Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 260" video.

  1. My first concern would be the beam of a QE being broad enough to accommodate triple turrets. Wiki shows a QE having a beam of 90 feet. The 1916 design for the Lexingtons had a maximum beam of 91', but #1 and #4 turrets were twins, due to the taper of the bow and stern, and those were 14" guns. Nevada, with triple 14", had a beam of 95'. Hood, with twin 15" had a beam of 104', while the J3, with three triple 15" turrets, had a beam of 106'. The Littorios, with triple 15" had a beam of over 107'. Bismark, with a beam of 118', would probably have no problem taking three triple turrets. To answer the question Drac responded to, I would say easily practical for Bismark to have three triples, and through a few more shells at both Hood and PoW. Hood, if starting from a clean sheet, could certainly have been fattened a bit, to accommodate triple 15". I am dubious about the QEs. I suspect they would need to be broadened significantly to take the larger turrets. That wrecks the length to beam ratio. To maintain speed, they would need to be lengthened proportionally to the broader beam. The Exchequer was already hyperventilating about the cost of the QEs. Escalate the cost even more, by building a longer and wider hull to accommodate triple turrets, and the Exchequer may go into full apoplectic fit and spike the entire program.
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  2.  @RedXlV  Drac did not address the cost. Building a bigger hull, and putting more guns on it, will raise the cost. If the Exchequer did go along with it? The US Congress didn't want to spend anything. and the head of BuOrd was a tireless promoter of the 14" gun, over the 16". When the British introduced the 15", I saw a lot of FUD in the US press, claiming the British 15" was subject to such a high rate of wear it was nearly useless, therefore the US 14" was better. Starting with the Pennsylvanias, the US was mounting 12 guns, up from 10 on the Nevadas, which were contemporaries of the 8 gun QEs. I doubt putting more guns on the QEs would impact USN policy, because, in the USN's eyes, they had the more heavily armed ships anyway. What finally tipped the General Board and SecNav to 16", was their analysis of Jutland, in summer 1916. Their hands were tied as far as the Colorado class was concerned. The 1916 Navy Act, which authorized the Colorados, Lexingtons and South Dakotas, put a cost limit on the Colorados, so they could not be anything but a Tennessee modified with 8-16". There was no cost limit in the Act for the South Dakotas, so they escalated to 12-16", on a substantially larger hull: 60 feet longer and 9 feet wider.
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