The Drydock - Episode 233

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:54 - How would you go about modernizing a ironclad?

00:06:24 - Was there any advantage of the paddlewheel compared to screw propulsion?

00:09:00 - More modern warships are nearly devoid of portholes. What triggered this change in design?

00:12:12 - Assume for a moment that either the 40mm Bofors, or the 20mm Oerlikon failed as an AA gun, what would be used as a replacement for it?

00:15:49 - Battleships with landing guns?

00:18:20 - Do you think it's more cost-effective to scrap old ships, or turn them into reefs? And what are the pros and cons?

00:22:15 - Just how is a ship's speed measured?

00:26:39 - In his autobiographical history of WW2, Churchill insists that he would have canceled the mission if he had known there was no carrier going along with the two battleships. Is this post-facto political backside covering, or was Winston just caught offguard by the actual deployments made by his actual fleet?

00:30:56 - Italian vs Allied fleet battle in 1943?

00:35:24 - What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Whaleback design?

00:39:45 - Any thoughts on the addition of combined arms and the practicality of combining multiple table top games as stated “[Combined Arms] is intended to allow players to incorporate Bolt Action, Blood Red Skies, Cruel Seas, or Victory at Sea for an epic continent-spanning wargaming campaign.”?

00:42:42 - Ships that were a self-fulfilling prophecy?

00:47:17 - Was the British Siege of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812 and the subsequent plan for the invasion of Baltimore good a idea?

00:54:16 - Biggest peacetime naval disaster?

00:57:11 - How did the USN decide the names on first ships of their class?

01:00:28 - If the American Carriers were moored in Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7th, how vulnerable would they have been? Would the Japanese pilots have prioritized sinking them over the battleships?

[noneofyourbusiness]

"...you have Henry the First, King of England and Duke of Various Places..." Oh, that cracked me up. Thanks!

[HalfLifeExpert]

Your comments on Scrapping vs Scuttling old ships are incidentally relevant due to the Brazilians having just scuttled the carrier Sao Paulo out in the Atlantic, due to large amounts of Asbestos making it undesirable for scrappers.

[bcoop]

Normally the USN names a class after the ship name for the first contract issued for that class (this the ship with the lowest hull number in the sequence for that class). The order that the ships were actually constructed would frequently differ from the hull number sequence because the orders were spread among multiple shipyards that had different capacities, levels of experience and possibly previous vessels that needed to be completed before work started on the latest contract.

In Astoria's case, Tuscaloosa (CA-37) was originally going to be the class name ship but New Orleans (CA-32), Astoria (CA-34) and Minneapolis (CA-36), all originally laid down as Portland-class ships were reordered to the Tuscaloosa design. It no longer made sense to call them the Tuscaloosa-class since three sister ships now preceded it so the first of the group to be re-laid down and launched, Astoria, was chosen as the class name.

[kimbledunster]

Would you please consider doing 5 minute guides to hospital ships? They were usually unique, having been converted from something else.

[Pusserdoc]

Portholes (scuttles): one of the reasons why ships lost them after WWII relates to health issues. They're fine in peacetime for all the reasons Drach indicates. Closing them in bad weather was part of the deal of being at sea when there wasn't a good alternative.
The problem was in wartime: they had to be closed whenever the ship was at sea (and even alongside), to darken ship: more scuttles = more to leave undarkened for U boats. This wasn't achieved only with curtains, but a heavy metal cover called a deadlight, which also provided some protection for damage control purposes of the glass was broken by the sea or enemy action.
These factors effectively meant the scuttles were closed / deadlighted 24/7. So... that being the case... why bother?
Drach isalso right re this being less of an issue re lighting; however, it's a major issue at a time when ship's ventilation systems were predicated on being able to open the scuttles. Keeping them closed meant crap ventilation: not great at any time, but far worse in the tropics, with all the adverse effects on human performance, as seen for example at Savo Island in August 1942.
The more important issue relates to infectious disease risks - not just coughs and colds, but tuberculosis. This being the period when effective mass TB screening had only begun (mostly because of WWII) and there was no effective treatment until the late 1940s, even one active TB case on a mess deck with crap ventilation could make a helluva mess...

[caminojohn]

Class Name based on Ships @59:36. In my squirrel brain, if you design and order a class, you have a list of ships, including the names, you are planning to purchase in a given fiscal year, with subsequent ships ordered in following years. Therefore, each ship's contract is awarded to various yards and companies. Thus you have a series of ships being ordered and contracts awarded with each contract specifying a name. Then when the given shipyard actually starts work on their given contract, then the hull number is assigned. Thus from a Navy procurement point of view, you order say 5 ships, each ship is a contract, which specifies the initial name, and the funding released by the treasury per the budget. Once the work commences, then you assign the hull number, which hopefully denotes which ship is older / younger compared to their sisters.

Lastly, in terms of naming, you do also have to factor in politics. If the given ship's name happens to correspond to a given Congressman's or Senator's jurisdiction, that makes good press for the politician, especially when it comes time to launch the ship.

[christopher]

I see the Alaska class more in line with Dr. Clarks view of them, I see them less as a new thing and more as the proper heavy cruiser reasserting itself on the evolution of the cruiser, and bringing the cruiser back into it's proper proportion compared to capital ships compared to the pygmy treaty cruisers (as had been seen in the age of the armored cruiser and pre-dreadnaught battleship)

[jmantime]

My favorite rebuilt / modernized ironclad was the Ottoman warship " Mesudiye ", a central battery ironclad rebuilt into a coastal defense ship in 1903, with 2x 9 inch ( 230mm Guns ). She was the first ottoman warship sunk in 1914, the british thinking she was an original pre-dreadnaught battleship. An ironclad modified to have the fire-power of a Coastal Battleship, her wreck is still lying where she sank all those years ago.

[dmcarpenter]

The North Carolinas were launched with portholes on the Second Deck. These are clear, in the launching photographs. However, they were blanked over during the fitting out process. If you look, carefully, at BB55's hull, you can still make out, where the portholes were located.

[myarchus]

In regards to the effect of current and waves on a ship's speed, it brought to mind a story from the news a while back, where a passenger jet crossing the Atlantic from west to east caught a particularly strong jet stream. Even though the onboard instruments indicated the usual speed through the air, the additional speed of the jet stream meant that the plane's ground speed exceeded the speed of sound and it made the crossing in ~5.5(?) hours.

[robmcelwee]

My grandfather was a loader for a quad 40mm Bofors on the Fletcher class destroyer Killen. Said it tended to jam and it was quick to unjam with a hammer and chisel. During an air attack he said the 5 inchers opened up then the 40mm then the 20mm and finally the .50 caliber. He said you knew it was really bad when the 20mm and .50 cals opened up.

[Axel]

In regard to measuring ship's speeds, in addition to the methods Drach described, most ships have instruments onboard that directly measure ship's speed, either a Pitometer Log (similar in principle to a pitot tube on aircraft) which was invented around the turn of the 20th century, or in more recent ships more likely an Electromagnetic (or EM) Log, which was invented post-WWII.

[calvingreene]

The battle of Guadalcanal contained a serious amount of Naval and land combat at the same time.

[djquinn]

When they open a new champagne factory do they smash a boat on the side of it?

[Grantthetruthteller]

I love the informative videos that Drac does and will never say anything to hurt his heroic efforts. That said, there is one oversight, because the initial speed calculations can be dramatically affected by changes in loaded (or depleted) ship weight and therefore displacement plus marine growth on the hull bottom and sides below waterline. The fire control computer needed very accurate speed readings to properly aim the ships guns. There is a long, heavy "dagger" that is lowered through a through the hull opening in the bottom of the ship which was the marine version of a pitot tube. The reading from the daggers were fed directly to the fire control room for real time calculations.

[wvrails]

00:18:20 USS Kitty Hawk and John F. Kennedy were "sold" to a Texas ship breaker for $0.01 each. U.S. ships have to be scrapped at U.S. yards and the Navy does not actually transfer ownership of the ships so they won't end up going somewhere else (think Soviet carrier Riga) after the sale.

[mikehall]

Re Fort McHenry: my impression was that the British originally planned to attack Baltimore before going on to Washington and that it was the delay due to attacking the capital first that gave the time for the defences to be completed. Also, I think that calling it a “siege” – especially a “siege of Fort McHenry” - is a bit over the top. The British aimed to overwhelm Baltimore’s defenders – much as they had at Bladensburg – and after probing the defences and realising that they were much stronger and better manned than expected decided to try bombarding the fort. When this failed they simply gave up and decided that the pickings were better elsewhere.

New Orleans is much more interesting. Not so much the battles themselves, where British chances were lost to a series of blundering decisions (plus the strength of the entrenchments along the canal), but the fact that they were there at all. Before the steam ship New Orleans, if properly defended, should have been impregnable in the face of attack from the sea and the British army should never have got anywhere near the city.

[thomaschurch]

If the US Mark 14 torpedo worked, how would it have affected the War? Would it have been shorter or does US ship production just overwhelm any difference made?

[gneisenau]

re: whalebacks. The whaleback design was briefly popular for cargo vessels on the upper Great Lakes in the late 1800s until the mid 1920s. These were originally intended as low-drag barges. Subsequently self powered cargo ships were constructed. They were intended to allow waves to wash over the hull. One of these ships remains as a museum ship in Superior, WI.

[AndrewPalmerMTL]

re: 00:09:00 - More modern warships are nearly devoid of portholes. What triggered this change in design?

Modern ships also have (generally) smaller and smaller crews for a given size of ship, thus requiring less accommodation spaces and so less of the ship to need airing out and lighting?