Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 101" video.

@harvesterofsorrow4930 The Chauchat isn't nearly as bad as widely believed. It did have distinct shortcomings, but it was essentially the very first weapon of its type. And was saddled with the 8mm Lebel cartridge, which was ill-suited for automatic weapons and had a lot to do with the questionable magazine design. (And the .30-06 version which by all rights should've been better thanks to not using a fat and rimmed cartridge, turned out instead to be quite possibly the shoddiest caliber conversion ever.)
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There's no evidence that it was open magazine doors that caused Hood's loss. It wasn't a turret penetration with open flash doors like what happened to the Jutland battlecruisers. The most likely cause of the loss was that a 38cm shell went directly into Hood's aft 5.5" magazine and exploded right against the bulkhead separating it from the 15" magazine, detonating both of them. This was either the result of a belt penetration (the range was short enough that deck penetration by plunging fire would've been impossible), or a shell with a defective detonator going underwater and penetrating below the belt before exploding.
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I presume you mean that perhaps the Leopard plans ate a Luftwaffe bomb during the Battle of Britain? I suppose that could be possible.
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You could ask the same about the G3 battlecruiser, which if built would've been the best-protected ship in the world right up until the Yamato. A capital ship capable of 26 knots or better was a battlecruiser by the Royal Navy standards of the time.
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With regard to those Leopard-class battlecruisers, if those had been built and Hood also got built, would the Royal Navy have even been allowed to build the Nelsons? Allowing the Nelsons as an exception to the 10 year "holiday" of the Washington Naval Treaty was because Britain lacked any 16-inch gun BBs while the US Navy was getting 3 and the IJN 2 of them. But if Britain had 20 or so 15-inch gun BBs or BCs instead of 13 of them, would the US and Japan really be inclined to grant the UK a pair of 16-inch gun BBs to be built after the treaty? I imagine that they would've at least demanded to get to complete an additional 1-2 battleships or battlecruisers beyond the ones they were allowed historically. Or, since the likes of Tosa, Amagi, and South Dakota would be so far in excess of Treaty limits, perhaps the US and Japan would've demanded to each get their own 1-2 ship exemption from the building holiday. And seeing what a mid-1920s Treaty-compliant BB design from the US and Japan would look like would've been rather interesting.
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@johnfisher9692 The problem is that would've resulted in another 1-2 years of work. France was presuming that obsolete battleships would still be better than no battleships at all. In practice, this was a poor decision, as the Courbet-class dreadnoughts couldn't be laid down until after the Danton-class were launched, resulting in an even greater delay. France also foolishly refused the suggestion to alter the Dantons during construction by replacing the twin 240m guns with single 305m turrets. This would've resulted in a subpar dreadnought, but still a dreadnought. There was an insistence that the Dantons must displace no more than 18,000 tons, and this would've put them over that limit. In practice, they weighed in at almost 19,000 tons anyway at normal displacement. There had also been proposals to use steam turbines in the Dantons, but France didn't yet have any factories capable of making them and importing the turbines from Britain was deemed too expensive. Probably their best option would've been to cancel at least half of the Dantons, building only 2-3 of them in order to get a couple of BBs quickly while also leaving multiple slipways available to lay down the first dreadnoughts as soon as their designs were finalized.
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@stevevalley7835 My thinking, though, is that Britain historically had a single non-compliant ship that they got to grandfather in (Hood), while in this scenario they get at least 3 such monsters (2 Leopards and Hood). And there's a significant chance that if the Leopards and a 10-gun slow version of the Queen Elizabeths already existed, there would've been a requirement that the Admiral-class design be a meaningful step above what Leopard already achieved. As such, we're likely talking about a 10-gun Hood displacing close to 50,000 tons standard. Or perhaps a 9-gun Hood with triple turrets. Which sadly would result in a less attractive ship, but a pretty monstrously powerful one by 1922 standards. If Britain has 3 Treaty-busters that they get to grandfather in, even if "only" mounting 15" rather than 16" guns, I doubt the US and Japan would be anywhere near as favorably inclined toward letting Britain also get that exemption to the 10-year holiday for the Nelson-class. For the Nelsons to still exist in some form, Japan would probably demand to get some additional concession beyond just getting to keep Mutsu, and America in turn would want more than just keeping Colorado and West Virginia. At a minimum, I figure America would also get to keep Washington and Japan would get to build a single 35,000 ton BB in the 20s.
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IIRC, the reason Dreadnought missed Jutland is that she was under refit at the time. All 3 Bellerophons were present for Jutland, after all, and they weren't significantly better than Dreadnought.
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@bradmiller2329 No British battleships were scrapped during World War I, not even the pre-dreadnoughts. Many however were scrapped immediately after the war. Dreadnought was sold for scrapping in 1921.
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@bradmiller2329 Not many, no.
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