Today we look at the development of warships from 1815 to 1860 Want to support the channel? - / drachinifel Want to talk about ships? / discord Music - / ncmepicmusic
Here's a topic more than a question: A destroyer or submarine with a torpedo can sink a battleship. The torpedo is expensive and complicated compared to a round from a battleship. It costs a lot to build a battleship to deliver cheap rounds, but not a lot to build a destroyer to deliver expensive torpedoes. Post WWII, see also cruise missiles. I feel like there may be a pretty good thesis here, related to the Innovator's Dilemma.
I have a scenario I would like your opinion on: How would the US standard battleships have fared against the Japanese battleships in December 1941? Ignoring CVs, DDs, CAs, CLs... just a pure battle line vs battle line.
There's a story of a veteran RN captain taking his screw 1st rate into Malta. He ordered all sails furled and the anchor dropped, but was surprised when the ship kept moving. He was reminded they had screw propulsion. "I forgot we had that".
@@AndrewTheRadarMan depending on the size i doubt the sound of the steam engine would reach the top deck on top of the deafening affect of 10+ knot winds
@@JonatasAdoM pfft hearing protection. Guess nobody could hear pistons chugging away when you have a loud ring in your ears from all of the cannon blasts
"The wooden ships, they turned to iron, and the iron ships to steel. And shed their sails like autumn leaves with the turning of the wheel." --Al Stewart, "Old Admirals"
I wasn't aware that the transition from wooden warships to early ironclads was so complex. None of the documentaries i seen up to this point gave a hint of how much development and in some cases back steps were made to reach that point. Great video.
Most 'documentaries' are researched by knowledgeable historians, written by less knowledgeable screenwriters, made by historically-illiterate film majors, and advertised to the 18-35 year old who prefers (American) football and beer to a college lecture. RU-vid history vids don't generally have this problem.
the one thing is that he missed that one event in 1862 which lead to the launch of the first French Ironclad: Merrimack vs Monitor, where two US navy vessels fired on eachother till they ran out of ammunition, with Merrimack subsequently sinking at harbor and the Monitor due to its incredibly low draft, sinking several months later due to high tide. the French, having better foreign relations with the US then England did, actually learning about this and finding out literally only the USN was technologically up to date. while it would take another 7 years for London to actually internalize what happened, it would still be able to leverage its economic advantage to catch up for lost time up until HMS dreadnought was launched, at which point everyone relevant would keep up until 1922 when the first full fledged Aircraft Carrier was Launched, and everyone again completely shit the bed on miltech ships until 1941
Sounds like it came straight from a Black Adder episode on the high seas. Except Baldrick misunderstands and puts up a screen to block view of the enemy crew, instead of ordering the carronades to fire at them.
I've just been reading that the French knew that an iron hulled ship was superior to a wooden hull ship with iron plates, like the Gloire. In fact, France was the first nation to lay down an all iron hulled warship; the Couronne, but the Warrior was finished and put into commision first. The problem the French Navy, and France in general had, was that while they had scientific and engineering personal every bit the equal to their counterparts on the other side of the English Channel, the industrial revolution was so much more advanced in Great Britain than it was in France, most French dockyards couldn't handle building all iron ships. It was much easier for them to build wooden hulled ships and bolt on iron plating afterwards. So they continued to build wooden hulled ironclads after the Gloire, into the 1870's.
That's kind of the story of France from like 1820- today. They're out competed by their neighbors in terms of industry. In from 1820ish-1871 it was the UK and from 1871 until today they were beaten soundly(industrially speaking) by their Prussian/German neighbors. Heck, it would take the Germans occupying France for them to get French industry up to somewhat useful standards.
@@2adamast even in the 1860s Britain was far more industrialised than France and could build larger ships at a quicker rate. Palmerston even taunted the French ambassador about this very fact in 1864
I can’t help but feel that HMS Blenheim was somehow HMS Warspite’s...I don’t know, ‘Great Aunt’ for lack of a better term. From your description of her exploits, Blenheim seems to share quite a few things with her grand-niece, especially in having been through several major overhauls during her lifetime and remaining in service long enough for her final crew to be the children or grandchildren of her original crew. But I’d say that Blenheim seems to have been a bit more mild-mannered than Warspite. What with all that heavy, all-metal construction, steam turbines, and vastly more firepower, I think Warspite turned out quite a bit more headstrong and hot-blooded than her stately ancestor.
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“You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such nonsense.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte
Hi. Yes. You know all the things we tell you about not having fires onboard your tar-coated wood and canvas ships, especially with all that gun powder. Well we've been thinking and we now think it could be a good idea. I can go do what with the rudder.
This was an excellent episode, was holding my interest none stop. Could not believe that 35 minutes could past that quickly. It's without a doubt the most interesting era of naval warships. Changes occurred very quickly.
That was excellent. It filled in a number of gaps in my knowledge of the Royal Navy in the 19th century. I knew the first steam ship predated the Battle of Trafalgar. It was built in Scotland and was used on a canal I seem to remember. It's effect was such that there was talk of Richard Trevithick building number of steam ships to tow fireships which would be used to attack the Franco-Spanish fleet. The plan was stopped because Trevithick did not think it was viable at that time. I remember reading about an incident which happened in 1821 when a ship approaching the Isle of Mann was spotted with smoke billowing skyward. Realising there was a fire onboard a number of ships set sail to go to the rescue only to have it sail straight passed them. The smoke was from a steam engine.
The Scottish steam ship would probably have been the "Charlotte Dundas" used on the Forth and Clyde canal from 1802. However, that wasn't the first steam boat; it was predated at least by the French "Pyroscaph" (1783), the the boats of John Fitch (1786) and James Rumsey (1787), and Patrick Miller's trimaran steam boat (1788), which was the "Charlotte Dundas' " predecessor on the Forth and Clyde.
Please do a Video on the last surviving pre dreadnought armored cruiser USS Olympia, she needs the support, they are talking about making her an artificial reef again!
n3zyd Yes the poor Olympia has been falling apart for a long time. She deserves far better - I remember when I was a teenager wandering through the machine spaces, forward torpedo room - now all closed off. She needs major help and any promotion of her plight might help! Last if the Great White Fleet - Dewey’s Flagship at Manila Bay - should be given a helping hand by USG - they waste so much money in far less worthy causes.
I think the USN should take Olympia back into service, just like the Constitution, put her at someplace like Norfolk, and reopen her as a museum and ceremonial flagship. Do the same with USS Texas (BB-35), on which my dad served during a USNR training cruise in 1937 or '38. Olympia, as the last pre-dreadnought, and Dewy's flagship, and Texas as the last USN dreadnought and gunfire support at Normandy and in the Pacific. A full repair of both might be less than the cost of a modern helicopter and far less than the cost of a fighter-bomber. Annual maintenance of Texas, I've read, is about $2 million a year (cost of paper-clips??).
Yes, early steam engines worked with "a massive furnace," and they also had a tendency to explode if they weren't carefully tended to. Sounds like a great plan to me. The frigate Gloire, where the French took the decisive lead in building the ugliest warships of the 19th century. "And then it got worse. So common in Russian history." LOL - That's brilliant.
This history of early British locomotives gives a good history of the development of steam engines up to about 1830 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wOGYZC-IJPQ.html
Really enjoyed this episode and learned a lot. When you summarized the fate of some the ships mentioned, all I could think of was Turner's Fighting Temeraire, a fitting image to summarize the sad fate of these once magnificent machines.
Although picking one is nearly impossible due to overall excellence, I think this is one of Drach’s best! Just listening to it for about the .4th time!
I love the fact that you're still branding these as the "Five Minute Guide to Warships" xD Not that I'm complaining of course, I'd love these videos if they were just hours of waffling on about the technical details of a specific class of battleship's main battery guns.
Got to say, this os one of my favorite channels lately. He makes clean and interesting videos that are full of all the technical and historical stuff I love to hear about. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! You made me crack up a couple of times. This was fun, way back in prehistoric times I used to teach this development from wooden ships over steam, iron hulls, past battleships and the modern navies and how to construct ships and to understand modern warship development to eager midshipmen and other categories. Talking about the need for trolling your rivals; the Russian navy has been building and naming ships after either battles won over Sweden or captured Swedish warships; you mentioned Viborg at the Crimean war, which is where Sweden lost Finland through a ruse in 1809 and another example is the ship Retvizan taken as HMS Rättvisan, also at Viborg,, and then newer ships named after the same ship at least five times.
Viborg is actually a city roughly two thirds of way from Helsinki to St. Petersburg that was founded by the Swedes in Medieval times, captured by Russia in 1710 during the Great Northen War, returned to Finland in 1812 when Finland was already a Grand Duchy under the Czar, and ceded again to Russia after WW2. You may be thinking of Sveaborg (originally called "Viapori" in Finnish), which is a fortress in Helsinki harbour. The surrender of Sveaborg in 1808 was the result of shrewd negotiations on the part of the Russians and a pessimistic commander on the side of the Swedes; it was not a battle worth commemorating by naming a ship. A more memorable battle was fought in 1855 when the fortress was shelled by the combined British-French fleet during the Crimean war but withstood the attack, unlike the more modern Bomarsund fortress in the Åland Islands which was reduced to rubble. As for Russian ships, there was also the "Gangut", named after the naval battle of Hanko (1714) which the Russians won largely due to vastly outnumbering (c. 80 vs. 5) the small Swedish squadron trying to block the Russian fleet. The last Gangut (1911) was a 4 x 3 12" Dreadnought that was named "Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya" after the October Revolution.
Trolling with battle names isn't limited to the Russians. Considering how many WW2 American carriers were named after victories over the British during the Revolutionary War (Lexington, Concord, Yorktown, Saratoga, Ticonderoga, Cowpens, Princeton ...), you wouldn't think they were on the same side!
Fantastic documentary! The focus always goes on either ships like the Victory or ships like Dreadnought, we never get to see the transitional phase on ships! Thank you
Outstanding presentation sir! After many years, I am finally reading Massey's "Dreadnought" to be followed by "Castles of Steel"; and this helps present a bit more naval development history that was not covered in the book, Thank you! Look forward to the next presentation.
The Dreadnought book has only one chapter on the Dreadnought, the rest is the story of British and German political rivalry. Castles of Steele is Great , but so is Richard Houghs book.
Interesting look at a period of naval development that doesn't usually get much attention, and I'm definitely looking forward to a future video tracing development through the second half of the 19th century. Funny how almost everyone knows about HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, and HMS Dreadnought, but there's so little discussion of everything in between them. Out of curiosity, how certain are we that the ship in the picture first shown at 6:05 actually is HMS Blenheim? You describe Blenheim as (originally) a 74-gun third rate, and yet the ship in the picture is very clearly a three-decker.
This was one of your best videos yet. I've never seen the development of naval technology explored in such a thorough yet accessible way. Your ability to break down long and complex topics so they can be easily understood by laypeople is very impressive and it's what makes your content so valuable. If I was a naval instructor, I'd recommend your channel to my cadets.
Thanks for a great video, I've allways searched for a good presentation of this chaotic period, looking foreward to watching the continued development from 1860 to 1905!
More of a topic request: Can you go over how the various navies scrapped or utilised old hulls over time and possibly go into how some ships were saved or sold to other navies? I come from the world of steam locomotives so I see a lot of parallels between the two when it comes to preservation for future generations.
I thought the US Constitution was the first wooden ship to use triangulated wooden framing to stiffen the hull. Excellent RU-vid channel. My sincerest compliments regarding your depth and breadth of knowledge. Can you discuss how the Royal Navy managed to supply itself with the necessary timber during the era of wooden ship building? I'm sure many an old growth oak forest was cut down!
Norman Mattson I live in England near where the wooden ship ie the Agamemnon was built, it’s called bucklers hard. The new forest nearby was created in part to satisfy the demand.
The first six US frigates (inculding Old Ironsides) did have innovative diagonal frames. I think the triangle frames Seppings introduced might be the next logical step. I'd be interested to know if Seppings got a look at the frames in USS/HMS President. Either way, diagonal and triangular frames are brilliantly simple solutions.
This is a great video, I'm only halfway through it and loving it! You never hear much about ship naval development between the War of 1812/Napoleonic the American Civil War. It's almost as if you went from full on sailing warships to (poof) ironclad's overnight.
Great video. An ancestor of mine served on HMS Blenheim in the 1850s after the ship had the steam engine conversion. It was his first posting, based at Portsmouth. I think the period is one of the most interesting. They were trying to work out how to navigate through massive changes in technology. A good book that takes the subject to the next period/step is 'The Ironclads' by Peter Hore.
Interesting video. It was nice being shown the various changes in ship design as time went on. if possible please do more videos like this one... in addition to the usual videos on various warship classes.
This transitional period of naval history is perhaps my favorite era of warship development.Thank you for covering it.Could listen to you describe it for hours.Hint hint lol. Could you perhaps suggest a book or 2 that cover the subject?I've got a couple but their rather short....love to sink my teeth into something more in depth.Another great video....a comment that need not be said.......because they all are.
Its so nice to see how much your annunciation and timing has improved. nothing wrong with the data here, but youve come a huge way as a communicator. congrats mate.
This video is awesome at explaining this rather rapid change of design. I've always loved the look of huge age of sail ships of the line and had always wondered what happened to them and ho exactly they were replaced and became the battleships we know from 1st and 2nd world war. No i know it and I thank you for that
I read a really good book on the American Civil War Ironclads long ago. While the usual story told only includes the Monitor and Merrimac battle there were many many more used by both sides , a fact most people are unaware off. Good book , wish I'd bought it back in the day.
Interesting and well done video! You might want to find an interesting book: "The Black Battlefleet" by Admiral G.A. Ballard, it's out of print but some libraries might have a copy. (you can't have mine!) It's a personal history with some fascinating drawings and photos of the transition to iron ships. Two events that should be mentioned: The battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, and more importantly the battle of the USS Kearsarge against the CSS raider Alabama. This battle impressed the Royal Navy, mainly because the Kearsarge had been at sea for some time, yet still had enough coal to steam into battle. The Kearsarge had two large Dahlgren 11in guns that were very powerful and very accurate, thus showing that a few big guns could be better then conventional guns such as the 100 pounders on the CSS Alabama, which incidentally had been built by a British shipyard. The apparent ease by which Kearsarge devastated the Alabama surprised everyone! BTW_Did you know that the Dahlgren designed guns were also the safest?
Fantastic video as always. If you're planning on more videos on general development history perhaps one on the Jeune École of the late 1800s and how it influenced naval development.
Please do. My grandfather told me that his grandfather, William Clarke, an Irishman from Dublin, was a sailor in the Kearsage during the battle. Searching the crew lists however, I find a William Clarke on the Alabama and not on the Kearsage. Since it is not an unusual name, perhaps there were two William Clarkes, one on each ship or perhaps William was ashamed of his service and tried to conceal it. I would love to find out. William had at least one child, my great- grandmother, Frances Clarke, who married Louis McGrath. William left the sea and became a bookseller in Liverpool.
WOW!!! the Royal Navy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars had 200 ships of the line and between 800 and a thousand major warships.... I never knew that, immagine what that would look like in a picture
Another awesome video This filled in a lot of details I've missed in my own reading. I'd probably be a member of the developmental group of the RN. Carefully assess new technology and work out the kinks before implementing it. The development of wooden ships was certainly slow compared to their iron children. It's been said a sailor from the Tudor HMS Mary Rose could go aboard Nelson's HMS Victory and within a few hours be quite comfortable. Yet a sailor from Victory going aboard a ship less than 80 later would be hopelessly lost with all the changes brought about by new equipment.
Wow, incredibly well done as usual! I'm not usually a fan of the earlier era of warships, but this was incredibly interesting! And good on the British, don't waste time developing new technology from the start, simply look at the work of others and put your resources into perfecting it :p
I stumbled upon this and find it very interesting. My father was a LS in the Royal Navy based at Liverpool he served on cruisers and mine sweepers. He worked as a ASDIC operator on North Atlantic convoy protection and actually detected a Uboat that was destroyed. He also served in the Mediterranean. It would be interesting to me to see one of the ships of the type my father served on.
