- Location
- Nashville
Wait what? I was replying to this...
And I was assuming that you were still talking tanks
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
Wait what? I was replying to this...
And I was assuming that you were still talking tanks
- Location
- Canada
Yeah, I posted, saw he'd updated with the note, then edited with "Ah, yeah, I concede."
(meanwhile, checks if I've been mentally mixing up the two WWII KanColle stories I've been paying attention to...)
- Location
- Nashville
Yeah, and I'm trying to drown out the sads from Decisive Darkness (Operation Downfall) with whatever I can here...
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
I'm also quite sure that Thompson will have something to say about those landing crafts. Those open at the front and thus can get easily massacred by machine guns.
- Location
- Canada
OI! Decisive Darkness was just about as nice as a later-surrendering Japan could have ended up!
Operation Starvation going on long enough to make them collapse would have been far worse as the Allies wouldn't have boots on the ground.
Meanwhile, my own SI Archives TL is hurting my brain with how to be realistic--the Imperial Japanese leadership were a bunch of howling loons--and still have both North and South Japan be viable entities post-war.
IMHO front-opening landing craft are only useful for landing mechanized infantry (e.g. with APCs) or tanks.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
And yet, nothing the Navy had during the trials came close. Higgins won hands down. And I'd love to see the Navy design a landing craft that drafts three feet at the bow, and six at the stern. Higgins also had the canny business acumen to go from less than 100 employees to 24 factories, and thousands on the payroll.
In fact, I found a book with a quote from him.
'The Navy doesn't know anything about small boats, but I do, by God.'
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PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
And yet, the alternative at the time was to go over the sides, slowing disembarkation, and risking the boat and the troops within.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
In addition, all you would be proving is what work for shipgirls. Let's take Utah. Put her on a Higgins Boat approaching the beach.
Higgins boat comes under fire, wat do? Option 1: Utah instinctively summons her rigging, Higgins boat and crew sink because they suddenly have a battleship coexisting with them. Conclusion: Higgins boat does not work with shipgirls, unclear if it works for human soldiers. Option 2: Utah does not summon rigging, finds out the hard way without rigging she is more 'girl' than 'ship' and as such is not bulletproof. Conclusion: Congratulations dumbass, now we have to see if she can get summoned again to punch the lights out of the person who killed her. Value to human operations: zero.
Even if she goes ashore to play Incredible Hulk as you are implying that does squat to test whether or not the naval fire support protocols work, the plans to unload material and supplies in the follow-on waves work, what weapons the Marines need to handle the shore defenses (flamethrowers, satchel charges, grenades, rifles, SMGs, what is best for the assault companies to carry?), or any one of a thousand and one other questions. All these must be answered to make future amphibious assaults a success, some of which must involve human troops.
The cold fact that you do not want to accept is that in warfare risks must be taken, and the cost of taking them and finding and correcting your mistakes is the blood of brave men who died so you could figure out what you were doing wrong. Tarawa was an example of this process in that the lessons learned on the bloody beaches of Betio saved more lives than were sacrificed at Tarawa when more important islands like Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo, and Okinawa were attacked. Lessons like amphtracks, superior procedures to coordinate naval support fires and naval bombardment, the use of tank/infantry units in the attack along with the need for LST transports to deliver armor to the beachhead, equipping the assault companies with weapons to deal with bunkers and pillboxes such as flamethrowers and satchel charges, and so on.
Finally, if in fact USN Shipgirls become a major portion of their war effort as you are implying, the Japanese will counter in kind by summoning theirs. This results in one of two scenarios where either both sides keep resummoning those who die and we get a messy, bloody war of attrition with new-build construction being thrown into the mix to generate more shipgirls, or they kill each other off and cannot be resummoned when the Abyssals show.
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Then what did they use on Operation Overlord? I thought that they have troop landing crafts too small for APCs. Then again I only saw the Hollywood version or the CoD WWIIs.
Also what's IMHO?
... I think those are the most likely scenario with front opening transports due to being exposed to machine gun fire or other weapons at the front forcing soldiers to jump over the sides to prevent being bogged down or tripping due to the dead or dying infront which then would result in slow disembarkation and risking the boat.
Why not place the openings on the side that opens like a car but larger thus protecting the troops while they disembark and less risking the boat.
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PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
Side-hinged doors would tend to leak, or be pushed open by the water. Then your boat is full of water, and you drown for sure, instead of maybe getting shot by a machine gun.
Do you, perhaps, think that jumping into surf, which you have to then wade through, slows a soldier down less than another soldier's body? Frankly, being infantry sucked dick. Especially being in an amphibious assault, and the key to survival was speed. Boat comes up to the shore, drops its ramp, troops charge out (or die), ramp comes back up (still protecting the boat!), boat pulls off the sand and goes back for another load. Much faster than "boat tries to come up to shore, doors get pushed open by the sea and everyone drowns." or, assuming this worked, "Boat comes up to shore, everyone slowly wades out, boat pulls away, leaving slow, waterlogged infantry to die in the surf for sure.
- Location
- Nashville
Unfortunately, you still run into the troops are horribly exposed to fire aspect to the boat, since they still have to rush foward.
I truly hope that the brass here figure out Utah's abilities before getting to that point. But I still think Utah would be better suited to a SOE role than an assault role, after all, rigging works? Then send her in at nighttime as a raider to assist the PT boat forces. She still as squishy as a girl rather than a steel ship? Good luck catching her from a plane or speedboat.
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Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
They used the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personal, or Higgins Boat. Which had been tested against a similar design made by the US Navy, which did have troops go over the side. Which, as Overlord, Peleliu, and other landings proved, was not good, because the water was deeper than anticipated, and the troops were weighed down by their kit, and drowned. So, a front ramp was better. Even Hitler had respect for them. He called Higgins 'America's Noah.'
In My Honest Opinion.
Which was a better option than jumping over the side or going up in a rowboat, like the Brits did at Galipoli. The Marines LCVT was marginally better, as it had a rear ramp, even though it still had an open top.
There's a reason it started as God save the Infantry.
- Location
- Canada
Sigh.
I said that front-unloading boats are best if you have some armour behind it to carry the grunts ashore.
Nowhere did I claim that the front-unloading boat is NOT the best choice available for landing infantry on a shoreline short of amphibious APC/IFV type vehicles that are seaworthy enough to easily swim ashore (and even then having the boat carry it is still better, more reliable).
I said that front-unloading boats are best if you have some armour behind it to carry the grunts ashore.
Nowhere did I claim that the front-unloading boat is NOT the best choice available for landing infantry on a shoreline short of amphibious APC/IFV type vehicles that are seaworthy enough to easily swim ashore (and even then having the boat carry it is still better, more reliable).
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Which Higgins did. The ramp was armored, the rest was wood.
And we're not quoting you. But we didn't quite have the capabilities to make reliable AFV/IFVs back then. Look at how they tried to get Shermans ashore.
That's why I ask so I could learn why side doors aren't implemented. Since you pointed out that there won't be any possible improvement on the landing craft (yet) to raise troop survival and yes I know that speed is the key then how about something else? What do the troops carry that can theoretically be left behind until at least the beach is secure? I've seen documentaries where troops also carry sleeping bags with them despite being essentially the spearhead of an island invasion. And being bogged down with so much equipment their speed is sacrificed.
BTW: Is Kevlar already invented?
True. Is there any unorthodox solution on your end?
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Nope. Not until the OPEC oil crisis. So, a ways in the future. Discovered by accident by a chemical engineer trying to make more efficient, oil-free tires.
Nothing. Everything you're issued comes in handy at some point. Especially a bedroll. Even if it isn't used in the intended purpose. You can use it as a makeshift Ghillie, or a stretcher.
- Location
- Pacific Northwest
Nope, Kevlar wasn't invented until the 60's. At this point, Americans were still trying to synthesize rubber and were trying to ramp up production of nylon for parachutes and parachute rigging.
No doors solution would have helped at Tarawa, where the tide was so low, the reefs were 4 feet above the water surface.
- Location
- Canada
I meant having a vehicle deployed by the boat to bring the troops to the next bit of cover, after which they can disembark safely.
The Universal Carrier used Horstmann Suspension, which could be easily bolted onto the side, and does not pierce the hull.
If that sounds like I'm suggesting "build a slightly modified version (to prevent Novgorod-class monitor level spinning in place, and if you want to avoid ploughing nose-first into the water, you need the front to be altered) and then bolt an outboard motor onto the back for amphibious operations..."
Of course, you might also need to move some other piping like the exhaust, but the point remains that an armoured vehicle bring the troops to cover before they get out is very useful... especially if some of them carry flamethrowers (the Universal Carrier did carry this in some variants!). Lengthening the hull a la the Canadian Windsor variant might also be good for handling purposes.
It's a 4.5 ton vehicle, I estimate, when loaded down with troops in the Windsor variant, with about 4.5m length and about 1.6m hull width underwater, so the draft would be about 0.5m... which, if the waterproofing around the drive axle is handled well, means it can actually use its tracks to wade in addition to the outboard motor idea!
Still dead if a mortar or artillery shell hits you, but at least it can stand machine-gun fire long enough to get you to cover.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
So, a Bren Gun Carrier, because that's what I get when I look up Universal Carrier. If so, then that vehicle is too short, and open to use as an amphibious assault vehicle. And if you modifiy it, like the Shermans, then it's awfully vulnerable. What designers did was build a collapsible canvas skirt framed around the tank, watertight, and rig an 'exterior' propeller that used the existing drive train. In practice, the surf splashed over the skirt, and flooded the engine, slowly sinking the vessel, crew and all, or worse, the Germans shot the skirt, and did the same. If they floated in the first place.
That would be a horrendously exposed weakness. Which would trap the poor crew and passengers to a similar fate shared by the Sherman crews.
- Location
- Canada
Well, I did look back and note the dimensions involved, and Horstmann suspension does suggest to me that the hull is waterproof.
Mind you it's completely useless if the waves are more than 30cm high or so, but the point remains that at least in theory the hull should be capable of being waterproofed. But wait, there's something else...
I never removed the ramped landing craft from the equation.
A Higgins Boat can carry two of the modified Universal Carriers (Windsor/Wasp variant). The draft of the front end of a Higgins Boat is given by Wikipedia as 0.66m. Unless this is an OBSCENELY flat shore you are assaulting at high tide, that's 0.6m water depth at the end of the ramp that the UC disembarks into.
The hull of a Universal Carrier can very visibly and clearly be made waterproof up to that height (rather higher at the front to not get a bit soggy when disembarking).
You get the infantry up to cover, and can bring a flamethrower. That's useful.
Of course then there's the anti-tank gun problem with beaches...
- Location
- Nashville
None besides actually loading the blasted tanks in the landing boats, which is a giant problem on its own. Problem with amphibous landings is that the infantry is almost always horribly exposed. Although the Japanese did have the Type 3 Ka-Chi, though I don't have a very good idea how it performed in battle...
Though the best solution would need to involve tanks being loaded in the Higgins boats in combination with one of the other suggestions
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This would have been good. But what I meant were the small troop transports. The ones big enough only for squads.
How about removing unecessary equipment? Infantry equipment that troops carry mind you.
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Archduke
Don't Take Geology Puns For Granite
- Location
- Texas
Remeber that the two time-travelers are NAVY ADMIRALS. One of which doesn't need to be concerned about Landing Craft and the other is a Carrier admiral. Amphibious warfare is something that he can't really change, outside of improving CAS earlier.
All right then. Ending discussion. Going back to sleep.