PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
Oh man, sounds like the DamCon stations are being filled by the IJN in this particular conversation...
Nevertheless hey launched from Enterprise.
At dawn, Halsey was 215 miles west of Oahu. He planned to send 18 SBD dive bombers 150 miles ahead of him on a search mission as a standard precaution. Instead of returning to Enterprise, the planes would continue to Pearl Harbor. The rest of the air group would follow shortly before Enterprise entered port, planned for later that afternoon.
Reveille for the pilots was at 0445, and the 18 planes were made up of the CAG bird (Howard L. Young, the CAG, flew an SDB), thirteen planes from Scouting Six and four more planes from Bombing Six. Enterprise started launching at 0618, followed by three more SDB on inner air patrol (anti-submarine patrol) and four Wildcats were on alert with the pilots in the cockpits.
Enterprise received the famous 'Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill' message at 0812, making Halsey wonder if Pearl had misidentified his SDB scouting force, as he had not informed Pearl that they were coming since he was operating under radio silence. Follow up messages made it clear what was happening though.
The eighteen dive bombers arrived during the raid, and five were shot down or made crash landings.
Meanwhile Enterprise had gone to general quarters and all fighters were brought up to alert status -- this was 14 Wildcats. However, Halsey didn't want to strip his task force of fighters and send ten down again to clear the flight deck, with the other four launching for CAP as her first wartime flight at 0915.
Source: John Lundstrom, The First Team, page 15-16.
Well, that was OTL. The new timeline differs of course.
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Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Re: Pearl
I've said that's as close to a 'fixed' thing as it gets, because any potential butterflies by Thompson don't really impact the Japanese planning. Well. They may make them change up details depending on how fortifications and such go, but the choice of time is pretty firmly set. In general terms.
I've said that's as close to a 'fixed' thing as it gets, because any potential butterflies by Thompson don't really impact the Japanese planning. Well. They may make them change up details depending on how fortifications and such go, but the choice of time is pretty firmly set. In general terms.
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CompassJimbo
Where’s Your North?
- Location
- The former Rubber Capital of the World
That's bad. I'd say almost as bad as a certain meguca and head puns, but at least her death was genuinely tragic.But I can't beat Kisaragi for depth.
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Because I haven't gotten started on the next chapter yet, sharing cutes is the way to make up for the lack of writing. Plus...cute.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Ah yes, more pics from the Skywalker wedding.
Because I haven't gotten started on the next chapter yet, sharing cutes is the way to make up for the lack of writing. Plus...cute.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Well, yes. The fact that someone is radio transmitting implies that they got spotted, since the OTL strike ran under complete radio silence. Honestly any sub stumbling across them should transmit first unless they run say Zuikaku straight past her for a perfect torpedo shot. That said, any sub giving a warning...well the track record for warnings in this specific event is very very poor, alas. It's a possibility though.
I agree that barring some serious butterflies of the 'Japan decides to listen to the army and jump on Russia instead' flavor, the attack's going to happen. The question is, can the damage be mitigated and more ships saved? Well also if Pearl Harbor plays out differently, that might negatively impact entry into the wat. On December 6th, the consensus was 'it's a tragedy what's happening in Europe, but it's really none of our business'. On December 8th, suffice it to say the national mood had taken a 180, the vote to declare war on Japan had *one* dissenter in 535 congressmen (a pacifist from Montana IIRC).
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
Dunno about ships, but they should be able to save a hell of a lot more of the aircraft on the field via not lining them up the way they did.
Setup a rotating exercise where several squadrons, perhaps just one at a time (but that still will help greatly during the attack), are moved out to the secondary air-fields. Use the excuse of seeing how well they could respond as harassers against an incoming force, and if they could delay said incoming force long enough for the main airfield to get planes up in the sky & ground crews ready. Do that via having the carriers act as aggressors and NOT giving away the position of their incoming strikes.
Still won't do a damn bit of good in helping anything anchored in the harbor ('thems the breaks......'), but via pre-dispersal, the IJN won't get the chance to almost casually rip apart the entire grounded air fleet. And again, having several whole squadrons getting shuffled a bit would mean far more fighters MIGHT be able to beat off the second attack wave. The first wave is, unfortunately, going to get in scot free. No way around it, even with what I mentioned above. Oh, they might take an additional loss of a handful of aircraft, but nothing will stop the overall attack. The second wave however likely will get utterly pounded on.
-=-
The below is a major long shot, but...
Has anyone yet come up with the idea of modifying a B-17's loadout to become 'Spooky' about 25 years early? Just using the armaments of what USN/USAAF have of the era would make mincemeat of any infantry force and even light armor/open top vehicles. And no, I do NOT mean cutting holes in the hull or anything like that. More of taking the waist gunner positions and instead of having just one man per side, remove the two men, and bundle in massed, fixed mounted .50BMGs (6-8 or more) on one side with a large ammo container on the other side for balancing. Maybe a 20mm or two, or even something larger (doubtful though). Something that can be done slapdash in the field, with minimal machine shop work, and still do the job, more or less. After all, the original Spooky used a WW2 gunsight mounted on the pilot's left window to actually aim its fire, and was still murderously effective.
LATER, when Boeing hears of it, they can go through the brainstorming of making a 'proper' close-ground support variant with 'proper' firing arrangements.
Won't help much over in Europe (personal opinion, but I could be completely wrong) due to the amount of AA available to Axis forces. But over in Asia and the island hopping campaigns, where AA is going to be light to non-existent in many cases? They'd be excellent for dealing with soft targets and/or unarmored vehicles/equipment.
In short, even if the initial slapdash design turns out to be a total turd, it might just give the designers back in the States the SEED of the idea that they can go run with, and produce something that does work. I mean, the original Spooky was a modified WW2 C-47, and the only thing that really was more advanced over the original WW2 model(s) was its armament. You could have pulled its post-WW2 gatlings for WW2 equivalents, and it'd still be effective. Not *as* effective, but effective enough.
Setup a rotating exercise where several squadrons, perhaps just one at a time (but that still will help greatly during the attack), are moved out to the secondary air-fields. Use the excuse of seeing how well they could respond as harassers against an incoming force, and if they could delay said incoming force long enough for the main airfield to get planes up in the sky & ground crews ready. Do that via having the carriers act as aggressors and NOT giving away the position of their incoming strikes.
1. You give both sets of pilots good operational training for how to attack islands via hugging coastlines to stay below radar, and/or how to use island topography to mask their flight until they're ready to pounce on attackers.
2. You get the AA ground crews used to unconventional attack angles, at unexpected times (they don't find out its a drill until they hit their gun sections via a messenger already waiting at each one).
3. Allows the AA ground crews to get used to seeing friendly aircraft overhead doing combat maneuvers, and thus giving them good 'eyes on' to tell the differences between each type of aircraft and to know what markings to specifically look for (one major reason friendly fire brought down several US aircraft during & immediately following the IRL raid - the AA crews were nervous and NOT used to seeing aircraft overhead enough to know who was who).
4. Gives the Army & Marines defenders casus belli to lord it over the USN pilots for the first few exercise attempts as the USN pilots learn #1, and ANYTHING that would let the Army or Marines get to have one over the Navy is something they'd sell their own mothers for. Later, it gives the USN pilots something to lord over the defenders after they do start learning the proper tricks to properly fuck over an immobile ground-based position.
5. Gives the radar operators a chance to prove their worth, via giving the stations a good stress test so the operators have a better chance of figuring out what is a false positive, and which is real.
6. Appeases the groundside commander for the aircraft who was more worried about groundside sabotage than an air attack, via moving some of his aircraft to much more remote locations where the only people that SHOULD be present, are pilots, ground crews, and guards. Anyone found lurking can be 'dealt with easier', via being spotted quickly and/or not being able to do much sabotage, to use language that would make aforesaid commander happy.
2. You get the AA ground crews used to unconventional attack angles, at unexpected times (they don't find out its a drill until they hit their gun sections via a messenger already waiting at each one).
3. Allows the AA ground crews to get used to seeing friendly aircraft overhead doing combat maneuvers, and thus giving them good 'eyes on' to tell the differences between each type of aircraft and to know what markings to specifically look for (one major reason friendly fire brought down several US aircraft during & immediately following the IRL raid - the AA crews were nervous and NOT used to seeing aircraft overhead enough to know who was who).
4. Gives the Army & Marines defenders casus belli to lord it over the USN pilots for the first few exercise attempts as the USN pilots learn #1, and ANYTHING that would let the Army or Marines get to have one over the Navy is something they'd sell their own mothers for. Later, it gives the USN pilots something to lord over the defenders after they do start learning the proper tricks to properly fuck over an immobile ground-based position.
5. Gives the radar operators a chance to prove their worth, via giving the stations a good stress test so the operators have a better chance of figuring out what is a false positive, and which is real.
6. Appeases the groundside commander for the aircraft who was more worried about groundside sabotage than an air attack, via moving some of his aircraft to much more remote locations where the only people that SHOULD be present, are pilots, ground crews, and guards. Anyone found lurking can be 'dealt with easier', via being spotted quickly and/or not being able to do much sabotage, to use language that would make aforesaid commander happy.
Still won't do a damn bit of good in helping anything anchored in the harbor ('thems the breaks......'), but via pre-dispersal, the IJN won't get the chance to almost casually rip apart the entire grounded air fleet. And again, having several whole squadrons getting shuffled a bit would mean far more fighters MIGHT be able to beat off the second attack wave. The first wave is, unfortunately, going to get in scot free. No way around it, even with what I mentioned above. Oh, they might take an additional loss of a handful of aircraft, but nothing will stop the overall attack. The second wave however likely will get utterly pounded on.
-=-
The below is a major long shot, but...
Has anyone yet come up with the idea of modifying a B-17's loadout to become 'Spooky' about 25 years early? Just using the armaments of what USN/USAAF have of the era would make mincemeat of any infantry force and even light armor/open top vehicles. And no, I do NOT mean cutting holes in the hull or anything like that. More of taking the waist gunner positions and instead of having just one man per side, remove the two men, and bundle in massed, fixed mounted .50BMGs (6-8 or more) on one side with a large ammo container on the other side for balancing. Maybe a 20mm or two, or even something larger (doubtful though). Something that can be done slapdash in the field, with minimal machine shop work, and still do the job, more or less. After all, the original Spooky used a WW2 gunsight mounted on the pilot's left window to actually aim its fire, and was still murderously effective.
LATER, when Boeing hears of it, they can go through the brainstorming of making a 'proper' close-ground support variant with 'proper' firing arrangements.
Won't help much over in Europe (personal opinion, but I could be completely wrong) due to the amount of AA available to Axis forces. But over in Asia and the island hopping campaigns, where AA is going to be light to non-existent in many cases? They'd be excellent for dealing with soft targets and/or unarmored vehicles/equipment.
In short, even if the initial slapdash design turns out to be a total turd, it might just give the designers back in the States the SEED of the idea that they can go run with, and produce something that does work. I mean, the original Spooky was a modified WW2 C-47, and the only thing that really was more advanced over the original WW2 model(s) was its armament. You could have pulled its post-WW2 gatlings for WW2 equivalents, and it'd still be effective. Not *as* effective, but effective enough.
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- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Remember that these are Army Air Force planes and we aren't in their chain of command. Also, to be blunt, in the grand scheme of things, the planes are replaceable since US industry will make them good. The pilots are what's really valuable (and a LOT of the planes in question were second-line aircraft: Aircraft at Pearl Harbor ). We can build planes in a fraction of the time to train pilots.
Also
The American fighter training program was one of the best among the allies.
- Location
- State of Denial
Weren't the planes at Hickam and the like Army planes, and thus outside of Thompsons control?
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
A conversion giving extra machine guns, bouncing bombs and armor was done for both the A-20 and the B-25, the later even had a 75mm gun.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
The closest OTL approximation would be the YB-40. The standard loadout moved to twin waist guns, an extra dorsal turret, and the chin turret a model early, which while not a true gunship layout still gave them a twelve-gun broadside. There was one version that mounted not only extra turrets but also as many waist positions as they could cram in, which would be the closest to what you're looking for.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
I think the Brits put a light artillery field piece on a Beaufighter. I've seen video, but I don't think it was a serious thing, just an experiment.
Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
You sure you aren't thinking of the Mosquito XVIII? 6-pounder with an autoloader for killing U-Boats, limited production.
The issue with making a proto-Spooky is that they're COIN birds, and would probably be eaten alive by any AA guns because low and slow orbits make you an easy target. And the lack of miniguns would make them signifigantly less effective.
- Location
- North Carolina
Only reason that Nevada got underway in the first place was because she had four boilers already hot with her other four boilers building steam for a planned shipboard power provider change from the forward boiler room(s) to the aft ones. It still took her till the 2nd Wave was beginning in order to have enough steam pressure to get the battleship moving. Considering that anything that could was building steam up and heading for the open ocean. Well, let's just say that the one thing a lot of people remember was seeing the American flag that Nevada was flying unfurling as she got underway, besides it was likely a hell of a thing seeing a Battleship get moving from her moorings and begin to head out to sea while under air attack.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Not to mention that since they have to loiter the battlefield for long stretches of time they just beg for enemy fighters to make an appearance, and at the height they work most air patrols would be too high to defend against a hit and run attack.
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Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
I think the Beaufighter was a one-time thing, right after Dunkirk, because Panzers thoroughly wrecked their shit on the continent. It was probably one or two tests, before they decided they needed fighters for other things, like the Battle of Britain. I know it wasn't the Mosquito, because they have different noses.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Some were US Marine Corps, which is also outside his chain of command, yes. Unless Saratoga was in harbor at that time, which would generate bigger problems than the attack on airfields, none of the planes are under his direct command. This also assumes that he will be in charge of Sara in late '41 which may or may not be accurate, modern policy is to rotate command assignments to get new blood into place.
I'm not sure what the prewar US Navy policy was. Checking wikipedia, Enterprise's captain took over in December 1938 after her shakedown cruise and does not get moved out of that slot until March of '41, so probably very slow. Needless to say, once the war happened, the pace of commanding officers on her was a bit more hectic. She had ten between Pearl Harbor and V-J day, basically every time she was in port to get patched up she got an interim and then a new captain, her old one probably got a new Essex or something.
This doesn't include the possibility that FDR likes the cut of his jib and tells Admiral King to make this man his naval special advisor, of course.
Probably in the interests of story purposes, Thompson's going to be with Sara into 1942 at least. Looking forward to that.
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- Location
- Barcelona, Catalunya, EU (for now)
New Year's Eve kiss?
- Location
- Pacific NW
Well, Admirals tend to have a great deal of leeway when it comes to the ship they fly their flag from. Captains rotate, Admirals tend to stick to their favorite ships until they get that permanent desk duty.
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
Ah, you're thinking too far ahead.
Hickam is a loss no matter what. edit: this includes what I'm writing up below - it is impossible to save.
This setup, spreads things out enough that several whole squadrons would be still fully intact AND be at air fields well away from Pearl, that are not being attacked. Thus free to take off and form up, without major risks.
It also raises the possibility of the incoming attack waves, the initial one even, being discovered by a roaming patrol before it reaches Pearl. Just a 1min warning would do a massive amount of good, and likely save thousands via rousing crews to get out of compartments where'd they would have originally been trapped/drowned in the OTL (Oklahoma's rollover), and at least starting to clear for action (Ari could get her bulkhead doors sealed for one thing). No way in hell could they fully clear & seal up, but every little bit helps.
Additionally, iirc a few of the planes at Hickam were USN, but were in the minority. Enterprise had just disembarked a lot of her complement at Wake. If many of those planes remain intact? She might just be able to take them onboard. Again a long shot, but it's a reasonable attempt for Thompson to quietly request. After all, moving aircraft from the mainland to Pearl takes weeks. Any/All warplanes that survive through Pearl are going to be made available immediately, or only with a few days delay.
And again, it's a way to appease/appeal to the groundside commander at Hickam. Give him a valid, reasonable answer for how to deal with his perceived sabotage issue, and an excuse to spread out to airfields that NO civilian has any excuse for getting near, and they might just take it. Gets the USAAF pilots used to using USN airfields, being around USN planes/crews, etc. Arrange it as a fly-off or something. Which squadrons, USAAF or USN does the best on the rotation, gets added leave or something else. Stranger incidents have popped up that turned into traditions, that turned into formalized events (the annual Army vs. Navy game is just that).
Many of those cross-training moments/interactions didn't happen until the war started, and lord was there friction. All of which caused delays, accidents, minor incidents, equipment loss, you name it. Get that crap out of the way first, and you'll be a few months ahead of the OTL in training.
Individually, each thing only increases the fleets odds of survival by a fraction of a percent at worse, to maybe a single percentage point at absolute best. But when those fractions and/or single points are taken together as an overall combined total? It can quickly add up.
In this timeline's Pearl, if kept to the same training/vigilance as OTL's December 1941 Pearl, will be just as mulched by the IJN without doing a damn thing in reply against them.
This timeline's December 1941 Pearl, if brought up to OTL's February 1942 Pearl training & vigiliance, would at least give the IJN one hell of a bloody nose first before being crushed. Note: its still going to be crushed. Period.
Thing is, for every extra plane and crew the USN/USAAF bring down, that's one less highly trained crew for the IJN to have later in the war (Battle of Midway, anyone?) to either use in combat and/or use their crews to adequately train pilots.
It ends up as a snowball effect.
Start small in several occasions EARLY, and get an avalanche down the line, even FASTER than what happened in the OTL.
-=-=-
As for my Spooky idea, some of you missed me mentioning from the start, that it probably would be useless in Europe, due to AA being everywhere. I fully acknowledge that.
In the Pacific, room for AA on the various IJN held islands are at a premium. It's far harder to create fortifications in depth, that is required, outside of rare ones (Iwo Jima's is one such exception. Guadalcanal isn't quite that good). Again, it would be more useful for dealing with 'soft' targets that don't have any AA, or very limited AA. Have them arrive at dusk, using the fact IJN/IJA didn't trust radar, and fire off short bursts to make it seem like there are many multiple planes conveniently strafing, instead of only a few circling while strafing.
Additionally, imagine what just one of them could do to an unarmed/unarmored Japanese transport/freighter after a few passes, or two of them circling a ship.
Admittedly, this one likely won't help really until the tail end of the war, when the IJA is retreating out of SE Asia and you can hit convoys. But it also means that it would be available, and possibly further refined by the time Korea rolls around, and be fully up-to-date from the very beginning of when 'Nam is supposed to start, rather than part way through.
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- Location
- United States
I think it's going to be best that Pearl gets totally ran over like it did IRL. America needs that hit to carry itself thru the war and the story itself needs some threat to characters and death to keep things interesting. Also, the loss of the Pacific fleets ability to really fight is what forced the Navy to turn to carriers in the first place, and if a bunch of battleships survive, they are still going to take priority over carriers and probably really fuck up the US Navy down the line when they keep getting into gun battles with IJN ships that are better than theirs. America needs those battleships unable to be placed in combat if it wants its carriers to get good and eventually defeat the Japanese.
On the other hand, Thompson's "suggestions" have already made it so things won't go exactly as IRL.