- Location
- Barcelona, Catalunya, EU (for now)
No, but later in 1942 they launched this one:
HMS Vampire (P72) - Wikipedia
Unfortunately, she was a submarine.
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
HMS Vampire (P72) - Wikipedia
Unfortunately, she was a submarine.
Heh, I couldn't help but think that her captain would always end up wondering why he felt like he was nommed by someone whenever he woke up. (Of course its due to Vampire's fangs)
Hopefully she's a somewhat real vampire like this girl:
Hikari Takanashi
That's even better. A Hikkikomori version.
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- Location
- Canada
I argue WAKE HOLDS.
IJN lacks doctrines for coordination of shore bombardment, and probably has a shortage radios of for landing units to even try to coordinate such. Anyone close enough to observe it directly most likely has the problem of that last 5"/51 gun punching through even an IJN heavy cruiser's belt at the ranges that entails... assuming they don't hold fire until even closer.
IJN sucks at opposed landings, and have little heavy weapons support, particularly at this point in the war. The Americans definitely have heavy weapons, and superior small arms too.
The defenders' morale is going to hold unless the fleet loses, which, as I previously analyzed with outnumbering the IJN by over 50% and likely fighter pilots and craft losses over Pearl from Kaga and Hiryu along with IJN rigidity/brittleness, is tremendously unlikely.
In other words, knowing reinforcements are about to arrive means the defenders can hold for at least one day... which is enough to push the Japanese back into the sea despite numbers, and enough for the naval battle to be decided and support to arrive.
...She looks related to AL's Prinz Eugen.
Muscovfefe
FREUDE SCHÖNER GÖTTERFUNKEN
- Location
- An Island
Actually IIRC WSG also has a HMS Vampire. Better than loli waifushit that is the AL version but not really a great design.
(really WSG has a lot more botes than I knew there were despite having played for a year.)
Spectre
eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods
- Location
- NY
Honestly I'd argue that the gun boats are more important given that the majority of the fighting is going to place in the South Pacific, where land based aircraft limit what carriers can achieve.
I checked and its not really that bad. Just need an undershirt. Compared to Shimakaze she's a bit decent.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
On the other hand a naval battle will almost certainly cancel all naval support for the army units as they move ships to open sea to give them space to maneouver and the surface combatants will be moved to escort either the transports or as an early warning against further american air strikes so right now the japanese soldiers just lost their support fire and maybe a large percentage of their supplies and manpower so in the short term they are likely to hold on for a while.
Then there is the fact that if the japanese naval forces are likely to lose then the mission commander must take into account that the relief forces might be carrying troops of their own, in which case his own force would be forced to stop a naval landing while his men are tired, low on ammunition and most of the Wake defensive positions are damaged or destroyed. At this point of the war the japanese army is not yet desperate or fatalistic enough to sacrifice troops just for the heck of it so if possible he would be forced to order a retreat (and blame the naval commander).
So while the possibility of an overwhelming naval response to the beachhead is out of the question for the reasons you mention there is still a very reasonable chance that the Marines can hold up 'till help arrives.
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- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
I disagree on several points. First off that single 5"/51 cannot cover everything, and once it fires, it will be destroyed in short order as the priority target for all the IJN ships present. Sure it might get off a few good rounds, but it is not enough on its own to handle the return fire.
Second, at this point, the USMC forces there are using M1903 Springfield rifles, with 75 men not even having those. That is an equivalent weapon to the Japanese Arisaka Type 38 or the newer Type 99 (both bolt-action rifles). The Americans do not (yet) have superior small arms this early in the war. Heavy weapons is likewise a push.
Third, we have no proof that the USN relief force has additional manpower or even weapons for Wake (The carriers can fly off airplanes, sure, but we are not seeing them with transport ships or even destroyers being used as transport to carry ammunition/fuel/men). Likewise, the USN cannot stay around Wake for long because they are grossly outnumbered by the rest of the Kido Butai, which they must assume will be heading this way once they are notified of a carrier battle taking place.
Archduke
Don't Take Geology Puns For Granite
- Location
- Texas
Well, considering that Pearl received a large number of increased fortifications, I don't see why they wouldn't make sure the Wake Island Garrison has all the small arms it needs as a forward base. This depends on Sky. I'm also pretty certain that the only IJN CVs here are Kaga and Hiryu, due to the losses at Pearl.
- Location
- Canada
1. It only takes one heavy cruiser blowing up from a point-blank hit for the Japanese heavy cruisers to retreat beyond "lol shotgun good try" range. But yes the gun will be quickly silenced... but are there more?
The IJN cannot afford risking another heavy cruiser to test that. And the light cruisers are penetrable to 3-inch guns at the extremely close ranges needed to do shore support when the SNLF have a shortage of radios.
2. The M1903 Springfield is grossly superior to the Arisaka.
The M1903 is only 3.94 kg, 4.4 kg with a 16-inch bayonet, about 1097mm (about 1.50 meters or a bit less with bayonet) for an on-average 1.7m tall soldier. Having a weapon shorter than you are allows manoeuvres in close combat that would be impossible with a longer weapon (see zweihanders being used to hack away at pike blocks).
The Type 38 is an extremely heavy rifle at 4.2 kg, and 1280mm with a 400mm bayonet (total over 1.65 meters and 4.7 kilograms) for an on-average 1.6m tall soldier. This is EXTREMELY unwieldy.
The Type 99 is 3.8 kg, 1118mm, or 1500mm with the same 400mm bayonet. This starts getting it right, but there's one huge problem. It was developed by the IJA in 1941. Chance of Special Navy Landing Forces having it = NOPE.
The SNLF will be using Type 35 rifle - Wikipedia, basically an IJN version of the Type 38 but "SPESHUL cause NAVY".
The Type 35 is 4.2kg, 1273mm, and 5-round internal magazine with 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridge.
The cartridge and magazine are a wash at a smaller recoil for a smaller soldier and equal capacity to M1903, but the weight and length are BAD. A 400mm bayonet extends the whole assembly to over 1.65m and about 4.7kg. For an on-average 1.6m tall soldier this is EXTREMELY unwieldy.
A heavier, longer rifle with the weight further away from the body (due to longer length and equally heavy bayonets) for a smaller soldier makes the Type 35 gravely inferior to the M1903.
3. With any serious level whatsoever of war paranoia, the garrison on Wake would be fully equipped if not made somewhat larger than OTL as a trip-wire.
The carriers should be covering the planned OTL reinforcement convoy unless something has gone severely pear-shaped at Pacific Fleet HQ or higher up.
And the Kido Butai could be anywhere from 1000 to 5000 kilometers away. Both are equally irrelevant for the single day a decisive carrier battle takes. As long as they are not very close to Wake, they are completely irrelevant. If they were close in anticipation, then why did only two carriers' strikes hit Wake? If the IJN knew you were coming, they'd surely hold all their carrier strike potential a la "egg armed with hammer" approach. And supporting twin-engined land-based bombers makes no sense when you could have a much shorter bombing interval flying strikes off multiple carriers if you wanted.
And if it's an ambush, then we've already walked into the trap anyhow and will have to fight our way out regardless.
Regardless of ambush or not, if there's no reinforcement convoy to cover... why are we sending just two carriers out there???
Honestly, my guess is that E and Sara weren't sent as a relief mission, but as a rescue mission.
The job is not to allow the defenders of Wake to hold out; that's just not going to be possible due to the balance of forces. Eventually, the Japanese will be able to overwhelm them with sheer weight of numbers, just as in OTL.
Instead, I suspect that E and Sara were sent as escorts for an evacuation force that will pull the Wake Island garrison off the island and bring them back to Hawaii. Not only is it good PR (reducing the number of casualties and POWs), the rescued garrison's collective brain can be picked for valuable intel about Japanese ground forces and Lessons Learned about our own equipment.
Such a mission is also much less hazardous than a reinforcement operation; while sending enough men and supplies to strengthen the garrison would require vulnerable--and, in late 1941 in-VERY-short-supply--transports and an extended period in port to unload, an evacuation mission can be done entirely with warships. Sara and E alone should have enough excess berthing capacity to take in the whole Marine garrison force by themselves, and if you don't want to risk having them tied down near the port long enough to take aboard all the men, their escorting cruisers and destroyers would easily be able to do the same. Yes, you'd have to abandon/destroy most of the garrison's equipment--anything not man-portable would require docking the ship and loading it with a crane and/or driving it up a ramp onto the ships, and combatants just don't have much space for such things--but honestly, the guns on the coast and the other non-man portable equipment is going to be a loss, anyway. Better to simply wreck it with thermite so the enemy can't make use of it (something that militaries do train people to do) and abandon the now-useless stuff and get the people out with whatever they can carry with them.
The job is not to allow the defenders of Wake to hold out; that's just not going to be possible due to the balance of forces. Eventually, the Japanese will be able to overwhelm them with sheer weight of numbers, just as in OTL.
Instead, I suspect that E and Sara were sent as escorts for an evacuation force that will pull the Wake Island garrison off the island and bring them back to Hawaii. Not only is it good PR (reducing the number of casualties and POWs), the rescued garrison's collective brain can be picked for valuable intel about Japanese ground forces and Lessons Learned about our own equipment.
Such a mission is also much less hazardous than a reinforcement operation; while sending enough men and supplies to strengthen the garrison would require vulnerable--and, in late 1941 in-VERY-short-supply--transports and an extended period in port to unload, an evacuation mission can be done entirely with warships. Sara and E alone should have enough excess berthing capacity to take in the whole Marine garrison force by themselves, and if you don't want to risk having them tied down near the port long enough to take aboard all the men, their escorting cruisers and destroyers would easily be able to do the same. Yes, you'd have to abandon/destroy most of the garrison's equipment--anything not man-portable would require docking the ship and loading it with a crane and/or driving it up a ramp onto the ships, and combatants just don't have much space for such things--but honestly, the guns on the coast and the other non-man portable equipment is going to be a loss, anyway. Better to simply wreck it with thermite so the enemy can't make use of it (something that militaries do train people to do) and abandon the now-useless stuff and get the people out with whatever they can carry with them.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
This analysis has some problems. Big ones.
First, the Japanese don't have any heavy cruisers available. The only two in-theater are going to be guarding Hiryu and Kaga.
Second, even if they did, no way is the 5"/51 blowing up one of them, for the simple reason that the 5"/51 doesn't have AP ammo anymore. And even if penetration could be achieved, the ships blowing up is decidedly improbable.
Third, the 3" guns penetrating the light cruisers is also dependent on them having AP ammo on hand. As the guns are dedicated AA weapons in this case, I find that extremely unlikely.
No, Wake, if it holds, will hold because the Japanese are terrible at opposed landings in general and island assaults like this are extremely difficult for the attacker to begin with. No superhuman coastal gun shooting required.
- Location
- Canada
1. Well there goes the Long Lance and/or Random Golden Magazine BB idea.
2. Damn, better hope you hit the torpedo or depth charge racks then... or get waterline HE hits outside the armour belt (though that will likely spring leaks from concussion with an inertial fuse, a contact fuse won't do squat).
3. CURSES! Will still shred a small landing boat on a direct hit though.
4. True.
I hope you don't mind my assertion that the M1903 is superior to the Type 35 Arisaka the SNLF will have. Besides, the Japanese only have 2500 men to start with and just getting onto the beaches against dug-in troops is likely to cost them at least one man per enemy garrison member (est. 500 Marines). Add in any boats that get HE-ed by remaining shore guns or shot to matchwood by heavy machine guns and we're looking at 1500 vs 500 combat-effectives. And given the Marines are dug in, have better weapons, and have some artillery support...
No way in hell can you evacuate an island under fire.
Loading up Marines in the lifeboats to rush ashore as reinforcements sounds much simpler than evacuating from an island while it is being assaulted.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Nah, I think your analysis of the assault is overall accurate. As I said in my last post, attacking fortified islands like this is stupidly hard, and I don't trust the Japanese to pull it off.
Decim
On again, off again lurker.
- Location
- St. Louis, MO
Tell that to the British and French at Dunkirk. Granted, strictly speaking Dunkirk isn't an island, but when it was cut off and surrounded by the Third Reich, it might as well have been.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Better example would be Crete for the British and ironically enough Guadalcanal for the japanese, both of them island evacuations under serious pressure from the enemy.
Wake Island cannot be held, and sending more Marines on shore in a doomed defensive action is dumb. An evac operation will be challenging, but better.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
You may want to do research on the seizure of Wake Island.
In the second attack, the IJN ships doing shore bombardment were staying out of range of the shore batteries and still performed decently well. They already knew about the coastal artillery thanks to the sinking of Hayate in attack #1 by the coastal defense batteries, so their plan takes that into account.
Admittedly, they are not going to be providing pinpoint firing on strongholds, but they don't need to. They just have to keep the defender's heads down long enough to get forces ashore to start digging out the overstretched defenders. Considering the reaction force/reserve Deveraux has on hand historically was eight men and two MGs, that is a task that can be accomplished with fairly inaccurate shooting at an island that is not going anywhere.
If you are in close combat as the USMC, you have already lost. They are outnumbered 5:1 by the SNLF troops in attack #2.
The question them becomes rate of fire of the small arms to prevent it from going CQC (where the superior numbers count) or suppress the defenders so you can storm their positions in CQC Under that criteria, the Arisaka and M1903 are functionally identical at 10-15 rounds per minute as WWI-era bolt action rifles. While the Springfield is a (slightly) better weapon it is not really enough to matter in terms of the rate of fire a rifleman can put out to determine this (as opposed to a M1 Garand or other later USMC/USA small arms).
Then why were they not reinforced IOTL, hmm? There was war paranoia and war warnings then, after all.
Again, the work of fortifying Wake was only funded in mid-1941, and the Marines only arrived on 19 August. Since we are running (roughly) a week ahead of schedule, if anything Wake will be weaker with less time to fortify before the first attack.
There was a historical reinforcement convoy (the 4th Marine Defense Battalion plus Buffalo fighters and ammunition resupplies). However, you are missing the point here.
Thompson knows that six Japanese CVs hit Pearl. He knows that at least one Japanese CV is in the neighborhood thanks to fighting Zeroes over Wake. We can even throw in that he remembers that it was CarDiv 2 that supported the historical seizure of Wake, therefore he assumes 1-2 carriers are present, hence him giving battle at relatively even odds.
He does not know exactly how many Japanese carriers are present until and unless he gets a search plane sighting on them (plus their course/speed/position). He also does not know the status (specifically fuel reserves) and location of the other four Japanese carriers.
Therefore Thompson has to fight this under the assumption that the Japanese will fight smart, namely the moment that they know that a USN carrier is in the area, Nagumo will be notified and it is a distinct possibility that if Nagumo is notified, he (or Yamamoto) might cut additional CVs loose to attack him in the medium-term. Worst case, the Kido Butai has just finished refueling in a position where they can start a sprint into the battle zone with multiple carriers, especially Soryu and the Cranes as their fastest units (and wouldn't that chap Kaga something fierce if Zuikaku has to bail her out of a losing battle?). He has to honor that worst case scenario by balancing doing what damage he can (sinking Kaga and Hiryu, further CV airgroup attrition, disrupting the landing) with getting clear of Wake before the rest of the Kido Butai can show and bag themselves some USN carriers (which was a primary objective of them hitting Pearl).
Remember that this is a battle where Thompson (and RADM Yamaguchi) are operating with very limited information just as they did historically and unlike us readers. You are assuming that Thompson knows everything we know, which is not the case. Yamaguchi, for instance, might be only thinking that one USN CV is present instead of two since his pilots only saw one. Or maybe they saw the seaplane tender USS Tangier which historically was carrying the relief supplies and men for Wake and misidentified her (or the oiler USS Neches just like Neosho at OTL Coral Sea).
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- Location
- United States of America
Well in OTL, the Wake relief force that the Sara was apart of was carrying the 4th Marine Defense Battalion and VMF-221 along with 9,000 5-inch rounds, 12,000 3-inch rounds, and 3,000,000 .50 BMG, as well as a large amount of ammunition for mortars and other small arms. Now assuming there hasn't been some major shift that we don't know about we can probably expect this to be either the composition or similar to what the E and Sara are bringing to wake with them. Since two carriers instead of one are being sent to wake, in my opinion, it looks like that a more concerted effort is being made the push the relief force through.
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- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Short term the defining factor in the battle is how many japanese troops landed before the carrier air raid (which is not aimed at them) interrupts landing ops and fire support, if they got less than 1,000 troops they might be able to hold up for a day, longer than that its going to depend on how the air battle goes, and how willing both sides are to bet their fleets on the inmediate result of said battle.
If the americans win and Thompson is willing to risk his carriers to save the Marines (and traditionally the carrier force has taken some steep risks to protect their own since the night landing of the battle of the Marianas, which is part of Thompson naval culture and understanding of honor) then the island will be reinforced. If the japanese win and decide to continue the operation despite the risks that a sub or night destroyer strike goes after the transports then those marines are dead.
If the americans win and Thompson is willing to risk his carriers to save the Marines (and traditionally the carrier force has taken some steep risks to protect their own since the night landing of the battle of the Marianas, which is part of Thompson naval culture and understanding of honor) then the island will be reinforced. If the japanese win and decide to continue the operation despite the risks that a sub or night destroyer strike goes after the transports then those marines are dead.
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- Location
- Canada
And how many French troops marched into captivity after holding the line and letting the British and most of the French troops in the pocket retreat?
"The remainder of the rearguard—40,000 French troops—surrendered on 4 June." Dunkirk evacuation - Wikipedia
40,000 men is enough to hold a pretty large pocket open.
So, how many Marines are going to hold the Japanese off from being able to shoot at the evacuation lifeboats?
Again, how many Marines are going to hold the Japanese off from being able to shoot at the evacuation lifeboats? Wake itself is not so large after all, and if you have won the seas enough to do an evacuation, you have enough to naval-bombard the HELL out of the Japanese forces landed on the island, and starve them out if need be (withdraw carriers though as it's too risky, just in case the Japanese decide to be stupid and not push DEI which they HAVE TO SEIZE ASAP).
I argue that Wake can be held TRIVIALLY provided the naval battle is won.
The main Japanese strike fleets are going to be aimed southward to grab the Dutch East Indies for the resources Japan needs. Meanwhile, Wake remains a thorn in the side of the Japanese shipping routes and can support maritime patrol aircraft to help submarines interdict Japanese shipping.
On infantry:
It's not just CQC. How fast can a Marine snapshot compared to an SNLF trooper? Marines are on average stronger due to larger frames, and handling a shorter (not even proportionately shorter, outright SHORTER) and lighter rifle with the center of gravity closer to their bodies' axis of rotation.
It's like knife-fighting a Tier 6 Japanese destroyer in World of Warships using the Farragut with neither side having torpedoes available. Barring detonations there's only one way it can end. And with how fast an infantryman can put down another, the Marine may be able to engage the next target to pop up as if they weren't the same encounter.
For CQC consider looking at the Battle of Imphal/Kohima/that general area, where the British held an area under 500 square meters in size against waves of IJA attacks including CQC for quite a while until relieved.
It was probably (incorrectly given IJN competence in opposed landings) assumed that holding Wake would be impossible.
Thompson can assume "the Japanese aren't going to throw away DEI for a side show like Wake" which means the main forces of the IJN will be heading south at earliest opportunity.
He can reliably count on one day to fight the Japanese forces currently present (which is definitely 2 carriers from the size of the carrier wings that hit Wake just now, they would have sent more if there were more carriers, or nothing and tried to jump his fleet if they expected him) before having to withdraw.
If/when (high probability given my naval/air analysis) he wins Second Wake then shoving the transported troops ashore quickly under destroyer cover and maritime patrols from Wake itself while his carriers withdraw (for a day) is still fully feasible. And after that the Japanese competence in opposed landings would make Wake not possible to take within a reasonable timeframe without occupying most of the IJN, delaying their operations elsewhere and having them stuck off the island for several days.
Exactly. Wake can hold with a bit of work and use of ship artillery after winning the sea.
The Japanese are not good at landing opposed quickly, but yeah it comes down to the naval battle, after which USN DDs can maul the landed IJN troops by artillery.
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I'm referring to Logistics, mid and long term. Wake Island is out in the middle of Nowheresville in the Pacific. Sure, Wake can be held right now, but it's on a very long supply chain that can be easily halted or otherwise disrupted.