[WarInEur] Axis Victories?

[sgminfo]

Joey Sabin wrote:
>
> /In all reality, the loss of England in the 1940 war in Europe would 
> likely have played a minor roll in the total war picture because IMHO 
> all English significant engineering, scientific and production 
> abilities would have been evacuated to the US and British territories 
> abroad. The majority of England's navy would be transporting it all 
> with the remainder of the fleet to be scuttled in port. Any future 
> European invasion by the allies is strictly speculation but IMHO 
> England's liberation would have been a priority and Churchill was just 
> a skilled enough diplomat to ensure it as such. The first opportunity 
> to invade England by the US would have been the 1941 invasion of 
> Russia, and IMHO it couldn't fail, even more so if North Africa was 
> used as a jump off point. That being said however, I must confess, the 
> Axis deserve a minor victory simply because the Allied player allowed 
> England to fall in the first place./
>
> / /
>
> /Joey/
>
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I am not so certain about the RN issue per se.

Possibly the smallest bit of the issue is basing the ships somewhere else.
The nightmare and recurring headache would be,

1.Machinery spares
2.Armament
3.Firecontrol

All of which require major manufacturing and specialist materials and 
technicians, with little access to them except drawings and then having 
to work up a spares inventory using quite alien practices and traditions.

Then in the boilerroom, you have differences in steam raising practices, 
turbinedesigns and metric/non metric conversions (in this case Whitworth 
and
Imperial vs US measurement systems...an example being the British Gallon 
vs the US Gallon. Even wiring and ships voltages may notbe the 
same...i.e. all the electrical gear is in alien running voltages etc.

Some of the horror stories with the Hipper class cruiser used for the 
Atoll test at the end of the war probably havea bearing on this, with 
the crew having significant and continuous problems with the steaming 
plant as well as general maintenance issues.

Hazarding a guess, I suspect barring the initial 3-6months most of he 
ships would remain in port for more than a year whilst measurements were 
taken for spares requirements and on the spot conversions for machinery, 
main armament propellants and calibration of fire control systems with 
the newlyintegrated armaments systems.Even the hydraulic systems will 
need to have carefully matched oils to avoid possible fatal 
consequenceswhere topping off during maintenance. Almost everything in 
the way of support gear will be 'one offs', right down to replacement 
barrels for the main armaments, and replacement main ammunition to an 
alien pattern. Interoperablity there is not, right down to replenishment 
at sea equipment and tanker support. Multiply this by the number of 
major units of cruiser and above size, and you are faced with a 
seriously tall order, even for the productive capacity of the United states.

One thing about support equipment for a fleet...it is seriously non 
mobile, plate rolling mills, casting facilities, ammunition production, 
and general heavy engineering (main armament tools, boring machines, 
wire wrapping equipment for barrels, forging kit, dies etcetc., needs 
massive machine tools, none of which are that portable, so most of this 
stuff will fall probably into enemy hands.

The Soviets had SERIOUS problems supporting the R class battleship they 
were allocated, one  from the RN when Italy surrended (To avoid them 
getting something as ultra modern and potentially dangerous as a Roma, 
or Vittorio Veneto class of warship. And with the return of the ship to 
RN control at the end of the war, she was in such condition that the 
only practical method of maintenance open to the RN was the scrapyard. 
Extracting live 15" main armament amunition seized in the barrel is not 
my idea of normal safe practice in maintenance, but from this you can 
see where things could and did get seriously askew.

Now add this therequirement to technically support the UK merchant 
fleet, and you can see the scale of the problem.

In terms of future military operations theUK is probably the LAST place 
you would wish to attempt to seize back.

Capturing the British Isles is one thing, what isn't seen is the entire 
population of the Islands will have to be fed and clothed, kept warm and 
sheltered for a year, before domestic crops can be raised to feed the 
populace, and the industrial base is reconstituted for that populace to 
start to pay its way in terms of any meaningfull wartime production., 
and certainly all theinfrastructure in the UK, the thousands of steam 
locomotives, motor vehicles, etc etc of the domestic economy that have 
to be supoorted and repaired before british industrial infrastructure 
has repaired itself to be anything other than light window dressing.

Possibly the best tactical defensive manoeuvre the Germans could do 
would be to abandon 4/5ths of the Islands, complete with women and 
children, to hang as a millstone around the neck of the US wartime economy.

A scorched earth retreat by the German army might be the worst case 
scenario the Allied planners would have the real horror of facing.

none of the above is impossible to solve, but the more you think about 
it, the more pitfalls you may put in your own way.....

Getting some detailed information on howthe French fleet was maintained 
and used AFTER the invasion of southern France by the Germans might be 
very instructive...
The uses ofthe Italian fleet surviving thesurrender are also very 
informative inthat regard...


-|steve|-
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