DBWI: No National Rearmament Act of 1939

What if FDR didn't push the National Rearmament Act of 1939 through? From this thread https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=235164 What if the army was 1/2 the size of OTL when war broke out? What if we had to rely on the Brewster Buffalo instead of the Wildcat? Only light tanks armed with machine guns or small calibre guns at best? No Grant or Lee tanks and no Shermans until 1942 or so? 3 less aircraft carriers , 5 less BBs, 10 less cruisers ,20 less DDs and 30 less frigates. The Filipino troops having to use Springfields instead of Garand rifles. Then there is the secondary effect of Europe's colonial troops being upgraded by using US castoffs. The DEI used biplanes before we sold them our Buffaloes.
 
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OOC: How does the USN walk over the IJN so much faster than OTL?

OOC: More ships including transports, more and better planes, torpedos that actually work, more troops and better AAA on ships. As a result Japan doesn't take nearly as much territory during the early period as OTL.
 
OOC: Sorry, getting my 'ifs' and 'if nots' mixed up for a few moments. Mind you, I can't find anything about this "National Rearmament Act" on wikipedia or anything. You know anywhere I can get more information about it?
 
OOC: Sorry, getting my 'ifs' and 'if nots' mixed up for a few moments. Mind you, I can't find anything about this "National Rearmament Act" on wikipedia or anything. You know anywhere I can get more information about it?

It never existed. I got the idea of this thread from another thread I made a little earlier when Lord Dalek came up with it. https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=235164 I'm sorry if it made it confusing I probably should have included it in the first post. :eek:
 
OOC: Sorry, getting my 'ifs' and 'if nots' mixed up for a few moments. Mind you, I can't find anything about this "National Rearmament Act" on wikipedia or anything. You know anywhere I can get more information about it?

OOC: There wasn't one. In this TL there was and such an act.

IC: The modernization of the U.S. military took several years in OTL and it would take at least that long if the military modernization took place later. It might not even have tried until Japan attacked. On the other hand Japan might not have attacked without the expansion of the U.S. military in Spring of 1940, or put it off a year or two.

Taking it farther there wouldn't have been any U.S. troops in France before it fell in July. The American forces wouldn't have had any experience in modern warfare and might not have done as well in the followup battles.
 
I'm sorry if it made it confusing I probably should have included it in the first post. :eek:
OOC: Probably be a good idea to edit it, I'm probably not the only one to get confused.

IC: You say 3 less carriers, but there'd be a lot fewer than just those 3, I mean what about the Independence Class, that's 18 more carriers (admittedly, only light carriers) that wouldn't be built until probably late '42 (if they were laid down in mid '41), and there'd probably be fewer of them as well, maybe half.

Did we even use Lees by the way? I thought we'd palmed them all off to the Brits (who only took them because they didn't have anything better). Mind you, if we hadn't won so quickly they might have had time to work the kinks out of the T20.
 
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OOC: Probably be a good idea to edit it, I'm probably not the only one to get confused.

IC: You say 3 less carriers, but there'd be a lot fewer than just those 3, I mean what about the Independence Class, that's 18 more carriers (admittedly, only light carriers) that wouldn't be built until probably late '42 (if they were laid down in mid '41), and there'd probably be fewer of them as well, maybe half.

Did we even use Lees by the way? I thought we'd palmed them all off to the Brits (who only took them because they didn't have anything better). Mind you, if we hadn't won so quickly they might have had time to work the kinks out of the T20.

Yeah, we used them for about 3 months until we had enough Shermans.
 
Even without the extra ships, I can't imagine the war lasting until mid 1944. If they collapsed that fast IOTL, then they would have collapsed rapidly if the allies were lacking a few ships.
 
OOC: Probably be a good idea to edit it, I'm probably not the only one to get confused.

IC: You say 3 less carriers, but there'd be a lot fewer than just those 3, I mean what about the Independence Class, that's 18 more carriers (admittedly, only light carriers) that wouldn't be built until probably late '42 (if they were laid down in mid '41), and there'd probably be fewer of them as well, maybe half.

Did we even use Lees by the way? I thought we'd palmed them all off to the Brits (who only took them because they didn't have anything better). Mind you, if we hadn't won so quickly they might have had time to work the kinks out of the T20.

Yeah, I forgot about the light carriers. :eek: That is about over 500 combat planes left out. :eek:
 
Even without the extra ships, I can't imagine the war lasting until mid 1944. If they collapsed that fast IOTL, then they would have collapsed rapidly if the allies were lacking a few ships.

8 capital ships and around 80 escort ships is not what I call few, particularly early in the war.
 
8 capital ships and around 80 escort ships is not what I call few, particularly early in the war.
Look at the ships that the USN had that weren't authorized. They had carrier parity with the IJN (they had more including the Ranger), and they would have had almost twice the amount of battleships available. And this isn't even including escort ships. Unless if the Japanese sunk most of them with absoultly no loss to them, the USN could still wipe the floor with the IJN.
 
Of course, it didn't go entirely our way, if we'd held off a bit longer the British might have had enough Sherman Swimmers that they could have given us some, which would have made things a lot easier at Normandy. I wonder, if we'd been slower off the ball, would we still have taken all of Korea, or would we have left bits of it to the Russian?
 
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