On this date in the history of our Navy

https://www.navy.mil/search/display_history.asp ^

[M1903A1]

I am amazed that the Leyte Gulf saga has never been made into a movie.

[minnesota_bound]

I am getting a 404 error.

[rlmorel]

Mostly U-Boat based encounters. The Nazis were unable to get their ships to sea effectively once allied air power began getting a foothold, IMO.

[rlmorel]

Great author and that is indeed a great book. Even better, IMO, is “Neptune’s Inferno” about the Naval battles around Guadalcanal when the USN and IJN were battling from a position of relative parity.

Surface warfare between ships was violent, brutal, and barbaric.

[redlegplanner]

Graf Zepplin, German Aircraft Carrier. Laid down, but never quite completed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_aircraft_carrier_Graf_Zeppelin

[Arlis]

If you ever want to see the evidence of the hand of God in war, study the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

But then the same can be said about Midway.

[Jim Noble]

During the Battle off Cape Engaño, 3rd Fleet carrier aircraft, surface ships and submarines strike the Japanese Northern Force off northeastern Luzon

TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS

[oldvirginian]

Yeah, I’ve been made aware of the Graf Zeppelin and the other two planned carriers.
Hitler, however, showed a great lack of foresight by not rushing completion of the naval air arm before he started his land war. Would have made a big difference dealing with the British navy.

[Bull Snipe]

Halsey fell for it.

[kiryandil]

During the Battle off Samar in the midst of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, four Japanese battleships, eight cruisers and 11 destroyers surprise U.S. Navy Task Unit 77.4.3 consisting of six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts.

Taffy 3 Rules!!!

[redlegplanner]

My favorite what -if is the question of what might have happened if he had used the steel and labor on the Bismarck and Tirpitz for U-bots

[Bull Snipe]

by late 1944, that steel would have still lay on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.

[oldvirginian]

Hitler was absorbed by building a surface fleet to rival the Brits. As a consequence he went to war with only 56 U-boats, only 24 of those were capable of operating in the North Atlantic.
https://www.navyhistory.org.au/british-and-german-submarine-statistics-of-world-war-ii/#:~:text=THE%20GERMAN%20NAVY%20commenced%20World%20War%20II%20with,or%20other%20causes.%20The%20first%20British%20submarine.%201906

I read somewhere that the Kriegsmarine wanted 150 U-boats before the war started but Plan Z, the plan to build surface ship parity with England, took priority until the war started.

Hitler also had a fondness for huge rail car guns that took huge resources to build, maintain, move, fire and guard.
The Schwerer Gustav weighed 1,000 long tons supported by eight bogies on two parallel railway tracks. Each of the bogies had 5 axles, giving a total of 40 axles (80 wheels).
It had a huge crew to move it, a huge crew to fire it and about a regiment to guard it.
What if all that steel had been put into trucks and halftracks to move troops with the armored columns?

An awful lot of what ifs can be thought up when it comes to WW2.