Humans being a Seafaring species: Not going to comment directly on the yes or no, at least not entirely. What I would like to do however is to advise people be a little more careful with phrases such as human evolution.
Did seafaring have any real impact upon human evolution? No. Not as far as any Evolutionary Biologist would determine it, seafaring may have had an impact upon the evolution of various SOCIETIES, but not on the SPECIES. And there is a very clear distinction there.
Really the only technological advance that may have had a direct impact upon human evolution (rather than coming about BECAUSE of human evolution), is potentially fire. And even this is a subject of discussion. It is certainly a feasible hypothesis, however it is also one that is extremely difficult to prove, and unless we find some miracle evidence I am of the opinion it is unlikely to ever BE proven.
Some of you may have heard of the Small Gut, Large Brain Hypothesis, essentially it states that fire, and the ability to cook food, thus make it more easily digestible was a significant factor in the very rapid expansion of Hominid brains at around the same time Fire was believed to have been first harnessed.
It is essentially an energy budget equation. Digestion is actually a pretty energy intensive process, and a large brain even more so. Our brain takes up 2% of our total body mass, but uses 20 – 25% of our total Calorie intake to maintain. The hypothesis essentially claims that the energy reduction required for digestion due to cooking was therefore free to be used elsewhere, in short, the brain. And this at the very least rapidly increased the rate of the brains expansion whilst also leading to a reduction in the size of the humans digestive tract.
It is an interesting hypothesis, but as I said, unlikely to ever be proven one way or another, even if the end result is true. Modern humans cannot survive on a diet of raw vegetables for example, and I am using vegetables SPECIFICALLY, not fruits and nuts. Simply put we cannot digest raw vegetables with a relatively high fibre and cellulose component fast enough and in enough quantities to keep our bodies running. When you COOK those vegetables however that equation changes completely, now you CAN survive on a diet of mostly cooked vegetables.
Seafaring does not come even close to fitting that kind of scenario, which is why I state that whilst it certainly had effects on the Evolution of Societies, and even entire Nations as societies, it had no impact on the evolution of humans as a species with the possible exception that it dumped populations that could have become isolated at a later date and thus evolved in slightly different directions to the rest of the Hominids. That however is an indirect effect than a direct effect.
7:07 the Beardmore submarine engine was used in railway diesel locomotives, where it needed adaptations to the environment such that the second batch of engines ordered were over 100 pounds heavier as pieces cracked in rail service. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad briefly operated locomotives with steam turbines, these were enormous things, even as steam locomotives go, and they didn't work very well although they were mad looking things.
On using "The" when referencing ships — for the most part I agree I wouldn't use "the". But you do get potential confusions with ships named after ,or sharing a name with, (roughly) contemporary people or places. "Boston sounded general quarters and unleashed all AA guns against the attacking bombers" — weird; I didn't realize there were air attacks on the state of Massachusetts. Oh, you meant CA-69. "Churchill unleashed depth charges against the U-boat" – wow, that's very hands on for a Prime Minister, even in wartime. Oh, you meant I45 (ex DD-198) That's a case where saying "The Boston" or "The Churchill" would help clue the reader/listener in that you're referring to the ship.
For "the ship" vs "Ship's name, it comes down to personification. We treat ships as characters in that they're named, they're referred to as she, not it, they have mottos, etc. It's not an object or an organization so much as a member of the team in that sense, so in calling her Warspite instead of the warspite, you're honoring that personification, and in doing so, making reference to her history, accomplishments, motto, and even role and time period in a lot of names. Thus it's disrespectful to her and her crew to disregard that STORY of the character by referring to her as an "it", even under tow.
For the USS America it is hardly surprising that they gave it to the French.
The US wasn't exactly in a very good financial position by that time. And with their lack of tradespeople and resources that dragged out her construction, it would be a challenge to keep her in service. Getting a crew for it would probably also be quite the challenge.
Then what do you do with one poorly armed third rate? Seems to me that it would be too little to challenge the British openly (they could send multiple ships of the line to deal with her), better to leave that job to the French and Spanish fleets. And it would be slower and less useful as an independent cruiser or commerce raider than a frigate or other small vessel.
On Panzerkutter no1 (Linz) From a Russian site: "TTD boats: displacement – 27 tons; dimensions – 18.5 x 3.2 x 1.7 m; gasoline engine with a capacity of 220 hp must provide a speed of 14 knots; armour – 5-10 mm; armament – cannon 6.6 cm / L18, three machine guns 8 mm; crew – 8 people. An armoured boat was built in Linz on the Danube and entered service in 1915. At 18.5m it's a foot longer than a Vietnam war riverine monitor but half the weight.
Could you please produce some content about the strategic and operational structure of the “major navies” during WW1 and 2, or perhaps a higher level “narration” of these things from 1900 to present?
As to French and British sharing APC ammo info, there was some after WWI:
(1) The WWII DUNKERQUE an RICHELUE Class APC shells (33 and 38 cm) APC shells used an explosive much like Shellite, with 80% Lyddite (French Melanite) instead of Shellite's 70% and a different low-power mixture explosive to desensitize it..
(2) After France fell to the Germans in 1940, a number 0f French naval personnel escaped to England and they brought a lot of information about French ammunition, including the following information concerning French APC of the two sizes mentioned above. The French had modified their original APC shell windscreens to have a reinforced base where they were attached to the upper surface of the AP cap for improved underwater nose-first motion if the shell hit the ocean just short of the target, forming a tapered flat face much like the Japanese Type 91 APC shell (I do not know if they lengthened the fuze delay like Japan did, though) and to allow this flat face to work they created a unique "K" modification to remove the pointed portion of the windscreen: They put the impact nose fuze and booster explosive of an HE shell in the tip of the windscreen so that it would blow the windscreen apart if it hit anything, water or the enemy target. They also put a large colored dye bag inside the windscreen held by a thin sheet-metal box soldered to the inside of the windscreen (the windscreen was made into a two-piece cone to allow switching the bag as needed) and now the color would allow the identification of what ship fired it even at night or if a direct hit was made, which the inert water-coloring-only US and Japanese dye bags would not do. This and the problems with the shell splash confusion during the fight with ADM. GRAF SPEE caused the British to create their own K shells for their 8" SAPC and 14"/15" APC shells starting in 1942 or 1943.
Note that British post 1930 SAPC and APC were made quite differently than anybody else's AP-type shells to try to make sure that the shells would not fail to explode properly due to middle and lower body damage during oblique impact. All sorts of unique design changes were made to the lower body and base and the middle and lower body of the shells were made very soft and tough, able to bend considerably rather than break. Unfortunately, they over did this by a considerable margin so that, while the shells would work fine against armor at or slightly thicker than the shell diameter, if the armor thickness got much thicker, the shells would bend into bananas (NO JOKE!) and just make a deep dimple in the armor, even at just 30 degrees from right angles. US Navy testing of British 14" Mark IB APC shells just after WWII against both US BuORD 17.3" Class "A" (face-hardened) and 18" Class "B" (homogeneous) armor plates demonstrated this conclusively. A banana cannot penetrate armor very well at all…
My favorite outside static gun display is the M65 atomic howitzer near the Army base I live by.
A good story I heard about it is when they set it up, as a tribute to the man that was the driving force behind it being put there, they zeroed it in right on his house in the nearby city.
I don't know if he was with anyone, but imagine having to try and explain to your spouse why there's an 11" cannon that shoots 15-20 kiloton warheads aimed at your home.
Another fun fact more relevant to this channel: Of the 2 warheads developed for the "Atomic Annie" the second one was the W19, which would later be adapted into the 16" W23 "Katie" atomic warhead made for the Iowas in the 50's.
An interesting example of the opposite of cross-pollination, where things that should be shared but weren't, is the US Army's big coastal defense guns and superheavy WW2 field artillery. While drach has covered the coastal artillery guns before (full-grade capital ship main armaments up to 16"/50, which were entirely separate from the Naval guns, were wire-wound on yes a US gun, and built at Watervilet…) somewhat, there was a program in WW2 to build several heavy and superheavy guns sharing naval calibers and lengths.
This culminated in the 8" Gun M1, which was a full on 8"/50 heavy cruiser grade field gun (the carriage for it was its own entire cargo load due to the sheer size), which was a built up ausbury breech gun, that even used USN projectiles but with different silk bagged propellant and of course was built by the Army with no parts compatibility or design work shared with the navy. The other main result was the 155mm M1 Long Tom, which is basically a naval 6"/45 in terms of overall design (built-up, ausbury breech, silk bagged charges) but was all-Army with no Navy input and used the Army's 155mm shells.
This whole venture had one particular naval-related aside that actually was a rare case of cross-pollination: due to complete overload at the Naval Gun Factory in WW2's shipbuilding extravaganza, the Alaska class' bespoke 12" guns were largely built at the Army's big-gun line at Watervilet.
Another thing about rangefinder on destroyers. I assume that the higher rate of fire made it easier too to see how far off the target you are. Granted i have no idea how quickly a 8 inch shell could be reloaded but i bet its by a wide margin quicker then a 18 inch one.
The B-29 bomber used magnesium in its engine gearboxes, and many of them combusted spectacularly after their engines overheated and started burning, which wouldn't be a huge problem if you could get it to go out (magnesium doesn't)
Pinned post for Q&A 🙂
Humans being a Seafaring species: Not going to comment directly on the yes or no, at least not entirely. What I would like to do however is to advise people be a little more careful with phrases such as human evolution.
Did seafaring have any real impact upon human evolution? No. Not as far as any Evolutionary Biologist would determine it, seafaring may have had an impact upon the evolution of various SOCIETIES, but not on the SPECIES. And there is a very clear distinction there.
Really the only technological advance that may have had a direct impact upon human evolution (rather than coming about BECAUSE of human evolution), is potentially fire. And even this is a subject of discussion. It is certainly a feasible hypothesis, however it is also one that is extremely difficult to prove, and unless we find some miracle evidence I am of the opinion it is unlikely to ever BE proven.
Some of you may have heard of the Small Gut, Large Brain Hypothesis, essentially it states that fire, and the ability to cook food, thus make it more easily digestible was a significant factor in the very rapid expansion of Hominid brains at around the same time Fire was believed to have been first harnessed.
It is essentially an energy budget equation. Digestion is actually a pretty energy intensive process, and a large brain even more so. Our brain takes up 2% of our total body mass, but uses 20 – 25% of our total Calorie intake to maintain. The hypothesis essentially claims that the energy reduction required for digestion due to cooking was therefore free to be used elsewhere, in short, the brain. And this at the very least rapidly increased the rate of the brains expansion whilst also leading to a reduction in the size of the humans digestive tract.
It is an interesting hypothesis, but as I said, unlikely to ever be proven one way or another, even if the end result is true. Modern humans cannot survive on a diet of raw vegetables for example, and I am using vegetables SPECIFICALLY, not fruits and nuts. Simply put we cannot digest raw vegetables with a relatively high fibre and cellulose component fast enough and in enough quantities to keep our bodies running. When you COOK those vegetables however that equation changes completely, now you CAN survive on a diet of mostly cooked vegetables.
Seafaring does not come even close to fitting that kind of scenario, which is why I state that whilst it certainly had effects on the Evolution of Societies, and even entire Nations as societies, it had no impact on the evolution of humans as a species with the possible exception that it dumped populations that could have become isolated at a later date and thus evolved in slightly different directions to the rest of the Hominids. That however is an indirect effect than a direct effect.
Jellico at battle, load beatly and his useless flag officer loaded into a set of guns and fire them at the Germans
7:07 the Beardmore submarine engine was used in railway diesel locomotives, where it needed adaptations to the environment such that the second batch of engines ordered were over 100 pounds heavier as pieces cracked in rail service. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad briefly operated locomotives with steam turbines, these were enormous things, even as steam locomotives go, and they didn't work very well although they were mad looking things.
On using "The" when referencing ships — for the most part I agree I wouldn't use "the". But you do get potential confusions with ships named after ,or sharing a name with, (roughly) contemporary people or places.
"Boston sounded general quarters and unleashed all AA guns against the attacking bombers" — weird; I didn't realize there were air attacks on the state of Massachusetts. Oh, you meant CA-69.
"Churchill unleashed depth charges against the U-boat" – wow, that's very hands on for a Prime Minister, even in wartime. Oh, you meant I45 (ex DD-198)
That's a case where saying "The Boston" or "The Churchill" would help clue the reader/listener in that you're referring to the ship.
For "the ship" vs "Ship's name, it comes down to personification. We treat ships as characters in that they're named, they're referred to as she, not it, they have mottos, etc. It's not an object or an organization so much as a member of the team in that sense, so in calling her Warspite instead of the warspite, you're honoring that personification, and in doing so, making reference to her history, accomplishments, motto, and even role and time period in a lot of names. Thus it's disrespectful to her and her crew to disregard that STORY of the character by referring to her as an "it", even under tow.
My 2c
For the USS America it is hardly surprising that they gave it to the French.
The US wasn't exactly in a very good financial position by that time. And with their lack of tradespeople and resources that dragged out her construction, it would be a challenge to keep her in service. Getting a crew for it would probably also be quite the challenge.
Then what do you do with one poorly armed third rate? Seems to me that it would be too little to challenge the British openly (they could send multiple ships of the line to deal with her), better to leave that job to the French and Spanish fleets. And it would be slower and less useful as an independent cruiser or commerce raider than a frigate or other small vessel.
On Panzerkutter no1 (Linz)
From a Russian site:
"TTD boats: displacement – 27 tons; dimensions – 18.5 x 3.2 x 1.7 m; gasoline engine with a capacity of 220 hp must provide a speed of 14 knots; armour – 5-10 mm; armament – cannon 6.6 cm / L18, three machine guns 8 mm; crew – 8 people. An armoured boat was built in Linz on the Danube and entered service in 1915.
At 18.5m it's a foot longer than a Vietnam war riverine monitor but half the weight.
Could you please produce some content about the strategic and operational structure of the “major navies” during WW1 and 2, or perhaps a higher level “narration” of these things from 1900 to present?
Drach drives a Volvo? I feel bad for him. We should start a fundraiser so he can afford to buy a real car.
2:20:27 Stefan Milo has a video on the possibilities of neanderthal seafarers. .
As to French and British sharing APC ammo info, there was some after WWI:
(1) The WWII DUNKERQUE an RICHELUE Class APC shells (33 and 38 cm) APC shells used an explosive much like Shellite, with 80% Lyddite (French Melanite) instead of Shellite's 70% and a different low-power mixture explosive to desensitize it..
(2) After France fell to the Germans in 1940, a number 0f French naval personnel escaped to England and they brought a lot of information about French ammunition, including the following information concerning French APC of the two sizes mentioned above. The French had modified their original APC shell windscreens to have a reinforced base where they were attached to the upper surface of the AP cap for improved underwater nose-first motion if the shell hit the ocean just short of the target, forming a tapered flat face much like the Japanese Type 91 APC shell (I do not know if they lengthened the fuze delay like Japan did, though) and to allow this flat face to work they created a unique "K" modification to remove the pointed portion of the windscreen: They put the impact nose fuze and booster explosive of an HE shell in the tip of the windscreen so that it would blow the windscreen apart if it hit anything, water or the enemy target. They also put a large colored dye bag inside the windscreen held by a thin sheet-metal box soldered to the inside of the windscreen (the windscreen was made into a two-piece cone to allow switching the bag as needed) and now the color would allow the identification of what ship fired it even at night or if a direct hit was made, which the inert water-coloring-only US and Japanese dye bags would not do. This and the problems with the shell splash confusion during the fight with ADM. GRAF SPEE caused the British to create their own K shells for their 8" SAPC and 14"/15" APC shells starting in 1942 or 1943.
Note that British post 1930 SAPC and APC were made quite differently than anybody else's AP-type shells to try to make sure that the shells would not fail to explode properly due to middle and lower body damage during oblique impact. All sorts of unique design changes were made to the lower body and base and the middle and lower body of the shells were made very soft and tough, able to bend considerably rather than break. Unfortunately, they over did this by a considerable margin so that, while the shells would work fine against armor at or slightly thicker than the shell diameter, if the armor thickness got much thicker, the shells would bend into bananas (NO JOKE!) and just make a deep dimple in the armor, even at just 30 degrees from right angles. US Navy testing of British 14" Mark IB APC shells just after WWII against both US BuORD 17.3" Class "A" (face-hardened) and 18" Class "B" (homogeneous) armor plates demonstrated this conclusively. A banana cannot penetrate armor very well at all…
The Japanese were also short of oil and fueling a Yamato would have prevented smaller cruisers and DDs from being fueled.
2:23:05 what is the strange noise?
is that a bird?
Continue to enjoy the channel, got hold of some IRN- BRU….. cream soda with something to prove!
My favorite outside static gun display is the M65 atomic howitzer near the Army base I live by.
A good story I heard about it is when they set it up, as a tribute to the man that was the driving force behind it being put there, they zeroed it in right on his house in the nearby city.
I don't know if he was with anyone, but imagine having to try and explain to your spouse why there's an 11" cannon that shoots 15-20 kiloton warheads aimed at your home.
Another fun fact more relevant to this channel: Of the 2 warheads developed for the "Atomic Annie" the second one was the W19, which would later be adapted into the 16" W23 "Katie" atomic warhead made for the Iowas in the 50's.
Go to Mobile and see the difference between USS Alabama and Drum they are at the same area its a HUGE difference and seeing is believing!!
An interesting example of the opposite of cross-pollination, where things that should be shared but weren't, is the US Army's big coastal defense guns and superheavy WW2 field artillery. While drach has covered the coastal artillery guns before (full-grade capital ship main armaments up to 16"/50, which were entirely separate from the Naval guns, were wire-wound on yes a US gun, and built at Watervilet…) somewhat, there was a program in WW2 to build several heavy and superheavy guns sharing naval calibers and lengths.
This culminated in the 8" Gun M1, which was a full on 8"/50 heavy cruiser grade field gun (the carriage for it was its own entire cargo load due to the sheer size), which was a built up ausbury breech gun, that even used USN projectiles but with different silk bagged propellant and of course was built by the Army with no parts compatibility or design work shared with the navy. The other main result was the 155mm M1 Long Tom, which is basically a naval 6"/45 in terms of overall design (built-up, ausbury breech, silk bagged charges) but was all-Army with no Navy input and used the Army's 155mm shells.
This whole venture had one particular naval-related aside that actually was a rare case of cross-pollination: due to complete overload at the Naval Gun Factory in WW2's shipbuilding extravaganza, the Alaska class' bespoke 12" guns were largely built at the Army's big-gun line at Watervilet.
If you watch film footage from this period you'll usually see a penants and or a smoke fire on the bow of the flight deck to show wind direction
Another thing about rangefinder on destroyers. I assume that the higher rate of fire made it easier too to see how far off the target you are. Granted i have no idea how quickly a 8 inch shell could be reloaded but i bet its by a wide margin quicker then a 18 inch one.
Question: how were barbettes and turetes manufactued, transported, and installerd on 14 and 16 inch gunned battleships?
The B-29 bomber used magnesium in its engine gearboxes, and many of them combusted spectacularly after their engines overheated and started burning, which wouldn't be a huge problem if you could get it to go out (magnesium doesn't)
Drach, now providing english lessons for those traitorous b@sta… Join us next week to find out what Super Drach will be doing next!