Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "HMS Devastation - Guide 221" video.

  1. A most enjoyable allusion.
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  2. HMS Thunderer . . . HMS Thunderchilde . . . we have a winner. That's where Wells got his idea for the "Armored Ram".
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  3. Drach . . . the double ended monitor (as seen here in HMS Devastation) was a good idea. Why did everyone go for wing turrets in the next generation (i.e.: Dreadnaught, et al)? Would not extending length for the mounting of stepped, superfiring, turrets, fore and aft have been tried, too? What benefit lay in leaving ships shorter, and adding the extra batteries on the beam? *I know, USS Kearsarge wants to know my location, but her MB/SB (8" RIfle) turrets aren't stepped, or successive, though they are superfiring. I can't imagine what operations were like on those stacked turrets during combat.
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  4. Drach . . . the double ended monitor (as seen here in HMS Devastation) was a good idea. Why did everyone go for wing turrets in the next generation (i.e.: Dreadnaught, et al)? Would not extending length for the mounting of stepped, superfiring, turrets, fore and aft have been tried, too? What benefit lay in leaving ships shorter, and adding the extra batteries on the beam? *I know, USS Kearsarge wants to know my location, but her MB/SB (8" RIfle) turrets aren't stepped, or successive, though they are superfiring. I can't imagine what operations were like on those stacked turrets during combat.
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  5.  @picoandtitanic  Jutland (Avalon Hill) provides the player with DD Flotillas for screening and smoke making. These were fleet destroyer classic roles easily integrated with a tabletop/on the rug fleet engagement game or scenario. Intercepting enemy torpedo boats and launching torpedo attacks of their own is more complex, but it can and is modeled in some naval miniatures systems. I would suggest to your friend that eschewing any class of ships limits the player's options, making him/her more vulnerable to enemy player(s) correctly divining his/her intentions.
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  6.  @davidfuller581  As early as the Ericsson Monitors, the guns were meant to be withdrawn into the turret and a shutter closed, for reloading inside. Unfortunately this was problematic: "Designed by the Swedish engineer John Ericsson, the USS Monitor was described as a "cheesebox on a raft," consisting of a heavy round revolving iron gun turret on the deck, housing two large (11 inch) Dahlgren guns, paired side by side. The original design of the ship used a system of heavy metal shutters to protect the gun ports while reloading. However, the operation of the shutters proved to be so cumbersome that the crews operating the guns adopted the procedure of simply rotating the turret away from potential hostile fire to reload the guns. " Presumably, later designs made the shutters simpler to operate. And breech loaders were just about to come into their own.
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