Pinned post for Q&A :)

My Grandfather was on the USS Massachusetts and he loved warships and he always told me the most beautiful warships he ever saw were the HMS Renown and HMS Penelope, he said there was something about the lines of 3 twin gun turrets not as busy or crowded as a triple or fourth turret. He always said he never got to see the Exeter or York but always talked about Renown and Penelope. Tomorrow is the 19 years since his passing so the timing of this was perfect. Thank you Drach.

Actor Kenneth Moore was a true method actor. Enlisting in the Navy and serving on the Aurora purely to study for his role in "Sink the Bismarck!"

Royal Navy: "We need some light cruises for secondary line duty, convoy protection and the like. Would only send into front line battle if absolutely necessary." Also Royal Navy: "Send the light cruisers into the heaviest of the front line battle. I'm sure it'll be fine."

Kenneth More the actor also survived "A Night To Remember", and he led the effort to "Sink the Bismark"...

My Grandfather served on the Arethusa great to see you finaly do a video on her

Arethusa was the ship my grandfather served on! Always told us how the king was carried to the beaches on her.

Very pretty ship the Arethusa, I’ve been wanting a guide on it from you for quite a while now. Thanks Admiral!

Aurora also carried King George VI from North Africa to Malta in early 1943. She had a saluting platform hastily installed over B Turret so the excited population gathering on the ramparts around the Grand Harbour could see His Majesty as Aurora sailed in. The Maltese had been given the shortest possible notice of the royal visit - security obviously. I saw the George Cross in a museum in Malta - the Maltese are still very proud of the honour.

The HMS Penelope, quite a tough ship she is. Survived the Luftwaffe for 4 years, only to be sunk by the Kriegsmarine. I guess sometimes you just need to let the navy give it a try. No disrespect to the Luftwaffe, I'm sure you guys tried your best.

Arethusa was the ship that controlled naval gunfire support on D-Day. Pretty key role.

I think HMS Penelope was one of the ships my grandad served on after coming of HMS Suffolk. “Pepper pot” was the name my dad always used, but we didn’t know the name of the ship until now. Thanks Drach!

Arathusa was attacked in the Mediterranean and limped back to Alexandria. 153 crew members were killed . My father survived but was traumatised for much of his life.

The Town-class vessel you'd mentioned ? HMS NEWCASTLE (C-76) was commanded by Mike Rutherford's (Genesis) father in the early 1950s. Apropos of nothing, really- just thought I'd toss that out there for consumption !! 🚬😎

Also Drach Arethusa...

Ladies and gentelment, we have found a new way to tourture Drach, now we need to have a video about the Chinese navy during both WWs so that he need to read out the whole list of romanized chinese names.

An excellent and timely video, Drach! I just received my 1/350 scale HMS Arethusa because you never know what your neighbors are building....

"Chungking" and "Chongqing" are exactly the same things in Chinese, "重庆”(simplified) or ”重慶“(traditional). It's named after the wartime capital of China, which the nationalist government moved to after Nanjing got, well, raped. The name Chongqing was later carried by a type 051 destroyer that is currently a museum ship in Tianjin across from the aircraft carrier Kiev. It is unclear what the next ship to carry that name would be since was designated a direct-administered municipality(DAM) in the late 1990s. The naming guidelines of the PLAN does not mention DAMs and no ship has been named after one yet. So it is not known if they are going to be treated like provinces (used for naming aircraft carriers and amphious assault ships) or cities(used for naming destoiers and frigates).

Great video Drach For ships never meant for front line service they certainly gave better than they got

Thanks for reviewing this class of light cruiser. This brings back memories of reading C.S. Forester's novel The Ship about the fictitious HMS Artemis which pays tribute to HMS Penelope. I will have to look for an old copy now.

The brits where so scared of not having enough cruisers under the allowed displacement that they made smaller and weaker versions of almost every cruiser class they launched "to build more of them" but ended up building these in even less numbers

Brave little buggers the Arethusa's. The Admiralty got great value for money from them.

Thank you for this video, I've been waiting for this one for a while as this was my grandads ship in WW2. If anyone else had relatives on board during that time please drop me a message.

As always, the little details are wonderful. Going through AA barrels while docked, wonderful stuff.

Ah cool, arethusa is my main light cruiser in war thunder atm whilst im researching up. Absolute tank of a ship in game, i genuinely managed to win a firefight against prinz eugen sailing it. Was absolutely amazed that not only did i win and sink her, but prinz didnt get any accurate main caliber fire on me either

Me: is it bedtime? KZfaq: Drachinifel has published a new video Me: guess so.

A video on HMS starling of the black Swan class would be interesting, it's had a pretty eventful career and well known captain

Love these small cruisers!

What amuses me is that they go through the trouble to develop this lightest of light cruisers, on the theory that they will make up for their shortcomings with the great numbers that can be built, and then they only planned six. I imagine they expected to order more ships of similar size and design later, but it amuses me all the same that the ship designed for great numbers was, well, not numerous to start with.

Okay, we're gonna a video on the life of HMS Aurora. Sounds interesting

HMS Penelope to HMS Antelope, "At last HMS Pennyloap meets HMS Antellypee."

My favourite cruiser class

My grandfather was a Chief Petty Officer aboard the HMS Aurora, prior to serving aboard her he was on two other ships that I don't think his diaries recall and had them both sunk out from under him. For the rest of his life he hated birthday candles and bacon, because they reminded him of when ships were hit and bodies were burning. Apparently he was on one of the ships that was hit by a Fritz-X, and had been talking to some friends on an AA mount and had ducked inside when the bomb hit. He survived, but his friends and the AA mount were gone.

I've been waiting for you to review the Arethusa-class. Even though I've been into World War II stuff since I was a kid, I've only learned about this ship class a couple years ago (and through a game). Even though not as well known as the Town-class (like Belfast and Edinburgh), the Arethusas are interesting. Interesting facts I've also heard was that Galatea (personally my favorite of the four, sad that she was the first of her sister ships to go) was on patrol during the Spanish Civil War and encountered the Graf Spee. Both she and Arethusa were also a part of the Dunkirk evacuation. And strangely, the U-557 was sunk 2 days after sinking Galatea, friendly collision with an Italian torpedo boat. Also, Arethusa was with Hood at Mers el-Kebir, firing torpedoes at Strasbourg.

Good to know where Kenneth More did his research for "A Night to Remember" and "Sink the Bismarck".

My grandfather was CPO J Harvie, Chief Petty Officer In Charge of Ordinance, HMS Arethusa. I have a U.S. Nickel from his collection which he'd received while in NYC for repairs after the torpedo.

Thank you, Drachinifel.

Morning, sir! Thanks for the wonderful start to the day!

Thanks for the great work Sir

My Saturday is now complete! Seriously tho I'm always ao grateful for what you offer us here and wish you and your family the very best 👍

It seems that both Arethusa classes saw quite a bit of action in both of their respective wars.

I hope you're enjoying the US!! Safe travels!

From what I know of Kenneth More, I'm not surprised he would be giving a blow-by-blow of those dastardly swine attacking one of HM's ships during action.

My grandfather served as a stoker on the HMS Arethusa

great video

What a beautiful ship

wish one of them was still around today. beautifull ships

Hello, Drach. Nice piece on Arethusa class, thank you. Any chance of a piece on the history and vessels of the Royal Naval Patrol Service some time ? They also do their business in great waters who go down to the sea in little ships.

Take the Arethusa from WHSB and put her with the Home Fleet.

3:48 The scouting plane is fitted with wheels!! 😲

LOL'd at Kenneth More narrating a battle for the rest of the crew.

I am assuming the play by play of the attack was not recorded. I would love to hear it. I wonder if the actor used any of that famous dry English humor.

Good morning Last time I was this early Beatty still hadn't sent any information to Jellicoe

good video

My HMS Aurora has a Chinese captain, strange. Great video as always.

The Good Doctor C will be liking this... .

One of my residents father was aboard the ship

Livestreamed Attack? Way ahead of her Time!

Morning, I am a new viewer.. I am beginning to become interested in the History of Warships...

Now that is a sexy cruiser.

Good morning.

There were plans about Arethusa would be lent/sold to Norway after the war. Also, could you look into the Norwegian Draug and Sleipner classes, and the emergency S-class destroyers,since two of these were the HNorMS Stord and Svenner?

They were tough.

Handsome ships, but like many Royal Navy light cruisers found themselves punching above their weight. Tough little ships too though like most cruisers very vulnerable to torpedo damage.

For my fellow American history nerds, this class was roughly a full pre-war destroyer's displacement smaller than the American OMAHA class cruisers!

Hello Drach, by chance have you read "A home on the rolling main" by AGF Ditcham? It's a great little book full of drama, humour and can be surprisingly emotive at times.

HMS leviathan from WW1 - my grandfather served on it

this is a design i would love to see in ua dreadnought since the british lack light cruiser designs

I knew Kenneth Moore had been in Navy but never read anything else about him. His portrayal of the Navy Commander in charge of finding the Bismark was very good, in fact all of the Naval personnel were well played with respect and realism. I have a question; if the ships were designed to be as light as possible to build as many as possible, why weren't more built? Did the navy have a personnel problem? Did they realize, as America did with their "tin clads" , that they had made a grave error? Or did the navy decide they needed more destroyers and escorts?

I call these the HMAS Sydney classes

What a lovely way to start the day. Maybe an odd request but would love a video on the Hms endymion :-)

No wonder both a cruiser and a carrier never got to carry the name. Everyone knows any Polyphemus would have had to be refitted as a torpedo ram to rightly wear the name.

Can you do the Walter B Cobb (APD-106) my grandfather was pretty high rank on that ship. I have never seen anything on it

IIRC HMS Penelope was "Penny lope" ...

Say goodnight boys, goodnight!

Did anyone think of lightening the ships to stay within treaty commitments? Aluminium engines, shafts, stacks, masts, tables, doors, etc, similar to the ss united states liner? In those days, bakelite was available as well. Just a thought

If the nelsons had been refitted then their 12 secondary turrets could have been used in 4 of these.. I wonder what sort of rework would be required ... and how much this would have saved to be spent on the nelson refits..

Please could you review good hope and Monmouth? Thank you

did they ever try using the 20mm hispano cannons that spitfires carried as anti aircraft guns?

HMS _Aurora_ needs to return

"Unrotated projectile launchers"?? Would someone translate that? Thanks.

Wasnt Penelope the one that ended up being nicknamed HMS Pepperpot due to the amount of damage she took (and survived) while at Malta?

At 4:00 are those wheels on that airplane? And if so, how would that work on a cruiser?

3:52 Is that a Hawker Osprey with wheels on the catapult?

always had a soft spot for these little cruisers. and they are rather small but big enough to be effective. but really you do need 8 guns in proper turrets at least in the world after WW 1

Have you covered HMS MANXMAN or her sisters yet

Q: So when your ships use hard to reach foreign made weapons like Bofors and Oerlikons how do you acquire them in wartime?

The Type 31 of the 1930s?

The Arethusa class were inferior on paper. However, they operated on the sea, not on paper.

She is certainly a beautiful ship. The USCGC Taney is also quite beautiful and has quite a history herself gained from 50 Years of Active Service!...However no one wants to talk about her or, her service in 3 wars and years of SAR and LE.....Just sayin'

HMS Janus (F35)

Why did Britain keep on keeping to ship size/type restrictions when other nations blatantly disregarded them. Surely they could build a ship with a certain gun type that could be upgraded quickly when war came about. I.e. 8 inch guns that could be replaced by 12 inch.

In hindsight, why did Britain enter into the treaty? Didn’t seem to be in their best interests.

Blue-haired and tsun-tsun... and hidden sleeve cannons! "BAKA!"

Elliott

It's lucky Kenneth More wasn't a Football Comentator. It was a ship of two halfs, Port and Starboard, we wus bombed. 4inch Guns on a Cruiser dosen't seem right. Were there others?

I thought this was the ship from ww1 lol

There is a chow mein joke in there somewhere. You already have the collander. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gZqPma96tafKn40.html

Why do we british always seem to be fighting countries we have should our weapons and ships to? Shortly after the Chinese took her was the Korean War. In the Falklands the Argentines had type 42 destroyers which were state of the art. They had a British aircraft carrier etc. Why does history repeat itself like this

Cruisers were useless - especially to the Royal Navy from 1919-1945+ - imo. 200,000 tons plus 15 heavy cruisers (say 150,000 more) = 350,000 tons. The Royal Navy used these largely to protect her shipping, show the flag in foreign ports and protecting her foreign possessions. None of these duties require great speed - 21-23 knots would do fine in these mostly, defensive tasks. So, forgetting the Treaties for a minute, just build ten, 35,000 ton, 'treaty' 28-30 knot battleships instead of all these silly cruisers. Or, twelve, 29,000 ton battleships with 25 knot top speed's (like the Queen Elizabeth's). Or, fourteen, 25,000 ton battleships with 21 knot top speed's (perhaps with 6 instead of 8x15 inch guns). These would make FAR, more sense. 1) during war, shipping would be in convoys. Thus, there would be a need for far less, protection warships. And no need for great speed. Plus, no commerce raider or cruiser would attack a convoy so protected. Whereas they might try and attack one protected by only a cruiser. 2) showing the flag would look far better with a battleship than a cruiser. 3) protecting a foreign possession would be far easier with a battleship than a cruiser. I think - in wartime - these 10-14 battleships could have taken care of the Royal Navy's needs (on top of the Home Fleet) in foreign waters. And what about in battle? Cruisers are still useless. They cannot attack battleships and expect to survive for long. Plus, destroyers are smaller, faster to launch torpedo attacks (heck, US Navy cruisers did not even carry torpedo's except for the Atlanta's). All cruisers can do is take on other cruisers or destroyers. But the secondary guns of a battleship can deal with destroyers...rendering cruisers superfluous in fleet battles. So cruisers were silly, IMO. Too weak to take on battleships. WAY overbuilt to fight destroyers/submarines. The only two classes of 1000+ ton, surface, combat ships needed back then were battleships and destroyers. BTW, I enjoyed - as per usual - your video. You have a great way with words (imo). Thank you.