WI: A different Washington Naval Treaty and its Effects On WWII

Re: Alaska, that's about 6k higher than the design standard displacement - and it gets you armor nearly equivalent to OTL Iowa and decent torpedo protection. If we compare to OTL design plans, it's about 1k more than CA2C, which was immune to its own guns from 12-20k yards. So, modified to be a more battleship style immune zone (longer range) and a taller rangefinder to take advantage of range.

As for more fast battleships to outrun, the only things theoretically faster would be Hood/Lexington (though how fast after refits/rebuilds I wonder) and potentially the new Japanese battleships, depending on when/how they are built.

Essentially, it's also a bit of a return to older US practice of maintaining a second rate semicapital line that is intermediary between fullsize capital vessels and smaller ones.

There are no CAVs built, and the CLVs likely served to satisfaction. Limitation would be lack of launch equipment and lack of space, combined with limited armor, though it'd be very hard to actually disable the ships machinery, the issue is fires due to avgas, which was not stored anywhere near the hanger to prevent the fire issue. Aside from inefficiency, and absent a catastrophic Fourth Fleet incident, a US Navy hungry for more decks will not turn down even hybrids.

As it stands, from my understanding, Japan instigated it by converting the (wrecked) Hyuuga, hoping to prompt a reaction from the US, which is successful by forcing the conversion of their own hybrids to counter then, essentially forcing the US to tie down resources in order to counter a perceived threat.

Re: Carriers

As it stands, I made my justification for replacement for about 21 vessels (though that's a personal opinion). Also have to factor in replacement cycle for the older warships as well, as the Constellation and sister combined with the Ranger would be phasing, which account for the extra 3 vessels.

As for Malta/Midway, the advent of jet aircraft will start reducing deck park size, so there's still an impulse to increase size in the future.

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Re: China

US would most definitely be unsupportive of Japan encroaching into China, especially as it would be seen as a thinly-veiled power grab; their only consolation is that Japan would be less successful than OTL thanks to stronger China and weaker Japanese army. The FoF will likely trigger the official expansion of the Navy and the 2 Ocean Navy act, and only the lack of major JApanese success keeps relations hostile. You could get that situation de facto with the US supporting a different faction and China effectively being divided into opposition zones, but I don't see an agreement to divide up China, as that was the complete antithesis of US policy up to that point.
 
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