Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 007" video.

  1. It was also put forward as a rationale that if the US built fast battleships, it would render the entire fleet of Standards obsolete. That's why the Lexingtons were designed as battlecruisers with almost nonexistent armor instead of as fast battleships. Admiral William Sims pointed out that this was idiotic, and that the entire fleet of Standards was already obsolete on account of Britain building HMS Hood. It was only because of the Washington Naval Treaty that Britain and Japan were cut off from building more vast battleships like G3 and No. 13 that would've outclassed USN BBs in speed, armor, and firepower. And yet the General Board somehow thought that if they ignored the fast battleships of other navies, they would just go away.
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  2. Officially Hood was a battlecruiser. But then, British understanding of "battlecruiser" was already evolving into what we now know as the fast battleship by the time Hood was laid down. They'd recognized the shortcomings of their existing battlecruisers and the merits of Germany's better-armored ones, and adapted their designs to those lessons. Just look at the Royal Navy's follow-up to Hood, the G3 battlecruiser. If built, that would've been a ship approximating the same size and speed as the latter Iowa-class BBs and even had somewhat better armor (improvements in metallurgy notwithstanding).
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  3. With regard to HMS Tiger, I have to wonder why didn't the Royal Navy keep her in service as a dedicated cruiser-killer? At the very same time she was being decommissioned and sold for scrap, Germany was building the Deutschland-class cruisers. And there was quite a bit of worry in Britain about how the threat they posed as commerce raiders. So it seems odd that they would immediately retire one of only 4 ships in their fleet that was both faster and more powerful than Deutschland. Obviously, the London Naval Treaty required some capital ships to be scrapped (or as in Iron Duke's case, demilitarized as a training ship) to comply with the tonnage limits. But surely Tiger would've been more useful than HMS Revenge, which was both in worse material condition than Tiger as of 1930 and more limited in her ability to be modernized.
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  4. It'd a pity, though. I'd have loved to see how a rebuilt Tiger would've stacked up against the rebuilt Kongos. They were such similar ships to begin with, after all. I also wonder whether a rebuilt Tiger would've swapped out the 13.5-inch guns for 14-inch. I seem to recall reading that the BL 14 inch Mk VII had been designed specifically so that they could fit into Iron Duke's remaining 3 turrets for testing, even though ultimately they were just tested on land before being installed in King George V. While that would've been a major added expense to a refit, it would also simplify logistics. Had Tiger been kept in service, she would've had to either be permanently assigned to the Home Fleet (13.5-inch shells remained in stock in the British Isles for railway and coastal guns), or naval bases abroad would've needed to stock those shells for the use of a single ship. I suppose that could've actually been a factor in retiring Tiger and the Iron Dukes, even though I would rate them as overall better ships than the Rs despite their smaller guns. Certainly more upgrade potential to their hulls. But it's not as if the Royal Navy had any way of knowing that Parliament would mandate they adopt a smaller gun for the 2nd London Naval Treaty.
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