Our civilization did not build Titanic, Olympic or Britannic. Theirs did. Was it the Tartarian one?

Frank · Sep 8, 2022

Although it is quite clear that these boats were part of the package inherited from the previous humanity, I wonder why they used steam rather than electric engines on them.

jd755 · Sep 8, 2022

Frank said:
Although it is quite clear that these boats were part of the package inherited from the previous humanity, I wonder why they used steam rather than electric engines on them.

How is it quite clear?

reverendALC · Sep 12, 2022

One thing I can’t reconcile is the abutment of the panels. Some ships demonstrate obvious vertical and or horizontal lapping of the panels, while others appear flush. Whether the panels are lapped or not doesnt appear to follow whether they’re riveted or welded.

I also am reminded of the “artisan” argument… with “less tech” how were they able to achieve such extravagant, detailed, precise, and refined design? Designs which at this scale, aren’t feasible nor economical enough for practice.

jd755 · Sep 12, 2022

There was no welding. All plating is riveted to frames and each other.

Link

I first posted that here in April 2021.

In this one the Olympics propellers are being fitted and the hull is being painted with the afore mentioned shiny enamel stuff.

And this one showing frames and rivets.

Olympic this time. Rivets and rivet holes clearly visible.

reverendALC · Sep 12, 2022

but where are the rivets? Why can you see them up high but not down low?

jd755 · Sep 13, 2022

reverendALC said:
but where are the rivets? Why can you see them up high but not down low?

The rows of holes in the frames and plates around the exposed propeller shaft are where the rivets were. They have been removed to repair the plating that was damaged in the collision with the Royal Navy cruiser.

The undamaged plates are covered in the composition called Rahtnjen's and as the plating below the waterline uses flush rivets this is why they seem to disappear. Go to the linked thread in the archive and have a read.

Below the water-line more than usual care has been taken to diminish skin friction as much as possible, and to accomplish this the plating has been carefully cleaned, rubbed down and smoothed, then treated with a coating of Rahtnjen's celebrated composition. So nicely has this been done that the bottom plating of the Teutonic is as smooth as glass, having the appearance of an enameling process.

Here is another photo from that thread of Olympic in drydock and due to the lighting the rivets and their patterning are clearly visible.

Edit to add
I looked for a comparative photo of the QE2 but this time its her bow not stern. Reason for choosing QE2 is she was the last purpose built ocean liner. Her hull is of all welded construction and in comparison to Olympics diverted hull is very smooth and regular.
I have included a photo of QE2's stern in drydock after fifty years at sea and as blurry as it is to illustrate the different appearance of welded plating to riveted.

Again from the linked thread the sepia photo i posted earlier shows the underwater plating in the process of having the coating, quoted above, applied.

reverendALC · Sep 13, 2022

Alright, I hear that, but a flush rivet isn’t an invisible rivet.

looking at this photo:

the boat is in the water, so it’s safe to assume the hull is completed. The surface mounted rivets are clearly visible, but not so much as a trace of any rivets down low, flush or otherwise.

the pictures that you’ve offered clearly illustrate surface rivets on the lower portion of the hull, but this photo clearly shows none.

I’m not firmly planted on either side of the issue, but I feel like this is far from settled.

EDIT/ADDENDUM:

if this process of “smoothing” and “coating” was performed… it sounds like a truly labor intensive feat. Why would they bother doing so up to 20’ above the water line?

with a “flush rivet” something would still have to protrude above the surface to grip the plates. A coating of whatever, liberal enough to flatten out any rivet heads, I would imagine it would also be enough to smooth the lapping on the panels. I imagine wrong? If they were that concerned with surface friction, I would think they would focus on the squared off edges of the panels rather than the rounded rivets.

lastly, saying “flush rivets” unequivocally while there is next to zero reference, evidence, or history of them feels like a narrative cop out. Especially when “flush rivet” looks like this in literature:

also, as flimsy of a citation as Wikipedia is, it says this:

“Flush riveting was invented in America in the 1930s by Vladimir Pavlecka and his team at Douglas Aircraft.”

it seems to be focused on aircraft for flush rivets, but I would imagine that an undertaking as large as the titanic would be worth mentioning

jd755 · Sep 16, 2022

You wouldn't know this but I have worked on a vessel built in 1919 which was all riveted construction. It was an Admiralty floating dock. This dock was not powered and went up and down in the dock it was floating in.
The plating on the hull was raised head rivetting. The plating on the deck where the ship was lifted and worked on had flush head rivetting.
Of course no way for me to prove this too you in any way.

I also worked on another Admiralty floating dock built in 1959. This one was all welded construction. The difference in the hulls of the vessels is so marked it cannot be missed. The most obvious is the smooth plating on the 1919 docks hull and the distorted plating on the all welded hull of the 1959 dock. This difference is caused by the heat of the welding. It buckles the plate enough to be noticeable and is still visible on ships built today in fact more noticeable as the hull plating is thinner today than even 1959.

I didn't say the coating made raised head rivets disappear. If you ever come across a rivetted ship in the flesh you would see how absurd the idea is.

The Olympic class ships were built for speed. The biggest drag on the ship is the water. The smoother the underwater hull the faster it goes in contrast to a hull made with raised head rivets when flush rivets are used.
The coating decreased the drag just as the flush rivets did.

The alamy image showing the coating being applied shows in crystal clarity the difference between uncoated plating and coated. How far up the hull the coating went is something I don't know. But in your photo the only part of the hull with raised head rivetting is the banding where hull meets superstructure. Above that banding the rivetting reverts to flush rivering. Again I know not why but external appearance could be the reason.

It makes zero sense if welding of plates to frames had been developed at the time the Olympic class ships or their predecessors, Teutonic, Oceanic etc (for they also had smooth below waterline plating and the coating) rivetting would feature anywhere in the hull construction process.

But despite appearances I am not attempting to convince you or anyone else into believing me. I am simply relating what I see and what I know from experience.

These vessels, the ocean speedsters of their day, were not found sat on the stocks somewhere or floating in a port awaiting discovery. Powering through the ocean kills all ships sooner or later. The sea attacks the fabric of the vessel and its raw power weakens metal to the point it fails often catastrophically but equally just enough to render the hull unseaworthy. Such hulls are taken out of service and scrapped or sunk or on rare occasions laid up as floating museums. Crucially they are never put back into their intended service function. This is simply because they are no longer seaworthy.

Smaller vessels are sometimes restored to working order, see the SS Waverley for one example but the amount of maintenance and ongoing repair they need is challenging to say the least.

For me until anything else comes to light I haven't yet found my take is this.
Titanic did not exist.
The Olympic class was a two ship class Olympic, the lead ship and Brittanic.
Most of the photographs labelled Titanic are likely of Olympic.
It makes zero senser for there to be fewer named photographs and articles for the lead ship than the second ship buily., zero sense.
Why the scam of Titanic was run I have no idea and frankly I have next to no interest in trying to work out as I don't feel it is possible at this distance in time.

It is possible the ship sailing under thed name Titanic was neither the Olympic or Brittanic but was a modified or altered foreign built hull made to look like an Olympic class ship. There's were a lot of very similar sized three and four stacker liners about in the world at that time.
One avenue I have considered but not explored is looking for evidence of crew make ups in terms of nationality, rotations, specifically the officer portion as there are fewer of them of a higher social class so likely more has been written about them and possibly more photographs digitised.

The idea the Olympic class belonged to an earlier civilisation that vanished almost instantaneously to leave working or useable artifacts behind for a new civilisation to take over, figure out how to operate, repair and put these ships to use on the transatlantic crossing is absurd as the predecessor classes of liner show a clear progression in speed and scale going back into the 1800's a progression that continued after the Olympic class through to the time I was born

Edit.
Ngram is as unreliable as wikipedia in my book. Both are way to easy to manipulate.

Here is a primer on rivetting that has a bearing on when they entered widespread use.
This article is even better. I have witnessed the process described in this quote.

The hot rivets are handled with long tongs that are regularly cooled in water. The diameter of the rivet shank is a little less than the hole diameter, i.e. 3/4” rivet is used for a 13/16” hole. The shank length needs to have enough material to fill the hole and to form the head when compressed. The “rule of thumb” for the shank length of a 3/4” rivet is the combined plate thickness to be joined plus about 1”. Extra length may be needed for the head or countersink. If the holes do not perfectly line up, then a little extra length may be required after reaming. Always do a dummy run to get it right for a certain combination.

Again you won't know and I cannot find a picture of the tools to show you but basically the tool used to shape the head of the red hot rivet is itself shaped to produce the desired result. They are hammered from both sides at the same time to create the watertight seal.
Some produce domes, some flat. In the case of flush riveting the plate is countersunk and the rivet is shaped by the tool to fill the countersink on the seaward side and domed on the shipboard side.

reverendALC · Sep 16, 2022

I appreciate and do not wholly discount your historical experience. The explanation provided is feasible in and of itself.

There are simply some inconsistencies for me:

the image of them “applying the coating” shows them applying it to an already rivetless surface. Where are the pictures of them applying the first coating?

if they were so greatly concerned with the hydrodynamics of the hull that it warranted flush rivets and machining/coating… why are there such unruly laps? I’m no engineer, but I would imagine that those right angular lapped panels would have more pronounced effects on dynamics than rounded head rivets.

Again, I’m not saying that the narrative is or isn’t correct, or that KD’s supposition is or isn’t correct.

it’s entirely possible that I simply cannot comprehend the how/why of the construction techniques. It’s entirely possible that the hull and the superstructure were built by different civilizations. I fantasize about some sort of cold-welding chemical process that we no longer know.

in consideration of the apparently inherited trains and trolleys, why couldn’t we have inherited ships too?

jd755 · Sep 16, 2022

As I explained. The hull plates rivets were knocked down into a precut countersink that is why they appear to disappear until the lighting of a photograph reveals their presence even under the coating.
The coating is likely to be a single coat coating.

As for any transportation device somehow surviving long enough for a replacement civilisation to arrive from lands beyond the known or wherever, figuring out what they have found, learn how to fix 'em up after learning how they work of course, re discovering and opening the mines, the smelters, the infrastructure around such facilities, then putting them to their intended use surely takes considerable time.

That is assuming the new civilisation was a dumb one.

Assuming it wasn't dumb then chances favour it having its own technologies, processes, methods, experience to hand and would carry on with those I would of though just ignoring the pre existing or scrapping it all to use its components unless they reckoned them superior to their own and set too to work out how they worked and got them going again.

Assuming it was a much more technologically advanced new civilisation it would have no need of antiques so best they would do is perhaps harvest materials or clear them away.

No matter how its cut the arguments for transpotation objects lasting in usable fettle long enough for a new civilisation to put to use the logistics of such an idea don't fly for me, as you may have guessed.

That we are ignorant of what really went on is no great surprise once you accept those telling us they really know what went are making shit up to hide the fact they are as clueless as us. Difference being we here have bugger all to lose the liars in academic and governance circles have everything to lose.

reverendALC · Sep 16, 2022

You have a viable explanation for the how. It’s possible that these photos all have the elusive flush rivets hiding in the shadows and we just can’t see them. For argument’s sake let’s accept that.

why?

why go far higher than the water line will ever be? What’s the justification for the labor and investment?

why were the engineers so devoted to smoothing out these rivet heads in the name of dynamics/drag, but so oblivious to the effects of squared off panel laps?

people seem to (at least, with regard to educated folk like engineers) do things that make sense. This doesn’t make sense. I’m sure these boats had a budget, and that these boats had design specifications. The supposition that there are flush rivets hidden beneath some fancy coating stands all by itself, but seems diminished by the other factors including the height of the flush work, and the disregard of the panel lapping.

They could have abutted the panels against eachother and riveted them flushly to plates behind them, similarly to how the superstructure is done. But they didn’t, they overlapped the panels.

jd755 · Sep 17, 2022

reverendALC said:
why go far higher than the water line will ever be? What’s the justification for the labor and investment?

I don't know and wouldn't know where to look. Presumably plans might exist somewhere but they haven't been digitised.
My guess is as I said aesthetics. It takes the same length of time, the same amount of effort, the same material, the same process to put every shape of hot rivet and secure the joint.
So it matters not from the time angle which rivet goes where
The plating in this part of the hull is level though the overlap the thing that imparts strength to the whole hull is still visible but its done in straight rows.
Hence my guess at aesthetics.

reverendALC said:
why were the engineers so devoted to smoothing out these rivet heads in the name of dynamics/drag, but so oblivious to the effects of squared off panel laps

Small raised parts of hulls create exponentially more drag than large raised parts. For example the prop shaft bulge being repaired in the alamy photo is designed, shaped constructed for minimum drag. If the rivets used were dome headed rivets the drag of the rows of individual domes would reduce speed and may increase vibration in that part of the hull.
Then their is cavitations to consider. A flush head rivet knocked into a countersunk hole stops the drag and the cavitations from being a problem.
There is a trade off with the lapped joints of the plate producing edges which themselves cause drag and cavitations however the need for underwater strength to ensure as long and profitable life as possible for the hull is a primary concern for the designers.
The lapping of underwater plating is much stronger than the lapping above water.

The amount of stress the underwater hull gets from being forced through water by any form of power is what determines the life of the hull. The stronger the underwater hull the longer it remains safe to operate. The longer its operators can make a profit from the hull.

You cannot tell in any of the photographs where the underwater coating ends and the hull painting begins. Based on experience the change over is usually at the waterline as can be clearly seen in the QE2 photo. The red portion of her hull is always underwater when fully stored and fully ballasted.

KorbenDallas · Sep 17, 2022

You guys have a wonderful debate

here is a good quality close-up image.

reverendALC · Sep 17, 2022

I don’t know enough about engineering and aero/hydro dynamics to mathenarucalyargue (mathematically argue lol) your point:

“Small raised parts of hulls create exponentially more drag than large raised parts”

but I can say, my gut disagrees with that statement. What I do know tells me this: a rounded feature, while inducing drag, directs the medium (air or water) around/over the obstruction. A perpendicular feature doesn’t direct the medium over/around, but rather against and opposite the surface.
evidenced by long haul truckers with cowlings like this:

instead of allowing the large flat trailer face to create drag like this:

I don’t have access to catalogs and manufacturing costs from the time, but I’m also going to make a few assumptions and inferences:

flush rivets require countersunk rivet holes. Drilling these holes requires more complex equipment, more expertly skilled technicians, ergo greater cost. The cost of the rivets themselves may be comparable, though in my experience, better designed hardware costs more whether or not the materials do.

in all of the reading that I’ve done on flush rivets and their boat coatings, since we’re quoting anecdotal knowledge, I’ve learned that after securing the rivets they’re often machined smooth to get the full effect of flushness. This machining also requires tools and labor.

assuming those two thoughts to be true, doing flush rivets 20’ higher than necessary doesnt pencil out. 20’ multiplied by the perimeter of the hull is a lot of square feet to cover.

From an aesthetics standpoint, wouldn’t they be more concerned with the superstructure? The part that everybody sees?

mowing my lawn in a cross hash pattern looks better than alternating strips aesthetically. However, if I did the front half of my lawn in cross hash, and the rear half of my front lawn in alternating strips… the lack of uniformity has a greater impact on aesthetics than the choice between hash and strip.

again, I believe the productive component of humanity does things as efficiently and sensibly as possible.

another non-corroborating factor is the photo of the prop with a large, riveted patch or brace above it. If those rivets are so lacking in dynamics, why would they be used right next to the propeller where the water is moving fastest?

KorbenDallas · Sep 17, 2022

In 1942 Walt Disney made this film for Lockheed & the National Film Board of Canada.

Do we have any evidence of this technology being used while building the ships in question?

reverendALC · Sep 17, 2022

In honor of Occam’s razor, I’d like to explore the assumptions involved in both scenarios:

flush rivets:

They were available at the time
In their infancy, they were able to be 100% obfuscated by a coating
The dynamic drag of rivet heads was of dire importance, however the uneven panel lapping was of no importance
The additional/unnecessary surfaces that were flush riveted bore either no economic hardship or justifiable economic hardship
The additional/unnecessary surfaces that were flush riveted were done so for aesthetic purposes

Not flush rivets:

since I took the liberty of itemizing your assumptions, I’ll ask you to itemize mine

jd755 · Sep 17, 2022

Here is the hull of Olympic after her launch when she was drydocked to remove the launch cradle. In it the flush riveting I am banging on about is clear as day. Perhaps I was wrong about the coating and its a multi layer coating but its not been applied in this photo. The launch cradles have domed rivets.
The cradles are fixed by rivet through the hull plate directly to the hull frames.
How they remove them is by burning through the rivet head or drilling kit out. Then a brand new hot rivet is used to once again fully seal the plating.

As you can see the launch cradles themselves are of riverted construction.
Using a truck which travels through air as an example of the impact of drag in water is true apples to oranges.

No point me going over the same ground again and again. Obviously I am crap at explaining. You see some other method of construction being used based on the photographs you see.
Either some form of welding or some form of unknown construction. I know RMS Olympic had a fully rivetted hull from the lack of distortion to the individual plates. There are two photographs of the rivets in the underwater plating quite clearly visible in drydock.

I don't feel there is anything more to add.
There used to be and still might be a Pathe newsreel on a website, may even be on YouTube showing how the rivetting process was done during WW2. Might be worth tracking down.

Edit to fix inevitable missed autocorrect daftness.
Second edit to add this photo of Olympic.

reverendALC · Sep 17, 2022

Air and water are incredibly similar in terms of dynamics. Obviously drag in water is far greater than air, but my hand held flat and perpendicular to motion through the air creates more drag in both air and water, opposed to my hand open and facing down, which slices through air and water much easier.

this illustration challenges your statement about rivets creating more drag than flat angular laps.

Fluid Dynamics: “In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion).”

Air is a fluid: “In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms ( flows) under an applied shear stress, or external force.”

Addendum: still I cannot say whether I sit on a particular side of this fence, but here’s some more info of interest:

cannot find any mid-way progress pictures. Either so little work has been done that it could be nothing/anything, or it jumps to the entire hull is complete
This picture of the hull of the Olympic:

those certainly do not look flush to me.

jd755 · Sep 18, 2022

You should post sources of photographs and or quotes It helps people landing on this thread.
But I'm out. I've been talking shite.

Title	Section	Replies	Date
Where is Samarkand? Is Oxus Civilization a lie?	Asia	25	Dec 14, 2023
Urban Fire verdict: global attack on our civilization or incompetency?	Urban Fires and Earthquakes	9	Nov 5, 2020
Similar style buildings are all over the world. Were they built by our civilization?	Buildings and Structures	2	Nov 5, 2020
1886: This crane was used to build the Tower of Babel	Cranes	3	Apr 30, 2021
Why It Was Faster To Build Subways in 1900	Mines, Tunnels and Wells	4	Dec 12, 2020

Our civilization did not build Titanic, Olympic or Britannic. Theirs did. Was it the Tartarian one?

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