Can the Dardanelles be forced?

[mattep74]

Didnt Russia have a Black sea fleet? Why not try to coordinate an attack and have Russia send 1-2 divisions to land in the north?

[Grey Wolf]

Originally Posted by mattep74

Didnt Russia have a Black sea fleet? Why not try to coordinate an attack and have Russia send 1-2 divisions to land in the north?

Interestingly, Russia actually had this plan, tho I think I've mislaid my copy

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Tongera]

Originally Posted by mattep74

Didnt Russia have a Black sea fleet? Why not try to coordinate an attack and have Russia send 1-2 divisions to land in the north?

I knew they had a Black Sea Fleet, but what was it doing in the war? Just bombarding Northern Anatolia, waiting at dock etc?

[LordIreland]

Originally Posted by Cook

Farragut ran into a line on mines ('torpedoes') unexpectedly directly underneath the guns of a coastal fort; stopping or turning would have been disasterous so he gambled that the screen of mines was not extensive and he wouldn't lose more than a couple of ships, which is less than he'd lose by stopping. Ships don't stop on a dime, he would be through the mines before he could stop or turn anyway.

The British knew that there were ten lines of mines in the straits, each with mines spaced closer together than the width of a warship. It is one thing to utter stirring one liners when you run into something unexpectedly and have no choice, it is a very different thing (and a far stupider thing) to actually plan that way.

And yet, I still come back to my original point, he was referring to a commander with a bit more derring do, not a direct historical analogy.

[RGB]

Originally Posted by Tongera

I knew they had a Black Sea Fleet, but what was it doing in the war? Just bombarding Northern Anatolia, waiting at dock etc?

It had a solid line of really old battleships, which were faced with the brand-new Goeben that could take any of them 1:1 so they were forced to bunch up. Eventually they got control of the sea anyway.

In 1915 they had the first of the Empress class BBs come online and they outclassed the Goeben.

They mostly supported raids, convoys and mining operations, though because by then it was too late.

I think if the Russians landed at the Bosporus, they'd have to sink the Ottoman navy first (doable), then ferry troops over (harder, but still doable).

It would be a fairly long operation, though.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Orry

1. No action must be taken against the Dardanelles forts before the big push. The Turks greatly increased minefields after the November 1914 actions.

2. British still attack and consolidate around Basra in 1914.

3. Constantinople is given the code name Jerusalem and is always refered to as such. Forces for the Dardanelles campaign are to base out of Egypt.

4. Trawlers to be used as minesweepers are provided with limited armour, light guns and the crews are called up or replaced with naval sailors.

5. Naval commander is given written orders that the loss of battleships is to be expected and he is to force a passage at all costs.

Is there any chance they might get through?

There is always a chance, but I don't see it being likely. It just as easily could have been worse. While in A-H we always focus on the loser's mistakes, the winner normally makes them too. And normally luck goes both ways, and this is battle is not exception. Capital ships were very vulnerable to mine and more ships could have been lost. The Ottoman gunnery was not exceptional. They did not get an excessively high number of critical hits.

1) Sure this would help, but you are changing the mindset of the British commanders. An UK committed to not attacking until it has decisive forces likely also cancels other operations. You seem to be asking for passive commanders or commanders who understand this will be a long war of exhaustion. In quite a few ATL's with this type of POD (non-aggressive commanders) will mean slower BEF to France, cancelled/delayed moves to Basra, East Africa, etc. Also with fewer raids, you have less intel for the land assault, if you still plan to do it.

2) Not sure big either way. Why do you have in the list?

3) May or may not help. I am not sure how good the Ottomans were at finding units. The French and Germans were pretty good at not losing corp size units for weeks at time. And the Ottomans were keeping a lot of forces near Bulgaria, including their best corp. I am not so sure the Ottomans move a lot of units out of area. A land based attack could still stall.

4) I am not sure armor (more metal) really helps that much. You get a much slower ship that is in the target zone for longer periods of time. Half as fast, twice as long as long to arrive. You also have some % of your crew manning the guns. You are also adding the ammo/cordite to the ships. This can turn a small miner hit into a big boom or just a big whoosh. Not sure it helps. The UK had tons of light cruisers and the predreads are expendable.

5) This gives you high % chance of win, and higher % chance of heavier losses.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Cook

Snip

Cook comments match the research from for my ATL. I used the battle as basis for one of my battles. Based on what I could see, the UK was not really near forcing the straights IOTL. I could have missed something, but it does not look like the UK was just "one small thing" from victory here.

The Ottomans had guns out of ammo, but they were not out of ammo. The UK hit at least one ammo bunkers. The Ottomans had issues getting ammo from bunkers to the bunker at the guns due to UK naval fire. It is important to remember that as soon as the UK ships stopped direct fire or nightfall comes, the ammo situation begins to improve immediately.

Second, it is important to remember that you don't "sink" coastal artillery. When a ship is sunk the guns are lost forever. If a turret has an explosion, you generally lose the turret until you get it back to a port for repairs. You don't destroy coastal guns, that is, you don't physically damage the barrel or breech mechanism. The most common reason is that the gun is buried by dirt from near misses. Even with a direct hit, you are doing more damage to the support structure for the gun. As soon as UK gunfire slacks or night comes, repairs will accelerate and "destroyed" guns will start reentering active service.

So even if they penetrate the entire Ottoman defenses, it will be a one way trip. It may well have been worth it to trade 1 Super Dreadnought and 17 older capital ships for bombarding Istanbul, but it would at high costs. Yes bombarding Istanbul has huge benefits, but there would also be a huge morale hit for losing up to 10K sailors and 17 capital ships. It would be an interesting TL to read.

And a key point is you still have to take the land. If the British merely destroy the capital and retreat, they have not opened the supply lines to Russia.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Devolved

The Dardanelles could have been forced and although it is customary to dismiss the whole thing as a foolish blunder it was the ONLY big strategic idea the Entente had in the war.
According to Churchill (not an impartial source but still a primary one) many of the Admirals and officers had an emotional attachment to the ships that were lost. Many had served on the older ships and although they knew they were obsolete they still saw them as venerable battleships. Their orders about accepting losses were quite clear but the men on the spot had operational control and still backed off.


Finally there is the problem of what happens if they force the narrows and enter the sea of Marmara. Most think the Turks would just close the door behind them and trap them. IMO this was beyond their capability in early 1915 and it's possible that forcing the narrows so early would lead the Turkish government to flee to the Asian mainland and the city of Constantinople would be declared an open city to avoid a mass bombardment. The American consul reported mass panic in the city and said that many expected the city to fall within days.

The problem comes if the Turks don't sue for peace. Although IMO they would have as the Asian side would be cut off from the CP with no hope of rescue or reinforcement from Europe. No new guns, no large quantities of ammuntion and surrounded by the British and Russian Empires may be enough to force the Ottomans to seek terms to preserve what's left of their empire.

The campaign was a blunder. Instead of using 4-15 divisions on the Western Front where logistics were much, much easier, they were used in difficult to attack terrain that was hard to supply. And for this win to be decisive, the UK needs to take the entire coast line on both sides of the straights. Even here, it is not clear to me that large amounts of supplies could have been sent to Russia. Both sides of the bottleneck is a great place for U-boats and mines to limit merchant traffic. I do not dispute it was a big idea, but I do believe it was a dumb idea. And the predreads could have been hugely useful if used near the Belgium coast early on. I believe Churchill statement about "obsolete" was after the fact CYA. If they are expendable ships, why not bring them to the Belgium coast on the first days of the war?

The out of ammo and/or damage guns will be coming back on line within hours of the passage. It will be remined. The fleet will have to have the capital ships go back through the new minefields without escorts. The also will be running lower on ammo. I guess a lot depends on how many additional rounds the Entente ships will use to finish forcing the straights and how many are used in the battle with the Goeben and how many are used on Istanbul. The Goeben would have had real issues with the QE, but if the QE does not make it or runs out of ammo, the battle becomes very difficult for the predreads. The UK ships can't stay long near Istanbul due to mining and potential torpedo issues. And I don't think they had a plan to be based in the Black Sea for the rest of the war.

It is pretty clear to me, the Turks will not sue for peace. They are the only CP power to force a negotiated end to the war.

[Orry]

Its to be part of a TL where things have gone better for the French and Russians.

The French cancelled the Plan 17 attacks after a week so lost a lot less men - they were slightly less aggressive in attacking prefering to counter attack.

In the East the Russians will be a little more sensible they will be beaten back by the Germans but not surrounded. They will do a little better against the AH's and the Ottomans. Their Black Sea fleet will have lost more ships but had success against the Turkish fleet. (Captain Vladimir Trubetskoy will do better) The Ottoman forces will be more focused on this front especially as the British have not conducted any attacks against the Dardanelles.

This will make Bulgaria less likely to join the CP's and with Greece to be more likely to join the allies.

The British action would be against defences that have not been upgraded and which are not expecting the attack.

British landing forces will be used to help neutralise the forts - at least one landing will be massacred with a Btn being cut to pieces by machine guns. However the defenders will be no where near as large a force as in OTL. And yes this is a Allies do better TL so the luck will 'tend' to run with the brits.

What I am trying to do is see how far I can push matters without it becoming ASB. The Italians are not going to burst through the mountains - the Allied fleet will lose ships but when they do they are going to be 'lucky' that none of them block the main channel....

I know the outcome I am looking for - just trying to tweak events to make it happen without getting to many brick bats cast at me...

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Orry

Given the Central Powers do well thread I am looking at doing the opposite and this would be part of that. The allies are not going to make the same mistakes as they did in OTL - Plan 17 will be cancelled after a week rather than 17 days and the shock of that will have knock on effects. The Russians will have some vague idea that somebody else might listen to the radio so will not be using uncoded signals - the codes will not take that long to break BUT at least it will slow the Germans slightly so it will be slightly less of a disaster for them against the Germans and go slightly better against the AH.

Using Jerusalem as a code name for Constatinople is intended as a deception. Having the other actions against the Ottomans go ahead is to draw their attention away so they do not reinforce the minefields and no particular attention is paid to reinforcing the forts - checking ammunition etc etc.

As a working assumption I expect the Allied navies to lose 4 Battleships sunk and several damaged. I am looking at 3-4 landings of troops in support (one of which will suffer the same fate as at W beach in OTL. The troops being available and used as part of the initial attack is part of what I think might make it work.

I am looking to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war in 1915 and defeat the Central powers in 1916 without a Russian revolution and without Roumania getting trashed - maybe even have Greece join the allies as a result of Turkey being knocked out...

With Turkey out of the war and Greece in Serbia can be supported properly helping to put more pressure on AH....

OK, I see you are doing a series of POD's. You can get big impacts with series of small POD, but you have to watch butterflies.

1) It is not hard to cancel the Plan 17 early. The problem is why and the mindset of French Generals. Plan 17 was adopted due to outrages committed by two Prussian officers - today one would be call statutory rape and another involved an assault on a French speaker. You probably have to adjust these event to get the French not to try to take A-L early. The problem is the butterflies - substantially lower French/German hostility. You may be decreasing the size of the Army bills for the two countries. To do this well will require a good understanding of French/German parliamentary processes and public opinion. I am not saying it is an unlikely POD, I am saying it can easily have profound butterflies.

2) The Russian code book will tend to take another prewar POD, that should not be underestimated. Their entire C&C was bad. First and Second Army commanders not on speaking terms. Uncoded message. Then later messages in easy to break codes. The Germans normally were breaking the codes. A good example is written communication between corp and army level. The used the civilian mail, that took 4 days each way. There is a profound incompetence that will be hard to remove without a massive overhaul of the Russian officer corp. Now you mention not sending in the clear, which I can see it being decided not to send message. But you should think about what is the likely alternative. It is not good code books, it is using the civilian mail system that takes 8 days round trip. Now instead of two army not coordinating, we have each corp acting independently and not know what the other corps are doing.

It will be your TL, so you can make the call, but I would not use these two POD. Just have France start with Plan 16 for whatever reason. Deal with the butterflies. Then as one of the butterflies, have the French apply less pressure for a rapid Russian attack. If the Russian advance against Germany with more caution, the 1st and 2nd armies should do a lot better and have time to start improving before they are destroyed. I think you can get your desired result of worse German performance in the West and Russian not losing 1.5 armies to Hindenburg. Now you will also have to watch out for accidentally saving the Austrians in Galicia with this type of change.

3) I don't think the code names gives you surprise. Everyone thought/planned as if it would be a quick war. In a quick war, the UK needs to act fast to get gains. I think this too requires a prewar POD that is substantial. And it will have many butterflies. Gallipoli looks like a tough battle to flip to a large UK win. Doing better, sure. Taking and holding the area does not seem so easy to write.

4) How many divisions are you planning to use at Gallipoli? It seems like a lot more than OTL, and if so, these will have to come from somewhere. The Entente was quite short of division compared to objectives in this time frame, so there is a major butterfly that you maybe creating. Now if you have France do much better in 1914, you may be able to free up the units.

5) I don't think you knock out the Ottomans with the POD you give. You get the UK keeping a lot more forces in the area for the entire war. Probably 1-2 armies (12-30 division) or up to half the British army. It makes for an interesting TL, where the battle are fought in different locations with different heroes.

6) I am not so sure Russia is saveable after May 1916, or at least the Tsar. The Russian ran out of food in the winter of 1916 because the did not plant the food in May 1916. Now many of the worst fates are avoided from OTL, but it still a real mess.

7) Grey Wolf is correct you have to use the newer ships. It would be the most important factor in forcing the straights. A key concept is that guns are not destroyed by direct hits, but by burying in dirt and hitting the ammo bunkers nearby. A bigger shell helps a lot in doing either. You really want the 15" guns, not the very slow firing guns on the pre-dreads. You will also get pounded. A rule of thumb is one landbase gun is worth 3 shipbased guns, or put another way, landbase is 3 times more accurate than ship based fire. The ship will get hit often, and you need the best available armor which is on the newest ships. The predreads are poorly suited for the role they were used. If the Ottomans had just a couple of modern 350mm coastal artillery, the UK ships would have been sunk, almost to the ship. One hit, one kill type ratios excluding the QE.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Orry

In the East the Russians will be a little more sensible they will be beaten back by the Germans but not surrounded. They will do a little better against the AH's and the Ottomans. Their Black Sea fleet will have lost more ships but had success against the Turkish fleet. (Captain Vladimir Trubetskoy will do better) The Ottoman forces will be more focused on this front especially as the British have not conducted any attacks against the Dardanelles.

This will make Bulgaria less likely to join the CP's and with Greece to be more likely to join the allies.

The British action would be against defences that have not been upgraded and which are not expecting the attack.

British landing forces will be used to help neutralise the forts - at least one landing will be massacred with a Btn being cut to pieces by machine guns. However the defenders will be no where near as large a force as in OTL. And yes this is a Allies do better TL so the luck will 'tend' to run with the brits.

What I am trying to do is see how far I can push matters without it becoming ASB. The Italians are not going to burst through the mountains - the Allied fleet will lose ships but when they do they are going to be 'lucky' that none of them block the main channel....

I know the outcome I am looking for - just trying to tweak events to make it happen without getting to many brick bats cast at me...

Logistics.

The Russian can't do better against the Ottomans early in the war. The logistics for exploiting gains is just too bad. I did a TL where the Ottomans had spare units sitting around for most of the war. You just can't really get many more units to the Russian lines by the Ottomans. I don't think you can realistically get what you want here.

Now Bulgaria not entering the war looks very doable to me.

I am not familiar with the upgrades, exactly what guns/mines/etc did the Ottomans add in the December 1914 to March 1915 time frame IOTL? I will probably have to read the TL to see what you are getting at, but I just don't see the navy being able to force the straights. My research indicated it was just not that close a battle, despite Churchill postwar PR. And he deserves credit for image management.

No landing directly under gun fire. It is just not done if it can be avoided. I can not over emphasis how unlikely/profound a change in thinking this will be. The pattern back then was clear, you landed outside of any heavy naval artillery, brought in siege artillery, and slowly reduce the fortress. And the UK has a some serious issues.

1) They lack quality land base siege artillery.

2) They lack modern experience doing this under fire.

3) There are not D-Day like landcraft in numbers. An operation like this means bringing in freighters right behind the capital ships, unloading troops into whaling boats and rowing to shore. The area is tiny with huge number of ships. The Ottomans guns lots of older guns off older ships as shore batteries. It will be a slaughter.

4) It also sounds like you have a multi-corp attack from Egypt. The Ottomans had a lot of spies in Egypt. They likely see it leave Egypt. They likely know where it is going before it leaves Egypt.

5) Where are you getting these extra divisions from? To have even a slim shot of them living, you will need them in Egypt by January 1, 1915 to even have a small chance of it working. It is very hard to find the units in the order of battle that are ready to fight.

I can't say it would never work, but 99 times of 100, you are just slaughtering the UK army in the water and on the beaches. After Sealion, this is clearly the least likely amphibious operation to work that I have seen on this board. Your don't land under direct fire unless you have too. IOTL, they never silenced all or even most of the Ottoman guns. It just the smaller guns were not doing a lot of damage to the Entente ships. Here these smaller, often more rapidly firing guns will be slaughtering huge numbers of men. A single shell can kill an entire regiment with a little luck, and with the numbers of shells fire, there will be lots of luckier shells.

And then once you are a shore, you have to take all the guns on both sides of the water, or you can't resupply. Did you plan to invade the Asian side too? While things can go perfect, lets just look at what happens if things go average.

1) You will not be able to do days of mine clearing without giving away surprise. So dawn one day, you will simply have the mine clearing boats trying to clear mines as the capital ships shoot the coastal forts as the men climb into to the whale boats. It is hard to quantify/estimate the losses, but it could easily be over 50% of the infantry. This has Kerch written all over it.

2) You will have lots of ships bumping into mines. Lot heavier losses than OTL.

3) OK, so lets be optimistic, you go 70% of the men to shore. BTW, we are looking at Somme like death but not wounding rates. Most of the men hit in the water will die. At D-Day, some USA ships had to go back for ammo and we had a huge number of ships compared to this event. Likely you are losing your naval support by noon (lack of ammo). By nightfall, it is guaranteed to be gone. So you have 4-12 hours to capture almost all the guns, or most will be operational by dawn. If they are operation by dawn, you can't resupply until you silence forts again. But now we have have the capital ships reload at sea. Probably impossible. The likely have to go to a friendly port.

4) Over the next few days while the naval support is gone, the Ottomans will rush in reinforcements. You likely lose the entire army. Remember to get food or ammo to you men, you are using whaling boats and freighters under direct fire.

It is hard to find a plan this crazy that worked. Japan took Singapore in 1942, and that was a lot less risker than this.

[Orry]

Exact details of improvments to defences between November and March are hard to find - most of my books are more concerned with the Western and Eastern fronts......

I do have sources that quote both Ottoman and German sources that talk about many preperations being made even in the 4 weeks between Febuary and March

Von Sanders noted "The British allowed us four good weeks of respite for all this work before their great disembarkation... This respite just sufficed for the most indispensable measures to be taken." Roads were constructed, small boats assembled to carry troops and equipment across the narrows, beaches were wired and makeshift mines constructed from torpedo-heads. Trenches and gun emplacements were dug along the beaches.

Other sources talk about extra minefields being laid after the November attacks - additional troops being deployed, more ammunition being moved into the area etc.

The Russians doing better against the Ottomans means at sea - hence the reference to Captain Vladimir Trubetskoy.

I expect that additional French troops will be available because calling off Plan 17 17 days early saves a lot of manpower. My plan is that both side will have a higher respect for the power of the Machine Gun (the main nations anyway) having taken on board some of the lessons of the Russian-Japanese war. The Germans will still be dug in on French and Belgium soil but not quite as far in as in OTL.

This is a Allies get things right TL - so they are going to be suffering less casulaties and the CP are going to suffer more and no that does not mean Berlin by Christmas.

Its still very much just a barebones time line at the minute - but I am aware that this is one area where people will jump on it so I am trying to see what knock on effects I need to make this work.

I need the OE to be more focused on other areas - possibly to listen less to the Germans - who can spare less munitions and resources in TTL as they are doing worse on the main fronts whilst the Allies can spare more for this sideshow as they are doing better.

If I could justify getting the Italians in earlier I would not have them making so many head on attacks into the Mountains - maybe sparing a alpine division to help here.

In OTL the allies flew aircraft over the strait to observe gunfire and spot mines again these will do a little better.

I am looking to move it from Impossible to unlikely - unlikely can happen with some luck - impossible is when people start to flame a TL........

[sharlin]

The Russians certinally had a Black Sea Fleet and it was active throughout the war. For the most part its Pre-dreadnoughts were the most active, operating together as a 5 strong squadron to save them not being picked off by the Goben and they fought several very inconclusive battles with her and the one time the Goben ran into one of the Soviet Dreadnoughts the Goben was bloody lucky to get away.

The Impertritsa Mariya chased the Goben for several hours and was able to straddle at 23000 yards but could not land a hit whilst being able to keep up with the slowed (and in dire need of an overhaul) battlecruiser.

[Orry]

LOL this thread just came up in a google search for 'naval actions black sea 1914' on the first page.....

[FlyingDutchman]

Iirc Massie thinks a navy only campaign could have worked, considering that Keyes thought so, even after it was halted.
It's in 'castles of steel' i think.

[Orry]

The fate of the Goeben. (Change to OTL where bold starts) Possible?

18th November 1914 - sailed to intercept Russian Fleet that had bombarded Tredizond on the 17th. Engaged with the 'Evstafi - hit by a 12" shell whilst the 'Evstafi' was hit 4 times. Goeben and Breslau disengaged when the 'Ioann Zlatoust', 'Pantelemon', 'Rotisalv' and 'Tri Sviatitelia' came up.

As the Goeben sails away a Squadron of Novik-class destroyers close for a torpedo attack. One of the Destroyers is destroyed in a catastropic explosion and another is badly damages and left crippled and taking on water. The Goeban turns away and has a torpedo explode in her wake close enough to damage her propellers. She ends up with a minor leak and extreme vibration when making more than 14 Knots. Initially she is able to continue to out run the Older Russian Battleships but has to slow as water continues to come in and the vibration becomes more pronounced. The Goeban as 10 modern 11" guns and is more than a match for any two or maybe three of the Russians but she ends up fighting all five battleships with their combined 12 * 12 " whilst the Destroyers look for the opportunity to close for another attack. By the end of the fight Breslau has escaped, Goeben and Evstafi and 2 Novik class Destroyers are sunk, 2 more destroyers and the Tri Svaititelia are badly damaged with minor damage to the other battleships. Tri Svaititelia is taken under tow and will be out of action for the next 8 months the two Destroyers have to be scutled.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Orry

Exact details of improvments to defences between November and March are hard to find - most of my books are more concerned with the Western and Eastern fronts......

Yea, I had that issue too on the Ottomans. Finding source on the Ottomans is quite hard, I suspect many of the records have been lost or not translated into English. Unfortunately, people who are very passionate on the Ottomans tend to get banned on this board eventually.

You should try to write a battle on the backwater Ottoman areas like Mecca. I was down to looking at Modern maps, and going, here looks like a good place to fight. Africa was almost like writing pure fiction.

I do have sources that quote both Ottoman and German sources that talk about many preperations being made even in the 4 weeks between Febuary and March

Von Sanders noted "The British allowed us four good weeks of respite for all this work before their great disembarkation... This respite just sufficed for the most indispensable measures to be taken." Roads were constructed, small boats assembled to carry troops and equipment across the narrows, beaches were wired and makeshift mines constructed from torpedo-heads. Trenches and gun emplacements were dug along the beaches.

Other sources talk about extra minefields being laid after the November attacks - additional troops being deployed, more ammunition being moved into the area etc.

This sounds like the infantry doing basic 4 weeks digging in. It sounds like all the coastal naval artillery forces will still be there from OTL. The mine fields will be there since they have not been cleared. The water part will be at least as hard as OTL.

What you are trying to do is the amphibious equivalent of a bayonet charge on a machine gun nest. While it occassionally works, it the last thing you try. If you are going to have the Entente achieve complete surprise, you will be better off using something closer to the original amphibious landing plan, just land on more beaches. Almost without exception, amphibious landings are not done under direct fire. British landed on long Island, not NYC. Tsingtao. D-Day went to Normandy, not Calais. Torch chose the weaker defenses. Same in Sicily. Same in Falkland Islands. Again, it is like a bayonet charge on machine gun nests. It is only done if it has to be done and there is no air power, mortars, grenades, artillery or any other way to do it. Simple logic. Plan A: Get all you men ashore without losses, get organized and then attack the flanks. Plan B: Lose many of you men in the water, attack while disorganized into the teeth of the defenses.

I expect that additional French troops will be available because calling off Plan 17 17 days early saves a lot of manpower. My plan is that both side will have a higher respect for the power of the Machine Gun (the main nations anyway) having taken on board some of the lessons of the Russian-Japanese war. The Germans will still be dug in on French and Belgium soil but not quite as far in as in OTL.

Ok, you would actually be using troops pulled from Colonies. From memory, about 1/4 to 1/2 of the active French army was not in France. These troops have to be loaded on to ships anyway, so why not just have them unload in Egypt, not Southern France. It is logistically a lot harder to pull units out of France and then be shipping new units in at the same time. Also look at the Indian Corp used on Western Front. They are likely choice, since I think they went through Suez anyway. Easy order to change. Armies often take the logistically easy way.

Its still very much just a barebones time line at the minute - but I am aware that this is one area where people will jump on it so I am trying to see what knock on effects I need to make this work.

I need the OE to be more focused on other areas - possibly to listen less to the Germans - who can spare less munitions and resources in TTL as they are doing worse on the main fronts whilst the Allies can spare more for this sideshow as they are doing better.

To apply more pressure to Russia, just have the Tsar not transfer the troops from the Ottoman front. IOTL, after the losses of the 2nd army, about half the men were sent north. This is why I like the idea of doing Plan 16 and less aggressive attack by 1st and 2nd Army. It saves a second POD. You can still have the Germans with a no better position than OTL in the West, and still have the A-H suffer greatly. Now to be fair, you should have the A-H and Germans not lose as much land as OTL. It is how things work in WW1, if you apply a lot of pressure to one location, their is an opposite benefit somewhere else.

You seem to be writing a Gallipoli done right wins the war, so you get a cleaner TL to write if you focus on fewer changes. A little better on the East for German/A-H, the same lines in France but with many fewer French casualties, and a decisive win near Istanbul will give a much easier to write TL. If you don't watch the butterflies, you will get a TL like mine where the side theaters in many ways hide the main POD. A lot is what you want to write.

If I could justify getting the Italians in earlier I would not have them making so many head on attacks into the Mountains - maybe sparing a alpine division to help here.

In OTL the allies flew aircraft over the strait to observe gunfire and spot mines again these will do a little better.

I am looking to move it from Impossible to unlikely - unlikely can happen with some luck - impossible is when people start to flame a TL........

I would leave Italy the same. It is a lot of work to bring in another major power early/late. So many changes come from this simple change. I think you can get you big win near Istanbul, but I think it will take over a year and involve over half the British Army. And it is really, really hard to get anyone to win by the middle of 1916. And if you get into late 1916, it is already too late for the Tsar.

Looking at your POD, I see a 1917 win being a lot more likely. Now you are really making a mess of some things like the UK finances in many ways, assuming you plan to send a lot of extra supplies to Russia. You could easily end up saving A-H or at least butterfly the fall into something very different from OTL. Lenin was so unlikely IOTL, you have something different in Russia. The land fight in Western Turkey will still be long and hard well after the initial successes.

A key point. Most of the time in WW1 ATL where you maim one opponent, you end up with a lesser backdoor buff to the other opponents. I did an ATL where the UK focused on a knock Germany out first plan. The side effect will be an Ottoman Empire that survives until today. I also created Greater Bulgaria in the process. You can easily do the some thing in reverse, create a stronger post war German or post war Poland or post war A-H.

[Cook]

Originally Posted by LordIreland

And yet, I still come back to my original point, he was referring to a commander with a bit more derring do, not a direct historical analogy.

All that your original point does is highlight that you do not have a grasp of the two situations and the vast difference between them.

The Battle of Mobile Bay involved a US navy fleet running the gap between two forts defending the entrance to the bay, there was a period of hazard while the ships passed through the narrowest part of the straits, less than four miles wide; there would only be a short period when the ships were in danger before they’d be through the straits and into Mobile Bay. When Farragut uttered the memorable but entirely melodramatic line “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” he was already in line in narrowest part of the straits, he simply had no choice; had he tried to stop the fleet or turn them about they would have been turning through the minefield anyway and at point blank range of the forts guns anyway.

In the other case there is simply no comparison; the 18th of March was not an attempt to run the straits; the British knew that running the straits was impracticable and had known since the forts defending the straits had been upgraded several years earlier. They were only too well aware of the defences to the straits since it had been them that had advised the Turks on the upgrading of those defences. Unlike the entrance to Mobile Bay which is narrow at a single point before widening, the Dardanelles are 38 miles long and never more than four miles wide. At Channakale, in the stretch called The Narrows, it is only three quarters of a mile wide. Rather than a pair of forts defending the straits (as at Mobile) there were twenty-one major forts defending the lower end of the straits, nine additional gun batteries in redoubts on both sides of the straits at Kephez Bay, as well as numerous Howitzers sited in valleys and re-entrants on both the mainland and the peninsular where ships’s guns could not reach them but where they could deliver plunging fire into the straits.

Then of course there are the mine fields, ten of which were known to the British from reports by Charles Palmer, the British vice-consul at Channakale prior to his expulsion, and from his agents afterwards. Sea mines in World War One were not the primitive things of the Amercian Civil War era, which had contained black powder detonated by contact heads that were prone to rusting out, by 1914 they were capable of sinking the largest warship afloat, something that was proved when HMS Audacious was sunk by a mine in October 1914.

The 18th of March was, as already stated, not an attempt to run the straits. It was instead a methodical attempt to smash the defences of the straits stage by stage; the battleships would enter the straits in line abreast and advance short of the first mine field, they would then use their guns to suppress the fire from the forts, allowing mine sweepers to move forward of then and clear the first mine field, the next line of ships would then advance in line abreast between the ships firing and form a new line, suppressing the forts further up the straits while the mine sweepers advanced to the next minefield and allowing the guns of the ships to smash the forts and redoubts to rubble from point blank range. At the end of the process the defences of the straits would be completely destroyed and the fleet would steam through to the Sea of Marmara and on to Istanbul. That was the plan, such that it was. In fact it never had a hope of succeeding and Admiral Limpus said so before the first attempt; even if the guns for the forts could be suppressed by fire from the ship’s guns, something Limpus doubted, the ships would not even be in a position to fire on the forts north of The Narrows until they reached Channakale itself, meaning there was no way for them to suppress the fire coming from those forts and protect the minesweepers until after the minesweepers had already cleared the two minefields in front of Channakale; the minesweepers would have to work totally exposed to direct fire from nine forts between Kilid Bahr and Nagara Baba, all of which would be shielded from the battleships by the heads at Kilid Bahr until the minefields had been cleared! And aside from that, the plan had no capacity for destroying the howitzers; they were out of line of fire from the ships guns entirely.

Originally Posted by Orry

Exact details of improvments to defences between November and March are hard to find

There are quite a number of good books concerning the Turkish defences, the two I mentioned earlier (36 Days by Hugh Dolan and Gallipoli: The Ottoman Campaign by Edward Erickson) are very good. Erickson’s book is in fact excellent, going into meticulous detail concerning the defences of the Peninsular from the First Balkans War onwards.

Originally Posted by mattep74

Didnt Russia have a Black sea fleet? Why not try to coordinate an attack and have Russia send 1-2 divisions to land in the north?

The Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus was defended by further forts and lines of sea mines. The northern defences were every bit as thorough as the southern defences; the Turks had been fighting the Russians off and on for much of the previous century. The Tsar’s Black Sea fleet was neither large nor powerful; when the battlecruiser Goeben reached Istambul in August 1914 it became the most powerful warship in the Black Sea.

A Russian amphibious landing by 1-2 Divisions near the Bosporus would have been crushed by the twelve divisions of the Turkish First Army defending Turkish Thrace and the six divisions of the Turkish Second Army defending Istanbul itself.

[LordIreland]

Originally Posted by Cook

All that your original point does is highlight that you do not have a grasp of the two situations and the vast difference between them.

My dear fellow, I am very aware of the differences between the two situations. However, your lengthy battle descriptions indicate that you have not picked up on the subtly of what was being suggested. Allow me to explain it to you:

It was earlier suggested that the British and French admirals were too timid. The suggestion was made that perhaps had they been more aggressive things might have been different. At no point was it suggested that the Brtish and French should behave in the exact same manner as Admiral Farragut and lash themselves to the mast yelling about torpedoes and such like. The intimation was that had they been more aggressive in their handling of the battles of the Dardanelles, would things have been different?

You have managed to inadvertantly present a good case refuting that suggestion, what a pity that you had to be insulting to me in the process!

[BlondieBC]

Cook is right the original plan was a poor idea.

The most likely outcome of throwing more resources into the naval attack or having more daring officers is just much higher Entente capital ship losses with a very slim outside chance of a large win. The equivalent idea in WW2 would be FDR insisting that D-Day occur on the heaviest defended portion of the Atlantic Wall (Calais?) in 1943. Sure, it might have worked and shortened the war, but in 99 out of 100 ATL, it makes things worse. Churchill's concept for the battle is every bit as crazy as the idea to land multiple corp in the Baltic in WW1. Now sometimes crazy ideas work, but it is rare.

Now I understand the desire to write a Entente win in these battles. Some of the ideas of achieving surprise and using more land units have merit along with cost elsewhere in the war. Instead of using a highly unlikely idea to be approved (Have freighters try to unload 10,000's of men into whale boats in the two mile gap between BB dueling with coastal batteries) and then have the highly unlikely result of it actually working. Why not take a military sounder idea and a simpler idea?

Have the Entente use more forces and land at more beaches, each outside of the range of the guns. You can use the extra divisions for either more/larger landings in Gallipoli or on the Asiatic coast. Or Both. We know the Ottomans were reinforcing the land units once they figure out the attack was coming, so by achieving surprise there will be fewer Ottoman regiments and they will be less prepared. More Entente forces perhaps with more training time in Egypt and fewer Ottoman forces mean the landings should gain a lot more land on the first day and in the first week. If the Entente keep throwing forces into this meat grinder, then they likely eventually win. Even though with the terrain and the Ottomans ability to reinforce, it is probably over a year to clear both sides for the entire length and to allow freighter to regularly sail to Russia, which was the point of the entire operation.

Despite Churchill's PR campaign post war, the operation was clearly a mistake IOTL. It lengthen the war, increase Entente casualties, and cancelling Gallipoli is one of the few ways to easily help the Entente win faster. Here are some of the conceptual issues with the operation.

1) Calais is much more important to the UK than the straights. In most scenarios, you are effectively pulling forces from Flanders which will mean the Germans take more land. Even just losing Ypres means Dunkirk and Harcourt are unusable as logistical areas. Calais will be subject to regular heavy artillery attacks. If you lose another city, such as Harcourt, you risk effectively splitting the western front into two peaces.

2) Calais is easy to resupply. The straights are hard.

3) The straights are the easiest place for Ottoman logistics.

4) The terrain is terrible for both the land and sea portions of the attack on the straights. Flanders is good territory to attack by comparison.

5) You have to clear both sides the entire way to resupply the Russians. If you achieve 80% of your objectives, you don't have a major benefit. This is really an all or nothing attack. You win decisively, or you have a fiasco. If you use the forces in Calais, even a stalled and bloody attack helps the Entente.

6) Even if you do this, it makes an ideal location for U-boats to operate. It is a great bottleneck where you can freely sink any ship you see with worry about upsetting important neutrals.

The Entente came very close to breaking the German lines in the west in 1915. This is why the attack in the east was halted by the Germans. If you don't have the second and perhaps 3rd POD and 4th in the TL, you get a situation where the Germans end up with more land near Calais and the Germans get to pound the collapsing Russian army for weeks to months more. The Russians had been retreating for close to 4 straight months, and if not pressured in the West so heavily, the Germans likely keep up the attack. Russia will be in much, much worse shape than OTL. Yes, you may get the Ottoman ammo factory and some supplies to Russia, but only at the very real risk of the Germans getting Calais or some other point on the English Channel or the Russians retreating several hundred more miles in 1915. Both present huge strategic problems for operations in 1916. The RN will be dealing with U-boats and small surface ship based on ports in the English channel. The Dover barrage will have to be moved west to another bottleneck. You lose the ability to use quite a few French ports. If the Russians retreat farther east, you get a worse food situation, worse morale, and a more fragile government.

The proposed TL is really one where the French and Russians do much better against the Germans, enough to greatly shorten the war. Then the UK does a large blunder to squander much of the advantage. Multiple POD TL can be quite good and quite popular. It is just important to understand what each POD is likely to do. POD that to some extent cancel out each other can make for fascinating TL.