The Drydock - Episode 203

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:40 - Let's say you have picked up a submarine contact on Sonar in World War Two. How would you make sure that that submarine is one of the bad guys and not one of your own friendly subs?

00:03:58 - How would you rate the Parrott and Brooke rifles used during the Civil War against their European contemporaries?

00:08:37 - Instances of sister ships ending up on opposite sides in a battle?

00:11:05 - Wooden ship 'scrapping'

00:15:12 - Why do warship superstructures exist?

00:19:40 - RN versions of 'La Argentina'?

00:23:28 - I've heard U-Boat stories that involve them sitting anchored on the surface at night, seemingly doing nothing. Why would a U-Boat be doing this?

00:25:44 - Did any other armed forces in the WW2 era other than the US try to develop skip bombing techniques, and low level anti shipping capable aircraft festooned with outrageous numbers of AA-fire suppressing guns?

00:28:14 - Would coal fired large warships have been a viable option for Italy in WW2?

00:31:41 - When HMS Audacious sank, was it a problem with design, damage control or the Mine just defeated both no matter what they tried?

00:34:44 - How possible would it have been to "Crash build" big gun ships be cannibalising older ships? For example could the Royal Navy build a hull with engineering etc and then take turrets, secondary and aaa from say, an R class to speed up?

00:41:09 - Who would you pick as some of the top performers as First Lord of the Admiralty over its 336-year history?

00:43:06 - What is an 'attack cargo ship'?

00:47:19 - British capital ships during peacetime in the modern era appear to have the last foot or so of their main gun barrels polished. Is this a case of my gun is prettier than your gun, or is there a technical explanation?

00:48:53 - Though a tactical success, was the Indian Ocean Raid by Japan in early 1942 a strategic error?

00:55:11 - How would a smaller navy threaten a larger one enough to be taken seriously in an engagement during the Age of Sail?

01:00:31 - Fireships and their use

01:05:38 - Channel Admin

[ciaranquinlan]

Got to meet Drac today in person at TankFest
Couldn't meet a nicer guy!
Great to hear some US highlights and lil teases of future content
Hope you enjoyed TankFest

Deffo need a Drac top 5 tanks ASAP

[stephenrickstrew]

I was rewatching DryDock Episode 1 … and you remarked on if it was popular you might do more … 202 episodes later .. I think it sure is … Thanks Very Much Drach for all the History you have brought to life …

[johnnash]

I was a timber sawyer at Hull-Oakes Lumber Co. Dawson, Oregon from @1988-1995. I trimmed very large Douglas fir timbers for the USS Constitution refurbishment. The specifications required the highest strength-to-weight species of adequate availability, which only “compression wood” Doug firs provide. Compression wood can only form at the base of trees over 200’ tall with tons of the tree weighed down on the trunk base. This wood is twice as dense and strong as construction grade lumber, but still much lighter than hardwood species.

[glennricafrente]

Your narration of the footage of the highball bomb tests felt reminiscent of your segment on the USS Enterprise Tokyo Drift back in Drydock 137. I find your voiceover explaining historical footage very compelling and hope you can do more.

[williamlloyd]

Wikipedia - The Resolute desk, also known as the Hayes desk, is a nineteenth-century partners desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House as the Oval Office desk, including the five most recent presidents. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute.

[xlerb]

My dad was a sonarman on a PC in the Pacific. At that time and place if you got a contact you sent some depth charges after it because while it might be a whale, it wasn't an ally submarine. He only had one contact the whole war. He and the commanding officer agreed it was probably a whale, but best be certain. My dad was a kind hearted man, I think that whale bothered him for decades. And that's about the only war story he ever told me. He had friends he'd grown up with that weren't so lucky in the war. None of those folk talked about the war years, not to a kid anyway.

[Alex-cwrz]

33:32 "unauthorised piercings of the bulkhead" at first I thought you were referring to the damage the mine had caused and I thought what a funny way to put it, unfortunately you meant the crew had earlier on. But still I'm just imagining a newspaper heading Titanic sinks due to an icebrug making an unauthorised hole in the side of the ship.

[jsmith]

Watching the drydock while living on a ship in drydock, how convenient

[steelhammer]

regarding 00:23:28, back then it was important to get fresh air into the uboat/sub, sitting anchored on the surface allowed for the crew to open all the hatches ventilate a good part, if not all of the ship. That in turn allowed for better resting of the crew and so on.

[brucewilliams]

@ 25:44 Q. The UK Beaufighter and variants were used in low-level attacks on Axis shippping. One version had 8 x 3-in rockets at 60-pounds weight each, often quoted as the equivalent of a Light Cruiser's firepower. Standard fighter fit was 4 x cannon, 6 x .303" MG. Another variant dropped a torpedo.

[philipjooste]

With reference to instances of sister ships ending up on opposite sides in a battle, you might want to look at the Battle of Libreville on 9 November 1940, when the Free French sloop (aviso) Savorgnan de Brazza sank her sister ship, Bougainville, whose crew had sided with Vichy France.

[thehandoftheking]

Greatest moment of my YouTube existence. Getting a question on the dry dock. Thank you Drach

[mattblom]

4:20 I just love those big 19th century rivets on military technology. It's like brutalist art.

[igorkratka]

Was hoping to come across your way on tank Fest on Sunday and say in person how big fan of you I am but the place was big, crowds numerous and so somehow missed you this time. Anyway, being your huge fan, Drachinifel! Thank you for top quality naval channel!

[osheape]

Thanks for all the hard work you put into making these videos.

[seanmalloy]

25:44 It wasn't a widely-practiced tactic, but the Pathfinder group of the RAF, flying Mosquitos, developed techniques for skip-bombing delayed fuse bombs into railway tunnel mouths to collapse them.

[ArcticTemper]

Thank you for answering! Can't wait for the next UBoat update, you should give it a go if you haven't

[CharlesStearman]

Regarding submarines sunk by friendly fire, HMS Oxley was sunk by her fellow British submarine HMS Triton on 9th September 1939, just a few days after the start of WW2. They were operating in neighbouring patrol areas off Norway when the Oxley strayed six miles outside her assigned area and was spotted by Triton - it was night and both subs were on the surface. Triton's captain made several attempts to signal the other submarine but got no response so assumed it was hostile and torpedoed it.

[zippy]

Ah my dear sir, oh what woe is upon me and it is all your good doings after digging out my 'General Quarters' Rules book part deux of course, routing around in the loft and coming up with some Navwar ships WW1. And now a small fortune later, am now equipped with much WW1'ness from the good shop of Navwar, now to paint. I would love to hear about the battle of Heligoland Bight, if it hasn't already been covered. Now to binge watch more and paint things.

[Johnnycdrums]

My contractor would go crazy for all those strong beams and teak planking.
Just look at the price of good lumber these days.
Once we learn how the surfaces were joined we could disassemble it properly and for maximum value.