Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Dreadnought Modernisation - A tri-wire balancing act" video.

  1. France and Italy were allowed to improve vertical armor. and upgun main armament. As you say, those improvements were verboten to everyone else.
    18
  2. 13:30 mark, SecNav Daniels did assent to the Tennessees having 14" guns, but the driver in that decision was the head of BuOrd, Admiral Strauss. This was one of the more bizarre episodes at BuOrd. Strauss was of the opinion that engagements would always be at 12,000 yards or less, the 14" could penetrate at that range well enough, and, being lighter, more 14" could be mounted. There was public discussion whether the Tennessees would carry 14" or 16" in 1915, but disinformation about the 16" was being fed to the press. In one lengthy article about the Tennessees, there are a couple paragraphs about how the 16" was subject to extremely high barrel wear, and claims that the British 15" was also subject to very high wear, with a barrel life of less than 100 rounds. So, the Tennessees were ordered with 14". Jutland disproved Strauss' talking points in favor of the 14" and, in July of 1916, SecNav Daniels announced that the next class, what we know as the Colorados, would carry 16" guns. In his annual report for that year, Daniels says that the decision was made over the objections of some officers. Strauss offered his resignation and requested sea duty, effective upon appointment of a successor. A few weeks passed, and Strauss seems to have been dissatisfied with the pace of selection of his replacement. Strauss trotted out his talking points in favor of the 14" again, in a public Congressional hearing, months after the General Board and Daniels had decided on the 16". President Wilson nominated Ralph Earle, then commander of the Indian Head test range the next day. The Senate approved Earle that day, and Strauss was gone from BuOrd. The Tennessees appear to have the same diameter barbette as the Colorados, 31ft. The twin 16" turret is slightly lighter and the part of the turret that extends down into the barbette is about 6" smaller diameter, so it certainly appears feasible to have regunned the Tennessees while under construction. After commissioning, when the dispersion problem with the triple 14"/50 mounts was discovered, if it crossed the Navy's mind to regun with the 16", it was quickly dismissed, as the WNT prohibited increasing gun size, except for France and Italy.
    17
  3.  @bluemarlin8138  in a newspaper article reporting Daniels' move to 16", and the long running argument in the Navy about the issue, the article mentions the Navy went through the same argument when it went from 12" to 14".
    10
  4.  @robertsantamaria6857  the net seems to have eaten my reply so I'll post again. From what I can find, the Tennessee and Colorado barbettes had the same inside diameter: 31 feet. The twin 16" turret appears to be slightly lighter than the triple 14" and the part of the 16" turret that extends down into the barbette was about 6" smaller in diameter. I don't see why the Tennessees could not have been upgunned to 16" while under construction, other than a disinclination to revive the 14" vs 16" argument that had raged in the Navy Department. The WNT banned upgunning main armament, so that took future upgunning of the Tennessees off the table.
    2
  5. How valid was the "pre-Jutland" vs "post-Jutland" classification in the WNT? Newspapers of the time reported consensus among conference delegates that 12" guns were obsolete. The modernization of the 12" armed Florida and Utah cost $6.6M. Washington, being about 80% complete, could have been completed for about the same cost. But if Washington was completed, that would give the USN four "post-Jutland" ships, putting pressure on the UK to build a third Nelson for parity. The conference had already engaged in some political art in defining Hood as "post-Jutland", while the two Tennessees, which were laid down after Hood, were classified as "pre-Jutland". The inconsistent way the "post-Jutland" measure was applied, Hood vs Tennessee, seems to render the distinction meaningless.
    2
  6.  @javelin2811  I would suspect because the USN had a huge stock of the older 14"/50. Seems that the guns for the battlecruisers, when they were planned to have 14", were ordered at the same time as the guns for the Tennessees, and the orders were not cancelled when the battlecrusiers were suspended. The Navy ended up with some 119 of the 14"/50, nearly enough for two complete sets for each of the five ships that used them. The Navy probably could not justify using the resources to build new guns from scratch, for second line ships, when so many guns were already available.
    2
  7.  @johnshepherd8687  I answered a very similar question just above. Technically, I don't see any problem as the barbettes appear to be the same size and the twin 16" is slightly lighter and smaller diameter. The treaties prohibited upgunning however, with the exceptions of Italy and France, which were allowed to upgun to 16", as if that was feasible on the ships they had.
    1