Treaties and Treasuries Oppressing Awesome Fleet Building in History
- Thread starter Aaron Fox
- Start date
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Yes. Globalist treaties aren't worth the paper they're on when someone doesn't play ball, and that's exactly what happened with the Washington Naval Treaty.
The historical naval treaties weren't exactly written with any great expectation of trust between the power's, hence the elevator clause. Japan got away with it largely because the Western powers were unreasonably reluctant to believe that a "racially inferior" power could possibly build an indigenous battleship design of such magnitude.
Also, you're conflating the Washington Naval Treaty with the follow-on London Naval Treaty and Second London Naval Treaty.
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Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
No...no, no, no, they weren't still actually trying to disarm in the 1930s? You know, when Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are around and outright ignoring treaties left right and centre, whilst the Japanese Empire expands.
What breed of imbecile was running us in the aftermath of 1918?
Edit: Also, most of the damage was done with the Washington Treaty anyway.
gral
Well-known member
My understanding(from an analysis one did in the warships1 boards in the late 90's) is that the UK could afford the naval build-up, but there was no political will for it.
EDIT: As for what breed of imbecile was running the show in 1918 and afterwards, the same breed that is doing it right now, adjusted for the attitudes of that time.
You're definitely conflating the various naval treaties. Japan didn't actually violate the Washington Naval Treaty at all -- it was France and Italy that did so. Japan felt they got the short end of the stick with the WNT ratio limit on capital ship construction, but they nonetheless honored their word. They also complied with the First London Naval Treaty, and was never actually a party to the Second London Naval Treaty; they withdrew from the conference entirely because they were already at war. The fact that Japan wasn't an actual signatory was one of the big factors in the United States insisting on the so-called "escalator clause" for 2nd London.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Nope, the reality of the situation was that, by the time the various naval treaties came into being, Britain was effectively broke as fuck. WW1 and the naval arms race beforehand seriously drained the coffers to the point that if another naval arms race of global magnitude happened, Britain would have been literally bankrupted just by trying to keep up. You forget that Britain's 'more ships than the next several navies combined' policy was stupidly expensive...
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
As I recall the UK wasn't so much broke as wanting to spend the money on social programs and paying down the national debt as fast as possible. They could have managed to build 4 battleships a year and not broken the bank for at least a few years. Anything above that and yeah you'd be right @Aaron Fox
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
From what I understand, their economy was literally teetering on the razor edge of collapse after WW1, the war had been that draining of financial resources. Remember, by 1917 it was literally US loans that kept France and Britain afloat, not their own financial capabilities (that was well beyond tapped out by 1916). The social programs were, from what I've heard, investments to keep the collapse from happening...
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
By 1922 things had stabilized and the UK was left with the choice of building significant numbers of capital ships or paying down the national debt fairly rapidly. Heck even if they had gone down the paying down the national debt road they could have still built a couple capital ships and other lesser ships per year if they really wanted to. The political will wasn't there though.
Harlock
I should have expected that really
The British economy was doing great in 1918, remember Britain made a profit in WWI despite foreign debts (Britain owed the US, but Europe also owed Britain vast sums of money too which did help the balance) The British economy grew during WWI and experienced a boom post war as civilian industry made up for lost time. It absolutely was not in a bad way and performed far better than its neighbours.
The hit is the 1920 depression. This isn't as bad as 1929 but it still hit the world hard. You're talking circa 30% of the US economy vanishing with similar numbers in other countries. Factors incuded the post war bubble popping and the effects of the peak of the Spanish flu hitting. Much like now people tended to stay indoors and not spend money, plus no online retail back then
So this is the crunch, naturally nations already hit hard took even more damage, poor old Germany was having a great time and Russia was also facing some political hiccups. With even the big countries, including the US seeing a massive economic hit, it is easy to see why saving money on vastly expensive weapons would be appealing to everyone.
The hit is the 1920 depression. This isn't as bad as 1929 but it still hit the world hard. You're talking circa 30% of the US economy vanishing with similar numbers in other countries. Factors incuded the post war bubble popping and the effects of the peak of the Spanish flu hitting. Much like now people tended to stay indoors and not spend money, plus no online retail back then
So this is the crunch, naturally nations already hit hard took even more damage, poor old Germany was having a great time and Russia was also facing some political hiccups. With even the big countries, including the US seeing a massive economic hit, it is easy to see why saving money on vastly expensive weapons would be appealing to everyone.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
I mean...in the grand scheme of things, warships aren't actually that expensive. We just spent about six billion on two aircraft carriers and, let's face it, if we built two more it would still be like pissing in the ocean even in times of economic hardship. Whatever was spent on battleships would likely have been dwarfed by what we put on social programs, but no one talks about cutting those. Military expenditure is rarely, if ever, one of the main drains on the budget.
That aside, it just didn't work out well at all for us in the end. The Japanese shoved donkey cocks down our throats because we made cut backs.
Disagreement aside, what would you regard as the most beautiful warship to ever fly the White Ensign? I'd personally say Hood or Vanguard, but they've already been posted.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
The County class cruisers were fine looking ships
Harlock
I should have expected that really
To a degree, I think the real costs come from running the things for years on end, maintenance is a killer plus a decent crew. I suppose it depends a lot on the ship itself but yeah you are right in that its not the biggest expenditure. Plus back then you needed plenty of ships to handle commerce and pirates who were still a thing. My favourite 1920s Navy story was fighting Chinese pirates with aircraft carriers
Honestly it wasn't too bad, we lost the G3 designs which were absolutely amazing ships for their era and the N3 class which was good but probably a bit outdated. But on the flip side it forced the Navy to look at alternatives which basically created Carrier warfare as we know it. In the end carriers were the better long term choice so it wasn't too bad.
The Japanese did cheat on cruisers which was irritating, their heavy cruiser force was excellent, but again on the other hand RN Light cruisers were very good for their role. Pity about those G3s though, almost Iowa class capability twenty years earlier.
Best looking ship in my view, definitely Hood, then either County or Leander cruisers and Tribal destroyers. Personal fav is HMS Agincourt, the one with 7 main gun turrets
EDIT Oh, also 1920s QE refits, thats the classic battleship look. Perfect
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
From what I can understand, it wasn't. Britain didn't actually see the profits of what they got from WW1 until the mid-1920s from what I remember. Remember, this is the same nation that literally was out of emergency funds in 1916 and required a lot of collateral so the American bankers will give the loans. I wasn't kidding that the British economy was on the knife's edge of collapse (alongside France) by 1918.The British economy was doing great in 1918, remember Britain made a profit in WWI despite foreign debts (Britain owed the US, but Europe also owed Britain vast sums of money too which did help the balance) The British economy grew during WWI and experienced a boom post war as civilian industry made up for lost time. It absolutely was not in a bad way and performed far better than its neighbours.
The hit is the 1920 depression. This isn't as bad as 1929 but it still hit the world hard. You're talking circa 30% of the US economy vanishing with similar numbers in other countries. Factors incuded the post war bubble popping and the effects of the peak of the Spanish flu hitting. Much like now people tended to stay indoors and not spend money, plus no online retail back then
So this is the crunch, naturally nations already hit hard took even more damage, poor old Germany was having a great time and Russia was also facing some political hiccups. With even the big countries, including the US seeing a massive economic hit, it is easy to see why saving money on vastly expensive weapons would be appealing to everyone.
Harlock
I should have expected that really
Not so much, it was just a different doctrine. Britain chose to fund its war primarily through loans, Some were foreign though most were domestic. Because Britain was primarily mercantile (as opposed to industrial as Germany was) it had a far more flexible economy which could shoulder debt.
As an example when Britain needed soldiers most came from what today we'd call service sector jobs, shops, banks, offices etc because they were by then the main slice of the British economy. They were also mostly irrelevent to the war effort so losing people from there didn't hurt factories or farms.
Contrast with Germany which had a tiny service sector with most of its people in agriculture or industry. To build its army it had to recruit mainly from agriculture, but of course you kinda need farmers. The sudden reduction in farm hands had an instant effect, Germany was experiencing major food shortages in spring 1915 because the short glorious war wasn't.
To fund its war Germany almost exclusively used domestic loans which hurt the economy, and of course the massive manpower bleed from agriculture and to a degree industry hurt too. Britain never had that, both agriculture and industry grew, the UK economy as a whole grew during the war whereas Germany shrunk significantly. It is all about flexibility, Germany had none because it maxed out industry to catch up to the other big players but failed to diversify.
Britain and Germany spent the same amount on the war, 45- odd billion I think, but for Britain the cost came mainly from services which are very fast to recover. Combine that with foreign assets and financial investments and thats a huge amount of available money.
Doesn;t mean it was easy of course, it cost a third of UK foreign assets and most US based investments which were worth vast amounts of money, but it was basically a cushion that Britain used so it didn't have to cut into its more vital industrial or strategic assets. Other countries didn't have that option and had to bite into their own economy much earlier. Think of it as a head start.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Here's an interesting bit of trivia the RN wanted to spend the money not spent on building 4 G3s and 4 N3s and only a pair of Nelsons instead to pay for no less than 24 of the 40 County class crusiers they wanted to lay down during the 20s. As we know they ended up with 11 for themselves and 2 for the RAN with 2 Yorks built as well. That was the fault of the treasury.
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Pity.Then,instead of scrapping all their battlewagons,why they do not sell them ? before WW1 Chile,Argentina,Greece and Turkey wonted buy some.Maybe Holland and China would buy one,too.