Comments by "Doug JB" (@dougjb7848) on "The Drydock - Episode 245 (Part 2)" video.

  1. Even before Hitler took power, Germany’s strategy was to make idealistic offers of limited rearmament, out of the expectation that all such offers would be rejected by the French, allowing Germany to go on ultimately with the maximum rearmament. The ultra-nationalism of the Nazi regime had alarmed the French, who put the most minimal possible interpretation of German "theoretical equality" in armaments, and thereby played into the German strategy. In October 1933, the Germans again walked out of the conference, stating that everyone else should either disarm to the Versailles level, or allow Germany to rearm beyond Versailles. He was planning to abrogate Versailles at the same time he was negotiating the Anglo German Naval Treaty, regardless the outcome of the latter. British refusal to sign that would not have convinced him to heed Versailles.
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  2. 26:45 I do not think they would have used Hood or any Admiral class as a guinea pig for large scale modernization. Those ships would have been seen as too large and valuable to take out of service for 2-3 years for something not already tested once on a similar but slightly smaller vessel.
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  3.  @genericpersonx333  That the KM was not a focus was a product of the political maneuvering that Goering and the Army General Staff were good at, and which Raeder was bad at. My claim stands: whether, or not, the ANGTreaty were signed had little effect on Hitler’s longer term goal of abrogating Ver. specifically because he was fixated on building tanks and warplanes, which were expressly forbidden, while navy stuff was “only” restricted to certain limits.
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  4. My dude? The question did not include when the hypothetical scenario would occur or specify whether the UK would fight in the Pacific alone, or as part of a global war. It was “what if the UK and not US fought IJ?” Drach’s answer started with “depends on when it starts” and “depends whether UK was also involved in a European war.” He describes a UK-IJ Pacific War starting in 1939, and also 1941, and how “things would change” if it were part of the UK fighting a global war. He acknowledged that IJN carrier battle doctrine was superior, and that the RN improperly underestimated the range of IJ land based airpower. And he ended with saying “answering this is nigh impossible unless we focus on one scenario.” To respond to one of your specific points - “two battleships being sunk easily,” if the UK and IJ had gone to war absent a European war (which was very likely - IJ’s quest for resources was independent of Hitler), the RN would have been concentrated in the Indian and Pacific and ForceZ would not have been just two battleships. One aspect you did not address, which I think is far more important than “the carriers this … “ or “the submarines that … “ is that UK would have been hard pressed to deploy the kind of manpower - ground forces - required to occupy and / or invade throughout these regions and get airfields close to the Japanese home islands. UK had nothing like the B29; without that and appropriate bases, they’d have no way to visit devastation directly upon Japan, which make a UK-IJ War very long and with a hard path to final victory for either side - UK would continue to resist because their global nature demanded it but would be unable to invade or utterly destroy IJ, and IJ would not stop attacking without being invaded or utterly destroyed.
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  5.  @genericpersonx333  The German government (as do many) had a selective view toward why they attempted to secure treaties, how compliant they would be, etc. As you said, the German government knew the RN would be very sensitive to German naval expansion, much more-so than land-based forces. They approached HMGov with the AGNTreaty to mollify them, knowing full-well that of HMGov agreed a treaty that protected RN supremacy while also giving Germany cover to build ships prohibited by Versailles, it would make mockery of the latter treaty and seriously piss of the French. Sir Eric Phipps, the UK's ambassador in Berlin, advised London that no chance at a naval agreement with Germany should be lost "owing to French shortsightedness". If you were France, how would you react to this? Indeed, a few months after inking the AGNTreaty, Germany announced they would no longer heed Versailles, at all. They’d already restarted submarine construction, which Versailles expressly prohibited them doing, which became a reason for HMGov to consider signing AGNTreaty. On 26 March 1935, during one of his meetings with (Foreign Secretary Sir John) Simon, and his deputy Anthony Eden, Hitler stated his intention to reject the naval disarmament section of Versailles but was prepared to discuss a treaty regulating the scale of German naval rearmament. Hitler was threatening to scrap an existing treaty among many nations to place pressure on one nation to sign a new treaty that would undercut the existing one. If he had respect for treaties, why would Hitler do this? During negotiations in June 1935 Ribbentrop, who was determined to succeed at his mission no matter what, began his talks by stating the UK could either accept the 35:100 ratio as "fixed and unalterable" by the weekend, or the German delegation would go home, and the Germans would build their navy up to any size they wished. That’s not open negotiation, that’s blatant coercion. By 1937, Hitler started to increase both the sums of Reichsmark and raw materials to the Kriegsmarine, reflecting the increasing conviction that if war came, the UK would be an enemy, not an ally, of Germany. How much more cynical can a person get?
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  6. 10:10 I think a better question is “how effective was any BB/BC secondary battery - single or dual purpose - against surface warships?” How often, apart from the examples Drach gave, did these capital ships directly engage enemy ships with secondary batteries? I think, after 1930, BB and BC alike would have been better served by dropping all “anti surface heavy secondary” in favor of a lot more fast firing ~4 inch guns that were “nominally dual purpose” but which everyone knew were really for anti-air.
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