Comments by "Doug JB" (@dougjb7848) on "The Drydock - Episode 101" video.

@calvingreene90 There is no such thing as “functionally identical to Essex except with armoured flight deck.” It is not physically possible to build. A better question would have been “what if an eccentric person with unlimited funds and their own shipyard built two copies of an Illustrious class carrier and they were operational by 1941?”
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@LiveErrors A) to play what role / perform which mission? B) The Scharns carried 9x11” guns with good protection and speed, and displaced about 32K tons standard. They could not have carried 9x12” guns and maintained the protection and speed. Would you have them carry 6x12” guns in three twins? If you try for 8, you need four turrets, which lengthens the ship and puts them overweight. C) Again, to do what? 12” guns will not scare battleships, they are way overkill for merchant raiding, and the KM never had / needed a ship that would have “kill enemy cruisers and scout for the battle fleet” as main purpose.
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Rockets do not make holes underwater, which is the preferred way to sink a ship. In 44-45 the US and allied forces were still doing immense damage with torpedoes.
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@MartinCHorowitz Little because the treaty limits paired up closely with Panama limits as they were. Even if the canal were five times wider in 1918, the US would not have built larger because ~40K was about the limit of practical ship design with the existing technology.
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@Wayneloser2118 At 1 a.m. on 1 October 1972, while in action off the Demilitarized Zone, Newport News sustained an in-bore explosion in her center 8-inch gun of number two turret. A defective auxiliary detonating fuze caused the projectile to detonate almost immediately upon firing. A total of 20 sailors were killed and another 36 suffered serious injuries from toxic gas inhalation. The barrel proper was blown forward from the gun.
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51:20 If Sara had been with her sister at Coral Sea, likely both and Yorktown survive, even with some damage. The USN would have five carriers at time of Midway. Even if they only sent three, those three would probably have been in better condition than were the three historically present. The USN might have gone into summer of 1942 with four, maybe even five, maybe even all six fleet carriers it had when the US entered the war.
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