You could maybe use it as a type of Mulberry? I don't know if that's insane or not.
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
- Thread starter fester
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You could maybe use it as a type of Mulberry? I don't know if that's insane or not.
Maybe she’ll just get paved in medium and light AA? You’d still need directors for that though so probably not.
Because I've only just got in. I have Iain Ballantine's HMS Rodney, which states:
IOTL she was denied the deep refit she was overdue for as the Admiralty thought her better suited than a KGV to NGS: the newer BBs were better at countering Tirpitz, or serving in the East Indies or the Pacific.
Rodney went into Rosyth No.1 Dock on 28/2/44 for overhaul and repairs: the TT were removed, the forecastle split plated (it had been filled with putty), wing tanks repaired, propulsion problems sorted, and the Shagbat and catapult removed. Unusually, to say the least, she was re-ammunitioned while the ship was in the dry dock and being worked on. She left the Forth on 31 March.
One revelation: on 1 May 1944
(p 216, op cit, 2012 Pen & Sword pb ed)
I never knew they made VT fuses for the QF 4.7-inch Mk VIII.
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formion
Banned
If the front is in Northern Attica and I guess you mean the Parnitha mountain that dominate the area, then the Allies have significant advantages in logistics. I wonder how the Axis are able to maintain the front. I guess every strategic bridge of the single rail line is protected by at least a reinforced company or perhaps a whole battalion. With the front so south, the Axis would need an additional corps compared to what I had posted regarding a Thermopylae front. If the Allies are able to break in the boeotian plains they may have the opportunity to bag german formations.
@fester what is the status of the Peloponnese and the Axis divisions that tried to escape?
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I just realized that "Friedman's Cruisers" would be a lot different, and not go so well for the Allies.
If following a coup or some similar event Italy leaves the Axis what becomes of the Italian army in Greece? Would the Germans permit them to leave? Will there be fighting between Italian and German troops? I imagine there would be much confusion over whose orders are legitimate.
formion
Banned
No way. For that I am sure 100%
The OTL armistice was a prime example of indecision. However, clear commands from the General Staff would be deemed as legitimate. I am quoting the "Fall of Mussolini" by Philip Morgan.
Some of the army generals had decided that Italy had to be extricated
from its disastrous war at about the same critical juncture of the war, the
winter of 1942–3, which had precipitated the decision of some prominent
Fascists. Like some of the Fascists, it took the generals a little time to work
out whether Mussolini’s presence or absence was necessary to the process of
leaving the war. The key Wgure here was Ambrosio, one-time commander
of Italian forces in Italian-occupied ex-Yugoslavia, then chief of staV of the
army, and from February 1943 chief of the general staV of the armed
forces—nominally, then, Italy’s top military Wgure.
Ambrosio initially hedged his bets. He attempted to anticipate Mussolini’s
removal by planning to repatriate as many Italian troops serving abroad as was
possible, in order to head oV any German or Fascist reaction to Mussolini’s
dismissal. If the Germans realized what he was planning to do, then it might
well provoke the German occupation of Italy and lead to Wghting between
German and Italian forces, which he understandably wanted to avoid. So,
he also pressurized Mussolini to persuade Hitler that the only options
available to Germany were either to reinforce Italy to an extent which
would make Italy defensible against Allied attack, or to allow Italian withdrawal
from the war. The abortive Feltre meeting between Hitler and
Mussolini in mid-July 1943, Wnally convinced Ambrosio that Mussolini
was the problem, not the solution, and had to be removed. Mussolini’s
‘pathetic’ response to his and the other’s ultimatum showed that there was
no hope of Mussolini ever being instrumental in bringing about Italy’s exit
from the war. Ambrosio returned to Rome ready to put into eVect the
arrangements for the dictator’s arrest.
....
The rational and sensible thing to do, once the armistice was signed, was
for the government to prepare militarily for the armistice and for the
defence of Rome. In fact, consistent to the end, it did hardly anything.
The army high command had already drawn up military directives on how
to carry out anti-German military action. From 2 to 6 September, these
directives were sent to its commands in Italy. Ambrosio drafted military
directives for the army commands under his control as chief of staV of the
armed forces in the Balkans and the Aegean islands, but chose not to send
them. The directives that were dispatched were certainly more proactive
than Badoglio’s instructions to the army on 8 September. But they provided
insuficiently clear guidance, judging by the very varied ways in which they
were interpreted and implemented on the ground on and after 8 September,
and by the calls made for clarification by local commanders to the army
ministry and supreme command in Rome, on the declaration of the armistice.
The calls were unanswered or inadequately answered, because most of the
people equipped to deal with them were abandoning their desks in Rome to
join the king’s flight from the city on 9 September.
from its disastrous war at about the same critical juncture of the war, the
winter of 1942–3, which had precipitated the decision of some prominent
Fascists. Like some of the Fascists, it took the generals a little time to work
out whether Mussolini’s presence or absence was necessary to the process of
leaving the war. The key Wgure here was Ambrosio, one-time commander
of Italian forces in Italian-occupied ex-Yugoslavia, then chief of staV of the
army, and from February 1943 chief of the general staV of the armed
forces—nominally, then, Italy’s top military Wgure.
Ambrosio initially hedged his bets. He attempted to anticipate Mussolini’s
removal by planning to repatriate as many Italian troops serving abroad as was
possible, in order to head oV any German or Fascist reaction to Mussolini’s
dismissal. If the Germans realized what he was planning to do, then it might
well provoke the German occupation of Italy and lead to Wghting between
German and Italian forces, which he understandably wanted to avoid. So,
he also pressurized Mussolini to persuade Hitler that the only options
available to Germany were either to reinforce Italy to an extent which
would make Italy defensible against Allied attack, or to allow Italian withdrawal
from the war. The abortive Feltre meeting between Hitler and
Mussolini in mid-July 1943, Wnally convinced Ambrosio that Mussolini
was the problem, not the solution, and had to be removed. Mussolini’s
‘pathetic’ response to his and the other’s ultimatum showed that there was
no hope of Mussolini ever being instrumental in bringing about Italy’s exit
from the war. Ambrosio returned to Rome ready to put into eVect the
arrangements for the dictator’s arrest.
....
The rational and sensible thing to do, once the armistice was signed, was
for the government to prepare militarily for the armistice and for the
defence of Rome. In fact, consistent to the end, it did hardly anything.
The army high command had already drawn up military directives on how
to carry out anti-German military action. From 2 to 6 September, these
directives were sent to its commands in Italy. Ambrosio drafted military
directives for the army commands under his control as chief of staV of the
armed forces in the Balkans and the Aegean islands, but chose not to send
them. The directives that were dispatched were certainly more proactive
than Badoglio’s instructions to the army on 8 September. But they provided
insuficiently clear guidance, judging by the very varied ways in which they
were interpreted and implemented on the ground on and after 8 September,
and by the calls made for clarification by local commanders to the army
ministry and supreme command in Rome, on the declaration of the armistice.
The calls were unanswered or inadequately answered, because most of the
people equipped to deal with them were abandoning their desks in Rome to
join the king’s flight from the city on 9 September.
As you see, only minor butterflies are needed for a much more rational armistice and italian responce. If Ambrosio, the Chief of General Staff took the time to issue clear orders, then the whole armistice is completely different. It would only take a few hours!!!
Just this simple POD would result in a front along the OTL Gothic Line in September 1943! In the Balkas the situation would be much different as well.
Story 2217
Pearl Harbor, September 17, 1943
USS Los Angeles was secured to the pier. The harbor was overcrowded with troop transports and assault ships. The assault ships were riding low while the transports were light and floating high at the moment. Any single woman and many married birds on the entire island were being chatted up by seventy thousand assault troops who were being held in readiness and training during the week but free on the weekends. The heavy cruiser had been deployed to distant waters for over a year now. She had been drydocked twice in Singapore for a total of twenty one days and the tenders and repair ships at Darwin and Batavia had kept her and her sisters ready but they had merely slowed the degradation of deployment instead of reversing it. The yard dogs had a thirty day period scheduled to start at the end of the week for the heavy cruiser. New radars, new weapons, new air conditioning were to be added, and old guns and a few other bad ideas would be yanked out.
Until then, her crew would be emptying her magazines and lightening her bunkers. That work could not start until the new commander of the new 5th Fleet walked down the gangway. Once he was off the ship, the snipes and the deck division could create the needed chaos to transform their home into an industrial site.
USS Los Angeles was secured to the pier. The harbor was overcrowded with troop transports and assault ships. The assault ships were riding low while the transports were light and floating high at the moment. Any single woman and many married birds on the entire island were being chatted up by seventy thousand assault troops who were being held in readiness and training during the week but free on the weekends. The heavy cruiser had been deployed to distant waters for over a year now. She had been drydocked twice in Singapore for a total of twenty one days and the tenders and repair ships at Darwin and Batavia had kept her and her sisters ready but they had merely slowed the degradation of deployment instead of reversing it. The yard dogs had a thirty day period scheduled to start at the end of the week for the heavy cruiser. New radars, new weapons, new air conditioning were to be added, and old guns and a few other bad ideas would be yanked out.
Until then, her crew would be emptying her magazines and lightening her bunkers. That work could not start until the new commander of the new 5th Fleet walked down the gangway. Once he was off the ship, the snipes and the deck division could create the needed chaos to transform their home into an industrial site.
I never knew a "bird" was also used in the US to describe a young woman.
Story 2218
Southwest of Leningrad, September 18, 1943
The scratchy wool blanket trapped the heat the sniper's body generated. She and her spotter were on a mandatory twelve hour rest period after a three day patrol and stalk that had been a fiasco in the first twenty four hours. A dozen German counter-sniper teams were deployed in front of the regiment that they were supposed to scout. Three companion teams had lost a member, and another patrol had not returned. The Germans had walked mortars into a hide that they had abandoned just minutes before the barrage started because her spotter had a bad feeling about being watched that she could not place a finger on. By now, the survivors of the summer of 1941 and the two year siege of the city always listened to the whispers of the ghosts who had not been as lucky as they had been. The ghosts knew.
13,000 yards away, a German artillery battery received a slight adjustment to correct for a slightly stiffer breeze than anticipated. They were firing at a grid location that intelligence had suggested was where a Red division kept its reserves. Two minutes later, a dozen heavy shells were in the air. Seconds after the last shell had been fired, the first shell exploded forty meters from the sleeping sniper.
Three hours later, the surgeon had completed his task. The patient, a pretty, young woman, would some day be able to walk again. He washed his hands, and quickly sipped some tea before moving onto the next patient who was being brought into the surgery.
The scratchy wool blanket trapped the heat the sniper's body generated. She and her spotter were on a mandatory twelve hour rest period after a three day patrol and stalk that had been a fiasco in the first twenty four hours. A dozen German counter-sniper teams were deployed in front of the regiment that they were supposed to scout. Three companion teams had lost a member, and another patrol had not returned. The Germans had walked mortars into a hide that they had abandoned just minutes before the barrage started because her spotter had a bad feeling about being watched that she could not place a finger on. By now, the survivors of the summer of 1941 and the two year siege of the city always listened to the whispers of the ghosts who had not been as lucky as they had been. The ghosts knew.
13,000 yards away, a German artillery battery received a slight adjustment to correct for a slightly stiffer breeze than anticipated. They were firing at a grid location that intelligence had suggested was where a Red division kept its reserves. Two minutes later, a dozen heavy shells were in the air. Seconds after the last shell had been fired, the first shell exploded forty meters from the sleeping sniper.
Three hours later, the surgeon had completed his task. The patient, a pretty, young woman, would some day be able to walk again. He washed his hands, and quickly sipped some tea before moving onto the next patient who was being brought into the surgery.
Story 2219
Near Narvik, Norway, September 19, 1943
The fishing boat was low in the water. The catch was good today. As it rounded the point where a coastal defense battery had been positioned for almost a hundred years, and now it was manned by Germans who were glad that they were not needed on the Eastern Front. The gunners did not track the boat. Even if they had, they would not have seen that it had two extra crewmen coming into the port than when it had departed. They would only have seen the small wooden craft make way for the freighter loaded with fish and timber as it started its journey to Kiel.
The fishing boat was low in the water. The catch was good today. As it rounded the point where a coastal defense battery had been positioned for almost a hundred years, and now it was manned by Germans who were glad that they were not needed on the Eastern Front. The gunners did not track the boat. Even if they had, they would not have seen that it had two extra crewmen coming into the port than when it had departed. They would only have seen the small wooden craft make way for the freighter loaded with fish and timber as it started its journey to Kiel.
SsgtC
Banned
And Tatiana's war has come to an end. The random chance of an artillery shell while she was sleeping seems almost poetic
Driftless
Donor
Years later, those folks will tense up at the sound of the butterfly in the garden. No relief....
SsgtC
Banned
Shit, I still damn near dive for the deck every time I hear fireworks and I haven't been in the military in 13 years
My heart beat and adrenaline both increase when I hear fireworks, unless I know it's happening. A person that lives half a mile from me randomly sets off fireworks for unexplained reasons. I hate that! And I've been out of the Army since 01.
SsgtC
Banned
Same. If I know they're coming I'm... Okay. I'll still flinch, especially for the big ones, but I'm not diving for cover.
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