U.S. "Warships" in Mothballs

Castenea wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:(snip Re: activating mothballed ships)
Reserves work when you've got trained crew you could call up to man them OR you reasonable expect to burn through equipment much faster than personnel (then you use the reserve for spare parts or just to transfer crew to when their original equipment is unservicable).

You remind me of something that has annoyed me ever since I looked a little further than the surface; The claim that the US was totally unprepared for war on Dec 7 1941, and mobilized entirely for WWII After the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Look at it a just a little deeper than the propaganda, and you realize that the US had been slowly mobilizing for war since at least 1938. The weapons programs that were started after Nov 1941, and saw service in WWII can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

It might be a badly mutilated hand. I did some checking and only the Manhattan Project came close (it might had not been formally authorized and funded by November 1941, but the preliminary organization had been done).

Fox2! wrote:

Relax wrote:
NIT: Actually it would be quite easy to build more B52's if you ignore the jigs required which would be easy to make. Why? Wing twist/deflection difference between ground and cruise were not taken into consideration at that time. Rather a VERY crude guesstimate was made and in notes is jig position zero with some constant twist applied. When in doubt, make the wings stiffer was the rule. Same goes for the 707 built half a decade later.

Those stiff wings are part of why there will be a multi-ship fly-by of the Wichita facility on the 100th anniversary of the first XB-52 flight. All drawn from active squadrons, not a heritage flight.

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Uh... Every single B52 wing has been replaced at least once and it appears will now get upgraded engines as well to fly to its 100th birthday. Truth is, there is almost nothing old on the B52. Even its fuselage is not the original other than in shape only. Ok, some stringers, bulkheads are still original... As if that is the expensive part of the plane...

Jonathan_S wrote:Given a 5 or 6 years of wartime funding and priority and they could probably get much of the reserve in service. But what kind of a war gives you years to get your existing obsolescent ships into service? (And if you do have years then you've got time to build new ships -- ones that you know are up to your current specs)

Actually this is what happened to the USA in WWII. Had 3 years notice. Everyone knew war was inevitable in 1938. Japan Germany were attacking consolidating, expanding everywhere. Japan who in WWI was an ally was being sanctioned by the west and shunned since 1937. USA 2 ocean navy act went through in 1940 and had effectively been in full swing the 2 years before for design because they saw war with Japan as inevitable. The Washington/London naval treaties were being massively violated in 1938 and utterly vanished in 1939. So, when the 2 ocean navy act was passed, the long lead items were already DONE.

Sherman tank developed before war broke out.

Aircraft? P38, P43, Corsair were all developed with war on horizon. P38 you know about, developed before war came out as they saw range as a massive problem, P43 morphed into the P47 and the corsair failed for carrier trials in 1940 but was developed before WWII started(for USA). Fall back position? Wildcat.

Only thing in WWII that was developed after war broke out for the USA is the Manhattan project and the B29 which is frankly the same thing. I do not count the F6F Hellcat as it was just a giant modification to the Wildcat where the only difference that counted was engine/landing gear. Better ships/tanks/aircraft? Nope did not happen.

If you wish to look at the Brit position the development, or complete lack of development is stark. The number one and 2 R&D the UK managed was in Cryptography, RADAR. Both of which.... started BEFORE WWII kicked off but were barely there.
Brit tanks developed during? None to speak of and those that did showed up in 1946 like the USA's Patton and the USSR's(several different).
Brit aircraft developed from scratch during that saw significant action? Lancaster, Mosquito(my favorite along with the Hellcat)
Brit Naval ships developed during WWII? None

PS: No, the Gato USN class was not developed during WWII. It was a slight mod of existing submarines developed during 30s. Biggest difference; torpedos that worked...

No, B29 was contracted pre-war. prototype ordered August 1940. It just had a rocky development.

Even the USN's acoustic homing torpedoes, Mark 24 'mine' FIDO (air dropped anti-submarine) and Mark 27 torpedo Cutie (sub launched anti-escort), came out of a development project started in the autumn of 41.

Even the Midway-class carriers, which some people see as reaction to the demonstrated vulnerability of unarmored flight decks during the battles of Coral Sea and Midway came out of a 1940 development study (and even so missed the end of the war)

The "amphibious tractor" landing vehicle tracked (LVT) and Higgins boat (LCVP) both evolved out of pre-war civilian designs; but even their military conversions were started prior to Pearl Harbor. (Though I'd thought they might not have been)

The Gearing-class destroyers, which just barely made the end of the war, were authorized in July '42; though that presumably means that their design (and the design of the proceeding Sumner-class) pre-dated Pearl Harbor.



The few contenders I could find that might have seen service yet been developed after Pearl Harbor are:

The war expedient Casablanca and Commencement Bay-class CVEs might have been designed after Pearl Harbor. Similarly it's possible some of the later classes of Destroyer Escorts were designed mid-war.

While the shaped charge warhead was a pre-war development the delivery system design project that led to the US Army's iconic bazooka didn't start until '42.

Also the Sherman's successor development project leading to '44s M26 Pershing didn't start until May '42.

Though I don't have a reference book handy and google searches aren't turning up when the developement started; but I have a vauge memory that the handheld gyro tracking Mk 51 short-range anti-aircraft director might have been a 1942 development effort. That director, combined with power-driven Bofors 40mm (and later 5"/38 firing proximity fuzes) was a potent short range anti-kamikaze defense.

Of those only the bazooka, and the Mk51 (if in fact it was a war development), seem like they would have been a significant loss if they weren't developed. I don't know that the war would have changed that much if the US had had to keep cranking out earlier conversion-style CVEs or had to keep fighting with improved Shermans rather than getting some Pershings into combat.

VT fuzes started development during the war by the British. But that was before the US entered the war.

I find it interesting that the Russians today have specialized equipment to jam VT fuzes in widespread deployment.

kzt wrote:VT fuzes started development during the war by the British. But that was before the US entered the war.

I find it interesting that the Russians today have specialized equipment to jam VT fuzes in widespread deployment.

Which is probably why lasers are used instead of radar on a number of modern VT fuzes (at least for missiles)

Jonathan_S wrote:Even the USN's acoustic homing torpedoes, Mark 24 'mine' FIDO (air dropped anti-submarine) and Mark 27 torpedo Cutie (sub launched anti-escort), came out of a development project started in the autumn of 41.

Even the Midway-class carriers, which some people see as reaction to the demonstrated vulnerability of unarmored flight decks during the battles of Coral Sea and Midway came out of a 1940 development study (and even so missed the end of the war)

The "amphibious tractor" landing vehicle tracked (LVT) and Higgins boat (LCVP) both evolved out of pre-war civilian designs; but even their military conversions were started prior to Pearl Harbor. (Though I'd thought they might not have been)

The Gearing-class destroyers, which just barely made the end of the war, were authorized in July '42; though that presumably means that their design (and the design of the proceeding Sumner-class) pre-dated Pearl Harbor.



The few contenders I could find that might have seen service yet been developed after Pearl Harbor are:

The war expedient Casablanca and Commencement Bay-class CVEs might have been designed after Pearl Harbor. Similarly it's possible some of the later classes of Destroyer Escorts were designed mid-war.

While the shaped charge warhead was a pre-war development the delivery system design project that led to the US Army's iconic bazooka didn't start until '42.

Also the Sherman's successor development project leading to '44s M26 Pershing didn't start until May '42.

Though I don't have a reference book handy and google searches aren't turning up when the developement started; but I have a vauge memory that the handheld gyro tracking Mk 51 short-range anti-aircraft director might have been a 1942 development effort. That director, combined with power-driven Bofors 40mm (and later 5"/38 firing proximity fuzes) was a potent short range anti-kamikaze defense.

Of those only the bazooka, and the Mk51 (if in fact it was a war development), seem like they would have been a significant loss if they weren't developed. I don't know that the war would have changed that much if the US had had to keep cranking out earlier conversion-style CVEs or had to keep fighting with improved Shermans rather than getting some Pershings into combat.

F8F Bearcat, FR Fireball, P-80 Shooting Star, the various classes of destroyer escorts, Tacoma class frigates, M3 SMG. All of these were started after Pearl Harbor and entered service to one degree or another before VJ-Day.

doug941 wrote:F8F Bearcat, FR Fireball, P-80 Shooting Star, the various classes of destroyer escorts, Tacoma class frigates, M3 SMG. All of these were started after Pearl Harbor and entered service to one degree or another before VJ-Day.

All of which only illustrates my point. Only the DEs and the M3 SMG saw extensive use before the end of the war. The US army had already expanded significantly between 1936 and 1940, and the US navy building program started planning somewhere around 1934. With the first Essex Class carriers already under construction on Dec 1 1941.

The most important weapon who's development cycle was entirely withing the range of WW2 (even if not US involvement) is undoubtedly the P51 Mustang.

Designed with an Alison engine in 1940 specifically for the RAF it was transformed from mediocre to worldbeating when given the Merlin engine.