Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Drachinifel"
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wrt the question about Naval espionage, you might like to read "Reilly, Ace Of Spies" by Robin Bruce Lockhart. There was a TV series, based on the book, produced in the early 1980s, which makes for interesting viewing. A couple of Reilly's operations: he was sent to infiltrate the B&V yard to obtain the drawings for a new model gun. He got himself hired in at the yard as a fireman, and persuaded the head of the yard fire department to gather keys for every building and office in the yard, in one place, which was accessible by the firemen. Reilly then pilfered the keys to the drafting office, and made off with the drawings. After losing most of their fleet to the Japanese, the Russians put out an RFP for a new fleet. Reilly got himself appointed the agent for B&V in Russia. Basil Zaharoff, as usual, represented Vickers. Reilly told his superiors in British intelligence, if B&V won the contract, he would forward copies of the B&V drawings to the British. The British then had an incentive to hobble Zaharoff's efforts on behalf of Vickers to obtain the intelligence. Of course, if B&V won the contract, Reilly would pocket a very large sales commission. This was not the first time the British questioned whose side Reilly was really on.
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@jonathanj8303 the Rivadavias were turbine powered dreadnoughts mounting 12-12" guns, and, apparently, the latest in US fire control technology. The US was as much concerned about any buyer flipping them for a quick profit to a major, potentially hostile, power, like Germany, as they were the Greeks having them. The Mississippis were 6 years old at the time of sale, VTE powered, with only 4-12" guns, and bog slow at 17kts. The Mississippis were pretty much a pork barrel creation, too slow and short ranged to steam with the fleet, so pretty much useless to the USN. There were some pretty blunt articles in the press about how Senator Hale had forced inferior ships on the Navy.
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@chrissouthgate4554 I don't view Ranger as a cheaper option. It was the USN's first purpose built carrier. Ranger was larger than either Hōshō or Hermes. Especially with the treaty limiting displacement, it would be foolish to waste a lot of displacement, as well as money, on concepts that may not prove out in use. Think, for instance, about the triple flying off decks that Akagi and Kaga were originally built with, and what it cost to rebuild them with single, full length, decks. Imagine if the Brits had actually built a carrier with islands on both sides of the flight deck, and what it would cost to fix that mistake. The USN was remarkably lucky the Lexingtons came out as well as they did, because the USN didn't know diddly about carriers at the time. I envision the Lexingtons accumulated a pile of change orders the size of a house as experience was gained with Langley. The cost overruns on a Lexington, alone, would have paid for Ranger.
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So Mahan advocated for bases and protection of the supply lines to those bases. Yet, just as Mahan was doing all this scribbling, the US took the Philippines and Guam, both having very nice harbors, from Spain, but the US did not take the rest of the Marianas and Carolines from Spain at the same time, leaving the door open for a hostile power to take those islands and stand astride the supply lines to Guam and the Philippines. First Germany, a nation later hostile to the US, bought those islands from Spain. Then the Japanese, later very very hostile to the US, took those islands from Germany. Then the US garrison in the Philippines was cut off and starved, because the US couldn't run the gauntlet of enemy bases to relieve the Philippines, just as Mahan warned could happen. How could the US miss something so obvious?
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Book recommendations are always welcome. What I have found is, often, reading on a topic produces more questions, because there often seem to be things left out. One fact does not knit tightly with the next fact in the narrative. How could the Washington treaty regard Hood as "post Jutland", but Tennessee and California are "pre-Jutland"? The narrative about the KGVs having 14" guns made no sense. I went through books by Garzke, Raven, and Friedman, before I was satisfied that the decision to go to 14" was driven by First Sea Lord Chatfield, and his embrace of the "more smaller guns equals more hits" theory, and I many have only picked up on that as the pivot because I have studied the row in the USN over going from 14" to 16" in 1916. Has anyone written an in-depth analysis of the story of the Greek battleship Salamis? I thumbed through Friedman on WWI naval weapons, and found that the German 30.5cm/50 mount would have fit almost perfectly, being designed for a barbette less than 1.5" smaller in diameter than what Salamis was built for. Why didn't the Germans do that? I will be chasing these questions for years.
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@PelhamExpress The Second London treaty specified a reduction in gun size to 14", effectively outlawing the 15"/42 for new construction, though the treaty did have an escalator clause permitting a return to 16" by, iirc, April 37, if any party to the previous treaties refused to sign the new one. Japan had given notice in 34 that it was dropping out of the treaty system, but the RN didn't want to wait until the April drop dead date, laying down the KGV and PoW on New Year Day of 37, the first day after the moratorium on BB construction ended. What puzzles me about the Lions, is why the Admiralty insisted on trying to reinvent the 16" gun. The UK and US were allies. The US had developed 16"/45 and 16"/50 guns in the late 30s. Seems the obvious thing to do would be for the Admiralty to send a purchase order to the USN for the required number of guns, and move on to the next issue.
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wrt reforming the USN in the 1910s. Building the standards with an eye to reengining them in the 30s for more speed would be futile, because the USN didn't update the Tennessees or Colorados during that period, when the update of the New Mexicos in 31 showed the way. A more plausible choice would be to forego the turbo-electric drive in the first place and use the space freed up by elimination of the motors and generators for larger turbines and boilers. Also, forget triple expansion engines and go straight to turbines, even if that means buying them from Parsons. Another thing would be to forget the casement mounted secondary armament. Put all the secondary armament on deck, so they can be easily replaced with modern AA during WWII. With a large increase in the budget prior to WWI, at least some of the Battle Cruisers would have been laid down, in their original 1916 design. If the USN were lucky, the hulls would have been launched in 17 to clear the building ways and further work delayed until after the war. Then, instead of converting a collier that would have had resale value, convert the incomplete BC hulls to carriers. With construction under way, in 21, they would have been exempt from the treaty as "experimental", so could be replaced whenever the USN saw fit.
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Yes, BK and Gues, they were intended as cruiser killers, just like the WWI Brit battle cruisers. They are bigger and more expensive than a CA, but, at some point, they are probably going to find themselves in a situation where they are up against real battleships, running is not an option, and they are going to get pounded, just like a CA, in spite of their extra cost to build and run. Scharnhorst did OK, until it ran into the Duke of York. Imagine what would have happened to the Lexingtons if they had been built as Battle Cruisers, and got stuck into the Solomons campaign.
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wrt the Mers-el-Kebir full battle scenario: the Bretagnes were only armed with 13.4" guns. As well as being even slower than an R class, they would be hard pressed to penetrate to the vitals of a QE or R class, while the British 15/42s would have no problem cutting through their 10" belts. Given the RN's numerical superiority in light units, plus it's heavier guns, plus speed advantage, it sounds like a slaughter if the entire French squadron stood out to engage. Were I the French commander, out of respect for French human life, I think I would have the Bretanges stay in port and provide covering fire, while the Dunkerques and DDs run at high speed. Leaving Valiant and Resolution in their wake would even the odds, if the RN wanted to make a running fight of it, while the crews of the Bretagnes could swim to shore.
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@gregorywright4918 the lack of bases and drydocks was the vulnerability of the "thruster" plan exposed in 34. There was no way to repair damage suffered steaming past the mandates to reinforce the Philippines, and the force would need to steam past the mandates again to get to the facilities at Pearl. The King George dock in Singapore was not completed until the late 30s, and it was captured by the Japanese. Neither of the docks at Cockatoo Island could accommodate the largest battleships and carriers. It wasn't until the Cook dock was completed in 45 that Sydney could repair anything afloat. The buildup of the Philippine military should have started as soon as the islands became a commonwealth, with it's own civilian government, in 35. The Philippine military was woefully under-equipped. Apparently, they had M1917 Enfields. We made over 2M of those rifles, so there had to be large numbers of them available in US inventory. The army was extremely short of artillery. The US had provided a few WWI 75mm guns, but hundreds more of those guns were in inventory. The Philippine air force had 48 P-35s. The Air Corps was replacing 36s with 40s and B--18s with 17s and 25s, so 36s and 18s could have been provided. The Air Corps decided it didn't like dive bombers, so the A-17s were retired in 38, when only a couple years old. The A-17s could have been provided. The other shortfall was training. Instead of keeping the Philippine Scouts concentrated in US Army units, the Scouts could have been reformed into training cadres and used to train the Philippine troops. If bringing the Philippine forces up to scratch had begun in earnest as soon as the "thruster" plan was found to not be viable, then the only US personnel left in the islands would have been at Subic, a number small enough to be evacuated with the USN surface elements. At the end of the day, if relief didn't come in six months, Filipino soldiers could ditch their uniforms, blend in to the civilian population, and wage a guerilla war for years. Blending in to the civilian population was not an option for an American, so those men were doomed.
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@igooooorrrrr the Wiki entry for Dreadnought says she cost 1,785,683 GB Pounds to build. That converts to about 8,598,849 US Dollars. When Dreadnought was sold for scrap in 1921, US newspapers reported the selling price as $176,000, so scrap price was about 2% of the build price. These days, it seems the USN nearly has to pay to get breakers to take old ships off it's hands. The USN sold Kitty Hawk to the breakers for 1 cent, vs a build cost of $264M in 1961, which equates to $2.5B now.
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@michaelmacleod7051 yes, the WNT specifically prohibited sale of condemned ships. If the UK had sold Erin to Chile, in place of Almirante Cochrane, which was in mid-morph to HMS Eagle, that would have happened in April 1920, coincident with the sale of HMS Canada to Chile, and prior to the treaty. It crossed my mind that Italy's battleship force after the treaty, which included four pre-dreadnoughts and the salvaged hulk of Da Vinci, listed as front line battleships, was insulting enough to justify Erin or one of the condemned Orions or KGVs to be offered at scrap price, to replace Da Vinci, but that didn't happen.
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A two part question about the two surviving Littorio class battleships: first part: the Wiki entry notes both had been significantly damaged prior to the Italian surrender. Was that damage repaired at any point? Second part: we have all heard about how President Roosevelt promised Stalin a significant part of the Italian fleet, and the Soviets were a bit put out when they were handed worn out US and UK castoffs instead. After the surrender, the Littorios sat at Malta, then at Alexandria, then in the Great Bitter Lake, until after the end of the war, then they were handed to the US and UK, then scrapped. What was the problem with handing those two battleships to the Soviets in 44? It is only two ships, arguably obsolete by 1944. If there was concern about post-war hostilities with the Soviets, US and UK naval air and sub forces were so large that, if the Soviets went off the reservation with the battleships, the ship's life expectancy would be measured in days. I don't see the point in reneging on FDR's promise.
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@brendonbewersdorf986 The first thought that comes to my mind, would a Japanese designed ship have enough interior room for tall Germans? I'm barely 6', and there were places in the Lex where I did not have a huge surplus of headroom below the ducts, pipes, and conduits, hanging from the overhead. Are Japanese ships designed for smaller people? Second issue is the timeline. Even if Germany and Japan signed their treaty earlier than September 40, the Graf was laid down in December 36, while Zuikaku was laid down in May of 38. Would the Germans break up the Graf on the slipway, and start over? We would need to push the timeline for the alliance back to 34, when Japan gave notice it was dropping out of the treaty system, a year after the Nazis came to power, and are preparing a naval building program, and coincident with the rebuilds of Akagi and Kaga, so that IJN officials could provide advice to the Nazis, before the Graf was laid down. But, even in that fortuitous set of circumstances, Nazi leadership would be the same, so I suspect that even a Graf of sound design would end up exactly the same as the historical one.
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I don't think you can go by the number of guns being built, because it is routine to produce many more guns than needed to populate the turrets when the ship is built, so that replacement guns are readily available when the original guns need to be relined or are damaged in some manner. Total number of 15" guns mounted in ships: (40) in QEs, (40) in Rs, (12) in Renowns, (8) in Courageouses, (8) in Hood, (8) in monitors, for a total of 116. According to Wiki, 186 were built. Whether Agincourt was intended as a QE, or a proto-Hood, it probably would have used (4) turrets, implying that, from the cancelled Rs plus Agincourt, there should have been (16) Mk I turrets in inventory, but I can only account for (14): (6) on the Renowns, (4) on the Courageouses, (2) on Erebus class monitors and the final (2) landing on the Roberts class monitors in 1940. But that is inconclusive too, because there could have been more turrets in process that were never completed when the four battleships were canceled in 1914.
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Thanks for your thoughts on the twin DP 4". On a Facebook group, recently, I proposed doing a mass "austere" update on all of the QEs and Rs, replacing all the casemate 6", with twin 4"., rather than spending so many resources on the more expensive rebuilds if QE, and Valiant, leaving the other ships unable to mount a credible AA defense. I credit their lack of AA as the primary reason Repulse, and, later, all of the Revenges, were banished to the Indian Ocean.
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@WALTERBROADDUS yes, I would expect a significant working up time. Before Richelieu joined the RN force in the Indian Ocean, she worked with the Home Fleet for five months after her refit in the US. My favorite scenario is where Richelieu and Jean Bart make for the UK, rather than North Africa when France falls. And both Dunkerques just happen to be in the Atlantic and make for the UK as well. Over the following months, the French ships are reequipped with UK AA armament and exercise with the Home Fleet. When Bismark tries to break out, the three French ships make for the Denmark Strait, because they are faster, while KGV and PoW make for the closer Faroe Islands channel. The obsolete battlecruisers serve as a backup in case Bismark breaks through the first line. Of course, for the French ships to serve willingly with the RN in 41 would require Reynaud to skip across the channel, set up a government in exile, and denounce collaborators like Petain and Darlan.
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@gildor8866 14" production was certainly on stride. By June of 16, the guns for Idaho had been delivered, the guns for New Mexico and Mississippi were being proof fired, and the turret mounts were being assembled at the Naval Gun Factory. By June of 17, all the 14" for Tennessee and California were expected to be completed by October. However, by June 1917, the turrets for the Tennessees were still in design. Then priorities changed and resources were funneled into freighters and DDs. As for the ships, there was not a lot of daylight between the two classes. Maryland was laid down a month before Tennessee, so, at the time Maryland was laid down, they must have anticipated having the 16" guns ready in time.
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@RedXlV If it's any consolation, the 1919 edition of Jane's calls them "Maryland" class, and the preceding class the "California" class. If you look at what those two yards were building before the Colorados, New York Shipbuilding laid down Idaho on Jan 20, 1915, while Newport News laid down Mississippi on April 5, 1915, so New York Shipbuilding should have launched Idaho first, so the slipway would have been clear for Colorado before Newport News launched Mississippi on Jan 25, 1917. If New York shipbuilding had taken the same amount of time on Idaho as Newport News took on Mississippi, Idaho would have launched in October of 16, so, given the same lag Newport News had between the two ships, Colorado would have been laid down, in January 1917, 3 months ahead of Maryland, and all would be right with the world. The Navy probably did not allow for New York Shipbuilding taking so long on Idaho when the hull numbers for Maryland and Colorado were set.
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@kemarisite I suspect what made the semi-fixed ammo for the 5"/38 workable was the power rammer. iirc, shell and charge are dumped in the loading tray and rammed together., vs loading shell and charge separately on the 5"/51. That is what gave the 5"/38 the rate of fire equal to a gun with fixed ammo. I did an exercise where the USN used the twin 4"/50 mount that was installed on a few DDs experimentally, in place of each 5"/51 on a BB. The results were interesting. Then I did an exercise where the 4" is cut down to 45 caliber, converted to a sliding breech, and installed on the twin, dual-purpose, British Mi XIX mount they used with their 4", in place of the 5"/51-5"/25 combination USN BBs had in the 30s. Even more fascinating results. I have read that Jackie Fisher was an advocate of more smaller, rapid fire, guns, for a secondary, rather than the 6" casemate mounts then common on RN capital ships. The ships Jackie had a personal hand in, the Renowns and Courageouses, both had 4" secondaries. My hypothetical USN 4" exercises indicate Jackie might have had a point.
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