History, Politics And Current Affairs

I have some questions about Neutral Navies in TLW....

Would the Chinese still be pursuing their aircraft carrier option?
This would especially be effective in light of the expanding Soviet Carrier Fleet in TLW.

Would Brazil and Argentina have aircraft carriers?
I think I can see France selling them Clemenceau and Foch respectively.

What would India do with ageing Viraat?

Feel free to add to this thread.

It’s hard to see China affording more then her historical level of naval construction, when she has to build up an army and air force to continue countering modernizing Soviet forces, and without the aid of cheap high tech Russian weapons to do so. The recent Chinese naval buildup of cruisers and frigates is linked to China slashing the size of its ground army.

The Chinese carrier ambitions, if by some miracle they survive the budget demands of the Army and Air Force, will probably result in some piddly ante oversized helicopter carrier capable of STVOL (would it be possible for the Chinese to purchase Harriers? There was talk of them doing so in the 80s but they didn't have the money back then).

Chinese Navy Carrier might very well be stillborn.

I wanna see what Jan or Matt says about the other navies, particularly South America and the Indian Navy.

The French would likely have sold both carriers to Brazil and Argentina; though Brazil IRL did want to buy the U.S.S. Saratoga (and F/A-18s)-they were dissuaded by the manning issue (5,500+). Both countries might have problems, though, in finding suitable aircraft: the U.S. would not want to sell any carrier-compatible aircraft to Argentina in order to satisfy British concerns re: Falklands, and Rafale isn't really suitable for the two ships. A navalized Gripen's been talked about, but that's easier said than done, especially if you don't have any carriers in the first place, and have never done such a thing before. Brazil does fly the ex-Kuwaiti AF A-4s off their ship, and Argentina might be a suitable customer for surplus Super Etendards, but fighters will definitely be a problem.

Or Spain might sell Matadors to Argentina if they have any - I would suspect that Spain is still having hard feelings over Gibraltar in TLW-verse as in OTL.

Assuming the Spanish didn't build that small "Harrier Carrier" for the Thais-and sell the AV-8S Matadors along with it.

That's what happened, as in @.

The Harrier deal was never very serious. However it was pretty firm that China would begin license production of Milan and TOW missiles, but then everything was stopped dead by Tiananmen Square. By the time anyone started talking to China again on weapons sales, which might occur earlier in TLW, China had already moved past needing to import such basic weapons.

The Soviets apparently took the sales seriously enough to issue a very nasty letter to the British. Though the Politburo by that point was pretty much jumping at every shadow.

China doesn't even have an indigenous V/STOL fighter program. Most they could hope for would be a CATOBAR carrier, but you're right that the navy being built up in the real world is only because of the downsizing of Chinese Army. With the Soviet Union still in existence, the downsizing of the Chinese Army would be highly unlikely.

So mostly Chinese Navy would probably consist of submarines, frigates, destroyers, and lots of FACs/Patrol Boats.