Dark Earth: The History of the Aircraft Carrier

Steve,

The size of countries is a driver for some developments, certainly. 

The 24" generation of weapons aren't over the top so much as the next step up from 20". Without the WNT, we would see the 18" enter service in the 1920s and a 20" generation follow on in the 1930s. Incidentally, 24" was a calibre postulated for a 1934 USN battleship study, as well as coming from what is the largest practicable gun size for general construction and deployment in the 1930s if developments continued along the general growth curve interrupted by the WNT. Significantly, I have made reference to more advances in naval armour development, including the incorporation of rather stronger substances. This then drives the need for a very powerful shell capable of penetrating that armour. Using an old DOS programme I found somewhere around the old Springsharp site, I did a lot of modelling and 'testing' of various guns and shell combinations back in 2003-2005 before deciding on the 24".

I wouldn't call it a Britwank or such for any particular country so much as an examination of the type of power politics and relations of 1870-1945 extended into the postwar era. There are only a handful of countries that are worse off, per se, and development follows the drivers from events. My primary interest is in writing stories set in the English speaking world, based on ease of research, general affinity, the widest market and availability of resources. Developments follow the drivers. As a general rule:  Germany is unified, larger and growing more powerful by the day; France remains a global power in the mid 1960s; Austria-Hungary exists and is developing well; Italy is prospering and not going to experience the Years of Lead; Spain is a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy that didn't have a disastrous past century; Scandinavia is advanced and powerful; Yugoslavia is unified and democratic; Belgium and the Netherlands are pursuing ever-closer union whilst still playing a broader role; Japan is prospering and not under quite the same restrictions of @; Korea is unified, as is India; Persia is modernising and under different management; Greece is completely different; Mexico is rather more powerful across the board; Argentina hasn't fallen into a marked decline; Canada is a bona fide great power in its own right; the Soviet Union isn't entering a period of Brezhnevian stagnation; and the United States is richer, more powerful and not hit by the twin issues of civil rights and opposition to Vietnam in quite the same way. It is not simply a matter of Britain being ahead whilst the rest of the world sips paint, which is slightly what a 'wank' of any kind implies

As for conservatism, there are two factors at play there. Firstly, the era of 1945-1960 was certainly much more socially conservative than today in Britain, the USA, Australia and many, many other places; much of what I've written and wrought simply comes from the time. Secondly, there is an extra edge of social conservatism driven by comparatively greater religiosity, general popular culture reaction to 50+ years of war and crisis, certain events and circumstances driving a different reaction to communism and associated beliefs.

Steve,

1.) 20” is the practical limit for Earth and @, most certainly. However, Dark Earth isn’t it. The extra size comes from the combination of heavier armour to penetrate + firing a 5200-6000lb shell at the most optimum velocity to that end. It comes from a very different background that stimulates development of longer range guns and related technology. This is in addition to arcanely enhanced machinery allowing a greater rate of fire than could be achieved through ordinary means. The other factor at play is what is the largest sized hull that can be built and serviced in the various docks and ports of the great powers. Once that is in place, it dictates what the largest practical gun size would be.

2.) As to the eclipse of the battleship:

Carriers: We are seeing that in this thread so far, but not quite in the same pronounced manner. A battleship in port would be very vulnerable, but at sea, it stands a better chance, to some extent. So far, they have proved survivable when concentrated together, accompanied by cruiser and destroyer screens and covered by their own carrier based fighter cover. By virtue of their number of AA guns and directors, battleships make for ideal carrier AA escorts + heavy cover/escorts. The largest bombs carried by CV aircraft as of early 1943 are 2000lb. Enough of those when combined with torpedoes could sink a modern super battleship, but the only three navies with substantial carrier fleets are in the Pacific.

Land based air: As seen off Norway, in the Med and in the Pacific, carrier task forces can take on land based air forces under certain circumstances, particularly when they can overwhelm them with numbers. The major battleship navies are the major carrier navies as well.

Submarines: They would need to be positioned very well and be lucky against fast ships moving with escorts during WW2. Postwar, the threat is pronounced and leads to steps and measures to counter subs, including the counter torpedo.

What keeps battleships in general service is the combination of opposing battleship fleets; nuclear shells; AA weapons and guided missiles; space for flagship operations; advances in armour; operating as nuclear weapons platforms; utility in “Cold War” missions; the presence of certain creatures and other threats; and sheer organisational inertia.

3.) The British Empire seems to be the largest winner compared to 1966 in @, but decent arguments can be made for Austria-Hungary, China, India and Argentina when the full combination of economics + industry + military + stability + internal politics + long term trends is assessed. British power is declining comparatively in a number of measures compared to the USA, USSR and China, but not quite in the same manner as @. Certainly the biggest winners since 1945 have not been Britain.

4.) Yes and no.

A.) At this time, conscription was still the general rule across most of the Western world, with Britain and Canada being the exceptions. The drivers for continued National Service are certainly present, so it isn’t a forced consequence of conservatism, but simply a coterminous circumstance.

B.) Even though the 1950s had seen the first waves of migration to Britain and Western Europe, they were still overwhelmingly lacking in cultural diversity as of 1966. Here is something on the matter from 2017:

“Prior to the Second World War, there was a relatively small portion of the British population that was non-White, including Indians/lascars, Chinese, Yemenis and West Indians. This began to increase from the late 1940s, with the famed Empire Windrush being the first major ship bringing immigrants from the West Indies. Throughout the 1950s, the Black population increased through migration, with the latter increasing from ~15,000 in 1951 to ~172,000 in 1961 and ~304,000 in 1971. This occurred for a number of reasons and in several phases, but broadly due to labour shortages post WW2 and movement from the Commonwealth under the British Nationality Act of 1948. This has increased over the subsequent several generations to the levels of the 2011 Census ~ 1 million Afro-Caribbean people.

The Asian population has something of a similar history, growing from a few tens of thousands prior to 1950 to the much higher levels of today on the back of several waves of migration - the initial postwar movement of the late 40s, the late 50s and 60s migration wave from the Punjab, especially to the Midlands and Lancashire and to London for the NHS and then the East African Asians and Bangladeshis in the 70s.

In Dark Earth as of 1960, there wasn't an immediate postwar labour shortage of the same urgency, but there was some migration. The big change comes in the 1950s, when there was a combination of different nationality laws pushed by sections of the Conservative Party and the Nationals and Imperialists (in part motivated by the stronger Red Scare in Britain at the time) and better economic conditions in Britain, India and the West Indies; in the latter case, there is a fair bit more development in the Caribbean.

This has resulted in a general reduction in overall migration from some Commonwealth and Empire countries to Britain, so that the 1960 population is more along the lines of ~40,000 Afro-Caribbean and ~20,000 Indian, rather than ~170,000 and ~80,000. These numbers will continue to slowly grow during the 1960s. In terms of percentages, it is 0.1% in Dark Earth compared to 0.4% on Earth.”

C.) I’m not sure exactly what social privileges/customs have been maintained beyond the measure of realism, so you might need to expand upon this.

D.) There hasn’t been an expansion of monarchism so much as a continuation of it for very straightforward and mundane reasons in the late 19th century-post WW1. There are some other aspects of the role of monarchs that haven’t quite been touched upon yet, specifically related to some more of the fantastical elements.

As said, virtually all of the features occur for detailed reasons, so I’m quite willing to explain the context of realism, particularly given that you represent half of my active audience.

That is fine; it is just a fictional in-universe history that would stretch out to 1964 or so.

It's been a while.

Battle of the Atlantic
The year had begun with the Allies holding a firm upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic as escort vessels, aircraft and the sheer scale and power of American production overwhelmed the Kriegsmarine's UBootwaffe. The North American coast and the immediate vicinity of the Western Approaches were increasingly safe from the predations of the submarine threat due to the weight of land-based airpower, shifting the primary battle zone to Mid Atlantic and northern waters. Even in these areas, the U-Boats faced concentrated opposition from Allied navies that deployed ever-deadlier weapons systems. 1942 had seen the United States gird its loins and build up the means of production and now the great weight of their industrial might and manpower came to bear. America's shipyards would turn out over 2500 merchant ships of all types during the year of a total of over 18 million tons; this replaced all the tonnage lost in the war thus far to German U-Boats, making the calculus of victory stark and clear. Nevertheless, the menace beneath the waves remained a dangerous dagger across the lifeline of the Allied cause.

As such, the Battle of the Atlantic continued to rank among the very foremost of Allied priorities of production, technology and strategic focus and one major aspect of this was its first call on increasing numbers of escort carriers fielded by the United States and Royal Navies. The Allied Atlantic Convoy Conference of December 1942 had reached agreement on a goal of sixteen mobile Support Groups, or Hunter-Killer Groups in American parlance, based around an escort carrier for operations in the North Atlantic, half supplied by the RN and RCN and half supplied by the USN. These were to strike out in aggressive operations against German U-Boats rather than simply confine themselves to defensive convoy escort and were equipped with newer, faster escort carriers, allowing the older construction and converted vessels to provide close escort to the merchant convoys transiting the North Atlantic. The force goal was reached by the end of the year, but for the crucial first months, the USN provided the majority of the hunter-killer force.

In the convoy battles of HX-254 and SC-179 in March, four German wolfpacks attacked relentlessly over several days, barely being repelled by the strong escort and aircraft operating from two British escort carriers with the convoys. The attackers soon turned into prey for the Allied trap, as three USN hunter-killer groups struck from the south and two RN support groups hammered in from the north, along with American Boeing Sea Rangers out of Greenland providing a constant aerial umbrella. The loss of 11 U-Boats bloodied the nose of the U-Bootwaffe, but did not break their threat entirely. That would seemingly come in April, when the cumulative attrition inflicted by the Allies cost the Kriegsmarine 56 U-Boats, 8 of which were sunk by RN escort carriers. Each major convoy was now covered by at least a pair of escort carriers in their voyage across the North Atlantic, along with a stronger surface escort than ever before. In conjunction with the constant coverage provided by the airships and maritime patrol bombers above, these measures reduced losses to some of the lowest levels since the Fall of France.

At the very moment when victory over the submarine menace seemed within the grasp of the Allies, a new and terrible threat entered the equation - the Type XXI ‘Electroboot’. These were boats optimised for submerged operations, carrying large amounts of batteries and recharging whilst beneath the surface through their ‘schnorkels’. Their debut had been anticipated by Allied intelligence for some time, but the Battle of Convoy HX-267 on June 7th nevertheless came as a shock. The loss of 21 merchant ships of 196,247 tons and 6 escorts to an attack by five German submarines in a single night in exchange for only one confirmed U-Boat sinking begat a tremendous response by Allied surface, aerial and carrier forces. A hunt which involved 49 surface ships, over 300 aircraft, 4 airships and 5 escort carriers resulted in a successful counterstroke over the next week, as three of the surviving Type XXIs were sunk; the presence of such forces in the operational vicinity of the convoy battle has been ascribed to both sheer good fortune and the growing tidal wave of mass Allied shipbuilding. The Type XXIs would smash several more convoys over the summer of 1943, but their ability to reach the crucial waters of decision in the Mid Atlantic was increasingly hampered by the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign, the massive mining efforts and growing patrols of Royal Navy submarines around the U-Boat bases in France and the deployment of RN escort carriers on the blockade line in the Bay of Biscay.

The final turn of the tide in the war's longest and bloodiest battle came in August, when the largest 'ship' in the world entered the fray. Through the efforts of Canadian industry and workers, nothing short of a modern miracle of production had occurred, as HMS Habakkuk was commissioned in Saint John's on August 4th. Construction had begun in November 1942 and, through the application of new industrial design spells and ice magic, the massive pykrete ship was completed and fitted out by the end of June. Even as it prepared for deployment in top secret in an sealed Newfoundland naval base, there were many voices on both sides of the Atlantic who derided the ship as ludicrous, a colossal waste of resources and entirely unworkable. After it put to sea for the first time, it was to prove them both right and wrong. To keep the bergship cold enough to remain solid for a protracted period of time, an entirely new freezing solution had been developed by Canadian alchemists and four wizards assigned to the sole duty of casting ice magics over different portions of the hull, which all raised the expense of the vessel to over £50 million, whilst Habbakuk's engines could only propel her forward at 2.5 knots, rather than her design speed of 8 knots. Forward she crept into the middle of the North Atlantic until she reached her destination on September 15th and halted, creating a floating airfield and shipping base some 1500 miles out in the ocean. Habakkuk was to prove valuable in this role of an artificial island, allowing not only her intended deployment of twin and four engine patrol bombers, but the support and refueling of both dragons and flying boats on the high seas. Furthermore, her presence allowed the growth of a floating armada around her, extending the range and operational efficiency of anti-submarine vessels and escorts. Aircraft operating from Habakkuk were responsible for the sinking of 38 German U-Boats by the end of the war, yet she was never quite considered to be a true aircraft carrier.

Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was one of the foremost triumphs of the Allies in the entirety of the Second World War, coming through a combination of courage, daring, ingenuity, technological supremacy, overwhelming industrial might and successful strategy. By November 1943, the wolfpacks of the U-Boatwaffe had been withdrawn from the North Atlantic, as Grand Admiral Donitz's gambit failed in the face of the Allied navies. He had begun the battle aiming to overwhelm Britain in a tonnage war, yet in the end, it was his submarines which were overwhelmed by tonnage - the tonnage of Allied merchant shipbuilding and the tonnage of escorts churned out by the naval shipyards of Britain and the New World. German U-Boats would continue to strike out into the Atlantic in 1944 and 1945, but their efforts were far less coordinated and greatly constrained, not least of which by the Allied invasion of France. The escort carrier had made significant contributions to the defence of the convoys in 1941 and 1942 and in 1943, they formed part of a formidable team that took the battle to the U-Boats and won. No single weapon nor no single effort was responsible for winning the Battle of the Atlantic, but each played a valuable and significant part in their own right.

Why carriers when you have a super carrier called the United Kingdom.