TL-191: Yankee Joe - Uniforms, Weapons, and Vehicles of the U.S. Armed Forces

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Soundwave3591 said:
I'd imagine the bulk of Great Lakes Naval assets would be Coast Guard ships like the USCGC Tampa:
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Impossible, the US Coast Guard probably does not exist, it was not formed until 1915 OTL, and forming it in a war is not likely to happen. Most likely the majority of warships would be small, shallow draft destroyers/large torpedo boats. Not as big as the USN's four stackers, but something more like the older Truxtun class, but modernized, or the British Cricket class, suported by the larger ships of the Great Lakes battleships and maybe some small cruisers and semi-submersible Torpedo boats, plus the inevitable converted civilian vessels at wartime
 
S. Marlowski

S. Marlowski

A26.png

An A-26A Invader of the Quebecois Air Force's 12th Assault Wing, circa 1954.

The A-26 Invader was a follow-on design to the popular and successful A-20 Havoc light bomber, which this design would be the first to incorporate the innovative laminar flow wing design as well as a couple of remote controlled turrets. The model would first take flight in 1942 and would prove to be a good aircraft, and by June of 1944, the plane would begin to enter operational service as a tactical ground support aircraft. In the closing weeks of the Second Great War, the Invader would prove to a worthy successor to the earlier Havoc, though that plane would too serve on to the very end of the conflict. Throughout the late 1940s, the USAF would re-equip much of it's tactical air arm fleet with the A-26 (both the solid nose A and the glass "bombardier" nose B models.) The USAF would use the A-26 for frontline use until 1963 when they got replaced by new Turbo Bomber designs and would soldier on in US service with the National Guard until 1973. Almost every nation that was a member of the WATO alliance had operated the A-26 in it's air force, notably Alaska, Quebec, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Texas, and etc, with Colombia being the last operator of the type, retiring them in 1981.
 

Soundwave3591

RamscoopRaider said:
Impossible, the US Coast Guard probably does not exist, it was not formed until 1915 OTL, and forming it in a war is not likely to happen. Most likely the majority of warships would be small, shallow draft destroyers/large torpedo boats. Not as big as the USN's four stackers, but something more like the older Truxtun class, but modernized, or the British Cricket class, suported by the larger ships of the Great Lakes battleships and maybe some small cruisers and semi-submersible Torpedo boats, plus the inevitable converted civilian vessels at wartime
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I meant that in that they'd be ships LIKE the Tampa, not that they'd be Coast Guard ships.
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Soundwave3591 said:
I meant that in that they'd be ships LIKE the Tampa, not that they'd be Coast Guard ships.
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Unlikely, Tampa has a hull optimized for seakeeping, which means she has a deep draft for her tonnage and lacks speed and torpedoes, or armor and heavy guns, so she can neither fight a proper coast defense ship, nor avoid action with one. Tampa is a coast guard cutter, which means a patrol vessel that is not supposed to fight enemy warships but overawe smugglers. You don't use vessels like that for the mainstay of your fleet when you expect to fight a major naval power

A Great Lakes Fleet would probably have
  1. Coast Defense Ships/Great Lakes Battleships as the centerpiece/mobile artillery, as at the time only heavy guns can really stop an invasion dead right there or slam one through
  2. (possible) monitors for shore bombardment
  3. (possible) small cruisers for scouting
  4. Small destroyers to screen the Heavies/launch torpedo attacks, serve as maids of all work
  5. Torpedo boats for attacking heavies
  6. (Superior and Ontario) Possibly small subs
  7. (Erie and Huron) Semi-submersible torpedo boats
  8. Converted civilian ships as gunboats/patrol craft
 

Soundwave3591

RamscoopRaider said:
Unlikely, Tampa has a hull optimized for seakeeping, which means she has a deep draft for her tonnage and lacks speed and torpedoes, or armor and heavy guns, so she can neither fight a proper coast defense ship, nor avoid action with one. Tampa is a coast guard cutter, which means a patrol vessel that is not supposed to fight enemy warships but overawe smugglers. You don't use vessels like that for the mainstay of your fleet when you expect to fight a major naval power

A Great Lakes Fleet would probably have
  1. Coast Defense Ships/Great Lakes Battleships as the centerpiece/mobile artillery, as at the time only heavy guns can really stop an invasion dead right there or slam one through
  2. (possible) monitors for shore bombardment
  3. (possible) small cruisers for scouting
  4. Small destroyers to screen the Heavies/launch torpedo attacks, serve as maids of all work
  5. Torpedo boats for attacking heavies
  6. (Superior and Ontario) Possibly small subs
  7. (Erie and Huron) Semi-submersible torpedo boats
  8. Converted civilian ships as gunboats/patrol craft
Click to expand...
Have you ever been on the Great Lakes? good Seakeeping would be an asset, not a liability.

and what makes the difference between a cutter and a "converted civilian ship as gunboats/patrol craft?"
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Soundwave3591 said:
Have you ever been on the Great Lakes? good Seakeeping would be an asset, not a liability.

and what makes the difference between a cutter and a "converted civilian ship as gunboats/patrol craft?"
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Yes, nasty as they are, they aren't North Atlantic in Winter Nasty or the Screaming Sixties. The record wave height for the Great Lakes, set in 2017 is 28.8 feet, that doesn't technically qualify as a storm under the Beaufort Scale and doesn't even get a storm warning for mariners in the US. When seakeeping is more than needed and comes at the expense of draft or speed, for a littoral combatant, which anything on the Great Lakes is, it is a liability as it constrains operations. Note the US tended to optimize for speed over seakeeping on vessels smaller than cruisers until the 1980's

One you have to actually pay money for in peacetime, the other you don't have to
 
S. Marlowski

S. Marlowski

boeing-b-17f.png

A Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress bomber from the 344th Bomb Wing during the Richmond-Petersburg Operation in the Spring of 1943. The B-17 was the Union Air Force's standard heavy bomber during the Second Great War, in they would many variants from the early B model with blister gun emplacements to the G models with powered gun turrets.
 

Matt Wiser

You would need the B-29 or an analogue to carry the Bomb....the B-32 IRL was NOT capable of carrying either Little Boy or Fat Man.
 
ThirdyLovesAH

ThirdyLovesAH

S. Marlowski said:
View attachment 596506
A Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress bomber from the 344th Bomb Wing during the Richmond-Petersburg Operation in the Spring of 1943. The B-17 was the Union Air Force's standard heavy bomber during the Second Great War, in they would many variants from the early B model with blister gun emplacements to the G models with powered gun turrets.
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Does B-29 exist in TL-191 or some other design existed?
 

Father Maryland

Matt Wiser said:
You would need the B-29 or an analogue to carry the Bomb....the B-32 IRL was NOT capable of carrying either Little Boy or Fat Man.
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Could a silverplate type mod have been done for the B32? I mean the original standard B29's weren't capable of carrying LB or FM either. They needed extensive modification to do the job.
 
S. Marlowski

S. Marlowski

ThirdyLovesAH said:
@S. Marlowski can we see a cold war - era union fighter jet or it is the same in OTL with different designations??
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In my HQ, the Union Air Force has OTL American Fighter but under different designations.

F80 Asteroid.png

A Curtiss-North American F-80E Asteroid of the 554th Fighter Squadron of the USAF based out of McChord AFB, circa 1954.

F84 Thunderbird.png

A Republic F84E Thunderbird of the 16th Fighter Division of the Imperial Alaskan Air Force based out of New Archangel, circa 1955.
 
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