Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 144" video.

Speaking of the WWI battlecruiser situation, some accounts I have read say that, in spite of the press of other priorities, construction of Hood proceeded as Hood, combined with the two Renowns then building, would make up the battlecruiser losses from Jutland. What if Fisher's salesman skills were just a bit better and the contracts for Agincourt and Resistance were also converted to Renown class battlecruisers? With four Renowns building, would Hood have been proceeded with, or any of the Admirals laid down at all? Then, in the late 1930s, with the KGVs and fast carriers under development, the other three Renowns receive rebuilds comparable to Renown's, because they can keep up with the new ships, while QE, Warspite and Valiant remain in their 1930 form, similar to Malaya and Barham. Would anything really change in WWII?
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@kemarisite , the thing that has puzzled me for a long time is using armor from one ship on another. I have read, for instance, that armor made for the South Dakotas in the early 20s was used to reinforce existing BBs when the SoDaks were cancelled. On the face of it, seems unlikely that armor plate made to fit a specific spot on a SoDak could be bolted on to a ship of different design. Seems that the curve of the hull would be different.
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@Maty83. my take is, having looked at a KGV with 9-15", the Admiralty didn't like the compromises required in other aspects of the design to carry the 15" armament. The curious thing is why that reduction to 14" was written into the treaty? France and Italy were not going to cancel their 15" gunned ships. Japan had already dropped out of the treaty system. The only other party that would be impacted would be the US.
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@Maty83. I'm pretty confident that even the lowest file clerk in the Admiralty design office knew more about designing battleships than I ever will. I'm sure there were sound reasons for designing the KGVs the way they did. What puzzles me is why that reduction of the gun size limit to 14" was put in the treaty. The US was the only other power still paying any attention to the treaty, so why make a change that will only restrain an ally, someone you want to have powerful ships, because you are on the same side? Same thing with the reduction in carrier displacement from 27,000, where it had been since 1922, to only 23,000. I understand why the Brits designed Ark Royal the way they did, to maximize the number of drydocks around the empire that she would fit in, but, again, why constrain the US to only build what the UK wanted to build due to it's internal infrastructure limitations? That's like the US demanding that no-one else be allowed to build a ship that could not fit through the Panama Canal. They went through that again on the displacement increase. The US wanted 45,000 tons, because that is what they needed for a 33kt ship, but the UK held out for a 42,000 ton limit, because that was the largest RN facilities could handle. They argued about it for six months, when they needed to be building, not arguing.
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