Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Battleship Armour Engineering - Why is naval armour multi-layered?" video.

A year or two back, I was looking in to the design choices made on the KGVs, and found that armor production was one of the bottlenecks. Some of the armor was subcontracted to a Czech firm, to ease the bottleneck. I looked at the armor produced for the cancelled South Dakota class in the early 20s: 13.5" vs 14.7" for the KGVs, and both were flat sided designs, rather than inclined. The greatest difference was, after the KGV design was revised, it's belt extended one deck higher. Cranked up the alt history generator, to create someone in the Navy Department, in 1922, suggesting to SecNav Denby " The Washington treaty will allow us to build battleships again in ten years. Let's keep all that very expensive armor that has been made for the South Dakotas, so it can be used in the future". When the future arrives, the North Carolinas are designed with sloped armor, so the armor that had been stored for 15 years can't be used. So FDR sends a note to the British naval attache at the DC embassy, asking if the Admiralty might have use of a large quantity of battleship armor, suitable for flat sided installation. Unfortunately, such a thrifty minded person did not seem to be in the Navy Department in 22. The SecNav annual report a few years later reported that the last of the armor that had been made for the :South Dakotas had been sold as scrap.
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@sirbollocks609 you may recall the "laminated safety glass" that used to be used in cars, at least in the US. The glass was made by laminating a sheet of clear plastic between layers of glass, so, when the glass was broken, the plastic would hold it together, rather than shards of glass flying everywhere.
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@thehuscarl4835 My grandfather was a welder in the Bremerton Navy Yard during WWI, as you said, oxyacetylene welding. He told of one day when he was way up in the forepeak welding, when he realized he started feeling woozy. Correctly thinking the torch had burned up all the oxygen in the space, he turned off the acetylene and let the oxygen run until he felt better. I don't know what he was welding up there, but there certainly was some welding used on ships at that time.
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@jacobdill4499 I thought about that. The US was building to the 35,000 ton limit. Using vertical 13.5" armor, vs new, and sloped, 12" would add a lot of weight. Given the rate that the US cranked out battleships, they did not seem to be armor production capacity limited, like the UK was. Looking at the build times for the KGVs, the first ship completed in good time, but the build times got longer and longer. Anson and Howe were laid down 6-7 months after KGV and PoW, but commissioned 18 months after KGV and PoW. Considering the rate the RN was losing battleships in 41, having those last two KGVs finished a bit earlier would have been nice.
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@rupertboleyn3885 everything you say is true. However, as I remind my Canadian friend when he starts complaining about the 50 old DDs the US handed over to the RN in late 40, you use what is available. Belt armor bolts on, so the Admiralty could always change out the 13.5" when better material was available. I have read that the 14" on the KGVs was designed to fit the same cradle as the 13.5". Navweaps says 54 of the old 13.5s were still in inventory in 1939. What mongrels Anson and Howe could have been, with US belt armor from the South Dakotas, and guns from the Iron Dukes, Considering that, over the course of 41, the RN had lost Hood, Barham, Prince of Wales, and Repulse, and Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were disabled, a couple of mongrels may have been welcome.
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@thehuscarl4835 I found a page on line from Gullco International, a supplier of welding and cutting automation solutions, which gives a quick rundown of gas, arc, and resistance welding, in shipbuilding applications. It says the problem with gas is a higher risk of the surrounding material becoming distorted. It doesn't say why.
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