These two ships were the culmination of twenty years of major improvements to the infrastructure at Porto Cabello. Finally, large caliber guns, heavy plate armour, indigenous machinery, and all the thousand and one other parts required to produce modern warships could be manufactured locally. The things that still required importation were the myriad of new electronics that started appearing during the 1940's. During the war the US was quite happy to refit the electronics whenever one of the Venezuelan ships docked in a major US refit port.
Radar predictors for the 40mm would start appearing in 1943 and more 40mm would be added in place of the 20mm weapons. The 14" guns were of 52 caliber and fired a 1650lb shell. This was as good as any of the other 14" guns in service. Firing 36,000 yards was all that was required. Most battles are fought at much closer distances due to the weather conditions prevailing. It is not often you get a clear day where you can see forever and actually fire your guns out to their maximum distance. At maximum distance even the most accurate guns have a shell spread that makes hitting lucky.
