They also have Washington and North Carolina along with the South Dakota in short order.
Remember the Texas! The United States in World War II (an alternate history)
- Thread starter galveston bay
- Start date
With the German Navy hiding in the Baltic, most of the gunline is now available for redeployment as 3 have been sunk, 4 need repair (and will be modernized while in the shop) leaving 2 obsolete BB (Arkansas and New York) relegated to training duties until such time as an invasion fleet is needed somewhere, 3 under refit (available 1942), 4 under repair and refit (available 1943) and the Idaho, Nevada are immediately available and with the 3 (Colorado w 16 inch guns, Pennsyvlania and Arizona available in early 1942 with upgraded AAA armament. Plus by the later part of 1942 the North Carolina, Massachusetts, and South Dakota will be heading to the Pacific Fleet. The Standards available in 1943, along with the training BB will give the USN 6 battleships for a bombardment force for the Atlantic, and 5 for that job in the Pacific.
10th Fleet was more of a intel and data management organization and does not show up until May 1943, well past the end of Operation Drumbeat. The Germans pulled back due to increased patrols and coastal convoys which I implied but did not spell out in TTL Lockwood went from his attache job to commander US Subs in SWPAC before SUBPAC OTL, and is actual job is controlling the fleet subs out of Pearl TTL while the current COMSUBPAC is coordinating and planning operations by his boats in the PI (later DEI and later still somewhere in the SW PAC) as well as Pearl. (revised the post in other words).MOO. YMMV.
1. Radio reports over widely dispersed forces, contrary to popular histories, were fragmentary and local. The situation buildup of a naval air-sea battle was done at a master plot in WWII as there was no tactical data system that gave position and condition reports, no combat information centers a-ship or a-shore pre-1941 aside from the Admiralty Plotting Room (Battle of the Atlantic) or PACFLT (Pearl Harbor created 1938?) or LANTFLT (Fleet Problem XX?) or the USNWC (Wargame aid since they first krieg-spieled floor exercises back in the 1880s!). The German equivalent was OKdU created after the Fall of France and at this moment would be more of a wolf-pack and convoy tracker with no air combat input at all similar to the Admiralty Plotting Room.
2. Based on 1., I would expect the reportage to be incomplete fragmentary and co0ntradictory with a lot of LFK 10 exaggerations and mis-information. Post Strike Assessment (PSA) and Battle Damage Analysis (BDA) required photo-reconnaissance and follow up flyovers to confirm estimates. This was USN policy (hence photos of damaged Japanese ships in USN archives are PSA and BDA taken during or after an attack.).
3. The Berlin Maniac being a landlubber and ignorant of airpower must not be cognizant of the time and distance factors in moving forces across a continent. Land forces from Russia to France, take about a week, if everything goes correctly. Air farces take about 2 days with down time for maintenance between sorties. Plus having airplanes sortie in does not mean butkus if the fuel and ammunition are not present, unless the planes fly in already bombed up. (Hence why sending the 32 SBDs and 32 TBDs to Marston, UK from the flattops means they had to lug their ordnance with them. British bombs and torpedoes do not fit American birds.).
4. Coast defense (battleships) becomes very important for the Germans. Fortitude North was a non-starter because there was a KM SAG to intervene in any "suggested" allied landings in the RTL. The landlubber Berlin Maniac did not understand this naval truism.
5. Why have the CTFs and SAG not rendezvoused mid-ocean at Point Charles for mutual protection?
6. Half day to move from east France to west France. Stukas have to refuel and stage in 2 hops, not 1.
7. Why are the minesweepers still milling around in front of St Nazaire? They should be running after they sweep.
8. Condors, Me110s, Fokkers, and Stukas fly all together in a deferred departure package. What do they all have in common? Differing altitude bands, cruise speeds, and mutually exclusive operating characteristics. Also see THIS to understand what is happening.
Note the altitudes of attack and the ineffectiveness of the attacks on a standard convoy? LFK 10 BTW.
9. Condors dropped bombs at low altitude and were suicidality vulnerable to AAA auto-cannon fire at these "mast head" attacks they made; being very fragile aircraft.
10. Same goes for the Ju-88s, except they are warbirds and more resistant to AAA fire at this juncture and time of the war.
11. The He 111 was a horrible torpedo plane being worse than the "Hunchback". Also my comment about dud LW torpedoes and Standards kind of remains RTL valid.
12. FDR was a Hollander at heart. He will handle it just fine with Winston in his usual way,, but his American admirals are not going to like it one bit when he demands an explanation of them.
13. These are Bliss Leavitt fish, not the Goat Island Mark XIIIs. They will work. HOWEVER, I will stipulate that the Mark XIIIs here ITTL are clangers, porpoisers and self scuttles and are premature exploders. Hence ITTL, the Atomic Playboy and Tower, that other son of a bitch, should have some tall explaining to do in story, after LANTFLT reports weapon deficiencies. See 12. for why.
14. See my joke post #428. Estimate 2 years? RTL, the series of refits and modernizations (in 3 separate stages) took about that long. If it is one whole go at it, I might see a year to rebuild superstructure after the buzzcut, suppress casemates, trunk funnels, install new AAA and directors, re-boiler and new improved turbine sets, and give them all nose jobs. What saves a lot of time is that the electric generator and motor components of the turbo-electric plants do not have to be stripped out, rewired and remounted. This alone saves 3 months and justifies the nose jobs.
14a. These are two of the ATL Standards in the ...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided ATL as rebuilds that will show up about late 1942 or early 1943. The justification for the nose jobs is FDR and some rearrangement of build priorities (No Alaskas and earlier deferment of the Montanas.)
15. There is another clown who needs to be on the next plane to the Aleutians with Pye and Stark. Let "HAP" count penguins with those other idiots. The B-18 "Bolo" was called that for a reason. How about some
Northrop’s Norwegian Floatplane Faced the Nazi Invasion
(from Wiki)
Mr. RIKKO says; "Hi!" Might be useful later on even with that CRAP Wright engine.
16. None of these items means a thing without a traffic control and routing system (10th Fleet) for the Intercoastal Waterway or the Caribbean.
17. Sangamons and Commencement Bays should be started now very fast. And a LOT of them.
18. The idea of Pye, who should be diagnosed in the first stages of mental instability, by now, of modernizing anything is ehhh....
19. Thomas Hart may have some peculiar notions about submarine warfare. If on the other hand, Withers, English and that idiot, Fife, are cashiered out of the submarine force upon his ascension to SUBCOM and CAPT W.E. Doyle does the right thing and blows his brains out, then SUBPAC might have a chance for what I expect is coming all too soon.
20. Not enough lead time has elapsed to avoid the torpedo crisis and I see the HORS are still going to bite the SUBPAC hard in the screws.
21. Wilkes? No way. He should be cashiered.
22. USS Chester has to get out of there. The British Eastern Command is a clown club.
23. Save these guys at all costs.
24. Lockwood is too junior as of yet. It might as well be Carpendar, so we can blame him for the torpedo crisis and send him to the Aleutians while Lockwood learns the ropes for a year as a division and squadron commander.
25. Ghormley will be wasted. He was actually rather good at telling Pound where to stuff it in the RTL ABC conferences. Odd that he did not show that spine with the Vichyites running / ruining New Caledonia. This is the reason I think he might have been going insane. That and his teeth.
26. How will he have the 6-6 program? Unless somehow the SoDaks take 2 years instead of 3 and the horrible Independences actually show up as scheduled? What is his tanker status and has the fleet taken over air defense as well as fleet defense for Hawaii or is that IDIOT, Short, still running it on the army side?
Just some observations. MOO. YMMV and should. Not gospel and it is not intended to be.
The poor Chester will likely go down with the ABDA
Regarding the CVs and BBs, Pye will get some criticism for that, and leaving the minesweepers in his wake to be attacked and of course losing the Oklahoma. He spends the war dealing with defense contractors and will never get a major command.
So other post for the BB force, but assuming no losses (chuckle) by the end of 1942 the USN has 5 fleet carriers and 4 fast battleships for the Pacific, and then the Essex shows up by spring 1943 along with 2 more fast battleships and then a lot nore Essex class follow. That isn't even counting the CVLs, which were a pet project for FDR and frankly more useful than they would have been as cruisers.
Regarding the air attacks... I did factor in issues like airplanes arriving without ground crews (and thus overworking the local guys), having to make do with ordinance that was available at the base they arrived at instead of what they had at 'home' and over the course of the day losing some aircraft to mechanical and operational causes as well as some reinforcements arriving as aircraft are made available from local and nearby sources. Pilot fatigue was also factored into the mix.
The MTB boat plan and their use was based exactly on the British plan which is improved by having a lot more warning and thus a lot more aircraft to hit the Germans with along with proper escorts (unlike OTL)
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The ABDA fleet is one of the tragedies of the early war that gets lost in the "Big Stories" involving Pearl Harbor, the Philippines invasion/Bataan/Malaya/Singapore. Even the Darwin Raid is far more well known.
The ABDA was pretty much doomed from start, but a better designed command structure and a couple fewer idiots (Yes I am looking directly at you Conrad Helfrich, you worthless jumped up peace time bureaucrat) had the potential to do more damage as it was worn to death.
BTW: Have you completed any sort of study regard the stress on the Earth's Crust from having three of the largest egos in recorded history within 1,000 miles of each other?
an early Type 9 Earthquake and tsunami seems unfair at this point but yeah, the egos in that area are impressive and we haven't even mention the Nationalist Chinese yet
Not sure that TRL would be any different than OTL in this regard honestly. The Kriegsmarine had been effectively reduced to a Baltic Sea force so there isn’t much need of the Azores.
Japan may not have as much crazy luck as OTL here and a 6 month head start compared to OTL probably means that Japan is starved out and burned down sooner. I don’t think the Allies would bother with a ground invasion if the powers that be know that their new super weapon is on the way, even if Japan stays in that long. The only thing that could convince them otherwise I suppose is if the Soviets are invading Manchuria in March 1945.
nbcman
Donor
Agreed on your sequence. But TF1 won't have 7 BBs in the spring of 1942 like OTL (CO, PA, TN, MD, ID, MS, NM). Maybe 5 (ID, NV, CO, PA, AZ) assuming ID and NV don't go in for a refit on their way to the Pacific. It looks like the slow BBs will be staying out of action in the Pacific in 1942 as OTL.
Hopefully the USN works out their 1942 fueling problems to be able to deploy some of the CVs that are currently in the Atlantic. Can they get enough oil and oilers to operate 5 CV TFs east of PH? Or will they be stuck with the 3 CVs that are there now? No answer is expected to this as you'll go into future deployments in the Pacific as part of a future posts. Thanks.
What might a HUGE impact on any decision involving Downfall (author's fiat excepted) is the assignment of MacArthur to China. That takes him, and his overpreening ego, out of the discussion. While that will have a negative impact on the Philippines (MacArthur was just about the only big player who saw retaking the Islands as an imperative, which he then proceeded screw up by the numbers) he was also the only big player who, by early summer of 1945 was still pushing for the invasion of Kyushu.
There are a jillion possible changes that could increase/decrease the chances of Downfall, depending on how the Author play out his scenario. A single really easy example is that whoever is assigned by Tokyo to defend Iwo Jima and Okinawa decides to try the "defeat them on the water's edge" tactic that had been previous Japanese practice until Peleliu (which would also likely be butterflied). That turns both Iwo and Okinawa into a firepower battle. At a guess that cuts U.S. loses in half, at minimum, and results in Iwo falling in 10-12 days rather than five weeks and Okinawa being declared secure in a month (although the Americans would be taking casualties from cut off Japanese forces around Shuri Castle until the end of the war, maybe longer). It was the losses incurred on Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and especially Okinawa, that started the serious reexamination of Olympic, along with the Kamikaze Offensive (which shocked the HELL out of the U.S., both in effectiveness, which was bad enough, but in the mindset of their enemy (which from a Western perspective was, simply put, insane).
The Kamikaze Corps itself is extremely dependent on only a couple officers, and had it been totally defeated at Leyte, might well have never come into being.
McPherson
Banned
Hmmm. Well, the gentleman who screwed up DRUMBEAT was RADM, later VADM Adolphus Andrews. He was "supposed" to be the point man on traffic control, blackout and routing for the Eastern Sea Frontier (May 1942 created.), but he boloed the response. His other notable achievement was the theft of and subsequent loss (In port no less while under guard and due to fire. February 1942.) of the French ocean liner; SS Normandie. Conspiracy nuts have a field day with that one. Somehow this apple polisher skated along until he was fired in November 1943.
Anyway 10th Fleet was set up to collate data on U-boats after the Eastern Sea Frontier was Canadianized with assets on loan from the RN as well. The need for equipment was critical as there were no suitable ASW ships in LANTFLT, an omission of the USN 2 Ocean shipbuilding program and WHO do I blame for that one?
Harold Stark.
Let us not forget Adophus Andrews, that putz.
He got the Navy (Good Conduct Medal) Distinguished Service Medal (Note my sarcasm?) for his work combating the U-boats in 1942 and 1943. His later service gives some measure of what the NGS thought of him. He was a member of a Navy manpower board to see if shore establishment was being effectively used. GRRR. BTW, if you rely on David Fairbank White, as a source for info on the American side of the Battle of the Atlantic, then you are backing the wrong guy. He gets a lot of navy politics of the era wrong and he has an ax to grind against FADM King. I find his "facts" and conclusions to be "dubious".
Don't forget, the USS Utah. It may be an old Florida class super-dreadnought, but it can be refitted.
Pretty sure the motivation was for ASW bases, helping to close the Mid Atlantic gap
(And justified under an Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1343)
Regarding Singapore and Malaya, if I recall research I did for an ASB timeline a while back correctly, once Singapore had been conquered by Imperial Japan, some of those Imperial Japanese troops went in other directions, to help complete the conquests of Burma and Sumatra.
If the Indians, Australians, and others in Malaya and Singapore hold out longer (under a commander not as awful as Percival) than the original timeline by much, or even manage to stalemate Imperial Japan, those original timeline Imperial Japanese troops freed up by the original timeline fall of Singapore will not be there to help roll up Burma and Sumatra as fast as those areas were in the original timeline.
Holding Singapore and Malaya slows the Imperial Japanese war-machine - maybe significantly.
(The Allies holding on there gives Westminster a headache of keeping Singapore and Malaya resupplied*, too, but if it derails the conquest of Burma it maybe means less panic in the Indian Ocean and on the Indian frontiers, and a Bengal Famine which doesn't turn from a natural disaster into a catastrophe.)
Note also that the 7th Australian Division was on the way back home from the Middle East in early 1942; this is the one which Churchill tried to divert to Burma after the fall of Singapore - which the Australian government disagreed with, and told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with that idea. Wikipedia (for what that's worth) claims some of the division ended up on Java, though, anyway (although Java was *actually in the way of Imperial Japanese troops advancing towards Australia* so any of the 7th Division which did go to Java might actually be possible to consider as directly contributing to Australia's defence, by deploying there.)
* Sumatra, I am reasonably certain I read, did not completely fall (although Imperial Japan had secured the 'oil' bit) until after Singapore in the Original Timeline. This may have ramifications for control of a sea-route into a Singapore which holds.
If the Indians, Australians, and others in Malaya and Singapore hold out longer (under a commander not as awful as Percival) than the original timeline by much, or even manage to stalemate Imperial Japan, those original timeline Imperial Japanese troops freed up by the original timeline fall of Singapore will not be there to help roll up Burma and Sumatra as fast as those areas were in the original timeline.
Holding Singapore and Malaya slows the Imperial Japanese war-machine - maybe significantly.
(The Allies holding on there gives Westminster a headache of keeping Singapore and Malaya resupplied*, too, but if it derails the conquest of Burma it maybe means less panic in the Indian Ocean and on the Indian frontiers, and a Bengal Famine which doesn't turn from a natural disaster into a catastrophe.)
Note also that the 7th Australian Division was on the way back home from the Middle East in early 1942; this is the one which Churchill tried to divert to Burma after the fall of Singapore - which the Australian government disagreed with, and told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with that idea. Wikipedia (for what that's worth) claims some of the division ended up on Java, though, anyway (although Java was *actually in the way of Imperial Japanese troops advancing towards Australia* so any of the 7th Division which did go to Java might actually be possible to consider as directly contributing to Australia's defence, by deploying there.)
* Sumatra, I am reasonably certain I read, did not completely fall (although Imperial Japan had secured the 'oil' bit) until after Singapore in the Original Timeline. This may have ramifications for control of a sea-route into a Singapore which holds.
What I mean is that the motivation hasn’t changed but there doesn’t seem to be a bigger need for Azores bases TTL than in OTL that would drive the Allies to follow through on Operation Alacrity/War Plan Gray. Galveston Bay even pointed out how things seemed to quiet down a bit in the Atlantic after the operation in the last few updates.
McPherson
Banned
LRMPs are easier to site from island bases leased from Portugal than seizing the bases and building airfields from VICHY FRENCH controlled West Africa.
The U-boats have not vanished... yet.
I haven’t heard of that before. It was my understanding that the kamikaze was simply born out of and driven by desperation and propaganda. Do you mean if perhaps Admiral Ōnishi had been killed before becoming an advocate for that style of attack?
I must still be unclear so let me try it a different way. I’m not denying why the Azores are important; what I want to know is what changed that would make the Allies in TTL occupy the islands when they did not do so until later OTL. Not, “why are they important” but “why do it earlier than OTL”?
I swear I’m not trying to rile anyone up! 😅
McPherson
Banned
MAP.
10 best Battle of the Atlantic images on Pinterest
Notice the concentrations?
The coverage out of the Azores is important early. For TORCH.
Keep in mind, the Allies here don't know how different their war is compared to the OTL one. All they know is that they've taken some tremendous blows from Germany and submarines are slaughtering merchants. So they need to do something. Plus, the US has been at war since Texas sank, so they've had a few months to dig their heads out of the sand already and are ahead of their OTL decision making process.
MAP.
10 best Battle of the Atlantic images on Pinterest
Notice the concentrations?
The coverage out of the Azores is important early. For TORCH.
That clarifies things for me. Thank you both!
There was a movement in Japan by a small number of officer to start a Suicide Corps, but it was mainly a "ya, this would be a good idea, lets talk about it next meeting" sort of thing. The IJA also had their own early effort, but it was initially meant to allow the undergunned Japanese defense fighters successfully bring down B-29s. It was tried throughout the war, but was generally seen as a failure.
Where the Kamikaze came into its own was at Leyte. They did vastly more damage than the surface ships did off Samar, and were, of course, given even more credit than was actually the case. Had the initial attacks at Leyte been completely stuffed the idea would likely have never gained the overwhelming support that was the case IOTL.