Originally posted by Westy
"In floating drydock ABSD-1, off Aessi Island, Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, on 13 November 1944. "
IMO that this was possible is yet another solid example of why the Axis never could have won the war.
Could any of the Axis powers had a dry dock, thousands that size of miles away from home, to perform maintenance on a capitol ship of that size?
An excellent point. When you talk about the German surface navy, for example, every sortie has been recorded as an event, even of supply ships, raiders, etc. That's because the sum total of activity was very small. And the Germans had almost NO support structure in place to maintain, fuel, or protect their forces at sea. And therefore German warships had a short, exciting career.
The Japanese were somewhat better off, but still had nothing like the structure needed in place on day 1 of the war, much less later. They got into the naval war long before they had the infrastructure to support it.
A big part of the reasoning behind the "hit 'em where they ain't" plan used by Nimitz was to skip around (and isolate) those few Japanese bases that were built up to support their fleet, thus making Jap fleet operations nearly impossible. By isolating Truk early, the Japanese fleet was forced back on their home bases. They had as long a commute to get to the fight as US forces did, but didn't have a mobile support force to enable them to sustain any kind of operations. The USN did, and that support force is what really won the war, if you look at it from a strategic standpoint.
