@@SRR-5657We can do that! “Sodak” - BB-57 is a favorite. Good suggestion. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! Rick R / Bearing Straight
I thought the JEAN BART one of the most magnificent warships afloat! It was a discovery when I, a First Class midshipmen from the US Naval Academy on my summer 1968 training cruise in the Mediterranean, walked down the pier alongside her in Toulon. I knew of no other battleship with quadruple turrets! And her lines approached in beauty those of the US's IOWA-class battleships. Weeks later, as she was towed away to the scrappers, I stood and watched till she disappeared across the horizon, knowing I'd never see the likes of her again.
There’s a penalty for battleships with turreted multiple big guns. Apologies for the not very martial analogy ! The most visible case was that of battleship HMS Rodney with all her main batteries in the fore. After intense fire support, the turrets have to be fastened again, otherwise the next recoil would have ejected them overboard. It’s like an excess of viagra for Casanova.
Really like your channel highlighting USS Ranger; for all her limitations, she did contribute and gave valuable service in several theatres during the war.
Thanks very much! Agreed! In many ways Ranger was as experimental as Langley. Lex and Sara were comparative monsters that aircraft development needed to catch up with, but the Navy learned a lot from Ranger before the war and used her appropriately during it, so that she could contribute. We appreciate your taking the time to comment! Thanks again!
We love that the ship was painted in a desert yellow to blend with some grain silos and the desert background, and it shows up in the footage. World of Warships gets it right too. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
My uncle was on one of the destroyers escorting Massachusetts. He also was from Massachusetts. The only destroyer I know he was on was Charles S Sperry, but I think that was later. My dad saw that ship in port and took the Capt’s launch and chased him down, he got in trouble 😁. Uncle also convoy escort duty on DD, big boys left the convoy to go after Nazi big boy, got battered. Uncle sink twice on DD’s
👍🏻🇺🇸✌️🏴🇬🇧 My father served briefly aboard the Massachusett’s sister ship the South Dakota as communication liaison when she and the Alabama operated with our Home Fleet.throughout W.W.2 in the Royal Navy being torpedoed off Tunisian on the Pedestal Malta Convoy. He also had Free French aboard one of his battleships.
Thanks for letting us know! We've been interested in RN liaison officers onboard US warships during WWII but data is hard to come by. Even the records at the National Archives in Kew are incomplete. In another video we mention South Dakota and Alabama working with the RN and trying to bait Tirpitz into an uneven fight. ... What ship was your father serving in when torpedoed? ... Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
Agreed! We come across a lot of color photography that has deteriorated beyond use, but this film held up nicely. JEAN BART's yellow paint job shows up well. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
@@BearingStraight This will be about the 4th or 5th time I've planned to go see Massachusetts. The others all fell through. Not this time... I was going to go see it on the first big "America Trip" that Drach planned. He was going to be at the Massachusetts on like April the 25th or so of 2020. Gee wizz, I wonder why that trip got canceled.
@RickRussell-wq7cm I ended up going to the New Jersey last spring and meet Drach and Ryan and had a great tour of the ship. I got to politely harass Drach for his harsh criticism of the USS Maine, heard Ryan talk about "Battleship Chairs" and Drach have a presentation on the method of Hood's sinking. It was pretty great.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. We'll probably give "Casablanca" a rest and shift our focus elsewhere, especially in the Pacific, but BB-59 is one of our favorites too. Please feel free to send recommendations!
The hit in the empty 152 mm/6" magazin would NOT have been a "ship killer", it was located above the armoured deck, and even if full, would have contained to little powder !
We said "might" have been a ship killer. Some of the 16-inch shell and 1000-lbs. bomb hits opened the ship like an aluminum can. It's impossible to say definitively, one way or another, what would have happened, but can't imagine it being good. Again, thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
@@BearingStraight The major damage (and most visible) to JB was caused by the 1000 lbs bomb hits, and that highlights the drawbacks of the "all or nothing" armour layout ! Thanks for your reply, AND for the video !
We have enjoyed visiting Massachusetts too; a great museum ship. As for Jean Bart, she was definitely at a great disadvantage and perhaps foolish to resist, but she fired 25 main battery rounds at US warships. Because she came close to hitting Augusta with several 15-inch rounds, she needed to be silenced one way or another. Hewitt and the French admiral ashore wrote it off to both having to do their professional duty and chose not to dwell on the episode. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! What's interesting is that even at the end of 1945 and after carrier warfare dominated sea control and power projection, the US Navy saw a future role for battleships, so long as they could keep up with the carriers in terms of speed and reduce the time taken to reload the main battery. It seems hard to believe now. As for Jean Bart, I would agree she was completed as much for show as anything else.
@@BearingStraight Being able to keep up with carriers doesn’t mean the battleship could fight alongside them: the entire reason battleships became obsolete was lack of OFFENSIVE capability, because if either side had carriers that meant the battle would happen across such a great distance the battleship would never even get to open fire. The only thing battleships could do when keeping up with carriers was to act as a gigantic, needlessly expensive destroyer.
