The Battle of Midway goes according to plan for the IJN
- Thread starter SergeantHeretic
- Start date
Midway is such an odd fish - it's so dependent on the little things.
Say, for instance, that Arashi delayed abandoning the hunt for Nautilus for another hour, or sank her with the first depth charges, or was torpedoed herself - then McClusky won't be able to use her to find the carriers, and will probably have to turn back for a lack of fuel, like VB-8 did. Akagi and Kaga will survive to launch against Spruance - or Fletcher.
Or if the Tone had had a different search aircraft on the radial that found Fletcher, rather than the one whose catapult broke, then Nagumo would learn about the US carriers a bit earlier - maybe early enough to get his strike off before the SBDs came a-calling.
Say, for instance, that Arashi delayed abandoning the hunt for Nautilus for another hour, or sank her with the first depth charges, or was torpedoed herself - then McClusky won't be able to use her to find the carriers, and will probably have to turn back for a lack of fuel, like VB-8 did. Akagi and Kaga will survive to launch against Spruance - or Fletcher.
Or if the Tone had had a different search aircraft on the radial that found Fletcher, rather than the one whose catapult broke, then Nagumo would learn about the US carriers a bit earlier - maybe early enough to get his strike off before the SBDs came a-calling.
How about the SBDs arriving before the TBDs? They would have met the fighter patrol at altitude instead of having a clear shot with the defending fighters down at low altitude.
What if the Japanese had spent more time on installing radios on their fighters that worked well? (That one is a serious game changer.)
- Ivan.
In this scenario, the Pacific war is still not going to last past 1946, if that.
The U.S> can and will outproduce and outman the Japanese Empire for the simple reaso nthat their initiation of hostilities made the matter ab ussue of national survival.
"We have to beat the Japs, or what happened to Pearl Harbor will happen to the whole west Coast."
Suing for peace is not an option, a conditional surrender is not an option.
It was one of the few times in AMerican History when a foreign war was seen as a matter of domestic survival.
The U.S> can and will outproduce and outman the Japanese Empire for the simple reaso nthat their initiation of hostilities made the matter ab ussue of national survival.
"We have to beat the Japs, or what happened to Pearl Harbor will happen to the whole west Coast."
Suing for peace is not an option, a conditional surrender is not an option.
It was one of the few times in AMerican History when a foreign war was seen as a matter of domestic survival.
The Japanese do not have the industrial base or the technological base or the LOGISTICAL base to prolong the war any further than at most a few months.
so that means that if we want to keep it out of ASB territory, they can't sustain their string of victories past the end of 1942.
logistics and technological bases. if they could have, they would have, hey knew they needed them, but they just didn't have the wherewhithall to build them and instal lthem i nthe time theyneeded them.
It's all about the LOGISTICS, I don't know why this is such a hard concept to grasm.
Money, industry trasport and time.
LOGISTICS people, for the love of Pete EVERYTHING in war is dependent on that.
When I talked about fragility it is in reference to the combat survivability of a design. It wasn't until late 1944-early 45 that the Japanese brought "modern" aircraft (in the sense of being built with crew survival in mind) into service with a few aircraft, notably the H8K, being exceptions.
The availability of higher octane fuel does have a substantial impact on speed and engine power. This is true even in a non electronic ignition design. The higher octane allows you to alter the basic ignition settings (when I was a kid we used to have to "retard the spark" of built-up engines in our cars, which had been modified to use 96 octane fuel when that fuel became unavailable, although most of used an octane booster or 100 octane (God Bless Texaco) when we could find it which allowed us to advance the spark and grab an extra 5-10% HP).
This would make a lot less difference than might be imagined. When the American carrier aircraft arrived the Japanese only had NINE aircraft aloft as CAP (see Shattered Sword). While the American fighter escort was fairly small, it was enough to distract most, if not all, of this rather meager force. The Japanese were able to launch more fighters during the carrier plane attacks, mainly from the force that had been kept in reserve to escort the strike package held in readiness (and never dispatched) in case the American fleet was discovered, but when the strikes started, there were only nine Zeros available to defend the fleet.
BlondieBC
Banned
If it goes to plan, that is the USA does not have prior knowledge, there are only two USA carriers at Midway. I don't think Nimitz would have rushed the Hornet as much, and as the battle begins, the Hornet is still unable to sail because of ongoing repairs or it will be in harbor as the battle begins, and will arrive late for the battle.
If Japan takes Midway, it is likely all the planes are destroyed. The Japanese will get many pieces of planes, but nothing approaching something that can fly. And the probably had wrecks of most USA planes well before Midway from PI, Singapore, East Indies, Doolittle, etc.
Yes, the USA might well keep extra forces on the West Coast, and Japan might do some more expansions. But it is important to remember that Japan will lose a large number of pilots unless the US carriers are sunk by submarine or the Japanese otherwise get very luck. Japan was low on merchant shipping. So Japan expands a little more is likely, but the list will be smaller than what you have, probably just one location such as Port Moresby or a few more islands SE of the Solomon Islands. The allies are getting too much land based airpower for the operations against Pearl or Ceylon or populated areas of New Zealand.
It will make supplies to Aussie harder, but the USA will just move the convoy routes. We can also bring supplies to Australia via the Indian Ocean.
I can't see FDR abandoning the Europe first plan. Delaying Torch by a few months (6) is the most I can see happening. This would have a big impact, but not as large as you are proposing. And there is plenty of time to find the forces need for D-Day which will still occur sometime in the middle of 1944. I can see impacts such as a communist Greece or even Italy being split into occupation zones, but even this is not guaranteed.
lets assume, somehow, that Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown are all hit and sunk,m and Midway is occupied.
The next day, B-17s fr0om Pearl bomb midway, beginning a daily routine.
Wasp and Saratoga are comitted to a series of raids against Midway, Kwajalein, and Wake islands.
Japan occupies Guadalcanal and sets up a fighter base. US convoys sail farther south, putting in more at Melborne than Brisbane. Port Moresby may yet fall, and Darwin may see bombing raids, but an actual invasion of Australia is never going to succeed.
Germany First will remain.
on July 20th, Wasp and Saratoga are present as teh 1st Marine Raider battalion goes ashore to retake midway.
In 1943, as Essex, Intrepid, and Bon Homme Richard (OTL Yorktown II), along with the light carriers Independence, Princeton, Cowpens and Belleau Wood join Saratoga and Wasp, the Central Pacific campaign starts as OTL, at Tarawa, only a few months behind OTL schedule, but without the Southwest Pacific/Solomons campaigns.
The next day, B-17s fr0om Pearl bomb midway, beginning a daily routine.
Wasp and Saratoga are comitted to a series of raids against Midway, Kwajalein, and Wake islands.
Japan occupies Guadalcanal and sets up a fighter base. US convoys sail farther south, putting in more at Melborne than Brisbane. Port Moresby may yet fall, and Darwin may see bombing raids, but an actual invasion of Australia is never going to succeed.
Germany First will remain.
on July 20th, Wasp and Saratoga are present as teh 1st Marine Raider battalion goes ashore to retake midway.
In 1943, as Essex, Intrepid, and Bon Homme Richard (OTL Yorktown II), along with the light carriers Independence, Princeton, Cowpens and Belleau Wood join Saratoga and Wasp, the Central Pacific campaign starts as OTL, at Tarawa, only a few months behind OTL schedule, but without the Southwest Pacific/Solomons campaigns.
This is just what I believe would happen, this or something quite similar, and wheather it's at midway or a later battle the Kido Butai is doomed.
I hope he does, the Hornet was fine, it was the Yorktown that got her nose busted at Coral Sea.
The Essex class carriers with HellCats, HellDivers, their sheer size and with all the radar advancements means the the U.S. will win after November 1943.
The best thing for the Japanese is to not do Midway and Coral sea but do more Indian Ocean commerce raiding with their submarines and cruisers. I know the Japenese were not into that, but sinking more of ther Allies shipping pool is the only way you are going to delay the inevitable counter offensives.
The best thing for the Japanese is to not do Midway and Coral sea but do more Indian Ocean commerce raiding with their submarines and cruisers. I know the Japenese were not into that, but sinking more of ther Allies shipping pool is the only way you are going to delay the inevitable counter offensives.
The problem with that is that it's not sexy. It doesn't play to the "Samurai" mythos.
"Two great Fleets of power meeting to do battle in a great struggle and the victory will go to the side that shows they value BUSHIDO! the way of the warrior".
Firstly, if Yamamoto’s original plan had worked (ie. no code breaking, etc.) there would have been, at most, two decks at Midway, Enterprise and Hornet. Yorktown would not have received the ultra rapid repairs of OTL, leaving her out of the battle and very, very safe in Pearl.
The U.S. had better than 300 AAF combat aircraft on Oahu, with a few squadrons dispersed to Maui. This force was more than sufficient to defend the Islands from any IJN attack. Unlike December 7th, these forces would not be caught asleep.
Had the Japanese been fully successful at Midway, the U.S. would have had three fully operational carriers in the Pacific (Saratoga, Wasp, & Yorktown) by June 15th. That isn’t a force that is going to be left on the defensive. It will be used to attack, almost certainly in the same manner as was done IOTL when there were three decks available after Midway and damaging of the Sara by a Japanese sub (something almost certainly butterflied away since all it would require is the two ships missing each other by half an hour).
The Japanese had several examples of damaged B-17 from the Philippines, same goes for the SBD/A-24 and P-40. The Japanese didn’t use any U.S. aircraft to “improve” their designs IOTL, even after the Midway debacle, why would they choose to do so, even if it would have made a difference, after clobbering the U.S. for the third time in six months?
It would be impossible to increase West Coast paranoia from OTL levels. The entire Pacific Coast was waiting for the Japanese to roll over the Horizon well into 1944. The U.S. also used West Coast bases to do much of the training for air crews, troops, and of course home ports of naval vessels. The West Coast swarmed with troops, ships and aircraft.
As noted, the U.S. would still have three decks, it is very possible that the Guadalcanal operation would proceed as IOTL. If not, the reality is that the Southwest Pacific was not the decisive theater of operations. As far as Japanese victory disease, the longer that lasts, the shorter the war will be.
The attack against Pearl is discussed earlier, but just as a reminder, THREE HUNDRED AAF combat aircraft including P-38s as well as several squadrons of USN VF, VB & VT assigned there to work up, with serious radar coverage (that is being paid attention to), very heavy AAA, including significant numbers of radar directed 90mm (if they wait until mid 1943 they will even get to be the field test for the SCR-584) as well has 40mm. As far as the West Coast, the Japanese can only get there on a one way mission due to logistical issues or as a token force (one carrier, maybe two, with escorts could be supported if the IJN dedicated all of its support units). Either way the attacking force will not be seeing home again.
It is more than slightly questionable if the Japanese could logistically support bases this far out, even if it could, this pre-supposes that the Guadalcanal/SW Pacific theater has been abandoned and that the Australian/U.S. forces have been either defeated or never deployed to New Guinea (neither of which is likely). If that were, however, the case the U.S. Army and/or USMC would have sufficient troops to deploy to New Zealand and there would be more than enough motivation to send them there (IOTL the 2nd Marine Division had significant forces in New Zealand from 1942-43).
Hawks would be more likely. Japan was going to burn. Any victory would just piss the American electorate off more.
This is strikingly unlikely. Even if the FDR wanted to change, he couldn’t. The U.S. couldn’t go hammer and tongs after the Japanese until the ships were available. The ships still won’t be available just because of Midway. There are only so many yards and so many slipways. Europe would still be the main thrust no matter what. The U.S could also still go full out with Lend Lease regardless.
The chances of the Central pacific being the only major theater in the Pacific is likely. The rest, as discussed above, is remarkably unlikely.
Snake Featherston
Banned
In other words, only if the USA really, really screws the pooch is it possible for Japan to win the carrier battle, but the failure of the amphibious attack that would go with it would make it arguably a WWII version of Perryville, one variety of success in ultimate failure, and still give the USA a propaganda boosting point in what would be a second major land victory over Japan. Japan *might* in the right/wrong chain of circumstances eke out a victory in the sea battle, but the whole plan never had a chance.
Snake Featherston
Banned
In practical terms Japan could in the right circumstances win the carrier battle, but the land battle had an epic fail written all over it, and a success at sea balanced by a total failure in the amphibious operation means the USA still gets a propaganda boost and perhaps land-based air hitting the carriers and dealing damage in its own right.