I feel like a known alternate history scenario is an early version of the Pearl Harbor / Raid on Taranto idea. The usual context this comes up in is the Royal Navy's plans to attack the High Seas Fleet while it was at anchor with Sopwith Cuckoo's launched from early aircraft carriers. However, it occurred to me that the Austro-Hungarian navy was similarly mostly lurking in Pola as a fleet-in-being, but it was within easier range of airports in Allied territory (compared Wilhelmshaven). An air attack on Pola did not have to deal with the complication of being launched from aircraft carriers. It seems like Italian bombers did attack Pola at some point, but it seems to have not resulted in any damage to the Austro-Hungarian fleet. Could things have gone differently? Could aerial bombardment raids from Italy caused meaningful detriment to the Austro-Hungarian fleet?
World War 1 air raids on the port of Pula / Pola?
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It could be done easily enough. By 1915 the RN had a number of seaplane carriers in service each operating 2 to 4 Short 184 torpedo bombers. They could, if they wanted have massed those in the Mediterranean Fleet in the Adriatic to launch an attack on the A-H fleet in port. The impact would be more psychological than military as the 14" torpedoes they carried didn't have much punch and the Battleships are unlikely to be sunk.
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An aerial torpedo attack on the German fleet had first been suggested by Lt. Commander de Courcy Ireland in December 1915. Unfortunately, Ireland was killed in February 1916 while testing an experimental airship, along with Wing Commander N.F Usborne, an airship pioneer.
After his death, the idea continued to be pushed forward by a number of officers, in particular Murray Sueter, former head of the RNAS under Churchill. Sueter put forward a number of proposals for torpedo attacks on Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Pola. Unfortunately, the technology was not yet available and the leadership was not totally supportive. Arthur Balfour's Ministry suspected Sueter (not entirely without cause) of being a “unified Airforce fifth columnist” when the Admiralty was trying to integrate the RNAS more closely into the Navy. While he was in charge of Supply however, Sueter, along with Arthur Longmore, worked with Sopwith to begin the development of a torpedo bomber. This came about with the Sopwith T.1 in Summer 1917. However, by that point aircraft procurement had been moved to the Ministry of Supply and Sueter, out of a job, had been transferred to Taranto to set up a seaplane base. He did keep working to get enough RNAS assets in theatre to use in torpedo or bombing strikes against Pola and Fiume but was never able to get enough.
In general, a torpedo strike on a harbour first need to have the assets in place. You need to have aircraft that can carry an 18” or 21” torpedo, and enough of them to launch a significant strike. Either Ireland surviving or Sueter being less on the outs with the Balfour/Jackson administration might get you that before wars end. But then you also need someone high up to push the idea. For Wilhelmshaven that was Beatty. I am not sure who that would be for Pola.
On the technical side, to carry the 1000 lbs of torpedo, you probably need a reliable engine of at least 200 hp. And you need to have them in large enough numbers to outfit a significant strike force. The best options are probably the Hispano-Souza or the RR Eagle. The problem is that these are hard to source in volume and widely sought after. A number of British aircraft were designed around either one but were then built around Arab Sunbeams or similar. The Cuckoo itself had this issue. Unreliability of the Sunbeam was a major reason why they were delayed past the end of the war.
So, you are probably waiting until at least 1917, but more likely 1918 until you have enough engines and airframes of high enough power. Could be pretty tight to get it done before the end of the war.
After his death, the idea continued to be pushed forward by a number of officers, in particular Murray Sueter, former head of the RNAS under Churchill. Sueter put forward a number of proposals for torpedo attacks on Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Pola. Unfortunately, the technology was not yet available and the leadership was not totally supportive. Arthur Balfour's Ministry suspected Sueter (not entirely without cause) of being a “unified Airforce fifth columnist” when the Admiralty was trying to integrate the RNAS more closely into the Navy. While he was in charge of Supply however, Sueter, along with Arthur Longmore, worked with Sopwith to begin the development of a torpedo bomber. This came about with the Sopwith T.1 in Summer 1917. However, by that point aircraft procurement had been moved to the Ministry of Supply and Sueter, out of a job, had been transferred to Taranto to set up a seaplane base. He did keep working to get enough RNAS assets in theatre to use in torpedo or bombing strikes against Pola and Fiume but was never able to get enough.
In general, a torpedo strike on a harbour first need to have the assets in place. You need to have aircraft that can carry an 18” or 21” torpedo, and enough of them to launch a significant strike. Either Ireland surviving or Sueter being less on the outs with the Balfour/Jackson administration might get you that before wars end. But then you also need someone high up to push the idea. For Wilhelmshaven that was Beatty. I am not sure who that would be for Pola.
On the technical side, to carry the 1000 lbs of torpedo, you probably need a reliable engine of at least 200 hp. And you need to have them in large enough numbers to outfit a significant strike force. The best options are probably the Hispano-Souza or the RR Eagle. The problem is that these are hard to source in volume and widely sought after. A number of British aircraft were designed around either one but were then built around Arab Sunbeams or similar. The Cuckoo itself had this issue. Unreliability of the Sunbeam was a major reason why they were delayed past the end of the war.
So, you are probably waiting until at least 1917, but more likely 1918 until you have enough engines and airframes of high enough power. Could be pretty tight to get it done before the end of the war.
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Do you think the choice of aerial torpedoes versus bombs would have been important? I mean, Billy Mitchell's demonstration with Ostfriesland showed a stationary battleship of the same vintage could be sunk by bombs alone (although all the usual caveats about how SMS Tegetthoff et al. would have been shooting back and had damage control parties apply). I also am under the impression that dreadnoughts of the era had armor layouts that maximized protection from threats horizontally, and were pretty poorly protected from "plunging fire" and air-dropped bombs alike (although I confess total ignorance of the Tegetthoff class specifics). So maybe bombs would have been threateningly effective as well?
Also, as I'm typing this out, it occurs to me that German had fair numbers of Gotha bombers with bomb load capacities of greater than 500kg capacity by 1917. Instead of trying long range unescorted bombing of London, I wonder if German could have flown Gotha bombers out of occupied Albania to conduct literal a literal Taranto raid on the Italian fleet - I think it might actually be close enough for close fighter escorts for the bombers, something that wasn't possible when bombing England.
The Austro-Hungarian Navy had pretty good observation capabilities and command and control capabilities. They may not have known the location of every torpedo boat, but a floatilla of Seaplane tenders would be hard to miss. Even if not attacked on route, I'd expect fighters would be in the air and AAA manned at minimum.
I suspect that lighter units are more likely to be targeted in any ww1 torpedo attack. I don't that even the most optimistic air planner during ww1 thought that targeting battleships would do decisive damage with a 14 inch torpedo and the Battleships in port.
The point of attacking Pola instead of Wilhelmshaven would be that Pola would have been in range of land-based bombers flying from Northern Italy, so that no seaplane tenders or aircraft carriers are needed. The Handley Page O/100 was available in numbers to the RNAS from early 1917, and could carry well over 1000 lbs of bombs. I'm skeptical the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine would be well prepared if attacked: AIUI, intercepting incoming bombers with CAP fighter aircraft was a major tactical problem well into World War Two until the development of effective radar systems. I also think when it comes to effective AAA, you need high-angle high-velocity guns (something there was very little of on WW1 dreadnoughts) and effective fire control systems to direct them (which didn't exist at all). I feel like the barriers to a successful air attack on Pola are mostly institutional (getting Allied commanders to allocate enough Handley Page Os to the mission) and training/experience related (targets as "small" as battleships were reasonably hard to hit), rather than anything related to defensive capabilities of the target.
Bishop’s bombers only managed to sink the Ostfriedland with 2000 lb bomb near misses. The 1000 lb bomb were far from fatal even with no damage control crews. So in order to actually sink ships you are looking at a two or four engined bomber. Austria-Hungary didn’t have a bomber with that load. Germany, France, Italy and Britain all had a few that could carry one such bomb.
The Freidrichshafen G.III of early 1917 could carry a 1000 kg (2200 lb) bomb but only with a very short operational range. In practice 600 kg (1320 lbs) was as high as they went. The G.IV could maybe go a little further but only a few arrived before the end of the war. None of the Gotha Models could carry that much (though I think they managed 1300-1500 lbs which might be enough). The Zeppelin-Staaken’s could, but there were only ever about 21 of these. Some of the other Giant bomber prototypes could as well, but most had only one or two examples built.
France had the Morane-Salnier S of 1916 which could apparently carry 1200 kg, though I don’t know how far. Italy has the Caproni.4 of early 1918. Britain had the O/400, the V/1500 and the Vickers Vimy, though the last two did not really reach service before the war ended.
These could potentially have brought a destructive bomb load against a battleship but it would limit them to a single drop per plane.
In 1917 and 1918 RNAS Dunkirk (with O/400’s, DH-4’s and DH-9s) dropped over 500 tons of bombs on Zeebruge, Bruges and Ostend but only damaged 3 submarines. To be fair they were mostly aiming at infrastructure and tended to carry numerous smaller bombs rather than 1-2000 lbers. But that probably reflects the best use of bombers against a port anyway.
So it could be done but I would not expect results to be impressive. You are probably better trying to speed up torpedo carrying aircraft.
Blucher kept sailing after being hit with torpedos. What did her in was fire reaching a magazine. This was pairtially from the torpedoes but also from the gun fire she had sustained from shore batteries on the way in.
What’s more, those torpedoes had 100 kg (220 lbs) of TNT in their heads. The British 14” torpedo of WW1 had 115 lbs of Amatol as of 1916.
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Another poster on the thread suggested the RN Med. fleet's seaplane tenders could have easily done it. Should have replied to them specifically.
Sinking the Ostfriesland used 2,000lb bombs, IIRR the largest available for the RFC in WW1 were 400, with the 112lb type being the most commonly used.
By 1918 they had the 1650 lb SN bomb and the 230 lb bomb had become the standard. But the point does still somewhat stand.
True, though few of the former, and the 550lb. Of course all had did rates of >50%.
Is it known how big the bombs which sank HMS Iron Duke in Scapa Flow were? USS Nevada was taken from a deemed seaworthy state to apparently in need of grounding by 500lb bombs at Pearl Harbor.
In case of such an attack actually occuring, just how well would torpedoes perform? I mean, just how many will manage to survive the drop, run properly and explode, is there any information on that?
Pula, OTL, has suffered numerous bombings by the Italians. The first took place on 3, 4 and 9 August 1917, when 36 Italian bombing Caproni, belonging to the Regia Marina, carrying on board a total of 42 260 mm and 146 162 mm grenades, destroyed the main port infrastructures of the city and they damaged the arsenal: Gabriele D'Annunzio also took part in those bombings, aboard the Ca 2378 aircraft belonging to the 8th squadron, nicknamed "the ace of spades". Now the Caproni were not equipped to launch torpedoes. Overall, however, the squadrons of torpedo bombers and hydro-fighters, armed with the Macchi planes, used in subsequent assaults, while not damaging the Austro-Hungarian battleships, obtained good results against light ships. Also because Thaon di Ravel relied much more on MAS than on planes to damage enemy battleships (and the facts, at least for the time proved him right)