Plausibility check: British carrier raid on Singapore in early 1944 or other options

Given the scenario that the the ETO was done and over with by early 1944, Britain decides to deploy forces to the East. (Yes... it's the situation in my joint TL with BW). I had three options for the British to use their extra forces in the Pacific

1) Launch a Pearl Harbour-esque raid on/Take back Singapore (the latter option with Montgomery as the commander of the land forces; Gott survives and there was no need for Monty yo take over as 8th Army boss in 1942)

2) Support Slim's operations in the CBI theatre

3) Join the USN in the Pacific to bash up the IJN

What do you think?
 
The plan on itself sounds well, but the geograpohical situation around Singapore is a bit too difficult to get a total surprise in an attack, since the taskforce had to navigate through the narrow Straits of Malaca. This strait was easily covered by Japanese scoutplanes. Only a string of special circumstamces could get the surprise ellement. Long ranged Bombers (B-24's), based in either India, or on Ceylon, could theoretically strike Singapore, if equipped with additional fueltanks and a lesser bombload. Perhaps this was a better solution.
 

CalBear

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Singapore is a very difficult target. Even that late in the war, the Japanese had significant numbers of land based torpedo bombers availble in the region, not to mention lots of warships (you can't take the oil to the ships, take the ships to the oil) and the FAA would have limited aircraft available due to air wing constraints.

It is worth noting that the far more powerful (damned near overwhelming) USN TF 38/58 never paid a visit to Singapore or the DEI, even during the shaping of the battlefield prior to the invasion of the Philippines. Lot of cost there, not much gain to be had.

The CBI makes the most sense, especially since the RN proved to have some challenges operating across the vastness of the Pacific (mostly related to the limited range of destroyers and a few other classes) when it did send a carrier force to participate with the USN in 1945.

Admiral King was also something less than a fan of having the British messing about in HIS Ocean.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Well if major naval operations in Europe and the Atlantic are winding down in 1944, and if construction of ships has been modified to take into account the European front ending sooner, I could see the British by early to mid 1944 having 6 fleet carriers, and quite a few escort carriers, plus support ships available to go to the Indian Ocean.

Maybe start of as in OTL with attacks on Sumatra and Java, bombing oil facilities, hitting the odd ships that they find, and attacking airfields.

Calbear is half right. The reason that the US never would have attacked Singapore was, for one thing, because it was nowhere any of their main goals. Sending submarines and some support people to help the British would be one thing as in OTL with Saratoga. But overall, the US was focused on making a straight shot at Japan.
 
SEAC, in the eyes of many Americans, stood for 'Save England's Asiatic Colonies'. From this, another reason I can think up of for the British to retake Singapore would be for propaganda purposes to spur people to support the war in the Pacific. But was that reason good enough? If yes, can that come after the invasion of the Andaman Islands?

Hyperion said:
Calbear is half right. The reason that the US never would have attacked Singapore was, for one thing, because it was nowhere any of their main goals. Sending submarines and some support people to help the British would be one thing as in OTL with Saratoga. But overall, the US was focused on making a straight shot at Japan.

Well... Singapore could be an entirely British effort, now that they have the forces to spare.
 
Admiral King was also something less than a fan of having the British messing about in HIS Ocean.

Admiral Nimitz, OTOH, seemed to have been very keen for the British Pacific Fleet to join his forces. Certainly he was very supportive of TF57/37, going beyond his orders in terms of support he provided to make it effective.
 

NothingNow

Banned
I second this idea, it's a logical move to make.

Take them, use them as airbases to Turn any Japanese Planes, tanks and ships visible from the Air in to scrap metal, and then demonstrate to the Japanese garrison how to properly do a Line drive down the Isthmus of Kra.:D
Also Isn't Thailand allied to the Japanese? Why not take Phuket or Satun Province, and use it as a Beachhead?
EDIT: turns out Thailand was essentially occupied by Japan.
 
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Markus

Banned
Take them, use them as airbases to Turn any Japanese Planes, tanks and ships visible from the Air in to scrap metal, and then demonstrate to the Japanese garrison how to properly do a Line drive down the Isthmus of Kra.:D
Also Isn't Thailand allied to the Japanese? Why not take Phuket or Satun Province, and use it as a Beachhead?
EDIT: turns out Thailand was essentially occupied by Japan.

Ambitious! I´m quite sure not enough landing craft are available. Logistics was what prevented the Allies from going to the offensive in the BCI for years: very poor LOC in eastern India, no land LOC from India to Burma except some fair weather tracks, everything had to be send by ship or not at all post 1941 and pre 1944. But once the Bay of Bengal is closed to the IJN the Allies can used sea transport again and a certain Chinese leader has one less excuse for inaction.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Ambitious! I´m quite sure not enough landing craft are available. Logistics was what prevented the Allies from going to the offensive in the BCI for years: very poor LOC in eastern India, no land LOC from India to Burma except some fair weather tracks, everything had to be send by ship or not at all post 1941 and pre 1944. But once the Bay of Bengal is closed to the IJN the Allies can used sea transport again and a certain Chinese leader has one less excuse for inaction.

Depends.

If the situation in his TL has Europe stabilizing sooner, with allied troops going into France sooner, this could thus see more amphib equipment freed up earlier to shift to the Pacific or Asia.

Whereas the Allies needed to put massive forces ashore, the British might only need to put one or two well supplied divisions ashore.

Best thing I could think of at this time would be to send British carriers to bomb everything in sight on Sumatra, using Colombo as a base.
 
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