Kamchatka - Guide 151

[Music] [Music] oh well it's patreon choice time for the five minute guides and they've chosen the kamchatka one of the most effective Japanese warships don't never actually serve in the Japanese Navy ostensibly believe it or not this thing flew the flag of the Imperial Russian Navy although many other ships in the Imperial Navy probably wished that it didn't originally Kamchatka was never supposed to be anywhere near a battle or indeed a warship it was originally designed and start construction as a cold transport of all things but with increasing naval tensions she was converted during construction to serve as an armed fleet repair ship a role in which her large cargo holds sturdy construction and powerful cranes were thought to be very handy and so she would enter service with the Russian Navy in 1903 less than two years before her ultimate fate with a displacement of just over seven thousand tons a speed of just over 12 knots and an armament of half a dozen 47 millimeter guns she could carry half her own weight in cargo and her speed was significantly slower than most warships was still adequate to keep up with a fleet that was in transit mode albeit obviously couldn't actually keep up with a fleet in battle assuming that the ships in though we're taking part in the action were capable of their respective top speeds the outbreak of the russo-japanese war would find her based in the baltic and so when the call went out to summon support vessels for the second pacific squadron and the almost new repair ship was brought into the formation this would later be widely regarded as a bad move and would make a lot of people were very angry from the start of the voyage the kamchatka proved to be an endless thorn in the side of the fleet and it's admiral that bold roses Penske who would launch many pairs of binoculars at it and in the following months would eventually resort to keeping the ship relatively close by mainly so that he could scream invective and insults at it as a form of stress relief why well let's take a look at some of the highlights of its activities during the voyage of the second pacific squadron some of these might be familiar to those of you who have seen the video on that so once the fleet was still making its way across the Baltic the davits aboard the cruisers M chug failed and dropped a cutter into the water these are the so C shaped or G shaped miniature cranes that whole cold boats up and allow them to be loaded into the water so the faulty davits were taken down and sent over to the repair ship where they were hosted aboard whereupon somebody managed to hit the release on the ship's cranes and dropped the entire collection into the ocean where they sank so far so good well having made it to Denmark Kench at ker then signaled she was under attack by torpedo boats but when people said how many and how she replied oh there's about eight of them coming from all directions which of course caused a bit of panic but was also a completely false alarm shockingly the ship does not appear to have been the prime instigator of the dogger Bank incident although she did start proceedings that day by accusing a passing Swedish if of being a Japanese torpedo boat which probably set the rest of the fleet somewhat on edge and thus probably played a part in the hair-trigger discipline which precipitated the main incident with that debacle out the way on their way to Tangier kamchatka wanted off for her own little side quest and I'm no doubt many of the fleet quietly hoping that she'd get lost and not come back she did eventually reappear here with a highly gripping tale stating that she'd fought off no less than three Japanese warships and was over 300 rounds short on ammunition from her aunty torpedo boat guns but she'd used in the engagements now bearing in mind that at this point the British was still kind of hemming and hawing and maybe flip a coin with regards to blowing the entire Russian fleet out of the water as a result of the dogger Bank incident the fact that the ships that Kamchatka had engaged had actually been civilian vessels from Germany France and Sweden didn't exactly do anything to endear the ship to the rest of the squadron since that pretty much brought in everybody else who had any kind of serious and heavy in the north and Baltic seas this was mitigated only by the fact that camp checkers gunnery had been so poor that none of the ship she'd engaged had actually been hit and indeed in at least one engagement the fight supposedly had gone on for a fair while before the other ship had even noticed it was under attack as the end-of-the-year approached Kamchatka did its part for Fleet morale by finding a newspaper on a passing Collier which claimed that the Japanese attacked the part of the fleet that had been sent via the Suez Canal this assault supposedly took place in the Red Sea and resulted in damage to a number of Russian ships in a shock to almost nobody it turned out that this too was a complete fabrication nonetheless a few days later around lunchtime the flagship the Suvorov received a signal that Kamchatka had gone off course and was sending out the signal dangerously damaged cannot proceed as it turned out the damage was nothing much more severe than cosmetic damage from floating debris and the ship eventually sheepishly found its way back on course shortly thereafter as evening drew in on another day a cloud appeared on the horizon behind the fleet it was once again the Kamchatka and now complaining that due to bad coal she could not keep up sufficient steam and Julie began to fall back even further the captain asked permission to throw 150 tons of supposedly bad coal overboard at Morris's vent ski meanwhile reckoned that the problem was more likely due to a number of crew not performing their duties much if at all and refused permission to throw the coal overboard but did grant permission for anybody who was found to be the actual cause of the problem to be thrown overboard instead again mysteriously the kamchatka suddenly developed the ability to keep up with the fleet having been quiet for several days the kamchatka decided the things were too boring and in the middle of a storm whilst the fleet transited the coast of Angola issued the code message do you see torpedo boats no no one saw torpedo boats please be quiet eventually the fleet made it to Madagascar where Kamchatka proved that incompetence did not was not limited solely to remaining afloat and underway now the ship was anchored it discovered new ways to mess with the Russian fleet whilst firing a salute to honor a man who died of disease in port a live shell was used hitting the cruiser Aurora and a week or so later completely out of nowhere it suddenly signaled that they were sinking there was much rejoicing but on an investigation it turned out that basically what had happened was there was a cracked steam pipe in the engine room which was relatively easily fixed and so the cheers of the rest of the fleet had to be silenced a little bit later in February still import one of the sailors from Kamchatka took two life belts jumped overboard in the middle of the night and struck out for the shore by chance he was spotted swimming and a searchlight was turned on him when hauled aboard the flagship and interviewed as to what the heck he was doing he said I was tired of being on board I couldn't I could endure it no longer and I wanted to go on shore the officers who'd hauled him out of the water recorded that they quite understood the man's feelings finally after a number of lesser shenanigans on their way across the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific at the Battle of Tsushima the kamchatka finally did something useful absorbing Japanese shellfire she was hit quite hard with her steering disabled she ended up circling until another end another shell hit her engines leaving her dead in the water the crew then tried to evacuate but as the boats were lowered Kamchatka rose by her bow and sank with a tremendous roar of steam and escaping air taking her captain and a number of officers and men with her that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for drydock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 205,607

Keywords: wows, world of warships, Kamchatka, 2nd Pacific Squadron, Russo-Japanese War, Dogger Bank Incident, Imperial Russian Navy, repair ship

Id: DCrAQFBUFlU

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/BrotherFluffy]

...urge to hurl binoculars rising...

[u/superRommel]

if she doesnt have the line "DO YOU SEE TORPEDO BOAT?" Ill be sad

[u/sinthebar]

But who would she serve under, the North Union or Sakura Empire?

[u/Despayeetodorito]

Goes into escort mission: (CONFUSED SCREAMING)

[u/MyPasswordIsRushB]

If and when I get the spare money I'mma commission a Kamchatka shipgirl.

[u/zodiak_killer]

Don't think she was around in WW2.

[u/KoganePanettone]

I've seen a post about this before

[u/kurtmandlebrot]

The look over revulsion on Avrora's face.