:53:45 - How were the fleets of the 18th century/napoleonic royal navy organized? Where there fixed squadrons and divisions with their own commanders or where just single ships assigned to fleet commanders? Also, how do the red/white/blue ensign squadrons come in to it?

00:59:00 - What types and numbers of small arms would various types of Royal Navy ships (battleships, cruisers, sloops, etc) carry in the great war?

01:01:54 - As a naval historian, which aspects of your research, be they ship, battle, figure, or broader topic, most tend to make you tear out your hair or scream into throw pillows?

01:10:41 - WRENS

01:14:15 - When the Allies occupied Iceland what significance did it have in the Battle of the Atlantic?

01:19:11 - The Great Storm of 1703

01:22:31 - What changes pre-WW2 would improve the fighting capability of the Italian Navy?

01:27:38 - How were the tasks of running out, aiming, and absorbing recoil which involved muscle, ropes, levers, and friction in 1850 accomplished in 1900?

01:34:50 - During the age of sail, what was the practice about lighting aboard ship while at sea at night?

01:37:38 - How did officers view inter-navy trade?

01:46:03 - What in you opinion would be the most successful lopsided ships with excessive speed, protection and firepower respectively?

01:52:20 - Can you explain the stability issues experienced by USS Midway class carriers as they were significantly enlarged over their service life. Did they lose any speed from the addition of roughly 20 000 tons?

01:55:43 - Just how far back in history does naval mine warfare go?

01:58:32 - Just how much would it cost to raise the Johnston?

02:01:16 - Other navies fleet problems?

02:05:03 - Mobile drydock's in WW2?

02:08:22 - Just how much pride did 19th century Naval officers have in their near-monopoly on navigation?

[alganhar]

The unit 'scroungers' are useful and valued members of ANY military unit, not just ships! My father was British Army for 36 years, first as Infantry then transferred to Int Corp. Some of the funniest stories he tells are about the various 'expert scroungers' he has served with over the years, most of whom operated in a kind of grey area between legality and illegality, many of whom were utter scoundrels, and all of whom were treasured and protected by their Including their officers.... The sensible ones at any rate!

[jeffwaddell]

I just wanted you to know my niece who is 8 years old is a fan of yours. since I was in the Navy she always wanted to watch azur lane. when she comes to visit me. and do to some historical accuracy in the cartoon. I have had to check on your channel to see if it is right. she watches your videos with me and then goes home to tell her father all about the ships. We think she will be a sailor when she grows up. thank you for all you do.

[Wolfeson]

1:43:55 There's a similar passage in Band of Brothers talking about some gambling that sprung up among the soldiers while in camp, which would involve soldiers bringing different combinations of nearly every currency in western Europe, plus US dollars: "The arguments about the exchange rates around those craps games were intense; somehow these guys, most of whom had hated - and mostly flunked - math in high school, figured it out."

[ricardokowalski]

51:00 Degassing
*Short answer* Drach is right, by the time the navy gets the bunker fuel it is already de-gassed. It happens before distribution.

*Long answer*

*Crude oil* has hydrocarbon gas in solution, refined fuel and destilate products have little or no gas in solution.
Crude oil inside the reservoir is under pressure, and gases are dissolved in the crude oil, held in solution by the pressure. During production, as crude oil travels UP the wellbore the hydrostatic pressure is reduced. A lot of gas comes out of solution as pressure is reduced. (think opening a bottle of soda that forms a lot of bubbles suddenly when it is opened). The first step of De-gassing is what is called a "gas separator", usually at the well site. The gas separator is a primitive device, simply a tall cylinder with baflles inside to allow the gas to vent to the top, and liquid to collect on the bottom. The crude oil that comes out of the separator is called "unweathered".

The *unweathered crude* is then pumped into pipelines under some (lower) pressure. In the refinery the crude is then passed thru a vacuum Degasser to capture valuable gas (these gases are feedstock for chemicals or used as fuel)

The *degassed crude* is now passed thru a distillation column, where the different fractions of hydrocarbons are separated by their condensation temperature (pretty much a large moonshine still). The liquids that are extracted from the distillation column are called distillates and have negligible amounts of gas in solution.

The most valuable fractions become gasoline or diesel. The less valuable are called BUNKER FUEL. Bunker fuel is just a notch above asphalt and tar. Ship's boiler run on bunker fuel. Bunker fuel usually has to be heated to thin it out and pump it, use it in burners for boilers. This is why ships have fuel heaters and pre-heaters.

Beware that distilates are still volatile, they can evaporate and become gaseous (gasoline in open jars will evaporate)... but this is a change in phase, not release of solution gas.

Cheers.

[untruelie]

French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and other leaders like Charles de Gaulle wanted to continue the fight against Germany and Italy even after the forseeable fall of mainland France. I think the evacuation of the french gold reserves to Canada was done with this goal in mind. Reynaud planned to move his government over to Algeria and de Gaulle was in contact with Churchill about the continuation of french involvement in the war. However, Reynaud was forced out of office by the armistice supporters lead by Pétain and when de Gaulle returned from London to Bordeaux, it was already too lade to stop the armistice process. All he could do was to fly back to London and organize his own resistance movement.
Had Reynaud managed to stay in power, it is quite likely that he would've formed a french government "in exile" (not really in exile because Algeria was officially part of France proper, not a colony) and that he would've continued the fight on the side of the British. In this case, the combined naval power of France and Britain in the Mediterranean probably would've made it much more difficult for the Italians to salvage the situation in Libya. It's even possible that there never would've been a german Africa Corps or a north african campaign. Perhaps the Allies would've been able to hold on to some parts of Greece as well.

[KarlfMjolnir]

1:33:45, mention of Stargate SG1. Knew you were awesome, Drach!

[davidvik]

00:50:58 The US Navy requires that all shipboard propulsion and aircraft fuels have a closed cup flash point over 140 deg F. When receiving fuel from a Navy source no testing is required since the product was tested had to meet spec upon delivery to the fuel facility. Degassing is done at the refinery to remove the volatile fraction raising the flash point and reduce the risk of explosive vapors. Shipboard testing was only done to determine atomization temperatures for heavy bunker fuel, and when receiving fuel from a none Navy source.

[IzzyVeed]

Almost 50k views and it is a two hour long video proof Drachinfiel is a history buff happy place.

[dave]

In recognition to the fact of the American Navy not winning the War of 1812, this American wants to wish my British friends a Happy Fourth of July!!!

[OtakuLoki]

One of the things that I was both grateful and humbled to see in the National Archives in College Park, MD, was sometimes a researcher who has gone before will set up their own subject index of the records they'd found, what the National Archive record number might be, and why they found that item relevant. It was amazing to see.

[chocsaday]

Iceland was also a listening post for radio transmissions.
Operators wore silk gloves to prevent their skin sticking to metal and heavy gloves to keep their hands warm during winter. Unsurprisingly there were sticky accidents happening to lone operators.
The radio hut was away from the living quarters to avoid electronic
interference.

Ireland had another listening post.

[kurumi]

24:55 A bit of extra information about the 1876 Korean-Japanese treaty: Korea at the time had _no_ idea about what a modern (at the time) treaty looked like. They thought they were just updating their trade agreement with Japan that had been going on since the early 1600s, while Japan was actively trying to force an uneven trade agreement to gain an economic advantage by forcing the Koreans into a losing bargain. Eventually the Koreans did figure out what was going on and managed to renew the treaty, but by this point (the early 1880s) Japan was already out of reach both militarily and economically from Korea's capabilities, and the rest is history.

[jayfrank]

Did you know that alcohol was allowed on US Navy ships for two reasons: Medicinal purposes, which is why many admirals brought their best-friend drinking buddy doctor who has unlimited access to booze. Halsey was famous for having the best bar in the fleet.
The other exception was for "food flavoring" (desserts, etc..) which tended to disappear pretty quickly in the bowels of the galley.
Halsey's doc once said, "I prescribe this shot of whiskey because you're not nearly as drunk as i am."

[robertmatch]

Thanks for both sections. You're a man of parts.

[timenginemannd]

@ 12:45 You were talking about Steam Turbines. Another issue was precision balance!!!! Each blade not only have extremely tight tolerances to length, width, "airfoil" shape, But also weight, if you had one blade slightly heavier than the one on the opposite side, it would cause trouble by causing vibration and the fact that it would try to shift the shaft in it's direction. Same thing with Reduction Gears! Extremely Delicate Balance considering the speed of rotation of parts!!
As for VTEs, ATEs, etc., remember most people had seen a steam locomotive, so the idea of a steam cylinder moving back & forth (or up& down) wouldn't be such a big surprise. In fact I've heard stories about mainly Canada, but to a lesser degree the US looking for Railroad Engineers and Locomotive Repairmen for service aboard VTE powered ships.... (truth? don't ask me, but it just might be worthwhile to research "one of these years" since I do know you're extremely busy!)

[StarlightSocialist]

Drach, could we have an episode on naval turret design, please? In particular I would love to hear how you rate the aesthetics of various turrets and gun emplacements.

[ant]

53:46 During the Napoleonic Wars there was also a yellow squadron. It was used to move on over-old post captains who could be promoted to "Rear Admiral of the Yellow" and immediately put on the retired list without ever serving in that rank.

[mbr]

On the torpedos: It seems that the german WW2 surface ships and subs used the same torpedo (G7a and G7e)

[timenginemannd]

@ 50:08 (I'm not an "Oil King", but my Rating did have me know parts of various tests needed for DFM & JP-5. (Distillate Fuel Marine, and Jet Petrol #5.) As a Water King I do know how Sub-Atmospheric Pressures will cause separation. (Bunker C was a few decades before my time, however, on a old ship I did see the paper work for testing! But unfortunately the standards listing was no longer there....)
I imagine they did the "Flashing" at Refineries so that various other fuels could use the vapors and what was left would be Bunker C. I don't think you can "Evap" off AvGas (of various Octanes), or even MoGas (which was 50 Octane), and I'm also doubtful about Diesel fuel (~30 Octane).
Here's a bit of explanation of the two ways to rate a fuel: Octane is a measure of Resistance to Detonation, which explains why Diesel fuel has such a low Octane Rating since it relies on only the compression of the engine to allow the injected (basically directly injected into the cylinder) to ignite the fuel. 
The difference between JP-5 & JP-8 is that JP-5 has a higher Flash Point (not sure if they did a partial evap/flash on it, or added chemicals (or a bit of both), JP-8 also has some lubricants added to it that JP-5 doesn't
Another way of rating fuel is the Cetane Number. This is a measure of potential energy of the fuel, so you want Bunker C and Diesel Fuel to have a hit Cetane Number! (I imagine that Bunker C, after having the volatiles "evaped" or "flashed" off would have a high Octane as well as a high Cetane Number! DFM, since it is used for Diesel Engines aboard ships and for the Gas Turbines (Navalized Propulsion version of a jet engine)
Note: by adding a lead compound that was marketed as Ethyl, you can raise the Octane Rating pass 100, but also cause health, sometimes serious health issues from inhaling the exhaust or even direct contact with the gasoline. (This would be in addition to the issues caused by exposure to the petroleum "spirits" due to spills or inhaling the vapors of unburnt gasoline (and diesel)!!!)

[strydyrhellzrydyr]

Ahhh... Thank you for explaining the different sizes of Torpedoes... And their uses...
Honestly have wanted to know that for a while.