Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "USS New Mexico - Guide 290" video.

  1. wrt the main armament, in my reading, it was head of BuOrd, Admiral Strauss, previously known for being the father of the superimposed turrets on the Kearsarge and Virginia classes, that was advocating for the 14". As Drac said, Strauss maintained that engagements would always be at 12,000 yards or less. At that range, the 14" could penetrate well enough, and, being lighter, more could be carried. In a newspaper article speculating whether the Tennessees would have 16" rather than 14", there was some FUD injected into the debate, claiming the 16" had an alarmingly high wear rate, and claims that the British 15"/42 also had a very short service life, while the 14" had an excellent service life. Strauss held the line on the 14", until the summer of 1916. Jutland made it clear his 12,000 maximum engagement range was unrealistic, and, that summer, Daniels announced, with the agreement of the General Board, the next class, the Colorados, would be armed with 16" guns. In his annual report in the fall of 16, Daniels said this decision was made "over the objection of some officers". Strauss requested sea duty. There was no movement on his request for sea duty for a month or two. Late that year, in Congressional testimony, Strauss, again, rolled out his talking points for the 14", publicly pushing back on the decision made months before by Daniels and the General Board. President Wilson moved the next day to appoint then head of the Indian Head test range, Ralph Earle, as head of BuOrd, and Strauss was given command of the Nevada. The SecNav annual reports from 15-16 and newspapers of the same period made for some fascinating reading about this debate.
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  2.  @AsbestosMuffins  in a newspaper article on the decision to go to 16", the long running debate was recapped, with the note that the Navy had the same argument when it went from 12" to 14". Soon after the decision was made on the Colorados, there was discussion of changing the New Mexicos and Tennessees to 16". A Navy spokesman was quoted that the New Mexicos were too far along and such a change would have been prohibitively expensive. The barbettes on the Tennessees, from what I have found, were the same diameter as those on the Colorados, 32 feet. The twin 16" turret is slightly lighter than the triple 14", and the part of the 16" turret that extends down into the barbette is 6 inches smaller in diameter, so seems to me the 16" turret should fit a Tennessee fine. Neither California nor Tennessee had been laid down yet. I wonder how close they came to issuing a change order on the Tennessees to go to 16"? What probably made their decision was that the guns and turrets were on order and there would probably be cancellation charges if they made the change. Would they have made the same decision if they knew of the dispersion problems those tripe 14" mounts would suffer? Imagine the impact on the Washington Treaty. With 16" guns, the Tennessees would have been regarded as "post-Jutland", so, with them and Maryland, the US would have it's three "post" ships, and West Virginia and Colorado would be broken up. If the US completed West Virginia and Colorado, it would have five "post" ships, so the Japanese would demand to complete Tosa, to be it's third "post" ship, meeting the 5:5:3 ratio, while making a good argument they could built one ship over treaty limit, because of Hood. Then the UK would need to build four Nelsons for parity.
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  3.  @genericpersonx333  Strauss would have been right, ten years earlier. The turrets on the Tennessees were designed for 30 degrees of elevation, vs 15 for the New Mexicos. Strauss scoffed, said the ships would never need that much range, but it didn't cost anything to build the mounts for greater elevation, so he did not oppose the design. At Dogger Bank, January 1915, Lion commenced fire at 20,000. Jutland was merely confirmation that Strauss' thinking was outdated regarding engagement range. To penetrate battleship belt armor at longer range, you need a heavier shell that hits with more kinetic energy. The piece Drac did a while back about Admiralty engagement doctrine echoed this debate in the USN twenty years earlier. Admiralty doctrine was to close to 16,000 or less as rapidly as possible, at which range, the 14" on the KGVs could penetrate well enough, hence, it was called "decisive range".
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  4.  @RupertFoulmouth  A Tennessee class BB was scheduled to be built at Mare island, but the California name had already been allocated to the ship from the previous year's program. Pressure was brought by the California Congressional delegation to switch names. iirc, it was an Assistant Secretary in the Interior Department that wrote a letter to SecNav Daniels stating his arguments for naming the ship building in New York after his home state, New Mexico.
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  5.  @jonathanj8303  the Rivadavias were turbine powered dreadnoughts mounting 12-12" guns, and, apparently, the latest in US fire control technology. The US was as much concerned about any buyer flipping them for a quick profit to a major, potentially hostile, power, like Germany, as they were the Greeks having them. The Mississippis were 6 years old at the time of sale, VTE powered, with only 4-12" guns, and bog slow at 17kts. The Mississippis were pretty much a pork barrel creation, too slow and short ranged to steam with the fleet, so pretty much useless to the USN. There were some pretty blunt articles in the press about how Senator Hale had forced inferior ships on the Navy.
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  6.  @jonathanj8303  in the period around WWI, Greece was half a step, or less, from civil war between the PM and the King. Greece was so untrustworthy that France seized the Greek destroyers and torpedo boats, manned them and operated them under French command, while seizing the breechblocks from the Averof and the Mississippis. The situation was resolved when the King abdicated in 1917. The PM promptly joined the alliance against Germany, and France returned her warships.
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  7.  @gildor8866  14" production was certainly on stride. By June of 16, the guns for Idaho had been delivered, the guns for New Mexico and Mississippi were being proof fired, and the turret mounts were being assembled at the Naval Gun Factory. By June of 17, all the 14" for Tennessee and California were expected to be completed by October. However, by June 1917, the turrets for the Tennessees were still in design. Then priorities changed and resources were funneled into freighters and DDs. As for the ships, there was not a lot of daylight between the two classes. Maryland was laid down a month before Tennessee, so, at the time Maryland was laid down, they must have anticipated having the 16" guns ready in time.
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  8.  @Knight6831  if the refit schedule had been different, Colorado would have been there, rather than Arizona. Colorado was in refit in Bremerton from June 41 to March 42.
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  9.  @jonathanj8303  Newspapers at the time reported the US sold Mississippi and Idaho for about what they cost the USN new. That gives a hint of how desperate the Greeks were to get their hands on anything to let themselves be used like that. I have the exact numbers somewhere in my notes, but I don't think the proceeds of the sale equaled the price of the new ship, only a majority of the cost. How the Navy came to have those two undersized ships is a story in itself, thanks to the intervention of Senator Hale of Maine, who chaired the Naval Affairs Committee. All that being said, the Mississippis did have one redeeming quality for the Greeks: they were small enough to fit in the drydock in Piraeus.
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  10.  @jonathanj8303  Argentina wanted to sell the Rivadavias, but the US vetoed any sale as it didn't want other parties to get their hands on some of the US technology in the ships. Greece had contracted for a new-build battleship with the Vulcan yard in Germany, but the Ottoman battleships, later known as Agincourt and Erin, would be delivered long before the new Greek ship was ready, so Greece went shopping for something ready for immediate delivery. I looked up the numbers. The check the US received for the old ships was $12,535,275.96. Idaho commissioned in early 1919. According to the spreadsheets published by the Navy Bureau of Supply and Accounts, by June 1919, the US had spent $11,108,167.87 on Idaho. Some after commissioning tweaking ran the bill up to $11,798,598.41 by June 1921, so Idaho was indeed free to the USN, net of the sale of the old ships. Considering that any Greek ship would be going up against Agincourt and Erin, the Mississippis would have been meat on the table: slow and weakly armed. The Rivadavias would have made it a contest, but Argentina couldn't sell.
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  11.  @WALTERBROADDUS  the Greeks seemed to be pretty good about picking up what retailers would call "distressed stock". Elli was ordered by the Chinese, who then reneged on the contract. Averof was Italian surplus. The Aetos class destroyers had been built for Argentina, which defaulted. I call that being a good shopper. I wonder if it was Basil Zaharoff, who was Greek and a friend of the Greek PM, who kept tipping them off about these opportunities?
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  12.  @johnshepherd8687  somewhat covered this question in a thread below. After SecNav Daniels and the General Board decided in summer 1916 that the Colorados would receive the 16"/45, there was discussion in the press of upgunning the New Mexicos and Tennessees. The New Mexicos were actively under construction at that time, and a Naval officer is quoted in the press as saying they were too far along to be upgunned at any reasonable cost. Tennessee and California had not been laid down yet, but the USN had 14"/50 production in high gear, so the guns for those two ships were in process. However, the barbettes in the Tennessees seem to be the same diameter as the Colorados, 32 feet, the twin 16" turret is slightly lighter than the triple 14", and the part of the 16" turret that extends down inside the barbette is about 6 inches smaller in diameter, so there should not be any problem upgunning the Tennessees. Now, on to your question: The treaty divided battleships into "pre-Jutland" and "post-Jutland" groups. The Tennessees were deemed "pre-Jutland" in spite of them being laid down after the battle and having state of the art armor and torpedo protection. The only reason I can think of for that classification is because they had 14" guns. Put 16" on the Tennessees and there is no way they could be called "pre-Jutland". For everything else to be status quo, with the Tennessees deemed "post-Jutland", Maryland would be the US' third "post" ship, and Colorado and West Virginia would be used for target practice, along with Washington, or scrapped incomplete. If the US insisted on completing West Virginia and Colorado, that would give them five "post" ships. Japan would rightfully, say that they are entitled to have three "post" ships, due to the 5:5:3 ratio, and demand to be allowed to complete Tosa. Tosa was to have displaced about 39,900 tons, over the treaty limit, but, again, the Japanese could claim a right to one 40K ton ship, because of Hood. Let's take a quick math break. If Japan scrapped Settsu and demilitarized Kongo instead. then added Tosa, that would put their capital ship tonnage at 313,720 vs a quota of 315,000, so the IJN is golden. That would leave the UK building four Nelsons for parity. So that is the difference, either the US loses West Virginia and Colorado, or the Japanese gain Tosa and the UK gains two additional Nelsons.
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  13.  @jonathanj8303  yes, Salamis was turbine powered, iirc AEG built under a license from Curtis. The Ottoman also had a new ship building in the UK, later known as Erin, yet bought Rio, later known as Agincourt, anyway. Greece wasn't all that stable at the time either. While the Prime Minister was leaning toward the allies, the Greek King was married to the Kaiser's sister.
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  14.  @johnshepherd8687  the USN did retain the Floridas through the 20s. For the fleet drawdown in First London, Florida was scrapped and Utah became a target ship. Colorado and West Virginia replaced the two Delaware class BBs. Delaware was scrapped and North Dakota became a target ship, until it was replaced by Utah a decade later. The US was below it's tonnage quota until the Delawares were replaced by the Colorados, bringing the US' total to 525,850, vs a quota of 525,000. For the US to drop the Delawares, that results in the second case, where the IJN gets the Tosa and the RN builds two additional Nelsons, for 5:5:3 relationship in "post-Jutland" ships, with the US' five. For the RN to build two more Nelsons, they would probably need to get rid of all four Iron Dukes, because the RN was well over it's quota. With two more Nelsons, and without the Iron Dukes, the RN comes in at 528,950 tons, vs a quota of 525,000.
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  15.  @johnshepherd8687  keep in mind the comments by the Naval officer quoted in the newspaper, upgunning the New Mexicos was not practical. We have two scenarios: two 16" Tennessees plus Maryland, or the two Tennessees, plus three Coloraods, vs Japan having the two Nagatos, or the two Nagatos plus Tosa. The Floridas would age out in 1931. If the US was really adamant that retaining the Floridas was unacceptable, they could be given special licenses to build replacements before the treaty's "holiday" ran out, the same way France and Italy were given special licenses.
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  16.  @johnshepherd8687  I see what you are saying. I create alt histories as a hobby (much winter weather in Michigan, with little else to do), but I require my alt histories to be practicable, ideally pivoting on one decision being made slightly differently. Yes, your scenario would be interesting. I have not gamed that out. It could go something along the line of 14" being the baseline for BB guns, with 15" and 16" both classified as above baseline. That would give the RN 13 "above baseline" ships, the USN 6 and IJN 2. First take, the RN doesn't get the Nelsons. Below baseline ships eligible for immediate replacement: so the USN completes the other three Colorados, to replace the Delawares and Floridas. Within the displacement limits of the original treaty, Japan could not add any new ships, as it had no below baseline ships to replace. Looks really unbalanced though, with a 13:9:2 ratio of "above baseline" ships. Could go with a throw weight model. 12-14", 9-15: and 8-16" have surprisingly similar throw weights. Decree that the 12-14" ships and 8-16" ships equal, the 8 and 10 gun 14" ships, and anything with 12", substandard and subject to replacement. Decree the IJN Tosas and Amagis verboten due to their 10-16" armament being too superior to the throw weight model. That would give the RN 11 slightly below par ships, and the Renowns and all of the 13.5" ships qualified for immediate replacement due to excessively weak armament. The USN, assuming all the Colorados completed, 11 ships on plan, and the rest qualified for replacement. The IJN 6 ships on plan, and the Kongos qualified for replacement.
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