Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "The Drydock - Episode 002" video.

As with the Monitor and the Warrior - with the Virginia and the Warrior we have the same situation where you have different ships designed to do different things. During the American War Between the States - you had a number of different ship designs (or uses of ships already able to fill a function). You had unarmored blockade Runners which were mostly merchant men designed to be fast so they could out run the ships of the Union Navy. You had unarmored blockading ships - which some times were literally (or at least so it seems to me) to be physically blocking the routes into Southern Harbors and sitting at anchor as they did so. You had the armored Virginia which was designed to sail down the river from it's base to destroy the unarmored blockading ships. And you had the armored Monitor that was designed to deal with the armored Virginia. The Warrior - iirc - was designed to fight other warships (specifically The Gloire). If either the Virginia or the Monitor had come out into the open ocean - the Warrior should have beaten them (if they didn't sink first). But - if the Warrior had had to sail up a river to get at the Virginia ... the results would be more problematic. For one thing sailing up a river like that - for which they may not have had any current charts showing sand bars and such might also expose it to shore batteries and "torpedoes" designed to keep the Union ships from doing the same thing. If the Warrior had tried to come up a river to engage the Virginia (which I can't imagine her Captain would be foolish enough to do (about as foolish as they would have to be for either the Monitor or Virginia to go out on the open ocean to engage the Warrior)) and it had run aground - then what would have happened? If the Virginia could just sit off the Warrior's bow or stern and not be hit, where she could pound the same spot on Warrior's armor - could she have gotten penetration? After all - the bow and stern were not armored. So - once again - we have these meaningless comparisons of ships not at all designed to confront each other where each would not have fared well in the others environment. Virginia was in fact destroyed to avoid capture when it was judged that she (though fully fit) was never the less, unfit to take out on the open sea where she might escape. Suppose - to perform a similar exercise - the Enterprise had fought the Yamato? Which ship would have won? Well ... the Yamato did in fact fight some small aircraft carriers where we can see about how such an engagement might come off. IF the battleship could get within gunnery range of the aircraft carrier - advantage battleship. IF however the aircraft carriers aircraft spotted the battleship before it's guns were in range - then you have a case much more like that resulting in the sinking of the Yamato. .
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As to submarines engaging warships - yes - the speed of the submarine was very much the problem - but - they did have some success. As to operating as part of the fleet ... no ... for one thing - there was to much danger of them being rammed by a friendly ship that didn't see them. The main thing though was that they were simply to slow to keep up - so it just wasn't possible for them to sail with the main fleet. However while their speed did limit them in catching warships - the did have some notable successes when warships blundered into them. The Nautilus at Midway did in fact torpedo one of the Japanese carriers - the torpedo just didn't go off ... but - it was the Japanese vessel sent to keep Nautilus down while the Japanese fleet turned towards the US Fleet - that led McClusky to find the Japanese carriers. The cruisers Juneau and Indianapolis were sunk by Japanese submarines. One Japanese submarine sank the Wasp, damaged the North Carolina and sank a destroyer with a single spread of torpedoes. One also got the CVE Liscombe Bay off Tarawa. The Question about that is - given the amount of resources they committed to chasing warships - would the Japanese have been better off having their submarines going after targets they were better able to catch such as the supply convoys to Australia and the US Island Bases? The US, once it got it's torpedoes to work ... had more success against the Japanese warships but - this wasn't at the expense of going after their merchant fleet. Here - the US was able to make good use of Submarines as a scouting force on more than one occasion. The Japanese had tried to do this at Midway - but the fact that the US had broken their codes - meant that the US ships had passed the point where the submarines set up their line before the submarines got there. .
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