AHC/WI: Royal Navy Copenhagen Italian Navy in 1935 - 1937

I mean after the Ethiopia crisis occurred, especially after Italy leaving League of Nations

How about one of my 'near war in the mid 30s pod' the British close the Suez to Italy and blockade Eritrea during the Abyssinia war preventing the Italians from reinforcing / resupplying their forces

One thing leads to another and shots are fired at sea and several border skirmishes occur on the Egypt border after Il Duce declares Mare Nostrum and all that in response.
 
So you are saying that because they worked the first time (sort of gunnery practice was a thing for the Royal Navy so they did not think of it as first time) that time, then they cannot possibly work first time (allowing for the fact that shooting ships is something the RN practise) this time?

I said that it's not the most wise move using that weapons because they will be not even the first batch but an early version putt together for the operation in an hurry and in limited numbers as the version currently in use will have serious difficult to use in the water of Taranto and as i said already two times, it was the attack at Mers el Kebir that showed how properly use them. If the Op said 1937 or 38 i will have give a 70/80% of success but otherwise it's just too hazardous


So despite the fact that Saph has repeated the point that he is making about using Baffins you want to talk about Swordfish. Okay first a question, how long must smoke start being deployed before it effectively masks the target area? In addition what level of wind conditions might disperse smoke before it can concentrate effectively to obscure the target area?

I spoke of smoke because it was just one factor that can work against the attack and the problem is if the wind conditions are strong enough to make the smoke disperse quickly it mean that the waters are troubled and this mean that the British torpedoes will hardly working


Now some operational intelligence questions. How can the RM be sure that the two carriers the RN is sending to the Indian Ocean are not in fact heading for the Indian Ocean? Alternatively if the RN say they are swapping carriers for Mediterranean and Home Fleets and the carrier ostensibly returning Home instead stodges about out at sea before running the Straits under cover of darkness, how sure can the Italians be to detect this? Thirdly, do we actually have any evidence that the RM ever managed to pick up on a peace time Royal Navy deployment that was not announced in advance?

If this happen during the Abyssinia Crisis Regia Marina will be already on alert and so whatever the British say, they will see 4 carriers in the Mediterrean in that precise moment as a danger; and in Mediterrean there are enough italian bases, recon flight that unless they are quick enough they will discovered...not counting that for enter in the Indian Ocean they must pass near Eritrea.

In fact, looking into it, the only BBs that will be potentially present in Taranto are the Andrea Doria and the Caio Duilio - these are the only two operational BBs of the Regina Marina and have 12 76mm AA guns between them (instead of the OTL Taranto count of 20 90mm guns, 30 37mm guns and 32 20mm guns for these two ships)
The cost of 20 (or 40) torpedo bombers in return for disabling the entire remaining Italian battle line is a risk that the Royal Navy would take with great enthusiasm, and the AA gun defences are significantly worse because the two Andrea Doria class ships are at this time barely armed with any AA guns at all.

Only if you have working torpedoes and you are not discovered early otherwise more than the AA you can face the italian air forces.

.)
Note that OTL the Italians didn't do any kind of preparation like you mention before OTL Taranto, despite the following carriers being in the Med: Eagle, Ark Royal, Illustrious. (Of which Illustrious conducted the attack.) This suggests that they would not necessarily conduct the defence procedures you suggest if there were three RN carriers in the Med - and two of them put together could easily launch a 40-aircraft strike, twice as heavy as OTL Taranto.

As said the Royal Navy worked really hard to deceive the italian brass and it was a success and the attack was not expected, still there were preparation (with the limited means of the time) but 20 bombers flying a low level were not detected (and while a serious blow had not really put out of commission Regia Marina)...using 4 times that numbers as you have suggested increase a little too much the changes to be discovered and if this happen the torpedoes will not last very much.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Basing your attack plan on an handfull of weapon quickly put on production and hastily used for an operation that will start a war IMVHO it's not a very wise operational decision and as i said, it was the Mers-el-Kebir attack that demonstrate how to use better that type of weapons in that situation, so if this not happen it's very probable that all the effort will be for nothing



First the Swordfish entered service in 36 so it will not be used and second using four carriers mean basically put on Malta the enourmous sign: We are gonna attack you very soon, dagos; in OTL the Royal Navy used a massive effort to convince the italians that the carriers were there for other operations and finally, the original attack was succesfull also due a healthy dose of luck and the total surprise, as even Regia Marina using smoke will have caused serious problem and even forced to abort the operation. Using 4 times the craft mean risking even more to be discovered...and you still need the weapons for this aircraft
Dago?

Really?
 

Saphroneth

Banned


I understand it's not your first language, but the phrasing you're using makes it very hard for me to tell what your primary objection is to each point.

For example, you seem to strongly suggest that the Italian Air Force would be able to detect 40-80 torpedo bombers coming in at low level (at night) in 1935, but I'm sure that can't be true because the Italians didn't have Radar.
Similarly, you suggest the Italian air force is a problem, at night, in 1935. I'm pretty certain that there were no dedicated IR or RDF detectors airborne in Italy in 1935, so this is essentially attempting airborne interception (unguided by either ground radar or any ability to see the enemy planes until they begin dropping flares) at night - hardly a massive game changer.


I appreciate that my focus here on night attacks may seem odd, but OTL Taranto was a night attack so it's what I'd assumed we were all understanding.
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
I said that it's not the most wise move using that weapons because they will be not even the first batch but an early version putt together for the operation in an hurry and in limited numbers as the version currently in use will have serious difficult to use in the water of Taranto and as i said already two times, it was the attack at Mers el Kebir that showed how properly use them. If the Op said 1937 or 38 i will have give a 70/80% of success but otherwise it's just too hazardous




I spoke of smoke because it was just one factor that can work against the attack and the problem is if the wind conditions are strong enough to make the smoke disperse quickly it mean that the waters are troubled and this mean that the British torpedoes will hardly working




If this happen during the Abyssinia Crisis Regia Marina will be already on alert and so whatever the British say, they will see 4 carriers in the Mediterrean in that precise moment as a danger; and in Mediterrean there are enough italian bases, recon flight that unless they are quick enough they will discovered...not counting that for enter in the Indian Ocean they must pass near Eritrea.



Only if you have working torpedoes and you are not discovered early otherwise more than the AA you can face the italian air forces.



As said the Royal Navy worked really hard to deceive the italian brass and it was a success and the attack was not expected, still there were preparation (with the limited means of the time) but 20 bombers flying a low level were not detected (and while a serious blow had not really put out of commission Regia Marina)...using 4 times that numbers as you have suggested increase a little too much the changes to be discovered and if this happen the torpedoes will not last very much.
Even with a start pod in 1929-1931?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Even with a start pod in 1929-1931?
With a PoD in 1930 then it should frankly be easy for the British to produce enough type XI torpedoes (i.e. shallow drop torpedoes) if they've got anything like a year's leadup to this. In fact, if the British are planning this for more than a few months most of the objections go away - a night torpedo attack in this time period is very hard to defend against unless the enemy understands precisely how to defend against it, and we know from OTL that the British plans to attack Taranto began in 1935 and that in 1940 OTL the Italians were still not ready for it.

ED: Of course, part of the reason a night torpedo attack is very hard to defend against is that it seems to have been a successfully kept British secret. The British certainly planned for night fighting a lot between the wars, including night torpedo attacks, but everyone else thought in terms of daytime (or nighttime) level bombing attacks - or, at most, daytime torpedo attacks like the ones conducted by the Japanese at Pearl a year later.

You can't prepare to defend against something you don't even know is possible.
 
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It will play similarly in the American press.

Depends on what the Italians did to deserve the slap in the first place - after all the British are not know for waking up one morning and simply going 'Im bored...I know lets sink the Italian fleet! Golly gosh whot fun it will be!'

However i would no more try to predict the US Press reaction anymore than i would the British Press!
 
I find it hard to imagine what would lead to Britain taking this course of action. In 1935 The prevailing attitude in Britain was one of passivism, something pretty dramatic would have had to have happened. Despite feeling sympathetic to the Ethiopians on its own that's not enough to prompt this action. Maybe if the Italians dropped gas on what's clearly the wrong side of the border or seized ships bound for British Somaliland as potential gun runners leading to a clash with local British naval forces.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I find it hard to imagine what would lead to Britain taking this course of action. In 1935 The prevailing attitude in Britain was one of passivism, something pretty dramatic would have had to have happened. Despite feeling sympathetic to the Ethiopians on its own that's not enough to prompt this action. Maybe if the Italians dropped gas on what's clearly the wrong side of the border or seized ships bound for British Somaliland as potential gun runners leading to a clash with local British naval forces.
Therefore I need a 1929-1931 POD to make a Tory war hawk win the election in a landslide victory. This guy could make propaganda to bash Italy, rearm earlier, as well as actually imposing sanctions and closing Suez and Gibraltar in the name of the League of Nations. This could trigger Italy to do some really stupid things, which he could capitalized and Copenhagen Italian fleets.
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
Or the Brits could delay the attack, may be the strike could be after Italian intervening in Spanish civil war (but unlikely as Tories did not support Spanish Republicans), or 1937, but before Anschluss. They might only impose sanctions and close Suez and Gibraltar in late 1935.
 
I suppose a night attack withaca torpedoes can be effective in sinking or at least putting out of commission the two battleships at Taranto if, as Ssphroneth says, the necessary type of torpedoes would be available in the time period we are talking about. I say this because Taranto was such a disaster on the Italian side and that with an already declared war, while the OP seems to hint at something more sneaky, similar to Pesrl Harbor.
I think however there is also also fair chance of the attack being a fiasco because of the same torpedoes not working properly or because of adverse weather conditions and then you could have the British sqiadron at risk from the italian air force, although I am skeptical of them being seriously able to sink some capital ships at night.
This is also a time when the RM is undergoing modernization and rebuilds for several units, so the blow would be devastating. It is also clear to everyone that Italy is not on par with the British Empire in terms of power in a one on one fight, but the war following this attack would be far from easy IMO.
Sure there is the example of the shelling of Genoa in 1941, but it should be noticed that the RN did never again try such a stunt in the rest of the war, leaving strategic bombing to the air force, which would be quite difficult to do in 1936, with much less technical difference between airforces. Any naval attack to a port structure at the time must be planned very thoroughly and is a risky proposition, so even with Italy almost without capital ships I don't see the RN happily bombing and conducting amphibious operation on the he italian coasts against an intact italian army and airforce .
In short this is an hard blow to Italy, but not a knockout by far, because for that you need to seize something like.Sicily and this cetainly won't be a walk in the park for the British in 1936...

It's the political fallout however that will IMO be very damaging to the UK. Spin it as they want, give a reasonable casus belli in the Ethiopian question and what not, but this is still naked aggression, possibly treacherous even if they do something like the Japanese at Pearl harbor to ensure complete surprise. This will certainly play badly with the USA and would need a completely difficult political attitude in the UK.

I was thinking of a possibile lead-up to this being a worse crisis around the Spanish Civil War, with France and the UK openly supporting the Republic... Could this lead to an earlier ww2?

Finally, @CalBear, with all due respect, I believe lukedalton used that word "in character" so to say, to show the level of jingoism that a British government that organises this preemptive attack would have to possess. I don't believe he would use it as an anti-italian insult, as he is Italian himself.
 
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For example, you seem to strongly suggest that the Italian Air Force would be able to detect 40-80 torpedo bombers coming in at low level (at night) in 1935, but I'm sure that can't be true because the Italians didn't have Radar.
Similarly, you suggest the Italian air force is a problem, at night, in 1935. I'm pretty certain that there were no dedicated IR or RDF detectors airborne in Italy in 1935, so this is essentially attempting airborne interception (unguided by either ground radar or any ability to see the enemy planes until they begin dropping flares) at night - hardly a massive game changer.

In 1935 nobody had radars except the British with some working prototipy but there were other method of alert even if less reliable and effective like:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerofono

Plus the usual spotter and projector, barragge baloons (OTL the usual barrage was not in position due to the bad weather in the previous days)...generally in 1935 italian equipment was not so beyond the other powers

Therefore I need a 1929-1931 POD to make a Tory war hawk win the election in a landslide victory. This guy could make propaganda to bash Italy, rearm earlier, as well as actually imposing sanctions and closing Suez and Gibraltar in the name of the League of Nations. This could trigger Italy to do some really stupid things, which he could capitalized and Copenhagen Italian fleets.

The problem is that this PoD can just prevent the invasion of Abyssinia; Benny was aggressive not idiot...in OTL he basically asked permission to both Paris and London for his invasion and received the usual nod and wink due to the entente desire to keep the Stresa Front running. A more hawkish British PM may just make Benny limit himselfs to some border rettification or even having a more subtle foreign policy. While he ordered a more aggressive stance of the italian armed forces and to prepare to fight the British during the crisis except he quickly come to a more calm behaviour due to the rest of the goverment not really wanting a war with the UK.

ED: Of course, part of the reason a night torpedo attack is very hard to defend against is that it seems to have been a successfully kept British secret. The British certainly planned for night fighting a lot between the wars, including night torpedo attacks, but everyone else thought in terms of daytime (or nighttime) level bombing attacks - or, at most, daytime torpedo attacks like the ones conducted by the Japanese at Pearl a year later.
.

Still they needed some wartime experience to eliminate some problem and that kind of night attack are not easy to pull off expecially in this time and just to connect with the previous post, having 4 times the craft involved in a very risky attack increase many time the possibility to being discovered; better remember that the plan involve putting aircraft carrier at just 130 miles from the italian bases, flying low at night and using flare to illuminate the target zone and even if it was a great success...had not knocked out the italian navy out of the war
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The problem is that this PoD can just prevent the invasion of Abyssinia; Benny was aggressive not idiot...in OTL he basically asked permission to both Paris and London for his invasion and received the usual nod and wink due to the entente desire to keep the Stresa Front running. A more hawkish British PM may just make Benny limit himselfs to some border rettification or even having a more subtle foreign policy. While he ordered a more aggressive stance of the italian armed forces and to prepare to fight the British during the crisis except he quickly come to a more calm behaviour due to the rest of the goverment not really wanting a war with the UK.

Mussolin behave more subtle would deprive Hitler of a big role model. It was Mussolini's success led Hitler firmly believe that he could violate everything but still get away. You can ''weakly'' protest (weak enough to make him think that it would be just no action, talk only) and then when Mussolini wage war you suddenly impose sanctions.
 
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The problem is that this PoD can just prevent the invasion of Abyssinia; Benny was aggressive not idiot...in OTL he basically asked permission to both Paris and London for his invasion and received the usual nod and wink due to the entente desire to keep the Stresa Front running. A more hawkish British PM may just make Benny limit himselfs to some border rettification or even having a more subtle foreign policy. While he ordered a more aggressive stance of the italian armed forces and to prepare to fight the British during the crisis except he quickly come to a more calm behaviour due to the rest of the goverment not really wanting a war with the UK.

I think the political/diplomatic objections are the strongest part of the argument you put forwards but I would also argue the strength of them actually comes from the awareness by the Italian Government that the British could do something along the lines that would be seen at Mers-el-Kebir even if they were not aware of the kind of thinking that would lead to Taranto.

Essentially the worry was that even if the Italian Navy hid in port British battleships could shell its units into scrap metal while even worse any such withdrawal from the high sea would abandon both the Italian Empire and the armies in Africa.

So what you would need is a really sneaky British Government that would artfully lure the Italians into some seeming show of aggression towards British interests that would allow the Admiralty at least a fig leaf claim that its actions passed the Caroline Test. Now normally it is a good thing that such British Governments generally reside only in the fever dreams of Perfidious Albion (the concept not the board member named for it) but for a writer looking for an ATL that heads off the Second World War such an unscrupulous regime would do nicely.
 

hipper

Banned
Still they needed some wartime experience to eliminate some problem and that kind of night attack are not easy to pull off expecially in this time and just to connect with the previous post, having 4 times the craft involved in a very risky attack increase many time the possibility to being discovered; better remember that the plan involve putting aircraft carrier at just 130 miles from the italian bases,flying low at night and using flare to illuminate the target zone and even if it was a great success...had not knocked out the italian navy out of the war

in OTL the attack was planned and practiced for pre war, they tried to collect the pre war pilots who were involved in this for the actual attack. The difficulties with the shallow depth were overcome by attaching a wire to the torpedo so it would not enter the water at a shallow angle. The attack was planned to be by two carriers but Eagle's fuel system was shaken up by Italian bombing. I also think the attack was launched from 170 miles rather than 130 miles From Taranto.

The Italians lost the Illustrious strike group before the attack because Radar directed fulmars could shoot down spotting aircraft prior to them spotting the fleet a greater number of carriers in the strike group would not greatly change the risk of detection.

Cheers Hipper
 
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