Comments by "Not shaped for sportive tricks" (@notshapedforsportivetricks2912) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. Add in a few cities such as Liverpool, and you're going to need a class so extensive as to put the Clemsons to shame.
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  2. "Sink the Bismarck" on an 18" AWA black & white television.
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  3. "... the result had a slight tumblehome to the hull, but we'll try not to hold that against it." HMS Victory: I'm still here, you know.
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  4. Happiness is a warm bore. - J. Lennon.
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  5. As anyone who has ever owned a ute can testify. 😊
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  6. I'm sorry to hear of your misfortunes, but I'm glad that this channel lightens the gloom a bit for you. Remember the old saying "and this too shall pass". Not even the really bad stuff can last forever.
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  7. I would love to have the Irn Bru concession at Castle Drach. I'm sure that it would be a nice little earner on Dry Dock days.
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  8. "Morning Ralph." "Morning Sam." And of course, the cartoon's ending.... "You don't look so good, Ralph. I'll cover for you tomorrow."
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  9. ​ @SennaAugustus  Presumably as restraining influences.
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  10. Llamas are however, very dangerous; so if you see one near where people are swimming you must yell out "Cuidado! Hay llamas!" (Look out! There are llamas!)
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  11. I second Rodrigo's comments, Drach. Production values are excellent as always, but use of the hand painted models was a nice touch and definitely above & beyond the call of duty. Bravo Zulu. PS: Can you still see after painting those tiny things?
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  12. As far as sail quality goes, as well as the quality of the canvas itself, I believe that the actual age of the sail also comes into account. Like clothing, sails wear out with use, so as they get older they tend to get downgraded to lighter conditions. And like clothing, they often need patching with material of a similar quality. I was told that if you see a picture of a ship with lovely white canvas sails, then the sails are probably sun-bleached and old.
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  13. ​ @jeromethiel4323  And here I was thinking that the US used unpronounceable indian names in revenge for the poms using names that are pronounced completely differently to how they're spelt.
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  14. Ian and Drach have a lot in common. They both have encyclopædic knowledge of their topics, enormous enthusiasm for them and great communication skills. This enables them to enthuse people who would not ordinarilly be very interested in their subjects. The fact that they both have an excellent sense if humour is the icing on the cake.
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  15. Hi Drach. A question about target ships. After WW I, some navies started using old battleships as radio controlled targets. You'd think that this would be a very short gig, but some like HMS Centurion enjoyed (if that's the word) surprisingly long careers in that thankless role. How did a ship survive being repeatedly smashed by 15 & 16 inch shells? Obviously only inert rounds were used, but were any other methods used to lessen damage, such as using lighter rounds or reduced charges?
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  16. I have heard Inflexible referred to as a "magnificent freak". Personally I find her magnificent, freakish or not. As a child, I saw the image of her at 3:37 and couldn't work out how a ship that was wider on the starboard side than on the port could travel in a straight line.😊 Cut me some slack; I was only nine after all and hadn't got my head around the whole "perspective" thing.
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  17. That would be interesting, but I'm not sure if Drach would have the cash to commission a 3 hour academy award winning musical score. Though he might be able to talk Dame Julie Andrews to do the voice of the Otranto Barrage in a duet with Mrs Drach in her sea mine role
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  18. @ 13:30 - 13:37, a Pythonesque "My landing craft is full of eels."
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  19. I'd choose to raise Rozhestvensky's binocular collection.
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  20. It's "whisky" if it's from Scotland and "whiskey" if it's from Ireland.
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  21. It depends ... can the Bismarck do the Kessel run in less than eight parsecs?
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  22. I've never heard if this class of escort before. They certainly demonstrate the advantages of keeping it small. I mean, six weeks on the stocks! You couldn't get a Toyota delivered that quickly
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  23. Yep, Broke was a gunnery fanatic with Willis Lee levels of enthusiasm on the subject. There is a very good little book dealing with the Shannon-Chesepeake engagement called "Guns off Cape St Anne" that addresses Broke's methods.
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  24. It's a bit of a puzzle why they kept recycling the names as well. I put it down to the british fondness of celebrating spectacular failures. For example, what other nation's most famous sporting tropht (The Ashes) celebrates their most noted defeat in a game that they invented and in which victory, as the late Alan Coren commented, can never be a triumph as it just brings you back to the point that they shouldn't have lost it in the first place.
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  25.  @kemarisite  ot would be a brave: no, make that foolhardy officer who tried a pracrical joke on a man so obviously bereft of a sense of humour as Admiral King.
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  26. The germans weren't quite at the execute the prisoners stage at this point in the war. At least not in the western theatres. As the commandos were in uniform and the german colours were replaced by the white ensign before the raiders opened fire ( a legitimate ruse de guerre), executing prisoners would have been a breach of war conventions.
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  27. This explains why maoris find KFC irresistable.
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  28. Sounds like every ex-wife ever to me.
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  29. In the RN in the Pacific, the carriers used to sling a harness from a crane and the destroyer maneuvred beneath that. Ransom was also frequently exchanged, I believe.
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  30. With due respect to the Melbourne, it's probably fairer to say of her that she didn't suffer fools gladly; or indeed at all. You dangerously cross her bows to assume guard station, you handle the consequences. And the Evans did that three times in two nights. Third time's the charm.
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  31. I know what casemate guns are, but what pray are gallery guns?
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  32.  @arczer2519  Thanks. Much appreciated.
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  33. You certainly don't just open the hatch to find out. Well, maybe once.
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  34. Bet that it still set off a few car alarms though.
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  35. Ah! The happy days before facebook.
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  36. Wilhelm had read, but obviously not understood Mahan. Had he unxerstanding he would have realised that the sea is a border a thousand miles across but half an inch wide. Any threat to the Royal Navy would be interpreted as an existential threat to Britain, and her reaction would be uncompromising; as it was. Had Wilhelm been a bit less vainglorious, and his ministers a little more insightful, the Triple Entente might never have come into existence.
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  37. Imagine if the germans and the welsh had ever got together to invent a language!
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  38. I think that a Battlefastcruiseship would actually be The Love Boat. You have that tune stuck in your head now, haven't you?
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  39. Re Operation Wikinger, to paraphrase Lady Bracknell "To lose one destroyer, Herr Berger, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two begins to look like carelesness".
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  40. Possiby frigates were more prone to mutiny & going over to the enemy because frigates had relatively junior captains. If a captain's command style was of the sort to provoke a mutiny, this would most likely become evident during an early command, such as a frigate. You would hope that the psychopaths were weeded out before they got their hands on a ship of the line. Also, frigates were much more likely to be on a solo patrol than were ships of the line, which were usually part of a fleet. It would have been much easier to pull off a successful mutiny if you were in the middle of the ocean on your own rather than being surrounded by the other ships in the fleet.
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  41. "However the Pacific was big. Douglas Adams-style big" I KNEW that Drach was a HHGTTG Fan.
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  42. Taking off from one of the lower flight decks would have been a piece of cake compared to trying to land on one of them. 😨
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  43. Apparentyly the USN was so impressed by her that I believe after the war they offered to buy her. For some reason, the British government refused and sold her privately. Distinctly odd for a UK government.
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  44. Ditto.
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  45. Re Bermuda, a sunken floating drydock sounds like the perfect location for a floating sunken garden.
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  46. Symphony of firepower sound great if you're in the orchestra; not so hot-so if you're in the audiece.
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  47. HMS Vengance was also loaned to the RAN in the early 50s. She too carried the HMAS designation
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  48. I love the sheer creativity of this period of naval design. It reminds me of the legend of the millionaire who invented the urinal, who reputedly started off with nothing more than a sheet of galvanised iron and his imagination.
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  49. Another consideration in that bargain ŵould be that the survivor wouldn't be offered one of the pretty ones, I'll wager.
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  50.  @TheNecromancer6666  If materiel was all that counted, I'd agree with you. But the war was deeply unpopular in the North at certain points. The south, by contrast, was much more united behind the war effort. Morover, they had unambiguous aims, which the north did not. Had Grant not been such a positive force in the west, then the confederates might well have held on to Vicksburg, the fall of which was crucial for Lincoln. And consider; if no Grànt, then probably no Sherman. That would mean no march through Georgia and the Carolinas, no fall of Savannah and no electoral boost for Lincoln's reelection. Then McClelland wioud have become president with a negotiated peace very likely. No, I still think that Grant was essentual for victory.
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