Challenge: Retard Technological Development in the 20th Century

Look at the prewar pattern, which will continue. The RN had decided airplanes are important as fleet scouts. They will keep improving on them, a little bit each year. Just look at the capital ships. We went from slow firing 4 gun predreads with coal power with poor armor to 15" oil fired ships with much better armor in 15 years. Planes will not be as important, so will be lower funding, so looking at submarines is a better example. Look at how much the UK improved from the Class A to Class E boats in about 15 years. Or compare the USA Holland boats to the Germans diesel boats made right before the war. Huge gains.

What cause the Washington Naval treaty was the major powers being bankrupt and having three less players at the table (Russia, Germany, AH). Without the chaos of WW1 and the financial ruin, the arms race continues. We likely see someone do 17" or larger guns by 1925. We will see CVL types ships in the early 1920's progressing into what we call CV with metal planes in the early 1930's. I look at this stuff in detail for my TL, and it is the pace the navies were on. Radar shows up as harbor control by 1920 and is widely used on ships by 1925. Guided weapons (smart bombs) are quite possible by the mid 1920's and almost certain by the mid 1930's.

A better way may be to look at the financial costs so see how much was waste. The USA spent 22,000 million USD. The UK spent/loaned 57 million USD. Most of this went for things that were destroyed and low tech such as steel, ammo, guns, food, etc. Now look at how much things costs. Good dreadnought is around 10-15 million USD. You can probably build your first 3 CVL for this amount. Or you can fund a nice R&D program for better airplanes for this amount spent over 10 or so years and make major gains in airplanes. Or fund a engine development program to allow better tanks. These major R&D programs are literally rounding errors in the wartime budget.

And it is key to remember that killing and crippling about 1/3 of your men reduces the size of the economy quite substantially. So all this wartime spending (22,000 USD or 57 million USD) is not additional spending, it is pulling money out of future years. And for ever dollar spent in WW1, I guarantee that 2-4 USD were lost on the size of the economy in the 1920's and 1930's.

Or put one final way, lets say 10 years ago, an ASB kills 1/6 of all working age people on earth, 1/6 of all scientist, 1/6 of all engineers, has 1/2 of all workers sit idle for 4 years, and destroys 1/10 buildings on the planet. ITTL, do you believe technology would be more advance than OTL? Wars destroy on the whole, they don't create. Or did the USA invasion of Iraq in 2003 increase or decrease the number of patents in Iraq? Do car bombings actually help increase the pace of research? To me, the answer is obvious.

Is that going to expand aerospace as much as OTL though? Especially since lighter than air craft will probably come to dominate civil air transport at least in the near term without their flaws being revealed in WWI. This probably produces the Alt history cliche of a zeppelin world but the dead end nature of the tech will start to have an impact overtime.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Is that going to expand aerospace as much as OTL though? Especially since lighter than air craft will probably come to dominate civil air transport at least in the near term without their flaws being revealed in WWI. This probably produces the Alt history cliche of a zeppelin world but the dead end nature of the tech will start to have an impact overtime.

Yes. I do see a future for Zeppelins in a no WW1 scenario, but they ships have limitations, and in reality, only the Germans were in love with them. Just like Seaplanes were eventually replaced by land based jets for passenger travel, such will happen to the Zeppelin. IMO, Zeppelins could still be viable for niche operations where a slow speed is a benefit (sight seeing).

IMO, the vastly greater wealth due to not wrecking Europe and not killing/maiming 1/6 to 1/3 of the working population of major countries will more than overcome and slower development due to lack of war funding or competition from Zeppelins or other exotic forms of transport.
 
Yes. I do see a future for Zeppelins in a no WW1 scenario, but they ships have limitations, and in reality, only the Germans were in love with them. Just like Seaplanes were eventually replaced by land based jets for passenger travel, such will happen to the Zeppelin. IMO, Zeppelins could still be viable for niche operations where a slow speed is a benefit (sight seeing).

IMO, the vastly greater wealth due to not wrecking Europe and not killing/maiming 1/6 to 1/3 of the working population of major countries will more than overcome and slower development due to lack of war funding or competition from Zeppelins or other exotic forms of transport.

Wouldn't this produce the POD though? Land based airliners, especially jets not becoming the main form of civil air travel until the '60s or '70s because Zeppelins and Seaplanes last longer still retards civil air tech for some 10 years behind OTL.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Wouldn't this produce the POD though? Land based airliners, especially jets not becoming the main form of civil air travel until the '60s or '70s because Zeppelins and Seaplanes last longer still retards civil air tech for some 10 years behind OTL.

IMO, we see most technologies about 10 years earlier with WW1, so we see jet engines in the mid-1930's along with very reliable prop engines. The will start to be used commercially for jets in the 1940. Zeppelins will start to lose serious market share by the 1930's to heavier than air aircraft.
 
In my Sparrow Avengers (European Crimson Skies) TL, nuclear power really takes off in the 1950s, only after an alt-WWII (that lasts shorter and is more like WWI) and several delays in the 30s (notably, two important nuclear figures from OTL are killed off and a certain manufacturing breakthrough doesn't occur on time, delaying nuclear stuff). Then again, the delayedness will cause several problems in the long run, which I do adress in the post-war portions of the TL. Aerospace and comms tech advances a bit faster (not too hastily, though it is noticeable), but more advanced consumer electronics like personal computers come in a bit later than they did in OTL.

Also, in my The Fox and the Lillies TL, biotech and genetic engineering is at least 10 years behind OTL. On the other hand, they had present-level comps (flash drives, WiFi equivalent, etc.) already in the alt-90s, they've landed on Mars in the early 21st century and their fotovoltaics and seaweed petrol vats are ca. 10-15 years ahead of OTL.
 
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