Comments by "Frank DeMaris" (@kemarisite) on "The Drydock - Episode 120" video.

I was going to mention USS Barton as a destroyer going down to a single devastating torpedo hit, but Barton actually took two Type 93 Long Lances amidships and broke in half. Nothing without a capital ship (BB, CV)-grade torpedo defense system is likely to survive that kind of damage, and even then it's debatable. Yes, Minneapolis took two Long Lances at Tassafaronga and survived, but one of those hit forward of the #1 main battery turret rather than amidships. Northampton took a torpedo near the after engine room and another 40 feet further back, was abandoned less than two hours later, and sunk after another hour or so. New Orleans and Pensacola only took one torpedo each and survived crippled.
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Article XVIII: Each of the Contracting Powers undertakes not to dispose by gift, sale or any mode of transfer of any vessel of war in such a manner that such vessel may become a vessel of war in the Navy of any foreign Power Specifically prohibited by the treaty.
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@ricardokowalski1579 yup, safest way to unload a gun is out the muzzle. Pennsylvania, for example, fired one salvo at Surigao Stait after "cease fire" in order to clear the guns.
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@lilidutour3617 timeline would not appear to support Goering's claim. Unless one really thinks the Luftwaffe needs almost a whole year to get ready for the Soviets (granted, they got stuck into a number of other campaigns in between, but that can't really be foreseen in the fall of 1940).
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@johnshepherd8687 actually, no. As Chieftain has made clear, US forces in the field had no desire for a 76 mm gun in the Sherman until about July 1944. The Sherman with the 75 mm gun was doing just fine in Italy, and it's not like there weren't any Panthers or Tigers in Italy. There were a couple hundred Shermans with 76 mm guns in the UK in time for Overlord, but none of the units going into France wanted them and the additional ammunition train. Ordnance Branch had been working on a replacement tank with a 76 mm gun since late 1942, but mostly as a vanity project, and it would require a completely new turret before Army Ground Forces would approve the Sherman, with the new turret and 76 km gun, for service in the field.
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Many of those Arctic Convoys had a distant cover escort of cruisers and battleships poised to intervene if German heavy units sortied. The distant cover for PQ 17 included USS Washington in the heavy covering force (along with Duke of York and Victorious), and Tuscaloosa and Wichita in the cruiser covering force. As for the British losing their nerve, supposedly Dudley Pound was concerned about Tirpitz possibly destroying American ships in this first joint operation. Instead, Admiral King saw the entire thing as a bungle and withdrew those ships to the Pacific just in time for Washington's date with destiny (and Jirishima).
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Daniel Large perhaps, but first note the question of whether the US had enough escorts for convoys (the first DE didn't show up until 1943, so any convoy escorts would have to be US Coast Guard or taken from fleet destroyers) and second note that King had no authority to impose blackouts. Even the Office of Civilian Defense, organized by Executive Order in May, 1941, could only encourage and coordinate blackouts, not mandate them.
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@johnshepherd8687 all four were named after Americans, probably because of the 14" American guns from Bethlehem Steel.
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@lilidutour3617 I get the impression that the consensus here is that by the time Brown interviewed Goering after the war, he wasn't good for much but a little dancing (with apologies to David Lister).
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