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  1. Tweaked Washington Naval Treaty

    No, I understand, I just plain don’t think either the US or Japan would agree to that. Both navies were very invested in the 16” gun and would IMO be unwilling to give it up.

  2. Tweaked Washington Naval Treaty

    A lot. The degree of improvement in shell design between the wars was considerable and the main reason the 15”/42 remained competitive in WW2.

  3. Tweaked Washington Naval Treaty

    Not very. I seriously doubt the Japanese and Americans would agree to a 15” gun limit. The limit on rate of construction is somewhat more plausible, but with the first clause non-viable this one probably isn’t as well. Not enough guns available. The Brits have about 74 spare gun barrels and...

  4. Alternate, Denser Levittown

    Yes, absolutely. Athens, among others, was able to rapidly and cheaply expand their housing supply with multistory buildings that were also nice to live in. Whether veterans will choose to live there is another question.

  5. Alternate warships of nations

    ASROC is basically a better “Oh shit!” Weapon against SSNs: something you can snap-fire against a submarine you unexpectedly pick up and has more range than dumping a lightweight torpedo over the side. And forcing an SSN to get up to speed has value: a fast submarine is a loud submarine.

  6. Man in the High Castle-style US Invasion repelled. What happens next?

    Massive amounts of money sunk into the Navy, continental air defense, and nuclear strike. The Army and TacAir are probably going to have to subsist on OTL post-Korea levels of funding until and unless the US thinks it has the opportunity for a massed ground offensive.

  7. Man in the High Castle-style US Invasion repelled. What happens next?

    The US has the technological and economic heft to compete with the Axis, but doesn’t have the raw mass to take the fight to them in Europe. I think the US strategy, beyond beefing up their armed forces as far as possible, would be a combination of building up Allies that can aid it in a...

  8. Alternate warships of nations

    In 1927 the design studies are basically all slow battleships of some stripe. Well, for one, many of these escorts predate SSNs - the Rigas, most notably. And no, it would not be better to concentrate more on fewer but larger ASW platforms. Surface ASW is a numbers game - the more sensors and...

  9. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    It would be F-15s; the USAF started moving F-15As into the ANG around the time the F-106 retired. And no, a life extension probably isn’t possible. By 1988 the F-106 was pushing 30 years old.

  10. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    Why the fuck would they do that.

  11. If the USSR does not fall, would it currently be more powerful militarily than the United States?

    Gorbachev’s policies absolutely affected the military; the military wasn’t exempt from the Glasnost microscope and it fared about as poorly under that scrutiny as the rest of the Soviet institutions. Which in turn exacerbated existing issues with conscript retention and morale.

  12. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    It was absolutely dictated by military necessity. Every country that bought the F-16 had aging, obsolescent or obsolete aircraft that needed to be replaced yesterday. Fighters like the F-5, F-104, and Mirage III were not cutting it anymore. And “needlessly propagating an arms race”? Weapons...

  13. WI: Ranger was lost in 1934?

    Not quite. Yes, during Ranger’s design period they went with five 13,800-ton carriers until experience with Ranger told them it was a bad idea. But the alternatives were either four 17,250-ton ships or three 23,000-ton ships. And by the time the Yorktowns were being designed First London had...

  14. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    No, the LWF got plenty of attention from the USAF. They’d wanted a new day fighter since 1965, it was just that the F-15 was the development priority until it became clear they wouldn’t get all the F-15s they wanted, at which point the LWF program was set up. Phantom, no, too big and expensive...

  15. WI: Ranger was lost in 1934?

    Nope. The plan was for six: the two Lexingtons, two Yorktowns, and then Ranger and Langley, with Langley being replaced by Wasp a few years later.

  16. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    Militaries aren’t built on “adequate”, and the gap was not nearly so wide as it is between a Brown Bess and a Maxim, anyway.

  17. The US Armed Forces adopting the F5 in a large scale manner intended for combat use

    The easiest way is to have the F-5 be acquired instead of the A-7D by the US Air Force, as the Air Force wanted to do to replace their Super Sabres in battlefield strike roles before McNamara put his foot down. Granted, that’s only 459 airframes, but 2000-2500 is kind of a ridiculous number...

  18. WI: Ranger was lost in 1934?

    They could, but that would mean giving up a sixth carrier, and personally I don’t think they’d go for that.

  19. F-35 program was cancelled

    So did the F-15, back in the day, and the F-14 to the end of its life. This is what happens when you tell Pratt & Whitney to push the envelope in engine design.

  20. WI: Ranger was lost in 1934?

    Yes, but it's a bad idea. Modifying ships on the stocks to that extent has a tendency to end in disaster given how much detail work has to go into the designs.
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