00:00:00 – Intro
00:00:53 – Were flat-side first rates a bad idea?
00:04:47 – How do you replace the guns on a ship of the line?
00:07:29 – Had America lost the revolutionary War, what impact would its resources have on the British Navy during the Napolonic wars?
00:12:04 – In the 1830’s/1850’s, did the combination of (potentially) sparking funnels and sails in close proximity actually pose a problem?
00:14:10 – Why were naval mines once called ‘torpedos’, and how, why, when, etc did the nomenclature change to the modern definition of, and distinction between ‘mines’ and ‘torpedoes’?
00:17:35 – Why was USS Iowa restricted to full speed only in water greater than 600ft deep?
00:20:38 – If the US Navy wasn’t able to acquire the 20mm oerlikon or the bofors 40mm do you see there being a timeline where they would press the US army’s 37mm M1 auto cannon into service in a navalized form? Or would they try to upgrade the 1.5inch Chicago piano?
00:21:59 – Do we have solid information on the ratio of flowers destroyed compared to submarines destroyed during the war?
00:23:32 – How many ships in the Royal Navy actually had “Royal” in their name?
00:26:56 – When was the first Naval battle in ‘the new world’ post 1492, and which war was the first to feature a major Naval theater in the America’s?
00:29:38 – Which would have had a higher impact factor on the naval war in the Mediterranean: better leadership in the Regia Marina early in the war, or better quality control in the factories that produced naval ammunition?
00:32:18 – What is the difference in role and equipment between a navy yard, fleet base, section base, and other levels of naval bases?
00:36:22 – How do time fused shells work?
00:39:39 – I recently discovered that the Papal States intermittently had its own navy over the course of several centuries prior to Italian unification. Could you perhaps discuss its history, briefly?
00:43:48 – Were there any two enemy warships that fought each other more times than USS Enterprise (CV-6) and the IJN’s Zuikaku in history?
00:45:26 – What damage did Yorktown take to Midway from Coral Sea?
00:51:18 – How much air conditioning capacity would it have taken to keep Prince of Wales and Repulse’s fire control functioning?
00:53:28 – Why did the UK try to save HMS Conway and not Implacable or Warspite?
00:57:46 – How dramatically would daily life for a sailor differ today compared to a common sailor in the dreadnought/Great War era?
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You forgot the "Royale wit' Cheese".*
After some thought, I've realized this is most likely a French ship.
Bofors 57mm
"Bofors 57 mm Naval Automatic Gun L/60 (Swedish: 57 mm sjöautomatkanon L/60 (57 mm SAK 60)),]also known as 57 mm/60 (2.25") SAK Model 1950[3] and the like (full English product name: Bofors 57 mm Automatic A.A. Gun L/60 In Stabilized Twin Turret), was a twin-barreled 57 mm (2.2 in) caliber fully automatic dual purpose naval artillery piece designed by the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors from the early of the 1940s to the early 1950s to meet a request from the Dutch Navy] Besides the Dutch Navy, the weapon was also adopted by the Swedish and the French Navy, most predominantly by the latter."
The Bofors 57 mm Naval Automatic Gun L/60 is at its core a scaled up version of the famous Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/70, but constructed as a twin-gun system sharing the same receiver/mantle with ammunition feeding from the sides into each gun. The guns were water-cooled and fed by large 80-cartridge magazines that allowed several long bursts to be fired without reloading."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_57_mm_Naval_Automatic_Gun_L/60
On the subject of bunk and accommodation space the newer ships , QEC, T26 etc have plenty more space than the WW2 aged vessels
The food on a WW1/WW2 ship may not have been up to modern standards but I bet any age of sail sailor would not have complained.
@34:14 Norfolk Navy Yard (actually Norfolk Naval Shipyard) and Norfolk Naval Base (Norfolk Naval Operations Base – NOB) are separate facilities. NOB does house Norfolk Naval [Air] Station.
Had the Revolution failed and the colonists were loyal subjects once again. North America would have been another theater of the Napoleonic Wars because of the large French possessions in what is now the United States. I doubt Napoleomic would have sold all the land that formed the Louisiana Purchase to the UK.
Would Napoleon even rise to power? Only scenario that I can imagine America winning is when France dont support them. Then french would not be broke and does not have to raise the taxes, so no french revolution. Just thinking.
33:30
Are those New York and Texas
I've been on both Victory and Warrior. Crews accommodations looked the same with a little more room it seemed on Warrior. Spent a weekend many years ago on Yorktown, CV-10. We were in a crew berth around the forward elevator well. Looked a lot like the last picture he showed but with a bit more room.
New drinking game: Drink anytime Drach says "In any case…" PS. Absolutely love all your work!
On the Flower class causality comparison a hidden contribution is that for each Flower a sector of defense could be covered. Each of those was either freeing up a better hunting vessel or quite often being a position that would never have had a defense at all.
23:56
Shore bombardment was a major factor in the war against the Aztecs. Some of the mutiny attempts under Cortés and his on-off relationship with his government might also be called naval battles.
Thanks Drach
May I suggest H.M.S. Royal Pain In The Ass for the next R.N. warship. 😋
Drachinifel I know that this might not get seen but I have a question. Russia is currently at war with Ukraine and the Russian Navy is currently getting there arses kicked by the Ukrainians who do not have a navy. Have there been any instants of a navy loosing to someone who has no navy ?
On the WW2 history channel this week they said between Formosa and the Ryukyu island chain there is up to 1500 Japanese aircraft available for defence imagine they could combine their efforts and all attack at once? Is that realistic is anyway?
It was mentioned in WW 2 in real-time channel thatat battle of phillipine sea Japanese attack required the combined efforts of land and carrier based aircraft for any chance of success but the land based ones suffered heavy casualties leading up to the battle but the army conveniently forgot to tell the navy. What would have happened if the IJN knew would they call off the operation?
Regarding reasons for a ship reducing speed when in shallow water, I've got an old book called "Supership" by Noel Mostert (Book Club Associates, 1975) which is about the challenges of operating the then-new generation of supertankers of 100,000 tons and over. Among other things, it states that studies had shown that the turning circle of such large ships increased sharply (by double or more) when the depth of water under the keel was less than 40% of the ship's draft, and with less than 3 feet under the keel the ship may become virtually uncontrollable. I don't know if this would also apply to a ship of Iowa's size.
The 57mm/60 Bofors was adopted by Sweden and the Netherlands in 1950 IIRC although it would not enter service until 1953. In France (with their own mounting) it was adopted in 1951. Development I suspect started near the end or shortly after WWII. There was a single land-based towed version adopted in 1954 and used by Sweden and Belgium.
Prior to that Sweden had a 57mm AA gun. These were old Bofors low-angle anti-torpedo boat guns (Model 1906 IIRC) which were installed on twin 40mm hand-worked mountings and given semi-automatic vertical sliding wedge breech blocks. Installed on old coastal defense vessels which could not take larger and more effective guns, I have to question their value. I have no idea if the ammunition used in the later automatic 57mm L60 is similar or the same. The later L70 gun uses the same ammunition as the L60, just fired from a longer barrel to improve ballistics.
Very much enjoyed your comments on HMS Conway – could you take a few moments in a future Drydock to talk about the attempted preservation and loss of USS Hartford, Farragut's flagship at Mobile Bay? She held on until 1956 before sinking at dockside. Best regards from the US –
Rooster tails. There can be a significant negative to high speed operations in shallow water. In WWII, Dad said he was escorting a convoy to Rio de Janerio, and the skipper decided to impress someone by doing a high speed run near the port. They quickly developed "condenseritis', and, after inspection, spent the next several days pulling buckets of small shells out of the innards.. (He also mentioned that on the return, they got a strong periscope signal on the radar, and started a high speed run to depth charge, which almost had them collide with a recently sunken freighter with the upper masts above water. Oops.
Norfolk Naval Base and Norfolk Naval Shipyard are actually seperate organizations. Not really co-located: NNSY is actually in Portsmouth, VA. (BTW, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is in Kittery, Maine),
Based on my experience in the USN in the 1977-1996 timeframe, time at sea for the ship's company in the USN consists of a work day and standing your watches. Outside of those, you time, such as it was, was yours to do with as you pleased. Reading, playing cards, extra training (such as ESWS), sleep, etc.
The work day is pretty much what it sounds like. 0730 muster for quarters and then 0800-1600 work day with an hour for lunch. "Work" consisting of doing maintenance on equipment, painting, cleaning, etc…
As far as standing watches, if you were lucky you'd have 3 watch sections so you would have a 4 hours on, 8 hours off watch rotation. If you weren't so lucky and you only had 2 qualified watchstanders for that station, they'd be doing a 6 on, 6 off rotation. The plus side of a "port and report" like this is you didn't have a work day. Yeah, if you're on a 4 and 8 rotation, you have the work day in addition to the watches. If you happen to have the 4-8 watches, you're standing watch/working from 0400 until 2000. Though you could try and catch a nooner at lunch. Some folks actually preferred that watch rotation as it gives you the largest contiguous slice of time off (I wasn't one of them because I understand math).
The US adapted the 20mm oerlikon at the behest of the RN. There was a rule in lend lease that the US could not build anything for another country unless it had adapted it themselves.
One of the big quality of life factors in the USN is the ever greater pressure to reduce staffing levels. In part this is driven by the simple fact of personnel expense and part through the increase in automation. Anyone living in a "do more with less people" operating environment knows that true leisure time gets squeezed.
Drach- regarding sailor free time, can’t speak for other navies, but USN doctrine is to keep them busy for all waking hours other than meals, a couple hours on Sunday, and maybe a half hour before bed. Clean, maintain, document, prepare. If you’re just standing about a chief will rapidly put an end to it. Idle sailors are considered trouble waiting to happen, and besides, on modern budgets crews aren’t big enough to have anyone not working.
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I love the jaunty ding-ding opening jingle
The bars and stripes.
Welcome to the commonwealth yanks.
Just a little clarification on "Naval Base". It's not consistently applied in the naming of facilities in the US with regards to ships; can't speak for other countires. In the US technically a "Naval Base" is where "operations" can occur, but not necessarily involving ships. For example, China Lake in California is in the middle of the desert but is listed as a "Naval Base" as it is used for naval training, primarily weapon systems. It's officially named a "Station", but officially listed as a "Base". Another example is "Joint Base Andrews" in Maryland which obviously has base in the name but is likewise landlocked and also for naval air operations training. So it gets a little mushy.
20:30 my understanding from this was the rosster tail was not the issue but sympathic vibrations reflecting back would make the ongoing high speed vibrations worse. The Nimitz class and the Enterprise had no such restrictions and at 33+ knots the rooster tail would be higher then fan tail about one hundred feet aft of the stern.
Can you do a British naming conventions in the 20th century. Battleships seem haphazard and yet the County and flower classes and makes clear sense.
0:48: 💡 The flat-sided design of the first-rate ships of the line was considered a failure in terms of maneuverability compared to the tumble home designs.
6:08: 🔫 Guns were unhooked from the ship, lifted with a crane, and transported on land for maintenance or replacement.
11:33: 🚢 The video discusses the potential collaboration between the Royal Navy and the US Navy in the 18th century and the impact of steam engines on naval warfare.
17:10: 🔍 The video discusses the origins of the terms 'mine' and 'torpedo' and the distinction between them.
23:19: 🚢 The flower class ships had a higher number of confirmed kills compared to the submarines.
28:36: 🚢 The second Anglo Dutch War had a significant impact on naval warfare in the Americas, including battles in the Caribbean and the English takeover of New Amsterdam.
34:24: 🚢 The importance of naval bases and dry docks in supporting fleets.
40:11: ⚓️ The Papal States had a Navy, but its need was not as pressing as other states due to its territory being respected by other Catholic states.
45:37: 💥 The damage to the Yorktown aircraft carrier before the Battle of Midway affected its ability to fight and resist further damage.
50:53: 🛠️ The possibility of installing air conditioning units on the Prince of Wales and Repulse before they were attacked by the Japanese submarines is uncertain due to lack of information.
56:13: 💼 The video discusses the costs and benefits of preserving historical naval ships.
Recap by Tammy AI