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Subject: Ideal World War Two RN
earlm    5/4/2008 3:13:32 PM
With hindsight what should the RN have done to be the best force possible for WW2? 1. Obtain better AA fire control from US. 2. Obtain US carrier based aircraft through lend lease. 3. Introduce a dual purpose 4.5-5" gun. (US 5"/38?) 4. Scrap the R class. 5. Save money on KGV and arm them with R class turrets with higher elevation. 6. Modernize Hood 7. Modernize Repulse
 
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larryjcr    Second reply   6/17/2008 8:13:06 PM
The P-38s went to Alaska in August in response to the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians at the time of the Battle of Midway.  That's hardly a mystery. 
The first P-38s reached New Guina in October, not December of '42, although in small numbers.  MacArthur loaned a few to the SoPac campaign during the November crisis of Guadalcanal.  For example, dawn availability at Cactus of November 14 was 14 F4Fs, 7 P-38s, 3 P-39s, 16 SBDs and 9 TBFs.  That from THE CACTUS AIR FORCE by T.G. Miller.
I was not aware that either the British or Australians used A-20s as torpedo bombers.  Please give me a source of that.  They had the Beaufort, a specially built a/c for land based torpedo bombing. 
In any event, the USAAF never showed much interest in torpedo bombing.  The only effort I'm aware of was during the Midway battles both from the island and from Ductch Harbor.  The only positive result was making a small hole in the deck of the JUNYO and giving the Japanese an unexploded torpedo.  In any event, you know perfectly well that the US torpedoes at that time were totally unreliable.  The efforts to fix the problems had barely begun.  Beyond that, the supply of torpedoes was very limited, and the Navy wouldn't have been happy to give large numbers to the AAF.  Moreover, the Army pilots had no training in torpedo bombing.  One of the pilots who flew a B-26 from Midway with a torpedo reported that his total training was a fifteen minute lecture on the subject form a Navy pilot whoes BROTHER was a torpedo bomber pilot.  Lotsaluck.  Comparision to the Italians ignores the facts.  The Italians trained and prepared for that type of mission, and they had torpedoes that worked.  By the way, the Germans did it also, using He111s. 
 
Actually, your introduction of the whole torpedo question is nothing but a red herring.  Your contention that the US Navy was stupid not to draw the Japanese within range of the deadly land based bombers of the USAAF it nothing but crap, and bringing this up is just an attempt to avoid admitting that your whole premise was a load of carp.  As of October, 1942, the ability of the USAAF to attack major warships at sea, with any hope of significant success was so close to nil that it didn't matter.  If it had been tried, the only result would have been feeding a lot of low flying, unescorted B-25s and A-20s to the Zeroes.
 
By the way, have you finally conceeded the spelling of Morison? 
 
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larryjcr    Third reply   6/17/2008 8:28:06 PM
You say Fletcher 'frittered away' our carrier air power at Eastern Solomons.  Exactly WHERE are you getting this rubbish.  Fletcher lost 26 (!!) a/c at Eastern Solomons, including some lost from the Cactus Air Force.  Nagumo lost far more (although not nearly as many was was believed at the time) and Fletcher could replace his a lot more easily.  In fact, on the day after the battle, SARATOGA had made up its losses by transfers from the ENTERPRISE group, with a/c left over to re-inforce Cactus.  Those two months were NOT a 'missed opportunity'.  That was the time Nagumo needed to fill out his shredded air groups. 
 
Which is why, even by your own criteria, Fletcher WON.  By the end of the 25th, Fletcher controlled the Eastern Solomons battle zone and Nagumo was on his way back to Truk.  
 
By the way, while you're playing with circles on maps, you should check out the seach ranges and patterns in the area.  The land based bombers may have been useless, but Fletcher was careful to fight the battle withing comfortable reach of the PBYs and B-17s that did the patrolling.   
 
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larryjcr    Forth reply   6/17/2008 8:48:28 PM
Ref Leyte Gulf.
Again, its a pity you don't know what you're talking about. 
The 'turkey trots to water' message wasn't a 'junior ensign' message.  The 'the world wonders' ending was a piece of code 'padding' that should not have been used as padding at all, and was not removed (as it should have been) before it went to Halsey.  The message was Nimitz inquiery of the status of TF34 (the battleships).  The addition of the second piece of padding was a serious blunder by the communications people at Pearl.  It is basic that you NEVER use as padding anything that can be mistaken for part of the message.  As a result, it wasn't removed, and when Halsey saw it, he took it as a personal insult.  The result was the charge back south without regard for fuel status, etc.
 
By the way, in spite of your comments, Mitscher was all in favor of going north, after the Japanese CVs as quickly as possible.  As soon as Halsey turned control over to him, he immediately increased speed to be farther north before dawn.
 
As to Oldendorf 'not having the right kind of ammo', not true.  Three of his six battle ships didn't fire at all during the night action and so still had all their AP on had, and a third fired only a few rounds.  He was supposed to protect the invasion force, but went charging south after the few survivors of the force he'd already fought, and was too far away to intercept Kurita's force.  This was the result of being taken by surprise.  The ultimate responsibility for the security of Kinkaid's force was Kinkaid.  The fault lay in having what amounted to 'independent co-commanders' and no clear cut lines of responsibility or even communications.  They had no common over-riding authority closer than the JCS in Washington. 
 
 
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larryjcr    Ref airborne radar   6/17/2008 8:56:55 PM
For a picture of an Avenger showing the antenna for ASB radar, just google 'ASB Radar' and select the site listed as
NRL - Airborne Radar.  You will notice that it is NOT a pod.
 
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larryjcr    Military operations levels   6/23/2008 2:18:50 PM
What strikes??  You're using a blind umpire!
I do not know where you got your supposed definitions.  I suspect that you made them up yourself.
Mine are based on the accepted military definitions of the terms.
Operations - The means by which missions are carried out and objectives achieved.
Tactics - the methods employed in the performance of operations.
Objectives are set out in mission orders and are TOTALLY an operational matter.  Only the RESULTS of the success or failure of the missions (which may or MAY NOT include physicl 'objectives' as opposed to combat tasks) are of strategic concern.
The third ranking officer in a maneuver type (infantry, armor, cavalry or recce) unit in the US Army is the Operations Officer.  His function is to prepare (under supervision of the CO) operations plans in response to mission orders. 
Momentum and intitiative are neat buzz words.  In the real world, these things are a product of the military capabilities of the opposing units.  At tactical level, victory is a matter of the extent to which your unit's capabilites have been eroded by combat as compared to the erosion of your opponant's capabilities.
 
At Gettysburg, the Army of the Patomac won a major victory over the Army of Northern Virginia, not because it 'had momentum' or 'had the initiative', and certainly not because it held possession of a ridge and a couple of clumps of hills.  I had won because it had successfully eroded the military capability of Lee's army my making casualties of about a third of it, while suffering  much smaller proportionate level of damage itself.  Tactical victory.
It had carried out its ordered mission: to protect the stategically important cities of Washington and Baltimore from the threat of the Confederate army.  Operational victory.
As a result, Lee had no choice except to retreat back into Virginia, and for the rest of the war, in the eastern theatre, the fighting would ALWAYS be on southern territory.  Stategic victory.
 
At Trafalgar, the British fleet won a decisive victory, not because of any supposed 'momentum' or 'initiative', and defiantely not because it was in 'possession' of the few square miles of ocean at the end of the day.  The had won a victory because they had taken or destroyed two-thirds of the Franco-Spanish fleet.  The enemy's combat capacity had been more than eroded, it had been virtually eliminated.  Tactica Victory!!
Nelson's mission objective had not been any location, it had been to neutralize the threat posed by the fleet commanded by Villeneuve.  Done deal.  Operational Victory!!
As a result, the balance of naval power shifted seriously to the advantage of the British, and they dealt a blow to the morale of their enemies so powerful that no serious challenge to their control of the sea was offered for more than a hundred years.  Strategic VICTORY!!!
 
Your thinking here is 'way too simplistic.  Things like 'momentum' and 'initiative' are mostly in the minds of the opposing commanders, and the attitudes of their men, and not, alway important to the question of victory or defeat.  Trying to quantify them is totally subjective and, therefore, a wasted effort.  You'll end up with whatever result you wanted.  Stick to gains and losses, accomplishments and failures, which are subject to real world analysis.  Tactical is the relative resources, operational is the accomplishment of the job (hopefully within acceptable levels of loss) and strategic is the effect the results have on the larger war.
 
Earlier I mentioned J.B. Hood and the battle of Franklin.  After that battle, HE still believed that he held the momentum and the initiative.  His army didn't agree, and George Thomas, waiting for him at Nashville didn't care.  Hood continued to advance to meet Thomas, who waited patiently for him, and took his own time preparing his counter-stroke. 
 
You didn't get a strike out, Herald.  You weren't even in the right game. 
 
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larryjcr    Circles on the map   6/23/2008 3:12:40 PM
Your original claim was that Fletcher and later Kinkaid were 'stupid' for fighting the Japanese northward instead of 'luring' them into the range of land based air.  I assumed that you referred to the air at Espiritu Santo, as the whole point of the exercise was to keep them from gaining a position for a major attack on Cactus. 
I have shown that the A-20s and B-25s available were not a serious threat to heavy naval units with a serious CAP.
Your mention of land based torpedo attacks by the British and Italians (and my comments about the Germans) aren't a valid argument. 
 
Beyond the fact that the USAAF had NOT trained its aircrews for that type of attack, the lack of adequate fighter escort hopelssly doomed any such effort, as the British, Italians and Germans as well as the Japanese already had found out.  Witness the mid-February 1942 attack on LEXINGTON by an entire air group of G4Ms in which the bomber force was virtually wiped out, without making anything like an effective attack, let alone getting a hit.  These guys had GOOD torpedoes and knew how to use them.  And fat lot of good that did 'em, too.  
 
Now the 'book' numbers (I assume that's some kind of attempt at ridicule), were produced by test flying real a/c at real combat loads.  They were NOT particuarly accurate for a number of reasons, including the effects of formation flying (only the leader can just cruise, the rest are constantly force to spend fuel making throttle adjustments to keep position) the wide variation between supposedly identical a/c during this period, the need to fly at non-optimum altitudes for operational reasons, etc.  However, the purpose of my mentioning the range numbers was for the sake of comparision between types, and they ARE good for that purpose, because the same factors that effect one type, effect the others as well.  The 'book' range of both the Val and Kate equal or exceed that of the A-20.  Their actual combat radius will as well.
 
In any event, as I've pointed out, such attacks are hopelessly futile unless strongly escorted, so the real question is the combat radius of available escort fighters.  During WW2 the rule for figuring that was straightforward.  Combat radius was either 40% of range on maximum fuel load or 75% of range on internal fuel only, whichever was less.  For the P-40E that would be 350 miles.  Of course, that would have to be reduced by the need to fly 'S' turns so as to keep up combat speed, while not running away from the bombers. 
 
Actually there was no such thing as 'economical cruising speed'.  The 'book' number given for that was a compromise, and, like all such numbers, VERY conservative to avoid any excessive wear on the engine.  If you were willing to 'lean out' the mixture and put extra stress on the engine, the range could to stretched quite a lot.  Trying to maintain the 'official' speed meant repeated throttle changes that cost you fuel.  In reality, what there actually was, was an economical throttle setting, at which the power output of the engine gave the best fuel economy vs power trade off.  This was used by pilots for long distance record attempts, but you needed to be quite a good navigator, becasue your airspeed was constantly shiftling as the weight of the a/c changed. 
 
All of which is an interesting intellecual discussion, but doesn't matter.  The USAAF couldn't have put any meaningful number of A-20s or B-25s into Guadalcanal during the critical period because the logistical base to support them wasn't available.  The Navy's CUB units were doing well just to keep the F4Fs and SBDs up with the limited amount of fuel, parts, etc. that could be got in to them.  By November this had gotten a little better, but even then, when the P-38s arrived, (they were maintainence pigs compared to the Wildcats) keeping them up was a bear of a job.  What was at Espiritu Santo didn't matter, because there was no reason for the Japanese to come within range, and if the carrier force tried to 'lure' them in that direction, they were pulling themselves away from the protection of the 'canal, and Nagumo could have ignored them.  It was protecting Henderson field that was important, and that meant meeting the Japnaese north of the Solomons.
 
You can argue 'coulda, shoulda' all day.  These people were dealing with what WAS.  You aren't.  
 
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larryjcr    Scott and Callaghan   6/23/2008 4:39:23 PM
While I hesitate to add another subject to this monster, YOU did bring up the subject of Admirals Scott and Callaghan, accusing Hasley of stupidity for putting the 'clueless' Callaghan in command over Scott for the First Battle of Guadalcanal.
The simplistic and childish 'clueless' comment aside, I fail to see why you would think that Scott was any better 'clued in' than Callaghan.  Scott, at Cape Esperance made every one of the same mistakes that Callaghan made at First Guadalcanal!  And he made them for exactly the same reasons! 
Both men chose their command ship for reasons of tradition and prestige rather than utility.
Both men chose the single, line-ahead formation that made the destroyers just weak gun-fighters without any chance of making effective use of torpedoes.
Both men failed the test of situational awareness at contact.
 
Scott and Callaghan, like Spruance, were formalists.  They believed that in combat, rigid control of all forces from the top was the most important single consideration.  No initiative by subordinates was to be tolerated.  They chose the single line ahead formation because it offered best control by keeping everyone in a tight formation with the flagship.  Even as bad as the US torpedoes were, if enough of them had been put in the water, they should have accomplished something, but with the DDs tied to the line, there was never a chance they'd be able to get into an effective launching position.
 
Of importance in understanding the surface battle is the effects of the available radar.
The standard radar used a baseline-spike display to indicate contacts.  The 'spike' indicated range, and the radar was then steered to find the strongest return to give a bearing.  There was no actual 'picture' until the individual contacts were plotted on a map, and each single contact had to be isolated and plotted by itself.  Moreover, if the ship with the radar was near a land mass, the return from that would hid any other contact that was farther away.  As a result, in the restricted waters of the Slot, the range was limited and the tactical 'picture' was something that required a lot of time to develope.
The SG type radar, just entering use, had a 'scanner-sweep' type display -- what is now thought of as a traditional radar 'scope'.  It could pick out contacts from the land mass easily, and gave the operator (and any captain or admiral looking over his shoulder) an immediate tactical 'picture'.  The light cruiser HELENA was the only ship at Cape Esperance with SG radar.  She was also the only cruiser at First Guadalcanal with it, where the DDs OBANNAN and FLETCHER also had it. 
 
Both Scott and Callaghan chose SAN FRANCISCO as command ship.  It was traditional to chose the most modern ship of the most powerful available type, and SAN FRANCISCO was the newest CA on hand.  Also, her captain, Cassin Young, had been awarded a CMH after Pearl Harbor, and a Flag Captain with a CMH was a major pestige thing for an admiral.  It would have been seen as a slight to both the ship and captain to go to HELENA with her better radar.  Neither Scott nor Callaghan seem to have even considered it.
 
At Cape Esperance, Scott managed to accomplish every formalist's dream: crossing the 'T'.  But he did it entirely by accident and didn't realize that he'd done it.  He had no idea what the situation actually was.  Captain Hoover of the HELENA, with his SG, knew exactly what was happening, and requested permission to open fire.  Scott refused, still trying to figure out the situation for himself.  Realizing that the two formations would interpenetrate within minutes and the American positional advantage would be lost, Hoover again requested permission to fire.  And he didn't wait.  When his radio message was acknowledged,  he used some 'creative interpretation' for cover (he later said that he thought the 'roger' was permission -- and disobeyed Scott's order not to open fire without permission.  HELENA's fire precipitated the battle while the Americans still had the advantage, and Scott was still confused.  Hoover didn't just hand Scott victory on a plate, he forcably stuffed it into his pocket!
 
Before First Guadalcanal, Callaghan made the same decisions that Scott had made.  Single line ahead formation with SAN FRANCISCO for flagship.  He repeated Scott's order against opening fire without permission, and made very sure (with Scott's wholehearted support) that everyone knew that 'roger' wasn't permission.  There would be no repeat of Hoover's 'mistake' under his command.  An
 
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larryjcr    more airborne radar   6/23/2008 5:13:03 PM
In THE FAST CARRIERS by Clark Reynolds, at the bottom of the eighth page of photos is one of three SBDs labeled as from 13 June, 1944 over the Marianas, clearly showing the ASB radar masts under the wings of all three.  In UNITED STATESS NAVY AIRCRAFT SINCE 1911 by Swanborough and Bowers on page 150, a photo of an SB2C-1 in 1943 camouflage pattern showing the ASB mast, on page 168 a photo of the XSBD-6 dated July 1943, showing the ASB mast and on the next page a line drawing of the SBD-5 that includes the masts.  On page 213 a photo of a Grumman TBF-1 with ASB and on the next page a photo of a TBF-1C in 1944 camo also showing the masts.
 
Face it, by early 1944, virtually ALL two and three seat carrier a/c carried some form of surface search radar.  The means to make night surface searches were available at Philippine Sea, and at Leyte Gulf.  If it was not done, it was because either someone CHOSE not to do it, or nobody could be bothered.
 
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Herald12345    Keep digging the hole, Larry.   6/23/2008 6:15:28 PM
This weekend  will be about soon  enough to bury you.

Man you are a desperate fella aren't you?.

Herald
 
 
 
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larryjcr    onward   6/28/2008 7:15:30 PM
desperate?  Hardly.  I just know the material.
 
Speaking of which.  Your statement that the Japanese knew who would command the US fleet at Leyte and tailored the Sho plan to Halsey seems to me to be a real crock!  First, the Japanese knew Halsey by his pre-war record and his newspaper comments.  They had no reason to think of him as anything except a particularly ruthless and dangerous enemy.  I have seen nothing to support your claim that they shared your childish contempt for him.  Produce a source.  This is just the kind of stuff you've made up to support your positions in the past.
 
The Sho plan was in place for at least six weeks before it was activated.  For your claim to be even credible in theory, the Japanese would have had to know SIX WEEKS in advance who would command the US carrier forces during the next major landing operation.  Give me a source supporting THAT!
 
All totally unnecessary anyway.  The Japanese had the perfect bait and knew it.  They offered ZUIKAKU.  The last survivor of the carrier force that attacked Pearl Harbor.  The one kill that evcry US Navy commander wanted more than any other.  The Japanese did understand THAT.  They'd seen the reaction of the American public and in particular, the Navy.  Their own reaction to the Doolittle Raid -- the desperate efforts to intercept the carriers that launced the attack -- showed that they understood thaat.  The bait would have worked for ANY US avaition admiral.  Mitscher thought that Halsey was being too slow and too timid in getting at the Japanese carriers of the northern force.
 
As for Spruance, he was and remained a formalist, surface warfare officer.  Just as he'd spent the Philippine Sea battle waiting for a surface action -- a real 'engagement' -- when there was really no chance of one, so he was fixated on the same thing at Leyte, when it actually made sense.
 
I'll go into that a bit more below.  I've put considerable study into this discussion, and my opinion of Spruance had NOT gone up.  Not at all. 
 
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