WI: Canada helps in 1942

I was watching a show recently that stated the US did not engage in convoy strategies for a significant amount of time after U-boats began to attack their shipping. The Canadians meanwhile carried out convoys in the area without losses, and even after the US began the convoy system the Canadians provide a significant amount of support.

So I was wonder, what if, seeing the loss of ressources these attacks on US shipping was inducing on Canada and Britain, the Canadians decided to provide convoys for what American ships they could until the US realised the use of convoys?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Double-sided blade here: Canada sends ships to help Convoys, without naming names I think the butterflies might go either way, to hinder the war effort by taking the convoy from one supply line to another leading to the loss of X-material rather than Y material; On the other hand maybe Y-material is more needed than X-material so it could help.

Kinda broad subject we speak of in this thread, how to narrow it down?
 
I was watching a show recently that stated the US did not engage in convoy strategies for a significant amount of time after U-boats began to attack their shipping. The Canadians meanwhile carried out convoys in the area without losses, and even after the US began the convoy system the Canadians provide a significant amount of support.

So I was wonder, what if, seeing the loss of ressources these attacks on US shipping was inducing on Canada and Britain, the Canadians decided to provide convoys for what American ships they could until the US realised the use of convoys?

You're assuming the USN would listen. Which they probably wouldnt, so it would have no effect.

The US had been told quite specifically by the RN and the RCN that their ideas for ship protection were unworkable and had been proved to be unworkable, but they refused to listen (after all, what do navies that have been fighting the U-boats for 3 years know....)

The RN and RCN did lend ships, but the issue here is getting the USN to actually listen to someone else (something they were particularly bad at at this time - indeed, they refused to listen to THEMSELVES - hence the great torpedo fiasco...).
 
You're assuming the USN would listen. Which they probably wouldnt, so it would have no effect.

The US had been told quite specifically by the RN and the RCN that their ideas for ship protection were unworkable and had been proved to be unworkable, but they refused to listen (after all, what do navies that have been fighting the U-boats for 3 years know....)

The RN and RCN did lend ships, but the issue here is getting the USN to actually listen to someone else (something they were particularly bad at at this time - indeed, they refused to listen to THEMSELVES - hence the great torpedo fiasco...).

Ernest J. King chokes to death on his morning Cheerios (TM)...
 
I was watching a show recently...


Ahhh... The Hitler... I mean the "History" Channel strikes again... Did they run out of shows about ghosts? :rolleyes:


... the Canadians decided to provide convoys...

With what? What orifice is Canada going to pull the required escorts out of? Where will they be based? How will they be fueled or supplied or manned?

... for what American ships they could until the US realised the use of convoys?

For Christ's sake, the US knew convoys were needed. They'd been part of a convoy effort in WW1 after all. What happened was that the US lacked the organizational unity and, above all, the escorts needed for a coastal convoy system.

Clay Blair and many other historians have disproved and otherwise explained the flaws in this "Hurr Durr King Was A Dope Herp Derp" nonsense since 1945 yet people keep repeating it. King didn't have the types of escorts he knew would be needed, King didn't have the numbers of escorts he knew would be needed, King didn't have organizational control over USAAF maritime patrols, King didn't have organizational control over the USCG, King couldn't order cities to blackout, King couldn't even order "interstate" merchant ships into convoy, and King was ordered by his political superiors to provide escorts for priority missions out of his limited pool of ships yet the Happy Time was all King's and the USN's fault?

Sure, whatever you need to believe. :rolleyes:

Here's an example of what the Hitler Channel didn't tell you. King chaired a late 1930s ASW commission which recommended that a USN version of the then current USCG patrol cutter be built for convoy escorts. Congress balked at providing the money the militarized cutter program required and FDR thought his beloved sub-chasers could get the job done, so tiny, low endurance, barely armed sub chasers it was.

So, when 1942 rolled around and, among many other things, King didn't have the types and kinds of escorts he had said were necessary years before and the u-boats had a field day off the East Coast, it was all King's fault. Right?

King was a lot of things, a rat bastard, a serial drunk, and a reflexive US Army-phobe and Anglophobe, but he wasn't fucking stupid.
 
They think they need early in the war to stop the U-boats are light aircraft carriers! If the USN or RN toke a good look at their young officers who where doing great thing with ASW aircraft and tactics you would have never had the black gap and no U-boat happy times.
 
Ahhh... The Hitler... I mean the "History" Channel strikes again... Did they run out of shows about ghosts? :rolleyes:
Well it was the Canadian subset of History Television which has a lot more WWI stuff.:p

With what? What orifice is Canada going to pull the required escorts out of? Where will they be based? How will they be fueled or supplied or manned?

Perhaps using some of the ships they had going down to the Caribbean through the exact same stretch of water?

Calm down. Just breath.
 
Well it was the Canadian subset of History Television which has a lot more WWI stuff.:p


Same shit, different label.

Perhaps using some of the ships they had going down to the Caribbean through the exact same stretch of water?

How many round trips occurred?

Also, convoys require merchant ships and King/USN didn't yet have the authority to order all merchant shipping into convoys. Crossing the Altantic, yes. "Coastal" traffic, no.

Calm down. Just breath.

I'd rather just think instead and not repeat fallacies. :)
 
The probolem would lie with Admiral King and if he had been inclined to listen there would be no problem and no need for help from the Canadians
 

Markus

Banned
King was a lot of things, a rat bastard, a serial drunk, and a reflexive US Army-phobe and Anglophobe, but he wasn't fucking stupid.


Ok, but someone in the USN had screwed up. IIRC the ships for hunter-killer groups were available and even the sub chasrers were good enough for costal convoys. So no reson not to introduce the "bucket brigade" system right way. Under this system the merchants sailed alone but stayed close to the shore and spend the nights in protected anchorages. Since the subs hunted only at night the sinking went down dramatically.
 
Ok, but someone in the USN had screwed up.


Do tell.

IIRC the ships for hunter-killer groups were available...

You recall incorrectly. Blair has gone as far to parse through the wartime TROMs for the escort assets available. Special merchant convoys and covering the movement of capital ships used up nearly all of the ship time available.

When the escorts were available, they were only available for short periods of time. That meant they could be used for quick sweeps and not for long convoys.

... and even the sub chasrers were good enough for costal convoys.

No they weren't, they were poor sea boats and didn't carry enough weapons, and King didn't yet have the authority to order civilian ships into convoys either.

So no reson not to introduce the "bucket brigade" system right way. Under this system the merchants sailed alone but stayed close to the shore and spend the nights in protected anchorages.

Gee, guess what King and USN tried to do given their limited assets and US' overall organizational faults? Have ships travel during the day between protective anchorages. Worked pretty well, didn't it?

Along with lacking the tools to do the job, King and USN also lacked an overall authority for ASW. The problem was both in the "hardware" and "software". Responsibility for ASW was split between various parts of the War and Navy Departments and only coordinated at the highest level. The later US strategic nuclear triad was a copy of this earlier strategic "triad". The US Army ran the coastal forts, USAAF had responsibility for most maritime air recon patrols, USCG maintained harbors and net defenses, and USN took care of what was left.

In 1942 there was no US version of Britain's Coastal Command to provide close, constant, coordination of all the various organizations involved in the ASW effort. Despite King's constant recommendations that something similar be set up, the War Department and various politicians had put up roadblocks thanks to the constant War/Navy pissing match over budgets, missions, and prestige. It took the shock of the Happy Time to break down all the institutional barriers and turn 10th Fleet into the US version of Coastal Command.

So the US didn't have the proper tools or the organization to use what tools it did have effectively and all of that was King's fault. :rolleyes:
 
No they weren't, they were poor sea boats and didn't carry enough weapons

True. Didn't the subchasers score only one confirmed kill in the entire war? That's a pretty poor return for building nearly 1,000 craft of 200,000 tons displacement.
 
Even if the US did the best they could, it still wasn't all that great. My idea still stands that Canada could have lent ships to help in early 1942, like they ended up doing when the US finally was able to implement convoys. I'm more interested in what that would do than the reason why the US didn't do the thing that they didn't do and that let this situation for Canada to move in and help be possible.
 
My idea still stands that Canada could have lent ships...


If there aren't any coastal convoys and, for the third time neither King or anyone else yet had the authority to force coastal traffic into convoys, just what are these allegedly available escorts going to do?

Given the weapons and tactics of the time, more hunter killer groups aren't gong to work. Sanitizing safe routes isn't going to work either. What are they going to do?

... like they ended up doing when the US finally was able to implement convoys.

And what did the RCN do then? They didn't escort US coastal convoys because they already were a very skilled, very busy, and very important part of a larger convoy system, a system that US coastal convoys simply plugged into when they were able. Just because those RCN escorts existed, it doesn't mean that they were readily available to work within a US coastal convoy system.

A convoy system, I'll point out again, that no one yet had the authority to create.

The trouble here is that too many of us blithely assuming that "Toys Trump All". If certain weapons somehow become available than the people will automatically be able to use them correctly. There's never a learning curve, never any hiccups, never any need for organizational changes to be made. All you need to do is hand Napoleon some Panthers and he'll become Guderian, right?
 
If you're talking about the four part series on the Battle of the Atlantic that aired over Rememberance Day, then I would take portions of it with a large grain of salt. It was more docu-drama than documentary and was way over-dramatized.

Plus I never understood the need to have the person reading from Doenitz's memoir's speak with a German accent. Did the producers think that if the person had a British accent then the audience would think that Doenitz was British? Of course with the education system these days.......
 
The other issue, that I don't believe has been raised, is what would the RCN escort those hypothetical/non-existent convoys WITH? Had the build up of corvettes reached the point where the RCN could spare any for the US coast, yet?

I know that Canada entered the war from a standing start, with small army and small navy, and massively ramped up over the course of the war. Certainly by the end of the war, Canada had buckets of corvettes - but Canada built corvettes early on 'cause we couldn't possibly build enough frigates or destroyers anything like fast enough.
 
The other issue, that I don't believe has been raised, is what would the RCN escort those hypothetical/non-existent convoys WITH? Had the build up of corvettes reached the point where the RCN could spare any for the US coast, yet?

Actually, Don Lardo addressed this point above.

Blair has gone as far to parse through the wartime TROMs for the escort assets available. Special merchant convoys and covering the movement of capital ships used up nearly all of the ship time available.

When the escorts were available, they were only available for short periods of time. That meant they could be used for quick sweeps and not for long convoys.

So, no, the Canadians didn't have escorts to spare. The Allies could only have provided escorts for coastal convoys by ripping them off trans-Atlantic convoys or leaving capital ships unescorted.

If Adm. King had been given broader authority (seem unlikely, but I suppose it was possible), he could have organized unescorted coastal convoys. That MIGHT have helped, IF he could have done it, and it would CERTAINLY have decreased the efficiency of the coastal trade.
 
Actually, Don Lardo addressed this point above.



So, no, the Canadians didn't have escorts to spare. The Allies could only have provided escorts for coastal convoys by ripping them off trans-Atlantic convoys or leaving capital ships unescorted.

If Adm. King had been given broader authority (seem unlikely, but I suppose it was possible), he could have organized unescorted coastal convoys. That MIGHT have helped, IF he could have done it, and it would CERTAINLY have decreased the efficiency of the coastal trade.
Ah. Thanks. I thought he was addressing US escorts, I don't know why.
 
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