Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Drachinifel"
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Enjoyed your comments on the Lexingtons. One observation I would make wrt armor, they had armor roughly equal, or better, than anything that could catch them. Their armor is roughly equal to the Kongos, 7" inclined at 11.5 degrees according to Friedman, a bit inferior to Amagi's, but Lexington's guns could punch through Amagi's armor as readily as a Kongo's. Lexington's armor is probably adequate against any 8" cruiser. Reducing armament is one thing I would not do, as the Amagis were designed with 10-410mm guns, so cutting the Lexingtons from 8 to 6 would put them at a further disadvantage, in a battle where the first one who scores a solid hit will probably be the winner due to the vulnerability of both ships. I think the final iteration of the Lexingtons was pretty decent, considering the mission as a scout. Only change I would want to make is get rid of the casemate mounted 6", in favor of the twin turrets used on the Omahas,.
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@BrigadierBill iirc, Germany was trying to get on the Naval Treaty system, as it would supersede the limits of the Versailles treaty. The allies were trying to find some way to prevent the construction of the Deutschlands, which complied with the letter of the Versailles treaty. A switch to the Naval Treaty system would manifest itself one of two ways: the Deutschlands would be classified as cruisers, with gun size limited to 8", which would make them slow, underarmed, heavy cruisers, or the ships would be made larger/more expensive, mounting guns up to 16". So, presume the allies allowed Germany to join the treaty system early enough to forestall construction of the Deutschlands, what happens, is the question? I would expect that Germany would go straight to the Scharnhorsts. Without already having the 11" gun in hand, because the Deutschlands were not built, Germany would probably go straight to 15", buying the technology, if not the guns themselves, from Italy, if need be, to advance the construction schedule. The knock-on effects would be interesting too. If Germany was allowed to build 35,000 ton battleships, pleas to France to build the Dunkerques below treaty limits would probably fall on deaf ears. Without Strasbourg clogging up the St Nazaire drydock. Jean Bart could have been laid down at the same time as Richelieu, so they both would have been commissioned just as France fell, and escaped to French West Africa. As Dunkereque and Strasboug would not exist, the Mers el Kabir attack would probably not have happened as all that would have been there would be two hopelessly obsolete battleships and a handful of DD.
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Very interesting interview. Thanks for offering it. A couple observations: no-one is ever fully prepared for war. I have yet to hear a General or Admiral not say "if we had had another year (or two), to prepare, we would have been in a better position". As a wise man once said "no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy". wrt the USN figuring out that a thrust across the Pacific to defend the Philippines or Guam would run a gauntlet of Japanese held islands: the Marianas and Carolines had been Spanish colonies prior to 1899. With the US having paid Spain to give up it's claims to the Philippines and Guam for payment of some $12M, Spain sold the Marianas and Carolines to Germany for about $4M. Japan, as an ally of the UK, rolled up these German colonies in WWI, and continued to hold them under a League of Nations mandate. The US could have avoided that situation by buying all the Spanish colonies in 1899, rather than cherry picking the two properties they did, thus preventing any potential enemy sitting astride the supply lines to the Philippines. wrt the US having bases in the Caribbean: I did some back of the envelope calculations of the value of all the UK held islands, plus British Honduras, by extrapolating what the US paid Denmark for the Virgin Islands in 1917. As it turned out, the total value of the West Indies colonies was just about equal to the debt the UK owed the US after WWI. At the same time, Arthur Balfour wrote a note to the French ambassador to the UK saying that, if it was up to the UK, it would forgive France's debt to the UK, and forego reparations from Germany, but, as the US was demanding repayment in full, with interest, in cash, the UK needed the cash from France. If the UK had signed over the colonies to the US, it would wash out the UK's debt to the US. Then the UK could follow through on Balfour's proposal and cancel all the debts owed it by it's allies, because, again, allied debts to the UK were almost exactly what the UK owed the US, so, again, the debts wash out. Then the Caribbean becomes essentially a US lake. This colony for debt swap was widely discussed in the press at the time, but Lloyd-George and President Harding both said "no". On the USN's severe shortage of scouts: this became glaringly evident in a pair of exercises in early 1916, when the weather was less than ideal. The DDs that were supposed to do the scouting were forced back to port, while the BBs plowed ahead, with no idea what lay over the horizon. It did not go well for the "attacking" force. Shortly after the US entered WWI, capital ship construction was given much lower priority, so that resources could be focused on addressing the US' deficiency in scouting and ASW forces. Three of the Colorado class, which had not been laid down, were postponed until after the war, and work on Maryland, Tennessee and California was slowed to a crawl. Maryland and Tennessee were laid down in April and May, respectively, of 1917, days or weeks after the US' declaration of war, escaping the postponement that delayed the other three Coloradoes. Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare Feb 1, announcing it's intention to sink without warning neutral flagged ships, including those from the US, in the designated war zone, reneging on a promise made in 1915. As if that was not enough of a defacto declaration of war on the US, the Zimmerman telegram was a further provocation. Bottom line, unlike 1941, the US' declaration of war in April was not a response to a surprise, but a culmination of a long series of provocations that afforded the US plenty of time for planning prior to making the declaration. I can't help but wonder if there was discussion in the Wilson administration and the Navy Department to take a page from the Admiralty's book of 1914 and cancel the Tennessees and Coloradoes outright, for the same reasons, before Tennessee and Maryland were laid down, and scrapping California on the slipway (a photo from March of 17 shows all that had been assembled of California was the keel and bottom of the hull), so that three more slipways, steel and manpower would be available to address the USN's critical shortage of smaller ships.
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wrt the Lexington's protection. As Drac said, USN Scouting Group doctrine was 35kts. The 1919 Lexington design was better protected than the earlier designs. From what I have read, the need for better protection was acknowledged, but the reduction to 34kts to gain the protection was only grudgingly accepted. The ship could easily have been better protected, but TPTB were not willing to accept a further reduction in speed.
The alt history possibilities post-Treaty are interesting. Reportedly, the UK was willing to accept a single ship maximum of some 42,000 tons, because of Hood. If the other powers had dug in their heels and demanded that each was entitled to build a 42,000 ton ship, because of Hood, what would the US have done? If they completed one South Dakota, it would have been a red-headed stepchild as no other US battleship could keep up with it. With two Lexingtons being converted to carriers, a new mission for the battlecruiser emerges, as consort for the carriers. Seems most likely that, if the US had been allowed one 42,000 ton ship, it would have been a Lexington, not a South Dakota.
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@JohnSmith-of2gu There were horizontal, reciprocating, steam engines in paddle wheel driven ships. On a mid 19th century stern wheeler, typically two cylinders, each driving a connecting rod attached to the corresponding end of the paddle shaft. The side paddle steamer Sudan, built in 1921, is still carrying passengers on the Nile. I saw some film of the engine running some years ago. It is a triple expansion, and it looked like it was installed horizontally with the paddle shaft being, effectively, an extension of the crankshaft. As you said, getting the power turned ninety degrees to drive a screw would involve some very large gearing. Of course, if there was a compelling need for a horizontal TE and the ship was wide, you could do a horizontal opposed engine. Then the engine could be mounted longitudinally with the crankshaft on the ship's centerline.
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@Ranari's Brawling Channel oh, goody! Another alternate history question. OK, so the US goes to the Washington treaty committee and snivels that the Japanese have 4 battle cruisers and the Brits have 4 battle cruisers, but the US doesn't have any. After much discussion, the committee settles on breaking out BCs as a separate class of capital ships, with a quota of, say 120,000 tons total, with that tonnage deducted from the allotment for BBs. Lets further say that the same mechanism used for carriers is used for BCs, so that 2 currently under construction that exceed the 35,000 ton limit can be completed. That gets the US two Lexingtons built as BCs, and two built as carriers. So, what would the USN do with them prior to the war? Occurs to me that with crazy fast CVs and BCs, the USN could develop tactics for a fast raiding force: planes find and assess the target, maybe soften it up, then the BCs finish them off. They could influence USN tactics to favor speed to the point where the North Carolinas and South Dakotas aren't built, unless they are lightened and lengthened enough to top 30kts. How would the Lexingtons be updated? I have seen models built by people speculating on that question, and they came out looking very much like Iowas. How would that work out? USN architects look at the speed and armor requirements, and the 35,000 ton limit, in the mid 30s and declare it "impossible", so nothing is laid down, while they wait. Japan gave notice they would no longer abide by the naval treaties on Dec 19, 1934, so the USN architects pull out a clean sheet and start working on a design assuming the collapse of the treaties. With the conclusion of negotiations with the Brits on June 30 of 38, setting the displacement limit at 45,000 tons, which is what the US wanted, contracts for the Iowas are issued on July 1, 38, one year sooner than historical. Iowa and New Jersey laid down Nov 1, 38, because North Carolina and South Dakota are not clogging up the ways. Both launch in June 40 and commission in April/May 41. Two more Iowas are laid down in 39 and commission in 42, because the South Dakotas aren't clogging up the ways at Newport News and Fore River. Then the last pair of Iowas is laid down in Brooklyn and Philly the day after Iowa and New Jersey launch, commissioning in 43. The question then is are the Montanas laid down, or is all the capital ship material used for the Essex swarm?
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@liladoodle the UK was trying to sell surplus ships. The two surviving Invincibles were offered to Chile, in place of trying to reconvert Eagle back into a battleship. Agincourt was offered to Brazil. The timeline would be very tight. Agincourt was placed in reserve, while the government was trying to sell her, in March of 19. Jupiter's conversion to a carrier was authorized July 11, 19. Of course, all it would take is someone with enough influence to say "what use is a carrier that is too slow to keep up with the battle fleet?" There was a consensus, post WWI, that 12" guns were obsolete. It would be a stretch, but someone could argue that Wyoming could be converted to a carrier, the Wyomings being the largest of the 12" armed battleships, and redundant when the 1916 building program was completed.
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@Dave_Sisson The US taking over all the West Indies colonies would require some artful spin. The US had prohibition at the time, and a significant industry in the West Indies, particularly Jamaica, was rum production. Puerto Rico had been defined as part of the US, and Puerto Rican citizens as citizens of the US by the Jones Act, so Puerto Rico had prohibition, but the US apparently did not impose prohibition in the Philippines. The Caribbean was pretty much an American lake anyway. The US invaded Haiti in 1915, and invaded the Dominican Republic and Mexico in 1916. Cuba? The US invaded a second time in 1906. The US intervened in Central America so many times that British Honduras would have been an exceptionally handy base. Besides, from my readings, by 1920, British Honduras had more trade with the US than with the UK. The West Indies were not particularly of strategic value to the UK, as most of the UK's colonies are around the Indian Ocean, but the West Indies are on the US' doorstep, and control access to the Panama Canal. I added a postscrip to my question in the post last month: there was a lot of chatter in US newspapers at the time about what a great deal it would be for the US to swap the IOUs the UK had written for the islands, but Lloyd George said no, Harding said no and the Prince of Wales said no. I wish I could jump in the WABAC machine and ask why they were against it. It's not like the UK never gave up a territorial claim before. There was a lot of trading real estate back and forth when the border between the US and Canada was set at the 49th parallel. The US had been buying land from other powers since 1803. I don't understand what the problem was. I would jump at the chance to pay a debt with dirt, instead of gold.
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@austin0351 I have wondered the same thing. The New Mexicos were upgraded, new engines and superstructures, in 31, but nothing was done with the Tennessees and Colorados. The Italian ships were much more extensively updated than the New Mexicos. Reportedly only about 40% of the original Italian ships remained after the rebuilds. iirc, a clause of the treaties was that the offensive capability of ships could not be increased, only defensive, like torpedo protection and AA armament. Maybe the US did a more literal reading of the treaty, while the Italians were more liberal in their interpretation. Maybe lengthening the US ships, the way the Italian ships were lengthened, would have put them over the 35,000 ton treaty limit, as the US ships started out roughly 10,000 larger than the Italians. Bottom line is probably the US ships could have received new superstructures and modern AA armament, ending up looking like West Virginia in 44, but they would still be 21 knot ships, because the treaty limit would have prevented the lengthening, until the treaty system collapsed, and, by then, the US was building entirely new BBs.
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@NaomiClareNL as an exercise, I considered the impact of the French claiming the three Mackensen class hulls that were in the water as war reparations, towing them home and completing them, with the guns built for the Normandies, rather than trying to lengthen and upengine the Normandies to be competitive with where the Caracciolo class had raised the bar. The end result was Mackensens completed along those lines would be, by 1930 standards, undergunned, with an obsolete armor layout and inadequate torpedo protection. Additionally, if France had completed the Mackensens, they would have lost the two battleship construction licenses granted by the Washington treaty that they used for the two Dunkerque class ships. I wouldn't give the time of day for the incomplete Bayerns as they were 21kt ships, that had diesels for cruising engines, when big diesels were not yet quite ready from prime time. If it was the Dutch doing all that acquiring, the Netherlands were neutral in WWI, so would have had to pay for the incomplete ships, where France could get them for free, then the Dutch would be paying to complete them and paying the running costs for the next 20 years. I suspect the Dutch would not be considering the 1047s, because the Mackensens would have burned up all their money.
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@bkjeong4302 the thought crossed my mind that, had the Navy gone with the North Carolina option of 725' with a 13.5" belt, 9-14" guns and a 30kt capability, at the 35,000 ton limit, would they have been deemed fast enough and well protected enough, to render the Iowas redundant and thus never built. The story goes Admiral Reeves rejected the 30kt concept as too slow to work with 33kt carriers, so they went with the 28kt version, presumably in the expectation that the BBs would operate separately from carriers, so they went for bigger guns instead. Of course, the irony of Reeves' assessment is that the 28kt BBs did operate with carriers, so the 30kt option he rejected would have been fine, and the extra 10,000 tons, months wasted arguing with the Brits to get the 45,000 ton limit, the ludicrous amount of power and cost, to get 3 kts, was all unnecessary, and the Iowa concept would have been tossed in the dustbin with the Lions. A decision that a 30kt battleship was good enough might have prevented the Alaska class cruisers seeing the light of day as well.
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Timing is everything department. In the armor piece a few days ago, I proposed an alt history where the US retains the belt armor made for the South Dakotas, then sells it to the UK for the KGVs, when the North Carolinas are designed with sloped belts. One objection was that the US armor would be inferior to the armor that the KGVs were designed with. The solution to that problem would be to replace the US armor with new, British armor, when it became available. Today, Drac addresses that question: the feasibility of replacing an armor belt. Photos of KGV and Prince of Wales launching shows their external belts were not installed when the ships were launched, answering the question whether the armor was structural or not.
Would the South Dakota armor fit KGV? In December 1918. Repulse went into refit, which included removing her 6" belt, and replacing it with the 9" belt armor that had been made for Almirante Cochrane, which was now surplus. The only detail I am hazy on it how the armor was made to fit the different hull? There must have been means of using shims, or reshaping the more ductile back side of the armor, to fit.
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@greenbean7853 convince the USN to stay with 14" at which point in time? There was a titanic debate, 14" vs 16", in 1916. Adm Strauss, head of BuOrd at the time, favored the 14", as more could be carried, and more guns equals more hits. The same thinking dominated at the Admiralty in the mid 30s, driving the reversion to 14" in the KGVs, before Second London mandated that change for everyone.
The case for 14" always hung on the range that engagements were likely to be fought at. Adm Strauss insisted that engagements would never be fought at more than 12,000 yards. In the late 30s, Admiralty fighting instructions said to close, as rapidly as possible, to 16,000 yards, or less, before fully engaging. At those ranges, a 14" could penetrate well enough.
What convinced the US SecNav and the General Board to override Adm Strauss' recommendation was Jutland, as ships successfully engaged at greater ranges, where a 14" might not penetrate, but a 16" would. The SecNav and General Board decided to go with 16" for the Colorado class in the summer of 1916, after analyzing Jutland. In his annual report that year, SecNav Daniels said the decision was made "over the objections of some officers". Strauss requested to be relieved at BuOrd and given sea duty.
So, for the USN to stay with 14" would require every attempt to engage at greater ranges to fail miserably, which would validate Strauss' position, and the late 30s Admiralty fighting instructions.
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Several of the standards were reboilered with boilers left over from the cancelled South Dakota program, so would have been state of the art circa 1919. I know that the New Mexicos were reengined with new geared turbines in the early 30s. New Mexico herself had been built with turbo-electric drive, but the hull arrangement had not been specifically designed for TE drive, so it was possible to retrofit geared turbines. North Dakota had been built with Curtis turbines, which were a failure, so she received new geared turbines in 1917, When North Dakota was scrapped, those newer turbines were reinstalled in another battleship. wrt gun elevation changes, the WNT prohibits altering the "general type" of existing mounts. When the USN wanted to increase elevation, there were, lets say vigorous discussions between the US and UK whether that violated the treaty clause prohibiting altering the "general type" of mount.
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KGV turret faces are an interesting topic in themselves. Since the turn of the century, a sloping turret face had been the thing, to better deflect an incoming shell upward. The KGV turret face is near vertical. According to some of my reading, the thinking was that a shell coming in on a high ballistic trajectory would hit a sloping face near square, increasing it's chance of penetration. So the KGV turret face was designed vertical, so the high angle shell would strike a glancing blow, decreasing the probability of penetration. But, to get the vertical face, while keeping the trunnions where they needed to be for turret balance, required the front of the turret to be very short. The quad turret front on the KGVs is so short it doesn't cover the top of the barbette, so the turret has an armored skirt in front of the turret face, to cover the barbette. So, instead of an inbound shell penetrating a sloping turret face, on the KGV, the high shell hits the vertical face and is deflected downward. iirc, angle of incidence equals angle of deflection, so the shell would probably hit the deck, not that skirt that covers the barbette. To hit the skirt, the shell, or bomb, would need to fall vertically. But Admiralty fighting instructions said to close to 12-16,000 yards, where trajectories are flatter. At 16,000 yards, the angle of fall of a shell from Bismark is only 10.4 degrees, nearly square to the KGVs vertical turret face. So, seems they built a turret optimized for 20,000+ yards on a ship that was supposed to engage at 16,000 or less.
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@gregorywright4918 I agree that Repulse got the nod because it could keep up with PoW. Sending two QEs, not PoW or Repulse, solves the speed differential issue. Some accounts say that it was considered to add Hermes to the force as Hermes was in South Africa at the same time that PoW rounded the cape, so she could have joined the force, but Hermes could not keep up. Hermes could keep up with QEs though. The issue hangs on Churchill's insistence, apparently over pushback from the Admiralty, that a new battleship be sent. The RN didn't seem to be put off by the QE's speed, or lack thereof, as they had all of them in the Med, facing off against the 27kt Italian rebuilds and the 30kt Littorios. Some material I have seen says that, once in Singapore and looking over the situation, Phillips requested the Rs be sent to Singapore. But, by the time Resolution and Ramillies had made it to Ceylon, it was March, Force z had been sunk and Singapore had fallen to the Japanese.
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@alexmoskowitz811 the USN did have a naming convention, initially. Carriers were named after previous ships, or battles, a convention carried over from the Lexington class battlecruisers. When I was on the Lexington, CVT-16, there was a mural on one of the bulkheads in the hangar, of all the preceding USN ships named Lexington. If I recall correctly, there were five preceding ships. That started to fall apart with the FDR, then Forrestal. Now, they all seem to be named after people, same as DDs.
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wrt the question about Hood. The USN had very detailed information. An Admiralty engineer named Goodall had been seconded to USN Bureau of Construction and Repair. where he both provided information on Hood, and advised on the redesign of the Lexingtons. The US SecNav and members of the General Board had gone on a European junket in the spring of 1919, which included a stop to look over Hood. As soon as they came back from the trip, they redesigned the Lexingtons based on their examination of Hood. Yes, everything the Americans were shown on Hood, and everything Goodall said could have been disinformation, but the information appears to be fairly accurate. Goodall's input on the Lexingtons included decent armor, which the USN declined in favor of more speed. I have read that, during the treaty negotiations, the British were open to an individual ship displacement limit of some 43,000 tons, the same as Hood. I give the Brits points for intellectual honesty on that point. The US declined, and insisted on the 35,000 ton limit.
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wrt rangfinding, as Drac said, estimating range tended to be the more difficult problem. That lead to advocacy of higher velocity guns, as their flatter trajectory increased danger space at the target. But, when the fighting instructions say to head directly toward the enemy to bring range down to 12-16,000 yards, that offers the enemy a danger space, ie allowance for range finding error, the full length of the ship, 600-800 feet, to shoot at, if they fire in a high ballistic trajectory, rather than fire in a flat trajectory. Drac noted in his piece on one of the USN battleships he visited, the USN provided reduced charges for it's guns, so they had the option of firing in a high trajectory to better penetrate a deck, turning decades of gunnery theory on it's head.
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