What would be the effect of modern anti ship missiles against WW2 era battleships, considering most of them are designed to hit the waterline (where the main belt would be) and are not armour piercing weapons. The Fritz X and other bombs were actually designed with armour piercing in mind afterall, and no sabe designer of modern ASMs would design a missile that gives up explosive payload and range in order to pierce armour that is mostly nonpresent in the modern context?
Perhaps a series on the ships of Bikini Atoll. Their position relative to each test and the results. For example did they survive the blast, were they left sinking or on the bottom after the blasts. I think the tests themselves have been covered to the nth degree. Nevada, Saratoga and Prince Eugen Have been talked about as well as a CVL that ended up scuttled off San Francisco. (loaded with nuclear waste no less) I think the political, social and ecological aspects of the tests have been covered on other channels, so that would be redundant. I might be worth mentioning the oops factor of the test.
It would be nice to see a visit to La Hemione in Rochfort Charente Maritime. It's a working replica of the sailing frigate (sailed to the US a couple of years ago). She was built using traditional methods. The naval museum and the royal cordiary are all situated in the same location. The museum has a massive collection of naval architect hand built large model warships from down the ages (absolutely incredible detail). A real find for French Naval history. (Steady now)
@Eduardo Charlier while the question presented is interesting like @Pixel Dust said, you can just slap an explosively formed penetrator warhead on there. Considering that the payload of most missiles is in the hundreds of killograms, it wil go quite a way.
Lexington battlecruiser loses some funnels: *Sad noises* Lexington carrier gets one of the biggest funnels in ship history: *soot-covered happy noises*
The Japanese wanted to build their cruisers to the treaty limit, but because they added way too many weapons to their cruisers they had to rebuild them to avoid structural damage and capsizing, increasing their displacement. Still a lot better than the Germans....
Well, they really needed a way to trunk the exhaust gasses from those 16 oil fired boilers. I think at one point the battlecruiser design had 3 or 4 or ever 5 smaller uptakes (funnels) and even the late designs had 2 massive funnels. Later ships like Yorktown and Essex had fewer and more efficient boilers, reducing the need for the Lexington class' massive single uptake. Both Lex and Sara could be considered 'Two Island' ships since the uptake is all but totally separate from the Island containing the Navigation Bridge and control centers.
@@robertf3479 yes, the volume of gas was a major issue. The Lexingtons could have easily been designed like the Kaga, with huge ducts along the sides of the hanger. The USN also looked at having the forward end of the hangers open for additional aircraft launching, as was done in the original layout of Kaga. Aviators were pressing for the Lexintons to have no obstructions at all on the flight deck, no island, no funnel. Ranger tried to address the gas issue by placing the boilers aft of the turbines so the gas could be vented near the aft end of the ship without long ducts. Given the minimal experience with carriers at the time, it is pure luck that they turned out as well as they did, rather than looking exactly like Kaga's original configuration. iirc, the original 1916 design for the Lexintons had 24 boilers, located on 2 decks, with 7 funnels.
@@stevevalley7835 I think the USN played with the 'Kaga' type ducts for fireroom exhaust gases and even 'folding' exhaust uptakes (Ranger) on either side of the flight deck before settling on more conventional vertical uptakes in the Yorktown and later classes up through the introduction of nuclear power. In CV-5 Yorktown there was a catapult mounted on the open forecastle, just above the anchor chains and anchor windlasses below the flight deck. I think one was fitted to CV-6 Enterprise as well, not certain about CV-7 Wasp or CV-8 Hornet. I don't believe any were fitted in the CV-9 Essex class ships even though these were completed with open forecastle decks below the forward end of the flight deck. Enclosed 'hurricane bow' plating was installed in the Essex class post war. If they had the hurricane bows during the war it's likely much of the damage to the flight decks incurred in very heavy weather (Halsey's Typhoons come to mind) when high seas could crash against the BOTTOM of the flight deck, lifting it off its supports and allowing it to crash down onto the forecastle. The Hurricane Bow plating deflects these monster waves away, protecting from this kind of damage though I have watched 60 foot high waves crash solid over the leading end of the flight deck of USS Nassau (LHA 4) and roll down the deck before reaching the island. The Nassau is about the size and height above the waterline of an Essex class carrier, with a full length flight deck and island on the starboard side. Google USS Nassau (LHA 4) if you're curious. 'Islands' have always been unpopular with naval aviators due to air flow disruption over the flight deck … until they rise to actually command a carrier or it's air wing. That's when they come to appreciate not only the field of vision the CAG and his staff have of the flight deck but also the very necessary ability to see where the hell the ship is going, something the Commanding Officer (ALWAYS a Naval Aviator with only limited experience as a 'ship driver') comes to appreciate very quickly. My CO in Nassau was an A-6 Intruder pilot until he was promoted to Captain and was placed in line to eventually … maybe … command a carrier. His XO was a surface warfare officer (ship driver.)
@@robertf3479 Langley also had folding funnels on the port side of the flight deck. Jupiter's boiler and engine rooms were located well aft, so the funnel location was an easy adaptation. Ranger replicated that funnel location, but had more funnels because of the greater boiler capacity. That approach was not an option on the Lexingtons because the boiler room location had already been set closer to midships, same as Kaga. The options with the more midships boiler room location were an island with a funnel, which the aviators opposed, or entirely flush decked, with the stack gas trunked aft. and directed away from the flight deck. Furious had the stack gas trunked aft and exiting from grills on the aft corners of the flight deck, which was a particularly bad location and the ducting inside the hanger turned the after part of the hanger into an oven from heat soak. Argus had a similar setup, but, less powerful engines, so less hot gas to vent. As I said, it was luck that the Lexingtons turned out as well as they did. With the US' lack of experience with carriers, they could easily have used the same solutions as Kaga. Unlike the Japanese, Italians and Brits, the USN, for whatever reason, did not do major reconstructions on it's older ships in the 30s, so, if the Lexingtons had been built like the Kaga, they would have entered WWII with the same configuration, while Kaga had been rebuilt with a small island, full length flight deck and a downward curving funnel midships in place of the long ducts.
"Which was just as well considering the alternative would have been a high speed tin can full of explosives with the name United States plastered all over it!" XD Dont ever change Drach
Beginning on about December 17, 1929, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington (CV-2) ties up to the Baker Dock and supplies electricity to Tacoma for a month to meet a power crisis. In the 1920s, Tacoma received most of its electrical energy from dams on the Nisqually and Skokomish Rivers.
my grandfather flew a hell diver off the lexington. bomber squadron 19. at leyte gulf he flew off solo to go after a "virgen" ship which turned out to be an ise class battleship which was followed by its sister ship of the same class. he dove at the one in front and broke protocol and descended further then he was supposed to causing extreme g forces. he threw a bomb down their smoke stack killing 25-100. he actually passed out after he pulled up because of the g forces and came to as he was flying past the second battleship, he thought it was hilarious that his tail gunner was shooting this little 30 caliber machine gun at this massive ship, they were so close they could see the whites of the japanese eyes and were too close for the japanese aa to react to my grandfathers plane. he managed to get away. he got the navy cross for that.
My grandfather was a CPO, signalman on the Lexington. He had to abandon ship when it was too badly damaged. Some of the stories he told me about his WW2 experiences were amazing. The one I remember most was men going down to the galley and filling their flak helmets with ice cream and jumping over the side eating it. Better than letting it go to waste!
Nice review. My wife's uncle served on Lexington and survived the sinking. His brother, my father in law, served on Lexington CV16. My best man's father was aboard Saratoga and the second torpedoing convinced him that life would be better as a pilot and he got his wings. I, myself was crew on Nimitz and Missouri.
The US Coast Guard Cutter Taney was at Pearl on Dec. 7th and is the last survivor of the attack still afloat. She is a National Historic Landmark and moored in Baltimore Harbor as part of the Baltimore Maritime Museum. Known as the "Queen of the Pacific" she was decommissioned after 50 years of active service including 3 wars and both theaters of ww2. One of seven built for the CG in the mid 1930's known as the Hamilton class. Outfitted with 4 five inch 38 caliber naval guns, she was the flag ship for Admiral Cobb during invasion of Okinawa, defended against kamikaze attacks and, held anchor during typhoons off Japan. Always a USCG vessel and crew onboard. During peace time Taney maintained weather stations at sea and tested doppler radar as well as her SAR/LE duties. She was part of the search for Amelia Earhart and made numerous drug interdictions at sea and is credited with saving many lives. Sure would love to see her on Your Channel Drachinfel. She deserves more and has more to give than the paragraph I just wrote from memory obtained from the best 2 years of my life at sea aboard Taney. Thanks,
We sailed Taney across the Atlantic to Cork Ireland, Le Harve France and Rota Spain during the Coast Guard Academy 1978 cadet training cruises. Three modern Hamilton Class cutters sailed with us. I visited her in 2019 in Baltimore. I always thought she was the dreariest ship imaginable and later in life wondered if that was just a lonesome 20 year old's thinking or if she really was that dreary. I've sailed a number of US Navy ships that seemed better maintained and less oppressive. So when I had a chance I visited her again in Baltimore circa 2019. She was just like I remember her, dreary and worn out, and now with her teak deck I holy stoned covered in some sort of gray goop they apparently sprayed on rather than replace the teak.The CO's cabin still has the same old Colonial style maple furniture that looks more like it belongs in your great grandparents living room than in a ship. The passageway to Officer's Country still looks dark and foreboding. I could still see in my mind the water mixed with pee sloshing around the enlisted head next to the enlisted berthing. At Rota all the cadets rotated. Those who had been on the Eagle flew to Rota to take the cutters. Those of us on the cutters boarded C-141s for NAS North Island to take the Eagle north to Sea Fair 78 in Vancouver with a stop in Victoria before Vancouver and our final stop in Seattle. Now that was a cruise!
It's interesting to me that the "fast carrier" developed almost by accident due to the Washington Treaty, with the major naval powers all deciding to convert battlecruisers (or in the case of the British, the "large light cruisers" of the Courageous class) into carriers kinda simultaneously.
Fun fact about the 8 inch guns: the turrets could be turned to both sides so technically it was also possible to fire to port across the flight deck, this was never attempted however because of fears that the muzzle blast from the guns would damage the flight deck
I suspect that if you had an 8" gun enemy cruiser to port, or a flotilla of destroyers preparing to launch Long Lance torpedoes at you, well, flight deck be damned....
@@ralphkerr6809 you wouldn't. But they were never in that situation. And lets be honest: if an aircraft carrier is in the position of having to defend itself with surface artillery, then the battle is probably already lost.
I was born in 1940 but had the immense fortune to have had numerous Pacific War Vets as as co-workers, relatives, and neighbors. One co-worker was on Yorktown at Coral Sea. He saw when Lexington got hit and was taken off Yorktown to help rebuild the sunken battleships at Pearl since he was an excellent maintenance worker in the petrochemical industry. His descriptions of the battle made me a lifelong advocate of history of the Pacific War. After they they refitted the old battle ships he was aboard a battleship at Surigao Strait. He was so proud to say to me, "Larry, we crossed the T on them, there" referring to Surigao Straight. So he was one of the few great men that fought on the first carrier battle and the last great battleship battle if you discount the sinking of Haruna.
I remember spending the night on the USS Lexington (the Essex-class replacement that is) in Coprus Christi, Texas while I was in the boy scouts. You don't understand the size of the ship until you explore past the normal tourist areas. Places like the anchor rooms and other lower deck rooms were closed off for most tourist, were open for us to explore. In the morning, they actually served food in the real mess hall. Overall really cool experience.
And an old Essex Class carrier is only 1/3 the displacement of a Nimitz or Ford class. Here is something that amazed me. I was having a flight physical on Nimitz during a deployment. Every space seemed to have a TV monitor showing the PLAT, Pilot Landing Aid Television. There was one in the superstructure space I was sitting in waiting for a helo ride back to my own ship and you could feel every so slightly a bump whenever an A-6 trapped.
@@Kdub09swm Yep. And then you go someplace like LA or Long Beach harbor and see container ships that are at least 50% larger than a Nimitz class. Those box ships are just huge. What also surprised me is how hard it can be to find an aircraft carrier at sea even when they want to be found. We were approaching Nimitz in hour CH-46 from her starboard beam. It broad daylight but very hazy with broken clouds. The Air Boss asked us to call when we saw the ship. We were only five miles out on our TACAN but neither I nor my command pilot could pick the ship out from the haze. The Air Boss was starting to get angry at us (they have notoriously short tempers !) when we finally saw her. The internet fanbois who think a carrier is so easy to find and sink have never been out there in blue water. Even something as big as a Nimitz is a tiny little speck in the vast ocean.
My uncle Eugene Bain was on the Lexington when she was crippled. He made it off all right. He was shipped to Australia where my dad spotted him in a crowd and the two brothers were reunited. Up to then my dad didn't know if Gene were alive or dead.
That section view of the torpedo damage to Saratoga was incredibly interesting to this electrical engineer. She was a bit of a torpedo magnet early in the war, and her turbo-electric drive package turned out to be less damage-resistant than hoped for.
Indeed, iirc, the second torpedo incident shorted out the electrical control system for the engines, leaving the Sara dead in the water. But the turbo-electric system looked good on paper because it allowed tighter compartmentalization.
@@EliteF22 Yes, the midships elevator, in particular, was so small it was nearly useless by 44. Elevator size was a function of her age. When built, the designers had to guess how large aircraft would get during her lifetime. That elevator could have been enlarged, but, for whatever reason, the USN did not go in for major rebuilds of it's older ships in the 30s.
You'll love it! I dove Bikini a few months ago. The greatest wreck diving on earth, but you need to have at minimum mixed-gas certification allowing you to go to 50 meters.
Drachisms of the Day: 0:47 "Which was probably just as well considering the alternative would have been a high-speed tin-can full of explosives with the name 'United States' plastered all over it." 1:34 "So they just lied about it and said they weighted 33000 tons anyway."
I remember reading a book about the sinking of the Lexington. The Battle Cruiser hull served her well but once the fires started she was doomed. One tough ship.
@@ninline2000 same here, I think I still have the paperback. It's been since '77 or so since I read the book. (that's 1977 for the younger crowd) Google Queen of the flat tops: The U.S.S. Lexington and the Coral Sea Battle. Stanley Johnston.
So my Dad was on the Sarah from around June of 44 to the end of operation magic carpet. That includes the tour off Iwo in February 45. I still have the "yearbook" from the Sarah and another from Antietam when he got called back up for Korea. Thanks for including CV-3 on your video for CV-2
1:37 - IIRC, that was pretty well-known at the time, but nobody complained, since the original treaty limits on displacement for converted ships were, in fact, unrealistically low, as demonstrated by the other treaty power converting battleships and battlecruisers to carriers, Japan, running into exactly the same problem with _their_ conversions _(Akagi_ and _Kaga)._
As a big fan of warships, I'm really enjoying all of your videos - so informative! Do you think you could do a video on Leander class frigates please? My father served on three of them (Apollo, Jupiter and Scylla) throughout the 1970's and as a kid, I certainly remember going onboard during family days and Navy Days at Plymouth! Thanks!
When I first saw Lexington on a documentary I thought I knew the allies build these with big funnels but wow I didn't know that's a standard and now I realised that it isn't standard for such a big funnel
Drach Aside from voicing my apreciation for your videos in general, I'd like to remark on the number of ships that were mentioned in the context of operations crossroads. I'm starting to see a pattern there. It seems that most ships did take the nuclear explosions rather well, unless they were very, very close - at least as far as structural integity goes. Any chance you could expand on that subject in a seperate video?
He did in I believe one of the drydocks. The ships were structurally barely damaged but the crews would've all been killed, so it was kind of a moot point.
I remember reading something about the Lexington that was unusual: it was originally designed to recover or launch aircraft either sailing forward or in reverse. Not sure why, since either had to be accomplished into the wind. I'm sure this idea must have been abandoned during the transition from biplanes to monoplanes, or else because aircraft doctrine found no use for this feature.
My dad was part of the group of people that got to see her last moments above the surface. He was aboard USS Phelps, the DE that torpedoed n sunk her... I remember going to ships reunions as a kid, and those guys had tears in their eyes talking about it 40yrs later.....
My father was aboard USS Phelps, the DD that torpedoed Lex and sank her... I went to ship reunions as a kid, and those guys still cried when talking about it 40yrs later.... Powerful attachments to ships, and Lady Lex was a favorite....
From a visual perspective you'll notice that the Lexington had a black horizontal stripe around the top of her "funnel" while the Saratoga had a black vertical stripe on the "funnel" . This made for easy identification by pilots is the early days of operations. Early is his 30 yr. Navy my father served as a pharmacist mate on the Lady Lex at the base of the island. More then once becoming covered in red goo as someone on the flight deck did not pay attention and walked into a prop. Flight deck crews earn their hazardous pay. Narragansett Bay
I believe a look at fast attack transports like the USS Waters, by the US and Japan and their role in the Marshall islands and at Guadacanal were significant.
If I remember correctly, the US navy took advantage of a treaty clause that allowed 3000 extra tons for torpedo protection to bring them in as treaty compliant.
It always breaks my heart to know saratoga could have been the most awesome museum ship around. Instead big kids with firecrackers got to her... such a shame. Even if they did choose the best and toughest to test 2 abombs on...
My father served aboard the Sara from late summer of 42 until, probably mid 43. He said she was never able to make top speed due to a bent screw shaft from the torpedo damage in early 42. As a result, she was never able to fully engage in battle and was often used as a decoy to draw attention of the Japanese away from more capable carriers.
Not likely to be much in the way of radioactivity - the neutrons from an underwater nuke detonation would be mostly shielded by the water. Any remaining induced radioactivity would have decayed down to almost zip by now.
Was thinking along the same lines myself.....not sure if I'd take any comfort from Eric Sprague's response........they did use plutonium for those tests......not exactly sure what type......but plutonium 239........its half life is only 24,400 years......you might want to wait a bit
@@logansorenssen sure about that?.......they did use plutonium in those tests......plutonium 239's half life is 24,400 years.....my dad worked with those people .....he used to come home carrying radioactive bits in his pocket to show folks......died suddenly of sirosis of the liver........wasn't a drinker.......they didn't know what they were playing with
@@stephenmichalski2643 Yeah, well here is an issue, you literally will be subject to more radiation on the FLIGHT to the wreck site than on the wreck. She is at a shade over normal natural background level radiation but not by much. You know what kind of places are actually at higher background radiation levels than Saratoga? ANY major city you care to name, literally, ANY of them. You blather on about Plutoniums half life and utterly forget that the damned stuff has been dispersed into a Marine environment that scales to literally TRILLIONS of Gallons of water. They did not use much plutonium in those bombs I might add.... most of that material has made its way to where heavy stuff eventually ends up, the depths... average depth of the Pacific is 4 THOUSAND metres.... You are NOT diving that deep. I have dived more than one wreck used in Nuclear tests, we ran an experiment at one point, we took counters down to several of these wrecks, and also ran them in multiple large cities, including London, New York, Berlin and Paris.... The cities had a higher background radiation count.... just so you know..... People need to get real about radiation and learn something about it. Were you aware for example that the vast majority (though not all) of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is at about natural background Radiation levels? Sure, there are a few hotspots, but most of it is clear. Radiation does NOT work the way a Fallout game suggests it would, or the Media, the CEZ does not have the advantage of trillions of litres of seawater to dilute the fissionable material either..... So yes, unlike Eric Sprague I am UTTERLY sure of that, as I have dived the wreck, and she was one of those we took a counter down with us to. In other words, if you get the opportunity, dive her, unlike many WWII wrecks she is not a Grave Site, and she is literally one of only three carrier wrecks that are reachable by divers without specialist and very expensive equipment (not to mention training). Love a Marine Ecologist utterly pissed off with the waaaaaah, eeeeek, argh view of Radiation... Don't even get me started with the 'Doomsday' view of Fukashima... which according to some is going to destroy the world in a few years because that damned stuff is eating its way to the planets core according to them!
What is the deal with the funnel? was it a symptom of how the boilers were configured when it was still under construction as a battlecrusier? were they bad "smokers" and that is the result of trying to keep heat and fumes as far away from the deck as possible? it always seems like when this ship is mentioned the word !!!!!FUNNEL!!! appears in my brain in big red neon letters
It would be nice if these commentaries focused more on the technical aspects of the ships design and performance in service and less on their service history. Just a suggestion.
As I commented on the Wasp post, the Lexingtons were horribly inefficient carriers, with hangers 200 feet shorter than a Yorktown's on more than 50% greater tonnage than a Yorktown, an issue compounded by the Washington Treaty's tonnage limits. The Friedman book indicates that the pro-air faction in the Navy appears to have had their eyes on the battle cruisers for conversion to carriers before the BCs were even laid down. By 1920, the pro-air faction had decided that a carrier "must" be 35,000 tons, with 180,000hp, a recipe that the Lexingtons fit perfectly. I would not be surprised if the "cost savings" numbers were manipulated to justify giving the pro-air faction what it wanted. Interestingly, once the pro-air faction had been placated by the Lexingtons, Navy thinking turned 180 degrees, with the concern that having a few large carriers would result in the sinking of only one ship severely crippling carrier strength, so then the decision was made to use the remaining carrier tonnage on 5 ships the size of the Ranger. Of course, the push for the Lexingtons could have been partly motivated by the ridiculous inadequacy of the Langley, a topic to be taken up when the video on that ship is presented.
This caused the cancellation of CC-4 to CC-6. The Navy would then build USS Ranger (CV-4), the first carrier to be designed and built from the keel up as a carrier. Tonnage restrictions would keep her to only 14,576 tons and a dead weight of 3,001 tons. Despite her small size, she acquitted herself quite well through WWII serving in the Atlantic. She was the 6th ship to bear the name Ranger. The 1st being the Sloop-of-War commanded by John Paul Jones.
Lexington CV-2 sank during the battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942. She is not radioactive. Saratoga CV-3 sank during operation crossroads in 1946, she was radioactive but due the time and the tides she isn’t anymore.
Okay, genuine curiosity, here. Does anyone have a photo of the whole "tying up" of aircraft in the hangar ceiling on US carriers in WWII? I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept and it'd probably be easier to understand if I could actually see it.
thrown out of the water in operation crossroads? makes me seriously wonder how she would have fared had she a good damage recovery crew on board. The gamma and neutron flux would not have hit the crew even from 400 yards as that would be enough water to mute the high particle energy of the blast but not the shock to the frames. The fact she was thrown out of the water does not tell me if she capsized. If still upright a damage fighting crew could have saved her. Nuclear torpedoes however do not detonate 400m away but right at the ship thus killing everyone.
It's a pity Drachinifel didn't explain why Lexington and Saratoga both got those truly ginormous funnels, a feature found on no other ships in or put of the U.S. Navy.
@robert3479 explains in the thread that they needed a way to vent the exhaust from the 16 oil-fired boilers that drove each of the sister ships. This somehow reminds me of how they put eight nuclear reactors on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first atomic supercarrier and inheritor of the World War II hero ship's name and legacy. (It turns out she only needed two, and the cumulative radiation dose from the six extra reactors would earn this Big E the less flattering nickname of the "Mobile Chernobyl.")
No, the dangerous radioactive isotopes have a short half-life and have already decayed. The remaining radioactive material only gives off alpha particles which can't pierce your skin and don't go far in water.
Amazing how many aircraft they managed to cram aboard her! Also, it's weird putting 8" guns on an aircraft carrier - did the U.S. Navy have insufficient heavy cruisers to be able to provide a proper escort?
Nobody had any idea how carriers were going to be employed, and when the Lexingtons were being redesigned it was thought that carriers might wind up in gun duels with heavy cruisers. Remember, in the late '20s aircraft were rather short-ranged and not a lot of ordnance capacity. The Japanese had the same idea when they converted Akagi and Kaga. Akagi had 6 8" guns near the waterline aft and Kaga had 10 8" guns.
Nope, she is not that much above background radiation levels, certainly not enough to be a health concern. You probably pick up more background radiation if you live in a large city.... and no one has suggested not going to say London because of the radiation hazard!
@@kemarisite Yup, too many people are completely unaware that we are surrounded by radiation, our Sun is just one huge Nuclear reaction, concrete gives off radiation (believe it or not), a whole fuck ton of stuff gives off radiation. If you live in a city you will get a higher dose of radiation commuting to work than you will for a dive of similar length on the Saratoga.
I thought the original Lexington was sunk in the battle the coral sea. The second Lexington is a museum in Corpus. The Saratoga ( Lexington’s sister ship) was nuked in a test in the Bikini atoll.
Maybe, maybe not, British Design philosophy for their Fleet Carriers was different to the US. They did not have to cover the vast range of the Pacific, far from bases, but they *did* have to operate for large portions of time in constrained seas in range of large groups of enemy Land based aircraft. Hence why RN Fleet Carriers sacrificed some Hanger space for increased deck armouring. It is no accident that most of the British Carriers lost were lost in the Mediterranean! It is all about compromise, the RN Carriers carried far smaller flight groups partly due to smaller hangers, and also partly because they did not deck park aircraft. On the flip side British Carriers could shrug off the kind of damage that would put a USN Carrier into dock for repairs for months, if not sink them. Indeed, one USN Liason officer aboard a British Carrier supporting the USN noted after a Kamikazi struck the flight deck of the British ship that the crew simply bulldozed the flaming wreck over the side, doused the deck and she was ready to operate aircraft within ten minutes of being struck. With that kind of difference in Design Philosophy the RN and USN would have built two very different ships even if the starting hulls had been exactly the same.
Agreed, however I was more reffering to a converted Incomparable completed in the mid-1920s. Such a ship would likely have been built more along the lines of Courageous and Glorious before the RN developped its "armoured deck doctrine" and at a time when Japan looked like the most likely foe. No matter the design they went with however, at a 1000 foot long this carrier would have been the largest vessel of its type for quite a lot of years.
@@rem26439 I have actually asked that question, and the answer was that the thing would basically be the closest thing to a Forrestal you could get in the 1920s.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Why doesn't USS San Diego CL-53 get a video :C
What would be the effect of modern anti ship missiles against WW2 era battleships, considering most of them are designed to hit the waterline (where the main belt would be) and are not armour piercing weapons. The Fritz X and other bombs were actually designed with armour piercing in mind afterall, and no sabe designer of modern ASMs would design a missile that gives up explosive payload and range in order to pierce armour that is mostly nonpresent in the modern context?
Perhaps a series on the ships of Bikini Atoll. Their position relative to each test and the results. For example did they survive the blast, were they left sinking or on the bottom after the blasts. I think the tests themselves have been covered to the nth degree. Nevada, Saratoga and Prince Eugen Have been talked about as well as a CVL that ended up scuttled off San Francisco. (loaded with nuclear waste no less) I think the political, social and ecological aspects of the tests have been covered on other channels, so that would be redundant. I might be worth mentioning the oops factor of the test.
It would be nice to see a visit to La Hemione in Rochfort Charente Maritime. It's a working replica of the sailing frigate (sailed to the US a couple of years ago). She was built using traditional methods. The naval museum and the royal cordiary are all situated in the same location. The museum has a massive collection of naval architect hand built large model warships from down the ages (absolutely incredible detail). A real find for French Naval history. (Steady now)
@Eduardo Charlier while the question presented is interesting like @Pixel Dust said, you can just slap an explosively formed penetrator warhead on there. Considering that the payload of most missiles is in the hundreds of killograms, it wil go quite a way.
Lexington battlecruiser loses some funnels:
*Sad noises*
Lexington carrier gets one of the biggest funnels in ship history:
*soot-covered happy noises*
I love how all the signituries to the Washington treaty lied their assess off about tonnage
That's how politics works
They didn't lie, they just made several 'mistakes' while calculating stuff.
Math is hard, right? :D
The Japanese wanted to build their cruisers to the treaty limit, but because they added way too many weapons to their cruisers they had to rebuild them to avoid structural damage and capsizing, increasing their displacement.
Still a lot better than the Germans....
Or found the extra tonnage by robbing the Royal Australian Navy of at least one battlecruiser under construction.
@@Lgs260495 I sure am glad we and everyone else are completely honest about treaty compliance today!!! :-)
Designer: How big do you want the funnel on this thing?
US Navy: YES!
Well, they really needed a way to trunk the exhaust gasses from those 16 oil fired boilers. I think at one point the battlecruiser design had 3 or 4 or ever 5 smaller uptakes (funnels) and even the late designs had 2 massive funnels. Later ships like Yorktown and Essex had fewer and more efficient boilers, reducing the need for the Lexington class' massive single uptake. Both Lex and Sara could be considered 'Two Island' ships since the uptake is all but totally separate from the Island containing the Navigation Bridge and control centers.
@@robertf3479 yes, the volume of gas was a major issue. The Lexingtons could have easily been designed like the Kaga, with huge ducts along the sides of the hanger. The USN also looked at having the forward end of the hangers open for additional aircraft launching, as was done in the original layout of Kaga. Aviators were pressing for the Lexintons to have no obstructions at all on the flight deck, no island, no funnel. Ranger tried to address the gas issue by placing the boilers aft of the turbines so the gas could be vented near the aft end of the ship without long ducts. Given the minimal experience with carriers at the time, it is pure luck that they turned out as well as they did, rather than looking exactly like Kaga's original configuration. iirc, the original 1916 design for the Lexintons had 24 boilers, located on 2 decks, with 7 funnels.
I never knew it was a giant funnel untill I started watching Drach's videos.
Still, it gives the ships of this class a unique, non-ugly look.
@@stevevalley7835 I think the USN played with the 'Kaga' type ducts for fireroom exhaust gases and even 'folding' exhaust uptakes (Ranger) on either side of the flight deck before settling on more conventional vertical uptakes in the Yorktown and later classes up through the introduction of nuclear power.
In CV-5 Yorktown there was a catapult mounted on the open forecastle, just above the anchor chains and anchor windlasses below the flight deck. I think one was fitted to CV-6 Enterprise as well, not certain about CV-7 Wasp or CV-8 Hornet. I don't believe any were fitted in the CV-9 Essex class ships even though these were completed with open forecastle decks below the forward end of the flight deck. Enclosed 'hurricane bow' plating was installed in the Essex class post war.
If they had the hurricane bows during the war it's likely much of the damage to the flight decks incurred in very heavy weather (Halsey's Typhoons come to mind) when high seas could crash against the BOTTOM of the flight deck, lifting it off its supports and allowing it to crash down onto the forecastle. The Hurricane Bow plating deflects these monster waves away, protecting from this kind of damage though I have watched 60 foot high waves crash solid over the leading end of the flight deck of USS Nassau (LHA 4) and roll down the deck before reaching the island.
The Nassau is about the size and height above the waterline of an Essex class carrier, with a full length flight deck and island on the starboard side. Google USS Nassau (LHA 4) if you're curious.
'Islands' have always been unpopular with naval aviators due to air flow disruption over the flight deck … until they rise to actually command a carrier or it's air wing. That's when they come to appreciate not only the field of vision the CAG and his staff have of the flight deck but also the very necessary ability to see where the hell the ship is going, something the Commanding Officer (ALWAYS a Naval Aviator with only limited experience as a 'ship driver') comes to appreciate very quickly. My CO in Nassau was an A-6 Intruder pilot until he was promoted to Captain and was placed in line to eventually … maybe … command a carrier. His XO was a surface warfare officer (ship driver.)
@@robertf3479 Langley also had folding funnels on the port side of the flight deck. Jupiter's boiler and engine rooms were located well aft, so the funnel location was an easy adaptation. Ranger replicated that funnel location, but had more funnels because of the greater boiler capacity. That approach was not an option on the Lexingtons because the boiler room location had already been set closer to midships, same as Kaga. The options with the more midships boiler room location were an island with a funnel, which the aviators opposed, or entirely flush decked, with the stack gas trunked aft. and directed away from the flight deck. Furious had the stack gas trunked aft and exiting from grills on the aft corners of the flight deck, which was a particularly bad location and the ducting inside the hanger turned the after part of the hanger into an oven from heat soak. Argus had a similar setup, but, less powerful engines, so less hot gas to vent. As I said, it was luck that the Lexingtons turned out as well as they did. With the US' lack of experience with carriers, they could easily have used the same solutions as Kaga. Unlike the Japanese, Italians and Brits, the USN, for whatever reason, did not do major reconstructions on it's older ships in the 30s, so, if the Lexingtons had been built like the Kaga, they would have entered WWII with the same configuration, while Kaga had been rebuilt with a small island, full length flight deck and a downward curving funnel midships in place of the long ducts.
"Which was just as well considering the alternative would have been a high speed tin can full of explosives with the name United States plastered all over it!" XD Dont ever change Drach
There was also the (canceled in 1949) USS United States super carrier.
@@misterjag Which would have been horrifying, being armed with nuclear bombers.
@@misterjag No, it would have been awesome, yet another example of the US Navy's power to defend America, and by extension, the free world.
Hey, that's the American dream.
Renault R35 Nah, that’d be one of the Tillman battleships. Next to her sister USS Overcompensation.
Shall we build a fleet carrier or a heavy cruiser? "Yes."
As the little Spanish speaking girl says, "Why not both?"
Lexington was also used as a power source for the city of Tacoma during the Great Depression
Source? Would like to read into this more
Yep. I remember reading about that in the Tacoma News Tribune some time in the '80s, probably an anniversary of the event.
historylink.org/File/5113
@@ryanferrell2921 its true. The water behind the dams were low so….
Beginning on about December 17, 1929, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington (CV-2) ties up to the Baker Dock and supplies electricity to Tacoma for a month to meet a power crisis. In the 1920s, Tacoma received most of its electrical energy from dams on the Nisqually and Skokomish Rivers.
my grandfather flew a hell diver off the lexington. bomber squadron 19.
at leyte gulf he flew off solo to go after a "virgen" ship which turned
out to be an ise class battleship which was followed by its sister ship
of the same class. he dove at the one in front and broke protocol and
descended further then he was supposed to causing extreme g forces. he
threw a bomb down their smoke stack killing 25-100. he actually passed
out after he pulled up because of the g forces and came to as he was
flying past the second battleship, he thought it was hilarious that his
tail gunner was shooting this little 30 caliber machine gun at this
massive ship, they were so close they could see the whites of the
japanese eyes and were too close for the japanese aa to react to my
grandfathers plane. he managed to get away. he got the navy cross for
that.
My grandfather was a CPO, signalman on the Lexington. He had to abandon ship when it was too badly damaged. Some of the stories he told me about his WW2 experiences were amazing. The one I remember most was men going down to the galley and filling their flak helmets with ice cream and jumping over the side eating it. Better than letting it go to waste!
Nice review. My wife's uncle served on Lexington and survived the sinking. His brother, my father in law, served on Lexington CV16. My best man's father was aboard Saratoga and the second torpedoing convinced him that life would be better as a pilot and he got his wings. I, myself was crew on Nimitz and Missouri.
ifga16 my grand uncle served aboard the Lexington as well.....
I hope your uncle is ok
The US Coast Guard Cutter Taney was at Pearl on Dec. 7th and is the last survivor of the attack still afloat. She is a National Historic Landmark and moored in Baltimore Harbor as part of the Baltimore Maritime Museum. Known as the "Queen of the Pacific" she was decommissioned after 50 years of active service including 3 wars and both theaters of ww2. One of seven built for the CG in the mid 1930's known as the Hamilton class. Outfitted with 4 five inch 38 caliber naval guns, she was the flag ship for Admiral Cobb during invasion of Okinawa, defended against kamikaze attacks and, held anchor during typhoons off Japan. Always a USCG vessel and crew onboard. During peace time Taney maintained weather stations at sea and tested doppler radar as well as her SAR/LE duties. She was part of the search for Amelia Earhart and made numerous drug interdictions at sea and is credited with saving many lives.
Sure would love to see her on Your Channel Drachinfel. She deserves more and has more to give than the paragraph I just wrote from memory obtained from the best 2 years of my life at sea aboard Taney. Thanks,
We sailed Taney across the Atlantic to Cork Ireland, Le Harve France and Rota Spain during the Coast Guard Academy 1978 cadet training cruises. Three modern Hamilton Class cutters sailed with us. I visited her in 2019 in Baltimore. I always thought she was the dreariest ship imaginable and later in life wondered if that was just a lonesome 20 year old's thinking or if she really was that dreary. I've sailed a number of US Navy ships that seemed better maintained and less oppressive. So when I had a chance I visited her again in Baltimore circa 2019. She was just like I remember her, dreary and worn out, and now with her teak deck I holy stoned covered in some sort of gray goop they apparently sprayed on rather than replace the teak.The CO's cabin still has the same old Colonial style maple furniture that looks more like it belongs in your great grandparents living room than in a ship. The passageway to Officer's Country still looks dark and foreboding. I could still see in my mind the water mixed with pee sloshing around the enlisted head next to the enlisted berthing.
At Rota all the cadets rotated. Those who had been on the Eagle flew to Rota to take the cutters. Those of us on the cutters boarded C-141s for NAS North Island to take the Eagle north to Sea Fair 78 in Vancouver with a stop in Victoria before Vancouver and our final stop in Seattle. Now that was a cruise!
It's interesting to me that the "fast carrier" developed almost by accident due to the Washington Treaty, with the major naval powers all deciding to convert battlecruisers (or in the case of the British, the "large light cruisers" of the Courageous class) into carriers kinda simultaneously.
Fun fact about the 8 inch guns: the turrets could be turned to both sides so technically it was also possible to fire to port across the flight deck, this was never attempted however because of fears that the muzzle blast from the guns would damage the flight deck
Another would be that those guns muzzle blast is capable enough to shake plane on the deck which is another why they remove them
I suspect that if you had an 8" gun enemy cruiser to port, or a flotilla of destroyers preparing to launch Long Lance torpedoes at you, well, flight deck be damned....
@@johnreynolds7996 Yes, but I don't think they were ever actually used in combat. Why ruin your deck for a firing drill?
@@naverilllang why save your deck for a few kageros with long lances
@@ralphkerr6809 you wouldn't.
But they were never in that situation. And lets be honest: if an aircraft carrier is in the position of having to defend itself with surface artillery, then the battle is probably already lost.
I was born in 1940 but had the immense fortune to have had numerous Pacific War Vets as as co-workers, relatives, and neighbors. One co-worker was on Yorktown at Coral Sea. He saw when Lexington got hit and was taken off Yorktown to help rebuild the sunken battleships at Pearl since he was an excellent maintenance worker in the petrochemical industry. His descriptions of the battle made me a lifelong advocate of history of the Pacific War. After they they refitted the old battle ships he was aboard a battleship at Surigao Strait. He was so proud to say to me, "Larry, we crossed the T on them, there" referring to Surigao Straight. So he was one of the few great men that fought on the first carrier battle and the last great battleship battle if you discount the sinking of Haruna.
I remember spending the night on the USS Lexington (the Essex-class replacement that is) in Coprus Christi, Texas while I was in the boy scouts. You don't understand the size of the ship until you explore past the normal tourist areas. Places like the anchor rooms and other lower deck rooms were closed off for most tourist, were open for us to explore. In the morning, they actually served food in the real mess hall. Overall really cool experience.
And an old Essex Class carrier is only 1/3 the displacement of a Nimitz or Ford class.
Here is something that amazed me. I was having a flight physical on Nimitz during a deployment. Every space seemed to have a TV monitor showing the PLAT, Pilot Landing Aid Television. There was one in the superstructure space I was sitting in waiting for a helo ride back to my own ship and you could feel every so slightly a bump whenever an A-6 trapped.
@philsalvatore3902 Those newer carriers are insane in size. They're literally cities on the water. That's pretty cool.
@@Kdub09swm Yep. And then you go someplace like LA or Long Beach harbor and see container ships that are at least 50% larger than a Nimitz class. Those box ships are just huge.
What also surprised me is how hard it can be to find an aircraft carrier at sea even when they want to be found. We were approaching Nimitz in hour CH-46 from her starboard beam. It broad daylight but very hazy with broken clouds. The Air Boss asked us to call when we saw the ship. We were only five miles out on our TACAN but neither I nor my command pilot could pick the ship out from the haze. The Air Boss was starting to get angry at us (they have notoriously short tempers !) when we finally saw her. The internet fanbois who think a carrier is so easy to find and sink have never been out there in blue water. Even something as big as a Nimitz is a tiny little speck in the vast ocean.
I remember touring it as a kid
My uncle Eugene Bain was on the Lexington when she was crippled. He made it off all right. He was shipped to Australia where my dad spotted him in a crowd and the two brothers were reunited. Up to then my dad didn't know if Gene were alive or dead.
If I didn't know better I'd think you were referring to the movie Pearl Harbor the commemorative
High speed tin cans filled with explosives marked "United States Ship" ,, Drach is THE MAN of naval mirth...
One of my favorite classes. Really wish Sara would’ve been a museum.
Here I thought "Go big or go home" was meant for US food.
Apperently, it also went for funnels on US carriers.
I guess, Saratoga ended up with a better fate than Enterprise, but still, what a shame to nuke and scrape such magnificent survivors of the war.
That section view of the torpedo damage to Saratoga was incredibly interesting to this electrical engineer. She was a bit of a torpedo magnet early in the war, and her turbo-electric drive package turned out to be less damage-resistant than hoped for.
Indeed, iirc, the second torpedo incident shorted out the electrical control system for the engines, leaving the Sara dead in the water. But the turbo-electric system looked good on paper because it allowed tighter compartmentalization.
Saratoga spent so much time on injured reserve early on. Then her limited aircraft elevator design severely restricted aircraft handling.
@@EliteF22 Yes, the midships elevator, in particular, was so small it was nearly useless by 44. Elevator size was a function of her age. When built, the designers had to guess how large aircraft would get during her lifetime. That elevator could have been enlarged, but, for whatever reason, the USN did not go in for major rebuilds of it's older ships in the 30s.
Getting a healthy Drachinifel overdose today. Smooth sailing.
To me among the best looking carriers ever!
Nah, the WW2 Illustrious class carriers were the best looking carriers of all time. And they all had such great names.
@@johnreynolds7996 can't really argue with an opinion lol
The week is incomplete without a good Drach session - and these voiced versions add very much to the resultant sense of well-being...
Thanks!
Bucket list includes scuba trip to Bakini Atoll. So many ships!
Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon are also on my list.
You'll love it! I dove Bikini a few months ago. The greatest wreck diving on earth, but you need to have at minimum mixed-gas certification allowing you to go to 50 meters.
@@wolfetwain I'm certified. Deepest ive been was close to 100.
A few Drach shows stacked up oh boy time for lunch. Thanks.
Lex and Sara are my all time two favorite aircraft carriers. I really with Sara would’ve been preserved.
Drachisms of the Day:
0:47 "Which was probably just as well considering the alternative
would have been a high-speed tin-can full of explosives with the
name 'United States' plastered all over it."
1:34 "So they just lied about it and said they weighted 33000 tons
anyway."
I remember reading a book about the sinking of the Lexington. The Battle Cruiser hull served her well but once the fires started she was doomed. One tough ship.
Was it "Queen of the flattops" by any chance?
@@monkeyship74401 No, I can't remember exactly since I was in high school about 45 years ago but it was actually about the battle of Coral Sea.
@@ninline2000 same here, I think I still have the paperback. It's been since '77 or so since I read the book. (that's 1977 for the younger crowd) Google Queen of the flat tops: The U.S.S. Lexington and the Coral Sea Battle. Stanley Johnston.
@@monkeyship74401 Mine was in my High School library back in the seventies.
Without a doubt my favorite class of aircraft carriers!
So my Dad was on the Sarah from around June of 44 to the end of operation magic carpet. That includes the tour off Iwo in February 45. I still have the "yearbook" from the Sarah and another from Antietam when he got called back up for Korea. Thanks for including CV-3 on your video for CV-2
Beautiful photo at 1:45, I’ve never seen that one before. Nice find.
Brilliant work
Uncle Drachinifel with another fireside story!
1:37 - IIRC, that was pretty well-known at the time, but nobody complained, since the original treaty limits on displacement for converted ships were, in fact, unrealistically low, as demonstrated by the other treaty power converting battleships and battlecruisers to carriers, Japan, running into exactly the same problem with _their_ conversions _(Akagi_ and _Kaga)._
How big of a funnel do you need for your former battlecruisers with many funnels?
us navy YES!
I mean....
From 5 funnels, to 2 big funnels and then finnaly one *THICC* funnel
As a big fan of warships, I'm really enjoying all of your videos - so informative! Do you think you could do a video on Leander class frigates please? My father served on three of them (Apollo, Jupiter and Scylla) throughout the 1970's and as a kid, I certainly remember going onboard during family days and Navy Days at Plymouth! Thanks!
USS Ranger CV-4 for the list.
When I first saw Lexington on a documentary I thought I knew the allies build these with big funnels but wow I didn't know that's a standard and now I realised that it isn't standard for such a big funnel
My dad was a survivor. Thank god:)
Drach
Aside from voicing my apreciation for your videos in general, I'd like to remark on the number of ships that were mentioned in the context of operations crossroads.
I'm starting to see a pattern there. It seems that most ships did take the nuclear explosions rather well, unless they were very, very close - at least as far as structural integity goes.
Any chance you could expand on that subject in a seperate video?
He did in I believe one of the drydocks. The ships were structurally barely damaged but the crews would've all been killed, so it was kind of a moot point.
Nukes in those days were rather small. Almost benevolent weapons...
@@AudieHolland I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure the 1945 residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would appreciate the distinction...
@@seafodder6129 People at war should not live in paper houses.
@@AudieHolland Good point.
I remember reading something about the Lexington that was unusual: it was originally designed to recover or launch aircraft either sailing forward or in reverse. Not sure why, since either had to be accomplished into the wind. I'm sure this idea must have been abandoned during the transition from biplanes to monoplanes, or else because aircraft doctrine found no use for this feature.
no radioactive fish able to perform its own X-ray, maybe I'm thinking of another ship, lol.
Great vid Drach and crew. B)
Great video as always. Would have liked some mention of the condition of the wreck of Lexington, but that’s just my two cents.
My dad was part of the group of people that got to see her last moments above the surface. He was aboard USS Phelps, the DE that torpedoed n sunk her... I remember going to ships reunions as a kid, and those guys had tears in their eyes talking about it 40yrs later.....
Randomly recommended by YT. Well done
My father was aboard USS Phelps, the DD that torpedoed Lex and sank her... I went to ship reunions as a kid, and those guys still cried when talking about it 40yrs later.... Powerful attachments to ships, and Lady Lex was a favorite....
5:33 Japanese carrier sunk at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons was RyuJo, not Ryuho (which also existed and survived the war).
From a visual perspective you'll notice that the Lexington had a black horizontal stripe around the top of her "funnel" while the Saratoga had a black vertical stripe on the "funnel" . This made for easy identification by pilots is the early days of operations. Early is his 30 yr. Navy my father served as a pharmacist mate on the Lady Lex at the base of the island. More then once becoming covered in red goo as someone on the flight deck did not pay attention and walked into a prop. Flight deck crews earn their hazardous pay. Narragansett Bay
You never gave the full history of the USS Lexington! But great video anyways but would love for you to do the full history of the ship!
I believe a look at fast attack transports like the USS Waters, by the US and Japan and their role in the Marshall islands and at Guadacanal were significant.
Hi Drachinifel, love your work. Could you please do HMS Norfolk?
5:44 thats quite the shutter moment
Hurrah for the Lady Lex!
If I remember correctly, the US navy took advantage of a treaty clause that allowed 3000 extra tons for torpedo protection to bring them in as treaty compliant.
There wasn't an escalator clause for the Washington Naval Treaty
It always breaks my heart to know saratoga could have been the most awesome museum ship around. Instead big kids with firecrackers got to her... such a shame. Even if they did choose the best and toughest to test 2 abombs on...
great work. could you talk about the US Tacoma class patrol frigates?
My father served aboard the Sara from late summer of 42 until, probably mid 43. He said she was never able to make top speed due to a bent screw shaft from the torpedo damage in early 42. As a result, she was never able to fully engage in battle and was often used as a decoy to draw attention of the Japanese away from more capable carriers.
!! Um, thank you, but I think I'll pass on scuba-diving on a radioactive aircraft carrier. ;)
Not likely to be much in the way of radioactivity - the neutrons from an underwater nuke detonation would be mostly shielded by the water. Any remaining induced radioactivity would have decayed down to almost zip by now.
Was thinking along the same lines myself.....not sure if I'd take any comfort from Eric Sprague's response........they did use plutonium for those tests......not exactly sure what type......but plutonium 239........its half life is only 24,400 years......you might want to wait a bit
@@logansorenssen sure about that?.......they did use plutonium in those tests......plutonium 239's half life is 24,400 years.....my dad worked with those people .....he used to come home carrying radioactive bits in his pocket to show folks......died suddenly of sirosis of the liver........wasn't a drinker.......they didn't know what they were playing with
@@stephenmichalski2643 Yeah, well here is an issue, you literally will be subject to more radiation on the FLIGHT to the wreck site than on the wreck. She is at a shade over normal natural background level radiation but not by much.
You know what kind of places are actually at higher background radiation levels than Saratoga? ANY major city you care to name, literally, ANY of them. You blather on about Plutoniums half life and utterly forget that the damned stuff has been dispersed into a Marine environment that scales to literally TRILLIONS of Gallons of water. They did not use much plutonium in those bombs I might add.... most of that material has made its way to where heavy stuff eventually ends up, the depths... average depth of the Pacific is 4 THOUSAND metres.... You are NOT diving that deep.
I have dived more than one wreck used in Nuclear tests, we ran an experiment at one point, we took counters down to several of these wrecks, and also ran them in multiple large cities, including London, New York, Berlin and Paris....
The cities had a higher background radiation count.... just so you know.....
People need to get real about radiation and learn something about it. Were you aware for example that the vast majority (though not all) of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is at about natural background Radiation levels? Sure, there are a few hotspots, but most of it is clear. Radiation does NOT work the way a Fallout game suggests it would, or the Media, the CEZ does not have the advantage of trillions of litres of seawater to dilute the fissionable material either.....
So yes, unlike Eric Sprague I am UTTERLY sure of that, as I have dived the wreck, and she was one of those we took a counter down with us to. In other words, if you get the opportunity, dive her, unlike many WWII wrecks she is not a Grave Site, and she is literally one of only three carrier wrecks that are reachable by divers without specialist and very expensive equipment (not to mention training).
Love a Marine Ecologist utterly pissed off with the waaaaaah, eeeeek, argh view of Radiation... Don't even get me started with the 'Doomsday' view of Fukashima... which according to some is going to destroy the world in a few years because that damned stuff is eating its way to the planets core according to them!
@@alganhar1 glad to hear this... Will probably never get to, but one of the things "on my list" is to dive there!!!
Nice looking carrier. Very Queen Elizabeth.
I would like to add MV Krait and Operation Jaywick to the to-do list.
Despite the design They were Gorgeous!
Please do a video on the US Independence class light carriers
Saratoga seemed to just miss all the big naval battles of the Pacific.
Too busy collecting torpedoes.
November 1942:
Saratoga: Hey what did I miss.
Enterprise: Not much.
Coral sea and santa cruz. Two of the most important and intense.
Coral sea was a bit hillarious but santa cruz was just wow.
Rip hornet
I haven't found any video on the Zara class, can we have it pretty please ?
Could you do a video on the Akizuki Class AA Destroyer by the IJN?
What is the deal with the funnel? was it a symptom of how the boilers were configured when it was still under construction as a battlecrusier? were they bad "smokers" and that is the result of trying to keep heat and fumes as far away from the deck as possible? it always seems like when this ship is mentioned the word !!!!!FUNNEL!!! appears in my brain in big red neon letters
It would be nice if these commentaries focused more on the technical aspects of the ships design and performance in service and less on their service history. Just a suggestion.
I’m in corpus rn and near the Lexington
This video on the USS Lexington talks a lot about the USS Saratoga
I assume Lexington would compare favorably with the Akagi and Courageous. Being that they too were converted from canceled battlecruisers that is.
Hey Drachinifel have you ever watched the show Battle 360 if not, I really recommend watching it It follows the USS Enterprise during WW2
Dive all you want but don't eat the crabs. They are still full of Strontium 90. Little Unintended Consequences there. D
Could you review the U.S.S. Olympia. & U.S.S. Boston heavy cruiser
I wonder if you would do one on USS Intrepid?
I wish you had combined both like you did with the Hornet.
For 5 minute guides with a 33 second intro choose DRACHINFEL.
You always hear about Enterprise vs Japan but rarely about Saratoga.
Hiyo class carrier please they havent been mention as much
As I commented on the Wasp post, the Lexingtons were horribly inefficient carriers, with hangers 200 feet shorter than a Yorktown's on more than 50% greater tonnage than a Yorktown, an issue compounded by the Washington Treaty's tonnage limits. The Friedman book indicates that the pro-air faction in the Navy appears to have had their eyes on the battle cruisers for conversion to carriers before the BCs were even laid down. By 1920, the pro-air faction had decided that a carrier "must" be 35,000 tons, with 180,000hp, a recipe that the Lexingtons fit perfectly. I would not be surprised if the "cost savings" numbers were manipulated to justify giving the pro-air faction what it wanted. Interestingly, once the pro-air faction had been placated by the Lexingtons, Navy thinking turned 180 degrees, with the concern that having a few large carriers would result in the sinking of only one ship severely crippling carrier strength, so then the decision was made to use the remaining carrier tonnage on 5 ships the size of the Ranger. Of course, the push for the Lexingtons could have been partly motivated by the ridiculous inadequacy of the Langley, a topic to be taken up when the video on that ship is presented.
This caused the cancellation of CC-4 to CC-6. The Navy would then build USS Ranger (CV-4), the first carrier to be designed and built from the keel up as a carrier. Tonnage restrictions would keep her to only 14,576 tons and a dead weight of 3,001 tons. Despite her small size, she acquitted herself quite well through WWII serving in the Atlantic. She was the 6th ship to bear the name Ranger. The 1st being the Sloop-of-War commanded by John Paul Jones.
That funnel is *t h i c c*
Also, thank you for talking about my waifu
is the "lex lady. your waifu? or is the ship in love?
These videos are coming out faster than I can post.
I thought the US used a clause that allowed an additional 3,000 tons to upgrade anti-submarine defense. Hence, the 33,000 limit was raised to 36,000.
can you do more japanese ships like the Kongo class?
Can someone explain me the Images with all planes on deck like (2:14).
Is this just a nice show off?
I mean they can't start like that.
I saw the langley
Saratoga had only 4 destroyers as escort/AA defense when she was hit by a dozen kamikazes
If I remember right the phrase "Scratch one flat-top" came out of the Coral Sea battle.
Also, the wreck of the Lex isn't radioactive?
Lexington CV-2 sank during the battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942. She is not radioactive.
Saratoga CV-3 sank during operation crossroads in 1946, she was radioactive but due the time and the tides she isn’t anymore.
Fun Fact: You can now visit the U.S.S. Lexington located on the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas as a museum. I've been through it and it's really cool.
That is the successor this ship.
That’s not the same ship.
Can you do PT 109?
Okay, genuine curiosity, here. Does anyone have a photo of the whole "tying up" of aircraft in the hangar ceiling on US carriers in WWII? I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept and it'd probably be easier to understand if I could actually see it.
thrown out of the water in operation crossroads? makes me seriously wonder how she would have fared had she a good damage recovery crew on board. The gamma and neutron flux would not have hit the crew even from 400 yards as that would be enough water to mute the high particle energy of the blast but not the shock to the frames. The fact she was thrown out of the water does not tell me if she capsized. If still upright a damage fighting crew could have saved her. Nuclear torpedoes however do not detonate 400m away but right at the ship thus killing everyone.
It's a pity Drachinifel didn't explain why Lexington and Saratoga both got those truly ginormous funnels, a feature found on no other ships in or put of the U.S. Navy.
@robert3479 explains in the thread that they needed a way to vent the exhaust from the 16 oil-fired boilers that drove each of the sister ships. This somehow reminds me of how they put eight nuclear reactors on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first atomic supercarrier and inheritor of the World War II hero ship's name and legacy. (It turns out she only needed two, and the cumulative radiation dose from the six extra reactors would earn this Big E the less flattering nickname of the "Mobile Chernobyl.")
You mentioned you could dive on it. Wouldn't it be radioactive still?
No, the dangerous radioactive isotopes have a short half-life and have already decayed. The remaining radioactive material only gives off alpha particles which can't pierce your skin and don't go far in water.
at 3:58 that's not the Lexington, it's the Enterprise
That was one long sentence when discussing the changes to aa armament.
It seems everyone lied on naval treaties on tonnage.
Yeah, but you still had to keep it somewhat believable.
I don't know if i would want to go diving with that ship
Amazing how many aircraft they managed to cram aboard her! Also, it's weird putting 8" guns on an aircraft carrier - did the U.S. Navy have insufficient heavy cruisers to be able to provide a proper escort?
Nobody had any idea how carriers were going to be employed, and when the Lexingtons were being redesigned it was thought that carriers might wind up in gun duels with heavy cruisers. Remember, in the late '20s aircraft were rather short-ranged and not a lot of ordnance capacity. The Japanese had the same idea when they converted Akagi and Kaga. Akagi had 6 8" guns near the waterline aft and Kaga had 10 8" guns.
Wait you can go diving to a ship that got nuked? Drachinifil are you trying to irradiate me?
Nope, she is not that much above background radiation levels, certainly not enough to be a health concern. You probably pick up more background radiation if you live in a large city.... and no one has suggested not going to say London because of the radiation hazard!
@@alganhar1 you will take a higher radiation dose on the flight there than you will diving on the carrier.
@@kemarisite Yup, too many people are completely unaware that we are surrounded by radiation, our Sun is just one huge Nuclear reaction, concrete gives off radiation (believe it or not), a whole fuck ton of stuff gives off radiation. If you live in a city you will get a higher dose of radiation commuting to work than you will for a dive of similar length on the Saratoga.
I thought the original Lexington was sunk in the battle the coral sea. The second Lexington is a museum in Corpus. The Saratoga ( Lexington’s sister ship) was nuked in a test in the Bikini atoll.
@@vixen0347 No one said it wasn't.
I'm pretty sure when they first heard about them some Royal Navy officers wished Fisher had at least managed to get his Incomparable laid down...
Maybe, maybe not, British Design philosophy for their Fleet Carriers was different to the US. They did not have to cover the vast range of the Pacific, far from bases, but they *did* have to operate for large portions of time in constrained seas in range of large groups of enemy Land based aircraft. Hence why RN Fleet Carriers sacrificed some Hanger space for increased deck armouring. It is no accident that most of the British Carriers lost were lost in the Mediterranean!
It is all about compromise, the RN Carriers carried far smaller flight groups partly due to smaller hangers, and also partly because they did not deck park aircraft. On the flip side British Carriers could shrug off the kind of damage that would put a USN Carrier into dock for repairs for months, if not sink them. Indeed, one USN Liason officer aboard a British Carrier supporting the USN noted after a Kamikazi struck the flight deck of the British ship that the crew simply bulldozed the flaming wreck over the side, doused the deck and she was ready to operate aircraft within ten minutes of being struck.
With that kind of difference in Design Philosophy the RN and USN would have built two very different ships even if the starting hulls had been exactly the same.
Agreed, however I was more reffering to a converted Incomparable completed in the mid-1920s. Such a ship would likely have been built more along the lines of Courageous and Glorious before the RN developped its "armoured deck doctrine" and at a time when Japan looked like the most likely foe. No matter the design they went with however, at a 1000 foot long this carrier would have been the largest vessel of its type for quite a lot of years.
@@rem26439 I have actually asked that question, and the answer was that the thing would basically be the closest thing to a Forrestal you could get in the 1920s.