Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

[AlanJWhite]

With the Meditteranean and Aegean largely out of effective range for the Luftwaffe bombers carrying the Fritz X, I suppose high value land targets would be next up on the list. Was that ever done in OTL?

FritzX was an armour piercing weapon with low HE for its size =~500lb GP

And AIUI never used against bridges or any other land targets.

The somewhat similar Henschel 293 had been designed for use vs unarmoured ships.
It had a higher proportion of HE but was overall smaller so still only ~1000lber GP bomb (and not torpex or equivalent)
This weapon WAS tried on land targets eg vs bridges in Normandy and later the Oder
But with negligible success

So unless @fester has made more changes than we have seen so far the "massive explosion" is a little outré

 

[ThunderBolt47]

FritzX was an armour piercing weapon with low HE for its size

And AIUI never used against bridges or aother land targets

The somewhat similar Henschel 293 designed for use vs unarmoured ships
So still only ~1000lber (and not torpex or equivalent)
WAS tried eg vs bridges in Normandy and later the Oder
But with negligible success

So unless @fester has made more changes than we have seen so far the "massive explosion" is a little outré

It might be in this scenario that having seen the speed of the Allied armies advancing in Italy and Greece using tons of supplies and with far less ships near the coast to target. The Germans might have developed a different version of Fritz X with a bigger warhead to specifically go for bridge like targets so as to shut off the supply lines where they can.

I think that might be a plausible difference in this timeline perhaps.

 

[fester]

Just north of Los Angeles, California July 14, 1944

Josh laughed. Margaret curled into her husband's body and enjoyed the squeeze. Their children were being children as they played on the beach. The waves scared their youngest while Edna was pre-occupied finding every shell fragment on the sands. Today was a treasured break. Today was one of the last days that the family would be together. In a few weeks, the Marine fighter squadron would be going to war again. The Fleet needed more high performance fighters and the Marine Corsairs could outrun and outclimb the Hellcats that the Navy was flying off of most of their carriers, and the Grumman Bearcats were still merely rumors and contracting officers' nightmares. USS Bennington would be trading some of her Helldivers for the Marines.

Half the squadron had ten day leaves now, the rest would get their ten day leaves starting in three days. After everyone was back on base, final training and the ten thousand small administrative tasks for deployment would be completed before the air echelon flew to NAS Miramar and the ground echelon took trains to San Diego Bay. By then the carrier would be in port and a week of training would smooth off any rough edges of a new air group before they headed off to war.

Josh could not think of that. His daughter needed his attention as she showed him the small crushed mussel shell that had captivated her.

 

[ThunderBolt47]

Just north of Los Angeles, California July 14, 1944

Josh laughed. Margaret curled into her husband's body and enjoyed the squeeze. Their children were being children as they played on the beach. The waves scared their youngest while Edna was pre-occupied finding every shell fragment on the sands. Today was a treasured break. Today was one of the last days that the family would be together. In a few weeks, the Marine fighter squadron would be going to war again. The Fleet needed more high performance fighters and the Marine Corsairs could outrun and outclimb the Hellcats that the Navy was flying off of most of their carriers, and the Grumman Bearcats were still merely rumors and contracting officers' nightmares. USS Bennington would be trading some of her Helldivers for the Marines.

Half the squadron had ten day leaves now, the rest would get their ten day leaves starting in three days. After everyone was back on base, final training and the ten thousand small administrative tasks for deployment would be completed before the air echelon flew to NAS Miramar and the ground echelon took trains to San Diego Bay. By then the carrier would be in port and a week of training would smooth off any rough edges of a new air group before they headed off to war.

Josh could not think of that. His daughter needed his attention as she showed him the small crushed mussel shell that had captivated her.

I hope Josh will be okay because I do believe this is the most dangerous thing for an instructor.

I cannot remember where I heard it but I have heard that returning from training as an instructor to actual active combat is the most dangerous time for long time pilots because they have lost certain skills that are not needed in training.

 

[Jtdailyupdate]

It might be in this scenario that having seen the speed of the Allied armies advancing in Italy and Greece using tons of supplies and with far less ships near the coast to target. The Germans might have developed a different version of Fritz X with a bigger warhead to specifically go for bridge like targets so as to shut off the supply lines where they can.

I think that might be a plausible difference in this timeline perhaps.

That being said we also don't know what the truck was carrying, as luck would have it that particular truck was carrying 4,500 lbs of satchel charges.

All joking aside, I did a quick google search of bridges crossing the Serene River in Alfortville, France and I came across this particular bridge in question, which was completed in 1927, and therefore would be standing during the time period. Now I'm not an engineer, so I won't even try to guess if said bridge could survive a direct hit from OTL or ITL version of a Fritz X. But with that being said, I do find the idea of Hitler directing the Luftwaffe to target and destroy structures on the basis of being considered as structural art to be quite humorous though.

 

[lgkmas]

I think the accuracy of the Fritz X may be magnified here. It was a MCLOS or Manual controlled line of sight. It was not a fire and forget weapon. Anything that distracted the operator and the missile was lost. Perhaps an easy way would be a smoke screen. Can't see it, can't hit it! And the operator had to have sight of the target and missile at all times.
It had to be launched at least 3 miles away from the target to allow missile acquisition and a preferred height of about 15,000 feet, so three miles up as well. So if my maths are correct that is a LOS of over 4 miles.
One source says that an experienced operator could guide 50% of the bombs to within a 15 m (50 ft) radius of the aiming point, and about 90% hit within a 30 m (100 ft) radius. Not sure what the width of the bridge would be , looks like only one lane each way, but assume 10 feet per laneway and allow another 5 feet each side for a walkway, then that is only 30 feet. I can't seem to find typical bridge widths for the period, They all go on about how long they are but little on width. And considering the operator had only mark 1 eyeball, then it would be more luck than anything else if it hit it. Think of a thin ribbon of a roadway across the river at 4 miles or more. No TV cameras in the nose here!
Warspite was hit but it was 90 feet in the beam and over 600 feet long so the 90% hit rate would apply here. Roma would have been even easier, being 108 feet beam and nearly 800 feet long.
Sorry, Fritz was a revolution in air to ship warfare but it was hardly an instant and 100% success story. However, the dramatic effect the OP creates does add to the suspense of the tale so is understandable and acceptable.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

Bridges are built with tremendous strength in the vertical.

With missiles the intention would be to strike the piers / towers / arches from the side where bridges are weaker.

 

[Some Bloke]

Something something Danger Zone.

 

[fester]

I think the accuracy of the Fritz X may be magnified here. It was a MCLOS or Manual controlled line of sight. It was not a fire and forget weapon. Anything that distracted the operator and the missile was lost. Perhaps an easy way would be a smoke screen. Can't see it, can't hit it! And the operator had to have sight of the target and missile at all times.
It had to be launched at least 3 miles away from the target to allow missile acquisition and a preferred height of about 15,000 feet, so three miles up as well. So if my maths are correct that is a LOS of over 4 miles.
One source says that an experienced operator could guide 50% of the bombs to within a 15 m (50 ft) radius of the aiming point, and about 90% hit within a 30 m (100 ft) radius. Not sure what the width of the bridge would be , looks like only one lane each way, but assume 10 feet per laneway and allow another 5 feet each side for a walkway, then that is only 30 feet. I can't seem to find typical bridge widths for the period, They all go on about how long they are but little on width. And considering the operator had only mark 1 eyeball, then it would be more luck than anything else if it hit it. Think of a thin ribbon of a roadway across the river at 4 miles or more. No TV cameras in the nose here!
Warspite was hit but it was 90 feet in the beam and over 600 feet long so the 90% hit rate would apply here. Roma would have been even easier, being 108 feet beam and nearly 800 feet long.
Sorry, Fritz was a revolution in air to ship warfare but it was hardly an instant and 100% success story. However, the dramatic effect the OP creates does add to the suspense of the tale so is understandable and acceptable.

Completely agree with everything you said.

There have been dozens of quasi-precision-esque attacks and very few hard kills. The RAF use of big earthquake bombs and very well trained crews in a few squadrons probably produces results that are as cost effective as the Luftwaffe trying to use stand-off weapons with some guidance but the RAF can burn the gasoline and training time to get those results in this manner. The Luftwaffe can't so they are going down a different route. The Luftwaffe knows that if they send a 100 bomber raid against the 3rd Army's supply lines, they can do it once or twice before attrition wins. Single plane raids might generate better results at lower to the Luftwaffe costs. The Luftwaffe is trying to slow the American northern right flank pursuit to allow for the organized withdrawal of German combat units with their equipment at this time.

 

[fester]

Good news -- got a significant revise and resubmit on a project that I think is quite useful

Bad news -- the R&R will eat a lot of my attention span for the next week or two.

 

[Curtain Jerker]

Good news -- got a significant revise and resubmit on a project that I think is quite useful

Bad news -- the R&R will eat a lot of my attention span for the next week or two.

We're not going anywhere

 

[vl100butch]

been here since the beginning...

 

[andys]

We're not going anywhere

Neither is fester by the sound of it

 

[Butchpfd]

We'll wait..!

 

[ShortHairyGinger]

Highly likely to have a significant recession as there will be massive displacement from war time industrial production to peace time consumer goods.

There could still be a 1950s boom in TTL as there was OTL. People forget that the postwar economic boom came about because the rest of the world's manufacturing capacity lay in countries that were flat broke, bombed to buggery or were behind the Iron Curtain. For a time, American manufacturing was the only game in town and as soon as other nations started getting back on their feet (particularly West Germany and Japan) from the 1960s onward it began to wane.

That said, Britain is doing better militarily and economically TTL, if their industry can modernise and transition away from a wartime command economy to peacetime consumption more smoothly they may be more prominent in the postwar world. Decolonisation is still likely, but I imagine that many of the new nations that emerge may very well retain economic and security ties.

 

[DifferentOutcomes]

We'll wait..!

Not me! Gonna hold my breath until the next update...

 

[DifferentOutcomes]

Not me! Gonna hold my breath until the next update...

Okay, passed out, recovered now, that didn't work out so well. Guess I'll have to be patient too...

 

[Paulo the Limey]

been here since the beginning...

And we’ll be here when it ends, whenever and however that might be.

 

[fester]

Saipan, July 15, 1944

The last bomber from the 40th Bombardment Wing slowly took to the air. An hour later, the wing would join up with three dozen bombers launched by the 444th Bombardment Wing. The heavily laden bombers had slowly climbed to an efficient cruise altitude that was well above most of the Japanese defenses. Flight engineers and pilots paid close attention to the gauges and dials and indicators as these advanced bombers were still temperamental beasts. Pilots who had completed full tours on Fortresses and Liberators were still overloaded with information and decisions. The gunners kept an easy watch on the empty sky as the navigators made sure that they would arrive at their target, an oil refinery near Akita just after lunchtime.

As the seventy four bombers passed their closest approach to Iwo Jima, noses were counted. Seventy three bombers still were pressing to their target.

As night was falling on Saipan, sixty nine bombers landed. Another bomber was preparing for a midnight launch to make an early morning photo pass over the target to see if there was enough damage to justify the sixty three missing, dead or wounded aircrew.

 

[fester]

Palawan, Philippines July 16, 1944

Two squadrons of RAF Lancasters were slowly gaining altitude. One squadron would reseed a garden near Hong Kong while the other was to lay a fresh minefield off of Hainan. Today was a milk run to get half a dozen replacement crews low stress combat experience.