with the side thought that the opening up of the Med earlier saves a lot of ton-miles so some of construction program for both the large fleet and light fleet carriers may be slightly faster. More imports and likely fewer damaged warships needing repairs will lead to a mild virtuous cycle.
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
- Start date
All of which will miss the war while Unicorn isn't a combat vessel. We just don't have the economic might at that point to put 20+ fleet carriers in the water in five years as the US did.
Depends on if she is built as first intended or as per OTL. OTL she was finished as a light carrier and converted back to an aviation repair ship later.
And she still saw combat as a maintenance ship, bombarding North Korean shore batteries during the Korean War.
With a British Fleet in action in the Far East in 1942 the need for her is even greater than in OTL both as a light carrier and support for the front line carriers.
Unicorn was intended to operate as a spare hanger and floating aircraft reserve for the Armoured Carriers, mitigating somewhat their smaller hangers and aircraft compliment.
Also to act as a spare deck and obviously provide maintenance when the fleets she was supporting was away from a suitable shore base.
Also to act as a spare deck and obviously provide maintenance when the fleets she was supporting was away from a suitable shore base.
They have less than six months supply left don't they? They can't afford to hand around doing nothing when their very existence depends on getting more fuel.
I said the RN has withdrawn its surface ships (barring Repulse), not that the British have been beaten back.
In terms of decks, don't forget the escort carriers. Yes there's only a few around ATM (HMSs Audacity and Archer, debatably HMS Hermes), but by the end of 1942 they'll have another seven (HMSs Avenger, Biter, Dasher, Activity, Attacker, Battler, Stalker), which can take over as convoy escorts and aircraft ferries.
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Fair. So Britain isn't actually lacking for carriers, they just have too many commitments to be able to concentrate their forces effectively.
The problem Britain has is that 4 of their carriers date back to WWI or just after. Argus and Hermes are really fit only for use as aircraft ferries or training carriers. Eagle is marginal for any but second-line duties and only Furious is really fit for active service. They all need replacing yesterday, which is why the 1942 carriers are needed. The mistake that was made was trying to build 16 at the same time. What should have been done is only order the 8 Colossus class ships to concentrate the maximum available resources and then when they're structurally complete order the 8 larger Centaur class, skipping the Majestics altogether.
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The bigger issue for RN shipbuilding was the constantly changing priority order and the switching back and forth from prioritising fleet units (primarily carriers and cruisers) or ASW (corvettes) as the military situation changed. It's probably difficult to avoid, the various Happy Times will probably still happen here and the RN has to react to them but if the RN had been able to be like the USN and adopt a plan on the outbreak of war and then stick to it it would have made life a lot easier.
The wheels are already coming off as the IJA is 6 days behind were they were in OTL. If the same forces are used then 3 understrength IJA divisons are facing 3 indian divisons at the front (remember the 5th is split between them giving them a hard core), the final aust bde is 3 days away. While the british division is 4 days behind that.
The IJA will need to reinforce and replace the loses they taken but where from. If from China then these will take time to move and weaken them there. They cannot weaken the other attacks and have limited pool of tanks.
As for Burma with them having 6 divisons against the IJA 2, there is going to be pressure to move some to Sumatra or Java.
For ship building the needs of the RN should be less as they not bleed themselves on Malta runs. That will change if the IJN is let free in the Indian Ocean to cut the shipping to Burma/Malaya and DEI. The driver for Midway was removing those who dare bomb near our emperor. This could also be sold as removing the US carriers to focus on destroying RN afterwards.
I am interesting in seeing where the 700 odd tanks on WS11 (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...survives-part-2.520866/page-130#post-23444505) go or is this the shipping to bring in the reinforcements from middle east?
The IJA will need to reinforce and replace the loses they taken but where from. If from China then these will take time to move and weaken them there. They cannot weaken the other attacks and have limited pool of tanks.
As for Burma with them having 6 divisons against the IJA 2, there is going to be pressure to move some to Sumatra or Java.
For ship building the needs of the RN should be less as they not bleed themselves on Malta runs. That will change if the IJN is let free in the Indian Ocean to cut the shipping to Burma/Malaya and DEI. The driver for Midway was removing those who dare bomb near our emperor. This could also be sold as removing the US carriers to focus on destroying RN afterwards.
I am interesting in seeing where the 700 odd tanks on WS11 (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...survives-part-2.520866/page-130#post-23444505) go or is this the shipping to bring in the reinforcements from middle east?
They could draw from their Eastern Force, so basically delaying their drive into the eastern DEI to secure their western flank.
Until the Japanese can take Singapore they can't really get to the Indian Ocean.
Initially North Africa, but it might get diverted.
Which is just what the Allies need. Either it weakened the attack on the Philippines or delay the attack on DEI by 2 or more months. Giving them time to sort defences out. By then they facing 12 divisions in Malaysia/Burma. Plus what been sent to DEI.
The only down side will be Churchill planning a gallipoli to help in the Philippines.
Churchill's inability to understand that total troop numbers does not equal combat power played a large role in his losing faith with many of his generals during WW2. They constantly had to remind him that just because a general has 200,000 soldiers under his command, it doesn't mean that he has 200,000 soldiers that are combat capable. Most of those 200,000 soldiers are rear echelon support troops, such as cooks, MPs, drivers, clerks, etc., with a sizeable portion also unavailable due to being sick, injured, or in prison. This blind spot regarding the actual combat capabilities of the Imperial & Commonwealth armies (and later US ones) also played a major role in his demands for practical operations to be accelerated or impractical operations to be carried out. Or worse, for both to be done at the same time.
The last update was datestamped 18th December - by that time, the troops assigned to the Philippines are either already there or onboard the ships heading there (the second-wave landings were 22-23rd December OTL). They could borrow troops assigned to the East Indies operations, but I'm not sure how much transport was available.
The nearest potential Japanese reinforcements to Malaya are the 33rd and 55th divisions, which OTL were used in the invasion of Burma. I believe they were originally offered to Yamashita but he turned them down because he didn't believe the Japanese logistics would be sufficient to support more than 3 divisions in Malaya. The logistics haven't got any better, and with the Ledge closed, there's no obvious route for additional forces to outflank the Commonwealth positions on the river lines. And sending these two divisions south means giving up on an early invasion of Burma.
If the British are able to hold a line in northern Malaya, I'd expect the Japanese to look seriously at a new landing further south (presumably using troops from the Centre Force), to outflank the defenders that way.
In that he was in the same boat as a lot of Western Allied political leaders and even quite a lot of military leaders like Wedemeyer, author of the US pre war Victory Program on persistently underestimating the size of a Divisional slice, often because of their experience in the First World War.
That would depend upon available shipping. True, their 'shotgun' tactics where they used multiple landings of relatively small numbers to outflank and discombobulate their opposition where extremely effective in OTL, they where highly dependent on keeping to a strict time table in order to make best use of their limited resources & logistics. They were also highly dependent on not losing any more than a handful of transports. Any delays, or heavier than expected losses to their sea-lift capacity, would throw their entire invasion timetable out, allowing their other targets to properly prepare their defences.
That said, the Japanese Army had the habit of impressing any usable transport, including any coastal shipping, within their theatre of operations into service. So I really hope the British are evacuating/scuttling theirs as they retire south. This would force the Japanese to impress Thai shipping to fulfill their requirements if they intend to leapfrog down the coast, something that would not necessarily endear them to the Thais.