as a result of the few aircraft that made it to china in otl the japanese already killed 2M people.
More planes reaching china, and as a result the japanese going even more beserk in china????
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
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More planes reaching china, and as a result the japanese going even more beserk in china????
Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
Sadly it makes no difference how many aircraft make it to China, as the result of a Doolittle type mission, the Japanese military will go mental. Something that the Americans never considered when they planned the mission, having very little understanding of the Japanese psychic at the time. Nor if truth be known did the men at the top of the American establishment have much consideration for the suffering of the Chinese peasantry. Remember it was America that carried out in addition to the two atomic bombings, the most devastating air attack with the highest death toll of the war, the Tokyo fire bombing.
RR.
After that raid didn’t they have unit 731 salt the earth so to speak by spreading all sorts of nightmare illnesses.
Perhaps the only difference this time would be depended on how much does the Allies advanced by the time the Japanese started their retribution(perhaps it would be interesting to see the effect of Burma Road still open on the Chinese military), and would the Japanese losses in South East Asia and southwestern Pacific Islands deplete the resources (of any kind) enough for the command to be put in a strategical dilemma or at the very least, started to second guessing their decisions?
P/s: Although it would be really funny if any extra planes that take part in the Doolittle raid ITTL would be dropping advertorial brochures of their plane, while exaggerating their fuel range to say they are capable to fly from the Pacific direct to India without requiring a fuel stopover in China, just to mess with the higher ups mind. But pretty sure this part is just wishful thinking or even ASB.
P/s: Although it would be really funny if any extra planes that take part in the Doolittle raid ITTL would be dropping advertorial brochures of their plane, while exaggerating their fuel range to say they are capable to fly from the Pacific direct to India without requiring a fuel stopover in China, just to mess with the higher ups mind. But pretty sure this part is just wishful thinking or even ASB.
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Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
The outer PI, can only be supplied with very limited amounts of non military stuff by the British at this time, essentially food, medical and very limited fuel. Ammunition, weapons and dedicated military equipment is very much not on the table, as it is going to be months before any American military supplies, can make their way to Singapore. Yes a few allied submarines can deliver a very limited quantity of food and medical supplies to Bataan, while evacuating some people on their return. The British might be able to run their fast fleet minelayers, once they have been redeployed from the Mediterranean, once or twice into Leyte or Davao, but they will be restricted on the number of evacuees they can carry on their return journey, as they have no facilities for carrying them. What little the British can do is very much applying a plaster to a gaping wound. Unlike in Malaya where the British control the entire supply chain, and have railways, trucks and costal shipping, in PI, the infrastructure is even more primitive and the British have no control. While the British efforts at providing relief to the Americans in PI, will look good in the papers, and will save lives, in the end it’s effects will contribute very little to the eventual outcome.
RR.
Depending on how quickly the Americans get their torpedoes sorted, they might be able to run mixed attack/supply submarines out there. These boats would carry only their ready torpedoes (no reloads), but still have space for tons of supplies. Losing a few ships would slow down the Japanese efforts to break the Americans.
If they can get some local workshop space US subs in the Pacific and Far East theaters could maybe do some stuff locally to improve the torpedoes performance as they did OTL though it may happen fasted if RN and Dutch sub Techs can give them a hand and some pointers.
However you will get the torpedo board who designed these things trying to press charges as in OTL with the added bonus of them trying to press the RN and Dutch to do the same, then sending their own Techs out to 'correct' the issue bearing in mind these Techs don't have a clue as OTL.
Heck it took Admiral King standing over them with a very large bat to get them to look. ITTL if the RN and Dutch are asking other higher up people what the hell then it maybe done faster. Since it will go from an internal matter to one their allied are acutely aware of which will bring King from Anger to he will keelhaul the whole torpedo board.
If I understand it, this is Feb 1942. How many USN Subs capable of firing Mk XIV are in the area? The older subs, allocated to Manilla, were using the Mk X, which worked. So how many subs equipped with Mk XIV are having problems? And how many more will be committed to the war zone and find their Mk XIV don't work? And how long before those sub captains are believed? I can see the RN and Dutch sub captains agreeing that not every so-called perfect firing solution worked, as in fact that did happen. But when do we approach the critical level of firing solutions being faulty and the correlation with the faulty torpedoes? More critically, when does the USN realise that Mk X work and Mk XIV don't?
We all seem to be rushing to a conclusion that has little data to back it up as yet. Have we seen any USN sub using Mk XIV fail to sink anything that should have been a sure thing? Have we seen any evidence that the firing solutions were faulty? Have we seen any evidence that the torpedoes had actually hit but not exploded?
Until someone comes up with such data, the torpedo Mafia will still be sitting pretty.
Thing is the S-boats could only use the Mark X ( the Mark 14 was 4 feet longer so did not fit the older tubes), so if the S-boats are not having a problem, foreign subs are not having a problem, but the newer US subs are, suspicion will go on the Mark XIV torpedo rather quickly as its the obvious difference. Now getting higher ups to fight through the political protection may take a while but the skippers at the front will start taking measures sooner ( setting torpedoes to run high, switching off magnetic and attacking from the rear ).
I actually think the opposite, King will discount the reports as being 'tainted' by the British and refuse to do anything in case he has to admit the RN is right about something.
Which will be embarrassing if it comes out during or after the war that the British warned him but he didn't listen.
In OTL he survived allowing the second happy time to happen because he refused to listen to any RN advice on ASW so sadly I think he would survive this as well.
Honestly, I think that King....well he might hate the British but he also hates it more when people try to short-change his sailors. He might, rather than exploding at BuOrds and basically beating them into compliance to get the torpedo to work, just order some proper testing of the torpedo in question.
It would be, in his eyes at least, a win-win. Either the British are lying and thus it gives him another reason to hate the RN or BuOrds is screwing with his submariners and he gets to land on them like an ACME One-Ton Pallet of Bricks landing on Wille E. Coyote...
TBF otl he did pretty much do exactly that followed by beating the survivors with a bat to get them to fix the damned thing.
I think it's Dr Mark Bailey of UNSW (ex Lt Cdr) at the Australian Defence Force Academy who studied some of this in detail partly for his PhD. He says that the "lack of investment" in ASW was logical, because the Japanese had already planned to invest in more escorts. However, like the USN and RN, they appreciated that being fairly quick to build, in the real world of limited resources it would be better to concentrate on larger ships until the war broke out.
Where the IJN differed was that for much of the early war, the USN submarines were so inneffective that the IJN decided that the submarine threat to Japanese trade was so small that their limited resources should be spent elsewhere. By the time the USN sub campaign really hit its stride, the IJN was too far behind.
It therefore appears that the IJN's lack of investment WAS excusable; in fact rather logical. No nation with limited resources can afford to throw vast sums at forces that don't seem to be required. Their "error" was that they didn't realise that the USN could fix its torpedoes and its approach and then ramp up sinkings so quickly, but they didn't have enough resources to make more investment in ASW just in case the USN got its act together.
As noted above, the Japanese submarines did attach merchant shipping. However, they were faced with an enemy which would eventually build up overwhelming strength and could afford heavy MV losses - just as they were suffering on the east coast of the USA. The Pacific also did not offer the wealth of targets that the Atlantic did, therefore the "tonnage war" could not be won.
Given that, the IJN's knowledge that they needed a swift "victory" meant that it was reasonable to attack naval vessels which were slower to replace. That meant that the US could find itself at such a miitary disadvantage that they would ask for peace. Yes, we know that was not going to happen, but the Japanese knew that they needed a swift military victory or would face defeat, and targeting naval vessels seemed to offer more chances for a swift victory.
As far as DC training goes,
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Based on the time setting of the film (December 1941),not in a major way really right, since while the Allies were right on the doorstep of French Algeria, the day to day lives of the normal people especially in French Morocco were not yet having any changes IMO, and IIRC Lisbon is still a bit nearer to Casablanca than Tripoli. Other than perhaps one or two lines in the film, or more likely the general release schedule, I do not think the film would have any changes really.