Royal Navy/RAF mauls IJN fleet during Indian Ocean raid

Ak-84

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How about a OTL Midway style victory for the RN. 4 plus carriers sunk.Obviously butterflies Coral Sea and Midway, but what will the 1942-1943 strategy be for the US and UK. OTL it was hold, beat back, and advance slowly. In this case, with the IJN offensive striking power curtailed much sooner, do we see a retraction to a more defensible line. Maybe they abandon Burma? Instead of Guadalcanal we see a multiple Iwo Jima and Okinawa type battles East and West? War ends early 1944.
 
How about a OTL Midway style victory for the RN. 4 plus carriers sunk.Obviously butterflies Coral Sea and Midway, but what will the 1942-1943 strategy be for the US and UK. OTL it was hold, beat back, and advance slowly. In this case, with the IJN offensive striking power curtailed much sooner, do we see a retraction to a more defensible line. Maybe they abandon Burma? Instead of Guadalcanal we see a multiple Iwo Jima and Okinawa type battles East and West? War ends early 1944.
Difficult to achieve this given the forces involved. However I massively recommend Zheng He's ongoing April 1942 Alternate Indian Ocean.
 
How about a OTL Midway style victory for the RN. 4 plus carriers sunk.Obviously butterflies Coral Sea and Midway, but what will the 1942-1943 strategy be for the US and UK. OTL it was hold, beat back, and advance slowly. In this case, with the IJN offensive striking power curtailed much sooner, do we see a retraction to a more defensible line. Maybe they abandon Burma? Instead of Guadalcanal we see a multiple Iwo Jima and Okinawa type battles East and West? War ends early 1944.
Over on the NavWeaps board the user HMS Pinafore wrote Castle Slayer - Part Two, Part Three - about the squadron of Bristol Blenheims which in our timeline didn't find the Japanese fleet instead successfully doing so, and thanks to a combination of good tactics and a bit of luck sees the Akagi damaged and lost to fire. They also wrote Parthian Shot - Part Two, Part Three - that has the submarines HMS Trusty and HMS Truant in the right place at the right time lurking around the Malacca Strait to catch the Japanese fleet as they're returning from the raid, with the Shokaku, Hiei, Shianuhu and Hamakaze being sunk. The two stories weren't written together but IIRC there's no internal reason to stop them both occurring in the same timeline - that's two aircraft carriers, a fast battleship, and a pair of destroyers sunk.

Bengal Bay - Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve - isn't about the Indian Ocean raid you asked about but an expanded version of the 1944 one. It's a much longer story that I unfortunately don't remember much of details of except it being a large Anglo-French victory.

Even with a Midway-type defeat in 1942 I can't see the Japanese retreating from Burma. The Japanese will still be able to operate aircraft from Sumatra which limits naval operations until they can be worn down and either isolated or invaded. The Army are invading from neighbouring Thailand so their lines are secure, there's also the internal political angle of their being unlikely to want to fall back on the advice of the Navy.
 
Best shot is on the night of the 5/6th. Somerville had information on the Japanese from the afternoon and from that he predicted they would be somewhere just to the south of Colombo or turning west of it during the night. Unfortunately Nagumo had reversed course. Nagumo had no clue where the Brit fleet was, not finding it where he expected. Somervilles night search with radar equipped aircraft found nothing & the strike of torpedo equipped Albacores remained on deck at dawn. How much damage 30 to 50 Albacores doing night attacks with torpedoes could do is a tough one to estimate. Somerville had rehearsed such a attack a few times in the preceding weeks, & the attack on Taranto had scored a lot of hits, but this would be against ships taking evasive action at speed & at night. My best guess is 4-6 torpedo hits, with two on carriers. This does not sink many ships, or even cripple any carriers, but it leaves Nagumo at dawn wondering what else he is risking hanging around with several damaged ships.

Sommerville also had four battleships roughly 250 nm from where he hoped to make the airstrike on the Japanese fleet. Hypothetically they could have raced north and 'maybe' caught a disorganized & damaged enemy before dawn on the 5th. A lot of hypotheticals and risks for both sides.

...the submarines HMS Trusty and HMS Truant in the right place at the right time lurking around the Malacca Strait to catch the Japanese fleet as they're returning from the raid...

Even if they just put a few more holes in the enemy & don't sink anything important this results in a lot of damage to repair impacts planning for the invasion at Port Morsby/Coral Sea battle, and may butterfly away the Midway operation, at least as we know it.

Of course the RN wet dream is to have a couple carriers sinking or in flames after the torpedo strike. Get the Albacores turned around and get another strike in six hours later at dawn, then the BB squadron arrives right at sunrise & runs down the survivors. Its a reach, but maybe Sommerville will have Spruances luck of 90 days later.
 

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Simon, thanks for posting the Parthian Shot and Castle Slayer threads, I had forgotten where to find those.

BTW, IOTL the Blenheims of No. 11 Squadron did find the KB and the Japanese were not aware the Blenheims were there until some geysers appeared uncomfortably close to Akagi. A little better luck or better tactics (as detailed in Castle Slayer) and Akagi is badly damaged at least.
 
In our timeline the Blenheims of No. 11 Squadron did find the KB and the Japanese were not aware the Blenheims were there until some geysers appeared uncomfortably close to Akagi. A little better luck or better tactics (as detailed in Castle Slayer) and Akagi is badly damaged at least.
I thought they had, but a quick search search turned up some hits that seemed to suggest that they hadn't crossed paths. In that case it really is just the change of tactics to shallow dive bombing tactic that's needed. :)
 
I thought they had, but a quick search search turned up some hits that seemed to suggest that they hadn't crossed paths. In that case it really is just the change of tactics to shallow dive bombing tactic that's needed. :)

I just double checked Bloody Shambles by Christopher Shores. Just before 1100 hours on 9 April 1942, at about the same time Nagumo's dive bomber pilots were using HMS HERMES for target practice, nine Blenheims from No. 11 Squadron made contact with the KB and got near misses on AKAGI and TONE. The 20 Zeroes on CAP jumped the Blenheims after they dropped their bombs and shot down four with one/maybe two Zeroes shot down. The KB dodged a bullet and it apparently did not occur to anyone that they could be taken by surprise and were therefore vulnerable.
 
... Just before 1100 hours on 9 April 1942, at about the same time Nagumo's dive bomber pilots were using HMS HERMES for target practice, nine Blenheims from No. 11 Squadron made contact with the KB and got near misses on AKAGI and TONE. ... The KB dodged a bullet and it apparently did not occur to anyone that they could be taken by surprise and were therefore vulnerable.

At that point it looks like Sommerville & the Eastern Fleet were over 700nm away, still near Addu Atoll. No chance they could follow up on a successful Blenheim strike. It would take some 13 hours at 30 knots to get the RN carriers into striking range of any cripples, & nearly 24 hours to get a SAG to the air strike location. :(
 
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