Military Tech of a world where WW1 was averted

We might also see horses replaced by motorcycles, perhaps even an erlier invention and adoption of dirtbikes and other cross crountry versions.

By 1914, the Model T cost less, and had better cross country performance than the Indian Motorcycle, that had suspension on both front and rear.

It could carry more load, and far easier to drive, and was all weather

This killed the US Motorcycle market, from over a dozen companies, to three.

The Motorcycle share the same problem as mounted troops, you really can't fight from them, you have to dismount.

So that leaves the job of some scouting and relaying messages
 

Driftless

Donor
I was looking for another photo and came across this gem from 1917: The driver looks like every iteration of Clark Kent I've ever seen and the gunner looks like David Schwimmer (Capt Sobel, Ross Geller)

IndianMachineGun-WWI.JPG
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Motorcycles are sexy but are a waste of resources. With sidecar 3 men maximum. The same engine can be used to power a car which could carry two or three times that number.
 
Doesn't change the fact that motocycles could stillbe useful in some applications, e.g. scous, messengers, some sort of dragoons/quick reaction force or even for special forces or paratroopers. Also, it isn't necessery to build those huge overbuilt machines like the Indian or the Zündapp KS 750, a pedal powered bike with a small motor or some sort of enduro or dirtbike would do too or even a vespa like that french version. You could even use them to tow mountain guns, mortars or maxims.
 
So, how would battleships develop without WW1?
Get bigger. The Russians were going to lay down a ~38,000 ton design with 12 16" guns in 1915, this was going to make everybody else respond with something even bigger soon after. Probably last longer, as larger size means more deck armor and stronger TDS so it is probably an extra year or three of aircraft design before carrier planes reach the point of being able to threaten a modern BB
 
Everything the USA does still has a hard limit - they have to fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. Whatever the Russians do will have only a minimal impact, due to their issues with access to open seas. Also staffing, maintenance, and local construction of a significant blue water navy for them has major financial and technical issues.
 

Driftless

Donor
Wouldn't you get to a point of diminishing returns on your country's investment in these super-battleships(Yamato/Tillman types), where so much of your GNP goes into a very few ships? While they're a great threat, their great cost and limited numbers may restrict when and where you put them into play. They probably would spend most of their days as fleet-in-being harbor queens.

Eventually, the dial swings back the other way and country's with less deep pockets use their limited resources like submarines, other types of torpedo boats, and mines. Less costly to build, operate, and a bit of a wild card for risk to the bigger ships.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Everything the USA does still has a hard limit - they have to fit through the locks of the Panama Canal.
That'd be the next generation, past the 1916 South Dakota class. In a "no-WWI" AU I'd guess that such post-Pananamax ships would come in the late 1920s.
In OTL the US was building new locks for the Panama Canal to fit the 1940 Montana class.
 
Wouldn't you get to a point of diminishing returns on your country's investment in these super-battleships(Yamato/Tillman types), where so much of your GNP goes into a very few ships? While they're a great threat, their great cost and limited numbers may restrict when and where you put them into play. They probably would spend most of their days as fleet-in-being harbor queens.

Eventually, the dial swings back the other way and country's with less deep pockets use their limited resources like submarines, other types of torpedo boats, and mines. Less costly to build, operate, and a bit of a wild card for risk to the bigger ships.
US estimated that an 80,000 ton Tillman type would cost ~33% more than a 35,000 ton 20's era treaty battleship, building big has its cost benefits
Everything the USA does still has a hard limit - they have to fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. Whatever the Russians do will have only a minimal impact, due to their issues with access to open seas. Also staffing, maintenance, and local construction of a significant blue water navy for them has major financial and technical issues.
You can fit a Tillman through the Panama Canal 1914 locks, that is the point of the design, and people had been thinking about lock expansions basically since the canal opened

Russia is a major issue, Russians build something, the Germans have to respond, Germans build something Britain has to, Britain builds something US and Japan have to respond
 
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