With a POD of 1945, make the US Navy into the worst possible you can imagine, bad ships, obsolete ships, poor maintenance quality, deteriorating ships, bad officers/sailors. Make the US Navy the absolute joke of first world nations. Make the US Navy like the pre “new navy” era of the 1890s.
AHC : Worst possible US Navy
- Thread starter Admiral Bloonbeard
- Start date
Delay the Korean War in some fashion. Without the Korean War, the crushing of the Revolt of the Admirals continues; the Navy continues to be drawn down, and when it IS called on -- perhaps by 1960 -- it's clear that it cannot be asked to do anything serious. Perhaps an embarrassing turn in something akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- this navy of rusting destroyers and barely-modified flattops can't keep up a blockade of Cuba, and the US is compelled to back down in humiliating fashion.
By then, it's too late to save the US Navy from its own failures, and the focus remains firmly on air power.
By then, it's too late to save the US Navy from its own failures, and the focus remains firmly on air power.
nbcman
Donor
US decides to withdraw into isolationism and fails to produce replacements for ships from the WW2 era. By the 1980s the USN along with all other armed forces would be falling apart.
The US goes Nuke happy and directs more funding to nukes and bombers / missiles and cuts the other armed forces budget accordingly.
The US goes Nuke happy and directs more funding to nukes and bombers / missiles and cuts the other armed forces budget accordingly.
How would that make it the worst possible?
I would go the other way and have Rickover killed during WWII.
I don’t know how an all nuclear navy is bad at all. It’s literally the wet dream of every country.
I sure many people find the Alaska class to be fine warships. They are sadly deluded, but I'm sure they are sincere. The Alaska class is, simply put, what happens when you give a military unlimited money and no one ever asks "Why are we doing this?" I will spare everyone one of my top line rants on the subject (in fact I think I may have laid one out in a thread you started a few weeks back) but if you search on my name and the ship class you will see much well deserved vitriol dispensed on the subject.
To your original question... The laughing stock is nearly impossible, even old WW II ships would be fronty line well into the 1960s (in fact were front line 25-30 years after commissioning IOTL). Turning the fleet into a poor relation however, that is quite easy.
Construct a POD that butterflies away the Korean War, or at least delays it into the 1960s. Prior to Korea that Air Force had managed to get about 3/4 of the way to convincing Congress (and more importantly, the electorate) that carriers, battleships, a large Army, etc. were a waste of money. All the country need was the USAF and bunch of nukes and everyone would play nice. Even after the Soviets joined the Nuclear Club the Air Force brass ( and a good part of the Pentagon and Armed Service committees) remained convinced that carrier task force was simply a big target and that a armored division was somewhat more diffused target.
What convinced people otherwise was USN (and RN with HMS Trimuph) carrier launched airstrikes providing CAS that allowed ROK/U.S./UN forces to make it back to Pusan and then kept the Pusan Perimeter from collapsing along with tactical USAF assets. It suddenly dawned on folks that simply nuking anyone who looked crooked at the U.S., might not be the optimal solution.
Not enough money in the world to support an all nuclear fleet of any size. It is, in some ways, similar to the problem Authur C Clarke described in Superiority. You have the overwhelmingly better ship, but the enemy has 30 that are relative crap but cost 1/30th of your supership, and can be built in 1/3 the time. Then the war starts and all 30 of them come after you. You sink 15 of the enemy before your ship goes down. Your ship was obviously superior, but at the end of the day, who owns the water?
Except the US can and did afford an all nuclear navy. The US has an all nuclear carrier fleet. The US Navy, Royal Navy, and Marine Nationale are the only navies with a completely nuclear submarine fleet.
Washington sometime in the late 40's
"The Atom bomb makes all conventional forces obsolete. We only need patrol boats for constabulary work, scrap everything else, close the ship yards and shut down most of the training establishments,"
"The Atom bomb makes all conventional forces obsolete. We only need patrol boats for constabulary work, scrap everything else, close the ship yards and shut down most of the training establishments,"
RamscoopRaider
Donor
No it isn't. The majority of US cruisers were conventional, as are all current ones, I think only 1 destroyer ever was nuclear, no frigates by Post 1975 definition were, no amphibs, no support ships. That is what they mean by all nuclear navy, not just the Supercarriers and subs
No Kissinger. Vietnam gets pushed until the mass services crack in mutiny. Due to other social priorities in a very strange Venesualan type coup d’état massaged radical centrist-social-democrat military run USA, the Navy as a Navy takes second place to the Navy as a revolutionary governing agency. Particularly the Marines. Particularly in swampy and mountainous republican voting areas with poor civil rights histories. Also “election monitoring.”
yours,
Sam R.
I think that should cover the sledgehammer for a peanut scenario. Viva Malaise. Gung Ho.
yours,
Sam R.
I think that should cover the sledgehammer for a peanut scenario. Viva Malaise. Gung Ho.
No, the U.S. did not, and never HAS had an all nuclear fleet.
Yes they have carrier and SSN/SSBN/SSGN. They even had a handful of CGN. What they never had, and never could have afforded to have, was 27 CGN, 100 +/- DDNG, 30-50 FFNG, 11 LHDN/LHAN, 4 LHDN, 11-12 LHPN, 10-13 LSDN.
A fleet is the carriers, isn't even the Assault ships. Iyt is the cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and various UNREP ships that make up 90% or more of any navy.
Nuclear ships are prohibitively expensive. Beside the obvious cost of each plant is the stuff behind the scenes. Every part that touches the plant is nuclear grade. There are only a few shipyards that do nuclear work. Refueling a ship/sub is just crazy expensive. Then there are the Nukes to operate everything. The Navy never keeps, recruits or trains enough of them. Their re-enlistment bonuses are always the highest of any rate in the Navy (Usually the same as SEALS). A Nuke enlisting today can get around $250,000 in bonuses alone over a 20 year period. The Navy would have to greatly expand the entire training pipeline to get more. That’s even more money and more Nukes. More nuclear ships would also cause port visit issues. They are only allowed to visit ports with strict security and safety plans and equipment in case of an issue. Nuclear power for carriers and subs makes great sense. More then that IMHO just gets too expensive.
I doubt the USN, or anyone else could recruit/retain enough Nukes to staff an entire 350 ship combat fleet + UNREP. The enlisted training runs at least 14 months, often longer (on an enlistment that only runs 60 months active duty).
Even the non "kettle" personnel in the engineering departments are trained to a level that they can walk out the gates and get a job in a high tech company that pays better (to start) than a 4 Star Admiral.