A Navy Question About the Axis

I'm wondering, if Germany and Japan were able to win or avert WWII (Just go with it, I know it's not possible) and achieve their objectives (not the absolute crazy ones like a Japanese West Coast or German... world. Say Japan gains the Chinese coastal areas and the D.E.I. Germany gets up to the Urals.. I know ASB, but just follow along), and were given ten years of uninterrupted peace to build up their navies:

-What would be the goal of the Japanese and Germany navies? Power projection? Defense? Something else?

-What would be the main weapons of these navies? Battleships? Aircraft carriers? Subs?

-Of the two powers, who's navy would be more advanced in terms of technology like radar, nuclear power, and such?

-Who's navy would be largest in terms of tonnage and numbers?

-Which power would be more able to continuously fund a large naval program?

Also assume that the world isn't embargoing these powers.

Basically, I just want to know what the navies of the German Reich and Japanese Empire would look like 10 years down the line, but couldn't think of a way that they'd last ten years... so yeah.
 
Philip K Dick

PKD got it about right in "the man in the high castle". In AH terms, supergermany would have an enormous economic advantage over imperial super Japan, would take over Africa, and pretty soon the Japanese would be fearing german might. Assuming that both sides understand the value of carriers, Germany would get an edge in jet aircraft and electronics that would allow them to build a much more capable force. If they wanted to strike or not would depend on how their African experiences went. If they succed in reshaping Africa, they might want to do the same with Asia and Japan is on the way. This is the starting point for the political background story for PKD book, when the Japanese begin to understand jus how big a monster a victorious nazi Germany would be...
Have fun until all the AH purists start throwing sharp bats at you...
 
Even if either nations decided to start building up their navies, they would never catch up to the Western Powers. Britain and the US would just maintain their lead and enlarge their own navies. Any naval war that would erupt always goes to the USN & RN. The Germans just aren't experienced with naval warfare and the Japanese have poor damage control on their ships as well as terrible training programs.
 
PKD got it about right in "the man in the high castle". In AH terms, supergermany would have an enormous economic advantage over imperial super Japan, would take over Africa, and pretty soon the Japanese would be fearing german might. Assuming that both sides understand the value of carriers, Germany would get an edge in jet aircraft and electronics that would allow them to build a much more capable force. If they wanted to strike or not would depend on how their African experiences went. If they succed in reshaping Africa, they might want to do the same with Asia and Japan is on the way. This is the starting point for the political background story for PKD book, when the Japanese begin to understand jus how big a monster a victorious nazi Germany would be...
Have fun until all the AH purists start throwing sharp bats at you...


I don't know if I believe that Germany would really go after Africa. That's a rather large continent that would need a VERY LARGE sum of money to actually do anything worthwhile with. Besides that, I, the all powerful OP(er?) stated that Germany only gets up to the Urals, so it stretches from France to the mountains. Except Switzerland and Sweden, they get to stay neutral. :D

Even if either nations decided to start building up their navies, they would never catch up to the Western Powers. Britain and the US would just maintain their lead and enlarge their own navies. Any naval war that would erupt always goes to the USN & RN. The Germans just aren't experienced with naval warfare and the Japanese have poor damage control on their ships as well as terrible training programs.

Well I'm not looking to start an arms race between the Axis and the West, (though it would be inevitable), I really only want to compare the Germans and Japanese.


Anyone have a thought on their naval doctrines or any of that other stuff I pointed out in that list?
 

TheKinkster

Banned
If you know this isn't possible, then is there a reason other than laziness you couldn't be bothered to post this in ASB?

Some of us who read THIS forum do it because we don't want to have to see ASB bullshit.
 
If you know this isn't possible, then is there a reason other than laziness you couldn't be bothered to post this in ASB?

Some of us who read THIS forum do it because we don't want to have to see ASB bullshit.


Oh goodness. :rolleyes:

I brought up the Axis winning the war because it was the only way I could get my question answered; said question being basically "what would their navies look like 10 years after?" Really, I don't care about the war itself, I just want to know how their navies would have evolved if given the resources and the time to do so.

It's not about the ASBness of them winning the war. It's a question of the technical and strategic navel path they wanted to go on.

I enjoy how your response didn't even attempt to answer the very reasonable question. A simple "This is a bit ASB but I don't really know the answer" might have been better.

But hey, I should know that rational people tend to fly off the deep-end and act like total jackasses when they see a certain question or topic in a certain thread. If I knew that this question was going to be met with rabid hatred and barbaric attitudes, I wouldn't have posted it.

My bad. :)
 
For the Germans, take a look at Plan Z for an idea of what they were thinking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z

Even with a SuperGermany incorporating Europe from the Urals to the Pyrenees it will be difficult to sustain a fleet that size. Fuel alone will be a nightmarish problem, with only Rumania and the Caucasus as sources.

For the IJN, the Japanese are already close to the limit of what they can support in terms of military forces, so any improvements are going to be qualitative rather than quantitative.

First, contrary to what Shtudmuffin asserted, the prewar IJN was one of the best trained, if not THE best trained, fleets in the world. If they avoid war with the US (improbable at best) they will continue that tradition. Design faults such as those which led to the loss of the Taiho and Shinano will be rectified, just as those which led to the loss of the Tomodzuru were:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_torpedo_boat_Tomozuru

What they did lack was a proper operational doctrine; they fixated on engaging enemy warships to the exclusion of enemy merchant traffic and failed to recognize the threat posed to their own merchant fleet by enemy air and submarine forces. If they can rectify these failings they will stand a much better chance in the coming war.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Oh goodness. :rolleyes:

I brought up the Axis winning the war because it was the only way I could get my question answered; said question being basically "what would their navies look like 10 years after?" Really, I don't care about the war itself, I just want to know how their navies would have evolved if given the resources and the time to do so.

It's not about the ASBness of them winning the war. It's a question of the technical and strategic navel path they wanted to go on.

I enjoy how your response didn't even attempt to answer the very reasonable question. A simple "This is a bit ASB but I don't really know the answer" might have been better.

But hey, I should know that rational people tend to fly off the deep-end and act like total jackasses when they see a certain question or topic in a certain thread. If I knew that this question was going to be met with rabid hatred and barbaric attitudes, I wouldn't have posted it.

My bad. :)
Don't be a jackass.

You posted what is, by your own admission an utterly impossible T/L in post 1900. You have been here long enough to know better.

Someone called you on it, as you must have expected.

Deal with it like an adult.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
For the Germans, take a look at Plan Z for an idea of what they were thinking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z

Even with a SuperGermany incorporating Europe from the Urals to the Pyrenees it will be difficult to sustain a fleet that size. Fuel alone will be a nightmarish problem, with only Rumania and the Caucasus as sources.

For the IJN, the Japanese are already close to the limit of what they can support in terms of military forces, so any improvements are going to be qualitative rather than quantitative.

First, contrary to what Shtudmuffin asserted, the prewar IJN was one of the best trained, if not THE best trained, fleets in the world. If they avoid war with the US (improbable at best) they will continue that tradition. Design faults such as those which led to the loss of the Taiho and Shinano will be rectified, just as those which led to the loss of the Tomodzuru were:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_torpedo_boat_Tomozuru

What they did lack was a proper operational doctrine; they fixated on engaging enemy warships to the exclusion of enemy merchant traffic and failed to recognize the threat posed to their own merchant fleet by enemy air and submarine forces. If they can rectify these failings they will stand a much better chance in the coming war.

The Taiho and God alone knows how any other IJN ships were lost because the Japanese treated damage control as sideline that really didn't matter. The Taiho was designed to be the most survivable carrier ever built. It was sunk by ONE torpedo, mainly because the D/C crew didn't have enough pull to get the ship's skipper to follow common sense or enough training to properly vent the damned ship. The IJN lost that carrier because of fuel vapor build up in an elevator well (I mean who would have ever thought that a heavier than air vapor would gather in the lowest spot of the ship?). The main reaction of the D/C party was to grab some hammers and break out the glass on every porthole they could find. The result was, of course, a fuel air explosion.

The Japanese NEVER figured out how to correct their massive design failings, not after losing four decks at Midway, not after losing three decks at Philippine Sea, not after have multiple battleship sunk in actions that, by all rights, they should have survived. Why, in a ATL where none of these losses were inflicted, would they wise up faster?
 
A victorious German (ie, the Uk remains, the Italians loose Africa but the Soviets signs a BL like treaty and the UK eventually agrees to a cease fire) seems like a country which navy should take a similar path to the Soviet navy in the cold war: A strong emphasis in air aviation, maybe even with awacs and tankers if they realize their value, the best AShM they can build, and submarines. They can not out-compete the UK and the USA in numbers so they should try some sort of asymmetrical naval warfare. It would help them to have a relative, qualitative strong, surface force as well, with proper amphibious ships as a deterrence against the UK. However, that might be over budget. Deterrence in this case doesn't mean "we'll invade, burn your cities and there's nothing you can do about it" but "don't mess with us unless we want to, it can be costly".
If they ever get nuclear weapons and don't quite get escalation and mad, they would seriously consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons as a way to overcome the vast numerical superiority of the USA and the UK. They might not even bother with carriers, or go for light "training" carriers to train crews and build doctrine but they are unlikely to aim for a blue water surface navy. They would be land power after all.
 

Das_Colonel

Banned
If you know this isn't possible, then is there a reason other than laziness you couldn't be bothered to post this in ASB?

Some of us who read THIS forum do it because we don't want to have to see ASB bullshit.


I'm sorry, did someone interrupt your fap session?
 
If you know this isn't possible, then is there a reason other than laziness you couldn't be bothered to post this in ASB?

Some of us who read THIS forum do it because we don't want to have to see ASB bullshit.

You don't have to be a jerk in order to say "I think you should've put this in ASB"
 
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