Quotulatiousness

August 16, 2021

HMS Glamorgan – Computer Ship Of The Future (1967)

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

British Pathé
Published 13 Apr 2014

English Channel.

Top shots of the guided missile destroyer battleship HMS Glamorgan at sea. In the control/computer room a man pulls out old-fashioned computer records [circuit packs, I believe] from a large control cupboard; officers on the bridge look at dials and through binoculars. Various shots in steering, control and engine rooms as the ship moves along. On the flight deck sailors play hockey while others watch and cheer them on. A navigator on deck looks through a sextant while another officer makes notes. A helicopter is moved from a hanger out onto the deck and prepared for takeoff; firemen in asbestos suits and helmets stand by with a hose; the chopper takes off.

Three young men play guitars and banjos before a television camera in a tiny studio; we hear that the ship has its own closed circuit TV station; good shots of the filming; tape recording machines going round; picture being adjusted. Men in a mess room watch the performance on the television while they have a pint. Several shots of the sailors getting their rum rations. Various shots in the kitchens show food being prepared and served into the sailors mess tins; good canteen and catering shots (most of the food looks pretty unappetising) [the person writing the description clearly has no idea just how unappetizing British food could be in the 1960s … this looks well above average for the time]. In the sick bay a sailor gets a shot in the arm from the Medical Officer.

Several shots of the radar antennae on the ship and the men looking at the radar scanner screens in the control room. Men in protective gloves and hoods load shells in the gun turret; M/Ss of the main guns on the ship being fired. Several shots show the countdown for Seaslug missiles to be fired; men at control panels look at dials and radar screens; an officer counts down into a microphone (mute). Complicated boards of buttons show the location of the missiles, intercut with shots of the missiles moving into position by electronic instruction. The missiles move into the launchers on deck and are fired; men watch their progress on a radar screen. Another launcher moves into position; L/S of the ship as the missiles are fired.

Note: on file is correspondence and information about HMS Glamorgan. Cuts exist – see separate record. FILM ID:419.04

A VIDEO FROM BRITISH PATHÉ. EXPLORE OUR ONLINE CHANNEL, BRITISH PATHÉ TV. IT’S FULL OF GREAT DOCUMENTARIES, FASCINATING INTERVIEWS, AND CLASSIC MOVIES. http://www.britishpathe.tv/​

FOR LICENSING ENQUIRIES VISIT http://www.britishpathe.com/​

British Pathé also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 136,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1984. All footage can be viewed on the British Pathé website. https://www.britishpathe.com/

August 1, 2021

Crown Colony class – Guide 144

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Drachinifel
Published 28 Sep 2019

The Crown Colony class cruisers of the Royal Navy, and many others, are today’s subject.

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July 23, 2021

‘Armoured’ and ‘Unarmoured’ Carriers – Survivability vs Strike Power

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Drachinifel
Published 2 Jan 2019

In which we try to unpick the somewhat thorny issue of armoured vs unarmoured flight decks in WW2 carrier design.

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July 17, 2021

Look at Life – The Last Battleship – HMS Vanguard (1962)

Filed under: Britain, History, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

capspread
Published 29 Nov 2020

#LookatLife​ #HMSVanguard​ #RoyalNavy​ #Shipping​ #Battleship​

The life and death of HMS Vanguard, and the uses to which her steel will be put.

Another Look at Life Documentary from Volume 2 – Military – The Last Battleship – HMS Vanguard made in 1962.

HMS Vanguard was a British fast battleship built during the Second World War & commissioned afterwards. She was the biggest and fastest of the Royal Navy’s battleships, the only ship of her class, and the last battleship to be built. Work on Vanguard was started and stopped several times during the war and her design was revised several times during her construction to reflect war experience. These stoppages and changes prevented her from being completed before the end of the war.

Vanguard‘s first task after completing her sea trial at the end of 1946 was, early the next year, to convey King George VI & his family on the first Royal Tour of South Africa by a reigning monarch. While refitting after her return, she was selected for another Royal Tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1948. This was cancelled due to King George’s declining health & Vanguard briefly became flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1949. After her return home in mid-1949, she became flagship of the Home Fleet Training Squadron. Throughout her career, the battleship usually served as the flagship of any unit to which she was assigned. During the early 1950s, Vanguard was involved in a number of training exercises with NATO forces. In 1953 she participated in Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation Review. While she was refitting in 1955, the Admiralty announced that the ship was going to be put into reserve upon completion of the work. Vanguard was sold for scrap and was broken up beginning in 1960.

Vanguard had an overall length of 814 feet 4 inches (248.2 m), a beam of 107 feet 6 inches (32.8 m) & a draught of 36 feet (11 m) at deep load. She displaced 44,500 long tons (45,200 t) at standard load and 51,420 long tons (52,250 t) at deep load. The ship was significantly larger than her predecessors of the class, almost 50 feet (15.2 m) longer & displaced about 6,000 long tons (6,100 t) more than the older ships at deep load. Vanguard was overweight by some 2,200 long tons (2,200 t), which magnified the difference. The ship had a complete double bottom 5 feet (1.5 m) deep & she was divided into 27 main compartments by watertight bulkheads.

The King George V-class ships had been built with almost no sheer to the main deck forwards to allow ‘A’ turret to fire straight forward at zero elevation, resulting in those ships being wet forward. Vanguard was redesigned as a result of this experience, significant sheer & flare being added to the bow. The ship was well regarded as seaworthy, able to keep an even keel in rough seas. At full load, Vanguard had a metacentric height of 8.2 feet (2.5 m).

As a fleet flagship, her complement was 115 officers and 1,860 men in 1947. Air conditioning was provided for many of the ship’s control spaces, & asbestos insulation was provided on exposed areas of the ship’s sides, decks and bulkheads. Steam heating was provided for her armament, instruments, look-out positions & other equipment to make Vanguard suitable for operations in the Arctic. An Action Information Centre was fitted below the main armour deck with facilities to track aircraft & ships around Vanguard.

Vanguard was laid down on 2 October 1941 by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. After the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December, the ship was given an A1 priority in the hope of finishing her by the end of 1944, and construction of the light cruiser HMS Bellerophon, as well as some merchant shipping, was halted to expedite the ship’s completion. This was unsuccessful, however, due to a shortage of skilled labour. As a result, it was not until 30 November 1944 that the ship was launched. Princess Elizabeth presided over this ceremony, the first ship she ever launched, and was presented with a diamond rose brooch to commemorate the event.

The end of hostilities following Japan’s surrender reduced the need for new warships, and consequently the ship was not commissioned until 12 May 1946. By this time, a total of £11,530,503, including £3,186,868 for the modernisation of the main armament, had been spent on producing Vanguard.

On 9 October 1959 the Admiralty announced that Vanguard would be scrapped, as she was considered obsolete and too expensive to maintain. She was decommissioned on 7 June 1960 & sold to BISCO for £560,000. On 4 August 1960, the ship was towed from Portsmouth to the breaker’s yard at Faslane, Scotland. As Vanguard was being towed towards the harbour entrance, she slewed across the harbour and ran aground near the Still & West pub. She was pulled off by five tugboats an hour later, and made her final exit from Portsmouth. Five days later she arrived at Faslane, and by mid-1962 the demolition process was complete.

July 3, 2021

HMS Victory – In Her True Colours

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Maritime Foundation
Published 25 Oct 2015

HMS Victory – In Her True Colours

Painting HMS Victory – Repainted in the true colours Nelson would have known.

Produced by Maritime Films UK (www.maritimefilmsuk.tv) for the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

June 27, 2021

The Tragic End of HMS Barham – 25 November, 1941

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Northern Historian
Published 5 Mar 2021

On the 25th of November 1941, the Royal Navy’s 1st Battle Squadron consisting of HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Valiant and HMS Barham along with eight destroyers were on a hunt in the central Mediterranean looking for Italian convoys.
Also on the hunt was a German U-Boat and their paths were on a collision course. A collision that would send HMS Barham to the floor of the Mediterranean Sea along with over 800 of her crew.

HMS Barham had begun her service with the Royal Navy during World War 1 and played a role during the Battle of Jutland.

Following World War 1, HMS Barham had several refits and operated in the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet during the inter-war years.

During World War 2, HMS Barham took part in the the Battle of Dakar before taking part in escort convoys in the Mediterranean.

In November of 1941, during an escort mission, HMS Barham was attacked by U Boat U-331 under the command of Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen.

The attack caused a huge explosion in her magazine and rapidly sank, killing over 800 men.

June 12, 2021

Sail to Steam to Iron – Half a Century of Change

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Drachinifel
Published 19 Dec 2018

Today we look at the development of warships from 1815 to 1860.

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Music – https://www.youtube.com/c/NCMEpicMusic

May 26, 2021

The Great All-Out Battle – Naval Warfare in the Pacific – WW2 Special

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 25 May 2021

Before the infamous day that was Pearl Harbor, US and Japanese military planners worked to envision what a future war in the Pacific would look like. With the entire region now a war zone, it is time to put their theories to the test. Watch the video to find out what these are.
(more…)

May 7, 2021

QotD: Battleship gunnery in WW2

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Capital ships could also only defeat their opponents’ armour IF they could find them and hit them accurately. Which was hardly a given, as only the British – with the eight WWI 15″ guns on Warspite — and Germans — with the nine modern 11″[!] guns on Scharnhorst — actually hit any moving target at 26,000 yards or more. (Both in relatively clear conditions in daylight, and both well inside the theoretical 35,000-45,000 yard full range of most battleship guns.)

[Three years later, in foul weather at night during the Battle of North Cape, the Germans had their fears that British radar had advanced far beyond theirs in gunfire direction completely confirmed, when Scharnhorst was pounded to scrap by Duke of York and a few cruisers in a battle where even the British cruisers could engage and score hits at ranges that didn’t allow Scharnhorst to reply accurately.]

No other navy came even close to hitting anything actually moving at any speed at 26,000 yards (though West Virginia managed within about 15% of it with 22,800 yards using the latest radar at Surigao Strait in late ’44). Certainly not the radar-deficient Italians and Japanese.

At night, or in bad weather, that meant radar-efficient nations had an unsurpassable advantage, particularly for fast moving targets at sea like those hit by Warspite and Scharnhorst.

[Although one USN 16″ battleship peppered stationary French targets in a port at even longer ranges, some USN engagements — like Guadalcanal — were at Jutland distances, if not closer. (5,000-8,000 yards, even though the US ships had radar … Which would have been fine if the USN had been consciously doing a Matapan-style 3,500 yard ambush, but South Dakota‘s radar and other power went down to “electrical fault”, and she accidentally wandered within 5,000 yards and was battered at close range, “leaving the ship in Lee’s words ‘deaf, dumb, blind, and impotent'”. Fortunately Washington‘s working radar allowed her to sneak up on the Japanese and win the battle.) ]

At Surigao Straits those USN battleships with more modern radar — the late war rebuilds West Virginia, California and Tennessee — spotted the enemy at over 30,000 yards, and opened fire at 22,000 yards, actually getting some hits with the opening salvos! But some ships with less effective radar — Maryland (eight 16″) — had to wait for visual sightings of shell splashes before joining in, and Pennsylvania (twelve 14″) with her older Mark III radar, failed to spot the enemy at all.

How many and how big your guns are, or what their range is, doesn’t matter a damn if you never see your opponent!

[Though please note, in every battle of the war, the navy which has the choice — either through speed in daylight, or radar superiority at night or in heavy weather — always closed the range to their maximum advantage (if not to point-blank where possible) before engaging.]

So instead of endlessly debating the value of ten or twelve 14″ versus eight 15″ or 16″ or even nine 11″ or 16″; or of 20 degree versus 30 degree or 40 degree elevation; or of heavier slower shells versus lighter faster ones: I tend to accept that most heavy guns could penetrate most armour, and just wonder whether they could only hit anything in good light and good weather, or if they were completely blind in the wrong conditions?

Nigel Davies, “Real Battleships for WWII – Part I – defining a battleship”, rethinking history, 2021-01-23.

May 6, 2021

The Royal Canadian Navy – Sinking you, but politely

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Drachinifel
Published 27 Jan 2021

A brief history of the Royal Canadian Navy from its origins to the end of WW2.

Sources:
https://archive.org/details/seaisatourgatesh00germ
https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/services/history/naval-service-1910-2010.html
Legion Magazine – “Over The Side: The Courageous Boarding Of U-94”
www.amazon.co.uk/No-Higher-Purpose-Operational-1939-1943/dp/1551250616
www.amazon.co.uk/Canadas-Navy-Century-General-Interest/dp/0802042813/

Free naval photos and more – www.drachinifel.co.uk

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Want to talk about ships? https://discord.gg/TYu88mt

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Episodes in podcast format – https://soundcloud.com/user-21912004

Music – https://www.youtube.com/c/NCMEpicMusic

April 23, 2021

Treaties and War, The Washington Naval Conference

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Italy, Japan, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 17 Aug 2017

The History Guy remembers the Washington Naval Conference, a watershed in diplomacy.

The episode discusses events and shows some artwork depicting warships, which some viewers may find disturbing. All events are described for educational purposes and are presented in historical context.

The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
teespring.com/stores/the-history-guy

The episode is intended for educational purposes. All events are presented in historical context.

#ushistory #thehistoryguy #militaryhistory

April 20, 2021

Why do the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers have twin islands?

Filed under: Britain, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Not What You Think
Published 28 Dec 2020

There are at least five advantages to having two separate islands on the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. But the main reason for such a design can only be found below the deck. Enjoy!

All the footage used in this video is under MOD license from Royal Navy Imagery archive. https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and…

REFERENCES:
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/why-d…
https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/the-…

April 13, 2021

The Washington Naval Treaty – The parties, the motives, the negotiations, the loophole abuse…

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Italy, Japan, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Drachinifel
Published 10 Feb 2021

Today we look at the Washington Naval Treaty, why it came to be, the broad aspects of negotiation, what it meant and how people turned it into a legal pretzel.

Sources:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pre-war/19…​
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KIXWLE2
www.amazon.co.uk/Kaigun-Strategy-Technology-Imperial-1887-1941-ebook/dp/B01DRYEMH2
www.amazon.co.uk/Treaty-Cruisers-RE-ISSUE-International-Competition/dp/1526748509
www.amazon.co.uk/Naval-Policy-Between-Wars-Anglo-American/dp/1473877407

Free naval photos and more – www.drachinifel.co.uk

Want to support the channel? – https://www.patreon.com/Drachinifel

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Music – https://www.youtube.com/c/NCMEpicMusic

From the comments:

Gamebook
2 months ago (edited)
The Americans didn’t want to build the ships, but could have afforded to do so.
The Japanese did want to build the ships, but couldn’t have afforded to do so.
The French wanted other people to think that they wanted to build the ships and could afford to do so, but in fact they didn’t want to and couldn’t have afforded to do so.
The Italians did not want the French to build the ships, and thought they had prevented them from doing so, but in fact see above. The Italians themselves could not afford to build the ships any more than the French could.
The British sort of wanted to build the ships, and could sort of have afforded to do so, but would rather everyone just restrained themselves as that would leave the Royal Navy in a better position than they could have paid for in the event of another naval arms race.

March 23, 2021

Why are Pre-War Shipwrecks Disappearing?

Filed under: Asia, Britain, Germany, History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Calum
Published 22 Aug 2020

Pre-war shipwrecks are disappearing from the seabed. Why? A look at the sad reality of illegal salvaging that is destroying numerous war graves and historical wrecks around the world, told from the site of some of the most famous shipwrecks in the world; Scapa Flow.

The Guardian has done some amazing work in documenting this problem, worth a read if you have the time:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/201…​

00:00​ – Introduction & History of Scapa Flow
01:00​ – Scuttling & Salvaging of the German High Fleet
02:45​ – The Value of Pre-War Steel
03:54​ – The Disappearing Shipwrecks
06:03​ – HMS Royal Oak
10:16​ – Disappearing Wargraves
10:58​ – Outro

Twitter………………….►https://twitter.com/calumraasay​
Instagram…………….►http://instagram.com/calumraasay​
Website………………..►http://calumgillies.com

March 20, 2021

Iron cannon, improved celestial navigation techniques, and “race-built” galleons

In the latest Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes considers some of the technological innovations which helped English sailors to overcome powerful adversaries of the Spanish and Portuguese navies in the late 1500s and early 1600s:

Stern view of a model of the Revenge as an example of a race-built galleon, 1577.
Image from modellmarine.de

Apart from the adoption and refinement of celestial navigation techniques, however, English seafaring capabilities also benefited from some more obvious, physical changes. In 1588, for example, on the eve of the Spanish Armada, a senior Spanish officer believed that the English had “many more long-range guns”. By the 1540s, medieval ironmaking techniques involving the blast furnace had gradually spread from Germany, to Normandy, and thence to the Weald of Sussex and Kent. Whereas in the first half of the sixteenth century England had typically imported three quarters of its iron from Spain, by 1590 it had not only quintupled its consumption of iron but was also almost entirely self-sufficient. And by allowing England to exploit its plentiful domestic deposits of iron, the blast furnace resulted in it producing many more cheap cannon.

Iron guns were in many ways worse for ships than those of bronze. They were heavier, prone to corrosion, and more likely to explode without warning. Bronze guns, by contrast, would first bulge and then split, but in any case tended to last. When the British captured Gorée off the coast of Senegal in 1758, they found a working English-made bronze cannon that dated from 1582. Yet iron was only 10-20% the price of bronze. Although the Royal Navy for decades continued to prefer bronze, cheap, medium-sized cannon of iron proliferated, becoming affordable to merchants, pirates, and privateers — a situation that was unique to England.

English ships were thus especially well-armed, allowing them to access new markets even when they sailed into hostile waters. They were soon some of the only merchants able to hold their own against the latest Mediterranean apex predator, whether it be the Spanish navy, Algeria-based corsairs, or Ottoman galleys. And they were able to insert themselves, sometimes violently, into the inter-oceanic trades — all despite the armed resistance of the Spanish and Portuguese, who had long monopolised those routes. In the 1560s, John Hawkins tried a few times to muscle in on the transatlantic Portuguese and Spanish trade in slaves. With backing from the monarch and her ministers, he captured Portuguese slave ships, raided and traded along the African coastline himself, and then sold slaves in the Spanish colonies of the Americas, sometimes having to attack those colonies before the local governor would allow them to trade. (The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, as Hawkins’s privateering fleet was all but destroyed in 1568 and the English were not involved in the slave trade again for almost a century.)

The English hold over the hostile markets was only threatened during times of peace on the continent, when their ships’ defensiveness no longer gave them a special advantage. The Dutch usurped English dominance of the trade with Iberia and the Mediterranean, for example, during the Dutch Republic’s truce with Spain 1609-21. Their more efficient ships, especially for bulk commodities — the fluyt invented at Hoorn in the late 1580s — were cheaper to build, required fewer sailors, and were easier to handle. But these advantages only made them competitive when the risk of attack was low, as they were hardly armed. When wars resumed, the English had a chance to regain their position.

Finally, the English acquired a few further advantages when it came to ship design. Thanks to the shipwright Matthew Baker, who had been on the trial voyage Cabot dispatched to the Mediterranean, England experienced a revolution in using mathematics to design ships. Baker’s methods, seemingly developed in the 1560s, allowed him to more cheaply experiment with new forms, and by the 1570s these began to bear fruit. The old ocean-going carracks and galleons, with their high forecastles and aftercastles, became substantially sleeker. Taking inspiration from nature, Baker designed a streamlined, elongated hull modelled below the waterline upon a cod’s head with a mackerel tail. Above the waterline, too, he lowered the forecastle and set it further back, as well as flattening the aftercastle.

Starting in 1570 with his prototype the Foresight, and more fully developed in 1575-77 with the Revenge, these razed or “race-built” galleons gave the English some significant advantages. Drake even chose the Revenge as his flagship to battle the Spanish Armada in 1588, and to lead an ill-fated reprisal invasion of Portugal the following year. The higher castles of carracks and old-style galleons were suited to clearing an enemy’s decks with arrows and gunfire, as well as to defend against boarders. They were designed for combat at close quarters, in which height was an advantage. They were floating fortresses, their imposing height known to inspire terror. The race-built galleons, by contrast, by making the ship less top-heavy, could have longer and lower gundecks, with more of the ship’s displacement devoted to ordnance — especially useful when taking advantage of the cheaper but heavier cannon made of iron. Rather than killing an enemy ship’s sailors and soldiers, the race-built galleons were optimised for blasting through its hull. What they lost in “majesty and terror”, they made up for with overwhelming firepower. They aimed to sink.

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