Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.

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MattII

Monty Man said:
Yes to both. Albacore is key here. It's easily the worst aircraft in any fleet's side. But also the biggest possible game changer in terms of spotting carriers early. This is the quote from the Coral Sea battle "“Without a doubt, May 7, 1942, vicinity of Coral Sea, was the most confused battle area in world history.” —Vice Admiral H. S. Duckworth”. It really was a "Benny Hill esque / Who's on First" type of battle. What either side would have given for even a couple of slow moving recon planes with ASV II.

But the Albacore presents another huge problem . It doesn't just have to spot the carriers ..adn rememerb it's only a smaller numebr of Albacore that have Radar, .it has to get in range to spot them AND sink them. And it just can't. At all. . Insanely slow speed aside THE major issue, which will dictate the entire air battle with the RN is it's altitude. max of 18000ft and it can only attack from low. That's more than 10,000ft lower then the Japanese bombers and in the absolute sweet spot for the Japanese Zero. F4's struggled as it is in 42 vs Zeros... Martlets were modified all in ways that made them worse for this. They had folding wings to fit in the smaller RN elevators. And they were not kept on deck parks like the US did. When USN was hit in Coral sea a whole squadron got airborne in just a few minutes, the Brits simply can't do that. 60 miles of extra eyes sounds great but that's 15 mins warning for a Val or Kate and 10 mins for a Zero, which is faster anyway than the intercepting planes. Even if they were in exact location most of that time would getting to altitude. If they are already up high then it means they are deployed and not in the right place so they have to chase, which they can against Kate and Vals but good luck if there are Zeros around.

British Martlets were more heavily armoured than the Wildcat but also slower. They used the Wright engine - slower climb speed than wildcat and MUCH slower than the Zero. It took a Martlet 12 minutes to get to 20,000 ft ( slower launch times aside). It took the Zero just over 7. This means that even with the best CAP control system (which the RN had) and Radar ... you are still at best going to leave Albacore vunerable for a long time and/or have to put your already out numbered fighters at a disadvantge to protect them.

We all know how badly the TBD did against japanese carriers. It was "devastingly slow". So much so that it was withdrawn in mid 42. Well it's speedy gonzalev compared to the Albacore - 50 mph faster. Unless it's midnight no Albacore is getting close to an IJN Carrier. Oh and as well as far more Zeros, they can stay in the air for more than twice as long as the Wildcat /Martlets , loitering with deadly intent or chasing hapless bombers all the way back.
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You're missing the bloody obvious here, in that the Japanese won't know where the allies are. Why? Because the British ships (at least the carriers and battleships) are equipped with Type 281 radar, allowing them to spot the Japanese at 90+ nmi away, and vector CAP onto them, which will leave the Japanese with only the vaguest sense of where the allies are. Further, it's not just aircraft that will pose a threat to the Japanese, but submarines as well, which can also be vectored onto the Kido Butai, and against which the Japanese have only a minimal defensive capability.

With both the scouting and anti-detection abilities the British have, they can choose their terms of engagement, which, in a scenario like this, is a far more significant advantage than any table of aircraft performance figures.

Monty Man said:
Anyway ...lets get back to to something important that clearly is never talked about. Perhaps we could discuss the choices in British Tank guns... so about 57mm vs 75mm.....
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Please don't multi-post.
 
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vizzer

Orry said:
Its all in the hands of the author - and nothing to do with tanks.......
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Nonsense, flying off Ark Royal will be the winged version of the Victor the mk. V.
It is of course incredibly slow but there's nothing a Zero carries that can penetrate it beyond point blank range and from below.
😋
 

pjmidd

Monty Man said:
Yes to both. Albacore is key here. It's easily the worst aircraft in any fleet's side. But also the biggest possible game changer in terms of spotting carriers early. This is the quote from the Coral Sea battle "“Without a doubt, May 7, 1942, vicinity of Coral Sea, was the most confused battle area in world history.” —Vice Admiral H. S. Duckworth”. It really was a "Benny Hill esque / Who's on First" type of battle. What either side would have given for even a couple of slow moving recon planes with ASV II.

But the Albacore presents another huge problem . It doesn't just have to spot the carriers ..adn rememerb it's only a smaller numebr of Albacore that have Radar, .it has to get in range to spot them AND sink them. And it just can't. At all. . Insanely slow speed aside THE major issue, which will dictate the entire air battle with the RN is it's altitude. max of 18000ft and it can only attack from low. That's more than 10,000ft lower then the Japanese bombers and in the absolute sweet spot for the Japanese Zero. F4's struggled as it is in 42 vs Zeros... Martlets were modified all in ways that made them worse for this. They had folding wings to fit in the smaller RN elevators. And they were not kept on deck parks like the US did. When USN was hit in Coral sea a whole squadron got airborne in just a few minutes, the Brits simply can't do that. 60 miles of extra eyes sounds great but that's 15 mins warning for a Val or Kate and 10 mins for a Zero, which is faster anyway than the intercepting planes. Even if they were in exact location most of that time would getting to altitude. If they are already up high then it means they are deployed and not in the right place so they have to chase, which they can against Kate and Vals but good luck if there are Zeros around.

British Martlets were more heavily armoured than the Wildcat but also slower. They used the Wright engine - slower climb speed than wildcat and MUCH slower than the Zero. It took a Martlet 12 minutes to get to 20,000 ft ( slower launch times aside). It took the Zero just over 7. This means that even with the best CAP control system (which the RN had) and Radar ... you are still at best going to leave Albacore vunerable for a long time and/or have to put your already out numbered fighters at a disadvantge to protect them.

We all know how badly the TBD did against japanese carriers. It was "devastingly slow". So much so that it was withdrawn in mid 42. Well it's speedy gonzalev compared to the Albacore - 50 mph faster. Unless it's midnight no Albacore is getting close to an IJN Carrier. Oh and as well as far more Zeros, they can stay in the air for more than twice as long as the Wildcat /Martlets , loitering with deadly intent or chasing hapless bombers all the way back.
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In a naval battle to be honest, no one cares about anything above 10000 feet ( apart from recon birds ) as all the strike aircraft will be lower. The British will want to strike at night and hide during the day so the Zero is a non factor in regard to strikes on the IJN carriers.
 

Monty Man

kelgar04 said:
Feel I need to add something in regards to the FAA that given the way naval aviation suffered in the inter war period especially the fighting between the RN and the RAF especially after the formation if an air section of the naval staff which the Air ministery boycotted.

Churchill had to essentially memo Trenchard and Beatty a compromise which evolved onto the Trenchard-Keyes Agreement where the admiralty would specify the performance and numbers bur the Aircraft procurement as well as specifications. But the RAF would also provide shore side facilities as well as personel who would be trained to admiralty requirements, though on the carriers the Navy would provide ratings in various grades.

It basically up until the agreed return of thr FAA the air ministery was deciding on the second post war aircraft. This lead to a lot of squabbles as you can imagine between the air ministry and the admiralty on things like dive bombing as an example or another would be a paper written by aircrew in HMS COURAGEOUS on a move to multi purpose aircraft which the admiralty took up against what was considered the better judgement of the Air Ministry but gave us the Swordfish eventually.

But this poisoned relations between the two services as well as the fact that the duel control really hampered the development of the fleet air arm in the interwar periods adding into this as well there was a real lack of mid grade naval pilots suitable for staff appointments like eight years after the formation of the Trenchard-Keyes agreement in 1924 there were no FAA officers with RAF rank higher than Flight Lieutenant until the creation of the Squadron structure in 1933. There was also a shortage of volunteers in the Navy's side as well for the FAA which meant as well even if the navy could have afforded the air craft crewing them would have been a challenge.

However you slice it various factors came together in the inter-war period to effect the development of the FAA and the RN Carriers even if they got them back in say 1933 or 1936 it would have been hard to really get them battle ready before the war.
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This may be one of the most astute and best observations I've read here.

Ok so Midway just a movie but the last 2019 one was pretty historically accurate. Best was Annapolis academy ie had Pathos and 7 years flight experience. McClusky , the key decision maker to press on, was also academy and13!! years flight experience as aNaval Aviator. He was a Lt.Cmdr. Nimitz ( a total personal glory hunter normally) credited McClusky personally with the key decision that won Midway.

Fleet Air Arm has none of this. RN is not the signal school of flag waving Dartmouth elite , royal connection, mishipman that doomed them to mediocrity at Jutland. It's evolved faster than the Toff British Army by WW2. But FAA Pilots don't have the same rank, decision making,respect or length or service in '42 compared to USN. Maund and Boyd are the top RN Captains OTL/ITTL for Ark Royal/ Lusty/ Dom and they are NOT aviators. Maund had brief servicee as XO on Glorious but is a amphib specialist who even after his court martial was so obsessed/ good at beach landing he was promoted to Admiral and planned Sicily. Boyd is a typical old man, Pre WW1 and got his rank in the 20s with the Royal Yacht crew. Destroyer flotillas in the 30s. FAA and Carriers just not the career path for best and brightest in RN. Still ... ginger beards and a sense of adventure...!! Hooray!
2whdzkda8s311.jpg
 

Monty Man

pjmidd said:
In a naval battle to be honest, no one cares about anything above 10000 feet ( apart from recon birds ) as all the strike aircraft will be lower. The British will want to strike at night and hide during the day so the Zero is a non factor in regard to strikes on the IJN carriers.
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Atlantic yes but not in the Pacific. . USN Doctrine , and what happened at Midway , was to fly at 20K Ft ++. before commencing attack. Only way range and speed could be maintained. After Coral Sea, F4s realised one of their few advantages was they could dive faster than Zeros and they needed to Zoom and Boom to avoid dogfighting at lower altitude. They would maintain CAP at up to 30,000 ft.
 

Astrodragon

Regarding the analysis of a carrier battle, there are a few points.
The RN are not getting into a daytime fight unless cornered - why on earth would they??
The British have no real intrest in a Pacific battle, so its likely it would take place in the Singapore area. So lurk under land based cover until you spot the enemy, time it to do the FAA party piece at night then hightail it back under cover.
The I's were armoured to take a 500lb bomb. Guess what the Japanese use. Combat ineffective isnt sunk.
 

MattII

Monty Man said:
This may be one of the most astute and best observations I've read here.

Ok so Midway just a movie but the last 2019 one was pretty historically accurate. Best was Annapolis academy ie had Pathos and 7 years flight experience. McClusky , the key decision maker to press on, was also academy and13!! years flight experience as aNaval Aviator. He was a Lt.Cmdr. Nimitz ( a total personal glory hunter normally) credited McClusky personally with the key decision that won Midway.

Fleet Air Arm has none of this. RN is not the signal school of flag waving Dartmouth elite , royal connection, mishipman that doomed them to mediocrity at Jutland. It's evolved faster than the Toff British Army by WW2. But FAA Pilots don't have the same rank, decision making,respect or length or service in '42 compared to USN. Maund and Boyd are the top RN Captains OTL/ITTL for Ark Royal/ Lusty/ Dom and they are NOT aviators. Maund had brief servicee as XO on Glorious but is a amphib specialist who even after his court martial was so obsessed/ good at beach landing he was promoted to Admiral and planned Sicily. Boyd is a typical old man, Pre WW1 and got his rank in the 20s with the Royal Yacht crew. Destroyer flotillas in the 30s. FAA and Carriers just not the career path for best and brightest in RN. Still ... ginger beards and a sense of adventure...!! Hooray!
2whdzkda8s311.jpg
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Doesn't matter worth a damn if the enemy can't find you. Heck, if the British wanted to be really cheeky, they could use their Type 281 sets to track the Japanese fleet via its own CAP, with the Japanese remaining none-the-wiser.

Also don't multi-post.
 
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MattII

Another thing is that unless the Japanese trade better-than-even for pilots and decks, they'll have effectively lost, since they have little ability to replace either. They also have to additional disadvantage that, unlike the the Allies, they have an inertia against reassigning pilots, something that came to bite them after OTL. I can't believe that the Americans, were the situations after Coral Sea were reversed, would have wasted any time in reassigning the remaining squadrons from Shōkaku to Zuikaku to give them at least one good carrier out of the pair, whereas the Japanese kept both carriers back for Midway, which ended up costing them dearly.
 
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kelgar04

Weren’t American Aircraft at this point also still worse than the belligerent powers? I know the Wildcat was out performed by the Zero in almost every engagment.
 

MattII

kelgar04 said:
Weren’t American Aircraft at this point also still worse than the belligerent powers? I know the Wildcat was out performed by the Zero in almost every engagment.
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Less likely to be an issue here since, with the British radar advantage, they're going to be able to pick their battles.
 
GarethC

GarethC

kelgar04 said:
Weren’t American Aircraft at this point also still worse than the belligerent powers? I know the Wildcat was out performed by the Zero in almost every engagment.
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It's less clear than that.
Broadly, you might as well say that there isn't much in the A6M vs F4F-4 pairing. Turn & burn favours the A6M, boom & zoom favours the F4F.
The SBD vs D3A and TBD vs B5N pairings are similarly much of a muchness, though the TBF that's just being introduced is a step up.
 

vetinari

What being missed here is that the FAA, despite the obsolesce of their aircraft still managed to sink greater tonnages of enemy craft than their opponents or Allies did. The Swordfish, that terrible, old, slow, biplane is on record as having sank more ships than anything the Americans used. The Albacore, despite being an obsolete biplane still performed better than anything the Americans or the Japanese or the Germans used. They may have been old fashioned but they were still used well in most of the battles they took part in.
 

kelgar04

Still given everything that is happened and thr analysis done will the IJN carrier arm have the legs to get were its needed a lot of the refining and extraction infrastructure has been smashed from previous posts.

Can the afford a strike going out on a limb? I mean I know some older carriers like Akagi could in theory be converted to burn coal given she was converted to burn oil if memory serves but not sure if that's practical especially given the quality of Japanese coal.
 
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