Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Battle of Dover Strait (1917) - Evans of Broke (or Peck of the Swift)" video.

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  5.  @Spectre578  what you would be describing is essentially the Admiralty's J3 battlecruiser proposal: 43,800t with 9-15" in triple turrets. The J3 was rejected as it did not use an all or nothing armor scheme, so the Admiralty moved on to the G3, which far exceeded Hood's displacement. On to the meat of your question. To enable it, the treaty would need to set the displacement limit at Hood's, 41,200 as the treaty measured it, or 42,000 because it's a rounder number, rather than 35,000. iirc, the Admiralty wanted enough tonnage for 15 treaty compliant battleships and 15 times 35,000 comes out to 525,000t, which is where the treaty set the limit for the RN and USN. With the limit at 42,000/ship, the RN would need to have a limit of 630,000t. OK, lets say the other parties went for a 630kt limit, 378kt for Japan. Besides the original treaty retention list, the RN could also retain the other three Orion class, which would put them at 647950t. Building two J3s, at 42,000t each would require scrapping all four Orions to bring them to 639950t. The IJN had the two 40,000t Tosas and the two 41,200t Amagis building. To maintain the 5:5:3 ratio, the IJN could complete any two. With their historical retention list totaling 301,320, they would have approximately 77kt of headroom, but while the RN would be scrapping existing ships and lowering their total tonnage and drawing down closer to their 630kt limit, the IJN would be building up to it's limit, so the other powers might not be in a forgiving mood if the IJN wanted to overshoot by 3-4,000 tons to complete two Amagis. Construction of the Tosas was farther along, and, well, they could lie a teeny bit, claiming each Tosa only displaced 38,000t, 2,000 tons lighter than in fact. Thing is, the Tosas could make about 26kts, about the same as a Nagato, so the Tosas would probably spend a lot of time in port, because they couldn't keep up with the carriers. Building two Amagis instead would probably require scrapping either a Fuso or a Kongo, which reduces the gain of building the two Amagis. How would this shake out for the USN? A quota of 630kt would result in an initial retention list for the USN of a lot of appalling old junk: the two South Carolinas, and four of the Connecticut class pre-dreadnoughts. Lets assume Washington is completed in exchange for two Connecticuts, in addition to West Virginia and Colorado replacing the other two Connecticuts and the two South Carolinas. Now, the US could waggle it's finger at the RN and IJN both having 42,000 ton ships and demand parity. According to Friedman's breakdown of the weights for the South Dakotas and Lexingtons, both classes come in under 42,000t, without fuel and boiler water, so the US could hold it's breath and stamp it's feet until the other parties agree to let the US complete 3 of them. But would the US want to complete them as designed? The whole idea behind the US calling the conference was to get out from under the building program that was started by the 1916 naval act. The US could easily say the Delawares are good enough, and scrap everything on the slipway. So, your 1941 lineup: the RN gains two bad-ass battlecruisers, the IJN gains two battleships that sit in port because they can't keep up with the carriers, and the USN has one additional Colorado class, that is even less able to keep up with anything than a Tosa.
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