Shuffling around the numbers

[GaryChildress]

I've been playing around for some time with the idea of creating a mod based upon the Alt_Naval website's alternative Japanese Navy. However, it seems sort of unfair to give the Japanese 20/20 vision and not the US. So I'm toying with the idea of an alternative history timeline for the US in which the US, instead of building the wasteful Lexingtons ends up building more Yorktowns under the Washington Treaty. The Yorktowns of course are about half the displacement of the Lexingtons. Therefore, for the same tonnage under the treaty the US could build 4 Yorktowns in leiu of the 2 Lexingtons.

The end result would be a total of 6 pre-war, treaty Yorktowns and 1 Ranger. Then after the disinegration of the London Treaty the Hornet and Wasp are built (both to Yorktown specs) to comprise a total of 8 Yorktowns.

So my question becomes one of how does the US get around building the Lexingtons and go straight to the Yorktowns? I suppose the alternative history would have to go something to the extent that the US builds the Ranger to immediately follow the Langley and runs its early carrier tests based upon the Langley and Ranger. But how could the US get around laying down the costly Lexingtons? There's got to be a plausible way around them. Or else I have no mod. [&:]

[el cid again]

Actually - it isn't that simple.

The Yorktown design depended on experience obtained with the "wasteful" Lexingtons.

As well - the "wasteful" Lexingtons actually existed - not just as hulls - but as engineering sets - and very efficient ones at that. [One of them powered the city of Tacoma Washington in an emergency] You cannot build two entirely different engine sets - and destroy the existing one - for anything less than a "wasteful" cost. Nor could one design the ships properly sans the experience gained from the earlier ones.

There is more to a ship than tonnage. One does not really get two later generation ships in leiu of one earlier one.

All just a matter of opinion of course. One might cancel the Washington Treaty - and then one loses Lexingtons and Kaga and Akagi too.
But presumably gets them as capital ships.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Actually - it isn't that simple.

The Yorktown design depended on experience obtained with the "wasteful" Lexingtons.

As well - the "wasteful" Lexingtons actually existed - not just as hulls - but as engineering sets - and very efficient ones at that. [One of them powered the city of Tacoma Washington in an emergency] You cannot build two entirely different engine sets - and destroy the existing one - for anything less than a "wasteful" cost. Nor could one design the ships properly sans the experience gained from the earlier ones.

There is more to a ship than tonnage. One does not really get two later generation ships in leiu of one earlier one.

All just a matter of opinion of course. One might cancel the Washington Treaty - and then one loses Lexingtons and Kaga and Akagi too.
But presumably gets them as capital ships.

I realize it isn't simple and the Lexingtons gave the US a lot of valuable lessons in fleet carrier design. However, if there is absolutely no way this alternative universe could have ever existed, then it sort of takes all the wind out of my sails for this mod.

Could the US have conceivably gotten fleet carrier experience out of converting some old battleships to carriers or something perhaps? Perhaps then scrapping them as failures but learning from the mistakes? Maybe the Lexingtons never make it past the design stage? Say the US tries to salvage the Delaware and North Dakota from the Washington Treaty by converting them into carriers. They turn out to be the worst designed carriers ever so the US decomissions them but learns from the mistakes. In the aftermath they design the Ranger as a better solution. When the Ranger turns out to be too small, they design the Yorktowns.

I'm trying to come up with a course of events which would make the mod "possible" as it were.

[wdolson]

How about this scenario?  The US builds the Lexington and Saratoga (which were built in the 1920s).  Then decides to decomission them in the 1930s to free up tonnage for other designs.  They could still exist as aircraft ferries or something.  Several old ships which were decommissioned to meet treaty limitations were converted to auxiliaries.  The Utah was one of these and she was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked.

If the US had 20/20 foresight, they wouldn't have built the fast battleships and there would have been more Essex's under construction at the beginning of the war.  The North Carolina and Washington were already commissioned at the beginning of the war, so replacing those with Essex's would give the US a couple of Essex classes around the arrival times of those two BBs in the Pacific.

Bill

[R8J]

I'm doing a similiar project.

The US built the Langley. Based upon this experince they went straight to the Ranger (which I named Kitty Hawk). This, like in real life, was not the best design. The Kitty Hawk was followed by two carriers of the Ranger class, the Ranger and an un-named, maybe Wasp. I used the stats for the real Wasp for this class. Although this was an improvemnet on the Ranger the design was still lacking. Then came the the four ships of the Yorktown class, with at least two being completed before war starts...I have not decided when to complete the other two.

This gives you a total of 5 to 7 carries in the beginning.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

How about this scenario?  The US builds the Lexington and Saratoga (which were built in the 1920s).  Then decides to decomission them in the 1930s to free up tonnage for other designs.  They could still exist as aircraft ferries or something.  Several old ships which were decommissioned to meet treaty limitations were converted to auxiliaries.  The Utah was one of these and she was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked.

If the US had 20/20 foresight, they wouldn't have built the fast battleships and there would have been more Essex's under construction at the beginning of the war.  The North Carolina and Washington were already commissioned at the beginning of the war, so replacing those with Essex's would give the US a couple of Essex classes around the arrival times of those two BBs in the Pacific.

Bill

The Lex and Saratoga would be rather expensive mistakes to make and then decomission, though. Is it more feasible for the US to have created two huge, brand new hulls and then decomission them only 10 years later while keeping around older hulls like the Nevadas or the Pennsylvanias? Ideally I'd like to see all those would be resources put into the Lex and Saratoga diverted to some more economical designs. It seems to me that if the US builds the Lexingtons at all then we're stuck with them. And the Lexingtons would be some major resource hogs for the US shipbuilding industry. It would be most ideal if the Lexingtons could just be conjured out of existence. In essence if the US could make some less costly experiments in their carrier devolopment that woud be ideal.

I sort of like the idea now of converting a couple old battlewagons then decomissioning them and building the Yorktowns. Economically it seems more feasible than building the Lexingtons, decomissioning them then build more Yorktowns. OTOH, putting the resources of some of the fast battleships into Essexes, as you suggest, may be the most realistic route to go. Still I'd like to explore the 8 Yorktowns option a little more. Where there's a will there must be a way.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: R8J

I'm doing a similiar project.

The US built the Langley. Based upon this experince they went straight to the Ranger (which I named Kitty Hawk). This, like in real life, was not the best design. The Kitty Hawk was followed by two carriers of the Ranger class, the Ranger and an un-named, maybe Wasp. I used the stats for the real Wasp for this class. Although this was an improvemnet on the Ranger the design was still lacking. Then came the the four ships of the Yorktown class, with at least two being completed before war starts...I have not decided when to complete the other two.

This gives you a total of 5 to 7 carries in the beginning.

I like this alternative history. This actually seems reasonably plausible to me. Kind of a slow build up from smallest to biggest, instead of the goldielocks syndrome the US really went through, smallest to biggest to just right. I think if the US could just get out of those two Lexingtons, then the possibilities would really open up.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: R8J


This gives you a total of 5 to 7 carries in the beginning.

So far my hope is to get something like this:

Langley (Langley class) - Recomissioned as seaplane tender as IRL.
Converted Delaware (Delaware Class) - Scrapped.
Converted North Dakota (North Dakota Class) - Scrapped.
Ranger (Ranger Class) - Comissioned 1930, Relegated to the Atlantic for the whole war.
Lexington ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1934, assigned to Pacific.
Saratoga ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1935, assigned to Pacific.
Constellation ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1936, assigned to Atlantic, moved to Pacific.
Constitution ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1937, assigned to Atlantic, moved to Pacific.
Yorktown ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1938, assigned to Pacific.
Enterprise ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1939, assigned to Pacific.
Hornet ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1940, assigned to Atlantic, moved to Pacific.
Wasp ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1941, assigned to Atlantic, moved to Pacific.

Then the Essex class starts in 1942 as normal.

One other marked difference will be in destroyer production. Instead of messing with the Fletcher class, after the Gleaves class the US goes straight to twin 5 in turrets similar to the Sumner class.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

The Lex and Saratoga would be rather expensive mistakes to make and then decomission, though. Is it more feasible for the US to have created two huge, brand new hulls and then decomission them only 10 years later while keeping around older hulls like the Nevadas or the Pennsylvanias? Ideally I'd like to see all those would be resources put into the Lex and Saratoga diverted to some more economical designs. It seems to me that if the US builds the Lexingtons at all then we're stuck with them. And the Lexingtons would be some major resource hogs for the US shipbuilding industry. It would be most ideal if the Lexingtons could just be conjured out of existence. In essence if the US could make some less costly experiments in their carrier devolopment that woud be ideal.

I sort of like the idea now of converting a couple old battlewagons then decomissioning them and building the Yorktowns. Economically it seems more feasible than building the Lexingtons, decomissioning them then build more Yorktowns. OTOH, putting the resources of some of the fast battleships into Essexes, as you suggest, may be the most realistic route to go. Still I'd like to explore the 8 Yorktowns option a little more. Where there's a will there must be a way.

The Japanese, US, and UK all scrapped quite a few hulls due to the treaty. Some were new ships under construction, some fairly well along.

Bill

[JeffroK]

Plus, to use these extra carrier decks.

IFF, the F4U went through a normal design/development cycle, when would they have been available for combat (Plus they learned how to actually use them off CV's)?

[wdolson]

The F4U, TBF and SB2C all came out of the same US Navy specification.  The TBF was the only one of the three that was free of major teething problems.  If all three had been free of teething problems, the fleet would have started getting squadrons right after Midway.

Bill

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The Japanese, US, and UK all scrapped quite a few hulls due to the treaty. Some were new ships under construction, some fairly well along.

Bill

What about this scenario:

Instead of 2 Lexingtons the US builds just one to learn fleet carrier tactics from. Instead of Saratoga the US builds 2 Yorktowns.

Then maybe we get something like the following:

Langley (Langley class) - Recomissioned as seaplane tender as IRL.
Lexington (Lexington class) - Comissioned 1927.
Ranger (Ranger Class) - Comissioned 1932.
Constellation ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1936.
Constitution ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1937.
Yorktown ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1938.
Enterprise ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1939.
Hornet ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1940.
Wasp ("Yorktown" Class) - Comissioned 1941.

[R8J]

One small detail. Either rename Constellation to Yorktown or change class name to Constellation.

After arrival of the new Yorktowns you could have the Ranger re-classified as an auxiliary to free up some tonnage.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: R8J

One small detail. Either rename Constellation to Yorktown or change class name to Constellation.

After arrival of the new Yorktowns you could have the Ranger re-classified as an auxiliary to free up some tonnage.

I think by the time Ranger would be re-classified all the treaties are void and countries are building up for war so there really would be no need to decomission Ranger to free up tonnage. The tonnage problem should be over by then.

Good point about the ship names. I was using the name "Yorktown" just for clarity. It would have to be changed to Constellation Class in the actual game.

[ny59giants]

You could follow what Nemo did in Empire's Ablaze in regards to carrier air capacity. It is not until their 3/42 or 4/42 upgrades that they can hold 90 airplanes (started in 60 or low 70's depending on class of CV). He used smaller size squadrons and after the upgrade, you are able to place a 5th squadron on (1 or 2 Wildcats, 1 or 2 SBD, and 1 TBD). You could explain this as the Americans gaining experience early in the war allowed them to maximize carrier capacity.

[R8J]

"I think by the time Ranger would be re-classified all the treaties are void and countries are building up for war so there really would be no need to decomission Ranger to free up tonnage. The tonnage problem should be over by then. "

You are correct. I forgot about japan pulling out in 36(?).

Would the US have jumped from the Gleaves to an Allen M Sumner type that soon? I am assuming that you plan to introduce a dual 5"/38 DD early in the game.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: R8J

Would the US have jumped from the Gleaves to an Allen M Sumner type that soon? I am assuming that you plan to introduce a dual 5"/38 DD early in the game.

Well it seems to me that the US had the technology early on to do so. There were already dual turret destroyers in existence, Porter I beleive was one of the classes. The Atlanta class cruisers were touting dual 5"/50s relatively early in the war. This was actually a suggestion by one of the regulars on the Warship Projects forum a while back.

[R8J]

Opps. I fogot the next question. Do you have any specs of proposed alternatives to the Flecther? Or Allen M Sumner?

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: R8J

Opps. I fogot the next question. Do you have any specs of proposed alternatives to the Flecther? Or Allen M Sumner?

Unfortunately not yet. I'm still in the theory building stage of the mod (and have been for some time). I won't be making the actual mod until AE comes out because the mod depends highly upon a couple new attributes that AE will have, namely the "convert to" mode.

[R8J]

I remeber reading about a modified Gleaves with a dual 5" forward and I'm guessing two dual 5" aft. This would have required a wider beam. I alse recall "ten tube" Fletcher. The article was about improving the AA capability of DDs and made no reference about torpedoes. So I'm guessing there was talk about an improved, wider Fletcher with 5x2 5"/38?

So I was just curious if you had stats and line drawings. If you find any data please share.