The Drydock - Episode 218

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:38 - Did the French Navy, for all of the resources placed into it, actually DO anything during the wars?

00:06:51 - Did Navies ever use or consider using shrapnel/fragmentation shells for defense against torpedo boats?

00:10:31 - Why did Drach study Civil Engineering?

00:12:01 - How exactly does one build a Sea Canal?

00:15:27 - What was the contemporary name for pre-dreadnought ships?

00:19:28 - The design process for HMS Hood?

00:20:36 - To what extent was the limiting factor of battle ranges the precision of ranging, as opposed to precision of aiming devices?

00:24:55 - What were the things that went wrong with the earlier British breech loaders?

00:32:54 - Could the Cerberus and the rest of the RVN squadron and fort Nepean have successfully done their job and defend Port Phillip Bay from a "russian squadron" ?

00:35:53 - Value of relative gun calibre?

00:39:16 - Captain Robert Fitzroy of HMS Beagle?

00:46:58 - Why are the IJN Kongo class sometimes called battleships and sometimes battle cruisers?

00:56:28 - Interwar battleship armament value?

01:02:58 - Why did BuOrd act like they did?

01:10:52 - Dunkerque/Strasbourg split?

[dyerwulf]

Any Drydock with an HMS Thunderchild reference is going to be a good one.

[hughgordon]

Ferrets running loose and drach to listen to? Heaven is a Sunday with Drach!

[seanmccann]

11:10 - What a fine upstanding young man on his graduation day. Noble and

[GrahamWKidd]

Ah, Saturday night.
An excellent 5 minute guide, and now a Drydock.
Heaven!

[nanamikamiya]

46:58 Drach, you had me going down a rabbit hole in my trusty Japanese and kanji dictionaries. I was able to find out that “battleship” is translated as either “senkan” or “sentookan”, while “cruiser” is translated as “jun’yookan”. My kanji dictionary does NOT have a translation for “battlecruiser”. Google translate gives a translation of “jun’yoosenkan”, which is the word for “cruiser” with the kanji for “battle” (“sen”) written in the middle of the word.

My GUESS (I am not a native speaker, so take this with a grain of salt) is that most Japanese documents of the WWII era would have used one of the two words for “battleship” and that the difference in the translated documents would have been due to the translator.

[fabianzimmermann]

As someone who speaks German, yeah, the Linienschiff/ship of the line is rather amusing. It's essentially every major warship from the ship of the line with sails era like HMS Victory, up to and including the pre-dreadnoughts like SMS Schleswig-Holstein. That means ironclads are also some kind of ship of the line, though they do also have their separate classification. So central battery ironclads, turreted ironclads and all other types of ironclads are also ships of the line. When we get to the pre-dreadnoughts, those are called "Einheitslinienschiffe" which I guess more or less means "unit ship of the line" or something like that if you translate it literally.

[DirtyHairy]

Ahhh Baby Drach is soo cute!
Not knowing that even with an engineering degree he's gonna end up as a historian.

[stevevalley]

Drac, I'm up for a deep dive in the design and construction of the Hoods. Conventional wisdom says the Admirals were conceived as a counter to the Mackensens, but all but Hood herself were suspended, before the UK knew the Mackensens were suspended. My suspicion is they pressed on with Hood herself, so that she, combined with the Renowns, made up the losses from Jutland, which offers an interesting alternative if Resistance had been reordered as a third Renown, rather than Fisher diverting into the Courageouses.

[samoilenko]

Just if someone wonders, in russian language battleship is still called „ship of the line” (линкор/linkor, which comes from *лин*ейный *кор*абль/*lin*eynyy *kor*abl’) hovewer a little bit shortened. It is a term for the real ships of the line aka Man’o’Wars and strangely for the dreadnoughts and postdreadnoughts up to the latest battleships. The name „ironclad” is basically the same as the armadillo species, but literally it means „armor carrier” (броненосец/bronienosietc) and it also reffers to any ship before the dreadnought, so at the Tsushima ships are still named the ironclads. In ukrainian even 1910+ battleships sometimes named ironclads, the „Potemkin” battleship is definitely named ironclad. And the ukrainian name of an iroclad (Панцерник/Pancernyk) is also a name for an armed warrior and an armored car.

Also the core of the word „Pancyr” is obviously very close to german „panzer” (pronounced the same or nearly the same) and it as well is a synonim for the cuirase a. e. the breastplate.
So maybe ukrainian „pancernyk” is close to the french „navire cuirassé”

In french the navire cuirassé applies to any armored ship from civil war ironclads to Richeleus and Vanguards.

The same is in polish, the „pancernik” is basically anything armored and with big guns

[robertillston]

Q&A You have talked about battleships being used for shore bombardment, Texas's sniper dual on D-Day comes to mind, which battleships had the best fire control systems for shore bombardment and what would you say was the most impressive AND effective shore bombardments during the era you talk about?

[daguard]

Normally I trouble you with questions, but this time I wish to offer a bit of information. In muzzle loading cannon the steps for reloading is to swab the barrel with the wet end of the rammer to make sure all of the embers are extinguished and clear a bit of the black powder residue. The man who rammed would retract the rammer, shake it or knock the wet end in the hopes of shaking free the black powder clutter and any surviving embers and after the powder and projectile(s) were fed he would ram the dry end into the barrel to finish the loading. If there was ever a worry about double loading, the rammer would return the ram to the boar and the they knew from the length of ram still exposed if the device needed loading. If I may add, there were a few transition technologies between muzzle loading and breech loading cannon. The most notable, or for me the easiest to remember, is the "Beer Mug" type of cannon. These devices were made with a "loading slot" in the cannon tube where a "beer mug" round of powder and shot was inserted and fired. As quickly as that "beer mug" could be traded out, it could fire again.

[crichtonbruce]

I would dearly love for you to apply your brilliance to a deep look at Admiral Chester Nimitz, but focusing solely on WW2. There are so many outstanding things he did to bring the USA from near defeat to overwhelming victory I think it would be well worth 1 (or 2 or 3) long posts.

[lorenrogers]

Loved the latest Nelson video, always great to see Matt!

[georgesoros]

You know, Drach, you really should do voice-over work. Your mellifluous voice, great vocabulary and smooth, actually gorgeous, delivery of the spoken word could make you a very rich man. I watch tons of sites and your delivery is now as good as the ones that use professional announcers and way better than 95% of those. I know I criticized you way back when. However you did it, you are now, I think, one of the finest announcers on the internet. Or anywhere. You should look into it. You have a gigantic body of work to show off. I should think you could get hooked up very easily. Get an agent.

[RedXlV]

As I recall, the Kongos were actually first redesignated as battleships not after their major refits in the 1930s, but after their late 1920s refits. Because in those much smaller refits, deck armor was added but nothing was done with their machinery. This cut their top speed to 25.9 knots, which made them too slow to be battlecruisers. After all, Nagato was capable of 26.5 knots. Having battlecruisers that are slower than your battleships would just be silly. So at that point, they're considered to just be poorly-armored battleships. This also explains why, around 1930 whenJapan was looking to replace the Kongos with treaty-compliant new construction instead of rebuilding them, almost all of Hiraga's "Kongo replacement" designs were for 25 to 26.5 knot battleships and not 30+ knot battlecruisers.

And when the 1930s rebuilds happened, the Kongos were designated as "fast battleships" rather than battlecruisers, because Japan had simply stopped using the latter designation.

[JG-icpy]

Regarding the Kongos, the interesting thing to me is they are basically a sidegrade somewhere around Tiger and the Renowns, but the RN never presumed to think those ships were battleships. At its thickest, Kongo's belt armor is the thinner even than ships properly called battlecruisers. Even in their use in WWII, the IJN never really operated them with the battleships. The IJN seemed to acknowledge that they were still battlecruisers in their use. As far as I know, role-wise they were almost always deployed with the screens, on scouting missions or on fast raiding missions. All of those are cruiser roles.

[mtgAzim]

11:52 Oh don't be so modest Drach. You're a very handsome boy. 😌

[nomdefamille]

I have often wondered why the "warrior" era breach loaders did not use a partial length brass (or even copper) cartridge to provide a breech seal. Metallic revolver cartridges had been in use for several years at that point and scaling the idea up seems pretty obvious (and it worked for the germans giving them a vastly simpler breech mechanism). Was it ever tried?

[stevevalley]

For Ninja, the KGV 14" armament seems to follow the "more smaller guns means more hits" theory. I have been looking into that issue, as most of the justifications offered do not make any sense. The Admiralty produced a wide variety of designs for the KGVs with 14", 15", and 16" guns. In the fall of 35, the alternatives were analyzed by the Technical Division of Naval Staff. Their conclusion was that a 9-15" armament provided the best balance of hitting power, speed, and protection. The analysis said "The 14" gun ship should be ruled out, unless required by treaty." The Sea Lords agreed to go 15". Then, the US said it would be open to the upcoming Second London treaty imposing a 14" limit, contingent on Japan agreeing. A year earlier, December of 34, Japan had withdrawn from the treaty system. At that time, Japan said it's withdrawal was due to it's demand for parity with the US and UK. Japanese representatives said at the time, they were open to a new treaty, as long as the new treaty gave Japan parity. The US and UK were not going to give Japan parity, so I don't see how anyone could have taken the US offer of 14", contingent on Japan's agreement, seriously. The designs for KGVs with the different armament schemes show the 9-15" armament weighs less than the 12-14" under consideration. As the 15" armament has fewer guns, the lower parts count would indicate the 15" armament would cost less. Clearly, someone wanted the 14" armament badly enough to go against the Technical Division's analysis, against the issue of weight, and against the issue of cost. The only reason I can think of is adherence to the "more smaller guns equals more hits" theory.

[timschoenberger]

There were other failures of oversight that were mentioned in a book I read on the Mark 14 torpedo: It was both designed and manufactured by the same facility, Naval Torpedo Station, Newport. They also resisted all allegations of problems with design of the torpedo
as well as the manufacturing process, which was done one by one rather than by any form of mass production. That single facility, if I remember correctly, could only turn out about 400 torpedoes a month pre-war, and that figure includes Marks 13 and 15 as well as the 14 (hard to live fire test at those quantities and cost). Newport was also protected by the New England congressmen, who saw the jobs generated as patronage to favored groups, including labor unions.