Disclaimer: I know this would not even remotely change the war. I'm just curious.
What would be consequences if IJN performed two days of airstrikes upon Pearl? What if, in adittion to this, a small fleet of IJN BBs (plus some cruisers and deatroyera) was tasked to shell island(s) for a 2 days and a night and then pull back with carrier fleet?
How much adittional damage would carriers be able to do? How much BBs? What counterstrike options woild this open for US?
thanks
>What would be consequences if IJN performed two days of airstrikes upon Pearl?
The big reason they decided not to continue the attack on pearl harbor after the second wave was because they were already losing the element of surprise and they did not know where the US carriers were
most of the japanese air losses were on the second wave, because the AA guns were now manned
a third wave would have suffered even more
carriers were chosen because their planes could arrive sneakily onto pearl harbor while the carriers stayed at the edge of their range
BBs would need to close the distance and would be detected a long ways off before they are in gun range
the BBs would also slow down the carriers, and would leave them vulnerable during and after the attack
staying for many days would be totally out of the question because they would be attacked by aircraft as well as the US carriers who would definitely be looking for the japanese now
they would also be subject to attacks until they leave bomber range of the US, hence why the japanese were so eager to leave
they didnt want to get caught by a US counter attack
Nothing. They would still drown in a never-ending diarrhea of destroyers and escort carriers, with chunky bits of battleships thrown in for flavor
The biggest reason I think the US knew the Japs were coming is because the Japs thought the carriers were there. At the last minute, someone in counterintel told the Japs that Pearl had carriers, or they wouldn't have bothered.
The only things that could have slowed the American fleet beyond what they did would have been
>Destroying the fuel reserves at Pearl Harbor
>Finding and sinking the aircraft carriers
And then if they did either of those things it would have been a delaying action.
This. Japan knew loosing a single battleship or aircraft carrier would totally screw up their plans in the Pacific.
>This. Japan knew loosing a single battleship or aircraft carrier would totally screw up their plans in the Pacific.
Well ... not really. They were just very conservative regarding use of naval forces. The wanted to pull back as far as possible, wear USA down and force a decisive battle.
They did account for US production capacities, but have tried nevertheless.
what?
If they were able to hit the carriers, I imagine it would have delayed the victory in the Pacific by two years, and ensured the destruction of several Hawaiian cities.
The victory in the Russo-Japanese War really fucked with strategic planning even in the generally more competent IJN. Had Midway gone the other way the Japanese may have been able to sue for peace.
The Japanese never wanted to invade Hawaii this is a pretty big meme. Midway, Wake, Guam, and the Philippines sure those were targets. They make sense if you look at a map for fueling stations for planes and ships if you want to create an exclusive economic zone around the Japanese Home Islands. Hawaii does not.
The Japanese had zero interest in occupying Hawaii or attacking it any further. Pearl Harbor alone taxed their logistics to the limit because they didn't have enough oil tankers to keep their aircraft carriers properly supplied, much less a full on invasion force or battlefleet.
>Had Midway gone the other way the Japanese may have been able to sue for peace.
Are you fucking retarded? Do you know just how fucking many Essexes the US was building? Do you know how many got cancelled as completely fucking superfluous to demand when the US realised they won the whole goddamn war before they even hit peak production?
Japan was ten ways from fucked from the start. Their pre-tojo prime minister knew it (which was why he resigned), their whole fucking admiralty knew it. Hell, the Emperor himself probably knew it. Their one stupid fucking gamble was that the US would shrug and let them rape around the whole of asia if they bloodied the american nose a bit. That it'd be 'too expensive' to contest them. They were fucking stupid.
They cancelled a third of the Essex class because they were building TOO MANY. the US COULDN'T LOSE CARRIERS FAST ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY BUILDING THEM AS QUICKLY AS THEY DID. There was SO MUCH SPARE PRODUCTION CAPACITY the US built a ship JUST TO SUPPLY ICE CREAM TO THE TROOPS.
Japan was fucked. They were lucky to get peace after only getting nuked twice.
>The Number One reason why nations lose wars is because they fail to recover from the opening blows
>The Number Two reason why nations lose wars is because they fail to capitalize on the opening blows
Think about that for a sec.
What what?
>Had Midway gone the other way the Japanese may have been able to sue for peace.
I hear that a lot but not sure why. The US dominated an entire hemisphere and had all the materials and facilities on two coasts far from Japan to build a huge retaliation fleet.
hit the nail on the head. The surprise was the only reason pearl harbor was remotely effective. Carriers survived, so did the majority of our oil there.
They would be wrecked.
They were already at the end of their supply. They lost destroyers because of fuel shortages.
The man's right.
The IJN didn't really have oilier support to push a larger force out to strike Pearl, and most IJN battle line units were too slow to keep up with the carriers.
He's not wrong about hitting the tank farms. Hell, an insane full-commitment invasion of the islands and stealing as much of the IJA air force as you could from China to base out of them, useing captured American fuel, is one of the few bumps where it seems like Japan could have seriously speed-bumped America.
American production was an overwhelming factor.
The US produced more then 200 fleet submarines with goddamn air conditioning and ice cream in the freezer during the war and only stopped when they'd hunted out the oceans.
daily reminder
Based destroyer escorts
You should read Gordon Prange's At Dawn We Slept.
As the 9/11 Commission brought up, we had a failure of imagination. Our cryptographers were able to identify that an attack was coming shortly against U.S., but nearly everyone thought that threat was meant for the philippines for us, or Singapore for the Brits.
Nearly every Pearl Harbor training scenarios (biggest threat) was seen IJN amphibious assault of Hawaii. Every one realized that the Brits at Taranto had created a new naval-aviation capability. IJAN were the first to realize the naval paradigm had changed.
Army and Navy never sought eye to eye, but fought all the time. Pacific Command was in touchy situation with Atlantic Fleet since they kept stealing ships from the Pacific.
It was the perfect storm of assumptions and prioritization in military, and FDR prioritizing Germany first.
There is no conspiracy, just incompetence and leisurely attitudes towards intel reports.
FDR focused government funds on civilian projects for his New Deal, at the militaries expense. This is another among many other factors that influence how events carried out on Dec. 7th 1941.
japanese as a whole ignored convoy protection and ASW
the Japanese thought wasting warships on escort duty was a waste, and using submarines on enemy merchant vessels was less important than attacks on warships
this freed up more material for attack groups, but left their supply lines incredibly vulnerable
their merchant fleet was all but wiped out in 1943-44, when the US upgrades their torpedoes and enacted more aggression in sub attacks
literally the only thing keeping their forces supplied was faulty US torpedoes and timid US sub commanders
the US destroyer escort is probably one of their best inventions, as it allowed them to protect their supply lines using a cheaper ship that wouldn't divert production away from warships