Keynes' Cruisers

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There had been talk about using American torpedoes as a live fire test but the combination of the expense and rarity of modern American torpedoes, the desire by the Torpedo School to keep tight control over the sophisticated fuses and detonators and the pragmatic problems of supplying American torpedoes to British submarines in combat areas put an end to that conversation.
Damn it, the American subs are still gonna suck idiocy are they?
 

Driftless

Donor
September 2, 1941 2157 near Kos, Italian Dodecanese

HMS Clyde surfaced. One of her battery compartments had been ripped out in Alexandria. She only carried torpedoes in her tubes with no reloads. Instead, thirty six very unusual men were waiting for the captain to allow them to emerge from the hatches.

Within minutes, six rubber boats were being paddled aggressively through the waves. The heavily armed raiders were due to strike the Italian airfield near Antimachia. This was the first raid on the Italian Dodecane possessions. Continual pressure was needed to give Crete time to breath and develop. Fifteen light bombers and a dozen fighters routinely raided eastern Crete. The Special Boat Service would try to destroy as many planes, wreck as much infrastructure and kill any man dumb enough to make themselves visible at the airfield. And then they would run back to the submarine within six hours.


Does your earlier remark connect to this situation? I know the SBS existed and was used OTL.

The usefully eccentric will have uses found for their oddness. They may be different ones in this timeline
 
Damn it, the American subs are still gonna suck idiocy are they?
Yup, enough readers gave me good feedback that my original plan made no sense. So this is the revised version. The objective will be a demonstration case that American built subs can score kills with very reliable torpedoes vs. Fleet subs in the Pacific having trouble.
 
Yup, enough readers gave me good feedback that my original plan made no sense. So this is the revised version. The objective will be a demonstration case that American built subs can score kills with very reliable torpedoes vs. Fleet subs in the Pacific having trouble.
So how the American Brit subs gonna use Brit torps then?
 

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
HMS Clyde surfaced. One of her battery compartments had been ripped out in Alexandria. She only carried torpedoes in her tubes with no reloads. Instead, thirty six very unusual men were waiting for the captain to allow them to emerge from the hatches.

36 heavily equipped people (and if they're not heavily equipped, there's not much point taking them) is going to be seriously crowded, even with the space-making exercises. I'm not entirely sure it's possible, but if it is, it's going to be right on the verge of viability. There's not a lot of spare space in a diesel electric submarine, to say nothing of the rubber boats, and the problems with getting them launched. It may be possible, just about, but halving would have me being a bit less concerned about the viability.

One feature to remember is that one significant difference between the SAS and the SBS, even back then, was that the SAS were effectively a separate unit, and the members didn't recycle back into the general pool. The SBS, by contrast, did, and spread skills learned to the rest of the Royal Marines. For better or worse, the SAS tended to be more isolationist and eccentric, while the SBS tended to mesh more with the rest of the Andrew. It's unlikely to make a ha'pporth of difference to the tale, but in later years, it did have knock on consequences (for one thing, the SAS became notorious for not accepting advice from anyone who wasn't SAS).
 
36 heavily equipped people (and if they're not heavily equipped, there's not much point taking them) is going to be seriously crowded, even with the space-making exercises. I'm not entirely sure it's possible, but if it is, it's going to be right on the verge of viability. There's not a lot of spare space in a diesel electric submarine, to say nothing of the rubber boats, and the problems with getting them launched. It may be possible, just about, but halving would have me being a bit less concerned about the viability.
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Its not mentioned but normally if this sort of conversion was done, they added a section outside the pressure hull and stored as much equipment such as the boats in that as possible. Still a squeeze but they managed up to 8 or so in unmodified boats in OTL WW2.
 

David Flin

Gone Fishin'
Still a squeeze but they managed up to 8 or so in unmodified boats in OTL WW2.

There's a big difference between 8 and 36. Assuming modifications treble capacity, that's 24. 36 sounds like a stretch to me.

12, 24, or 36 doesn't really matter to the story - it's an small-scale disruptive action and the precise number is frankly immaterial. It's just me being picky.
 
There's a big difference between 8 and 36. Assuming modifications treble capacity, that's 24. 36 sounds like a stretch to me.

12, 24, or 36 doesn't really matter to the story - it's an small-scale disruptive action and the precise number is frankly immaterial. It's just me being picky.
I will bring down to 24. And yes, this particular action mainly is to remind the readers that the waters in the Aegean are active.

In OTL, the same modifications to CLYDE in allowed her to bring 185 tons of supplies to Malta in April 1942. She is a big submarine so she should be able to carry a decent size landing party once the modifications were made.
 
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I believe that Japanese agents had pretty solid reports of the location of materials, if not the details on levels; so your point about having protected tunnels and magazines is spot on.

Those tunnels and magazines and surrounding port areas, by late Summer of 1941 had become a formal part of the 16th Naval district, and would by this time have a better defense against Japanese agents. The protection and security had been turned over to the Cavite and Olongapo Barracks Marines as well as detachments of the 4th Marines as they were withdrawn from China, or replacements not sent forward.
 
Damn it, the American subs are still gonna suck idiocy are they?

The one officer, who in my opinion who could have fixed this situation, Adm. Thomas Hart, had his hands full commanding the Asiatic Fleet. Hart had commanded the USN submarine squadron, operating in Britain during WWI, twice commanded the torpedo factory, leaving both times after running afoul of politicians who did not like his expectations of quality. He akkso comnanded Submarine force USN.
 
Story 0734

September 4, 1941 0141 near Greenland


One ship had to return to port. The other sixty seven merchant ships continued to battle their way through the cold North Atlantic. The escorts were pinging rapidly around the perimeter. Young men were splitting their attention between keeping their fingers and toes somewhat warm and examining the sea for anything that looked like a submarine. So far, there were no losses, but the easy part of the journey was almost over. Liberators could cover the convoy for the morning and then they would be in the air gap where U-boats could safely operate on the surface. Two days of hell were ahead of them until Iceland could provide air cover. The men of the overnight watch searched the sea and saw little as propellers pushed the cargoes of the New World to the Old.

Twelve miles away, a U-boat started to maneuver. He might not be able to get a shot off before dawn, but he would be able to get a good contact report before the damnable long range bombers kept him down for the day and gave the convoy time to get sixty miles ahead of him before night fall.
 
Story 0735 USS Greer in the north Atlantic September 4, 1941
September 4, 1941 North Atlantic 1925 local time

The USS Greer, a modernized four piper destroyer had spent the last six hours depth charging and hounding U-652. Her hydrophone operators had not heard any noise in the past hour, so she turned north and raced to catch up to the supply convoy that was due in Iceland. The escort carrier and fleet tanker, Suwanee, accompanying the convoy had kept a pair of Vindicators overhead for most of the afternoon. They had seen nothing but their presence re-assured the destroyermen.

Two hundred feet underneath her, the captain of U-652 breathed a fetid sigh of relief as the air had become rank. The boat had been underwater for the past seventeen hours and the battery was down to 14% charge. He had the screws turning on bare steerage for the past two hours, attempting to deceive the determined but inefficient American destroyer that she had achieved a kill.

The ruse worked. The small U-boat would stay under for another hour and then surface to repair damage, refresh the air and recharge the depleted batteries.
 
Story 0736
September 5, 1941 Kiev

For the first time in weeks, men could hear the birds sing. They could hear the civilians gasp in horror as they looked at their city and the remains of the villages outside. The Southwestern Front was cut-off. Combat had slowed overnight as the Germans pulled back a few hundred meters to re-supply and rest.

Over night the last trains carrying an infantry division worth of lightly armed remnants and the artillery manufacturing section of the Kiev Arsenal had been ambushed east of the city. The arsenal trains had been seized by German tankers while the troop trains were smashed by artillery and machine gun fire. A battalion’s worth of men would eventually be able to formed from the survivors.

Inside the pocket, the Southwestern Front continued to dig in. Their job now was not to stop the fascists from advancing but to delay them and force the Germans to use ammunition in Kiev instead of in Moscow, to force the Germans to bleed crossing the Dneiper instead of the Don, to force the Germans to run supply trains into the Ukraine instead of towards Leningrad. The half million defenders knew that they were the sacrifice for time and space for the Rodina.

The silence was broken as one hundred dive bombers entered their dives from 10,000 feet over a battered infantry regiment. Soon after the dive bombers escaped to the north, German artillery began to fire with the intent to separate the target of today's push from any reinforcement by laying down a curtain of high explosives between the first echelon and the rear.
 
Story 0737

September 5, 1941 2143 East of Greenland


Two destroyers and six corvettes prowled around the edges of the convoy. Three corvettes had joined the convoy that afternoon from their training exercises as shore based intelligence indicated that there was a large wolf pack along the path. An American aircraft carrier and two destroyers were steaming towards the convoy but they were six hundred miles away.

The full moon was shining and lighting up the sea through the low clouds. Every ship had double lookouts stationed as the next thirty three hours were the times of maximum danger. The convoy in front of them had passed without loss. That convoy had only two ships damaged, one by torpedo and one by weather, but they had managed to make it to Iceland for repairs.

MV Empire Springbuck heaved suddenly. Moments later, her central hold full of explosives erupted. U-81 had scored with a pair of torpedoes. The old freighter broke into two pieces. The forward third of the ship was steady enough for the men lucky enough to be there to enter and launch a lifeboat. Most of the crew were not as lucky as the remaining two thirds of the ship went under within ninety seconds of the torpedo. Two men managed to jump into the water. One man was rescued within minutes while the other froze to death.

The escorts responded quickly. Both destroyers began to run down at high speed towards the probable launch location of the torpedoes. Skeena’s forward guns fired at a surface U-boat. The shells splashed wide and over but the U-boat dove as the water erupted around it in a concentric circle of depth charges. She handed off the target to the four stacker destroyer HMCS St. Clair and the corvette Alberni as lookouts had spotted another pair of U-boats on the surface.

Deck guns were firing from the larger merchant ships. The naval gun crews could scare the U-boats but the unstabilized guns with lightly trained crews who seldom had the ammunition allocated for live fire exercises had little success except to highlight where the escorts needed to hunt. Four escorts converged on the shell pocked datums and began to ping and depth charge contacts.

As three quarters of the escorts were attempting to drive down or drive off the sighted U-boats, another two hunters pounced. Three more ships were torpedoed shortly before two in the morning. The largest was only 3,000 GRT and none of them were built stoutly enough to survive the damage. Sally Maersk was a crippled hulk whose broken body survived until daylight when her survivors were rescued by the escort. The other two ships went under before lifeboats could be launched.

An hour before dawn, the escort had success. Two corvettes had been hounding a contact and the depth charge runs were getting closer and closer. An oil slick had appeared on the surface after another pattern had been dropped for 125 feet. As Alberni was preparing for her next run, U-85 surfaced. Both corvettes started to sweep the U-boat’s deck with machine gun and anti-aircraft gun fire. Twenty seconds later as the first shells started to hit the submarine instead of the ocean, a white bed sheet emerged from the conning tower’s hatch. Seventeen sailors jumped into the sea before the u-boat sank. Sixteen of the sailors were rescued and taken prisoner.

Even with this success, dawn could not come fast enough. The predators lamed a small Norwegian freighter minutes after dawn. She straggled throughout the morning before being abandoned.

The convoy continued throughout the day at a steady eight knots. The bosun on Skeena controlled the frequency of turns as he had the best dice aboard the escort commander’s ship. He would roll two dice at the skipper’s request. The first, red dice, told him when the next roll had to happen. The second, black dice, told him what turn to make. Odd numbers were to port and even numbers were to starboard. An hour before daylight departed, the lookouts sighted a single dive bomber circle the forward edge of the convoy’s path. The haze gray painted bomber only loitered for twenty minutes but he was the promise that help was nearby. The convoy just had to survive the night.
 
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September 4, 1941 North Atlantic 1925 local time

The USS Greer, a modernized four piper destroyer had spent the last six hours depth charging and hounding U-652. Her hydrophone operators had not heard any noise in the past hour, so she turned north and raced to catch up to the supply convoy that was due in Iceland. The escort carrier and fleet tanker, Suwanee, accompanying the convoy had kept a pair of Vindicators overhead for most of the afternoon. They had seen nothing but their presence re-assured the destroyermen.

Two hundred feet underneath her, the captain of U-652 breathed a fetid sigh of relief as the air had become rank. The boat had been underwater for the past seventeen hours and the battery was down to 14% charge. He had the screws turning on bare steerage for the past two hours, attempting to deceive the determined but inefficient American destroyer that she had achieved a kill.

The ruse worked. The small U-boat would stay under for another hour and then surface to repair damage, refresh the air and recharge the depleted batteries.

So the USS Suwannee and her sisters are already converted to carrier escort before 1942, well the anti-submarine force is going to do alot of damage to Nazi submarines. With her 18 knots speed and 32 aircraft, escorted by destroyers they can fill the gap between Greenland and Iceland. This four submarine hunter groups are dangerous for the submarines.
@fester what a amazing time línea you got. Waiting for the other Keyne's cruisers to appear as well as Force Z for the far east.
 
So the USS Suwannee and her sisters are already converted to carrier escort before 1942, well the anti-submarine force is going to do alot of damage to Nazi submarines. With her 18 knots speed and 32 aircraft, escorted by destroyers they can fill the gap between Greenland and Iceland. This four submarine hunter groups are dangerous for the submarines.
@fester what a amazing time línea you got. Waiting for the other Keyne's cruisers to appear as well as Force Z for the far east.
Yep, August 1940 is when the Standard oilers were to enter the CVE conversion program
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-64#post-14265168
 
U-85 surfaced. Both corvettes started to sweep the U-boat’s deck with machine gun and anti-aircraft gun fire. Twenty seconds later as the first shells started to hit the submarine instead of the ocean, a white bed sheet emerged from the conning tower’s hatch. Seventeen sailors jumped into the sea before the u-boat sank. Sixteen of the sailors were rescued and taken prisoner.
The boat had a shorter career than IOTL - but 16 of her crew had much longer TLs.
 
Yep, August 1940 is when the Standard oilers were to enter the CVE conversion program
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/keynes-cruisers.388788/page-64#post-14265168

At this point in TTL how many of the 4 Sangamon class have been converted? The ASW experience the US Navy is getting earlier in your TL could certainly be put to good service muffling Drumbeat. Providing Admiral King is persuaded not to send everything to the Pacific. Hunter-killer groups off the Eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean sea in early 1942. They'll have their work cut out for them.
 
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