We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor • Hacker News Board

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#31

Post by jabl » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

Well, in retrospect it's easy to say that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete. But with the information available at the time, I don't think it really was that clear back in 1932. Back then, no capital ship had been sunk let alone been severely damaged(?) by aircraft. Aircraft, and in particular naval aircraft, at the time were flimsy biplanes, with monoplanes slowly entering the scene. Sinking a battleship with those? Pfft, entirely reasonably people said.

I mean, put yourself into the hypothetical supreme naval planner of, say, the US or Japan at the time. Are you really going to gamble your entire nations (or empires, if you will) capability to project force overseas on the notion that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete? If you're wrong, the enemy battleship fleet will just shrug off your feeble aerial attacks and proceed to crush your navy and conquer your overseas assets.

So in that sense it's no surprise that both USN and IJN built both battleships and carriers. And at least the US kept building them long after Pearl Harbor (though the Iowas were all ordered before Pearl Harbor, but they weren't cancelled in favor of carriers or converted into such either).

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#32

Post by bluejekyll » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

Marazan wrote: post #7

jvanderbot wrote: post #4

This sounds very familiar. You should look up the millennium challenge to see this play out again in modern times. https://warontherocks.com/2015/11/millennium-challenge-the-r... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

The Millennium Challenge was a farce but _the Millennium Challenge was completely right_. The point of the millenium challenge was to see if modern advances in C3 could allow a numerically inferior force to the one used in Desert Storm could invade Iraq successfully. What they discovered was against a tenacious and unconventional enemy willing to use elite troops in daring and near suicidal ways then America would ta…

Saying this up front, as an American, I believe we were lied to and misled in lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and someone should have gone to jail for that.

That said, this statement isn’t quite this simple, “ they were not sufficient to occupy the country in a way that stopped it descending into chaos.” The US administration made a decision to disband the Iraqi military and it’s other paramilitary forces. That meant that all existing structure for maintaining order in the country was lost. By doing this, it necessitated a large occupation force, that never was created, and only made the US more hated there.

Look at the occupations of Germany and Japan after WWII and it’s a very different outcome and one where existing systems were left in place to help maintain an orderly transition.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#33

Post by GuardianCaveman » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #19

monoideism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII. > Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force. Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. W…

I suggest you look up some reading on the subject, and try to shy away from the US propaganda. No Choice but War: The United States Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqmp3br Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History And you'll find out that there was continual and worsening relations with Japan due to US imperialism. Hawai'i was only one such territory colonize…

The Japanese started planning their revenge on the US since commander perry forced them to open trade. The US has a history of creating cassus belli like mexican war and Vietnam etc but what you link to is propaganda. And WW2 we had a clear cassus belli for Japan. Japan not only did things more evil than any other force on the planet I’ve ever read about in history as listed in the rape of Nanking but never faced any real consequences from paying reparations or apologizing and even today it’s full of the equivalent of Holocaust deniers who continue to spew falsehoods in defense of the poor Japanese who were only trying to liberate Asia from imperialists

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#34

Post by aqme28 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

jabl wrote: post #31

Well, in retrospect it's easy to say that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete. But with the information available at the time, I don't think it really was that clear back in 1932. Back then, no capital ship had been sunk let alone been severely damaged(?) by aircraft. Aircraft, and in particular naval aircraft, at the time were flimsy biplanes, with monoplanes slowly entering the scene. Sinking a bat…

Totally agreed, politically, but wasn't Billy Mitchell demonstrating air power vs naval as far back as 1921? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Project_B:_Anti...

It seems mostly like the powers that be weren't ready to accept it.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#35

Post by i56asg5h » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

Colonel Billy Mitchell, the "father of the US Air Force," was famously court marshalled in 1925. He had predicted that in the future Japan would attack Pearl Harbor with aircraft. He predicted 'aircraft traveling 1000 miles per hour would fight each other in the stratosphere'. He predicted troopers would one day parachute behind enemy lines. He predicted long range heavy bombers. He aggressively argued for stronger investment in air power, against a resistent brass, who, irritated with him, had him court martialed. A great 1955 Gary Cooper film tells his tale, "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell." This is the climactic court martial scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMYH3dPIUI

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#36

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #34

jabl wrote: post #31

Well, in retrospect it's easy to say that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete. But with the information available at the time, I don't think it really was that clear back in 1932. Back then, no capital ship had been sunk let alone been severely damaged(?) by aircraft. Aircraft, and in particular naval aircraft, at the time were flimsy biplanes, with monoplanes slowly entering the scene. Sinking a bat…

Totally agreed, politically, but wasn't Billy Mitchell demonstrating air power vs naval as far back as 1921? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Project_B:_Anti... It seems mostly like the powers that be weren't ready to accept it.

[deleted]

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#37

Post by samatman » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

Credit where credit is due: painting Imperial Japan as an anticolonial liberating force is novel.

It's risible and insane, but novel nonetheless.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#38

Post by kevmo » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #30

My uncle flew Cobra helicopters in Vietnam and the us developed a new anti air system and he was supposed to fly against it to demo its effectiveness. I don’t recall the story well but he flew nap of the earth and in a certain manner he knew would counter the aa system and embarrassed the hell out of the bluefor test team and engineers who said he cheated. A friend in the army did an excercise at Bragg where Special…

Check out the most expensive War Games in history -- the USA got annihilated, and there were a lot of hurt feelings. The Lt. Gen. quit in the middle of the games, because he kept winning and they kept changing the rules to force a USA victory.

     Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.
     
     Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#39

Post by jabl » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #19

monoideism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII. > Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force. Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. W…

I suggest you look up some reading on the subject, and try to shy away from the US propaganda. No Choice but War: The United States Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqmp3br Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History And you'll find out that there was continual and worsening relations with Japan due to US imperialism. Hawai'i was only one such territory colonize…

Certainly all of the major combatants of WWII have blood on their hands and committed what would certainly today be called atrocities and war crimes. That being said, there's certainly massive differences in motivation and scale.

For that reason, Imperial Japan certainly ranks right up there together with Nazi Germany as the most evil regimes in recent history, and the US of that era does not (saying this as a non-US'ian who is generally pretty critical of the post-WWII foreign policy adventures the US has gotten itself involved in).

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#40

Post by fmajid » Mon, May 31, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #23

jacksonkmarley wrote: post #8

This is a good article, and the story is certainly emotionally appealing, with the maverick who goes against the prevailing wisdom being proven correct in the end. I wonder how this sort of story would look when put into the context of a large scale investigation into military strategy and dissenting voices. When these contrarians pop up are they usually right? Maybe there are heaps of them and 9 out of 10 times conv…

These large-scale war games aren't just an opinion or a white paper though. Maybe better to ask something like how often an unconventional win in a war game could actually be replicated by an adversary in real life. I seem to recall a similar response to massed small boats (simulating) taking out a U.S. carrier in war games a few years ago. Implying that the Persian Gulf is far more dangerous than previously understo…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/21/usa.julianborg...

General Van Riper used low-tech but effective techniques like using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders in a way that could not be intercepted by US ELINT/COMINT or blocked by jamming.

We are lucky Saddam did not have inventive Marine generals, because any general smart enough to be effective would have been eliminated as a potential threat to his regime.