Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "1047 Battlecruisers - Guide 185 (NB)" video.

  1. Ever notice how the US defense establishment wants all of it's bright ideas built and it wants to build it's own version of every shiny thing it sees any other country build? The French and Germans build, and the Dutch consider, undersized, undergunned, battlecruisers, and the US gives birth to the Alaskas. All the resources that went into them, laid down weeks after the Pacific battle line was sunk by carrier aircraft, less than three years in commission, and off to the breakers.
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  2. Yes, BK and Gues, they were intended as cruiser killers, just like the WWI Brit battle cruisers. They are bigger and more expensive than a CA, but, at some point, they are probably going to find themselves in a situation where they are up against real battleships, running is not an option, and they are going to get pounded, just like a CA, in spite of their extra cost to build and run. Scharnhorst did OK, until it ran into the Duke of York. Imagine what would have happened to the Lexingtons if they had been built as Battle Cruisers, and got stuck into the Solomons campaign.
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  3.  @userofthetube2701  That would be interesting: two ships with glass jaws. It appears that, in WWII trim, the 11" on the 1047s would have a range advantage vs the Kongos, and, as the 1047s would have a speed advantage, they could stand off and chip away at the Kongo, until the Kongo called for air support. A 1047 against a Littorio, and the 1047 has to make a stand to protect a beach head, or a convoy, so it can't use it's speed advantage to run away? My money is on the treatymax Littorio.
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  4.  @johnshepherd8687  Yes, the USN had plenty of BBs by the time the Alaskas entered service. In fact, if the IJN had sent out a cruiser swarm, like the Alaskas were supposed to intercept, the cruiser swarm would probably run into BBs instead. I think the Brits, USN and Italians were 100% correct in building nothing but treatymax BBs in the 30s. I suspect it was only a small group in the USN that saw the shiny things the French, Germans and Dutch had/planned, and decided that the USN "had to have it too", and, when the war engulfed every part of the world except the Americas, they were able to get funding for their pet project. Sanity was restored with the end of the war, and the Alaskas were shoved straight into mothballs, and stayed there until they went to the breakers, while the Iowas were reactivated for Korea, and stayed in service well into the 50s, then mothballed again, and reactivated again in the 80s.
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