Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "HMS Bellerophon - Guide 266" video.
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@brendonbewersdorf986 the same thought crossed my mind. Italy, in particular, was stuck with some impossible ships, the four Elena class pre-dreadnoughts and the salvaged hulk of the da Vinci, classified as front line battleships, to fill up Italy's quota. Three Orions or KGVs would replace the tonnage of those five worst ships, or Erin, by itself, would make a good replacement for da Vinci. Sold to Italy for their scrap price, as that was their fate without a sale, which Italy could cover by selling the Elenas and da Vinci for scrap. But would Italy want the running cost? And, would the transfer of dreadnoughts that were only a decade old cause Italy to loose the licenses it was given to start building replacement ships in the late 20s, licenses which were used to build the first two Littorios? Without those licenses, the Littorios could not have been laid down until 1937, meaning they would not have completed until 41. With the Littorios not laid down until 37, the French would not have laid down Richelieu and Jean Bart until 38, so they would have been too far from completion when France fell to escape to North Africa. With battleships only ten years old, would Italy have been given the latitude for improving existing ships that allowed the rebuilds of the Cavours and Dorias?
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@brendonbewersdorf986 the pre-dreadnoughts, and the RN 12" gunned ships were being sold for scrap before the treaty, so, if the UK had wanted to sell them to other users, they could have. The UK proposed selling the two surviving Invincibles to Chile, replacing the battleship that was halfway converted to HMS Eagle. That deal fell through, so the battlecruisers were stricken in March of 1920 and sold for scrap. HMS Canada, which had been purchased from Chile, was sold back to Chile with the deal closing in April of 20. The UK tried to sell the Gin Palace to Brazil, but Brazil declined. Greece already had the two former US pre-dreadnoughts. Greece's new-build ship, the Salamis, was tied up in litigation with the Vulcan yard in Germany for several years, with Greece trying to cancel it, and Vulcan wanting to be paid.
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@brendonbewersdorf986 I find the most satisfying alt history scenarios are the ones where I try to poke holes in the scenario to see if it holds up. I ran a scenario a while back where the US bought one or both of the surviving Invincibles to get their large, fast, hulls to convert to more satisfying carriers than Langley. I required the conversion to be cheap, because that was how Congress rolled. Had in mind to use the powerplants from a handful of Clemsons that had been cancelled before being laid down in February of 1919, hence the plants would be surplus and available cheap. Worked out that the cancelled Clemsons were to be built by Newport News. News sourced turbines from Westinghouse and boilers from Babcock and Wilcox. Unfortunately, New York Shipbuilding sourced turbines and boilers from the same vendors, and laid down ten more Clemsons, after the ones from News were cancelled. So the powerplant vendors most likely trimmed the back end of their production schedule, components they had not started building yet, so no cheap surplus plants for the carrier conversions. Based on the re-enginging of North Dakota in 1917, new turbines, at market price, for an Invincible would cost $1.2M, plus 8 boilers, plus converting coal bunkers to oil tanks. I'm thinking close to $2M just to replace the worn out coal fired plant, before conversion to a carrier can even start. The budget for Langley was $500,000, so the Invincible idea is a no-go.
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