Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 124" video.

Here in the US, the end of year holidays seem to be a favored time to cut staff. After months of assuring everyone in my department we were all "vital parts of the organization", management called an "all hands" meeting for the department in mid December to tell us we were all on the street New Year's Eve.
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@insignificantgnat9334 there is another reason Great Lakes combatants would be small: access. The Welland Canal that was in service in the 20s was only 14' deep with locks 270'x45'. The Canal in service now was not open until 1932, and not fully dredged to 25' until the mid 30s. Of course, the US would not have access to the Canal, so everything deployed by the US would need to be built on the lakes, so envision a lot of Coast Guard cutters and ice breakers with newly installed, larger, guns on the US side.
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@Thecrownswill the US probably did not have any to spare at first. The RN did pick up some Vindicators from a French order, after France fell. Their idea was to use the Vindicators on HMS Archer, but Archer was so slow it couldn't produce enough wind over the deck for the Vindicators to be able to take off with a useful sized load. As Drac said, at least on paper, the Skua wasn't that bad as a bomber, compared to the Vindicator. The Skua also had the advantage of the way the wings folded beside the fuselage, rather that above the fuselage, which was the norm for US carrier aircraft, except those built by Grumman. I don't know, but could imagine some older British carriers having an issue with overhead height.
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@Thecrownswill by 1940, the Dauntless was pretty much obsolete. It stayed in front line service so long because Curtis had so much development trouble with the Helldiver. Little reason for the UK to bother setting up an entire supply chain to produce an obsolete plane. The UK never bought the Helldiver at all, judging it unacceptable for any use, due to it's vile handling characteristics. The UK did buy a few Brewster Buccaneers, naming them Bermuda in RN service. The RN only used the Bermudas for training, judging them unacceptable for combat. Then there is the overhead clearance issue in the hangars of RN carriers. The Corsair's wing tips had to be clipped 6" to fit in some RN carriers with it's wings folded. The Dauntless' wings were longer, though a different in where the hinge was could make a difference in folded height. I looked, but could not readily find, a dimension for height for either plane with it's wings folded. The one USN bomber/torpedo plane the RN did buy in quantity was the Grumman Avenger, which, like all Grumman aircraft, folded it's wings parallel to the fuselage, so it did not suffer overhead clearance issues.
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wrt you being "without portfolio", I have been laid off twice. once when the department was closed, again, six years later, when the company failed. I am sure your engineer's skill set will provide you with opportunities, as it did me.
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Many thanks for responding to my question about the RN exploiting the "experimental carriers" clause of the WNT. I suspected budget would be the stumbling block. If one wanted to really game the system, then convert the three "experimental" carriers to tenders, remove part of the flight deck, as was done with Langley, then lay them up, to reduce running costs, because the object of the exercise is to free up the carrier tonnage, not create more tenders. Then, when the war starts, rebuild the flight decks and they become carriers again. The R-class BBs could have been laid up in the 30s, also to reduce running costs. Even with those economy measures, it would probably still be a long pull to find the 3M Pounds each for more Ark Royals.
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wrt the question about battlecruisers, it occurs that the battlecruiser was a development of the pre WWI Armored Cruiser concept. Armored Cruiser armament topped out at 10" with the US Tennessee and Italian Pisa classes, when their contemporary battleships carried 12". Armored Cruiser top speed was a few knots faster than pre-dreadnoughts. Battlecruisers made the final step in adopting battleship size guns. That final step was also their downfall, as, the moment they adopted battleship size guns, it was inevitable they would be put up against battleships, where their vulnerability was exposed. I put the Deutschlands and maybe the Scharnhorsts, down as the final expressions of the armored cruiser concept, large, armored, faster than battleships, with sub-battleship size guns.
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@horikyosuke4794 it's possible. The US Naval Gun factory had special railroad cars to transport guns anywhere in the country. There was also at least one case I know of, where 12" guns from the Gun Factory, which was in the Washington DC Navy Yard, went to Norfolk by barge. In 1914, Bethlehem Steel in the US sold four sets of 14" guns and complete turret assemblies to the Admiralty, and they made the trip to the UK in two Cunard steamers. As for why the Germans did not leverage the Italian 15" guns, a very good question. Even if the Germans had their reasons for using twin turrets, why did they reinvent the wheel designing and building 15" guns, instead of simply buying the Italian guns? National pride? "Not invented here syndrome"?
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