Diesel Kriegsmarine

[r1ncewind]

well.. will this bring US to war against germany or bring down FDR?

 

[Gudestein]

the American destroyers will have 4" guns and 10 torpedo tubes The FAA aviators Know that the only dangerous target is the Carrier and would be briefed to strike it. once its sunk the Rest of the German Fleet are targets.

Make sense the GZ wouldn’t move into a gunfight when there were BB’s to do that job.

 

[miketr]

well.. will this bring US to war against germany or bring down FDR?

Two USN BBs have been sunk with something like a 1,000 men on each ship. If someone wants to present a case for anything other than war being the result I am all ears.

The Germans sank DD-245 USS Reuben James on October 31st 1941 with a loss of a hundred lives. No US reaction. I have trouble believing the US would be so passive in this case. At same time the German version of events would have horrible optics to the anti FDR press.

Michael

 

[weasel_airlift]

Two USN BBs have been sunk with something like a 1,000 men on each ship. If someone wants to present a case for anything other than war being the result I am all ears.

The Germans sank DD-245 USS Reuben James on October 31st 1941 with a loss of a hundred lives. No US reaction. I have trouble believing the US would be so passive in this case. At same time the German version of events would have horrible optics to the anti FDR press.

Michael

THAT is the important part. The US battleships attacked without provocation, and the crews of all other ships in the area saw it. That said, it all depends on which version gets to the press first, and is believed.

 

[miketr]

Provocation is a relative thing. It appears that the orders FDR passed down through Admiral Stark provided a very aggressive set of rules of engagement. I haven’t found the exact text but what I have found says that any German warship that approached was to be treated as a hostile target. So King was acting within the scope of his orders when he opened fire.

Michael

 

[weasel_airlift]

Provocation is a relative thing. It appears that the orders FDR passed down through Admiral Stark provided a very aggressive set of rules of engagement. I haven’t found the exact text but what I have found says that any German warship that approached was to be treated as a hostile target. So King was acting within the scope of his orders when he opened fire.

Michael

Right. Ultimately though, how the press spins it is what is important.

 

[Gudestein]

Provocation is a relative thing. It appears that the orders FDR passed down through Admiral Stark provided a very aggressive set of rules of engagement. I haven’t found the exact text but what I have found says that any German warship that approached was to be treated as a hostile target. So King was acting within the scope of his orders when he opened fire.

Michael

Well that only means King is not to blame. FDR is. I agree that the early news is important. The long showdown before the engagement will make it harder to maintain the Germans were to blame. The US had no business at such a showdown in the first place.
Its not gonna stick, but the early Press angle Will be decisive.
And most likely anti German. In the long run its going to be dividing the country.

 

[Tom_B]

The British attacked the target they had in front of them. Graf Zeppelin was not located and not attacked.

As to USS destroyers my silence is not to say they tried nothing just that they achieved nothing of note. The type 15 torpedo had same problem as the type 14s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo#Problems

Michael

OK but then maybe one or more of them were sunk as well.

 

[weasel_airlift]

Well that only means King is not to blame. FDR is. I agree that the early news is important. The long showdown before the engagement will make it harder to maintain the Germans were to blame. The US had no business at such a showdown in the first place.
Its not gonna stick, but the early Press angle Will be decisive.
And most likely anti German. In the long run its going to be dividing the country.

Important to note that, OTL at this point, the US public had no real stomach for war. Pearl Harbor changed that. If the press angle is "German fleet attacks US Navy group" it is very different than "President orders Navy group into action against numerically superior foe"

 

[Gudestein]

Important to note that, OTL at this point, the US public had no real stomach for war. Pearl Harbor changed that. If the press angle is "German fleet attacks US Navy group" it is very different than "President orders Navy group into action against numerically superior foe"

Indeed, the latter version will quickly be exposed, but the question is how Quick the reaction to the US Press release will be before this happens.
It would be very Strange indeed if the US finds itself at war only to regret it two days later.

 

[Gudestein]

well.. will this bring US to war against germany or bring down FDR?

Both I would suppose. But then what.

 

[cortz#9]

Its been a while since we've seen an update, this TL still a going concern?

 

[Gudestein]

Its been a while since we've seen an update, this TL still a going concern?

I sure hope so
Miketr said he would announce it if he quit, so lets cross our fingers.

 

[BlondieBC]

Two USN BBs have been sunk with something like a 1,000 men on each ship. If someone wants to present a case for anything other than war being the result I am all ears.

The Germans sank DD-245 USS Reuben James on October 31st 1941 with a loss of a hundred lives. No US reaction. I have trouble believing the US would be so passive in this case. At same time the German version of events would have horrible optics to the anti FDR press.

Michael

USA will go to war. It is the old "American blood shed on American soil" type argument made for the Mexican-American war. Now to the more interesting part. If the story that the USA opened fire first is the story in the press, then it will cause a lot of internal political issues in the USA. It will not stop the declaration of war. I suspect the domestic issues due to mixed support for the war are beyond the scope of your ATL. A second, more interesting point relates to the War in the Pacific which has not started yet. It just may not occur. We will see a rapid and immediate flow of naval, air, and army resources to the Eastern USA. Japan might decide to skip the Pearl part if the ships are not there. And the Japanese might decide to bypass PI. Or in any case, the Pacific has a lot fewer resources than OTL so Japan will do better in many ATLs.

So yes, for your ATL writing, just have the USA go to war with Germany full throttle. Within a few weeks, we should see the bulk of the USA pacific fleet in the Atlantic, especially the carriers.

 

[BlondieBC]

Indeed, the latter version will quickly be exposed, but the question is how Quick the reaction to the US Press release will be before this happens.
It would be very Strange indeed if the US finds itself at war only to regret it two days later.

The regret will take longer. It will be more like 6 months in when the rationing starts to take effect and people have time to get over the initial euphoria of war.

 

[Gudestein]

The regret will take longer. It will be more like 6 months in when the rationing starts to take effect and people have time to get over the initial euphoria of war.

Not too unlikely, but it will be a silly situation when the german says, “ok, we forgive you”.

 

[Gallienus]

SPAM deleted

 

[DougM]

The US was better NG dangerously aggressive IOTL. This time line is worse. But in a situation like this most of the blame belongs with the German navy. You do not take battleship into point blank range with each other. It is just not done. This is like to armed men standing 20’ apart each holding a loaded handgun just holding it and pointing it at each other is an act of aggression.

In this case Germany approached two US battleships flying the American flag. They challenged them in the middle of the high seas. Yes you could argue they had a right to inspect the convoy but as I said I can’t think of an example of two potentially hostile battle ships in modern time approaching to combat range. Add in the fact that Germany out numbered and out gunned and had the faster ships and it is The German navy that needs to take action to avoid this mess.

From the point of view of the Americans on the spot they had only a few options and non of the good.

1) let Germany raid the convoy.
2) hope Germany turns around and leave with its tail between it legs (that is not happening as Germany ACTIVELY intercepted the US Battleships.
3 let Germany shoot first. This is NEVER a good idea (from a combat point of view) and when the odds are stacked this hard against you it is suicidal.
4. Take advantage of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you can to try and help you. In this case attacking them while they are distracted. The admril is not an idiot he knows he will lose this fight but maybe he can take someone with him. And maybe some of the convoy can scatter and get away. Unless the first thing the Germans did was tell the US navy to go on the Germans are responsible.

The Germans in this timeline actively intercept a convoy of ships in New was escorted by US war ships. It aggressively positioned itself inside gun range. It was the only ones that could avoid this mess as it had faster ships. It was the larger fleet. It had the newer better ships it got into a shooting war while in close contact with the US ships and it did not tell the Americans to just go on.

They only thing else Germany could have done was to fire first. And the fear of that is what started this mess

 

[Tursiops Amicus]

The US was better NG dangerously aggressive IOTL. This time line is worse. But in a situation like this most of the blame belongs with the German navy. You do not take battleship into point blank range with each other. It is just not done. This is like to armed men standing 20’ apart each holding a loaded handgun just holding it and pointing it at each other is an act of aggression.

In this case Germany approached two US battleships flying the American flag. They challenged them in the middle of the high seas. Yes you could argue they had a right to inspect the convoy but as I said I can’t think of an example of two potentially hostile battle ships in modern time approaching to combat range. Add in the fact that Germany out numbered and out gunned and had the faster ships and it is The German navy that needs to take action to avoid this mess.

From the point of view of the Americans on the spot they had only a few options and non of the good.

1) let Germany raid the convoy.
2) hope Germany turns around and leave with its tail between it legs (that is not happening as Germany ACTIVELY intercepted the US Battleships.
3 let Germany shoot first. This is NEVER a good idea (from a combat point of view) and when the odds are stacked this hard against you it is suicidal.
4. Take advantage of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you can to try and help you. In this case attacking them while they are distracted. The admril is not an idiot he knows he will lose this fight but maybe he can take someone with him. And maybe some of the convoy can scatter and get away. Unless the first thing the Germans did was tell the US navy to go on the Germans are responsible.

The Germans in this timeline actively intercept a convoy of ships in New was escorted by US war ships. It aggressively positioned itself inside gun range. It was the only ones that could avoid this mess as it had faster ships. It was the larger fleet. It had the newer better ships it got into a shooting war while in close contact with the US ships and it did not tell the Americans to just go on.

They only thing else Germany could have done was to fire first. And the fear of that is what started this mess

Escorting merchant ships with destination to a beligerant country in a war area is declaring yourself a participant in the conflict.

That is of pure logic and is in the war rules in the sea.

 

[DougM]

If you want to go into traditions and rules (and there more like guidelines) then don’t forget that the country going after the merchant ships is supposed to stop the ship inspect the ship and if it has restricted cargo then you are supposed to provide for the crew after you sink the ship.
On top of this normally neutral shipping only gets involved within a very short distance of the coast of a belligerent country not in the middle of the ocean.

The US is perfectly within its rights to make sure that non belligerent ships in the middle of international waters are not being attacked.

So if you want to tell the US that they have to live by the so called rules then your side better be doing the same.

Therefore I expect the following.
A list of contraband with a reasonable list of what is allowed.
I expect a CLEARLY defined combat / restricted area.
I expect you to stop and inspect and to remove the crews to safety (good luck with that MR U Boat )
I expect that anything on the permitted category to be allowed to go on.
And I expect you to keep clear of ships outside the zone.

If you want to restrict the US then you have to restrict everyone. The fact remains that technology has changed faster then the so called rules of warfare. And that almost everyone bent or broke those rules whenever it benefited them to begin with so acting like the US was being bad for escorting ships in traditionally neutral waters when you are randomly blowing up neutral flagged ships in said waters is hypocrisy of the first order.

And I still say in this particular example the blame falls as much (if not more) on the side of Germany yes the US was pushing it but so was Germany. The trouble with brinkmanship is that it is easy to accidentally cross the line. And anytime you have ships within gun range of each other you have a problem. The German commander can NOT be so stupid that he thinks that he can go in and randomly start sinking ships within gun range of US battleships. And that goes double for US flagged ships.

And frankly the legal bs is besides the point. The real question is how does this look to Joe average? And it looks bad for Germany. This is getting sold in the US and the rest of the neutral world as the US was doing a Nutrality patrol to insure the right of neutral shipping to sail the international high seas when the German navy deliberately intercepted the US ships and a group of neutral unarmed innocents merchants and demanded that the US ships leave the poor merchants to be destroyed by the evil Germans.

Who shot first is beside the point. If you have a gun and a bad guy has a gun pointed at you are you going to wait for the bad guy to shot first? No and nobody is going to expect you to. And being out gunned and out numbered just makes that worse. No one is going to have problems with the US shooting first in this case.

The poor Americans trying to protect the innocent neutral merchants never had a chance but they went down swinging. And tha crew of the one merchant ship that got away that just happened to only have food and baby supplies onboard are going to Be paraded through every main street in the US as the face of the people that America’s sons died to protect.

This is going down the same as the following would. Gang A is in a street war with Gang B. A cop walking the street is in the area of a group of folks that are not part of either gang but are friends with gang B. Two Gang A members come up with guns drawn and tell the cop to get lost. And surprise surprise the cop shoots first.
Is the perfectly the same? Not really as legally it is an interesting argument with the ships but it is sure they way it will be seen everywhere but in Germany, and the end result is a pissed off US declaring war on Germany. And unlike OTL the whole country is going to be fighting made. Basically you just created a WW1 Peril Harbor.