Correction:

3 x Glorious class, not 2. I forgot furious

Other carriers:

HMS Hermes

HMS Argus

HMS Eagle

 

HMS Unicorn was laid down in 1939 and commissioned 1943, not sure if work was slowed like the implacable 

Either war, that is a minimum of 13 Carriers by late 1941.

 

Plus the 13 fast battleships and battlecruisers

 

 Wicked Chinchilla

Saw your post just as i was about to post this. You could leave the R class and Nelsons as well as the Hermes, Argus, Eagle in home waters, with them split between the mediteranean and scapa. Those ships would be enough firepower to take on the Italian Navy and German Navy, especially considering the alliance with France.

This still leaves 10 carriers and 13 battleships for the pacific.

The Royal Navy had lots of cruisers, plus their late prewar destroyers were large with plenty of range.

 

 Start date i was thinking of was december 1941 as historical. Any idea where i could find that post? 

If you're including the two IMPLACABLEs, they weren't laid down until two years after the four ILLUSTRIOUSs, so even with the original design (roughly identical to the earlier ships except for the power plant) that would be mid-1942.  Similarly, ANSON and HOWE weren't completed until well into 1942.  The hulls could be completed, but the capacity to build the armor and turrets slowed things down.  Even if you go with the earlier completion dates you get:

 

ARK ROYAL 72 a/c

2xGLORIOUS 48 a/c @ total 96

FURIOUS  36 a/c

4xILLUSTRIOUS 36 a/c @ total 144 a/c

2x IMPLACABLE 36 a/c @ total 72

Total: 420 a/c

 

And, unless they were able to buy a LOT of US built a/c without the pressure of war in Europe, those a/c would be Fulmars, Albacores and a few Skua.

 

Japanese:

AKAGI 72 a/c

KAGA 72 a/c

HIRYU 63 a/c

SORYU 63 a/c

2xSHOKAKU 72 a/c @ total 144

RYUJO 45 a/c

2xZUIHO 30 a/c @ total 60

Total: 519 a/c  Zeros, Vals and Kates.

 

Moreover, the Japanese had the best scout floatplanes in the world and did their searches mainly with those, preserving the carrier a/c for attack.  Sorry, but it looks to be as if the Japanese still hold a VERY solid advantage in carrier power.

 

As for the surface ships, the Japanese advantages in night fighting doctrine and especially their much-superior torpedoes would give them the advantage in any night action ... the only kind that's practical against someone who controls the air.

 

In my opinion, even assuming that the RN was willing to try and keep the Germans and Italians in check without any fast carriers or fast heavy warships, they're still up against long odds going against the Japanese.

RN also had a working night doctrine and functional torpedoes, inferior but functional.

 

On the original topic most of what said makes to me but on the RN vs IJN. 

I don't understand a scenario in this world that does not mean that the main threat to the IJN all along is the USN. If there is no european war the IJN best case is keeping a very large reserve to counter the main body of the USN and a very substantial RN/French force without the Thai and Indochinese bases and with any approach to UK or French territory running past the Phillipines or over New Guinea

 

Given that the US was basically hostile to Japan because of the aggression in China that seems like a dangerous proposition.

 

Without a war in europe but with Pearl Harbour and the historic opening moves- much larger RN task force + French + Dutch probably means a failed invasion of the Dutch East Indies as the carrier support to the IJN is inferior to the RN capability - the big carriers all being on the Pearl raid or a much later attack against a heavily reinforced european prescence.

 

 

 

 

Just for reference, the two implacable class had the same double hanger as the ark royal, with a capacity of ~70 aircraft from the start.

 

The Japanese arent the only ones with float planes, all the british cruisers and battleships had them as well.

 

The British had a massive advantage in cruisers, none of the Japanese light cruisers bar the 4 completed in 1942 could have gone up against one of the british light cruisers as they all still used the WWI weapon configuration of single guns in deck mounts. The RN had enough cruisers to counter the japanese cruiser threat.

 

Plus assuming there was no european war, with the smaller requirements of the RAF for the hurricane, possibly the RN could have received some and modified them for shipboard operations. The other thing to remember about the japanese aircraft is that none of them had self sealing tanks, so they burned.

Actually the IMPLACABLEs had the double hanger deck and 72 a/c capacity AS BUILT, not as PLANNED.  They were modified while under construction from the original, intended plan as originally ordered as a result of wartime experience.  In the situation assumed here, there was no wartime experience.  In the real world, the fourth ILLUSTRIOUS, HMS INDOMITABLE was modified as a result of the need to increase air group size, recognized from early war experince.  The hanger side armor was reduced to 1 and 1/2 inches from 4", a tonnage increase accepted and the upper hanger deck overhead reduced to 14' so that a lower hanger could be built under the after half of the existing hanger, incr

larry cjr, to be fair to the Darwing wing, the Spitfire Vs they got were already badly worn out by the time they got them, also part of the problem of losing aircraft was how many got lost at sea as a symptom of the pilots chasing the Japanese too far out to sea. When the spitfire VIII arrived in Burma it absolutely tanked the japanese fighters in very lopsided contests.

 

A point about the hurricanes, in Malaya most were destroyed on the ground and didn't really stand a chance, the Hurricane was competitive, roughly, with the F4F wildcat of the time, in range, it's not so bad, 600 miles to 770 miles for the F4F, the Hurricane is also 20 mph faster at 20,000 ft (engine power, roughly the same) and has a superior rate of climb to the grumman machine, 2,780 ft/min for Sidney camm's Hurricane vs. 1,950 ft/min for the Grumman machine. I'm also fairly certain that the hurricane could pull a tighter turn although I can't find a stat for the Wildcat's wingloading.

 

So in that respect, if the USN naval aviators can hold their own with the F4F, there is no reason - on a technical level at least, why the FAA can't in the short term at least hold the line with a sea hurricane.

 

Also, the Seafire, I know the arguments for why it was no good for carrier aviation, poor forward visibility, narrow track landing gear and a weak tail end for arrestor hooks, but, as an emergency wartime exercise, many of these problems, if not solved, were circumnavigated by the brilliant work of the supermarine test pilot, Geoff Quill. The point stands, that for all it's problems in getting on and off carriers, and it's lack of range, it was a superior dogfighter and a brilliant CAP aircraft for the FAA.

 

There is also the more hypothetical argument that had the european war not broken out, the chances of Sidney Camm's hurricane follow up being accelerated is high, instead of going through several tribulations to produce the Typhoon, who's thick wing prevented it's use as a high altitude fighter, with the luxury of time, it's possible that the brutish Sea fury would have been available by the end of 1943 (for argument sake), a huge, very fast and long ranged aircraft, it would have murdered the IJN fighters for sure.

 

So in terms of aviation I do not believe it would be as dry cut as is sometimes presented. The point about the IJN possesing superior cruisers and destroyers is of course relevant, but the question becomes, is the gap in technical quality such that it makes a marked difference, I can't see that it does, british training was high throughout the war, and inferior RN machines prevailed over technically superior axis ships time and time again. Under pressure, British gunnery remained of very high quality, for example during battles with the German battlecruisers, it was remarked that german gunnery often found it's mark first, but tended to lose it's aim as the battle progressed, once the British gunners found their target, they rarely ever lost their bead, superior training under fire. It's a good point that was made about British torpedoes, they may have been crude, they may have been technically inferior, but they still went boom when they hit the opposition.

 

My own opinion of such a fight in isolated conditions (i.e. FDR become addicted to luaghing gas and ceding the entire pacific to the japanese) is that the British would most likely be be on the defensive, at best, our fighters will hold their own to start with but will still be technically inferior, also the likeliehood is that the British will deploy four carriers to the pacific, and will therefore be outnumbered in terms of hulls and aircraft vs the ijn. However, the British will be defending it's teritory in S.E. asia, based on the singapore naval base. The RN will be fighting  avery different one to that which the USN found itself fighting in real times. I have no doubt that in a 'midway' encounter we would probably be in deep trouble, but then, there is no reason for us to be fighting such a battle.

 

Fighting out of the Malay peninsula, a reinforced RN, using Hurricanes and Fulmars, we'll be helped by a  massivly reinforced RAF presence (no european war) which means Beaufighter torpedo bombers, land based spitfires, Sunderland flying boats etc etc. Simply put, I do not believe that the RN would have to risk itself in one open encounte rwith the IJN, when all it has to do is stand off at sea and defend the coast of Malaya, with the longe rrnaged RAF bombers/scouts to help as well. Thus there is a very storng chance of the RN surviving the initial assualts and coming back to win the long war.

 

 

h**p//www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/30-94934.aspx

 

There you go, 18 pages of glorious detailed debate on this very subject the thread has now turned to. 

 

In reference to the U.S. - Yes, it would be odd for the U.S. to simply ignore the Japanese but we arent talking about geopolitics.  If you want to forgo most of the European politics at the time you have to dismiss the U.S vs. Japan at the time as well, fair is fair. 

 

The problem I have with this debate is carriers.  I am talking about hulls, aircraft, doctrine, and skill.  In every category the IJN has heavy, heavy advantages.  A conflict between the Japanese and UK would come down to carriers.  The UK would get plowed, end of story in this respect.  The Japanese could put greater numbers of superior aircraft with superior pilots into the air.  Regardless of surface ships the RN is cooked.  In a WWII era carrier war non-carrier vessels have two general purposes = land/protect ground forces and escort the carriers, thats it.

 

I also dont understand people arguing about the UK holding onto its bases in Malaya.  The UK outnumbered the attacking Japanese in the first place.  Why on Earth would the UK send more troops when they perceived they had an advantage?  They wouldnt! 

 

One of the strongest reasons for Japanese successes in the Pacific against the UK and U.S. was racism.  The Japanese were good, very good, at jungle warfare and carrier warfare.  It took horrendous defeats for the Western powers to actually acknowledge that the Japanese WERE skilled foes.  This steep learning curve and grevious underestimation of the Japanese would not be changed if there was no European war.  In the 1940's Japan was views as a militaristic upstart with good hardware but its services were generally inferior to Western Forces.  The Japanese had an overpower advantage added to their skill advantage early on because until the West payed their butchers bill they refused to believe the Japanese were that good. 

 

One cannot piece together an alternate historical scenario and provide one side with knowledge it gained only AFTER first fighting its enemy for a year.  We, the debaters, have hindsight.  Those we are debating over will still possess all the old knowledge and biases of the time.   

If you believe Capt. Eric M. Brown, who spent WW2 as a RN test pilot and flew ALL the a/c used by the FAA as well as nearly all of the a/c they fought against, there were at least two good reasons to prefer the Wildcat to the Sea Hurricain: it was both faster and more maneuverable, as well as a much better a/c to land aboard.  And that was a Sea Hurricain that did NOT have folding wings, with the additional weight that would entail.  Beyond that, the USN 'held their own' with the Wildcat after studying the tactics used in Europe during 1939-41 as well as at least SOME intelligence about IJN a/c.  Prior to Pearl Harbor, they were practicing air combat with wire stops on their throttles so that they had to fight with less than full power against opponants who were faster and climbed better.  The USN also had by far the best gunnery training in the world, being the ONLY air service that seriously trained for deflection shooting.  The IJN were the only other service that trained in that AT ALL, pre-war.  What allowed the Wildcat pilots to 'hold their own' was the combination of a VERY tough a/c and the ability to shoot, AND HIT from very high off angles.

 

I have assumed that, without wartime experience, 1941-2 FAA pilots would be trained and use doctrine similar to 1939 RAF fighter pilots.  That would include 'battle area attack' doctrine and the string of vics as standard formation.  Doctrine is often ignored because it's invisible, but its effects aren't.  Japanese air combat doctrine was at least as good as USN 1942 doctrine and in some ways better.  Against 1939 RAF doctrine the advantage enjoyed by the Japanese would have been crippling to the FAA.

 

Much the same can be said about surface warfare doctrine, especially for night actions.  The night optics used by the IJN proved often to be superior to the USNs, 1942 era radar in detecting enemy ships, and their standard was to launch torpedoes FIRST and open fire with guns when the torpedoes hit.  This doctrine repeatedly beat the USN and the RN and Commonwealth forces, often when the odds were well in favor of the Allies.  The USN won a couple of victories in the Solomons at night, but more by pure luck than good tactics.  The Battle of Vella Gulf in August 1943 was the first case of the IJN being defeated at night by anyone using really effective tactics coupled with radar.  1943!!!  It took the Allies a year and a half to catch up in night combat doctrine!!  The premis of this thread is that the RN is going in cold.  Good luck to 'em, because they're REALLY going to need it!!