JAG13 wrote: ↑25 Sep 2019, 08:35
T. A. Gardner wrote: ↑31 Jul 2017, 07:18
So, if the Germans were to build 4 or so carriers by 1939 how does that change what the RN would do? They can't lay down a carrier larger than 23,000 tons. They are limited in total tonnage as well. How do they build more? Look at how the US built the Wasp because of that tonnage limitation, for example. The US forewent armor protection to keep the air wing size the same on the lower tonnage that remained to them under treaty.
The Germans and Japanese will lie about their tonnage per ship but that isn't going to be obvious right off.
In almost nothing, part of the 1935 AGNA and subsequent treaties established the obligations to provide a building plan, and within the 35% of RN tonnage the KM was allowed 3x15.000t carriers were contemplated and notified to the UK, that was, of course, before the RN started to build more carriers which would make more tonnage available for the KM.
Let me repeat foe the people that were contesting your point, ALL THE RN DID IRL WAS BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THE KM WOULD BE BUILDING THREE CARRIERS! Up to that, there is no reason for the RN to change anything.
So, with some cheating the KM could have 3x20.000t (Yorktown size) CVs ready by 1939 with at least one more in the pipeline.
And, as I have pointed out, a KM that is carrier-centric with a well established air force for these ships using modern aircraft (I've suggested the He 112, Ju 87, and FI 167, or alternately a He 170 designed to operate much like the Japanese B5N) would have given the RN absolute fits at sea. The RN's own carrier forces in 1939 were just short of pathetic. They had crap aircraft, and in insufficient numbers.
That would leave the RN scrambling to build carriers and put decent aircraft into production. I suppose they could have bought some from the US like the F2A Buffalo or the SB2U Vindicator, in hopes of putting something at least marginally competitive up against the Germans quickly. Their own crappy aircraft wouldn't have stood a chance.
In 1939, they had the Blackburn Skua. This is like using an SBD or SB2U as a fighter. It would have been hopelessly outmatched. Then there was the even more pathetic Blackburn Roc that could barely stay airborne and couldn't even overtake slow, old, biplane seaplanes like the He 59. They also had the Swordfish torpedo plane. Acceptable when there was no opposition, but in the face of actual CAP fighters these planes were just targets.
They also had the Sea Gladiator. An obsolescent, if not obsolete, biplane fighter.
Any of this going up against a navalized He 112 or Me 109T would have been dead meat. The Skua has just 4 .303 guns to fight with. That against cannon equipped (typically 2 x 20mm MG FF and 2 x 7.92) would have been easy kills. The slow Sea Gladiator is the same way.
But, given that RN doctrine in 1939 was the Skua escorted themselves, and the Swordfish were usually sent unescorted, the FAA would have found its strikes devastated by defending German CAP operating much like IJN CAP did.
Add in some cheap merchant conversion carriers for commerce raiding in distant oceans, and the RN truly would have been on the ropes into 1941.