Pinned post for Q&A :)

“The single largest preserved military museum ship in the United Kingdom” As much as I love Belfast, it always hurts my soul to hear that.

15:23 A fully equipped machine shop that allows the crew to fabricate parts Huh, that explains the god-like repair ability of Royal Navy ships in WoWS

Great grandad served in the 'B' turret on Belfast during WW2. We have his Arctic star and a fascinating box of photographs from the Arctic convoys showing just how thick the ice was on the Hull and Turrets. I wish I was around when he was so I could've talked about it.

I work in a service station similar to the one you mentioned, and I can assure you, no one would miss our overpriced coffee and burgers, in fact, I think it should be made mandatory for large calibre naval artillery to be pointed at all moterway services

A news article I read today said: The mysterious animal deaths in Kamchatka cannot be attributed to oil My first reaction was: "It must have been those damn torpedo boats again."

Town class HMS Sheffield had all her brightwork in stainless steel rather than brass, as the city of Sheffield was famous, in particular, for stainless steel cutlery. Her nickname based on this was 'Old Shiny' or 'Shiny Shef'

The fact that Belfast's guns are pointing at a gas station makes me wonder where other museum ship guns are pointing.

At some 600 feet long, HMS Belfast (a light cruiser) is similar in length to a First World War dreadnought (and longer than HMS Dreadnought herself). A really excellent ship and floating museum, and well worth a visit. Great video, Drachinifel!

Ah Belfast, such a storied warship. With a tale as grand as many vessels. Also best maid.

HMS Belfast was the first warship I ever saw so this ship has a really big spot in my heart. Once again THANK YOU DRACH! :)

The good ol' near one hr long "5 minutes or so" guides to warships. You're awesome Drach.

I had the great privilege to be visiting the Belfast when several of the crew had returned for the 60th anniversary of her commissioning. 21 years ago these old gents made a great impression on my 7yo self but mostly I remember one of the old deck-hands showing me photos of the ship's cat, and telling me about where she used to sleep, hunt, and hide. I suppose as fighting was far from their most common duty the activities of their cat was of great interest. :D (I suppose all her war serving crew will have died now, thankfully people like Drach will have preserved many of their stories)

I liked this irl filming with a voice over, made the audio quality so much better

When you mentioned how complicated the secondary gun mechanism is, I wanted to provide some perspectiv for people used to hearing you talk about 15 and 16 inch guns, for many of whom 4 inch probably sounds small. But remember that the standard British Army field gun of WWII (the glorious 25-pounder) was about a 3.5 inch caliber and the standard heavy AA gun was 3.7 inches. These small secondary guns on a warship would have truly been heavy artillery on land.

I love the fact that A & B 6" triple turrets are elevated and trained to obliterate a motorway service station in north London as a convenient target to show the range the main guns were capable of.

When I visited HMS Belfast earlier last year when I was still in the UK, the strongest feeling I got was just how cramped the whole place was. There really was not a lot of room to move around. The hatches and passages were all only just wide enough - everyone had to really tuck in their limbs to fit through. I guess it helped that people back then generally had a smaller stature, but I'm not too big either (178cm) so man I don't know. Life aboard military ships was tough.

Belfast surviving a mine breaking her keel is an example of how tough the Town class were; Edinburgh took an incredible amount of damage before she sank, HMS Liverpool lost her bow and survived, and pretty much the entire class survived being torpedoed at least once. Immensely tough ships that were damn hard to put down, they have always fascinated me even as a child.

I visited HMS Belfast during the 50th anniversary of the D Day landings. Maps of the beaches and attack plans were displayed on the navigation bridge. It was a VERY complicated invasion.

Thanks! I have been to the HMS Belfast several times on my trips from the US, and I never tire of stopping in every couple of years to give her a healthy pat on the back.

These days you can get away with very few people on watch in an engine room. The carrier I was on has only 4 machinist's mate watches and a senior supervisor on at a time. Pretty good for an engine room with two 70,000hp shafts and two comparably big turbine generators.

A minor piece of fictional trivia. In Nigel Kneale's novelization of the final Quatermass series, simply entitled Quatermass. There is a brief description of the novels future London in which HMS Belfast has been replaced by a guided missile frigate named HMS Arbelast.

You might have to steal the Chieftain's "oh bugger, the shell room is on fire" test! Excellent video as usual!

I love the way you 'threw shade' at the service station about the guns causing 'improvement' lmao!

You are right about the Scratchwood services - several mintues sustained bombardment from Belfast would improve them. Obviously shot falling short would be a unfortunate for the residents of Edgware, Barnet and Brents Cross. Still might get the Shopping centre - so two birds with one stone etc.....

The inside of HMS Belfast left the engineer in me drooling, what a beauty!

My Brother and myself sent a splendid afternoon having a guided tour from one of the staff regarding the Ventilation and damage control systems of the ship as we were interested and he too was an Engineer sharing his knowledge..... a day well sent. The removal and replacing of the Engineer Room Asbestos with a faux product that looked correct and its cost was a story. A disruptive camouflage pattern on a Naval ship looks so good and mean.

Love this old battle barge, shame Warspite was never saved

The critical parameter for the steam turbine is not rotational frequency, but blade tangential velocity. The turbine does not need to spin really fast, BUT, if it is not spinning really fast, the only way to get the blade speed high enough is to use a large radius. One of the early great liners (whose name escapes me) compromised the design of the propellers and turbines to allow a turbine fourteen feet across to directly drive a propeller designed to run at 420 revolutions per minute. The big penalty of direct drive turbines is the volume of the equipment. For the same efficiency and power, a turbine that runs at twice the RPM occupies only a quarter of the volume (spinning twice as fast at half of the radius gives the same blade tangential velocity). It does not take much of a reduction in volume to justify the reduction gearing and end up saving space.

I used to work in the 'City of London', repairing mechanical accounting machines, before the electronic 'revolution' of the mid seventies. Me and my mates 'bunked off work' to go to London Bridge and watch her coming in. All the ships sirens, the fireboats and a RNAS 'Stringbag' overhead, it was a memorable moment. I first visited the ship almost as soon as she was opened up and I spent the entire day there, asking endless questions of the very knowledgeable guides. I got the impression they were all ex Belfast's? I notice the shell rooms are open and several other spaces, but on my first visit, it was all a bit restricted and the one thing I wanted to see most of all was; the mighty 'Admiralty Fire Control Table MkVI'. On subsequent visits, I got to see it and much else, but your documentary has reminded me; I need to go again before I get too old.

Another great video! Having a machine shop onboard I think came from the example of US Navy practice. The US Navy did not have as many overseas bases as Britain did so it was important that the crews could make repairs themselves. I know that US battleships even had a forge to cast small parts, though I don't know if smaller ships did. Saving the Belfast was one of the best things the Royal Navy has ever done due to the positive public relations value, and no doubt they regret not saving more ships, especially the Warspite.

“Average viewing time is 1.5 hours” says the IWM blurb... 4.5 hours later I left. Surprise trip on my birthday when found myself in London with that day free!

I would dearly like to see an episode of the launching mechanisms of the seaplanes and of course, the seaplanes themselves used in the cruisers like the HMS Belfast.

Ah I visited her roughly a year a go. 1st Oct 2019. It started as a rainy day but it cleared up at noon. Spent 5 hours to explore the ship and talked with the staff.

The thing I find fascinating about her is standing in the superstructure and seeing that the original outside wall is now the inside wall of the circular corridor and that the corridor and outer rooms were originally just deck. Its a massive increase in the amount of enclosed space.

Oh hey, it's Enterprise's maid today. (Sorry, sorry, couldn't help myself. After all, technically, she serves Queen Elizabeth in the Royal Maids.)

I visited HMS Belfast in the 70s, and at the time there was a map on the bridge with a circle denoting the maximum range of the main armament. A large red cross marked the Scratchwood Services on the M1 motorway, which is apparently where the 6" guns were aimed! It would have made a hell of a mess. Nice video. It is a fascinating ship to visit.

Active-duty marine engineer with the Royal Canadian Navy here. Let me know if you've got any questions regarding the machinery spaces, engineering practices, etc. I'd be more than happy to contribute my knowledge to your work.

Seeing how few ships Britain preserved, I feel spoiled to have A battleship, A victory Ship, the HMS Queen Mary, and a soviet submarine near by, and the aircraft Midway a few hours away,

A great ship to visit. Being able to sit in the Captain's chair, the navigator's chair, and on another bridge the Admiral's chair was very enjoyable! It was a very quiet day without people lining up & that made the visit even better.

Thank you very much for this look at this wonderful lady. I still wish I had had the time to visit her the one time I was in London on Liberty. We were moored in Portsmouth where QE and POW tie up now. So much to see on that half day in London and not not nearly enough time. She was born at just the right time, when she was needed the most. One quick note about the 40mm Bofers, these guns remained in service in some USN auxiliary ships up through the mid 1980s, in quad mounts. Just because a weapon might be 'old' technology does not mean it's useless or harmless to an enemy. The last time I cruised the Persian Gulf (1991) when Iranian small craft were considered a threat I thought a twin or quad 40mm would be very useful.

Really quite like this video. I think the format of on-scene footage with voice over recorded in calm produces a grat quality. I think it would be really helpful if you sometimes could freeze the footage to give use the best view on what you are talking about, sometimes the object of interest was leaving the frame just when you were starting to mention it. Freezing the video and maybe highlighting the interesting part of the picture, e.g. by darkening the rest, would really help identify the most interesting parts. I am not sure how much additional effort this would be in editing and appreciate how much high quality content you are producing. Really great video on a great channel. Thanks a lot Drach!

An hour long Drach. That's my morning sorted.

Sometime in October of 1982 i bought a ticket and wandered everywhere i was allowed in this wonderful piece of preserved history. Nothing can replace physical contact with history, but damn if this wasn't in many ways better! Thank you Drac!:-) 👍👌🖖

That is Drach : answering my existential questions on a weekly basis. This week, "do warships have clutches?".

Wonderful program, perhaps a tie with the second Russian Pacific Squadron. USN career officer, ship driver not engineering. Once saw a 1200 psi leak almost severe a limb but in general, the 600 psi systems seemed very reliable and powerful.

I'm 13 minutes into this video and it is easily my favorite from this channel because of the nice little tour of this ship work retail so I will never be able to afford a trip to England to see this ship in person but the little tour has made the distance between my bedroom where I'm watching this and HMS Belfast herself significantly shorter

I visited HMS Belfast in 2010, with a friend from Winnipeg. It was fascinating to see how complex the guns and machinery were. My dad managed a machine shop, so the ship's machine shop surprised me as to how well equipped it was in such a confined space. So glad she survived, especially since it was a near run thing.

USS Worden CG18 EM here, Thank you guys for doing this, It's BADASS! Love your work!

If and when I travel out to the UK, this ship will definitely be a stop on my list. Other stops I have in mind are HMS Victory and HMS Warrior.

I did this 23 years ago. The tour experience was a lot like that of the North Carolina except a lot smaller. It's still big enough, but I don't think I'd want to spend much time in rough seas.

I really enjoyed that video, I was a very young guest aboard in the early 70s and the ship has been close to my heart ever since, thank you. I would humbly suggest HMS M33 would be a prime candidate for a similar video. She is also a friend of mine.

Visiting the museum was one of my best experiences studying in London. It's amazing to see the degree of complexity of the old engine room machinery and to think about having to remember how to operate it under duress.

Was lucky enough to visit Belfast back in 86 on a trip to England as teenager. Its a shame that Britain never saved a Battleship.

visited her in 2016. amazin experience as someone who had never seen a warship in real life. the thickness of the steel makes you think off how powerfull this weapons of war really are.

I visited her back in '94 and was really impressed by the quality of the preservation work, especially the public audio of the Battle of North Cape. I think that her set-back funnels make her much prettier than her sisters. She looks particularly good in stern three-quarter view; rather like Brigette Bardot. Very coquetteish.

I had the pleasure of visiting the HMS Belfast whilst in London... beautiful, classical, ship.

I visited the ship when I was in London once. Beautiful ship. One of two museum ships I've seen. The other one is the Georgios Averoff, which I visited just a few weeks ago.

Fun fact, Belfast was the 1000th ship to slide out of the H&W shipyards. Also, I wanna see Belfast so badly. (the ship and the city)

I visited London 6 times, never had the chance to visit HMS Belfast for various reasons. This episode is the next best thing to being there in person and maybe even more insightful. Thank you very much

Thank you for this video. My late father served on the Belfast when she struck the mine, your video brought back memories of the story he told.

Comprehensive but always interesting. Thank you.

This was a wonderful video about the HMS Belfast. I wish I had this before I toured her in 2016. Thank you for continuing to produce great content.

Interesting to see the sound powered telephones (the ones with the windy handles), still used to this day by the RN on damage control circuits.

Another wonderful program, the ship looks as good as when I viewed it in person many years ago. I have read with great interest the after action reports involving the Brooklyns with their 15 six inch guns, the description from the US Army describe them as looking like gigantic machine gun shells , as, they seemed to fire so quickly. My favorites were the Des Moines, having served on board all three but I love Belfast and I’m so glad she still survives.

I noticed a sign that said "A.P. and H.E.". HE are nose-fuzed shells with large explosive charges and usually rather small penetration ability through any armor more than at most 0.25 times the shell's diameter (if using a base fuze, too, or a very short delay in the nose fuze, which would be strengthened in this case) -- US "High Capacity" (HC) shells, their HE terminology, had in most cases both a nose fuze, could be removed and replaced by a hardened steel nose plug to allow the base fuze to function, or switched for a time fuze (VT (radar proximity) fuzes were permanent for HC shells so equipped due to requiring different shell nose designs and protective covers) -- and were used for shore bombardment or AA (with a time fuze) or firing at very lightly-protected enemy ships. Armor-Piercing (AP),, using a very small explosive charge and thick casing for punching through very thick armor, for British 6" guns in WWII is something that I did not know that they had. Original terminology was CPBC (Common, Pointed, Ballistically Capped) which meant what was later renamed to be SAP (Semi-Armor-Piercing) due to having an explosive charge midway between AP and HE and using a base fuze much like an AP shell but not having an Armor-Penetrating Cap (APC, as in all larger British naval guns in WWII) and thus would not work very well against the cruisers and battleships that had face-hardened ("Cemented" in British terminology of WWI and WWII) armor that could shatter the nose of uncapped shells due to impact shock if not protected by a properly-designed AP Cap (hardened after WWI experience with soft caps was less than satisfactory in actual use). The larger British WWII 8" SAP shells, termed "SAPC", did have such a cap and, while not designed to penetrate thick armor like a true APC shell, could be relied on to penetrate most cruiser and some lighter battleship Cemented plating, when used -- the 6" CPBC could do this only for softer non-cemented armor, which was the major type used in most cruisers built prior to the late-1930s. Was a capped or uncapped AP shell added to the British 6" guns for use against more heavily protected enemy ships later on?

Thank you for the peek at the engineering spaces. FYI, a whip on a ship is a line (rope), usually run through a sheave (pulley) as a block and tackle.

Spent a whole day on this brilliant ship a couple of years ago and I will do again this ship shows how we did so well around the world it’s pretty much self dependant,apart from fuel and supplies

When I was a small boy living in Dar-es-Salaam, HMS Belfast paid us a visit, which was a huge excitement. They had a party for us children on board, plus a tour of the ship, which I've always remembered. But the highlight of the day was when a Rating gave me his naval issue hat, which I had admired. I still have it, around 60 years on. (It used to live in our children's 'dressing-up box'.) I've wondered since how the sailor explained his missing hat? Maybe 'lost overboard'!

I like the voice over of the new footage (rather than trying to talk and film at the same time). The sound usually suffers if you do it the other way. Might be a good idea for the camera guy to have a light when filming in a dark place like an engine room. I wonder where the shells from the naval guns outside the Royal War Museum would land.

This channel is absolutely brilliant. If only there were such fascinating documentaries on TV.

I love how Belfast keeps the entire engine room above one atmosphere, turning the entire space into a room sized supercharger. inspired engineering, if only they'd found away to cool the air at the same time, this makes the already compressed air denser still making more power

I’ve never been on board Belfast but often if I have a really shitty day I jump on the tube just to walk down the riverbank and sit near her because it’s such a beautiful ship and makes me feel closer to my dad who was a navy man

I think back to when you started this channel out, sure go to the Belfast make a video crawling into all areas of the ship while it is closed. You have been producing nice short five minute guides or close enough that have impressed others and all of your hard work have given you access to things not possible before. Nice work.

When I was CEO of tech company I rented the HMS Belfast for a Kickoff Meeting which is tied up on the Thames. I was disappointed they didn't let us fire off any rounds at the Eye.

When I was a 13 year old german boy I visited with english friends the HMS BELFAST. It was fascinating for me. I have still some photos from that day. Now I am 62 and I remember that as it was yesterday😊

A truly wonderful video. I have been to the UK twice and both times I have visited HMS Belfast. Having been to multiple US ships, I think I can say that she is one of my favorite ships that I have had the pleasure to visit.

My Lodger rather upset the staff when he discovered on a school trip the hand wheels in one of the gun turrets worked (think it was AA). Lots of alarms, running about and shouting. In fact so much so they didn't catch him in the confusion!

Churchill: "I think I'll pop over and check on the invasion." Everyone, up to and including the King: "BLOODY HELL YOU WILL" Belfast looks wonderful, I hope I can make it to the UK someday and visit her (amongst other things).

Thanks Drach....was in London and France for the 75th anniversary and saw this beautiful ship while in town but didn’t get the opportunity to board. After this thorough tour what else can I say. There’s something to be be said about a well done virtual tour!

Enjoyed having a close look at all the doodads. If you ever make your way to the states you should check out Boston, they have the USS Cassin Young parked right next to the Constitution. NYC has the Intrepid and a 50's era sub too.

When steaming ships do not change gears for change of speed the turbines speed up or slow down. There are 3 sets of turbines to each screw HP / IP and rReverse

I just read The Ship by C.S. Forester today Drach, so this is excellent timing. A lot of the equipment shown was described in the book (Arethusa class rather than Town, but close enough). It's a nice quick read if anyone's interested in a fictionalised account of a light cruiser in action.

I remember visiting this ship 10+ years ago and your video makes it look more spacious than I remember;)

This is by far the best rum ration since.... ever i guess. Great video, with all that "live footage"!

You don't change gears in a naval propulsion system. The reduction gearing is fixed. The closest thing to a clutch is a means to disconnect the propeller shaft from the reduction gearing by means of a hydraulically driven toothed collar, which can be moved longitudinally to separate them. The shaft has to be stopped or at a few RPM to safely declutch and reclutch the shaft to the reduction gears. You showed how the ship was able to reverse the direction of the propeller shaft. There are two throttle wheels at the engine control station, one for ahead, and one for astern. To make an emergency stop, or to perform a crash back full, you would shut the ahead throttle, and crack open the astern throttle, watching the astern bowl pressure to prevent over torquing the astern turbine until the ahead rotation stops. If given a backing bell, you continue admitting stream to the astern throttle until you reach ordered turns. I just wish there had been a clutch on my submarines to change reduction gear ratios so I could be in a submarine high speed dragster. Nope. There weren't any. And there aren't any on Belfast either.

Thank you, I enjoyed the tour of HMS Belfast , great presentation.

It’s really cool getting a detailed view of a Royal Navy ship. Thank you for the video Drach!

My uncle was a royal marine on this ship during its service in the artic and the action against the scharnhorst. His action station was one of the rear gun turrets. In later life he had to have two hearing aids & disability pension for his hearing loss due to the noise when firing.

This video can't possibly be from the UK, The weather is entirely too nice.

Your commentary is superb! Best talk about ships I have ever heard, no joke.

Well done! Thanks for all the working getting that completed for us to enjoy. Much appreciated.

Wish we had time to visit HMS Belfast while in London, too many other things to see in a couple days. Would like to if the opportunity occurs again. Hope they take care her better than the rust on the deck indicates.

17:46 So to put it colloquially, we have the "oh crap" valve on the right, and the "oh sh*t" valve on the left.

46:00 - Although it should be noted (if I remember my history lessons correctly) that King George VI *also* wanted to go with the invasion fleet and had to be similarly talked down, with the principle objector to that idea being...Winston Churchill. It would technically have made him the first reigning monarch since George II in 1743 to have been on a battlefield...or at least near enough to count.

Great tour of a wonderful ship. Thank you!

That is the cleanest ship’s engine room I’ve ever seen

27:30 "A Different time when they had the time to take care of the fine details" - Reminds me a line on a memetic cleaning liquid flask: "You only read this, because you went to the toilet without a smartphone" :) But also, may the proverbial drunken sailor might want to stick an 8" shell into the breech. You never know.

I think this was the first time Drach has talked about a lattice mast without criticizing it. (Towards the end of the video)

Thanks for another rum ration Drach A well done and comprehensive look at a vastly underrated ship. In fact the whole Town and Crown classes are underrated. Despite being classed as CL's due to their 6inch guns, they carried armour as good as the supposedly superior German and Japanese ships and it was better distributed. All this on a displacement that complied with the Treaty's, unlike the Germans and Japanese who dishonourably lied and broke their oaths.