Keynes' Cruisers

[Astrodragon]

Do you need to actually need to convoy merchants that can do even 17Kts (or especially 21Kt) would you not simply send them solo as long as you did not fear surface raiders early on?

That's exactly what they did.
Basically the chance of getting torpedoed if you can make 20kt is far less than that of being in a slower escorted convoy.

Ideally you want a convoy making a true 19kt (like the fleet did), but not many WW2 ships are that fast

 

[fester]

January 2, 1942 2343 northeast of Tripoli


HMS Manxman and Welshman were finished. The four light cruisers of the covering force were waiting for them as undersized mine-laying cruisers sped back to the relative safety of the waters near Benghazi. This was the seventh minefield laid by the two fast cruisers since the front had stabilized near Ras Lanuf. Many of the mines were swept, more sank harmlessly to the bottom. Three mines however had done their duty, claiming a pair of coasters and an Italian destroyer.


Fiji, Hermione, Euralysus and Glasgow with four destroyers maintained a watch as the minelayers passed behind them at a steady thirty five knots. The four cruisers of the covering force advanced to the west at 20 knots. Their protective mission was over and now the could hunt for Italian ships. The destroyers spread out in front of them and radars probed the darkness for targets. Navigators kept constant track of the tightly congested waters constrained by British and Italian minefields as look-outs watched for surprises in the dark seas.

Two hours into the sweep and only sixty miles from Tripoli, the radar aboard Fiji registered a target. Thirty four thousand yards away was a small Italian convoy of two freighters covered by a light cruiser and a pair of second class destroyers. They were advancing along a known clear lane. Luigi Cadorna’s look-outs were unable to see the threat coming through the deep night’s darkness.

Both of the six inch gun British cruisers tracked on the Italian cruiser. The two Dido class cruisers chose the corresponding Italian destroyer. The destroyers would chase the freighters.

As the cruisers commenced firing at 17,000 yards, the Italian ships were shocked. Radio calls were sent out even as the crews ran to battle stations. The first Italian counter-fire started just as the British cruisers scored their radar directed straddles. Glasgow landed half a ladder pattern on the Italian cruiser starting fires and killing gun crews as a shell exploded inside of the aft-most turret.

Fires had started on the Italian cruiser and her crew ran forward and backwards to fight fires and insurer that power was still going to the turrets. The three remaining turrets were throwing shells at the British force but the brutal math of war was inescapable. Twenty four six inch guns directed by radar were pounding on a ship with only six guns reliant upon visual direction during the darkest part of the night.

An hour later, the British cruiser force turned for home at twenty seven knots. Hermione had been hit half a dozen times by light shells. She would need a few weeks in the yard to make good her damage while the rest of the force was barely touched by the Italians.

 

[fester]

January 3, 1942 Darwin, Australia

USS Pensacola led her convoy that had originally landed at Brisbane into Darwin’s harbor. The merchant ships carried a powerful brigade task force if it had time to sort itself out and integrate all of the various sub-units into a coherent whole. So far the sub-units were still distinctive groups and gaggles without the time nor the experience to fight as a singular entity. The equipment would stay on the ships even as the men could unload for a few days. The first six hours ashore would be physical fitness training and then the infantry regiment and combat engineers were being seconded as a labor force for the fighter strips being built just outside of the town. The tankers and the aviators would be working as stevedores loading and unloading the coasters that were shuttling back and forth from the Dutch East Indies.

 

[Marquis]

Mark down a couple of Italian destroyers and a cruiser. Good good.

 

[merlin]

Mark down a couple of Italian destroyers and a cruiser. Good good.

I did wonder, because @fester didn't write apart from slight RN damage what the result of the battle were!

 

[fester]

I did wonder, because @fester didn't write apart from slight RN damage what the result of the battle were!

I thought it was obvious. The Italians got crushed by vastly superior nunbers, throw weight and radar.

 

[Marquis]

I thought it was obvious. The Italians got crushed by vastly superior nunbers, throw weight and radar.

And sadly, the Italians never - even when ludicrously outnumbering and outgunning British forces - never managed to inflict catastrophic defeats of the level of Matapan. Even fought to a draw, a British convoy would be slipping through at the RM would go 'Well, we've made an appropriate offensive gesture. Off home for spaghetti and medals'.

 

[sloreck]

I assume all or most of the transports were transferred to the realm of Davey Jones

 

[Driftless]

And sadly, the Italians never - even when ludicrously outnumbering and outgunning British forces - never managed to inflict catastrophic defeats of the level of Matapan. Even fought to a draw, a British convoy would be slipping through at the RM would go 'Well, we've made an appropriate offensive gesture. Off home for spaghetti and medals'.

One of the (many) things I've enjoyed with this timeline is that the Italian forces on sea and ground have been portrayed as competent and frequently daring. Historically, as I understand it, while their top leadership was often suspect, their individual warriors were as good as any other nations. Some of their equipment was really good, and too much was not...

 

[Ian Henderson]

One of the (many) things I've enjoyed with this timeline is that the Italian forces on sea and ground have been portrayed as competent and frequently daring. Historically, as I understand it, while their top leadership was often suspect, their individual warriors were as good as any other nations. Some of their equipment was really good, and too much was not...

I point I first saw made on the now sadly unavailable Bayonet Strength website: is it really a mark against the Italians that many of them were in no hurry to die for Mussolini's ambitions? Brave and skilled, sure, but the fascist fanatics were fairly thin on the ground, and that has to be a good thing.

 

[Zheng He]

I point I first saw made on the now sadly unavailable Bayonet Strength website: is it really a mark against the Italians that many of them were in no hurry to die for Mussolini's ambitions? Brave and skilled, sure, but the fascist fanatics were fairly thin on the ground, and that has to be a good thing.

So they were brave but not stupid. That's a plus...

 

[jsb]

sadly unavailable Bayonet Strength website

This one? https://web.archive.org/web/20160425143250/http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/General/site_map.htm ?

 

[mudhead]

I assume all or most of the transports were transferred to the realm of Davey Jones

ABC in his autobiography A Sailor's Odyssey paid tribute to the Italian Merchant Marine, who stuck at it despite terrible losses.

 

[fester]

And sadly, the Italians never - even when ludicrously outnumbering and outgunning British forces - never managed to inflict catastrophic defeats of the level of Matapan. Even fought to a draw, a British convoy would be slipping through at the RM would go 'Well, we've made an appropriate offensive gesture. Off home for spaghetti and medals'.

Please see Story 0323 https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-64#post-14257795

An Italian cruiser patrol overwhelmed a British cruiser force.

Or the Italian bombardment of Suda Bay.

Or the sinking of York, Penelope or Valiant

Or the raid on Alexandria

Nope, no Italian victories.

 

[Marquis]

One of the (many) things I've enjoyed with this timeline is that the Italian forces on sea and ground have been portrayed as competent and frequently daring. Historically, as I understand it, while their top leadership was often suspect, their individual warriors were as good as any other nations. Some of their equipment was really good, and too much was not...

Eh, I was watching an Italian documentary on Cape Matapan. The Italian crews had never been trained on life-saving procedures (just in case you're stupid enough to let an entire RN battleline, carrier and all, within 4000yds of your cruiser squadron), and when everything went to hell, they responded, on - I think - Fiume, by smashing open the wine cabinets and getting drunk as the ship foundered. Of course, what does alcohol do to your blood? Lowers its resistance to a fall in temperature.

Let's not mention that after one of the clashes in the Med, that the Italians actually lost several destroyers. In a storm.

Please see Story 0323 https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-64#post-14257795

An Italian cruiser patrol overwhelmed a British cruiser force.

Or the Italian bombardment of Suda Bay.

Or the sinking of York, Penelope or Valiant

Or the raid on Alexandria

Nope, no Italian victories.

Italian Frogmen and their attack boats were good (ish, they once tried raiding Malta and got massacred). Well-handled, with the element of surprise, they did damage beyond their weight. Ajax served until after the war before being scrapped. Valiant we wrote off by some cock-up involving a floating drydock.

York got done in by an explosive motorboat (probably not total-constructive loss but we had to blow her up as Crete was overrun. Penelope was done in by a U-Boat.

The Regia Marina's surface forces failed to inflict any catastrophic defeats on the RN. The special forces dealt some heavy blows, but otherwise, the Italians relied heavily on Germany.

Med Casualties:
Barham - U-Boat.
Ark Royal - U-Boat.
Eagle - U-Boat.
Avenger - U-Boat.
Neptune - Italian Minefield.
Calypso - Italian Sub.
Coventry - German Air Attack/Scuttled.
Cairo - Italian Sub.
Calcutta - German Air Attack.
Galatea - U-Boat.
Penelope - U-Boat.
Southampton - German Air Attack/Scuttled.
Manchester - Italian Torpedo Boats/Scuttled.
Gloucester - German Air Attack.
Hermione - U-Boat.
Bonaventure - Italian Submarine.
Naiad - U-Boat.
Spartan - German Glide Bomb.
Fiji - German Air Attack.
York - Disabled by Italian explosive boats, scuttled (raised and scrapped).

6 cruisers done in by Italy. None by heavy surface units of the RM. Asymmetric warfare seems to have been their only means. 10 cruisers, 3 carriers & Barham by the Germans.

A rough count as there's no easy way of doing this lists sunk, during the war between Italy and Britain, about 5 heavy cruisers lost (1 raised and broken up), 1 armoured cruiser scuttled, about 6 light cruisers lost, including 1 to a heavy surface unit (HMAS Sydney), and several to destroyers. Not to mention 1 battleship written off in Taranto by naval airpower.

AND, let us not forget that the RN's Med fleet sailed a battleship, a battlecruiser, a fleet carrier, a cruiser and 10 destroyers right up the middle of Benny the Moose's bloody Mare Nostrum and spent two hours parked off Genoa harbour, shelling the city, and then turned right around and sailed back to Gibraltar - without interception by so much as dinghy or a glider, let alone something resembling an airstrike or a battle fleet.

I rest my case M'lud.

 

[Unknown]

@fester, hope Elaine avoids going to a certain Boston nightspot on a certain night in November of 1942 (two hints: the initials are C and G and it was Boston's worst fire in terms of lives lost)...

 

[sloreck]

An uncle of mine was in that fire and got out safely. A few days later he was called to the police station where he retrieved his officer's hat (he was in the army) which had been retrieved from a claok room undamaged except for some smoke smell.

 

[RyderWest]

@fester, hope Elaine avoids going to a certain Boston nightspot on a certain night in November of 1942 (two hints: the initials are C and G and it was Boston's worst fire in terms of lives lost)...

The infamous Coconut Grove fire of November 28, 1942, right? 492 deaths?

And the owner, Barney Welansky being a cheap shortcutter, even for his time.

 

[Unknown]

Yeah, that's what I meant; to this day, all clubs in Boston have outward-opening doors and no establishment is named Coconut Grove...

Boston College was to hold their victory party there for their undefeated season; however, Holy Cross ruined those plans by beating them 55-20, luckily for the BC team and their supporters, as it turned out...

 

[RyderWest]

Yeah, that's what I meant; to this day, all clubs in Boston have outward-opening doors and no establishment is named Coconut Grove...

Boston College was to hold their victory party there for their undefeated season; however, Holy Cross ruined those plans by beating them 55-20, luckily for the BC team and their supporters, as it turned out...

They got unexpectedly lucky..... they didn't die.