AHC: American carriers serving WW2 in Europe

ghappy1000

Your challenge, if you like it, is to have at least an Essex or Yorktown class carrier serve in Europe during WW2, preferably with a pod after 31 December 1942 for the Essex and 11 December 1941 for the Yorktown and better with two or more carriers if it doesn't impact Pacific operations. Conditions should be such that the carrier stay in Europe until 1945 if not sunk [and the carrier transferred to make up for British losses should be better than the German aircraft carrier or better Italian, U boat and Luftwaffe performance].
The pods don't matter though, because they may have bigger impacts on history. However, the circumstances that lead to the Essex[es] serving in Europe need to be possible and WW2 events following the pod should lead to total Allied victory over both Germany and Japan in 1945 as well.
[Preferably the otl surrender dates for both Germany and Japan should still be accomplished by the pod.] The actual timeframe can be extended to 1946 if you wish, due to impacts for the Pacific and events in Europe.
 

ghappy1000

Any more takers? I am interested in the conditions needed to fulfill this within the limits specified and like to see your thoughts.
 

Cryhavoc101

Donor
How about the India Ocean raid/Operation C (31 March – 10 April 1942) goes badly wrong for the Japanese - ie Sommervilles fleet finds the Japanese and manages a devestating night attack on them sinking or mission killing some or all of the 6 carriers involved and/or even the 'What if situation' where the RAF's number 11 Sqdn flying Blenhiems managed to bomb them before the Japanese were even aware of them.

Also there was a couple of potential submarine interceptions as the Japanese withdrew.

Or some carriers are lost during the Attack on Pearl Harbour - from whatever cause.

The loss of X number of IJN carriers from what ever reason reduces the need for so many US carriers in the PTO allowing the USN to more comfortably reinforce the ETO.

Edit: I appreciate this POD is before your asked for date but it could create a follow on POD later on - perhaps the Allies were not sure of the Japanese losses etc at the time
 
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Trevayne

Assuming there was a lull in the Pacific, I could see a carrier task force, say 2 Essex class along with a couple of British carriers being sent to Norway to sink the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. OTL, the carriers were too badly needed in the Pacific.

Aside from eliminating the last of the last of the German heavy surface ships, what would Essex class carriers do in Europe?
 

ghappy1000

Trevayne said:
Assuming there was a lull in the Pacific, I could see a carrier task force, say 2 Essex class along with a couple of British carriers being sent to Norway to sink the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. OTL, the carriers were too badly needed in the Pacific.

Aside from eliminating the last of the last of the German heavy surface ships, what would Essex class carriers do in Europe?
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Maybe a pod of heavier British carrier losses after 31 December 1941 would do [the easiest way from 1942 onwards, being sunk by Japanese carriers is an irony - Britain asking for American assistance as a result of losses to the Japanese]. Instead of some lazy pod like this, I have another timeline.

Perhaps the pod is something like this. [I had just deleted an earlier attempt at posting, but this is the planned timeline.]
[POD] June 1941: After the sinking of the Bismarck, carrier aviation is considered important to the Germans and Graf Zeppelin gets completed. Although the pod is outside the confines of the time limit, it is still not significant. Throw in a surviving, but damaged Bismarck as well, however, it would divert British battleship, carrier and bomber attention, although insignificant [until 1942]. Despite the Graf Zeppelin's construction being resumed, the British do not consider it a threat as it won't be combat ready by 31 December 1941 and Ark Royal still gets sunk/crippled by U81.
March 1942: Graf Zeppelin joins Tirpitz and attack an Arctic convoy. HMS Victorious, Indomitable and Graf Zeppelin are sunk along with most of the convoy's ships but the 2 British battleships prevent Tirpitz from attacking. The UK asks the US to send Hornet to the Atlantic along with recalling its carriers. [Victorious by U boat, Indomitable and Graf Zeppelin by aircraft.]
April 1942: The Doolittle Raid is temporarily cancelled until Yorktown is available. The British carriers are suggested to join the US Pacific Fleet.
Part 2 onwards may be posted next day.
 
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Cryhavoc101

Donor
ghappy1000 said:
Maybe a pod of heavier British carrier losses after 31 December 1941 would do [the easiest way from 1942 onwards, being sunk by Japanese carriers is an irony - Britain asking for American assistance as a result of losses to the Japanese]. Instead of some lazy pod like this, I have another timeline.

Perhaps the pod is something like this. [I had just deleted an earlier attempt at posting, but this is the planned timeline.]
[POD] June 1941: After the sinking of the Bismarck, carrier aviation is considered important to the Germans and Graf Zeppelin gets completed. Although the pod is outside the confines of the time limit, it is still not significant. Throw in a surviving, but damaged Bismarck as well, however, it would divert British battleship, carrier and bomber attention, although insignificant [until 1942]. Despite the Graf Zeppelin's construction being resumed, the British do not consider it a threat as it won't be combat ready by 31 December 1941 and Ark Royal still gets sunk/crippled by U81.
March 1942: Graf Zeppelin joins Tirpitz and attack an Arctic convoy. HMS Victorious, Indomitable and Graf Zeppelin are sunk along with most of the convoy's ships but the 2 British battleships prevent Tirpitz from attacking. The UK asks the US to send Hornet to the Atlantic along with recalling its carriers. [Victorious by U boat, Indomitable and Graf Zeppelin by aircraft.]
April 1942: The Doolittle Raid is temporarily cancelled until Yorktown is available. The British carriers are suggested to join the US Pacific Fleet.
Part 2 onwards may be posted next day.
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IMO thats too much of a wank - the Japanese Carrier threat is what 10+ with very skilled crews/airgroups for the most part there is no way the USN are withdrawing their principle fast Attack Carriers in the face of a single German Unit which is experimental at best untill the Essex class start entering service.

And the British certainly by 1942 have very experianced carrier operators - don't expect them to be making silly mistakes with their Armoured carriers.

I cannot see a Graf Zep Air group getting the better of an Illustrious CV BG and Air group.

They are considerably harder to sink than.....well pretty much any other carrier afloat.

It took large bombs and plenty of them from a dedicated Stuka unit operating from land to seriously damage Illustrious.

Graf Zeps aircraft would not be able to carry such bombs

Now there are many non combat things that can mission kill any carrier and take it out of circulation for a period.

Run aground

Hanger/Machinery space Fire

Collision with another ship

All of these happened during the war!

But its all for naught for unless your POD significantly reduces the threat of the Japanese Carrier Force then you are unlikely to see much if anything in the way of more USN assets sent to the Atlantic.
 

Daewonsu

Banned
Short of some ASB level of U-boat activity that actually manages to start starving Great Britain, why would you need a carrier in Europe when you have an entire island?
 

Dunning Kruger

Germans get the French Fleet in 1940? Italian fleet actually fights? Malta falls to the Germans (Crete doesnt go as badly for the paratroopers and they use them there)? Short of amusing ATL's involving German raids on Scapa Flow, I think the Med is the only place carriers are needed for anything more than an opportunistic one off situation. As a prior poster said, England is the unsinkable carrier.
 

riggerrob

Early in WW2, U-boats learned that any airplane over a WAlly convoy meant vastly increased U-boat casualties.
May I suggest that a few USN carriers could provide top-cover in the Mid-Atlantic gap, coding U-boats to stay submerged? Fewer cargo ships sunk would mean an earlier D-Day.
 

jsb

riggerrob said:
May I suggest that a few USN carriers could provide top-cover in the Mid-Atlantic gap, coding U-boats to stay submerged? Fewer cargo ships sunk would mean an earlier D-Day.
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IMO using a Essex or Yorktown class carrier for convoy ASW would be quite Courageous :p
 

Puzzle

Donor
Could the Ranger randomly be sunk through mishandling or enemy action? This might prompt the US to bring a fleet carrier over for Operation Torch instead of just more escort carriers.
 

Matt Wiser

Essex wasn't commissioned until December '42.

As for carrier strikes in Europe? Have a look at Operation LEADER: Ranger mounted a strike with CVG-4 embarked against Bodo, Norway. Ten German ships sunk or damaged, several Luftwaffe recon aircraft splashed, but no F4F vs. Me-109 combat as there was no fighter interception. Two SBDs and one TBF lost, with one SBD crew KIA, one crew POW, and the TBF pilot also a POW.
 

cra0422

The Ranger was considered too slow to keep up with the rest of the US carriers in the Pacific, so it served in the Atlantic, mainly in aircraft transport, training and patrols in the North Atlantic. There wasn't much use for large warships in the Atlantic because after the Battle of the Barents Sea, Hitler decided to use submarines rather than surface ships.

Personally, I would have had the Ranger providing air support for Allied landings in the Mediterranean. The Allies were reluctant to landing anywhere without fighter cover, so their landings had to be within range of their fighters.
 

HMS Warspite

I would agree with the latest post, as the Atlantic was not the sort of ocean where large aircraft carriers USN style were at their best, since most carrier combat was in the enclosed Mediterranean, which was a death trap for any lightly build aircraft carrier, as we have seen in the WW2 period. Any carrier operating there was to be armored to the teeth, if it wanted to survive the numerically many times stronger Ragia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe. A USN carrier, even with a larger airgroup, would still face tererible odds here. (Besides USN aircraft of the period until mid 1943 were 2nd rate ones, compared to the land based aircraft in European nations.)

In the North Atlantic and Arctic, the USN aircraft carrier was not only facing hostile action, but nature as well, which was not favouring the lightly constructed USN style aircraft carrier. Most of the year, the USN type CV was unable to operate at all in North Atlantic conditions, rendering its usefullness poor, compared to more rugged build ones.

So the question will more likely become something like this:
"Was there a military, or politcal purpose to add a USN carrier in the Atlantic, or was it simply a waist of resources to do so?" Besides that, cheaper CVE's could do the job as well in the Atlantic, as AXIS airpower was absent in the middle and west of this ocean. Only near the coast of Europe, the carriers would face trouble, which was likley known to the Allies already.
 

King Augeas

You could get an Essex supporting Salerno or something, but it's not hugely interesting. Best would be to have a Yorktown for Operation Pedestal. In fact, I think that the Germans thought there was one with the fleet! http://www.armouredcarriers.com/operation-pedestal-august-10-12-1942/

The extra fighters would be very useful, particularly with radar direction, but the intensity of the attacks was such that it's likely she'd still be hit. It seems that there were never enough fighters available to drive off snoopers. Still, the armoured deck didn't help against the hits and damaging near misses on Victorious, so a Yorktown probably wouldn't be any worse off.
 

Zheng He

HMS Warspite said:
I would agree with the latest post, as the Atlantic was not the sort of ocean where large aircraft carriers USN style were at their best, since most carrier combat was in the enclosed Mediterranean, which was a death trap for any lightly build aircraft carrier, as we have seen in the WW2 period. Any carrier operating there was to be armored to the teeth, if it wanted to survive the numerically many times stronger Ragia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe. A USN carrier, even with a larger airgroup, would still face tererible odds here. (Besides USN aircraft of the period until mid 1943 were 2nd rate ones, compared to the land based aircraft in European nations.)

In the North Atlantic and Arctic, the USN aircraft carrier was not only facing hostile action, but nature as well, which was not favouring the lightly constructed USN style aircraft carrier. Most of the year, the USN type CV was unable to operate at all in North Atlantic conditions, rendering its usefullness poor, compared to more rugged build ones.

So the question will more likely become something like this:
"Was there a military, or politcal purpose to add a USN carrier in the Atlantic, or was it simply a waist of resources to do so?" Besides that, cheaper CVE's could do the job as well in the Atlantic, as AXIS airpower was absent in the middle and west of this ocean. Only near the coast of Europe, the carriers would face trouble, which was likley known to the Allies already.
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Except USS Wasp and USS Ranger both served with the British Home Fleet.
 

Zheng He

This really isn't that hard, you just need three PODs:

1. Higher IJN carrier losses in 1942 - say Shokaku is lost at Coral Sea and then in the fighting around Guadalcanal have Zuiho and Junyo get sunk.

2. US does not lose Hornet but she still gets the crap kicked out of her in October 1942 and she has to go back to the west coast for extensive repairs.

3. Carrier losses in the Atlantic are worse. The RN loses one of the new carriers at Pedestal (say Indomitable) and the US loses Ranger to a German submarine during Torch. Maybe one of the smaller carriers like HMS Argus is lost as well at some point.

Due to heavier IJN carrier losses in 1942 and worse Allied carrier losses in the Atlantic and Med in 1942, after Hornet comes out of the body and fender shop where she gets a refit similar to the one Enterprise got in mid-1943 a decision is made to send her to the Atlantic. She is later reinforced by USS Saratoga which is sent to the Atlantic after the Rabaul strikes in late 1943.
 

ghappy1000

Zheng He said:
This really isn't that hard, you just need three PODs:

1. Higher IJN carrier losses in 1942 - say Shokaku is lost at Coral Sea and then in the fighting around Guadalcanal have Zuiho and Junyo get sunk.

2. US does not lose Hornet but she still gets the crap kicked out of her in October 1942 and she has to go back to the west coast for extensive repairs.

3. Carrier losses in the Atlantic are worse. The RN loses one of the new carriers at Pedestal (say Indomitable) and the US loses Ranger to a German submarine during Torch. Maybe one of the smaller carriers like HMS Argus is lost as well at some point.

Due to heavier IJN carrier losses in 1942 and worse Allied carrier losses in the Atlantic and Med in 1942, after Hornet comes out of the body and fender shop where she gets a refit similar to the one Enterprise got in mid-1943 a decision is made to send her to the Atlantic. She is later reinforced by USS Saratoga which is sent to the Atlantic after the Rabaul strikes in late 1943.
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How about the Americans do better in the Pacific? The problem is that once the Allies win decisively in the Pacific, the surrender of Japan may be earlier than 1945.
 

Matt Wiser

Considering that Wasp had made two deployments to the Med to fly Spitfires to Malta, not a surprise the Germans thought she was there. Those two deployments made Churchill remark, "Who said a Wasp couldn't sting twice?"
 
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