AHC/WI: Navies Most Prominent Early Cold War Branch

Delta Force

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Historically, the Royal Navy and United States Navy were viewed as the protectors of the United Kingdom and United States. Navies played a vital role defending both countries during the world wars, and they also made a major contribution to victory in World War II. However, the end of World War II saw navies widely panned as obsolete, and air forces went on to become the most prominent branches of the early Cold War period. It wasn't until the 1960s that navies began to reclaim some of their former glory with the fielding of ballistic missile submarines.

How plausible would it be for navies to have retained their status as the most prominent military branch in the early Cold War period? Could navies have successfully promoted the aircraft carrier as the key strategic asset of the early Cold War period, citing its ability to bring both bombers and interceptors to where they are most needed? Could air forces have been the branch least in favor, rising in prominence with the development of missiles and satellites in the 1960s?
 
Offensively you need a nuclear bomber that takes off from a carrier, and you probably need it to deployed before any land based nuclear bomber. That seems pretty unlikely, but maybe if the axis does much better in ww2, and the b36 program is messed up, that might just about happen if the manhattan project is still more or less the same.

Then somehow inertia sets in post war.

I'm not sure defensive really matters in the early days of the cold war, because the west assumed the threat of its bombs on the soviets were what mattered, rather than shooting down soviet bombs.

However once the ussr gets in the nuclear game, there is no way that it's not going to use land based aircraft.
 
Air forces were seen as dominant because the atom bomb was the preeminent offensive weapon and the major threat to the West.

To make naval forces co-equal with air forces in prominence, you need one of those factors to change. Realistically, the aerial atom bomb isn't going anywhere. You could try going down the CVA-58 solution, but land-based bombers have too many advantages for that to be viable in the long term.

Alternatively, increase the naval threat. From the offensive side, that's easy - submarines, and lots of them. Nearly worked in 1917, nearly worked in 1940. It's easy enough to imagine it working the third time.

The Royal Navy has been dominant in British strategic thinking for centuries because Britain depends on seaborne trade. The same would apply to Japan if there was any evidence of strategic thought prior to 1945. The United States is able to feed itself and supply most raw materials, as is the Soviet Union.

If you can make the United States somehow dependent on seaborne trade to the extent that the United Kingdom is, then a huge Soviet submarine force is a massive existential threat that demands a massive response. I just can't see how you'd do that.
 
How early of a PDO is allowed ?

What about no RAF just keep the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

The RNAS keeps home defence and strategic missions and therefore the nuclear weapons in the cold war......
 
How early of a PDO is allowed ?

What about no RAF just keep the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

The RNAS keeps home defence and strategic missions and therefore the nuclear weapons in the cold war......
Almost wholly irrelevant. Nuclear weapons make the case for independent air forces nearly irresistible.

If not forming the RAF has this effect, it will be as a butterfly rather than a direct consequence of the PoD.
 
Offensively you need a nuclear bomber that takes off from a carrier, and you probably need it to deployed before any land based nuclear bomber. That seems pretty unlikely, but maybe if the axis does much better in ww2, and the b36 program is messed up, that might just about happen if the manhattan project is still more or less the same.

Then somehow inertia sets in post war.

I'm not sure defensive really matters in the early days of the cold war, because the west assumed the threat of its bombs on the soviets were what mattered, rather than shooting down soviet bombs.

However once the ussr gets in the nuclear game, there is no way that it's not going to use land based aircraft.
Maybe carrier launched cruise missiles, like the Mace/Matador/Regulus/Triton, are developed earlier; with a PoD in the 1930s they might have been tested as anti-ship weapons in a slightly different WW2. Long range missiles would have been too big for most warships but carriers could accommodate them as strategic/operational strike weapons.
 
submarines

build the ballistic missile submarine sooner. That was the only ship that truly scared the Soviets, they could not find them and the subs could hit the Soviet Union from anywhere. Aircraft carriers are a close second with their only problem is staying out of the range of the Soviets anti-ship missiles.
 
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