What Good Would the French Fleet Have Done the Germans in 1942?

Honoring the threat is the entire point. Any attempts to destroy the fleet puts the relatively few remaining RN carriers at risk (the U.S., at the time Husky took place, only had ONE fully operational deck in the Sara, Enterprise was still operating under the emergency repairs made after Santa Cruz Island and Essex was not yet fully worked up, this was when the USN had "borrowed" HMS Victorious to keep a credible force in the South Pacific), and completely deflates Churchill's low cost "soft underbelly" arguments.

Pearl Harbor worked because the U.S. was caught napping (the same can mainly be said for the Italians at Taranto). In this scenario that Luftwaffe is unlikely to have its aircraft lined up in neat rows waiting to be wiped out, the KM is unlikely to ignore radar data, and AAA guns are unlikely to be unmanned and have no ammunition readily available.

How about a strike with submarines?
 
Fair point on Skorzeny. But my scenario assumes an operation later in 1940, well after the armistice with France - say, sometime in the fall. Petain at that point is really not in any position to resume the war any more than he was in November 1942. The downside is that it would tie down more German forces occupying the rest of France, and might push some overseas departments and commands into De Gaulle's arms. But the upside, however...

You probably need some PODs to set this up. Say Dakar and Martinique and the ships at both locations (to include Jean Bart at Dakar in this POD) declare for the Free French. The ships to include two unfinished modern battleships and one aircraft carrier (yes I know she is a piece of crap) then gather at Martinique while Free French authorities negotiate with the Americans to have the ships finished/re-fitted in the United States.

Taranto goes worse for the Italians, and have them get curb stomped at the Battle of Cape Spartivento (maybe lose another battleship and a heavy cruiser). Now you have a situation where the Italian fleet has really been neutered and some of the French Navy's premier units are in the United States getting upgrades before they rejoin the fight. Plus, British success in the Mediterranean and Dakar and the Caribbean colonies going Free French has other colonies agitating as well.

Hitler decides the French can't be trusted and he is afraid the fleet at Toulon will sail for British bases, so he orders it seized.

Something like that, just spit balling...
 

Archibald

Banned
Bearn was no more piece of crap than old HMS Argus, which give sterling service and (unlike too many modern British carriers) actually survived the war.
 
Bearn was no more piece of crap than old HMS Argus, which give sterling service and (unlike too many modern British carriers) actually survived the war.

Concur, but anytime anybody in any thread brings up trying to do something with Bearn, they get a lecture about what a piece of junk she was and I just wanted to state that I am aware of what her limitations were and I do not need it explained to me again...
 
You probably need some PODs to set this up. Say Dakar and Martinique and the ships at both locations (to include Jean Bart at Dakar in this POD) declare for the Free French. The ships to include two unfinished modern battleships and one aircraft carrier (yes I know she is a piece of crap) then gather at Martinique while Free French authorities negotiate with the Americans to have the ships finished/re-fitted in the United States.

Taranto goes worse for the Italians, and have them get curb stomped at the Battle of Cape Spartivento (maybe lose another battleship and a heavy cruiser). Now you have a situation where the Italian fleet has really been neutered and some of the French Navy's premier units are in the United States getting upgrades before they rejoin the fight. Plus, British success in the Mediterranean and Dakar and the Caribbean colonies going Free French has other colonies agitating as well.

Hitler decides the French can't be trusted and he is afraid the fleet at Toulon will sail for British bases, so he orders it seized.

Something like that, just spit balling...

It's as good a POD as any, actually.

Or maybe something happens to destabilize the Vichy government...maybe Darlan defects, freaking out Hitler.... I haven't researched the history well enough to identify plausible departure points - but I have to think it would be possible to come up with several.

The OP asked about November 1942, however, and I do not want to derail that discussion. But I think it would make for another interesting thread to consider a 1940 seizure; because if successful, it's going to be a bigger benefit to the Axis than two years later; and it would have interesting repercussions for the rest of the French overseas empire. Hell, for all I know, someone has already done a thread on it....
 
For the 1942 scenario. How about some Maskirova could the Germans disappear one of the battleships . That would tie up allied resources looking for her .
 
Top