The Drydock - Episode 213 (Part 2)

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:34 - Effect of beam limits on capital ship design?

00:08:10 - USS Marblehead damage?

00:10:03 - HMS Cavalier and the bridge chicken?

00:11:18 - Navy taking over from the Army out of exasperation?

00:13:58 - Salvaging carriers from Pearl Harbour?

00:17:30 - VTE/Turbine mixed propulsion?

00:19:52 - What ships throughout history have been suspiciously good at roles they weren't designed for?

00:21:38 - Luigi Biancheri?

00:24:56 - If Queen Victoria is still alive for the dreadnought race leading up to WWI do you think the funding of such an arms race happens on her watch?

00:28:25 - Rinehart's Battle Report books?

00:31:45 - Mini-Des Moines?

00:35:22 - Carrier-less Allied operations?

00:38:19 - Unprintable commments by Somerville?

00:39:26 - Russian gunpowder at Tsushima?

00:42:24 - Most compartmentalised ship?

00:45:24 - Warspite/QE class gun accuracy

00:49:24 - French Expedition to Ireland of 1796

00:54:17 - Early naval rockets?

00:58:06 - Renown-style Lexington's with better armour?

01:02:44 - Are their any instances of large warships having their main battery upgraded or replaced in the post-ironclad era?

01:05:51 - What exactly was the Brodie system?

01:08:41 - Shore bombardment setup on USS Missouri?

01:10:47 - Armouring ships before the ironclad era?

01:14:09 - 1860's/70's cannon testing?

01:16:16 - The loss of the Chokai

01:19:25 - Why was the Salt Lake City such a successful ship?

01:21:26 - How to aim a carronade?

01:23:12 - Wooden box on the front of Japanese torpedoes?

01:25:17 - How was powder supplied to a ship of the line in battle?

01:27:00 - Carrier ops in heavy seas?

01:30:31 - Radar equipped PT boats?

01:32:12 - Earliest know naval engagement?

01:35:31 - Differences in sea trials?

01:38:47 - Did the various European naval powers have any fears or concerns about socialist/communist sentiments among the enlisted men during WWI and the years leading up to the war?

01:41:00 - Where did the planning for the naval bombardment of Omaha beach go wrong?

01:45:53 - Atlantic Wall surface search radar?

01:48:14 - Age of Sail ships and their timbers?

[daguard]

If I may be a little informative in the matter of the British pilfering lumber, and this was what made the Constitution the fastest ship at the time. All ships suffer from hogging, the bending of her keel due to the center of the hull being more buoyant than the bow or stern. At the time the Constitution sailed, the ways the ships designers would fight this was by using "diagonal kickers." These were hefty "L" shaped chunks of wood that were fastened between the hull and lumber supporting the decks. The flaw in this was they had to have the kickers that were poor for the job as it went against the grain of the woods strong point. In the American Allegheny Mountain Range is the only place where Live Oak trees could be found. The unique thing about the livie oak trees is that they grow more like a bush than a standard oak tree. What these trees did was grow so that the ship builders could get the diagonal kickers by cutting the elbows so that at no point is the stress going across the grains weak areas.

[bryanstephens]

Glad you took your time between these, Sir. Hope you are feeling better.

[Pupda]

17:30 while I’m not aware of any warships with mixed steam propulsion plants, the White Star’s Olympic class ships had triple-expansion plants on the outboard screws and a Parsons turbine for the central shaft. It can be, and was done.

As well, while not a mix between reciprocating and rotating power plants, in my early days in the U.S. Navy when steam propulsion was still the primary type of power plant for large combatants there were ship classes with mixed turbine plants, most notably with a set of cruising turbines for long passages.

[timenginemannd]

Re: Panama Canal
My father was a "Plank Owner" (Commissioning Crew) of the USS Washington; BB-56, he remembered going through the Canal during WW2 (this is long before all of the modern systems that keep a ship with equal distance between each side from the walls of the Locks) and how they were screaming at him for not taking measurements as the ship kept scrapping the walls as the Locks Lifted (Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic side) or Lowered (Pacific side). The thing is that if she was centered perfectly, there would be only 10 inches of gap on each side! And the way the water was flowing, this caused the ship to shift, and not always parallel to the walls of the Lock!!!

[mikehall]

@01:27:00 The bit about Carriers in High Seas reminded me of your Operation Rheinübung video where a pilot from Ark Royal pilot describes the take off for the first attack on Bismark as involving at one moment climbing a slippery slope and the next plunging down hill towards the sea. I guess that needs must when the devil drives, and that sometimes they would fly even when it looked impossible.

[samsignorelli]

42:12 "There was a lot of issues with the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron."

And he didn't even MENTION the Kamchatka!!

[Trident]

Great Drydock as always. Glad you are feeling better. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Hawaii, meeting up Ryan Z. had to be fun.

[alexandervesterlund]

Hello Drach, I've been watching your videos for some time now and wanted to thank you for the content you make available for free. They have rekindled my interest in military history and naval history. The mix of British humor, vast knowledge of the subject, and an eye for picking out interesting pieces of history to share puts you in the highest tier of history channels.

[Alex-cwrz]

1:21:26 Some cannonades had elevating screws rather quions the wedge shape peice. For almost all ships it was a guesstimate from the Gunner at the range. But Captain Philip Broke captain of HMS Shannon had the Quoin grooves marked into them for various ranges and on the evelating screw marked ranges with paint. He also made indentation marks around the guns which would give bearings for the guns to fire at, so a gun Crew could fire the gun irrespective of their ability to see the target, a sort of blind fire system. This meant the entire gun deck could focus on one part of an enemy even when the gunners couldn't see the target, a very early version of what you could call a central fire control. They would even do blindfolded drills were the crews were told the bearing and distance the target was at and they had to lay the gun on the target while blindfolded and this could be considered an early director fire control. He also had tangent sights to his guns as well.

[geoguy]

The Nagato class had their turrets replaced in the 1930s with the ones originally made for the TOSA class..which allowed a much higher elevation, but with the same 41cm guns

[funnydog]

I like to think that drach doesnt research any of these questions, he just knows them

[greenseaships]

BTW- Jellico cats get confused at night is singularly the greatest YT ship/Broadway history name I have ever seen. Bravo.

[paulwoodman]

The Brodie System, Was, used for launching light observation planes. L-5 Sentinel. RAF tested it in India for jungle use without runways. Worked pretty well for launch and recovery.

[themightynanto]

Keep in mind that Chokai was also hit by a torpedo from Samuel B Roberts. I think that's what ultimately sealed the ship's fate along with the bomb hit.

[johnloman]

I could watch ships and heavy seas all day long it is so amazing watching the most powerful things humankind has ever made get tossed around like children's toys in the bathtub

[chrisdooley]

One to add to the list of converted ships that excelled at their new role: USS Halibut SSGN/SSN- 587. She originally served as a Regulus cruise missile platform, but was converted in the mid 1960’s to perform electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering. It was Halibut that first proved the ability of a submarine to tap and record submerged Soviet communication cables in the Sea of Okhotsk.

[Segalmed]

Concerning damp Russian powder at Tsushima, a German book I have states that the nitrocelluose charges got some extra water added to them while still at home for safety reasons, assuming that the majority would evaporate while the fleet would be making its way through the tropics. Otherwise it would dry out on the way creating danger of spontaneous combustion. But - according to the book - the amount added was miscalculated and far too high, i.e. it had not yet returned to normal levels when the fleet went finally into action.

[JP-thsq]

I was thinking about naval rocket artillery the other day and was looking for a drydock where you talked about them. Guess I should have just waited.

[mobiusd]

Re: the Chokai and the explosion that crippled it, an article I read recently telling about the torpedoes being intact did not mention the possibility of reserve torpedoes being hit so I will have to keep that information in mind when discussing the battle. However, the article did float a hypothesis that the Chokai had been the victim of friendly fire, being hit by a shell from (IIRC) Kongo. Supposedly the Chokai crossed the line of fire of the Kongo right at the time of the explosion.

Drach, what do you know of this?

[andrewcox]

Plus a lot of the existing radar stations were looking across the shortest gap where the invasion was most expected.
It is worth noting that 2 invasion "fleets" were simulated by bombers dropping chaff to give a fleet like return on the radar systems