War doesn't break out for five-six years. Who's in the best shape?

[Richard Anderson]

Oh dear, my bad, I did say "early May", but that is when FDR reestablished the National Defense Advisory Commission. Knudsen resigned from GM in person to the Chairman of the Board, Alfred Sloane, in New York on 29 May 1940, two days after his conversation with FDR. Which I already said. In any case that was two weeks before discussions began regarding a possible interim 75mm-armed tank on 13 June, more than two weeks before the decision to expand production of the Medium Tank M2A3 on 16 June and Knudsen's call to Keller on 17 June, and a month before the National Munitions Program bill was passed, two and a half months before the contract to build DTA was signed on 15 August, and nearly three months before the final design of the Medium Tank M3 was agreed on 26 August.

It remains a mystery how anyone looking at that time line would deduce that "in May of 1940, the United States decided to build a new Medium Tank." Or how a still sitting President of GM could or would hand a "project to Chrysler" before the project actually existed?

Gee, someone really spent too much time at Origins breathing the smoke from Jim's cigars. I'm trying to remember if Dave Isby had acquired his British accent yet or was he still from Brooklyn then?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Here are details of US shipbuilding programme as it stood historically in Feb 1941.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/16618978

Note the column for date of completion as per contract or order. This is when the USN could expect to get its ships before major speeding up with the approach of war. Most of the 1940 orders were not scheduled to complete until 1943 or later, stretching out to 1946 at peace time production rates. Compare those production rates with the eventual completion dates of those ships and you can begin to see how WW2 galvanised US industry.

In particular with regard to the carriers note that after Hornet due for completion in 1942, nothing else could be expected until April 1944 when Essex was due to be delivered followed by another 3 that year. Even by Dec 1941 a similar report only shows 3 months cut from the schedule. Also without WW2 and the experience of Britain, does the USN even plan for 11 Essex class in 1940 or does it restrict itself to the 3 ships ordered in Feb/May and defer the other 8 ordered in Sept?

So if there is no war in this ATL, there are surely far fewer orders in 1940 and a much smaller USN in the short term. So when does the USN place the orders for the ships it needs to fight delayed WW2. Is the effect simply to move orders, production etc to the right in the timeline?

Thats possible.

Another thought. Without WW2, the limitations imposed by Second London Naval Treaty continue beyond Sept 1939 (but for how long?) even without Japan as a signatory. Yes the “escalator clause” will apply to the battleships allowing 16” guns, but carrier size is capped at 23,000 tons (no Essex class) but numbers unlimited, cruisers limited to 8,000 tons (no Baltimore and Cleveland classes). So the 1940 USN build programme looks entirely different with smaller carriers and cruisers and no large cruisers of the Alaska class even thought about.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech ... y_1936.php

"..but for how long?" touches on a variable in all this. I''ve been operating on a assumption that after some sort of war scare of 1938 or 1939 the inmate fiscal conservatism of many governments prevents the massive industrial mobilization of the OTL war time. Ditto for the LNT & other defense policy decisions.

[T. A. Gardner]

If the Japanese refused to sign, then the US would very likely not sign either. The US wasn't about to play second fiddle to Japan's navy.

[EwenS]

If the Japanese refused to sign, then the US would very likely not sign either. The US wasn't about to play second fiddle to Japan's navy.

The USA did sign the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 despite the fact that the Japanese didn’t. Not only that but they sought to comply with it when they designed the North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships and the Atlanta class cruisers. It was scheduled to remain in force until 31 Dec 1942 (Art 27) with provision (Art 28) for a further conference to be held in 1941.

It only fell by the wayside when historically WW2 broke out. That released the USA to build bigger ships of all types.

[Gooner1]

Actually, RR was a late comer to jet engines. Alan Arnold Griffith was a competitor of Whittle's in many ways. Griffith thought Whittle's centrifugal engine wouldn't work at all and focused his own work on an axial compressor-type engine. In 1937 he started discussions with Metropolitan-Vickers, Vickers' steam turbine division in Manchester on developing a counterrotating axial jet engine.
In 1939 he, his partner Hayne Constant and a team of engineers from Metrovick led by David Smith to develop the F1. This was to be an axial flow turboprop engine, not a pure jet engine.

Not really a latecomer to jet engines but going a different route to Whittle and others. The Ministry of Aircraft Production requested in June 1941 that RR should make Dr. Griffiths contra-flow gas turbine suitable for testing on the Air Ministry's F.9/40 specification jet fighter i.e the Meteor.
The first bench tests were schelduled for January 1942, were a long way behind being ready but the units "were by far the most technically advanced and ambitious of all the other designs and were expected eventually to outstrip them all."

When Whittle's competing WU engine and W1 flew in the Gloster E28/39, the Metrovick team dropped the F1 and concentrated on the F2 that became the Freda and was first test flown in 1943.
In 1939, none of this was really being supported by the Air Ministry. Instead, large steam turbine makers were generally backing the development as they were the ones that could best see the potential for a gas turbine.

In March 1938 the Air Ministry gave their first research grant to Powerjets Ltd, The successful demonstration of the W.1 engine ensured that in September 1939 the Air Ministry ordered t Whittle's newly proposed W.2 engine straight away.
It's arguable whether the arrival of war or the successful demonstration of the engineering got the Air Ministry excited by the prospects of the jet engine, but excited by the possibilities they certainly were. In addition to Powerjets, Metropolitan-Vickers were given a contract in October 1940, de Havilland in May 1941 then RR in June.By early 1942 eleven major firms were working on Jet engines and the RAF were expecting jet equipped fighters to be available in 'operationally useful' numbers by the Winter of 1942-43. The numerous technical and design difficulties and the rapid improvement in performance in conventional engines cooled the Air Ministrys ardour somewhat but in early 1944 ten different designs of jet engine were in development, six by RR after their partnership with Powerjets was formed in '43.
In a scenario without a war, much of the R&D work would still be continued albeit probably at a slower pace, so taking into account the governement mandated hiatus in R&D after the shock of May-June 1940, expect work to be six-twelve months behind where they were? Probably the plant for mass production further behind that.

[Gooner1]

Nations reducing military budgets are less likely to to have clever new weapons tested 1942-44. There is also the wild card of bad decisions for policy and details of weapons selection.

That's true. It's unlikely a peacetime army would tolerate junk like the Covenanter tank or early mark Sten guns being foisted on them.

[Richard Anderson]

The USA did sign the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 despite the fact that the Japanese didn’t. Not only that but they sought to comply with it when they designed the North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships and the Atlanta class cruisers. It was scheduled to remain in force until 31 Dec 1942 (Art 27) with provision (Art 28) for a further conference to be held in 1941.

It only fell by the wayside when historically WW2 broke out. That released the USA to build bigger ships of all types.

The North Carolinas and South Dakotas were originally designed to the 14-inch limitations of the Treaty. The abrogation by Japan and Italy meant that they were completed to the 16-inch standard desired. It also resulted in the finalization of the Iowa and Essex design concepts.

Technically, the limitations fell by the wayside when the Japanese and Italians failed to sign it. The Naval Expansion Act of 1938 authorized more ships and an increase in size in the designs. Planning for the Essex class began in July 1939.

[nuyt]

Nations reducing military budgets are less likely to to have clever new weapons tested 1942-44. There is also the wild card of bad decisions for policy and details of weapons selection.

That's true. It's unlikely a peacetime army would tolerate junk like the Covenanter tank or early mark Sten guns being foisted on them.

I don't think anybody is reducing military budgets in this scenario. There is no real peace, war is going to break out, as per this scenario, just 5 -6 years later than 1939 (not 1941). Everybody knows its coming, and there will not be budget cuts, nor exponential rises like in war time, for that matter. And I fully agree that decisions on new weapons will be better, not worse, as there is more time for testing and discussion.
So nations keep preparing, investing, training and buying weapons to be ready when SHTF, just not in a wartime pace, nor at the pace of the 1930s.
And some countries are clearly better off by 1945. It would appear (judging from the discussions above) that navy wise it will be the Americans (1) and Brits (2) who are in best shape by 1945ish, followed by the IJN (3). On land, well, my bet is still on the Soviets (1), Germany (2) France (3).
Atomic bomb research will be ongoing and some countries will be close in 1945....

Other countries have more time to prepare as well. Franco Spain for instance has some more years to lick its wounds and will not be torn, undermined or bribed for another five years by any side of the warring parties like in OTL WW2. The Dutch/NEI will be more ready, maybe Turkey (armed by Germany) and Poland of course (though their location is still between a rock and a hard place). Maybe the Chinese can make a stand against the IJA and Europeans keeps arming them.

[glenn239]

So nations keep preparing, investing, training and buying weapons to be ready when SHTF, just not in a wartime pace, nor at the pace of the 1930s.
And some countries are clearly better off by 1945. It would appear (judging from the discussions above) that navy wise it will be the Americans (1) and Brits (2) who are in best shape by 1945ish, followed by the IJN (3). On land, well, my bet is still on the Soviets (1), Germany (2) France (3).
Atomic bomb research will be ongoing and some countries will be close in 1945....

If there is no war by 1945, the Japanese are so outgunned by the US Navy that they either ally with the United States at any political cost, or they ally with the Soviet Union. With Italy, it is scarcely conceivable they would risk war against that kind of Anglo-American naval firepower. That is to say, whatever happens in a 1945 war, the Axis Powers as they existed historically cannot exist counterfactually.

[nuyt]

Well, there may indeed not be an Axis like we knew it... as I tried to outline before that by 1945 an unavoidable process of decolonization will start soon. There are in this scenario powers without colonies (or they are "against" colonization), like US, Nazi Germany, Turkey and Soviet Union, as opposed to the traditional colonial powers UK, France, NL, Portugal, Italy and Japan. The opposing sides could just be grouped around this theme (just widening the box we are thinking here).

Note that without WW2 there is no Nazi occupation of Europe and the Soviet Union and thus: no Holocaust. The Nazis would no doubt be seen as nasty to most of us, but they would not be as discredited by their war crimes as they were IRL, just because there would not be any. They could even be aligned with the US or the SU or stay out of the war altogether and wait for the spoils.

Apart from naval strength and land strength, the most important would be control of the skies. Who will have jet fighters by 1945? IRL Nazi Germany had the most and in peacetime they could have focused on building the ME262 and forget about the Heinkels. More importantly, they were the only ones with a jet bomber, the Arado! So, in the skies its Nazis all around.
Runners up would be GB (with their Gloster Meteors) and the US with their Lockheed Shooting Stars.

[T. A. Gardner]

Well, there may indeed not be an Axis like we knew it... as I tried to outline before that by 1945 an unavoidable process of decolonization will start soon. There are in this scenario powers without colonies (or they are "against" colonization), like US, Nazi Germany, Turkey and Soviet Union, as opposed to the traditional colonial powers UK, France, NL, Portugal, Italy and Japan. The opposing sides could just be grouped around this theme (just widening the box we are thinking here).

Note that without WW2 there is no Nazi occupation of Europe and the Soviet Union and thus: no Holocaust. The Nazis would no doubt be seen as nasty to most of us, but they would not be as discredited by their war crimes as they were IRL, just because there would not be any. They could even be aligned with the US or the SU or stay out of the war altogether and wait for the spoils.

Apart from naval strength and land strength, the most important would be control of the skies. Who will have jet fighters by 1945? IRL Nazi Germany had the most and in peacetime they could have focused on building the ME262 and forget about the Heinkels. More importantly, they were the only ones with a jet bomber, the Arado! So, in the skies its Nazis all around.
Runners up would be GB (with their Gloster Meteors) and the US with their Lockheed Shooting Stars.

Much of the decolonization that happened post WW 2 occurred primarily, and in some cases, entirely because of WW 2. For example, with the Dutch and French in control of the DEI and Indochina respectively and no war, no occupation, and most importantly internal resistance movement that is militarily supported from external sources, they won't see revolutions and major guerilla movements that are effective cropping up.
So, virtually all of the major colonial losses won't occur. The various European powers will still control those lands.
The US likely would continue to give the Philippines independence, but retain bases and forces there in the process just as they did post WW 2. As I postulated, by 1945 the PI is now "independent" as a nation and has something like a three infantry division standing army organized on US lines using older, hand me down, equipment the US gave them. Another 8 to 10 divisions are organized as skeletons cycling draftees through for training, but having the equipment on hand to mobilize if necessary. The US retains a single division in the PI that uses a large number of Philippine volunteers in it Subic and Manila bay continue to be US naval bases and the Manila coast defenses are still manned to some degree by US troops who continue to train Filipinos to use them effectively.

On jets-- Nobody has an operational one in service. Henkel continues to dabble in these with tepid support from the Luftwaffe. Messerschmitt's design languishes due to all the serious issues it has, from being a tail dragger, to having aerodynamic issues, etc. In Britain, the air ministry goes no further than a few one-off prototypes and test planes. The US is a late comer to jets and the USAAC/F has only enough funding to get a prototype or two for testing.
The big issue here is engines. The US and Britain are well ahead of Germany in jet engines by 1945. While Henkel is plowing ahead, Von Ohain's mixed centrifugal-axial designs are complex and have serious issues. This is mostly due to his inability to get good compressor blade profiles. BMW and Junkers, lacking turbine experience just can't seem to get their engines to work.
As a historical note, the Me 262 first flew on the BMW 003 engine. The plane took off and the second it started to turn, both engines suffered compressor stalls. This was because BMW had next to zero turbine experience. BMW, with the help of Swiss Brown Boveri then spent nearly two years in wartime redesigning the blade profiles for their compressor section. In peace they are going to take a lot longer.
Junkers is the same way. They are almost guessing as to what will work for compressor blade profiles.
In Britain, Whittle has a working centrifugal jet engine that nobody will mass produce because it doesn't appear needed yet. Griffin and Metrovick move forward on an axial design but don't have it out of testing even if the design is relatively solid. This is because Metrovick has a huge amount of turbine experience to fall back from ship building.
In the US, GE and Westinghouse with their turbine knowledge likewise have jet engine designs that work. GE and Stanford Moss have the best compilation of gas turbine blade profile data available due to their work on turbochargers and both companies have tremendous steam turbine experience. Maybe Lockheed is letting Nathan Price, a protégé of steam turbine genius Abner Doble, design a jet engine. It's likely his design is a complex nightmare of potential efficiency...



I'd still bet that Westinghouse fails miserably to deliver a good product as that's more due to poor management and corporate incompetence than anything else. I could see GM / Allison taking an interest in jet and maybe buying out the Westinghouse division to get into that game to supplement or replace their aircraft piston engine manufacturing.

But nobody has a jet fighter in service...

Oh, by the way, the Ar 234 was really a test design turned into a reconnaissance plane and then made into a makeshift bomber of dubious quality.

[Gooner1]

In Britain, Whittle has a working centrifugal jet engine that nobody will mass produce because it doesn't appear needed yet.

The opposite actually. At the end of 1942 there was a factory, Rovers in Barnoldswick, expensively furbished, all tooled up and with a workforce waiting to get started but no product to get making. From the British OH, December 1942:
"The industrial position precipitated by the slow development [of the Whittle W.2.B. engine] was even more depressing. The production organisation built up by Rover's at their shadow factory at Barnoldswick, consisting of 1,600 operatives, scores upon scores of machine tools, and representing £1.5 million of capital investment, was lying virtually idle at a time when both both labour and machine tools were urgently needed elsewhere in the aircraft and engine programmes"

[Gooner1]

Apart from naval strength and land strength, the most important would be control of the skies. Who will have jet fighters by 1945? IRL Nazi Germany had the most and in peacetime they could have focused on building the ME262 and forget about the Heinkels. More importantly, they were the only ones with a jet bomber, the Arado! So, in the skies its Nazis all around.
Runners up would be GB (with their Gloster Meteors) and the US with their Lockheed Shooting Stars.

Germany going into 1940 does not have the proverbial pit to poss in. Their armaments production would have to suffer savage cuts. Whether they choose to spend their massively reduced budgets on research into the high tech rather than in keeping more people in employment is impossible to know.
As is gauging how popular the Nazi regime will continue to be as the economic 'miracle' is exposed as a sham.

[nuyt]

Much of the decolonization that happened post WW 2 occurred primarily, and in some cases, entirely because of WW 2. For example, with the Dutch and French in control of the DEI and Indochina respectively and no war, no occupation, and most importantly internal resistance movement that is militarily supported from external sources, they won't see revolutions and major guerilla movements that are effective cropping up.
So, virtually all of the major colonial losses won't occur. The various European powers will still control those lands.
The US likely would continue to give the Philippines independence, but retain bases and forces there in the process just as they did post WW 2. As I postulated, by 1945 the PI is now "independent" as a nation and has something like a three infantry division standing army organized on US lines using older, hand me down, equipment the US gave them. Another 8 to 10 divisions are organized as skeletons cycling draftees through for training, but having the equipment on hand to mobilize if necessary. The US retains a single division in the PI that uses a large number of Philippine volunteers in it Subic and Manila bay continue to be US naval bases and the Manila coast defenses are still manned to some degree by US troops who continue to train Filipinos to use them effectively.

On jets-- Nobody has an operational one in service. Henkel continues to dabble in these with tepid support from the Luftwaffe. Messerschmitt's design languishes due to all the serious issues it has, from being a tail dragger, to having aerodynamic issues, etc. In Britain, the air ministry goes no further than a few one-off prototypes and test planes. The US is a late comer to jets and the USAAC/F has only enough funding to get a prototype or two for testing.
The big issue here is engines. The US and Britain are well ahead of Germany in jet engines by 1945. While Henkel is plowing ahead, Von Ohain's mixed centrifugal-axial designs are complex and have serious issues. This is mostly due to his inability to get good compressor blade profiles. BMW and Junkers, lacking turbine experience just can't seem to get their engines to work.
As a historical note, the Me 262 first flew on the BMW 003 engine. The plane took off and the second it started to turn, both engines suffered compressor stalls. This was because BMW had next to zero turbine experience. BMW, with the help of Swiss Brown Boveri then spent nearly two years in wartime redesigning the blade profiles for their compressor section. In peace they are going to take a lot longer.
Junkers is the same way. They are almost guessing as to what will work for compressor blade profiles.
In Britain, Whittle has a working centrifugal jet engine that nobody will mass produce because it doesn't appear needed yet. Griffin and Metrovick move forward on an axial design but don't have it out of testing even if the design is relatively solid. This is because Metrovick has a huge amount of turbine experience to fall back from ship building.
In the US, GE and Westinghouse with their turbine knowledge likewise have jet engine designs that work. GE and Stanford Moss have the best compilation of gas turbine blade profile data available due to their work on turbochargers and both companies have tremendous steam turbine experience. Maybe Lockheed is letting Nathan Price, a protégé of steam turbine genius Abner Doble, design a jet engine. It's likely his design is a complex nightmare of potential efficiency...

I'd still bet that Westinghouse fails miserably to deliver a good product as that's more due to poor management and corporate incompetence than anything else. I could see GM / Allison taking an interest in jet and maybe buying out the Westinghouse division to get into that game to supplement or replace their aircraft piston engine manufacturing.

But nobody has a jet fighter in service...

Oh, by the way, the Ar 234 was really a test design turned into a reconnaissance plane and then made into a makeshift bomber of dubious quality.

OK, re decolonization: you are correct, but I am not saying these colonies will immediately get or fight for independence, just that the process will start. The PI may be " independent" in name, but there will be plenty of people who want more, who do not want to serve in a US led second rate army with old equipment and with foreign bases controlling your country. Would you?

On the other hand lots of other oppressed nations would be inspired. Gandhi's efforts to obtain more freedom would have gathered steam in peacetime (they did not in wartime, because plenty of people joined the British Army to fight the Nazis and such). But without a war, the independence movement would gain force and it would be harder to stop. The Brits might bring forward the division of India into a Muslim and Hindu part to 1943 or 44, as happened in 1947. Yes, divide and rule, but still that will not be enough in the eyes of the locals. Paternalism would fail.

In the NEI the independence movement would also gain, after Dutch suppression in 1925 of a full scale communist insurrection and the banning of the TNI and Partindo in the 1930s. A moderate faction, advocating working with the Dutch "to fight fascism", was Parindra, but its leader made interesting moves by first calling the US for the defense of the Indies (as the Dutch could not do this in his vision) before being arrested in 1941 under suspicion of assisting a Japanese attack. I don' t think any Asian nationalist would have the patience to sit out another 5-6 years of colonial rule without seeing real change = independence. They will work on it, massively, and there's no stopping them.

Africa would be another matter, with few conditions for successful liberty struggles. But "independent" Egypt might see a rise in nationalism in the 1940s, incited locally or under foreign influence. An early Nasser might stand up. On a slightly different note, the people formerly known as Boers would work to regain their independence from Britain in the early 40s as well and as IRL the nationalists found a lot of inspiration in Nazi Germany. So, a Soviet inspired coup in Egypt and a German backed uprising in the Transvaal cannot be ruled out for 1945. If they succeed or lead to a quick independence of these countries is another matter. entirely. They might just be preludes for a wider war....

Interesting stuff about the jets, thanks!
And re the faulty Arado: so what? That is hindsight, my bet is that an active squadron of the bombers, however flawed, would still cause considerable consternation among possible German adversaries.

[nuyt]

Germany going into 1940 does not have the proverbial pit to poss in. Their armaments production would have to suffer savage cuts. Whether they choose to spend their massively reduced budgets on research into the high tech rather than in keeping more people in employment is impossible to know.
As is gauging how popular the Nazi regime will continue to be as the economic 'miracle' is exposed as a sham.

Nope, they go on and find new ways. I am not saying this will be without a challenge, though. Point taken.

The sham is not exposed, just look at North Korea - still there The Germans will be more successful. Arms exports paying for hard currency or bartered food. Machinery can be sold to the SU, Brazil, neighboring countries. Plenty of clients for Krupp to be found in Latam, Turkey, SE Europe, Finland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, China (or Japan). Everybody wants the latest tanks and guns...

But can they loot another country after Czechoslovakia without a war? Hmm, difficult to see. Maybe a limited war with Italy to occupy the wealthy north and get naval bases on the Med? Could that be done, geopolitically speaking, without this leading to a new WW? My bet would be AH " taking care of" Benito and the rest of the world just watches...the hard working near-Teutonic Lombards, Piedmontese, Ligurians, Venetians, etc, with the great workshops of FIAT, OTO, Breda and Ansaldo will be put to work for Germany. And come to think of it, they probably would not have cared....