Comments by "COL BEAUSABRE" (@colbeausabre8842) on "The Drydock - Episode 207" video.

The senior officer of a merchant ship is its master, not its "captain". During the Middle Ages, there was no Royal Navy as such, ships and their crews were called up from the merchant service (in return for lower import duties, each of the Cinque Ports committed to providing a certain number of ships with their crews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_Ports). The King then detailed a group of soldiers to serve as marines on each, appointing an officer called the captain (from the Latin capua = head) to command them. He did not necessarily have any maritime experience. So, the master was in charge of sailing the ship, while the captain was in charge of fighting her. This prevailed until the Pepys Reforms of the 1660's which required a prospective naval officer to demonstrate a knowledge of seamanship and navigation in order to be commissioned. Gradually, this led to a downgrading of the position of Master. He became the ship's senior warrant officer (one of three who was a member of the wardroom) "In 1808, Masters (along with Pursers and Surgeons) were given similar status to commissioned officers, as warrant officers of wardroom rank. The master ate in the wardroom with the other officers, had a large cabin in the gunroom, and had a smaller day cabin next to the captain's cabin on the quarterdeck for charts and navigation equipment " and was the ship's expert on sailing, seamanship and navigation, Masters either transferred directly from the merchant service, or, if a ship's mate, joined the Navy as a Master's Mate and were later promoted. Some Master's Mates were midshipmen who had passed their exam for promotion to lieutenant and were awaiting their promotion orders. Some unlucky passed midshipmen were never commissoned and settled into being Master's Mates were eventually promoted to Master. A prospective Master had to pass an oral exam conducted by a RN captain and three Masters of Trinity House. He was then eligible to receive his warrant from the Navy Board. From 1753, the position of Deputy Master existed aboard ships of the line - generally a Mate who had passed his exam for Master and was deemed capable of serving as such and and was awaiting a position to become available. Smaller rated ships had a Master's Mate as Deputy Master. Unrated ships were authorized an experienced Master's Mate in lieu of a Master. No further Masters were created after 1883 and the last retired in 1892. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_%28naval%29
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The Master was the senior warrant officer and was a member of the wardroom. The Bosun, Gunner and Carpenter, although also warrant officers, were junior to him and were members of the gunroom.
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I realize she was a "Large Light Cruiser", but come on. The British used 6X9.2 inch on the Duke of Edinburgh and Warrior classes and 4X9.2 inch on the Minotaur class , the USN 4X10 inch on the Tennesse Class (later renamed Memphis, but the IJN's Tsukuba and Ibuki class armored cruisers mounted 4X12 inch.
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@gildor8866 But how reliable was the connection, remember that we are talking about the first generation of radio technology, incredibly crude and temperamental by today's standards...I have an amateur license and even today there are nights you can pull in a station from a surprising distance clear as a bell and the next night the same frequency is full of static
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Absolute BS, A helicopter mechanic is a helicopter mechanic. Try commanding a modern tank. Even infantrymen aren't louts wandering around with guns, but highly trained specialists
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Three BL 13.5 inch /45 Mark V guns, named Gladiator, Piece Maker and Scene Shifter, were mounted on railway chassis during World War II for use as railway guns. They re-used a railway mounting which had carried a BL 14 inch Railway Gun in the First World War. After the gins wore out, they were retained without ordnance. In 1940 they given stored 13.5 inch Mk V guns and were issued to the Royal Marine Siege Regiment at Dover in Kent to bombard German batteries and shipping in the Calais area. The fourth 14 inch mounting, Boche Buster, had been given an 18 inch howitzer (NOT the 18 inch naval gun) after her 14 inch wore out and was also deployed to the Dover area. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbA9fyo2DoY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egW5eHfW4WI
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@BruceRKF Never built doesn't count
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No, there were no checks, after all, the Treaties were signed by gentlemen
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@TheArchaos Which Navy
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@coldwarrior78 Not that I've ever heard. If it was, it was almost assuredly a CVE, some which spent their entire careers as aircraft ferries. Is US west Coast to Australia then to India any worse than US East Coast to Cape of Good Hope to India
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Depended on your birth - were you an "Aristo", but nobody was safe, except maybe the few who had somehow worked their way up from the lower deck, "The Quibéron mutinies were a series of mutinies that occurred in the Brest squadron of the French Navy in September 1793, at the height of the Reign of Terror. They offered reasons and pretexts for the Jacobins to purge the Navy of most of its officers who belonged to the French aristocracy."
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@alganhar1 The Master was not a Standing Warrant Officer like the Bosun, Carpenter and Gunner, and was paid off with the rest of the crew. Please allow me to quote - "Rank and status in the 18th century In origin, warrant officers were specialist professionals whose expertise and authority demanded formal recognition. In the 18th century they fell into two clear categories: on the one hand, those privileged to share with the commissioned officers in the wardroom and on the quarterdeck; and on the other, those who ranked with more junior members of the ship's crew.[Somewhere between the two, however, were the standing officers, notable because, unlike the rest of the ship's company, they remained with the ship even when it was out of commission (e.g. for repair, refitting or replenishment, or whilst laid up); in these circumstances they were under the pay and supervision of the Royal Dockyard. Wardroom warrant officers These classes of warrant officer messed in the wardroom with the commissioned officers: the master: the senior warrant officer, a qualified navigator and experienced seaman who set the sails, maintained the ship's log and advised the captain on the seaworthiness of the ship and crew; the surgeon: who treated the sick and injured and advised the captain on matters of health; the purser: responsible for supplies, food and pay for the crew. In the early 19th century, they were joined in the wardroom by naval chaplains, who also had warrant officer status (though they were only usually present on larger vessels). Standing warrant officers The standing officers were members of the gunroom and were: the boatswain: responsible for maintenance of the ship's boats, sails, rigging, anchors and cables; the carpenter: responsible for maintenance of the ship's hull and masts; the gunner: responsible for care and maintenance of the ship's guns and gunpowder. Junior warrant officers Other warrant officers included surgeon's mates, boatswain's mates and carpenter's mates, sailmakers, armorers, schoolmasters (involved in the education of boys, midshipmen and others aboard ship) and clerks. Masters-at-arms, who had formerly overseen small-arms provision on board, had by this time taken on responsibility for discipline.
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@alganhar1 Sorry, but the Surgeon and Pursar were warrant officer "Until the Navy's medical services were reorganized in 1806, surgeons were warranted by individual ship captains, not commissioned by the Admiralty. After 1808, surgeons, like masters were considered equivalent to commissioned officers and were 'Warrant officers of Wardroom Rank'."
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