I really don't think there is much of anything that can be done to get more carriers at sea before 1943.
Agreed. And even ITTL you won't see
Ranger going to the Pacific. Its not that she was needed for Torch so much, that she was a terrific training ship for new pilots, or that the USN wanted to keep at least one CV of their own in the Atlantic. It was that King, correctly IMO, saw the
Ranger as a one hit wonder that result in her immediate loss in a combat situation due to her inability to maintain a proper fleet speed with other US CVs (except for the
Wasp) and that her handling problems meant so much of her potential air strength (up to 50%!) would be rendered useless.
If smart, the USN would stop the Alaska and her sisters and start three carriers in their place. There was a plan for conversion of an Alaska to an aircraft carrier in January 1942. Not a great carrier but certainly better than the a CB. OTOH, they are not far enough along that you couldn't just stop and start an Essex.
The
Alaska-class was being built in answer to Germany's pocket battleships and due to reports of a Japanese battlecruiser class. IDK when the USN learned that those reports were spurious (I don't remember the name of that Japanese BC "class"), so when that was learned would have a lot to do with when the cancellation or conversion of the
Alaska-class could be made. Considering the prejudice in the USN against battlecruisers it makes me wonder what the impetus was for those American battlecruisers was in the first place. I mean really..."Large Cruisers"? SOMEBODY from the very beginning was very unenthusiastic about those ships.
<snip>No doubt Yorktown and Wasp head West virtually immediately; Hornet as well when she completes work-up. So, ITTL there are adequate CV decks available for the Pacific Fleet to mount the same responses at Coral Sea and Midway as per OTL; just different ships.
Problem: The Wasp doesn't have the speed to keep up with the Yorktown-class.
Furthermore, per Kimmel's policy if the carriers are at PH on 7 December, there are four BBs at sea. My guesstimation is that would be BatDiv 2 plus either Nevada or Maryland. Does Nagumo stay around to hunt them? Probably not.
He didn't have the fuel to do so. As I've stated, if Nagumo had lost ships due to fuel exhaustion on the return trip, he's professionally disgraced despite the glory gained from PH.
I think you're right: That's likely.
Of course, you can't use the Bogues for offensive operations or raids - they're too slow. (Only 18 knots.)
But in a temporary defensive role, they could be useful. Ideally, of course, they're really best suited to CAS and ASW work (or simple aircraft transport). But for a Navy Dept in full panic over the damage to its fast carrier striking forces, it's the sort of easy fix they could latch on to. Also: the paucity of fast carrier decks will put an even greater premium on building up land-based air support on key islands, and Bogues would be helpful in getting those aircraft to those stations.
YES. THIS. It was this kind of mission that can lead to more rapid build ups for the remaining islands, including Johnston, Palmyra, Midway, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, Port Moresby, and especially New Caledonia. The Allies are NOT losing New Caledonia. Any Pacific War ATL in which they do is as Unspeakable Seamammal as losing Hawaii.
<snip>I suspect the real impact would be felt in 1943, as CINCPAC ends up getting a bigger surge of decks by mid-1943 than it actually got in OTL, thanks to the post Pearl Harbor "carrier panic" - more CVLs, and faster; more CVE's; an extra Essex or two; and of course it would likely be getting back Enterprise and Lexington from their rebuilds. And if I'm right about that, it shows how the Japanese just can't win for losing: even with an even more successful Pearl Harbor, they actually could end up in even worse position (in terms of carrier air power correlation of forces) by the time the war was 18 months old.
You could be right, BUT...how much would the crippling steel shortages of 1943 effect all this? It seems to me that all this mega-building up of the USN is going to put a serious dent into Lend Lease for armor. Not to mention America's own tank production. I have a vague memory of a statement that for every battleship the US produced meant one less armored division for Europe. I image that if true extra fleet CVs would add a bigger dent too. So will there be enough Grant tanks available for Monty for Second El Alemain to be fought in October of 1942? Probably. But I'd worry about that, and for the resources for Torch, Husky, and so on.
As to the Japanese, while they'd be in a worse position compared to carrier match ups, that assumes an OTL Midway. I remain convinced that ITTL Port Moresby at the very least will fall.
If all 3 aircraft carriers in the Pacific are destroyed or at least rendered hors de combat for the first half of 1942 then the Americans might adopt a more extreme Europe First strategy.
Well, you could easily argue that the Saratoga gets torpedoed and sunk in early 1942. But that's like supposing that the Nautilus sinks the Hiryu just as the other three CVs of the KB are being sunk in the Five Minutes of Midway.
As to adopting a more extreme Europe First strategy in WWII, that means the Republicans sweep the US House of Representatives. Losing the Senate was never in the cards. FDR was always a politician first, and he never went far beyond the limits of public opinion. Going full bore on Europe First really just means shutting down the Pacific War completely to put every last DD against the U-Boats while flooding even more L-L to our allies while there is little to be done to get US troops or strategic bombers up against Nazi Germany any time sooner. A very VERY ugly situation back home for the Democrats and FDR himself, with facing a non-OTL US House and a Republican Party that hasn't had any control of any levers of power in America since they lost the Supreme Court in 1937, the White House and Senate in 1932, and the US House in 1930. You could easily see Republicans in the House refusing to appropriate funds for FDR's stupendous military buildup until he can show at least a temporary "Japan First" war strategy.
Therefore Yorktown and Hornet would be loaned to the British for at least the first half of 1942. They would alternate between covering Arctic convoys, Malta convoys and club runs to Malta with the possibility of damaging or sinking Tirpitz if she still comes out to attack Convoy PQ12 and therefore butterflying away the PQ17 disaster.
Um, no. Wasp for Malta runs perhaps. Keeping Ranger in the North Sea is HIGHLY unlikely, as neither she nor other USN CVs were well equipped for extreme cold weather environments (unlike British CVs with their enclosed decks). One good reason why no USN CVs were sent to the Aleutians, and the Japanese found that their own carriers up there were relatively useless. But you're not sending regular fully capable Fleet CVs through Murmansk Convoy runs except over the dead bodies of Admirals King AND Stark (Stark would have understood the inadvisability of Fleet CVs going to Murmansk), SecNav Knox, SecWar Stimson, Nimitz, and FDR himself. After all, what happened to British carriers that tried to operate in fog and night enshrouded seas against a still operational Kriegsmarine in their own "home waters"?
The PQ-17 disaster was due to the incompetent decisions made by a man who was dying of an undiagnosed brain cancer. It wasn't a matter of a lack of Fleet CVs.
I'm thinking a TL where the US sends Atlantic Fleet carriers to the Indian Ocean along with the RN carriers massing there. The combined Allied carrier fleet begins contesting the Japanese advance into the DEI. The IJN has send the KB to take care of the growing menace. A carrier battle erupts somewhere south of Java...








Incredibly unbelievably NO! Just no. NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO! Did I mention NO? Never mind the operational limitations of such a distant redeployment, you'd face a congressional revolt, plus all the things I mentioned above politically about Murmansk Convoy deployment, only worst. Since now you're running up against FDR's anti-imperialism as well. At least in Murmansk you have the advantage of FDR's wanting to aid the USSR.
And the subsequent battle with the KB is giving Yamamoto the decisive battle that he wants.
Part of that had to do with the reports coming back from the pilots. They made it seem as if the Center Force had been dealt a shattering blow, in reality it was only given a bloody nose and the supposed shambolic retreat was really just a feint. It still doesn't totally excuse the failure to leave some kind of blocking force but with his veteran fliers reporting they had the situation under control and a 'great battle' shaping up in the north it was easy for such a mistake to have been made. I find all this judgement of Halsey's decision making, while deserving in some respects, entirely too harsh given that our benefit of hindsight simply didn't exist on the bridge of the New Jersey in October '44. And speaking of blunders at Leyte Gulf, "Bull's Run" was nowhere near as egregious as say, Kurita turning tail in the face of the remnants of Taffy 3 at Samar...
On the contrary. I have always believed that Halsey was hearing from his pilots what he wanted to hear, and was from that point at least thinking with his balls rather than his brain. Up until this time he had never commanded such a vast force in battle. He had gone from a force of a few fleet carriers to a land command in SWPAC until relieving Spruance post-Philippine Sea. He had a staff that had never been seriously expanded, and he and his people were simply overwhelmed. They were making mistakes.
Spruance was heavily criticized for refusing to "follow up" on both Midway and Philippine Sea, and by this time Halsey saw his one time protege rise up to be a rival rather than a junior partner. He was determined to "do Spruance one better" by charging in an all out commitment against "the real enemy", while ignoring the main Japanese battle line. Leaving said force to potentially bring itself to bear in the only way it possibly could, in a surface action.
Ozawa's run meant that he wasn't trying to engage, the pummeling he took, plus Halsey's own pilot reports indicated Ozawa was all but naked of aircraft, should have told him something. But his own aggressiveness had completely clouded his judgement. What the Japanese predicted he would do had he been at Midway was coming to the fore in this action. He was going to get the surface battleship action he had always dreamed of, and no one was going to dissuade him.
As to the egregious nature of Kurita's withdrawal, remember this:
He had had his command ship shot out from under him (and losing key members of his staff)
had suffered a brutal air assault the previous day losing him the Musashi among other vessels
he had stayed up all night waiting for a desperate battle trying to thread his way through a supposedly heavily defended San Bernadino Strait
had proceeded from there to expecting an assault by Halsey's battleships at any moment
to fighting what appeared to him (thanks to a lack of radar and the distortion of a morning haze) to be a force of fleet carriers and their escorts
to fighting a disorganized ship-to-ship fight caused by his ordering a general attack (because taking the hour it would have needed to put his fleet into battle line would have allowed the "fleet carriers" to start launching massive air strikes)
to intercepting desperate messages sent by Kincaid-
sent in the clear (!)-to Halsey screaming for rescue (telling him that he was about to meet the full force of the enemy at any moment)
to learning of the annihilation of the Southern Force, and his not wanting the same to happen to his own force.
Based on his understanding at the time, had he continued with his assault the battle would have ended with at best only the remnants of Ozawa's fleet to continue to the war. So yes, his decision making IMO was quite understandable. And far better than Halsey's "Westmoreland-like" obliviousness.
As to being too harsh on Halsey? HE DESERVED EVERY LAST BIT OF IT, INCLUDING A FUCKING COURT-MARTIAL. Or at least NEVER getting his fifth star. He threw away any right to being given the benefit of the doubt when he blamed KINCAID of all people for "forcing" Halsey to return to Leyte because Kincaid "panicked" and couldn't find it in himself to deal with the threat by himself. A commander of an amphibious invasion force designed for shore bombardment, tactical air support, and ASW is supposed to be able to defeat a three-pronged assault (the Central Force, the Southern Force, and the Cruiser Force coming up behind it) consisting of almost every heavy hitter left in the IJN using just six old battleships mainly loaded with HE, CVE's, and escorts!? Yeah.
Public relations was as near and dear to Halsey's heart as it was for Dougout Dougie.
As Herman Wouk wrote, when Halsey blamed Kincaid for his own command failures, he had reached his nadir. And he never changed his story to the end of his days. But the Navy brass knew. As did Congress, eventually. Not for nothing did Nimitz get a whole class of fleet carriers named after him, and Spruance did for a cruiser class. Halsey? One dinky little tin can of a destroyer.