Tsingtao 1939: WWII but in January & against Japan - P6b Introduction to Patreon Video 4...

Hitler might treat Britain's war with Japan as a chance to court Britain and the Netherlands, divide them from Poland, and preserve Germany's intended eastward expansion.

The counterfactual turns neutral American trade with Japan into a wider Anglo-American conflict through interception, prize cases, and political escalation.

The scenario allows two or three months for the United States to mobilize and reposition its fleet, creating an opening in which Germany and Italy must decide whether to join Britain or remain neutral.

Canada's Pacific redeployment would take time, yet a spring 1939 invasion would still meet alerted garrisons and a U.S. Army and fleet poorly positioned for the task.

The October 1939 U.S. order of battle suggests that the Atlantic Squadron was a modest force if the main battle and scouting forces had moved west.

The alternative timeline assumes that war urgency hastens British refits and may give the Royal Navy time to defeat Japanese heavy units before American forces arrive.

Aircraft quality alone would not decide the imagined clash: British crews would bring combat experience and a willingness to attack when U.S. aircraft were not flying.

The episode treats anti-submarine warfare and the Mark 14 torpedo as major variables in a conflict that begins before American wartime lessons are learned.

Political purges and competing agencies would make an authoritarian America less capable of coherent rearmament, despite the common assumption that dictatorships are efficient.

Modern New Orleans-class cruisers and Wichita sit beside older Clemson and Wickes destroyers and small R- and S-class submarines, illustrating the difference between a fleet inventory and a modern fighting force.

If the U.S. enters before Japan is defeated, the proposed British answer is to fall back on Singapore, shorten supply lines, combine fleets, and concentrate air and submarine defenses.

A Jutland-style fleet action off Newfoundland could keep sea routes open to Canada and block an American Atlantic offensive.

The scenario rejects the assumption that Canada would collapse politically, emphasizing local knowledge, First World War veterans, militia organization, and homeland defense.

Within the proposed alliance, the Deutschland class becomes useful not as a match for fast capital ships but as a hard-to-ignore screen that protects slower units and releases faster cruisers.

A two-ocean U.S. Navy faces an awkward choice between concentration and a split battle force, while Japanese battleships remain constrained by reserve and refit status.

Britain might change the wording of its guarantees to France and make European commitments conditional on French support in the Far East.

Even a geographically contained war with Japan would allow Britain to accelerate war production while Germany remained formally constrained and struggled to convert impressive designs into reliable mass output.

Cooperation between Britain and Germany could expose each side to different industrial strengths and accelerate British solutions to aircraft cannon reliability.

A shooting war in the Far East would increase Fleet Air Arm demand without eliminating the need for land-based fighters or preparations for a later European conflict.

The imagined war accelerates decisions among Swordfish, Albacore, Barracuda, Fulmar, and navalized Spitfire concepts while leaving some historically unsuccessful aircraft doctrines untested.

Because January 1939 contains flashpoints in Europe and the Far East, a different outcome at Tsingtao could reverse Britain's belief that Asia was stable enough to permit concentration on Europe.

The closing design discussion favors better-armed E-class successors and Town-class construction over Dido and Crown Colony choices made while Britain still hoped to preserve treaty limits.