Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  70. The Royal Navy also had a two years headstart unfortunately. In 1939 and 1940 there was no great support in the US to get involved in Europes "problems". Remember Lend Lease only got through Congress by one vote. Now as to whether or not the US Navy and its officers corps could over come it's own inate prejudices and actually learn from others at the time is another question. The graduates of Canoe U (Annapolis) are Naval officers serving the interests of the United States. They are not supposed to be serving the interests of their own career advancement or personal egos. The same can be said of any service academy worldwide. Besides what really set the table for victory in Western Europe and the Pacific in my opinion was the Two Ocean Navy appropriations bill. While FDR sometimes gets accused of intentionally dragging the US into WWII I personally don't buy it. The US was not going to go out of it's way to provoke either Japane or Nazi Germany into war*. But once the US was officially engaged it was all in. *One could say certain as actions did provoke Japan into war. The embargoes on steel and oil certainly were a push in that direction. And with Germany Lend Lease and fighting an undeclared war against the Kreigsmarine were two factors. One thing I think might have provoked a US declaration of war with Germany is if (an admittedly big if) during Rhein Maiden KMS Bismarck had encounted USS Texas while she was on patrol in the Western Atlantic. At one time iirc they were about 200 miles from each other. The Texas would have been sunk in all likelihood. And her escorts probably badly mishandled. The would have in all likelihood caused the US to declare war on Germany. A destroyer getting sunk with major loss of life (Rueben James) is one thing. A major asset like a battleship is another.
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  173. It did not matter if MacArthur, the Commander Asiatic Squadton and all of their staff did everything possible there is no way the US could have held the Phillipines or even part of them in early 1942. There simply was no way for the US Navy to effectively re-supply and get re-enforcements to the Phillipines. Not after Pearl Harbor. I agree MacArthur could be an egotistical ass and self promoter. But then again he was not the only one around. As to being caught on the ground. The Philipines had around 4 hours or so from the time the attack notification from Pearl Harbor went out. If the notification went out at 7:20 AM that means it was 3:20 AM in the Phillipines. Forget that it was Dec 8th. The International Date Line comes into play. Even so his air commander got a lot of his aircraft off of the ground to try and keep them from being caught on the ground. They were low on fuel and had to land. That's when Clark Field got attacked. Could the aircraft had been effectively dispersed to auxiliary air fields. Of course. Could they have operated effectively from them? I have my doubts. Even if MacArthur had authorized the available aircraft to launch attacks at Japanese bases on Formosa. Just how good was US intelligence on Japanese bases and or forces on the island. Following the plan of operations for ground units on the Phillipines for defense of the Islands. First the enemy has plans too. Both the IJN and the IJA got inside the decision loop of the US Army and US Navy. US forces along with the forces of the Philippines were reacting instead of forcing the Japanese to react to what they were doing. Another factor that comes into play was training levels. The training levels of US Army units in general was pretty low in 1941. In 1941 the US Army was rapidly being built up by the call up of National Guard units and the induction of draftees. The NG units had training levels of generally poor efficiency. While there may not have been any NG infantry units in the Phillipines there were NG armored elements on Luzon when the war started. These were equipped with M3 light tanks. Even though the money tap had started to open up in 1940 equipment does not just automatically appear. And in 1941 a lot of the armor being produced was going to the British in Egypt. Could the US forces in the Phillipines done better. Yes they probably could. They also could have done worse. Was MacArthur out if touch during WWll. Parts of it I think he was. Especially early in the operations on New Guinea*. His later combat operations actually had relatively low casualty rates. Units under his command also took back from the Japanese far more territory than US forces in the South and Central Pacific. The US Army landing on the Phillipines to retake them in 1944. Was it strategically necessary? Probably not. Was it morally necessary? In my opinion yes. The US had promised the Phillipines their independence before the war (July 45 iirc) and meant to keep that promise. *New Guinea is the second (or third depending on how you define Australia) largest island in the world. Its 1500 miles from Milne Bay to Sorong at its western end. It also contains some of the worst terrain on Earth.
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  240. Machine shops on board naval vessels. Even on a carrier you're going to be limited to just what you can make and or repair. Plus large navies such as the USN and I suspect the RN to some degree today have tenders attached to destroyer and submarine squadrons. But even these larger vessels are going to be limited. They may gave stocks of material onboard. Copper alloys (Brass and Bronzes), Cast Iron and Steels but that does not mean they have the correct alloy needed for manufacturing a proper replacement part. Plus I suspect that their heat treating capabilities were also more limited than a shore based repair or manufacturing facility. One thing that was done to maximize machine shop spaces on some vessels was the development of machine tools that could be used for multiple purposes. Something that is almost never done in a land based facility. A lathe makes a poor milling machine no matter what some boodgerin garden shed thinks. One example http://www.lathes.co.uk/adcock&shipleycombination/index.html There are others. I've worked over the with numerous former US Navy Machine Repair ratings that worked in and out of these ship board facilities. None of them were Machinist Mates. One had an interesting tale. He was stationed on a sub tender. One job he had was to open up the hatch internal diameter of a nuclear dub to allow a piece of equipment to be brought on board. He only had to open the internal diameter .100"/2.5mm or so. But the crew was very interested in his going it right. It took longer to set up the portable boring equipment than it did to do the job. And that brings up a related subject. There are companies that specialize in doing on site machining involved in the repair and refurbishment on machinery no matter where. At sites on land or at sea.
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  395. Machinery for fast merchant ships taking a bite out of warship machinery production. Limited production capacity? Could this part of the reason that the US Navy was very seriously interested in electric drive for larger warships at one point? I would think that you would need minimal or even no speed reduction between the steam turbines and the generator sets. Also at reduced cruising speeds it might be possible to run the motors for two of the screws off of one generator set. As an aside just what is the normal running speed for a steam turbine in terms of RPM? If the turbine is running at say 10,000 rpm and your screws are turning 200 rpm that's a 50:1 reduction. A four step reduction is possible with the greatest difference being 20t/64t. This also allows smaller gears to be used. But in gear train design unless strictly required it is generally good practice to use at least one odd number of teeth in a gear ratio. Better yet use two prime numbers. An example of this can be found in automotive final drives which are often in the ranges of 3.08 to 1 which can be achieved with a 13 tooth pinion and a 40 tooth driven. In this case the same two teeth will mesh every 520 revolutions of the pinion. But lower numbers of teeth on the driven gear also mean the same two gears will mesh more often. Plus using multiple steps means more shafts. More bearings etc. More potential failure points. It may be outside the scope of this channel but to me it would be interesting to see just what the processes used to build the gear reduction sets for warships as well as such item as the interrupted screw breeches of larger naval guns. I'm a reasonably competent machinist and I've cut a large number of gears in my working life but the ones in say reduction sets for ships are way beyond anything I've ever done.
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  429. Just my opinion. Taranto and Pearl Harbor really did not offer any lessons to the operation of capital ships at sea beyond the fact that they truely were vulnerable to aircraft launched torpedoes. At both Taranto and PH* the ships sunk by torpedoes were basically sitting ducks at anchor/tied up in harbor. A more important the lesson the British (and the USN) should have learned from Bismarck is capital ships operating at sea unsupported are exposed to attack by determined torpedo bombers**. The main reason that the US Navy thought the Anchorage at Pearl Harbor was safe at least from torpedo attack was the depth of the harbor. Just be ause you think an air dropped torpedoe will bury itself in the mud iz no reason that a potential adversary can't come up with a solution to the problem. One important lesson that the US Navy probably did learn is that the standard battleships were extremely vulnerable to plunging fire and armor piercing bombs. Especially if they were converted 16" armor piercing shells from the Nagato. The really important lesson from Force Z is do not operate capital ships without either aircover or adequate anti aircraft capabilities either through your own ship board AA or escorting destroyers. *Another over looked factor is the repeated warnings that had come out of Washington due either to over reaction or miss read intelligence. **And yes I realize that the AA shells from the Bismarck should have been able to shoot the Stringbags down had they hit anything to set their fuses off
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  482. What's even worse is the serving officers who I would think had at least served at sea or even worse aboard submarines acting not to fix the problem but to act cover their own asses by insisting there was no problem. Not only not fixing the problem criminal denying it was worse. I see it as giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. Add in the declaring the maintenance manual of the Mk14's explorer top secret and locking it up. Too bad some submariner didn't have an uncle in Murder Inc. If the torpedoes cost about what a single seat fighter did and the Navy could not justify the cost of a testing program. How did the Navy justify all of the aircraft lost in accidents in the 20s and 30s. One would think that with the TDC on board US submarines the Board of Ordinance would want the best weapons on board to take advantage of the TDC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_Data_Computer Discussing cost, just how much did the TDC cost to develop and build. I know money was tight for all the services. After all the US had just fought "The War to End All Wars". So they could say "ain't gonna study war no more"*. The only problem with that is it only takes one side to start a war. It takes both to end it. Unless of course no one is left on the losing side. But of all the tight money it was probably spent more freely on the Navy than anyone else. The Army got the seconds with the Marines getting the scraps from the Navy and equipment the Army didn't want anymore. In one area the Army wasn't too bad off considering the state of budgets. That was in aviation. Because of funding provided by the Army and Navy Wright Aeronautical, Pratt &Whitney, Allison and Packard were able to develop the power plants used in WWII. Along with airframe manufacturers Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, Martin, Grumman and Curtiss The Army itself has it's own Board of Ordinance debacle. During WWI the US Army issued far more M1917 Enfield rifles in 30.06 than it did Springfield M1903's. About three or four to one IIRC. After the war the Army had to decide which rifles to keep in service. Seeing as the Springfield Armory was a government owned and run facility and the '03 was a better target rifle and so out performed the Enfield at long range. It was decided to keep the Springfield. The Army, and its Board of Ordinance was wedded to idea of "Everyman a rifleman". So due to this and the 600 yard range qualification and National Match Events the better battle rifle was shown the door. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1917_Enfield Of course the mid 1920s is when the the US Army began the development of what would become the M-1 Garand *A continuing pattern in US history. It gets in a scrap and after it's over tells the military thanks very much and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. A good example of this is the basic scrapping of the US Navy post ACW at least in terms of blue water operations. Another is the adoption of the M-1873 Trapdoor Springfield which began as converted Springfield Fifle Muskets from the ACW. Arguably among the worst of single shot breech loading service rifles to enter service in the 1860s & 1870s. It was kept in service faaaaaaar toooooooo long only being replaced in the 1890s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_model_1873 Never mind the US had a perfectly serviceable bolt action magazine fed rifle in the 1880s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1885_Remington%E2%80%93Lee
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  555. My thoughts 1) The Graf Zeppelin would have been extremely effective at being an artificial reef. Provided she was sunk in shallow water. Given the loss rate of 109s from accidents I doubt they would last very long. A far better air group for her had she gone into service in my opinion would have been all FW-190 A4s with some possible torpedo bomber. The A4 coul have handled the dive bomber role better than the Stuka at sea. The only real problem I see with the 190 is it's relatively high wing loading iirc. Now I'll have to go back and go through Jerry's FW-190 series. 2) In terms of a cost benefit analysis the Bouge and Casablancas may have been the most effective ships built in WWII 3) The first "cruiser". Well I would consider the ACW Kearsage a cruiser. As for Battlecruisers I'll go with the Constitution. Outrun what you can't fight. Outright anything else. If we get into battle axes well that's highly subjective. 4) Building x ships instead of y ship. It's not just the hulls and dockyard space. It's the other stuff that goes into those hills. If the Kreigsmarine decided to build a bunch of destroyers instead of Bismarck and Tirpitz it would have been a better use of the steel (nothing Germany does affects the overall outcome of the war after 1941). But then you need to compete with sub production for power plants etc. 5) Carriers getting involved in a surface action. Unless they blunder into one there is no excuse for a carrier captain to allow his ship to get into a surface action with an enemy warship. Plus nobody really operated carriers all by themselves. If a carrier does get into a gun surface action with say a cruiser the two vessels early in the war up to say the end of 42 that would have had the best chance to survive would be Lexington and Saratoga given their 8" cruiser guns. Late war the Essex's might have a chance given their high rate of fire from their 5"38s. Glorious' captain if he survived should have been given a locked room and a pistol. 6) Shimano would have been a decently effective fleet carrier provided she was being used by the US Navy or the Royal Navy. The IJN simply didn't have the depth of pilot pool the US and Britian did. 7) Hydrofoils. I can see their use as missile boats possibly but as attractive as their speed capability is once radars and surface to surface or air launched surface missiles come on line they simply have no protection from these beyond dodging. Plus there operating costs at high speed I would imagine are rather high. Looking at the current Aimerica's Cup boats i am amazed just how much hull and effective sail area they can support and maintain on two foils much less the three. 8) Naval small arms. One advantage Navies have over Armies in this field is the small arms requirements for a Navy tend to be much lower in terms of the number of weapons needed. The US Navy was able to field the Lee while the US Army was still fielding Trapdoor Springfields (the US Army was not ignorant of the capability of repeating rifles, they had tested numerous trials guns). Today we see US Navy ships still carrying M14s in their arms lockers. The Goast Guard might have M16s or M4s inboard the cutters involved in drug interdiction. The Royal Navy probably still has L1A1 SLRs.
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  609. When it comes to Bismarck and Titanic l think they have one thing in common. Hubris pure and simple. Their builders certainly knew the ships could be sunk. Put a big enough hole in anything and will sink. As to where the hubris comes from in Titanic's the obvious place to look is the White Star Line in terms of some of the things their PR staff put out. Another place is in the preformance of the White Star Lines ships officers. In Bismarck's case I would point to the German government. And to a certain extent I would put Vasa and Mary Rose into the same circumstances. While ships do get lost due to circumstances beyond any one's control. Often there are also underlaying human causes. One case of a ships loss to human error was the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975. When the wreck was found the following spring the securing clamps on the cargo hatches were largely intact. Every fourth on though was broken from when the hatches blow off. The ship left port on a Sunday and the captain was supposed to be tight as to paying overtime. and only had the crew lock down one in four of the hatch cover clamps. He supposedly intended the rest of the clamps to be set the following morning. But the weather had turned so bad that the crew could not work on deck. to show just how bad the weather change was when the Fitz left Superior the weather was extremely mild. Sunny skies, light winds and approximately 70 DF/21C. By Monday morning the temperature had fallen to 32F/0C or lower with gale force winds. With the seas washing over the deck. See The Mighty Fitz by Michael Schumacher. No, not that Michael Schumacher. He's a friend and he was doing a book tour in Germany and Austria and when he was checking into his hotel in Vienna the hotel staff was anticipating the other one. He says they were sadly disappointed.
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