Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Destroyers - Interwar development and design (1918-1939)" video.

@spookyshadowhawk6776 The Yamato actually was given a lot more fuel for it's final voyage than it was supposed to get. The guy doing the fueling just didn't have the heart to send it out with so little. Of course, this didn't make any difference in what happened. But yes - the Japanese navy should have expended itself at Leyte Gulf as it never had the fuel to do anything after that. I'd not care to speculate on the value of having Bismarck in a French Port. The British would have had to keep an eye on it where ever it was and deal with it if it came out. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau never managed to do anything until scuttling back home through the channel - where Gneisenau suffered damage she never recovered from. Given the loss of the dry dock in that area I'm not sure how well Bismarck could have been repaired but since it sank we'll never know. Additionally, I would expect that sitting in a French port these ships would have been more vulnerable to air attack than back in Germany - though it was in Germany that Gneisenau was badly damaged by air attack - she was hit several times in Brest before that. .
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