Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 157" video.

  1. As far as cursed names go, Amagi would seem to fit the bill. The battlecruiser was saved from scrapping under the Washington Naval Treaty by conversion to an aircraft carrier, except that the Great Kanto Earthquake broke her keel in half. And then another aircraft carrier Amagi was nominally completed on August 10, 1944, but never fully fitted out and never got an air wing, and capsized in port after being bombed on July 29, 1945. And while many Imperial Japanese Navy names have been reused by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, there's never been another Amagi.
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  2. With regard to the idea of keeping Tiger in service, the London Naval Treaty did require another capital ship to be scrapped, so something else would need to be sacrificed no matter what. Sacrificing Renown or Repulse to keep a slightly older and less powerful battlecruiser was for obvious reasons a stupid idea, and the Royal Navy was quite right to not consider it. But I still think it might've worked out better to scrap Revenge instead. This is of course with the benefit of hindsight, but Revenge was probably the least useful capital ship in the Royal Navy in WW2. Even compared to her sister ships, which were at least in better material condition. Her speed alone would've given Tiger far more utility, even given the logistical issues of having to keep the 13.5" shell in stock. And again the benefit of hindsight, we also know that Britain would within the next 6 years be adopting a 14"/45 gun that was very close in size to the 13.5"/45 and IIRC was even designed to be able to use the old turrets (since there was consideration of Iron Duke, demilitarized as a gunnery training ship, having at least one of her three remaining turrets fitted with the new guns for testing). Meaning that the logistical headache could potentially be a temporary one, depending on whether Tiger would've been able to complete a major refit before WW2 broke out.
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  3. 3:44:00 You mention that it might've been possible to put a twin 16"/50 turret into a Scharnhorst barbette. In fact, a twin 16"/50 turret was designed historically, for the Lexington-class battlecruisers. Obviously that was a different 16"/50 gun, but since the turret design already existed and there's a few dozen 16"/50 Mark 2 barrels lying around without ships to put them into it would seem like a good choice. Unfortunately I haven't found any data on the barbette width of the Lexingtons, but it appears to be right around 10 meters. So that would probably have been a good fit for Scharnhorst's barbettes.
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