Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

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I do find it amusing in a sense that the British may decommission around 4 BBs in the largest war known to man despite teaching the Japanese that you need all your Battleships for the decisive battle.

Ideally I think the RN wouldn't have minded using the old ships for something even if only for shore bombardment missions. They weren't useless, just expensive. But with their resources stretched to the limit and with a finite number of sailors the Admiralty had to prioritize and direct their resources to more modern and capable ships.

Was there anything else they could do with them? Give them away? To the Indian Navy?
 
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The 5th’s colors would live on in the division anchored by 10th Indian Brigade
Minor point but Britcom and that included the Indian Army did not have divisional colours. Each regiment had colours, and the various Battalions would have had their own, except due to wartime expansions, it was unusual for wartime Bns to have colours. In any case, at the outbreak of war, all colours were secured. No colours would have been on a wartime parade unless it was in the UK and it was a very very urgent necessity.
 
Minor point but Britcom and that included the Indian Army did not have divisional colours. Each regiment had colours, and the various Battalions would have had their own, except due to wartime expansions, it was unusual for wartime Bns to have colours. In any case, at the outbreak of war, all colours were secured. No colours would have been on a wartime parade unless it was in the UK and it was a very very urgent necessity.
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Oh and fester, despite the nitpick, I really do love this TL. Keep up the good work. looking forward to where you are going next.
 
Story 1654
Bandar Abbas, Persia November 12, 1942

Another freshly built engine began to chug forward. Half a dozen box cars moved down the tracks where another work gang connected those cars to another string of tanker cars. A whistle blew and the men who had been working since before dawn took a break of fresh figs and rose flavored tea. Other crews had started to sit as well as the dozen ships in the harbor waited to be emptied.


Soon, the work gangs rose again. They began the process of unloading thousands of crates. Others were untying the nets that were bringing one of the first factory fresh M-4 Sherman tanks before they were driven up ramps to flat bed trucks. A piercing train whistle sounded like a call to prayers as it began to chug northward to the Soviet border.
 
Story 1655
Grozny November 12, 1942

Men hurried back under cover. They had lit the smoke pots which were spitting out a thick, dense, noxious diesel smoke. Other men were running to their anti-aircraft positions. Steel barrels poked out of the sandbagged positions near the marshalling yard. Sharp eyed look-outs were cued to look to the northeast by one of the few radars that the anti-aircraft regiment possessed. Soon, one man with good binoculars saw the black spots in the sky. The gunners shifted their barrels up and slightly to the left even as ammunition was being passed forward and the ready rounds entered the breech.

Soon a regiment of fresh Migs slashed into the German fighter escorts. Several raw Russian pilots died, but they were accompanied by a trio of German pilots even as another regiment of Lend Lease AeroCobras slashed into the twin engine bombers. The heavy, centrally mounted cannon was able to rip into engines and cockpits, ripping wing tips from spars and throwing tail fins to the ground. Anti-aircraft guns began to fire as the German air raid crossed over the still incomplete defensive positions to the east of the city. The heavy guns around the marshalling yard made final corrections before they started to throw shells skyward too.

The Junkers and Heinkels were buffeted by the metal storm around them. Bomb bay doors opened up and soon buildings were being destroyed and bodies were being torn open. Most of the bombs ended wide of the actual target. An American built engine was lacerated by a very near miss, a fuel tanker full of 100 Octane aviation gasoline was burning ferociously and a trio of Valentine tanks were scarred by shrapnel that scoured their optical sights and drivers’ glass blocks.

Soon, fire crews were busy at work, spraying water and throwing sand on the fires in the marshalling yard. They allowed the residential blocks to burn as the priority was bringing the weapons the Red Army needed to the front. Hours later, a few houses were saved as the rest of the apartment blocks were burned out.
 
Ideally I think the RN wouldn't have minded using the old ships for something even if only for shore bombardment missions. They weren't useless, just expensive. But with their resources stretched to the limit and with a finite number of sailors the Admiralty had to prioritize and direct their resources to more modern and capable ships.

Was there anything else they could do with them? Give them away? To the Indian Navy?

How about the Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet?
 
What in the world will the Red Navy do with her??? The only port she could be delivered to right now is Murmansk, and could she even tie up alongside there. All of her stuff is imperial not metric, and just getting a crew trained enough to take her out to sea safely (let alone go in to action). The USSR needs a battleship they can't really support like a fish needs a bicycle. Destroyers, maybe even a light cruiser, but an R class BB??
 
What in the world will the Red Navy do with her??? The only port she could be delivered to right now is Murmansk, and could she even tie up alongside there. All of her stuff is imperial not metric, and just getting a crew trained enough to take her out to sea safely (let alone go in to action). The USSR needs a battleship they can't really support like a fish needs a bicycle. Destroyers, maybe even a light cruiser, but an R class BB??

Happened IRL!
 
Truth is stranger than fiction, I'll have to look up what happened once the Sovs got their hands on it.

Found that, about what I thought...
 
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Story 1656
Kra Isthmus November 13, 1942

Diggers were slowly advancing. Bayonets were fixed and backs hunched over as helmeted heads advanced. Japanese machine guns were starting to chatter although the volume of fire was less than many of the men had feared. Artillery was slamming into the ground just a few hundred yards ahead of the advance.

The I Australian Corps was not aiming for the coast even as Royal Navy gunboats and torpedo boats backed by older destroyers were shooting up anything that was not in the defended harbors of Pattani or Singora. Instead, they were quickly going through their share of the multi-million shell stockpile as five brigades were pushing forward to bite strategic positions that anchored the outer Japanese lines. The goal was to have diggers on those hills by nightfall so that the two Japanese divisions holding the eastern portion of their line would have to counter-attack into the face of well sited artillery and dug-in veteran infantry.

The diggers of 6th Australian Infantry division’s northernmost brigade had almost cleared the first thin line of defenses when two squadrons of RAF Battles flew overhead. The light bombers continued north as they were covered by another squadron of Hurricanes. The Australians were not getting any of the air support that the Indian Corps or the English Corps on the west coast had been promised. Those corps were the main effort. Those corps were the decisive actors. The Australians who were advancing, killing and dying were merely supporting actors on the play’s previews.
 
Story 1657
Norfolk, Virginia November 14,1942


USS Essex
was leaving her berthing place.

Outside of the roads, she was joined by a trio of fresh destroyers and they soon headed south to open water. Four hours later, an incomplete air group was aboard and the small task force began their journey to the Caribbean for nine weeks to work up. After that and any final repairs, the force, along with a pair of new light cruisers, would be earmarked for the Pacific.
 
Norfolk, Virginia November 14,1942


USS Essex
was leaving her berthing place.

Outside of the roads, she was joined by a trio of fresh destroyers and they soon headed south to open water. Four hours later, an incomplete air group was aboard and the small task force began their journey to the Caribbean for nine weeks to work up. After that and any final repairs, the force, along with a pair of new light cruisers, would be earmarked for the Pacific.

The death of the IJN is advancing inexorably closer.
 
Story 1658
Cam Ranh Bay, November 14, 1942
Four heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eleven destroyers departed the anchorage. They were tasked to sweep ahead of a convoy that was now passing the Mekong Delta. It was heavily escorted as supplies were urgently needed in Bangkok and beyond. The army in Burma was reeling under the blows that the British 14th Army was delivering while the Thai force was being pressured aggressively. If the fleet did not need to worry about fuel, the cruisers and destroyers would have made a smart twenty four knots to the south. Instead, they would make an efficient run to a cove near Bac Lieu where they would hide during daylight before getting in front of the convoy as it was turning into the Gulf of Thailand the next day. Fighter cover was being arranged for both the convoy and the covering force.
 
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