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

  1. It's not just the hulls. The USN needed all the machinery. The interior fittings. Bunks, storage lockers, refrigeration, desks, chart tables and God knows what else. Just how many light bulbs were there on a Cleveland much less an Essex. All of the electrical equipment. Generators, radios, radar etc. The armament. 20mm, 40mm, 5"38s, 6", 8", 12", 16" and the ammunition for each. Fuel. Av Gas. Food. Plates, bowls, cups, flatware. Uniforms. And we still haven't even gotten to the most important part of the ship yet. The crew. Basic training. Advanced training. Plus all the administrative work to keep track of just where all of these men went. Now add on everything the Army needed from small arms ammo to bridging equipment much less lend lease.
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  2. Your torpedo circles back around and sinks your sub. "A significant emotional event". Major Nicholas Moran "Once fired Mr. Torpedo is nobody's friend.' The Mighty (and exalted) Jingles Has anyone else noted that Drachinifel's videos are more entertaining when the subject matter is less than a stunning success
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  3. The amount of shrapnel laying on the seafloor of the Western Pacific expended by the US Navy would probably be equal to the steel required to build a Yamato.
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  4. That took balls bigger than the unexploded shell. I wonder how he managed to walk? But yes, Plumridge was a complete ass and likely was the official mascot of the Upper Middle Class Twit of the Year Award on Monty Python.
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  5. The top brass of the Board of Ordinance should been handed a choice. A blindfold, or not.
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  6. This goes a long way to explain the COVID-19 response in the US. Americans by and large do not like being told what to do. Especially by agents of government. Of course at their workplace they are being payed so that's different
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  7. The Imperial Japanese Navy had a top secret rock laying ship operating outside of Russian ports
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  8. As the Chieftain recently stated "I'm not doing a Drach"
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  9. The ultimate anti tank rifle. The 16"50
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  10. One unfortunate thing that happens during a major war is a nation finding out it has admirals (and generals) who may have been brilliant in a peacetime assignment that failed badly under the strain* of combat due to a number of factors. That does not mean the officer should automatically be cashiered. Such officers if they are excellent in the administrative role can still be of service in training or other support commands. *the strain can be because of multiple things happening at once overloading the officers decision making capacity. Or it can be simply psychological in that the officer simply can not make a decision. Add in being not up to command of a combat formation is another thing.
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  11. USS 2nd Amendment vs Kamchatka
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  12.  @krakenpots5693  When everybody stinks. Nobody stinks.
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  13.  @billbolton  Well after ther war they had to account to Congress most likely for all the materials. "Captain, we have 200,000 rounds of unexpended 20mm onboard." "Screw the paper work, expand it over the side."
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  14. But if you had a dyslexic French admiral the bottom of the North Sea would littered with LeClerc Main Battle Tanks instead of Motor Torpedo Boats.
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  15. To roughly quote his excellency Jingles the 1st "Its got really crappy armor, did I mention its got a lot of guns" "Its really slow. Did I mention the guns?" "It handles like a greased pig on teflon. Lots of guns though" "Draws destroyers like sailors to a brothel. The guns shoot really fast. Um, just like the sailors."
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  16. And taking notes. Lots of notes. I wonder just how often a lone merchant man on her way to her destination just blindly found herself in the middle of one of these fleet problems.
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  17. The Golden BB. Yah, Bismarck had a certain amount of luck on her side. But Bismarck also had very good fire control and shooting. She also had her share of bad luck. A torpedo hit in just the right spot is what prevented her from reaching port in France. Imagine Bismarck sitting in Brest or another French Atlantic port. Just how much would that have complicated running convoys to the UK.
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  18.  @Nyet-Zdyes  Plus the drawings needed for the Tool & Die shop that made the dies
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  19.  @Aelxi  That was her radar. Not her optical range finders.
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  20. RUD* of enemy aircraft *Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
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  21. Lexington and Saratoga in profile had to have been the two most recognizable warships on the planet in the interwar years. Simply because of that huge funnel structure.
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  22. "Attacked freighter. Sank Truck" Log entry of USS Sea Tiget. Cary Grant commanding.
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  23. Add in Wisconsin vs T-34 in Korea.
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  24. One of the few times he made sense
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  25. The Athenian Naval Treaty attempted to limit the number of oarsmen and the size of bronze rams. But everybody cheated. Plus they were confused by Kamchatka steaming around aimlessly looking for torpedo boats.
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  26. I'm sure that someone else has likely pointed this out but the F4F was one of TWO fighters that served from 41 to 45. There were other types that served through the same period.
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  27.  @patchouliknowledge4455  And the Fletcher that did not meet specifications and was a bastard build. USS FitzFletcher
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  28. Their support and ammunition ship would be HMS Rock Quarry
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  29. Can also be stated as 1) You aren't where you think you are. 2) The enemy isn't where you think he is. 3) Your met data is a wet finger stuck up into the breeze. 4) And finally your men on the range finders all need their eyes examined.
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  30. Imagine a lad that goes to sea to escape mucking out the stables. And he gets stuck on a horse carrier shoveling ........
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  31. USS Essex l, ll, lll etc USS Fletcher l, ll.......MMMCCCCCXXXII....... LSTs. Send the production order to Ford
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  32. The big factor in improved performance was the engines. More power and improved reliability. I often wonder just why the RN used a mix of radial and inline liquid cooled engines up through WWll. Radials without enough power for home grown fighters? The Bristol Hercules should have been sufficient. But the Fleet Air Arm being hamstrung by the RAF likely did not help. For US Navy fighters the R-2800 was a godsend. Used in both the Hellcat, later Bearcat and Corsair.
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  33. The photo of what l believe is Wisconsin moored next to the raised hull of Oklahoma speaks by volumes. Battledhips post WWll certainly could have been improved but would still have been vunerable to not only aircraft but the pace of technology. Improved ordinance. Homing torpedoes. Attack aircraft operating at higher speeds. And ultimately nuclear weapons. Their time as naval offensive weapons against naval targets had passed. Their employment against land targets as artillery platforms could be performed by smaller ships and they would always be range limited.
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  34. One needs to put the proper spin on it.
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  35. Away from the major cities in the upper midwest and the great lakes people usually are very nice and polite. We might be a little stand-offish with strangers but that's only because you might be from Chicago
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  36. It's not just the Black Sea that has ancient settlements hiding in its depths. When Bob Ballard was doing a project for National Geographic on the sunken British and French warships off of Anzac Cove (Gallipoli) they accidently discovered a number of circular stone structures up to about 30 meters in diameter iirc. They varied in size. All of them featured an entrance at one point and a central taller stone structure in the center. I wonder if these may actually of been some type of communal dwelling. The central pillar would provide support for roof beams which would also sit on the outer wall on the other end. Then roof the structure with thatch. The area was last above water at least 8k years ago. Plus I would think they were abandoned long before they were submerged unless they went underwater during the melt water pulses a the end of the last Glacial Advance*. *I won't say at the end of the last Ice Age because we are technically still inan Ice Age and have been for millions of years. We just see periodic warm periods in between glacial advances. As to the causes of the glacial advances there are the Melenkovick Cycles but another contributing factor is probably the rise of the Panama Isthmus and the blocking of circulation between the Atlantic and Pacific of warm surface water.
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  37. A running theme in these sorry incidents is that is the crews that pay the price. The boneheaded idiot is merely getting his just reward. The only good thing about the Scilly* disaster is it ultimately gave us chronometers. And as for ridiculous names there are a series of books recounting the fiction adventures of Amelia Pezbody Emerson and her husband Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson. There is one recurring character with a thoroughly ridiculous name connected to British intelligence. Author Elizibeth Peter's (Barbara Mertz) *given the pronunciation I've usually heard the whole was not silly at all.
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  38. And make sure to wear your coconut bussoms Classical reference
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  39. A new school of thought coming out of France. If one simply puts the most luxurious hotels possible to sea the enemy will feel the immediate urge to drop all hostile activity and check in for a spa day. Then you escort them to their 4 star accomadations in the ships brig. For the British one must never conduct gunnery practice as it musses the paintwork. Simply won't do old chap.
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  40. Shooting was too good for them
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  41. "after charging into melee range" On fire and taking water having already used your fire suppression and damage control and are on cool down.
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  42. ​ @roykliffen9674  In the US the Coast Guard likely had more boarding party experience than the USN at that time.
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  43.  @IO-hh2fz  If the RN had been in that position the Argentines never would have acted
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  44. Well if they survived into the 1840s it would be likely.
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  45. The winner of that year's Upper Middle Class Twit of the Year Award
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  46. The Swordfish. The worlds first prop driven swing wing aircraft 😊
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  47. Here a gun, there a gun, everybody gets a gun, on Old McNavy's farm
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  48.  @rogersmith7396  The DOD also decided to eliminate the chroming in the chamber
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  49. I'd say one of the two best aviation guys at least from the history aspect. Greg's Planes and Automobiles goes much deeper into the technical details especially on the engine side.
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  50. Dear Mrs Bomb Defusal Drone; It is my regret to inform you that your it* suffered a RUD** while performing his duty in the general location of the Baltic Sea. He bore the best traditions of the service until his end Regretfully; Marvin Martian, General, Looney Tunes ace Force *would it really be fair to use his preferred pronoun as it was unknown **RUD, in SpaceX terms Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
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  51.  @richardm3023  There is some evidence as I understand that the Spanish Flu may have originated in Kansas iirc. I happen to agree about the over reaction. There are of course certain common place precautions that make sense. The same ones we should do during every flu season. But COVID-19 has been compounded by stupid decisions on all levels of government. Given the average mortality rate of approximately 8,000 deaths per day in the US on today August 19th we should have seen 1, 856,000 deaths from all causes. I would like to know just how many we have seen total. So far this about the craziest year I can remember since the 1960s. All we need now is a major impact or Yellostone to erupt.
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  52. The US Navy has carried on Mahan's habit of running into things in recent years
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  53. One former German vessel is still in service withthe US Coast Guard. The Eagle of course.
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  54. I suspect the F Class proponents were avid water skiers
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  55.  @MravacKid  The two Yamato class battleships are shrapnel
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  56. He probably later went on to have a hand in the design of the Ford Expolder, err Pinto.
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  57. And her escort. USS Second Amendment.
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  58.  @calebdoty9090  If any of the standards was considered the US Navy's flagship I think it would have been one of the West Viginia's or Colorado's. Heavier armament and better armor. Arizona as she existed on Dec 7th was in no position to engage in a gunnery duel with any fairly modern opponent. Nor were any of the other older standards. In a way the US Navy was lucky that the Japenese had not been spotted. If the battleships had sorties to try and engage the Japanese any of the battleships sunk would have been in deep water.
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  59.  @PandaMan-xy1he  But in which Circle of Hell?
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  60. There are probably a number of fairly pristine MK 14 torpedoes littering the western Pacific
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  61. "What knockers"
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  62. As an example, HMS Hood. The damage caused by the 308mm shell hit was structurally rather minor. The secondary damage on the other hand. 💥💥💥 Seconded by USS Arizona or USS Shaw
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  63. It just wouldn't be memes without the it's got to be aliens guy. And I think that was the retouched photo of Admiral King meeting with Ordandace. There just had to be fire coming out of his mouth and 40mm Bofors from his eyes.
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  64. Of course the battleship had to carry them. Just a bit heavy for the crew to lug around.
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  65.  @kemarisite  Hence the AA shells for Yamato and Musashi
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  66. The USS Tenth Amendment suffers from continued lack of power as the Department of the Navy insists that as it is the 10th Amendment it is up to the individual States to supply the needed power
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  67.  @magisterrleth3129  If it bleeds, it leads
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  68. HMS Vanguard. A rather ironic name for a ship that's the last of her line. But better than HMS Finis
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  69.  @Bird_Dog00  It's the naval version of geometric progression. 1gun, need 2, 2 guns, need 4 ect
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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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  71. I would not be surprised if Hoel, Gambier Bay or St Lo are at deeper depths when found. And if any of them went into the Trench they may not be found for a long time if ever.
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  72.  @tomdolan9761  As part of the whole Marshall's campaign there were also landing on Guam and Tinian. WWll saw US amphibious landings in Northwest Africa, the Mediterranean, Western Europe, numerous islands in the South and Central Pacific and the Southwest Pacific from New Guinea to the Philippines. I wonder just how many landing craft and amphibious ships that participated in D-day were then sent back across the Atlantic, thru the Canal and west to be used in the Western Pacific.
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  73. The one thing that was absolutely guaranteed with the Mk14 (and the Mk13 plus the Mk15) was that something would sink. Usually the tordedo.
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  74. Imagine the gun is trained port. The gun is fired. The sub rolls to starboard and floods.
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  75. USS Muskallunge. A salt water boat named for a fresh water fish.
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  76. Just what is involved in replacing a major warships machinery. In terms of underwater protection one factor the US faced was transit through the Panama Canal. There are armor piercing bombs and there are armor piercing bombs. The converted 16" AP shells from the Nagato come to mind.
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  77. ​ @ronaldgray5707  The US Navy river monitors of Vietnam have an IJA analog in some of their patrol craft built to operate on rivers in support of ground troops. The USN ones were based on landing craft iirc. The US was also using the late WWll rocket bombardment ships in Vietnam. The ones with the launchers based on the 40mm Bofors mount with fire control directors.
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  78. US WWII Bombers has a video on the US rocket assisted bombs. Code named Disney
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  79.  @Ushio01  The US did drop test radio guided T-10s. Also bombing missions over Germany did not end with VE day. Later test drop missions were flown against a "bomb proof" U-boat factory. With mixed results.
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  80.  Eric da' MAJ  I don't think that the Depression was any bad of roses. But at the same time Gm, Ford, Chrysler, Hudson, Nash and Studebaker all kept building vehicles. Somebody was buying them. Nash for instance had a profit all through the 30s. Homes were being built. The railroads were starting to switch to diesels. There was more money floating around than you would think. More people became real millionaires in the 30s than all the paper millionaires created by the Stock Market in the 20s. Yes the various federal programs aimed at the unemployed and underemployed were geared towards public works. And there was nothing wrong with that. But also in the 30s the US military invested in technological development. The Army in the automotive side of armored vehicles. The Navy in aviation. Lack of income due to tariffs can largely be blamed on the Smoot-Halley Act.
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  81. Imagine if the Western Allies were planning Overlord the way th things are done today. Some one on the planning staff suggests the concept of the Mulberries. Immediately it would go off to have an environmental impact study done. This would involve all concerned. Including the Germans. Circa 1955 the concept would be scrapped.
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  82. One problem with car ferries on the Great Lakes is they do not operate year round. We've taken the Lake Express between Milwaukee and Muskegon. Not cheap but l hate driving through Chicago. Muskegon is also home to USS Silversides
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  83. We know why all of them sank. They lost buoyancy for one reason or another and sank. What caused the loss of buoyancy is another matter entirely. May they rest in peace. All of them. Of the U-boats that have not been found how many where lost in deep water where their remains are sitting on the Abassyl Plain of the Atlantic Ocean or in the deep basins of the Mediterranean.
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  84. I think the myth about firing the guns at 90° to the centerline moving the ship comes from blast effect on the surface of the water.
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  85.  @farmerned6  I would say that there had also been physical effect on the crew from being basically on battle stations for several days.
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  86. ​ @TheCsel  The yard build the Freedom Class LCS (1) in Marinette is switching over to the new frigate class 1) The building yard has little to do with uow suitable the design is. That's the BuShips responsibility.
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  87.  @BothandNether  Most of the wrecks still on the bottom of Lake Michigan are SNJs, F-4-Fs and SBDs. Plus the wrecks are still officially owned by the US Navy. I really doubt that there are any F-4-Us off of the beaches of Illinios or Southeast Wisconsin
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  88.  @florida5135  I doubt anyone would complain. And if they do. Keelhual the lubbers.
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  89. Yoda standing on a RN destroyer holding up his light saber, er make that Electric Razor or Doom. "Jam it, it does"
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  90. The lead image is the USS Shaw blowing up ofcourse. I'm surprised she did not take the floating drydock with her. Shaw her self was put back into service after having a temporary bow installed (practice for putting temporary bows 9n ships which would come in handy) and being sent back to the West Coast. Mare Island or Brementon I would think. I actually have an inbuilt 1/250th scale model of the Arizona from Digital Navy. Doesn't take up much space though as it is a card stock model. By using the scaling function on a printer it can easily scaled up to a larger scale.
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  91.  @shatara42  I used to tell the welders at work that they worked with the metal hot glue gun
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  92. Once you get below the anaerobic layer the Black Sea also preserves wreck quite well.
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  93. In World of Warships the Erie is one of the entry level "cruisers".
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  94. It's nice he had the time to squeeze this into the hectic schedule he must have had on the trip.
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  95. If it involves a United States Man of War, most likely Royal Navy fanboys with a man crush on Lord Nelson
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  96. The ballistic tables for artillery (land or naval) in the US at least were calculated by groups of people by hand. In their job description they were called "computers". least
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  97. In the future all US battleships will be equipped with Red Ryder BB guns. Let's hope they do not shoot their eyes out.
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  98.  @IanSinclair77  One oarsman to the next, "Oh crap the Captain wants go waterskiing!"
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  99.  @ONECOUNT  It's ironic that the only surviving "British" battleship in in Japan
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  100. And if two have a bounty it was the one with the highest bounty. During WWI or II did the Royal Navy award prize money to any ships that may have captured German or any of their allied vessels
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  101. I think of the Age of Steam as being the period of double and triple expansion steam engines. The AoS effectively came to an end with Turbina and Dreadnought. Even though steam piston engine technology continued in use on the cargo and passenger side for some time. Turbines and reduction gearing aren't cheap. Steam piston technology finally replaced by diesel.
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  102.  @merafirewing6591  Then why are modern cargo ships diesel. One likely reason is power density. The same output in smaller volume.
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  103.  @792slayer  I think they used surplus 6 or 8 inch barrels from cruisers.
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  104. Plan Alpha Omega. The be all and end all.
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  105. Railways were well established by this point. Shipping is still cheaper though. Consider the existence of more carriers on the Great Lakes. Iron ore could be shipped by rail from the Misabe Range of Minnesota to steel mills on the Great Lakes. And in winter it can be. But once the Lakes are open for shipping the ore boats go back into operation. Plus in Mahan's time rail transportation of bulk materials (ore, coal, crude oil, stone etc) was actually more expensive than today when looking at cost per ton in constant dollars.
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  106. And Kamchatka does, well Kamchatka things.
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  107. It's good thing they didn't manage to torpedo a volcano. 🙄
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  108.  @JamesPhieffer  A couple of years ago I was on vacation on the west side of Maui (Napili Bay). The people staying in the resort told us that the week previously there had been 15 foot surf coming in. I then showed them video of the 40 footers that were hitting Duluth a couple of days before.
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  109. Ah, but with a calzone the pizza goes around the cheese
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  110. Well, any nation that used Spitfires to ferry beer.
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  111. Two aspects of the Industrial Revolution that gets missed by a lot of people is the rapid development of improvements in the machine tool industry. The second is improvements in meteorology (the science of measuring things)
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  112. Given the question of keeping the factories open producing spare barrels etc. Perhaps a video on just how naval guns were produced.
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  113. Next time ve build mit counter-rotating propellors.
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  114.  chris younts  the aft gun mounts of Arizona were used for coastal artillery on Oahu
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  115. Seeing as it was a Russian design how much tonnage was allocated to binoculars?
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  116. Robert Ballard was contracted by the National Georaphic to explore some of these wrecks. This was around 2005 iirc (2009). Finding the wrecks was no problem. They also found circular stone structures up around 40 meters in diameter. Some of the structures had crude stone "towers" in their centers. It has been speculated that the central tower may have acted as central support for wooden beam supporting a roof. The structures may be the oldest habitation with stone used in their construction yet found. The area was last above water around 8,000 BCE.
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  117.  @richardm3023  My father called them the "destructions"
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  118. Build? Of course they could be built. Would they meet the tonnage, would they be any good? Or would they just turn turtle in the first breeze. Just name the Vasa Class
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  119.  Joakim von Anka  It similar to why we do not have universal world peace, love and personhood. 10,000 years ago somebody stole somebody's goat.
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  120.  @bkjeong4302  Not quite as bad as the Alaska's in terms of capability. That the Iowa's never really fulfilled their original purpose is easy to say now.
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  121.  @royasturias1784  If we are going to blame anybody blame William Randolf Hearst. The Maine's forward magazine in all likelihood detonated due to a fire in an adjacent coal bunker. When the wreck was salvaged in the early 20th century in order to clear the harbor one thing found that supposedly supported a mine explosion was there was some hull plating curled inwards. After being raised she was towed out to sea and sunk. The Maine has been found of the north coast of Cuba in about 9000 feet of water iirc.
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  122. Hood may hot of been penetrated by a deck hit. Look at Drach's analysis of her loss in an earlier video. Hood's belt was fully exposed in area where she was likely hit when at full speed due to the water flow along her side.
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  123. If the work was done in private yards no doubt the owners were encouraging them to turn a blind eye.
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  124. The Iowa's had a system of I beams with trolleys that allowed the shells to be stowed onboard ship in the magazines. I really don't think I'd want a loading hatch on the barrette. But then you do have crew access hatches. Another factor in the disappearance of dedicated dive bombers was the expanded use of fighters in the fighter bomber role. Plus with the emergence of jets up until guided missiles came into their own the engagement time was cut significantly
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  125. Napoleon, meet your Waterloo!
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  126.  @Ushio01  I can see the AJ Savages going splash off the end of the flight deck.
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  127. Egyptian cotton rapidly took over the cotton market during the Civil War. The CSA was never realistically in a position to gain a strategic victory during the ACW. The best it could hope for was to make victory too costly for the North.
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  128.  @Ensign_Nemo  I've talked to a number of crew off of ocean freighters and they hated sailing on the lakes. Not for the size of the waves but because they come at you at a higher frequency. A bad storm will literally pound the hell out of a ship. Plus as I understand it the ore boats will twist in a blow
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  129. The coal storage facility at PH had to handle coal going both ways. Not only coal being loaded onto ships to refill their bunkers but also coal being off loaded from ships to stock the facility. I would imagine that this facility was pretty comparable to other coaling stations used. All it real needs is an oversized Christmas Tree in the middle.
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  130. Well, as long as it was a Rocky Road. Single or double scoop?
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  131. If the Army can bring back the Pinks and Green there's always hope. 😀 the idea of the Navy employing camouflage uniform patterns strikes me as slightly silly though. Although camo in a dazzle pattern might be interesting.
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  132. It's my understanding they do. A friend has written a number of Great Lakes shipwreck books. One thing he describes in one book is that in heavy seas you can see the ship twisting by looking down the length of the tunnel.
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  133. Free Nations navies warship names. The Poles should have a ship named Winged Hussar
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  134. Proper British atire circa 1900. "Dear I'm going out to my club. I need my umbrella and knife to cut the air."
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  135.  @scottgiles7546  Warm beer means different things in the US vs the UK.
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  136. Can anyone imagine elephants as an invasive species on the North or South Islands. Thank God Woolly Rhinos aren't around.
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  137. The picture of the Marine sitting on what appears to be a dud 14" projectile is priceless. Just where does the term 'dude's originate anyways?
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  138. HMS Fromage
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  139. One part of the Illinois still survives. The ships china is in the governor's mansion in Springfield. The ex governor's mansion is the state prison in Joliet.
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  140. All that rigging actually functions as the arrestor gear
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  141.  @dustincarlson7010  USS Sable prepares to launch an airstrike
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  142. Gringe worthy naval history movie moments. On that comes to mind is the F-9-F Panther landing just short in the first Midway movie.
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  143. Elbonia buys l'l the surplus IJN torpedo boats lurking in North Sea ports
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  144.  @mattrogersftw  Lots and lots of binoculars. Whole bloody ship loads of them.
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  145. Choices, choices, choices. Drach or Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles. Early destroyers referred to as whale backs. Wow, I didn't know early destroyers were built in yards on the Great Lakes!
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  146. The idea with any sub. At least yours or your allies subs. Is to balance the equation of submergence and surfacing
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  147. ​ @baronvandragon2427  Fair fights are for suckers
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  148. But, but, Charlton Heston hadn't been born yet. And its "Oartator, Ramming Speed"
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  149. The executive in charge of programming at the History Channel. "History? We ain't got no history. We don't have to show you no stinkin' history!"
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  150. The same applies to wrecks of both merchant men and warships that lay in shallow water with large quantities of explosives on or around them. There's a wreck on Truk Lagoon with a significant number of IJN 18" shells on board
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  151. Plus distance!
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  152. It was simply biding it's time
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  153. The last time I was this early Kamchatka wasn't even on the builders ways
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  154. Mark Fenton has a video on US involvement pre Pearl Harbor. US military personnel were in Northern Ireland in mid '41. USAAC and US Army personnel were already picking sites for camps and air fields. Coast Guard personnel were already stationed on Iceland.
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  155. Their whaling fleet seemed emulate the Essex. "And this years winner of the Pequod Award is........"
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  156. Lesson number one. What can go wrong. Will go wrong. Lesson number 2. See lesson #1. One thing that the fleet exercises should have hammered home is that even if your carrier survives an enemy strike if your flight deck is serious damaged you can write off any of your air group that is currently in the air. If you have all of your aircraft sent out on a strike mission less a small number of fighters. And an enemy slips in a strike of dive bombers. That strike group even if they all survive th he strike portion of the misdion will have no place to land. They will have to ditch. Your carrier is now worthless as an offensive weapon. This provided you have only one flight deck. Damage control would prove to be a critical skill the USN learned the hard way.
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  157. I agree that it wasn't just the bombs. The Soviet attack into Manchuria shocked the Japanese in terms of just how fast the Red Army advanced. The IJA simply wasn't equipped to handle a large combined arms operations. But I also think that there is significant modern revisionism at work regarding the use of the bombs. One major aspect being that Truman wanted to send a message to Stalin. In truth Truman had several options in regards to ending the war. Blockade and starve the Japanese into surrender. Carrying out Operation Olympic. Or trying to end the war by dropping the bombs. The first two would have led to far greater loss of life than the bombs caused. Remember the deadliest air attack against Japan wasn't Hiroshima. It was the fire bombing of Tokyo. In fact air operations by Lemays bomber force occured right until the Japanese used for peace in mid August.
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  158.  @toddwebb7521  I was thinking Cheech and Chong. "Come on down to Almonte Slims, where every truck comes with an Easy Rider rifle rack"
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  159. One thing about the target selection process in the Pearl Harbor attack plan was the ignoring the logistical targets.
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  160. I thought that was a Kirk Douglas thing.
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  161. I think they make an amount of sense given the operating limits of aircraft at the time. In bad weather that might prevent air operations the thought that an enemy destroyer squadron might be able to get close likely had something to do with it.
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  162. Perhaps the single most important supply item that the UK was getting from the US would have been fuel oil. Bunker oil for ships and high octane aviation fuel.
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  163.  @Battleship009  Chuckled usually. Especially the MIG welder. There is even a type of combined CNC/3D Printer that uses a wire welder to build up the rough part which is then machined all in one set-up.
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  164. When the Fitz sank she was carrying a lot more taconite than she was originally rated for.
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  165.  @charlescasturo9146  Oregon was converted into an ammunition hulk. Much to the chagrin of elected officials in the State of Oregon who thought she could full fill an active role*. Survived the war including breaking free of her moorings in a typhoon. Only to be scrapped post war in Japan. *Perhaps as a way to cause the Japanese to die from convulsive laughter.
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  166. USN sailor. I want to go home to my girl IJN sailor. Banzia!!!!!!! I know it's not that simple. Nothing ever is
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  167. Graph of 20mm and 40mm ammunition expended
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  168. Says someone named LaMont. 😁
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  169. Some people seemed to lionize Robert Falcon Scott. Shackelton and his expedition team members were far more worthy of praise.
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  170. In the US Navy lexicon naming a ship the New York must get confusing. The state? The city? Or the state of mind? 😖
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  171. HMS Drake. Commissioning paper did they include a Letter of Marque?
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  172. Is there any truth that a USCG cutter spotted Bismarck during the hunt?
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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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  174. What is missing is Chieftan explaining about significant emotional events
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  175. BB masts. Fuso, "hold my beer"
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  176. Not to mention Napal, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Andora. One must watch out for those Andorans. Lichtenstien too.
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  177. Yup, we give the Elbonians a run for the money. One problem the US and other western nations have is the change in administration every four to eight years (or less) often means that programs get canceled, priorities change etc.
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  178. Free time on your hands is one thing. Gainful employment is something else
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  179. Shannon also greatly benefited from the quite rapid incapacitation of the Chesapeake's command structure. Whether this not happening effected the overall outcome in terms of Shannon winning the fight if it had not happened I can not say. But when your vessels command personnel along with your helmsman are either killed or severely wounded in rapid succession it does not help. But in the long run Lawerence should not have accepted the challenge to come out and fight. His duty as an officer in his country's service was more important than any regard for his personal or his ships honor.
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  180.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Eat some pierogies, you are definitely going to need some space
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  181. As Ted Briggs said. "A beautiful shop with a glass jaw." I think Drach's analysis from a couple of years ago makes sense. Hood got hit by a shell that penetrated below the belt.
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  182. There were proposals for replacing the B-52. In today's air defense environment the BUFF is best used as a bomb truck. One thing that surprises me is how long it took to re-engine the BUFFs in service. One proposal from Boeing was a high winged twin engined aircraft with two crew in a tandem cockpit. The airframe would use the wing and engines from the 757 or 767 iirc.
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  183. The battleship at about 28 minutes. Isn't that film clip from Billy Mitchell's rather rigged demonstrations. At 33 minutes Lexington or Saratoga demonstrating just why the Panama Canal exists
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  184.  @charlesdewitt8087  As was I
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  185. I think her fretboard was considerably lower when filled to her rated capacity. Which crept upwards between 59 and 75
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  186. ​ @davidg3944  I have a few. Used to have more. Today this type of kit is designed on computers. In the past they were hand drawn. These can look really bad or very very good. Depending on the skill of the builder. Subjects range from ships, aircraft and vehicles to figures and animals. Still very popular in Eastern Europe. A number of YT channels on this. Dan Smith, builds aircraft kits. Lots of WWl subjects Swager, currently finishing up a 1/25 T-72. Including flexible tracks. Ship models are mostly 1:250 or 1:200 Aircraft models are different scales but 1:33 is very common
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  187. The deck armor is much thinner than the belt armor. Plus even if the Atizona's deck armor was upgraded during her 1930/31 modernization I doubt it was upgraded to the ability to withstand a 16" shell falling nearly vertically. The armor if upgraded was probably to a standard to with stand any projected AP bombs that could reasonably be expected.
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  188.  @joshwilliams9843  There was also an Essex class CV named Kearsage
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  189. There were bombardment ships equipped with the rocket turrets. There is a video out there. The turrets themselves were mounted on 40mm Bofors mounts. Controlled from a central fire control system. Mark Felton. Beach landing battering rams. At least a couple of them were in service into the 60s.
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  190. Ward may have fired the first shot in the war with Japan. The US was already fighting an undeclared naval war against Germany. The first US service personnel killed in the Pacific well could have been pilots of some Wildcats that were inbound to Ward Island* having launched off of Enterprise as she was headed for Pearl. *Were the ship and the island named for the same man. Somehow I don't think Mr Cleaver was involved.
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  191. If the conning tower gets hit even if the shell doesn't penetrate the concussion will kill everybody
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  192. The problem with conspiracy theories is there is always too many people in the loop. Eventually somebody talks or says something. Did the US Navy and Army know something was going to happen. There were indications from message traffic that was intercepted. The long message to the Japanese embassy in DC was certainly an indicator. Prior to Dec 7th there had been at least two warnings issued by the War Department* about possible hostile actions on the part of the Japanese. It is my understanding that the War and State Departments were of the opinion that if Japan went to war against the US hostilities would begin in the Western Pacific. If there was any criminal negligence at Pearl Harbour it was the failure of the officers in the communications center to take the report of the Ward seriously. *After WWII the War Department was changed to become the Department of Defense. Prior to and during WWll the Secratary of the Navy was still a cabinet position iirc.
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  193. Plus every time you turn around they want to install a new update. I used to play the Blitz version on my tablet a lot. Often when an update came out l would have to uninstall a bunch of apps just to free up enough memory. And the cheats. Get into a multi player game and 5 seconds you have a full spread of torps slamming into you before can even get up to speed.
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  194.  @markroberts928  I figured somebody would catch it
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  195. Ah yes. The lint trap. Another issue in the laundry aside from fires I suppose would be potential vibrations from the washing machine.
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  196. Just like the ballast tank in Titanic's fore peak. So well built it's still holding water to this day.
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  197. And if was not used as a form of expletive speech then. It sure would be afterwards.
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  198. You get bonus points for pronouncing Winnebago correctly. But you screwed up Tecumseh
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  199. And what became the United States would enter into status similiar to Canada possibly quicker. Although I do think that the political entity in that TL would still expand to the West Coast
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  200.  Eric da' MAJ  To break it down to cost per taxpayer. For one million taxpayers that comes out to per head $.01. Plus one would think that the geniuses that designed the MK 14 and its cousins would have come up with a means of determining if their wonder exploder worked. I can think of one that does not involve firing them at a target. Moor them at the supposed running depth and sail a ship over them. Recover the warhead (it wouldn't even have to be the whole torpedoe) and see if the damn thing worked. Conduct these tests in various regions to see how the Earths magnetic field affected performance. Devise setting procedures for the torpedoes to be set just prior to firing. Even the depth setting system could have been tested by towing torpedoes behind behind various ships to see it it worked or tried to cause the fish to run shallow or deep. This isn't rocket science (I know the term wasn't in use then but it should really be rocket engineering). It non destructive testing. As I said above. With or without a blindfold. Another option for the fusing could have been a simple mechanical timer that worked off of revolutions of the screws. At full speed if the screws turn x number of revolutions per y distance adjust the settings acordingly.
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  201. Nice to have a question responded to 👍
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  202. That picture f the U-Boat being moved by a truck trailer combo reminds me of the pictures one sees of the road transport of oversized shipments. Large cranes etc. Imagine being a German or Austrian farmer cutting hay and seeing a U-Boat moving along a road. Wrecks of U-Boats ar scattered all over the world. The arctic, the Atlantic, Indian and Paific Oceans. The Med. Rivers in Canada. And Lake Michigan of all places. A captured WWI boat was on display in Chicago and then later towed out and sunk in a gunnery exercise by the former excursion steamer Eastland
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  203. Which makes the New York the only USN BB to sink something during WWI. Correct?
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  204. As Sallah said in Raiders of the Lost Ark. "Very Dangerous"
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  205. Once launched Mr Torpedo is nobody's friend. The Mighty Jingles. Random WoWS videos. In WoWS I once got a same team kill driving USS St Louis at maximum range with one hit. 😮
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  206. I thought there were P-38s stationed on Iceland prior to Pearl Harbor. Part of the US taking over the occupation from the British. I think I remember that a P-38 scored a kill against a Focke Wolf Condor.
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  207. "Worked just fine" IJN, for a couple of years at least
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  208. Given the geography of the Solomons one would expect smaller naval vessels could be useful. The E Boats certainly proved useful.
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  209. I've seen the same done with 105 shell casings. My brother had a couple (still might) he wanted to turn into lamps. A common use.
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  210. Armor proofed in units of Extreme Emotional Events.
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  211. Captain, rew and tactics make a big difference. Take out the helm and command staff right away helps a lot.
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  212. I believe Midshipman Fischer also makes an appearance in 1860 China in George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman and the Dragon
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  213. Since this about submarines. "Ahuoga*, ahuoga, Dive, Dive, Dive, All hands Man your diving stations!" *one of the best cell phone rings I have ever heard starts with that diving horn sounding followed by Warning, Warning, it's the wife!
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  214. Nah, it was Ward Bond 🤠
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  215. Twice. Both in the 60s
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  216. The following is my opinion only. 1) Hood survives the Denmark Straits heavily damaged. Bismarck and Prince Eugen escape and hit one or two convoys. The then reach port in Brest. 2) The Hood after hasty damage control at Rykievic (sp) attempts to limp home. 3) The Kriegsmarine sensing blood in the water have several wolf packs stationed on her probable route home. 4) Somewhere between Iceland and Belfast (imho her likely destination ) she is attacked and eats multiple torpedoes. Any where from four to six. She cannot dodge. She is entirely dependent on her escorts for protection. She begins to flood and the crew is taken off*. Within an hour she rolls on her side and suffers a massive detonation of her magazines. Her scattered wreckage litters the sea floor to this day *Aside from her surviving engine room personnel, AA gunners and ammunition handlers and others required to run the ship the rest of her surviving crew were taken off at Iceland. They return home with the British Army troops then stationed on Iceland after the 1st Marine division arrives. The reason I suggest Belfast as her likely destination is Harland and Wolfe. Plus there or along the Clyde in Scotland puts her as far from the Luftwaffe as possible. But until drydock space is available she's staying put.
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  217. Just needs a bit of polish.
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  218.  @BobSmith-dk8nw  That was the first thing I thought of.
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  219. A year? More like three. Building time. Training time. And other factors.
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  220.  @1977Yakko  The carrier naming convention in the US Navy has in my opinion fallen away from its roots. And become a political game. Return the naming convention to important ships in US naval history and important victories for the US. Ranger, Essex, Wasp, Constellation, Midway, Saratoga etc*. No disrespect to Dorie Miller but the US Navy already has a class of ship that employees the names of individuals. *If the names of important presidents is to be employed keep it to presidents that have a significant place in US history and at least have a naval connection. Both Roosevelt's qualify. But Gerald Ford? Admittedly a naval officer but he is a future Jeopardy question.
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  221. As the Peruvia she sort of reminds me of a Great Lakes whaleback
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  222. ​ @neiloflongbeck5705  The ruins of these beacons can still be found in the American West. We have a bike trail locally that used to be an electric rail line. The footings for the canatary wiresare still there.
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  223. If the Navy had managed to work out a way to test live torpedoes against targets st sea the Mk14 and it cousins problems might have surfaced sooner.
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  224. I think she's been found https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.merlinburrows.com/found-hms-barham-1941/&ved=2ahUKEwj10tLaj93tAhVKbc0KHWsgASgQFjATegQIFBAE&usg=AOvVaw1IHg17hD4eaPN9e2MHHwke Interestingly her magazine explosion is believed to have been caused by a fire in the 4" magazine spreading to the 15" magazine. Sound familiar?
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  225. Poor Milwaukee. First they have a St Louis class named for the city. Then an Omaha. Only have it lent to the Russians*. Now there's a LCS class "ship" named after the city. At least the LCS looks like a ship. *I think the reason that the Milwaukee was the ship that got chosen for Lend Lease is because for quite awhile the mayor th here was a Scocialist. The only major city in the United States to ever elect one as mayor. But the Omaha Class Milwaukee does have one claim to fame. The deepest point in the Atlantic in the Puerto Rico Trench is named for her as she was the first to determine the depth there. https://www.britannica.com/place/Milwaukee-Depth
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  226. Instead of Pearl Harbir the IJN sc should have bbn ombed the paper mills. The US war effort would have ground to a halt. 🙄
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  227. Sea Combat Brutality! Oh my God! The kettle bell went to the bottom.
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  228.  @waverleyjournalise5757  When Briggs said this I think the assumption was that Hood was penetrated either through the belt or deck armor.
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  229. There's an interesting side story to the Gallipoli Campaign. In 2006 iirc National Geographic contracted with Robert Ballard (USNR, ret) to do a survey of the wrecks in Anzac Cove. They found the wrecks easily enough. In addition they also discovered a number of circular stone structures with a taller stone structure in the center. These were last above water either 8000 BCE or 8000 years ago.
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  230.  @TonboIV  Aside from the major cities a lot of the Eastern seaboard states are pretty sparsely settled. Farm kids from the midwest and the plains states most of them had been around machinery all their lives. Farms had been using machinery in the US for generations by WWII. A lot of it might have been horse drawn and almost all was pre internal combustion. The McCormick Reaper was the North's secret weapon in the American Civil War. All of this stuff had to be fixed if it broke. Which it would. And it generally broke when it was really needed. Types of machines in use on American farms (not all but alot) by 1940 included tractors, early combines, conveyors for moving feed, early potato planting machines etc.
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  231. The Lancaster did not exist pre war. The Manchester did but that used 2 24 cylinder X layout Vulture aeroengine. Problems with the Vulture led to the Manchester's wing being redesigned to take two Merlins per side. In 1939 RR was tasked with engineering development work and production on the Merlin, Vulture and Perrigrine. Plus it was doing work on the X-24 cylinder aircooled sleeve valve Exe, Pennine, early work on the H-24 Eagle and the V-12 sleeve valve 2 stroke Crecy. Vulture was dropped due to operational issues. Perrigrine was dropped due to limited use (1) and HP potential. Plus RR was commited to supporting the establiding of Merlin production in non RR facilities.
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  232. As I remember from reading 30 Seconds over Tokyo many years ago the bomb load was 3 HE and one incendiary.
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  233.  @grahamstrouse1165  Oh I agree about the accuracy. The Doolittle raid was carried out pretty low altitude though.
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  234. Scrapped in Japan by the way. Some of the steel probably came back as Honda 50s
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  235.  @sarjim4381  1959 to 1975.
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  236. Well, the Rainbow Warrior sure scared the crap out of the French Secret Service.
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  237. I think the idea of regularly operating catapult launched planes off of a capital ship or heavy cruiser for ASW work is rather silly. I can see their usefulness in reporting fall of shot for gunnery corrections but operating them at sea for regular patrols also means you need to stop at sea for recovery operations. ASW autogyros though? I'm a little surprised they weren't looked at more seriously by naval powers. They would never replace carrier strike aircraft but for patrols around the battle squadron they may have been useful. Station a squadron of perhaps 6 to 8 on board a lighter hull, perhaps an older light cruiser with her aft armament removed and hanger space provided. To me that sounds reasonable. The Kreigsmarine did make use of unpowered rotary wing kites for spotting. Of course it sucks to be the pilot if the sub has to crash dive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_330
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  238.  @riderstrano783  And I remember when they were round. 👍
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  239. A complete waste of steel, money and skilled manpower Basically the RN equivilant of the Alaska's
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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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  241. But Germany you can have as many warships s you can fit into a standard bathtub
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  242. ​ @michaelpiatkowskijr1045  The Oregon was gutted and used as an ammunition barge.
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  243.  @michaelpiatkowskijr1045  The hull of the Oregon was used to transport ammunition during campaigns in the Pacific. During one typhoon is broke loose from its moorings and was later found drifting. Post war was sold for scrap to a breakers yard in Japan. In retrospect it just as well could have been left alone. Eventually I can see where a number of current museum ships will be scrapped. Iowa and Wisconsin among them. Along with a number of others. For two main reasons. Money being the first. In the overall scheme of things museum ships aren't that expensive compared to the amount of funny money various governments spend. But it is in competition with other needs. The second is gradual lack of interest on the part the general public. Gradually the public will have less and less connection to these artifacts.
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  244. The whole Pearl Harbor thing didnt work out so we got you with VCR's and Toyotas Do nationalistic Flat Earthers discuss their countries "plane" of infulence?
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  245. The super duper pooper cruiser.
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  246. The USS Pillsbury. The mind reels at the possible nicknames for the ship and crew.
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  247. I've pretty much had it with WoWS. 10 seconds into a match with no enemy team anywhere near and suddenly 50% of your health is gone and there a fire to boot. Lately I don't know how many times the system locks up. I can move. But everyone else is stationary. Guns blazing, torps hitting home only to run straight through the target. And then I fid out I've lost the maximum amount of points possible.
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  248. ​ @Hybris51129  Consider that a crude form of radar was demonstrated pre WWII.
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  249. The Mark 14's magnetic detonator likely could only be set off by Marvin the Martian.
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  250. Ships of Steel, Balls of Brass
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  251. I have to wonder how many of them uttered the famous last words "hold mah beer" or "watch this"
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  252. Sir, today you get an A+ (or full marks) for your Japanese pronunciation. To my knowledge Japanese is normally pronounced just how it is spelled. And no l don't speak Japanese. But after reading Clavel's Shogun twice I understood the portions of the book that were in Japanese with no problems. The photo at the 5:40 mark. Now if somebody had just "accidently" fired the far left barrel of the 40mm Bofors. As an aside. I wonder if anyone ever gave thought to the use of the Bofors 400mm in the role of a direct fire support weapon for land use.
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  253. Plus HMS HMS Dreadnought
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  254.  Yar Nunya  The main reaso. The Fitz sank is she left Superior with only 1 of every four hatch cover clamps locked down. She left port on a Sunday a d McSorley was tight as far as overtime went. The weather turned bad Sunday night and the crew could not get on deck to finish the job. This allowed her to ship too much water and when she went down she nose dived into the bottom. The torque of the screw broke in half and flipped the stern upside down. On the bow section it was found that every fourth clamp on the hatches were broken when the hatch covers blow off. The rest were in good condition
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  255. Dead end? Maybe not. I can see a point at which nuclear becomes viable for ship propulsion.
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  256. I know the Hamilton has been found what about the Scourge?
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  257. U-505. USS Cobia and USS Silversides (WWII fleet boats) are both about 3 hours or so depending on traffic. The Lake Express between Milwaukee and Muskegon passes the Silversides when entering or leaving Muskegon. Also Muskegon is close to Kalamazoo and the aviation museum. Manitowoc is close to Oshkosh. Plus when in the States I would think the Air and Space Museum would be on the list if in the area. There was a replay of sorts in 1947 of the Halifax disaster when a cargo ship full of ammonia nitrate fertilizer blow up in Texas City
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  258. ​ @orwellboy1958  If time travel had been a thing one of these would have been named the De Gaulle.
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  259. ​ @captainvladmir7535  Le Martian merde
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  260. A BUFF (1) with a full load of laser guided bombs. "I look small?" 1) Big Ugly Fat Fellow
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  261.  @michaelsommers2356  Arrogance or maybe better expressed as brashness is something that is not usually in short supply in the US. But the US Navy was willing to learn. Sometimes reluctantly. One thing the US Navy learned during the interwar period was just how to operate carriers at sea. Something the RN and IJN were learning at the same time. Something that China and India are still learning today. Pretty ships do not make a Navy. Sailors do.
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  262. The absolutely most terrifying name for a warship would be (insert national initials) Mother-in-law. That or HMS PMS.
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  263.  @twotone3471  And the Japanese captain testified that it wouldn't have made any difference. The US Navy managing to loose track of Indy was criminal
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  264.  @dougfoust117  Damned callous of the High Command is it not. On being assigned to U-boats any sailor from the Imperial German Navy or the Kreigsmarine immediately fills out his last will and testament. One of the worst duty assignments in both wars in terms of chances of surviving the war.
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  265. Not in combat. Oklahoma was lost while under tow for scraping.
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  266. The proposed ship names should have been Targetu, Targetagi, Zunkagi, Reefgu..............
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  267. Elbonia
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  268. K for kalamity
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  269. I've wondered if accounts of ships blowing up while under air attack by strafing fighters are cases where a cannon shell or larger caliber bullet penetrated and detonated a depth charge or torpedo. I would think if a destroyer such as USS Johnston at Samar would jettison all of its depth charges. The idea of racing around with a number of what are effectively 500 pound bombs on your stern in the middle of a surface action is insane
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  270. And then post war Cordell Hull had it shut down. He supposedly said "gentlemen do not read each others mail"
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  271. The same applies to bridges etc.
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  272. The current record holder for a known wreck is the Sammy B. Her guns are inplace from what ive seen. It will be interesting to see just what condition any of the wrecks from Samar are in if they wound up falling all the way into the trench. They vould have fallen str as ight to the bottom or impacted th he trench wall on the way down.
    2
  273. Were the rings indicative of service time? 1812 to 1862 is 50 years. Only one star. I think the highest rank in the US Navy at the time was Admiral.
    2
  274. The light carriers could well have been assigned nothing but fighter squadrons to act as committed air defense for the battle group or as having ready replacements for losses* *Not all losses were due to combat. Landing accidents, engine failures and other mechanical losses. Plus possible loses due to pilots getting lost.
    2
  275. USS Kersarge aka Crane Ship #1 was using its crane in active service quite a bit.
    2
  276. The one that confuses me is Sloop of War. I think of a sloop as a smallish sailing vessel. Some USN Sloops of War around the Civil War period were not small for their time period.
    2
  277. When USS Hornet was found there was a 5" shell still in the fuse setter of one of the 5" gun tubs.
    2
  278. John Paul Jones enters the room.
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  279. I wonder if the condition of the Milwaukee on her return from the Soviets was intentional. But I doubt it.
    2
  280. Hopefully of the high ranking officers that may have been responsible for the poor quality of the ship involved.
    2
  281. Not only the U-505 in the Museum of Science and Industry but there is another one out on the bottom of Lake Michigan. One from WWl that was displayed in Chicago as part of a Bond Drive. Later sunk by gunfire from a Naval Reserve training vessel that had formerly been the SS Eastland
    2
  282. One question regarding the bunker oil still present on wrecks. At great depths* just how well would that bunker fuel be able to be pumped due to both the environmental temperature and the problem of pumping up from the Abyssal Plains or worse in the areas of trenches along subduction zones. Plus it's not only the bunker fuel on warships you also have the oil on cargo and passenger vessels lost not only during the war but also from peacetime shipping losses. One place where we might see a first attempt at this is from a tanker that is being monitored off of Monterey on the California coast. I think that wreck is in relatively shallow water as compared to say Bismarck or Yorktown. Additionally we simply do not know where every wreck is. We still don't have highly detailed topographic maps of the sea floor as seen in the recent collision Connecticut suffered.
    2
  283. As these were type II boats were they üntersized boats
    2
  284. Given Mahan's influence on naval (and national) strategies I think the US should name an important fleet replenishment vessel after him.
    2
  285. I was so early that Kamchatka had yet to spot any torpedo boats being built. Much less at sea.
    2
  286.  @alanpennie8013  Also rather than reading the novels a better approach is to listen to them. It really gives you sense of Flashy "dining out" on his reminiscences. I still haven't been able to find library copies of all of the audio books. Plus I really mean to try the ones dealing with his "ancestors". In my reading interests I go through phases. Flashman and Jack Aubry are two recurring phases.
    2
  287. The rams. Why didn't they make them with neat bird's heads cast into them. If you're going to go Greco-Roman. Go full bore Greco-Roman.
    2
  288.  @AWMJoeyjoejoe  Politicians can only see as far as the next election. Most of them anyway
    2
  289.  @ChillGamerLad  I didn't know. Thanks. 15k plus feet down
    2
  290. Any shed on a RN ship in reserve would be for the middle aged bogger who has to knock up the odd new 15" breech block out of odd bits of scrap iron.
    2
  291. As Drach explains wood has its limitations. And advantages too. One thing especially with large 1st through 3rd rates is you need to space for armament, gun crews, sail handlers, Marines, the skilled ratings (ships carpenter, sail maker etc, ships officers, any possible passengers and supernumeries. Plus their required stores. And spare spars, sails, cordage etc. And their required powder and shot. Wooden ships once they get long enough have a tendency to begin to hog. A condition where the bow and stern are drooping in relation to the middle of the ship along the length of the keel. Some ships tried to counter this with cables running for and aft that would put the hull under tension above the waterline. Probably the finest hulled large ships of the wooden era were the clippers. But they probably would have carried limited armament as war ships. In fact by the 1860s large ocean going wooden warships were able to carry less guns yet have a greater weight of metal. Another thing done on wooden ships to aid stability was the bottom of the ship could be filled with ballast. This could be pretty much permanent or could be part of the actual cargo. One thing I wonder is just how well a modern steel hulled warship up to frigate sized could be converted to sail. I know there have been a few instances where steam poweredvessels have had to jury rig sails due to mechanical break downs.
    2
  292. I'm only up to Anson's circumnavigation and Kamchatka isn't even the running.
    2
  293. In James Campbell's "The Ghost Mountain Boys" he tells the tale of a 32nd Infantry Division sargent recovering in a hospital somewhere in the Southwest Pacific. His fellow patients in the ward were all Marines fresh from Guadalcanal. When he was being discharged from the hospital and was getting dressed the Marines who had been talking about just how bad the 'Canal had been asked where he'd picked up the fruit salad. The Sargent who hadn't really talked at all in the hospital said on word "Buna". The Marines and later the 26th Infantry on Guadalcanal had no corner on the market when it came to misery and being out on a limb. http://www.ghostmountainboys.com/
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  294.  @philvanderlaan5942  Really he probably thought, "how nice of the Navy to drop this dud off right where I need to sit down and get this rock out of my boot". From the looks of the Marine he's had a rough time. I hope he survived. In reality it was a totally unnecessary operation
    2
  295. The Wildcat may appear stubby. But look at the profile of a raindrop. Or a bomb of the time period or earlier. Plus al of the fuselage dimensions of the F4F were driven by one thing. The rafial engine.
    2
  296. This video has the first time I have ever seen of the Vought Vindicator SB2U landing on a carrier.
    2
  297. There was this little thing called The Depression.
    2
  298. If somehow Yamato had gotten into position by running aground off of Okinawa she would have been pounded into scrap metal in fairly short order. I really don't think the Marines and Army troops on the beach were sad that she was sunk. Including my late father-in-law (1). 1) Was in the 5th Marine Div. And got transferred out shortly before Iwo.
    2
  299.  @themanformerlyknownascomme777  The blame for Scorpion imo should have been laid squarely at the feet of who ever was in command of the Subs in the Atlantic. Everything I've heard says she had no business being at sea. Even if none of the issues directly led to her loss.
    2
  300. 30% cheese 30% beer 38% brats 2% Wisconsin distilled bourbon.
    2
  301. The horror, the horror. Just the idea of Jingles singing "Heart of Oak" is bad enough.
    2
  302. Yes and all the scenic spots that cater to sailors on shore leave. Saloons, cat houses etc.
    2
  303. Not only always torpedo boats. But ALL the torpedo boats.
    2
  304. Plus at the time Drach mentions for Renown the US Navy was undergoing a rapid expansion due to the Two Ocean Navy Act.
    2
  305. And spelling. Color vs colour.
    2
  306. Iron Bottom Sound needed a booster infusion.
    2
  307.  @Otokichi786  I was thinking about the movie
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  308. Parrots, Birds of Paradise, Cardinals, Teal, Widgeons etc, etc etc.
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  309.  @benwilson6145  I think I stated it poorly. Double bottom and double hull to the waterline.
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  310. I used to have access to large steel balls from ball bearings (1) and other applictions. I had some about 40 mm in diameter. I pulled them out at coffee one Saturday and started quoting Bogey. 1) A ball bearing is the complete assembly. By themselves the balls are just steel balls. Not to be confused with big brass balls
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  311.  @sawyerawr5783  Larger even than the Denver and Rio Grande's narrow gauge. Or the Rio Grande Southern. Or the East Broad Top?
    2
  312. "Well, l know we're not over Bedford because the only Pyramid I see is great bloody pile of stones."
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  313. Naval engineering disasters and Drac uses the phrase "floating around".
    2
  314.  @AdamMGTF  First. I never implied they were British. Second. It Was A Joke. As much as I do admire the Royal Navy of the period there is also a lot to despise. Impressment of seamen for one.
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  315. At least she's good for learning dive bombing tactics or recon. If the other teams got a Hosho or a destroyer get close she's toast. I don't know how many times I've sent her to the bottom only for WoWs to locate, raise and refit her
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  316. Don't worry. We made up for that in spades.
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  317. She had always envied the probes used by HMS Challenger to plumb the depths
    2
  318. Let's hope the medical staff had gotten past the "practice" stage.
    2
  319. How about the 30ft replica the guy in Maine used to putter around on lakes in http://twistedsifter.com/2012/08/30ft-model-replica-battleship-admiral-graf-spee-william-terra/
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  320. I toured her during a Tall Ship event on Lake Michigan in the 2000s.
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  321. I would imagine so. Plus cleaning might be needed not only for powder residue but also for removal of any material left in the rifling from the driving band on the shells.
    2
  322.  @living2ndchildhood347  They finally get to home perhaps.
    2
  323.  @jaelwyn  More importantly. Has the worldwide production of binoculars kept up with future demand.
    2
  324. Without using archival footage I suspect that various nations would not appreciate the landscape re-arangement that would be involved.
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  325. Now then send her for anger management training
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  326. Do you mean Kamchatka showed up for no reason.
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  327. One difference between say going ashore on a hostile beach and doing damage control is with damage control the immediate danger is right in front of your face.
    2
  328.  @grifter3680  Taxes come in, government spends tax money plus more on other stuff
    2
  329. If the definition of insanity is that you keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. Then the IJN took it to a new level of expecting the same result always
    2
  330. Th Amphibious ship in the USN was taken by Liberty Ships and purpose built Amphibious ships (see Away all Boats). Plus the LSTs and LSMs. Which led to the LSMR. A lot of firepower in very short time period with a long reload.
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  331. Years ago the Discovery or History Channel (1) had an episode on the US gun factory at West Point. Once a nation loses the skills and knowledge of how to do these things it is very difficult to start such operations up again. It is not like opening up a law office. 1) When the History Channel covered actual history.
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  332.  @gmanbo  First it was tongue in cheek sarcasm. It doesnt always work. 😖 Second most railway guns were repurposed naval rifles to start with. This YouTube channel actually had a video on a double barrel bolt action rifle in which one bolt handle cycled both barrels. The locking mechanism when I saw it immediately put me in mind of the interrupted thread breeches seen on larger naval rifles https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=duoble+barrel+bolt+action+rifle&&view=detail&mid=F56107935D258ADD732DF56107935D258ADD732D&&FORM=VRDGAR These interrupted thread breaches are in my opinion one of the high points of manual machining operations along with centrifugal turbine rotors prior to CNC technology. One thing most people probably do not know is that a lot of complicated forms that needed to be machined prior to CNC were actually achieved by means of tracing a hand made pattern. This is how the dies for stamping out automotive sheet metal or the tooling for plastic models were produced for just a couple of examples.
    2
  333. It had be very, very fast. One can not drop a ship and run a one can a rifle
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  334. If any questions come up during a Drydock about the Swedish Navy then it should when The Swedish Chef appears. Of course Drach becomes completely unintelligible.
    2
  335. Sir you hit the nail squarely on the head. Any time a politician of any stripe is critical of spending in one area that does not mean they simply want to eliminate that much spending from the budget. It usually means they fo want to spend that money (and likely more) on their bright idea.
    2
  336.  @johnshepherd8687  Yes I know. Although I'm not sure just how much the word "combat" can be used with either type of LCS. Plus in WWII there were fair number of submarines and smaller vessels built in yards on the Lakes. Petersen Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay used to build for the US Navy until they finally got fed up with the Navy constantly changing specifications. They still might be doing some contract building for the Corp of Engineers but I'm not sure about that. I do wonder in the case of the LCS ships just how that relates to the treaty with Canada that has provisions limiting the size and capabilities of warships operating on the Great Lakes. Especially seeing as how any USN ships operating on the Great Lakes have to travel through Canada to get there.
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  337.  @johnshepherd8687  There are probably provisions for special exceptions. As I understand it the treaty limitations mainly are in place concerning vessels actually stationed on the Great Lakes. Of course it's not like a Nimtz class is going to be making a port call in Chicago. Over the years a few groups in Wisconsin came up with the idea of trying to get BB-64 as a museum ship. The Navy basically told them OK. If you can figure out how to get it there you can have it. A few years back there was an effort by a group in Milwaukee to secure a cruiser but that went nowhere. They only actual combat museum ships I can think of of the Silversides in Muskegeon and the Cobia in Manitowoc. There may be others but I don't know. There are two German subs on the Great Lakes. The U-505 and the one WWI sub sitting on the bottom of Lake Michigan.
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  338. Das Boot
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  339. I dont care how many shells you put down range if you can't hit anything it's all pointless
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  340.  Joakim von Anka  Hey, thems fighting words. 😉 Both of my fathers parents were from Denmark. So I call myeslf a Scandahoovian Southern Gentleman 🙄
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  341. "The outward looking Woodrow Wilson was repla....." Well replacing an outright bigot with a politician of questionable morals is a step up. "The Great War." Great as large not as in really cool. Given any Navy is a branch of its government thus the 16" armed ships would get 14" shells while the 14s would get the 16" shells and the 12s the 14".
    2
  342.  @falcovg2  But do Tulip and other ornamental bulbs qualify really
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  343.  @TonboIV  And just where do you think most of the latest technology in production aside from aircraft engines came from. The Northeast had lost its hold on the machine tool industry to companies in the area between Cincinnati and Rockford for the most part. As to the Midwest. It depends on just where you place the deviding line between the Midwest and the Great Lakes Basin industrial region. Let's just put this to rest
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  344. Actually U-505 is about equidistant from USS Silversides and USS Cobia in Manitowoc.
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  345. I don't feel sorry for them at all. Yet there were or are Japanese wrecks in Truk Lagoon with human remains on board that one could dive on as I understand it. What constitutes a War Grave. A sunken warship yes. What about a sunken merchant man sunk by submarine, air attack or surface action. The men aboard who died certainly died because of hostile action.
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  346. If she had gotten the bow from Illinios they could have called her Big Willi.
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  347. One of these hypothetical capital ships must be named HMS Thunderer.
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  348.  @WALTERBROADDUS  I don't think they were expected to do much physical damage. Especially to industrial facilities. In terms of attacking infrastructure they probably would have better off attacking the power grid. The main damage the Raiders did was to Japanese morale and defensive considerations as per the Home Islands. If the Doolittle Raid caused the Japanese to keep significant air or naval power in Home Waters it was a win. As to casualties caused by the raid. The overwhelming majority of those were the estimated 100k Chinese killed as the result of either sheltering the aircrew or the IJA killing civilians while searching for them.
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  349. And at the conclusion of the landings large numbers if landing craft along with other amphibious ships needed to be sent to the Med for Operation Dragon. And the the Western Pacific for Leyte.
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  350.  @Thunderous117  Yup, Yuppers and Trolls
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  351. When I was still playing WoW Blitz this type of vessel along with destroyers were actually the most fun.
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  352.  @christopherconard2831  Plus a new administration every 4 to 8 years. The possibility of the Congress swinging. For an example just look at the history of the SLS (aka Senate Launch System). They recently launched a new Great Lakes bulk carrier in Sturgeon Bay. Took at least 2 years to build.
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  353. She should really be wearing a big yellow foam cheese wedge on her forecast 😂😂
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  354. Any ship can be sunk. Some just take more effort than others
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  355. Just what is the process of relining a ships gun barrel. And how tightly did the liner fit
    2
  356. When it comes to scale model ships some of the largest are the size of speed boats. Some of them have been built for movie use (In Harms Way). Others for ship handling training. This was done for some earlier supertankers in anticipation of the re-opening of the Suez Canal. A d then their is the gentleman in I believe New Hampshire that built a Graf Spee he could drive around on small lakes. While sitting inside of it. Bits of ships. The USS Maine's mast is preserved at the cemetery for the ships crew. Plus one of her anchors is in Havana
    2
  357.  @bkjeong4302  In terms of fire support in most instances a heavy cruiser would have been as useful, probably. One needs to remember that the superiority of the carrier wasn't entirely clear yet circa 1940.
    2
  358. Almost every State in the US is going to have a few or a lot of places names, lakes or rivers that can be tongue twisters for the non native.
    2
  359. There's a video out there on a very high isp chemical rocket fuel/oxidizer combination that was looked at that makes this look safe as houses. The oxidizer was Fluorine. Scott Manley and Alexander the ok for channels
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  360. No matter how good your gun system is you still need to score hits. It would be interesting to see who had the best fire control systems
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  361.  @thomasc5605  Loaning a ship named Royal Sovereign to a communist state seems a true slap in the face. Or a classic case of understated irony.
    2
  362. Drac and the sword Matt Easton. As opposed to the woodworker Matt Easton. Also a brit. And now if everyone's favorite Irishman was present he could suggest attaching the sword to the bow. Row closer so I can hit them with my sword! And is the sword an Uthbert?
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  363.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Which itself is just a rehash of Romro and Juliet. Better music though. If I had a choice I'd rather sit through the early 60s movie of West Side Story than DeCaprio's Romeo and Juliet.
    2
  364. In terms something being valued look no farther than the US Navy turning the Oregon into an ammunition hulk. Plus there are limits to just how many museum ships any nation can preserve.
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  365. One thing I really never understood about the Omaha Class. The US shipbuilding industry had been building battleships with superfiring turrets since the South Carolinas. And they couldn't handle them in the Omaha's? Or was it a case of the BuShips not knowing what the it wanted. And of all the Omaha's the one with the most checkered service in some ways USS Milwaukee* (CL-5) which was lent to the Soviet Northern Fleet in Murmansk. At least her name lives on in charts of the Atlantic seafloor in the Milwaukee Deep off the north shore of Puerto Rico. The deepest spot in the Atlantic in the Puerto Rican Trench. But still around 8,000ft/2440m less than Challenger Deep. *A seemingly unlucky name for US Navy ships given what happened to her predecessor.
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  366. If the name was available from the Navy registrar I think it safe to assume that there would have been a battleship and possibly a CVN named Constitution.
    2
  367. If the US did ice cream. And the Brits did beer. Fid the French have Vineyard ships. In the 1960s there was a really bad Bob Hope service comedy where Hope is searching for a sunken transport full of "Milwaukee Holy Water"
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  368. In 1:350th or 1:1? Although printing in 1:1 would likely lead to a world wide shortage of 3D printing materials 😁
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  369. In the Martin the Martian voice of course.
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  370.  @bluemarlin8138  Plus Prince of Wales got lucky with the dud shell from Bismarck that was found deep inside the ship.
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  371. At least in the breakers yard she could be turned into something useful.
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  372. Only slightly less hilarious than the K class boats. Except for their crews of course. Of course todays nuclear boats are in fact steam powered vessels.
    2
  373. Still have mine at 70. Must be the Neanderthal genes.
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  374. Worchestershire sauce and cheese? Well, to each his own.
    2
  375. The whole idea of 1 on 1 ship combats taking place between capital ships is ludicrous simply because these ships are not going to operating by themselves. The exception being the Kriegsmarine
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  376. When Captain Evan's and his crew were born the US suffered a massive brass shortage.
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  377. There was also a pretty fair degree of isolationist feeling at the time. Prior to the Draft being introduced the US Army was actually quite small in comparision. And the Marines were very small in terms of manpower. And spread pretty thin commitment wise.
    2
  378.  @rogersmith7396  If the shIps weren't useful as warships they at least had scrap value. Plus there is the fact that every single fitting, screw and nut on board them was manufactured to a different set of thread standards. UNC, UNF and NPT, NPS vs Whitworth and BSTP and BSSP.
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  379. Plumridge's high stuff collar and neck cloth were totally unnecessary to hold his head up as the complete vacuum between his ears would do the job quite adequately. The Kriegsmarine destroyer at 14:40. Did the DKM actually have copies of the drawings for the Fletcher Class? A damaged rudder steaming in circles. Sounds familiar. The whole incident sounds like something if you wrote it as fiction the editor would throw the manuscript back at the author.
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  380. Drach has done a series of videos on the War of 1812 on the Grest Lakes and Lake Champlain iirc
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  381. The monitors the USN had built had centerline turrets.
    2
  382. I take it Swordfish lacked the range to reach Taranto from Malta.
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  383. There are some that will never be found or if found identified because they are either in deep ocean water or will simply be too far gone to be identifiable.
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  384.  @washingtonradio  The US was a major exporter of wheat to Britian at the time. The Norths secret weapon in the ACW was the McCormick Reamer.
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  385. Haven't had a root heer float since I was a kid about 60 years ago.
    2
  386.  @Dave5843-d9m  The fuel used on the various railroads also was dependent on the local availsbility of coal or oil. With steam is just wasn't the overall efficiency it was also the maintenance requirements of steam engines vs diesels.
    2
  387. The problem there is the turret catapult was on top of turret 3. Unless Arizona still had a midship catapult.
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  388.  @SteamCrane  Friend of mine has a number of books he's written on Great Lakes shipwrecks*. He's of the opinion that the ship might of grounded near Michipicoten Island. But he also thinks that th sinking had a number of contributing factors. Yet no one has ever found any evidence that the Fitz did ground. I think I will stick with the hatch cover clamps. Wave action might have put her underwater but she didnot have enough reserve bouancy to recover.
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  389.  @MotoroidARFC  Submariners are also used to being cooped up in an enclosed environment for months at a time.
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  390. No but the funny farm called and was wondering just how you got out.
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  391. @OtakuLoki  I doubt PWRs will ever see use in commercial shipping again. But future reactor technology?
    2
  392. If you are referring to the Murmansk I think you are that is slightly confusing as she was the USS Milwaukee (CL-5).
    2
  393. I wonder if that's related to the shear volume of shells that were expended. When you have multiple ships blazing away at the same target.
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  394.  @Ushio01  That must be great comfort to their crews.
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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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  396. Was this the last naval battle were prizes were taken
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  397.  @leoamery  I stand corrected
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  398. Computer was actually a job description
    2
  399.  @finscreenname  Reroute from Pearl Harbor to the knackers yard on San Francisco Bay she sank in a storm.
    2
  400. There are times when even if you win the victory is so costly that you may have been better off not fighting at all. Of course if your back is up against the proverbial wall there's not much choice.
    2
  401. One problem is with anti ship missiles that seriously out range naval gunfire support.
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  402. I do know that the china for USS Illinois BB-65 or 66 is at the governor's mansion or the Statehouse in Springfield. The rest of the Iowa class l don't know.
    2
  403. I recall seeing a photograph of the Lydia and her opponent building in a yard in a 1950s National Geographic. These were models in the sense that they were subscale. But they were also actual vessels. Definitely look bigger than the typical model ships in movies. They sure looked better than the ones that were used ln Harm's Way. I wonder if they still exist? Most likely not.
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  404. A 15" armored piercing shell hitting an Age of Sail ship to the line is going to do more damage than simply punching a 15" hole on each side. Plus if the shell hit one of the cannon or shot in the shot locker that might set fuse off. Bismark vs any age of sail could simply rely of its AA batteries
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  405.  @unluckyirish2763  Beat me to it.
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  406. There is also footage of the attack taken by an Army NCO from Hickam Field with his own 16mm camera. I'm wondering if the Navy or Army had ratings or technical personnel who were assigned specific duties to film or take still photos of stuff when the excrement hit the fan pre war. There were obviously photographic personnel whose job was to take photographs and shoot film during the war.
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  407. Jefferson's Gunboat Policy was perhaps the epitome of Defense on the Cheap. And Defense on the Cheap is always expensive in the long run. The US Navy at the time had no chance taking on the Royal Navy at sea beyond ship to ship actions. And those would always be of limited number and any losses could be shrugged off as being over matched. And any victories massive propaganda boosts. And realistically I would say the US Navy had no real chance at sea against the Royal Navy up through World War 1. The principle means of defense of any nation. Especially any nation acting on the world stage. And the US was acting on the world stage during the age of Nelson even if only in terms of being involved in world trade. That first line of defense is effective foreign policy. Even then that can not always prevent a nation finding itself at war. One issue that many people IMO fail to realize is it only takes one side to start a fight (or a war). Unless you totally eliminate the other side it takes both sides to end one.
    2
  408. Remember a few years back when there was a major heist, of maple syrup
    2
  409. Coronado is connected by land but it is a long drive south to Imperial Beach (aka Venereal Bitch). Last time I was in San Diego the bridge was free going to Coronado. The toll was for the return trip.
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  410. When the wreck of the Fitz was surveyed most of the clamps for the hatch covers were found basically intact. But every fourth one was severely damaged. The ship left Superior on a Sunday afternoon in good weather. Its thought that they intended to finish clamping the hatch covers. What most likely sank her was water washing in through gaps between the hatch combing and the covers. She likely nosedived into the lake bottom in one piece and the loads of the screw on the ship twisted the stern causing her to rip into two major pieces. Storms on the lakes can brew up quite fast and one big problem is you dont have a lot of sea room.
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  411.  @janwitts2688  Other ones.
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  412. Oh, God. I remember that book.
    1
  413.  @_-KR-_  Then they stole the title. The book was published about 1969 or 70. Oops 73. Also a 1999 docudrama.
    1
  414. Dry Ice also is great for freezing parts to shrink them. If no dry ice is available a CO2 extinguisher will work.
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  415.  @johnbenson4672  There are people who make a pretty good living doing this. I listen to a fair number of audio books and the narrator makes a big difference.
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  416. One does need to remember that during WWl there were cargo ships built out of the stuff.
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  417. So, they were 100 years to early for pumpkin chucking
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  418.  @WALTERBROADDUS  You simply hire Frank Sinatra and crew as in Assualt on a Queen
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  419.  @tomgucwa7319  After Eastland was raised her upper deck at least was removed and she eventually wound up being converted to a Naval Reserve training vessel. So Lake Michigan holds the record for the highest depth above sea level for a sunken German sub. The sub was found a few years back. But they are keeping the location secret as the wreck is very hazzardous to dive on.
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  420.  @christophpoll784  I thought every crossroads in Germany has a brewery.
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  421. And then the Essex's show up along with their new aircraft. The new cruisers. The new destroyers. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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  422. I wonder if French naval ratings at the time included ones like Chief Bell Captain and Concierge Petty Officer. In reference to your when French Hotels went to War video
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  423.  @Karle94  Demonstrating just why the Canal existed. And it also demonstrates the overall ship dimension the US limited itself to.
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  424. I wonder just how much maintenance the torpedoes of the era of the vessel in question required. If kept in the tube would they need to be withdrawn periodically for said maintenance. Or would the tube only be loaded immediately before the vessel left its berth. Also requiring the dock side cradle to be loaded with a reload. And when in port would the torps be off loaded and put into a storage facility?
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  425. If the boats could of been lowered with just the required crew and loaded from the boarding hatches it might have helped. IMO there were a number of people to blame for Titanics loss. 1) Bruce J Ismay. His pressuring Smith to make a fast passage contributed. 2) Smith not telling Ismay to stay out of operational decisions. 3) The nameless officer who locked up the binoculars for the lookouts. Also given the ice warnings if Titanic had searchlights it would make sense to use them. 4) Harland and Wolfe. They built Titanic with a double bottom but should have built her with a double hull at least up to her maximum draft waterline. 5) Harland and Wolfe again for not extending the watertight bulkheads up to at least above where they were. Given how many compartments were compromised it might not have made a difference in the end but she might have stayed afloat long enough for the transfer of some passengers and crew. 6) The captain of Californian. The failure of Californian to respond to the distress rockets falls on him. 7) The Board of Trade for not changing regulations in regards to passenger ships in order to keep up with technology.
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  426. The last time I was this late the Russo Japanese war was already over.
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  427.  @admiraltiberius1989  And when one depth charge goes boom they all go Boom! Wouldn't the depth charges normally have their fuse depth setting set just prior to being dropped or fired from mount over the side. I would imagine that would be the normal procedure.
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  428.  @philipallcock2036  most of the drawings and pictures I've seen of WWI/II sub mine layers definitely shows them being laid from the stern. What kind of idiot designer would have them come off the bow. Off course the subs today wouldn't have any other option
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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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  430. Meaningless? As opposed to "going backwards".
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  431. In terms of ship handling in combat the edge should go to the RN. While there were of course exceptions to the conditions was to when they were built the battle cruiser analogy is a decent one. They worried Nelson. That's enough for me
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  432.  @Tevildo  Rear Admiral. I just hope San Francisco never has a Navy.
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  433. I know its beyond the ability of the museum ship foundations money wise but it's too bad that they cannot restore say an Essex or one of the Iowa's to their appearance as built in the Forty's.
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  434. I come from the land of ice and snow Of the midnight sun and where the hot springs flow
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  435.  @Drachinifel  Also appears to be a tug to me judging by the mass attached to the bow.
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  436. The whole Decisive Battle Theory was born on Saki Ration Wednesday
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  437. Was HMS TOG a land battleship or a land battlecruiser 😖 l can not believe yhat it was not scrapped during the war just for the steel.
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  438. imagine doing cube roots with Roman numerals. Which leads me to think that the so called Arabic numerals or something similar go back farther than we think. I seem to remember that the Arabs got the numeric symbold from the Indian subcontinent.
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  439. Well Congress and the public at large will tend to get a little bit mad once the We regret to inform you telegrams start going out. And just what were the Standards shooting at. Towed targets?
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  440. Just imagine what could be done today with precision guidance. A 16" laser guided shell. Just look at what is being done with 57 mm naval ammunition today.
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  441. GPM offers a 1:200 model of Saratoga. Printed in A3 format in book form. A much cheaper option than plastic. Plus get the sheets scanned and if required you can just print extra for when you screw up. In some ways modeling in card is similar to scratch building in that there is forming work that needs to be done. Some card modelers when doing ships fill the hull framing with foam and then sand and fill to get smooth hull forms.
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  442. The Treaty restrictions regarding German submarines and aircraft development also reached down to small arms. So a lot of that work was done by Swiss based subsidiaries.
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  443. The engine was based off of the small block V-8
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  444. My unfinished kits are in a smallish storage bin, a number of CDs and packages of card stock still at the office supply store. Card models take up so much less room. Unbuilt ones anyways.
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  445. Probably due to total weight of the shell and handling it. I expect the shell weighed probably twice as much.
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  446. The carrier to the right of centr is likely Saratoga. @39:00 A real world demonstration of suction my be observed in the near future depending on just what happens to SS United States The ship sinking @1:02:30 l believe is the salvaged wreck of USS Maine.
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  447. Also it is my understanding that when Abrams are upgraded or in need of really major repairs they are sent back to the factory.
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  448. The ultimate oxymoron is 'criminal mastermind'
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  449.  @warrendesonia7924  The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Northern Wisconsin and the Messabi Range of Minnesota would have been reduced to craters to provide all the steel required.
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  450. Yes, even the US did not have unlimited steel production.
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  451. I've wondered of late just how well the US 5" Mk-102 rocket launcher system would have worked as an AA weapon if equipped with proximity fuses. In the shore bombardment role it had ranges of up to 10,000 iirc yards with the lightest explosive load. The Mk-102's mount was based on the dual 40mm Bofors mount so it had elevation and azimuth control. The mount was fed from below decks with a rate of 16 projectiles per tube. The shore bombardment vessels built on LST hulls could put out 320 or more shots per minute. Mark Felton has a good video on the shore bombardment vessels and covers this system. Some of these ships served up into the 60s
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  452.  @alanpennie8013  In the books the only Victorians Flashman is interested in meeting are willing Victorian ladies. Victorian men, especially politicos and soldiers usually results in Flashman being exposed to losing life or limb. With both comedic and historic results. IMO Flashy, while GMF lifted the basic character from Tom Brown's Schooldays he is more based on people such as Sir Richard Burton. Burton sure seems to have inspired Flashy's ability to blend into a culture and pick up languages. Unfortunately if GMF were still writing today none of Flashman's adventures would get published due to Flashy's Anglocentric, racist and sexist attitudes.
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  453.  @johnprattley945  Oh the Flashman papers are pure historical fiction (1). In Flashman and the Dragon Flashie is running what he thinks is opium into China when he opens one of the crates and finds they are contraband Spencer Carbines. He later gets boarded by a Royal Navy small craft under the command of Midshipman Fisher. 1) Flashies part in events is fiction. Fraser paid pretty close attention to actual events
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  454. I stopped playing WoW a couple years ago. Was never that serious about anyway. I actually preferred the Blittz version.
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  455. Don't know if it's true or not but I've heard that FDR pushed hard for these ships.
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  456. Early? I thought he was still command destroyers.
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  457.  @tristane7513  Vien would work pretty good too.
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  458.  @jtpenman  AKA the "Hell on Hooves"
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  459.  @tristane7513  Only if they have ships dressed in the appropriate armor, helms and the masts looking like wings.
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  460.  @stanleyrogouski  At least Illinois got a set of China for the governors mansion.
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  461. An ideal use for one of these sold as surplus. Add a stern wheel, replace armament with a gingerbread deck house and a steam calliope. Is an armored showboat. The hull form really reminds me of a Mississippi river boat
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  462. As an aside. My wife was watching a Dutch detective/crime show on one of the streaming services and there was a bad guy (1) that is a dead ringer for Drach. 1) Anyone who decapitated a dead body with a chain saw qualifies. The show was Batiste iir
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  463.  @zlirren  If we are to hold the leaders of Western nations accountable then it should be all of the leaders. From heads of government all the way down to mayors and the local health authorities.
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  464.  @donaldstraitiff7827  The video description says one of only two. But I question that if there were any P-40s still in combat units in 45. I'm thinking they may have still been used in the Aleutians
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  465. Doing the box art on model kits was a pretty lucrative gig for a small group of artists. The ones that always impressed me the most were Revell's Cutty Sark, Flying Cloud and Thyrmopoli iirc.
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  466. Imagine a situation were some of these were built. The battleline steams into an engagement and barrages of Mk 14s are launched. None of which work as advertised.
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  467. I wonder what happened to all of the wood paneling, trim and furnishings?
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  468. Complains about an extremely long drive. After having rented an RV in the States.
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  469. I look at these ships and l immediately think of that French hotel situated right at a 180° turn in the mountains.
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  470.  @UnintentionalSubmarine  I guess I forgot to spell check. My bad. In addition to dudes there are also 'dudettes'
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  471. Airships are a really bad idea imo aside from one thing. Time on station.
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  472. Night carrier ops. Or is it Opps. Initial pilot training. 1) It's dark. "Bloody likely." 2) You can't see shite. "No, really" instructees mutter. 3) RDF, we don't need no stinkin' RDF. * "They wouldn't bloody issue it if they had it." 4) Did l mention its dark. I mean really, really dark. Like three yards up a hogs arse dark. "This keeps getting better and better". 5) And your landing "field" may be going up and down vertically too. "Sir?" "Yes Smythe." "Sir, I'd like to apply for a transfer." "Where Smythe?" "Anywhere, anywhere but bloody here." * But they have time travel as the Treasure of Sierra Madre was made in 1948.
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  473. Is it naned the Depuy de Lomé or the Herbert Lom
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  474. She is almost as dense as the US Congressman who suggested that Guam might capsize. The island, not the Amphib
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  475. In today's Royal Navy* they might have to use Embarrassed in comparision to its former glory *I'm implying anything in regards to the quality and professionalism of today's RN, but it has shall we say, shrunk.
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  476.  @ROBERTNABORNEY-f3k  So Montana did have a "capital ship" named for it before the advent of missile boats. One that got built anyway. But you can see how a ship named New York can be confusing.
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  477. The only difference would be the former USS USS Alaska/Hawaii would be sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic
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  478. ​ @Noble713  It's a miracle that Mikasa survived at all.
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  479. Bismarck had holes in his watertight integrity. Took on water. Lost bouancy and sank. Even if the crew scuttled the ship and that was the major cause of his sinking the Royal Navy was still getting their revenge.
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  480. Ultralarge Heavily Armored Huge Gun Bomb Torpedo Targets. The Beehive shells came with warning labels. "Offload before Capsizing"
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  481. HMS Pansy
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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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  483. All machine tools start with the lathe. Not the metal working lathes we know today but more akin to a woodturners lathe. Clickspring has a video on just what the first precision lathe may have been like. I would love to see a video on just how the multiple step and possibly multiple lead interrupted threads of the naval rifles like the 16"50 on the Iowa's for example where cut.
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  484. I wonder if the Chicago Piano was designed by the same people that designed the Mk14 torpedo. For maximum rate of fire the MG-42 wins 😖
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  485. I remember in the 70s one of the Military History magazines had a reasonably complete analysis of just what happened. Absent some sort of magical time viewer or a visitation from an eyewitness from the beyond we most likely will never know exactly what happened. In the end it was a golden BB. What was it Ted Briggs said. She was a beautiful ship. But she had a glass jaw. A very clear analysis sir. An incredibly lucky, or unlucky depending on which ship you were on, shell hit in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, in the right place.
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  486. Fair fights are for suckers. The immediate objective is survival The tactical objective is to destroy the enemy or make them combat ineffective The strategic objective is victory.
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  487.  @snakes3425  I got the joke.
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  488. These ships were designed gned to get inflict unfontrolable laughing fits in the Admirals of possible enemy navies. These laughing fits would cause death by heart attacks. Maybe.
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  489. If they made one trip it was likely worth it.
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  490. The Type 93 . The original MkII Space Modulator
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  491. Plus add all the beans, bullets, fuel, artillery shells, guns, butter, uniforms etc for Army and Marine units. Plus the USAAF requirements which includes fighter and medium bomber aircraft, aviation fuel, servicing vehicles, spare parts etc. Plus the equipment supplied to allied nations. Plus food shipped to help feed refugees. Plus any number of things I can't think of right now the amount of shipping supplied by the US and Britian including merchant vessels built during the war to replace losses the total effort is staggering. Just returning troops home post war was a major undertaking. And then consider this was being shipped to the Med, across the Atlantic, the South, Central and Southwest Pacific, India, China and God knows where else.
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  492.  @trentbyington5957  Leaves port. Circumnavigates
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  493. And announcing that they captured U-505 he almost spilled the beans that the Allies had copies of U-boat codes and Enigma. Typical Chicagoan. Just can't keep their mouth shut. The nickname, the Windy City, stems not from the weather or winds blowing off of the lake. It comes from Eastern newspapers writing about the inseccant bragging on the part of people in Chicago.
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  494. Given the position his ship wound up in maybe he wanted to play Naval Lawn Darts.
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  495. The old life boats on the Titanic. IMO even if she had been built with the original number of boats she was designed with it would not have made a difference. Given the design flaw of not building the watertight compartments up to a common surface she was doomed. She also should have had the double bottom extended up to the water line. Damn the cost.
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  496. When it comes to late WWll naval anti aircraft weaponry I wonder if the US Navy ever gave any consideration to employing the spin stabilized rockets employed on the last generation of LSM(R) bombardment ships. Equipped with proximity fuses.
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  497.  @beefy1212  Just how does one manage to get lost in a city with a grid system? Especially in todays day and age.
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  498. WWll Bombers does deep dives actually going into source data. Bringing up graphs and reports. Chris from Military Aviation History and History not Visualized are top notch too.
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  499.  @MrArtbv  The PBY Catalina was being operated by Coastsl Command,. The co-pilot was US Navy.
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  500. A submarine is a boat. A ship is a target
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  501.  @FacelessMan777  It's a line I've seen often enough. I see your point though. After a certain point the U-boat force was just plain out gunned so to speak vs the convoy escorts and hunter killer groups. Plus with losses the overall quality of crews and boat commanders had to decline. Even today I think a modern sub would have a hard time of it against determined opposition. Plus if the escorts or hunter killer groups succeed at driving you off or even preventing an attack in the first place that's a mission kill. For the day anyways.
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  502. When it comes to masts the IJN takes win, place and show Metacentric Height. Try duck hunting from a canoe
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  503. I do remember that the fire made the evening nation TV news. Lots of paper to burn. Anyone know the cause?
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  504.  @michaelpiatkowskijr1045  Given just how many torpedoes hit Oklahoma I'm not sure it would have mattered. The AA fire at Pearl Harbor. A lot of that boils down to defective or improperly set fuses. All of the damage caused to civilian areas surrounding Pearl (Honolulu and Pearl City) was done by impacting 5 inch AA shells. War warnings. Several war warnings had gone out in November. The US knew war was likely coming. Did the US know just what the Japanese had planned? Highly unlikely. The IJN had to stretch their logistics to the limit to carry out the attack on Pearl Harbor. The USN assumed, wrongly, that the IJN could not carry out such a plan. The US thought that the Japanese would attack the Phillipines and the Dutch East Indies. The DEI and the oil was the goal. The Phillipines were in the way. The defense of the Pacific Fleet when in port was not the responsibility of the Navy. It was the responsibility of the Army. The timing of the attack on a Sunday morning was perfect for the Japanese. Just how many US enlisted personnel had spent Saturday night in the bars and whorehouses of Honolulu? How many officers had had a late night at the O club. Going from peacetime to a war footing in minutes versus the likely expected days or weeks that was probably expected.
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  505. I didn't know that RN pilots trained on the Fresh Water Carriers but it makes sense.
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  506. Thanks. Now I've got Ren and Stimpy running through my head. Log, log........
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  507. SR-71
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  508. @JoshuaTootell  What about the proposed interceptor version
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  509. The problem here is shipping companies and their customers are always going to try to reduce operating costs. Hence some nations that have little to no maritime tradition being the registry of the vessels in question. Add in the ever increasing size of cargo ships and their specialization into certain trade patterns. Roll on Roll offs, container ships etc the loss of one or two ships to enemy action could severely hamper the ability to project power or support operations over seas. The loss of a Liberty Ship carrying a cargo of Sherman's in 1944 would in no way compare to the loss of a RoRo carrying brigades worth of Abrams, Bradley's and supporting vehicles in terms combat power.
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  510. Raising propellers. My first thought was salvage.
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  511.  @alganhar1  Thank the deity of your choice. Plus remember that every merchant man sunk was one that had to be replaced. Either in UK or US yards. I've heard it suggested that if every Liberty ship built that made it to the UK was scrapped after one or two trips in UK yards it would have greatly eased the UKs issues with steel production.
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  512.  @gregorywright4918  I never heard the rational. I really did not understand the point of the idea. Even if you scrap the ship you still have to turn that steel into some other form you can use. I'm sure hull plating could be used for unarmored hulls such as destroyers. If you are going to scrap existing vessels better to scrap older less efficient hulls with machinery pretty much worn out. By the end of 42 much less 43 just how many Liberty Ships were US yards turning out a month. Plus even the US had to prioritize steel usage to some point. Every ton used on A meant a ton not being available to use on B, C, D......... One thing a lot of people do not seem to know is that a fair percentage of US wartime ship building did not take place on the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf coasts. A lot of smaller vessels such as LSTs and submarines were built in yards on the Great Lakes or on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
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  513. It's going over the side. Who cares. A weighted canvas bag would be more than adequate for the task.
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  514. I'm surprised in a way a capital ship say did not have a sailor or sailors (or possibly someone really useless like a junior Lt) detailed to take pictures during surface actions. Look at all the film and still photographs we have of USN naval operations in the Pacific.
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  515. Add in the potential for a revolution at home. Be an interesting timeline. Resulting in a possible British Republic in 1870. Just what was Victoria's position vis a vi slavery and the CSA
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  516. With the USS Milwaukee also accomplishing the same thing.
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  517. Splicing the Mainbrace. Not in the US Navy sir.
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  518. Given the speeds exhibited by current America's Cup sailing craft and even some of the other smaller catamarans or hydrofoil equipped vessels. Could such speeds be approached by small craft in the Age of Sail.
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  519. Sideways launches have been noted for some large wave events. When the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched the wave event was large enough that on of the people at the launch suffered a fatal heart attack.
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  520. And Rob from British Muzzleloaders can provide the required comedy and uniforms. Private Mackenzie in a sailor suit Sargent enters "And just what do you think you're doing?" Pvt Mackenzie "I've been transferred to the Navy sargent." Sargent replies "Good, well they have plenty of spuds to peel onboard ships too."
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  521. Yes, but we speak it properly in (insert country of choice)
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  522. I hope that CalBear from AH.com hasn't seen this
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  523. The differences in pronunciation between various English speaking countries is one thing. Then you get the differences between different regions in the same county.
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  524. Too bad she wouldn't fit through St Lawrence Seaway
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  525. If only King had been placed in charge of the Naval Torpedo Tinkerers
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  526. And at the end of the mission use their communicator to tell their base base to "beam us back home Hiro"
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  527. The operations in the Philippines may not have been strategically necessary but one could argue that they were morally necessary. In fact scattered combat operations were still taking place on Luzon after the Japanese capitulated in August 45. One thing that would have been avoided if the invasions of the Philippines had not taken place was Battle of Manila. That along with the combat on Okinawa, Iwo Jima and Siapan IMO contributed the thinking that any invasion of the the Japanese Home Islands would be bloodbath.
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  528. But not necessarily torpedo armament on cruisers unless you are the USN.
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  529. And in the middle of all this the USN and industry managed to build a couple of Alaskas just to keep FDR happy. About the only naval theater where the USN was not heavily involved I can think of would probably be the Induan Ocean. And even there I would expect that they were still doing convoy work.
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  530. If there is any major portion of the wreck it lays a lot deeper than what was found. The scattered debris is pretty much right on the edge of the drop off to the bottom of the trench. Possibly up to 10,000ft/3,000 meters. The deepest spot in the trench is 35000 feet.
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  531.  @robertyoung3992  Given the distribution of debris and that evidence of something sliding across the bottom at the edge of the Trench I had thought she might have been much farther down. And I noticed I missed the depth in my figures. I would not be surprised if there are wrecks laying in some of the trenches at the edges of subduction zones
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  532. Also part of the Navy's nuclear strike plans was the Martin Sea Master PBM-6. At least l think that's the designation. But an aircraft that's more in Rex's Hanger sphere. Although it was a flying BOAT. 😊
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  533. In the 70s I used to frequent a watering hole owned by a retired US Navy CPO. Over the bar was a painting (print probably) of one of the British battlecruirsers at the Falklands Also in the 70s Ballantine published a series of art books featuring the work of one artist in each book and the type of art he was most noted for. Some were naval subjects. I have no idea what happened to the ones I had.
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  534. Pronounciations. When I was a wee lad in school syllable was pronounced sil-la-bul. Now I hear some people use sy-la-bol. Also I've never heard anyone say in lieu of as in lef of. Torpedo caught in the Torpedo Nets. I would imagine the procedure starts with one huge sigh of relief
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  535. The War in the Pacific yes. The war in Europe, the Sovieg Union bled the Germans white.
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  536. Double bonus. New Mark Felton and Drachinifel videos in a row. Maybe the next one up will be The Chieftain for a hat trick. And after that a maybe AviationHistory. Plus Greg's Planes and Automobiles uploaded his last in a series of 8 videos on the P-47 yesterday
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  537. For the budget minded modeler there is (or was) a free (can't get much cheaper than that) model of the hound from hell available at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.papershipwright.co.uk/product/hmvs-cerberus/&ved=2ahUKEwj5x6ecsd3wAhUCr54KHa1GBkUQFjAhegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw1cqlK-A72r_qCnR4Coru5k. In 250th scale she is easily scalable up in size.
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  538. Well we grow enough corn and have plenty of fresh water. Surprising amount of wineries have popped up.
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  539. Why did I know HMS Barnham would make a (dis)appearance Your enemy if sunk, everything Your ally if sunk, dumb luck
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  540. I know the Germans messed around with test launching bombardment rockets from U-Boats. I wonder if the US Navy ever thought about mounting racks of these types of rockets on their fleet boats for hit and run attacks on isolated Japanese held islands. Rather than devote a carrier task force to the purpose. Even have the launch racks for the rockets detachable after expending the ordinance. Surface and shoot up target. Likely airfields. Submerge and dump the racks which then sink and continue with the patrol. Or is a dumb idea.
    1
  541. To sink them, one of them anyway. Tow it to Chicago, exhibit to the public, moor it in the Chicago River and then tow it out into Lake Michigan and sink it with naval gunfire from the former steamer Eastland
    1
  542. Steel cases?
    1
  543. For anyone looking to getting into ship modeling an inexpensive way to start is with Card Models. Available in printed book form or digitally. Formated in either A4 or A3 with a few in US Letter. Subjects rank from rowed galleys to modern vessels. Scales range from around 1:1000 up to 1:100. Digital Navy in the US used to offer their models in CD format. But I'm not sure on just how active the Website still is. They have a very nice kit of the Fletcher Class in 1:200. Other publishers are European. Polish for a lot of them plus German. The common scales are 1:200 and 1:250. Size wise a 1:250 scale model of USS Arizona is around 29"/725mm long. One major benefit of modeling in card. No painting unless one goes nuts. Plus since you are printing your own parts if you mess up. Just print more. The link has a subforum for ship modeling. Actual subjects range from figure/animal to ships, aircraft, buildings, locomotives or anything else you could imagine. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.papermodelers.com/&ved=2ahUKEwil9a6F6euKAxUTq4kEHWGzDn0QFnoECCUQAQ&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw0CRIB-O00eFbFB9BRT2Ryg Also people have been known to use card model kitsas the basis for scratchbuilds.
    1
  544.  @kurumachikuroe442  And here I thought you meant a railway gun
    1
  545.  @hexazalea  Stop dropping asteroids on my ship!
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  546. Better 50 Starships.
    1
  547. When Wisconsin gained statehood they lost territory to the north, south and northwest. Thankfully th he area to the south included Chicago.
    1
  548. The only thing on the Monitor that should or could be salvaged IMO is the engine. I it hasn't been already. The main things that were revolutionary about Monitor were its turret and the engine is really compact for its day. I know theres a running model of it on YouTube out there. Beautiful piece of work by the way. Kreigsmarine AA. 20mm in dual or quad mounts. 40mm Bofors in twin mounts. Heavy AA 88mm in turreted mounts. Semi-submercible warship. In combat we're going to get shot at. I know let's partially sink the ship! 😖
    1
  549. As to the question of keeping naval weapons manufacturing facilities active so you don't lose the skill sets. The machinery you can mothballed and put into storage. It's the skilled workers you really need to keep. On that note maybe a video in the future on just how naval artillery, especially battleship main armament was manufactured. In my mind the machining of the interrupted threads on the breach is a work of mechanical art.
    1
  550.  @malusignatius  The Canadian Armed Forces fell prey to this nonsense. It renders after action reports unreadable.
    1
  551. If it was necessary to clear space in the anchorage Arizona would likely have been raised enough to allow it to be towed out and sunk. Utah is still where she sank also.
    1
  552.  @j_taylor  I didn't know about her.
    1
  553.  @josephdedrick9337  Hence why the Navy said if you can figure out how to get there
    1
  554. I do remember seeing videos of tests on Titanic's steel. Plates and rivets. The ductility test with the swinging weight they where anything but ductile. This was on the old real history History channel.
    1
  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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  556.  @TonboIV  Oh, like the Quad Cities, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St Paul, Cinncinatti, St Louis. Not to mention Flint, Saginaw, Jackson, Racine, Kenosha, Gary, Joliet, Elgin, Green Bay, Duluth-Superior, the Copper and Iron region of the Upper Peninsula and Northern Wisconsin, Manitowoc, La Crosse, Janesville, Rockford and probably around 100 other cities.
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  557. Yes, that I find incredibly stupid. I'm sure that somebody had a good reason. Something like we must have the men used to handling the proper weights sounds likely. Ok fine. The ships spent a large portion of their time in port. Do the drills in port if at all possible with dummy powder charges set to the same weight with dummy shells. Plus if you are using actual charges and shells and then have to draw the unfired charges from the gun doesn't that sort of negate the purpose of the drill to being used to replicate combat conditions?
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  558. There's a gentleman in Green Bay, Wisconsin that built a running model of the Monitors engine. https://www.google.com/search?q=uss+monitor+steam+engine+model&oq=uss+mintor+engine&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0i13l2j0i22i30.13380j0j4&client=tablet-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8# Monitors engine not only had to be of low overall height. It had to be narrow enough to fit into the fairly narrow hull. Also in terms of a fairly small steam engine with a good power to weight ration one needs to look at the Doble steam cars. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doble_steam_car&ved=2ahUKEwjFkujcxI_wAhUCWs0KHWcDD1IQFjAAegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw2oGS36VjpaQ3domemBTQZq. Plus the concept of double acting engines is not limited to steam power https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.gasenginemagazine.com/gas-engines/1907-snow-zm0z16jjzhur&ved=2ahUKEwjqlo6Vx4_wAhXaKM0KHcocC9IQFjAFegQIBBAC&usg=AOvVaw3PLTKQTvOY7unnd_excDxF And a minature version https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.artisanideas.com/product/9780941653411/Build-the-Snow-by-Doug-Kelley-a-Tandem,-Double-Acting-Engine.html&ved=2ahUKEwjqlo6Vx4_wAhXaKM0KHcocC9IQFjAHegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw13Qiun_DQMM-ik1_YhK8se&cshid=1619015861650
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  559. One advantage herringbone gears have over plane helical gears is they produced no axial thrust on the gear shafts. Th hey are often used in heavy industrial machinery such as stamping presses.
    1
  560. I think this was the Duetch version of "please Mr Custer, I don't wanna go"
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  561. Similiar to SpaeceX's RUD. Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
    1
  562. Auxileries can be one of the most important types of vessels in any Navy. Colliers and oilers can keep your fleet at sea. What's the point of steaming X number of units of choice if once there you have to immediately turn around to refuel. (1) Replenishment ships providing food or munitions. Repair ships for the breakage/damage your own crew cannot handle for a variety of reason that can save a trip to a major yard. And having a forward basing option cannot work with out them. 1) It wasn't until nuclear became an option that cruising range could once again could approach Age of Sail ranges. Limited by food and water. When or if one of the smaller non Tokamak Fusion designs prove workable almost all new ships wouls likely be built using them. Lest you think that sounds like a pipe dream the US Navy was funding non Tokamak fusion research earlier this century. Funding was limited to a certain amount due their being a cutoff point above which all research funding had to go through the Dept of Energy. The DOE at the time was deadset (and likely still is) against all non Tokamak reactor designs. Contrary to what we hear it is actually fairly easy to build a reactor that achieves fusion. People have built them in home workshops. The difficult parts is getting power back out.
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  563.  @jefferyindorf699  That was the Oklahoma
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  564. Scuttled at sea surplus to requirements. The proper way to scuttle a naval vessel in deep water is via naval gunfire IMO. I think it is reasonable to assume the US Navy had large surpluses of 5", 6", and 8" shells on hand in 1946
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  565. Now it would be interesting when the game warden pulls alongside.
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  566.  @TheEDFLegacy  Tugs most likely. And temporary internal communications can always be run after the action if you have the equipment and the needed skill sets aboard.
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  567.  @robertohlweiler8463  That's one thing I have never been able to figure out. It would make sense if only from a common shell size in the production system.
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  568.  @seasirocco3063  The only payload an auto gyro would really need is a radio set.
    1
  569. Fired by the HMS Monty Python no doubt.
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  570. Keeping them fed is another thing to keep in mind.
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  571.  @toddwebb7521  There used to be* plans available for a minature in .22LR. IIRC the plans specified using a barrel suited for blanks to avoid legal issues. *still may be
    1
  572. Or the Evan's. Although there's nothing wrong with another Enterprise.
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  573. Some Imperial German Navy destroyer classes had one kind of forward firing torpedo tube on each side in addition to their centerline mount(s). The tubes would launch the torpedoes at a slight angle to the centerline. Similiar to a torpedo boats.
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  574.  @glennsimpson7659  Once radar really came on line probably. I'm more interested in the optical side
    1
  575. Well, it's not like they loaned the Soviets a really modern one.
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  576. ​ @jonvonboatman7062  That definitely deserves a three blind and deaf monkeys meme
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  577. See my comment above
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  578. Or a video of Drach firing historic firearms mentioned in works of fiction. Starting with that Victorian cad, today, coward, montebank and philanderer Brigader Sir Harry Flashman VC, retired. 1st Afgahn War to Balaklava and beyond.
    1
  579. At what sea state would carrier opps be suspended?
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  580. I may be mistaken* but I remember something about the first successful attack being carried out by a USN submarine was actually in the Inland Sea within a couple of days after Pearl Harbor. I can't find anything on the web though. *As much as I hate to admit it does happen. But I'm working on it. Soon I'll be mistaken all the time.
    1
  581. Nice Springsteen reference.
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  582.  @JoshuaTootell  I was thinking Seeger and Springsteen popped out.
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  583.  @AsbestosMuffins  For now I agree. But 50 years or 100?
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  584. I hope he was handed a loaded pistol and shown into a locked room.
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  585. There is that. I've seen the same thing in the auto industry. From the early 70s up thru 2005. In the 80s US cars were decried for build quality. And rightly so. But if the specs call for panel gaps of x and the competition is using x/2 or x/3 that's not necessarily productions fault. Plus I repeatedly saw management pushing to meet or exceed production quotas per shift. I once had to cover a weekend shift in an engin block machining dept and there was a call to figure out what was going on. The production supervisor told us that they were losing clamping during the machining operation. He wanted the hydraulic pressure turned up. The drills in the station were so dull they where overcoming the hydraulic system. Instead of changing the tooling he just had to hit the numbers. If they had started breaking taps then he would have had a lot of esplaining to do as Ricky used to say.
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  586. Roddenbury actually had a twofer with Enterprise. She's a Constitution Class vessel. HMS Amelia. In proper British tradition for the Napoleonic Era built in a French yard. When the RN took possession of QEll they should have sent a cutting out expidition into the harbor.
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  587. I really don't think Evan's hff ad a death wish. It was a case of a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. A lot of the crew was able to abandon ship but it took a couple of days for them to get picked up. And that was when they knew about the sinking unlike the Indianapolis
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  588. In terms of shore bombardment effectiveness during WWII I tend to think it was mostly under effective related to the number of shells expended. One of the more effective store bombardment systems that was employed was probably the rocket based systems used by both the RN and the USN. The best of these was probably the MK 102 that used the Twin 40mm Bofors mount. Sustained rate of fire was 32 rockets per mount per minute. Maximum range 10k yards. If fitted with proximity fuses I wonder just how well they would have been in the AA role. See Mark Feltons recent video for footage. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mark+felton+youtube&PC=U316&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dmark%2bfelton%2byoutube%26PC%3dU316%26FORM%3dCHROMN&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=4EAAD82AF4E45F05AF2A4EAAD82AF4E45F05AF2A&FORM=WRVORC
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  589. Rigidity of a wet noodle? You obviously have not seen ThisOldTony breaking his bending vise trying to bend a wet noodle sir.
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  590. Telegram in the early 1900s To Henry Ford Detroit : stop : Request advice on setting up assembly line : stop : Jackie Fischer Admiral Grand Fleet : stop : The Admiralty, London : stop
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  591. The modified Landing Ships that were equipped with rocket launchers could put out an incredible volume of fire. For a very short period. The turret equipped ships might not have been able to match the initial volume of fire but they had the ability to train rockets on target not directly forward. I've often wondered just how possible it would have been for the US Navy to equip Gato Class subs with a detachable module that would be equipped with a certain number of 6" rockets. Enroute to their patrol areas the sub could conduct a bombardment mission against island airfields. Risking the sub is a lot less than the potential risk of a carrier and its task force. One the rockets are expended the sub dives and discards the module the rockets were carried in. And continues its patrol.
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  592. Myself a would nominate a number of USN commanding officers. Both surface and submarines.
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  593. Relying on guns to sink mechant ships makes perfect sense if you are attacking ships steaming all on their own. Not so much if they are in convoys (1). The cruiser sub was idea that came and went. 1) Now I have wretched 70s trucker song rattling around in my head.
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  594. Robots? Spell check does some weird stuff doesn't it.
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  595. Theres actually a city in Wisconsin named Portage. Because, well it was where there was a Portage between the Fox River Drainage which flows into Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin River that then flows into the Mississippi. Basically on the route between Upper Canada and St Louis.
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  596.  @EnfieldNo4  I was thinking of Wisconsin taking out a T-34 in Korea.
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  597. Too bad they couldn't have turned into some sort of cargo vessel. But the amount of trade on Lake Ontario wasn't great enough. Once past Buffalo you can sail all the way to Huron and Michigan
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  598.  @bkjeong4302  Bismarck post Denmark Strait. Scharnhorst at North Cape.
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  599. Zed of course played by Sean Connery.
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  600.  @peterharrington8709  I know that. It's my understanding that the idea was to surface. Get the gun above the water. Open the seal on the end of the barrel and submerge while reclosing the barrel. Whether the gun could be reloaded underwater?
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  601.  @bobo-cc1xw  He must of an especially good boy to get that for Christmas
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  602. Early in the war if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor along with other bases on Oahu and started the war by attacking the Philippines it may have been able to employ decisive battle effectively if the US Navy had tried to re-enforce the Philippines. The Navy imo would have been severely stretched in terms of logistics in early 1942 in terms of supporting such a relief effort in terms of fleet oilers etc. If the relief effort is too small it could well sail into a trap.
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  603. What do militaries and school districts have in common. They always want more money!
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  604.  @twt000  True.
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  605. I once wondered about the Wolverine and Sable training carriers. And why happened to their fittings when they were taken into naval service. I have heard that ships fittings did make their way into some homes in cities that had dockyards. Amazing what just falls off the back of lorries.
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  606. After PH was definitely wasn't a virgin anymore.
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  607. We simply do not have the number of ship yards anymore.
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  608. Plus have the proper offset in your magnetic compass. My father had a German artillery compass he brought home from Italy. The cover had the offsets for various locations in Europe engraved on the cover. Plus it was in radians.
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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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  610.  @spartancam-rs5ru  I know the joke
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  611. Or really qualified pilots.
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  612. USS Vesuvius
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  613. At the Battle of Samar, E. E. Evan's and his crew along with all the rest of the DDs and CVE pilots counted coup.
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  614.  @Trebuchet48  Bug Drach also goes on to state that the photo was of the Shaw.
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  615. I'm sure Huff Duff had it tactical uses also. Operational units who if they received any orders based on intercepts of course could not be allowed to know their origins. Also Huff Duff had to be useful in terms of allowing the Allies to not only get a fix on a U-boat's position but also the limited area it could be in for the next number of hours. Thus Coastal Command could inform patrol aircraft that a sub is known to be at x latitude y longitude. Plus if the same sub is picked up over several days it can be indicative of either a patrol area or a course towards a patrol area.
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  616. Everybody needs a hobby, interest whatever. Just because yours isn't mine I have no right to judge. Nor anyone else's. Or they mine.
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  617. People who argue against the use of nuclear weapons against Japan often argue that the submarines would be able to finish the job. Probably at a higher loss of life There were later special operations done by US subs specifically to tap Soviet communication cables During the potion on Quad Turrets. I'd swear that there's what looks like an AP projectile just laying on the deck. Just above and to the left of one of the men guiding the naval rifle Ship nicknames. USS Wisconsin, BB-64, aka Wisky due to the uncompleted Kentucky's bow being welded on after the Wisconsin's collision with the USS Eaton
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  618. Over engineered? No, that could never happen 😖
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  619. Ouzo. Greek fire is Ouzo.
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  620. Yes he has.
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  621. Reminds me of the time when Ohio and Michigan went to war and Wisconsin lost. Wisconsin wound up losing its potential share of the Upper Peninsula along with all of the iron and copper. Along with the silver and gold associated with the copper deposits. To this day you can still find natural copper just laying on the ground in the UP. In the ACW case Poland lost. A victim of geography.
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  622.  @rogersmith7396  My bad. It's either hitting the wrong touch key or spell check
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  623. What, you never heard of The Philadelphia Experiment 😁
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  624. A Super Dooper Pooping on the Enemy Deadnought.
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  625. One other thing to remember is the Viking era to a largely degree corresponds with the Medieval Warm Period. And I have yet to hear a good explanation to the causes of different warm and cold climate eras.
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  626. HMS Victoria. Histories biggest lawn dart. And Admiral Tyron is the poster child for the Naval Darwin Awards. At least he paid the price for his folly. No scratch that. His crew paid the price. He got his just rewards.
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  627. The only times a Japanese warship shelled the west coast it was by submarines. One sub as I recalled tried to hit an oil refinery.
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  628. The follow on class was named after the lead ship, HMS Spotted Dick
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  629. Now we need a video on the USS Sable and Wolverine. Unless it's already been done.
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  630.  @arthas640  Do you mean France or Francis the talking mule 🐴
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  631. An off the wall question. There have been instances where ships have lost their main propulsion system and had to jury rig emergency sails. Just what is the feasibility of converting a smaller warship class to sail propulsion if let's say there was a chance in the basic laws of nature completely eliminating any form of propulsion system that relies on an expanding high pressure gas. This means conventional steam, steam turbine or diesel will not work. This has to do with a short story I'm working on set in the Emberverse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emberverse_series Right now I'm playing around with the possibility of the conversion of a Perry Class Frigate to a mix of sail and and an onboard wind powered* hydraulically powered manuevering thrusters. *most likely a Darrieus type machine utilizing rotorblades from Seaking or Chinook helicopters. The mast for the turbine being taller than the deployed position allowing the top of the blades to be raised for stowage against the mast.
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  632. I normally think of the Constitution and other see ships such as the large frigates such as the Royal Navy built as akin to super cruisers or battle cruisers. Properly handled out run what you can't outfight. And outright anything you can't outrun. But note the properly handled bit. Of the other Six Frigates built by the US Navy the Philadelphia was lost to mishandling. Chesapeake largely to the collapse of her command structure. President the same. Properly handled the ships were largely a match for anything around their own power. One reason for the performance of the US Navy in 1812 was the immigration of the DuPonts from France in the early 1800s. Having known Jefferson when he was ambassador in Paris they visited him in Washington. When inquiring about potential business opportunities Jefferson suggested they yo into the gunpowder business as US powder was lacking and one of the Duponts had been involved in the gunpowder industry in France.
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  633. I have no idea how I missed this one.
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  634. In terms recoil control of muzzle loading cannon common to the Age of Sail was there any attempts to control the recoil of the gun through the use of an inclined ramp on the carriage and the use of ropes wound around drums to act as springs One benefit of such a system is the gun carriage could be set up to pivot at the gun port allowing a greater freedom of aiming the piece HESH shells. Instead of HESH what about something along the lines of a HEAT round especially against lightly armored vessels
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  635. 1/250th card model available from Digital Navy http://www.digitalnavy.com/
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  636. Mitchell's lack of confidence in torpedo bombers may had to do with his BS detector in regards to the Naval Ordinance Board. Of course his BS detector only worked one way. And it pains me to say that as my favorite airport to fly out of is named for him. Anything to avoid the zoo O'Hare is. In defense of Mitchell he was just ahead of the curve. The complete lack of precision guided ordance for use agaist ships that lacked effective air defense. Also level bombers might not have been able to hit moving ships but attacking them while underway could force them into engaging in evasive manuevres.
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  637. @milominderbinder8655  Guided munitions existed in the 1940s. The first used in combat was the Fritz X which was used to sink the Italian battleship Roma in 1943. The US had TV guided bombs which were unmanned aircraft and used against Japanese shipping with some success later in the war.
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  638.  @rupertboleyn3885  I would think that steam turbines would run at higher speed than that to turn the shafts and props. Yes the steam is putting a lot of force on the turbine blades. And the turbine has a lot of surface area for that steam to transfer that force. But the total mass of the turbine, couplings, shafts and screws has to be considerable. A geared turbine gas to have significant advantage in applying torque to start to rotate the whole assembly. Also whether geared or ungeared did they gave to reverse the steam flow to back the ship.
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  639. The safest place on any capital ship is not on Hood, Bismark, Yamato, Musashi, Barham etc
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  640. But it was during prohibition so the foreign embassy functions were most likely very popular. As to other extraciricular activities why should DC be any different than any other cess pool inhabited by politicians
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  641.  @scottgiles7546  And a malarial swamp at that. At one time it was considered a hardship post for foreign diplomats.
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  642. LCS. Who do we blame. Congress? The designers? Or the USN?
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  643. Ogre? Hobbit? Troglydite perhaps. 😝 I know a gentleman named Underhill. I call him Frodo.
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  644.  @ThumperE23  Which Christ on the Cross scene? The first or second one.
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  645. Dreadnought Super Dreadnoughts And Super Duper Dreadnoughts
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  646. Other ships in the class include the Fuschia, Puce, Chartreuse and Vermillion.
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  647. You likely. Me it's the score from 633 Squadron. Yes I know its RAF but the tune is just livelier
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  648.  @tominiowa2513  Somebody starts throwing nukes around that's it.
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  649.  @gotanon8958  That may be true. Plus the jet attack aircraft has more range. The one thing the jet attack air raft does not have is the ability to stay on station for days at a time. The 16" shell is a slight amount of overkill. The best choice for a naval gun today is probably in the range of 105mm or 155mm. For western navies this gives commonality with army artillery organizations.
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  650. The shackles of positive bouancy. A suppose they were yearning to breathe fre.........cluub, club, cluub.
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  651. Is U-505 on the list. Depending on your travel plans when in the states. Cobia is only about 3 to 4 hours north in Manitowoc. The Harley* Museum in Milwaukee just off the interstate on the same route if your intertests run that way. *Harley-Davidson, a clothing company with a sideline selling motorcycles.
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  652. I could go for a winter without any snow. Not likely though. Hard on the garden though. A cold winter with hardly any snow means lost perennials.
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  653. In regards to the Doolittle Raid it's my opinion that the targets the raiders should have concentrated on were any refineries or petrochemical facilities.
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  654. Most significant naval engagements? I'll go with Chesapeake Bay during the ARW or Lepanto
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  655. As a side note I wonder if the USN ever had a capital ship named New York (the state) and a cruiser named New York (the city) at the same time.
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  656. One would think that the Navy would of learned something from the loss of USS Miwaukee, a St Louis class cruiser, only a few years before. The coast of California can be a cold and rocky place. Although the loss of the Milwaukee and the destroyers took place under different circumstances they had the same underlying fault. There's the the right way, the wrong way. And the NAVY way!
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  657. The first major natural disaster that was reported in close to real time was Krakatoa. Read (or listen) to Simon Winchester's book of the same name. Also he narrates his own books
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  658. Given the current recruiting issues this seems highly unlikely.
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  659. What was life in general like for the average sailor in the RN, USN etc during WWII. Aside from duty hours and combat stations.
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  660.  @LeCharles07  In a future war with France the Empire just might settle for taking Louisiana
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  661. I can't remember where l saw it. But there was a video or print article that discussed hits on armor that did not pentetrate but that woud spall off chunks of armor that they called discus's.
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  662. ​ @oml81mm  No, this was specific to navel guns
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  663.  @michaelsommers2356  There had also been several war warnings during the previous month. The boy who cried wolf springs to mind. Besides when the fleet was in port at Pearl Harbor the defense was the responsibility of the Army. Not the Navy. What was the state of inter service communications on the morning of Dec 7th? If the Nsvy had taken the Ward firing on the midget sub more seriously it could have made a huge difference. The same goes for the the Army run radar installation on the North Shore picking up the inbound Japanese aircraft and their bring thought to be the B-17s coming in from California. A local radio station in Honolulu broadcast over night in order to provide a radio beacon for the incoming bombers. There were mistakes and there were also things that just broke the Japanese's way.
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  664.  @michaelsommers2356  The only way I can think of any more drills helping is at the command level down to the message centers to promote interservice co-operation. One thing that never seems to get mentioned about Dec7th is just how many sailors or Army personnel had splitting headaches and quesy stomachs from carousing on Hotel Street in Honolulu that Saturday night.
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  665. I remember a line from Walter Lords Day of Infamy when one of the navy divers was asked if the California's torpedo damage could covered with a premade patch. His reply was "I don't think they make them that big"
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  666. Having worked in environments on land where we used derricks, bridge cranes and booms mounted on fork trucks I can well attest to loads swinging due to the sudden input of motion. In our repair shop we often would have to flip machine components 90 or 180°. I always taught our apprentices that it was best to have the component slung from one lifting device. And flip it with the second one. Also picking anything up with an eye bolt anything other than 0° was forbidden. I always had my personal eye bolts backed up by flanged nuts to provide a bearing surface and the threads were placed in tension. I never dropped anything. But somebody else did causing OSHA to come in.
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  667.  @Drachinifel  Plus in the age of sail masts and spars being used for loading and unloading cargo, guns, ballast* and other items. *How much of the brick used in colonial structures in the Americas was shipped as ballast.
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  668. Blond versus brunette? Redhead all the way 🤪
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  669. Could the center prop on say the German ships have been ducted. This might increase performance along with adding strength. OnUS cruisers. The bow weakness also bit the Belgrano
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  670.  @wraithcadmus  Try the 70s unasheded rewrite by Pourmelle and Niven, Inferno. The sins get updated.
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