Patreon 97: What if Senator Tillman was at the Washington Naval Treaty...

The scenario places Benjamin Tillman in Washington as a behind-the-scenes Senate power broker rather than a formal treaty delegate.

He invoked Britain or Japan according to which threat would help him obtain the construction he wanted.

Tillman's giant battleship proposals are interpreted as a way to end incremental escalation and redirect American construction toward cruisers.

Charleston's cruiser-sized facilities turn naval procurement into jobs, electoral leverage, and a durable South Carolina power base.

Tillman's effectiveness for South Carolina sat alongside the racism and sectarian prejudice that shaped his political faction.

Harwich Force experience formed part of a wider body of wartime lessons for British cruiser development.

Tillman's experience with maximum battleships makes the historical 35,000-ton limit implausible while HMS Hood remains a 41,000-ton benchmark.

No. The ships would also need enough room to maneuver through the canal, whose strategic importance made compatibility essential.

41,000 tons, the British figure accepted in the Washington treaty.

The counterfactual requires Tillman to win reelection and remain influential until roughly 1928, not merely live to see the conference.

Not as a substitute for battleships in the 1920s: early carrier aircraft were not yet decisive, and their most important fleet role was often spotting for capital-ship guns.

Tillman's less naval-minded successors let Charleston miss the Omaha program; his survival would almost certainly redirect cruiser orders there.

The change had already occurred during his career. Winning the Democratic primary still put him in a strong position to retain the seat.

The Omaha class combines new six-inch turrets with traditional casemate guns because the Navy had not yet proved the turret arrangement.

He would be interested if the proposal included the yard investment needed to build it and preserve local employment.

Extended negotiations reward Tillman's backroom skills and give a dozen pro-construction senators leverage over a treaty requiring ratification.

Tillman's domestic target list follows allied senators, swing states, and working shipyards rather than a neutral ranking of hull completion.

Continued industrial cooperation and limited intelligence gathering suggest that war was unlikely, despite both navies retaining contingency plans.

American designers did not ask whether Britain had solved a concept they had already judged impractical, illustrating the limits of informal technical exchange without focused intelligence requirements.

It was unlikely because coercion would disrupt trade and finance while leaving the United States with global policing burdens it did not want in the 1920s.

Supporting a neighbor's borrowing can promote stability while creating leverage over its future access to credit.

A visit to a Hawkins-class cruiser would give Tillman a concrete foreign benchmark and ammunition for a hostile Senate hearing on American design.

The revised treaty completes three politically selected South Dakotas, retains three Colorados, and retires older ships under a 40,000-ton ceiling.

A 360,000-ton Japanese allowance creates several plausible exchanges between Kongo-class ships and the unfinished Tosa or Amagi designs.

A 600,000-ton allowance gives Britain several paths to five or six new capital ships without sacrificing its 15-inch battle line.

Not outside the treaty allocation; Australia might operate Tiger on Britain's behalf, but transferring modern ships could not be used to escape the limits.

Keeping older capital ships in reserve conserves machinery and provides hulls that trained reservists can mobilize when wartime demand exceeds the peacetime fleet.

No. The battleships would retain 16-inch guns for parity, while the battlecruiser could use 15-inch/50 weapons.

The alternate treaty doubles carrier allowances, preserves four Lexington hulls, and limits their guns to six inches to protect cruiser demand.

No. Secondary guns defend against destroyers that penetrate the cruiser screen while the main battery engages larger targets.

Japan might try, depending on its available conversion hulls. Britain could still prefer more flight decks and room for later construction over maximizing each early carrier.

No. He also valued trade protection and fleet reconnaissance, although cruisers' sustained employment at Charleston made them especially attractive.

They would mix the two. Battleship allowances would be used and renewed through replacement, while carrier construction would take years to absorb the available tonnage.

Rough equivalents are plausible. The later calculation allows six 23,000-ton Yorktown-like carriers after four Lexington conversions.

Japanese treaty gains collide with limited laid-down hulls, cumulative carrier tonnage, and the earthquake that historically destroyed Amagi.

Useful naval outcomes would not excuse his racism or change the patronage and reelection motives behind his policies.

It remains at this stage, but large carrier conversions and battleship completions could leave Japan little capacity or immediate reason to exploit it.

A longer-lived Tillman could groom a successor who understood the link between naval contracts, South Carolina employment, and Senate influence.

Raising the cruiser ceiling to 12,000 tons creates an immediate break from Omaha and invites twelve-gun heavy-cruiser designs.

The proposed twelve-gun County adds firepower to a speed advantage that already makes German raiders wary.

Possibly. Five triple turrets are another option, and the scenario does not settle the arrangement.

The proposed threshold permits a practical small carrier for trade protection while preserving the counted allowance for larger fleet carriers.

A 12,000-ton limit would magnify the different American and Japanese preferences for protection, firepower, speed, and torpedoes.

It would probably produce a recognized light-carrier category with its own limits because several navies would already have an interest in retaining the type.

A larger treaty fleet keeps shipyards, suppliers, and wages active, giving Britain and America an industrial cushion after the Wall Street Crash.

Yes. A 27,000-ton design could combine an Ark Royal-sized strike group with subdivision and armor comparable to Illustrious.

Yes. Designs could be reused and an established program could continue building when cumulative treaty limits ceased to constrain it.

Larger aircraft orders could strengthen the Fleet Air Arm, while more carrier tonnage would ease Britain's tradeoff between protection and air-group size.

Probably not, because the stimulus would remain domestic while protectionism still destroyed the export markets on which Germany depended.

A larger Italian allowance could revive Caracciolo-class construction, with three completions suggested as an estimate and French funding still uncertain.

Not necessarily. Tosa completions and larger carriers could reduce the pressure for an extreme design, while yard capacity would still limit size.

They would strengthen the pre-battle attrition phase, but carriers were already integrated into the wider strategy that culminated in the decisive battle.

They come from design studies rather than an active construction plan; the papers explored alternatives and could inform later carrier projects.

Additional hull length supports speed, firing arcs, and better separation of magazines from boilers.

The dispute over planned carriers turns on constructor records and the procurement experience missing from Roskill's interview sources.

War plans cover unexpected conflicts, while carrier design studies preserve options for emergencies; neither alone establishes a government's intent.

Unicorn and light fleet carriers benefited from earlier work on minimal and rapidly built carriers.

The exercise taught constructors how competing design requirements interacted, even when it could not produce an acceptable ship.

The scenario stops before the 1930 treaty and the Second World War because uncertainty multiplies rapidly beyond the first treaty settlement.

Yes, but construction sections and some strategic conclusions need caution because important decision-makers were unavailable and had left incomplete records.

They remain available for secondary roles until newer reserve ships replace them, after which the oldest hulls can be discarded.

A radically different Versailles settlement preserving both the German economy and its maritime industrial base, followed by much greater priority for naval infrastructure.

A classroom counterfactual moves the Confederate capital south, changing blockade pressure, strategic depth, infrastructure, and possibly state alignment.

Wartime escort carriers accepted merchant-hull standards and emergency compromises that a peacetime warship was expected to avoid.

It was one part of a wider network. German personnel also trained and exercised elsewhere, most famously in Spain.

There is not enough information: gun caliber alone does not determine torpedo fit or tactics, so the alternative ship's size and full design must be defined first.

All-forward armament is a tonnage-saving compromise; when displacement is available, a balanced layout offers better magazine separation and damage resilience.

It would destabilize the ratio negotiations, alarm Japan, stretch Soviet tonnage across several fleets, and force Germany to plan against an additional capital-ship threat.

Existing foreign technical links could support a slow domestic battleship program and the infrastructure needed to maintain it.

Yes. Trade protection is a plausible secondary role for Unicorn and a corresponding sister ship.