Thumpalumpacus
Major
But man, that 12" gun they carried ... that was good.
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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.
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).The B-18 Bolo was a redesigned DC-2, as well
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).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?
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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 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.The D3A1s sent against Guadalcanal were land-based, and had been optimized for ground support.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
My original reply to this was from your statement about a post from Glider which said AA defences did very well during Pedestal,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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.