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Soren
with that level of arguments, what can I say!
Hopefully your imaginary captain chose Panama, crew or at least part of it would have had much better chances in US than in USSR PoW camp.
Juha
There are many small fishing ports/fishing villages etc close to Anchorage, it would not seem out of place for a whaling/fishing ship to land to get supplies. Your team could probably walk right off the dock in the middle of the night carring their gear. There would be no "passport customs control" or any guards at all in the minor ports, once the ship had landed. i would assume that you would do this in 1941 though, not mid '42.
The oil refineries would be prime targets. As I mentioned earlier, I think railway bridges would make an easy and profitable target. {No railway to Alaska BTW} If you blew the bridge just as a freight train is crossing the momentum will pull several dozen more boxcars into the river. Once you have your men cross the border a mortar team could wake up the cities by dropping rounds on port facilities, army barraks, airport, city hall, etc
It would be a PR shock but 30 people are not going to destroy a refinery - you could hurt production with enough equipment to destroy key procees equipment but contrast the damage done and repaired at Ploesti by 150-300 bomber raids.
There is something else I was thinking, suppose you dropped a few bombs on an airfield, what would be the immediate reaction? They would scramble the planes thinking that they were under attack right? So you have a couple of guys at the end of the runway with a HMG to knock the planes down before takeoff.
If we are talking about the "Mexican strategy" Then San Diego CA, San Antonio TX, El Paso TX, Tucson AZ, Brownsville Texas would be good targets. There is a Naval station in SanDiego {both a port air station}. San Antonio also has an Army Air Corps training field IIRC
Soren, end the argument about the climate temps of Alaska, because you are sadly mistaken.
The interior sections of Alaska routinely get down to -50 in the winter and is bracketed by two major mountain ranges, both far larger and more extensive than the Alps, and have massive sections of swamp, marsh and bogs, which makes summer travel very difficult.
The only part of Alaska your commando's could hope to penetrate is the Pacific coastal area's. But then, the million doallr question is, why expend do much time and effort to put together a nuisence raid of no value in a backwater part of the war. And since your U-Boat couldnt sail through the arctic to get there, then why not put you sub to better use by sinking allied ships in conjunction with the IJN?
Certainly true then and mostly true today
Juha I suggest to read abit aboút the Kara Laptev sea before you decide in your mind what is reality and what is not.
Oh and btw, we're still talking about submarines here, not merchant ships
Do I need to quote the opinion of the German Uboat commanders regarding operating under icepacks ?
There's a reason so many Uboats successfully operated near and in the Vilkitsky strait, not a single one lost to crashing into an iceberg.
As for targets why not Arvida or Alma Quebec 40%of the allied aluminium production cannot be a bad target and its down the St Lawrence river right turn up the Saguenay river and your there.
or Sudbury Ontario with 90% of WW2 nickel although it might be a little tougher for the sub
aluminium requires a large amount of electricity take out the power source and watch the ovens fill with hardened metalPb - that is a great choice - but was there any long lead time, relatively small and vulnerable process system that could realistically be taken out by a small force? I'm thinking refinery scale target complex which would be hard to destroy absent a lot of heavy bombers.
Soren, end the argument about the climate temps of Alaska, because you are sadly mistaken.
The interior sections of Alaska routinely get down to -50 in the winter and is bracketed by two major mountain ranges, both far larger and more extensive than the Alps, and have massive sections of swamp, marsh and bogs, which makes summer travel very difficult.
The only part of Alaska your commando's could hope to penetrate is the Pacific coastal area's. But then, the million doallr question is, why expend do much time and effort to put together a nuisence raid of no value in a backwater part of the war. And since your U-Boat couldnt sail through the arctic to get there, then why not put you sub to better use by sinking allied ships in conjunction with the IJN?
Anyway lets leave the Alaska mission behind for now and lets start to debate the other areas such as the Panama canal and targets in Canada.
There is something else I was thinking, suppose you dropped a few mortar bombs on an airfield, what would be the immediate reaction? They would scramble the planes thinking that they were under attack right? So you have a couple of guys at the end of the runway with a HMG to knock the planes down before takeoff.
What did you think of this? How difficult is it to bring down a fighter during take-off with an MG?
{If you had your commando team set up close to one of the Allied air bases during the night}
No chance of that little cartridge making plant in Ohio, huh? Thought 90% of all cartridges being stopped might cause alittle panic.
(going back to my crayons now)
With a protected airbase?
First off, I think this attack has to occur immediately after Pearl Harbour, by summer 1942 these commando attacks would have much less chance of success and make little difference.
In the fall of 1941 the only "protected" airbases are mainly at Pearl, Manila Panama. Nobody expects the continental US to be attacked, so land defences are basically zero.
Consider the "heavily fortified", and pre-warned base at Hawaii, the defence was very poor, with many AA guns out-of -operation due to lack of ammo etc. I cannot imagine that the continetal bases would have even 20% of the readiness of PH.