U.S. "Warships" in Mothballs

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.

1) Bearcat: Never saw combat service in WWII. Had not even landed on an aircraft carrier headed to Japan.
2) FR Fireball, never even saw production as it failed carrier trials and was no faster than the Hellcat and slower than the Corsair already in service and MUCH worse than the Bearcat.
3) P80 Never saw service in WWII. Testing? Yes.
4) Destroyer escorts... You call throwing a gun or two on the deck vrs ASDIC/RADAR a design?
5) "Tacoma Class" a COPY of the Asheville Royal Navy class ships... is a new ship type in your world... Ok...
6) M3: No idea, as I have never read up on gun history. For some reason it never grabbed my attention. A gun... okay... You got one.

Silverwall wrote: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.

Nah. P47 already had the range, just needed larger drop tanks, was faster, had better spin performance except down low and better dive performance at all altitudes. So naturally the P47 got tasked with the stuff down low while the P51 got tasked with up high... Then again, the P51 would have been utterly ABYSMAL down low vrs the P47 and could not carry bombs/rockets like the 47. The reality is that while the top deck domination was very important, only one of the two aircraft could operate downlow in any reasonable manner due to the FLAK and the P47 was still tasked with high altitude superiority. You will note that the Tempest was also tasked with downlow ground pounding while the Spits pretended to dominate the high altitudes where there were no fighters anymore. What did both P47/Tempest have in common? Radial engines which can absorb damage.

PS: The P47 was faster than P51B/D because of the 150 octane fuel used from 1944 onwards which allowed much higher boost. P47D's were running at 460mph@altitude(You will note that the later Brit Sea Fury which did not see service during WWII has the exact same top speed with ~same HP). The numbers people quote all the time are under 100/130 octane fuel, even though they almost never flew with 100/130 octane fuel except during the early war years... and even then the P51 is a mere 7 mph faster at medium altitude and equal at or worse at high altitude. Because the P47 used a turbosupercharger compared to the P51 which used a dual staged geared supercharger which was optimized for ~6000m vrs the P47's optimum altitude of +8000m. Also, depending on the Mustang in question using the 1650-7 engine(or was it the -3), which had its supercharger optimized for 5000m just like the Spitfire IX.

It is also why the P51H with its 3 stage supercharger hits its amazing peak speed(same with the VERY late Spitfires). Yet if you read the operation reports the P51H was 450mph.... why? They went back to 130 octane as it required FAR less maintenance and better reliability. A more optimal design in its new engine did allow for the ability to truly USE the 150 octane fuel. Of course in 1943, P47J with a real nose cone/cowling hit over 500mph and the XP72 using the P&W 4360 with a "tidy" 50% increase in power was expected to top out at 540mph which was equal to that of the first jet aircraft. Of course everyone saw that the turbine, even in its infancy was only going to increase in power etc. Judging by the horrific turbine fuel efficiency, and reliability, might have been a much smarter idea to go with the XP-72 for carrier operations at least for the decade after WWII. Of course; who was going to go up against the USN and commit suicide during that decade or the next several? No one. Certainly not the Brits who were buying half their ships from the US... at the time and after that there was no other navy in the world. Of course today, China could literally bury the world in warships if they so chose(steel production kings). Now what systems are on the ships is the question

For more information go to http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org and also on youtube, Greg's airplanes and automobiles channel where he completely knows his stuff regarding engines, but is a hopeless case when it comes to entry level aerodynamics. His latest goober in Aerodynamics, was to try stating that a constant speed prop has same efficiency at all airspeeds... oh yea... lets see, a square radial function obtaining velocity vrs a linear forward velocity function... yea, last I checked a squared function times a linear is still a squared function.

Relax wrote:

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.

1) Bearcat: Never saw combat service in WWII. Had not even landed on an aircraft carrier headed to Japan.
2) FR Fireball, never even saw production as it failed carrier trials and was no faster than the Hellcat and slower than the Corsair already in service and MUCH worse than the Bearcat.
3) P80 Never saw service in WWII. Testing? Yes.
4) Destroyer escorts... You call throwing a gun or two on the deck vrs ASDIC/RADAR a design?
5) "Tacoma Class" a COPY of the Asheville Royal Navy class ships... is a new ship type in your world... Ok...
6) M3: No idea, as I have never read up on gun history. For some reason it never grabbed my attention. A gun... okay... You got one.

1) The F8F never saw COMBAT service during WW2, but it was in service with VF-19 beginning in May 1945.
2) Ditto with the Fireball. It entered service with a single squadron, VF-66, beginning in March 1945.
3) The P-80 was sent to Europe for in theater flight testing in both Italy and the UK and were in theater by January 1945. 45 "A" models were in service by July 1945.
4) The various DE classes were equipped with either 3x3" guns or 2x5" guns, not quite cap guns. And 4 of the 6 classes were equipped with 21" torpedoes. The Buckley class USS England sank SIX Japanese in 12 days, from May 18 to May 31 1944. And would you say that an approx 1,740 ton ship at full load going toe to toe with 4 battleships (including Yamato), 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers is something expected of a minor design? Four of the US vessels at the Battle of Samar on October 25 were DEs and of those, Samuel B Roberts, was sunk by Japanese gunfire.
5) The Tacomas were BASED on the River class but only very
loosely. Armament, crew compliment, engineering equipment etc were strictly American, the design was drawn up by the US Maritime Commission. And with 75 of the 96 completed seeing service in the US Navy, they don't quite met the standard of minor design.

doug941 wrote:1) The F8F never saw COMBAT service during WW2, but it was in service with VF-19 beginning in May 1945.
2) Ditto with the Fireball. It entered service with a single squadron, VF-66, beginning in March 1945.
3) The P-80 was sent to Europe for in theater flight testing in both Italy and the UK and were in theater by January 1945. 45 "A" models were in service by July 1945.
4) The various DE classes were equipped with either 3x3" guns or 2x5" guns, not quite cap guns. And 4 of the 6 classes were equipped with 21" torpedoes. The Buckley class USS England sank SIX Japanese in 12 days, from May 18 to May 31 1944. And would you say that an approx 1,740 ton ship at full load going toe to toe with 4 battleships (including Yamato), 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers is something expected of a minor design? Four of the US vessels at the Battle of Samar on October 25 were DEs and of those, Samuel B Roberts, was sunk by Japanese gunfire.
5) The Tacomas were BASED on the River class but only very
loosely. Armament, crew compliment, engineering equipment etc were strictly American, the design was drawn up by the US Maritime Commission. And with 75 of the 96 completed seeing service in the US Navy, they don't quite met the standard of minor design.

1) you agree with me
2) never saw service nor production as both failed navy quals
3) A P80 preproduction joke is your ground you wish to stand on? Where its propulsion unit came from the UK. You know, 90% of the design work...
4) If you really want to hang your hat on a dumbed down DD design started in 1941 where everything was cheapened like the CVE's... Ok. Usually to claim something it needs to be an improvement, not a cheapened joke where 100% of them were immediately shelved after August of 45.
5) Both USA/UK used same units and made the same parts. This is like saying the USA designed the RR Merlin engine... uh, I mean ... Packard designed it right?

Relax wrote:
5) Both USA/UK used same units and made the same parts. This is like saying the USA designed the RR Merlin engine... uh, I mean ... Packard designed it right?

I had previously be unaware of the Tacoma-class frigates (probably because by the time they entered service in '44 the u-boat war had effectively been won - so the need for them had largely passed), but at least Wikipedia seems to show that Gibbs & Cox altered the River-class design for US standards and construction techniques.

Certainly they mounted a different gun in US service 3" vs 4", an (I think existing) US designed power-plant, different mast, and altered to support the prefabrication techniques the Kaiser yards had established for Liberty ships.

However they retained enough British heritage to have ventilation unsuited to hot climates (since the RN specified them for North Atlantic work)

Still even if we want to count them as being designed after Pearl Harbor (which I agree is a stretch as they're a direct adaptation of a design that pre-dates it) they barely saw service and were hardly necessarily to win the war. So even such small simple merchant built ships took years to design and build - yet again showing that the US almost exclusively fought and won the war using designs (and often construction) started before, often years before, it entered the war.

A couple interesting articles on this topic.

Chrysler building the Warren Tank Factory and getting approval of the M2 tank - approved July 17, 1940: completed by June, 1941. M3 production starts on April 12, 1941.

http://www.allpar.com/history/military/arsenal-of-democracy.html

The M4 Sherman - Why it was the way it was. Breakdown of the factors in US WWII tank design. Especially of note the (Planned) 6 month delay factor between construction and the battlefield, and the fact that everything the Sherman needed from oil to spares to ammo had to be built in number and shipped to Europe Reliability, durability and ease of repair was most important when the factory is 5000 miles away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwIlrAosYiM

Relax wrote:

doug941 wrote:1) The F8F never saw COMBAT service during WW2, but it was in service with VF-19 beginning in May 1945.
2) Ditto with the Fireball. It entered service with a single squadron, VF-66, beginning in March 1945.
3) The P-80 was sent to Europe for in theater flight testing in both Italy and the UK and were in theater by January 1945. 45 "A" models were in service by July 1945.
4) The various DE classes were equipped with either 3x3" guns or 2x5" guns, not quite cap guns. And 4 of the 6 classes were equipped with 21" torpedoes. The Buckley class USS England sank SIX Japanese in 12 days, from May 18 to May 31 1944. And would you say that an approx 1,740 ton ship at full load going toe to toe with 4 battleships (including Yamato), 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers is something expected of a minor design? Four of the US vessels at the Battle of Samar on October 25 were DEs and of those, Samuel B Roberts, was sunk by Japanese gunfire.
5) The Tacomas were BASED on the River class but only very
loosely. Armament, crew compliment, engineering equipment etc were strictly American, the design was drawn up by the US Maritime Commission. And with 75 of the 96 completed seeing service in the US Navy, they don't quite met the standard of minor design.

1) you agree with me
2) never saw service nor production as both failed navy quals
3) A P80 preproduction joke is your ground you wish to stand on? Where its propulsion unit came from the UK. You know, 90% of the design work...
4) If you really want to hang your hat on a dumbed down DD design started in 1941 where everything was cheapened like the CVE's... Ok. Usually to claim something it needs to be an improvement, not a cheapened joke where 100% of them were immediately shelved after August of 45.
5) Both USA/UK used same units and made the same parts. This is like saying the USA designed the RR Merlin engine... uh, I mean ... Packard designed it right?

1, 2 & 3)Being in service doesn't have a requirement of being shot at. The Bearcat, Firefly and Shooting Star were all on the books as in squadron service prior to August 15, 1945. Using your definition of "In service" the thousands of planes used for pilot, navigator, gunnery etc training were never in service either because they never saw an enemy.
4) Not just the DEs were decommissioned after VJ-Day. Every type from subs to battleships were mothballed and many sold for scrap. EVERY pre-Gato sub was tossed aside by 1948 except 9 which were decommissioned and then used as non-mobile training vessels and all of them were gone by 1958.
Destroyers were dropping like flies as well. 5 Farraguts survived the war, all gone before 1946. 7 Porters survived. 1 converted into a test ship and was decommed in 1950, The others? 1 decommed in 1946 the others in 1945. 10 Mahans gone by 1947. Of the 3 fleet carriers that survived the war all were decommed by 1947. Every single battleship except Missouri was decommed by 1949, and she lasted until 1955. The point here is that under Truman the budgets, staffing and vessel lists were cut. Older but still useful vessels were sold, given away or razor bladed. And by the way, a number of DEs were kept in service into the 1960s as radar picket craft.
5) Two River class frigates were Reverse Lend-Leased to the US from Canada, but the Tacoma WAS NOT a clone of them. The two classes had different lengths, widths, and drafts, had different engines, had different weapons, had different ranges, had vastly different crewing (Tacoma was just short of twice the men and RN ships had a well deserved reputation for being crowded). Two types of vessels designed to do the same jobs frequently resemble the other to some degree.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:The SLN could have, conceivably manned many of their mothballs if they would have been able to formally declare war. They didn't have the innate impractical limits on warm bodies like the SKM does. The League's limit is all red tape that would quickly dissipate in the face of a formal declaration of war. I'm sure they had a contingency plan for reactivation, a plan which was probably in mothballs too, but still.

Which brings me to another point that perplexes me. If the Mandarins would have riled the natives and got that declaration of war - and was really privy to the full extent of Manty tech, thus the force imbalance - they would have needed time. Formally declaring war warns your enemy. It seems more logical and less fatal to accept a war footing amongst yourselves in secrecy before formally going public. In the SL's case, they needed at least a few years headstart, had they really known what they were up against.

That is irrelevant with Manticore, since they were all ready in a state of war with them: simply because they refused to open a diplomatic discussion. The declaration of war was needed because it freed up financial resources and granted additional powers over the member states (remember the discussion with Beowulf about their independent policies absent a declaration). The declaration of war cedes power from the members to the state.

Granted. And admittedly, my notion demands lots of "ifs." But if the Mandarins had seen all of the writing on the wall and decided to prematurely deflate the situation by opening said discussion and was actually cordial—buying themselves the necessary time to stab the Manties in the back Peep-style, like what happened under the Pierre-Just regime—things would have turned out quite differently, and the Queen would have been standing in the unemployment line. The speed with which the SLN seems to be able to produce its tech is sobering. It is obvious the MA are aware of that fact as well and took precautions to see it didn't happen.

Side order:
Topics like this that have a current events component always amuses me. It is very entertaining, and impressive to read the level of historical sophistication here in the forum, and not simply because I once hated history. At any rate, good reading.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:[uote="Castenea"]

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).[/quote]


Yes and no, the Manhattan Project didn't begin until mid 1942. Also development of proximity fuses as started in late 42 and entered service by the end of 43. As to the U.S. Government building up for war in 38 it actually began in 1935.

cthia wrote:It occurred to me. The Mandarins wanted a pretext to formally declare war with civilian blessing so they could procure the funds and bodies to drive it, which, I assume, means reactivating the draft. In the Honorverse - per the League - how far beyond Sol would the draft extend? Just the Core worlds? As a founder, Beowulf would have been subject to the draft as well?

With 10,000 ships in mothballs, as many as 30,000,000 people might have been needed to crew them, if reactivating them all.

The reserve was gathered around Jupiter. One GA podnaught could have taken it out. In a c-frac strike the SLN probably would have known anything was coming until the missiles lit off.