Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 230" video.

  1. wrt the Torpedo strike on Gneisenau, that operation is covered in detail in "Torpedo Bomber" by Ralph Barker. The book was also published in the UK as "Ship Busters". As Drac said, the raid was botched quite badly. iirc, from reading the book a few years ago, one other Beaufort did make it to the rendezvous point outside the harbor and was waiting for the other Beauforts to arrive. As that Beaufort orbited, the pilot saw Campbell arrive, and roar past, into the harbor, instead of forming up with the other Beaufort. Reading how that raid had been planned, the thought that occurred to me was that, had the bombers shown up as planned, all the AA gunners would have been awake and at their posts when the Beauforts tried to penetrate the harbor, and would probably have been shot out of the sky. As it worked out, Campbell took everyone by surprise and successfully reached the ship. The Germans recovered the plane and crew from the harbor. Apparently Campbell had been hit moments after dropping the torpedo, because the Germans reported a Canadian, I don't recall the man's name at the moment, was in the pilot's seat, when the plane was recovered.
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  2.  @davidknowles2491  I'm sure the designers intended the quad turrets to be reliable. I looked in to the choice to revert to 14" on the KGVs. The decision seems to have been driven by the "more guns equals more hits" theory. The initial plan was for the KGVs to mount 12-14", but the armor deck was raised, and that extra weight required B turret to be reduced to a twin. As one book I read said, that decision, which reduced the armament to only 10 guns, undercut the reasoning to go to 14" in the first place. Admiralty analysis of the various design proposals said that 9-15" gave the best balance of firepower, speed, and protection, and explicitly said the only reason to go to 14" was if required by treaty. I also looked in to the triple turrets on the Nelsons. They also had many faults, most of which had been corrected by the mid 30s, but the basic design of the systems slowed the rate of fire to only about 1.6 rounds per minute, vs 2 rounds per minute on the KGVs, so adopting the Nelson design, in spite of it being debugged by 36, was a no-go.
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  3.  @morat242  The Japanese wanted a more favorable ratio to the US and UK, but the US said that was not going to happen, so the best way to save face would be to at least complete Tosa, which would put the IJN 26,000 tons over their limit, vs the historical retention list putting them 14,000 tons below their quota. The Japanese could have made a credible argument that they were entitled to a 42,000 ton ship, because of Hood. If the USN Tennessee class was deemed "post-Jutland", then they, combined with the three Colorados that were completed, would make 5 "post-Jutland" ships, at zero additional cost vs historical expenditure, vs Japan's 3. Maybe give the US clearance to upgun the Tennessees to 16", if they want to, to make a 5:3 ratio of 16" gun, post-Jutland ships. Then the UK would be entitled to 4 Nelsons, which they might have trouble paying for, on top of their load of war debt.
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