Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Drachinifel"
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@bkjeong4302 in defense of the Iowas, when they came into service, there were still several IJN BBs running around, and the Iowas could have earned their keep, if they had been in the right place at the right time. In one of my alternate histories. the tonnage increase to 45,000 tons would be written into the Second London treaty, like so many articles erroneously say, instead of being negotiated between the UK and US in 38. Then the USN would skip the slow tubs of the North Carolina and South Dakota classes, build 6 Iowas, which would start commissioning in 41, when they would have had plenty to shoot at.
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@bkjeong4302 Given the multiple battles in the Solomons, the Iowas would have looked useful when they were building in 42, but not so useful, in addition to the NCs and SDs, to carry on with Illinois and Kentucky, which were suspended in later 42. wrt Samar, there is a narrative that Halsey was supposed to leave the BBs behind when he started his run to the decoy group, but brought them along to realize his fever dream of having the BBs finish off what the air group had not already sunk. The decoy group only had two big gun ships. Halsey could have brought the two Iowas along, as they had the virtue of being able to keep up with the carriers, to do the mopping up, while leaving the four 28kt tubs behind so they wouldn't slow him up. That leaves Taffy 3 in the warm company, of Alabama, Massachusetts, South Dakota and Washington, when Kurita's posse comes over the horizon. That would have been interesting: Yamato, the biggest dude on the block, Nagato being pretty decent, and Kongo and Haruna with glass jaws, squaring off against 4 USN ships with state of the art fire control, while the Taffy 3 air group throws everything but the kitchen sink at them. I bet Halsey would have been pissed he missed it.
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@timengineman2nd714 the full text of the treaties is on line. I read the replacement sequence off of the WNT. The treaty required the older ships to be decommissioned when the new ships entered service, three years after they were laid down, so, technically, as the drawdowns from First London only gave the USN 68kt of headroom, theoretically, Arkansas would need to be decommissioned when Washington commissioned in May of 41, but, by then, events had made the treaties irrelevant. As an exercise, I considered what if the USN had taken a page from the Admiralty's book in April 1917, and cancelled outright BBs that had been ordered, but not laid down, as the Admiralty cancelled three Rs and a QE. That would mean Tennessee and all the Colorados would never be built. To fill the USN's 525,000t quota, the USN would have needed to retain not only the South Carolinas, but also three of the pre-dreadnought Connecticut class. Being saddled with such hopelessly obsolete ships, the USN would probably be granted licenses for future construction, as France and Italy were, but would Coolidge have spent the money?
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@pyronuke4768 I found an interesting clause in Second London: minimum values for a "capital ship": 17,000 tons and 10" guns. Anything smaller than than runs into the maximums for a cruiser: 10,000 tons and 8" guns. Second London does not explicitly limit the number of ships of a type, but the limit, is implicit, as the only mention of an exception to replacing ships when they age out, by the rules of the treaty, is when a ship is lost or destroyed by accident. Germany's Panzerschiff were exempt, because Germany was not a party to the naval treaty system when they were built. The Panzerschiff complied with the limits imposed by the Versailles treaty. Another factor is how much the county's industrial base for building warships had deteriorated between the wars. To complete the KGVs, between 40 and 42, they had to order the 14" guns in December 35. Some of the armor for the KGVs had to be contracted out to a company in Czechoslovakia. A couple weeks ago, I fired up SpringSharp to see what I could come up with, if the Admiralty had kept the armor and 13.5" armament when the Iron Dukes were scrapped, and needed something quick and cheap. I used the length and beam of Renown, deepened the draft 3 feet to improve beam strength of the hull, installed a KGV power plant, as it was already designed and in production, 5" deck armor, assuming it was bought out, maybe US STS, with 4 Iron Duke main turrets and the Iron Duke belt armor. The Iron Duke belt was skimpy, a narrow 12" band at the waterline, with 8" above. Outside of the skimpy belt, it worked out really well. SpringSharp gave a top speed of 29kts, stable gun platform, good sea boat, roomy and comfortable for the crew. The displacement came out over your 25,000. It was somewhere in the low 30s, within treaty limits. With your 25,000 limit, you will probably come up with something like Dunkerque. Roughly the same armor, armament, and speed, as my "HMS Expendable", but Dunkerque had the compromised armament layout, and everything was custom made and, thus, optimal, but expensive. Mine has a more flexible 2 twin turrets at each end, and is quick and cheap to build due to extensive use of existing material.
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@pyronuke4768 I understand what you are going for. We have to be mindful of the existing constraints. If you wait until the haggis hits the fan, to render the treaty irrelevant, you end up with something like the Alaskas, ordered in 40, but, by the time they are in commission, almost all of the IJN cruisers they were intended to kill had already been sunk. We need something that can commission in 40-41, which means it must be started during Second London. The RN was in a good position to build a lot of capital ships, except it didn't have the industrial capacity anymore. Second London said capital ships age out at 26 years. That means the RN can commission one ship in 40, two in 41, and 8 in 42. The UK only had the capacity to build the 5 KGVs new, from the keel up, not the 11 ships they could have commissioned. In the USN, Arkansas aged out in 38, the New Yorks in 40, and the Nevadas in 42, a total of 5, but, over that period, the US built 2 North Carolinas and 4 South Dakotas, so, looking at the situation from 1937, they had no more "replaceable" ships. The Italians, if they were abiding by Second London, could have called Roma and Impero replacements for two Cavours, leaving the two Dorias eligible to be replaced in 42. If you want to be Japanese, Russian or Dutch, you can do anything you want. The material you can buy from other countries would probably be limited by national security concerns of the selling countries. You are unlikely to be able to buy the latest and greatest guns and high pressure power plants from anyone you wish. Example, Vanguard was laid down 2 years after the South Dakotas, but Vanguard's plant ran at 350psi, rather than the 600psi of the South Dakota plant. There is also a logistics problem Different country's guns use different propellant. When the Admiralty bought some US made 14" in 1914, they had to buy US smokeless powder for them through the war. They tried RN cordite, but saw a significant loss of muzzle velocity and range. If you want to be the USN, you need to wait until Congress decided to ignore the treaty limits in mid 38. Then grab as much off the shelf hardware as possible, to speed construction, so they are in commission in 41. The USN had an abundance of new 14"/50s on the shelf. Maybe combine some of them with a 120,000hp Hornet powerplant. I have great fun with alt history scenarios, but, I dig into the details to see what was realistically possible.
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@snakeplissken2018 that thought crossed my mind too. The Yamatos, Nagato, and the Kongos were together with the Fusos at Brunei. They all set sail on October 22. It would have been easy to switch assignments so that BB Division 1, the Yamatos and Nagato, went through Surigao, while the Fusos and Kongos form the center force. Only thing that comes to mind that would cause an objection to that alignment would be the speed difference between the Fusos and Kongos. Of the US battleships at Surigao, only two, West Virginia and Maryland, had 16" guns. I would put the Yamatos at the head of the column to break trail, presuming they can take the most damage, while they deal with the US line. That would leave Nagato, no pushover itself, relatively undamaged, to get at the beachhead. Of course, it would have also helped if Shima's force of cruisers and destroyers had coordinated better, so they could deal with the US DDs and PTs before they got a crack at the Japanese battleships.
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@Pavlos_Charalambous iirc, the British naval advisors to Greece were recommending they buy more torpedo boats and destroyers, instead of sinking so much money into one or two big ships, but seems the politicians had other ideas. I read about how, when ordering Salamis, the Greek PM authorized a ship with three turrets that, iirc, could fit in the drydock. As soon as the PM was out of the country for a few days, a handful of movers and shakers in Parliament sent Vulcan a change order for the larger, more expensive, more heavily armed version that was actually built. When the PM arrived back in Greece and saw what they did, he tried to reverse the change order but Vulcan refused to allow the reversal. Vulcan really tended to play hardball with Greece. In 1912, Greece needed new destroyers desperately. They bought two V-class ships that Vulcan had built for the German navy, but, to compensate Vulcan for having to schedule two more Vs for the German navy, Vulcan required Greece to buy more torpedo boats. That is something I noticed about the battles of Elli and Lemnos: the Greek torpedo boats were a non-factor. I gather the Aetos class had empty tubes. The Niki and Thyella class ships must have had torpedoes on board. But the only Greek torpedo attacks I see mentioned are a couple raids in harbor, sinking an Ottoman ironclad that had been pretty much reduced to a hulk, and a gunboat, and the torpedo boats used on those occasions seem to be the oldest ones in Greek inventory.
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@davidlow8104 Drac has commented in the past that the IJN's building program was unsustainable due to the projected budget consuming so much of government revenue, so the IJN program would collapse of it's own weight. The US was demanding repayment, in full, of it's ally's war debt. When the depression hit, France immediately defaulted. The UK and Italy made partial payments as best they could, until Congress passed legislation that defined partial payment as a default, punishable by the same sanctions. With nothing to lose, the UK and Italy stopped making payments entirely. From that, I take that the five powers that were parties to the treaty were all under significant financial stress in 1930. Converting an existing battlecruiser to a carrier is very expensive. Converting Courageous to a carrier cost some 2M GBP, about the same as the cost to originally build her as a "large light cruiser". Building Ark Royal, from the keel up, cost 3M GBP, for a more capable ship with a larger air group. Converting an old battlecruiser to a carrier would have the same capacity restrictions as the Courageouses and Lexingtons, as well as the cost of an entire new powerplant: replacing direct drive turbines with geared turbines, replacing coal fired boilers with oil fired, converting coal bunkers to oil tanks, adding torpedo protection. The four G3s would barely be enough to replace the coal fired battlecruisers that survived the war, so I would expect the Renowns and Hood to be retained as they were. Likewise, the four N3s would barely replace the 12" armed dreadnoughts, let alone the 13.5" armed Orions, KGVs, and Iron Dukes The fleet size drawdown motivated by the state of the economy and the hypothetical 1930 treaty would probably see the last of the coal fired ships scrapped, rather than see any of them converted to carriers.
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Washington Treaty era alt history. Right in Steve's wheelhouse. Historical basis: The 1916 Navy Bill had a cost limit on the first four BBs, which we know as the Colorados. There was no cost limit on the following six BBs, which we know as the South Dakotas. USN priorities changed when the US entered the war, and capital ships were put on the back burner. In June 1918, Congress included an amendment in the annual Navy Bill, requiring the Navy Department to make a start on the ships authorized in 16, but not yet started. That would be the three remaining Colorados, Lexingtons and South Dakotas. SecNav Daniels proceeded per plan.
The Steve alt: Daniels says the 42,000 ton design, which Congress had approved, made the Colorados obsolete, so building the remaining three would be a waste. He proposes completing Maryland with 14"/50s, as BuOrd head Strauss had ordered them in quantity far in excess of need. Skip the 16"/45, and go straight to the 16"/50, laying down the South Dakotas as soon as practicable. There is a South Dakota class drawing dated 5-3-18, planned to be laid down in 1919. That drawing shows the ships with a displacement of 42,500 tons. 400 tons of that being reserve boiler feed water, and 1600 was fuel, which were omitted from treaty displacement calculations. Historically, the UK was willing to accept an individual ship displacement of 42,000 tons, due to Hood, so the South Daktoas, per the 1918 drawing, are golden. The final construction drawings for the South Dakotas are dated April 25, 1919, approved by Franklin Roosevelt, as "acting" SecNav. So we are looking at them being laid down in late 1919, at the earliest. There is no way they would be complete before the treaty, just as the three later Colorados were not complete, historically.
Japan demands to be allowed to complete Tosa, because of Hood, giving Japan three "post-Jutland" ships with 16" guns, one being of 40,000-ish tons. Given the 5:5:3 ratio, that would mean the US could complete 5 of the South Dakotas, but Japan objects to the US having that many ships of that size, and the US doesn't want to spend that much money. The compromise reached is the US completes two South Dakotas, and is allowed to up-gun Maryland, Tennessee, and California to the 16"/45, if it wants to, giving the US 5 "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships. The UK is then allowed to build one ship of up to 42,000 tons, and 3 32-35,000-ish ton "post-Jutland", 16" armed, ships.
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@dimhal7840 You can get a feel for the effectiveness of axis AA by reading Ralph Barker's "Ship-Busters", published in the US as a Ballantine paperback "Torpedo Bomber". The book primarily covers RAF Beaufort ops, with an occasional mention of Swordfish. Losses to axis ship-borne AA were horrific. When the Scharnhorsts made their run up the channel, the first formation to attack them were a half dozen Swordfish. The stringbags were wiped out by German AA fire, with only 5 crewmen surviving and picked up by British MTBs. Beauforts suffered heavy losses in both the Med and North Sea, until they hit on the idea of bringing along some Beaufighters to strafe the ships to suppress AA fire while the torpedo planes made their attack. The man that really developed Beaufort tactics was Pat Gibbs (later Wing Commander, DSO, DFC and bar) who developed the tactics while commanding a squadron on Malta. He ended up launching mass attacks of Beauforts with torpedoes, strafing Beaufighters and Blenheims dropping bombs, all at the same time, to overwhelm the Italian convoy escorts.
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@bkjeong4302 I can certainly see a scenario where they build four Kiis, rather than any Tosas or Amagis. Yes, if the Tosas had not been laid down, that would leave the slipways at Kawasaki and Mitsubishi available for Atago and Takao at the same time as Amagi and Akagi were laid down, so there would be better alternatives to Kaga, when Amagi was wrecked. But would the IJN do that, with a doctrine that called for both battlecruisers and battleships? The last iteration of the Lexingtons was spawned after SecNav Daniels and his entourage inspected Hood on a junket to Europe in early 1919. If the Japanese had made a similar inspection of Hood, they may have made the leap in doctrine to the fast battleship in 1919, cancelled the Tosas and Amagis, and gone straight to the Kiis, I have noticed, everything I see indicates the Kiis were little more than up-armored Amagis, so the doctrinal leap to the fast battleship may have been made over a very short time span.
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@MrTScolaro yes, that was the case, and the rebuilt 16"/45 could do some damage. They could punch through Yamashiro's 12" belt at that range. I finished watching that video yesterday, and found a discrepancy. The slide in the video shows the 14" penetrating 17" of armor at 16,000 yards, which is what Wiki says. Navweaps quotes two different sources saying that gun could only penetrate 13", which would mean that the 14"/45 was barely adequate at the Admiralty doctrine dictated 16,000 yards, and not up to the job of landing a kill shot beyond that. The penetration of the US North Carolina 16"/45 is understated in the slide, according to Navweaps too. The number cited, iirc 16.7" is close to the 16"/45 mounted on the Colorados. Per Navweaps, the Mk 6 guns the North Carolinas carried could penetrate over 20" at 15,000. I have asked around for another source for penetration data on the 14"/45 and come up empty, so far. The only other reasonably modern 14" at that time to compare were the US rebuilt 14"/50s, which has a muzzle velocity 200fps higher than the 14"/45 and could only penetrate, 16.76" at 15,000. How the British gun, with a lower muzzle velocity, penetrate more, at longer range? I would love to see a credible source.
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wrt future proofing BBs. The Brits leveraged the Washington treaty to future proof their fleet. Of the ships retained by the RN, all except Tiger mounted 15" guns. The USN Tennessee, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New York classes only had 14" and the Wyomings and Floridas only mounted 12". And, because of the replacement schedule in the treaty, it would be 1941 before the US could replace the last of it's 14" gunned ships. Additionally, the Brits wangled a fleet far above it's quota, while the USN was nearly dead on. The quota was 525,000 tons each for the RN and USN. With the Nelsons, the RN ended up with 558,950 tons, while the USN only had 525,850. If the USN had completed Washington, instead of using it for target practice, the USN would have had 558.450 tons, the parity with the RN the USN was supposed to have, but no, couldn't do that. Wow did the US get rogered. Supposed to have parity with the RN, but, in reality, USN tonnage down a complete BB compared to the RN and locked into smaller guns for 20 years. The Japanese were pretty ill used too. Their quota was 315,000 tons, but their retention list totaled only 301,320. To maintain the 5:5:3 ratio to the RN, the IJN should have been allowed an additional 20,370 tons. for a total of 335,370, not enough for Tosa, which exceeded the 35,000/ship tonnage limit, but enough for another Nagato. Future proofing via lawyers.
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@redrust3 the original Lexingtons had the same number of boilers as Hood, 24, but the design also had turbo-electric drive, which requires a lot more space than Hood's geared turbines, and the original Lexington design was about 13 feet narrower than Hood, because USN scouting group doctrine dictated 35kts, rather than the 32kts of Hood. All added up to an excruciatingly cramped hull, which, combined with the TE drive, necessitated an extremely unorthodox boiler arrangement, which played havoc with the boiler uptake arrangement. It's something, how Vickers could come up with a functional design for Kongo, the Brits could design Hood, and with those ships showing the way, the USN created that mess.
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As others have noted, the Cordite propellant the Vickers used was susceptible to degradation from heat. I have also read that, in the engagement where the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk, the Vickers were constantly jamming, put down to deterioration of the ammunition due to the heat and humidity. With that vulnerability, the Vickers would not have been a good choice in the Solomons campaign. Then there is the short range issue, which the Brits tried to address with a "high velocity" version of the gun, but the HV version still wasn't all that high velocity. The Vickers did seem to have something of a renaissance late in the war, where range was not such an issue when shooting at kamikazes and they threw enough steel to knock down a plane in a hurry, something the Oerlikon was deficient at. One other thing was reload time. The Vickers had huge magazines, which, when they ran dry, required a crane to replace, while you could simply keep stuffing more clips into the Bofors loader.
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