Earliest the US Navy could match the Royal Navy?

With a PoD after 1900, what's the earliest that US Navy could fight the Royal Navy to a standstill in a one-on-one war, without bankrupting the US government?
 
You know this easily happened in the OTL. Please take a look at the USN right after WW2 ended and compare it to the RN right after WW2 ended and ask yourself which side would win? Now if you want it earlier have the Washington Naval Treaty not get signed and a Naval arms race break out between the US, Britain and Japan. If it has the intensity of the Anglo-German Arms race the US eventually overwhelms the British and passes them.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
With a PoD after 1900, what's the earliest that US Navy could fight the Royal Navy to a standstill in a one-on-one war, without bankrupting the US government?

Assuming that the RN knows the USN is coming for it at least a few years in advance... I'm going to say mid 1930s as a ballpark. It has to be post-WNT to reduce the RN to parity with the USN, i.e. to scrap the couple of dozen surplus DNs and scads of other ships, and then you have to give it several years to let the RN's building speed advantage fade, and finally another few building cycles for the USN to outbuild the RN.


(I'm assuming no great depression, of course.)
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
I would say 1917 if the US wants it. A trans-Atlantic war would mean that one side or the other defines the battlefields, and the RN is not going to send 100 destroyers to the US coast, as an example. It comes down to dreadnoughts, and by 1917 the US battleships were a match for the British, so as long as they want it, they can build enough easily enough to outnumber the British.

By 1921 Britain is going to be in a very bad position

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1910s early 20s.

The Americans had a gigantic building program which they had actually started unlike the British planned one which scared the treasury into seeking the WNT.

No WNT and a direct naval race Britain gives up and concedes superiority although it would much prefer parity and friendly relations ala OTL.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Assume that there's no WWI.

I'm assuming that the USA intends to challenge the UK, and that it devotes money and resources to this.

If things just happen, then maybe it would be mid 1920s without a WW1, but its very hard to know as you posit TWO counter-factuals at the same time!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Given the British Ship Building industry was not exceeded by the US until the late 30s at the earliest in OTL - I would say 1942?

But too much depends on what the POD was and why the 2 nations are engaged in a Dreadnaught race.

As for Qualatitive ships - the Pennsylvania class certainly matched the Iron Dukes but certainly not the Queens or the Revenges or for that matter the Bayern class
 
Given the British Ship Building industry was not exceeded by the US until the late 30s at the earliest in OTL - I would say 1942?

But too much depends on what the POD was and why the 2 nations are engaged in a Dreadnaught race.

As for Qualatitive ships - the Pennsylvania class certainly matched the Iron Dukes but certainly not the Queens or the Revenges or for that matter the Bayern class

If the U.S. makes matching Britain militarily a priority, wouldn't one assume they'd rapidly expand the shipbuilding industry? And the U.S.'s total industrial potential had exceeded that of Britain at some point prior to 1914, IIRC.
 
The Civil War

By 1865, the Union Army was the largest on Earth.

Lincoln even said this in a letter, but I'm not sure where I can find it.

The Union Army was also the largest on Earth.

When the war ended, Britain was so scared that the US would have nothing to do with it and just send it up to Canada.
 
The Civil War

By 1865, the Union Army was the largest on Earth.

Lincoln even said this in a letter, but I'm not sure where I can find it.

The Union Army was also the largest on Earth.

When the war ended, Britain was so scared that the US would have nothing to do with it and just send it up to Canada.

1. Please tell me you're joking. The Army was completely unsustainable by 1865. That's why it was gutted as soon as the war ended.
2. The question was about the US Navy, not the US Army.

EDIT: And either way, the Army isn't all that important in an Anglo-American War, since there's a giant ocean between the two countries.
 
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If the U.S. makes matching Britain militarily a priority, wouldn't one assume they'd rapidly expand the shipbuilding industry? And the U.S.'s total industrial potential had exceeded that of Britain at some point prior to 1914, IIRC.

Yes - but with out a more detailed description of the POD we can only go on OTL ship building and Britain possessed the finest Ship building industry in the world until WW2 saw the US jump ahead.

Also qualititivly Britain was leading the race as far as innovation was concerned Dreadnaught, Invincable, Queen Elizabeth, and then the unbuilt G3s all did or would have maintained the Gap between them and their 'peers' - this race however ended in 1921 when diplomats ensured parity between both nations (or the English Speaking and thinking world totally dominating everyone else depending on your POV).

Maybe if Hellbent on exceeding the Brits and no battleship Holiday both Nations would have continued to build ships would have eventually resulted in the USA from over hauling them - probably in the late 20s and early 30s.

But it would have to be a hell of a POD and would have serious knock on effects in the US as the money would have to come from somewhere.....
 
Yes - but with out a more detailed description of the POD we can only go on OTL ship building and Britain possessed the finest Ship building industry in the world until WW2 saw the US jump ahead.

Also qualititivly Britain was leading the race as far as innovation was concerned Dreadnaught, Invincable, Queen Elizabeth, and then the unbuilt G3s all did or would have maintained the Gap between them and their 'peers' - this race however ended in 1921 when diplomats ensured parity between both nations (or the English Speaking and thinking world totally dominating everyone else depending on your POV).

Maybe if Hellbent on exceeding the Brits and no battleship Holiday both Nations would have continued to build ships would have eventually resulted in the USA from over hauling them - probably in the late 20s and early 30s.

But it would have to be a hell of a POD and would have serious knock on effects in the US as the money would have to come from somewhere.....

The thing is that using OTL as a benchmark shows the US creeping ahead in world war one. It had a major expansion plan that the British would need to counter and they decided OTL not to bother and instead come to an agreement.

As impressive as the British ship building was the treasury was less so and a second naval race would wreck British finances.
 
Ultimately, it depends on why the US would want to do this, and how urgent it is. If the US so wanted to, it could get involved in the dreadnought arms race and cream both the UK and Germany. However, the British had a lot of pride in their navy, while the US didn't really, so although in terms of raw production, this would be quite quick and quite easy for the USA, the UK would be willing to dedicate more of its industry towards its navy, even though it has less of it. Unless the US suddenly develops a case of naval-based jingoism, it would take a heavy war and/or a demilitarisation treaty to bring the two level.
 
Per TFSmith121, posted 8th Sep 2014, on another thread:




"The numbers below are from Bairoch vis Kennedy:

Relative shares of world manufacturing output, 1913 (p.201):
US - 32 percent
GE - 14.8
BE - 13.6
RE - 8.2
FE - 6.1
AH - 4.4
IT - 2.4

The US economy alone manufactures more than the British, Russian, and French empires combined...

Here's another chart, from page 202:

Total Industrial Potential of the Powers (UK in 1900 = 100) in 1913:

US - 298.1
GE - 137.7
BE - 127.2
RE - 76.6
FE - 57.3
AH - 40.7
JE - 25.1
IE - 22.5

The US had greater potential upon mobilization than Britain, Russia, and France, combined...

Here's another one - warship tonnage in 1914:
UK - 2.7 million tons
GE - 1.3 million tons
US - 985,000 tons
FR - 900,000 tons
JA - 700,000 tons
RU - 679,000 tons
IT - 498,000 tons
AH - 372,000 tons"

If, around 1900, the U.S. had set its mind on matching the British militarily, they would certainly have accomplished that goal long before the 1930's. Probably by 1915 or so, I expect. I know that's difficult for "RN strongest and best" partisans to accept, but the numbers seem fairly persuasive.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
I cannot see the political will in Britain to massively increase its building programme beyond OTL. Sure, it can increase but its a huge investment and if in this scenario the UK is trying to outrace both Germany and the USA, its going to get its political knickers in a twist.

It CAN do some things in the short run, scrap the predreadnoughts en masse and move the crews to new dreadnoughts, but by for example running at 8 a year for 5 years by year 5 it is plagued with 8 OLD dreadnoughts in commission

The USA can if it wants to match and better these figures. IMHO the whole thread hangs on the US wanting to do this - if it doesn't then the rivalry aspect is a non-starter

Once both sides reach a qualitative plateau you are looking at increments. For example, let's say there is both a British and an American 18" gunned class by 1920 (and probably a Japanese and a German one too), then we are not looking at realistic calibre increases, or even of realistic hull size increases, but of numbers going forward.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Such a discussion is not that simply answered by taking into acount the batltefleet only, as naval warfare was already fought on many other sorts of fronts, which the USA had never realy explored in the modern age so far, until the post ww2 period.

One example is cruiser warfare, as the USN of pre ww2 days actually had no comparable numbers of cruisers, nor of the same Multipurpose type as the Royal Navy possessed. Only as soon as the mid 30´s the USN started to build cruisers in larger numbers, but of a bit onsided types, namely the substitute for a battleship, meaning gun only types of warships, with no torpedoes and not multipurpose sort of thinking in mind. Agreed they designed some fine speicalist ships, but what was missing was the easy to build and exploit type of warship, capable of operating on its own and in squadrons. USN ships tended to be expensive to build and deploy, given their larger than needed size for many sorts of roles.

More important was that the USN did not use its vast resources on creating reliable weapons, as most advanced sorts of weapons, especially the ones wich were self propelled, like torpedoes did simply not get the needed funding to make them useful. That would imply that the USN would have a serious weakness, untill those problems were fixed, as the USN might have had equality in numbers to the Royal Navy at a given time, but lacked the means to do real harm, if things got nasty theoretically. To sink a ship at sea, torpedoes are the obvious tools to use, which suggest you have these available in both quantity and quality.

Speaking about ballance, the USN was never a ballanced navy, until somewhere mid ww2, or around 1943 at its soonest. It completely lacked ASW capability until 1943 at least, when enough purposely designed and constructed ASW ships became available for instance. It neither had the required support of oversea bases, which the Royal Navy had. That would mean, the USN basically had to operate relatively close to its own shores, if wishing to avoid serious harm of any opponent. A fight in European waters for isntance was out of the question, as any support would have to come form the US East coast then. The UK had bases in both Canada, Caribean and most other places in the World, giving it much more flexibility.

Lastly, the USN might have had many destroyers, though until the early 40´s most were of the flushdecked four funnel type, which were poor seaboats and lacked both firepower, flexibility and endurance to be of much value. The UK continued to produce new destroyers throughout the 20´s and 30´s, while also possessing a large number of WW1 ships as well, all of better classes and capabilites compared to the USN four pipes ships. The contemporary V&W type was a far more useful ship than the Clemson type.
 

NothingNow

Banned
With a PoD after 1900, what's the earliest that US Navy could fight the Royal Navy to a standstill in a one-on-one war, without bankrupting the US government?

Honestly, if the Navy Department’s General Board had gotten their way in 1918, the USN would've had a much larger capital ship force than the RN in 1922-23, simply by extending the Naval Act of 1916 to cover another twelve battleships and sixteen battlecruisers, all of which would likely be on par with or superior to the South Dakota-class (BB-49 through -54).

The only real problem is, the USN would need a larger cruiser and battlecruiser force to outmatch the RN in practice, because as badly as the RN performed in WWI, there is a lot to say about how useful institutional aggressiveness is when you're commerce raiding. The USN of course was fairly deficient of cruisers until after the WNT went into effect, but had enough to support their operational requirements when taken with the USN's capital ships.
 
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