It's 1940 and you're....

[Lucky13]

Made a swap now....the new lassie was out and about in 1937 already...

 

[Freebird]

ok there were no escort carriers in 1940 , the one mention was not commision untill 1941, you can see this on the britsh navy web site on commision ships 1939 too 1945,

Uh, yes there were escort carriers in 1940, the "HMS Argus" was a converted merchant ship, completed in 1918. Compare the performance of "HMS Argus" with "HMS Attacker" {Bouge class}, not much difference. "Argus": 20 aircraft, 20 knots, 566' flight deck - "Bouge's": 20 aircraft, 18.5 knots, 495' flight deck.

During the war "Argus" served mostly as a convoy escort aircraft transport, only for a short time as combat carrier {due to shortage of fleet carriers}

World Aircraft Carriers List: RN Developmental Experimental Carriers

 

[joy17782]

ok lucky, freebird the argus was not a escort carrier it was a fully commison ship in 1918 it was britian first carriers , we were talking about jeep carrier, you know the ww2 verson, but in no way can the argus compare too the jeep carriers of ww2, were trying too make this simple, and plus it was really a experimental type , so for the thread game were saying nope ok , but come on can you really think it was a escort carrier ???? and if that was the case we could use the us langly too but would you want these types of ships in your 1940 fleet ?

 

[Freebird]

Ok, I'll take first crack at this and we can tweek it. I would have two fleets (consider it a Pacific and Atlantic fleet). I picked just from the U.S. arsenal of what was operational in 1940. If we can mix and match, my battleships would be Bismarck class.

Fleet 1 (on the side of the smaller threat)
2 Carriers (1 Yorktown class and 1 Ranger class)
(F4F Wildcats, Dauntless, Devastators)
4 Escort Carriers
3 Battleships (Pennsylvania class)
5 Heavy Cruisers
14 Light Cruisers
38 Destroyers
55 Destroyer Escorts
52 Subs
Plus support ships

Pennsylvania Class?? They could only do 21 knots - slowwww.....

Also I would probably take a mix of carriers, a couple of the armoured British "Illustrious" class would be better if they would be operating within range of shore-based enemy aircraft, while the larger "Yorktowns" would be good for open ocean (Pacific) operations. For Escort carriers "Argus" would be the type, as USS "Langley" had been converted to a seaplane carrier before the war.

The choices for BB would be Littorio, Nagato, King George V, Nelson or maybe Richeliu, although she was not quite finishe when she was forced to flee following the defeat of France. Here is a very interesting comparison of the Battleships, although remember that Yamato, Iowa's S. Dakota's were not available in 1940

Battleship Comparison

 

[Lucky13]

Ok, how are we gonna do this...? Are we gonna allow ships that were, laid down, launched or completed in 1940, or are we just allowing ships that were completed had their sea trials and is combat ready or what you wanna call it?

 

[timshatz]

I was wondering if this would be a single island nation or one of two or three islands....opinions?

Question could be simply put, is your island nation like Britian or Japan? Both were major naval powers. I am not sure, from the standpoint of Naval or Air Power that it would make much difference (although it would make a difference from the point of domestic economic travel and potential invasions from outside powers).

On another note, I was kicking around the ship totals and looks of the opponents battlefleets (your spies hard at it) and I something came to mind that would be a BIG problem.

The notes stated our Battleships are of the Pa class. Top speed on them is 21 Knots (or as Freebird pointed out S-L-O-W). The pics of the Battleships show all looked more modern that the Pa class. As a consequence, they could pick when and where they wanted to fight our BBs or, even worse, decide not to fight them at all.

This creates a big problem for us.

If they decide when and how they want to fight, we have a situation similar to Tsushima. Get ahead of our ships and cross the "T" (with a little luck and decent scouting).

If they decide not to fight and run away from our fleet, we have BBs loose on our lines of communications, that could shoot to pieces anything we send after it. In short, what it can't outrun, it can outshoot. Big problems for the maritime nation if one of these monsters gets loose in our sea lanes. Convoys would have to scatter, leaving them vunerable to subs and long range bombers (those 4 engine jobbies we've seen pics of).

Germans did this several times during WW2 with their pocket battleships. Besides the Graf Spee (who got conned into self destruction) they tended to be successful at it. Not until the Scharnhorst ran into a Fast BB in the Far North Atlantic did the tactic really see an end.

 

[Lucky13]

Richelieu reached 32kts in service, Roma and Vittorio Veneto was 28-29 kts ships...which means so far only our "Yorktown" and "Ranger" class carriers could keep up with them with 32.5 kts and 29 kts...

 

[Lucky13]

Three island nation....but they're close to each other, much like Japan and New Zealand (2)...

 

[timshatz]

Three island is fine. Point is minor unless the other side figures out that interisland traffic can be severly restricted, much like B29 Campaign did to the Japanese home islands in 1945. The mining campaign essentially shut down the last of Japanese shipping and froze the economy. If the opposition can get their 4 engined bombers into that act (somewhat similar to what the Lufwaffe tried around England in late 1940 with Magnetic Mines), we are in big trouble.

But back to the BB discrepency. We have a problem here. The disparity in speed between their BBs and our BBs leave us with only one viable weapon to counter their BBs, Carriers. We might be in a situation similar to the US around May of 1942. Carriers being the only effective weapon and the BBs (of which there were actually 6 available at the time of Midway), being sent back to the West Coast as they could not keep up with the Carriers and were more of a hindrance than a help.

They have Carriers and BBs in a fight, we have only Carriers.

Our lines of communication with our colonies will be in serious jepardy. The opposition only has to attack the colony with the strategic resources to force our Carrier fleet out to face that invasion. Unless we have superior intelligence, we are at the mercy of the enemies attacks.

Better go attack him first.

 

[Lucky13]

Since it's our colonies, should they also have a strong naval presence, with cruisers and destroyers etc.?

 

[Freebird]

Question could be simply put, is your island nation like Britian or Japan? Both were major naval powers. I am not sure, from the standpoint of Naval or Air Power that it would make much difference (although it would make a difference from the point of domestic economic travel and potential invasions from outside powers).

On another note, I was kicking around the ship totals and looks of the opponents battlefleets (your spies hard at it) and I something came to mind that would be a BIG problem.

The notes stated our Battleships are of the Pa class. Top speed on them is 21 Knots (or as Freebird pointed out S-L-O-W). The pics of the Battleships show all looked more modern that the Pa class. As a consequence, they could pick when and where they wanted to fight our BBs or, even worse, decide not to fight them at all.

This creates a big problem for us.

If they decide when and how they want to fight, we have a situation similar to Tsushima. Get ahead of our ships and cross the "T" (with a little luck and decent scouting).

If they decide not to fight and run away from our fleet, we have BBs loose on our lines of communications, that could shoot to pieces anything we send after it. In short, what it can't outrun, it can outshoot. .

Tim I don't see where it says you have to use PA class, thats just what Thorlifter picked for his BB's because he assumed that the ships have to be all of one nation.

Your points on slow BB's are good, although again it depends on the missions used, is it an offensive strategy {like Japan} or a defensive one {like UK}.
The UK could do much more with slower BB's because they were on the defensive. For example, if you are running convoys {eg. North Atlantic} you could have an older BB {"Royal Oak" class or "Paris" or "Colorado"} capable of 21 - 24 knts with a few cruisers as escort. The BB a couple of CL's could hold their own against 2 ships of "Sharnhorst" "Hipper" or "Graf Spee" class, meanwhile as soon as your scouts report that the enemy BC's or CA's have sortied you dispatch 2 fast BC's {Renown or Hood class, 32 knot speed} with perhaps 2 CA's (County or Northampton class) to chase them down and sink them. THIS is what the Battlecruiser was supposed to be used for, to chase down enemy raiders, it was never designed to fight BB's, it was supposed to outrun anything it couldn't outgun.

OK, who is running this scenario? Lucky posted it, so somebody needs to set up the parameters.

Tim to have any idea of what the fleet could be there needs to be a list or total of existing ships. Every nation {except Germany} entered the war with a buch of older BB's CA's CL's etc. You can't say pick ANY BB's for your complete total, otherwise people would just pick all Bismark's or something. There should be 4 - 6 new BB's, + 6 - 10 old WWI or 1920's BB's {Royal Oak, Colorado, Yamashiro etc}

What would be your total tonnage of each class allowed? What would be the enemy force? Are you bound by treaty limits?

 

[timshatz]

Freebird, check the first page of the post and you'll see we covered the substance of the fleet at that point. That is where the PAs come in. No BCs were on the list. Nice addition though.

See you point and agree a defensive posture would work with a slower BB. Convoy escort is a good example.

Have to see what other oddities Lucky comes up with to confuse us. So far, he's done a pretty good job.

 

[Lucky13]

How about this, neither of "our" countries took part in WWI, so I don't think that we have to respect the treaty limits.... Although, things beyond our control make it so we cant build ships larger than 45.000 ton...fully loaded.

We don't know though, if our neighbours have the same problem....

 

[Freebird]

ok lucky, freebird the argus was not a escort carrier it was a fully commison ship in 1918 it was britian first carriers , we were talking about jeep carrier, you know the ww2 verson, but in no way can the argus compare too the jeep carriers of ww2,

??? Why not, because it was an escort carrier, not a fleet carrier or a CVL

were trying too make this simple, and plus it was really a experimental type , so for the thread game were saying nope ok , but come on can you really think it was a escort carrier ???? and if that was the case we could use the us langly too but would you want these types of ships in your 1940 fleet ?

Langley was no longer a carrier in 1940, Joy, so it is available as a seaplane carrier, not a CVE.

The terms as I read them are that you can have any ship of a type that was in commision in 1940.

Sure I would want these ships in the 1940 fleet, as they only take 25 - 30% of the time labour to make compared to a fleet CV.

Joy, compare the facts. An escort carrier makes about 18 - 20 knots, 15 - 20 aircraft, converted from a merchant hull, and used primarily for convoy escort or aircraft transport. This exactly describes the Argus, when the British decided in 1940 to build more CVE's (HMS Audacity, HMS Activity) they built them roughly the same way as the Argus. The HMS Activity was in service in mid 1941.

A CVL on the other hand is built from the keel up, not converted from a merchant hull. A CVL {Ryujo, Hermes, Independance} is faster (25 - 30 knots) and has 20 - 40 aircraft. It also takes more than twice as long to build than a CVE conversion

How about this, neither of "our" countries took part in WWI, so I don't think that we have to respect the treaty limits.... Although, things beyond our control make it so we cant build ships larger than 45.000 ton...fully loaded.

We don't know though, if our neighbours have the same problem....

Lucky ALL countries were part of the treaty process {Italy, France Japan, USA, UK} whether they were in WWI or not. Germany was also treaty bound, and could not build BB's

Freebird, check the first page of the post and you'll see we covered the substance of the fleet at that point. That is where the PAs come in. No BCs were on the list. Nice addition though.

See you point and agree a defensive posture would work with a slower BB. Convoy escort is a good example.

Have to see what other oddities Lucky comes up with to confuse us. So far, he's done a pretty good job.

Tim I read the entire thread, I don't see where you have to take Pennsy class BB's. I think Lucky is setting the parameters correct?

I still have not seen the answer, can you mix match ships from all nations? If you have only one country's ships then the choice is easy, you would have to pick the Royal Navy.

Germany Italy have no Aircraft carriers.

USA has only fleet carriers, no CVL's or CVE's. The US Battleships were 21 knots max (until the N. Carolina's in 1941). They had no Battlecruisers.

Japan would be a second choice after RN, except that they didn't have Sonar or Radar in 1940, and were almost totally unprepared for ASW. The Kongo class BC's were not bad, but they didn't have any fast modern battleships that could match the K.G.V's

Also for toughest battleship in a firefight, the Nelson or Rodney would be the best. It had 9 x 16" guns vs. 8 x 15" for Bismark or 8 x 16" for Nagato. The armour was superior, with 2" or 3" better on hull, turrets deck.
The deck armour on Nelson was 4.5 - 6.75, while Bismark's was 3 - 4.7, and Nagato was 3 - 5.

Tim we really need to know what are the starting positions with regard to WWI leftovers, especially Battleships.

 

[Lucky13]

We can pick and mix Bird... Thanks for telling me about the treaty, I didn't know that even if you weren't involved in WWI you were still bound by it...

We have 8 BB's, 25 light and 15 heavy cruisers left of WWI heritage...

 

[timshatz]

Freebird, Thor took a shot at the early parameters and I was going by them as my standard. Here they are:

Fleet 1 (on the side of the smaller threat)
3 Carriers (1 Yorktown class and 2 Ranger class)
(F4F Wildcats, Dauntless, Devastators)
7 Escort Carriers
3 Battleships (Pennsylvania or Bismarck class)
7 Heavy Cruisers
19 Light Cruisers
48 Destroyers
62 Subs
Plus support ships

Fleet 2 (on the side of the larger threat)
4 Carriers (2 Yorktown class and 2 Ranger class)
(F4F Wildcats, Dauntless, Devastators)
5 Escort Carriers
4 Battleships (Pennsylvania or Bismarck class)
7 Heavy Cruisers
18 Light Cruisers
60 Destroyers
85 Subs
Plus support ships

Airforce
400 P-40 Warhawks
150 Buffalos
300 B-17's
60 PBY Catalina's
200 DC-3
100 Stearmans

As Lucky didn't shoot them down (and it's his thread), I was still going with them. Hence the Pa class BB. However, if we're going to tank Thors initial standards, then we'll probably have to take it from the top and Lucky is going to have to give us a list of ships, places, ect.

 

[timshatz]

Ahhhh....I missed the Bismark Class being thrown in there. Big spread between the two classes in many different ways.

Hmmmm....

 

[Lucky13]

Freebird, Thor took a shot at the early parameters and I was going by them as my standard. Here they are:

Fleet 1 (on the side of the smaller threat)
3 Carriers (1 Yorktown class and 2 Ranger class)
(F4F Wildcats, Dauntless, Devastators)
7 Escort Carriers
3 Battleships (Pennsylvania or Bismarck class)
7 Heavy Cruisers
19 Light Cruisers
48 Destroyers
62 Subs
Plus support ships

Fleet 2 (on the side of the larger threat)
4 Carriers (2 Yorktown class and 2 Ranger class)
(F4F Wildcats, Dauntless, Devastators)
5 Escort Carriers
4 Battleships (Pennsylvania or Bismarck class)
7 Heavy Cruisers
18 Light Cruisers
60 Destroyers
85 Subs
Plus support ships

Airforce
400 P-40 Warhawks
150 Buffalos
300 B-17's
60 PBY Catalina's
200 DC-3
100 Stearmans

As Lucky didn't shoot them down (and it's his thread), I was still going with them. Hence the Pa class BB. However, if we're going to tank Thors initial standards, then we'll probably have to take it from the top and Lucky is going to have to give us a list of ships, places, ect.

What exactly are you thinking Timshatz? I'm getting ready for nightshift, but since it's weekend and I have nothing planned we can work out a few more things....

 

[Thorlifter]

I have an idea guys. Since my "let's gt it started and see what sticks" posts seems to have confused people, lets start from scratch. Since we now know we can mix and match, it sure opens the possibilities.

Tim and Freebird. Since you two have the strongest opinions here, why don't you post something to start with?

Also, just a question.......if we are picking Battleships, would the Yamato be an option? yes I know it only went 27 knots and the carriers would have to wait on it, but the firepower it would bring in a battle group would be tremendous. It was launched in 1940 so it's an option.

 

[timshatz]

Ok, it's a thread that has promise so let's give it a whirl.

For starters, let set up the time and geography. Time is 1940, March. No particlular reason I picked March, just came to mind. Anybody have any strong opinions about another month, have at it.

Three powers. One is Maritime, the other two are continental. The Maritime power is one large island with colonies that supply raw materials. It's economic power is roughly 40% greater than one of the the continental powers and about 10% less than the other. For simplicty, we'll make England our Maritime power and Spain and Germany the two Continental powers. Lends itself to the time frame as well. France is neutral, as is the rest of Europe to varying degress. But France is decidedly not friendly to Germany, indifferent to Spain and cordial to England.

US is friendly to England. USSR is cordial but not overly friendly to England. Italy is not friendly to England. Nordic Countries are strictly neutral.

All England's possessions are in play as they were in 1940. Same geography, same trade routes.

All airplanes in the world at that point are available with the exception of the the Japanese Empire. Japan, as a power, does not exist. It has the same power as China so it is not a regional power. Strictly local. Aircraft are second rate from the US/England/France. Just did it it for simplicity. Same with the Japanese Navy. No oriental equipment is used in the setup (and they had some very good stuff). Again, nothing personal, just for simplicity.

Ships, the same. England can purchase or "lend lease" ships from the US. Spain can do the same with Italy. USSR sells to both sides. Same goes with other equiepment.

As for the fleet sizing, I would say 8-8-5 for BBs. Cruisers, Ger- 12, GB- 33, Esp- 9. DDs Ger- 33, GB- 57, Esp-21. Subs, Ger- 48, GB 39, ESP 30. Carriers, Ger 2, GB 5, Esp 1.

Ok, it's a start. Somebody want to flesh out parts of it. Have at it!