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We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

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

#41

Post by quercusa »

kevmo wrote: post #38
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 elec…

You'd think Blue would have prepared for small boat suicide attacks less than two years after the USS Cole attack.

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

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

#42

Post by monocasa »

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…

I was under the impression that the Millennium Challenge's red team was playing as Iran, not Iraq.

A "tenacious and unconventional enemy willing to use elite troops in daring and near suicidal ways" particularly known for their use of speedboats blended with more traditional military material is the Revolutionary Guard's MO.

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

#43

Post by jabl »

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.

Indeed, Mitchell's experiments were one of the first to suggest that air power might have a role beyond scouting in naval combat. And no doubt, history proved him to be right.

But again, it would still have been a very risky gamble that air power is the future when all your potential adversaries are building ever bigger battleships.

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

#44

Post by coredog64 »

pdonis wrote: post #20
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…

> With the end objective of occupying themselves The Japanese had no intention of occupying Hawaii. They simply wanted to incapacitate the US Pacific Fleet. Had the US Pacific Fleet's carriers been in port at Pearl Harbor at the time, they would have succeeded.

Japan could have also crippled the US fleet had they targeted the oil stored at Pearl.

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

#45

Post by sillysaurusx »

TwoNineA wrote: post #18
enkid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you know the adversaries plan, it's pretty easy to come up with something that wrecks it, which is what it sounds like that officer did. What the Japanese didn't know was that the Americans also knew the plan.

Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.

It wasn't as lucky as it seems. The dive bombers were able to dive straight down, almost vertically, with no risk of being shot down by the enemy Zero fighters (since they were drawn away by a previous attack).

It's more lucky that they didn't attack the same targets, than that they hit their targets.

Also, not directly relevant, but I'll plug this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&t=1s&ab_channel=... it's great.

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

#46

Post by tpmx »

pmontra wrote: post #15

In other wargames: You might remember that the Ronald Reagan was sunk by a Swedish stealth submarine in 2005 [1] and that there is little hope to save the Baltic and Taiwan if Russia and China decide to occupy them [2]. [1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/war-games-swedish-ste... [2] https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

[1]:

> Key Point: Why are we still building aircraft carriers when even Sweden can sink them?

Oi.

Still a fair question, though.

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

#47

Post by SkyMarshal »

jabl wrote: post #22
TwoNineA wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.

It seems that the Americans were very lucky at Midway indeed, with the dive bombers avoiding running into fighters, and the hangar decks filled with loaded and fuelled bombers waiting to be spotted once the attacks were over. Which made them extremely vulnerable to anything hitting the hangar decks, and even a few hits were enough to doom the ships. Not entirely unsurprising that upon entering the jet age the USN dem…

The amount of luck involved in the US victory at Midway is astonishing. About the only part of it not due to luck was the codebreaking that tipped off the US about the coming Midway attack, the heroic efforts of the dock workers in getting the damaged Yorktown fixed and back to sea in 72hrs, and persistence of the aviators who finally broke through the Japanese defenses and hit the carriers.

This video series from the Japanese perspective is pretty good and shows all the luck involved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlk...

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

#48

Post by jabl »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45
TwoNineA wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.

It wasn't as lucky as it seems. The dive bombers were able to dive straight down, almost vertically, with no risk of being shot down by the enemy Zero fighters (since they were drawn away by a previous attack). It's more lucky that they didn't attack the same targets, than that they hit their targets. Also, not directly relevant, but I'll plug this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&t=1s&ab_channel=..…

I agree, that video series is very good. (And, among its sources it lists the Shattered Sword book recommended elsewhere in this thread)

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

#49

Post by rightbyte »

travisjungroth wrote: post #2

This story is amazing. The story of US war games seems to commonly be "Yeah the Read Team won but..." and no changes are made. Maybe those are just the stories I hear. It's also interesting to consider if the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have happened if it weren't for our own dress rehearsals we carried out in front of the Japanese. Maybe war games are a bad idea when they're too big to keep secret and you'…

> The story of US war games seems to commonly be "Yeah the Read Team won but..." and no changes are made. Maybe those are just the stories I hear.

War games are not fair really. For either side. No-one know what the actual outcome of a manouver would be.

Also, if Red's commander is way better, Blue's paper strategy might still be preferable.

My feeling is that big military exercises is a exercise in logistics foremost.

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

#50

Post by elihu »

The article makes a good case that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to surprise attacks and the Navy had good reasons to be aware of that at the time. However, that being the case, what should they have done differently to be less vulnerable?

Clearly they needed some kind of early warning system, and they actually installed a radar installation which was brand new technology at the time. (Unfortunately, they didn't heed the warning when it came.) What else should they have done?

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