0:40 “Why did General Motors believe the 1981 V8-6-4 engine was good or that the 1984 Chevette was a good defense against the Honda Accord?” Because they did not know any better.
Funny thought, aircraft have been pretty much unable to operate in the heavily defended airspace over the front in Ukraine. Where does this leave aircraft carriers?
"they were howitzers, which meant that to hit anything with a shell, you'd first have to find yourself guessing how far above the tallest mast of the target you actually had to fire and then prey that the rolling of your ship and the delay in the charge going of between you lighting the fuse and the actual detonation didn't completely throw of an already quite sketchy firingsolution, since of course a round plunging down out of the sky had to be on target by a handful of degrees at worst, whereas the mostly horzinal firing Canon could be out of aim by as much as low double digits but they'd still hit something, assuming you aimed for roughly speaking a ships center of mass." That. Was. A. Single. Sentence. That skill! ❤️❤️❤️
I genuinely want to know whose genius idea it was to put a casemate gun so low on either side of the bow. Some things you only really learn from experience, but "don't put a huge opening in the hull right at the point where water is most likely to be forced into it" seems like something you could figure out just by thinking about it for two seconds.
I find it rather ironic that the technique of using differentially hardened steel wasn't immediately obvious to the Japanese Navy, because their sword smiths had been doing exactly that since around the 12th century!
I want to just complement you on being one of the very few English speakers I have heard pronounce Yamato's name correctly. Way too many people say yah-MAH-toe.
I loved the video. However, I thought one thing was missing (and I might have missed a video on it). What were the ammunition used for the guns, and how did they work? I would enjoy a video on this as I would like to know more about 5" anti-aircraft rounds in WW II.
I know i'm a year late here, but couldn't it be argued that, the duquesne class was really more of a cruiser as they were initially intended, that is as a raider to clea4 out enemy shipping, rather than fighting other warships?
Dear Drach, I’m a Frog from the other side of the Channel and had no issues, as a tourist and a civilian, in visiting the Navy Yard iMuseum n DC. It was 10 years ago and I just had to produce my French pass at the gate. I even visited the Capitol, entering both the House and the Senate chambers on the public gallery.
I'm reading Shattered Sword (about halfway), and it's hard to stop. Fascinating, and the amount of detail the authors give us is amazing. Don't have time to watch this. I'll be back later. Today is the Battle of Midway anniversary.
as a time traveller I'd much rather say, keep Chamberlain and dump Churchill and let him appease Hitler so that the third reich can eradicate communism, so that it does not haunt us a hundred years later. A cold war with the third reich would have been preferable over the eastern block because after all we are much more alike and the nazis knew and respected that. The germans would have dealt with the third reich anyway once its cruel secrets were revealed and a more moderate, non-racist fascism along Francos Spain oder Mussolinis Italy would have emerged, which are both vastly preferrable examples of societies compared to any socialist hellhole because they actually refrained from genocide. Why all that? The core values of moderate facism would have replaced what communism is regarded as, now. Communism is now regarded as a somewhat viable ideology, it's worship of weakness and misfits of all kinds has left deep impressions upon the collective psyche of the last few generations. Our society is failing, we are witnessing the culmination of the liberal idea in utter chaos, poverty and crime, nothing short of degeracy. The nazis were, astonishingly, correct in many of their core assumptions of a future in which communism is allowed to further fester in western society. The most decisive factor in this is our collective IQ is dropping 15 points per hundred years, gradually rendering us unable to govern the complex societal systems our brilliant foreathers set up for us. Completely disregarding any ideology, the reason for this is that our genome is degenerating because darwinian selection is not working as it should, anymore. We feed the weak, the ill, the stupid and the incapable, let them create offspring and this results in devolution, we are evolving backwards at break neck speed. Well aware of the fact that it's morally prohibitive, I know for a fact that the german way of thinking was well aware of this predicament but as the losers of the world war, they were cast aside in favor of "tolerance", of supporting the meek, the weak, the unfit, the ill and disabled with consequences so massive, they will crush our society within 3-4 decades. Therefore, as a time traveller, I would have killed the warmongerer Churchill. Who knows what would have happened, all I know is that communism did us no favors. I weep when I see what my children will have to endure.
At least she's faster than the Langley. If France had followed up with purpose built carriers, we'd probably think fondly of the Bearn. There. I said something positive about the Bearn.
You made the claim that a modernized HMS Hood may have survived the Battle of the Denmark Strait. And while this is true however the HMS Prince of Wales also having problems with her main guns doesn't make for a good outcome to that battle unless the two British heavy cruisers catch up enough to engage KMS Prince Eugene imo. That way Hood & PoW can concentrate fire on Bismark. And that also should have been done in the original battle & that way the British would have had 2 heavy cruisers against Prince Eugene & 2 battleships against Bismark. (Although some may not consider Hood a battleship, I think her armor, armament & speed tik the right boxes to call her a battleship, although she was one gun short.) And it makes me wonder if Hood does get a refit is any kind of change happening with her armor that might insulate her against "the golden bb" shot straight into the magazine that made her explode. If that is even what made her explode. But the thing about it too is no one could have predicted such an outcome considering how large Hood was. Everyone that saw Hood back then was very impressed by her size. She was what inspired the Lexington imo even though the designs fell way short which was really stupid! She made a better aircraft carrier conversion than she would have ever made a battlecruiser. That's my story & I'm sticking to it!
In 1937 the Captain of the USS Colorado conducted an extremely poor flyover search for Amelia Earhart at Gardner Island. Even though three signal towers triangulated her transmission to be from that island, leaving little doubt she was there and in desperate need of immediate rescue as there was no water source on the island. I don't know who the Captain was at the time but he is a disgrace. He very likely could have saved her. Instead she was eaten by crabs. ..
I knew France tried to persuade Denmark to join the fight against Prussia (again), but not that France planned to make an amphibious landing at Årøsund/Haderslev (Hadersleben is the German name for the city, which it was at the time after the war with Denmark in 1864). I took special note at this, since I live in Haderslev/Hadersleben 😉 It would be nice if you made an episode about the Battle of Heligoland/Helgoland during the Second Schlewig War in 1864. The Danish frigate Jylland (Jutland), which took part in the battle, can still be seen in Ebeltoft, Denmark. And it was actually RTH's series on the Franco-Prussian War that lead me to your channel. Great work from both RTH and Drachinifel.
I feel adding the USS Wasp to this group of "ill-made ships" is misguided. The USS Wasp served in the Atlantic and drafted to help the British to hold Malta by TWICE flying off British fighters to help save the island. (The first group was landed, left parked in the open, aka MacArthur's Airforce in the Philippines, 12/1942) A crew of less talented officers and enlisted men, new to the South Pacific, were caught sailing in a well-known "Torpedo Alley". (Possibly the most successful submarine attack of the war, sank a carrier and a destroyer, and damaged a battleship!) What was the cause of the British carriers lost during WWII? British fleet carriers that arrived at the end of the war never faced anything like the US Fleet did in 1942! (The only action with the INJ vs the RN in 1942, every ship the Japanese found was sunk! April 1942.) The "USS Robin" never fired a shot in anger against a Japanese carrier force, EVER!
There's an interesting sequel to the L23''s capture of a ship on the high seas: the commander, Ludwig Bockholt, was personally selected by the head of the Naval airship section to command the L59 flight to Africa -- which was intended to be a one-way trip carrying supplies to Von Lettow's army in German East Africa. In other words, "Well done, now go fly as far away from me as you can go and stay there!"
