Quote:
Originally Posted by copeab
It's worth noting that almost all subs through this era were really designed as surface vessels which had the ability to submerge for stealth and concealment and (hopefully) surface again afterwards.
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Absolutely. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of
Albacore on later designs: it's only now that submarine-builders are even
thinking of diverging from that basic hull shape.
So that's the first world-building decision, I think: do you want submarines that spend most of their time submerged, in which case you really need some sort of long-duration air-independent power plant (which at this tech level is going to be an early atomic pile), or do you want something closer to the WWII-era base in which submarines are basically attack boats designed round a gimmick? Assuming the latter, how best to get rid of land-based aircraft?
A world with a lot of small islands and no large land masses works for several reasons: severe weather systems make surface shipping untenable but allow aircraft (but not airships!) to land and be tied down in moderate shelter; minimal flat real-estate means that people don't want to give it up for runways and hangarage when they can use the sea instead. I do think you'd see more development of retractable floats for long-range and fighter aircraft than happened historically, and you might get the occasional ZLT experiment for land-based interceptors (rocket rails, etc.).