Get a Royal Marines Division up and running during the 1930s. Heligoland on day one is the ideal to strive for.
Best British interwar fleet?
- Thread starter Hood
- Start date
Why that's a nightmare to resupply so close to LW and Uboats....its also a defended target....
If you can assault a defended island then you can smash through the Siegfried Line on day one or cross the Rhine and try to attack before Poland falls.
I was just talking as a paper goal the force could be built up for in pre war planning. Come the actual war I'm thinking secure Narvik then Fjord hop down the Norwegian Coast.
Realistically I'm thinking an enlarged Leander/ Arethusa Line, similar too, but not exactly like, the one off export ARA La Argentina.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_La_Argentina_(C-3)
McPherson
Banned
a. The British Foreign Office torqued the Americans off... repeatedly. And has not lost the habit as late as the 1980s (Falklands War).
b. The military is professionally responsible militarily for whatever geo-strategic mess the politicians and diplomats hand it. The RN in conjunction with the RAF and British Army should have looked at their task lists and prioritized and devised to meet what they could, warn their political masters HONESTLY what they could not meet and sought political guidance on what to do with the difference. The RN overpromised, knew they overpromised, lied to their political masters and then when the bill came due and the politicians demanded that the bet be covered, the RN (and their political masters) left Australia and the United States to clean up their collective mess.
c. Pound, Churchill, Popham, Phillips, Pulham, Percival et al. I name names of the individuals responsible.
d. In naval geographic terms, the British Empire situation is that the Mediterranean is the most important ocean in peacetime and the North Atlantic sea lines of communication are the most important in war. Pre-war if the RN does not cover the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal then it has not done due diligence. These are curiously the primary military missions after home defense, the British army has, too. Pre-war joint service planning to cover these three contingencies (And here I add the RAF.) to cover home defense, the North Atlantic SLOCs and the Mediterranean is the core mission set. After this, we add the Indian Ocean. For the Indian Ocean because the British have not BUILT THE PORT INFRASTRUCTURE OR BASING IN INDIA for fear of losing that base infrastructure in an Indian revolt, they have 2 Class II ports, naval bases at Aden and Singapore. So... I guess that fleet train I harp about is VITAL for what is essentially the RN's power projection mission after Singapore inevitably falls.
e. No fleet trains... nothing past sortie range east of Aden. India falls postwar.
None.
f. FDR remembered from WWI to clean up the Atlantic first. Took a while because the pesky Germans and his own navy did not cooperate (King screwed up royally.) THEN comes the Pacific.
g. One ocean at a time approach. 1. Fight the Germans and that means build as you go and keep killing U-boats until the Germans run out of coal miners. 2. Scuttle the Italians. Nothing happens in North Africa (Egypt) unless the Italians make it happen navally. No Italian fleet, no Italian merchant marine ='s No Rommel. The British brag about their submarine service but they did not get the job done. 3. Power projection. India sits there and the British do nothing with it. How about a BASE at Madras?
None of those establishments is a Class II base. Best is Class III (Bombay, US equivalent is Manila) Considering how important India is to Britain a CLASS I base (Norfolk/Gosport/San Francisco/Newport News are US examples. Portsmouth for UK) is not unreasonable.
McPherson
Banned
This is not for what those royal marines as a combat formation should be used. The marines are part of NAVAL power projection. Where do the British need to power project?
How do you get them to sit out of harms way from summer 39 - late 41......??????
France (pre war)
France (phoney war)
Norway
France II (BoF)
Horn of Africa
North Africa
Greece
Crete
North Africa Again
.......they will have been used and used by the time Malay matters in Dec 41......
Why would GB want to use marines to "thou shalt get there before the Japanese" in the top case.... would land forces not be far better driving up from Malaya far less likely to be sunk in the Gulf of Thailand unless they have large support and in that case its irrelevant as you destroy the Japanese transports at sea....
Rabaul can be reinforced by a civilian merchant ship and the home guard if you have anything free early on, but you will not have due to fighting three major powers at once......
Norway, to deny Germany its iron and its port facilities. No Swedish iron, no easy ability to go after convoys to the USSR, no convenient bases for its surface fleet in being, Finland doesn't ally with the Germans... Germany is going to be in a world of hurt, and the British navy has more resources (especially capital ships and escorts) for other theatres.
I know you really like the Pacific theatre, but Britain has some very pressing matters right on its door step, ones which predate Japan's blitzkrieg of the rubber plantations.
Also, if we're basing it on hind sight rather than London's actual list of priorities then the way to blow Japan away is to storm Saigon simultaneously with the attack on Mers-el-Kebir. Take away Japan's staging area.
McPherson
Banned
If you burned up your marines doing non-marine things, then you should be turned out and retired to where they send incompetent military officers. The army is supposed to be the ones attacking the Siegfried line. Narvik; if you get there first might be a marine mission but I would have hit Tromso instead. Horn of Africa makes sense if you go after Italian Eritrea/Somalia or even Vichy Djibouti (More useful, it is a Class II base.). North Africa is an army show. Greece? The people who laid that one on, including Churchill cost a whole year of additional war and 50,000 lives. Might have to jail anyone who proposes it in an ATL. Crete, ditto.
Why would GB want to use marines to "thou shalt get there before the Japanese" in the top case.... would land forces not be far better driving up from Malaya far less likely to be sunk in the Gulf of Thailand unless they have large support and in that case its irrelevant as you destroy the Japanese transports at sea....
Rabaul can be reinforced by a civilian merchant ship and the home guard if you have anything free early on, but you will not have due to fighting three major powers at once......
Because... For Singapore
1. You get there before the Japanese even think about it so you DENY THEM LANDING SITES on the Kra peninsula since they have to come at you by sea.
2. Thai airfields give you more aircraft hardstand space (adds about 300 plane ramps) instead of the 200 plane limit you have in Malaya and it walls off Burma.
3. It keeps Thailand out of the Japanese ally column.
4. It protects the Singapore bastion defense from the northern threat axis with some defense in depth.
5. It signals to the Japanese that you have the means, skill and will to stop them.
Because... For Rabaul
1. You get there while the Japanese are hung up in the Philippine Islands and western Indonesia.
2. That harbor and the airfields around it dominate the western Indonesian approaches by sea and air.
3. You can develop the anchorage into a Class II base which shaves a whole year (CARTWHEEL) off the Pacific War. From there to Mindanao is easier than the roundabout way of the RTL.
4. It is the cork in any attempt the Japanese hope to mount on Australian SEA LINES OF COMMUNICATION.
5. And if you pre-empt,
Saving MacArthur and plucking the New Guinea turkey just might be possible with the resources at hand. The Japanese were razor thin that far east and south clear into late February 1942. There was a parity situation that disappeared when the Japanese consolidated by March. They could not and did not execute outside Lingayan Gulf successful division sized OPPOSED landings... ever. Not even in Malaya.
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If you are allowed into Thailand before the Japanese attack then you can dive in as easy along the road from Malaya if not easier than by sea, if not you have to arrive after them and land past IJN Ships and
, if you can do that you can simply sink the IJA transports and win without landing........
You don't need marines for that you will get a week to a month to unload from a normal civilian ship if you arrive early, you just need free troops not being used in the middle of WWII in the third (or 6th depending on how you count) most important area for GB.....
If you don't use them between 39 the end of 41, they will not exist any good officer and NCO will have got them self transferred to an actual war fighting unit.....
As the RN not following Churchill's orders as PM to go Greece might be a rather bad example to set (IJA looking at you) and Crete could easily be held with any combination of luck or skill......
McPherson
Banned
The problem with NARVIK is Bode. You cannot hold the Germans there, you are going to lose Narvik. Inevitable because that is what happened. WRONG TARGET. Tromso has hard stable ground and you can park an airfield there. It is very difficult for the Germans to get at you because of the !@# !@#$%^ terrain and weather. Once there you RAF them out of Narvik and Bode. They cannot stay if you rule the air. Think Aleutians Campaign only with Norwegians instead of Canadians and Inuits.
You mean Dakar? Wrong target again is Mers el Kebir. If you are going to torque off the French make sure it matters. Dakar makes SLOCs to South America easier to maintain. Mers el Kebir earns you the hate without commensurate or adequate military gain. Really do it right and Taranto the heck out of Toulon. So what if in 1944 the French hate your guts? Got to think ahead. Churchill had a bad habit of not thinking things through.
Might also point out that the British actually tried Narvik and what did it get them (^^^)?
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About Japan, from the British PoV...
FIRST AIR FLEET. How many times must it be written that the key to Japan is not her army, it is her NAVY and the key to that navy was Kido Butai. No navy and no "The Southern Road" (Nanshin).
So... correct anti-Japan strategy is to keep British traitors away from the IJN (Educating them about how the British operate aircraft carriers was NTB.), help "the Peanut" in China, cause what helps Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang Jieshi) hurts Japan where it counts, build at least one fallback Class II naval base in India in the case Singapore falls as it will, don't torque off the Americans, don't torque off the ANZACS and might want to build up some RIKKOs in Malaya and in the Andaman Islands.
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A British equivalent to the First Air Fleet is also possible instead of pouring money into useless battleship refits. The last is VERY expensive as USN naval construction payout for flattops, bodyguard ships, and aircraft shows. Plan B? Also expensive. Build lots of subs and learn how to use them properly to stalk Japanese merchant shipping. The added payout for Plan B is that maybe, just maybe, the RN sub force does a better job of sinking the Italians in the Mediterranean Sea than it actually did.
Remember, no Italian merchant fleet ='s No Rommel.
And if you think about it... Flattops, after 1935, are about the only way the RN can cover her numerous commitments. Churchill as First Sea Lord really wasted them badly. Did not do well as PM, either. Very poor naval administrator.
McPherson
Banned
Actually you cannot because the targets are too many, too spread apart by land and the terrain does not allow it.
After the home islands, nothing is more important then India.
SPEED. By sea is faster and with marines (shock troops) the assaults are more quickly resolved. Give the IJA, who are a damn sight better than you are at that stage of things no time or opportunity to intervene.
Who says you don't use them? It is where and when that is the quibble. I gave you a list of targets. Just not Greece or Norway.
Crete was impossible. Greece was impossible. LW and the Germans are just too many and too good. Fight where you can win. North Africa against the Italians and very few Germans there.
About what you'd expect with a handful of battalions and an army leadership that was willing to cut and run at the first indication that things weren't going well in France.
McPherson
Banned
Don't fault the French or British army commanders on the spot. They were doing "okay". They had to obey their recall orders. I fault the RAF and the RN for their parts. That Warspite raid into Narvik, for example was a stunt that could easily have gone the other way if one German torpedo had not missed. Pure luck they, the RN, got out of it alive.
You need to stop with these derailing posts. While there is plenty of information in them, some of it germane to the discussion, they are also wandering far from the subject at hand as defined by the OP.a. The British Foreign Office torqued the Americans off... repeatedly. And has not lost the habit as late as the 1980s (Falklands War).
b. The military is professionally responsible militarily for whatever geo-strategic mess the politicians and diplomats hand it. The RN in conjunction with the RAF and British Army should have looked at their task lists and prioritized and devised to meet what they could, warn their political masters HONESTLY what they could not meet and sought political guidance on what to do with the difference. The RN overpromised, knew they overpromised, lied to their political masters and then when the bill came due and the politicians demanded that the bet be covered, the RN (and their political masters) left Australia and the United States to clean up their collective mess.
c. Pound, Churchill, Popham, Phillips, Pulham, Percival et al. I name names of the individuals responsible.
d. In naval geographic terms, the British Empire situation is that the Mediterranean is the most important ocean in peacetime and the North Atlantic sea lines of communication are the most important in war. Pre-war if the RN does not cover the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal then it has not done due diligence. These are curiously the primary military missions after home defense, the British army has, too. Pre-war joint service planning to cover these three contingencies (And here I add the RAF.) to cover home defense, the North Atlantic SLOCs and the Mediterranean is the core mission set. After this, we add the Indian Ocean. For the Indian Ocean because the British have not BUILT THE PORT INFRASTRUCTURE OR BASING IN INDIA for fear of losing that base infrastructure in an Indian revolt, they have 2 Class II ports, naval bases at Aden and Singapore. So... I guess that fleet train I harp about is VITAL for what is essentially the RN's power projection mission after Singapore inevitably falls.
e. No fleet trains... nothing past sortie range east of Aden. India falls postwar.
None.
f. FDR remembered from WWI to clean up the Atlantic first. Took a while because the pesky Germans and his own navy did not cooperate (King screwed up royally.) THEN comes the Pacific.
g. One ocean at a time approach. 1. Fight the Germans and that means build as you go and keep killing U-boats until the Germans run out of coal miners. 2. Scuttle the Italians. Nothing happens in North Africa (Egypt) unless the Italians make it happen navally. No Italian fleet, no Italian merchant marine ='s No Rommel. The British brag about their submarine service but they did not get the job done. 3. Power projection. India sits there and the British do nothing with it. How about a BASE at Madras?
None of those establishments is a Class II base. Best is Class III (Bombay, US equivalent is Manila) Considering how important India is to Britain a CLASS I base (Norfolk/Gosport/San Francisco/Newport News are US examples. Portsmouth for UK) is not unreasonable.
McPherson
Banned
Agreed, but the catastrophes really started with the politicians and you can push that one as far back as Clemenceau, Lloyd George and that incredibly incompetent Woodrow Wilson, if you wanted.
Post script... To keep with the spirit of the opening posts, the political leadership of the UK should be examined for what they are doing with regards to the RN in the 1930s. Based on what they knew they needed to accomplish, could they have invested their money a bit more prudently and followed naval policies that saved money and covered the essential defense missions?
We can argue about the Nelson and Rodney as case examples. (Maybe the case for speed versus guns?).
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marathag
Banned
Problem was deeper. Had the Auk and Gubbins had a better force than the Scots Guard headed by Trapes-Lomax, holding at Mo I Rana keeps the British in North. But the forces there had worse Bugout Fever than in Malaya against the Japanese, to coin a term from later campaign.
It's not like that green are bound to act like green troops, even with the Kasserine Pass debacle, where the Germans and Italians were halted by elements of1st ID and 1stAD under Robinett and Allen. Leadership helps.
So you're saying British foreign policy should only ever agree 100% with American foreign policy, that we should give up our independence and become US puppets?
McPherson
Banned
We have a whole discussion on this NARVIK fiasco in ...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided.
The question per OP, is how do we build a better RN to conduct the naval war expected (WNT/LNT limits.) which includes possible expeditionary warfare like NARVIK or maybe raids on the European German held coasts. While I might have derailed the OP by going background on such missions and resources rrequirements by looping into the Pacific, you need to think about missions and resources to figure out what kind of fleet to build. RTL, battleships got the money and the attention. Yet, the missions and means tests seem to suggest somebody GOOFED. If you want to build an effective navy to fight Battle of the Atlantic 2.0, the Italians and after those guys are sunk; head off to noodle the Japanese, then you better start looking at asymmetry and force multipliers like geography, infrastructure, allies and logistics.
a. Put bases where you can defend in depth or build a fleet train. Pick 1.
b. Marines are your raid and advance base seizure force. I do not know of a successful British naval war that did not involve amphibious warfare.
c. Allies are your dominions and commonwealths. That includes India, and since India is where the main fallback naval base should be should Alexandria or Singapore get stuffed, one might think about that one in the naval estimates. Building a better fleet means building infrastructure to its mission needs.
d. By 1935, the flags are up that you need a fleet air arm that can fight. They will bring more to scout out the enemy, protect trade, and perform anti-ship strike than any KGV. Whether RIKKO or flattop based, the area coverage of naval airpower is a force multiplier worth a whole squadron of battleships. Whole naval campaigns are fought without battleships . BoA 2.0 for example, no BBs were actually needed, but flattops to cover the air gap were vital. In addition, what can the British do to Norway's German vacationers if they show up with 6 Ark Royal class flattops crowded with Fulmars and Albacores that worked, and with a decent admiral who had a clue as to how to use them? How long do the Italians last?
With d. one can use "green troops" that can hold their ground even in a Kasserine or Narvik or Malaya. Green troops, as long as they see friendly airpower of any kind covering them will usually not break. "Even the most dedicated soldier can be killed by a bomb." That little bit of wisdom comes from the ultimate loser of Al Alamein.