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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

#181

Post by jabl »

ansible wrote: post #103
jabl wrote: post #22

Earlier 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…

> ... with the dive bombers avoiding running into fighters, ... The conventional narrative of the battle is that the torpedo bombers (coming in low as part of their standard attack pattern), drew off the IJN figher cover, using up their fuel and ammo. When the dive bombers attacked the IJN fleet, the figher cover wasn't in a position to stop them effectively. The price paid for this "distraction" (which wasn't planne…

Absolutely. Also the torpedo squadrons arriving piecemeal due to mishaps in navigation and the USN lack of capability to quickly launch a coordinated strike, meant that the IJN carriers were occupied with launching/recovering/refueling/rearming fighters, and weren't able to launch their own strikes. So when the dive bombers attacked, the IJN strike aircraft were waiting fully loaded and fueled in the hangars, with devastating results.

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

#182

Post by CamperBob2 »

aloer wrote: post #116
CamperBob2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Sinking an aircraft carrier would likely kill several thousand personnel at once. If that doesn't lead to the use of tactical nukes, nothing will.

> If that doesn't lead to the use of tactical nukes, nothing will. And that’s exactly how it should be and has been since ww2. You use nukes when someone else uses nukes. No exception. In a perfect world this keeps the balance

Sorry, but US nuclear doctrine contains no such provisions.

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

#183

Post by jabl »

ufmace wrote: post #155
jabl wrote: post #22

Earlier 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…

I've also read that while the IJN was quite good at carrier aviation, their lack of long-term experience fighting naval battles and focus on the offensive led to a severe deficit in damage control and efforts to reduce e.g. the risk and severity of fires from being hit, both in operation and at the design stage.

That's roughly my understanding, with the exception that AFAIK several of the IJN carriers and crew had been involved in operations in China during the invasion there, so they had combat experience (though AFAIK no attacks against the carriers occurred there).

As for fuel fires, yes, several IJN carriers were essentially lost due to fuel fires or explosions after suffering damage that otherwise would have been perfectly survivable. Perhaps most spectacularly in the case of Taiho, were inept damage control essentially turned the entire ship into a giant fuel air bomb, resulting in a spark somewhere setting of a massive explosion with catastrophic loss of life (and the end of the ship).

The USN lost Lexington that way, but crucially, they learned from this incident and instituted a system where they purged the aviation fuel lines with CO2 (cooled exhaust gases, presumably?).

Also IJN carriers had dedicated damage control teams, and a very strict command hierarchy. If you weren't on such a team, you were supposed to do your assigned duty and not do anything about the ship burning or flooding. In the USN apparently everybody nearby was supposed to help with damage control efforts.

IJN had also saved on money and used iron piping for the fire suppression system, as steel was expensive or in limited supply in Japan. This turned out to not be such a good idea when the shock from a nearby bomb blast shattered the pipes. Also said piping was not zoned to nearly the same extent as on US carriers. Not a good combination, as you can imagine.

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

#184

Post by srb24 »

It is very odd that the attack is often taught as something just out of the blue - e.g. there was the Japan War Scare of 1906-1907 https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/japan1906.htm and Japanese citizens in the US were bascially treated like 2nd class citizens stoking up a lot of resentment (not that I'm defending the attack or the Japanese military/fascist leadership!)

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

#185

Post by avereveard »

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.

you seem to be confusing luck with experience and skill.

what was luck was that the scouting plane flying above tf-16 didn't spot them, and even there it's debatable since the task forces where there intentionally due to an overcast weather forecast and that overcast weather was what allowed them to remain hidden.

I may concede that yorktown being bombed twice was luck, or at least unlucky for the Japanese, but even then damage party skill played an important factor in the event.

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

#186

Post by MomoXenosaga »

ufmace wrote: post #160
tosbalok2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

From what I've read, Japan never had anywhere near the industrial capability to pull any of that off. Even landing troops and maintaining a garrison at all on Midway and the Hawaiian islands would stretch them to the limit - they arguably already didn't have the troops to spare to do that along with their other commitments in their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere plan. Taking Hawaii at all is already outlandi…

Yes Japan has almost no natural resources which is why they invaded Asian countries in the first place. But allied submarines and seaplanes were hammering their supply lines constantly to the point they could barely get anything shipped to Japan.

The war was a Japanese gamble and quite a few intelligent Japanese predicted it would fail.

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

#187

Post by sofixa »

hef19898 wrote: post #171
jcranmer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their naval plans specifically aimed for effectively a second Battle of Tsushima. Basically, harass the American strike force from afar to whittle them down as they steam towards the Home Islands in a decisive, epic showdown, and once the Americans lose that engagement and see their entire fleet sunk, they give up and go home. (The Kantai Kessen plan). The entire war, the Japanese were still waiting for the big decis…

I sometimes get the impression that the last time "decisive" battles worked was during the Napoleonic Wars. And even then the Russian campaign played as much a role as did Waterloo. After that everybody trying to force decisive battles got wars of attrition wich were ultimately lost.

The person you're replying to literally gave you an example of a decisive battle, the Battle of Tsushima.

And there are many others, depending on how decisive you mean.

The battle of Sedan in the Franco-prussian war resulted in the loss of most of the French army, their emperor and government. A siege and a few more battles had to be fought before France surrendered, but it was a foregone conclusion.

The battles of Tannenberg and Masurian lakes in WWI were decisive and stopped Russia for up to years, and they never recovered in the north, their only successes coming against the Austria-Hungarians.

In WWII, the Bagration and Manchurian strategic operations were pretty decisive on land. Midway was on water. The invasions of the low countries and France, Denmark and Norway, Yugoslavia and Greece, (present day) Malaysia and Indonesia were decisive and swift as well ( even if they indeed resulted in a war of attrition ultimately lost to allies of the decisively defeated countries in question).

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

#188

Post by tosbalok2 »

onepointsixC wrote: post #143
tosbalok2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

I don't understand how you could question American ability to resupply Hawaii but not Japan's, given the fact that the core point is that the IJN could not afford the losses which they were suffering throughout Pacific War while the US could. The supply lines that the IJN would need to reach out so far would have given American forces the overwhelming home field advantage while greatly diminishing the capabilities of…

> I don't understand how you could question American ability to resupply Hawaii but not Japan's

I'm claiming that if one side has a carrier and the other side doesn't, that will determine who can reliably move convoys across the pacific.

The carriers have such an enormous capacity for reconnaissance, it's hard for me to imagine a convoy sneaking past them. So if Japan has a carrier dedicated to the blockade of Hawaii, it seems to me that Hawaii is effectively cut off.

By contrast, the US would attempt to interdict Japanese supply convoys by using the only tool they'd have left: submarines. Better than nothing, to be sure. But it's much more difficult for a sub to find a convoy, than it is for multiple airplanes.

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

#189

Post by dotancohen »

credit_guy wrote: post #57
jabl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing good things about that book. Alas, my interest in Midway only seems to go so far and I'm finding myself unwilling to commit to actually reading that book. Oh well, maybe one day..

I don't have much time lately to actually read books, so I listen to them on my bike ride to and from work. I have had "Shattered Sword" as a paperback book for more than 10 years, and never read more than 2 pages in it. Once I started listening to the audiobook, I pretty much had to finish it. It's about 24 hours of audio. Longer than it would take to read it, but if you don't find time to read it, it's quite a good…

I cannot recommend audio books highly enough. I've been promising my daughter to read Harry Potter for years, but only with the audiobook have I been able to fit it into my schedule. I also finished The Martian on audiobook, which was probably the most riveting book that I've read since childhood.

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

#190

Post by bbarn »

enriquto wrote: post #72
kevmo wrote: post #38

Earlier 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 absolutely bonkers. If the wikipedia page is true, this paints a very ridiculous state of US high brass. I refuse to believe that a major military nation may engage in such petty stupidity. Thus my conclusion is that the whole summary of the events is carefully crafted to misled future enemies of their true capabilities.

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
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