Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "HMS Belfast - A Town that served a Country" video.

@tanegashima5395 Probably not very effective. Like most ships of their era the hull tapers a great deal aft. That taper would severely limit the size of the hangar. The Lexingtons also had a very small hangar, while purpose built carriers, like Ranger or Yorktown, were designed with the hull flaring out a great deal above the waterline aft to accommodate a longer hangar. Compare the British Courageous class, as converted to carriers, 24,000T standard displacement and 48 aircraft vs Ark Royal 22,000T and 72 aircraft (design) 50-60 actual. All numbers from Wiki. The conversions were very inefficient as carriers, wasting the one thing that was in restricted supply by the treaty: tonnage.
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@bkjeong4302 You could say the same about the Iowa class: ran around a lot, never faced another BB. Were the Iowas ever in a surface engagement at all? Washington and SoDak were, when they sank one of the Kongos.
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@bkjeong4302 If the Iowas are seen in a better light than the Yamatos, it is probably because they weren't sunk. When the Kongos were built, before WWI, you could make a case for them. If Vickers had been a little slower getting Kongo built, the Royal Navy probably would have grabbed her, like they grabbed a lot of other ships being built for foreign governments, and she probably would have fought at Jutland.
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@bkjeong4302 I pretty much agree. I would agree a lot more if the North Carolinas and South Dakotas were built using a rejected design that would have them running at 30kts.
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@iansadler4309 the IJN did about the same thing with Kaga's exhaust initially, with the same result.
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@tanegashima5395 The Kongos were real workhorses during the war, probably because of their speed capability. Two were sunk in surface engagements in the Solomons and one fell to a US sub. The last one was bombed and sunk at it's moorings at Kure, at the end of the war, along with both of the Ises.
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@sergarlantyrell7847 I really hate waste. There were several ships in advanced stages of construction, and their elimination resulted in a lot of money being spent to extend the lives of old ships instead. My proposal would be that any ship that had been laid down prior to January 1, 1921 could be completed, provided a corresponding amount of tonnage of old ships was scrapped. This was done in the case of the US BBs West Virginia and Colorado, which were completed in exchange for the Delaware class BBs being scrapped. I would let anyone with ships already under construction do whatever they want. This system would be self-limiting as the ships being scrapped approached the new ships in capability, thus offering no incentive to replace them. Example: the IJN would be allowed to complete the two Tosa class BBs, but they would need to scrap the two Fuso class BBs to make enough tonnage available. But if the IJN wanted to complete Amagi and Akagi, because they were so large, they would need to scrap three of the Kongos, so they really aren't gaining much with the Amagis. The USN could complete Washington, in exchange for scrapping Florida. Completing two of the larger South Dakota class BBs would require scrapping of Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas and New York, again, rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns for spending to complete two new BBs.
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@stallfighter Yes, I would like to know that too.
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@iansadler4309 Right off the top of my head, I would agree, right down to it's concrete torpedo protection system, though it didn't founder like Alfredo Cappellini did. In the back of my mind is the thought that Bruno might have stayed afloat long enough to make it to shore because it was using Ansaldo built guns that weighted a lot less than those on Cappellini.
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