The Two-Ocean Navy act authorized 7 battleships and 18 aircraft carriers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Ocean_Navy_Act Why is there such a discrepancy in number of battleships ordered and the number of carriers ordered? The act was passed in June 1940, none of the actions that would hint at the dominance of carriers in the Pacific war had happend yet. Taranto, the hunting of the
Bismark, Cape Matapan, none of these had happened yet. Indeed, carriers so far had only proved vulnerable to submarines and surface vessels. The HMS
Courageous had been sunk by U-boat in the early days of the war, and the HMS
Glorious had been sunk by the
Scharnhorst and the
Gneisenau just days before the act passed, both with great loss of life. Why, if the USN was still so focused upon "big-gun" ships, did they order so many aircraft carriers? Wouldn't it make much more sense, according to the existing doctrine, and indeed by wartime experience, to build fewer carriers and use that money to build more battleships, or at very least spread it among ships of other classes as well? Eighteen carriers seems like a crazy amount of overkill. I don't think there were that many fleet carriers currently in commission IN THE WORLD in June 1940. The USN was completely surprised by Pearl Harbor, but they had ordered a ton of carriers already. What gives? Are aircraft carriers THAT MUCH cheaper? Were there shady buisiness deals at work? Had the passers of bill been granted ASB levels of forsight?
So what happens if the Two-Ocean Navy act hadn't included so many aircraft carriers? What would the USN have built instead? How does this effect the Pacific war? Do they convert some extra
Iowa class BBs once Pearl Harbor happens? I know, the scenario still ends with Japan getting curbstomped and nuked sometime in 1945, but it's still interesting to examine the butterflys.
P.S. I'm new here.
