Churchill dies on Nelson October 1939

[perfectgeneral]

If Churchill isn't there to put Halifax in the shade he might well take the job. Who will stop him surrendering later? Any chance of Amery or Duff-Cooper in his cabinet? He felt the job needed lots of drive. He might seek driven men for his ministries.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

If Churchill isn't there to put Halifax in the shade he might well take the job. Who will stop him surrendering later? Any chance of Amery or Duff-Cooper in his cabinet? He felt the job needed lots of drive. He might seek driven men for his ministries.

Define surrender. He would negotiated and not give up anything British (maybe Malta, which was thought to be lost anyway), but in the process resign Europe to Germany.

 

[perfectgeneral]

With part two coming after Barbarossa?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

With part two coming after Barbarossa?

Part two of what? Its not like Britain is going to be sitting still. The will rearm and get ready for German aggression and if anything jump in when the Germans get worn down in Russia, because Barbarossa likely can't succeed. Even 'winning' means getting bogged down in a huge occupation, which will see Britain doing everything to make more difficult by supporting partisans all over Europe and supporting additional resistance from the Soviets. Get your enemy bogged down in the East and support his enemy. Of course the Japanese will be a wild card for the Brits come 1941.

 

[perfectgeneral]

So Hitler didn't want an occupation to enforce the peace?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

So Hitler didn't want an occupation to enforce the peace?

No, Hitler wanted Britain to focus on its empire and leave Europe alone so he could rule it; basically he wanted an alliance with them. In fact he seemed to think Churchill was the only reason the British weren't being reasonable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zweites_Buch

In Zweites Buch, Hitler called for an Anglo-German alliance based on political expediency as well as the notion that the two Germanic powers were natural allies. In Zweites Buch, Hitler tried to explain away the contradiction between his view of the British striving for a balance of power leading to an Anglo-German alliance, and his goal of Germany being the dominant continental power by arguing it was wrong to believe that "England fought every hegemonic power immediately", but rather was prepared to accept dominant states whose aims were "obviously and purely continental in nature".[4] Hitler went on to write that "Of course no one in Britain will conclude an alliance for the good of Germany, but only in the furtherance of British interests."[5] Nonetheless, because Hitler believed that there was an ongoing struggle between the "Jewish invasion" against "old British tradition" for the control of Britain, Hitler believed the chances for Anglo-German alliance to be good provided the "Jewish invasion" was resisted successfully.[6] Hitler hedged somewhat, however, by claiming that

The instincts of Anglo-Saxondom are still so sharp and alive that one cannot speak of a complete victory of Jewry, but rather, in part the latter is still forced to adjust its interests to those of the English. If the Jew were to triumph in England, English interests would recede into the background.... [But] if the Briton triumphs then a shift of England's attitude vis-à-vis Germany can still take place."[6]

 

[MattII]

Why quibble with quite a plausible POD?

Because it might not actually be plausible?

A warhead is a warhead

Torpedoes were set to run deep and hit the lowest parts of the hull, forgetting even the shockwave damage, the pressure changes created by the underwater explosions cause massive damage to the keel

three direct hits would break her back, no amount of brilliant compartmentalization will withstand that kind of damage

Except the Nelson isn't like that, at least around her middle, her flanks there drop almost straight down to a flat bottom, so the only way you could get even near the keel is from beneath.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Because it might not actually be plausible?

Except the Nelson isn't like that, at least around her middle, her flanks there drop almost straight down to a flat bottom, so the only way you could get even near the keel is from beneath.

http://s401.photobucket.com/user/D-Mitch_photos/media/hms_nelson.jpg.html

http://s1151.photobucket.com/user/ZeppelinAce/media/Warships/Airfix HMS Nelson/5lowerhull.jpg.html

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Royal Oak

http://www.hmsroyaloak.co.uk/survey.html

Torpedo holes:

 

[Curiousone]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Nelson_(28)

When this attack was made Churchill and the admiralty leadership were onboard. The ship was anchored and all three hit the battleship dead on. Had all three torpedoes exploded it would have likely ended like the Royal Oak, which sank in about 7 minutes after being hit by three torpedoes while at anchor in Scapa Flow in September, likely sinking with Churchill and the admiralty.

http://www.uboataces.com/articles-wooden-torpedoes.shtml


http://uboat.net/history/torpedo_crisis.htm


http://acepilots.com/ships/nelson.html


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/1939/10/30.htm


What happens next? Do the British then not conduct the Norwegian operation (a Churchill plan)? What happens when the Chamberlin government falls, who replaces him (wikipedia suggests Halifax, but there had to be other options, right?)?

If they recover his body.. the state funeral for a wartime leader killed in action is going to be a big, big affair.

http://www.hmsroyaloak.co.uk/survey.html
...

Torpedo holes:

Owned.

 

[BlondieBC]

it would have sank faster than 7 minutes because the ship was under way; in all likelyhood three direct hits would have capsized her with very high loss of life (especially with frigid conditions/weather/fear of additional attacks to hamper rescue efforts)

Well, depends how fast they counter flood. With the modern TDS, you flood the non-hit side to keep the ship upright. A lot depends on how good the damage control teams are on this day. A lot depends on where and how the torpedoes hit, since about 1/3 of any BB will be outside of the TDS protection (ship is too narrow). Depends on where Churchill is on the ship. The ship will sink. He may die, little else can be said for sure with 3 submarine torpedo hits.

 

[NorthernFiend]

I forget how many interesting POD threads have been hijacked by debating the likelihood of the POD, can someone remind me?

Well it's every one of mine for a start.
I can't pretend I'm familiar with British politics of the time (despite being British) but I would have thought Atlee/Bevin would have more of a mandate than a non-entity. They are not in government but this looks like a bonus now, with Churchill suddenly gone this administration looks more rudderless than Bismarck 1941.
One thing that does seem likely is whoever takes over will be less successful with US relations and the Soviets will trust them more.
So -
Duff Cooper takes over but vote of no-confidence after Norway brings in Labour prime minister of Coalition. This puts US help back significantly but greatly increases UK-Soviet co-operation. British/Commonweath land and air forces fight around Leningrad and Caucasus, from '42 Brit Armoured units forces have 6 pounder armed T34 instead of the M4..
Potentially the Tizard Mission goes East?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission
all quite scary in long term

 

[lukedalton]

Not to dwell too much in the PoD, as Winston can slip and hit the floor with the head and die (i know is a little far fetched but history teach us that unusual things happen and frankly the basic idea in the OP is that Churchill is not PM and someone else is in charge).

IMHO without Churchill Great Britain will accept any German reasonable proposal naturally the only reasonable proposal will be a white peace with London promise to leave Europe alone and knowing Adolf he will go for it, as his first and foremost priority is East Europe.

Anyone who's in charge will just bide is time and begin to prepare to round two as the idea to let anyone in total control of the continent and so to be like a dagger to the UK throat will be unthinkable, probably when Germany attack the Soviet will be the right time for a good stabbing in the back. Naturally if London is not too occupied with the Japanese (who are for a ride not so smooth like OTL here)

Benny will be happy (well sort of), despite all naysayer he really needed only some couple of thousand of deaths, sure Italy don't get much (probably Somaliland, plus what obtained from French), still better than nothing.

The USA will be worried, and for the joy of many the mythical B-36 will probably get the green light...and become a waste of time and money for long.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Well, depends how fast they counter flood. With the modern TDS, you flood the non-hit side to keep the ship upright. A lot depends on how good the damage control teams are on this day. A lot depends on where and how the torpedoes hit, since about 1/3 of any BB will be outside of the TDS protection (ship is too narrow). Depends on where Churchill is on the ship. The ship will sink. He may die, little else can be said for sure with 3 submarine torpedo hits.

It also depends on whether they realize it is a torpedo strike; they thought they were pretty much safe with a massive destroyer screen and ASDIC (which hadn't been proven unreliable yet). IOTL they only realized it was a Uboat due to the premature detonation of one of the torpedoes, while the other two struck the hull, acting as a dead giveaway of what was going on. With the Royal Oak even after they were hit by a torpedo and had multiple misses, they thought there had been an accident onboard, rather than a Uboat shooting at them. A sudden series of explosions on the Nelson in what was thought as a safe area could really just have a similar result: they could well think it was an accident below decks, which would result in a delayed proper response and leave the admiralty onboard even longer than they should be while the crew try to figure out what happened.

Also I should note that the Royal Oak sank in 13 minutes, not 7 as I originally suggested, but it began to badly list quickly and turned over several minutes before it officially sank with most of its crew.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Well it's every one of mine for a start.
I can't pretend I'm familiar with British politics of the time (despite being British) but I would have thought Atlee/Bevin would have more of a mandate than a non-entity. They are not in government but this looks like a bonus now, with Churchill suddenly gone this administration looks more rudderless than Bismarck 1941.
One thing that does seem likely is whoever takes over will be less successful with US relations and the Soviets will trust them more.
So -
Duff Cooper takes over but vote of no-confidence after Norway brings in Labour prime minister of Coalition. This puts US help back significantly but greatly increases UK-Soviet co-operation. British/Commonweath land and air forces fight around Leningrad and Caucasus, from '42 Brit Armoured units forces have 6 pounder armed T34 instead of the M4..
Potentially the Tizard Mission goes East?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission
all quite scary in long term

Why would the government let new elections happen in wartime? Why wouldn't they just drop Chamberlain like IOTL and replace him with a palatable conservative in the war cabinet, rather than let a no-confidence vote go through on the eve of the German invasion of France? IOTL the no confidence vote happened two days before the Germans invaded France, so having to set up new elections and have a bitter political battle would if anything destabilize the British badly just as they were set to have a really bad military setback. The question is when a vote could even happen at that point. It probably wouldn't happen before Dunkirk, which means with the BoB on the horizon, Britain is not really going to be in a position to be setting up a vote with the Germans starting to bomb them.
It just makes more sense for current government to continue under new leadership, rather than go to the potentially destabilizing act of setting up a vote while bombs are falling on British soil and the threat of invasion has the public in a panic.

So even with a worse situation militarily without Churchill stumping for Chamberlain, I think the no-confidence vote is still won, though more narrowly than IOTL due to the implicit threat of potential destabilization with the German invasion on the doorstep. It was the critical moment and having an election then would be pretty tough.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Different course of events?

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-Nelson.htm

30th – At 0800 hours the Fleet was in approximate position 59-41N, 5-01W.
At approximately 1000 hours when west of the Orkneys and returning to the Clyde, the Home Fleet comprising NELSON, RODNEY, HOOD and destroyers ICARUS, IMPULSIVE, IVANHOE, INTREPID and KELLY ran into a line of 4 U-boats. U 56 fired three torpedoes at NELSON and all three struck the target, two broke upon hitting and the other failed to exploded. The crew of NELSON and the other ships of the Fleet were unaware of the attack.

It seems the other narrative is a bit different in that the attack was not discovered at all and the malfunctioning torpedo did not explode at all, rather than prematurely and alerting the fleet. Not sure what to make of this, other than all sources agree that the attack happened, just not as to whether the British were aware at the time.

 

[BlairWitch749]

Well, depends how fast they counter flood. With the modern TDS, you flood the non-hit side to keep the ship upright. A lot depends on how good the damage control teams are on this day. A lot depends on where and how the torpedoes hit, since about 1/3 of any BB will be outside of the TDS protection (ship is too narrow). Depends on where Churchill is on the ship. The ship will sink. He may die, little else can be said for sure with 3 submarine torpedo hits.

Counter flooding would be of little use, three simultaneous (or near simultaneous hits) on one side whilst cruising at 15 knots will rip her guts out or break her back or both in a very rapid fashion, especially given Nelson's tremendous weight imbalance (which would make her very vulnerable to snapping her keel)

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Counter flooding would be of little use, three simultaneous (or near simultaneous hits) on one side whilst cruising at 15 knots will rip her guts out or break her back or both in a very rapid fashion, especially given Nelson's tremendous weight imbalance (which would make her very vulnerable to snapping her keel)

What weight imbalance?

 

[BlairWitch749]

It also depends on whether they realize it is a torpedo strike; they thought they were pretty much safe with a massive destroyer screen and ASDIC (which hadn't been proven unreliable yet). IOTL they only realized it was a Uboat due to the premature detonation of one of the torpedoes, while the other two struck the hull, acting as a dead giveaway of what was going on. With the Royal Oak even after they were hit by a torpedo and had multiple misses, they thought there had been an accident onboard, rather than a Uboat shooting at them. A sudden series of explosions on the Nelson in what was thought as a safe area could really just have a similar result: they could well think it was an accident below decks, which would result in a delayed proper response and leave the admiralty onboard even longer than they should be while the crew try to figure out what happened.

Also I should note that the Royal Oak sank in 13 minutes, not 7 as I originally suggested, but it began to badly list quickly and turned over several minutes before it officially sank with most of its crew.

wiking,

there is a difference between a single strike whilst stationary in port (where flooding will be much slower)

and three strikes on one side whilst cruising at 15 knots

forgetting even the catastrophic damage of those three hits (which as I mentioned above will likely break Nelson's back), having the lower hull ripped open whilst cruising creates tremendous pressure on the adjacent hull sections causing them to fail, adding to already major flooding

the much more appropriate comparison is the sinking of barham, which took three fish on one side whilst underway and sank rapidly with major loss of like

loss of life on nelson might actually be worse, because of it's weight imbalance, you would have a decent chance of the stern and bow separating or if the hits were largely forward the ship going down nose first very rapidly

 

[Deleted member 1487]

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-047.htm

The British Nelson Class of 1922 was the first Treaty-limited design, but used a conventional layered TDS. However, the Nelson’s belt was placed inboard of the side shell, permitting torpedo blast to travel up the exterior of the armor yet still destroy the skin of the ship, possibly permitting flooding over the top of the TDS.