Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 185" video.

  1. The question of why only two Nelsons vs three Colorados and two Nagaots was discussed at length in another forum recently. No really satisfying answer had been determined. The WNT divided ships into "pre-Jutland" and "post-Jutland" groups. Hood was placed in the "post-Jutland" group, in spite of being a pre-Jutland design, with a few modifications. But the US Tennessee and California, both laid down after Hood, were deemed pre-Jutland, but the Colorados, essentially repeats of the Tennessees. except for the upgrade to 16" guns, were deemed post-Jutland. One of the participants in that other forum is a professional historian, who has the minutes of meetings held at Secretary Hughes' home, between some of the delegates. Materials from that era quote British officials as saying outright that Hood was not really post-Jutland. Hughes talks about "efficiency" in the meeting minutes, without really describing what he means by that term. There apparently was very little discussion of technical issues. Running the math, the throw weight of the 12-14" battery on a Tennessee is almost identical to that of the 8-16" battery of a Colorado. The 16" guns have more penetration at range, but the larger number of 14" guns give a greater probability of a hit. This was the subject of a titanic argument in the Navy Department in 1915-16. My seat of the pants suspicion is that Hood was officially deemed post-Jutland as a piece of diplomatic art, because the UK needed three "post-Jutland" ships, because of the Nagatos, but did not want to pay for a third Nelson.
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