Knowing the lessons from the OTL I can see the argument for keeping the battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque at Singapore, but at this point ITTL would either the British or the French recognize the true vulnerability of their battleships to carrier-based aircraft? After all, in the OTL weren't the British confident that ground-based air support would be sufficient to protect Prince of Wales and Repulse?
It's worth noting that Force Z was one hell of a long way from the nearest air threat when sunk - the site of the sinking is 470 NM from the nearest Japanese air base, and the carriers were all near to Hawaii at the time. Add in the fact that nobody realised how good the Japanese air crews were - the best anybody had achieved at sea to date was crippling
Pola at Matapan, and she had stopped to avoid hitting another ship when struck. There are going to be people - particularly the RN I suspect - who <<think>> that carrier aircraft can sink capital ships at sea. Problem is that they can't prove it, and until nuclear weapons go to sea then the matter will be in dispute.
Even if the French did recognize the vulnerability of their battleships, wouldn't it still be useful to keep some scouting force based at Cam Ranh Bay? In this role, which do you think would be more useful, the older heavy cruisers or the more modern light cruisers? Perhaps an argument can be made that Force X stays. Also, would the British consider forward basing their submarines at Cam Ranh Bay?
The British submarines are largely forward based in Hong Kong - Cam Ranh bay is too far to the rear, and they're only risking a couple of depot ships.
Armée de l'Air in French Indochina
I presume that ITTL that the AdA's position in FIC in significantly improved from this. Also, I doubt that the Franco-Thai War would have occurred ITTL, but that's up to pdf27.
The only thing mentioned to date in the story is that the French have bought 40 SM.79 torpedo bombers, fitted them with radar (ASV Mk.II) and moved them to just outside Hanoi.
The doctrinal development of the Royal Netherlands Navy will be interesting and can go two ways.
- The deployment of the French and British heavy units to SEA does somewhat vindicate the position of the 'navalists' ('big'-gun lobby), who had spend the Interbellum claiming that all that was needed against the IJN would be light cruisers as the Japanese would need all their heavy units to counter those of the RN/USN. OTL those heavy units were primarily engaged in the ETO, ATL this is not so. In navalist logic this means that the DEI squadron will be able to defend the East Indies quite handidly, especially considering the ATL additions. Theoretically there could be as many as 7 light cruisers and 12 destroyers available.
- However, the Dutch government could very well demand that the surface units are mainly concentrated in the mainland to protect the all important convoys that supply the country, its citizens and its army. In that case what is left of the submarine-lobby might be able to win the day after all. Theoretically there are as many as 17 (!) submarines available for service in the DEI (though some might be detailed for (practically useless) interdiction of German-Norway convoys as OTL). This means as many as four separate submarine divisions (consisting of three submarines each) will be available. With (most of) the surface units in Europe, the road is open for wolfpack-style operations against the IJN.
Which one of these two roads are taken depends a lot on the situation in Dutch politics. About the only thing we can be sure about is that Premier De Geer is gone at this point. The man might have been an OK prime-minister in times of peace, in times of war he certainly was not. He is going to loose his nerves either in May 1940 or during the occupation of Paris. Who is going to replace him is a big blur, as is the rest. We can't just assume that Gerbrandy will take over as per OTL as the situation is totally different. Queen Wilhelmina wil have more influence than before the war, but will NOT have the immense power as OTL, as the Cabinet will still be in full contact with Parlement. It might be Gerbrandy after all but his party, the ARP, had not done very well in the elections of 1937, it was in fact the third party after the RKSP (Catholics) and the SDAP (Labour). De Geers party, the CHU (Protestant) was fourth though. There might be someone else from the CHU but it could also be someone of the larger parties. Hell, there is a small chance that Colijn might become prime minister again!
de Geer resigned on the 19th of May 1940, being replaced by van Kleffens as "caretaker" Prime Minister. He's still there as PM - he's doing well enough at running the coalition and there hasn't been an election, so is sticking around in the top job for now.
The real question is how seriously the Allies are taking the far east. If they are being starved of hardware and knowhow the potential for a disaster is there. OTOH with no invasion panic the RNs aircraft are going to be current and there is no call for the best of them to be tied down in Europe.
They aren't getting the best, but what they are getting is good enough. They've got a new fighter (the Miles Marlin - an M.20 relative), and the Barracuda is starting to become available in a little better state than in OTL having got a Griffon from the start.
Will any of the Western powers had an equivalent of the AVG flying against the Japanese in China at this point?
No, that would be quite severely frowned upon. If anybody wants to fight, there are plenty of places they're actually needed.
1. Very likely they will demand it. And very likely they will not get everything.
Of course
2. My mistake. I assumed once in spoiler it is set in stone.
For clarity, anything I put up as a spoiler is in the current "future" buffer - currently at 85,000 words versus 250,000 for the whole story. However, that is subject to rewrites - if I change my mind about something I go into it and rewrite the arc as it goes along. Sometimes I miss things, but at the time I actually reach that point in the future everything is thoroughly vetted.
In 1938 Gbely produced 10% of Czechoslovak oil needs - at the time Gbely production was app 30000 t a year. So we can more or less assume Slovakia would be self sufficient in fuel. Of course there will be shipments to Germany. And of course something would be carefully stored away. Once supplies to Germany stop flowing - and this could happened for example right after Hungarians declare war, Slovak supplies are increasing plus there is increased possibility to buy from Romania.
But true is Slovakia has only one armored regiment. At the best it can field one Fast Division (Rychla divize) - Czechoslovak Fast Division had 1 tank regiment and maybe 1 fully motorized infantry division.
Not much to wage mechanized warfare. There are probably only 2 regions this kind of force could be efficiently used in case hostilities against Germany starts - towards Krakow or towards Brno.
It's sometimes easy to forget how little people of the 1930s and 40s actually consumed by modern standards...
Speaking of which, where is the petrol for the Entente coming from these days? They are out of Dollars to buy it from the Americans, and the Japanese are buying every drop they can from the DEI. I guess from Persia? My guess is that Persia is going to be in a different situation than OTL since the British and Soviets won't divide them into spheres of influence. The question is whether Stalin is scary enough to keep Persia inside Entente sphere of Influence. (Maybe iTTL, they balance the Entente with the Americans?)
I'm assuming prewar patterns for crude oil - for the UK at least that means 50% from Venezuela and the Dutch West Indies, and another 8% from Empire sources (Trinidad and Burma). Most of the rest comes from the Middle East (Persia and Iraq), plus some from the Dutch East Indies and Borneo.
Iso-Octane is more of a problem - they're building plants at Heysham, Stanlow, Abadan and Trinidad, but they aren't due to come on-stream for another 6 months or so. They have a moderate amount of supply under their control, but there will be a shortfall that they have to import from the USA.
With the Entente on the verge of victory getting loans from the Americans at good rates is not going to be a problem.
Germany is going to pay big time for this war and they are not going to get off the hook like they did last time.
Germany is not going to be allowed to inflate their currency in order to pay the reparations off early like they tried to do in the Twenties.
My idea would be that Germany pay reparations for a set number of years with no early payoff, they either pay a flat amount or a certain percentage of their GDP whichever is greater, this would give the Entente an incentive not to loot anything that is not nailed down and let Germany recover economically sooner.
That deals with some of the problems, but leaves others. Who gets the money? How do you keep them occupying Germany to prevent this all happening again?
