Changing Destiny (Kancolle)

[Jrandom]

What I'm saying is that while they might TRY for a contemporary vessel, they might get something older due to the same reason we can only summon WW2 era vessels in OTL. I dont recall all of the specifics on why we can only summon World War 2 boats but Maine and the first USS Texas are only a few years older than the youngest vessels we got in Kancolle of timeframe is a limiting factor relatively speaking.

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This all supposes that the Navy can afford to devote the time, personnel, and resources to figure out HOW to summon ship girls. Time, personnel and resources that can be directed to projects already off the ground and working on being in production.

I don't see this happening anytime before 1945, if at all during the war. It's one of those luxury projects that is going to take a back seat to the other stuff that's coming to win the war the conventional way. Heck, even the Manhattan project is still way ahead of this.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

This all supposes that the Navy can afford to devote the time, personnel, and resources to figure out HOW to summon ship girls. Time, personnel and resources that can be directed to projects already off the ground and working on being in production.

I don't see this happening anytime before 1945, if at all during the war. It's one of those luxury projects that is going to take a back seat to the other stuff that's coming to win the war the conventional way. Heck, even the Manhattan project is still way ahead of this.

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I'm not to sure about that, the Navy just got a live fire demonstration of what a Shipgirl can do, and if in this timeline a summoning ritual takes less resources than building an actual ship it just might be more economical to summon shipgirls than build new ships.

As for R&D I doubt it will take long since Adm. Richardson should be privy to the details of the ritual.

 

[Archduke]

the ability to supplement the Navy with shipgirls? for very little resources compared to building new ships, you'd get a fair few ships out of. Mostly DDs however.

 

[MarkAren]

the ability to supplement the Navy with shipgirls? for very little resources compared to building new ships, you'd get a fair few ships out of. Mostly DDs however.

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Also, there's the fact that I highly doubt summoning requires a slip.

 

[Jrandom]

I'm not to sure about that, the Navy just got a live fire demonstration of what a Shipgirl can do, and if in this timeline a summoning ritual takes less resources than building an actual ship it just might be more economical to summon shipgirls than build new ships.

As for R&D I doubt it will take long since Adm. Richardson should be privy to the details of the ritual.

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Again, that supposes that the ship girl summoning ritual that Thompson can remember is any more reliable than the one in Thompson's original time line. Then, it's still a hit and miss proposition, and at best it's still only about 50% successful.

However many ship girls you summon, they still won't be in the numbers that you need to win the war. Can you summon enough ship girls to replace or seriously supplement the Essexes/Independences/Casablancas/Bouges/Commencement Bays/Baltimores/Clevelands/Fletchers/Gearings/Sumners/Evarts/Buckley/Cannon/Rudderrows/Butler and so on?

Don't think so. While summoning ship girls is an interesting concept, it's going to take time, effort and resources to figure how to do it with the reliability and numbers that are needed. Better to treat it as a long term project, and crank up the shipyards now to the max.

 

[Archduke]

Again, that supposes that the ship girl summoning ritual that Thompson can remember is any more reliable than the one in Thompson's original time line. Then, it's still a hit and miss proposition, and at best it's still only about 50% successful.

However many ship girls you summon, they still won't be in the numbers that you need to win the war. Can you summon enough ship girls to replace or seriously supplement the Essexes/Independences/Casablancas/Bouges/Commencement Bays/Baltimores/Clevelands/Fletchers/Gearings/Sumners/Evarts/Buckley/Cannon/Rudderrows/Butler and so on?

Don't think so. While summoning ship girls is an interesting concept, it's going to take time, effort and resources to figure how to do it with the reliability and numbers that are needed. Better to treat it as a long term project, and crank up the shipyards now to the max.

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I didn't say it's a war-winning thing for the US. at best, it will supplement there Navy while they build up to what they did IRL. This would give them a ton of escorts for Convoy Duty, freeing up more modern ships for more active duties.

 

[Jrandom]

I didn't say it's a war-winning thing for the US. at best, it will supplement there Navy while they build up to what they did IRL. This would give them a ton of escorts for Convoy Duty, freeing up more modern ships for more active duties.

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They've already got a lot of Convoy escorts in the remaining Wickes\Clemson classes. What ship girls could they summon for convoy escorts? Remember it's New Year's Day 1942 in this time line. Finally, if it isn't going to help win the war, why spend the time, effort and resources on it now?

 

[MarkAren]

They've already got a lot of Convoy escorts in the remaining Wickes\Clemson classes. What ship girls could they summon for convoy escorts? Remember it's New Year's Day 1942 in this time line.

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The like 80 or so Destroyers that had been lost or scrapped prior to WWII? Considering this is kicking off about now, I imagine what they have isn't enough and that anything else would be appreciated.

 

[Jrandom]

The like 80 or so Destroyers that had been lost or scrapped prior to WWII? Considering this is kicking off about now, I imagine what they have isn't enough and that anything else would be appreciated.

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Well, they did exchange 50 of them for basing in the Caribbean. They did build 110 of the Wickes class and 156 of the Clemson class. So even with the losses, scrapping and Lend-Lease pre-war, there's still about 135 still in service. That's enough for a stop gap, with the Royal Navy putting the V/W Class on escort duty as well.

 

[MarkAren]

Well, they did exchange 50 of them for basing in the Caribbean. They did build 110 of the Wickes class and 156 of the Clemson class. So even with the losses, scrapping and Lend-Lease pre-war, there's still about 135 still in service. That's enough for a stop gap, with the Royal Navy putting the V/W Class on escort duty as well.

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???
The Second Happy Time has just started. America does not have enough escorts for its shipping.

 

[Jrandom]

???
The Second Happy Time has just started. America does not have enough escorts for its shipping.

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So how many escorts are needed? And how is it going to be any worse in this time line than it was in the original time line?

The American were slow to take British recommendations, instituting a convoy system for coastal shipping, as well enforcing blackout restrictions for all coastal cities and navigational beacons. That could have cut the number of losses greatly
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The so-called "Second Happy Time" lasted about 6 months, from January to June 1942. There were about 135 ships lost to U-boat activity during then.

To show the scale of American industry to replace these losses, 18 US shipyards build 2,710 Liberty ships from 1941 to 1945, as well as 534 Victory ships from 1944 to 1945.

While the losses early in the war were tragic and in many ways preventable, I don't think the U-Boats could sink enough to keep ahead of shipyard production and improvements in ASW, as it was in the original time line.

 

[Thebigpieman]

The so-called "Second Happy Time" lasted about 6 months, from January to June 1942. There were about 135 ships lost to U-boat activity during then.

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The number I'm seeing is 609 ships lost to German U-Boats and ended in August.

 

[ex143]

Again, that supposes that the ship girl summoning ritual that Thompson can remember is any more reliable than the one in Thompson's original time line. Then, it's still a hit and miss proposition, and at best it's still only about 50% successful.

However many ship girls you summon, they still won't be in the numbers that you need to win the war. Can you summon enough ship girls to replace or seriously supplement the Essexes/Independences/Casablancas/Bouges/Commencement Bays/Baltimores/Clevelands/Fletchers/Gearings/Sumners/Evarts/Buckley/Cannon/Rudderrows/Butler and so on?

Don't think so. While summoning ship girls is an interesting concept, it's going to take time, effort and resources to figure how to do it with the reliability and numbers that are needed. Better to treat it as a long term project, and crank up the shipyards now to the max.

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I can the Navy tossing a few resources here and there, but it would likely be somewhere inland and with only enough for a summoning attempt occasionally. Also this is WWII, there's not exactly a big pool of contemporary sunken ships available at the moment, so there is a very real chance that an ironclad girl ends up summoned, not a very efficient possibility in resources!

 

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'll just point out that they built so many DDs historically that the Navy went to Congress and said 'stop building lolibotes pls. We don't have enough crews.'.

So there's not a pressing need to summon DD girls.

(Still at work, can't reply to anything else)

 

[BF110C4]

I can the Navy tossing a few resources here and there, but it would likely be somewhere inland and with only enough for a summoning attempt occasionally. Also this is WWII, there's not exactly a big pool of contemporary sunken ships available at the moment, so there is a very real chance that an ironclad girl ends up summoned, not a very efficient possibility in resources!

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First question would be what kind of resourses are we talking about and where? Because if we are talking about tens of tons of steel and the use of any military port for an afternoon of ceremony then the amount of resources would be small enough that the Marine Corp would be willing to spend them in order to get the perfect close support vessel for landing operations. For that mission even the shipgirl of the USS Olympia (a Protected Cruiser of the Spanish-American War) would be ideal to get point-blank direct fire for Marine storming a beach like Tarawa.

On the other hand if we are talking thousands of tons of armor grade alloys and clearing in an active naval yard a slip of the size of the original ship for the same amount of time it gets to at least do an important refit then we might have to think about it twice. Of those the most important resourse would be time, the US is rich enough to afford wasting the raw materials, and if it takes less than a week to do the rituals needed for a summon then the slip space is not an actual issue because a week of delay between the construction of two new cruisers is a reasonable expense to get the firepower of even an obsolete one in an infantry sized package, its only when the delay caused by the summoning would have a cost of opportunity of three months without a modern light cruiser that the promise of the shipgirl of a destroyer would not be worthy even with a 100% success rate.

 

[Jrandom]

its only when the delay caused by the summoning would have a cost of opportunity of three months without a modern light cruiser that the promise of the shipgirl of a destroyer would not be worthy even with a 100% success rate.

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The success rate of summoning isn't even 100% in Thompson's original timeline. I still say that figuring out the summoning ritual is still a luxury, especially when there's a war to win.

 

[Archduke]

I'll just point out that they built so many DDs historically that the Navy went to Congress and said 'stop building lolibotes pls. We don't have enough crews.'.

So there's not a pressing need to summon DD girls.

(Still at work, can't reply to anything else)

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the reason why I suggest DD girls, is that they're probably the most useful girls to summon right now. All the Cruisers that could be summoned are obsolete Protected or Armoured designs, not the more modern CA/CL types. Most o the subs that could be summoned are old and not particularly good, with a few exceptions. There's no CVs that can be summoned yet. And for BBs, you have ships as older than Utah. Until ships start getting sunk, the best use of resources is for DD girls. Besides, they won't need any crews.

 

[PAGDTenno]

Except any summonable DDs will be Wickes/Clemson class and older - perhaps somewhat usable in an ASW role, but no more so than the plentiful extant four-stackers.

 

[ex143]

...Marine storming a beach like Tarawa.

On the other hand if we are talking thousands of tons of armor grade alloys....

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Krupp armor is out of the question then, as I'm pretty sure Chromium is a strategic element. As for the older Harvey Armor, that's just Nickel Steel... wait, Nickel is technically also in short supply at that moment, but a few tons can probably be scourged up for some experimental summonings I reckon.

 

[BF110C4]

The success rate of summoning isn't even 100% in Thompson's original timeline. I still say that figuring out the summoning ritual is still a luxury, especially when there's a war to win.

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Yeah, but my point in the last post is that unlike any other country in WWII the United States could and often did afford that kind of luxury, other than time they are the only nation in the conflict that can experiment wih the shipgirls with only a minimal loss in their force build-up as long as it that, a limited experiment using non-critical facilities and resources with the expectation of only getting a limited amount of shipgirls of unknown type and tonnage and there will be no plans for them to march on Tokio on their own.

Under those limitations permanently clearing a single slip in a shipyard and keeping a constant supply of materials would be well within the US Navy ability to absorb without a serious loss of firepower even if none of her allies and enemies can realistically do the same thing in any of their facilities.

 

[Jrandom]

The number I'm seeing is 609 ships lost to German U-Boats and ended in August.

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Overall, probably, but I was talking about the firs 6 months of the war on the American coast.

Even if the Allies lost that much shipping in the first 8 months after America enters the war, the sheer volume of shipping coming out of the American shipyards pretty much negates that, as history showed.

I still want to hear from you how many escorts the Allies need to alter this from the original time line. As it is, if the US Navy mobilizes the remaining Wickes/Clemson Class destroyers, it may help, but does nothing to shorten the learning curve for them in countering U-boats.

 

[Guardian54]

'stop building lolibotes pls. We don't have enough crews.'

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Recrews old boat, summons shipgirl, take crew off. Shipgirl continues to operate.

"Time to get on the next boat as the Marine contingent, boys!"
"Uh, sarge?"
"Yes, Marine?"
"Does leaving little mes inside like twenty different middle-schooler girls mean I'm cheating on my wife?"
"...Never ask that sort of question again."

All the Cruisers that could be summoned are obsolete Protected or Armoured designs, not the more modern CA/CL types.

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Not a problem. A merchant cruiser raider is chasing you? Let the girl step off the stern into the water while "running away" and then have her run up to what amounts to near melee range (a person-sized target standing on the water is really hard to see at even as short as 2-4 kilometers unless the sea is absurdly smooth or the colours are very contrasting) and then open up. Also, it's almost impossible to hit even an old protected cruiser shipgirl with a merchant cruiser's armament at anything past a few hundred meters.

I'm quite sure an old protected cruiser can delete a merchant raider's ability to fight and inflict mortal wounds within like one minute flat at 2 kilometers.

 

[Spectre]

Do we even know if the summoning ritual needs anything more than someone standing over a pool saying a prayer like in 95% of KC fandom. Because if that's it setting something up would would be little more than dotting eyes on the paperwork.

 

[Archduke]

Recrews old boat, summons shipgirl, take crew off. Shipgirl continues to operate.

"Time to get on the next boat as the Marine contingent, boys!"
"Uh, sarge?"
"Yes, Marine?"
"Does leaving little mes inside like twenty different middle-schooler girls mean I'm cheating on my wife?"
"...Never ask that sort of question again."



Not a problem. A merchant cruiser raider is chasing you? Let the girl step off the stern into the water while "running away" and then have her run up to what amounts to near melee range (a person-sized target standing on the water is really hard to see at even as short as 2-4 kilometers unless the sea is absurdly smooth or the colours are very contrasting) and then open up. Also, it's almost impossible to hit even an old protected cruiser shipgirl with a merchant cruiser's armament at anything past a few hundred meters.

I'm quite sure an old protected cruiser can delete a merchant raider's ability to fight and inflict mortal wounds within like one minute flat at 2 kilometers.

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...Never joke about that again.


on a better note, by the time that the USN gets involved, I think that there are no more Convoy raisers out there.

 

[rdfox]

Guys, don't think that the US could afford to waste steel, if that's involved in the summoning ritual.

See, I've read the Los Alamos Primer, and how they mention, in the history section, that as high-priority as the Manhattan Project was, if Oppenheimer thought that diamonds might solve a problem with the process, he'd find a bucket of DeBeers's finest on his desk the next morning, but even so, if his secretary needed a new typewriter, that involved copious paperwork and a six-month wait, because the typewriter required precious steel.