"Ango-American war of the 1930s".

The world would be a VERY different place if that had happened...

You know, I am not sure it would.

In my view (and mine alone!), I think it would have been stalemate. The US would not have been able to advance across the Atlantic against the Royal Navy (I am not entirely certain it could do so today, but that is another argument for another game ), and Britain would not have been able to successfully invade (manpower has always been an issue for Britain).

So, no score draw.

That has happened before, of course, in the War of 1812. There is a theory that because no territory changed hands, everyone was able to get on with each other thereafter - there was no lasting hatred. Thus the 'Special Relationship' could develop (though I think that really only kicked in when Thatcher and Reagan appeared).

Unless there had been some really savage and/or one-sided battles at sea (like a Trafalgar, though that was not really in the Royal Navy in that era, one suspects), I don't know if either country would view the other as any different. Plus, both would have been seriously militarised, which may well have curbed the intentions of Germany and Japan a few years later.

I think the big game changer would have been if Germany had managed to dominate all of Europe (including Britain) in 1940. Could have gone against Russia a year earlier, no springboard for the US into Europe (if it cared, which it probably wouldn't), all the British sea bases across the world in German hands, and Germany heading the entire resources (natural, financial and human) of Eurasia as a whole.

That would not be a bad starting point to build a world government, albeit one under a Nazi flag.

Credit where it is due, it came 'this' close to happening...

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

Gotta disagree with you there Matthew. . .

In any protracted conflict the U.S. would have been the inevitable winner. It's tough to say what the fleets would have looked like had there been no Washington treaty, but there's no question that the U.S. could have outproduced the U.K. many times over and eventually enforced a successful blockade.

That said, I don't think there would have been the political or popular stomach for an actual invasion so, as you say, probably no territory would have changed hands, the war just would have ended with some trade concessions and diminished prestige for the UK following the war.

The big question would have been how did that war influence the entry of the U.S. into WW2 against Germany? Would it have delayed it? Would there have been resistance to helping the UK at all if there was a lot of residual bitterness? Might the Axis have attempted to include the U.S., or at least reach some settlement with it? If there was no help for the UK, would Germany have eventually conquered all of Europe and then possibly developed the first a-bomb if the U.S. hadn't been forced to?

Or would a surge in prestige in the 30s have caused the U.S. to have greater imperialist posture in the Pacific, possibly averting Pearl Harbor and forcing the Japanese to come to a negotiated arrangement instead?

Countless different ways things could have played out. . . but that was such a pivotal point in world history that a British-U.S. war at that time, while maybe not causing a huge disruption in itself, would have definitely cause a chain of events that left the world looking very different than the way it does today.

Remember, in this time period, industrial production of both countries was relatively close. If the war dragged on 5 or 10 years, the gap accelerates, but I wouldn't think that likely. A one or two year campaign, perhaps, before both countries come to their senses?

The really fanciful consideration is always that Britain harnesses the manpower of Empire, then convinces both Canada and Mexico to invade - then the US is facing enemies from potentially all four sides and invasion becomes possible.

Of course, you have to ask, what happens then? Let's say those forces defeat any serious army on US soil. Whoppee. For all the good it would do them



Big questions indeed. I would go with yes, yes, no (nothing that could be trusted once Russia was dealt with anyway), and yes



The normal answer to that is normally some murmurings about isolationism. That is possible.

A US empire? An interesting idea, but I think it would have run smack into a rapidly expanding German one who would have control of the seas by virtue of taking over British bases and various overseas possessions.

Of course, Hitler would probably then do something to cock things up



Indeed. Always fun speculating

On the other hand, history has a habit of coming up with events no one could possible imagine..

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

Canada and Mexico, even backed by the British...yeah, I think the only invasion the US ever had to fear from the Mexicans is the invasion of illegal immigrants onto our sovereign soil, and as for those Canucks...has any country every thought to themselves, "Oh crap, the Canadians are invading"? Unless that invasion took place on a hockey rink, I don't think we would have had anything to worry about.

It wasn't the USA, and Britain, that defeated Germany, it was the Soviet Union.

As for Germany beating Britain, I think an Ango-American war might have hastened air power advancements a tad for both powers, and then the Battle of Britain would have gone even more so to the British. It wasn't the Royal Navy keeping Germany away from British shores, it was the Royal Air Force.

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Glen

Funny
I dont remember any Russians in the Ardennes, the Bulge, or in North Africa and Italy. Not to mention all the equipment we gave then to fight with.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

They didn't do so bad in 1812, nor in WWI, and certainly not on D-Day...

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

North Africa and Italy were sideshows (granted, not from the perspective of those who lived or fought there). The Ardennes was a worthy endeavour but nothing on the Western Front did for Germany what the Russians did (or suffered, for that matter).

There is an argument to be made that WWII _was_ Germany vs. Russia, and everything else was fluff.

As for equipment, it could be argued that was the least anyone else could do, considering the rest of the allies did bugger all else in the early years.

It is a matter of perspective. You gave away yours when you said 'we'

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

British relations with Japan in the 1930s were pretty good. In a UK/US confrontation the US would, at the very least, be casting a very nervous look back across the Pacific, at worse fighting a "two ocean" war against the British and Japanese empires.

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DM's occasionally-updated website
http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley ... naval.html
Co-author "Order of Battle"
Author, "Age of Dreadnoughts"
Bacon Number (TV-related though) of 4

I actually don't think that would be the case.

Had there been no Washington treaty and a chain of continual battleship development, I think it would have *delayed* the development of air power. The really pivotal moment for the ascendancy of air power came at Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Prince of Wales, and Taranto.

In two cases the battleships were moored and helpless. Prince of Wales was a unique circumstance pertaining to problems with their fire control systems.

I think we would have seen a rise in fleet air arms as cover for the battleships, but that the battleships themselves would still have been regarded as the heavy hitters and primary offensive tools of the fleet.

Aircraft of the era were never *really* all that effective against battleships of the same era, and any kind of fighter umbrella pretty much blunted that weapon. Nowadays with the defensive perimeters and point defense capabilities at our disposal, the real threat to capital ships is submarines - so as sub tech advanced there would have been an eventual decline of the battleship anyway. . . but it probably would have lasted through WW2 had it not been for the airplane getting so over-hyped as a result of a few isolated incidents against targets essentially unable to defend themselves.



Matthew: I thinlk you're overestimating UK and underestimating US production. Here's a short but interesting page on the topics if you haven't read it already:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm


But yeah. . . "real" alternate history would have probably thrown a few unforseen wrenches into either scenario. lol

Yeah, that shows a four to one disparity in industrial capacity in the US's favor.

Not the ten to one we enjoyed over the Japanese, but still significant.

I do wonder how airpower and submarines would have developed in a different environment to WWII, which had some fairly unique advantages for them at pivotal moments.

When I said WE I was Grouping all the allies side not just the USA. For anyone who falls into the trap of all Americans think they won the war. I see Russia as a separate power from the allies.
Ray

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"Official Naval Boffin"

How, I wonder, does that look if you included India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong's wealth and production and also Canada's production, in the event they could be persuaded to fight against such a close neighbour - or at least support the allies against the US? Also, how quickly could the US have brought a fleet from the Pacific, especially if UK ships were sent to Panama to blockade the canal? Could they, indeed, have spared them or would they have been forced to keep a fleet there to cover the commonwealth countries and a possible opportunist invasion from Russia or Japan (don't forget - Alaska was claimed by the Russians for ages... so they might have taken the chance to invade and occupy up there, just as Japan might have across the Pacific, even if they didn't actually invade, they might have decided that Hawaii and the other islands were just too tempting not to pick off.

There's a lot of variables to be decided in that lot... and could be an interesting book in itself.

If Canada specifically had sided against the US in a war against Britain, it would destroyed the foundatins of the Monroe Doctrine. This would have changed the destinies of not only the US and Canada, but all of North and South America.

One of the diadvantages the Empire endured throughout World War II was distance. New Zealand and Australia are a long way from the North Atlantic. The US controlled the Panama Canal at that time. That means that UK Commonwealth allies would have had to traverse Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope or the Suez Canal which was controlled by England.

US industrial capability was not focused on war materials at this time. So national production focus would have had to shift. This comes down to US will. Would we have had the stomach to fight? Hard to say, we didn't have the will to fight Hitler until we were attacked by the Japanese.

Both countries had outdated fleets. The British Navy was a little larger, and the US Navy had to cover two oceans. Leaving no presence in the Pacific would have been a mistake. The one thing the US had in spades is manpower. An invasion of the US by Britain or an Ally would have shifted public will.

I believe if this war had occured it would have been a disaster for both Nations. I am not one of those Americans that believes we could have won WWII by ourselves. It was team effort, and this war would have weakened both coutries to the point of possible failure against the Axis Powers.

We cannot forget any member of the ally team. The Soviet Union paid the highest price (unneccessarily, Stalin's pre-war paranoia kept the military leadership and infrastructure weak), but also inflicted the greatest enemy casualties. But they also didn't have to worry about the Pacific until after the war with Germany was over.

This would make for great war gaming, but it's history that I'm happy never occured.