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As you all know next week Scotland votes on independence from the UK. My own views on the matter should be fairly obvious, all things being equal.

Should they vote Yes, then they have my best wishes as it's what the majority wants.


However, if that happens I will have to do some serious thinking in regards to this AAR, since my motivation to finish it would be severely restricted.

That being said, should I choose to end it where it is, you will get some lengthy pieces that will give you a good overview of what happened between now and, say, 1960.
Also, this AAR won't be alone since I'll also find it very difficult to enjoy thing such as the Bond series...


Fingers crossed.
 
Dangnabit, forgot about those. Hrm. Ammo would be a problem though.

Quote from here.

Also don't forget that the biggest beneficiary of the American industrial and technological exodus is...Canada! By now their Industry when compared to OTL 1942 should be at least double, what with many American Companies relocating there and natural growth. (In the Version of the game I was playing that on the Canadian AI tended to build-spam Industry until 1941.) Actually a lot of the Equipment that British and Allied Forces are using actually comes from Canadian Factories, while simpler armaments such as Rifles, munitions and such are increasingly produced in India.

Given that Canada has twice as much industry as OTL and a much larger population, they could easily have set up a production line for 14" ammunition.

Also, given the lack of a second London Naval Treaty, do the KGVs use the BL 15"/45-caliber Mk.II naval guns? And if so, do the other 15" gun armed ships of the RN use it as well?
 
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They do use those guns, at least those equipped with them. Some that were meant for the Lions ended up on Singapore, some as spares...
 
Bad news, I'm Back. ;)

Trekaddict

Good to catch up on this. A rather poorly organised upgrade from my ancient XP, coupled with a fortnight an my mum's meant I lost my bookmarks and settings for nearly a month. :(:angry: Just got it back and enjoying seeing how things are going.

Presumably another reason for eventually having some peace agreement with the Soviets is that it avoids the complication of them being enemies in Europe and de facto allies in the Far East.

The other good news of course is that we are still the UK:D and by a good bit more than I was fearing. Now all we have to do is stop the politicians mucking it up again.:rolleyes:. Ideally it will lead to reform in both Scotland and the rest of the UK that will reduce the deathlock the city and their minions have got on power in the country.

Of course the other advantage of this is you're now committed to completing the timeline. ;)

Steve
 
Chapter 379​


The forward Allied lines in northern French Indochina were little more than a hodge-podge of fortified outposts along what few roads there were, augmented by infantry patrols that plodded through the mountains. The main Allied defence lines were much father south near the largest settlements, held by a mixture of French colonial troops and a few select British units. Only here, at Mon Kai were Allied forces stationed directly at the Chinese border. The make-shift bridge the Japanese had constructed had been blown up long ago, so there were only occasional cross-river firefights and artillery duels. Neither side had any particular desire to cross it, each for their own reasons. The Japanese because they lacked the numbers, the Chinese because they did not actually want to fight, the Allies because they had no desire to be involved with a land war in China.

Occasionally though both sides infiltrated patrols to raid the other. In this exchange the Japanese were usually worse off, as the local Viet Minh patrolled the countryside on behest of the British.

However, Indochina's role in the war was not yet over. Aside from hosting both air and Naval units such as the Allied carriers and other assorted units at Cham Ranh Bay, as well as ten Allied Divisions in various states of training and acclimatization in addition to those that held the northern border areas. The four Divisions of the Free Chinese Army were only some of them, but they were not the only FCA units in theatre. The 8th Regiment was in many ways a child of long years of war.

The men all hated the Japanese with a fury that gave the normal Chinese soldiers pause, they had been trained since the formation of the Free Chinese Army by experienced SAS and SBS instructors that couldn't handle field duty any more for one reason or another. On this particular mission, their first in full strength, they were expected to blend in and first and foremost gather intelligence as well as getting a handle on the local resistance. So far other priorities had prevented any sort of effort in this area, primarily because assets were limited and needed elsewhere.

Since they were meant to go behind enemy lines for far longer periods than their British counterparts, there had been some discussion about arming them with Japanese weapons. In the end though they were given the same equipment as the SAS used, chiefly because British small arms were considered to be far superior, though they were trained on using Japanese weapons all the same since their ammunition would not last forever.

Those serving in the Regiment were well aware that there was a good chance that some or all of them would not come back, but then, as the Chairman of the Executive Council of China and later first post-war president of the 2nd Republic, Sun Li-jen said in January 1944 during a speech to the new Chinese Parachute troops:

“You are an army without a country. You are those that fight against the most evil invader the Chinese peoples have faced since the Mongols and you will fight to regain your country and your homes.”

Pathos aside, the 8th Regiment lived the war against Japan. Past history with the British aside, they at least were not actively trying to convert China into a subservient slave state in all but name. After all, the Free Chinese Army was dependent on them for now and the Executive Council saw them a power in the ascendant again, always a good thing to hitch your wagon to.

Of course the men of the Regiment were not briefed on why exactly their superiors wanted that information, never mind the rest of the Grand plan the allies had for ejecting the Japanese from South-East Asia once and for all. And even if they were cornered, to a man the 8th would decline to go into captivity, as the Japanese and the Chinese State had declared anyone affiliated with the Free Chinese Army and the Executive Council traitors that where to be shot out of hand if captured.

Overall forty men were inserted via submarine along various points of the north-western coast of Hainan.

~**---**~

Wu was not the oldest man in the village, even though he could still remember the time of the great Boxer rebellion, but he was close to it. Even so with what he thought had to be about eighty years behind him, he still went out each morning to collect
coconuts along the roads. He had taken the same route every day for the last thirty years since that day where 'The Accident' had given him a permanent limp and he would return to the village about an hour or so before his daughter and grandchildren sat down to the mid-day meal.

He had been doing this for so long that everyone who lived in this region knew and greeted him when he passed them, even the Oriental devils who had occupied Hainan left him alone.

Which was why he was more annoyed than scared when he noticed the rifles that were pointed at him and the men behind them. But then he noticed that something was different about these men. For one they didn't wear the clothing the Japanese or their collaborators wore. Instead they wore green cloth of a cut he'd never seen before, with the odd western-style helmets he'd seen on State propaganda posters all the time. Secondly they had a black-on-green representation of the old KMT flag on their left shoulders.

“Come back here, Grandfather.” said one who Wu presumed was their leader. He spoke the local dialect fluently but with a slight accent, which marked him as someone who was not from the nearer provinces. He showed all the proper respect as was due someone Wu's age, but was still forceful as he guided him further away from the road and into the thicket of trees and brushes beside it.

He had been surprised, all he'd done was to walk along a barely existing trail that was hidden to anyone who didn't know about it to a small clearing where some of 'his' best spots were, but today it seemed someone else had discovered his place as well.

Wu still didn't know who these soldiers were, but since they clearly didn't belong to the Japanese or the State Forces, so he didn't think that they would kill him right away. What he saw on the clearing was strange indeed. The entire space was taken up by the camp these men had built, they even had a radio set, the antennae running up and hidden by a tree. Their tents were half hidden my the undergrowth on the edge of the clearing and he didn't see any sort of fireplace. Clearly these men wished to remain hidden and had great skill in doing so. They were also Chinese, and that made Wu think of some rumours he'd heard a few months back. Those had said that the British were forming an army from among the prisoners of war that officially did not exist.

It seemed that they had been true.

That was reinforced when one of them dragged a battered and bleeding man from behind a tree. That man had clearly been beaten heavily, but by his uniform he was Japanese, so Wu wasn't all that bothered by it. Two of the men began asking him questions, and it was soon evident that the Japanese soldier was not very willing to talk, though Wu suspected that that would change soon enough.

Sure enough, the unfortunate prisoner let out screams that were stifled by the hands of one of the Chinese soldiers. Wu wasn't troubled by that, but he wondered what they wanted to know.

He didn't find out, because their Officer took him aside.

“Grandfather are there any others that fight the Eastern Devils?

Wu noted the respectful tone with which the young officer had spoken and considered the question. “Well...”

~**---**~

The preliminary actions of Operation Jaywick were not massive battles where great fleets exchanged fire or armies did their best to kill each other. No, the first Allied soldiers that left French-Indochina and Malaya for the future battle area were the various Commando units. Not only 24 and 25 SAS and the Far Eastern sections of the SBS, but also their ANZAC counterparts and the Chinese 8th Regiment. In fact, the 8th Regiment was tasked with the most important task of all, reconnaissance for Jaywick One, also known as the Allied invasion of Hainan.

While the Executive Council had insisted on the twenty patrols to try and contact any resistance movement that might exist, their primary task was the scout rhe locations for the airborne landings that were to precede the main assault by the Free Chinese Army. The Island was far from the best terrain for airborne attack, and the losses the three Divisions would take reflected this, but the Marine units were needed for Jaywick Two, the allied Invasion of Formosa. What was more, even if the Marines had been available, the transport aircraft then available for airborne operations did not have the range required, and even Hainan was marginal.

But the primary consideration was that for political reasons the Free Chinese Army needed to be seen doing the heavy lifting on Hainan which had been indisputably Chinese territory before the war, unlike Formosa. Even though that battle too would have a highly publicized Chinese contribution, mostly by air, it had at least de facto been Japanese, whatever one thought about the various 'Humiliation Treaties' the old Quing Empire had been forced to sign. So while the SAS was scouting the area around Hong Kong and the New Territories Purchase and the SBS once again went to get recent data on the selected landing beaches for Jaywick Two, something they had done two times before, the last time before the Monsoon. The 8th Regiment meanwhile had a task that was both difficult and extremely dangerous.

While the Allies could do nothing to remove the Japanese occupation forces from the island, they could do things to prevent further reinforcement. Many of the ports in the area were being mined, and the transport infrastructure in the south regularly attacked, yet that left the six Divisions already on the Island. What the 8th discovered was that of those six one was a Division in name only, having been sent there to rest and recuperate six months ago after suffering heavy losses against the Soviets. While Tokyo had either forgotten about this Division or simply decided to leave them down there, the other five were full-strength.


Two of them had been there since the Japanese had originally seized Hainan in 1938, and more used to garrisson duty and rooting out suspected partisans, not that there were many to begin with. The other three were hardened veterans, mostly of the fighting in Burma and Indochina, including the 1st Guards and the 15th Infantry Divisions, the latter now being made up of a mixture of veterans from units that had either been destroyed here in the south or been engaged in the vicious and hard-fought anti-partisan actions on the mainland. A rather outré addition was the ad-hoc Southern Cavalry Brigade that the commanding officer of the Hainan Defence Army, General Sakai, had created by stripping his other Divisions of their organic Cavalry units.

His problem was that while this created a relatively mobile reserve, he had spent the last few years on various Garrisson postings, including as Military Governor of Hong Kong and had no real idea on how much more mechanized the war had become and that the FCA and the British Army were a far cry from poorly armed and even more poorly trained pre-war Chinese units or partisans in general.

To an extent this was canceled out by the highly experienced Divisional officers, but it remained to be seen if that was enough.



tbc






Note that the British Army is introducing Australian-style greens for their forces in the Far East. It's not seen as a very high priority and takes forever, but as new units arrive or old ones are rotated out for R&R they are issued new stuff that's produced in India. By now the specialist units (Marines, paras and so on) all have them and somewhere between a third and half of the normal infantry. Rear area troops and vehicle crews have to make do with normal khaki.
 
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Trekaddict

Interesting. I'm not so sure that a land war in China would be that great a problem, given its fighting against a deeply unpopular and technologically somewhat backwards Japanese occupation force. However leaving them largely to die on the vine is also a rational option. [Talking real life here rather than whatever the game might do as never fought in the Far East].

I'm a bit surprised that the 8th Regt men have taken Wu to their camp. Since they don't know him it's quite a risk. Also, although they won't realise this unless they have been watching him for a few days, it takes some time, which will delay his return. Since he's so consistent a part of the background of the community so to speak some people might question why the delay. Most dangerously the Japanese of course, especially since one of their men has disappeared. I would have thought it more likely they would take him just a little way off the path to speak to him quietly.

So the next two stages are Hainan and Formosa. That should force a Japanese reaction and I think you said this results in the final major naval clashes of the eastern war. However where do they go from there? Possibly to the mouth of the Yangtze to establish a realistic free Chinese state. Or to the Philippines, which is likely to mean tension with the US. [Although I think I recall you saying Britain is already helping guerilla units there]. A direct jump to Korea would probably be way too far not to mention the likelihood of a clash with the Soviets. I suspect the 3rd stage would be the Philippines. Look forward to finding out.:D

Steve
 
stevep But the Allies don't know that for sure and in any case, they don't have the resources to spare to do it. They can (and if need be will) arm the Chinese with second-line gear (such as Cromwells and so on) but they don't have the stuff to spare to fight a land front even larger than Europe. Besides, the key to defeating Japan is at sea, TTL as OTL, so an RL-ish strategy is the best way to go.

There is no 8th Regiment camp. Wu merely blundered into the temporary camp of one of the groups. As soon as they've sent him on their way, they move on. The Regiment was trained with the SAS, and the Patrol leaders (such as the Lieutenant) and senior NCOs even did the far eastern version of the SAS selection to get in. As for Wu being taken there, it was a questionable call, but they wanted to have him talk to their CO. Rest assured, there will be words about it.

Hainan and Formosa, yes. The idea is that taking those Islands gives the Allies a good base to have limited operations against mainland China from, cuts the Japanese south of Shanghai off from help (mostly) and it's also a show to the Americans that at the very least southern China is the Empire's playground.

As for the Japanese, Formosa is the one target in the area they really, utterly can't ignore, mostly because their fleet is stationed there and because it would allow the Allies a bomber base with which to attack the Home Islands.

As for the Phillippines, the Allies and the Americans came to a deal a while back. The Islands and Formosa are a British zone of influence. In return the Allies stay out of the Home Islands with ground troops (air and Naval attacks are allowed but need to be co-ordinated, an agreement that won't actually be relevant until Formosa has been secured) and the Americans have a first go at Korea.



I know that this is selling out the Koreans, but it's not quite as odious as what happened with Poland OTL.
 
I know that this is selling out the Koreans, but it's not quite as odious as what happened with Poland OTL.
Seems a bit harsh on the Allies. I'm not aware of anyone making the Koreans any promises and you can't sell someone out if you never made them any commitments. It is a very different situation from Poland.

China seems as unpleasantly vicious as OTL, one of many excellent reasons to avoid getting involved and leaving the Chinese to do as much of the work as possible.
 
Fair enough. Let's say that's probably mostly the narrative the exile Koreans peddle to their supporters (in China as well as a few in Japan), as well as the really rabid anti-communists in British Imperial society.

In reality while I was playing the game I utterly and totally forgot about Korea and only noticed upon looking that the Americans had invaded.

Yup. While the Allies (including the Chinese for simplicity, they aren't going to be an official pact member for political reasons) will catch a few breaks, it's by no means going to go entirely their way.
 
When we are going to see something like that flying in this AAR?

10409076_10204864728282596_1966066321426042897_n.jpg

The Beaufire.
 
Oh lord no....

As for the others, right now my attention rests on the GFFA, where events have come to a head....
 
Chapter 380

15th March 1944


The fact that the Canadian Navy managed to bring her into service at all is an incredible achievement all on it's own, but that she served as long as she did is the bigger miracle. The decision to not only retain USS Arizona but to actually comission her into the Royal Canadian Navy has often been questioned, and with good reason. For one, the steel she was made of could have been used to make a large number of smaller ships or an even larger number of tanks, and secondly at the time Canada had exactly one drydock large enough to take a Battleship, though more would eventually be added with British assistance to accommodate Canada's aircraft Carriers.

However in the early days, in 1939 when the war had just started, scrapping her or at the very least selling her to someone who might need a Battleship and could actually maintain her was given serious consideration. Even candidates such as Brazil, Argentina and Sweden were considered. In the end the former declined because they couldn't afford the exorbitant price the cash-hungry Canadians were asking, and Sweden declined because they didn't really need her. At that point Prime Minister King put a stop to any efforts to sell Arizona, correctly pointing out that while Canada indeed lacked much of the vital infrastructure to run a Battleship (such as cranes needed to switch out guns during maintenance, or in fact the capability to manufacture those guns in the first place) it would alienate a vital part of the Canadian populace to do so, as most expatriates saw Arizona as a vital part of what heritage they had left.

Thus kept from doing what they wanted to do, the Canadian Naval Staff did what they were forced to do, even though they knew that an enormous amount of effort and scarce resources would be needed to accomplish things.

'The biggest issue up front was the armament of the ship. While using the new dual-purpose secondary guns and light anti-aircraft artillery pieces the British were using presented only a relatively minor challenge, the main battery almost ended up a dealbreaker. Initially the Canadian Navy looked at using British 14'' ammunition as used on the King George V-Class ships, as small but rising quantities of it were produced in Canadian factories, but the shell weight was different and that still left the problem of not having any replacement guns.

In the end it was a young Franco-Canadian Lieutenant who was at the time a bag carrier for one of the Officers in the working group tasked with coordinating the rebuild, asked why they wouldn't just look at fitting the existing British 14'' gun to the turret. The dimensions were roughly the same for the version used in the erstwhile American Dreadnought. It was pointed out to the Lieutenant, and somewhat acidly, that the British guns may have the same length, but they weighed a lot more, in fact a difference of nearly forty tons per, and that was without the balancing weight.

But in the end no one could come up with a better idea except not firing her guns at all to save on wear, and teams of engineers went out to study what sort of modifications would need to be made to the turrets. Much to their surprise, it turned out that the turrets themselves would need only need relatively minor modifications to accept a British-style mounting, especially if the balancing weight was left which reduced elevation but would not require a complete rebuild of the gunhouse.

As it turned out though, things were not quite that easy, as the heavy weight of the guns themselves required so many modifications and additions to the load-bearing structure that the weight ended up being added as it increased the weight by only another twelve tons.

Even so the ship could never fire more than half-salvos for fear of ripping her own hull apart, and even for that she was only cleared after extensive tests and under the responsibility of the yard during her trials. She still ended up taking stress damage which contributed to her early retirement in 1950.

When the British were approached about this they were receptive to the idea, as it meant an additional Dreadnought for very little, but there was still the issue of supplying the guns. It would take until after the last KGV had been delivered it's initial set of guns, but in winter 1942/43 a freighter carrying the first set of guns arrived in Halifax, with a set of spares arriving in Canada in spring 1944.

With massive British assistance and utilizing professional expertise of American expatriates, of which several had worked on her during her 1929 modernization, the Canadians had managed to construct a crane large enough to handle gun replacement, it was even able to lift the entire turret off in it's new, far heavier configuration.

Commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS Arizona (DN-01) in September 1943, she then went on extensive sea trials, first once across the Atlantic and then in the quiet Mediterranean where she twice was called on to provide fire support for the French Army's grinding efforts in the South of France.

By December she was declared fully operational and slated to join the gathering Allied Pacific Fleet, but on 19th January 1944, Arizona suffered an engineering casualty that took months to repair, even if it was a fairly simple issue from an engineering point of view. By the time she re-joined the Fleet in early April that year, the planning for Operation Jaywick and onwards were mostly complete, so she was instantly sent to join Force Z.

It's subsequent employment was par the course for Dreadnoughts in this phase of the war but has often been used by those arguing against the rebuild. Amateurs as well as serious historians often argue that the resources, money and scarce manpower used to rebuild and later operate the ship could have been used for anything from more tanks for the Army to the ever elusive 'additional Carrier'.

This ignores the strategic thinking of the Allied naval planners between 1943 and the end of 1944.

Not even the most optimistic of planners in the beginning of 1944 could have dared to imagine that the Imperial Japanese Navy would be finished as a fighting force by the end of the year. Planning for Jaywick always assumed that the Combined Fleet could be lured into a major engagement at some point, but no one had the least hint at how devastating to the Japanese and decisive for the Allies it would end up being.

Before the Battle of the South China Sea, the IJN still traded on it's pre-war reputation to a large degree. While it had lost it's aura of invincibility through actions such as the sinking of the Yamato or the Singapore Convoy, those actions were seen as 'nibbling on the edges' by most Allied and American naval planners.

But that was a misconception.

Even though lack of access to some American archives and the paucity of surviving Japanese Naval records makes an exact estimate difficult, it is generally assumed by the academic community that up to nearly half of all pre-war Japanese carrier pilots, aircrew and support personnel had been killed or otherwise incapacitated by the time of Jaywick 1. The Combined Fleet's carrier wings had been rebuilt to be sure, but the extremely low throughput of the Japanese aircrew training system due to fuel shortages and instructors serving at the front when compared to the British and Allied practice meant that on the whole aircrew was of much lower quality as what there was had to accommodate a far greater number of recruits which obviously ended up diluting quality.

In addition to that, Allied and American technology had was in the process of leaving the Japanese far behind. They still relied on variants of the famous Mitsubishi A6M, while the Allies had rushed the Hawker Sea Fury into service and the Americans were introducing the F-6/44 (Allied reporting name Hellcat). Combined with tactics such as the Taylor Dance this left the Japanese increasingly outclassed and goes a long way to explaining the outcome of the Battle.

None of this was known to the Allied Naval Staffs. While most knew or at least believed that they had technological superiority and that especially their damage control techniques were superior thanks to several IJN DCP manuals captured in Cham Rahn Bay, the scale of their superiority was unknown.

For all they knew they would have to fight several such engagements before the Japanese fleet was fully defeated, and in fact Admiral Cunningham's planners proceeded on that assumption. In fact such was the surprise about the Allied success that Admirals all over the free world scrambled for something to do for the massive and very expensive fleets they'd crafted, which led to the Tiger Force raids on the Japanese Home Islands beginning in spring 1945.

If one considers all this, the decision to rebuild Arizona is understandable though still massively optimistic, as it took far longer than expected, and not only because of the delays in gun delivery, but also because costs spiralled out of control which, in the light of recent Government (mis-)management is probably not all that surprising.

For the most part Arizona was a symbol for what Canada could accomplish, and because of that she featured in Canadian Newsreels far more often than was her due.

oLbhKzx.jpg

Arizona at anchor in Halifax in late 1937, still flying the US Flag and with her original float planes on board.

When she arrived at the forward fleet Anchorage at Singapore, Arizona was greeted with wild enthusiasm, even though the American Naval Liaison was reportedly not amused when he saw that she flew the Stars and Strips from her forward mast as well as the Canadian White Ensign aft. The ship joined Force Z just in time for one of the preliminary operations for Jaywick where Force Z, covered by the Commonwealth Battlegroup, would shell several targets on the southern coast of Hainan, even though events in Europe would soon overshadow everything going on in Asia.

With the addition of Arizona and a few other arrivals, Force Z would go into Jaywick and all that followed with more strength than any Allied Battleline since World War One. Nine Dreadnoughts (King George V, Prince of Wales, Anson, Howe, Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, Nelson, Arizona, Richelieu), four Battlecruisers, (Hood, Repulse, Renown, Dunkerque), twenty-four heavy and light cruisers as well as forty-five Destroyers, in short, almost everything afloat that would not be escorting the Carriers. Only token forces would remain behind to screen the rest of the Dutch East Indies, namely the oldest and least useful ships of the Dutch and ANZAC fleets, as well as some late-coming reinforcements from Europe that had not yet adjusted to the climate.

Stripping the territory like this was a calculated risk. Cunningham, who would later say that the war had turned him into a gambler, banked everything on providing the Japanese with a ripe, perfect target to exercise the doctrine against that had been the cornerstone of their naval planning for decades, a target too large to be ignored by a Navy that could no longer afford to do everything it wanted. The wisdom of this has been discussed often enough, but only after the declassification of MAGIC alongside it's European counterpart ULTRA in 1974 it is clear that it was not a gamble but the sensible thing to do.

Cunningham was well aware that the Japanese had gathered all their remaining heavy units in Formosa and southern Japan with the latter having orders to move south by the end of the month, and that the Japanese strategic oil reserve was all but exhausted, now that the wells in Manchuria were no longer available. With hindsight it is easy to attribute the decision to Cunningham's famous nerves of steel, but at the time it must have taken a lot of soul searching on the Admiral's part to push ahead with the plan at the time it was decided.



'San Diego to Tokyo' – The full history of the Canadian Dreadnought'

tbc

The Arizona in active Canadian service is an artefact from the early days, one of those I'd do differently now as I know somewhat better.

Taylor Dance is pretty much OTL's Thatch weave.
 
Excellent stuff, as always - and about time, too! Let's hope it doesn't take another three months for the next chapter. :p
 
You're too good hearted, Trekkie...
 
Brilliant, an update and a naval one to boot! Although I do wonder if I should be concerned for all those lovely battlewagons being used as little more than bait for the Kido Butai.
 
Brilliant, an update and a naval one to boot! Although I do wonder if I should be concerned for all those lovely battlewagons being used as little more than bait for the Kido Butai.

Excellent to see an update Trekaddict, nicely timed just before I head away for Xmas. :)

I suspect given the air and AA cover that the fleet will have that the rather elderly and poorly trained Japanese a/c are going to suffer a hell of a lot of losses for minimal damage to the fleet. The only except might be if the Japanese start getting windy, in which case it could get nasty. Not sure if their started doing that yet but given the date and how badly things are going they might be starting to think about it soon. Don't know what triggers the action in the game?

Steve
 
ViperhawkZ I'll try not to make you wait.

Kurt_Steiner Thanks.

Einheit_elf&stevep Well, Their Lordships have embraced the Carrier as the way forward. Nothing like a kick in the balls to make one see reason, and they know that most of those ships will be scrapped soon after the war. Since the Japanese battleline has already lost it's biggest ships (remember, Yamato was sunk by the Canadians) to aircraft, this has only been reinforced. Doctrine-wise they are where the Americans were just before Leyte Gulf IOTL, so they think the best use for those old battlewagons is to use them either as bait or to provide Naval Gunfire support (which, among other things, is the reason why the British keep some around after the war).

The Japanese are simply running out of time, and the saner parts of the leadership know it. They are not only running out of fuel, but the Allies have been shredding their airfleets left, front and centre. What they don't know is that their overall quality, even discounting future pilot budget reductions thanks to Her Majesty's Navy, is about to nosedive, because their design philosophy and abysmally inefficient R&D methods (to the point of there being two atomic programmes, two Jet projects and so forth, they all competing over the same resources) they are still flying Zero variants, a plane that is not only obsolescent (Sea Fury, Bearcats) but also hideously vulnerable. 4x 20mms for the Allies, 8x .50s for the Americans. This is the last time they can fight on anything even approaching equal terms.
 
Trekaddict

I fully agree that carriers are the way ahead and that the Admiralty will have seen that. My point was that between the air CAP and the AA defences the fleet has, especially if they have proximity fuses by now, means that even as bait their likely to shred the attacking Japanese a/c and probably without serious damage to themselves. At least unless the Japanese are using kamikazes yet but by the sound of it they don't seem quite desperate enough at the moment. Especially since as you say Japanese a/c are distinctly fragile.

Anyway, away for a fortnight from tomorrow so happy holiday and see you all in the new year. :D

Steve
 
SotV: Indeed.

stevep: Also indeed. The Japanese aren't desperate mostly because they still think they have a shot at winning this thing. Stuff like the air-raid on Rangoon and Singapore I mentioned some chapters back is something they can only do because they accept that those planes won't come back either way.