I'm surprised to see no mention of the interesting recent book, 2034 by a recently retired us admiral, about how in about 10 years China, through tech superiority, could beat the us, and badly. "A Novel of the Next World War, 2034", by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis. It has a lot of things that resonate with these war games thoughts. I loved it.
We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
131–140 of 245 posts
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. By the end of the war, the USA had more carriers than then entire IJN surface fleet. Never mind all the cruisers, destroyers and such. And the fuel to run them. The Japanese had absolutely no chance to win the war.
I wonder why the US doesn’t produce a bunch of WW2 style carriers with light aircraft or helicopters. I’m aware the US has several helicopter carriers, but I would imagine we could build dozens of the things for the price of a nuclear carrier. Obviously they wouldn’t stand up to a near peer competitor but they could be useful for small scale conflicts with far less advanced militaries, which seems to be the pattern l…
The USAF is the "light carrier" fleet. One B-52H can carry 20 air launched cruise missiles.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This story is a lot less impressive when you start learning the details. Such as the fact that the motorcycle messengers traveled at the speed of light to instantaneously transmit orders. The fact that the salvo of cruise missiles came from boats which could not carry them, and the fact that simulator's fleet defenses were turned off to prevent them from targeting commercial air and commercial shipping.
Do you have more details on the "speed of light" motorcycles? That sounds like an interesting read
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense. I remember reading about that, but I guess it didn't sink in. Oil was very important to a mechanized army.
Exactly. Most people think the Eastern front was an act of lunacy. In reality it was an act of utter necessity. Hitler's only chance of potentially winning WW2 (if there ever was a real chance) was to capture more oil in Eastern Europe. They were running on the fumes of synthetic oil created from coal at that point. Stalin knew Hitler's objectives well because of how hard Hitler was pushing for oil in negotiations be…
> before they became foes
They were foes before they became foes. While it had the non-aggression pact, Germany could have easily persuaded Russia to give it a pass on acquiring oil by aggression in the Middle East. Germany had two reasons to not do this -- a long supply line for oil to Germany from the Middle East would have been impossible to defend if Russia wanted to sever it, and German territorial acquisitions in the Middle East would be of little value as real estate on which German people could be settled to live a prosperous Germanic lifestyle. Dictators planning world domination do not publish their enemy lists.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Midway had it's fortunate moments, but IJN didn't have much of a chance from the get go due to the absurd USN ship production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ag2x3CS9M
What's missing from this analysis is that the US industrial base wasn't under attack while it was producing those ships.
If you play "what if" and imagine the Japanese had won Midway, and the US had no carriers at all, that gives the Japanese total control of the Pacific. The Japanese can take Hawaii if they want to, because how could the US possibly reinforce and resupply it? The Japanese can attack shipyards and ports on the West Coast at their leisure - and those would be defended obviously, but the attacks would greatly slow the progress of shipbuilding.
Fortunately for the US, they have other ports in the Atlantic. So okay, the US builds carriers there. Now the problem is, you can't just build one carrier and send it to the Pacific. If you have just the one carrier, the Japanese will be very eager to sink it. They'll have spies and recon subs so they'll know when it sorties. If you try to take it through the Panama Canal they'll ambush it.
The bottom line is, you have to build several carriers before you even think about challenging the Japanese again. That means you're looking at years - YEARS - during which, the Japanese do whatever they like. And when you finally put a carrier task force together, at best it's a fair fight ...you might lose again.
And don't forget, while all this is going on you're also fighting Germany.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. By the end of the war, the USA had more carriers than then entire IJN surface fleet. Never mind all the cruisers, destroyers and such. And the fuel to run them. The Japanese had absolutely no chance to win the war.
I wonder why the US doesn’t produce a bunch of WW2 style carriers with light aircraft or helicopters. I’m aware the US has several helicopter carriers, but I would imagine we could build dozens of the things for the price of a nuclear carrier. Obviously they wouldn’t stand up to a near peer competitor but they could be useful for small scale conflicts with far less advanced militaries, which seems to be the pattern l…
It's an idea that gets resurrected every so often too, and I want to say that it's been revisited lately as some articles on DefenceOne and TheWarZone have suggested.
There was the idea of the "Sea Control" ship in the 70s that would have built on this idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Control_Ship
For small-scale conflicts however, it's somewhat paradoxical that a large carrier is what you need. Putting airpower over land from a carrier requires throwing a lot of weight into the air to put an aircraft with both an effective warload and a useful loiter time. This is coupled with a large sortie rate, as the time it takes to get a warplane on station is long and needs to be replaced often. That adds up to a lot of launches.
All of that is to say then that you need a larger carrier, ideally with a catapult and the powerplant to fire it often. Skijumps and STOVL don't get you that kind of range except to the beach.
So for any kind of land strike mission, you really need a big fleet carrier. But for sea operations, smaller carriers are looking more feasable, so the idea is coming around again. The America class as you mentioned is likely going down this path, and Japan's Izumo-class is likely going to go down this route as well.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
[1]: > Key Point: Why are we still building aircraft carriers when even Sweden can sink them? Oi. Still a fair question, though.
One complication is that sinking a US carrier would likely trigger nuclear retaliation. Even if the enemy is in a good position to do so, that will make them think twice.
The new paradigm of China, the current naval rival of the US in the Pacific, is more akin to imitating ants than to imitating sharks. The Chinese are expanding their spheres of influence, power, and control (e.g. in the South China Sea) gradually by a plethora of means that each irritate, annoy and distress the Americans. There is no reason for China to want to sink an American carrier. Extrapolating ahead 20 or 30 years, China can foresee a time when the Chinese economy and Chinese technology are number 1 worldwide, and US influence in the Western Pacific is negligible compared to that of China. At that point, it makes no sense for the US to have a fleet way over there, 8,000 miles from home, outgunned, outnumbered, with few or no nearby bases. The number one reason for having a navy at all will be as an employer of last resort. Given the developments so far, with peace working so well for China, expect China to advocate disarmament, not to instigate major conflict. I believe that the majority in the US would prefer naval disarmament to having Chinese ships and planes patrolling 13 miles off US shores the way US Navy ships have operated near China.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#138In 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...
> there is little hope to save the Baltic and Taiwan if Russia and China With a proper counterattack, they can be liberated. The war isn't over just because the attacker says so.
This is a kind of spooky comment that could be made in a future where war has already broken out.
Not to be melodramatic, but we should all keep in mind how terrible a war would be.
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#139FDR goaded Japan into that attack by cutting off their oil and suppressed intelligence about the impending attack to ensure a decisive entry into WWII over the opposition of 90% of the American public. Having political leadership so opposed to the will of the people is a state US 'democracy' seems perpetually unable to end, re Iraq, Vietnam, WWI, WWII etc. Hearing US lecture governments that fight on behalf of their…
[deleted]
Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because nothing else can do what they do. Yes they’re expensive. Yes they’re more vulnerable than in the past. But they can do things nothing else can. Is there another cheaper way to set up a complete airbase wherever you want 10000 miles from home?
A naive totaling of the Capex per CSG is roughly 24.3 Billion dollars. This does not include the cost of munitions. An interesting question is whether you actually need a mobile airbase which necessitates large quantities of costly defensive weapons ( The new Ford carrier sails with 6 1.8 Billion dollar Arleigh-Burke class Destroyers ). Considering a tomahawk costs roughly 1 million dollars, it may be more efficient…
> Considering a tomahawk costs roughly 1 million dollars, it may be more efficient for the Navy's power projection goals to use more portable missile platforms instead of a mobile airbase.
That was the idea between both the “arsenal ship” concept that hasn’t (yet) materialized, and the SSGN conversion of a number of Ohio-class ex-SSBNs, which has.