Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "IJN Takao - Guide 192" video.

@deplorablemecoptera3024 I think the objective was to restrict spending on ships, so the ship size was constrained. When the limit on BB tonnage was set at 35,000, that was just as ships started topping that displacement. The QEs, Colorados and Nagatos were just under 35,000. Only one that comes to mind right now that was over 35,000 was Hood. But everything being laid down or planned after the war was well over that limit, and the treaty's intent was to curtail the size/cost escalation, both in individual ships and navy size overall.
2
@kemarisite So, in cruisers, the treaty stopped the growth trend at current practice, just as it did in capping BB growth at the size commonly built in 1916.-19
2
@bkjeong4302 in defense of the Iowas, when they came into service, there were still several IJN BBs running around, and the Iowas could have earned their keep, if they had been in the right place at the right time. In one of my alternate histories. the tonnage increase to 45,000 tons would be written into the Second London treaty, like so many articles erroneously say, instead of being negotiated between the UK and US in 38. Then the USN would skip the slow tubs of the North Carolina and South Dakota classes, build 6 Iowas, which would start commissioning in 41, when they would have had plenty to shoot at.
2
@bkjeong4302 under ideal conditions, I agree. Then you run into the Solomons campaign, Samar, Surigao. Occasions where the Iowas could have earned their keep, if they had been there. Our guys had to take out one of the Kongos with cruisers, because that was all that was available. If the Iowas had been left behind from Bull's Run, they could have settled Yamato's hash right then.
2
@sander6438 geometry. calculate the volume of the hull and where the waterline is, to calculate the weight of water it is displacing.
2
@AtomicBabel same thing with Hornet. Not burning. DC crew working and correcting list. The issue with the Yorktowns was the boiler and engine rooms were not staggered, so they could lose all boilers or all engines, and be dead in the water. Being dead in the water is what killed both Yorktown and Hornet.
2
@bkjeong4302 Given the multiple battles in the Solomons, the Iowas would have looked useful when they were building in 42, but not so useful, in addition to the NCs and SDs, to carry on with Illinois and Kentucky, which were suspended in later 42. wrt Samar, there is a narrative that Halsey was supposed to leave the BBs behind when he started his run to the decoy group, but brought them along to realize his fever dream of having the BBs finish off what the air group had not already sunk. The decoy group only had two big gun ships. Halsey could have brought the two Iowas along, as they had the virtue of being able to keep up with the carriers, to do the mopping up, while leaving the four 28kt tubs behind so they wouldn't slow him up. That leaves Taffy 3 in the warm company, of Alabama, Massachusetts, South Dakota and Washington, when Kurita's posse comes over the horizon. That would have been interesting: Yamato, the biggest dude on the block, Nagato being pretty decent, and Kongo and Haruna with glass jaws, squaring off against 4 USN ships with state of the art fire control, while the Taffy 3 air group throws everything but the kitchen sink at them. I bet Halsey would have been pissed he missed it.
2
@AtomicBabel Agree wrt Yorktown, but the sub had other ideas. If Yorktown had staggered engine and boiler rooms, it could have made some speed, 10 kts would probably have been enough, to be long gone before that sub wandered through the area two days later.
2
@AtomicBabel aircraft maintenance eh? After college, I looked very hard at AMDO. Thing is AMDO is back seat qualified, meaning back to Pensacola to train with the airdales. I have never been Joe athlete. Gunny would take one look at me and toss me during poopy week. The guys at NAMI are real comedians. After winding you up about the "pain tolerance test", they start making snarky comments about the "blind NFO program". Actually, I think maybe the blind NFO program was real. I have really bad eyesight, but the Flight Surgeon at NAMI said I was PQ for AMDO.
2
@galbert117 how small of a ship have BB grade guns been used on? The Royal Navy built a series of "monitors" for shore bombardment in WWI. The Erebus class mounted (2) 15"/42 in a Mk 1 turret, the same as was used in a QE class BB. They were 405' long and displaced 8,000 tons. The Italians mounted 15"/40s that had been built for the Caracciolo class BBs on a variety of improvised, self propelled, barges during WWI. They did have one class of purpose built, single gun monitors, the Monte Grappa class, 40 meters long, displacing about 600 tons.
1
@AtomicBabel She was dead in the water and listing, but not sinking, before the sub finished her off. If she had power, she would almost certainly have been salvageable. When I was on the Lex, we had portable, submersible pumps, in racks, all over the ship. They were brass cylinders maybe 6-8" in diameter and 3 feet long. One rainy day, I was detailed to pump out a bomb elevator that had flooded from the rain. Grab a pump from the rack, attach a hose to the top end of the pump, attach the other end of the hose to a nearby port in the hull to dump the water overboard, plug the pump in to power, and watch the water go away. No power, and all these pumps become useless. Pumping is limited by the number of portable generators you can bring on board, and salvage becomes orders of magnitude more difficult.
1