IC: Mines. Other than that, yes. How many times has an impenetrable fortress fallen because some idiot left the back door unlocked?
IC: Madder things have happened. The whole history of the American Revolution would be considered ASB in 1774. Especially Washington's escape from New York.
IC: Too bad the US/Filippino troops arrived unarmed and were lost with the DEI regardless.
OOC: This scenario required the Italian naval leadership to show a level of courage, determination, organization, and proven resources they never had. If they couldn't consider a strike against Cyprus, never sent a supply convoy to Tobruk, and could never even make a serious attempt at freakin' MALTA for crying out loud (their own front yard), how could they ever get all the way across the Western Mediterranean, around Gibraltar, around Iberia, and up to the English Channel? This, with what the Italians themselves described as "The Cardboard Fleet".
OOC: They couldn't, unless the Carolines, Marshalls, Peleliu, and Marianas are US territories, complete with fully equipped fleet and air bases. Oh, and a Fleet Train.
The improved models may not have been ensign/lieutenant killers, but the Helldiver and to a lesser degree the Corsair would always be problematical for green pilots. One reason why the F-4U was so unpopular with the USN initially, while for the USMC (land-based) it was a godsend.
IC: Its hard to imagine today the level of political support Dougout Dougie enjoyed in the press and hardcore Roosevelt Hating Republicans.
OOC: The FAA was the beggar at the table pre-Channel Dash.
Astrodragon's "Whale Has Wings" ATL shows what happens with a heavy investment in British naval power exceeding even Japan's.
Flitting between the mind-thoughts of what should be "IC" & "OOC" is extremely confusing in a DBWI.
Yeah, the RN and FAA will be heavily concentrated to meet a breakout attempt from Brest. However, logic would have dictated that the Germans flee to the open sea to get into the Atlantic shipping lanes, to do the most damage. So the deployments would be positioned to stop that. "No sane person" would try for the Channel, so if the enemy believes that, maybe with bags and bags of luck, it could be done. But how?
True, but there's limited OTL, USM, and ASB levels.
Hey, ease up on
pattersonautobody. All it takes is Japanophilia combined with being an Anglophobe and/or Ameriphobe. More than a few of those around. Did he claim his TL was "balanced"?
IC: Agreed, if Bomber Command and everything the FAA had left in its inventory hadn't destroyed them in port. The Twins and PE were not the Tirpitz in a remote Norwegian fjord.
The North Carolina and the Washington, the New Mexico-class, the New Yorks, maybe even the Arkansas!
Stop making sense!
IC: Agreed, save for that Brest was a very dangerous port to reside in, with regular bombing runs causing an ever growing level of damage to the ships, they could never quite become sufficiently operational for an Atlantic Raid.
Good Idea
IC: With the naval air power advocates vindicated by the Bismarck's sinking, the FAA finally got equal priority with the RAF for new aircraft and designs. Up until then, they'd practically been fighting the war with the designs and hardware they started with on 9/1/39! If not for Ark Royal sinking the "Unsinkable Bismarck", this supposed "Channel Dash" suggested wouldn't have been so insane after all. Hitler knew his Twins and the Prinz Eugen were being very slowly bombed into scrap by Bomber Command, and the re-invigorated FAA helped to finally polish them off.
After all, with the whole of Bomber Command being thrown at Brest, those poor three ships were never in a status to be made sea-worthy. Also, it took any pressure off of the bombing raids being made against Germany until those ships were destroyed.
Though I too consider the possibility of a successful running of the Channel to be almost USM. With the Channel defenses pumped up, the Dover guns in place, and the naval minefields off the Belgian/Dutch/NE German coastline, I just don't see it. The Germans would have had to make the most brilliantly planned naval operational plan they ever accomplished, and frankly, they just couldn't. Not without the Luftwaffe supporting them, which just ain't happening.
The RN's decision to avoid serious loss in the Aegean due to the lack of air cover meant abandoning the Greeks to their fate, yes. And that caused a LOT of trouble with the Greeks and even to a much lesser degree the Americans, but it did mean the annihilation of the Fallschirmjager over Crete, (1) and Hitler's total denunciation of all forms of future airborne operations. Who knows what using paras would do on the Russian Front. Air drops on Sevastopol?
1) Not to mention saving Crete (2) in what became Hitler's first strategic defeat in WWII, helping to freeze Turkey in its neutrality and helping to convince them (with lots of American $$$) to sell all their chrome to the Allies, cutting Hitler off from his only source.
2) Making for a nice tactical air base for attacking Axis targets in the Balkans, securing the shipping lanes in the Eastern Mediterranean from air attack, and providing emergency landing and refueling airfields for strikes against Ploesti. Many Allied airmen were saved with Crete available as a "lifeboat".
Then there's the Pacific. No air cover meant Force Z couldn't be saved per se (no one could have foreseen the long-range and air superiority capabilities of IJN fighters), at least Indomitable's grounding meant she wasn't lost.
Frankly, I think far too much credit is given to General Short. He was an old infantry general, almost prematurely aged for his 61 years. If not for the support given directly to his air commanders by Washington for a higher state of readiness, communications co-ordination, and above all paying attention to radar reports, the 7th US Air Force would have been destroyed without real damage to the enemy, what with Short's interference. As it was, a lot of "lame duck" aircraft were lost on the tarmac anyway. Not to mention so many fighters being shot down and the pilots killed because they had no idea of how to deal with the nimble Zeroes.
But nothing could forgive what happened in the Philippines, where Dugout Dougie proved himself for what he was. At least a handful of forces were evacuated from Mindanao, only to be lost in Java.

A MOH for the Japanese destroyer skipper that picked off Dougie's PT boat. The other good result was Kimmel's replacement when he demanded the right to send the Standards to the Philippines (via Australia), when between the Norwegian campaign, Taranto, the Bismarck,
Force Z, the loss of the Brest Squadron, PH, ABDA, and the
driving of the British Indian Ocean Fleet off to Kenya proved once and for all the madness of subjecting sea power against air power alone.
OOC: Opinions?