Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Loss of HMS Hood - But why did it blow up??" video.

@BestAnswer12549 The RN sent out everything it had, that could keep up with Bismark. There were only two KGVs in service. PoW and Hood covered north of Iceland. KGV, Repulse, and a carrier, were south of Iceland. Renown was with Force H at Gibraltar. Those five ships were all the RN had that could come close to the Bismark's combination of speed and firepower.
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Excellent, well thought out presentation. I'm inclined to agree, as the long column of flames were clearly cordite burning, not any sort of explosive. Somewhat surprising how many golden BB shots there are in a war: this one, the one on Arizona, the one that disabled Saratoga's electric drive system...
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@brianwillson3565 Yes, several USN and IJN carriers had enough overhead clearance to store spare aircraft suspended from the overhead. The number of spares that could be carried that way varied between the different classes of carriers. At some point, I saw a listing for carriers that broke out the number of spares, vs number that were ready for service, but, right now, I don't recall where. Some British carriers had very low overhead clearance. F4U Corsairs had to have some 6" clipped from their wingtips so they would fit in some British carrier hangars with their wings folded, because, as with most USN aircraft, except Grumman's, the Corsair's wings folded upward. All RN aircraft wings folded back, parallel to the fuselage, so they could fit in the hangars with low clearance.
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@kurumi394 The US and UK were trying to comply with the treaty. Japan gave notice it would drop out of the treaty system, effective 1936, in 1934, so the IJN could build anything it wanted. While Second London had the gun escalator clause, from 14" to 16" built in to it, the tonnage escalator was not explicit. The treaty only said that the parties would try to come to an agreement before increasing tonnage. The Admiralty laid down KGV and PoW on New Year's Day, 1937, the earliest day they could under the treaty, rather than wait for April, when Japan's refusal to sign the new treaty triggered the gun escalator clause. A debate ran for the first half of 38 between the UK and US about how much to increase the tonnage limit. The UK held out for something in the 41-42,000 ton range, the largest UK facilities could handle, while the US held out for 45,000. The US won that debate, enabling the Iowas. So that is why there is so much incrementalism in US and UK battleship development in the late 30s. It's all due to the treaty's incremental approach to increases in gun and displacement.
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@gp556by45 because the ship that fired the inbound salvos is moving, the firing solution that put the previous salvo where it hit is no longer valid, so the firing ship would have to calculate a new setup. Beyond that, "chasing salvos" works on the same logic as "lighting never strikes twice in the same place" as a system with multiple variables is unlikely to reach the same result twice in a row.
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