Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 223 (Part 2)" video.

  1. wrt the question about the Nelsons being armed with 15" guns, that would not have impacted the choice of 14" on the KGVs. I looked in to the question of the KGV armament decision, combining information in books by Garzke, Raven, and Friedman, as well as other sources. The Admiralty's own analysts, in the fall of 35, said that a 9-15" armament would give a better balanced ship than the 12-14" alternative that was contemplated. The analysts said the only reason 14" would be selected would be if required by treaty. Someone in the USN, in the fall of 35, said they would be open to a 14" standard, if Japan agreed. That gave the "influencer" in the Admiralty the excuse to promote 14". Of course, the entire notion of Japan agreeing to anything was a pipe dream. When Japan announced, in December of 34, they were dropping out of the treaty system, they said they were open to a new conference and a new treaty, only if Japan was given parity with the US and UK, (which was not going to happen). This was widely reported in the newspapers at that time. Orders for the KGV armament had to be entered by late 35, to meet the build schedule for ships laid down in 37, so the decision to go 14" was made in late 35, before the Second London conference started. Who was the "influencer" and why? The "who" appears to be First Sea Lord Chatfield. The "why" appears to be an embrace of the "more smaller guns equals more hits" theory, a theory the USN had argued, and rejected, twenty years earlier.
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  2. wrt torpedo boats in the Philippines, the USN had torpedo boats there in 41, PT boats. The USN had not built larger, steam powered, torpedo boats since 1905. The last class of torpedo boats, the 200 ton Blakely class, spent most of their time tied up in reserve in the US, as their construction overlapped the building of the first class of destroyers, the 420 ton Bainbridge class. I considered how the Blakelys could have been moved to the Philippines, given their small size and short range. The best scenario I came up with was building a cradle in the Dewey drydock to hold six of them, as the Dewey was towed to the Philippines in 1906. They would have been redundant however, as the first five Bainbridges had steamed to the Philippines under their own power in 1904.
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  3.  @stuartwald2395  the problem with the PT boats was lack of time to build up a fleet. The Navy was still testing the prototypes in the first half of 41. The WWI vintage SC class subchasers and Eagle boats were not designed to carry torpedoes, and could only manage 18 kts.
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