Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Queen Elizabeth Class - Design and Damage History" video.

wrt the attack in Alexandria, Valiant was not hurt as badly as QE because the mine was not placed ideally. The Italian mines were suspended on a cable under the ship. The cable was supported by clamps on the ship's bilge keels. In the case of the QE, the mine was placed ideally, only a few feet under the hull. In the case of Valiant, the pilot of the "manned torpedo" the frogmen were riding lost control and it jammed into the mud below the ship. The back seater passed out from difficulty with his rebreather. The pilot could not manhandle the mine and cable system by himself, so set the timer and surfaced, with his backseater, where they were captured by the Brits. The mine was something like 20 feet below the hull, so did not do quite as much damage as it would have if placed correctly.
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@hawkerhellfire9152 Part of the problem with maintaining high speed, especially with the low grade coal the Germans had, was the boilers clog up with soot and debris from the coal, which inhibits heat transfer to the water. Auger stokers, like railroad engines had in the 1920s, would not have helped when the boiler is clogged.
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@SoonerDan77 The QEs level of activity was probably a product of being there at the start of the war, and not being sunk before the end, combined with not a large number of newer ships taking their place on the front line in between. The Brooklyn class cruisers were everywhere all through the war too. Boise earned 11 battle stars, Nashville 10, Phoenix 11, Honolulu 8, St Louis 11. They pale compared to Enterpise's 20, but those cruisers earned their keep.
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Did the RN consider a more radical rebuild of the QEs, comparable to the rebuild the Italians did with the Andrea Doria class, with the hull lengthening and more than doubling engine power? The thought of 5 totally modern, 28+ kt QEs is appealing. The first thought of "why not" would be the improvements would push displacement over the 35,000 ton limit as the Wiki entry shows the QEs displacing over 32,000 tons. The rebuilds of the Dorias and Kongos added some 4-5,000 tons, which would have put the QEs over the limit. But, as measured for treaty purposes, without consumables, the QEs are listed in the treaty text at 27,500, so it looks like there is enough room to do the lengthening. Such radically updated QEs would nearly render the KGVs redundant.
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@aclark1000603 iirc, the boilers in an Iowa class run at about 600psi.
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That was the second shelling of Genoa. In 1940, the French fleet visited. In 42, the Italians dug out 4 of the 15"/40 guns that had been built for the Caricciolo class battleships, from the armory and installed them as shore batteries overlooking Genoa. The Brits didn't come calling again.
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