Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "HMS Ajax - Guide 184" video.

@willrogers3793 Ship based helos vs floatplanes: Ever see a film of what has to be done to get the floatplane back on board the ship while the ship is under way? After the floatplane makes a water landing, which has it's own hazards in open ocean, the ship tows a large net through the water. The floatplane taxies up onto the net and a hook on the underside of the float catches the net. With the position of the plane wrt the ship stabilized, then the crane drops it's hook and the plan's pilot stands up in his cockpit, grabs the hook and attaches it to the plane. Then the plane is lifted on board. Fascinating process to watch, but landing a helo on deck is a lot simpler, faster and safer. There is a film on youtube of USS Chester recovering a Kingfisher.
3
@kemarisite I second everything Frank says. The Vickers, especially in the octuple mounts, can throw an absolutely lurid amount of steel, but not very far, nor for very long, while a Bofors can really reach out and touch someone, and bang away all day. The Vickers did have something of a return to usefulness in 45, when the Brits started running into Kamikazes, as their throw weight dwarfed an entire phalanx of Oerlikons and they could shoot an inbound plane to bits. The Italians used Vickers guns on several of their warships during the 20s and 30s, the guns being license built by Terni. The RM changed out a lot of the Vickers in the late 30s in favor of the Breda 37mm, for the same reasons that the Brits and US went to the Bofors: the Breda had three times the effective range, and magazines could be stacked in the loading machine to maintain a high rate of fire, without the reload stoppages of a Vickers.
2
@bjorntorlarsson I doubt crewing them would have been a problem considering the size of fleet Germany was able to man in WWI. The large problem with the French fleet was that it was split: part on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and part in the Med. Easy enough for the Germans to man the contingent in Morocco, but Richelieu was the only modern BB. That is hardly a major boost to what the Germans already had in service or fitting out. The Brits seized the units in the UK and in Alexandria. That leaves the units in Toulon: Dunkerque, Strasbourg and a variety of cruisers and destroyers. Those ships would probably operate under Regia Marina command, meaning DDs escorting convoys to Libya, cruisers dicing with the Brits occasionally, and Dunkerque and Strasbourg sitting in port for most of the war.
2
@comeslittorissaxonici7395 recovering a floatplane worse in heavy seas? Yes. In the film of the Chester recovering a Kingfisher, you can see that the Chester is creating a smoother patch of water in it's lee for the Kingfisher. A friend of mine is retired career Canadian military, much of it as AESOp on a Sea King helo embarked on DDHs. The guy has more sea stories than you can imagine. The Canadians developed the "Beartrap" cable and winch system that, essentially, pulls the helo out of the air and onto the deck. Tim has posted some videos of Sea King landings where the horizon can be seen rising, falling and rocking side to side to an alarming degree, yet the Beartrap pulls the helo down to a safe landing.
2