Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 232 (Part 1)" video.

  1. wrt the question about alt history, I enjoy speculating about the repercussions of a pivot in a decision, but do not go in for magical thinking. I have never seen, nor have any interest, in seeing "The Final Countdown", as a for instance. The fun ones are where one person changes his mind: Admiral Strauss at BuOrd accepts the 16"/45, instead of pushing the 14"/50, so Tennessee and California are built with the 16", making them "post-Jutland" in the treaty, so Colorado and West Virginia are never completed. Or, when Congress is demanding, in June 1918, that the navy make a start on all the ships authorized in the 1916 Act, SecNav Daniels talks common sense to Congress, that the South Dakotas have rendered the Colorados obsolete, so cancel West Virginia, Colorado, and Washington, before they are laid down, and proceed with the South Dakotas, then the treaty intervenes to prevent the South Dakotas being completed. How does the non-existence of Colorado and West Virginia vibrate through the next 25 years?
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  2.  @nathand.9969  If we assume the "reasons" are because the British have pursued the other Admiral class battlecruisers, as suggested in a question in part 2 of today's drydock, then converts two to carriers, leaving them with two 40,000 ton + ships, that creates the justification for the US to complete two Lexingtons as battlecruisers, for parity. I would expect them to be paired with the carriers, through the interwar years, by virtue of the fact they can keep up with the carriers, and that deployment would be consistent with the "scouting group" thinking in the USN. On December 7th, if the battlecruisers are not in refit, they would be at sea with the carriers. As the carriers were in heavy use in 42-43, I would expect the battlecruisers to be equally as busy, with modernization being along the lines of improved AA armament, radar, and fire control, rather than an extensive rebuild, like West Virginia, California, and Tennessee received.
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  3. wrt the question about Pearl Harbor being ready for the attack on December 7th, the intercept would have been too late, even if handled expeditiously in Hawaii. The radiogram arrived in Hawaii at 7:33am. The Japanese had specified their ultimatum be delivered in DC at 1:00pm. which was 7:30am in Hawaii. It is safe to assume that the Japanese considered 7:30am too close to arrival time of the attack for the US to set up a defense, so the message, even if handled expeditiously, would not have helped much. The film also dramatizes the consideration of possible targets of the Japanese attack, with the Malay Peninsula, aka the Kra Peninsula, specifically mentioned. The delivery time of the ultimatum in DC, 1pm, tips the target. At that hour, it was the middle of the night in Malaya. Of the possible attack targets, Hawaii was the only one where it would be daylight at that hour. The best shot at being ready for the attack was the radar contact at 7:02am. The wind that morning was light, from the northeast. A tactic that has crossed my mind is have a DD turn on it's smoke generator, and start making laps around Ford Island. The Japanese could not hit what they could not see.
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