07-12-2019, 05:03 AM | #21 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Tsunami-1
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Also subs tend to run on the water except when attacking, or evading attacks at whatever time of the day simply because being submerged it's really hard to see anything (even with WW2 sonar) and you are extremely slow and have very poor range submerged. You also never know when you will need to submerge to escape something so you really want those batteries charged just in case. On top of this basically everything is harder when you are underwater. German u boats really didn't spend much time submerged (look at the prow of a WW2 u-boat and post war submarine for comparison of where their designers knew they'd spend most of their time). Someone once described a u-boat as a pretty rubbish normal boat that occasionally goes underwater.
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course Last edited by Tomsdad; 07-12-2019 at 08:25 AM. |
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07-12-2019, 07:34 AM | #22 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Tsunami-1
There was, IIRC, precisely one recorded sinking of one submerged submarine by another in WW2 (and, IIRC again, only one since) and it was something of a freak (a British boat detected its opponent due to the noise made by engine problems, estimated the location and fired a spread of torpedoes, one of which hit).
For those that like maritime trivia, the only recorded sinking of a sub by a battleship was carried out by HMS Dreadnaught during WW1 - apparently she found it surface in front of her and simply ran it down before it could dive. |
07-12-2019, 08:23 AM | #23 |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Tsunami-1
Personally I like the OP's idea that actually both just collided and sank with all hands, and both sides assumed* the other had torpedoed or shelled their boat
Some bits of the Irish sea could make that not unlikely *which is a actually a bit of an assumption since if neither side's boat radios out what happened (even just there had been contact) both sides only have their own boat's last known position and an overdue for contact / lost boat
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course Last edited by Tomsdad; 07-15-2019 at 03:23 AM. |
07-12-2019, 08:24 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Tsunami-1
Actually here's a question does Enigma/Shark etc get broken in this TL?
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course |
07-14-2019, 09:50 AM | #25 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Tsunami-1
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07-15-2019, 02:52 AM | #26 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
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Re: Tsunami-1
I don't see why not.
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07-15-2019, 05:19 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Tsunami-1
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I'm still interested in how Britain gets the bomb though, and perhaps more importantly how quickly it can manufacture them.
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course Last edited by Tomsdad; 07-15-2019 at 09:58 AM. |
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07-15-2019, 09:37 AM | #28 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Tsunami-1
Well, as Michele said back in post #13, the trick is affording it. There are plenty of scientists and engineers who can have the necessary insights, but this is an expensive project and the UK has many other things to pay for.
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07-15-2019, 10:14 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Tsunami-1
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There's also the question that if the US is bankrolling it one assume they'll also want access to it. (Which shouldn't be a major problem really, but in this TL we don't have the same side by side shared fighting history and close co-operation you do in OTL) On actually doing it the theory might have been known, but there is still a lot of unknowns and pitfalls between drawing board and deliverable weapon system. Not forgetting you also need a delivering platform a technology that also requires a significant development* and practice, it's just in OTL we were already doing that to drop conventional bombs of course. *the B-29 bomber project cost more than the Manhattan project! Not that the B-29 was the only 4 prop heavy bomber of course but once you get away from the B-29 other options have disadvantages.
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course |
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07-15-2019, 02:17 PM | #30 | |||
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Tsunami-1
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Frisch and Peierls, German emigres in the UK who were technically enemy aliens and thus not allowed to work on military projects had a go on their own initiative early in 1940, found an easy way to calculate an approximate critical mass, and realised the job was doable. The British project was called "Tube Alloys" but most of its people ended up at Los Alamos. Merging the projects just made sense historically: the US had far more industrial capacity and money, and was not exposed to bombing. Quote:
The Lancaster doesn't have the same range capability as the B29, but that just means you have to launch from Okinawa rather than the Mariana Islands. The bomb shackle that was used in the B-29 for the atomic bombings was from the Lancaster, and had been developed for the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, the latter of which was far heavier than the WWII nukes.
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