The Ship Model Forum

History teaches that the Japanese planners attempted to cover all the bases, not just the important ones. An Australian carrier would have demanded a critical division of forces at the outset of the war. The upshot might not be what you expect, though. The announcement of an Australian carrier program might have caused Japan to summon forth two or four more Japanese carriers through one of their characteristically herculean efforts.

The Australians confident that the US would not allow the Japanese to launch a full-scale invasion of their country? In the time frame discussed (pre-1943) the US was in no position to protect their own possessions in SE Asia and the DEI, much less the Australian continent. The best we could do was blunt Japanese attacks on New Guinea and the Central Pacific.

The Australians had to depend on their size and remoteness to delay the Japanese. Still, Darwin was subject to attack. While Japan was not up to a full-scale invasion, they were more than able to make long-range strikes, such as the attack on Ceylon that resulted in the loss of Hermes.

Little defenseless Hermes can hardly be used as a representative example of a modern carrier of the time. Any British fleet carrier with reasonable endurance and a competent air wing could have helped Australia by providing a mobile source of reinforcement for land-based air. Such as ship could draw the Japanese within range of land-based air power, as well as launching hit-and-run raids ala' Halsey.

A big surface unit to serve as a fleet in being to intimidate the Japanese? I thought that was the idea behind sending PoW and Repulse. We all know how well that went. If we follow the Panzerschiffe model, remember these ships were not designed to engage capital ships: rather, they were to be commerce raiders.
Such a ship might be able to knock off an occassional individual warship, but the Japanese employed carrier strike groups, not surface units operating independently.

A major problem at the start of the war would be suitable aircraft for any carrier operating against the Japanese. The US had some catching up to do: Buffalos, Wildcats, Devestators. What would the UK bring to the table? Gladiators, Fulmars, Swordfish. Not a happy prospect.

Although the penalty as far as relationship with Britain is comparable, the gains are vastly different. In the case of buying warships from the US, the security gains for Australia, while not insignificant, is small in the greater scheme of things. Japan could still easily overwhelm Australia and US would still by no means to guaranteed to defend Australia. In the case of convincing the US to base the pacific fleet near Australia, the security gains for Australia would be of the largest magnitude imaginable. There are no other practical steps Australia could take that would secure Australia against Japan more.

[quote="chuck"]...the US would undoubtedly demand concessions from Australia in terms of its relationship to Britain that would probably not go down well in London at all at the time. [/quote]

This is one of the reasons I challenged your notion of negotiating with the US, earlier. To go even further, Australia was not an autonomous, sovereign entity but rather a Crown Territory. Australia's leadership was responsible to the Crown and, like Canada, was tied to Britain a bit more strongly than mere allegiance to the Union Jack.

Beyond p****ing off London, the question of legality can be raised i.e., was Australia even capable of negotiating her own terms without Crown involvement or, at the very least, approval? Not long into the Pacific War she did just that, mainly because Britain had hijacked most of her troops and land defense capabilities in Burma, and the Australians were reluctantly coming to the realization their contributions, naval as well, were not to be reciprocated.

But, none of this applied in 1938 and Australia was still very much a member of the [i]British[/i] Empire. Would anyone in her government have had the political will (let alone, authority) to go against the grain in such a manner? I cannot imagine a Sydney equivalent of the Boston Tea Party.

In my readings on this subject, it comes across pretty clearly that Britain was simply looking to put some type of naval force at Singapore or in Australian waters to deter Japan from going to war with them at a time when Britain was going to be at full stretch in home waters and the Medit. All 4 "R"s were meant to go to Singapore at some point. I think the Australian capitial ship was meant to be a brand new vessel. A repeat of what was done leading up to WWI when Australia and New Zealand were built at their expense. As I said before, I see it as a 'backdoor way' to get Australia to pay for a capital ship. To deter Japan was the goal, but it was grasping at straws. Still,having a modern capital ship to deter surface raiding in Australian/NZ waters would require a FAST capital ship. Slow speed would be of no use. The plan was for any Australian Capital ship to join with RN fleet units coming out to Singapore or to fall back on Ceylon if need be.
Bob B.

Would transferring an existing RN Warship to the RAN have been an option, perhaps freeing up tonnage for the RN to use on brand new ships elsewhere within the limits of the applicanle treaty?

Would modernizing ,for example off the top of my head, [i]Royal Oak[/i] of been of any benefit?

[i]Royal Oak[/i] was probably too slow to operate effectively in conjunction with the RAN cruisers but there might have been other ships suitable?

Ibz

Actually, while the British Empire remained largely intact, Australia and New Zealand were never anywhere near as important to Britain as Egypt, India or Persia, or even Malaysia and Singapore, let lone the British Isles. It is questionable weather the US really would build a capital ship for Australia when the US industry was as fully committed to building a 2 ocean navy as was possible in peacetime. Also, in return for building a capitol ship for Australia, the US would undoubtedly demand concessions from Australia in terms of its relationship to Britain that would probably not go down well in London at all at the time. It is vital to keep in mind that US was not an ally of the British [b]Empire[/b], formally or interest wise. US was merely an ally of [b]Britain[/b] in her struggle against Germany and possibly Japan. US would very much like Britain to prevail against Germany, to keep far eastern portions of the British Empire out of Japanese hands, keep central Asian portion of British empire out of Russian hands, but would also very much like to take all of British empire out of Britain's hands, although not so urgently. All the Anglo-American Bonhomie aside, London and Washington were both very much aware of this profound underlying conflict as long as British empire lasted and Britain wished the Empire to last much longer. Full peacetime Anglo-American alliance that existed after WWII would never have been possible had it not become clear in Britain, and the US, that British [b]Empire[/b] was completely moribund and would slough away in due time.

[quote="Werner"]If the RAN were to order a 23,000 ton carrier, I wonder if they would accept an "off the shelf" RN design. It seems to me they would demand additional bunkerage far and beyond what was fit to existing RN carriers for operations in the Mediterranean or North Sea.

[i]Ark Royal[/i] had a range of 7,600 miles at 20 knots. [i]Victorious[/i]' range was 11,000 miles at 14 knots. For comparison, [i]Essex[/i]' range was 20,000 miles at 15 knots. The British units also had very small supplies of aviation stores and fuel, a sore point for their 1945 Pacific operations.

I am sure the Australian Admiralty would look to the designs of the likely enemy as well as friendly advice from their American counterparts and incorporate these lessons if at all possible. The result might have looked like a cross between American and British practice.

Such a ship would also require a squadron of [i]Tribal[/i] sized destroyers as consort, as well as a couple of [i]Dido[/i]s, perhaps manned by the RNZN.[/quote]


I noted early on the possibility that Australia could go to US ship Builders if the British were overstretched in the Capital ship department. The problem is of course the compatibility with the RN supply system.
This brings us to the British worries in the Pacific and the reason for desperation when looking over the Pacific situation. Aus/NZ were nearly as important to the Empire as the Home Islands. But with Japan rising and Britain looking to be in a desperate struggle with Germany, the Pacific Dominions were hanging out to dry. How to help them, defend them and keep them in the fold??
A thinking person could see the obivious pull that a rising USA would have on AUs/NZ. For many reasons they were unlikely to want to switch to an America alliance. But temptation must have been strong. With a stroke of the pen, the Aus/NZ governments would have solved their defence problems. Just a thought. I don't know if this was ever considered. An Australian might be able to tell us :wave_1:

Bob B.

If the RAN were to order a 23,000 ton carrier, I wonder if they would accept an "off the shelf" RN design. It seems to me they would demand additional bunkerage far and beyond what was fit to existing RN carriers for operations in the Mediterranean or North Sea.

[i]Ark Royal[/i] had a range of 7,600 miles at 20 knots. [i]Victorious[/i]' range was 11,000 miles at 14 knots. For comparison, [i]Essex[/i]' range was 20,000 miles at 15 knots. The British units also had very small supplies of aviation stores and fuel, a sore point for their 1945 Pacific operations.

I am sure the Australian Admiralty would look to the designs of the likely enemy as well as friendly advice from their American counterparts and incorporate these lessons if at all possible. The result might have looked like a cross between American and British practice.

Such a ship would also require a squadron of [i]Tribal[/i] sized destroyers as consort, as well as a couple of [i]Dido[/i]s, perhaps manned by the RNZN.

[quote="Werner"]Did the UK (under whom these ships would be counted) have the tonnage under the London Treaty? Certainly no battleship could be laid down before 1936. The USN was adhering to the London Treaty well into 1940 (see the first designs for CL-55 as an 8,000 ton cruiser, for example).

Was there sufficient treaty tonnage to lay down an Australian carrier?[/quote]


A British 1938 battleship would fall under the Second London Treaty. Second London Treaty takes effect in 1936 and imposes no total tonnage limitations, only individual qualitative restrictions. Second London Treaty reduced the individual qualitative restrictions on battleships and cruisers inherited from washington treaty. Battleships were still allowed to be 35,000 tons, but caliber is reduced from 16" to 14". Maximum cruiser displacement was reduced from 10,000 tons to 8,000 tons, and cruiser caliber limit, already reduced from 8" to 6" by the first London treaty, were kept as it. When Japan refused to sign the second London Treaty, an escalator clause was added that permitted battleship displacement to increase to 45,000 tons and caliber restored to 16", on the theory this will allow the treaty signatories to build ships that would match the strongest ships Japan was likely to build.

The only overall tonnage agreement in place after 1936 was the Anglo-German agreement which limits German total tonnage in most categories to 35% of RN tonnage, and Anglo-Soviet agreement which similarly limits Soviet Tonnage in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black sea to a certain percentage (Which I don't remember off the top of my head) of RN tonnage, but does not restrict total Soviet tonnage in the pacific. Britain, US and Italy has no treaty cap on their total tonnage. Japan and France were no longer party to any naval limitation treaty at all.

In theory Britain was free to build her heart out so long as whatever she builds is under 35,000 tons and 14" before 1938, and 45,000 tons and 16" after 1938.

Did the UK (under whom these ships would be counted) have the tonnage under the London Treaty? Certainly no battleship could be laid down before 1936. The RN gave notice of it's suspension of the London Treaty in late 1939, and the USN was adhering to the treaty well into 1940 (see the first designs for CL-55 as an 8,000 ton cruiser, for example).

Was there sufficient treaty tonnage to lay down an Australian carrier?

[quote="chuck"]It seems unlikely that any Australian capital ship would be built to a unique design. Since the ship has to be built in Britain and utilize British armament and infrastructural resources, any Australian capital ships would likely be a member of a class of ships already under construction for Britain. In this case the most likely class would be the Vanguard for reasons mentioned above.[/quote]

This is true. It would, for many reasons, be a copy of an existing RN class. That is why I say a simple repeat of Ark Royal. If a BB was wanted it could get interesting. I don't know if Britain had space for adding another BB hull anytime soon. But if so, a simple purchase of a King George V class BB, with Britain adding a 6th ship to the class. A new version of Hood would be nice, but take longer and cost more. Still that would be nice, the speed would give her more value.
It's true that Britain realized that her only prayer in the Pacific was to bring the USA along. Her policy was to try at all costs to bring the USA in. The Australian capital ship suggestion was pure desperation on their part. With war coming in Europe and the IJN being as strong as it was, Britain would have had to give up all but Australia and NZ right from the start. And they did. Her position in the pacific was hopeless without the USN. Her main goal was to get the USN to station her BattleFleet at Singapore. The USN would have none of that, they refused all attempts to be talked into basing capital ships at Singapore.

Bob B.

I don't think Panzerschiff really is superior in combat power to Washington class A cruisers like the Takao, and on top of that Japan had 4 battle cruisers with which to hunt down any Australian panzerschiff. The probable disposition of Japanese in a future war is unknown in 1938, so Panzerschiff would not be an attractive option for Australia.

It seems unlikely that any Australian capital ship would be built to a unique design. Since the ship has to be built in Britain and utilize British armament and infrastructural resources, any Australian capital ships would likely be a member of a class of ships already under construction for Britain. In this case the most likely class would be the Vanguard for reasons mentioned above.

Well, my two pennies on this stack would go similar to this...

The Austrailian administration rejected the capital ship proposal because of docking. This could be answered by conversion of liners into carriers. That in itself could provide some merit, being that it's more cost efficient than ground-up carrier construction.

Thus, the thought comes to the principle of a true capital ship, not a carrier. Carriers, even in the treaty text, were defined seperately as Carriers, anything else being a Capital Ship in general. Thus, the question arises. What would the Austrailians seek for a capital ship. If they're going to get into the principle of docking establishments, they could go two ways. A, something akin to the Panzerschiffe, roughly the size of a cruiser, but with more punch than a cruiser, because it would not stretch the docking requirements. This would be able to keep pace with the cruiser groups, it would be more than enough to deter raiders, and could retain a purpose when the RN task force arrived. B, they could go for a purebred capital ship, get big or go home, and commission a fast battleship, not unlike a modernized hood or perhaps a G3-esque design. Realistically, the core tenet would be speed and protection, it would have to be fast enough to keep pace with the cruisers, and protected enough not to be a waste of money. If you're going to build One capital ship, might as well make it worth the money. By 1938, the Deutschland Class had proven some of their ability, so it could have been a probable idea.

[quote="RNfanDan"]And investing Australian money in the building of a base for another nation's navy, on the chance that nation will be allied with Australia if and when any prospective war should come, is somehow less implausible than investing in an aircraft carrier to reinforce their own fleet?[/quote]

It's not like it would take a wholesale realignment of US strategic outlook to ally itself with an Australia openly threatened by Japan. It is clear that in a general war UK can not do much to help Australia. The key for a good Australian defence is to ensure that when the chips are down, the US would be sufficiently entangled with Australia to feel compelled to overcome a [i]few modest objections [/i] she might otherwise have to throwing in her lots completely with Australia [b]early on[/b]. The main reason why it is not unreasonable to suppose US would be happy to be thus entangled is it is not an minority opinion in the US that US would have to fight Japan some day anyway. Another reason is the fact the one aim of the US, despite the alliance, had always been to slowly dismantle the British empire anyway, and the US wouldn't necessarily be happy even if the UK could by some chance come to Australian defense and thus cementing Anglo-Australian bond. However, in reality, modest objections such as short-term domestic political expediency and completely inappropriate disposition of forces could possibly prevent the US coming in on Australian side to save Australian bacon. It is therefore the Australian imperative to help the US overcome these potential inconveniences. Hence the base plan.

The difference between the base plan and the plans to add a carrier and a couple of cruisers is the naval base plan, if it should work - admittedly it may not work - will from the perspective of 1938 give almost as complete an assurance of Australian security from Japan for the foreseeable future as can be imagined by [i]overcoming ahead of time[/i] the obstacle to US coming into the war on Australian side early on. The fleet reinforcement plan, on the other hand, will give Australia not only [b]no [/b]assurance of security, but not even a really meaningful increase in security, even if it works perfectly, which, given its reliance on Britain for completion and the impending European war everyone know is coming, we and the Australians, and the British, know it wouldn't. So the fleet plan [b]still depends on the goal of the base plan being achieved[/b] if it were to have any chance of actually saving Australia from Japan, rather just make the Japanese more vengeful.

Besides I would say the [i]chances[/i] that US would respond positively and base large elements of the pacific fleet either in Australia, or in Philipine but with substantial presence and logistic tail in Australia, is [i]at least as large as[/i] any chance that an Australian naval force capable of impeding a detachment of IJN would actually not be sucked into Britain's European war just before Japan strikes.

Frankly, Dan, you are not in Yamamoto's league when it comes to basic odds calculation, are you? :big_grin:

[quote="chuck"]
I said the best thing Australia can do to enhance her defense in 1938 is to convince the US to base pacific fleet near by, not to build any big ticket naval ships for herself.
[/quote]

And investing Australian money in the building of a base for another nation's navy, on the chance that nation will be allied with Australia if and when any prospective war should come, is somehow less implausible than investing in an aircraft carrier to reinforce their own fleet?

Frankly Chuck, Yamamoto's plan for the USN to behave the way he predicted they would at Midway, faced a better chance of realization than your theory.

That is

1. The USN demonstrated it can provide bases for itself when and where it needs them. The Cockatoo dockyard is enough heavy repair for the phase 1942-3.

2. The Japanese possess a very powerful navy with immense obligations at the start of a Pacific war. Any Australian naval power is going to demand many fold it's size in defensive ships to be deployed in the Dutch East Indies and the Kra Peninsula. An analogue is the immense army tied down in North China and Manchuria solely to counter a possible thrust by the small force the Soviet Union kept across the border 1942-3.

3. The ability to threaten Brunei and other fuel heads in 1942 would easily be worth the construction costs.

4. Such a force would need to sortie from time to time as did the German fleet in Norway to make the threat real.

5. A carrier could strike Brunei 100 hours after leaving Northern Australia. Withdrawal into land-based air cover would occur just as quickly and with a minimum of exposure to Japanese land-based air, especially if the strike is planned to use bad weather fronts.

I am not sure if I see the logical connection. We are talking about the particular defensive needs of a single very sparsely populated nation, with low industrial capacity and little naval and military infrastructure, an no powerful ally close at hand, against the No.3 naval power in the world. The conclusion arising from that does not translate to general contest between densely populated and extensively industrialized powers with deep naval and military infrastructures.

In that event, a whole lot of Battleships and Heavy Cruisers should never have been built. And I agree they should never have been built.

Bob B.

[quote="bengtsson"]

Okay, why is having an additional heavy warship, BB or Carrier bad for the RAN?

[/quote]

Because it cost resource and money that Australia could put to better use, like building a fleet base for the US pacific fleet.


[quote="bengtsson"] Note, if you build nothing you lose by default.[/quote]

Unless building something would not materially have effected the outcome, but would have taken up resource that could have effected a better outcome if devoted to something else.

[quote="bengtsson"]
Even the USN might have been happy in 1942 to shelter a RAN Carrier at Pearl if need be.


Bob B.[/quote]

Little good would that do Australia in many of the defense scenarios the Australians must have been running through in 1938.