What would be your naval "do-over"?

[McPherson]

If the battle-space becomes that then quite possibly the only USN vessels guaranteed to be relevant are the SSBN 726's

1. There are no guarantees.
2. Relevant depends on use and denial. SSN(G)s are more useful, but herein we are talking war-crimes and I am "loath" to sinking oil tankers and ore ships. The idea is not to escalate to something that cannot be negotiated down or dialed back. Once the other side starts killing Guam and/or aircraft carriers (see comment next) it is a whole new naval game as part of a larger global conflict.

Besides the USN has a small expendable launch platform already, it is called an F/A-18, cheaper than any projections for Streetfighter, fewer crew at risk, more survivable and it has far more of them than any plans for Streetfighter

3. And concentrated in groups onto a high value asset with a very limited supply of those assets. One might want additional options.

Meanwhile the USN said they need mine warfare capabilities, Seafighter had jack shit. The USN needs ASW, Streetfighter again does jack and shit. Counter Piracy? Counter Narcotics? COIN? Maritime Surveillance? You can see where this is going

4. Not arguing that a 600 tonne Buyan clone would solve any of those. Pointing out, one has to define mission to purpose and build to it. A Buyan clone can take out the competitors destroyer's and base ships IN HIS BACKYARD without sending us all to DEFCON 1. And it can be expendable. Stiff price to keep the competitor on the back foot, but cheaper than losing a bird farm and 5000 sailors.

5. You want the rest of that jazz? Build frigates for blue water and Absalom type OPVs for the green water. But don't build a goddamned LCS.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

1. There are no guarantees.
2. Relevant depends on use and denial. SSN(G)s are more useful, but herein we are talking war-crimes and I am "loath" to sinking oil tankers and ore ships. The idea is not to escalate to something that cannot be negotiated down or dialed back. Once the other side starts killing Guam and/or aircraft carriers (see comment next) it is a whole new naval game as part of a larger global conflict.

3. And concentrated in groups onto a high value asset with a very limited supply of those assets. One might want additional options.

4. Not arguing that a 600 tonne Buyan clone would solve any of those. Pointing out, one has to define mission to purpose and build to it. A Buyan clone can take out the competitors destroyer's and base ships IN HIS BACKYARD without sending us all to DEFCON 1. And it can be expendable. Stiff price to keep the competitor on the back foot, but cheaper than losing a bird farm and 5000 sailors.

5. You want the rest of that jazz? Build frigates for blue water and Absalom type OPVs for the green water. But don't build a goddamned LCS.

It is a guarantee that the Chinese will be thinking that worst comes to worst the Boomers are out there. If it gets to the point the PRC is launching on the West Coast the boomers are relevant, nothing else in the navy is, if it is just a skirmish the boomers are part of the larger strategic situation that to be considers that determines willingness to escalate

You can land base the hornets if you want/need to, and you will need to concentrate your FACs in groups around tenders too because they are short ranged

And the mission defined for the class was not taking out destroyers and base ships in the backyard, assuming streetfighter could in fact do that, which is unlikely without air superiority, and if you need the bird farm in the area anyways, to ensure that your FACs aren't swatted by Helos and MPAs before they get within range, might as well have it do the strikes if you are risking the aircraft anyways

It is not a matter of want, but of need. The USN by Congressional mandate has to do all those low intensity duties, and needs something to do them, and they are currently burning up DDGs unsustainably, or being are done inadequately. These are the requirements the USN says they have. The LCS is a poor method of dealing with this, and everything but the name should have been scrapped in a do-over, but it included doing this stuff in the program goal, which Streetfighter did not, and is much closer to actually being able to do some of this than streetfighter ever would

 

[CalBear]

1. There are no guarantees.
2. Relevant depends on use and denial. SSN(G)s are more useful, but herein we are talking war-crimes and I am "loath" to sinking oil tankers and ore ships. The idea is not to escalate to something that cannot be negotiated down or dialed back. Once the other side starts killing Guam and/or aircraft carriers (see comment next) it is a whole new naval game as part of a larger global conflict.

3. And concentrated in groups onto a high value asset with a very limited supply of those assets. One might want additional options.

4. Not arguing that a 600 tonne Buyan clone would solve any of those. Pointing out, one has to define mission to purpose and build to it. A Buyan clone can take out the competitors destroyer's and base ships IN HIS BACKYARD without sending us all to DEFCON 1. And it can be expendable. Stiff price to keep the competitor on the back foot, but cheaper than losing a bird farm and 5000 sailors.

5. You want the rest of that jazz? Build frigates for blue water and Absalom type OPVs for the green water. But don't build a goddamned LCS.

Hey, what's wrong with 400+ foot long ship that carries a main battery of one 2" gun and lacked any sort of OTH weapon for the first 12 years of its existence? Sure, it is vastly less capable than the OHP class frigate, and equally inferior to corvettes and frigates operated by just about every green water navy on Earth, and is admittedly incapable of protecting itself from any sort of real threat, but it kept two different major military contractors rolling in cash. As a bonus it only costs 5-6x more than the original proposal and needs a DDG-51 to play nursemaid (but we can just pull those off protecting $14B aircraft carriers, so its no big deal).

The Alaska class of the 21st Century, maybe even worse, since the Navy figured out that the Alaskas were a Charlie Foxtrot two hulls in.

 

[MarshalofMontival]

HMS Vanguard: Don't bother building it, or working on either of the Lions for that matter. You've already got the KGVs and the modernized QEs for your battle line; what you need are more CVs to give them air cover (especially in the Med and the North Sea), over-the-horizon scouting, and over-the-horizon strike capability. And Taranto should have proved to anyone that CVs were just as deadly as BBs against major fleet units.

 

[CV12Hornet]

You can land base the hornets if you want/need to, and you will need to concentrate your FACs in groups around tenders too because they are short ranged

I wouldn't count on land bases remaining operational for very long in the event of a general sea fight between the US and Chinese. While China's ASBMs are overhyped in the antiship role they're perfect for suppressing American airfields on Guam and other nearby environs. It's largely the same thing the Soviets expected to be doing in the event of a hot war in Europe with their own SRBMs and MRBMs.

 

[ArtosStark]

One could try to do the American thing, but smarter. That is build your fleet train as purpose designed STUFT ships. Fast banana boats and Venezuela to Texas 30 knot oil tankers with side stacked funnels for safety reasons and a starboard pier-side navigation tower for in-harbor navigation? Just to keep the oil from spoiling before it reaches Scotland on the second leg? I suppose the British example would be a STUFT stuffed ship full of fresh Egyptian oranges to London reefer and an Abadan to Glasgow 30 knotter tanker to keep that oil fresh before it rots

Yeah, a subsidy program to build them to Admiralty spec would be good. I believe there was such a program IOTL but it seems like it could be better utilized.

 

[McPherson]

It is a guarantee that the Chinese will be thinking that worst comes to worst the Boomers are out there. If it gets to the point the PRC is launching on the West Coast the boomers are relevant, nothing else in the navy is, if it is just a skirmish the boomers are part of the larger strategic situation that to be considers that determines willingness to escalate.

1. It has been a historical lesson learned, that totalitarians are totalitarian. Common sense is in short supply with such idiots... er... ideologues. However, the guys serving these nut-jobs, tend to be pragmatic (Khrushchev Is Removed Lesson Learned or Cuban Missile Crisis Lesson Learned.), and those guys become enthusiastic conflict limiters when they have another option the other side uses which gives them time to "limit" escalation.

You can land base the hornets if you want/need to, and you will need to concentrate your FACs in groups around tenders too because they are short ranged

2. Who is/are the host country(s) and what are the geo-political limiters to access? Remember Turkey and the second Iraq/Gulf War imperialist misadventure? Denial of access can be a political thing.

And the mission defined for the class was not taking out destroyers and base ships in the backyard, assuming streetfighter could in fact do that, which is unlikely without air superiority, and if you need the bird farm in the area anyways, to ensure that your FACs aren't swatted by Helos and MPAs before they get within range, might as well have it do the strikes if you are risking the aircraft anyways

3. The Battle of Latakia - Jewish Virtual Library
a. They did not have air superiority, there, but they did have better ship handlers and electronic warfare which is 80% of modern FAC warfare. I would rate the competitor's SAG chances of survival against an USN FAC attack group in a missile fight; using current competitor and US tech as a "snowball's chance in hell". Exchange ratio is better for the Americans.
b. MPAs have to survive and/or see their targets.
c. Helos ditto.
d. That is what Mister SAM is for. He does not have to be big, but he has to be effective.
e. Either base close or build an expendable base ship tender, because the base ship tender will be sunk.

It is not a matter of want, but of need. The USN by Congressional mandate has to do all those low intensity duties, and needs something to do them, and they are currently burning up DDGs unsustainably, or being are done inadequately. These are the requirements the USN says they have. The LCS is a poor method of dealing with this, and everything but the name should have been scrapped in a do-over, but it included doing this stuff in the program goal, which Streetfighter did not, and is much closer to actually being able to do some of this than streetfighter ever would.

4. But I never said Streetfighter would.

4. Not arguing that a 600 tonne Buyan clone would solve any of those. Pointing out, one has to define mission to purpose and build to it. A Buyan clone can take out the competitors destroyer's and base ships IN HIS BACKYARD without sending us all to DEFCON 1. And it can be expendable. Stiff price to keep the competitor on the back foot, but cheaper than losing a bird farm and 5000 sailors.

5. You want the rest of that jazz? Build frigates for blue water and Absalom type OPVs for the green water. But don't build a goddamned LCS.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

3: Map of Indian Ocean topography, derived from Etopo2

Modified by McPherson.

Explanation:

1. Red stars are existent RN oil reserve stations.
2. Green squares are potential sites where added reserve stations should have been built.
3. Orange vector lines are Nagumo and Ozawa. They had a fleet train.
4. That red star with a circle is Somerville's refuel point. He had no fleet train. He had to hope tankers would be there on time to be a fuel source when he retired to that lagoon in the Maldives to refuel. He could not stay mobile at sea.
5. Somerville LOST the aircraft carrier battle.
6. Lesson learned? Aside from lousy recon due to not training replacement aircraft carrier pilots fast enough to replace killed off pre-war FAA veterans (arguably the best in the world in 1940, but by 1942 the replacements were nowhere near as good.), and relying on the RAF for anything approximating RIKKO functions, was that a fleet oiler was essential for maneuver options because WWII major fleet actions (MFAs) blow through a couple of tens of thousand tons of oil in a week and a CTF is always thirsty. Either have a reserve oil station within 1,000 nautical miles as a port refuel point or have a fleet train parked nearby so one can refuel. Somerville had neither. So when he retired to his secret base to refuel, Nagumo showed up and delivered the Easter Day Surprise.

The other problem he had was that his 4 x largely unmodernised R class BBs were designed to fight in the North Sea and so lacked condensers / water production capability

So when he sortied to intercept Nagumo, and the bugger didn't show up when intel said he would it was not purely fuel that was the problem but fresh water, so after 3 days at sea he was obliged to return to his secret base because his 4 pre-Jutland battleships were low on fresh water for the ships machinary.

And when he arrived he had to almost immediately return to sea as Nagumo had turned up, but the issue he then had was that the Revenges were still refilling their fresh water tanks and the fleet had been thrown together so quickly that the Auxiliary water making vessel that usually supported them had not yet caught up.

So it was the Revenges that were unsuitable due to the lack of condenser / fresh water production

Sommerville 'lost' the Carrier battle by only having 2 carriers and 100 aircraft (with a lot of Green pilots) verses 5 carriers and 350 aircraft (with lots of veterans) - not quite sure what 'he' could have done about it.

 

[McPherson]

The other problem he had was that his 4 x largely unmodernised R class BBs were designed to fight in the North Sea and so lacked condensers / water production capability

So when he sortied to intercept Nagumo, and the bugger didn't show up when intel said he would it was not purely fuel that was the problem but fresh water, so after 3 days at sea he was obliged to return to his secret base because his 4 pre-Jutland battleships were low on fresh water for the ships machinary.

And when he arrived he had to almost immediately return to sea as Nagumo had turned up, but the issue he then had was that the Revenges were still refilling their fresh water tanks and the fleet had been thrown together so quickly that the Auxiliary water making vessel that usually supported them had not yet caught up.

So it was the Revenges that were unsuitable due to the lack of condenser / fresh water production

Sommerville 'lost' the Carrier battle by only having 2 carriers and 100 aircraft (with a lot of Green pilots) verses 5 carriers and 350 aircraft (with lots of veterans) - not quite sure what 'he' could have done about it.

I've had this discussion.

R.U.N. and wait for a better chance at Yamaguchi who Nagumo was stupid enough to detach with just two flattops. No shame in pulling a "Spruance".

As for the water condensers for the "R"s, that kind of comes with the platform. Should have thought about the auxiliary when those ships were pushed forward. And to be honest, what use would they be in an air sea battle at 13 m/s (25 knots) or faster?

 

[RamscoopRaider]

1. It has been a historical lesson learned, that totalitarians are totalitarian. Common sense is in short supply with such idiots... er... ideologues. However, the guys serving these nut-jobs, tend to be pragmatic (Khrushchev Is Removed Lesson Learned or Cuban Missile Crisis Lesson Learned.), and those guys become enthusiastic conflict limiters when they have another option the other side uses which gives them time to "limit" escalation.

2. Who is/are the host country(s) and what are the geo-political limiters to access? Remember Turkey and the second Iraq/Gulf War imperialist misadventure? Denial of access can be a political thing.

3. The Battle of Latakia - Jewish Virtual Library
a. They did not have air superiority, there, but they did have better ship handlers and electronic warfare which is 80% of modern FAC warfare. I would rate the competitor's SAG chances of survival against an USN FAC attack group in a missile fight; using current competitor and US tech as a "snowball's chance in hell". Exchange ratio is better for the Americans.
b. MPAs have to survive and/or see their targets.
c. Helos ditto.
d. That is what Mister SAM is for. He does not have to be big, but he has to be effective.
e. Either base close or build an expendable base ship tender, because the base ship tender will be sunk.

4. But I never said Streetfighter would.

Hence why the boomers are always relevant in peoples thinking

Well yes that is the case but it is something that can be done situationally

Latakia occurred at the same time as a major air battle was ongoing sucking up the attention and when the Syrian Air Force had no anti shipping capability worthy of the name, them not getting any AshM until what 2007? Your FAC has room for a MANPAD equivalent, not effective at intercepting inbounds or keeping aircraft out of their engagement envelopes. Basing close runs into the same issue as land basing aircraft you bring up and 1,000-1500 men aboard a tender is little more expendable than 5000 on a carrier

You brought up streetfighter, in a conversation about a Sa'ar 5's suitability as an LCS replacement, when Streetfighter has no mission overlap with what the LCS was supposed to do

 

[McPherson]

You brought up streetfighter, in a conversation about a Sa'ar 5's suitability as an LCS replacement, when Streetfighter has no mission overlap with what the LCS was supposed to do

I brought up Streetfighter as the origin idea. It was supposed to be a FAC using what was at the time called "network centric warfare" concepts.
It metastasized into the toothless classes of frigates we all "love" today. The clown club kept adding new promises so that Congress would fund it.

The S'aar 5 is a COTS short term fix suggestion to get back to the original concept. I would prefer something a bit more missile boat and less OPV like. As for how it works in the present day, well, the swarm of FACS needs a lot of off-launch-platform sensor help. There is no doubt that the swarm will need recon drones to see for them to point and steer them at suitable targets. There is also no doubt that a Russian solution as to the effectors, in which one is the "lead hound dog" and the others chase after it in a launched missile swarm is probably an enemy trick that will need to be adopted.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I've had this discussion.

R.U.N. and wait for a better chance at Yamaguchi who Nagumo was stupid enough to detach with just two flattops. No shame in pulling a "Spruance".

As for the water condensers for the "R"s, that kind of comes with the platform. Should have thought about the auxiliary when those ships were pushed forward. And to be honest, what use would they be in an air sea battle at 13 m/s (25 knots) or faster?

Everyone was still expecting a carrier fight to end in a SAG fight - even as late as Midway after getting slapped about and losing 3 flattops the IJN charged off 'all Leroy Jenkins' to try and get their 2 BCs into range and 'do their best'

And had the USN had BBs at Midway I suspect they would have been expecting it to end in a SAG fight as well

In fact didn't the last great sea battle end in a very one sided SAG fight mainly fought with USN battleships every bit as old as the Rs?

And they had thought about the water problem - it had been known about long before April 42 (probably known about long before the first R was even laid down)

The force had been rushed into place and the ship in question had yet to arrive.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

I brought up Streetfighter as the origin idea. It was supposed to be a FAC using what was at the time called "network centric warfare" concepts.
It metastasized into the toothless classes of frigates we all "love" today. The clown club kept adding new promises so that Congress would fund it.

The S'aar 5 is a COTS short term fix suggestion to get back to the original concept. I would prefer something a bit more missile boat and less OPV like. As for how it works in the present day, well, the swarm of FACS needs a lot of off-launch-platform sensor help. There is no doubt that the swarm will need recon drones to see for them to point and steer them at suitable targets. There is also no doubt that a Russian solution as to the effectors, in which one is the "lead hound dog" and the others chase after it in a launched missile swarm is probably an enemy trick that will need to be adopted.

Streetfighter was arguably the original concept, but once the USN got down to nailing what they actually needed to have in a small vessel, rather than just naval college theorizing, they did not need or want a missile boat FAC. If the USN needed a missile boat, don't you think they would have piled on a missile boat module to the LCS when they piled on everything else?

If the USN needed a missile boat the Sa'ar would be a good choice, but to replace the LCS you don't want that. A missile boat does not replace the OHPs in ASW escort, does not perform MCM, and can't cheaply do OPV duties so that we don't have CG's chasing pirates in speedboats or DDGs performing fisheries patrol. You probably need at least two hulls for this, but the Navy shoved everything in one because they wanted Congress to fund it

 

[jsb]

This is why the QEs had the weird basing they did. It was Home Fleet or the Med; preferably Alexandria. With the fall of Singapore, it was No IO for You! (Pun!). Later tanker support showed up, (Thank you, Uncle.) but by then it is KGVs to the front and QEs still in the Med.

Why are the basing weird? Are they not just the less good RN ships being used in the less important (to GB) areas? (and the lack of docks for larger KVGs in Med)

1. Red stars are existent RN oil reserve stations.
2. Green squares are potential sites where added reserve stations should have been built.
3. Orange vector lines are Nagumo and Ozawa. They had a fleet train.
4. That red star with a circle is Somerville's refuel point. He had no fleet train. He had to hope tankers would be there on time to be a fuel source when he retired to that lagoon in the Maldives to refuel. He could not stay mobile at sea.
5. Somerville LOST the aircraft carrier battle.
6. Lesson learned? Aside from lousy recon due to not training replacement aircraft carrier pilots fast enough to replace killed off pre-war FAA veterans (arguably the best in the world in 1940, but by 1942 the replacements were nowhere near as good.), and relying on the RAF for anything approximating RIKKO functions, was that a fleet oiler was essential for maneuver options because WWII major fleet actions (MFAs) blow through a couple of tens of thousand tons of oil in a week and a CTF is always thirsty. Either have a reserve oil station within 1,000 nautical miles as a port refuel point or have a fleet train parked nearby so one can refuel. Somerville had neither. So when he retired to his secret base to refuel, Nagumo showed up and delivered the Easter Day Surprise.

Of course, it would have been nice to have more fuel dumps within range of Somerville’s force. But it also would have been nice for him to have 4 more carriers as well. The immediate reason he didn’t have either of those though is, to quote you:

Is this not all due to a simple decision that IO was the 4th most important sea area for GB? After the Atlantic, North Sea/Channel & Med? RN was never going to be able to match IJN if they sent the main force and RN had to fight two European powers at the same time.....

I wouldn't count on land bases remaining operational for very long in the event of a general sea fight between the US and Chinese. While China's ASBMs are overhyped in the antiship role they're perfect for suppressing American airfields on Guam and other nearby environs. It's largely the same thing the Soviets expected to be doing in the event of a hot war in Europe with their own SRBMs and MRBMs.

Why not simply use very long range aircraft rather than any street fighter? P8 or large drones could operate from a long way (even Alaska/Australia) away especially with air force KCs to help it?

 

[ArtosStark]

Is this not all due to a simple decision that IO was the 4th most important sea area for GB? After the Atlantic, North Sea/Channel & Med? RN was never going to be able to match IJN if they sent the main force and RN had to fight two European powers at the same time.....

Definitely. That was basically assumed. Though I think the RN would have matched the IJN pretty well if they could use their full force.

Regardless, the RN was never going to get enough ships to challenge the KB while fighting the war they did IOTL. The Treasury would have to be on some good stuff to allow that. But they also were not likely going to authorize fuel dumps that they would not believe would be needed for the movement of the fleet to Singapore. Granted, they could probably have gotten more if they had accepted a smaller home reserve. But if they are doing that, I would argue that a tanker and oiler fleet would be a better deal.

 

[Athelstane]

So I'm guessing you're more of a Mahan person than a Mackinder person

Alfred Thayer Mahan may be the most successful mimetic strategic weapon the U.S. Navy has ever unleashed on the world.

His book managed to thoroughly screw up German and Japanese naval strategy for decades.

 

[Athelstane]

HMS Vanguard: Don't bother building it, or working on either of the Lions for that matter. You've already got the KGVs and the modernized QEs for your battle line; what you need are more CVs to give them air cover (especially in the Med and the North Sea), over-the-horizon scouting, and over-the-horizon strike capability. And Taranto should have proved to anyone that CVs were just as deadly as BBs against major fleet units.

I do think we gotta give them credit for (finally) sidelining the Lion class.

If all they wound up with was just one super battleship to waste money and a slipway on, that puts them ahead of other 1940's naval powers I can think of!

 

[Athelstane]

Sommerville 'lost' the Carrier battle by only having 2 carriers and 100 aircraft (with a lot of Green pilots) verses 5 carriers and 350 aircraft (with lots of veterans) - not quite sure what 'he' could have done about it.

We've had a famous timeline that shows one strong possibility - probably the absolute ceiling for the RN. But it also illustrates just how handcuffed Somerville was by his asset portfolio.

 

[CalBear]

Alfred Thayer Mahan may be the most successful mimetic strategic weapon the U.S. Navy has ever unleashed on the world.

His book managed to thoroughly screw up German and Japanese naval strategy for decades.

Mahan 2 Axis 0

 

[McPherson]

Cleanup.

Hence why the boomers are always relevant in peoples thinking

a. The Boomers (actually strategic rocket forces) are there as side-rails to keep potential central conflict deterred and geopolitics scrambles contained within limits. The deterrent will not stop some kinds of madmen and regimes, unless the numb-chucks who serve the reckless have some semblance of sanity within them. One dose of Stalin was enough for the Central Committee, so when Khrushchev firewalled the conflict, he was doomed. Hence that lesson learned. There are conspiracy nuts out there, (I am not one of them.) who think Stalin was "helped" along when it looked like the Korean War was headed that way.

Well yes that is the case but it is something that can be done situationally

b. (Geo) Politics being what it ism, one has to develop technical means independent of host country basing in peacetime when practicing Mahan, or one winds up at the vagaries of "what is in it for me" and having to accept disagreeable associations with some regimes that one in a better or more just world would "quarantine" (Franco's Spain is a WWII era example, Stalin's Russia is another, In Stalin's case, the Americans were prepared to fight an air campaign from Russian territory, same as they did from the UK, but how did that basing scheme work out? NTG.)

So situationally is "unacceptable". One has to have options that one owns.

Latakia occurred at the same time as a major air battle was ongoing sucking up the attention and when the Syrian Air Force had no anti shipping capability worthy of the name, them not getting any AshM until what 2007? Your FAC has room for a MANPAD equivalent, not effective at intercepting inbounds or keeping aircraft out of their engagement envelopes. Basing close runs into the same issue as land basing aircraft you bring up and 1,000-1500 men aboard a tender is little more expendable than 5000 on a carrier

c. The air forces neutralized each other at Latakia. Similar situation is likely in the Western Pacific.
d. If the competitor was sure of his RIKKOS, he would not spend resources on sea denial rocket artillery. I take him as given. His airpower over water is NTG.
d. Down at that rung, ECCM and electronic warfare probably counts for more than any SAM, but even at that, the nature of the target brings the competitor's launch platforms down into MANPAD range and NEZs.
e. If you put 1000 men into a tender to support a FAC-ron, then you are doing it wrong. More like 250-300

Everyone was still expecting a carrier fight to end in a SAG fight - even as late as Midway after getting slapped about and losing 3 flattops the IJN charged off 'all Leroy Jenkins' to try and get their 2 BCs into range and 'do their best'

f. Lesson learned from Coral Sea? USS Yorktown. Flattops run away like scalded children who touch hot stoves when dedecked and the battleships will run with them. (Yamamoto ran at Midway.). Nagumo had not lesson learned it. Fletcher and Spruance by osmosis had. First time at bat, Somerville would have to be prescient, so I will concede he might have done the "stupid", but a better admiral would have run for it.
g. Had Nagumo "done his best" post burndown, well then that would have been an interesting death.

And had the USN had BBs at Midway I suspect they would have been expecting it to end in a SAG fight as well

h. No. Nimitz was not that stupid. He had six Standards in his lineup, ready; but chose speed and planes over guns and glory.

In fact didn't the last great sea battle end in a very one sided SAG fight mainly fought with USN battleships every bit as old as the Rs?

i. The last gunfight was a position defense across a strait fought by gunships that had been second class citizened to Monitor status. They turned in a good shoot-ex, while Coward's destroyermen sank the IJN interlopers with torpedoes. Meanwhile to their north, baby flattops screened by tin-cans turned in the critical fight against the other IJN gun club and sent them packing, What a surprise that was. It turns out that flattops and their bodyguards "could" fight fast battleships and win. It just depends on the "Samurai spirit" inside the Woolworth Carrier crew man and in the tin-can sailor. It also shows just how DEADLY destroyers could be when their effectors worked.

And they had thought about the water problem - it had been known about long before April 42 (probably known about long before the first R was even laid down)

k. I'm sure it had been, but it was not in this case.

The force had been rushed into place and the ship in question had yet to arrive.

l. Why not? Sending a fleet with a deficiency like that into the tropics is a Benny the Moose and Marshal Graziani Italian X Army, no-fresh- water-for-you kind of move. Do not make me remark about the British Pacific Fleet and its similar woes in 1944-1945.
========================================================================
Back to Streetfighter.

Streetfighter was arguably the original concept, but once the USN got down to nailing what they actually needed to have in a small vessel, rather than just naval college theorizing, they did not need or want a missile boat FAC. If the USN needed a missile boat, don't you think they would have piled on a missile boat module to the LCS when they piled on everything else?

j. They tried, but the US Army FUCKED IT UP. It was called (Get this one.) Non Line of Sight Missile. (XM501 Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System)

If the USN needed a missile boat the Sa'ar would be a good choice, but to replace the LCS you don't want that. A missile boat does not replace the OHPs in ASW escort, does not perform MCM, and can't cheaply do OPV duties so that we don't have CG's chasing pirates in speedboats or DDGs performing fisheries patrol. You probably need at least two hulls for this, but the Navy shoved everything in one because they wanted Congress to fund it

k. Is this the third or fourth time? Figure out the mission and build to it. If you want OPVs and frigates, build them. If you want a swarm of missile boats to fight in the brown water, build those. Just don't promise Congress that one hull fits all missions and can be adapted to purpose. Sea-power tools do not function that way.

Why are the basing weird? Are they not just the less good RN ships being used in the less important (to GB) areas? (and the lack of docks for larger KVGs in Med)

k. Oil first. Lack of infrastructure second. Condensers third. One cannot use ships in areas where one has not built the support facilities or adapted the ships to the weather conditions. (See my previous comment about the British Pacific Fleet disaster, when the RN tried to push its "modern ships" into an area of operations for which the Royal Navy was not technologically prepared.) Good in the North Sea is not good globally.

Is this not all due to a simple decision that IO was the 4th most important sea area for GB? After the Atlantic, North Sea/Channel & Med? RN was never going to be able to match IJN if they sent the main force and RN had to fight two European powers at the same time.....

l. That is that Corbett doing the RN's thinking. How about a little MAHAN?

Was there a viable alternate supply route to Australia .

See those red circles? THAT is what is navally imperative to Great Britain, after the North Atlantic.

Why not simply use very long range aircraft rather than any street fighter? P8 or large drones could operate from a long way (even Alaska/Australia) away especially with air force KCs to help it?

j. You can. Can you afford the cost of operating for weeks and months of a B-52 or a B-1? Missile boats float. Planes have to "fly" to stay on station and blockade.

Definitely. That was basically assumed. Though I think the RN would have matched the IJN pretty well if they could use their full force.

Regardless, the RN was never going to get enough ships to challenge the KB while fighting the war they did IOTL. The Treasury would have to be on some good stuff to allow that. But they also were not likely going to authorize fuel dumps that they would not believe would be needed for the movement of the fleet to Singapore. Granted, they could probably have gotten more if they had accepted a smaller home reserve. But if they are doing that, I would argue that a tanker and oiler fleet would be a better deal.

k. The Singapore Bastion Defense makes no sense without those fuel dumps. Yet one more reason to dump on Backhouse, Pound and Phillips; I suppose. And here I thought "Betty" Stark was the major walking naval bolo on the allied side in WW II.

Alfred Thayer Mahan may be the most successful mimetic strategic weapon the U.S. Navy has ever unleashed on the world.

His book managed to thoroughly screw up German and Japanese naval strategy for decades.

m. He was, because nobody in those clown clubs bothered to dig deep and figure what he wrote out. Except those who did and do. Like the competitor I have used in my examples. They are not stupid. They have Sun Tzu.