The Drydock - Episode 167

Alternative history ship vs ship - 1942 IJN Fusō vs 1941 KMS Bismarck Assumptions: Engagement at 20,000 yards until destruction Clear skies, smooth seas Fusō has had her 1937-1941 improvements to her armor, machinery, superstructure and pagoda mast. Also recognizing that after the first salvo, Bismarck knocks our her own forward radar. Outcome?

Capitano Lorenzo

Italy doesn't enter Colonial forces from India save weeks on transit with the Mediterranean available, so the armored carriers would probably be seen as boondoggles if they weren't under threat there by land attack.

Randall Norman Pick

If belgium hadn't decided to become neurtral in 1936 it's relatively likely, alternatively you could have extended the french fortifications up the border with belgium... which would have been politicially difficult but prescient.

Thomas Riley

@OWKTREE I would expect a WW1 type of distant blockade of germany. Germany would still have an advantage by having control over the Baltic and ports / airfields in the Netherlands and especially Norway. However, how does Nazi Germany fail to take France, but still remain in power? I can hardly imagine that the German people had any apatite for repeating the stalemate of WW1, and I doubt if the Wehrmacht had enough stamina in 1940 to do anything else, but perform a Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg was an answer to weaknesses of nation with limited ability to fight a prolonged war.

I have been reading an alt-history timeline based on a change in 1940 where France does not fall to Axis. A major change coming from this in that timeline is that Italy does not enter the war. How would events like this have affected RN (and Allied) policy and actions from that point? Immediately obvious is no Mers El Kébir attack and the U-boats not having access to the French Atlantic ports.