Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 181" video.

  1.  @jlvfr  two German commerce raiders, armed former ocean liners, Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm steamed into Newport News, Virginia for fuel and repairs in 1915, when the US was neutral. The first to arrive, the Friedrich, received a lot of play in the newspapers of the time. British and French warships arrived just outside the US' three mile limit in short order, should the Friedrich attempt a breakout. The USN maintained a reserve fleet of old pre-dreadnoughts with skeleton crews, so men were transferred from other reserve ships to bring the complement of one at the Philadelphia Navy Yard up to full strength, and it steamed down to Newport News for neutrality enforcement, should the British and French think about steaming into Newport News to attack the Friedrich. The Captains of both ships decided to accept internment in the US. When the US entered the war, both ships were seized and used as troop transports for the duration. After the war, they were sold into commercial service.
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  2.  @Thrance  those superimposed turrets were the brainchild of Joseph Strauss, of USN BuOrd. I don't know if any other navy copied them. They were supposed to solve the problem of the glacially slow reload times of the 13" and 12" guns on the lower level, by putting the faster loading 8" on top to keep up fire while the large guns reloaded. Then the USN discovered if they worked on the ergonomics of the big guns and trained the men a bit, reload times improved dramatically, rendering the superimposed turret redundant. During a later tour at BuOrd, during WWI, Strauss obstructed adoption of the 16" gun, promoting the 14" instead, with the assurance that engagements would always occur at 12,000 yards or less, rendering the 16" overkill. By the summer of 1916, the RN and the Germans had disproven Strauss' theory about engagement range enough times for the General Board and SecNav to overrule him and specify the Colorado class with 16" guns. Strauss tendered his resignation from BuOrd, pending appointment of a replacement, and requested sea duty. A month or two later, possibly dissatisfied with the lack of movement on selection of a replacement, he publicly shot off his mouth, spouting his 14" talking points, pushing back against the decision made by his superiors months before. A replacement was selected and Strauss was gone from BuOrd the next day.
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