maybe when we throw in Germany, Japan and Italy at war with the US too, the hole thing becomes more balanced
could the royal navy defeat the us navy?
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this is a very tricky subject with a lot of details. I see only two certainties, one canada losses no mater what and two the british empire falls to pieces.
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Well everyone is talking tactically or operationally, but a war between the two would have been a strategic disaster for Great Britain. USA has far less areas to defend. Britain has several areas of vital importance to the economy and empire.
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In the end this thred will be the same as the one about invading USA.
USA POWAH, USA stonk.
USA fanboys will be all about how 1936 evry American has rifles and pocked nuke in his pocket.
Or how they can destroy tanks by spitting on them.
And how they are the smartest and didynt need Tizzard mission.
But the truth is different
until 1940 USA Army and Airforce were pathetic compared to rest of major powers
and they navy wasnt anything special, compared to japan or UK it was behind on technology.
USA POWAH, USA stonk.
USA fanboys will be all about how 1936 evry American has rifles and pocked nuke in his pocket.
Or how they can destroy tanks by spitting on them.
And how they are the smartest and didynt need Tizzard mission.
But the truth is different
until 1940 USA Army and Airforce were pathetic compared to rest of major powers
and they navy wasnt anything special, compared to japan or UK it was behind on technology.
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Well, you bring up a point. What would Britain gain with a war against the US in the first place?
"Let's attack the US and grab our wayward colonies back! Conquering the US will make us invincible! Their population, industry, and resources will be ours! Ha hahahahahaahahahahahahahahaahahahahaaha!!!!!!!"
"Umm, we have massive trade with them."
"So?"
"We have US oil in our economy. US Steel. US foodstuffs (even if we hate watery US beer). Even US Dollars in our banks."
"So what?"
"So, we basically already have US industry helping us and US resources at our beck and call. It would be cheaper just to let the US own the means of production and buy what we need rather than spend billions of pounds trying to conquer it. Plus, invading and conquering the US will level half their industry and RGOs to the ground, making it impossible to get what we need. Unless we intend to just loot and pillage for a few months like Vikings just to steal some steel and oil and foodstuffs, there's no point in even attacking the US."
"Oh. Well, do that instead."
"Fine. Shall I let Commons and Lords know we are converting to Germanic Paganism on the morrow?"
"Yes. The Archbishop of Canterbury will need to change his vestments."
Where would the USN and RN even fight? Off the coast of Canada to stop the flow of material to North America?
See, in a war between UK and USA, I have a hard time trying to figure out where the major battles would even be if the US is the defender.
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Sure, the US Army and Airforce were tiny compared to the major powers in 1940; the major powers were fighting a war, while the US wasn't. That said, they mobilized quickly and performed decently once they did so, certainly compared to the British early war experience (compare the prolonged defense of the Philippines with the British in Malaysia, for an example). This has nothing to do with any supposed mythic US military prowess (which I agree is overrated), and everything to do with the fact that the US is a giant country, separated by giant oceans from any enemies. Canada is not an adequate base to launch an invasion without serious build-up, which would cause the US to mobilize. And once the US has mobilized, it's not even a contest; the US industrial base was basically equal to the rest of the world combined, much less just the British Empire.
And the USN was certainly not behind the UK in technology; it was lacking in some things, but ahead in others (e.g. carrier aircraft and carrier doctrine, which explains how the UK managed to lose a carrier in a surface engagement in 1940).
thats the problem with the us, its too strong. so it has to be smashed in the face. kind of the same what they did with germany
So no ship radar for artilery and really shity torpedos, right go go potato lunchers.
You forget one thing USA industry is concentrated on cost and if irememebr corectly more than half of they population was on the atlantic coast.
A lot of people here thinks only aboout battels of ships and soldiers completly forgetting that at such war for UK cripling idustarial Base of USA would be primary target.
How to cripple usa
1. !estroy they navy and get all those battelships and cruisrs down the cost to destroy evrytying in they range.
2. Destroy food magzines burn the fields, kill animals.
3. Destroy popultaion houses.
4. Now you have what 60-70mln of people rushing on the other coast.
5. USA have half they navy, less than half of they industry and shippbuilding cappacity, and half population that they need to feed, build shelters and get some other nessesities i dont thing that they would be ble to build up they forces before UK finishes they Pacyfic navy.
6. In this alternative history where there is no Hitler and UK atacks USA we can presume that Japan wouldynt stand aside and would help UK for some gains after all for quite some thime they were on frendly terms.
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If a surprise attack was pulled off successfully, some land could get taken.If Italy and Germany held America off in the east while the British navy aided Japan's in the east, it wouldn't be hard to imagine an extremely costly war. I think that unless you just decided to say how much was taken at the peek of things, America would lose very little land, and unimportant land at that. Historically, America had good research and industry, so that'd mean probably overpowered navy, a navy that could fight both sides with timely reinforcements ( Assuming Panama isn't taken out of the picture.) and a government that wasn't afraid to institute a draft. This is all disregarding the soviet Union, they never really had the greatest navy, or need to focus on a navy. Unless America also took the pre-emptive stance and started to take over South America ( Allowing for more money, resources, and some amount of manpower) could the new European coalition fail. Main points are
1- keep a well organized navy
2- Take panama first in terms of land
3- Use Canada or puppetted Mexico as a staging point for land troops.
4- Methodically go from west to east in terms of taking land. West was secondary factories with manpower, central was tertiary minor factories with resources, east was primary factories with manpower.
5- stop bad things.
6-celebrate with whatever you want, you basically own the world.
1- keep a well organized navy
2- Take panama first in terms of land
3- Use Canada or puppetted Mexico as a staging point for land troops.
4- Methodically go from west to east in terms of taking land. West was secondary factories with manpower, central was tertiary minor factories with resources, east was primary factories with manpower.
5- stop bad things.
6-celebrate with whatever you want, you basically own the world.
most of the industry is in the rust belt, which is on the other side of the appalachian mountains. also doing any kind of preparation in canada or invading mexico will alert the US they will mobilize and you lose. attacking any south or central american country means war with the US and you will lose any movement of naval forces to panama would be noticed and most likely trapped between the atlantic and pacific fleets and lose. it will not been a quick and easy war it will be long and bloody and most likely bankrupt the invader and the people will fight you the whole time. any invasion of america is a military nightmare.
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This is an interesting "what if", and it would make for an interesting naval game, locking the two major naval powers at the start of the war against each other, but it makes things like the "Is invading the US possible" and "Operation Unthinkable" threads look very realistic 
. The nations were closely linked both economically and culturally, with lots of shared interests and not many clashing ones (decolonisation being the big one), so it's never going to happen in any remotely historically plausible game that starts in 1936. It would be about as likely as the US having a second Civil War during the period.
However, let's pretend that the two militaries are the same, but the politics and trade are vastly different (so we're assuming the UK doesn't get a lot of oil from the US, like they did historically, or they converted back to burning coal, lol) and there's a bunch of things to consider:
- Early war, the UK will have better torpedoes and radar, as well as better AA (the US 40mm AA was a rip-off of the Bofors, the plans of which they got from the UK, and even then not until 1940 I think - although my memory on that's a bit shabby).
- the North Atlantic isn't always great flying weather. Carriers may rule in the Pacific, but when the weather's not friendly to flyers, you'll want your big-gun ships ready to go.
- No-one, not even the UK, came close to US ship-building capacity during the period. The UK came closest, by some margin (it went US - daylight - UK - daylight - everyone else with Japan at the front). If the UK don't 'win' quickly, or form a coalition with Japan and France, say, then they have no chance.
- The UK will have to protect long supply lines to Canada, and the US had some very capable long-range submarines.
- Surprise is important. If the US starts re-arming when the UK does, then it's all over for the UK.
Personally, I think it'd the only chance of the RN beating the USN strategically is either via a coalition of most of the rest of the world's ship-building nations, or if they invade quickly from Canada and take out the US east coast. They've either got to match the USN's production over time (impossible for the UK alone) or hit hard and fast and disable enough of it so they can win over the long term. Either aren't terribly plausible, but probably more plausible than it happening in the first place.
Operationally, though, in the short term, I think the RN would acquit itself competitively, and could win some kind of Midway or Jutland-like confrontation in the Atlantic, but the US was also a very good navy, and would also acquit itself competitively, and also could win. It could depend a lot on who managed to land the first critical blow (does the Lexington go down before the Ark Royal, or do Nelson and Rodney get disabled before Colorado and Maryland?), and even with the RN's likely early radar advantage, in naval warfare anything can happen, and often does.
They also had the Sea Hurricane, and in the rather unlikely situation that they're still duking it out in 1945, the Sea Fury. Further, calling the Seafire 'not a success' is a bit of a stretch - it served all over the world, and was defending against kamikaze attacks at Iwo Jima. It definitely had its issues, and I have sympathy for pilots trying to get around them, but it was an important and capable CAP aircraft. That said, any conflict between the USN and RN is likely to occur more when they're using Sea Hurricanes and the F4, respectively.
. The nations were closely linked both economically and culturally, with lots of shared interests and not many clashing ones (decolonisation being the big one), so it's never going to happen in any remotely historically plausible game that starts in 1936. It would be about as likely as the US having a second Civil War during the period.However, let's pretend that the two militaries are the same, but the politics and trade are vastly different (so we're assuming the UK doesn't get a lot of oil from the US, like they did historically, or they converted back to burning coal, lol) and there's a bunch of things to consider:
- Early war, the UK will have better torpedoes and radar, as well as better AA (the US 40mm AA was a rip-off of the Bofors, the plans of which they got from the UK, and even then not until 1940 I think - although my memory on that's a bit shabby).
- the North Atlantic isn't always great flying weather. Carriers may rule in the Pacific, but when the weather's not friendly to flyers, you'll want your big-gun ships ready to go.
- No-one, not even the UK, came close to US ship-building capacity during the period. The UK came closest, by some margin (it went US - daylight - UK - daylight - everyone else with Japan at the front). If the UK don't 'win' quickly, or form a coalition with Japan and France, say, then they have no chance.
- The UK will have to protect long supply lines to Canada, and the US had some very capable long-range submarines.
- Surprise is important. If the US starts re-arming when the UK does, then it's all over for the UK.
Personally, I think it'd the only chance of the RN beating the USN strategically is either via a coalition of most of the rest of the world's ship-building nations, or if they invade quickly from Canada and take out the US east coast. They've either got to match the USN's production over time (impossible for the UK alone) or hit hard and fast and disable enough of it so they can win over the long term. Either aren't terribly plausible, but probably more plausible than it happening in the first place.
Operationally, though, in the short term, I think the RN would acquit itself competitively, and could win some kind of Midway or Jutland-like confrontation in the Atlantic, but the US was also a very good navy, and would also acquit itself competitively, and also could win. It could depend a lot on who managed to land the first critical blow (does the Lexington go down before the Ark Royal, or do Nelson and Rodney get disabled before Colorado and Maryland?), and even with the RN's likely early radar advantage, in naval warfare anything can happen, and often does.
They also had the Sea Hurricane, and in the rather unlikely situation that they're still duking it out in 1945, the Sea Fury. Further, calling the Seafire 'not a success' is a bit of a stretch - it served all over the world, and was defending against kamikaze attacks at Iwo Jima. It definitely had its issues, and I have sympathy for pilots trying to get around them, but it was an important and capable CAP aircraft. That said, any conflict between the USN and RN is likely to occur more when they're using Sea Hurricanes and the F4, respectively.
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Lets see here, the UK had advantages in the following technological areas in 1940:
1. Radar and the utilization thereof, this is very far reaching but one of the better case--in-points is the Swordfish
2. AA weaponry, Bofors started getting introduced in 1941, before that the US has pretty paltry mid-calibre AA compared to the UK, also the use of directors for said AA was ahead of the times.
3. Anti-Submarine warfare, ASDIC was ahead of the US in this regard and the UK had a better handle on the tactics as well, also hedgehogs
4. Carrier operations, the UK had been using their carriers for longer and worked out operation of carriers in an increasingly broad range of circumstances. During the war this was most obviously laid out with night operations but in the post war period you can see further effects of this since they were responsible for the invention of carrier landing lights, steam catapults and the angled flight deck.
The surface engagement you refer to was the culmination of bad luck and poor decisions. The bad luck being that the transfer of a squadron of land-based hurricanes to the Glorious had disrupted the normal practice of air patrols. The poor decisions being the lack of appropriate action being taken on the sight of the German capital ships.
Carrier aircraft is the one area where the Royal Navy was clearly on the losing end, though this was as much due to inter-service friction as anything else. The RAF had control over procurement and in the context of facing a land war with Germany it made a lot of sense to neglect the FAA in favor of the RAF, if instead you're facing the context of a naval war against the US there was certainly room for things to improve, though I doubt they'd match the USN aircraft in 1940 outside of perhaps the sea hurricane.
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Stability dosn't seem to have been that much of a problem for USN. Brown (in Nelson to Vanguard) points out that the DDs lost in the Pacific Typhoon were still good compared to older British stuff. He also seems to value Fletchers highly in terms of wetness. I'm also reminded of some of the incredible feats of survivability USN pulled off. Like supposedly top heavy Cleveland being towed safetly home after extreme damage and flooding.
Kerrison predictor was land based system. USN used Mark 51 for Bofors which I think was entirely domestic.
IMO, not until historical '44 fleet train to support and sustain invasion of Britain.
I think it's illustrative that in most everything Japan was at best at level of USN of about '40 when the technical mission reports were penned post war. In respect of some stuff, like machinery, they were even behind USN of '37. Even use of the oxygen propelled torpedo can be seen as a mistake as it was a major fire hazard and the extra range was of only limited use due to inherent fire-control limitations (but for IJNs credit, at least they made sure theirs worked as intended). For technological comparison to Royal Navy I recommend reading D.K. Brown's Nelson to Vanguard.
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One. point I would like to add is that many British Aircraft Carriers had enclosed hurricane bows, while American Carriers did not get them until post 1945 SCB refits. Definitely an advantage for the RN when it comes to carrier ops in the North Atlantic, as you don't have to worry as much about a wave jarring something loose and causing a fire.
As far as those destroyers that foundered during the Typhoon, most of them had had radar and other improvements tacked onto their masts well after they were built, which made them considerably more top heavy, and had failed to take on ballast before the storm. Overall, the fleet stood up pretty well to the typhoon.
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