Complete directory
Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
Originally intended for Norway as Nidaros and Bergen, the ships were completed for Britain with revised armament and extensive torpedo bulges.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
After joining the Dover Patrol in 1918, Gorgon tested its long-range fire against German coastal batteries before the planned autumn offensive.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Gorgon's rushed completion reflected a year-long production decision to supply the coastal offensive with responsive naval artillery.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Gorgon’s September 1918 missions show the demanding coordination, observation, and anchoring problems behind naval support for a coastal offensive.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
A close reconnaissance mission confirmed that German forces still held the Belgian coast strongly, even as Gorgon briefly exceeded its trial speed under fire.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Gorgon's short postwar sequence moved from tender and reserve service to a rejected Norwegian return, treaty disarmament, and scrapping.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Glatton's brief service ended in a magazine explosion, prompting an investigation into insulation, missing cork, newspaper packing, and faulty riveting.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Inspection of Gorgon's corresponding spaces exposed missing insulation and rivets, leading the Royal Navy to replace cork with silicate wool.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
The episode weighs treaty limits, dry-dock constraints, and a hypothetical 1940 Norwegian Gorgon against the German attack on Narvik.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
British retention could have sent Gorgon east as a river-squadron flagship or a heavily armed obstacle to the Japanese crossing into Singapore.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
Norway lacked a dock wide enough for Gorgon's bulged beam and did not convert repeated concern over Narvik into fixed defences.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
A third armoured ship could provide earlier warning, divide German torpedo attacks, and punish destroyers while Eidsvold or Norge was challenged.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
More damaged German destroyers, alerted Norwegian troops, and a freer British relief force could turn one ship's resistance into wider operational effects.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 6, Gorgon Class ·
The opening argument challenges the familiar claim that the Royal Navy simply ignored submarines and maritime aviation between the wars.
Britain's concrete listening structures make more sense when treated as a pre-radar answer to detecting aircraft beyond visual range.
The Fairey Swordfish remained useful because its mature design met the Fleet Air Arm's night-strike needs, despite the shift toward monoplanes.
A question about the Fleet Air Arm's absorption into the RAF opens a comparison of Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps logistics.
Postwar austerity forced services to discard whole lower-priority capabilities while preserving modern ships and the institutional knowledge needed to rebuild.
Postwar austerity forced choices, and the RAF's belief in a decisive strategic-bombing role pushed coastal aviation down its list of priorities.
A quick comparison separates the Short Sunderland's toughness from the PBY Catalina's advantage in obtainable numbers.
Some Navy-blaming accounts followed contemporary sources that avoided identifying failures within the RAF.
Predictions of city-destroying bomber payloads and a war decided within days pushed long campaigns and sea-lane protection out of the RAF's preferred model.
Limited early warning made interwar bombers hard to intercept, but their payloads fell far short of the destruction assumed in strategic-bombing theory.
The 1936 reorganization acknowledged that maritime reconnaissance and air defense needed clearer command arrangements as Britain rearmed.
Plans that treated carriers as aircraft ferries and promised forty torpedo bombers for Singapore became politically damaging when the RAF could not field the promised maritime force.
Coastal Command became an effective U-boat killer, but some published totals include Fleet Air Arm Swordfish units operating from shore under its umbrella.
Arthur Longmore and Philip Joubert de la Ferté brought experience across naval, air, and staff roles to the new command.
Philip Joubert de la Ferté treated planned flying, maintenance checks, torpedo-strike development, and recognition of ground crews as parts of one operational system.
Maritime surveillance continued through small coastal-area squadrons and shipborne naval aircraft before the 1936 command structure existed.
Frederick Bowhill's merchant-navy, seaplane-carrier, RNAS, and Air Ministry experience continued the command's pattern of appointing leaders familiar with maritime aviation.
Unlike the Fleet Air Arm, Coastal Command lacked a powerful institutional sponsor and repeatedly lost out when scarce aviation resources were allocated.
Coastal Command's success against U-boats crossing the Bay of Biscay rose and fell as radar, Leigh Lights, and German warning receivers competed.
The converted packet ship HMS Empress links Coastal Command's later mission to wartime reconnaissance, bombing, and anti-submarine patrols flown from seaplane carriers.
The planned response to a German invasion was to commit every available Coastal Command aircraft by day and night.
A question about operational control explains why naval requirements reached Coastal Command as requests and how joint headquarters made that arrangement work in wartime.
Felixstowe and Singapore flying boats sustained an interwar patrol presence, but their small numbers limited what the force could cover.
Flying-boat units followed the RAF hierarchy from squadron through wing and group to Coastal Area or Coastal Command, although tiny overseas forces could make intermediate layers nominal.
Beaufort and Wellington attacks on Axis shipping could be effective when aircraft, supplies, and support were all available on Malta.
The services trained large navigator cohorts separately but tried to share instructors and pool expertise where practical.
Bases such as Pembroke Dock and Calshot supported flying boats, while small detachments appeared wherever the Royal Navy operated overseas.
The anti-submarine problem involved separate budgets and priorities, not a Royal Navy that had forgotten submarines or aircraft.
Flying boats offered maritime reach but cost more and took longer to build, helping explain Coastal Command's use of numerous land-based Avro Ansons.
The few airships available in the 1920s provided maritime presence patrol and retained some ability to attack ships or submarines.
Depth charges became more powerful between the wars, while early air-dropped anti-submarine bombs remained comparatively weak.
No European waterway is an absolute peacetime prohibition, but narrow canals can expose a carrier to unacceptable wartime risk.
The Navy's building sequence puts cruisers, destroyers, and aviation ahead of the later battleship program, complicating the stereotype of a battleship-only service.
The Atlantic U-boat war and the American Pacific campaign can obscure British, Italian, and Japanese submarine operations across several other theatres.
Six-inch guns allowed the Royal Navy to obtain more cruisers within treaty tonnage while retaining a high volume of fire.