WesWorld

Something that I have been wondering about for some time is the ecomonic and potential military strength of the United States in Wesworld relative to the other WW Powers and its OTL self.

I have worked on the assumption that while the US has the highest GDP, and is the strongest economically speaking it does not hold the preponderance it did IOTL, as that is the only explanation that makes sense. How that translates into military power has been like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole as in WW the US cannot hope to match what it built IOTL. I have therefore assumed that the US has either a much stronger Army and Air Force, in Wesworld or they are running massive budget surpluses.

I am curious, how strong economically and regarding non naval expenditures the other players think the US is in Wesworld.

Interesting that you should raise this point; I have been devoting considerable thought to the mechanics that stand behind Wesworld. Let me break this down into several spheres.

As defined by the rules of our game, the US started (albeit in catch-up mode) with the correct number of factories – that is, a baseline of 10, plus one for every capital ship launched between January 1911 and December 1920 – a total of 27. Since that time the US has only built three factories; it could have built far more – devote ten factories per year to produce nothing but IP to invest in factories would give the US 37 factories by 1940, and still have a decent size navy. However, the previous players chose to invest their naval resources elsewhere; this, coupled with the non-historical naval resources of many of Wesorld’s other nations, make the US appear to be weaker than it ought to be.

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I have worked on the assumption that while the US has the highest GDP, and is the strongest economically speaking it does not hold the preponderance it did IOTL, as that is the only explanation that makes sense.

While the historical US certainly the largest per capita GDP in 1940, I am not certain that your assumption is tenable; Wesworld history seems to have glossed over such major events as the US involvement in the Great War (which saw the US change from a debtor nation to the world’s creditor nation) or the Great Depression. However, in the limited scope of Wesworld, it is also a moot point; we have no proper system to account for GDP. It would seem that when the game began a dozen years ago the original players did not think one necessary, or could not agree upon one, and since then none has been developed. By consensus we seem to try to keep things relative.

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How that translates into military power has been like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole as in WW the US cannot hope to match what it built IOTL.

The limitations on US naval construction in Wesworld, compared to historical, derive from several factors.

1 – Our rules lay down fixed times for shipbuilding. For many classes of warships these are unrealistic – they are either too short or too long, and the ability to speed them limited by an unrealistic assumption that more tonnage must be spent to accomplish the construction. In wartime corners would be cut and if anything less tonnage would be expended.

2 – Our rules require investment in factories (an abstraction of industrial output), naval infrastructure (the actual facilities to build warships), and vessels themselves (yes, warships are a capital investment); all this is done with a limited pool of resources (the number of factories). The cost of constructing new factories is far too high; why it was set so high I must leave for one of our original players to answer. The time required to construct new naval infrastructure is also fixed, with an upper limit of what can be applied to an infrastructure project. The “iron law of shipbuilding” I have already mentioned.

3 – The effective prohibition on the use of war production by a nation not engaged in hostilities does not allow the US to attempt to undertake the massive expansion of its navy that happened under the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940. Even so, it must be remembered that the vessels authorized under the Vinson-Walsh Act did not begin to make their appearance until late 1942.

4 – As I have noted previously, the Wesworld’s US has invested in construction of ships of dubious utility (the monitors of the New Ironsides and Passaic classes come to mind immediately) instead of factories or naval infrastructure. The older rule regarding stockpiles, which severely limited what could be carried forward from one quarter to the next, discouraged investment for the future (by stockpiling) in favor of immediate construction of either warships or naval infrastructure.

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I have therefore assumed that the US has either a much stronger Army and Air Force, in Wesworld or they are running massive budget surpluses.

Again, given the situation prevailing in Wesworld history, there are other viable explanations for what we see. The investment in the Mexican Canal, even if shared with partner nations, would be massive, whether private or public. The fact that the political scene in the US is fragmented between several parties (compared with the historical two-party system) implies the lack of a national consensus, which would probably lead to smaller military budgets and lower taxes.

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I am curious, how strong economically and regarding non naval expenditures the other players think the US is in Wesworld.

I would say that the US is as strong economically and in non-naval expenditures as any other of the first-rank naval powers. I cannot be more specific than that because: (a) we have no system to do so, and (b) the field is skewed by the existence of several non-historical naval powers and other nations with naval capabilities far beyond what they could achieve in history.

Hmm. Maybe I shoulf devote my 30 factories to building more factories.

Quoted from "TheCanadian"

Hmm. Maybe I shoulf devote my 30 factories to building more factories.

That's a somewhat lop-sided response to the situation, but doable, so long as the limits of our rules are observed. IIRC there is a limitation on the number of IP that can be allocated to a *project* per month. I suppose each factory would be its own *project*.

It is not, IMHO, a good response however. The premise of the game (at least from my reading of some of the older material) was to have a place where players could express their ship-building styles and everything else sort of followed along; I'm sure some of the older hands will correct me if I am that far off. The start conditions were radically different from the real world and decisions taken in the past condition where we are now. One can say that any particular nation "should have" more or fewer factories than they have at present in the game, but the game situation and rules are what we all signed up to play.

Do factory numbers really matter if you've got the fleet you need?
The danger with OTL economics is a world war, we're in 1946, if you look at the shrinking US forces in 1946 and compare to 1940 your probably closer to a more genuine level of comparison than looking at 1944 when US military production was peaking.
Saying that, as Bruce points out, overproduction from what was possible or even required in WW is the norm based on what the sim is about, building and playing with ships. Its surprising what can be done within the frame of the sim, though it can take 3-4 sim years to get things really back on track.
I would not think the US is inferior to any power here.

I tend to view the current wesworld U.S. fleet strength as realistic for the most part. If you look at what the U.S. did pre war congress was very stingy on what they allowed the navy to build in peacetime. During the war the U.S. churned out all ship types in mass quantity's but after the war mass quantity's of ships were taken out of service, some were literally some of the best designs in the world at the time yet they still got the axe. That said I think the earlier suggestion that the U.S. having a smaller than historical naval infrastructure and fleet might mean they have a larger army and airforce is likely accurate.

The current US fleet strength is a paper tiger for the most part. Old, slow and obsolete ships filling the gaps which are large indeed. Weakest carrier strength, weakest battleline strength, small number of large cruisers, not enough submarines, and a large number of destroyers. Amphibious capabilitied are lacking as are logistical. Realistically the USN would be hard pressed to stave off a second tier power never mind one of the Great Powers.

I never thought about it, but I decided to take a look. Considering the OTL WW2 situation, I decided to compare the US with Japan, based on the number of hulls given in the report (so it does not take into account the size of each hull or the age of each hull).

Q4/1945 US vs Japan (30 vs 27 factories)

Battleships: 17(0)+0 vs 11(0)+4
Battlecruisers: 2(0)+2 vs 9(0)+2 (Japanese figures include the large cruisers)
Carriers: 11(0)+3 vs 14(2)+4 (Japanese figures do not include the Kumano and Akitsu classes)
Coast Defense Ships: 8(0)+0 vs 12(0)+0
Heavy Cruisers: 15(0)+2 vs 14(0)+0
Light Cruisers: 20(0)+4 vs 48(0)+2
Destroyers: 76(0)+1 vs 253(0)+0
Submarines: 50(0)+0 vs 322(0)+0
Amphibious Warfare Ships: 45(0)+0 vs 315(0)+0 (Japanese figures include the Kumano and Akitsu classes)
Training ships: 0(0)+0 vs 4(0)+0
Minelayers: 0(0)+0 vs 4(0)+0
Minesweepers: 20(0)+0 vs 4(0)+0
Gunboats: 2(0)+0 vs 14(0)+0
Cutters: 50(0)+0 vs 0(0)+0
Escorts: 0(0)+0 vs 41(0)+0
MTB: 0(0)+0 vs 570(0)+0
Patrol boats: 0(0)+0 vs 111(0)+0

Total hulls: 316(0)+12 vs 1754(2)+12

Those numbers might indeed make the US Navy look like a paper tiger but then of course you would have to take into account that a sizable part of the IJN are small ships (all the patrol boats, all the MTBs, the vast majority of the amphibious force, more than 40% of the submarine force are midget subs and about 65% the DD force are the type 3 DDs which are scheduled to be scrapped). So overall it might not be as bad as you might think even if the battleline is a bit old.

I would think that the main problem with the US is that multiple players have controlled it, and each player has/had different ideas of what is needed and what is not. I would think that if you had controlled the US from the very start and ran with the same infrastructure and infrastructure expansions, you would have quite a different fleet and something that you would consider to be good enough to take on any of the Great Powers with exception of the British powerhouse.

With a possible end of the sim in 1950, the construction of new factories now seems (to me) to be useless (especially with the flaws you see in your forces) as that would tie up a lot of factory output which could be better used trying to solve the issues you have now with your carrier force, battleline, large cruiser force, submarine force and amphibious forces. The cost of 1 factory equals the cost of 100,000 tons of shipping. Instead of 1 factory you can (for example) build two 50,000 ton BBs or CVAs, three 33,333 ton BCs or CVs, five 20,000 CBs, 40x 2500 ton SSs, 55x 1800 ton LSTs or 12500x 8t LCVPs.

Edit: Having looked through the encyclopedia, of the 1754 hulls, 1070 are vessels less than 50 tons for a total combined displacement of 14440 tons (so an average of 13.5 tons per hull).

Quoted from "TheCanadian"

The current US fleet strength is a paper tiger for the most part. Old, slow and obsolete ships filling the gaps which are large indeed. Weakest carrier strength, weakest battleline strength, small number of large cruisers, not enough submarines, and a large number of destroyers. Amphibious capabilitied are lacking as are logistical. Realistically the USN would be hard pressed to stave off a second tier power never mind one of the Great Powers.

The same could be said for other fleets as well. Atlantis as an example has quite a few obsolete or near obsolete ships in service. Half its light cruiser fleet is old, it has 4 old BC's and 3 old fleet carriers, 9 old battleships and lots of old destroyers. In short half of the fleet is modern.

Quoted from "Hood"

I would not think the US is inferior to any power here.

I absolutely agree.

Let's face it, the US only can look like a paper tiger if we have our out-of-character knowledge of what it actually did during WWII. I don't think the situation here is any different than with any of the other powers in play. For instance, my Russian fleet seems very powerful in terms of numbers, but huge quantities of ships are older and unmodernized - the destroyer fleet especially, which only becomes obvious when you look at the details. Only reason I'm not doing a mass scrap-and-torch is that I have no replacement funding. And in France, I've managed to get a pretty modern fleet, but only by ruthlessly eliminating most of the oldest ships and pouring hideous amounts of money into rebuilds. And the most irritating thing to me is that, unlike the USN's old dreadnoughts, most of the historical French vessels weren't as easy to modernize.

So I really don't see a cause for pessimism.

The USN is using most of its fleet on coastal defence, the Montanas being the core of its brown water fleet, with the aircraft carriers to support land based air to counter an expected invasion. The USN has no blue water capability. Therefore not a Great Power.

Quoted from "TheCanadian"

The USN is using most of its fleet on coastal defence, the Montanas being the core of its brown water fleet, with the aircraft carriers to support land based air to counter an expected invasion. The USN has no blue water capability. Therefore not a Great Power.

I'm sorry; I am tempted to respond with something stronger, but all I can say is that I respectfully disagree. Your assumptions and explanations are flawed.

Quoted from "BruceDuncan"

I'm sorry; I am tempted to respond with something stronger, but all I can say is that I respectfully disagree. Your assumptions and explanations are flawed.

Ditto'd.

That is merely your opinion. Like all opinions, I am correct and so are you. My belief is that the United States is not a Great Power in Wesworld.

Quoted from "TheCanadian"

That is merely your opinion. Like all opinions, I am correct and so are you. My belief is that the United States is not a Great Power in Wesworld.

You began this discussion by asking our opinions regarding the relative strength of the United States vis-à-vis the other powers of Wesworld. We have offered those opinions - which clearly differed from what you have already decided is The Truth. So the entire discussion is without merit if you have already made up your mind.

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the Montanas being the core of its brown water fleet

Montanas up the Mississippi?? Would it not be more effective to use it on the oceans as part of your Blue Water Navy?

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Like all opinions, I am correct and so are you.

Wesworld majority agrees that the US navy is a Great Power. Therefore you are wrong and we are right.

Still if you feel that you need more ships for the Blue Water Navy, you should build them. Like I said, when you build one factory, you'll have 100,000 tons less to work with to expand that aspect of your fleet and it will take 25 years before recover from that 'loss' (25x4x1,000=100,000).

Actuallly it was this conversation that made me think that.

In OTL the growth between the peak peacetime fleet and the wartime fleet was substantial. Here in Wesworld, that ceiling is quite a bit lower.

My thought was that instead of having that rapid investment in the US Navy that occurred between 1940-45, the US had instead invested in a larger army and air force to counter the Iberian Army and Air Force that was not present IOTL. This instead has been shot down.

A Great Power by my definition should be able to deploy a large force in wartime anywhere on the globe, and have significant economic strength in peacetime to have an influence on the global economy. The United States cannot do so with the current military forces available nor does it have capability to do so in the future. With a much weaker economy due to the US not participating in the Great War the US impact on the global economy will be insignificant as you Bruce have mentioned.

Therefore, the United States is a Regional Power quite powerful in North America but lacking the capacity to make an impact elsewhere.

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My thought was that instead of having that rapid investment in the US Navy that occurred between 1940-45, the US had instead invested in a larger army and air force to counter the Iberian Army and Air Force that was not present IOTL. This instead has been shot down.

No one has "shot down" this point; I addressed it as being but one of several possibilities but not the only explanation. Please do not blame others for your own perceptions.

For my part, I find it surprising that so much Great War-era stuff remains in active service - and is even still, in some cases, being upgraded.

Quoted from "The Rock Doctor"

For my part, I find it surprising that so much Great War-era stuff remains in active service - and is even still, in some cases, being upgraded.

I can see what others might find beneficial in refitting an older warship - it saves on cost and on time - but I choose not to subscribe to the theory. Rarely can a twenty-year-old warship, however refitted, function as well as modern construction. It is the same with the cult of giganticism for capital ships and large cruisers - it ties up too much tonnage in a few hulls.

And before someone throws the Sachsens in my face, please remember, they were not my design. I would not have designed such huge vessels, no matter how formidable they might seem.