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

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  5.  @robertf3479  Langley also had folding funnels on the port side of the flight deck. Jupiter's boiler and engine rooms were located well aft, so the funnel location was an easy adaptation. Ranger replicated that funnel location, but had more funnels because of the greater boiler capacity. That approach was not an option on the Lexingtons because the boiler room location had already been set closer to midships, same as Kaga. The options with the more midships boiler room location were an island with a funnel, which the aviators opposed, or entirely flush decked, with the stack gas trunked aft. and directed away from the flight deck. Furious had the stack gas trunked aft and exiting from grills on the aft corners of the flight deck, which was a particularly bad location and the ducting inside the hanger turned the after part of the hanger into an oven from heat soak. Argus had a similar setup, but, less powerful engines, so less hot gas to vent. As I said, it was luck that the Lexingtons turned out as well as they did. With the US' lack of experience with carriers, they could easily have used the same solutions as Kaga. Unlike the Japanese, Italians and Brits, the USN, for whatever reason, did not do major reconstructions on it's older ships in the 30s, so, if the Lexingtons had been built like the Kaga, they would have entered WWII with the same configuration, while Kaga had been rebuilt with a small island, full length flight deck and a downward curving funnel midships in place of the long ducts.
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  21. wrt the question about armament alternatives for the KGVs. I have read that the RN was fundamentally dissatisfied with the 16" used on the Nelsons due to their high barrel wear, and were looking for a lower velocity, more durable gun. Why in the world the RN did not buy US 16"/45s is beyond me, other than the possibility that they simply were not available yet, when the KGVs were fitting out. From time to time, someone floats the idea of stripping the 15"/42s off of the R-class and installing them on the faster KGV hull, in place of the 14" I found some estimates, at 1915 prices for RN 13.5" guns and twin turrets. Assuming those prices would be close to those for a 15", I adjusted for inflation to 1937 prices. Dismounting the guns from the Rs, and installing them in new build triple turrets for the 5 KGVs would only save about 1M pounds, far short of the amount needed to pay for an additional KGV, and the RN loses the use of the Rs. Using four of the original twin turrets would require a longer hull, pushing displacement over the treaty limit, as we see with Vanguard, so that is a non-starter. Using three of the original twin turrets would fit in the 35,000T KGV hull, but the ship, with only 6 heavy guns, would be outgunned by any other battleship it would likely run into, and the total savings for the five KGVs would be a bit over 3M Pounds, still less than half the cost of building an additional KGV, and they lose the use of the Rs. Other than buying the US 16"/45, what the RN did was the best option.
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  31.  @scarecrow2097  newspaper reports of the time make for fascinating reading. The Naval appropriation bill the House passed had funding for more Connecticuts. Senator Hale demanded the Navy buy smaller ships, on the order of 12,000 tons, rather than more 16,000 ton Connecticuts, and he held up the appropriation bill until the appropriation for two Connecticuts was changed to the smaller Mississippis. The backstairs chatter the newspapers were reporting was that Hale, who represented Maine, was trying to get the contract for Bath Iron Works. At that time, Bath was building one of the 15,000 ton Virginias, having difficulty with a ship that size, and the Navy was very dissatisfied with Bath's progress. As it turned out, the Navy could not design a ship of less than 13,000 tons, which still exceeded what Bath could comfortably build. Newport News was low bid, for one Mississippi. The William Cramp yard bid a price that exceeded that of News for one ship, but bid a lower price for building both of the Mississippis. In the back of my mind, knowing the contracts for the Mississippis were entirely politically motivated, I will observe that the Cramp yard is in Philadelphia, One of the Senators from PA had a lot of juice, was the head of the state party machine, and also sat on the Naval Affairs Committee, so I would not reject the proposition that the Senator advised Cramp how to bid for the contracts. The ships were a failure for the USN because of their small size. They were a bit slower, and had significantly less range than the Connecticuts, so were mostly relegated to coastal patrol, separate from the rest of the fleet. And yet, being obsolete pre-dreadnoughts, and of little use to the USN, SecNav Daniels still exploited the Greeks to a horrendous degree. iirc, the newspapers were reporting the price Daniels extracted from Greece was about double what the ships were worth. From the Greek perspective, the Mississippis might have come in handy in 1912, but in 1914, if the Ottomans had received the two new Dreadnoughts building in the UK, the Mississippis would have been dead meat. One positive note, the Mississippis fit in the drydock in Piraeus. A Connecticut would have been too big.
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  32. wrt the USN building 16" armed battleships, the "more smaller guns vs fewer bigger guns" argument raged for some time in the Navy Department. Head of BuOrd, Joseph Strauss was the main driver of the "more smaller guns" school. When Jutland demonstrated the need for being able to penetrate at greater range, Strauss was overruled by the SecNav and General Board. In his 1916 annual report, SecNav Daniels said the decision to go to 16" was made over the objections of some officers. When the decision to go to 16" was made in the summer of 1916, there was speculation in the press about the New Mexicos and Tennessees being upgunned to 16" during construction. A Navy spokesman said that the cost to make the changes would be prohibitive. The article did not make clear if the Navy spokesman was talking specifically about the New Mexicos, which had been laid down the previous year, or the Tennessees, as well, which had not yet been laid down. The 14"/50 was ordered into production, off the drawing board, with no test program. Having taken that shortcut, the first production 14"/50 was test fired at about the same time as the prototype 16". Strauss' 1915 report speaks glowingly, at length, of the virtues of the 14", and briefly mentions the 16". If the 14"/50 had been subjected to an in depth test program, the dispersion issue that dogged these guns may have been discovered before production started. Given the timelines of events, I think the most probable situation would be the New Mexicos built with 14" and Tennessees built with 16". The two Tennessees, and three Colorados, would give the USN 5 16" armed "post-Jutland" ships. At the same time, the Japanese could argue they were entitled to a 42,000 ton ship, because of Hood, and complete Tosa, as well as Nagato and Mutsu. So, then the RN is allowed to build four new ships, so that, combined with Hood, the RN has parity with the USN at 5, and the IJN has 3.
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  35. Returning to the question of the UK selling it's West Indies colonies to the US in exchange for the US canceling the UK's debt from WWI, which I brought up in the Q&A on the shore bombardment video of May 12th, I have done further reading on the WWI debt issue. The UK had made substantial loans to it's allies prior to US entry in April 1917. From that point on, the US bore the financial burden. As it worked out, the amount owed to the UK by the other allies was almost equal to the amount the UK owed to the US. On August 1, 1922, Arthur Balfour wrote a note to the French ambassador to the UK, words to the effect that the UK did not want to lean so heavily on France, and the other allies, for repayment of their debts. The UK would rather cancel all the debts owned to it, and forego reparations from Germany, but, as the US was pressing the UK so hard for repayment, the UK needed the cash. The content of this note was publicly published by the UK government, which, to me, gives the note the color of an official offer by the UK government to cancel the war debts owned to it, if it is relieved of it's debt to the US. As noted in my May 12th question, extrapolating the price the US paid Denmark for the Virgin Islands to the total land mass of all the UK held islands, plus British Honduras, comes out to $4.15B, which equals the $4B of principle owed, plus a portion of accrued interest. What a different world it would have been, had the UK, effectively, paid it's debt to the US with dirt, rather than gold, and, in accordance with the Balfour note, then cancelled all debts owed to it, cutting the debt, and corresponding drag on the economies of the other allies, in half.
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