The thought experiment assumes that Akron and Macon survived their accidents and that larger successors proved useful enough to enter service. Those airships might have changed Atlantic submarine patrols, fleet scouting, and the demand for escort carriers. Growing aircraft size and weight would still have tested the airships' carrying capacity. Long-range anti-airship fire could also have influenced gun mountings: one tentative explanation for early County-class cruisers' 70-degree elevation on their 8-inch guns is a requirement to engage large reconnaissance airships. Successful airborne carriers might then have required their own place in naval treaties. Other powers would probably have tried to copy them, although access to non-flammable helium would have constrained what they could safely field.
Notable Point · 7:26-11:25
What if Akron and Macon had survived into the Second World War?
If Akron and Macon had survived, larger successors might have changed submarine patrols, fleet scouting, heavy-gun air defence, and the treaty limits applied to naval aviation.