Greatest disaster for Royal Navy

[GrauGeist]

What good would a Battleship have been at Midway or Coral Sea?

Aside from being a fat target, their air defenses had not reached their potential at that point in time, so they would not be all that effective as an AA platform for fleet protection.

 

[pinehilljoe]

Its speculation on the role PoW and Repulse may have had in 1942 had Force Z not been attacked. I can see them as a fleet in being in the first half of '42, tying up IJN forces in South East Asia. During the Guadalcanal Campaign, I don't think they would have been committed to Iron Bottom Sound in August and been part of Savo Island, but instead used as part of the carrier escort. Later they may have been committed with Lee's Task Force.

What I find more plausible is Force Z being sent to the Mediterranean after the Dec '41 Alexandria Raid, offsetting the loss of QE and Valiant. All pure conjecture.

 

[The Basket]

Just coz the Yamato didn't come over the Horizon in a gun battle doesn't mean you plan for the best.

The Doolittle Raid could have done with an escort for sure.

I would do more research about escort missions but my Internet is blocking me so will have to wait until I can turn off the kid filter.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Doolittle raid itself encountered no enemy aircraft, only light AA.

As far as the Naval force goes, there were four cruisers and eight destroyers escorting the two carriers.

 

[Shortround6]

The Repulse, as she existed in Nov/dec of 1941 was a casualty looking for a place to happen in a war with the Japanese.

Her AA battery was somewhat below a US cruiser and I am talking about the ones with eight 5in/25s. so she is more a liability than an asset as a Carrier escort.

 

[The Basket]

There were no battleship escort with the Doolittle Raid as there was no USN battle ship at the time fast enough.

One can say that it wasn't required. But had Yamato and a couple of Kongos shown up then it could have been nasty.

I ain't sayin that Force Z was a war winner but it offered a proven capability which the USN lacked early doors in terms of fast battleships.

Much of warfare hinges on what didn't happen as much as what did.

At the time of the Doolittle Raid, the Kido Butai was coming back from the Indian Ocean raids so whether this was deliberate time chosen I'm not sure.

 

[Shortround6]

One Repulse against two or more Kongos (forget about the Yamato) would have more than likely been game over for the Repulse. 6 guns against 16 guns. The British 15in was a good gun but it wasn't that good.
Repulse was good for 30.5knots in 1939 and not long out of dock. In the Spring/Summer of 1942 she would have been bog slow unless dry docked and bottom scraped. This had probably been done several times since her minor refit in 1939 (?) but marine growth is 2-3 times more rapid in tropical waters. British antifouling paint wasn't as good as the American anti fouling paint.

 

[WARSPITER]

A lot of people died in the Middle East campaign in ww1. And today in Syria and Iraq. So stopping Goeben would have prevented All that. So not just a disaster for the Royal Navy but for the world.

Goeben escaping to the Ottomans and then attacking Russian coastal installations on the Black Sea under the Ottoman flag certainly caused war between Russia and
the Ottomans but I cannot see why that correlates to current events in Syria, Iraq, or even Iran.

 

[GrauGeist]

There were no battleship escort with the Doolittle Raid as there was no USN battle ship at the time fast enough.

By the time of the Doolittle Raid (1942)

The USN had the North Carolina (BB-55) in service April 1941 - max. speed 27 knots, Washington (BB-56) in service May 1941 - max. speed 27 knots and in Spring 1942, the South Dakota (BB-57) entered service - max. speed 27.5 knots.

Not as fast as the cruisers or carriers, but certainly faster (or as fast as) than most BBs of the day

 

[The Basket]

Not saying that PoW and Repulse were God tier weapons but they did offer capabilities that then current USN didn't have.

Nagato was too slow so it's Kongos and Yamato. Not saying Repulse could have taken on Yamato but a Kongo is fair enough plus of course carrier escort means carrier dive bombers. So it's not all 1v1.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire was a result of ww1 and so the creation of the modern middle East. How long the Ottoman Empire would have survived is another matter without ww1 is a great dunno.

 

[The Basket]

North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941 for sure. But when was she in the Pacific? The vibration problem for both her and Washington which limited her speed made her a non starter and that had to be fixed or bodged before she saw combat.

 

[WARSPITER]

Not saying that PoW and Repulse were God tier weapons but they did offer capabilities that then current USN didn't have.

Nagato was too slow so it's Kongos and Yamato. Not saying Repulse could have taken on Yamato but a Kongo is fair enough plus of course carrier escort means carrier dive bombers. So it's not all 1v1.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire was a result of ww1 and so the creation of the modern middle East. How long the Ottoman Empire would have survived is another matter without ww1 is a great dunno.

Still not something the Royal Navy is responsible for. It is equally as easy to say that the Royal Navy's task in all that was to stop the German cruisers attacking French troop convoys
from North Africa - which they achieved by chasing the Germans away to the Eastern Mediterranean. It then follows that the current state of the Middle East becomes the result of
Germany's actions.

 

[The Basket]

That depends on whether Goeben was the only reason for the Ottoman Empire joining the war. Or a minor factor.

If Goeben was the reason Ottomans joined in ww1 then it's escape can be classed as a disaster as it meant all them deaths could have been avoided. The break up of the Ottoman Empire created modern states like Syria and Iraq so again cause and effect.

Same as saying had the RN had a over powered fleet in the Far East in 1939 then the Japanese would have stayed in there bed. Dunno if that's the case but alleged weakness on the UK part was a good reason to go south.

I am not blaming RN for Syria today but the domino was pushed in 1914 and here we are today.

 

[Peter Gunn]

*SNIP*

The Royal Navy does not run away.

Paging Admiral Troubridge...






Although in all fairness, his was one hell of a tough decision.

 

[Shortround6]

Paging Admiral Troubridge...
Although in all fairness, his was one hell of a tough decision.

Very true, he had unclear and conflicting orders.
One was not to engage superior forces.

It was as a result of his court martial that the British really adopted the don't run away unofficial policy.

 

[The Basket]

Odd that Troubridge was given the elbow because he didn't engage a modern German battle cruiser so he can die honourably.

So lets see what Ships he got, Defence, Warrior, Duke of Edinburgh and Black Prince. All obsolete armoured cruisers.
So what happens when armoured cruisers went actually up against German Battlecruisers? They go bang.

Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 4th Baronet, KCB MVO tested that theory out. Lost 3 ships and killed 1,831 men.

Duke of Edinburgh only survived because they couldn't make the turn without colliding with other ships so missed the slaughter and Warrior only survived without massive casualties because Warspite got in the way.

I would take Troubridge over Arbuthnot every day of the week.

 

[GreenKnight121]

That depends on whether Goeben was the only reason for the Ottoman Empire joining the war. Or a minor factor.

If Goeben was the reason Ottomans joined in ww1 then it's escape can be classed as a disaster as it meant all them deaths could have been avoided. The break up of the Ottoman Empire created modern states like Syria and Iraq so again cause and effect.

I am not blaming RN for Syria today but the domino was pushed in 1914 and here we are today.

The Ottoman government was actually split on the issue... the older, higher-placed officials wanted to maintain neutrality as long as possible - and the younger officials wanted to see the British & French pushed out of the Middle East.

That latter faction had already signed pacts with Germany committing the Ottoman Empire to war against the UK if the UK and Germany went to war against each other, and after that event the Ottoman "Young Turks" agreed to a timetable for a declaration by the end of 1914. This might still have been forstalled by the older faction, until the 31 July 1914 seizure by Britain of the two battleships that were basically ready for handover to the Ottoman Navy... Sultan Osman I, commissioned into the RN as HMS Agincourt, and Reşadiye, commissioned into the RN as HMS Erin. Note that Ottoman crews for both of these ships were already in Britain preparing to accept the ships.

That insult, combined with the appearance of Geoben & Breslau and the German gifting of those ships basically silenced the neutrality faction, and finalised the war pact. In the event, Captain Souchon got the Ottoman part of the war started off a bit early with his attack on the Russians - but it is probable that even without the German ships being present that the war faction would have prevailed (although sometime in 1915, rather than late October 1914).

 

[Admiral Beez]

What good would a Battleship have been at Midway or Coral Sea?

On the IJN side, any battleship with radar would be an asset to a carrier fleet that had none. Otherwise, yes, leave the battleships at home.

 

[The Basket]

You thinking 21st century.

We know all the details

In 1942 who knows. So you have to plan for the big details. And worse case scenario.

So you can argue that we have data that I knew exactly where Admiral Scheer was and that the RN should have picked her up.

And I would have sunk the whole High Seas Fleet at Jutland. And set a trap for the IJN at Pearl. I would have been good. The best.

It's amazing what you can do when you know 100% what happening.