Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  5. 11:37 - Hm... I can think of at least one instance where it was kind of technically the case (with a stretch). In 1793, during the French Revolutionary war, when the town and naval base of Toulon rebelled against the republican government in Paris, and in support of the monarchy - they took control of the Toulon squadron which included the first rate ship of the line named Commerce de Marseille. The royalists sailed out of besieged Toulon with it (and some 3rd rates) to prevent their recapture by the republicans. From the perspective of the revolutionary government which was de facto rulling most of France they could be considered pirates. (and if one were to reject the legitimacy of the republican government and the subsequent 1st Empire then their entire navies could be considered pirates - including the 1st rate Orient and 2nd rate Tonnant at the Battle of the Nile and the 2nd rate Bucentaure at the Battle of Trafalgar :) ). Commerce de Marseille was later seized by the British navy. So yeah, while strictly speaking Drach gave a correct answer (those weren't really pirates, but rather a party in a civil war), when you add legal shenanigans about legitimacy, you could argue that for a short while they technically kind of did. Similar things happened during the English Civil War when the defeated royalists maintained a navy under Prince Rupert of the Rhine and preyed on parliamentary merchant ships. I am not sure about the sizes of ships they used, though, if anyone knows whether they had any ships of the line I'd like to know. It would be an interesting topic for a special - "When the entire Royal Navy was pirate" :)... (since the opposing parliamentary navy which represented the government that effectively controlled England definitely wasn't the ROYAL navy).
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  10. 25:34 You seem to be describing the ROTARY engine, a short-lived design used in WW1 visually similar to the RADIAL engine while motionless. In the rotary engine the propeller was fixed to the circularly arranged cylinders and both turned together, while the crankshaft was static. The mass of rotating engine amplified the torque effect. Such a bizzare solution was adopted because the airplane speeds were insufficient to provide enough airflow to cool the engine with fixed circularly arranged cylinders that rotate the crankshaft to which the propeller is fixed - which is a basic description of a radial engine. Rotary engines had a lot problems, so once the engines became powerful enough to propel the planes at sufficient speeds to generate enough airflow to cool them properly, they were abandoned. Sopwith Camel for instance had a rotary engine. WW2 designs such as Swordfish, Zero, Wildcat, Thunderbolt, early FW-190 all had radial engines. Every propeller- driven aircraft (be it rotary, radial or inline engined) with an odd number of engines suffered a torque effect. Japanese carriers Akagi and Hiryu had islands on the port (left) side however. They were expected to operate in divisions made of 2 carriers with islands on different sides (Akagi's pair was the Kaga and Hiryu's the Soryu, both of which had islands on the starboard or right side) sailing side by side, island to island, so that planes could bank to different sides and reduce the risk of collision. By the time they were designing the Shokakus they realized that the former requirement was unnecessary and prioritized making things easier for the pilots going around torque effect-wise like everyone else.
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  20. I'd say the commander of the Spanish armada takes the cake - losing an entire fleet to a few fireships and some bad but not catastrophic weather. He was a thoroughly inexperienced guy who did have a competent advisor but it didn't work in the end. Also you had Jacob von Wassenaer Obdam, an army colonel given command of the Dutch fleet in a crisis of unity who oddly enough actually came up with a sound tactical doctrine later successfully implemented by admiral Michiel de Ruyter, but had ill suited ships and no experience to implement it, consequently getting himself killed in one of the worst defeats in Dutch naval history. Compared to those two any of the admirals Drach listed were experts since they could... sail at least. Of those he listed the worst one was the Korean guy, then Villeneuve (with Mandalzade Hüsameddin Pasha of the Chesma debacle, giving him a run for his money), then Persano. Instead of Beatty who while very flawed was still in quite a few respects competent, Drach should have listed Yevgeny Alekseev, viceroy of Russia's Far East, who had bouts of command over the First Pacific Squadron of the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese War, an outright incompetent. WW2... Tough call all were at least competent, I disagree inclucing Gensoul, his biggest mistake being allowing himself to be surprised through insufficient scouting... Perhaps Angelo Iachino would be my candidate (first Matapan and then failing to press his huge advantages in the Battles of the Sirte). Or Karel Doorman who lost one destroyer wrecked (non-combat loss) and another one lost in one of his own minefields... On the Japanese side Admirals Sentaro Omori (of Empress Augusta Bay debacle), Sadamichi Kajioka (1st attempt to invade the Wake Island debacle), Hiraoki Abe (who messed up the 1st Naval Battle of Guadalcanal although he had superior force) perhaps even Boshiro Hosogoya (for retreating at Komandorski Island) and three certainly competent admirals who made costly mistakes: Chuichi Nagumo Gunichi Mikawa and Takeo Kurita. Probably the Soviets have some good contenders too. Germans: Oskar Kummetz of the Barents Sea debacle, Brits? Dudley Pound (QF-17), Victor Crutchley of the Savo Island debacle. US: Carleton Wright (Tassafaronga debacle), Daniel Callaghan (messed up US plan for the First Naval battle of Guadalcanal, won by sheer luck, but got himself and Adm Norman Scott killed in the process), William Halsey (almost lost the entire invasion of the Philippines in an afternoon). French pretty much have only Gensoul out there to be considered, but many of the listed admirals from other countries were way worse.
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