AHC: The Eight-Eight-Eight Fleet

As we all know, the Japanese Navy wanted an 'eight-eight' fleet, based on 8 modern battleships and battlecruisers. However, some went even further, wanting an 'eight-eight-eight' fleet with three battlelines of eight capital ships. Your challenge is to make that actually happen. Bonus points if you make it actually sustainable.

Good luck!
 
This requires no Washington treaty, *if* this did happen, I doubt Japan could fund the ships, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to afford any aircraft carriers.

So that would result in no Pearl Harbour, and if they did go to war, they'd be flattened by the RN and USN.
 
1900; deep under Tokyo Japan finds an enormous cave system filled to the brim with every valuable mineral and gem already casted and cut.

Keeping this enormous discovery a secret Japan gradually sells off the treasure chest though at a slow enough rate not to upset world markets, this money is reinvested in the Japanese economy and the education system.

This causes Japan to experience a boom like never before and under a new pacifist government nothing is spent on the military.

WW1 causes the fall of the pacifist government and the election of a more Conservative government determined to give Japan a modern fleet to match its financial resources.

They decide to dump increase the pace of sales from the secret stash and raise taxes enabling the construction of a Navy, something which until now has been kept small.

Thus is coined the 8-8-8 target for a battlefleet of 24 ships by 1940.




Realistically you need a PoD in the early 1800's. Even Britain couldn't afford 24 super-Dreadnoughts in a decade, never mind Japan.
 
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1900; deep under Tokyo Japan finds an enormous vast system filled to the brim with every valuable mineral and gem already casted and cut.

Keeping this enormous discovery a secret Japan gradually sells off the treasure chest though at a slow enough rate not to upset world markets, this money is reinvested in the Japanese economy and the education system.

This causes Japan to experience a boom like never before and under a new pacifist government nothing is spent on the military.

WW1 causes the fall of the pacifist government and the election of a more Conservative government determined to give Japan a modern fleet to match its financial resources.

They decide to dump increase the pace of sales from the secret stash and raise taxes enabling the construction of a Navy, something which until now has been kept small.

Thus is coined the 8-8-8 target for a battlefleet of 24 ships by 1940.




Realistically you need a PoD in the early 1800's. Even Britain couldn't afford 24 super-Dreadnoughts in a decade, never mind Japan.

this would be in ASB, no? regardless, I think if they had that, they would have gone for 24 battleships and 24 carriers:eek::eek::eek:

Imagine Pearl Harbor with 3x the japanese aircraft!
 
Even Britain couldn't afford 24 super-Dreadnoughts in a decade, never mind Japan.

It does depend on how you describe super dreadnoughts as the RN did afford, build and field 22 super dreadnoughts between 1912 and 1916 - 4 Orions, 4 KGVs, 4 Iron Dukes, 5 Queen Elizabeths and 5 Revenges. This was a few less than what was projected without the interruption of the Great War, which cut off a QE and a few Revenges.

Without a Great War, Britain and the USA could afford 2.5 ships per year if there was a glaring need for it.

After the Great War, there was no direct need, nor were the finances available on that level until the British and American rearmament plans of the late 1930s and early 1940s, with the RN aiming for eighteen new capital ships between 1937 and 1946 and the USN at least seventeen new capital ships. Once again, war was the major interruption.

There isn't any way that Japan can build an 8-8 fleet, let alone an 8-8-8 Fleet unless we remove a troublesome earthquake and the constraints of realism upon finance.
 
Not only the building but manning and fueling would be problems, not to mention where to dock these ships plus having to build additional infrastructure to support them.

I agree, this many BB's and I see fewer carriers in the IJN's future. That would be an interesting WWII scenario though...
 
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