Ship Classes WW2 - 101

recently published while Japan had no chance and some people asked for basic guide involved with to ship classes something I had a mind for quite some time anyway so let's take a short look at battleships carriers battle cruisers heavy cruisers light cruisers escort carriers destroy us submarines and destroy our squads to give you a better feel on the relationship I used to visualize the approach for the values here you can see the maximum values for example ships chosen for this video thus you have always a reverence to compare to usually the values from the Yamato except for speed that is from the fletcher-class destroyer although the topic is very complex I try to keep this video rather brief and for those who want more Justin and I created my in-depth companion video that is available on the second channel and ideally watched after this video unless you have already a basic idea on all the classes discussed here now as always a bit of a leading corrosive warning here quite often the sources different values especially when it comes to displacement and complement in particular the displacement values have to be taken with a grain of salt to do the many sauce is not specifying if to use short or long tones I use long terms in this video so ever when I say tones or right tones it means long turns there are more issues with displacements namely that this full deep standard and normal load and on top of that some publications use the term maximum load which is not an official term at all since I couldn't find a reliable source that had all values on the same Lord category the displacement bar should be taken with a bit of leeway similarly for space issues only the maximum almal values are shown here but this video armor layouts can't be taken into account so since we got those bulkheads sealed let's dive in let's start with the biggies the battleships this is the only class where we take a look at two examples the first one is the Royal Navy's HMS Warspite the boss pad was commissioned in bababang yet she received the major modification in the interwar period propulsion armor and armament it is very important to remember that it was not uncommon to have a war but one ship fighting in blob or two after all ships are very expensive and take a long time to build gas the quote naval strategy is spelled strategy this was compounded by Linton Washington's Navy Treaty of 1922 which imposed strict tonnage restrictions and create a so-called building holiday for ten years now on the other end of the world the two battleship spectrum is of course the Imperial Japanese Yamato as you can see the values are quite different this should come as no surprise since the Yamato was the largest battleship ever built and she was commissioned in late 1941 and that's one of the most modern battleships of World War two it should also be noted that the amount was constructed outside the Washington treaty regulations which limited the standard displacement of battleships to a maximum of 35,000 tonnes now let's take a look at the ship class battleship there's quite a divide between the original purpose of the battleships and what they actually did over the course of the war and this is clearly not limited to battleships technicians had to adapt in the midst of the war so extensively that by the end of it no major category of worship except minecraft was employed in the US Navy tactically for the purpose it had been built as such we will first discuss the basic idea of the ship class followed by what it actually did battleships were both heavily armored and heavily armed they were intended to fight against other surface ships usually always with battleships and although the carrier was by far not so much ignored by the navies is often claimed battleships remained the universally accepted measuring stick of naval power which was precisely why he had been a focus of the 1922 washing naval agreement as such the intended main function was a primary combat role yet due to the vulnerability of pedal ships against naval and land-based aircraft many battleships were pushed into serving in a support role especially in the Pacific of course there were also traditional battles like the Hood versus the Bismarck yet then again the Bismarck's main mission in this case was not to slag it out with the raw but to take merchant ships as a commerce Raider and one could argue that the hood also served in a support role namely to protect merchant shipping our examples are that salmon Royal Navy battleships IRS's escorts in convoys supplying malta or as a covering force this was not limited to our Navy battleships required often used in support roles like covering fleets patrol against merchant graders especially in the Pacific to broad fire support from Phoebus landings and floating anti-aircraft batteries for carriers which is still a better faith than that of the Yamato she was nicknamed Hotel within the Japanese Navy to do her lavish by Japanese standards cruise spaces and inactivity during much of the war Yamato only fought in a single surface engagement the Battle of Somme I 1944 before being swarmed by carrier aircraft and sank in april 1945 which brings us to the next class of ship the aircraft carrier note that the u.s. Navy shortcut CV actory does not mean carrier vessel but the B refers to war layout which is French for flying and the C still stands for Cruiser so it should be a flying Cruiser you can see the zu Kaku a Chicago class carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy considering the fate of their motto the following line shows that not everything is as straight forward as it seems in many ways the Japanese were in the forefront of carrier design and in 1941 the to shukaku was the culmination of prima Japanese carrier design the superior to any carrier in the world then in commission even if one does not agree with the superior statement above it is without question that the shukaku class carriers were very good now carriers were originally intended to be in a supporting role for the fleet's in the developing interwar plants inferior navies the Japanese when fighting the United States and the United States when fighting the British expected to use aircraft to soften up and slow the enemy battle line although in 1941 the Japanese were leading Navy when it came to naval air power for all its striking power however the first air flip was still not regarded by the Japanese naval leadership as the main element of the mine fleet according to Japanese neighbor orthodoxy that role was still reserved for the big ships and big guns and if you think about this the Japanese carrier attack against the US battleships of Pearl Harbor which were the main target of the attack thus makes far more sense because from their perspective they were using their support for us to strike the enemy's main force now as most of you know in the Pacific the carrier became the main striking force involved the two aircraft became the chief naval weapon during daylight hours because of the effective range and they're not limitless integral capacity for scouting guidance to the target and coordination yet for the Atlantic and Mediterranean was not so straightforward British carriers in these areas often served in a supporting role princes in one exceptional case and Malta convoy was escorted by no less than five carriers a successor of the anti-aircraft warfare and anti-submarine warfare rolls in late were the British and also a sizable carrier force to the Pacific the provided support for the invasion of Okinawa and other operations the supporting role of the Royal Navy's carriers was mainly due to the balance of force since the clicks marina had a limited number of capital ships and Imperial Japanese Navy in Leyte was mostly sank now let's move on to the battle cruisers note that usually people use the shortcut BC here yet the correct one from the US Navy's actually CC now what is the main difference between a battleship and a battle cruiser battle cruisers were armed with ordnance as large a set of battleships and displaced at least as much as later in order to accommodate larger propulsion systems to allow for the increase invade of the more powerful machinery however the battle cruiser sacrificed most of the armored protection of the battleship in other words better cruisers were compared in displacements to contemporary battleships but generally faster and less protected and or less armed depending on the Navy only very few battle cruisers served during the Second World War since several were never finished after the Battle of Jutland in 1916 which the several British battle cruisers exploding additionally advances in propulsion the 1930s allowed for fast ships that did not have to compromise too much armor and armament the intended roles were commerce production commerce raiding and also service combat and if you consider the Shawano synchronized noise battle cruisers then they pretty much fulfilled all these roles if not remove commerce raiding now to the heavy cruisers here a shortcut is ca which originally meant cruiser Hamid yet the Volvo - it meant heavy cruiser encounters to mean light cruisers with the short called CL more about them later the name cruiser dates back to the age of sail it resembles more of a function and capability than a ship type strictly speaking in the age of sail the term cruiser was applied to any ship on detach duties as such a cruising warship head to have enough endurance speed and armament to conduct independent operations or you could say it was capable of cruising around while still annoying the enemy now about the difference between light and heavy cruisers this can get a bit confusing there were two important naval treaties the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 be aware there was another one in 1936 now the Washington Naval Treaty limited the cruisers to 10,000 tons of standard displacement and a maximum of 20 point 3 centimeter guns yet there was no limit on the numbers of cruisers which reside in a so-called Cruiser arms race verse the London Naval Treaty of 1930 introduced the distinction between heavy and light cruisers where light cruisers were allowed to have guns of 15 point 5 centimeter or smaller but other cruisers were categorized as heavy cruisers and then numbers limited additionally there was also a limit on total tonnage note that the accurate treaty does not include the word heavy or light to quote the treaty the cruiser category is divided into two subcategories as follows a cruisers carrying a gun above 6.1 inch 155 millimetres caliber B cruisers carrying a gun not above 6.1 inch 105 millimeter caliber Jerry cruises that their bill along restrictions of naval treaties were called treaty cruisers officially the prints again was a treaty crews as well yet if you look at the displacement it was clearly not of course once the war started and sometimes even before these limitations flew out of the window in general around 112 cruisers both light and heavy were lost during the war the intended role of heavy cruisers was to act the scouts for a fleet defense sea routes conduct commerce rating and also conduct major fleet action yet for the most part the cruiser did not act the scouts since this role was taken over by the carriers there were a few exceptions like the purpose-built Scout cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy similarly commerce rating was for the most part conducted by submarines the most heavy cruisers served in a variety of different missions as way notes heavy cruisers designing powerful fleet scouting did nearly everything but debt like surface combat commerce production Shore bombardment convoy and carrier squat next our light cruisers for those are choose the Cleveland class since it was the most number of light cruiser built as you can see although a light cruiser her armor values are higher than those of the previous heavy cruiser yet we need to consider that at this point the distinction of their long neighbor treaty was mostly irrelevant still the prints against displacement was considerably higher so why does it test less armor but first of the prints again was long and wider second it had a different almost kiemce that covered more areas further to us often use better production techniques and material also the cleveland was a bit younger than friends again one key aspect of some yet more or light cruisers was the use of dual-purpose guns as the main armament that allowed them to engage both surface targets and aircraft with the main batteries yet although nearly all navies try this only a few of them were successful until late war but a light cruise the intended role varied depending on the different navies the Japanese wanted to use them as strong leaders similarly the u.s. Atlanta class when tended as destroyer leaders as well the British had a stronger focus on commerce production they also prefer lighter cruisers since they were cheaper and their empire was still quite extensive verse the US and Japanese preferred heavy cruisers for this role the creeks marina built some of its light cruisers as be quieter in Cruzes ultimately like cruises performed a variety of missions ranging from service combat neighborhood bodman and escort duty in the pacific one very common rule for us light cruisers was a floating anti-aircraft battery where the dual-purpose guns were very useful next our escort carriers you can see it has a blanket class escort carrier which was the most bruised carrier class ever built although it looks similar to a regular carrier you can see it is a bit more stubby but most importantly slower as such it could not operate alongside regular fleet carriers unlike light carriers with which they should not be confused well initially a top rider has these baby flap tops provided air cover for the convoys throughout the crossing or at least it did so when the weather permitted the small carriers embarked only handful of planes but even newer u.s. made Avenger torpedo planes retrofitted to carry death charges now in our case the load of 27 aircraft a bit more than a handful of planes since the Kazakh blanket class is more on the top end in that regard whereas on the lower end the number could be mere six aircraft like the HMS audacity which was a captured German merchant vessel converted into an escort carrier unlike most other ships here the escort carrier did not really exist prior to World War two at least not with that function although many of the earliest carriers were similar to escort carriers to with them being converted from merchant ships as well it develops para mentally carriers not escort carriers now a typical mission for an escort carrier was as the name implies escorting convoys that quite many were also used to ferry aircraft to the front lines and damaged ones back furthermore many of them served in providing air cover and air support during amphibious operations Winston's hope these cheap carriers supported a landing near Salerno in 1943 far more usually were brought as support at the invasions in the Pacific so time to take a look at one of the most common ship classes out there the destroyer for this we choose the Fletcher classes royal of the US Navy because surprise was the most constructed destroyer of the Second World War the steroids were accurate our new ship class this becomes more apparent if you look at the original name which was torpedo boat destroyer so initially these ships were built to protect battleships and cruisers from those pesky little torpedo boats yet bah-bah-bah - the destroyer was an all-around combat and support ship by circumstance and organizational needs of anglo-american navies during develop a bond the destroyer had emerged from its original and exclusive torpedo boat destroyer function to become a check of our trades it engaged more in defensive operations escort duties scouting screaming for battlefield conducting anti-submarine warfare operations then interpeter attacks against the enemy fleet so the Destroyers intended main role was to protect and assist the fleet in various forms as such it needed seafaring capabilities and a proper range additionally had to be able to engage surface air and submerge targets and the proper web manned equipment load up was necessary as the idle destroyer was equipped with sonar radar def charged estupidos hay guns and dual-purpose guns to could engage surface and air targets alike as such the caliber was usually around 105 to 115 meters since that allowed for manual and fast reloading thus reducing weight and complexity but also providing a good rate of fire this meant that the stewards performed the largest amount of different missions in the war like screening for battle fleets and the submarine warfare anti-aircraft warfare 2 P 2 attacks picket duty escort duty surface combat mine warfare neighbor bombardments and many others due to this the large numbers and the relatively small size yourself at a large amount of losses almost 600 destroyers of all sides during the Second World War next is the submarine you can see a type 7 C submarine of the creeks marina which served as the mainstay of the German u-boat Wafaa in Baba - now it is important to remember that you boots like other contemporary submarines were not true submarines rada they were really submersibles although the primary sign feature was the ability to operate submerge and to deliver an attack from periscope depth the deal electric propulsion system was a our briefing submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific were quite different the Chairman submarines were small compared to u.s. Navy and Imperial Japanese fleet submarines deployed in the Pacific for instance the Garter class at the length of almost 100 meters or a bit more than 300 feet and although the submarines are strongly associated with the creeks Medina at the start of the war in 1939 the Soviet Italian and US navy's possessed the most submarines with around 160 190 submarines respectively not intended roles for submarine were mostly commerce rating mind laying and scouting yet there was also a bit of variation depending on the Navy for instance the Japanese intended to use the large submarines to weaken the u.s. battle fleet during the water missions were it quite depending on the Navy as well the Germans from the get-go used the Ewell's for commerce radio and to limit the decree for mine laying operations where's the US Navy initially used him from various missions yet soon focused on Commerce rating as well the Japanese on the other hand had not only large variety of different submarine types yet also focused morning gauging enemy warships ting commerce rating also differently to the Atlantic both the US Navy and Japanese Navy used submarines for scouting duties head of major operations now in the Atlantic you would see Berg the scouts as well and so-called patrol lines for detecting convoys submarines performed various other rules as well although to a limited degree for instance transporting goods like supplying Malta or German technology to Japan similarly the Japanese Navy used submarines extensively for running resupply missions to isolated and or threatened island collisions as well another more common mission at least for the u.s. was rescuing downed Airmen so it's time to look at the most common enemy of the excess submarines namely the destroyer escort which is likely one of the least known ship classes here it was like the escort carrier class that did not exist prior to World War two now it is important to note here that the destroyer escort unlike other ship classes was not universally used class the Japanese for example did not have destroyed escorts per say yet ship types that performed similar roles as such we are speaking mainly about the u.s. ship class here the name of this class is similar to the escort carrier and for a good reason if we take a look at the speed you see immediately it is rather slow thus it was not capable of supporting fleet action channel unlike a regular destroyer similar to the escort carrier this class was used to protect convoys without using ships depor capable of fleet action all over slow compared to regular restore it still could match the speed of a submarine its primary opponent they were small and in force as the American destroyers though larger than British Corvettes I'm the French guns they were hopelessly under armed for any kind of surface action but with sonar radar theft charge Rex and the Hedgehog they were eminently suitable for the anti-submarine mission note that the British Cordell lend-lease destroyer escorts frigates likely to annoy anyone who like standards and clarity like me now for those who want to complain that I did not include the Soviet French and Italian navies the exclusion is to do limitations in time and reference books since this video took already more than 39 hours to make and after editing will be free on 40 hours also I'm very certain adjusting will discuss at least the French and Italian navies as well in our extended version of this video so be sure to check it out on my second channel finally a recommendation here does a youtube channel out there that focuses exclusively on naval history is called triphenyl a link his channel in description be sure to check him out if you like in-depth research content like this consider supporting me on patreon or alternatives linked in the description and print comment thank you here to chasten Azam Ozzy and Andrew for supporting me during the writing special thanks to Fabien for sending a book that was used but not harmed during the making of this video sources and description thank you for watching and see you next time

Channel: Military History Visualized

Views: 648,951

Keywords: Military History, Military History Visualized, History, Visualized, mhv, world war 2, battle of the atlantic, battleship (ship type), warship (ship class), aircraft carriers, royal navy, visualized military history, us navy, destroyer, destroyer escort, submarine, u-boat, naval treaty, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen, Hood, Warspite, light cruiser vs heavy cruiser, heavy cruisers of ww2, Imperial Japanese Navy, Kriegsmarine, Warship Guide 101 WW2

Id: SgJKzrDJenw

Length: 21min 56sec (1316 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Hjalfnar_HGV]

Take a look at the deep version, guys. It's incredible long, but awesome!