Sail to Steam to Iron - Half a Century of Change

Today we look at the development of warships from 1815 to 1860

[Marshal_Dunnik]

There's a story of a veteran RN captain taking his screw 1st rate into Malta. He ordered all sails furled and the anchor dropped, but was surprised when the ship kept moving. He was reminded they had screw propulsion. "I forgot we had that".

[michaelmorley]

"The wooden ships, they turned to iron, and the iron ships to steel.
And shed their sails like autumn leaves with the turning of the wheel."

--Al Stewart, "Old Admirals"

[gusty]

I wasn't aware that the transition from wooden warships to early ironclads was so complex. None of the documentaries i seen up to this point gave a hint of how much development and in some cases back steps were made to reach that point. Great video.

[TheThingInMySink]

''Tell me, do you see that crew over there?''
''Yes sir?''
''I don't want to.''
''Understood, sir.''

[jobjed]

"Telling navy officers to install a massive fire aboard their wooden tar-coated gunpowder-filled ships was understandably a hard sell"

Fkn lmao

[willrogers]

I can’t help but feel that HMS Blenheim was somehow HMS Warspite’s...I don’t know, ‘Great Aunt’ for lack of a better term. From your description of her exploits, Blenheim seems to share quite a few things with her grand-niece, especially in having been through several major overhauls during her lifetime and remaining in service long enough for her final crew to be the children or grandchildren of her original crew.

But I’d say that Blenheim seems to have been a bit more mild-mannered than Warspite. What with all that heavy, all-metal construction, steam turbines, and vastly more firepower, I think Warspite turned out quite a bit more headstrong and hot-blooded than her stately ancestor.

[Kwolfx]

I've just been reading that the French knew that an iron hulled ship was superior to a wooden hull ship with iron plates, like the Gloire. In fact, France was the first nation to lay down an all iron hulled warship; the Couronne, but the Warrior was finished and put into commision first. The problem the French Navy, and France in general had, was that while they had scientific and engineering personal every bit the equal to their counterparts on the other side of the English Channel, the industrial revolution was so much more advanced in Great Britain than it was in France, most French dockyards couldn't handle building all iron ships. It was much easier for them to build wooden hulled ships and bolt on iron plating afterwards. So they continued to build wooden hulled ironclads after the Gloire, into the 1870's.

[warrenlehmkuhleii]

“HMS Excellent”
Never change Britain.

[mrbigshoworelse]

Documentary quality content from a channel with 20, 000 subs, that's criminally underrated. Cheers man, love your stuff.

[lewis]

you forgot an important point...the American heavy frigates had unique construction consisting of several extra internal keels inside the framework / ships ribs that stiffined the ship considerably...

[Yak]

Wow, what a complete and excellent rundown of the period. Puts proper documentaries to shame.

[patrickols]

This was an excellent episode, was holding my interest none stop. Could not believe that 35 minutes could past that quickly. It's without a doubt the most interesting era of naval warships. Changes occurred very quickly.

[Ad_Valorem]

Really enjoyed this episode and learned a lot. When you summarized the fate of some the ships mentioned, all I could think of was Turner's Fighting Temeraire, a fitting image to summarize the sad fate of these once magnificent machines.

[bigblue]

That was excellent. It filled in a number of gaps in my knowledge of the Royal Navy in the 19th century.

I knew the first steam ship predated the Battle of Trafalgar. It was built in Scotland and was used on a canal I seem to remember. It's effect was such that there was talk of Richard Trevithick building number of steam ships to tow fireships which would be used to attack the Franco-Spanish fleet. The plan was stopped because Trevithick did not think it was viable at that time.

I remember reading about an incident which happened in 1821 when a ship approaching the Isle of Mann was spotted with smoke billowing skyward. Realising there was a fire onboard a number of ships set sail to go to the rescue only to have it sail straight passed them. The smoke was from a steam engine.

[davidlogansr]

Although picking one is nearly impossible due to overall excellence, I think this is one of Drach’s best! Just listening to it for about the .4th time!

[zackakai]

I love the fact that you're still branding these as the "Five Minute Guide to Warships" xD Not that I'm complaining of course, I'd love these videos if they were just hours of waffling on about the technical details of a specific class of battleship's main battery guns.

[McbrideStudios]

Got to say, this os one of my favorite channels lately. He makes clean and interesting videos that are full of all the technical and historical stuff I love to hear about. Keep up the good work!

[heinrichzerbe]

Your sense of humour is truly a delight. Makes the experience even more worthy of listening. 😄

[Kwolfx]

Yes, early steam engines worked with "a massive furnace, " and they also had a tendency to explode if they weren't carefully tended to. Sounds like a great plan to me.

The frigate Gloire, where the French took the decisive lead in building the ugliest warships of the 19th century.

"And then it got worse. So common in Russian history." LOL - That's brilliant.

[nzyd]

Please do a Video on the last surviving pre dreadnought armored cruiser USS Olympia, she needs the support, they are talking about making her an artificial reef again!