Remember the Texas! The United States in World War II (an alternate history)
- Thread starter galveston bay
- Start date
I wouldn't be shocked to see Short, or any other officer a few months from retirement, declining a command that had zero upside and enormous downside.
Unlike IOTL, at least the Philippines were a major priority for reinforcement. Marshall pretty much wanted every B-17 in existence headed to the PI while the paint was still tacky. That at least give some sign that falling back to Bataan, and bunkering up for six or eight month is a possible thing, at least as a long shot. ATL all the command promises, at least by March 1, 1942 when Short hits mandatory retirement, is on the high side, a thankless task in less than ideal climate (pre-A/C the Philippines were not a paradise posting), separation from the family (exposed post = no dependents) for no "thank you" or career enhancement. Now the down side is huge; if the Japanese will attack (which no one really dounbted by mid-1941) the Commander in the PI will get to surrender the largest field Army ever to be defeated in American History (and by a LOT, even if you call the Army of Northern Virginia an American field army). That doesn't look good on the civilian resume.
I think Brooke may have been one of the original timeline candidates Churchill was considering for North Africa in mid-1942 according to volume 1 of the Nigel Hamilton biography of Montgomery. (Part 5 'Alamein', Chapter 1 'Decisions and Revisions') By the look of it, at that time, Auchinleck would have had the Middle-East and Brooke would have had North Africa (with Brooke being able to appoint Montgomery to 8th Army.)
But that was the situation after Auchinleck had lost Tobruk, but managed to rally to defend the Nile delta.
McPherson
Banned
Hmmm.
1. If one is going to write the Philippine Islands off, then one wants to minimally invest expensive fungibles like a heavy bomber force into it.
2. Dimples Cooper.
Who the HELLO is she?
3. Willis Carrier.
That would be 1911 when he perfected the air conditioner.
As to the combination?
MacArthur sold Marshall on the idea of a successful defense combining B-17s and PT boats. Note: never trust a landlubber in naval matters.
Elizabeth Cooper ("Dimples") was parked into a Manila Hotel for convenience sake to keep her off the view of the press in MacArthur's first tour. Doug would use it again when he "retired". "(Wonder why he "retired to the Philippine Islands" in 1934? Guess and the answer includes the words "Drew Pearson".)
That hotel HAD air conditioning.
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Chapter Three The Allies establish new Commands
Churchill juggles his generals
Winston Churchill in June 1941 sees the pressure of the British Empire fighting Germany alone ease dramatically when the United States and Soviet Union enter the war, but his problems now simply take on a new direction. He has little faith in this top two Generals and decides to shake up who is fighting the war. To start with John Dill, the Imperial Chief of Staff, has been disappointedly pessimistic for some time, and indeed seems to have undercut Churchill privately with General Wavell. However, Dill gets along very well with the Americans during the first meeting in July 1941, and when the decision is made to create a Combined Chiefs of Staff, Churchill with some alacrity posts Dill to Washington as the permanent British representative in Washington. A Royal Navy representative is also needed, and Vice Admiral Tom Philips who Churchill has come to trust, is also sent to Washington.
That will leave vacant the post of Imperial Chief of Staff. Needing someone he can trust, Churchill picks General “Pug” Ismay although he is loath to part with his military secretary he needs someone he can absolutely trust in the position after Ironside and Dill have (in Churchill’s mind) failed him. Initially he considers General Alan Brooke for the role, but after the failure of Battleaxe in North Africa, changes his mind and instead sends Brooke to take over with responsibility for the Levant, Palestine, Jordan, and North Africa. A commander is also needed for the new 8th Army, and Churchill lets Brooke pick his own who decides that the difficult but highly effective General Bernard Montgomery is the man for the job. Monty (as he is known) is a prima donna and can be exceptionally irritating, but he is an outstanding trainer of troops, fought very well in France and has done an excellent job preparing his forces in southern England over the last year. Brooke keeps “Jumbo” Wilson, who is the middle of a fight already in Levant and is doing well. The responsibility for East Africa, Iraq and Persia are permanently handed over to General Auchinleck, who is also responsible for India and Malaya as well. General Wavell, who does remain a superb strategic thinker and who does have daring, a trait Churchill admires, and more importantly several victories in addition to his defeats, is selected for a new job.
Tensions with Japan are growing steadily worse, and with the Japanese seizure of southern French Indochina, as well as the oil embargo by the Allies in response to that, as well as needing someone to keep the Australians and New Zealanders happy, Churchill creates a new command. General Wavell is ordered to Singapore to take command of Imperial Forces in Southeast Asia and Australia, and with him, once the fight in Vichy Syria is completed, he will get 2 Australian divisions plus the New Zealanders. However those troops will not immediately be available, as the New Zealanders and Australians will have part of each of their divisions sent home to provide cadre for new units, and it will take time for the 3 divisions to absorb and train new drafts of men to replace them. By the end of October the Australian 7th and 9th AIF, and the 2nd New Zealand Division, are en route to Ceylon to absorb replacements and to rest, while the men sent home are already at home by early December. This leaves only 1 Australian Division (the 6th) in the Middle East and for now it is garrisoning Cyprus. To replace these troops in North Africa, the 2nd Canadian and 1st South African Divisions are sent to Levant to train and get used to conditions, while 3 British divisions (2nd, 18th Infantry Divisions, 10th Armored Division) are ordered to North Africa, arriving in September and October. Auchinleck also requests the return of the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions, whose experienced officers and men are needed to help train the Indian Army, which has 2 experienced, 3 trained and 5 raw divisions currently and one of the raw divisions (the 11th) is in Singapore and inadequately equipped in the bargain. Alan Brooke is furious about losing all these troops, which is only partly made up by 3 divisions from Britain and promises that the American Expeditionary Force will eventually arrive to assist him in North Africa. Brooke is not particularly impressed by that promise so another division (the 11th Armored) is promised him but will not reach him before the planned date of Operation Crusader.
The Australians and New Zealanders are pleased by the choice of Wavell, who when disaster threatened managed to get their troops out of Greece and Crete and who has won some victories, although not against the Germans. But if he can handle the Italians and Vichy French, surely he can handle the Japanese.
The US Army prepares for war
Meanwhile Roosevelt has his own problems with his army. The Army spent a very lean Great Depression but the officer corps seems to be handling mobilization and expansion very well. Roosevelt also has his strategic choices to make. The focus of the Navy is on the Battle of the Atlantic and defense of the Panama Canal and Hawaii, and when war comes with Japan (which is now looking inevitable) holding off the Japanese until War Plan Orange has the forces necessary to march across the Pacific. This leaves the Philippines and Alaska as Army problems, plus the need to put together a force to fight the Germans with (and sooner rather than later) and eventually build the needed army to drive into Europe. Plus the new Soviet ally needs secure Lend Lease routes, and the Army will need to send troops to Persia to build one there, as well as garrison the various Atlantic bases and also now it seems bases to secure the sea line of communication between Hawaii and Australia. This leaves the Philippines far down the list in priorities, and there seems little that can be done. The problem however is that the Republicans consider General Macarthur one of their darlings, and they are also pressing for assistance to China.
Roosevelt hits upon an elegant solution to solve what is in part a major political problem for him. Who better to send to China to show that America is serious about helping it than a distinguished and prestigious military man who has ties to the Republican Party and thus ready made friends in court in Chungking. Who as it happens has been called up on active duty effective June 24, 1941 than Lieutenant General Douglas Macarthur. The President summons Macarthur home, gives him a fourth star, and arranges for the General, his family and a staff he picks to travel to China to become Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army as well as head of the Military Mission in China and thus supplier of all things Lend Lease to the Nationalist Chinese. He even allows Macarthur to have input on his replacement, and the General makes clear that the current head of the Philippine Department is not up to the task. General Marshall however knows just the man, who is currently in Hawaii, and offers the job the General Walter Short, who to everyone’s surprise, decides that he is too near retirement to entire likely certain Japanese captivity as he has reviewed War Plan Orange. Thus General Short is retired, and General Walter Krueger, who has done reasonably well in the Louisiana Maneuvers is made commanding General US Army Pacific (based out of Oahu) and Major General Joseph Stillwell is given his 3rd star (to Lieutenant General) and given command of US Army Forces Philippines on July 11, 1941.
By the end of July Krueger and Stillwell are both in their new jobs and Macarthur arrives in China in October 1941 after taking home leave (which he uses to solidify help from the Republicans and deal with financial issues, some of which come to the private attention of Roosevelt) and the lengthy travel time by ship from the United States to Burma and then overland to China. Macarthur and Chiang Kai-Shek will not have a happy relationship over the next 4 years. Privately General Marshall plans to get Stillwell out when the time comes when it the situation warrants it in the Philippines as he has other uses for the General.
The next commander needed is for the proposed American Expeditionary Force to be deployed to fight the Germans and Italians in North Africa. It will be months at least before anything can be attempted anywhere else, but the Americans must show they are pulling their weight. This job requires someone trained and knowledgeable in mobile mechanized operations who can also get along with the British. General Eisenhower has shown he can do that after a superb job in Louisiana which got him a spot on Marshal’s staff, and in the meetings in December in Washington the British were impressed with Eisenhower and Marshal also was pleased by how well he did. Thus Eisenhower is promoted to Lieutenant General and given responsibility for assembling and then commanding the USAEF when it goes to Egypt, which at this point appears likely to be in May 1942. He gets Omar Bradley as his Chief of Staff, and George Patton as his armored force commander. He will also get 4 divisions and some separate brigades which will eventually form the basis of the US 1st Army. For the next few months Eisenhower and his troops spend their time training strenuously in the California and Arizona desert, while observers are sent to Egypt to see how the British are doing things beginning in October 1941.
This leaves the need for reinforcements in the Pacific. Garrisons are needed for the islands between Australia and Hawaii and Admiral King is begging for troops. Marshal orders 2 National Guard regiments to Hawaii to fill out the Hawaiian Division (which become the X Corps with the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions), while 4 more separate National Guard Infantry Regiments and both African American Infantry Regiments are prepared for deployment to Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa and the big island of Hawaii. Alaska is sent an infantry division (the 6th) consisting of 1 Regular and 2 National Guard Infantry Regiments (from Minnesota and the Dakotas) while a National Guard Division (30th) from the Carolinas is sent to the Panama Canal Zone. However, he does offer General Stilwell a National Guard Division (the 31st, from the Deep South). Stillwell cheerfully accepts the offer, even though it will not arrive until late November, and manages to get needed small arms, light artillery and a host of other needs promised him, although much of that will not arrive until October. However, the fact that the Philippine Army has been federalized since June 24 is a major help, as it will need months of training to be fully combat ready, which seems likely to be sometime in January 1942. Stilwell also gets the needed authority to send a lot of the old soldiers home from the Philippines, some of whom have served 25 or more years in the Army as enlisted men in China and the Philippines and whose skills are needed at home but whose health is unlikely to survive a lengthy campaign (or almost certain imprisonment). Indeed, the first step Stilwell takes when he arrives is to order the dependents home.
Much to his regret Marshal has little airpower he can send. The American Volunteer Group will be helpful to Macarthur once it is combat ready, but for the Philippines only he can only arrange for 2 squadrons of P36 fighters to be transferred from Hawaii to Clark Field (arriving by special dispatch and courtesy of Admiral King and a special trip by the Saratoga in September before it heads to Bremerton and refit) and for General Krueger he manages to get the 1st Pursuit Group (with 32 P38s and 20 P43s) to Hawaii to replace the departing P36s. But Hap Arnold has little else to send, as the planned American Desert Air Force is still training up and equipping with P40s and B17Es and will not be ready to go overseas until February, while the nearly everything else Hap Arnold has is training, conducting coast defense missions (while the Navy takes over) or is forming and aircraft are in very short supply.
In that he is not alone, as Churchill has very little of the RAF he can spare either. Indeed, there are only 4 squadrons of Buffalo fighters for Malaya, a single squadron of Buffalos in Burma, and everything in India or Australia or New Zealand is either training or forming and lack aircraft or combat ready aircraft. Only the Desert Air Force, with over 1,000 aircraft including 9 squadrons of fighters and 6 bomber squadrons is really at reasonable levels of combat effectiveness, and of course the RAF Fighter Command is at full strength. The Royal Navy however is pointing fingers at the RAF Bomber Command and is desperate for long range aircraft. The Butt Report, in October, shows that only one in three RAF bombers was even finding its target and the waste of resources has become irresponsible. Churchill is sure he has found a man to fix that, but Air Marshal Arthur Harris is killed in a crash in late November when fog closes in unexpectedly on his way back from inspecting RAF Bomber Command bases. Churchill and Air Marshal Portal are still debating what to do with RAF Bomber Command when the Japanese enter the war.
Winston Churchill in June 1941 sees the pressure of the British Empire fighting Germany alone ease dramatically when the United States and Soviet Union enter the war, but his problems now simply take on a new direction. He has little faith in this top two Generals and decides to shake up who is fighting the war. To start with John Dill, the Imperial Chief of Staff, has been disappointedly pessimistic for some time, and indeed seems to have undercut Churchill privately with General Wavell. However, Dill gets along very well with the Americans during the first meeting in July 1941, and when the decision is made to create a Combined Chiefs of Staff, Churchill with some alacrity posts Dill to Washington as the permanent British representative in Washington. A Royal Navy representative is also needed, and Vice Admiral Tom Philips who Churchill has come to trust, is also sent to Washington.
That will leave vacant the post of Imperial Chief of Staff. Needing someone he can trust, Churchill picks General “Pug” Ismay although he is loath to part with his military secretary he needs someone he can absolutely trust in the position after Ironside and Dill have (in Churchill’s mind) failed him. Initially he considers General Alan Brooke for the role, but after the failure of Battleaxe in North Africa, changes his mind and instead sends Brooke to take over with responsibility for the Levant, Palestine, Jordan, and North Africa. A commander is also needed for the new 8th Army, and Churchill lets Brooke pick his own who decides that the difficult but highly effective General Bernard Montgomery is the man for the job. Monty (as he is known) is a prima donna and can be exceptionally irritating, but he is an outstanding trainer of troops, fought very well in France and has done an excellent job preparing his forces in southern England over the last year. Brooke keeps “Jumbo” Wilson, who is the middle of a fight already in Levant and is doing well. The responsibility for East Africa, Iraq and Persia are permanently handed over to General Auchinleck, who is also responsible for India and Malaya as well. General Wavell, who does remain a superb strategic thinker and who does have daring, a trait Churchill admires, and more importantly several victories in addition to his defeats, is selected for a new job.
Tensions with Japan are growing steadily worse, and with the Japanese seizure of southern French Indochina, as well as the oil embargo by the Allies in response to that, as well as needing someone to keep the Australians and New Zealanders happy, Churchill creates a new command. General Wavell is ordered to Singapore to take command of Imperial Forces in Southeast Asia and Australia, and with him, once the fight in Vichy Syria is completed, he will get 2 Australian divisions plus the New Zealanders. However those troops will not immediately be available, as the New Zealanders and Australians will have part of each of their divisions sent home to provide cadre for new units, and it will take time for the 3 divisions to absorb and train new drafts of men to replace them. By the end of October the Australian 7th and 9th AIF, and the 2nd New Zealand Division, are en route to Ceylon to absorb replacements and to rest, while the men sent home are already at home by early December. This leaves only 1 Australian Division (the 6th) in the Middle East and for now it is garrisoning Cyprus. To replace these troops in North Africa, the 2nd Canadian and 1st South African Divisions are sent to Levant to train and get used to conditions, while 3 British divisions (2nd, 18th Infantry Divisions, 10th Armored Division) are ordered to North Africa, arriving in September and October. Auchinleck also requests the return of the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions, whose experienced officers and men are needed to help train the Indian Army, which has 2 experienced, 3 trained and 5 raw divisions currently and one of the raw divisions (the 11th) is in Singapore and inadequately equipped in the bargain. Alan Brooke is furious about losing all these troops, which is only partly made up by 3 divisions from Britain and promises that the American Expeditionary Force will eventually arrive to assist him in North Africa. Brooke is not particularly impressed by that promise so another division (the 11th Armored) is promised him but will not reach him before the planned date of Operation Crusader.
The Australians and New Zealanders are pleased by the choice of Wavell, who when disaster threatened managed to get their troops out of Greece and Crete and who has won some victories, although not against the Germans. But if he can handle the Italians and Vichy French, surely he can handle the Japanese.
The US Army prepares for war
Meanwhile Roosevelt has his own problems with his army. The Army spent a very lean Great Depression but the officer corps seems to be handling mobilization and expansion very well. Roosevelt also has his strategic choices to make. The focus of the Navy is on the Battle of the Atlantic and defense of the Panama Canal and Hawaii, and when war comes with Japan (which is now looking inevitable) holding off the Japanese until War Plan Orange has the forces necessary to march across the Pacific. This leaves the Philippines and Alaska as Army problems, plus the need to put together a force to fight the Germans with (and sooner rather than later) and eventually build the needed army to drive into Europe. Plus the new Soviet ally needs secure Lend Lease routes, and the Army will need to send troops to Persia to build one there, as well as garrison the various Atlantic bases and also now it seems bases to secure the sea line of communication between Hawaii and Australia. This leaves the Philippines far down the list in priorities, and there seems little that can be done. The problem however is that the Republicans consider General Macarthur one of their darlings, and they are also pressing for assistance to China.
Roosevelt hits upon an elegant solution to solve what is in part a major political problem for him. Who better to send to China to show that America is serious about helping it than a distinguished and prestigious military man who has ties to the Republican Party and thus ready made friends in court in Chungking. Who as it happens has been called up on active duty effective June 24, 1941 than Lieutenant General Douglas Macarthur. The President summons Macarthur home, gives him a fourth star, and arranges for the General, his family and a staff he picks to travel to China to become Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army as well as head of the Military Mission in China and thus supplier of all things Lend Lease to the Nationalist Chinese. He even allows Macarthur to have input on his replacement, and the General makes clear that the current head of the Philippine Department is not up to the task. General Marshall however knows just the man, who is currently in Hawaii, and offers the job the General Walter Short, who to everyone’s surprise, decides that he is too near retirement to entire likely certain Japanese captivity as he has reviewed War Plan Orange. Thus General Short is retired, and General Walter Krueger, who has done reasonably well in the Louisiana Maneuvers is made commanding General US Army Pacific (based out of Oahu) and Major General Joseph Stillwell is given his 3rd star (to Lieutenant General) and given command of US Army Forces Philippines on July 11, 1941.
By the end of July Krueger and Stillwell are both in their new jobs and Macarthur arrives in China in October 1941 after taking home leave (which he uses to solidify help from the Republicans and deal with financial issues, some of which come to the private attention of Roosevelt) and the lengthy travel time by ship from the United States to Burma and then overland to China. Macarthur and Chiang Kai-Shek will not have a happy relationship over the next 4 years. Privately General Marshall plans to get Stillwell out when the time comes when it the situation warrants it in the Philippines as he has other uses for the General.
The next commander needed is for the proposed American Expeditionary Force to be deployed to fight the Germans and Italians in North Africa. It will be months at least before anything can be attempted anywhere else, but the Americans must show they are pulling their weight. This job requires someone trained and knowledgeable in mobile mechanized operations who can also get along with the British. General Eisenhower has shown he can do that after a superb job in Louisiana which got him a spot on Marshal’s staff, and in the meetings in December in Washington the British were impressed with Eisenhower and Marshal also was pleased by how well he did. Thus Eisenhower is promoted to Lieutenant General and given responsibility for assembling and then commanding the USAEF when it goes to Egypt, which at this point appears likely to be in May 1942. He gets Omar Bradley as his Chief of Staff, and George Patton as his armored force commander. He will also get 4 divisions and some separate brigades which will eventually form the basis of the US 1st Army. For the next few months Eisenhower and his troops spend their time training strenuously in the California and Arizona desert, while observers are sent to Egypt to see how the British are doing things beginning in October 1941.
This leaves the need for reinforcements in the Pacific. Garrisons are needed for the islands between Australia and Hawaii and Admiral King is begging for troops. Marshal orders 2 National Guard regiments to Hawaii to fill out the Hawaiian Division (which become the X Corps with the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions), while 4 more separate National Guard Infantry Regiments and both African American Infantry Regiments are prepared for deployment to Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa and the big island of Hawaii. Alaska is sent an infantry division (the 6th) consisting of 1 Regular and 2 National Guard Infantry Regiments (from Minnesota and the Dakotas) while a National Guard Division (30th) from the Carolinas is sent to the Panama Canal Zone. However, he does offer General Stilwell a National Guard Division (the 31st, from the Deep South). Stillwell cheerfully accepts the offer, even though it will not arrive until late November, and manages to get needed small arms, light artillery and a host of other needs promised him, although much of that will not arrive until October. However, the fact that the Philippine Army has been federalized since June 24 is a major help, as it will need months of training to be fully combat ready, which seems likely to be sometime in January 1942. Stilwell also gets the needed authority to send a lot of the old soldiers home from the Philippines, some of whom have served 25 or more years in the Army as enlisted men in China and the Philippines and whose skills are needed at home but whose health is unlikely to survive a lengthy campaign (or almost certain imprisonment). Indeed, the first step Stilwell takes when he arrives is to order the dependents home.
Much to his regret Marshal has little airpower he can send. The American Volunteer Group will be helpful to Macarthur once it is combat ready, but for the Philippines only he can only arrange for 2 squadrons of P36 fighters to be transferred from Hawaii to Clark Field (arriving by special dispatch and courtesy of Admiral King and a special trip by the Saratoga in September before it heads to Bremerton and refit) and for General Krueger he manages to get the 1st Pursuit Group (with 32 P38s and 20 P43s) to Hawaii to replace the departing P36s. But Hap Arnold has little else to send, as the planned American Desert Air Force is still training up and equipping with P40s and B17Es and will not be ready to go overseas until February, while the nearly everything else Hap Arnold has is training, conducting coast defense missions (while the Navy takes over) or is forming and aircraft are in very short supply.
In that he is not alone, as Churchill has very little of the RAF he can spare either. Indeed, there are only 4 squadrons of Buffalo fighters for Malaya, a single squadron of Buffalos in Burma, and everything in India or Australia or New Zealand is either training or forming and lack aircraft or combat ready aircraft. Only the Desert Air Force, with over 1,000 aircraft including 9 squadrons of fighters and 6 bomber squadrons is really at reasonable levels of combat effectiveness, and of course the RAF Fighter Command is at full strength. The Royal Navy however is pointing fingers at the RAF Bomber Command and is desperate for long range aircraft. The Butt Report, in October, shows that only one in three RAF bombers was even finding its target and the waste of resources has become irresponsible. Churchill is sure he has found a man to fix that, but Air Marshal Arthur Harris is killed in a crash in late November when fog closes in unexpectedly on his way back from inspecting RAF Bomber Command bases. Churchill and Air Marshal Portal are still debating what to do with RAF Bomber Command when the Japanese enter the war.
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authors note: as much as I wanted to, I cannot find a good reason to send Alan Brooke to India, and with him Montgomery. However there are good reasons to keep Auchinleck in India (being as he is Indian Army for one thing) and Wavell does have some prestige and the ANZACs feel like they matter some now.
yeah I sent MacArthur to China... no air conditioning either
and fired Short
Krueger is adequate for his job, and no I will not leave Stillwell in the Philippines to get captured. He isn't one to demand his very own theater of operations either. He does get a National Guard Infantry Division to help the Philippine Division, and the Philippine Army will actually be at its full TO a& E, but no tanks, just some anti tank guns.
The actual defenses of Singapore I will get to when the Japanese attack but the Canadians are no longer at Hong Kong to die uselessly, they are going to Singapore instead. Exactly who commands and what with I will get to at that time as well. Along with the naval forces available. Most of those decisions are made in late November 1941, post Chariot and with some of the lessons of that in mind
Allied Air Power is pretty thin right now, and will be for a few more month and yes indeed the Pacific is thinly defended.
Note what I did with Admiral Philips
yeah I sent MacArthur to China... no air conditioning either
and fired Short
Krueger is adequate for his job, and no I will not leave Stillwell in the Philippines to get captured. He isn't one to demand his very own theater of operations either. He does get a National Guard Infantry Division to help the Philippine Division, and the Philippine Army will actually be at its full TO a& E, but no tanks, just some anti tank guns.
The actual defenses of Singapore I will get to when the Japanese attack but the Canadians are no longer at Hong Kong to die uselessly, they are going to Singapore instead. Exactly who commands and what with I will get to at that time as well. Along with the naval forces available. Most of those decisions are made in late November 1941, post Chariot and with some of the lessons of that in mind
Allied Air Power is pretty thin right now, and will be for a few more month and yes indeed the Pacific is thinly defended.
Note what I did with Admiral Philips
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and then there is General Drum... who also fumbled in Louisiana and Stinson actually thought he was offering Drum a favor too
no B17s for the PI, and no fighters to guard them... just some token P35s and P36s which will almost immediately be relegated to recon flights
Note I mentioned MacArthur's financial business without detail, but FDR knew ALL about them... and would have used that information if he had toTTL he uses it to help persuade MacArthur to go to China.
marathag
Banned
They have good long range capability, 200 gallons of internal fuel for P-35, and 162 for P-36
note that the P35 and P36 are adequate fighters but the real problem is that the airbasing infrastructure in the Philippines cannot support a long campaign after the Japanese inevitably flatten the facilities at Clark Field (and then capture it) and without spares, eventually the fighters are going to stop being flyable no matter how well they do.
Roughly 50 P36/P35 vs 110 Zeros by the way, which is really unfair for the good guys but the weight of forces is pretty solid
Bomber Harris gone. Let's hope that his successor doesn't make me regret his loss.
McPherson
Banned
Hmmm.
Given the tools of the trade, how does one disrupt, dislocate and dismember the German economy through aerial bombardment?
Let us see how the RAF air staff handles the problem ITTL...
Late to the debate, but I have to agree the outcomes of the maritime air strikes were optimistic. My own count suggests the hit/damage rate of air launched torpedoes would be lower. The weather conditions described aggravate the problem. The USN & IJN dive-bombers became really good in later 1942, after repeated battles and months of campaigning in the Pacific. I'm skeptical this German air force can reproduce those hit rates with far fewer combat sorties previous & accumulated group experience.
Theres other lucrative targets. Attacking the submarine fleet more directly, bombing the construction sites, the service docks, & properly equipping Coastal Command with VLR aircraft could pay off very well. Better development of the tactical air forces sooner, and of course the interdiction mission vs Axis supply routes can I've a good return. Its correct the Germans wont have as many fifteen year old boys manning FLAK batteries in the Reich, but attritioning the submarine fleet faster, or having the Africa Korps out of gas on the road to Tripoli counts for a lot.
He may do a lot better under different circumstances. Its not well understood how US Army officers were evaluated and rose to the top of the pack during the interwar years. It was highly competitive, demanding, and they were judged harshly. Frednedall was not selected to command the early armored units because he was from the right family, went to the right school, had family connections in the right places. He was thrust into a extremely difficult situation in February 1943 & had difficulty coping, but looking at the gritty details, beyond the canards of the pop histories I cant see many others, including Patton, doing any better. The role of Andersen & his staff in the problems of the US II Corps & First Armored Division are understudied, as is the role of Eisenhowers G-2 back in Algeria. Fredndall had his defects, but he was surrounded by others with defects.
I think the revised numbers given by the author are much better. They still read as high, but IMO they're well within the realm of the Germans simply having a very good day and the USN having a bad one. Particularly if the author doesn't have them do that well again.
McPherson
Banned
Just a few general notes on WW II airpower and air farces.
Second, VLR LRMP patrollers are all very hardware good, but one has to do something about the idiots in Coastal Command, Western Approaches and Eastern Sea Frontier.
Who are these idiots?
Martin Dunbar Naismith
Percy Noble
===========================
Arthur Longmore
Philip Joubert de la Ferté
Frederick Bowhill
John Slessor
William Sholto Douglas
===========================
Clark H. Woodward
Adolphus Andrews
Now the problem of TACAIR and STRATAIR is kind of grim because there the history of the RTL is that depending on the time of the war, the service, the commanders and the means, the Allied air farces were either very good (Kenney, McCain, Connyngham, Quesada, Doolittle, Spaatz and of course Lemay) or VERY BAD and I mean Portal, Harris, Brett, Bissell and that goddamned worthless son of a bitch Brereton bad.
A lot of negative can be laid at the responsibilities of the air staffs both in the RAF (utterly incompetent) and USAAF (very, very, very slow to learn.) about how to fight an effective air campaign in Europe.
As always, in air warfare, it historically is not just the doctrine is screwed up, the tactics way behind the means plausible, and the leaders clueless as to what is operationally happening in the air campaign, it is the wrong technological and operational emphasis.
Lessons learned... the AIR CAMPAIGN.
1. All bombing results are temporary. There is no permanent effect, not even with atomic weapons. Humans are going to rebuild.
2. There are no magic bottlenecks to bomb. Humans are going to find a new path or a detour route to their objective, despite all your bombing.
3. Before you can bomb, you have to kill the enemy air defenses.
4. More accurate bombs are 8x as efficient as 8x as many bombers.
5. Enemy fighters only have to be good enough to spoil your bombing accuracy.
6. Enemy anti-aircraft weapons only have to be good enough to spoil your bombing accuracy.
7. Run the enemy out of pilots. Pilots are harder to make than planes.
8. Solve it in the weapon effector, not the launch platform.
9. Fast bombers with small crews are cheaper in lives and material than slow bombers with large crews.
10, Pick a type of target set and PERSIST. (See 1.). If the goal is to disrupt the enemy transport and communication system then hammer those target sets. Quit dancing around the target list.
11. Based on 1, 2, 3, 7 and 10, FUEL and POWER SUPPLY are primaries on the target list.
12. TACAIR trusism, planes do not do well against tanks. Planes are MURDER on trucks. Bomb and strafe accordingly.
13. Disciples of Douhet should be court martialed early and often. Disciples of Chennault and Dowding and any Jimmy Doolittle type one can find should be promoted and encouraged.
14. In case one missed it at 3, 5, and 6 and 7... KILL THE ENEMY AIR FARCE FIRST.
First, hitting submarine manufacturing runs into the problem of locating all the subcontractors and knocking them off.
Second, VLR LRMP patrollers are all very hardware good, but one has to do something about the idiots in Coastal Command, Western Approaches and Eastern Sea Frontier.
Who are these idiots?
Martin Dunbar Naismith
Percy Noble
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Arthur Longmore
Philip Joubert de la Ferté
Frederick Bowhill
John Slessor
William Sholto Douglas
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Clark H. Woodward
Adolphus Andrews
Now the problem of TACAIR and STRATAIR is kind of grim because there the history of the RTL is that depending on the time of the war, the service, the commanders and the means, the Allied air farces were either very good (Kenney, McCain, Connyngham, Quesada, Doolittle, Spaatz and of course Lemay) or VERY BAD and I mean Portal, Harris, Brett, Bissell and that goddamned worthless son of a bitch Brereton bad.
A lot of negative can be laid at the responsibilities of the air staffs both in the RAF (utterly incompetent) and USAAF (very, very, very slow to learn.) about how to fight an effective air campaign in Europe.
As always, in air warfare, it historically is not just the doctrine is screwed up, the tactics way behind the means plausible, and the leaders clueless as to what is operationally happening in the air campaign, it is the wrong technological and operational emphasis.
Lessons learned... the AIR CAMPAIGN.
1. All bombing results are temporary. There is no permanent effect, not even with atomic weapons. Humans are going to rebuild.
2. There are no magic bottlenecks to bomb. Humans are going to find a new path or a detour route to their objective, despite all your bombing.
3. Before you can bomb, you have to kill the enemy air defenses.
4. More accurate bombs are 8x as efficient as 8x as many bombers.
5. Enemy fighters only have to be good enough to spoil your bombing accuracy.
6. Enemy anti-aircraft weapons only have to be good enough to spoil your bombing accuracy.
7. Run the enemy out of pilots. Pilots are harder to make than planes.
8. Solve it in the weapon effector, not the launch platform.
9. Fast bombers with small crews are cheaper in lives and material than slow bombers with large crews.
10, Pick a type of target set and PERSIST. (See 1.). If the goal is to disrupt the enemy transport and communication system then hammer those target sets. Quit dancing around the target list.
11. Based on 1, 2, 3, 7 and 10, FUEL and POWER SUPPLY are primaries on the target list.
12. TACAIR trusism, planes do not do well against tanks. Planes are MURDER on trucks. Bomb and strafe accordingly.
13. Disciples of Douhet should be court martialed early and often. Disciples of Chennault and Dowding and any Jimmy Doolittle type one can find should be promoted and encouraged.
14. In case one missed it at 3, 5, and 6 and 7... KILL THE ENEMY AIR FARCE FIRST.
Is Wake getting reinforced? Or Guam?
Looks like Pearl Harbor will be better defended, and the PI MUCH better defended/led.
Looks like Pearl Harbor will be better defended, and the PI MUCH better defended/led.