The Drydock - Episode 240

I was told about it by their treating physician.

Got to respect the improvisation. Do you have a reference handy for that, or just word of mouth?

'General' Dipper

Doctors note regarding fresh toilet water: drinking extreme volumes of tap water causes excess urination and eventually Hyponatremia when too many electrolytes are lost without replacement. It causes confusion and a “drunk” sensation before requiring an IV to treat. There’s a story from before my time at the local VA hospital of a few patients who one night (when no one was looking) moved their beds to the bathroom so they could drink and pee more conveniently—they were alcoholics who wanted to get drunk without alcohol. It’s a palm-to-face scenario.

Speaking of Yamato, what do you think of her secondary battery? While it's clever of them to use Mogami's old turrets... shit, you just covered it. Oh, not quite... yes! But then what would they have done with those triple 6"? Coast defense? Just as the North Carolinas were more useful throughout the war than the Yamatos, the North Carolinas secondary battery was also far more useful. Only at 2nd Guadalcanal would the triple 6" have been POSSIBLY more useful than the twin 5" guns.

Ted Jones

As a Gunners Mate from US Navy (and Ordnance Officer), I don't believe the explanation of U-156's deck gun exploding is entirely correct. While what you said about the surface gun tampion is mostly correct, the tampion will be forced out of the barrel by the air in the barrel being compressed before the projectile hits it, almost always by ramming the round. The sub may be different. I don't know if the barrel is actually watertight, because the breech isn't that tight and I don't know how they would seal that. I think if the tampion is removed, any water runs out the breech before loading. However, with that said, projectiles have safeties which prevent them from being armed until they are clear of the barrel. What probably happened in U-156, is that, while they failed to remove the tampion, either they loaded and fired the gun causing a barrel explosion due to water in the barrel, or a defective round. I think the former.