Bruships 189: Naval History Questions Answered Live...

Its steep attack made deck armor vulnerable, and the depth reached before detonation shaped the damage.

It was drained to lighten the ship and reduce stress on the hull while the dock blocks supported it.

They were attacked frequently, but their construction sharply limited damage until very heavy bombs and advancing ground forces arrived late in the war.

It worked in expected tests but failed under unusual configurations that the test program had not reproduced.

The choices focus on aviation control, weapons testing, and capital-ship programs whose consequences would persist across later designs and wars.

One counterfactual argues that abandoning Jeune École sooner could have preserved continuous French capital-ship construction and infrastructure.

Two answers connect naval-aviation effectiveness to institutional control and to resisting an overly broad multirole requirement.

The preferred intervention is procedural: require complete operational testing of the Mark 6 exploder before wartime dependence exposes its faults.

Choosing an F3-derived fast battleship instead of the Nelson path could preserve proven ammunition, gun production, and fleet speed.

The cruiser discussion distinguishes genuinely efficient small hulls from savings that reduce endurance or long-term value without cutting construction time enough.

Worldwide operations, ample exercise resources, and routine live firing gave the interwar Royal Navy repeated chances to expose weapon faults.

Retire her as a carrier and spend the money on purpose-built ships; a missile conversion is possible in theory but brings severe technology, specialization, and flight-deck penalties.

Probably an intermediate gun-armed design rather than an early copy of Sea Vixen, because the later fighter's shape and role depended on missile and radar development.

A full-speed target would have been harder, but not impossible, to hit.

Carrier-like parasite craft are attractive, but the right doctrine depends on technology, communications delay, and how much autonomy can be trusted.

Maneuvering torpedoes made them less necessary, while engineering plants and sensors made aft space more valuable.

Few were obviously pointless at the time, but late escort carriers, Audacious, and Atlanta are plausible candidates for different allocations.

The Weapon class made use of yards able to build something larger than a C-class destroyer but not a full Battle-class ship.

Late escort-carrier development is questioned when extra design work and construction time buy little improvement in speed or flight operations.

One answer would standardize the late British fleet-carrier programme on the Malta class rather than build Audacious-class hulls first.

The counterfactual keeps the Scharnhorst design lineage, enlarges the hull, adds a fourth barbette, and replaces 11-inch guns with 15-inch weapons.

The Atlanta class concentrated useful 5-inch anti-aircraft firepower in a top-heavy hull that wartime employment often pushed into cruiser combat.

A joking comparison of monopolies points to the East India Company's territorial reach and its own army and navy.

A late answer would replace Shimakaze with a more anti-aircraft-focused destroyer because the massed torpedo role no longer matched wartime conditions.

Missile-focused refits often removed guns, leaving less flexible firepower, while limited missile defense made San Carlos geography and conventional weapons unusually important.

A BBC report on failed Argentine bomb fuzes illustrates how rapid television coverage could disclose operationally useful analysis during an ongoing war.

Normal intervals were about eighteen months to two years, but Rodney and Nelson were cleaned roughly every six months in wartime to protect performance.

Not as one fixed document, but a recognizable staged model moved from local institutions to security responsibility and eventual self-government, adjusted to each colony's conditions.

The borders and political form of a new Commonwealth state depended on local institutions, identities, federations, and the stage already reached in self-government.

The panel explains gradual self-government as British self-interest under capitalism, not as an altruistic end to empire.

A state dependent on one or two revenue streams is easier to seize, making economic reform part of the institutional preparation for self-government.

The rapid transfers after 1945 sat on top of a much older shift from colonies toward dominions, confederation, and Commonwealth structures.

The panel uses contemporary imperial condemnation of the Congo to indicate its extremity while warning that comparison does not excuse other empires.

Retire unusable wartime ships, preserve a stable force, and fund a continuous progression of seagoing ironclad designs.

Midway probably would not occur in its historical form because one carrier was insufficient for the operation.

Primary warship targets, secondary infrastructure, uncertain losses, and missing carriers all made later strikes a contingent command decision.

The panel traces the stereotype of rigid Japanese pilots to later low-training and kamikaze conditions rather than the experienced Pearl Harbor force.

It was not pursued because established 5-inch systems offered a better overall balance, and later needs led to the 5-inch/54 instead.

Once launched, their speed and trajectory exceeded contemporary detection and interception capabilities; only launch-site or boost-phase attack was plausible.

Cold War publicity emphasized anti-aircraft work, but British 4.5-inch and other postwar guns still retained anti-ship and shore-bombardment capability.

It would likely replace rather than delay the 5-inch path, with better surface effect but worse handling and anti-aircraft compromises.

Developing Hood's 5.5-inch calibre into a dual-purpose family could alter British capital-ship, carrier, destroyer, and cruiser armament.

Warspite has the strongest modernization but the worst condition; the rest of the comparison is intentionally playful rather than a firm prediction.

It would gain more hulls but also more long-term cost, while surplus larger destroyers could already perform the role.

Major keel repair is a leading candidate because it addresses damage to the hull's primary structure.

The necessary heavy bombers and engines would reshape the war more profoundly than the bombs alone.

More than commonly remembered; Warspite and Schleswig-Holstein provide clear examples, though defining a river operation matters.

Not categorically: the LN.401 had planned power growth, and the Br.810's final engine fit never became certain.

The Swordfish combined an advanced 1933 torpedo-delivery capability with a low speed that later complicated fighter attacks and supported a shift toward anti-submarine work.

Urgent battleship construction and fear of massed land-based bombing made the KGV armament and Illustrious armoured flight deck defensible choices before radar practice matured.

She likely never sails again, though the Soviets might salvage her 15-inch guns for land use.

Yes; the contests were difficult and often effectively mutual kills, with Buccaneers reaching simulated weapon release even when intercepted.

It could carry more missiles, but guns would still be rejected under the all-missile doctrine that shaped the aircraft.

Potentially hundreds of paper designs; skipped type numbers record options rejected as requirements and existing capabilities evolved.

Powerful per shell but poorly balanced; the navy would likely seek eight or nine 18-inch guns, while nine 16-inch/50s remain the better practical fit.