The Drydock - Episode 105

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:30 - Who, in your opinion, were the most grossly incompetent captains/admirals in each era?

00:06:18 - What were the biggest contributions of the US Coast Guard to the two World Wars, and what would you consider their finest hour for each?

00:10:48 - How were the German U-boat pens in France engineered?

00:14:43 - The Mark 6 Exploder

00:15:56 - What would have happened to the High seas fleet if it didn't sink itself in the Scapa Flow?

00:20:08 - Heavy German guns and brass charge cases

00:25:56 - Type 40 torpedo boat reloading for torpedo tubes

00:29:32 - Were blow out panels ever considered for the rear of main gun turrets to prevent catastrophic explosions in the case of them being penetrated?

00:33:56 - How did ammunition handling procedures differ between destroyers with fully-enclosed turrets and those with only a gun shield for the main battery? Where was ammunition fed to the gun from

00:35:41 - Pressure effects on a submarine hull

00:38:02 - Evolution of sailing warships hull types

00:45:21 - Evolution of the submarine snorkel

00:49:44 - Origin of naming a ship

00:53:40 - Do you think it would have been possible to make the Fairey Fulmar a single seater?

00:56:37 - What is your opinion on smaller quick-firing (QF) guns relative to larger guns with separate ammunition?

00:58:49 - Which navies in 1939 showed the most and least advancement/improvement over their 1918 navy?

01:05:36 - Scuttling ships instead of capturing in the 20th century?

01:13:49 - What were some of the more interesting ways navies tried to combat aircraft?

01:15:39 - What did the axis do surface wise in the Mediterranean post Italy’s surrender?

01:17:16 - HMS Royal Sovereign in Soviet service?

01:21:12 - The Battle of Passchendaele and the U-Boats

01:25:06 - Escort sloops instead of cruisers?

01:29:56 - Army vs Navy artillery in the 19th century

01:36:08 - How reliable is the Anthony Roll as a source for the Tudor navy? I assume the illustrations are not to be taken quite literally, but how do you figure out what to take seriously and what not when studying a source as old as this?

01:40:16 - Why did the Beiyang Fleet of the Late Qing Dynasty fail so poorly during the first Sino-Japanese war?

01:43:06 - How exactly would one lay mines from a submarine?

01:47:03 - Has technology ever advanced in such a way that outdated ships could beat a newer model because the defenses against it fell out of use?

01:51:45 - Upper deck mounts vs Between deck mounts

01:56:38 - German 12" vs British 13.5"

02:05:31 - Costs and profits of scrapping a ship

02:09:37 - As most ships (even warships at war) spend much more time sailing than fighting. Which warship classes of the second world war had the best sea-worthiness and/or sea-keeping qualities?

02:12:22 - Given how well the rapid firing 6" gun cruisers such as the Brooklyn and Town classes ended up performing for the USN and RN, would the IJN have been better off leaving the Mogamis in the original 6" configuration?

02:14:31 - Large/Heavy/Super/Battle-cruiser differences

02:21:21 - "The world wonders"

02:28:21 - Line of Battle spacing

02:32:06 - Costs of the US Six Frigates

02:38:59 - Why were medium and heavy bombers converted to torpedo bombers in WW2?

02:42:55 - Naval signals intel in WW1/WW2

02:46:28 - Maximum thickness of armour plate

02:50:00 - What battle or incident would you most like to have all the answers to? Why?

02:52:14 - What were the plans for using the Treaty Ports in Ireland before handed back? Using them as naval bases seems pretty conservative. Would the merchant ships be unloaded there?

02:54:57 - How are the masts of age of sail ships held down?

02:57:13 - Minelaying in WW1 and WW2?

03:00:13 - How would you rate the Borodino class battlecruisers?

03:04:29 - What is your favorite Naval title?

03:04:42 - Bulbous bows

03:08:13 - Impact of Leonardo da Vinci on WW2?

03:11:19 - Lower freeboards in the Victorian ironclad navy.

03:13:42 - Royal Navy launching ceremonies

03:15:11 - Channel Admin

[BikingVikingHH]

I really appreciate you not putting commercials in these videos you make. I watch your videos to go to sleep, and a commercial in the middle of it would literally prevent me from watching your content. I don’t watch your content to go to sleep because it’s boring and puts me to sleep, but rather I find it quite interesting, and you a fantastic orator. It’s basically listening to a extremely well spoken man talking about stories of warboats and everything related to warboats (warships*😅), perfect bedtime story for a full-grown man. Thank you sir, not only does it help me but because I generally get through about 20 minutes of content before falling asleep, I end up watching every episode about four or five times, giving you 4 to 5 times the view count 😉

[crazygerman]

As a submariner myself, in relation to your pressure effects on submarines I will tell a story. So we have a milk machine, just a small fridge that contains a bag of milk, well below a certain depth that I'm not at liberty to say we were unable to change our milk bag out because a pipe would be compressed just enough to prevent us from opening the door to this "cow" as we call it. Quite a funny thing to show new guys as the come aboard and go underway their first time.

[kurotsuki]

Rescue flotilla 1. Ifyou ask me, anyone willing to run unarmed and unarmmored into a fire fight to pull people out is a special kind of brave.

[DrunkenGrognard]

the bit about incompetent admirals, talking about Japan vrs Korea. It's worth noting, about Admiral Yi Sun Sin, that _after_ being handed the command of a massively decimated Korean navy and told to stop Japan (for the SECOND time that conflict - the majority of the Korean navy got taken out in the initial Japanese attack) Yi pulled it off. Again. probably the GOAT for naval commanders.

[VintageCarHistory]

I bought a boat when I was a young man. I called up a girl I fancied and told her that I bought a boat and named it after you, come down to the docks and check it out. I called two other girls and told them the same thing. All three showed up at the same time and saw the boat. On the stern was the name, 'After You'.

[juicysushi]

Talking about incompetent admirals through history, but only using Beatty’s picture for the whole thing is the correct amount of shade.

[catfish]

Re: Blowout panels in gun turrets
There's another key difference to tanks that you sort of touched on, and that I think is important. On a tank's turret, the blowout panel is for the ammunition storage only, not for the entire turret. The ammunition is in its own little compartment, usually in the back of the turret, and separated from the crew compartment by substantial bulkheads or blast doors. These will only open briefly during the loading process, and otherwise remain closed in combat. The ammunition can burn and explode inside its compartment, rupture the blowout panels, and heat up the bulkhead/doors considerably – but the crew remains protected from the fire and explosion itself.
In a ship's turret, the gun crew is in the same general space as the shells and charges they're currently loading (and which could explode in case of detonation). Blowout panels might reduce damage to turret and its components, but I doubt they would do much for the crew.

[erikgranqvist]

Incompetent admirals: the 1 common thing with your pick seem to be personal pride over the common good for the fleet in question.

[davidbrennan]

The first named “boat” that was “named” has been covered by Drach, it was “Floaty log.”.. one for the Channel teenagers.

[DardanellesBy]

You mentioned aircraft laying mines.

The B-29 mine laying missions during WW2 were epic flights that were over 2000 miles round trip with one mind boggling mission done by B-29, Flak Alley Sally, which completed 4400 miles round trip, 19 hours and 40 minutes non stop.
——
Been over dosing on these Drydock episodes! Love ‘em!

[zeli]

Hi Drachinifel, as a Chinese I know there are quite some studies went into the Yalu river fight by Chinese Scholars (as this is one of those painful memory you wouldn’t be able to forget as a Chinese), and I think I might have read one of those long times ago, although I wouldn’t expect them to be translated to English. I wouldn’t be able to physically go and get books on these, but i would certainly happy to help with any language barrier. Always enjoy your drydock episode, keep it up!

[KPen]

"There seems to be something wrong with our Bloody ships today!"
Perhaps Beatty, but maybe, just maybe, you have a part in this

[lunatickoala]

There's possibly another layer to "The world wonders". The Battle of Samar occurred on the anniversary of the Battle of Balaclava (25 October 1854), which is most known for Tennyson's poem "Charge of the Light Brigade". While these lines are pretty far apart in the poem, they're also rhymed and thus relatively easily associated: "Not though the soldier knew/Someone had blundered", "Charging an army while/All the world wondered", "O the wild charge they made!/All the world wondered". If Halsey had made that association, it'd have been an even bigger slap in the face.

[satellitefeed]

As a Veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, I say the biggest contribution during WW II, is the delivery of the fighting forces of the U.S. Marines to the beaches in the Pacific and U.S. Army to the beaches of Normandy and Africa, and Italy has to be the greatest contribution - by far. Medals of Honor were won during the repeated trips made by U.S. Coast Guard coxswain under horrendous enemy fire - often while themselves were wounded as they also evacuated the wounded from those beaches. But let us not argue about this. During WWII, the U.S. Coast Guard was absorbed into the U.S. Navy.

[DadStR]

"Indy Neidell's Fursona", had me rolling on the floor, well done lads

[olivermacke]

I'd imagine a lot of high-ranking Admirals were concerned with their legacy and possible impact an history. But being on the top of the google results for "incompetend Admiral" was surly not what most had in mind.

[ironteacup]

I have watched this a few time but today I woke up to this episode playing from a night of Youtube knows me well and pretty much autoplayed 3 prior drydocks as I was sleeping. I enjoy the content in my sleep and in the day time. You have 100% achieved what you wanted to do with long form content

[NathanOkun]

YAMATO's 26" (66cm) Vickers Hardened turret face plates. These plates were the thickest armor plates ever put on a warship. When the SHINANO's unused turret face plates (the one that was turned into the cursed aircraft carrier) were tested at the US Naval Proving Ground, Dahlgren, Virginia, after WWII, along with several other plates of various kinds and thicknesses of Japanese naval armor, they found out the following:

(1) The plate, hit by inert 2700-pound US Navy 16" Mark 8 MOD 6 (latest version) AP shells at right-angles, snapped in half at the impact point in both the hit that did not quite penetrate and the hit that completely penetrated.

(2) In neither case was the projectile damaged (other than the expected loss of the AP cap and some scratches). This allowed a very good measure of the plate's quality relative to a hypothetical US Class "A" armor plate of the same thickness.

(3) The plate was, as all VH plates were, non-cemented (no thin carburized surface layer, as used by most non-Japanese armor of this face-hardened kind), yet the lack of this thin super-hard surface layer did not change anything. This was actually true for all face-hardened armor by WWII due to the superior AP shells in use, but only Japan had the courage to delete the expensive thin face layer added over the thick deep face behind it. Such a thin surface layer was destroyed by the high-hardness AP caps used by new naval AP projectiles after WWI and the Japanese decided that it did not make sense to keep such a useless layer. Considering Japanese concepts of "tradition", this was amazing! It also was the correct decision and VH armor did not suffer because of it.

(4) All Japanese VH armor kept the same face thickness as the previous British-derived Vickers Cemented (VC) armor that they got the use of when KONGO was made prior to WWI in the UK. It did increase the carbon content to a rather high 0.55% to ease hardening of the thick armor and had other improvements, but on the who it used the VC manufacturing methods unchanged. This caused some problems with the plates above 22" (barbette armor thickness), as the breaking of the 26" test plate showed. During WWII, changes in the hardening and tempering methods were found to correct the breakage problem, but no more such armor was being made for ships by then.

(5) VC plates had a 35% face thickness (to the point where the softer back layer started), but in most foreign Krupp Cemented-type armors, such numbers (which varied rather a lot!) were only averages and goals, not tight requirements. Not so with the Japanese: ALL, repeat, ALL, Japanese ship-installation (rather than experimental) VH plates of whatever thickness, including the 26" armor (!!!), had EXACTLY 35% face thickness, the best quality control I have ever seen in any armor, period. It seems that the later post-WWII Japanese successes in electronics were not a fluke...

The Japanese plate turned out to be 89% as good in steel quality compared to the latest US naval armor steel, if a plate of that thickness of Class "A" armor had been made with a 35% face, instead of the actual 55% face used in US WWII Class "A" armor. This made it the best WWI-era non-cemented armor and, for that matter, one of the best WWI-era face-hardened-type armors of any kind whatsoever. Indeed, a couple of experimental plates made of VH armor using different face thicknesses and heat treatments when tested by both the US and UK after WWII were found to be THE BEST PLATES EVER TESTED BY THOSE PROVING GROUNDS!!!! And, the two testing facilities could not figure out why this was true, which seems to me an admission that they really do not know how face-hardened armor works. I figured out that lack of understanding in my studies, too, but these reports were official navy documents, which shows some "guts" to make such an admission...

[sarjim]

The story I've read was the "the World Wonders" message to Halsey not due to the decrypt officer but due to a rookie clerk. Once a message was decrypted, everything in the message was included so a message could be verified if a question about it came up. It was then passed on to a clerk typist to type up the message before it went to the recipient(s). IN this case, the rookie didn't realize "The World Wonders" was actually padding so he typed up everything, stuffed it in an envelope, and handed to off to a messenger for delivery. Thus began the small nuclear explosion on the _New Jersey_ .

[Tevildo]

As a concrete datapoint, the oldest ship we know the name of is from the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1600 BC). She was called the "Wild Bull", and appears in the journal of Ahmose, son of Abana.