New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Regarding the oversized American fleet--a lot of the ships likelu are in reserve; a naval arms race leads to ships becoming obsolescent or obsolete in a hurry. (Also, if carriers, in this timeline, come from converted battleships, at least at first, they could get state names.)

Don't forget aircraft carriers. You'll need a reason why American admirals gave up their dislike of carriers.

[adm]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Don't forget aircraft carriers. You'll need a reason why American admirals gave up their dislike of carriers.

That one is a bit easier, if fleet units in this worlds WW II are as vulnerable to air attack as they were in ours, the Navy will be forced to use them.

Of course being forced to use them without the immediate threat from our WW II would likely lead to a poorer naval air doctrine.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The phone messes up my answers and denies me the chance to answer you with full respect. Still I'll try.

Moving the Pope to Mexico is extreme, but the goal is a papal takeover of New Spain. I'm going cinematic here.

Beautiful call on the Dutch monarchy.

Yes, Cape Town is also a center of resistance to the Turk. They probably seek out Islamic allies in Persia and Mulghal India.

Sir Percy's dad would be a good choice. Maybe Chauvelin is an ally.

Cyrano (a very cinematic worldline) has a Papal Mexico, after the Old World fell to the Han Empire. Perhaps have chaos in Spain, flooded with European refugees and isolated on the Continent, so the Catholic Church becomes the main power there.

This could also resemble Cyrano in an independent Dutch East Indies Company, only nominally answering to the exiled monarchy - only double it with an also near-independent Dutch West Indies Company.

Settlement could also being much earlier than IRL on Australia, or "Nieuw Holland", and New/Nieuw Zealand.

Meanwhile, British, Dutch, and Portuguese conspire for allies among the princes of India.

[scc]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Read carefully: the American navy broke the British blockade on Germany via Denmark. The German defeat in WWI was at its core an economic one inflicted by a British blockade of its ports. The 1916-1917 winter was known as the turnip winter: they were feeling the strain two years into war. In this alternate the Americans forced the British to either allow american ships to deliver grain to Germany or to start shooting at them.

So Germany survives this by not being starved out of the war. Without that ticking time bomb, the war goes differently.

Not going to happen, Britain will likely rather let the Germans rule Europe then let the US dictate terms like that to them.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by scc

Not going to happen, Britain will likely rather let the Germans rule Europe then let the US dictate terms like that to them.

I don't know about that. Yes, its a loss of prestige, but it just isn't practical to turn around and fight the US instead of Germany. And once the UK is in a naval shootout with someone else, Germany is NOT going to to let them quietly withdraw and defeat their rivals piecemeal. Its a tricky decision, and I could see a single personality moving the needle one way or the other.

Of course, a version of this where the US starts a shooting war with the UK is possible, but that's a very different timeline.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by scc

Not going to happen, Britain will likely rather let the Germans rule Europe then let the US dictate terms like that to them.

More likely, they might think they could take the US Navy and still fight the Germans. And in the short term, they'd be right - the Royal Navy was after all still something like 4 times the size of the USN, and with substantially better ships and training. UK naval strategy had after all been to be as strong as the next two navies put together (which at this point would have been Germany and the US, though France might have disputed who was really in third) for well over a century.

It takes more than a year to build a heavy warship, and costs a lot, if the USN is supposed to have a fleet credibly capable of breaking a blockade of Germany it really needs to start building them a couple years before the war starts, which changes everybody's strategic calculations going in. The US Navy after all had been pushing as hard as it could for a better fleet built since the Spanish American War had so extended its responsibilities. If it wants to spend several times as much money to match the Royal Navy (and convince Congress to raise taxes 20% to pay for it) it's going to need to make a serious case that a war with Britain is *likely*, and British strategic planners will react to that by building a bigger fleet themselves....

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by malloyd

More likely, they might think they could take the US Navy and still fight the Germans. And in the short term, they'd be right - the Royal Navy was after all still something like 4 times the size of the USN, and with substantially better ships and training. UK naval strategy had after all been to be as strong as the next two navies put together (which at this point would have been Germany and the US, though France might have disputed who was really in third) for well over a century.

In a strait shoot-em up, sure. But the UK has horribly far flung territories to defend. The British strategy demands control of the seas. Britain ran a terrible food deficit, and relied on overseas shipping to feed itself. In 1910, Australia and Canada both produced more grain than the UK, despite having a combined population of less than a third of their mother country. The U boat campaign was aimed at exploiting that weakness. The US has excellent options for interfering with the Canadian grain.

Japan's presence with the entente helps Australia a lot, and adds some teeth to Britain that I didn't think were there. The US can't fight a two front naval war. In fact, they and the Germans will have to keep their fleet in port until they can pick off the British piecemeal. The royal fleet can't be everywhere at once, and they need to keep the freighters safe.

The strength of the american threat isn't "we can defeat you in naval combat". Its "You cannot afford this distraction".

I'm seeing several fun alternates and scenarios in this line of thought.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The strength of the american threat isn't "we can defeat you in naval combat". Its "You cannot afford this distraction".

Is there really a choice though? This is a critical piece of the UK strategy here. If it's going to lose the war to give it up (and that's the postulated consequence here, so this isn't even a wrong assumption), you don't give it up even if that's a nasty option too.

In effect the US has already declared war - announcing you are not going to honor a blockade, and sending warships to break it, is a pretty unambiguous act of war, no matter how you spin it for domestic consumption. I can see the fact Germany was giving them more or less a pass on shipping stuff to the UK allowing a US administration to convince themselves Britain will flinch from calling them on it too, but once you start deploying actual warships that seems pretty unlikely.

[David Johnston2]

Of course the answer is "Let the United States go to war with Britain, and (with the help of the German High Seas Fleet) win) Britain won't back down even more than it would in 1812.

[TGLS]

If the Americans went that heavy on the navy, I'd say it's fair that they let their army went light. So if the British are interested in going to war with America to stop this, let them through to Germany at first; let the Americans think they won. Then keep the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Canada, and invade the United States. Next thing you know, America learns a valuable lesson; backing one side in the interservice rivalry is stupid.