RevRick
Posts: 2617
Joined: 9/16/2000
From: Thomasville, GA
Status: offline
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Thanks, John...
I've just begun playing with the art, but I have been working on an altHist mod of my own..
Mainly, there are lots more BB's, roughly 33%, for all sides, and about 15% more CVs.
here also were some minor alterations in the WNT and the LNT which allowed somewhat higher tonnage, and some early 1930's replacements for very old ships. This did not really apply to Japan because most of her ships were as new as the RN and USN main battle lines.
This would allow for a modified South Dakota class (8 16/50 vice 12, 30 Kt as opposed to 23) for the USN in the early 30's at the cost of all the old BB's up to the Nevada/Oklahoma.
The RN also gets, by retiring a larger number of the old ships, a 4 ship Rodney class with a more conventional layout and 28 kt speed. The RN does not build the 'R' class as in OTL, (a lesser version of the Queen Elizabeth's) but instead build them somewhat larger, with early 16" guns and 27 kt speed. They also take the Queen Elizabeth's in hand for a rebuild in the early 30's (basically all that is left the same is the Main Battery and the hull abaft the first turret - new engines, new bow, new AA suite beginning, new bridge works.) The RN does not build the Hood, Renown, and Repulse as BC.. They build Renown and Repulse as 40K ton 8-15" BB's shortly after WWI, the Hood becomes one of the Rodney's.
Japan withdraws from the WNT in 1935 because they resent deeply the 5:5:3 ratio and announce that they will begin building new battleships in accordance with the notification of intent to build clause in the WNT. Some more perspicacious observers note that they did not mention anything about tonnage or gun size in their notice...
The USA begins to respond two years earlier with the North Carolina (1935) (40K tons, 30 kt speed) and the Massachusetts (OT SoDak)(1937)(also 40K tons, 30 kt speed, 16/50 main battery) classes, and builds another Yorktown (Constellation) as a bridge to the Essex class.
The RN builds a KGV class but slightly heavier (40K with 16" guns) vice the OTL version.
But, the word is out in the inner circles in WASHDC that the Japanese have been planning some super battleships with 16" & 18" guns for some time. [one class of 4 with 9 16's in triple turrets at 45-48 Ktons and 33 kt speed, another class of 2 with 12-16" guns in triple turrets, 56-58 K ton, 30 Kt speed, and the OTL Yamato's - total of 8 ships - the first three will be in the water 07DEC41, next three within the next year, the Yamato's begin arriving in early-mid 1943!) That word gets to the intelligence guys because the Black Chamber was not shut down by Stinson (for any number of reasons, including the possibility of no Hoover Administration [details, details]). But, a revelation of that information has to be arranged that does not point the the US reading Japanese mail. This info is not even shared with the RN or the Prime Minister (Can you imagine Chamberlain with that info??????) This happens through the efforts of some very carefully recruited and strenuously trained Japanese Americans (through the offices of the Black Chamber) employed at the US embassy in Tokyo who carefully ferret out enough information to create enough hard proof to sustain enough of a suspicion of Japanese intentions by late 1937 to start the ball rolling.
The Two-Ocean Navy bill is signed in late 1938 because of European tensions and the various incidents in Japanese occupied China being a bit more egregious than was reported (IJN got snooty about the Panay incident, and the Allison incident became more problematic than they supposed.) With the North Carolina Class built and the Massachusetts class completing.. 4 Iowa's are ordered, 4 Montana's, and a class of expanded Montana's with 8" 18"47 naval files and almost 75,000 tons (ironically named the Rhode Island and Delaware!).
Carriers also receive a treatment...
Akagi and Amagi are built by the IJN, a class of Hiryu's, and four of the Shokaku's (two commissioned 07DEC41, two to complete in 1942), and two of the smaller Soryu (named Kairyu) for a total of 8 fleet carriers in the water at beginning of war. Junyo and Hiyo are under construction also as slighly smaller Shokaku class, with two Taihos, and a class of slighly larger and improved Unryu's on the drawing boards and waiting for ways.
Obviously, both sides have built up the shipbuilding infrastructure during the days of the treaty.
There is a lot more but I haven't put it all down on paper yet... Which means that it is all in my head (a dangerous proposition).
_____________________________
"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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RE: The PERFECT WAR Mod: Allied Side - 
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