Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 197 (Part 1)" video.

With regard to German dreadnought gun calibers, they did have the 35cm (13.8"), but were only intended for battlecruisers. As for Britain going from 13.5" to 15" while also reducing the number of guns, aside from the early consideration of 10x 15", there's also the fact that the square-cube law makes the jump from 13.5" to 15" a bigger one (in terms of the shell's weight and the weight of its bursting charge, and by extension the weight of broadside) than was the jump from 12" to 13.5". And the same would've been true of the initial plan for G3 to use a 16.5" gun, before they ultimately decided 16" like everybody else was adopting was a really good size. Oh, and the navy using dreadnoughts that opted to make the biggest jump in gun size (at least as planned) was Italy, going from 13x 12" on the Cavour and Duilio classes to 8x 15" for Caracciolo. And such a large jump in caliber almost doubled the shell weight, and thus would've had a heavier broadside despite such a large reduction in the number of guns.
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Nevada would've been my first choice to preserve out of the Standards. Though probably the most plausible to preserve would've been California or Maryland. It would've probably been harder convincing a state to host a battleship named for another state, and most of the Standards were named for inland states. I'm discounting Mississippi because her conversion to a missile test platform had left her without any main guns and fairly ridiculous-looking, leaving her with little appeal as a museum ship.
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Which leaves me wondering, why did ships the British captured sometimes have their names anglicised, and sometimes just left as-is (such as HMS Sans Pareil, HMS Temeraire, etc)?
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With regard to preserving one of the Standard-type battleships, my first inclination would actually be USS Nevada, the original Standard. She was similarly refitted to West Virginia as well. But realistically, the best chance of getting a Standard preserved would've been choosing a ship named for a coastal state. You'd have a much easier time fundraising for preservation of a ship from people in the state it's named for and if it can actually be brought to that state for permanent mooring. Which is a bit of a problem since most of the Standards were named after inland states. This criteria would narrow it down to just Mississippi (New Mexico-class), California (Tennessee-class), and Maryland (Colorado-class). Mississippi can be counted out right away because her conversion to a gunnery/missile test ship made her too ugly for a museum ship. California would've probably been the best candidate on account of her namesake being a huge and wealthy state. However, both California and Maryland would have the huge downside of being on the wrong coast when they were decommissioned, greatly increasing the expense of bringing them to their states. California was put in reserve at Philadelphia, while Maryland was in Bremerton, WA. Mississippi was in the most convenient location to tow her to her namesake state (being based in Norfolk), but again she looked like this: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/014103.jpg
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