Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "HMS Mersey - Guide 250" video.

@coryclemett5569 I remember reading of a case of a Spit taking off from, iirc, Wasp for delivery to Malta. Once in the air, the Spit pilot found there was something wrong with the feed from the auxiliary fuel tanks on the plane. Without the aux tanks, he could not make it to Malta, so he successfully landed back aboard Wasp.
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@Knight6831 it was a wonderful deal for the UK. They had such a wealth of capital ships that they didn't have anything smaller than a 13.5" gun after the cull, and over a dozen ships with 15" guns, and, iirc, they had not actually started building any of the N3s or G3s, so they didn't suffer the waste of cutting up incomplete ships. Meanwhile, the USN, MN and RM were all stuck with old tubs mounting 12" guns. The IJN came off pretty well, once they successfully overcame demands to scrap Mutsu, with the smallest guns mounted being 14". The RN alone, had a treaty retention list that totaled well over their 525,000 ton quota too. And in spite of already having numerical, displacement, and firepower superiority, the UK successfully argued to be allowed to build two clean sheet, 16" armed ships, the Nelsons. It was a huge win for the UK. Breaking the UK/Japanese alliance didn't cost the UK much either, imho. The intent of the alliance was to use the Japanese to keep an eye on German and Russian ambition in the Pacific. Post revolutionary Russia was not much of a military threat, and Germany had been stripped of it's Pacific colonies. Instead, Japan was occupying the former German colonies north of the equator, bumping up against UK and Australian possessions, so, now, it was Japan that was looking like the threat to UK interests.
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@calvingreene90 if you assume you are going up against other battleships, especially ones with all or nothing armor, go with the bigger guns. Both guns will penetrate unarmored areas, but the 16s can punch through armor that could resist the 13.5.
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@Knight6831 that is my understanding. iirc, the Admiralty did order the ships of one class, so, presumably, some of the material was early in the production process, but keels had not been laid, vs the South Dakotas, for instance, being as much as 35% done.
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@Knight6831 The original retention lists, before adjustments for the two Nelsons and two Coloradoes, had the RN at 22 capital ships, with a total tonnage of 580,450, and the USN had 18 capital ships with a total tonnage of 500,650. The quota was 525,000. The US traded the two Delawares for Colorado and West Virginia, leaving it at 18 ships with a total tonnage of 525,850 tons. The RN scrapped four 13.5" armed ships to build the Nelsons, drawing the RN down to 20 capital ships with a total tonnage of 558,950, with the Nelson's design being a generation newer than the Coloradoes, which had been ordered in 1916. The four RN ships scrapped for the Nelsons, Thunderer, King George V, Ajax and Centurion, each mounted 10-13.5" guns, turbine powered, with a top speed of 21kts. The only obsolete feature of these ships vs USS Nevada, was that they were coal fired. By scrapping them, in favor of the Nelsons, the RN avoided the cost of oil conversion and adding torpedo bulges. Somewhere in my notes, I have the cost the USN paid to have the 12" armed Floridas and Wyomings, as well as the 14" armed New Yorks, all converted to oil and fitted with torpedo bulges. By my figures, the USN could have completed Washington for what it spent modernizing the two Floridas, with Florida going to the breakers and Utah being demilitarized less than ten years later. From my reading, it appears the only coal fired, 13.5" RN ships that survived the treaty cull, the Iron Dukes and Tiger, did not have a Farthing spent on Modernization in the 20s, continuing coal fired and unprotected against torpedoes until they were scrapped/demilitarized in the early 30s.
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@calvingreene90 you are correct, in theory, and I admit that I had not considered the velocity difference a 55 caliber tube implies.
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@Knight6831 The USN certainly knew what Hood displaced. RN officers had been seconded to the USN Bureau of Construction and Repair to advise on designs. Based on data provided by those RN officers, C&R made up drawings of Hood in 1919, showing a normal displacement of 41,120 tons. Hood was hardly revolutionary, it was just bigger. Hood did not have an all or nothing armor scheme. That 12" belt was very narrow, extending little above or below the waterline. The rest of the side armor was only 5-7" thick.
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@Knight6831 It would have been awkward, as Hood had been in commission for months, before the treaty negotiations started. The US' priority was to have an excuse to cancel the 1916 capital ship program, so pressing the UK hard on any point ran the risk of the UK quitting the conference, like it did in 1927 over cruiser strength. Then the US would not have had the excuse it wanted. That, imho, is why the UK won the WNT is such spectacular fashion: numerical superiority, tonnage superiority, firepower superiority. The USN and RN did not approach parity until after First London, where each drew down to 15 capital ships.
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@Knight6831 I read "The Washington Conference, 1921-22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor" last winter. I remember a push to force the IJN to scrap Mutsu as there was a view the Japanese had cheated and commissioned her when she was not really ready for service, which the other powers eventually backed down on, and I remember France being very put out that the treaty treated it as an equal of Italy, but I don't recall a concerted effort to get rid of Hood. To get right down to it, Hood's main armament was the same as a Revenge, and arguably inferior to a Colorado, with protection inferior to both. Maybe if someone has a copy of that book in their personal library, they can look up Hood in the index for any specific reference. From my perspective, Hood was only one ship, and she commissioned in May of 1920, a year before the Washington Conference was proposed. The horse had clearly left the barn wrt Hood, so it was time to put on the big boy pants and let Hood slide as grandfathered.
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