Comments by "Gregory Wright" (@gregorywright4918) on "HMS Cavalier - The Last Royal Navy Destroyer of WW2" video.

  1. Bigger guns are better for anti-surface, but slower for anti-air. Smaller guns are quicker to turn and fire for anti-air. The US settled on 5" in the 30s, with the 3" as light-weight alternative for smaller ships. British experimented with 5.5" but found the 4.5" a better intermediary as air threat increased later in war. Each country had their own gun makers, rarely bought from overseas (except the light-weight Bofors and Oerlikons).
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  2. Could also be because she was in reserve for a while - don't know what knowledge or skills might be forgotten, so label everything so the next crew can figure it out if no one is left from before.
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  3. I would not say "Britain is terrible", rather that military sites and naval ships are made for fighting, not for disabled-access. Small and tight is an advantage in a ship, but access is not a priority. That's why Drach's video walk-throughs are so helpful. Nice of the museum staff to open up so many things for him, and allow the drone as well.
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  4. If only it were that easy, there would be a lot more drones dropping out of the skies, like over Ukraine....
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  5.  @edwardstables5153  I don't think ships are using any more than a basic navigation radar in port; the high-powered stuff is saved for at-sea AAW situations. Affordable non-military drones are unshielded and could be affected by powerful EM waves, or simply have their control signals jammed. I doubt there are any powerful radars in operation over Portsmouth normally.
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  6. Not at the beginning, but developed during the war and refitted afterwards.
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  7. These were designed at the beginning of WW2, before the A-bomb was a threat. Gas attack had been tested right after WW1 and found not to be a realistic threat either. Open bridge was useful when the OOD needed to see the incoming air threat in order to safely conn the ship; with the advent of radar and radar fire control eyeballing the threat was less important, and with the addition of electronics on the bridge they needed to be protected from the elements.
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  8. "Despite being obsolete, Seacat was still widely fielded by the Royal Navy during the Falklands war. Indeed, it was the sole anti-aircraft defence of many ships. However, unlike the modern and more complex Sea Dart and Sea Wolf systems, Seacat rarely misfired or refused to respond, in even the harshest conditions."
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  9. I think both depth charge throwers and Squid used fixed launchers, angled off the sides of the ship at fixed angles to create a standard pattern. Sonar tracked the sub as the ship approached, then the charges were sent out on either beam and were timed to go off on either side of the sub AFTER the ship passed over.
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  10.  @kemarisite  You are correct about the "ahead-throwing". The barrels were rotated inward to reload and then outward about 30 degrees to make a triangular pattern off one side of the bow or the other. But they learned over time that a single pattern was not very successful. Firing both together made a "double-squid" pattern that if it bracketed a sub was lethal. If you reread the NavWeaps page for the "effectiveness" chart, you will see that Single-Squid had no success at all in 44 despite 20 attempts, and only 2 kills in 45, while Double-Squid had 2 kills in 44 and 8 kills in 45.
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  11. They also accounted for the lion's share of warships engaged - the battleships and carriers at sea numbered less than a dozen each most of the time, and the cruisers were a few dozen.
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  12.  @colbeausabre8842  With the advent of Radar Fire Control and fully remote controlled mounts, the benefit of open bridge for the command staff to see incoming air attack and use the helm to avoid decreased. So bridges were enclosed to permit AC to cool all the additional electronics and protect them from the weather.
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  13. The open bridge excelled for air action situational awareness, and the Luftwaffe reached out across the North Sea and the Barents as well as the Med. You can always bundle up in the cold - dealing with the hot Pacific would be a different story.
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  14. It was very useful early in the war when the Mk. 1 eyeball and quick instructions to the helm was the best defense against aircraft, which could come out of the fog in the North Sea within seconds. Later on as radar took over, and then fire control radar, the captain being able to see air threats directly became less important. And as electronics were added to the bridge, they needed to be protected from the elements and kept cool.
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  15. Must have been one of those special no-smoke torches...
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  16. Probably where the WW2 torpedoes were.
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