Dr. Alexander Clarke has argued that instead of hiding the true specifications of the Yamatos to make the enemy underestimate them, the Japanese should have gone with a Tarkin-esque approach of intimidation and announced these ships shortly before Yamato’s completion to throw all other navies off their game and force them to rethink their naval construction plans, which would buy Japan a bit more time to build up its naval forces. Do you agree with this proposal?
Could the Royal Navy have built the Lion class battleships while still complying with the rules of the Washington Naval Treaty? Also would a KGV with triple 14" guns in 3 turrets have been a more reliable and cost effective option than 2 quads and a duel?
I recently became aware of the existance of the Kitson Still engine. a Diesel Steam Hybrid engine which not only worked but was remarkably fuel efficient. Was there any attempt by the British (or anyone else) to use such a design in one of their warships, and could it have worked/been useful?
@@davidknowles2491 I'm sure the designers intended the quad turrets to be reliable. I looked in to the choice to revert to 14" on the KGVs. The decision seems to have been driven by the "more guns equals more hits" theory. The initial plan was for the KGVs to mount 12-14", but the armor deck was raised, and that extra weight required B turret to be reduced to a twin. As one book I read said, that decision, which reduced the armament to only 10 guns, undercut the reasoning to go to 14" in the first place. Admiralty analysis of the various design proposals said that 9-15" gave the best balance of firepower, speed, and protection, and explicitly said the only reason to go to 14" was if required by treaty. I also looked in to the triple turrets on the Nelsons. They also had many faults, most of which had been corrected by the mid 30s, but the basic design of the systems slowed the rate of fire to only about 1.6 rounds per minute, vs 2 rounds per minute on the KGVs, so adopting the Nelson design, in spite of it being debugged by 36, was a no-go.
Would something like an Iowa museum sell a large chunk of steel plate for it's prenuclear steel for large amounts of money? I heard that stuff was really valuable
My grandfather was a Clyde-side boiler scaler, by occupation. This involved crawling inside ships boilers, physically chipping off the water scale deposits with a small hammer. As Drach, explains, the inevitable and progressive build up of these salt deposits has a dramatically negative effect on a steam boiler’s heat transfer efficiency. Obviously, periodically removing it was an extremely unpleasant and unhealthy task. He died in his seventies, in the 1970’s, of unrelated causes, but he was frail and weak all the time I knew him and the family assumed it was a consequence of his job. Whatever, he had a positive attitude and a fine sense of humour!
The health effects of things on ships from the mid 20th century were generally sub-optimal. My grandfather was a sailor of the period. He didn't necessarily die from exposure to asbestos, more likely it was smoking.
Salute to the real, hard men of days gone by. Still hard men around but the leftist namby pamby metro sexuals that flood online don't exactly inspire me for the future of American men in general. Let's hope sanity prevails in the future.
@@scottyfox6376 Thanks for the salute, Scotty. I know what you mean, but I guess my granddad would consider even me to be a namby-pamby metrosexual. Don’t worry, though, because I’m not American and, according to an online attitude survey I took, Im decidedly right wing🤷♂️ because I happen to value hard work, individual responsibility, free enterprise and gender clarity. Times change and nobody’s perfect, I guess. 😐
Rail locomotives also didn't do so hot with steam turbines, as it turns out. Turns out running on rails is a bit bumpier than in a ship, so things get jostled about pretty badly and knocked out of place. Plus, unless they've got a transmission of some sort, they absolutely suck down fuel at low speeds.
To say welding brass to steel would be "difficult" might be the greatest understatement Drach has ever made. God bless the welder than has to to do that job. 😬
What ? A chance to get horizontal with the ol' lady reminds ME it's Saturday night !! That, and Drach the next morning.....so I CAN relate after all !! Lol 🚬😎
28:50 This is an important point, certainly in the UK. You could make a massive powerful locomotive to pull a long heavy train, but after a certain point it would be too long for the infrastructure (length of loops, signal spacing, etc) that that extra power was rarely needed and you have a big heavy loco which leads to more wear and tear on the infrastructure. As well as the marine boilered W1, the LNER was the only british company to use 2-8-2 tender locos and the aforementioned issues were encountered with them.
UK loading gauge is absolutely hilariously small compared to other places. Other European countries for the most part are larger, but all except the former Soviet states pale in comparison to the US. The idea of a 2-8-2 being very large is kind of funny when they were kind of bog standard freight engines in the US.
@@davidfuller581 Remember though that the UK was where the first railroads were built, others like US and SU were later and had longer distances and heavier loads designed in.
@@gregorywright4918 yes, though they also expanded as needed moreso. The UK's choice for 3 or even 4 cylinder 4-6-2s instead of just using larger 2-cylinder 4-6-4s or 4-8-4s I would postulate is down to loading gauge limitations. Then again, the UK rail systems didn't even transition to full train air brake systems on freight until the 1970s (60+ years after federal law in the USA required them on every train), so... The UK was an odd duck in that sense. They just didn't bother doing things other countries did.
I remember the photo and article in 'The Daily Telegraph' announcing the towing away for scrapping of the KGV. At that date her steel, predating the atom bomb, would therefore have had a specialist use?
It wasn't the atomic bomb detonation that makes post WWII steel slightly radioactive, it was the use of radioactive isotopes in the lining of the blast furnaces. They used these isotopes to measure the wear and thickness of the lining. The amount of radiation is trivial, and for most purposes, harmless. It is only for the most radiation sensitive instruments that it becomes a problem. Therefore only relatively small amounts are needed. That is why no steel manufacturer makes it today. It could be done, just not enough demand for it. Most pre-war steel just gets melted down and used as ordinary scrap steel.
Regarding breaking up ships for scrap. Doing a quick RU-vid search on Alang, Gadani, or Chittagong shipbreaking will give plenty of insight in the processes involved. Granted in these locations, there are whole cottage industries that involve the collection and reselling of fixtures, parts, and pieces, along with the scrap metal.
The U boat question points me to your Plan Z video. Royal Navy would counter by printing out Flower, Black Swan and Fleet destroyers like how current gas prices are rising
Maybe the question that should be asked about Vanguard is how it would stand up to an anti ship cruise missile. The Soviet union wasn't attacking big ships with ships, they were using lots of missiles. Big ones. The whole "we should have kept a battleship" is just nostalgic twaddle.
@@Drachinifel I doubt if anything would have survived well and a big target meant bigger losses. Even cruisers were largely outdated by the early sixties; witness their rapid disappearance. Add to that the difficulties of crewing so many large vessels. Even Belfast didn't sail with a full complement.
I take it in the 300 UBoat question we're assuming 300 Ocean going boats, I can't imagine 300 Type II's doing much except make the North Sea more of a No-Go Zone for merchants.
As for a 'Yamato' of the previous iterations of battleships, I'd venture that the Dreadnought herself is a perfect example. The Yamato is supposed to outclass everything that comes before it. So too, Dreadnought. She is built to swat all other existing battleships, which means, all the pre-dreadnoughts. She is not built with the intention of being the first of dozens as historically happened. The Yamato could very well have followed the same course as Dreadnought. Had WW2 not happened, and air power and the carrier not proved their ascendancy, other naval battleship building programs likely would have evolved to produce their own Yamato equivalents and beyond. Quite possibly without an intervening war Yamato may very well have been scrapped after little more than a decade simply because she was obsolete by measure of her follow-on peers.
I think that the Soverign of the Sea is a good candidate for an age of sail Yamato, not so much for her technical superiority as for her reputation. Your foes don't give you the nickname Golden Decil because they think you're a pushover.
Except that Yamato was kept in such secrecy that nobody really feared her, which was actually the point: the Japanese wanted her to be underestimated so that the Americans wouldn’t realize what they were dealing with until it was too late.
Quite frankly I'm concerned Rurik would shake herself apart before even reaching 28, let alone 30 knots. Blücher should have the better high-speed hull profile. Though that would be assuming Blücher was... I guess taken as a prize by an Entente navy? If Germany is still a major naval power post WW1 the treaties would've looked a lot different so there's really no telling there. Actually, that sounds almost realistic. The french are crazy/stupid enough to take Blücher as a prize and try to make it work. Would be a low-budget affair though, which your proposed refits certainly aren't.
27:35 the Hush Hush W1 locomotive was made using a marine boiler and it's one weird looking engine due to the shape of a marine boiler. It was designed by Nigel Gresley who also designed Mallard the fastest steam train in the world.
The Baltimore & Ohio built several experimental watertube-boiler locomotives beginning in 1927. They were unsuccessful because while watertube boilers are really good for applications that require long periods of steady power output--stationary power plants and ships--they don't do well where the power demand is highly variable, as in a locomotive. The firetube boiler is better in that application.
@@michaelmorley7719 to add to that, Baldwin 60000 at the Franklin Institute has a Water Tube firebox, which was trialed in place of a full water tube boiler by Baldwin for a few engines, and it was found that while it gave better steam production, maintenance and cleaning was said to be an absolute nightmare and much more costly endeavor than a traditional firetube firebox (mouthful I know). So ultimately, on the harder water that most steam locomotives used, it was easier on maintenance to just not use a water tube firebox or boiler
It was also the only tender locomotive with a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement to run on UK tracks... though it wasn't much like the American 4-6-4s, which were basically a brute forcing of the 4-6-2 design for more power output at speed (though not without its caveats, they pretty much needed a trailing truck booster to start heavier trains).
@@PaulfromChicago The F-7s were certainly up there - AFAIK, the Hiawatha timetables required 100mph + running in places. The LNER A4s did not go anywhere near that in regular service, to my knowledge.
wrt the Torpedo strike on Gneisenau, that operation is covered in detail in "Torpedo Bomber" by Ralph Barker. The book was also published in the UK as "Ship Busters". As Drac said, the raid was botched quite badly. iirc, from reading the book a few years ago, one other Beaufort did make it to the rendezvous point outside the harbor and was waiting for the other Beauforts to arrive. As that Beaufort orbited, the pilot saw Campbell arrive, and roar past, into the harbor, instead of forming up with the other Beaufort. Reading how that raid had been planned, the thought that occurred to me was that, had the bombers shown up as planned, all the AA gunners would have been awake and at their posts when the Beauforts tried to penetrate the harbor, and would probably have been shot out of the sky. As it worked out, Campbell took everyone by surprise and successfully reached the ship. The Germans recovered the plane and crew from the harbor. Apparently Campbell had been hit moments after dropping the torpedo, because the Germans reported a Canadian, I don't recall the man's name at the moment, was in the pilot's seat, when the plane was recovered.
I think one reason also about why Titanic is popular is even though a lot of people lost their lives, there were still a lot of survivors to tell stories and give interviews.
And there were quite a few upper class, famous and rich people who were on board and either died or survived and were interviewed Modern day equivalent is Branson and Musk build the first private starship, with a big invitation only of the rich and famous for the maiden flight, and things go horribly wrong. Like the combined personal fortunes of all the dead is literally in the trillions
Titanic is almost the Mona Lisa of ships. The Mona Lisa only gained its fame after being stolen a century or so back. Titanic gained its modern popularity from the discovery of its wreck. The movie just amplified the popularity gained by the well publicized discovery of its wreck. Just like the Mona Lisa was never ignored by the art world Titanic never left the public consciousness, though it was relegated to the back burner, as books like Raise The Titanic (fun book btw) show, it was really Ballard's expedition that elevated it. I doubt the Titanic movie would have ever been made had the wreck never been found.
@@whyjnot420 The author of "A Night to Remember" said that there wasn't much interest in Titanic at the time of writing, but the book was a big success. The discovery of the wreck did spark a second wave of interest but the book had already sparked the first wave and there probably wouldn't have been that much interest in the wreck if not for the interest that was already there because of the book. All the recently found naval wreckages haven't really sparked much interest outside of niche spheres.
As a former us navy sailor and firecontrolman who witnessed new jerseys recommishening, I have some knowledge of a hypothetical missile hitting an iowa class battleship. The armor is strong enough to withstand any of the cold war conventional missiles. During one REFTRAy (refresher training) when a notional exocet missile hit no. 2 turret, the captain had the word passed on the 1MC "sweepers sweepers, man your brooms. " . The trainers were pulling their hair out, trying to figure out someway of hypothetically hurting the ship to train and evaluate the damage control teams.
What about the SS-N-2 Styx with its 1,000 pound shaped charge warhead? That ought to be able to get through any armor it hits directly, although I would mostly expect it to hit the hull amidships where the armor belt is a few feet inboard of the shell plating.
@@kemarisite yes bigger boom than the shells the armour was made to stop but not the velocity or sold mass of a 16 in shell. I just cant see a missile punching threw the belt. But it would mission kill a Iowa I believe. The uper works and such could be obliderated. I mean it took 2 atomic blast to sink a much older ship in the bikini test.
I'm not an expert on cold war era anti-shipping missiles, but I am aware of anti-shipping missiles that achieve kinetic energies comparable to battleship shells, and the iowa classes armour could be brutalised by a lot of battleship shells that existed at pretty extensive combat ranges as it was hardly the classes (and US fast BB's generally) strong point. Though it's difficult to calculate as missiles burn much of their mass to the target, but also maintain their velocity better to their max ranges. But I'll say that by the 80's when you've got missiles hitting mach 2-3 we're talking battleship AP shell levels of kinetic energy. The difference is that most anti-shipping missiles aren't optimised for heavy armour penetration because the fast majority of ships during the period of anti-ship missile dominance has almost no armour to speak of. Most anti-shipping missiles seem to be fitted with either shaped charges or SAP warheads, and if they would fail to penetrate the armour of an iowa, it's simply because the missile it was optimised to do maximum damage to the majority of ships out there (with no armour). That being said, a 500kg shaped charge could penetrate a truly comical amount of armour, even with extreme spacing of plates, if it was optimised for penetration rather than post-armour effects
@@frankbarnwell____ I agree that CIWS is likely to be extremely effective against things like Styx. I'm just torn on how effective the warhead would be if it reached the target. I've seen lots of comments about supersonic and hypersonic missiles and how much additional kinetic energy they bring to the point of impact, but that is completely irrelevant if the missile body isn't designed to convert that kinetic energy into armor penetration (it isn't) rather than more energetically propelling broken missile components away from the point of impact. What that high velocity does do is take the missile through the various detection and active protection layers more quickly, giving them less time to respond and fewer shots.
You and indeed that reply in the exercise make a serious mistake. The most real danger to an Iowa from an anti-ship missile would NOT be the missile warhead itself. The most real danger would be the unexpended fuel on board the missile. Fire started by that would be very, very difficult to put out. Far from impossible to put out of course, but get a brace of anti-ship missiles striking around the same sort of time and it would get might hairy for the damage control crews.
When the USN scrapped the incomplete hulls of USS Kentucky and USS Illinois they salvaged the complete power plants and used them on the AOE program in the early sixties…USS Sacramento, etc. They served as fast replenishment ships around the world until finally scrapped 2007-8.
Also note that the new USS Enterprise CVN 80 in addition to salvaged pieces of from USS Enterprise CVN 65 will include several portholes internally mounted from USS Enterprise CV6.
Aside from just the inherent appeal of war/disaster movies (i.e. why Apollo 13 gets attention despite its failure), both the Titanic and the Bismarck's fates have a lot of specific elements that make for great storytelling. Titanic has the irony of a very safe ship being sunk on its maiden voyage (and missing what a few of what modern ships would consider essential safety features, like the lifeboat problem, because Titanic inspired said features), class disparity exploration (for modern retellings), the sinking took a few hours so there's time for great character moments (like the orchestra playing to soothe passengers, the crew desperately trying to slow the sinking or at least help people get away, the passengers who can't make it to lifeboats facing their deaths, et cetera), there's the Carpathia putting herself in danger in a desperate attempt to make it in time (and only barely catching the distress message), and so on. Plus, you can't deny it makes for some gorgeous sets; the decorators really knew what they were doing. We also know a lot about it, because many passengers (including multiple celebrities) did survive to be interviewed, the sinking happened in the middle of peacetime so there was no other horrible tragedies to distract people (which is what happened to the real worst maritime disaster, the sinking of Wilhelm Gustolff, because it happened in the Eastern Front of WW2 and a lot of people were dying elsewhere), there were two official enquiries about the sinking (one British and one American) and several expeditions have explored its wreck. Bismarck's story includes battleship fights (always cool), British patriotism, an ocean-spanning chase scene, and the sort of improbable drama that occurs more in movies than in actual battles. She completely destroys Hood (an action with great symbolic value, since Hood was the Royal Navy's fllagship) with a single salvo (much to the surprise of everyone involved), and then herself gets disabled by a lucky torpedo to the rudder- basically being a real life version of the attack on the Death Star from Star Wars, but followed up with a badass engagement with British warships to take her down for good. And then there's that one crazy Polish destroyer whose name I can't spell having her own say. It's easy to play up that Bismarck was a real threat that only failed because the RN had to respond with overwhelming force (and got lucky), even becoming a victim of her own success when she blew up Hood. And as her captain promised, Bismarck fought valiantly down to the last shell. Finally, much like the Titanic, the story was well-publicized. It kinda had to be; sinking the Hood was a major blow to British national pride, and the government couldn't afford to let anyone think they let Bismarck get away with sinking their flagship.
To be honest the only reason I got into warships in the first place was because of Titanic and Bismarck. You see I got interested in Titanic first then I found out that the guy who found the wreck of Titanic also found Bismarcks wreck which got me interested in that ship and the rest is history.
Alot of Soviet anti ship missles used blast fragmentation warheads and weren't designed to peneatrate armor. Its still alot of high explosives hitting at a high speed though. Shipwreck and sandbox box missles are around a mach 2 weapon speed wise. An Iowa could probably withstand 2 or 3 hits especially if spaced out over the hull. Anything more then 3 would probably require dock work.
Depending on where they hit the fighting capacity might be reduced by quite a bit though. Without sensors a ship might as well be unarmed. Now more than ever. The new UK super light anti ship missile for the F35 is supposed to target radars, VLS and guns to effectively disable a ship. I guess to sink it a couple GBUs would suffice afterwards.
55:48 this is actually a myth Titanic was never said to be unsinkable. There were mentioning that she was very safe, but that's because she was, as she had the latest safety features. But never said to be unsinkable. The reason it was famous is because it did change some safety rules, it was one of the first global news events, the sinking was slow therefore their was a lot of tails to be told during the sinking. Which made it perfect candidate for novels and movies and therefore to stay in the publics eye.
You raise an interesting point. The shipbuilders Harland and Wolff insist that the Titanic was never advertised as an unsinkable ship. They claim that the 'unsinkable' myth was the result of people's interpretations of articles in the Irish News and the Shipbuilder magazine. However, an extract from a White Star Line publicity brochure produced in 1910 for the twin ships Olympic and Titanic states "these two wonderful vessels are designed to be unsinkable." Some sources say this was from an advertising flyer while others point to an illustrated brochure. The White Star Line insist that the words used in the publicity brochure claim the Titanic’s was designed to be unsinkable, not that it was unsinkable. When the New York office of the White Star Line was informed that Titanic was in trouble, White Star Line Vice President P.A.S. Franklin announced ” We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe the boat is unsinkable.” I believe the Titanic had already sunk at this point. Passenger Margaret Devaney said “I took passage on the Titanic for I thought it would be a safe steamship and I had heard it could not sink.” Passenger, Thomson Beattie, wrote home “We are changing ships and coming home in a new unsinkable boat.” While proving what was claimed and where it was claimed is difficult, I personally think it's fair to say that many people of the time thought and referred to the Titanic as unsinkable.
@@ricardobimblesticks1489 The big innovation was the idea of watertight bulkheads subdividing the ship, they had calculated that any one or two being holed would not let in enough water to endanger her. No one had thought about the possibility that many more subdivisions could be breached by scraping ALONG an iceberg, which is why Drach said that she would have been OK if she had hit it head-first. Probably the same thing with torpedoes - one would not have hurt her enough, but several, especially on the same side, would have led to quick loss. Often a failure in engineering is the result of not having encountered or considered a problem condition before. One it has been faced, it becomes part of the design rules of good engineering.
My recollection of the upfitting and redeployment of the Iowa class was mostly for show. The concept of a 600 ship US Navy was championed by Ronald Regan and he wanted these to show the flag. They were in better shape than most of the decommissioned fleet having beem active during the Vietnam era but crews were retired and had moved on. The Navy did not teach many of the specific systems unique to WW2 ships, and made a call out to past crewnmen, some in their 60's. The Iowas were doomed by obsolesence. The new ships would be of the various classes such as the Spruance, Perry, Ticonderoga, and Arliegh Burke. All four were Gas turbine propulsion and the latter two were Aegis equipped ships. These new combatants were as different from the Iowas as the Dreadnaughts were from the Iowas. Eventually all of the 50's, 60's and 70's era ships (my eras) were decommisioned in favor of the newer classes and computer age capabilities. As strong as the Iowas were, they could not compete in the modern age primarily due to expense and lack of expertise in maintaining theor systems. They could not be upgraded without sacrificing more of the fleet than was practical. And lastly, modern weapons such as cruise missles have made the big guns obsolete, although it pains me to admit it.
56:00 For Titanic while I agree that the hype and the scale (by far the largest non-military disaster in the West of the time) were big factors. I suspect some other elements played a big role. First, there were significant numbers of rich and important people on board, including some of the most prominent people in the US, UK, and Canada. Second, the timing of the disaster. In a developing era of mass media where the story would get much more coverage than if it had happened a decade or two earlier. Third, the large number of survivors (over seven hundred), including famous and wealthy people. These people had the story broadly promoted through the developing media of the day. Fourth, the disaster occurred at a point when there was a lot of push back against companies exploiting people and unsafe practices. For example the story about the lack of lifeboats definitely gained play with a public that was pushing against evil big companies and for worker and public safety laws.
thanks again Drach for all your hard work and excellent presenting of this. And thanks to Mrs Drach for her understanding of your passion. Regarding the Political decision to scrap Vanguard, being the cynic I am, "You never underestimate a politician ability to screw over everyone, including the country they allegedly serve, to further their own pursuit of power, money and lack of accountability.
Politicians are fairly decent in wartime (well, except that one who blabbed about the depth settings on depth charges being too shallow, and that one that blabbed about the code-breaking at Midway...), but in peacetime military preparedness is not going to get them many votes (except shipyard workers). Butter beats guns until the guns start firing.
Iowa class BB's were thought to be able to shrug off Exocet and Chinese Silk Worm anti-ship missiles that were present in the gulf war region at the time.
There's the apocryphal quip of a Iowa class BB's answer to a journalist question of what would his reaction be to getting hit by an exocet near the waterline like what had happened in the Falklands. His answer was "pipe swabers to starboard" or words to that effect.
To be fair, Titanic was not particularly hyped up, as far as I know. Of course the White Star Line was bragging about their safety measures as a part of their marketing (which included the fact that their ships carried more lifeboats than were legally required btw.), but many people tend to forget that the Titanic was only the second ship of her class. The launch and maiden voyage of the Olympic had drawn much more public attention and it was only slightly smaller than her new sistership, so the fact that the Titanic was - at the time - the biggest passenger liner in the world was pretty much only a technicality. The maiden voyage of the Titanic was still an important public event, but it wasn't the unique marvellous white elephant most people nowadays seem to think. It was seen and marketed as being very safe and even practically unsinkable, but not the absolutely most indestructible ship in the universe. Edit: I think the sinking of the Titanic has such an important place in the collective memory is because it was the first major sinking of one of the new big ocean liners with an unprecedented number of deaths, including many wealthy and well-known individuals. And it was of course a dramatic story, perfectly fitting the need of the public (then and now) for entertainment and imagination. Had the Titanic not hit the iceberg, then the sinking of the Lusitania would've been the first major loss of a big ocean liner at sea - the impact on public opinion about Germany and even the course of the war could've been very different. But the Titanic was the first, so it stuck in our memory. (Helped by countless media interpretations, not the least of them being the James Cameron movie).
Many rail companies experimented with high pressure water tube boilers sooner or later but in the end they all had the same problem: The required extra costs for production and maintenance were so high, it became economically infeasible to adopt the technologies, even if individual engines showed promising economic benefits. In the end steam technology as a whole died down entirely in favour of Diesel and electric engines just when advances in design and metallurgy could have made more advanced boilers feasible.
It is said that the General Belgrano was sunk with period Mk8 torpedoes because they were more appropriate for the WW2 construction. My sources suggest that it was because the modern tigerfish torpedoes simply didn't work. What would modern torpedoes that blow up underneath a ship do to an armoured warship? A modern destroyer is chopped in half.
Regardless, and "beside the point", as i understand it was the older torps that were used to sink the old Brooklyn class cruiser, one hit in the extreme bow of the ship, and blow it off (it was a US cruiser after all), but the bulkheads held, so it did not contribute to the sinking, however the other tinfish did hit just behind the armour belt, and did penetate deep into the hull before exploding, causing massive leaking, sinking the ship in short time. I think the hull was so weakened by rust, over the years, that she would have been sunk by any torpedoe regardless.
About the US outbuilding the UK: There is a story of a British and American warship passing in the Atlantic towards the end of WWII, and hailing on the radio. US ship: "Greetings to the second-largest navy in the world!" UK ship: "Greetings to the second-best."
The problem with accretion in boiler tubes is that the buildup acts as an insulator between the metal of the tube and the water inside. As any accretion grows, it will reduce the amount of heat that can be transferred to the water, reducing the output of the tube. If it gets too thick, the tube metal will rupture. This is because the heat transfer into the water keeps the tube cool. Without enough transfer, the boiler fire will heat the tube up hotter and hotter. The strength of steel goes down with increasing temperature. Eventually, the tube will become so hot that the metal will be too weak to hold in the boiler’s pressure and the tube will rupture, spraying steam into the boiler’s firebox and forcing the boiler to be shut down. Once it is cool, the boiler will be drained and the offending tube plugged at both ends. The boiler is then refilled and relit and the ship proceeds as normal, just with that boiler producing ever so slightly less steam due to the missing tube.
Lol you asked what if France had nukes in 1939. Or more likely just one. Answer: THE DAILY DOUBLE DING DING DONG. What is: The Germans have nukes in 1940. Lol
in regards the Iowa's and resilience against anti ship missiles, the soviet navy actually provided an answer on a memo dated from 1987 or 1988 , I believe the document that is mentioned in the memoirs of Admiral Gorshkov , become somewhat public after 2010. I am going to recall from memory and therefore there is always a chance for error but in general it goes like this: The "soviets" had the notion that the soviet ASM would bounce back from the Iowa's armored belt. this exaggerated belief was due to 2 factors : - the russian ASM (anti ship missiles) arsenal was inadequate do deal with the armor of the Iowa's. This was not a problem solely restricted to the soviet navy. No one had built heavy armored ships since the early 50's and due to that there had been no need for ASM's with Armor piercing abilities.To make things worse, with the deployment of close in automated weapon systems, such as radar controlled gatlings, ASM's needed to ability to , when closing the target, make erratic evasive movements , what meant that they would decelerate a fair bit and so the kinetic impact would be lower than often predicted. Additionally by the 70s , the russian navy - and others - had moved to fragmentation based warheads that would be extremely effective against all bar armored vessels . - somewhat due to the inherent russian appreciation and romanticism for large ships (or for funding reasons, as some saw in the Iowa's a reason to push for a soviet response) the iowa's were seen as the most dangerous threat to russian surface vessels. Due to the combination of the above stated , research and design of a new AP capable missile was started but nothing come from it due to the political collapse of the Soviet Union. While in theory creating a new armor piercing capable missile would at first not appear to be a challenge , the logistic aspect actually made the process far more convulsed and complex. There was a debate between retrofitting such missiles to existing ships, what would require new larger launchers and guiding systems and by extension reduce the number of available ASM per ship, versus the construction of a few new ships that would be able to operate the new AP missiles in a rmore efficient manner. Furthermore there was also the question if existing submarines could operate such weapons, as neither the existing torpedo tubes or vertical launchers present in the soviet submarines would struggle with what most likely would be in terms of raw dimensions,a larger missile. Eventually the decision appears to swung into the direction of retrofitting , what meant that the designers were essentially tasked with creating an AP capable missile that would need to have similar dimensions to the existing ASM's in service- something that probably could only be achieved by reducing the explosive charge . Outside of that, there are a few interesting things that come to memory, a) Russian naval annalists credited the Iowa's with speeds exceeding 36 knots. b) Russian intel believed that with laser assistance and special charges the iowa's 16'' guns were able to lob shells at distances far greater than those generally accepted. This is interesting since the Iowas carried an helicopter equipped with the kind of laser devices that the russians mention. Interestingly the US Navy did play with the idea of a high speed "sub caliber shell" ( 8 inches) that they believed could be hit targets at 80 or more miles, and it is possible that rumors of it had reached soviet agents. c) Russians also believed that all or at least some of the Iowa's carried special tactical nuclear 16'' shells. d) the general consensus was that no soviet ships could withstand more than 2 16'' shells and retain any type of combat capacity, and that the kinetic impact of a single 16 inches shell would knock out most electronic systems. In any sort of conflict situation russian surface vessels should never come to distances of inferior to 50 miles from the Iowa's.
31:30 seen as both Warspite and Roma both had the fritz x (I know it isn't a missile but interacts similar) go through them and Iowa has less armour than both (Roma having slightly better quality battleship armour), wouldn't anything the size and speed of Fritz X go through
You forgot the build of the Fritz X, which was built on an armor piercing bomb. Essentially, it was a solid billet of forged steel with a hollow in the base for the bursting charge, with the bursting charge only amounting to about 20% of the total weight. Missiles are a hollow steel or aluminum cylinder with almost all the weight coming from the rocket motor, guidance equipment, and warhead. If the fuse did not set off the warhead on (or fractionally after) impact, then the missile would crush into the armor like an empty beer can on a frat pledge's forehead.
The FritzX also was an air-drop weapon that would hit vertically, so it did not hit the waterline or belt like a cruise missile would. When they say it "went through them" they mean out the bottom rather than from side to side.
Drach Incorrect even allowing for your engineering background , welding was a lower skill set than riveting -hence it was brought in especially in USA -both in ship building (US built SD hulls liberty ships as opposed to British /Candian SD types) and in tank manufacture. It was brought in as training a WOW welder was far less than training a team of riveters, one person (plus a single foreman suppervising 2,3 or 4 welders, as opposed to 10 people, 4 people acting as drillers, rivietting crew = 1 heater, 1 chucker, 1 catcher, 1 setter ,1 caulker and 1 foreman. The main advantage of welding is higher volume in comparatively less manufacturing space -including pre frabrication of ship components -huge man power saving, lower skill set and training time -for some welding in US the system was almost unskilled as multi head welding machines were used (again particularly in tank manucacture) but also smaller fabrications in ship building, where the human element was as a machine watcher and removing and fitting components and materials. The final problem with welding was a riveted ship can flex a welded ship far less so and before x-ray weld inspection voids caused failures -most noticeable in the failure of welded SD types in the early 1950s.
Interesting, in the 1930s there's a lot of period correspondence in the UK shipyards talking about how welding can't be adopted at the level some contracts ask for die to a lack of skilled welders and the time it takes to train them vs taking on apprentice riveters.
@@Drachinifel The UK Shipping industry were very good at writing excuse letters, What apprenticeships in the 1920-through 1930s -apprenticeships only really strarted again in 1937/38 - when school leavers taken on a apprentices, unskilled hands weren't needed before that. most of the "trades" I mentioned in the 10 required for riveting were in effect journeymen in one way or another graduating to caulkers, setters, and foremen . My main interest in AFVs links fairly closely to Naval and Merchant ship manufacture as far as construction techniques are concerned as does my skill set and an elctrical engineer. That for example VA and Swan Hunters, Walker Naval yard are in my locale -there was little oportunity that either Vickers Armstron or Swans could have moved into large scale electric welding certainly prior to 1943. Even then the Grid supply in the 1940s being in effect two medium power stations at Swalwell als having to supply Delta Iron Works and Dunstan -which was oposite VA but on the wrong bank of the Tyne could supply current. So that would mean gas welding which is anyway limited utility and despite BOC ICI having plants fairly close by -gas for cutting was far more of a priority. The general availablity of Welding equipment also made the ability of UK to carry out large scale welding in heavy industry limited . Further a lot of matieral in tank manufacture and in light naval construction -splinter shields etc was CTA armour a face hardened plate of 5/8 inch maximum and was unsuitable for welding, welding would both destroy the hardness and cause stress failures. This also applied to Nuffield Aero Engineering as well as Vickers Armstrong who both made representations to eschew welding from their early war production, VA starting welding on some rebuilds and new production in late 1942 /1943 (Valentines) and Nuffields at least 18 months later. As to Walker Naval yard they were well behind the curve which effectively led to their demise in the 1980s/90, indeed I doubt the North East shipbuilders ever recovered from the 1930 depression, Only as late as 1965 did shipbuilders like Austin and Pickersgill produced a modern iteration as a welded manufacture liberty ship replacement as the SD 14 design - it was too little too late. Apprenticeships after WW2 was rubbish - leading to a situation in 1977 when Swans building IIlustrious R 06 ran into problems with the flight deck camber -asking Barrow ( R0 5 Invincibles builder) how to do it only to be told to FOFO as it was a secret -so Swans went crying to Daddy Gov't to resolve the matter. There was also the Glasgow fire in 1976 which was a tadd iffy.
@@Drachinifel Drach I agree with User-Op4 that welding was a lower-skill job than riveting, but it did require some training and infrastructure like upgraded electric supply, which the US yards got with government help where the UK yards lagged. Remember also that there were teams of women doing welding in the US merchant yards, but very few women in the riveting teams. A good reference is Warship Builders, chapter 2, and where they talk about the use of welding in the Iowas.
I would like a very private meeting with anyone that thinks they have bested "God" with their design. I will require a 2x4 and some very, very hot peppers.
if Vanguard had been around in 1982 no way would Argentina even dared to invade the Falklands imagine the NGS Vanguard could have provided let alone the command and control facilities for the fleet she should have been kept to act as a heavy escort for the carriers and command centre.
Only if the RN would have been able to effectively escort them. They would need AA and ASW protection like the carriers. No problem with massively increased budgets but at that point the UK could easily have retained proper fleet carrier capability. That would have had far greater power projection capabilities and flexibility. What the UK (and everyone at the time) was lacking for carrier escort was proper short range air defence.
@@lars7935 AT THE TIME the government was pushing the RN to phase out all the carriers, even put the Invincibles into "reserve". But the Argentines weren't looking at fleet size - they were trying to distract their own people from domestic issues, and betting on distance and economic distraction to keep the UK from trying to get them back. There were politicians and RN officers telling Maggie to protest but let it go.
Re: 300 U-Boats.. Drach rather than get into the weeds about material redistribution .. 300 U -Boats would have required something on the order of 4,000 Engineering Seamen and Ratings plus another 1,000 or so Officers... This is the same problem S.M. Sterling (Theater of Spies) ignored when he "Gave" The High Seas Fleet radar in WW1. He ignored the fact that the entire fleet would have to have complete turret redesigns and tear outs to give them elevation to take advantage of it... And the reliable electricity, suitably shock absorbed to make it vaguely possible. Not to mention the tech/techs to make the returns comprehensible... Giving Germany 85-90 with a production pipeline for men and material would have provided the RN ALL the handful needed... AND been w/in the bounds of believability... ESPECIALLY had they pre-solved their torpedo problems...Heck just give them stolen Dutch "Snorkel" designs as well and HOO BOY!!!
The airfix kit of the Bristol Beaufort shows an additional ' horizontal tail'on the torpedo. Is that a special modification for the attack on Gneisenau, or did all British air launched torpedoes have it ? Is it made from wood or metal ? I don't recall seeing them on the Swordfish?
Those were stabilizers for shallow water operations. It was used on Beauforts and Torbeaus. I've never seen them in pictures of Swordfish or Albacores. They were made out of wood iirc.
The UK knew they weren't going to fight the Soviet Union without the US and the US Navy had a lot of 8" gun cruisers, particularly the Des Moines class, plus at least one battleship in commission through the late 1950s. Decommissioning Vanguard was not as bad as Drach makes out.
I Always felt Warspite cause of its history. Vanguard cause she was the last Battleship built, Duke of York cause of her history should have been saved for museum ships. A personal save for me would have been H.m.s Nelson or Rodney.just on the design of them and history.The Britsh made some beautiful and tough battleships.Great video.
The UK was flat broke after the war. Anything that was not critical was retired and sold off, mostly for scrap value. Plus the Liberals were taking over and the government budget redirected towards welfare.
i for one praise what the design team managed with Rodney and Nelson, grouping the main allowed the weight of armour to be reduced and reduced speed was a sensible trade since when it came to it Rodney did exactly what was required: ptls out of new superior" opponent.
Could you do HMS attacker the support carrier? After the was I think it was converted to civilian use and I think that's how my farther came to Australia.
Though not a Boiler Tech, I was part of engineering and had to qualify to stand various watches in the Boiler and Motor Rooms. This got me thinking about how many of us are still around that have stood a Boiler Room watches?
I’m a former USN airedale who works at a hospital with four boilers to provide heating and we have several former USN boiler techs still pulling boiler watches 24-7.
Maybe I'm missing the point of the question "What was the Yamato Equivalent for age of sail/ironclad , pre dreadnaught." however I feel HMS Warrior would be a good equivalent jump of technology and capability.
Hey drach talking about recycling battleship steel. Look at the gulfarium matinee adventure park in Florida. The large tanks at fro. The USS Mississippi. I think they are the barbets
When it comes to Bismarck and Titanic l think they have one thing in common. Hubris pure and simple. Their builders certainly knew the ships could be sunk. Put a big enough hole in anything and will sink. As to where the hubris comes from in Titanic's the obvious place to look is the White Star Line in terms of some of the things their PR staff put out. Another place is in the preformance of the White Star Lines ships officers. In Bismarck's case I would point to the German government. And to a certain extent I would put Vasa and Mary Rose into the same circumstances. While ships do get lost due to circumstances beyond any one's control. Often there are also underlaying human causes. One case of a ships loss to human error was the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975. When the wreck was found the following spring the securing clamps on the cargo hatches were largely intact. Every fourth on though was broken from when the hatches blow off. The ship left port on a Sunday and the captain was supposed to be tight as to paying overtime. and only had the crew lock down one in four of the hatch cover clamps. He supposedly intended the rest of the clamps to be set the following morning. But the weather had turned so bad that the crew could not work on deck. to show just how bad the weather change was when the Fitz left Superior the weather was extremely mild. Sunny skies, light winds and approximately 70 DF/21C. By Monday morning the temperature had fallen to 32F/0C or lower with gale force winds. With the seas washing over the deck. See The Mighty Fitz by Michael Schumacher. No, not that Michael Schumacher. He's a friend and he was doing a book tour in Germany and Austria and when he was checking into his hotel in Vienna the hotel staff was anticipating the other one. He says they were sadly disappointed.
The Titanic was like some strange Celtic transitional being. Not quite British because she was ultimately American owned, and not quite Irish because even in 1912 Ulster was neither fish nor fowl in terms of Anglo Irish relations, and she sank midway between the old and new worlds.
1/4 of scale !!!!! Haul the Oil King up on charges for dereliction of duty! The only reason that could happen is if the boiler was steamed with sea water under an emergency. Otherwise the high quality of water from the evaporators, and maintaining proper water chemistry, the internal surfaces should only have a film of black magnetite. US Naval boilers under 700 PSI required mechanical cleaning of the watersides around 1800 steaming hours, firesides were scraped or water washed every 600 hours when burning bunker "C". Watersides were cleaned with rotating brushes driven by small high speed pneumatic motors on the ends if air hoses that would easily fit in the tubes. This was called "tube punching". If a tube leak developed it could be sealed off by driving tapered steal plugs into each end. The boiler can continue to steam with out significant power lose until 5% of the generator tubes, 5% super heater, and 20% of the economizer are plugged resulting in about a 3% fuel increase at full power. Re-tubing is only required if there is a desire to restore original performance or after a low water casualty that resulted in warped and bulging tubes. It would not be unlikely for a ship to have completed its' service life without being being fully re-tubed.
Most of the time the ship is cruising at an economical speed where it does not need all boilers online. If combat is not imminent, maintenance could be done while underway. Depends on need.
As far as carrier doctrine, I think the basic idea of concentration rather than dispersion of carriers still applies to 1942 about as much as it did in 1944. The Japanese experience at Midway certainly showcased the potential drawbacks of having all the carriers together, but I think it's important to note that the weak link in the Japanese defenses was really a lack of radar and fighter direction above all else. The advantage of having a much larger combined CAP had been amply demonstrated against the American air attacks earlier in the battle, and if the IJN had had the same level of radar and fighter direction capabilities on June 4, 1942 that the Americans did, I suspect they could have fought off the decisive 1020 dive-bomber attack, or at least mitigated it considerably (maybe stopping either the Enterprise squadrons *or* the Yorktown squadron). Likewise, given how effective Yorktown's CAP was on its own, I think a combined CAP from all three carriers sailing together, under Yorktown's direction, could have defended against the Japanese counter-attacks well enough that all three carriers stayed operational, or at least could leave the battle under their own power. I think the parts of the 1944 doctrine that wouldn't apply as well to 1942 were things like Spruance being so willing to let the Japanese strike first at Philippine Sea, or keeping carrier task forces close offshore to keep pounding major enemy bases for days on end.
The Marines complained bitterly about being abandoned in August at Guadalcanal when the carriers didn't stick around, and the transports had to suspend unloading and retreat without air cover. But the bigger issue here is how the later '42 carrier battles didn't even do CAP as well as Midway. We weren't ready for concentration yet, dispersion was probably what saved the Enterprise twice. Read Lundstrom's The First Team at Guadalcanal.
Would the occupants survive a direct hit on a WWII BB? What sort of side effects (concussion etc) would they be suffering from? Would they be able to continue the engagement, should they survive?
From a missile (in the context of the Drydock question)? Depends on the size of the missile. The fantail types like Exocet and Harpoon - most likely, and some of them might not even notice the hit, especially if it hit the armor belt. One of those big Russian carrier-killers - most would, but there would be some fires and damage control work to do. Battleships really need holes BELOW the waterline to sink them. About 2/3 of WW2 capital ships were sunk by torpedoes.
IIRC it has been covered earlier in the channel (didn't Drach do a series on aircraft carrier development where it was covered?). Basically they wanted a flight deck maximally free of obstructions. However it turned out that the side mounted funnels caused hot air updraft / turbulence right in the flight path of incoming planes as well as being very large and bulky, so for later carrier designs they went with the funnels in the island design.
I think part of the fascination of Bismarck is she was a very handsome ship, and photographed very well. It didn't hurt her modeling career that she was the focus of much German propaganda, so casual observers watching documentaries see far more of her than other battleships of the era.
On the riveting vrs welding debate you missed out a couple of things. A properly riveted joint is as likely to work loose as a welded one (and riveted joints can be made airtight, not just watertight). The skill level required to properly perform either task is about the same, one is not easier than the other. And most importantly, welding damages the heat treatment of any plate/metal that you weld (only in the area of the weld) and riveting does not.
Not true. Welded joints don’t work, because a weld physically joins the pieces of metal into a single, unified piece of metal. Riveted joints would work in a seaway because they are two separate plates that are just pressed up against each other very hard by the tension in the rivets. They generally didn’t leak, because the space between them is very small and if water did get in there, it would cause the surface of the steel to rust and expand, sealing the joint. (In fact, a shipyard I used to work at did a lot of work on old riveted tugboats, and if one was leaking after finishing a yard period, they would “dunk” it in the water and pull it back out to let the rust seal the joints in exactly this manner.) The flexing of the joints breaking this rust seal is why riveted hulls would leak in heavy seas.
00:35:48 - It is my opinion that anti-ship missiles, even realy big supersonic ones, would be of very limited effect against a Battleship. The huge weight of the missiles can be discounted as Radars and Aluminium air-frames are significantly structurally weaker than Armour Steel. The thing that matters is warhead weight and speed, even the SS-N-19 Shipwreck's warhead weights slightly more than the KGV's 14" Shells and has a impact speed equivalent to a range of between 10,000 & 15,000 yards. That would imply a penetration of between 13.5" & 15.7" [adjusted for angle of fall], however it is not an AP warhead it is a HE warhead and it'd blow up before penetrating 2"-3" of steel. Put simply, battleships are an outside of context problem, and the weapons in service can not deal with them. However it is not beyond the whit of man to solve that issue, either with an AP warhead or a Nuke.
Nitpick, Granit's warhead is designed to punch through supercarriers which themselves are actually very tough ships. It's nose is reinforced with a large amount of steel, SAP in nature if not AP. With it's weight, size, and speed, it will go through any battleship by sheer kinetic energy alone.
And absolutley wrecking the upperworks would mission kill the batzleship, especidly with all of the cold war equipment like radars and missile launchers.
@@lukahierl9857 Yes. How many missiles would it take to achieve that? A battleship has multiple redundant fire control systems, a Tomahawk or Harpoon fire would be external to the ship, damage control especially around fire got very good after the Falklands war. Battleships are designed to take damage to their upper works and keep on fighting.
@@ThatZenoGuy I'm curious about the sources you have for the Granit's warhead. I kind of doubt "it will go through any battleship by sheer kinetic energy alone". Carriers are a different story, they have much less armor and a lot of planes and gas lines that can ignite. My impression is that the big Soviet missiles were more HE than AP.
@@gregorywright4918 Supercarriers are actually pretty armored due to sheer size and number of compartments. A lot of metal to punch through before you get to the vitals. Granit's warhead has pictures online.
"Britain with an increasingly stupid governments." Ah Boris , then the Lettuce make sense now. Lions led by Limpets. - Although that might be insulting to mollusks. Sorry my slimely, shelled bros - you are so higher up the evolutionary chain than a British PM / MP.
re: Iowa's vs anti-ship missiles? - note that the primary target of those soviet missiles were the carriers, so they were built around the idea of sinking/mission-killing something considerable larger than an Iowa. Due to the armour and citadel, an Iowa is going to be harder to sink. But all the newer equipment added to be a useful late cold wars combatant isn't protected remotely as well, so a mission kill is I think pretty likely.
27:28 the extra pressure offered by water tube boilers is only really an advantage with steam turbines... which never really caught on in locomotives. The succesful steam turbine locomotive designs are few and far inbetween - the issue being that the locomotive needs to have good efficiency from standstill to high speed. In addition it must deliver maximum power when starting up. Piston engines and electric motors are fantastic at this. Some locomotive boiler designs incorporated water tube portions such as the Brotan boiler which was quite succesful in Hungary.
There's an interesting book published regarding the salvage, moving & scrapping of the German fleet scuttled as Scapa Flow. Can't remember the title but I read it back in the 1980's, so it wasn't one of the more recent such as _Cox'sNavy_
@@benwilson6145 That could be it, if it's the one which goes into detail on building & fitting the air lock tubes & the actual towing of the vessels (I recall photo's of the upturned hulls under tow being in the book I read).
One other issue for the Germans would also be finding enough competent officers to command 300 Type VII(the most likely vessel to be built)boats along with the need for suitable crew(by no means is every sailor submarine duty capable)and 300 type VII boats would need roughly 15,000 crew
@@bkjeong4302 I think they first gave Archerfish crew rewards equilavent to sinking a light cruiser despite them reporting a carrier because Intelligence did hear the name Shinano mentioned and thought of the Shinano River (and a river name would make it a light cruiser) instead of Shinano Province (which Shinano was named after, as it was originally a battleship).
was it never considered to keep one of vanguards turrets as a gate guard at one of the navy bases. The admiralty must have know they were never going to see her like again and keep at least a partial reminder of what a battleship was like.
@@ph89787 Try the entire ship. Seriously why was Enterprise not saved when other, far less deserving ships like the various fast battleships (speaking of which, why not save Washington?) or Salem were preserved?
The reason Bismarck gets a disproportionate amount of attention is simple; she’s one of the ONLY WWII-gen battleships to actually achieve something significant. The fact that it took not one, but three lucky breaks in a row for her to do so (even being granted the chance to get into a gunfight in the first place, having Hood misidentify her escort as her and thus leaving her free to fire on Hood unopposed, and that insanely lucky killing shot), or the fact her existence made even less sense than that of most other WWII-era battleships (because the Kriegsmarine surface fleet as a whole was an overall bad idea and would have been even without the rise of airpower), gets quietly ignored. The British propaganda playing Bismarck up as this great enemy superweapon also contributes to her unearned reputation today. Edit: I have to wonder what would have happened to people’s perceptions of Axis battleships if, at Calabria, Warspite ended up fighting Littorio instead of Giulio Cesare and lost because of that (granted, the British have plot armour in this case, but in terms of the ships or their equipment I’d still take Littorio over any QE during daylight hours), or if the Japanese had commissioned Yamato a few days ahead of schedule because Force Z ended up not being found by the torpedo aircraft and immediately sent her against Prince of Wales for lack of better options (yes, this would run against Japanese doctrine, but they might try it if the historically fatal air attack doesn’t end up happening). Would Bismarck be taken as seriously today as she is in our timeline if either of these scenarios had happened, which would have made it clear during the war itself that there were other, far more capable Axis battleship designs around outside of Germany? Alternatively, if Prince of Wales had single-handedly sunk Bismarck at Denmark Straits (let’s say she gets to have that sort of one-in-a-million shot), would the KGVs be the ships being hyped up to heaven (not that the KGVs were remotely badly designed-if anything they’re underrated-but they’re obviously not quite at the same level as Iowa or Yamato)?
The biggest reason why Bismarck is talked about is the same reason why all German tech which is the bullshit memoirs and propaganda thrown around during the cold war era by the remaining Germans High command.
KGV, DoY and Rodney all achieved something of note too yet they receive far less attention and praise. I think it's much more to do with your second point (British/German propaganda) and just general Wehrabooism online that has led to it being so famous
@@silverhost9782 To be honest, I would argue that KGV (and Rodney, but she’s not part of the WWII generation) wasn’t all that significant as Ark Royal could have finished off Bismarck if her air group had been able to make multiple air attacks, without KGV or Rodney beating Bismarck to death (Ark Royal’s crew certainly were offended they were only seen as being good for support). Duke of York most definitely deserves attention-FAR more so than any other WWII-gen battleship bar Washington, in fact.
@@bkjeong4302 Yeah but it created a narrative that hasn't been dissolved to this day about German technology which has spilled in most discussions.Have you ever seen a documentary on the Bismarck saying it was a ship with ww1 ideas in mind or how it lacked behind in technology due to the scapa flow incident?
The problem with welding was that the weld itself would crack, while the plate was fine. That was early in welding's history, once it was discovered and researched they found bubbles and weaknesses in welds that they then figured out how to find and fix. Plus better training for the welders.
55:10 Wouldn't rivetting a steel plate to a copper alloy plate and then immersing this contraption in salt water have some... interesting electro-chemical effects? It is true, welding two different alloys - even when both are iron based - can be challenging, but if you take other factors like corrosion into consideration, so is joining any two sigificantly different metal alloys...
Hi re the Vanguard question… would the RN be better keeping HMS Albion as a Commando/ASW ship rather than converting the Tigers as rubbish helo carriers? It seems a similar question to the early Cold War Battleship/Cruiser question. Oh dear just remembered your limit on how recent you want to go.
The Kawachi that is all big gun but hexagonal and has different barrel length for main 2 turrets vs broadside 4 turrets could be argued to be the absolute ultimate predread even though it's generally considered a first gen dreadnought
Part of the idea behind reactivating the Iowas for the Cold War was that they would take a hell of a beating, especially compared to OHP, Tico etc or even a Forrestal. As long as the Iowa was the one taking the damage it would be considered a "win", regardless of the end-state of the Iowa, so long as the carrier was still combat effective, as Soviet doctrine was about hunting US and Nato carriers as primary targets. Most of the Soviet AShMs were based on a seeker head that looked for the biggest tonnage and homed on that.
One other aspect of Titanic was due to the hype who was on board her. The number of members of the "upper class" lost, particularly the men in first class was devastating to those families. In some cases, particularly for the Astors, several generations of the male line were lost.
