Pinned post for Q&A :)

*"200,000 vessels are launched, with a million more well on their way."* - US Navy Construction

It's not just the hulls. The USN needed all the machinery. The interior fittings. Bunks, storage lockers, refrigeration, desks, chart tables and God knows what else. Just how many light bulbs were there on a Cleveland much less an Essex. All of the electrical equipment. Generators, radios, radar etc. The armament. 20mm, 40mm, 5"38s, 6", 8", 12", 16" and the ammunition for each. Fuel. Av Gas. Food. Plates, bowls, cups, flatware. Uniforms. And we still haven't even gotten to the most important part of the ship yet. The crew. Basic training. Advanced training. Plus all the administrative work to keep track of just where all of these men went. Now add on everything the Army needed from small arms ammo to bridging equipment much less lend lease.

Dockyards be like: "Building" "Unit ready" Repeat until victory

My Japanese teacher said he'd gotten a map of the Pacific at the beginning of the war (kind of dangerous at the time for a civilian) and carefully located where all the great victories, and where the American losses occurred. Towards 1943, the victories seemed to be happening closer to Japan, and the American losses kept mounting. They quit broadcasting, at that point but he tallied the losses and mentally said 'How many ships are these maniacs building? At this rate they'll be able to walk to Japan.'

Japan should have realized there was an issue winning the war, when 1. Service Squadron Six was raising fleet carriers out of the water to repair them thousands of miles from the nearest yard, with an ice cream ship in support. 2. The US Navy was getting escort carriers so fast and so many they used them as cargo ships for new planes, and 3. The US started cancelling fleet carrier orders in late 44.

If you consider this along with the parallel effort for the construction of Liberty ships, you begin to realize exactly how vast the US shipbuilding industry was at that time.

20:59 The light carriers were important because although they carried roughly the same number of planes as an escort carrier they could keep up with the fast carrier task forces. The escort carriers were about 10 knots slower.

US Navy : *Smacks side of dry dock* “You can fit an entire theatre of operations in this thing…”

The BBC had a great documentary on US war production don't remember the name. There was an efficiency team recruited from one of the early consultant companies that broke down and reconstructed war manufacturing processes to increase output. They took the M2 Browning machine gun down from 40 manhours each to 7, and they went around doing that with everything so I imagine they were involved with shipbuilding too.

I honestly wonder how many personel were tied up trying to generate unique ship names while the warship printers went BRRR

The company I worked for in the 1980's, Bechtel, organized -- from scratch -- the California Shipbuilding Corporation before the U.S. entered WWII. Between September 1941 and September 1945 (when the contracts were closed out), 40,000 workers at Calship launched 467 Liberty and Victory ships from its shipyard "assembly line" at Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles. That's more than two ships a week from just this one startup effort. Bechtel had never built even a rowboat before the war and never built another seagoing vessel when the war ended. I discovered this when I was working in the publications department at Bechtel and found a dusty, final edition of the "Calship Log" that documented this stupendous achievement. Almost unbelievable... but true nevertheless.

As an American and what I do for a living I've been to a lot of customers over the decades. It was always interesting visiting the ones that were around during WW2. Almost all of them have display's when you walk into their lobby with either samples of the parts they made or photos of what they built. I've been to places that had the arial bomb fuses for the bombs the bombers dropped on enemy territory. Where I work now stopped the production of their offerings and started building Howitzer tubes for the cannons. They still had the one they first built to prove that was used to prove to the US government that they not only could build them but it was verified step by step under the monitoring of inspectors. That single tube was not to be used as it was for validation purposes but was a good one. It ended up being mounted inside the building and visitors could view it, and look up the tube. They had a window especially installed so anyone looking through the tube could see a building several blocks away. Turns out that building was the place I worked at before switching jobs. Never saw the tube as the company moved to a new location and the Howitzer tube didn't make the move. Instead the contacted a few VFW's and found one who had a Howitzer they wanted to display but was missing some parts, one of which was a good tube (barrel). The company asked if they wanted what was a brand new one for free, with free delivery. They couldn't saw yes quick enough. So in a way it did serve a purpose in that it helps remember that war effort. The US turned into one huge factory focused on winning the war. Production was through the roof during the war years.

Drach…I know in the past you’ve joked about the inclination of the Navy to overload their decks with anti aircraft weapons as an American assertion of 2nd Amendment rights but American innovation made this possible. A barrel for a Swedish built 40mm Bofers required 3 and a half hours to rifle. Chrysler, the auto company, building them under license developed a broaching process cutting down the time to 15 minutes a barrel.

The Allies: "How many ships can you build?" US Industry: "Yes"

Yamamoto wisely warned against dragging the US into the war, before he drew the short straw and had to come up with his attack plan. Before WW2 the US was responsible for over 1/3 of all global industrial output, the UK Germany and France being the other largest producers, and at its peak it was over 1/2, while Japan's was well under 1/10th with a headstart.

Prewar planning isn't appreciated nearly enough. Yes, we built them _during_ the war, but we evaluated, blueprinted, ordered, and supply-chained 'half' the navy (for the most part) pre-Pearl. There are a few lectures on 'US Navy/Army/gov planning & logistics in the 30s' on YT, and the profs do a good job of describing how much planning & allocating was done in anticipation of the shooting starting, & war were declared _(boom...)_ They're well worth watching.

Some BODY once told me I run the US Navy There were too few ships out in the shed He was looking kinda weak With the shoes on both his feet Stuck to legs that hung limp In a wheelchair Well The ships start coming And they don't stop coming Fed to Japan and we hit the sea gunning Didn't make sense not to join the war We got a thousand ships, now let's make more So much for land That's not for me Now I've chosen to live on the sea You'll never know if you don't sail The biggest Navy never will fail! Hey now We're stripes and stars Got some CVs Go fly Hey now We're stripes and stars See our BBs Go die And of all the ships on the sea 98% are the US Navy It's a warm place But they say it gets hotter Pacific Islands Surrounded by water But the radar men beg to differ Judging by the sight of the radio picture The waves we break Are getting pretty high The water's too rough So we might as well fly Our ship's on fire! How 'bout yours? Don't worry bout fire With this much freeboard Hey now Iwo Jima Marianas We're here Carrier Task forces Ten thousand Ships near And all the planes of Japan Will never stop Admiral E. King's Plaans (Whistling)

Just to get the perspective. In 1945, the US Navy was larger than all other navies in the world combined. In all aspects. Another fact not talked about in this video is merchant shipping. The USA build more merchant vessels in 7 months of 1943 than Japan did in 7 YEARS. It still is incredible.

The total number of ships (of all sizes) shows an even more dramatic increase during this time period. In 1938 you're looking at a total of under 400, and in 1945 it peaked at almost 6,800. Although your chart shows medium sized ships not growing in numbers as much, this is due mainly to so many being converted into light & escort carriers. And the capital sized ships were limited by drydock availability. But the small ships just exploded in number.

The reason for the large, comparatively, number of battleships being built in 1941 was a result of a single decrypted IJN radio message from 1922 that was decrypted in 1936. This was a report on the trials of IJNS Mutsu which mentioned that she made over 26 knots on trials. Up to this point, the USN thought the average battle speed of the IJN battle line was 22.5 kts. This was usually compared to the 21kts of the USN battle line (in actual fact, USS Nevada could barely make 20 knots, while the use of reciprocating engines capped the sustained speed of the USS Oklahoma, New York and Texas to 19 knots), a speed differential the USN thought it could counter, even with the three 26 knot Kongo class battlecruisers/battleships. Added to the reclassification of the "Kongo" class from battlecruiser to battleships at 26 knots (the USN did know that the Kongo class was rebuilt between 1934-1938, but missed the re-entry into service of IJN Hiei and the improvement to 29 knots until 1942), this implied that with the rebuilding of the IJN battle line from 1933 to 1938, the Japanese now had a 26 knot battle line. There was no way the USN could rebuild its battleships into a 25-27 knot battle. Replacing the machinery with that have "Brooklyn/Cleveland" class machinery and holding bulging to 108' might have allowed the "Big Five" to reach 25 knots, but the USN didn't have the money from 1935-1940 or the time from 1941 on. That meant building a new 26-27 knot battle line, which is why the USN, that thought 23 knots was a "fast" battleship before 1936, suddenly jumped to a 26-28 knot design for the "North Carolina" class in 1937. And why the main classes constituting the new battleline, "South Dakota" and "Montana" class were designed to a sustained 27 knot speed at battle displacement. The "Iowa" class was no such a large change. With the expectation that Japan was building 16" gun battleships of 26-27 knots and >40,000 tons (the displacement and firepower of the "Yamato" class was not really known to the Western navies until 1945 and its protective scheme until 1945-46), the "Iowa" could slot into the battle line with improved firepower and speed and slightly improved protection over the "South Dakota" class. Thus with an expectation that the IJN would have eleven battleships in 1942, the USN would have six (all with 16" guns and four armored against the 2,240lbs 16" shell), then eleven to ten with the "Iowa" class (Missiouri and Wisconsin were originally planned for commissioning in late 1943 before being displaced by fleet carriers), eleven to twelve by 1944 and thirteen to fifteen by 1945. AS it was, the reality was that by 1941, the IJN had what were really four battlecruisers, what "Yamato" at the end of the year and six battleships with the slowest doing just over 24.5 knots at battle displacement. A failure to spend resources on intelligence caused an expensive "knee jerk" to a perceived speed gap and a lack of understanding just what the IJN capital ships could do or not do. The RN and USN exchanged info "backchannel" after the WW1, even during the ascendance of the Anglophobe senior leaders in the 1920s, which helps to explain why, along with intelligence on the German and Italian programs, resulted in the demanded minimum battle displacement speed of 27 knots.

As a current shipbuilder for the US Navy I find these videos fascinating.

Man you keep mentioning all these potential vids, love the fact that you still have years of material and topics to share with us. Love your channel. Interesting topics, lots to learn, great pictures, and even the comments section is pretty great and often has interesting bits of info sprinkled throughout it. Best part of Wednesday

11:55 When even your crane has a crane for more craneality

A destroyer a day keeps the Japanese at the bottom of the bay. - This quip I heard someone toss out once, really sums up American naval construction here, regardless of its accuracy.

Never forget the amazing exploits of the US Navy's "little" escort carriers. Not only did their crews relentlessly fight in the outrageously unbalanced Battle Off Samar in the Pacific, but the USS Guadalcanal made history in the Atlantic when her task group captured the U-505 and its codebooks, intact. You can even tour the restored U-505 in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Japan: We must hit them hard enough to bring them to the peace table. US after Pearl: 'MERICA! YOU WANT BOATS? WE GOT BOATS! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! WE GOT DD'S WE GOT CV'S WE GOT CRUISERS AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN! EVERYTHING MUST GO!! GO GO GO!! BRING YOUR KIDS! TOSS CHAMPAGNE BOTTLES BUT DO IT FAST - THEYRE GOING FAST FAST FAST! Japan: Sigh. Capitalists.

🎵Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running🎵

You could measure ship-months per year. A ship in construction for 12 months could be 1 while a ship in construction for 6 months could be 1/2. The same could be used for in service.

Any day of the week you can ask me, "Do you have an interest in Navel history", and I will answer, "No not particularly", without paws. Then someone will flame me for my spelling. But still I hang out for Drach's posts and marvel that he is able to produce them at a rate that I find difficult to keep up with, given my hectic schedule of getting in and out of bed, eating, dealing with the consequences of eating and occasionally scratching. Again I am amazed that I found this so engaging. I currently don't know that I want to know about Destroyers, but I'm sure I'll feel better when I do.

My itty-bitty grandmother was a welder in the Kaiser Shipyards during WW2

In 1943 America was a war machine building assembly line. Turned out 16 B17's a DAY. Ship building was shockingly quick. We were second to none.

Col. Donovan, has the OSS determined how many torpedoes the Japanese and Germans are making? Yes, Admiral King, they're making X torpedoes per month. Very well, we will build 2X ships.

40 years ago naive 12yr old me sat down to play Avalon Hill's Victory in the Pacific. I wanted to play Japan, because of course I knew better. I didn't do badly, first 2 turns I figure I had lucked into a game slightly better than RL. Then I looked over at my friend's coming builds for turns 4-7. For 3 turns in a row his production Each Turn was greater than my entire remaining fleet- and that game doesn't even represent all the Essex! That's when it hit me how America won that war. Jane & John working 9-5 + OT.

Great video Drach, it serves to remind us that a huge part of any war is won or lost in the factories and shipyards of the combatant nations. As impressive as the major warhip construction numbers are on their own, it's truly amazing to remember that at the same time US yards were turning out; 400+ full size destroyers (Benson, Gleaves, Fletcher, Sumner, and Gearing), 500+ destroyer escorts (Evarts, Buckley, Cannon, Edsall, Ruderow, and John C. Butler), 197 fleet submarines (Gato and Bolao), 1000+ LSTs, 500+ LCMs, 900+LCIs, Add to that all of the countless small craft (PTs and Higgins boats come to mind), and total warship production is astonishing! Now add in well over 3000 cargo ships between the Liberty and Victory classes.🤯 I wonder if any country (including the United States) accomplish this same task today?

The light carriers towards the end of the war were primarily used for CAP of the fleet. Why it was easier to have nothing but fighters on those decks as they had slightly shorter decks so a heavier bomber had trouble launching off it unless catapulted off. A fighter that stayed in the area to protect the fleet did not need as much fuel if launched in an attack so a light carrier was perfect.

I still find it hilarious that the Swiss roller coaster manufacturer Intamin looked at the hydraulic catapults used on some carriers and thought, "Let's bolt this onto a roller coaster and see what happens." American coaster manufacturer S&S Power did the same thing with pneumatics, and flywheel-based launches have been a thing from Schwarzkopf since the 70s. Most manufacturers use linear synchronous motors now, which the US Navy proceeded to nick for their EMALS catapulting system.

I would actually love to see one of these for the auxiliary fleet. I feel like seeing the number of oilers, tenders, transport, and other non combat ships built for the navy would be very enlightening. That does assume that the data is even available

I worked for Danly Die in the mid nineties, our sister company was Danly Machine Press, they made the massive press machines that held a die and stamped out parts from small to large. We were in the same facility and I can’t even begin to describe how massive it was, the vast majority being built during WW2. My part of that alone was close to 300,000 sq ft and there were another 10 that size. We had a small rail yard off one part of the property, including a small switching engine, to move cars in and out of buildings, one of which was long enough to house 8-10 cars. It was just a massive facility, though only 20% was in use then. Like others, we had samples left from the war, one of which was a massive press used to stamp vehicle frames, deuce and a half I believe, many went down to the Ford City facility (now Ford City mall) where they made parts for Sherman’s and, as rumor has it, gun barrels for the Navy. Sadly, it’s all been razed to the ground and has been replaced by a new police station and condos. I’ve heard from friends in manufacturing they still use many of those old Danly presses to this day.

This reminds me of a video where someone wanted to show how much the US industry outclassed the Japanese in WW2. They did a timelapse with what ships were finished day by day and the totals. I don't remember if they were looking at completed construction, commissioning etc.

I'm curious as to the size and scope of the supply support ships that enabled the Navy steam across the Pacific to Tokyo. As is often said, "amateurs study strategy, experts study logistics". All those sailors, Marines, and army had to eat, had to get their cavities filled, mail delivered... Was this a bigger undertaking than the actual invasion forces?

During the WWII, my hometown of Evansville, Indiana on the banks of the Ohio River built many things including P-47's, LST's, and .45 caliper ammunition. Half of all P-47 fighters were built here. Plus, by wars end we had launched 138 LST's. And finally, 96% of all .45 caliper ammunition used in world war II was made right here. Not to mention that the Chrysler plant refurbished Sherman tanks and returned them to service as well as making incendiary bombs for the Air Force.

Last chance to see the greatness of USN was during Navy Day 1945 in NYC, in 1946 the number of vessels in the USN started to drop drastically.

The graph for the escort carriers is pretty interesting when you consider the vast number of those escort carriers were built by Kaiser shipyards. No one thought he could do it. He not only built the ships he built the yard to build the ships in. Then he went on to build a town with all the things you would normally find in a town including daycare for Rosie the riveter. We need people with drive and vision like Kaiser had.

1944- the number of ships ordered drops because THE OCEAN IS FULL.

The thing that makes this even more impressive is that this pattern in US industry happened across the board, to a degree I'm not even sure we thought possible

Ooooh goody. A new lullaby !! Seriously though, your videos are amazing but your voice is even moreso. So calming!!

I'll say this again. I'm a middle aged satisfactorily employed accountant. Had I known as a young man the things I've learned from you in the last few years, Drach, about the purpose and history of the USN, I'd have chosen a career in the USN. I was probably spared many years of misery, but my life would have had a greater purpose.

Truly, our finest hour.

Dude it's 11pm here in New Zealand (bedtime for me), so I am DELIGHTED to see this pop up! What timing!

Drach you are a Data monster, good on you man

My favourite British presenter only bested by David Attenborough. Really like the long Dry-Docks. Keep up the good work.

IJN: We been building some ships, we got a nice fleet, banzai! Kriegsmarine: you have ships? USN: WE HAVE ALL THE SHIPS!!!

I actually just looked up the carrier figures the night before this video -- the shear number of full-on fleet Essex-call carriers and then the Casablanca and other escort carrier classes is astounding 😮

One of my favorite videos to watch is by Military History Visualized called 'Why Japan had NO Chance in WW2'. It simply moves from Peral Harbor to the end of the war and every ship commissioned by the two countries pops up along with a running total of the ships commissioned. Needless to say the USA commissioned a ton of ships during this period.

Would love to see this for smaller ships too, or at least Destroyers (if only to see the Fletcher Horde in effect)

My Grandfather was on the USS Belleau Wood CVL 24.

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this.

When the boast that you could literally drown your enemies in ships turns out to be literal

Seriously I can't believe that no one has collated this sort of material before.

The USN Shipyards are the definition of doing a 3d print without the 3d printer when it comes to ships be it ww1 or ww2.

Looking at the numbers, the US started with 15 battleships in commission at the end of 1936. The number went up 2 in mid 1941. Two losses in December 1941. In February 1941, there were 10 ships under construction, and this was the peak. Those ships did not all get into commission until September 1944. So three and a half years from laying down the keel to commissioning. One ship, USS Kentucky, under construction in June 1942 was floated out of its drydock, stored, and did not resume construction until January 1945. The last two Iowa class battleships were cancelled on the ways by 1946. The only battleship still in commission in 1949 was the USS Missouri. The USS Kentucky was moved to make way for higher priority amphibious ships, which could be totally in commission in under four months. Cruisers builds are roughly the same. There were 37 cruisers in November 1939, static until December 1941, and then ramping to 75 by October 1945. The peak on the ways was September 1943. Seventy-five percent of those ships were de-commissioned by December 1947. Ten cruisers were lost in the war.

Although escort carriers are retired from USN service they are still being used to transport light aircraft and helicopters to both Korea and Vietnam wars.

Outstanding piece of work Drach, and I would love to see a follow up for the smaller warships.

The losses shown in both the Fleet Carrier & Fast Carrier Graphs, plus your commentary about Guadalcanal, reminded me of what Admiral Halsey said when he was asked about carrier losses and carriers being damaged. "When you put a carrier in for supporting landings you've converted it into a high speed stationary target, since it must remain close to the island."

US Industry: Warhships go brrrrrrr

Drach, Thank you for putting this presentation together. It was very informative. Please continue this presentation with the smaller combatants.

Fantastic video, a destroyer, destroyer escort and sub graph is a must!

I served in the USN 74-84, on cruisers and destroyers. Having spent 10 months in overhaul, I was amazed at the amount of copper / brass / rubber and other "non steel" materials that went into a ship approx. 600 feet long and 60 feet wide. Truely an amazing machine these ships are and serious resource hogs.

I find it interesting in WW2 the US only ever had a little over 200 ships over 3,000 tons. The present US Navy has more ships over 3,000 tons.

Thank you for your hard work and dedication producing a first rate channel. It is something I look forward to throughout the week. Again, thank you, Semper fidelis

Drach, loving the videos with Venom Geek....! Great stuff. Thank you

Very enjoyable, thanks, Drach.

That's when we had real working Americans in this country and in 1948 I joined the US Navy and served aboard one of those Destroyers .🇺🇸

This was great timing, I started building the USS belleau wood CV-24 paper model yesterday. Continued it today listening to the video. You do great work mate.

This here, this is the video we’ve been waiting for eagerly!

Super informative, appreciate the research! Be nice to see smaller vessels alongside the merchant vessels.

I'd love/hate to see a breakdown like this of Liberty ship numbers.

Fantastic work. DD's and DE's, yes. What about a similar piece for the UK and UK built tonnage? That would be an interesting companion piece to this one. Looking at the data on this, it goes to show how short the US was of heavy cruisers during the war. With the heavy losses in the pre war built cruiser force in '42 in the far east and Guadalcanal, there simply weren't many around. It also goes to show the difference between December 31, 1942 and December 31, 1943 in terms of fleet power. One sees the results of that in the situation on those 2 dates - barely succeeding at the Canal vs end of 43 where the central Pacific campaign is just kicking into high gear after Tarawa. Also helping by that point is that the flight decks on those new Essex carriers now have Hellcats & TBFs vs the Wildcats and what was left of the Devastators spotted on the decks at the end of 42.

Thank you, Drachinifel.

Brilliant, please do part 2.

I find the graph on the Battleships to be p0articularly telling. It signals that the U.S. Navy had not only already decided prior to the start of WWII for the U.S. That the day of the Battleship was fast ending. The graph also shows fewer new ship being built after Dec 41 to replace loses. This clearly shows the move to Carrier based operation well before most would later say the shift was occurring.

My great-grand father and his brothers worked in the Norfolk Shipyards in Virgina during WW2, they had a hand in building some of these beauties

I love your work, fantastic detail .

Thank you for all you do

Another thought about the absent Destroyers/Escorts and especially the subs: To what degree do you think the success of the subs in decimating Japanese merchant ships and warships led to a slowdown in building these larger vessels, especially as the role of the big guns changed from ship-to-ship/fleet-to-fleet combat vs. shore bombardment in support of landings? ALSO it would be a fascinating video to compare the successes re. merchant shipping tonnage sunk between the US sub fleet in the Pacific and the U-Boats in the Atlantic and Med (if you haven't already done that.)

Would be great to have a comparison between US and other nations' shipbuilding capabilities, as a bit more frame of reference

Excellent work Drac 👏

Brilliant, I loved it!

The escort carrier, CVE, combustible, vulnerable, expendable. Gotta love it!

What might be interesting from a 'what really won the war' perspective would be to look at the Liberty Ships and their rates of construction.

I've never seen a Drac episode I didn't like, and I feel like I've damn well seen them all! Great work as always, Darth Drach!

Add verticle lines to charts. Great work as usual.

It would be very interesting to see a video about escort carrier construction with emphasis on the actual build process. I am particularly interested because as a child I lived only a mile or so from what was left of the Kaiser Vancouver WA yard where something like 50 escort carriers were built. The development of a massive yard with nearly 38,000 workers in a town that had a population of less than 20,000 in 1940 is really quite astounding. In fact you can still see the remains of the ways on Google Earth. These industrial efforts are quite hard to comprehend now.

I would love to see the Destroyers and Submarines. Destroyer Escorts are a maybe.

Thanks!

Today's video brought to you by Carl Vinson.

When I was in the Navy, I was stationed on a Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carrier named after a fellow by the name of Carl Vinson. I hear he was something of a naval advocate and might have had something to do with a few of these ships....

Very Good job, It all make sense to me now

If these workers could have seen our country today I don’t think they would have worked so enthusiastically.