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

  1.  @dennisweidner288  Had the Japanese force been concentrated the outcome would not have been much different, possibly even worse since the Japanese surface ships were of limited AAA value, but, since Japan had no radar HAD to be sent on a wide ring around the carriers to provide early warning... Which all fails if the clouds are just right... The Japanese dispersed their fleet in hopes the Americans would send their carriers to parry the attack on the Aleutians which would enable the main force to take out Midway before any US carriers appeared. It was a sound idea which was ruined only by US codebreaking of which the Japanese were not aware. Note that the US likewise divided their fleet later in the war (Philippine sea: surface ships forming an AAA wall, carrier group behind, transport group and CVEs far behind not intended to take part in the battle but rather conduct their landing and ASW job. Later US introduced radar pickets while working on putting less vulnerable submarines to the same use).
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  2. 59:44 No mention of Master and Commander? Ben Hur? Perhaps even Michiel de Ruyter?
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  3. Guided missiles checking in...
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  4.  @bkjeong4302  Well it is true that ultimately there were no survivors from Chokai after the destroyer Fujinami which scuttled her and picked up the crew was later herself sunk with all hands by US aircraft so we will never know for sure the true sequence of her doom.
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  5.  @bkjeong4302  Battleships DID win WW1 for the Entente (by maintaining a blockade of Germany and ensuring US would join the Entente). Evidently, damaging as they were, the submarines did not change the outcome of the war. The all big-gun battleship concept was born before the Russo-Japanese war, it was merely vindicated there, steam turbine propulsion was too. Dreadnought would have been built even had there been no Russo-Japanese war. Besides, the battleships soon reverted to having secondary guns to counter the torpedo boats and destroyers so the Dreadnought revolution was more about having the steam turbine propulsion (soon also to be oil fired), being larger and having more of the big guns than trully being an "all big gun" design. As for WW2 - battleships were not obsolete - as evidenced by countles ships they sank, shore targets they destroyed and planes they shot down.
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  6.  @RAFMnBgaming  😂
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  7. 00:44:28 I am no linguist but could the Italian term "fregata" (from which the English term "frigate" comes) be connected to the also Italian (Venetian more specifically) term "regata" (regatta as a loan word in English) which denotes a boat race? Given the linguistic similarities and the fact that frigates were built for speed I believe it is likely. The term "regatta" is from Venetian regata ("contention for mastery"), from regatare ("compete, haggle, sell at retail").
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  8. 00:00:32 There is a rather sensationalist account of one of the German Navy's shore bombardment in the Baltics here from 37:20 conducted by Task Force Thiele, centered around KMS Prinz Eugen I believe. I do wonder if the account is correct as in fine daylight weather the ships would have certainly received some unwanted attention of the Red Air force and neatly parking an entire tank brigade during an advance and expected German counterattack seems strange even if it was time to re-supply: https://youtu.be/R-FdIEgCJ_Y Many of the ships of the Soviet Baltic fleet were damaged and worn out by the siege of Leningrad. Soviet navy was more concerned with mines (the Baltic being VERY heavily mined by both sides - mines took a heavy toll even on Soviet submarines), German submarines and Luftwaffe smart bombs than with the remnants of the German navy surface ships.
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  9. Still 80+ planes... Compare that to Bearn or Eagle...
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  10. 1:47:58 - During the War of the Pacific Peruvian civillian boat packed with explosives (effectively turned into a mine) sank the Chilean steam sloop Covadonga (the hero of the Battle of Punta Gruesa). During the First Balkan War the Greek merchant ship Trifimia turned ad hoc troop transport for the Serbian Army saw the Ottoman protected cruiser Hamidiye off with fire from a lone Serbian gun which was being transported and set up by the gunners on the deck of the ship to face the threat.
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  11. Look. Even the fanatical Japanese at the Leyte Gulf retreated when odds became too great. Your projected battle is far more devastating than it would have been. Tsushima was such a battle because the Russians had no choice but to fight it out to Vladivostok or surrender/go into internment and the Japanese ships were significantly faster. Surigao Strait was a fanatical sacrifice by Nishimura but as soon as he was out of action captains of his remaining ships decided to retreat, and so did Shima. Germans had a safe place to retreat to and would have used the option when it became too hot - Jutland-style. They would have accepted a line battle for longer this time as it was a battle for honor and there would be more casualties sure (not least because of Beatty's agressiveness which would surely be greeted with some torpedo hits by German destroyers as they covered the retreat) but remember - Hipper was in charge of the High Seas Fleet and his command would be a repeat of the "death ride" he performed at climax at Jutland but on a grand scale - followed by retreat and abandonment of crippled ships (Dogger Bank style).
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  12.  @davidknowles2491  They helped. But Akatsuki was smothered by Atlanta's return fire and San Francisco ceased firing at some point (when Hiei opened up on Atlanta?)
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  13. Kolom-bangara not kolom-baranga.
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  14. No French ships were handed over to the Germans. The attacks was not only unneccessary but also counterproductive.
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  15. They did sink two Japanese battleships with mines during the war.
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  16. Turkey didn't enter WW1 on the Central Power's side because Goeben came to Turkey. I know the rationale is often repeated but it makes no sense. Rather Turkey first decided to fight with the Central Powers and then consequently allowed Goeben and Breslau crews to stay with the ships instead of interning them.
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  17. 38:19 - while the RN trolled the French, the French did respond a bit - Surcouf, Suffren, Dugay-Trouin, Massena, Montcalm, later also De Grasse for instance - named after the French naval and land commanders successful against the British. Oddly enough the British kinda trolled THEMSELVES (or showed a bit of solidarity with their French allies - take your pick) with the monitors Marchal Soult (named after a Napoleon's marshal, a fierce adversary of the British in the Peninsular war) and Marchal Ney named after a Napoleon's marshal that beat them at Quatre Bras (debatable). The Dutch navy trolled the RN with the names of their cruisers and destroyers - named after their famous admirals that successfully fought the English in the Anglo-Dutch wars (must have been fun for the captain of the RN HEAVY cruiser Exeter to be commanded from the Dutch flagship of the ABDA force at the Battle of the Java Sea - the LIGHT cruiser De Ruyter...). But the USN was perhaps the biggest troll of the British... Ships named Yorktown, Lexington, Saratoga, Bunker Hill, Bon Homme Richard... All connected to US victories over the British during the US War of Independence. And even if one got sunk the USN would give the same name to a new ship... Must have been fun for the British Pacific Fleet in late WW2 operating with the USN... In turn, one navy that nowadays kinda trolls the USN is the JMSDF - re-using the names of the Kido Butai's carriers and other major units of the IJN that terrorized the Americans in early Pacific War (although many of the names have actually had a far longer tradition in the IJN).
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  18. Legend has it that the first officer's surname was Kowalski...
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  19. All the better - broadsides present bigger targets for Type 93 torpedoes >:-D
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  20. Regarding the 250k competition is this the community post section that you are referring to? https://www.youtube.com/c/Drachinifel/community I don't see any announcement about the winners.
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  21.  @hatman4818  Do you really believe the Hercules was supposed to ride the Atlantic waves? Hercules was a worse disaster then Breda Ba88.
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  22. Inept admiral: Jacob von Wassenaer Obdam - a land army colonel put in charge of the Dutch fleet for political reasons due to deep divisions within the Netherlands at the time. He actually had a pretty decent idea on how to counter the British (relying on firepower rather than boarding), but it took a competent admiral (De Ruyter) and the construction of larger purpose-built warships (such as De Zeven Provincien) in order to successfully put it into practice - all after Obdam got himself killed in a naval battle.
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  23.  @OslikusPrime  Yes but the missiles are not the same. Russian missiles have longer range because of USN superiority on the high seas. So a Typhoon which could hit USA from the waters close to the Soviet union not covered by US SOSUS barriers and where the USSRs large coast defense navy + air forces could protect her from USN is still far more useful than an Ohio class sub would be.
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  24.  @dandarling152  True. Serbian field artillery fired on Austro-Hungarian armored river monitors on the Danube many times in the 1914-15 period, scoring many hits with regular HE shells, sometimes forcing them to retire but never managing to sink any that way.
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  25. Blockading the Austro-Hungarians, sinking the SMS Zenta in the Battle of Antivari, taking part in the Dardanells campaign (losing Bouvet to mines I think), supplying Montenegro with ammo until it capitulated, participated in protecting troop convoys (including the Serbian evacuation) in Mediterranean against submarines, taking part in maintaining an anti-submarine patrols at the Otranto Barrage - even the Japanese of all countries helped with a few destroyers in this, sent submarines to Adriatic to hunt for Austro-Hungarian ships with one winning a dubious distinction of being the first sub sunk by air attack (the pilot, Dimitrije Konjovic of the Austro Hungarian navy then landed his Lohner floatplane and let the surviving crew cling to the floats until rescued), sending some guns ashore to Montenegro to shell the Austro-Hungarian fleet at anchor at Cattaro (the effort was ultimately defeated by counter-battery fire of an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought directed from airplanes), sending some 138mm secondary guns ashore to help protect Belgrade from the Austro-Hungarian river monitors - in a move called "mission D" (3 guns + 2 more later to replace losses) the last 3 ultimately disabled and abandoned when the Austro-Hungarians and Germams captured Belgrade the second time in 1915.
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  26. US: [does the same during WW1] UK: Um... Another loan pls?
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  27.  @stonks6616  Exactly. So if there was no £ for Warspite there wouldn't have been enough for the Hood either. Or for extension of Vaunguard's service into the 80s for that matter. Battleships are expensive toys (eben as museums) and if you lose the economy capable of supporting them them, you lose them too pretty soon.
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  28.  The USS Johnston  Damaged. Not sunk. Check the facts on wiki, combinedfleet or wherever you like. Kumano survived and/or endured several attacks by planes and submarines after she took Johnston's torpedo before finally being sunk by aircraft at Santa Cruz. As for your insults - you need to have a certain reputation in order to be able to insult me...
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  29. 1:46:16 Soviet submarines preyed on neutral Swedish and Turkish ships trading with Germans or Romanians. Germans apart from unrestricted submarine warfare also quite often sank or captured neutral merchant ships with their Auxiliary cruisers. For instance Yugoslav steamsip Durmitor was captured by KMS Atlantis before Yugoslavia was attacked and sent to Italian East Africa with accumulated prisoners from previously taken or sunk ships.
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  30. ​ @bkjeong4302  10 ships firing in a fast-paced action at 10 aircraft coming from a partially cloudy sky whose true number nobody determined of which 4 get shot down within 1 minute. I assume getting something like kill 30 claims would not be unusual... And even after intelligence analysts combed through those I guess something like 8 would be declared "confirmed".
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  31. 00:31:32 @ Drachinifel Kahili (or Buin) airfield on the Solomon island of Bougainville, unlike what you said, WAS completed and used by the Japanese before it was captured during the 1943. Battle of Bougainville (Yamamoto was on his way to inspect that airfield in a G4M bomber when it was shot down as it approached the strip). You may have mixed it up with the Munda airfield on the Solomon island of New Georgia which was even closer to Guadalcanal and which the USA captured in 1943. before the Japanese completed it (akin the airfield on Guadalcanal the year before...). Trivia- it took some time for the Americans to detect the construction of the Munda airfield as the Japanese did not cut all the trees on the future airstrip, but rather just some and strung wires between them that held the cut trees in place, while they were working on the levelling of the ground below - so it appeared to US aerial reconnaissance for a time that no trees were cut there and no military instalation is being constructed there. Another trivia - instead of attacking Munda directly, the US first captured the nearby island of Rendova and then stationed artillery there to shell Munda making it impossible for the Japanese to complete it while also softening the defenses before attacking. The Japanese tried a similar tactic before at Guadalcanal but the US ability to deliver and protect supplies to the forward combat area was obviously superior and that made the difference for the respective outcomes. The Japanese made a mistake of not beginning and completing at least Kahili and ideally also Munda before the airfield on Guadalcanal. It was a logistical error - they overextended an "airfield too far" (and too soon) from Rabaul to successfully contest with land-based aviation any potential allied counterattack - and paid the price for it. Time was a factor. Guadalcanal was essentially both sides rushing pretty much whatever they could throw there to dislodge the opponent before he entrenched properly (particularly the Japanese counterattacks followed that philosophy).
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  32. Procure badass ships and give them to the worst admiral...
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  33. Why didn't the Japanese try to use their torpedo cruisers Kitakami or Oi during the night battles off Guadalcanal? Both were in the general area and should have proved a major asset in a night fight. PS you seem to have failed to answer the question about the longest range torpedo hit. I'm pretty sure some use of the Japanese type 93 torpedo holds the crown. Haguro vs Kortanaer at Java Sea? Nachi and Haguro vs De Ruyter and Java? Battle of Sunda Strait (including the friendly fire)? Tassafaronga?
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  34. That is just a propaganda rationalization of an unprovoked agression.
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  35.  @martijn9568  Find me an instance in which carrier-operated Corsairs faced-off planes with more powerful engines and achieved a favorable kill ratio.
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  36. Why not throw Arbuthnot overboard too? The genius managed to get his entire squadron killed (himself included) at Jutland to little effect. Also the real problems of RN were not revealed at Jutland (which still was inconsequental strategically) but at Galipoli (poor minesweeping, poor coordination, lack of proper planning) and the first battle of the Atlantic (abysmal ASW record).
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  37. 3:19 - it was a single submarine. I-19. It was one of the single most devastating torpedo salvoes in history.
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  38. At the time these three were ordered Yamato was a small corvette rather than the 60,000+ t superbattleship.
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  39. 00:54:48 Russian blood was up after the surprise attack at Port Arthur and they were bigger yet they lost. Granted, 1940s US and 1904 Russia has vastly different production capacities and the technology has advanced immensely, air power for instance, (the same applies to USSR vs 1904 Russia too). But high blood does not decide battles. It was still possible (albeit very difficult) for Japan to badly repel every US invasion fleet they produced and sent (and capital ships take long to produce, crews than need to be trained...). Of course they would have had to have done many things differently (pilot training x10 and MUCH better ASW), had a lot more luck (Midway), had much better intelligence (basically having their own ULTRA) and greater (and earlier) technology exchange with Germany (aircraft engines, radars, AAA...) . Nuke Japan in 1945? Assuming Japan wins a string of naval victories that includes repelling the invasion of the Marianas and beyond... HOW DO YOU DELIVER A 4+t EARLY NUKE TO JAPAN? Given that a B-29 or a heavily modified Lancaster were the only WW2 planes that could deliver such a massive bomb, you would have to do one of the following: 1) Fly them from unoccupied parts of China (assuming the Japanese failed to crush KMT in this alternate history in which they are far more successful than they historically were) - spies, much better early warning... In this alternate history Japan has not been firebombed for almost a year before nuking and its interceptor force is not bled dry... The bomb carrying plane would have been shot to pieces long before it reached Japan. 2) Fly a one-way B-29 mission (crew parachutes near a submarine) or wait until 1946 for B-36 Peacemaker and fly a strike from Anchorage - similar to above. 3) Get the USSR (which has a non-aggression pact with Japan from 1939 until it broke it in Aug 1945) to allow a nuclear bombing mission... Allowing a communist country to possibly snatch a nuclear weapon at the time USA has nuclear monopoly and falsely believes the USSR is decades from making its own bomb... unlikely. And the problems stated in point 2) still apply. 4) Battlefield use - nuke front line island bases or Japanese troop concentrations in China?... Assuming the plane does not get shot down by land or carrier based interceptors, the IJN still prevents seaborne taking of the nuked island as nukes are not that effective against fleets. On land, the troops are relatively widely dispersed. It would hurt but 10,000 troops lost is not something Japan quits a war for. Also, only one nuke in 2 weeks could be produced (granted Japan didn't know this, but in this scenario it is not Japan proper that is hit and its production capacities are not affected), and Japan (and Germany) had their own nuclear programs that would be switched into overdrive and produced some bombs of their own in a few years USSR style... If USN could not break IJN, nukes still stay far away from Japan... and in China - how far would the poorly supplied (by air bridge across Himalayas only) Chinese advance after a few nukes? Also after the first nuke the Japanese troops would start digging deep dugouts as bomb shelters (as they historically did on Iwo Jima or theGermans did on Western front in WW1 to shelter from heavy artillery) which would minimize the effects of nuclear strikes. PS Getting the USSR to join the war - again, depends how it fares against Germany in this alternate history, but assuming war in Europe ended as it did, would have done the trick, but only on Asian mainland - thus - peace, not capitulation.
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  40. 39:30 Atomic bombs cannot possibly end the war in 1945 unless USA can deliver them to bomb Japan. For that they at the very least need to capture the Marianas (since the potential bases in China get captured by the Japanese during the 1944. Operation Ichi-Go). And since people survived Hiroshima blasts even mere hundreds of meters away from ground zero by simply happening to be in a basement of a reinforced concrete building, the idea of dropping a nuke on heavily fortified Saipan (which is a sizeable island) and then simply disembarking to take it is absurd (if anyone thinks that would work). Also US could only produce 1 nuke every 2 weeks at the time. However what DOES get Japan to surrender in 1945. with or without nukes (as it historically did) was the Soviet intervention which ruined all Japanese hopes for a negotiated peace and rendered all subsequent resistance by Japan completely pointless.
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  41. 53:25 UK in the 18th century was today's China I'd say. A rising global power with low labor costs. 17th cenury USA/UK was Spain - overpriced (in terms of gold) with all the looted gold from the Americas. My point being - that haul was worth far more to UK than to Spain it was taken from - at the time it was taken.
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  42.  @gokbay3057  Assuming much?
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  43. 29:04 I know it is a joke but: 1) Cloning is already invented. 2) The problem that everyone seems to forget with cloning a grown person is that you need to wait for the clone to grow up. And while it is growing up to gather very similar experiences to the donor to get a close enough double :)
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  44. You mean the Baltic sea? :)
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  45. Well the US ships didn't have to face it either, but they had Halsey in charge...
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  46. Yamato with the single large rudder had a tighter turn radius than the Iowa which had two-rudders (Iowa was faster though)
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  47.  @MSNL123  That is also true. That is why Britain was also found guilty of violating Albanian waters. Essentially in this case the duty to sweep mines in your waters in peacetime collided with the right to excersise self defense (there was no war declared or an outright hostile action by the British other than slight violation of teritorial waters). And since UK held much more sway on the international stage the rulings, while finding both sides at fault, were in practical terms less favorable to Albania.
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  48. Very true. A purely Allied point of view with complete disregard and close to 0 care for the French position. Which is understandable for Allied wartime propaganda or decision making but inexcusable for a today's historian or historiographer with the time distance.
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  49. 0:51:21 Just put him in charge of the 1st cruiser squadron instead of Arbuthnot 😈
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  50. Relying on overpens. 😂
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