Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#46

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 27 Apr 2022, 01:34

BobTheBarbarian wrote:
27 Apr 2022, 00:55
Late to the thread, but the US had no realistic ability to stop the Japanese from overrunning SE Asia.
That's certainly the consensus. I just don't see that it's based on anything more than taking at face value the historical justifications offered by the main players.

As this AHF and as military history involves more fanboyism than skeptical analysis, that consensus is not surprising.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#47

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 27 Apr 2022, 01:35

It is peak AHF that, in a thread directly criticizing Plan Dog, the response is "here's Plan Dog." Perfect.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#48

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 27 Apr 2022, 03:12

For all those who refuse to do anything more than credulously restate the justifications offered in ABC-1 etc., allow me to share how another non-passive mind treats these questions. From Andrew Boyd's excellent The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters:
Nevertheless, in
making their case, both internally and to the Americans, the British did not
adequately distinguish between the essential and ‘nice to have’. Convoy escorts,
flying boats, and shipbuilding resources were ‘essential’, as the 13 December
Joint Planning Committee survey stated. Three carriers and six cruisers to form
‘raider hunting groups’ were ‘nice to have’ in the Atlantic, but would also make
a substantial and much-needed difference to Pacific strength.
The same applied
to battleships beyond those required to replace the Halifax escort force. It is
possible that by early January Pound had recognised that Britain had
overstated its needs in the Atlantic, and that this would pose problems for the
Far East. He told Ghormley that three US Navy battleships, along with modest
supporting forces, and the current US Navy escort forces, would be sufficient
to prevent any aggressive Axis moves against the western hemisphere and assist
convoy work. Carriers were not mentioned. There was a huge difference
between Pound’s line here and the ABC-1 instructions approved three weeks
earlier. Ghormley nevertheless reported to Stark that it would be ‘dangerous’
to count on Britain holding the Atlantic without considerable American
assistance.105 Despite Pound’s second thoughts, the overall result was that, with
British encouragement, the US Navy had more forces, especially major units,
in the Atlantic in 1941 than were justified by the underlying strategic realities.

This not only reduced deterrence cover against Japan, but ensured overall
Allied dispositions in the East would be less effective than they might otherwise
have been.
Thanks to Lethl215 for reminding me to pick up the copy of a book that I'd somehow neglected since obtaining it.

Note also that Boyd, a Ph.D. in naval studies, is far less reticent to engage counterfactuals than the average AHF'er. The latter views history as stenographry, the stenographer's role being not to question the Great Men who made wartime decisions. The book contains several other examples of counterfactual reasoning - a good sign for a field that generally and stupidly eschews this basic intellectual tool.

Boyd's book shows that the British assisted American strategic incoherence by refusing to make hard choices themselves - actually by failing to present these choices to themselves in hard analytical terms.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#49

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 27 Apr 2022, 06:12

Lethl215 wrote:
26 Apr 2022, 18:05
TMP,
No way 12 Associate Power CV’s can even put to sea worldwide at once.
As of Fall '41 the (nascent) Allies had fully operational:

6 US carriers:
Saratoga
Lexington
Ranger
Yorktown
Enterprise
Wasp

Hornet was still working up on Dec. 7 but on Feb. 2, 1942 she began boarding B-25's for the Doolittle Raid. If there's a strategic plan to get her into the Pacific ASAP, she can probably be active by Feb '42 - time enough for a decisive action in the South China or Java Seas (assuming Japan isn't deterred by these deployments, which is unlikely but perhaps plausible).

RN had 7:
Eagle
Furious
Ark Royal (sunk in the Med Nov. '41 but not in the Med here)
Illustrious
Formidable
Victorious
Indomitable (commissioned Oct. '41)

That's 13-14 carriers.

You probably can't send all 13-14 to the Far East (as I said, "up to 12"). Keep the 3 older carriers (Ranger, Eagle, Furious) in the Atlantic to watch those couple scary German ships and send the rest - 10-11 carriers - to the Pacific by early February. Or send 9-10 if you think Malta Club Runs are strategically essential (I don't - Rommel isn't that good nor that important - but whatever).

The slow older carriers are not ideal for raider hunting but this is, again, the difference between the strategically critical ("must have") and the "nice to have". A German raider gets loose for a few months? Sucks but compared to losing Southeast Asia it's nothing.

With 9 to 11 carriers in the Pacific, the Allies are at least the favorites successfully to interdict Japanese LoC's (under then-existing doctrine) and/or to destroy IJN combat power in a decisive fleet engagement (revealed practice after contact with the enemy).

The ideal scenario is force concentration along the Malay Barrier but, as I've said repeatedly, it's at least debatable whether this was logistically possible (but, again, I see no hard facts backing that up, only credulous acceptance of Great Man statements).

Even if concentration isn't possible, a USN operating with 5-6 fleet carriers from Hawaii, and an RN operating with 3-4 along the Barrier (maybe +1 if one US CV reinforces RN grouping per Rainbow 3) will present Japan serious difficulties. Japan's ideal strategy would have been to ignore raids on the Marshalls/Gilberts but, as OTL proves, IJN was not actually capable of such strategic discipline and it repeatedly divided its carrier forces, exposing them to defeat in detail by a strategically competent Allied coalition. Highlights include the opportunity to sink a couple IJN flattops around Second Wake and during the Marshalls/Gilberts raids, had the USN possessed the CV numbers (therefore the confidence) to loiter longer and accept battle. So OTL shows that the Allies didn't need ideal strategy to win in the Pacific; they just needed a not-disastrously-bad strategy.

--------------------------------------------

Somebody will of course say that this is hindsight, as USN/RN doctrine didn't place CV's at the center of things in late '41. While that's true, it's irrelevant here for several reasons.

The Allies several times mooted the creation of LoC-interdiction forces (Drax's Flying Column, R3's Asiatic Reinforcement). The Allies understood the obvious point that invasions require logistics and that sea LoC's were decisively vulnerable to airpower (regardless of whether they so believed about battle lines).

Nothing I've said about concentrating Allied CV power forecloses also concentrating Allied surface forces. Indeed (to head off AHF's favorite knee-jerk emotional defense of "hindsight!"), Pound made precisely this point to Ghormley in saying that 3 US BB's were sufficient in the Atlantic (quoted from Boyd above). Even that is excessive, as the complete absence of US capital ships from the Atlantic would not have had meaningful strategic consequences (aside, arguably, from Club Runs to Malta).

--------------------------------------------

The loss of Southeast Asia to a country with a fraction of Allied naval and other combat power should not be treated as a foregone conclusion. I understand the motive for so believing: a lot of Great Men have you told so and it feels unpatriotic to question their wisdom. It raises questions about hallowed WW2 narratives that form/formed lullabies for generations of Brits/Americans. Nonetheless...

---------------------------------------

A final aside: Yes, 5-6 CV's with the Pacific Fleet might mean they get sunk at PH. That's not a viable defense of OTL US strategy, however, as one can't credibly claim, "I can't be criticized for not doing the smart thing because I'm too dumb not to screw it up by ignoring relevant threats."
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#50

Post by EwenS » 27 Apr 2022, 12:32

The "Allies" DID NOT have 13-14 "fully operational" carriers in late 1941. And the air groups of some were flying obsolete aircraft.

The position of the US ships was as follows:-

CV-2 Lexington – her fighter squadron was still flying F2A-3 Buffalo until mid Feb 1942 when she got the F4F. Her 6 month modernisation was postponed in 1941.

CV-3 Saratoga – was being modernised (partially. Part was put off to a later date) and refitted between April and Nov 1941. She was only ready to collect her air group again just as war broke out.

CV-4 Ranger – only had 6 torpedo bombers in her air group and the dive bombers were SB2U-2 Vindicators. The latter were not replaced with SBD-3 until late summer 1942.

CV-5 Yorktown –
CV-6 Enterprise –

CV-7 Wasp – only had 6 torpedo bombers in her air group and her dive bombers were Vindicators. The latter were only replaced with SBD-3 after she arrived in the Pacific in June 1942.

CV-8 Hornet – only completed on 20th Oct 1941 so was in need of working up. Her dive bombing and scout squadrons were equipped with the biplane SBC Helldiver and didn’t convert to the SBD-3 Dauntless until the end of April 1942, after she arrived in the Pacific in March. Even during wartime the new US fleet carriers took approx. 5 months to work up the ship and the air group and make the transit to Pearl Harbor. So I very much doubt that her programme can be speeded up.

Service entry of the SBD-3 had been in March 1941 (only 87 of earlier versions for the USN had been produced) and production was still running at pre-war levels. Monthly production never exceeded 44 in 1941 and often half that. Production of the F4F was also at pre-war rates. In only 1 month in 1941 did it exceed 40 aircraft, including production for Britain. And it reduced in that latter part of the year as Grumman sought to introduce the folding wing F4F-4 onto the production line, which allowed the carriers to carry many more fighters.

The British were in an even worse position.

Eagle – refitting in Liverpool from 1st Nov 1941 to 15th Jan 1942. She didn’t complete her work up until the end of Jan. By the end of 1941 she was worn out and required further repairs in April / May 1942 to keep her going. Pre-war plans would have seen her retired from the fleet by 1942. Her air group at this time consisted of 18 Swordfish and a fighter flight of 2 Fulmar or Sea Hurricane.

Furious – Oct 1941 she left UK for a badly needed refit at Philadelphia which didn’t complete until 3rd April 1942. After that further work to upgrade her radars had to be undertaken in the UK and she didn’t re-join the fleet until July 1942.

Ark Royal – by late 1941 she was scheduled for a refit in the USA at the beginning of 1942, which would have been her first since Oct 1940. See Boyd p301. This was due to complete no earlier than the end of April 1942.

Illustrious – had been out of action since 10th Jan 1941 when bombed off Malta. Her repairs in the USA weren’t completed until Oct 1941. Then she worked up in the Caribbean with but 12 Swordfish for self-protection, until leaving for the UK with Formidable in mid-Dec. It was then planned to upgrade her radar before sending her east. Her intended air group was in the UK. Her fighter squadrons needed to re-equip with the Martlets she ferried from the USA. She wasn’t ready to sail until 23rd March 1942. Even assuming that she hadn’t suffered collision damage with Formidable in her Atlantic crossing in Dec 1941 she wouldn’t have been ready before mid-Feb 1942 with her air group still needing to work up.

Formidable – had been out of action since being bombed off Crete on 26th May 1941. Her repairs in the USA weren’t completed until mid-Dec 1941 when she sailed for the UK for improvements to her radars. Her air group was in the UK at that time and again the fighter squadron needed the Martlets carried on Illustrious. She wasn’t ready to sail from the UK until 17th Feb 1942, and still needed to work up her air group.

Victorious – completed May 1941.

Indomitable – completed 10 Oct 1941. Even assuming that she hadn’t grounded in the Caribbean on 3rd Nov 1941 her work up was scheduled to last until the end of Nov when she was scheduled to sail for Gibraltar.

At the end of 1941 these ships were relying on mostly on Fulmars for their fighter cover, with only Indomitable having more than a small detachment of Sea Hurricanes. The first folding wing Martlet II only became available in Dec 1941, and the small number of fixed wing Martlet I wouldn’t fit the lifts on the first 3 Illustrious class or Ark Royal.

For completeness sake you missed the following:-

Argus – mostly in use as an aircraft ferry in 1941 to places like Takoradi, Malta and Russia so had no permanent air group. Following Ark Royal’s sinking she operated with Force H in the Med with whatever aircraft happened to be at Gibraltar.

Hermes – Under refit at Simonstown, South Africa from 18th Nov 1941 to the end of Jan 1942. Her air group consisted of only 12 Swordfish.

The British experience in the Med in 1941 was that good fighter direction was essential. The RN was prepared to delay the return of both Illustrious and Formidable to the fleet after the outbreak of war with Japan in order to have their radar fit brought up to the same standard as the newly completed Indomitable despite their only being a year old.

Ships require regular refit. Carriers in particular get run very hard, particularly in wartime, as they manoeuvre to operate their aircraft. That maintenance can only be postponed for so long. That point had certainly been reached with Eagle, Furious, Hermes & Ark Royal.

The RN in particular needed modern single seat fighters able to take on the likes of the Zero. Without them, as it largely was in late 1941, it would have had to rely on night torpedo attacks on the Japanese fleet just as Somerville intended in April 1942, while maintaining an arms length distance from the Japanese carriers.

So at most in late 1941 you can get 5 US carriers and 3 British (4 if you really feel the need to include Hermes). And that means stripping the Home Fleet of the carrier that it felt was essential for containing the Kriegsmarine.

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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#51

Post by Lethl215 » 27 Apr 2022, 23:11

TMP,
The problem with U.S. war planning up to that time, especially with ORANGE, was that the transportation assumptions and force tables were fantasy and represented capabilities that didn't exist. That's what ABC-1 and WPL-44/46 were meant to fix. They showed realistic forces then in existence and their accurate dispositions. These are in massive flux in 1941. It was a bad year for the Associated Powers, especially for the RN off Crete. To summarize 1941: Lost - HOOD, BARHAM, POW, REPULSE, ARK ROYAL, severe damage - MALAYA (13 weeks), WARSPITE (7 months), POW (B4 being sunk, 6 weeks), BARHAM (B4 being sunk, 2 months), NELSON (6 months), QE (17 months), VALIANT (6 months), ILLUSTRIOUS (10 months), FORMIDABLE (6 months) and PEARL HARBOR! Not to mention ships in the yards for maintenance and upkeep. In addition to EwenS excellent summary above, just look at the appendix, mainly correspondence, from that "alcoholic" "Great Man" Churchill in his The Second World War, V.3 (poached from another site):
26F3A942-C461-4C6B-9ECC-6462BFE56D4D_1_101_o.jpeg
8FFDA63D-E8D7-469C-AA1B-96F5160A76EB_1_101_o.jpeg
628084E7-6DF2-4418-952D-EB6620AB9F2D_1_101_o.jpeg
Roskill has a "take" for Dec 41 on p.560 after showing Morison's/PHA table:

https://ia802303.us.archive.org/30/item ... 45Vol1.pdf

You can also look at all the correspondence between FDR and Churchill. They just had too many irons in the fire to dedicate the assets you insist it was possible to send to the NEI. One of the most excellent parts of Boyd and Miller's books are their notes. They have tons of primary document sources that, unfortunately, are hard to view unless you can go to the archives in person. Overall, I would say strategy during this time was more "whack-a-mole" than "incoherence."

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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#52

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 28 Apr 2022, 01:11

Lethl215 wrote: I would say strategy during this time was more "whack-a-mole" than "incoherence."
Just a drive-by response for now but there's no daylight between whack a mole strategy and being incoherent.

The strategist's greatest task is to prioritize - to know what is essential and what can be risked. Playing whack a mole - I agree that's an accurate characterization - is the hallmark of lacking a strategy.

Your quoted Tirpitz analysis shows this very clearly. It's simply not true that her breaking out has catastrophic strategic consequences. And it's simply not true that Rodney and KGV, supported by a single carrier, couldn't have prevented even the non-catastrophic consequences of such a breakout. See Bismarck. That UK couldn't analyze/prioritize in a rational fashion here is incoherent.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#53

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 28 Apr 2022, 01:28

EwenS wrote:
27 Apr 2022, 12:32
The "Allies" DID NOT have 13-14 "fully operational" carriers in late 1941. And the air groups of some were flying obsolete aircraft.
By " fully operational" I meant "had completed training," thus the separate discussion of Hornet working up. That was imprecise and your points about refits/repairs are of course important - thanks.

Among the many shapes that a coherent Eastern theater strategy could have taken, the best probably involve a contingency plan to surge fleet assets to the theater if Japan wilds out (focus there would be logistical predicate for surge). That would foresee a timetable of maybe a few months, allowing for relief of Singapore/Manila or a fighting retreat to the outer Barrier (fighting from points like Darwin, Balikpapan, and Surabaya.) There was something like this strategy, of course, but insufficient from both Allies and completely uncoordinated between them and even between national services.

On that timeline, the scheduled refits still allow for Allied naval superiority before Japan conquers all Southeast Asia and begins to threaten Indian Ocean communications and Australia. Those threats present a foreseeable and arguably existential risk to Britain's position in the Middle East and to the entire Germany First strategy, as OTL demonstrates.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#54

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 28 Apr 2022, 01:35

Lethl215 wrote: One of the most excellent parts of Boyd and Miller's books are their notes. They have tons of primary document sources that, unfortunately, are hard to view unless you can go to the archives in person
Obviously.

Thus our discussion upthread about whether Miller/Boyd is the "the source." You and I get to those primary docs via the decades of research these and others did. That doesn't make them "the source," however, except insofar as I assume nobody is lying about what the actual sources contain (because I don't envision flying to the archives to double-check them).

The more accessible sources like ABC-1 docs we can access thanks to folks like OpanaPointer. As the better works of history show, however, the internal discussions in advance of those conferences are usually far more interesting/revealing than the party lines pressed at the conferences.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#55

Post by EwenS » 28 Apr 2022, 11:26

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
28 Apr 2022, 01:28
EwenS wrote:
27 Apr 2022, 12:32
The "Allies" DID NOT have 13-14 "fully operational" carriers in late 1941. And the air groups of some were flying obsolete aircraft.
By " fully operational" I meant "had completed training," thus the separate discussion of Hornet working up. That was imprecise and your points about refits/repairs are of course important - thanks.

Among the many shapes that a coherent Eastern theater strategy could have taken, the best probably involve a contingency plan to surge fleet assets to the theater if Japan wilds out (focus there would be logistical predicate for surge). That would foresee a timetable of maybe a few months, allowing for relief of Singapore/Manila or a fighting retreat to the outer Barrier (fighting from points like Darwin, Balikpapan, and Surabaya.) There was something like this strategy, of course, but insufficient from both Allies and completely uncoordinated between them and even between national services.

On that timeline, the scheduled refits still allow for Allied naval superiority before Japan conquers all Southeast Asia and begins to threaten Indian Ocean communications and Australia. Those threats present a foreseeable and arguably existential risk to Britain's position in the Middle East and to the entire Germany First strategy, as OTL demonstrates.
Well first you have to change the entire British policy sooner to prioritise the IO over the Med in 1941. Then you have to have the ships available in the timescale you are contemplating (which timescale I'm really not clear about as it seems to move about between late 1941 (just how late?) and about April 1942), taking account of course of all the other competing demands that there are at home and in the Med at the same time (I note you plan to abandon Malta).

Then you need to take into account the RN's ability to switch assets relatively quickly from one theatre to another in the event of a crisis (UK to Ceylon takes about a month). That was something that the Admiralty had become very adept at doing in WW2. Of particular relevance is the ability to move assets from the Mediterranean Fleet based at Alexandria to the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal. In fact if you study the ship movements that is what was at least planned, and was carried out in part.

See Boyd p340 onwards in the section "The Admiralty's strategic response to the loss of Force Z" and the related notes from p483.

Boyd notes that even before the loss of Force Z Pound (FSL) was in discussions (10 Dec) with Cunningham (CinC Med Fleet) about redeploying capital ships and carriers from the Mediterranean to reinforce the Indian Ocean. That discussion turned into a decision within the following week. That would have seen QE, Valiant, Warspite, Illustrious and Formidable all reallocated from the Med (see the proposed Aug 1941 allocation above) and being sent to the IO.

Unfortunately the Italians then intervened to damage QE and Valiant at Alexandria on the 19 Dec. Valiant was repaired at Alexandria and then Durban and returned to service in July 1942 as part of the Eastern Fleet. QE was much more heavly damaged and was out of action for 20 months.

But look at the other ships on that Aug 1941 list. Indomitable was reallocated from Force H to the IO as planned (in Aug she was to be at Trincomalee "in an emergency". She was sailed from the Caribbean for Cape Town on 18 Dec following completion of her work up arriving 31 Dec.). Warspite, Illustrious and Formidable all went to the IO when they became available following their refits / repairs, not the Med as had been planned in Aug.

Other ships were transferred from the Med to the IO at this time. 2 T class submarines left late Dec / early Jan becoming the first subs available in theatre since the 4th Sub Flotilla had been withdrawn from China to the Med, via the Suez Cana, in 1940 (2 weeks transfer time at their relatively slow speeds). 3 N class DD left Alexandria on 3 Jan. One of the problems the Eastern Fleet had throughout 1942 was a shortage of fleet destroyers, simply because the RN was short of them entirely after the losses suffered off Norway and Crete. The first of the wartime ordered classes only began to appear in mid-1941. 3 brand new P class were despatched to the IO in Feb / March 1942 on completion of work up.

You say "On that timeline, the scheduled refits still allow for Allied naval superiority before Japan conquers all Southeast Asia and begins to threaten Indian Ocean communications and Australia.". You do realise the length of time it would take to get those ships back from the IO to begin their refits as planned? So Eagle and Furious would have to be leaving the IO around the beginning of Sept. Ark would have to be heading for the USA around the end of Nov. So again I ask exactly when do you want this massive fleet to be in the IO?

As for bases and logistics, the only viable option for a fleet base apart from Singapore is Trincomalee. It is the place with fuel stocks to support a fleet (oil storage 1.248m tons, second only to Singapore). In 1936 the total Admiralty oil fuel storage in Australia & New Zealand totalled 120,000 tons. Only part of that was at Darwin (11 tanks IIRC). Darwin's defences didn't stand up well to the Feb 1942 attacks. Some stuff here on Darwin's WW2 defences.
http://indicatorloops.com/darwin.htm

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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#56

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 29 Apr 2022, 06:19

EwenS wrote:Well first you have to change the entire British policy sooner to prioritise the IO over the Med in 1941.
I've explicitly bitten that bullet all the way to losing Malta.

Caveat: only after Barbarossa. Britain/Allies should have fundamentally reevaluated global strategy after June 22. That's when it's clear that Germany can't get far via Egypt - they simply lack the resources for exploitation to Abadan while fighting Russia. Holding Nile/Suez is at that point no longer of decisive strategic consequence because even if Rommel takes Alexandria or (farther-fetched) Suez, what next? Axis can only drive on critical strategic points (Abadan) if they can focus on the Med, which they can't until/unless months after SU collapses. If they send a few more divisions to North Africa then they lose them as in OTL when Allies do Gymnast/Torch (already urged/accepted in 1941 between FDR and Churchill as a good first move in Europe).

The Empire didn't expect SU to survive but here's the thing: if SU falls Britain isn't winning the war regardless of what they do. Best they can hope for is a peace that preserves some part of the British Empire, the Eastern part of which Japan is about to demolish. OTOH, if SU might survive then helping it is paramount (the only means to victory), which means containing the Eastern damage (therefore containing long term coalition commitment) so you can help the SU survive (which the Allies barely did when it really counted in '41-'42).

Am I assuming it's a Transatlantic coalition and not The Empire vs. Germany, Italy, and Japan? Yes, Britain is screwed unless it's a coalition; there's not the faintest hope absent US belligerency. So it's IMO pointless to consider contingency planning absent US participation in war against Japan (and that reflects the actual planning output by '41, IMJ).
EwenS wrote:which timescale I'm really not clear about as it seems to move about between late 1941 (just how late?) and about April 1942
Avoiding hindsight that the shooting starts on Dec. 7/8, 1941 means that Britain/US (the latter being the more important target of criticism here, btw) are prepared to contest Southeast Asia by Fall '41, with contingency plans to surge fleet assets including CV's. That means variable numbers of available ships at different times. But certainly more than the 3 (4?) CV's between Suez and Panama on Dec. 7. 5-6 from US alone, which is (again) the main target of criticism here.
EwenS wrote:Then you need to take into account the RN's ability to switch assets relatively quickly from one theatre to another in the event of a crisis (UK to Ceylon takes about a month).
I gave them 2 months...

Timeline for a switch between Eastern Med and Ceylon - mooted extensively for emergency Malta forces diverted from Somerville in Spring '42 - is probably ~10 days with proper contingency planning/prep.
EwenS wrote:See Boyd p340 onwards in the section "The Admiralty's strategic response to the loss of Force Z" and the related notes from p483.
One bone I'd pick with Boyd is that, while he amply justifies the decision to hold a forward position in Egypt/Libya between France and Barbarossa, he doesn't adequately address whether, in the second half of 1941, that strategic calculus still held despite increasing Japanese bellicosity and the fact of the Eastern Front.

Another bone I'd pick is he doesn't at all address one my central args here: That the foreseeable consequence of disaster in Southeast Asia was effectively "Germany Second" in 1942 for the U.S., which opened the very real possibility of German victory in WW2 (taking seriously the Allies' belief that SU's endurance was not a given). Boyd acknowledges the possibility of Soviet defeat via his emphasis on Indian Ocean control and the Persia Corridor. He's too smart to accept the AHF line that the SU could never have been defeated; given that live possibility I wish he talked about the Asia-Ostfront interplay more than he does.
EwenS wrote:Boyd notes that even before the loss of Force Z Pound (FSL) was in discussions (10 Dec) with Cunningham (CinC Med Fleet) about redeploying capital ships and carriers from the Mediterranean to reinforce the Indian Ocean. That discussion turned into a decision within the following week. That would have seen QE, Valiant, Warspite, Illustrious and Formidable all reallocated from the Med (see the proposed Aug 1941 allocation above) and being sent to the IO.

Unfortunately the Italians then intervened to damage QE and Valiant at Alexandria on the 19 Dec. Valiant was repaired at Alexandria and then Durban and returned to service in July 1942 as part of the Eastern Fleet. QE was much more heavly damaged and was out of action for 20 months.
Far, far too late. Not necessarily Pound's fault; the tough choices about Med-Japan had to be made higher up the chain.

Re damage to QE and Valiant (and sinking of Barham, Ark Royal in Fall '41), this is all a foreseeable consequence of committing critical strategic resources to the strategically non-critical goal of holding a big sandbox in Libya that was only the forefield of core strategic interests. You lost some of the assets that you chose stupidly to risk? Of course you did.

Indeed the suddenness and alacrity with which RN stripped (or planned to strip) its Mediterranean and Atlantic assets in early '42 and sent them to the Indian Ocean is the best proof of my thesis: Why not do this earlier? (there are answers of course but I think they're bad answers)
EwenS wrote:Indomitable was reallocated from Force H to the IO as planned
Boyd demonstrates decisively that the "plan" for Indomitable in the IO was a post-hoc rationalization by the Admiralty, who never planned such a thing except on emergency basis. I can go back and grab the cites but I'm guessing you'd concede this minor point that was perhaps forgotten from reading Boyd a while ago.
EwenS wrote:You say "On that timeline, the scheduled refits still allow for Allied naval superiority before Japan conquers all Southeast Asia and begins to threaten Indian Ocean communications and Australia.". You do realise the length of time it would take to get those ships back from the IO to begin their refits as planned? So Eagle and Furious would have to be leaving the IO around the beginning of Sept. Ark would have to be heading for the USA around the end of Nov. So again I ask exactly when do you want this massive fleet to be in the IO?
I'll have to ask your indulgence because this is a thread that started by pointing out strategic incoherence (I'm absolutely convinced of that) then segued into a "What If" that I have explicitly framed as a "weak hypothesis." For most online personality types, the psychological rewards from debunking greatly exceed those from thinking, so that's all most want to do.

As is clear in the OP, I blame the US most here for over-committing USN to the Atlantic and failing either to (1) reinforce the Barrier directly [ideal strategy about whose practicality from a mid-'41 PoD I'm not certain] or (2) do something in the Pacific to prevent a disaster befalling their allies.

The UK can have as few as 2 carriers operating along the Barrier if the USN has 5-6 CV's provoking IJN's main body into a battle in the Pacific. See Boyd's discussion of Somerville nearly getting a Midway-style victory.

And remember, we haven't even talked about ground/air reinforcement of Malaya, which is possible absent the Cyrenaica obsession. That's the real nub. If The Empire can hold Malaya for 3-4 months, the exact timing of refits etc. doesn't really matter because there's time for relief.

The refit timelines could have been adjusted once Barbarossa happens. Britain now knows it's not being invaded any time soon, it knows that Axis cannot achieve decisive strategic success in North Africa either (taking some sand from 8th Army not qualifying as decisive strategic success). RN can therefore start allocating units for surely-foreseen maintenance as soon as the existential danger disappears (for at least a while) on June 22, 1941.
EwenS wrote:As for bases and logistics, the only viable option for a fleet base apart from Singapore is Trincomalee.
As I've advocated throughout this thread, IIRC.

Fleet base and "advanced operating bases" are different, however. A fleet based in Trincomalee can sortie into the critical theater and retire to and/or top-up at other places like Surabaya, Balikpapan, Singapore, and Darwin - just as Somerville retreated to Port T during the Indian Ocean Raid despite basing at Trincomalee.

----------------------------------------

I have to reiterate that I don't have a set "What If" here in the sense of the detailed narratives I've presented elsewhere. As the OP states and as I'm ready to defend, I judge Allied strategy as incoherent. As I'm also ready to defend, it seems dumb to take for granted that the Allies could not have stopped Japan in Southeast Asia during 1942. Many other factors come into play, including Bomber Command, the US's irrational (and cognitively-motivated) B-17 cultism, and maybe even an argument that FDR didn't really want to deter Japan.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#57

Post by Fatboy Coxy » 30 Apr 2022, 22:54

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
18 Apr 2022, 21:17
Fatboy Coxy wrote:
18 Apr 2022, 21:04
Putting a British perspective on this, the ABC talks between January and March 1941, cemented Germany First to Churchill and Britain's satisfaction, but maybe Britain overplayed it. British interests in the Far East were left practically unprotected, except for the faith Churchill placed in Roosevelts strategy on dealing with and containing Japan.
Churchill wasn't sufficiently concerned about the Far East. He explicitly stated he'd rather lose Singapore than the Nile, which is bad strategic judgment.
Fatboy Coxy wrote:Would the USN capital ships transferred into the North Atlantic in response to the ABC talk outcomes, have been better used in the Pacific, or would they have become just merely more damaged or sunken ships at Pearl Harbor?
Those USN ships should have been based in Trincomalee.
Fatboy Coxy wrote:Currently writing https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/ ... if.521982/
I don't like reading alternate history stories but am interested in counterfactual proposals phrased in analytical terms. What's the short version of yours?
OK, apologies, very late I know!

To say Churchill wasn't sufficiently concerned about the Far East is very wrong, he very much wanted to hold it, and taxed Brooke a lot on ideas of how to recapture it. What he did do was, as you indicate, was chose the Middle East over the Far East. Now this went very much against the grain, with regards to Britain's Far East defence policy, the Singapore Strategy, but it can be seen a as reasonable choice given one theatre was a hot zone, being Britain's only effective way of progressing the War against Germany, Bomber Command needing a lot of time to become that war winner Churchill hoped for, and the other theatre was a cold zone, and with the might of the USA set against Japan, as reasonable gamble.

Come the ABC talks in early 1941, Britain is desperate to get the USA involved, Britain might hold out, but alone, she can't defeat Germany. She will pay almost any price to get America in the war, and so save her, (and Western Europe?) from German dominance.

Now you might well chart this as the point where the USA moves out of her isolationist position, and begins to take on the role of Pax America, replacing Pax Britannia as the world's policeman.

From the US point of view, the only force which she has capable of any real action in 1941 is the Navy, her Army and Army Air Force are minuscule, but expanding at an enormous rate, but nevertheless, incapable of doing much.

The question is how does the USA use her navy to best effect. Boyd and his excellent book, the Royal Navy, In Eastern Waters, suggests Britain somewhat overplayed her hand in Germany First, with the US keen to support, putting a lot of her Navy in the Atlantic, freeing RN assets to be deployed to the Far East.

That seemed fine in early 1941, but 1941 was a very hard year for the Royal Navy, and a fleet that should have been at Singapore, helping to provide a deterrence against Japan, was either damaged or at the bottom of the sea.

A question, which I suggested in the earlier post, was could the US Navy have done more in the Pacific, freeing Britain of the need to defend her eastern empire. And that is the crux of the matter for me, how could the US help in that fashion.

Basing US ships in Singapore, or even Trincomalee, was a no no for Roosevelt, putting aside the questions of logistics, and maintaining USN ships here, he couldn't have sold this to the American public.

The second option was for the USN to to beef up the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines, but that's a very long logistical line back to the west coast, easily interdicted by the Japanese.

Thirdly, forward base at Hawaii, and then look to threaten the Japanese from there. Of course, even this option wasn't good, given the USN lacked sufficent tankers to enact the strategy, if called upon.

Was the USN strategy incoherent?, given the cards they had to play, I'd say no,

Lastly, you asked about alternative history stories, and whats mine, well its more a realisation by Churchill that Britain can't rely solely on Roosevelt to defend her Far Eastern interests, and has to do more, even, abet, at the crimping of supplies to North Africa, and later the USSR. No wonder weapon, or miraculous event, more about the attrition, and logistics of war, and how, maybe, with a little more quality, she might have put up a better fight in Malaya. How does it end, I honestly don't know, I'm exploring that as I go.

And I suppose the question I'd ask you is, what should the Allies have decided at the ABC talks in early 1941, how might they have held the Malay Barrier?
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Fatboy Coxy

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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#58

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 05 May 2022, 04:28

Fatboy Coxy wrote:
30 Apr 2022, 22:54
Was the USN strategy incoherent?
No.

USN strategy was stupid. Allied strategy was incoherent.

USN was stupid for focusing on the Atlantic, where they could play no decisive role except ASW (which they pitifully neglected, causing the worst Allied naval defeat of the war in early '42).

While the USN made its decision - concede Southeast Asia, have the world's strongest navy watching Tirpitz - the other Allied leaders never really made a decision. Thus incoherence.

While the USN was tacitly conceding the Barrier, US Army was reinforcing the Philippines and Marshall was publicly announcing they'd fight tooth and nail for it.

The Admiralty took Marshall's noises as a sign that America would support its strategy to operate offensively in the South China Sea, believing Manila was a viable base.

Churchill did not quite understand that this was Admiralty intent. He was, even had he understood it, unwilling to spare the resources needed to support it (fleet assets but also land/air to hold Malaya/Singapore).

The Dominions appear at least partially to have bought Churchill's assurances about holding Singapore, which were disingenuous. They committed resources to Malaya and lost them.

This was an absolute clusterf*%$. Not only were the Allies unable to communicate their intentions internationally; the services were unable to do so internally.
Fatboy Coxy wrote:Basing US ships in Singapore, or even Trincomalee, was a no no for Roosevelt, putting aside the questions of logistics, and maintaining USN ships here, he couldn't have sold this to the American public.
Well we'll never because it wasn't even considered.

There's no need actually to be based in Trincomalee on Dec. 7. Rather, you can just have a plan (esp. logistics) for the fleet to move to the decisive theater when the shooting starts.
Fatboy Coxy wrote:Thirdly, forward base at Hawaii, and then look to threaten the Japanese from there. Of course, even this option wasn't good, given the USN lacked sufficent tankers to enact the strategy, if called upon.
I suspect this is BS, probably the USN covering for allowing Japan to conquer Southeast Asia on its watch.

USN had 12 Cimarron class oilers when war broke out. I've heard so many times that sinking Neosho at PH would have been disastrous because of "logistics!" but, as so often with "logistics!", the people screaming this are too bored with actual logistics even to look under the cover (not aiming that at you).

Neosho may have been one of the Pacific Fleet's only oilers but that fact traces to the USN's stupidity.
Last edited by TheMarcksPlan on 05 May 2022, 05:24, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#59

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 05 May 2022, 05:09

Fatboy Coxy wrote:what should the Allies have decided at the ABC talks in early 1941, how might they have held the Malay Barrier?
I'm not firmly committed on that question yet. Still researching.

I can say what they shouldn't have done:

Use the world's strongest navy (tied?) to watch Tirpitz.

Fail to reach agreement on strategic fundamentals in Asia, adopt contradictory and self-sabotaging policies in the absence of such agreement.

Fail to foresee that losing a big chunk of the world to Japan would make Germany First impracticable.
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Re: Allied strategic incoherence in the Pacific, 1941

#60

Post by EwenS » 05 May 2022, 11:12

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
05 May 2022, 04:28
Fatboy Coxy wrote:
30 Apr 2022, 22:54
Was the USN strategy incoherent?


There's no need actually to be based in Trincomalee on Dec. 7. Rather, you can just have a plan (esp. logistics) for the fleet to move to the decisive theater when the shooting starts.
Fatboy Coxy wrote:Thirdly, forward base at Hawaii, and then look to threaten the Japanese from there. Of course, even this option wasn't good, given the USN lacked sufficent tankers to enact the strategy, if called upon.
I suspect this is BS, probably the USN covering for allowing Japan to conquer Southeast Asia on its watch.

USN had 12 Cimarron class oilers when war broke out. I've heard so many times that sinking Neosho at PH would have been disastrous because of "logistics!" but, as so often with "logistics!", the people screaming this are too bored with actual logistics even to look under the cover (not aiming that at you).

Neosho may have been one of the Pacific Fleet's only oilers but that fact traces to the USN's stupidity.
When war with Japan broke out the USN had 33 oilers in the fleet. 21 of those were slow (11 knot) vessels that dated back to 1915-22. Of that total, 2 were with the Asiatic Fleet, 11 with the Pacific Fleet (only 4 capable of refuelling at sea, being the 4 fast 18 knot Cimarron class in the Pacific) and the remainder in the Atlantic. Their main purpose pre-war was hauling oil from the refineries (California in the case of the Pacific Fleet) to the various fleet bases (PH in the case of the Pacific Fleet) to keep the storage there topped up. The support train had not kept up with the expansion of the fleet nor its move to a forward base at PH. Post PH the consumption of oil by the Pacific Fleet increased dramatically for a host of reasons (higher ship speeds, zig zag reducing range, boilers on line all the time etc etc).

The extent of the problem is summed up in the fact that in the 9 days following PH the Pacific Fleet consumed nearly the equivalent of the capacity of its entire tanker fleet in the Pacific.

One question in my mind is the civilian capacity. Given that most of Japan’s oil was shipped from California in US registered tankers and the oil embargo went into effect on 1 Aug 1941, this should have released tanker tonnage for the lift from California to PH. Where did they in fact go? More research required.

This article explains the USN Pacific Fleet oil position in Dec 1941.
https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/ ... onovan.pdf

Edit: Following the outbreak of war the USN immediately sought to acquire more large T2/T3 tankers then building (commissioning from Jan 1942) and sought to transfer some of the Cimarron class in the Atlantic to the Pacific. What did not help the position is the decision to take 4 of the class in hand from Feb 1942 for the 6 month conversion to CVE which then remained in the Atlantic until early 1943.

Edit 2: The 12 Cimarron class commissioned into the USN between March 1939 and July 1941.

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