Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Drydock - Episode 094" video.

The postwar USN conversions of (mostly) Fletchers and Sumner/Gearing class destroyers to DDE's were a decent simulation of a "razee" conversion. The main gun armament was generally reduced to a pair of 5"/38 guns and no light armament, or one/two pairs of 40mm Bofors. They usually lost their torpedoes as well, the tonnage added back in with the then secret hull mounted sonar. That was quite a significant decrease in surface capabilities compared to four, five, or six 5"/38 guns, anywhere between twelve and sixteen 40mm Bofors, and four to eight torpedo tubes. The general failure of those conversions was demonstrated by the number converted back to normal fleet destroyers after only a few years.
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I've never understood the USN's step backwards with unprotected AA mounts from during WWII and then postwar. They entered the war with the typical .50 caliber and 3" guns just mounted on decks in totally unprotected mounts. War experience rapidly showed why that was a bad idea, so most mounts were at least enclosed in gun tubs rising to about chest level, the tubs protected by a combination of steel and so-called "plastic" armor. That was really a layer of common asphalt, offering decent protection while being easy top roll out, even for ship refits. 20 mm guns almost always had a forward gun shield in addition to the tub while 40 mm Bofors went from no protection except for the tub to a very stout, nearly wraparound, shield by war's end. Postwar, they went backwards, with the 3"/50RF Marks 27, 33 and 34 back to generally unprotected mounts except for the gun tubs. Because of the height of gun's base, the crews were exposed mostly above the protection of the tub. A few classes did have the guns enclosed in a turret when they were the main armament. An example were the Courtney class DE's of the 1950's, with the forward 3"50 guns enclosed in a turret while the aft guns were once again only protected by a gun tub of inadequate height.
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@WALTERBROADDUS Right, but the DDE experiment showed you can go too far in vessel specialization. The DDE conversions were done in the early 50's, when the threat from Soviet aircraft hadn't gone away, and surface action was likely to be with guns since SSM's really hadn't become common. War games in 1q954 and 1955 showed the DDE's were likely to be overwhelmed and sunk by either aircraft or other surface vessels, since they didn't retain enough capability to deal with either. Some of tonnage from the deleted gun mounts was given over the Weapon Alpha, not our most successful antisubmarine rocket system. The development of ASROC showed the Gearing class was about the only one with space and tonnage available to mount one, and then only after the hugely extensive FRAM rebuilds. Even most of the FRAMs only lost one twin mount, and some retained all six. The other DDE's were quickly restored to standard destroyer configuration
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@MagnusVictor2015 You lost me a bit on this one. There was no reason to expect that ships wouldn't have been subjected to the same kinds of strafing and bombing attacks that happened during the war. The biggest change was adding air to surface missiles to the mix. I think you misunderstood Drach. Adding armor shields or turrets to exposed gun positions was never because falling remnants of AA rounds was a huge problem, although they did kill and injure crew on occasion, especially in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign. The splinters we're both talking about are from the remnants of those larger shells and falling bombs. As they hit decks and superstructures, they broke the steel into hundreds and sometimes thousand of small pieces ranging from several hundred pounds to little bits the size of a sewing needle. These were the big risks to gun crews. The splinter shield were not just the thin sheets of steel you apparently think they were. They had to be capable of defeating these sometimes large and heavy "splinters", something of a misnomer, since most of us think of splinters as something you get from a piece wood. The name does originate from the days of sail, when cannon balls shot the superstructure to pieces, sending wood splinters flying.The wraparound shield used on late war 40 mm quad mounts weighed about 4 tons, nearly half the weight of the actual guns themselves. Even the front shield on a 20 mm gun was half inch thick steel that weighed nearly 200 pounds. It was even thicker and covered more of the mount once power operated twin mountings were introduced, since shield weight on the single guns was limited by the need to make them free swinging due to their manual operation. The goal of the combination of gun tubs and shields was to keep those splinters from getting into the mount and injuring and killing crews. Many of the injuries to exposed crew wasn't from direct hits from bombs or shells, it was those splinters flying around. If you could protect gun crews from those, it was more likely they'd continue operating their guns rather than being flat on the deck avoiding splinters. If it's apparent to you I really didn't understand your question, please restate it and I'll give it another try.
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@MagnusVictor2015 Once we left the biplane era, attacks with 50 pound bombs just didn't happen. Even 100 pound bombs were generally limited to planes like the Wildcat and others that had a limited bomb capacity. Dauntless dive bombers routinely carried 1,000 and 1,500 pound bombs, and the Helldiver could carry a 2,000 pound bomb in the internal bombay and two 500 pound bombs underwing. Corsairs could carry 4,000 pounds of bombs. Japanese planes were carrying carrying repurposed 8" and 16" shells as bombs. Bombing by naval aircraft wasn't just a bunch of tiny bombs. A lot of our ships did take hits from 1,500 to 2,500 pound bombs, not mentions kamikazes. The big risk today is antiship missiles, but the person I'm writing about is postwar into the late 50's. The types of aerial shipping attacks then weren't any different than the late war period.
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