It appears fester is tying up some loose ends in his absorbing, elaborate and massive epic. I wonder what other loose ends, whether inconsequential or important will be tied up before this saga is finished.
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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Story 2926
Hong Kong July 3, 1945
A section of Shermans stopped. The turrets rotated slightly. A few heart beats later, the 2nd Lancers, Gardners Horse, fired. The 75mm high explosive shells missed on the first salvo. Even as the loader and gunner were calmly and smoothly, reloading as quickly as they could, the bow machine gunners and the tank commanders fired short tat-a-tat bursts against the Japanese bunkers. Another salvo, and then another slammed into the concrete and wood structures. Spalling fragments likely killed some gunners as the Ghurka riflemen began to advance without being cut down in the first five steps.
By nightfall, the brigade from the 31st Indian Armored Division had only three thousand more yards to go before they would be splitting the Japanese defenses in half.
A section of Shermans stopped. The turrets rotated slightly. A few heart beats later, the 2nd Lancers, Gardners Horse, fired. The 75mm high explosive shells missed on the first salvo. Even as the loader and gunner were calmly and smoothly, reloading as quickly as they could, the bow machine gunners and the tank commanders fired short tat-a-tat bursts against the Japanese bunkers. Another salvo, and then another slammed into the concrete and wood structures. Spalling fragments likely killed some gunners as the Ghurka riflemen began to advance without being cut down in the first five steps.
By nightfall, the brigade from the 31st Indian Armored Division had only three thousand more yards to go before they would be splitting the Japanese defenses in half.
Story 2927
Singapore, July 4, 1945
The troopers carrying the 268th Indian Infantry Brigade to the southeast Chinese coast slowly made their way past the boom defense vessels and the net tenders. As they left the naval base, the soldiers looked at the five fleet carriers, five battleships, four battle cruisers and over four dozen lesser warships. Three of the lesser warships waited for them at the entrance to the Johor Channel. Destroyers and sloops would join the cruisers once the convoy neared Palawan.
The troopers carrying the 268th Indian Infantry Brigade to the southeast Chinese coast slowly made their way past the boom defense vessels and the net tenders. As they left the naval base, the soldiers looked at the five fleet carriers, five battleships, four battle cruisers and over four dozen lesser warships. Three of the lesser warships waited for them at the entrance to the Johor Channel. Destroyers and sloops would join the cruisers once the convoy neared Palawan.
Makes me think the after-war period for the British is going to be much more complicated due to how much of their fleet survived, I can assume a good portion of the Jutland ships are slated for scrapping after the war. Though I could some of the other ships that are now somewhat old could be offloaded to some of her Dominions. That, or sold off to friendly nations to cobble together the necessary capital to help pay off her loans. The other thing will be the French will also probably be better off with the fact her fleet wasn't as badly hurt as it was in the OTL.
The British government knows a few things about the post-war.
1) The Empire is going away --- not sure when, not sure how, not sure where the WTF CFs will be, but it is going away. Ideally over 2 generations with an easy slope but it could be spikier and it could be shorter. The Colonial Office and the Foreign Office have had plenty of politely worded disagreements on this topic.
2) The Fleet will be the premiere element of the British national military power.
3) The Fleet will be the best of the rest
4) The USN will be the undisputed leader as long as the US Congress wants to fund it.
Now going into 1945 in TTL one of the big challenges for the Royal Navy is figuring out what the mission set is and what the enemy that they need to build/train/deploy against is. It is definitely not the US, not the French, not the Japanese, not the Italians, not the Germans... hard to plan to build against the Soviets at this time.... so who is the enemy and what capabilities are needed for insurance when a clear enemy is identified.
The RN for the post-war and post-demobilization period is an insurance fleet where key capacities are maintained with the ability to expand in the future. The RN is air minded, but are very aware of the limits of technology. There is still a place for battle squadrons for another 10-15 years. So the 1948-ish RN will be centered the four new Audacious/Vanguard class fleet carriers and several light fleet carriers. All these ships have little to no war time service on their hulls and engines. The pre-Ark Royal carriers are getting scrapped ASAP, while Ark Royal and the armored carriers are going to get one hell of a hull inspection that will lead to fist fights with the Treasury. Any BB built before KGV will likely never leave Scotland again. The pre-1941 cruiser force is worn out from war service and age. There will be some new construction (already authorized TTL) to supplement the least worn out ships. There are also planned refits to enhance AA and sensor packages. The DD force will be War Emergency builds or later and it will be substantially smaller. The light escort force will be cadre, the fleet train will be mostly in reserve, and the amphibious lift will be mostly sold off. The RN is planning a lot of fleet exercises to figure out what to do with their submarine flotillas.
Driftless
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^^^ No expert on post-WW2 RN, but in this universe, wouldn't one of the known missions be general power-projection, especially where de-colonization either has hot spots, or palpable threats of the situation going hot. In those situations, Naval air power and the ability to land an expeditionary force in short order would be a useful tool for His Majesty's Government. From our history, Malaya, India, Suez, Kenya, Greece, Palestine, Cyprus, and others went hot (in some form) at one time or another. Here, the background conditions have changed considerably, so probably not the same list.
BTW, how will the French deal with their Empire, especially Indochina, post-WW2?
Note to self: be patient.... All will be revealed in its appropriate time.
BTW, how will the French deal with their Empire, especially Indochina, post-WW2?
Note to self: be patient.... All will be revealed in its appropriate time.
Doubtful, right now those are the nuclear delivery system. I expect bomber command will be cut back a lot because strategic bombers aren't that useful in policing or winding up the empire.
An interesting question is whether FDR told his new veep about his agreement with Churchill about sharing the bomb? If the British think they will have their own bombs soon, Lincolns or an upgraded Lancaster make sense. If they aren't getting it for a few years, then scrap all the big bombers that aren't being used for maritime patrol and save the money for jets, in particular one or more of the V-bombers.
Note, I fully agree that the British should have had the atomic secrets they contributed to developing. Exactly why that didn't happen in OTL is unclear (at least to me). The guy who wrote the MacMahon act that kept them from the Brits said on record that if he had known it wouldn't have been written that way.
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Story 2928
USS Alaska, North Atlantic, July 5, 1945
"We agree upon the targets"
"Yes, Mr. President. These five cities are the preferred targets."
"Then notify the relevant commands that these targets are to be engaged with special weapons once the weather and operational conditions allow it. These cities will be targeted on my specific command. Type up the order and I will sign it this afternoon."
"Yes sir."
The uniformed advisors and commanders soon left the sea cabin. Soon the Texan took a deep breath and looked out the window. He had known about the bomb project for almost two years now. He had shepherded the funding through the House, Franklin had kept him involved in the meetings, the men under his command had firebombed Tokyo and continue to carry out anti-housing strikes. But even still, the power of the atomic bomb was mind-numbing as it was a single aircraft and a single crew doing what could have taken hundreds of bombers and thousands of men with near perfect conditions and fortune to destroy previously.
He had a few more minutes before the next meeting and he just looked out to sea. The war needed to end. The war needed to end soon. He hoped that his decision and his decision alone would achieve that goal.
"We agree upon the targets"
"Yes, Mr. President. These five cities are the preferred targets."
"Then notify the relevant commands that these targets are to be engaged with special weapons once the weather and operational conditions allow it. These cities will be targeted on my specific command. Type up the order and I will sign it this afternoon."
"Yes sir."
The uniformed advisors and commanders soon left the sea cabin. Soon the Texan took a deep breath and looked out the window. He had known about the bomb project for almost two years now. He had shepherded the funding through the House, Franklin had kept him involved in the meetings, the men under his command had firebombed Tokyo and continue to carry out anti-housing strikes. But even still, the power of the atomic bomb was mind-numbing as it was a single aircraft and a single crew doing what could have taken hundreds of bombers and thousands of men with near perfect conditions and fortune to destroy previously.
He had a few more minutes before the next meeting and he just looked out to sea. The war needed to end. The war needed to end soon. He hoped that his decision and his decision alone would achieve that goal.
Bingo.... Speaker is a hard job post Cannon reforms and Rayburn was an acceptable candidate for almost every Dem faction with power. He was/is a team player and figured he had a good 30+ year run in politics
So he won’t hold the record for the longest term is speaker of the house (17 years) ITTL. I don’t know much more about him. I hope he handles the postwar better than Truman did. It doesn’t go with the stupidity of pentatonic warfare. Or separating tactical air from the army. Strategic aviation as a separate branch makes sense tac does not. Airlift makes sense as a joint command.
So why is the Alaska and not the Augusta?
Shouldn't the Alaska be in the pacific doing AA work?
Shouldn't the Alaska be in the pacific doing AA work?
this, very much this. A Strategic focused USAF is honestly for the best. That is where the USAF excels. It does not give them the unwanted mission of CAS.
TTL Alaska is a different ship than OTL. The USN sees it is a ship without a great mission but there is a lot of wartime value of a 30 knot Presidential yacht.
Plus I did not want to get on the wrong side of a Golden Bear
Driftless
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I'll take the tangent for $100. Who would/should get the transport services? Both tactical and taxi service for the brass, or would that be considered two different functions. Also, per OTLs Key West Agreements (and others), the Army got the bulk of rotary aircraft. I'm guessing that would be the same, though the USAF would want some Search and Rescue craft. I'm also assuming ICBMs to SAC, but who gets battlefield missiles, from tactical theater weapons down to soldier-portable?
Now for the Carl Sagan question: who gets the billions and billions of aircraft and missile development money?
Wasn't part of the original breakout meant to make more easily defined roles - even if they were in-efficient?
Now for the Carl Sagan question: who gets the billions and billions of aircraft and missile development money?
Wasn't part of the original breakout meant to make more easily defined roles - even if they were in-efficient?
It is as there is currently already a "US Air Force" in that by this point they have officially dropped the "Army" from US Army Air Force
No Truman means that the steep post-war budget cuts are probably moderated but as you note at this point no one actually sees a future major conflict and the Air Force for one will be pushing hard to move towards being the supreme service due to being the only one that attack with nuclear weapons. And the Air Force at this point even was not really willing to put much effort into supporting more 'tactical' air power over strategic air power.
We haven't had the Key West agreement yet so the Army with a bit more effort might be able to siphon off a tactical fixed wing force but it depends on the post-war military cuts that come about. One thing is that IF the Army gets its own fixed wing capability it's going to retain the P-47 in lieu of the P-51 as it was a much more capable ground attack aircraft. OTL the Air Force kept the P-51 because of it's air-to-air capability and pressed it into tactical air support even though it was not a very good platform for it because they wanted to retain the air-to-air capability.
Again due to the OTL cuts the Air Force in fact decided that the transport function would be best carried out by using commercial transports either contracted as needed or pressed into service in an emergency. So they simply threw all "military" transport out... This did not sit well with the Navy which had an extensive air transport command and it didn't end up sitting to well with most logistics commands. (Even the Air Force ones
) So a group of officers and politicians went into Key West to demand the retention of such but the Air Force wouldn't have it. So they did and end run and got the Secretary of Defense (new position) to authorize a combined Navy/Air Force command (Military Air Transport Services, or MATS) that would not only be funded directly from his office but commanded from there as well. The Air Force was happy, (none of it came from their budget and they still got to use it) the Navy at least were satisfied they got to retain their service. (Another "issues" was the differing needs for Military transports and those in commercial service which needed future development and which the Air Force was not willing to pay for)The Air Force wasn't interested in rotary aircraft again due to the budget issues. They might still let the Army have the majority as it's a tactical rather than strategic asset.
There's an argument to be made that the missiles should have gone to the Army but again the Air Force was pushing for being pretty much the "only" service post-war and with less drastic budget issues I can see less pressure there. (And the Air Force had been convinced by von Karman that ballistic missile technology while it might be superior in the future would be more difficult to develop than cruise missiles. Turned out the opposite and von Karman's recommendation was based on budget issues as well so it still could go either way.
OTL the 'breakdown' was pretty much to push the Air Force as THE premier service due to being the only one with and the ability to deliver nuclear weapons. The Army was aimed at being a "defensive" force to hold the enemy till the Air Force nuked them into submission and the Navy was liked by neither of the other two "main" services
OTL Truman literally planned on reducing the Navy to a point where they would essentially JUST be the Coast Guard with their aviation assets transferred to the Air Force and the Marines disbanded. (Ya good luck with that as the Marines were created by an act of Congress guess who's choice that is
)Depends on how the new President 'feels' about the Atomic Bomb really. Truman was overly impressed with it and bought the Air Force assertion that the only thing needed to 'win' any future war was the A-bomb and the means to deliver it. (Hence why all the services were scrambling to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them)
Randy
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