Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse... 

Will you ever cover Ancient battles? Like the naval battles of the Punic war, or the naval battle that occurred during the battle of Thermopylae.

I know you don’t do modern, and this is breaking news, but I think it’s safely apolitical: What do you make of the UFOs the US Navy have just acknowledged as real? With the capabilities demonstrated, how might they effect naval warfare in the future? (I’m assuming you’re not the type to declare them aliens, or I wouldn’t ask. Chinese, perhaps?)

If the germans managed to get Tirpitz ready for combat in time for Operation Rheinubung how would the Battle of the Denmark Strait have gone like had Tirpitz sailed with Bismarck instead of Prinz Eugen or with both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?

Drachinifel If Churchill and FDR stuck there top Navel architects into a room what sort of aircraft carrier would they have come up with in 1941?

@@themightynanto3158 if the British force distribution doesn't change, probably a bit worse. Of course the German ships would lose in the end.

Likely they were all expended after the 6” gun he was reported to be serving was destroyed.

If they were on the bridge and given the pounding the bridge and conning tower took, and the ship was clearly burning when she sank, what ever were left were likely destroyed in the fires

WWI battleships Captain and his officers are stationed on outside bridges to see the combat more correctly and giving orders. If the ships sinks, the officers is most likely washed away.

@Wet Mustard A nice brandy on there being 16 left

@@davidandmartinealbon3155 nah, a 2L of dr. pepper says there's nothing in that box but barnacles.

And the cursing parrot.

How many curses do you think that parrot have learnt

@@hoangho6781 All of them. In fact it may have been the first multi-lingual Parrot, as I can’t imagine a single language contained enough curse words to adequately express the Admiral’s frustration.

Japanese officer: "Men, fan out and look for anything of intelligence value, or any saboteurs still aboard." From out of nowhere: "You lecherous slut!" Officer: "Who said that?!?!" Japanese sailors: Can't contain smirks.

are chameleons dangerous?

When Russians are cornered in a hopeless fight, they fight like there is no tomorrow, which is true because most will not survive the fight. Look at the Battle of Stalingrad for instance. I think that perhaps those hated officers turned into fighting men once they got into the thick of it. I was most impressed by that Russian battleship taking up first position after the flagship was taken out, knowing full well this was downright suicide (the difference: suicide is easy).

@Phil McCrevice Hah, I bet you would have been a shining example of courage had you been part of the Russian fleet at that time. Clearly you have not seen the entire video.

@Phil McCrevice Incompetence, yes, but firing well and even continuing to man their posts and firing as the ship is sinking! That is not cowardice. As for the ships that fled, I do not believe that to be cowardice either, as the battle had clearly been lost by that stage. Rather they performed their country a service by saving a few vessels, as opposed to the ones lost in surrender. Again, given the odds against them, this was simply accepting that they had been defeated. With no chance of inflicting any significant damage against the intact opposing fleet, their surrender was honourable.

@@Temp0raryName "Firing as the ship is sinking" More likely the crew had so many false alarms about sinking that they didn't know that it actually was until the water was over their heads.There is a very thin line between bravery and stupidity. I have my own thoughts on where the Russian fleet was in respect to that line, you can have your own.

@@Nyx_2142 We had no indication of false alarms, so that is speculative at best. However foolishly elements of the fleet may have behaved, the record shows those men doing their duty, and beyond, to the end. As such I am content in standing by my comment and respecting their loss.

Quite a contrast to how the same man might have been treated by the same side just a couple decades later. The IJN might well have beheaded the man for daring to lose and survive.

@@tackytrooper that's the IJA, complete opposite in integrity to the IJN.

@@proudfirebrand3946 Totally, the IJN would fish you of the water, beat you as a matter of principle, fail at beheading you then push you overboard with nothing except maybe a nice weight to drag you down. Or possibly go on a murder and rape rampage in a city they had once controlled when they realised the end was nigh.

@@lolroflroflcakes Truth. IJN had plenty of blood on its hands too.

Togo was a gentleman. These were men with honor.

Wrong, the crew broke a long, *LONG* time ago

Only the captain didn't broke.

The ship itself must have thought that it was aiming at friendlies

...Hood too was still shooting when she sank...!

@@Packless1 A final torpedo fired that saved the Prince of Wales, right?

This comment is so underrated.

I can only imagine an angry Russian man throwing binos like they were t-shirts at a basketball game

and simply following the sound of russian profanity

Finds pile of thrown binoculars, ah… the Kamchatka.

Definitely a shame that entire Russian fleet were too busy getting killed to be able to enjoy the sinking of the Kamchatka! And also a shame that it was NOT sunk by torpedo boats!!!

He deserved plenty of blame for some of his decisions though. His top-down tyranny hamstrung the fleet when he could not convey his orders in the heat of battle. (And honestly what did he expect? That the Japanese would gamely not shoot at his flagship and allow him to direct his forces from safety?). He dropped the ball with regards to Japanese scouts (to the point of preventing the cruiser Ural from disrupting the Japanese radio-telegraph comms when they spotted the Russian forces). He dragged the transports along for god only knows what reason instead of sending them away to a neutral port when the battle became imminent. He relegated the torpedo boats to defense and rescue operations instead of setting them to task of harassing the Japanese warships. All of this is armchair admiraling of course, but I'm pretty sure if Makarov was alive and in charge, things would've been different.

@@RegisTraiter good point, but same can be said for the Japanese admirals involved in midway and the scuffles with the RMs: they didn't have the benefit of hindsight. He really did work with what he had.

He showed to have a truly great personality, great character for taking all of the blame for the defeat. I think most of the 'bad officers' that made his life hell earlier on, rose to the occasion when finding out it would be a fight to the death. I never knew the Japanese Admiral Togo accepted the Russian surrender. I always believed the Japanese mercilessly sank every Russian ship they came into contact with. But then I never studied this battle in depth, just read some accounts about ships getting hit, the Japanese outmaneuvering the Russians and in the end the total destruction of the Russian squadron. They were in effect destroyed, just not all were sunk and the Japanese took the surviving vessels as prizes.

@@AudieHolland Rozhestvensky tried to resign while the squadron was still under way, but the Tsar rejected his resignation. He was a man caught between his own towering ego and an absolutely shit hand he was dealt. He was smart enough to know that the whole thing would end in a disaster, but couldn't stand the fact that he was in charge of the disaster. I think by the end of it all he was completely broken by the experience and was hoping to be executed, hence his acceptance of all responsibility and subsequent hermetic lifestyle.

@@RegisTraiter I wouldn't call trying to get out of commanding a junk fleet full of superstitious "sailors" who barely understood the basics of how to operate a ship to be egotistical. It's completely justified to want to get off a sinking ship after all.

Japanese Fleet: hold my beer

Jon Bezeau Japanese fleet: looks at Kamchatka. „Never mind.“ Gives the Kamtchatka the beer.

Kamchatka drunkenly sails next to Japanese fleet.

Do you see torpedo boats?

Lol

Srećko Čuvalo Please kill hitler while your in he’s time 👌

@@M0A0R0k00W0Y0L0D0E Of course, thats the 1st rule of time travel.

Also other notable Nazis like Himmler, Heydrich, Goering etc, as well as Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Mao, whoever was in charge of BuOrds, a number of future Japanese officers, maybe Hirohito, whoever ended up in Unit 731, etc.

@@bkjeong4302 a long list. But hey, that just means you need more ammo.

@@ironstarofmordian7098 lol

Shinanu Maru: “Well that was a freebie.”

Konnichiwa

Da, arigato gozaimasu

How can we know he didn't? A lot of people with heart issues and stubborn personalities just "shrug off" heart attacks and walk them out. They refuse to acknowledge something is wrong with them until it's too late. Granted, given all the coal gunk if not heart disease he'd have died of cancer.

That heart attack was yet another delayed bomb from the Kamchatcka. As incompetent as its mother ship, it took 4 years to explode. RIP.

Adm. Rozzy: infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy... Kamchatka: I see torpedo boats...

We seriously need a Kamchatka video.

I second this.

YES!!

Hear! Hear! The Kamchatka has become my sentimental favorite.

I have no doubt that the admiral would have detonated with enough force to sink the entire Japanese navy on the spot

Needs more likes!

Hey, it's not like the impossibility of seeing Japanese Torpedo boats ever stopped the Kamtchatka before.

"No for real this time, I see torpedo boats!" _ last message from the Kamchatka

@@SpicyPotato8675 Ironically that's not far off - it was indeed listed as "finished off by gunfire from Japanese light forces". So it could've also said "TOLD YOU BOUT THOSE TORPEDO BOATS!"

@@SpicyPotato8675 "A torpedo boat bit my sister once. No relli"

Correct......

2nd Pacific Squadron: It couldn't get any worse... Admiral Togo: Hold my sake...

Shortly after that, 2nd Pacific Squadron lost his wife.

A Dumb Edgy Name then the judge said she can have the house and the dog and the kids...

O those russians

Ok, NOW I'm crying...

Except he wasn't shot and lived until 1922. There was a possibility that he'd be shot, he and 3 of his captains were given death sentence after court martial, but Tzar changed it to 10 year sentence and then in 1909 he was pardoned and released on Tzar's birthday.

Captain Vasily Fersen of the fast protected cruiser Izumrud disobeyed the order and broke through the Japanese blockade but wrecked his ship in a night while approaching Vladivostok.

I am sure he was smiling from heaven when he saw how the russians had finally built a competent blue water navy in the 1970s and 1980s. It is funny how the soviets actually achieved the goals and ambitions of the Russian empire. It was if as the USSR was just a commuinst mutation of the russian empire.

@@KillerofWestoids That competent blue water navy was never tested in combat. It is very probable that an actual battle would go as well as Tsushima.

"Anything *in existence*" ...Unlike *literally all* of the torpedo boats with which the Kamchatka had said chemistry :'D

I dunno, man. It feels like it went down EXACTLY in character: almost comically and not from the threat it kept panicking about.

By Japanese Torpedo boats disguised as British Trawlers...

I can only imagine : [Kamchatka in all that smoke and chaos bumps into no less than *8* Japanese Torpedo boats from all sides, gets torn to shreds, and while it's sinking the crew is like] : *SEE, VASILI ?!?! I TOLD YOU ALL THERE WERE JAPANESE BOATS ALL ALONG*

...and of course the "Kamchatka"...*:)

It's certainly nicer than what the Russian newspapers were saying - they had incorrectly reported that Rozhestvensky had died in battle.

I like to imagine Togo and Rozhestvensky split a bottle of American whisky, while discussing the various woes of their respective commands.

@@TheAKgunner why american exactly?

@@hulilupteri. First drink that came to mind. And besides, who besides Americans make the best whiskey?

@@TheAKgunner The Scots and the Irish. (And also the Japanese, but their industry didn't actually start until the latter half of the 20th century)

though not for that long & after getting court marshaled. poor guy.

Crazy nothing. At that point, it was the most good he could do. I wasn't surprised to hear that he didn't stand on his officer status and just got to doing what needed to be done.

Novikov- Priboy, who served in the crew of the battleship "Orel" described him in his book as rude not clever officer who adored to communicate with subordinate men by hitting them.

@@vasskolomiets41 Doesn't surprise me to hear that one of his men thought something along those lines, after all, with the men he was given to command, the mass chaos, lack of discipline, insubordination, etc, I'm pretty sure that in the Age of Sail the whole expedition would've been brought to a halt simply because he had to order the whole crew flogged or hung.

@@hansvonmannschaft9062 in Russian Empire the medieval slavery (crepostnoye pravo- the serfdom) had been canceled legally only a generation before the Russian- Japanese war- in 1860. There was a mentality in the Russian elite to communicate with subordinated people in such way.

Yeah, it was nice of him to downplay what a risk she was to the fleet.

Well it did gave me a laugh

Come on now. Anyone could make the mistake of accidentally loading a live shell. And those fishing boats were disguised japanese torpedo boats after all!

@@repairshipkamchatka1984 Didn't you say you were sinking? Go on and do it then!

@@repairshipkamchatka1984 Do you see torpedo boats?

Probably out of pure respect for the Admiral.

I wounder what if he had won, say the Tasae gave him more ammo and even said, “beat the officers of you must, just get that force into shape” and with said allowances he managed to achieve a victory. Interesting to wxpore these very unlikely alternatives

He could find his kin in Admiral Patricio Montojo, a contemporary given an even more impossible task with, if anything, an even more decrepit and unsuited fleet. Montojo too was court martialed, although in his case the enemy Admiral actually sent a note testifying to his bravery in the utterly hopeless and impossible battle.

@@TheoreticalString Montojo ... was he a Spanish Navy officer? Yeah, that was another really sorry bunch. I hear tell that when one old rust bucket of a warship steamed out of Manila Bay to face Admiral Dewey, its propeller shaft sprang a leak. Fortunately, the leak was plugged. Unfortunately, it was plugged with CONCRETE ... which immobilized the ship for the rest of the battle.

Told you there were japanese torpedo boats all around us!

Aurora: This is the true meaning of JUSTICE!

"And in the middle of the carnage, the Kamchatka was sunk... and there was much rejoicing" *(Yeeyyyyyyyyy...)*

@@repairshipkamchatka1984 Username checks out.

@@vikkimcdonough6153 wtf XD

BTW, I'm a published, and moderately successful author of Military Science Fiction novels, so I'm a constant consumer of military history, and my books are stuffed with historical references and allusions. Channels like this are important to me professionally, as they give me easily used material that can inspire elements of the battles I stage in outer space. Somewhere along the line, I've got to find a way to add a USS Kamchatka to the fleet and provide it with an appropriate set of SNAFUs and disasters.

@@HPaulHonsinger To be fair, if you had used this stuff about the Kamchatka and the stay at Madagascar in a fictional story, people would find your story unrealistic.

@Jonathan Stiles I can feel theirs ghosts reaching through time to scream something to the extent of 'did you see what we had to work with?!'

Admiral Chester Nimitz also lost a finger, weird coincidence.

@@gunnar6674 I would like to point out that is essentially the case for most things that actually happened historically if told to somebody who didn't know too much about the topic beforehand, and as such almost any writers that base parts of or are inspired by historical events for their stories take such commentary with a grain of salt

A very appropriate ending to the video. Whilst much of the previous video (and a fair part of this one) was devoted to mocking their incompetence approaching the fight, and ineffectiveness in it, this showed suitable respect to their loss.

Yeah brothers and sisters killing each other while their superiors are drinking tea together, telling them when to kill and when not to kill each other. Such a hypocrisy. If they were "brothers and sisters" they would have turned the barrels against their own superiors only willing and intent to get them butchered by the other side.

@@GilbMLRS The Aurora eventually did. Perhaps this video illustrates some of the frustrations that led to this event.

@@GilbMLRS ok tankie

Russian who were rescued from sea, sent over to Japan in Matsuyana. They were free to go out, enjoyed Hot Spring and attended Theatre. Wonded Sailors who were treated but died were buried Individually with respectable stone, facing at their homeland. There is memorial event for praying in March. I think Relations can visit Japan.

The irony is that if not for their harrowing, often incompetent journey they wouldn't have become less incompetent by the time of Tsushima.

Agreed here

Agreed wholeheartedly. By any reasonable standard, the voyage of the 2nd Pacific Squadron (and the 3rd as well, to be perfectly frank) was a _success;_ they made it from the Baltic Sea to the Tsushima Strait, recoaling the entire fleet at sea multiple times along the way, without drydocking at any point, without losing a single ship, _despite_ the sheer rank incompetence that was endemic in many of the ships' officers and men for large parts of the voyage (and which Admiral Rozhestvensky was actually mostly able to beat out of them by the time they'd reached Tsushima). The fact that the fleet then got largely wiped out by the Japanese fleet (and, even then, they fought hard and bravely) is no detraction from the success of the preceding voyage.

"...And skills above and beyond in binocular hurling". If you get two (referred to as "with bar") I think the bar to the award should be a bronze/silver/gold representation of the Kamchatka... Too soon?

Rosie Hawtrey While I can appreciate the sarcastic nature of making the “lecherous slut” part of the medal, I think a representation of the Suvorov would be a bit more appropriate. EDIT: Forgot to say, I can definitely get behind making “binocular-hurling” one of the reasons for the medal being awarded, so long as it’s not actually a requirement. Not every sailor will have easy access to a pair of binoculars, unfortunately.

There are similar saying in other languages such as the French "c'est la vie" or the Japanese "shikata ga nai"

Ничего , Nichego - which means nothing. How you are doing ? Nichego. This means nothing good and nothing bad.

Ivan Monahhov Thanks for the correction! 🙂 I don’t actually speak Russian and got my knowledge of the word secondhand, sorry about that. 😅

“And boy oh boy! Did we screw up A LOT!!”

that's quite the little side tale.

I would expect nothing less

At least he got his boys out of harms way, that cannot be said for most Russian captains that day. I'd trade a single cruiser in an obviously already lost war for her like 300 crewmen any day. Von Fersen had already denied the enemy that ship. If I could chose I'd rather serve under him than the majority of his peers ...

@@abcdef-cs1jj I suppose it depends on the national combat mentality.

Maybe some of them were from Texas and were so shell-shocked they thought they were on a round up.

Bit of a bummer then lol.....

"sail" is a bit generous for what they did. yet also an understatement.

@@wideyxyz2271 LOL

You misspelled "sink _in front of_ the Japanese fleet!"

I’d bring along a healthy supply of 21st century Jamaican weed as a gift if I made that trip. Poor man deserved it...

30:30 ​​@@grahamstrouse1165Don't forget a box of binoculars.

She also helped transfer Rozhestvensky from _Buinyi_ over to _Biedovi_ after _Buinyi's_ machinery broke down, and took on both _Buinyi's_ crew and over 200 survivors from _Oslyabya_ that the destroyer'd been carrying when she had to scuttle _Buinyi_ to keep it from being captured. _And,_ when she was finally cornered and badly damaged by a large number of Japanese warships in the late afternoon of the second day, having made it nearly halfway from the main battle site to Vladivostok, she managed to drop anchor near Ulleung Island and get everyone ashore before scuttling, with only 60 dead out of nearly a thousand on board at that point _(Dmitrii Donskoi's_ own officers and men, plus the crew of _Buinyi,_ plus the _Oslyabya_ survivors from _Buinyi)._ (Oh, and the third torpedo boat, the one that _wasn't_ sunk by _Dmitrii Donskoi?_ _She_ was lost in a collision with the destroyer _Akatsuki..._ who'd been captured from the Russians nine and a half months previously at the Battle of the Yellow Sea.)

Modern Russian military historians tend to follow the Soviet narrative and portray all the late-Imperial officers as hopelessly incompetent. Whatever the Imperial generals/admirals did was branded as "wrong", in that narrative. This was needed to prove how "efficient" the post-Revolutionary officers were, in comparison...

Post revolutionary offices were pretty good, though over time became like the imperial Russian officers, be coming incompetent and rigid. The doctrine they had however, as a great one, as deep operation plays heavily to their strengths.

You could say that he was passive in the sense that he didn't strangle half of his crew

@@jurisprudens as we've seen recently, their modern navy is no better!

It doesn't matter what you order as a commander if your men simply do not have the training and skill to execute those maneuvers. Even a general as brilliant as Hannibal at Zama was reduced to mostly very basic maneuvers because the majority of his army by then was made up of raw recruits with minimal training who simply would not have been able to perform any of the creative out-of-the-box tactics he had become some famous for while fighting with his veteran force in Italy.

I doubt that Yamamoto not being there would've influenced the greater events all that much. Japan would've gone to war with the USA regardless of whether Yamamoto was there to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor and participated in the buildup of aircraft carriers before the war. He made it easier for them in the early years, sure, but I doubt things would've gone much different in the greater scheme of things.

I would disagree. Pearl Harbor was Yamamoto's brainchild, and it was a pivotal event that catapulted the US into the war overnight and with enormous resolve. Admiral Halsey famoulsy said "before we’re through with ‘em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell". Churchill, having been informed of the attack, later wrote that he "slept the sleep of the saved" that night. Would the US have participated in WW2 without Pearl Harbor? Probably. To what extent? We'll never know. But the crucial importance of that fateful day cannot be underestimated: Japan managed to instantly awake "the sleeping giant", and he was very very pissed.@@MyVanir

@@richardmaccagni8690 Japan was always going to attack the US after the latter sanctioned them for the invasion of China. They needed the raw materials and the lands controlled by the various colonial powers in the region had them. The only difference Pearl Harbor made was giving Japan a short period of time when they had absolute superiority in the Pacific and could occupy the areas that they did - Yamamoto not being there to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor would've meant their initial attack might've been weaker and in some different area, but since the Phillippines were under US control at the time, they too would've been attacked.

​@@MyVanir And we could fill many alternate history books and novels with so many "would have, should have, could have". Maybe a "weaker initial attack", as you proposed, would have caused a lesser reaction from the US; maybe a delayed intervention from the US could have been catastrophic for the UK and rest of the world, and a thousand other maybe: point is, we'll simply never know. Unless you have a crystal ball, this is just speculation: you're dismissing a major turning point in the entire war, a world changing event, on a pure "would have" basis. Maybe Russia would have invaded Japan if the US didn't drop two nuclear bombs. Maybe Germany could have resisted many years more if it managed to seize and hold the oil fields in the Caucasus. Maybe WW1 would have happened anyways if Princip failed to kill Franz Ferdinand. Maybe Napoleon would've won at Waterloo if Davout and not Grouchy commanded his cavalry. Can you say for sure? No. We can debate forever on so many fascinating "what ifs", but that's speculation, not history.

The Japanese had a trakget rich enverment

I recall a report that one gunnery officer had to teach his gunners to COUNT before they could even the targeting scopes and rangefinders. considering that it's actually a miracle they hit anything during the battle.

During the battle, the Russian and Japanese ships were probably firing at almost point blank range. If that's how it went, it would negate the Russian crews ineptness with advanced sighting equipment. What I got from this excellent narration is that the Russians, with their many faults, fought like lions once they knew there was no escape. Rozhestvensky showed that a few wounds did not deter this Russian Admiral from fighting on even commanding a gunturret. Which, when hit and his entire crew obliterated leaving him more wounded, only made him demand 'new gunners!' to continue the fight. And after all this, he took all of the blame for the defeat. Saving the reputations of many inept Russian officers he had learned to hate and despise during the long voyage. Perhaps all of them showed the same exceptional fighting spirit that the surviving guns of the Svetlana showed, fighting till the last shell or till their vessel was shot from under them. And this compensated for all the hardships they had put their Admiral through during the long voyage.

@@AudieHolland They were not at point blank range. The ranges were actually much longer than naval tacticians had expected. It was one of the key things that lead to the all big gun battleships because at those ranges the only guns that really counted were the 12" guns. All the secondary and tertiary guns really didn't justify themselves.

Like Who's On First.

The joke "Russia is now the second strongest army in Russia" might actually be true now

@@kostakatsoulis2922Indeed, “and then it got worse”

5 out of 6 people say Russian Roulette is perfectly safe

@@wilsonj4705 much cheaper than hurling expensive binoculars into the water, with one chance out of six that all your problems will be over.

in russia back then it was known as american roulette

@@sodincyes, we called it Apache Roulette, if enough of them charged a Gatling gun on horse back, it would run out of bullets in time for the survivers to overrun it. Which meant the soldiers had part of their stomach nailed to a tree and were chased around it until they ran out of guts, or were hung upside down on a wagon wheel with a small fire slowly cooking their brains, until their skull exploded. Great fun for the Apache! The last great breakout was around 1912, they were chased back to the reservation by airplanes and Ford's with machineguns mounted on them. A unrelenting enemy you had to respect. Only the Japanese ever equalled them in battle.

@@wilsonj4705 me very dumb... lol

The fact he got that farce across the world shows his skills.

@@bkjeong4302 It was also quite generous of him to take all the blame himself, and not try to get any of those other officers punished.

He had more honour than many, it was a professional and understood command.

Not to mention the Kamchatka.

I want to like this but my honor as an Imperial citizen and member of the Imperial Guard forbids me to like anything with an Orkz face on it...

Cough cough.... different regimes but nothing ever changes in russia. We see same story more than a century later

Admiral Rosesvenski: *WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE NORMAAAAAALLLL!!!!!*

Kamchatka: Dammit! That's my job!!!!!

@@weldonwin *toots in chaotic stupid*

Same)

Moskva: most modern submarine in the r*ssian navy

The Battle Cruiser or the officer himself? ;-)

@@robertmarsh3588 yes

@@robertmarsh3588 Which Officer? The 1st? 2nd? 3rd? 4th? Sam Hood's 2nd cousin?

Last time I was this early battleships weren't obsolete.

last time I was this early, Drach was still a robot (he may still be, but they've at least upgraded the speech circuits!)

Judging by this and the previous video on the 2nd Pacific Squadron, it seems more like the officers were the incompetent ones, while the crews main fault was inexperience. It's what rampant nepotism in military hierarchy will get you.

This may not be a popular opinion , but in my view courage cannot excuse laziness in training or ineffective action. Courage should grow from justified confidence not wild despair.

@@tamlandipper29 You may be missing the point a bit. I am not even mentioning the word courage in my post. I said "quality of character" and was pointing towards a certain Russian streak of mentality - half curse, half blessing - that shows through ever so often.

@@michaelt.5672 they all were probably poor conscripted farmers who never wen to any training or school

@@faded_specter6495 and Japanese, British or American sailors were all volunteers with university degree?

I used to stand on the seawall at Yokosuka and imagine Flying Dragon, Red Castle, Blue Dragon, Prancing Dragon, Soaring Crane, Auspicious Crane, Auspicious Phoenix, Phoenix Flying, Big Eagle, Cloud Dragon, Flying Hawk, Cloud Hawk, Sea Hawk, Divine Hawk, Hawk Which Soars, Peregrine Falcon, and Thousandth Generation Field all riding at anchor on that windy vast anchorage. What a mesmerizing sight - with Fuji gleaming in the dawn light behind them.

@@sprucezeus Alas, it was too cloudy when I was there. I did not get to see Mt. Fuji that day.

@@morlock2086 Alas indeed - to be in Kanegawa and not see Fuji is tragic. You never forget the holy mountain and she never forgets you.

@@morlock2086 Don't feel too bad. I had no idea Mikasa was there until a few hours before I left.

@@sprucezeus I also got to tour the Hikawa Maru. Moored just a few miles away, the liner is equally famous for transporting royalty, escaping Jewish refugees, and surviving WW II.

Try "Hello, my name is Admiral Zinovy Roheztvensky

@@ironstarofmordian7098 I got the german pronounciation :D

@@clemi6739 oh. I didn't realize. I assume you're from Germany or Austria?

@@ironstarofmordian7098 You assume correctly ;)(Austria) Just looked it up on wikipedia as I wasn't sure I got the name right (I didn't)

The part of his name that makes pronouncing it in many languages hard is just one letter - "Ж" - which in English is usually transliterated as "zh" and in German it's indeed usually "sch". The French "j" is actually the closest. Interestingly, "Ж" in Russian is also a shorthand for "ass" :)

Imagine the punishment for his sins would be to be forced to do the same voayage ever and ever again XD

@@derherrgraf6001 With an entire fleet composed SOLELY of many, many identical copies of the Kamchatka.....

Plus a pair of binoculars

Kinda hard to train when your some Russian farm labourer who's never seen the ocean before and when you get there it's frozen over. Also when your commanding officer is only there because they are a noble.

Dylan W Well, isn’t that the entire point of the comment?

...indeed...! ...the russian navy should have studied Sun-Tzu BEFORE the fighting started...! :-( ...b.t.w ... ...admiral Togo did...!

@@suvorov8989 As if Japanese Navy's structure was much different.

Revolutions take a very long time to brew, this was 13 years before the most authoritarian government to ever exist was militarily coup'd into power. This was not a cohesive nor trained crew but they fought, which is yet another testament (if you're such a history brainlet you needed one) of Slavic loyalty and bravery. Russia has never been conquered by a foreign army and most warlike legacies end in a defeat of attrition in the motherland. (All caucasians have called russia home at some point in their lineage)

///We're Sinking!///

**Engaging Japanese Torpedo Boats!**

@@Demour77 Everyone else: *FINALLY!*

There was. And several of them. From the top of my head i can remember 2: intelligence vessel, built in 1980s and coast guard vessel built couple years ago.

@@Temeluchas Did they report Torpedo boats?

But so apt....

@@douglasdaniel4504 Let's just wish them better luck going foward...

its Russia, ofcourse its cold

Is there a record of that? Would make good read.

i like to imagine Togo's eyes widen in horror as the wounded Rozhestvensky tells his story. he then summons his aid and demands a bottle of vodka for the poor man.

Interesting alt-history idea: No Yamamoto and no Nimitz due to these mishaps being worse.

i'm surprised it didn't happen while he was on the voyage.

It's a miracle they even got there.

@@CThyran yeah given the bad luck they had during this war it is a small miracle one small sample of said luck Admiral Stepan Makarov pretty famous admiral loved by his men for being a fighting admiral and well regarded outside Russia even by the japanese in one destroyer engagement when the russian destroyer is losing he switches his flag to a cruiser and goes out to save that destoryer the commander of the whole fleet well he later hits a mine and goes down with his battleship Admiral Wilhelm Withöft tries to make a dash to Vladivostok slips past the japanese fleet who think he is coming out to fight them japanese give chase but they are in a stern chase when one lucky shell hits the bridge of the flagship that one shell basically kills the admiral all his staff and jams the rudder when the flagship begins to turn with no signal so does the rest of the fleet

What most people think, who have not heard or read about this battle in some detail, is that the long journey around the world was the hardest part of the fight. Many people, including myself, believed they were simply sunk once they encountered the Japanese at Tsushima Street. Perhaps the Russians were their own worst enemies when not in actual battle but once they encountered an enemy intent on killing them, their survival instinct kicked in and they rose to the occasion. Probably because of bad visibility, many gun battle between opposing ships were fought at rather close distance, negating the disadvantage the Russian crews had being less trained in gunnery. And if the enemy is close enough so that you don't have to rely on the range finder (ie: fire at point blank range) it becomes difficult to miss each other.

'They did fairly well' ??? They shot fishing boats, saw imaginary torpedo-boats everywhere, got on opium, couldn't hold the line, couldn't hit the targets, covered their ships with flammable dust, wasted ammunition, were shooting at each other on numerous occasions, lost their way, infested their ships with rats and dangerous animals and finally got obliterated completely with almost endless more victims than their enemy. And you say 'they did fairly well' ??? I really wonder what than 'doing bad' would be in your opinion. In my opinion they did not do fairly well. They were a bunch of utterly incompetent sailors (as confirmed by their own incompetent officers) sent on an impossible mission by their equally incompetent leaders, partly sailing on floating museums and pleasure-boats. That is not to say that the ships that were up-to-date, were doing any better. Oh, yes, I forgot: their strategy was not having a strategy. Taking all this into consideration, I would say that they did exceptionally bad on a biblical scale. The only thing that was fairly well, perhaps, was the consumption of wodka.

@@1911olympic they hit Mikasa over 30 times half of that 15 times in 5 minutes were talking about an unplaned trip around the world with green sailors and very little logistical support here the Japanese were benefiting from good rest and repair add to that a much larger fleet thanks to the British helping them buy foreign ships and blocking the Russians from buying ships from Chile all of that and they knew they were coming and could do a sustained 15 knots to the Russian 14 knots burst of speed so yeah in summary the much larger and faster and better trained fleet lying in ambush won what were you expecting? Kamchatka was actually sinking btw

It's surprising that nobody TKed the Kamchatka before they arrived at Tsushima.

They really should rename the WoWS “It’s Just a Flesh Wound” badge the “Rozhestvensky Award.”

Pretty much all of the Russian "good" battleships ended up doing that.

Khan: who let connan on the internet

"You forgot being regaled with tales of the adventures of the hero ship Kamchatka!"

I thought so to.

You are hysterical, go to the infirmary.

"You didn't see Japanese torpedo boats. YOU DIDN'T!!!!! Because there not there!!"

@@redshirt5126 Typical, Moscow sends us junk equipment.

I wonder what would have happened if the russians had give the fleet ample ammunition to practice with.

Not the first I've been offered, bit the first I've accepted :)

@@Drachinifel Awesome. Happy you're getting paid, and happy that we continue to get your content!