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

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  2.  @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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  3. 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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  11. @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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  20.  @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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  41. 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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