Inter-war ship designs - 5 Bad Ideas
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00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:55 - Definitions
00:05:28 - US Navy
00:12:10 - Marine Nationale (French Navy)
00:19:59 - Royal Navy
00:25:36 - Kriegsmarine (German Navy)
00:33:15 - Imperial Japanese Navy
Today we take a brief look at some of my choices for the worst inter-war ship designs.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
what is the standard ratio of escorts for vessels in the various navies (I'm assuming each of them is different) in WW1 and WW2? ie: how many destroyers per cruiser, how many light cruisers per heavy cruiser, how many heavy cruisers per battlecruiser or battleship both in overall terms and on a per-mission basis (how many you send out as an appropriate screen)?
If the shokaku class carriers had an armored deck like the later tiaho class do you think it would have drastically improved their already impressive survivability?
Hey Drach, what book would you recommend to give a general overview of naval warfare in the 16th and 17th century. I need to do a university assignment and wold like to include this topic. Thanks in advance
Assuming that the IJN builds 2 more Shokakus instead of Yamato and Musashi, but the USN also lays down another 10 Essexes instead of the ten fast battleships, how much better would the IJN do in 1942 and how much better would the USN do from 1943 onwards?
@@brendonbewersdorf986 I’d argue it would have made them significantly inferior vessels actually, because the tradeoff is loss of strike capability-and the Shokakus were fighting under circumstances where strike power was far more important. It’s the same reason why the Yorktowns and Essexes didn’t have armour.
While Mogami killed several Japanese ships, most of those were army transports, so I'm not entirely certain they can be classified as "friendly".
Neutral at best
Thanks for that. I've had my phone stolen twice in less than a week. Third phone I've bought since the day after Christmas. And turning on this new phone after sync with my cloud & seeing that little nugget helped my mood & reminded of why I bother with this electronic device. As I miss the bus that I was waiting for I realized I hadn't looked for it's arrival time.
😂
That is priceless. Ty for the laugh
@@kennethdeanmiller7324 gotta ask, how do you get your phone stolen twice in one week?
"[Praying that] Hood, Renown, and Repulse would magically poof out of existence should there ever be hostilities". To be fair to them, two of the three very much did do that in pretty short order.
“What a nice day to be on a battlecruiser, I sure hope there aren’t any bombers or some oversized commerce raiders around here”
"There will always be another time to refit Hood."
@@iamhungey12345 It's 2023 now. Is it time to refit the Hood yet?
@@panzerschliffehohenzollern4863 Some other time.
@@panzerschliffehohenzollern4863 cant refit hood got sunk by bismarck
I just love how French built both the best and the worst treaty compliant cruiser in the interwar period.
"In conclusion, the French were a navy of contrasts."
@@jamespocelinko104 I think that applies to the country as a whole as well. I mean just look at Napoleon.
Memory betrays me: which is the best?
"The French copy no one, and no one copies the French" - Ian McCollum
@@jlvfr Algerie
Can I just say "an octopus on panzerschokolade trying to play the pipe organ" (32:04) is perhaps my new favourite drachism I've heard in a while
And why am I imagining Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean doing just that.
Agreed.
We need that on a tshirt.
Sadly, " panzerschokolade " seems to have been a myth invented after the war. The Germans gave their troops plenty of meth, but in plain pill form. There was "flyer's chocolate," but that was just good old caffeine (I'm told you can still get it under the name Scho-ko-kola). Of course if Gus Fring had heard of this he'd probably have tried to make it work.
His word smithing has been on point of late 👌
Duquesne was the ship equivalent of the Japanese Zero. "OK, we're sending you out in a fast, maneuverable warship with no protection." "But.... what if we get hit??" "... you're in a fast, maneuverable ship! You won't get hit!"
Tbf, with the zeroes, it wasn't that they thought they'd be impossible to hit, it's that the zeroes were so balanced by design, that you had to add things to *both* sides of the plane to keep it stable, which isn't a good thing if you intend for long term upgrades.
I find it funny that only the French would make a ship that can't fight anything and only redeeming quality is running away
@@nukclear2741It's more that very few (aka, no) fighters built/designed at the same time as the Zero had any significant form of protection. Combined with the range requirements (the Zero was still the longest ranged single engine fighter in the world at the end of the war, indeed it even out ranged most 2 engine designs) and the near non-existent Japanese engine advancement, meant that the Zero simply never got the armour upgrades it's Western counterparts (Like the Spitfire and bf 109) recieved.
@@nukclear2741 Also, designing aircraft to be stable was the norm until the F-16, which was the first mass produced fighter designed to be unstable in flight. And that was only possible due to its (for the time) highly advanced avionic suite.
"Speed is armour." Gotta love a good advertising slogan that dictates naval architecture.
Admiral Drach: "Sounds good, so where is the armor?" Frenchie: "The what?"
In warship design, sometimes you have to make hard choices. Either the armor or the wine storage had to go.
*Jackie Fisher enters the chat, then the British Admiralty grabs him and stuffs him back in his box*
*takes drag of cigarette* "Vhat is zees armour you complain about, you lillee-leevered Englishman? Ze speed and ze élan are all you truly need in var!" *downs wine* "Eet also make your sheeps more elegant, too."
@@DiggingForFacts "Ze elan will carry ze day!" *overlayed images of Marshal Ney deciding that repeatedly charging the British squares at Waterloo (between 2 and 15 times depending on source) was a smashing idea*
@@malusignatius Jacky Fisher you mean?
Drac: "I hate to break it to you but a cruiser's job is not to run away from everything it sees." French: "Tiens ma bière."
clearly never played world of warships
@@MrChickennugget360 world of warships isnt even close to historically accurate. hell they even make up their own history for the ships.
@@GearGuardianGaming a joke. never claimed historic accuracy.
@@MrChickennugget360 not funny. Wows is historically accurate. The youtube ad wouldn't lie to me, would it?
@@GearGuardianGaming You just destroyed all my dreams.
Mogamis sinking more of their own ships than enemies is such a World of Warships moment.
As another commenter pointed out, most of the ships were Army transports, sooo.....
The Duquesne must be the first example of the Battledestroyer!
The largest Monitor to date
I agree. With the limitations of French steel, the best possible answer was to make a splinter-resistant destroyer with the gun capacity of a cruiser. The key to a Duquene is not its speed alone, but rather its ability to maneuver _and_ go fast; while being able to send a _second_ four-shell volley of eight-inch shells _after_ the _first_ flight of _four necessary for ranging._ If memory serves, the Duquene class ships proved _very_ difficult targets for both torpedoes and dive-bombers (but I am recalling that from a book on Dunkirk that I read more than thirty years ago, and haven't finished hearing what Drachnifel has to say about the class).
Your curb-stomping, uh, excuse me, your highly colorful description of the German 1934 design was most entertaining. It was my favorite of your choices, Drach. I think it was your repeated reference to the design trying so hard to join the U-Boat fleet that did it for me.
Every time he mentions German destroyers he always brings up the fact that they're trying to join the U-boats, it's quite funny everytime
"Worst designs of the Interbellum." Crowded field; overpowered German destroyers twistin' the night away, top-heavy Japanese light carrier . . . Can you tell I was re-watching the destroyer and fleet carrier videos yesterday?
On the Duquesne, 34 knots is indeed a very good speed. But shells travel a lot faster than 34 knots.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack meet mugger, Jack give kick. Jack show quickness, Jack show skill. Jack learn bullet, quicker still.
Shells can’t change course.
One can only imagine all the grand, overweight failures we would have seen from the Kriegsmarine had they actually completed Plan Z.
For real.
Just imagine a scenario where the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact remains intact and WWII drags on long enough for Plan Z and Stalin’s mad fleet to be completed. The two would immediately get obliterated by the combined force of the USN, RN, MN, and probably even the IJN and RM (which would have turned on Germany in all likelihood if they were allied with the USSR), all of which would also have been much larger by that point, as well as better-designed.
Even if the war had stalled out I some how doubt that Hitler would have acualy allowed plan z to ever get finished
@@bkjeong4302 what do you think the MR pact was exactly and why do you think that Germany would not attack the USSR?
@@funnymankenny There was actually a surprising amount of coordination between Nazi Germany and the USSR up until Barbarossa (up to and including various German blueprints being sent to the USSR).
In post-treaty ships debate, I would probably go for Agano, A.K.A. "yes, we dont have a notable main battery, but on the other hand we dont have anything else either"
I mean in the Agano's class defense it was better then any previous Japanese light cruiser
Worst post-treaty Japanese ship has to be Shinano by a huge margin. (Her older half-sisters get a pass as, for all their flaws, they were still competent designs and the real problem was with the battleship concept being outdated by that point, which was a problem that applied to everyone).
Not even the torpedoes?
@@bkjeong4302 I´d give a pass to Shinano as she got sunk before she was complete and before her crew was trained.
"Flipping over and looking at the U boats." One must be sensitive to the privacy of the U boats.
I think we need a deep dive on the Béarn.
Absolutely, I'd love to hear all about it, maybe even longer form than 5 min guide. Every time Drach mentions Bearn it sounds like "Ye, Bearn, it was a name for "absolute worst" before word "worst" was created, now let's move on".
@@Selim1939 TLDR: Hastily converted, Beyond slow (to put in perspective: Béarn's top speed is 21.5 knots. The other conversions - Lexington/Akagi/Kaga - can easily leave her in the dust) and never launched an aircraft for offensive missions.
@@UchihaPercy Well, it does sound terrible when your aircraft carrier can't outrun the average Grand Fleet battleship :)
@@UchihaPercy Let's be fair, the first US CV was a conversion, USS Langley, could only do 15.5 knots.
@@Edax_Royeaux Fair point, but you can blame that on Langley's previous run as a collier.
It’s hilarious that the Sims led to the Fletchers because the US Navy’s designers finally managed to get the budgeters to let them make it displace more. The Duquesnes: a heavy cruiser stuck in a light cruiser body. I’m sure it’s just a late bloomer. The British and heavy cruisers have a very strained relationship, they haven’t been on real speaking terms since the Counties. German destroyers are such a hilarious meme because even though they could do anything, they went with the worst possible thing they could do every time. The hatsuharus are quite literally “we have fubukis at home” as a class.
The Fletcher was actually a follow up to the Somers and Porter classes. It was also larger since they no longer had to follow the treaty restrictions.
@@emberfist8347 The Somers and Porters were designed as destroyer leaders.
@@atpyro7920 True but it was their issues that led to the Fletcher. Even without them, there were still the Benson and Gleaves-classes between the Fletcher and the Sims neither of which count as real predecessors to the Fletcher as those earlier classes were treaty designs and the Fletcher was an all-new built without the treaty.
One slight objection, perhaps the Japanese should instead have had the Chidori Class Torpedo Boats. Yes, the Hatsuharu Class was unstable, but one of the Chidori's actually capsized under peacetime conditions, meaning the whole class had to be stripped down. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chidori-class_torpedo_boat#The_Tomozuru_Incident
I thought about it, but when you get well below 1,000 tons to a certain extent you can ruin a ship with one badly placed piece of kit.
Get *too* far below 1,000 tons and you can upend a ship with a particularly overfed sailor sent up to the observation platform!
@@Karmag555 LMAO, that's easily true
@@Karmag555 hey I resemble that remark
@@Drachinifel I also thought of the Chidoris and, sticking below 1,000 tons, would have nominated the 'Kingfisher' class for the UK. Overcooked, under-equipped; totally unsuited to war for both production and employment purposes. Puffin broke herself doing some *very* light lifting indeed.
To be fair to all the Kriegsmarine units that are somewhat larger than their contemporaries from other navies, a considerable part of this is due to the German Hochdruckheißdampfanlagen (insert trollface here) requiring a lot of space. Just as an example, there are original documents in which engineers complain that the engineering spaces of the Scharnhorst-class were very cramped (which apparently contributed to the Scharnhorst's long history of machinery trouble) and state that the Bismarck-class, with their 36 meter beam, is viewed as adequate. The battleships built by other nations were pretty comparable in hull size to the Scharnhorst, while the Bismarck was quite a bit larger, especially in beam. When ship designers have to build a ship around such a large powerplant, they are already at a disadvantage to begin with. The lack of R&D due to Versailles was really showing here.
That is the most impressive German compound word I have yet run across.
@@kmech3rdGermans have some wonderfully descriptive nouns but they wouldn’t know what an effective verb looked like if it hit them in the face…
@@grahamstrouse1165 …and when they *do* use a verb, you have to wait ever so long for it to arrive!
You nailed my thoughts perfectly. Listen, we can all agree that the treaty of Versailles caused a PLETHORA of problems for the world….however it did serious cripple the development process of German naval technology. While they were able to skirt around some aircraft restrictions using “gliders” and such, and still squeezed around some tank restrictions using various forms of chicanery…it is impossible to “fake” naval units. The 10-ish +/- years the treaty stumped their naval design efforts cannot be overstated….as if you think about what kind of technological advancements and refinements happen in just 5 years…this effectively ensured that any designs that Germany produced were going to have to compensate for their lack of design refinement with either more armor, more mass, or more cost….all of which reduce the over effectiveness of the entire navy.
@@kmech3rd And what about the German word for bra? Schtopperboobsfrumfloppen? 😂
From the way you describe it... it would seem like the French design teams for their ships wanted to allow their captains to give the order, "Ludicrous speed, go!"
The more I watch these videos, the more I come to a conclusion about shipbuilding (and many other areas of life as well) : if you're trying way too hard to fit a 1$ need into a dime's worth of budget, don't. Just get the best you can have for that dime, it's a lot more worth it.
Or, pardon the pun, bite the bullet and pay the full buck.
Interesting insight. Great post
Well you might get away with eleven or twelve cents worth.
And what makes you think treasury berecrates would allow a full $ and admirals not push for the most out of a design no matter how unrealistic. The compromises that a navy's demand for performance and a tresureys demand for lower cost are almost always disasterous bonedogls
@@xerty5502 You're kinda missing the point here.
Fridays are becoming a bit like Wednesdays, enriched by a full length Drachinifel video.
The Inter-War period was such a unique time in naval architecture. Just the dynamic political and economical situation combined with rules/agreements for the first time (?) restricting naval architects for how they could do their jobs. "Yes, we need a new cruiser, now design it with your dominant hand tied behind your back."
Meanwhile in France: "we need a new cruiser" "we need a new submarine" "hmm, let's combine the two".
It was an interesting time for everything. There was no idea too stupid to not get funded back then. Making a one man tank, pillbox on tracks, a motor car where the driver is basically lying on their belly like it is a sled, flying boats, floatplanes, half-tracks, mounting the howitzer in a massive turret, continue to build biplanes when everyone else switched to monoplanes, planes made out of wood, twin boom pusher aircraft? All valid back then.
@@emberfist8347 tbf for flying boats tho, they turns out to be very useful for long range patrol and anti shipping missions. The ability to land on water meant that every semi protected atoll could become a threat to shipping lane, disrupting supply lines. Overall not a bad investment compared to other ideas you listed.
Speaking of the Mogami, I'd like to see a video like "Ships that were directly involved in or caused events that went spectacularly sideways for their own side." Of course, Kamchatka would have to be #1, but I'm sure there's more.
In order of increasing magnitude of fuckups; - William D. Porter for her now-legendary torpedo friendly fire incident involving Iowa, though the other incidents she caused were actually fabricated postwar, hence why she’s the least bad of the lot. - Nagato for firing on and destroying a few of her own side’s carrier strike aircraft during Philippine Sea. - Prinz Eugen for ramming into and almost bisecting Nurnberg, and for seemingly sucking out all the combined luck from the three capital ships at Denmark Straits (though granted this is a mixed example) and from the Twins during the Channel Dash. - Mogami for that torpedo teamkill (if you can call the IJA the same team as the IJN) at Sunda Strait. Midway and Surigao Strait, however, weren’t her fault-those collisions were caused by other Japanese ships ramming into her, not her ramming into other ships. - Iowa and New Jersey because of Operation Hailstone, where their involvement was actively detrimental to the overall American force as it required the carriers stop their airstrikes on Truk just so the battleships could say they fired on a damaged training ship and a pair of damaged destroyers….giving all three Japanese ships enough time to get moving again and ultimately resulting in one of the destroyers escaping, whereas all three Japanese ships would likely have been sunk much faster if the Iowas weren’t there at all and the carriers launched their last few air attacks. - whichever Allied destroyer it was that sank USS Seawolf. - Aoba for the whole “I am Aoba” debacle at Cape Esperance. - San Francisco for SINKING THE OTHER AMERICAN FLAGSHIP during First Guadalcanal. In terms of individual fuckups, I think this one is the absolute winner, Kamchatka only gets first place due to having multiple fuckups and due to the 2nd Pacific Squadron as a whole being a meme. - Kamchatka. Enough said.
I was thinking the worst designs would include more stuff the like Bearn and Ranger due to their status as being retrofitted from one role to and not being all at that good at their new job. And the Edmen which was obsolete before it left dry dock.
Kamchatka would be eliminated for breaking the curve, but that would be entertaining enough.
@@bkjeong4302 You Forget the Arashi Cuz she F'up at Midway when she brought lost dive bombers from Enterprise vs-6 and vb-6 to IJN carriers.
I remember that Dudley Pope, in his book about the Battle of the River Plate, said that Royal Navy sailors used to joke that Exeter and York were built to sell to a potential enemy.
The Duquesne had a perfect function... a bad example or how-not-to case.
Unfortunately, they then went and built a second one.
LCS moment
13:40. Looks like some of the German prayers were answered. Both Hood and Repulse "poofed" out of existence during the war.
Meanwhile with Renown: *Doom music Intensifies*
But unfortunately the fairy swordfish didn't....
@@cameronnewton7053 I just love how the pride of the German Fleet was sunk by some museums pieces of bombers because they were so old the German couldn’t counter them.
Germany never had a prayer of facing the Royal Navy and Hitler knew it.
@@emberfist8347 Bismarck wasn't sunk by the Swordfish. But the golden torpedo hit jammed her rudder, letting the RN heavies catch up.
I honestly thought the Admiral Hipper class would've got the Kreigsmarine nomination. They just about come under Inter-War designs and 15,000 tons to do almost nothing that a 10,000 ton heavy cruiser couldn't do is pretty awful. And their machinery wasn't exactly robust. Although I do have some sympathy for German ship designers in that period; they had to make up 20 years of design experience in just a few short years, and try and meet very ambitious design requirements, which explains why a lot of their designs were inefficient; they just didn't know how to cram everything into smaller displacements the way other navies knew how to do.
At 7:35 in the video is a picture of the USS Anderson, my grandfather served on her. He had a painting of it made afterwards and I recognize the numbers. He saw action up in Aluetian islands in Operation Ebb Tide I believe. EDIT : The picture at 9:15 of it is basically the same as the painting. It was nice to hear Drach talk about her!!
I would have thought IJN Yubari would have made the shortlist as well. Overweight with twin guns in the superfiring position over singles, to much equipment on to small and fragile a hull. They had to delete 2x 140mm guns in order to get more AA guns on her and my most favorite during the battle of Wake Island 1941 the firehoses proved to short to fight fires. That is a major oversight.
Yubari was a proof of concept ship, not a full up buy in, on the idea of using the armor as plating rather than mounted on the plating.
@@Neneset correct but the concept didn't work. It was mostly designed just before the Washington naval treaty was signed but build immediatly after. Having to balance the new rules from the treaty in addition to including new concepts it was the change over from the older ship designs and the precursor for all the poorly build ships after it like Mogami class. The IJN knew from Yubari's experience what didn't work and tried variations of it anyway. The first in a long line of failure/bad designs so to say.
@@Neneset less of "proof of concept" but straight out experiment on "how much weight can we shave off of sendai class cruiser and still have performance of a sendai cruiser. And sure while the end ship has turned out somewhat questionable, the main "worth" of it are the lessons Japanese Naval designers have learned from that experiment. @boris The first successor of the lessons of yuubari experiment was furutaka and aoba class cruisers - those are very solid cruiser designs for their design period. Issues with later myoko, takao, and mogami classes was not that they tried variations of something not workable, is that the main naval architect whom was present for yuubari experiment that build successfull ships based of that experiment was promoted out of having any say in ship designs, and his replacement didn't know how to say "no" to the request of "we need moar gunz!".
@@boristhebarbarian The later Japanese heavy cruisers weren’t that bad, TBH; yes, they broke treaty limits, but even taking their increased displacement into account they did pack quite a lot of firepower and speed into a surprisingly small package (the Hippers for example were much larger while being slower and far less heavily armed), and while their turret armour isn’t anything to write home about, their belt and deck protection was decent.
Design process of the type 1934: "HANZ! we need a strong navy but we are very poor in resources. What do we do?" -"Use all of them! ...at the lowest efficiency possible!" "You are a genius Hans"
I can just see the German design team for the type 1932. Member 1:Isn’t this gonna make our ships unstable? Member 2: don’t worry about it. 😂
No, no. The *will* of the captain was meant to keep the ship afloat! (Very German concept)
I'm guessing it also might have been like this "the Führer wants it this way so we do it this way" Hitler came to power in 1933 and while his position wasn't quite as powerful in 1934 as it would be later on, many times even in democratic nations bad designs the engineers know are bad boils down to the politicians wanted it this way and didn't take "no" for an Answer.
"Der Führer wants big guns, he'll have big guns."
@@spirz4557 In this case, design work started in 1932. But yes... 😁
@@spirz4557 : I am german, but the word Furher i don' t know, you mean Führer?
there are two ways the gemrans design ships: small and overgunned large and undergunned
Well, for the Russian navy i can mention these particular ships: 1) Project 26 cruisers or Kirov-class 2) Project 7U destroyers or Storozhevoy class 3) Krasniy Kavkaz cruiser which, in my opinion, is the strongest contender here, although it may not be able to abide to the definition of inter-war ship designs since the hull was designed druing WW1. Still, it was quite radically rearmed (instead of original 15 130 mm guns it got 4 180 mm guns) 4) Project 45 destroyer with hilariously unreliable powerplant 5) If we talk about smaller combatants, it would probably be the G-5 MTBs Edit: kinda forgot about submarines but i don't know much about soviet subs in general.
Agreed, was there a single Russian design worthy of a passing "C" grade ( Fletchers "A", Bensons "B", Mahans & Bagleys "C" and Sims & Cravens "D")? They ended up preferring WWI era Noviks to their interwar designs. Their cruisers made all Italian designs except Condottieris and Cadornas look potent and robust. The still born Kronshtadt made the Scharnhorst look brilliant while coming in at a displacement equal to a KGV or North Carolina, while mounting 12" guns. Bound to happen I guess, once all the competent pre-WWI designers were purged or exiled and then you know Communism. I'd be curious what you or Drach would rate as the best Soviet design.
@@timkeffer6860 to be fair, regarding the Kronstadt, there was a vatiant with German 380 mm guns, it was called Project 69I. Also, soviets did produce some relatively successful designs in the interwar period like Project 68 cruiser and Project 30 destroyer (although those weren't completed in time).
I so want to put the Kamchatka on the list but 1: It was built too soon, and 2: the ship itself wasn't the problem, but still, it's the Kamchatka, it should be an honorary member of any "worst of" ships list ;)
@@timkeffer6860 >Bound to happen I guess, once all the competent pre-WWI designers were purged or exiled and then you know Communism HURR DURR sTuPiD cOmmIEss GULAG GULAG GULAG!!!!1111
@@xlerb2286Kamchatka MCs the award ceremony
Feel the Fletcher comparison is in some ways a bitunfair, ten years of engine evelopment in this period was huge, and saved them quite alot of wight over the german ships.
That‘s what I thought. The 1934s certainly weren‘t the epitome of efficient destroyer design, but the comparison with the Fletchers might be questionable.
That may be, But if you compare 1934 to Polish Grom Class which is it's strict contemporary and can be argued to be designed for the same conditions (Baltic sea) they really don't fare any betters. Groms were 100 something tons lighter, at least 3 knots faster, also somewhat top heavy, but nowwhere near as much as 1934s. As for armament - Groms have slightly smaller main guns (120mm vs 127mm) but carry 7 of them compared to Germans 5. Germans are slightly better in light AA as they have 20 mm while Polish only have Macineguns, but these were later easily replaced by Oerlekions. Middle AA goes to the Polish, as they may have same nuber of barrels (4), but instead of crappy 37mm they have the Bofors. Only thing Germans have going for them is two more torpedoes (2x4 vs 2x3).
@@mancubwwa Yep, the Groms were excellent. But does this mean that the 1934s were absolutely abysmal? I had chosen the Königsberg as the worst Kriegsmarine design.
@@mancubwwa The reason why the Grom class had smaller caliber main guns was that the Grom class used the 4.7 inch (120mm) British destroyer calibre as contrary to the 130mm guns (French Canon de 130 mm Modèle 1924) of the Wicher class. The Grom class guns itself tho weren't British made but IIRC were license produced in Sweden by Bofors. IIRC the 4.7 inch guns were later replaced by 4 inch guns when the ships fought with the Royal Navy. But yes, the Grom class was one of the best Destroyer designs made back then.
@@GeorgHaeder the Groms 120mm were Swedish made Bofors and IIRC were not using the same ammunition as British Guns, which was one of the reasons behind the switch to 4 inch. (other being the need for dual purpose weapon).
I think my favorite joke about treaty cruisers is that between them the Japanese and Germans managed to somehow fit a 17,000 ton cruiser in 10,000 tons and barely squeeze a 10,000 ton cruiser into 17,000 tons. Fun fact, the Prinz Eugen getting an IX designation means it is the third highest displacement class of cruiser to ever have a member of it be a designated part of the US Navy behind only the Des Moines and Alaskas.
The Japanese cruisers were too heavily armed and fragile for their displacement (resulting in them being rebuilt which took them over treaty limits). The Germans had cruisers that were way too large for their armament.
Its interesting the more I know about Ark Royal- I always assumed that She was a great carrier that was lost early on, but learning about her design issues makes me look on her in another light! Could I ask, how you get your information on these sources drach? I wish I knew as much as you, but can't find anything in such detail. Thanks once again for the great video! Keep it up!
Its why i'm a bit skeptical of Drach putting her above the Yorktowns as a capable treaty era carrier
@@ph89787 Very much agreed, Yorktown and Hornet while sunk had far harder deaths than Ark Royal, as well as all the damage the Enterprise suffered throughout the war.
@@ph89787 above the Yorktowns? Hell no. But I definitely agree that Ark Royal is better than Wasp, Soryu, and Hiryu.
@@paulsteaven Oh, definitely above those three.
To be fair to Ark Royal, she absolute *should* have survived that torpedo hit even considering her design flaws. Captain Maund was quite rightly found guilty of negligence for his failure to leave a sufficient damage control party on board, and delaying the damage control work by nearly an hour by bringing the entire crew to the flight deck to determine who would stay behind for that role while everyone else abandoned ship. (One would think that you'd already choose designated damage control parties for such a worst-case scenario before even setting sail, rather than waiting until the ship is already at risk of sinking.)
Another result of the Sims-class near-fiasco was the merger of the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Steam Engineering into the Bureau of Ships. This did not go smoothly, a few months after ordering it the Secretary of the Navy noted that nothing had been done by either bureau towards merging, and summarily relieved the commanders of both bureaus. The merger soon followed.
5:34 “The Sims class!” *Shows USS Reid, a Mahan class destroyer* I’m sure this was intentional, but I still found it funny
Drach, yet another great video. Here's a topic for you.. 5 best (and worst) "systems" of WW II. "System" could mean any ship sub-component. It could be a gun system, a catapult system, a radar system, etcetera. It cannot be an entire ship. It cannot be an entire group of systems on a ship ie all the anti-aircraft guns on an Iowa-class battleship.
In that case does the main battery guns of the Kirov-class count?
Even the German Type 34 destroyers were really bad, the "Flottenbegleiter" were even worse, as they were inteded to fulfil several roles of small vessels from destroyer escorts, minesweepers to minelayers, they managed to fail in any of their roles and their machinery was a huge mess as well. They have been refitted during the war to become tenders or torpedo catchers - roles that they weren't ideal as well...
Absolutely agree. And one could also mention the Type 1934 Torpedo Boats - completely useless as they lacked a useful gun armament and had too short a range to escort the big ships outside the Baltic and North Sea/
How do you catch torpedoes ?
@@dave_h_8742do not worry. The USN and RN will get to you on that in very short order.
This is an interesting Topic: how the Washington treaty brought to some very questionable choices (Mogami/Trento/Duquesne) trying to keep into the displacement limits but trying to get "more". I think a comparison between "poor design", born from the treaty in french and Italian navy could be interesting and those ships were thought to fight each other from the begin. Britain and the US navies had different problems a a lot of older ship built outside of the treaty limitations so they had more freedom when it comes to design of new classes, while Japan was a different beast altogether. Curiously, by 1935, the french powerplant were actually the most advanced in the world, with the Richelieu class having a more powerful powerplant then Littorio, but at almost half the weight and size, main reason for the Littorios being overdisplacing, while still having the Washington treaty in mind, unlike the Bismarcks and the Yamatos The USN had access to very efficient engines sipping fuel, but never managed to keep them at a high power to weight ratio.
I´m surprised that Surcouf don´t make the cut
Cruiser submarines were intended to increase the tonnage available for cruiser caliber firepower without technically breaking treaty limits, as such Surcouf was perfectly suited to task. Once the particular loophole that allowed this had been closed, there was no longer any reason to build them.
@@satannstuff they were also unstable, had terribly short gunnery range because of the very low position and lack of firing arc of the gun, and were very slow both on the surface and under water.
The Duquense class is interesting because it was one of the earliest treaty cruisers. How about a Wednesday special tracing the history of the treaty cruisers? How the navies learned lessons? How they changed their ideas of the relative importance of speed, firepower, protection, and other key characteristics? From my reading I get the impression that no navy was ever truly happy with the compromises required to meet the 10,000 ton limit, and I'd find it interesting to hear about how they struggled with the challenge.
The French would end up with probably the best treaty cruisers in the form of the Algiers. Which, while not the best in any one area, had no significant drawbacks, and even had some advantages. While still actually being 10,000 tons.
And the 10,000 ton limit was based on the largest pre/during ww1 cruisers. Which turned out to be almost entirely inadequate.
10:08 "Take Vasa" As a German I highly apreciate the pun. Pretty big brain, my friend. :D
Ohh, okay - Hatsuharus were very unfortunate but I honestly thought you were going to pick the obvious 'Chidori' type torpedo boats, for class member Tomozuru's actual falling over like some kind of anti-weeble during that fleet exercise - precipitating the raft of 'corrections' tot the entire top-heavy group of the IJN pre-war... the same problems which saw the Hatsuharus embroiled. But hey, you're still addressing the IJN's biggest problem so it's good. 100% agree with the Duquesne and Sims - *especially* the Sims; topless turrets? Hsa ha ha. I'm fine with the 1934 Type pick, but the comparison with the much later Fletchers was unfair. Yes, German machinery was heavier, so ate more of the weight allowance and so the Fletchers carried more topside kit (and mid-1942 spec as standard at service entry, so no Chicago Piano thank god), but the 1934s are fine in wargear terms for their date. - The *only* criticism you needed to level at them was that, for their size and power, they just *didn't work* because of that temperamental (snigger) machinery. That they broke down so easily was the single stupidest crime that a destroyer could ever commit, so yes they deserved the German 'top spot'. As for the British, I would have gone with the 'Kingfisher' class escort/patrol vessel or fast sloop. Too small to do very much and carry very much, too much speed eating too much of the already-limited displacement, too weakly armed it's ridiculous and with no plans as to what to do with them when war started (because they were few in number, overengineered and thus too costly for series production plus unsuited to mass-production in commercial yards anyway)... so they just got hidden away on the East coast for the duration, where they did very little of note while the technically inferior 'Flowers' covered themselves in fame and glory a nd did useful - vital - work in the Atlantic. At least HMS Puffin managed to sink a German midget submarine, but unfortunately did a 'reverse HMS Fairy' when the much *smaller* midget sub sank and blew up, wrecking the Puffin as BER for the rest of the war - she was never recommissioned and was just scrapped. Fun video; thanks.
Well thought out opinion.
When taking a Naval Architecture course many years ago, our instructor showed us how centre of gravity, and meta centres are calculated. He also added that while a ship has an initially designed, you should expect that retrofits during it's lifetime - so leave some room for 'improvement'. .
Thank you for finally explaining why I keep seeing pictures of the superfiring aft mount missing its top. I started to think that all the turrets probably had canvas tops.
On the Sims.
19:18: Taffy 3: You summoned us?
Johnston: "looks like the meat is back on menu Bois"
Johnston vs a Japanese CA: Johnston fires its AP shells, followed by its HE shells, followed by its AA shells, followed by its Star shells at the IJN cruiser. Fires in the superstructure leave the ship vulnerable to air attack, and it gets torpedoed by aircraft. Johnston vs a Duquesne: Johnston fires its AP shells at the cruiser. The cruiser explodes.
It's amazing how budget cuts usually end in the death of industry.
One is struck by the similarity of inter-war designs. Its kinda like NASCAR, where they are compelling the cars to look and perform more and more alike. The cars are slower, and races less exciting than the past. Inter-war treaties are the NASCAR regulations of naval history.
My nomination - the Swedish 'Seaplane Cruiser' HSwMS Gotland. Original a multi-role concept to act as a cruiser, minelayer and seaplane carrier. Budget cuts caused the size of the ship to decrease resulting in a forward turret to be removed and those guns placed in casemates. Instead of the 8 seaplane capacity she was designed for, the Swedes could only afford 6 planes. When the money was finally found to increase the capacity - the planes (Hawker Osprey's) where out of production. Not that it mattered that much because in rough seas the planes would get damaged requiring the ship to return to port. Eventually during WW2 the Swedes gave up and landed the planes, replacing them with a suite of anti-aircraft guns. She seems to have spent most of her life post war as a training ship. All in all a classic case of trying to do too much with to little.
So *that's* where the Soviet Navy got its ideas for their cruiser-class aircraft carriers! (I always wondered *why* they didn't skip passing any out of the Black Sea, and just build a useful class or classes of escort, ASW, and jeep carriers out of the Baltic and Pacific shipyards. Even claim and build up a series of islands in the more-habitable parts of the Pacific Ocean -- as China has done -- as a year-round fleet anchorage!
It's quite hard to successfully develop an aircraft carrier if the other part of your industry can't come with matching aircraft design fast enough which is where the entire Béarn carrier project took a bullet to the knee at the very beginning. At least she had minimum utility as an aviation transport.
there has never been matching designs in aircraft, it was more about it being a converted ship that saw the use of guns as the main weapon change to being aircraft as the main weapon so was too small and suffered issues with the flight deck due to the changing designs over time it’s similar to the quickly mentioned Ranger, who was too small by the time of WWII but was fine as a carrier but outclassed by the larger newer carriers
For the RN I would have gone for HMS Adventure or HMS X1. I believe that HMS Adventure had to have her stern redesigned as the the original stern sucked the mines she was meant to lay back under the stern. That’s a pretty catastrophic flaw. HMS X1 was possibly the most unreliable vessel the RN ever put to sea. As soon as they fixed the diesels they broke down again. Or a shaft broke. Or something else broke. Out of the 2 I would go for X1. One of the few ships in the RN that completed in interwar years but was scrapped before WW2
I was thinking X1 as well...
The huge body, the weak arm, the slow speed, any mine laying journey is an adventure for HMS Adventure.
I've been interested in history since I was 11 years old, however I've pretty much focused on land battles, the politics of the war and army kit like small arms, artillery and afv's. Only this year (I turned 28 in march) I've got super interested in the naval side of ww2, it's cool to be able to learn basic facts again like when I was a older kid. I've even got some 1/1800 scale German and Italian ships to play victory at sea, as it was tabletop wargaming (oh and classic war movies) which got me interested in history in the first place. Love your channel, I've watched a few of your videos but I'll deffo watch more, I wanna learn lots more about the naval warfare of the two world wars.
On the York Class, I think you undersell the idea of having an extra cruiser (in theory). For most navies, it wouldn't be a great tradeoff, but the British with a global empire and obligations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans as well as considerably interest in the Med, having an extra cruiser hull made some sense in the planning board. While cruisers as missions of more independent action were falling by the way side, leading small task forces was still an important role. Having something that is "enough" firepower that it discourages an enemy to come by matters (as the naval historian you know plenty of times of outmatched ships in armament still being quite dangerous). If the goal was more deterrent and to force the enemy to commit a larger force then it wasn't a terrible idea for specifically British needs. Policing a global empire will place more emphasis on hulls than regional or single ocean powers have. That doesn't absolve the design flaws of course, but its always important in any military procurement or analysis to consider the needs of the nation. Not saying you don't but more for general viewers. Too often a lot of military history nerds try to do apples to apples comparison of which X is better despite that piece of kit being part of a whole system and that system is meant to serve the unique security needs of a nation. It's fascinating stuff when you get into the nuts and bolts and makes a lot of decisions throughout history make a lot more sense, especially ones that seem bad or strange.
The Bismarck was a fantastic ship! All that ridiculous amount of wasted men and material meant that the allies won a little bit faster. 👍
Actually, it was a fantastic Ninth Dimension cultural/psychological warfare move to create the Bismarcks so that Germany could have something for high-tier battleships in 21st century vehicle combat video games.
Full length drach video, Friday just got a whole lot better.
Hi,your knowledge never ceases to amaze me,although after watching your videos for some years i should be used to it.This was a brilliant and entertaining programme with just the right sense of humour to keep it flowing.Thank you,Roly🇬🇧.
Thanks for the video. Love your design lists.
For the Regia Marina: 1. Di Giussano class 2. Trento/Bolzano class 3. Some destroyers (?until Maestrale class?)
Navigatoris? Too slow, only 6 torpedo tubes, they look really bad even compared to the Soldatis let alone British Tribal class.
Great description of the design deficiencies of these five ship classes. Now I'm curious. Why did these ships get built? The naval architects, I assume, knew the Sims were dangerously unstable, the Mogadors had too little protection, and so on. Were they bullied by overbearing naval general staff (as seems to be the Japanese case)? Were they too optimistic about the strength of their ships (Japanese?) or their stability (US, Germany?). Curious minds want to know!
I know lengtening ships is a thing. I have even been involved in a project like that, (well, actually this went the other way, the ship needed to loose some weight around the waist, for paper reasons) but whatever the naval engineers say, cutting a ship in half and welding in an extra slice just feels wrong in every way. It goes against the gut feeling. Also, lengtened (or shortened) ships never look right afterwards...
Would love to see similar videos for top 5 biggest naval manufacturing strengths and top 5 issues. Things from the industrial side, be they steel manufacturing or shell QC, that in your opinion most effected the combat effectiveness of the various navies.
Although Ryujo ww2 career was less than a year,her air group which was similar size to the much bigger Illustrious class operated in support of operations on the Philippines, East Indies contributed to the sinking of the Dutch destroyer Van Ness and speeder up the sinking of USS pope.she successfully operated in the bay of Bengal against allied shipping sinking 10 ships for 55,000 tons and damaging another.her planes also attacked two Indian towns causing wide spread panic. A few weeks later with Junyo
The Bismark having a bad secondary battery? But if it didnt we wouldnt have paticularly brave poles charging it, getting within light AA range, and then showing off a traditional polish dance using the destroyer itself while shouting insults, and then steaming off.
Amazing content as always
Drac: Have you ever done a video focussed on the thinking behind the London naval treaty's decisions? My impression from so many of your videos is it had the laudable intention of limiting the shipping arms race, but left everyone scrambling to make sufficient useful ships from insufficient tonnage... everyone seemingly agreed to ships that were too small for purpose - why? It would seem to me you start from "What is the largest current ship in a class?", and "What is the current total tonnage for each class for each nation?", and argue from there. (primarily carriers) So what happened?
Ditto this question. I haven't looked through his videos to see if he has one on that treaty; it's something that I have wondered about since before the internet existed, but found no good answers to at that time, and set the questions aside.
It is interesting that the great navies tend have this cycle where they build a lot of good designs, but as they build, they develop an overconfidence in their ability to squeeze more capability out of the tonnage. Eventually, this overconfidence leads to a dog of a design that seems obviously a bad idea in hindsight, grossly overambitious, but it happens all the same. Even more interesting is these dogs tend to only be the one dog, as if every designer suddenly remembered themselves again, and they go on making mostly good designs for a fair while before the next dog appears.
Personal thought : I'd replace the Yorks with Adventure as runt of the litter.
This is just what I needed after a long week, thanks Drach!
Now I have visions of Drach handing out the The Drach Awardss, and the winner for blowing up in your homeport goes to the Mutsu.....
The Italians get n award for having a ship capsize during launchfrom drydock.
@@MartinCHorowitz Which ship ?
@@spirz4557 My Mistake it was a Liner SS Principessa Jolanda, The Award should be named for the Vasar...
@@MartinCHorowitz How in the world do you fail at that ?
Wait no Regia Marina?? **HAPPY PIZZA NOISES**
Great commentary. I was thinking maybe a video on bad design features. Some that comes to mind are the items that look good on paper but end up being useless by the time it gets built. Technology sometimes seems to be a little bit ahead of the builder.
Innovation is essentially moving from from failure to trying something else.
We need more Drach rants!
Another full video this week?? And a really good one, too! Thank you, Uncle Drach!* *Drachinifel is everyone's uncle, in case you didn't know. He's our Sea Uncle. Or a... Suncle, if you will. And you will. Don't worry.
A fascinating tour!
I love how you do the top 3 with a bit of supens you could have put a 1920 voice over with the little orchestra music "And now for the winnuer tututut"
One word: Surcouf Surcouf acts as a redeeming feature for anything else the French came up with in the interwar period, in that nothing could be as disastrously bad as her.
I beg to disagree. It was extremely good for what was expected of subs at the time, and actually extremely dangerous. Its speed wasn't high, sure, but was in the average of other subs which quite a feat given that it was the biggest sub ever built before the Japanese did the same afterwards. Its airplane allowed it to scout enemy ships, its turret to destroy more cargo than sole torpedoes go. The Bearn takes the cake. The French had the extremely good Commandant-Teste class cruiser that could have been converted to CV with little to no cost while being fast and actually well armoured. On top of that, minor modifications could allow the Commandant-Teste to carry a respectable amount of aircraft. Yet they chose to keep the Bearn, which was a battleship conversion with horrendous speed, efficiency and carrier capacity.
@@rollolol6053 it's main armament was its single gun, which had horrible range and accuracy. THAT's why it was a bad ship, not because of its size. In the end its main benefit was as a transport ship for illicit cargo, where the fact that it could submerge gave it an advantage getting into and out of axis occupied areas undetected. A thing submarines are still supremely well suited for to this date, especially (paradoxically) SMALL submarines that can easily operate in shallow waters.
@@jwenting That doesn't matter in any way. The Surcouf was a sub, not a ship of the line. Her canon was supposed to help her sink convoys that she would attack at close range, not defend herself against enemy warships. In that matter range and precision aren't as important. Besides, the Surcouf had two guns in one turret with a practical range of 12km, which is far enough to defend herself against enemy destroyers or ASW ships. She also had an AA light gun for defense when surfacing or diving.
@@rollolol6053 no, that's exactly what matters. Her cannon WAS her main armament and it was useless. That made the entire boat useless. How do you think she'd ever approach a convoy undetected and unprovoked by its escorts, escorts she'd have no defence against? And obviously as the axis powers didn't use convoys, there weren't even any convoys for her to act against. The ONLY way Surcouf could ever have been used against a convoy in anger would have been had France been fighting against a coalition of the USA and some European countries, and their enemies stupidly decided to use unescorted convoys. Which was attempted by the Americans and British btw, after Surcouf entered Free French service, and ended in disaster as it gave German actual submarines free play.
@@jwenting Subs using the deck cannon as main weapon against cargo vessels was a well established practice at the time, and as long as the gun effectively can poke a hole in a merchant within 3 nautical miles it's good enough. The concept as such becoming outdated doesn't mean a ship perfectly suited for it is badly designed, merely that it suddenly reached the dead end.
I can't say that I agree with the Type 1934 as Germany's worst interwar design, because as terrible as they were, the Type 1936A is still interwar by your definition (designed and most of them began construction prior to September 1939). At least the 12.8cm SK C/34 was a workable weapon for a destroyer, while the 15cm TbtsK C/36 decidedly was not.
I always love you calling any spirited resistance being “particularly angry.” I’m sure Duquesne would have shit their pants seeing Johnston considering it tore Kumano up and scared off its flotilla mates like a chihuahua scaring off several bears
Man I Love Fun Fridays
Man, the designs of some of these seem like something out of a Naval version of Kerbal Space
Moar struts! Moar boosters! Check yo’ staging!
@@DABrock-author flipping over to join the U-boats is a feature not a bug!
@@MrGoesBoom Is this where Wehrner von Kerman got his start?
@@DABrock-author That would explain some things, yes?
With respect to HMS York and Exeter. I was under the impression that 8 guns were necessary for fire control, to give more accurate spotting for the fire control table.
Not really, for that you need four, the "double broadside" minimum desire originate from the expected tactical need of a fight.
Excellent! Fascinating video to have playing while I ate my lunch
Suprise to be sure but a welcome one
Can you make a video of the German project for a so called “Reconnaissance Cruiser” - Elbing. The only info I know is that she was developed in the 1940’s as a large destroyer for the high seas, carried 150mm main guns in 3 x twin turret configurations and powerful torpedoes armament. I’m fascinated by this ship and was hoping you would know more info.
Great video to round off the week with !
Very interesting. Thank you again!
Yep, it will do, you have done well. All 5 of those classes are basically where you get sent for messing up somewhere else. Perhaps a small bit of an exception, Exeter was a pretty good ship. As a heavy cruiser weak sauce, but still all right as a ship.
You know looking at it the two worst designs for the interwar royal navy probably being the two attempts to be even more budget conscious they did not do to badly the Yorks are not brilliant by any means and the areuthsua's performed better then they probably had any right to but compared to the absolute boondoggles that most other navy's were putting up in comparison they really are not that bad
I can agree with most of your picks easily, apart from one: I am a bit surprised you went with the Type 1934. In my opinion at least they have the excuse of being the first ships of their type built by the Kriegsmarine. Also, I think it's wrong to do a comparison to the Sims here, since you explicitly stated you went with the worst ship for those 5 navies, instead of a top five period (which probably would have included more German ships). I think I would have opted for the 1936A. When they finally got their large destroyers working (kind of), they immediately ruined them again (mostly with the guns). By then, they should have known better.
I guess he's comparing them to the Sims because both had stability issues and they were rough contemporaries
@@silverhost9782 Yes, but I think a comparison is pointless in the contect of the video's premise (one ship for each navy). If you were to make a list across all navies, a comparison to another navy's ship would have more merit, I think.
They main thing I have against the Type 1934s is the sheer number of things they got wrong. Later German destroyers were flawed, but the list of major flaws was shorter.
@@Drachinifel Fair enough. Still, I suspect the designers did not have much experience with modern destroyers (I believe the 1934s were the first German destroyers after the small type 23/24? Should that have helped?). Although, I guess with so many flaws, you can't go full-own "but Versailles treaty!" as an excuse XD
@@Drachinifel That thing you said at 40:45 made me think... how many Japanese ships DID in-fact survive the war? I can't think of any big ones that did.
フブキ級だけでなくハツハル級も見れて嬉しい。 画像が正しいので驚いた。 外国の人は大体画像を間違うが、このビデオの投稿者は正確だった😊
Regarding the loss of HMAS Canberra, there is solid evidence that the damage that crippled her was NOT the massed gunfire of a Japanese cruiser squadron, but torpedo damage inflicted by a USN destroyer that panic-fired when the battle started. For fairly obvious reasons, this fact was covered up at the time, and kept quiet since. A book titled 'The Shame Of Savo' (by Bruce Loxton) covers the battle in detail, including the accounts of Canberra survivors and the plotting of ship positions during the battle. There was a lot that went wrong for the Allies there, with failures at various levels plus possibly a certain degree of over-confidence. The simple fact that Canberra's fatal damage was sustained on the side facing AWAY from the Japanese is a strong indicator in itself. It is noteworthy that the USN commissioned one of their late-war cruiser as USS Canberra. A nice gesture on the face of it, but I have to wonder if it was also done as a kind of apology. The USS Canberra's bell now hangs in the Australian National Maritime Museum, in Sydney. Perhaps some of this is a subject for a future video, Drach.
When your main design criteria is the ability to run away….
Conclusion: destroyers are hard 😳
"To stop it flipping over and looking at the Uboats" Lost it there! classic Drach humor
Really great video
France planning to fight British ships amuses me when combined with various plans the British and Americans had in case they came to blows. That between the world wars all the allied nations still thought there was a good enough chance that they could end up at war with one another to go so far as to influence ship design.