Right, now that I have handled (most of) what I need to do today...
Technology: I've said before, any things suggested are going to be relatively minor and within reason for a man who is an Admiral. Thompson is not, and will not be, an engineer. Acting like he
is (even if he were) would just be bringing more attention down on
how he knows these things. Being able to introduce new tactics is fine, that's something he could theoretically think of on his own. Suggesting improvements to carrier design is also fine.
As a carrier commander, he would have reason to look at improving things. Toss in talking
with the ships and it goes further. Suggesting 'hey, a deck-edge elevator could be useful' or 'hey, maybe an angled flight deck could improve our rate of take off and landings' could also work. He couldn't give real details on how to
make them work, but suggestions are suggestions. Doing the same for destroyers or cruisers or battleships? Not so much. Harder to justify, beyond calling in support from Ari or something like that.
Anything beyond that is getting into iffy territory. See Schreiber only suggesting adding more AA to Bisko instead of suggesting the KM build more subs or something.
(granted, in his case he's also got to think about the fact that improving anything in Nazi Germany means the war may last longer which means more dead Germans (and people killed by Germans) than otherwise would be the case...)
Anyway, replies:
Prediction:
The Germans are going to break into the Atlantic, sink lots of merchant ships to deliberately provoke British reaction while making their way westward. Naturally, the British will sent their capital ships to hunt the raiders down and then the German will pull another 'Graf Spee' but this time it is done on purpose.
Once they got themselves "cornered", they're going to seek refuge in American port, which technically still a neutral power. Then, they let the ships get interned. Probably scuttled in the port so they can be raised by the Americans.
Hmm.
Like actually using Sara.
To be fair, Sara is currently being torn apart and rebuilt over in Washington (state). I'm sure he would have preferred having her than Skip anyway
So we'll likely have to go through some process to convince Knox unless Thompson gets lucky and FDR just happens to see Stark's letter to Knox...
Admittedly, part of the reason I went with the botched improvisation was entirely
to give more reason for this to reach FDR, without having to jump through a lot of hoops. Or without having them get through with only one try, which is rushing things. Knox though...up to him if it gets to the President.
Skipjack can only affect people who can see her, right?
Not
quite. It was way back at the start (by which I mean chapter
four), but Utah was able to touch her first commander without him being able to hear or see her. It was the sort of ghostly touch one associates with spirits, though, not a proper 'Oh my god a hand is touching me'. Implication being that Utah was able to, through raw determination on her part+the man already believing on some level that his ship was haunted, touch him.
Freaked him out too much to build the proper connection though.
And I'm not going to say with King, at least not yet.
That said...
King is an asshole of a rather high caliber. Underestimate the depths of his vitriol at your own peril.
He was often referred to as the biggest Sonuva Bitch in the Navy.
This is accurate.
It seems to me that Schreiber may have missed part of the point of the "Sink the Bismarck" mentality. The fact that Bismarck sunk Hood was a major factor, yes, but much more important was just the concept that a German capital ship was out at sea alone. Every single officer in the Home Fleet and the Channel Fleet in command of a capital ship wanted that specific piece of glory, because it wasn't like WWI where there were plenty of German capital ships to go around - there were precisely four German capital ships, meaning only four chances to attain glory from fighting the Germans. Now that one of those chances is gone, the Home Fleet and Channel Fleet's capital vessels are going to be in even more of a hunting mentality once they hear that a German capital ship is at sea with only two cruiser as escorts.
Not inaccurate, but he's both German and
decades removed from WWII. Sink the Bismarck, to the average layman, comes really into play after she blew up the pride of the RN. The Royal Navy was always going to be bound and determined to sink her...but sinking Hood put them in a frenzy. And it's easy to think that if you avoid that frenzy it's easier to avoid them.
Not necessarily the case, but still easy to think.
You know, I feel really bad for Scharnhorst. Those two BB's practically never went anywhere without the other. But now Gneisenau's sunk, poor old Scharnhorst is all alone *cryingface*.
Now she probably gonna sidle up to Bissie every chance she can, treat her like a surrogate schwester. That, or she's gonna get real dark and want British blood.
Being Scharnhorst is suffering?
But yeah. Reverse of the situation Gneisenau found herself in OTL.
I'm surprised Skipjack didn't take everyone's wallet in that short exchange.
Heh.
@ German navy running to America,
is it bad that I want a Thompson/Schreiber reunion scene ala Dutch/Dillion from Predator?
"Schreiber!"
"Thompson!"
"What's the matter? The Kriegsmarine got you pushing too many pencils?"
"It's not my fault I came back as an old man!"
:lol
So, if the Kriegsmarine does make a run to neutral United States, what happens when the United States and Germany go to war? Would the US Navy take the German ships like Britain did in World War 1 with the Reşadiye class Battleships meant for the Ottoman Empire? Where would they use them? I don't think any of the Kriegsmarine girls have the legs needed to operate in the Pacific, and if they operated in the Atlantic as escort ships, well, I think a certain small man with the weird mustache would have standing orders to have them sunk.
Pretty much:
The USN of 1941/42 would not dispose of Biskie, Pringles, or Blücher. While they don't have the legs to really be effective in the Pacific, you still have a fast battleship and two heavy cruisers at a time when both quantities are in short supply. Most likely, they would be assigned to operate with Ranger in the Atlantic, since even Biskie is fast enough to keep up with CV-4. Doing so would protect them from any efforts Adolf makes to have them sunk, and it would free up a battleship and two heavy cruisers for operations in the Pacific--and given that operations in the Solomons devoured cruisers at an alarming rate, being able to transfer two CAs (or even CLs!) from screening Ranger would be most welcome.
It's entirely likely, should the German ships be interned in US ports when Germany declares war on the US, that we'd see USS Bismarck BB-72, USS Prinz Eugen CA-84, and USS Blücher CA-88 quickly commissioned into US Navy service. (Why those hull numbers? Biskie's is the next available battleship number, as the orders have been placed for all six Iowas and all five Montanas as of the start of the war; the cruiser numbers are ones freed up when two Cleveland-class CLs, the Buffalo and Newark were cancelled to let their shipyard concentrate on destroyer production, with the ships reordered from another yard as CL-99 and CL-100... both of which were then re-reordered as CVLs, but that part isn't too relevant! Why not IX-series hull numbers, following Pringles's RL IX-300 numbering as a war prize? Because that's "Unclassified Miscellaneous," and not used for ships intended as combatants!)
This, yes. If that were what they did. The USN is really in
no condition (especially if Pearl goes anything like OTL) to turn down a free battleship and two cruisers. They aren't really going to operate in the Pacific all that well- especially with the lack of tankers at first -but they don't need to. Just having them frees up a NorCar or SoDak for service in the Pacific earlier. Which may lead to the the question of if a hypothetical USS Bisko were
sent to serve as a guard on Tirpitz breaking out.
Which, well...could happen.
If I recall correctly wasn't Biscuit's historical commander Jewish? Also keep up the good work Sky.
There's a lot of debate on that. Lütjens was a very private and hard to know man, so his religious views are kind of...a question mark? His grandmother was Jewish though, as was his wife (or at least 'half-Jewish' by Nazi terminology).
This said, Lütjens is currently chilling his heels in Britain as a POW. Will be going back to him later though.
[X] This is the past, you have the knowledge to cha-
Awww...
Since it's been brought up though, do you ever intend to continue that Arizona quest?
This isn't a quest thread, y'know
(doubt it. It's been laying there so long after all)
I'd be interested in following a Lexie!Quest.
Would it be shipgirl Lexie or steel hull Lexie, like here?
Depends fully on how much WTFing I want from the non-ship girl side.
But remember, right now, the war is going great for Germany. France has been brought to heel. Britain looks to soon follow. The Afrika Korps is making the Desert Rats run like their name implies. And they haven't invaded Russia yet. Rommel's busy in Africa. And, the pre-dawn attack was declared the most valid plan because no station would have been active yet. It wasn't just Pearl that was attacked. Ford Island Airfield, several surrounding AAC fields, and Diamond Point were also attacked, with heavy damage. As for the Japanese teitoku, that's been argued back and forth on this thread a lot, with no clear answer to whether there is one, or not.
Trying to get
anyone to believe bad things about the Nazis right now is nearly impossible, yes. Unless they already disliked them, and that Resistance is disorganized and fragmentary at
best.
And of course I haven't given an answer on Japan, that would be spoilers.
honestly if Schreiber was smart head aim for the American Nuetrality patrol. It's an easy target, forces both hitlers and Japans to act before their ready, and achieves the same result as convoy hunting.
...not...really? Forcing America into the War early isn't the same as convoy hunting. And it arguably causes more issues than it solves. America is not ready to go to war yet, we arguably weren't at the time of Pearl. Forcing us into the war early by attacking the Neutrality Patrol is
not the same as a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Both because it's an uppercut to a force already operating with the idea it could be attacked, and because it isn't a surprise attack on a sleeping base.
More importantly, it's
very clearly the actions of one man. One can probably expect Hitler to bluster his way through things, but the man isn't
stupid. At least in cases like this. Once it became apparent that Schreiber was acting on his own initiative, not on order to attack US warships, it becomes
less likely to lead to war.
FDR is eager to go to war against Germany, but there
is such a thing as overstepping bounds. Going to war over one rogue Admiral is doing such. Diplomatic messages are still going to have to take place. Remember, part of the reason we were so
royally pissed over Pearl was because Japan attacked before we got their declaration of war.
In this case, there
is no declaration of war. And that means that it will become quickly clear that Schreiber was acting on his own. Which is likely to get him sacked
at best if he went back to Germany, and deliberately attacking and sinking neutral American ships isn't going to endear them to him either.
Pissing off the one group that may be willing to take you in is probably not a good idea
I actually wondered whether something like that will occur, something like Schreiber hauling off and shooting up an American neutrality patrol or even making a one-way trip over to the US coast and bombarding a city before surrendering, just to provoke a US declaration of war upon Germany. The niggling problem with this plan, in regards to how it is "the best for Germany" (which, remember, is what Schreiber is aiming for), is that the time it will take for the US to gear up and make it's industrial power translate into military power sufficient to force their way into German occupied-Europe is really quite a long time. Hitler's reaction will either be to rush Barbarossa prematurely or post-pone it indefinitely. The former means a Barbarossa which fails even more catastrophically then OTL and a subsequently faster and bigger Red Army rebound*. The latter gives the Soviets the time to rebuild their military peacefully while the WAllies and Germans exhaust each other slugging it out. Once Stalin has his shiny new Red Army 2.0, he has several options of who to use it against while the WAllies and Germans are distracted with each other... and one of those options is Germany.
Pretty much, yes. Hauling off and trying to force the US into the war early is
breaking everything. The risk of more German lives being lost goes exponentially up, the more one does to delay Nazi defeat. Such as a slugging match between a fully committed Wehrmacht in France/Italy.
An early loss to the Soviets screws over more people than just the Germans, and I doubt Schreiber would particularly want to see a fully Red Germany and possibly Italy as well.
Much as it sucks for everyone involved, the US getting involved when it did was really the best point in the case of 'best for Europe and Germany'. Any earlier, and you risk throwing Barbarossa off the rails and seeing a very Red Germany. Either because of a failure to push as well as OTL, or from having too many forces in the West and inviting Stalin to make a move of his own.
And finally: Yes, Canaris was working against the Nazis. The
Abwehr is debatable in how effective or how much control they ever had, though.
(Long post is long)
