McPherson
Banned
1. OK, Nagumo dithered for hours during Midway when he should have kept his reserve A/C armed to attack the USN as ordered. So there are two ID10Ts engaged at Midway. But what does that have to do with the ranges and speeds of the A/C?
2. Lucky happenstance for the crews of the SBDs - at the cost of the crews of the TBDs who were flying obsolete planes who should have been beached.
3. IJN deemed it unsafe to tow the hulks home, not that they had no way to tow them back to Japan.
1. Everything about Browning matters. Fuchida and crew could add, subtract and divide so their ATOs for strike and search were accurate even if Nagumo dithered. Miles Browning, his staff, and that bunch over at Hornet couldn't operate calipers, much less estimate fuel time in the air, figure out search vectors or even schedule strike coordination among two aircraft carriers within blinker light distance of each other.
2. Based on 1. don't you think McClusky, English, and Waldron deserve the credit for their in-air command decisions that obviated Browning's fuck ups? You think McClusky took over Enterprise air-ops after Spruance benched Browning because Spruance liked him? (He would get to like McClusky, but results oriented Spruance was not a "people person" like Halsey was.)
3. Naw, the two dinged up battleships were running for their lives and none of the other ships in the screen had the kWatts to tow 25-35,000 tonne burned out dead hulks 4,000 kilometers through the sub infested waters back to Kure and Yaokusuka. So that is the skivvy of it.