Well, if nothing else, keeping any French ships from getting at the Swedish iron ore trade was a good idea.
Unlikely, I know, but the navy needed to justify itself somehow.
Problem is, submarines could achieve that themselves. So could naval aircraft. The two working together would have been a fearsome combination.
Plus, imagine: French battleship goes to attack a convoy, only to find out that the convoy didn't just have a couple of destroyers for escort: they were escorted by
submarines. Submarines who are gleeful that the French battleship so courteously came to
them.
This might work with modern subs, but WW2 subs can make 9 knots at flank underwater, which they can only maintain for a few hours, at best, and they're a lot slower when running silent. In order to keep up with a convoy, they're going to have to be surfaced, which just so happens to mean happy battleship chewing through submarines and merchies.
...you're completely misunderstanding me. I'm saying they'd keep up with the convoy by just
running on the surface. They're WW2 subs. Most of their time is spent on the surface.
Besides, the other key thing about submarines is that their profiles, even when surfaced, are really small. In other words, it's damn hard to spot a submarine on the surface if it isn't really close. Chances were that any surfaced submarine would always spot you before you spot it.
So, the submarines, when they notice a battleship force steaming towards their convoy, would do an emergency dive to periscope depth, and then set up for an ambush on the approaching battleship force. The convoy then turns in the opposite direction from the battleships, ensuring that the attacking battleships run directly into the submarines. Worst case scenario, escorting corvettes and/or destroyers lay a smoke screen to cover the convoy long enough for the battleships to sail right into the submarines.
(Also, surfaced submarines are hard to hit. They're small ships, with narrow profiles, little superstructure, and everything else barely rises above the waterline. Trying to hit a surfaced submarine with
battleship guns is ludicrous. Trying to hit one at long range, even with secondary batteries, is also ludicrous. Like a soldier trying to hit an enemy fighter with a bolt-action rifle.)
Battleship wise? North Carolina is running sea trials, etc. There's the training BatDiv 5 with New York, Texas and Arkansas. There is also Idaho, Mississippi and New Mexico.
Heavy cruisers include Wichita, and a few other treaty cruisers. And some Omahas.
I don't remember where the story is in the timeline right now, but by the time of December 7th, 1941, Yorktown, Ranger, and Hornet were in the Atlantic (well, Yorktown was in a port on the east coast of the US). I don't remember if Wasp was even in commission yet. Hornet was brand-freaking new.
That's very much true. If that is the case and they do succeed in sinking a British Aircraft Carrier with a Battleship and two Heavy Cruisers. I bet that Hood's reaction will be along the lines of "How in the bloody hell do you allow a goddamned Jerri Battleship and two Jerri Heavy Cruisers close the range enough so that they can open fire on it and sink it? Just how do you screw that up?"
Royal Navy, man. WW2 was
not their finest showing. Neither was WW1, really, but they did well enough for their numerical advantage to be decisive.
Glorious' loss was the single biggest Epic Fail of carrier operations in history, I think. No planes on patrol (no CAP, no scouting, nothing). No one on lookout duty. No planes ready for immediate takeoff. Just
two destroyers as escort. A pair of battleships stumble upon them, seeing them long before the British see them (which, IIRC, they don't notice until a salvo of battleship shells comes flying at their carrier). They quickly score hits. The two destroyers charge in for a torpedo run; both are sunk, but one of the destroyers manages to hit one of the battleships with a torpedo before going down. The carrier is sunk. The only RN vessel close enough to respond to the SOS is the same ship traveling under strict radio silence, carrying (IIRC) the Norwegian royal family and their national treasury, and decide not to help. The RN doesn't even learn of the group's destruction until much later.
Considering that, in 1939, the RN lost a fleet carrier to a submarine when said carrier sent away its two escorting destroyers to investigate a distant contact report with an enemy submarine, you'd
really think the Royal Navy would have learned that carriers need more than a token escort when in hostile waters, and even if they couldn't afford that, then the carrier itself should be constantly on its toes to maximize its chances of survival.
