Best warships that should have been built

[iron]

It was never 9 at the same time but over several years with only a couple of ships active at a given time - this is why they were so hard to find

Also the KM struggled to arm and crew them - which is why they were 'drip fed' into the war as raiders

With more ships - 'individually' they are more likely to be found and neutralized.

Certainly they would have a bigger impact but with multiple Raiders being discovered and sunk / scuttled - each one becomes a propaganda boost to the Allies.

OTL in 1939 - I think the British sank a dozen or so Uboats and the Graf Spee (and hounded German Merchant shipping from the high seas) - here more victories are added with little extra effort from the 100+ Allied Cruisers hunting them

And if the Allies - particularly the British get wind of this plan before 1939.......well it only has one target in mind.

Bold 1: Mostly due to the obsessive spending pattern being imposed on the KM from Berlin, "build me big, impressive warships"...
Bold 2: Only due to the fact that they were directing manning requirements on a different tactical axis.
Bold 3: This is the fundamental advantage here. The oceans are HUGE. If the KM have 4 x the historical Hilfskreuzer fleet at sea when things "kick-off" in September of 1939?
Bold 4: This serves to elaborate on my point made in #3. The RN did not have the requisite manpower/assets to go off hunting down vessels like these. Have you any recollection of the "Destroyers for Bases" deal that the UK made with FDR in 1940? This was in large part to provide an immediate "surge" in RN strength on the North Atlantic Convoy routes, due to the U-Boat threat. They were already over-taxed with this commitment at the time.
The RN is going to have it's hands full trying to deal with the threat. There is a huge aspect of diffusion in play here and the advantage lies with the antagonist, not the defender.
Bold 5: The beauty of this plan is that all of this can be done on a clandestine basis. There are no overt moves implicit. They are moving 10,000 ton merchants through the "refit" process.
It's not going to raise an undue level of suspicion at the Admiralty level.

Until the situation goes HOT.

At that point? All bets are off.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I always took the 6th French hull as a quiet admitance of the MN that they couldn't maintain 2 boats on patrol 100% of the time with only 5 hulls.
The Jane's entry you cite actually conforts me in that view.
I'm probably wrong and it's a domain where we won't get a definitive answer.

I repeat that AIUI the Royal Navy wanted five SSBNS because they thought that this was the minimum needed to keep two boats on patrol at all times. However, practical experience with a five boat SSBN force ITTL might well have shown that six were required to keep two boats on patrol on at all times.

However, a sixth Resolution was not built in my TL.

Having written that... If a sixth Resolution had been built, it would have been built in the second half of the 1970s. It would have been completed when the USN was starting to rearm 12 of its Poseidon boats with Trident 1. Therefore, second hand Poseidon missiles might have been available at reasonable prices.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

5. Jeanne d'Arc :
Is this transformation necessary ? The Jeanne d'Arc is the traditional training cruiser of the MN. It's secondary roles were command ship in a convoy war or a amphibious operation.

Think of the TTL Jeanne d' Arc as the French equivalent to the British escort cruiser.

It still operates as a training ship in peacetime. However, in war it's extra speed allows it to strengthen the escorts of the 3 aircraft carriers.

Some of the reference books say that she was to have been fitted with the Mascura SAM.

In my TL there are 3 aircraft carriers and I wanted 3 fast cruisers to escort them. I thought it was better to upgrade Jeanne d' Arc than build a third De Grasse.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

... and the total number of aircraft is way too big. We are closing on the size of the Armée de l' Air here. Outside of the USN, basically everybody had manning problems at the time.

That's because you haven't read the complimentary Armée de l' Air thread.

According to Green and Fricker in The Air Forces of the World, "The development of the Armée de l' Air has also been hampered by financial restrictions so that its first-line strength of some 40 squadrons and less than 1,000 combat aircraft has remained virtually static over the past two years. There is now no likelihood that the first-line strength of 60 squadrons planned for 1960 will be attained, and it is probable that the existing force will decline during the next two years." This was written around the time that PA58 was cancelled. "Severe cuts in expenditure announced at the end of 1957, however, have resulted in drastic reductions in aircraft procurement; orders for Super Mystéres have been cut back from 370 to 250 and the production rate reduced from 15 to 9 per month; orders for 360 Vatours have been cut back to 160 with production rate reduced from 9 to 4 per month, and an order for 15 Breguet 765 Sahara heavy transports has been reduced to 4. At the same time development contracts for several advanced military aircraft were cancelled. A direct result of these cuts is expected to be a decline in first-line strength in 1958-59. The only entirely French combat aircraft which still enjoys substantial official backing is the Dassault Mirage IIIA mixed-power interceptor, a pre-production batch of 10 being scheduled for evaluation during 1959."

According to Normal Polmar in World Combat Aircraft Directory it had 30 squadrons (9 fighter, 18 fighter-bomber, 2 reconnaissance and one training) of combat aircraft in the middle of the 1970s.

ITTL the Armée de l' Air had 60 squadrons of combat aircraft in the middle of the 1970s. The Mirage IV force would be the same size as OTL. However, the Armée de l' Air would have had the planned force of 5 SSBS squadrons, instead of the 2 squadrons that were actually formed.

Edit 08.11.23
The numbers should be 126 F-8E(FN), 291 Etendard IVM/P and 96 Zephyr trainers, but not necessarily 240 Alizes. That is there were 50% more ships and each ship carried double the number of aircraft so 3 times as many aircraft were required. Except, that I multiplied the OTL numbers by 6 instead of by 3. Therefore, @Paliantir was correct and the numbers are way to big. 100% to big.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

If the Arromanches is transformed in the nuclear testing flagship, it will probably loose its fixed wing capacity. So probably no need for more Alizé and the training role will probably rotate between the 3 PA58 a little earlier than OTL.

Arromanches will loose its fixed wing aircraft capacity because there will be several large radio masts blocking the flight deck. However, the Alizé was designed and built 5-10 years before Arromanches has her TTL conversion so it would not have been in the minds of French naval planners when they were calculating the number of Alizés that were required.

I'm not sure if it was the plan when the ships were ordered, but Clemenceau and Foch replaced Belleau Bois and Lafayette IOTL. ITTL PA58 replaces Arromanches as an aircraft carrier and that was the intention at the time PA58 was ordered, because Arromanches would be about 20 years old when PA58 was scheduled to be completed. Therefore, Arromanches was due for replacement on account of her age as well as her inability to operate the new generation of naval combat aircraft.

According to the Green and Fricker book that I quoted earlier the production order for Alizés was reduced from 100 to 75 at the beginning of 1958. Therefore, I think that a minimum of 100 would have been built ITTL.

According to Jordan in Salamader's Modern Naval Aviation and Aircraft Carriers the Breguet Br. 1050 Alizé was based on the Br. 960 Vatour naval strike aircraft and the decision to develop the former from the latter was taken in 1954. The first Br. 1050 prototype flew in October 1956 and service delivery was in March 1959.

For TTL I did consider having the French developing a larger ASW aircraft than the Alizé powered by two RR Dart tuboprops instead of one (which would resemble the Grumman Tracker) or simply have the French build Dart powered Trackers under licence instead of the Alizé. This aircraft would be considerably more capable than the OTL Alizé and there would also be AEW and COD versions to parallel the OTL Grumman Tracer and Trader.

A folded Tracker isn't significantly larger than a folded Alizé so a one-to-one substitution would have been feasible. However, it would be considerably heavier than the OTL Alizé and wouldn't be capable of operating from Arromanches and the Independence class ships, which is why I decided not to do it.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Side note : Does the French need the FN variant of the F-8 with the PA58 ?

Probably not as the PA58s could operate heavier aircraft with higher take-off and landing speeds than Clemenceau and Foch.

Similarly the TTL Mirage G and its unbuilt rival the Breguet Br.120 could have been bigger and heavier.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Bold 1: Mostly due to the obsessive spending pattern being imposed on the KM from Berlin, "build me big, impressive warships"...
Bold 2: Only due to the fact that they were directing manning requirements on a different tactical axis.
Bold 3: This is the fundamental advantage here. The oceans are HUGE. If the KM have 4 x the historical Hilfskreuzer fleet at sea when things "kick-off" in September of 1939?
Bold 4: This serves to elaborate on my point made in #3. The RN did not have the requisite manpower/assets to go off hunting down vessels like these. Have you any recollection of the "Destroyers for Bases" deal that the UK made with FDR in 1940? This was in large part to provide an immediate "surge" in RN strength on the North Atlantic Convoy routes, due to the U-Boat threat. They were already over-taxed with this commitment at the time.
The RN is going to have it's hands full trying to deal with the threat. There is a huge aspect of diffusion in play here and the advantage lies with the antagonist, not the defender.
Bold 5: The beauty of this plan is that all of this can be done on a clandestine basis. There are no overt moves implicit. They are moving 10,000 ton merchants through the "refit" process.
It's not going to raise an undue level of suspicion at the Admiralty level.

Until the situation goes HOT.

At that point? All bets are off.

To do this you have

A: Have a really good idea of when the War with Britain starts - like almost to the week - OTL Hitler right up to the declaration believed (or certainly wanted to believe) that the British and French were bluffing - otherwise you might have all of those raiders running around the world - running out of fuel stores and life time between refit.
B: Hope that the British and French are even nearly as dumb as you think they are!
C: Hope that the British and French Admiralty are 'not' even nearly as paranoid as they actually were.

 

[iron]

To do this you have

A: Have a really good idea of when the War with Britain starts - like almost to the week - OTL Hitler right up to the declaration believed (or certainly wanted to believe) that the British and French were bluffing - otherwise you might have all of those raiders running around the world - running out of fuel stores and life time between refit.
B: Hope that the British and French are even nearly as dumb as you think they are!
C: Hope that the British and French Admiralty are 'not' even nearly as paranoid as they actually were.

Well that was an extremely poor attempt at a rebuttal. But thanks for coming out LOL

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

In my opinion Britain should have built three of these (or equivalent) rather than the flawed Invincible class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarawa-class_amphibious_assault_ship. They do everything the Invincibles do, but better, and replace the retired Commando Carriers as well.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

In my opinion Britain should have built three of these (or equivalent) rather than the flawed Invincible class. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarawa-class_amphibious_assault_ship. They do everything the Invincibles do, but better, and replace the retired Commando Carriers as well.

View attachment 528099

Alas the RN had not the manpower or budget for three of these fine ships which between them could practically carry the entirety of the Royal Marines.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Alas the RN had not the manpower or budget for three of these fine ships which between them could practically carry the entirety of the Royal Marines.

If the choice is made early enough then they would have. It's a matter of political will.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

If the choice is made early enough then they would have. It's a matter of political will.

Political Will does not override Economic and Financial Realities.

Not in the 1930s or 1940s and not in the 1970s.

Now a choice to cut BAOR, abandon the nuclear deterrent or do without something else in either the defence budget or other public spending could work.

But those choices weren't made for good political reasons. What could change those perceptions?

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Political Will does not override Economic and Financial Realities.

Not in the 1930s or 1940s and not in the 1970s.

Now a choice to cut BAOR, abandon the nuclear deterrent or do without something else in either the defence budget or other public spending could work.

But those choices weren't made for good political reasons. What could change those perceptions?

At the time BAOR and RAFG, Nuclear deterrence were quite rightly higher on the need to have list than 'better carriers' which would remain on the nice to have but cannot afford list until the Noughties.

At the time of the 3 ships being ordered Britain was still in that period of 'reinventing' itself with the £ not being quite what it had been

The Invincible class carriers were built as ASW Helicopter platforms primarily intended to defend the sea links between USA/Canada and Europe with a secondary CAP capability using the 'little plane that could' - a clear link to the primary mission of defending against the 'Red peril'

They were not intended as LPHs with a secondary amphib capability and are about half the tonnage of a Tarawa

At the time of their ordering and building there was serious consideration regarding scraping the Royal Marines - but luckily their future was secured by some tin point military dictator lunatic types in South America who proved to HMG that you can never have too many Royal Marines

In hindsight it certainly might have made sense to have 3 larger LPHs with a secondary Amphib capability - but Britain did have a number of 'Assault ships' and LPDs etc - but at the time the threat was 100s of Russian 'Boats' threatening a 3rd 'Happy time' in the North Atlantic and for that you needed lots of ASW Helo.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Well that was an extremely poor attempt at a rebuttal. But thanks for coming out LOL

Well I was working with poor material.

Your welcome

 

[1Big Rich]

View attachment 528188

I guess they got that F-35B onto the ski-jump with a crane...
Like that one parked off the port bow!

AIGF,

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I guess they got that F-35B onto the ski-jump with a crane...
Like that one parked off the port bow!

AIGF,

IIRC They had a number of demonstrators - ie what were effectively 1 scale models - which they used to train deck, lift and hanger handling (I recall seeing one on Illustrious when she was still in service) as well as allowing them to pose for photos like the one below.

This photo was taken in 2014 before the RAF/RN had any F35s in country

 

[1Big Rich]

IIRC They had a number of demonstrators - ie what were effectively 1 scale models - which they used to train deck, lift and hanger handling (I recall seeing one on Illustrious when she was still in service) as well as allowing them to pose for photos like the one below.

This photo was taken in 2014 before the RAF/RN had any F35s in country

Jackie Fisher did say, "The best scale for any test is twelve inches to one foot!" 🔩

 

[CalBear]

Well that was an extremely poor attempt at a rebuttal. But thanks for coming out LOL

How can you have been here pushing ten years and still somehow think this is an acceptable response?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Alternative Clemenceau class Aircraft Carriers

Three ships built to the larger PA58 design. That is two instead of the OTL Clemenceau & Foch. The third was built instead of the OTL PA58 which was cancelled in the late 1950s. They were laid down 1955-59, launched 1957-61 and completed 1961-65. The last ship replaced Arromanches, which became the nuclear testing flagship in 1966 in place of De Grasse.

Each ship operated 20 F-8E(FN) Crusaders and 40 Etendard IVM/P plus a mix of up to 20 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters for AEW, ASW, SAR and VERTREP or a smaller number of more capable aircraft.

According to Jane's Fighting Ships 1968-69 Clemenceau an d Foch had a crews of 2,150 men and not 1,338 which was being quoted in the reference books from the 1970s onwards.

AIUI at that time each operated 40 fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters, which consisted of:

10 F-8E(FN) in one flottille​

20 Etendard IVM/P in two flotilles​

10 Alizé in one flottille​

2 Super Frelon​

2 Alouette III​

For comparison, this is the air wing of USS Oriskany in 1972-73

I thought that USN fighter and attack squadrons had been reduced from 14 to 12 aircraft in the late 1960s and some of the F-8Js and A-7s might be replacements for aircraft that were lost. If we do assume that a maximum of 60 fighters and attack aircraft were embarked instead of the 67 in the above list the total number is reduced to "only" 76 aircraft.

AFAIK the F-8E(FN) Crusader had the same dimensions as the F-8s and RF-8s serving in the USN.

As can be seen from the table below, the Etendard IVM was about the same size as the A-7A Corsair II.

As can also be seen from the table below the Alizé is about the same length as the Tracker & Tracer (I couldn't find the dimensions for the Trader) and it has a narrower folded wingspan. It's also about about one-third shorter than a Skywarrior and has less than half the folded wingspan. (The folded wingspan for the Skywarrior is a guess that I made by measuring the line drawing in Putnam's US Navy Aircraft.

If the reference books are correct the PA58 design was larger than an Essex that had been refitted to SCB.27C/SCB.125 standard. (That is steam catapults in SCB.27C and an angled flight-deck in SCB.125).

PA58 had a standard displacement that was about 15% bigger than an Essex, it was nearly 40 feet longer at the waterline and had another 9 feet of beam.

Therefore, I think what PA58 could have operated an air group of 80 aircraft consisting of:

20 F-8E(FN) Crusaders in 2 flottilles (IMHO PA58 was capable of operating "ordinary" Crusaders)​

40 Etendard IVM/P in 4 flotilles​

10 Alizé in one flottille​

10 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters for AEW, SAR & Vertrep​

 

[1Big Rich]

It's also about about one-third shorter than a Skywarrior and has less than half the folded wingspan. (The folded wingspan for the Skywarrior is a guess that I made by measuring the line drawing in Putnam's US Navy Aircraft.

The Skywarrior did have one tremendous advantage that allowed it to operate from and be struck down into the hangar of the Essex-class; its tail folded down....

Regards,