The Drydock - Episode 191

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:40 - Floatplanes on destroyers?

00:03:40 - Small ship skirmishes of WW2?

00:04:58 - Shapes on WW1 German destroyer masts?

00:06:47 - Why are some superfiring turrets more distant from each other behind than in the front, such as the Kongos?

00:12:44 - Why do you pronounce'lieutenant' different ways?

00:16:37 - In a surface action, using optical fire control, did the Cleveland's have any problems distinguishing between the shell splashes of the 5" and 6" guns? Did they employ any techniques to get around this problem? Did radar alleviate this problem?

00:21:54 - In terms of convoy duty and conventional naval engagement, which class of cruisers do you think is more suitable? Leander or Exeter?

00:25:07 - Drach, the Cleveland and Littorio classes all had exposed barbettes that could have been integrated into superstructure decks close by. Was this a weight saving measure? It makes them look slightly unfinished with the naked barbettes just poking out of the deck.

00:29:20 - PT Boat service records?

00:31:09 - Was there anything in the naval treaties that prevented a navy from leaving elements off of a design in order to save weight whilst the treaty was active that could be (relatively) easily fitted once either the escalator clause was triggered or the treaties were abandoned? For example, could a ship leave all of its AA armament neatly in a warehouse somewhere?

00:39:18 - With regard to anti-torpedo nets: What exactly was the follow up procedure once a torpedo was netted by the ship?

00:42:37 - What do you think of Admiral Spruance’s performance as commander of the 5th Fleet?

00:46:44 - In the early 20th century, which did nations take greater pride in, the race to build the most powerful battleship or the most opulent ocean liner?

00:49:35 - It seems that revolutions have much more impact on the navy than on the ground forces. Consider French, Russian / Soviet, and Chinese revolutions. In all 3 cases the ensuing civil wars on land were won, and new regimes more or less established themselves. However, France, Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were in naval decline for several decades. Why is that? What's so special in naval combat that depends so heavily on institutional memory?

00:54:17 - Generally speaking, when a ship would be designed as a flagship, how many additional crew were required for an Admiral's shipboard staff and what roles would they play in fleet operations and the day-to-day flag operations?

00:59:16 - When a warship is being designed, at what stage do systems like plumbing and electrics for the crew get considered?

01:03:00 - Channel Admin

[dannybilling]

As someone whose great-grandfather served on MTB during WW2 very much looking forward to the small ship skirmish video.

[lllordllloyd]

"You've invented a ship that can see its own doom coming at very long range". Drach quotes... you can't predict them, but you know them when you hear them.

[papajohnloki]

A word on Admiral Spruance and the Phillippine Sea- Admiral Spruance was in command of the Invasion, not just the Fleet and his actions were dictated by what he believed to be the overall invasion scheme, which was drawn up by his team. Admiral Turner (Transports) and General Smith (ground forces - 2 USMCdivisions and 1 Army divisiion) were under his command and the invasion was his main concern. Spruance was said to later comment that it would have been more satisfactory to go after the Japanese force as a tactical exercise or some such but that wasn't his job. The story of him and the kamikaze hit on his flagship off Okinawa shows the Admiral in his true colors

[eknapp]

My favorite statement about Raymond Spruance was from a Japanese admiral post-war. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like “We never surprised him.”

[davidbirt]

A good hour long video and thirty minutes reading the comments. Re cables and pipes through bulkheads, cable used to be strapped to cable trays and passed through bulkheads in individual watertight glands, and pipes had isolation valves on each side of the bulkhead to isolate a damaged section. cable trunking wasn't used, because if water got into it you couldn't contain it, it would spread throughout the ship pretty rapidly. all pipes and cable trays and pipes were high up in the passageway. At least that's what I remember. As for the Lieutenant thingy, I just called them Sir.

[ModalCuchulainn]

Regarding US record searches, you outlined the generally correct procedure. The issue with such searches (from personal experience) is that there was a fire at the NPRC in St. Louis in the 70's, which wiped out the service records of thousands from WWII/Korea.

[stephenrickstrew]

Episode 191 … Wow …Congratulations ….!

[admiraltiberius]

Fantastic video as always Drach.
I always love seeing your uploads.
Hard to believe its DryDock crazy but its amazing too.
Also crazy to see your almost at 350 subscribers. Five hundred thousand will be here fast fast.

[christopherconard]

Unfortunately for searching for US personal records there was a fire at the NPRC (National Personal Records Center) in 1973 that destroyed 16-18 million files. This has created a gap when searching for for individual histories.
There are a number of groups that work in collecting the history of various ship types or service theatres. If you know anything about when, where, or what type of vessel a person served on its possible to start with them.

[astraltraveler]

Drydock is a great series. I really enjoy them.

[simonrook]

Having gone through BRNC Dartmouth, I can say with certainty that in the mid 80’s it was always ‘Leftenant’, no other pronunciation was used.

[Wolfeson]

As far as revolutions and their impact on navies, I think it's mainly that navies inherently require a much greater degree of specialized technical knowledge than armies in order to operate. With an army, you can throw together a bunch of conscripts, give them a few weeks or months of basic training, and have at least a halfway decent army. It's far from ideal, but you can make it work, and you can usually find at least a handful of successful generals in the midst of the new officer corps (revolutionary France is a prime example). But the level of training and knowledge needed for an army unit to perform its basic functions, while significant, pales in comparison to what's needed to effectively maneuver a sailing frigate or manage its rigging, operate and maintain the engines on a steam warship, or effectively aim and fire the guns. If the people with that knowledge and experience are suddenly removed, a navy is essentially starting from scratch with a much steeper learning curve than an army would have to deal with.

Plus, when a revolution brings in a new regime, the army's loyalty and effectiveness are much more important to the survival of that regime than the navy, so the army tends to get much more attention and funding.

[HansLasser]

Ah my Sunday afternoon treat!
Seeing her doom coming from further away! That's a dark one!

[andrewcox]

As for treaty bending definitions, the KGV displacement was calculated using 80 rounds of 14" per gun but the magazines actually had space for 100. Another famous one was the "liquid armour" in the Nelsons where the liquid filled parts of the torpedo defence system wasn't counted in the displacement

[Owen-fnff]

Re: pronunciation of navy ranks
Great news! You’ve heard it. We can look forward to Drach pronouncing various ranks in French, Dutch, and Japanese! 😱

[stevenhenry]

I'm a big fan of Spruance. If not for morale effect, they would have (and should have) canned Halsey after Leyte Gulf. Spruance was rock solid; I can't think of a major mistake he made, while Halsey made at least 3 (leaving San Bernardino Strait unguarded and steering into TWO typhoons). Halsey may have been aggressive and effective, but he got US sailors killed unnecessarily. Spruance didn't.

[kommissarkillemall]

About planes on Destroyers ; the Dutch East Indies Navy had planes on their destroyers due to the sheer hugeness of the area they had to control. It might not contribute much in a formal wartime situation, but it surely did in a police-, customs- and SAR role where there were no airfields or carriers around and only few cruisers.

[johngregory]

Safe journey here, throughout your travels hither and yon to the museums and ships you've chosen to see...

And back across the pond home!

[AndrewPalmerMTL]

With regard to 31:09 and "leaving things off" to get under the treaty limits. One of the more common tactics, used I believe by all, was to under-fill the magazines for the purpose of standard displacement calculations. Instead of say 100 rounds per gun for a battleship, maybe state your capacity at 75 or 80 per gun. with shells perhaps weighing a ton or more, being "short" 200 shells isn't a minor effect; it's of the same order as the design margin in many ships.

[Grimmtoof]

A couple of other reasons why navies often suffer during revolutions on navies.

A lot of the time a country that has gone through a revolution will have a lot of internal unrest from the remains of the old regime and parts of the populations. In most cases a navy is of limited use in suppressing this unrest apart from landing marines in port cities.

Also for a lot of countries including France, Russia and China a navy is something of a ‘nice to have’ rather than a must have. Without an effective navy France for example is more vulnerable to attack, but a weak army would leave them open to invasion.

This all means that the navy just doesn’t get the same attention as the army which would at least partly explain the problems most suffer from.