- Location
- United States, EST
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Y'know, I could've sworn this was a story about warships, not tanks...
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
WoG 1
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Righto, I wanted to be working on Lexie!Quest, but let's get this headed off before a mod needs to hop in...
In order:
1. The Sherman is a perfectly satisfactory design. The Firefly, to use an example, is better at killing tanks. But the basic Sherman has a better HE round, which makes it more versatile. This is the classic catch-22 situation. You can have a dedicated tank killer, or a more multi-purpose vehicle. You know what the US chose? Both.
We have tank destroyers for hunting tanks. The Shermans can fight enemy tanks, but they're much more meant to be the jack-of-all-trades vehicles, while the TDs (Wolverine, Hellcat, so on) hunt tanks explicitly. You can upgun a Sherman, the various modifications show this. But it's an arguably practical option when getting more of them on the field quicker is a goal.
Leaving out that Thompson is a naval officer to begin with and any and all suggestions related to land combat are going to be suspect at best. Even if he did pull the future knowledge thing and not get tossed in the loony bin.
Furthermore, the Germans built something like 1300 Tigers. Take most of those and stick them on the Eastern Front, so you've probably got somewhere between 5-700 Tigers at best on the West. I'm not as familiar with the land side of things, so I can't say for sure. The point though, is that even if you lose three Shermans for each Tiger...
You only need a few thousand of them to win anyway, leaving out all the other tanks and TDs and guys with bazookas and artillery and airpower and...
The point should be obvious, yes?
Also, the Matilda was a perfectly functional infantry tank, but a breakthrough tank it is not. It worked for early war, but it would be bad to try and push that design.
2. Hood refits. I'm not going to say exactly what she's going to get, clearly. But it's not going to be a total and complete rebuild along the lines of the Kongous. Remember, the Brits sent Hood to FREEDOM LAND because they wanted her back in service as quickly as possible, but couldn't do it at home without using up valuable dock space...
...remember, Hood is about the length of a Yamato...
...that was needed for other ships. It was a question of repair Hood and fix her myriad of issues, while leaving Renown or Repulse unable to go in for maintenance. Or sending her to America, who is not in the war, to fix her up and leave the space clear for keeping ships fit for combat...well, fit for combat. The Royal Navy made the practical choice of keeping their active ships active, while letting the bloody Yanks fix up their flagship.
They're still, as Harrington and Patterson commented on, going to want her back in action as quickly as humanely possible though. They know they need Hood to counter Bismarck, even if they don't know the full capabilities of said battleship. It's safe to say they'd rather the KGVs do the job, but this is the WW2-era RN. They sent Hood out even in her historically bad shape to hunt Bismarck, even if they hoped she wouldn't run into the German. Because Hood is the only ship fast enough, with strong enough guns, to make a difference. Renown and Repulse don't have the armor to do it reliably.
As such, trying to do something as radical as upgunning Hood or completely stripping her down (LEWD.Haruna.jpeg) to rebuild her from the ground up isn't going to fly. Everyone involved knows that. Everyone involved also knows that the Admirals aren't going there to actually make suggestions on refitting her, of which only Richardson is really qualified to do. And his engineering experience (remember his time on Delaware that let him see Utah) is tilted to boilers, turbines and all that than anything else.
Hood will be refit, but it won't be as dramatic as some of these suggestions.
Finally, we don't know what actually sunk her. There are many theories, and all are pretty much impossible to prove because of the violence of her end. Was it the fire set by Pringles touching off her secondary mags, that then set off her nearby primaries? Was it a direct hit to her mags by Bisko? Was it unsafe powder in either secondary or primary mags? Was it her fuel going up (this one definitely happened, the state of her wreck confirms the explosion blew out her starboard fuel tanks)? All we know for sure is her aft magazines blew, that then blew her starboard side clean open.
So any argument of increasing her safety against Bisko is going to be hypothetical, at best.
3. Changing designs. There have been good points brought up before of monkeying around with the Essex design, and that is something that Thompson could suggest without being out of left field. But as I've said before, he can't do much more than suggest things. If I made him an engineer who could point at the Essex and say 'hey, angle the deck like this and do it this *insert engineering jargon here* way and you'll make a better ship!' then he'd be verging on Sue territory.
The man can make suggestions, but he can't do them himself. And the validity of his suggestions to anyone comes down on how much they are willing to listen. Tactics are one thing, engineering is an entirely different kettle of fish.
He could say that the ships need more anti-aircraft guns, and to fast-track Bofors production. This is reasonable.
He could say that the torpedo bulges that Sara and E historically got are needed, which would do a lot of good for Hornet and Yorktown.
He could even say that we need more escorts for the carriers, or more carriers in general.
But if Thompson starts going off on funky tangents and trying to push for things that don't make sense in the time period, he's going to run into trouble. One could say it would push people to look at the designs, and maybe it would. But it would also get our Admiral committed to a loony bin at worst, constantly looked at with suspicion and mistrust at best. Going out of your way to try and do a bunch of radical things and only being able to say 'umm...well...this may work...?' when pressed is not a good thing.
In other words, don't expect him to start sprouting random things that don't make sense with the '40s tech base. Even if theoretically, and I emphasize the theoretically, possible.
Now, this is WoG on the subject.\
EDIT: Also, Hood is already the next best thing to a fast battleship. No amount of work is going to change that, fundamentally.
In order:
1. The Sherman is a perfectly satisfactory design. The Firefly, to use an example, is better at killing tanks. But the basic Sherman has a better HE round, which makes it more versatile. This is the classic catch-22 situation. You can have a dedicated tank killer, or a more multi-purpose vehicle. You know what the US chose? Both.
We have tank destroyers for hunting tanks. The Shermans can fight enemy tanks, but they're much more meant to be the jack-of-all-trades vehicles, while the TDs (Wolverine, Hellcat, so on) hunt tanks explicitly. You can upgun a Sherman, the various modifications show this. But it's an arguably practical option when getting more of them on the field quicker is a goal.
Leaving out that Thompson is a naval officer to begin with and any and all suggestions related to land combat are going to be suspect at best. Even if he did pull the future knowledge thing and not get tossed in the loony bin.
Furthermore, the Germans built something like 1300 Tigers. Take most of those and stick them on the Eastern Front, so you've probably got somewhere between 5-700 Tigers at best on the West. I'm not as familiar with the land side of things, so I can't say for sure. The point though, is that even if you lose three Shermans for each Tiger...
You only need a few thousand of them to win anyway, leaving out all the other tanks and TDs and guys with bazookas and artillery and airpower and...
The point should be obvious, yes?
Also, the Matilda was a perfectly functional infantry tank, but a breakthrough tank it is not. It worked for early war, but it would be bad to try and push that design.
2. Hood refits. I'm not going to say exactly what she's going to get, clearly. But it's not going to be a total and complete rebuild along the lines of the Kongous. Remember, the Brits sent Hood to FREEDOM LAND because they wanted her back in service as quickly as possible, but couldn't do it at home without using up valuable dock space...
...remember, Hood is about the length of a Yamato...
...that was needed for other ships. It was a question of repair Hood and fix her myriad of issues, while leaving Renown or Repulse unable to go in for maintenance. Or sending her to America, who is not in the war, to fix her up and leave the space clear for keeping ships fit for combat...well, fit for combat. The Royal Navy made the practical choice of keeping their active ships active, while letting the bloody Yanks fix up their flagship.
They're still, as Harrington and Patterson commented on, going to want her back in action as quickly as humanely possible though. They know they need Hood to counter Bismarck, even if they don't know the full capabilities of said battleship. It's safe to say they'd rather the KGVs do the job, but this is the WW2-era RN. They sent Hood out even in her historically bad shape to hunt Bismarck, even if they hoped she wouldn't run into the German. Because Hood is the only ship fast enough, with strong enough guns, to make a difference. Renown and Repulse don't have the armor to do it reliably.
As such, trying to do something as radical as upgunning Hood or completely stripping her down (LEWD.Haruna.jpeg) to rebuild her from the ground up isn't going to fly. Everyone involved knows that. Everyone involved also knows that the Admirals aren't going there to actually make suggestions on refitting her, of which only Richardson is really qualified to do. And his engineering experience (remember his time on Delaware that let him see Utah) is tilted to boilers, turbines and all that than anything else.
Hood will be refit, but it won't be as dramatic as some of these suggestions.
Finally, we don't know what actually sunk her. There are many theories, and all are pretty much impossible to prove because of the violence of her end. Was it the fire set by Pringles touching off her secondary mags, that then set off her nearby primaries? Was it a direct hit to her mags by Bisko? Was it unsafe powder in either secondary or primary mags? Was it her fuel going up (this one definitely happened, the state of her wreck confirms the explosion blew out her starboard fuel tanks)? All we know for sure is her aft magazines blew, that then blew her starboard side clean open.
So any argument of increasing her safety against Bisko is going to be hypothetical, at best.
3. Changing designs. There have been good points brought up before of monkeying around with the Essex design, and that is something that Thompson could suggest without being out of left field. But as I've said before, he can't do much more than suggest things. If I made him an engineer who could point at the Essex and say 'hey, angle the deck like this and do it this *insert engineering jargon here* way and you'll make a better ship!' then he'd be verging on Sue territory.
The man can make suggestions, but he can't do them himself. And the validity of his suggestions to anyone comes down on how much they are willing to listen. Tactics are one thing, engineering is an entirely different kettle of fish.
He could say that the ships need more anti-aircraft guns, and to fast-track Bofors production. This is reasonable.
He could say that the torpedo bulges that Sara and E historically got are needed, which would do a lot of good for Hornet and Yorktown.
He could even say that we need more escorts for the carriers, or more carriers in general.
But if Thompson starts going off on funky tangents and trying to push for things that don't make sense in the time period, he's going to run into trouble. One could say it would push people to look at the designs, and maybe it would. But it would also get our Admiral committed to a loony bin at worst, constantly looked at with suspicion and mistrust at best. Going out of your way to try and do a bunch of radical things and only being able to say 'umm...well...this may work...?' when pressed is not a good thing.
In other words, don't expect him to start sprouting random things that don't make sense with the '40s tech base. Even if theoretically, and I emphasize the theoretically, possible.
Now, this is WoG on the subject.\
EDIT: Also, Hood is already the next best thing to a fast battleship. No amount of work is going to change that, fundamentally.
Last edited:
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Also the Sherman was more than enough against the japanese, to the point that actually increasing their armor or firepower would make it harder to get them to the beaches.
One thing he can do is to improve the Navy-Marines ground support and recon before the assault of Pacific islands starts. While there might not be a Guadalcanal nor a Tarawa this time, the fact is that the first attack against a highly defended position will have heavy loses, and if said attack is against a large island such as Rabaul instead of the tiny Betio will have far greater casualties. So one of Thompson's priorities should be to practice how to spot and destroy bunkers with dive-bombers and how to get the Marines to call tactical support from the first wave of an invasion. And he should also have sooner or later a talk with Admiral Turner about the challenges the Marines will face to have at least some preliminary solutions to their problems, such as the practical limits of the Higgins boats and the usefulness of the LVT's. And since occasionally the Marines do joint training with the Navy one of such training exercises would be enough to give him an excuse to actually talk about the problem.
One thing he can do is to improve the Navy-Marines ground support and recon before the assault of Pacific islands starts. While there might not be a Guadalcanal nor a Tarawa this time, the fact is that the first attack against a highly defended position will have heavy loses, and if said attack is against a large island such as Rabaul instead of the tiny Betio will have far greater casualties. So one of Thompson's priorities should be to practice how to spot and destroy bunkers with dive-bombers and how to get the Marines to call tactical support from the first wave of an invasion. And he should also have sooner or later a talk with Admiral Turner about the challenges the Marines will face to have at least some preliminary solutions to their problems, such as the practical limits of the Higgins boats and the usefulness of the LVT's. And since occasionally the Marines do joint training with the Navy one of such training exercises would be enough to give him an excuse to actually talk about the problem.
- Location
- Pacific NW
Right now Thompson doesn't have time to consider putting those other irons on the stove yet. His shipgirl problem is hogging all the worry in his worry box at the moment. 
The US actually had a Firefly analog, they just didn't land them on D-Day because they didn't think they would need them that early and the logistics where a pain to supply two types of Shermans that early in an invasion. Also, both the US analog and Firefly had to make the same trade off, fit a bigger gun in the same turret size. The Firefly were a pain to quickly load, which meant you got one round off, then spend a long time reloading (the US version was better, but not by much). Later on the US also produced a very heavily armored Sherman to better deal with the German anti-tank weapons during assults.
The M4A1E4 got the same gun as the Hellcat (a tank destroyer). The M4A3E2 Assault Tank got an extra armor.
- Location
- middle of nowhere
Okay can we stop with the fricking tank talk? This is a SHIPgirl fanfic not tank.
Besides that point, based on the what information we DO know for certain, couldn't Thompson suggest increased magazine safety? Also couldn't somebody suggest removal of certain unnecessary things? Just throwing out ideas here. Also I don't expect Sky to answer any of the ideas I posted and don't wish for him to give any spoilers about it.
(If I said something out of line here, please let me know.)
Besides that point, based on the what information we DO know for certain, couldn't Thompson suggest increased magazine safety? Also couldn't somebody suggest removal of certain unnecessary things? Just throwing out ideas here. Also I don't expect Sky to answer any of the ideas I posted and don't wish for him to give any spoilers about it.
(If I said something out of line here, please let me know.)
SKsniper128
22050 kg of ordinance per minute
Thompson doesn't have the authority or the pull or even the technical or tactical know how to suggest anything regarding the Hood.
First off, he's a Carrier Admiral, he's in charge of a ship that is never meant to shoot at other surface combatants and if it is, then he has seriously fucked up somewhere.
Suggestions he makes beyond, 'you might want to increase the number of AA guns and AA fire directors' or 'it might be safer to secure the AA shells inside the armor instead of on the deck', would likely not be taken seriously. Even the latter suggestion might get disregarded as uninformed drivel from a man who never fought his enemy face to face.
Remember that most of his actions thus far (minus the shipgirl stuff) is the advocating of Carrier aviation as a potent replacement of Battleships as the primary offensive element in a fleet. This man has been pushing the importance of aircraft, it stands to reason that most Battleship admirals would be wary of any suggestion that might impact their own ability to fight. That said, it's not unreasonable for him to have done some research on the weapons that would shoot down his precious planes and be able to recognize which ones would be most effective (40mm Bofors single/double/quad)
-SK
First off, he's a Carrier Admiral, he's in charge of a ship that is never meant to shoot at other surface combatants and if it is, then he has seriously fucked up somewhere.
Suggestions he makes beyond, 'you might want to increase the number of AA guns and AA fire directors' or 'it might be safer to secure the AA shells inside the armor instead of on the deck', would likely not be taken seriously. Even the latter suggestion might get disregarded as uninformed drivel from a man who never fought his enemy face to face.
Remember that most of his actions thus far (minus the shipgirl stuff) is the advocating of Carrier aviation as a potent replacement of Battleships as the primary offensive element in a fleet. This man has been pushing the importance of aircraft, it stands to reason that most Battleship admirals would be wary of any suggestion that might impact their own ability to fight. That said, it's not unreasonable for him to have done some research on the weapons that would shoot down his precious planes and be able to recognize which ones would be most effective (40mm Bofors single/double/quad)
-SK
Sky's made it quite clear what James can suggest.
in general, however, as Sky's WELL aware, USN admirals of this period WERE NOT, I repeat, WERE NOT engineering experts. Richardson is an exception, as noted, but the USNA's current status as one of the top engineering schools is _post WW2_. NOT pre. At this time, while there is a decent engineering program, the majority of those who graduate aren't from it, tend to have far more class loads in history/tactics/navigation/ etal, NOT the hard sciences.
What James CAN suggest engineering wise.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we can have a way to launch our planes at the same time we're landing them, almost like two runways on the ship?"
(that's more or less WHAT the angled flight deck is), suggesting the outboard elevators, sure, by pointing out the fact if a bomb hurts the elevators on his lady, she's out of business even for planes on her flight deck...
etc. Minor points.
I'm stunned that Sky hasn't yet done the purging of the fuel lines yet. That's what killed Lex more than anything, and we're pretty sure (so are the Japanese) it's what's killed at least one of the Kido Butai at Midway.
The suggestion of improving tactics for ground attack? Brilliant. (Also, developing Rockets to bolt on fighters now, or napalm would not be out of line, but "Wouldn't it be possible to do...")
in general, however, as Sky's WELL aware, USN admirals of this period WERE NOT, I repeat, WERE NOT engineering experts. Richardson is an exception, as noted, but the USNA's current status as one of the top engineering schools is _post WW2_. NOT pre. At this time, while there is a decent engineering program, the majority of those who graduate aren't from it, tend to have far more class loads in history/tactics/navigation/ etal, NOT the hard sciences.
What James CAN suggest engineering wise.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we can have a way to launch our planes at the same time we're landing them, almost like two runways on the ship?"
(that's more or less WHAT the angled flight deck is), suggesting the outboard elevators, sure, by pointing out the fact if a bomb hurts the elevators on his lady, she's out of business even for planes on her flight deck...
etc. Minor points.
I'm stunned that Sky hasn't yet done the purging of the fuel lines yet. That's what killed Lex more than anything, and we're pretty sure (so are the Japanese) it's what's killed at least one of the Kido Butai at Midway.
The suggestion of improving tactics for ground attack? Brilliant. (Also, developing Rockets to bolt on fighters now, or napalm would not be out of line, but "Wouldn't it be possible to do...")
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
You're right. The AA defense was done by Admiral Wilson on Chapter 11 as a reaction from the fleet exercises so it won't be that hard for Thompson to subtly suggest the BB admirals to increase the air defense as a way to show up that a few more guns (and related fire directors) are all that is needed to keep the ships of the line as the centerpiece of the navy. Ammo storage likewise would only need a few careful words with the Damage Control officers to do the recommendations in the quiet, citing safely measures and minimazing casualties on the deck from light weapons fire.
To get the chance to advocate for other changes in the navy the easiest way would be for him to intencionally screw-up during the Fleet Problems as a way of highlighting the problems the fleet got in their doctrine. Get him to do some nightfighting after giving orders to his destroyers to separate into two columns, and watch the chaos unfold as they swiftly lost tract of each other and later count the amount of ships sunk by friendly fire, and if their target is a cruiser squadron with at least one radar equipped ship and the defenders slaughter the survivors even better. It would show how complex night combat is and would allow to introduce some necessary tactics that the BB admirals wouldn't fight against since they don't make Thompson's position any stronger.
Spectre
eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods
- Location
- NY
that might fall under stuff that happened off screen. and kaga and Akagi's avgas tanks were hit during the attack so even purging their lines wouldn't have done anything
Last edited:
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Problem there is there aren't any more Fleet Problems pre-war. The last one before Pearl was cancelled.
It's one of those things that he wants to suggest, but needs more clout to suggest. The moment he manages to get that clout (say, by convincing people other than Halsey and Richardson that the ships have spirits) it's at the top of the list.
Issue being that while purging the Avgas lines is something that with hindsight makes a lot of very common sense...
It's still a pretty big thing to argue for, considering prevailing tactics and thoughts and all that stuff.
It's one of those things that he wants to suggest, but needs more clout to suggest. The moment he manages to get that clout (say, by convincing people other than Halsey and Richardson that the ships have spirits) it's at the top of the list.
Issue being that while purging the Avgas lines is something that with hindsight makes a lot of very common sense...
It's still a pretty big thing to argue for, considering prevailing tactics and thoughts and all that stuff.
Mega1987
A TTK somewhere at Kancolle's Iwagawa Airfield
- Location
- somewhere at Kancolle's Iwagawa Airfield
My thoughts about the Tiger Vs Sherman.
the normal sherman can only take out a tiger at close quarter AND they have to get the side or the rear of the said tiger to pen the damn thing.
the Firefly variant can pen the Tiger frontally. but they have to get closer than the tiger can effectively shoot at them to do so.
at range, the tiger will take out around, like what skywalker said, 3 or more sherman, depending how far is the tiger is from the Tank platoon, the terrain and the condition of the tanks.
remember that Tiger can easily pen the sherman on any angle and take them out within 1(direct hit to any vital parts)-2(the first shot didnt cook off the ammo or any flamable object within the tank, yet.) shots.
the normal sherman can only take out a tiger at close quarter AND they have to get the side or the rear of the said tiger to pen the damn thing.
the Firefly variant can pen the Tiger frontally. but they have to get closer than the tiger can effectively shoot at them to do so.
at range, the tiger will take out around, like what skywalker said, 3 or more sherman, depending how far is the tiger is from the Tank platoon, the terrain and the condition of the tanks.
remember that Tiger can easily pen the sherman on any angle and take them out within 1(direct hit to any vital parts)-2(the first shot didnt cook off the ammo or any flamable object within the tank, yet.) shots.
Spectre
eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods
- Location
- NY
comparing it to the ammo handling practices the brits had at Jutland should help.
Omake: Wichita
- Location
- Pacific NW
So it seems like the consensus was for both New York and Wichita. Hence I will attempt to provide... hopefully without too much bullying the poor girls. And a bonus vignette. Because I couldn't find anything that it would contradict historically.
Looks like a two parter - Part One
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0—0-0-0-0-0-0—0-0-0---0--0--0-0-0-
Norfolk Navy Yard - almost midnight
Wichita was starting to get frustrated. All her hopes of her crew forgetting about calling her "the Witch" were over, now they were bragging about sharing it throughout the Fleet! Do they want me to haunt them? She was starting to wonder. And realizing that she wasn't sure how to do it. Every attempt to interact with her first captain had been unsuccessful, now he was gone to a desk post. Until a new captain was assigned to her Rear Admiral Pickens of CruDiv 7 was currently ensconced in her flag officer's quarters.
She sighed. Maybe she would have more luck with a new captain. Although maybe a change in tactics would work better. Shouting at the bridge crew, doing jumping jacks on top of B turret and waving her hands in front of faces hadn't gotten her anywhere the entire cruise in the Caribbean. Maybe it was time to do some of that "research" that Louisville and Quincy suggested to her.
"Wichita, finding out what your crew likes will tell you how to appear. Just look for the pictures and posters they hide in their foot lockers and that will tell you everything you need to know." It seemed like sound advice, but Wichita just felt uneasy. Probably because they were barely hiding their giggles when they suggested it.
She made her way down into the enlisted mens' quarters. A scare five minutes of rummaging in sea chests later yielding several pictures of sweethearts, family members, cheap paperback detective novels and posters of Hollywood starlets. Most were "dressed", just in outfits Wichita would never even think of wearing for the most part, but all sharing the same come hither look and showing off their legs.
"Is this what gets sailors' attention? Huh." Sitting amongst the increasing pile of materials her hand then opened up what was an Elvgren calendar. And Wichita's face promptly went fire-hydrant red. "Meep."
The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps broke the spell of embarrassment. In a flurry of motion, Wichita quickly replaced the pile of items back in the footlockers, and raced out of the enlisted berths. "Oh heck." She looked down and still had that calendar in her hand. And was now a deck above where it belonged. Quickly looking right and left, she opened the first convenient office door, stuffed the calendar in the desk next to a rosary, and ran all the way up to the main deck, to the bridge and finally stopped when she reaches the Mk37 fire director.
"Uh oh... Did I put everything back where it was supposed to go?...oh well..oh wait. I really really really hope that wasn't the chaplain's desk that I shoved that calendar in."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--0-0-0-
Looks like a two parter - Part One
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0—0-0-0-0-0-0—0-0-0---0--0--0-0-0-
Norfolk Navy Yard - almost midnight
Wichita was starting to get frustrated. All her hopes of her crew forgetting about calling her "the Witch" were over, now they were bragging about sharing it throughout the Fleet! Do they want me to haunt them? She was starting to wonder. And realizing that she wasn't sure how to do it. Every attempt to interact with her first captain had been unsuccessful, now he was gone to a desk post. Until a new captain was assigned to her Rear Admiral Pickens of CruDiv 7 was currently ensconced in her flag officer's quarters.
She sighed. Maybe she would have more luck with a new captain. Although maybe a change in tactics would work better. Shouting at the bridge crew, doing jumping jacks on top of B turret and waving her hands in front of faces hadn't gotten her anywhere the entire cruise in the Caribbean. Maybe it was time to do some of that "research" that Louisville and Quincy suggested to her.
"Wichita, finding out what your crew likes will tell you how to appear. Just look for the pictures and posters they hide in their foot lockers and that will tell you everything you need to know." It seemed like sound advice, but Wichita just felt uneasy. Probably because they were barely hiding their giggles when they suggested it.
She made her way down into the enlisted mens' quarters. A scare five minutes of rummaging in sea chests later yielding several pictures of sweethearts, family members, cheap paperback detective novels and posters of Hollywood starlets. Most were "dressed", just in outfits Wichita would never even think of wearing for the most part, but all sharing the same come hither look and showing off their legs.
"Is this what gets sailors' attention? Huh." Sitting amongst the increasing pile of materials her hand then opened up what was an Elvgren calendar. And Wichita's face promptly went fire-hydrant red. "Meep."
The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps broke the spell of embarrassment. In a flurry of motion, Wichita quickly replaced the pile of items back in the footlockers, and raced out of the enlisted berths. "Oh heck." She looked down and still had that calendar in her hand. And was now a deck above where it belonged. Quickly looking right and left, she opened the first convenient office door, stuffed the calendar in the desk next to a rosary, and ran all the way up to the main deck, to the bridge and finally stopped when she reaches the Mk37 fire director.
"Uh oh... Did I put everything back where it was supposed to go?...oh well..oh wait. I really really really hope that wasn't the chaplain's desk that I shoved that calendar in."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--0-0-0-
Last edited:
Actually, here's a thing. HE doesn't have the clout. Agreed. But, in a bullshitting session with Hasely?
"Hey, Bull, ever thought of once we launch our strikes, getting the fuel lines clear of avgas?"
Hell, that's actually the BETTER way to go about it, some suggestions he slips into bullshitting sessions (bar/poker games et al), some he passes to others (say Sara's DamCom officer?), etc, etc.
SPREAD out where the suggestions are coming from.
Last edited:
- Location
- United States of America
Would it be possible for Thompson to suggest that the navy establish it's own constriction units? I find the Seebees underutilized in fiction. They did outstanding performance during the Pacific war. Plus my grandfather was a member.
- Location
- New York
Honestly I'd say purging the avgas lines would be an easier thing to get into general practice than the Thatch Weave. Honestly that one's the most outrageous suggestion Thompson's put in so far, what business does an Admiral have telling a flyboy how to run his wings? If the Thatch Weave and fighters escorting bombers could be done by just talking with the front men, I don't see why Thompson couldn't do the same thing with purging the avgas lines. Just get the engineers and DamCon guys together and say "hey I had this idea what do you guys think?", and if he's lucky his guys will run with it. From there it'll spread just as easily as the air wing tactics. Perhaps even easier given how there's a lot less inter-unit rivalry between engineers than between command staff and pilots usually.
Also, I know this is off-topic and might be a bit impolite to ask, but what's the status on Indestructible Spirit? This updates fairly frequently and there's the lexi quest now but the last IS chapter was in June.
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
The Weave is a bit different. Both a case of suggesting it to the man who came up with it IRL in the first place...
And the fact that to be a Captain of a Carrier, you have to be a pilot. Halsey, for instance, got his Wings before he took command of Sara.
Thompson is no different. So it's less an Admiral giving a suggestion and more a pilot-who-is-an-Admiral.
(He wasn't a carrier man in the future, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a pilot)
And the fact that to be a Captain of a Carrier, you have to be a pilot. Halsey, for instance, got his Wings before he took command of Sara.
Thompson is no different. So it's less an Admiral giving a suggestion and more a pilot-who-is-an-Admiral.
(He wasn't a carrier man in the future, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a pilot)
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Problem is that while useful locally it won't do any good for ships outside their direct command. They need to develop it as Doctrine for it to apply for all the Navy, especially since purging the AV Gas is a change in procedure that directly affects the fighting ability of the ship during combat by making refueling harder.
If he thinks is really, really, really, necessary he can provoke a small fire in one of the hangars under very controlled circumstances to prove the necessity, but he would need a lot of accomplices willing to risk a court martial for sabotage, being willing to hurt Sarah or any other girl and risking the controlled part not being controlled enough and hurt or kill people by accident.
Project30bis
Sells Farms to Loaders
- Location
- N. America
Has Thompson messed up the timeline enough so that some of the breakthroughs/setbacks in cryptanalysis occur/don't occur (e.g., Japan realizing JN-39 is compromised, breaking of JN-25, etc.)? (If it's been mentioned before, sorry)
- Location
- Pacific NW
And Admiral King had to get his wings before he took command of Lexington.
Exterminatus
Tsukumogami User
- Location
- Southern California
A few things to note:
- Many USN admirals have served on a wide variety of ships. Having experience from serving surface and carrier, or surface and submersible (I cannot recall anyone who did surface, carrier, and submarine at this moment) is a pretty common thing. Spruance was known for commanding cruisers before Midway and yet he made many correct calls during Midway, Hailstone, and the Philippine Seas. He went down in popular history as having gutted the carrier arm of the IJN and for helping prove that a carrier task force can overwhelm land-based air.
- Thompson has to deal with the fact that he is the only one with hindsight and future data. His peers of similar rank do not have the statistics nor the experience. This means that he will get demolished academically and be discredited when the other admirals ask him for proof. This is especially so if Thompson is coming in with mathematical equations and data that have a lot of war and post-war experience baked into it.
- Thompson is not in charge of the shore-base institutions nor is he an advisor to them. Thus construction, munitions, training, etc. are not within his purview. What this means is that he can at most impose changes on the small squadron of ships under his command and at most make suggestions that his changes correlate to a better fighting force. If he cannot cough up the hard numbers, then any changes he make will likely only stay within his squadron.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Doubt so, he is nowhere near the cryptoanalists nor does he has any access to that level of intel, plus he knows that is one of the things that does not need to improve at all, the allies signal intelligence was legendary (for those few in the know), so he will probably try as hard as possible to keep operational security of comm traffic to prevent any changes at all.
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Can't imagine why. When I run with the butterfly effect, I try to keep it to things that could logically spread out from the actions of the time traveler, moreso than just general shenanigans.
Ex. Schreiber saves Blucher from sinking. This leads to:
1. Norway falls quicker than OTL, since there is no delay in taking Oslo.
2. Glorious is thus out of position to be sunk by the Terrible Twins because her Captain was a moron.
3. She is thus available for Taranto, pushing that ahead in schedule because the event that knocked Eagle out of the running was butterflied away and because Glorious is readily available and requires no training of her crew/pilots like Illustrious.
4. Early Taranto raid...well, we'll get into that later.
In other words, they have to have a direct correlation, not just be something happening at random. At least at first, before the butterflies start really adding up.
And Admiral King had to get his wings before he took command of Lexington.
