1 Except that the image sure looks like it's in camo paint to me, and an image search comes up with USS Essex...

2 The Navy would disagree with your search, David.  Technically, it IS in camo paint, specifically Measure 21.  

3 The camo effect occurs because of the shadow from the flight deck falls on the hull.

1 I'm guessing Intrepid. My reasoning is behind spoiler tag Wonderduck has a personal story about this. Only 2 Essexes have been not in mothballs since he was likely able to have sea stories. I don't believe WD is a naval aviator so it would not be Lexington...thus the intrepid museum.

2 Your reasoning is perfectly sound, except that the Lexington is also a museum ship.  In any case, it's not the Intrepid.

3

Since it is a short-hull Essex and you got a personal story, you make it pretty much LEXINGTON as the only possible choice - unless I am completely off on your age.

C.T.

4 OK, I like this site, but why does it keep cutting me off at the end of pages? Nearly every page does this; I can clearly see that there's more material, but it won't let me scroll the rest of the way. What the hell?

5 Chris - I see the same thing quite often, and have to refresh the page to see it all.  I am using Firefox.  Are you also using Firefox as well, or something else?

6

This has been an issue here for a long time. Sometimes if you reload the page it gets relaxed and lets you scroll down further.

I've found that there's less of a problem in this regard using Firefox than when using IE. But it doesn't happen at all with  any other mee.nu or mu.nu blog I visit, so I can only conclude that there's something custom and strange in the site CSS here.

7 If there is, I sure didn't put it there!  Chris, it even happens to me, usually on the longer posts with many pictures.  I'm sorry, I wish I knew what was going on, but it's been occurring pretty much since Day Two.

8 We discuss this from time to time. I add explicit height to every picture tag (img), without exception, and that seems to help.

9 Perhaps the browsers can't handle this much duck content in one page fetch?

10 Pixy knows about the bug, it has something to do with the dynamic footers.  When I asked about it he fixed it for my site by disabling something, but I never asked exactly what, and if it was under my control or not.

11 I was testing it on my site on the weekend, and just turning it off doesn't always work if you have a long sidebar, so I need to re-do the CSS.  What I was trying to do in 2008 with this fiddly Javascript is a lot easier today, so long as I throw IE6 to the wolves.

You may remember that a few days ago, I had some broadband issues.  The powers that be sent a technician to the apartment complex, so as to discover just what was going on.  I gather they found nothing out of the ordinary, so the technician came into Pond Central to investigate.  When I got home some hours later, there was a note on my door, saying that there was a signal strength issue and the tech needed access to the cable outlet.  I groaned at this; the cable outlet is behind a bookcase in my living room... a bookcase overfilled with books.  While I knew this was going to be three different levels of hell to deal with, I did realize that I had been presented with a great opportunity.  For years, I've meant to get all my military history books out of my bedroom and into one of the big bookshelves in the living room... well, here was my chance! 

I should have known better.  Almost every time there's a broadband connection problem, the techs say there's a signal strength issue.  As I was getting the books out of the bookcase, my broadband connection came back.  Yay, I guess.  Still, I wasn't going to just fill the thing back up again, in case there really was a problem (for once), so I let it sit for the weekend... and the books that had been in it stacked high on my coffee table.  While it made watching TV a little difficult (read: impossible), and folding laundry a  challenge (read: are you kidding?), I put up with it until Monday.

That night, I came home from the Duck U Bookstore, changed into the grubbiest clothes I had, and began moving books from the bedroom to the living room.  Grubby, because some of them were going to be dusty as all get-out.  It took an hour, and I still haven't gotten around to organizing them other than by size, but I now have my military history reference library all in one place, where I can easily peruse them.  Before this, they were in three different bookcases AND stacked on a dresser in four piles AND stacked on top of two other bookcases.  Yeah, this works much better.

1 Every time I read about HMS Rodney, I think of Sir Rodney from Wizard of Id. And then I suppresss a grin.

2

A very nice looking collection indeed.  I have my collection overflowing my bookcase and into boxes and onto various shelves.  I also notice we have many of the same titles, too.

Looking at that picture is sure fun at figuring out what is in your collection.  Paperback copy of Castles of Steel, correct?

I really want to get my hands on Combat Fleets, since I have my doubts about some of Norman Polmar's works and it is comparable to Jane's.  But unfortunately, crack is cheaper in this case, and so would be a copy of Blu-Ray set of Kara no Kyoukai Aniplex released last year...

Then there is Garzke and Dulin's Allied Battleships which has sadly not been reprinted since the early 1980s...

C.T.

3 Ack, forgot to re-link to the bigger picture after having to delete the original small picture.  Should work now...

CT, no, no Castles of Steel, though I'm aware of the book.  And gold is cheaper than some of the Jane's Fighting Ships editions.

Steven, now I'm never going to get that connection out of my mind.  Thanks so very much.

4

Not including any of the Tom Clancy books or the books I have given up on, number of titles in both our libraries is in the double digits.

In retrospect, I should have realize that was a copy of Victory at Sea, and not Castles of Steel.

I also noticed that your copy of Kaigun is sadly missing its dustjacket...

5 I do not understand how a cable connector can be behind a shelf. The socket is small, but the connector and relief slieve stick out quite a bit, and the cable should not be bent hard or else it creates internal reflections, which ruin the signal. I always had to plan shelves a cabinets so that they avoid leaning against cable outlets that are in use.

6 Pete, the plate is actually behind the bookcase, which is three or four inches away from the wall so as to match with the TV stand.

CT, yeah, I was a little unhappy about the missing jacket m'self, but on the plus side it was only $35.  A quick glance at amazon right now shows the cheapest you can get it is for $75.  For $40, I'll live without a dustcover.

I'm not surprised there's a lot of overlap between our collections.  There aren't many obscure books in mine, and a lot of the "must-haves" (Shattered Sword, Fire In The Sky, Frank's Guadalcanal, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, etc etc etc...).  There's just a LOT of books.

I mean, for a non-professional.

7 Do you have "Soldiers of the Sun"? If not, you should.

8

Japan's Imperial Army by Edward Drea is a more recent take on the subject.  It is very good and makes for some rather startling revelations.

But how can any collector's shelves be without Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War?  You do need a coffee table to put the book, because if the book falls from any place higher than a coffee table, it might kill someone on the way down.

Sadly, Fire in the Sky is one of those books I am unlikely to touch again.  Eric Bergerud's tendency to switch into the first person grated too much, and it happened far too often for a professional work.  What is really odd is that Touched With Fire is many ways, a much better written book despite being published earlier by Bergerud.

9 cool collection, seeing Tom Clancy takes me back. I got into Tom Clancy when I was in 5th grade and this lead me into military history books in the 6th grade (I'm pretty sure I've read some of books in your collection) but my local library had so few books of that type that I quickly had to move into SF which was a much more plentiful (and cheaper) genre to read.

10 "I haven't quite figured out how I intend to organize them yet... do I alphabetize by author? Arrange by category (with Midway books on top)? By size? By spine color? The world wonders."

I have mine organized by size on shelves like this.  That's due to weight, not any "real" organizing scheme.  The bottom shelf (and on some units, the middle thru-shelf that splits the side uprights) can hold about half-again more weight.  The heavier books always end up there.  It's inconvenient, but it still beats overloading the shelves.  You can see it in the picture; the second-from-bottom shelf looks like it's got a noticeable sag in the middle, in the gap between Dogfight and Artillery.  Since the shelves aren't secured along the back, it always makes me nervous when I see that happen in my own bookcases.

11 All of the shelves save the bottom one are adjustable on this bookcase, Rick... and the only reason you're not seeing sag on the other shelves is because I flipped them over.

Oddly, the OTHER bookcase, with the manga, DVR, and ducks doesn't have nearly as much warping, despite being at least as heavily loaded.

1 Well, it beats trying to start forest fires in Oregon.

2 If they'd pushed the issue they could have done that attack much sooner, several pre-war classes of their subs carried 1-2 planes. Other, less optimal planes were available, but even the Seiran's first flight was in '43.

As to the admittedly brief respite the blowing of Gatun Dam  would have gained them (a year at the very most) a few extra months breathing time before the B-29 raids essentially stopped domestic production could have complicated things for the allies. Historically, a whole slew of advanced fighters as well as several ships including the 16 Unryu class aircraft carriers and a gazillion fast coastal defence subs were halted or delayed when bombers got within range of the home islands, often within a few months ( or weeks) of completion or in the case of the high performance aircraft, just as production was spinning up.

A few extra months of training for the new generation of carrier pilots might have made a great deal of difference at the battle of the Philippine Sea (or whatever took its place).

A few extra months of unmolested Japanese production and aircrew training would not have changed the ultimate outcome of the war, but it could have increased the cost of ataining that outcome out of all proportion to the investment of a few subs and aircrew.

Straying rather further afield, while he canal attack would only work once,  assuming that the I-400 program retains its priority, the I-400s would be coming online in late '43 and early '44. An attack on New York and possibly Washington using disease bombs could have caused considerable mayhem. They'd have a better than even chance of succeeding as the alied ASW effort depended on radio direction finding and broken codes to track German wolfpacks, none of which would help against these boats as they'd be not be using German codebooks and wouldn't need to transmit since the knew where their target was.

3

Actually, the planners of the construction of the Panama Canal had envisioned a situation where the Gatun Locks or any of the other locks would breached (In the unlikely event of a ship managing to be so out of control that they managed to smashed through all the other safeguards.).  They built an ultimate failsafe for it - portable dams for just that eventuality, to prevent the loss of too much water.  So draining Gatun Lake was never going to happen if they simply attacked the locks.  Hitting the dam would have been more worthwhile, but the dam might have been easier to fix.  Knocking the locks out of action would still be worth it.

Of course, by 1942, the US Navy was already planning to send to sea ships larger than the canal could handle, so ultimately, it would not have meant as much either. 

As for using the I-400 - you wonder if the Japanese would have been through enough not use their radio communications at any part...

 

 

4 @Muppet: I left the date undefined because I couldn't quite figure out the minimum construction time required for an I-400 class sub.  In my brain, the attack in the post took place in early-to-mid '44.

@cxt: I didn't know about the portable dams, and haven't seen any reference to them in my research... interesting stuff, that.  I will note that while the Navy had plans to put Panamax-plus ships to sea, ultimately they didn't in WWII.

5 The MONTANA class got cancelled but I believed MIDWAY herself went to sea before the end of war.  If the war had lasted any longer, MIDWAY would have been sent on the long way around to join the Pacific Fleet.

6 USS Midway: commissioned 9/10/1945.

"...ultimately they didn't in WWII."

7

There was a nontrivial amount of shipbuilding, including warships, on the US West Coast, which wouldn't have been affected by damage to the Canal.

Quite a lot of it was intended for the European theater, but if the Canal had been taken out, they could have shuffled things around.

Also, by mid 1944 the US Navy in the Pacific was already large enough to win the war. Additional forces made that easier, but Nimitz could have won it anyway.

 

8

 The West Coast did have a lot of shipbuilding - Henry Kaiser and Marinship comes to mind - but warship construction was pretty much dominated by the East Coast yards.  The largest warships built on the West Coast during WW2 were the four OAKLAND class CLs.  Every other cruiser, battleship, light and fleet carriers, were all built on the East Coast.  So were most of the destroyers.

Nimitz and PACFLT probably had enough warships to defeat the Japanese, but the operational strain would have been immense.

I do wonder how much of MIDWAY's completion was slowed down by the imminent end of the war.  The US Navy was already cancelling ships from March 1945 on.

9

There's one big shadow over the end of the war which renders most of these kinds of what-if's moot. For instance, when people talk about, "What if the Normandy Invasion had failed" or "What if the Battle of the Bulge had turned out to be a German victory", the answer to all those questions is the same: the first A-bomb would have been dropped on Berlin, and the war in Europe would have ended in early August 1945.

By the same token, these what-if's about the Pacific all have the same answer: The war ends in early August 1945 no matter what happens before that.

If, for instance, the Japanese somehow managed to preven the Americans from taking Guam and Saipan, then the B-29's carrying the bomb would have flown from western China. But they still would have flown, and the bombs still would have been dropped, and the war would still have ended.

10 Way back in my original "What If...?" post, in the beginning of 2008, you proposed (in a reaction post of your own) that the bombs would have been flown from China, Steven.  I'll repeat what I said back then here:
Not a chance.  The chance that the plane carrying the bomb would have a malfunction and crash-land someplace the Japanese could get their hands on it wouldn't be taken under ANY circumstances.  We barely let our friends know what was going on with the bomb, after all.  The flight from Tinian, on the other hand, was completely over water... perfect for jettisoning the bomb where nobody untoward could get their hands on it.

The logistical problems with flying B-29s from China are well-documented as well.  Throw in the added headaches of trying to get the various pieces of the bomb to the Chinese base, and it seems even less likely.

11

I think you underestimate the issues Truman was facing by that point. The American people were tired of war. They wanted it over with. The only alternative was the November invasion, which was estimated to be profoundly bloody and difficult.

I think Truman would have ordered them to do it anyway, irrespective of the objections you raise.

12 You forget the third alternative, blockade.  Much less costly than invasion, at least for the US, and they'd be able to discharge a rather large amount of men to boot.  The Navy backed the plan, and it's pretty clear it would have worked very well by that time.  Japan would have starved to death, but that would have been a minor consideration by then.

I don't doubt that the bombs would have been dropped; just not from China. 

13 When I suggest the war might have continued longer or been more costly, it only would have been so until bases in B-29 range could be secured. If the IJN and IJA had upgraded their air forces in the interim then there would have been a reduction operation until their air forces had been culled sufficiently to allow the atomic bombs to be delivered.

Unlikely that the war lasts past early to mid '46.  Even if something like Hatanaka's gambit had succeeded, we would see operation Downfall, which in its post trinity version involved the use of 14 nukes. I can't see it going on past mid '46.

Note too that if the war goes much past August '45 AT ALL, then MILLIONS of Japanese start starving. One of the things the Allies discovered when they landed was that Japan was essentially out of food, the US and Commonwealth navies spent the winter shipping food in.


I agree with Wonderduck that nukes from China is a non starter. The nationalists were actually backed and trained by the U.S.S.R. and the other force in China was the Maoists. We were NOT going to send our super secret weapon there to be handed over to Stalin (we had our own academics to take care of that).

14

American war-wariness was a major concern for Truman and officials within his administration - which is incidentally one of, though not the only, reasons for unconditional surrender - but nothing I have read about and from Harry Truman supports the proposition that he would launch the nuclear-equipped B-29s from China or any place where the bomb would not have absolute security because of domestic considerations.  FDR might have considered it (Though even he was not likely to approve it.), but not Truman.  There was a better chance of the USAAF perfecting in-flight refueling to allow a longer-range B-29 flight than a China base scenario.

That the Japanese was running out of food would have shorten the war, but since the Japanese military and government had made it clear they would let millions of Japanese civilians starve to insure the military remained fed, I doubt it would have shortened the war too much.  Lack of materials to fight the war would have done much more to shorten to war, but not that much sooner, even with a full scale blockade being launched.

One thing which becomes clear is that Japan was really fortunate they surrendered when they did.  Even a delay of a few more months would have seen XXI Bomber Command focus B-29 attacks on the Japanese rail system while maintaining their mining operations.  If the former had happened, it would have crippled the Japanese rail system, which meant millions of Japanese would have starved even AFTER surrender because the distribution system had been wrecked.

This is the irony when people base their arguments against the use of the atomic bomb on the USSBS, which assumed the USAAF kept pounding Japan with B-29 raids.  Dying of starvation is no less pleasant than dying from nuclear attack.

1 It has a stack like the Lexington CV-2 but the Lexington had a closed bow. There goes my guess.

2 I'm afraid you're going to suffer a blues explosion.  The Lexington is an incorrect guess.

3 Graff Zeppelin.
The casemates and the oddball catapults  are the giveaway.

4 Very good, Muppet.  A winner is you.

5

Time for a naval "what if?"  I've read that the Nazi long range plan was to start WW II in 1943, by which time they would have a "balanced fleet", including at least one aircraft carrier.  They had already built and were testing aircraft for it, including a carrier-based version of the Ju87 Stuka. 

My questions is, assuming that their plans worked out, and the second World War started in 1943 at a time and stiuation of their choosing, what would they use their aircract carrier for?  I don't think anyone would consider using a carrier to support an invasion across the narrow English channel, and they expected a quick war where interdicting convoys would not be a factor, so what did they plan on doing with it?

6

Remember the Bismarck? Think that would have gone the same if Bismarck had been accompanied by a carrier?

Germany's naval problem was that all their major ports were bottled up. They could build big ships, but they couldn't get them out into the open sea to fight with them.

A blue water fleet with carrier air support could have done something about Gibralter, for example. (Or at least tried.)

7

There were three strategic constrictions between the German ship-building ports on the Baltic and the open ocean. Denmark was the first, but that could be solved by land invasion.

The second was the section of sea between Scotland and Norway. The third was the line between Scotland and Greenland.

Bismarck actually made it past all three of them, but only by shedding all its escorts and proceeding alone.

...and it would have made it, had it not been spotted by a PBY, and then attacked at long range by English carrier-based biplanes. A German carrier would have made all the difference.

8

 No guarantees the fighters from a German carrier would have shot down the PBY before it made its report (Even the Kido Butai did not have that much success doing so.) and considering the weather conditions in the fatal torpedo attack, it would have been doubtful any fighters would have made it into the air.  Of course, Goering did all he could to insure German naval aviation was stillborn - flying an ME 109 in the North Atlantic sounds positively insane.

Germany could have completed the Graf Zeppelin and maybe the Z Plan as well, but what would they have given up to free the materials for it?  Germany faced major resource and industrial shortages even before the war, far more than most people realize, and the Kriegsmarine usually ended up at the back of the bus since its was less important than the Army or influential as the Luftwaffe.  Even the projected date of 1945 would not have been possible, given the competing demands -  it is implied that the first of the  H-class battleships would have not been completed until 1946, even if their construction had not been postponed/cancelled by the war.

Of course, that also ignores what the other nations would be doing.  Nothing would be unsettling to a German crew than to break out into the Atlantic during 1944, only to find Lion and Temeraire and maybe a sister or four waiting for them.