The Whale has Wings

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No love for Salad Cream and chips? Some of you guys haven't lived:D

There used to be a chippy up the road from my house run by an old guy of about 80, he'd had the place for about 50 years and it looked as if it was the last time he cleaned it but by Christ the chips were out of this world crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside all done in beef dripping, he only opened for 1 and a half hours 4 nights a week but we used to cue out of the door.

Back on topic, good update astro best crack on with the next one before we all start swapping recipes.
 
To link snack foods back to the TL, I do recall a previous TL on a similar topic (WI Malaya worked out better for the Empire), the author (Marko? Banned now sadly) managed to spend a bit of time talking about food and culture, as he managed to get SE/Asian ethnic units into the Invasion of Europe, after a robust defence of Malaya.

Suffice to say there were many options for fusion!
 
Geez, I only posted the update on Wednesday!!

And by the way, Poutine is a vile, disgusting contribution to world cuisine that should have resulted in Quebec being glassed. Repeadely. Just to be certain.:mad::mad:

Well; take the hint. :)

And as for the poutine crack; your taking your life in your hands with Quebecers.....well pretty much most of Canada. If you come up; wear a disguise.
 
Well; take the hint. :)

And as for the poutine crack; your taking your life in your hands with Quebecers.....well pretty much most of Canada. If you come up; wear a disguise.

Regarding the Quebecois, jokes made at their expense is going to get you a lot worse than mere trouble as a tourist. There is the little matter of the banhammer...:eek:
 
Lawnchair Captain

Another lurker de-cloaks. :D Welcome and an interesting question.

As you say there are a number of IJN ships needing repair, some of which are still afloat.;) However I wonder how many would have reached home yet while their definitely desperately in need to every ship they have and about three times as many again.

I'm a bit surprised that a quick hit and run raid, especially under those conditions, with limited fuel, no real intel on targets and using what I thought were basically strategic bombers hit two warships. Was this actually planned or purely by chance?

Steve

The single ship hit was the CVL Ryuho, which was still under conversion at this time. I don't see how she could have been lost by this time ITTL. For a CVL under conversion a 500 pounder plus incendiaries was not a minor strike. It took until November of 1942 before her conversion as well as repair to her damage from the strike was completed. So, in tactical military terms, it was the most important strike in the raid. It should be noted this attack was pulled off in broad daylight in perfect weather at low altitude by hand-picked crews, so such perfect accuracy could not be dismissed as a fluke. And the aircraft were directed to spread out to other targets besides Tokyo, so...

One less carrier for the RN to sink right about now.:D
 
I was wondering about the possibility that ittl the Ryuho had already been completed since Astrodragon has pointed out that the Japanese had reacted to the RN increasing number of carriers with more conversions (two of them already sunk). In that case, maybe its place could have been empty but maybe could have been occupied by say another carrier, a larger one, damaged in some recent battle.
 
Well; take the hint. :)

And as for the poutine crack; your taking your life in your hands with Quebecers.....well pretty much most of Canada. If you come up; wear a disguise.

Well, the poutine description is from my wife.
Who's Canadian :p:D
But not (obviously!) from Quebec...:D
She also points out its the only province that considers putting sugar on sugar as a food item..:D:D
 
To link snack foods back to the TL, I do recall a previous TL on a similar topic (WI Malaya worked out better for the Empire), the author (Marko? Banned now sadly) managed to spend a bit of time talking about food and culture, as he managed to get SE/Asian ethnic units into the Invasion of Europe, after a robust defence of Malaya.

Suffice to say there were many options for fusion!
Markus' Malaya Thread. I'm sure either Vienna or Budapest was liberated by a joint attack of Filipino, Maori and Chinese troops. What sort of meal could the locals knock up with those guys on the doorstep?
 
I was wondering about the possibility that ittl the Ryuho had already been completed since Astrodragon has pointed out that the Japanese had reacted to the RN increasing number of carriers with more conversions (two of them already sunk). In that case, maybe its place could have been empty but maybe could have been occupied by say another carrier, a larger one, damaged in some recent battle.

If true, one 500 pounder and some incendiaries would do much less relative damage. But would still be a pain in the ass regarding getting said CV fully operational again. And far harder to miss.:)
 
Well, the poutine description is from my wife.
Who's Canadian :p:D
But not (obviously!) from Quebec...:D
She also points out its the only province that considers putting sugar on sugar as a food item..:D:D

Well I thought the same and then got posted there for six years. It..........affected me...........slightly. Or that's what some people say anyway:D
 
If true, one 500 pounder and some incendiaries would do much less relative damage. But would still be a pain in the ass regarding getting said CV fully operational again. And far harder to miss.:)
Hm, against an operational ship that wouldn't do much damage, but a ship undergoing a rebuild is loaded with stuff an operational one wouldn't be, at least some of which is quite flammable. A ship undergoing conversion is just about as vulnerable to incendiaries as it could be.
 
Ketchup was listed as one the '5 a day' or whatever vegetables in some US school systems.
That was back during the early years of the Reagan administration IIRC, when some thudwhacker decided that ketchup, since it's made from tomatoes, counted as a vegetable in school lunch programs. The outcry was so deafening that the decision was reversed almost immediately.

As for New England spices, Tabasco may be on the shelves but it rarely reaches the table, being chiefly a Southern condiment. (Even if a Tabasco heiress did marry a Mainer and end up living in Augusta.)The chief spices in New England are salt, pepper, ketchup, and mustard. A1 steak sauce, however, is making important inroads.
 
The chief spices in New England are salt, pepper, ketchup, and mustard. A1 steak sauce, however, is making important inroads.

As a New Englander, I can attest to this, even if I use more variety than that when I cook.

Though I must add that 'steak sauces' are usually hideous abominations.
 
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And by the way, Poutine is a vile, disgusting contribution to world cuisine that should have resulted in Quebec being glassed. Repeadely. Just to be certain.:mad::mad:
<cut> And as for the poutine crack; your taking your life in your hands with Quebecers.....well pretty much most of Canada. If you come up; wear a disguise.
Apparently not in Alberta, Kessok; family tells me that Poutine is not a common condiment in the area. Neither are the Quebecois popular there, funnily... something to do with taxes & funding apparently (although it could just be because of the french decent ;) ).

Moving back to the TL & the Med, I don't see a viable alternative to the Allies invading Italy although I agree with Usertron2020 that it goes nowhere strategically after you reach the Alps. The problem is that the same applies to Southern France & as for a Dodecanese campaign... Ugh! Hopefully Alan Brooke would have shot that idea down if Winston raised it again; didn't that man learn anything from Gallipoli? The geography of the area sucks & any campaign there will just swallow manpower into a meat-grinder that the Axis can reinforce faster... a landing from the Black Sea (somewhere between Varna & Constanta) then up then up the Danube Valley has some promise; the drawback is it's a rather elongated supply line even IF the Turks will allow the Allies passage; I rather think not IMO.
Taking Sicily, Sardinia & Corsica has promise... it pretty much opens the entire western Italian coast for landing & puts the entire peninsula in range of Allied aircraft (if they can stop the Italians bombing it!).
 
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IMHO in this timeline, it might be worthwhile to plan some sort of follow-up raid in a few months to make the Japanese difficulties with splitting (even more) limited resources worse. Perhaps something from China since the situation there is better ITTL than OTL. Of course if some bright chap realizes that incendiaries on japanese cities will be ever so much more effective than high explosives searching for factories (thank you Curt LeMay) sooner rather than later even relatively smaller raids can be ugly.

I like your style :D
Not sure how doable it might be; I think it was pretty much a one-shot pony off a carrier, but the idea of random nuisance raids to keep Japanese attention (and aircraft) back on the home islands against air attack... Maybe if it's scouted carefully you MIGHT sneak another strike into range, probably no more. It would depend upon Nimitz wanting to risk his carrier forces, which I doubt at the moment ATL.
 
I like your style :D
Not sure how doable it might be; I think it was pretty much a one-shot pony off a carrier, but the idea of random nuisance raids to keep Japanese attention (and aircraft) back on the home islands against air attack... Maybe if it's scouted carefully you MIGHT sneak another strike into range, probably no more. It would depend upon Nimitz wanting to risk his carrier forces, which I doubt at the moment ATL.

Imperial Japan's defenses had made a conventional carrier raiding force an impossibility before Doolittle. Doing another B-25 raid against Yamamoto's heightened defenses would be beyond impossible, considering that AIUI Chaing wanted no more such raids coming into his country.
 
Moving back to the TL & the Med, I don't see a viable alternative to the Allies invading Italy although I agree with Usertron2020 that it goes nowhere strategically after you reach the Alps. The problem is that the same applies to Southern France (1) & as for a Dodecanese campaign... Ugh! Hopefully Alan Brooke would have shot that idea down if Winston raised it again; didn't that man learn anything from Gallipoli? (2) The geography of the area sucks & any campaign there will just swallow manpower into a meat-grinder that the Axis can reinforce faster... a landing from the Black Sea (somewhere between Varna & Constanta) then up then up the Danube Valley has some promise; the drawback is it's a rather elongated supply line even IF the Turks will allow the Allies passage; I rather think not IMO. (3)

Taking Sicily, Sardinia & Corsica has promise... it pretty much opens the entire western Italian coast for landing & puts the entire peninsula in range of Allied aircraft (4) (if they can stop the Italians bombing it!).(5)

1) Not so much as the Aegean. If done well after Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica are taken, secured, and built up, that is. Southern France presents problems, but a good breakout from the landing zones, with Marseilles and Toulon taken and fully operational (no serious Atlantic Wall down there)? It promises to draw so much weight from the Germans that even the Stalingrad Campaign could be seriously affected, at the very least in terms of trying to relieve the German Sixth Army.

2) No, he didn't. His blindness to operational realities was absolute. Part of his problem with Australians stemmed from his blaming them for Gallipoli's failure, when they were in fact the least culpable of all. I would suggest that even today the defenses of the Dardenelles of 1915 would provide a very serious deterrent to an invader coming come the Mediterranean Sea. For logistical reasons if no other-no ports in the straits this side of ISTANBUL!:eek::eek::eek: And the nearest other port (though a large one) is on the central Ionian coastline (Izmir).

3) IMVHO, you're right. The Turks were ferocious in their independence and neutrality. They considered keeping the Bosphosrus closed to wartime naval belligerents as a statement of their own national sovereignty. They played along with the Germans, but made it quite clear to Hitler they weren't joing the Axis this side of a 1940 British or 1941 Soviet surrender. They also made it clear later in the war that they were going to have to DoW the Axis just to survive. Which they did, on February 23rd, 1945.:rolleyes: What sloth!:mad:

4) A very Pacific strategy for the Royal Navy. Which TTL makes quite workable.

5) Uh, I wouldn't worry about THAT particular part of the Axis air equation. By the time the British could finish such a campaign, there would not be much left of the Regia Aeronautica.
 
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