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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 22:26:19 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 22:26:19 GMT -6
QC,
I agree with that likelihood analysis, but if we are "whiffing" it has to be the worst case scenario.
As we discussed above, it takes one bomb through a carrier flight deck at an inopportune moment and you have a raging inferno. A deck park inferno can be the prelude to an unhappy ending.
Nimitz loses Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown at Midway. Kido Butai is unscathed (albeit running hard since December and 1+2 Divs need refits).
It's hard for US subs to disturb merchant vessel movements in the Formosa Straits if pinned back at Pearl Harbor? Lower merchant shipping losses speeds up the completion of the Taiho and the Unryu class?
I think Yamamoto would have loved to have been able to give command of the Kido Butai to Yamaguchi. Don't you?
Nimitz is down to Saratoga and (the death trap) Wasp. No more fleet carriers will join him for at least another 12 months. Just Independences?
Then the IJN just have to pick off Essex class carriers before they develop a critical mass in numbers?
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 22:40:20 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 17, 2015 22:40:20 GMT -6
QC,
I must confess, I have always had a soft spot for the Akagi.
Maybe it's that sleek port island and battlecruiser hull. HMS Hood disease in limey land!
Akagi
WO
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Musashi
Mar 17, 2015 22:57:04 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 22:57:04 GMT -6
At the point when Nagumo launches the anti-shipping strike, all three USN carriers would have been whole and all remaining strike aircraft recovered. Nothing keeps them from turning tail before Nagumo's strike could reach them. Any possible loss would depend upon when the order to turn tail was given. Fletcher nor Spruance are going to delay that in my opinion, if the USN strike results are negative and the losses high. On that decision timing rests the possibility of losing none-one-two-or three.
Very true what you say about the subs but they did not get their butts really into gear until late 43, early 44 anyway.
I think Yammamoto would have done back flips of joy if he had Yamaguchi vice Nagumo.
Points 4 and 5 addressed together. You don't give them the opportunity to pick anything off
The war still ends when it did, but if it lasts until 46, so what. All we did was pussyfoot around the perimeter until 44 anyway.
One of the reasons the Essex Class was delayed in deployment was we were not going to make the same mistake with them, that we did with Hornet, deploy them before they were fully trained up and combat capable.
In my other world the two most popular USN ships to model are Arizona and Hornet. You can understand Arizona but she had no combat history, nor real value as a combatant. She was an old tub, in a poor condition, that had she not been destroyed on the first day of the war, limped her way along throughout the war, serving no purpose that could not have been done faster and better by other newer and even smaller platforms. Hornet was another red headed step child known for one thing on one day. She was a real non-factor at Midway, and she was badly handled at Santa Cruz. Go figure.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 17, 2015 23:03:57 GMT -6
That's OK Justin, I always had a soft spot for Ranger. Still do. A print of her pre-war being overflown by the brightly colored F3F's with bright green tails hangs over the desk where I am sitting here typing this.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 8:32:40 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 18, 2015 8:32:40 GMT -6
In reading over my previous post, I see a misstatement. I stated that, during World War 2 the U.S. launched more ships than had been launched in the entire history of the "war', up to that point. What I meant to say was that they U.S. launched more ships than had been launched in the entire history of the "world", up to that point. Big difference.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 9:17:01 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 18, 2015 9:17:01 GMT -6
The IJN was trying to run a shoestring war against Godzilla. The outcome from the start was inevitable. Their often talked about plan of seizing the resources they needed, protecting it with an outlying ring of fortified islands/island bases, and then seeking a Pax Pacifica with the US was a pipe dream.
We were not going to stop, after Pearl, until they were completely destroyed.
They were an unbalanced force for what warfare in the Pacific demanded. Their technology was well behind the power curve, with a couple of exceptions, notably their torpedoes and optics. Their logistics was a mess. Hara Tamechi notes in his immediate post war book, that he did not even have enough main and secondary gun ammo for his can to enable his crews to practice gunnery, and that was as early as January-February 42. I recommend that book by the way "Japanese Destroyer Captain" as an insightful view of the steady decline of the IJN starting immediately after the war starts. Anyone interested will find it still in print and available from the Naval Institute Press.
The often mentioned here "Shattered Sword" by Parchall and Tully is an essential read as well. If you think Kido Butai was up to snuff your balloon is quickly burst.
I am very glad you find interest in this subject Jodak. It is a nice diversion from the constant machinations of Golden Boy's Fan Club.
WO: I am expecting Ark Royal in the mail today from the UK. A friend of mine picked it up for me at a model show at Theale, Sunday a week ago. Ark is in her 1970's fit and I especially wanted her as a companion for her sister Eagle which I already have. Looking forward to it. Lizzie and Charlie should be available to me by mid summer. Really looking forward to them as well.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 9:30:20 GMT -6
Post by dave on Mar 18, 2015 9:30:20 GMT -6
WO I fail to see the beauty of Akagi. In fact, the IJN's carriers, cruisers and battleships except for Yamato and Musashi were not pretty ships. The stacked bridges and laid back smoke stacks were not attractive. Their ships were effectively used and crews well trained for attacking. Smokeless powder, deadly long lance torpedoes and excellent night viewing optics were deadly attributes for the IJN. Regards Dave
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 10:04:20 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 18, 2015 10:04:20 GMT -6
... and then seeking a Pax Pacifica with the US was a pipe dream. We were not going to stop, after Pearl, until they were completely destroyed. When being briefed upon the deteriorating military situation in the 1st Boer War and possible need to recognize defeat, Queen Victoria replied "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist". Much the same can be said of the U.S. involvement in the Pacific War, paraphrased as "We are not interested in anything less than total victory, the possibility does not exist". The Japanese Navy began to come to grips with that and realize that they had stepped on the wrong rattlesnake during the Solomon's campaign, when they were confounded by the willingness of the U.S. Navy to accept the staggering cruiser/destroyer losses in the Solomon waters and continue to feed in resources to make good those losses, something the Japanese could not match. Ironically the U.S. was aided in this by the loss of the various carriers that we have been discussing, as each time that a carrier was lost that freed up its escorts for other uses, chief among which was to keep funneling them into the surface conflict. The same was true for some of the air assets, which were transferred to Guadalcanal and operated from there. This served much the same purpose as if the carriers themselves were still available in those waters, so their loss was not quite as significant as it first appears.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 10:14:02 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 18, 2015 10:14:02 GMT -6
Could not agree more. Those waters were tailor made for small and medium combatant conflict. As long as Henderson, which is still there by the way, could be kept operational, no one was going to displace us from Guadalcanal/Tulagi. Tulagi offered a fine harbor for emergency repairs which was taken advantage of, and that too was a major asset, where we could save ships locally, while the IJN had to pull back their damaged units to Rabaul and the Shortlands, and a lot that could have been saved were not by the factor of that distance.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 12:20:03 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Mar 18, 2015 12:20:03 GMT -6
Dave: I agree most of the IJN stuff looked like a plumbers nightmare. The only ones I really find pleasing in both design and concept were the Fubuki Specials. They were far ahead of their times for an all purpose fleet destroyer, and we did not have anything that would match them until the mid war modifications on the Fletchers were in service.
Akagi to the IJN was like Hood to the RN, symbolic of the IJN itself.
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 12:22:50 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 18, 2015 12:22:50 GMT -6
It all takes us back to the flaws of the Pearl Harbor raid itself - what did it achieve?
(1) Attacking before declaring war was self-evidently a blunder of the first order.
(2) The IJN would have known that the Yorktown had been transferred to the Atlantic with Bat Div 3 in the Spring, and where the Hornet was now working up. I would hope they knew the Saratoga, and not just the Colorado, was back at the mainland. So they were only ever going to get Enterprise and Lexington, on a best case scenario.
(3) The IJN sank a few old battleships, which the Pac Flt could hardly fuel on the oilers available and which will soon be replaced by the North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa and Montana classes.
(4) The IJN did little to disable the Pearl Harbor base, including the oil storage and repair yards. I guess I can see Nagumo's wariness in hanging around to launch a third strike, given what later happened in a few mins on 4 June 1942 and with 2 carriers unaccounted for, but the IJN had to squeeze every ounce of advantage out of that attack.
WO
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Post by quincannon on Mar 18, 2015 12:41:27 GMT -6
Agreed WO. The only thing they really did was thoroughly piss us off.
The base and its facilities were far more important than anything else, including the carriers, yet they failed to disable anything of the infrastructure. Of course we must really thank them for they forced upon us a new form of war at sea, which would not have been possible I think with the continued influence of the big gun club.
DC often remarks on the fact it was their own culture that defeated them. I don't believe that the truth of that is ever better on display than at Pearl. It was as if it was only honorable to go after the hitters, and a stain on that honor to go after the fixers. Stupid, completely stupid
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 13:04:14 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 18, 2015 13:04:14 GMT -6
QC,
Indeed, but it's still interesting if the IJN ends 1942 with 8 fleet carriers (including the 2 NYK conversions) and the US Pac Flt is down to 0!
WO
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 13:09:18 GMT -6
Post by welshofficer on Mar 18, 2015 13:09:18 GMT -6
WO: I am expecting Ark Royal in the mail today from the UK. A friend of mine picked it up for me at a model show at Theale, Sunday a week ago. Ark is in her 1970's fit and I especially wanted her as a companion for her sister Eagle which I already have. Looking forward to it. Lizzie and Charlie should be available to me by mid summer. Really looking forward to them as well. QC,
That Ark Royal was somewhat modified from the Eagle by the 1970s. Requirements of the Phantoms, I believe. That said, the RN guys will tell you that the Eagle was in much better condition than the Ark Royal when pulled from service in the early 1970s and cannibalised to keep the Ark Royal going until the end of the decade.
WO
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Musashi
Mar 18, 2015 13:46:33 GMT -6
Post by jodak on Mar 18, 2015 13:46:33 GMT -6
It all takes us back to the flaws of the Pearl Harbor raid itself - what did it achieve? (1) Attacking before declaring war was self-evidently a blunder of the first order. (2) The IJN would have known that the Yorktown had been transferred to the Atlantic with Bat Div 3 in the Spring, and where the Hornet was now working up. I would hope they knew the Saratoga, and not just the Colorado, was back at the mainland. So they were only ever going to get Enterprise and Lexington, on a best case scenario. (3) The IJN sank a few old battleships, which the Pac Flt could hardly fuel on the oilers available and which will soon be replaced by the North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa and Montana classes. (4) The IJN did little to disable the Pearl Harbor base, including the oil storage and repair yards. I guess I can see Nagumo's wariness in hanging around to launch a third strike, given what later happened in a few mins on 4 June 1942 and with 2 carriers unaccounted for, but the IJN had to squeeze every ounce of advantage out of that attack. WO All very true. To expand and elaborate -
(1) Attacking before declaring war was self-evidently a blunder of the first order.
I give them credit for at least trying in this, although the delayed message of December 7th did not really amount to a declaration of war and, in fact, did not say much at all other than to restate Japan's grievances. Even so, we are left to wonder whether, if Japan had declared war beforehand, the same sort of vindictiveness toward them would have developed as did. Certainly the same level of animosity did not exist toward Germany, which did declare war on the U.S. before openly engaging in hostilities. I can attest that, growing up in the U.S. in the years after the war (and for many years afterward), any mention of Japan/WW2 solicited the same emotional response - Pearl Harbor. Not necessarily rational I know, but emotions are a strong influence.
(2) The IJN would have known that the Yorktown had been transferred to the Atlantic with Bat Div 3 in the Spring, and where the Hornet was now working up. I would hope they knew the Saratoga, and not just the Colorado, was back at the mainland. So they were only ever going to get Enterprise and Lexington, on a best case scenario.
The plan was developed, and more or less committed to, several months in advance, when there was no way of anticipating which ships might be at Pearl or elsewhere on the designated date.
(3) The IJN sank a few old battleships, which the Pac Flt could hardly fuel on the oilers available and which will soon be replaced by the North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa and Montana classes.
Subsequent to the attack Admiral Bloch said "The Japanese did us a favor by getting rid of a lot of obsolete equipment". The Oklahoma, in particular, in addition to being old had terrible engines and was slated to be the first BB retired as the new construction came on line. Of course that would have changed upon the advent of war, but she would have been of marginal utility none the less and would probably have been one of the older battleships relegate to convoy escort and landing support in Europe. Upon assuming command, one of Nimitz's first actions was to move the remaining old BBs back to the west coast, partially to assuage the fears of those who feared imminent invasion but also because, as you state, they were more of an encumbrance than an asset at Pearl.
(4) The IJN did little to disable the Pearl Harbor base, including the oil storage and repair yards. I guess I can see Nagumo's wariness in hanging around to launch a third strike, given what later happened in a few mins on 4 June 1942 and with 2 carriers unaccounted for, but the IJN had to squeeze every ounce of advantage out of that attack.
I tend to give Nagumo the benefit of the doubt on this. A third strike was not really part of the plan, he had already achieved tremendous results at minimal cost, the U.S. carriers were a dangerous threat whose location was unknown, and he did not know how completely the possibility of a land based reprisal from Oahu had been eliminated. In addition, he knew how precarious and overstretched the Japanese effort was, and he had been entrusted with Japan's most valuable naval resources, which he undoubtedly felt a compelling need to protect and for which the overall Japanese war plan and timeline had other commitments. All-in-all a lot to consider and weight to bear, and he felt it prudent to call it a day and be satisfied with the results already achieved. I can't fault him in that. Instead, if any fault is to be found, I find it with the plan itself, which, in addition to the necessary focus on the airfields, called for the first two waves to concentrated on the ships rather than their support facilities, the serious damage to which would have done much more to curtail and delay any U.S. counterstroke than damage to the ships themselves. The Japanese plan is often cited as being masterful, etc., but I think that they dropped the ball in this regard. They should have know better.
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