Comments by "Doug JB" (@dougjb7848) on "The Drydock - Episode 316" video.

@WALTERBROADDUS “Building military things, big military things, lots of big military things” was one of the strongest levers that lifted the US out of the Great Depression, which did not officially end (in the way a depression is defined in economic terms) until Q4 1941 - after the US had begin building military things, big military things, lots of big military things, in earnest. Had the US federal government decided, in 1936, to ignore treaties and ramp up military construction to a level not historically seen until mid-1941, the US economic recovery would have accelerated.
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@WALTERBROADDUS OP is not talking about anyone “cheating” a treaty. He’s talking about a treaty that only defined and restricted capital ships (perhaps submarines too), leaving all navies free to build whatever cruisers they chose. He is positing that the RN would have been well-able to keep pace with or stay ahead of the world in cruisers, which really was a high priority, perhaps even higher than big-gun ships.
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@WALTERBROADDUS So, was making exception to the “no carriers” rule by allowing carriers up to 10,000 cheating? Was banning construction of ships except for those smaller than 10K tons and armed with 8” guns cheating? In your world view, it seems, any contract with a clause that includes “except for” would be cheating. Weird. “Cheating” is when a party agrees to a set of rules and then not following them. Not when all parties agree to a set of rules and then follow them.
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Dude. U.S. expenditures for defense and education, 1910-2021 compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston last modified 29 January 2023 “Defense spending” in the US almost doubled between 1935 and 1940, and in 1941 was ten times what it was in 1935. Congress, and FDR, did a good job of getting US military production going several years before the nation entered WW2, while assuring the US that the nation would not enter war. Had the 1940 spending been done in 1937, the economic effect starting in 1938 would have been much like what happened in 1941.
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Drach has stated in other content that if the QE class had had small tube boilers, they could have comfortably reached 26kts without any decrease in displacement. Using the rough calculations he used discussing the Lions, the QEs could have had another inch of belt armor and still delivered on their 25 kt design speed. They managed 24 kts in actual service, so increasing the power would yield 26 kts for the original design, which would be reduced about one knot by the added displacement of the extra inch of armor. They would have been the first “fast battleship class” rather than “a class of battleship that was a bit faster than the norm.”
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32:05 And if they had been just a tetch slower, perhaps at Jutland they would not have gotten so far ahead of the Grand Fleet, and the nominally attached Fifth Battle Squadron, and spent so much time facing off against the First Scouting Squadron without support.
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Same as with a scout plane: catapult powered by either compressed air, steam or explosive charge.
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