simpleton
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Post by simpleton on Sept 3, 2017 17:55:09 GMT
Knowing the time and launch site for the 1st IJN wave against Midway, Niemitz should have sent 2 BB, 2 CA, 2 CL and 8 DD to converge in the area, shell and tropedo the carrier fleet at night with decks ful of planes before launching. The IJN did not expect any BB in Midway (thinking them sunk or heavily damaged) and Niemitz obliged. By attacking the BB and CA with AP shells and the rest with HE shells, the IJN CV (with fuel, bombs, torpedoes on deck) and DD and CA (with highly explosive long lance torpedoes) would have gone down quickly. Even the rapid fire 6" and 5" guns would have caused a lot of damage in such conditions. US Submarines could have launched all torpedoes at night on the Kido Butai, illuminated by the shelling. They could have then surfaced and shelled the carriers (Nautilus and Nahrwal had 6" guns and were small targets for IJN guns). IJN DD would be too busy in the surface battle to chase submarines.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 3, 2017 18:14:08 GMT
I hope you mean Nimitz instead of Niemitz. |
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Post by eurowatch on Sept 3, 2017 18:41:59 GMT
Mining Norway and sinking a German ship in neutral Norwegian waters, but without simultaneously invading Narvik, Tromso, etc, (the strong allied landing forces arriving after Germany had seized Narvik, etc,). So that the violation of Norwegian neutrality induced Hitler to occupy Norway and Denmark and allied forces left with their tail between their legs to fight in France and the allies lost Norway, many planes, pilots, ships (including a carrier full of RAF and her pilots and planes, sunk by naval shells!), etc, for no gains at all. The Allies were planning to invade Norway as part of operation Wilfred, it was just that the operation got delayed so the germans were able to act first. But do you know what would have happened if the Allies had acted first? Norway would have declared war on them and asked for help from Germany, who would have send their pre-posistioned troops to help (if necaserry they would have "convinced" Denmark to help as well). The Germans would then have raced North, liberating Bergen and Trondheim to join forces With the Norwegians to kick out the Allies, who at this point would be distracted by France getting steamrolled. So now Norway is reluctantly on the Axis side and Germany can Direct more troops elsewhere. Sometimes the Allies did not make wasteful plans, sometimes the Germans were just better then them. |
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simpleton
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Post by simpleton on Sept 3, 2017 23:48:53 GMT
It is extremely doubtful that Norway would declare war on the allies. It did not, despite having its neutral waters mined and a German ship sunk in front of a Norwegian warship (accordingly to neutrality laws, both causes to declare war in order to enforce and defend neutrality).
It would be impossible for Germany to liberate Trondheim, Bergen, etc, against a much stronger RN and with British planes already in Fornebu, etc, Planes decided Norway and every other campaign in WW II. Churchill never learn this, which is why he lost in Norway, France, Greece, Crete, the battle of the Med (so the allies had to ship millions of tons around the Cape for years and Britain had to lose a lot of ships and waste huge escorts to cover the convoys to Malta only before the Tunisia narrows), Malaya, Burma, etc, and was trounced in Ceylon. As late as 1943, the idiot invaded the Dodecanese without air superiority.
MacArthur did not learn the lesson of planes ruling WW II either and he lost a powerful airforce in the PI in the dumbest possible way: concentrating it close to Formosa and not ready to scramble, despite being aware that WW II had started for the US.
Even arriving ahead of the allies in Norway and controlling all the airfields, Germany lost almost all its DD and several larger warships sunk or heavily damaged in Norway (the back of the KM was broken). Had the KM arrived after the allies and not counted with air superiority, it would have been completely wiped out.
Despite formidable resources, the allied invasion of Norway was among the worst planned and executed in WW II. Only the allies in Holland, the British in Dieppe and Tobruk, Stalin in Finland, The US in Anzio and Mussolini in Egypt and Greece did worse.
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dayton3
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Post by dayton3 on Oct 3, 2017 1:00:03 GMT
I always thought the outcome for the U.S. was just about as optimal as you could get. About the only thing better would be if they had managed to save the Yorktown.
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simpleton
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Post by simpleton on Nov 3, 2017 16:09:51 GMT
It was so optimal that the US not only lost Yorktown and a ridiculous number of planes and aviators sinking the 4 oldest Japanese carriers thanks to luck (2 of them also the smallest carriers), it lost other carriers soon after Midway and had to borrow an RN carrier with a small plane complement and continue using old Saratoga to attack the DEI, etc, only when the USN got extremely lucky and sank Ryuju alone near Guadalcanal (although it was a against IJN policy to deploy a lone carrier and had already lost Shoho in the Coral Sea, doing so. Ryujo had been told that Henderson field was under Japanese control) and the ridiculously large numbers of Essex carriers, Hellcats, cruisers, destroyers, submarines (with better torpedoes) entered service, that the USN could defeat the IJN. Just like in the USSR, quantity instead of strategy.
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