Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 071" video.

The Italians being able to develop the Libyan oil fields in the 30s is a nightmare scenario. First, the Germans would have recognized that their war effort would be greatly aided by that oil, and Libya would have been far more stoutly defended, as João Rita posted. For openers, imagine an Italian fleet with unlimited fuel and aggressively lead, with cover from land based air. Early in the war, the RN was still trying to defend their interests in the far east, as well as patrolling the North Atlantic against German capital ships, so the odds against the Italians are not as overwhelming as they would appear on paper. The choke point between Sicily and Tunisia could have been one intensively defended point of obstructing Brit supplies to Egypt and squadrons of torpedo and dive bombers could have been based in Italian occupied Ethiopia to make supplying Egypt via the Red Sea equally problematic. I can see the Brits pushed/starved out of Egypt. A defensive line from Aqaba to Gaza looks appealing, but, with the Italian fleet dominating the eastern Med, that line could easily be outflanked. The Brits would probably have to pull back to a line from Basra to the Turkish border to defend the Iranian oil fields, where were being developed at that time. The Germans would probably move to preemptively occupy Algeria and Morocco to vigorously oppose any attempted landing, which would make the Libyan oil fields immune to air attack from the west. Axis occupation of all of North Africa would also make the Ploiesti oil fields out of range of air attack.
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My favorite alternate Midway (I did see the new film, prefer the mid 70s version) would be if the US dive bombers and fighters from all three carriers took the same route to the Japanese fleet as their torpedo bombers did, so the attack has something resembling coordination. The Devastator did fine at Coral Sea. They stuffed 6-7 torps into the Shoho, and fired about 20 torps at Shōkaku, though they all missed. Accounts I have read of Coral Sea indicate that the Devastators operated without loss, while losses were sustained by the SBDs and F4Fs that were intercepted by the CAP. My theory of why the TBDs scored hits against Shoho, but not against Shōkaku is that the Shoho was lightly defended, but the greater amount of AA fire they were taking from Shōkaku motivated the pilots to rush their aim and release point, giving the ship more time to maneuver against the slow Mk 13s.
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@The_New_IKB and more oil to keep the Luftwaffe flying. It would be up to the Allied bombers to destroy the German industrial base, so the fuel would be irrelevant because there were no vehicles or planes to use it. Of course, the Germans could move production to Italy, out of range of UK based bombers. Ultimately, Germany would run out of young men before the US and Russia.
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@The_New_IKB A stoutly defended North Africa would preempt invasion of Sicily and Italy. The Allies may go straight for Normandy, figuring that Germany was the driving force of the war and taking Germany out would end the war.
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wrt the question about USN 5" gun ammunition interchangeability. From my reading, the 5/25 used "fixed" ammunition, ie the shell and propellant charge came assembled in one piece, which would make for faster loading, but, at 80lbs, for the round, crew fatigue would be a greater factor. Most models of the 5/51 used propellant in bags, making for slow loading. Neither the 5/25 or 5/51 had a power rammer, both required loading shell and propellant into the breach by hand. The 5/38 used semi-fixed rounds: separate shell and metal cased propellant charge. With the semi-fixed ammo, the shell and it's propellant charge were each lighter than the fixed 5/25 round, so less crew fatigue, but, in the 5/38 mounts with power rammers, the loaders only needed to drop the shell and propellant in the loading tray and the rammer seated them in the breach, so loading speed was equal to loading a single. fixed round in a 5/25 and twice the speed of a 5/51. So, while the 51, 25 and 38 may appear to use the same shell, I would not count on being able to pry the shell off of a fixed 5/25 round and use it in a 5/38 with the 38's propellant charge. I would be even more doubtful of using a 5/25 round as is, in a 38.
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It's a bit more complicated. The 5/25 used fixed ammunition: shell and propellant charge connected together. The 5/38 used semi-fixed ammo, with the propellant charge in a metallic cartridge that was handled and loaded separate from the shell. Most models of the 51s used propellant in bags. It might be possible to use the same shell in a 51 and a 38, but, with the 25 designed to use fixed rounds, seems it would be a complex operation to try and seat a shell intended for a 51 or 38 into the 25's propellant case, or to pull the shell from a 25's fixed round so it could be used in a 38 or 51 with either of those gun's propellant charge. In the color pic of 5/25s on New Mexico that is in the Wiki entry on that gun, you can see loaders on the right side of the pic holding the fixed rounds.
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@kemarisite good question about the range table. If such a thing was foreseen, I can see someone finding a math whiz to make that addendum to "the book". The more likely scenario though, would be a ship like the Pennsylvania, with both 51s and 25s, needing more ammo for one type vs the other, which, in itself, makes the case for replacing all the 25s and 51s with 38s, as was done on the BBs rebuilt after Pearl. I really can't throw bricks at the Brits for their variety of guns, not to mention the Vickers 2 pounder being made in both low and high velocity versions, ammo not interchangeable, as the variety of ages of ships in service in WWII, made such variations inevitable.
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