Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Naval Engineering Disasters - How not to design a ship" video.

  1. wrt the Ise conversions, I am a bit puzzled too. Apparently Hyūga was nominated for conversion because both of her aft turrets were already damaged, limiting her effectiveness as a battleship anyway. My first impulse would be to remove the superfiring midships turrets, one from Hyūga, and one from Ise, due to their more limited field of fire, to replace the two damaged turrets, then use the freed up midships deck space for more AA. That doesn't help their lack of carriers though. Apparently the conversion work started in early 43. By that time, the Kongos had demonstrated that they did not have the survivability for a surface engagement. My plan would be to pull turrets from the surviving Kongos to replace the damaged ones on Hyūga, if feasible, and convert the Kongos to full length deck carriers, because they could keep up with the other carriers, which the Ises could not.
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  2.  @BenMyhillJones  reload times varied considerably, depending on gun size, and when they were designed. Navweaps gives rounds per minute data for most naval guns. As you reason, the level of training of the crew plays a major role. The USN made two ventures into superimposed turrets, reasoning that the smaller guns in the upper level could fire more rapidly, thus keep up a hot fire while the larger guns in the lower level were reloaded. The Navy discovered if they worked on the ergonomics of the big gun mounts, and trained the crews a bit, reload times could be reduced dramatically, rendering the superimposed guns redundant.
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  3. wrt the Courbet class, there was a significant body of opinion at that time that battles would always be fought at short range. The head of USN BuOrd at that time, Admiral Strauss insisted that battles would never be fought at more than 12,000 yards. At 12,000 yards, the 14"/50 could penetrate well enough, and, being lighter, more 14"/50s could be mounted vs 16". When the Tennessees were designed to allow their 14" guns to elevate to 30 degrees, vs the 15 degrees of the New Mexicos, Strauss scoffed, saying the ships would never need that amount of range. The armor of the Courbets, or lack thereof, is another matter.
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