Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Drydock - Episode 126" video.

Merry Navymas to all the ship lovers here. It's always the high point of my week when Drach fights his way through Rain, snow, and the gloom of covid to bring us another Drydock.
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I wonder if there was any class of ship with only three members that differed from one another more than the Colorado class after rebuilding? They also may have been the unluckiest battleships and, in the case of the West Virginia , the most expensive battleship rebuild ever, while the other two class members retained their lattice foremasts right up until the end of the war. The class really had many superlatives, almost none of them good.
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@CSSVirginia West Virginia is one I'm certain was a total waste. It was a hullup rebuild that took three years (including the time to raise her and make her seaworthy enough to get to the mainland), making her the equivalent of a slow South Dakota in terms of secondary armament and electronics. In pictures, except for the four twin 16" turrets, she is a near twin of South Dakota . She then proceeded to damage a prop and shaft by grounding and get hit by a kamikaze, all within her first six months of recommissioning.. We got less than a year's use out of her before she was sent into reserve, never to sail again. I suspect her rebuilding was a way for the USN to shake a fist at Japan rather than a rational decision.
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@MrTScolaro West Virginia had the most advanced fire control radars of any ship in the navy. She also had well trained radar operators and gunnery officers that understood radar and how to use it. Not to diminish their marksmanship, but if any ship was going to make that kind of hit, it should have been West Virginia .
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@MrTScolaro The West Virginia was the only old battleship to mount the Mk 8 fire control system, a more accurate main battery radar than the Mk 1 used by the other battleships. She got this most advanced radar because she was the last battleship to be completely reconstructed after Pearl Harbor. While California and Tennessee also received the Mk 8, her crews were still undergoing training. the Wee Vee crew having been trained ashore while the reconstruction was carried out. I guess the more accurate way to have made my point was no only did they have the most advanced FC radar, they had a crew that knew how to use it, particularly at night, while the other two ships were still working up with it at the time of the battle. The Wee Vee was essentially a brand new battleship except for machinery when she was put back in service. California was similarly rebuilt (although with slightly less advanced GFCS radars), and I'd make the same point about her. It was a huge aniubt of money to spend on a ship that, with the exception of one engagement, was used only for shore bombardment and fire support. With the large numbers of Baltimore and Cleveland class cruisers available, not to mention the cheaper and more austere rebuilds of Wee Vee's sisters, that we just didn't get much return on investment from her. There were also the ten modern battleships available at the time. Did we really need West Virginia ? I'll let you be the judge of that, but my two cents is no, we didn't, and the money could have been better spent on aircraft carriers.
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