The Drydock - Episode 083 

Pinned post for Q&A :)

It’s mind blowing how long this bloke can wax on about this topic without ever saying, “uh” or “um” I freaking love this channel! 🥳❤️

The USN's fleet train was the thing most responsible for the more varied and palatable food served on most USN ships. Whole ships were devoted to refrigeration and freezers, and those fresh foods were broken up into ship size loads for everything from minesweepers up. My dad's PT base in New Guinea and Solomons was visited every several weeks by these supply ships, who offloaded the food package to their tender. They would then be distributed to the individual boats. He'd get fresh milk, eggs, and frozen meat of all kinds, including turkeys for the holidays. His tender, the USS _Mobjack_, had added refrigeration space to hold all this food, but each PT also had a refrigerator. Not very big, but enough for five days of refrigerated food before they had to visit the tender for another load, generally needing to rearmed anyway. Each boat had a tiny galley, with one member of the crew being designated as the cook. This was pretty good duty on PT boat since they didn't have to do all the repetitive tasks like swabbing the deck and cleaning out the below decks spaces. A good cook was second only to a good skipper in terms of fighting effectiveness and morale. My dad's boat's Cookie (they were all called Cookie) was particularly good, turning out bread, pies, and even breakfast cinnamon rolls. He remembers his hams, steaks, and turkeys as being particularly good. When the boats were at base for heavier repairs and general shore duty, they had to eat at the base mess, and his memory of the food at these messes was nowhere near as good as they ate on the boat. Cookie and the skipper were both good horse traders, and they almost always ended up with a couple cases of cokes, a couple cases of beer, five or so gallons of ice cream, and some fresh vegetables. When they were at advance bases, they were stuck with C and K rations and whatever fish they could catch from the back of the boat. The best day he remembers from advance bases was when his boat sailed over a reef with about a foot of water under the keel. The sharp eyed lookouts didn't see just the reef but also a huge lobster colony! The boat immediately dropped anchor, and a couple of the good swimmers (my dad couldn't swim at all) dove down to start grabbing them. They managed to snatch about twenty of them before the squadron commander called on the radio and wanted to know why they were stalled in the lagoon. They "fixed" the engine problems and got underway again. That night they had the lobster feast to end all feasts. Cookie was even able to work some kind of magic with margarine to make it kinda taste like drawn butter. He said he didn't know if it was all the lobster or just being exhausted after having no nights off for almost three weeks, but he said it was the best night's sleep he ever had while in the Navy. :-)

Design work on the North American AJ Savage series had begun just after the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. The Savage was a considerably larger aircraft than the B-25. Wingspan was 75 feet over tip tanks, measuring 50 feet with the wings folded compared to 67 feet for the B-25. Empty weight for the Savage was 27,558 with maximum loaded weight of almost 51,000 pounds compared to 19,480/35,000 pounds for the B-25. The outstanding difference for the Savage was a bomb load of 12,000 pounds compared to 4,000 pounds for the B-25. The Savage was operated successfully from modernized Essex class carriers, but it an aircraft rushed into service to preserve the Navy's role in the atomic era, that large size and load carrying ability due to the 10,000 pound weight of early atomic bombs. The Navy had even larger bombers built in the 50's as the A-3D Skywarrior and huge A-5 Vigilante to defend their role as a nuclear deterrent, but all carrier aircraft were knocked out of that role by the ballistic missile submarine.

"a very Australian thing" 42:20 The tale of Teddy Sheean. Another reason to love Australians.

This is for the stokers of old Now each of us from time to time, has gazed upon the sea, And watched the war ships pulling out, to keep his country free. And most of us have read a book, or heard a lusty tale, About the men who sail these ships, though lightning, wind and hail. But there's a place within each ship, that legend fails to teach. It's hot below the waterline, it takes a living sole.... A hot metal living hell, that sailors call the Hole. I houses engines run by steam, that makes the shafts go round, A place of fire and noise and heat, that beats your spirit down. Where boilers like a hellish heart with blood of angry steam, Are moulded gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream. Whose threat that from the fire roar, is like living doubt, That any minute would with scorn, escape and crush you out. Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in hell, As ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell. The men who keep the fires lit, and make the engines run, Are strangers to the world of light, and rarely see the sun. They have no time for man or God, no tolerance for fear, Their aspect pays no living thing, the tribute of a tear. For there's not much that men can do, that there men haven't done. Beneath the decks, deep in the hole to make engines run. For every hour of every day, they keep the watch in hell, For if the fires ever fail, their ship's a useless shell. When ships converge to have a war, upon the angry sea, The men below just grimly smile at what their fate might be. They're locked below like men fore-doomed. Who hear no battle cry, It's well assured that if they're hit, the men below will die. For every days a war down there, when the gauges all read red, Twelve hundred pounds of superheated steam, can kill you mighty dead. So if you ever write their sons, or try to tell their tale,' The very words would make you hear, a fired furnace wail. And people as a general rule, don't hear of men of steel, So tittle's heard about the place, that sailor call the hole. But I can sing about this place, and try to make you see, The hardened life of men down there, cause one of them is me. I've seen those sweat soaked heroes fight, in superheated air, To keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there. And thus they'll fight for ages on till warships sail no more, Amid the boilers might heat and the turbines hellish rear. So when you see a ship pull out, to meet a war like foe, Remember faintly if you can, "The men who sail below." By "The unknown Stoker"

Closest range battle? Probably HMS Glowworm actually ramming KM Hipper

I found your page last month. I wish I could say I was here from day 1 but I wasn't. I really enjoyed the Taiho video, so much detail. I don't have any questions for you but thanks for the great content. Much love from Singapore 🇸🇬

I fell asleep with RU-vid auto play on and apparently I watched about 7 hours worth of your videos

42:20 Teddy Sheean, the Londo Mollari line about having half the courage as him is very accurate, well said. B) I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage, but in the end, they ran out of time. ... close enough, and to the point as correct Drach.

I read somewhere that it was to Nimitz's credit that he was the only American four-star commander who faced an enemy of equal or greater strength (true for the first part of the Pacific war) and won. All other such commanders had the edge in men and materiel when they achieved their victories.

Our good friend, Mr. Kevin Kennelly, called in sick today (Happy leap year birthday to you!). So, let's all pitch in and cover his watch for him today. I'll start us off... Drachisms of the Day 35:02 "Well, we managed to do a thing! We have literally no idea what we're gonna do with it now..." 55:26 "Trying to have a sword fight from the back of an elephant with somebody else who's also got a sword on the back of another slightly larger elephant" 1:02:19 "At the end of the day, if you get hit by a 32 pound cannon shot travelling at several hundred meters per second; you're probably about as dead as you are if you get hit by a ten pound Culverin shot that was travelling 30% faster. 'Bout the only difference it might make is just quite how far the various bits of you go." Please add more!

I love dry dock, probably one of best shows on youtube, keep it up.

Oh my goodness, last time I was this early, Derfflinger was still just known as Derfflinger. Fantastic video as always Drach. Love your work. I can't imagine the horror of Kirishima's crew as they realised Washington was basically at point blank range. Then she let's fly with 16inch, 5inch hellfire. Apparently Kirishima suffered a magazine explosion as she sank. An evaluation of her wreck shows her bow is absolutely gone. I read a story in a book about the USS Franklin and USS Santa Fe where the Franklin's head cook was basically a donkey's ass in temperament and had no ability to prepare food whatsoever. He went missing at some point during or after the Franklin made a port call. Though I wonder how hard some members of the crew actually looked for him 🤔🤔

Regarding food, I recently read an interesting article regarding Japanese food prejudice and how it killed hundreds in the Meiji fleet of the 1880s and early 1890s. The Japanese issued poorly nutritional, but high statue white rice to its largely peasant lower decks resulting in large scale scurvy. A naval doctor diagnosed the problem and recommended issuing millet but the high command considered his diagnoses unorthodox and the sailors considered millet to be dishonourable fare for a long time until good sense prevailed.

Your teddy Sheean story brought tears to my eyes. Amazing sacrifice for his friends!

As far as anti-torpedo point defence, I'm reminded of the case of USS William D. Porter. She accidentally fired a torpedo straight at USS Iowa, which happened to have President Roosevelt aboard. Roosevelt's secret service detail reportedly pulled out their sidearms.

Quoting Londo in that instance was perfect. Genuinenly blown away, and I just learned about high speed boarding cats just before this lol

Drach quoting Babylon 5? Perfect way to spend a rainy day!

A B5 Quote!!! Glorious

Best channel on RU-vid in my opinion. I look forward to every video. Your knowledge and hard work is much appreciated.

No member of the Royal Australian Navy has ever been given the Victoria cross. Hell in world war two, Capt. Waller only was mentioned in dispatches.

Disclaimer: it's been quite a while, so I might misremember Standing watch at sea (in the USN in the 1970s): You'd work an 8 hour day and then be free OR assigned one 4 hour watch during the remaining 16 hours. We called it P/S or Port/Starboard, one Watch Section being the "duty" watch every day. Regular meals were served to the crew at the usual times (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner), but anyone could stop in the galley in between for coffee, milk, or tea. If at GQ (General Quarters), no one went anywhere, other than Damage Control and the officers. The galley sent around sandwiches and beverages to the various spaces and DC stations. As a DC investigator (the most expendable man on the ship) I enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom, no matter the occasion.

Good thing gI was in bed before this episode was posted. I would have passed out at the computer trying to stay awake. RU-vid is so messed up. I was about to whine because there was no time stamped list with this episode, but I thought Drach wouldn't do that to us with a three hour plus episode. I refreshed RU-vid and, sure enough, there was the list. I hate RU-vid sometimes.

Half the time I space out to these, but must say this channels depth and quality is brilliant. Prolly the best Naval historian study I've partially digested.

Two warships sinking each other at very close range = HMAS Sydney and the German raider Kormorant off the coast of West Australia in 1941. Small hundreds of yeards apart.

When asked about naval tropes, I was waiting for Drach to go ever so slightly bat regarding rum, sodomy, and the lash.

3,5 hours? Again such a "brief" video... just imagine how an extended view would be!

Drach, we do have lives! Have mercy with the video lengths!

About the alternate history question: The Japanese had samples of the Vickers 40mm Pompom in various mountings through capture of foreign equipment and occupation of foreign owned bases and shipyards. As with the Bofors 40mm gun, availability of suitable mountings was a hurdle to climb (something the Soviets discovered with 37mm and 45mm mounts after the war). The best I can think of were the quad PomPom and the dual Bofors mountings mounted on various captures and the odd onbase AA Post. French and Dutch captured/destroyed in harbor ships might've also offered their 37mm cannon. A good point of departure is the obvious nod to Bofors, once upon a time a clandestine center for German weapons research between the wars. Indeed, the German Kriegsmarine ran a small production line for the 40mm Bofors gun, albeit in the older twin mounts, rather than the USN's prodigal, iconic, "quads".

The large turreted 6” secondary batteries on Littorio and Yamato are almost throwbacks to pre-dreadnaught types.

I think one of the things about Nimitz that is also a positive and, often gets overlooked, is his conduct as CNO after the war. In an era when the Army Air Force was trying to gain a greater ascendancy due to strategic bombing/nuclear weapons, his work in keeping the US Navy strong and keeping the US Marine Corps in existence cannot be underestimated. Also there's a rather amusing story I read about in a biography on him. He had a photo of Douglas MacArthur on his desk and was asked about it by a reporter. His reply was, "That's to remind myself not to be a horse's ass and make Jovian pronouncements complete with thunderbolts"

1:45:43- Don't forget the near mutiny when Victorious "joined" the Pacific Fleet and was outfitted by the USN, especially the use of powered (mashed) potato mix. It took the Enterprise "loaning" the Victorious one of their cooks in order to show the RN cooks how to prepare the powered potatoes and therefore stave off a near revolt.

How about the Russian icebreaker Arktika? 173.3 m (569 ft) long and a gargantuan 33,540 tonnes. Nuclear power so no worries about fuel, 22 knots top speed, and thrusters all over the place for quick turns. It could even chase ships into water as shallow as six meters after deballasting. She'd probably happily sail around all day crushing any wood hull that got in her way at the cost of some scratches to the paintwork.

The US had an ersatz medium bomber that flew from all fleet carriers. The TBF Avenger could carry 2000lb of multi purpose bombs AND torpedoes when necessary. You could put 2 for every 1 B-25 on a carrier with no modifications.

Teddy Sheean...what you get when you put Audie Murphy on a boat. As I listened to that story I couldn't help but notice the similarity of a 19 yr old kid jumping on a burning tank destroyer and using its 50 cal to hold off a German battalion for an hour.

Best News I've heard this week is buried in answer to question at 3:08 Drach lets slip that he is writing a SteamPunk Novel !!!!! (and it has Airships ?? !!) Future Bliss Anticipated !

My favorite work schedule ever was standing dusk and dawn watches on a sailing brig - 4 hours on, 8 off, 4 on, 8 off.

Didn't see that anyone else had posted this yet, but in the USN, gold and blue crews aren't really watches. It applies to American SSBNs (and I think LCSs, oddly enough). They 'own' the boat in rotation, with one crew doing shore-based training, while they other does maintenance on the boat and runs patrols. This rotation lasts most of a year. It allows us to get more cruises out of a given number of hulls and maintain continuous at-sea deterrence.

I had been on the LPH-3 Okinawa, they look nearly the same. Best chow hall for a Jarhead ever. Not too big like a CVN, but big enough for good stores. Having had sailed and motored I loved it when that flat bottom went wonky.

That was a worthy point made about the size of aircraft. I was at Wright Patterson and, outside the main doors, were several warplanes lined up on either side of the walk. An F-15 and a B25 were on display when I went there last (decades back) and I was immediately struck by their similarity in size and general dimensions. Another point might be that effective "twins", like Sea Hornet, and F7F Tigercat, were developed, but they were deployed as stopgaps in expectation that the Age of the Jet had arrived.

The Avenger torpedo bombers (TBF / TBM) had the ability to carry iron bombs and do level bombing had there been a need. The Navy obviously decided that such a need wasn't all that great when they got into operational flying during the War. Flying larger bombers off of the carriers was apparently even less of a priority, as they didn't do it again after Doolittle's Raid.

Thank you for the contents, depth of detail and your patience.

about three months ago I got suggested Jutland pt1.. I watched just about all of there rest of your navy content since then. I fall to sleep to it just about every night. thats my testament to you Drachinifel. plain and simple

19:56 Drach I am shocked that you didn't mention that the navalized version of the B-25 Mitchell, PBJ-1H with arrestor hook, was tested on the Essex-class USS Shangri-la (CV-38). So we have an exact metric.

I would absolutely love to hear Drach's take on writing fictional/fantasy warships realistically, particularly for pseudo-Medieval/high fantasy/Dungeons & Dragons-esque settings and/or Victorian/Steampunk/Ironclad-thru-Pre-Dreadnought early modern settings. I too have been formulating a series of stories set in an alternate 1880's-90's world in which all of the world's oceans vanished and now airships are the only means of intercontinental travel. While naval warfare in particular will likely only play a minor role except at certain significant points throughout the story, it would be an immeasurable help to have some advice on how to write both military and civilian shipping in a more believable and yet immersive manner. Even if real steamships generally don't have to worry about falling from the sky and exploding in their lifting cells overheat.

That theme song is a Bop! It just jams and I love it

6:40 ...a short, sharp, shock..... Drach visiting The Dark Side of the Moon and quoting Pink Floyd!! How cool is that!?! Two of my favorite things British.

As an interesting side note, even in the age of sail, the German's ration included Sauerkraut, which is high in vitamin C, so the German navy never suffered from scurvy.

Thank you for the question times in the video, I’d have watched them all again to find what I was looking for but that made it quick

HMS Habakkuk: is now the world's largest casino and duty free shop. 3.5 hours well spent, but you may wish to reschedule your trip if your in-person talks stretch this long? Where can we meet you in Philly?

Fell asleep and this played all night

What I do like about your video's it that you do look at things real logically, and give an outstanding presentation on here. Second class to no one good sir. Thank You. I like your comments on the German Battleships. One think that annoys me is that World of Warships, (which I like to play) is like experimenting with an interactive Ship Comparison Hollywood Movie. People pit the Bismarck against the Iowa, and then argue that it is a superior ship because some how the game proves this, because they won a round of ship battle in a game. There is/are so many more facts, attributes, and issues to consider, and they can't and are not all considered by Russian Game Designers who produce a Sand Box MMO about ship combat in an online game. I have actually met many people who think that Anastasia Romanoff survived and ran to France, because of Disney making a Fricking Cartoon about that myth. I am somewhat sure that if they made a new movie about Bismarck and Hood, you could have a German Spy on the Hood who plants a bomb in the Magazine to explode Hood and within 10 years a good majority of the general population would believe it. On Titanic You Tube video's I joked on the Blog about the Titanic being hit by a Torpedo from a German U boat in 1912, as part of a conspiracy theory about England, and Germany, ect preparing to start WW1. I was joking of course, but a few years latter I seen on a new Titanic/Olympic video that my possible torpedo joke was stated as ( some historians believe that the Olympic in place of the Titanic might have been Torpedoed). I regret making that Joke, as it is amazing how some of that stuff can gain traction. Anyway, Top Notch work, and I always enjoy them.

I think we can credit Drach with Teddy Sheehan being awarded the VC in August 2020

3.5 hours... you’ve made my weekend, Drach. Keep up the good work!

19:00 -- I was happily listening along when you said "There is a 5-hour watch system," and I started to chuckle. 24 hours is, indeed, a highly divisible number, and with good reason : 2x3x4 = 24 So -- what happens if I multiply 24 hours by 5? Suddenly, there's a nice round number to be divided, 120. That's how a 5 hour watch system would work, by designating watch periods over the space of 5 days rather than 3. But, what most people might not notice about this, and why it is effective, is that Ships don't always stay stationary, nor remain in the same time zone. So yes, while the 5 hour watch period is +1 or -1 hours in length, when compared to 4 or 6 hour watches, timezones change +1 / -1 for every 15 degrees of longitude. 120 hours at an average speed of only 10 knots quickly adds up.

Admiral Kimmel was a talented man (as per his training of the fleet and his later work building landing craft) with a massive blindspot. The key message, once your stripped away the extra verbiage, came down to only 9 words: "This is a war warning. Execute appropriate defensive deployment." He did not do that at Pearl Harbor/Hawaii. He did not have enough aircraft to carry out the full maritime air reconnaissance called for in the Martin/Bellinger report, but he did have some aircraft (PBYs etc.), as did the Army which could have been used (such as B-18's which were obsolete) to do a limited search west and north of the islands (the main lines of potential threat). The key point, as he once admitted to a congressional committee, was that he just didn't think that the Japanese could carry out a major attack on the Hawaiian islands (other than maybe a sub or two off the harbor entrance), especially not before the start of the war, so he would have time to put his guard up when the word came.

I have my doubts getting The Type 93 or Type 95 plans would have helped with US torpedo designs. (That it might help US tactics since they would have a better understanding of IJN torpedo capabilities is probably the main gain.) BuOrd got access to German electric torpedoes via the UK and some captured/found ones early in the war. BuOrd (actually NTS) sort of said, "Nice, but we'll continue with our design already in progress. (Mark 20)" Their design did not pan out and the USN eventually got a copy of the German G7e electric (Mark 18) design via Westinghouse doing a crash program that produced quick results in 1942 - though there were teething problems.

With regards to the US acquiring the Long Lance before the war, one other major effect to point out is it would have probably led to a fair bit fewer damaged or lost Allied cruisers and destroyers. For quite a while into the war, US commanders (and I assume ABDA commanders as well) didn't know just how good the Long Lance was and so did not expect Japanese torpedo attacks to be as effective as they were (heck at least one time they blamed submarines for damage taken since they assumed Japanese surface ships couldn't possibly have torpedoes more effective than their own). Knowing the range and speed of the Long Lance might have caused them to be a bit more careful in surface actions like at the Java Sea or at Tassafaronga, and thus could have led to fewer casualties. (Also, looking forward to the re-enactment idea, sounds like a very interesting format)

Drach, On the US getting the Long Lance, I think the bigger impact would be the US being aware of just how long ranged they were and how large the warhead was. This would pretty significantly impact the losses early in the war, such as the battle of Savo Island where the US lost 3 heavy cruisers thinking they were out of range.

10:50 well... a tiny correction there, there was an another ship that was a more of an competitor and actually could have possed a serious danger for the HMS Warrior, the "Kong Sverre" of the Norwegian Navy launched same year. problem is that many haven't heard of it, it was "obsolete" as it came out since it had a inner structure of wood and was not 100% iron like Warrior, a bit slower with just 12 knots vs 14 but biggest of em all was that Norway was under Sweden at the time and had nothing to say on foreign matters and the Norwegian Government denied the Swedes any use of the ship or copying the weaponry. and it was also not thought of as a ship that where to go into fleet battle but more as an "movable coastal fortress" to scare the Swedes that we where in union with... but since the tech was evolving so fast at that time the maintenance was neglected to it's absolute and since it's core was of wood the ship went for the scrap under the great recession after being used as storage and living quarters for 50 years if it's not that much longer life. but it had several things Warrior did not, 4 360* rotatable high-angle Howitzer guns on the top and half of it's guns where rifled 60-pounders designed for going trough armour at very long distances, though not ship but coastal defence but guess it would worked on ship armour too...

The Mogami probably deserved a US Navy battle star given the number of Japanese ships it sunk.

Torpedoes in WW2 are unguided and easily avoided given sufficient warning. A submarine tries to be close enough that the target gets no warning (and electric torpedoes help with the "give no warning" part). A destroyer, especially at night, tries to detect the enemy early and send out a mobile minefield for them to run into, opening fire with guns only when the torpedoes start exploding. A PT boat tends to operate more like a submarine, because anything that justifies a torpedo is too big to notice the machineguns and light autocannon. A torpedo bomber tries to drop the torpedo so close that it just has time to recover to the depth set before impact, hitting the water 3-400 yards from the target. Torpedo bombers also commonly come in from both bows (port and starboard) so that even if the ships turns toward one group to present a narrower target the other group is getting a broadside shot. Against aircraft, the same topweight is probably better devoted to more AA guns rather than an active anti-torpedo system. The one case where an a tive anti-torpedo system might be useful is when Fuso and Yamashiro were trying to force their way through Surigao Strait against PT and DD opposition (and yes, eventually the battle line). Even then, the intellectual energy spent developing an a tive defense system might be better expended railing against your command system for putting you in such a bad spot.

Thank you for your excellent content. On the question of the medium bombers out of carriers an E-2 Hawkeye plane comes to mind its dimensions and weight are comparable to B 25 and it was initially designed to operate from modified Essex class carriers.

55:24 "trying to have a sword fight on the back of and Elephant with someone on the back of a slightly higher Elephant" so essentailly Lord of The Rings RoTK just at sea.

Lord Freeza: Five minutes until planet Namek explodes. Drachinifel: Okay, I'll stop recording my 5 minute guide when I hear the boom.

The war order sent to Kimmel emphasized defense against sabotage as the most important criteria with not causing panic among civilians as the second. The biggest failing that was under his control was not expanding the range of his maritime patrol further north and west. He had enough PBY's and B-17's on hand to do that, and the chances of discovering the Japanese task force would have been much better. In his defense, lamost no one believed the first blow would be against Hawaii and Pearl in particular. The expected first strike was against the Philippines, Guam, or Wake. There were some strategists who thought a strike against the NEI and Mayla would happen first so Japan could get their resources in line before they moved against the US. Some in the Navy actually thought Pearl was just too far away for the Japanese to get close without detection. Most believed the Japanese didn't have the resources after being worn out by the war in China to attack all three countries at once. If there was one person really responsible for Pearl Harbor, it was Yamamoto.

Please keep these Drydock videos on your channel. I will have to binge watch this channel to catch up someday. If I could quite my job, that would help.

RE: Teddy Sheean and the VC: The Royal Australian Navy has never had a member awarded a VC despite the best efforts of a number of valorous officers and sailors and those supporting them. Unbelievably, Sheean's actions earned him a mentioned in dispatches and no more. The RAN has made multiple attempts to get better recognition but the government has always knocked back (I know a few officers involved in the latest attempt in 2019). IMO the main reason it went unrecognised in the first place is that Sheean's death was in 1942 which were probably the darkest days on the war for Australia (and the RAN in particular) and giving medals for losses was probably deemed unseemly. An even more galling example in the lack of recognition for CO of HMAS Yarra, Lieutenant Commander Robert Rankin. Yarra was a sloop escorting a convoy (again in the cursed year of 1942) when over the horizon comes 3 IJN cruisers and 2 destroyers. Rankin hoisted the battle ensign, told his convoy to scatter and engaged the enemy with three 4in guns before being sunk. The most galling point of this? TWO Years earlier Acting Captain Edward Fegen has awarded the VC (rightly) for doing the same thing with the armed merchantman HMS Jervis Bay (more heavily armed than Yarra) when engaged by KM Admiral Scheer (note the one ship vs the task group Rankin fought). Worse odds, yet Rankin never received any commendation for his actions that day, let alone a VC.

Honestly man I can't wait so whatever you decide to do with your channel do it I'm ready

1:38:25 -- Huge question; generally speaking, *all* Allied service persons were better provisioned than their Axis counterparts, mostly due to the effects of naval blockade which sometimes preceded active hostilities. That's true for the Armies, the Air Forces, but especially the navies. Submarine crews were famously given special attention in this respect, on both the Allied and Axis sides.

He was Right man, right time and right place.

Maybe adding a bit of information to the question about a ship's paint being financed by it's officers: In times outdating proper human rescource managment, promotion was often based on the status you kept your vessel in, so spending some money might bring you a little closer to your next promotion. The other aspect is, that spending money on your vessel was a way to show of your status and/or wealth to the world.

Interesting re: the Sharnhorst vs Tripitz. It’s not unique to the Germans or WWII. I read the book written by the captain of the guided missile cruiser Vincennes back when it shot down that airliner. In it he reveal the antipathy of the other US surface ships in the Persian Gulf region towards the cruiser at the time. THe Vincennes was not only a new ship but also a new type that completely outclassed every other ship in the area. And all those other ship really resented it. They felt the Vincennes was lording over them and it earned itself the derisive nickname of Robocruiser,

1:44:42 can't stop imagining a Fletcher class destroyer plotted and with bell sailing around the Pacific 😂

Great episode- thanks👍

14:53 It's also worth pointing out that the Habakkuk would've been made using pykrete - which is a 14% mixture of sawdust or woodchippings into ice. Which drastically improves its strength and thermal characteristics and prevents it from melting fast. Whether it was a good idea or not is definitely debatable, but the idea of a floating pykrete ship that doesn't have to worry about melting the entire time is not. Like, granted, probably don't sail to the Caribbean - but for places like the North Atlantic... it was actually entirely feasible to have a ship built out of it there. Whether a supercarrier made sense - well, you be the judge of that.

An often-forgotten naval superpower is early medieval Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire. Until Caliphates are somewhat unified, it has no greater opposition, and even after that, it does somewhat successfully fight against what is Iberia, northern Africa and Middle East, mostly on its own. It even has a naval superweapon in greek fire. It only really fades after the Crusades manage to upend various naval bases it held on to, most notable being Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete, and it is, somewhat fittingly, Venetian republic that contributes to its naval defeat.

*Nice!!. Thanks for informative vid !!!*

The whole point of the naval treaties was to save money by preventing an arms race, no one was going to get round the treaty by spending extra money. A navy could have ommited a main turret and filled the space with an oil/coal bunker to fix the balance.

Speaking specifically to The question about "stretching ship" by adding a chunk - the US Coast Guard tried it, and the ships were all shortly decommissioned when the keels broke

Good morning , great show and thank you. Kevin from sunny Mexico.

excellent . thank you

Your comments on the Italiqan decapping belt design are valid. You left out that the method of attaching the cap (type of solder used) is also important in how thick that frontal decapping plate has to be to start the provess happening at all. German caps always used a very strong high-tempertature solder that was difficult to crack, for example. See Comments I made below for some details.

Three and a half hours, eh? Well, there goes me having a productive Sunday!

I ain't even gonna lie, this showed up when I went to sleep watching demon slayer and I'm really glad I found this. confused, but glad

The worst decision by Admiral Kimmel, removal of the anti torpedo nets on battleship row. The reason? Convenience! The nets made it harder to navigate in Pearl Harbor, around battleship row. Given the then recent lesson of the Battle of Taranto. Had the nets been in place, how many battleships would have actually been sunk, other than Arizona and Utah?

Ty. Education committed.

Drach quoting Londo making me cry I love that line.

01:11:54 - USN with Baby Lances on the submarines in the early war ... oh boy oh boy, IJN would be in for a nasty surprise

Best counter to a larger navy WWII era would be to have a larger Air Force, and let thier fleet of ships get the force Zed treatment

I like narrow-boats and GRPs and Widebeams too. All things cannaly! Closest we have here is the Ridau in Canada, Kingston to Ottawa. Neat.

To the medium bomber off of a carrier question. There WAS a large fighter in the arsenal that did carry bombs and even rockets by the end of the war. My personal favorite the P47 Thunderbolt.

re: Liberty ship running out of ammunition at Trafalgar It's a cargo ship. If we load it up correctly before sending it back, that bastard is *never* running out of ammunition.

USN veteran here. In response to the food question: How good the food was on my ship depended on what cook was on duty that day. But overall I can say the food was pretty good. We always had balanced meals and the majority of the time we were allowed to have second helpings. Which is why a couple of overweight sailors got wrote up and and were forced into a disciplined diet and health regimen. We usually had fresh eggs for breakfast but sometimes we had the powdered eggs, and I must admit they didn't taste bad. We always had nice dinners on holidays too, turkey and ham for Xmas and Thanksgiving. We had a crew of 350 and our mess deck had more space than my house. Plus walk-in freezers, etc.

For starters if any of the Tomahawks on modernised Iowa class battleships carried W80 warheads the war in that theatre would have ended within days. Tomahawks in the Atlantic would have made short work of U-boat and S-boat pens as well asAtlantic Wall targets. They could also have been used for decapitation attempts aimed at Hitler. The helicopters would have been the most capable ASW platform of WW2.

"Stupid amount of Essexes(?)" in some form would make a nice T-shirt

Thanks to the last bit, I now have the rather cruel image of the Bucentaure eating a torpedo in my head.

My father spoke a little about food aboard his ship. The head cook had been a member of the San Francisco based Cooks and Stewards union. ( Yup! They ate well!) They got turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas! And as far as refrigeration was concerned, to put it succinctly, when the ship was ordered scrapped and was being cleaned out, the crew found a ton hamburger that was stamped 1913 and cheese wheels that were just as old. The cooks kept the stoves running and the crew , my dad said, made absolute pigs of themselves! By the way, he served aboard a WW1 era minesweeper that was upgraded to the rank of Desrtoyer Tender (The USS Blackhawk) after Pearl Harbor.

The German Navy during WWII ran some decapping tests with large shells (8") using their latest L/4.4 APC design (8-16" HIPPER, SCHARNHORST, BISMARCK, and Coast Defense guns) where they put in cement between the decapping plate and the main KC plate in some of these tests. As you say, the space needed -- also found in some British WWII tests for anti-tank armor designs -- was that if you succeeded in knocking off the cap, you needed at least one caliber of empty space to have over a 50/50 chance of the cap separating from the projectile before it hits the main plate and is slammed back onto the nose with no benefit to the plate hit, with a slightly larger distance rapidly making the cap wobble so much that it cannot do this and can be considered removed and the projectile hitting with no cap. The cement did decrease the needed gap to about half that needed with no cement, as it made the cap wobble much more when it no longer had the projectile to hold it face-first. Your Italian cement-type filler would probably also reduced the over-one-caliber requirement significantly, too -- not sure by how much, but I have not seen their test results. The US SOUTH DAKOTA and IOWA gap between the 1.25" (SD) or 1.5" (IOWA) waterline amidships hull and the 19-degree-inclined Class "A" (thick-faced KC-type) waterline belt was roughly 1 meter (3') at the top edge of the belt and over 1.3 meter (4') at the bottom edge (about 1.6 meter (5') underwater if the ship was at its nominal "standard" floatation depth), so any decapped projectile would have enough distance to reliably lose its AP cap as far as protecting its nose is concerned. The problem here is the initial decapping plate thickness needed. What kind of steel was not important, as US 6" AP tests showed, even at 75 degrees obliquity from right-angles; even mild steel acted the same as Class "B" homogeneous armor plate here, EXCEPT that this steel had to be SOFT, >NOT< FACE-HARDENED, which was brittle and required TRIPLE the plate thickness to decap the shell as needed for the usual cap designs being discussed here. Most capped projectiles -- and post-WWI Hooded Common projectiles (US "Special" Common designs and many foreign others having this to hold the windscreen on without cutting weakening threads directly into the hard projectile nose) -- that used solder (sometimes plus crimping into a ring of shallow pits in the nose along the cap lower edge) or, in early pre-WWI capped designs, various mechanical things like crimping, raised nose groves, or ring-shaped locking pins, did not need a thick plate to knock off the cap. Merely a steel plate of 0.0805-caliber thickness (or slightly over 0.25-caliber of face-hardened steel), was usually thick enough to knock off the regular AP cap/Hood of APC/Hooded Common shells of the armies or navies of most countries (there was a small chance of not working for plates around this thickness, but as the added "0.0005" shows, the range of values between no effect and complete decapping was rather narrow). Even if only part of the cap hit thick-enough plate, as hitting a thinner plate layer with reinforcing/doubling plates around each of its plate edges for locking them together, would work, as the twisting force was enough to make up for less decapping force from compression/impact shock in virtually all cases -- this meant that even thin plate may have a chance to decap an APC/Hooded projectile, depending on how much of this reinforcement area was used in the bulkhead/armor construction on that ship/tank. This has to be studied per design of the plating layer hit, of course. There were, however, important exceptions to the given 0.0805-caliber decapping thickness mentioned above. Obviously, some of the pre-WWI mechanical-only cap-holding methods may be more subject to being knocked off (I have no data though and this probably varies a lot); I usually just lump them in with the regular soldered caps here. The important exceptions were caps held on by stronger types of solder than the low-temperature type usually used (reduced heating to prevent the chance of reducing the nose hardness/temper by excess heat applied to the shell nose under the cap during manufacture). High-temperature extra-strong solders were used in many kinds of steel object manufacture with much more bonding strength. I know myself of two nations that had solders of the high-temperature type, some WWII US Army tank/anti-tank APC shell makers and Krupp of Germany, and, from the thickness of decapping plate used in front of its new battleship armored belts, it seems this also may have applied to Italian APC shell makers. In the US case, this was simply due to the many smaller companies that made shells to Army specs during WWII, some of which had been using high-temperature, double-strength solder in their other jobs and simply continued, since they had no problem with any temperature effects on the projectile noses and it was simply cheaper, for them, to keep using the same solder for everything that they made. These shells had caps that were almost always simply double-thickness-needed caps (0.1605-caliber worked). Note that this means that which shells needed the extra-thick decapping plate and which did not was dependent on who made those particular shells. From US Navy tests, almost all 37 mm M51 APC shot/shells needed double the regular plate and it was a crap-shoot with the 75 mm M61 or 76 mm M62 APC shells as to if double the plate was needed to decap them (the Army did not care if the solder was extra-strong or not in its minimum specs) -- I do not know about any other US Army ammo as to this. Krupp, starting in its "C/11" (Model year 1911) APC shells began to manufacture, due to the new half-caliber-KC-plate, 30-degree impact obliquity angle being added to APC shell test specs, shells with increased solder strength for all of its new "tough"-capped naval APC shells of the "L/3,2" through "L/3,8" types and, after WWI, just kept the solder it had previously used, even though it was no longer really needed for the new hardened AP caps, as most other manufacturers showed. This was a "super"-strength high-temperature solder that German tests showed needed about 0.2-caliber-thick steel plate to knock off (the value needed was not as precisely determined as the US Navy and some Army tests showed in WWII). Italian decapping plates on its LITTORIO Class battleship belts seem to imply that they required plates thick enough to decap even Krupp APC shells, which might imply that such was used in Italian WWII APC shells too -- though it is possible that they did not use any special solder, but knew from tests/documents about Krupp APC shells and its strong Krupp solder and decided to protect their belt armor against anything that they knew about, no matter if they used it themselves or not.