Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 280" video.

  1. Expanding on the question of treaty cruisers being a good idea, for anyone, the objective of the treaty was to limit costs. If some navies chose to build a large glass canon, vs a smaller, but better balanced, design, that was their own decision. The parties to the treaty had already seen the direction cruisers were taking. The USN built the Tennessee class, starting in 1903: 10" guns, 504 feet long, displacing about 14,500 tons. In 1906, the RN started on the Invincibles, 12" guns, 567', 17,250 tons, evolutionary growth from the Tennessees. By the time of the Washington conference, the benchmarks for a cruiser larger than a "scout" had evolved to Hood, Lexington, and Amagi, each at an eye-popping cost. If some of the Hawkins class had not been building at the time of the conference, the treaty could just as easily have limited cruisers to 6,000 ton, 6" gun "scouts" only. Actually, thinking on the topic, it might have been better for all concerned, if the two Hawkinses that were still fitting out were scrapped, and the limits set at scout cruiser size, so a Dido class, for instance, does not need to worry about being wildly outgunned by a Hipper or a Zara.
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