The Italian fleet sorties against Salerno
An Italian attack on Salerno would require political cohesion and would meet a strong Anglo-American naval covering force.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Complete directory
Browse all time notes.
Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
Britain abandons battleships for 9.2-inch cruisers
Scores of British 9.2-inch cruisers would threaten isolated capital ships while changing the American and Japanese strategic balance.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Political and technical reasons for a cruiser-only Royal Navy
A political retreat from battleships and a technical breakthrough would produce very different reactions to Britain's cruiser fleet.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Could Lexington battlecruisers counter British 9.2-inch cruisers?
Lexington's speed suggests a cruiser-hunting role, but the proposal is challenged because its armor is vulnerable to 9.2-inch gunfire.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Choosing one modern aircraft for Pearl Harbor
Aircraft choices divide over weapons capacity, gun penetration, Japanese fuel handling, and missile guidance in 1941.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
F-14 Tomcats with F135 engines
F135-powered Tomcats could intercept Soviet bombers farther out through supercruise, with airframe speed limits and maintenance still constraining them.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
An Italian interwar carrier force
Three Italian carriers and retained Caracciolos would pressure France to complete or redesign its Normandie battleships.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Italian and French completions reopen the treaty building holiday
Completing prewar Italian and French hulls raises a disputed treaty question and could replace the construction holiday with continuing, limited building.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Operation Pedestal fails to reach Malta
Pedestal's failure would mean another British convoy and further suffering on Malta, while an Axis invasion remained difficult to organize.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Fortified Crete and Malta require a combined Axis invasion
Malta's terrain makes landing-zone preparation and coordination between amphibious and airborne forces central to an invasion plan.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Malta's aviation fuel crisis and alternative food supplies
Malta's aviation fuel, food, and cooking supplies require separate treatment, with disagreement over how Pedestal's loss would affect its survival.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Swapping Royal Navy and US Navy high commands
A pre-Pearl Harbor command swap changes readiness and institutional habits more than the war's ultimate outcome.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
How the Royal Navy built its wartime fuel reserve
Rising interwar estimates and the cost of training enlarged the naval fuel reserve beyond the original planning assumptions.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
How much naval fuel remained after World War II?
Wartime replenishment qualifies the claim about Britain's large prewar stocks, while Army and aviation supplies require separate treatment.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Blücher survives the Norway campaign
Blücher's severe damage makes a return as a cruiser unlikely, while a proposed carrier reconstruction draws objections.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Hood survives the Denmark Strait hit
Machinery damage would force Hood to withdraw under cover and lead to a major reconstruction while the Bismarck hunt continued.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
A South American cruiser race instead of dreadnoughts
The cruiser-race question leads to a dispute over pre-treaty calibers and the mixed ten-inch and eight-inch batteries of Italian armored cruisers.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Light-cruiser escorts for the Panzerschiffe
Giving each German Panzerschiff two light cruisers would enlarge British hunting groups and stimulate more cruiser construction.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
A German raider threat drives British light-carrier policy
More capable German raider groups could push Britain to seek a separate light-carrier allowance and expand naval aviation earlier.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Earlier carriers strengthen naval aviation and British shipyards
Building light carriers earlier could advance naval control of the Fleet Air Arm and expand the yards available for later cruiser construction.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
French warships defect to Britain in 1940
French captains who rejected the armistice would bring valuable ships directly into Free French and Allied service.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Did Fisher scrap ships needed in World War I?
The ships Fisher eliminated were mostly obsolete placeholders; the more important weakness was failing to replace enough of their global presence.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
When naval forces bring heavy guns ashore
Naval participation in a land battle could sharply increase artillery weight by supplying guns and railway-mounted support beyond normal army resources.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
NATO discovers an 80,000-ton Soviet missile ship
An unexpectedly large Soviet nuclear missile ship prompts speculative NATO carrier expansion and renewed interest in American strike cruisers.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
The old battleship Texas and the nuclear cruiser of the same name
A proposal to revive the old battleship Texas is distinguished from the nuclear cruiser already serving in 1980.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Britain fortifies Malta before World War II
Underground support for aircraft, submarines, and motor torpedo boats would make Malta a harder and more persistent threat to Axis supply lines.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Japan's reserve pilots and the A7M programme
A large Japanese pilot reserve would ease replacements and is expected to speed the A7M programme, while requiring more training and aircraft production.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Classifying cruisers and battleships in science fiction
Relative size, peacetime roles, and wartime adaptability complicate science-fiction cruiser and battleship labels.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
How fictional fleet economics shape ship classes
Expensive drives, older capital ships, and layered escort roles produce different class structures in fictional navies.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Why a fictional navy calls its largest ships battlecruisers
Peacekeepers of Sol uses ship and service names to preserve the memory of an earlier fictional war.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
A role-based scheme for fictional cruiser names
One proposed classification reserves cruiser names for independent patrol and exploration duties.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
The SparrowHawk modular-cruiser compromise
Interchangeable SparrowHawk roles are weighed against weak variants and the Romulans' limited shipbuilding capacity.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Could Romulan warships double as cargo carriers?
An external cargo-pod proposal encounters the setting's warp-geometry constraints.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Claudius's legions invade Victorian Britain
Claudius's legions in the clarified 1880s scenario would face breech-loading high-explosive artillery.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Mark 14 torpedo failures versus the Bomber Mafia
The Bureau of Ordnance's defence of the defective Mark 14 is judged probably more damaging than the Bomber Mafia's influence.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
The US Navy adopts the pom-pom
A licensed pom-pom would give the interwar US Navy a more effective medium anti-aircraft weapon than the 1.1-inch gun.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Why Peacekeepers of Sol no longer uses the name Marines
The fictional service abandons a name associated with atrocities during an earlier human war.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Kirov-class cruisers with six-inch guns
A substantial six-inch battery on Kirov could prompt other navies to reconsider their own gun armament.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Can a heavily armored light cruiser survive gunfire?
A 120 mm belt and 60 mm deck could stop initial six-inch hits, while successive salvos and damage to exposed systems remain concerns.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Hood built as a K3 battlecruiser
Building Hood to the K3 design implies a full class of 60,000-ton ships and likely prevents the Washington treaty settlement.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
A J3 Hood, dual-purpose secondaries, and higher treaty limits
Clarifying Hood's design as J3 changes the armament scale while retaining the argument for four ships and a different treaty settlement.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Searching for the wreck of USS Oklahoma
A rumoured Oklahoma search receives encouragement, with uncertainty about the surviving wreck after salvage and the 1947 tow.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
An Anglo-Dutch Wars fleet appears in World War I
A Dutch fleet from the Anglo-Dutch Wars would be obsolete in World War I and would need to understand a changed European political map.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Japan receives Deutschland-class diesels
The machinery transfer is treated sceptically because fuel remains scarce and Japanese gearboxes are considered preferable.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
Maintenance assumptions and the limits of national engineering stereotypes
A German-Japanese engineering comparison is tested against rotary engines and personal vehicle experience.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
A conventional frigate instead of LCS
The replies compare a 35-38-knot patrol or escort concept with the demands of the proposed 45-knot LCS.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
German armored cruisers retain 9.4-inch guns
Retaining the 9.4-inch gun could influence the calibres chosen for foreign armoured cruisers.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·
What private naval papers can and cannot establish
An anecdote about officer assessments illustrates the difference between useful context and substantiated evidence.
From Bruships 203: What if Naval History Questions Answered Live... ·