Naval History Forums

People seem to be assuming that the UK/US would have been helpless in the face of an Type XXI onslaught. The assumption seems to be that, even if the Germans changes the historical script, the Allies would have stayed on it. If faced earlier in the war with modern, quiet, fast, submerged subs that e...

"Hitler lost the war one way or the other on June 22 1941" I think a case could be made that the Nazis, if they were smart, should have made sure to finish off the UK before ever choosing to tangle with the USSR, or perhaps even never initiated Barbarossa at all. On the other hand, I think...

Allied physicists and engineers showed themselves to be generally adept at coming up with anti-submarine technologies as the months and years of WW2 went on. If Type XXIs had been deployed in 1943, I imagine that more Allied R&D resources would have been deployed towards detection and destructio...

Tommy303 - you clearly know your stuff. Respect. The hypothetical might work with F8F-2 Bearcats. They never IRL served with the FAA (unlike, of course, other Grumman planes like the F4F, F6F, and TBF). They had smaller wings-unfolded dimensions than any other carrier-borne plane mentioned in this t...

The Sea Fury was smaller than the Fulmar, Skua, Albacore, or Swordfish. The Skyraider was smaller than the Albacore. But the later planes were of course heavy. Argus, Eagle, and Hermes were, of course, all small by WW2 fleet carrier standards. Nearly as I can tell, however, the Courageous, Furious, ...

Slightly off topic: I have repeatedly wondered why the British Government did not keep Warspite, with her unrivaled storied history, as a museum ship. She certainly was more historically relevant than the Belfast was, North Cape notwithstanding. (Similarly - with five WW2-era carriers and ten WW2-er...