…American Entry into WWI had perhaps robbed the United States of its best chance to take an undisputed position as the greatest naval power by 1930. All but one of 10 battleships that had been ordered in 1916 were suspended before being laid down, and construction on Maryland was slowed by the needs of the war. These battleships, four Colorado class that were the culmination of the Standard series of battleship type, and six South Dakota class that would be a substantial jump in power, perhaps the largest since the advent of the supe dreadnoughts with HMS Orion. Combined with six battlecruisers of the Lexington type, superior in armament and speed to any built or planned, with armor protection better than any bar the newest British and German ships, the United States would have built a large lead in capital ships, having 16 16” armed vessels in commission by 1924, with Japan only able to have six, and Britain and Germany unable to lay down any before 1920.
However the war instead caused the United States to focus on ships that could be built extremely rapidly for use in the war. As such the United States ordered hundreds of destroyer, a type they had built little of before the war for precisely the reason that they could be built much faster than larger ships. Supporting these were large numbers of wooden hulled submarine chasers and a hundred steel hulled “Eagle boats” built by Ford that proved both late and unsatisfactory. These and an ambitious merchant shipbuilding program took up the vast majority of the shipbuilding resources of the United States.
By Fall of 1918 the production constraints that the United States was operating under were beginning to ease as the economy continued to ramp up and prewar programs were completed. As such the USN was able to lobby Congress to restart the other three Colorado class battleships, accelerate construction of the Omaha class cruiser, and fund two more improved Omahas under the war budget. This was sold as potential replacements for ship losses, something underline by mine damage to USS Texas over the summer…
…For the Kaiserliche Marine the realization that Germany was likely to lose the war marked a big change in their way of thinking. Whereas before they had been worried about their relative prestige and postwar position, hoping to cheaply gain glory without risking their expensive capital ships, now they were worried about the survival of their service. Two contrasting views as to this emerged.
One view was that in order to have a hope of having some sort of fleet after the war the best thing to do was preserve the fleet. Having the second largest fleet of modern warships in the world would serve as a bargaining chip, the most modern ships would probably be traded away, but a core would remain and lesser limits would be placed on the fleet. Hopefully the distribution of the spoils by the victors would cause dissension and give Germany a stronger bargaining position.
The latter view argued that the fleet was lost anyways. Britain would not allow a potential rival to exist and would do everything in her power to prevent a resurrection of the HSF, and France would do whatever she could to weaken Germany. No, they argued, Germany would be lucky to be allowed a fleet much larger than Sweden’s no matter what happened. Since the fleet was lost better go out with their honor intact, so that when Germany was able to break the shackles the Anglo-French would impose on her the navy would have a strong place in the people’s hearts. And who knew, perhaps by inflicting enough damage on the British they could cause dissension between the victors, by weakening Britain’s place at the top.
Neither side placed any great stock in the possibility of a status quo peace as the Army was still hoping for. Neither did they believe that they could do anything to materially change the circumstances of the war. In this they were perhaps more realistic than their army counterparts.
It was the former faction that remained dominant for the remainder of 1918 and the early part of 1919, having the support of the Kaiser who wanted to preserve what he saw as his personal fleet. Events to the south would however cause things to change…
-Excerpt from Naval History Between the Wars, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2007
…The lull in fighting over the winter of 1918 saw a massive shift in doctrine and equipment among the Entente. New aircraft were reaching the front with better performance than anything the Germans had, presuming that they could muster enough fuel to sortie. New tanks were arriving in greater numbers, with the speed and reliability to do more than crawl to static trench lines. The US army adopted increasing numbers of automatic rifles, submachine guns and semi-automatic conversion kits for their bolt action rifles, the French adopted a semi-automatic rifle and the Italians a proper submachine gun. New types of gas were being synthesized, that made the ersatz material based German protective gear almost useless. In a material sense the battles of 1919 would be as unlike 1918 as 1915 was 1914.
But more important was the change in doctrine that accompanied the new equipment. Greater cooperation between the arms of battle was mandated and implemented, infantry, armor, artillery and airpower would work together rather than apart to deliver victories. Plans were made for a more mobile war, to be able to properly follow up on trench breaching assaults. Mobile reserves such as cavalry were increasingly mobilized and moved to a higher state of readiness so that if and when the Germans broke the victory could be followed up on. The United States began forming assault units on the German model to punch whole in their lines. In all the Entente was vastly more prepared for an offensive in 1919 than any time ever before…
…American forces were required to take an increasing share of the offensive role. Britain was disbanding several divisions, and the French even more, necessary due to a lack of replacements. While both were in better shape than the Germans were thought to be, and in vastly better shape than they actually were, both were exhausted and had already poached much of the year’s potential conscripts already, and in the British case proved unable to extract any from Ireland. It would be the Americans that would pay the lion’s share of the butcher’s bill for the offensives of 1919…
-Excerpt from The Loss of Innocence: America in the Great War, Harper & Brothers, New York 2014
Pretty short and of limited relevance, I will blame the snow
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