Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Inter-war ship designs - 5 Bad Ideas" video.

  1. To be fair to Ark Royal, she absolute should have survived that torpedo hit even considering her design flaws. Captain Maund was quite rightly found guilty of negligence for his failure to leave a sufficient damage control party on board, and delaying the damage control work by nearly an hour by bringing the entire crew to the flight deck to determine who would stay behind for that role while everyone else abandoned ship. (One would think that you'd already choose designated damage control parties for such a worst-case scenario before even setting sail, rather than waiting until the ship is already at risk of sinking.)
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  2. I can't say that I agree with the Type 1934 as Germany's worst interwar design, because as terrible as they were, the Type 1936A is still interwar by your definition (designed and most of them began construction prior to September 1939). At least the 12.8cm SK C/34 was a workable weapon for a destroyer, while the 15cm TbtsK C/36 decidedly was not.
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  3. Regarding the Nelson-class, it seems to me that the F3 design would've been much more useful than the O3 that was actually chosen for production. The armament would've been 15"/50 rather than 16"/45 guns, but given the design flaws of the British 16" shell (whereas the 15"/50 would've used the same excellent shells as the existing 15"/42) this wouldn't really have been a downgrade and would've simplified logistics by moving toward standardization on a single main gun caliber throughout the entire fleet. 12" belt armor inclined at 72° and 3.5-7" deck armor is still very good protection. But 28.5 knot top speed would be a massive improvement over the Nelsons' 23 knots, even it wouldn't keep pace with Hood and the Renowns.
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  4. While the Aganos do (barely) qualify as an interwar design, their shortcomings (mostly the use of the antiquated 15cm/50 41st Year Type guns when the far superior 15.5cm/60 3rd Year Type was available) can't erase the fact that they were some of the most stable and seaworthy Japanese warships.
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  5. Besides, regarding the Deutschland-class being easily overhauled by a British battlecruiser, the Germans were fully aware of that fact. They were simply counting on the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is a really big place, so they were willing to risk the idea that among their potential enemies, only 3 ships were fast enough to both catch and kill the Deutschlands. Besides, the Reichsmarine had (quite correctly) deemed a naval war against Britain to be impossible to win anyway, and thus was focused on building a fleet to fight France. Which is why after Dunkerque was designed (specifically to counter the Deutschlands), Scharnhorst was in turn designed with the specific goal of surpassing Dunkerque, and Bismarck was designed to content with Richelieu. (Though in the latter case, my money would be on Richelieu in a 1-on-1 fight.)
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  6. Though in reality, the Le Fantasque-class that were in Free French hands tended to still be more than adequately fast even after being loaded down with as many 40mm Bofors as room could be found for, and this simply brought their speed down to the level that they could actually fight at. Most likely, the same would've been true of the Mogadors if either of them had ended up with the FNFL. So there were much worse ships out there.
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