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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

#141

Post by nojokes »

snakke wrote: post #71
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…

Your hunch is correct. There is a quote from a british naval officer that roughly says that -if they were right [on aircraft carriers being the next best thing and battleships being obsolete] they'd win the war. If they were wrong, they'd lose the empire.- The exact quote escapes my google-fu sadly. I'm quite postive I've seen it in either one of Indy Neidell and his team's WW2 week-by-week episode[0] or one of the m…

They lost the empire anyway.

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

#142

Post by nojokes »

marvin wrote: post #89
nostrademons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken from the universe of all ideas, a random contrarian idea is usually wrong. Taken from the universe of contrarian ideas pushed by domain experts and backed up by successful experiments, they're usually right. Paul Graham recently wrote an essay on this: http://paulgraham.com/newideas.html Ernest King (the red team commander in the second wargame) wasn't a random newbie: he eventually served as Chief of Naval Ope…

If leaders and strategists around the world could take one single lesson from the Covid pandemic, it should be that you must never, never underestimate the power of mental inertia and the status quo. It leaves all but an elite few in the dust when reality suddenly changes in what's perceived to be an instant. Most normally competent people will behave as complete morons for the 6-12 months it takes them to understand…

The West could have ended the local epidemic in about 1/2 year with the help of mRNA vaccines.

While medical system is patting themselves on the shoulder, they completely missed the opportunity.

The missed actions were

a) human challenge studies to tremendously speed up the validation of efficacy and b) war time like effort to invest into vaccine production facilities.

Human challenge studies were rejected by ethical committees - like the risk of health of few tens of thousands were greater than the life of millions.

I am not sure what prevented the proper scale up of the production.

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

#143

Post by onepointsixC »

tosbalok2 wrote: post #135
onepointsixC wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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 the IJN. Conversely it was no accident that the US still endured terrible losses in spite of it's overwhelming numeric advantages. The amount of manpower and material required for such long distant campaigns is enormous, and it's no accident that Super Powers are defined by their ability to wage war far away from home.

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

#145

Post by goatsi »

seoaeu wrote: post #133
onepointsixC wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To quote someone on Reddit [0]:

"Van Riper famously used "motorcycle couriers" to get around the destruction of his C2 network. The problem was that this was handled as simple handwaving, with him saying that he would use motorcycle messengers to handle all the message traffic. Despite supposedly doing so, he continued to relay messages as if he doing so with a normal communications network. Essentially, his motorcycle messengers were treated as being just as efficient as an electronic communications network. Clearly, that wouldn't be possible, hence the folks joking about "light speed motorcycles"."

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/so_what_...

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

#146

Post by nradov »

fighterpilot wrote: post #70
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #69

Earlier 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…

I think many people fail to understand that during WW2 the Wehrmacht was often forced to rely on horse carts for transporting supplies to the front. They didn't have fuel for trucks.

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

#147

Post by nradov »

lumost wrote: post #128
JackFr wrote: post #121

Earlier 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…

Your numbers are off. A typical carrier strike group contains one cruiser and two destroyers for escort, not six. There aren't enough destroyers to go around.

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

#148

Post by lumost »

nradov wrote: post #147
lumost wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your numbers are off. A typical carrier strike group contains one cruiser and two destroyers for escort, not six. There aren't enough destroyers to go around.

Ahh I based this off the 2019 deployment of the Ford Carrier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Strike_Group_12#2019_d...

It's possible that this was an atypical deployment.

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

#150

Post by mannykannot »

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…

It is reasonable to say that it was not so clear then as it is in retrospect, but the point being made here is that contemporary attempts to clarify the issue were not just ignored, but actively sabotaged by the naval establishment. Deliberate ignorance is not the same as being justifiably uncertain.
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