The Med is not just open for business but its almost business as usual!
That returns weeks of sailing time per ship that would otherwise have been obliged to go the long way round
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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The Med is not just open for business but its almost business as usual!
That returns weeks of sailing time per ship that would otherwise have been obliged to go the long way round
Driftless
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Great point. The change in circumstance is a kind of a force-multiplier, in a way.... Less time in transit, much fuel saved (including fuel that would have to be transported longer distances), much less wear-and-tear on both merchants and escorts, escorts and merchants and crews that can be used for other missions.
Not quite business as usual.
April 1943 Throughput Suez to Gibraltar will probably be about 50% of April 1939 throughput
Significant costs to convoying, no slow ships allowed and shifting demands for supplies all play some roles.
Anyone know what OTL April 1943's Suez-to-Gibraltar throughput was compared to ITTL?
Just off the top of my head I would think there would be no merchant shipping travelling through the Med from the U.K. to India and vice versa at that time in OTL. Too dangerous. They took the long way around via The Cape of Good Hope. Just like in the days before the Suez canal was dug.
The Med being opened even to convoyed and guarded merchant shipping in April 1943 in TTL is part of festers' butterfly collection.
Convoy GTX-2 (Gibraltar to Alexanderia via Tripoli) was going in OTL June 1943
Big difference is earlier and bigger convoys through the Central Med instead of only running specials.
Story 1971
Rangoon, Burma March 29, 1943
Another Liberty ship left the docks. Her cargo was already on the railroad north to the terminus of the Burma Road. 5,000 rifles, 15,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 500 machine guns and just as many 60 millimeter mortars were the most lethal part of her cargo. Dozens of trucks, a near infinite number of crates of pressed meat products and even more flour would sustain the division that was waiting to receive her arms while they trained.
By the time the trucks arrived at Chengding, half of the goods would be gone. Some were legitimately lost. A pair of Fords fell off into a mountain pass, and more than a few crates of spam had been opened to feed the drivers. Most just disappeared. A militia now had the firepower to impose its will on a district, a criminal gang could muscle out competitors for the prostitution trade in one of the many small cities that lined the great road.
Another Liberty ship left the docks. Her cargo was already on the railroad north to the terminus of the Burma Road. 5,000 rifles, 15,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 500 machine guns and just as many 60 millimeter mortars were the most lethal part of her cargo. Dozens of trucks, a near infinite number of crates of pressed meat products and even more flour would sustain the division that was waiting to receive her arms while they trained.
By the time the trucks arrived at Chengding, half of the goods would be gone. Some were legitimately lost. A pair of Fords fell off into a mountain pass, and more than a few crates of spam had been opened to feed the drivers. Most just disappeared. A militia now had the firepower to impose its will on a district, a criminal gang could muscle out competitors for the prostitution trade in one of the many small cities that lined the great road.
And don't even THINK of haggling over the price of the prostitutes...the price is fixed.
No haggling over the price of hookers...who do you think he is, Robert Kraft?
Story 1972
Central Aegean Sea March 29, 1943
The twin engines droned on. The gunner moved the dorsal turret back and forth looking for enemy fighters. The bomb bay was filled with an unusual war load this evening. Instead of four five hundred pound general purpose bombs that could be dropped into the side of a coastal steamer, six commandos were sitting in the narrow tunnel near the bomb bay.
The Maryland bomber was running flat-out two hundred feet above the sea. Another, similarly loaded, bomber was fifteen miles away going to its own destination. The rest of 13 Squadron were on a regular coastal anti-shipping mission. Those eight aircraft would seek and destroy anything that looked like it had a German or Italian flag on it while avoiding fishing craft and sailing vessels.
Thirty five minutes later, the half dozen men from the Sacred Band hooked their parachutes in and checked their gear one last time. All was set, all was tight and secured. The bomber slowed and ascended to seventeen hundred feet. A moment later, the sky was being filled with gray dyed parachutes. Even as the last man passed was still over a thousand feet above the ground, the powerful engines aboard the bomber roared with acceleration as it left the commandos to fend for themselves.
Five of the Sacred Band landed safely. The third man wrecked his left ankle on the rocky field. A splint and some aspirin was all that could be done for him. They soon started to move, each of the healthy men hauling over 100 pounds of gear and the injured man lugging ninety pounds. They had ten miles to go to the first rendezvous point with the Greek guerillas and they had to be there before dawn.
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Story 1973
Helsinki, March 30, 1943
The snow whipped into the faces of the deck crew. The old icebreaker slowly exited the harbor. German supplied coal heated the boilers that slowly moved the triple reciprocating engines forward. The steel reinforced hull was gliding through the harbor’s waters until she hit the open sea. A thin layer of ice had formed during the most recent cold snap. Soon the icebreaker was at work, clearing a channel several dozen feet wide and several dozen miles long. Coasters would head out of Helsinki for five miles before turning left or right. A left turn took them to Vilpurii while a right hand turn led to Stockholm. Once there, the coasters would drop their cargo while the larger ships carrying wood products and a few manufactured goods would wait for an escort to head to Germany.
The journeys of the merchantmen were not the concern of the ice breaker’s crew. They just needed to clear the sea lanes of ice while watching for mines that “accidentally” drifted their way.
Story 1974
Gulf of Mexico, March 31, 1943
The gull wing fighter slowed. It continued the bank as its landing protocol. Test pilots and combat veterans had finally resolved on this unorthodox method to bring the big, fast fighters aboard carriers. Too many butter bars had managed to either break their mounts or kill themselves with a traditional landing approach. Cockpit visibility was abysmal for the last few seconds. Instead, the slow curving approach allowed pilots to see the deck and the bat men for almost the entire time.
The heavy fighter slammed onto the deck. Her tail hook caught the wire aboard USS Wasp. Smoking Maggie taxied forward until the deck crews threw chocks underneath the wheels and began to tie her down. As Captain Jaroshek popped open the cockpit hood, another Corsair came down. Her pilot landed almost perfectly and the synchronized ballet of pilots, planes and deck crew commenced again.
Soon the entire squadron was down aboard the fleet carrier. The Marines were led to their temporary ready room. They were taking over the space that VT-7 had occupied. The Avenger squadron had been sent to Pearl Harbor to be a replacement squadron for the Pacific Fleet carriers that were going back into combat later this week. It would not follow the carriers all the way to the front; instead, the men would use the massive base facilities around Oahu to train and prepare until a ship came back in need of new weapons.
As night fell, Wasp turned to the southeast. A light cruiser and four destroyers joined her as they made their way to Key West to refuel and then they were heading to the front.
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Wow. So they've worked out the Corsair landing procedure........ how much earlier in TTL? A plane with
a 100 MPH edge over the Zero and hot enough for pilots to fly it against ME 109s and FW 190s.
@fester One little quibble when you decelerate rapidly in an airplane the pilot is thrown forward into his/her shoulder harness. But I suspect that was an April fool joke to see if your readers are alert?
a 100 MPH edge over the Zero and hot enough for pilots to fly it against ME 109s and FW 190s.
@fester One little quibble when you decelerate rapidly in an airplane the pilot is thrown forward into his/her shoulder harness. But I suspect that was an April fool joke to see if your readers are alert?
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