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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

#151

Post by jcranmer »

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…

> 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.

So here's the big problem with that thesis: the attacks at Pearl Harbor and Midway stretched the IJN's supply and logistical capabilities to their utmost limits. It's very likely that in any actual attempt to take Pearl Harbor, the US would have sabotaged the port facilities to the point that it would have required months, if not years [1], to bring it back up to an operational status capable of being used as a forward operating base for striking the US West Coast. Oh, and this is Hawaii--everything has to be brought in from the mainland, which means you're diverting a lot of shipping to maintain a supply line while you're repairing the harbor at the same time. Which is going to be vulnerable to submarine activity the entire time, and Japanese anti-submarine practices were terrible.

Yes, Hawaii is the strategic linchpin of the Pacific Ocean. However, it is so remote that actually acquiring strategic control is extremely challenging. At the same time, Japan is basically running against the clock: the Essex carriers start commissioning at the beginning of 1943, and that's the countdown Japan is running against. Japan just doesn't have the time to consolidate Pearl Harbor into an advance operating base, even if it could theoretically capture it.

[1] Keep in mind that the US was still in the middle of upgrading Pearl Harbor to serve as Pacific Fleet anchorage, which was I believe a decade-long process.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by jcranmer »

Aeolun wrote: post #129
ansible wrote: post #105

Earlier 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 don’t think it was ever their goal to straight up fight the US. They just wanted the US standing navy ruined so that they could go about their business in the Pacific. I don’t think they counted on a few early problematic outcomes, and the US will to enter a fight over the loss of a few soldiers at Pearl Harbor.

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 decisive battle, no matter if they were winning or losing the various engagements, but they never got the big battle they wanted. Eventually, they did try to force it at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, although that attempt did not turn out well for them.

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

#155

Post by ufmace »

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…

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.

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

#156

Post by [deleted] »

JustFinishedBSG wrote: post #17
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…

> Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force. Ah yes, Imperial Japan, known for it's incredible humanity toward civilians.

[deleted]

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

#157

Post by mannykannot »

aphextron wrote: post #117
greggyb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Per the fine article, Japan did devote their preparations to air superiority and carried out exactly the attack forewarned by th…

> So, yes, that seems to have been a good strategy The point though is that this was a massive gamble on Japan's part in the 1930's. They had no idea if it would actually work.

One can equally say that those who assumed airplanes did not present an existential threat to battleships were taking a massive gamble - it just did not seem like it to them.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that Japan’s early enthusiasm for aircraft carriers was partly driven by the terms of the Washington and London naval treaties, which limited its battleship fleet.

As for having evidence that a successful attack on Pearl Harbor could be made, its planners looked at not only the exercises described here, but also the British attack on the Italian fleet in Taranto harbor in 1940.

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

#158

Post by bialpio »

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…

Thanks for the history lesson, but what was the point of it? Are you arguing that Japan was a liberator here, responding to calls for help from Hawaiian government-in-exile? In any case, they had attacked US military assets in full conscience, did they expect it not to lead to war?

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

#159

Post by seoaeu »

nojokes wrote: post #142
marvin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The mRNA vaccines were approved back in December and yet six months later they've only made enough doses for a couple hundred million people. What evidence do you have that a "war time like effort" could have ramped up production wildly faster than what they achieved? It isn't like there are any unused vaccine factories or production machines just lying around, and there'd certainly be no shortage of eager investors fund increasing capacity faster if that was possible

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

#160

Post by ufmace »

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…

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 outlandish, no chance that if they found a way to pull that off, they'd be able to supply it heavily enough to make it an active seaport, patrol the waters to the east aggressively, or carry out attacks against the US West Coast and their land-based defenses at a high enough tempo to impede shipbuilding there. Similarly, maintaining enough spies and subs to track ship sorties and ambushing them at the Panama Canal isn't in the cards for them.

WWII is ultimately a logistics war. Individual battles don't really matter that much, whoever makes the most stuff will win eventually somehow, and whoever is on the other side from them will lose. Japan was way too far behind on industrial capacity to have a chance. Maybe if they managed to pull off their Co-Prosperity Sphere plan without any interference and make the most of it, they'd have the capacity in 40 years. But that's doubtful too, since everyone else in their so-called Co-Prosperity Sphere hated their guts due to horrible occupation practices on the part of the IJA.

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