Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 130" video.
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wrt the RAN having capital ships in the 20s and 30s, the photo shown of Cockatoo Island shows the problem: lack of a drydock large enough. The Sutherland dock, the one with the carrier in it in the photo, was only about 88 feet wide and 690 feet long. My USN 1928 port guide says there was a privately owned drydock in Sydney that was 850 feet long, but only 83 feet wide. Neither is wide enough for a battleship or battlecruiser, or the pre-war Ark Royal. Meanwhile, a floating drydock of 50,000 tons capacity was not deployed in Singapore until 1929, and the King George VI dock in Singapore was not opened until 1938. Of course, Singapore was overrun in early 42, so the RN lost the use of the KG-VI dock. Sydney did not have a sufficiently large drydock until the Cook dock opened in 45. So, what was the RN thinking when it sent Hood and the Renowns on visits to Austrailia in the 20s and early 30s, when there were no adequate facilities to repair them if something happened? More importantly, why did the RN build the KG-VI in Singapore, where it could be overrun by the Japanese, who were showing their hostile intentions by then, instead of in Australia, where it would be more secure?
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@arivael There really was not a need to recycle turrets off the Rs. The RN had the four turrets off Courageous and Glorious in storage, which eventually found a home on Vanguard, They had two turrets on Erebus class monitors left over from WWI. They had another turret on Marshal Soult, and another spare in storage, which were both used on the Roberts class monitors in 1940. The 15" guns themselves were quite a bit heavier than the 14". As an exercise, I ran up an estimate of three triple 15"/45s that were originally intended for the KGVs, using the weight of a Littorio turret, and they came out 850 tons heavier than the 10-14" armament. The old 15"/42s were about 3 mT heavier, each, than the 15"/45. In the back of my mind is the thought that the Brits pushed for the reduction to 14" guns because they could not get the speed and protection they wanted, within treaty displacement limits, with 15" guns. The escalator clause in Second London only allowed larger guns. It did not have a set increase in displacement. The treaty said the parties were to negotiate an increase in displacement. The UK and US argued about displacement until mid-38. All the KGVs were laid down in the first half of 37, so the quad turrets were most likely already in production. A switch to triple 15s would only delay completion of the ships. I figure the Admiralty had good reason to choose the 14" armament, and good reason to stay with it when the gun escalator clause was triggered.
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@arivael I have seen the drawings of a KGV with 3 triple 15". I don't buy the argument the politicians wanted the 14" to keep the old ships with 15" relevant. If that was the case, why not lower the limit to 15"? Cost? I bet it costs more in manpower and machining time to make 10-14", rather than 9-15", because you have to perform every operation one extra time. The weights I was using in my estimate: 10x14" @ 80.865mT =808.65mt, 2xquad turrets @ 1557mt = 3114mt 1xtwin turret @ 900.5mt. Grand total 4823.15mt. 9x15/45 @ 98.6mt = 887.4. 3xtriple turret @1595mt = 4785. grand total 5672.4. Yes, the Littorio turrets had thicker armor, but that was the only triple 15" turret at that point in time, that came to mind. The Italians had a distinct advantage too; they were lying. Look up the proposed British J3 battlecruiser of 1920: handsome ship, 9-15/50s in three triple turrets, and a displacement over 40,000 tons.
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@arivael I'm sorry, but I do not agree. At the time Second London went into effect, France and Italy each had battleships with 15" guns building. Unlike the WNT, I do not see any clause in Second London that clearly exempts currently building ships from the gun size reduction. Was the UK thinking they could wave their piece of paper at the French and Italians, and they would go "pshaw, we'll have to scrap the 15" guns we are building and start from scratch with a 14" design", the way new ships being built were scrapped for the WNT? If they tried that, the French and Italians would have responded with a remarkable variety of creative gestures, and gone back to building their 15" guns. In effect, that is what happened as Italy dropped out of the treaty system, and France continued with the Richelieus as designed. The only country that complied with the 14" limit was the UK, so the story that the UK sought that change to, in any way, protect their own older ships, makes no sense. Because Japan had already given notice, iirc in December of 34, that they were going to drop out of the treaty system, then the escalator clause, which was apparently demanded by the US, would certainly be tripped on April 1, yet the UK persisted in building the KGVs with the 14" guns, rather than waiting three months. Everything I see says that, whether they admitted it, or not, the UK wanted 14" guns for some sound reason related to the KGVs themselves.
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@TheParkerrrrrr6 Being built in the US, most of the internal systems, would have been US sourced. The guns were Bethlehem Steel versions of standard USN guns. According to the Wiki entry, the contract with Argentina gave the USN the option to buy the ships, but, as they used 12" guns, while the USN had moved on to 14", the USN saw the ships as obsolete and didn't want them. Apparently it got very nasty for Argentina as they very much wanted to sell the ships just as WWI was breaking out. But the UK was keen that the Germans not get them. The Germans were keen that the Brits not get them. Ditto for Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The US didn't want it's naval secrets sold to any third party, so leaned on Argentina, hard. So, as they say, the poo rolled downhill to Buenos Aires and they had to pay the $20+M for them that they really could not afford.
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@johnfisher9692 actually, it would have probably hurt shipbuilding even more as it would give navies an incentive to hang on to their old tubs. The variation I thought would be interesting would be to set the total fleet tonnage limits where they were 525,000 tons for the UK and US, 315,000 for the IJN. Once they scrap down to those levels, then the parties could build new, but would have to scrap a corresponding tonnage of old ships at a 1:1 ratio, and, just to make it interesting, make it legal to complete ships that had already been laid down, that exceeded the treaty limits. What would happen quite soon is ships being built would not offer a large enough improvement over what would be scrapped to make it worth the bother. Example, let Japan complete the two Tosas, and to keep their total close to the treaty limit, scrap the Fusos. That would probably be worthwhile. But to complete Akagi and Amagi, they would have to scrap three Kongos. That is not such a clear choice. For the US to complete Washington and two of the South Dakotas, they would have to scrap Florida, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas and New York. To complete one more South Dakota, the US would need to scrap Texas and Oklahoma, because the South Dakotas were nearly twice the size of the older ships. Of course, the UK would cry a river, because it had not laid anything down. All it had was drawings of G3s and N3s.
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@arivael I'm sorry, but I cannot agree. Taking your last point first, yes, imho, the gun size reduction was futile, and doubtless, self-interested. Same thing with the carrier tonnage reduction to 23,000 tons. I can make a case for the WNT. I cannot make a case for Second London as it is so blatantly packed with UK self-interest. Article 25 is what triggered the tonnage increase. 25 was not triggered until Yamato was laid down in late 37, and, because of section 25, the UK and US argued for the first half of 38 about how much the tonnage increase would be: the UK trying to set the limit around 42,000 and the US demanding 45,000. If Second London exempted the Richelieus, seems it would have said so. The WNT was very detailed, explicitly saying two Colorados could be completed, in exchange for two Delawares and the RN could build the Nelsons, in exchange for Thunderer and the three surviving KGVs. There is no specific exclusion language that I can find in Second London. Of course, laying down Richelieu was, itself, a violation of the WNT and First London. Yes, France signed Second London. and Italy didn't, but they were both ignoring it. And, as noted above, the Admiralty could not have laid down Lions in April of 37, because they exceeded 35,000 tons. The displacement of the Lions was not permitted until mid 38. What they could have done was lay down all of the KGVs starting in April, using the 15" design. Alternately, if they wanted to keep their schedule, lay down the first three to the 14" design, then, when Anson and Howe were ordered on April 28, 37, three weeks after the gun escalator clause was triggered, order to the 15" design. They didn't do that. All five were ordered to the 14" design.
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@johnfisher9692 I think I understand what you are driving at. Thing is, the RN started with a large advantage. Dug out my notes from a few years ago. For the WNT, the RN scrapped 8-21kt, turbine powered, Dreadnoughts with 12" guns, 8 with 13.5" guns, plus 6 battlecruisers. What the RN scrapped was close to the entire USN strength of Dreadnoughts as of 1920. The USN only had 18 21kt dreadnoughts in commission before the treaty. The treaty had the RN scrapping ships that were newer and more powerful than ones the USN was keeping. Your plan would cement in the RN's roughly 2:1 superiority over the USN. Whether the UK was entitled to a 2:1 superiority over the USN is a different matter, which I would rather not get into as it tends to raise passions. As for the Admiralty quickly laying down several G3s and N3s, the easy solution would be to apply the same strategy the WNT used to divide carriers into "experimental" and non-experimental categories: all carriers under construction as of November 12, 1921, before the conference started, were considered "experimental". That being said, I would have no problem, if the IJN completed two Tosas, and the USN completed 3 South Dakotas (maintaining a roughly 5:3 ratio), if the RN built 3 N3s, instead of the two Nelsons they did build, or completing the other three Admirals, if they had not already been broken up.
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