Wi The UK had Not lost any Carriers by Dec 1941

How much Diffrence would it had made for the Royal navy if the had not lost a carrier to subs or surface action like they actuly did .This would give the UK an extra 3 Carriers and a CVE .
Lets also say that they had there Baraqcuda and firefly aircraft in service by nov 1941 .

The original Firefly still would not have changed any results as it would not have been effective against Zeroes.
 
And when KB reached the IO Sommerville thought the moment of danger had passed and had dispersed his fleet, unknowingly sending a CVL and two CA into harms way.


Markus,

Sorry, but no.

Somerville was aware of the KB's presence in the IO as early as March 31st, the day that force entered the IO, thanks to SIGINT. He expected Ceylon to be attacked within the next 48 hours and thus withdrew to the Maldives in the hopes he could pull off the night attack we've been discussing. The IJN didn't follow Somerville's predictions however and spent the next two days shooting up everything that floated in the Bay of Bengal instead.

When Ceylon wasn't attacked, Somerville detached Hermes with orders to return to Trincomalee for repairs. He compounded that error by sending along two heavy cruisers as an escort.

On April 4th, the KB was spotted by a flying boat a few hundred miles south of Ceylon. That aircraft got it's report off before being shot down. The next day, and depsite ample warnings, the KB struck Columbo catching the RAF on the ground in part because British radars weren't manned on Sundays. On the same day, the KB spotted and sank the two heavy cruisers I mentioned earlier a few hundred mile southwest of Ceylon.

Five days later on the 9th and completely unmolested by RN hiding in the Maldives during the intervening time, the KB hit Ceylon again. This time, they attacked from the north and the British somewhat heeded the various warnings they received. Hermes left the harbor at Trincomalee before the strike, but chose to attempt to return too soon and sunk by the second wave of attackers.

After this attack, Somerville quit the Maldives and withdrew to Bombay.

The RN plan was to hit the KB with a night torpedo attack launched from both carriers and shore bases. However, over the course of 10 days and despite SIGINT, the RN never found the KB in time to do so. The only attack made on the KB was a completely ineffectual RAF bomber strike on the 9th.

No, but if the IJN has the wrong idea where to look for the RN, they won´t find her, they didn´t in OTL and they certainly treid to.

The IJN counted on catching the RN in or off Ceylon and inflicting a Pearl-level ass kicking on them. While bugging out for the Maldives saved Somerville's fleet from destruction, it did not put that fleet in any position to attack the KB. As illustrated by their woefully pathetic actions and reactions during the two KB strikes on Ceylon, British C3I simply wasn't up to the tasks forced upon it.


Bill
 
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There was only one operational radar on Ceylon which was operational during the attacks. It was located at Trincomalee and was working during the second attack. There was no operational radar coverage at Colombo. There were additional radar units on the island which had not been set up yet.
 
There was only one operational radar on Ceylon which was operational during the attacks. It was located at Trincomalee and was working during the second attack.


Leo,

Yes, it was working during the attack on the 9th. It's one of the reasons why Hermes was able to leave the harbor before the first wave arrived.

However, during the first attack on Easter the 5th, it was shut down because it was Sunday. Shut down despite the example of the Battle of Britain, despite the example of Pearl, despite the example of Malaya, and despite the fact that the British knew the Kido Butai were in the Indian Ocean and had withdrawn most of the fleet to the Maldives.

It was almost as if the British on Ceylon still didn't quite grasp they were at war in April of 1942 four months after the initial Japanese attacks.

That's what I was referring to when I mentioned Britain's C3I problems.


Bill
 
The radar was on the wrong side of the island and wouldn't have mattered at the time. The radar sets remaining in storage awaiting installation would have meant the real difference. Well, not a real difference if they weren't turned on. The fact remains that Hurricanes and Fulmars were not up to the task even with warning. Early Fireflies were not as good as Hurricanes in fighter vs fighter and at this stage, using current tactics, tropicalized Spitfire V/Seafire would not have shown superiority over the Type 00.
 
67th,

And in 1941 the USN wasn't flying mainly biplanes, your point being?


Bill

His point is that the RN and the USN were at equal levels aircraft wise in 1939, but that because of the Battle of Britain and the rest of the European War, aircraft priorities got switched away from naval aircraft. Since the US wasn't at war, it was able to get rid of the biplanes by '41. He is saying that had Britain not been fighting the European War, the RN would not have had biplanes in '41.
 
Naval aircraft for the FAA, and coincidentally Coastal Command aircraft for the RAF had no priority EVER until 1943. Increasing the number of decks in the RN would not have had a great effect without the pointed end of the stick, proper aircraft. Had the RN put theoretical Corsairs on the decks in 1941, things would be better. Had the Admiralty given one thought to development of a correct naval doctrine for the correct use of naval air, that might have helped as well. Had aircraft carrier captains been ex-aviators or at least interested in naval air,better. Torpex torpedo explosive,better. Sink that damn Bismarck. Instead, they created a bunch of dead heroes. Sorry for the rant. I'm just too familiar with the subject.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Stevep,

I'd say it was accurate. Compare and contrast the IJN's record in night fighting with the RN's record in the same. One the one hand we've got the various one-sided beat downs issued by Japan during the Solomons campaign, on the other we've the confused battle off Cape Matapan.

Sure, the RM never sortied again after Matapan and Vittorio Veneto was badly damaged, but the Italian fleet essentially escaped Cunningham's forces due to poor dispositions, communications, and other C3I factors on the part of the British.

Both the IJN and the RN trained for night actions, but only the IJN produced significant results in night actions.



Sorry, poor composition on my part. I meant to write how many Swordfish would find the IJN force and not how many torpedo hits they could inflict.

During Matapan, the only night battle against a large enemy force in which a RN carrier launched, the numbers of FAA aircraft which attacked the Italian fleet were laughable by Pacific standards. For example, the third strike against Iachino's fleet consisted of all of 8 aircraft from Illustrious and all of two from airfields on Crete, not all of which even found their targets despite radar. Furthermore, the damage inflicted by Cunningham's three fleabite strikes did not amount to much. The Italian fleet and the damaged Vittorio Veneto still escaped. In fact, only one ship hit by FAA air attacks was caught, the Pola, and all the other Italian losses during the battle were a result of the RN gunline catching her and the RM vessels attempting to assist her.

I don't think a RN gunline in the Indian Ocean in April of '42 will have the chance of encountering damaged IJN vessels, do you?

Given a better force in the IJN and more sea room in which to work, I do not think the FAA will have necessarily produce any better results. Or any real results at all for that matter. I don't think there will be any significant IJN casualties or damage as result of these strikes. I also think the result of additional RN carriers in the IO will be a more concerted effort by the IJN to hunt them down.


Bill

I have a very different view of this, but after all, that is what we are here for :)

The IJN fought some lucky night actions early in the war in relatively confined waters and where the enemy was most helpful by not yet having a grasp of night fighting. The IJN approach to night fighting was the classical - i.e. stay very tight and hope your control thus is better than that of the (overly self-confident technology focussed) enemy. Weapon systems like the Long Lance had good effect, when not yet recognised by the enemy and in confined waters. After that the LL showed remarkably lacklustre results.

In contrast the RN (incl. FAA) all through the war fought at low visibility with good results and in practically all combat forms and in small and big actions. A good insight into this is given by Charles Lamb's "War In A Stringbag" (IIRC mentioned earlier in this thread). That the Med. and Atlantic missed big naval actions like those of the Pacific is not derogatory to the RN's night tactics, and all the smaller action's combined output indeed were significant, probably more than any or all of the big Pacific actions.

But if pointing to those actions involving capital ships, then Taranto was executed at night, Matapan is mentioned, much of the Bismarck (air attack and the destroyer attack) action was at night or very reduced visibility, Barents Sea (vs. Lützow and Hipper) and not at least North Cape vs. Scharnhorst was in darkness and in horrible weather conditions in general. The entire Battle of the Atlantic, was for a dominant part fought in low visibility.

All in all I would rate RN's night fighting considerably above that of IJN. It is also remarkable, that where USN only got hold of its night fighting when it fully understood the use of radar (and got reliable radar sets) the RN started with classical tactics (stay tight and keep it simple) and gradually added the new technology. By April 1942 airborne radar was available to Somerville, much increasing the chance of locating the exact position of the target, but the strike itself would be executed with flares being dropped behind the targets to contrast them against the sky seen from the attackers.

How that would have performed if given the chance in the IO we will never know. But judged from actions elsewhere where FAA dropped torpedoes at night they would have had a good chance of scoring hits, even if strikes would be relatively small. Any IJN ship hit in the IO is likely to mean that ship out of action for the next crucial months.

I agree with most of what has been said here about how ill conducted the British campaign in the Far East was in 1942 in most aspects, but I don't think that applies to Somerville's handling of his fleet. He acted from what he knew, seeing a small window of opportunity, and had the IJN followed the intercepted schedules - who knows? When that window closed he wisely withdrew as it was obvious that the IJN for now couldn't operate in the IO much longer. The invasion of Madagascar at least showed some British vitality, and closed a window of opportunity for the IJN to more permanently operate in the western IO. But that the British could land several Brigades on Madagascar in early 42 also shows the potential for IO ATLs around this time.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
The IJN raids in the Indian Ocean were a bit overestimated in importance, since the Japanese had no intention to invade too far away area's of this ocean. It wanted the resources of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which was already a known fact by Allied Command before the war actually broke out. The IJN raids in the Indian Ocean were more a diversion to inflict camage to the Allied fighting capacity, rather than anything else. They had nothing to do with gaining controll of the sea, in a more classical way of thinking. Sommerville must have known, or at least suspected something like this, since her only temporarily withdrew and force the enemy to make longer journey's to tackle him, costing much more resources of the japanese, than they were willing to pay for (especially fuel).

All Allied command already were aware of the Japanese intentions of what was to be conquered and where the fleet would concentrate its forces. They knew that the Japanese were focussed on the USA in the Pacific Basin, so the bulk of the IJN would be there to counter possible USN attacks, leaving only minor forces to stay more or less permanently in the Dutch East Indies and in the Indian Ocean area, primarily for local support. The attack on Pearl Harbor was considered to be a temporary Japanese move, to force the USN Pacific Fleet for a certain period out of the Pacific, before the US Industrial might could come into play.
 
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