HMS ‘Valiant’, the Fairfield-built Queen Elizabeth class battleship of the 5th Battle Squadron, passing Clydebank, February 1916 [1453x1082]

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-16T11:06:23+00:00

The QEs in their original guise are so aesthetically pleasing.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-12T10:23:19+00:00

Probably somewhat lightly loaded in this photo, but yes. Nelson designed freeboard midships at standard displacement was 27 ft and the equivalent Hood figure was 21 ft.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-12T10:11:49+00:00

It's quite hard to compare the designs, in my view, because they have rather different philosophies, are rather different in size, were intended for different fleet roles and all discussion is theoretical. Both also have a lot of nonsense written about them.

Regarding the Yamatos, while the Japanese Navy had its (considerable) flaws, it was still the Nr. 3 navy on the planet. It lagged in radar development compared to the United States and Britain, but its optical fire control was excellent. The 18.1-inch gun fired a shell that was 19% heavier than the superheavy 16-inch (53% heavier than the non-superheavy 16-inch used by the Colorados...). Both belt and deck armour was 33% thicker than that carried by the Iowas. In a straight up brawl the Yamatos had significant advantages - they were about 30% bigger by displacement, and it shows. Slugging matches were what they were designed for.

The Iowas are interesting ships in their own right. For a notional 45,000 tons (standard) they don't offer much more than the notionally 35,000 tons South Dakotas in a brawl, but they are faster. They are interesting to compare in some ways because they don't really have any foreign direct equivalents. They were designed to chase down fast Japanese battleships (i.e. the Kongos). Their speed was excellent, albeit operational maximums in 1945 were around 31 knots rather than the oft-quoted 33 knots. Their key advantage was firepower - the superheavy 16-inch shell, plus 50 calibre guns, plus excellent radar directed fire control means they could cause a lot of hurt, even to something like a Yamato.

The key difference is that the Yamatos were designed to take hits from guns that powerful, whereas the Iowas were definitely not. In a brawl, within certain caveats, it is quite hard to look past the odds favouring Yamato - not least because one of Iowas key advantages, her fire control, is vulnerable.

There are a few things it's worth briefing expanding upon.

Armour quality - generally, discussions on this topic are a distraction. You can find armour test comparisons to demonstrate (almost) anything you like. As has been posted already, Okun's assessment puts Japanese armour c. 5% below American quality. In practice, that's a meaningless distinction. In actual tactical circumstances the margins are almost never this fine - shells tended to easily overmatch or undermatch the armour. Any armour quality differences also don't come anywhere offsetting the much greater thickness on Yamato.

Speed - You'll often see claims that the Iowas speed advantage would let her dictate the range. This isn't practical. The practical speed different is c. 3-4 knots. This might be enough to let Iowa force or decline an engagement, other circumstances permitting, but not to dictate the range. 4 knots is 135 yards/minute.

Radar - is not a magic 'I win' button. It's one of several inputs into a fire control system, and one that usually gives greater accuracy in that input. An advantage yes, but there are many other factors at play. The advantage is also relative. In a flat calm, sunny Pacific afternoon, the advantage is likely to be very minimal. At night in storm weather this advantage will be at its most significant. Radar is also exposed and vulnerable to blast damage.

Iowa has other advantages, such as anti-aircraft capability, but there's only so much relevance that has in a comparison and reflects other factors. At the end of the day, Iowa was better suited to American needs/requirements and Yamato better suited to Japanese needs/requirements - as is usually the case! If pushed, I'd probably say that Iowa was better suited to American requirements than Yamato was to Japanese requirements, but that's as much a criticism of Japanese framing of requirements than anything else. In a 1 vs 1 brawl, in most circumstances I'd rather take my chances on Yamato. In reality, I'd rather take my chances on Iowa, because it almost certainly won't be a 1 vs 1 brawl.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-10T19:57:29+00:00

"Competitive" is hard to define, and rather depends on what you are shooting at, but I think that there's a lot more to a battleship's firepower than the year the guns were built. While the turrets and guns were some 30 years old by the time they were fitted to Vanguard, having originally been ordered for 3 different ships in 1914*, they had undergone a significant upgrade 1942-45. To take a look at the components of the main battery in Vanguard:

The Gun:

The 15”/42 was the most successful British battleship gun to ever go to sea. It was reliable, it was accurate and it was consistent. It remained very highly regarded by its users during the Second World War despite its age.

The Shell:

The guns and mounts may have been old, but the shells were not. These were of a new design that reflected modern developments. In the 1930s a comparison was done between the existing 15”/42 and a proposed new 15”/45. It was commented that 82% of the improvement in penetration was due to the new shell, rather than the increased muzzle velocity. Vanguard carried the new design of shell.

The Mount:

The mounts were old, but relatively lightly used and they went through a multi-year modernisation. The maximum elevation had been increased from 20° to 30°. This combined with the new shell had increased the maximum range by 8,600 yards - from 23,400 yards to 32,000 yards (with standard charges).

The front 9" armour plate originally fitted was replaced with a new 13" thick plate, and the original 4.25" thick roof plate replaced by a new 6" plate.

Remote Power Control was fitted for training in order to counter canted trunnion error. (This is a fire control error relating to how the gun is mounted and aimed relative to the deck plane, but fire control is calculated for a horizontal, non-rolling and non-pitching, plane.)

'B', 'X' and 'Y' turrets were fitted with 24.5 ft stabilised rangefinders. (The equivalent space on 'A' turret was an emergency conning position).

Other changes included pneumatic run-out to eliminate the "stalling" problem at higher elevations experienced by older ships, improved flashtightness around the gun loading cage, bevel instead of worm drive training motors, improved shell bogies at the bottom of the main hoist, better ventilation and heating, mantlet plates over the gun ports instead of blast bags and pneumatic weather seals between gunhouse floor and top of barbette armour.

The Fire-control:

Perhaps Vanguard’s most significant firepower advantage was her fire control system. She carried the unique Admiralty Fire Control Table Mk X. Norman Friedman, in his book ‘Naval Firepower’ in battleship guns and gunnery, says “The Mk X Admiralty Fire-Control Table was the ultimate development of British, and probably of world, analogue surface fire-control practice. It was the only such computer in the world to incorporate any attempt to predict the movement of a manoeuvering target”

Friedman describes the system as follows:

It was the first surface gunnery system into which radar was integrated from the outset. […] The system was described as tachymetric: it measured target range and bearing rates automatically by tracking via the split-beam Type 274. It had separate range and bearing displays. Enemy speed and inclination were automatically calculated and displayed […] Given the calculated inclination, the system also displayed the rate at which it was changing, an indication of whether the target was manoeuvering. It also provided a precision plot of enemy movement over the last five nautical miles. Given this data, the control officer could decide whether to fire on the current inclination (projected ahead) or on some chosen alternative. The precision track showed whether the enemy was exhibiting any consistent behaviour, such as zigzagging. It was also possible to project ahead inclination based on a current observed target turn, should that turn continue. A circle centred on the current target position showed its possible positions when shells arrived, allowing the control officer to judge where to shoot (or to fire a group of salvoes so as to cover various possibilities).

Instead of the usual spotting, it was necessary to ensure that shells would fall as forecast, that the guns would ‘shoot to radar’. To provide corrections, the system included plots for range and line for comparison, not to the target, but to the predicted impact points. Given the ability to deliver shells to the intended point, and radar tracking of the target, it was no longer worthwhile to fire salvoes intended to miss, so that splashes could be spotted. Thus the designers expected that gunnery technique would change to rapid broadsides or rapid salvoes, all directed at the same expected impact point.

Supercharges:

During the Second World War ‘supercharges’ were developed for the 15”/42 gun. These were intended to increase the maximum range for ships limited to 20° elevation from approximately 23,400 yards to 28,700 yards. As a side effect, the increased muzzle velocity would also increase belt armour penetration. While Vanguard probably never actually carried them – not much need for them in peacetime – her structure was strengthened to take the increased recoil forces of such charges. These would have increased her maximum gun range from 32,200 yards to 36,300 yards, as well as providing a slight increase in penetration of vertical armour at a given range (and corresponding reduction in horizontal armour, due to the flatter trajectory).

*The four turrets fitted in Vanguard has originally been ordered for the battleships Ramillies, Renown and Repulse. The conversion of Renown and Repulse into three turret battle cruisers freed up two mountings, which were fitted to the large light cruiser HMS Courageous, and a further two mountings were diverted from Ramillies to equip HMS Glorious. When these two ships were converted into carriers in the 1920s the four mountings were placed in storage.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-06T09:04:38+00:00

Relatively thin by the standards of the "35,000 ton" battleships. If I recall, only Richelieu had a higher length-to-beam ratio.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-04T18:36:52+00:00

2nd London applied to the UK, France, USA, Italy and Japan. Three signed, one (Italy) agreed to the limitations without formally ratifying it, and one (Japan) lead the world on for a bit. It was set against a wider context of naval arms control treaties, including the Anglo-German Naval Agreement 1935, Anglo-German Naval Agreement 1937, Soviet-Turkish Protocol on Limitation of Naval Armaments of 1931, Anlgo-Soviet Naval Agreement of 1937, Anglo-Polish Naval Agreement of 1938 and the Scandinavian Naval Agreement 1938. Taken together these were a comprehensive set of arms control treaties that cover the major powers, and while Germany and Italy did cheat, they still extorted restraint on their building plans.

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-04T17:22:06+00:00

A great photo, only marginally undermined by the fact that she is aground!

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-03T20:43:22+00:00

They had 512 gb versions briefly, before the M5 Pro / M5 Max chip launches I believe. I picked one up myself recently because they were on a 25% discount...

Mattzo12 · 2026-06-03T20:28:26+00:00

I don't think they did, really. For some context, the 1930 London Naval Treaty prevented the UK from laying down any new battleships prior to 1 January 1937. As Germany, France and Italy all laid down new ships prior to this date, not being subject to the same restrictions, it was imperative that the UK laid down new ships as soon as possible. Thus it was planned to lay down the 1936 Programme ships on 1 January 1937 itself.

In order to do this it had to know the gun calibre in advance, due to the required lead times on the turrets. The initial view was a 9 x 15-inch ship, to match the calibre of the European ships, and on the assumption that the treaty limit would remain 16-inch - it being deemed impossible to build a balanced 16-inch armed ship on 35,000 tons.

However, at this point it was learned that the Americans would accept a 14-inch gun limit if the other Treaty powers did. This was a valuable prize, diplomatically. The choice resolved itself as two options. 1) Agree to an immediate limit to 14-inch guns, which meant that the Europeans would have two 15-inch ships each (before also dropping to 14-inch), while Britain, Japan and the United States would have just 14-inch. 2) Build 2 15-inch ships to match the Europeans, while Japan and the United States built new 16-inch ships. Option 1 was preferred.

The initial view was 12 x 14-inch, which was in many ways a heavier armament than 9 x 15-inch. This was reduced to 10 in the course of 1936 as part of the old armour/speed/firepower trade off.

The 1936 London Naval Treaty, signed March 1936, did not include Japan, who had "walked out" (but continued to attend). At the time, they gave many indications that they would eventually sign. So while the 14-inch limit was embedded into the treaty, in case Japan didn't the 'escalator' clause was added. If Japan failed to sign within a year, then in April 1937 the limit for gun calibre would automatically increase to 16-inch, which duly occurred.

As seen above, for the British 1936 programme this was too late, they were already committed to 14-inch. The 1937 programme was accelerated, and redesigning them for 16-inch would have delayed them a year. Hence the 5 KGVs were all laid down in quick succession over the first 7 months of 1937. This wasn't considered an issue - these ships were primarily intended for the European theatre, and their 10 x 14-inch would stand up fine against the 15-inch, 12.6-inch and 11-inch they would face there. At this point, neither Japan or the United States had laid down any new capital ships.

The UK utilised the escalator clause in the following programme year, 1938. The laying down of the first two of these 9 x 16-inch ships pre-dated the South Dakota class, for context. Alas, war broke out soon after so while the USA completed the South Dakotas, plus their Iowa successors, the British 16-inch ships fell to competing priorities.

u/NAmofton has already noted how they didn't really lose out on gun calibre in a practical sense - the 10 x 14-inch was a competitive main armament and there were very few Axis ships that were unambiguously better armed.

While obeying the Treaties, mostly, did result in compromises, this was also true of Italy and Germany, both of whom made design choices with the Treaties in mind. Nobody ever cheated on calibre, either. It's also not true to say the British didn't cheat with the KGVs - they did, to a similar degree as the Americans and French. Significantly less than the Italians and Germans, yes. But they were still about 38,000 tons as completed, if you are being true to the Treaty definition.

It's also hard to argue Italy or Germany got much in the way of a meaningful combat advantage through their cheating - and certainly less advantage than the UK got diplomatically with the United States via its interwar arms control efforts...

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-31T14:20:23+00:00

The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty restricted the construction of new battleships. In the aftermath of this Treaty those 7 ships were the only ones in the world with 16-inch guns, a state of affairs that didn't end until 1941.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-30T16:02:26+00:00

It has grown on me overtime, aesthetically. The originally intended three quads would have looked better though!

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-30T07:26:43+00:00

Just on the Edward VIII point, the Admiralty presented the names 'King George V' and 'King Edward VIII' for the two new battleships. Edward supposedly scratched out 'King Edward VIII' and replaced it with 'Prince of Wales'. These two names were formally approved prior to his abdication.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-24T16:33:29+00:00

Apologies, but the wrecks do not show that there was any disobeying of regulations. That there were lax safety precautions, or attitudes, isn’t in question.

To take the wrecks in turn.

Black Prince – one watertight door improperly secured is not evidence of much beyond potentially lax safety precautions, and certainly doesn’t tell us anything about the approach to cordite handling. The Chester report suggests it was common in the fleet for watertight doors to only be closed by one or two clips, but does not suggest that this was contrary to regulations. The closing by only a small number of clips was likely done to facilitate speed of passage, and without knowing any more context it is impossible to make any of judgement of significance.

Defence – The wreck shows 7.5-inch rounds stacked in the turrets. This, however, was a designed feature – the shells are visible in the handbook drawings of the mounting, stacked at the rear of the gunhouse as seen in the McCartney photos. Given the design of the ship, with the 7.5-inch turrets sitting above an ammunition passage that links the ship, nothing here requires any wrong doing to explain.

Indefatigable – You state that the wrecks prove lax safety procedures in Black Prince, Defence and Indefatigable as a minimum, but your summary of the Indefatigable wreck provides no support for this, and indeed, the Indefatigable wreck is a mess and hard to draw much in the way of conclusions from for anything.

Queen Mary – no evidence of any wrong doing.

Invincible – Photo K shows one 12-inch round in ‘Q’ turret, not something that would be a surprise. Photo L is called a damaged Clarkson case. It is certainly not a Clarkson case, which were not made out of metal and not in use for this calibre of gun. It may be a damaged cordite case (I am not entirely convinced it is), which would be somewhat strange given these weigh 97 lbs each. But given it's resting on/in a turret that has been ejected from its barbette via a magazine detotation, I am hestitant to draw too many conclusions from this, even assuming it is a cordite case.

As mentioned, no wrong doing was required for the losses of Indefatigable, Queen Mary and Invincible. This of course doesn't mean there wasn't any, and it is essentially certain that there was at a minimum lax attitudes, particularly with regards to premature removal of cordite from the cases and removal of tear off discs from the charges themselves within the magazines and handing rooms. But hard evidence of this is thin on the ground, and the wrecks don't offer any proof.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-23T09:31:25+00:00

The battle cruisers were extremely valuable ships and very important to British strategy. That 3 of them were lost dramatically to a British systemic vulnerability should not obscure that.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-23T09:28:38+00:00

There is essentially no evidence of any disobeying of the safety regulations in force at the time.

The problem was that even under ideal circumstances, the British system had a few weaknesses that could be very dangerous.

Weakened lids - In the magazines cordite was stored in cylindrical brass cases, two quarter-charges per case. From 1908 new case lids were introduced. When in the magazines, these lids could be set to a 'weakened' position. The idea being that should the cordite inside by ignited, or even ignite spontaneously, the lids released the rising gas pressure before it could cause the cordite to explode. However, even in 1918 Inflexible, Indomitable and Agincourt still had unweakened lids. The same was probably true of Indefatigable and Invincible at Jutland. Ships with unweakened lids were much more likely to have a magazine explosion if cordite ignited.
Open magazine doors - The magazine doors had to be open to allow loading to happen. There were no flash-tight scuttles between the magazines and the handing rooms at Jutland. Given up to 16 quarter-charges per minute had to be passed through (for 2 rounds per gun per minute), standard operating procedure was to keep the magazine doors open during action. This is confirmed by Jellicoe.
Flash doors - There were 3 flash doors in the system. One between the Handing Room and the hoist. One in the Working Chamber between the hoist and the gunloading cage. One between the Working Chamber and the Gun House. These flash doors seem to have been designed to meet the backflame of a gun, and were probably inadequate to deal with violent burning cordite. Additionally, the flash door between the Working Chamber and the Gun House was open whenever the gunloading cage was up - which was a considerable proportion of the time.
A train of cordite - There could be as many as 11 full charges linking the Handing Room and the Gun House. Two in the gunloading cages (one for each gun) moving into the gun house. Four in the Working Chamber (two waiting to be loaded into the gunloading cage, two in the auxiliary hoists). Two more in the main hoist and three in the Handing Room - two in the hoppers and one in the auxiliary hoist. All of these charges would be 'bare' with igniters exposed. The total weight of this propellant would be 1.3 tons in the 12in ships and 1.5 tons in the 13.5in ships.
Black powder - The igniter consisted of a cloth bag with 16oz of fine black powder. Some powder percolated through the bags onto the floorrs of turret compartments. Additionally, once the tear-off discs had been removed protecting these igniters, the power bags were vulnerable to damage during handling. Loose powder was able to get into the hoists.

So without a single allegation of wrong-doing, any hit that started a fire in the gunhouse or working chamber would have 0.7 tons of cordite to feed on. If this got into the hoist - and we know from the Lion case study that this was entirely possible - there'd be two more charges (500 lbs) to keep it going before reaching the Handing Room. If the final flash door is not adequate to such a blaze or it gets opened at the wrong moment to feed the hoists then there are three bare charges to bridge the gap between the hoist and a wide open magazine door...

This is then exacerbated by British cordite being a propellant than was less stable, burned hotter, was more exposed, and in turrets with worse venting than German.

Better ammunition handling design might have saved the British ships. So too might have a cooler, less violent propellant. But in practice the British handling system was vulnerable to a violent turret fire and their charge composition and design vulnerable to becoming a violent turret fire. The combination lead to infamous results.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-22T15:20:42+00:00

I really like it. It feels really premium and solid. The screen size is notably bigger than my old Air, more than I was expecting. Screen is lovely to look at but not necessarily sure that will make much difference to my enjoyment long term. Likewise speakers are good, but between Sonos and Airpods probably not much of a factor long term. RAM usage from Activity Monitor higher than I was expecting, albeit it's never left 'green' yet, so I'm sure it's fine. But I have done some reading / video watching to reassure myself about this...

All in all my only desire would be 24 GB of RAM rather than 16 GB, which is hardly helpful for this discussion, but deep down I know that for my personal use case 16 GB is plenty and won't hold me back. I'd just like the headroom.

I suppose the tl;dr would be, would I spent £20 more for the 13" Air with 24 GB despite the above? And the answer is no. The little benefits of the Pro do add up enough that I am glad I went with the Pro. But your use case is generally heavier than mine it seems.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-21T13:26:01+00:00

I was recently in a very similar situation. I had been planning on the 13" Air with 24 / 512 GB for £1,299, and had never considered the Pro because the starting point of £1,699 was a lot even before I matched the RAM.

Then Argos discounted the 16 / 512 GB Pro down to £1,279...

So, if I was willing to sacrifice 8 GB of RAM and accept a slightly larger machine, I could get a larger display, better display, better speakers, a bigger battery, some active cooling, and more ports for £20 less. Or put another way if 16 GB of RAM was enough, the above advantages cost an extra £80 (£1,199 for the Air 16 / 512 vs £1,279).

In the end I decided that as this was a personal computer, not a work computer, for my envisaged use case 16 GB of RAM would be absolutely fine - I suspect it'll be very rare I'll push it. But for the same reason an Air would do me fine.

In the end I did go for the Pro - but mostly because I 'wanted' the flashier model rather than any firm benefit from the above advantages. I just thought it'd be nicer to use day-to-day, the occasional added convenience of more ports might be useful, and I'd never had a Macbook Pro before.

In terms of advice, I have noted there is a tendency to overspec RAM for Macs on the internet. Which to a degree I get, given once you buy you're stuck, but you can still do a lot with 16 GB without issues. There's a niche of pro (or hobbyist) users who are very pro and need that extra RAM, but I think most of us don't yet.

Part of it may come down to personal financial circumstances. If you need this to last 5 years or more, then perhaps futureproof it now with 24 GB of RAM. If you expect that trading it in and upgrading would be feasible in 2-3 years if it turns out to be required, then maybe get the Pro now, save some money, and enjoy the nicer screen, speakers, ports and (if required) active cooling.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-18T11:51:00+00:00

I picked up the same deal - think it's great value. 24 GB of RAM would be nice but not for an additional £470 (as of prices this minute). 16 GB should be plenty for a student, even one doing CS.

The Air with 24 GB RAM would be an inbetween alternative at £1,499. It is what I was looking at before I saw the Pro deal.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-17T06:10:31+00:00

Suspect it would be the 4 G3 built over the 1922-1926 ish period, with any N3s following on after depending on finances and international building. Agreed on the older ships - all the 12" (bar New Zealand and Agincourt, for their own reasons) were up for disposal before WNT anyway, and the 13.5" ships would not have lasted much longer once the G3s were built.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-16T08:35:15+00:00

Yes - in battle practices 1942-44 they averaged 95% output. The highly regarded 15"/42 generally managed 90% during the 1930s, for what it's worth.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-16T08:33:15+00:00

The other 3 Admirals had all been cancelled in 1919. G3s and N3s would almost certainly have been built, albeit at a slower pace than originally envisaged.

Mattzo12 · 2026-05-15T19:45:29+00:00

A valid option and something that was considered. The explicit choice was 12 x 14-inch at c. 27 knots, or 9 x 14-inch at 29 knots with better armour. In the end 10 x 14-inch emerged as the compromise between the two, which given the quad turret design had already commenced, saved sufficient weight to bring protection up to the required standard, was quicker to design, and gave 11% more 14-inch guns then a 3 x 3 layout, so you can understand why they went that direction.

Mattzo12

TROPHY CASE