Battleships of the Treaty Era

[@Jacob-W-5570]

"they treated their battleships like their supercars" I lolled XD

[@nicoleross2297]

Didn’t USN and RN use each other to free the Legislators purse strings. RN look at those USN 16 inch battleships. We need those for national pride and prestige and diplomacy. USN look at the size of the Hood. Look at its speed. We need that for national pride and prestige and diplomacy.

[@alephalon7849]

Bravo Zulu. Thank you for covering this interesting topic.

[@johnfisher9692]

In a previous video you said it was bad for the French that they were given the same displacement allowance as the Italians considering they had global commitments which the Italians did not. How do you think the Italians would have reacted if the French had been given the same as the Japanese? Regarding replacing the Nelson's 16inch guns with 15/50's I can see that causing trouble as the rational the British gave for building the Nelsons was that the US and Japanese had 16inch gun ships while Britain didn't and they deserved gun caliber parity.

[@timandellenmoran1213]

Enjoying your lectures, thanks

[@squirepraggerstope3591]

Good economic summary re the actual impact of WW1 on Britain's capacity to maintain maritime and imperial great power status in the inter-war years and the contrast with the far more immitigable decline resulting from WW2. So with underlying US/UK relations always being far less cooperative and close throughout the entire period than is often supposed in retrospect, all that really changed between 1918/19 and 1945/46 was the Washington government's capacity to achieve its aim of displacing and replacing Britain, without the US having to incur unacceptably heavy financial, military and political costs in the process.

[@andrewmccann6050]

I think that if there had been an allowance of limited building combined with a slightly more favourable building ratio e.g. UK/USA 3 per 3 years, Japan 2 per 3 years, France/Italy 1 per 3 years then Japan may be inclined to stick with the treaty system for a bit longer. Depending on how they run their building program they can always say that they have fewer ships but on average they are newer so should be qualitatively superior. But I think the treaty system either falls apart or the limits are escalated as soon as it becomes widely known that the Littorios are well over the limit and/or the Anglo-German treaty is signed.

[@stephenmeier6091]

Question answer. If the replacement caviat is in place it would show the powers are willing to fight as they will be replacing ships. Though if a small headed potato brain gets it in his head they still might have a go if they try abuse the new construction clause when "oh no my battleship ran aground andis a total loss, we need to build another one." It would only work once or twice but thats all they need to think they’re getting one over.

[@wswordsmen]

The "treaty game" you were describing at about 6:20 is the right word if game means the same thing as Game Theory's definition of game. A non-cooperative event where each actor seeks its maximum payout by making decisions both affecting and being affected by the decisions of the other actors. Game theorists don't like the name much either.

[@geoguy001]

The Washington Conference also had a 4 power treaty and a nine power treaty that dealt with preventing war in the Pacific

[@hmsverdun]

So a questionn, I know that the idea of the 14 inch guns but my question is if the treatys are breaking down but you cant go to 16 inch guns qhy not another quad turret as everyone is going to be going over at that point?

[@talmadgemew5400]

I would hope that a thinking nation would challenge the engineers and architects of ship and systems to come up with ideas. This with the knowledge that good and innovative design would be finished product, not just a ship on paper.

[@nicoleross2297]

Answer to question. Would allowed construction have helped the treaty system. NO It would have just put the creative cruiser cheating at the battleship level. We build BB with obsolete 14 inch guns per treaty. In the warehouse next to the pier are modern state of the art 16 inchers with all the needed turret hardware. We are building a 50k ton ship with one inch armor and mounting points for 15000 more tons of armor that happens to be sitting in the warehouse next to the pier. Passes treaty at 35k tons. Build a 35k ton bb with engine room expansion space and easy access to install more boilers and gearing which is sitting in the ware house. Design a ship with only 25 rounds per turret. in the warehouse are the other 275 rounds per turret minor but still about a 100O tons. It would have kept the advancement of BB going rather than being paused for roughly a decade. Further would have no effect on peace because Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese military factions would still have attained power. It may have been costly to the Allie’s by diverting funds from radar, the 5”38, carrier development and doctrine, and it may have affected the development of the Japanese long Lance, and the American mighty mark 14 torpedos😂.

[@richardcutts196]

The big reason Britain opposed both France and then Germany, but not the US so much, was as they say in real estate, 'Location, Location, location'. Both France and Germany were, at their time, the major power on the continent, with a large standing army, and both were right on Britain's doorstep. If either had a large navy and could gain control of the channel or the North sea they could end Britain in fairly short order. The US on the other hand was on a different continent and across an entire ocean and as such not a threat to suddenly invade if for no other reason than the US, like Britain, maintained a post Cromwellian attitude to a large standing army.

[@steveclarke6257]

Alex, nothing in the treaty of 1922 stopped the RN from developing and building both a 16/45 for the Nelson's and 15/48 or 50 with new twin turrets for the QEs and the BC's to replace 15/42. So what is the issue with the RN procurement which stopped this happening...........

[@DrAlexClarke]

Getting the Treasury to pay for both...

[@keptinjack]

How badly would it had skewed the treaty had the Japanese been allowed to complete 2 capitol ships in exchange for two older, say Kongo, ships? Would they still have felt the need to build the Yamato class?

[@neniAAinen]

Doesn't change much, it was in any case a political 1930s decision about the future. Before London Japanese tried to do their heavy cruiser thing for battleships(i.e. try to design 40'000 ships clearly superior to 35'000 ones), to get qualitative overmatch. The conclusion was disappointing - 35'000 battleship, 40'000 battleship - both are still more or less equal battleships. It won't be more than what Japan already had(over their non-upgraded opponents) thanks to their deep upgrades. but it didn't matter. Either 0.66:1 is fine, or (as they decided) they want a higher qualitative ratio.

[@mickbrown7793]

It's interesting to think what might have happened if the Japanese government had taken the position of 'we need either the Anglo-Japanese alliance or 70% of the USN's capital ship tonnage allowance - we'll accept 60% (or even lower) if we have the alliance, but we need one of those and won't accept a treaty that denies us either'. There is quite a bit of leverage the US can apply, but would they rather have the treaty with one of those allowed (and if so which one) or have Japan walk away from the treaty. And could Japan afford to take that sort of stance. Realistically, I doubt they'd have built up to the 70% anyway, but I do wonder how that would have played out.

[@PalleRasmussen]

The Treaty ships are interesting from what I hear Drach saying.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

The treaty system had another (fatal) flaw: it could only work as long as outside powers (namely Germany and the USSR) could not compete. As soon as Germany build even just the Deutschlands that disruptet the entire Franco Italian balance. And i realy dont see any way to inklude more powers into the treaty (with newly build ships) without making it inacceptable to some of the memberstates.

[@lindsaybaker9480]

I’m surprised the USN didn’t demand at least two Lexingtons built as Battlecruisers along with the two converted to carriers.

[@neniAAinen]

It's a bit curious, but even from 1922 perspective, Lexingtons being built as carriers were outright better than BCs. 2 Lexes were too weak to fight as "battle battlecruisers"(fast wing of the battle fleet - close force reconnaissance, enveloping) anyways - not even because of their armor, but because there were just 2 of them. Lexingtons, however, were always sorta similar in their concept to "light forces" - strategic reconnaissance, strike, enemy light forces interdiction, cruiser hunting etc - the original Invincible concept, that is. But...carrier lexingtons were perfectly capable of doing the exact same thing - with far more search and reach capability. In this sense - battlecruisers were perfectly replaceable by now-rebuilt Lexingtons (just a different - and better! - way of doing things), and instead of playing a losing game it was now a clear winning game - everyone was starting carriers from a blank piece of paper, and US now had 'super' designs. What was to become a weakness - now turned into a strength.

[@jackwardley3626]

the yamato was the best axis battleship i'd say if that was built before aircraft took the game that would have a been a game changer i think there would be no naval treaty if it was

[@geoguy001]

Didnt japan get to keep Mutsu?

[@DrAlexClarke]

The second Nagato, which had commissioned in October 1921... she was already part of the fleet, she wasn't under any phase of construction

[@davidgoulding366]

Bravo Zulu

[@seannordeen5019]

No matter how the treaties are changed, Germany, who is outside it, is still going to do what it did in 1939, as nothing changed for it. So the treaties would have still been abandoned in '39. Japan and Italy were still going to cheat. Personally, I still don't see what benefit the second London treaty brings to Japan and they may still have refused to sign up. If Japan thought that war was inevitable in a few years, I still see them going the way they did, though perhaps Yamato class might have been toned down to a more realistic size given their new build experience your treaty change allowed so they could have continued to build other ships.

[@nozdormu89]

I find it amusing that Dr. Clarke seems to be using the word Frigate as a swear word.

[@DrAlexClarke]

my little cousins (the under 14s) watch my videos and the bigger cousins outnumber me... I don't fancy what happens if they decide I taught them bad words!

[@nozdormu89]

That's fair. It's still amusing.

[@InnesMorrison]

if there had been replacement plans then the powers would just have been better prepared for WW2. Italy won everything they wanted and still left, for the Japanese it might be closer but if the militarists win domestically the pacific war is inevitable. and of course Germany is not a treaty power or for that matter a naval power.

[@neniAAinen]

(1)infrastructure advantage for UK&US is disingenous - UKs' "8"(7 really) were built over the span of a whole era, precisely because of the treaty. Infrastructure point per se is hardly agreeble - because then we have (1)count in finished battleship carrier rebuilds, (2)take into account aging - some nations were rebuilding/updating less than others - and deep enough rebuilding is quite close to building from scratch (3)taking into account proper work of the infrastructure. If it shows anything - it shows US infrastructure&security superiority: living on another side of a big pond helps. (2)Net result of UKs' "8" is having just 5(new)+2(nelsons - too slow right from slip)+1 relevant(Hood - never upgraded deep enough) ships - and not a single 'fully' satisfactory one at literally any point, in one way or another. (3)For France...yes, but the problem is that no, too. Yes, for 1922 France battleship holiday was a blessing. No, because for France, just as for everyone, it was immediately replaced with pimped 10'000t cruisers - which now used 'most' of expensive parts of a BB, but didn't use BB infrastructure - leaving it to the state to keep up those industries by itself somehow(=money still spent, just worse)...because they wanted to build battleships later anyways. Sure, it was sort of beneficial for nations which completely failed to work on their light forces during the dreadnought race and ww1(again France) - but were 'this' kind of light forces(basically evolving into semi-battle force) what they needed? (4)Japan built more or less the same as others until the point of being forced to stop - 2/3 new builts x2 larger than others(from the pow of industry, Shinano counts), together than several series of large fleet carriers, and more, more, more. But this is beyond the point - Yamatos were realistically a way to 'save' pressure on industry - as they were mostly resources&weight intensive ship, as ship x2 as large still takes more or less the same number of various precision devices, etc.

[@juicysushi]

Bravo Zulu. To answer your question: I think that if the Americans and French didn’t notice the problem (Congress never funding those ships / the Italians always remaining at par), it likely would have held, as it would let the Japanese guarantee their 8-8 fleet on paper. It would ensure the most likely to break the treaty have an incentive to stay within it.

[@juicysushi]

Does the Italian engineering edge come from a willingness to take a big swing engineering-wise, as well as not needing a gas tank (unlike everyone else who needed practical range)?

[@w8stral]

Italy was a new country and needed a reason to STAY a country is more like it. A government boondongle project... lets sign up.

[@juicysushi]

Would a treaty compliant way to knee-cap the Japanese be to let them replace the Kongos with Tosas? They can have new ships, but only battleships. Which would be considerably less useful than the Kongos would prove to be in WW2…