Remember the Texas! The United States in World War II (an alternate history)

McPherson

Banned
MOO. YMMV.
Afternoon November 13
In London, Berlin and Paris, commanders as well as Churchill and Hitler wait tensely for reports to come in. The first reports out of the Channel please none of them, as Churchill has to call Roosevelt on the phone and inform him of the death of Kimmel and the frightful damage inflicted on the American battleships, while Hitler is angry that Cerebus has already cost the Kriegsmarine a heavy cruiser and several destroyers. His anger is partly offset that the Luftwaffe seems to have sunk two battleships (as reports are that only 4 of the American group of 6 made port) and orders Goebbels to trumpet that news to the world. By noon the report that St Nazaire is being levelled reaches Berlin and Hitler orders that every available bomber be sent after the Americans there to destroy the other half of their navy. He also insists that every available fighter be allocated to make sure that his ships are not sunk the same way, although he seems confident that likely the British will do the same to his ships that the Luftwaffe has done to the Americans. It is clear to him, and indeed he announces it loudly that battleships are obsolete in the face of bombers. His surface fleet is good only for coast defense only as far as he is concerned. A debate will continue between him and Admiral Raeder for some weeks to come that ultimately saves the rest of the German surface fleet from being scrapped but only at the cost of very serious restrictions being placed on their use. For the rest of the war the German heavy ships will be a very powerful Baltic Fleet and remain there.
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.
At sea the battle continues. The Fokker torpedo planes and their escort reach the site of the sinking USS California and decide not to attack. They return to base and refuel as reports of the attack on St Nazaire are received and orders from Berlin reach the Luftwaffe in France of their new mission. Meanwhile the German Fleet has now approaching the Straits of Dover, while Allied Force Y is leaving the approaches of St Nazaire and steaming due west at its best speed of 20 knots. The Allied carriers meanwhile have again turned into the wind to launch more fighters and recover returning ones. The Uboats are now hopelessly out of position to reach the carriers but a handful are almost in position to get a chance at the retiring Force Y.
5. Why have the CTFs and SAG not rendezvoused mid-ocean at Point Charles for mutual protection?
German attacks on Force Z
The morning battles have been costly although from the standpoint of the bomber crews highly successful. However the Luftwaffe has somewhat diminished forces to attack with. Only 9 He111 torpedo bombers and 11 Fokker floatplane torpedo bombers are available after battle damage and mechanical issues, while the Stukas lack the range to immediately attack and will have to stage from their bases around Calais to bases in Brittany, which will use up much of the afternoon, and so only 50 JU88 dive bombers are available. The bombers will have only two staffel of Me110 night fighters to help them as every available Fw190 and Me109 have been ordered north to support the German fleet. A hurriedly cobbled together strike with 15 FW200 Conders s is ordered against the Allied minesweepers, which have only a single light cruiser protecting them.
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.
The first to reach their targets are the Conders, which manage several hits although many of the aircraft are damaged and 2 are splashed by British gunners. They succeed in sinking 1 sloop and 3 minesweepers and damaging nearly all of the others to various degrees but the attack has knocked the German bombers out of the battle as they are ill suited to attacking warships. The light cruiser Scylla is undamaged by this attack but once again amateur ship identification results in the leading force of 24 JU88s incorrectly identifying her as a battleship and an attack on her results in 3 hits and major damage and numerous near misses. She and the remainder of her charges continue west before turning north for the Irish Sea as darkness falls.
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.
The next force of 26 Ju88s manages to find the Allied fleet and concentrates on the trailing ship, the USS Oklahoma. This time they are facing a much heavier antiaircraft barrage and the British gunners that make up most of the somewhat larger screen than Force Z had are much better at their job. Only 3 hits are scored although casualties are serious aboard the American ship. As this attack is occurring the Fokker torpedo bombers and their 8 escorting Me110s are pounced on by 6 British and 12 American carrier fighters and suffer terribly. The carrier pilots conduct a more careful battle, with the British holding off the German fighters while the Americans pounce on the lumbering torpedo bombers. None of those survive, and only3 of the German fighters escape. Only 1 Buffalo and 1 Fulmer are lost in the air battle. But distracted, the gunners and fighter pilots miss the arrival of the 9 He111s who pick on the Oklahoma which has fires aboard her and make their attack. They manage two hits, but while attempting to exit all but one are shot up so severely that only one manages to return to base and three more ditch near the coast. The Oklahoma takes both torpedoes aft, one each on the port and starboard side, and one of those hits knocks out her rudders and all but one screw. Admiral Pye orders most of her crew taken off as she seems helpless and unlikely to make port, with only a pair of British destroyers remaining with her as she trails behind the rest of the fleet heading west. Barely making 7 knots, she is found and sunk just before dusk by a spread of 4 torpedoes from the U-43 (Wolfgang Luth commanding). A total of 353 American and 431 British sailors are lost from Force Y, while German deaths ashore and in the air number around 600.
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.
Prime Minister Churchill is forced to make another unpleasant phone call to President Roosevelt.
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.
Death of the German Fleet
Meanwhile the two German battlecruisers, with only 4 destroyers and 8 Eboats as their escort and covered by 32 fighters overheard are approaching the Straits of Dover and Admiral Ramsey’s waiting forces. American and British strike aircraft are also waiting, having assembled over Kent with their substantial fighter escort. The result is nothing short of murder. The British MTB’s charge in, distracting the German gunners, while the British destroyers wait just outside of the range of German guns in Calais and north of the strait. While the torpedo boats charge, the American and British torpedo planes go in at low altitude while the American dive bombers plunge from overhead and 60 British fighters tangle with the German fighters and reinforcements that join them. The German gunners are overwhelmed but still manage to take a toll, downing 4 American and 3 British torpedo planes and a pair of dive bombers as well as sinking 2 MTBs and damaging most of the others to varying degrees. The British MTBs however sink 2 Eboats, drive off the rest and force the German destroyers to engage them which leaves plenty of openings for the strike aircraft to smother the German heavy ships. The Scharnhorst takes 3 bomb and 6 torpedo hits, the Gneisenau takes 2 bomb and 5 torpedo hits (although in the confusion no one notices that the American torpedoes seem to be failing) and both ships are soon listing and burning. Neither survives long past dusk and the British destroyers dash in and finish both with torpedo attacks. A total of 2,000 German sailors are lost from the fleet, and all of the German ships that survive limp into Le Havre with various degrees of damage. It is a glorious Allied victory and although nearly 30 Allied aircraft (7 American, the rest British) are lost to a similar number of German aircraft, it would appear that the Allies have proven Hitler’s point. Admiral Ramsey’s reputation, already high after Dunkirk, rises yet again. Admiral Ciliax manages to survive the loss of his ships, and spends the remainder of the war as a naval attache to Brazil.
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.
Epilogue
Admiral Kimmel has achieved his goals. The German fleet has been destroyed, St Nazaire is no longer capable of repairing the Tirpitz, and most of his ships survived. He and two battleships, the Oklahoma and California have not however, and the battleships West Virginia, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico and Mississippi will spend nearly the entirety of 1942 in dock being repaired and modernized. Although nearly 3,000 British and American sailors have died or are missing or crippled, it is a great victory as far as Roosevelt and Churchill are concerned in public. Hitler is angered by the defeat, which is but the first of the bad news that will face him in November and December 1941 as Barbarrosa fails to take Moscow and Leningrad. The German surface fleet will spend the remainder of the war in the Baltic Sea, only seeing useful service late in the war supporting German forces along the Baltic coast. The modern North Carolina and South Dakota class will never see service in the Atlantic or European theater.
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.)
Battle of the Atlantic October-December 1941
Nimitz, commanding Atlantic Fleet, is a persuasive and charismatic man, and has an easier time with Roosevelt and the Army than his predecessor King had. By October he has managed to trade the Army Air Force access to long range bombers immediately for the Air Force getting out of the ASW mission,, and that has netted him 30 B17s (plus 9 more transferred back from the British), plus Army Air Force strips the 6th, 43rd and 30th Bomb Groups of their LB30/B24s (nearly 100 in all) for the Navy to use, and by late November sufficient air crew have been trained in their use for some of them to begin patrols in the Caribbean and near Iceland. Another 200 B18 Bolos leave the Army and although initially using borrowed Army crews, can begin local patrols off the Atlantic Coast right away. Another 300 of the Martin Baltimore which had been slated for Lend Lease are transferred to the Navy for ASW work, along with the entire production run planned for the PV2 Harpoon. Most of these aircraft will not be available before 1942, and indeed another 1,000 B24s will join the Navy as well, but most will not show up before late 1942 and early 1943. But by the end of December, over 400 aircraft are available to patrol American coastal and regional waters and provide some support into the Atlantic. The Army even gives the Navy the B18s currently in Hawaii for local patrols. Most of the Army personnel will go to other groups working up, are reequipped with medium bombers as they become available. Hap Arnold is relieved to be able to concentrate on what he thinks is important, the eventual strategic bombing offensive against Germany.
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

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Northrop’s Norwegian Floatplane Faced the Nazi Invasion
(from Wiki)

Specifications (N-3PB)[edit]


Northrop N-3PB in "Little Norway" colours, c. 1941
Data from War Planes of the Second World War: Volume Six Floatplanes,[38] The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II[29]

General characteristics
  • Crew: Three (pilot, navigator/bombardier and wireless operator/rear gunner)
  • Length: 36 ft (11 m)
  • Wingspan: 48 ft 11 in (14.91 m)
  • Height: 12 ft (3.7 m)
  • Wing area: 376.8 sq ft (35.01 m2)
  • Empty weight: 6,190 lb (2,808 kg)
  • Gross weight: 8,500 lb (3,856 kg)
  • Max takeoff weight: 10,600 lb (4,808 kg)
  • Powerplant: 1 × Wright GR-1820-G205A 9-cyl. air-cooled radial piston engine, 1,200 hp (890 kW)
  • Propellers: 3-bladed variable-pitch propeller
Performance
  • Maximum speed: 257 mph (414 km/h, 223 kn) at sea level
  • Cruise speed: 184 mph (296 km/h, 160 kn)
  • Range: 1,000 mi (1,600 km, 870 nmi)
  • Service ceiling: 24,000 ft (7,300 m)
  • Time to altitude: 15,000 ft (4,600 m) in 4.4 minutes
Armament
  • Guns: 4 × fixed forward firing 0.50 in (12.70 mm) machine guns
  • 2 × 0.30 in (7.62 mm) machine guns in dorsal and ventral positions
  • Bombs: 1 × 2,000 lb (910 kg) torpedo or equivalent weight of bombs or depth charges
Mr. RIKKO says; "Hi!" Might be useful later on even with that CRAP Wright engine.
The US Navy has other forces available as well. The US Coast Guard provides 21 cutters (basically equal to a British corvette or sloop depending on size), and 61 submarine chasers (useful for inshore patrol and rescue work), with 6 more cutters commissioning or working up and 30 armed yachts fitting out and working up (which adds another 36 sloop types). Additional yachts are being acquired, and the Coast Guard has plans to lay down additional (and more modern) cutters as well. This provides 82 escort ships for Iceland, the Eastern Sea Frontier plus the already 41 obsolete but useful Wilkes/Clemson class and 56 minesweepers already assigned to those areas (although 4 of the destroyers are usually patrolling the Pacific side of Panama) plus the 4 light cruisers patrolling the Pacific side and 4 additional old destroyers that escort them. By December Nimitz has managed to end attacks on US coastal shipping in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean is only seeing sporadic attacks. After November and the end of Operation Chariot, an additional 9 destroyers joins the Atlantic Fleet from US Forces Europe, and he has all but relegated the old battleships New York and Arkansas to training ships in Chesapeake Bay to free up large numbers of useful experienced personnel. Both of his carriers have been sent to US Navy Europe, along with their escorts, and he has to say good bye to the Yorktown and its escorts in December when it is sent to the West Coast. However that still gives him around 45 destroyers for Atlantic duty of which 30 are usually available (the rest refitting). German Uboats sink only 90 ships (around 500,000 tons total) during the Fall, in part due to poor weather but also because of the distraction of Operation Chariot and improved American defenses.
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.
However on December 1, 1941, Admiral Nimitz is promoted out of his job as commander of Atlantic Fleet and made Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief US Fleet after Admiral Stark is sent to replace Admiral Kimmel in Britain and Admiral Pye is given command of Battle Force Atlantic, which has only 6 battleships (all under repair or refitting) and responsibility for overseeing their modernization. The first thing Nimitz does is request Admiral Thomas Hart as Commander, US Submarine Forces and have him sent to Washington to take charge of this critical arm. The previous commander retires and is placed on the Navy Board.
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.
The Pacific Fleet Fall 1941
Admiral King is gravely alarmed at the weak state of the US Navy in the Pacific but is careful in his criticism and requests. He does manage to get the carrier Yorktown along with Admiral Newton and 4 cruisers and 9 destroyers sent to the Pacific, as well as 18 newly completed, commissioned and worked up destroyers as they become available October-December 1941 (although several arrive in January 1942) and every available fleet oiler. His biggest coup however is the disestablishment of the Asiatic Fleet, and creation of US Naval Forces Far East which is a much smaller in size and authority, and which also falls under his operational command. He immediately orders 23 Fleet submarines to Pearl Harbor as he feels Cavite is hopeless to defend in the event of war, and also orders the CA Houston and 4 light cruisers back to Pearl Harbor, along with their 4 destroyers. Along with them 2 tankers and 2 gunboats (both of those are sent to Samoa), and the remaining 21 S Boat submarines are placed under the command of RAdm Thomas Rivers (who supercedes Captains John Wilkes who is slated to take over Submarine squadron 20). This leaves only the heavy cruiser Chester in the far Pacific, and it is operating with the British out of Singapore. He also ruthlessly strips the Philippines of trained personnel (reducing the gunboat crews to less than half strength or less) as well as the 4th Marine Regiment which he sends to Samoa. Admiral Hart is initially angered by this move but his new job overseeing the entire US Navy Submarine Force is a more than a token and he rapidly dives into the role, making his first visit to Pearl Harbor on December 5, 1941.
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.
Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley is made commander US Naval Forces Far East, and also given the principal job of coordinating between the US Pacific Fleet and British and Dutch naval forces in the Far East. Commander of the 16th Naval District, RAdm Thomas Rockwell remains in tactical command of the forces directly assigned to defend the Philippines (gunboats, minesweepers and PT Boats), while a new ComSubPac is plucked from his job as naval attache in London and RAdm Charles Lockwood arrives in Pearl Harbor with his boss Admiral Hart on December 5.
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.
The other problem King has is aircraft. He has only around 40 aircraft available for the Philippines, and only (including newly transferred Army bombers) around 100 for Pearl Harbor to conduct patrols with. No more are likely to be forthcoming at present as the Atlantic Fleet has first call until more units are trained up and equipped. However with 4 carriers he is much more confidant about defending the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska and approaches to Panama and feels reasonably certain he can defend the sea lanes to Australia if war breaks out. He is also promised all of the new fleet carriers and new battleships as they are worked up, and indeed within 14 months he will have 6 carriers and 6 fast battleships, enough to fight the Japanese with and even conduct an offensive. King continues to ruthlessly train his ships and crews who spend weeks at a time at sea (mostly in the waters between Hawaii and California) and conducts a fleet problem in late November near Panama. He is still reviewing the initial report of Operation Chariot when the Japanese launch their massive carrier air strike on Wake Island on December 8, 1941.
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.
 
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Overall not perfect but I feel comfortable with the results and losses based on gaming it out. Sure games are only as good as the designer (which is why I use more than one) but they give me sufficient confidence to go with the results. The details may differ but the overall picture seems right.
I have (very) limited experience with wargames, but I have a feeling that most overestimate german performance.
 
How gonna be the situation with Azores? I read that the US was ready to occupy the islands before Salazar allowed the Allies to establish their airbase there - and what can Portugal gain in return?
 
War end when the Bomb is ready and the Soviets declare war and invade Manchuria. Really need both to happen (since the OP has indicated that Japan will become entangled in this scenario). Alternative is a 5-8 month ground war in the Home Islands.
Which brings up a point of interest, to me anyway. Is the US State Department going to pay attention to M. Edgar Edouard Bernard Sengier and his attempts to interest them in the contents of the warehouse of the Archer Daniels Midland vegetable oil processing plant at 2377 Richmond Terrace on Staten Island. Specifically the two thousand drums of Congolese carnotite ...
 
model was based on German bombing accuracy at Crete... and German torpedo bombers on the Arctic convoys

Here, 90 dive bombers total, scoring 25 hits on moving ships and 12 on a helpless one. Discounting the 30 that bombed the California, that is 60 bombers scoring roughly 45% hits, which is within reason (and some lucky dice too for the Germans when I gamed it). In the dive bombing attacks, the Germans were unopposed by fighters as their fighter cover held off the Allied fighter cover. The torpedo bombers consisting of 25 aircraft lose roughly 15 going in but 20 manage to drop their fish, scoring 4 hits (20% accuracy). Which is in line with World War II experience elsewhere. Only a quarter of those aircraft remain flyable after the battle. Which is again in line with World War 2 experiences elsewhere. The 12 float plane torpedo bombers have yet to attack, and although not yet mentioned, managed to fail to find the enemy and have returned to refuel.

Rough day for the torpedo bomber crews though

the 5/25 and 3 inch guns just cannot train quickly enough on dive bombers to get many hits leaving the heavy machine guns as the only point defense (and are too short ranged). The US Navy is at a historic weak point for its AAA defense. That changes massively of course
Flawed logic , these are Luftwaffe formations that will have been disrupted a lot more by fighters than the examples you quote. The hit ratio therefore would be far lower especially for torpedo bombers that tend to need to drop in formation to prevent successful combing
 

McPherson

Banned
I have (very) limited experience with wargames, but I have a feeling that most overestimate german performance.
The problem with commercial war games is that the simulation is of "historic" scenarios. The attempt to generate "balanced game play" must of necessity introduce artificial :"quality modifiers" to achieve "parity" and a "chance" to win for both sides. Hence the WWII board games have to "cheat" for Axis players or the results would average out the ludricrosity of the possibility of victory more rapidly than was "historic".

Now when wargaming for something like ...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided. I have to actually introduce game modifiers to show what improved American torpedo performance and Japanese reactions to the difference would be in the historic set-piece battles I stage and describe. I know that naval geography and the characteristics of weapon systems dictate how the war shapes out the way it did in history. HOWEVER, just changing the one variable has dramatically changed the Japanese outcome for the far worse, because in the current ATL, as of now, they are down 5 battleships, have only one functional aircraft carrier, lack half of their historic heavy cruiser or tanker support and are unable to interfere in an ANZAC attempt to take Timor or to stop the Americans navally from breaking through the Bismarck Archipelago barrier. Further... although extremely risky, a retaking of Wake Island is barely possible in late 1942. That is what changing the historic efficiency of American submarine and aerial torpedoes has done. Instead of ten fish per kill, the mechanics is six fish per kill.

When I introduce acoustic anti-ship torpedoes (actually what kills Hiei at the Battle of Guadalcanal) I expect the results to be sharply worse for Japan.
 
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The American force consists of 5 battleships, 1 light cruiser and 4 destroyers and has 36 RN Fulmer fighters overhead when the first German air attack, consisting of dive bombers and fighters arrives. The German FW190 fighters although outnumbered 32 to 36, quickly scatter the British fighters, downing 10 and damaging most of the rest which flee to England (and 6 more crash on the way and 8 more are write offs). No German fighters are lost, and the dive bombers are free to attack unmolested. The American ships are seriously deficient in light antiaircraft guns, and the rate of fire on their
Your projecting hit rates of a fleet at sea that is buttoned up, expecting air attacks with some fighter cover of 40% to 50%....

Yeah, the US AA fits are light for 1941 much less 1944 but the Japanese did not get these hit rates in Pearl Harbor with far less fighter opposition, non-moving ships and gunners not having full access to their magazines for AA reloads until the 2nd wave.
 
45% dive bomber and 20% torpedo hits are crazy against a fleet with air cover. Hell, it's crazy against one without.

Pedestal would have been over on day 1. Okay, it had rather more escorts and better fighter direction. But the fleet at Crete didn't suffer like that, despite zero air cover and perfect flying conditions.

Illustrious - 61 aircraft, five hits (although some attacked Warspite at least). That was kinda unopposed, since the fighters were out of position. Sub 10% hit rate.

Even Force Z is short, at 8 torp hits out of 49 (according to wiki)- 16%. That's with no air cover, wholly inadequate AA and the only modern unit - PoW - crippled by the first attack.
 
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In the Atlantic, the first German U-Boats arrive in July and find that while at war, the American coastal cities are still acting like peacetime. Air cover and convoys are still being organized and the first 21 Uboat patrols in July and August are wildly successful, sinking 45 ships, including 30 tankers in two months... But the first six months after the US entry costs the Allies 2 million tons of shipping and the Germans only lose 22 U-Boats in return. The Uboat arm will call this the “Second Happy Time”.
This doesn't seem compatible with OTL.

In spring 1941, the British made a concerted effort to seize naval Enigma materials. this bore fruit in June when Station X began reading HYDRA, the main Kriegsmarine operational key. HYDRA traffic included positions of U-boat scouting lines, so the Admiralty routed convoys around them. The convoys went undetected and avoided "wolfpack" attacks. Thus, from July through November, sinkings dropped by over half compared to the previous 13 months.

Conditions changed dramatically in December 1941, though it is not clear to me what happened. Sinkings jumped five-fold that month - but this cannot have been due to U-boats attacking in American waters, as there were no U-boats there until mid-January. Furthermore, only Type IX U-boats could reach American waters, and there were only five immediately available.

However, when those U-boats reached US waters, they found an abundance of targets, as did the later wave which hit the Caribbean. Sinkings remained at high levels through November 1942. But that was in part due to the adoption by the Kriegsmarine in February of a new Enigma key for U-boat operations, which Station X could not read.

How should this map onto the TL? OT1H, the US is just as unprepared for the U-boat war as OTL. OTOH, the USN has more ships available for ASW operations, and both the USN and USAAF have more aircraft. OYAH, unlike OTL, the Allies are reading U-boat Enigma traffic.

In the ATL, the Alllies lose 2M tons of shipping in July-December 1941. OTL the Allies lost 1.35M, including almost 500K in December. So that isn't as drastic an increase as one might expect. Overall, maybe it it's about right after all. Though considering the OTL December losses, maybe it should be more.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
I have (very) limited experience with wargames, but I have a feeling that most overestimate german performance.
Many of them strive to maintain a "balance" to improve game play. There are exceptions. The early versions of Harpoon, since they were based on an actual military instructional simulation program, tended to be much better than later versions when players really had learned the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms and the game designers had to "nerf" units or overstrengthen them to balance gameplay. One of later Harpoon add-ons made it impossible to sink a submarine on the surface with anything but weapons designed for use on submerged targets (I once hit a surfaced submarine, in a scenario I'd written using the game edit feature, with an ICBM, all the surface ships were wiped out, sub didn't get a scratch).

WW II ground warfare games tend to be the absolute worst at this, Tiger tanks are either made out of balsa wood shavings or Vibranium, rarely any in between, depending on the game, and the specific scenario.

Real World is, of course, very different. At Midway, to use one example, Kaga was attacked by 27 armed dive bombers (four od the aircraft that dove on her had no bombs, having lost them in an arming accident, and made their dives exclusively to draw enemy fire), with a result of four hits, only one by a 1,000 pound bomb. Hiryu was attacked by 10 SBD out of Midway (six of Henderson's* squadron were shot down on approach) and suffered zero hits, although there were several near misses. So those two ships, in seprate attacks, suffered four hits, only one with a heavy bomb, from a starting force of 43 bombers. Akagi, on the other hand was only attacked by three aircraft, but Dick Best's bomb hit the center of the "X" ring and killed her.


The degree of success, especially the killing damage, in the scenario is quite high, especially for Luftwaffe aircraft against maneuvering warships. However, and this is really important to keep in mind, the author is using his own research and is being guided by that, which is entirely proper. If we all agreed on everything, just how boring would this Board become?
 
Morning November 13 Force Z, the Channel Dash and the Raid on St Nazaire
The various naval forces now face a new day and the weather is changing. A Cold Front has come down off the North Atlantic and is already clearing away clouds and dropping temperatures over Britain, northern France and the English Channel. The leading edge which passed over night has mostly cleared all but the eastern edge of the Bay of Biscay, and seas are starting to moderate there and in the Channel, dropping from 4 meter seas down to a 2 meter seas. As dawn breaks, the skies have cleared from heavy clouds to partly cloudy conditions everywhere but along the French coast south of Lorient. These clouds are still hiding Force Y and its supporting minesweepers as well as the two southern U Boat groups. All of the other naval forces and the airfields that will impact them now have good weather.

The first to launch aircraft are the Allied carriers, which send 35 TBD and 36 SBD to ferry to the RAF Coastal Command base at Manston while the British carriers launch 36 American fighters to provide a combat air patrol over Force Z. The carriers follow with a launch of 12 Swordfish, 6 Albacore, 6 Fulmer fighters, and 30 SBD which begin providing Combat Air Patrol, ASW and Air Search patrols around the carrier force and for the American aircraft, longer range scouting patrols as the carriers complete their air operations at 0700 hours and turn to the southwest to move into position to provide cover for Force Y. Additional Fulmer fighters are launched every hour thereafter (at variable intervals) which forces the carriers to turn north each time to launch into the wind and recover aircraft. This will slow the advance of the fleet. The carrier fleet makes its turn just 30 miles from the southern Scilly Islands and are churning through the seas at 25 knots, the best speed for the USS Wasp. At the same time, Coastal Command Beaufighters take off from southern England with 16 heading for Force Y and the remainder escorting Hudson patrol bombers over the Bay of Biscay to look for the German Uboats that might threaten the battleship groups, while the RAF Coastal Command strike force from Southern England takes off with 56 Beaufort torpedo bombers and 36 Bleinheim fighters. RAF Fighter Command launches 36 Spitfires to link up and provide fighter cover for this force. Another 36 torpedo armed Swordfish are preparing for operations at Manston, and 48 Spitfires are assigned to provide them cover when they and the American strike aircraft are ready to attack in the late morning.

The Royal Navy is also hurriedly preparing. Admiral Ramsey has 32 torpedo boats in position to attack when the Germans reach Dover, and in addition he has 6 destroyers of the Harwich Force in position to support that attack. His plan is to launch a combined assault with boats, destroyers and strike aircraft when the Germans reach Dover. Further north, Admiral Tovey has the Home Fleet and he orders the King George V, the Prince of Wales, Duke of York and Renown, along with cruisers and destroyers to steam on an intercept course at their best speed of 28 knots. This is a calculated risk as there is some change the Germans will send the Tirpitz and the 2 pocket battleships out but after discussion in the wee hours, Churchill, Pound and Tovey determine that this is an acceptable one as PQ 3 is already in Russian waters, while PQ 4 has not yet completed assembling at Iceland.

The Germans are also launching their aircraft and preparing for battle. First to leave are 8 Eboats out of Cherbourg and Le Havre to provide additional support to the German fleet. As dawn breaks, the Luftwaffe aircraft along the Channel Coast take off, with 16 fighters moving into position over the German fleet, while 30 dive bombers with 32 fighters fly toward the American Force Z. A second group of 25 He111s with torpedoes along with 28 fighters has some problems assembling but is soon on its way, about 30 minutes behind the first group. Weather in Lorient initially prevents the take off of the float plane torpedo bombers, but the dive bombers, consisting of 2 groups of 27 JU88s, along with 16 Me110s takes off at around the same time and also heads toward Force Z, with the 12 torpedo bombers finally getting up about an hour later and in the poorer weather conditions over that part of France their assigned escort of 24 fighters fails to locate them in the low clouds and decides to fly out to the American fleet in hopes of meeting them at that point.

It is not until nearly 0800 that a patrol plane spots the Allied minesweepers and then the battleships approaching St Nazaire, and by that point the bulk of the German air strikes have already left for their missions. The Allied carriers do not launch again until 0930 hours, when they turn into the wind and send out 12 Buffaloes, 12 Wildcats and 12 Fulmers to provide cover for Force Y.

Air attacks on Force Z
The American force consists of 5 battleships, 1 light cruiser and 4 destroyers and has 36 USN/USMC fighters overhead when the first German air attack, consisting of dive bombers and fighters arrives. The German FW190 fighters have even odds, and engage the American fighters to keep them from intervering with the bombers. However some American fighters manage to break through and interfere with the German attack. In the mass dogfight that follows, the Germans lose 3 fighters and 6 bombers, while the American Buffalo fighters are particularly savaged, with 6 going down, while the Wildcats lose 3. This fight exhausts the fuel and ammunition of the American fighters who are forced to land in England to refuel before returning to their carriers later in the day to rearm.

The American ships are seriously deficient in light antiaircraft guns, as planned installation of 1.1 inch guns mounts was delayed due to the rush to get the fleet to Britain early in the Fall. However the 5 inch guns of the American ships are powerful and effective weapons, while the American heavy machine guns are able to engage the Germans as they pull out of their dives. In all the German Stukas are savaged, with 4 more splashed by antniaircraft, and another 8 are damaged. However the pilots are dedicated, experienced veterans and many took part in antishipping strikes during the Battle of France a year ago, and operations in Crete and Greece earlier this year. They concentrate on the biggest battleship, which is the lead ship West Virginia, which is also the fleet flag. Of the 30 Stukas, 19 managed to drop their 500 KG high explosive bombs, and they manage to hit 25% of the time. Thus 4 bombs and a near miss rock the West Virginia.

These bombs inflict fail to penetrate the deck armor but all do extensive damage to the upper works, especially 2 that hit near the bridge area. Casualties are serious but the most notable one is the death of the ships captain and Admiral Kimmel as fragments sweep the exposed bridge area. An African American mess attendant, Doris Miller, will win the Navy Cross for his efforts to save his captain and then manning a heavy machine gun after its crew were killed. Admiral Bagley aboard the Nevada orders the fleet to make full speed toward Plymouth so that it can more rapidly reach British fighter recover and support is asked for. The RAF responds with 36 Spitfires which arrive just as the second Luftwaffe attack force of torpedo bombers and fighters arrives. This force is successfully engaged (6 RAF fighters, 3 Luftwaffe fighters and 8 torpedo bombers shot down) and the American antiaircraft is far more successful against the torpedo bombers, splashing another 4 and damaging most of the rest. German accuracy is excellent considering the opposition however, and 2 torpedoes hit the California which rapidly takes on a dangerous list and slows as due to a freak of luck, the first blast blows a hole in her armored belt and a second hits close enough for the force of the explosion to break through the interior bulkheads and flood 2 boiler rooms and several nearby compartments. The striken ship is slowed to 9 knots and Admiral Bagley orders the fleet to steam for Plymouth at that speed to keep her in formation.

The final German attack by Ju88 dive bombers, and again the timely arrival of RAF fighters is critical. The JU88s are able to only dive at 45 degree angles and are much easier for the American ships to engage. The first formation arrives 5 minutes before the second and attacks the main fleet, and is badly shot up, with 6 shot down, 9 more damaged and only limited success with their bombing, scoring a bomb hit each on the Maryland and New Mexico. These bombs are a mix of high explosive and armor piercing (in equal portions) and the Maryland takes an armored piercing hit that knocks her number 4 turret out of line and creates a fire that forces the flooding of that magazine. The New Mexico takes an high explosive hit that obliterates her aircraft hanger and starts a major fire that takes hours to extingush. The second formation notices the listing California and concentrates on her, and this formation is entirely armed with armor piercing weapons. They manage to get 3 hits as they arrive while the defending fighters are still dealing with the previous formation and its escorts, and have the initial advantage of the American antiaircraft fire concentrating on the first formation. These three bombs are disastrous as one bomber manages to get 2 amidships and they knock out the remaining boilers and knock out her power as well as starting fires in her aircraft and boat service areas that spread blazing oil and gasoline throughout her amidships area.. The other bomb penetrates sick bay and wipes out it and a nearby damage control party. Burning fiercely and now coasting to a stop, the California begins to sink as her pumps are gone, her damage control teams lack effective coordination as the ship has no internal communications and with sadness Admiral Bagley orders her abandoned and her crew taken off. She will go down soon after, just before noon while the remainder of the fleet enters the appoaches to Plymouth harbor.

In all Force Z as lost one battleship sunk (California), 2 battleships seriously damaged to the point of requiring lengthly months long yard time (Maryland and Mississippi) and 2 more are damaged and will require significant repair (West Virginia and New Mexico). Only the Nevada has escaped damage and it is the oldest of the group. The Germans have achieved a costly victory as three groups of bombers have been badly shot up but in achieving it they have been diverted from Force Y. That force is now in position at 0900 hours and is about to open fire on St Nazaire and its important Normandie dock.

The RAF is not idle while this is going on. In addition to fighter support for the badly mangled Force Z, the first attack on the German Fleet is launched at the same time. The 92 RAF aircraft reach the German fleet at 0915 hours, and while the standing patrol of Fw190 fighters wrecks the Bleinheim fighters (shooting down 12 of them, and badly damaging nearly all the rest) they are distracted and caught by surprise when the late arriving Spitfire escort arrives and jumps them The British torpedo bombers are unopposed by fighters and able to make effective attacks. Both of the German battle cruisers take a hit each, although their torpedo belt prevents serious damage, but the cruiser Prinz Eugen is singled out and is smothered by 8 torpedoes and rolls over and sinks with most of her crew by 0937. The belated arrive of addiitional Spitfires provides cover for the torpedo bombers to escape (having lost 6 of their number to antiaircraft fire) and the surviving Blenheims and holds off the second wave of German Me109s that had arrived to reinforce the FW190s. The Germans lose 6 fighters, the RAF another 4 (plus 12 Blenheims and 6 Beauforts), and for a brief time Admiral Ciriax is able to mourn his lost cruiser and her crew. One result of this attack is greater urgency by Coastal Command to replace the Blenheim with the new marks of the Mosquito which is already in the works.

Further to the south and west, near the entrance of the Irish Sea, the USS Mississippi and her destroyer escort are met by a flotilla of British destroyers out of Liverpool and Sloops from Bristol, which engage and sink the U131 and U574 which were nearly in attack position on the US battleship. By 1100 hours the American ship is steaming north toward Belfast so that she can begin repairs.

The attack on St Nazaire.
The Germans are manning their 4-280 mm guns and ready when the Allied battleships steam within range at 0915 hours, although they are facing an unequal struggle. The Allies have 24-15 inch guns and 18 -14 inch guns and due to aerial reconnaissance and human intelligence work know exactly where the German guns, the critically important drydock and the construction site for the new submarine pens are located. The British ships concentrate on the drydock (Revenge and Ramilies) and the construction site (Resolution) while the American ships keep the German heavy guns under fire. Although the Germans score 2 hits on the Idaho and 4 on the Oklahoma, they and the other targets are smothered by a total of 1500 shells which convert the target areas into a moonscape over the course of 3 hours before the ships turn and run for home. Although the Germans have inflicted casualties and some damage to the American ships, they failed to achieve serious results and the 100 American dead are well worth the cost as the Normandie dock is effectively knocked out. Although the dock is later determined to be repairable, the Germans never bother as there is no urgency to use it.

Meanwhile Allied carrier aircraft and RAF Coastal Command have forced the two groups of German Uboats in the area to remain submerged and even as the weather clears at noon and the Allies are steaming away the Uboats are out of position and unable to interfere. The Allies have achieved one of their major objectives and Admiral Pye is pleased.
Revised
 
Many of them strive to maintain a "balance" to improve game play. There are exceptions. The early versions of Harpoon, since they were based on an actual military instructional simulation program, tended to be much better than later versions when players really had learned the strengths and weaknesses of the various platforms and the game designers had to "nerf" units or overstrengthen them to balance gameplay. One of later Harpoon add-ons made it impossible to sink a submarine on the surface with anything but weapons designed for use on submerged targets (I once hit a surfaced submarine, in a scenario I'd written using the game edit feature, with an ICBM, all the surface ships were wiped out, sub didn't get a scratch).

WW II ground warfare games tend to be the absolute worst at this, Tiger tanks are either made out of balsa wood shavings or Vibranium, rarely any in between, depending on the game, and the specific scenario.

Real World is, of course, very different. At Midway, to use one example, Kaga was attacked by 27 armed dive bombers (four od the aircraft that dove on her had no bombs, having lost them in an arming accident, and made their dives exclusively to draw enemy fire), with a result of four hits, only one by a 1,000 pound bomb. Hiryu was attacked by 10 SBD out of Midway (six of Henderson's* squadron were shot down on approach) and suffered zero hits, although there were several near misses. So those two ships, in seprate attacks, suffered four hits, only one with a heavy bomb, from a starting force of 43 bombers. Akagi, on the other hand was only attacked by three aircraft, but Dick Best's bomb hit the center of the "X" ring and killed her.


The degree of success, especially the killing damage, in the scenario is quite high, especially for Luftwaffe aircraft against maneuvering warships. However, and this is really important to keep in mind, the author is using his own research and is being guided by that, which is entirely proper. If we all agreed on everything, just how boring would this Board become?
Dick Best is amazing, and one of the few redeeming features of the movie that came out a year or so ago. Although to be fair, the the latter part of the day there was some serious pilot fatigue by the attacking American pilots. I did try to incorperate pilot fatigue in the Afternoon attacks

Incidently, revising Morning and Afternoon based on new information and further review (there were incorrect assumptions made)

The old table top game Squad Leader did pretty well with tanks although its later additions had so many rules (and exceptions) that it became just more trouble than it was worth for me. Although I had some friends who just loved it. I didn't need rules on whether or not the crew survived the loss of a tank and grabbed a machine gun on the way out. Sure its nice and all, and it did occasionally happen, but that was a die roll to far for me.

You could kill a Tiger with the usual historical suspects and if you drove too fast with said Tiger, you had to roll for breakdowns and watch your tracks fall off. My favorite trick was firing White Phosperous rounds with late model American tank destroyers and causing the crew to check morale (and sometimes abandon their tank). Any game that allows you use historical tactics correctly has a lot going for it.
 
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Afternoon November 13
In London, Berlin and Paris, commanders as well as Churchill and Hitler wait tensely for reports to come in. The first reports out of the Channel please none of them, as Churchill has to call Roosevelt on the phone and inform him of the death of Kimmel and the frightful damage inflicted on the American battleships, while Hitler is angry that Cerebus has already cost the Kriegsmarine a heavy cruiser and several destroyers. His anger is partly offset that the Luftwaffe seems to have sunk two battleships (as reports are that only 4 of the American group of 6 made port) and orders Goebbels to trumpet that news to the world. By noon the report that St Nazaire is being levelled reaches Berlin and Hitler orders that every available bomber be sent after the Americans there to destroy the other half of their navy. He also insists that every available fighter be allocated to make sure that his ships are not sunk the same way, although he seems confident that likely the British will do the same to his ships that the Luftwaffe has done to the Americans. It is clear to him, and indeed he announces it loudly that battleships are obsolete in the face of bombers. His surface fleet is good only for coast defense only as far as he is concerned. A debate will continue between him and Admiral Raeder for some weeks to come that ultimately saves the rest of the German surface fleet from being scrapped but only at the cost of very serious restrictions being placed on their use. For the rest of the war the German heavy ships will be a very powerful Baltic Fleet and remain there.

At sea the battle continues. The Fokker torpedo planes and their escort reach the site of the sinking USS California and decide not to attack. They return to base and refuel as reports of the attack on St Nazaire are received and orders from Berlin reach the Luftwaffe in France of their new mission. Meanwhile the German Fleet has now approaching the Straits of Dover, while Allied Force Y is leaving the approaches of St Nazaire and steaming due west at its best speed of 20 knots. The Allied carriers meanwhile have again turned into the wind to launch more fighters and recover returning ones. The Uboats are now hopelessly out of position to reach the carriers but a handful are almost in position to get a chance at the retiring Force Y.

German attacks on Force Z
The morning battles have been costly although from the standpoint of the bomber crews highly successful. However the Luftwaffe has somewhat diminished forces to attack with. Only 9 He111 torpedo bombers and 11 Fokker floatplane torpedo bombers are available after battle damage and mechanical issues, while the Stukas lack the range to immediately attack and will have to stage from their bases around Calais to bases in Brittany, which will use up much of the afternoon, and so only 50 JU88 dive bombers are available. The bombers will have only two staffel of Me110 night fighters to help them as every available Fw190 and Me109 have been ordered north to support the German fleet. A hurriedly cobbled together strike with 15 FW200 Conders s is ordered against the Allied minesweepers, which have only a single light cruiser protecting them.

The first to reach their targets are the Conders, which manage several hits although many of the aircraft are damaged and 2 are splashed by British gunners. They succeed in sinking 1 sloop and 3 minesweepers and damaging nearly all of the others to various degrees but the attack has knocked the German bombers out of the battle as they are ill suited to attacking warships. The thin skinned and relatively small British sloops and minesweepers are vulnerable to even a single high explosive bomb and thus even near misses inflict serious damage. The light cruiser Scylla is undamaged by this attack but once again amateur ship identification results in the leading force of 24 JU88s incorrectly identifying her as a battleship and an attack on her results in 3 hits and major damage and numerous near misses. She and the remainder of her charges continue west before turning north for the Irish Sea as darkness falls. There is later serious criticism of the failure of that force to link up (and gain the protection of) Force Y which left them behind due to their slightly greater speed.

The next force of 26 Ju88s manages to find the Allied fleet and concentrates on the trailing ship, the USS Oklahoma. Again they are facing a heavy antiaircraft barrage and the British gunners that make up most of the somewhat larger screen than Force Z had are much better at their job due to their extensive (and recent) experience. . Only 3 hits are scored although casualties are serious aboard the American ship. As this attack is occurring the Fokker torpedo bombers and their 8 escorting Me110s are pounced on by 6 British and 12 American carrier fighters and suffer terribly. The carrier pilots conduct a more careful battle, with the British holding off the German fighters while the Americans pounce on the lumbering torpedo bombers. None of those survive, and only3 of the German fighters escape. Only 1 Buffalo and 1 Fulmer are lost in the air battle. But distracted, the gunners and fighter pilots miss the arrival of the 9 He111s who pick on the Oklahoma which has fires aboard her and make their attack. They manage a single hit but while attempting to exit all but one are shot up so severely that only one manages to return to base and three more ditch near the coast. The Oklahoma takes that torpedo hit aft, which knocks out her rudder control and damages all but one screw. Admiral Pye orders most of her crew taken off as she seems helpless and unlikely to make port, with only a pair of British destroyers remaining with her as she trails behind the rest of the fleet heading west. Barely making 7 knots, she is found and sunk just before dusk by a spread of 4 torpedoes from the U-43 (Wolfgang Luth commanding). A total of 353 American and 431 British sailors are lost from Force Y, while German deaths ashore and in the air number around 600.

Prime Minister Churchill is forced to make another unpleasant phone call to President Roosevelt. Admiral Pye will recieve harsh internal criticism for the loss of the Oklahoma and for his failure to protect the minesweepers and most historians believe that is why Admiral Pye never had a sea command for the remainder of the war.

Death of the German Fleet
Meanwhile the two German battlecruisers, with only 4 destroyers and 8 Eboats as their escort and covered by 32 fighters overheard are approaching the Straits of Dover and Admiral Ramsey’s waiting forces. American and British strike aircraft are also waiting, having assembled over Kent with their substantial fighter escort. The result is nothing short of murder. The British MTB’s charge in, distracting the German gunners, while the British destroyers wait just outside of the range of German guns in Calais and north of the strait. While the torpedo boats charge, the American and British torpedo planes go in at low altitude while the American dive bombers plunge from overhead and 60 British fighters tangle with the German fighters and reinforcements that join them. The German gunners are overwhelmed but still manage to take a toll, downing 4 American and 3 British torpedo planes and a pair of dive bombers as well as sinking 2 MTBs and damaging most of the others to varying degrees. The British MTBs however sink 2 Eboats, drive off the rest and force the German destroyers to engage them which leaves plenty of openings for the strike aircraft to smother the German heavy ships. The Scharnhorst takes 3 bomb and 6 torpedo hits, the Gneisenau takes 2 bomb and 5 torpedo hits and both ships are soon listing and burning. Neither survives long past dusk and the British destroyers dash in and finish both with torpedo attacks. A total of 2,000 German sailors are lost from the fleet, and all of the German ships that survive limp into Le Havre with various degrees of damage. It is a glorious Allied victory and although nearly 30 Allied aircraft (7 American, the rest British) are lost to a similar number of German aircraft, it would appear that the Allies have proven Hitler’s point. Admiral Ramsey’s reputation, already high after Dunkirk, rises yet again. Admiral Ciliax manages to survive the loss of his ships, and spends the remainder of the war as a naval attache to Brazil.

Epilogue
Admiral Kimmel has achieved his goals. The German fleet has been destroyed, St Nazaire is no longer capable of repairing the Tirpitz, and most of his ships survived. He and two battleships, the Oklahoma and California have not however, and the battleships West Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico and Mississippi will spend nearly the entirety of 1942 in dock being repaired and modernized. Although nearly 3,000 British and American sailors have died or are missing or crippled, it is a great victory as far as Roosevelt and Churchill are concerned in public. Hitler is angered by the defeat, which is but the first of the bad news that will face him in November and December 1941 as Barbarrosa fails to take Moscow and Leningrad. The German surface fleet will spend the remainder of the war in the Baltic Sea, only seeing useful service late in the war supporting German forces along the Baltic coast. The modern North Carolina and South Dakota class will never see service in the Atlantic or European theater.
revised
 
Glad the ships of the Asiatic Fleet get out. Even more that Hart ( who had a serious issue with the Newport Torpedo folks) gets the Sub command. IMO Albert Rooks, CO of the CA Houston, was one of the best cruiser commanders and gunnery specialists in the Navy. Perhaps, had he lived, he would have been right there with Willis Lee as a surface combat commander.
being from Galveston Bay, I have of course a huge soft spot for the USS Houston and I am reasonably sure I have read just about everything in print on her at one time or another. Sadly the CL Houston doesn't have nearly as much written about her, but she does have an impressive record regarding greatest tonnage of water taken aboard while damaged and still surviving.
 
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

29a8729c9fc5bf0ad4263a55b08ccdc4-1200x0-c-default.jpg

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.
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 another
Battle of the Atlantic October-December 1941
Nimitz, commanding Atlantic Fleet, is a persuasive and charismatic man, and has an easier time with Roosevelt and the Army than his predecessor King had. By October he has managed to trade the Army Air Force access to long range bombers immediately for the Air Force getting out of the ASW mission,, and that has netted him 30 B17s (plus 9 more transferred back from the British), plus Army Air Force strips the 6th, 43rd and 30th Bomb Groups of their LB30/B24s (nearly 100 in all) for the Navy to use, and by late November sufficient air crew have been trained in their use for some of them to begin patrols in the Caribbean and near Iceland. Another 200 B18 Bolos leave the Army and although initially using borrowed Army crews, can begin local patrols off the Atlantic Coast right way. Another 300 of the Martin Baltimore which had been slated for Lend Lease are transferred to the Navy for ASW work, along with the entire production run planned for the PV2 Harpoon. Most of these aircraft will not be available before 1942, and indeed another 1,000 B24s will join the Navy as well, but most will not show up before late 1942 and early 1943. But by the end of December, over 400 aircraft are available to patrol American coastal and regional waters and provide some support into the Atlantic. The Army even gives the Navy the B18s currently in Hawaii for local patrols. Most of the Army personnel will go to other groups working up, are reequipped with medium bombers as they become available. Hap Arnold is relieved to be able to concentrate on what he thinks is important, the eventual strategic bombing offensive against Germany.

The US Navy has other forces available as well. The US Coast Guard provides 21 cutters (basically equal to a British corvette or sloop depending on size), and 61 submarine chasers (useful for inshore patrol and rescue work), with 6 more cutters commissioning or working up and 30 armed yachts fitting out and working up (which adds another 36 sloop types). Additional yachts are being acquired, and the Coast Guard has plans to lay down additional (and more modern) cutters as well. This provides 82 escort ships for Iceland, the Eastern Sea Frontier plus the already 41 obsolete but useful Wilkes/Clemson class and 56 minesweepers already assigned to those areas (although 4 of the destroyers are usually patrolling the Pacific side of Panama) plus the 4 light cruisers patrolling the Pacific side and 4 additional old destroyers that escort them. By December Nimitz has managed to end attacks on US coastal shipping in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean is only seeing sporadic attacks. After November and the end of Operation Chariot, an additional 9 destroyers joins the Atlantic Fleet from US Forces Europe, and he has all but relegated the old battleships New York and Arkansas to training ships in Chesapeake Bay to free up large numbers of useful experienced personnel. Both of his carriers have been sent to US Navy Europe, along with their escorts, and he has to say good bye to the Yorktown and its escorts in December when it is sent to the West Coast. However that still gives him around 45 destroyers for Atlantic duty of which 30 are usually available (the rest refitting). German Uboats sink only 90 ships (around 500,000 tons total) during the Fall, in part due to poor weather but also because of the distraction of Operation Chariot and improved American defenses.

All of these extra ships and aircraft make the creation of coastal convoys practical and routine by October and losses plummet as targets have been hardened in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and American Atlantic Coast. Once again the convoy shows its value.

On December 1, 1941, Admiral Nimitz is promoted out of his job as commander of Atlantic Fleet and made Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief US Fleet after Admiral Stark is sent to replace Admiral Kimmel in Britain and Admiral Pye is given command of Battle Force Atlantic, which has only 6 battleships (all under repair or refitting) and responsibility for overseeing their modernization. The first thing Nimitz does is request Admiral Thomas Hart as Commander, US Submarine Forces and have him sent to Washington to take charge of this critical arm. The previous commander retires and is placed on the Navy Board.

The Pacific Fleet Fall 1941
Admiral King is gravely alarmed at the weak state of the US Navy in the Pacific but is careful in his criticism and requests. He does manage to get the carrier Yorktown along with Admiral Newton and 4 cruisers and 9 destroyers sent to the Pacific, as well as 18 newly completed, commissioned and worked up destroyers as they become available October-December 1941 (although several arrive in January 1942) and every available fleet oiler. His biggest coup however is the disestablishment of the Asiatic Fleet, and creation of US Naval Forces Far East which is a much smaller in size and authority, and which also falls under his operational command. He immediately orders 23 Fleet submarines to Pearl Harbor as he feels Cavite is hopeless to defend in the event of war, and also orders the CA Houston and 4 light cruisers back to Pearl Harbor, along with their 4 destroyers. Along with them 2 tankers and 2 gunboats (both of those are sent to Samoa), and the remaining 21 S Boat submarines are placed under the command of RAdm Thomas Rivers (who supercedes Captains John Wilkes who is slated to take over Submarine squadron 20). This leaves only the heavy cruiser Chester in the far Pacific, and it is operating with the British out of Singapore. He also ruthlessly strips the Philippines of trained personnel (reducing the gunboat crews to less than half strength or less) as well as the 4th Marine Regiment which he sends to Samoa. Admiral Hart is initially angered by this move but his new job overseeing the entire US Navy Submarine Force is a more than a token and he rapidly dives into the role, making his first visit to Pearl Harbor on December 5, 1941.

Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley is made commander US Naval Forces Far East, and also given the principal job of coordinating between the US Pacific Fleet and British and Dutch naval forces in the Far East. Commander of the 16th Naval District, RAdm Thomas Rockwell remains in tactical command of the forces directly assigned to defend the Philippines (gunboats, minesweepers and PT Boats), while a new commander of the submarines based at Pearl is plucked from his job as naval attache in London and RAdm Charles Lockwood arrives in Pearl Harbor with his boss Admiral Hart on December 5. Hart withholds appointing a new ComSubPac for now, letting the current officer, R Adm Henry English keep his job which is to organize and plan a submarine campaign against Japan when war comes as Hart and King feel certain will be at any moment.

The other problem King has is aircraft. He has only around 40 aircraft available for the Philippines, and only (including newly transferred Army bombers) around 100 for Pearl Harbor to conduct patrols with. No more are likely to be forthcoming at present as the Atlantic Fleet has first call until more units are trained up and equipped. However with 4 carriers he is much more confidant about defending the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska and approaches to Panama and feels reasonably certain he can defend the sea lanes to Australia if war breaks out. He is also promised all of the new fleet carriers and new battleships as they are worked up, and indeed within 14 months he will have 6 carriers and 6 fast battleships, enough to fight the Japanese with and even conduct an offensive. King continues to ruthlessly train his ships and crews who spend weeks at a time at sea (mostly in the waters between Hawaii and California) and conducts a fleet problem in late November near Panama. He is still reviewing the initial report of Operation Chariot when the Japanese launch their massive carrier air strike on Wake Island on December 8, 1941.
revised
 

nbcman

Donor
So the USN is going to be left with 2 BBs that can sail back to the Pacific after this attack (Nevada & Idaho who was damaged in the attack on St Nazaire) plus maybe Arkansas if she is released from escort duties in the Atlantic and the three BBs that were in the states refitting (Colorado, Pennsylvania, & Arizona). There will be a smaller TF 1 in the Pacific in 1942...
 
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