John Brown would have to strengthen their weighs as would Fairfield. So... this has to be an assumption in the naval contracts let at the time. $.
Bismarck did not run. Generally the RKM did not run when they had to fight. And for that matter, when the odds were not too unequal, neither did the RM. Now... who did run, even when the odds favored them? You would not expect it, nor would you suspect it from their past history; but Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz, Truk, Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf ring some bells? YAMATO ring a bell?
And gun her down. SHW US 40.6 cm could be a nasty surprise. I am not chest thumping or even going to go that ridiculous route. Hear me out. An Iowa's guns and cycling times and fire control were fearsome for a late 1930s design. I think that given the later build and knowledge of her era, any nation's BB even the defective Yamatos would be a lot tougher against the G3 than either of us realize or could imagine. Even a Bismarck might be dangerous.
I know a Richelieu would be.
Expected. This is what the RN did. Other navies imitated. The USN tended to mothball and expect to raise and train levies of sailors to man the reserve fleet. For the USN this worked. In Europe, where the enemy is next door, it did not, hence the RN system.
Bore diameter you mean. At some point the working pressure behind the shell exceeds the metallurgy of the time and the gun becomes unmanageable. Yamato was the limit. Make your shell denser and skinnier (length to diameter ratio is 7 or 8 to 1 instead of 5 or 6) and you get an SHW with the same SMASH out of a smaller bore diameter. You give up some bursting charge as cargo, but you punch through armor plate just as well and ruin the other guy's afternoon or evening.
True, but those docks were stuck in the US building Iowas and Midways.
I can read the General Board minutes as they advised on the WNT. They were the ones who set the characteristics of the USN, not Harding or Congress. Tillman be damned.
Again the GB minutes illuminate some of the American thinking. Harding was running a bluff, but Congress (packed full of isolationists) still handed over the chunk of change as if he meant it for real. During the negotiations, there was a lot of infighting about what to do with the ships on the weighs. Given the garbage that the SoDaks were, and the nature of the bluff, it was adjudged that giving up the SoDaks for halting Britain cold, during the Washington conference before she got rolling would give the USN a technical advantage. Ten years holiday, the British would lose any experience edge in the shipwright art as better US designs emerged.
Some technical history. First, the armored citadel is short and thick (Nelson, Richelieu). Second, this is before the Northamptons and the development of superhigh pressure water-tube boilers and steam turbines and reliable geared final drives for the USN (around 1933). You get 400 PSI (2.75790292 megaP) and that's it. And you have electric final drives. This is USN around 1924... So, compact hull, tactical turn circle of 1400 meters at 10 m/s, Ford Mark 1 fire control. Colorado type barrels and gun pits in the barbettes rated for 40 degree elevation, it is NTG for what is a British WW I design. (The G3) which carries forward all the recognizable defects in layout and design philosophy of the HMS Hood. Now a Nelson? Don't want to meet that. Guns are crap, but the rest of that angry oil tanker is better executed than anything until Richelieu or the 1941 SoDaks. That includes the KGVs by the way.
1. Shells are faster than battleships. 1935 USN shooting is a lot better than 1915 USN shooting, and the RN ship has recognizable vulnerabilities in the way the secondaries are laid out, the magazines that support them and the poor protection aft. A G3 is dead meat precisely because of these factors.
2. Furthermore, based on WW II history the RN did not design interwar against SHOCK. The USN did. That will show up in battle. Repulse, PoW, DoY, all suffer mechanical casualties because of shock. Name me an RN carrier, and ditto. No criticism. It was simply that the RN did not know what shock did to mechanical systems. The only reason the USN did was because when they bombed and shot and torpedoed targets with live ammo after WW I, they examined the hulks (the Mitchell tests). They did not share the knowledge. Another thing to remember, is that the RN had to build in a hurry after the LNT, so that may be a reason for not adequately shock mounting powertrains or mechanicals. So let's presume the RN does shock proof the way the USN did, and the G3s benefit? What does that do about the defective magazine and deck armor protection schemes at the forward superstructure? Shrug. A 1000 kg 40.6 cm shell hits there and it is the Hood all over again. A design weakness exploit.
