CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Uh...
No, they did not have 20 Essexes done before 1943, and CVLs took a hell of a lot longer than a year to go from keel to launch.
American industry is OP, but let's not exaggerate, shall we?
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
No, they did not have 20 Essexes done before 1943, and CVLs took a hell of a lot longer than a year to go from keel to launch.
American industry is OP, but let's not exaggerate, shall we?
- Location
- North Cape
Then there were the liberty ships... Good God the liberty ships...
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Depends on the Liberty. Some of them lasted years after their expiration date, at least one of them sank just outside its yard due to really poor craftmanship and the rushed timetable.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
And then, the US found itself in the possession of the world's two largest navies: the US Navy, and the US's mothballed Navy.
- Location
- United States of America
Of the four liberty ships that still exist, two are operational museum ships, one is a well preserved museum ship, and one is a land locked fishing company HQ.
Yup. This was (and is) pretty much literally the case. (although at the time, the armed transports under the Army's control were probably either 2nd or 3rd largest)
It gets worse. In 1945 they were literally taking brand-new, state-of-the-art combat planes from the assembly lines and giving them exactly one flight-straight to the junkyard. Cancellation orders had to work their way back up the supply chain, and by the time they did, the ore had already been mined and paid for, and the railroads had already hunted down scarce rolling stock and scheduled trains to ship everything.
Then there's the fact that Lend-Lease equipment couldn't be put in museums, no matter how historic-everything had to be either paid for, returned to the US (at high cost), or (more likely) scrapped. There were thousands of tanks that were abandoned in Europe and just sent to the local junkheaps.
Which ones are these? I've never heard about the last one. This I've REALLY got to hear about.
- Location
- United States of America
SS John W. Brown is a operational museum out of Baltimore.
SS Jeremiah O'Brien is a operational museum out of San Francisco
SS Arthur M. Huddell is a museum in Piraeus, Greece
and Finally the SS Albert M. Boe which was bought after the war and was converted into a cannery vessel and renamed the Star of Kodiak. This is her today.
On top of what people said, it also helps that DDs are built lightly enough that it just blew her bow clean off, whereas armored ships tend to have the belt armor hold the two parts of the ship together, and the armor box trap the blast somewhat, resulting in the blast mostly venting downwards and causing massive structural damage from the whole end of the ship being bent upwards, not to mention the entire belly being blasted out.
With Shaw, it was a simple matter of hacking off the remaining twisted bits of steel, sealing her bulkheads, pumping the water out to refloat her, bolting on a temporary bow to protect the bulkhead, towing her to a drydock, and building a new bow for her.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
And yet in any other time or place that would have been a near miracle and wonder of engineering that would have merited a full National Geographic documentary instead of the 30 seconds its given in any mention of the aftermath of Pearl.
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
That's because Shaw survived. Anything about Pearl is going to be about the 'under handed attack that killed Americans even though we were trying to stay out of the war'.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
I meant that she is a sidenote to the documentaries that deal with the raising of the battleships sunk in Pearl, which to be fair were marvels of salvaging engineering of their time, the public simply loves to hear how battlewagons that any other nation would have given as lost were raised, repared and modernized and were there to participate in the Battle of Surigao and witness the end of the age of the big guns.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Zulu and Nubian. Ever heard of them? No?
They were two British destroyers that were welded together to become Zubian. Don't hear much about them either.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Or Squalus/Sailfish, one sub with two names and two lifes.
Well, to be fair she did got a movie...
Now this would make for an interesting ship girl. Cojoined twins, multiple personalities, or frankenstein's monster... which way to go with it!
- Location
- Canada
We mentioned this before in this thread when we talked about HMS Porcupine... later HMS Pork and HMS Pine.
I suggested USS Monaghan could end up as USS Mona and USS Ghan, the former sent to Italy as a gag gift and the latter being used on some sort of mission to Ghana as a barracks hulk (because the USN can't be bothered to not troll its employees)
Hm... Franken Fran lookalike, probably without the medical chops?
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, there are a number of things I think are important to go over that Thompson would know, understand, and seek to implement with the time and influence available to him.
1) As has already been discussed, the Thach Weave. What's not nearly as well known is that the Weave was actually an excellent tactic for escorting squadrons of bombers, too--indeed, this was successfully used at Midway, where a pair of Wildcats performed the Weave right over a squadron of torpedo bombers, managing to give them astonishingly good protection against a handful of Zeros, until yet more Zeros arrived and overwhelmed the formation (forcing it to split up, somewhat). Thach himself advocated for this tactic, and though I'm uncertain if it was effectively implemented later, it was nonetheless sound in theory. One of the problems 1942 USN carrier air groups struggled with was providing effective cover for the bombers, particularly when the torpedo bombers were so slow. The Thach Weave prevented formations from splitting up or not even realizing one another were under attack (as happened at Midway), since the fighters were right there with the bombers. It also forced enemy fighters to deal with the fighters first, because the Wildcats would be right there on top of the bombers, preventing effective diving attacks at the bombers. Notably, Thompson could have shown various Army squadrons stationed at Pearl during peacetime the Weave, teaching them it, giving it popularity in the Army Air Corps and having ample time to spread.
Additionally, one of the main benefits of the Weave was not merely the ability to brush enemy fighters off of a fellow fighter's tail, but to be able to watch each other's backs even when not engaged, and to be able to communicate an incoming fighter attack immediately by turning towards your counterpart across from you. He would see the other fighter turning towards him, and know to immediately mirror the maneuver, even if he had no idea there were enemy fighters or where the enemy was coming from. By positioning two fighters--a leader and a wingman--directly across from each other, they could watch each other's backs with ease. Thach also advocated for the four-fighter element, subdivided into two pairs. While this was already in practice, some were of a mind that it should be six-fighter elements, subdivided into three pairs, but this proved to be unwieldy.
2) CAG composition. It took time and hard-earned experience for the USN to realize that their carrier air group compositions were flawed--they had too many torpedo bombers and not enough fighters. While Thompson might not have the clout to set the doctrine for the other carriers (though maybe he managed to convince them with that exercise/wargame?), he could adjust his own air group. Even if he couldn't get the fighters he wanted, he could almost certainly swap out some of his torpedo bombers for dive bombers, and just have said dive bombers not be loaded down with bombs, and keep them for defense of the carrier. This is for several reasons:
A) Until the Avenger came along, American torpedo bombers were horrendously slow. So much so, in fact, that making effective torpedo attacks against Japanese carriers (to say nothing of cruisers) was absurdly difficult. Unlike in World of Warships, torpedoes of the day were--at best--barely faster than their targets, meaning that even a carrier could just turn away from torpedoes and just outrun them until they ran out of fuel. Thus, you had to cross-drop them from both sides simultaneously, which means overtaking the enemy carrier even as it turns constantly. Needless to say, speed is paramount for a torpedo bomber to create a proper setup for such an attack. Until Avengers come along, it made more sense to use torpedo bombers as a way to finish off ships crippled by dive bombers.
B) One thing the USN realized after Coral Sea--and especially after Midway--was that fighter cover was the only reliable means by which a carrier could survive enemy air attack. And fighter cover was essential for conducting successful attack against carriers as well.
3) Thompson would have had enough time to pressure Grumman (or get his superiors to pressure Grumman) to keep the Wildcats at a four-gun configuration instead of a six-gun config, particularly since operational range is paramount for carrier fighters, and the Wildcat was already overweight--adding two more guns weighed down the plane even more.
4) He could also have told Grumman of the pressing need for effective drop tanks for the Wildcat, to extend its range. While these were sort of available prior to Midway, they were more jury-rigged than anything, and prone to leaks and various other problems.
5) Thompson did prove that carrier warfare was heavily influenced by a numbers advantage--having more carriers than your enemy changed the game radically. However, one thing he would know is that having multiple carriers operating nearby to each other meant that they could effectively share their CAP, coordinate with each other, and increase their radar coverage (less chance of radar missing something if there are two different sets of radar slightly apart searching the same area).
6) Drop tanks for the dive bombers. Since the Dauntless was the scouting plane of choice for American carriers, getting the most range and loitering time out of them as possible is paramount. He could have called for large drop tanks to be made for the Dauntless for this purpose.
7) Using USN submarines not to form a cordon, but to be given sectors to search for the enemy and report their positions before attacking. This was a major mistake at Midway--all but two of the USN's submarine were stationed to form a cordon where the Japanese were unlikely to be anyway, and where allied scouting planes could more effectively cover that area regardless.
8) Impressing the importance of dive bombing over glide bombing to the Army Air Corps and Marines. Namely, that glide bombing is extremely ineffective and outright dangerous to the air crews that try it. Insisting that any AAC air crews that fly dive bombers learn how to dive bomb and always attempt to dive bomb over glide bombing.
9) Suggest that B-17s that are assigned to attack enemy carriers try to draw out their attacks as long as possible, rather than expend all of their bombs as quickly as possible. This is because high-altitude bombing is very unlikely to hit, but it forces the enemy carriers to dodge, which prevents them from landing, launching, or spotting aircraft for the duration of the attack. Thus, dropping bombs sparingly buys the allied carrier force lots of time and initiative. This was taken advantage of at Midway, but could have been even more effective had it been doctrine to draw out such attacks as long as possible.
10) The importance of sailing relatively erratically when the weather is too poor to launch inner air patrols (to find submarines close by). This would obviously be very important to Thompson, stationed aboard Saratoga, the ship that repeatedly got torpedoed at very inconvenient times.
11) The Japanese had a thoroughly ingrained tendency to make absurdly complicated and intricate operational plans. While this worked out well for them when they had tons of time to prepare, discover issues and come up with solutions, and had the full initiative, it backfired horrendously almost all other times, such as at Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, the Philippine Sea, etc. This was a trademark of Yamamoto, certainly, but it was a tendency shared by all Japanese commanders, particularly in the IJN. They also suffered heavily from "plan intertia", which meant that officers and commanders tended to go along with a plan even when they knew it was impossible to carry out (or that circumstances had rendered the premise of the plan moot).
12) USN doctrine for carriers facing enemy air attack was to save maneuvering until as late as possible, and only when necessary, so as to avoid spoiling your own AA's firing solutions or scattering your defensive formation. While this made sense in 1944, in 1942, AA firepower and tech is not nearly good enough to make this reliably effective, especially against dive bomber attack. Thompson might communicate this to his fellow carrier captains/admirals.
13) In 1942, the Japanese had a tendency to split up their naval forces to accomplish many objectives at once (or within a short time span), which led to disastrous results at Coral Sea and Midway. This, combined with the Japanese doctrine of "distant cover", wherein ships would be very far apart, often too far apart to help each other when they needed it, could be exploited, particularly by ABDACOM.
14) Japan had a really hard time replacing its carrier pilot losses with pilots of comparable quality. After the major losses they took at Pearl Harbor, their performance would be significantly poorer, going forward.
15) Japan's biggest problem with its conquest of the Southwest Pacific was logistics. Even when they conquered Singapore, they were on their last legs, logistically, and were barely in any better shape than the force they defeated there. With working, reliable (or at least substantially more reliable) torpedoes, American submarines might be able to make a significant impact on Japanese logistics, in turn hampering Japanese advances in the region.
16) Japanese AA was notoriously bad at shooting down American dive bombers. During the entirety of Midway, Japanese AA shot down a grand total of one dive bomber. By contrast, American AA shot down at least two (including one before it even dropped its bomb, while still in its dive), despite being attacked by dive bombers only once, and with far fewer than the Americans attacked even Kaga alone with. Japanese AA guns on carriers tended to have poor firing arcs (due to poor placement, and thus lots of obstruction) and visibility. Also, Japanese carrier formations were very spread out, which meant that not only were the carriers largely on their own for AA defense, but everything short of heavy cruisers (in the IJN) tended to have very little in the way of AA firepower in 1942.
17) It wasn't until after the lessons learned at Midway that the IJN took conducting good searches with its scout planes seriously. Indeed, launching any of a carrier's own planes for scouting was against doctrine (with the sole exception of a prototype D4Y meant for scouting, at Midway).
18) Having proven that numerical superiority is extremely important in carrier warfare, it's possible--especially with him having the president's ear for so long--that Thompson convinced Roosevelt to reassign all but Ranger to the Pacific. Given that none of the pre-North Carolina battleships had the speed to keep up with carriers, he could propose transferring all American battleships (including the ones that only need minor repairs, like Pennsylvania) to the Atlantic and/or Mediterranean, freeing up British carriers to operate in the Mediterranean or elsewhere.
19) Thompson would know that assigning long-range bombers/patrol craft to cover the Atlantic Gap ASAP would save millions of tons of merchant shipping, and that the British were astoundingly slow to realize this and do something about it.
20) Thompson would know that it took the US far too long to realize that implementing a convoy system for its merchant shipping (and having destroyers directly escort convoys instead of patrolling designated areas by themselves) would prevent horrendous losses in merchant shipping. His time with Roosevelt could have allowed him to impress upon him the importance of implementing these measures in case the US ever found itself at war with Germany--and faced the threats of U-boats. He could point to World War 1 as the definitive evidence of this--once the British implemented a convoy system, shipping losses dropped dramatically.
21) I know I've brought this up before, but armor-piercing and semi-armor-piercing bombs for dive bombers. The Japanese used these to great effect, and they're kind of a common-sense weapon. Basically, you take a shell of an appropriate caliber (cruiser- to battleship-sized), adapt it for mounting onto a dive-bomber, and viola! You have a dive bomber capable of dealing a perfect, crippling blow to a ship's machine spaces/engineering/boilers, potentially even doing damage to the hull below the waterline (depending on the target and caliber of shell used, plus luck). You can bet your ass that, when Thompson proposes the idea to other carrier admirals/captains, they'd jump all over that--a 1000-pound HE bomb isn't going to do crippling damage to a battleship, for one, and an HE bomb isn't going to do fatal damage to a carrier unless it happens to start unending fires. But an AP bomb could easily knock out a ship's boilers, or its engines, or even its magazines, making it easy prey to follow-up attacks, especially with torpedo bombers.
1) As has already been discussed, the Thach Weave. What's not nearly as well known is that the Weave was actually an excellent tactic for escorting squadrons of bombers, too--indeed, this was successfully used at Midway, where a pair of Wildcats performed the Weave right over a squadron of torpedo bombers, managing to give them astonishingly good protection against a handful of Zeros, until yet more Zeros arrived and overwhelmed the formation (forcing it to split up, somewhat). Thach himself advocated for this tactic, and though I'm uncertain if it was effectively implemented later, it was nonetheless sound in theory. One of the problems 1942 USN carrier air groups struggled with was providing effective cover for the bombers, particularly when the torpedo bombers were so slow. The Thach Weave prevented formations from splitting up or not even realizing one another were under attack (as happened at Midway), since the fighters were right there with the bombers. It also forced enemy fighters to deal with the fighters first, because the Wildcats would be right there on top of the bombers, preventing effective diving attacks at the bombers. Notably, Thompson could have shown various Army squadrons stationed at Pearl during peacetime the Weave, teaching them it, giving it popularity in the Army Air Corps and having ample time to spread.
Additionally, one of the main benefits of the Weave was not merely the ability to brush enemy fighters off of a fellow fighter's tail, but to be able to watch each other's backs even when not engaged, and to be able to communicate an incoming fighter attack immediately by turning towards your counterpart across from you. He would see the other fighter turning towards him, and know to immediately mirror the maneuver, even if he had no idea there were enemy fighters or where the enemy was coming from. By positioning two fighters--a leader and a wingman--directly across from each other, they could watch each other's backs with ease. Thach also advocated for the four-fighter element, subdivided into two pairs. While this was already in practice, some were of a mind that it should be six-fighter elements, subdivided into three pairs, but this proved to be unwieldy.
2) CAG composition. It took time and hard-earned experience for the USN to realize that their carrier air group compositions were flawed--they had too many torpedo bombers and not enough fighters. While Thompson might not have the clout to set the doctrine for the other carriers (though maybe he managed to convince them with that exercise/wargame?), he could adjust his own air group. Even if he couldn't get the fighters he wanted, he could almost certainly swap out some of his torpedo bombers for dive bombers, and just have said dive bombers not be loaded down with bombs, and keep them for defense of the carrier. This is for several reasons:
A) Until the Avenger came along, American torpedo bombers were horrendously slow. So much so, in fact, that making effective torpedo attacks against Japanese carriers (to say nothing of cruisers) was absurdly difficult. Unlike in World of Warships, torpedoes of the day were--at best--barely faster than their targets, meaning that even a carrier could just turn away from torpedoes and just outrun them until they ran out of fuel. Thus, you had to cross-drop them from both sides simultaneously, which means overtaking the enemy carrier even as it turns constantly. Needless to say, speed is paramount for a torpedo bomber to create a proper setup for such an attack. Until Avengers come along, it made more sense to use torpedo bombers as a way to finish off ships crippled by dive bombers.
B) One thing the USN realized after Coral Sea--and especially after Midway--was that fighter cover was the only reliable means by which a carrier could survive enemy air attack. And fighter cover was essential for conducting successful attack against carriers as well.
3) Thompson would have had enough time to pressure Grumman (or get his superiors to pressure Grumman) to keep the Wildcats at a four-gun configuration instead of a six-gun config, particularly since operational range is paramount for carrier fighters, and the Wildcat was already overweight--adding two more guns weighed down the plane even more.
4) He could also have told Grumman of the pressing need for effective drop tanks for the Wildcat, to extend its range. While these were sort of available prior to Midway, they were more jury-rigged than anything, and prone to leaks and various other problems.
5) Thompson did prove that carrier warfare was heavily influenced by a numbers advantage--having more carriers than your enemy changed the game radically. However, one thing he would know is that having multiple carriers operating nearby to each other meant that they could effectively share their CAP, coordinate with each other, and increase their radar coverage (less chance of radar missing something if there are two different sets of radar slightly apart searching the same area).
6) Drop tanks for the dive bombers. Since the Dauntless was the scouting plane of choice for American carriers, getting the most range and loitering time out of them as possible is paramount. He could have called for large drop tanks to be made for the Dauntless for this purpose.
7) Using USN submarines not to form a cordon, but to be given sectors to search for the enemy and report their positions before attacking. This was a major mistake at Midway--all but two of the USN's submarine were stationed to form a cordon where the Japanese were unlikely to be anyway, and where allied scouting planes could more effectively cover that area regardless.
8) Impressing the importance of dive bombing over glide bombing to the Army Air Corps and Marines. Namely, that glide bombing is extremely ineffective and outright dangerous to the air crews that try it. Insisting that any AAC air crews that fly dive bombers learn how to dive bomb and always attempt to dive bomb over glide bombing.
9) Suggest that B-17s that are assigned to attack enemy carriers try to draw out their attacks as long as possible, rather than expend all of their bombs as quickly as possible. This is because high-altitude bombing is very unlikely to hit, but it forces the enemy carriers to dodge, which prevents them from landing, launching, or spotting aircraft for the duration of the attack. Thus, dropping bombs sparingly buys the allied carrier force lots of time and initiative. This was taken advantage of at Midway, but could have been even more effective had it been doctrine to draw out such attacks as long as possible.
10) The importance of sailing relatively erratically when the weather is too poor to launch inner air patrols (to find submarines close by). This would obviously be very important to Thompson, stationed aboard Saratoga, the ship that repeatedly got torpedoed at very inconvenient times.
11) The Japanese had a thoroughly ingrained tendency to make absurdly complicated and intricate operational plans. While this worked out well for them when they had tons of time to prepare, discover issues and come up with solutions, and had the full initiative, it backfired horrendously almost all other times, such as at Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, the Philippine Sea, etc. This was a trademark of Yamamoto, certainly, but it was a tendency shared by all Japanese commanders, particularly in the IJN. They also suffered heavily from "plan intertia", which meant that officers and commanders tended to go along with a plan even when they knew it was impossible to carry out (or that circumstances had rendered the premise of the plan moot).
12) USN doctrine for carriers facing enemy air attack was to save maneuvering until as late as possible, and only when necessary, so as to avoid spoiling your own AA's firing solutions or scattering your defensive formation. While this made sense in 1944, in 1942, AA firepower and tech is not nearly good enough to make this reliably effective, especially against dive bomber attack. Thompson might communicate this to his fellow carrier captains/admirals.
13) In 1942, the Japanese had a tendency to split up their naval forces to accomplish many objectives at once (or within a short time span), which led to disastrous results at Coral Sea and Midway. This, combined with the Japanese doctrine of "distant cover", wherein ships would be very far apart, often too far apart to help each other when they needed it, could be exploited, particularly by ABDACOM.
14) Japan had a really hard time replacing its carrier pilot losses with pilots of comparable quality. After the major losses they took at Pearl Harbor, their performance would be significantly poorer, going forward.
15) Japan's biggest problem with its conquest of the Southwest Pacific was logistics. Even when they conquered Singapore, they were on their last legs, logistically, and were barely in any better shape than the force they defeated there. With working, reliable (or at least substantially more reliable) torpedoes, American submarines might be able to make a significant impact on Japanese logistics, in turn hampering Japanese advances in the region.
16) Japanese AA was notoriously bad at shooting down American dive bombers. During the entirety of Midway, Japanese AA shot down a grand total of one dive bomber. By contrast, American AA shot down at least two (including one before it even dropped its bomb, while still in its dive), despite being attacked by dive bombers only once, and with far fewer than the Americans attacked even Kaga alone with. Japanese AA guns on carriers tended to have poor firing arcs (due to poor placement, and thus lots of obstruction) and visibility. Also, Japanese carrier formations were very spread out, which meant that not only were the carriers largely on their own for AA defense, but everything short of heavy cruisers (in the IJN) tended to have very little in the way of AA firepower in 1942.
17) It wasn't until after the lessons learned at Midway that the IJN took conducting good searches with its scout planes seriously. Indeed, launching any of a carrier's own planes for scouting was against doctrine (with the sole exception of a prototype D4Y meant for scouting, at Midway).
18) Having proven that numerical superiority is extremely important in carrier warfare, it's possible--especially with him having the president's ear for so long--that Thompson convinced Roosevelt to reassign all but Ranger to the Pacific. Given that none of the pre-North Carolina battleships had the speed to keep up with carriers, he could propose transferring all American battleships (including the ones that only need minor repairs, like Pennsylvania) to the Atlantic and/or Mediterranean, freeing up British carriers to operate in the Mediterranean or elsewhere.
19) Thompson would know that assigning long-range bombers/patrol craft to cover the Atlantic Gap ASAP would save millions of tons of merchant shipping, and that the British were astoundingly slow to realize this and do something about it.
20) Thompson would know that it took the US far too long to realize that implementing a convoy system for its merchant shipping (and having destroyers directly escort convoys instead of patrolling designated areas by themselves) would prevent horrendous losses in merchant shipping. His time with Roosevelt could have allowed him to impress upon him the importance of implementing these measures in case the US ever found itself at war with Germany--and faced the threats of U-boats. He could point to World War 1 as the definitive evidence of this--once the British implemented a convoy system, shipping losses dropped dramatically.
21) I know I've brought this up before, but armor-piercing and semi-armor-piercing bombs for dive bombers. The Japanese used these to great effect, and they're kind of a common-sense weapon. Basically, you take a shell of an appropriate caliber (cruiser- to battleship-sized), adapt it for mounting onto a dive-bomber, and viola! You have a dive bomber capable of dealing a perfect, crippling blow to a ship's machine spaces/engineering/boilers, potentially even doing damage to the hull below the waterline (depending on the target and caliber of shell used, plus luck). You can bet your ass that, when Thompson proposes the idea to other carrier admirals/captains, they'd jump all over that--a 1000-pound HE bomb isn't going to do crippling damage to a battleship, for one, and an HE bomb isn't going to do fatal damage to a carrier unless it happens to start unending fires. But an AP bomb could easily knock out a ship's boilers, or its engines, or even its magazines, making it easy prey to follow-up attacks, especially with torpedo bombers.
Last edited:
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
@SaltyWaffles okay, so what was the point of that incredibly long post containing things that, yes, Thomson should know, but likely can't affect.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Because there are things that he can't affect at all, things that he can't affect right now but can do at a later date, and things that he can't affect at an institutional level but that he will affect in his own Task Force and then use the positive experience to change them at doctrine level.
So, two of them have a gun under a closet, another is a preened showboat, and the last is a drunkard businesswoman.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Rule 3: Be Civil. The condescension is not okay. There's a banner for a reason.
Okay. Let's work backwards.
Number 20. How? How can Thomson affect Atlantic Convoys? He's going to have his hands full on the other side of the Panama Canal.
Number 19. What bombers? The current iteration of the B-17 is the B-17E. Of which there will only ever be 512. All told, there are less than 600 B-17s anywhere. Because why build more? They weren't at war yet. And again. How does Thomson affect the Atlantic Gap?
Number 18. Would get Thomson reassigned to sail a desk. Because of all the other admirals he stuck his thumb in the eye of.
Number 17. What does that mean for Thomson? The IJN didn't figure that out, yes. How does that relate to Thomson's TF?
Number 16. Yes. But how does that affect anything for America? Even if he knows how shit Japanese AAA is now, he can use it, but pilots are going to figure that out themselves soon.
Number 15. Yes. A fact the American Presidency is already aware of. Which is why, when Japan was being a bully, oil shipments were halted.
Number 14. General factoid. Which pilots will notice. And will take advantage of when better airframes come out.
Number 13. General factoid that pilots will notice and take advantage of.
Number 12. Maneuvering does very little to spoil dive bombing runs. Because the bombers hold back until they get close. There's a reason the tactic is nicknamed 'helldiving.'
Number 11. No shit. They planned on defeating America. A country with more productive capacity than Japan could even dream of. Production really hit a high stride in 1944. Which is when the federal goegovernm told manufactories to slow down.
Number 10. That's what destroyer pickets are for. You know, with Sonar and depth chrages for that whole thing. And if the weather is poor, a U-boat has a hard time shooting straight. So imagine how hard it would be for an I-boat.
Number 9. See number 19 comment. Not to mention hitting a target from a B-17. A stationary land target was hard enough. A moving ship? Forget it.
Number 8. Air crews, smart cookies, if suicidal, figured this one out all on their own.
Number 7. USN subs weren't used as a cordon. They were used as hunters. And, given that the ocean is kinda hard to track on, it's a game of luck. The two subs at Midway weren't a primary part of the plan. Besides, arguably, their presence was irrelevant.
Number 6. Drop tanks aren't a reliable thing for anybody yet. Besides. Thomson isn't an aeronautical engineer, last I checked.
Number 5. Carrier Task Force? That thing that happens already? And there are many other ships with RADAR. Like cruisers. And destroyers.
Number 4. Again. Reliable drop tanks aren't developed yet. And why would Grummann listen to one guy, admiral or not? They're already working on them. An admiral will not make the development any faster.
Number 3. What? The two extra AN/M2 models would add 62 pounds. Each. A reduction of 20 pounds from the base M2. And Thomson complaining about better drop tanks won't make them be realized any faster.
Number 2. You can't really reduce the number of DB wings they have, that being a whole one.
Number 2A. Aircraft are still way faster than a ship. And the Mark 13, the air-dropped torpedo in use, travels, depending on the exact variant, either 30 or 33.5 knots. Akagi does 31. Kaga does 28. Hiryu, speedy lass, does 34 knots, with Soryuu making the same speed. The Cranes Shōkaku and Zuikaku make 34.5. Ryujo 29. Junyo makes 25.5. What I'm getting at is that ships can only go so fast.
Number 2B. Half right. They also realized that fuckoff levels of Dakka did the job just as well. Hence, the amount of 5"/38s, Bofors 40mm, and Oerlikon 20mm mounts shot through the roof.
And number 1 at last. The Thatch Weave. Something he taught to Thatch HIMSELF. Something that will be shown off, even as simply as 'look what I can do, and this is what it does.'
So. Did we all learn something today?
Number 20. How? How can Thomson affect Atlantic Convoys? He's going to have his hands full on the other side of the Panama Canal.
Number 19. What bombers? The current iteration of the B-17 is the B-17E. Of which there will only ever be 512. All told, there are less than 600 B-17s anywhere. Because why build more? They weren't at war yet. And again. How does Thomson affect the Atlantic Gap?
Number 18. Would get Thomson reassigned to sail a desk. Because of all the other admirals he stuck his thumb in the eye of.
Number 17. What does that mean for Thomson? The IJN didn't figure that out, yes. How does that relate to Thomson's TF?
Number 16. Yes. But how does that affect anything for America? Even if he knows how shit Japanese AAA is now, he can use it, but pilots are going to figure that out themselves soon.
Number 15. Yes. A fact the American Presidency is already aware of. Which is why, when Japan was being a bully, oil shipments were halted.
Number 14. General factoid. Which pilots will notice. And will take advantage of when better airframes come out.
Number 13. General factoid that pilots will notice and take advantage of.
Number 12. Maneuvering does very little to spoil dive bombing runs. Because the bombers hold back until they get close. There's a reason the tactic is nicknamed 'helldiving.'
Number 11. No shit. They planned on defeating America. A country with more productive capacity than Japan could even dream of. Production really hit a high stride in 1944. Which is when the federal goegovernm told manufactories to slow down.
Number 10. That's what destroyer pickets are for. You know, with Sonar and depth chrages for that whole thing. And if the weather is poor, a U-boat has a hard time shooting straight. So imagine how hard it would be for an I-boat.
Number 9. See number 19 comment. Not to mention hitting a target from a B-17. A stationary land target was hard enough. A moving ship? Forget it.
Number 8. Air crews, smart cookies, if suicidal, figured this one out all on their own.
Number 7. USN subs weren't used as a cordon. They were used as hunters. And, given that the ocean is kinda hard to track on, it's a game of luck. The two subs at Midway weren't a primary part of the plan. Besides, arguably, their presence was irrelevant.
Number 6. Drop tanks aren't a reliable thing for anybody yet. Besides. Thomson isn't an aeronautical engineer, last I checked.
Number 5. Carrier Task Force? That thing that happens already? And there are many other ships with RADAR. Like cruisers. And destroyers.
Number 4. Again. Reliable drop tanks aren't developed yet. And why would Grummann listen to one guy, admiral or not? They're already working on them. An admiral will not make the development any faster.
Number 3. What? The two extra AN/M2 models would add 62 pounds. Each. A reduction of 20 pounds from the base M2. And Thomson complaining about better drop tanks won't make them be realized any faster.
Number 2. You can't really reduce the number of DB wings they have, that being a whole one.
Number 2A. Aircraft are still way faster than a ship. And the Mark 13, the air-dropped torpedo in use, travels, depending on the exact variant, either 30 or 33.5 knots. Akagi does 31. Kaga does 28. Hiryu, speedy lass, does 34 knots, with Soryuu making the same speed. The Cranes Shōkaku and Zuikaku make 34.5. Ryujo 29. Junyo makes 25.5. What I'm getting at is that ships can only go so fast.
Number 2B. Half right. They also realized that fuckoff levels of Dakka did the job just as well. Hence, the amount of 5"/38s, Bofors 40mm, and Oerlikon 20mm mounts shot through the roof.
And number 1 at last. The Thatch Weave. Something he taught to Thatch HIMSELF. Something that will be shown off, even as simply as 'look what I can do, and this is what it does.'
So. Did we all learn something today?
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, related to the above: Do people think it's plausible for Thompson to get the Essexes angled flight decks?
I mean, he's not a naval architect, but as someone who deals with the tactics of carrier planes it may be "reasonable" for him to think about such a idea.
I don't know much about WWII USN, or militaries in general, so I'm not sure what actions he could take to get "his" ideas implemented with actual ships. I imagine he'd have to write up a fairly detailed paper on the concept, and given he's busy with wartime duties... it might be too late by the time he finishes it for it to be implemented.
I also don't know enough about naval aviation to know how useful it would be.
I mean, he's not a naval architect, but as someone who deals with the tactics of carrier planes it may be "reasonable" for him to think about such a idea.
I don't know much about WWII USN, or militaries in general, so I'm not sure what actions he could take to get "his" ideas implemented with actual ships. I imagine he'd have to write up a fairly detailed paper on the concept, and given he's busy with wartime duties... it might be too late by the time he finishes it for it to be implemented.
I also don't know enough about naval aviation to know how useful it would be.
PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
Short answer: No
Long answer: Hell no. The structural modifications required are nontrivial at best, and require extensive alteration to the structure supporting the flight deck. I'd estimate an absolute minimum three month delay in the construction process after detailed plans are completed, which could easily eat up six months or more on it's own.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Maybe some of the later models once the need for carriers stop being desperate, frankly it depends if he knows someone well connected in BUSHIPS to show his idea in time to do the necessary modifications to a few Essexes.