Following the decisive battle of Algiers the Italian navy saw action again in June 1942 as opposing cruiser patrol groups met and clashed in the Ionian Sea. The allies were keen to press the Italian navy into action, to further weaken the axis and their hold on north Africa, so when the cruisers Pensacola and Salt Lake city came across three italian cruisers and their escorts they attacked immediately.
The action took place in shocking conditions for June in the Med, and both sides had difficulties landing telling hits on the enemy. However in an effort to get a better bead on Pensacola, the cruiser Garibaldi inadvertantly opened herself up to a coordinated torpedo strike by the american destroyers. The result was predictable and the Garibaldi went down with all hands in the rough Ionian sea. In the melee both sides lost two destroyer class vessels, and the Salt Lake City suffered some damage to her superstructure. However the Italians came off worst and the allies once again asserted their dominance in the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile the Germans were turning to a different tactic in the channel and north sea. In early June the disastrous loss of three surface raiders in a singla action made the Kriegsmarine wary of sorties, so the Luftwaffe decided to try out "big wing" actions with large numbers of Stuka divebombers. The first of these was tried against a convoy making its way along the channel, and included the an ocean liner full of troops, as well as munitions and supplies headed for north africa. The Luftwaffe attacked in force, but th Royal Navy escorts put up a storm of fire. Many of the divebombers were swatted out of the sky by AA fire, and although the troopship was damaged, casualties were not severe. The Luftwaffe had tried - and failed to stop the allies using the channel as their own private highway.
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Monday 5 May 2014
Battle of the North Sea
The British navy were quick to respond to the sortie, having broken the german naval codes. The royal navy had organised into rapid reaction task forces, each consisting of a battleship, an aircraft carrier as well as escorting cruisers and destroyers. This enabled the British to split up their forces and cover the maximum area of sea, while still packing enough punch to deal with one, or maybe two of the german navy's surface raiders on their own. Now however they needed to deal with three.
Unperturbed, the home fleet sent their nearest battle group towards the expected breakout point of the german raiders. The force consisted of the aircraft carrier Corageous and the venerable Valiant, a modified WWI battleship which none-the-less sported 16" guns. Escorted by the cruisers Hermione and Naiad and a group of destroyers, the british ships made good time in the pleasant June weather and early morning on the 7th June the british and german vessels sighted each other.
Both forces closed immediately for battle, and confidence was high on both sides. The germans kept their forces together, and revealed they were protected by Luftwaffe fighters. The air strike launched by Courageous was easily dealt with by the german fighters, and realising the carrier was in 11" gun range, Graf Spee and Scharnhorst opened up on her, damaging the flight deck and forcing the british to disengage. Courageous played no further meaningful part in the battle.
The german ships now concentrated on Valiant, but found to their distress that her armour held up well to their 11" and 8" guns. Meanwhile accurate plunging fire from Valiant's 16" main battery began to take its toll, with Scharnhorst the main target. Hit several times the german battlecruiser was soon a burning mess. Now the british cruisers and destroyers charged into the fray, and although the destroyers were themselves sunk by the german ships' secondary weapons, they succeeded in torpedoing the Prinz Eugen, crippling the heavy cruiser, which later sank.
The Scharnhorst tried to get away, but Valiant continued to pour shells into her with some spectacularly accurate shooting. Soon she stopped dead in the water and sank at 09:07. The Graf Spee should have escaped, but the Valiant was not done. At 10:15 and at extreme range, the british ship landed a 16" salvo with almost pinpoint accuracy. Hit by five 16" shells the Graf Spee was fatally holed, and rolled over and sank in under twenty minutes.
Niaid and Hermione picked up survivors, while the Valiant's crew could hardly believe their crushing victory. In one morning the Kriegsmarine had lost three of their most dangerous surface raiders, almost a third of her capital vessels, for the loss of three destroyers, a handful of swordfish and some damage to Courageous and Valiant's superstructure. Immediately the british were reporting the great naval victory, although it took the german regime several weeks to admit their losses. Hitler was furious, forbidding any further "rash actions" by the Kriegsmarine. The initiative in the atlantic naval war had shifted heavily in favour of the allies.
Friday 2 May 2014
Battle of the western Med
Admiral Cunningham was determined to use every advantage he had over the Italians to the fullest. With Ark Royal refitting, air power could not be the deciding factor in the battle to come, but radar and night fighting ability could. Cunningham therefore resolved to attack at night. The second problem would be luring the Italians to battle, so the British made the decision to sail in force past Malta with a force of battleships. They would bombard first the African coast and if that failed to rouse their enemy, shell Taranto itself if necessary. The British stripped their other areas of control of all but the most vital assets. Cunningham now had Duke of York, Nelson, Resolution and Revenge, as well as three cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers. On 25th May 1942 this force sailed into Axis controlled waters, daring the Italian navy to come out and fight.
As it turned out the Italian Navy, despite their losses to the US fleet earlier on in the year, were spoiling for a fight and had already sent a powerful force to sea to face the Russians. This force now turned to intercept the British, but as planned Cunningham dodged the Italian fleet until night had fallen. Worse still an unseasonal gale blew up in the region, making conditions particularly difficult for both sides. Knowing his force had radar and were better trained in night fighting, Admiral Cunningham now attacked the Italian fleet.
The Italians soon detected the lead elements of the British fleet, and sent their light forces to investigate. The cruisers London, Dorsetshire and Norfolk were soon fighting a furious action against the italian cruisers Trento and Bolzano, and the arrival of the Italian battleship Ciao Dullio spelled disaster for the british vessels. Norfolk and London were sunk by a combination of gunfire and torpedoes, although the trento was reduced to a wreck by determined torpedo attacks from the British vessels.
Hearing these reports the Italian admiral felt that he had isolated a portion of the British fleet and would now eliminate it with his superior forces. The super dreadnoughts Littorio and Roma, accompanied by the modernised Guilio Cesare rushed to join the action, oblivious to the presence of the British battleship Nelson, which had kept her guns silent. Suddenly the italian searchlights played along the squat structure of the British battleship. Alarmed, the Italians launched a torpedo run by their destroyers, but to their dismay most of the torpedoes missed or failed to explode. Nelson suffered two hits, neither causing significant damage. Despite this setback the Italians still had four battleships to the British one, or so they thought. The Italians engaged Nelson and the Dorsetshire for around twenty minutes, before they were rudely awoken by lines of gun flashes along the horizon. The remaining British battleships had arrived, and took up station line astern of Nelson.
The Italian admiral now had a stark choice. Facing four British ships similar to his own, but with more destroyers who had yet to loose their torpedoes, at night and in bad weather knowing the British had radar, the Italian chose to run. In a well executed manouvre he ordered the about turn of Littorio, Roma and Guillio Cesare. The Littorio suffered a torpedo run from Cunningham's destroyers, but the giant ship was able to evade them by making wild turns. The Ciao Dullio was still fixated on the British cruisers however, which would cost her dearly.
The Ciao Duillio belatedly realised the Italian fleet was fleeing the battle and turning for home. She also turned for home, but by now the old battleship was facing the combined gunfire of five British dreadnoughts. Nelson. Duke of York, Revenge and Resolution poured fire into the ageing italian warship, and within one hour the vessel had rolled over and sunk. The remaining Italian vessels had escaped, the Roma having recieved no hits at all, and returned to port.
Having sunk one battleship and one cruiser for the loss of two cruisers, the British were able to claim victory. More importantly the Italian navy had fled rather than face the British guns, and now the Western mediterannean was firmly under the control of the allies.
Russia enters the naval war!
In spring 1942 the Russian navy made its presence felt for the first time in the war. After securing the agreement of neutral Turkey to pass their navy through the Dardanelles, in exchange for the relinquishing of territorial claims in the east, the Soviet navy prepared to sortie through the Sea of marmara into the eastern Mediterranean. Stalin had a geopolitical agenda as well, aiming to show Russian strength in the Mediterranean to support his claims over eastern Europe. This wasn't lost on the British, who began to step up their own campaign against the Italians.The Russian sortie composed of three cruisers and four destroyers, but the news they had sailed was quickly leaked to the Italians, who dispatched Three Zara class vessels and four destroyers to intercept them. The two forces clashed in the eastern Agean, with the Italian destroyers making a torpedo run on the Russian vessels. Although they managed to sink one crusier, the destroyers paid the ultimate price, being sunk in turn.
The battle now revolved around the remaining cruisers, as of the two Russian destroyers which weren't sunk, only one managed to get off any torpedoes, and the Pola, damaged, quickly retreated under a smokescreen. The Italians now formed a battle line of their two remaining cruisers, and repeatedly crossed the "T" of the Russian cruisers, who focussed on presenting as small a target to the enemy by constantly pointing to face the Italians. The Italian shooting was poor anyway, and the Russian tactics only highlighted this fact. Another cruiser was crippled but the Italians in turn had Zara badly damaged by the front guns of the two soviet light cruisers. What should have been a victory for the Regia Marina turned into defeat, as Fiume and Zara also fled the scene, leaving the eastern Agean open for further Russian sorties.
In the Baltic the soviet navy also sortied in strength,, and the Kriegsmarine were alarmed to find that the Russians had completed and commissioned a super Battleship, the Sovetsky Soyuz class Sovetskaya Belorussiya. Displacing nearly 60,000 tons and armed with nine 16" guns, the ship left Leningrad and was quickly spotted by the German navy. Escorting her was the Kronshtadt, a recently commissioned battlecruiser, and the old WWI battleship Gangut.
In response the Germans sent Tirpitz, along with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and soon enough the two forces met in the Baltic. The judgement of the Soviet Navy was quickly called in to question as the Tirpitz opened fire on Gangut at extreme range. The ageing battleship was totally at a loss to reply, and within minutes was blasted apart by the superior firepower of the german monster. Kronshtadt and Sovetskaya Belorussiya replied with their heavy guns, damaging the Tirpitz, but not decisively. Eventually poor weather forced both sides to return to port, but the Germans now had the upper hand in the Baltic, although the discovery of a Soviet Super-dreadnought was cause for concern.
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