Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 107" video.

wrt the Kongos. considering they were still vulnerable to large bore fire, and given the IJN's forward thinking wrt naval air resulting in the treaty limits being gamed by certain ships being designed for easy conversion to carriers, a nightmare scenario has the Kongos all being converted to carriers in the 1939-40 time frame, rather than conceived as carrier escorts. When the Kongos went in for "modernization", spies in the yards would think nothing was amiss when the turrets came off, or when the superstructures were removed, or when the boilers and turbines were replaced, but would panic when the hangar deck bulkheads started to be erected, and by then it would be too late for the USN or RN to build more carriers to offset the greater IJN carrier strength before the war started. Lacking the Kongos, the IJN could have deployed the Nagatos instead. In the Solomons campaign, for instance, not losing one Nagato to cruiser fire might have resulted in two Nagatos being on hand when the USN brought SD and Washington.
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wrt the London treaties not superseding the Washington treaty. I see one other major difference: first London extended the BB construction moratorium through 1936. Without first London, the BB replacement schedule in the Washington treaty would have stayed in force. According to the schedule, by 1940, the USN would have replaced everything through the New Mexicos. The Brits would have replaced all the QEs, most of the Rs, and Repulse. All the existing French and Italian BBs in existence in 1922 would have been replaced. For the IJN, the Kongos, both Fusos and Ise would have all been replaced. Of course, reality would be determined by the funding each country had available during the depression, but the Washington treaty would allow everyone to have a very much more modern capital ship fleet by the start of WWII.
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