Bruships 161: All you need are Kallax, Shelves are all Books need... Naval History Questions & Chat!

St Vincent is the strongest direct choice; Hercules is the more characterful alternative because of its armor scheme.

The late Hellcat is preferred, with the Corsair close behind and the Seafire handicapped by carrier-landing survivability.

Probably not: Germany still builds something close to Nassau unless Britain makes a much larger Orion-scale leap.

It might gain some flexibility and weight margin, but not enough for a major redesign; the 5.25-inch gun better fills both surface and anti-aircraft roles.

The best choices are generally the newest, fastest, and most protected ships, such as Queen Elizabeths and later German battlecruisers, rather than simply the most famous names.

The same long-term thinking that shapes carriers around future aircraft also determines whether a shipyard slipway can handle a larger successor hull.

Yes. A sustained program could have added about fifty modern escorts by 1939, provided planners balanced ocean-going and inshore needs.

A fictional Star Trek comparison shows why standoff ships and close-range brawlers need different weapon arcs and must be handled differently in battle.

Two Illustrious-class carriers; Yorks are poor value and six escort carriers do not compensate for losing two armored fleet carriers.

It was a promising improved Zero, but it came far too late and in far too few numbers to affect the war.

The I-400 was the mature end of a Japanese submarine-aircraft line dating to the early 1920s, and Allied dismissiveness risked obscuring that accumulated experience.

No significant carrier effect is expected; the likelier secondary change is to cruiser appearance or design harmonization.

They were effective destroyer leaders and escorts, but weaker as independent cruisers because the label promised a different kind of ship.

Partly completed G3s and comparable foreign ships could survive as exceptions, forcing a different and much more contentious treaty settlement.

French station ironclads of the 1870s and 1880s show an attempt to extend armored naval power overseas with ships tailored to colonial service.

They offered valuable tanker capability and substantial prestige for a government keen to acquire major military equipment.

It would be a much stronger design, and eight of them could be worth more to the Royal Navy than two additional Illustrious-class carriers.

Scharnhorst probably wins, and the better operational choice is to keep the older battlecruisers out of that matchup.

Yes. It could create a stronger Allied fleet and force a major Japanese response, though the eventual fleet battle would remain decisive.

The provisions deliberately enabled gunboats and sloops, while the British exploited flexible designed-speed wording to obtain more capable vessels.

Mostly coastal gunboats and motor torpedo boats, with a larger presence sloop and perhaps two to four small submarines.

It was a respectable, reliable evolutionary design, but it belonged to a specialized program that arrived too late to alter Japan's strategic position.

It could become a naval strike aircraft, but it would need substantial carrier-specific redesign and would likely operate alongside F-18s rather than replace them.

Her extra carrier group could substantially alter each battle and perhaps the wider campaign, while still leaving her wartime survival uncertain.

Probably; German yards often enlarged slips in place, so reuse depends more on funding extensions and dredging than on an absolute physical barrier.

More 15-inch guns, earlier deck-edge lift and Unicorn development, plus a larger sloop program shared with the Dominions.

It could build a carrier better suited to British needs, but not an objectively better ship for every navy and strategic setting.

Yes, and applying that approach earlier would greatly expand battleship and carrier construction before 1939.

Because Italy understood that other powers were not observing treaty limits strictly in practice and chose not to impose a unilateral disadvantage.

It is technically possible, but redesign time and scarce engines could make the production penalty greater than the performance gain.

British carrier aircraft gain a devastating early anti-ship weapon and may rely much less on dive bombing.

Yes, but the extra speed would consume weight otherwise available for armor, subdivision, and dual-purpose armament.

They would heighten pressure and might preserve the Seafire, but they would not by themselves remove the Air Ministry's grip on engines and production.

They would be the first true fast battleships and would pressure French and British follow-on design while reducing Hood's relative importance.

Build it quickly, turning the Admiral-class program into a much more advanced fast-capital-ship project.

About twenty, because only a large escort force could free fleet carriers and materially reshape the anti-submarine and Mediterranean campaigns.

No; it could become a more useful light carrier, while a true Japanese peer would require a larger follow-on design.

Starling wins once it finds the submarine; I-400's only realistic chance is to avoid detection.

Yes. Its 30-knot speed and range would make it far more useful with Kido Butai and the fast battle fleet.

A very heavy mixed battery is plausible, but its exact size depends on the reconstruction's weight distribution and stability margins.

None that is economical: a razée works as a conversion, while a strong purpose-built frigate should follow a dedicated frigate design.

Yes, but cutting and lengthening the ship would be a major and expensive reconstruction.

They gain far more worldwide presence and enter treaty and replacement planning from a much stronger numerical position.

Roughly 5,260 tons, allowing about ten short-range cruisers suited to North Sea and Baltic work.

Politics and institutional memory played a part, but the result repeated an old mistake: related ships without a genuinely standardized class design.

Yes, alongside a larger flagship and training ship that gives crews sustained sea experience and familiarizes them with future weapons.

Probably not efficiently; massed level bombing would expend huge tonnage while maneuvering ships avoided most bomb sticks.

The yards could do it, but the ships would be impossible to disguise and would trigger major foreign design responses.

Use a few carrier-capital ships, many standardized fighters and escorts, dispersed bases, and mines rather than a crew-intensive dreadnought fleet.

Casualty letters distinguish decisive command from indifference to the sailors whose lives a commander risks.

They would have to rewrite carrier limits or accept Japan's withdrawal, most likely weakening cumulative restrictions and restarting construction.

Yes, but Treasury policy and the time needed to restore shipyard capacity kept the opportunity from becoming a large program.

Adopt a consistent long-term plan rather than repeatedly changing priorities, preserving industrial capacity and credible mobile forces such as carrier strike.

Later wartime prominence should not be projected backward onto Churchill's position outside government during the late 1930s, when serving officials held more direct policy power.

Henry A. Wallace, not Truman, would succeed Roosevelt in December 1941, placing the war under a very different president.

They might reach and damage symbolic targets, but the raid would be a strategic blunder that strengthened American determination.

Yes; global requirements and the political value of shipbuilding jobs would strongly favor completing the program.

No; British production would still fall under Air Ministry allocation, so the Navy would not control the licensed engine's supply.

British piston aircraft gain extraordinary speed and payload, but jet development likely continues on its separate experimental track.

Primarily in the Mediterranean, with extensive training needed to use all forty-one ships effectively.

Possibly as a gray-area transaction, especially with distributed suppliers, but a complete package from one signatory would be hard to conceal or defend.

Center Force is either destroyed or rendered operationally ineffective by the scale and quality of the submarine attacks.

Yes. They could place dangerous concealed minefields in constrained waters, even though wartime demands sometimes diverted them to other work.

None as a first step: French architects were then producing leading ironclads, while later strategic choices and insufficient reserves were the larger danger.

Napoleon III resists a one-dimensional verdict because capable political and military judgment repeatedly alternated with overconfidence and damaging gambles.

Potentially, but only with a long-term national commitment to economic development, education, infrastructure, and recurring naval construction, possibly shared with Britain.

Long-term state capacity depends on the physical and psychological wounds carried home from the world wars as well as the number killed.