Deleted member 14881
If WW1 doesn't happen or a that type of conflict doesnt happen at all what would be the Science and tech level in 1945.
About the same as what it was then some fields may be better other fields would be farther behind.
The world is a lot more stable though. If Europe can avoid shooting its legs out from under it self.
A lot more people are alive and were probably looking at a thriving and decently strong world economy.
Grey Wolf
Donor
IMHO you can't answer this question without "gaming it out". After all, what does "no WW1" mean? Its hardly likely to mean no wars, and probably won't mean no big wars, just no general war.
In general you MIGHT be able to surmise that ANTI measures are not as well developed, be these hydrophones, RADAR, or the main battle tank.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
In general you MIGHT be able to surmise that ANTI measures are not as well developed, be these hydrophones, RADAR, or the main battle tank.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
The US, if not all, tanks and their use would not be as advanced. Gas would probably been used by both sides.
So we're continuing the general economic/social/cultural climate of the pre-war to 1945?
Airplane technology might be a little behind where it was IOTL. A lot of the aeronautical development in the US and the public interest in it resulted from the influx of WWI surplus airplanes to the market at scrap prices. Then again, aeronautics was a thriving field in the US, France, England, and Germany before the war, so that might continue with progress similar to OTL.
Strategic Bombing as a doctrine might not develop as it did IOTL. Naval Aviation and similar fields will suffer as well as a result of no experience with using ship-mounted airplanes and blimps to hunt U-boats.
Instead, bigger battleships and more reconnaissance aircraft will be developed. Maybe the zeppelin lasts a little longer with airliners delayed.
Tanks: Delayed indefinitely. Cavalry was a viable force in many armies as late as 1941--it'll last longer here. With military theory based on the idea of a conflict measured in weeks instead of years, you may see some idea of mechanizing an army to gain a speed advantage, so APCs and self-propelled artillery could happen. On the other hand, without any demonstrated need, they could also be delayed.
Medicine, consumer electronics, and general scientific theory, plus development in all the above fields: Probably further along than IOTL, if only because of the sheer intellectual mass of scientists, engineers, doctors, and inventors who aren't blown up in the trenches. In fact, I'd say that that would be enough to counterbalance any delay in aeronautics--a lot of brilliant engineers lost in the mud might go on to build airliners sooner.
No WWII means, however, that Big Science--atomic and rocket technology--gets a significant delay. Expect 1920s Goddard-level development of rocketry by 1945.
I would expect 1945 Goddard level development of rocketry by 1945, to be honest, since he was largely working off of private funds. Certainly well along from the '20s, when he built the first working liquid-fueled rocket. JATO-type units might also advance the state of the art somewhat, and there was some interest in rockets for various purposes pre-war. Similarly, nuclear technology should not be much delayed by a lack of WWI until WWII would actually have happened, since before the discovery of fission it was a poorly funded pure research area. There certainly would not be nuclear weapons in 1945, but there might be primitive nuclear reactors (Chicago Pile-type), and there almost certainly would be programs looking at nuclear technology for various applications, including weapons.
V-2-size rockets are extremely unlikely before atomic weapons because of their poor accuracy and expense relative to bombers (which you can reuse). With a nuclear bomb on board, this matters less because you only have to get "close" to a soft target like a city or refinery to destroy it.
But would atomic weapons get the same look they did IOTL? Without the Zeppelin Bombings and the bombardment of Paris of WWI, you don't get the doctrine of strategic bombing. Selling atomic weapons without strategic bombing already entrenched, I think, would be rather difficult--how can your rival, beaten in a six-month war, pay reparations if his industrial facilities have been obliterated?
You're right about JATO though.
Instead of a military bomb could we get nuclear explosives instead, and they first get used for construction.
It's a really bad idea, but would anybody know enough about radiation to realize it at the time?
It's a really bad idea, but would anybody know enough about radiation to realize it at the time?
There are ways to use them other than dropping them on people's cities, and if they haven't been developed yet, the permanent effects might be downplayed (that is, they will probably not be so concerned about acute radiation doses as we would be). Plus, at least in my opinion, the idea of strategic bombing is likely to develop despite the lack of experience as aircraft become more and more capable; if they are probably less influential than IOTL, there will equally probably be a coterie of bomber men ITTL as well.
In 1945? Sure. But you don't actually need all that much material for a weapon, and you don't really need to "guess"; the calculations are apparently rather straightforward for the bare-bones order of magnitude stuff (I don't know, I'm not a nuclear guy). As long as you don't have only one decent nuclear physicist in your country, there's no issue if someone makes a mistake. For instance, almost as soon as fission was discovered Britain started working on nukes (Tube Alloys). They're probably at least thinking about them by alt-1945, and I would give good odds on one or more weapons being built by 1960.
Armored cars had already been invented, as had caterpillar tracks.
And armored trains. And the concept of the "land battleship".
Wikipedia claims that the first actual serious proposal for a tank was in
1903.
I vaguely recall the claim that plastic surgery made great progress due to
WW1...
No WWI means no Hitler or Mussolini, which in turn means that the Manhattan Project loses Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard (who stay in the Germany) and Enrico Fermi (who returns to Italy after winning the Nobel Prize). There's a reasonable chance that Szilard recruits Eugene Wigner as well; he was hired by Princeton in 1930 IOTL. Oh, and speaking of Princeton in the 1930s: John von Neumann likely stays in a freer Germany as well. So that leaves the U.S. with J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and a very young Richard Feynman.
Tube Alloys, meanwhile, loses Otto Frisch, Hans Bethe and probably Rudolf Peierls. Neither the Einstein-Szilard memorandum nor the Frisch-Peierls memorandum are ever drafted.
All of this suggests that the intellectual locus of nuclear physics may well have been Germany in a world without WWI, rather than the U.S.
BlondieBC
Banned
You will accelerate technology by 10 or so years. Depending on the POD and butterflies, some items will be slower, but most will be faster. Including most military technologies. The Atomic bomb is earlier than OTL.
Airships filled with Helium
Huge Airships for passengers flight
Airship Fleet with Aircraft Carrier airships.
Huge Airships for passengers flight
Airship Fleet with Aircraft Carrier airships.
But I'll add some more to this thread if I think of any.Einstein wasn't actually involved in the Manhattan Project, and I have to point out that you've missed a number of US scientists closely involved in the atomic bomb. Arthur Compton, for instance, who directed the plutonium refining effort; Ernst Lawrence, who developed the caultron (a dead end, yes, but nevertheless important) and actually introduced Oppenheimer into the project; Glen Seaborg, who did a lot of work relating to plutonium chemistry, and many others. The United States, even without the unique burst of immigrants spurred by the Nazis, has a considerable amount of intellectual, financial, and industrial resources it can bring to bear. At most it makes it a little more difficult; the fact that it's not a wartime crash priority project is a bigger drag than the absence of Fermi or Szilard. There's also no guarantee that all of the scientists you mention would stay in Germany or Central Europe either; science has always been a quite international enterprise, and many of them were highly prestigious even at that time. Good catches for American universities looking to enhance their profile.
But that's all completely besides the point, because I was deliberately writing in a country-agnostic fashion. I don't actually know nor care which countries are working on or at any rate thinking about atomic bombs in 1945, only that some of them are (which I feel is very likely).
Medicine will be retarded somewhat - as always there were a bunch of innovations due to casualties, plastic surgery as one poster mentioned got a huge boost (sadly) from WWI especially in facial reconstruction. Antibiotics will be more or less the same, sulfa drugs came along fortuitously during the 20s, likewise the discovery of penicillin was accidental (and I'm ignoring butterflies which could go either way here). The techniques for making a lot of penicillin were accelerated because of WWII, so the availability of penicillin may be slowed depending on if there is a "WWII" in this timeline.
Gasoline & diesel engine technology will be slowed as WWI pushed development of these for airplanes, motor transport & submarines. This might result in a smaller US auto industry & less shift to auto/highway transportation and retention of trolleys/inter-urbans which might persist.
Gasoline & diesel engine technology will be slowed as WWI pushed development of these for airplanes, motor transport & submarines. This might result in a smaller US auto industry & less shift to auto/highway transportation and retention of trolleys/inter-urbans which might persist.
With the nuclear angle. I would assume physics and chemistry develop as OTL making nuclear an interesting side project. The reason I say this is that we might get nuclear power before we get the nuclear bomb.
Deleted member 14881
Would Carriers by 1945 be seened as a Skirmish and scout ships?
I can see some kind of a APC a motorized artelly thing. Would Cav be armed with SMG's.
What about Jets?
I can see some kind of a APC a motorized artelly thing. Would Cav be armed with SMG's.
What about Jets?