AH Challenge: No Washington Naval Treaty

Your goal is to make it so no Washington Naval Treaty is signed, which in turn allows for all the planned ships of the 20's to be completed, and used in a alternate WWII. Have the POD be after 1912 and up to 1922, the year of the signing. Ive tried to think of ways for this to happen, but never been able to think of a good one...
 
Have the Japanese change their diplomatic codes in about 1920, and have the Americans not crack them until the conference is over. IOTL, the Americans were reading every dispatch between the Japanese delegation and Japan. and were thus able to press the Japanese down to the bare minimum they'd accept. Without that access to priveleged information, the Americans run the risk of pressing the Japanese too far, causing them to walk out, or not pressing hard enough, which could cause the French, Italians or British to walk out.

Note that nothing short of ASBs is going to save the 8-8 program, as the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 wrecked the Japanese economy and severely damaged the shipyards being used, wrecking the Amagi's hull.

The Americans would run into severe difficulty in getting new ships approved in the absence of another war, as they had just finished building a substantial if top-heavy fleet and had cancelled many of the WW1-inspired orders. The CCs were in particular trouble, as the USN was no longer certain of their utility after the issues raised by British BCs during WW1. Most likely course for the USN would be a construction plan aimed at increasing DD and CA/CL numbers, and down the track a bit a couple of Essex-esque CVs. The latter may seem surprising, but the USN had identified a need for CVs of that size after weighing up the options for the best fleet scout.

The French are busy rebuilding their country and are unlikely to engage in a significant naval buildup. The Italians are in much the same boat in that the funds and need for new major fleet units just isn't there. Their planned new construction was cancelled before the conference even began.

The British were the most likely to engage in new construction simply due to their policy of replacing old ships iirc every ten years. The G3s seem to be reasonable prospects for construction to replace the retiring BCs and possibly some BBs. There seems to be some suggestion that the N3s were in part a bargaining chip going into the Conference, but if construction was begun it's hard to see more than four being built. If they are, they may not be N3s at all - apparently there was a lot of debate about the escalation in gun size, with the British being torn between the increase in weapons power granted by the 18" versus the awareness that they would setting a precedent in armament strength, and that this may potentially cause another arms race and at a minimum would strongly encourage the proliferation of 18" and similar armaments.
 

Redbeard

Banned
XT828's PoD for no-WT is very plausible and I agree that the problem would be in having all the programmes completed, especially the Japanese.

But if we imagine some kind of "reduced naval race" (I know that sounds strange) where USA and UK continue building naval vessels on a much larger scale than OTL interwar years I wonder if that could have dampened the crisis from 1929?

The stock market collapse in this ATL probably would be at least as brutal, but it is my impression that the crisis/depression only got so long and deep because governments globally used spending cuts as a remedy against the crisis. At least that was the starting point for Keynes' theories about economics, and although they later proved skewed I believe they had a point concerining the interwar depression.

In this context a naval race resulting in increased public spending ought to reduce the crisis.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
For Britain, at least, no WT would probably be quite handy economically. The naval construction freeze had a fairly substantial impact, as it put up enemployment as unneeded workers were laid off, and it dried up orders for materials, which caused steel mills and the like to lay off workers, which in turn caused a reduction in demand for ores and coal and caused those businesses to lay off workers. Keep the government contracts coming, and it's all much cheerier. Additionally, as I said above, the RN was committed to a policy of retiring vessels after a period and replacing them with new construction on a class-by-class basis.

Overall numbers would probably tend to decline, but given the dizzying heights of naval power that the RN had just experienced, even normal peacetime was a dramatic reduction. I recall reading that the British were not as bankrupt as is commonly assumed in the interwar period, and given that this building could be sold to the public as a replacement program rather than an expansion, I could see the British getting away with new BB construction. The RN also identified a need for a commerce protection cruiser during WW1, so they'd probably get stuck into building a few of those too - troubles in China, the Russian Civil War and the demands of the Empire would IMO give sufficient impetus to get those through, and unlike battleships, cruisers aren't seen as an inherently warlike ship.

The British are the only major naval power I can really see getting involved in significant naval construction in the early to mid 20s. The Japanese will have a solid crack at the 8-8, but after Kanto they were stuffed. The Italians and French mostly compete with each other, and already have a rough parity, plus neither has a significant amount of national pride wrapped up in the navy.

The US has an absolute glut of battleships, and IMO the USN would have a very hard time selling Congress on new construction without a war or an obvious sign of weakness or obsolescence on the part of the existing fleet. Additionally, IMO the USN would try to get as much new construction money as possibly poured into creating a more balanced fleet.
 

Markus

Banned
The reason for the WMT was money. The Japanese were willing to spend it, but did not have it, the Americans could afford it but to quote another user "were getting heart failure" anyway when looking at the cost.

So with no WNT like in OTL Japan will drop out of the naval arms race first, the other nations will slow down their construction and last but not least you get a WNT, just a few years later.

IMO the RN would benefit form it because of the planned G3 BC which are fast BB in all but name.
The USN would be biggest looser, having spend a furtune on a batch of slow BB. The BC could be very useful as CV escorts but who knows what kind of CV congress will fund. Several Rangers would not be good.
 
The US CCs are probably converted to aircraft carriers. There is some evidence that this was being considered in the USN either before or during the treaty negotiations.

Would ships under construction be scrapped without the Washington Treaty? I don't know how many of the Constellation CCs had been laid down before the treaty negotiations had started. This could give the USN a third large carrier, and much less likely a fourth. Ranger is likely to still get built as an experiment.
 
The WT was one thing that really angered the Japanese--they called their lower ratio in comparison to the US and Britain "Rolls Royce Rolls Royce Ford."

It might have also helped kill the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

This means effects on WWII.
 
It might have also helped kill the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was in critical condition probably 1918 and would have been allowed to die by 1920. There simply wasn't any further reason for it after the Great War and the British, particularly the Admiralty, wasn't particularly happy how the Japanese had not lived up to their part of the bargain. Also the Admiralty began to see the Japanese as serious rivals in the Far East and began withholding technological aid, in the field of naval aviation, from them.
 
I do tend to concur with the points that Britain would be one of the winners from this scenario, and have seen the economics of it discussed both over on the Battlecruisers board and in a monograph on Interwar British Naval Procurement.

The impact on the British economy and shipbuilding industry won't be earthshattering, but will lead to butterflies...such as the Jarrow March not occuring due to continued construction and no perceived need to dispose of excess production capacity.

Getting a few more Counties of slightly enhanced displacement and tweaked characteristics would be of some advantage; the main priority will still be for a medium cruiser for trade protection and Imperial duties.

A lack of restriction on displacement of aircraft carriers is perhaps the most intriguing of possibilities for the RN - you could get a fair bit more out of a 30000t Ark Royal/Illustrious hybrid than one limited to 27000t full load. The development of this arm of the RN would be dependent on possibly getting back the FAA a bit earlier.

Some of the ongoing problems faced by the RN in rearmament and wartime construction - lack of a decent dual purpose medium gun standard, to mention but one - will not be impacted by no Washington.

What will:
- Capital ship displacement. With no arbitrary limit, more balanced vessels of around 40000-45000t with either 15" or 16" guns will make up the 1930s programme.
- Earlier replacement of the Revenge class; there is some discussion of them being replaced with up to 8 Vanguards, but that is from the later 1930s and would be impacted by having 4-8 modern ships in addition to the 18 new capital ships postulated in the fleet replacement plan.
- Less contraction in the British shipbuilding and armament industry in the 1920s will mean that the rearmament process of the 1930s will not necessarily hit the exact same bottlenecks in armour plate manufacturing capacity, gun pit capacity, as well as having yards available for construction of other vessels, such as cruisers, escorts, destroyers and auxiliaries
- No restrictions on fortifications could lead to some developments in Hong Kong, and further ones for Singapore, if money allows.
- The Dominion battlecruisers would not necessarily be scrapped or sunk when they were, possibly leading to replacements.
- Design and development is not going to have such a large break.
 
Have WWI be betwen A_H and Serbia only .

That way You have Germany Going as the Number 2 Navy in the world .

And By the Time the 1920's Happen there are a large number of BB owned by a lot of nations .
 
The Anglo-Japanese alliance was doomed.

Trying to preserve it meant putting relations with not only the US but much of the Commonwealth at risk and based on WWI efforts Canada alone had been vastly more valuable than Japan to the British.

There was nothing unreasonable about the 5:5:3 ratio as the British and Americans needed ships in the Atlantic against possible foes while Japan had no role outside of the Pacific and since the British and especially the Americans had the ability and wealth to vastly outproduce the Japanese...
 
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