The Drydock Episode 330 (Part 2)

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:29 - A brief overview of the developments of galley equipment from the first electrified galleys though to the end of WWII/Start of the cold war?

00:06:16 - US fast battleship magazine/secondary seperation from machinery rooms?

00:13:44 - Ships maximum speed in combat?

00:17:45 - How is it that even Nelson was not above reproach for alleged marital misgivings while Beatty seems impervious to the miasma of a marriage that only a tabloid writer could love?

00:25:32 - Could WW2 ships see incoming fire on radar?

00:29:42 - How ready for war was the RN in the interwar period?

00:38:13 - How did ships like Ranger deal with lower power output when conducting flight operations?

00:42:24 - How do naval architects compute the weight/height (metacentric height?) of a ship during the design process and why do they sometimes get stability calculations (USS Midway, Treaty Destroyers, etc.) so embarrassingly wrong?

00:51:03 - Nelson class 'C' barbette alignment?

00:55:38 - Why did Brazil want monitors in the 1910's?

00:57:18 - Why didn't I-26 fire on USS Saratoga at close range?

01:00:25 - Why did the two 8inch armed Thai coastal defense ships (HTMS Thonburi and Sri Ayudhya) perform so badly against the old French Lamotte Picquet?

01:03:02 - How did navies decide how many admirals to have and when to promote officers to new admirals?

01:10:08 - Did the Royal Navy blockade Vichy shipping in the Mediterranean?

01:14:21 - British thoughts on the 'battle cruiser' before it's actual development?

01:18:17 - As a general rule of thumb, how much research time do you budget for different kinds of content (Drydock questions vs. Five Minute Guides vs. Rum Ration vs. Fun Fridays), and roughly what percentage of your research time in a given work week goes towards each type of video?

01:26:43 - With the aid of blueprints and computers, is it possible to create a computer model of HMS Captain (THAT one) and calculate exactly where her metacentric height was, and compare it to where it SHOULD have been?

01:28:43 - Good looking warships?

01:30:50 - Potential 13.5" ships in WW2?

01:34:21 - Why did Blucher sink so quickly in Oslofjord?

01:37:18 - Late-era ships to save?

01:41:13 - How large could you make a wooden ship of the line?

01:45:22 - Extremely compentent crews?

01:48:27 - How do you think the various axis fleet carriers would have handled those hits if they swapped places with the Allied carriers?

01:50:40 - What was Mitchell talking about with his "native american weather control machine"?

[drafty]

A George of the Jungle reference!!! I knew you were my favorite Drach, but this just reinforces my stance!

[michaelinsc]

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all of the excellent, well researched, thoughtful, and entertaining content in 2024. I hope you, Mrs. Drach, and baby Drach have a very successful, enjoyable, safe, and happy 2025!

[matsu_moshi]

1:00:25
The training of the crew also wasnt complete, having only had 9 out of the mandated 12 months of training. Her guns also had calibration issues that weren't adressed.

The aft turret trainer was sent to report the watertable and so wasnt there for the battle. The aft turret captain took his place and so the operation of the aft turret was not meaningfully impeded.

Thonburi suffered quite a bit of bad luck during the battle as well . The first hit from the French cruiser took out the command crew and started a fire which soon destroyed the data cables to the guns and forced the director to be evacuated, shattered her one fire main, and probably killed the assembled damage control team. She was also bombed by friendly aircraft from the Chantaburi squadron. The bomb damage wasnt catastrophic, but didnt help either.

Due to fog during the early part of the engagement, the Lamotte Picquet fired a salvo of torpedos as an island, mistaking it for a ship. Thats where the misconception of the Sri Ayyudtaya being there comes from. She went back to Sattahib a few days before, and was ordered to give chase but as was said in the video, she didnt make it in time.

However, Thai sources dispute the results of the battle, claiming that Thonburi drove the French cruiser away with a pair of last minute hits where the forward turret under local control landed two 8" hits, one between the aft mast and 3rd turret, and one between the 4th turret. Eye witnesses from the battle attest to these hits, but the French deny it, claiming that they weren't hit at all. I've been doing research on this to the best of my ability but I'm at an impasse.

Only post battle photos (which seem to be missing despite there being a photo of the Lamotte Picquet before the battle, and a picture of the torpedoboat Songkhla burning during the battle) will be able to confirm anything as to whether it was a one sided slaughter, or the little ship that could chasing away an enemy twice her size at the cost of her life. The French logs say that the last salvo from Thonburi landed 50 meters short.

The Thai navy really clings to the latter narrative. I'm doing my best to prove or disprove it right now.

Sources :
เมื่อธนบุรีรบ (Mue-Ton-Buri-Rob) ; The time Thonburi fought by Admiral Jitt Sangkhadul (aft turret captain at the battle)
A lire : Campagnes lointaines, dans les replis du Dragon - Carnet de bord du croiseur Lamotte-Picquet

[Lamprolign]

A full video on the development galley technology would be very interesting.

[johnfisher]

I made it though a Patreaon dry dock though I refuse to admit how many cups of coffee it took
Thank you for all your hard work through out the years in educating we your faithful minions and all the best to yourself, that angel Mrs Drach and of course Mini Drach

[GrahamWKidd]

Drach even works in the magic time between Christmas and New Year. So amazing! Part II

[_photonx]

Here's wishing a happy and prosperous 2025 to Drach, Mrs. Drach, and mini-Drach! Thanks for your continuing efforts toward the preservation of naval history.

[williamgalbraith]

Thanx for another great year of historical goodness! I'm looking forward to 2025!

[davidhunt]

Thank you for an interesting year Drach. I am looking forward to many more.

[Andy_Ross]

As I have commented in the past on several videos, When I was a youngster I spent time aboard the Ex HMS Neave the last WW2 steam powered ship in operation, an Isles class Admiralty Trawler converted to a civilian role as a tank cleaning ship under the name of SS Tulipbank. They were quite large vessels, the size of a small corvette.
Anyway, until it was converted after the war it had a coal fired galley, refitted in the 60s to propane power from gas cylinders situated above it on the aft deckhouse.
There was still a coal bunker on the deck outside the galley.

[CharlesStearman]

In the novel "The Ship" by C. S. Forester (set aboard a WW2 British cruiser in the Mediterranean) the oil used to fire the galley's cooking ranges is drained below when the ship is at action stations, but it is still able to provide steam-heated hot food. I understand Forester was actually allowed aboard a cruiser when researching the novel so I presume this is factual.

[Claymore]

Drach - Happy New Year to you and your family! Thank you so much for your world class coverage of Naval history....

[Trident]

Thanks Drach for a great year. Happy New Year to you and yours. Best looking warship. My favorite has always been The North Carorlina class 55 and 56. The Hood is #2. The USS Franklin crew. My best friends Uncle Marion McSmith Seaman 1ST class was in the galley when it was hit. He survived the war. A true American Hero. Looking forward to 2025.

[jjsmith]

I think the Yamatos are beautiful and very sleek and streamlined

[onenote]

25:50 Older metric radars (wavelengths on the order of metres) are rather unlikely to see a battleship shell, it being rather smaller than their wavelength. This type of radar would most likely be used for sea search and as such would rotate slowly, making it even more unlikely. Later-war centimetric radars (wavelengths on the order of 10cm) would probably detect a shell, and they would more likely be used for air search with high rotation speeds, improving their chances. Japan, so far as I know, did not have access to high-frequency & power radar and even Germany was struggling. But, as Drachinifel says, to be able to react to this and plot an intercept with even the greatest WW2 computers and proximity fuses seems implausible. Modern-day CIWS do not have it easy with supersonic missiles, and a battleship shell would be coming in at well in excess of Mach 1 even at extended range.

[nikujaga_oishii]

01:00:25 to add more onto that, the readiness of Thonburi at the time was questionable at best, so you can have even better ship and still end up with that result

the night before, Thonburi's fire control was acting up and the test fire to re-calibrate the guns was scheduled for that morning - which of course the French attacked before dawn

some of the rear turret crew were also ordered to survey the coast to set up firing range for gun calibration, and thus were not onboard as Thonburi set sail

the flotilla also received signal from fleet headquarters - which was an absolutely horrible intelligence report along the line of "enemy ships in port, expect no action", even the commanding officer of the Sri Ayutthaya, Cdr Luang Chamnan, was transferred to shore duties that night

she's basically unfitted for action but was there because of terrible intelligence and mismanagement of assets (somebody just had to have the bright idea of breaking up the already small flotilla into even smaller detachments, and throw away initiative by putting them close to French territory and order it not to attack, instead allowing French squadron to attack it piecemeal)

...it also didn't help that the first hit from Lamotte-Picquet took out the director tower, and so for most of the engagement the guns were relying on local control

taken from a diary of then-Capt Luang Sangwon (published at the time of his funeral), the flotilla commander who was onboard Sri Ayutthaya that morning as she rushed to join Thonburi (that ship was on station at Koh Chang the night before returning to port as Thonburi arrived to relieve her, so French report suggested there were 2 ships present, people got this wrong a lot - you're probably the fist one I saw nailing this), and of the rear turret captain, then-SubLt Chitt Sangkadul

ref:

"Published in Memorial of the Cremation of Rear Admiral Luang Sangwon Yuttakij DCh PM (Sangwon Suwannacheep)". (1973). Bangkok, Chuanpim, pp.101-105.

"As Thonburi Fights: Published in Memorial of the Cremation of Admiral Chitt Sangkadul". (1995). Bangkok, Royal Thai Naval Institute.

[ph]

Enterprise and Warspite you can argue. Became as feared as they did because of the efforts of their crews. As well as the two surviving the damage that was inflicted on them.

[whodat]

at about 59:42, why I-26 might not have been willing to try to fire 5 of rather than all 6 forward torpedo tubes... it could have been something as simple as the outer doors for the each side being designed such that each side had three torpedo tubes which utilize 1 common outer door (the one outer door opens to expose the bank of 3 torpedo tubes on that side of the bow). Another such reason could be a safety interlock switch which would prevent outer doors from being opened and/or impulse air for any/all of the forward tubes from being fired until after all six of the inner doors for all six tubes were closed and sealed. A design schematic for the I-26 could hold the information which would answer the question of why the I-26 waited until the sixth tube was properly loaded. But yes, an interlinked facet of the tubes' operation is a very reasonable reason for the delay firing until the loading issue with 6th tube was resolved, especially interlinked safety measures and/or interlinked air-pressure-loss-prevention or noise-control measures. Recall also that the IJN was using a very volatile and explosive fuel (liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen if I recall correctly) in their torpedoes: safety protocol very well could have dictated that the 6th torpedo get loaded without delay and all 6 torpedoes (not just the 5 properly loaded torpedoes) get fired asap in order to minimize risk of an internal fire and explosion arising to destroy the forward torpedo compartment and sink the I-26; such was the hazard of liquid oxygen-hydrogen fuels and peroxide fuels that most other navies avoided using those as fuels for torpedoes, simply based on the high safety risks associated with those volatile and explosive fuels.

[plasmaburndeath]

Damn it, I learned something! I was all confused on the 'Rio Grande' when Drach mentioned it is in Brazil, since I only knew about the {U.S. / Mexico} 'Rio Grande' - to find out there is more than one lol. The one Drach mentions is actually the 'Rio Grande (Paraná River tributary)': For Context It would be like finding out that the {U.S. / Canada} 'Niagara Falls' isn't the only one and that somehow there is another 'Niagara Falls' in the {U.S. / Mexico} lol

[Geoff]

Have a great new year Drachinifel, I hope you had a good one