Rn vs IJN

[Thumpalumpacus]

They were another answer to a non-existing problem. Intelligence said that the Japanese were building large cruisers with 12.2in guns so the US just had to have something that matched
Turns out the Japanese had absolutely no plans to build such ships. The US knew a lot of what the Japanese were doing but they didn't know everything, or even close to it.

But man, that 12" gun they carried ... that was good.

 

[Shortround6]

The B-18 Bolo was a redesigned DC-2, as well

The B-18 changed the fuselage. Kept the wing, engines, landing gear and tail. The B-23 actually used DC-3 wings ( bit longer had could handle bigger load).

There was actually quite a bit of this at Boeing. The Boeing 307 Stratoliner used B-17 wings. The B-17E may have used the Stratoliner's tail.
The 314 Clipper may have used the B-15 wing. B-29 used parts of the wing from a flying boat. B-29 got a new fuselage to become C-97 which got turned into the Boeing 377.

Keeps R & D costs down. British did it too.

Bombers keeping the passenger fuselages was a bit rarer.

 

[cherry blossom]

I still think, as mentioned by others, we need to know what the ATL scenario in Europe is, to try to "predict" what can happen in the Far East. Perhaps as the OP, Shortround6 can provide his prefered scenario as to events in Europe?
...snip....

Confession time, I am a failed writer of alternate history. About 10 years ago, I tried to write a story which did have an IJN against RN war. My start was a change in Japan in 1938 involving Tojo Hideki. Tojo apparently believed that Japan should have been quicker to commit larger forces to China (Butow, Tojo and the coming of War, page 105). His speech in November 1938 stated that Japan must arm for war against both China and the USSR. However, he seems to have regarded China as the more urgent issue (ibid, page 121).

OTL there was a clash between Lieutenant-General Tada Hayao, Vice Chief of the General Staff, and Tojo, who was then Vice Minister of War, and this was typically not resolved by both men being moved. Tada certainly believed that the USSR was Japan's main enemy and according to Michael Barnhart's "Japan Prepares for Total War", page 112, Tada was willing to enlarge the Changkufeng Incident in July 1938 to put pressure on the Japanese Government to break off fighting against China (Tada had earlier transferred significant forces from China to North of the Wall).

My divergence is that over the Summer to Autumn of 1938, Tada goes down with tuberculosis (inspired by the case of Prince Chichibu). Tada has to resign and Tojo's view that victory in China is the priority is accepted. Other people such as Suzuki Teiichi, who could certainly calculate that Japan could not fight too many wars simultaneously, might support Tojo and perhaps suggest diplomacy with Russia if military means seemed too expensive. I haven't actually worked out the details but Stalin might be interested to have a free hand as Europe goes to war.

A non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939, would actually cause additional stresses in Anglo-Japanese relations as it would make it more obvious that goods such as rubber could be set from Japan to Germany. That sort of issue caused enough problems OTL (see Best's "Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor") that one can easily imagine serious Japanese complaints. However, a bold Japanese decision to strike south does seem out of character. However, I hoped that my readers would swallow it easily.

I keep everything West of the USSR unchanged up to December 1939 and even have Typhoon 26 of 1939 unchanged in the Pacific which is not very realistic given butterfly effects. I do cheat by slightly altering the mutations driving Chamberlain's cancer, so that he is going to become obviously ill only at the very end of September 1940 rather than in July.

Japan strikes in December and achieves almost complete surprise. The Malaya invasion fleet suffers severely from sea sickness and curses the typhoon over the Philippines but of course the typhoon hides them until they are entering the Gulf of Thailand. RN deployments are assumed as OTL which seems silly except that Churchill was rather contemptuous of the Japanese. For example, an article by Lieutenant General Coates (Australian Army Journal, Volume II, Number 1, page 202, has "Churchill was proven consistently wrong in his threat assessment of Japan. He had long believed that the Japanese were no match for Western nations. For example, in 1938, he had confidently asserted that the Japanese would never dare to confront the English-speaking nations militarily, because the latter could wage war 'at a level at which it would be quite impossible for Japan to compete'. Churchill did not change his views once in power. In 1941, he declared that the Japanese would 'fold up like the Italians' and went on to describe them as 'the wops of the Far East'." I have him writing his September 1940 ideas quoted Did Singapore Have to Fall? in Autumn 1939 as First Lord of the Admiralty.

After December 1939, British politics undergoes changes. The big difference is that the crisis occurs before the Labour Party has agreed a set of demands for joining a coalition, especially deciding formally that Chamberlain must go. Thus Labour enters a coalition in early 1940 under Chamberlain with Atlee becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Dalton becoming Chancellor. Another difference is that Amery was leading the "Eden Group" of MPs after Eden became a minister. However, Amery was a strong believer in the British Empire. Thus the opposition to the government becomes linked with the issue of betrayal of Australia and New Zealand rather than pressing for the use of bombers against Germany or for intervention in Scandinavia. The British have no spare resources for Scandinavia and thus Hitler does not worry about Norway. Note that Graf Spee returns home in triumph as its River Plate opponents were rushing across the Pacific to defend Australia. Also I should mention that Hore Belisha, Minister of Defence, is rather naughty by showing a copy of Churchill's thoughts on Japan to Labour colleagues. OTL he was sacked after some clashes with Churchill but the main cause was an argument with the generals. Chamberlain defends Churchill over Singapore as he did OTL over Norway. My interpretation is that Chamberlain needed Churchill because he really hated Hitler and wanted to ensure that the Cabinet was against any compromise. However, Kingsley Wood, the Secretary for Air, is blamed for the Fall of Singapore and replaced by Samuel Hoare (OTL Wood resigned and injured the Chamberlain Government). Note that Hoare and Churchill are old enemies over India. The net effect is that Churchill is weakened and restricted to the Admiralty as Attlee becomes Chamberlain's deputy and replaces him when he is not present on committees.

I am assuming that America immediately imposes all sanctions short of war on Japan and is reinforcing the Philippines. A rubber stockpile may be started. However, at this point, tin and rubber can be bought from the Netherlands East Indies and I assume that Isolationists are strong enough to prevent America entering the war.

On 10th May 1940, Germany attacks westwards as OTL. However, the German Embassy in Tokyo does give Japan a few days notice. Thus Japanese forces are rushed to start occupying the NEI. This brings on a bloody but indecisive naval battle near the Sunda Straits and the British and Japanese start to find that the enemy is not as incompetent as they had hoped. As the Japanese Air forces are established in Sumatra, they do gain control of the Java Sea and manage to take Java. Meanwhile France collapses as OTL and Italy joins the war. Japan also takes Burma according to the standard two years ahead schedule. Britain strikes at the French Fleet in July 1940 as OTL, with Chamberlain and Attlee eventually agreeing Churchill's plan against opposition from other cabinet members including Halifax and Hoare.

By this time, the Republicans have chosen their candidate and we have a significant change. Ralph Williams does not have a fall and manages to push Taft and Dewey into a deal. Taft announces that he is so shocked by the breach of the two term convention going back to Washington that he will only serve one term if chosen and elected. He is chosen and takes Dewey as VP candidate. We now have a second big difference as Chamberlain decides that Britain cannot take over the French orders from America. In fact Britain has to consider the possible consequences of the election of an Isolationist and cuts its purchases to only the most critical items to preserve its gold reserves. The American economy shudders as there is also the problem that rubber is now in very short supply. There is also a less serious shortage of tin. The Election of 1940 is starting to look close and Roosevelt has another problem compared to OTL: Few can believe that simply supplying arms to Britain is going to lead to a British Victory. The election is much more obviously a vote for or against war.

Despite the Germans having a stronger navy and much of the RN being in the Far East, Sealion remains unattractive. However, the Germans actually try harder in the Battle of Britain, inflicting and suffering greater loses. The battle goes on into October but the result is unchanged. The British even try to strike back, oddly enough against France. However, that brings failure at Dakar and disaster off Madagascar. The Madagascar Invasion is massacred by a Japanese raiding force that was aiming for a raid on Durban. Chamberlain is dying and Churchill's luck has finally run out. By contrast Hoare, as Secretary of Air, makes the victory announcements on the Battle of Britain.

Taft very narrowly wins the election and the British Cabinet decides to make peace. Italy meanwhile has taken an almost undefended Egypt and Japanese forces are landing in India.

Hitler quickly accepts the British peace offer as do the Italians, who receive Egypt, Palestine and the Sudan. Neither bother to agree anything with Japan, who are left fighting the British Empire. The British now have a general election and Atlee becomes Prime Minister but remains in coalition with the Conservatives under Hoare.

The British have to chose whether to prioritise India or Australia and chose to send their fleet to Sydney.

In June 1941, Hitler attacks the USSR as OTL and unsurprisingly Japan remains neutral.

Fortunately, in my story both Britain and Japan want to make peace and the Americans are happy to give them somewhere to negotiate. The deal agreed was that Japan kept control of Malaya etc. but that the British businesses are recovered, so that the British are able to resume making money from rubber, tin and Burma oil.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The B-18 changed the fuselage. Kept the wing, engines, landing gear and tail. The B-23 actually used DC-3 wings ( bit longer had could handle bigger load).

I thought the wings were DC-2.

Even Ray Charles can see the fuselage was redesigned, so yeah, that's why I used that word.

 

[RCAFson]

The D3A1s sent against Guadalcanal were land-based, and had been optimized for ground support.

I can't find any info about what optimizations might have been made for ground support. It's kinda hard to believe that reducing bomb load to 2 x 60kg 'optimized' the D3A1 for ground support, when it should be able to use the long runway on a landbase to fly a ground support mission with 2 x 60kg bombs and a 242kg ground attack bomb.

 

[Shortround6]

Ground Forces - Churchill Tanks
The RN also has the potential of strong land forces if they bring enough troops and kit. As we know, the Japanese were no slouches in island defense but if you say, land Royal Marines and Paratroopers in Malaya, and (assuming you have the landing craft available) I think Churchill tanks could be pretty effective in a land war in some places. I don't think the Japanese have anything that can contend with these, and some of them have good 75mm guns.

I am not sure of what time line you are using. Churchills are nice tanks, aside from being too heavy for a lot of Far Eastern infrastructure (so was the Sherman) but they don't show up with 75 mm guns until late 1943, First combat use of Churchills with 75s was in Italy using tanks that have been given 75s from wrecked Sherman's in NA workshops.

Submarines?
The British might have an advantage here too I'm not sure I don't know enough about IJN and RN subs yet. But if the RN subs are as good as some have suggested, in theory they could get an early start at commerce raiding against the Japanese, which could cause them all kinds of serious headaches as almost all of their key supplies come by ship.

If you loose Singapore you are pretty much screwed. The British boats don't have the range. Patrol range is important, not just how far you can go in a straight line.
a 45 day boat can take 12 days out and 12 back and stay on station for 21 days.
A 60 day boat takes the same 12 days out and 12 back and can stay on station for 36 days. If you use up your torpedoes you come back early.
How long it takes to do maintenance and resupply? How long for crew rest or use spare crews?
The Americans were interrupting shipping in the inland sea, coastal shipping from island to island and shipping from Korea/Manchuria, not just the shipping from south China and the DEI and Malaya, Indo-China.

The Wellington has 2,500 mile range, and other heavy bombers which came later were close to that. That means bases like Saigon or Taipei might be in range of long range strikes from Ceylon or the Bengal region. And if they can capture some big enough airfields close enough to Japan, the home islands themselves.

A Wellington operating at extreme range has a small war load. It it about 1700 miles from Ceylon to Saigon, so that is a no go. It is about 1150 miles from Ceylon to Rangoon.
It is about 650-700 miles from Bengal to Rangoon.

Without help from the US, the British (and Commonwealth) cannot retake captured areas from the Japanese while dealing with Germany, with or without Italy.
The British have to hold Burma, Malaya and Singapore and as much of the DEI as they can. They have to set up attrition battles like Guadalcanal and bleed the Japanese out.
They may have to settle for a negotiated peace.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The other thing is that the RN suffered massive attrition from Sept to 6 Dec 1941 from combat in the ETO/MTO. So we have to take this into account when looking at a pure RN-IJN war.

Indeed. One must choose the dates. The RN of 1935 beats the IJN. As does the RN of 1945. But in those ten years in between the IJN looks good.

RN CAG vs. IJN CAG 1935

Before the introduction of the Mitsubishi A5M in 1936 the British Royal Navy was seemingly on a more competitive level. So, how do the Japanese and British carrier forces compare in 1935? For starters, most of Japan’s carriers are not completed in 1935, so to keep it somewhat equal let’s use...

ww2aircraft.net

Any chances for IJN and RN carriers to meet in battle 1943-45?

Was there any instances where the IJN and RN carriers could have encountered each other in 1943 to 45? I'd like to see how a RN AFD carrier equipped with radar, single-seat fighters (Seafire, Martlet, Hellcat or Corsair) and modern strike aircraft (Tarpon or Barracuda) would perform against a...

ww2aircraft.net

The RN of today is tiny compared to today's IJN, the JMSDF, with the RN's sole advantage being their SSNs.

 

[WARSPITER]

The Eagle was sunk during Pedestal and the Indomitable was hit by two 500 kg bombs from Stukas and heavily damaged, forcing her to go back to the ship yard for a year. Point being, they didn't 'protect themselves' that well from even a motley assortment of largely antique land based aircraft. They would be doomed against the Kidō Butai

My original reply to this was from your statement about a post from Glider which said AA defences did very well during Pedestal,
which they did.

Your reply stated that RN carriers were sunk during Med convoys. One was. It implied that the AA wasn't good when the sinking of Eagle
as already stated was by a submarine.

Formidable was hit by three bombs and even with a thirty foot hole below the waterline was still able to get straightened up and back to over 26 knots.
Repairs didn't take a year, it was actually 5 1/2 months including upgrades. Ships got hit in wartime and would need repairs. That is generally better
than sinking.

This all happened during air attacks where only the aircraft available on the carriers could fight as Malta was still too far away for one Spitfire, let alone
135 to be able to help. Formidable got hit in the fourth attack of the day when air crews had already been up at least three times. These attacks were
escorted by 109's and MC. 202's as they were in range of Sicilian airbases at the time.

The "antiquated" fighters escorts were accompanying Stuka and "antiquated" Ju 88's so it's no wonder they couldn't do much, apparently.

 

[z42]

In a word, fuel. Getting 10,000 tons up to 30 kts is a lot cheaper on fuel than getting 35,000 tons up to the same speed.

I'm almost certain that with the absence of the naval treaties limiting cruiser tonnage, we wouldn't have seen the glass cannon 8" cruisers at 10000 tons. A decently well balanced 8" cruiser would probably clock in at around 15000 tons.

 

[z42]

And yes, at shorter ranges the higher rate of fire (and higher amount of tubes for the same installed weight) of 6" gun could be an advantage of a 6" cruiser vs a 8" heavy cruiser.

Looking further into this argument, lets compare two roughly contemporary heavy and light cruiser classes designed within the treaty 10000 limit, the US New Orleans class heavy cruiser New Orleans-class cruiser - Wikipedia vs. the Brooklyn class light cruiser Brooklyn-class cruiser - Wikipedia . The New Orleans sports 9 8" guns in 3 triple turrets, whereas the Brooklyn has 15 6" guns in 5 triple turrets.

Info about the guns: USA 6"/47 (15.2 cm) Mark 16 - NavWeaps and USA 8"/55 (20.3 cm) Marks 9, 10, 11, 13 and 14 - NavWeaps

The rates of fire are 3-4 shells per minute for the 8" and 8-10 for the 6". For the sake of argument, lets use the middle values, 3.5 and 9. For the shell weights, the 8" AP shell is 118 kg whereas the 6" AP is 59 kg (admittedly this comparison is, in a way, slightly unfair, as it seems this 8" gun didn't have the superheavy shells the later 8" guns on the Baltimore class had, whereas the 6" AP is a superheavy).

Taking this together, the New Orleans is capable of spitting out 118*9*3.5 = 3717 kg/minute worth of shells, whereas the light cruiser is capable of 7965 kg/min. Quite a difference! It seems that as long as the target isn't one which is armored against 6" but not 8" and the range isn't beyond the effective range of the 6" but within the effective range of the 8", the 6" light cruiser would be a better bet.

And for shooting against unarmored or lightly armored targets, it gets worse. For such I think the amount of HE delivered is probably a better proxy for the destructive potential than the weight of the entire shell. The 8" HE shell bursting charge was 9.7 kg, whereas the 6" HE shell had a bursting charge of 6.0 kg (this is a kind of general trend, bigger shells need comparably much sturdier casings to handle the firing loads, so the bigger the shell the smaller the percentage of HE vs total weight). So per minute, the New Orleans was capable of delivering 9.7*9*3.5 = 306 kg/min vs. 810 kg/min HE for the Brooklyn.

 

[WARSPITER]

The same happened with destroyers. Bigger guns with slower rates of fire vs more smaller guns with higher rates.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm almost certain that with the absence of the naval treaties limiting cruiser tonnage, we wouldn't have seen the glass cannon 8" cruisers at 10000 tons. A decently well balanced 8" cruiser would probably clock in at around 15000 tons.

Of course. I was answering your last question, about skipping cruisers and going straight to BBs. I don't think BBs are as useful in commerce-raiding or -protection as cruisers, and being fuel hogs is a major reason why. There's also the whole "you can't have as many of them" thing, due to other expenses they entail.

 

[z42]

Of course. I was answering your last question, about skipping cruisers and going straight to BBs. I don't think BBs are as useful in commerce-raiding or -protection as cruisers, and being fuel hogs is a major reason why. There's also the whole "you can't have as many of them" thing, due to other expenses they entail.

Perhaps I was unclear, but I wasn't advocating not building any cruisers, I was advocating not building heavy cruisers, supercruisers, supercruiser-killers etc. Light cruisers (to use the terminology from OTL which I guess wouldn't exist in the ATL) are still useful and would be built in large numbers.

 

[WARSPITER]

One engineering calculation I have seen showed that one battleship with nine 16" guns used enough material to build
50 destroyers. Perhaps twenty light cruisers ?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Perhaps I was unclear, but I wasn't advocating not building any cruisers, I was advocating not building heavy cruisers, supercruisers, supercruiser-killers etc. Light cruisers (to use the terminology from OTL which I guess wouldn't exist in the ATL) are still useful and would be built in large numbers.

Understood.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

My original reply to this was from your statement about a post from Glider which said AA defences did very well during Pedestal,
which they did.

Your reply stated that RN carriers were sunk during Med convoys. One was. It implied that the AA wasn't good when the sinking of Eagle
as already stated was by a submarine.

Formidable was hit by three bombs and even with a thirty foot hole below the waterline was still able to get straightened up and back to over 26 knots.
Repairs didn't take a year, it was actually 5 1/2 months including upgrades. Ships got hit in wartime and would need repairs. That is generally better
than sinking.

Wait Formidable? You mean Indomitable right?

My point here was that while air defenses may have been good to a point, (I think the weak spot was the fighter contingent) they couldn't prevent the aircraft carriers from being taken out of the fight. I had frankly forgotten that Eagle was sunk by a submarine when I made the original post, I just remembered that the aircraft carriers involved in the convoy fights (not just Pedestal) usually got hit and taken out of the battle. But I was incorrect to say they were sunk, i.e. implying that they were all sunk. I just don't think air defense was sufficient to keep them from being hit and knocked out of the fight one way or the other. The USN air defense, which was pretty damn good, was also not capable of this, and they (IMO) had much better fighter cover.

Maybe more important, the USN fighters had sufficient range so that they could escort the strikes, something Sea Hurricanes couldn't and didn't generally do, so that meant the enemy had to keep more fighters back for defense, rather than committing them all to fly escort for the air strike missions.

This all happened during air attacks where only the aircraft available on the carriers could fight as Malta was still too far away for one Spitfire, let alone
135 to be able to help. Formidable got hit in the fourth attack of the day when air crews had already been up at least three times. These attacks were
escorted by 109's and MC. 202's as they were in range of Sicilian airbases at the time.

The "antiquated" fighters escorts were accompanying Stuka and "antiquated" Ju 88's so it's no wonder they couldn't do much, apparently.

All true, and I agree the Ju 88s were quite modern and capable. The Ju 87 wasn't exactly modern and (most versions) were limited in range, but it was clearly very capable in the anti-shipping role, as an extremely accurate dive bomber. It's just when the '300 bombers / 300 fighters' claim about Pedestal keeps being brought up, it's very soft-pedaled that many of these (more than half of the 'armada') are Z.506, Z.1007, SM.79, SM.84, CR 42 etc. There were MC 202 and Bf 109, which are excellent fighters, but they were only in range during a short window, and were also eventually countered by land based spitfires from Malta. Due to the short range of the 109 and 202, most of the Ju 88 attacks were unescorted, which limited their effectiveness and how and when they attacked (for example at dusk).

No doubt the attacks on that day were formidable. I just think the KB / IJN had more capabilities. They could have attacked every day, with strike aircraft that had a very high rate of hits and ship-sinking, (arguably) better than the Ju 88, comparable to the Ju 87... and escorted by fighters that were (arguably) just as good as the 109s and 202s at Pedestal.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Perhaps I was unclear, but I wasn't advocating not building any cruisers, I was advocating not building heavy cruisers, supercruisers, supercruiser-killers etc. Light cruisers (to use the terminology from OTL which I guess wouldn't exist in the ATL) are still useful and would be built in large numbers.

It is interesting that many of these entire classes of ships were built based on faulty intelligence. That kind of thing happened a lot in the 20th Century.

The MiG 25 was built to counter the (failed, aborted) B-70 Valkyrie double / triple supersonic bomber. Then the US, in a panic over how good the MiG 25 was (it being nowhere near as good as they thought, but it did make Mach 3), developed the F-15. So theoretically, a goof. But the F-15 ended up being an excellent fighter which was dominant in the Cold War for 20+ years and (in heavily upgraded form) is still considered somewhat viable more than 40 years after the first flight. They still fly over my neighborhood fairly often from the big nearby air base across the river from my house.

I would say from the operational history of the various battles, the heavy cruisers with the bigger guns did have a role. They seemed to punch Mike Tyson hard, and aside from the type 92 torpedoes and the battleships / battlecruisers, it seems to me that the 8" guns actually did most of the real damage in many of these battles. The shells seemed to be more accurate and a few, or even a single hit could wreck an enemy ship. They also had a more punishing impact in bombardment.

The battleships were also clearly very useful in the surface actions, and bombardment, and in air defense for the carriers. But they use such an incredible amount of resources (both in terms of building them, and operating them) that I would agree that it is arguable if they were cost effective.

I don't know enough about naval engineering etc. to say whether heavy cruisers with 8" were in the sweet spot, or whether 10k - 15k ton ships were more or less viable. But if I was an admiral going into a surface battle with the IJN I'd be real happy to have one or two of those Iowas with me, and I would be pretty happy with Alaska class CA's too.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I am not sure of what time line you are using. Churchills are nice tanks, aside from being too heavy for a lot of Far Eastern infrastructure (so was the Sherman) but they don't show up with 75 mm guns until late 1943, First combat use of Churchills with 75s was in Italy using tanks that have been given 75s from wrecked Sherman's in NA workshops.

The thing about Churchills, is that yes they would be a problem getting across bridges and through some urban areas possibly, but with their enormous tracks they had quite good flotation, so they could get through soft / muddy areas. Much better than Shermans. When they got 75mm would be contingent on what was going on in the war, but the other option was a mix of 6 pounders and 95mm howitzers, the former could kill any japanese tank for sure, the latter were excellent

Most Churchills also had 2 machine guns, and they had the advantage of being pretty low-slung (1' shorter than a Sherman)

If you loose Singapore you are pretty much screwed. The British boats don't have the range. Patrol range is important, not just how far you can go in a straight line.
a 45 day boat can take 12 days out and 12 back and stay on station for 21 days.
A 60 day boat takes the same 12 days out and 12 back and can stay on station for 36 days. If you use up your torpedoes you come back early.
How long it takes to do maintenance and resupply? How long for crew rest or use spare crews?

Fair points, though I think the RN Subs should be able to hit a lot of shipping around New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaya etc. from Northern Australia. Subs based in New Guinea could certainly threaten the Solomons and northern New Guinea, and if they managed to take that area they could probably be in reach (both for Wellingtons and subs) to Philippines as well as Brunei, Java etc.

The Americans were interrupting shipping in the inland sea, coastal shipping from island to island and shipping from Korea/Manchuria, not just the shipping from south China and the DEI and Malaya, Indo-China.

I'm not familiar enough with this part of the war. When did US subs start intercepting Japanese maritime traffic? The torpedoes started working better some time in 1943 right?

A Wellington operating at extreme range has a small war load. It it about 1700 miles from Ceylon to Saigon, so that is a no go. It is about 1150 miles from Ceylon to Rangoon.
It is about 650-700 miles from Bengal to Rangoon.

Without help from the US, the British (and Commonwealth) cannot retake captured areas from the Japanese while dealing with Germany, with or without Italy.
The British have to hold Burma, Malaya and Singapore and as much of the DEI as they can. They have to set up attrition battles like Guadalcanal and bleed the Japanese out.
They may have to settle for a negotiated peace.

Seems like Wellingtons could make strikes 1100 miles though I don't know with how much ordinance. It looks to me like Wellingtons could reach Indonesia easily enough from Australia (~1000 miles). They'd have to build some bases in some pretty remote areas and defend them the way Darwin was. IIRC some of the Japanese strikes against Darwin were launched from Indonesia.

 

[mack8]

WBK, regarding the Wellington figures, is that range or radius? If radius, that would put it with B-17 and B-24 which i find suspicious, but of course i could be wrong. But even the very rangy G4M could only do 880 nautical miles max.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

If you did you would see a small number.
the whole 8in cruiser cycle was started with these ships.
View attachment 733828
with 7.5in guns to answer a hypothetical German Cruiser in 1916. The rumored German Cruisers didn't exist. Once the British had them they didn't want to scrape ships that were only a few years old and so everybody else got 8in cruisers under the Washington treaty.
Now being the "first" this class of cruisers was also pretty crappy. As built the guns were worked by hand but that didn't last long. Lugging the 200lbs shells from the ammo hoists to the guns slowed down the rate of fire even when not in a seaway. And the guns could outperform the fire control equipment by a fair margin so the theoretical range far exceeded the practical range. This turned out to be a very common problem with the 8in Cruisers but not for a lack of trying.
At times during the 20s and early 30s the 8in cruisers were sometimes viewed as fast wing of the battlefleet (only the British and Japanese had battlecruisers) and the idea was that the 8in cruisers would form up and take the enemy battles ships under fire at long range and while they could not expect to penetrate the armor they could score hits on the outside vulnerable areas and degrade the enemy accuracy. They could also be used to cross the T or other manuvers with their speed. Fast battleships would not show up until the late 30s, 10-12 years after the 8in cruisers show up.
However a lot of these theories didn't work in practice.
USS Pensacola in 1935
View attachment 733829
Please note the mast top fire control station for fighting at the maximum possible visual range. No radar so how far you could see governed your maximum combat range.
The guns on this cruiser maxed out 31,860 yds at max elevation. Pitch and roll were going to affect things. Please note the aircraft and catapults. the aircraft were combination recon and "spotting" which in this case means flying near the enemy ships being shot at and radioing back fire corrections. They might be able to drop flares in a night action.
Fleet problems/exercises were often set up to reinforce theories, not to find problems with the actual basic theory. Like what to do in rain squall or heavy seas.
The enemy was only going to fight in good clear, calm weather to maximize his own gunnery, right?

Now please note that this cruiser could out distance the max range of Warspite's "hit" (not the max range of the Warspite) by almost 6000 yds so everybody was under delusions as to how far they could really hit at. Some people were beginning to catch on that combat just might be at ranges under 20,000yds and faster firing 6in guns might work better more of the time.

Pensacola, aside from looking badass in that photo, turned out to be a tough ship. At the battle of Tassafronga she survived a torpedo hit (which detonated all the 8" ammo in one of her turrets) through heroic damage control efforts by her crew, but also a strong structure... Her guns destroyed coastal defenses in the Marshal islands and the Kuriles, and later Chichi Jima and Haha Jima. She took but shook off several shore gun hits at Iwo Jima and survived the war.

Salt Lake City (Pensacola class) fought in the battle of Cape Esperance where her radar detected the enemy fleet (along with Helena) and then spotted them via optics. Her gunfire, along with Helena, San Francisco, and the destroyers Farenholt and Laffey then sunk the CA Aoba, the Fubaki, then duked it out with the IJN heavy cruiser Kunugasa, both sides taking hits and SLC taking a hit to her boiler which slowed her down some. CL Boise (Brooklyn class CL) was hit by Kinugasa and severely damaged, losing two turrets.

Japanese CA Maya

At the Battle of the Komandorski Islands near Alaska, Salt Lake City led a small USN force (with the CL Richmond and four destroyers) that was trying to attack some IJN invasion transports but ended up in a long range gun duel with Japaneses heavy cruisers Nachi, and Maya, and the CL's Tama, Abukuma at 20,000 yards. One of SLC's seaplanes was hit and caught fire, and was jetissoned. Rudder was blown off by more 8" hits and forward compartments were flooded, eventually leaving her dead in the water, but she managed to shoot back accurately and to hit and damage Nachi and Maya, taking out one of Maya's gun turrets. The US Destroyers then covered SLC by a smoke screen and her crew got the boilers working again. The Japanese ships thinking they were being bombed by Allied aircraft, withdrew.

She then conducted bombardments Tarawa, in the Caroline islands,and later Wake with the Pensacola. Her final bombardment missions were at Iwo Jima, also with Pensacola.