"Japan Dreamed of Supercarrier-Size Battleships" Topic

"In January 1936 Japan announced its intention to withdraw from the London Naval Treaty, accusing both the United States and the United Kingdom of negotiating in bad faith. The Japanese sought formal equality in naval construction limits, something that the Western powers would not give.

In the wake of this withdrawal, Japanese battleship architects threw themselves into the design of new vessels. The first class to emerge were the 18.1-inch-gun-carrying Yamatos, the largest battleships ever constructed. However, the Yamatos were by no means the end of Japanese ambitions.

The Imperial Japanese Navy planned to build another, larger class of super battleships, and had vague plans for even larger ships to succeed that class. War interceded, but had Japan carried out its plans it might have deployed monster battleships nearly as large as supercarriers into the Pacific…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Japan's naval success at the beginning of the Pacific War happened because of the treaties, not despite them.

Interesting thought, but I don't think the WNT was the only reason the US fleet wasn't bigger at the start of WWII.

True, there would have been a couple more Yorktown class carriers probably, although Lexington and Saratoga would have never existed.

But I don't think the US would have decided to maintain Naval supremacy in the 20s and 30s, given what I understand of the prevailing attitudes after WWI.

Actually the US was pretty committed to maintaining naval supremacy in the 20s and 30s.

The Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1922; the 5:5:3 ratio between the USA, Britain and Japan, and the restriction on tonnage for individual ships, were American suggestions that essentially guaranteed their supremacy. Britain, with worldwide commitments, would never be in a position to concentrate her fleet against the USA. Likewise, the tonnage restriction meant that even the largest warships could transit the Panama Canal. In a war with Japan, the entire US fleet could be sent quickly to the pacific to face Japan at a 5:3 advantage. So yes, the WNT was the reason the USN wasn't bigger at the beginning of WWII--the Americans had every reason to uphold it, as it institutionalised their advantages.

The follow-on treaties signed in London in 1930 and 1936 simply reaffirmed these. Of course by 1936, international collaboration was pretty frayed; neither Italy not Japan ended up signing the treaty, while Britain signed a separate treaty with Nazi Germany, legalising the expansion of the Kriegsmarine in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Interestingly, it was the failure of the 1936 London treaty that led to both the massive expansion of the USN (if Japan was no longer bound by the tonnage cap, the Americans were damn well going to make sure they maintained their numerical advantage), and to the construction of the other super-battleships--the American Iowa class. Unlike the Yamatos, these were still "Treaty" battleships, but the escalator clause invoked in the 1936 treaty by Japan's failure to sign increased the permissible standard displacement to 45,000 tons, and the maximum permissible gun calibre to 16-inch. Actual wartime displacement reached about 57,000 tons, while vastly-superior fire control and improvements to the Iowas' ammunition meant they would have been far more deadly in a slugfest than the heavier Japanese ships.

Don't forget that Roosevelt used the ship construction program as work program for the East coast states. Also bought a few votes with it.

The Washington Naval Treaty came about because during WWI the United States (still neutral) had grown angry not only with German submarine warfare, but with the British blockade. The Naval Act of 1916 called for the creation of a fleet "second to none" and was a direct challenge to the centuries-old British naval dominance. The program called for a huge expansion in US battleships and battlecruisers. When America entered the war, the program was put on hold as ship building capacity was turned to destroyers and merchant ship production to counter the U-Boat threat. But after the war, the Naval Act of 1916 was still the law and the program of capital ship construction was resumed. Britain, realizing that with the huge economic strain of the war, it really did not want to enter into a battleship building race with the US. So both powers agreed to the limitations of the treaty and browbeat everyone else into going along. So without the limits of the Washington Treaty, Japan would have been faced with the impossible task of trying to keep up with both England and America as they cranked out battleships as fast as they could.

For myself as a Naval Wargamer I want to have these never built ships/superships,and in fact I do have some of these ships like the Yamato with 20 inch guns and also they look cool IMHO.

Besides the several Japanese Never-Built ships I also have some other Countries ships like Germany's H-44 a truly massive ship.

Plus it's nice to use them in games as well which I've done a few times.

I must thank Shapeways which is where I got most of these ships.

These super axis ships are fun to play with on the game table, but ridiculous as real ships. Simple put, neither country had the resources to waste, but in light of their wonderful politics and social agendas I'm all for somebody to go back in time and convince them to be stupid. Japan literally needed to collect pots to come up with enough metal for the Yamato class. For Germany, that is allot less subs and tanks.