Maritime architecture is a delicate art; even minute alterations to a ship’s shape can have huge consequences for the way it behaves at sea! Today we’ll look at three ships – the British warship HMS Atherstone (and the Hunt Class destroyers), the German battleships Scharnhorst & Gneisenau and the ocean line RMS Titanic – and the design errors that resulted in strange seakeeping behaviours.
Source for HMS Hunt segment:
Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s greatest vessels– from Titanic to Queen Mary and from the Empress of Ireland to the Lusitania. Join maritime researcher and illustrator Michael Brady as he tells the stories behind some of history’s most famous ocean liners and machines!
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The German battleship design of the early 1930s was in a huge part dictated by the rules the treaty of Versailles set up for the German military.
The Germans always did, until comparatively recently, design excellent ships.
For the Baltic Sea.
There are many historical sources which say that the 28cm main battery for Scharnhorst/Gnelsenau were not choosen by any strategic concept but only because Krupp was inable to produce and deliver 38cm guns in time. The 28cm was an intendet as an intemediate solution. The Barbette of Scharnhorst/Gneisenau was construcred to carry a 38cm battery but tthis refitting never happened during the war because Gneisenau was crippled in port by air raids and the Kriegsmarine focused their mediocre ressources in building submarines. Therefore Scharnhorst had to fight Duke of York and its escorts at the end of 1943 alone and with an inferior battery
Be interesting to know what 20th century non nuke warship you would like to serve on as a enlisted man and why. Any nation, any type and any rate.
My dad served in the Royal Navy during the Falkland's and for a period of time afterwards. He told me a few stories of how the navy engineers wanted to tackle issues at sea. The first was ice build-up on ships in the north sea.
So, their ship was sent a stock of grease that was supposed to prevent the cold water from turning to ice on the ship as it passed through the arctic circle. So they lathered the deck of the ship with this grease and headed out into the freezing waters during a storm to test it out.
Yeah, no it didn't work. The grease froze to the deck and the water froze on-top of it. By morning the ice was so thick they had to chip it off with sledgehammers and chisels like normal.
The next story was a Type-21 Frigate that had been retrofitted to deal with rough seas and storms while remaining at full operational capacity. So when they departed off the East Coast of the United States to head back to Portsmouth, they were given orders to sail directly into a huge storm. That 'huge storm' turned out to be a hurricane building up in the gulf. By the time they got out of the storm, the front turret had been torn off it's mounting, half the front side ripped off and a sub-level bulkhead had been removed and welded into the hole to patch it up. Turns out 100ft waves have a lot of power behind them… Who knew.
The British Navy, we like to fuck around and find out.
1:47 I finally now understand what that Beach Boys song was talking about. “I come on the sloop John B.”
It is interesting to me how often a simple wooden block model could have immediately shown the problematic dynamics of a vessel, but I guess the Navy doesn't need tests.
The reason the promenade deck was changed, after the Titanic was launched she was hogging, [bow and stern dropping below the level of midships.] Enclosing the promenade strengthened hull to help correct the hogging issue.
Those impressive chalkboards seem to be full of … chemical equations.
You should do one on the design of russian oil tankers.
I've come here wondering did the front fall off?
A well researched & Interesting vid thank you.
Human error in time of war is not surprising, but at least it was sensibly addressed & the ol Hunt class became invaluable to the R. N.
It was the cod war which brought a design defect of the Leander class frigates to light.
H. M. S. Leander heeled over in a heavy sea & was near capsize, as she struggled to right herself.
As an apprentice fitter in Devonport I remember the frantic alterations to reduce top weight, a major one being the removal of the torpedo tubes on 01 deck above the hanger. From memory I believe the radar scanner was scaled down also!
Ironically ships fresh out of refit were given a heeling trial in Plymouth Sound.
Have an image of Ark Royal somewheres having that carried out.
The revenge of Archimedes. Center of gravity too high=unstable ship prone to capsize.
It seems after watching the shortcomings of the hull designs of the British and German warships that they should have variously consulted the Japanese designers of Yamato. For instance narrowing the front of the ships, adding bulbous bow features to increase speed and bringing up the sheer towards the front of the ship to increase speed without compromising buoyancy in heavy seas, and creating large secure compartmentalized zones in the hull helping to maintain ship buoyancy by creating increasingly secure areas separated from one another, such as keeping the armored interior heart of the ship holding engines and ammunition separate from the bow and stern areas of the ship if any of those areas are compromised, or installing torpedo blisters on the hull accomplishing the same purpose.
It seems that ship construction must like with everything else be leavened with a little common sense beyond the calculations. For instance if it looks top heavy with massive guns, and 'feels' top heavy, it IS top heavy.
funny, when i saw 28' for the Hunt class i immediately thought "32 foot makes more sense". and i have absolutely zero engineering education, let alone anything involving ship building.
Your mention of the German ships turning the A Turret sideways reminds me of how the King George V battleships did the same thing. In their case, they were built with a very silly requirement that they be able to shoot the main battery straight forward even at low elevation, to their bows had very little flare. They'd often be seen with A Turret traversed to one side to keep water from being forced through the gun slits.
Is this the REAL reason why the British traded away multiple Ports and Colonial holdings for 50 mothballed and barely functional WWI-era American Destroyers??
This is the very reason that the 4 Vosper Frigates of the Iranian Navy are a total waste. Vosper equipped these ships with MTU 1186 engines, 4 to each boat, total of 40.000 Hp per ship. These engines were totally worn out, but could not been replaced due to the ship's specific architecture.
: )