Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. It became pretty clear by the mid-30's that the 8" guns of the Lexingtons were a lot of weight and space for something that was unlikely to have ever been used in battle. There were plans to replace them with 5"/38 guns after their outstanding trials successes in the first postwar destroyers. However, the one good thing about the 8" guns was they received the then experimental FC (Mk3) radar fire control director. The Lexington received two of these in late-1941 and participated in trials of the first radar directed surface gunfire. It turned out to be accurate enough that it was able to get a fix within 50 meters on the range and direction of a surface target. It worked particularly well on the Lexington due to less local interference by the superstructure compared to a battleship, and the operators on Lexington were able to confirm distance to target by being able to track her own shell splashes, using lobe switching. The FC (Mk3) was installed on a number of battleships in late 1941, and the lessons learned from the Lexington were used to improve accuracy with the FC (Mk3). One of the first FC (Mk3) battleship units was installed on the USS Washington, and her radar operators, trained by the Lexington operators, were able to straddle the Japanese battleship Kirishima on her first salvo during the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, probably saving the South Dakota by doing so. In a way, the Lexington actually did participate in surface action almost six months after she was sunk.
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  2. "Queen Mary was somewhat more performance impaired, as it exploded..." Nothing like the dry and sardonic humor of a Brit.
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  3. The Germans never thought that the British could have developed the cavity magnetron for microwave radar at the end of 1943. They understood the concept of the cavity magnetron, but they used the klystron tube as a more stable source of UHF radar signals up to about 750 MHz. The British vessel's true microwave radar transmitting at 3 GHz was never seen by the Germans, since their radar warning receivers only went up to about 900 MHz. British radar receivers were able to pick up the German radar signals from about 50 miles out. The Germans also needed about 4 kw of power to get only about half the range as the British obtained with 1 kw of power. This was a big deal in ship's electrical systems never constructed to handle these additional power demands. The Battle of the North Cape demonstrated once and forever the primacy of ships that had the most advanced radars and best trained radar operators. Before this, many senior naval officers considered radar as little more than a technological toy developed by the big brains back home. The other radar lesson from the battle was the need to develop smaller radar antennas that were less prone to battle damage and the overriding importance of redundant cabling so a lucky hit couldn't sever the one cable set used operate the radar.
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  4. I visited the Texas last year. She is not being neglected. A large crew of volunteers supplemented by paid contractors when needed was hard at work when I was there sanding and painting rusted surfaces and reinforcing the interior of the hull in preparation for dry berthing. The money for this project is already in place, raised by the Battleship TEXAS Foundation and Texas state bonds. The problem had been required environmental impact reports that have sucked up a lot of money and delayed the project by over two years. The results of the reports were supposed to be finished by 2015. As any of you who have ever worked with environmental engineering consultants know, they never finish on time. The report was finally submitted, all 600 plus pages worth, and another year has been consumed addressing the results of the report. Of course, another round of responses to the responses was needed, and the vast majority of issues have been mitigated. Another impact to the project schedule has been hurricanes and tropical storms. The last two years in the Gulf of Mexico has been a time of intense hurricane and tropical storm activity affecting Houston and, as a result, the Texas. The storms caused the workers on the Texas to be evacuated, and flooding in the Houston area delayed any work on the ship and the dry berth project by months. It was hoped that the project could be completed y 2018, but now it looks more likely that it will be before hurricane season in 2020...assuming the Gulf behaves itself in 2019. All the preliminary engineering and construction planning is done for the dry berth and the sitework was started. We'll see what happens going forward. The bottom line is the ship is not just rotting away at anchor now and there's hope for the future.
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  5. LOL. Youtube's closed captions thinks Admiral Doenitz's real name is Admiral Donuts. The are all sorts of funny things coming from this system.
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  6. This was a great discussion of the alternative outcomes. I suspect this was the last battle the Japanese would have had any chance of winning, as long as winning means "we sunk more ships that you did". In terms of the overall outcome of the war, the shipyards were pouring out huge numbers of the Fletcher class and their bigger and more dangerous brothers, the Sumner and Gearing classes. Vast numbers of Cleveland light and Baltimore heavy cruisers were still coming down the ways, not to mention the fearsome Iowa class. US carriers, from escort to fleet types, were also being commissioned and stationed in the Pacific, so any Japanese warship could count on meeting not only generally superior US surface ships but being swarmed by hundreds of US aircraft. As a final blow, the British Pacific Fleet shows up in January, 1945 with four more modern battleships, six fleet carriers, fifteen light carriers, and eleven excellent cruisers. This doesn't even take into account all the other smaller ships. The combined US and British logistic trains meant almost any ship damaged in battle could either be put back in service in a few days or made ready to sail to a rear repair area for heavier work. Japanese ships damaged really depended on whatever a crew could scrounge for repair work, all the while trying to remain camouflaged and dodging constant air attacks. By early 1945, very few ships were able to run the gauntlet of US subs to get back to mainland dockyards, and most of those they did were further damaged or sunk by allied air attacks. One can only wonder about the state of morale of many Japanese sailors in 1945. The Japanese were well and truly stuffed long before the events of August, 1945.
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  7. The Coast Guard cutter was the USCGC Modoc (WPG-46). She really played a more critical role in running down the Bismarck than she is often given credit for. She was on Greenland ice patrol and had responded to an SOS from several torpedoed ships from a convoy in the Bay of Biscay, along with her sister Northland and the much smaller USCGC General Greene. While rescuing survivors, she was amazed to see the grey outline of a large battleship loom up out of the gloom. The Modoc's radio operator had copied the British message ordering all RN ships to intercept the Bismarck. The captain was therefore aware of the rough position of the Bismark, but never expected to find herself this close to the path of the ship. She signaled Bismarck with signal lamps and radio but received no reply as she steamed past in silence. The Modoc's radioman immediately got on the aircraft radio the Modoc carried, raising that American piloted Catalina. She was able to give the Catalina the last seen position of the Bismarck. The Catalina was able to locate the Bismarck within fifteen minutes of getting the message from the Modoc, and was then able to notify Coastal Command. Thus, Modoc played an important part in the final location of the Bismarck. The three cutters continued to rescue men in the sea, all the while frantically signalling the Prince of Wales of their identities as Norfolk prepared to lob eight inch shells toward what it presumed to be a German destroyer. The Bismarck was already past the cutters, and the PoW was able to relay the cutter's friendly status to the other British ships and stop the Norfolk from opening fire, helped by a timely jam of her forward turrets. The three cutters patrolled the area looking for survivors but found none, only wreckage, floating corpses, and body parts, before making way again for Greenland. It was the closest to a major historic battle ever witnessed by Coast Guard Cutters
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  8. Well, the good thing with the Kamchatka was she was only armed with 47 mm guns. That limited the damage she could cause to other Russian ships.
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  9. I'm sure you were just being ironic about the wreck, but it's no longer radioactive...or at least that's what we were told when our party dived on it. This was in 1990, and I'm still alive at age 72, so I don't think effects were two bad. There are so many wrecks to dive on within five miles of Kwajalein that it would take months to dive on them all. In addition to the Prinz Eugen, we dove on a couple of good sized Japanese transport ships, a subchaser, and a number of aircraft, including a group of B-25's and a remarkably intact PBM Mariner. We only had seven dive days although we spent eleven days in the islands. It wasn't cheap, but it was the trip of a lifetime.
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  10. I can't imagine being a German sailor having to coal up every week in the tropical heat and humidity. Life must have been hell for them even without the risk of enemy action.
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  11. And fast forward to 2018 and planes and submarines are the battleships of today. Although Brazil once again had a second hand carrier, this time French rather than British, the worn out condition of the carrier combined with several major fires since being brought on strength in 2000 led to her decommissioning in 2017 and probable scrapping. Given the need for the Brazilians to have something that looked like a carrier in the fleet, she scrambled to make the British and offer they couldn't refuse and purchased the ex-HMS Ocean, renaming her the Atlantico. Since she is a mere 20 years old, the youngest major ship purchased from another navy since the Brooklyn class light cruisers in 1951, there's some chance that she may remain in service for another 15 years or so as a helicopter carrier. The dreams of Brazil to operate a true fixed wing carrier appear to be dashed at the moment. Argentina and Chile are no longer major players in South America. Argentina is in deep financial trouble, and her surface fleet has been relegated to possibly a few corvettes. Chile maintains a much more effective navy, but the youngest combat ships are the ex British Duke class frigates at 28 years old with other classes now being 30 years old or or older. Chilleans now seem content to control the Pacific coastline of her long borders while maintaining a navy strong enough to dissuade the Argentine and Peruvian Navies from any mischief. Speaking of Peru, while she wasn't part of the early 20th century arms race, she has now modernized most of her vessels and is probably the equal of Chile and much stronger than Argentina. The newest race is for submarines and naval aircraft. The Brazilians are still talking about building a nuclear sub, and Brazil, Peru, and Chile will all have air-independent submarines sometime in the 2020's. AI subs will be the new Dreadnoughts of the 21st century. Brazil is looking toward Embraer to build a new maritime patrol aircraft that would be the equal of the P-3 Orion, as well as maintaining their current fleet of upgraded Skyhawks, aircraft that don't have a carrier to operate from after a long battle with the Air Force to allow the Navy to operate fixed wing combat aircraft. There are rumors that Peru is in talks with Russia for a new maritime patrol platform as well as new SU-35s that could serve as maritime strike aircraft. Chile may cooperate with Brazil and Embraer in purchasing a new maritime patrol aircraft while continuing to upgrade its considerable fleet of F-16s. The Dreadnought race may be over but the arms race in South America continues unabated.
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  12. In addition to the Hipper being attacked by a blazing zombie ship headed straight for it with siren wailing, another strange incident occurred with one of Hipper's Arado Ar 196a float planes. It had taken off on a scouting flight on the morning of April 9, 1940. Due to the damage to the Hipper from the ramming, it was unable to return to the Hipper before it ran out of fuel. The crew then landed off the village of Eide and paddled ashore in their emergency raft. They posed as tourists trying to buy gas for their stranded car. Even though the locals didn't know Norway had been invaded, they were suspicious and called the local police - all three of them. After a short tussle, the identity papers on the two men (Ltn Polzin and Obit Techam) revealed them to be German navy pilots. This was shortly confirmed when a fishing boat towing the float plane returned to harbor. The crew were arrested and the aircraft turned over to the Royal Norwegian Navy Flying Service. They hastily painted out the German markings, substituted Norwegian insignia, and flew off to repel the Germans. The Norwegian Navy had a relatively large number of floatplanes. They were familiar with flying them, and several Norwegian pilots that understood German were recruited to fly the plane since they could understand the gauges and German instrument labels. The Arado flew several reconnaissance missions for the Norwegians and British, eventually ending up in an as hoc squadron of two British twin engine Walrus float planes, a Norwegian M.F. 11 floatplane, and the captured Arado. The British were eager to examine the Arado since it was the most modern float plane in German service. The British wanted to return to Britain before their planes were lost in the deteriorating situation in Norway, and the Norwegians wanted to fly to Britain to get modern planes and return to Norway to fight to the end. Plans were hastily made to fly this motley flotilla to a British seaplane base in the early morning of April 18. The two Norwegian pilots were not to return until 1945. The hazardous five hour flight went off without a hitch...until they got close to the British base. The Walrus's crew didn't have current radio codes or frequencies, the Arado had a German radio that couldn't operate on British frequencies, and the M.F. 11 didn't have a radio at all. The flight was picked up on radar and Gloster Gladiators were launched to intercept what was assumed to be an enemy flight. The two Walrus were faster than the Arado or M.F. 11 so they were ahead them on the flight. When the British fighter pilots spotted them, they knew the Arado was German and assumed the M.F. 11 was an unknown German type, since they appeared to be chasing the Walruses. They moved in for the kill, downing the M.F. 11 before the Walruses circled back, frantically wagging their wings, and the attack ceased. The pilot of the M.F. 11, a Lieutenant Diesen, was able to crash land on the water uninjured, and he and his crew were rescued. The story of the Admiral Hipper's float plane doesn't end here. The British started testing the Arado immediately, and personnel of the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE) started to catalogue all the parts and make blueprints. A Fleet Air Arm commander was given flying duties to report on the attributes of the plane. All went well until April 26. The Arado landed safely after its fourth test flight. What happened next is a little murky, but it appears a strong wind gust got under the wing of the plane and, despite frantic efforts to save it, the fated Arado tipped over and sank in 150 feet of water. It was raised several days later but was too damaged to fly again. The engine fuselage, and instruments were examined and provided valuable data to the MAEF, and some of the features made it into later British float planes. Some bits are still left at the British and Norwegian navy's museums.
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  13. Montana looks like it will finally break its naming drought for a major warship. The Virginia class submarine USS Montana is under construction and due to commision next year. In an ironic twist, this Montana will be many times more powerful than the BB-67 Montana battleship if it had actually been built.
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  14. The USN's fleet train was the thing most responsible for the more varied and palatable food served on most USN ships. Whole ships were devoted to refrigeration and freezers, and those fresh foods were broken up into ship size loads for everything from minesweepers up. My dad's PT base in New Guinea and Solomons was visited every several weeks by these supply ships, who offloaded the food package to their tender. They would then be distributed to the individual boats. He'd get fresh milk, eggs, and frozen meat of all kinds, including turkeys for the holidays. His tender, the USS _Mobjack_, had added refrigeration space to hold all this food, but each PT also had a refrigerator. Not very big, but enough for five days of refrigerated food before they had to visit the tender for another load, generally needing to rearmed anyway. Each boat had a tiny galley, with one member of the crew being designated as the cook. This was pretty good duty on PT boat since they didn't have to do all the repetitive tasks like swabbing the deck and cleaning out the below decks spaces. A good cook was second only to a good skipper in terms of fighting effectiveness and morale. My dad's boat's Cookie (they were all called Cookie) was particularly good, turning out bread, pies, and even breakfast cinnamon rolls. He remembers his hams, steaks, and turkeys as being particularly good. When the boats were at base for heavier repairs and general shore duty, they had to eat at the base mess, and his memory of the food at these messes was nowhere near as good as they ate on the boat. Cookie and the skipper were both good horse traders, and they almost always ended up with a couple cases of cokes, a couple cases of beer, five or so gallons of ice cream, and some fresh vegetables. When they were at advance bases, they were stuck with C and K rations and whatever fish they could catch from the back of the boat. The best day he remembers from advance bases was when his boat sailed over a reef with about a foot of water under the keel. The sharp eyed lookouts didn't see just the reef but also a huge lobster colony! The boat immediately dropped anchor, and a couple of the good swimmers (my dad couldn't swim at all) dove down to start grabbing them. They managed to snatch about twenty of them before the squadron commander called on the radio and wanted to know why they were stalled in the lagoon. They "fixed" the engine problems and got underway again. That night they had the lobster feast to end all feasts. Cookie was even able to work some kind of magic with margarine to make it kinda taste like drawn butter. He said he didn't know if it was all the lobster or just being exhausted after having no nights off for almost three weeks, but he said it was the best night's sleep he ever had while in the Navy. :-)
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  15. Sorry, Drach, but you can't win with this one. We all know it's pronounced Ay-Jacks because that's how the scouring powder of the same name is pronounced, and we heard TV ads for decades telling us the right pronunciation. We're not about to let go of all that conditioning for some Brit coming along telling us Ajax is really pronounced like some asthmatic wheeze!
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  16. The USN fleet of just underway replenishment vessels now numbers 16, and a replacement fleet of 20 is already under construction. There are fourteen 41,000 ton dry cargo/ammunition ships and well over 150 other special purpose, support, and supply ships. No other navy has the ability to supply such large numbers of ships at sea with virtually anything needed, from bandaids to new power plants, as the USN. The lessons of the long distances remote from any land base supplies in the Pacific during WWII were well learned.
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  17. Because the battle damage to West Virginia was so extensive she wasn't recommissioned until September of 1944. As a result, she was fitted with the most modern radars available. A combination of her SO-13 and brand new SK-2 radars allowed her to detect the Japanese fleet sailing down the Surigao Strait at a distance of 34 miles against the clutter of the many small islands in the strait, long before the other vessels in the task force. When the Japanese came in range. the West Virginia, using her improved Mark 8 fire control radar combined with the SO-13 was able to fire her first salvo at almost 13 miles from her target, the Japanese battleship Yamashiro, scoring a direct hit with at least one round. It is reputed to be the longest hit by one ship against another in the dark during the entire war.The other two slightly longer range hits during the war both happned in daylight.
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  18. John Paul Jones was probably the most unlikely person to end up as one America's greatest naval heros. Even more strange, he only managed to reach the rank of Admiral by joining the Russian Navy. The book "John Paul Jones: America's First Sea Warrior" (Joseph Callo) is a great book about his life, not only his well known naval achievements, but also his personal life, which was almost exciting as his naval battles. I believe it's now available as an ebook and in print for about the same price. There are several other books about Jones with deceptively similar titles, but none are as comprehensive as Callo's tome.
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  19. "Give the crew something to do in case of air attack..." So true for the 25mm guns
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  20. The problem of telegraph decoding precedes navies. When telegraphs first started to be used commercially, messages were charged by the letter. This was very expensive, especially for transatlantic cables, and prompted various commercial entities, including Western Union, to come up with number blocks and code books so entire phrases could be transmitted using a single code block of five numbers or letters. This didn't provide signal security since codes books were widely available. However, large business soon developed their own encoding techniques and private code books so competitors wouldn't be able to read their messages if they were intercepted. This was the beginning of using codes for operational security.
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  21. Helena was a good example on how long it took some admirals to understand, or at least appreciate, the critical difference radar made to fighting the Japanese. A bit if trivia. Look closely at the 5"/38 turrets on Helena and then compare them to any later ship with the same turrets. The Helena had the first twin 5"/38 turret, and the style was more curved and svelte, in keeping with the rest of the ships's design. However, it served no practical purpose and actually slightly reduced gun crew space. For the remainder of the over 2,700 twin mounts that were produced, cost and speed became the important factors, with aesthetics a distant third.
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  22. While the hedgehog was a far superior A/S weapon over the stern discharge depth charges and the K-gun launcher. However, Hedgehog caused the Germans to start on a crash program to develop acoustic homing torpedoes. These could be fired just before a Hedgehog attack started, the torpedo homing on the sounds of the ship attacking it. These so called "down the throat" shots sank or seriously damaged a number of US DE's before an acoustic decoy was developed, once again by the British, called Foxer. It was towed several hundred yards behind the destroyer, the long cylindrical body having large parallel gaps to let water rush through. This generated cavitation noise about ten to one hundred times that of a ship's propellers. Since the acoustic system on the torpedo was set to home in on the loudest cavitation noises, Foxers were used very successfully to decoy Zaunkönigs on North Atlantic convoys, with only an estimated 77 hits from over 700 Zaunkönigs fired. Foxer came late to the war for some DEs, since production problems initially limited the numbers available for non-convoy escort DE's. USN captains developed their own brute force decoy system, firing off a salvo of charges from their K guns just before firing the Hedgehogs. This provided enough noise to decoy off any Zaunkönigs fired their way. Hunter killer groups centered around an escort carrier and three to five DE's were especially at risk from the Zaunkönig torpedoes since most of their attacks were on subs diving after being caught on the surface, and the DE's had to race in and fire off a Hedgehog salvo before the sub could escape. The K-gun diversion mostly stopped those "down the throat" attacks that sank about 14 DE's during the War. Interestingly, no US destroyer class carried Hedgehog during the war. In USN doctrine, the destroyer was a fleet unit whose main role was protecting the battle fleet. This required a much larger torpedo loadout than a DE, generally two quintuple tube mounts compared to the single triple tube mount on a Buckley class DE. A Hedgehog mount required about the same space and weight as another triple launcher, and US destroyers were already at their weight limits. DE's were able to handle the weight because they less overloaded to begin with, so they could usually retain their triple tube launcher while mounting a Hedgehog. During the late war period, threats from aircraft were greater than subs, so most US destroyers lost at least one set of tubes, and sometimes both if they were assigned radar picket duty. It's not hard to see the weight problem when the average Fletcher went from an AA armament of seven 20 mm cannon and a single 1.1 quad mount to ten 40mm and 10-12 20mm cannon. This increased on the Sumner and Gearing classes to 12-14 40mm guns and as many as 17 20mm cannon, some in twin mounts. The destroyers did finally receive Hedgehogs after the war, generally at the expense of the B mount 5" guns and a much reduced antiaircraft suite, usually six 3"/50 guns in twin mounts. Hedgehogs survived several attempts at "improving" them, lasting until the early 60's, with the advent of ASROC, finally ending a long service life.
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  23. The sinking and subsequently botched rescue effort, combined with the mendacious and scurrilous effort to save the navy brass on the back of a single captain, was one of the most shameful incidents to have taken place in any modern navy. This was the final incident in the long and rotten career of Admiral Earnest J King, a person who deserves his special place in Hell. There were also many stories of heroism in the rescue, from the PBY pilot alighting on the sea after seeing men in the water being attacked by sharks, machine gunning every shark the crew could see, and then strapping men on the wing to prevent more attacks. The pilot's frantic radio calls bought the USS Cecil J Doyle and her captain, W Graham 'Claytor (later famous as an American railroader) at top speed to the scene, all without orders. The Doyle was a John C Butler class DE, theoretically capable of a top speed of 24 knots. According the the engineering officer, the ship averaged between 28 and 29 knots during the high speed run, surely a record for the class. She was able to save 93 survivors and recover 21 of the dead, all the while towing the PBY and her survivors until the men could be transferred and the PBY was cut lose and sunk by gunfire. In the worst stories of incompetence, stupidity, and lying, a few men shine thorough that uphold the finest traditions of naval service.
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  24. The Komoran had a year's experience at sea, sinking ten merchant ships and capturing another. Captain Detmers drove his crew mercilessly in gunnery practice, fast unmasking of the guns, and torpedo drills. Detmers was satisfied her could take on any British merchant cruiser he might run across. In addition to her heavy guns and torpedoes, he had what was probably the deciding advantage in having five 20mm guns to rake the superstructure of the Sydney while the Sydney's three quad .50 machine gun mounts, of which only two could be trained on either beam, weren't manned before the Kormoran opened fire. The interrogation of surviving Kormoran crew revealed that Australian sailors running to man the light guns were cut down "by the hundreds" according to one 20mm gunner. It's possible that was correct, and that many of the Sydney's crew lay dead or wounded as a result of the raking fire, the damage to the turrets and superstructure from the 5.9" hits and then from the torpedo hit. It's likely that a large percentage of her 650 crew were dead or dying before the engagement was broken off and the Sydney, ablaze from stem to stern, drifted away. At some point, the fires got to one of the magazines and caused the explosion dimly seen on the horizon by the Germans from their lifeboats. The ship probably sank within minutes. Given everything that happened before the ship began to sink, it's not difficult to believe the few surviving crew, having no lifeboats, since all had been destroyed in the fighting, got in the water and quickly succumbed to sharks and hypothermia since there were no attempts being made to rescue them. [Edit: I misspoke about a magazine explosion. It was more likely a boiler explosion, but even that is debatable. The most likely cause of her sinking was the heavily damaged bow finally detached from the rest of the hull allowing enough water in to sink her. As Chris Richards pointed out in his comment below, it's inaccurate to describe the Sydney as drifting away. She wasn't under control, but was still making some headway. That probably helped to eventually detach the damaged bow from the hull and increase the amount of water getting in the hull so she sank faster.]
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  25. The Atlanta class antiaircraft escorts really came into their own when the quad 1.1 guns and .50 machine guns were replaced with the more capable 40mm and 20mm guns in late 1942. The introduction of the proximity fused round, or "VT" round, for the 5" guns made the Atlanta class the most useful antiaircraft escort in any navy. What the Atlanta class wasn't was a light cruiser, even though they were classed as such initially. They were really very large destroyers, and the original group of ships with te 5" rear wing turrets were very unstable in rough weather as too much armament was attempted on an enlarged destroyer hull. Their lack of ability to fight in a antisurface role was tragically shown by the loss of the Atlanta and Juneau during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The Oakland subclass removed the wing 5" turrets and replaced them with additional 40mm mounts, which improved stability and added much needed close-in fire. The designers of the class back in 1936 could hardly have foreseen the massive growth in electronics, directors, and radars that, while they increased the effectiveness of the ships, also exacerbated their topweight and stability issues. This was mostly solved with the introduction of the Juneau class, but they commissioned just too late for service in WWII. In belated recognition of their true role, all the surviving Atlanta/Oakland/Juneau class ships were reclassified as CLAA, Anti Aircraft Surface Escorts. Most never saw action again after WWII with only the Juneau in commision during the Korean War. The time of the gun based escort ship had passed, and all the survivors were decommissioned from the reserve fleet in 1965 and scrapped during the following two years. The Falklands War of 1982 caused a renewed interest in guns for antiaircraft protection of the fleet.
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  26. The weakness of all all these large submarines was the poor torpedo loadout. The I-19 was 45 longer than a Gato class sub and 1,000 tons heavier surfaced and 1,200 tons heavier submerged. They also needed a crew of 94 officers and men compared to the average of 70 on a Gato. Even with all that extra tonnage and length, she was only three knots faster on the surface and a knot slower submerged than a Gato. She carried 17 torpedoes with no stern torpedo tubes compared to six bow and four stern tubes on a Gato. Her one superior trait was range, 14,000 miles at 16 knots and about 20,000 miles at 10 knots. The Japanese just added too many roles to one sub.
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  27. The French gave it the old college try with dual purpose armament, weighing down this class with nine six inch guns that were designed to be dual purpose. The weight saved by removing these and replacing them with either more 100 mm guns or, as the Americans proposed, the standard 5"/38 guns in twin mounts, would be an obvious benefit to the Richelieu class. The British understood that value and proposed replacing the Nelson class mixed armament with ether six or eight such twin mounts, although the limited availability of such guns saw WWII run out before this could happen. The French, however, still wanted their supposed dual purpose 6" guns, even though they never worked as intended before the war. They would spend even more money after the war trying to make these guns work in the AA role without any more success. The French wanted French weapons, working or not. The USN, not learning from the French example, went ahead and built the Worcesters, the heaviest class of "light" cruisers in any navy, armed with 12 of the supposed 6"/47 DP guns, and expended large amounts of scarce resources trying to make these work in the AA and surface roles, having little more success than the French. The class lasted only ten years in service and had guns that were not effective in the surface or AA role compared to the reliable 5"/38. The only two times she fired her 6" guns in anger in the AA role were both off Korea. The first was at an unidentified aircraft headed toward the ship. After three rounds of 6" fire that missed, the target was identified as a British Short Sunderland flying boat, and fire was checked. The second was the "Battle of the Geese", when Worcester, Helena and four destroyers opened up on an unidentified radar target that was later determined to be two large flocks of geese. It's unknown the number of geese casualties, but more than 300 rounds of 5" and 6" were fired at the poor creatures.
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  28. The biggest difference between RN and USN rations was the amount of refrigerator (cold room) and freezer space available. The USN built almost all ships from about 1934 forwards with enough cold room and freezer space available that the crew could have mostly fresh food available for the first 8-12 days (depending on climate) at sea and frozen meats and vegetables for about 20-23 days. By 1942, it was the goal of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts (later Bureau of Logistics) to retrofit every ship with enough cold room and freezer space to have enough room for food based on the above plan. Each ship also needed to have about twice that cubic footage available for dry stores like flour, rice, and potatoes. The USN prepared a tremendous amount of dry store products. Loaf bread was the most popular, but men from the South wanted biscuits and grits while men from the North generally wanted oatmeal and toast or sliced bread. They all wanted cakes, pies, doughnuts, and coffee cakes. On destroyer size ships and up, one night was usually steak night, and every meal had some kind of meat product, with bacon, chicken, turkey, and some types of fish being common. The main meal in the Navy was called dinner, and that meal had the most food. Supper was served in the evening and was generally the lightest meal of the day, even lighter than breakfast. Breakfast was often eggs, bacon or sausage, griddle cakes, French toast, dry cereal, grits, or oatmeal along with fruit, fresh or canned. A pot of soup with bread, butter, and coffee as almost always available in the galley for men who missed a regular meal or were just hungry. Men out on the gun line during regular meal hours were brought out trays of sandwiches along with coffee, milk (if available), and fruitaides. Surprisingly, peanut butter and jelly was the most popular sandwich, followed by the aforementioned spam slathered with mustard and ketchup, and sometimes cheese. The fleet train could generally resupply ships with dry and frozen foods at sea, but they obviously couldn't do so when the ships were under constant threat of attack from kamikazes, and that's when the cook's talents (or lack of the same) would come to the fore. A good cook knew twenty ways to prepare food men would grow to hate, like spam or Australian lamb, and make it tasty enough the men would eat it. He could make dry eggs and dry milk taste like the fresh products, and knew how to substitute one ingredient for another and still make food that mostly tasted good. It's said that ships with the happiest crews had good cooks, and captains often horse traded with other captains for cooks and kinds of foods. Bad cooks could find themselves reassigned from a cruiser to something like a minesweeper just so a captain could get a good cook assigned to his ship. There are numerous stories of good "cookies" given anything they wanted by officers and crews, from women to vodka, as long as they could keep them on their ship. I'm sure being an admiral was good, but it seems like being the most popular cook in a fleet was even better. Well, rats, I've done another "War and Peace", but I now realize I have no idea how things went in the RN. From everything I heard and read, British and Commonwealth (especially Australian) ships didn't fare as well in the food department. Anyone here who knows how food service went in the RN?
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  29. Don't ask me why, but Mackinac is actually pronounced "Mac-en-naw".
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  30. The best kind of naval war is one where the opponents anchor in harbor and then glare at each other. :)
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  31. It's a great story. I'm not convinced it's actually true, but a great story nonetheless. Her firing certainly broke up a force of three dozen LXXXVI Corps panzers attempting a counterattack near Caen at the extreme range of 32,000 yards, but I've never been able to find good evidence of her gunners chasing an individual tank. I'd be interested in a link if you have one.
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  32. Singapore is a good example of a modern navy that started with almost nothing. Even Singapore as a independent country didn't exist until 1965. It has gone from a navy with a few small ex-RN and USN ships to one with a growing and modern submarine force, six large missile frigates, six missile corvettes, numerous offshore patrol craft, and four large modern amphibious transport docks. They established all the naval schools and logistics depots needed to man and supply the ships almost from scratch into a system admired by most other navies. It's been quite a feat to get it done in the space of slightly more than fifty years.
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  33. Growing up in Cleveland, we probably learned more about the various battles on the Lakes, especially Lake Erie. It always seemed odd ot me that we were going to somehow conquer Canada, especially with our rather pitiful forces. The fact we even came as close as we did was quite amazing.
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  34. Amazingly, the Enigma machine was patented in 1918 by Arthur Scherbius, a German electrical engineer. It's first successful use was by the German Army in the late 1920's as a method to communicate among German manufacturers. The Germans were forbidden to rearm under the Versailles Treaty, and Enigma offered an ideal way to communicate between the Army and manufacturers that were illegally building tanks. Even though the encoded text was transmitted over normal shortwave frequencies, it was assumed the that massive number of key combinations would make it impossible for the Allies to know what the resurgent German Army was up to. The first successful attempts to break the Enigma code wasn't done by, as might be expected, the British or the Americans, but by the Poles, starting in the mid 30's. The amazing math described by Drach gave the Poles what they needed for their "Bomba", the first brute force machine to decode Enigma messages. It was the first of many built by the British and Americans.
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  35. As shown by the Hopkins , the US 4"/50 was a hard hitting and deadly gun in the hands of a well trained Crew. The naval armed guard was led by Lt. (j.g.) Kenneth Martin Willett, and he drilled his crew constantly in loading and firing. He also trained volunteer merchant mariners in ammunition passing and as backup loaders. The standard rate of fire for a well trained crew was nine rounds a minute. According to one of the gunnery officers on Steir who was directing fire from the forward 5.9" guns thought its rangefinder, and was closely observing return fire from Hopkins , that ship fired 16 rounds in the first minute, an astounding rate of fire for a hand loaded weapon. Even as more and more men were being mowed down by the 20mm cannon aboard Steir , others ran to take their place, most of them being killed after getting off a few rounds. Finally, after the intense six minute battle, there were no more left to man the still intact gun, with the few survivors taking to a single lifeboat. The German ship moved in closer to asses the situation, sure that resistance had ceased. They didn't count on Merchant Marine Cadet Edwin Joseph O'Hara. The survivors in the lifeboat watched in amazement as the mortally wounded O'Hara somehow dragged himself to the gun. There were still three shells in the ready rack. O'Hara dragged all three shells over to the gun, hiding behind remnants of the shot up gun tub. He must have been in great pain as he lifted the first round and rammed it home. He was able to reach down to the firing pedal and pressed it home with his hand. The first round was on its way before the Germans knew what hit them. OHara repeated the feat with the second round in about nine seconds. He had the last round loaded and either fired the gun and it exploded, or the gun emplacement was hit by a 5.9" round from Steir . Either way, when the smoke had cleared, neither O'Hara nor the gun were to be seen. Although this is disputed, it's possible O'Hara's last round may have severed the steering controls of the Stier . Drifting and unable to respond to the helm, the captain realized his ship was doomed. With the supply ship standing by, the crew was moved to the supply ship in lifeboats, then Stier was sunk with scuttling charges. Merchant Marine Academy Cadet O'Hara, only along for a training cruise, was awarded the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal while Lt. (j.g.) Kenneth Martin Willett, USNR, was awarded the Navy Cross for this action. Very few ships, naval or merchant marine, have ever fought such a gallant battle in the finest naval tradition of sink the enemy or be sunk trying.
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  36. The USN officially received nine Flower class corvettes from Canadian dockyards and ten directly from RN service in 1942 and early 1943, all to fill in dire shortages of convoy escorts across the Atlantic and from the Caribbean to New York and Canada. The British built ships served as transatlantic convoy escorts through early 1944. Eight Canadian built vessels actually served in the USN while one, USS Beacon, assigned to the USN and commissioned as a USN ship, never actively serving. She was transferred the RN as the HMS Dittany in May, 1943. These modified Flowers were classed as patrol gunboats in USN service, a role the Canadian built ships actually performed. All eight vessels escorted coastal convoys up and down the US coast, to and from the Caribbean and sometimes as far north as Newfoundland. The British built ships were taken in hand as soon as they could get to a US dockyard. The British 4" was replaced with US 4"/50 and the aft Vickers 2 pdr pom pom or twin Lewis guns replaced with a 3"/50. The other Lewis guns were either replaced or augmented with 20mm Oerlikons. The Canadian built ships came with a standard armament of two 3"/50 and 2-4 20mm guns. The USS Pert, maintaining the USN tradition of placing a gun everywhere there was an empty space, had, in addition to the 3" guns, at least seven 20mm, three twin Lewis gun, and a single Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of the bridge. There was a good reason for all these gun, beyond the enjoyment US sailors took firing guns. Coastal convoys were often attacked by U-boats running on the surface. Because the PGs retained their British Type 271 radar, the rest of the war up to about 1944, they were able to detect submarines up to 3,500 yards, or about 2 miles. This was often more than the U-boat lookouts could see in the typical haze and fog of the coast, especially at night. Once detected, the PG would call for flank speed and charge the U-boat with guns blazing, the hail of fire forcing the U-boat to dive with alacrity. Once it was down, the PG would track the sub with its ASDIC (also British) and hold it down until faster escorts could arrive to attack it. The PG would then sprint back to the convoy and take up the escort role again. U-boats attacked East Coast convoys in wolf packs, and each PG would often have to perform their cavalry charge attacks five or six times during a single escort voyage. The little PG/Flower class corvettes were roundly hated by US sailors for the rolling Drach mentioned, lack of berthing accommodations, and the constant wetness of the ship. Since the ships were built with North Atlantic duty in mind, one can only imagine the torture of being below decks in tropical waters. Nevertheless, the plucky little ships plugged a hole in US escort capabilities during the first two years of the US war, and their presence saved many a merchant ship and the lives of many merchant sailors.
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  37. It wasn't just surface search radar. It was also radar fire control systems, something the Japanese completely lacked. The Yamato's radar was only a surface search set. All the "old" battleships and most of the cruisers and destroyers were equipped with varying numbers of Mark 37 GFCS directors tied back into the Ford 1A computer and Mk 6 Stable Element, all being controlled through the plotting table in the Combat Information Center. The only hope for the Japanese was to drive into as close a range as possible. The US GFCS radars were only about as effective as Japanese optical directors at close range. The further the range, the more rapidly the Japanese would be smothered by the radar controlled gunfire from US fleet. Even the Long Lance didn't have the advantages they did two years earlier as improvements in sonar and radars on the US were able to detect the firing and path of the torpedoes while broadcasting the data to the other ships in the fleet. Even this advantage was negated by rainge, so closer range on the part of the Japanese gives them their best chance of survival wile damaging and sinking US ships.
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  38. My cousin served aboard the New Jersey from 1986 to 1989. The two "resort pools" on the New Jersey were retrofitted to the former 40 mm gun tubs because of rulings from the brass. Back before they got involved, swimming in tropical waters was a way to cool off during long deployments to the Pacific. Given the freeboard of the New Jersey, some sailors got injured diving from her decks. It was mostly things like a few broken arms, but those in charge of fleet safety weren't having it. No more swimming, and morale plummeted. Even though living spaces were air conditioned, working space weren't, and place like workshops and the engine rooms could get over 110 degrees in the tropics. Captain Katz solved this by having his engineering staff rig up a portable swimming platform that was only about five feet about the sea surface. Morale returned to normal as the guys could once again get in some swimming. This worked until the medical staff in Washington got involved. With reports that some men were picking up various tropical parasites from swimming in the Persian Gulf, swimming was banned completely to save the three cases that had ever showed up from the New Jersey, all easily cured. For those that have ever sailed in tropical waters, not being able to swim so you could cool off from the oppressive tropical heat just seemed impossible, and crew morale immediately suffered. Captain Katz once again called on his engineering staff for a solution. Once of the Machinist Mates was a swimming pool installer in civilian life. He came up with a vinyl over foam covering that could be used to line the two forward abandoned 40 mm gun tubs. They were filled from portable pumps that ran through a filtering system devised by engineering to make sure those nasty parasites couldn't get on board. The crew was able to at least paddle around and cool off, and morale soared. Thus, the New Jersey came to be the only USN combat ship to ever have two swimming pools.
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  39. The original 37mm/C30 gun was a pretty terrible antiaircraft weapon. It was the only weapon of its size that was single shot and hand loaded. The practical ROF was no more than 30 RPM, totally inadequate for antiaircraft fire. The mounting was hand operated and very slow to train and elevate. The M42 was a far superior gun, fully automatic and fed from a five round clip, much like the 20mm, but it wasn't available until 1944. The M43 gun was the first with the option of a power twin mounting but changed the clip to an inferior 8 round strip loading, lowering the practical ROF to 180 RPM compared to 250 RPM for the M42. Unfortunately for the Germans, the development of single and double wet mounts of the 37mm M42 and quad mount 20mm guns gave Doenitz false hope that U Boats so armed could successfully fight it out on the surface against allied aircraft and transit the Bay of Biscay safely. The first couple boats armed with these weapons did have some success as at least five Coastal Command aircraft were lost flying into this unexpected wall of flak. Coastal Command was quickly able to work out the types and locations of the weapons through photo reconnaissance flights. The countermeasure was to always attack in groups of three and from the bow if possible, since no boat had more than a single 20 mm mounted forward. Even the few U-Flak boats armed with two quad 20's and two twin M42's mounted fore and aft were not able to fight off the swarms of Coastal Command aircraft that set upon surfaced U-Boats from mid-1943 on. The real answer was a Dutch invention, the schnorkel, so the boats never had to come to the surface at all.
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  40. I was 11 in 1957 ang got a subscription to Popular Science for Christmas so I was able to follow along with Vanguard's progress from refit to reserve to scrapping. I thought the scrapping proposal would surely be shelved by the Prime Minister. Little did I know at the time about the fatal combination of Eden and MacMillan for the RN. I thought Vanguard was the best looking, even while being utilitarian, battleship of the era.
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  41. Another illustration of what emergency power meant was the the 3.5 hour dash of the RMS Carpathia to reach the sinking RMS Titanic. Captain Roston ordered all possible steam diverted to the engines, including most of the steam for heating the ship, collecting passengers to several of the public rooms that remained heated. Carpathia made 15.4 knots on trials in light condition but had never exceeded 14 knots at full load. According to the chief engineer, Carpathia actually ran at 17.2 to 17.5 knots for the final two hours of the dash. The engines were more or less wrecked, with the ship only able to make nine knots to New York City. After emergency repairs in NYC, she was able to limp back to Liverpool for a complete engine rebuild. Sailors who served on her after the epic race to save lives said the ship had developed a persistent starboard side vibration and the engines never quite ran right again. Unfortunately, she was sunk by the U-55 only six years later. However, 218 of the 223 aboard made it into the lifeboats and survived, partly due the additional lifeboats required in the wake of the Titanic tragedy.
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  42. Fantastic! I've been waiting for a PT boat guide. My dad was in Ron 10 on PT-124 from January 4, 1943 until it was disbanded in November, 1945. The Lewis guns and turrets were long gone when he arrived. They only carried two torpedoes by mid-1943, and they spent the vast majority of their time shooting up those barges, by then being used for attempted resupply of isolated islands. The Japanese barges kept adding bigger guns, and the squadron kept scrounging bigger guns of their own. It was an arms race in tropics, and the Navy, with the exception of the 40mm Bofors, never approved any of it. Dad's boat did have some ad-hoc armor. One of the guys was a metal worker, and he crafted a pair of 3/8" sheet steel plates from a scrapped P-39, and the crew installed them around the refrigerator/freezer. It used ammonia for refrigerant, and a stray round going through the refrigerant line filled the boat with ammonia fumes. Even worse, it meant the refrigerator was out of commission, and that meant no cold milk or ice cream, things they got from their monthly visit to the USS Mobjack, the squadron's tender. No one much cared about armor for the crew, but they wanted their ice cream and milk! Oh, I forgot to mention that no one in the squadron thought very highly of Cdr. Bulkeley. He got to be a big celebrity because of the daring rescue of McArthur, and pretty soon he became the Navy's version of him. He was apparently an intrepid sailor, and the guys felt like he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. His book "At Close Quarters", written in 1962, got an even frostier reception, since most of the guys felt like it was a self promotion book, but also a promotion for JFK and the PT-109. A lot of other heroic actions by PT boats got short shrift in the book.
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  43. Thanks for covering what's a generally little known class of coastal defense ships. I've always thought they were an attractive looking class, and they gave the Finns the chance to poke the eye of the Russian fleet. It's unfortunate the Russians and Finns couldn't come to an agreement on returning the ship to the Finnish Navy. She, along with the Chinese Zhongshan, would have been the last survivors of a once numerous type. The Väinämöinen and Zhongshan would have been interesting bookends to the nominal type of coastal defence ships. (Edited to correct error in ship names)
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  44. Japan had the AA guns she needed when she captured British examples of 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon guns when Singapore was captured. Japan was never able to master the close tolerances needed for both weapons, although she continued to produce evaluation copies to just about the end of the war. The IJN knew the 25mm gun was not the best weapon for fighting off allied aircraft, but she had been making various models of Hotchkiss guns since the early '30s and had mastered the tolerances required for them. Later types like the Bofors required better materials and machine tools, things in short supply by the time the first preproduction samples of the Japanese Bofors were ready in 1943. Japan was producing about 1,500-2,000 25mm barrels a month in 1943, and even the most optimistic estimates for the 40mm Bofors was 5-10 barrels a month. It was a matter of fighting with something rather than nothing.
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  45. Darn. Small correction. The official USN name for this battle is "The Battle Off Samar". This was done to differentiate it from the land battle of Samar occuring at the same time.
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  46. I'd also add that the Americans had faith in their overwhelming industrial capacity to turn out more than enough carriers to replace any that were lost, something amply proved by the production and launching of 23 of 24 Essex class carrier during WWII, not mention the nine Independence class light carriers and vast numbers of escort carriers produced for the USN and RN. The number of ships of all types produced during WWII was so breathtaking that I wonder if the Americans could ever do it again.
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  47. It took the USN until 1912 to start constructing 300+ foot, 1,000+ ton, 29.5 knots destroyers with the Cassin class. They had the general outline of the hundreds of four pipers in succeeding classes. Since the US only had a few scout cruisers, the "Thousand Tonners" had to serve in that role, and had a fairly long range of about 4,000 nm, all on oil fuel. The armament was four of the new and very effective 4"/50 gun, standard destroyer gun until the first Farragut class vessels of 1932, armed with four or five of the new and even more effective 5"/38 DP guns. From the Cassin class to the Farragut class, the basic layout and armament underwent very few changes for about 20 years, surely a record for major fleet classes of vessels.
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  48. The only really effective role of US PT boats in the Pacific was preventing Japanese resupply of isolated island garrisons. It was all gun battles between the PTs and Japanese barges to starve out these garrisons. The torpedos had no aiming system except point the boat in the right direction, fire, and hope for the best. Even with the improved Mark 8 torpedoes, the firing mechanisms weren't built for the exposed position of the torpedoes on a PT in the tropics. The electric firing black powder charge often leaked water and the firing mechanism shorted out. Most boats actually engaged in a torpedo attacks had men standing by with a large sledgehammer to hit the exposed trigger and fire the torpedo. The boat had to slow down to an even keel before firing or the gyro wouldn't be able to get a good position and the torpedo would run off in surprising directions, including circling back on your boat. The tubes were packed with grease and oil to ensure the torpedo didn't get stuck in the tube. The black powder charge would sometimes ignite all this grease, causing a huge cloud black smoke that immediately gave away the position of the boat. My dad was on PT boats from late 1942 until May, 1945. By mid 1943, the tube were landed and the torpedoes were carried in simple shackle mounts. To fire the torpedo, one man popped the shackles while another yanked a lanyard to start the torpedo motor. Both guys then pushed to torpedo overboard to start the attack. As you might imagine, this was even more inaccurate then firing them from tubes, but at least the torpedoes would run once they got in the water. My dad's boat made eight torpedo attacks. Seven missed, and the one that hit was a dud. The boat went from carrying four torpedoes to two and, by early 1944, none, with the weight and space saved devoted to more 20mm and 40mm guns. Most boats after 1943 functioned as motor gunboats. They were successful in that role, but some of the romantic stories about the PTs charging in on torpedo attacks and sinking a major surface vessel were more propaganda than reality.
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  49. I've seen a certificate created on board the Wisconsin at the time of the sinking of that KC-97 Stratofreighter. I think the plane floated around off the Azores for something like 10 days, but all the crew were rescued. It detailed the hunt for the plane as it took evasive action (the wind blew it faster to the south than predicted), and the heroic resistance by the aircraft (it was actually used for target practice), with a total of something like thirty 5" and a couple thousand 40mm rounds required to sink her. This lead to her being named an honorary US Navy vessel, the "USS Curtis LeMay". Some artistic scamp even made up a ship's patch showing the KC-97F with a large cigar being chomped on (LeMay was an inveterate cigar smoker) by the teeth in the mouth that replaced the cockpit windows. Given that LeMay and the Navy were locked in a battle royal at the time about which would be the service to provide nuclear deterrence (the Navy ultimately winning), I suspect neither the Air Force nor LeMay were amused.
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  50. Good morning to the usual suspects. Excellent topic! Destroyers and their development is not a common topic. Those little guys just don't have the appeal of battleships or aircraft carriers for most people but they have quite story to tell.
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  51. How many total rounds of any caliber naval ammunition was produced, how many were expended, and how much it all cost during WWII is devilishly difficult to find out at this late date. I did manage to come up with one very preliminary estimate from six different sources for 40 mm rounds. It appears that about 17 million rounds were produced in 1942, 89 million in 1943, 130 million in 1944, and back down to 15 million in 1945. That's a total of about 251 million rounds. The total spent on 40 mm ammo ranges from about $600 million to $700 million. Just choosing the midpoint, I'll assume a reasonable amount was $650 million. Given that, $650 million divided by 251 million means each round cost $2.58 in 1945 dollars. A single 40 mm gun had a practical rate of fire of 80-90 RPM, so let's choose 85 RPM. $2.58 per round multiplied by 85 equals a cost of $219.30 per barrel per minute, or $877.20 per minute for a quad mount. Now we know why there were so many ads about buying war bonds! Now, just getting this admittedly imprecise data was about two hours of trawling the net and a splitting headache, so anyone wanting to try to come up with the same figures for things like five inch rounds, have at it. :-)
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  52. We could go in some of the interior spaces without a problem. They were marked with green circles while the prohibited ares were marked with a big red X. I think the "safe" areas were exposed to the air and rain long enough before she sank to disperse at least the radioactive dust particles.The divemaster always had a geiger counter with him just in case. There are a lot of compartments that aren't accessible due to structural collapse anyway so most of the dive is hull and deck. Still quite an amazing dive. We were down for less than an hour so I don't think we could have had much exposure. I was able to get into the radio shack (I"m also a ham radio operator) and, to my surprise, it looks like most of the German radios were left in the ship before the Bikini blasts. They are, of course, completely encrusted in marine growth now, but I sure would have heisted a couple of them if I was a sailor preparing the ship for the tests.
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  53. This just started and, even though it's 4:00 in the morning here, I can't wait to spend 42 minutes with Drach presenting the most amazing naval battle of WWII.
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  54. I remember my dad telling me the story about the Uganda and her crew "refusing" to fight against Japan. That wasn't exactly true, of course, but he and the hundreds of thousands of other USN sailors had signed up "for the duration", and just the idea you could decide you wanted to go home while your allies continued the fight caused a lot of hard feelings between the USN and RN crews in the Philippines and the crew of the Uganda. It got to the point liberties had to be arranged so Uganda crew members were the only ones ashore due to constant fights breaking out. Even though the sailors on the Uganda continued to crew and fight the ship right up until the end of the war, it was a sad end of the war for a Navy that carried more than its fair share of burden during that war.
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  55. The reason why the electric razor trick could have worked was razors of that time only had shielding so they didn't interfere (much) with the medium wave AM broadcast band from about 550 KHz to 1550 KHz. This was the only band used for commercial broadcasting at the time, FM and higher frequencies still being in the future. An unshielded electric motor emits tons of spurious RF signals, and that's why the razors (may) have worked. As it turned out, the Fritz-X and HS-293 receivers operated at a frequency of about 50 MHz, quite high for 1943. The Americans and British spent a lot of time trying to discover the guidance frequencies so they could develop transmitters to jam those frequencies. They sent a total of 40 radios to sea on two DE's off Italy in hopes of being able to pick up the frequencies of glide bombs actually in use. Through a combination of faulty intelligence and bad luck, the frequency pairs chosen were in the 17 MHz to 20 MHz range. After deploying some hastily built jamming transmitters, the results were...nothing, since the jammers were nowhere near the correct frequencies. Through one bit of luck, a single guidance transmission at 50 MHz was picked up, opening up the possibility that all the previous work had been for naught. A twenty-three year old US second lieutenant was part of the team trying to decode this knotty problem. He was also an amateur radio operator and had built a number of his own ham radio transmitters. He calculated that a 50 MHz receiver would ideally operate with a 3 KHz intermediate frequency in a single conversion circuit. Without getting into all the complexities of an IF circuit, the main advantage is the IF, operating below the transmitting frequency of signals the operator wanted hear, made it far easier to design band pass filters. These were then able to filter out frequencies outside the desired range. A frequency of 3 KHz was ideal because there were no commercial broadcasters operating in that range. Anything being received above or below the IF could be removed with high or low band pass filters. A 3 KHz signal couldn't be removed as it was needed for the IF to work. A number of Hallicrafters ham transmitters were modified to operate at 100 watts at 3 MHz, a powerful signal that would swamp an IF in that range. They were tested off Florida and then sent to Italy. No ship with the jamming transmitter was successfully attacked, and glide bombs could be seen going wildly off course as soon as the jammer was turned on. The project to modify the radios received an AAA1 priority since D-Day was less than four months away. Between British and American radio manufacturers, over 500 jammers were built in about a month. It didn't take long for the Germans to figure out we had come up with some kind of radio jammer, but it took them until after D-Day to come up with their answer, a wire guided missile that couldn't be jammed Now, about the electric razors. In theory, an unshielded electric razor motor is one of the dirtiest electric devices around. It will put out spurious emissions on almost any HF frequency, including 3 KHz. However, the RF energy has to be tiny, like in the tenths of a watt. Because the path from a shaver to the glide bomb is line of sight, the power output isn't quite as important, but I'd need to be convinced that the electric razor defense ever really worked. The HS 123 and Fritz-X bombs only had about 1 hit for every 20 launched, and having them just go out of control through a guidance failure wasn't uncommon. Having a guidance failure for reasons other than guys waving around electric razors seems a lot more likely to me. I've scoured all the books I have and and online resources and, although I've found numerous instances of the electric razor story, I've yet to find evidence of any kind of controlled test to show it would work IRL. Unless I can find something, I remain skeptical.
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  56. There were 24 large ferrocement barges constructed by the US, mostly being used by the Army during WWII, with several being taken up from USN service as floating refrigerator/freezer craft. They were 265 feet and about 3,000 tons and were used mostly to transport frozen meat, chicken, eggs, and milk between Pacific bases to improve the diets of the men as the war dragged on. The most famous was the Ice Cream Barge. It's only job was to manufacture, store, and distribute ice cream to the fleet and shore bases. To do the job it had 14 ice cream plants capable of turning out 12 gallons of ice cream per minute in vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. The facilities were so overtaxed by demand that another ice cream barge was about to build when the war ended. It was towed from island to island by two Navy tugs. The role of ice cream as a morale builder was so valued that Navy Secretary Forrestal gave standing orders that the barge was not to leave port unless Navy meteorologists could guarantee there was no bad weather on the way for at least twice the period of the next voyage, and an aerographer's mate was on board to take readings and observations during the voyage.
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  57. The initial 3"/50 was also capable of antiaircraft fire, but it was a terrible gun for surface action, with a shell weight barely adequate to penetrate the hulls of larger merchantmen, let alone a warship. They were armed with this inadequate gun specifically to discourage surface action. The Pacific war changed from mostly using torpedoes to actually needing an effective deck gun by late 1943. The remaining Japanese shipping was mostly shallow draft sampans and coasters that couldn't be sunk with a torpedo. The 3"/50 was generally swapped out with a 4"/50, a very effective gun for surface action. Many skippers wanted to retain their 4"/50s when the official armament became the 5"/25. They avoided enough yard time to allow the gun to be changed and generally did whatever subterfuge they could to avoid losing the 4"/50. A few managed to retain the 4"/50 right up to the end of the war. Most skippers did come to recognize the hitting power of the 5"/25 gun, especially when a director was mounted in the last year of the war. The 5"/25 needed no preparation for diving, unlike the 4"/50, which needed a muzzle plug and the telescopic sight removed. Although the 5"/25 was theoretically capable of antiaircraft fire, the Mark 40 mount only allowed a maximum elevation of 40 degrees rather than the other marks of 5"/25 gun mounts that allowed an elevation of 85 degrees. This made the wet mount submarine gun a single purpose antiship piece. Even if it had been capable of antiaircraft fire, it's doubtful a submarine would have chosen to fight it out with an aircraft 10 miles away flying at 15,000 feet rather than diving to avoid the fight. The 40mm gun(s) was an effective antiaircraft weapon at the 3 to 5 miles range a sub might have to fight off an aircraft that jumped them at the surface. It was also found the gun did a good job of shooting up and sinking many of the lightly built Japanese merchant shipping remaining toward the end of the war.
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  58. Admiral King was an alcoholic, womanizing, and constantly pissed off desk sailor. He seems to have developed his Anglophobia sometime during WWI when he was a staff officer assigned as liaison to the British Home Fleet. He apparently got into several battles with British officer over antisubmarine tactics, and is rumored to have only just escaped sacking when discovered in the bed of a British admiral's wife, although I have never been able to learn the name of the admiral or his wife, so that's really hearsay at this juncture. After that, he seems to have developed a loathing of all things British, and the RN in particular. He refused to allow convoys off the US coast for the first six months of the WWII. While his stated reason was we didn't have enough escort ships, others suspect it's because the convoy was a British invention. He also fought the Army's plan to fly B-24's to fly from Greenland and Iceland to close the Iceland gap to German subs. He felt the Navy's next flying boat, the Coronado, could handle the task, even though the Coronado turned out to be a failure as a long range patrol bomber.  On the plus side, King was the main advocate for the invasion of Guadalcanal in the face of fierce Army opposition. While it was a long and bloody campaign, history has proven King's strategic thinking correct. Guadalcanal was the first retaking of conquered Japanese territory in the war, and it proved the Army and Navy together could use amphibious operations to take islands from the Japanese. He was also instrumental in seeing that enough naval strength was available in the Pacific in 1942 to protect supply lines to Australia and prevent the Japanese actually invading the country. By far his most egregious decision was his role in the court-martial of Charles B McVay III, captain of the USS Indianapolis. He overturned Admiral Nimitz's letter of reprimand as a result of the sinking of the Indianapolis and instead demanded a court-martial, and carried his demands all the way to Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Forestall gave in because he didn't want to start an open battle between him and King so soon after the end of the war. The court-martial eventually convicted Captain McVay in November, 1945 of failing to zigzag as an antisubmarine measure. Even though Forrestal overturned the sentence, and McVay had an essentially honorary promotion to rear admiral just before his retirement in 1949, the court-martial was the end of the career for a promising and honorable Navy officer. Indianapolis's survivors came together and tried for many years to have the court-martial removed from what they consider "their skipper's" record. McVay spent many years in self recrimination over the deaths of so many of his men, even though most (but not all) the survivors tried to rally around him. His family stated he received hate mail and telephone calls from some survivor's families for many years after the court-martial, particularly as each anniversary of the sinking approached. McVay suffered from mental health problems for years after the court-martial. His family reported he would wake up screaming from nightmares he was back in the water with his shipmates, trying to fight off attacking sharks. Finally, he lost the battle and, in 1968, committed suicide using his Navy service pistol on the back steps of his Litchfield, Connecticut home. After all the attempts to clear McVay's name, it was a 12 year old schoolboy's class project in 1998 that finally bought the miscarriage of justice to national attention. Hunter Scott testified before Congress and turned over the voluminous notes he took from interviews with almost 150 Indianapolis survivors. Congress passed a resolution in 2000 asking the Navy to exonerate Captain McVay. President Clinton, to his credit, signed the resolution the same year. The Navy finally, after fighting tooth and nail not to, exonerated Captain McVay in July, 2001, with Secretary of the Navy England ordered McVay's Navy record purged of the court-martial and of all implication of wrongdoing on his part. Why was King so intent on seeing McVay convicted? The evidence implicates King carrying a grudge all those years because McVay's father, Admiral Charles B McVay Jr, had ordered a letter of reprimand be placed in King's file in 1922 because he and others were caught sneaking women onto a Navy ship. He apparently decided his best revenge was seeing the career of his son destroyed, and this is exactly what Admiral Charles McVay Jr thought was the reason. King has been accused of the death of many US Navy sailors and merchant sailors because of his refusal to initiate convoys. That can be argued, but one death can be laid squarely on King's shoulders, and that was the death of Captain McVay.  I'm sorry for the length of this, but I couldn't let the mention of Admiral King pass by without telling this story. Like Hunter Scott, I was a 16 year old schoolboy in 1963, and my junior history project was the sinking of the Indianapolis. Captain (then Rear Admiral) McVay paid me the honor of speaking to me for almost three hours over two days about him, his ship, and the sinking. He told me of the heroism of not only his own crew but what survivors would call the Angel of the Sky and the two Angels of the Water. Many more of the crew wouldn't have survived without them. The rescue was more a result of them and their amazing efforts than the Navy. Look them up to find out what they did or this will become more of War and Peace than it already has.  Even in 1963, McVay still bore the full responsibility for the sinking if his ship. My school project didn't stir anything but one newspaper story, but it left me carrying Charles McVay in my heart. My heart sank on that terrible day of November 6, 1968 when I heard of Admiral McVay's death, and not a November 6 goes by that I don't think of him.  There are only two villains in this story. The first are the unknown naval bureaucrats that denied the Indianapolis a destroyer escort and then delayed rescue for days because they didn't have a system to alert them when a single ship was overdue. The other is Admiral Ernest King.
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  59. If she had been built as such, Georgios Averof would have been an almost ideal convoy escort in areas that might see enemy raiders show up. A fast enough turn of speed to be able to go off and investigate sightings while still being able to rejoin the convoy afterwards, large enough guns and good enough fire control to be able to engage raiders outside the range of their ~ 6" guns, and sufficient armor to be able to fight off and probably survive an encounter with enemy cruisers. She may have been old, but she still had value.
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  60. Vought produced two world beating fighters and two dogs. You mentioned one dog, the Cutlass, that actually made it to squadron service. At least one could argue the Cutlass failed because it used too many new features at once with and underdeveloped engine, but it did have potential. The other Vought dog was the F6U Pirate. It used a thoroughly conventional layout of straight wings and various aerodynamic bits and pieces in an attempt to wring out maximum performance from the largest turbojet available at the time, the Westinghouse J34 with an afterburner, a first for carrier aircraft. Unfortunately, US engine designers were still working out how to make powerful turbojets that would fit in small naval fighters, and the J34 wasn't the engine designers hoped for. It was seriously underpowered for sea level use, although the Pirate did have a top speed of nearly 600 mph at 20,000 feet. At sea level, however, it could be outrun by the speedy F8F Bearcat prop fighter, leading to the nickname "Groundhog". Given the straight wind design, it had no real development potential, so only 33 were built. On the plus side, it was a docile aircraft to fly and never killed any pilots, something that couldn't be said for the Cutlass, with 320 produced, in which 25 pilots died and 28% of the airframes were destroyed in accidents. Amazingly, in an attempt to win public favor for an aircraft already being being denigrated as a widowmaker, the Cutlass was ordered into use by the Blue Angels. I've never been able to find out what admiral made that decision, which is probably just as well for him. While trying to make full power take offs, the aircrafts experienced multiple serious flameouts, total hydraulic failures, engine fires on the ground and in the air, and a landing gear door falling off into a crowd of spectators, miraculously not killing or injuring anyone. The last straw was Lt. Lewis "Whitey" Feightner experiencing a total hydraulic failure in the first Cutlass Blue Angels flight while attempting to make a full afterburner takeoff. After clipping some trees at the end of the runway and losing one of the two engines, Feightner contemplated ejecting but was afraid of the risks to the people on the ground. He stayed with the plane long enough to get the backup hydraulic system on line so he could make a hard left turn, get the gear down, and safely get back on the runway, all the while a huge blue flame of hydraulic fluid trailed behind him. The crowd cheered, assuming it was part of the show. During a straight and level flight on the way to an airshow in Chicago,, the other Cutlass in use also experienced a flameout, forcing Feightner's wingman, Lt Harding MacKnight, to make an emergency landing at Naval Air Station Glenview. Being short on fuel, Feightner had to make an emergency landing at what was then Orchard Airpark, plowing through rows of peach baskets place on the new runway to keep vehicles off, thereby landing on what became the first runway of what we now know as Chicago O'Hare Airport. The Blue Angels brass, deciding discretion was the better part of valor, had the two aircraft dismantled and trucked to NAS Memphis, where they served for many years a maintenance instructional airframes. Ironically, both were eventually destroyed while being used for firefighting training.
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  61. One of the potential advantages of the Montana class postwar was for midshipmen cruises. The term "midshipmen" In this regard is a little misleading, since the postwar Navy had summer cruises for not only Annapolis midshipmen but for naval cadets from the various colleges and university, midshipmen from the Coast Guard and Merchant marine academy, plus quite a large number of petty officers being trained for specialized roles like electronics and engineering. While a Montana required a large (2,400 crewmen) manning in war, she could get by with about half that number in peacetime, especially with the trainees filling in some roles. That left a lot of berthing space for midshipmen of all types, something that was lacking in the cruisers normally used in that role. Not only could they have accommodated between 500-600 midshipmen, their 15,000 mile range at 15 knots would have allowed them to visit any part of the world with one fueling, an expensive proposition for smaller ships with less range. The class also had expansive flag accommodations, useful for training command staff, as well as the largest Combat Information Center afloat, allowing more training opportunities. The fact the flag accommodations would have also been the most comfortable in the Navy for admirals tagging along on training voyages wouldn't hurt, since their recommendations were important for deciding what ships remained in active service. They would have been carrying modern 5"/54 guns, and probably would have had their 40 mm guns replaced with the 3"/50 guns that became standard postwar, allowing trainees experience on a wide range of modern weapon types. Of course, all this assumes that at least a couple of the class would have been built and commissioned by war's end. If they had been, their best postwar use may have been as the world's largest training ships.
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  62. Ironically, it was the two ships sold to Peru that showed how the Daring class could have had much longer and more useful lives in the RN if not for persistent budget problems. Better radar, an improved and enclosed foremast, replacement of the troublesome STAAG mounts with simpler standard 40 mm mounts, and finally, in 1977-1978, with the far more effective two OTO Melara Twin 40 L70 DARDO compact gun mountings, giving the ships some protection against sea skimming missiles. The major addition was eight Exocet missiles during the 1970-1973 refit in Britain before delivery to Peru. Combined with the deletion of the Squid on the stern with a helicopter deck, the two ships really did meet or exceed the reach and firepower of any WWII light cruiser. It's a shame that most RN members of the class had a service life of only about fifteen years.
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  63. Now you've opened the Pandora's box of a ship class! Enough to keep you occupied making videos for about the next year at least. :-) One indisputable fact about the Essex class is they are the best examples of US industrial ability and logistics of any class of naval vessel anywhere. Building 24 Essex ships while building two even larger Midway class carriers at the same time is a feat that still boggles the mind today.
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  64. No one ever expected the Revenge Inquisition!
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  65. Secondary armament for the Wichita was going to be 6 dual 5"/38 guns in a similar layout to those of the Baltimore and Cleveland classes. The overweight and poor stability issues instead had her carrying the same number (eight) five inch guns as the rest of the earlier Brooklyn class, albeit the more capable 5"/38 instead of the 5"/25 gun. Since the twin 5" turrets were out, the next plan was to mount all the guns in single Mark 30 enclosed base ring mounts that were coming into use on the first Fletcher class destroyers. However, even those proved too heavy, so half the guns were in single open Mark 24 mounts. Thus, Wichita was the crossover ship when it came to secondary armament. She was the first US cruiser with enclosed 5"/38 mounts and the last cruiser with open 5"/38 mounts.
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  66. Indeed, and her sixth torpedo almost hit Wasp. Having our only two surviving carriers in the Pacific sink at one would have been a devastating blow. I-19 had a colorful and amazingly effective career for a WWII Japanese large submarine. She used her floatplane to reconnoiter Pearl Harbor before and after the attack, conducted war patrols for the Aleutians to near Australia, made four successful supply runs to Guadalcanal without detection, and was one of the few large subs to continue to use her floatplane right up November 20, 1943, the day of her sinking after eight successful war patrols. She would be a worthy boat to have her own "Five Minute Guide".
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  67. @John Fulghieri You're thinking of the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. It was not really a good demonstration of what radar would become, except for Washington's surface search set acquiring the Japanese task force 31 miles from the entrance to the Strait. After that, Washington lost the Japanese in the clutter of the many small islands in the Strait. South Dakota's radars and pretty much all her communications facilities were destroyed by battle damage early on in the battle. When Washington found the Japanese again, it was done mostly visually. GFC radar helped with return fire but it wasn't integrated, even on the Washington, since the Combat Information Center concept was in its infancy. The Battle of Surigao Strait almost two years later, or the Revenge of the Pearl Harbor Battleships, was probably the best WWII example of radar integrated into a CIC during a surface engagement.
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  68. "...largely for morale purposes..." Great description of the tertiary armament of US battleships before the arrival of the Oerlikon 20mm gun. It's striking how huge those bridge wings are. I think the Floridas were the apex of huge bridge wings.
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  69. While the evidence of dazzle or disruptive camouflage being effective against submarines is still controversial, what's not controversial is the effects of painting ships when it came to keeping convoys together and handling them in port. The same disruptive effects that made it hard for a sub to estimate range and heading did the same when escorts had to try to keep such ships on station in convoys. Many escorts had a hard time telling which ship was which and if it was on or off station. Books of dazzle painting schemes were issued to escorts and convoy commanders to help identify ships, and the use of semaphore signals was often needed to confirm a ship's speed and heading. Even so, there are reports of collisions between dazzle painted ships because of these issues. Since dazzle painting was expensive to apply and maintain, it was generally only applied to ships of 3,000 or more. German submarine commanders reported they didn't bother with non-dazzle painted ships, assuming they were too small and less valuable targets, so dazzle painting was a signal to a submarine of which ships to attack firsFt. The same problems were even worse while ships were in port, since the ships were packed in together under conditions of poor visibility made it hard for tugs to know what ship they were trying to maneuver and where they should go. This too led to confusion and some collisions. There have been humourous reports of sailors returning from a hard night of of drinking while on liberty. They'd climb onto the wrong ship because they all kind of looked alike through bleary eyes. Sometimes a tottering sailor would sneak past the officer of the deck and just crawl into an available bunk to sleep it off. The realization they were on the wrong ship didn't happen until morning muster. :-)
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  70. The Marine contingent and about 100 sailors of the ship were put under arms and deployed to the streets. According to various news accounts of the time, the huge sword-like bayonets used on the SMLE rifles of the time had a salutary effect on giving the rioters second thoughts.
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  71. The 20mm Oerlikon was produced in absolutely massive numbers during the war. somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000 barrels, and some variation of the original gun are still being produced and in use in 2020.
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  72. It also depends on the type of antiaircraft guns mounted on a sub. The quad 20 mm mounts on U Boats did a good job of sending enough metal downrange that attacking aircraft, if not shot down, were at least thrown off the accuracy of their bomb runs. As you say, once Coastal Command figured out the limitations of those mounts and changed their routes of attack, being attacked by three or more aircraft was almost always a death sentence for the sub, even if they shot down one or two of the attacking aircraft. In addition to bombs and depth charges strafing was a killer for surfaced subs. Since the AA guns had very little in the way of splinter protection, strafing would disable or kill many of the members of the gun crews, and they couldn't be replaced fast enough to drive off all the attackers. The idea of the Flak U Boat (U-flak) was only tested on four boats. While there was some limited success by the first two U-flaks (U-256 and U-441), they and the other two that were actually converted suffered heavy damage and lost 10-20 crew during the attacks by the RAF. Once the U-flaks were repaired, they were returned to service as normal VIIC boats when it was obvious that the idea was a failure. The US experience in the Pacific was quite different. All the fleet boats had at least one 40 mm Bofors, and many had two. The most heavily armed boat I've been able to find was USS Balao a boat whose captain seemed to delight in collecting guns. It had two 5"/25 guns, two 40 mm, at least two and sometimes three 20 mm cannon, four .50 Browning machine guns, and, although I don't know how many times this loadout was used, stanchion mounts for another four or five .30 Browning machine guns. In the case of the USN, this wasn't really in response to Japanese air attacks (although somewhere around 100 aircraft were shot down during the war) but to strafe Japanese armored barges that were resupplying stranded Japanese troops. Their draft was too shallow to sink with a torpedo, so subs often teamed up with PT boats to use their radars to locate and attack these barges. All the boats would use their smaller guns to keep Japanese gun crews away from their heavy armament until the sub could bring it's 5" guns to bear. It was the only weapon in the absence of a destroyer that could sink a barge, and most barges kept to shoal waters where the destroyer couldn't follow them. My dad served on a PT boat, and his boat was involved in these "combined operations". Being a much braver guy than me. he said it was the most fun he'd ever had during his service while he was still vertical. :-)
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  73. Seems like the Settsu, while not having a long history as a dreadnought, at least served in some useful roles up until the end of WWII, and managed not to blow herself up in port.
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  74. The idea that night was to simulate a mission calling on DesRon 11 to make 20 knots to relieve other destroyers under attack. If they had depended on the RDF readings and stayed even just a mile more offshore, the squadron would have passed the rocks without incident. Since part of the reason for this exercise was to practice with the RDF, ignoring the data was ignoring the whole reason for the exercise. I don't buy the whole Japanese Earthquake theory. It was a failure in standard navigational techniques that the RDF was supposed to compensate for. 20 knots on a cloudy, foggy night with rough seas was already a risk. The Commodore should have slowed his ships and headed west until they could determine why the RDF readings were so much different than the positions provided by dead reckoning.
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  75. The USN survey team that looked over the Milwaukee after its return from the USSR loan stated the Milwaukee was the filthiest ship the team had ever seen and recommended its immediate scrapping. Anyone know what condition the Royal Sovereign was in when it was returned?
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  76. Japanese subs sank about 75% of all merchant ships sailing from the west coast in the first month of the war. Her subs were the largest and fastest in the world in January, 1942, had the longest range of any sub, and had the most reliable torpedo with the largest warheads of any navy at the same date. Japanese sub skippers were more than willing to go after merchant ships. It was only orders from Tokyo that changed the targets to prefer warships. Captains that sank the most warships were also the most liberally rewarded by the Admiralty with promotions, so it didn't take long for sub commanders to fall into line. The USN would have had to devote many more resources to antisubmarine warfare, and supplies to the South Pacific would have taken much longer to arrive. While it wouldn't have changed the overall outcome of the war, it was a real missed opportunity on the part of the IJN to cause some real havoc here.
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  77. Good morning/afternoon, fellow naval history lovers.
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  78. The USS Narwhal and Nautilus with their pair of 6" (152mm) guns proved to be surprisingly useful in the Pacific once their difficult and unreliable MAN diesels were replaced with the slightly less powerful but infinitely more reliable GM engines. Their great size, large fuel tanks, and great interior volume allowed both boats to conduct war patrols of 70 days. They were the first submarines to have "cold rooms" (refrigerators) and freezers, so fresh vegetables and fruits were available during the first two weeks or so of a patrol and frozen meats available for almost the entire time, something only dreamt of by earlier submariners. Both boats received partial air conditioning to make things less onerous for passengers and crew for their new roles of being a general workhorse for many special operations, carrying everything from commandos to evacuees from occupied islands, including women, children, and at least one infant. They carried ammunition and other supplies to island outposts and the occupied Philippines, did shore bombardment everywhere from the Aleutians to the Japanese mainland, and landed various Army personnel as liaisons and advisors to local guerilla groups in the Philippines. In between, both boats sank a surprising number of enemy vessels with deck guns and torpedoes while withstanding a several severe and prolonged depth charge attacks. They were really more successful than the Navy ever expected them to be. Both boats were completely worn out from hard service at the beginning of 1945 and were decommissioned in April and May of 1945, stricken days later, and unceremoniously sold off for scrap before VJ Day. The only remnants are the two 6" guns of the Narwhal functioning as the Navy equivalent of gate guards at the submarine base in New London, CT.
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  79. Poor guy. You sound like your head has been filled with Elmer's Glue. I hope you start feeling better by Christmas. And Merry Christmas to you and your family.
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  80. The Dante Alighieri was the first battleship built with triple turrets. Due to the slow building speeds of Italian ships, the honor of first first battleship with triple turrets actually commissioned belonged to the Austro Hungarian Viribus Unitis, commissioned on December 5, 1912 compared to the Italian ship not commissioning until January 15, 1913. I believe the Viribus Unitis was also the first battleship with triple turrets all on the centerline and with the turrets superfiring.
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  81. The British Empire and mercantile establishments of 1859 were as close to pure capitalist as it was possible to be. 160 years later, what remains of the British Empire has somewhat changed.
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  82. Vary sad that none of these light fleet carriers were saved for preservation.
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  83. US PT boats had dedicated deck mounted smoke generator cylinders from about 1939 on. Some boats had one and some had two, all mounted near the stern. They were made from standard 33 gallon tanks of a design made for ammonia storage. They were generally filled with titanium tetrachloride which, when ignited, produced a dense white smoke cloud all out of proportion to its size. My dad's boat had two cylinders so they could lay down smoke while beating a hasty retreat after attacking Japanese supply barges. Some of these were armored and had guns up to 3"/25 size so they didn't want to hang around, given the biggest gun they carried was a single 40mm Bofors.
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  84.  Alexander Challis  Indeed, and even worse for the Germans, it was an offhand remark from a captured British airman that stopped them from using Metox on submarines. He pulled a prank of his interrogators by telling them British planes were able to home in on the incredibly weak RF radiation from the Metox receiver's local oscillator. Since the Germans couldn't believe that the Enigma code had been broken, they had long believed the British had some kind of submarine detector that allowed Coastal Command planes to attack a surfaced sub without warning. As a result of this prank, Doenitz ordered all Metox units turned off on July 31, 1943. In addition to Enigma intercepts, the British had developed airborne centimetric radar, something the Germans believed impossible. It was this higher frequency radar that was the cause of more attacks, not planes detecting a Metox receiver. The USN wasn't immune to this silliness. A single experiment at Princeton "discovered" the signals from local oscillators of shipborne receivers could be picked up by a German sub 20 miles away. The Navy spent millions developing "radiation safe" radios and ordering all non-safe radios to be turned off when out of port. After the war it was discovered that the scientists involved had cooked the books and stretched the distance this signal could be received by using exceptionally poorly tuned radios with leaky LOs and huge antennas to pick up the LO signals. The distance using an average radio and average antenna was really about 75 feet. The test was paid for by a radio company named EH Scott, a name familiar to modern stereo buffs. I'll bet you can't guess which company was ready with compliant radios. :-)
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  85.  @dogofthedesert6642  Good points. I think Drach was just modeling the slugfest, but, even with Taffy 3, it was the aircraft from the escort carriers of Taffy 1 and 2, responding to the calls for help from Taffy 3, and their near suicidal attacks, that helped convince Kurita he was under attack by the main US fleet. It was the aggressiveness of the DD's and DE's that helped convince Kurita that he was under attack by cruisers of the main US fleet and the battleships would be just over the horizon. While the US had technological advantages, it was the training, morale, and fighting spirit of the USN that turned that battle. Kurita was trying not to lose the war in a day while the men and ships he was opposing fought like they were trying to win it in a day. Had Kurita actually been opposed by the entire force of Admiral Oldendorf, the slaughter would have been horrific.
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  86. By 1941 it was clear that the 1.1" AA guns were not going to be the standard armament for the USN. Many of the early bugs with the mounts and feed system had been worked out by Pearl Harbor and they were considered to be reliable guns. The problem was testing and the results of battles in the Med showed a 1.1" (28mm) was just too light to reliably bring down more modern planes, the Zero being a prime example. Consequently, planners revised the armament plan for DE's to have 8-10 40mm and DD to mount 10-14 of the same guns. Because of the space and weight available on the Fletchers, the final loadout on Fletchers by the end of 1942 was a minimum of 10 guns, with a quad mount in place of the previous quad 1.1" between mounts 53 and 54, and twin mounts on either side of the aft stack. A way was found, by adding a pair of gun platforms, to add another pair of twin mounts on either side of the forward bridge level. That was a total of 12 barrels and was the most common package by mid-1943 when there were finally enough Bofors guns to go around. The 16 gun ships landed turret 53 and added a platform for another quad that was superfiring over the existing quad mount, giving a total of 16 guns. 20mm guns carried for 7 to 18 depending on build date and the number of twin mounts available. The 40mm and 5"/38 guns were all radar directed, and the 20mm sights were constantly upgraded during the war. There really was no other platform with the speed, maneuverability, firepower, and electronics of a Fletcher. The Japanese recognized the danger of the radar equipped early warning Fletchers and concentrated their attacks on such ships, especially off Okinawa. It was only their heavy AA armament that allowed most of them to survive in that role, with several having downed five or more Japanese aircraft unassisted in a single day.
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  87. Count me in the "Large Cruisier" camp, but with some planning and work, these could been instead CBAA class ships. The concept of the Atlanta class enlarged to twenty-two 5"/38 twin mounts for a total of 44 barrels, eighteen 40mm quad mounts for a total of 72 barrels , and somewhere between thirty-six and forty 20mm twin mounts for a total of 72 to 80 barrels would have made these ships a nightmare for Japanese aviators. Deleting the 12" guns and their magazines would have freed up space for installing all the PPI radar screens and plotting tables to enable the Alaska class to be the USN's first true fighter control ships. They could have also been more easily converted to antiaircraft missile ships postwar. [Edited to correct some mistakes between mounts and barrels]
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  88.  @carriertaiyo2694  The Japanese had a much different strategy than the US. They viewed their fleet submarines as literal submerge member of the fleet, and their role was to hunt down and sink warships. There are stories of Japanese sub commanders letting merchant ships pass when they were down to their last six or so torpedoes to conserve them for warships. They didn't build enough subs to replace losses and never envisioned a role for smaller subs to defend the home islands. The Japanese believed the war would be won with one gigantic fleet action, and submarines were just another part of the fleet.
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  89.  @Mugdorna  I wouldn't be surprised. My dad served as a motor machinist mate on PT boats in the Pacific. In theory, he was supposed to be spelled every two hours so he could get off sitting on those three big Merlins and recover. This wasn't always possible when they were in combat while barge hunting, and there were several times members of the crew had to drag him out nearly unconscious from heat exhaustion. I have no idea how he stood it.
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  90. One of the reasons for the superfiring height aft mount in the Littorio class was to work in hangers for their three seaplanes. The hangers had a track leading out to the stern catapult that allowed fairly quick mounting of the aircraft while protecting the aircraft from weather and blast effects from the main battery. US battleships using catapult storage of their floatplanes suffered repeated damage to the catapults and even had the aircraft blown overboard when the aft turret needed to fire mostly astern. It was actually a pretty good idea without having to result to the below decks and elevators used in the Cleveland class cruisers. These seemed like a good idea as well, but they had never ending problems with leakage through the elevator doors when they shipped water over the stern, and even from the torrential rains tajhat were a feature in the tropics. Mechanical problems with the elevators and even shock damage from near misses were also continuing problems.
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  91. Surcouf could have been a fairly successful cruiser submarine if she had survived long enough to actually reach the Pacific. Her nominal diving depth wasn't exceeded until the much later nuclear attack submarines of the USN. She would have been useful for attacking merchant shipping while operating as a normal sub and warships on the surface using her main battery. She was relatively immune to depth charge attack since her great diving depth of almost 600 feet (183 meters) exceeded the capability of Japanese depth charges in early 1942, and she probably could have gone to 900-1000 feet (274-305 meters) without serious risk to the hull, making her effectively immune to underwater attack, at least from the surface. With the addition of some radars and additional night fighting equipment, she could have done a good job of shore bombardment on the many small Japanese outposts in the Pacific, as well as landing raiding and reconnaissance parties using her small boats. All that potential came to nought on the night of February 18 or early morning of the 19th, 1942, while enroute from Halifax to transit the Panama Canal and on to the Pacific. About all we know for sure is the last thing heard of her was a routine position message sent at 1600 on the 18th. The SS Thompson Lykes reported colliding with and running over an underwater object. Unfortunately, this was very early in the war for the US, and there was an unreasonable fear of U-Boats infesting the Caribbean. The crew of the Lykes reported men in the water yelling for help, some in English. Assuming she had hit a U-Boat and not wanting to fall prey to the other German subs assumed to be in the area, she continued on, sending a signal to the Panama Defense Frontier base at Panama City on the night of the 18th. The actual time of the message is still a little murky, but it seems to have been at about 2200. What the Lykes actually hit is still a point of much debate. The damage to the Lykes was described as being not serious enough to have hit a sub the size of Surcouf, and the crew described the object as much smaller than the Surcouf. Postwar records proved no German sub was within hundreds of miles of the point of the collision. Merchant ship crews had virtually no training in warship recognition at that time, and how accurately the crew could have estimated the size of what she hit on a moonless night is open to considerable doubt. Even if Surcouf's main radio antenna had been damaged by the collision, she would have only been about 80 miles (130 km) north of Cristobal, Panama at the time of the collision. Assuming she could remain on the surface, the crew could have rigged up an emergency antenna carried for just such a purpose. She was plenty close enough to Panama that a mayday sent on any of the several longwave and HF emergency channels of the time should have been picked up by someone. In particular, the HF emergency frequencies at night could have been picked up hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Hams and shortwave buffs on the East and Gulf Coasts avidly monitored these bands at night, yet not one reported receiving a mayday that night. Theories abound as to what happened to the Surcouf, and they are easily found on the net. They range from the possible to completely fanciful. I won't get into them here or another book will result. The most likely fate of the boat was she was jumped by a PBY Catalina on routine patrol over the Gulf of Panama. Tropical waters are noted for ships leaving bright luminous wakes, the result of the billions of photo flash plankton that abound in the warm waters. A boat the size of the Surcouf would have left a long, bright, and attractive wake to any patrolling bomber. The crew of the Surcouf was probably maintaining an active surface watch, but there were no enemy aircraft reported anywhere in the Caribbean, so an aerial watch was either not maintained or was very relaxed. The PBY, seeing the wake from many miles off, came in low to attack what it believed to be a large Japanese sub. Stories were current at the time of Japanese subs that exceeded 400 feet (122 meters) and 5,000 tons. While the I-400 class was indeed in this size range, construction didn't even begin until 1943, so none were in the Caribbean. Some ideas of what the Japanese had then came more from "Popular Science" than any official naval briefings. The huge wingspan of the PBY allowed it to cut back power and approach a sub at 100 feet (30 meters) above the surface. The crew of the Surcouf probably never saw or heard the Catalina until is was on its attack run. There were no internationally agreed to recognition signals at the time, and IFF systems were still in the future. The boat's only hope was to dive quickly enough that the PBY would lose it. Diving time for the Surcouf was about three minutes, actually quite fast for a boat of her size and top hamper, but nowhere near fast enough to escape the incoming attack. The PBY was probably carrying four 500 pound (227 kilogram) depth charges and several 100 pound (45 kilogram) bombs. The usual method of attack was to drop the depth charges set to 25 feet (8 meters) first to keep the sub on the surface. If the depth charges didn't sink the boat, the plane would return to attack with bombs. The depth charges would have been devastating to the Surcouf if the attack was accurate, exploding just below the hull of the boat as she attempted to dive. Many German and Japanese subs were sunk during just such attacks. and my guess is the PBY crew, with the Surcouf not taking evasive action on the surface and not having the time to fight back with antiaircraft fire, was the victim of just such an accurate attack, and sank quickly as she was attempting a dive. Many such attacks were reported in the early months of 1942. The PBY, seeing nothing on the surface after she circled back, and seeing no wreckage, probably patrolled the area for a short while, then resumed her patrol after reporting the attack by radio. The vast majority of such attacks in the Caribbean turned out to be schools of dolphins, a whale basking on the surface, and even vast schools of anchovies being herded by predators. I imagine the report was written off to just such an occurrence, one of many logged but never further investigated. The Surcouf was never heard from again, even after a fairly extensive sea and aerial search. The wreck site has never been identified, so all we have left is the theories and the lost souls of about 120 sailors. The wreck would lie below about 9,000 feet (2743 meters). Perhaps, as our underwater detection and exploration improves, we may yet have answers as to what happened to the Surcouf.
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  92.  @Nastyswimmer  Oh, yes, there's no doubt that ships from destroyers upwards destroyed tanks during shore bombardment missions. The question here wasn't that Rodney destroyed tanks during D-Day. It was if there was any evidence that a single tank was chased all over the countryside while Rodney fired salvo after salvo at it.
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  93. PT Boats got more standardized armament as the war progressed, but they were pushed out ASAP from 1940-1942 as a force in being. Since the assumption was their four torpedoes would be the main offensive weapons, a pair of dual .50 caliber machine guns was included, mostly to keep the heads of enemy gunners down. By early 1943, it was clear the role of the PT was going to be to stop small vessels from resupplying Japanese islands as we hopped over them. These Japanese boats were mostly very shallow draft barges, and torpedoes were useless against them. Many were quite heavily armored against PT boat attack. This started an arms race between Japanese and USN crews about which would have the most effective armament. PTs never returned to anything larger than forward floating dry docks or small shipyards established by the SeaBees on conquered islands. There wasn't much formality when it came to adding or deleting equipment from boats. It was pretty much up to each skipper what he could scrounge. The arguably best Japanese barge buster was the Pontiac M4 37 mm cannon taken from crashed or salvaged P-39 fighters. P-39s were plentiful in the Pacific, and more M4s became available as the P-39 was taken out of service for replacement by more modern aircraft. Every boat in my dad's squadron was eventually equipped with a bow mounted 37 mm gun, and most of them were installed by the crews with the help of the few shipfitters available. They next started scrounging every 20 mm oerlikon they could find and nailing them down anywhere there was deck space. One of the few authorized additions was a stern mounted 40 mm from mid 1943 as the kamikaze threat increased. By end of the war, my dad's boat had three 20 mm cannon, one astern of the 37 and one each on the deck next to the charthouse, and the Bofors gun at the stern. Two more twin 50s were installed athwartships of the charthouse, and eight 5" rocket launchers were bolted on just ahead of the charthouse. My dad said the rockets, that were supposed to be used for shore bombardment, were usually fired at barges as the boat first ran into attack. They weren't accurate at all, and dad doesn't remembered any barges sunk with them. They were pretty terrifying coming at the Japanese at night with all the flames, smoke, and noise each rocket created. Many of the barges were manned by Japanese fishermen, and he says several barges just ran up the while flag rather than enduring any more of those things headed at them.
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  94. Design work on the North American AJ Savage series had begun just after the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. The Savage was a considerably larger aircraft than the B-25. Wingspan was 75 feet over tip tanks, measuring 50 feet with the wings folded compared to 67 feet for the B-25. Empty weight for the Savage was 27,558 with maximum loaded weight of almost 51,000 pounds compared to 19,480/35,000 pounds for the B-25. The outstanding difference for the Savage was a bomb load of 12,000 pounds compared to 4,000 pounds for the B-25. The Savage was operated successfully from modernized Essex class carriers, but it an aircraft rushed into service to preserve the Navy's role in the atomic era, that large size and load carrying ability due to the 10,000 pound weight of early atomic bombs. The Navy had even larger bombers built in the 50's as the A-3D Skywarrior and huge A-5 Vigilante to defend their role as a nuclear deterrent, but all carrier aircraft were knocked out of that role by the ballistic missile submarine.
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  95.  @Boxghost102  Well, no one had a/c in 1915, but they also didn't have to shovel tons of coal every week. I don't know if men were stronger then or just used to more hard work, but I would have died the first week.
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  96. Good picture of the four Fletchers and Tamandare, ex-St. Louis, sailing out in 1961 to confront the French "fleet" that consisted about 25 fishing boats. The French were sending the 2750 ton destroyer Tartu to look after the fishing fleet after two Brazilian corvettes drove the French fishing boats out of the area of the Continental Shelf. The Brazilians and French were deadly serious about their fishing rights so DeGaulle sent Tartu as a show of force. Unfortunately for Tartu, the Brazilians responded with their aircraft carrier, two cruisers, and seven destroyers, and their air reconnaissance located Tartu when she was still 200 miles away from the fishing fleet. When Tartu discovered the Brazilian fleet looming up on their radar, discretion became the better part of valor. She cruised outside the territorial waters of Brazil while a Brazilian corvette captured the French fishing boat Cassiopée to raise the stakes. Given the weakness of the French fleet trying to fight a war off the Brazilian coast, cooler heads prevailed, and the dispute was settled by the World Court. It would certainly been an interesting war game, and President João Goulart was quite prepared to give the French a bloody nose.
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  97.  @Drachinifel  Well, Thursday is Thanksgiving Day here in the US, so the video gives us something else to be thankful for. :-)
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  98. The Graf Zeppelin II came close to revealing Britain's early warning Chain Home system. It was used on several electronic reconnaissance missions in early 1940 to discover what all those big towers scattered along the coast were there for. The officer in charge of what we'd now call electronic warfare was certain this was a radar system, and he confirmed it by monitoring the radio traffic between the radar stations as his airship nosed in and out of what the presumed to be the range of the radar. To confirm your judgement that Goering was a moron, the radar report went all the way up the line to our corpulent hero. He believed the British were not able to produce a radar system in early 1940...because the Germans weren't able to. A couple of Goering's "experts" wrote their own report stating those big towers were really used for long range radios to communicate with ships on colonial stations! Consequently, Goering believed they presented no threat to Germany. The German air force did stage a few minor attacks on the Chain Home towers but were called off on direct orders of Goering. He stated later the Germans would attack the towers when Japan came into the war since he believed the towers were only a threat to Japan. It was Goering's jingoism that saved Chain Home from attack and arguably saved Britain as well.
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  99. This is a great idea for a WWII naval series. I'm looking forward to the late entering allied naves and neutral navies. One small correction however. The introduction to the British of the Hazemeyer stabilized 40 mm Bofors mount was when the Dutch minelayer Willem van der Zaan arrived in Portsmouth after the fall of the Netherlands. She was newly commissioned at the time, and the Hazemeyer mounts weren't yet fully developed. In particular, the Dutch version of the later British Type 282 radar wasn't mounted at the time of her escape, and the Dutch crew had to do the mounting and integration of the radar to the mounts with no written specifications, those having been left behind at the Dutch dockyard that was going to do the work just before the country was overrun by the Nazis. The cruiser De Ruyter did have a fully developed battery of five twin Hazemeyer mounts, certainly one of the most effective light antiaircraft systems of 1940. The RN was duly impressed with the performance of the guns during practice with the Dutch navy in the prewar period, and the plan was to have her system fully documented while De Ruyter was in refit at Singapore in February, 1942. We now know the fate of both De Ruyter and Singapore during that disastrous month. Some of the details of the Hazemeyer mounts still weren't known to the RN even postwar, since the plans of both the Hazemeyer company and its German parent, Siemens-Halske, were destroyed in the ensuing fighting. Hazemeyer had planned to move the radar and the optical sights to an off mount director somewhat similar to the US Mark 51 director, but the war was over for the Dutch before that advanced beyond the planning stages. The RN struggled for years with the STAAG and Buster systems, but by the time the mounts themselves would operate reliably, the 40 mm gun was considered obsolete. A few were hastily repossessed from museums for use aboard British landing ships during the Falklands war. Several Argentine aircraft were claimed damaged or destroyed by these guns, but I've yet to find confirmation of this. The gun crews used the weapons enthusiastically, firing off hundreds of rounds during the air attacks, so it's certainly possible at least one aircraft was hit by one of them.
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  100.  @BrenBrenMartin  Correct name of book is Clear The Decks! and you can get it from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Decks-Daniel-V-Gallery/dp/B0007J0QT4
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  101. Probably the smallest vessels with dedicated admiral quarters were the 327 foot, 2000 ton Erie class gunboats. Not only did they have admiral quarters, which were quite sumptuous for a ship this size, there were two additional cabins for the admiral's staff or other guests. The Erie class were spoken of as floating embassies due to the number of times US ambassadors to Central American countries were carried on various inspection visits of the host countries. Ambassadors from the host countries were also frequently carried, and the afterdeck was specially set up to serve as a very large dining room for state dinners. Given the lack of air conditioning in the 1930's and the tropical areas the Erie's patrolled, an open air dining room under canvas was considered very comfortable. Diaries from sailors that served on the vessels before the war spoke of how much they liked their ships since they were among the first to have bunks for each crew member, and the crew mess and heads were much larger than average. Petty officers had their own three person cabins, and each CPO had a private cabin. Very pleasant vessels to serve on.
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  102.  @LucioFercho  No, I'm American. I refuse to get drawn into this kind of nationalistic pissing match when I have no dog in the fight. I was merely relating what I've read from other reasonably authoritative sources like Janes. You may draw whatever conclusions you like. I really don't care.
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  103.  @michaelsanderson6968  I can make a more or less reasonable defense of most of King's actions, even though some of those turned out to be clearly wrong. What we knew about U-Boats attacking an area as large as the whole Atlantic coast and into the Caribbean all the way to he Panama Canal was quite different in early 1942 compared to mid-1944. The technology, number of escorts, and indeed the whole strategy of coastal convoys had yet to be worked out. His idea of single ships traveling at speed being less exposed to attack by individual U-Boats, compared to large, slow convoys with inadequate escorts along the coast may have seemed like it had some merit in early 1942. Contrary to what has been written about King, he gladly accepted a group of ten Flower class corvettes from the RN in early 1942 under reverse lend-lease, followed by another ten built for the USN in Canadian yards. Once King felt he had enough escorts from the USN, RCN, and RN, he started convoys with alacrity. As it turned out, any convoys, even lightly escorted, incurred less losses than lone ships, but we didn't know that in January, 1942. What I can't forgive him for was the court martial of Captain Charles B. McVay III, commander of the USS Indianapolis . He was the driving force behind the trial, even as his other senior officers urged him not to go ahead with it for the good of the service. It now seems pretty clear he was so insistent on a court martial that would essentially drum McVay out of the service to get back at McVay's father, Admiral Charles McVay II, for a reprimand given to him and two other officers in 1921 for sneaking women onboard a ship. This only resulted in a letter of reprimand being placed in King's file that would have zero effect on the rest of his career, but King was known as never forgetting a grudge, and now he had his chance for revenge on McVay's father through his son. He never admitted he was wrong and never apologized. Captain McVay never got over the shame and humiliation of being court martialed nor some relatives blaming him for the deaths of their loved ones. The depression after his wife died of cancer and constant harassment from relatives finally drove Captain McVay to step out onto his back porch on the chilly morning on November 6, 1968 and shoot himself with his Navy issued .45 pistol, ironically while clutching a toy sailor he had received as a child from his father, a toy sailor he used as his good luck charm. No, there is no forgiveness for King for such an evil and despicable act. It showed more about his character than any other act in his career. If there were such a thing as a posthumous court martial for murder of a fellow officer, I'd be all in favor of it.
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  104. You're right, never noticed that juxtaposition of dates. Just the idea of fighting a war in the Finnish/Russian winter makes me cold.
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  105. Even if the Germans had managed to build more Type XXI boats even a year earlier, they would have been descended on hordes of allied escorts and destroyers. Even worse, part of the horde would have been an increasing number of Saipan class light carriers with 35 aircraft armed with depth charges, and Mark 24 "Fido" and Mark 27 homing torpedoes. Sonars on the escorts were constantly improving, as was airborne search and attack radar. There would have been enough aircraft available to fly the equivalent of a combat air patrol over any convoy. The better that the Mark XXI would have performed, the more it would demanded a huge response from the allies. If anything, the German Navy would have lost even more boats because of the umbrella formed looking for what still would have been a relatively small number of Type XXI boats. No matter how it worked out, it would have been a slight setback to the allies followed by a much, much larger setback to the remnants of the German Navy.
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  106. The Germans would have done much better relying on merchant raiders, as they had during WWI. The Merchant Raiders used in WWII were cheap to put in service since it was just a matter of adding equipment to existing ships. They had the advantage of surprise since they were merchant vessels to begin with, not warships, and became masters of disguising their ships as neutral vessels. They had the ability to far outrange warship like the Graf Spee dueto their very large bunkerage, and a major warship would attract the attention of a large part of the RN. Merchant cruiser only attracted a major fleet effort as individual ships became too successful. The Germans were able to put 13 merchant raiders in service over the first three years of the war compared to two ships of the Graf Spee class. If the Graf Spee's had a role at all, it was as part of the fleet as large cruisers. Sailing the seas alone in such a large and distinctive vessel just made it that much more likely they would be tracked down and destroyed. The raider Atlantis, for example, sank more than 162,000 long tons in her 602 days at sea while the Kormoran sank over 100,000 tons of enemy shipping before sinking the cruiser HMAS Sydney in a mutually destructive battle. Merchant raiders were often commanded by officers who enjoyed the role of legal pirates operating far from the formal oversight of the Kriegsmarine. These raiders tied down far more RN forces that the two ships of the Graf Spee class ever could, and sunk far more tonnage. If the Germans had 20 merchant raiders in service at the outbreak of war, they would, along with the U-boats, have put Britain's survival in serious doubt. [Edited for typos]
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  107.  @michaels.5878  Not very good. The were set up for power operation, but the turrets proved to be not watertight, so the systems shorted out whenever there was water over the turrets, and even very heavy rain. The basic concept, with the turret and gun stabilized in four axes, but the actual operation showed the concept was too advanced for 1940. The ROF was low compared to, for example, the US 5"/25 or 5"/38, and the Italians didn't have a good light AA gun to back it up. The same 90mm gun was developed for use by the Italian Army, and it performed well on land, where all that stabilization wasn't needed.
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  108. Queen Mary had quite a heavy armament added during her refit in during January, 1942 in Boston. She was stripped of her sparse British armament except for two of the questionable Unrotated Projectile rocket launchers mounted near the aft funnel. The rumor is Churchill himself wanted the UP mounts retained, so orders were dutifully followed. Otherwise, she was outfitted along the lines of a merchant cruiser, albeit a very large merchant cruiser. She mounted four 6" guns, two forward and two aft, six 3"/50 DP guns singly mounted fore and aft, five twin 40 mm mounts sited along the superstructure, and rounded off with twenty-four 20 mm cannon mounted wherever space could be found in typical USN fashion. Unusually for a merchant cruiser, she was fitted with directors for all her guns excepting the 20 mm cannon. Roosevelt and Churchill both realized what a catastrophe the sinking of Queen Mary would have been, both to the thousand of troops onboard and to British morale. She was actively hunted by German U-Boats and the German surface fleet, and escaped several close calls with shadowing U-Boats. Queen Mary mostly relied on her speed to evade attack when sailing unescorted, but the Admiralty wanted her to have the ability to fight it out with attacking aircraft or surface ships if it came to that.
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  109.  @RedXlV  It's not being done by the state. All the work is being done by the Foundation. The state bonds have already been sold for the major part of the dry berthing expense and the Foundation has raised another million dollars. I rather doubt the aggressive project schedule will be met but, if the weather cooperates, I think we'll see the Mighty T in her new home by 2021.
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  110. I don't think anyone but Fisher would have had the combination of vision and just giant steel cajones to retire 150 obsolete ships in just one year (1904). This reduced the fleet numbers by almost 20% and gave the impetus to start constructing modern ships in their place. There was tremendous opposition to this move, and it was only Fisher's influence and pugnaciousness that allowed him to pull it off, thereby positioning the RN for the war with a modern fleet.
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  111.  @SamsonCheung  Yes, all the Pearl Harbor battleships with the exception of Mississippi got a chance to get their licks in that day. She had the oldest fire control radar of the group and was unable to come up with a firing solution until seconds after Adm Olendorf ordered a ceasefire. Even though her single 12 gun salvo didn't hit anything, it was the last salvo ever fired at another battleship. Seems somehow fitting that this was the last battleship versus battleship fight in history.
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  112. Thanks for debunking some of these rather ridiculous urban legends about Porter. As you said, simply the torpedo launch in error toward a battleship carrying the US President should have been enough to cement her place in naval history without all the other bits of drama that ended up making her the supposed unluckiest destroyer in the navy.
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  113.  @andrewszigeti2174  Who exactly do you think is the largest industrial power in the world then? It's certainly not China, which is just now working up its first domestically produced conventional fuelf aircraft carrier. The US produced three of the largest nuclear powered carriers in the world during same time period the Chinese were struggling to restore an old Soviet era carrier to operation. The US is still a $20.4 trillion economy compared to China's $14.4 trillion, with all other economies magnitudes of order less. Don't confuse outsourcing with a company not still being a US corporation. As the Chinese are seeing now, outsourcing as a basis for an economy can be disrupted almost overnight. The nature of a corporation is to maximize profit so they can pay shareholders and stay in business. If they can make more profit producing in the US, they will. In a time of national emergency or war, the whole concept of outsourcing become moot. I don't have a lot of faith we could ever reproduce the production miracle of WWII, but another WWII is just as unlikely.
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  114. I like the song, but it shows the difference between the RN and USN. When the British get together at the pub, a song typically breaks out. When US sailors get together at the bar, especially if there are Marines about, a fight typically breaks out. :-)
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  115. "Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil" by Rear Adm. Worrall Reed Carter. While editing to correct the title, The rest of my post disappeared. Rats! At any rate, it's the best book on WWII logistics, and that's now the correct title.
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  116. Wow! Thanks for the shoutout, Drach. I apologize to the other subscribers for droning on sometimes. After 55 or so years of studying naval history and spending a small fortune on reference books, many of your topics set off the "Oh, I've read about that before" response. Add in the USN and RN as my favorite navies, nuns forcing me to learn touch typing, and we have the ingredients for my mini "War and Peace" comments. :-)
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  117. The French must have had a sizeable squad of industrial spies that were sent to the other major navies. Everything they brought back made certain that the French would never have the same things as other navies, the turret layout being an example. I swear they were translating words like "weird" or "ugly" to "better" and "handsome". :-)
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  118. Seems like the British version of the USN destroyer escorts, although they were about three knots faster. Many also gave the same good postwar service. An unremarkable class that did remarkable work far beyond their modest displacement and weaponry.
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  119. The Nineteenth Century version of the rail gun! Both have had about the same level of success so far.
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  120. Very informative video. WWI German vessels aren't my forte so I always learn something from your High Seas fleet presentations. That is a beautiful model of the Derflinger. Having built a few naval models in my life, the quality of paintwork, detailing, and rigging on this one is really outstanding. Are there any more pictures or videos of Speedbird's models I can feast my eyes on?
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  121. There's a reason why the ship's owner's manual's always says don't fire forward gun astern no matter how tempting the target .:-)
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  122. It's been a long, long time since I played a naval themed board game of any type. I was never a big fan of any board game other than Risk, which my friends and I used to play for days straight sometimes. It was the first time I learned of a place named Kamchatka and where it was located.
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  123. Six Tambor class submarines were armed with 5"/51 wet mount guns. The decks required enlarging and strengthening to accommodate the the much greater size and weight compared to the 3"/50 gun they replaced. They were reportedly popular with gunners. More subs would have been so equipped except for the objections of Admiral Thomas Hart. It was his belief that submarines should spend their time off our coasts torpedoing enemy b=vessels. To support his beliefs, he initially forbade planners to arm a submarine (except for the large minelayers) with anything larger than 3"/50. This was because a larger gun would encourage submarine commanders to battle it out on the surface, thereby leading to the loss of more submarines. He never seemed to understand the need for a gun large enough to sink merchant ships while having enough range to avoid the usual 3" and 4" self-defense armament of the merchant ship. He was on the General Board that recommended adopting the Mark 6 torpedo exploder, the one that caused almost all the troubles with US torpedoes. He was the commander of allied naval forces in Java, and his hesitant and incompetent leadership lead to loss of almost every allied naval vessel in the the Battle of the Java Sea. Fortunately, he was relieved of command in February, 1942 before he could do further damage. Admiral Hart easily makes by list of worst admirals.
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  124. The Fermilab Research Center near Chicago has radiation shields that contains steel and armor plate from 10 light and heavy cruisers and five aircraft carriers. Even though submarines had no armor plate, they did have large quantities of high quality lead sheets used for ballast, and three Gato class submarines contributed their lead ballast sheet for protection against stray particles showing up while protons.strike their targets, interfering with the high speed photography used to determine the path of an accelerated proton. The accelerator tunnels can stretch for a mile or more so lots of lead was needed. I believe more lead was salvaged from an additional four submarines in the 70's. The lab has stockpiled large amounts of cruiser armor plate to use in new construction since there are obviously no more steel armored cruisers being made. The Lab has expressed interest in salvaging armor plate from the Iowas if they are ever scrapped. To my knowledge, none of the armor plate used in the Lab comes from a battleship.
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  125. There were so many reports from all navies in WWI and WWII of how ship's mascots contributed to the crew's morale that it just seems like modern foolishness to outlaw them, particularly cats, which serve a useful purpose aboard every ship. Sometimes things were so bad that passing around the ship's cats and dogs for a good petting were the only thing that kept the men going. I hope we don't have to go through another major conflict to find out the truth of this.
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  126.  Russ Gallagher  Unless it was making a port visit, how many people ever SAW a battleship either? Of course it's the same. People see ships in port, rarely on the high seas.
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  127.  @micnorton9487  You're welcome. I had an uncle that was a Coastie who served on the Modoc. Pretty exciting stuff!
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  128.  @bkjeong4302  The worst part was the Japanese had both the 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors by 1940. The IJN deluded themselves into believing that the 25mm was better than the Oerlikon and at least equal to the Bofors, even though their own testing had shown neither claim to be true. The Italian 13.2mm machine gun even showed better results in testing than the 25mm. The 25mm gun was just a development of the French Hotchkiss, but the Japanese developed it as their own to the point that the NIH aspect of the other three guns overtook common sense. The IJN was the only navy in WWII to not develop, or at least use, a light AA weapon larger than 25mm, and they paid dearly for it during the last two years of the war.
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  129. While there were no dedicated PT boat carriers I'm aware of, the story of the SS Stanvac Manila, a tanker that was torpedoed with six PT boats from the second division of Squadron (RON) 10 being carried as deck cargo, may be as close as the USN got to a PT boat carrier, albeit from a ship never designed for such a role. Stanvac Manila was torpedoed May 24, 1943, off Nouméa, New Caledonia. While the merchant crew abandoned ship, the senior PT officer, and senior officer onboard, Lt. (jg.) Russel W. Rome, belayed the abandon ship order, and the PT crews started to free the boats from their cradles. The naval armed guard remained aboard, and they, plus the PT crews, fighting from their boats, were able to keep Japanese planes at bay while the tanker slowly sank. I won't write another book here, but check out the story at http://www.pt171.org/PT171/writeups/stanvac.htm. RON 10 was my dad's squadron, and he was aboard the Stanvac Manila that day. Amazingly, my dad's boat, PT-172, was able to motor into Nouméa harbor under its own power, and three of the remaining five boats floated free and were towed into harbor. No better example than this of the fighting spirit of green PT boat crews encountering their first taste of combat.
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  130. A proviso for the Littorio being able to hit a target at extreme ranges is that this was only true for fair weather daylight engagements. The Italians had developed a very effective radar called the Gufo as early as 1937. It was actually ready for introduction by 1940, but budget cuts and a general lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Italian high command for radar stalled introduction until 1942, after heavy Italian losses . By the time the Gufo was introduced to enough Italian warships to be useful, the armistice intervened. It's probable that more ships equipped with the Gufo would have stiffened the Regia Marina's resolve to engage in night battles rather than retiring before dark.
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  131.  @jackbharucha1475  While the battle had Anime Fletchers doing their parts, let us not forget the DE Samuel B Roberts, the redoubtable "Sammy B". A ship meant for convoy escort, with primitive fire control compared to the Fletchers. A ship with a mere single triple of torpedo mount because it was only supposed to fire them unopposed at a submarine. A ship that had a design speed of 24 knots yet achieved 28.7 knots while chasing shell splashes. Even more than the Fletchers, the Sammy B was the real hero of this battle.
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  132.  @Edax_Royeaux  You need to take a look at a map of the supposed "Bermuda Triangle" again. While there's disagreement about the exact area of this, no map has the apex of the triangle any further west than south Florida, and the westerly extent then continues down the Caribbean islands. Surcouf was 70 miles north of Cristobal, in the Gulf of Panama, far away from the Bermuda Triangle.
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  133. The human voice fleet increases still further. :-) Given Ottoman/Turkish maintenance standards and manning, it's surprising even one made it to 1938 as a hulk without sinking at her moorings.
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  134. The Laconia Incident was particularly despicable in that the Germans and Italians were doing all they could to rescue survivors, British sailors and Italian POWs alike, of a troopship they had sunk while the British were shooting and bayoneting Italian POWs and a US B-24, seeing submarines engaged in rescue work, and with one having a large Red Cross flag draped over the deck gun, still attacked, killing many men in the water and preventing the rescue of others. It was a war crime that should have been investigated with those involved prosecuted at Nuremberg. It is a stain on the history of the RN and USN.
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  135.  @LucioFercho  I already told you my nationality and how I arrived at my conclusions. I don't know any Peruvians. You'll have to find a Peruvian to fight with. As I said, I really don't care.
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  136. The RN, USN, and, I believe, the French used range clocks, large clock like round structures with a pair of hands, generally mounted high up on the main and fore masts. They could communicate the range when found by the lead ship, or indeed any ship, in the line, allowing the following or leading ships to use that range without resorting to all the tables. There were still some small adjustments made to compensate for their place in line and any variation in direction, but range (or concentration, in RN terms) clocks allowed all the ships in the line to set their guns to a known range and get into action rather than each ship having to find their own ranges.
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  137. I think there were two main innovations from the US Civil war, one a game changer and one a dead end. The game changer was Monitor's use of a turret. It was clear from the Monitor vs Virginia battle that a much smaller number of large caliber guns in a turret was able to cover all aspects of a broadside ship without the need to actually turn to attack. This was a significant tactical advantage for a turret ship, and pretty much all ships by the 1880s had at least one turret. The dead end was ramming. The inability of Monitor's guns to sink Virginia (which was due to reduced charge due to a training barrel explosion rather than a defect in the shell) led other navies to believe that any gun would have great difficulties battering its way through thick enough armor. However, the lucky success of the Austrian flagship SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max sinking the Italian Re d'Italia at Lissa in 1866 by ramming led to a revival of the long dead ramming craze. Most capital ships built from 1870 until the early 1900s had some form of ram bow as a result. Cooler heads finally prevailed, and once again the concept of ramming other than a desperation technique fell out of favor again, hopefully never to be revived.
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  138. Merry Navymas to all the ship lovers here. It's always the high point of my week when Drach fights his way through Rain, snow, and the gloom of covid to bring us another Drydock.
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  139. I was reading an article about the challenges of hand loaded guns like the six inch models used as secondary armament on British battleships and proposed for the never built South Dakota class. Compared to the 50 pound projectile weight and 25 pound propellant weight of 5"/51, a 6"/53 had a propellant weight of 46 pounds and projectile weight of 105 pounds. A six inch crew could load enough rounds to maintain the maximum ROF of about seven to eight rounds per minute for between three and four minutes before the crews were completely exhausted. A five inch crew with appropriately muscular loaders could keep up a maximum ROF of nine to ten rounds per minute almost indefinitely. In weight lifting terms, loading the six inch gun was like curling 100 pounds every seven seconds. Not hard to see why gun crews couldn't keep up the maximum ROF for very long. While the six inch gun fired a round with more range and armor penetration than a five incher, the throw weight of the two guns was about equal after the second minute of an engagement, and that throw weight could could be continued almost uninterrupted for the whole time of engagement. Those calculations were part of the reason why the USN generally stuck with five inch guns as secondary armament for battleships.
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  140.  @1Korlash  Your nitpick is well taken. :-) South Dakota, given the circumstances of the battle, probably wouldn't have sunk. What Washington's timely intervention did was save her superstructure from getting any more shot up, so SD was able to restore power and get underway while still an effective combat unit. I can only imagine the consternaton and fear as Washington was able to straddle Kirishima with her first salvo while those aboard Kirishima had no idea where the salvo even came from. Probably the first and still best example of how beating the other guy in the war of electrons was even more important than with your big guns.
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  141.  @Dave_Sisson  If I was freezing in the North Atlantic, I'd take rum. If I was sweating my butt off in the South Pacific, I'd be mighty happy to see the ice cream barge.
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  142. I've never understood why virtually all navies in the Dreadnought period thought casemate guns mounted at the extreme bow and stern positions were a good idea. Not only could any practical gunnery officer have told them that such positions were nearly impossible to fight in anything other than nearly calm seas, they were a positive menace to the ship's safety. It was nearly impossible to seal any casemate position from incoming seawater. Positions located at such extreme positions were subjected to battering seas from the bow and following seas at the stern. Nevertheless, battleships and battlecruisers continued to be built with such gun positions right to WWI, when experience showed why they were such a bad idea. This led to almost all of them having to be refit, with the positions plated over, thereby losing six to eight guns of their secondary battery. I just shake my head every time I see an armament layout for ships like the Von Der Tann.
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  143. My dad joined the Navy in July, 1942, and had no idea how to swim. He went through basic at Great Lakes and they had no time to teach men how to swim. As you said, the assumption was you'd have a life jacket, and that would hold you up until you got into,a raft and were then rescued. Luckily for dad, he decided to volunteer for PT boats, and the staff at Melville were under no illusions that crewman could depend on the normal naval precautions once a man was in the water. Every crewman was taught to swim or had their swimming ability improved. This probably saved his life, since he was thrown overboard on one occasion, and had to tread water for about half an hour before his boat was able to find him in the gathering dusk, thanks partially to his ever present, ever reliable Zippo lighter.
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  144. There are already 62 Arleigh Burke class in service. They can carry between 90 and 96 missiles, depending on the Flight variant. The Navy's goal is to have at least 70 always in service with 10 in refit, building replacements plus some additional ships as the earliest ships reach about 30 years old and retirement. Even if we only allow 90 missiles and assume only 50 Burkes would actually be available for combat, that's still 4,500 missiles. As you say, having 10 in a battle fleet is at least 900 missiles. The Burkes are also able to defend themselves pretty well against submarines, and they do have an effective gun for surface action or shore bombardment. It's difficult to see how any battle is going to need more than those 900 missiles, and the USN can just keep adding Burkes until the job is done.
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  145. The picture of the three battleships shows Indiana (BB-58), Massachusetts (BB-59), and Alabama (BB-60) tied up at the Embarcadero in San Francisco on March 17, 1946. I believe this is the first and last time all three battleships of the class were together for a port visit. The Massachusetts was decommissioned less than a year later so the occurrence was unlikely to have ever happened again.
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  146. When I was 14 years old, my uncle, who worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer during the war, presented me with a complete bound volume of all the 1942 editions of the paper. I was bound with some sort of wooden or very heavy cardboard covers, had over 1,000 pages of the various editions, including the color Sunday funnies, and weighed about 25 pounds. I devoured those papers from then right up until today. The poor thing is pretty dogeared now, but the one thing that really struck me was how dark the first five months of the war was. All of Europe was under Nazi control and the Japanese were running rampant in the Pacific. There was real doubt that we could win the war, with some commentators saying we;d end up being the last remnants of democracy once Britain fell. That civilians were able to maintain morale by throwing themselves into their work of producing more war material was really a miracle itself.
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  147. Of the 2,710 Liberty ships produced, only 10 sank due to brittle cracking propagating enough to cause the hull to break in two, or nearly so, typically in hogging seas, as the maximum stresses were being experienced amidships. A major cause of the propagating cracks was the decision to use square hatches to speed production, and make welding easier for the army of inexperienced welders swarming the Kaiser shipyards. Cracks formed right at the junction of each hatch corner, and there were enough hatches on a Liberty that it didn't take many cracks to cause catastrophic damage. The answer in later Liberties and subsequent Victories was the use of rounded hatch corners. Ten years later, the catastrophic failures of Comet airliners tragically taught the lesson again. My dad, who used the GI Bill after he mustered out of the Navy to later become a mechanical engineer, drilled into my head that only four professions can kill you as a result of their normal duties. Those are doctors, police officers, architects, and the various permutations of engineers, and all four needed to keep that awesome responsibility foremost in their minds while doing their work. He became one of the leads on the design team for the main landing gears for the Boeing 747. I vividly recall as a kid seeing a light coming from the den late into the night . I would peek in to see him hunched over his desk with his slide rule and stacks of specs, checking and rechecking the calcs. Things like that taught me ot practice what I preach. I was a lucky kid to have a dad like him.
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  148. Thanks for answering my question about fighting whatever the Kirov is called now. Yes, I meant a Java Sea type battle, with a scratch force of vessels fighting a Kirov class ship and her escorts. I think you've identified the best role for an LCS - a decoy and sacrificial target. :-)
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  149. Russ G, is there a joke there I missed?
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  150. Take a look at Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert Massie. It's more of a look at overall command and control of the first world war war at sea rather than details on individual ships, but it's quite an interesting read nonetheless.
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  151. In addition to the problems preserving warships, the process for storing auxiliary ships was even more troublesome. Firstly, there were about four times more of them than there were warships. As WWII showed, vessels like amphibious warfare and fleet transports had a far longer useful life than a warship as technology made warships become obsolescent even more quickly. In addition, auxiliary craft had many of the same electronic systems as a warship during and after WWII, and they also needed to be stored or maintained. Many of these auxiliary craft became obsolete not because of any basic material problems like we saw between WWI and WWII but because their electronics were not only obsolete, they just didn't work with the modern fleet. As an example, every piece of electronic equipment, from the lowly morale receiver to the most sophisticated radars and analog computers were powered by tubes, or valves, as they were know to our British cousins. They not only had a very limited lifespan without constant maintenance and replacement, the manpower with the expertise to do those things was slowly being drained away from the Navy. Tube powered equipment was being replaced by solid state electronics, so an entire new set of skills was needed compared to even a few years previously. Radios and radars operated on progressively narrower and narrower bandwidths and higher frequencies, something tube types just weren't capable of doing. Analog electronics of all types were being replaced with digital, and more and more of that equipment needed to be updated, replaced, or more pieces of equipment need to be added. Older ships either ran out of space or just weren't worth the expenditure. Fleet type auxiliaries now needed to cruise at 20 knots, beyond even the top speed of older units. The need for space and facilities to operate helicopters for vertical replenishment and just transport between ships while underway was also beyond the abilities of ships that were only ten to fifteen years old. Probably at no time since the Civil War did the Navy scrap as many ships as it has since the decade after WWII, and that process just accelerated as the 2010's drew to a close. While active fleet numbers declined rapidly from about 1300 to 900 after WWII, numbers stabilized between 800-900 due to Korea and the Cold War between 1951 to 1970. The active fleet further declined once again with the fall of the Soviet Union to about 600. As scrapings began to increase again at the close of the 20th century, numbers fell to about 400. By 2017, the active fleet was down to 270. The USN has now fallen to number two numerically behind China. If things continue as they have, and there's no reason to think they won't, we willm fallen to number three, behind...India How things change.
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  152. There is a good display of USS Nevada artifacts at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. One of the things they seem most proud of the Japanese couldn't sink her, and she put up a fight all the until the end when the US tried to do the same. :-)
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  153. At least it's 0600 CDT instead of the previous normal 0400, so I can get a little more sleep between Drach videos. And whoever thought we'd eventually have cruise ships with more displacement and length than even the biggest US carriers?
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  154. Geex. It's 0400 here, I'm just getting ready to turn off the computer, and then this shows up. So much for sleep right now...
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  155.  @micnorton9487  I wrote "Didn't he once say he had relative in the Coast Guard?" Form that, you took that I wrote he was in the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is not "loosely affiliated with the Navy" in time of war. The Coast Guard is transferred to and becomes part of the Navy during wartime. 170,000 men and women served in the Coast Guard while under the command and control of the Navy in WWII.
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  156.  @jamesnickell5908  Yes. He was Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto. Hashimoto, captain of the submarine I-58, testified at the court-martial that it wouldn't have mattered if McVay was zigzagging. It was a clear night with a calm sea and the moon was behind the Indianapolis. It was perfect attack conditions, and Hashimoto felt he would have sunk her regardless of any evasive action. He was found and brought to Oakland at the behest of Admiral King, and Admiral Nimitz and many other naval officers felt this was an attempt to rile up the public against McVay, Even though Hashimoto was testifying for the prosecution, his testimony not only didn't help to convict McVay, but many observers felt it exonerated him. It didn't matter. It was either the Navy admit the errors it were made that led to the sinking and then the long delayed rescue, or they needed a fall guy. McVay was the fall guy. Hashimoto shared with McVay some of the burden of guilt over the loss of so many men. He later became a Shinto priest, and actively assisted the survivor groups trying to get McVay's conviction overturned. He wrote a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999, at age 90, when the committee was hearing testimony about the case. He repeated what he told the court-martial in 1945. He wrote that Captain McVay was not responsible for the sinking of his ship, he was, and he asked forgiveness for himself and forgiveness for Captain McVay by our own navy. He passed away on October 25, 2000, just five days before the congressional resolution exonerating Captain McVay was signed by President Clinton.
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  157.  @LucioFercho  Well, I have to assume you're Chilean. I'm not about to get into a pissing match with you about relative strengths of the two navies except to say the Peruvians have embarked on a modernization program encompassing all six of their Type 209/1100 and 1200 submarines, modernization of all their guided missile frigates, and have taken delivery of two new Korean built 11,000 ton landing platform docks. If you think that's the sign of second rate navy in South America then your nationalism is overcoming your rationalism.
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  158. Thanks for another great video on a very important class of boats. A small correction though. The correct pronunciation is GAH-toe. It comes from the Spanish name for a class of catsharks, with gato being Spanish for cat.
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  159. By 1945, the Japanese spoofing of allied IFF systems no longer worked. The Mark III IFF was then in use. It operated on three different bands, and the interrogator and responder would only return a radar signature if it was matched by a coded signal, and those codes were changed on a regular basis. The Japanese couldn't even receive a signal from the Mark III because they were operating in the gigahertz range, a frequency band Japanese radars were incapable of using or monitoring. Even though Japanese radars were generally considered something of a joke, it's only because the IJN considered radar would take too long to develop for a war expected to last two years at the most. All the early victories of Japan over the allies just reinforced that idea. The Japanese had done some important work on radar in the 30's, and they may very well have been at least able to keep up with allied radars if they were given a higher priority. By the time they realized their lack of radar was giving the allies a gift in terms of sinking Japanese ships, they started an all out program to develop and produce effective radars, but it was just too late. Bizarrely, the Japanese army did their own work on radar, didn't share any of the information with the navy, and actually treated the navy as the enemy in terms of stopping espionage by navy operatives. If all branches of the Japanese armed forces pooled their work on radar, there's no reason to think they wouldn't match the allies tit for tat in new radars. Their postwar work in electronics showed that they had the talent, but the interservice rivalry is right up there with the top reasons for Japan's defeat.
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  160.  @therealsenorisgrig  Thanks. I got about 50 hours of interviews with my dad in his last year of life, when he was finally willing to talk about the war. Before that, he just want to live a normal life and not think about it.
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  161. Unfortunately, it was their weak antiaircraft armament that contributed to the loss of many of the Tribal class ships.
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  162. Well, I couldn't sleep anyway, so now I have Drach and an Enigma machine to lull me to sleep, I hope.
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  163. Good thing gI was in bed before this episode was posted. I would have passed out at the computer trying to stay awake. Youtube is so messed up. I was about to whine because there was no time stamped list with this episode, but I thought Drach wouldn't do that to us with a three hour plus episode. I refreshed Youtube and, sure enough, there was the list. I hate Youtube sometimes.
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  164.  @barleysixseventwo6665  No, only some capitalist countries of 160 years ago endorsed chattel slavery, and the UK wasn't one of them. They outlawed chattel slavery in 1834, and the US outlawed chattel slavery a few years after 1859, in 1865. The only places that have chattel slavery today are non-capitalistic totalitarian theocracies. Nice try though.
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  165. There were many more deserving of court martial over this incident. I'm hoping Drach will get into some of the details in an upcoming video.
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  166. I had the privilege of meeting Admiral O'Kane at a book signing for his second book about USS Wahoo. I had come to the bookstore just before closing and thought I was too late to get my copy of "Clear The Bridge" signed as well but, luckily of me, Admiral O'Kane was still there, and he spent about 25 minutes chatting with me after I let him know I was a great admirer of submarines in general and him and "Mush" Morton in particular. One subject we talked about was his ability to pick officers that performed so well during his command of the Tang. He said he had two criteria - how well the officer played cribbage and bridge. Playing the candidate a game of cribbage, and having him be his partner in a bridge game gave him immediate feedback on his ability to think tactically, plan strategically, go in for the kill at the right time, and remain pleasant for the whole game. Since I play both games, that struck me as a brilliant employment test, and there were a few times I surprised people applying for management positions in my own firm when I hauled out a cribbage board from my desk drawer!
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  167. The story I've read was the "the World Wonders" message to Halsey not due to the decrypt officer but due to a rookie clerk. Once a message was decrypted, everything in the message was included so a message could be verified if a question about it came up. It was then passed on to a clerk typist to type up the message before it went to the recipient(s). IN this case, the rookie didn't realize "The World Wonders" was actually padding so he typed up everything, stuffed it in an envelope, and handed to off to a messenger for delivery. Thus began the small nuclear explosion on the New Jersey .
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  168.  @emintey  Preserving a ship for museum use has everything to do with history and nothing to do with how obsolete a ship might be. Given your way of thinking, the USS Constitution and HMS Victory should have been broken up for firewood because they were "obsolete".
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  169. I took American history in the late 50's up to my graduation in 1964. It may be the period I took history compared to later times, but we were taught all about commanders like John Paul Jones, David Porter, and Oliver Hazard Perry. Given the size of the Continental Navy, and the rather pitiful force we put together in 1812, we didn't have a lot of early American naval heroes, so our history lessons spent some time on them. I credit Mr. Harrison's seventh grade history class, with his riveting tales of John Paul Jones, as being responsible for the start of my lifelong interest in naval history.
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  170. OMG! Four hours and eighteen minutes and it just turned 0300 here. Holy cow! I'm doomed, but I'll stay on deck until I fall overboard!
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  171.  @melwinge9154  RDF was far from new in 1923. It had been used on the longwave frequencies in common use since 1913. The problem in the Honda Point Disaster was Lt. Cmdr Donald T. Hunter, the captain of Delphy, and the acting navigator for the entire squadron. His disdain for anything electronic when it came to navigation was well known. He believed all the electronic aids to navigation made navigators "soft", and he welcomed the chance to show dead reckoning worked just fine, even in the terrible weather conditions of that night. He ordered his own navigator to ignore the RDF readings. At the same time, Commander Walter G. Roper, in charge of Division 32, relied on the RDF, and could see the squadron was making a serious navigation error, ordering the four ships in his division to slow and then stop to avoid running up on the rocks. RDF was plenty reliable in 1923, it was the humans in charge that weren't. Radar wasn't the problem for the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. It was Admiral Callahan's defective understanding of radar. Five of his ships that night were equipped with the excellent SG radar. It was Callahan's decision not to use any of them for his flagship, and not to have any of the SG equipped ships in the van of his formation, that caused radar not be as effective as it otherwise could have been. He didn't provide any kind of preliminary written plans to the rest of his fleet, and the difficulties of reliable radio communications, when that's all there was for the fleet, doomed his own ship and caused his death, in addition to a lot of other deaths that night. Radar wasn't the problem. SG radar was good enough that it was in use all the way to the end of the war and beyond. Poor human planning and intership communications were the problem.
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  172. Thanks for another great video. It's too bad the British didn't pay closer attention to the class when it was being built. In terms of length, tonnage, speed, and armament, they could have served as the basis for a fast escort class of well armed ships for the RN, something the British sorely lacked in the first two years of the war.
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  173.  @rickmoreno6858  While the snorkel had some problems, most were solved by early 1944. Engineers learned how to run the diesels with a minimum of smoke, and the fuel quality was improved so combustion was more complete. Very few uboats were discovered because of exhaust smoke. A bigger problem was when allied radar was improves os it could detect a snorkel. That was solved late in the war with a coating of Turnmatte, radar absorbent materiel that was claimed to reduce radar signature by 90%. The success of the schnorkel is shown by the fact that Germany was losing 25% of its uboats to air attack while running on the surface returning to or leaving the Bay of Biscay. In June, 1944, not a single schnorkel equipped boat was sunk. Right up until the loss of French bases, schnorkel equipped boats were able to transit the Bay of Biscay in relative safety. While the electroboats were developed, and 120 hulls were built, the tremendous logistic and material problems caused by constant allied bombings meant only two boats made any patrols, and those were just a week before the surrender. Neither boat sunk any ships, although both skippers said they made dummy attacks undetected but didn't fire due to receiving the surrender message. Even if the war has continued, it would have been many moths before a significant number of electroboats got in service. Schnorkel equipped uboats would have remained the backbone of the submarine fleet.
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  174. Bill, where the greatest radiation contamination of the wreck is above my pay grade. I just followed the markings and went where the divemaster told us to go. I'd guess there have been hundreds of divers on the wreck and, as far as I know, there haven't been any problems. Kwolfx, the wreck does slope down from the stern to bow. The stern is sticking out of the water with the props and rudder above water as well. It's a great place for non-diver snorkelers to explore while the divers from the group head down to the rest of the wreck. Open water divers can get down to the "B" turret without any problems as it's less than 90 feet. I'd recommend a wreck diving course for anyone attempting a dive on Kwajalein. You're a long way from any critical care hospitals if something goes wrong, so knowing how not get the bends is really important. Advanced open water divers should be able to go the bow if they really want to. The bow, such as it is, is mostly buried in sand at about 125 feet, and there's not much to see forward of the "A" turrent anyway. The visibility is good enough you can hang at 100 feet and get a good view down to the bow. It's sure a dive I'd like to do again...but not at 72 years old. Rats!
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  175. Great job. Imagine awakening from being knocked out by enemy fire and finding yourself surrounded by loaves of bread.
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  176.  @josephkugel5099  Firstly, no battleship could equal the 1,500 mile range of a Tomahawk. Secondly, it's classified how many Mark 48 torpedoes have nuclear warheads and what boats they might be on, but there's no doubt some boats have them. Thirdly, Tomahawks now have a newly developed nuclear warhead. Again, it's classified how many and what boats might carry them, but some will. A Montana, even if firing Tomahawks and Harpoons, would probably have been retired by now, and may have been retired before the Iowas, since they only offered the advantage of three more 16" rifles, but at a much higher operating and manning costs. The Montana will be a platform for Tomahawks and Sub-Harpoon missiles, not to mention torpedoes for fleet and self defense, for at least 30 years in the future.
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  177. It was indeed.
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  178.  @nath9091  While the RN facilities turned over to Singapore at independence were sufficient for a relatively short time, Singapore built three brand new naval bases starting with Brani in 1972, Tuas in 1994, and the huge Changi naval base, opened in 2004 and expanded several times since. A new 3.9 mile long berthing area suitable for the largest US carriers is the latest expansion. None of these bases were or are used commercially and are not "cost neutral".
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  179. The difference in habitability is well illustrated by conditions on US subs at the beginning and end of the war. The S Class was the most numerous class of subs available at the start of the war. They were small, noisy, had unreliable diesel engines that blew a fine film of oil over the whole interior, insufficient electrical capacity to run more than very small refrigerators, and the distilling plants were subject to frequent breakdowns and only large enough to allow a bucket of freshwater a week for a sponge bath. Canned food was the order of the day after a week or so at sea. They were nearly uninhabitable for more than a few hours submerged in the Pacific due to the heat and humidity of tropical waters. The ventilation system was undersized and subject to frequent breakdowns. Temperatures in engine rooms reached 110 F, and even 100 F in the conning tower wasn't uncommon. The humidity was near 100% and condensation caused dripping water from every horizontal surface, with short circuits and damage to radios and other electronic equipment as a result. The crew had to hot bunk since there were only enough for about half the wartime crew. Some of the most unlucky had to use hammocks strung in the torpedo rooms. Fast forward to 1945 and the Gato class. They were positively spacious compared to the S class. Almost the whole crew had their own bunks, The entire boat was air conditioned, keeping temperatures at no higher than 80 F and humidity below 65%. Electrical capacity was large enough to not only recharge a battery bank over twice the size of the S boats, but it was enough to run meat freezers, fresh food refrigerators, and a distilling plant that provided each man with an actual shower every three or four days. They even had crew washing machines, a few had ironing machines, and boats with the most clever engineering section even rigged up ice cream freezers! Frozen meat rather than canned was available for the duration of most patrols, and refrigerated fresh food would be available for the first three weeks of a patrol. Some captains allowed enough refrigerator space that the crew could have two cold six ounce bottles Coke a week. According to some crew memoirs, this was the greatest boost to morale during even difficult patrols. Some veteran admirals viewed all this as making the crews soft, but there's no doubt Gato crews were more alert, better fed, in better health, and had better morale than any other sub crews in the war.
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  180. Before I went diving at Kwajalein, I thought seriously about also doing Bikini. Unfortunately, it's about 30 hours by dive boat from Kwaj and then 10-14 days on the dive boat diving most of the wrecks. With the exception of the Nagato, the are all extended range dives, and getting my normoxic trimix diver certificate so I could dive the deeper (60 meters) and more interesting wrecks. The total cost for the trip would have been about $6,000. I just didn't have the cash or time to do it. Rats!
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  181. Warning! This is going to be another of my "War and Peace" type posts. :) The plan, as I understand it, for covering landings on the Japanese mainland from air attack would have mainly been assigned to massed squadrons of Fletcher, Sumner, and Gearing class destroyers. There was a rushed refit of most of these units from mid-1944 to right up to August 1945 for every ship of these classes to have at least twelve 40mm Bofors guns with fourteen and even sixteen on the Gearings. This was done by landing all the torpedo tubes and, in typical USN fashion, covering the available deck space with twin and quad mount Bofors, supplemented by 20mm mounts wherever they would fit. Another goal of these refits was to install completely up to date radars and fire control equipment to allow every vessel to use VT rounds in their 5"/38 guns. Magazine spaces previously used to store torpedoes were given over to gun round storage. Many of the Sumner and Gearing class ships would also have been radar pickets, much like we saw in the earlier campaigns. The destroyers would have been backed up by the various permutations of Atlanta class cruisers, any of the three British Dido class that could have been spared from carrier screens, and masses of Cleveland and Baltimore cruisers. Most of these ships had increased AA guns fitted along with the requisite radars and fire controls systems. The Canadian Prince Robert, a former passenger vessel converted to a merchant cruiser and later as an auxiliary antiaircraft cruiser, had performed well in the Mediterranean. It was expected her main role in the planned invasion of Japan would be covering landings and escorting supply ships. Many British, Australian, and New Zealand destroyers, corvettes, sloops, and frigates would have been assigned to cover landings of British and Commonwealth troops. The major push with the British ships, in addition to increased AA defense, was adding air conditioning and stores refrigeration equipment. Ships built for the North Atlantic would have been much reduced in combat effectiveness in the tropics without these additions. The accounts of men serving on some unconverted warships serving in the Pacific are quite harrowing in terms of below decks temperatures and humidity. The 31 RN submarines were expected to play a major role in patrol and reconnaissance offshore from Japanese naval bases, rescuing downed carrier pilots, and attacking any remaining Japanese warships foolish enough to sortie from port. A little remembered ship was the HMS Ariadne, an Abdiel class fast minelayer, and one of the first RN vessels of the later Pacific Fleet, joining the US Seventh Fleet in January, 1944. Her very high speed was put to good use landing many US Army raiding forces on various islands as well as laying over 1,000 mines. The other two Abdiel class minelayers assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) would have been equally useful if they had been ready for BPF use before the war ended. In addition to the better known roles of the battleships and carriers of both navies, a major role for the British was the Fleet Train (BFT). The BFT had 54 large ships, from oilers to ammunition ships, and well over 100 smaller ships assigned. The RN had extensive experience supplying their ships while underway. Many of the ships were Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessels, and some were mostly manned by merchant seamen. It was expected the British Pacific Fleet would be sustained by their own Fleet Train with enough excess capacity to also supply some USN ships. It didn't quite work out as planned, with some USN supply ships needing to be added to the BFT. Nevertheless, the ships and crews performed magnificently under sometimes horrendous condition, since many BFT vessels didn't have a/c or refrigeration. The high intensity work of underway replenishment and island supply without the help of even one air cooled space onboard tested the mettle of the crews, and they stood up better than could be expected. A humorous sidelight described by one of the RFA crewmen was when a special alarm sounded, and the men rushed up on deck. The men weren't carrying helmets and life vests that you might expect with most alarms. This alarm had men carrying soap and towels, since the alarm let men below decks know of a passing rain squall so they could cool off and get in a shower, both rare experiences on most RFA ships. As usual, a combined British/American operation couldn't go off without politics getting in the way. It started with Churchill want to use British forces to recapture lost British territory like Burma and Hong Kong and leave the Pacific islands to the Americans. Strong protestations from the Chiefs of Staff eventually overcame Churchill's objections. The RN chiefs rightly believed that not participating in the eventual conquest of the Home Islands of Japan would decrease British influence in the Pacific and rob the RN of valuable experience participating in fleet operations and amphibious landings larger than any they had done in the past. BPF experience was part of the planning for the Suez operation and, indirectly, gave the RN confidence they could support amphibious landings in the far off Falklands. Things on the American side were no better. The Commander-in-Chief United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations was Admiral Ernest King. He was a well known Anglophobe who saw the British as coming in after most of the battles were over and then claiming part of the prestige of helping to defeat Japan. He raised so many objections to the offers of help from the British that Roosevelt himself had to intervene and essentially order that King accept the offer of a BPF. It appeared to the public that allies were cooperating in the defeat of Japan when the reality was the USN was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the offer. King, after grudgingly accepting, set down a requirement that the BPF be totally self-sufficient. Try as they would, the BPF wasn't capable of that, and later USN aid was freely given, sometimes over the objections of Adm. King, and some BPF supply ships aided USN ships. Admiral Nimitz had more pragmatic objections based on the differences in British aircraft, carrier operations, and a myriad of logistical problems, from incompatible radios to completely different guns and ammunition between the two navies. To the credit of both navy's operational staffs, most of these problems were overcome in a matter of six months. Adm. Nimitz became an enthusiastic supporter of the BPF carrier forces after seeing their performance at Okinawa, when the armoured decks of the fleet carriers and well trained damage control teams allowed RN carriers to absorb Kamikaze attacks and continue to operate. All in all, and ignoring the political interference, it was quite a performance from two fleets that had to learn to work with each other in a matter of months.
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  182.  @whirving  I don't think any service member is "thrilled" to have the enemy shooting at him.
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  183. Ranger was always considered kind of developmental carrier, a step between Langley and the Yorktowns. US wargames of the 30's showed flush deck carriers presented few advantages compared to the operational efficiency of having an island, and stacks exhausting through the top of the island were far superior to the side mounted exhausts of Ranger. She could have been a better carrier if the stacks could have been changed when the island was added but, this still being in the depths of the Great Depression, the money wasn't available for that drastic of a redesign. Nothing could be done to improve her low (for a fleet carrier) top speed, and the flight deck and hangers all required strengthening to cope with the demise of the biplane. For the rest of the war, other than a few relatively low intensity periods of combat, Ranger worked out what was to become an increasingly important carrier task - transportation of and flying off fighters to reinforce AAF aircraft and crews in Africa and Europe. After a disastrous start to this task that caused the loss of ten aircraft on her first mission, she was able to fly off more AAF P-40s from the deck to supply badly needed replacements in North Africa. As far as I know, these are the only instances of P-40's flying off from a carrier. She settled down to her transport task until 1944 when she returned to the East Coast to operate as a training carrier. Given the flood of new carriers and pilots coming online, this was probably her most important role. Her role as a training carrier continued until October, 1946 when, being well and truly worn out, she was struck off the naval register and sold for scrap in January, 1947.
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  184. Thanks for another well made video. I have always thought the Oyodo was an early look at what later helicopter and missile cruiser conversions looked like. It seems the Japanese didn't really understand how valuable her radar and communications suite and aircraft, combined with her high speed, could have been to the fleet. After expending materials and time the Japanese didn't have converting a large part of her hangers to flag accommodations in early 1944, her days as a flagship only lasted four months before Admiral Toyoda wisely decided he'd have a longer lifespan by commanding an underground bunker in Yokohama rather than a warship. That left the Oyodo to be nothing but a large and fast transport until her inevitable sinking. The Japanese, if they had had started sooner and spent less time from launching to commissioning, had the chance to develop a class of cruiser that saw later iterations in the Tiger class and ships like the Jeanne d'Arc
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  185.  @USSAnimeNCC-  Ah, so it's a Q Ship style carrier then...
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  186. From the days when bacon was not Denmark's most important product.
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  187. The 2 pdr pom poms gave endless jamming problems in the tropics as gun crews didn't realize how heavily they'd have to oil the ammo and belts to prevent jamming. Tracer ammunition had just started to be issued by the end of 1942 ad it;s not likely the ship would have been carrying more that a few hundred round in the magazines. Most of the tracers would have come from the 20mm Oerlikons hurriedly mounted on November 20-21, 1941 in Cape Town. The crews had very little practice before the attacks and no experience in handling the early versions of the Oerlikons. They'd jam easily if charging the gun was done too briskly when a new magazine was mounted. It wasn't hard to clear the jam, but the PoW didn't have the time to spare as fire slowed down due to jams in the 20 and 40 mm guns. The 5.25" guns were almost useless without their directors since crews hadn't been adequately trained in how to use them under local control. The gunhouse were cramped to begin with, and having to hand pass and load shells after the dynamos failed made ROF no more the four rounds a minute, and that's when they didn't jam. The PoW just wasn't ready to provide adequate AA fire. The Repulse had adequate AA guns and better trained crews but wasn't able to fight off the air attacks without the full support of PoW. PoW's dynamo failures made the 5.25" guns and octuple 2 pdr mounts unuseable. Even if both ships had been operating at top efficiency it's unlikely they could have escaped the attacks. It was a sobering moment for the battleship admirals.
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  188. Radford was one of only three Fletchers to receive a FRAM II overhaul. This was a more austere overhaul than the complete reconstruction of the FRAM I ships. The original intention was reconstruction almost all the surviving Fletchers. However, the experience with the three that did get the modernization was they were far overbudget as the inevitable feature creep added more and more electronics and other equipment, and the increased crewing demanded by all the new equipment made the Fletchers intolerably crowded. The main reason for the FRAM II upgrade was so the ships could handle the DASH drone helicopter. While derisively known as the Down At Sea Helicopter by some captains and crews, those that operated the drones in strict accordance with the Gyrodyne (makers of the QH-50C drone) procedures found the drones to be both controllable and effective. The Radford was one such ship, making more than 500 flights, including launching two torpedos while being fed dummy targeting information while the drone was over the horizon. The DASH helicopters developed a generally poor reputation in the USN due to the lack of command support, general laziness of the crews in not making enough practice flights, and poor adherence to maintenance procedures. In contrast, the Japanese Marine Self Defense Force, with I will call the Japanese Navy to save my fingers, operated sixteen DASH drones from the decks of seven destroyers. The Japanese Navy, known for their adherence to both command instructions and maintaining their equipment, operated the QH-50D drones with nearly complete success, losing only three drones from 1969 to 1977. This is compared to losing well over half the drone fleet in the USN. The Japanese were well satisfied with the DASH drones, and only decommissioned them in 1977, due to the USN abandoning the program the previous year, leading to fears of parts and spares shortages after that date. The Japanese Navy flew their Dash helicopters every single day, at sea or in port. The program had a command officer assigned that stayed with the ship and the program from the date the drone was introduced until he retired or the DASH drones were taken out of service. Compare this to the USN, which had some ships flying the drone only twice a month, the absolute minimum demanded by regulations, and some ships having only a Petty Officer Third Class being in charge of the drones on his ship. The program, while being chronically underfunded and undermanned, did lead directly to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) now carried by by many USN combat ships. Believe it or not, the UAV program of today is underfunded and undermanned, and naval aviators don't like the current crop of UAVs any more than they liked the Gyrodyne DASH helicopters.
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  189.  @bombvoyage5686  I'll be darned. I thought I had watched just about every Drach video by now, but it seems like there's always one that got away. Thanks, I'll check it out.
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  190.  @novatopaz9880  That would be true if the Treaty limited the construction of destroyers, but it didn't. The reason why no new classes were built was the US had hundreds of perfectly serviceable destroyers after WWI and didn't need new ones until some of the older classes became obsolescent by 1932.
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  191.  @Wafflepudding  LOL. Perhaps.
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  192. It is the New Orleans class with "S" not being silent. An engineering study was done as a graduate paper by three Anapolis students. The conclusion was that the seam welding between #1 and #2 turrets was slightly less reinforced than it should have been. Combine that with some lucky torpedo hits and we get those blown off bows. As you said, the combination of excellent subdivisioning and damage control saved those same ships to fight another day.
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  193. The original Fletcher class also had problems with forward visibility. The bridge was low to begin with, being barely higher than the superfiring B turret. Visibility wasn't helped by the bridge windows just being a series of relatively small portholes. The bridge was raised slightly just before Fletcher itself was laid down, but it was a source of complaints from the bridge crew for most of the war. The bridge wings were truncated to the bridge sides to give the AA guns a better arc of fire. The addition of twin 40 mm mounts just ahead of the bridge didn't help side visibility. the combination of truncated bridge wings and the forward AA guns were a big enough problem for underway refueling that several collisions and near collisions resulted. The original flying bridge was completely in the open, so it was a friendly place in heavy weather. Late war and postwar, the bridge was was successively raised and enclosed with large windows canted inward to help with downward and side visibility. The Sumner class had many of the same issues made even worse by the larger twin 5"/38 turrets, and it was only the Gearing class that more or less solved the problem with a bridge slightly higher, slightly set back from B turret, and angled off instead of rounded.
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  194. Just to show what an idiot I am, I spent 15 minutres watching this before I finally figured out these models have no relationship to reality as I understand it.
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  195. I'm sorry to hear about you losing your great uncle on the Royal Oak. I remember reading about Gunther Prien and the Scapa Flow raid when i was just a small kid, maybe nine or so. I was shocked then, and am still still shocked now, that U-39 was able to sneak into what was the most heavily defended naval base in England, sink the Royal Oak, and sneak out again unscathed. Talk about a wake up call for the RN defenders.
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  196.  @CSSVirginia  Indeed. Add in tanks, artillery, and over 300,000 aircraft of all types. Even more amazing is that 90% of this production in took place less than four years. No other country has been able to produce things on this scale, and I seriously question if we could do it again.
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  197.  @Drachinifel  Indeed. I've written several papers about this and it always takes a week to calm down afterwards.
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  198.  @whatsoperadoc7050  I was long before the days of standardized testing. It seems like the goal now is for students to know a little about more things but not learn any one thing in depth. Back then, teachers made up their own tests, and teachers like Mr. Harrison's tests went into a lot more detail about naval history because he really liked naval history. He probably taught less about the other military phases of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, but I like the idea that teachers were allowed to teach about what they liked best. It made the classes a lot more interesting when the teacher was invested in the subject rather than helping the students pass a standardized test.
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  199.  @WALTERBROADDUS  This is what happens if you live long enough. You become your father's age. It's actually pretty weird. My dad was 80 when he passed away so I still have a couple years to go.
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  200.  @HighlanderNorth1  The Navy had the advantage of being able to prepare food for their men most of the time rather than resorting to prepared rations. Submariners did get the best of foods available, and the skipper was generally able to modify some of the standard Navy menus if he was able to find things like fresh beef or frozen chickens in the stocks ashore. PT boats had some of the same advantages, as each boat was able to use pretty much any food they could find or scrounge. The Navy realized early in in WWII that their procurement was a hopeless mess of different bureaus. The Secretary of the Navy established a new department, the Office of Procurement and Material, and put Admiral Samuel Robinson in charge. He became the czar for all procurement and ruled with an iron hand. Decisions came through is office instead of seven different bureaus. He was one of the primary reasons for the fleet train, and was vitally interested in procuring the best food the budget would bear. He standardized the Navy cookbook and how galleys were set up on new and refurbished ships. For the first time, cooks became an occupational specialty rather than just the newest guys in the crew. Every ship had an officer designated as in charge of the mess budget and food quality, and the medical officer was in charge of mess inspections for cleanliness. The best food combined with standard menus and trained cooks is why the Navy got (and has kept) the reputation as best fed of the services. Robinson ordered that all officers had to eat only the food that came for the enlisted mess. They could eat in their own wardrooms, but they were eating the same food as the rest of the sailors. As you might imagine, the captain and other officers gained a rapid appreciation for serving the best prepared food the ship could provide.
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  201. One of the better puns I've seen lately, and it doesn't rely on a bunch of stupid fake dialog.
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  202.  @rahbaralhaq  Apparently the Vikrant's material condition deteriorated markedly during her time at dock from 1997 to 2012, as the Indian government expected the state of Maharashtra to be responsible for all maintenance costs. Without some private partners to keep the museum ship in decent shape, corrosion set in, and the ship had constant leaks that required 24 hour pumping. It's the same sad story that has affected so many other museum ships being run on shoestrings.
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  203.  @AtomicBabel  You're welcome. The IJN did develop some Ward-Leonard electrical power controls systems for the triple mounts late in the war. This enabled the mount to follow the much faster attack aircraft than the Japanese had encountered early in the war, but there were still problems matching up the pointers to the target before it moved out of the telescopic range finder field of view. The Ward Leonard remote power control was certainly better than manual traversing, but the lack of any kind of radar fire control meant they were still dependent on the Mark 1 eyeball looking through telescopic sights on a heavily vibrating mount while being wreathed in smoke from the gunfire. The USN found out how difficult this was while developing the much more advanced Mark 14 gunsight on the 20mm Oerlikon mount. The same vibration issues affected them until better shock mountings were devised. Once the Mark 14 was integrated into the Mark 51 director, there was a marked increase in the accuracy of 20mm fire, to the point that the 20mm was the AA gun that shot down the most Japanese planes in the last year of the war. Even if the 25mm gun had a faster rate of fire and wasn't so prone to jamming when used at elevations over 60 degrees, the whole system was hopeless without some kind of radar directed and RPC fire control. The Japanese had been working such a system but, as usual, squabbling between the Army and Navy over funding and what system was best meant no system was put in use before war's end.
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  204. A combination of extreme nationalism, racism that continues to this day, and the wrong lessons from the Russo-Japanese war. The Japanese routinely lied to their own people about what would happen when war came. An example is the continued Japanese insistence that the population of Japan in 1935 was 100 million. That number was used over and over, all the way to the end of the war. We now know, and the Japanese bureaucracy knew then, the population never exceeded about 80 million, and that number never grew, as war dead exceeded new births. That 100 million number had some kind of magical effect on Japanese war propaganda, as the "100 million shattered jewels" was the Japanese plan to resist the invasion by sacrificing the entire population if need be. The "gyokusai" (shattered jewel") concept led to the first human wave attacks of 1905, continuing up until the end of the war. The Meiji Restoration and bushido helped doom Japan as much as any external enemy.
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  205. Pretty versatile ships as well, operating everything from Fulmars to Tracklers to Skyhawks. Not bad for a design supposed to only last three years and built with scantlings made from old bully beef tins. :-)
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  206. @Charles Yuditsky Yes, the RN strapped a bunch of L1A1 LMGs to ship rails and pipe mounts during the war in an attempt to throw up some kind of fire since most RN ships had very little in the way of AA guns at the beginning. Even if some of the ships had the original Block 1 guns in 1982, they wouldn't have been very effective against the low flying Argentine attackers since the Phalanx was only optimized for sea skimming missiles at the time. The introduction of the Block 1A and particularly the Block 1B models have allowed the Phalanx to respond to everything from small fast boats, low flying aircraft not using radar, to supersonic missiles. The Dutch Goalkeeper system has many of the same abilities, and both are installed on RN ships today. Perhaps in recognition of the Falklands problems, even the most modern RN ships, like the Type 45 "destroyers", in reality the size and displacement of a light cruiser, go to sea with a pair of Oerlikon 30 mm guns, a pair of 7.62mm miniguns, and mounts for six of the ubiquitous 7.62mm GPMGs, in addition to a Block 1B Phalanx. If another shooting war develops, you can be sure RN sailors will be on deck throwing up all the lead they can, in addition to the Phalanx.
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  207. Certainly had a long a relatively useful life.
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  208.  @jballaviator  One of the reasons why my dad joined the Navy was he heard the food was good, and he loved food! The guys flying the Hump lived on K and C rations for sometimes months at a time and lost an average of 25 pounds. There weren't enough calories in the earlier rations like the C ration, and some of the food just didn't taste good, so they didn't even finish the inadequate meals they were given. Things started to improve about mid-1944 when rations started to include a greater variety of food (K rations expanded to 12 different menus, four each for breakfast, dinner and supper, the military terms for the more common lunch and dinner.) The greatest morale boost for the troops wasn't food, even the much loved hot chocolate drink. It was the four cigarettes that came with each meal. For smokers, it was a familiar way to finish off a meal. For non-smokers, it gave them something to trade for food they liked. I'm not aware of any other military that included cigarettes with each ration. Not PC today, but it was a big lift for soldiers right up until 1975, when the busybodies and pearl clutchers got them removed.
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  209. I first read about this in an old Popular Mechanics when I was maybe 10 years old, ao that would have been about 1956. Even then, I thought this had to be the most unworkable and improbable idea I had ever seen.
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  210. Q&A Why did Germany continue with twin turrets when it was clear that triple turrets could have reduced the overall length and increased armor protection over the shorter area? Triple turrets for 16" guns goes all the way back to 1927 with the Nelsons. Why did the Germans persist with the 5.9" single purpose guns? The mix of SP and DP 4.1" guns again increased length and decreased armor protection. DP armament featured on US cruisers from the 1929 Pensacola class onwards, plus the Washington/South Dakota battleships, all completed or under construction by the time of the H class designs. Did the Germans not have the capability build large caliber triple turrets? Did they tactically not understand the value of DP armament?
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  211.  @Raptor747  That really wasn't the issue. The Japanese were able to produce good reverse engineered copies of the 40mm. They just couldn't do it without a lot of hand work, didn't have the kinds of steels needed, and weren't able to produce them in numbers that would have made any difference. Remember that US, with a complete set of working drawings, several examples of the 40mm gun, and the vast industrial ability of the country in early 1940, still took almost two years to produce the first twin mount in January, 1942, and over two years to produce the first quad mount in April, 1942. The Japanese just didn't have the industrial capacity to produce the 40mm gun in any numbers regardless of the ROF or muzzle velocity.
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  212. I think you meant four 5"/25 caliber guns rather than 4" guns. She received an additional four 5"/25 guns in early 1941 in gun tubs surrounding the bridge, thus bringing her secondary armament into line with the other US Heavy cruisers of the time.
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  213.  @Alpostpone  Oops. you're right. I'm not good at keeping Finnish ship names straight. I've edited my comment to get it straight now.
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  214. If the Germans had developed the "Kurier" radio system earlier in the war they would have been able to communicate with their subs and not be detected. It was able to send coded messages at 600 words per minute while using a form of single sideband radio. The first radios on subs weren't installed until late 1944 and only about 20 boats were so equipped by the end of the war. The USN admitted after the war ended that a Kurier transmission was never DF'd. They never even knew the system existed until it was found on some surrendered boats,
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  215.  @micnorton9487  Sorry, Mic, you happened to be the third guy in the last three comments telling me something I wrote that I never did write, so you got nailed. I apologize. The Coast Guard in now part of Homeland Security, so they cooperate more with agencies like the DEA and local jurisdictions more than the Navy. Their primary work with the Navy is for search and rescue after a ship casualty or downed aircraft. In the course of an average month, I doubt there's another federal agency that works with such a wide variety of other federal and non-federal agencies as the Coasties.
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  216.  @ObviusRetard  Warrior was decommissioned on 1978 before being donated for preservation, so she was 117 years in service. Caroline was in commission until 2011, so she became the second oldest ship after Warrior was decommissioned, although she was "only" in commission for 97 years.
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  217.  @sharlin648  Do you realize that Miyazaki (note correct spelling) thinks this whole steampunk obsession with weird early 20th ships and guns is otaku? He can't stand most of today's anime and manga, especially this whole thing with military anime. He thinks it's all a fetish, and I tend to agree. If you're over 21 and still continue to be fascinated with this, don't invoke Miyazaki's name to justify it.
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  218. Holy cow! Three in a row. What an embarrassment of riches today. Thanks, Drach.
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  219. The U Boat attacks were generally confined to the waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence, the only part of the St Lawrence riverway wide enough and deep enough to allow U Boats to have the operational space they needed. As it turned out. the attacks on allied shipping in the Gulf turned out to be an advantage to Canada and the allies. Rather than convoys having to all assemble at Sydney NS, some of which were taking many days to navigate up the St Lawrence, shipping was diverted to the Canadian National Railway lines to Halifax, and convoys formed up there. The harbor was better, as were the defenses, and the removal of most of the convoy traffic from the St Lawrence decreased the U Boat targets and caused German to abandoned operations in the St Lawrence by mid-1943. U Boats did try to insert spies and pick up escaped POWs from the region, but none of those operations ever succeeded.
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  220. Ya know, my eyes are kinda tired. I could swear this Drydock said it was almost 6 hours long? Holy crap, that is what it said. It's almost midnight here. I don't think there's enough coiffee in the house to get through this video in one sitting.
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  221.  @micnorton9487  It's ok, very few people outside the Coast Guard know anything more about it other than it has ships and vaguely naval uniforms.It started out as part of the Lighthouse Serves. It was then put under the Treasury Department Revenue Service since it was enforcing tariffs and tariff smugglers. It was put incharge of immigrants and quarantines, piracy spression, regulating the slave trade, stopping general smuggling and then liquor smuggling during prohibition, safety inspections of ships and cargoes, rescuing ships and sailors in peril...almost any task the Navy wouldn't or couldn't do. It was under the Department of Transportation from 1967 to 2003, when it became part of Homeland Security.
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  222. The USN development of the 1.1" antiaircraft guns and quadruple mounts began in 1928. The Swedish development work on the 40 mm Bofors, Swiss, Oerlikon 20 mm, and the British 2 pounder single and then octuple mount guns all began work or even prototype testing in the mid to late 20's. You could certainly argue the interwar years saw feverish development of various rapid fire antiaircraft weapons as navies reached the slow realization that four hand loaded 3" guns wouldn't be quite enough for the next war.
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  223. Nova Topaz  I don't know where you came up with the idea the 8"/55 guns on the Des Moines class were ever claimed to be dual purpose guns. They were built to be rapid firing guns for surface action and shore bombardment and succeeded admirably. The rate of fire was 10 rounds a minute, at least twice as fast as any other 8" gun ever used, and it could fire at this rate for hours. Contrary to the failed 6"/47 guns on the Worcester, their automated shell loading worked almost perfectly for the entire time they were in service. The problem with the Worcester guns was the automatic loading didn't work properly. The need for a dual projectile hoist system to cater for AA and AP shells was a constant source of jamming. The design rate of fire was 20-25 rounds per minute in an attempt to best the 5"/38's ROF of 15-22 a minute. Instead, the poor performance of the dual lifts and constant jamming meant the real ROF never got above 12 rounds per minute. The jamming was partly due to the requirement for all elevation loading, something not actually achieved in automatic mode until the 5"/54 Mod 1 in 1980. Even then, the ROF was still only about 20 rounds per minute, but that was offset by the drastic reduction in manpower for these all automatic guns. 20 rounds per minute has continued to be a barrier for even modern automatic loading systems on medium caliber dual purpose guns
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  224. To my knowledge, the current crop of Littoral Combat Ships are the only major US vessels to have aluminum hulls. All other major USN ships have steel hulls. Some use aluminum in the superstructure, but none below the waterline. The current crop of aluminum hull LCS shows we still don't know how to control galvanic corrosion when aluminum is in contact underwater with dissimilar metals. It's something of myth that aluminum in the superstructure is a fire hazard. The RN did extensive studies after the Falklands War regarding the use of aluminum as contribution to fires. Their conclusion was that the use of aluminum contributed little to nothing in shipboard fires.
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  225. Ya know, one of the ways I know I've passed into geezerhood is when half the comments about the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal refer to a video game, some kind of anime, movies, and weird Japanese comic books, none of which I know anything about. I guess it happens to us all.
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  226. There was Project Hulu, the transfer of 149 vessels to the Soviet Union from Cold Bay, Alaska in 1945. The Soviet crews under training were under the command of the USN base commander, an arrangement made clear by Admiral Kuznetsov. Hew told all the Soviet sailors they were under the command of the Americans, and their orders were to be obeyed instantly. USN and Soviet sailors made up mixed crews of most of the transferred vessels before the formal transfer, and several of the first large ships, like the 34 patrol frigates, had mixed crews all the way to Kamchatka to make sure the Soviets really understood how to operate the ships. The transferred ships were then convoyed part of the way by USN ships, and some Soviet officers were transferred from the escorting ships back to the new Soviet ships by highline transfer. So, while this wasn't really a formal mixed crew ship, many of these ships in effect were mixed crews, at least for part of their service. It was certainly the largest transfer of vessels from one navy to another in WWII.
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  227.  @Drachinifel  Or top weight. :-) Sheffield was kind of an experimental ship in terms of radar. She usually had the latest British (and later American) radars and gunfire control systems. She was a good example of ship that massively increased her lethality over her time of service.
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  228. Thanks a lot of for answering my questions about the Vanguard. As a Yank, I don't always understand British thinking about what ships were built and what weren't. All your reponses make sense. It's unfortunate that the British government never saw the possibility of the Vanguard being more than the world's largest and most heavily armed royal yacht, her main use until she was placed in reserve in 1955. It's unfortunate that she never participated in the Korean Conflict. The RN might have gained a new appreciation for the need for shore bombardment even without another world war After a fairly comprehensive and expensive refit, and being placed into reserve in 1955 , Mountbatten and Anthony Eden came to power and seemed to be bent on disposing of half the RN fleet. After just four years in reserve, the decision was made to scrap the Vanguard and, by 1960, she was gone. The USN/US government maintained many ships in reserve postwar, some of which were war weary and completely obsolete, like the USS Wichita, for fifteen or more years before the mass scraping program set in from 1960 to 1962. I guess the end of empire, in some people's minds, also meant the end of the need for the RN beyond nuclear submarines, and that the USN would become the protector of the UK itself. It was a decision that would come back to haunt the British in 1982.
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  229. Modernized Fletchers also had two dual 3"/50 mounts, and those could have joined in if the Fletcher could have closed to within the effective range of all her guns. Very few modernized Fletchers kept all five 5", but a combination of the 5" and 3" would have been devastating to an Independence LCS. Even with just four 5" guns, each mount could maintain a ROF of 20 RPM, so that's 80 rounds per minute. Each 3" mount could maintain a ROF of 50 RPM. That adds another 100 rounds per minute, for a total of 180 RPM compared to the much smaller 57 mm gun's ROF of 200 RPM. We have good evidence of a Fletcher's ability to withstand battle damage by having had a lot of them tested to destruction. We really have no idea of the survivability of an Independence class. My guess in the end result would have the Fletcher sustaining a fair amount of non-fatal damage while the Independence class vessel would have been sinking or sunk.
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  230. The British fleet in the Med was there to fight surface actions with the Italian fleet. Let's face it, compared to Germany, Italy was always considered a second rate navy, and the RN was confident it could fight in the Med with some of its older but still powerful ships. What the RN didn't appreciate initially was the role of air power and how poorly equipped the fleet was to fight off air attacks. The found to their consternation that a couple of 3" guns and some quad Vickers machine guns just weren't a sufficient AA armament by 1940.
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  231. I was never concerned about it. As you say, it has been long enough now that being on the wreck for 45 minutes is less than the radiation I picked up flying there. Radiation is just one of those scary things ot a lot of people, so any radiation is bad to them. I don't know that I'd like to spend a couple days on the wreck but it's not a possibility we need to worry about. I did notice the wreck is festooned in marine growths., and there are thousands of marine creatures that do spend a good portion of their lives on the wreck I didn't notice any three eyed fish.
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  232. If it had been a few decades later, the Turks could have saved more money by issuing a painted KFC bucket instead of a fez.
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  233.  @russg1801  Yes, when I was there, a lot of work was being done below decks to stabilize the structure and generally paint and clean things up so visitors can see the lower three decks. There was also a lot of cosmetic restoration being done to the engines.
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  234. The USN had about 600 PT boats as well as all those Fletchers, Sumners, and Gearings, plus a crapload of DE's. The Japanese never developed the kinds of sonars and radars that could have made large numbers of coastal patrol craft useful. By 1944, Japanese ships were being sunk at a rate between two and three times the capacity of Japanese shipyards to replace them. The Japanese Navy was pretty well doomed by 1943 no matter what they did.
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  235. I remember reading a series of letters to the editors to the London Times from an "anonymous" Royal Navy officer during the Spanish-American war expressing surprise that Oregon successfully made it around the Horn , that the ship was able to survive the storm Drach mentioned, and was then made ready for battle relatively quickly once she arrived on scene. He had expected her low freeboard to sink her in any kind of weather, the quality of American seamanship so bad he was surprised Oregon didn't end up in Australia, and the quality of her construction was so poor that drydocking would show a fractured keel. The RN had very little respect for the upstart USN in those days. :-)
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  236.  @bkjeong4302  I don't know that facts would agree with your premise. Two Cleveland class light cruisers combined had 24 5" barrels compared to 20 on an Iowa. That's a slight win for the Cleveland's but only about the same number of combined barrels could be unmasked for either combination when used for antiaircraft fire. The combined Clevelands don't even come close when it's light fire being counted. Two Cleveland's by the end of the war were carrying 56 40mm barrels while an Iowa had at least 80 and, in a few ships, 96. Conomed 20mm guns on the Cleveland's was between 20 and 30 barrels compared the 49 carried by an Iowa, rising to 62 when twin mounts were added. Combined crews for the pair of Clevelands was 2510 while it was around 2700 for a single Iowa. That relatively small difference was pretty much negated when you look at the extra manpower and shipping needed to replenish two smaller vessels at sea compared to one large one. One Iowa was able to concentrate a truly horrifying stream of fire toward aerial attackers. When escorting a carrier, and there are many stories about a single Iowa breaking up an attack by 20-30 Japanese planes on a carrier. I think it was Admiral Nimitz who said the only ship he wanted ot see next to his carriers was an Iowa.
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  237.  @nath9091  The USN is paying docking and port fees so It makes sense for Singapore to build docks that can handle the largest ships the USN has. However, the USN didn't pay for the facilities. It was constructed by Singapore. The fees paid by the USN helps offset part of the cost of the base construction and expansion, but that still doesn't make the facilities cost neutral.
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  238. Only true until about Summer, 1943. By then. most Mark 15's were ether retrofitted or newly manufactured to correct the early war problems. The Battle of Vella Gulf in August, 1943 showed the problem days were mostly over.
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  239.  @HighlanderNorth1  That sums it up. I don't think the war in the Pacific would have gone so well without Admiral Robinson in charge. When it comes to fishing, that worked on ships with relatively low freeboard and ones that spent a lot of time dead in the water. It was hard to catch much from a cruiser making way at 25 knots. :-) PT boats were ideal for fishermen since they had the freeboard of a cabin cruiser and spent a lot of time at idle waiting to jump Japanese resupply barges. My dad said they even fish on moonlit nights when they could see their lines and the fish swimming by made luminescent wakes. The skipper was an inveterate fisherman. He'd spend time at the stern tending a couple lines while the XO kept an eye on the radar and yelled for him if there were any hits. By late 1943, there were only the occasional Japanese floatplane around so they didn't much have to worry about air attack. The old man was a motor machinist mate, so he spent a lot of his time with the engines. The heat was suffocating in the engine room so he'd come up on deck to spell gunner's mates so they could get some chow. He was manning the stern 20mm one time when one of those floatplanes came right up over the hill at them with no radar warning. He just happned to be watching that part of the sky when it happened, and he had it in his sights in a heartbeat. He opened up on it and tracked it right across the boat, the safety rails saving him from shooting up the bridge. The plane burst into flames and splashed a couple hundred feet off the bow. One of the other guys had to light his cigarette afterwards because he was shaking too much to hold the match. It was the one and only time he ever fired a weapon in anger during the war. It was also one of two planes the boat was credited with during the war. I still have the picture of him standing behind a piece of the vertical stabilizer they had fished out to make sure they got credit for the kill.
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  240. Without getting into blue vs red states, four states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) call themselves commonwealths. It's just what the politicians in those states called themselves when their constitutions were written. It was a popular term in 1780 to show some anti-monarchical sentiment rather than any particular form of government. It has nothing to do with with their laws, relationship to the federal government, or any difference in being a state of the union.
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  241.  @WALTERBROADDUS  No, not at all. Rolls Royce designed the best engines of the first ten years of jet flight. My objection was the Soviet sympathizing Labour government of the time just passing on the family jewels to the Soviets for a pittance.
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  242. They were also lacking in good quality anti aircraft batteries. The original C/30 20 mm guns were very poor guns with a small magazine of just 20 rounds. That made them have a practical rate of fire of only about 120 rounds a minute. The C/38 models was a much improved gun, especially when used with the sophisticated quad mounting. It had a 40 round magazine and doubled the rate of fire per barrel compared to the C/30. Allied airmen soon learned to give German vessels used to escort submarines in and out of the Bay of Biscay a wide berth to avoid the fire of these guns. However, it was only when the German Navy started manufacturing Oerlikon 20 mm guns reverse engineered from army models that they had a truly effective single barrel hand swung model. It had a rate of fire of 450 rounds a minute, twice as fast as any German designed gun. As usual,, there were too few produced too late to make much difference. The 37 mm SK C/30 guns were hand loaded with very slow rates of fire and a poor mounting with a failed triaxial mount. The later KM 42 and KM 43 37 mm FLAK versions were much improved but came very late in the war when most of the surface fleet had been lost or decommissioned. The 105 mm guns had the potential to be excellent antiaircraft gun but, once again, they were in a triaxial mount that was too difficult to manufacture and just didn't work well in practice. The gun housing was poorly designed, being open at one end and allowing water to get in and ruin the electrical systems. Too few were manufactured to replace war losses as the war wound down for improvements in the 105 mm gun housing and fire control system to make any difference. In addition to luck, the Prinz Eugen survived as the only large surface vessel of the German navy by continuing improvements in her anti aircraft batteries. All the 37 mm guns were replaced with the German version of the Bofors 40 mm gun and the earlier C/30 and C/38 20 mm with the FLAK 28 and 29 models covering any empty spaces on the deck. While operating in the Baltic in the closing moths of the war, she was able to do impressive shore bombardment missions against the advancing Russian army while fighting off hordes of Russian aircraft due to her much improved anti aircraft batteries and radars.
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  243.  @knutdergroe9757  Thanks. He was a great dad. God bless your father as well. From everything my dad told me and from what I've read, that sounds like that was a pretty good description of Bulkeley. No one can doubt the man's bravery, but some people use that as currency.
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  244.  Erik Heath  No, U-Boats almost never transmitted unless it was short range coordination of a wolf pack. They were never required to submit sinking reports unless something very much out of the ordinary happened. U-Boat headquarters transmitted many messages to U-Boat but the boats only listened so there was nothing to DF. They believed that Enigma still make those message secure from decryption. The Germans used DF to establish the location of convoys so they were well aware of the dangers of transmitting while at sea. They developed the answer by a system called Kurier in 1944. It broadcast in a high speed burst mode that lasted less than ten seconds, and it used far off frequency sidebands. No allied vessel was ever able to DF a Kurier transmission.
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  245. Randy, her material condition was so poor, and the financial position of Britain was even worse postwar, that preserving her wasn't a realistic option. Unfortunate, since she was one of the best examples of an attempt to have the greatest firepower while still not cheating the Washington Naval Treaty.
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  246. Drach, you're welcome. I was really excited to see the PE come up in the list. I would have liked to have seen her in all her glory after she was surrendered to the British in 1946, but that was the year I was born, so the wreck will have to be second best. Oh, I forgot to mention that, for anyone who's nervous around sharks and barracudas, this is a dive to skip. I counted six oceanic whitetips that obviously called the wreck home and more barracuda than I cared to count. They never really bothered us, but the whitetips did give us a close inspection. Since most of the wreck is sitting hull up, you can see the sharks from quite a distance, and then just swim to other side of the hull to get away from them. I can see how it would freak out divers anxious about swimming with sharks though.
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  247.  @bcoop1701  And that wasn't anywhere near close to the maximum range of 43,000 yards. It would have still been traveling at 48 knots. That speed alone would have been enough to hole most hulls, not to mention the 1080 pound high explosive warhead of the Type 93. There are been very few weapons of war that remained an almost complete secret from the enemy, but it was an almost complete shock to the USN when an intact example was recovered at Guadalcanal in 1943. In fact, the Type 93 was a touchy weapon that would sink Japanese warships when they were caught in a bombing attack before the could jettison the torpedoes. Nevertheless, the type 93 remained a dangerous weapon for the USN, sinking its last ship in December, 1944, and that only because very few submarines and surface ships capable of handling the Type 93 remained afloat.
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  248. Since my dad served on the PT-171 in the Pacific, I'll put in a vote for a closer look at these valiant little vessels.
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  249.  @paulhinds4840  You're thinking of the US 28mm (1.1") guns. The Japanese has a 25mm gun. They did gain a rudimentary form of fire control toward the end of the war. In addition to the training being too slow, the laying was equally slow since it was all done by hand. The 25mm round was too small for any kind of explosive flak type charge, and it had the same issues as the US 28mm guin - the charge was just too small to reliably bring down an aircraft, even after multiple hits. The other major problem was the poor effective AA ceiling. It was less than 10,000 feet compared to the US 1.1" ceiling of 19,000 feet. One of the reasons why our aircraft attacks against Japanese ships were so effective was dive and torpedo bombers could orbit around five miles out at 15,000 feet until they saw an opportune time to attack and be out of range of Japanese light AA.
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  250. "15 days to flatten the curve...err, 15 weeks....err, 15 months...err, 15......"
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  251. Or torpedoed...
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  252. I don't think it would have been as bad as you might think. Over 100 were built for US pre dreadnoughts, and many of them were removed and converted to shore defense guns. Using the removed gins for a class of cruisers wouldn't have presented a problem. In addition, the Army and Marines quite liked this gun for shore batteries, and at least another 70 guns were ordered for this purpose. The guns were used all they way through WWII so ammunition production and supply also wouldn't have been a problem. The 7" gun seems like an oddball today, but it was the heaviest gun the could be hand loaded by very strong men using separate ammunition, so they hung around for a long time.
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  253.  CommandoDude  A couple passengers were interviewed when Carpathia got to port and commented that coffee cups and saucers wouldn't stay on tables due to the vibration. Still, they were all kind of excited to be part of rescuing the passengers of the Titanic, so there really weren't much in the way of complaints. No one told them they were racing through the same ice field that sunk the Titanic or they probably would have been really scared about that. Captain Roston had every man he could spare to stand as lookouts, and Carpathia managed to avoid all the bergs during the 58 mile run.
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  254. Thanks for answering my question about enclosed gunhouses. It makes sense that the semi-automatic loading of 5"/38 guns and the associated electrical and hydraulic mechanics led the USN to adopting enclosed gunhouses earlier. Another question, if you'd be so kind. Why was the Vanguard completed? The US had cancelled the Montana class in 1943, and it seems pretty clear that the day of the battleship was over by 1944, when work resumed on her. Given Britain's financial condition in 1946, why commission a ship whose usefulness was demonstrated by the fact she only remained in commision for nine years? The RN already had the four reasonably modern battleships in the King George V class, so why one more? I suppose national pride is one answer, but do you know of other reasons?
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  255. The growth of the pagoda structures reflect the Japanese faith in their optical rangefinders. As their weight and size grew, they needed ever taller and stronger structures to support and make best use of them. This also reflected how little faith the IJN had in radar, since their doctrine was their rangefinders would be more than adequate day or night. It wasn't until late 1942 that the Japanese realized how much USN surface search and radar fire control was mauling their ships. That set off a furious pace of development for their own radars. UNfortunately, it did the same for the army, with many identical types being developed in tandem with no coordination between the two services. If some miracle would have occured and the talented men for all services worked together, the IJN may have had effective radars by late 1944, but even that would have been too late. There are very few cases in the history of warfare where the types of circular gunfights engaged in by the Japanese armed services so badly impacted their chance of survival, let alone victory.
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  256.  @fortusvictus8297  Firstly, thanks for your service. The US has always been the best fed country in the world, in war or peace. One hand, it's a matter of luck that we can grow about any kind of food the exists on the face of the earth, but is also something that many successive governments have understood - that a well fed people are also generally contented people. A full belly tends to quench a lot of revolutionary thoughts. When my dad's squadron was in New Guinea, many of the advance bases were run by the Australian Navy. I don't know if it was a matter of wartime shortages or just the need to ship as much food as they could to the mother country, but Australian rations tended to be less in quantity and calories than what the Americans got. The rations were also less diverse and more monotonous, with many of the Aussie complaining they were right sick of a constant diet of canned lamb, bully beef, and biscuits. The K rations generally had some small cans of fruit, usually peaches or pears. By 1943, it had been years since the average Aussie had seen canned fruit except maybe for the holidays. Tobacco of any kind, and cigarettes in particular, were not only had to get, but Australian sailors had to buy their own at the canteen, when there was one at a base. They were eating dinner with sailors from an Australian minesweeper, and they refused to believe American sailors got free cigarettes withe every meal until one of our guys opened up a K ration and showed them. Now, one thing the Aussies tended to get in abundance was beer, something US sailors were only rarely allowed to get in the war zone. As you might imagine, that set up some pretty active bartering for cigarettes, canned fruit, and beer. The Aussies did have two other things Americans wanted - tea and blackcurrant jam. US rations never had tea, amd Australian rations almost never had coffee. Those that favored the non-available drink on either side set up a pretty active bartering market. Some sailors seem to develop an almost unnatural craving for Australian blackcurrant jam. I've never had it, but my dad described as the best thing on a biscuit he ever had. He didn't smoke much, so he bartered away many a pack of smokes for some of that jam.
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  257.  @stanleyrogouski  I don't know about the last time, but Jones was in command of a force in the Russo-Turkish war when kept the Turkish navy near Ochakov on the run and provided shore bombardment for the invasion of Kinbern and laid siege to Ochakov. He was under Admiral Potemkin's command, and Potemkin and other Russian admirals feared Jones was going to rise in command, given his known abilities and the rumor that he and Catherine II had more than a professional relationship, if you catch my drift. Potemkin was constantly sending back action reports with filled with lies about Jones's supposed cowardice in the face of the Turks. He was finally recalled to Moscow under the pretext of being transferred to the Baltic Fleet when, in reality, he was put in a staff position Potemkin knew he would hate. Even though Jones was awarded the Order of St. Anne in June, 1788, he knew he was being forced out, and returned to Paris just before Christmas of the same year. He learned his lesson about serving in a foreign fleet from this, turning down the offer of command of the French revolutionary fleet in 1790.
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  258. Although the USN has officially been "dry" from 1914 to 1980, sailors are still sailors. Even ignoring the proliferation of "torpedo juice" stills, some skippers were very creative about sneaking beer and wine onboard and using the medicinal alcohol supply for purposes other than those intended. Eugene Fluckey, captain of the USS Barb, was famous for finding places in the limited confines of his sub for 30 or so cases of beer, with each man getting one beer after a significant sinking and two beers for Christmas and Fourth of July. Even though Fluckey was the subject of several investigations for his violation of Navy alcohol rules, it was a tribute to the love of his men for their skipper that not one officially admitted to ever having alcohol onboard until after the retirement of Admiral Fluckey in 1972. The USN did allow alcohol after the end of Federal prohibition in 1933, but only on shore. This was originally at the navy clubs on base. The Pacific war was such that many ships didn't see a proper Navy base of periods of a year or more. The rules were bent by having "recreation days" on various semi-deserted tropical islands, and one of the main attractions, in addition to swimming and baseball, was two warm beers per visit. Navy Secretary Edward Hidalgo finally allowed crews in 1980 to have two beers on board after 45 continuous days at sea. This decision was supposedly prompted by Hidalgo's experience as a young officer on the USS Enterprise. A kamikaze attack on May 14, 1945 destroyed the whole task force's supply of beer. While the attack itself was a blow to morale, that only increased when word of the destruction of the beer supply began to spread. Only an emergency run by a Navy transport put things to right before the next recreation day.
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  259.  @7thsealord888  I've read different accounts of the explosion vs underway hypothesis. According to several of the officer survivors of the Kormoran, it appeared the Sydney wasn't under control when she drifted slowly SSE away from the Kormoran. I don't know what survivor would have seen the Sydney when she was sinking since she was below the horizon by then. It appears the bow section forward of the ASDIC compartment was partly torn away from the rest of the hull by the torpedo hit. It's just my own inexpert speculation that a warship on fire for over 6 hours will eventually have a magazine or boiler explosion.
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  260. One of the reasons she still capable of getting underway is she's spent most of her life in freshwater on the Lake. The typical corrosion problems of saltwater have been avoided so the hull is in excellent shape.
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  261. While the crews of British submarines suffered greatly from heat of the Indian and Pacific oceans, the biggest issue was the buildup of humidity and consequent buildup of condensation on the hull interior. This caused drips and streams of water to run down the surface of every space while the boats were submerged. This had a disastrous effect on the electrical and electronic equipment onboard in the days of everything being tube (valve) operated, especially in the later stage of the was as things like radar, radios, jammers, and sonars. The moisture even got into periscopes, making them almost useless until they could be dried out with time on the surface. The Amphion class finally solved the problem with effective air conditioning, but only two were completed in time for Pacific service. The time and expense put into the design of the boats served the RN well postwar, with the Amphions being the equivalent of the USN Gato class in long service, some being modernized rather like the GUPPY program, and the last not being decommissioned until 1974. The importance of air conditioning in tropical waters was well demonstrated by the experience of the HMS Turbulent in the Indian Ocean in 2011. The boat was running on the surface in 120 degree air temperatures when the air conditioning failed due to the intakes being clogged with large numbers of crabs and barnacles. Repair crews were unable to clear the intakes because the hull was too hot to touch. The only fresh air ventilation possible was the two hull hatches since nuclear subs are almost completely sealed vessels. The crew was progressively getting sicker due to heat exhaustion when the captain decided the only answer was to dive into cooler waters at 200 feet until the hull and interior cooled to manageable levels, allowing the intakes to be cleared.
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  262. Well, rats! The time changed to daylight savings here so it's 5:00 instead of 4:00. But, what the heck, it's all psychological anyway.
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  263.  @bkjeong4302  I see you didn't take the time to read the report. All battleships were built to take on other battleships if need be. The high speeds of the Iowas were planned, even in 1939, with the idea the fleet carriers would need protection from surface and aircraft threats. It wasn't an either/or proposition. At any rate, I'm not going to waste my time. Read the report and then tell me where and why, in your expert opinion, the Navy was wrong in their conclusions.
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  264.  @propellhatt  The USN would appreciate not having the Zumwalt mentioned, thank you.
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  265. I think you need to read the history of each raider and the tonnage sunk by them before 1943. British merchant cruisers were uniformly sunk by German raiders when they encountered them. They were a true waste of money. Prior to 1943, the German raiders sank 141 vessels for a total of just under a million tons. They sank more tonnage for dollar spent to outfit them than any German asset. They were certainly a better value than building more Graf Spee class ships considering all other German surface vessels only sank 60 ships for a total of less the 400,000 tons. The raiders were sunk by allied warships and submarines, although one also sank an Australian cruiser in a mutually destructive battle. Another, the Stier, was sunk in an improbable battle with the Liberty ship SS Stephen Hopkins during another mutually destructive battle. The advent of the escort carrier played no part in the loss German raiders. It was the advent of more strongly escorted convoys, including the carriers, that put an end to the usefulness of the merchant raider but, while there were lone ships sailing unescorted, the German raiders were the terror of the seas.
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  266.  @andrewszigeti2174  Corporations are only loyal to their shareholders. They produce products in whatever locations maximize their profits, some of which they return to shareholders. Do you think the tens of thousands to millions of shareholders of large manufacturing companies would be happy with the idea that won't get the dividend check this quarter because they had to produce at loss to remain loyal to a country? A nation needs to have conditions that allow companies to function without being overwhelmed by costs not directly associated with their product. The US is finally getting that idea now, and some manufacturing is returning. Tariffs that punish countries like China for dumping product below coat to expand their market share are long overdue. American manufacturing can compete with any country as long a we have a level playing field.
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  267. @Jurassic Aviator In the event of war, China's lack of carriers will be a tremendous handicap. Even as they build more carriers, it will take decades to reach the USN's level of proficiency when it comes to carrier and flight operations. The PLAN is building a second carrier now and has a goal of commissioning six carriers by 2030. They apparently don't have better things to spend their money on.
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  268.  @paulmanson253  Wikipedia is your friend - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_H._Watson#Post-Honda_Point_career_and_retirement
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  269. Typhoon Cobra was actually quite accurately located and forecast about ten hours before it got to the Third Fleet. The problem with the reports of the storm were twofold. The first was the reports came from the Army Air Force forecasting center in Saipan. There was the usual interservice rivalry that tended to downgrade AAF forecasts compared to that from USN forecasters. The USN didn't have a forecast center like the AAF. Observation were reported ship to ship, and aerographer's mates were expected to create their own weather map. That meant that each ship or squadron depended on the reports and forecasts of other ships without ever getting an overview of all the reports. The second problem was AAF reports and warnings were issued using different codes and radio frequencies than USN weather reports. That meant USN radio operators had to monitor these "foreign" frequencies and then had to accurately transcribe details like the long/lat of the storm, That of course didn't happen, so there were multiple reports of the location of the storm, and no one knew which one was accurate. All of this was bad enough, but the size and speed of Cobra made things even worse. Cobra was only about 65 miles across compared to the usual several hundred for a Pacific typhoon. It was also moving at 25 to 30 mph compared to a more typical 10-15 mph, and had peak winds of 170-180 mph compared to the usual 100-110 mph. This meant that the usual "seaman's weather eye" only recognized that a typhoon was bearing down on them about four hours before the storm hit. Halsey's orders about what ships were to do were also inconsistent. He'd issue one order that ships should scatter and then another one ordering the destroyers to stay close to the oilers so they could refuel as soon as the weather calmed down. Halsey was totally out of the loop when it came to Cobra. The first US ship to sink was USS Spruance at 1110. Halsey had no idea any ships had been sunk until about 0215 the next morning. To be fair, no one knew how violent and fast moving Cobra was, and Halsey assumed that ti was just a garden variety typhoon. So many ships had their radio equipment or antennas destroyed that it was many hours before surviving ships with equipment that still worked could string emergency antennas and report the situation. The upside from all this carnage was the Navy finally recognizing how poor their forecasting system was for Pacific typhoons. This led to the establishment of what today is the USN's Joint Typhoon Warning Center, generally recognized as the premier tropical storm warning center today.
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  270.  @Drachinifel  It took the USN about 10 years to finally split this action off from the Battle of Leyte Gulf and then another five years to finally call it Battle Off Samar. Even now I still see articles calling it Battle of Samar. One of the more confusingly named battles for sure.
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  271.  @CSSVirginia  Yes, it was the biggest single factor in their naval thinking. The writings of Alfred Mahan and the outcome of the Battle of Tsushima were the two stepping stones to developing the Kantai Kessen Doctrine (literally, "naval fleet decisive battle") that helped to seal the fate of Japan before the first bomb was dropped at Pearl Harbor.
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  272. Thanks for the video. I've always thought the G class was a particularly sleek and uncluttered design. Q & A: What determined building a stepped versus continuous line hull as used for destroyers? I've noticed that the USN went to unstepped destroyer hulls with the Fletchers while the RN kept the stepped design for much longer. IIRC, the first British destroyers with an unstepped hull were the Type 42's, ignoring the County class and Bristol, which were really light cruisers masquerading as destroyers. I'm sure the was a naval engineering and architecture reason for this, but I don't have the expertise to know what they were.
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  273. There are many times as I prepare to retire for the night that this prayer comes to mind. Between my apparent angering the same God is English, there were times when He was prepared to let me know my transgressions in no uncertain terms.
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  274. @rpr6.5 creedmoor Yes, but the idea then was to have enough radar equipped ships that at least one would be able to cover any blind spots. The complete loss of power on South Dakota showed the weakness of that plan, and all capital ships would have at least two sets of radars and antennas after that.
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  275.  tamenga88  It was only the propellant charges that were hand carried from the lift. The projectiles were loaded and rammed automatically. The problem with the Worcester's guns was the dual lifts for AP AA rounds. The plan was the turret crew could quickly switch from on type to another as the situation demanded. The design of the loading machinery placed the two so close together that a call for one type of projectile could sometimes cause the other to roll into the loading tray, thereby causing a jam and stoppage. These jams weren't easy to clear since the automatic rammer would jam on both projectiles, and the turret had to be shut down until the jam was cleared. Only having one loading machine with projectiles solved that issue as a workaround, but Worcester off Korea faced an air threat while doing shore bombardment. Then both type of projectiles had to be kept loaded in the trays so the jamming problem came back. Any other light cruiser, British or American, would have performed better than Worcester fore shore bombardment because they didn't have DP guns. Worcester's guns were accurate, but the jamming with two loaders in use dropped her actual ROF to about half of cruisers like Belfast. Even with the great size of Worcester (larger than a Baltimore class heavy cruiser), there still wasn't room to accommodate automatic loaders without interference. The British ran into the same problem with their Mark N5 gun on the Blake and Tiger, even though the largest turret with widest gun separation possible was installed. It seems the six inch gun was one size too much for a reliable automatic DP mounting. These problems could have been worked out, as seen with the excellent 8"/55 automatic guns on the Des Moines class, but they were too expensive and required too much manpower for a role that was seen as obsolete.
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  276.  @paulmanson253  I've got about 90 hours of tapes where I interviewed my father and the five surviving members of his crew at the last PT boat convention we went to in the year before my dad passed away in 2005. Not one of them ever thought of anything they did as heroic. They just had a job to do. It might have been a rotten job, an uncomfortable job, or even a dangerous job, but the main things was to do whatever it took to defeat the Japanese and go home. They were a bunch of civilians trained to be fighters. They didn't want the job, but they did it to the best of their ability.
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  277.  @its1110  Indeed, although the Poles had a secondary driver for trying to decrypt the Enigma output. They were hoping to come up with their own version of Enigma that the Germans couldn't read, and starting with the existing version of Enigma gave them a start.
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  278. This would be a very interesting topic, at least to me. The switch was easy for the US since we had what seemed like an unending oil supply after the various oil strikes in places like Oklahoma, Texas, and California by 1900. The RN, having very little in the way of domestic oil, stuck with coal firing, albeit with some ships using oil spraying systems, until mostly after WWI. The RN saw a graphic demonstration of the advantages of oil when 34 destroyers, being sent to join the Grand Fleet in 1917, were refueled at sea on the trip from the US using just four oilers. I don't know much about how the switchover went for other navies but I'd like to find out.
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  279. Yes, she and another ex-USN boat, SS-791 Hai Shih , ex-USS Cutlass . The Taiwanese (Republic of China) Navy had announced in 2017 yet another service life extension program for the Hai Shih that was expected to be completed by the end of 2020 that will extend her service life to at least 2026. at which point she will be 80 years old, by far the oldest submarine in commission, and possibly the oldest combat vessel still in commission. Plans for the same kind of SLEP for the Hai Pao haven't been announced, but Taiwan generally doesn't announce such things until the program is underway. There's no reason to think that won't happen since each veteran represents one quarter of the ROC's submarine strength. President Trump authorized the licenses needed for US companies to sell the technology needed for the ROC to begin construction on a new submarine fleet, and indications are that construction is underway as of 2019. The sfirest of the six boats probably won't be commissioned until 2026 so the two veteran boats will probably be refitted with modern electronics and combat systems while using US Mk 48 torpedoes.
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  280.  @gloworms3592  I'm hoping that they or some other crew of deep sea mappers will find the wreck. The loss of the Surcouf has been the subject of so many really bizarre conspiracy theories, perhaps second only the the sinking of the Sydney. The location of the wrecks of the Sydney and Kormoran have finally put many of the crazy theories about the loss of both ships to rest. Maybe the location and exploration of the Surcouf can do the same.
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  281.  @minarchist1776  The inflatable vest I always wore while on deck and underway did indeed have a water sensor that would inflate the vest after a couple seconds of immersion. I was on a sailboat, so I wouldn't have to jump from more than about 2 meters, but being unconscious in the water will cause rapid drowning. With an inflated vest that has neck support, you still have a chance of survival even if unconscious.
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  282. McMorris was probably the best US ship captains at having almost a sixth sense for following shell splashes. However, it was only the fact that Salt Lake ran out of AP shells and had to start firing high capacity rounds in desperation that saved the task force. HC rounds are used for shore bombardment, generally are set for a low altitude air burst. and go off with a tremendous explosion. An HC shell effectively mimics a 2,000 pound air bomb. Admiral Hosogaya always seemed to have an unreasonable fear of air attack, and the constant explosions of the HC shells convinced him his fleet had been located and was being bombed by the then dreaded B-17 bomber. He broke off contact and retired from a battle he had effectively won. Hosogaya, lucky to escape execution for cowardice once the facts become known, was retired to administrative duties, ending the war as governor of the Japanese South Pacific Mandates.
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  283. Rats!. I knew that a notification would show up at 0430 CDT, just as I was finally going to be about to get to sleep. Oh, well, time for a cup of very strong coffee.
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  284. I don't see a Q&A post, but I'd like to put in a request for the Treasury class Coast Guard cutters, among the longest serving of all interwar ships.
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  285.  @neniAAinen  The infrastructure problem in the French navy was constant design revisions that put them far behind the curve even before new ships were launched. There was nothing more restrictive about Normandie than there was about USS Nevada . Both were designed and laid down at about the same time. BOth were almost identical in dimensions and tonnage. Normandie was the last battleship to have submerged torpedo tubes, and would have been the only battleships that had the odd combination of turbines and triple expansion power plants. In service, it's doubtful this maintenance nightmare of a power plant would have given Normandie more range than _Nevada_, and her top speed was theoretically identical. They had 13.4" guns at the time other navies had already switched to 14". They went back and forth constantly between twin, quads, and twin over quad turrets at the same time Nevada had only two less guns but in five turrets, twin over triples. They didn't have to worry about blowing off half the superstructure if they actually fired a full broadside, a distinct possibility when firing on any targets slightly abeam of broadside. There's no reason the French couldn't have also produced 14" guns if they made the decision while she was still in design stage. Her armor scheme was a generation behind when she would have been commissioned, in particular her deck armor. On top of that, she was launched at almost the same time as Nevada but would have taken about two years longer to complete, assuming the schedule was actually adhered to, something not common with French warships. There was nothing incredible about Normandie compared to Nevada . She wasn't any faster, had poorer armor, and poorly distributed main armament. She was defeated by the French navy taking way too long to come up with a final design (and stick to it once they did) and sluggish construction. This only got worse in the interwar period.
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  286. The amount of water that can come over a ship's surface is quite amazing. SS Edmund Fitzgerald Was easily the largest Lakes ore boat when launched in 1959 at 728 feet. Her freeboard to the deck level was 35 feet while the bridge added yet another 18 feet. During the 1975 storm that sank her, the water not only topped the deck, it even topped the bridge during ~ 80 mph winds..
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  287. I must make a mild objection to the characterization of the 5"/25 gun as "single purpose AA". In fact, the 5"/25 was used many times as a surface to surface weapon during those fleet probllems, often with impressive results in terms of accuracy. While the short barrel compared to the 5"/51 gun did result in a lower muzzle velocity, many gunnery officers thought of the 5"/25 as a DP weapon, and they were used as such by the older light and heavy cruisers as well as the BB's during WWII. They were the "heavy" gun on all the later US subs, and this AA gun sunk tens of thousands of tons of Japanese shipping on the surface. They were even used for shore bombardment of Japanese island bases, and at least a couple of them got their licks in doing shore bombardment on the Home Islands. I won't argue that the 5"/25 was desisgned as a DP gun, but WWII showed that it was still quite useful in that role.
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  288. IvS did play an important role in helping Germany keep up with more modern submarine developments by using this Dutch front corporation. Beyond that, it didn't play any real role in surface ship design. The Project 1047 design did use some of IvS's work. but most of it came from scouring such sources as Jane's Fighting Ships. Given the problems with Dutch light cruiser size ships building 15-20 years late and the difficulties keeping much smaller ships like the Sumatra running, it was probably good thing that the start of the war cut off any more spending on a plan that had very little chance of success. The one area that the 1047 was a real leader in was the use of dual purpose armament and a much more effective light antiaircraft battery. If the ship was built in a timely manner, it would have taken the Japanese longer to sink her, but her sinking would have happned anyway. A lot of money and manpower at the bottom of the sea from a country which couldn't afford the loss of either.
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  289.  @tomriley5790  There are several Nimitz class carriers that are now over 4 years old, with the name ship approaching 50. As long as ships are regularly overhauled and modernized, the are kind of like B-52's that are now over 60 years old, and some will still be serving at 75. There's not much left on them from 1958, but there's no reason you can't keep, older equipment in good shape with regular maintenance and equipment upgrades. The cost of new weapons systems with anywhere near the capabilities of an upgraded system at a fraction of the cost means we'll see lots of older vessels still in service in the future.
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  290. Once all of us in the South get a more detailed itinerary, it's possible we could set up a shuttle from, say, Atlanta to Charleston and then Charleston over to Mobile. I'm about halfway between Charleston and Mobile, so I can handle the Mobile leg if someone can handle the Charleston leg. At least you won't be a prisoner to airline schedules if we can make that happen.
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  291.  @michaelt4706  LOL. Put-In-Bay has a year round population of about 135. The full time police department consists of two officers, the chief and a lieutenant, along with one part timer. Come Memorial Day and the island has a population of 5,000 on some weekends. The department has to hire 15-20 seasonals to deal with all the drunken revelers. At one time, none of the seasonals had any training, and their main job was to give guys that got too out of hand a good thrashing and make sure they were on the next ferry out. The seasonals are all certified peace officers now and have to be nicer, since they have body cams, but I understand they sometimes get turned off while someone right over the top still gets a good thrashing. :)
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  292.  @bushyfromoz8834  You might be thinking of the Neptune. She got herself into an Italian minefield and hit two mines. One caused no material damage, but another struck the bow and almost took it off. She was reversing out of the minefield but struck a third one that blew off her props. While drifting, she struck a fourth mine and capsized almost immediately, taking all but one sailor with her. I don't know of any other Leander class vessel that reversed her way to port though. The HMNZS Leander was hit by a torpedo in July, 1943, just abaft of A boiler room rather than at the bow, but the damage was severe enough that repairs took over two years and were only completed in September, 1945. All three Australian Leanders suffered bow damage due to torpedo hits in the vicinity of the A turret. It does seem as if the ASDIC compartment and aviation fuel tanks created a weakness in that section of the ship. Sydney and Perth were both lost to torpedo attacks. Perth, however, was hit by four torpedoes, so it's hard to attribute the bow hit alone as being fatal. Hobart was hit by a torpedo in the same area of the bow, but it was just far enough aft that the bow wasn't severed. Only by heroic damage control work was the Hobart able to limp into Espirito Santo for temporary repairs, but she did so bow first. I think it's fair to say that any Leander hit by a torpedo near the A turret was in big trouble. [Edited for my numerous typos]
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  293.  @DornishVintage  It wasn't for lack of trying the Hedgehogs lasted so long. The Navy spent a lot of money trying to come up a lighter mount and better warheads. The first attempt was the Mousetrap that turned out be less reliable than Hedgehog, and the Weapon Alpha. It met the requirement for a larger warhead of 250 pounds compared to the Hedgehog's 35 pounds. It was rushed into service just after the end of the war and never had proper operational testing. It was unreliable, only fired 12 rounds a minute, and had a ready service magazine of just 22 rockets. After they were expended, it took about a half hour to reload the magazine using a crane, and Weapon Alpha couldn't be fired while the operation was in progress. Hedgehog fired 24 rockets in a single salvo, and empty cells could be reloaded in a couple minutes in between firings. Weapon Alpha hung around with Hedgehog until the 60's until both were replaced by the much larger but more effective ASROC, a rocket launched torpedo.
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  294. Oh geez. It's 0405...Okay, gotta hear this one. Who needs sleep?
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  295. How about the Russian icebreaker Arktika? 173.3 m (569 ft) long and a gargantuan 33,540 tonnes. Nuclear power so no worries about fuel, 22 knots top speed, and thrusters all over the place for quick turns. It could even chase ships into water as shallow as six meters after deballasting. She'd probably happily sail around all day crushing any wood hull that got in her way at the cost of some scratches to the paintwork.
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  296. I hope your cold lets go soon. I have been plagued with allergies all my life so I can sympathize with being stuffed up.
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  297. It was the innovation of the combat information center right down to destroyer class ships that made more difference than just the ability of any individual radar in the USN. The ability to combine radar inputs to gunnery fire control systems and fighter control systems into single outputs took away a lot of the confusion of using just radar. The USN was forced into something like a CIC due to the proliferation of different radars (surface search, air search, ranging, height finders, aircraft direction, and fire control) inputs overwhelming the commanders to the point decision making was being made worse.
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  298.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Yes, it was really a more difficult time than we realize at this late date. We went from 350 mph fighters to 600 mph almost overnight, and over 700 mph by 1950. The really good German data and German engineers were seized by the Soviets when they occupied east Germany. The expertise in swept wings and the area ruled fuselage combined with the communist traitors in Britain literally selling the Soviets the Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene, the premier jet engine of 1947, allowed the MiG-15 to be produced in time for the Korean War. In what can only be described as horrific. the MiG-15, using a reverse engineered Nene, was killing British pilots and troops in Korea when the British and Americans had no answer for the MiG for almost two years.
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  299.  @WALTERBROADDUS  There was certainly no doubt that Captain Kennedy knew it would be a fight to the death. Kennedy had been involuntarily retired since 1921 but had voluntarily returned to service in 1939 at the outbreak of the war. I think he knew the Rawalpindi would be his last command and, in those dark days of November, 1939, he was determined to fight his ship until he couldn't fight any longer. I've alway been a little miffed that Kenedy, who made of the more heroic last stands of any RN officer, never got more than a "mentioned in despatches". As I understand it, he managed to crank off a lot of Labor ministers during his retirement political work as a Conservative party agent. That may be why he was never considered for any higher honor.
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  300.  @agentepolaris4914  See my rather lengthy reply to @AtomicBabel several posts up. Not only was the 25mm gun slow firing and prone to jamming, there was no medium AA at all, and the heavy AA was gnerally even slower, had poor muzzle velocity, and a low ceiling for AA use,. The only heavy AA weapon that can be ranked with some of the best allied guns was the Type 98 10cm. The gun was proved and put into service too late to make any difference, and less than 200 were ever made, half of which were installed in land fortifications.. .
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  301. Nice! Three thematically related video of three planned battleships from three different nations. I like this concept!
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  302. LOL. I'm afraid my cat is starting to do the same...
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  303.  freebeerfordworkers  Regardless of her use, she was never formally decommissioned from the navy. Even a hulk like Warrior in later years, when she was just a misc yard craft, still counts as being in commision. It's not like ships that are decommissioned into reserve. She was still part of the active fleet.
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  304. For those who may not have seen it, there's an interesting postwar summary about the 40mm Bofors from the Bureau of Ordnance at https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Admin-Hist/075-Ordnance/075-Ord6R.html. While the 2 pdr was the finalist in the USN medium AA gun along with the Bofors gun, it was the continued British use of cordite powder that caused the Bofors to be the winner. Muzzle velocity was indeed important, but the fact the 2 pdr was already using inch measurement compared to the known problems of adapting metric to inch for the Bofors was an important variable that probably would have led to the 2 pdr's adoption if not for the cordite issue. Since it was a powder no longer in use in the USN, it would have required an entirely new manufacturing and supply line for the round, or a total dependence on Britain for supply. Neither one was considered desirable and, after September, 1940, it was considered that British supply might not even be possible. All the other issues could have been worked out, but cordite powder did the pom pom in for the USN.
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  305.  @bkjeong4302  I just showed you that two light cruisers are barely, if all, equal in antiaircraft firepower to one Iowa with just plain statistics, yet now you seem to have ignored that to go back to your narrative. What does the South Dakota's record at Santa Cruz in October, 1942, when she was still armed with primitive communications and fire control compared to 1945 ships, 1.1" guns, and before VT fuses, have to do with the performance of an Iowa in the antiaircraft role? South Dakota was still an effective escort for Enterprise, shot down at least seven attacking aircraft, and protected the Enterprise from the fate of the Hornet. An Iowa would have required less stores than two Clevelands per man and gun simply because of economies of scale. Rations alone would have required less because there's less wastage on one ship that two. It's one of the reasons cruise ships have become so gigantic. The Iowas were always built as fast carrier escorts, hence their high speeds. The assumption was their main role would be antiaircraft protection and shore bombardment with antisurface being secondary by late 1943. The 40mm gun was a very effective gun, shooting down about 35% of total planes downed in the Pacific. The 20mm gun was even more effective, shooting down about 39% of all planes and 42 of all suicide planes downed when the planes were in range. Rather than continuing to debate with a person who has his own notions about what happened, I'll quote something from a postwar Navy report about the effectiveness of antiaircraft guns and fire from a report you've clearly never read. "Thus, in suicide actions, battleships appear to have shot down twice as many planes as would have been expected on the basis of their opening ranges, the amount of ammunition they fired, and the average success attained by all ships under similar conditions." http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Kamikaze/AAA-Summary-1045/index.html#V Read the report and others like it before you come back again.
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  306. For once I was actually in bed when this video came out. It's kind of weird watching this after I have awakened instead of trying to stay awake. The most effective nuclear naval ordnance would have undoubtedly been the nuclear depth charge. A lot of USN nuclear depth charge testing is still classified, but what's available shows a single Mark 90 nuclear depth bomb could have destroyed any submarine within a 5-7 NM radius of the ship or aircraft that dropped the bomb, and the damage radius was about 10-12 NM. There's a good film about Operation Wigwam, which included a test of a Mark 90, at https://archive.org/details/gov.doe.0800018.
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  307.  @brockpaine  Indeed. almost all navies have a couple "must haves" when it comes to ships in commision. The British Kings and Queens, US Enterprise and Constellation, Brazilian Riachuelo, and Italian Garibaldi are just a few that come to mind. Navies in general are nothing if not for tradition.
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  308. That "Specialist Athlete" referred to the Specialist A,  Athletic Instructor. This was petty officer rank that only lasted from 1942-1944, replaced by the Physical Training Instructor specialist position. In addition to these specialists keeping the crew fit and healthy. the various professional coaches for the ship's teams, like baseball and boxing, fell into this position.
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  309. As I understand it, the plane was recovered about five days after it sank and was then torn down as part of the investigation into how it was constructed.
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  310. Victor, you're welcome. I've always like the peripheral events that swirled around the main and better known battles. In this case, I think this is the only German aircraft to effectively change hands to the Norwegians and then from the Norwegians to the British. It's also a good indicator that the Norwegian armed forces were not rolling over and playing dead, as some of their larger and better equipped counterparts in Europe did. When they had the equipment and, most importantly, any kind of air cover, the fought bravely and effectively. As an example, the Dutch only lasted four days with an armed forces of 280,000 men while the Norwegians lasted a little over a month with forces of about 60,000 troops. The Norwegians were also the only Allied force other than the British to sink a major German surface ship.
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  311. How would one judge history except in hindsight? What exactly do you object to about Drach's conclusions? A comment like yours is so free of any details it borders on trolling.
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  312. They are anti-torpedo nets. Made of material resembling very heavy chain link fence, they were deployed when a battle developed or when there was a submarine risk. There's a good article about them along with some pictures of the nets deployed at http://www.gwpda.org/naval/nets.htm.
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  313. You've got the FRAM upgrades a bit wrong. The FRAM I upgrade was the most comprehensive and involved stripping most of the superstructure down to the main deck level, completely rebuilding the engines, adding all the modern radars and sonars, mostly removing the "B" forward 5" mount, although some kept two mounts forward and none aft, and then rebuilding the superstructure with a new and roomier bridge, an ASROC deck and launcher, and the DASH hanger and landing deck. Automation helped reduce crew size, habitability was improved, and they were given full air conditioning and NBC protection. This upgrade was performed exclusively to Gearing class ships. The FRAM II was a more austere upgrade, with the original superstructure forward of the stacks kept, engines rebuilt but only to the extent need to extend service life by seven years, no ASROC, although deck space was reserved for a later installation, and some ships having te B mount replaced by a pair of trainable Hedgehogs. Not all ships received full NBC protection. Some kept all three 5" mounts while some had one fore and aft like the FRAM I ships. Almost all the FRAM II ships were Sumner class, but sixteen were Gearing class deemed to have less service life available than other Gearings. Four Fletcher class ships were involved with FRAM II upgrades, but only three were part of the official program. One, USS Hazelwood, had the DASH landing deck and hanger added in 1957, and she served as a trials ship for the DASH program. She never received any other FRAM upgrades but had the largest DASH landing deck of all the FRAM type destroyers. She was decommissioned in 1965. The bottom line is every FRAM ship got a DASH deck and hanger. Other than that, there was wide variability in retained guns, superstructure, ASROC, torpedo tubes, and Hedgehogs.
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  314. Thanks for this video. I had only a superficial understanding of the voyage of the Russian fleets and knew it was terrible but your video really illustrated just how terrible it was. Just the fact the fleet made it all the way around the world under such appalling conditions mostly intact is pretty amazing. I really shouldn't be laughing at the inhumane conditions on the Russian fleet, but I just couldn't help it. :-) EDIT: The laughing part got more prolonged as the video proceeded. Given that I was eating a sausage biscuit for breakfast while watching this, the hilarity led to several choking incidents and near death moments, one caused by the thought of crocodiles and venomous serpents roaming the decks at will. From now on, please include a trigger warning about choking hazards when you do another one like this.
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  315. To be fair, one of the reason why almost all scouting and scout bomber aircraft were two place is so the observer could use a pretty good set of optics to give them more details than the Mark I Eyeball. As Drach pointed out, in less than ideal conditions, accuracy of identification deteriorated rapidly. The RN not only recognized this problem earlier than other major navies, they treated finding a solution as an emergency. Consequently, they used Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) systems on their ship and aircraft earlier than other countries. As usual, you can identify the pioneers by the arrows in their back. The original IFF system depended on a passive system using a vertical dipole, and the only receiver sensitive and wide banded enough was a superregenerative type. I won't get into all the technical detail since I'm sure most you don't really care about them, but the super regen receiver was extremely difficult to tune sitting at a desk on dry land. Doing so in a Swordfish, while being buffeted by rough air and rapid changes in altitude, required an observer that was both skilled and lucky. The passive dipole system was unreliable even if the receiver was working correctly. Yet another British invention allowed the radar signal itself to actively interrogate a receiver on a ship or another aircraft. The IFF was then transmitted as a coded part of the radar return. That meant no fiddling with receivers on an aircraft, and it was also more difficult for the enemy to compromise the system. By the second half of 1944, about 75% of RN ship and aircraft and nearly 100% of US ships and aircraft were equipped with IFF. The extremely time consuming teaching of ship and aircraft recognition from models, photos, and drawings became much less important. A pilot merely had to interrogate the IFF receiver on a ship. If it was one of ours, a spike on the radar screen would show a positive return. In later iterations, the return could even tell a pilot the name and type of a ship or the type of aircraft being interrogated. While this greatly reduced blue on blue attacks for a time, it didn't eliminate them. Imagine seeing an unidentified ship, interrogating on the correct IFF channel, and getting no return. Enemy ship, attack away...except what happens if the IFF on the ship was broken and not working? With pilots given less recognition training and early electronics subject to frequent failures, the number of mistaken attacks on friendly ships actually increased for a short period of time in late 1944. A crash program to make IFF more reliable and getting pilots trained in better visual recognition reduced the blue on blue attacks to much lower levels by early 1945 than those seen earlier in the war. IFF systems in use today, although much more sophisticated and reliable, are still based on the same principles as used in the late WWII systems.
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  316. Thanks, Drach. The Battle class were very pleasant looking ships, and I liked them at first sight when I first saw them as a kid. Of course, this was long before the internet, and ship pictures were only found after many a Saturday afternoon poring through every book with pictures I could find. I assumed that, much like the USN Allen M Sumner class, these had another twin turret aft, and all the pictures were of such poor quality they just didn't show the aft turret, hidden among the top hamper of all the Bofors guns. I must have been about 15 before I found a really good book about WWII British destroyers, something not easy to find in small town Ohio in what must have been 1959-1960. It was then I found out this class really didn't have any aft main battery turrets, but it had a single open 4" mount instead. Since the Sumner and Battle classes were of roughly equal size and displacement, it really didn't make much sense to limit the heavy DP guns to forward mountings only. To this day, I'm still somewhat baffled by that design decision on the part of the Admiralty. Maybe someone who knows more about British destroyers than I do can explain it for me. Admiral Cunningham hated these ships. He rather famously said, after his first voyage on HMS Solebay that the ship was too big and "had every damned weapon and gadget except guns". Cunningham was an old-time destroyerman and believed newer destroyers should match the "Greyhound of the Seas" design philosophy of older destroyers. Cunningham, as great an admiral that he was, just didn't have much appreciation for the need to accommodate all the new electronics and weapons of modern naval warfare. He wasn't wrong about the Hazemeyer mounts though. At six tons for a twin mount, and even heavier as more on-mount radars were added, they really were the first of what we now call a close in weapons system. The design and requirements were just too advanced for the times they were built. They were excellent mounts when they worked but, with the vacuum tube technology of the day, that wasn't very often. Combined with the mass of gears and valves needed to maintain the triaxial stabilization, it would have been a good mount if it was introduced in 1950 instead of 1940. Unfortunately, the RN decided the way forward was the STAAG mount, an even heavier and more unreliable mount, but that's a story for another day.
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  317.  @mongolike513  The story would make a good episode for him. Didn't he once say he had relative in the Coast Guard?
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  318.  @micnorton9487  That's unfortunate. The Coast Guard is one of the few uniformed services that has civilian law enforcement authority, and it enforces laws in any state or territory. They are kind of the federal police on the ocean but also ashore.
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  319. The Clemson class were not only very uncomfortable due to constant rolling in any kind of sea, but they were also unsafe for her crews. The very finely pointed stern made the depth charge racks hang perilously over the stern, and the four props that were completely exposed killed a number sailors lost overboard while engaged in depth charge operations. This was in spite of the massive prop guards clearly visible in any stern photo of a Clemson . The design was chosen in a bid for the highest speed on the least possible displacement because, as usual, our Congress refused to provide the funds for a larger design with higher output engines on about a thousand tons more displacement.
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  320. The USN was is a somewhat similar situation with the South Carolina class. When placed in service in 1910, it was the first dreadnought with all the 12" guns in super firing service on the centerline. If the building pace for the class wasn't quite so leisurely. the class would have been in the role now given to Dreadnought . Like Dreadnought , the South Carolina didn't see much action in WWI and had only a little over ten years useful service before falling victim to the Washington treaty.
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  321.  @willrogers3793  Thanks. This is one of those excursions into "What If" land that I enjoy doing and at least some people (like yourself) like to read, but it's kind of a narrow subject, and pretty wordy (sorry about that). Some people just don't have an interest in this kind of thing and others don't like wading through a lot of words. I understand both points of view, but I am glad you enjoyed it.
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  322. The 5.25" gun was easily the longest ranged AA gun of the war. Where they fell down was cramped turrets, too much shell handling, especially having to do fuze setting before loading, and generally cramped turrets. These shortcomings were all overcome with the guns and turrets used on HMS Vanguard , but she never fired he gins in anger, and really rarely fired her guns at all. A case of getting everything done right just when it was no longer needed.
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  323. Acronym for Spanish navy ship.
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  324.  @themadhammer3305  Yeah, I've seen those pictures. They are mostly on tankers at least one generation earlier than current ships, and they were huge because the crew had no other way to be able to monitor tanks and the hull for leakage without them. They caused a lot of problems for ship designers and sailors. The overhanging wings caused excessive vibration in the superstructure. I can only imagine how much fun it was standing a watch on the extremities of the wings in heavy weather. New tankers have color CCTV cameras that have taken over the monitoring and made those huge bridge wings a thing of the past. Even some of the older tankers are being updated with cameras and getting the wings removed.
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  325. It's always seemed odd to me that mast positions compared to stack locations was a constant problem from the start of the age of steam until (in some cases) right up to WWII. Naval architects and engineers knew how air moved across the decks and which way smoke would go. They also know that fire control and lookout positions too near a stack could not only make both positions less effective, the great clouds of smoke under a full head of steam could actually asphyxiate crew members in those position. Regardless, ships kept coming out that would be partly crippled in battle due to the issue. It's like using square wheels on cars long after it was apparent that square wheels didn't work. :-)
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  326. OLDCONTEMPTABLE  As with so many things in Japan, the navy got a lot of their ship design and training through Britain, and a lot of British doctrine was in use. One of those was main battery barrage firing. I'm just going from memory here but there was at least one time a US torpedo bomber attack was broken up by barrage firing from three battleship all firing together. They weren't aiming at the planes but aiming at the water in front of them. At least one plane was destroyed by the shell splashes and the others broke off the attack. I t as to have been frightening to fly directly into 14" and 16" shell splashes let alone form an 18'1" splash. The problem with barrage firing was it took practice to get good at it, and battleship size ammunition wasn't cheap.
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  327.  @Johnnycdrums  No, the Blues went from Panthers to Cougars to the F-11 Tiger. There were only two Cutlass aircraft with the Blues and they were only flow as demonstration aircraft before they were dismantled. The F-11 was a fairly large slightly supersonic aircraft with pleasant flight characteristics and ability to perform almost any aerobatic maneuver without tearing the wings off it. It was much too slow and the engine had too many teething problems to make it into long term squadron service, but all the characteristics I mentioned made it an ideal Blue Angels plane. The Blues flew the Tiger until 1969, long after it had been otherwise withdrawn from other naval service. uch of the technology from the Tiger was used in the hugely successful McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II, the Blue's next mount.
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  328.  @TEHSTONEDPUMPKIN  Good heavens. Judging a real battleship by if it appears in any Japanese anime/busty school girl games. I've never understood the kawaii thing among Westerners.
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  329.  @kemarisite  Indeed, and eventually the Seafire finally gave the RN a modern fighter capable of taking on the Zero and most later fighters. It took quite a while to build up Seafire strength, only finally being speeded up to equip the British Pacific fleet to intercept the expected hordes of kamikaze attackers during the invasion of the Home Islands. Even with its unreinforced narrow track undercarriage, it performed surprisingly well as a naval fighter, only being topped by the excellent Sea Fury, developed just too late for the war. The Corsair was an even better naval fighter, and the Avenger, a better torpedo attack plane than the venerable String Bag, which had very little chance of survival against the better Japanese fighters. Ironically, it was mostly the British demonstration of using the Corsair on even their smaller carriers that finally convinced the USN that the Corsair might also be the war winner that it eventually turned out to be.
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  330.  @jamestheotherone742  No, he's not correct. There weren't "many" men who refused orders from a drill sergeant, presumably during basic. Those that did ended up in the brig and in penal units, but they were a very small percentage of those drafted. The percentage of those that were malingerers was always small, varying from 1% to 5%, depending on types of units, type of service, and what war was being studied. Most of the real behavior problems were weeded out during basic and given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges, many after some time at Leavenworth. There's a good study about this subject at https://academic.oup.com/milmed/article/178/1/50/4210902. It makes a lot more sense to learn actual facts about this rather than repeat garbage from people who have an axe to grind and essentially make things up.
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  331. Back in the days where there really were a multiplicity of guns on USN ships. the Marines provided gun crews for at least two 5"/38 mounts and a couple of quad 40mm mounts. They not only provided the crews, they became the experts on repair and and maintenance on their mounts. They'd assist Navy ordinance men at those tasks when asked, and they provided a far bit of training for the FNGs that were assigned to gunnery roles. With far fewer guns on Navy ships now, Marines still man some of the free swinging light weapons like.50 caliber M2 machine gun and 25mm Bushmaster cannons. They are the landing force in being if a small target needs to be attacked and secured, and they provide ship security for nuclear weapons compartments and various top secret areas of the ship. Marines are responsible, along with the Navy Master At Arms, for the overall protection and security of the ship while in port and at sea, with Marine NCOs often acting as the Officer of the Deck. They were generally in charge of the brig, and moving prisoners between the Captain's Mast and place like sick bay. What Marines really practice for is an attack of the ship while it is in port. If the SHTF and the ships is under fire from attackers attempting to seize the vessel, the Marines are the ones that turn out with weapons locked and loaded, ready to fight off the threat or die trying. In between such feats of derring do, Marines also swab the decks and do KP, so it's not all fun and games.
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  332. Once the US Mark 14 torpedo's problems were worked out, it became as reliable and effective as any other unguided torpedo. They continued in USN service until 1980, in part because there were 13,000 in inventory at the end of the war, and in part because they had become a well understood weapon that generally went where it was aimed and sunk almost any ship it hit. The RN's Mk VIII torpedo had a similar but even longer service life, first being used in 1937 and finally being declared obsolete in 1985. Enough time has passed that guided torpedoes have become the norm in most navies, but smaller navies used the British and US WWII torpedoes well into the 1990's. The latest I know of for the Mark 14 was on the last Gearing class destroyers of the Mexican Navy. They carried Mark 14's until their retirement in 2003 and 2009. I believe the last use of the RN Mk VIII was with India on their
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  333.  @colinwhaley244  Right, but that's not the sole purpose of the bridge. Visibility for side maneuvering by the captain or XO is important, and someone needs enough aide and forward visibility to pass orders to the helmsman. Keeping track of aircraft executing a bow on attack, or a surface ship crossing your "T" is also kind of important. There were many reason why good visibility from the bridge was important other than just steering the ship.
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  334. Dang! Just about to hit the power switch and head off for bed at 0316 CDT and a notification for the Drydock pops up. So much for the sleep plan!
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  335. Thanks for answering my casemate question. An additional issue with casemates was the risk of flooding as ship speeds increased. Many navies had to move casemates up to main deck or even superstructure level to obviated flooding. I think it was the increasing use of heavy dual purpose batteries like the USN 5" and RN 5.25" guns that finally put an end to the casemate.
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  336. Illustrious started life as one of the most heavily armed British aircraft carriers, long before there was any American influence. Increases in AA armament up until early 1945 primarily consistent of replacing existing single mount 20mm guns with twins. Even for Pacific service, only one of the six octuple pom poms was replaced with a twin Bofors mount. It wasn't until 1946, when the RN in general was rearming with Bofors guns, that more of the pom poms were removed, and it wasn't until 1948 that the last pom poms were removed and replaced with Bofors guns. This is one ship that wasn't a Second Amendment version of a British vessel.
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  337. Holy crap! Five hours today? Time to get out some extra coffee and a couple fresh chair cushions. Great combination of Christmas, Boxing Day, and New year's presents for all of us naval fans. Thanks, Drach!
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  338. How about a t-shirt with a drawing of the fully rebuilt Hood? I'd buy one of those, if only just to get other warship aware friends to ask "What's that?"
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  339.  @gunther_hermann  I don't think the disguises made much difference in this battle. It was unlikely anything as large as the Cap Trafalgar would have had any innocent reason to be lying in the small harbor of Trindade Island alongside two colliers. The Carmania had been sent to the archipelago specifically because the Admiralty suspected the Germans had set up a base there, and it was known the Brazilian Navy had no ships in the area. It was quite a furious battle between the two former liners, and one that went on for hours. Considering how outmatched Cap Trafalgar was, it's amazing that she nearly sunk Carmania, with only two 4.1" guns compared to the eight 4.7" guns of her British opponent. It was a battle at close quarters not seen in the age of steam before or after. It would make, as the British would say, a cracking good tale of two passenger liners fighting each other to the death, and a great episode for Drach to present.
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  340.  @fastmongrel  My comment had nothing to do with which class launched first, only that both type of ships had the same kind of utility to their respective navies.
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  341. I agree on the issue of battleships. Too big and too expensive. However, the problem with ships like Burke class when it comes to shore bombardment is the single 5" gun will have a limited barrel life if there's a small war (but bigger than the Falklands) that requires guns rather than missiles. Having some vessel with multiple turrets with multiple guns seems like it would make sense. Traditional 8" guns able to use rocket assisted rounds makes a near ideal shore bombardment gun with ranges out to 100 miles. I suspect the single gun main battery will be found to be a mistake at some time in the future.
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  342.  @AdamMGTF  You're quite welcome. First time I've seen this thread in a bit. As usual, there are always a few folks in these threads that have their own axe to grind. I just try to tell stories based on 50+ years of studying naval history. I like the small details and interesting stories of the periphery of the big battles we always hear about. I'm 73 so I have a few years on you, and Youtube is it when it comes to social media for me as well. I started watching Drach's videos way back when it was the robot voice and really was five minute histories. He has developed his channel into what o consider to be one of the best naval history channels on Youtube, or really anywhere. I don't know that I've watched all his videos but it's a large percentage of them, and his conversion of many of the early videos into his own narrations make them just that much better. Thankfully, you and he are much younger men than me, so I expect you to start doing that legwork and digging up some of these interesting small stories. I know Drach enjoys them because he kindly gave me a shoutout a few videos back saying so. You can be doing the same thing long after I've shuffled off this mortal coil.
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  343. Except for the commie sailors at the end, at least the Slava went down as a good fighting ship, unlike so many other Russian capital ships.
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  344.  @Hardcase_Kara  The death tolls from the Arizona and Oklahoma were massive compared to the Utah. The 1,177 men that died on the Arizona was nearly half the total death toll at Pearl Harbor with the 429 men killed in the Oklahoma coming in second. Then we have the iconic film of the Arizona's huge magazine explosion, something that has become emblematic of the entire attack. As much as I want all those that died during the attack to be remembered, ships like the Utah just didn't enter the public consciousness like the Arizona. I've heard the story about the supposed urn of a child of one of the sailors aboard the Utah at the time of the attack. All my attempts to verify this story have landed at dead ends. I'm not saying it couldn't be true, only that the story, along with several others about some aspect of the attack, appears to be apocryphal.
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  345. Thanks for this series. Now. my "what if" question - What if Germany had completed and put into service the Electroboat submarines a year before they actually did?
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  346. Thanks, Drach, and entertaining and informative story of one of the few campaigns where luck on both sides were the major operational factors. Churchill must have been ready to bite the head off a tenpenny nail over that one. I wonder if there was any chance of engaging Norway in some kind of secret alliance where they would at least share more information? I know Norway had always been a neutral nation, but my reading of a couple of Norwegian diplomat's biographies indicated they knew the peril they were in after the German invasion of Poland and didn't believe Germany or England would permit them to stay neutral. Maybe a couple of English diplomats with Norwegian connections could have convinced Norway to accept an RN shield against German attack, thereby leading to less RN sneaking around and into Norwegian waters and the attendant diplomatic flurry each time it happened. Norway wouldn't have to join Britain in war in September, 1939, just look the other way as the RN kept an eye on German operations.
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  347.  @comandercarnis  They did the reverse engineering in 1942. The problem wasn't that it was too late, it was they didn't have the machine tools to manufacture parts to the tolerances demanded by the gun. They made something like 25 guns a year in 1943 and 1944 as test guns, but they mostly stopped trying by 1945 because they couldn't get them to run reliably. If they had, Japanese vessels would have had Bofors guns by late 1943.
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  348.  @rogerhwerner6997  Yes, just like the "dynamite" gun, it has looked far better on paper than it has as an experimental weapon. There are laws of physics that are against the rail gun, and the chances of it ever becoming an operational weapon is becoming less and less likely. As you say, there are other less costly and less risky weapons that will probably go into service long before the rail gun.
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  349. I can only imagine the effect on German morale seeing these weird looking airplanes coming into cities and blowing up with no idea where the heck these things were coming from or what they were. Goring would have been in trouble with Hitler a lot sooner.
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  350. ​ Don White  Agreed, Don. I am constantly gratified at the well informed and articulate naval history buffs Drach consistently attracts. Well, except for one here, but there always has to be "that guy", it seems.
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  351.  @Johnnycdrums  The Colt Mark 12 20mm cannon was designed for aerial combat and did fine in aircraft other than the Crusader. No other jet could pull as a high a G force maneuvers a Crusader, and the cannon feed mechanism couldn't keep up. It would have done better with a M39 revolver cannon since the feed wasn't subject to high G failures like the Mk 12, and the heavier shell was less likely to get sideways in the feed tray. Nevertheless, the light, high velocity round, with its larger bursting charge, was devastating to opponents when it scored hits. With its 1,000 rpm firing rate, a five second burst generally enough to bring down an opposing fighter. Its main weapon was the Sidewinder and HARM missiles, with only four air to air kills with the cannon. The Phantom's main advantage was its fighter-bomber role. There was no other naval aircraft with the load carrying ability of an F-4. Its biggest problem, ironically, was the lack of a built-in cannon and lead computing gunsight. This was finally solved with the F-4E carrying the excellent Vulcan cannon.
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  352.  @bkjeong4302  I said she served in useful roles, the main role being a target ship. I never said anything about her being necessary, nor did I mention fake radio signals. Do you have difficulty understanding written English?
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  353. Yes. It was a hoax. None of the urban legend stuff ever happened.
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  354.  @Ron52G  LOL. The RN could have used that concept when it came to arming the Tribals. They believed the original quad pom pom and two quad .50 Vickers mounts would be enough. This was actually a fairly heavy close in armament for the late 30's. It was let down by the slow practical rate of fire of the Vickers guns of only 150 to 200 rpm compared to the significantly more powerful water cooled Browning M2 at 450-500 rpm. Both were found to be near useless against the faster aircraft of 1942 and rapidly replaced by 20mm Oerlikon guns.. The quad 2 pdrs turned out to be not very effective as well. The original mounting only fired low velocity shells and there was never any tracer ammunition produced for the low velocity guns. The quad mountings required one crewmember to constantly turn a crank to fire the guns, somewhat like a Gatling gun. The British called this "controlled fire" as the crank mechanism only allowed one barrel at a time to fire. The RN was concerned that allowing the guns to fire freely would lead to them all firing simultaneously, causing mutual interference in flight and an unacceptable amount of vibration on the mount. The crank firing was their answer to this perceived problem, but it caused a rate of fire of only about 95 rpm per barrel. A quad 40mm Bofors firing automatically had a practical rate of fire of about 120 rpm per barrel while firing a heavier round at higher velocities. Some of the issues with the 2 pdr pom pom were more or less solved by 1942, but it was obvious the Bofors was a superior weapon by then. The RN would have replaced the 2 pdrs with Bofors guns but the rate of production in Britain was too low, and the US didn't have excess production capability until early 1944.
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  355. The stories of Japanese submarine have been thoroughly discredited. Postwar examination of Japanese naval records showed no sub within 900 miles of the battle. The Australian Navy never found evidence of any gunfire that didn't come from the Komoran.
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  356. I think some ships do have either an unlucky name or events surrounding it, or were involved in an action where the ship had leadership problems that led to its sinking. The Indianapolis is one example. Given that it suffered the greatest loss of life on any single USN ship, one would expect that another cruiser would have taken her name in short order. Given the high level command bungling that was responsible for her sinking, the scapegoating and court martial of Captain McVay, and his subsequent suicide, it seems her name was best forgotten by Navy brass. It has only been the constant publicity and pressure on Indianapolis survivors and relatives that finally forced the Navy into commissioning another Indianapolis. The Navy then spat in the eye of these groups for a final time by bestowing the name of the Indianapolis on a Freedom class LCS, a relatively small and insignificant warship.
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  357.  @johngregory4801  Indeed, plus constant improvement in radars and fire control systems. One of the big advantages of a battleship compared to a light cruiser is the the length, space, and displacement to add new weapons and sensors without having stability problems. The battleship as a floating artillery platform saved tens of thousands of allied lives during the war, not to mention its role as a floating antiaircraft fortress as well. The Ibiblio site has hundreds of battle reports, after action details, and authoritative narratives of what happened during the war. I've read a bunch over the years and have a bunch more to go. It's a gold mine for anyone with an interest in naval history.
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  358. The USN at last was concerned about a cold war version of the Washington Conference. It was going ot be easier to get permission for modifications of current vessels rather than getting new build ships approved. There were also many, many vessels that were less than a decade old with mechanical and electronic systems that were going to be reasonably modern for an additional decade with some minor upgrades. Congress had some sharp questions about putting such ships straight into reserve while they Navy proposed building new ships. It was impossible to justify to Congress building a large new class of guided missile cruisers when when we weren't even sure what kinds of missiles we needed and if they'd even work. Conversions work on some Cleveland and Baltimore cruisers into combat capable "experimental" ships was a wise move at a number of levels.
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  359.  @philperry4699  The Poles made a lot of important contributions to the successful prosecution of the war. To show our thanks, Churchill and Roosevelt turned them over to the communists. It was a shameful period of our history..
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  360.  @Betrix5060  There were many economic alternatives to war that could have been used if not for the communists in both the State Department and British Foreign Office doing everything they could to make sure the Soviets didn't suffer any economic repercussions while flouting the terms of the Yalta Agreement. The full extent of the damage done to US and British interests by Soviets spies and homegrown communist agents has yet to be fully revealed. McCarthy may have been hyperbolic in his rhetoric, but his understanding of communist infiltration in Western governments wasn't far off.
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  361. BTW, the weirdly marked up Banshee in the picture at 51:15 is the result a naval pilot making his worst mistake - landing on the wrong carrier. In this case, it was a plane from Squadron 62 (VF-62) "Gladiators" from USS Coral Sea (CVB-43) after it had landed aboard Wasp (CV-18) in 1952. Deck crews of the "receiving" ship used chalk and water soluble paint to mark as many various humiliating words and phrases on the plane that would fit, forcing the errant pilot to fly back to his "home" carrier marked up so all could revel in his humiliation before his evidence of his mistake was removed. While this was all done in good humor, it was an effective lesson, since an extra plane aboard a loaded carrier in combat could be a real problem, especially a type of aircraft not normally part of the air group. This continued up until the days of low visibility paint and markings, as it was nearly impossible to remove the markings from that style of dull paint compared to the gloss blue of earlier fighters..
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  362.  @sooline3854  Yep, that was him.
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  363.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Nothing of which has anything to do with King's role in the Indianapolis debacle.
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  364.  @jamespfp  They also invented Kurier, a system of flash messaging the could send 600 WPM. NOt only was it fast, but the messages were sent on a deviation from center frequency of as much as .200 MHz. That made it difficult to detect the transmission with a standard AM receiver. A Navy study of German submarine communications after the war found out about Kurier, but they never knew it existed during war, so it was never DF'd. As the study noted, if Kurier had been in operation earlier in the war the Allies would have been in serious trouble when it came to knowing where U Boats were.and what they were up to.
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  365. THanks. Another interesting video. I believe I've watched most of your videos now and haven't seen an episode covering the Sumner/Gearing class yet. Given the size of their class and their lifespan it seems like a good one to cover.
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  366.  @kemarisite  The US did a great job of propagandizing not only the B-17, which actually was in service at the outbreak of the war, but also the B-19, the Global Bomber. It too existed, but only one of them, and it was on show all over the country in the fall of 1941. We made quite a show of the Norden Bombsight as well, mostly by making sure there were many photos of B-17's guarded by heavily armed troops, and showing bombardiers taking the bombsights off the plane in heavy locked bags while being armed with .45's. There were even special bombproof magazines to store the bombsight when it was off the plane. The Norden Company itself engaged in intense self promotion while attempting to keep the bombsight itself secret. The US certainly believed its own hype. On December 2, 1941, the acting chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics enthusiastically wrote to the secretary of the Navy, “The Norden bombsight is considered to be the principal single factor of superiority which the air forces of this country possess over those of potential enemy countries.” By 1944, enough had fallen into German and Japanese hands from shot down wrecks that it was finally shown to the American public while still blurring out certain features. Most level bombing of moving ships was conducted from 12,000 to 15,000 feet since few Japanese antiaircraft weapons had accurate effective ceilings above about 12,000 feet. When the bombsight was working right and with a well trained bombardier, the Norden was no slouch. Out of a dozen bombs dropped in practice, ten could be placed with 50 feet of the center of the aim point. This may not have been accurate enough to always put a bomb on the deck, but it was close enough to cause damaging and sometimes fatal near misses. The problem was the Norden was so complex that, in the days of vacuum electronics, it needed constant maintenance and adjustment. It was just as difficult to train comptent bombsight maintainers as it was bombardiers, both requiring eighteen weeks to learn the trade. As the war intensified, those training periods went from 18 to 14 to 12 and finally to 10 weeks. Consequently, bombers were flying with improperly maintained bombsights and poorly trained bombardiers. It was that situation that contributed the poor reputation of the Norden at the end of the war. After the war, with improvements to the Norden and time to properly train maintainers and bombardiers, the Norden was able to achieve that 50 foot CEP again. It was still our standard bombsight in the B-47 and b-52, not being retired until 1967, when radar bombsights that were more accurate and easier to use had been developed. The Norden was neither magic or junk, and the Japanese did indeed fear the combination of the B-17 and the Norden, right up until the aluminum storm of B-29's, each dropping nearly the weight of an empty B-17 worth of bombs, over the homeland.
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  367. I don't know that there will ever be a 100% answer to this question. With so few survivors from the Bismarck, the usual answers from the surviving crew are gone, so it comes down to the observations of the torpedomen and gunners of the Rodney. On the plus side, Rodney reported no other salvoes fired with and arrival time matching the explosion observed on the Bismarck. on the negative side of the question, King George V was firing on a trajectory that was bringing plunging fire into the Bismarck. Her rounds were not being registered quite correctly due to a plotting table problem, so the exact time of arrival oln the Bismarck may have been within a few seconds of a torpedo hit, and plunging fire would resemble a torpedo hit. Drach is the expert on the RN, not me, so he may have better references than I do. My inclination is to believe the reported torpedo hit due the ability of the Rodney's radar to accurately register shell hits, and the lack of any salvoes fired with the same arrival time as the torpedo.
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  368.  @fernandomarques5166  There was also another major fire that caused casualties in 2012.
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  369. You're lucky, Fluffy. I haven't even found enough to pay for the porthole glass. :-) Great name, BTW.
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  370.  @Drachinifel  I've done so much worse late at night. :-)
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  371.  @admiraltiberius1989  I'll put in a vote for Ching Lee. He's an underappreciated Admiral whose leadership and seamanship at Guadalcanal, threading his way through the burning wrecks of both navies while recognizing the near fatal risk to South Dakota, while taking on most of the Japanese fleet at Guadalcanal. He is my favorite because he was the only admiral in 1942 that really appreciated the tactical uses of radar. He took several radar courses with his enlisted men in 1940 and understood the SG radar as well as his specialists, down to being able to suggest what tubes to replace when the SG was acting up. HIs being able to look at a PPI and make a decision in seconds probably saved South Dakota when she was effectively blind. He remained a competitive rifleman right up to the start of the war, and his understanding of marksmanship helped him with naval gunfire as well. His death at age 57 in 1945 cut short what would have likely been a distinguish postward career.
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  372.  @gordonmac3616  Okay, I'll change it to the United Kingdom then. As far as I know, Scotland still isn't an independent country. And a spelling lesson for you. It's "Flow", not "Flo".
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  373. The main addition to the German navy would have been French destroyers and submarines, supplementing the most needed types of vessels in the German fleet.
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  374. The wholesale scraping of useful RN WWII ships hadn't even begun in 1956. You weren't betrayed by the US. You were betrayed by Anthony Eden and Louis Mountbatten. You were betrayed by vacillation about how to seize the canal that lasted for over three months, thus putting the invasion at the same time as the Soviet invasion of Hungary. You were betrayed with the appointment of Stockwell as task force commander. You were betrayed by an operation with insufficient amphibious craft to quickly seize the canal and carry forward Operation Musketeer before any other protests mattered. The US warned Britain and France that they didn't support military force in regaining control of the canal. Regardless, the British, French, and Israelis secretly planned to do just that. After not supporting the operation to begin with, and being put in the position of supporting an operation to reimpose British and French colonialism on one hand and oppose Soviet colonialism on the other, the US had no other choice to oppose both. The British didn't "stand" with the US in Korea. It was an operation of the United Nations, and they were required to assist in Korea. The combined numbers of troops from the much smaller Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand equaled the number of British troops that served in the conflict. The number of US troops committed was 326,000 compared to the British contribution of about 40,000. The only aircraft on the ground from the Commonwealth came from Australia and South Africa. The RAF didn't contribute any aircraft except for a single Sunderland unit. The RN was the only service that had a major British commitment of aircraft. Your understanding of history seems to be colored by your vitriolic hatred of the United States. Given the fact you could write unironically that the US only gave Britain a "little help" from 1939 to 1942 suggests your hatred of the US runs deeper than the just the Suez incident.
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  375. There are two basic reasons, Oil is more energy dense that coal, pound for pound.It has a higher BTU rating and can therefore drive turbines at a higher boiler pressure. Higher boiler pressure equals more speed. A second reason is the ship was lighter per BTU carried. It required about 20% more coal than oil to achieve the same boiler pressure. That meant the ship could be lighter, and that translated into higher speeds. A lesser but not insignificant factor was the decrease in the black gang. Firing a ship using coal was very labor intensive, and a coal fired ship required about 50 more men than an oil fired ship. Each man required space, water, food, and equipment to deal with the coal.The estimates I've read is an oil fired ship had about 100 tons less displacement than a coal fired ship just due to less crew and supplies. The decrease in fuel needed to haul around all these extra crewmen increased speed. I won't even get into all the logistical issues of coal firing compared to oil. The Navy published an excellent report on the switch from coal to oil, available at https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524799.pdf
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  376.  @Cragified  Awnings are still in use today with naval vessels. Even with a/c, the sun in places like the Persian Gulf will rapidly heat up the hull without the help of awnings. It's also common to see sail-like structures mounted in front of hatches leading to non air conditioned spaces like engine rooms. These act as air scoops to direct more ventilating air below and at least reduce the tropical heat.
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  377. Wait, what date is this again...?
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  378.  @stanleyrogouski  He was actually 45 in 1792, the year of his death. You might be thinking of his age when he was in Russian service. Jones had pretty much burned all his bridges in the US Navy and knew he had no chance for promotion there. His Russian service was strictly a business proposition, much as his service in the US Navy had been. Jones wanted tow things - to be in a fight and be in command of a fleet. I've read of Kościuszko's advice to Jones about foreign service. It's not clear why he turned down the French offer, but I suspect he didn't want to choose what might be the losing side in another civil war. I think Spain was also interested in Jones, but he had developed the reputation, using an American football metaphor, of being a top quarterback, but not being much of a team player and hard to work with. His chance of a top command in a stable navy was just about zero, even with his acknowledged talent. Sad end to what could have been a very successful career as admiral of the fleet somewhere.
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  379. I have written about the Laconia incident previously. While the results of the sinking of Laconia and the later attack by a USAAF B-24 was terrible, and I'm in no way defending the ultimate decision to attack made by the pilots, there were a number of "fog of war" issues surrounding the entire incident. Please take the time to read The Origins of the Laconia Order at https://preview.tinyurl.com/sybm439. It gives a much clearer picture of what was happening before, during, and after the attack than most accounts. Drach, I have a read a lot about the Laconia Incident, as I know you have. I have never read in anything authoritative that the U-156 was attacked by a B-25. As far I know, it was that one B-24 that was the only US aircraft to attack her. An A-20, one of four flying escort for a Stratoliner carrying a British admiral, reported the day previous to the sinking of the Laconia , being fired on by two surfaced U-boats. None of the five B-25's dispatched to look for the U-boats made contact, and they were at the extreme end of their range in any case, so could not loiter in the area to look. The B-24 that ultimately carried out the attack was dispatched to try to find those two U-boats because it had the range to conduct a useful search. The pilots had no idea Laconia had been sunk or that she was even in the area. If you have more information on this B-25 attack, I'd like to have a link.
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  380. Three guides in one day and it's not even my birthday! I've never found an answer to this one. Was there a weakness in the forward scantlings in this class? It seems like almost any torpedo hit from the bridge forward caused the bow to be blown off.
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  381.  @micnorton9487  Yes, places like Alaska, the Caribbean, and our Pacific islands depend on the Coast Guard as about the only emergency services. When it comes to orders about going out but not necessarily coming back, I think that apples ot all our uniformed services.
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  382. What a great video history! An interesting side story with USN destroyers were the experiments with mounting seaplanes. The first attempt was with the USS Charles Ausburn (DD-294) mounting a TS-1 floatplane in 1923. The fixed platform was inconveniently mounted directly in front of the bridge. This not only obstructed vision from the bridge but also greatly interfered from the field of fire from the forward 4" gun. Several successful flights were conducted, but the inadequate crane capacity, being needed to lower the plane and retrieve it, and the fragile nature of these early seaplanes, made the experiment generally a failure. The seaplane and platform were removed in early 1924 with the Ausburn being restored to the configuration of other Clemson class vessels. The next attempt was aboard the US Noa (DD-343), yet another Clemson class. I realize this is slightly outside the 1939 limit of the discussion, but the plans for the seaplane mount were started in 1938, and Noa was originally scheduled for recommissioning in 1939, so close enough. Frank Knox, then Secretary of the Navy, was a great believer in the idea of using destroyers as seaplane carriers to extend their range for fleet protection and commerce raiding. To test this concept again, the Noa was taken in hand when she was recommissioned in April, 1940. She had an XSOC-1 seaplane mounted this time on a rotating platform, displacing the aft bank of torpedoes. She also had a boom with a much greater lifting capacity, and the XSOC-1 was a much more robust aircraft than her predecessors. This time the experiment was more successful, with many flights, and the ability to retrieve the plane while underway, a difficult task for a relatively small Clemson class ship. Noa retained her seaplane until November, 1941, and the generally successful experience with Noa led to Knox mandating the construction of six Fletcher class destroyers with seaplane capability, this time with catapults (!). However, as Drach would say, that's a story for another day.
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  383.  @MattCellaneous  Excellent summary of the War of 1812 and the outcome.
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  384. I hope everyone is tolerating their time in prison as well as can be expected. I'm looking forward to a gradual opening up of at least the US economy over the next month. The high here in S Alabama reached 90 yesterday, so maybe the heat will at least make life difficult for the virus. The big issue in using the so-called "Persian Corridor" was expanding the marshalling yard capabilities and then constructing hundreds of miles of double tracks and increased length sidings to haul enough freight to come close to Arctic convoy tonnage, even with all the sinkings. When the British first took over operations of the Trans-Iranian Railway in 1941, the entire line had the capability of moving one 60 car freight train a day. Due to mostly the superhuman efforts of the Royal Engineers, the line was expanded to the point where it was handling up to 10 80 car freights a day. The most important problem once the line itself had sufficient capacity was where were the locomotives and freight cars (wagons) going to come from to move all the freight. Between the British and Americans, over 15,000 freight cars were built, 310 steam engines were constructed or diverted from British and American sources, and over 100 diesel-electric locomotives from the US were supplied for use on the difficult northern division. It was an engineering wonder, going over three mountain ranges, through 100 tunnels, with blasting heatmost of the year, and very little water. Diesel operations on the Trans-Iranian proved the efficiency and economy of the internal combustion engine. While this was great for the war effort, it was also the beginning of the end for our beloved steam engines.
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  385. The US navy's goal by mid-1944 was to have all destroyers assigned the Pacific theater that retained their twin quad torpedo launchers to be be fitted with at least ten 40mm barrels, those with a single quad launcher to have at 12 barrels, and the complete anti-kamikaze ships with no torpedo launchers were fitted with between 14 and 16 barrels. The most heavily armed were some Gearing class ships with a pair of quad 40mm mounts amidships in the same positions as the landed torpedo launchers, a pair of twin mounts opposite the bridge, and another pair of twin mounts aft ahead of the depth charge tracks replacing the previous three to five single 20mm mounts at the same location. This was a total of 20 barrels. At the same time, all the remaining single 20mm mounts were replaced with twin mounts. Most of these ships were used as radar pickets that were heavily attacked by Japanese aircraft once they realized ot importance of their early warning role. The ability of these ships to send up a hail of antiaircraft fire was a surprise to Japanese pilots and caused many suicide attacks to be broken up, especially when there were enough destroyers available to assign pairs to a radar picket station. The problems with this kind of heavy armament was not the stability issues that have been written about, it was where to berth and feed all the extra crew. Each quad mount required a crew of 8-10 and twins 4-5. that was a total additional crew just to man the mounts of 32-35 men compared to the original three twin mounts. This doesn't count the additional crew needed for ammunition handling, magazine manning, and machinist and gunners mates to repair and maintain the mounts. The additional electronics and Combat Information Centers already required an additional ten to fourteen men before the armament changes, so even the Grearings were hard pressed to find space for these crew, and it was even worse for the converted Fletchers and Sumners. Even the amount of extra provisions required was estimated to add some thirty tons to the displacement, not to mention the additional cooks and stewards needed. The USN before the kamikaze threat prided itself on every crew member having their own berth. By April, 1945, hot bunking, hammocks, and even deck sleeping was the norm. Many more complaints by the men centered more around the difficulties of getting a hot meal than the rough berthing. Letters home from Pacific theater destroyer crews told of waiting for up to two hours to get through the mess line, only to have that disrupted by general quarters for another air attack. Some gun and CIC crews ate nothing but sandwiches and coffee for days on end. If you want to start sailors to bitching, don't feed them hot meals, and the bitching from crews extended from letters to their families all the way to letters to their Congressmen and Senators.
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  386.  @bcoop1701  I need to dig out my book on Japanese fleet submarines. I remember reading this, and I think it was in that book, but many of my books are still packed away in boxes, so I need to find it. As soon as I do, I'll post a reply, either with a reference, or as just another sign I'm slowly losing my mind. :-)
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  387. @UCdSarc1n55L1pgS__510qlA I agree. While it's fashionable to trash the RN as a shadow of its former self, it's still a powerful shadow. When Prince of Wales is completed, the RN will have two carrier task forces, something only the USN can match. How effective Chinese carrier task forces will be remains to be seen. The RFA has the training, ability, and experience to support all of the RN at sea. This is also something that can only be matched by the USN. I'd even posit that today's RN is the most effective since shortly after the end of WWII. [EDIT] I don't know why Youtube keeps trashing your name. This seems to be happening a lot lately but with no rhyme or reason.
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  388. Holy Crap! Five hours this time? We need to have Drach and all of us quarantined more frequently. :-)
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  389. :Lend Lease equipment of all kinds lost in combat was simply written off as the cost of making war, The only repayment expected was for equipment surviving the war. For example, we built and lent a large number of patrol frigates to the UK. Those that survived the war were completely worn out and built with British equipment, so the US didn't want them back. An agreement was worked out allowing that the UK was only responsible for 10% of the build cost of such ships. Demand for payment was deferred for many years to help the British rebuild their economy, and repayment plans were set up requiring only a small amount of what was owed being repaid each year. There were a number of conferences about setting prices for Lend lease goods, and they generally wrote down even more the cost. In the end, the US was repaid about 8% of what was lent, some through reverse Lend Lease and some though cash payments. IIRC, Britain repaid the last of the loans in 2006.
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  390. Of the eight preserved US battleships, all but one (Texas) is a "modern" era ship. The Iowas were always considered ready reserve ships up until the mid-2000's. They were in excellent material condition when they were finally retired. The Navy knew that any plan to scrap the ships was unthinkable so they actively worked with the states and ultimate museum anchorages to preserve the ships, even to the point that the agreements with the museums was the ships had to be maintained in "as-delivered" condition and were subject to repossession by the Navy at a time of national need. Even though only one of the four was the namesake of a coastal state, the value of preservation as tourist attractions was already well in place by the 1990's Of the four South Dakotas, the two preserved ships (Alabama and Massachusetts) are named for coastal states that fought for their preservation. The two that were scrapped (South Dakota and Indiana) are inland states with nowhere to display the ships. Both states preserved many pieces of the ships before scrapping, and they are now displayed in suitable monuments in their respective states. The name ship of the North Carolina class is displayed at Wilmington NC. Starting from 1960, when the donation fo $331,000 collected by schoolchildren to purchase the ship, to being a self-supporting museum today, North Carolina has done a remarkable job of preserving her "Showboat". North Carolina was a donor ship for parts needed to renovate the Iowas when they were being refurbished in the 1980's. Unfortunately, many of her mechanical systems were removed at the time, along with the barbette of turret #1, but the parts live on in the Iowas. North Carolina is still a cosmetically beautiful ship and well worth the visit. This brings me to the shame of the state of Washington. While other states were already preserving or taking steps to preserve their ships, Washington simply didn't seem to care. At the same time that NC school kids were collecting pennies to buy their ship, the Washington legislature seemed to think the same $330,000 was an outrageous price and refused to fund the purchase. Vets attempted to get the same kind of schoolkids campaign going but, once again, no one seemed to care. The ship was decommissioned in June, 1960 and towed away for scrapping in May, 1961, probably a modern record between the two events. The ship's bell and a few other mementos are on display in the Bremerton Naval Museum, and that's only because of the efforts of the late Helen Devine, museum curator, digging through crates and boxes in a dusty warehouse in Olympia to find them and bring them to the museum. Other than this one corner of the museum, there's no real memorial to the ship, and certainly no memorial commensurate with the ship's historical value. Another move is underway to construct a proper memorial, but most of the ship's crew have passed on, and only some lonely naval historians and buffs have taken up the cudgel. The last Ship's Reunion was in 2005, and even the ship's website (http://www.usswashington.com/) is now mostly a mass of broken links. As you may be able to tell, I'm more than a little ill with the state of Washington and the shameful way they have treated "their" ship and the veterans who sailed on her. I've visited all the other battleships, and just thinking about the fate of Washington sets my teeth on edge.
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  391. Q&A - Why did the US (as well as most other navies) persist in having their secondary battleship armament in casemates?. In the case of the USN, that was through the Colorado class, commissioned in the early 20's. eE had the example of the Lord Nelson all the way back in 1906 yet the mounting of secondary batteries in turrets didn't really start until 1927 with the Nelson class. I don't think the Japanese abandoned casemates until the Yamato's, and the 1920 South Dakota class still featured casemates.
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  392. I wish Drach had been the one that did arrive rather than our Chinese visitor...
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  393. Yes, a lot of us have done the same. Best naval history channel on Youtube.
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  394. They were the infamous Mark 14, but they had no trouble exploding with the proper amount of impact. It was the pistols in the warheads that were defective, not the warheads themselves. It was only by shear luck they she could take a hit directly on her torpedo racks and not suffer a devastating and probably fatal explosion.
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  395.  @Temp0raryName  I understand the myriad causes of the unreliability of the Mark 14 torpedo when it was fired from a torpedo tube. My point here was none of those causes was the warhead itself and, given the right physics of incoming shells, they blew up just fine.
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  396.  @Johnnycdrums  The whole concept of naval air defense has undergone wholesale changes since the days of the Crusader. That major threat now are incoming missiles, not aircraft, so antimissile systems combines whit theater ballistic missiles for offense are how a real war will be fought. Aircraft like the Hornet are ordinance delivery systems with a secondary self-defense capability. The one area where aircraft still play major role is defense of amphibious landing areas since attack by aircraft is the mostly likely problem. Close air support of troops within range is the second major job. The Super Hornet excels at these roles while at the same time serving the same "bomb truck" role as the Phantom. Even when the F-35 overcomes all its teething problems, it will never displace the Super Hornet from the tactical roles at which it excels. Certainly no one in 1959 could have anticipated that 60 years later, a single seat aircraft with good air to air performance would be carrying a bomb load greater than a B-29.
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  397.  @williammurdoch468  My first ten years were in Catholic schools, back when they had the deserved reputation offering a superior education, at least to those planning to go to college. Public schools back then still offered a good education, just not expecting students to perform at the same levels demanded by the nuns. I was lucky to have Mr. Harrison, a "lay" teacher and a navy vet, as my history teacher for two years. If he was around today, God rest his soul, I suspect he'd be doing the same sorts of videos as Drach. They would have been a heck of a collab.
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  398.  @lawrencewestby9229  You have to look at on overhead plan view of the ship to understand cross deck firing. From the side, it appears the superstructure obstructs the rotation of the wing turrets more than it really did. The structures were sharply angled as they got closer to the deck edge and the barrels of each wing turret. Even with that, the forward turret usually had to elevate the barrels ten or so degrees to clear the forward superstructure as it swung to the cross deck position. The opposite turret was only effective through a range of twenty to thirty degrees before the barrels either fouled the superstructure or blast damage was intolerable. Wing turrets were an attempt to save on armor weight and hull length, but actual experience showed the whole concept was unworkable, so they rapidly fell out of favor.
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  399.  @captainloggy140  It would be hard to be more unlucky than having a brand new cruiser on its first combat voyage run into a Norwegian fortress manned by old men using even older torpedoes and guns and still find yourself on the bottom of a fiord. It there was ever a pinata version of a Blucher, the 1940 model was the best representative.
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  400. I had a very old DOS computer naval gunfire simulator called Action Stations! that I ran on an original PC-XT running under DOS 3.3, as vaguely recall now. It was one of the better naval warfare game that used the mathematics from the USN Maneuver and Fire Rules papers from the interwar period right up until the end of WWII. You could thus use fire control protocols from right after then end of WWI onward. I think the game was published in 1989 or 1990 and was loaded on a grand total of three double density floppy disks. It was fiendishly difficult, but you could simulate the results of something like a Texas class battleship engaging the IJN Kirishima using the fire control tools from 1925 right up to the Iowas fighting the Yamato in 1945. One of the criticisms of the game was the hit percentage was too high but the author (whose name I've completely forgotten) stated he had to "fudge" the results for a typical eight hour engagement or a single ship wasn't likely to ever achieve a hit probability of more than 5% during an interwar game. Thus, you always attacked with every ship you could lay your hands on or engagements would always end with both sides breaking off the engagement due to battle damage and each expending all their ammunition. It wasn't until the advent of radar GFCS and mechanical firing computers that the 5% hit probability ever got substantially higher. It was a great game that allowed you and other players to fight each other in a much more sophisticated form of the old Battleship board game. My friends and I wasted many a man month playing that game.
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  401. Both of these cruisers belied their Italian origins in their turret designs. They suffered the same excessive shot dispersion problems as the Italians due to the barrels being mounted too closely together. Swedish 6" ammunition was better quality, and some changes were made to how a salvo was fired. One barrel fired a few hundredths of a second sooner than its opposite barrel. That helped, but it never totally solved the problem. I'm not aware of any Swedish results of using the main armament as dual purpose, but I suspect it wouldn't have been any more successful than what was seen in the USN Worcester class DP cruisers. The Tre Kronor class were constructed to a budget rather than to maximize their lethality. The goal was for a 33 knot vessel, with the same SHP as a Brooklyn but only powering two shafts rather than the Brooklyn's four. Even though the length of the Tre Kronor was virtually identical to the Brooklyn, the hull was more finely designed, with a beam seven feet narrower than a Brooklyn. While that meant the goal of a 33 knot top speed was accomplished on two shafts, it had other undesirable effects. The narrower beam meant the Tre Kronor could carry less armor per foot of length as any more armor would have reduced top speed. Some of the weight of what was available for armor had to be allocated to the ice strengthened bow. Consequently, she only had a 2.8" belt and a total of 1.2" of deck armor. This compares to the 3 1⁄4–5" of belt armor and 2" of deck armor of the Brooklyn. Turrets were even worse, with Brooklyn having a 6" turret roof and not more than about 4.5" on the Tre Kronor. Conning tower armor was the one place the two ships were more or less equal. It's probably a good thing that the ex-Tre Kronor never met the ex-Brooklyn in combat. The armor disadvantages combined with a weak seven gun broadside compared to the ex-Brooklyn's fifteen guns wouldn't have contributed to a good outcome for the ex-Tre Kronor.
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  402. 15th! This Channel Admin section is the best ever!
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  403.  @tomriley5790  The RN knew as soon as they tested it the Oerlikon was far superior to the Vickers machine guns. To their credit, they adopted it in 1939, as soon as the Swiss made changes to simplify the gun and raise the muzzle velocity. Only about 150 guns had been obtained from Switzerland before the fall of France cut off the supply routes from Switzerland. These Mark 1 guns were parceled out among aircraft carriers and capital ships so none were left for any smaller vessels. It took until late 1941 before British industry was able to ramp production enough that 20 mm guns started being installed on ships in the shipyards. They were able to produce about 55,000 guns by the end of the war, and this gun followed the USN plan of installing the gun on any empty space on a ship. The Bofors gun was a different story. The RN recognized the superiority of the gun over the 2 pdr gun. It took the British being able to test the Hazemeyer 40 mm gun mounts aboard the Dutch minesweeper Willem van der Zaan that arrived in Britain in May, 1940, after the fall of the Netherlands. The Dutch guns were water cooled were much better in the sustained fire role than the air cooled Bofors guns produced in Britain. As usual, Britain's war industries were overwhelmed, and only about 800 guns were produced by the end of the war. It was US lend lease of 768 mounts in 1944 that allowed the British Pacific fleet to have a creditable air defense against kamikazes. The Bofors gun was incredibly difficult to produce in quantity due to Sweden's use of the metric system and hundreds of hand fitted parts. It was only Chrysler's all out efforts by hundreds of engineers and designers, and sharing the techniques with Britain, that enabled a gun to go from taking about 125 hours to produce in 1942 to about 10 hours in 1944. It wasn't really that Britain dropped the ball. They kept up with AAA developments. They just didn't have the industrial capacity. Producing more AA ships just wasn't possible until very late in the war.
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  404. @Jurassic Aviator You know that carriers have other roles than anti shipping, right? Those missiles don't do you much good when you have troops on the ground and they need close air support. And what do you think is the longest range shipborne anti shipping missile in active Chinese service? Control of the South China Sea will require carrier task forces, and the PLAN is nowhere near ready to work those up. They need carriers at least as good as what India has, and they are starting to build up their force. They face threats from Japan, with two 27,000 ton helicopter carriers being converted to operate the F-35. Their historical enemy Russia now has one carrier in service with plans to build at least one more. China has more than the US to worry about..
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  405.  @BenSTA09  I don't have much interest in a CB&Q E-5 with an airplane propeller on the front.
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  406.  @BenSTA09  Just for the heck of it, I googled dieselpunk ships. The majority seem to be where someone photoshopped the superstructure of a battleship on top of pictures of various dirigibles. I guess the idea is somehow something like that would really fly? There was also the usual admixture of buxom Japanese schoolgirls and space nazis, just to spice things up.
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  407. Very informative video. The Russian Navy has never been one of my favorites so I really don't know much about their older ships. I have never understood why they persisted in ordering warships from France. They were slow to build, expensive and, in most cases, supremely ugly. There must be something I'm missing.
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  408.  @photoisca7386  I'm pretty sure you have more to contribute to this topic than I do with the amount of time you spent in research and your visits to Bletchley Park. I'd give my eye teeth to go there. Unfortunately, living across the pond and reaching the age where overseas travel has gotten increasingly difficult, it's not something that's going to happen. Continue to take advantage of all the things that are available to you there.
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  409. The captain (and naval commanders in general) had two big problems with the design. The worst was the ship carried 30 shells composed of "desensitized blasting gelatin", a combination of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. The were only desensitized to the extent this volatile mixture was somewhat protected by their brass or steel shells and fired using compressed air. The ammunition was carried in a magazine with about an inch of "armor" which was really just sheet iron. Estimates from amorers were even a near miss by a large shell like one of eleven or twelve inch shells Drach talked about would be enough to set off the nitro in at least one or two shells. Once that happened, the propagating shock effect would have set off the entire magazine. As was said at the the time, the upside to this was neither rescue efforts nor funeral expenses would be involved for the crew, since the resulting explosion would have been rather like a miniature HMS Hood blast. In addition to the dangers of sailing a ship filled with poorly protected and only marginally stable explosives into action, it doesn't take many measurements of the hull and freeboard compared to average wave heights, even in the Caribbean, to realized this vessel was much more like a coastal yacht than an ocean going warship. The vessel took green water over the bow in even moderate seas due to the low freeboard, and much of that water would go directly down the gun tubes if the barrel plugs weren't in place. This is a pretty obvious issue for a ship that would need to be pointed toward a target with the barrels unplugged during combat. The very fine curve to the stern was needed to achieve the relatively high speed of 20 knots in a 252 long vessel with only 3,200 horsepower worth of engines The stern shape caused large waves to backfill over the stern in a following sea, This made the stern 3 pounder gun unusable and flooded the below decks spaces through the large ventilators on the stern section of the main deck. While it wasn't the worst naval vessel ever built, it's usually on top ten lists for these and other faults.
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  410. Was this class the first to have four triple turrets located on the centerline? I can't think of an earlier one, but I'm probably forgetting something.
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  411. It's not just the radar top hamper we can see that contributes to the weight devoted to radars. In those days of vacuum tubes (valves), even a surface search radar display could run to a ton. Once larger plan position indicators (those sweeping oscilloscope type screens) and associated electronics could add another 4-8 tons. In order to coordinate all those radars and fire control systems, something like the USN combat information center (CIC) was now required, with hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds of electronics, radios, phone systems, plus the people to man all of those gadgets. That meant about ten officers and NCOs and another 20 or so enlisted in a cruiser sized vessel, and about half that requirement for a destroyer. Once fighter direction was added to the CIC, another five to seven people had to be crowded into an already inadequate space. The only good thing about being crammed into a small space like a CIC is they were generally one of the first spaces to be air conditioned. Lest you think the Navy had gone soft on the crew, the a/c manual made it clear that it existed mainly to decrease the humidity in the CIC, since all that moisture caused the electronics to break down. Even the so-call plotting tables were in reality large primitive vacuum tube powered analogue computers, each weighing another 3 to 6 tons each. Space also had to be found to accomodate all these men and equipment. The next problem was all the additional bunk and messing space, plus stores for the extra crew, and that could easily add up to another several thousand tons per mission just for stores. But we're not done yet. Something had to make all those all power hungry vacuum tubes light up, and that meant larger steam and diesel generators along with things like dynamotors and sundry other things needed to keep all those screens lit and radar antennas turning, such as additional miles of very heavy electrical cabling, and coaxial cables for the radars themselves. it's hard to find estimates for all the weight added to ships for all these electronics and ancillary things like the CIC. The only seemingly accurate one I've read was in the July (or maybe August) 1945 issue of Combat Information Center magazine, a Navy publication that attempted pull together the best practices from men all over the fleet about how to makes a CIC run efficiently. That estimate included the weight all the electronics and mechanical equipment needed to run all the radars and the CIC itself, plus the CIC staff, but not including some of the engine room generators or radar antennas. That estimate was about 78 tons for a cruiser, 107 tons for a battleship, and an astounding 138 tons for an aircraft carrier, and that didn't include the weight of all the radar antennas. A cruiser size CIC required a minimum of 480 sq ft, a battleship 740, and an aircraft carrier about 950 sq ft. All of this gives some indication that radar was a lot more than slapping a radar antenna on a mast. The next time you look at a late war picture of a USN or RN vessel with those antennas everywhere, just remember that, like an iceberg, a lot of what was required to make them useful was below decks.
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  412. The C/41 gun was never built and we only have conjectural construction details. The Japanese Type 98 equipped classes of aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers, with about 100 of the total 169 built used for shore batteries. The Japanese considered it their best AAA gun and, given the limited exposure of the gun to USN aircraft so late in the war, most pilots agreed. Almost all major Japanese ships used shells designated "Common Type 3" for AA use. These had a range of submunitions, most being incendiary filled tubes that were supposed to be detonated some distance from the muzzle. US fliers who saw these rounds in action described them as great Fourth of July show, but not good at shooting down airplanes.
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  413.  @BrassLock  Thanks. I like all naval history, but I have made a particular study of the Titanic and all the events surrounding her.
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  414.  @Arthion  Other nations did not have extra time to spend working on their stuff. They had either started working sooner on correcting faults with guns or manufacturing new kinds of guns. The Italians didn't. They either behind the power curve, and their manufacturing capacity just didn't let them ramp up once they figured it out. Instead, Mussolini decided to blow over a year and half of lead time to make those improvements by staying out of the war until Germany declared war on the US. Instead, I though Germany had the war wrapped up, so he decided not be late to the party and declare war on France in June, 1940. The Gufo radars is a good example of Italian foolishness. They had developed the Gufo as a workable surface search radar back in 1937, but the RM refused to fund development until the Italian naval defeats of 1941. Even with a crash program for developing Gufo, there were something like ten actually in service at the time of the surrender in 1943. Even that program wouldn't have developed if not for the Navy's defeats in night actions. No, it wasn't a matter of Italy needing more time. It was a matter of needing better strategic vision and the ability to stop shooting themselves in the foot.
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  415. A correction to the USN mount designations. The way they are pronounced are the opposite of what i think you said. A 51 mount was always pronounced "Five-One", not "Fifty-One". The secondary mount numbers were even numbers to port and odd numbers on the starboard side. It was a handy shorthand since Mount 51 would always be the most forward 5"/38 mount on the starboard side. Once the USN developed the 3" semi automatic twin mounts, the same scheme applied to them with a "3" rather that a "5" as the first number.
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  416.  @Drachinifel  The best original source I've been able to find is at https://maritime.org/doc/label/index.htm#pg27. Section 20 lays out exactly how port and starboard mounts are to be numbered. It's from 1936, but USN numbering hasn't changed since then. There is more information from original sources at https://maritime.org/doc/guncat/cat-0018.htm and a secondary but generally reliable source athttp://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data.php. You are probably aware of these. From the same Navweaps source there's a diagram of German battleship main battery designations at http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-062.php.
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  417.  @jamespfp  Pretty amazing for the 20's, and led directly to FSK and PSK for we amateurs. The only problem was the large bandwidth and slow speeds. Attempts to send faster speeds really hogged the bandwidth, but it was only system that could remotely print out a message. I'm sure there were many errors when messages were sent by CW under poor conditions and we had to depend on humans operators to get it all right while it was in code. I know I couldn't do it.
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  418.  @Peorhum  The original Bofors 4.7"/50 was a better dual purpose gun than the British 4". They were removed because the British had no ammunition for those rare guns, not because the 4" was superior. The British 4.7" guns used on the Tribals and other classes up to the C class weren't dual purpose weapons, and were pressed into service as such because the admiralty considered the 4" gun too small for main armament. It wasn't until the superb 4.5" DP gun started being standard on RN destroyers that there was a true DP main gun. Sustained top speed was an important asset for that last dash to Britain by troop convoys in the first three years of the war. It wasn't the top speed of the large liners like the Queen Mary that was the issue. It was the fact that they could maintain 29 to 30 knots in almost all weather and could do so while zigzagging. A destroyer had to be faster to keep up through the zigzags while maintaining her station. The Błyskawica was better able to do so because of her few extra knots of top speed, and could do so on a sustained basis. If the RN had recognized the importance of a fast antiaircraft destroyer, a class like the Błyskawica could have been valuable, not only for the Atlantic, but even more so in the days of the Malta convoys.
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  419. The Florida was long scrapped by the time of Pearl Harbor. The Utah had most of her antiaircraft weapons covered by wooden and steel boxes to protect them from the effects of practice bombing being done to the ship. Since it wasn't meant to be a combat ship, the most important thing was to protect the weapons so they'd not be damaged and last longer in training. All the machine guns were dismounted and stored below. What little ammunition there was for the machine guns was in locked magazines, and the CO and XO were both ashore on leave. The first torpedo hit the ship at 0801, only one minute into the attack, with the second hitting almost simultaneously. The deck was covered in two layers of loose 6" x 12" timbers for protection against practice bombs. By 0805, the ship had already taken on a 40 degree list, and the officer in charge ordered the crew to the high side of the list so they wouldn't get trapped under all these falling timbers. By 0812, the ship was lying on its side, and the only thing the surviving crew could do was get off the ship as quickly as possible. Ironically, even though many crewmen couldn't get to life jackets, all those now floating timbers acted as liferafts and saved many lives. Japanese aircraft were still strafing the ship while all this was going on. Not a single gun was ever brought into action.
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  420.  @davidkaminski615  I was writing about the late war period in the Pacific. Submarines were spending the vast majority of their time hunting on the surface. The biggest danger was being jumped by a Japanese aircraft before they had the chance to dive. At that point, a pair of 40mm guns were pretty potent weapons against aircraft.
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  421.  @paulboy9101  Part of it was familiarity, part because it was the hardest hitting gun available in 1942, and part because the 4" round was considered the largest that could manhandled on a sub. Many sub commanders started out on destroyers, and the interwar period was primarily 4 pipers armed with the 4" guns. The round weighed about 63 pounds compared to 80 for the 5" gun. The 4" mount was relatively easily swung and trained for a manual gun. The accuracy of the 4" was well known and liked by skippers and crews alike. The downsides were a very long barrel that interfered with training abaft of the beam, having to be prepared for diving with a muzzle plug, and a recoil of about 28 inches, more than twice that of the 5"/25. Crewmen needed constant practice to avoid that recoil. If being hit by the recoiling gun didn't kill you, even a brush by would knock you overboard. The 5" gun had twice the rate of fire and considerably more penetrating power. Even though the rounds were heavier, it took less rounds in a shorter period of time to sink a target.
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  422.  @Pilotmario  We should get a petition started to rename one of the "B" seas so it doesn't keep confusing Drach.
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  423.  @bskorupk  The only real difference between an unprotected cruiser and a destroyer before WWI was the cruiser was designed more for overseas colonial service while destroyer was designed for fleet protection. By the time the destroyer had grown to the size of small light cruisers, the term "unprotected cruiser" had fallen out of favor, and large destroyers started to be called sloops, frigates, and leaders. The USN recognized the crossover had really occurred in 1943 when the French Destroyer " Le Fantastique" at 434 feet, 3,500 tons, and five 5.4" guns was large enough to earn the light cruiser designation when it was refitted 1943 with eight 40mm Bofors and ten 20mm guns before being added to USN fleet.
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  424. Although it didn't cause their ships to explode, the poor quality of propellants and poor manufacturing tolerances of Italian ordinance procurement before WWII essentially made Italian heavy units worthless during the war.
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  425. A single battleship of any nation and any class with no electrical power, no radar, and no functioning fire controls systems is always going to be sunk, even with a smaller force than the Japanese had that night. The real power of a modern US battleship with fully functional systems was shown by the performance of Washington by comparison.
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  426.  @admiraltiberius1989  Yes, another of Lee's largely underappreciated talents was his use of radar directed AA fire that was able to break up many incoming attacks in the Philippines and Okinawa. He drilled his gun and radar crews much like he did his rifle teams, and they were undoubtedly the best AA crews anywhere by mid-1944. If not for Halsey's stupid mistake. Lee and his fast battleships could have sunk most of Kurita's battlefleet long before they could have reached Taffy 3.
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  427. Poor guy. I hope your chest is feeling better Q&A Please tell us about the relatively obscure RN class of Ocean Boarding Vessels. Depending on how they're counted there were either 18 or 19 of them, and most of them didn't have much success. Why so many ships and what was the reason why the RN thought they needed these?
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  428.  @Wardads1  I think the soldiers and sailors in the south Pacific certainly appreciated the food from Australia that could be spared for shipments to Britain. The US also had rationing, but not as stringent as that seen in Britain and the Dominions. The US shipped over massive quantities of dried, canned, and dehydrated food, dried eggs from the US being almost the total supply of eggs in Britain by 1941. Spam was the big S contribution to the south Pacific. Not only did service members from all countries prefer it to things like Brazilian corned beef, civilians were able to get tons of it from US stocks. To this day, you can accurately estimate the number Pacific Islanders living in the trading area of a grocery by observing the different flavors of Spam on the shelf. The more kinds of Spam, the more Pacific Islanders trade there.
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  429.  @Drachinifel  Indeed, and it seemed to take the USN longer than most to to discover this obvious fact. It wasn't until the 1913 Pennsylvania class that the casemates were finally raised to a position where they could be fought in most seas and were less of a danger of flooding the ship. It was also the first USN dreadnought that came off the ways without that most ridiculous of casemate positions, directly over the stern, looking for all the world like some misplaced simian proboscis. :-)
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  430. Almost all turrets do have safety stops built into the rotation mechanism. Free swinging guns like 20 mm Oerlikons usually have safety rails above the gun tub to prevent the gun from shooting into the ship. The problem is that, like anything mechanical, the stops can fail, and safety rails often get shopt away by splinters during battle. It's the job of the mount captain to prevent the gun going where it's not supposed to, but the heat of battle sometimes interferes with that as well.
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  431.  @michaelmoorrees3585  I will bow to your superior knowledge of titanium tetrachloride. I had to look up the stuff to begin with. :-)
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  432. While a lot of the theoretical work on an atomic bomb was done in Britain, the industrial work needed to come up with a workable bomb was far beyond what the British could do at the time without affecting their conventional armament programs. It was the same issue with testing. The UK didn't have a lot of land where they could test bombs, and it wouldn't have been easy to do it in the secrecy achieved in the US. Even with the massive resources thrown at the project by the US, it was a close run thing, with only two workable bombs produced by August 1945. If the Japanese didn't surrender, it would have been at least another year before two more bombs could have been produced and put in service. I haven't seen any kind of timeline for the British producing their own bombs, but I imagine it would have been at least 1947 for the first one.
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  433. As usual, the role of shore bombardment is always overlooked. It's boring compared to those cool new missiles. As you say, a non nuclear war between the US and China, or even the US and Iran, might require a lot of shoe bombardment. The Newport News, the only heavy cruiser to participate in the Vietnam unpleasantness, fired over 59,000 rounds during her three periods of deployment, a single ship record. It was the last deployment , on October 1, 1972, when a defective detonating fuse caused a premature explosion in the center barrel of B turret, killing 19 and injuring 10. That was the end of heavy gunfire support for the USN. Did the defective fuse come from old ammunition being used in guns that needed an overhaul, or even replacement? I don't know, but firing 59,000 rounds of ammunition is always a risk. Now imagine we only have the Burkes with their single 5" gun as the Ticonderoga class starts running down with no replacement in sight. With the failure of the rather costly and bizarre Zumwalt class, the USN is faced with a fleet with no cruisers for the first time in the modern navy, and having, at most, 50 Burkes available for shore bombardment duty in any conflict. No problem though. We'll use lasers...and rail guns...and flying jeeps with lasers.
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  434.  @AdamMGTF  You're welcome, but don't sell the average RN bloke short when it comes to inventiveness. MTB/MGB crews operating out of Bombay and Malta were renown for how quickly they could strip a captured merchant ship clean of supplies and weapons like the Breda 13.2 mm machine guns much prized by RN crews. I have no doubt RN crews left to their own devices in the Pacific could have become just as adept at scrounging. We also can't forget that without the purchase of that first Scott-Paine motor torpedo boat from England for the "Plywood Derby", it's doubtful the USN would have had more than a few inferior quality PT boats available by the outbreak of war.
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  435.  @Cragified  Indeed, we had several Brooklyn class cruisers that lost or nearly lost their bows and were saved by the armored raft. However, any additional hits doomed the ship a shown by the sinkings of the Helena and General Belgrano (ex USS Phoenix). It seems that the three turrets forward created a hull weakness much like the ASDIC compartment did in the Leanders. Any torpedo hit in that section of the ship was likely to cause catastrophic and sometimes fatal damage. Your guess about the last hours of the Sydney are as good as mine. I've seen those pictures before and am still amazed at the marksmanship of the German gunners. Three of four 6" turrets must have been hit and put out of action in the first minute or so of the battle, and it appears that 4" guns were hit within the same time period. The Komoran was large enough to carry two rangefinders and an early type of director control on the bridge and poop deck. These may have accounted for the rapid and accurate shooting from the ship.
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  436. As long as the Bismarck didn't strike her colors, what else would you expect the RN to do? She was still making way, and the British couldn't just sail off and leave her. All the lookouts were ordered to report any sign of Bismarck's colors being struck or the showing of a white flag immediately. She had reported to German by coded message she was going to fight until the last shell, and that's exactly what she did.
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  437.  @5kehhn  I have that book in my collection, although I haven't read it in quite a while. The author was Herbert Werner so he must be the one you're thinking of. What I do remember of the book was quite terrifying. It was enough I'd never want to enter the silent service. There was a considerable amount of testing needed for the acoustic torpedoes because the first ones had a nasty habit of circling around and sinking the boat that fired it. They were able to adjust the acoustic sensor to make it less sensitive to the loudest noises, and the sub that fired the torpedo immediately went to 250 feet so hist cavitation noise was less than the DE bearing down on him. The US developed a similar type of torpedo, the Mark 24 "Mine", so named to keep its purpose secret. It too had circling problems that were mostly solved by changing the way the passive acoustic system was "aimed" by the torpedo so it was less likely to get in a circle leading back to the sub or destroyer that launched it. However, the problem wasn't solved completely, and we lost several subs to circular runs by the Mark 27 and Mark 18 electric torpedoes.
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  438. I also can't locate a picture right now, but I believe the USS John S McCain got a temporary coat of white paint when she made a number of port visits in 2008 to commemorate the centennial of the original voyage of the the Great White Fleet.
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  439. Dang! I must have gone to bed about five minutes before the Drydock came out. Outstanding content as usual. As to the the Japanese naval defeat, I'd add a few additional reasons; 1. Lack of effective radar actually getting into service. The Japanese did develop reasonably effective radars between the Army and Navy. The problem was the Japanese military realized the pivotal role of radar for fire control, in particular, much too late. By the time they did, the homeland was being reduced to rubble by air attack, so newer radar was only being produced in small numbers, and the number of ships that could use them was being reduced to a smaller and smaller number, 2. Lack of understanding of centralized fighter control and combat air patrols. The IJN never developed an effective equivalent to the Combat Information Center, and the lack of effective radar and poor understanding of how to conduct a CAP caused Japanese ships to be constantly jumped by allied aircraft. 3. Never developing a decent light AA gun. The 25 mm gun was, by far, the worst light AA weapon of any navy in the Pacific, and it was never significantly improved over the course of the war. The IJN knew of and had samples of the Oerlikon and Bofors guns quite early on in the war. Japanese industry never had the machine tools capable of sufficient tolerances to develop the Bofors gun into a reliable weapon. The IJN believed, quite wrongly, that their 25 mm gun was equal to the Oerlikon gun, and they had the manufacturing of the 25 mm gun down pat. It was a classic example of fighting a war with what you have, not what you wished you have. The lack of radar gunfire control and off-mount directors just made things even worse. 4. Rapidly improving quality of allied air carrier aircraft. The development of the F6F gave the USN at least a comparable aircraft to the IJN and, once the Marines finally proved to the USN the F4U was a good carrier aircraft, had a plane far superior to anything available to the IJN. If the war had gone on for another six months, the IJN would have faced the F8F Bearcat, a truly fearsome aircraft compared ot anything the IJN had. Add in the Seafire once the British Pacific Fleet got involved and the IJN lost any chance of being able to overcome allied air attacks. 5. Never having an understanding of the problems if supplying all their many island outposts, and assuming the allies would attack every one of them. That caused large amounts of soldiers and sailors dedicated to maintain these non-strategic islands, combined with the US adoption of island hopping, maent large numbers of Japanese just slowly starved to death as their fortified islands were bypassed and eventually were left far behind enemy lines. 6. Never understanding why attacking merchant shipping was of prime importance, and never understanding convoy warfare. Right up until the end of the war, Japanese subs continued to allow merchant ships to pass so they could conserve torpedoes for warship attacks. Most Japanese shipping was still unescorted single ships until late in the war, and by the time the Japanese did start convoying merchant ships. most of their large merchant ships had been sunk. They were then stuck trying to use large numbers of coastal freighters as oceangoing vessels, making convoys that much more difficult. On top of that, the IJN never developed very good escort ships, and never had enough of them in any case. These are just the issues I could think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more.
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  440. The modification of the standard USN periscope to use a miniaturized ST radar completely enclosed in the periscope was a real advance in terms of torpedo aiming. The ST periscope could detect a BB size target up to 5 miles away while it could "see" a DD size vessel up to 3 miles. This was enough to give much more accurate bearing, distance, and speed data to the torpedo data computer (TDC). Before the radar periscope, most of those numbers were estimates from the captain or XO, depending on which officer was the better estimator. The ST radar could almost instantaneously feed original estimates into the TDC, and the ST could update any changes before firing as the target vessel took evasive action. The combination of the ST periscope and TDC meant that, by late 1944, almost every torpedo fired would hit the target. This accuracy, along with torpedos that actually worked, allowed US subs longer patrol times by not having to fire as many salvos. The ST was one of the primary sensors that led to the USN sinking nearly all the larger Japanese merchantmen and most IJN warships still able to leave port by June, 1945. Even more formidable to the Japanese were seven US subs fitted out as gunboats, armed with two 5"/25 guns and two 40 mm guns. The big advance was the addition of the Mark 6 fire control system and plotting room, along with SJ surface/air search radar, all feeding data to the guns, meant the Japanese small, sampan type freighters were no longer able to escape sinking due to their draft being so shallow that torpedoes went under them rather than hitting them. The estimate was that these gunboats, which were going to be converted from about 30 additional Balao class subs, would have swept the seas clear of any remaining Japanese merchant shipping by January, 1946, just in time for the main invasion to begin.
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  441. Nova Topaz  I think the part where the guns were used against the aircraft must have been some type of barrage fire. Large caliber guns using HC ammunition have been used in that role before. The RN were actually great believers in using barrage fire for their battleships to break up torpedo plane attacks. As a concept, it worked, but it almost never did in real life. Because of the rapid fire of the 8"/55, they may have had a better chance than most other cruisers but there were never any antiaircraft rounds produced for that gun, so my guess is that segment was for propaganda values rather than showing any real use for a gun that big against aircraft. What was a waste of money was the postwar idea of the navy that next war would be fought with high level bombers using nuclear weapons against the fleet. In order to engage them further from the fleet so they couldn't get close enough that a blast from an atomic bomb would sidable or sink ships, they wanted a larger caliber gun that could reach out to 15 miles at 30,000 feet. If the 6" guns of the Worcester class could have reached their planned ROF of 25 rounds a minute, the 12 guns of the ship may have been able to put up a sufficient volume of fire to accomplish the task. Close in aircraft would have been dealt with by the 24 barrels of the semi-automatic 3"/50 guns firing at 50 rounds per minute per barrel. By the time the navy realized the 6"/47 was never going to be a reliable weapon, they realized that missiles fired from other ships were the main menace, not high flying bombers. I'd argue the dual hoist system was a complete dead end and was a total waste of money, except possibly to show what didn't work. It was only when the single hoist system with ammunition changed out before it got the hoist that we developed the superb 5"/54 in all its marks. Then we started down the road of extended range ammunition to make the destroyer into a battleship, but that's another whole story of failure.
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  442. Very useful guide. I've been pronouncing about half of them wrong all these years.
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  443.  @andreww2098  That's what I meant by the laws of physics. You just can't miniaturize the generators needed to provide power for the railgun. Size and weight of generators will first need to be overcome before things like barrel wear become important.
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  444. The Zumwalts. Easily the most disastrous class of USN naval vessels in modern times. A ship built to be armed with guns before the ammunitions had been proven, and the ammunition supplied never worked. Each ship has two 8" guns that take up space and weight and have no purpose. Due to the design of the guns, they can't even use the same ammunition as the 8"/55 guns on the Des Moines class. The only functioning gun armament are currently two 30mm chain guns. The ship is nearly the same size and tonnage as the Des Moines class while having less offensive capability than a Flight II Arleigh Burke. The three ships out of a planned thirty-two are the only ones that will ever be built as the other twenty-nine have been cancelled. The total program cost for these three ships is already at $23 billion and will probably add another $50 million before the final ship, the Lyndon B Johnson, has finished fitting out. The USN could have built ten Virginia class submarines for the same cost as these three white elephants.
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  445. Interesting read, thanks for the effort that went into it. It's just difficult for me to see a hypothetical short of some sort of British version of Pearl Harbor that the American public would have supported a war against Britain. There are just too many people of British descent in the US and no racial or political animus against Britain. As you say, there may have been a heightened naval tension between the two countries, but look at all the tensions the US resisted from about 1938 to 1941 before the US has no other real choice but to enter the war.
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  446.  @dernwine  I can't imagine why anyone would have made such a claim. The RN was desperate for a single seat high performance fighter. Even though the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were better fighters than the obsolescent Fulmars and Skuas. It was the RN that recognized the potential of the Corsair early in 1943, at a time the aircraft was only used as a shore based fighter by the Marines. The USN considered the Corsair too "hot" to use on carriers while the RN set out to make it work. The did some airframe modifications, like clipping the wings to fit in smaller hangers, that made the plane easier to land on a carrier. The bulged Seafire type canopy improved visibility while landing, and the RN practiced maneuvers like lazy left hand turns to line up on the deck. It did cost them some planes and pilots initially in accidents, but they perfected the use of the Corsair on even escort carriers at the same time the USN wouldn't fly it from our largest carriers. Anyone claiming the RN wouldn't use it because armored deck carriers were too small is pulling things directly out of their butt.
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  447.  @adamdubin1276  I don't think there was any doubt about his courage and heroism...as long as he was in a battle. His behavior at other times was the kind of thing that gets left out of our jingoistic history books.
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  448.  @Drachinifel  It will be neat to see more of them. I was lucky to be able to build models without paint and glue slopping over the edges, so I appreciate someone with the talent to do it right.
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  449. What a great sternwalk. Must have been good to be andmiral back then.
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  450.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Both ships were in the Reserve Fleet from 1947 until being stricken from the Naval Ships Register in 1964 and 1966. Both were then sold for scrap. I think the confusion is because the USN reclassified ships in reserve based on perceived new roles, even if the ships never left the reserve fleet. This probably happened to unmodernized carriers more than any other class of ships.
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  451.  @chanman819  Generally true, especially on ships from cruiser size up. The captain didn't have a lot of time to get involved with the food selected, although the good ones still did regular food inspections just to make sure nothing was moving in the food that shouldn't have been and it was all the right color. On smaller vessels, a lot of of the skippers were reservists, and many of them had civilian jobs that were at least as important to them as their Navy training, Some came from the food service business before the war, and they used that experience to select the best food from that available for the ships. They could buy local meat and produce when none was available from the normal fleet supplies, and they'd also swap items back and forth with other skippers for food their crews liked better. The classic is American smokes and RAN ships. Apparently, the RAN didn't supply cigarettes at all to their ships, just loose tobacco, and that was reputed to be not very good. When a US ship was in port, they could trade almost any local or Australian food for smokes. My Dad's PT boat had a skipper that ran his own restaurant before the war, and he was a past master at horse trading. One of their favorites was lobster, something the Aussie guys knew how to catch when they were in port, with the going price being a pack of cigs for one lobster. He'd also swap Australian mutton, which everyone hated but the Aussies liked, for sides of beef. The skipper knew how to trim those to get some pretty tasty steaks, with the leftovers used as stew meat. Every couple weeks, the crew would set up a charcoal grill on the fantail and cook up a meal of surf and turf. The smell brought Aussie forces from the army to navy to air force down to the dock, and the price of a meal was two bottles of beer. The skipper was able to keep the squadron pretty well supplied with things that made life in the South Pacific a lot more tolerable. Everything he did was, of course, contrary to regulations, but he made sure any visiting brass was well fed and had some cold beer from the tiny fridges on the PT's. He never got in any trouble for his "creativeness", and my Dad said that, except for the fact the Japanese kept trying to kill them, serving in New Guinea and the Solomon's wasn't half bad.
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  452.  @deplorablemecoptera3024  Yes, we'll make it through this. It's being made more difficult by the hoarders and "worried well" now, bu that will drop off in time as we get more retailers limiting purchases of some items and more testing available to those who are symptomatic. The best advice from what I learned from my ten years as a respiratory therapist is self-isolate to the degree possible, maintain social distance when you can't, and avoid anyone coughing or sneezing. Wash your hands, but it doesn't need to be obsessive. If you can't get hand sanitize, you can make your own. There are a bunch of recipes online, mostly consisting of 99% isopropyl alcohol and a little aloe vera. If you can't get isopropyl, buy some straight Everclear from the liquor store. It's 200 proof, or 100% ethanol alcohol. Works just as good, and you can always use it in mixed drinks to calm you down as well. :-)
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  453. ​ @f12mnb  Indeed, as was the difference between fighting when you're the last line of defense compared to the first line of offense. There were now enough US carriers to bring an overwhelming number of planes into any daylight battle. Admirals no long had to husband carriers so some would remain in the fight. The technological advances in radar and fire control in the two years between Savo Island and Leyte Gulf had improved by orders of magnitude. They were better hardened against battle damage, more reliable and less prone to breakdown, and our radar and sonar operators became world experts in interpreting the signals. Our TBS radio and fighter coordination were second to none. We finally had torpedoes that would run where they were aimed and explode when they hit something. All of this negated the night fighting skills of the Japanese and exposed their ships as if they were fighting in daylight. The Japanese, now worn down after continuous defeats, were the ones back on their heels. In their hearts, the Japanese knew the Navy was doomed, and that affected their fighting spirit. Never underestimate the effect of morale, good and bad, on the outcome of battles.
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  454. ​ @timengineman2nd714  You lost me on this one. USS Wichita was a heavily modified version of the original Brooklyn . She was only constructed because the USN still had about 10,000 tons of excess treaty tonnage available. Constructing Wichita as an 8" gun cruiser would use up that tonnage, something that can't be said for a 6" cruiser. Wichita was laid down and launched about a year before any of the other members of the Brooklyn class. Unfortunately, trying to use up all the excess tonnage created a top heavy ship that had to have all kinds of modifications done to maintain stability. The mix of enclosed and open 5"/38 gun mounts were just one of the things tried to solve the overweight problem.
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  455.  Marry Christmas  How many "americanos" do you know who fought in WWII? Do you think men could just refuse to do what their drill instructors told them to do with no consequences? That's why God made the brig. "Many dickheads". Right, you would know about that.
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  456.  @jamestheotherone742  I was referring to this "Merry Christmas" character. He seems to pretty clearly have an axe to grind with references to "many" US troops as "dickheads" while stating "their daddy was 'rich' they should be generals" as common sentiment. Then you came in saying he is correct. Makes me wonder about your axe as well.
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  457.  @kemarisite  The USN used Cordite N flashless propellant during WWII for cruiser and battleship main guns. The US didn't manufacture flashless propellant at the time because it required huge amounts of electricity to make, and the power plants on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls was the only place in North America with the required power while still being reasonably close to shipping ports and ammunition factories. The Bureau of Ordinance considered it dangerous because it was brittle and contained unstable nitroglycerin, the cause of many RN magazine explosions. Because it deteriorated and became even more unstable in the presence of heat or moisture, the first uses of shipboard refrigeration plants was for magazines. They had to be inspected at least once per watch for any temperature or humidity variations outside regulations. If conditions got too far out of spec, the propellant case had to be dumped overboard, something that could cost a ship's captain a promotion, so magazine inspections were quite rigorous. For night fighting use, we had nothing better than Cordite N, so we imported about 250,000 tons a year from 1943 until late 1944. The BuOrd developed their own smokeless charge, Alabanite, which contained no nitroglycerin and produced even less flash than Cordite N. The only downside was shells using Albanite were about 10% heavier than those using Cordite N. The USN was willing to accept this tradeoff for a more stable and less flammable propellant. Albanite started being used in 1945, but it didn't really get into mass production until the very end of the war. So, the short answer is, even though we didn't make Cordite N, we imported large quantities of it until it could be replaced by Albanite.
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  458.  @MasterOfDickery  Naval gun salutes go back to the earliest days of sail. In those early days a salute was fired as a means to let ships of another navy know that you weren't a threat since you were firing just black powder charges with no shot. All naval vessels of cruiser or above size carried specially made or converted saluting guns up until WWII. The most popular was the French Hotchkiss 3 pounder (47mm), a gun that was an operational piece in some small boats right up until the end of WWII. On larger ship, the gun was too small for anti-surface work and too slow for antiaircaft use against fast planes. The 3 pounder was made in the tens of thousands so there were many left in storage in the US, Britain, and France. A lot of them were remounted for use as saluting guns. Almost all of them were made before 1910 so they were getting worn out, even from just saluting use. We didn't mount 3 pounders on the Iowa class when they were recommissioned. There were no small artillery pieces onboard so we were forced to fire salutes required by custom using the five inch guns. That was obviously not a very good alternative. We had tons of 40mm guns as surplus, so a number (I don't know the exact amount) were remanufactured as single pieces to mount on, of all things, the original 3 pounder mounts. They fire black powder charges so they make a lot of smoke and noise. The mounts never wear out. I don't know what happens next with saluting guns. The Ticonderogas will be our last class of cruisers as that force winds down. I believe at least two of them that normally ae equipped as flagships have two or more 40mm saluting guns, since the salutes are given and returned for high officers. Those crazy Zumwalts are the same size as the postwar Fargo class light cruisers in length and are actually about a thousand tons more displacement. The Zumwalts, even with their massive size, are officially classed as guided missile destroyers, and destroyers are normally not required to give salutes except for a president or former president. With the US and Russian navies being the only ones with designated cruisers, the use of fixed saluting guns has been declining. Will their places be taken by ships like the ROK Sejong the Great-class destroyers and Chinese Type 055 Destroyers, both the length and tonnage of WWII light cruisers? Stay tuned...
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  459.  @bkjeong4302  Carrier battle groups are used for power projection. A carrier by itself is just an airplane transport. There is no other ship or combination of ships that could fulfill the three roles of a single Iowa, e.g., surface warfare, antiaircraft protection, and shore bombardment as effectively as an Iowa. Of course a country, even the US, can't build unlimited Iowas. That's why it built 14 Baltimore class heavy cruisers and 29 Cleveland/Fargo class light cruisers. None of that has anything to do with the strategic value of a battleship. Only one Cleveland class ship was reactivated for Korea. Not a single Baltimore class lasted in all-gun configuration for more the 18 years after commissioning. At least one Iowa has either remained in commision or been recommissioned for every conflict since WWII. The four Iowa's were commissioned in the 80's specifically for their strategic (power projection) value. Assuming any were still around in 1984, what do you think the value of recommissioning four Cleveland's or Baltimore's would have been by comparison? And you should reread your definition of strategic value. All you did was restate the definition of tactical value and tack strategic value on the front of it.
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  460.  @jamestheotherone742  The grand total of German merchant raiders in WWII that made it to the open ocean was eleven vessels. There were never more than six in service at one time, and there were an average of only four in service somewhere in the world at any one time. To sink 141 ships with this small force is quite credible. As with the rest of German ships, including submarines. there were just never enough of them.
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  461.  @its1110  I turn 74 in a month. My biggest international problem has been battling my available bank balance. Combined with COPD and arthritis, sitting on an airplane for 10 hours to London just isn't in the cards.
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  462. I guess that paymaster was lucky it was just his trousers that were blown off!
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  463. I'm not aware of the UP rockets ever having been used in actual combat. It had its first indication of why itw was a dangerous weapon for the ship launching it when the first demonstration firing in Scapa Flow with practice bombs saw the wind change direction with the aerial bombs drifting back into the HMS Orion, getting caught in the rigging, and some of the small charges actually exploding. The practice mines were too small to do much damage to the ship in this case, but the 8 ounce bursting charge was large enough to at least bring down some of the rigging and radio antennas. Each empty 10 cell mount weighed over four tons compared to 8.5 tones for a quadruple 2 pounder mount, and the 2 pounder was an actually effective antiaircraft weapon. They had to be reloaded by hand, a process that took about 15 minutes, and aiming was point it in the right general direction and fire. They were all landed by the end of 1941, not the least because of questions about the UP being part of the reason for the sinking of the Hood. It wasn't, but it was a reasonable suspect at the time. There was a land version using two and three inch rockets that were assigned to Home Guard units when there wasn't much else available. At least one Home Guard unit claimed a kill of a low flying bomber using the rockets. If nothing else, it tended it keep low flying aircraft up higher, making their bombing less accurate, so it was effective in that role.
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  464.  @Cbabilon675  It's hard to tell since the stabilised mount of the C/33 guns defeated the guns in the AA role. A 127mm gun, other things being equal, will always be a more effective surface gunfire weapon just because it has a higher payload than a 105. The single mount C/32 105mm gun was used in primarily surface roles on ships like torpedo boats, minesweepers and U-boats since most of these were in low angle mounts not suited for AA use. Some had modified DP mounts late in the war, but it's hard to judge their effectiveness since they didn't see much use. Some indication of how well they performed was that almost all U-boats had the C/32 wet mount guns removed by mid 1944 in favor of more light AA guns. The Norwegians, OTOH, liked the 105 for shore battery use, with some ex-German guns remaining in use into the 21st century, before the forts were taken out of commision.
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  465.  @maxchan2452  Because the Germans never called them that. Their official name was Panzerschiffe, or "armored ship". By 1940 the two survivors were classified as heavy cruisers. The British press invented the term "pocket battleship". No member of the Kriegsmarine would ever have used that term.
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  466.  @gloworms3592  Indeed. I will be long gone when that happens, but I hope the young historians now will have the chance to put paid to yet another of the great naval mysteries of our time.
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  467. General Short rightly bears more responsibility for the success of the Japanese attack than Kimmel because he was in charge of the defense of Hawaii, including the ships of the fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. He didn't use the patrol aircraft he had available, didn't send the ones he did use in the right directions, had most antiaircraft batteries unmanned with ammunition in secured lockers, and made almost no attempt to integrate his radars into the air defense system. However, no one expected the Japanese to make an attack on Pearl Harbor with the Japanese fleet apparently fully committed to the attack on Thailand. The assumption was that there was insufficient Japanese intelligence before the date of the attack. That's why the war warnings issued during November emphasized securing the territory from spies and protecting military installations from sabotage. Those warnings also emphasized the overriding importance of not causing panic among civilians or interfered in normal commerce, so that limited how high of an alert Short could have declared without causing those problems he was warned against. It was considered that an attack against the Philippines or Panama Canal would be the first, and Pearl Harbor would only come after the initial operation (s) were successful. While we always look for scapegoats after a disaster like Pearl Harbor, putting the entire blame on the shoulders of Short and Kimmel isn't in concert with the facts.
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  468. Excellent. My cat Marty already thinks he's my ship's cat, even though I haven't had a boat in about 15 years now. He supervises every operation in my home, from unloading the groceries to cleaning his litter box. He's only about nine months old, so he's still learning the ropes, so to speak, but woe to any mouse or rat that would dare show up here. He will spend hours chasing down a bug and torturing it before I finally grab it and throw it outside out of sheer pity. I can't imagine how he would treat a mouse, but it wouldn't be pleasant. I've come to the conclusion that cats, in addition to being natural hunters, have an inborn streak of sadism as well. :-)
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  469.  @sharlin648  24.5" actually, but much heavier than a typical destroyer torpedo. The story goes that the Japanese overhead a barroom conversation about an oxygen enriched engine carried by this torpedo,and the general weight and type of engine was the inspiration for the famous "Long Lance" torpedo. What the Japanese didn't know was the oxygen engines of the 24.5" torpedo were a source of never ending trouble, so no other oxygen engine torpedoes were ever again used by the RN. The Japanese, working from a clean sheet of paper, developed an excellent and trouble free oxygen engine. The rest, as they say, is history.
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  470.  @rogerwilco2  I understand what you're saying, but I have studied what happened to Holland in some detail. The Dutch were being fed very accurate information by Colonel Oster of the Abwehr for over a year before the invasion. Even though not all the invasion dates were totally accurate, he passed information about the invasions of Denmark and Norway that were accurate almost ot the hour. If the Dutch had taken heed of those warnings they would have had a month to mobilize. Instead, the Dutch chose to trust in neutrality against a German government that had already violated the neutrality of the two previously mentioned countries. The fact remains that most of Holland lasted five days, and all of Holland was in German hands in seven days.
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  471. Tell us about "fire ships". I've heard of them but know nothing about them.
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  472. For anyone interested in Carely Floats, this Australian report (https://www.awm.gov.au/sites/default/files/encyclopedia/hmas_sydney/carleyfloat.pdf) has just about anything you'd ever want to know about them. One survival item added to many Carley floats later in the war was tobacco and rolling papers in waterproof containers. These were built with a waterproof lid so they could keep the tobacco and paper dry after being opened This may seem to be a weird kind of survival item, but studies done with sailors that survived on Carley Floats or liftboats/rafts showed that maintaining morale was second only to fresh water when it came to survival. During WWII, smoking was nearly universal among men, and facing some unknown period of time fighting the sea with no smokes cause an immediate drop in morale from the physical effects of withdrawals and just not having the psychological benefit of something associated with normal life. Even with only enough tobacco for one smoke a day, sailors reported they felt better, there was less disagreements among the other crewmen, and they all worked better together toward the shared goal of getting rescued. Yes, I know smoking is bad for you, but life was different 80 years ago.
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  473. YT will run their own ads. They just won't share the revenue with creators, and they really don't care about the same silly criteria they apply to creators. This is why I use adblock for any demonetized video. I'm not going to give them a dime if I don't have to.
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  474. Nice. This is one class I hadn't heard of. It sounds like she did what she could in joining the Allies and fighting until she was sunk. In looking the class up, her sistership also had a fighting career but, unfortunately, it was for the Germans. She was first sunk after the floating drydock she was was in was either sunk by German aircraft or scuttled by the Greeks to prevent capture. She was then raised and sent out to perform many of the same roles of her sister, but for the Germans. She became a constructive total loss after attacks by Allied aircraft only a month after the sinking of her sister by the Germans. A lot of tit of tat with this small class.
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  475.  @admiraltiberius1989  Considering Spruance was literally thrown into the role of commanding aircraft carriers only days before Midway, he not only seemed have a visceral concept on how aircraft had changed the role of the battlefleet, He also had Captain Miles Browning by his side to advise him, and was smart enough to listen to and act on his advice. Unfortunately, Browning was also a very unstable and irresistible officer, and Spruance has said he could never work with him again after Midway.
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  476. OMG! 0400 CDT and now an hour and a half Drach opus shows up. What to do, what to do...?
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  477. Captain von Tegetthoff to his chief gunner's mate. "You had one job..."
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  478.  @jballaviator  K-rations had undergone some improvement by late 1943, with the much hated pork loaf being replaced by a pork and beef somewhat similar to Spam, and replacing the even more hated bitter lemon drink powder with fruit drink powders like grape and orange drink powder, and substituting a chocolate bar for the tasteless dextrose tablets, and a couple of pieces of candy coated chewing gum were added. They increased the calorie count and palatability of the K-rations, but men weren't supposed to subsite on them for more than 15 meals. Unfortunately, that could easily last a month or more in places like Burma, and men lost 20-30 pounds a month on them.
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  479. Halsey was a great public relations guy. He was never involved in a battle that he didn't win. and he won it because he was in command. He got the nickname "Bull" not only because of his imposing bulk but also because he was like the bull in the china shop. Up until his death, he never really took responsibility for the Battle off Samar or his predilection to sail into typhoons. He was a prefect admiral for 1942, when a no fear attack was the only way to survive. By 1944, he was one of the worst admirals the USN could have in charge.
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  480. It was Churchill's enthusiastic support that led to the adoption and installation of the Unrotated Projectile launchers being installed on many British ships at the start of WWII. Churchill's ability to understand weaponry was shown by the hundreds of thousands of pounds wasted on the material, production, and installation of these useless weapons.
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  481.  @TraditionalAnglican  Yes, that's what I meant about cats also being useful aboard any ship. There's no ship of anything over 100 feet that's not infested with rats, and the good old tabby is the best control mechanism. You can't pass around the Orkin Man for a good petting either.
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  482.  @jagerbombasstic  You're welcome. I read it just after it came out in the early 90's, and it was a real page turner for me. I've read several other biographies about Jones with those similar titles and, while they weren't bad, they weren't as historically complete as Callo's book.
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  483.  @stanleyrogouski  Jones was certainly no believer in democracy, and he did run his ships like an absolute monarchy. Nelson was 47 at the time of Trafalgar, and Jones would have been 58. Both Jones and Nelson would have been considered elderly at a time when the average life expectancy was 34. The last thing Jones wanted to do was die peacefully in bed, so I imagine he would have envied Nelson's death if he had still been around.
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  484.  @stanleyrogouski  I think you can have a form of democracy on ship and land, as long as it's in peacetime. We've seen what happens to our rights in war. The French had the right idea wanting to replace inherited positions with the working and middle class. The problem was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Not all members of the nobility were corrupt and incompetent, and not all members of the working class were noble and competent. Any time we start selecting any type of leadership based on class, we're headed for trouble. Meritocracy always produces better results than an idiocracy.
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  485.  @stanleyrogouski  Lafayette believed above all else in the idea of public order. Those disturbing public order, regardless of if they were royalists or Jacobin, soon earned his wrath. He believed nothing could be accomplished without order, and it's hard to argue with that. He was actually a central figure in the early revolutions, just not on the side of the revolutionaries. It wasn't until the revolution of 1830 that he was persuaded that sometimes a disturbance of public order was needed if people were to earn more rights. Lafayette was a far more complicated figure than most people understand.
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  486.  @Drachinifel  I have the same problem. The gunfire in the intro is painfully loud. It may be because I have a medical condition that affects my hearing, so it may be okay to others. Regardless, I have to turn down the sound for the intro then jack it up again for the narration so there is a balance problem
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  487.  @РоманБекиров-с4м  No, it wasn't only used by the Americans and wasn't just for the Pacific. The first all or nothing battleships were the British Nelson class and French Dunkerque-class. The US, starting with the Nevada class, used a modified all or nothing scheme due to the lessons of Jutland. There was nothing about the Atlantic or even the Channel outside the Strait of Dover that would obviate the possibility of long range plunging fire.
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  488.  @Dave_Sisson  And I suspect you're attempting to come up with some kind of moral equivalence between the British Empire and United States "empire". At the time of the building of the C class, the population of the British Empire was 458 million, one quarter of the world's population. The population of all US territories was about 15 million in the same year, the vast majority of which lived in the Philippines. The US was never dependent on the territories for resources, in contrast to the British. Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem before the US had decided to retain control of the Philippines, and was written as an exhortation to the US to assume the same "white man's burden" already borne by Britain. Regardless, this is all a strawman. My comment was that war may have been a greater driver than empire in building the C class, using the Cleveland and Baltimore classes of a navy with nowhere even remotely near the colonial responsibilities of Britain as examples. I await some evidence that disproves this.
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  489.  @workingguy-OU812  You're quite welcome. I like these little details of naval history.
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  490. I'm not sure the Didio class was equal to the Atlanta class for some antiaircraft roles. It wasn't until the Bellona subclass that the 5.25" turrest finally remote power control (RPC) and the High Angle Control System (HACS) Mark VI combined with the type 275 radar with blind fire capability that the 5.25" gun was able to achieve the role that it did best the Atlanta's, that of firing at very high altitude aircraft. The RPC reduced the turret crew from 12 to 10, allowing more room in a cramped turret. Combined to the maximum AA ceiling of over 40,000 feet compared to the 5"/38 of about 37,000 feet, and having a higher bursting chage and weight of explosives, and an increased one minute 10 RPM, the HMS Black Prince was able to hit Japanese bombers flying at 36,000 feet and drive off Japanese snoopers flying at 40,000 feet while she was off Okinawa. This was a major shock to the Japanese, who had been able to fly safely at high altitude, out of range of the 5"38 guns.
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  491. The postwar USN conversions of (mostly) Fletchers and Sumner/Gearing class destroyers to DDE's were a decent simulation of a "razee" conversion. The main gun armament was generally reduced to a pair of 5"/38 guns and no light armament, or one/two pairs of 40mm Bofors. They usually lost their torpedoes as well, the tonnage added back in with the then secret hull mounted sonar. That was quite a significant decrease in surface capabilities compared to four, five, or six 5"/38 guns, anywhere between twelve and sixteen 40mm Bofors, and four to eight torpedo tubes. The general failure of those conversions was demonstrated by the number converted back to normal fleet destroyers after only a few years.
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  492. I can't imagine the maintenance requirements of an inflated rubberized flight deck. How well it worked depended on the system used to keep the landing surface inflated. All it took was one bad landing and some fire and your whole deck could be burning. After you got rid of the debris, you then needed to repair the deck in such a way the inflation system still worked. If you've ever seen a tire fire, you have an idea of what a burning rubber flight deck could look like. From what I've read, the RN and USN didn't really think the system could really work, but it was an interesting experiment.
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  493.  @themadhammer3305  After the supertanker spillages of the 70's, governments demanded that there be a system of keeping the hull under surveillance at all times. Because the bridge was set so far back on the hull and centered, the sides of the ship couldn't be seen from there. Maneuvering these huge vessels in ports was also a problem since tugs near the bow also couldn't be seen from the bridge, and dock clearance was a big problem. In the days before color CCTV, the monster bridge wings provided the only answer. I'd still hate to be the sailor or officer assigned to the ends of the wings as they vibrated like a washing machine gone wild. It was a long way back to the bridge, and a long way down to the deck or sea surface, if something failed.
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  494. The Japanese and Britain were jittery allies. Neither one wanted the other to get any close up views of their latest warships, and the Japanese were already busy starting to fortify German islands in the Pacific before they were even given "legal" possession of them. The Japanese also didn't want to be of any help to Russia coming out of the war any stronger than when they went in. The Japanese wanted to do the absolute minimum that would allow them to get possession of the German mandates and have a seat at the treaty talks.
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  495.  @schiefer1103  You actually think it would have been "cooler ' in the tropics 100 years ago that it is today? Even assuming climate change is happening at anywhere near the rate that's alleged now, we'd be looking at temperatures fractions of a degree less hot than it is today. That's hardly enough for German sailors to start looking for their parkas. You really need to look into the facts of temperature change over time before you're buffaloed into believing the next crisis, and that will be "climate change".
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  496. Dang it! Ready for bed and Drach shows up! Will Sar Jim actually stay awake for the entire hour? Stay tuned...
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  497. A neighbor who served on the USS Cod always pronounced it "Gah-toe" so that's the way I've always pronounced it too.
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  498.  @WALTERBROADDUS  It wasn't a junk either. It was the 70 ton picket boat Nittō Maru. Her purpose was to patrol the approaches to the home islands and report any threats. She did her job that day, as the USS Nashville straddled her before actually hitting the ship, giving the radio operator time to send off the message to the Naval Communications Center in Kagoshima. Luckily for Doolittle, it took so much time to decode the message and send it on to Fleet Headquarters in Tokyo that the raiders were already on their attack runs when the message arrived.
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  499. Well, there goes another 49 minutes of sleep shot. :-)
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  500. The USN continues to use optical fire control today. Since the largest gun in use are various marks of 127mm, long range HDTV suffices now compared to a bunch of lookouts with binoculars.
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  501.  @soulsphere9242  Yess, the B-66 was the heaviest aircraft to operate regularly from a carrier, although A-5 was a close second depending on the loaded weight of each plane. It was the Savage that operated from Essex class carriers, not the Skywarrior. There was no operational reason why the F-4 couldn't have operated from an Essex class. The RN operated F-4s successfully from HMS Ark Royal_, a ship roughly equivalent in length and deck area to a modernized _Essex . The Navy chose not to because they had plenty of larger carriers, so there was no need to subject their pilots to the nail biting experience of operating from the smaller carrier.
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  502. Indeed, a great book and, unlike so many other naval history books, it's available used in hardcover at a reasonable price. It has plans for almost all the ships mentioned in the video. I had to pause the playback and go dig it out of the boxes most of my books are stored in so I could follow along. It also has some beautiful halftones of some of the ships, and is one the last high quality coated stock naval history books the average person can still afford.
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  503.  @Johnnycdrums  I always thought the Tiger was one of the best looking jets of the 50's too. Just too bad the Navy didn't go for the Super Tiger with the GE J79 engine. It was the first naval jet to exceed Mach 2, and did so in 1957. They instead chose the Vought F-8 Crusader, probably a better all around airplane, but nowhere near as good a high altitude interceptor.
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  504.  @Johnnycdrums  I too am concerned that so called stealth technology is not all it's cracked up to be. The Serbian shootdown of an F-117 using exactly the radar methods you wrote about should give the planners pause.
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  505.  @QuadinarosLS  I was relaying what I was told by several volunteers and a member of the Foundation on the day of my visit plus what I've read from the Foundation and other articles I've read online. It seems there has been a fair amount of bickering between all the parties involved. I have no idea who is right so I will let your post stand without comment.
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  506. What a deal. Two episodes in less than an hour and it's not even Christmas!
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  507.  @ThePalaeontologist  Indeed, but considering her length of service, many admirals other than Nelson must have spent many a pleasant day out there.
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  508.  @polygondwanaland8390  Perhaps. I don't know the dimensions of the barbette of a Montana but, having walked around a 61 cell VLS launcher aboard the USS Lake Champlain, it was pretty huge. I haven't had the chance to see a 90 or 96 cell VLS in person but it must be even bigger. I'd need to be convinced with some engineering data that the removal of just one turret would leave space for a VLS much if any larger than the 96 cell launchers on the later Burkes.
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  509. Good morning, fellow Drach fans. Sitting here watching the radar to see if I get any tornadoes in the next couple of hours so a Drydock episode is just what i need.
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  510. I was also planning on being in Mobile, but it looks like we'll have to postpone that. Too bad, but it will come off in good time. Now that I'm spending all my time at home, the upside is I have time to dig into the pile of naval history. books I haven't gotten around to yet.
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  511. I wonder if there was any class of ship with only three members that differed from one another more than the Colorado class after rebuilding? They also may have been the unluckiest battleships and, in the case of the West Virginia , the most expensive battleship rebuild ever, while the other two class members retained their lattice foremasts right up until the end of the war. The class really had many superlatives, almost none of them good.
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  512. thanks, Drach. I've never studied this action in any detail, and your narration and timeline makes things a lot more clear. The Russians actually comported themselves with much bravery, and with much more effect on the Japaneses fleet than just a bare reading of the battle results would lead one to believe. It's not hard to understand the fear that Russia entering the war against Japan in 1945 caused in the HIgh Command. The Russians had a lot of revenge to mete out and, this time, the outcome would have been much different than it had been forty years earlier.
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  513. Holy cow! Two hours with two of my favorite historical storytellers? I've got appointments all day today, but I've laid in an extra supply of hot chocolate and cookies for later tonight! :-)
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  514.  @Raptor747  Correct, and that's why they should never have been classified as light cruisers to begin with. Flotilla leader or antiaircraft escort is how they should have been classed but the USN didn't have such classifications in 1941. It took until 1949, when most were already paid off to reserve, before they got classed as AA ships. If something says CL on your task force plan it's inevitable they will get used as a CL, and that was the problem.
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  515. thank goodness the Dauntless dive bombers were in service in numbers by Midways and the USN was no long dependent of the Devastator. If it had been all they had, Midway may have gone much differently. Douglas didn't build too many bad airplanes, but the Devastator was a real stinker.
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  516.  @lamwen03  I was an advanced airplane when it was first starting design in 1932. Part of the problem was the leisurely pace of testing and production, with the first plane not being delivered until 1937, almost three years after it was ordered. In addition to carrying a defective torpedo, its main problem was poor build quality. By 1940, the small fleet was worn out after only five or so years of service. There were stories of sailors policing the deck after a Devastator flight landed to look for parts that had fallen off. Combined with poor armor and an excruciatingly slow torpedo drop speed, the early success of the type were more surprising than the failures.
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  517.  @lamwen03  You must mean the Devastator since the Dauntless was a scout and dive bomber, but, yes, flying a Devastator on a torpedo run must have been horrific. They couldn't drop their torpedo at speeds above 115 mph, and the sight used to aim the torpedo demanded it fly straight and level at 100 feet above sea surface maximum, at less than that 115 mph speed for almost two miles. Once the torpedo was dropped, the airplane was too underpowered and lumbering to be able to get back to altitude quickly, becoming easy meat for AA fire and Zeros. Thankfully, Douglas took over Northrop in 1937 and was able to quickly develop the Northrop BT-1 into what became the Dauntless. It was able to use its superb dive bombing abilities to fill in for the USN's poor torpedo bombing until the faults with early torpedoes were finally fixed in 1943.
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  518.  @irondarknessdarkness8900  I had to look that up since I'm not a wargamer. It's apparently the sound of rapid gunfire or multilaser masturbation from someone called an Ork? You kids today are such scamps. :-)
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  519.  @jamestheotherone742  Indeed, the Nazis built warships to primarily appear to be as powerful as possible as individual vessels. The Deutschland-class cruisers weren't built just as commerce raiders. They were built to be as powerful as possible within the supposed 10,000 ton limit limit imposed by the Versailles Treaty. As commerce raiders, they were failures since the RN would always sent as many task forces as needed to hunt them down and destroy them. Merchant raiders, OTOH, just blended in with the other thousands of merchant ships plying the oceans. As I pointed out in my previous post, the German merchant raiders sank 141 vessels for over a million tons total. How you think that's strategically insignificant is beyond me. This doesn't included ships captured with valuable cargoes and sent back to Germany to be offloaded and added to Germany's merchant navy. The introduction of convoys made the raider's jobs more difficult, but ships sailed from allied ports every day that weren't part of convoys up until late 1943. After that, the allies finally had enough escorts and crews so the vast majority of shipping was part of convoys.
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  520.  Admiral Tiberius  It was actually a little of both. The plans should have have called for more reinforcement to begin with, and the yards didn't do an adequate job even within the specs.
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  521.  @f12mnb  It's interesting to see ads for businesses in the late 19th century listing a couple different commercial codes the business subscribed to so their telegraph communications would be more secure.
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  522. Good summary, and all true. Coastal defence ships look pretty cool, and it seems like they could have been useful vessels, but very few proved to have any real utility when faced with actual combat, other than a few shore bombardment sorties.
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  523. Mainland United States is a very large country. I wonder what the Kaiser's plan would have been if he had actually been able to seize NYC? While NYC was the important financial center of the country, inland cities like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh were much more important to the material survival of the country. This would have been like the dog chasing a car who actually catches the car. Now what?
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  524. Gensoul, Somerville, and Churchill all bore varying responsibility for the attack. Gensoul because he was possibly the most stupid and intransigent admiral ever in command of a fleet. He must have been aware that his ships could not fight off the British, and not complying with one of the clauses of the memorandum could only lead to the sinking of his ships and the needless death of his sailors. Somerville because he knew Gensoul was a haughty officer who wouldn't take kindly to having to negotiate with a mere captain, even if he was a French speaker. He should have at least sent his XO along with Captain Holland as translator. There was no point in continuing to sent Holland back for negotiations since Gensoul took each visit as an even great affront. Churchill because the war had reached a critical point, with the US not certain Britain would or could continue to fight Germany and Italy. Given that uncertainty, there were moves within the War and State departments to stop supplying Britain with any more war material since it was just a lost cause, and those materials would be needed in the very likely event of a Japanese attack and, sometime in the indeterminate future, Germany. Churchill knew this, and felt a strong show of force against the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir was his only hope to convince the US that Britain was indeed in the fight until the end. In fact, the attack did result in a stiffening of US resolve to help Britain stay in the fight regardless of the outcome.
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  525. There is a collection of what may have been the first sound recordings made aboard a submarine, in this case, USS Sealion during the WWII attack on the IJN Kongo at https://maritime.org/sound/#sealion. They record the attacks on a fleet oiler as well, and give a good picture of the controlled chaos that took place during such attacks.
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  526.  @chocolatecatdad  Fisher was quite an amazing man, and his vision of what the next naval war would be like was spot on, except for his ideas about how the battlecruiser would perform. His single minded obsession with speed allowed the concept of the fast battleship to take hold. He was the first Admiral of the Fleet to start making promotions based on merit rather than just seniority. The heavy cruiser concept died out in the 30's, except for the USN. The RN didn't build a heavy cruiser after 1930 while the USN built them from the 20's right through the end of the war. I think the USN envisaged the need for heavy and sustained shore bombardment in the Pacific and felt the heavy cruiser was the ship for the job. In reality, the Cleveland class light cruisers could put more explosives on target in less time and battleships were superior for attacking inland and heavily fortified positions. The main contribution of the Baltimore class was to provide a platform for the first postwar missiles ships.
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  527.  @WildBillCox13  You're welcome. Weather, particularly tropical weather, has been one of my hobbies for almost 60 years. Ironically, Halsey sailed his task force directly into another typhoon (now known as Typhoon Connie) in June, 1945. Connie was actually a worse storm than Cobra, but some of the lessons learned in the earlier storm helped Task Force 38 survive in a battered condition but with no ships lost. Only 8 sailors lost their lives compared to 760 from Cobra. There was even more accurate forecasting about Connie, but many of those forecasts were held up awaiting decoding and didn't reach Halsey and Admiral McCain. the task force commander until it was too late. Many of the ships hove to and put out their sea anchors before being hit, others ballasted their near empty fuel tanks with salt water. That stopped the fatal yawing and heaving that caused the loss of many ships during Cobra. Halsey wouldn't allow either action during Cobra since it would take his ships out of action for too long. Halsey was once more subject to a court of inquiry about his orders for the task force. The blame for sailing into Connie was placed, somewhat unfairly, on the shoulders of Halsey and McCain. If not for Halsey's heroic status among the American people, he probably would have been relieved of command. McCain, who was also Halsey's chief of staff during Cobra, received no such consideration, and was relieved of command on July 15. A worn out sailor with many medical problems, McCain passed away from a heart attack on September 6, 1945, just four days after the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Ba,y at the age of 61.
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  528.  @RedXlV  Indeed, one of the downsides of that innovation. If one battleship built before 1920 struck another, there was a good chance one of them would sink. If they collided with a smaller ship, even something as large as cruiser, only luck or top notch damage control would save the smaller ship from sinking, usually with a great cost to life.
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  529.  @sharlin648  Her Type 279 radar was a combination of surface search and antiaircraft radar, but the RN found that combining her Precision Ranging Panel and HACS allowed her to register when a large caliber shell hit, using a combination of inflight shell timing and the radar's ability to "see" the large splash or hit of a shell. It wasn't really a gunfire control radar, but it was able to be used for some of the abilities of such a radar. Rodney was the first battleship to have radar, a Type 79Y, in 1938, with the it being replaced by the much more advanced Type 279 in 1940. The "pip boys" of the Rodney had more experience with radar than almost any other ship in the fleet, and she used it with good effect in this battle.
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  530.  @paulboy9101  Subs from the early 30's generally had two .30 caliber Lewis guns. Immediate prewar classes like Sargo usually had two water cooled .50 machine guns carried in pressure proof cases on the cigarette deck. There were mounts in the sail and generally one on the deck once the guns were switched to PT boat type short barrel air cooled Brownings. The .50 guns had to be unlimbered from their cases, heaved onto a mount in tossing seas by three crewmen, and at least two more were required to go below to get more belts, since the ready use belts were only 100 rounds each. As you might imagine, this was not a popular activity. Many boats still carried a pair of .30 guns until the end of the war. The standard gun was an air cooled M1919 Browning, but some skippers prefered their Lewis guns. They both fired the same ammo and the Lewis gun had the advantage of not having a belt flopping around the deck, a definite plus in the tight quarters of a sub. They used simple pipe mounts, and at least four were welding onto the sail and various rails around the deck. The Lewis and M1919 guns were relatively light and handy, easy to sling onto their pipe mounts. Their main use was for covering boarding parties late in the war and keeping Japanese heads down before the main battery came into firing. The boat's armory also include at least two Thompson submachine guns. six 1911 pistols, and maybe a dozen M1903 Springfield rifles to be used by landing parties. That didn't happen often, but aggressive skippers like Commander Fluckey and the crew of the Barb could and did empty out the armory for shore operations. I'm pretty sure the Barb had the only sub armory that also included hand grenades and plastic explosives Once they became available and mounts were designed, boats rapidly switched over to 20 mm and 40 mm cannon for antiaircraft defense,.but most boats retained at least some of their smaller caliber machine guns. Like the rest of the USN, their philosophy was any empty space should be filled with a gun. :-)
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  531. I'll follow along again - 1. HMS Hood - If nothing else, the greatest "show the flag" ship ever built. 2 - USS Omaha - Destroyer leaders classed as cruisers. Nevertheless, they were were useful ships in WWII and, as Drach pointed out, none of them were lost in the early days of the war, and that wasn't bad for US cruisers. 3 - HSwMS Gotland - Her conversion to an antiaircraft ship in 1944 was really what the ship should have always been. 4 - French cruiser Duquesne - Not a good ship except for speed. It was lucky to be interred for the war. 5 - Deutschland class - Designed as commerce raiders but were too lightly built and too expensive for the role. 6 - Condottieri class - Too many ships to all be "worst warships". By the time the Italians got to the Duca degli Abruzzi class they had a very good light cruiser design. 7 - Japanese carrier Ryujo - She was carrying far too many aircraft for her displacement which played a large role in her loss. Other than that, she wasn't a "worst" warship. 8 - Mogami cruiser class - Would have been more useful as light cruisers. 9 - Yamato class battleships - World's most expensive floating artillery barge. If she had been built and put in service by 1942, the class would have been much more effective. 10 - Bismarck class battleships - The Tirpitz became the most important ship to the RN and RAF for almost four years. She tied down more resources than any single ship I can think of. Should not be in this group of worst warships. 11 - Implacable class aircraft carriers - Once they got effective fighters and attack aircraft, these were quite effective ships. I don't understand why Preston included this class. 12 - Hydrogen peroxide subs - They were a dead end, but gave some experience with high underwater speeds. 13 - Alpha class Russian subs - Main advantage of this class was scaring the RN and USN and getting both navies to concentrate on better streamlining and more powerful nuclear power plants. 14 - Type 21 frigates - Compared to the Leanders, these were a poor design. For getting 8 ships into service at a time of strained budgets, they were about the best the RN could produce in numbers. 15 - La Combante class - Dumbest inclusion in the book. There was nothing particularly outstanding about the class, but they were excellent offensive ships for smaller navies and gave those navies at least a credible deterrent to other smaller navies, or even larger navies. They also made huge amounts of money for France.
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  532. It's another Drach videos just as my insomnia was about to let go. Oh well, just another hour to stay awake today.
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  533. While a battleship is a lot better than a mobile home to ride out a hurricane, Katrina in 2005 did quite a bit of damage to the USS Alabama. She's still a floater and, even though she got extra lashings before the storm hit, she shifted almost 75 feet within her anchorage and shipped enough water to develop an 8 degree list. That list is still slowly being corrected today as the water is being pumped out. Her masts, radar antennas, general upperworks had quite a large amount of superficial but still expensive damage. The large hanger and outdoor aircraft display was nearly totally destroyed. There was a volunteer crew and their families aboard, and they describe it as pretty scary experience. If you're anywhere near Mobile, a visit to her is almost mandatory for ship nerds. You can see more sections of the ship and more of her equipment than any other museum battleship.
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  534. The war order sent to Kimmel emphasized defense against sabotage as the most important criteria with not causing panic among civilians as the second. The biggest failing that was under his control was not expanding the range of his maritime patrol further north and west. He had enough PBY's and B-17's on hand to do that, and the chances of discovering the Japanese task force would have been much better. In his defense, lamost no one believed the first blow would be against Hawaii and Pearl in particular. The expected first strike was against the Philippines, Guam, or Wake. There were some strategists who thought a strike against the NEI and Mayla would happen first so Japan could get their resources in line before they moved against the US. Some in the Navy actually thought Pearl was just too far away for the Japanese to get close without detection. Most believed the Japanese didn't have the resources after being worn out by the war in China to attack all three countries at once. If there was one person really responsible for Pearl Harbor, it was Yamamoto.
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  535.  @neniAAinen  The Nevada , like all warships, had faults, but it was overall a better balanced warship. We'll never know how Normandie might have done in combat, but most naval architects and engineers expected substantial damage to the superstructure if she ever fired a full broadside, That's a pretty substantial difference between the two ships. Depending on where the target was, Normandie could only fire four or eight guns compared to five or ten for Nevada . All twelve guns would only have been useful in firing at a target plus or minus ten degrees from a straight on broadside. The 13.4" was a fair bit less powerful than the 14". The French AP shell weighed about 1200 pounds compared to about 1500 with US shells. That's a 20% increase, so nothing to sneeze at. It was the same with range, with the French gun having a range of about 18,000 yards and the US model went out 23,000 yards, about a 22% increase. We'll never know what the 13.4" range would have been if the planned elevation to 30 degrees had occured, but it boosted the range for Nevada to 32,000 yards. I'm going from memory here but I believe Normandie was going to complete with at least one bow TT while Nevada had either two or four (no one seems to agree) submerged beam TT's. I should have been clearer that I meant bow TT's. That's an interesting question though. Was there ever a confirmed case of a dreadnought battleship sinking another warship using submerged TT's? I've never heard of it, but I don't know much about battleship torpedoes. I assume they weren't considered of much value in the USN since they were all removed during the 20's. Normandie with a twin/triple turret arrangement fore and after would have been a much more useful ship. She still would have had a twelve gun armament so she could throw as much weight as a 14" ship with ten like Nevada but could have used her full broadside without the same kind of damage the amidships turret would have caused. That, and the snail-like pace of French ship building, are her biggest faults.
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  536. There in one day. Nice! Thanks, Drach. The modernized Gangut class had their own version of pagoda masts, but they all had quite good fire control systems that were continually upgraded into WWII. It would have been interesting to see how they would have fared in a gun duel with a _Scharnost_.
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  537.  @admiraltiberius1989  When it came to taking on Kurita's battlefleet, I'll take Ching Lee's theoretically inferior battleships , or even Olendorf's "old" battleships over the Iowas any day. With the exception of speed, the four Pearl Harbor survivors were effectively new ships, and Lee's ships had the crews and an admiral to take on all comers. Olendoff's crews had been itching to take on the Japanese again. I think he and crews would have been more than happy to take on Kurita rather the Nishimura. Olendorf was a well known poker player at Annapolis, and his gambler's instincts would have served him in good stead at either battle. The only thing that would keep him out of my top 5 was his decision to end the bombardment of Peleliu a day early, even though his instincts were the Japanese held a full house and were trying to bluff the result of the bombardment.
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  538.  @admiraltiberius1989  I suspect Spruance may have been given credit for some of Browning's work. His scandalous affair with the wife of another naval officer and ability to piss off the brass and subordinates made Browning pretty well hated by Midway, and his post Midway antics made that worse. Even Halsey refused to cover for him any longer by 1944, and he was banished ot a shore job. There are some who think Halsey wouldn't have been decoyed by the Japanese at Leyte if Browning had been with him.
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  539. I think you remember the cards that were included as a premium in cigaret packets. I'm assuming you're in the UK since cigaret cards were never as popular here in the US. I've never found a site where these cards are collected since they were spread out through the whole population and vast majority were discarded with the packet. Most of the collectors through the 60's were actually young boys, and many of their albums are still in an attic somewhere waiting to the discovered. They are a form of naval and other military ephemera that's slowly being lost to deterioration with no plans for preservation. The best places to see the cards are the various action site like EBay and Etsy. There are a few auction houses that specialize in cigaret cards. The best one I've found in the UK is The London Cigarette Company, LTD. They sell tens of thousand of these cards in all subjects annually. The military section is at https://www.londoncigcard.co.uk/products.php?list=58. They also have a collectors club, with 100 sets a month at a discount. Unfortunately, cigaret cart collecting has really taken off over the last 20 years, and prices have rapidly priced small collectors out of business. London Cigarette does a good job displaying pictures of the cards for sale, and they do allow you to download pictures of the cards for your own use. Good luck and good hunting.
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  540. Only loaned in the same way US battleships and cruisers were "loaned" to the Home Fleet before Pearl Harbor. Allies commonly operate their ships within the command of another ally's fleet.
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  541. I can relate. It's oh-dark-30 here.
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  542.    I agree. Listening to an articulate Brit with those dulcet tones is like a tranquilizer to me. :-)
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  543.  @nosretep1960  Thank you. One of my uncles was a very young jg and staff member for Rear Admiral Carter in the Pacific from 1943 to 1946. Carter was the commander of the justly famous Service Squadron 10 during that period, and became one of the great organizers of logistics for the Pacific Theater. Uncle Fred gave mea copy of Admiral Carter's book, "Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil" when I was an 11 year old in 1957 after asking him "What did you do in the war?". That insight into his role in the war and how logistics was a major factor in our winning the Pacific campaigns started an interest in how a fleet could be kept at sea for months at a time, an interest I still hold today.
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  544.  @Slaktrax  Thanks very much for the kind words. Drach far outweighs me in his knowledge of naval history but I add whatever small bits I can. I'm glad you enjoy them.
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  545. "U-571" was one of the worst naval dramas ever made. It not only rightly pissed off the British over the idea the US somehow captured an Enigma machine before they did, they showed it happening in a completely unbelievable way. The really aggravating part is they had the chance to make a film about a heroic capture of U-Boat and Enigma machine by the USN that really happened with the capture of U505. Why they chose to make up this story that put together every bad bit of pseudo history is beyond me
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  546.  @RedXlV  I guess our modern navies don't get this. Poisoning rats is better than having some allergic cats around. Idiots.
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  547.  @seanmac1793  Probably not. The reason why the Mark 27 and FIDO were air dropped was the Navy hadn't figured out a reliable method of having the acoustic torpedo not circle round when it picked up the noise of the launching vessel. In post war testing, a sub was able to decoy the torpedo back to the launching vessel by just running at top speed toward it after they detected the torpedo launch. One of the DE's involved in the tests was almost sunk when the practice torpedo followed the sub back to the DE. The unarmed but still fast traveling 1500 pound torpedo hit it and holed it below the waterline. It took the Navy until 1950 to come up with a new acoustic system where the active scanning phase was able to differentiate cavitation noise of a surface ship compared to a submarine. It was an amazing small (for the days of tubes and point to point wiring) little computer, called a logic circuit back then. Amazing how it always takes war to make rapid progress in electronic.
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  548. I have the notion in the back of my mind that Drach did a relatively short segment on WWI commerce raiders, but it seems like quite a while ago. I agree with the suggestion though. WWI and WWII commerce raiders and merchant cruisers could easily occupy an hour segment each. I must confess a soft spot in my heart for the last of the pirates.
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  549.  @spookyshadowhawk6776  Yes, my dad's boat had the torpedos landed shortly after he arrived in March, 1943. The navy was having 37mm cannon made new for PT boats by about mid-1943 with a standardized mount since each boat's crew was making their own when using the the onew from crashed P-39's. His boat got a new manufacture gun on a reworked 3 pounder mount. His boat didn't have an aft 40mm until sometime in late 1943 so the 37mm gun added some real firepower to the boat. The combination of the new 40mm firing AP and HE for the 37mm was enough to start sinking barges (which were really motorized landing craft) by late 1943. The Japanese responded by uparmoring the barges with 5/8" sheet steel on both sides of the hull and with cofferdams filled with concrete. The ends had the least armour, and that's where the boats attacked. They'd go out in three boat flotillas at dusk and spend the night searching for the barges. The addition of radar to his boat shortly after he arrived made that easier and more efficient. They'd lie off from the shore along likely routes with one engine at idle while the radar operator searched. They could pick up the group of barges at about seven miles. They'd wait until the barges had just passed their location and then dash out to shoot them up. Some had 37mm guns of their own along with 25mm AA guns and machine guns so it was quite a fight. The Japanese started using heavily armoured and armed barges as escorts in 1944, some armed with 75mm field guns and multiple 25mm and 37mm guns. His boat got a pair Mark 50 eight cell rocket launchers at the end of 1944. They fired a 5" spin stabilized rocket that could sink a barge - if they could hit it. The launchers could only be aimed by pointing the boat at the target using a sight on the bridge. The XO was supposed to turn the boat into the sight until both were lined up with a barge and then fire the rocket. He said they hit one barge for maybe every 25 rockets expended, but they made a huge flash and plenty of noise, so they kept the heads of the Japanese gunners down. This went on night after night off New Guinea and then the Solomons until, between them and Army fighters, the Japanese had no barges left by 1945. They were ordered to the Philippines in March 1945, and his boat spent most its time doing the same kinds of patrols but without as much excitement. He got 30 days leave in May, 1945 because he was due to be married, his first leave of the war. He came down with malaria shortly after the ceremony and didn't get back to his boat until July, with VJ Day coming shortly after. He was in the Philippines until October, and watched his boat being burned in Milne Bay. I asked him how he felt watching it burn. He said he felt great since it meant he'd soon be mustered out and be able to get back to his pregnant wife. Malaria don't slow the old man down! I was born in February, 1946, the first of seven. Dad went off to that big squadron in the sky in 2005.
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  550.  @stanleyrogouski  One of the reasons why the revolutionary French Navy, in addition to his well known command ability, was his modest beginnings. The revolution decimated the royalist navy, with about 70% of the noble officers executed or exiled. Command then had as much to do with your working class background as it did ability. The French just swapped mostly incompetent noble officers, some of whom had command ability, for almost totally incompetent proletariat officers, almost none of which had command ability. Not the way to win battles. :-)
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  551.  @zacharywiedner327 Quite true, and many Continental Navy officers were quite happy to return to their pre revolution jobs, be it as farmers or merchants. Jones, of course, wasn't just any other naval officer. If there was a battle anywhere, Jones wanted to be in it, hence his Russian service.
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  552. There aren't many combinations of ships and crews that can be truly described as heroic, but the Sammy B must be near the top of that list.
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  553. The Le Fantasque class was a weird hybrid that was built to engage the Italian Condottieri class light cruisers. They were much larger and more heavily armed while being about as fast as the French ships. Le Fantasque 's only advantage was more torpedoes while having the speed to close with the Italian ships, none of whom could probably out run the French ships. Succeeding members of the Condottieri class added a more reasonable tonnage of armor while still retaining their high speeds. They probably would have severely mauled any Le Fantasque they ran across. In reality, there were only a little larger and not as well armed as a Fletcher class destroyer that was capable of about same real speed. From what I've read, the move to reclassify them as light cruisers after their US refit was a combination of the USN not having ships in a similar class and a nod to Free French sensibilities, since no French cruisers survived to serve with the Free French, and listing them as destroyers would not have been politically expedient.
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  554. It's very early here so I thought my ears were playing tricks on me.
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  555.  @obelic71  The last ex-USN DE , BRP Rajah Humabon, was retired from the Philippines Navy in 2018 at the ripe old age of 75. The last of three ex-Coast Guard Hamilton class cutters that was acquired in 2016 stepped into her role as an APV. The tow remaining WWII vessels in the Navy are two ex-Auk class minesweepers, with the RPS Quezon having reached 76 years old in 2019, while her "younger" sister, is a mere 74 years old. Both vessels will probably not last more than a year or two longer in Philippine service as more modern patrol vessels come on line. Both vessels served long periods in reserve before being acquired by the Phillipines navy so neither would qualify as oldest in continuous commission. Even the Humabon served nearly ten years in reserve, so she technically wouldn't qualify either. Very few ex-USN warships transferred to foreign navies didn't serve some time in reserve before being transferred. It was, however, a good guess.
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  556. The term actually has nothing to do with the ship per se. The most important meaning was that cargo had to be arranged so it couldn't break loose and cause damage to the hull in rough seas. When that was accomplished, the CPO in charge of stowage reported to the captain the holds were now "shipshape". A secondary meaning, but most commonly used today, is the tidying up of a sailor's quarters. Even this meaning has its base of making sure a sailor's belongings wouldn't be strewn around in rough seas.
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  557. The USN 5"/38 gun was also one of few true dual purpose heavy caliber guns. It could drive off snoopers at 12,000 feet from 10 miles away. Combined with the Mark 37 GFCS, the gun could deliver accurate shots at a rate of fire unmatched by any other dual purpose gun.
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  558. Admiral King's greatest stain was his campaign to humiliate Captain Charles McVay, commander of the USS Indianapolis at the time of her sinking. He demanded a court martial and wanted him drummed out of the service. When the court martial found him guilty on the single charge of failure to zig zag, Admiral Nimitz tried to short circuit by recommending a letter of reprimand, but he was overruled by King and the court martial went ahead. McVay was the only ship commander court martialed in WWII over the loss of his ship. There's plenty of information online about this shameful affair so I won't go into a long winded explanation here, but Admiral King's actions led directly to the chronic depression of Captain McVay and his ultimate suicide.
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  559.  @JohnHill-qo3hb  I don't think so. Unless you live in one of the states affected like Ohio or Michigan, it's just considered pretty much a backwater compared to DC being burned and British troops taking over the east coast ports. As Drach pointed out, British control of the lakes and the border states would have put the US in a pincer by the British, and the Treaty of Ghent would have turned out much less favorably for the US.
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  560.  @phinix250  Okay, I get it now. Imagine the cost today with the outrageous price we have to pay for 5.56 rounds.
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  561.  @mr.harvey6310  You are welcome to make this estimate as simple or as complex as you think fits your needs.
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  562.  @grumpyoldman-21  From the official RAN reports and later location of the wrecks, it seems impossible that Sidney could have made 12 knots after the battle. She sank only 11.4 nm from Komoran and was probably making way at more like 1-1.5 knots using the remaining steam in possibly one boiler. Sailors on Komoran reported seeing the glow of Sydney on the horizon until about 2000, nearly four hours after the end of the battle. If she was making way at even 10 knots, she would have been far below the horizon by 2200, and some of the Komoran crew reported seeing flareups from the fires until nearly midnight. It's a lot more likely that propulsion stopped maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes after Sydney moved off, and she just drifted until the final explosion that sent her to the bottom. The crew remaining alive were either trapped below decks or were mortally wounded, and the chances of any crew functioning well enough to raise steam and get the ship under control are vanishingly small. This remains such a compelling story of naval warfare because what should have been the superior combatant was lost with all hands against a supposedly much weaker opponent. The suppositions about the battle have swirled for decades, generating books, movies, supposed documentaries, and conspiracy theories almost from the day of her loss. To Australians. The sinking just couldn't have happened in a "fair" fight, there fore some darker explanation of Sydney being ambushed by Nazi and/or Japanese perfidy and war crimes were the only acceptable explanations. The idea that lack of experience, foolishness, incompetence, and just plain bad luck were dismissed out of hand. In particular, it was assumed that Komaran survivors constantly lied about what really happened to cover up their won crimes and throw the Australians off the true story. Given what we now know, the survivors, after some initial attempts to falsify accounts, generally gave in during interrogation and were usually truthful. Using their accounts is what allowed the wreck hunters to find the wreck of Sydney so rapidly once Komoran's wreckage was located. I don't know how many books, official reports, survivor accounts, and papers I've read about this, but it has been a lot. If another one comes out, I'll read that one too. This is such a classic mystery of the sea that it has held my interest for almost 60 years, and it will continue to do so until I shuffle off this mortal coil.
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  563. ​ @jcgamer892  I understand that, but they also had the advantage of the Abwehr, a well developed intelligence network, from 1921 forward. They certainly knew what the Americans, British, and French were building in terms of battleships, and their future plans for more battleships. The inability to build new battleships hampered some technological improvements, but the Deutschland class and Scharnhorst class ships all had triple 11" turrets so the concept wasn't a mystery. Why did the Bismarck and H Classes revert to twin turrets?
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  564. Quite true. The worst thing that can happen if you're getting chemotherapy for cancer, as an example, is for you to come through it feeling pretty well. You must have a powerful immune response to covid, Drach, which I suspect was, although unpleasant for you, a good thing for Mrs. Drach.
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  565.  @Dave_Sisson  It would be if it was actually a colonial empire. The Philippines were already scheduled for independence in 1946 when the the two classes were being built. Alaska and Hawaii were territories that were already on track to become states. Liberia and Panama were independent countries that were provided military protection by treaties. Puerto Rico and Guam were the only sizeable territories the US possessed that weren't going to move on to statehood (although Puerto Rico still may if the people vote for it). We hardly needed classes the size of the Clevelands and Baltimores to defend either territory.
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  566.  @oceanhome2023  The K gun was an explosively fired smooth bore launcher for a standard depth charge. It was a way to have more depth charges fired simultaneously and at a greater distance from the ship. This allowed the ship to make a slower attack without the fear of damaging the stern of the vessel. The depth charge itself was no different than the standard over the stern model. The pictures you see with two circles of Hedgehogs entering the water were postwar, when standard destroyers were converted to escort destroyers. This involved reducing gun armament to one or two turrets and replacing the guns with Hedgehogs. Some got two ahead launchers and others were tested with a forward launcher and another mounted in place of one of the stern gun turrets. Testing showed the two ahead launchers gave the best results, and that's what ended up on postwar escort destroyers. Because of the relatively small warhead of the Hedgehog (40 pounds of torpex by about 1943) compared to the much larger charge of a standard depth charge (500 to 1000 pounds of TNT or torpex), even a hit on a sub might not sink it as long as nothing vital was hit. The double hull of the larger German U-boats wasn't easily penetrated by an individual Hedgehog warhead, so it took a lucky single hit, or multiple hits over time, to disable or sink the sub. That was the driver for the development of the Mousetrap and Weapon Alpha systems - to put larger warheads into the water that would virtually guarantee one-hit destruction of the sub. The 180 degree switch was generally used for torpedoes with propeller rev counter. The torpedo wouldn't arm itself until enough prop revs had occured that the torpedo should have been safely away from the sub. As you say, that system gave the sub a chance to try to get a hot run launched or under control before the warhead was armed and a catastrophic explosion occured. POnce the torpedo was far enough away from the sub, and the sub should have had enough time to dive to a safe depth, the skipper wanted the torpedo to freely circle so it could chase down an attacking escort that was itself using a series of violent maneuvers to escape the homing torpedo. This still left the sub at risk if it had to make a surface attack or couldn't get deep enough fast enough, but that was usually because the sub was somehow disabled, and a "down the throat" attack was a last ditch attempt to save itself from almost certain destruction anyway. My understanding of the Kursk disaster was an in-tube failure of a Type 65 torpedo. The Soviets had decided the only way to get the high speeds desired for such a large torpedo was through the use of a hi-test hydrogen peroxide (HTP) engine. These work well as long there is no way for seawater to come in contact with the HTP. Since a torpedo is a cylinder held together with a series of welds, and HTP is corrosive, even a tiny leak will eventually enlarge enough to allow the ingress of seawater. When that happens, a massive explosion is inevitable. This means the torpedo has to be constantly xray inspected between mission and while underway for a typical months long deployment. Even now, allied intelligence isn't 100% sure the HTP was the fuel used for the torpedo the day the Kursk sank. It seems to be the only explanation for the sinking, since there was no actual torpedo firing, and the explosion was contained inside the boat. Both the UK and US experimented with the first air independent sub using the Walther HTP system, but constant problems with leask and small explosions doomed the projects. HTP is dangerous stuff to be using underwater.
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  567. The main advantage of the Fulmar was it was available when there was a desperate need for a semi modern aircraft compared to the biplane fighters in use, had a devastating forward firing armament far heavier that other naval aircraft at the time, and the structure was such that it was very difficult to shoot down. It had almost no development path to improve the plane but, for the period 1940 to mid-1943, there was no better aircraft available.
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  568.  @spyrosvassilakis4212  I don't blame you! I mean, look at the wages we pay this man! :-)
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  569. I'm an NHS patient living in the US. I normally get a monthly delivery of my meds, and they arrive about 6 days after being shipped through Royal Mail. My last delivery took slightly less than a month! I got an extra delivery at the start of this mess in March, and that enabled me to have enough medication to make it to the much delayed delivery, although just barely. Since I have COPD and asthma, some of these medications keep me out of the emergency room. I suppose I could have gone to an urgent care clinic here and gotten some of the items, but some would have been coming from England or India anyway, and I'm sure there still would have been a delay, not to mention paying three or four times the small amount I normally pay. This global lockdown has caused way more problems than many people realize. I hope we're less hysterical about things like this in the future.
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  570.  @themadhammer3305  Indeed. I've never been on board a supertanker, but I did spent a summer as a swabbie on a Great Lakes ore boat. They are tiny compared to a supertanker, but the tugs seemed like they were a long way off in port, and that was with a forward bridge and maneuvering station in the stern, and us talking on the radio all the time. Manueving a supertanker in port, even with the help of thrusters and tugs, must be a real nail biter. I've read a couple of blogs about being on a supertanker with huge bridge wings, and they felt pretty fragile when you were out on the ends in heavy weather with all the rolling and vibration. At least from those stories, the Chinese built tankers were the worst, and some did have additional supports added during their lives to deal with those issues. I think I'd take another summer on an ore boat instead, even with the crappy crew quarters and rats running all over.
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  571. I'd argue that 21 July 1943 represented the exact date of the demise of the battleship and ascendancy of the carrier. That was the date the Montana class ships were canceled without ever being laid down. The cancellation was a direct result of the decision that resources needed to be directed toward the building of more Essex class carrier, and that the USN had all the battleships they'd need for the rest of the war and for the foreseeable future.
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  572. No voice is able to do snark as well as an English voice!
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  573.  @slavkovalsky1671  Try having it start at 0400. Made it all the way through though.
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  574.  @tomhumphries912  No, I haven't . I had a small stroke in September that I'm still recovering from. Maybe 2021 will be my year for that.
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  575. It's amazing how the French can produce such beautiful cars and such ugly battleships.
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  576. Strangely, the 1918-1919 influenza, popularly known as the Spanish Flu, caused many fewer deaths among USN sailors than the Army, with about 5,000 sailors dying and nearly 23,000 in the Army, about twice the number per capita among soldiers. Only about 1,000 died aboard ship with the rest dying in shore stations. Reasons offered include liberty restrictions or avoiding ports with raging infections altogether, better diet and medical care aboard ship, and the Navy only using replacements from shore stations for sailors that actually died. The one ship that went against the trend was the USS Pittsburgh (ACR-4), with 663 sailors sick, some for a month or more, and 58 dead. The captain, George “Blackjack” Bradshaw, was a notably poor commander. He allowed working parties ashore and normal liberty while in port at Rio de Janeiro. Rio at the time was in bad shape from the flu, with bodies stacked in the streets and buzzards picking at the corpses. So many sailors died that it took nearly five months before replacements could be sent and Pittsburgh could get underway for New York, and she was held in quarantine for nearly a month offshore.
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  577.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Not this time, Walter. Congress pulled the plug and some admirals and civilian project managers st Bath Iron Works got early retirement or outright fired, a rare thing with naval procurement debacles. The Navy is now proposing to spend another $90 million to increase remote networking capability of the Zumwalts so these ships can use their stealth capabilities to somehow sneak out in front of the fleet and shoot down incoming missiles or aircraft with their paltry supply of missiles. Even worse, a Zumwalt has no ability to defend itself from enemy subs, so at least one non-stealthy destroyer would have to escort a Zumwalt, which kind of defeats the whole concept. The Navy is desperate to find some role for these ships, and will spend any amount of money they can get away with to do so. We wouldn't even have a third ship if not for Senator Susan Collins and her supporters doing a lot of behind the scenes arm twisting to keep Bath Iron Works shipbuilders working. It would have been cheaper to give each one of them a golden handshake rather than building another one of these floating holes to pour money into. Drach was certainly right to name this class one of the worst ever.
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  578.  @tartagliathewigsplitter3880  Yeah, Kaga was a weird looking ship, although she looked not quite as weird after modernization. Since Kaga (and most Japanese carriers) didn't have islands,. their choice of funnel arrangements was pretty limited. The idea behind the giant tube was to gather the exhaust gases, bring them aft, and do it in as big a "funnel" as they could fit in. That was supposed to cool the gasses so they would sink from the exhaust outlet onto the sea surface. Apparently the designer with this idea was the son of some Japanese prince, so he got what he wanted. All the other engineers said it wouldn't work, and they were right. Not only didn't the exhaust gasses cool, there was no way a tube that big could be 100% leak free. When the ship was being driven hard, like launching planes in a calm wind, the crew quarters were uninhabitable due to the leaking gasses.
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  579. The Egyptians tried that after seizing control of the canal in 1956 and after the 1967 war. What they found was it took a lit of ships to actually block the canal, and each one needed to be sunk at exactly the right locations. f the ship doesn't sink upright and where you planned that it would, it creates a large enough gap that the smaller ships of that era could just sail right around the obstructions. The use of mines worked much better , and to that end, the Egyptians liberally sprinkled tens of thousands of Russian mines throughout most of the canal's length. That caused major problems for the main clearing operations of 1974-75, and showed how impossible it would have been to sweep those mines in the face of determined opposition.
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  580.  @ThePalaeontologist  And jovial is how I took it. Just imagine a warm evening out there with your rum and the steward bringing dinner while you watch the sunset. I was a sailor for a number of years on my very much smaller boat in the Caribbean. I had no steward to bring me dinner but, after cooking up whatever vittles I could scrounge, it was still a magnificent experience out on deck watching the sunset. I even saw the fabled green flash once. I'm too old ot sail now but, I suppose like many retired sailors, I still have many fond memories.
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  581.  @bdockett  Rumor is this has been discussed a number of times. The challenge is getting a big sub like an Ohio class down the St Lawrence Seaway without being spotted by satellite. They'd have to transit the several canals and lock on the surface since none are deep enough to allow a submerged transit. Assuming the subs are kept fairly close to US shores, It would be nearly impossible for enemy naval forces to attack one without being destroyed first. Given the range of modern ICBMs, how much would we gain by having the boat another 800 or so miles further away? This is not to mention the cost and difficulty of constructing a Scapa Flow type of nuke base. From my reading of these ideas, the cost/benefit analysis just doesn't pencil out.
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  582. The latest picture I could find of the Paraguay apparently in service with all her electronics and secondary guns intact was 2014. A picture of her in 2016 showed those stripped, her stack covered, and some rust streaks showing on the hull. There wasn't anything obvious showing she was being used for storage, but she looked pretty forlorn. She was still flying the naval ensign on the stern so, while still in commision, it obviously needed work to get her back in service. That was supposed to be completed in 2015 but, like most projects in Paraguay, time to completion is an elastic concept.
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  583. Depends on the sea state. Almost any nuclear powered ship from modern subs to destroyers/cruisers to carriers are probably capable of a sustained 30 knots in sea states 3 or less. At Sea State 4 and above, hull size and reserve power are of increasing importance. All else being equal, the great power and hull size of a carrier enables the highest sustained speeds in any sea state, but some modern nuke subs can probably sustain 30 knows and do it underwater. That's what I'd call a really solid performance. :-)
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  584.  @timberwolf1575  I wasn't thinking of using the high speed during an attack, more like transiting, getting in for an attack, and then hightailing it after the attack. The biggest problem for diesel subs was being able to travel fast enough underwater to shadow a convoy or run it down to make an attack. Being able to do either at 30 knots changes everything in submarine warfare. The pump jet subs are still fairly quiet underwater, even at high speeds.
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  585. My dad spent almost three years on PT boats in the Pacific. He never mentioned anything as being "fun", but he got a Magic Carpet ride back to San Francisco aboard the Saratoga. It was quite a shock to him to relearn saluting and standing inspection in full uniforms when he hadn't worn anything but shorts or dungarees and a t-shirt for most of his time in the Pacific. He did get one liberty in Manila after his boat was burned. He had to borrow a pair of black leather shoes since he had lost his and wore nothing but canvas shoes for his time on the boats. He said the best thing about being on PT boats was the highest ranking officer was generally a USNR lieutenant (jg) who only became a skipper because he went to college and sailed small boats. The skipper was serving "for the duration", just like the men, and he wanted to get back to The World as much as his men. The only time he remembered saluting was one time when the squadron commander came onboard for an inspection, and he still didn't have to wear a regular uniform. From what he said to me, the best part of PT service was this lack of formality.
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  586. Rats! I went to bed like a half hour before this was posted and then I decided to finish paining the guest room when I got up. I only started that six months ago, but no one can call me a procrastinator. One good thing about the Wu Flu is you start looking around the house for things to do so you keep occupied. One of the biggest contributions to winning the war in the Pacific was a command hardly anyone has h=ever heard of. It was officially call the At Sea Logistics Service Group (ASLSG)., commonly know as the Fleet Train. It was a complete self contained command with everything from floating drydocks to escort carriers to destroyers, all to support the hundreds of oilers, supply ships, ammunition ships, and fleet tugs, along with refrigerator ships, frozen store ships, and even the famous ice cream barges. It came about due to a study in the 20's that sowed ships lost 10% of the combat efficiency for every thousand miles traveled as supplies of everything ran low and they were faced with a port call. There were no ports in the Pacific, so the supply train ended up replacing the fleet's stocks with everything from those floating drydocks, aircrew and aircrew replacements, fuel, oil, ammunition, food, almost 80,000 cartons of cigarettes, and over 40,000 bags of mail. There were 10-12 trains in operation at all times, some of which only existed to resupply the supply ships. It was really an amazing operation, and planning for it started back in the mid-20's. If you have an interest in fleet training and logistics, read HM 18: To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940 . It can be downloaded at https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/historical-monographs/18/. It's 424 pages, some of which can be a little dry, but it's a good read overall.
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  587. I think you meant the Pensacola proposal was carrying twelve eight inch guns in four triple turrets. I suspect non-treaty cruiser growth would have been a much increased secondary battery. The same US proposals for new cruisers were had secondary armament for everything from sixteen 5"/25 guns in twin turrets to twenty 5"/51 guns in casemates at deck level. The deletion of the fourth eight inch triple turret and reduction of secondary armament all the way down to four or eight 5"/25 guns in single open mounts were the first effect of the treaty.
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  588. Compared to the prices the British were asking for refitted and somewhat modernized Colossus class ship like HMS Venerable, almost new when sold to the Dutch in 1948, there was no way a two ship class like Siapan could have competed, even if the USN wanted to sell them. The low cost enabled the Dutch to afford a complete modernization in 1955-58, including a new island, angled deck, and steam catapult. The cost for this modernization was helped by the fact the cost was spread to the same modernization done to the Brazilian Minas Gerais, ex-HMS Venerable, another Colossus class vessel. Even after a serious boiler room fire in 1968, boilers from the never completed HMS Leviathan, yet another Colossus class carrier, were available to replace the damaged boilers, and, although the Dutch were near to discarding their carrier, it was still repaired well enough (and cheaply enough) to sell to Argentina in I969, where it stayed in service until 1986 until various problems rendered her unserviceable until her scrapping in 2000. Still, she had some useful service in the Falklands War of 1982, nearly 40 years after the war she was built to fight.
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  589.  @CSSVirginia  West Virginia is one I'm certain was a total waste. It was a hullup rebuild that took three years (including the time to raise her and make her seaworthy enough to get to the mainland), making her the equivalent of a slow South Dakota in terms of secondary armament and electronics. In pictures, except for the four twin 16" turrets, she is a near twin of South Dakota . She then proceeded to damage a prop and shaft by grounding and get hit by a kamikaze, all within her first six months of recommissioning.. We got less than a year's use out of her before she was sent into reserve, never to sail again. I suspect her rebuilding was a way for the USN to shake a fist at Japan rather than a rational decision.
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  590. OMG! Just getting ready to go to bed and this Drydock shows up...and it's two hours long! Need coffee. Lots of coffee.
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  591. Thanks a lot for doing this video. It's no wonder men had to be shanghaied into naval service. I can't imagine the noise and smells below deck as try to get in you hammock in rough seas, hoping you don't get tossed out tonight. Even if you you are securely in your hammock, the snoring and other guy tramping up and down the deck must have made sound sleeping a hit and miss thing. I rather doubt the meals were much to look forward to either. The stories of having to pick maggots out of the meat would do me in.
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  592. I don't know how I missed this. I guess I'll follow along and give my thoughts. 1. US monitors - The only ones I'd class as really bad were the later ocean going types like the Amphitrite-class monitor. 2. The Captain - Well, who can disagree with this one? 3. Russian Circular Warships - They weren't great ships since they were basically just weird looking monitors, but they weren't terrible. 4. USS Katahdin - Kind of non-submerging submarine that never reached her design speed of 17 knots, had no torpedoes, only four small guns, and was a pure ram. She lasted less two two years before she was decommissioned when the USN realized the rams were a dead end technology. She's definitely up there in the list for me. 5. Rurik - Don't know enough about this ships for an opinion 6. USS Vesuvius - A completely nonsensical ship, although the few times she fired her air guns in anger, she did scare the crap out of Spanish. 7. Powerful Class - I don't understand this one. She was a bit too large but would have made good commerce raiders if they had been designed a few years later. 8. - Borodino Class - They had very good directors, a reasonable armament, and decent turn of speed. They would have performed much better if not for their poor leadership and poor material condition at the Battle of Tsushima. 9. HMS Swift. This one we can lay at the doorstep of Jackie Fisher. Other than top speed, she had nothing to recommend her. 10. Viribus Unitis class - Well armed but her almost complete lack of underwater protection does put her on the list. 11. Normandie-class battleship - Designed too slow, built too slow, hybrid power plant would never have been reliable, but it's hard to put these on the list since they never entered service. 12 - AA-1 Class Submarines - First and acknowledged experimental attempt at a fleet sub. The lessons learned were well used in later fleet subs. I don't buy this one. 13. Flush Deckers - Many as modified remained in service until 1946 and served as everything from minelayers to command ships to fast transports. This was a really poor choice on the part of Preston. 14. - RN K Class subs - Submarines with destroyer power plants, destroyer speed, destroyer size, and destroyer armament. Not a good destroyer or a good submarine. 15 - Courageous Class - Other than representing Jackie Fisher at his most crazed, not much to recommend about these as actual battlecruisers.
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  593.  @mikecimerian6913  Indeed. As I said, military forces have been "dealing" with these issues for a long time. Some militaries had somewhat more severe methods for doing so than others. :-)
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  594.  @Tevildo  This is what happens when I post late at night! Yes, 3 MHz is correct. The source of the 3 KHz figure was my poorly functioning brain and fingers. :-)
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  595.  @oml81mm  Corect, the whole idea of the original salutes was to let another ship know that you didn't present a risk to them. Most salutes on land are fired from obsolescent artillery pieces like the US 105mm howitzer. There are even a few navy bases with their original 3 pounders in firing condition. The salute on board ship is now complicated by the lack of saluting guns and the fact the vast majority of US naval vessels are classed as destroyers or smaller. Destroyers have never been required to fire salutes, but that comes from back in the day when a destroyer may have been 250 feet long, had a tonnage of 1500 tons or less, and just didn't have space for things like saluting guns. Now that we have "destroyers" that weigh 15,000 tons and are 610 feet long it will be interesting to see if saluting duties are transferred to them eventually.
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  596.  @mitchelloates9406  A lot of AAA fire is to disrupt attacks rather than shoot down planes. All the 5" bursts and tracer fire was enough to scare off even kamikaze pilots. Even 40mm rounds were filled with just enough black powder in the TNT to make a nice black puff when it reached its self destruct range. Didn't help shooting anything down but, the more black puffs in the air, the more pilots, especially inexperienced pilots that were the norm in the last year of the war with Japan, would be thrown off course trying to avoid them.
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  597.  @bkjeong4302  Still haven't read the report, eh?
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  598.  @Nuke89345  Let me make a reply to you and B.K. here since my fingers are being worn to nubs with all the typing. There seems to be some confusion about my position on battleships. From mid-WWII onwards, the carrier was the capital ship of the fleet with most other major units having the role of trying ot prevent the massive numbers of light and fleet carriers coming down the way from being sunk. I'm not arguing that the Iowas play any kind of pivotal role with the exception of helping to protect some of those carriers. As B.K. brought up, Spruance going off the rails during Operation Hailstorm and taking over tactical command of a battleship task force while preserving some damaged Japanese ships for sinking by the two Iowas in the task force was the literal end of the line for battleships in a surface action role. Spruance was old battleship admiral, and the Truk attack was 8is last chance to get back in the saddle and charge. The requirement to hold two Iowa's ready for reactivation ended in 2005, and all four have been stricken from the Navy register. They will never again be reactivated. However, the assertion that the reactivation expenses were too high compared to the value of the ship is absolutely untrue. The cost to reactivate a single Iowa was about the same as building and commissioning an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. I leave to both of you to decide which ships provided greater value to the Navy.
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  599.  @DavidSiebert  The Devastator was a good plane in 1934 when it was ordered. It was an okay place when it first entered service in 1937. It was obsolescent by 1940. It had many of the faults of the Swordfish and almost none of its good points. The Devastator had a shorter range than the Swordfish, had a cruising speed that was almost the same, didn't carry any more ordinance that the Swordfish, didn't have the maneuverability, and wasn't able to fly the dive and release profile of a Swordfish. The Devastator "looked" more modern, but it wasn't able to perform the task of torpedo bombing with the abilities of a Swordfish. The lousy Mark 13 torpedoes didn't help matters, but it doesn't much matter if the aircraft never makes it to a drop. The Devastator entered service in 1937 compared to the Swordfish entering service in 1934, yet the Devastator was worn out by 1940. The Swordfish was produced until 1944, stayed in service until the end of the war, and sank more Axis tonnage than any other Allied aircraft. That probably says it all.
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  600.  @neurofiedyamato8763  I was responding to your post when you said "Now the US military spend the most on its military." My response was that, sure, the US spends the most in absolute dollars because we have the world's biggest economy. Unless Canada suddenly finds a way to be the defender of the West, how could it be otherwise. Very few military economists would agree with your assertion % of GDP doesn't really matter. We're looking at developed economies where the total spent as % of GDP is both a big number and totally flexible, spending on the political and military will of the government. The smaller the economy, the less in % of GDP a country can spend because things like infrastructure and social programs will demand a larger percentage of GDP. That will always limit the spending by % of GDP compared to absolute dollar total. Another reasonable way to look at military spending is amount per capita. Saudi Arabia leads again, with the US second. First place is because of massive government revenue available for a relatively small population. The second is because of a much larger population but still a very large revenue stream. Next on the list are Singapore, Kuwait, Oman, and Norway. Kuwait and Oman are also because of large revenue streams vice a smaller population while Singapore and Norway have made conscious decisions to spend more money per capita than other countries with similar populations and GDP. What I'm suggesting is there is no one "best" way to have an informed read of military spending. Spending in absolute dollars is certainly not one of the best. Your last paragraph is a strawman I often see in terms of US military spending. Simply because we have some failed programs doesn't mean that military spending in general is spend on failed programs. Two things can be true at once. We can spend money on poor systems like the LCS while also being world leaders in other systems. China doesn't "have way better priorities" simply because that's what you believe based on flimsy evidence. It has taken them over 30 years and the expenditures of huge amounts of money to finally commision a class of SSBNs that are at least one, and more likely, two generations behind USN SSBNs, and the Chinese only have seven in service. It has taken the PRC well over 30 years and huge amounts of money to develop its first domestically produced carrier of a size and capability roughly similar to a US Midway class carrier of the Vietnam era. It has taken the PRC 50 years and huge amounts of money to finally develop a cruiser size ship just entering service, and it's still not as capable as a USN Ticonderoga class ship that first entered service in 1978. None of this even takes into consideration the massive logistical capabilities and experience of the US compared to the PRC. The Chinese are now developing a creditable blue water navy, something the USN has had for over seventy years. "Way better priorities"? I'd have to strongly disagree with that.
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  601. I'm about 250 miles from Mobile (yes, you pronounced that right) and I'd sure like to be part of any meetup we can get organized there. How many others are there here that are close enough to Mobile to think they might be able to join up?
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  602.  @themadhammer3305  The Luftwaffe used the FW-200s quite successfully for convoy raiding. They sunk over 300,000 tons of shipping by the end of 1941. The problems for the Condors was the same as for the merchant raiders. The allies developed countermeasures like the CAM ships and escort carriers and Germany couldn't afford to lose many Condors.They weren't very well built, and hard usage led to them to literally collapse on landing or even in midair. German military doctrine caused them to neglect long range bombing for sea or land, and by the time they figured out the war wasn't going to be over in two years, it was too late to correct the Condor's many faults and build them in any numbers. The main value of the Condor was as a long range transport on the eastern front, a role they performed well. They just didn't hold up to the stresses of low level bombing, and Germany had developed flying boats that were better at maritime reconnaissance than the Condor. Germany didn't produce enough Condors to make a difference.in the war. The total built from 1937 to 1944 was 276. The B-17E, an early model, had 512 built between February, 1941 and January of 1942, and that was just the beginning of a flood of more than 10,000 produced during the rest of the war. The B-24 was produced in even greater numbers. Germany was just too far behind the power curve on bombers.
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  603. I've never understood the USN's step backwards with unprotected AA mounts from during WWII and then postwar. They entered the war with the typical .50 caliber and 3" guns just mounted on decks in totally unprotected mounts. War experience rapidly showed why that was a bad idea, so most mounts were at least enclosed in gun tubs rising to about chest level, the tubs protected by a combination of steel and so-called "plastic" armor. That was really a layer of common asphalt, offering decent protection while being easy top roll out, even for ship refits. 20 mm guns almost always had a forward gun shield in addition to the tub while 40 mm Bofors went from no protection except for the tub to a very stout, nearly wraparound, shield by war's end. Postwar, they went backwards, with the 3"/50RF Marks 27, 33 and 34 back to generally unprotected mounts except for the gun tubs. Because of the height of gun's base, the crews were exposed mostly above the protection of the tub. A few classes did have the guns enclosed in a turret when they were the main armament. An example were the Courtney class DE's of the 1950's, with the forward 3"50 guns enclosed in a turret while the aft guns were once again only protected by a gun tub of inadequate height.
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  604. Rats! Just about to finally go to bed and Drach comes on at 0415 CDT. Oh well, thank goodness, I'm retired so I can afford to lose out on another hour of sleep. :-)
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  605.  @InLoveWithCities  I think you meant to say that the emperor has no power as of today. The Japanese not only have never come to terms with the war and the role of the emperor, even today Japanese students are taught outright lies about it. The Izumo-class "destroyers" being converted to aircraft carriers will be about 30,000 tons and 830 feet long. No a Nimitz class but a pretty big "light carrier". Given that Japan is buying at least 135 F-35's, it seems reasonably likely these will not remain the largest ships in the fleet for long. As for your claim the US has never defended Japan, it most certainly kept the USSR at bay from 1945 until 1990 at least. We have had between 50,000 to 100,000 troops in Japan during that whole period. During most of that time, China was never much of an issue. The US has its own interests everywhere in the world, Japan being no different.
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  606. I'm sure you're right. Every succeeding pre-dreadnought and dreadnought was built in Russian yards with the exception of the Retvizan, built by Cramp in the US in 1898. This was built in the same time period of the Tsesarevich so I suppose the Russians were getting ships from as many countries as they could to use ideas from them to build their own ships. It was all for nothing since the Russians only built two classes of poor quality and obsolescent dreadnoughts and then more or less gave up. She was the only major power not to have built a modern battleship after WWI.
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  607.  @57thorns  I'd generally agree about commercial codes. There were two types of codes in general use around 1900 though, and I didn't make myself very clear. The first were the commercial like the the ABC and Western Union. I don't remember them carrying a higher rate than plain language telegrams, but I could be wrong. The second were cipher codes like Law's and Whittinghams. These were subscription codes that served the dual purpose of shortening telegrams and making them unreadable to someone not having the correct key. The receiving station had such a key that was usually mailed from the sender and was good for something like a month. The originating station got their codes mailed from the subscription company, and each recipient got a differently keyed table, the idea being that the chances of two companies with the same code was small. Large, highly competitive companies like steel and meat plants even paid for custom codes since, even back then, industrial espionage wasn't uncommon, and knowing the standard cipher code in use made it so the cryptanalysis of the day could rapidly learn to decode those messages. Cipher codes were charged at a higher rate, since they were pure gibberish compared to straight commercial codes. Many operators handling commercial business actually did have popular commercial codes mostly memorized, so they could sent them about as easily as plain language telegrams.
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  608.  @ovk-ih1zp  Yes, the USN has a long and storied history of controversial ship names. See https://news.usni.org/2013/04/23/twenty-six-us-navy-ship-naming-controversies for a list of just some of them.
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  609.  @Ron52G  Developing the A bomb was a somewhat more daunting task than developing a variant of SMS radio. If the Germans had realized that Enigma was compromised they could have developed Kurier fairly early on. It was their trust in Enigma and their lack of understanding about allied DF methods that did them in.
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  610.  @Cbabilon675  You're more than welcome. Your grandfather was lucky enough to crew what was undoubtedly the best all around gun of the 20th century. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours as well.
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  611.  @xt6wagon  That's true except the only role for the AA version of the Alaska wouldn't be just gunfire. It would be as a fighter control ship to vector in fighters to destroy the enemy before they can break through the CAP. A ships needs size and volume to fulfill that role while still being able to keep up with the carriers. Two smaller ships can't do that. The USN kind of used this concept with their "Sea Control" ship of the 60's that never got built.
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  612. Your question is a little hard to understand, but I'm assuming it's what did the Argentine crews think about serving on such a relatively old warship? I'm not Argentine so I only know what I've read, but the Argentine Navy had a lot of faith in the Belgrano. She had gone through several comprehensive refits, and it was expected that the combination of Sea Cat missiles installed during one of her refits, plus the 127mm and 40 mm guns would protect it from air attack. There was also the assumption that the Type 42 destroyers purchased from Britain in the late 1970's would be able to protect the battle fleet from British submarines. Unfortunately for Argentina. the Type 42's were protecting the carrier task force, and the ex-USN WWII era destroyers weren't up to the task of detecting the Conqueror.
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  613. This should be a good one. I have to run and get my coffee so I can settle in.
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  614. The Iowa turret explosion is a good example of why the Navy, and in particular the NIS, should never be permitted to perform a major investigation that involves the death of crewmen. The Navy abandoned the homosexual murder/suicide explanation by 1991, but that wouldn't have happened without the involvement of the Senate, especially Senator Sam Nunn, and Sandia National Labs. It was only the involvement of Sandia that showed the Navy's explanation couldn't be true, and that some combination of overram and powder defects was the only reasonable explanation for the disaster. However, the Navy fell back on a "cause unknown" finding when it was clear their preferred explanation was no longer tenable. The Navy did everything they could to obstruct and discredit the Sandia investigation when it became clear that it was going to find unauthorized powder experiments by Master Chief Skelley was the most likely cause of the explosion. Under the command of Captain Moosally, Iowa was a ship with very poor command and control, very poor morale, and a marked tendency for sailors like Skelley to convince Moosally he could do something that would bring positive publicity to Iowa and Moosally. In Skelley's case, it was to have Iowa go down in the record books with the longest range conventional shot ever fired. It was Skelley's "experiments" that most likely led to the premature open breach detonation that killed the 47 members of Turret 2. The ship's command staff allowed evidence in the investigation to be contaminated and destroyed right from day one. The NIS, rather than operating as an independent investigation force, did as they were told by the command staff of the ship and of the Navy. There have been changes in the NIS to allow it to be more independent of pressure by those in command, but it's not possible that any unit that's part of the Navy to do a truly independent investigation when the results of the investigation could reflect poorly on the Navy. Any investigation of a serious incident in any service should be conducted by a new criminal investigation agency not in the line of command and not beholden to that branch of the service for promotion or retention.
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  615. I'll just knock over the hornet's nest by asking that wargaming be part of a separate channel. I may be the last geezer that doesn't do wargaming, but I come here for actual naval history rather than game simulations.
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  616.  @Arthion  Well, the single barrel model RM 39 was a decent gun because it included an equilibriator, so the severe vibration problems with the twin mounts didn't affect the accuracy like it did with the 1932 and 1938 models. By the time of the Italian surrender in 1943, moist of the more serious problems with allied antiaircraft guns had already been worked out. The Italians may have been able to improve what they had if they weren't being bombed around the clock. Two more years would have just meant that much more bombing. The time for the Italians to work out the kinks in their guns was prewar, or certainly no later than the middle of 1942. After that, the tide of war was going to prevent Italy from making any substantial improvements, and they didn't have the industrial capacity to come up with any replacements.
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  617.  @TraditionalAnglican  I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's wrong. The Mark 14 was the standard US surface and submarine launched torpedo all during WWII, and it remained in service until 1975-1980. The Mark 18 was an electric torpedo that left no bubble wake and was hence prized by submariners. It had even more initial problems than the Mark 14. It was a hastily designed copy of the German G7e electric torpedo but was slower, had many failures to detonate and, even worse, had circular runs that sank several subs after firing one. By the end of the war, the Mark 18 was revised and good enough that it sank 30% of Japanese shipping, but it was never judged to be an excellent torpedo, and was taken out of service by 1950. It supplemented the Mark 14 in subs but never replaced it, and the Mark 14 was almost the exclusive torpedo for surface ships. A Gato class sub generally carried a load of 16-18 Mark 14s, 6-8 Mark 16s, with a few Mark 27 "Cuties" and Mark 24 "Fidos" when they were available, substituting for the Mark 16s. The Mark 16, a modified Mark 14 running on hydrogen peroxide, was considered the replacement for the Mark 14, but the Mark 16 served alongside the Mark 14 right up until 1980 and never replaced it. After its initial problems caused by lousy testing in the 20's, the Mark 14 became the star of US torpedoes.
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  618.  @EdMcF1  As much as the British were grateful to Chile for their assistance in the Falklands war, I still can't imagine an RN ship with a Chilean name, even if Admiral Cochrane was himself British.
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  619.  @KarlBunker  Yes, it did happen, but usually to ship's passengers with no experience in abandoning ship. Sailors were trained to use both arms across the chest with the hands used to haul down the top of the vest. From what I've read, this was a fairly safe way to enter the water from height with a cork block vest, but I can see how an untrained person could get hurt.
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  620.  @CharlesStearman  That was certainly one of the reasons. It allowed an aircraft to put a devastating payload of up to eight rockets into (relative to dropping bombs) a small circle on the target, do it in less time than a bomb, and be able to do it outside the enemy's light AA gun range.
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  621. One of the reasons for the Bismarcks being such heavy ships is the lack of dual purpose armament. The Bismarcks needed a combination of 28 gun barrels for the secondary and tertiary armament. Even with the increased displacement of the Bismarcks, the total number of either anti surface or heavy antiaircraft guns was less than the twenty 5"/38 guns on the later US battleships. It also required two different fire control and radar systems. These systems require space and weight but, more critically, they require manpower. The Bismarcks had a wartime crew about 200-250 enlisted and 25 officers more than a North Carolina. Each additional crew member requires a surprising amount of resources, like food water, and bunk space, fuel oil needed to move and heat the ship, even the planning for sick bay space. The figures I've read is about 100 tons of consumables per man per three month mission, and that doesn't take into account the fixed weight requirements like the weight of the plethora of guns and mounts.
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  622.  @dropdead234  Back when the US still had military bases, I had the misfortune to be a deputy sheriff in an area with two Navy bases, an Air Force base, and two Army bases. That combination never got tired of fighting. The only advantage was there were enough SP's, MP's, and AP's around that the drunks were usually pretty worn out fighting with them before we rolled up.
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  623. Correct. I was a GA pilot for about 30 years. Except for the rare single engine aircraft with prop turning counterclockwise, every clockwise turning prop will cause the plane to yaw left on climb out. It was one of the first things I was taught in ground school and had to practice - a lot - about using the rudder to counteract the yaw. Same thing happened when applying full power to a climb once the angle of attack changed toward vertical. I did have the chance to fly in the backseat of a Yak-52 Soviet trainer. It has a two bladed counter-rotating prop. There was a big sign in the cockpit in English warning of the counterrotation, and it felt really weird having the aircraft constantly wanting to yaw right. It's an aerobatic trainer, and the pilot took us inverted for about 90 seconds. I rarely even got queasy on a flight, but I was glad to get back upright on that one. The pilot told me to only have coffee and a croissant for breakfast, and that turned out to be excellent advice, :-)
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  624.  @bkjeong4302  Yes, I wrote the White Plains never actually scored a hit on the torpedoes. You're right that the landings and already taken place, but some ships continued to offload supplies until October 25 and were just beginning to disengage when the Japanese fleet approached. Kuritas task was to sink as many supply and troop ships he could find and then shell the American positions, some of which were still only a few miles inland. Of course Kurita had no chance of success even if he had pushed past Taffy 3, but he could have sowed enough confusion to at least split the Seventh Fleet. While attack by aircraft did the most damage to Kurita's ships, he said in a 1954 interview that it was the savagery of attacks by what he believed to be some US cruisers and destroyers, plus the number of aircraft attacking, that helped make his decision to withdraw. He believed the attacks were a way to draw him into combat with the entire Seventh Fleet. He thought they were setting a trap for him further up the strait. Hearing of the destruction of the Northern Fleet, he knew his attack couldn't succeed. He knew the war was lost for Japan, and he wanted to return as many ships to Japan for what he assumed would be the last stand of the navy. He was sick of fighting battles that only turned into defeats for Japan, and didn't want to see any more sailors killed for nothing. He had lost all of his cruisers and many of his destroyers and knew he'd be lucky to retreat and not lose the whole fleet. Just my feeling, but I think it was a combination of ship attacks, air attacks, and Kurita's own war weariness that caused him to retreat.
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  625.  @mbryson2899  Thanks for the kind words.
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  626.  @mitchelloates9406  Same for me, but in the early 60's. Clacking away on those old Underwood uprights was pure torture at times. If i typed too fast, the type bars would stick together, and I'd have to stop and untangle them. Then, no matter how careful I was, out would come the White Out to fix the inevitable mistakes. I remember buying an Atari 800 and daisy wheel printer for something like $1400 in 1979 just so I'd never need White Out again.
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  627.  @neilwilson5785  It would make quite an interesting diorama...as long as you could get anyone to believe it wasn't made up. :-)
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  628. Just to clarify, the centimetric radars that the cavity magnetron made possible still required tubes (valves), and lots of them. The cavity magnetron required a much lower transmitting power and hence a smaller and lighter power supply. Miniature and multifunction tubes also allowed what was a small package for 1942 onwards.
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  629.  @spatsky  C'mon. He received a war warning on November 27, 1941. Rather than disperse his aircraft, order constant air patrols, and order his large fleet of submarines out to perform reconnaissance patrols, most were still in port or on the ground on December 8. MacArthur's decision not to send out reconnaissance flights toward Formosa at dawn, as advised his air force commander, was disastrous. If he had sent out flights at dawn he would have had at least six hours to disperse his aircraft and mount an attack from safety. Even though he was warned, he seemed to have no understanding that Clark Field was within range of Japanese aircraft from Fornosa. By the time he did order reconnaissance aircraft aloft, they were met by incoming Japanese aircraft. The bombers and aircraft at Clark Field were fueled and armed up for an attack on Formosa that came too late. Japanese fighters and bombers destroyed half the combat aircraft and most of their fuel in the Far East air force in less than an hour. He did a terrible job preparing and stocking a redoubt in Corregidor and Batten. There were only half the supplies in the tunnels as there were supposed to be, and it was the Navy that extended the tunnels when MacArthur had decided not to use Army troops to do so. MacArthur had decided by July of 1941 that the Philippines could be defended with his B-17's, and that Japan would be deterred from attack because the B-17, which had never been used in combat, was such a formidable aircraft. Nothing MacArthur did would have staved off the eventual defeat in the Philippines, but better planning and tactics could have extended the time of resistance and not had his troops in near starvation at the end. You seem to have a rather starry eyed admiration for MacArthur. You really need to read "MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines" to understand some of the blunders and mistakes MacArthur made in the defense of the Philippines. If not for the flowery and self-serving dispatches he sent after the attack and his effective public relations team in the US he would have been sacked. American needed a hero in the dark days of early 1942, and MacArthur made sure he was primed to fill that role.
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  630. I imagine the obvious advantage of superifing guns wouldn't have been possible without an armored gunhouse for at least the lower guns. Armor and weather protection for the gun mechanism and crew also had obvious advantages. Just the size of blast shields needed for superfiring 4" and 5" guns gives an idea what would have been needed for guns of 12" and larger.
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  631.  @Sarsol1989  Neither the Soviet nor Russian navy had/has official ship prefixes. This has lead to a plethora of made up prefixes to help identify naval vessels. My suggestion would be USSRS for Soviet ships and RFS for Russian ships.
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  632.  @treeshakertucker5840  Morning indeed. I have no idea why I'm still up at 0445, but that won't last much longer.
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  633. It's good that these French pre-doughnuts never had to face something like Typhoon Cobra. The results would have been rather drastic.
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  634. Halsey was great admiral - but only in 1942. Halsey went into the Pacific war with the idea the war his to win, and he'e win it or die. His aggressive actions and superior tactical planning caught the Japanese off guard. It was dangerous, but he had no choice if we weren't to lose our entire fleet. By 1944, he was the one with the superior fleet, but he continued to operate as if his back was to the wall.
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  635. 2 am here in CST time. It never fails. I'm just getting ready to shut things down and then there's a notification from this Drachinifel guy. That means a 47 minute delay in sleep this morning.
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  636. It's unfortunate, but I doubt this will calm down in the next 30 days. Your airline will cancel the trip within the next several days so just sit on the tickets. Most airlines here are allowing people to reschedule with no penalty for up to a year, so maybe that will be an option. This will pass. It will take several months before new cases start going down enough to end some of the travel restrictions. And better a cheery announcement until you had more information than adding any more doom and gloom to an already tough situation for us all. We will all make it through this. Hell, I'm 74 with other health problems, so I'm theoretically one of the most at risk, and I'm just staying home except for weekly food shopping I can't avoid with things from Amazon. I wash my hands whenever I can and keep my hands away from my face. I'm confident that's enough to keep me from getting the virus. I lived through the Hong Kong Flu of 1968, back when I was a respiratory therapist actively treating patients hacking and coughing in my face. That flu killed one million people worldwide and about 600,000 in the US. We had patients lining the hallways on cots and had to rent a refrigerated truck to hold all the dead bodies because the county morgue was full and we had run out of coffins to bury people. I never even got a sniffle. Until I see something that starts rivaling the 1968 outbreak, I'm pretty sure that vast majority of us, now that we are taking the same precautions we should take every flu season, will not only not die, we won't even get it.
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  637.  @mbryson2899  Thanks. I appreciate the kind words.
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  638.  @bkjeong4302  True, although these pagoda masts were built to increase the height of radio antennas as well as optics. The low powered, regenerative circuit radios of the 20's required as much height as possible if they were going to get any kind of useable range, especially in the Pacific. The early USN radars were primarily mounted on carriers and battleships for the same reasons. It was the development of superhet multiple stage receivers and higher powered transmitters that made absolute antenna height less important during the late 30's onward.
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  639. Remember the days when some guides didn't have enough content to even make it to five minutes? What a difference a few years makes!
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  640.  @TheTrueAdept  Wow, a simple request for proof of your assertion evades you? If you had any an understanding of how offshore geography works, which you don't, you'd know the Intracoastal Waterway (not intercoastal highway) is an inland or just offshore system of mostly artificial canals and extensions of existing rivers, bays, and inlets. It provides a route for freight to move up and down the coast mostly without the hazards of the open ocean. Barrier islands play almost no role in the canal. Since most of the route only has a maximum depth of 12 feet, and many places 9 feet or less, the primary traffic is barges and pleasure craft. Do you think supertankers, container ships, and aircraft carriers use the Intracoastal Waterway to sail up and down the coast? Sounds like you must to make such an incredibly ignorant comment.
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  641. I can't imagine that you'd have a good trip, Drach, even if you can make it here. Now that travel from the UK is suspended, you'd have to spend fourteen days in quarantine if even you did get here, many of the ships/museum are closing, and more and more hotels, restaurants, and any places of public accommodation are also closing. I'd like to think we will regain our sanity in three weeks, but I doubt it. If it was me, I'd just cancel and reschedule for maybe the summer, when there's a better chance this thing will have blown over.
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  642.  @AdamMGTF  So far, so good. I turn 75 in two weeks, an age I never thought I'd attain. I'd be happy to do a stream with Drach on US fire control systems if he decided he wanted something like that for his channel. Unfortunately, I think it would an almost instant sleeping pill for most people. :-)
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  643. Why did it take so long for RN destroyers to feature enclosed gunhouses for their main battery? I believe the 1943 Battle class destroyers were the first RN class to use enclosed gun houses while the USN began using them in 1933. Having partially open gun shields and hand loading must have made things difficult for RN destroyer gun crews in WWII.
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  644.  @johnpjones1775  Well, there were a lot of dogs and cats that did just fine when their ship was under fire. Some of them even had little helmets and flak jackets. Back when my dad was in Navy (42-46), he didn't have a choice either. He was drafted. He wasn't able to make a choice not to go, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't feel a lot of moral pangs about having a mascot on a ship. I also can't think of one mascot killed under fire.
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  645. Holy crap! I just got to this Drydock to find it's over six hours long! Now I need to schedule time over the next three days to listen to this one.
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  646. I think you meant to say the Firebrand had a tailwheel rather than tricycle landing gear. Blackburn went on to produce an even worse strike fight after the Firebrand, the Firecrest. Test pilots reported the Firecrest made the Firebrand feel downright sprightly. This time, the RN realized Blackburn was never going to produce a decent strike fighter and canceled the Fircrest after two prototypes. Blackburn didn't really hit its stride until the superb Buccaneer flew, just in time for Blackburn to be caught in the "rationalisation" schemes of the government, so the name disappeared in 1963.
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  647.  @alecblunden8615  The high freeboard issue makes sense given the normal RN operations in the Atlantic and North Sea. Interwar SN ships were expected to operate in the Atlantic as well so they had had the same need for freeboard. Starting with the Fletchers and then really being carried forward with the Sumner and Gearing classes, USN destroyers were more optimized for Pacific conditions where the need for high freeboard isn't as constant. A hull with more volume was also needed to carry what weight of additional weapons and equipment. The combination of the Manchuria and wider China campaign by the Japanese was the reason the US applied pressure to Japan for withdrawal from 1936 forward. However, the Japanese note of December 7 was no more a declaration of war than the Hull note to Japan of November 26. Both can be viewed as ultimatums with the next step being war, but the Japanese were hoping to use their note as a reason why a state of war existed between Japan and the US just before Pearl Harbor. The Hull note did not mention war as the next step nor give any time period before war would commence. The Japanese didn't break off diplomatic relations in their December 7 note nor did they give a time period before hostilities would commence. Both countries were bound by the Hague Convention of 1907, and the Japanese note didn't meet the requirements of formal declaration of war. I understand the military reasons why Japan militarily felt the need for surprise attacks against not only the US but Britain as well was their only chance of securing resources. Still, the decoding of the December 7 note would not have met the requirements of international law as a declaration of war regardless of when it was completed.
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  648.  @bluemarlin8138  I generally agree, although an Independence class ship was designed to fight other ships, only ships from the fast attack category up to mid-size offshore patrol vessels. The Navy now recognizes the Independence class has no role other than that of an expensive and overgrown speedboat. The Navy will try to get it right with next class rated as frigates with armament that might be able to defeat a Fletcher.
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  649. So the original plan was for Eagle to be the world's largest and slowest torpedo boat that could incidentally operate a few aircraft. Makes perfect sense to me...
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  650. Good one. It does look like a ship you'd see in a dream, then wake up and realize it was just a nightmare.
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  651. The "Empire of the Seas" BBC miniseries is available on Youtube and well worth watching. If nothing else, it's a reminder of the time when the BBC produced good historical documentaries,
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  652.  @eplekake3870  There's also more deck space for things like aircraft catapults and antiaircraft guns. American cruisers from the Brooklyns on certainly illustrate that point. Just moving a catapult from amidships to the stern simplifies aircraft handling. A transom stern allows space for a below decks hanger (although US cruisers had constant problems with elevator door leakage in following seas), and isolates volatile av gas from the rest of the ship. It also helps open up sky arcs for the anti aircraft guns.
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  653. I agree, Essex (1) was a very pleasant looking ship. Hanging banners all over it taunting the RN didn't hurt any.
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  654. Matthew, it must have more than a bit unnerving watching a ship the size of an Essex carrier taking green water over the bow from a Gearing class destroyer! Let's see, only about 33,000 tons heavier and 480 feet longer than your tin can. You're a braver man than me, Matthew, and thanks for your service.
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  655. Of course, the Navy had some very efficient radar by the time of Ten Go as well, so even bad weather doesn't protect the task force from that. As you said, even without aircraft, the Yamato is going to be pulverized with everything from5" guns up to 16" guns. Reportedly, this whole operation was in response to the Emperor asking why, if the army was planning to have so many kamikaze attacks to defend Okinawa, why wasn't the navy doing the same? From this remark, this whole crazy plan grew.
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  656.  @Zephyrmec  Great story. It seems sailors will always find a way to get a drink, even at sea. My dad was on PT boats, and he told me stories that, no matter how primitive and forward their bases of operations, it was only a matter of time before someone got a still operating. They would goose the mixtures with some small amounts of pure alcohol pilfered from the torpedo fuel stocks. The results, using sugar, water, some local fruit, corn meal from the galley, and coconuts, available in unending supply, made a mixture he thought was about 175 proof. On their rare rest days, everyone had a shot or two, and it was enough that most of them caught up on some much needed sleep.
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  657. Well, they gave it their best shot with the failed Advanced Gun System. The Zumwalts were going to have this really great lightweight 155 mm gun that could fire Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) out to 100 miles at 12 rounds a minute with a CEP of just 20 to 50 meters. Nice try, but the first 45 rounds tested had a CEP of about 150 meters. Then the ROF was adjusted down 10 rounds a minute to improve accuracy, and it did...to a CEP of 100 meters, still far off specs. Then someone sat down with a calculator and figured out that each round would cost somewhere around a million bucks. Opps. The navy finally abandoned LRLAP in November of 2016. That means those weird looking Zumwalts are sailing around with a main gun that has no ammunition, since the gun can't fire anything but LRLAP rounds. The navy is now scrambling around trying to adapt the Italian 127 mm Vulcano round for the now useless 155 mm guns on the Zumwalts. I'm sure it will work first time at very low cost. Seriously though, all the money spent on this and the previous 8"/55 mm gun failure could have probably paid for the refitting of any of the Des moines class cruisers....maybe even all of them.
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  658. At least the USN is realizing that a 378 ft 3,400 ton vessel is really a poorly armed frigate. Maybe the upgrades will help it to be a real combat vessel rather than some weird combination of a PT boat and a helicopter carrier. I don't think there's any doubt that the entire DDG 1000 program is an utter failure by comparison to the LCS.
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  659. There's a video on here about naval gunfire support at Iwo Jima. It's fascinating to see how accurate battleship gunfire was inland to 20 miles using the relatively crude aiming methods of WWII. Imagine what could be done today. Well, assuming we had any ships with the armamnet to do that.
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  660. Gee, I wonder why the Japanese built the Mogami class a full four years before the Brooklyns with a near identical main battery? I wonder what Japanese ship class the Brooklyns were meant to counter, ehh....?
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  661. I gave it my best shot but had to give up at 32 minutes. I'm already deaf in one ear, and the constant change in volume and pitch from Mr. Lowrey just gives me a massive headache. Pity, because it's an interesting subject. I'd happily listen again if there was better audio.
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  662.  @sjonnieplayfull5859  Yes, almost everything from attack transports to LST's to LSU's were manned by Coast Guardsmen for much of the war. The peak levels of USCG manpower came just before D-Day with nearly 170,000 serving, and over 250,000 serving cumulatively during the duration. The USN could not have conducted amphibious landings in Europe or the Pacific without the participation of the Coast Guard.
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  663.  @tomriley5790  It's not just carriers. The Arleigh Burke is already almost 30 years old and is expected to serve until about 2040. Most Oliver Hazard Perry ships served for 35 or more year before being transferred to other navies, where they are probably good for another 20-25 years. A stupidly designed ship like the T23 or the USN disaster, the _Zumwalt class, will retire early because they have no utility. Well designed and maintained ships are routinely going to serve 40-50 years as long as we only have low intensity conflicts to fight,
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  664.  @TraditionalAnglican  It was a really dishonorable thing for King to do, and apparently in a case of revenge. McVay's father, an admiral in 1927, gave King a letter of reprimand because he and a couple other officers were caught sneaking some women onto a ship. I really believe King was an alcoholic, and some of his worst behavior occured when he was drinking.
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  665. The biggest problem, even if her weapons weren't cover by the wooden sheds, was crew. The number of men aboard her at the time of the attack is shown by the relatively small death toll of 64 compared to the 415 men lost on the Oklahoma, which capsized under similar circumstances. It was also common practice to only load the number of rounds needed for a practice gunnery voyage to reduce the number of crew that would have been needed to maintain the magazines between training sessions. It's not very likely Utah could have done much better at antiaircraft defense than the other US battleships that day.
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  666.  @7thsealord888  Yes, the possibility the German prisoners were intentionally misleading the Aussies played right into some of the later conspiracy theories about a Japanese sub or two raiders. After the discovery of the location of the two ships, I recall and Australian naval officer and historian going back over the statements of each prisoner in light of being able to place the events more precisely. IIRC, in all but two cases, the prisoners were being truthful about the battle, how long it lasted, the direction that the Sydney was last seen heading, and when she disappeared over the horizon. They were mostly evasic=ve or just kept silent about their ship, equipment, mission, and the history of their voyage. I get the feeling that the sailors from the Kormoran thought there was a chance that some of the sailors from the Sydney might have survived, and they were giving accurate information about events that would help the Australians rescue them.
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  667. Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you.
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  668. I hope today has been a better day for you.
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  669.  @richjageman3976  With Alabama close behind. BOth states are much bigger than they appear at first glance on the map. In terms of size though, the largest US county, San Bernardino CA, is half as big as all of Britain. It's only when you get out West that you get counties the same size or larger than many entire European countries.
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  670.  @RedXlV  I think I'd vote for war as the main driver, as shown by the Cleveland and Baltimore classes of the USN. No empire or dominions to maintain, but it was like once the ship building started, it wasn't able to stop any better than a freight train.
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  671.  @kiloalphasierra  That concept may have held more weight except for the fact the much later and smaller Gato/Balao classes were armed with 5"/25 guns, so ammunition storage wasn't much less of problem than with a 5"/51 gun. The 5"/51 gun wasn't very handy on a sub, and as soon as the wet mount 5"/25 was in production, the 3" guns were replaced with them or 4"/50 guns until enough 5"25 guns were available. The point of a deck gun was to sink a freighter that had already surrendered and not waste torpedoes. By the time you had pumped enough 3"/50 rounds into a even a small freighter to sink it you had had used up more storage then using the larger and more effective 5" or 4" rounds. They weren't for the sub to wage a running gun battle unless there was no other choice. The 3"/50 was the brainchild child of Admiral Hart, and submariners hated that gun.
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  672. The national prefixes I've seen you use mostly make sense to me. Maybe you could publish a list of the ones you use and make it a sticky at the top so we can see the ones you use. We can then look up ships based on those. As long as we all understand them, the fine points of nations like Russia and Japan really becomes less important for purposes of the channel.
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  673.  @WALTERBROADDUS  I don't know, Walter. I'd need to sit down with a spreadsheet to see if running a single Montana was more expensive than a couple of cruisers. Summer cruises were (and are) a big deal, for all the reasons I mentioned. Having all the participants and instructors together on one ship has some pretty good aspects.
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  674.  @MrTScolaro  OI'm not confusing anything. The Japanese radar, even though it was the most advanced in the fleet, was still no match for the SJ and ST radar on the Sealion. However, the Japanese radar was capable of seeing Sealion running on the surface. the problem was the IJN had long ago run out of experience radar operators, and picking out the tiny pip of the Sealion, running with her decks mostly awash, would have been difficult for an experienced man, and impossible for the hastily trained operators on the Nagato. The radar on the Kongo had broken down before the sinkings so she was basically blind, only realizing and attack wa suderway because of the explosions heard from the Nagato. the attack was successful mainly because the Japanese ships weren't zigzagging. If they had been, it's doubtful that any, or more than one, torpedo would have hit Nagato. The second salvo at Kongo missed because her lookouts saw the torpedoes and turned hard away. The sinking of the Urakaze was a lucky accident as the salve aimed at Kongo ran on and hit Urakaze. So, to be clear, I was never claiming that Japanese radars were superior to those carried by the latest US subs like the Sealion. They would have been good enough in the hands of experienced operators, something the Japanese didn't have by late 1944. Japanese radars were also fragile and constantly breaking down, not unlike our own. The difference was Japanese operators didn't know how to fix them when it happened. We did, and they had plenty of spare parts to work with. Japanese ships had almost no spares. One bad tube with no replacement and the radar was out of service until they could reach port, assuming there were any of that tube available at all. Late war US subs not only had superior radar with the best operators in any navy, and had also developed superior attack tactics. Combine that with a Japanese fleet sailing at just 16 knots and not zigzagging and the stage was set for a Japanese disaster.
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  675. I won't get into Trudeau the First since, as an American, nothing good will come of it. However, I really doubt the validity of the rumor. Taiwan had no jets capable of carrier work in 1971. The first helicopters really capable of being safely operated from a carrier were the Blackhawks received in 1986. Given that the US was really Taiwan's only source of military equipment, it seems unlikely we would have seen some evidence of it, and we wouldn't have been pleased if Taiwan had tried to pull a stunt like that. Finally, most of the steam catapult equipment was removed before Bonaventure was towed off to help repair the catapults on HMAS Melbourne. Canada does need to make some decisions about her airpower soon. As you say, the Cormorants are about worn out, the Cyclone deliveries are much slower than forecast. The Aurora fleet is being nursed along with reduced flying hours until the structural rebuild program is completed, and even that program is unlikely to extend the out of service date for more than six years or so. My understanding is the Arcturus fleet has already been retired. The Hornet fleet has suffered a fairly high attrition rate, and the total is now down to about 85 aircraft, and some of them are already over 30 years old. Compare this to the Royal Norwegian Air Force, a country with about 20% the population of Canada, and a GDP only about 22% that of Canada. They have an air force with 46 much more modern F-16's and 19 F-35A's, soon to increase to a total of 33. Canada does have NATO obligations, and it's starting to fall behind on those due to the shrinking size and general aging of the air fleet. I hope you finally get a government that pays more attention to defense than the current one. On the plus size, however, Canada does have two of the last Hawker Hunters still in service, albeit being flown by a contractor.
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  676.  @enscroggs  Let me repeat. I remember reading that several members of the Type B-1 class, including 1-19, were modified to operate type 93 torpedoes. I need to find the book on Japanese fleet submarines that was the source of this, but it's packed away in one box out of about 20 of my naval history books, and I don't know which box right now. As soon as I find it, I'll either give the pages of the book as reference or write it off to a hazy memory.
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  677.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Right, but the DDE experiment showed you can go too far in vessel specialization. The DDE conversions were done in the early 50's, when the threat from Soviet aircraft hadn't gone away, and surface action was likely to be with guns since SSM's really hadn't become common. War games in 1q954 and 1955 showed the DDE's were likely to be overwhelmed and sunk by either aircraft or other surface vessels, since they didn't retain enough capability to deal with either. Some of tonnage from the deleted gun mounts was given over the Weapon Alpha, not our most successful antisubmarine rocket system. The development of ASROC showed the Gearing class was about the only one with space and tonnage available to mount one, and then only after the hugely extensive FRAM rebuilds. Even most of the FRAMs only lost one twin mount, and some retained all six. The other DDE's were quickly restored to standard destroyer configuration
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  678. Looks like there's another patch of white-out toward the stern on that vessel as well. Maybe another casemate?
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  679.  @MendTheWorld  And there are people on the right who feel the same way about people on the left. Why do you feel the need for this in a comment thread about the USS Alaska?
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  680.  @Krieg-ch8ot  Yes, but compare a 1940 picture of Bismark with a 1944 view of Tirpitz. Like all of the world's warships, from destroyers on up, bridge wings got progressively cut back as the need for clear sky arcs for antiaircraft fire became more important that the benefits of large bridge wings.
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  681. The Almirante Grau at 380 feet must have been one of the smallest vessels to have a full on stern walk.
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  682.  @Zephyrmec  Yes, Brookhaven is other major lab I couldn't think during my fatigue induced stupor this morning, thanks. I believe there is some from a couple earlier capital ships out at the Hanford Reservation in Washington as well.
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  683.  @billbolton  LOL. Yes, we have a good bunch of regular contributors here. If we could get a few 12 year old WoW players to grow up, it would be perfect. :-)
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  684. Part of why I like history is pondering the what if's. What if those pilots and crews were on the MS Sea Witch instead of the USS Langley? What if the 27 crated P-40's were able to be assembled before the Japanese overran Tjilatjap? What if they could have flown in support of the ADBA task forces? Probably, not much. We needed a carrier with dive and torpedo bombers. We needed the submarines, of which we had about 20 in the general area, to have functional torpedos. We needed the Dutch to have better trained and equipped troops. The most important thing we needed was less of a defeatist attitude. The US viewed the Netherlands East Indies as way too far away to be a tactical issue. The British were tied up trying to save Singapore. The Dutch knew they couldn't hold an area as large as the NEI with what they had in the way of forces. The Australians were trying to fight off the Japanese for the purpose of saving Australia, not the NEI. The Pearl Harbor debacle and the Singapore debacle demoralized the US and British leadership, and the Japanese seemed to be a race of supermen instead of the weak midgets we had envisioned them. It's really hard to imagine how dark the dark days before Midway really were.
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  685.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Bugatti, Delahaye, some Citroens, Renault Alpine, some Peugeots, Facel Vega....the list goes on.
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  686. Nova and Johnathan, those answers certainly make sense. Let me reverse my question then. What did the Lord Nelson designers see as the value of the secondary turrets while almost everyone else didn't see any value? Casemates were cheaper, and you could squeeze in more guns, yet every navy had experienced the problem of trying to fight casemate guns in any kind of rough seas.
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  687. The Allies were very lucky the Japanese didn't have radar. A long range shot at 32 knots could travel 25 miles. A long range shot depended on optical spotting, but even their excellent optics were only good out to about 15 miles. They had to launch long range attacks based on where the enemy vessels were last seen, generally less than 15 miles away. That meant using a lot of math and experience to set a long range course, and a lot of luck about actually hitting something. The Japanese actually hoped they were attacked by a large fleet, since a failure to hit the first ships in the line still meant there was a enough range left to hit ships in the secondary line. If the Japanese had radar or developed homing technology, the Type 93 would have had much better success.
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  688. A lot of splash distinguishing was done using a "scotch tape" range scale on the PPI scope, or the typical radar display we've all seen. The CIC crew knew how far their shells would travel within a range of about 30 meters. They also knew how far the target was from their ship, also within about 30 meters for a cruiser and above size target. They literally used a piece of scotch tape with that data in pencil on a piece of tape and paste it on the screen. That served as a visual marker between the range of a splash and range of the target, and a new tape was made fr each salvo Since no other ship could have been firing at exactly the same time at the same target, shell splashes for your ship could be pretty accurately determined by watching the flight of your shells as pips on the PPI along the scotch tape scale. A range difference between a splash and the target that didn't match your scotch tape scale couldn't be yours, only the ones that matched your scale. It's really quite a simple concept once you understand it, but one that wasn't part of the normal radar features at the time. The Navy crewman who first came up with the scotch tape scale is lost in the sands of time, but the scale was in wide use in the Pacific by the middle of 1944. These innovations were distributed to the fleet and the Allies using the Combat Information Center Magazine starting in July, 1944. These are mostly available online at https://maritime.org/doc/cic/ and make fascinating reading for electronics nerd types like me. From reading the magazines, it seems the scotch tape scale was already known by July 1944, so some early electronics nerd sailor had already worked out the general concept by then. The scale was added electronically to postwar radars, so the the vast supply of scotch tape needed in a CIC faded by then.
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  689.  @andreww2098  That's like saying a Daisy air rifle uses compressed air and has a projectile so they are sort of the same. While a torpedo is launched with compressed air, the comparison then fails, since a torpedo is self propelled once it reaches a certain distance form the launch tube, The projectile from a "dynamite" gun totally depends on the force of the compressed air for locomotion. That's why "dynamite" guns faded quickly from the scene while we still use torpedoes.
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  690.  @stevevalley7835  It did get as far as several design sketches, but it was clear early on that conversion costs were going to be about 20% of her new build cost, and the naval budget just couldn't handle that. The 29 knots was trials speed in her original displacement of 16,9000 tons. By 1944, her displacement had crept up to 19,900 tons, and top speed was down to 26.1 knots. She was still useful as a fleet carrier early on in the war, when fleet speeds in general were only about 27 knots, but that changed rapidly once the Essex class, Iowa class and the Cleveland/Baltimore classes came into commision. All these ships could easily exceed 30 knots, and they became the determining factors for what ships could work with the main task forces. Ranger was still quite useful as a fast aircraft transport.
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  691. Also known by the less flattering term "hulk", it was cheap way to add to barracks space for new sailors. Some also served an important purpose as a naval hospital, and these were used right up through WWII.
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  692. Teddy Roosevelt wrote a great book called "The Naval War of 1812". He was only twenty-three when he wrote it, but he was already showing his grasp of naval history and contemporary naval warfare. He covers the pivotal battles on Lake Erie in some detail, and he shows how lake weather affect the engagements, with either everyone becalmed or caught in roaring storms. It's now available on Amazon for a mere 99 cents for the Kindle version. It really should be read by anyone with an interest in the Lakes battles.
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  693. Heinrich Hertz was already at work on a primitive radar in 1887. If the Kriegsmarine had bothered to recognize and support Hertz's work, there's a good change the German could have had a working surface search radar with a range of ten or so miles by the time of Jutland. One can only imagine the results of that.
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  694.  @Achates72  Yes, you're right, they were Mark 8 torpedoes. However, my point wasn't the type of torpedoes, only that any ship taking a significant hit in her torpedo racks is liable to a huge explosion, a fate Stewart was lucky to escape.
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  695.  @TEHSTONEDPUMPKIN  Ironic or not, it still seems weird. I don't play either game, and all i can judge them on is their websites. Azur Lane, in particular, seems to have way more to do with the depiction of incredibly busty anime chicks than anything to do with realistic portrayals of warships.
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  696.  @therake8897  Indeed, must have just been two small boys a hammer each working on that one. :-) The Australians left most of the deck landing system and steam catapults intact when it was sold, along with quite a lot of what was considered obsolete electronics. The Chinese set about reverse engineering everything, and there's a better than average chance the catapult system on the next generation of PLAN carriers may have parts that look familiar to an old salt from the Australian Navy.
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  697. I've never read anything from any naval expert that the South Carolinas weren't "real" dreadnoughts. Do you have a link for your assertion?
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  698.  @s.31.l50  The Achilles, although commissioned as an RN ship, was always part of the New Zealand divons and crewed mostly by Kiwis. She was formally transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy in September, 1941. She was transferred to the Indian Navy in 1948, serving there until 1978.
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  699. In the US vs German battleship questions, it really comes down to which vessels are able to keep their radars intact. By late 1941, radar for sea search and fire control was so vital that having it knocked out in poor visibility conditions or night action was almost the hand of death. All the WWII ship to ship questions are also dependent on which side had the most effective air cover.
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  700. Not the most distinguished ship to have served in the French or, perhaps, any other navy. At least the French had finally abandoned the "floating hotel" look.
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  701. The high here in SE Alabama today will 36c. That's a considerable cool down since last week when the high were 38.5 to 38.8. Somewhere around 33 to 34 is normal. My overnight lows are sometimes not below 26. Thankfully, I do have air conditioning, but the bill this month will require me to take out a second mortgage. However, with the choice between that and death, I just have to dig up more cash from somewhere.
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  702. Isn't the Paraguayan vessel "Paraguay" older than the Parnaiba? It's still in commision awaiting replacement of her steam propulsion plant with diesels. Her keel was laid in Italy in 1928 and she was commissioned in 1931.
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  703.  @f1b0nacc1sequence7  Before the US or Britain entered the war? I don't think they were doomed then.
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  704.  @f1b0nacc1sequence7  I don't think more people know that the Japanese had a way out of a resource war almost all the way to Pearl Harbor. The US was offering them all the oil they could buy and all the scrap steel they could buy. All they had to do was agree to halt operations in China and agree to leave China at some point in the hazy future. If Japan had accepted and called off expansion in China for even a year and a half, they could have stockpiled all the oil they'd ultimately use through the end of 1944. They really weren't doomed until the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and Manila.
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  705.  @jdrawr  The largest ships the RN got under lend lease I know of were some escort carriers, and I don't believe they ever had ice cream machines. They did rip out some bunks and put in hammocks because RN sailors generally preferred them, at least according to the Navy. I haven't heard of them taking out washing machines so I'll need a link for that one. The RN did set up ships so they would more match their own fleet. Tacoma class patrol frigates are one example. They were delivered with three 3"/50 guns but some had those replaced with two British 4" guns. As delivered, they had two twin 40mm Bofors gun mounts, and some of those were replaced with 2 pounder pom poms. Many had additional 20mm guns added as well since the British liked the 20 mm guns more than the 40mm Bofors. I guess I don't find it surprising that they would do some refits to more closely align with the rest of the Navy.
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  706. Another factor that influenced the US Navy's decision not to armor the deck was the belief that their damage control procedures and training were so good that most damage to a carrier could be fought with non-fatal results. Given that only four fleet carriers were sunk in WWII, there was reason to believe that the damage control theory worked The Yorktown may have repairable if not sunk by the U-168 while under tow, so it may have been just three fleet carriers lost with some luck.
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  707.  @CleveAneki  Yes, the Brooklyns, while useful ships, were nowhere near as useful as a Cleveland. Clevelands were commissioned with the latest in radars and fire control equipment while the Brooklyns had to wait until they went in for major refits. The Boise didn't get modern radar and GFCS installed until 1945. Phoenix was mostly upgraded during post battle damage overhaul during 1944 but still didn't have the latest directors. She did, however, have eight 5"/38 guns in twin turrets, a big improvement over the eight single 5"/25 she had previously. As you said, shell handling was improved in the Cleveland class, they had faster and more powerful rammers, and the turrets were able to traverse and elevate more quickly. All that meant a rate a fire fast enough that the broadside of a Cleveland was 120 rounds a minute with 12 barrels, the same as the Brooklyn with 15 barrels. They had 12 5"/38 guns compared 8 5'/25 guns on the Brooklyn, much better close-in AA armament, and the modified superstructure gave them better fields of fire. People get seduced by the Brooklyn having five triple turrets compare to the Cleveland's four, but almost any admiral would take a Cleveland over a Brooklyn when it came down to a fight.
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  708. Nice early morning gift of this episode here in the US.
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  709. Well, this was a first. I was actually asleep before the Drydock posted for once. I get to watch it rested instead of nearly passing out the entire time. :-) The Texas isn't in the best location to attract tourists so moving it closer the Houston would probably be a good thing. No one outside the project management team knows where Texas will be moved and how it will be moored, but at least there's now going to be enough money available for extensive repairs.
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  710. Another interesting video. Symonite vessels were a new one on me so I'm glad I'm not quite as ignorant about them as I was before.The USN before WWII was really quite conservative, and convincing the admirals that the monoplane was going to become the dominate aircraft type over biplanes was a hard sell. Once the realities of war, especially the Japanese, hit, the USN embarked on whole lines of aircraft that had successful transitions from carrier to land based, The F4U Corsair, A1D Skyraider, and F8F Bearcat are three that come to mind. The RN did it more in reverse, adapting land based planes like the Spitfire and Hurricane. I can't think of a single FAA plane that made the transition to RAF service. The Blackburn Firebrand with a proper engine may have made it to an RAF strike fighter role but that's the only one I can think of
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  711.  @bkjeong4302  Okay, so now that you've read the report, you understand your basic concept of one BB vs two CL was wrong. That's not enough, however, because you now advance the specious argument about baskets when no Iowa or Cleveland was lost during the war. The Iowas were simply superior antiaircraft ships. That's not open to question. Now we're going to move the goalposts by coming up with something about the strategic vs tactical value of antiaircraft battleships. There never was such a thing, of course, but is that even supposed ot mean? The only strategic value any ship has is power projection. It's hard to imagine any class of surface ships as effective at that as the Iowas. Do you think the Argentines might have thought twice about invading the Falklands if they knew a couple of Iowas would e coming? That's why they were reactivated, as strategic assets. That never negated the tactical value. Once a ship is in the water, it's tactical value that matters when the guns start firing. You'll have to explain your concept of strategic vs tactical.
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  712.  @Nuke89345  Indeed, no large naval vessel is cheap today. See the Zumwalts as prime examples. However, it's an unfair comparison to add up all the non-capital and long term costs for an Iowa and not do the same for an OHP frigate. Even if we accept that the all in cost of an Iowa recommissioning was equal to four OHP frigates, and we pretend you were going to make an amphibious landing against a defended target, would you rather have four OHPs or an Iowa at your disposal? They were reactivated primarily because the the USN had run down its entire fleet of 152mm and 203mm gun cruisers, so the shore bombardment capability was limited to 127mm guns or, in the case of an OHP, a single 76mm gun. The Iowas represented the only ships, no matter how old and crotchety they may have been, that could provide any meaningful shore bombardment from the mid-80's through the 90's. I'll have to dig up the article, but the bombardment of Iraqi troops in the first Gulf War probably represents the only time entire bodies of dug in troops surrendered solely due to those 2,000 pound shells hitting their positions. Don't hold me the numbers now, but a 10 man SEAL unit was put ashore before bombardment began. After a couple hours of that, hundreds of soldiers emerged waving anything white they could find. This was observed by a UAV doing spotting, and the SEALS moved up to take about 1,000 thoroughly demoralized soldiers prisoner. I rather doubt that four OHPs popping off 76mm rounds would have had the same effect.
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  713.  @Nuke89345  I have no argument with missiles being effective against known targets far inland. Even assuming they could get input from UAVs flying over the battlefield in time to reprogram the onboard targeting systems for shore bombardment use, how many missiles equal the destructive power as a single 8" round? By my calculations, two' rounds equals the destructive power of a single Harpoon. A Harpoon class missile comes in at $1.2 million each. A standard 5"/54 round is about $1200 each, so I'll double and round it up to $2500 for an 8" round. That's 480 8" rounds for the cost of one Harpoon. It's not for lack of trying by the Navy, especially since it's OPM they're spending. They have been working on a ~50 mile range guided missile fired from a Harpoon launcher with a suitable warhead for shore bombardment since...oh, about 1980 now. I can't find any information about development costs, but, before this project, like so many others, was shelved, was coming in at about $75,000 to $100,000 per missile. I expect that Raytheon or McDonnell Douglas will soon be trotting out another proposal that will develop a really cheap missile that will work this time. This incestual relationship between defense contractors that need Navy money to be profitable and admirals who need defense contractors to save their careers when yet another design by their department goes down the crapper is why our defense costs so much money for so little in return.
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  714.  @jamesricker3997  The Atlanta was fatally damaged by a torpedo from either the Inazuma or Ikazuchi, not by the mistaken gunfire of the San Francisco. If her forward engine room wasn't knocked out by the torpedo, her pumps may have kept up with the flooding and she could have continued underway. The torpedo sunk her, not the San Francisco, whose shells passed through the superstructure without detonating.
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  715.  @keptinkaos6384  Loss of a bridge crew does not lead to the sinking of a ship. Getting torpedoed and losing all engine power leads to the loss of ship.
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  716.  @keptinkaos6384  In the case of Atlanta, the XO was a competent officer who took over command. Losing the bridge crew can affect a ship's fighting ability for sure, but a well trained crew can still take over command, and it didn't cause the Atlanta to sink.
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  717.  @theswordguy5269  Uh huh. I asked for responses to my questions for evidence of your assertions, not arguments from authority. I've read Friedman and many more sources. I know all about DANFS and have read many of the damage reports from NARA, including those for the Atlanta and Juneau. I've been doing naval research of over 50 years. My reading of the damage and battle reports doesn't support your assertions of the cause of either ship's sinking. Please answer my questions rather than making another ad hominem attack. I'm not looking for a fight. I'm looking for evidence of your assertions.
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  718.  @theswordguy5269  It's only nitpicky when your assertions are challenged, I guess. Telling me to Google all your assertions provides no evidence they are true. Once again, arguments from authority while making yet more assertions with no evidence. You are the one that claimed Juneau had a broken back from the first torpedo hit, not me. Now you modify that assertion with "maybe" she had a broken back. Now you make the assertion that "other ships have survived stressed or shattered keels" Stressed wasn't the issue. A broken back was the issue. I asked you to name me one making 13 knots on one screw for 10 hours with a broken back. Surely you can provide one example to support your assertion. It was nine simple questions to provide evidence.based on your assertions. "Google it" is not evidence. It is a good way to pick a fight by inferring I'm an idiot.
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  719.  @frederickmiles327  The April 1968 deck logs at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6596074 show the New Jersey's full power runs fully loaded with standard ammunition, crew, and provisions at 31.09 knots. This was when the turbines had defective parts replaced but the engines and turbines had otherwise only received an austere rebuild from her WWII condition. I haven't had any luck finding WWII deck logs for New Jersey or the other Iowas but I'll keep hunting. The iowa class could certainly steam all day at 30 knots in appropriate sea state conditions with flank speed in combat with a reasonably clean bottom of about 32 knots. The Iowas were the only US battleship that ever claimed a sustained speed of 30 knots. They and the Alaska's were the only two large ships with hull forms that could comfortable cruise at whatever speed a carrier task force maintained. The Des Moines class were undoubtedly the finest heavy cruisers ever built. They were able to cruise at 32 knots, their automatic 8" guns could maintain a 7 round per minute ROF, and her combination of 12 5"/38 and 24 fully automatic 3"/50 guns, all capable of firing VT rounds, provided a level of surface fire and gun antiaircraft fire never equaled. The downside was the large hull (714 ft long) and tonnage (over 20,000 tons full load) needed for the large magazines needed to supply all the automatic guns and space for the proliferation of electronics and crew needed to man them. This made them very expensive ships, with costs running at 80-85% of an Iowa, and crew size only about 200 less than an Iowa. With four Iowa's and two Alaska's already available or in reserve, building more than three of them wasn't seen as economically feasible in the 1950's. By contrast, the Worcester class was a total failure. Their 6" automatic guns never functioned reliably, the ROF was at best 8 rpm, barely better that Des Moines 8" guns. The ship was built as an antiaircraft cruiser, and the hull was designed around the guns. The large loads of ammunition required a "light" cruiser longer and heavier than any WWII heavy cruiser. All her electronic systems and barely functional "automatic" main armament required 330 more crew than any previous heavy cruiser. The 6" guns were ineffective AA weapons because of the slow ROF and constant jamming when attempting to increase the ROF. Because the ships were optimized for the AA role. the correct directors and GFCS were never fitted, and she was shown to have poor accuracy and range when used in the GFS role off Korea. It was an expensive ship that couldn't perform anything well, and both were decommissioned in the late-50's. It's hard to judge the Sverdlov class cruisers. They were large and impressive ships, and the main role they performed during lifetime was showing the flag to demonstrate the USSR had a bluewater navy. She would have been a carrier escort had the Soviets built any during their lifetime. The Soviet Navy tried a couple missile ship conversions that were not successful. The Soviets judged their main role to be gunfire support platform, a role they never got the chance to demonstrate in combat. They were well liked by their crews for the relatively spacious quarters and, for the first time in any Soviet surface ship, air conditioning. The downside was the turbines and other mechanical systems were based on German practices, and the high tolerances required were difficult for the Soviets to achieve. Consequently, they required a highly trained engineering crews to maintain the engines. The lack of such training was shown by the sad experience of the Ordzhonikidze, sold to Indonesia in 1962 and renamed Irian. Irian lasted only three years in service before being returned to Vladivostok for a complete rebuilding of the turbines. Irian returned to Indonesia in late 1966..The ship lasted only another three years until 1969, when the ship's turbines were out of service and she was being used as an accommodations hulk, finally being towed to Taiwan for scrapping, slipping her tow enroute and sinking.
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  720.  @neurofiedyamato8763  A more accurate way to look at military spending is percent of GDP rather than absolute spending. Because the US has the largest economy in the world, our military spending seems huge. On a GDP basis, the US is fourth in spending behind Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Russia, with Turkey, India, France, and China not far behind. Our naval spending over the past seven years has been flat while Russia and China have had increases of 2% and more annually. The USN has come up with some pretty bad projects, Zumwalt being a prime example, but a lot of our spending in on aircraft carriers, carrier aircraft and carrier technology, areas we we lead the world by a large margin. Looking at Russia and China, it's not hard to see why we still need to spend on new technology. Unfortunately, part of developing new technology means some stupid technology.
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  721. The problem with the N3 is she would have been much too slow to operate with the fleet and escort carriers, and too large and expensive to waste on just convoy escort or shore bombardment duties. As we saw with the rebuilt old US battleships during the war, they made fine shore bombardment platforms. The Colorado class, even though the West Virginia was the only one rebuilt to almost modern battleship standards. showed their ability to fight a ship to ship confrontation at the Battle of Surigao Strait. With the addition of heavy anti aircraft armament and good radar and fire control, most of the old battleships were also good AA platforms for protecting the fleet during invasions in the Pacific. The N3's, had they been built, would have assumed the same roles, but at a great cost to the British taxpayer. Modernization of ships like Queen Elizabeth class would have made a lot more sense.
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  722. Indeed, much like the hybrid battleships/carriers of the IJN that became AA ships when there were no planes and no pilots left to fly them. The Ise, IIRC, had about 150 barrels of AA guns of various sizes but 1945, and they was able to fight off air attacks that had sunk other battleships and carriers. She wasn't sunk until the very last days of the war. She accomplished this with far inferior light anti aircraft armament and very poor radars and gun fire control systems. Imagine what she could have done with 5"/38 guns, 40 mm and 20 mm guns instead of the horrifically bad 25 mm guns, and SCR-584 radar combined with the M-9 GFCS. A formidable ship to any aircraft that got near here. Of course, these ships were being designed in the early '20's so the threat of aircraft really hadn't sunk into the brains of most navies. The designers of the G3 seemed to get it earlier than most with a designed AA armament of six 4.7" heavy guns and four quad 2 pounder mounts. This was a t a time where a couple 3 inchers and some machine guns were thought to be adequate.
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  723. @Bill Carson I think you're trolling, but the residents and governments of Spain and Portugal might have objected to Hitler trying annex them. Given that Gibraltar is a British possession, I'm sure that wouldn't have gone well.
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  724. @Jurassic Aviator Look, you can't just keep moving the goalposts to have things come out the way you want. You were just mentioning anti shipping roles. Now you say the PLAN has the ability to attack land targets from ships while surviving in hostile airspace? You should just sit this one out until you do some more reading and research into PLAN capabilities.
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  725. @Jurassic Aviator You keep jumping from one subject to another when you never wrote about the first subject. You're making a lot of rash assumptions on how the US would fight China. Any shooting war would involve strike aircraft and missiles with nuclear bombs and warheads. The US has the ability destroy any Chinese air or naval base within 1500 miles of the coast while lying 800 to 1,000 miles off the coast. Assuming any Chinese aircraft survived the first strike, the combined PLAAF and PLANAF could only strike back with obsolescent bombers that have enough range to make it to the fleet. It would be a suicide mission for those pilots. This wouldn't be WWII 2.0. It would be WWIII.
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  726.  @blueeyeswhitedragon9839  I've seen these kinds of figures before and wonder where they come from. China and and Japan own about an equal amount of our foreign debt at $1.1 trillion each. Our entire national debt is about $22 trillion, of which about 70% is owned by US nationals. China's foreign debt is only about $6.8, about half of which we own. As shown by recent trade talks, we have much more leverage over China than vice versa.
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  727. 0400 cst...time for a Drach upload!
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  728.  @sharlin648  I'd say it's more than a bit disturbing. This is what Miyazaki was railing against, that his early art has now become part of paedophile world he has no interest in and specifically disavows. Morphing early warship drawings to other warship drawings is one thing. Doing what you describe and, even more revolting drawings that I've seen, is something else. That's why I said anyone over 21 needs to reconsider what they are involved in, since laws in the United States and Japan can carry heavy penalties if some of the even worse examples I've seen are found on your computer as part of another investigation.
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  729.  @BenSTA09  http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/12/dieselpunk.html The link from the picture of the Japanese aircraft carrier "Kaga". Buxom schoolgirl and space nazis.
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  730. Yes, due to her slow speed and lack of torpedo tubes, a Fletcher could have dashed in to deliver a torpedo attack and dashed back out before the gunners on the Väinämöinen class ships could have delivered an effective counter attack. Given the results from her sistership hitting a floating mine, the sinking wouldn't have taken long.
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  731. I'm completely biased, given my dad's PT boat service, but two of these boats are preserved in excellent condition. One is inside a museum Germantown, Tennessee. The PT-617, an 80 ft Elco boat, has been restored to her late WWII appearance with some parts cut open so it's easy to see the below decks spaces.The other is the best restored boat still capable of getting underway, the PT-658. She is the most authentic example of a Pacific war 78 foot Elco boat, the most common type produced. The 658 boat is docked in Portland, Oregon. You'd have to check their summer schedule for 2020 when their guest cruises are scheduled. It's an hour or so ride around the harbor and well worth the cost.
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  732. According to my dad's diary, the crews of his PT squadron got a full day's instruction on damage control on May 14 or 15 (the ink has run so I'm not sure of the exact date), 1944 at Mios Woendi , the largest PT base in New Guinea, and the only one with full repair facilities. The Navy flew in damage controlmen instructors and displays on damage control on two C-47s (actually, R4D's in Navy parlance). Attendance was brisk since every guy who completed the course got two beers after supper. Most of the guys, although they paid attention, didn't really think they'd use much of the training since PTs that were hit generally either rapidly sank or were able to limp back to base. The training turned out to be more valuable than the Navy could have imagined. The USS Kalk (DD-611) was attacked by Japanese aircraft on June 12 directly offshore from and in full view from Mois Wendi. It was hit by one bomb that damage the torpedoes, causing a major explosion with many casualties. Every crew at base ran to their boats and roared out to the Kalk to assist, including my dad's boat. The base CO organized a train of boats to remove the wounded from Kalk while other guys clambered on board and set to work, grabbing everything available to start plugging holes. Two of the boats sped back to base to load several portable fire pumps, and those boats off loaded some pumps and used the others to fight the fires onboard Kalk from their decks. The explosion scattered torpedoes around the deck, and who better than PT Boat men to know how to detach the warheads and make them safe. After several hours, the fires were out, Kalk was no longer listing, and she was able to retire to Hollandia for emergency repairs. Some PT boats crews remained on board to fill in for her wounded crew, and she was escorted to Hollandia by four more PTs. Sometimes trainings work out even better than planned!
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  733. I must say the Japanese having carriers and the general state of their rearmament makes me uneasy. Militarism in Japan has never really been supplanted by the concept of democracy, and there still is an emperor. OTOH, the US can't pay for the defense of the world's third wealthiest country forever. It's a fine line.
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  734.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Yes, Walter, really. I've been to Japan five times so let's abandon the "Ugly American" thing. The US doesn't maintain 50,00 troops for purely political reasons. Part of the reason is because Japan is a strategic location but part of it is to make sure North Korea, Russia and China don't get any ideas. We have bases in Taiwan and didn't need Japan to defend Taiwan. The Vietnam war ended in 1975. If that was our only reason for being there we would have picked up and left a long time ago. Given the strategic position of Japan, there are certainly good reasons we'd want to maintain bases there, and the Japanese government wants us to be there. When it comes to the more militant residents of Okinawa, they view both Japanese and US troops as colonizers. Nevertheless, Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. If the Japanese government wanted us to to vacate, we would, just as we did in the Philippines. As of now, that's not the case. It's no different than the people of California don't get to decide how many military bases there in that state.
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  735.  @AdamMGTF  Actually, oil and gas in the North Sea was discovered in the 1850's. At the time, extraction was just too costly and difficult, and most of the oil was located offshore beyond the then three mile limit of national sovereignty. The Dutch discovered oil within the three mile limit in 1938 but there was obviously no time top develop the field before the war. It was the combination of the UK Continental Shelf Act in 1964 and discovery of the very large Forties and Brent fields in 1965-70 that changed everything, as Britain at last had a dependable source of oil and natural gas close to home. Ironically, these discoveries were controlled by National Coal Board, and they fought tooth and nail not to have these discoveries exploited in any large manner since it meant thousands of coal miners would be unemployed, and all the industries and services around coal would be put out of business. It took another ten years before the oil fields were allowed to compete with coal on level playing field basis. It's possible that more RN ships would have been oil fired if the fields were able to be exploited 20 years earlier, but it''s not likely the UK could have gotten its act together in time anyway.
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  736.  @trooperdgb9722  Did you notice the part where I said "the oldest submarine in commission, and possibly the oldest COMBAT vessel still in commission"? I'm well aware of Constitution and Victory but neither one are combat vessels.
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  737.  @patricklenigan4309  Considering that Hai Shih is getting some of the most modern electronics installed along with much improved radars and sonars, I'm pretty sure she will at least be able to hold her own against other PLAN diesel subs. According to foreign observers, ROC submarine crews have always been trained to high standards, and their maintenance and upkeep of even their obsolete equipment has always been first rate. I wouldn't be too quick to write off the old girl when she comes out of the shipyard.
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  738. I'll join in on offering both sizes and letting the customer decide. I don't think a shipping delay is that big of a deal.
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  739.  @Ron52G  No, it's not. There are still technical limitations and advances as part of history, and it's only fair game within those limitations. What if the Roman Legions had tanks? See what I mean?
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  740. The R class, and British destroyers in general, didn't carry 3" guns as their main battery. The R class had three 4" Mark IV guns while the USN had four 4"/50 guns. They both had an elevation of 20 degrees in WWI, but the 4"/50 far outranged the Mark IV guns at 15,920 yards compared to 9,600 yards for the British gun. Even with the elevation raised to 30 degrees in WWII, the range only increased to 11,580 yards. The 4"/50 is usually considered the most effective secondary gun for surface action in any navy. The gun layout was because of different operating conditions. The British preferred greater broadside firepower due to the likelihood of having to fight the Germans in fleet actions in the North Sea and Baltic. The USN doctrine was the destroyer would have to operate unsupported, chasing down other destroyers and merchant ships. That also meant the possibility of having to run from superior units. Since the four pipers didn't have the displacement available for superfiring, mounting two 4"/50 guns amidships in wing positions allowed three guns to bear for forward or astern fire. Different requirements led to different layouts, both adequate for the assumed job at hand.
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  741. Did rolling back the Windows update work for you? Whatever did it, at least you were able to get the upload done. Hooray!
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  742. "I fart in your general direction..."
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  743.  @paulhinds4840  You lost me on this. They were designed as scout cruisers with a secondary flotilla leader role. Their main role was always antiaircraft protection for the fleet. They were fitted with sonar, depth charge tracks, and depth charge projectors for a short period of time in early 1942, with the projectors removed by June, 1942 to save weight in a ship of already marginal stability, only retaining two depth charge tracks. The only two lost were because of bad luck being hit by Long Lance torpedoes and gunfire from superior ships. They were never built for a surface ship to ship combat role against anything other than destroyers. Their value as AA cruisers was shown by the Juneau class. They were never fitted with any antisubmarine equipment but had their secondary antiaircraft battery much improved compared to the Atlanta class. There's no question that USN found them far more valuable for their antiacraft role than any antisubmarine role.
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  744. Yes, all that noise and static on the HF (2 MHz to 29.995 MHz) led to the British developing, with the assistance of ham radio operators, VHF (30 MHz to 40 MHz) radios. These were smaller, lighter, and more immune for manmade and atmospheric noise. The US Signal Corps then improved the British radios, because that's what we always did. The British has their VHF radios in operation by mid-1940, but it took the USN until early 1943 to equip most of their planes with VHF radios because we certainly couldn't just copy a British radio. To be fair, the Signal Corps did make some significant improvements in miniaturization and tube (valve) longevity, as well as a single unit transceiver control panel with only two dials for the pilot. One was for the channel, of which there were four, and all crystal controlled, the other being for volume. By contrast, Japanese pilots had a separate HF receiver and transmitter. They had to find the right frequency on the receiver while tuning up the transmitter on the same frequency, something that took two hands and a trained monkey on the ground. It's not surprising that some Japanese pilots pitched their radios. Things were going swimmingly for the RN and USN with their VHF radios, since pilots could have a better chance of hearing each other and their carrier. The radios had an added benefit of only having a range of about 20 miles, so that meant the Japanese couldn't hear our transmissions...or at least that's what we thought. All the VHF test were conducted at labs located inland. The concept of thermal ducting of VHF signals over water was unknown until the invasion of the Philippines. Because there were so many carriers and carrier aircraft scattered all across the islands, there was a lot of VHF traffic, mostly pilots jawjacking. It was soon discovered that, when conditions were right, pilots in North Luzon were able to talk to each other and to carriers located off the southern tip of Mindanao, a distance of nearly 500 miles! Panic soon spread across the fleet. Since VHF traffic was unencoded, it now looked like the Japanese could be monitoring our transmissions. There was an immediate clampdown on chatter between pilots, and the Signal Corps rushed to design UHF radios, since those signals really didn't travel further than 10-20 miles. The first UHF radios weren't completed until after the end of the war. To our relief, postwar interviews with Japanese radio officers revealed that the Japanese never monitored our traffic. They didn't develop reliable and sufficiently sensitive VHF radios until just before the end of the war. They too believed their planes or ships wouldn't get close enough to our fleet to monitor our VHF traffic, so they didn't put any effort into doing so. Now, did those new UHF radios solve all our airborne communications issues? Well, that's something for another post. I'll just leave you with a teaser that the answer involved a beautiful move star and a Prussian xylophone player. :-)
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  745. There were also various diffused lighting schemes to help ships blend into the background lighting at sea. While the experiments, especially with the RCN, were effective, the ship needed several hundred small light projectors scattered around the ship, the lights didn't survive heavy weather well, and made excessive demands on the ship's electrical system. All of these schemes became more or less moot with the advent of radar, and camouflage moved on to that problem.
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  746.  @glennricafrente58  I don't know that Drach really needs anyone's help, but I'd be happy to give it a shot if asked.
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  747. I suppose Nagato vs Hood also depends on time of day as WWII approaches. As shown in the early 1942 period, the Japanese superiority at night fighting would confer an even greater advantage.
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  748. The main issue with Japanese AAA fire was really the available guns. Even if more effective radar was available, the Type 89 12.7 cm (5"), the best heavy DP gun of the war, had a very low rate of fire, slow rates of train, and low muzzle velocity, which limited range and usefulness in the AAA role. The Type 5 12.7 cm (5") was about the equal of the USN 5"/38 in terms of ROF and power training and elevation, but only one experimental mount had been produced by war's end. Even assuming an effective heavy AAA gun had been available, the Japanese were the only major power to not deploy an intermediate caliber AAA machine gun during the war. The 25 mm Type 96 gun was based on the French Hotchkiss 13 mm machine gun, and it retained the smaller caliber's 15 round magazine reduced the effective ROF by half due to the stoppages need to change magazines and jamming at the elevations needed for effective AAA fire. Even if it was able to maintain the theoretical ROF of 220-260 RPM, the range was low and shell weight just too light to be effective destroying allied aircraft as the war went forward. The Japanese knew of the 40 mm Bofors since they had captured a number of specimens from the British at Singapore. The IJN had to do a reverse change from the inch measurement of the British to the metric used by Japan, and the Japanese discovered the very close tolerances needed to make the Bofors gun work reliably. Japanese machine tools weren't capable of these tolerances on a production basis although the Japanese did experiment with them until war's end. The biggest problem was resistance by the admirals of the IJN to any changes to the light/intermediate battery since they believed the 25 mm gun was quite good and effective, and they knew what rate of production Japanese industry could turn out. That was actually a reasonable decision in 1940, but it showed the inability of the Japanese high command to assume they were in for a long war and what that would mean for the abilities of enemy aircraft to attack their ships. There was no need for any new AAA guns if the war was going to end in victory, or at least negotiated peace, in a year or less.
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  749.  @jamespfp  Indeed. I wonder what else the nazis were working that we've never found out?
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  750.  @Wolfeson28  Let this serve as answer to several posts in the same vein. This is the text of a top secret message sent to Admiral Kimmel by the chief of naval operations on November 27, 1941, with a similar message sent by the Army to General Stark: This dispatch is to be considered a war warning X Negotiations with Japan looking toward the stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days X The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines Thai or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo X Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL46. This was the last general warning sent before Pearl Harbor. Neither Kmmel nor Short had sufficient clearance to see any of the fragmentary decrypts from the Japanese Purple code, so this is all the ind=formation they had in terms of a war warning. Both Kimmel and Short recognized the seriousness of the message. Neither had ever seen a message for their chiefs of staff labeled a war warning before. Now, I defy anyone to read that war warning and pretend they see any indication that Pearl Harbor was at proximate risk of being the first attacked. Almost no one in the US military even thought an attack against Pearl from the home islands was even possible. The assumption was Manila and Guam would need ot be taken first to provide a springboard for an attack on Hawaii. The common assumption in the Navy was ships inside Pearl were safe from torpedo attack because the anchorage waters, at 45 feet, were too shallow. Sure, the British had staged a similar attack at Taranto the previous year, but they were the British, not the Japanese. We "knew" the Japanese had inferior aircraft, inferior flying skills, and just weren't skilled enough to carry off a Taranto style attack. We were guilty of going into war assuming the enemy was what we had dreamed up rather than seeing how the Japanese fought from the point of view of Japan. There is plenty of blame to go around for the attack on Pearl, from FDR down to the lieutenant that told the two radar operators on top of wind swept Opana that had actually spotted the incoming attack to shut off their radar and go get breakfast. To put all the blame on the two commanders of Pearl Harbor that day is ludicrous.
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  751.  @kemarisite  The problem was it was Short that was responsible for the air defense of Hawaii, not Kimmel. The two didn't particularly like each other, and their staffs had no liaisons serving on the opposite staff. The "60 or so" PBY's is a misleading number. Two squadrons had only arrived on November 23 for training before being assigned to outlying areas. Almost none of those crews had training beyond basic aircraft operation. The real number of PBY's with regular crews was 15, and only 10 or 11 were available at any one time because of maintenance and breakdowns. Those crews had been flying several patrols daily six days a week since October, when the first warnings of impending war were issued. The tactical error was almost no patrols extended north of the island, since that was considered the most unlikely route of attack and, with so few aircraft available, they were concentrated west and south of the island, the routes an attack was expected. Short had 12 B-17's, 33 B-18's and 12 A-20's available, all appropriate for patrol work. The B-17's were the longest range aircraft on the island. They were used in the patrol role, but their pilots were also worn out due to the constant flying schedules. The squadron commander just happned to choose December 7 as their one rest day in the past 10, so all were caught on the ground with only four undamaged. The B-18's were almost never used for patrol work, the same as the A-20's. Short thought the B-17's were sufficient, and Kimmel never asked for more Army patrols. The failure to plan and communicate falls equally on both commanders. Both commancer received a message on November 26 reading, in part"...Prior to hostile Japanese action you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary, but these measures should be carried out so as not repeat not to alarm civil population or disclose intent. Report measures taken…" From this message, and the November 27 message, it was pretty clear that Pearl wasn't considered the likely place of first attack. Whatever methods of detecting an attack were left strictly to the judgement of the two commanders. Sabotage by Japanese living on the island was considered the most likely threat, so protection of the island's aircraft on the ground was a top priority. Whatever alert measures that were taken had the top priority on not alarming the civilians and not tipping our hand that we were able to read parts of the Japanese code. This is not the kind of message that would be sent if war affecting Hawaii was actually considered imminent. There were certainly steps that might have been taken to detect the attack before it was underway. Was there any realistic assortment of steps that would have actually stopped the attack? Doubtful at best. There's an excellent article of the military domestic steps leading up to the attack at https://www.americanheritage.com/pearl-harbor-who-blundered. I suggest you read it to get a good overall view of what things were actually like at Pearl before the attack.
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  752.  @Wolfeson28  Let's not start by poisoning the well. What I actually wrote was "Now, I defy anyone to read that war warning and pretend they see any indication that Pearl Harbor was at proximate risk of being the first attacked." It was always possible, even likely, that Pearl Harbor would be attacked by the Japanese. My point was no one thought the first strike in the war would be against Pearl. If you read the article in my link you'd see the final order of November 27 was the fourth in a little more than a month that an attack was just around the corner. Everyone knew the contents of the letters and general orders. As each warning period passed, a certain sense that this just another drill set in. Kimmel and Short were taking reasonable actions for how they perceived the threat. The Navy PBY's and Army B-17's were being stretched to the limits looking for the fleet. 10 or PBY's and 10-11 B-17's just weren't enough aircraft effectively patrol even the areas where the command staff believed a strike would originate. There were no extra planes to patrol north of the island, an area that those in charge thought was an unlikely route of attack, but it was the route the Japanese ultimately took. The Chief of Naval Operations didn't believe the Japanese could effectively refuel at sea, something they'd have to do to get to Pearl. That's why the assumption that Pearl was safe until the Japanese took Guam or Manila to use a refueling base. Naval intelligence had been spoofed by radio traffic from the home islands that indicated the North Pacific fleet was at base. The South Seas fleet was enroute to attack Thailand. That led to the belief the Japanese were not enroute to Pearl for an attack. Almost everything, from scattering aircraft to putting a carrier task force to sea would have been done if the belief was Pearl was at imminent risk of attack. Let me ask you a question, Without the value of hindsight, would you have believed Pearl was the imminent target of attack? That's what I meant. It's not that Pearl wouldn't or couldn't be attacked, it's that probability that it was going to be attacked on December 7 seemed exceedingly low. Both Kimmel and Short took defensive actions with the idea that the Japanese would come, but not for a couple weeks, but also to prevent enemy sabotage, something that was believed to be a real threat. While those fears were overblown, the Niihau Incident did show there were disloyal Japanese on the islands willing to assist the Japanese if they could. Kimmel and Short's judgement tuned out to be wrong, but I suspect almost any commander in charge would have made the same errors in judgement.
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  753.  @shawnbauman5463  I don't find snarky backhanded attacks on the country humorous.
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  754. This would have worked if the world of fantasy, physics, Japanese industrial capacity, and US bombing would have all changed overnight.
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  755.  @bkjeong4302  True, but it was inevitable that someone would bring up a space battleship thingy, probably because their waifu doll was mad at them...
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  756. The strange thing about the IJN and its use of AA guns was they had one of the best heavy AA guns, the Type 98 100 mm gun from 1940 onwards, but they armed only a few classes ships by 1945, the majority being diverted to land AA use. Prewar, they had purchased British 2 pdr pom pom guns in several batches, with at least 500 examples being on hand by 1935. These were used in single and twin mounts. The Japanese considered them only useful in smaller ships like subchasers and minesweepers after 1935, judging their 25 mm Hotchkiss design to be superior. They had also purchased examples of German 20 mm and 37 mm guns as well as Oerlikon 20 mm types. They captured at least one hundred fifty 40 mm Bofors guns after the Fall of Singapore. Even more of a windfall, they had captured another sixteen examples of the Dutch 40 mm, the most fully developed Bofors guns in the world in 1940. It's not a matter of the Japanese only having 25 mm guns, it was a matter of the IJNs laser focus on torpedoes and torpedo warfare. The Japanese economy had been shattered by the Great Depression and the military spending required by the war in China. Given their limited resources, the IJN rightly decided that having the world's best torpedo, among the best torpedo mounts, and large destroyers and cruisers carrying lots of the Type 93 torpedoes was a war winning strategy. The results of such thinking in 1942 through early 1943 showed that they weren't wrong, especially combined with the IJN's almost obsessive training in night fighting. However, that was only true for surface warfare. Even though the Japanese had been among the first navies to understand the theory and use of aircraft carrier, they developed very little understanding of how to defend against the enemy's aircraft. Their limited resources didn't allow them to develop three or four different types of AA weapons, so the decision was made to mass produce the type they already had and understood how to produce. After 1942, they knew the 25 mm gun was marginal at best and started working on reverse engineering the Bofors and Oerlikon guns. By 1944, their industrial infrastructure was being cut to ribbons by US bombardments, the merchant fleet they needed to bring in steel and other critical materials was increasingly on the bottom of the sea, and they were running out of time. From postwar US reports, they had working prototypes of Bofors and Oerlikon guns ready for production, but not until June, 1945, and they didn't have the material needed for mass production in any case. It was the IJN's narrow vision of how naval warfare would develop in what became WWII that left them without an effective AA gun, not they couldn't have developed one.
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  757. The biggest problem with the Buffalo wasn't the aircraft itself, it's that it was built by Brewster. Brewster Aeronautical Company had designed several decent aircraft for their time, including the Buffalo. The company was being run by a couple of salesmen instead of engineers or industrialists. They were never able to organize the firm to actually meet their promised schedules. and there's pretty good evidence the two salesmen, Alfred, and Ignacio Miranda, were actually stealing from the company. Jimmy Work, the nominal president, was just not able to get anything organized, and the two brothers managed to piss off most of the workers and unions working at Brewster's biggest plants in New York and New Jersey. As a result, there were constant work slowdowns and strikes. If the company was well run, the Buffalo could probably have been improved along the same lines as the Wildcat. Instead, construction workmanship got worse and worse, and Brewster was the only WWII aircraft plant taken over in the middle of the war by the Navy due to incompetence. They were given a make work contract to build the Corsair, and that turned out to be the biggest disaster of all. The plant was in the hands of the Navy by 1944, and it was out of business by 1946.
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  758.  @Peorhum  I never said the Bofors 4.7" was as good an antiaircraft weapon as the 4" gun. I said the Bofors was at least as good as the British 4.7". Dual purpose means about equally as good against surface targets as aerial targets. The later British 4.5"/45 was one of those types, along with the US 5"/38. The 4.7" was a surface weapon that had a very limited antiaircraft role. The RN recognized this but it was about the only heavy gun with any antiaircraft capability they had available at the start of the war. It's the reason so many 4.7" armed destroyers had 4" AA guns added to them during refits. Indeed, it was the perfection of 4.5" and 5.25" guns that gave the RN the near equal of the 5"/38 as true dual purpose guns. After getting a chance to judge the performance of the 5"/38 guns and Mark 37 fire control system that armed the refitted Delhi, the RN asked the US for at least 85 sets of guns with accompanying FCS. The US just didn't have the capacity to fill the orders. If they did, destroyers like the Tribals would have been much more useful, especially in the Pacific. Alas, that wasn't to be, so the British were stuck finally developing the 4.5". If the British could have developed the 4.5" gun early enough, they would have had the equivalent of the Sumner/Gearing class destroyers and would have done much better shooting down aircraft.
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  759. An an early morning hour with Drach and Nelson. It's the start of a good day!
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  760. They did indeed, but each escort carrier had only one stern mounted 5"/38 DP gun. USS White Plains claimed six hits on the Japanese cruiser Chōkai, disabling her because her Long Lance torpedoes exploded and cause fatal damage. The claim of the first hit from the 5"/38 on the cruiser was verified by other ships and later the Japanese. That hit was at about 17,000 yards, nearly the maximum range for the gun. The Japanese postwar claimed the torpedo damage was the result of a bomb, but a hit by White Plains, given her excellent gunnery, is still possible. The USS St Lo kept up a torrent of fire from her gun, claiming at least three hits on a Tone cruiser. She kept firing until a Zero crashed on the flight deck, inflicting fatal damage and causing the ship to be abandoned. USS Kalinin Bay scored a direct hit on the No. 2 turret of a Nachi-class heavy cruiser at 16,000 yards, and that may be longest confirmed hit by a 5"/38 gun. She continued to fight a gun duel with Japanese destroyers for the next hour while occasionally shifting fire to straddle Japanese cruisers to keep them at bay. She claimed shifting an incoming torpedo off course with a 5" round while one of her Avengers exploded two other torpedoes by strafing gunfire. Whatever the truth of all these claims, the hail of gunfire from the escort carriers and escorting destroyers convinced Admiral Takeo Kurita he had run into the Halsey's main battle fleet and carriers. The fear of being outgunned by such a large fleet caused Kurita to withdraw just at the point Taffy 3 was nearly destroyed and the way would have been open to attack the troop and supply ships moving toward Leyte Gulf. It was a truly epic last naval last stand by ships who's only thought was attack.
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  761.  @paulmanson253  Indeed. I suspect many of the younger readers here have no idea what a nun is or why our knuckles were involved in getting an education. While I didn't much like it at the time, I know now that the work of Sister Margaret and many other nuns are the reasons for whatever writing ability I have now. [Edited to correct grammar and spelling mistakes that would make Sister Margaret reach for her ruler]
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  762.  @whatsoperadoc7050  Thanks very much. I have a hard time stopping myself, so I guess I'll wear out another keyboard. :-)
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  763.  @WildBillCox13  I know. I've been a pleasure sailor for decades, but that picture still terrifies me. Connie's waves were actually measured by a seabee crew on one of the transports while the waves during Cobra were only estimated. There were three waves taller than 70 feet, with the tallest being a few tenths less than 75 feet. Saying Connie was worse than Cobra was probably the wrong way to out it. Connie was just better documented as being possibly worse.
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  764.  @HaydenLau.  Hence why I wrote "ramming other than a desperation technique". I'd class the ramming attempt against Admiral Hipper a desperation technique.
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  765. It was still under renovation 2007 when I was in Hungary. I'm glad to see the restoration is now complete. Looks like excellent workmanship.
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  766. Depends on what kind of AA ship you'd want. With only 8 152" mm guns compared to 12 or 14 on an Atlanta The had more room for light AA guns that the Atlanta class, but the Clevelands were much closer to a true surface/AA ship
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  767.  @mattf4u-496  Sorry, I meant 127mm guns. The 152mm guns never had more than a slight chance of shooting down modern aircraft, and that only by barrage fire. so mostly luck if they hit anything.
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  768.  @Sturminfantrist  No problem, and you're right, Goering made sure he kept a tight grip on all German aviation. The pilots and crews of float planes aboard the capital ships and raiders, even though they were nominally a part of the Luftwaffe, were under operational control of Kriegsmarine officers. Since flying float planes took a considerable amount of shipboard training and service, pilots came to identify more with the navy than the air force. Some of them were instrumental in establishing the Marineflieger after the war.
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  769.  @AdamMGTF  Thanks very much. I enjoy these little corners of history and like telling people about them. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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  770.  @Luke-tm5oy  You're quite welcome. I had forgotten about this thread until I got a notification about your post. Like I said, I like the the small parts of the big battles that are often overlooked but are nonetheless really interesting. I just find the idea of two bedraggled German pilots wandering into a Norwegian village trying to look like tourists hilarious. :-)
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  771. Yes, and so has navy ship designations. In an earlier time, ships like the Daring and Spruance classes would have been given their proper designations as light cruisers. However, it's much easier to extract money our of Parliament or Congress to build some destroyers than it is to build cruisers, and easier to get the money to build a "through deck cruiser" than it is an aircraft carrier.
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  772. I'll nominate role of the sea mine in determining the outcome of modern naval history.
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  773. I don't really understand the question about the Avengers at Midway. Is he asking about the Avengers that flew from Midway somehow alerting Hornet about the location of the Japanese carrier of the Striking Force? This would have been in violation of the rules of radio silence unless the aircraft was specifically tasked with finding the carriers and reporting to the fleet of their location. Hornet was holding at a point about 325 miles from Midway. Midway Avengers would have had to find the Japanese carrier and then been able to radio Hornet. Avengers had two radio sets, one VHF and one HF. VHF sets were uncommon in other aircraft simply because there wasn't room or weight available for them in smaller planes like the Dauntless. They were also in short supply at the time of Midway, so Avengers were about the only single engine aircraft that had them. Regardless, a VHF set at 325 miles wouldn't have had the range to reach Hornet. They were good for about 125 miles at 15,000 feet, with maybe 200 miles on a good day with some kind of atmospheric ducting going on. That leaves HF radio. It would have had the range under ideal conditions. but transmissions were in Morse code. The radio operator had to first convert a message from plain language to Morse, then to the security code of the day, then transmit the message. Receiving was the same thing in reverse. It was a slow and tedious process, and one prone to errors as individual characters were covered by atmospheric noise, and HF was very prone to that kind of noise. If the receiving operator noticed the error, the snder would have to repeat the whole message. Sometimes errors weren't noticed because a vital piece of something like the lat/long got copied wrong, and that error just got passed along. That's how the Hornet's air group ended u in the wrong place to begin with. Even if everything went perfectly, Hornet would have had to rebroadcast the location and hope all the planes got it, a highly unlikely happenstance. In mid-1942, pilots relied a lot mor on the wingman and what the squadron commander was doing rather than worrying about the radio.
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  774.  @WALTERBROADDUS  They did manage to bring the Heinkel DB 601A engine into production, and they were used in the Ki-61 "Tony" fighter. It was the only inline, fuel injected engine used by the Japanese, and it completely outclassed the P-40, and was at least equal to the P-38. The problem wasn't a lack of R&D. The Germans supplied the Japanese with examples and engineering drawings of almost all their advanced engines. The problem was manufacturing tolerances. The DB 601A already required close tolerances to achieve the standard 1100 horsepower, but the Japanese made the problem worse by shaving off weight wherever possible and boosting the engine to 1159 horsepower. After 1943, the supply of steel needed for correct heat treating and tolerances started to dry up, and Japanese companies like Kawasaki just didn't have the machine tools and expert machinists need for the close tolerances required. It wasn't so much that they needed German help to design better engines, they needed better materials and machines to build them.
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  775.  @joehayes9933  I'd argue the Japanese Naval General Staff got set back on its heels by the Doolittle Raid. That really started the ball rolling on Midway and the Aleutians as land bases useful to attack US carriers. The Battle of the Coral Sea, while a tactical victory for Japan, showed how poorly naval antiaircraft fire and their planes were integrated. It was the beginning of them losing pilots they couldn't replace. The Midway and Aleutian operations were hastily planned to extend the defensive line westward to prevent another attack on the home islands. The problem for the Japanese was they always planned operations for how the Americans were supposed to act rather than how they could act. They also had an unrealistic belief in the their superiority over the Americans. For example, they believed the naval codes were uncrackable when a realistic assessment of previous American movements should have set off alarm bells. It was our ability to read their messages that was a critical aspect of Midway.
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  776.  @joehayes9933  LOL. The Japanese never considered a plan complete without five different scenarios that required splitting the fleet. Even the Aleutian invasion was a good example. They decided to try three things at once. Attack Dutch Harbor, but without enough planes to do much damage, while landing on Attu and Kiska. I know some historians say it was a diversion, but I don't think so. It was part of their overly complicated plan to eventually take the west coast and knock out the bases and shipyards there. They had nowhere near the resources to do that, but that never stopped the Japanese from coming up with yet another plan.
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  777. The Italian Navy had quite a large submarine fleet at the beginning of the war, variously estimated at 105-112 subs of all types. If those, 32 were based in France after 1940 as the passage through the the Strait of Gibraltar were too dangerous for the large and slow to dive submarines. They contributed quite a bit to the sinking of allied ships, with 665,000 tons sunk. They also sank 18 convoy escorts so the numbers weren't bad for a fleet that never had more than about 23 subs active at any one time. SEveral of the large long range submarines made successful voyages to and back from the East Indies carrying vital wartime cargoes like rubber and quinine. The Italian submarines were much less successful in the Med as the relatively large and noisy submarines were either caught on the surface or sunk by British destroyers and sloops.
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  778.  @Zarcondeegrissom  The Chain Home radars operated in the HF band at 15 meters, rising to 6 meters by war's end. This was well within the shortwave broadcasting spectrum and required hugely powerful transmitters to gain sufficient range, starting out at 100 kW at the start of the war to over 1 MW by the end. You needed a building and mains power to generate that much transmitting power. Airborne radar, even at HF frequencies, required much less power since the platform was able to operate at thousands of feet compared to Chain Home towers at 350 feet. Airborne intercept (AI) and airborne surface vessel (ASV) radars were actually in some RAF aircraft at the start of the war. Even those miniaturized (for the time) sets still required a twin engine aircraft to carry them. The invention and application of the cavity magnetron allowed radio transmitters to operate in microwave ranges, thereby allow a much smaller transmitter using less power and a much smaller antenna. This was the huge revolution in airborne radar.
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  779.  @billyclark4564 Unlike WWII supply ships that had an average speed of around 16 knots, today's supply vessels all fall into the fast support category, with seeds averaging 34 to 30 knots. As such, they will fall right in the battle fleet and be protected by the destroyers, cruisers, and carriers of a task force. They will be protected like any other fleet unit, and some of the fast ships have an impressive self-defense capability, with RAM missiles and light AA guns. Thse ships should suffer fare fewer combat losses that the ships of WWII.
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  780. The Indianapolis was Roosevelt's favorite "yacht". When ever he had to travel by sea, hoe chose the Indianapolis when he could. Consequently, Indianapolis was given the best and most modern of refits and upgrades of any prewar cruiser class. She had undergone at least three major radar refits. the Indy, as she was known to her crew, had about twice the usual numbers of radio, including one of the first radio teletypes installed on a USN ship. this allowed Roosevelt and his staff to keep up with the news and issue directives while at sea. She had eight addition barrels of 40mm guns over other prewar cruisers and many more 20mm, including a number of twins. There were plans on her next refit to replace her 5"/25 DP guns with eight 5"/38 DP guns in four twin turrets. She was also due to have sonar installed but, alas, the one thing that might have saved her was still one refit away on that fateful morning of July 30, 1945. The rest of her story is too well known for me to repeat it here, but at least Roosevelt had already passed away by then so he didn't have to hear of the loss of his favorite ship. I've often wondered if the outcome for the survivors would have been different if the USN was still treating her as a VIP ship. Perhaps she would have gotten the destroyer escort Captain McVay requested, and maybe the Navy would have noticed her missing earlier and launched rescue operations before so many of her survivors died in the sea. All conjecture at this late date, of course, but history is full of these "what ifs". When rescue finally started, it was quite a heroic story in its own right. Drach, I don;t recall if you've done a video on the USS Cecil J. Doyle and her later quite famous captain, along with the PBY-5A Catalina that was the first "vessel" to engage in rescue operations. If not, it's a story well worth telling of bravery in the finest traditions of the Navy.
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  781.  @lfbq1935  Makes perfect sense to me. Investing in air independent subs rather than nukes and a creditable surface fleet fits in more with Brazil's needs as the largest country in South America. Nuclear subs and carriers aren't a lot different in terms of real naval need than the vast amounts of money spent on battleships at the turn of the last century.
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  782. Since I'm an amateur radio operator, I imagine I have more than the average amounts of wires and cables running around. My cat Marty does indeed enjoy chewing things from my shoes to some of my cables, but you can train a cat not to do that. Just a spray bottle of water works wonders since Marty doesn't like getting hit in the face with a stream of water. He learned withing a month of him coming here to leave wires and cable around, and I can't imagine a cat aboard ship couldn't also be trained the same way. My impression is that current naval brass would rather pander to the small number of sailors that have a cat allergy serious enough to interfere with performance compared to the overwhelming number of sailors whose morale is improved by having a cat around to pet and play with. Especially with warships that now spend months at sea, having a buddy around who's not in a uniform is kind of a big deal.
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  783.  @paulmanson253  I had a friend whose dad served on Bluefish so I was always used to hearing the Spanish pronunciation of Gato. I never really thought about it until I heard the alternate pronunciation last night, and then I wasn't sure which was right. The USN history site does say the correct pronunciation is the Spanish version of Gato.
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  784. Hooray. This time the episode hit on time change Sunday. That means it now "only" 3:45 instead of 4:45. I feel so much more awake than I would have without that extra hour. :-)
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  785. While Ten-Go itself was a failure, what it did do was confirm that the new capital ships would be carriers, not battleships. There some doubt among some admirals on both sides if a modern battleship capable of sailing and maneuvering cold be sunk solely by aircraft. This battle put that question to rest. One small correction though. The light antiaircraft guns on Yamato were 25mm rather than 23mm. Even with the huge numbers of the triple 25mm guns, the lack of a good antiaircraft direction system, particularly radar directed, made the vast majority of ammunition expended by those 25mm guns wasted. Even the best antiaircraft defenses wouldn't have saved Yamato, but better guns and better directors would have cost the USN more aircraft and pilots before the inevitable happened.
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  786.  @Cailus3542  Musashi was the only other battleship equal to Yamato in your list. Musashi survived air attacks for over eleven hours and was still making way when flooding reached her final functioning boilers. She was only about an hour away from being able to beach herself on Sibuyan Island to become the kind of unsinkable fortress visualized for Yamato when she lost power, then capsizing and sinking. The large number of survivors gave an accurate picture of the cause of Musashi sinking, part of the reason Yamato drilled so intensively in damage control procedures before her final voyage. The large number of survivors also gave some hope an equal number from Yamato could survive to become land troops in the Philippines, even if Yamato was sunk. The goal of Yamato wasn't sailing back to Japan since she didn't have enough fuel to do that in any case. It was to do the maximum amount of damage to the the Americans before she met her fate.
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  787. Completely due to the treaty. Cruisers were limited to a maximum gun size of 8" and a 10,000 ton limit. Any ship with more tonnage or larger guns was counted against the battleship allocations, obviously something the navies wanted to avoid.
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  788. I've read all sorts of numbers for this supposed stockpile of avgas in Japan in advance of invasion but I've been able to find no real sources to back them up. Most of it seems to come from various Japanese propaganda outlets to reassure the population and make the allies think they were better supplied with fuel than they really were. By early 1945, Japan was desperate for 92 octane leaded fuel that can't imagine the Army or Navy letting large stocks of it sit untouched in some kind of reserve. I've written this off to Tokyo Rose type propaganda until someone comes up with a real source. Given the amount of storage needed for this kind of reserve, there should have been something written about it if it really existed. There's a very interesting paper written by a Japanese economics professor, Munehiro Miwa, who has specialized in WWII production of aviation gas in Japan. His paper is at http://www.worldbhc.org/files/full%20program/A5_B5_MunehiroAviationGasolineTechnologyTransfer.pdf. He details a way Japan may have been able to produce more and higher quality avgas if they had accepted the technology transfer available from Germany instead of insisting that Japanese methods be used. The twin fatal flaws of "Not Invented Here" and the services not working together doomed many possible solutions to problems during the war.
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  789. Excellent explanation why one battleship sometimes emerged from 20 or more designs, even some that look ridiculous today. Also a good explanation for why theBrtish wan'ted to hold to, or even lower, treaty tonnages for all ships covered by the treaties. not just battleships. I don't think the British ever took the Japanese navy seriously, or understood the threat they were to their Pacific colonies. I think they thought the Pacific was the US Med, and we would handle things there. Ultimately, of course, we did, but not for almost three years, and not before Britain lost everything but Australia and New Zealand. It's said the the fall of Singapore nearly gave Churchill a stroke, and he thought it was worst British defeat in the history of the Empire.The British Pacific fleet arrived only in late 1944, when naval power became less important in the war with Germany, and the US was beginning to liberate former British territories with no care if the British got them back again. The BPF served as what was hoped to be a trump card against US territorial appetites and a power in being to put down those pesky attempts of the colonies to become independent. Once again, the British seemed to have no idea how radically the tides of politics had changed since 1939. The BPF was costly and never had any real influence on regaining the colonies nor the outcome of the war.
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  790. OK, Sempill sounds like a fascist, a Japanophile, and someone deeply in debt who needed money. He was protected in part because prosecuting him would reveal the British had broken the Japanese codes and in part because of the class and noble system at that time. It's one reason why I'm glad that kind of system doesn't exist in the US. I suspect, like most good diplomats, that he also knw about skeletons in the closets of those who might have had him prosecuted, including Churchill. That, however, is only guess. What none of this shows is exactly what kind of secrets he was passing to the Japanese and how damaging to the British and/or the US. The Japanese had very little interest in British aircraft after about 1930 beyond flying boats. They knew the US was their real enemy and the one they would have to defeat before they ever took on the British. The Japanese developed carrier aircraft far superior to anything Britain possed in the 30's. There were very few British FAA fighters that were superior to the Zero in the whole of the war, and a majority of planes were either things like the ancient Swordfish, or US aircraft like the Wildcat, Avenger, and Corsair. Actually, I can't think of a single British aircraft type on British carriers of the Pacific Fleet. They were all American made. I don't think information passed on to the Japanese in 1941, the latest year he could have had access to secret data on British naval aircraft, would have been have much help to the Japanese.
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  791. I like the idea of looking at naval art while you explain the finer points of what we're seeing. Makes the whole thing cpme top like in ways that just looking at the piece in isolation can't do. The one suggestion I'll make is to use an onscreen pointer to show what we should be looking at.
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  792.  @Kromaatikse  Great summary of the various diesel power plants on non-nuclear subs.
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  793. The Gato/Balao classes were by far the best tropical submarines of WWII. There were just no other class of submarines that had amenities like air conditioning, food freezers and refrigerators, access to adequate medical care onboard, individual bunks for each crewman, heads that generally worked, and enough water making capability that each crewmember could get a five minute weekly shower. Most had galleys and mess decks where sailors could eat in shifts at real tables rather than at their bunks. Those spaces also used for recreation, and late war additions were a refrigerated scuttlebutt, or water fountain, and a miniature gedunk, or ship's store, that even had an ice cream machine. A few admirals even worried that all this gold plating would make submariners too soft. Still, it's hard to argue with the fact that USN submariners were healthier than their opposite numbers in other navies, better fed, better rested, and more alert. All of this contributed to USN subs being the primary force that swept the Japanese naval and merchant fleet from the seas, sinking 540,192 tons of Japanese naval vessels, and 4,779,902 tons of merchant shipping during the course of the war, the total accounting for 54.6% of all Japanese vessel losses. Just to add another indicator of what some of these fleet submarines could become, six were converted to "gunboats" in 1945. The number surface targets worth a torpedo was nearly zero. Japan was carrying troops and supplies in sampans and junks, and their draft was so shallow they couldn't be torpedoed. These six boats, including Ronquil (SS-396), had their torpedo load reduced from 24 to 10, and the space freed up was used for deck gun ammunition. Two 5"/25 guns were mounted fore and aft, and a Mark 51 fire control director was added to a stub mast on the sail. The Japanese small craft did carry 25 mm and 37 mm guns for self defense, and the addition of the director and a small plotting table in the conning tower enabled the submarine to shell a sampan or shore facility from a safe range and have a better chance of scoring hits. She also carried two 40 mm guns and, depending on the skipper, two 20 mm guns and between two and four .30 caliber machine guns. They were used to finish off a ship already damaged by the main battery since the boat only carried 150 5" rounds. One sub even mounted a 12 cell 5" rocket launcher for use in shore bombardment. There are reports of using abandoned and derelict sampans for target practice, with each member of the crew that could be spared getting their chance to get familiar with the 40's and 20's and just generally having fun with the .30 machine guns. Some of the crew were trained for boarding and got the chance to try out their Thompsons, .45 pistols, and M-1 carbines. While it does sound like a good time was had by all, these boats would have been fearsome opponents for what remained of Japanese surface vessels if not for the events of August, 1945.
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  794.  @j.e.v.5016  Thanks. I've always felt that the DASH helicopter was never given a fair chance to succeed by the USN. Part of it was money and part of it was naval aviators not wanting to see an alternative to their flights succeed. Sadly, nothing has changed today.
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  795.  @thefilthycasual516  I can't see how anyone can complain about Midway when Fletcher has never commanded a carrier task force before the battle and was just thrown into the fray. Where Fletcher fell down was at Guadalcanal. His job was to protect the transports until they had all the Marines and their material ashore. The Japanese only had ot sink the transport while offloading at the beach for the invasion to fail. is overcautious decision to withdraw his carriers, even when intelligence reports said most of te Japanese fleet was back at Rabaul refueling and reprovisioning. He also withdrew each night further offshore than was prudent for being in a position to oppose Japanese planes coming in to attack the Marines each day. The Marines were especially pissed off because they were Navy too and felt like the brothers in arms abandoned them. This was a period in the war where we needed a commander willing to take risks so an invasion force of Marines could get ashore and capture what became Henderson Field, thus reducing the treat to the marines and Fletchers own ships from air attack. Fletcher wasn't an incompetent commander by any means, but he didn't understand carrier or amphibious warfare. He didn't understand the risks of the invasion failing, tactically, strategically, and to the national morale, was greater then the risks to losing some of his ships. Fletcher was a fine commander overall, but he just wasn't the right commander to have at Guadalcanal. In his defense, at that early stage of the war, I'm not sure there was a "right" commander, and there certainly was no one that understood both carrier operations and amphibious landings. The fact he has spent most of the interwar period in mostly staff positions ashore made it easier for other Navy and Marine officers to snipe at him.
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  796.  @Nuke89345  It was to Halsey's credit that he was not only able to work with Browning but the pair seemed to have a genuine fondness for each other. It was also a highlight of Halsey's own personality defects that they were able to work so well as a team. The were both able to use each other's weaknesses to best advantage because Halsey had many of the same antisocial tendencies as Browning. My biggest beef with Halsey was his overly aggressive style of leadership and combat. Early in the war, he was exactly what was needed to prosecute a war with limited resources. He was willing to take a punch to the jaw as long as he could hit the other fighter first. His style as a fullback at the Academy was trying to injure as many players on the opposing side while still running the ball in. Even though the other players were able to exact their revenge on Halsey, he was tough enough to take it and still keep running. That's how he ran the early campaigns of the war too. He was willing to lose ships, even carriers, as long as he could knock out more Japanese carriers at the same time. Japanese doctrine was almost the exact opposite of Halsey so it took them a full year to get a handle on how Halsey thought. His weakness in 1943 on was he wasn't able to curb his aggressiveness. Even though he could tolerate Browning's insubordination, he didn't brook it with other subordinates. He'd ask their opinion and then, more often than not, just ignore it. His intelligence officers at Leyte told him the threat was coming down San Bernardino Strait, but he thought he understood the Japanese mind well enough to know center force was really a decoy. That's why he went sailing north. The other team was going in for a touchdown, and he had to stop them. We had to sink the carriers, but it didn't have to be done today. We had the ships and fleet train to pick a time of our choosing, not get into an all out brawl like he had to in 1942. He just couldn't stop himself, even to the point of ignoring the calls for help off Samar. It's why he ignored his own weather forecasters of the perils of Typhoon Cobra. Those damn Japs weren't going to sneak in for a touchdown, and the boys would just have to take one for the team. He was lucky not to get relieved of command after "Halsey's Typhoon". Then, to make matters worse, he did the same thing again with Typhoon Connie. There was no reticence this time on the part of the Court of Inquiry. They wanted him relieved, and it was only the personal decision of Nimitz not to follow their recommendations that he he kept his command into Tokyo Bay. Halsey really fought two wars, the one in 1942 and the one in the following years. He was superb in the first and dangerously awful in the second. Where he places on a list depends on what war we're talking about.
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  797.  @standard_gauge  Read the service history of Task Force 19 and the occupation of Iceland six months before Pearl Harbor. TF19 included two battleships (Arkansas, New York) and two Brooklyn class cruisers (Nashville, Brooklyn) as well as nine of our most modern destroyers. The destroyers for bases agreement was signed ten months before TF19 started operating. While the US wasn't technically "loaning" and ships to the RN, TF19 operated under the "suggestions" of the RN in Iceland.
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  798. It was completely fictional. There was no British or American exploits. The whole things was made up. It's things like this that stops my brother from wanting to go to "historical" movies with me. :-)
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  799.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Yes, good opportunity to catch up on postponed household chores like finally getting all the wash done and some painting on the front porch where the sun beats down on it all summer. I can't move very fast now, but I just go slow and steady until it gets done. I'm really confident this will be a manageable outbreak this time. I would have been a lot happier to see these steps being taken ten days ago, but it looks like we're on the right path now. Thank goodness this isn't a repeat of the 1918 "Spanish" influenza. Then we'd at least have a reason to running around with our hair on fire. :-)
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  800.  @DanielWW2  True, although, counting the RCAN Tribals, there were still seven in service in July 1943, so enough for at least a small flotilla.To be technical, ten of the sixteen RN Tribals were already at the bottom by the time the first Fletchers would have shown up in European waters so there wouldn't have been much of a flotilla either way.
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  801.  @blackcorp0001  No homo, but his voice really does sound smoother with the new mike.
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  802. Why were gun decks painted on the hull as a contrasting color to the rest of the scheme. i.e, a white stripe on a black hull? Some kind of psychological warfare, or was there an operational reason I just don't get?
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  803. Goodness. I slept late and find a visitor that's going to take five and a half hours of my day. Better get more coffee!!
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  804.  @rogerwilco2  I'm not sure I buy that. It's not like the US doesn't have a long Atlantic coastline. I think the seas off Nantucket are about as rough as anything you'll find in the North Sea, as most fishermen can attest to. I sailed extensively in the Atlantic and Caribbean sides of the Windwards, and the passage between Barbados and St. Lucia had some of the roughest seas I've ever been in. I think the USN's plethora of casemate guns were just a design consideration, a crossover between the old ship of the line days and modern battleships. The more guns coming out the hull, the more powerful the ship. The USN before WWI didn't really expect to be fighting any European navy. Their designs were, to a certain extent, meant to impress South American countries, some of which were in a naval arms race with each other and the USN. The USN also had zero experience with fighting at battlecruiser speeds. Look at how quickly the RN abandoned hull mounted casemates once they had battlecruisers that could fight at speeds above 25 knots. It's also not like the USN was the only navy that had all the low and extreme mounted casemate guns. All the major navies before WWI had them, again because the more 5" to 6" guns in the hull, the better. It was only the combat experience in WWI, with trying to fight these guns at the higher speeds of modern dreadnoughts, that showed them to be largely a waste of space and displacement. As Drach said, fighting these mounts at 15-17 knots was a much different proposition than at 21-23 knots, or even higher, in the cases of RN and German battlecruisers. Casemates in general, and low and extreme mounted casemates in particular, were just leftovers from a previous warship era.
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  805.  @TheTrueAdept  I'm going to have to press X to doubt on that one. Do you have a link that supports the idea the whole of the US east coast is protected by barrier islands, more than any place IN THE WORLD?
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  806.  @leops1984  Yes, when I'm asked about Halsey I reply "1942 Halsey or the 1944 version of Halsey?". They were different enough a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking they were two different persons. The 1942 model was was able to spin bilge water into gold, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and stopping what seemed to be the inexorable advance of Japan by late 1942. He ran over or irritated anyone who got in his way to get to the goal of saving the allies. Every second counted, so there was no time for elaborate planning or getting permission from those far away in Pearl or Washington. Unfortunately for Halsey, he continued to operate the same way into mid-1944, when the allies were no longer on the knife's edge of defeat, and time was no longer as important as it was two years previously. This was also the time when the bills came due from all the officers run roughshod over in 1942. Halsey continued to make mistakes, and it took higher and higher level; of brass to get his butt out of his scrapes. The end of the war came none too soon to save what remained of Halsey's battered reputation.
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  807.  @tyronedlisle4412  I don't think we were "preparing" for war with the UK or Canada. War Plan Red was used more as the base for Naval War College war games than any serious plan for war. We certainly made no moves like fortifying the Canadian border if we thought there was a serious threat of war. Every navy develops war games to exercise staff officers in responding to what we'd now call asymmetric threats. War Plan Orange, on the other hand, was a serious plan for war with Japan, and that included fortifying possessions and moving to troops and ships to meet the perceived threat.
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  808. The Atlanta class only made sense until the Cleveland class started to be turned out like pancakes at a church breakfast. The Clevelands carried as many 5"/38 guns as an Atlanta (once they lost their wing turrets), carried twelve 6" guns that were much more effective as a surface weapon, and was able to carry a better light AA battery and a full range of directors before the the Clevelands also ran up against the same stability issues as the Atlantas. The designers of the Atlanta class were operating in an environment a full two years before the Clevelands, and that two year period from peacetime to total war, was somewhat like the progress made in maybe ten years of normal peacetime designs. No one in mid-1941 could foresee that the USN would be turning out light cruisers at a rate that was equal to destroyers in many navies. It's a mistake to evaluate the Atlanta class in isolation in the 1943 and on period. They were a reasonable design in 1940.
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  809.  @seanmac1793  No you're not going crazy. The Mark 27, commonly called the "Cutie" by sub crews, was a development of the Mark 24 FIDO for launching from submarine tubes. My mind apparently got the coronavirus for a short period of time while I was typing. :-) The Cutie was essentially the FIDO with some wooden guides stud mounted on the torpedo body so it would be centered in the tube.
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  810. Indeed, proper bunking and messing facilities, starting with many war built ships, has been one of the biggest changes in Navy life. Now we have ships where the privacy of bunks, mess decks that look rather like a restaurant instead of just long tables, and sufficient space for recreation has become part of the planning for all new ships now. All those things help the crew feel more like humans and less like numbers. However, I think the most important change of the past 75 years has been effective whole ship air conditioning. Having spent a lot of time sailing in the tropics. trying to stay effective in a non-air conditioned ship becomes nearly impossible the more time you spend in the tropics. My dad's description of his time on PT boats is positively horrifying. He'd regularly pass out in the engine room from heat exhaustion. Since he was the only motor machinist mate, the boat couldn't answer to the helm without him. They'd drag him out the hatch, pour seawater over him until he'd revived, and down he went again. This would happen a couple times during a patrol. There's no doubt in my mind that he'd rather have a/c than a South Sea maiden in his bunk. :-)
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  811.  @gregorywright4918  I'm not sure about SAP rounds, but I've never heard of AP rounds made for these guns. They had HC rounds for shore bombardment, and there were a number of mods made to the rounds from the mid-30's forward, but I don't know the details.
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  812. Luka, you may be right. I don't know if the Fletchers were designed with a Pacific war in mind. They may very well have been, since six of the class were originally fitted with a catapult and two float planes. I just have no expertise in ship design to do anything more than guess.
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  813. That would be great if you can make it over there, Tiberius. I have about the same drive, but coming from the opposite directions. I'm hoping Drach can avoid the bad luck of arriving during an active period during our spring tornado season!
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  814.  @RedXlV  At long as it can't use missiles, that is it's only chance for survival. The 57mm can't outrange a 5"/38, so the LCS has to turn tail and beat feet out of there. However, a Fletcher with a rebuilt power plant and using maximum steam is capable of 37-38 knots. The Independence has had trouble with leaky turbines and hull corrosion, and it's not likely her aluminum hull would hold up well in pounding seas at maximum speed. It would really come down to which ship sees the other first. In theory, Independence should be harder to spot on radar while a Fletcher sticks out like a sore thumb. Still, if a Fletcher manages to sneak up on Independence before it's able to open the distance beyond gun range, things won't end well for Independence. Just ask the Japanese at the the Battle Off Samar.
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  815. I'm not an engineer so I only know what little I can understand from reading about this issue. Wasn't the temperature difference ductility also an issue in the sinking of the Titanic? As I remember, I think that this was confirmed from examination of the wreck photos.
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  816.  @russg1801  No,, I was trying to say it was the first and only time that all three battleships of the class had been in port together. I wasn't implying that the entire class was there or I would have said so.
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  817. With their high freeboard, they must have been very pleasant ships to serve on in heavy weather compared to most cruisers. Two question for those of our RN experts here. What was the reason for the unequal funnels, and why did it have such a pointed stern? My guess is either weight savings or speed, but I have never read the actual reason.
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  818. There really was no diminution of lifesaving capacity on USN combat ships during the war. There were less rafts visible on board for a couple reasons. The first is the standard raft went for 10 persons to 25 over the course of the war. It was found that the larger rafts increased survivability due to its increased ability to carry supplies, and having enough men on board that a viable command structure usually emerged. Good life raft leaders were the single most important factor for crew survival. Secondly, rafts were carried in less visible place. They were mounted in three and four raft stacks on the turrets of battleships and cruisers, and more were mounted horizontally on deck in any available space rather than being mounted on the blank sides of the superstructure as was common in the early war period. As one might imagine, a vertically mounted raft was much more subject to battle damage than horizontally mounted rafts somewhat protected by other parts of the superstructure.
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  819. How were orders passed to the gunner's mates on ships during the age of sail. I assume the noise and smole as a result of 40 or 50 cannon firing at once must have made it impossible to do it by voice. Was there some system of semaphores, horns, what? There must have been a system for firing only certain guns rather than full broadsides.
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  820.  Tom Sanders  It was, but the performance of the Italians was poor, and ships and ammunition had numerous faults.
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  821. Useless ship? And it's Leander class.
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  822. ​ @Drachinifel  Well, it figures that's a book I don't have. I'll have to see if I can get a copy at reasonable cost. I generally use the two volume Hitler's U-Boat War by Clay Blair as a reasonably reliable source for details of the war. I was flabbergasted to find both volumes in hard cover and in good condition for $5 at a yard sale! I wish I could find deals like that every day. :-) Blair, in volume 2, pages 64-66, states it was not only a B-24, but it was the same B-24, again flown by Harden, that attacked U-506 the day after the attack on U-156. However, take a look at http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-506A/U-506INT.htm, the interrogation of survivors by the RN after the sinking of U-506 on July 12, 1943 by yet another B-24. Oberleutnant Hans Schult not only survived the sinking, he was on the bridge during the Laconia incident. Confusingly, Schult reported the first attack had British and US aircraft involved. The timeline given by Schult, or at least as recorded by the unnamed interrogator(s), doesn't help matters, as it appears the attack on U-506 may have occured later on the same day. Schult reported the order came after the first attack to take as many survivors on the U-boat below as wouldn't interfere with the combat capabilities of the boat, put the rest in the lifeboats, and cast them off. It was apparently hoped the lifeboats would attract the attention of the planes away from the U-boat. When an aircraft did return some three hours after the lifeboats were cast off, no one was on deck, and the lifeboats were some distance away. All the attacking aircraft saw was a surfaced sub so it attacked. It dropped two bombs after U-506 was already at 130 feet after a crash dive. The bombs (which may have actually been depth charges) exploded but were not close enough to cause damage. U-506 apparently continued toward a rendezvous with French warships and never saw the lifeboats again. She met up with the French "a few days" later and handed over her survivors. Schult never actually mentions the type of aircraft involved in the attacks, so I suppose it's possible one was a B-25. In general, the B-25's were conducting patrols closer to Ascension Island, then a top secret base, in an attempt to keep U-boats away from the island. The B-24's were used for patrol further offshore due to their greater range and ordnance load. At this late date, I don't think we'll ever be able to say for certain. What does seem to be certain is there were no survivors on the deck of the U-506, and no lifeboats visible to the pilots of the attacking aircraft. At this point, I have a splitting headache from trying to figure all this out. Time for another cup of coffee and some ibuprofen.
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  823. Japan forcing a stalemate in the Pacific has two reason why it wouldn't have happned. The first is American public opinion. Much more so than with Germany, the American public was seething with anger about Pearl Harbor. They wanted revenge, and just fighting to a stalemate would never have been an acceptable solution. Germany had the advantage of a large population of first or second generation German immigrants in the US. There was no single event, much less a sneak attack, that set off the same kind of anger Americans had toward Japan. Combine that with longstanding racial animus towards the Japanese and the population just wouldn't have stood for some kind of negotiated peace. Secondly, a Pacific stalemate assumes the US production machine would have just shut off, or that Japan could have somehow sunk more ships than the US could have produced. Neither assumption is true, but both would have to be true to induce a settlement. By the start of 1943, Japan was already being drowned in a growing tide of new US ships and aircraft. We had barely touched the manpower we could muster with total mobilization. No. there was zero chance of a stalemate in the Pacific
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  824.  @phoenixjz4782  Yes, the South Carolinas were the first with an all centerline superfiring layout. However, I was writing about ships with triple turrets on the centerline, so ships with twin turrets are irrelevant in this context. What does the fact the Italians were building three Conte di Cavour class ships have to do with anything? The Tegetthoff class of four ships were building at the same time, and they all commissioned in time for WW1 and were in combat for the duration war. Only two of the Italian vessels completed before the war, and one of those managed to blow herself up in harbor due to a magazine explosion. The other two saw no combat and spent most of the war tied up to their docks. You certainly can't be arguing that somehow the Conte di Cavours had any value as warships during WWI, are you?
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  825.  @Charlesputnam-bn9zy  I'll have to look this up as well, but I think the USCG was put under USN control at the time of the establishment of the Greenland Ice Patrol in 1940. Regardless, USCG armed cutters have always been classed as warships, subject to the same rules of the sea and warfare as other warships.
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  826. That's an excellent question. My own take is the Bismarck would have made good her escape if not for that lucky torpedo hit. The Luftwaffe would have been up in force to protect the Bismarck. They had aircraft with the range to do it. and I think the British would have decided the chances of sinking her weren't worth risk of aerial attack. As to what use the Germans would have made of her, the biggest problem was she sustained significant damage in the battle. Could she have been repaired in Brest or some other French port? Could she have operated from French ports without ever getting to Germany? Where would ammunition have come from and her other stores? And how would she have been protected form RAF attacks? It seems no matter the results of the first battle, she would have been sunk, either in a second naval battle or by the RAF, just like her sistership. Her only value was a force in being, also just like her sistership.
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  827.  @MFitz12  I'm aware of the design specs of the Nimitz class. My point was not how long they were designed to serve but that many of them will be serving 70 years and maybe longer. You're going to use two Mexican Navy destroyers as an example of why a destroyer can't serve longer than 20 years? Both those vessels were 37 years old when purchased by Mexico. One lasted 57 years, and the very last surviving Gearing, Netzahualcóyotl , made it to 69 years, still doing useful work cruising the west coast as a training ships. She was still reliable enough that she visited San Francisco annually and Seattle every couple years until the year before her retirement in 2013. Neither of these ships ever had a comprehensive overhaul since their transfers, just normal maintenance and upkeep.
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  828. Ray must have been one tough guy to make it to 98 with an obviously severe case of COPD and shortness of breath. I'm 75 and oxygen dependent due to COPD. While my shortness of breath isn't as bad as Ray's was, it is progressive, and I have little doubt I won't be around in another 23 years. As Ray said, sometimes it comes down to good old fashioned luck, and I'm happy he had a an overload of that. RIP, Brother, There are few who will step forward to take your place.
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  829. I think you meant these were meant to serve on the Black Sea. I wonder what the plan was to stop a couple of small craft with heavily armed troops sneaking up on this thing and just boarding and capturing it? At six knots, it's not like it could outrun anything larger than a rowboat.
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  830. Yes, please use your own voice rather than irritating text to voice software. You have a very pleasant English accent and can actually correctly speak naval terms.
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  831.  @phinix250  So this some kind of fictional 40 mm minigun? I'm sorry, I'm just not a war gamer. If you're using my figures, remember that those are in WWII dollars. A dollar from 1943 is worth about $39.00 today, so each round would cost about 19 times more today.
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  832.  @Hardcase_Kara  Perhaps, but the problem of crewing and ammunition supplies remains. She hasn't been forgotten by the Navy. She has a memorial at Pearl Harbor with a concrete walkway that leads to the front of the ship. It's certainly not a memorial like that of the Arizona, but it's probably about right considering she was no longer a battleship when sunk. I think the Utah has less of presence in the public mind since the Navy took pains to describe her as a mere auxiliary at the time of the attack to decrease the impact of the sinking on public morale.
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  833.  @bushyfromoz8834  You're quite welcome. Yes, the loss of the Perth and Houston in the Sundra Strait in those pre-radar days showed the well trained Japanese ability to night fight and the use of their superb torpedoes. The RAN and USN had no night fighting experience and relatively short range and unreliable torpedoes. It was to cost us many ships and lives before we learned.
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  834.  @Cragified  As I wrote, it seems a Brooklyn could take one hit that tore off the bow but any further hits, as in the Helena, would doom the ship. Very few ships are able to take multiple hits and survive, but the Brooklyns clearly had a weakness exposed with bow hits. Helena was the only standard type light cruiser sunk during the war, the other two being anti aircraft cruisers. Like most warship sinkings, something has to wrong. Inexperienced crew, poor watchkeeping, not keeping Condition II when in enemy waters, inadequate damage control, and sometimes just being stupid. Bad luck and being overwhelmed by superior forces also plays a role, but just following the rules has prevented many a vessel from being attacked or sinking.
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  835.  @bushyfromoz8834  I've never known what to call the First Battle of Savo Island. Two radar equipped destroyers sitting right in the path of Mikawa's force and they don't pick him up. Another destroyer get within a mile of his force and doesn't see. No one thinks unidentified aircraft flying over the US transport anchorage is any big deal. Friendly fire incidents galore, a captain fleeing with his cruiser rather than fighting...I guess a huge cluster f**k would be the best description. As Admiral Turner wrote. our main problem was "lethargy of mind", the idea that we were superior to the Japanese, and we wouldn't have to expend much effort to defeat her. If nothing else, this battle taught us we had a long way to go.
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  836.  @bushyfromoz8834  It was even worse. The captain ordered that only the fire control radar be used and the only once every half hour. As you say, he was under the mistaken impression the the Japanese could home in on his radar. The interval between the half hour sweep was when the Japanese snuck through. You're thinking of Admiral Samuel Morison, the Navy's official WWII historian. He wrote in his book that an RAAF Hudson not only didn't report the sighting of the Japanese by radio, they waited until they landed and had tea before they made the report. It was totally false. They reported it by radio but, getting no response,the turned around, landed at Milne Bay, and made tne report in person, The Navy was trying to cover for their incompetence in not forwarding the report to Guadalcanal. The Navy did apologize...in 2014. The County class were stood in good stead by their massive freeboard. The Canberra took more damage from the USN in an attempt to scuttle her and possibly put one torpedo into her by mistake during the battle. I'm not aware of any major damage to the Cumberland.
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  837.  @diestormlie  It must have been something along these lines. I know they had issues with the the width of the Kiel Canal. I don't know if the H class battleships were designed to conform to that width or if they had abandoned the concept by then,
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  838. The New Orleans class ships would have still had the same issues as the Brooklyns in terms of range differential. It would have depended on either luck or one of the San Francisco's sacrificing itself so her two sisters would have been able to pound the Graf Spee into submission.
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  839.  @santiago5388  That's good. The best piece of advice I ever got about how to handle troubles is try to remember your biggest worry from exactly one year ago. If you're like most of us, you've long forgotten what that was, and it's a good idea of what today's troubles will seem like a year from now.
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  840.  @santiago5388  You're welcome. I've made it to 73 through some very tough times by remembering that advice. You're still young and, believe me, you have some great times ahead of you.
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  841. Sleek looking ships, but just not enough turrets, and the single large funnel made them look unbalanced.
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  842.  @themadhammer3305  Many merchant vessels could operate as ad hoc carriers, but their ability to withstand battle damage would be a real issue. Any ship built to merchant standards lacks the subdivisions and damage control facilities of a ship constructed to naval standards. As long as the carrier was kept out of the range of the enemy, it all works. If the merchant carrier is exposed to determined attack, losing a lot of men and material along with your ship rises to near certainty.
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  843. Klobi, USN ships mostly made their own freshwater from distilling units on board the ships. Most of the water was used for boiler feedwater with the crew needs getting what was left. Ship logs from WWII had constant exhortations for the crew to decrease water use with a running report of number of gallons used each day. These early distilling units were limited in capacity, so it was always battle between the boilers and crews getting the occasional showers and enough water for cooking needs. Almost all oilers also carried freshwater to top up the tanks of larger ships and transfer water for the tanks of smaller ships that didn't have distilling units. Ships would also top off their tanks when they were in ports with approved water supplies. The USN Medical Corps were aware of the diseases spread by impure water, and they trained hundreds of doctors and technicians in testing and treating water supplies. Some ports, particularly in the Mediterranean, never developed potable water supplies that met the Navy standards so crews on liberty were forbidden to drink unboiled water or shower with the native water. This wasn't always obeyed, and sailors did get sick from breaking the rules. When it comes to kitchen and human waste, well, they had the whole ocean, so over the side it went. Human waste was collected in tanks and then emptied when they were in a location away from the shore and the enemy since floating waste was a pretty good indication of enemy vessels in the area. Kitchen waste was collected in standard garbage cans and dumped over the side under the same restrictions as emptying human waste tanks. Ocean life generally made short work of kitchen waste.
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  844.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Thanks, Walter. I always try to tighten up the wording but, try as I might, it still comes out like a book. :-)
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  845. The other problem with commerce raiding in a conventional war today is the much faster speed and greater size of the most important merchant ships compared to previous years. Most container ships cruise at 22-24 knots, and some carrying priority cargo at over 25 knots. Even the huge T1 supertankers can cruise at 16.5 knots, and their gigantic size (1246 feet overall, over 500,000 tons, laden) would make them exceptionally difficult to sink. Combine faster speeds and the much larger size of almost all merchant ships today would mean a submarine would have its work cut out for it.
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  846. The Japanese had samples of the 20mm Oerlikon gun as early as 1935, before the US started to evaluate them. About 45 40mm Bofors fell into their hands at Singapore and Hong Kong in early 1942. The had enough time to produce the 20mm for sure, and the 40mm with some work. The IJN didn't want either weapon. They believed, quite wrongly as it turned out, that the home produced 25mm gun was superior. The staggering losses of Japanese warships to air attacks was at least partially due to their weak antiacraft defenses. The 25mm may have been at least passable if the IJN had developed radar gunfire control earlier, but very few of those systems were deployed before the surrender. I just don't think the Japanese understood that fighting the US would be a series of overwhelming aircraft and submarine attacks, so the Japanese didn't prepare well for those eventualities.
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  847.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Firstly, the Wildcat and Fulmar were airplanes designed for different roles. The Fulmar was a typical two seat light bomer and dive bomber of the period, later to roles expanded into reconnaissance and observation. The second crew member and relatively spacious rear cabin allowed the installation of radios, and the Fulmar was able to radio back detailed sightings of enemy forces. That was a nearly impossible task with the single seat fighters of the early war period. Secondly, the Wildcat just wasn't available in July, 1940, when the Fulmar went into service. The FAA recognized the Wildcat was a better fighter, but Grumman was struggling fill a French order for 100 aircraft, a Greek order for 30, a Belgian order for 10 more, plus USN orders for at least 200. Those were huge numbers in early 1940. The Martlet MK 1, which were those other orders taken into British use after the fall of those countries, were useless for carrier operation due to non-folding wings. The FAA had ordered 100 MK II's, but it took Grumman almost eight months to perfect the Sto-Wing system, so the first carrier capable aircraft didn't get into service until August, 1941. From July, 1940 to August, 1941, the only monoplane sort of fighter available, other than a small number of Sea Hurricanes, was the Fulmar. It was either take the Fulmar or try to fight with Gloster Sea Gladiators. You fight a war with you have, not with what you want.
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  848.  @gokbay3057  I haven't read about a Fletcher being misidentified as an Atlanta. There are enough spotting differences that it would take some inexperience lookouts to make that mistake. There were problems when the Sumpters showed up since their three twin 5" turrets on the centerline, and arrangement that did lead to misidentifications with the Atlanta class. I assume by DDE you meant the 5" gun armed DE classes like the John C Butler class. Their gun arrangement was such that they were occasionally misidentified as DDs. One such instance was the Battle off Samar.
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  849. Holy cow, three hours? Time to lay in more coffee.
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  850. I'll second that motion. Just twentieth century mutinies could occupy a full hour. Unfortunately for Drach, this one would require a lot more research into events the navies of those countries would best like forgotten.
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  851.  @AdamMGTF  You're welcome. I'm an extra class amateur radio operator, and anything electronic has fascinated me since I built my first radio kit in about 1957. WWII electronics represented a watershed period between the Mark I Eyeball and analog calculation days of 1938 to the transition nearly 100% electronic control of things like fire control systems and detection of enemy ships by 1950. All of this was accelerated by probably 20 years due to the needs of war. Almost all the systems we use today, although now solid state and able to handle prodigious volumes of data compared to the primitive days of 1940, still have as their cornerstone all those late WWII radars, communications, and fire control systems. We owe a lot to all the unsung heroes able to keep those tube (valve) powered monsters working.
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  852.  @horatio8213  No Fletcher was able to rape anything when it came to Yamato. No torpedoes came close to her off Samar and she withdrew with the only damage being three bomb hits the previous day that put her down by the bow but still fighting. She never fired another shot at a surface ship after that, being sunk by a combination of bombs and torpedoes. The skipper of the Yamato was a lot more concerned about seeing a swarm of Avengers than Fletchers.
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  853.  @horatio8213  Yamato had the most advanced radar in the navy at the time. She wasn't blind unless it was knocked out by battle damage. I guess your anime Fletchers could swarm Yamato, but they never did in the Battle off Samar, or any other battle, for that matter. Yamato was only ever hit by a submarine torpedo. All the surface ship torpedoes fired at her missed. Aerial torpedoes are smaller and carry less explosives than a surface ship or submarine torpedo, but that is irrelevant when you can launch waves of a hundred Avenger torpedo bombers to really swarm a ship.
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  854.  @horatio8213  You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Show me a link that says the Yamato radar was "obsolete". The 13 GO Dentan radar,while not quite as as sensitive as US radars, was still sufficient for the joab, It could detect a battleship from 20-25 km and a target as small as a surfaced sub at 7 km. It detected the Olendorf's battleship squadron at nearly 50 km. The 22 GO fire control radar could detect a BB at 30 km with a bearing error of 0.5 to 3 degrees. Again, not as good as US FCS, but good enough. The Japanese were constantly monitoring our radar emissions. They had excellent electronic knowledge and developed transmitters in the VHF and UHF ranges specifically to jam our radars. It wasn't until the introduction of centimetric radar that the Japanese, like the USN, weren't able to produce effective jammers until the end of the war. Unlike the USN, the factories that were going to produce the jammers were being bombed into oblivion, so very few ever reached the fleet. The chief Japanese limitation wasn't the quality of their radar, it was that lack of a good PPI and CIC. That didn't allow the Japanese to take advantage of their radars in combat conditions. Do some actual study about WWII radar systems before you post any more made up stuff.
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  855.  @canuckled  That story would require a major bend in the space-time continuum. Vikrant was tied up at dock from June, 1970 until March, 1971, her boilers cold as the Indians waited for replacement parts for the water jackets to arrive from Britain. She was then towed to Anchorage at the Naval Dockyards at Bombay for the sole purpose of lighting off the boilers at reduced pressure to exercise ship systems like the catapults since the ship had been cold for over seven months. While doing so, the Indian Navy considered that war with Pakistan was becoming more likely. The order was given to repair the boilers the best that could be done. This was complete by mid-June. After further testing and sea trials, she was declared able to participate in operations in mid-July, and the next two months were spent working up her Seak King and Sea Hawk squadrons, along with her Alizé strike/AS aircraft. She needed further work on her radars and communications before she was deemed fit for fleet operations in September. All this was happening while the Bonaventure was being towed to Taiwan in June, 1971. Taiwan s a long way from Bombay. I'm assuming that Vikrant somehow sailed to Taiwan at the same time as the Bonaventure was being towed there. How they could have met in mid-Pacific is beyond me and, if they could have, did the story propose that the Vikrant was somehow refit using Bonaventure parts while both vessels sailed (or were towed) around in circles in the middle of the Pacific or, more geographically likely, the Indian Ocean? Even more damning to this rather fanciful tale is the Vikrant was still restricted to 14 knots for the three weeks of the war and returned to port in even worse shape than when she left. It took almost another year to get the parts from Britain and complete repairs. I think we can pretty firmly plant this one in the tinfoil hat section of naval stories.
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  856.  @bcoop1701  My understanding is the I-19, along with a few other of the Type B-1 class, were outfitted to fire the Type 93, and that the torpedoes fired in the salvo against the Wasp were Type 93's. I'm going from memory, however, so I could be wrong.
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  857.  @Drachinifel  That was my impression as well. As I'm sure you know, there was a lot of politics involved with the UP program. Churchill, as First Lord Of the Admiralty, was influenced by his friend and political ally, Frederick Lindemann, to develop this aerial minefield weapon, and Churchill rushed the UP program through and more or less ordered they be mounted on capital ships, including Hood. It was an ineffective weapon, and could be dangerous to the ship firing it, since nothing stopped a low altitude barrage from drifting back on to the ship that fired it if the wind shifted. I guess the UP keeps showing up in stories of the Hood because a launcher was observed to be on fire just before the massive explosion. Churchill's political enemies were only too happy at the time to blame the UP for the Hood's sinking since it damaged Churchill's reputation and provided a reason for why the Hood blew up.
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  858. I was lucky enough to find a 1957-58 edition of "Jane's" at a reasonable price. This was the peak of WWII ships still in commission or reserve and the new build ships like the first nuclear cruiser and submarines, while the change to guided missiles from guns as heavy armaments was starting. Just the shear numbers of US Navy ships at the time was quite overwhelming. Vessels like the Brooklyn's, the pinnacle of immediate prewar design, as Drach said, were now considerd to be of such lowly worth that their main value was selling them to South American navies on the cheap to head off another Latin American arms race. Just the idea the US had hundreds of cruisers of various types and classes, most of which were less than 15 years old, that were now considered obsolescent at best showed how rapidly naval technology was changing. "Jane's" is, of course, a British publication, and this was probably the best edition to show just how Anglophilic it was. The advertising pages were still filled with the names of British shipbuilders makers of naval gear, most of which have now vanished. The Royal Navy had already discarded or were in the processing of discarding all her battleships except Vanguard, and it was rather shockingly revealed that, even after an extensive refit in 1955, that she was about to be placed in reserve rather than remaining the fleet flagship. The cruiser fleet was being rapidly run down, and many of the destroyer fleet used in the war were worn out and needed extensive refits. With Anthony Eden as PM and Lord Mountbatten as First Sea Lord. it was clear that the Labour government had neither the money nor desire to rebuild the Royal Navy at a time when the Empire was running down, perhaps even more quickly than the RN. I write all this only as a prelude to the amount of space given to the RN in "Jane's". I haven't counted the relevant pages yet, but my guess is there were at least twice as many pages devoted to the details of the RN compared to the USN. In some cases, as many pages were used to cover a single RN warship as for a large class of USN ships. Even minor ships like net tenders had at least a couple paragraphs whilst several USN ships of the same classes were little more than footnotes. Just by page count alone, the uninitiated might assume the RN was still the world's largest navy. I write all this not as a swipe at "Jane's" or the RN, only to show that "Rule Britannia" was still a thing in 1957 and in contrast to how different things would look in not more than ten years or so later. As a long time Anglophile myself, it was a sad thing to see, but 1957 was nearly the last stand of the RN as the premiere navy of the world, as the sun has begun to set on the British Empire.
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  859.  @CTXSLPR  Thanks, that's the location of another part a US ship used in the nuclear test program that my sleep deprived brain couldn't remember. The turret was removed the USS Louisville in 1957 as it was being scrapped and shipped to the test site. I was lucky enough to get on one of the first tours in 2005 and saw the Louisville's turret, although I didn't know it belonged to the Louisville at the time. The damage for her last kamikaze hit was still plainly visible. The Sedan Crater was certainly the highlight of the tour. Too bad they don't allow cameras. I didn't realize the agency had also stockpiled surplus naval rifles. You must have an interesting job. :-)
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  860.  @chrisbruce5711  Olympia was a protected cruiser, not a battleship. Next time, learn something about a ship before you comment.
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  861.  @johanlundstrom1561  I doubt the people writing those scripts really understood PT boats. Very few PTs carried radar through late 1942. After that, most radars were some variant of the SCR-517A airborne search set. The range of the SCR-517A when scanning from the usual 5,000 foot height of a searching aircraft but considerably less when used on the sea surface and relatively short mast of a PT. The PPI was really only large enough for use by one operator, and there was no way to communicate findings up the kline for the fleet. The SCR-517A and variants did a good job in terms of acting as a self defense system for a squadron, but that's about as far as it went in terms of being radar pickets.
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  862.  @rnrailproductions5049  Good morning as well. Drach always posts these just as I'm about to finally retire for the night, and then there are questions raised by the video, and then answers to questions...and then it's 0542 and I still haven't gone to bed. Thank goodness I'm retired and single. No work I have to be at and no wife harping at me to come to bed. :-)
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  863.  @BrassLock  Funny how sleeping habits are so different for people. I've always been a night owl, more so now that I'm retired. I usually hit the sack about 0300 and get up again about 1000. As I've gotten older I find I only require 6-7 hours sleep compared to the 8-9 I required when I was younger. Of course, being a retired bum now, I can always sneak in a nap when i need it. Today is shaping up to be one of those days.
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  864. Ah, yes, I wasn't thinking RN. If only Indomitable hadn't run aground while working up. She probably couldn't have made it to Singapore in time to join Force Z even without the grounding. There were several escort carriers in service that could have been in East Indies in the three month gap if Illustrious was needed elsewhere.
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  865. Excellent schedule. It looks like it will work. My offer still stands. If we can get another subscriber to get you from Charleston to Columbus GA or Dothan AL, I'll be your taxicab over to Mobile. I haven't confirmed it yet, but i suspect a flight from Charleston to Mobile will involve flying backwards to Atlanta with a change of planes there, and it will undoubtedly be an expensive fare. I hope we can make this work for you.
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  866. James Ricker replied: "The pneumatic Dynamite gun is still in use today on submarines." You apparently wrote this and immediately deleted it. Can you tell me why you deleted it, and where I would find a dynamite gun in use on a submarine today?
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  867.  @scottgiles7546  Well, you could, but since receiving ships are almost always in a home port far from the fighting, an enemy firing on one is the sign of much bigger problems for a country than just a ship like that being fired on.
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  868.  @AdamMGTF  Hi Adam. This is one time a good book is available cheap. Several sellers have the paperback version at $4.00 on ebay! Even the higher class bookstores have it for $15 or less, so buying one of these shouldn't be a problem. I'm still recovering from a nasty COPD flareup. Anyone that's not sure if they should quit smoking should look to my example. Quit now so you're not sick during your declining years.
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  869.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Good idea. They would make very impressive deep sea fishing boats. I'll bet guys would pay big money to fish off a flight deck with the helicopter available to lift the marlins and sharks from the water for fishermen too lazy to go through the typical long battle it takes to land them. Put out a floating target shaped like a pirate ship and let them take a few shots with the 57mm for a hefty extra fee.
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  870. Take a look at the construction plans for the battlecruiser Lexington and the dimensions of the two massive funnels. It will become immediately apparent why the space needed for funnels on the aircraft carrier version was equally massive.
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  871. Damn it! Somehow, my notification's to Drach's channel got turned off! I never missed a Drach video and now I have about a month's work to catch up with. Oh well, I guess there are worse things that could happen, but I'd still like to know why it happened.
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  872.  @AdamMGTF  Thanks very much for that offer, Adam. At 73 and living on social security and whatever the stock market deigns to give me this month, my travel budget is sadly shrunken from what it used to be. At age 73, I also don't get around as well as I used to. Within those limitations, however, the Mother Country is at the top of my list. This colonial enjoys a proper cuppa Twinings, although I'm one of those heretics that has tea with my milk. A rousing RN vs USN discussion would make for an enjoyable weekend. I'll save this post and contact you as my schedule gets firmed up. One of the things that makes Drach's channel so enjoyable is the chance to meet people like yourself.
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  873.  @TEHSTONEDPUMPKIN  Indeed, and I guess that's why I don't understand having the Vanguard appear or not appear makes much difference or should make you feel bad, since it looks like it would only represented by the name and maybe a turret on an anime girl. I do have the perverse idea that something named "Iowa" should at least vaguely resemble its namesake. Weird, I know. As I said, I only know what I see on a website. I have never played either game and have no interest in anime. But, to coin a phrase, whatever floats your boat.
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  874. Considering the amount of manpower, planning, and practice that went into HMCS Oakville'Canadian
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  875. No, that was the Battle off Samar. The battle of Leyte Gulf was much larger than that one engagement. While it was certainly a heroic fight, the idea that a couple of destroyer escorts fought off the whole Japanese fleet is just wrong. The order of battle was 3 destroyers, 4 DE's, and 6 escort carriers with 400 aircraft. The Japanese had a mere 13 floatplanes. It was the aircraft from the escort carriers that really saved the day for Taffy 3. The destroyers and DE's radar fire control that gave the US vessels such accurate gunfire, especially from the five inch guns of the destroyers and even the single five incher's from the escort carriers, harried and even sunk a few ships, with aid of down the throat torpedo attacks. Brave as they were, only one of the seven DD's and DE's wasn't sunk or badly damaged when the battle was broken off. Still, without those aircraft from the escort carriers making such sustained and effective attacks, it's unlikely Admiral Kurita would have broken off the attack.
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  876.  @whatsoperadoc7050  You seem like you have a good command of the language and understand a lot about naval history. It's a little disgusting to suggest otherwise.
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  877.  Jimmy De'Souza  First, echelon turrets are different than plain wing turrets think of a formation of geese compared to two people walking side by side. Second, I didn't read you were talking about the plan view of the Colossus. Look at the overhead and side view at https://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/ships/ships-uk/49161/view/hms_colossus_(battleship)_(1911)/. Do you see the cutouts in the boat bridges? Those we so the guns could go to maximum elevation and clear the structure before coming back to normal elevation for cross deck firing. If it still doesn't make sense to you, maybe someone else can explain it better.
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  878.  @andresmartinezramos7513  LOL. My only hope is more coffee!
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  879. In addition to all the technical and tactical aspects of trying to us an old small, and slow ship for a carrier, the Luftwaffe controlled all aviation in Germany. I can't imagine they would have wanted to add planes and pilots to any German ship beyond floatplanes. Without a naval air arm, it would be nearly impossible for any navy to have a successful carrier force.
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  880. Is your space bar broken? When you use a dot instead of a space, YT attempts to make a link out of it.
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  881.  @AdamMGTF  Well, thanks a lot. It would be an honor if Drach ever asked me to participate.
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  882. The Tashkent was built in Italy as the single member of what was supposed be a four ship class, with the last three built in Russian shipyards. It was a much different ship that the Storozhevoy class, nearing the length and tonnage a small light cruiser. At 43.5 knots in light condition on trials, she was probably the fastest large ship ever constructed.
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  883.  @jdrawr  I'm pretty sure the British Pacific Fleet in WWII had developed at least grudging respect for the USN.
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  884. It would really depend on if the cruisers got able in range or the Graf Spee being able to stay out of range. The number of guns doesn't mean much if you can't get close enough to hit the enemy. At maximum elevation of 40 degrees, the Graf Spee would have a range of about 40,000 yards while the US ships maximum range was about 26,000 yards. That's a huge disparity, and one unlikely to be overcome before they were all disabled or sunk.
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  885.  @billbrockman779  Probably so, but the range differential remained about the same no matter what, so the Brooklyns would still have needed a lot of luck to be able close range and be able to sink or disable Graf Spee before the same fate awaited them.
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  886.  @kemarisite  I have no argument with what you have written. My reply was to explain the actions of the US cruisers not taking any evasive action before they were hit. The type 93 were a constant danger ot allied ships before 1943, when we recovered an intact specimen at Guadalcanal. Japanese strategy was to fire all their torpedoes before opening fire with guns. The US strategy was just the opposite, use gunfire first and torpedoes only when the ships had closed the range. I don't know what the effective percentage of Type 93's that were fired, but the important thing is the Japanese strategy was such that US ships were more likely to be hit by one salvo than was true with US ships firing the same way. US torpedo strategy was seriously flawed going into WWII, and we assumed the Japanese actually had slightly less capable torpedoes and would withhold firing until they had targets at close range. US ships weren't withholding torpedoes as a threat. It was a basic part of the strategy. The Japanese used an asymmetric strategy using a weapon we didn't know existed.
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  887.  @Drachinifel  Yes, it was only the introduction of radar fire control that allowed something like a 99% probability of a ship being able to identify the flight of their own shells. However, this still didn't obviate the problem of identifying all the other shell splashes. It was only the perfection of each ship sending analog data packets to all the other ships firing that allowed a high probability identification of every shell splash. Digital data packets, the ultimate perfection of shell splash identification, were introduced at just about the time it no longer mattered, capital ships and their guns having disappeared from the general naval scene.
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  888.  joanne chon  Maybe they can get a job in sewer maintenance or as a roofer in July or January so they can understand working at home isn't so awful.
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  889. I've never understood the concept of these massive "recoilless rifle" guns on an aircraft. Assuming these weapons were ever really useful and effective, why not mount them on e-boats or German torpedo boats? It would be much easier to modify a naval vessel than try to hang these on modified existing aircraft.
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  890.  @iansadler4309  I've read several stories of men serving aboard those trawlers, and the worst were the ones captured from Germany and sailed back to Britain as prizes. As you wrote, just a small coal stove, very little fresh water except that needed for boiler makeup water, no toilet facilities, no refrigeration, and all the food came out of a can. It's hard to imagine worse duty at sea.
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  891.  @tomriley5790  I'm not saying it didn't happen. All kinds of things outside regulations happen in wartime. If was the ship's supply office, he may have been able to get it aboard and on the menu. It is still hard to believe that sausage filled with sawdust made it to the cooks. That supply officer would have cut some open to inspect them, and a story of sawdust sausage getting back to the captain would have landed a supply officer who was supposed to inspect them, in big trouble. It might be true, but I'll still put my money on just a story.
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  892. The only way to deal with antiship missile is with another missile, CIWS, reliable electronic countermeasures. There's no armor that can reasonably defeat something like the Silkworm, and there are antiship today with much better and larger warheads. If we ever get into a naval shooting war again with modern missiles, it's not likely and ship will survive an enough missiles to saturate the electronic countermeasures, and the antimissile missiles needs to be fast enough and able to launch them in great enough numbers to take on all the incoming missiles. The probability of all that working perfectly in real combat is somewhere near zero.
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  893.  @richardlinter4111  You are correct. t was the Ford Mk 1 in use until the end of the war ans was upgraded to Mark 1A postwar. The Mark 1A reference was both slip of the finger and slip of the mind.
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  894.  @JohnRodriguesPhotographer  Let me know if you hunt up the title. I'd be interested in reading it. The Japanese had many problems understanding and building reliable radars so I wouldn't be surprised if the story was true. I will say that they were making great strides with radar by August 1945, and it's one of the reasons they became so successful with consumer electronics in the 50's and 60's.
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  895. Okay, fine. I'll have to eat more dog food, but I can see you need some money for models and paint, so I've raised my membership to $10. Those models are a pretty cool way to illustrate the fleet positions.
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  896. Almost three and a half hours? Thank goodness my coffee refills arrived from Amazon yesterday.
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  897. I thought I was late but, at three and a half hours, it's still in progress.
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  898.  @TraditionalAnglican  Did you read the study in my link? Military forces have been dealing with malingerers and the just plain lazy since before the time of the Roman Legions. At least in the USN during WWII, the numbers of men reporting for sick bay and the numbers reporting other injuries was closely monitored by the fleet command staff. When those numbers started to creep up, a "flying squad" was sent to the ship or installation to see what was happening. They had the authority to do everything from increase rations to recommend removal of a CO. Something like this may have changed to outcome with Uganda, but I suspect the RCN was too small and the Pacific just too far away to implement such a policy, even if they had wanted to. There's a good article about everything that went wrong when the Uganda arrived in the Pacific at https://navalandmilitarymuseum.org/archives/articles/controversies/the-uganda-episode
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  899. 0200 CST squad here, and like two minutes before I was about to shut things down and hit the rack.
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  900. I had nothing but a black screen fro 54:42 onwards to just before the end. I don't know if that was a fault or a feature.
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  901.  @therake8897 True, and while the increased height helped the class handle the later jets like the Skyhawk, their low top speed was a bigger hindrance than a somewhat lower hanger height. If Veinticinco de Mayo could have done 30 knots like a larger and more powerful carrier, the strike package of Skyhawks waiting on deck could have been launched against the British fleet in the Falklands. The possible outcome makes an interesting speculation.
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  902.  @thhseeking  Absolutely false. There was no naval "task force" at Ascension Island, the then secret US base. Ascension wasn't even aware of all the details about the Laconia sinking since they had not monitored any of the radio traffic. A series of poorly composed messages from the British at Freetown sent two days after the sinking made is seem like the Laconia had just been sunk that day. All Ascension knew was the British were requesting air cover for two British merchant ships being sent to the rescue of Laconia, and Ascension wasn't even aware of the correct location of the sinking. The B-24 that attacked only discovered the U-156 while on routine patrol, and the plane captain and crew were on their first combat mission The only naval vessels being sent to the scene other than the German and Italian subs were two Vichy French warships sent from Senegal and Dahomey. These were the vessels that eventually met up with the subs and took off the rescued. That actions of the US pilot and Ascension duty officer were already bad enough without you falsely claiming the USN sent a "task force" with the express intention of sinking ships involved in a rescue.
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  903.  @kemarisite  Yes, it did, since the use of cordite ammunition was something the BuOrd was 100% against. There was an accumulation of reasons why the Bofors won, but the use of low velocity Cordite propellant was one of the main ones.
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  904.  @kemarisite  We were also using cordite ammunition in WWI, and there's a good chance we may have had the same magazine explosion problems if our capital ships had been involved in a Jutland type battle. In the days when cordite was the only true smokeless propellant, starting about 1895, the increase in visual range without all the smoke was considered an acceptable risk. It required meticulously following anti-flash precautions to prevent fires and explosions, and that's what the British weren't doing.
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  905.  @kemarisite  I think you're confusing standards with practice. All the other non-nitroglycerin powders were adopted as standard for new and remanufactured guns, but there were still guns on older battleships that could only use cordite. I believe the same was true for some earlier 5"/51 and 6"/50 guns as well. As I've already written, we imported hundreds of thousands of tons of cordite during WWII for use in all capital ship guns because it gave less flash than any of the adopted standards. Night fighting with the Japanese, who were using almost 100% cordite propellant, demonstrated why we needed to rapidly reduce the flash from our own guns. The BuOrd didn't like it, but we really had no choice. It was only with the invention of Alabanite that we had a propellant that could replace all the others on a one for one basis.
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  906.  @stevevalley7835  The cordite loading of the 2 pdr was a real mark against it. As you say, the guns had to sit loaded in the tropical heat, sometimes for days if there were no aerial attacks. The magazines were huge in terms of capacity, but that also meant they were heavy and time consuming to reload. Lack of high velocity rounds and no tracers until late in the war were more problems when the gun was operated in local control. The whole question about which gun did the job better should have been solved when the Vanguard was built using only Bofors guns for the medium AA battery. I believe it was the first major ship in the RN completed with no 2 pdrs.
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  907.  @scottgiles7546  LOL. It may not just be your glasses though. I use Arial font in Chrome, and pom and porn look virtually identical. It's only that little space between the "r" and the end that sets them apart.
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  908.  @Betrix5060  Yes. guided by wires, uncoiling from the rear of the missile body. The Germans had already been using wire guidance with the Ruhrstahl-Kramer RK 344 air to air missile and were working on a wire version of the Fritz-X at the end of the war,
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  909.  @Drachinifel  It sure would for me, and I suspect it may get you more first day views. Something like 0900 EDT/1300 UTC would get the Drydock into North American time zones at a reasonable hour while not being too late in Europe. I don't know how everyone else feels though.
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  910.  @TraditionalAnglican  According to my UTC calculator, 0800 PDT is 1500 UTC. 1300 UTC would be 0600 PDT. I use the calculator all the time in my ham radio work so I'm pretty confident it's right.
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  911.  @AtomicBabel  Bull Halsey couldn't stand Hoover and made sure he was court martialed. However, he was exonerated at court martial because his force had only badly damaged cruisers remaining, the captains of those ships felt there couldn't have been survivors given the complete destruction of the Juneau by a massive explosion from a torpedo that caused her to sink in 20 seconds, and there was not even a single destroyer to hunt the Japanese sub that had just fired two torpedos, one of which sank Juneau. Gilbert rightly feared another attack and did his best to get the rest of the fleet out of danger. It was a tragic event, but war has many tragic events. He retired honorably in 1947, and was awarded three Navy Crosses. There was only one officer that should have been brought up on charges, and it wasn't Gilbert.
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  912. Drach, Steve1989 is proud of you!
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  913.  @Nuke89345  Yes, if you're soldier undergoing bombardment 14 miles inland where you thought you were safe, the ability to inspire fear while having VW Bugs flying overhead is quite real. I don't think any of those Iraqis knew or cared if the big guns were supposedly obsolescence. Cruise missiles are effective weapons for striking 600 to 1000 miles inland. Firing them 15 miles inland is not only ineffective, since it GPS guidance system doesn't know the location of a bunker, it's also hugely expensive. I think, between Missouri and Wisconsin, about 600 16" rounds were fired. If we want to look at costs, multiply the costs of firing 600 cruise missiles (or any missile, really) with much less destructive power to the cost of those 600 16" rounds, and that doesn't count about 1600 127mm rounds fired. By now, the USN should have been in tall cotton when it came to gunfire support. We have 50 or so Arleigh Burkes firing those amazing ERGM rounds...no? Okay, then, we have BTERM...no? Well, we still have those 152mm LRLAP guns on the Zumwalts...no? My somewhat snarky point is the USN has shown no, and I mean zero, ability to design a working guided long range artillery round. They have now been at it since about 1955 and have wasted hundreds of millions, maybe billions, by now with nothing but scrap metal to show for it. I don't share your optimism that amphibious landings against defended beaches are a thing of the past. It will happen again. What the Navy needs is a multipurpose warship that can escort carriers, provide protection against attacking aircraft and ships, and provide gunfire support to amphibious landings. You know, kind of like a battleship, but not like an Iowa. A smaller, cheaper ship with say, four or six 203mm guns. Just haul out the blueprints for the Baltimore's main guns and start building and, for the love of all that's holy, no more Star Wars ammunition.
    2
  914.  @Nuke89345  Do you really think a hail of missiles against those Iraqi bunkers and trench lines would be anywhere near as effective, either operationally or cost wise, as artillery shells? There's a reason why the Army has many more artillery pieces than missile launchers. Nothing is as cheap or effective at moving dirt as an artillery round. The challenge for the Navy is to produce an enlarged Burke with 203mm lightweight guns, just like the Major Caliber Lightweight Gun (MCLWG) trialed way back in 1975 on the USS Hull, before we got so deeply into the guided munitions silliness. The tests were reportedly successful in meeting all the specs with the exception of some accuracy issues at extreme ranges out to 17 miles. However, the Navy decided this throwback was no longer needed because we'd soon have 5"/54 guns firing RAPs with way more range...and that failed too. The challenge for the Navy is not producing another version of the 8"/55 firing convention munitions. That part's easy. The hard part is to admit that artillery shells just don't lend themselves to delicate electronic things or other parts hung on them as they explode out of a big rifle. Admirals generally don't like to go before Congress to explain the, at least for now, they've decided for the good of the service to revert to a tried and true gun solution and, BTW, sorry about all that money. -)
    2
  915.  @keptinkaos6384  You are an idiot. BTW, stay in school and learn the difference between "there", "their", "were" and "we're". Learn how to write complete sentences with correct punctuation. Once you stop being an idiot, people might take you more seriously if you write above a sixth grade level.
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  916.  @theswordguy5269  Please provide me with any links that support the following assertions - 1. The Atlanta's main armament was only designed for surface warfare 2. Admiral Callahan "blundered" into Japanese forces as compared to his confusing order of "column left". 3. Evidence that the Atlanta was steaming under her own power after the torpedo hit and before San Francisco opened fire on a ship that was beyond the planned van of the destroyers. 4. Evidence that fear of Japanese surface attack caused Atlanta to be scuttled rather than the inability to get underway with the main power plant and the ship was drifting out of control toward Japanese held Cape Esperance. 5. Evidence a ship with only backup generator power, under tow by a fleet tug, with power only to a single turret could be considered "combat effective". 6. Any evidence the gunfire of the San Francisco caused the fatal damage to Atlanta. Not asking about crew casualties, but actual damage to the ship that later caused her to sink. 7. Any evidence that Juneau's first torpedo hit "broke her back", and how a ship with a broken back could maintain 13 knots on one screw for 10 hours after the first torpedo attack. 8. Any evidence the second torpedo attack, with the hit occuring in about the same place as the first, wasn't the one that actually broke her back, considering she broke in two and sank in 20 seconds. 9. Any evidence of an Atlanta class ship ever engaging in surface warfare after the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal that would prove how durable they were in that role.
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  917.  @theswordguy5269  " The Chief Engineer was quoted as having said that in his opinion the keel had been broken by the torpedo hit." This from the one of the ship's doctors. The Chief Engineer was quoted by whom? On what basis did he say this, if in fact he said it? The doctor's report is replete with errors about courses and speeds for the Juneau. This is all pretty flimsy evidence for asserting the ship was operating for 10 hours with a broken back. And you can stop with the continued attempts to make it look like I haven't read any of this before. I've read essentially everything at the Atlanta site years ago. The recently declassified action report of the USS Helena at https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/wcfcourier.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/72/872c634b-7920-5702-9d2e-6a5dd310feb2/59f73a3d0a4fd.pdf.pdf contains many more details of what happened ot Atlanta and Juneau.
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  918.  @josephvalvano829  Thanks for the kind words.
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  919. @Jurassic Aviator Sure, okay. A navy that doesn't need carriers has two in service and another on the ways. I'm done with you.
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  920. I recall reading an article about at least the research work going on with US torpedoes in a late 1920's Popular Mechanics article, all of which are available online through Google Books. It seems as if the idea wasn't very secret even then. In addition to the Congress's usual parsimony, the Mark 14 is a good illustration of the reason why developing and testing any new weapon during a worldwide depression will usually run up on the rocks.
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  921.  @kemarisite  True, but Drach being English, no need to further confuse him with regional dialects.
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  922. Your voice and rendition are so smooth (and so English) that ever using text to speech was a real tragedy. :-)
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  923.  @spyone4828  LOL. I'll have to give you that one.
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  924.  @sharlin648  No, you said " a lot of his military designs on Pre WW1 French kit." His name is one you brought up, not me. I'm just repeating what he's said about this whole gun and ship obsession. He has said he used a wide range of military equipment in his early drawings, the French ships only being a part of it. And I don't give a fuck about you and anime. That wasn't my point, but you sure seem to feel the need to justify why you don't give a fuck about it.
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  925.  @sundiver137  Most authentically restored boat on earth. Enjoy yourself!
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  926.  @WALTERBROADDUS  No, but it does mean rearmament is going apace. More alarming is the Diet's approval of the reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution Allowing Japan to go to war if an ally is attacked. It also allows the military to provide material aid to any ally anywhere in the world. The interpretation of Article 9 has been held in the past to prohibit any aircraft carriers or bombers. The conversion of the two Izumo class ships to full carriers was also approved by the Diet, and the F-35 with air-to air refueling and 18,000 pounds of ordinance makes a pretty good bomber substitute. Article 9 has been chipped away through reinterpretation for the last 20 years, and Abe has a set a deadline to have Article 9 revised by 2020. There are lots of people on the bandwagon for expansion. Other than the Communist and Socialist parties, all the other major parties are on board with it. One of the reasons why Abe wants to have Article 9 revised to allow a proper military is to "restore national pride". I don't know about you, but that kind of thing gives me the heebie jeebies.
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  927.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Not exactly. He's telling Germany to increase its defense spending to the 2% of GDP required by NATO. That being said, a resurgent Germany makes me even more nervous than Japan. A strong and united Germany has been the cause of of every European war for the past 148 years.
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  928.  @boreasreal5911  Sorry, but you don't get to rewrite history. Germany was the first to declare war on August 1, 1914. It then launched an unprovoked attack against Belgium and declared war on France.The attack on Belgium brought Britain into the war under its obligations to the 1839 Treaty of London. Prussia incorporated almost all the states of the German Empire after the war broke out. It was unified under Bismarck. It contained the vast majority of the population of modern day Germany and most of its territory. It was close enough to what we know as Germany today.
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  929.  @Dave_Sisson  They'd need a lot of changes to operate F-35s. They don't have the jet fuel tankage or ordnance magazines need to support fixed wing fighters. The deck and elevators would need structural reinforcement and the spots would need heat treating to resist the vertical thrust of an F-35. Even with modifications the ship is too small to operate more than six fighters, and four would be a more likely number. The RAN already looked at this when the ships were building and dropped a proposed plan to operate F-35s. The ship are useful for their designed role of amphibious assault, not as aircraft carriers.
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  930.  @boreasreal5911  Bull. Germany demanded that Russia demobilize in 12 hours. It was an impossible demand and Germany declared war on Russia. They were following the Schlieffen Plan by demanding free passage through Belgium. When Belgium refused, they invaded Belgium with no declaration of war and declared war on France the same day. It was Germany's moves in the west that expanded the war and made what we now know as WWI inevitable. Declaring war on Russia did not bring France and Britain into the war. Prussia effectively became the German Empire at the outbreak of war. It was the German Empire that fought the war not just Prussia. Are you German? What history books are you reading?
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  931.  @boreasreal5911  I'm not about to keep arguing with you when you distort facts to suit your narrative. I have watched the Great War channel from beginning to end so stop trying to bullshit me. For the first 45 years of the twentieth century, Germany was the big bad wolf of Europe. It's German like you that make me nervous about the future.
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  932.  @boreasreal5911  Two wrongs never make a right. You're using the "look over there" argument about others doing bad things to diminish what you did bad. Your country was responsible of tens of millions of deaths in the twentieth century. Come to grips with reality.
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  933.  @boreasreal5911  I'm done with you. Go talk to someone who believes your nonsense.
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  934. Dang. 100th guide, and some of the best naval history on the net. You should have at least 500k subs.
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  935.  @TheSportCompact  Reading comprehension seems to a fading thing nowadays. I wrote "oldest COMBAT vessel still in commision". I wrote it again in the reply right before you decided you decided you needed to tell me about Constitution , and after another poster just before you did the same thing. Do you think she's still a vessel ready for COMBAT ? Geez....
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  936.  @serjacklucern4584  What's a "trinate" turret? Do you mean a triple turret? If so, the real battle for first triple turret on the centerline is between Dante Alighieri and the Russian Gangut. They were both laid down within two months of each other, and it appears Italy and Russia did some industrial espionage to get data on the Austro-Hungary ship's triple turrets. All three ships were laid down within a couple months of each other, but an all out effort by Italy allowed their ship to be launched about six months sooner than Tegethoff.
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  937.  @Ron52G  Sure, as long as it's clear which it is we're talking about. I still think the Roman Legions would have done way better with a few tanks. :-)
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  938.  @AWMJoeyjoejoe  I'll agree with that title!
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  939.  @lizardb8694  Thanks for that information. I knew Marines were no longer stationed on ships, but they were still deployed, particularly on amphibious ships. That makes sense, since some of the first ground troops to go in are Marines. Some are still regularly deployed on carriers and cruisers in area like the Persian Gulf. The proliferation of light weapons bolted to the decks in WWII fashion while transiting "hot" zones still needed trained artillerymen, and here the Marines have been able to fulfill that role again in the modern Navy.
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  940.  Nguyen Johnathan  I was responding to your comment regarding Swedish 152mm guns. They had many of the same problems as the USN 152mm guns.
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  941.  @bigblue6917  Thanks. I fixed it so I wasn't mixing mounts and barrels. The Alaskas could have been really formidable antiaircraft ships if if was recognized early on that a large cruiser platform could have been more effective than the enlarged destroyer types of the Atlanta class.
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  942.  @paulhinds4840  They were originally designed as flotilla leaders but the role was changed to an antiaircraft cruiser. They were designated as scout cruisers in the early part of the design work because there was no USN classification for a flotilla leader or antiaircraft ship. However, antiaircraft was seen as their main role from before they were laid down. You don't need eight turrets and sixteen 5" guns to be a flotilla leader. In 1949, the ships were finally given their correct designation as CLAAs. At no time was the class given any type of destroyer designation. The CL designation already set them apart from destroyers. The issue was not the number of 5"guns, apart from stability issues. It was that that the directors were just coming into series production and were behind schedule. The Atlanta and Juneau were scheduled to get the Mark 37 and Mark 51 directors as well as replacement of the 1.1" machine gun batteries with 40mm Bofors on their next overhaul in January, 1943. Regardless of that, the armament of the Atlanta and Juneau played no role in their sinking. Once all the Atlanta, modified Atlanta, Oakland, and Juneau classes got their 40 mm guns along with their Mark 51 directors, and all the ships had the Mark 51 and, by mid-1943, the proximity fused 5" rounds, they proved to be excellent antiaircraft ships. Admiral Mitscher remarked that, other than an Iowa class battleship, he'd rather have a couple of Atlanta class ships protecting his carriers than any other ships.
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  943.  @spikespa5208  You're welcome. No, worst mistake is a landing you don't walk away from but, in the Navy this is a close second. For a few weeks after the landing, it will be his worst mistake. Navy pilots are savages.
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  944.  @Johnnycdrums  Oh, okay, I never thought of it from that point of view. The USN has held several memorial services after the sinking so I guess there was still the feeling the Phoenix was one of theirs, even after being sunk in combat while serving in a foreign navy. By my hasty math, an 18 year old sailor serving on board Phoenix whe she went to reserve in 1946 would be 91 now, so there's probably not much in the way of first hand opinions we'll get today.
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  945. Very cool idea for a medal "Steady On" is a good motto as well. Surprisingly reasonable price as well, so you will have another to pack up and ship across the pond.
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  946.  @VintageCarHistory  I obviously never met Skelley either, so all I know is what I've read about him. He was apparently a brilliant gunnery chief, but he was also a battleship advocate and obsessed with extending the range of the main battery as a reason for the Navy to retain the battleships in commission. Safety was merely a secondary concern, and he was involved in several other near accidents. The powder was all from WWII, and some it was caked in the bag. I haven't been able to find an independent evidence for the beating of the bags to loosen up the powder, but I don't doubt it was part of Skelley's plan. He had no authorization for his experiments. and instructions to the gun crews was mostly word of mouth. The plan for the day of the explosion was a 1900 pound shell and five powder bags rather than the normal six. This was another experiment in extending the range of the gun. Almost no one in the turret crew that day was experienced with 16" guns. Hartwig had been brought in as part of last minute assignment to supervise the less experienced men. The rammerman had never fired a live shot before then. The power rammer had issues in the past with running out of control and going too far up the breach into the gun barrel. We'll never know if it was human error on the part of the rammerman or the rammer running out of control again, but there's no doubt the powder bags were forced too far up the breach under about 2,000 pounds of pressure. That was enough to cause the black powder that was at the end of the last of the five bags to ignite, and the ignition jumped from bag to bag until there was a massive explosion. Even though the gun had reported ready 14 seconds before the blast, the breachlock was still open. If that had been closed, it would have caused a premature firing of the gun, but the explosion wouldn't have happened. As usual with any accident, it takes a number of factors happening in the right order for the accident to happen. In this case, almost all those factors go back to lack of training and mechanical issues. At least on that day, there's no evidence the bags contained additional detonators. It was the pure physics of too much pressure meeting explosive materials. Coming up with the crazy story about a gay love affair gone wrong was just the easy out for the Navy.
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  947. lovely new intro. Looks like the "5 minutes more or less" is going to end up being a lot more, something that's fine by me.
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  948.  @Drachinifel  Indeed, it couldn't, and I'm content for you to take all the time you need to really cover a subject. I doubt many subscribers think "Oh, no, 30 minutes? That's way too long for me."
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  949. How did it go badly? Other than a few scattered Japanese units putting up some resistance for a couple hours until superior officers ordered them to surrender, several hundred officers committing suicide in Singapore rather than surrender, and maybe 50 Japanese soldiers taking to the hills with communist guerrillas, everything I've read said it went pretty much according to plan.
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  950. Why didn't more navies adopt the transom stern? Almost all naval vessels today have transom stearns, so why not earlier ships? It seems the USN was the only navy that routinely used transom sterns in the late prewar period.
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  951. The Mark 14 became one of the best allied torpedoes after mid-1943, once the firing mechanism and depth gyro problems had been worked out. The Mark 14 gets a bad rap due to its early war problems.
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  952.  @TraditionalAnglican  You have to remember that at least 320 Mark 14s were lost in a series of spectacular explosions at the Cavite Naval Yard on Dec. 10, 1941 as a result of Japanese air attack. This was 10% of our entire stock of torpedoes in inventory in the entire Navy. It was well over 60% of the torpedoes in the Pacific. MacArthur had demanded an increase in the paltry numbers of torpedoes available in the Philippines in early-1940, and Gen. Marshall and the USN pulled out all the stops to do so. There were 48 torpedoes at Cavite in March 1940 and well over 380 by December 10, 1941. This far exceeded the amount of torpedo magazine space available so torpedo were dispersed in ordinary warehouses in an attempt to limit losses in a sneak attack or sabotage, the latter being expected by MacArthur. In a stroke of bad luck for us and good luck for the Japanese, Self-Propelled Lighter YF-181 was hit by a single bomb dropped from a level bomber flying at 20,000 feet. The YF-11 was loaded with over 200 torpedoes due to be transported to Corregidor for storage in one of the many tunnels there. She never made it, nor did her load of torpedoes. Another 100 or so torpedoes were destroyed in fires that consumed much of the Navy Yard that fateful day. Given the magnitude of this disaster, about the only torpedoes left in the Philippines were those in the tubes of those subs on patrol, PT boats being loaded for patrols, and few scattered torpedo aircraft supply depots. Any other craft other than destroyers that had torpedos were stripped for use on the subs, of which we had twenty-seven at Manila, and PT boats, of which we had six. Orders were sent back to the US and Europe to ship every available torpedo to the Pacific double quick, since the large force of subs, destroyers, and PT boats originally available was expected to be able to hold the line against the Japanese for nearly six months, by which time help from the Pacific fleet would arrive. The plan may have had some hope of success if the torpedoes had actually arrived and they actually worked. Neither happened, so it's no wonder orders were sent out to husband the existing supply of torpedoes. The "wasting of torpedoes" you may have read about came from memos about not using them against low value targets when a surface gun action would succeed just as well. All sub commanders were aware of the acute shortage of torpedoes in the various Pacific bases. There was no prohibition against launching spreads of torpedoes against high value targets, and that were a number of times in the first few weeks of the war when that happened. Some subs launched half their torpedo loadout at one ship before a single torpedo exploded. This made skippers wary of firing so many torpedoes when it only revealed their position and didn't cause the sinking of the warship they were fired at. This became a big enough problem that some skippers were relieved of command for being insufficiently aggressive.
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  953.  @jamespfp  Yes, the Nazis had tons of paper projects that were either impossible or just couldn't be done in time. The had plans for a ballistic missile with a 6,000 mile range that, if they had unlimited strategic materials and two more years, they may have actually been able to make it. Desperation is the mother of many inventions. Probably shouldn't get into this here, but I suspect Hitler would have been happy to be part of our current environmental movements, and he would have been a leader in the antismoking campaign.
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  954.  @RCAvhstape  This is another Falklands War myth. Sheffield was an all steel ship. She was sunk due to negligence and stupid decisions on the part of the command staff. HMS Antelope, Ardent, and Sir Galahad were three of the nine ships sunk that happened to have aluminum superstructures. None had aluminum hulls. There's no evidence that the aluminum burned or played any part in the sinkings. Any ship hit by enough bombs, or a bomb that hits the right place in a ship, is going to sink, regardless of materials in the superstructure
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  955.  @wavepool4501  No, I've nevere seen them among recreational boaters. The problem is you really need a full face helmet to keep you from being knocked out. As you might imagine, it's impossible to wear one when your shield is constantly doused with spray. Your best defense is a good life jacket that will keeo your head above water combined with a stout lifeline.
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  956.  @John-ru5ud  Yes, once the RAF figured out the types, arc of fire, and total number of guns, it was just a matter of having one more aircraft that the U Boat could target at once. The combination of machine guns, air dropped depth charges, rockets, and worst of all for a U-Boat, the Mk 24 "Fido" homing torpedo, sunk hundreds of U-Boats.
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  957.  @shawnbauman5463  So the British, French, German,, and Japanese also had cruiser subs, with the French even having heavy cruiser (8") guns. Was that because France? GTFO.
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  958.  @williamchamberlain2263  Go to navsource.org and you'll find hundreds of pictures of US subs. Then go to navweaps.com for a rundown on submarine mounted guns, including the 5"/25 wet mount.
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  959.  @TraditionalAnglican  Now add to that many of the design decisions like single purpose armament and armor distribution came directly from the WWI designs of the Bayern class, that many of the design decisions were done in secret, and it was impossible for the Bismarcks not to be inefficient compared to those countries that had the chance to openly look at the WWI results and could design their vessels accordingly.
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  960. I can see I would have been better off with a piupiu than the hot and heavy body armor I had to wear! :-)
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  961.  @bkjeong4302  The real plan was to develop such a strong defensive line that the Americans couldn't break through without being destroyed. It wasn't just carrier aircraft that they had to defend against. From Guadalcanal forward, they had defend against our occupying islands that became unsinkable carriers. They just didn't have the fleet or resources large enough to prevent this. Every island we seized became an airbase that attacked the next island in our plan while striking at Japanese shipping. AA gunnery on ships and land became more and more important, yet the Japanese didn't seem to pay it much attention. The fighting between the Army and Navy over strategy and resources became almost as important as fighting the Allies. Regardless of how many of our carriers they could sink after the Coral Sea, we could build them faster than they could sink them. It seemed as if only Yamamoto realized what dire straits the Japanese were in by 1943, but even he couldn't convince the General Staff of the necessity of a defensive war after the disaster at Midway.
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  962.  @bkjeong4302  YOu're right that the Japanese were focused on the "decisive attack". I don't think that was ever their exclusive plan for dealing with enemy air attacks. If it ever was, that plan was dashed after Midway. Nevertheless, the Army and Navy continued to fight about who'd develop things like radar first. There was no serious attempt to reverse engineer the Bofors gun until 1944. Rather than evacuating men from isolated islands for use in strategically more defensive areas, they continued fruitless attempts to resupply those troops, apparently believing that the US would somehow double back and attack them. By the time a decision had been made to withdraw them, it was too late, and many of those poor guys slowly starved to death. They didn't put serious efforts into developing more powerful aero motors for fighters than the one that already existed in the Zero because of the "decisive battle" delusion. With the appearance of the Hellcat and, worse, the Corvair, it was a mad scramble to develop in 1943/44 what should have been done in 1940, when they still had resources and manpower to do it. The Japanese plan for the "decisive battle" was not the destruction of the US fleet, just to cause enough damage and deaths that US would sue for an armistice. Yamamoto knew the only hope for such an event was a series of bold strikes early on. If the damage to the US fleet in 1942 wasn't enough to bring America to its knees, he knew only a long, protracted war would have an chance for the US suing for peace. He had been advocating for a defensive plan since before Pearl Harbor but he was generally ignored. The IJN never seemed to understand that unrestricted submarine warfare against US merchant shipping was the only hope for weakening the fleet and the troops ashore. By the time even the Army and General Staff were convinced that no "decisive battle", or at least not one in favor of the IJN, was going to happen and defense was the only option, it was far too late for any defensive plan to work.
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  963. A Newport News class cruiser could pour down 90 8" rounds and 240 5" rounds a minute on any target within range. It's not like the Volkswagen Bug size 16" shells zooming over my head, but it would be plenty to scare the snot out of me. :-)
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  964. Given that "Galena" is also another name for the mineral lead, this was an unfortunate choice of names for the ironclad. How well did naval engineers on 1860 understand problems like negative stability and buoyancy? I'm sure they understood the concepts, but how well were they able to calculate the effects of heavy iron armor? Given that all the calculations would be by hand with only the assistance of a slide rule, how much time could they devote to detailed calculations before the ship would never get launched? It must have been a pretty difficult task for naval engineers of the time, and ships like Galena show that there was either an inadequate understanding of things like tumblehome affecting stability, or there just weren't enough hours in the day to make all the calculations.
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  965.  @bakomusha  Indeed. One of the most inspiring last stands in naval history. It was a combination of training, technology, and just plain guts. Now that you mention it, I don't recall any movie about this battle, but it sure deserves one. In these days of CGI, it would be a lot easier to make compared to older battle movies.
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  966. or the Midmalt....
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  967.  @simonwaldock9689  Just for you, I shall continue to wear my fingers down to nubs. :-) Thanks.
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  968.  @sugarnads  Thanks, Mr. Mongoose. I have seen some good ones from you too.
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  969.  @kemarisite  Sorry, you're right. My brain apparently went into vapor lock on that one. I'll correct my post now.
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  970. It's gone. It was run ashore on North Keeling island after after the Battle of Cocos late in 194. Wave action had almost completely broken up the damaged ship by 1919. What remained was removed by Japanese scrappers in 1950.
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  971. Ok, okay, I get it now. Yes, it would be a great ship for a profile.
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  972. Presumably you meant "tugs", although there are such things as Navajo rugs. :-)
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  973.  @iffracem  Where in anything I wrote could you reasonably infer I thought Dutch troops weren't exactly what you said? I have the greatest respect for the fighting men of the Dutch armed forces. The problem in the Netherlands was not fighting men, it was the pacifists, communists, and anarchists that infested the Dutch government in the 30's that were the problem. If the Dutch army, navy, and air force had been allowed to get and/or build the weapons they wanted, all the problems of the Dutch topography would have been much less. If they had been allowed to mobilize when the Dutch High Command wanted to, they would have been ready to meet the invasion at their border, not in the cities. The forts would have been fully manned and stocked. The Dutch were trying to fight WWII with WWI weapons, and with a government that wanted them to just roll over and play dead in hopes the Nazis would leave them alone.
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  974.  @johnshepherd8687  I didn't say the Ticonderoga's didn't have the Aegis system before the change in classification. I said they had additional capabilities added before the keels of the first two ships were laid. The 15.5k tons is the full load tonnage. Standard is 14,798 tons. Again, this varies by the weapons and electronics fit. I would have had no argument with what you wrote if you had said close to a Baltimore. You wrote they are bigger, and that's not the case in length or tonnage.
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  975.  @johnshepherd8687  Are you reading the same comments I'm writing? "The Ticonderoga class had its classification changed from DDG to CG before the first keel was laid because of the additional capabilities of the Aegis system and the addition of flag accommodations." The Aegis system was supposedly upgraded with better range and target designation than the original design before the first keels were laid. These changes and the addition of flagship accommodations were the reasons given for the change from DDG to CG. Now, given that the Navy was trying to convince Congress they were getting more for their money with cruiser rather than a destroyer, I have no doubt there may have been some hanky panky with the specs, but this is the Navy's official story for the change in classification. I have no idea what the admiral said at that presentation, but I suspect there would be some in the Chief of Naval Operations staff that would dispute the allegation it was merely a marketing move. Given that he retired in 1985, I can only assume he was retired when you heard the talk and no longer had to worry about upsetting the brass.
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  976. The Argentine junta just misread Margaret Thatcher. She was not going to be pushed into losing one more part of the Empire, and the Falklands was going to be the line in the sand. I've often wondered what the Argentine response would have been if they had correctly understood "The Iron Lady" was no mere passing phrase.
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  977. I'm a little confused about the feature you're asking about. Do you mean the insets about halfway up the bow for the anchors or the area around the ski jump at the extreme forward bow?
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  978.  @WALTERBROADDUS  The biggest issue for the Japanese was their inability to produce reliable engines of greater than about 1,000 horsepower. They developed airframes that were broadly capable of taking on the best of allied fighters except for contant mechanical faults with the engines. They also never developed effective superchargers for their engines, so B-29s flew with relative impunity during their bombing raids. Poor and fluctuating metallurgical supply as well as difficulties with high tolerance machining were the downfall of the Japanese aircraft industry when they finally started building higher performance fighters.
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  979.  @joehayes9933  No doubt. The Japanese, after taking the "big risk" for Pearl Harbor, were always waiting for the one decisive battle where supposed Japanese superiority would win the war. Not only was their Naval doctrine inflexible, but only Yamamoto and few others seem to understand the danger that lay ahead for Japan if the war lasted for more than a year. Throwing everything they had at the Americans before 1943 was the only chance they had, but even Yamamoto became much more conservative as 1942 progressed.
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  980.  @cvproj  The GE turbines only cost the Rosie about a knot in speed. She was still capable of 32-33 knots, plenty fast enough to keep up with a carrier task group. The biggest problems were the constant breaking of turbine blades. GE changed the metallurgy of the blades several times, with all the turbine blades being replaced during her SCB-110 refit in 1956. This reduced, but never eliminated, the problem. After the astronomical cost overruns during the Midwa reconstructions, the last thing the Navy wanted to do was spend that kind of money on a ship with troublesome engines. The austere refit of 1968-69 was good enough to keep her in commision until 1977. The admirals wanted new Nimitz class carriers, not rebuilt WWII era ships.
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  981. Thanks goodness I didn't notice this post before I went to bed. It's now 1:20 pm CST and I'd just be dragging myself off to bed now. AS it was, I only got about five hours sleep, since we elderly don't sleep as much as you whippersnappers, but I still have four hours ahead of me now. Good heavens!
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  982. The New York class was 573 feet long compared to 521 feet for the Floridas. The longer hull allowed a better turret arrangement.
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  983.  @spatsky  That guy who had a grandfather and father who were two of the top generals in the army? The guy who, even with the intervention of his famous relatives, was turned down twice for appointment to West Point due to lackluster scores on the entrance exam? The guy who needed nearly a year of special tutoring and coaching to finally pass the test with an outstanding score? He was certainly an outstanding student in the Academy because of his hard studying and capacity for getting by on three hours sleep a night. However, even MacArthur admitted that book learning was hard for him, and he'd much rather ride or shoot than study. I guess it depends on how you describe brilliance. He was a brilliant tactician and organizer, a man of unquestioned bravery in battle, but I don't think he was a brilliant student. If you haven't done so, read "American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964". It gives a lot of insight into MacArthur's accomplishments and MacArthur the man. As one famous quote said "The best and the worst things you hear about him are both true."
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  984.  @spatsky  First, I don't despise MacArthur, but accuracy in history is more important than who anyone likes or dislikes. Hong Kong was never a fortress. Churchill and the general staff consider Hong Kong a mere outpost and actually reduced the size of the garrison on 1940. It wasn't until September of 1940 that a token Canadian force of 1975 troops were dispatched to Hong Kong, not arriving until November 16. Singapore and Malaysia were part of the same campaign. It was a failure of British planning that assumed now army could traverse the whole of Malaysia on the ground, assuming the Royal Navy could sink any troop convoys that were close enough to threaten Singapore. The Malay Command never received the equipment it needed to defend the Peninsula and Singapore, with the British not having a since tank in the whole command. Percival didn't do a good job in defending Singapore, never allowing his large force of engineer troops to set up roadblock and defenses that would have slowed the Japanese advance. His battlefield intelligence was defective, and he believed an entire Japanese corps was attacking rather then the 38,000 troops under Yamashita's command. Percival surrendered an army of 138,000 men to a much smaller force, and better planning and execution should have allowed the British to hold out for far longer than they did. The Phillipines lasted longer because we had the redoubt of Corregidor, something the British didn't have. We were able to fight a retreating action on Bataan that lasted until April only because the Japanese had foolishly assumed the battle had been won by early January. They had withdrawn their best troops and almost all their airpower to fight in the Dutch East Indies, leaving second line troops to mop things up. It's doubtful we would have lasted a month in Bataan if we had still been facing the Japanese 48th Division. The 10,000 remaining troops lasted until May 8 only because the tunnels provided shelter from the bombings and artillery fire. If the tunnels had been properly provisioned with food, ammunition, and medical supplies, the defender may have been able to hold out for another month or 45 days.
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  985. Terrific and well deserved. There's no one doing naval history on YouTube like you do.
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  986.  Fernando Valdez  It's a nice green concept, but the only "renewable" energy I'm aware of the would have any chance of working would be solar. For solar to work, you'd need huge (and heavy) battery banks capable of driving a fleet train ship at 20 knots for days on end when there's no sun, a not uncommon problem in many of the world's oceans. Solar panels don't tend to stand up well to rough seas, and cleaning them would be a full time job for the crew. If you have some ideas about how this would all work, I'd be interested in hearing them. I've yet to see a workable plan.
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  987.  chris younts  He did, but he used both about equally, since one or the other weren't always available. He said many times over that Indianapolis was his favorite. Augusta really became Truman's boat as he didn't want to show disrespect to Roosevelt by continuing to use Indianapolis which, sadly, never had enough time to become a real issue.
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  988.  @jimtaylor294  The Richelieu class was certainly the most impressive looking of the French battleships. It's a stretch to compare her to the fast battleships of the USN though. Her main armament wasn't well arranged except for targets ahead or slightly abeam, and Richelieu sinking from a single torpedo hit in Dakar doesn't inspire confidence in her torpedo protection scheme. The class would have been much better ships if they had built to the Gasgone layout with turrets fore and aft, something that would have been possible with Richelieu if she didn't waste space and tonnage on her single purpose 6"guns. Yes, I know the 6"guns had been designed for DP fire, but they were never successful in that role, and using twin DP 130 mm guns would have given better results for less weight. Nevertheless, Richelieu and her sister were the best the French had in 1940, even in their incomplete states.
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  989. What kind of fire control system was there on an 18th century warship? Was it just point and shoot, or were the some kinds of sighting and aiming devices?
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  990.  @WALTERBROADDUS  I realize that. I wasn't asking about a centralized fire control system. I'm asking about was it point and shoot or were than any other systems used,
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  991. My understanding is the STAAG mounts on the Battles were temperamental and not very reliable. The USN was never a fan of on-mount directors due to the same problems experienced with the STAAG and the Hazemeyer. The biggest advantage of a Battle class ship compared to a Gearing was the Battle wasn't pushing the weight limit of the ship that same way we saw on the Gearing . The main disadvantage was the concentration of main battery armament forward so stern firing wasn't possible.
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  992. Have you ever done a segment on Jack Nissenthall and the Dieppe Raid? You may have and I've just missed it. If not, it's quite a story of heroism and the quest for the technological lead in WWII
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  993.  @Gingerbreadley  Great question. For the end of the war, it would have to be as many Gearing class destroyers as I could lay my hands on. Light cruisers would be a toss up between the HMS Superb if the British could have built more than one or the Fargo class if the USN could have built more than two. Baltimore class heavy cruisers seem to be the clear winner there. Iowa's for battleships, although the Vanguard would have been a close second if she had been completed. Essex class for carriers or possibly Malta class, if they had ever been built. For fleet submarines, nothing was better than the Gato/Balao class, if nothing else because there were 197 of them.
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  994. My favorite would have to be the Monitor v Merrimack (CSS Virginia). Since I had relatives that fought on both sides, I can find the battle interesting without picking sides.
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  995. Near the end of the war, the USN finally started giving 40mm gunners more protection with the "turret" design (http://www.kagero.pl/images/nicewatermark/occnvai296the-battleship-uss-missouricati96navyiti686-02_missourishopk1.jpg) of steel plate all around except the the rear of the mount. The height of the gun tub and armoring of the tub was also increased. The USN never came up with a full enclosed mount for the quads, but the late war design was better than the previous mounts. They had zero protection from even splinters except for the gun tubs. Inexplicably, the successor 3"/50 mounts reverted to zero protection again. The guys on the 20mm guns, except for the totally inadequate forward shield, were pretty much on their own.
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  996. Gah! It's far too early over here in the US to make my brain work this hard!
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  997.  @bkjeong4302  I never said anyone thought that Ten-Go would work, only that battleship admirals on both sides thought it might be possible that a large, fast, and well armored battleship could still survive for some period of time without air cover. In this case, could it survive long enough to do any damage to the landing fleet, and how long would it take to destroy it once it became a beached fortress? Ten Go showed that any vessel without air cover against an enemy with almost unlimited attack planes was not going to complete any mission.
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  998.  @KB4QAA  I'm very far from an expert on avgas, but Professor Miwa wrote in the paper I linked to that it was the antiknock properties of lead that was the problem. The Japanese had no domestic supply of lead, and they were cut off from overseas supplies by mid-1944. They came up with a number of schemes to raise the octane rating of their low quality gas to get around the knock problem, but none of them were very successful.
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  999. I'm no expert on the M Class. I remember reading the gun was taken from a older class of battleship, and the barrel was not chrome lined or otherwise resistant to seawater damage. A waterproof combination of heavy cardboard and canvas was used to seal the barrel. It was frangible enough that a round could be fired through it, but the cover had to be put back over the barrel before it submerged again. It's the reason the gun had to be loaded on the surface since the barrel was subject to damage from seawater if the barrel wasn't sealed. I haven't seen the picture you did, but maybe the muzzle cover being shot off gave it the fountain effect?
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  1000.  @mitchelloates9406  Ironically, considering their success in marine applications, they didn't do well in what was to be their main market, diesel electric locomotives. Without the dedicated engineers of the Navy at hand to baby them, the OP engines gave no end of trouble. FM tried some fixes to make the engine more bulletproof, and some worked, but the engine had developed a bad enough reputation that sales went into a long decline after 1950, with the last American locomotive produced in 1958. EMD's introduction of 567 engine sealed their fate
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  1001. I don't know if there was espionage from one side or the other or just coincidental development, but the T-6 Texan and the A6M Zero shared a lot of airframe characteristics, The length, wingspan, wing loading, empty and loaded weight, and even the wing placement in the fuselage were all very close. The T-6 also had a "greenhouse" canopy, and even the tailwheel placement and construction was very similar to the Zero. The T-6, being primarily used as a trainer, had a much smaller engine (600 HP vs 1,000 HP), but armed versions of the T-6 were capable of carrying nearly the same weight and types of armament as the Zero. I wonder if there's any information about how these two aircraft became so similar?
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  1002.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Big subject, Walter, so it would be a major commitment on Drach's part. Of course, I have a dog in this fight, so seeing a history of PT boats would have my vote.
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  1003.  @Nuke89345  In my small and worthless opinion, Halsey was directly responsible for the lives lost off Samar. His fleet was more than sufficient to handle any Japanese fleet while leaving Lee's task force to cover the landings and escort carriers. His own reconnaissance aircraft reported the powerful center force in San Bernardino Strait. It was his ego alone that sent him steaming off north in search of ghost fleet that he was certain was there and he wanted to destroy. Even worse, he refused to turn back to relieve the ships being pummeled by the fleet he want to catch in the first place. Then he had the famous temper tantrum because a radio operator forgot to remove length padding. It was only Admiral Carney giving Halsey the equivalent of a verbal bitch slapping that got Halsey back on course, only hours too late. It was only the heroics of the pilots and sailors in that desperate battle that prevented much greater losses. As you can probably tell, Halsey would never make my top five list.
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  1004. Well, she did serve a long time, but really never as an aircraft carrier. She did more as a gold transport, then aircraft transport, than acting as a carrier. Her refit in the US, after getting rid of her pro-Vichy crew, modernized her enough to serve as an aircraft transport. While in her first convoy loaded with aircraft for Britain, she collided with a US troop transport and had to stop off at the Azores for temporary repairs. Limping back to France, she received enough repairs to make her seaworthy again, but she missed the rest of the war. She departed in October, 1945 for Indochina, once again loaded with US Lend Lease aircraft and supplies, reaching Saigon in late October. She did useful service there, repairing aircraft and converting ex-US landing craft into river patrol boats. Almost all her systems were worn out by June, 1946. She was able to make it back to Toulon on her own power, but only by sailing at 10 knots, since her engines couldn't produce enough power for a higher speed. It was to be her last voyage. There was some thought given to doing a complete refit, but France was in the midst of yet another postwar financial crisis, so she was only given enough repairs to her systems to make her liveable for the 600 or so sailors that would use the berths installed in the former hanger decks. She served from 1948 to 1966 as a barracks ship because there were no shore facilities to house sub crews while their ships were under repairs or refit. She did that job well since the sailors had what was considered to be spacious accommodations at the time. There was even enough room for a cinema and ship's store, so sailors who lived in her hull considered the Bearn as pretty good duty. By 1966, she was well and truly worn out, and land based accommodations had finally been constructed. Not trusting that the Bearn's engines were still serviceable after her sale to an Italian scraper in 1967, she was towed to Italy and cut up for her metal value, an ignominious end to a ship that, while never serving in her intended role, did good service for the French at a time when there were no other alternatives .
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  1005. Really? Boy, Time really flies when you're having fun!
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  1006.  @cvproj  It's an interesting concept though, and one well worth covering. The range and endurance of some WWII German raiders and Japanese and German subs was truly astounding. Even our modern nuclear ships, while their operational range is virtually unlimited, still have to deal with the limitations of endurance.
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  1007.  @raygiordano1045  Yes, I have. The Russian fleet of 1904-05 was a comedy of errors right from the start. Why anyone in the Russian government though a Baltic fleet in such poor material condition, led by by such incompetent admirals, and captained and crewed by such inexperienced sailors could sail halfway round the world and defeat the Japanese is beyond me. The one thing this voyage accomplished was increasing the dissatisfaction of them men of the Russian navy, leading to near constant rounds of strike and mutinies, culminating in the communist revolution of 1917.
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  1008.  @emintey  I guess I just never assumed that not scrapping an obsolescent capital ship would mean it would just hang around at its moorings until it rusted through and sank. I'll try to be more precise next time.
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  1009. Excellent summary of an important part of the Kriegsmarine surface force. I'm looking forward to your "Five Minute Guide" to each one.
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  1010.  @Jon.A.Scholt  Sounds fabulous. I miss my sailing days.
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  1011.  @davidkaminski615  It took awhile for most navies to understand that a dual purpose armament was heavy enough for most close in surface actions but, more importantly, provided the high altitude fire needed to drive off bombers and snoopers. It also took awhile to develop the directors and radars than made heavy antiaircraft fire effective. There haven't been many wars where the method of attack and fighting it off underwent the changes it did in the fiver years between 1940 and 1945.
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  1012. Admiral Callaghan was, by all accounts, an excellent naval commander that inspired the  confidence of his men and his superiors. He seemed like a natural choice for command of Task Group 67.4 in time for this battle. What Callaghan showed, however, was the dividing line between this naval officers who used and understood radar and those who thought radar was a kind of flash in the pan that would never last and really didn't work. If Callaghan had understood what radar could do for him, he would have positioned his ships so the best radars and crews would be in the van of the attack. Instead, he tried to fight in more of a WWI type of battle than one on the cusp of clear USN superiority due to nothing but a collection of vacuum tubes and wires. Unfortunately,
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  1013. Just to be clear, the money only gives you the right to either dive on these wrecks yourself or own the rights to scheduling other divers and companies. The vessels are scheduled monuments and nothing can be removed from them.
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  1014.  @hothoploink1509  From reading several other posts here, some seem to think the cost includes salvage rights. There aren't many divers qualified to dive the wrecks. With the very cold water and crazy strong currents of Scapa Flow, only the very best divers could safely make the trip to the bottom and back. I was a diver for many years before age and medical problems got me out of the game. Even though I was technically qualified to make dives like that, Scapa Flow would have been outside my comfort zone, not to mention the costs involved. In terms of making a profit, owning diving rights to the ships would be largely symbolic anyway.
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  1015.  @spikespa5208  I'll need to go back and look it up again, but I'm fairly certain it was "The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II". The actual details of the sinkings came from a Hyperwar document, and I need to go back and dig that one out as well. You can probably find it faster if you search for Japanese submarine sinkings at Hyperwar.
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  1016. A River class frigate, the HMCS Carlplace served as both the presidential yacht and then kind of a party boat after the overthrow of Presidente Trujillo. Her correct name would have been Carleton Place after the city in eastern Ontario of the same name, but the RN said the name was too long, so Carlplace it became. In between some apparently lavish parties for the naval elite, she did some shore bombardment in support of several coups and a civil war in the 1960's. From 1970--1974.She became the flagship of the Dominican Navy because she was the only large vessel capable of going to sea. She was offered to Canada as a museum ship in 1998. Her condition was what one would expect after an all-night party in mom's basement, so Canada politely refused the offer. She hung around the main navy base in Santo Domingo until 2003 as an accommodation ship, at which point she was the last River class frigate still afloat. She was once again offered to any taker as a museum ship but no one, including the Dominicans, would bite, so she was sold for scrap in 2004.
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  1017.  @bearsamoyed  Nah, we'll all sleep a long time when we're taking our inevitable dirt nap. Might as well learn about naval history now. :-)
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  1018. Check out the history of the PCE(R) class (http://www.pullman-museum.org/main/exhibits/pgtw/pgtwpcer.htm) for the UN|SN's dedicated rescue ship. The acted as both fleet escorts and a small hospital ship with 65 beds and an eleven man medical staff. They engaged is rescue operations from damaged ships, fought fires, picked up downed airmen, and performed generally useful duties that didn't tie up larger fleet vessels. Some were converted to communications command ships on order of General MacArthur so he and his staff would be able to control operations ashore from the Philippines to the planned invasion of Japan. They were only 183 feet long and lightly armed, although several Japanese planes were shot down by these vessels, and a number took serious damage from kamikaze attacks.
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  1019.  @alexanderhartmann7950  Description? Why, who ever reads those things? :-)
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  1020. I assume you meant the radar directed gunfire of the twin 5.25" guns on Vanguard being used against Argentine planes. BTW, Argen-teen, Argen-tyne, and Argentinean are all correct. Unfortunately, all her 73 40mm guns were removed by the end of 1950 so, except for some hastily added 40mm or 30mm guns and the ubiquitous 7.62mm GPMG machine guns mounted almost all the rail stanchions, she wouoldn't have a tertiary armament . The RP10 MKII turrets and power control of the 5.25" guns should have been able to perform well against the Argentine Skyhawks that did most of the damage, assuming the autoloading problems had been worked out. If she still had her radar directed 40mm guns aboard, she could have put up an almost impregnable wall of steel around the fleet.
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  1021.  @themadhammer3305  Ah, I missed that part then. The British 3"70 was a good antiaircraft weapon, but the mount was almost as large as the 5.25" turrets. The US 3"/50 as installed on HMS Victorious would have been a better choice since Vanguard could carry 5-6 twin mounts per side compared to only three 3"/70 mounts par side. The 3"/50 also didn't suffer from the reliability and maintenance issues of the 3"/70.
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  1022.  @PaulfromChicago  But why? We have a brand new CV coming on line. Why not name it the America rather than screwing up the LHA naming?
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  1023.  @glennricafrente58  Thanks. I agree about Admiral Jack Fletcher. Even though he won a Medal of HOnor at the same Battle of Veracruz as his uncle Admiral Friday Fletcher, he always seemed to live in his shadow, and that was only made worse by having the most numerous class of destroyers in the navy being named after his uncle. He did finally get a ship with his name on it with the DD-992 commissioning in 19080, but his never writing his own memoirs and refusing to be interviewed by Morrison postwar has left him as the forgotten admiral while being responsible for the sinking of six carriers.
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  1024.  @AdamMGTF  Thanks for the good wishes, Andrew. I actually have some Yorkshire tea in the house, so I'll brew up a cup with you and your fellow colonial overlords in mind. :-) I'm never sure how much technical subjects like electronic fire control systems interests the average person. I'm an amateur radio operator, so things like this are a natural interest for me. For people whose knowledge of things electronic ends at the location of on/off switches, maybe not so much. I think there are ways to explain it that makes it interesting and won't bore the socks off your feet, but it seems like the major challenge would be to get people to listen to that first minute and not click off somewhere else.
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  1025. Lucky dog! I hope a bunch of us Southerners can make it over for a meetup.
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  1026.  @Digmen1  Right, so his committee came up designs as bad as the unrotated projectile. It still has nothing to to do with him having any part of the design of the tank named for him. As he said to Jan Smuts when he first saw the A20 design in trials, "That is the tank they named after me when they found out it was no damn good!".
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  1027.  @tyronedlisle4412  Do you have a link to this supposed airfield built along the Canadian border for the express purpose of bombing Canadian cities? This should be good.
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  1028. ​ @cassandra8984  My guess is there were hundreds of cats on the ships of various navies in WWII. While some were kept as mascot, the majority were kept to do what cats have historically done well - kill rats and mice. Rats may not be as big a problem as they were in the age of sail, but anyone who has spent any time on a modern ship, whether it be a commercial vessel or warship, knows that rats are still aboard today. There wouldn't still be the need for rat shields like those seen at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-rat-shields-fitted-to-the-mooring-lines-of-a-ship-the-discs-attached-111662093.html if they weren't.
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  1029.  @seanmac1793  That's a pretty good summary of why the Germans were defeated by mid- 1944. It wasn't even just the navy that was defeated. After D-Day. The army was fighting a war on two fronts against an enemy that could poor men and material on the continent while the Soviets were building an even larger offense on the eastern front. No single country was capable of fighting off the largest and best equipped military forcers the world has ever seen. It's really quite tiresome to read about Germany's supposed miracle weapons, fearsome tanks, and the new Elektro Boats as if they could somehow stop the allied advance and force a negotiated peace.
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  1030. @Mark Robinson That's an interesting idea I've read a fair bit about. Roosevelt questioned the Any about if we could drop the bomb on Germany after the Battle of the Bulge so that kind of offensive didn't happen again. Of course, it wasn't ready in early 1945, but there's no doubt Roosevelt would have used it if it was. The biggest problems were logistical. The B-29 was the only aircraft capable of carrying the bomb, and even that large of a plane had to be specially modified to make it fit. All the work on the bomb pits and storage had been done in the Pacific, and it would have taken at least a month to duplicate it. There were no B-29's in Europe, and getting ones modified for the bomb from the Pacific to Europe would have also taken some time, as would the infrastructure and manpower needed to support such an unfamiliar place The Army's fear was the bomb wouldn't detonate, and Germany could recover it. There was an assumption that Germany was close to developing the bomb as well, and the Germans getting an undetonated bomb may have given them the technology needed to finish their own and use it against us. We now know Germany was nowhere near close to finishing their own bomb, but we didn't know that then, so it wasn't an unreasonable fear. The biggest issue was getting the bomb to the target. The modifications to the B-29 made the B-29 a slow, lumbering beast, and Germany's highly developed antiaircraft systems would have been able to pick it off. Its ceiling wouldn't have been more than 25,000 feet, and German interceptors could have shot it down. By contrast, Japan had almost no antiaircraft system, and Japanese interceptors had been mostly swept from the sky. Finally, German weather was frequently overcast, and the bomb had to be dropped through mostly clear skies. Japanese weather in summer was generally clear, and just right for dropping a big bomb on target.
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  1031. The Colorado and Maryland retained their lattice foremasts right up until the days they were scrapped in 1959. Their lattice mainmasts were cut down and later replaced with stub masts as the war progressed. The Maryland, which suffered considerable battle damage from torpedo and kamikaze attacks, was the most rebuilt of the pair, receiving eight twin 5"/38 mounts and a general rebuilding of the superstructure, including many new radars and directors mounted on the foremast. Both ships were part of the gunline throughout the Pacific war and fired off thousands of 16" rounds. The Maryland had her lattice mast closely inspected after her bow was nearly blown off by as Japanese aerial torpedo on 22 June, 1944, and again during kamikaze damage repair and general overhaul during July and early August 1945. In both cases, engineers judged the lattice mast still in sound condition except for some splinter damage repairs. Neither the Maryland or Colorado suffered any storm damage to the lattice masts. It seems that the strengthened lattice masts retrofitted to at least these two ships were capable of absorbing considerable blast and weather impacts. Engineers writing on lattice masts postwar were of the opinion that smoke corrosion was the biggests problem for these structures, hence part of the reason for their removal from the mainmast position. Todd Shipyards, which won the scrapping bid for both ships, commented on the difficulties demolishing the lattice masts.
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  1032.  @timclaus8313  Sorry, I just saw this now. Pennsylvania did get off quite a number of rounds at Pearl. according to the action report at https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhibits-highlights/action-reports/wwii-pearl-harbor-attack/ships-m-r/uss-pennsylvania-bb-38-action-report.html. she fired 650 rounds of 5"/25, 350 rounds of 3"/50, and about 60,000 rounds (!) of .50 caliber. The ship was only getting power and steam from shore connections and, although the machine guns were manned, none had anything more than some ready rounds available. In a typical example of Yankee ingenuity, the sailors proceeded to knock the locks off ammo lockers and magazines and set up ammo passing lines. It's likely that most of what was shot off was ineffective, especially machine guns shot at high altitude bombers, but I imagine it was at least a boost to morale. All the relatively undamaged or completely undamaged battleships were hastily given some additional 20mm and some 1.1" quads and sent back out to patrol , escort convoys, or actively try to hunt down the Japanese fleet. Pennsylvania had her bomb damage mostly repaired, she escorted convoys from the West Coast to Hawaii. She was given a refit in late 1942/early 1943 that added eight 5"/38 turrets and a number of quad 40mm guns while landing all her casemate and .50 cal guns. She was also equipped with CXAM-1 radar, state of the art at the time, but she did fall behind on electronic updates, as it was decided to concentrate those on the 16" ships. She served a useful life doing shore bombardment, but she was kept away from engagements that might lead to a real fleet battle.
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  1033.  @timclaus8313  I understand what you're saying, but I think your point is just not correct Looks at Colorado awes an example. she wasn't even at Pearl yet she maintained he cut down cage masts and single mount 5"/25 AA guns right to the end of the war. Pennsylvania had much more modernized secondary armament and radars up until 1944. Some ships like Colorado were just not available for more extensive refits She was the only slow 16" battleship available for shore bombardment duties, thereby not tying up the small number of fast battleships needed for carrier escorts. I'm just saying what ships got what when was more complicated than you're making it out to be.
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  1034.  @timclaus8313  The Tennessee had some work done at PH and Puget Sound to to rpeair her plating and wiring plus some 1.1" and 20mm AA guns were added. She did have a CXAM radar added as well. She worked betwwen the West Coast and Hawaii doing some escort work and training, being held there on the chances the Japanese mu=ight attempt and incursion, she wasn't sent on with the3 other task forces due to her well known problems of excess fuel oil consumption, and not enough tankers to service the aircraft carrier task forces and the old battleships. Once California had been raised, she and Tennessee were sent to Puget Sound for a complete reconstruction, the Navy feeling it was faster and less expensive to have both class members done at the sane time. That took more than a year, from October, 1942. The Colorado class had a different path As the only 16" gun existing battleships, it was feared they would be our only units that could fight the Japanese Nagato class on an even footing. Because of this, neither the Colorado nor the Maryland could be spared for enough yard time for the type of reconstruction seen on California, and both ships received piecemeal upgrades until 1944, by which time it was clear that a complete reconstruction like that done for California was not needed and not cost effective. Both ships had improved AA protection and radar, but Maryland didn't finally get her eight 5"/38 dual turrets until early 1945 after a kamikaze hit, and Colorado never got them, being the only USN frontline battleship to finish the war with her original eight single 5"/25 AA guns. As I said, reconstruction of the old battleships was much more complicated than you have made it out to be.
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  1035.  @alecblunden8615  I agree that the Japanese were warning war was the next step, but generally that doesn't mean an hour from now, even if the note was delivered on time. The US knew war was imminent, just not how imminent and where. They also knew that cutting Japan off from scrap metal supplies would also lead to war. Roosevelt recognized the risk of attack on British and Dutch colonies by the Japanese. He was trying to get the Japanese out of China to make it less likely they would need to immediately attack Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. As you say, the US didn't seem to understand there was no way the Japanese could lose face by pulling out of China, and they continued to push them closer to the edge. However, once the Japanese signed the Tripartite Pact, the Japanese became a belligerent rather than a neutral. If we were to support Britain and the Netherlands, we had to slowly tighten the noose on supplies to Japan. The Roosevelt administration foolishly believed, even with warnings to the contrary, that the Japanese didn't have enough oil to mount a major offensive campaign outside SE Asia. We felt that restricting their oil supply further would make them pull out of China in return for relaxing the embargoes. We lurched our way to war rather than planned for it, something we've seen in recent history as well The language of the December 7 note was deliberately written so those who saw it as the opening0 of war would and those that thought it was just another negotiating tactic would. Japanese diplomats after the war wrote that they didn't make a clear declaration of war because they foolishly believed the implied threat would be enough to make the US pull back.We would no more do that than the Japanese would make any plans to leave China. Both sides had national prestige on the line, and neither one was going to blink. Yamamoto was the one who birthed and pushed through the plan to attack Pearl Harbor, and his greatest fear was there would be a last minute diplomatic breakthrough and the attack would be called off. He didn't need to worry about that as it turned out.
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  1036.  @armchairwarlord  A dozen modernized Fletchers? Yes, well, we "expired old salts" do enjoy this kind of speculation. If you don't, I suggest you pass these kinds of threads by.
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  1037. Did that continue to be an issue up into the age of steel? Didn't welded Liberty ships have cracking issues the were somehow lined to the kind of steel used in construction? I think I remember reading that, at least.
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  1038. Ah, okay, I knew that cold water was somehow involved but I didn't know if it was the steel or the welding that was implicated. What did the shipbuilders do to overcome this problem, and how widespread did it turn out to be?
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  1039.  @alganhar1  There's a difference between the material (pykrete) being a feasible solution and Habakkuk being a feasible ship. The amount of spruce pulp required for the ship would have seriously disrupted Canadian paper supplies and required at least a thousand additional lumberjacks and other trades to produce. manpower the Canadians couldn't spare from other war production. Dissipating the heat generated by the steam plant required to operate the turbogenerators for the 26 power modules mounted in external nacelles along the sides of the hull was never solved. The mounting and operation of the 100 foot tall rudder was never solved. Internal volume for berthing and messing facilities for the estimated 8,000-11,000 crew and air personnel was never sufficient. Armoring and reinforcing the flight deck alone would have required as much steel as three escort carriers. There was never a workable to plan to power pumps required to evacuate the inevitable leakage that would result in such a large vessel. The problem of creep causing deformation of the hull was turning out to be more serious than originally thought, and the amount of steel and insulation needed was going to be about 30% more than original estimates. Even if Habakkuk was built and launched, the problem of a vessel this large only able to travel at six knots and being incapable of manueving in more than wide, easy turns would have presented an irresistible target to German aircraft and submarines. Even with such a thick hull and deck, any holes large enough to admit even a relatively small amount of water would have affected list of the vessel. There was no way to provide workable watertight compartments so enough torpedo and bomb attacks would e=n=inevitable hole the ship. The vessel was already somewhat unstable, and admitting more water to the hull would have exacerbated the problem. HA control of the 20 4.5" twin turrets was also not worked out since the guns would be mounted up to 2,000 feet apart and directors at the time couldn't handle that many guns that distance from each other. No accurate studies had been done on the effects of human heat and the heat generated by the vast amounts of vacuum tubes needed for the ship's electronics had ever been done. Since Habakkuk would have been far too large for any existing harbor, supply logistics had never been worked out, but were expected to be severe. All of these issues are just some of the problems never worked out since the plan was abandoned before the need arose. The Habakkuk and Pyke himself have become the Nikola Tesla of the shipbuilding world. Somehow, pykrete was going to be this miracle material that would have solved many of the world's problems, and it was stopped by evil governments and corporations. No objective study of the ship or the material would show that to be true. Pyke and Perutz, both fellow communists, were able to gain Mountbatten's ear though the efforts of yet another communist, JD Bernal. It was Mountbatten's almost shooting Admiral King in the leg during his impromptu demonstration of pykrete that started the whole project in motion. Without this network of communists and communist sympathizers, Habakkuk would never even have had a name.
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  1040. Dang it!. I forgot about watching this on Patreon. Now I'm not only not first, I'm 9,047th.
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  1041.  @aperson1139  I don't think you're going to get information in that level of detail. Awnings were used in almost all ships that were stationed in hot climates, and many of them even had pipe structures secured to the decks and superstructures to support the awnings. These varied from class to class and even ship to ship. The use between navies was about the same, and the concept goes back to Roman and Egyptian sailing ships. Air scoops were generally non-standard and rigged wherever the crew could find supports. Obviously, awnings and air scoops interfered with the arc of fire or even movement of some guns. See the picture of USS California at http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/014429.jpg with the forward 14" guns raised through the extensive awnings at the bow in an attempt to rip off the awning so machine guns could be brought into action against Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor. This gives you an idea of the strength of these canvas structures. Awnings weren't used when a ship expected to be in combat. After the attack, portholes were plated over and awnings were prohibited almost everywhere in the Pacific. The intolerable heat below decks was a major driver for the perfection and installation of air conditioning in USN ships.
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  1042.  @spookyshadowhawk6776  LOL. That pilot must have learned a hard lesson from that. The Japanese called them barges for some reason. I guess they didn't have the same translation from English that a barge meant unpowered vessel. The rocket launchers were made especially for PT boats. They were carried inboard until ready to fire when they were flipped outboard of the hull. Rocket exhausts wouldn't have been a good thing with a wood hull. The rockets themselves were modified high velocity aircraft rockets. My dad's boat had two additional .50s mounted abaft the bridge where the torpedo tubes had been mounted, but they were running out of deck space, hull capacity, and room for any more crew to serve the weapons. The rocket launchers were relatively light considering their firepower and didn't require any more crew so they were considered ideal weapons for PT boats. They might have been too, if they had trainable mounts, but trying to bring them to bear while the boat was bouncing around at 40 knots made hitting something as low as a barge more a matter of luck than skill. He said they did score one of their few hits on a barge turned to be an ammo carrier. Everyone hit the deck as the XO got the boat out at top speed. The bridge was the only place with any armor so the machine gunners dove from their mounts into the bridge. They spent the next day patching up holes from all the splinters. My dad was a much braver guy than I could ever be,
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  1043.  @spookyshadowhawk6776  Thanks, and for dad and uncle as well. I miss him too, as well as my seven uncles that served in WWII and Korea. They came from a generation the likes of which we may never see again.
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  1044.  @derekhenschel3191  The USN expended hundreds of rounds firing at some radar anomaly that was possibly a large flock of birds in the Battle of the Pips. Every navy has done something like that.
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  1045.  @Alobo075  LOL. Once I started learning about naval history, I realized how much more Kamchatka meant as a real place, rather than just a place on a Risk board.
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  1046.  @jacobwerner274  Two doors up and on the right. :-)
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  1047. I rather doubt political correctness and ecological considerations will be paramount in an all out conventional war like WWII. Remember, we rounded up the Japanese, including US citizens, and put them in concentration camps, flattened and starved Germany, then flattened and starved Japan, then flattened two more cities with atomic bombs. The reaction of most Allied civilians was "Serves 'em right". Since the other option is all out nuclear war, the problems in a conventional war pale by comparison.
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  1048.  CipiRipi00  Yes, they were the interwar version of HDW, designing submarines for all comers.
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  1049.  @Drachinifel  Indeed. They were given the chance to get all the oil and steel they wanted in mid-1941 as long as they first pulled out of China. A less nationalistic and less narcissistic might have taken that as a chance to build up their stockpiles for a year or more before an attack on some US possession. If, for example, they had only attacked the Philippines, would that have aroused the kind of nationalistic fervor that was caused by Pearl Harbor? The Philippines were considered a far off US possession. Hawaii was a territory, almost a US state in many people's minds. To compound their error, they then decided to not only attack but occupy part of Alaska. That was it. We were bound and determined to fight until Japan was defeated. Japan's chance had any kind of negotiated settlement vanished.
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  1050. Drat! Too bad the Netherlands is about 4,000 miles from me.
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  1051. Not only did the no. 1 Vickers 2 pounder (40 mm) guns have problems with failure to fee stoppages at high elevations, they also only had low velocity ammunition, and no tracer ammunition had ever been developed by Vickers or the RN. The guns were fed by a fabric belt of 25 rounds each, and the whole gun was essentially a scaled up Vickers .05/62 machine gun. Unfortunately, the fabric belts deteriorated rapidly in the tropical heat of the Netherlands East Indies, causing rounds to fall out of the belts at high elevations. Combined with the failure to feed issues, the 2 pounder guns on the second group of Admiralen class ship were never reliable guns. A fix was found by 1939, but events overtook the ability to supply the stiffer mounts and feed pathways before any of the Admiralen class ships could be refitted. More seriously in terms of effectiveness was the lack of tracers. There were no directors for the guns so sighting was done through spider sights mounted on the guns. Even with smokeless powder, the guns gave off a tremendous amount of smoke, so seeing which direction the rounds were going was difficult without being able to follow them due to the lack of brightly glowing tracers. What was difficult during daylight was impossible after dark or in gloomy weather. The second group of ships were equipped more as minesweepers than traditional destroyers, since the Dutch assumed war against the NEI would be a protracted one of blockade and mining, so the small number of torpedo tubes and anti aircraft guns was considered acceptable. The Japanese, however, had different plans.
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  1052.  @grahamariss2111  It certainly was more difficult to manufacture a uranium bomb compared to plutonium, but scientist were still battling one another as to which bomb would produce the most devastating results per pound of bomb. This was a big deal, since it appeared that Fat Man would produce better results but, at nearly 800 pounds heavier and three feet more in diameter than Little Boy, it was about as much as a heavily modified B-29 could lift. Dropping our one uranium bomb over Hiroshima and our other plutonium bomb over Nagasaki was considered to be the best way to force Japan out of the war as well as do real world testing of both types of bombs. It was clear after this that plutonium bombs were good enough and easier to manufacture...until the Wigner Effect showed up in mid-1946 and cut the available supply of plutonium to near zero. The plans for Little Boy were redrawn nearly from scratch since they had been ordered destroyed after the end of the war, since it was assumed we'd have no need to produce more uranium bombs. We ended up making 6 more uranium assemblies at Sandia and 25 were built for the Navy Bureau of Ordnance before the Wigner Effect problem was solved. There's a lot that today seems simple, but it wasn't simple in 1944, and we went down a lot blind alleys before we were done.
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  1053. Germany also doesn't have anywhere near the number of U-boats she'd need in 1938 to be effective. They barely had enough by the end of 1939, and submarines would have been their only real opposition.
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  1054. It even moved New Year's Day two days later on. :-)
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  1055. Woo Hoo! 2 hours and 22 minutes! Have to run and get more coffee!!
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  1056. Wow, what a great idea. I haven't read "War of the Worlds" in about fifty years, but I still remember the Martians attacking London. What has happened to English literature since the days of HG Wells? The RN to at least a temporary rescue, but all for naught.
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  1057.  @Drachinifel  And, to be technical about it, the first pom pom was not the 2 pdr but the 1 pdr 37 mm gun used during the Boer War. The story is the name came from native Africans when they first heard the gun fired on full auto.
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  1058. I rather enjoy the musical intermissions. All I need is someone passing through the crowd (staying six feet apart, of course) selling popcorn.
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  1059.  @AdamMGTF  Thanks, I'm doing fine so far. We are actually doing fairly well as a country as long as you lop off NYC and make them another country! Our numbers per capita are some of the lowest in the West without the big spike in the NYC area. I'm sure hoping the numbers are on the other other side of the mountain and we can finally stop living like prisoners in our houses (and countries) soon.
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  1060.  @AdamMGTF  Yes, there's still a lot of space and low population density in the UK. If it wasn't for London, you'd have a low number of cases and deaths, just like NYC is responsible for about a third of ours. These megacities come with a price tag, and we're paying the bill now. Luckily, I live in a town of 14,000, and any even moderately large city is at least 50 miles away in every direction. My county had one case, which has since recovered.
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  1061. One example of a deliberate attack on a lighthouse was the shelling of the Estevan Point light complex by the I-26 on June 20, 1942. Estevan Point was one of the most important lighthouses on the Pacific Coast, and her RDF navigation radio station had one of the longest ranges covering the same area. Although the attack didn't cause any damage to the lighthouse, the subsequent decision to turn off the outer lights did cause several ships to run aground on the rocks in the area, so the ultimate goal of the attack was at least partially fulfilled by Canadian authorities.
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  1062.  @sjonnieplayfull5859  You're welcome. One of my uncles served in the USCG during the war as a crew chief on an LST. The Coast Guard didn't get a lot of publicity about their role in amphibious operations. He was always a little miffed about, especially since he signed up for the Coast Guard with the idea he'd spend the war maintaining lighthouses. It didn't quite work out that way for him. :-)
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  1063.  @Charlesputnam-bn9zy  I'll need to get some of my books out to check pictures, but it wasn't common to have national flags painted on the sides of warships on the high seas. You'd see it occasionally on ships in the Yangtze patrols, but warships generally depended on their ensign flying from the mainmast and a hull number. There weren't tens of thousands of warships about like there were merchant ships, and it has always been incumbent on an attacking vessel to positively identify the nationality of the other vessel before opening fire. The Coast Guard did carry and some very large national ensigns, and would sometimes light it at night with floodlights when in dangerous waters, but I think that was the usual procedure.
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  1064.  @sprucezeus  Quite correct. A neutral vessel like Modoc was allowed to broadcast all ship locations for maritime safety purposes like preventing collisions, especially in fog. As long all messages were in the clear and all ships were treated equally,, it wasn't considered an act of war. In fact, the British, Germans, and US all knew our neutrality was a polite fiction. I remember reading, but don't have the reference in front of me, that US and British warships had worked out a code that, when certain ship names were used, it was a sign that a German warship was on the bearings given in the broadcast. This would be a great subject for a video, since blockades and how to treat "neutral" shipping has been a problem going back centuries.
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  1065.  @sprucezeus  The Flying Tigers weren't technically a violation because the US pilots had all resigned their commissions before signing up. Lend lease was really the big violation since it was direct aid to a belligerent. Let's face it though, by mid-1940, FDR really didn't care about fine points of the law. The British were being starved to death, and he was willing to do anything short of war to keep them going. He knew the more Germans the British killed now was that many fewer we'd have to kill later, and he knew war was inevitable. Drach, if you're still reading this gigantic thread, I'd vote for a blockades and neutrality video too.
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  1066. The Japanese had a consistent problem with collisions, sometimes with other navy ships and other times with passing civilian ships that happened to get in their way. I've never understood why a country with a long seagoing tradition had such problems.
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  1067.  @davidhunt1947  And that begs the question then. Why did the IJN have so many apparently incompetent commanders?
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  1068. Cool! Sounds like Drach will be eating some hardtack and spoiled bacon to show us what life was like in the age of sail. It was a noble sacrifice, Good Sir, and Steve 1989 would approve.
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  1069. Thanks for this video, Drach. I really haven't followed the development and use of the various small underwater attack craft. I now feel at least least slightly more educated about the subject. Given that many of the missions of these craft were near suicidal, it's a wonder the different navies were able to find crews to man them.
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  1070.  @Drachinifel  Well, they both begin with "B", so close enough. Given the shape of these and the slow speed, you'd almost need to have the antitorpedo boat guns manned 24 hours a day, plus and armed guard standing at station. It would be almost too late to ring battle stations when a small fast boat was spotted. Imagine a low freeboard boat of maybe 40 feet that could do even 10 or 11 knots loaded with 20 marines and a Maxim gun sneaking up on them. Knowing the Turks, I'd bet they already had that kind of raiding party worked out if one of these monstrosities ever showed up on their shores.
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  1071.  @Drachinifel  LOL. The trouble with Europe is you guys just have too many seas to deal with. Over here, it's easy. Atlantic, Pacific, done and dusted. :-)
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  1072. The Ise class hybrids never operated anything but floatplanes. The Navy was trying to develop the Yokosuka D4Y dive bomber to operate from the hybrids but they couldn't get the catapult launching gear developed before the end of the war. The also had to revise a fast plane with a high landing speed with enough flap area to slow the plane down enough to land on the tiny 229 foot flight deck.
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  1073. I could forgive or overlook King for all his shortcomings and peccadillos except for his need for revenge on anyone he felt had bested or crossed him. This burning need in his personality led directly to the USS Indianapolis incident and the death of a good captain. I can never forgive him for that.
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  1074. The Argentine Navy tends to get glossed over because it was a neutral country, but her two modernized US built battleships, two modern heavy and one light cruisers, and 12 very modern British built destroyers was certainly a contender in terms of the minor navies. Argentina's Anglophile naval culture also led to RN-like standards of training, and kept operational with the same traditions of ship upkeep.
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  1075.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Indeed. He had some shipboard trials aboard the New York in late 1944 with R-4 that were pretty successful. The R-4 had been used in small numbers by the Coast Guard starting in late '42 and the successful shipboard trials for the R-4 cleared for full scale production starting in February, 1945. The first examples reached the Pacific fleet in June for more testing before it was scheduled for operational use by most capital ships ammo ships, hospital ships and high value transports by 1946. To its credit the Navy recognized early on the value of a helicopter for what would become vertrep and casevac.It was just a gnat's eyelash too late to see operational service during the war, but we all know what's happened with helicopters since then.
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  1076.  @7thsealord888  It does seem that some of the Komoran sailors, like all sailors, were good at telling sea yarns. It was only after the discovery of the wreck that we knew for sure no surviving crew member of the Komoran could have seen her sink. I've read conflicting accounts of the cause of the bow separation and the probability of a boiler explosion. When I have a spare $75, which unfortunately doesn't happen often on my pensioner's income, I'm going to order "From Great Depths: the wrecks of HMAS Sydney II and HSK Kormoran", a book covering the wreck itself, computer reconstruction, and and forensic engineer opinions of Sydney's last hours before sinking. Maybe I'll have a better understanding of what happened then.
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  1077.  @chrisrichards2544  Yes, it's probably better to describe the Sydney as being not under control rather than drifting. She was probably making way at one or two knots given her final resting place and the amount of time elapsed from when the survivors of the Kormoran last saw evidence of her from below the horizon.
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  1078.  @reluctantbias8508  See my reply to James296. I agree that things like armor schemes and fire control systems were a generation behind, but that doesn't explain twin turrets when Germany had already built capital ships with triple turrets. It had to have been some manufacturing limitation for large turrets not related to treaty restrictions.
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  1079.  @jcgamer892  Wait...what? We are posting on Drachinifel's channel now. Why would I need to check it out? He answered a question I posted about turret designs for British ships and another on triple turrets generally, but I don't recall anything about triple turrets for the H class.
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  1080.  @eplekake3870  No, they had treaty limits to worry about, even though they did routinely cheat on them. The Deutschland class large cruisers/"pocket battleships" were supposed to be built to the 10,000 ton limit of the Versailles Treaty. Even here, they waisted both space and tonnage on eight 15cm (5.9") guns. They were really too heavy for most commerce raiding purposes. If the Germans had developed the 105mm triaxially stabilized twin mount into a properly weatherproofed turret they would have had the space and weight on the Deutschlands for a balanced DP armament of 12-16 105mm guns with more than sufficient weight of shell and range for commerce raiding while having a far superior armament for antiaircraft use. As it was, they had to rearm the surviving units with six 88mm guns to replace to inadequate original three, and then six 105mm guns to replace the 88's. As the war progressed, they had to mount 20mm, 37mm, and 40mm antiaircraft guns where space was available while still carrying around the now useless 5.9" guns. It just seems to me the Germans never appreciated the value of dual purpose armament. They didn't just demonstrate this on their capital ships. They were the only country to arm destroyers with a gun as large as the 5.9" as well. They had excellent medium caliber dual purpose weapons in the 88mm and 105mm weapons so it's not as if they just didn't have the guns they needed. They just didn't understand why dual purpose guns were a better compromise than taking up space and weight for both SP and DP guns.
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  1081.  @jcgamer892  By confused, I meant that i think you're confusing a question /drach answered about triple turrets that;s different than the one I'm asking now. When it comes to know how, the RN never built a triple 16" turret until 1927 with the Nelsons. The USN never built a triple 16" turret until the 1938 North Carolina class. The RN and USN solved this problem, the RN much earlier that the Tirpitz class. Maybe it was an issue of building speed and just being able to reuse the design of the Baern class dual turrets rather than design a new triple turret..
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  1082. @UCmbHqxwMGFUma3tcg0IUsYw And US cruisers were designed at the same time and they all had dual purpose armament. The 11" guns were supposed be used on opposing warships while the 5.9" were supposed to be used on merchant ships. My point was weight and space could have been saved and devoted to armor by using 105mm guns as the secondary armament. The 105's could have easily defeated merchant ships while still being effective against escorting destroyers, most of which didn't have any weapons larger than a 105 anyway. I just don't think the German understood the need for DP guns, whereas the USN was equipping all of its cruisers destroyers, and rearming many battleships with 5"/25 or 5"/38 DP: guns.
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  1083.  @chocolatecatdad  The Iowa class had to fit through the Panama Canal. The narrowest lock was 110 feet wide so the Iowas had a beam of 108 feet two inches. They managed a 16" turret on that beam. The Bismarks had a beam of 118 feet. It's hard to reconcile beam limitations as a reason for not having triple turrets in German battleships. Something else was going on.
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  1084.  @Dave_Sisson  It seems like you're really reaching on this. The US in 1939 had 147,500,000 people. All the colonies had a population of slightly more than 16 million. Holland in 1939 had 8.7 million people. The colonies had about 70 million. Belgium had a population of 8.4 million and a colonial population of over 14 million. Even Portugal had a population of 7.6 million with a colonial population of almost 11 million. There was simply no other colonial power with as few colonial subjects as a percentage of home population.
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  1085.  @YouTubemessedupmyhandle  Yes, I am discounting that notion. What became the United States was colonized by every European power that had a navy. The history of the world is one of conquest and colonization, so that guilt trip won't work on me. If I have selectively used statistics, I'm all ears for your to tell me about it.
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  1086.  @kiloalphasierra  Think about what you just wrote. Early in the war, when there were more large merchant ships around, we only needed a small gun, but later in the war, when there was hardly anything larger than a sampan still afloat, we needed a larger gun? There was only one reason the USN was stuck with the 3"/50, and that reason was Admiral Hart. You're attempting to find prewar tactical reasons for this when there were none. US submariners had to sneak in the 5"/51 trials with the Tambor class, and the only reason they could was Hart had previously ordered the same guns removed from the Barracuda class. They couldn't have snuck procurement of new guns past the admiral's staff. It was only his forced retirement in July, 1942 and the looming Mark 14 disaster that the USN sub force was finally able to rearm subs with effective deck guns, first the 4"/50 and finally the 5"/25.
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  1087.  @klobiforpresident2254  You're welcome. I know submarines were very careful to only dump waste at night and then to sail away from the area. During the days of sail, lookouts were instructed to keep a weather eye out for jetsam, anything cast over the side of a ship. I don't know of any specific instances of floating food items leading to the discovery of a ship, but the Navy was worried enough about it that it devoted numerous pages in ship instruction manuals about how and when to fling yesterday's dinner over the side. .
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  1088. This all makes sense to me. It's unfortunate Hood happened to be in a turn when the fatal shell hit.
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  1089.  @bkjeong4302  Take a look at the US Naval Technical Mission to Japan report O-47(N)-2, available online at the Navy Historical Center. They interviewed some Japanese gunnery officers in this report or another of the Mission reports about the effectiveness of the 25mm gun. I don't have the exact link, but it's all there in the Mission reports. The Japanese compared the triple 25mm mount to the twin Bofors, the only multiple mount they had access to at that time. Although there were things about the Bofors that were superior, particularly weight of fire and better ammunition supply, the conclusion was it wasn't enough better to interrupt production of the 25mm, and the Japanese just didn't have the industrial capacity produce both. Except for some experimental attempts to reverse engineer the Bofors gun, the Japanese didn't put any serious effort into making it into a standard weapon. The best they managed was 5-10 guns a month by the end of 1944 for evaluation purposes, and then only single air cooled guns and single mounts. In addition to industrial capacity, they found they didn't have the machine tools to meet the fine tolerances demanded by the gun, so a lot of hand fitting was required. Given the heroic efforts of the US to convert the Bofors plan to inch measure and then get the guns into mostly automated production in a little less than a year, it's doubtful Japan could have ever produced an workable gun. The samples examined by the Mission postwar showed many flaws in machining and quality control, causing numerous instances of jamming and failure to feed. It's not like the USN couldn't have followed Japan's path with the 1.1" gun. It was broadly similar to the 25mm, already in production in quad mounts, and was slated to become the main AA armament on US ships by 1938. Take a look at the armament of the Erie class gunboats. They were one of the first USN vessels designed with at least the space and weight for the 1.1" quad, four of which were to serve as the AA armament of the ships when they was commissioned in 1936. While the USN was fully invested in the 1.1" gun, tests against the Bofors showed it was such a superior gun that work on correcting the initial problems with the 1.1" was ordered halted in 1940, with all efforts put to the design and production of the Bofors. The Japanese could have done the same but chose not to.
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  1090. I think I've watched most of your videos now but don't recall any about German raiders. How about one on the Wolf from WWI and either the Atlantis or Pinguin from WWII?
    2
  1091. Excellent. The Atlantis and Pinguin are two of the great sea stories of WWII.
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  1092. LOL. The Goeben was the same as the world's fastest pelican. :-) I can't imagine being the engineering officer and crew responsible for maintaining and deploying those torpedo nets lining the hull.
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  1093. Assuming I really one the big money, I'd reproduce a somewhat smaller version of the USS Erie. She was handsome with her raked bow and cruiser stern, yet still modern looking. Much of the internal space was devoted to large admiral's and captain's cabin as well as staterooms for visiting dignitaries to complement her role as a floating embassy. That would make her a comfortable vessel for almost any reasonable size party. She was also built to allow canvas to be spread over the entire length of the ship, a necessity for comfort while sailing the tropics, and that's sure where I'd be. Maybe reduce her to about 200 feet from 327 feet since the need for armament is, unfortunately, obviated, but still have space astern for a helicopter deck and hanger. What kind of proper megayacht today doesn't have a helicopter?
    2
  1094.  @jimmiller5600  There were many more naval mutinies in the twentieth century than just Invergordon, from Russians to Austrians to Germans all the way up to the US and Canada. Some had to do with pay, some the treatment of the sailors, and some due to political events outside the navy itself. Just the shear number of international mutinies and the varied reasons would make a good segment.
    2
  1095.  @MendTheWorld  "Possibly"? I'm certain you can find many threads where this kind of discussion is common and even welcome. This isn't such a thread. Someone has to act like an adult.
    2
  1096. I'm having to break up today's videos into even smaller hunks so my tiny brain can mull them over and absorb it all. This must have been a major effort for you to put together, Drach, and it's been a real treat so far.
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  1097. Well, Dang! I guess I don't need another book anyway....
    2
  1098.  @bkjeong4302  Your 2019 views about the strategic and tactical advantages of battleships as carrier escorts didn't mean much in 1944. The Iowas were fast enough to keep up with the new carriers, had enough space and displacement to mount more antiaircraft guns of all types than any other naval vessel, and were able to be used for shore bombardment when not escorting the carriers. I'm not sure why you're using present tense about battleships roles. There are no more BB's, nor will there ever be any more of them, and I don't know of anyone inside the USN advocating there should be any built today.
    2
  1099.  @bkjeong4302  I'm not ignoring anything. I'm saying that how these things were viewed 75 years ago was much different that how the USN looks at things today. The cost of an Iowa compared to the overall war effort was chicken feed. We needed fast ships that could make sure a minimum of carriers were sunk while not getting sunk themselves. In 1944, that meant something like an Iowa. It's not that hard to understand. I'm not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of their views. Unless you own a DeLorean that can time travel back to 1944, how you think about a battleship today compared to 1944 is irrelevant.
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  1100.  @cvproj  I've read that too but I don't know enough about how atomic testing affected steel production to know if that's true. The Newport News was laid down in late 1945 and wasn't commissioned until 1948. I don't know when the armor plate was rolled in comparison to above ground testing though. It became a moot point after the Des Moines class anyway since they were the last capital ships new built with armor plate.
    2
  1101.  @Zarastro54  I don't think "pacify" is quite the right term, since it was four years of bloody, brutal warfare before the Confederacy was worn down enough to surrender. It's rather like saying the Allies pacified Germany or Japan in WWII.
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  1102. I was the search and rescue coordinator for my county sheriff's department for 27 years. We had an aviation department with two helicopters and one fixed wing. We assisted the CAP with their missions and then CAP provided support for our missions like missing person searches and criminal searches. They were a tremendous asset to us. We could get air searches organized in a couple hours. I really enjoyed my time working with them, and they still provide critical services today.
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  1103. The North Carolinas and South Dakotas were all kept in reserve and never recommissioned. They were all removed from the Navy list by 1962, and those not retained as museum ships were scrapped. They had the same problems as the rebuilt old 16" battleships - Inadequate armor against 16 inch shells, a main battery of 16"/45 guns rather than the much more potent 16/50 guns of the Iowas, and, most of all, slow speed. 27-28 knots just wasn't enough to keep up with fast carrier battlegroups. The Iowas were the only ships in reserve considered "true" battleships by the Naval Board.
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  1104. Walter, you're right about the main role of the Iowas being gunfire support. They were commissioned as the centerpiece of their own Surface Action Group. That doesn't mean they no longer had a role as carrier escorts, as shown by Battle Group Alpha, with the Iowa serving and an escort to the Midway. Their main role was envisioned as distant escorts for carrier groups as counters to the Soviet Kirov class. Once the USSR collapsed, that role went with it.
    2
  1105.  @bigbigmurphy  It would be as long as you could find someone willing to pay the operating costs. My guess is just sailing it up and won the coast would be in the $45-$55 million range per year, and that doesn't take into account any costs to make the vessel seaworthy again.
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  1106. I don't remember the specific ship, and it may have been USS Washington, but at least one USN battleship, having to fire at a target directly astern, blew off one and, with the second salvo, the other of their floatplanes, along with the catapults and aircraft crane. There were multiple occurrences of 5"/25 guns and 20 mm guns, in the heat of battle, putting shells into adjacent gun mounts or the superstructure. Pipe rails around the guns to act a limit stops were added to prevent this, but battle damage to these still allowed some guns to fire into their own ships. The turrets of dual 5"/38 guns had limit stops built into their power laying systems, but there was at least one case on a ship, the name of which doesn't readily come to mind, where the stops failed, and the mount pumped four or five rounds into their own ship before frantic calls over the sound powered telephones to the gun captain finally got him to cease firing. From the accounts I've read of men manning the AA guns, when the ship was under fierce air attack, job one was destroying or driving off said aircraft, and anything else could be rectified once the ship was no longer in danger of sinking.
    1
  1107. You can find out all about the Mark 14 problems plus a lot of other data about other ordinance from the ebook "U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II" by Buford Rowlands. It's available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b671188;view=1up;seq=10. It's 529 pages and will keep you occupied for quite awhile.
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  1108.  @rnrailproductions5049  BTW, I meant to say I have been watching and enjoying some of your videos but had failed to subscribe. Bad boy, but I have since corrected that.
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  1109. I suspect that two more ships in the ABDA force would have made only temporary difference. It wasn't battleships that made the difference, it was carriers and aircraft. Neither of these two ships would have been any better protected from air attack than they would have been in the battle that ultimately sunk both of them
    1
  1110. Unfortunately, the Allies actually had local air superiority at the beginning of the Battle of the Java Sea, but it was foul weather that kept both sides grounded. When the weather cleared on March 1, the last surviving destroyer, the USS Pope, was sunk by a combination of gunfire and aerial attack, as the weather had finally cleared. Much too late for the Allied air power to do anything useful. Given that US only had only three carriers available for the Battle of Midway three months later, I don't know that the USN would have risked them to save the Java Sea ships. They certainly didn't want to risk a carrier to save Wake.
    1
  1111.  @DimoB8  I have one eye and one ear awake. Everything else is asleep. Well, also my hands, obviously.
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  1112. I'm fully awake again now,.just waiting for a special. :-)
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  1113. The Admiral's family name is pronounced May-han, at least according to our midshipman tour guide when I was an Annapolis. However, Muh-han is the more common pronunciation in England. Any USN ship named after Admiral Mahan should use the May-han pronunciation.
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  1114. "Naval Accidents 1945-1988" https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/NavalAccidents1945-1988.pdf doesn't list an Italian cruiser in a collision with any ship postwar.
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  1115.  @HoverLambo  Are you sure of that date and the cause for Gorizia having to be dry docked at Gibraltar? This is what I found online, and it's the only information I can find about her being in Gibraltar - On 19 August (1936), Gorizia departed Kiel and steamed to Tangier, arriving five days later. After a short stop, the ship left the port, bound for Italy, but that night her forward aviation gas tank exploded, causing serious damage. She was forced to return to Tangier before proceeding to Gibraltar on 25 August for temporary repairs. While in dry dock, British officials examined the vessel and concluded that she exceeded her nominal 10,000-ton displacement, though they lodged no formal complaint for Italy's violation of the Washington Naval Treaty. The repairs were completed by 9 September, allowing Gorizia to leave Gibraltar for La Spezia, where permanent repairs would be effected. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_cruiser_Gorizia It was this drydocking where the British discovered she was well over the treaty weight limit, but they chose not to raise a complaint. I can still find no evidence of her ever being involved in a collision with any other ship, merchant or naval.
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  1116. Warning, Drach. The Grammar Police are on duty today.
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  1117.  @WALTERBROADDUS  It was an Elco boat. There were a couple Higgins boats in his squadron, and my dad didn't like them. First issues is they were six feet shorter than an Elco. Every foot was important when it comes to a 78' (or 72') boat. His tactical issue was the placement of the machine gun mounts. They were directly across for each other in the Higgins boats while they were offset on an Elco. That allowed both pairs of machine guns to be used on broadside, an important; advantage when you're doing barge busting and shore strafing.
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  1118. I'd advocate that the difference between light and medium AA is the weight, size, and contents of the round. Medium AA shells can be used with an explosive filler, a quick acting fuse of some type, and a self-destructing fuse so those on the surface aren't under a rain of spent solid shot. The Japanese 25 mm didn't have these characteristics, so it fell in the same "light" category as any other machine gun with solid shells. The 1.'! had all three of the above characteristics, so it should be the smallest of the "medium" guns.
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  1119. For web images, using Google photo search can also help narrow down a ship name. Just right click on the image and choose "Search Google for Image". One the search is done, then choose "All Sizes" you get the best chance for a match. It doesn't always work, but it can quickly narrow in what you're looking at when it does work.
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  1120.  @Exkhaniber  LOL. I just wish I had Drach's smooth delivery and posh accent.
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  1121. As well the Myoko class should have been better fighters than the US treaty cruisers. They were at least 1,000 tons (and later 5,000 tons) over the limit and carried much more effective torpedoes.
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  1122. Sloped deck armour was used in armored ships from about the time of the Dreadnought forward. Given the long range of fire and the size of a battleship it was impossible to predict where a shell might land. One place that naval architects did use tank type armor shaping was in the main battery turrets. The sloping turret faces were commonly used in similar ways to tank turrets.
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  1123.  @pekkamakela2566  You lost me on that. How would horizontal armour be sloped? Generally, ships maneuver to bring the most weight of fire to bear on an opponent. Tanks pretty much do the same thing. Changes to armor to make it harder for shells to penetrate are more of a passive thing than anything a ship or tank commander thinks about in the heat of battle.
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  1124.  @pekkamakela2566  I'm not sure tank fighting and naval warfare are really the same thing, but what happens with a Tiger I tank when it had two opponents at once, firing from different directions? I don't think tank commanders were really worried about that supposed benefit of an angle helping with armor penetration. They were worried about keeping the frontal armor toward opponents and knocking them out before they could take a shot. Now extrapolate that to the Graf Spee taking on three cruisers at once, attacking from different directions at once. I rather doubt Langsdorff was worried about the fine points of armor at that point.
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  1125.  @pekkamakela2566  I've never seen a battle between capital ship where ships didn't try to bring their main battery into a broadside against opponents or, even better, cross the T, where the battle line was able to bring a full broadside to bear and opponents could only respond with their forward guns. It was exceeding rare that any capital ship had a rear turret or turrets that could fire at more than 15 degrees toward their own bows without causing considerable damage to their own vessel. It's an old adage of naval warfare that the side with the first shots on target would win, so all naval maneuvering was done with that in mind. I guess it's possible in a ship on ship engagement that it could have been done the way you say. I've just never heard of it.
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  1126.  @pekkamakela2566  It wasn't a 15 degree increase in angle of armor. It was the rear turret being able to revolve and fire more than 15 degrees off the centerline towards the bow without damaging the ship. Part of your theory is somehow the rear turret could be brought to bear on ships in front of your ship. I'm saying that was impossible for almost all capital ships.
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  1127.  @pekkamakela2566  I'd have to be convinced any captain would ever turn his ship off broadside when when all his guns could be firing at the enemy to bring it 15 degrees off the centerline because of a supposed armor benefit. Armor protection is there for when you can't sink or disable the enemy first, and more rounds effectively does that.
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  1128.  @pekkamakela2566  Yes, you could, although you then start decreasing the field of fire of your forward turrets. I'm saying I don't think that was ever done as a battle tactic. I'm willing to be convinced if you have a link to show that every happened.
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  1129.  @pekkamakela2566  Like I said, I've never heard of it being done as a tactic.
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  1130. For those as baffled as I've been by all the various FRAM modifications, go to https://www.gyrodynehelicopters.com/fram.htm, a site run by former employees of Gyrodyne, the makers of the DASH drone helicopters. They also do a good job of explaining the undeserved bad reputation of DASH, and how they led up to the many types of UAVs in service today.
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  1131.  @stevevalley7835  Indeed, but we at least got mostly functional aircraft with the B-2, F-22, and F-35. Sure, the Independence class LCS (now classed as fast frigates) had massive cost overruns and can't defend themselves in high intensity combat. Sure, the Freedom class ships had massive cost overruns and has an armament more typical of a patrol boat on the displacement and overall size of a Gearing class destroyer, but at least we got vessels that have a working main gun, even if it is a 57mm popgun. The Zumwalts bring all these issues to a whole new level, leaving us with a heavy cruiser size ship unable to defend itself from almost any threat and a flank speed that is 3 knots slower than the 1948 Des Moines class heavy cruisers, a ship with actual offensive and defensive armament that all worked. We ended up three really cool looking admiral's barges. As you say, this should be a scandal of epic proportions if the population wasn't already numbed by other scandals.
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  1132.  @kemarisite  My mistake. The original plan was to have 203mm guns but they couldn't make it work with the guided munitions because of blast effect. They went down to 155mm and found out firing guided missiles from big rifles still didn't work. My understanding is the barrels are only nominally 155mm. They are something like 147mm at the muzzle because the barrel was pinched to increase muzzle velocity and range, so standard 155mm rounds won't work. I don't know if the Navy even has any 155mm rounds left in storage considering the last ship with that gun was the Oklahoma City, and that was decommissioned in 1979. 40 year old shells would probably have some serious ballistics issues if they were used. The Army 6" guns would be 6"/45 in Navy parlance compared to the Cleveland class having 6"/47 guns. My understanding is there were enough differences in the projectiles and bagged charges between the two guns that ammunition was not interchangeable. Since the Navy no longer has any 6"/47 guns, the easiest way to give the Zumwalts some kind of offensive gun would be to use the Army 155mm "Long Tom". The problem is...well, it's from the Army. The Navy had enough heartburn over using single mount air cooled Army 40mm Bofors guns when there were no Navy Bofors guns available. The idea of a main battery coming directly from the Army is just unthinkable to the admirals. Have you ever seen the Army mule and Navy goat go at it before the Army/Navy game? No, an Army gun is logical, but not possible.
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  1133.  @kemarisite  Indeed, but that would also mean admitting failure. All they have to do is say they are still doing research on the problem until all three ships are scrapped. I'm sure the admirals hoping against hope no major conflict breaks out before they find a way to park them in some quiet reserve fleet while research continues.
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  1134.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Kind of like closing the barn door after the horses have left. The whole point of the Zumwalts was they were going to be replacements for the battleships and gun cruisers we no longer had. We still have no NGF support ships and will have to rely on large numbers of Burke class destroyers and their 5" guns with a range of 9.5 miles. Even the surface warfare role depends on destroyers to escort these "stealth" ships since they have no antisubmarine defense, which defeats the whole purpose of a stealth ship.
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  1135. Yes, the Argentine Navy always patterned itself on the RN, trained with the RN, and had a modern fleet heavily tilted toward British ships. This split in tactics between how Germany or Britain would conduct a battle was one of the predisposing causes for the loss of the Falklands War.
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  1136.  @RonJohn63  Not old doctrines, just their philosophy of organization, equipment, and battle tactics. The army and navy pretty much ran their own shows with almost no coordination, and the air force didn't much care for either of them. For example, the navy had more of a traditional RN style of conservatism when it came to battles while the army was more of a blitzkrieg force. Put those two different ideas together along with an almost complete lack of coordination and cooperation and you stand a good chance of losing a war.
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  1137.  @alecblunden8615  RN conservatism has nothing to do with the occasional aggressive commander. RN technological innovations are now few and far between. Read https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/the-decline-of-the-royal-navy for a perspective on the modern RN and https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0968344515580492 for some perspective on turn of the 20th century problems and issues.
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  1138.  @kemarisite  Look, a rack of torpedoes carrying any kind of warhead, from TNT to Torpex, were subject to exploding when hit by incoming rounds. Many ships were sunk by explosions from their own torpedoes. You have wandered way off into the weeds from my original rather simple point.
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  1139.  @alexsis1778 Half a dozen is really too high. They had three major flaws not found in most other torpedoes. The first was a conceptually advanced but poorly designed and tested magnetic influence exploder. If it had worked correctly, having a torpedo explode while under maximum magnetic influence of the hull would have caused a lot of broken backs and ship sinkings. There were just a host of problems with the exploder, some of which were related to the depth problem discussed next. Once the crews started disabling the magnetic exploders, the torpedo started to perform as expected. The second major issue was running too deep. It took testing in the field that should have been done in preproduction to discover and correct a hydrostatic vent problem. The third big issue was the contact exploder was never updated for the much high speeds of the Mark 14 compared to the Mark 10. The same perpendicular trigger and spring was used with no testing at all. It took almost a year to discover that the high impact forces of the Mark 14 hitting a target was causing the firing pin springs to bind on the the firing pin, only making a light strike on the primer. The existing trigger was replaced by assembly was replaced with aluminum parts to decrease mass, ultimately replacing it all together with a ball switch and electric detonator rather than a mechanical firing pin. There were some problems with circular runs, but those weren't uncommon with any nation's tornadoes. The basic cause for all of this was a depression era lack of money to do much more than just produce torpedoes (and painfully slow at that), most of the testing being down is shallow static pools. If there had been enough money for some real live fire testing, the problems would have been discovered and corrected before the war. The Mark 14 torpedo ultimately turned out to be a fine weapon, responsible for sweeping the seas nearly clean of Japanese shipping. The Mark 14 continued in service in many subs until the early 1960's, and much longer in some allied navies. It's just unfortunate that the frugality brought on by the depression of the 30's combined with a stubborn and incompetent submarine fleet admiral just made a bad situation worse.
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  1140.  @unlimitedx53  Would this have happened pre or post French armistice?
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  1141.  @jeroenmutsaars618  I think your asking about the semicircular framework just aft of the rear turrets. If so, those are propeller guards, placed there because a prop or props extend beyond the hull line. Their purpose was to catch a man overboard before he could hit the water and get drawn into the props. Look at the stern of US four stack destroyers for a most exaggerated set of those.
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  1142.  @WALTERBROADDUS  LOL. Sorry, Walter, great minds think alike, and I didn't read far enough down in the thread to see your post.
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  1143.  @AdamMGTF  Ah, a good kip. I'd like that too if my cat would stop biting my toes and waking me up. :-) Things being "a long way away" mean different things to a Brit than a Yank. We think of a long way as maybe a couple days drive or a four hour flight. We don't even have the option of a train trip to many places and, if we do. Amtrak manages it by the most roundabout way imaginable. I'm a railfan or, as you might say, a train spotter, so some train travel would be part of the experience for me. There are so many places I want to see, and Portsmouth is number one. Bovington and the IWM are tied for second. As you say, the number of places of historic interest is almost overwhelming. Id love to see some of the historic homes and castles as well. I live in a home on the National Register of Historic Homes, and my house is noteworthy for its age. I was built in 1895. Just as we have a different idea about distance, we also have a different idea about age. :-) It sounds like you have a lot of interests for your age, and at least most it has nothing to with playing GTA 5! I'm sorry to hear about your being unwell as a child, but it sounds like the upside to it was your love of history and reading. Those are two things that will carry you a long way as an adult. Sounds like we could have a wonderful time traipsing about the countryside. I was thinking about how Drach's channel has brought together a number of like minded people. I'd sure like to live closer to a lot of the viewers of the channel so I could attend some of the meet-ups. that may be an idea when I'm over there. Thanks again for your extremely kind offer. I'm also on FB under the nom de plume of Jorge Wilson, just to maintain my man of mystery subterfuge. :-)
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  1144. Ah, the Albacore, Swordfish's bastard brother. At least Fairy partially redeemed themselves with the Barracuda, possibly the most ungainly looking aircraft to ever reach modern service. She was at least able to top 200 mph and carry a respectable ordinance load. She was only "modern" compared to the Swordfish and Albacore, but certainly not modern for an aircraft flying in 1944. She was still too slow to escape enemy fighters, had no forward facing defensive armament, and had a hydraulic system containing ether that regularly put pilots to sleep from even a minor leak in the hydraulic pressure gauge. After a rather disastrous performance in Sumatra, with the aircraft unable to reach even 200 mph in the thick tropical air, the RN wisely decided that switching to the Grumman Avenger was the better part of valor for the remainder of the Pacific campaign.
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  1145. @UCW7JzqaM4HFFdCuDFh2lXgA I suggest you read https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2010/february/south-carolina-sisters-americas-first-dreadnoughts by Norman Freidman, a world renowned naval historian. There is zero doubt the South Carolina class were true dreadnoughts. They introduced the innovation of superfiring turrets, which were later adopted by all the major navies. Their low top speed was a tradeoff for better armor protection and relegated them to operating with older ships during WWI, but that doesn't make them not "real" dreadnoughts. Who's the author of the book you're citing? Assuming it's the book by Ian Sturton, I have it, and can find nothing in it that states the South Carolina class were not real dreadnoughts.
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  1146. @UCW7JzqaM4HFFdCuDFh2lXgA They were not operated as pre dreadnoughts. They were assigned to convoy escort duties because of their low top speed compared to newer vessels, but they were also unreliable vessels, as both ships had problems losing screws and excessive vibration at speed. Even if they had a higher speed, it's doubtful these ships would have been considered as main battle fleet units due to their mechanical problems. Dreadnought herself spent most of the war operating with pre dreadnoughts. There were certainly design faults with the South Carolinas, but that doesn't negate their place as the US Navy's first dreadnoughts.
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  1147.  Jimmy De'Souza  HMS Neptune was the first class with echelon wing turrets rather than wing turrets located directly across from each other. Echelon turrets allowed all the main battery to be brought to bear (within a limited arc) rather than losing the fire of non-echelon wing turrets. Echelon turrets were an attempt to bring a larger broadside without increasing metacentric height and thus stability. What plans are you looking at with echelon turrets without at least some cross deck capability?
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  1148. Indeed, but we're talking about 1941, and 1945 was like night and day by comparison. I'm not sure the North Carolina could have had such success then at night or in poor visibility with the radar shot away.
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  1149. Thank goodness April 1 only comes once a year.
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  1150. I used to live not far from Honda Point, or Point Pedernales, as it was more commonly known to the locals. I just can't describe how dark it was on the coast during a moonless night and in the fog. As usual with new inventions, the RDF gave them correct information about where they were, but it was generally disregarded because of known problems with atmospheric conditions, especially on a cool, foggy night like that one. They were lucky that ranchers in the area made a pretty good supplementary income salvaging vessels that ran into the rocks, a not uncommon occurrence. Their skills with breeches buoys and small boat handling helped save many lives that night.
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  1151.  @johnmorrison2226  LOL. Well, a few of us had ot learn them as part of a meteorology course I had to take to get my private pilot's license, and all the aircraft weather data is in centigrade, pressure is in millibars, and distance is in kilometers, so it just, sort of stuck with me. I will admit to a fondness for fahrenheit when it comes to heat. 32 still just doesn't sound like a very hot day. :-)
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  1152.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Plus or minus 50 knots depending on power plant.
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  1153.  @mancubwwa  The big noise maker in Nukes are from the hydraulic pumps needed to circulate coolant in the reactors. While the actual noise levels produced by US subs is considered top secret, the informed rumor is a Virginia class sub is about as quiet as an AIP sub when making way underwater at 20 knots, generally near the top endurance speed for AIP subs. The difference, of course, is a Virginia can make way at 30 knows surfaced and "at least" 35 knots submerged, again another informed guess, since speed is also top secret. That's not important to a country that uses their subs for mainly costal patrol, but it's a big deal for a sub that has to transit several thousand miles to reach a trouble spot, and then need that speed to shadow and attack surface warships
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  1154.  @f1b0nacc1sequence7  Since we are now in the time of quid pro quo, I think an astute Japanese government could have taken the the offer seriously. In reality, it was a rump government in China that was making threats about what it was going to do if not allowed free reign. The source of oil the Japanese expect to use was the Netherlands East Indies, not US or Saudi oil. In 1940, the amount of oil in the NEI was thought to be second to the US with Middle East oil a distant third. The government knew that the Dutch wanted to keep selling oil to Japan to finance their war in Europe. There were many inside the civil government who knew the US offer was their best hope for later victory, and plans were already afoot to cut off supplies to China to the point the military could sustain itself there but not expand. This idea the the ultranationalist military was in charge of everything and others had no choice but comply was used as a defence in the Tokyo war crimes trials. It didn't fly then, and I doubt it was really true in 1940. The struggle between the civil and military side of the government was still ongoing, and the emperor had not yet come down on the side of a military government. It just wasn't a foregone conclusion the civil and not-crazed leaders of the military could not have reigned in the ultranationalists if they committed to do so.
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  1155.  @TheAngelobarker  No, it was designed and built in taly. It had some French elements that the Italians incorporated in the design, but the ship was definitely an overall Italian design.
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  1156.  @TheAngelobarker  Okay, I guess I didn't understand your point. First you said it was based on a French design and now you say it was actually a copy of an Italian cruiser. My point was the Tashkent was not based on any French design. She had a few elements of French design, but the Soviets went to OTO for the design and build because the French were unwilling to share any ship design details with them.
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  1157.  @TheAngelobarker  Maybe Drach will weigh in here on the subject. As I said, the Italians appropriated some French ideas, especially the high power to weight ratio, but the design was Italian from everything I've read. His library is considerably larger than mine, so he may have a source I don't.
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  1158.  @gamarus0kragh  There was a top speed "war" between the French and Italians in the years leading up to WWII. Each country tried to convince the other that their so-called super destroyers were the fastest. There was a fair bit of manipulation on trials runs with fuel and water reduced to the minimums needed for the run. Crew were also reduced to the minimums needed for the runs along with ammunition and provisions. The Italian Capitani Romani class vessels were the Le Fantastique competitors, and their trial runs weren't quite as manipulated. The Italian vessels had a top speed on trials of 43 knots while the fastest Le Fantastique, Le Terrible, reach a little over 45 knots. In reality, the placement of the aft turrets and machinery on the Fantastiques meant they trimmed down at the stern by almost two meters at top speed. Running at that speed for more than about 15 minutes created a following wave that washed over the stern and caused damage to some the equipment. The realistic sustained speed of the Le Fantastiques, Capitani Romanis, and Tashkent were all between 37 and 38 knots, still very fast for large ships.
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  1159.  @gamarus0kragh  There's an account of the trials run of Le Terrible in a book called French Destroyers: Torpilleurs d'Escadre & Contre-Torpilleurs 1922–1956. It's an excellent book that covers all the French destroyers during that period. It's available for about $40. Last I looked, the Kindle version was more expensive than a new hardcover book. All of the Fantastiques had sustained cruising speed of 37-38 knots depending on how overloaded they got after refits. Full power flank speeds were around 40 knots, again depending on when they came over to the allies side and got extra guns and equipment installed. Any speed above 40 knots was highly unlikely for a true in service vessel.
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  1160.  @kemarisite  The late 1939 Brooklyns had no radar. The March 34 FCS was strictly a fair weather optical rangefinder that didn't get radar added until late 1941. As such, their chance of scoring long range hits were no better than the Graf Spee. It could be argued that the Graf Spee, with its superior German optics, had a better chance to score those low probability hits. The Graf Spee straddled the Exeter on her third salvo from over 18,000 yards. Exeter was struck seven times, destroying most of her guns and upperworks. Luckily, none of the shells penetrated the engine room so she was still able to make way, but only with one 8" gun and one 4" fun available in local control. Graf Spee turned her guns on the two light cruisers and caused considerable damage. Graf Spee retired in good order to Montevideo with the most critical damage being a single hit on the oil purification system. Without that being operative, she one had about 16 hours of fuel left, so Captain Langsdorff was hoping the system could be repaired in time ot resume the battle and break out back toward Germany. The two light cruiser were pretty much helpless against a properly functioning Graf Spee. Even Captain Parry of Achilles later remarked that, not knowing the fuel situation of Graf Spee, he didn't know why she didn't finish off Achilles and Ajax. There was a lot of luck on both sides in the battle, particularly the use of torpedoes by the British, helped to break up the Graf Spee's attack on Exeter long enough for her to escape. The US cruisers had no torpedoes, no radar, and no better rangefinding than Graf Spee. The had a lot more six inches guns, but the matter of range would still have to be overcome. It's all speculation how ships that never meant in battle would have fared, but my guess is three Brooklyns would have needed a lot of luck to survive.
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  1161.  @kemarisite  The lack of recent combat experience would be a strike against the Brooklyns. I think a bigger problem was the lack of torpedoes. Graf Spee had to spend a lot of time avoiding torpedoes from all three cruisers. If Graf Spee knows it's fighting ships with no torpedoes, it's just a matter of lying out of range and plastering any ship trying to close. The faster speed of the Brooklyns would have made that a harder task, but not as hard as dodging torpedoes. One of the lessons the USN should have gotten out of the engagement was cruisers, light cruisers especially, need to carry and be able to fight using torpedoes. Their encounters with the Japanese two years later drove home the point in a more violent fashion.
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  1162.  @kemarisite  Good point about the training. The British weren't any better at defeating the Japanese in the early stages of the war, and they had plenty of combat experience. The chief advantage of torpedoes was it that it's a "fire and forget" weapon. In a fight like the one at the River Plate, you rush into range of the enemy guns, fire the torpedoes, and rush out again, hoping for at least one lucky hit from a salvo, and that enemy gunners aren't good enough or fast enough before you get out of range. Even when torpedoes do not material damage, lookouts spend more time looking at the sea surface than they do at enemy surface ships. To some extent, a torpedo is also a "terror" weapon like the V-1 rocket. You create enough fear in the crew, from the command staff down, that things won't run as well as they would about a silent killer stalking you. I have no doubt that at least having torpedoes on USN cruisers would have created fear that the enemy would have to change tactics compared to a straight up gun dual. When the Booklyns were built, the Navy wasn't even away of the many problems of US torpedos. There were torpedoes on our "scout" cruisers, so it's not like they didn't understand the value of them. I think the USN felt that the Brooklyns would operate with fleet, screened by the scout cruisers and destroyers. It was just faulty intelligence,. more than anything else, that lead to the losses at Tassafaronga. We had no idea the Type 93 even existed, and the ships getting back on base courses was because it was assumed enough time had passed and range opened that torpedoes were no longer a risk. We had no clue that a torpedo could be fired from 25 miles away and be in the water for 40 minutes while still being on track. The oxygen enriched engine, leaving almost no telltale track, even at night in the tropics, when almost anything moving through water created a phosphorescent wake, was a complete shock. It was such a shock that the force at Tassafaronga assumed at first they had blundered into a minefield or were being attacked by submarines. It wasn't a matter of poor training. If the captains of those cruisers knew of the existence of the Type 93, they would have used much different tactics.
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  1163.  @orangelion03  You're welcome. I can't confirm this, but I believe the are an early version of a Bofors 103 mm illumination round launcher. Later versions were turret mounted on several Canadian destroyer classes.
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  1164.  @orangelion03  You're welcome. As I wrote, I can't find any information in my books or online to confirm it, but the launchers are too small to be anti-submarine rockets, so illumination rounds are the only thing that makes sense to me. They could also be dual purpose chaff/illumination launchers.
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  1165.  @ScienceChap  You are correct. This was a typo on my part.
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  1166.  @rickslingerland1155  I've read Shattered Swords, and it's a great book about the details of Midway. I think it really came down to Japan's infection with "Victory Disease". It made them sloppy about planning overly complicated operations and sloppy in their execution. What they couldn't have known was how thoroughly their code had been broken, and how the now famous water distillation hoax message sent from Midway sealed any chance they had for a surprise attack on the US fleet and Midway.
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  1167.  @westcoaststacker569  No, not quite. The Mosquito Mk XVIII had a 6 pounder (57 mm) gun installed in part of the bomb bay. It wasn't recoilless, just a standard cannon with a few extra extra recoil bits to reduce fuselage stress. It was obviously not like the 14" monstrosity the Germans wanted to use. While that one really wasn't practical to use on an airplane, it may have worked on small naval craft
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  1168. @WTF Again? Thanks. We did get tornadoes but none as close as what we had last week. Just wind and rain this time. We got through it all again Thursday. Springtime in the South. :-)
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  1169.  @tomriley5790  The closest would be corn meal or hominy porridge.
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  1170.  @tomriley5790  Except for fish caught in the open ocean, it was absolutely forbidden to bring food for the mess onboard until it was inspected by the supply and medical officer. You'd also need a good reason to be bringing anything local and outside the normal mess menu to feed the men. My guess is the sawdust sausage story is apocryphal. Some Australian and New Zealand lamb and beef was used for South Pacific ships, but they were purchased from approved sources, and they still got inspected. The USN had plenty of bad experience with food borne diseases, and they were really paranoid about anything that could affect the fighting abilities of the crew. One of the reasons they constantly increased the capacity of their desalinization plants was using local water was one of their biggest disease vectors.
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  1171.  @tomriley5790  It was okay with the RN if sausage contained sawdust? No wonder the guys complained about the food so much.
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  1172. The "Manxman/Abdiel" class of fast minelayers turned out to be nearly ideal fast transports once their roles as fast minelayers became less important. Same with the rebuilt WWI flush deck destroyers modified especially for the fast transport role. Even with the loss of two boilers, they were still capable of nearly 30 knots, and the former boiler spaces provided a surprisingly roomy space for up to 200 troops or several thousand tons of supplies. 31 ships were eventually converted, and the Navy was generally satisfied with their performance if not their material condition. The US Navy continues to have an interest in high speed transports with the currwnt 14 "Spearfish" class vessels.
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  1173. Book
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  1174.    Idiot. If you had bothered to search the channel, you'd find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGaGBImx62A.
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  1175. Back in my days of sailing the West Coast and Caribbean, I spent an awful lot of money to help survive if I was involuntarily taking a swim. Long immersion life vests, shelter life raft, emergency radio, strobe lights pinned all over the life vest, survival suits...you name it, I had it. After several close calls, the real lesson I learned was never leave the boat unless you have absolutely no other choice. Vessels that aren't on fire and severely listing can stay afloat for a surprisingly long time. It's also a lot easier for rescuers to spot a ship than you bobbing around by yourself in the ocean. I wasn't afraid of being in the water after dark when my boat had sunk though. Nuh uh, not me....
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  1176.  @MrTScolaro  West Virginia had the most advanced fire control radars of any ship in the navy. She also had well trained radar operators and gunnery officers that understood radar and how to use it. Not to diminish their marksmanship, but if any ship was going to make that kind of hit, it should have been West Virginia .
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  1177.  @MrTScolaro  The West Virginia was the only old battleship to mount the Mk 8 fire control system, a more accurate main battery radar than the Mk 1 used by the other battleships. She got this most advanced radar because she was the last battleship to be completely reconstructed after Pearl Harbor. While California and Tennessee also received the Mk 8, her crews were still undergoing training. the Wee Vee crew having been trained ashore while the reconstruction was carried out. I guess the more accurate way to have made my point was no only did they have the most advanced FC radar, they had a crew that knew how to use it, particularly at night, while the other two ships were still working up with it at the time of the battle. The Wee Vee was essentially a brand new battleship except for machinery when she was put back in service. California was similarly rebuilt (although with slightly less advanced GFCS radars), and I'd make the same point about her. It was a huge aniubt of money to spend on a ship that, with the exception of one engagement, was used only for shore bombardment and fire support. With the large numbers of Baltimore and Cleveland class cruisers available, not to mention the cheaper and more austere rebuilds of Wee Vee's sisters, that we just didn't get much return on investment from her. There were also the ten modern battleships available at the time. Did we really need West Virginia ? I'll let you be the judge of that, but my two cents is no, we didn't, and the money could have been better spent on aircraft carriers.
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  1178. That would be one heck of a book, though. "An illustrated guide to every naval antiaircraft ever used in WWII". It would probably cost something like $300, but I'd use part of my rohna money to buy a copy. :-)
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  1179.  @1IbramGaunt  I guess so. I suppose conditions back home for many of the sailors from working class families wasn't much better, and at least they knew they'd get food and shelter. Still, people back then could stand privation better than we softies today. Not having the internet available would kill many.
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  1180. I can't imagine how much it would cost to build a sailboat today using copper nails.
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  1181. ​ @jamestheotherone742  What the post started out with "Correct: there were plenty americanos who got drafted but dinna wanna fight...", whose troops exactly do you think he was talking about? Bt feel free to not comprehend what was actually written and keep making your elaborate strawmen.
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  1182.  @Betrix5060  That was just beyond the technical abilities of German scientists, but they were working on it. They had the TX torpedo, a wire guided torpedo that was only launched from shore batteries and truck mounted launchers. They only built 300 of them and, although we have records of them being installed cover English Channel invasion points. I haven't been able to find anything about them being used in actual combat. The electronics of the day were just too fragile to survive being launched from several hundred feet deep with high pressure compressed air from a U-Boat. They were also working on television guidance, so there wasn't much they hadn't thought of. Getting it from experimental to service was the big challenge, made worse by the fact the manufacturing facilities were being bombed constantly and rail lines were being slowly destroyed.
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  1183.  @williammagoffin9324  William, I vaguely recall that as well. I think the Italian Navy used 76mm guns for saluting that also fired starshells. I just don't follow the history of the Italian Navy so I could very well be wrong too.
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  1184.  @TraditionalAnglican  No problem. It usually takes me about a week to figure out the right time after we do this stupid time switch. :-)
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  1185.  @lizardb8694  Bode was indeed a perfect scapegoat, since his leadership had already been called into question, and his rather haughty character had made him intensely disliked by his officers and crew. His accusation that his entire command staff was drunk when Chicago opened fire on a Japanese midget sub while in Sydney Harbor was a good example of his arrogance and constant problem of jumping to conclusions. Nevertheless, he had fought his ship well in the Battle of Savo Island, and there's no evidence that any of his command decisions led the the loss of Chicago. Bode is a sobering example of what happens when you crank off enough people that can make decisions about your future. McVay was almost a prototype naval officer, yet it still took over 40 years to get his name cleared. I expect it will take another couple generations of naval command staff before Bode gets his name cleared.
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  1186.  @AtomicBabel  Gib? Why don't you let us know what YOU think of it?
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  1187.  @AtomicBabel  It's over the top to say Halsey didn't care about the lives of destroyer crews. He had been a destroyer man most of his career and had a genuine care and affection for destroyer crews. However, Halsey was also a gambler. That was an vital attribute until mid-1943. We didn't have the intelligence or resource to take on Japan head on. Halsey was good at taking ijut pieces of their fleet was taking rational risks with his ships. Everything had changed by 1944. We had the material and resources to take the war to the Japanese. Halsey continued to gamble like it was 1942. He was out guessed by Kurita and Center Force, too unnecessary risks to remain on station and got hit by Typhoon Cobra, and then bumbled his way into Typhoon Connie only six months later. He was spared being drummed out of the service by personal intervention of Admiral Nimitz due to his previous war record. When it comes to naming a ship Halsey, the name is for the Halsey of before mid-1943, when he was a brilliant admiral. His later mistakes and bumbling shouldn't make him a nonperson in the Navy.
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  1188.  @Nuke89345  No, I read they were "permissible", different to me than "more effective". We will certainly be using combinations of aircraft and missiles to take out deep targets. Once they have been suppressed, aircraft and the fleet will soften up the immediate landing area. At least not since the debacle at Dieppe, no nation will attempt an opposed landing without air and naval superiority. Last I looked, McDonnell Douglas was still a named subsidiary of Boeing for some defense work, especially naval missiles. It's been a couple years now, so Boeing may be the corporate name now. A small, cheap guided missile for shore bombardment use as been the Holy Grail of developers since WWII. As usual, you can have small, cheap or effective, but you can only chose two, and one can't be effective.
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  1189.  @Nuke89345  The fact that the Missouri was nearly hit by two Silkworms and really only saved from being hit by one because it was intercepted by a Sea Dart from HMS Gloucester shows the missile threat wasn't zero. I don't think being hit by a Silkworm would have been considered minor. Shoulder fired MANPADS fired at any ship not over the horizon was a very real threat. Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin pretty much own the defense business for the Navy. This is part of our problem. We used to have about 20 big companies doing defense work for the Navy but they's all been swallowed by the Big Four. I don't know what happened ot antitrust laws. Swarm missiles are still mostly the thing of space movies. The sole exception are Block IV Tomahawks. They can be programmed in flight so they all arrive on target at almost the same time. 50 Tomahawks arriving at once is sure to get your attention.
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  1190.  @richardpentelow655  This post and thread is going on two years old. I have no idea what you're talking about with captured ships taken into the "German marine". I'm not going to go trawling though all the posts looking for it either. Please quote what I said that has you "interested".
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  1191.  @MagnusVictor2015  You lost me a bit on this one. There was no reason to expect that ships wouldn't have been subjected to the same kinds of strafing and bombing attacks that happened during the war. The biggest change was adding air to surface missiles to the mix. I think you misunderstood Drach. Adding armor shields or turrets to exposed gun positions was never because falling remnants of AA rounds was a huge problem, although they did kill and injure crew on occasion, especially in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign. The splinters we're both talking about are from the remnants of those larger shells and falling bombs. As they hit decks and superstructures, they broke the steel into hundreds and sometimes thousand of small pieces ranging from several hundred pounds to little bits the size of a sewing needle. These were the big risks to gun crews. The splinter shield were not just the thin sheets of steel you apparently think they were. They had to be capable of defeating these sometimes large and heavy "splinters", something of a misnomer, since most of us think of splinters as something you get from a piece wood. The name does originate from the days of sail, when cannon balls shot the superstructure to pieces, sending wood splinters flying.The wraparound shield used on late war 40 mm quad mounts weighed about 4 tons, nearly half the weight of the actual guns themselves. Even the front shield on a 20 mm gun was half inch thick steel that weighed nearly 200 pounds. It was even thicker and covered more of the mount once power operated twin mountings were introduced, since shield weight on the single guns was limited by the need to make them free swinging due to their manual operation. The goal of the combination of gun tubs and shields was to keep those splinters from getting into the mount and injuring and killing crews. Many of the injuries to exposed crew wasn't from direct hits from bombs or shells, it was those splinters flying around. If you could protect gun crews from those, it was more likely they'd continue operating their guns rather than being flat on the deck avoiding splinters. If it's apparent to you I really didn't understand your question, please restate it and I'll give it another try.
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  1192.  @MagnusVictor2015  Once we left the biplane era, attacks with 50 pound bombs just didn't happen. Even 100 pound bombs were generally limited to planes like the Wildcat and others that had a limited bomb capacity. Dauntless dive bombers routinely carried 1,000 and 1,500 pound bombs, and the Helldiver could carry a 2,000 pound bomb in the internal bombay and two 500 pound bombs underwing. Corsairs could carry 4,000 pounds of bombs. Japanese planes were carrying carrying repurposed 8" and 16" shells as bombs. Bombing by naval aircraft wasn't just a bunch of tiny bombs. A lot of our ships did take hits from 1,500 to 2,500 pound bombs, not mentions kamikazes. The big risk today is antiship missiles, but the person I'm writing about is postwar into the late 50's. The types of aerial shipping attacks then weren't any different than the late war period.
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  1193.  @blueeyeswhitedragon9839  You tend not to trust US debt figures? Even though calculating US debt within a few percent is possible using using public domain data? Chinese debt is a black hole, and only government data gives us a glimmer what it might be. For full disclosure, I'm an American. What horse are you riding in this game? Personal debt of Americans may affect each individually, but it has nothing to do with foreign debt. Public debt includes foreign debt so I'm missing your point with that.
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  1194.  @blueeyeswhitedragon9839  Okay, but those activities increase their domestic debt as a percent of GDP. Those "unsinkable" aircraft carriers also can't run away. Those kinds of fixed fortifications don't have a good record in battle.
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  1195.  @blueeyeswhitedragon9839  Certainly being in a place like China, Russia, Cuba, or Venezuela will give different answers than if you are doing the search from an area with less censorship. Again, what country are you from, so I have a frame of reference?
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  1196.  @blueeyeswhitedragon9839  Once again, what country are you from and where do live now? The is conversation isn't going to continue without some answers from you.
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  1197. It was indeed. Sydney closed to within 4,300 feet, possibly as close as 4,000 feet. This was well within the killing range of not only the four 5.9"guns in Kormoran's broadside but also within range of her 37mm and 20mm guns. The secondary guins were able to rake the decks of Sydney and cut down men trying to get to her secondaries. Her twin 4" guns and machine guns could have done much more damage to Kormoran had her guns been fully manned.
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  1198. Sadly, the French actually developed a good 127 mm/54 DP gun immediately postwar. That availability of USN 5" ammunition influenced part of the design, but there's no reason this gun couldn't have been ready prewar if the French had abandoned the idea they needed a triple turret secondary battery that was going to equally useful in the surface and AA roles. It was a bridge too far for the USN, with much more technical and material skills than the French, so the idea the French could ever have made this work was far fetched at best. As shown by wartime experience, the 5" gun was more than adequate in the surface role and superb as an AA gun. The French had just developed a blind spot for big triple and quad turrets, and it retarded their ship designs until they finally got it right with the 127 mm/54 gun, just at a time when they were actually no longer needed.
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  1199. Correct, but close enough for a non-Union historian. :-)
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  1200. I was actually asleep when this started. That was a first!
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  1201.  @ulaanbataar4479  Your English is just fine, no need to apologize. It's certainly better than my Italian. which consists mainly of how to order food and find a toilet. :-) How well the Empire could have done on its own comes down to mobilizing parts of it like Africa and Asia, where most efforts were directed toward minerals rather than manpower. Could the British Empire have stopped the bombing of England itself? Could the Empire have grown and transported the food the home islands would have needed to survive? Would colonies in Africa really have contributed the manpower and training to essentially offset the numbers provided by the US Army? How would the hundreds of merchant ships built by the US been built in the Empire? Pretty thorny problems to work out.
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  1202.  @tulsatrash  You're welcome. I thought it was a great story of training that most guys thorough was worth only a few beers being put to good use when the time came.
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  1203. 1898 Have an affair, get caught, shoot yourself Today Have an affair, get caught, go on TV to explain why it wasn't your fault, write a salacious novel about said affair...Profit!
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  1204.  @FirstDagger  The US has no strategic interests in the Spratly Chain and should stay out of it. China, Vietnam, and the Philippines have the best claims to various parts of the Spratlys and it's up to them to settle the claims.
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  1205.  @WALTERBROADDUS  You too, Walter. Once again, we have failed to settle the world's problems. :-)
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  1206.  @mattblom3990  No more Patreon for me after what they've been up to with Sargon and a bunch of other youtubers. I'll use SubsribeStar until the leftist mobs manage to topple that ttoo.
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  1207. I sure hope you aren't getting a case of acute bronchitis like I've had for the past eight days. I just now feel like I'm rejoining the human race. Ugh.
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  1208.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Goodness. I had mumps as a kid so I should be immune. I wouldn't want to get anything worse than what i have now.
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  1209.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Unfortunately, we're now starting to see the results of antivaxer parents as diseases that used to be obsolete now coming back. Measles has also started to show up again in dorms across the country. Some of it may be coming from foreign students, but the outbreak couldn't become widespread without unvaccinated native kids to get it.
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  1210. Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0168_BLAZICH_AN_HONORABLE_PLACE_IN_AMERICAN_AIR_POWER_CIVIL_AIR_PATROL_COSTAL_PATROL_OPERATIONS_1942_1943.PDF This the actual link to the book.
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  1211. Amazing how long the French stuck with the idea that a triple 152 mm DP arrangement would have ever worked. It would have been hard enough just to produce a single 152 mm gun with fast enough loading and training to have been useful against even the relatively slow prewar aircraft they already knew about. I'm sure there was a concept that aircraft would be getting faster, and some kind of autoloading and powerful hydraulic or electric power control would have been needed to be effective against them. Of course, it's not easy to have been too hard on the French when the USN said "Here, hold my beer" when they decided they could make six twin 152 mm DP turrets work with the 1948 technology available. So much for that plan.
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  1212.  @patricklenigan4309  She's certainly not be able to fight one of the PLAN's AIP subs, but she's at least equal to the Ming class and only about four knots slower than a Kilo boat, so a lot depends on what sub she meets and the training of the crews. The ROC Navy knows they are grossly deficient in submarines, but it's only in the last couple of years that she has been able to buy the technology, plus have developed the domestic capacity, needed to start building her own subs. The plans are for a fully modern AIP submarine, so I guess the ROC Navy can only hope that, if war comes, it waits about ten years. :-)
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  1213.  joanne chon  Did you read my entire post? The allies weren't even aware a comms system like Kurier existed. They.were obviously unable to do traffic analysis on a system they couldn't DF or monitor. As I wrote, the USN admitted they were never able to monitor traffic on this system. Please do some research on this before you waste my time and the time of the readers again.
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  1214.  @matthewrobinson4323  You're welcome. Sailing on a Gearing must have been a great experience.
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  1215. A small addition on the PT boat torpedo tube question. They were mounted at about a 10% outboard angle to allow the torpedo to run straight as the PT boat was turning away. This allowed the boat to flee from its opponent after firing and make it less likely that a turning torpedo was going to hit the PT boat.
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  1216. ​ @BB.61  CXAM is a good example of both the promise and limitations of radar in general, but early radars in particular. The CXAM radio frequency operated at 1.5 meters, or 200 MHz, a very high wavelength in 1938, when CXAM was being tested. The antenna resembled a very large inner spring mattress - very large. The CXAM was 15 feet wide and 16 feet tall, and just the antenna weighed 5,000 pounds. At the time, the most sensitive receiver type was a superheterodyne (superhet), but 200 MHz was such a high frequency that only a superregenerative (regen) receiver was the only type that could provide enough signal amplification to make the return signal visible on a horizontal oscilloscope. It was hard enough to tune in a regen signal sitting in the radio shack on dry land let alone doing so on a rocking, pitching ship. It also required a powerful transmitter on the order of 1,000 watts, something that just didn't exist before 1938. When the radar was on, about 10% of the 10% of the ships power had to be diverted to the CXAM to obtain full transmitting power. Mounted at the very top of a battleship mast, it had a range about 14 miles on a large ship target and 50 miles on a bomber size target. Even with these rather primitive sets, the range was well beyond human lookouts, especially in poor visibility. Luckily for the USN, Admiral Nimitz was something of an electronics tinkerer, and he put himself through a three week radar instruction course in 1938. When he became C in C, Pacific Fleet, he speeded up the number of trainees being sent through radar schools, and he ordered his captains to provide a weekly report of radar usage and issues. He knew too many of his hidebound captains didn't trust radar, and he needed to find a way to make sure it was in use at all time. After a shaky start, it didn't take long for radar to start proving itself, and British and US researchers kept turning out better sets. Radar is generally credited with being among the top three weapons of WWII in the Pacific.
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  1217.  Nguyen Johnathan  The biggest problems with 152mm (6") DP guns is the amount of magazine space required for enough ammo for sustained periods of air attacks and the weight of the shell itself. The 127mm shell at ~55 pounds (~25 kg) was at about the upper limits of what could still passed and loaded by hand if all else failed. The 152mm shells weighed in at 105 lbs. (47.6 kg) for AA Common rounds. just too heavy to be manhandled except by a few weightlifters and, even then, not for long. Navies generally plan for worst case scenarios, and 152mm AA guns would have been useless without the hoists and power loading and ramming they needed to work. You also needed a much larger ship to handle the equipment needed for training and elevating the 152mm turrets and guns as well as magazine space. There's a reason the Worcester (CL-144) "light" cruiser class was longer and heavier than most heavy cruisers. In the end, at least with the USN, it was decided the 127mm gun was sufficient for AA use compared to the complications introduced with the 152mm gun.
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  1218. There were only two important considerations for a battleship - speed and fire control. Speed because escorting fast carriers was going to be their main role and fire control, because accurate shooting with the main and secondary batteries was the most important job they had. Whether they had 16", 18", or 20" guns was relatively unimportant. Superior radar fire control that allowed the first salvo to be on target was the most important. If your opponent had bigger guns but took five or six salvos to get your rain. the 16" gun battleships would have already destroyed all your upper works and fire control equipment and put some pretty big holes in your hull. As an example, the Japanese battleship Kirishima was reduced to a flaming wreck by the USS Washington in seven minutes because of superior radar and fire control. Accurate main battery fire control allowed you to destroy shore targets with a single salvo. There were many occasions when onshore fire control teams called in targets like gun emplacements that were totally destroyed with a single salvo. Our battleships and cruisers were able to offer accurate suppressive fir only 300 to 400 yards ahead of advancing Marines, and were able walk that fire ahead the same distance and they advanced. Lastly, and most importantly, it was the battleship's ability to put a huge volume of controlled antiaircraft fire that saved many battleships and the ships they were escorting from aerial destruction. Your armor doesn't matter unless you can fight off enemy bombers and torpedo planes. Radar and director control of the 5" and 40mm batteries was the difference between shooting down those aircraft or being sunk yourself. Of course, designers in 1913 would have no idea about radar, fire control, or any kind of antiaircraft battery beyond a couple of uncontrolled 3" guns. Instead of turret mounted dual purpose secondary guns, we would have been stuck with yet more battleships with the secondary battery being single purpose and in casemates.Thank goodness none of those ships were built. It would have taken money away from the construction of the fast battleships and carriers that actually won the war for the US.
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  1219.  @dropdead234  Good question. Their pay grade was the same as equivalent petty officers but they were also called out as enlisted ranks in the table of organization. They are not called warrant officers, but it seems like that's what they were anyway.
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  1220.  @keenanmcbreen7073  and it wouldn't just have been the number of barrels. Deleting the 12" turrets would have allowed an arrangement of the 5" mounts so that 20 or 21 of the mounts would have had a clear field of fire from almost any direction of attack. That says nothing of the concentration of 40 mm guns being at least equal to the Iowas while having the space and excess tonnage available to mount all the radars, and space available for fighter direction facilities. Such a ship may have saved at least a few other from kamikaze attacks.
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  1221.  @neniAAinen  You think a 5"/38 gun is a short range weapon? The Atlanta class was already dangerously overloaded in the ships with 8 mounts on 7,400 tons fully loaded. The biggest problem was finding space for all the crew needed to man these Guns. Atlanta class vessels were already know as some of the most cramped and uncomfortable ships in the modern navy. Using a hull with size and available tonnage of an Alaska would produce an AA cruiser with about twice the firepower of an Atlanta with enough space available for the crew, supplies, electronics, and ammunition, as well as improved armor, something almost totally lacking in an Atlanta . They would only have been valuable in the event an invasion of the home islands took place, but they may have saved a number of our carriers in that event.
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  1222.  @neniAAinen  The 5"/54 did have a theoretically higher A/A ceiling at about 50,00 feet compared to the about 38,000 feet of the earlier gun, but both had ranges far higher than and reasonable attack altitude of aircraft attacking the fleet. The main reason for the development of the 5"/54 was for two sided automatic feed. However, that requirement plus the larger size of the gun itself made the weight of a dingle 5"/54 about as heavy as a dual 5"/38. The complex nature of the feed system required a,manning of 12-20 men depending on mission, also about the same as a dual 5"/38 mount, so the original 5"/54 turned out to be a disappointment. That improved somewhat with the Mark 42, but it wasn't until the Much different Mark 45 that the gun finally came into its own. There wasn't time in WWII to develop some new AA gun. It's a good thing that the 5"/54 wasn't on any ship that served in the war as it wasn't a good gun compared to the 5"/38, with constant jamming problems until the ROF was lowered. The thing with the Alaska class was the keel was already laid by early 942. There was stalk of converting them to carriers, and it was only the very fast building program of the Essex class and all the escort carriers available that caused that plan to be abandoned. Her 12" guns would only be useful for shore bombardment, and we had a multiplicity of BB's and CA" already available for that. They would never have been laid down if the Navy knew in 1941 what 1945 would look like. The 12" guns had already been built and in inventory when the class was under construction. If they hadn't been, a conversion to a carrier or a large CAA may have happened, but the Navy still liked ships with big guns, even if they had no apparent reason to exist. They were not needed to tear apart anything still floating by August 1945. They did serve as de facto CCA's anyway, but they would not have been built in any form if not for the naval panic of 1942. Things change fast in a war.
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  1223.  @neniAAinen  Guided AA weapons in 1943? New on on me. At any rate, you don't seem to understand that the two ships that became the Alaska class were already laid down near the start of the war. At that point, the Navy needed any ships it could get. The still weren't sure if the Japanese had any of the battlecruiser these were built to fight, but build they must. The only question was would they be carriers. 12" gunned large cruisers, or antiaircraft cruisers. The guns and turrets were available so that was the choice once the "carrier panic" of 1942 subsided. The 5"/38 was still the b est heavy AA gun in the war. Until the advent of the 5"/54 Mark 42, they were still the best postwar. The Worchester class was the attempt to build an AA "light" cruiser with heavier AA armament that grew to be larger and heavier than a heavy cruiser and had a main armament that never worked right. The only successful replacement of the Bofors 40mm AA armament was with the automatic 3"/50, and no light armament would ever be used again. By about 19o50, it was clear that missiles were the way forward, but everything looked very different in 1941. You seem to be hung up on looking at things back then through the 20/20 hindsight of today.
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  1224.  @Johnnycdrums  I don't recall reading any such stories at the time of the sinking, but maybe there are some out there.
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  1225. Breakfast for me, but the same sentiment otherwise. :-)
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  1226. Here's a newspaper article from the Newcastle Sun (https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/163396638) about the Hermes and the attack against the Bias Bay pirate base. She was part of an impressive force that included Hermes, the cruisers Delhi and Frobisher, a minesweeper, and a sloop. Just why such a large force was needed isn't detailed in the article, and it seemed to be rather a holiday for the Chinese pirates, coming down after hiding in trees and then lining the nearby hills watching the smoke rise from huts, junks, and sampans being set afire by the landing force of 300. Luckily, there were no casualties on either side, and instructions not to harm building of a "religious character" was scrupulously followed.
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  1227. Geez. Four in the morning and Drach shows up. Have some pity on us poor Yanks!
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  1228.  @Lassisvulgaris  This was a much different incident. Since it was a collision with a civilian ship, all the usual maritime safety agencies were involved. No one died in the accident, and there were only minor injuries on both sides. There were too many independent investigations for the navy to maintain control of the findings. The same result would have occured in the US. "Open society" has nothing to do with it. The explosion on the Iowa was a completely navy involved accident. Those that died were Navy sailors. Blame for the deaths was going to be placed, and the navy's goal was to make sure it didn't reflect badly on the navy itself. Since those conducting the investigation were also navy, they were able to keep control of things until the Senate Armed Services Committee got involved. I guarantee you that a similar incident in the Norwegian Navy would have involved the same kind of stonewalling and coverup.
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  1229.  @Lassisvulgaris  Thanks for your service as well. BTW, your English is excellent. I have always been an admirer of the Norwegian armed forces for their last stand against the Nazis while the rest of Europe was falling apart around them. Of course, the story of Oberst Birger Eriksen and the old men of the Oscarsborg Fortress is one that will stand forever as a classic of success against all odds. I think the military is the military, regardless of country, and regardless of the society of the country. It's a kind of a self healing entity, where nothing is really its fault, and they will go to any lengths to make that happen. The Iowa disaster led to some changes as well, but more to prevent an accident than make an investigation of an accident more fair. As long as the military can investigate itself, just like in that avalanche, the outcome will always be it was either someone else's fault or just an act of God. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Safety Board investigates all aircraft accidents, including military accidents, and they are completely independent of the military. If the cause was the military, it's going to come out. Until we have similar types of investigative agencies for the Navy and Army, self serving conclusions about accidents will continue to be the norm.
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  1230. In modern parlance, King was a much better bully than Fisher, and King had no limits when it came to trying to get his way. The thing that was the same between them was their idea they were both ladies' men except Fisher was a little more circumspect about it.
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  1231. Something seemed to have gone haywire with your audio starting at 3:21:54.
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  1232. Seems like a very reasonable idea of what HMS Thunder Child may have looked like. It's been a long time since I've read the original Wells novel. Did Thunder Child at least attempt a torpedo attack on the tripods? If not, why not? It seems like the "real world" use of the ship was to use her guns to cause enough damage to the enemy, or at least enough of a diversion, to get in close and fire her torpedos. As I remember, Thunder Child only used her guns as tactically assumed for real torpedo rams, but then never carried out a torpedo attack. It seems this portion of the novel had the last moments of the attack as Thunder Child and the tripods just disappearing in a vast cloud of steam and smoke. So what do you think, Drach fans? Was Thunder Child able to carry out a torpedo attack in her last heroic minutes, or was it only gunfire and ramming? BTW, this is the kind of thing I ponder as I sit welded up in the house, looking forward to my big event of the week.....grocery shopping. :-)
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  1233.  @gwtpictgwtpict4214  Probably, but it depends on the actual size of the legs. I don't remember Wells giving specs for a tripod, and I think later artists have assumed the legs must be skinny things. I don't know that modern engineering analysis would agree, but who knows?
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  1234.  @TraditionalAnglican  I agree the NTS shares a large part of the blame for the problems of the Mark 18, but those that held the purse strings for the Navy and the Great Depression are also part of the mix. I'd need a link to say US sub commanders were encouraged to return to port with torpedoes on board. Some did only because they gave up in disgust when firing most of their torpedoes only have them miss or fail to explode, and those torpedoes were used by Admiral lockwood for testing in Australia, but I'd need to be convinced that the rule was to fire only torpedo at a target and return to port with torpedoes still in the tubes. There were memos about torpedo shortages, and some subs had their 3" deck guns replaced with the hard hitting 4"/50 to better take on surface targets rather than use a torpedo, but that's about it. I've ready many accounts of a full bow launch of six torpedoes against a high value in the hopes one or two might hit the target and explode. As I wrote before, I don't know the source of your torpedo information, but is seems to be defective.
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  1235. Two St. Louis or Modified Brooklyn cruisers had thirty 6" and sixteen 5" guns between them. The Wichita bought the 5" gun total to twenty four while adding nine 8" guns to the mix. With just two turrets, having armor protection mostly inferior to the Brooklyns/Wichita classes, and at least four knots slower, the Graf Spee would have simply been overwhelmed with massed fire. She probably would not have made it to Montevideo.
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  1236.  @MichalSoukup1995  Yes, lucky shots often change battles, but war gaming is not naval combat. At 33 degrees elevation, the Graf Spee only had about a 2,500 yard advantage over the 8" guns of the Wichita. That's a distance almost impossible to maintain against a maneuvering opponent. The 6" guns of the two light cruisers at 44 degrees had a range of 26,000 yards compared to the Graf Spee's typical maximum engagement range of 34,000 yards. With three well armed and armored opponents maneuvering against you they will always find a way to cut off your range and get their guns in range. Once that happened, thirty 6" guns and nine 8" guns would cause tremendous damage to the Graf Spee compared to the British firepower of sixteen 6" guns and just six 8" guns.
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  1237.  @verticallogic5909  Really? You got a link for that?
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  1238.  @verticallogic5909  I have. Give me a link to where the British taught the Japanese night fighting. You can't just make a claim like that with no evidence.
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  1239.  @verticallogic5909  Ah, okay, just a troll then. I've been studying naval history since I was about 12. I'm now 73, so don't try to impress me with your claims. "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".
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  1240.  @verticallogic5909  I made no claims. You did, and you can't back it up. Since you are unable to prove your claim, my assumption is you were just exercising your keyboard.
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  1241.  @verticallogic5909  Tell you what, dipwad. Why don't you you look up the Japanese Red Books and see if you can find a mention of Britain there.
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  1242.  @verticallogic5909  Let me know when you find some references to Britain teaching the Japanese night fighting.
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  1243.  @verticallogic5909  Let me know when you find some references to Britain teaching the Japanese night fighting.
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  1244.  @verticallogic5909  It's "you're". Let me know when you find some references to Britain teaching the Japanese night fighting.
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  1245. Admiral Horton's concept of a convoy rescue vessel was the seed planted in the USN for and escort vessel converted for rescue work. The PCE was a hull previously used in minesweepers,but enlarged in length and beam. The tonnage rose from a standard minesweeper of 650 tons to nearly 1,000 tons for the PCE, with a beam of about 33.1 feet. The ship had nothing but square corners, and the interior volume was much greater than almost any other ship of just 185 feet long. They had two operating rooms and recovery suites, and could care for 55-60 patients, depending on causality type and layout. They were capable of carrying 800 rescued personnel, and there were reports of South Vietnamese PCE(R)'s carrying over 1,000 people to safety in the Philippines while fleeing the fall of Saigon. They had a complete electronics fit of radars, sonars, and communications gear. . Each had two depth charge tracks and two depth charge throwers. Ships were capable of providing antiaircraft protection for a convoy with a 3"/50 DP gun, two to four 40 mm guns and four to six 20 mm guns. Unfortunately, because of their roles as both rescue and command ships during the invasions of the Philippines through Okinawa, they became prime targets for kamikaze attacks. Even though several were heavily damaged, not one was sunk, and they showed a remarkable ability to resist battle damage. The only PCE that was sunk in combat was the South Korean Danpo_, ex _PCE-842 ,sunk by a North Korean shore battery on January 19, 1967. Ironically enough, she was the "name" vessel for the entire 68 strong PCE-842 fleet.
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  1246. There's no such things as classes among US battleships. The difference was the South Dakota class and North Carolina's were considered slow (< than 30 knots) while the Iowas were fast (> than 30 knots). The only real difference between the two earlier classes were length. Both had comparable armament and tonnage. The South Dakota class was an experiment to see if reducing the superstructure and only having a single funnel would allow better armour over the vitals and increase the arc of fire for AAA armament. They turned out to be too cramped and limited in speed so the experiment was not repeated with the Iowas
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  1247. The Steamship Historical Society of America is well worth supporting. It is dedicated to the preservation of the history of all non-warship engine powered vessels. It has a special concentration on passenger liners. The website is https://www.sshsa.org/, and they have thousands of ship's pictures there. They have several classes of membership, but all include a subscription to Powerships magazine, the society's publication.
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  1248. There's a good paper at http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a258520.pdf that addresses that question.
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  1249. She was tentatively named Almirante Cochrane for service with the Chilean Navy, but she was always known as Eagle in RN service. There was really no reason why the RN would leave an RN ship with a Chilean name.
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  1250. The %'/38 was superior to the 5"/25 for antiaircraft work. The 5"/51 was superior for surface fire but had no utility for antiaircraft work. As shown at actions like the one off Samar, the combination of the 5"/38 gun and superior ranging radar and fire control showed it was a gun able to inflict damage all out of proportion to the size of the gun itself.
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  1251.  @bkjeong4302  No doubt, it was the combination of air and surface power that made the Battle off Samar a tactical victory. It wasn't just the damage caused by aircraft either. The number of planes and the ferocity of their attacks helped convinced Kurita has was being attacked by a much larger force that included fleet carriers. Probably the best single battle of the war to show how air and surface power could work together for victory.
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  1252.  @bkjeong4302  The last fleet problem before the Pearl Harbor attack was one that assumed all the battleships of the Pacific fleet had been sunk or were too far away to be of any use and only two carriers were available. The centralized command and control facilities at Pearl and Manila were also assumed to be out of action. Any actions would have to be fought with a small number of cruisers, a larger force of destroyers and subs, and PT boats. The entire purpose of the problem wa sot make each commander do his own plan of attack attack while being able to also communicate with other fleet units, including aircraft. By the time of Samar, many USN aircraft had IFF units, and aircraft flying CAP over the fleet during kamikaze attacks got good at avoiding antiaircraft fire, while the fleet got good at prohibited zones that aircraft were supposed to avoid as free fire zones from the ships, and communicating those zones to the aircraft. The continuing perfection of CIC's did a lot to allow the fleet to control fighters and bring them into the attack when needed. Not saying that a lot of lucky circumstances, some due to the training from that last fleet problem, didn't combined to make Samar an unusual battle, but I also think you're not giving the Navy enough credit for being able to combine aircraft and surface action, sometimes on an ad hoc basis, when it was needed. We would have lost many more ships to kamikaze and conventional attacks to Japanese aircraft of all types if that hadn't happened.
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  1253.  @bkjeong4302  Oh, okay, we have been talking past each other then. My comments were addressing using aircraft for fleet defense, including attacking enemy surface ships when that was part of the mix. The Navy really hadn't considered how will air power and surface ships could work together when attacking enemy surface ships. Most of the experience was air power attacking the enemy while surface units were never part of the mix. From that point of view, Samar was a unique operation, and one that succeeded because commanders on the scene were able to improvise tactics and win.
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  1254.  @TraditionalAnglican  Never said that the Bismarck was just a scaled up Bayern. What I said was that the Germans didn't and couldn't start with a clean sheet of paper. They weren't able to make the shipyard visits that were the inspiration of many new ships. They were prohibited by treaty from being able to share information from other builders or get proposals from overseas builders for a battleship. They were constrained by time and lack of experience in building a modern battleship. There's a good post about this at https://www.quora.com/How-true-is-it-that-the-Bismarck-class-battleships-were-just-enhanced-WW-I-Bayern-class-battleships
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  1255.  @kimleechristensen2679  I agree. As long as they get a grounding in the actual history of an event, any kind of multimedia thing will help kids (and a lot of adults) learn, or want to to learn, even more about it. The folks I have problems with are the ones that tell me things like they managed to sail the Bismarck out of danger in WoW so the real life captain should have been able to do the same.
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  1256. Thanks, Drach, another interesting ship. Has any country successfully merged all their armed forces into one command? I think Canada is the only one other than small African and Central American countries merging all the rebel fighters into one supposed government force. I see there is now talk of creating one large EU armed force from the collection of smaller countries in the Union, and even some talk of merging German and French armed forces. I don't think anyone can factually claim the unification of Canada's forces was a success, so I'm surprised to see such talk emerge again.
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  1257.  @stevevalley7835  Yeah, it's not that Brewster couldn't design and build a good airplane, they just couldn't do it with that bunch at the helm and a workforce that hated coming to work every day. There was a considerable amount of questionable profit making with many defense companies during the war. The war department was spending money so fast it wasn't until 1945 that there was any idea where some of it went. That's an open door to corrupotion and thievery, and very companies didn't engage in some of it. The difference with Brewster is that were running an airplane plant as an excuse to steal, not as a side effect. The Buffalo could have been developed into a more effective aircraft in much the same manner that Grumman developed the Wildcat. It's just that the war department didn't want to give contracts to the company to do so since so much money would be stolen and the product would be substandard. By the time the Navy was fed up and seized the plant in 1944, there were already better planes in service, with jets on the horizon, so even a well built Buffalo was obsolete.
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  1258.  @Peorhum  The Mark 37 FCS was the best in the world during the war. The British used the Fuse Keeping Clock on destroyers. It wasn't a bad system, but it did require manual setting of nose fuses, something that slows down response to fast moving aircraft. It wasn't until the Daring class that the RN had an effective FCS with the Mark VI combined with the Type 275 radar. They were the first to have semiautomatic loading and firing and the first to be fitted with a remote power control that could keep up with early jet aircraft. The RN was finally able to ditch the heavy and ineffective 2 pdr and replace it with 40 mm Bofors guns on remotely controlled STAAG Mark II mounts. Although effective, they proved difficult to maintain, but they were the most effective intermediate AA system in the world when they went into service in 1949. It has been said, with some justification, the the RN finally had a destroyer equal to the USN Sumner class, just seven years late. Given the conditions in Britain during the war, the strains on industrial capacity, and the need to replace many lost ships, it's really quite remarkable that the RN came as close as it did while the war was still on. [Edited for my usual typos]
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  1259.  @Peorhum  Can you show me where I put down the RN? Did you not even read the last several sentences of my last comment? And your "hey, thats Americans for you" crack isn't earning much respect for Canada. I don't think the RN was as second rate navy. I've only stated facts about it. If you can prove my facts are wrong, have at it. The RN and Britain don't need you or me to defend it. It exists on facts, good and bad, as does the USN. Facts don't care about your feelings one way or the other.
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  1260.  @Peorhum  It's difficult for me to see how you weren't talking to me and apparently having me represent Americans, since your reply was directed to me. I'd expect you to explicitly exempt me from your rant about Americans if that's what you really meant. Following it up with "Don't take it so personal" is a passive aggressive way of denying what you really meant.
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  1261.  @Peorhum  You apparently run into a different bunch of Americans that play video games than the Americans I know. I'd certainly be reluctant to make any kind of judgements about how Canadians think based on things like Youtube comments. I don't think either should be used as basis for judgments about an entire nation. Most Americans I know respect and like the British as our cultural forebears.
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  1262.  @kemarisite  Never got a multi cert but just thinking about that makes me break out into a cold sweat. I had a buddy with a Beech Model 18, civilian version of the C-45. With both engines running flying straight and level, it was easy to fly. However, even a sharp bank made the plane a handful with its non powered flying surfaces. I can only imagine an engine out takeoff.
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  1263. Oh, gosh darn it....it 0300 CDT and I now I won't get to bed until 0400. Yes, I'd appreciate a slightly more civilized hour.
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  1264.  @admiralsirrusty3465  Whoops!. My brain apparently went into vapor lock on that one.
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  1265. Okay, two questions I haven't had answered in any of the Drydocks. First, why was the freeboard on British interwar cruisers so large. I know it probably helped with seakeeping in the Atlantic, nut the ships must have stuck out like sore thumbs. It also seems like it would require more armor to maintain hull protection compared to a more typical freeboard. Second, why did British interwar cruisers stick with three funnels for so long? I'm sure it was easier to construct than trunking funnels, but the interference with the sky view of her antiaircraft guns seems like it overwhelmed any constructional savings.
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  1266.  @hermitoldguy6312  Understood, but several navies had fleets in different parts of the world. The RN is the only one I know with such large freeboards for its cruisers. Why?
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  1267. I like the small models for big battles like Jutland. Knowing the formations being described, I don't have a problem know which fleet is which. If that does turn out to be an issue, maybe some small color dots of each model could make it more clear.
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  1268. Just woke up and found Drach and Jutland was going to entertain me for an hour and fourteen minutes. Life is now worth living again. :-)
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  1269.  @sharlin648  LOL. Indeed. One has to wonder how things may have turned out if it had been the British that had developed the reliable and effective oxygen enriched engine, and they were the ones with a Long Lance. Those early Pacific battles might have had much different outcomes.
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  1270. I can remember my 11 year old self devouring the latest Popular Mechanics , Popular Science and magazines like that at the local library. There were multiple articles about the latest in naval technology, and one of them was the quest for fully automatic 6" and 8" guns that would really be dual purpose. Even though this was in 1957, it was clear that the problem being solved was the Invasion of Japan, 1946. If the Japanese would have been able to continue, or worse, increase, their rate of kamikaze attacks, the USN would have had a loss of vessels and crews rising to near catastrophic levels during the invasion. Even more alarming were the results of the survey of Japanese air power still available directly before the surrender. Rather than the assumed 3,000 to 4,000 aircraft still airworthy, the Japanese had been husbanding virtually every kind of aircraft produced since the start of the war. These ranged from biplane trainers to the hundreds of Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka human guided rockets, commonly known to the USN as the "Baka" (Fool) flying warhead. It was a name that demonstrated the US misunderstanding of why Japanese pilots were willing to sacrifice their lives to forestall an invasion of the home islands. It turned out there were nearly 50,000 aircraft that the Japanese were willing to lose in kamikaze attacks, and the number was a real shock to USN planners. With this background, it's easier to understand why the concept of large caliber guns under radar direction and firing proximity fused shells was important. The concept was to put up a nearly impenetrable wall of flak that would splash even the most determined attacker. The Navy went back and forth on the best way to defend the fleet would in the next war, with the gun admirals battling the missile admirals. AA missiles were still in their infancy in 1957, and a dual path of guns and missiles was generally considered the right concept. Work on the 6" and 8" automatic guns went forward together, but the 6" gun turned out to be the hardest to bring to service. The basic problem was not the gun, which was the same 6"/47 gun that had been in use by the USN since the Brooklyn class cruisers of the 1930's. The main stumbling point was the size and weight needed for the automatic loaders, as well as the need to be able to use dual loaders for switching from surface fire to AA rounds, and to load the separate powder charges and cartridges at any angle. Even though the resulting Worcester class was the largest "light" cruiser ever built, with the length and tonnage of a Baltimore class heavy Cruiser, but using dual mount turrets. Even this immense size didn't provide enough room in the turrets for the dual feed system to operate properly, with the initial tests showing many jams and failures to feed. In keeping with the quest to provide the heaviest AA gun armament possible, the ships were also to mount the new dual 3"/50 automatic AA guns to replace the quad 40mm guns then in use. The development of the 3"/50 automatic guns was taking place at the same time as the 6" automatic gun, and it had its own teething problems. As a result, the Worcester class came into service with advanced guns, but none of them worked reliably. Work continued on and off to correct the problems of both types of guns. The 3"/50 gun's problems were mostly corrected by about 1950, but the feed system 6" guns, while experimentally showing success as the feed problems were more or less corrected by 1956, would need to have a completely new turret and feed system built on a hull that was already carrying more weight than designed. New sketch designs showed the follow on to the Worcester class would need to be about 700' in length and about 18,000 tons standard displacement. This was going to cost too much in money and time compared to the guided missile cruisers already under design, and it becoming increasingly clear that the guided missile would be the new AA defense going forward, not the gun. Both ships of the class, USS Worcester and USS Roanoke were retained on active duty until late 1958 since they were the last all-gun light cruisers in the Navy, but the role of light cruisers was thought to be over with by then. They were decommissioned to reserve and finally sold for scrapping in 1972. The technology used for the automatic guns of the Worcester class was used much more successfully for the 8"/55 armament of the Des Moines class cruisers, with the USS Newport News being the last of the proud line of US gun cruisers, decommissioned in 1975, stricken in 1978, and finally scrapped in 1993.
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  1271.  @johnshepherd8687  Not quite. The Zumwalt is 610 feet and between 15,100 and 15, 700 tons, depending on equipment and weapons fit. The Baltimores were 673 feet and 17,000 full load tons. They are pretty huge for something labeled a destroyer with almost no offensive capabilities. The Ticonderoga class had its classification changed from DDG to CG before the first keel was laid because of the additional capabilities of the Aegis system and the addition of flag accommodations. They were never classed as DD's because of their guided missile weapons. The Navy had actually been looking for a way to change the classification to cruiser, since it was easier to get that kind of money out of Congress for a cruiser than anything with destroyer in the classification.
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  1272.  @johnshepherd8687  Sunshine? You believe whatever you want. I'm just relaying what the official story says.
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  1273.  @johnshepherd8687  Whatever, dude.
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  1274. @Jurassic Aviator The line between destroyer and cruiser have blurred so much as to become meaningless. Technically, only the USN and Russia operate cruisers, although the Chinese Type 055 "destroyers" would be classed as cruisers in most other navies, as would the Sejong the Great class "destroyers" of the South Korean Navy. Ironically, the only modern what should be cruisers are the Type 055 and Sejong the Great classes, since the Russian and US ships all date from the late 70's to the 80's. The Burkes are close to what used to be called cruisers, with the Flight III ships approaching 10,000 tons. They carry a missile loadout only slightly inferior to the Ticonderoga's, and they have room to grow, so the Burke's are going to be what the USN spends its money on over the next 15 years at least. When it comes the Zumwalt's, the USN was trying to build a class that was comparable to a cruiser in size and seaworthiness while reducing the manning to the complement of a typical destroyer. It was never supposed to have all the armament of a typical cruiser because its stealthiness was supposed to compensate for the lack of other weapons systems. Unfortunately, the planners tried too many new systems on an unproven hull design so they got the worst off all worlds. The main battery was probably the worst example, with a new 6" gun and new ammunition, and the gun could only fire the new ammunition, even though the USN had tens of thousands of earlier 6" ammunition still in storage. Even though the LRLAP ammunition performed mostly up to specs, there were so many other issues with the rest of the ship's systems that the class was cut from 32 to 3. This increased the cost of each round from about $40,000 to nearly $1 million. With a requirement of 350 rounds per ship per mission, and another 2,500 ready rounds per ship in depots, each ship would have required ammunition that cost $2 billion, even assuming they could have kept procurement cost at $800,000. That was the cost of one complete Burke, so the whole contract was cancelled, and the ships have two decorative main battery guns with no ammunition. In essence, they have become the world's largest, fastest, and most expensive offshore patrol vessels, with the only functioning gun armament being two 30mm chain guns and four .50 caliber machine guns.
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  1275. @Jurassic Aviator ...powerful and reliable despite being fragile You're going to have to explain that one for me.
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  1276. @Jurassic Aviator That's another blurring of the lines between destroyers and cruisers now. The Ticonderoga class only has a few patches of kevlar armour around the bridge and magazines. The Burke's, in addition to being all steel except for the stacks, have over 70 tons of kevlar armor protecting vital areas, and thicker steel around the magazines than the Ticonderoga's.
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  1277. On the question of the Japanese invading Hawaii, the main question is define Hawaii. If it really means Oahu, the island with Pearl Harbor, that's one thing. However, the Hawaiian island chain is about 300 miles across, and trying to occupy and hold all of the seven main islands would have been impossible without the Japanese moving something on the order of 45,000 to 60,000 troops and all their equipment and supplies while conducting amphibious landings on all the islands pretty much at once. The Japanese tried this with the Aleutians and succeeded, but only for a relatively short period of time. They had to dig in and hope they could repel the invasion they knew was coming. Their best hope with Hawaii was to occupy the largest mostly undefended islands of Maui, Hawaii, and Kauai. Once they had established air bases by using the existing civil airports, and naval bases using the existing harbors, they could bomb and starve the Americans into submission, the same tactics they used in the Philippines. The Japanese also would have needed a victory at Midway instead of losing four carriers. They would have had to wiped out the American carrier fleet and then occupied Midway to protect their flanks. The estimates I've read is that it would have taken until August of 1942 to replace the aircraft and crews needed for an attack on Hawaii. Oahu wouldn't have been a walkover either, with 100,000 regular Army troops and the ability of American convoys with more aircraft, man, and equipment to reach Oahu for the almost seven months after Pearl Harbor, largely hindered by the Japanese. Even if all this would have succeeded, the problem of logistics remains unsolvable. Just as in the Aleutians, the Japanese may have succeeded for a short period of time, but the idea of foreign troops occupying American territory would have galvanized the American public and American production. The Japanese Navy and Army would have been destroyed even faster if they had attempted an invasion of Hawaii.
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  1278. Indeed. It is sometimes forgotten that the extensive oil resourced of the Netherlands East Indies were by far a greater prize to the Japanese than Hawaii. A reliable supply of oil was vital to the Japanese conducting any kind of fleet operations far from home. There was sufficient doubt among the High Command about being able to take and hold all of the NEI without throwing Hawaii into the mix. If all the 29 US submarines present at Manila on December 8 had reliable torpedoes, the NEI campaign may have had a different outcome.
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  1279.  @bkjeong4302  She was commissioned in December 1941 but wasn't considered effective until shortly before Midway In June, 1942 due to her many mechanical and armament faults. She mostly shuttled between repair stints at Truk and the other smaller bases from most of 1943 into 1944. Faults with her gunfire control systems, radios, and radars were well illustrated by her performance in the battle off Samar. I don't think the Yamato class was ever cost effective, just like the Bismarcks. No smaller navy can effectively fight off a large navy just because they have a few theoretically superior ships. At least Japan recognized the value of carriers and naval aviation early on. If the fleet had more competent and decisive leaders they may have lasted a year or so longer, but numbers would have overwhelmed them in the end anyway.
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  1280.  @rimmipeepsicles1870  Really? I'll bet there was a little more to it than setting random ships on fire and hoping for the best,
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  1281.  @PaulfromChicago  Thanks, that's a good explanation. I assumed there had to be some kind of drone thing using human sailors so the fireships actually ended up among the ships they wanted to set on fire. Given the vagaries of the wind, it seems like a risky proposition. Did any of the fireships end up sailing back among the fleet that launched them?
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  1282.  @spatsky  Ok. Sure, except the US Navy doesn't agree with your story. The official name is the The Battle Off Samar. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/leyte/samar.html
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  1283.  @spatsky  I gave you the link. Go argue with the Navy historian about it.
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  1284. Mine shows 15 views and your comment.
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  1285. Q&A Given the success to the German radio guided bombs during the Sicily campaign, why weren't they used during the D-Day invasion?
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  1286.  @gustavbonow5416  Thanks. Do you have a link about the supply of Fritz-X bombs? I've read that there plenty of Fritz-X and Type 239 bombs available, but the British Type 650 jammer was so successful that no attacks were launched since the bombs were not able to be guided toward targets. Germany was working on a new guidance method to defeat the Allied jamming, moving the radio frequency from the 50 MHz range to the 150 MHz range. They had also identified the allied jammers disrupted communications on the receiver's IF frequency so they went to triple conversion receivers to defeat jamming on the IF frequency. Unfortunately for Germany, the new guided bombs weren't available until the end of 1944, and there was no time to fit aircraft with the new electronic equipment before the end of the war. Allied air superiority over the beaches would have certainly made guided bomb missions dangerous but, if it wasn't for the jamming, some would have gotten through. The Allies were lucky once again that German technology was just too late to have any effect on the war's outcome.
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  1287. So what happened to the French fleet? It certainly wasn't the RN in terms of ability or power, but the French fleet wasn't inconsiderable. She couldn't have contributed much in the way of capital ships but, even assuming that half the fleet was deployed to the Mediterranean, a large number of destroyers and particularly submarines would have been available.
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  1288. I wonder, if the climactic battle really came about, would the French had any role to play? Maybe just mopping up at the edges, if nothing else. It seems from the ships that were assigned to the Channel (http://www.naval-history.net/xGW-FrenchNavy1914-1918.htm) in November 1918 that there were enough destoryers and submarines to have been useful if the British had decided to use them. Since they didn't, I assume there was a good reason, but I'm not conversant enough with the situation to know why.
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  1289.  @neniAAinen  Ah, I get it now. From a pre-1916 perspective, then both ships are more equal, although Normandie being finished and in commision by even 1916 was pretty unlikely. I'm curious why you think Normandie- couldn't have had a _Gastogne type layout. Nevada was nearly identical in length and tonnage with a superfiring pair of somewhat heaver guns aft and those didn't overstress her stern. Surely that arrangement must have been at least as heavy as a quad, but I haven't calc'ed that out. The navy's own Technical Board was against any amidship turrets due to blast damage from the fire of earlier pre-dreadnoughts. Normandie had about as good a layout for the amidship turret to be able to fire nearly astearn, but doing so probably would have caused damage to what little superstructure she was forced to have astern. The requirement for nothing but a small stump mast on the after section of the superstructure would have had a very negative effect on her radio antennas. The single mainmast would have had to be much taller than on most battleships to try to overcome the inability to string longwire antennas between the usual fore and main masts, and her one longwave antenna would have had to be immensely strong to support itself between the mainmast and all the way down to the bow and stern ends of the ship. I haven't seen any details on the they proposed to do that, but it's highly unlikely the aft section would survived the repeated blast of eight main battery guns, and it's even less likely the whole thing would have made it through a really bad storm. Thanks for the stimulating discussion as well. It's nice to essentially agree to disagree without a bunch of the name calling I so often see on here.
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  1290.  @jimtaylor294  The stern turret isn't just useful in the event of a stern chase. It's to provide better all around fire. The Richelieus were blind to to anything more that about 20 degrees of astern fire. The meant a lot more maneuvering around to unmask the turrets, time your enemy is firing on you. Having all the main armament in one place certainly allowed thicker armor, but that didn't count for a lot if your superstructure, including all your antennas and rangefinders, were being shot to bits. It was those interwar treaties that promoted the forward armament idea, something almost every admiral hated, but it was the best way to get the best armored citadel, but no navy would have ever built a battleship with the all forward main armament layout without that artificial push. The US and Japan both considered the idea, as you say, but then rejected it as being too tactically restrictive. It's one of those ideas that arose to deal with a legislated problem, not because it was ever a good idea to being with.
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  1291. The Balao (SS-285) through the Crevalle (SS-291) were that last seven US subs with the 4"/50 gun as standard equipment. Later boats had the newer Mk 17 Wet mount 5"/25 guns at commissioning. The first seven boats were supposed to be armed with the 5"/25 but they weren't ready when those boats went into service. Most of them received a 5"/25 during upkeep periods from tenders at forward baes. Most, that is, except for Balao . Her skipper, Captain Marion Frederic Ramirez de Arellano, and gun crews felt the 4"/50 was a better gun for sinking the sampans and sea trucks that Japan still had left by 1944. The shell were lighter, and the smaller size of each shell allowed more rounds to be carried and allow a higher rate of fire on the often pitching deck of a sub. The range of the 4"/50 was almost the same as the 5"/25, and armor penetration was no longer an issue. The Balao somehow evaded the addition of a 5"/25 until sometime in early 1945, when word came down that all the Balao class would be uniformly armed with the 5"/25 gun, like it or not. Captain Ramirez de Arellano still continued to be something of maverick when it came to deck armament. Balao was the first to be armed with two 40mm guns on the sail as Ramirez de Arellano thought the twin 20mm gun was useless for attacking surface shipping. The 40mm guns were used to lay down covering fire as the 4"/50 came into action. As the Balao moved in closer to finish off her prey, she used her four .30 caliber machine guns on non-standard stanchion mounts attached just aft of the sail plus two more .30's on the bridge to respond with a hail of lead to last ditch resistance, particularly from sea trucks. She may have also had yet another 40mm gun mounted on the former strong point for the 4"/50 aft of the sail as the new 5"/25 gun was mounted forward of the sail. That appears to have lasted less than three months. I assume a desk skipper somewhere up the line started questioning the excessive amounts of 40mm ammo being taken aboard Balao . Captain Ramirez de Arellano was born in Puerto Rico and was the first Hispanic submarine captain in the USN. How much this may have deflected problems with the brass is unknown to me, but he was detached from Balao in February, 1945 for some well deserved shore duty after spending all of the war up until then in combat aboard submarines. He had been awarded an impressive number of decorations until that point, so he may have had a bit more leeway than some other captains in designing his own weapons fit. Whatever the case, it was apparent that the good times for Balao being the most heavily armed submersible gunboat in the Navy were over, as an April, 1945 photo shows her restored to the then standard armament of a single 20mm, a single 40mm, and a single 5"/25. Those non-standard .30 caliber mounts were still just barely visible in the photo but, alas, no longer carrying machine guns.
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  1292.  @bkjeong4302  We know that because we have the advantage of hindsight. While Admiral Toyoda Soemu knew this was a kamikaze mission, he believed there still a chance Yamato could fulfill at least part of the mission before joining thousands of others who had died in service, and in obedience to, the Emperor. Many of those in operational control of Navy and Army air units were just as opposed to the wasting of planes and pilots as were Navy surface fleet commanders, but giving their lives for the Emperor and nation was more important than any tactical considerations. This was far more than just PR purposes.
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  1293.  @kemarisite  The 8" gun and 10,000 standard for cruisers was something the US pushed for. What became the Mark 9 8"/55 gun was already under design by the 1922 conference. The British 8-inch Mk VIII was only designed after the conference as a response to US and Japanese 8" guns. The RN would have been content to have 7.5" guns be the cruiser standard as no other navy had guns of this size.
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  1294.  @KB4QAA  There's a very detailed report of Japanese research into improving their late war avgas at http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/USNTMJ-X-38_N-2.pdf. It was conducted by the immediate postwar Naval Technical Mission to Japan, with the report submitted on February 18, 1946. It just struck me that not only is that my birthday, it was my actual date of birth. Kind of a strange crossing of dates for me. I don't have anywhere near the technical knowledge you have so you may get more out of the report than I can. My understanding is it was more than just poor quality fuel. A plane will fly with 85 octane gas, but it will never perform up to specs, the pilot had better be well trained in watching manifold pressure and when to use water injection to boost speed, and there better be good mechanics and repair depots to take care of engines that were constantly being slogged to the point of burning up. By the start of 1945, a plane like the Nakajima Ki-84, arguably as good a plane as anything possessed by the allies, could rarely attain the altitude needed to attack B-29s due to the poor quality of the fuel, some of which was being stretched using pine root aromatics. They couldn't fly fast enough to attack the speedy P-47N, partly due to fuel and partly due to poor engine manufacturing skills. They were flown by pilots with minimal training who often damaged engines trying to wring the maximum speed out them. The ground crews were sparse and ill trained, and spare parts often didn't reach the airfields which needed them. There was almost no operable heavy equipment to repair damaged runways, so planes were often damaged just taking off or landing. Poor quality fuel, to my understanding, didn't keep planes on the ground, but they didn't allow the aircraft to perform up to specs, and there just wasn't enough of it. The Japanese, especially the Navy, had so many possible points of failure when it came ot aviation that it's remarkable they were able to keep fighting as long as they did.
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  1295. Sign me right up. The Lion would definitely be my most favorite. She would have been the true fast battleship the RN needed for WWII in the Pacific. The proposed hybrid battleship carrier would have been a most interesting ship if he had been built.
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  1296. Vary cool video. It's always interest do do what ifs when it comes to ship battles. On a more recent ship to ship question, what combination of USN surface ships would be needed to defeat the Russian battlecruiser Kirov?
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  1297. True, but I was asking about surface ships/
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  1298. Yes, but my thought was surface ships. I'll change my question now to clarify that.
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  1299.  @gamewarrior010  I can't find any evidence he has when I search his videos. She is mentioned in several battles she was a part of but no separate profile.
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  1300.  @gamewarrior010  Yes, there's one for the Norfolk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_aB1ym8Qc
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  1301. @ZebsFrend I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to assume you're not a native English speaker, and you don't know "having (or not having) a dog in a fight" is a common metaphor that has nothing to do with an actual dog. It means I do (or don't) care about the outcome of some issue. It's not hard to look this up on the net before you start frothing at the mouth. Just to show how wrong your distance viewing is, I'm 73 years old, have a medium length haircut, Don't have a beard, my weight is appropriate for my height, and I have never been a Marine or a Navy Seal, nor ever claimed to be one. Due ot a medical condition called Meniere's Syndrome, I can't drink alcohol of any kind, including beer I did spend 27 years a police officer, some of which was woking special operations with Animal Control and the Humane Society raiding dog and cock fighting dens. I made it a special goal to arrest people for animal cruelty of all types. My wife of 37 years passed away in 2004 after an almost three year battle with leukemia. My dog companion of 14 years passed away last year, and my companion now in my black kitten, Marty. Accusing those you don't know of such vile things based on a single phrase says a lot about your character, none of it good.
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  1302. @ZebsFrend Pt Boats operated in some very dangerous areas of the Pacific, just not the same kind of concentrated danger that was encountered in the Channel and North Sea. 69 boats were lost during the war. The RN wasn't able to match the speed and armament of the E Boats until 1943, with the introduction of the Fairmile D variant. The RN finally had an MTB with the speed to match the E Boats, and the semiautomatic 57 mm ( 6 pounder) Molins gun was the weapon needed to breach the armoured deckhouses of the E boats. Additional 20 mm and 40 mm guns also cut the losses to German aircraft, but nothing could stop the chief cause of MTB sinkings, mines. The USN was lucky that the vast reaches of the Pacific made effective minefields impossible outside of ports or coastal installations.
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  1303.  @mpetersen6  You lost me on that one. Between 59 and 75 what?
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  1304. Most German raiders carried one or two torpedo boats. They weren't the size of a PT boats, being only about 50 feet long, but they rode low in the water and could do 35 knots. When used by captains like von Ruckteschel, along with their aircraft, the reach of a raider was extended way beyond just the visual distance from their ships. The torpedo boats were also very successful minelayers.
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  1305.  @veljkostevanovic7597  I know Kormaran carried at least one LS-3 that had two torpedoes and laid several effective minefields off Australia. You're right about Michel. She only carried one LS-4, named the Esau by von Ruckteschell. I don't know how I got that confused. I'll have to check my records, but I'm pretty sure at least one other raider carried these speedboats. Using them, just like the floatplanes, was dependent on the captain understanding their tactical uses.
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  1306.  @veljkostevanovic7597  https://www.bismarck-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/kormoran.html
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  1307.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Yeah, that is a pretty scary prospect. Thing is, it's still out there, and we've still never been able to develop an effective vaccine because it's such a fast mutator, so we will get another pandemic at some point. We have better medical care than in 1918, so the mortality rate won't be as high, but it will still be in the hundreds of thousands. I really have to wonder if many people today can even handle something liked that without melting into a pool of butter. We seem to be living in a fragile society.
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  1308.  @seanmac1793  Maybe, but Callaghan was kind of on his own with this one, and he never took the time for a proper meeting with his commanders. The real problem was Admiral Ghormley, whose abscessed tooth was apparently to blame for his never even showing up in Guadalcanal. He did a very poor job of coordinating his naval forces, not surprising since he was 900 miles away. His lack of leadership made his commanders interpret orders from headquarters on their own. Callaghan may have done better if Ghormley did better. The whole battle was a mess, and we were lucky this didn't turn into another Savo Island.
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  1309.  @seanmac1793  Yes, when Turner and Fletcher nearly came to fisticuffs over their differing interpretations of the orders from Admiral Nimitz. If Ghormley was there and acting like a proper task force commander. the other two may not have gone off to fight their own version of the Battle of Guadalcanal.
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  1310.  @seanmac1793  Seriously, it was an abscessed tooth. He was waiting for his dentist to get flown in so the tooth could get pulled and he could construct a bridge. He was apparently in a lot of pain from it, but his corpsman made sure he had enough morphine in him so he wasn't feeling it. How much all that contributed to his bad judgment I don't know, but other historians who know a lot more about what happened than I do put partial blame on the tooth for our poor performance on Guadalcanal. .
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  1311.  @wardaddyindustries4348  Drach does do a great job. That being said, he wouldn't own a dreadnought, only the right to dive down and look at the remains.
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  1312. Good Heavens! I enjoy sailing, but the idea being in the French or British navy in the 17th century would have made me immediately desert and run away. Those were tougher and braver men than I could have ever been.
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  1313.  @John-ru5ud  The IJN had a run of incredible luck plus good torpedoes for those sinkings. It was also before the USN had improved their ASW capabilities, making it nearly impossible to get close enough to a US task force for a repeat of those attacks. As we saw with the sinking of Indianapolis however, Japanese subs and unescorted ships were a fatal combination for the USN right up until the end of the war.
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  1314. There's an excellent summary of US logistics in the Pacific during WWII available online called "Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil". You can find it at https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/b/beans-bullets-black-oil.html. It's really an amazing read if you're at all interested in logistics. Considering they were handling the equivalent 5 million of today's SKU's running on a completely manual system is really quite amazing.
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  1315. Quite so. Each sinking would have a more deleterious effect on a country's supply line than sinking even four Liberty ships, which were actually relatively large for 1942. However, a larger ship has more columns and would be correspondingly more difficult to sink than a Liberty ship. It would be interesting to see how convoying would work out. I'd think you'd still need convoys for all the ships of <15 knots while the fast container ships would probably do better sailing indepently.
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  1316. Even that has gotten mucked up when the decision was made in 2008 to name the LHA-6 USS America.
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  1317.  @kyle857  Not the LHA's. They were always named after US battles from various wars until the America.
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  1318.  @PaulfromChicago  The USN hasn't had a CVL since WWII. The America is an LHA, not a CVL, and all other LHA's have been named after historical battles.
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  1319.  @PaulfromChicago  The Wasp is an LHD. The Essex is an LHD. The Kearsarge is an LHD. Stop mixing apples with oranges.
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  1320.  @jrd33  The key word in my post is casemate guns. I understand the torpedo boat threat, but having guns mounted generally low in the bow and stern casemates meant they were unworkable at speed or in rough weather. The casemate openings were impossible to seal against the ingress of the sea and presented serious flooding risks, and bow and stern casemates presented the greatest risk. It's why most navies removed the guns and plated over the openings after a few years of service, replacing them with deck guns.
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  1321. The 5"/54 Mark 16 guns on the Midway class were never considered really satisfactory weapons. The had power controls for the turret and shell handling, but final loading was by hand. At 70 pounds per projectile and another 13 pounds per cartridge case, crew fatigue set in rapidly, reducing rate of fire to below the former 5"/38 gun. The sponsoon mountings were also a problem, as heavy seas moved the mounts around enough to cause some worrisome cracks. The long barrels also overlapped the 40mm quads mounted below them on the same sponsoon causing blast interference and, in some cases, damage to the mounts and the men in them if they didn't get out before the 5"/54's were fired. The Navy was willing to accept these issues as a war emergency measure, but the end of the war brought a rapid landing on the 40mm guns and gradual removal of the 5"/54 guns. With each mount and gun weighing about 35 tons, and poorly positioned weight at that, they had to go to make up for the weight of other systems added during the carrier's long lives.
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  1322.  @ajpoulos  Why would it be cheating?
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  1323. ha, do you brits have any sort of limit on your inability to comprehend English? You must, since you missed the part where I wrote "in some people's minds". Some people's minds included those in the Admiralty and 10 Downing Street. Maybe reading the story at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uk-military-navy-commentary/commentary-what-the-u-s-should-learn-from-britains-dying-navy-idUSKCN10L1AD will enlighten you to the current situation of the RN vs the UN.
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  1324.  @Digmen1  You mean the tank that was named after Churchill but that he had no part in designing or bringing into service?
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  1325.  @jaspergood2091  Yes, it is. Drach so states during the video.
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  1326. I just can't see the Americans going to war with Britain at any point in the 20th century. We were allies in the Great War", hadn't been in a shooting war since 1814, and shared a complete common culture. The US wasn't going to war without the support of her citizens, and it's difficult to understand how that could have developed. I think Britain and the US knew that our common enemy at some point would be Japan. There was no point in exhausting ourselves even further and leave the field open to Japan.
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  1327. The Crown Colony class is one I've never understood. Even as the RN was trying to be honest about following through with naval treaty limits, how was a Colony class ever going to be an effective ship when the USN Cleveland class had the same main battery but was 53 feet longer overall and had a beam over four feet wider. The Clevelands were designed with a wink and a nod to treaty limits, and were still plagued with topweight problems their whole service life. It didn't take a first rate naval architect to tell the Colony class wasn't going to be a success in almost any role. Since the UK could build lots of light cruisers and lots of destroyers, but didn't have the resources of the USN to do both simultaneously, the resources put into Colony class seems like it could have been better spent building more destroyers.
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  1328.  @glennricafrente58  I never said they weren't modified to become useful ships. My point was that most never really served in the role of a twelve gun main battery cruiser because of the continual battle with topweight, Jamaica being one example. My question was if the RN would have been better served by an equivalent displacement in destroyer rather trying to fit Cleveland type armament into a such a relatively small hull.
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  1329.  @glennricafrente58  My remarks had nothing to do with if the Crown Colonies were adapted into acceptable ships. not does involve hindsight. The issues with the vessels were known and discussed as the ships were being designed. Trying to duplicate a Town class cruiser in 1,000 tons less displacement was something designers object to 1936, and most of those objections came to pass, with the inferior armour protection compared to the Towns still not being enough to offset the topweight of the overly large main battery, excessively cramped crew space, and weak antiaircraft protection. Most of these objections were only improved by removal of X turret, removal of their aircraft, and adding more, but still insufficient, antiaircaft guns. My question remains - would the RN have been better off devoting the tonnage ot more destroyers rather than building a class of cruisers that had known problems before they were even laid down?
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  1330.  @johnshepherd8687  That's why I called it a drama, not a history. What's your point?
    1
  1331.  @johnshepherd8687  And I gave my opinion that it was a movie made of of unbelievable elements strung together, therefore not entertaining for me. I'm glad you liked it.
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  1332.    I don't know if you're trolling or what, but Dwight Eisenhower said the Ultra operation, including getting a four reel machine, was decisive in beating Germany. That's good enough for me, and should be good enough for you.
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  1333.  @alecblunden8615  Yes, all countries media have done things like that from time to time. Chauvinism is a thing everywhere. However, channels like this generally set that kind of thing from individuals pretty fast.
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  1334.    Have you ever read Admiral Doenitz's memoirs? No, I didn't think so. He would also join with Eisenhower about the importance of Enigma decrypts in winning the war for the Allies. But, hey, they were only commanders on their respective sides, what would they know?
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  1335. Sorry, Drach. I went through a similar layoff back in 1992. It prompted me to start my own project management firm that was successful for 13 years and made me double the amount of money I ever made as employee. I did most of my work working from my home office and enjoyed it immensely. Go with your idea of starting a consultancy, and don't underprice your time.
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  1336.  @benwilson6145  I don't think it's a matter of how effective they were as sea boats. It was a matter of how well the crew could operate the vessel, and making them walk outside on the pitching, wet, heaving decks to get between the bridge and other parts of the ship made them less effective as escorts. Enclosing passageways made it faster and safer for men to move around, and gave them some protection from the weather and observation by the enemy when they were under attack. I'm rather surprised these are difficult concepts to understand. Do you think the RN would have made a fairly major modification to the superstructure without some significant benefits?
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  1337. Dang, I'm not five hours late this time! Maybe all our stupid lockdowns will be over in time for Episode 100.
    1
  1338. Yes, they did, and they showed the basic concept of the lattice mast was sound, just not the way it was carried out on the older battleships.
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  1339.  @armchairwarlord  Watch the video starting at 01:24:30 so you can see the question I (and Drach) was responding to.
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  1340.  @armchairwarlord  LOL. Many of us are. It's all speculation, but it keeps me from getting a worse case of Alzheimer's.
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  1341. Jay Lozier  Thanks a lot for the explanations. Indeed, the Liberty ships did last many years after the end of the ar so the problems with cracking couldn't have been that widespread. The same welding issues arise from time to time, the Falklands war being one example. Problems with frame cracking showed up in welded connections of steel frame buildings after the 1994 Northridge earthquake,
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  1342.  Russ Gallagher  This thread is over a year old. I explained why I posted what I did. It's really not worth going into again.
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  1343. GrayPanther, do you mean pre WWI or WWII? Since there were no US battleships built in the interwar period except for the South Dakota and Washington classes, both limited by treaty to 35,000 tons, the Panama Canal wasn't really an issue. For pre-WWi ships, I don't think any were even proposed that would have exceeded Panama Canal limits, and I doubt any exceeding those limits would have been built, even without the Canal as an obstacle. Biggest problem without the Canal was range, so US battleships would have been longer than the last standard type ships of the Colorado class. In order to achieve something like the 12,000 mile range needed to go around the Horn, those shops would have needed to be about 100 feet longer.
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  1344. I wonder what the total weight of canvas carried by these two ships was? I've never seen a naval vessel with so many decks covered with awnings.
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  1345.  Daniel Large  Did you not read my reply? I wrote exactly what you wrote.
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  1346. Dang, missed this one when it came out. Another issue for big gun (6" and up) accuracy is dispersion caused by mutual interference from guns in multiple gun mounts. The Italians were big believes in the idea that speed was paramount over all other considerations for cruisers. The Italians insisted on a trial speed of 35 knots, a speed many destroyers couldn't hope for. The only way to achieve high speeds was to install a massive power plant or have a long, narrow hull. The Washington naval treaty limiting heavy cruisers ot 10,000 made it impossible to install a large enough power plant so the only option was a finely detailed narrow hull. This meant the main battery guns had to be installed in narrow turrets with single cradles and the guns mounted closely together. Eight inch mounts had barrels a mere meter apart. The single cradle meant a turret couldn't engage more than one target, and the closely mounted guns, combined with the poor quality control of Italian ammunition, caused shot dispersion of over 50 meters at 9,000 yards. All sorts of tricks were tried to reduce dispersion including reducing muzzle velocity, especially in 6" guns. None of the tricks worked very well, and shot dispersion remained a problem right up to the Zara class. In addition to the Washington naval treaties leading to conversions of battle cruiser hulls to aircraft carriers, it also directly led to advances in submarine technology. Since the numbers and size of submarines wasn't limited under the treaties, all the major powers diverted funds from building major warships to larger ocean going submarines. The technology needed for these vessels led directly the fleet type submarines of WWII. German research into submarine technology led to higher underwater speeds and the Walthers hydrogen peroxide power plants.
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  1347.  @eplekake3870  It was built a time of transition from traditional cruiser sterns to transoms. The US Omaha class had the same kind of pointed stern as the County class but the Northampton class had a semi-transom while the Brooklyn class had a full transom, as did all US ships after about 1935. It would seem a transom stern would increase the amount of usable space on a ship, but I suppose some of the designs were just what a shipyard and navy were used to.
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  1348. Drach, I'd suggest laying out a multiple leg trip in Google maps. The driving times are usually pretty accurate, but I add 10% to the time for the inevitable contingencies. Distances between destinations are not as important here as in Britain. It's travel time that feeds the bulldog. You should also plan at least one rest day between locations or you'll be too exhausted to enjoy your visit. I'm sure some of your fans here are also strategically located near and between destinations and could offer your the hospitality of the house. For example, I'm almost exactly halfway between Charleston and Mobile, have a large guest bedroom with ensuite facilities, wifi, and all the normal modcons. I'd be pleased to have you spend the night, and you'd have that much more money for all books you know you want to buy at every museum. :-)
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  1349.  @derekhenschel3191  Say what?
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  1350.  @normanbraslow7902  Have you read Callo's book? You might change your mind about "gold standard" if you do.
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  1351.  @normanbraslow7902  You're welcome. I'm not sure I'd assert Callo's book "beats" Morison's, but I think they tell essentially the same story in a different way. The two books together gave me a better understanding of such a complex character as Jones than I would have gotten from reading just one of them. I'm looking forward to your assessment. I'm constantly impressed with the depth of knowledge of Drach's subs.
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  1352.  @normanbraslow7902  Thankfully, the covid lockdown is over here in Alabama, so I can actually go out shopping again. The book is also available on Amazon if you want to go that route.
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  1353. Your new opening is very pleasant and professional. I'm fine with some non-obtrusive ads. You need some money just to buy some more reference books!
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  1354. Why didn't RN monitors mount more than two man guns? Was it the need to have the minimum draft, not enough spare guns, need to reduce overall length, something else I haven't thought of? It seems like four rather two main guns could engage more targets while not increasing the crew by the same amount as the increase in firepower.
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  1355.  @darwinism8181  I made no argument about Germany except as how the American public viewed Germany compared to Japan. What would happen in the Pacific was a whole different issue, and I was saying the American public wouldn't accepted any kind of stalemate with Japan. I will say Germany should have had every chance to defeat Russia. The rest of Europe had already fallen for over a year, and Germany wan't under sustained attack from any allied force. The fact they couldn't do so gives me no confidence they should have somehow succeeded later.
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  1356. Pilot skill and bravery will overcome any antiaircraft system. If enough pilots are willing die to achieve their goals, whether Japanese or Argentinian, some will get through any kind of screen designed to stop them.
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  1357.  @WALTERBROADDUS  I don't know, Walter. There's no ECM or any other system that will defeat a pilot flying a fast jet armed with a couple of iron bombs. The stories of some of the Argentine pilots are absolutely terrifying. Bravery and skill were the two big differences between those air force and navy pilots and the bulk of the Argentine forces on the Falklands.
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  1358.  @WALTERBROADDUS  It illustrated the gunfighter versus gunfighter aspect of war. Missiles were handicapped by radar clutter and CIWS by the proximity of the ships in a crowded anchorage. The guys on those "obsolete" weapons, everything from 7.62mm LMG's bolted into rail stanchions to the 20mm and 40mm guns aimed with the Mark 1 Eyeball gun sights, broke up most of the attacks and brought down most of the attackers.
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  1359.  @WALTERBROADDUS  The Argentines did indeed have two Type 42 destroyers. They were only commissioned about two years before the war and had a radar and electronics fit that was an almost exact match to the British Type 42's. The Argentine navy and air force pilots flew training missions against the ships to determine the right mission profiles to assure that at least one plane got through. They found the Sea Dart missile radars couldn't target more than two low flying planes as long as they were no more than 10-15 meters above the sea surface and were flying at 350 knots or more. A number of three plane formations were flown during attacks against British shipping. Of the three pilots that took off, they knew there was nearly a 100% chance that two of them would not be returning. That's what I mean by bravery.
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  1360. Even though the base pay isn't much, I understand the overtime pay is pretty good. -)
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  1361. Thanks for another great video of a real fighting ship. Having never been in combat, I often wonder if I could display the bravery of Captain Evans and his crew.
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  1362.  @grahamariss2111  BUt there wasn't plenty of land in the British Isles, and transporting a bomb from Britain to Australia in wartime may have been seen as a bit...risky. :-)
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  1363.  @polygondwanaland8390  Did you forget you need a lot more than that to build an atomic bomb? There's plenty of empty land and uranium, but Canada didn't have the industrial capacity to carry forth the Manhattan Project unaided. Much of the uranium for the Little Boy bomb did come from Canada, and some universities there aided in the research work, but it's a little silly to suggest Canada could have built the bomb by itself, or even with British help.
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  1364.  @chrism7969  I understand that. The key part is post WWII . It was obviously a little safer to send a bomb by ship in 1953 than it would have been in 1944.
    1
  1365.  @chrism7969  What? The US embargo on oil and steel was before Pearl Harbor. If the Japanese didn't leave China, the embargo would have continued. This was an embargo on US oil, and we were the biggest oil producers in the world in 1941. The Japanese had to seize Dutch and British oil fields to offset the loss of American product. Do you think the Japanese could have done that without a response by the British? The British declared war after the attack on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Do you think they wouldn't have done so regardless of what was happening Europe? Send a bomb to Australia on a cruiser because there was little risk? Are you aware of how the gun type mechanism that contained half the US supply of enriched uranium for Little Boy got to Tinian? How about what happened on the return trip? You seem to be stretching for some way the bomb could have been built in the Empire. Even with the determined push of the Manhattan Project, it was clear early on no bombs would have been ready before mid-1945 at the earliest. Once Germany surrendered, the only reason for the British to continue to push for the bomb is that they were at war with Japan. There's no way to untangle the allies in this war. Britain would have had to respond to the Japanese attacks, and they barely had the resources at that time to challenge Germany. Roosevelt could not have stood by and watched Britain try to fight a war in the Atlantic and Pacific alone. Once Japan decided to attack US, British, and Dutch territories, that was it. The World War was underway, and Germany and Japan would both be destroyed.
    1
  1366.  @chrism7969  Go back and read the first post again. It's about Britain developing an atomic bomb on their own if they didn't hand over the project to the Americans in 1940 to 1941. There's nothing about the Americans not entering war. The post says "...handed over in total in 1941 to the Americans when they entered the war." The Americans and British were partners in developing the bomb as far back as 1939. The British recognized it was unlikely they could develop an atomic bomb without the participation of the Americans in any timeline that wasn't likely to see either the British or Germans otherwise defeated. I'm sorry, but I've read your post three times now, and you seem to going off to refute things I never wrote. Sure, the British could have developed an atomic bomb and used it to defeat Germany...assuming the war lasted until about 1949. Maybe they could have done it with sharks that had frickin lasers strapped on their heads for all I know, but none of this has anything to do with the point I was addressing.
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  1367.  @chrism7969  The original question seems pretty clear to me, but we are apparently talking past each now. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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  1368. IronDuke (what a great British name, BTW), the 4.5" gun was a success in the Falklands but not because of the 4.5" gun itself. The shore bombardment missions were never more than about 12 miles inland, and the missions were mostly attacking things like non-hardened emplacements and airport runways. The weight of explosives in the British 4.5" and USN 5"/62 is the main difference, with the 4.5" round carrying about 46 pounds of explosive and the 5"/62 about 69 pounds. The RN should catch up with the new 5" gun, but even 69 pounds worth of explosive is pitiful compared to the super heavy 6"/47 round on the Cleveland class with 130 pounds worth, and that pales compared to the super heavy 8"/55 with 335 pounds of righteous indignation. Yes, railguns may "someday" be displacing conventional explosive firing guns but we've now been working in these since 2006 with no real progress on a way to provide the massive amounts of electrical power needed and a way of dissipating the tremendous amounts of heat used with each shot. We'll need ships with extremely well armored electrical systems as well, since one shot disrupting electrical power means a ship would have no railgun or guns. Given the survivability of electrical systems with much lower outputs in combat, that's a significant problem. Given the USN's failures with the much more conventional 8" AGS, I think the 2030's may be an optimistic goal.
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  1369.  @AdamMGTF  LOL. I've seen the "front fell off" sketch. It doesn't translate to American humor very well, but I liked it. Of course, I also liked Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, so that should tell you something. :-) It wasn't just the older cruisers with weak bows, and it wasn't just from torpedoes. USS Pittsburgh, a Baltimore class heavy, lost its bow in a typhoon in June, 1945, although the still floating bow was rounded up by a Navy tug and towed to Guam. I've never read a complete report on the all too frequent bow failures, but it seems the extensive use of the still not well understood challenges of naval welding contributed to it. There were also problems with the speed of the work and inspections not always carried out. The same kinds of issues plagued Liberty ships, made even worse by the intramural competition for bonuses based on how fast a ship was built.
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  1370.  @steveb6103  Certainly is was the power of the Long Lance that played its part but, as I just pointed out, a typhoon caused the same thing.
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  1371.  @georgettewolf6743  Please don't add comment #56 to an almost year old post. I have no memory of what I said about the CG being part of Homeland Security or the Treasury Department, and I'm not about to trawl through all those comments to find out. If you feel you have something important to add make a new post so we can see it. However I'm a little doubtful about what you wrote since Her Majesty's Coastguard exists and has nothing to do with with the RN. In addition, no CG vessel has had a 5"/38 gun since the last one was removed for the Hamilton class cutters in the late 80's, over 30 years ago . Currently, no cutter has a main armamnentl larger that an OTO Melara Mark 75 76 mm/62 caliber gun, with the largest cutters, the Legend class, only having an incredibly weak 57mm gun for main armament. With nothing other than a Phalanx and some crew served machine guns as a secondary armament, no antisubmarine capability other than her single helicopter, and no missiles, they are the most poorly armed new build 4,500 ton warships in the world.
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  1372.  Jack Tangles  Thanks, and let me know what you find out. I only know what I've read in several Coast Guard histories of the prewar neutrality patrols, and I assume their narrative for what Modoc did that night, while perhaps somewhat inflated, is still about right when it came to where she was and what she saw.
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  1373.  Jack Tangles  LOL. No it's not. Geographers now seem to favor calling it the Greenland Strait, which makes a lot mmore sense, since it's between Greenland and Iceland.
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  1374.  @hugmal37  It's the Denmark Strait rather than just Greenland, but not having the plotted path of the Coast Guard vessels, it's like asking how long would it take to drive from the Lower 48 to Alaska. What part of the Lower 48 to what part of Alaska makes a huge difference. I'm sure you can come up with some position reports and plot it if the information is important to you.
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  1375.  @sprucezeus  They Flying Tiger pilots were all commissioned in the ROC Air Force so there was no legal problem with them being considered mercenaries. The Japanese always considered them to be mercenaries and weren't signatories to the Geneva Convention. A pilot down near Japanese lines had very little chance of rescue and even less chance of humane treatment at the hands of Japan. Boyington and Chenault clashed because Chenault was a teetotaler and Boyington was an admitted alcoholic. Many of his successful missions were flown while he was drunk, something "Chenault detested, but Boyington was to popular and well know in the US for him to do much about it. I hadn't heard about any draft issues with Boyington. He was given a major's commission when he rejoined the Marine Corps, something that seems unlikely if there was any serious consideration about drafting him as a second lieutenant. Maybe this is part of his story I haven't read yet.
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  1376.  @sprucezeus  "Old Leatherface" was common and apt moniker for Chenault, a side effect of too much sun in open cockpits and smoking three packs a day. Chenault fought with almost everyone, from Stillwell down to ground mechanics. There's no doubt Chenault was one of our major architects of modern pursuit flying, but he was also a little nuts. He fought with everyone over his crazy plan that he and maybe 30 bombers could end the war with Japan singlehandedly. That provoked yet another war between himself and Stillwell. Fights between Chenault and Boyington while in China were almost legendary, including a barroom brawl after Chenault and Boyington got in a physical fight over Boyington being drunk again when he was supposed to lead a major raid the next day. As you say, he wanted to court martial Boyington after that fight but no one knew if it would be legal to imprison him since they were both essentially contract employees of Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang didn't want a public feud between two of his top men. He had a great respect for Chiang and wouldn't do anything against his wishes. I still haven't found anything about him wanting to demote Boyington to second lieutenant, but the two hated each other, so I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't yet another of Chenault's crazy ideas that never came to pass.
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  1377.  @cliveengel5744  Read through the replies to find out where this took place. It wasn't in the Greenland-Iceland Gap.
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  1378.  @japhfo  You'll have to refresh my memory. When did I mention anything about H.M. Coast Guard? What does this have to do with the sinking of the Bismarck?
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  1379.  @benwilson6145  You can find a detailed report of the action written by two Coasties (to retire as a Rear Admiral and the other as a Captain) who were crew members of the Modoc at the time of the action. They will answer your questions better than I can.
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  1380. Happy Birthday, Dr. Potato!
    1
  1381.  @dr.potato76  You're welcome. How many years do you have on the clock?
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  1382. Another great video!
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  1383. Boy, what I would have given almost anything to be in my 1963 Am History class and being able to sneak watching a Drach video instead of listening to Mr. Blake drone on...and on.
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  1384.  @ShadrachVS1  Country indeed. Mobile to Galveston by road is about 100 miles longer than London to Edinburgh, and we don't have any Virgin high speed trains to go between the two points either. A bigger issue is when will Texas be reopened to the public. A ship's survey is still underway, and having any work completed by next April is beyond doubtful.
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  1385. I don't know who your guest is, not having a real interest in early artillery, but it sounds like some of his his answers are knitted together from some other podcast, His pauses seem quite unnatural, and it seems like some words get dropped in between pauses. The throat clearing thing doesn't help either.
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  1386.  @ieuanhunt552  What weapon? Certainly not true for a 40 mm gun.
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  1387.  @guidor.4161  Thanks!
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  1388.  @jcgamer892  No problem. I believe you're confusing a question of mine about triple turrets in general with my specific question about the H class. I'm sure Drach can tell us.
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  1389.  @calvingreene90  Indeed, the Brits have always been the best at spying, but I'm pretty sure even a fair to middling industrial espionage agent could know about British and US plans for building battleships, especially because it would mostly only require reading the morning papers over a spot of tea.
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  1390.  @michaelkroger899  Crew size for four turrets more than three...no more armor for twin turrets than triple...rate of fire has nothing to do with number of barrels...one less shell hoist and magazine with three than four...one less magazine with three than four...8 guns compared to 9...ship needs to be longer, engines more powerful for same speed...More armor for same protection...
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  1391.  @michaelkroger899  This thread is getting insanely long, but read Nguyen Johnathan's post about halfway down. I think he has the best answer. Krupp was the only turret builder for the navy, and their innate conservatism and dislike for the idea of anything other than twin turrets is how the battleships ended up with twin turrets. Not any inability to manufacture them, technical limitations of shipbuilding or canals, just that Krupp didn't want to build anything other than twin turrets. Since they had the monopoly, they ruled.
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  1392.  @michaelkroger899  Did you bother to read the post and summary of what Norman Friedman wrote? He's a long time naval analyst with the US Naval Institute with a PhD over 30 books to his credit on naval subjects from all over the world. His summary makes perfect sense. There no reason you need to be German to understand German shipbuilding anymore than you need to be American to understand US shipbuilding.
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  1393.  @michaelkroger899  Yes, and I'm 73 and have been reading on this theme for 60 years. So what? I still know there are people that know a lot more about naval technology and naval history than I do. Norman Friedman is one of those people. If you think you know more than a world renowned author and expert on the subject then your ego knows no bounds.
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  1394.  @michaelkroger899  And you know Mr. Friedman can't read German and no German book has ever been translated to English. You go ahead and get your facts in ways only you understand.
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  1395.  @frankwittner1979  That's certainly possible. The German had experience with twin turrets during WWI, and that concept probably carried over in WWII. It still seems odd that the Deutschlands and the light cruisers all had triple turrets though. It seems likely that the experience with twin turrets in 8" and above ships during the pervious war, Krupp's preference for building twin turrets, and the innate conservatism of the naval staff pushed the designers toward twin turrets.
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  1396.  @brisktea64  You're welcome.
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  1397.  @StonedDragons  And you don't hit a kangaroo...or dingo. :) I've never had the chance to get to Australia but my brother was there on business about eight years and took that very drive. It took him four days, and he's no slouch when it comes to long distance driving. He took videos of te drive and it mostly just blue sky stretched right to the horizon. I was having a hard time staying awake just watching the videos let along taking that drive.
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  1398.  @toddwebb7521  I'm going ot have to press X to doubt on that one. Bristol TN, the furthest eastern point in TN, is 502 miles to Memphis. It's 565 miles from there to Windsor, Ontario. Unless there's some esoteric combination of cities I don't know about, I still think it's further to Canada.
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  1399.  @spikespa5208  Where exactly is this most north easterly point in TN? I'm still having trouble working out that distance.
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  1400.  @themadhammer3305  The Bogue's were good examples of this kind of conversion. If the Germans had aircraft carriers and the aircraft needed to strike at these ships, the number of losses would have skyrocketed. Since that didn't happen, using them as hunter/killers against German subs was their best use but, even then, three were lost to U-Boat torpedoes. It's hard to see a 500 foot/17,000 ton conversion being done today. In addition to the speed issue you raise, the increase in aircraft size and weight would make carrying a useful air group impossible. One of the reasons these escort carriers succeeded was the availability of the relatively tiny FM-1/-2 Wildcat, big enough to use as an attacker and even occasional dive bomber, but small enough so you could get 12 of them on the ship, backed up by a smaller group of 8 or 9 TBF Avengers to carry the depth chargers and homing torpedoes that killed the subs. I really can't think of 20 fixed wing aircraft today that could fit on a Bouge. That means larger and more expensive ships to use for conversions, and you start spending as much money on conversions as you would to build small carriers more useful in war. I will say the increasing capabilities of UAVs might entirely change the equation.
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  1401.  @themadhammer3305  The Independence class CVLs are a good example of what you're thinking. Fast enough to operate with the fleet cna could be built fast enough to substitute for a real fleet carrier for about ten months. It's there that the good points end. They cramped, and hanger space was too long instead of wide. The conversion process cost nearly as much as building a proper small carrier, and seakeeping with the extra topweight was poor. To try to compensate for these deficiencies, the Saipan class was built. These used the hulls of Baltimore class heavy cruisers rather than the light cruiser Cleveland class hulls as in the Independence class. These had better seakeeping because they were designed for keel up as carriers, but they were even more expensive and slower to build. Neither of the two that were competed got in service before the end of the war, and both took over two years to commission. Compare that to the Essex, laid down in April, 1941 and commissioned in December 1942, and the diminishing returns of "almost carriers" becomes obvious. I will admit to some foot dragging on the part of the Navy. The brass hated these light carriers, and it was only President Roosevelt's insistence that got them built.
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  1402.  @USSAnimeNCC-  The Juan Carlos I was built as a multipurpose amphibious assault ship rather than pure carrier. One of the hangars is used for aircraft and the other generally for vehicles, but both can be joined together to make one large space if needed. It only has a top speed of 21 knots, your first hint this is not a purpose built carrier. By contrast, the now discarded Príncipe de Asturias was built as a carrier, and could at least get to 26 knots.
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  1403. The USN developed a sort of monitor in the LSM(R) class vessels. They were landing ships rather than landing craft and were fully seagoing vessels with a range of 5,000 nm. At 1194 tons and 203 feet, they were fairly large vessels and capable of 13 knots. The LSM(R) 501 class was the most effective and built in large numbers, 62 having been constructed by the end of the war. Firing 10 automatic loading spin stabilized rocket launchers firing at 30 rockets per minute as well as having a 5"/38 gun, they were capable of completely blanketing a landing area in fire over the course of five minutes. Some remained in service right through the Vietnam war.
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  1404.  @niclasjohansson4333  Correct, but that only helps with catching up to the merchant ship. The firing solution for a torpedo against a ship moving at 25 knots is orders of magnitude more difficult than than hitting an 8 knot freighter.
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  1405.  @AdamMGTF  Most torpedo technology really hasn't changed since WWII. The amount of explosives in the modern tornado has actually decreased because the torpedo need high speeds to catch that ship sailing off at 25 knots. I know there are modern torpedoes with better sensors so they could theoretically detonate only under the hull close enough to break the keel. Let's just say the new technology of magnetic pistols didn't work out too well at the beginning of the war. Most torpedoes don't undergo extensive testing because the torpedoes themselves are expensive, and finding hulls to practice on is expensive. A lot of the work that's done is by computer simulation. I'll take it all wit a gran of salt until I see it in action. The other issue is it's unlikely you can sink a 1,000 foot long, 200,000 ton vessel with a single torpedo hit. The ships have better survivability just because of the large internal volume, and many modern container ships have much better compartmentation than Liberty ships. Almost any sinking would require multiple hits, and each additional torpedo becomes mathematically less likely to score a hit as the ship is moving off at 25 knots. Sinking merchant ships in a 2019 war is a much different proposition than in 1945.
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  1406. The UJSS Cleveland could have been considered a pre-WWII cruiser since it was laid down in 1 July 1940 and launched 1 November 1941. She wasn't commissioned until 15 June, 1942, so that would remove her from consideration if commision date is the criteria. Assuming the Cleveland was in the mix then I don't there's much doubt about the best pre-war cruiser.
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  1407. Electro boats put in service a year earlier and in numbers certainly had the chance to prolong the war. The two that made it into combat areas in March of 1945 remained undetected until the end of the war. If construction had begun in 1942 instead of 1943, not only could more boats have been able to put to sea, they would have been manned by better trained crews and more experienced officers. Maybe the most important point is German crews, instead of being demoralized by their inability to get into convoys and sink ships and essentially waiting until their boat was sunk, would now be able to slip undetected in a convoy, sink some ships, and sprint away from the escort vessels. Germany still would have been in extremis trying to fight off the Russians, but gaining maybe another year would have seen a a new range of guided weapons in service. Electro boats are the only thing I can see that might have prolonged the war enough for that to happen.
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  1408.  @johntillman6068  Who mentioned Sherman's? What context was in mentioned compared to Gearing's? This thread is over two years old with 21 replies, so some detail is helpful.
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  1409.  @WALTERBROADDUS  Equivalent perhaps but not the same.
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  1410.  @chandlerwhite8302  Yes. That's exactly what I said, but be my guest if you want to repeat it.
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  1411. I was happy to see this request comes from a rando naval "historian" rather than someone worth more reply time than we'd normally see with a guy writing from mom's basement.
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  1412. Habitability has proven to be one of the main factors in an efficient ship, but it took the world's navies a long time to recognize that and cater for it in design. For example, it took until late in WWII before air conditioning was added to USN subs in the Pacific, something technically possible by the early 30's, and then only because al the new electronics kept shorting out due to the overwhelming humidity and resultant moisture buildup. What was found in postwar studies was air conditioning not only improved the performance and longevity of the electronic gear, it eliminated many of the minor sick calls seen in non-air conditioned units, improved the men's appetites so they lost less weight out on patrol, improved alertness, especially while having to stand lookout and man deck guns in the heat, and even decreased the number of captain's mast hearings for fighting and insubordination. The results of the studies changed the design of new surface ships as well as subs, and ships already under construction had air conditioning added. USS Newport News was modified just after the start of construction in 1946 and emeged in 1948 as the first fully air conditioned ship in the USN. Every frigate size up ship has had air conditioning built in ever since. I don't know when the RN started adding air conditioning. I know a few submarines had US Carrier self contained units added before they were transferred to the Pacific fleet, but I don't know when air conditioning was added to surface ships other than it was sometime in the 50's. I'm hoping someone with more RN knowledge than me can fill in the blanks. Interestingly, some senior officers were totally against adding a/c, feeling it would make the men "soft". It was to the point in at least one case where a captain ordered the air conditioning turned off except for equipment spaces while on patrol in the Persian Gulf, or possibly the Indian Ocean. I forget the exact location now. Wherever it was, the air temperatures during the day rose to 110F, the sea surface temperature was in the mid 90's, and crew space temperatures rose to over 100. Men were passing out from the heat at their stations and the sick bay was swamped with cases of heat exhaustion. It was only the strenuous objections from the medical staff and senior CPO's that got the a/c turned back on.
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  1413. Has the unrotated projectile mount and ammunition been found innocent of contributing to the fatal explosion. It seems the UP comes and goes with time as being the cause, or at least contributing the cause.
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  1414. Thanks for another interesting video. It must have been a great time to be a ship's captain. You cabin occupied most of the stern at the main deck level with enough windows to outstrip a cruise ship. All this and you got that prize money and were allowed to flog any sailor that irritated you.
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  1415.  @MendTheWorld  Why? Because your comments, at least one of which you have apparently deleted, were the most incendiary in the thread. It's not necessary to respond what you see as vitriol with equal or greater vitriol.
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  1416. The new opening makes me want to grab a wrench and get to work. :-)
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  1417.  @willrogers3793  The US treaty cruisers solved the interference problem by having the center barrel fire about a tenth of a second after the the two outer barrels. Since the American guns were fired electrically, this was a fairly easy fix. OTOH, I've never read any convincing evidence that this theoretical problem was ever a real life issue. Even the poor dispersion with French and Italian ships that had closely spaced guns were better explained by poor quality ammunition and deficient crew training.
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  1418.  @bkjeong4302  Four of the six Iowas were completed because they were already launched or underway at the time the Montanas were cancelled, and the Navy did need fast carrier escorts with the ability to fight off Japanese aircraft. Two of the completed Iowa's were launched before the decision to axe the Montana class, and the remaining two were launched shortly thereafter. The last two Iowa's were suspended after the Montana cancellations, having been laid down in 1942, pending postwar decisions about the best uses for the large hulls. My post was only about a strategic recognition that the days of the fast battleship were numbered. Taranto, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor were tactical operations that lead up to the strategic reassessment.
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  1419.  @troopertrooper8925  There times I don't think people are actually reading what I wrote. As I wrote, the Japanese did the minimum the British requested in terms of complying with the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. They searched for German raiders but, even with a substantial number of ships, never managed to find or sink one. The Japanese were hoping to learn British convoy and antisubmarine techniques, so assisting in the Mediterranean was beneficial to them. Even with two divisions of modern destroyers, they didn't sink a single sub, but they almost lost one of their own to a torpedo attack. Who cares if the British thought Japanese sailors were good seamen? That had nothing to do with bigger picture. Most of their effort in hunting down German vessels in the Pacific Ocean was to make sure the Germans couldn't interfere with their seizures of German held islands. The Japanese, far from helping Britain, devoted nearly all their naval assets to the seizures of these islands. They seized every German held island in the Pacific north of the equator in only two months. Many of those islands, like the Marianas and Gilberts, would become familiar names only 20 years later. The British knew what was going, but they thought exchanging some insignificant German possessions was a small price to pay to stop Japan's expansion in China. They knew Japan was an expansionist empire and wanted to see the latest in British warships. The British made sure the Japanese fleet wasn't invited to naval bases in Britain and that the Japanese assignments in the Med didn't bring them into contact with any of the main fleets. The Japanese had just started building their own battleships and were looking for any ideas they could get their hands on. The Japanese were formal and polite, as were the British, much like boxers before the fight sizing up the opposition. Understand the "jittery allies" comment now?
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  1420.  @johnshepherd8687  The US also had South America to keep an eye on. Brazil and Argentina were both rich countries in the last half of the 19th century, and both countries were building up their fleets. Trying to enforce a blockade on the very long coastlines of Argentina and/or Brazil would have been difficult task.
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  1421.  @johnshepherd8687  Right, but South America was nonetheless a concern. The US couldn't look at Europe alone as a threat.
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  1422.  @johnshepherd8687  Can't argue with the basic assumptions there.
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  1423. The reason why the Iowas survived in reserve while the rebuilt "old" battleships were scrapped by 1960 was speed. The Iowas had a top speed of 33 knots and could effectively operate with fast carrier task forces. The best of the old battleships could only make 24 knots. In terms of armament, a ship like the rebuilt West Virginia was only slightly inferior to the Iowa in most things but speed, but that turned out to be the critical difference.
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  1424.  @bigbigmurphy  The Navy really isn't taking the role of shore bombardment to support landings seriously. The assumption is future landings will all be done by helicopters and hovercraft so shore bombardment doesn't matter now. I hope we never really have to test that theory.
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  1425.  @bigbigmurphy  Yes, there's a reason why the PRC and ROC have been facing each other down for the last 70 or so years and nothing has happened. At this point, I'm not sure the PRC really wants to invade Taiwan anyway. They are getting all the trade and technology advantages of Taiwan with none of the associated costs.
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  1426.  @chrisbruce5711  I thought my first sentence about preserved battleships was pretty clear. It's why I didn't mention the USS Constitution either. At any rate, I accept your apology.
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  1427.  @bf9142ftw  Not a dumb question at all. The barbette is a fixed armored ring inside the rotating gun mount. It's what protects the interior of the turret and shell hoists above deck level from incoming shells. Since the barbette is completely enclosed inside the turret ring, a missing barbette wouldn't be noticed with a ship that's permanently anchored with the gun house sitting on top of the rotating structure. Since the weight of the barbette is what holds the gun housing in place, you wouldn't want to put to sea with a missing barbette.
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  1428.  @bf9142ftw  Pretty much. One of the Iowas (I'm not sure which one) had a damaged barbette that needed replacing. It would have taken about a year to build a new one, so taking one from the North Carolina was the fastest way to get the ship back in service. Lift off the gun house, extract the barbette, and set the gun house back down on the rotating ring mount. I never would have known it happened if there wasn't a sign next to the turret with the story.
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  1429.  @bf9142ftw  It was just a free standing sign and not very big so it may have gotten moved around. My understanding is the interior of the turret is just an empty shell, but there was no viewing of it available when i was there about six years ago.
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