Except without the war they have more money to throw into carriers.Um no brit participation in ww1 and it might delay the battleship age into missle age i guess .
Don't you believe it, the Japanese were hot on their heels, and the Americans would catch them up soon enough.They were the main innovators in this and everyone else just copied it.
Except it had already been done by Eugene Burton Ely (also the first aviator to fly off a ship) on 18 January 1911, more than three years before the start of the war.At the time the thought of landing aircraft on moving ships was thought prepostorus.
In todays military world, combat worth ist pretty irrelevant. A weapon system has to do one thing most of all: generate profits. Battleships are expensive but tried-and-true tech, they won't need multi-year multi-billion development contracts that exist only on paper, nor constant updates, and so on. Neither do aircraft carriers, which by the way are as likely to survive as battleships in any modern combat that isn't totally asymetrical, but the aircraft they sport, those very, very expensive, fragile aircraft do. That's the main reason for aircraft carriers, and why militaries go for the most expensive high-tech pieces of junk, instead of material useful for todays asymetrical, low-intensity warfare.
easiest way is a situation where there was no WW1 & 2
In a situation like that the battleship will stay a lot longer
Exactly. It was the world wars (and especially the 2nd World War) that provided proof that carrier-based naval aviation rendered the classic battleship obsolete...at least for the role it was originally intended. Butterfly away the wars and naval aviation would probably be considered by most admiralties a very useful auxiliary (for scouting, spotting, overland force projection, and harassing and damaging enemy ships prior to fleet engagements), but still secondary to large surface combatants as the decisive naval tool. Navies are by and large conservative when it comes to changing platforms and plans.
Minor navies might take the risk of investing more heavily in naval aviation, but unless this is shown to have been a wise move in an actual war, I'm not sure it would have much impact on the thinking of the large nations which have invested heavily in their battlefleets.
Barring naval reduction treaties, my guess is that battleships (large, heavily armored ships mounting the largest possible guns) would still be the core of all major nations' fleets well into the 1960's if there had not been any wars. Also, improved (nuclear?) submarines, ballistic missiles, guided missiles, and ships mounting cruise missiles - not manned aircraft launched from aircraft carriers - might be the weapon systems that eventually lead toward to their elimination.
Hm, no, the Cuxhaven Raid is basically proof that at least one major nation was already considering them warships in their own right by the start of WW1.Exactly. It was the world wars (and especially the 2nd World War) that provided proof that carrier-based naval aviation rendered the classic battleship obsolete...at least for the role it was originally intended. Butterfly away the wars and naval aviation would probably be considered by most admiralties a very useful auxiliary (for scouting, spotting, overland force projection, and harassing and damaging enemy ships prior to fleet engagements), but still secondary to large surface combatants as the decisive naval tool. Navies are by and large conservative when it comes to changing platforms and plans.
Minor navies might take the risk of investing more heavily in naval aviation, but unless this is shown to have been a wise move in an actual war, I'm not sure it would have much impact on the thinking of the large nations which have invested heavily in their battlefleets.
Barring naval reduction treaties, my guess is that battleships (large, heavily armored ships mounting the largest possible guns) would still be the core of all major nations' fleets well into the 1960's if there had not been any wars. Also, improved (nuclear?) submarines, ballistic missiles, guided missiles, and ships mounting cruise missiles - not manned aircraft launched from aircraft carriers - might be the weapon systems that eventually lead toward to their elimination.
Hm, no, the Cuxhaven Raid is basically proof that at least one major nation was already considering them warships in their own right by the start of WW1.
Hm, no, the Cuxhaven Raid is basically proof that at least one major nation was already considering them warships in their own right by the start of WW1.
I'd disagree with that, personally.
Look at the list of battleships sunk during WW2 - even if you discount the ones hit at anchor (such as the Pearl Harbor attack), you can see that even quite early in the war air power was able to at least severely damage battleships.
Once aircraft got to the point where they could lift a weapon heavy enough to hurt a battleship the days of the dreadnought were coming to an end. Aircraft are faster, more flexible, much cheaper, much longer ranged and (as navigation aids, air to surface radar etc improved) once they were able to fly at night or in bad weather the battleship lost the last advantage they had left over the carrier/air group.
Atomic weapons may have been the final nail in the coffin but I think the body was already dead and inside the coffin before that nail was driven in.
Maybe, although without the wars you're likely to see the focus of major naval expansion shift to submarines and destroyers (Germany was beginning to angle that way in 1914), against which carriers are much more effective, and battleships much less so.I didn't claim the navies would not recognize aircraft carriers as "warships in their own right". Of course they would, and I also noted that overland force projection (as in the RNAS's attacks on zeppelin bases) is a role they might see. But absent the WW2 examples of Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the crippling of Bismarck, and especially the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, navies will only "demote" battleships and put carriers in their place when one of two factors occur: (1) Battleships' excessive cost becomes prohibitive or (2) when a wartime situation proves BBs cannot survive as fighting units under air attack. And that requires a war to make that case. Remember, as late as 1940 senior brass in the RN, IJN, and the USN still considered battleships the core of their fleets - and these were the most air-minded navies.
The later battles of the Pacific War would tend to go the other way.I suppose it is open for debate.
ACC didn't make the BB obsolete overnight especially since ACC were still maturing during WW2.
While significant progress for the ACC was made during WW2 with armored decks, radar and improvements for the carrier aircraft i feel the BB still had a significant role at the end of WW2.
Maybe, although without the wars you're likely to see the focus of major naval expansion shift to submarines and destroyers (Germany was beginning to angle that way in 1914), against which carriers are much more effective, and battleships much less so.
The later battles of the Pacific War would tend to go the other way.
Once aircraft have proven their ability to sink ships (and that will come, it's just a matter of time), carriers will be developed. Virtually every technology to make a battleship better can be applied to one opponent or another. To retain battleships as queens of the sea you have to do away with aircraft, submarines and nukes, and there's no way to do that.