Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 179" video.
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3:20:40 the question about a 14" armed Florida class. As Drac suggested, without the pushback that existed in the USN to the move from 12" to 14", which was repeated in the move from 14" to 16", resulting in moving to larger guns sooner, I can think of a significant impact. The Washington conference engaged in some political art in discriminating between pre-Jutland and post-Jutland ships. In their art, Hood was deemed "post-Jutland" even though it was designed before the battle, while Tennessee and California, laid down after Hood, were deemed pre-Jutland, while Maryland, which was laid down before Tennessee, was deemed post-Jutland. As the Colorados were largely a repeat of the Tennessees, with the exception of the 16" guns, if the Tennessees had been armed with 16" guns, which was openly discussed in 1915, defining the Tennessees as pre-Jutland would be even more problematic. If the Tennessees were armed with 16" guns, and therefore deemed "post-Jutland", then, for parity, the US would not have been allowed to complete Colorado and West Virginia. That would result in the US retaining the Delawares as "front line" battleships. In the fleet drawdown in First London, the Delawares would go, and one or both Floridas and both Wyomings would be retained as "front line" battleships.
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@gerardlabelle9626 the newspapers of the time reported there was a consensus among the delegations at the conference that 12" guns were obsolete. Of the three largest navies, the USN was the only one required to retain ships with 12" guns. France retained three 12" armed Dantons, which commissioned in 1911, and received licenses to start building replacements in 1927 and 29. The Floridas were also 12" armed, and commissioned in 1911. but the US did not receive licenses to begin construction of replacements before the 1930s, or authority to improve side armor and upgun the 12" ships, like France and Italy did. I went through the annual spreadsheets published by the Bureau of Supply and Accounts and found that, in the late 1920s, the USN spent some $6.6M modernizing the Floridas, bulges, deck armor, conversion to oil fuel, when the WNT called for them to be scrapped in 34. Washington was 80% complete when work was stopped. The $6.6M spent on the Floridas, already obsolete due to their 12" guns, was just about what was needed to complete Washington, which would have been expected to serve for 20 years. But completing Washington would give the US too many "post-Jutland" ships. I think the real issue separating "pre" from "post" was the size of the guns, not the date ships were laid down or designed. In July 1916, SecNav Daniels announced, with the General Board agreeing, that Jutland had proven the need to go to larger guns, which could penetrate at longer range. If they settled on 15" as the "post-Jutland" size, then the RN would have 13 ships in commission that would be defined as "post-Jutland", even though some of those 15" ships were at the battle, and everyone else would be demanding authority to build a compensating number of ships If they settled on 16" as the "post-Jutland" size, then the UK would need to spend the money to build three Nelsons. So, the delegates engaged in some Orwellian doublethink that said Hood was "post", to avoid spending more money on a third Nelson, while the Tennessees with their advanced torpedo protection and all-or-nothing armor scheme were "pre", so the US could complete Colorado and West Virginia, to replace the obsolete Delawares.
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