soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"David Thornley" wrote

> What assumptions? I'm going with the 1945 USN vs. 1940 Luftwaffe
> scenario that was proposed.

The phrase "all over German occupied Europe" is clearly an assumption that
Germany is occupying parts of Europe other than Germany. That isn't a given.

> All easy to destroy. The submarines are likely to last the longest,
> but be the least useful.

A sub is not easy to destroy, particularly with 1940 USN technology and
experience.

And the issue isn't whether spotters are easy to destroy but whether they
can be destroyed before they report back on the location and course of the
carrier fleet. Soviet Bears, anyone?

> There's a difference between knowing there are enemy carriers in
> the area, and knowing exactly where they are and what they're doing.

True and I'm not under-estimating the difficulty of the task. But neither am
I under-estimating German resourcefulness.

> As I mentioned, shore-based radar will not find carriers at any
> useful distance.

That depends. 1940 Seetakt in a coastal emplacement with an elevated array
could accurately plot a large ship at 100 miles and give a bearing to a
convoy at 150 miles. That's quite a long way across the North Sea, and
certainly within the range within which the USN fleet will sometimes have to
cruise.

> Hydrophones will be useless in locating the
> carriers.

Not quite useless, although not sufficiently precise. The KM was quite good
at hydrophone technology although it tended to get the frequency ranges
wrong. But even shore-mounted hydrophones will get a rough bearing and more
importantly a bearing change, indicating course and speed. As part of a
package, hydrophones have a role to play.

> Radio direction finding works when the carriers transmit.
> They don't need to, for the most part.

Really? Could the USN in the relevant period conduct flying operations,
fleet manoeuvres and replenishment ops in radio silence?

> Do you have any actual support for that statement?

In 1940 and throughout WW2, the RN was better than the USN at ASW, and I
certainly wouldn't say that any U-boat in the North Sea was inevitably dead
meat at the hands of the RN, because that claim would be laughably untrue.
That's why it seems unlikely to say the least that the USN in 1940 would be
capable of sinking every U-boat that strayed their way, which was *your*
original proposal.

> No. What is the USN supposed to do in this scenario? It can defend
> itself nicely, and gain superiority over any desired area. If you
> want deep inland strategic bombing, that's not going to work.

The USN can certainly defend itself exceptionally well provided it does not
send too much of its strength off raiding. So it can maintain itself as a
fleet in being, which is a threat and a deterrence, perhaps - a sort of 1940
equivalent of the 1914 Spithead Review.

But it cannot hurt the Germans very much, because it lacks the bomber
strength to carry out more than local raids. A thousand fighters over
Hamburg, for example, will look impressive, but if repeated strategic bomber
raids in WW2 could not destroy the city or close the docks, the limited
medium bomber capacity of a carrier fleet will not do so either.

And every USN raid runs the risk of encountering a concentration of superior
numbers of German fighters, or the home carriers being attacked by a
superior force while the raid escorts are away from home.

My point - harking back to my original throwaway remark - is that the USN
could not do to Germany (or Britain or the USSR or even France) what it did
to Japan, because Japan was an intrinsically weaker and lower class opponent
than the European powers. US experience in WW2 against Japan as a whole has
to be viewed through that prism, which it very often isn't.

> Right. What are the strategic goals?

Given a lack of strategic military capability, it doesn't seem worth talking
about strategic military goals. The only point of sending a USN carrier
fleet to attack Germany would be diplomatic.

> What about it [AA]?

You haven't as yet addressed the point that the USN will lose aircraft to
German AA, perhaps on a significant scale. That too impacts on USN
capability, especially against well-defended targets like cities and
military installations.

> First, the USN normally did keep a large fighter force over its
> carriers. In this scenario, the USN has numerical superiority in
> fighters, and the initiative.

It has rough parity in fighter numbers if it keeps its fighters
concentrated. It can't raid and defend the carriers at the same time.

Neither, of course, can the Luftwaffe raid and defend its airfields at the
same time. But the USN can't knock out the Luftwaffe airfields (although it
can do serious temporary damage to them) and has a superfluity of airfields
anyway, and so can take risks in favour of the offensive, while the
Luftwaffe can mission-kill a carrier and the USN cannot afford to lose many
carriers, and so cannot take chances on defence.

In that scenario, the USN can't risk doing very much by way of offensive
missions, which tends to diminish any strategic or even operational
potential. Again, this isn't Japan.

> Second, you mentioned German AA. It's not nearly as impressive as
> USN AA. Look at what ships mounted for AA guns.

German land-based AA in 1940 was as good as anyone else. Given that the
German navy is not a factor in this scenario, looking at the KM AA is not
very helpful. And how good was USN maritime AA in 1940?

> Third, the Luftwaffe had no good ship-attack bombers in 1940.

The Luftwaffe was certainly not very good at maritime attacks in 1940, but
it is not true to say it had "no good ship-attack bombers". The Ju 87 was a
very good ship-killer in certain combat environments - ie where the enemy
fighters have been suppressed. That environment may be unlikely, but it's
not impossible. And even level bombing from medium bombers can hit ships as
big as carriers.

I agree that the lack of a capable long-range dive bomber or torpedo bomber
would greatly hurt the Luftwaffe's ability to attack the carriers, but there
would still be some ability.

>>And what if the Luftwaffe sends swarms of radar or IR guided missiles into
>>the fleet?
>>
> In 1940?

Fair point. Those missiles did not exist until 1943.

On the other hand, the Luftwaffe was a clever and resourceful opponent
possessed of immense technical skill and resourcefulness. Faced with the
problem of a carrier fleet cruising off shore protected by an invincible air
armada, perhaps they would accelerate their weapons programme. Some sort of
pilotless remote-guided aircraft is within their 1940 capability, in fact I
think they may have been testing one in 1939. Of course, as you say, those
sort of drones are easy meat to fighters by day, but perhaps not by night.

(snip)

> Wrong. It's carrier-centric. If the British had built good
> carriers, they'd have the same sorts of advantages against
> land-based air. British AA wasn't as good as US AA, but it still
> was nothing to sneeze at.

I think this still counts as a nationalistic analysis. Carriers are
something of an American totem and symbol of national pride. They are good
weapons systems, but they still have their limits. You don't seem to want to
acknowledge those limits, which is why I made up this scenario in the first
place...

> Right.
>
> In other words, they will be sunk very, very slowly.

They may be sunk very slowly in 1940 with the Luftwaffe's limited
ship-killing ability. But in an extended campaign, measured in years, all
things being equal, the advantage will switch to the land-based power,
eventually decisively.

> Iceland is there, just like Saipan and Ulithi. It's even relatively
> close to the US.

Assuming that Britain and France do not prevent US occupation, of course. Or
that the Germans get there first.

Does Iceland have the large sheltered harbours in which a very substantial
replenishment fleet can take shelter?

> Not if you're going to get the carrier capabilities wrong.

The same, of course, applies if you persist in getting the Luftwaffe's
capabilities wrong :)