Comments by "John Fisher" (@johnfisher9692) on "The Drydock - Episode 007" video.

Thanks for another great episode of the Dry Dock On the question of Japan using huge numbers of DD's in place of a balanced battle fleet. This is not a new idea. Around the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century the French also thought about doing this. Replacing the fleet with Torpedo Boat's and Subs as they knew they could not out build the British in capital ships. Called the Jean Eucole school I think. It was not proceeded with because of the reasons Drachinifel put forth. A balanced fleet will smash a specialized fleet like this, especially as the torpedoes of the time were short ranged and slow by even the standards of WW2. This is also one of the reasons the Destroyer was developed, to destroy Torpedo Boats swarming your BB's. One question I have is: Why do people (even today) rave about the 'Awesome' firepower of Bismarck's main guns, yet sneer at Vanguard's when both ships had 8-15 inch guns? Although an older design, the British gun and its turret were considered one of the best designs ever produced. Additionally the German 15 inch shell was much lighter than the British and had a high failure rate. One the boiler question. One country did put speed ahead of other requirements. The Italian rebuilds of their WW1 ships used the weight savings to up the speed from 21 to a maximum 27 knots. Pity the armour of these ships was left mostly alone and wasn't sufficient to withstand the 15 inch shells they would face. All they could do was run.
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