Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  18. The Italians being able to develop the Libyan oil fields in the 30s is a nightmare scenario. First, the Germans would have recognized that their war effort would be greatly aided by that oil, and Libya would have been far more stoutly defended, as João Rita posted. For openers, imagine an Italian fleet with unlimited fuel and aggressively lead, with cover from land based air. Early in the war, the RN was still trying to defend their interests in the far east, as well as patrolling the North Atlantic against German capital ships, so the odds against the Italians are not as overwhelming as they would appear on paper. The choke point between Sicily and Tunisia could have been one intensively defended point of obstructing Brit supplies to Egypt and squadrons of torpedo and dive bombers could have been based in Italian occupied Ethiopia to make supplying Egypt via the Red Sea equally problematic. I can see the Brits pushed/starved out of Egypt. A defensive line from Aqaba to Gaza looks appealing, but, with the Italian fleet dominating the eastern Med, that line could easily be outflanked. The Brits would probably have to pull back to a line from Basra to the Turkish border to defend the Iranian oil fields, where were being developed at that time. The Germans would probably move to preemptively occupy Algeria and Morocco to vigorously oppose any attempted landing, which would make the Libyan oil fields immune to air attack from the west. Axis occupation of all of North Africa would also make the Ploiesti oil fields out of range of air attack.
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  22. wrt the collapse of the naval treaties, Japan gave formal notice in 1934 that they would drop out of the treaty system at the expiration of First London, at the end of 36. Italy did not participate in the Second London treaty, due to the other parties being upset about Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. The Washington Treaty had licensed France to build up to 70,000 tons of battleships, beginning in 27 and 29, and that license was good until used, not subject to the continuation of the freeze on BB construction in the first London treaty. Dunkerque and Strasbourg used some 53,000 of the 70,000 ton allotment, so, when Richelieu was laid down in October of 35, it put France blatantly in violation of the treaty. Bottom line, by the time the Second London conference started, the US and UK were the only powers trying to comply with the treaty at all. The US insisted on the gun size escalator, to be triggered in April 37, if any party to the treaty system had not signed on to the Second London treaty. As Japan had given notice two years earlier that it would drop out of the treaty system, it was a virtual certainty that the escalator clause would be tripped. The tonnage escalator was nowhere near as clear. It would be tripped if it was determined that a power that was not a party to the treaty began construction of a ship that was not treaty compliant. When the clause was tripped, the powers participating in the treaty were to confer and agree on a new tonnage limit. Yamato was laid down in November 37. Intelligence reports regarding the amount of material being ordered for Yamato made it clear the ship would significantly exceed 35,000, so, at the start of 1938, the US and UK conferred on where to put the new tonnage limit. From my reading, the UK wanted a 43,000 ton limit, as that was the largest the RN facilities could support, while the US wanted 45,000. Negotiations continued for about six months before the US got the 45,000 ton limit it wanted for the Iowas. So, the short answer is the treaty system died a death of a thousand cuts, over a period of several years, starting in 1934.
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  24.  @AsbestosMuffins  in a newspaper article on the decision to go to 16", the long running debate was recapped, with the note that the Navy had the same argument when it went from 12" to 14". Soon after the decision was made on the Colorados, there was discussion of changing the New Mexicos and Tennessees to 16". A Navy spokesman was quoted that the New Mexicos were too far along and such a change would have been prohibitively expensive. The barbettes on the Tennessees, from what I have found, were the same diameter as those on the Colorados, 32 feet. The twin 16" turret is slightly lighter than the triple 14", and the part of the 16" turret that extends down into the barbette is 6 inches smaller in diameter, so seems to me the 16" turret should fit a Tennessee fine. Neither California nor Tennessee had been laid down yet. I wonder how close they came to issuing a change order on the Tennessees to go to 16"? What probably made their decision was that the guns and turrets were on order and there would probably be cancellation charges if they made the change. Would they have made the same decision if they knew of the dispersion problems those tripe 14" mounts would suffer? Imagine the impact on the Washington Treaty. With 16" guns, the Tennessees would have been regarded as "post-Jutland", so, with them and Maryland, the US would have it's three "post" ships, and West Virginia and Colorado would be broken up. If the US completed West Virginia and Colorado, it would have five "post" ships, so the Japanese would demand to complete Tosa, to be it's third "post" ship, meeting the 5:5:3 ratio, while making a good argument they could built one ship over treaty limit, because of Hood. Then the UK would need to build four Nelsons for parity.
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  31. The Colorado class has provided hours of entertainment speculating on alternate treatments of the class. Drac didn't really note it, but the Colorados were a 1916 design. Maryland was laid down only days after the US entered WWI, but the other three were delayed until after the war, being laid down in 1919-20. This delay had the result of three of the class still building at the time of the WNT. West Virginia and Colorado were completed, in exchange for the two Delawares being scrapped/demilitarized, while Washington was used for target practice. One alternate scenario: the USN takes the same path as the Admiralty in cancelling outright the Colorados, for the same reasons the Admiralty cancelled their 1914 BB program. The same decision would also result in Tennessee never being laid down, and possibly California, on which little progress had been made, being cut up on the slipway to clear it for higher priority ships. Where would that leave the USN in 1922? None of the Tennessees or Colorados ever completed, and all the postwar South Dakotas and Lexingtons exceed treaty limits. Another avenue of inquiry is how could the Washington have been saved? It appears that the money spent modernizing the Floridas in the 1920s, equaled or exceeded the money it would have cost to complete Washington. So the US completes Washington, and scraps the two Floridas. If the UK complains, give them a license to build a third Nelson, but, as the RN is still well over it's tonnage limit, building another Nelson would require two Iron Dukes be scrapped. Similarly, if the Japanese demanded to be allowed to build another Nagato, they would have to scrap a Fuso or Kongo to make the tonnage available, so, net, they would gain little for all the money spent.
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  36. wrt the question of the Washington treaty being delayed for 3 years. That puts the start of the conference at November 24, during the US election. President Harding died in August, 23, so Coolidge is POTUS, running for a second term. From my reading, the US called the Washington conference because there was a sense that Congress would withdraw funding for the current construction program, regardless what other countries did, so Harding decided to try to get other countries to limit construction in sync with the US. In that light, Washington would have been completed, but all the Lexingtons and South Dakotas could very well have been cancelled and cut up on the slipway, regardless what anyone else did. In reality, Coolidge would probably have started the conference a month or two earlier, as a campaign ploy. In Japan, the quake was in August, 1923. Amagi was laid down in December 20. Without the delays due to the treaty negotiations and conversion to a carrier, Amagi would have been in the water, and safe, when the quake hit. The second pair of Amagis were scheduled to be complete in December 24. There would have been an argument that the second pair of Amagis needed to be scrapped. Both Tosas would be complete. None of the Kiis or 13s would be complete. So, net, the IJN gains the two Tosas and first two Amagis. As the US would have unilaterally scrapped the Lexingtons in 22-23, there would have never been a clause allowing conversions that exceeded the treaty 27,000 carrier limit, so the second pair of Amagis, and the Kiis, are all broken up, rather than be converted. In the back of my mind is the thought the G3s and N3s were a bluff. When the US and UK were negotiating the tonnage escalator in 37, the UK was looking for a limit around 42,000, because that was what their facilities could handle. As the G3 and N3 exceed that displacement, I suspect they were not intended to actually be built. Of course, a 1924 Washington conference could very well have failed, entirely. In February 1927, Coolidge called a conference in Geneva to limit total tonnage of smaller ships, as the original Washington treaty limited capital ships. The conference failed. I have read the British were making comments to the effect "the US is trying to buy parity on the cheap". The US would probably walk in to a 1924 Washington conference with the same idea: force other nations to draw their naval strength down to what the US had. The other nations would probably react the same way they did in 27, and, effectively, tell Coolidge to take a flying leap.
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  37. wrt the KGVs being built with 15"/42s. During the design process, the Admiralty's own technical analysis branch determined that a 9-15" armament would give the best combination of firepower, protection, and speed. Someone, I think First Sea Lord Chatfield, clung to the "more smaller guns equals more hits" theory, and pressed for 14". Just as raising the height of the armor belt caused B turret to be reduced from 4-14" to 2, I would expect the same increase in armor to result in B turret being reduced from 3-15" to 2. The switch from 16" to 14" in Second London appears to have been pressed for by the UK. Without someone in the Admiralty pushing for 14", the gun size limit would probably have been left at 16". First London had extended the construction moratorium, so it would not have been possible to start the KGVs any earlier than they were historically. KGV and PoW were laid down on New Year Day in 37, the first day after the First London moratorium expired. Guns were not the only bottleneck in the construction of the KGVs. British production capacity for armor had also atrophied since the end of WWI. I have read that some of the armor for the KGVs had to be contracted out to a Czech firm. When most of the Iron Dukes, and Tiger, were scrapped in the early 30s, many of their 13.5" guns were retained. I have read that the KGV's 14" was designed to fit the same mount as the 13.5". In the back of my mind is the thought that, had there been a shortage of 14", the Admiralty had a contingency plan to mount 13.5" in their place on the KGVs.
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