The Navy Thread

The Kriegsmarine's main successes were mostly in sinking merchant shipping. It wasn't really interested in stand-up fights against the Royal Navy because it would have been hilariously outclassed in doing so.

Bull. The RN won literally every squadron-level action they fought against the Regia Marina except one.

The Royal Navy's fundamental problem in World War 2 was that it was vastly superior in numbers of ships to all their prospective opponents, but it was a superiority they had built up through continuous construction over the last three decades and not a reflection of their actual industrial backing. If they took serious losses, or even serious damage, there was no way to repair it all or produce new ships to replace them.

Their other problem was that many of the ships in the "backbone" weren't terribly modern. People underplay the threat of Bismarck, but the truth was that at the time she sailed the RN had exactly five ships that had any real business being in a fight Bismarck: the two Nelsons, the two active KGVs, and Hood. This is why things like Operation Catapult and the attack on the French fleet at anchor happened; if the Germans had been able to cobble together some kind of combination of the French and Italian fleet's modern battleships, much less combined them somehow with Tirpitz and Bismarck, the Royal Navy would have had a serious problem trying to stop them with their own fast battleships. Add to that RN carrier doctrine and training was never up to the standards of the Pacific powers.

The best illustration is Narvik. The RN could have held open the route to Narvik, maintaining it as free Norwegian and Allied possession inside the Arctic Circle. But they judged that they could not cope with the losses and damage they would sustain in the process and maintain sufficient forces to control the Italians and keep the convoy routes open. What could have been the British Guadalcanal became the British Wake Island on a lack of ability to repair and replace the ships they already had.

edited 13th Mar '15 5:10:52 PM by Night

That's what's covered in the note I wrote beside that. In ALL naval engagements of any kind squadron or not, the total win-loss column is just barely over .500. However the British did reduce the capabilities of the Regia Marina much more than the Italians did in return.

A similar thing happened in the Pacific between the US and Japan. The total win-loss column wasn't much higher than .500 for the USN but the capabilities were bled to nothing for the Japanese while the USN just took heavy losses and kept capable.

The main lesson of WW 2 was the destruction of the concept of squadron battles. Continuous action was much more effective than a single attempted decisive action in full fleet mobilization.

edited 13th Mar '15 5:32:52 PM by MajorTom

That really doesn't even begin to make sense. You're attempting to judge the quality of the Italian navy based on how the Regis Aeronautica fought, and the Royal Navy on the quality of the RAF, to say nothing of the Luftwaffe intruding into matters. Given a distinct lack of single-ship actions outside submarine ambush, it makes even less sense.

Perseo and the merchant she was escorting vs. three British destroyers is squadron-level. Sydney and escorting destroyers plus squadron seven against two Condetteri is squadron-level. You are trying to use "squadron-level" to mean "fleet action" and that's wrong; anything with multiple ships per side counts.

edited 13th Mar '15 6:33:37 PM by Night

LOL technically speaking you can't really say the Royal Navy did "OK" in the Pacific simply because their presence there only became significant enough when the US Navy already had two humongous fleets there (3rd AND 7th). And yeah, technically they indeed did "OK" there because the waters off Malaya is technically the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific.

The British Pacific Fleet was only then a Task Force. But even then, it wasn't entirely useless, despite having to deal with the many logistical and political^note  Notably the Anglophobic Admiral King difficulties of operating in the Pacific.

edited 14th Mar '15 8:14:11 AM by Greenmantle

King wasn't so much Anglophobic as the RN was not prepared to maintain the operations tempo of a USN task force and therefore King didn't want them along.

He hated the US Army almost as much too. He was really just a dick all over. Seems to have been pretty capable though.

edited 14th Mar '15 8:13:57 AM by Achaemenid

Okay, so. If we're talking about Earnie King being a pain in the rear, this has to be mentioned.

Operation Drumbeat

If you ask people about the worst defeat in the history of United States Navy, usually the reply is "Pearl Harbor". A few people will offer a more nuanced answer and add that its worst defeat in a combat action, however, was Pearl Harbor. Both of these answers are incorrect.

The worst defeat in the history of the USN took place off the Eastern Seaboard, from January 14th to late August 1942. Starting with the sinking of the MV Norness off Long Island by U-123, 609 ships totalling 3.1 million tons were lost to German U-boats off the East Coast of the United States. This is roughly a quarter of the entire amount of shipping sunk by the Uboatwaffe during the Second World War, a coast in lost material, lost time, and lost lives that was immense by any measure. It happened largely because the United States Navy did not attempt to prevent it.

The Germans called it Operation Drumbeat.

In April 1941, while USS Nilblack attempted to rescue survivors from a sunken Dutch freighter, the German submarine that had sunk the freighter maneuvered to set up a shot at Nilblack. The US destroyer depth-charged the German submarine in response. Since that point the United States Navy and the Uboatwaffe had been having an undeclared war in the North Atlantic, with USN ships escorting convoys and adopting an attitude of better sunk than sorry about German U-boats. The Germans were beginning to reply in kind by October; the torpedoing of USS Kearny and the sinking of USS Reuben James reflected the Uboatwaffe's growing frustration with being subjected to American depth charges and not being allowed to reply in kind.

There were two complications with a war against the Americans. The first was embodied in Adolf Hitler, who didn't want to fight America yet and forbid attacks on American ships. The other was technical: only the large Type IX boats had the range to operate off the American coast. Only twenty of them were available in late 1941, and operational commitments off Freetown and other parts of Central Africa made that number smaller. When news came that Hitler was going to declare war, the mad rush to find IX-series boats only resulted in six being deployed. These were allocated to various areas of the American and Canadian coast, but one had to turn back with engine trouble.

That left U-66, U-109, U-123, U-125, and U-130. Intelligence was sparse; Reinhard Hardegan of U-123 recalled being given a pair of tourist guides of New York, one of which had a fold-out map of the harbor, as his only information on his assigned target area.

The Americans should not have been caught asleep at the switch. Rodger Winn, across the Atlantic in the Royal Navy's Submarine Tracking Room, guessed the target when six Type IX went to sea at once. The USN had recalled twenty-five modern destroyers from the Atlantic Convoy Escort Command for duty against a possible U-boat offensive against the East Coast. The US Combined Operations and Intelligence Center warned the responsible commanders that the Germans would come, and missed the target date only because Eins Zwei Drei kicked things off a day early with the attack on Norness.

But nothing was actually done. The coasts were not blacked out. A convoy system was not instituted. Navigation lights ashore and afloat burned brightly. Norness, when sunk, had all her lights on and was standing into a brightly lit New York harbor. Hardegan's U-123 lurked off New York attacking ships almost nightly for days, while a half-dozen US destroyers at the New York Navy Yard sat around doing nothing. When U-123 departed for the Carolina Banks, she did so without having sighted a single armed US aircraft or ship, and was leaving for better hunting grounds rather than because of the level of threat. Only U-125 found credible opposition, as the RCN had copied British practices and she had to cope with fog as well as RCN corvettes dogging her every move. Of the first wave, U-123◊ sank seven ships, U-130 sank six, U-66 sank five, and U-109 sank four in their stays off the American coast. The second and third waves did equally well.

The result was open season off the American coast and particularly the Carolina Banks, as tankers◊ (the SS Dixie Arrow afire and sinking; she's now a popular dive site. I've been there myself) and freighters were torpedoed and burned off the coast, often in sight of large crowds on shore. The Germans began contriving ways for even Type VIIs to get in on the action, and the slaughter only continued to get worse◊ (SS Pennsylvania Sun, afire after being torpedoed by U-571 and yes there was a real U-boat with that number, July 15th 1941; she was saved and returned to service in 1943) as the number of U-boats off the coast rose.

The British were glad for the respite on the convoy lines initially, but quickly were aghast at the losses to their own shipping caused by American malfeasance. The Navy managed to get authority for blackouts, and promptly refused to do so. The CNO himself, Earnest King, resisted mobilizing small craft, civilian aircraft, and civilian vessels to act as spotters or scare-tactic escorts, and resisted the establishment of a convoy system using the means to hand. This created a bizarre reversal where the Royal Navy had to convince the United States Navy to implement convoys in an exact reversal of World War I. The RN was so furious with King's intransigence they dispatched 24 ASW trawlers and 10 corvettes to American waters in part to force him to stop claiming he did not have the ASW assets to safely create convoys. The Army Air Force resisted assisting the Navy mightily and it took a direct intervention from George Marshall and through him the President to get them to coordinate.

In April, a limited convoy system was finally introduced; losses in shipping immediately dropped. In May, King's argument about the inability of small combatants to cope with submarines was exploded when USCGC Icarus, a 160-foot cutter◊, sank U-352. Civilian aircraft were organized to spot submarines and yacht clubs were all but drafted to man the new wooden-hulled subchasers that were starting to come off the ways in number. The convoy system expanded, and a "dimout" was ordered, though never a full blackout.

What the Uboatwaffe referred to as the Second Happy Time or the American Shooting Season finally ended in mid-August, when Dönitz threw his main efforts back into the convoy battles. During their rampage on the Eastern Seaboard, 22 U-boats were lost; a small number considering much of the action took place off the Carolina Banks in water barely deep enough for a submarine to submerge in. The most serious challenge to the Americans in the Battle of the Atlantic had finally been met and defeated; months late, but the worst for the USN was over. For the British, the worst was yet to come in March 1943.

Dixie Arrow as she is today.◊

edited 15th Mar '15 12:35:31 AM by Night

Tomorrow March 20 saw the commissioning of the first US aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV-1). Unfortunately she didn't last long in the opening months of United States involvement in the Pacific War.

Which was kinda the fate of all pre-war carriers in the USN. Only three of eight survived the war. USS Enterprise, USS Ranger and USS Saratoga. None of which are preserved today.

edited 19th Mar '15 4:16:36 PM by MajorTom

Somewhat belated x-post:

Royal Navy unveils 'modern' uniform

^ I liked their old uniform design better. Less like a copper, more like a sailor.

Navy to start EMAL Tests into the James River This Summer EMAL is the electromagnetic catapults mean to replace the old steam catapults.

edited 19th Mar '15 8:23:35 PM by TuefelHundenIV

So this is a little weird. But fun.

Lies, Adrenaline, the Fog of War, and the Pacific: The First Air Battle of Bougainville

Anyone who's read the after-action reports for a battle from both sides has probably had the nagging feeling that they're not referring to the same event. Incomplete information, poor interpretation, and projecting one's own ideas onto what the enemy is doing tend to combine to make the shape and actions of an enemy force, even one in direct contact, somewhat fuzzy.

Of course, some people are more subject to this than others. Pilots are notorious for overclaiming. So, oddly enough, are submarine commanders; both German and American submarine commanders tended to have their total successes in terms of ships and tonnage sunk revised downward drastically after the war, and would do things like report having blown a corvette to tiny pieces or seeing their freighter target decks awash, obviously done for, that couldn't be confirmed after the war. Some of these people, of course, were defiant in the face of reality. General Kenny, commanding V Air Force, persisted with his original claims for the Battle of the Bismarck Sea long after Japanese records provided postwar proved he was claiming more ships than had actually been there. The Uboatwaffe had the awkward issue of accepting the word of individual commanders on what they sank over the analysis of their own intelligence organs, often leading them to think they were doing far better than they actually were.

Yet even in an awkward and somewhat disreputable business such as making and evaluating damage claims, there were standouts; men with active imaginations or even more active egos to whom their contemporaries simply could not compare. One of the most impressively inflated took place at Rabaul in 1943. Just after the Carrier Raid on Rabaul, Japanese pilots claimed one large carrier, one small carrier, and two cruisers destroyed in a dusk and night attack in retaliation. This was christened "The Air Battle of Bougainville" by Imperial General Headquarters in a special commendation to the Rabaul air garrison.

The reality is somewhat different.

In rapidly fading light, USS LCI(G)-70 and and USS PT-167 were escorting landing craft USS LCT-68 back from the newly established beachhead at Cape Torokina, Bougainville. LCT-68 had been part of a supply echelon, but had trouble retracting; because large portions of Bougainville, in particular Buin and the Shortland Islands which she would have to pass to return to the Treasury Islands, were still Japanese-held and armed barges were known to be about, the other two ships were needed to protect her. Just before darkness at 1915 on November 5th 1943, PT-167 reported sighting approaching aircraft. These were 18 B5N2 torpedo bombers from Rabaul. Already at dusk general quarters, the American small craft expected to escape due to their small size and the oncoming darkness. They were not worth the attention of so large a strike, and certainly too small and shallow-draft to be attacked with aerial torpedoes.

Instead, the Kates attacked. The lead bomber was making a very low run on LCT-68 when PT-167 got in the way, and the Kate caught its torpedo on the PT's radio aerial. This tore the torpedo out of its brackets, and without properly arming or touching the water first it crashed through the bow of the PT, leaving its entire engine assembly inside the crew's head. The Kate's pilot, unable to compensate in time for the sudden changes to his aircraft's handling and the loss of speed as the torpedo was ripped away, crashed.

LCI(G)-70, lacking the speed of the smaller PT, could not reposition to help LCT-68 so well; and more importantly, she had to fight for her own life. At least three torpedoes passed beneath the shallow hull of the wildly maneuvering converted landing craft, and one of her attackers strafed her as well. A fourth torpedo, with a defective depth-control mechanism, porpoised beneath the LCI and pushed through her thin bottom in the engine room before crashing back down on the deck, which caused its oxygen flask to explode; shrapnel killed one of the engineers, but no further damage to the ship's watertight integrity was incurred. The warhead was thrown through a bulkhead and slid into the ship's bread locker, but by some miraculous coincidence failed to detonate. Prompt action by the remaining engineers managed to minimize flooding, but the captain, a Lieutenant (jg), was understandably nervous about the fact he had the smoking remains of an enemy torpedo in his ship's guts and ordered Abandon Ship.

PT-167 kept busy trying to disrupt the attack on LCT-68, and with 20mm cannon fire shot down in flames a plane making its second attack run. After thirty minutes it was all over. She probably need not have bothered; the empty LCT's shallow draft was proof against any torpedoes dropped against it. Seeing his command had not yet blown to bits, the skipper of LCI(G)-70 requested that LCT-68 return him and his men aboard and provide a tow to Torokina. The wounded from the LCI were transferred to PT-167, which rushed them back to the beachhead for treatment. All three American small craft survived, and only one man, the unfortunate engineer, was killed.

edited 20th Mar '15 5:45:57 AM by Night

Mystery Threat To US Warships Is Likely North Korean.

It seems Best Korea may have new missiles.

Norks with relatively modern Russian anti ship missiles. Sounds nasty.

Wait, the torpedo bombers suffered two casualties and managed no hits on a gaggle of landing craft—and claimed it as a victory against carriers?

I know Japanese aviation was prone to extravagant over claims, but this is a wee bit pathetic.

edited 20th Mar '15 9:12:25 AM by SabresEdge

Indeed. Morrison, who offers the best overview of the incident, calls it "probably the biggest feat of lying in the Pacific War."

And I thought nobody would ever top Karl Korner...

Well the new one is literally the same as the existing MTP cammies, only in dark blue and with the sleeve pockets deleted.

^ That's why it's worse. Never take away pockets, they're useful for things. And dark blue is a no go. Makes you look like a cop not a Navy man.

IIRC, US tankers in WWII actually complained that their uniforms had too many pockets, which kept getting snagged on things or grabbed by the turret monster.

Just apropos of nothing in particular.

For some reason I feel like dark blue is a poor color to wear on a ship.

I'm thinking like neon orange, hot pink, fluorescent green. Stuff like that.

Hello sailor!

And they'd never be allowed to have shore leave in San Francisco again.

edited 20th Mar '15 5:42:31 PM by MajorTom