Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
I know. I just don't know the comparable branch is.
Forgot to edit that to snuff.
Edit: Think of it this way. The women in that predicament have no say while the men can exploit them.
Last edited:
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Even if a shipgirl cannot act outside the sea she still can do a lot more for the Marines and other landing troops by getting way closer to the beaches than any conventional warship (even destroyers) and using her guns for accurate direct fire against fortified positions in support of first wave units. Both Tarawa and Normandie will be very different battles thanks to that.
Last edited:
- Location
- Canada
How much qualifies as "sea"?
Bodies of water? Oh those are everywhere!
If the surface area requirement is small enough, alright, girls, time to strap goldfish bowls to our feet and carry a water tank for refills if it's needed. Inertial drives would have to be the case then so that the shipgirls could move on land.
Either that or the laws of physics do not apply to them "Iowa, what are you doing with that bathtub?" "I'm picking up speed on it, then jumping, yanking it to be under my feet on landing, and picking up speed again."
ijnfleetadmiral
CinC Rengo Kanmusutai
- Location
- Admiral's Bridge, HIJMS Kongo
Actually, if you factor in years of service, only those who were sunk soon after commissioning would be lower-ranked. Most of the Fletchers would be at least PO2 right off; if you factor in service with other navies as one continuous period of service, some shipgirls would be officers, such as U.S.S. Aulick (DD-569)...she'd be ranked as a Captain. Light cruisers who served from pre-WWI to post-WWII would rank even higher (such as Chilean CL Chacabuco...she'd be a Fleet Admiral). Of the Pearl Harbor battleships, none would be lower than Captain.
Exactly! We also might have a higher ranking destroyer and a lower ranking cruiser.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Even if a BB needs the same amount of water that she did as a ship her human size means she can mix with the landing forces rigth to the edge of their deployment lanes and still allow direct fire support without stopping the invasion while if a normal BB tríes that it would be too much of a navigational hazzard to be worth it unless the situation deteriorated to the level of Tarawa's first day in which attrition forced to redirect the landing craft.
- Location
- Canada
And if feeding them = resupply, we're going to have the Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation Ground Deformation Problem:
"Um, guys, we can't make island maps unless we make all buildings amphibious, because if we model terrain deformation, the map averages the islands out of existence too quickly... and then strategic missile defences would be unbuildable and strategic missile subs would be a huge issue, as well as each factions carriers' build limitations."
If they have nigh-infinite ammo by means of feeding them plenty from supply ships, they can potentially level Betio into the sea in a very slow slog of combined battleship fire , and use other islands in Tarawa for basing purposes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; shipgirls are insanely cheap. An Iowa-class stored 130 16" shells per gun and with 9x16" guns that is a total of 1,170 shells. Their cost is unclear but some googling suggests it was around $500 per shell for a total cost of $585,000.
Meanwhile in 1945, a couple years after this but close enough, your looking at around 45 cents for a pound of roasting chicken or 41 cents for a pound of steak. Even if a shipgirl eats a truly ridiculous amount of food, I'm talking her own (human) weight in food, you are only looking at something like $75 worth of food here.
Just on the 16" ammo that is laughably cheap. Now add in the cost of fuel (2.5 million gallons), crew (~2,700 men), and her various other types of ammo...
Basically what makes shipgirls truly invaluable isn't their size, or MSSB, or anything else. It's their tiny logistical footprint compared to their tactical and strategic use.
- Location
- Pacific Northwest
Sure, ship girls could theoretically level Tarawa to the coral reef it was, given enough ammo and time. That wasn't the objective of the assault. The objective was to begin the Central Pacific campaign that ends with the assault on the Marianas, as well as to put all the previous theory about amphibious operations into practice against a heavily defended objective. Ship girls can do a lot of things, but assaulting, capturing, holding, and pacifying territory aren't some of them.
Last edited:
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
One problem is that there are currently (as of December 1941) no female officers or enlisted in the US Navy (the WAVES would not be formed until 1942). What will probably happen since Utah is part of the US Navy but does not fit into the structure neatly is that the WAVES formation gets massively expedited from OTL and Utah winds up among the first commissioned as whatever the bureaucratic name for 'head of shipgirl operations' winds up there. She also probably gets enough rank to have seniority on all the shipgirls under her, probably as a captain rank, since IIRC you would have to go through Congress to promote her to flag rank, which opens up massive potential problems.
Since the ships are all 'commissioned' anyway, they probably wind up as officers with their date of rank as date of commissioning. Whatever the specifics of that wind up being is probably going to be determined by some poor headquarters officer.
Last edited:
- Location
- Nashville
Though since Utah would technically be commanding at a Personnel level rather than an Unit level, the logistics could probably be simplified down. Come to think of it, what's the chance the shipgirl units end up deployed as a spec ops unit, a la Marine Raiders?
CompassJimbo
Where’s Your North?
- Location
- The former Rubber Capital of the World
Depends on whether Sky lets them "work" on land in some manner. Even if they're just resistant to small-arms fire, they'll be invaluable in drawing fire from the much squishier infantry. If they don't display superhuman characteristics while operating on land, then they don't have any place being with the grunts.
- Location
- Cali
Not quite. Ships have a lot less armor than you think. Pretty sure a Tiger is going to put a round right through nearly any ship that isn't a battleship, and a tiger is simply a stupidly large box carrying an Anti-Aircraft gun. And a shipgirl, unlike a *ship*, will take serious damage from through-and-through penetration. So a shipgirl will be a powerful advantage, but not an unstoppable one. Honestly, if it ain't a BC/"totally-not-a-BC-Wink-Wink" or better, most anti-tank guns are going to ruin their day if they hit. They just have a huge advantage of being an incredibly small target.
By comparison, ship cannons have incredibly shit penetration, because naval artillery is (usually) indirect plunging fire, so you can't really get the velocity needed to punch through heavy armor.
Now the battlecruisers? You'll need the biggest guns of the war to reliably deal with them, presuming you *hit* them of course. And battleships? Well, BB's gonna BB and I don't think there was anything deployed during WWII that could pen a battleship. For example, the USS New Jersey had 307mm of belt armor. Beat that? Well...still gotta deal with the bulkheads. That's another 287mm of armor there. You aren't taking her down. I don't think anything on the ground had the kind of penetration needed to deal with that. Jersey and Yamato could have a god damn tea party in the middle of the battlefield and the biggest danger to them would be spilling the tea.
Of course, the next issue is that people will look into ways to deal with shipgirls. Expect bigger, better guns to show up if this happens. It's not like we used the biggest guns we could possibly make, we used what was needed.
Last edited:
- Location
- Nashville
The Soviet SU-152 would like to have a word with you... since it flat out blew off the turret from the Tigers rather than deal with the armor. Comparing it to a Fletcher's 5 in gun with a HE loadout, it would rip any tank to bits. Your armor arguments still stands though, 0.5" isn't much against any type of artillery.
Edit:
Also
*In a Instance, Somewhere on Guadalcanal 1942*
Konnie: Ehh, where am I-
*BOOM*
Konnie: Ah, shoot first, and figure out where I am later!
Last edited:
Only out to certain distances for Heavy cruiser shipgirls (which are still effectively closer than point blank for their naval rifles) if the Tiger is using standard issue AP shells. Admittedly, a Tiger using APCR is dangerous out to much further distances than usual.
- Location
- Pacific NW
Strasbourg actually did have a Tiger fire on her when she wouldn't let the Germans on her before the fleet scuttled themselves. It didn't do much. And the crew finally drove it off with one of the 13.2mm machine guns.
- Location
- Cali
The tiger with...100mm of armor? That tiger? We're talking a sixth of what's needed to *really* hurt a Battleship. Also, you're looking at something just a bit larger than what we put on destroyers. 152 is roughly a 6-inch cannon. During WWII, we're outside the purview of AP weaponry, and we're playing with mostly HE shells now. Exactly what a ship's armor is meant to deal with. Even the AP rounds weren't that great for the thing. They'll pen 125mm of armor. The shell is too large, and the muzzle velocity too low, for serious anti-armor work.
Sure, shipgirls have a larger theoretical effective ranges (maybe, depending on how you apply MSSB), but the realities of land combat mean they're either hanging back playing artillery support, or well within the engagement ranges of what they're shooting at. The problem is, other than battleships with unreasonably huge fucking cannons, it's a complete waste to have them in an artillery role that can actually be competently fulfilled by humans.
Not surprising. Tank shells will either brutally overpen and leave a small hole, or bounce off, depending on the armor belt. The shells simply don't carry enough HE in them to matter. Against a ship. The difference is, compressed to a human form factor, and going off the ASSUMPTION that MSSB won't scale down the damage of a penetration, that comparatively tiny hole that was an annoyance is now absolutely massive and more than just an annoyance.
Also, again, Strasbourg was a battleship. Nearly 300mm of armor? The Tiger was never going to do more than scratch the paint.
Last edited:
ijnfleetadmiral
CinC Rengo Kanmusutai
- Location
- Admiral's Bridge, HIJMS Kongo
By my scale, most pre-war IJN CLs would be - at the very least - LCDR; Tatsuta, Kuma, Kitakami, and Yubari are CAPTs. Most of the pre-war IJN CAs are LCDRs; only ships commissioned later are lower ranked (the newest CA - Chikuma - is a Warrant Officer). Armored cruisers such as Yakumo, Izumo, and Iwate would be higher (CDR or CAPT) due to their length of service. Destroyers - particularly those who were pre-war and survived into later 1944 or 1945 - are also officers; Kamikaze, Harukaze, Satsuki, and Fumizuki are all LCDRs. Those few pre-war ships to survive the war and see service in other navies are also fairly high; Hibiki is a LCDR as well. Yukikaze is the highest-ranking IJN DD at CAPT, no small feat considering this is starting at Seaman Recruit.
If you work Constitution into the story, no doubts she'd be a four-star right off, considering she's still in commission at this time. I can see her being given a fifth star before Leahy - and wouldn't this just irk Ernie to no end, having a woman senior to him?
Last edited:
- Location
- Canada
The battleship girls can do the experimenting and shrug off the fire thrown at them, with the submarine girls towing their hulks (torsoes) back for restoration if they somehow get all their "nothing" parts of the armor scheme shot away. No Marines need be sacrificed for experimental data. Whoever argues we need Marines to go die as lab rats instead of figuring out how SHIPGIRLS would do (and using that data to figure out how the Marines would have done)... has just volunteered themselves to be the point man of the entire landing, and also pay for the deployment of the Marines, compared to the cheapness of sending a food ship with lots of shipgirls...
After sufficient experimentation (extremely demoralizing for the Japanese defenders), well, the point is to secure the atoll to push further, right? Well then, blowing one of the islands away, if it's not strictly necessary, is one way to secure the rest of the atoll.
If they need continuous water area to spread their weight, no problem... point 14, 15 or 16-inch guns down, start blasting a ditch going inland if you don't have a nearby stream/river to use. There, that's an assault supporting the onshore troops, for much less logistically! You only need one truck/boat of food for her and friends instead of a freaking huge fleet and a fleet train of supply convoys!
Shipgirls are perfect for assaults. Capturing/holding/pacifying territory?
Please note that this is me projecting a worst-case scenario.
To quote someone's commentary on the Caribs after the Spanish passed through, "They are more than just peaceful. They are dead."
To quote someone from AH.com on Operation Downfall, "Sometime between the landing craft hitting the shore and the last mountain village being razed to the ground, Japan surrenders."
If you can't see where this might end up going given 1940s racial attitudes, let me remind you of this poster:
Now, the US Navy most likely WANTS to act more civilized toward Japanese civilians. HOWEVER, if the locals absolutely refuse to give up when the US Navy shipgirls have secured an area for the Army garrison to move into, well... "Sometime between the first shipgirl commencing shore bombardment and the last mountain village becoming a smear of blasted rubble, Japanese resistance ceases"
To quote someone's commentary on the Caribs after the Spanish passed through, "They are more than just peaceful. They are dead."
To quote someone from AH.com on Operation Downfall, "Sometime between the landing craft hitting the shore and the last mountain village being razed to the ground, Japan surrenders."
If you can't see where this might end up going given 1940s racial attitudes, let me remind you of this poster:
Now, the US Navy most likely WANTS to act more civilized toward Japanese civilians. HOWEVER, if the locals absolutely refuse to give up when the US Navy shipgirls have secured an area for the Army garrison to move into, well... "Sometime between the first shipgirl commencing shore bombardment and the last mountain village becoming a smear of blasted rubble, Japanese resistance ceases"
You can see where that's going with such amazing wonder weapons as shipgirls available O_O
To keep a battery of 5 or 6-inch guns firing in ground support, you needed ammo trucks, food trucks, artillery towing vehicles, crew movers, fuel trucks for the previous trucks, etc.
To keep a destroyer shipgirl firing in ground support, you only need one truck carrying food, and the driver has a backup radio. Now, if you already have naval supremacy (or ar flanking a port to storm it from the land side), well, this is the best use of the destroyers. Let the corvettes escort the convoys.
And even if they require a body of water or very solid ground to not sink in, there are plenty of bodies of water in both the Pacific and European Theaters, and Rommel's logistics train isn't so far inland in North Africa to not be lolpwned by gunboats, let alone carriers.
Last edited:
I'm quite sure that Yukikaze being a captain would traumatize a lot of shipgirls.
Constitution: (To any admiral) My hull maybe in dire need of repair, my sails torn and tattered, and my rudder ... crippled. But my will is still sharp as any blade, my name the foundation of a Great Nation, and my voice the will of all Americans. I'm older than you, boy! So don't you dare lecture me about the seas!If you work Constitution into the story, no doubts she'd be a four-star right off, considering she's still in commission at this time. I can see her being given a fifth star before Leahy - and wouldn't this just irk Ernie to no end, having a woman senior to him?
*A wing of P-40s zoomed overhead*
Constitution: Unless its about planes. Those are new.
I think I laid that a bit too thick for miss Constitution.
Last edited:
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Which does exactly nothing to find and fix flaws in the theory, doctrine, equipment, or planning of amphibious operations. Before Tarawa there was no proof that it was possible to successfully assault a defended beach from the sea. The last time it had been tried was at Gallipoli in 1915 and that was a failure. In addition in order to advance through the Pacific, islands with airstrips would have to be neutralized, and while with enough firepower you could level Betio, the same is not true of Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelieliu....
This doesn't count that over in Europe, there will need to be an amphibious operation at some point to retake the continent of course. At some point, amphibious operatiosn will have to be tested under live fire conditions, and risk is part of that.
In addition, the USN right now has a grand total of one shipgirl outside her hull with unknown characteristics.
I just had a thought of an inflatable pool for them to stand on when inland. Yes I was joking.
I wonder if its possible for the Ghost Army to have a shipgirl for protection.
- Location
- Canada
For experimental purposes? crew the equipment with shipgirls and demonstrate on relatively small stretches of beach.
A Japanese officer of an island garrison, while watching shipgirls shake their fists in anger at his general direction while carrying the destroyed carcass of a landing craft away, with one of them too busy taking notes to shake her fist, is recorded as saying "I feel like a lab rat being poked and prodded to see what happens... but I'm glad they intentionally limit themselves for the sake of the experiment and withdraw once their vehicles get destroyed or once they get shot."
Even a destroyer shipgirl, if her abilities carry over fully, is extremely resilient to damage compared to a human, due to sheer mass/size, distributed systems, how small the magazines would scale, and extreme salvageability (HMS Pork and HMS Pine could in theory have been rebuilt to two new destroyers!) And a few hundred shipgirls rushing the shore in a wave should be able to study small-scale Marine assaults enough.
To quote a AH.com thread SOMEWHAT SIMILAR in concept to this: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...colle-fleetgirls.425358/page-84#post-15854185
Larger scale operations will probably require sacrificing a whole lot of Marines in the name of SCIENCE though. Unless we go with Flying Dutchman style "The ships come onto the land" methods becoming standard for amphibious assaults instead.
There are many ways to do amphibious attacks. To insist on using WWII tech developed for the purpose when you have shipgirls... is comparable in wastefulness to insisting on using rowboats to get ashore in WWII because rowboats still existed in WWII!
EDIT: Oh, you added that the USN has exactly one hull-independent shipgirl. THAT is a valid counterargument to my idea (which, honestly, should probably go in that AH.com thread instead, where all the ships get replaced).
Last edited:
Your entire scenario is predicated on having numerous shipgirls, when so far, there is a grand total of...
Utah.