Combined Fleet destroys USN at Midway? Effects?
- Thread starter aaronupright
- Start date
This is a bigger issue in some ways than the loss of carrier that would be obsolete in 12 months anyway. The US only has a limited pool of people with carrier operating experience and you've just sunk the majority of them.
History Learner
Banned
Absolutely not going to happen given the Luftwaffe is undefeated and you have few American divisions, completely Green at that, for France in 1943. Shipping bottlenecks will be even worse without the Med cleared.
marathag
Banned
With things delayed in the Pacific, some of those Army divisions would be shifted for use in Europe.
For a 1943 Sledgehammer, Green Divisions won't be a problem, considering the condition of the Pre-Rommel Festung Europa.
Every Axis Division holding out in Tunisia, won't be in France
History Learner
Banned
There's far fewer divisions overall, however, and the Germans have significant mobile reserves and the Luftwaffe can actually contest the invasion. Naval invasion lessons learned from Guadalcanal, North Africa, and Sicily aren't there nor general lessons like those learned at Kasserine Pass.
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If they can scrounge up the oil for FS, they're probably going to try it. Even after Midway was a complete fiasco, the first reaction was merely to postpone FS by two months (to early September) - there was a lot of political pressure to carry out the operation (starting with Tojo) while Midway was pretty much only wanted by the Navy. If I'm remembering right, the Army only agreed to help with Midway in exchange for the Navy doing FS afterwards. If MI goes exactly according to plan, the Army is going to expect that deal to be honoured.
As for how much oil is needed, carrying out MI used up roughly one month's production. That would ordinarily be spread throughout the entire IJN (all those tankers, transports, anything in the Indian Ocean,,, everyone). It takes close to half that again to get the bulk of the Navy to Truk, and another half-month of production to move those ships (6 CV, 11 BB, 50 DD and various stuff escorting) to the New Hebrides or Fiji. For comparison, Guadalcanal in September and in October used about a quarter of the monthly production each month (or 1/6 of IJN oil use overall - they frequently went over budget!)
Depending on how much the Japanese want to commit to FS, simply getting the Navy to Truk will probably take until mid-July at the absolute earliest (the stockpile at Kure was at one point - couldn't find what month - less than half a month's production. They will have to wait). Watchtower is likely axed, but the Marine division is going to get put somewhere, probably New Caledonia or Fiji (and the transports IMO will go to Torch). FS will most likely be September, with about 9000 men committed*, and Japan gets beaten pretty bad. Espiritu Santo might be doable - it wasn't very well guarded - anything else is going to be a total disaster if attempted that late.
*For those wondering about why my TL isn't a total Japanese wreck like I described here, I'm not following the original FS plan in it - first, that plan was drafted on May 18th, after my Coral Sea POD, and second I assumed that Japan gets a bloody nose landing at Port Moresby and realises they need to commit more forces to it (eventually pretty much everything that went to Guadalcanal, or close to 40k men). With a Midway POD, they're going to be much more likely to stick to the original plan - the "final" version has already been written. And they're probably going to just lose everyone landing at Midway, which won't teach them "you can win if you send a lot of men" but rather "sometimes the US forces are just bloody strong" which they already learned at Wake.
- BNC
marathag
Banned
That are busy with Kursk and whatever Rommel is up to in Africa in 1943 without the big Torch landings.
While the Allies haven't had practice with landings, the Germans had done little with the Atlantic wall, other than the channel Islands and Calais. Everywhere else was a joke. By 1944 1.7M mines were in place. By D-Day there were 5M. No Belgian Gates or other obstructions in place, most of the 500,000 emplaced were after Rommel arrived. Rommel did more in 5 months than Rundstedt did in 3 years
From LINK
In December 1943, Rommel finished his two week inspection tour of the Atlantic defenses; he was not impressed by what he saw. A basic concept for defense did not exist in any form and any precautions taken did not meet the seriousness of the threatening major landing. No agreement had been decided upon regarding placement of artillery on the beaches with each branch of the Wehrmacht disagreeing as to where the guns would do the most good. He criticized the Atlantic Wall as “a figment of Hitler’s Wolkenkuckucksheim (cloud-cuckoo-land) …an enormous bluff …more for the German people than for the enemy …and the enemy, through his agents, knows more about it than we do.”(Mitcham, 7) Except for the area around Pas-de-Calais, no other part of Western Europe held any similarity to the impregnable fortress of concrete and firepower that Hitler wanted. Due to the immense length of the coast, Rundstedt had built only a few strong points as fortification, not the continuous stretch of concrete and guns. In a distance of 600 miles, only 11 coastal batteries with 37 guns total were in place.
300 to 400 meters on the south shore where they intended to land. Not, that it would make much difference to the 1500 men in the combined first couple assault waves. There were supposed to be two naval gunfire spotting teams, one each in the two assault groups. Amyone want to think about carrying 1942 portable radio sets under fire that 350 meters? How about a MG, what about pushing a raft of MG or mortar ammo? Or a raft with a mountain cannon?
A few months later that much fire was aimed at undefended beaches on Guadalcanal. Sixteen months later four hours of naval fire preceded the landing on tiny Betio island.
OTL Yamamoto order the main fleet with the BB to pursue the defeated enemy to the east. That means that by the time the landing occurs the BB will be more than a full days distance away.
I'm thinking the losses would be the 1500 man combined assualt groups. The remainder, about 1000 airfield crew, artillery crew, and quarter master company would be witheld as the assault force dies.
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It is questionable if Nimitz would be cashiered or even relieved, it was an exposed post and he had the backing of King beforehand.
The Japanese are going to have a serious problem taking Midway, much less holding it. The fleet can't stay, fuel makes it more or less impossible and the worst thing the Japanese could do was park the Kido Butai that close to Pearl. The Japanese had no idea of the problems with the Mark 14 torpedo, putting any sort of standing force, or even a regular supply run, close enough to a major American base that subs can make a round trip before the milk gets sour would be, from their perspective, suicidal. Even with the problems the Mark 14 did have, the weapon did work about 15% of the time, that would be enough to cause crippling losses in the sort of shooting gallery that a Japanese occupied Midway would have created.
There is also almost no reason for the ETO to be impacted, at least in any significant manner. Ranger was not really a combat capable platform, even when the U.S. was down to one deck in the Pacific the Ranger stayed in the Atlantic. Same goes for the escorts, too slow for fleet work. What is likely to happen is a diversion of some USAAF assets to Australia to improve the defenses since there will likely be no Solomons operation in 1942, along with some major arguments between DC and MacArthur about the strategy in the Pacific.
It is quite unlikely that there would be much of a delay in the actual U.S. Central Pacific advance. Gilberts, Marshalls on about the same schedule, although in this scenario the decision might be made to retake Wake. It is possible that the Gilberts might be where the IJNAF dies instead of the Marianas. What will be a dramatic difference is that at some point the much larger surviving Japanese surface fleet is going to have a go, possibly at the Saipan.
Now the SW Pacific will be more substantially delayed. It will also probably be an all Australian/U.S. Army ground campaign. It will be harder on the ground, but the advances overall will likely be faster simply because the U.S. will be flying squadrons of P-38s and maybe some P-47s against Ki-43s and A6Ms. Same goes in the Central Pacific, where the Japanese will still be playing the same Pair of Seven's against a USN Full House Aces full of Kings draw (same as IOTL). Probably don't get Leyte/Luzon until spring of 1945.
End game is really easy. As soon as Manhattan produces, its over. Only question is if the ETO ends on the same schedule and the Soviets declare war on the same schedule as IOTL.
The Japanese are going to have a serious problem taking Midway, much less holding it. The fleet can't stay, fuel makes it more or less impossible and the worst thing the Japanese could do was park the Kido Butai that close to Pearl. The Japanese had no idea of the problems with the Mark 14 torpedo, putting any sort of standing force, or even a regular supply run, close enough to a major American base that subs can make a round trip before the milk gets sour would be, from their perspective, suicidal. Even with the problems the Mark 14 did have, the weapon did work about 15% of the time, that would be enough to cause crippling losses in the sort of shooting gallery that a Japanese occupied Midway would have created.
There is also almost no reason for the ETO to be impacted, at least in any significant manner. Ranger was not really a combat capable platform, even when the U.S. was down to one deck in the Pacific the Ranger stayed in the Atlantic. Same goes for the escorts, too slow for fleet work. What is likely to happen is a diversion of some USAAF assets to Australia to improve the defenses since there will likely be no Solomons operation in 1942, along with some major arguments between DC and MacArthur about the strategy in the Pacific.
It is quite unlikely that there would be much of a delay in the actual U.S. Central Pacific advance. Gilberts, Marshalls on about the same schedule, although in this scenario the decision might be made to retake Wake. It is possible that the Gilberts might be where the IJNAF dies instead of the Marianas. What will be a dramatic difference is that at some point the much larger surviving Japanese surface fleet is going to have a go, possibly at the Saipan.
Now the SW Pacific will be more substantially delayed. It will also probably be an all Australian/U.S. Army ground campaign. It will be harder on the ground, but the advances overall will likely be faster simply because the U.S. will be flying squadrons of P-38s and maybe some P-47s against Ki-43s and A6Ms. Same goes in the Central Pacific, where the Japanese will still be playing the same Pair of Seven's against a USN Full House Aces full of Kings draw (same as IOTL). Probably don't get Leyte/Luzon until spring of 1945.
End game is really easy. As soon as Manhattan produces, its over. Only question is if the ETO ends on the same schedule and the Soviets declare war on the same schedule as IOTL.
History Learner
Banned
No Stalingrad or Tunisgrad; II SS Panzer Corps is available for duty too by the likely invasion dates and the Luftwaffe can actually achieve air superiority.
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Japanese BB were loaded for a possible surface action, not shore bombardment, meaning a minimal number of high capacity shells. The fact that Midway had a very substantial coastal artillery (including 7"/45 Mark 2 guns from the Mississippi class pre-dred BB and five 5"/51).
Midway was Tarawa, but better armed, being attacked by under 3,000 troops (the U.S. tossed close to 5,000 men at Tarawa in the first 12 hours, and the Americans had Amtracs). If you want to know what the a Japanese landing effort would have looked like just read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Tenaru (the IJA unit that was destroyed was under the command of the same officer, Kiyonao Ichiki, who had one wing of the embarked landing force for Midway and was comprised of 900 of the troops designated for Midway operation). Ichiki attacked with 795 men. The Marines collected 15 prisoners, 30 stragglers managed to get back to the Line of Departure. The rest of the Ichiki detachment was wiped out.
marathag
Banned
With the Pacific Calm while waiting for the USN to rebuild, that Pacific Airpower there as well comes to the ETO as well as the Army divisions
Early 1943, yes, what was left of 6th Army was being marched into captivity, 2nd Army was nearly completely wrecked.
Manstein loved blaming Paulus for his failed relief effort. That SS Unit had been busy with Kharkov in blunting the Soviet drive after Stalingrad fell, so they would be rebuilding in Spring/early Summer, for Citadel in July.
If the Germans abort that offensive to move what's in good shape West, then the Soviet restart their offensive
Same lessons can be learned in the Channel and in Normandy. As for Luftwaffe contesting air superiority, simply not a chance over Normandy due to massive Allied air power already available in 1943.
Anything sent to North Africa, or Libya to be more exact, is beneficial for the Allies as it's out of the way. Actually, as Afrika Korps was shattered by Battle of El Alamein and without Operation Torch the French North Africa is still neutral, Libya will be probably taken by Jan 1943 as it was in OTL.
After conquest of Libya the Allies can send convoys through the Mediterranean, assuming Malta is in Allied hands.
Now, in the Med Germany has to send in significant forces to bolster Italian defences. If the Allies play their cards out well, defence of Italy will tie up as much Axis forces as the OTL Italian campaign
History Learner
Banned
They really can't be learned given this will be the first time the Americans, and indeed even the British really for that matter, are doing it and there is no margin for forgiveness. North Africa allowed them to get experience against the "JV" in the form of the Vichy French. As for airpower:
This isn't even getting into the relative numbers/quality/etc
History Learner
Banned
There is no Pacific calm though; the Japanese are overrunning the Southwest Pacific, severely threatening Australia and likely causing an invasion paniac on the West Coast that will tie down large numbers of troops and especially shipping to keep Australia going. Combine that with the IOTL lacking of landing craft and shipping anyway, and on that basis alone the matter of logistics likely scuppers any France in '43 attempt.
As for the Eastern Front, no reinforcement of Rommel means 6th Army can be broken out of Stalingrad successfully. II SS Panzer IOTL was in constant action from Kursk onwards into the January of 1944 and was actually forming in France in late 1942/early 1943 anyway.
They really can't be learned given this will be the first time the Americans, and indeed even the British really for that matter, are doing it and there is no margin for forgiveness. North Africa allowed them to get experience against the "JV" in the form of the Vichy French. As for airpower:
This isn't even getting into the relative numbers/quality/etc
The cunning plan would be flying the Spits and Thunderbolts from Southern England instead of Eastern England
175 miles alone from Portsmouth is more than enough to cover Normandy. As for relative numbers, RAF alone was superior to Luftwaffe in the West, with Fighter Command having some 100 squadrons in early 1943.
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