Days of Infamy WHN?

Just finished reading 'Days of Infamy' by Newt Gingrich & W R Forstchen, its a follow-on book from their earlier 'Pearl Harbor' in which Yamamoto had led the attack, which included a third wave - Oil Farm on fire and Dry Dock gate destroyed as a result.

So, in the this door they have the Japanese seek out the missing US Carriers. The two fast battleships do a bombardment of Pearl the next morning, accompanied by the two light carriers. One of them is torpedoed by attacking US Destroyers & Cruiser.
Enterprise takes the bait - comes hunting for the carriers with the battleships. The resulting battle - sees the Hiei badly damaged and barely moving, one of the light carriers crippled (remaining aircraft transferred to the other). And Enterprise also crippled surviving aircraft just make it to Pearl.
Next round is the Lexington (with a little help from Pearl) versus the Main Body - Akagi is sunk but also the Lexington.
The Hiei is finished off by a US submarine - and the Enterprise crawls back to San Diego. And Yamamoto is recalled to Tokyo - his thoughts are to finish off Wake, and follow up with Midway.

So what happens next, does Yamamoto get congratulated, or canned? What can FDR transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific initially based at San Diego? Is the RN in a position lend any help? How long before Pearl Harbor is back to being useable?

The US's only consolation (although they probably don't know it) is that the Japanese have lost a lost of aircraft and crew, will take time to restock and retrain before the next operation.
 

nbcman

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Just finished reading 'Days of Infamy' by Newt Gingrich & W R Forstchen, its a follow-on book from their earlier 'Pearl Harbor' in which Yamamoto had led the attack, which included a third wave - Oil Farm on fire and Dry Dock gate destroyed as a result.

So, in the this door they have the Japanese seek out the missing US Carriers. The two fast battleships do a bombardment of Pearl the next morning, accompanied by the two light carriers. One of them is torpedoed by attacking US Destroyers & Cruiser.
Enterprise takes the bait - comes hunting for the carriers with the battleships. The resulting battle - sees the Hiei badly damaged and barely moving, one of the light carriers crippled (remaining aircraft transferred to the other). And Enterprise also crippled surviving aircraft just make it to Pearl.
Next round is the Lexington (with a little help from Pearl) versus the Main Body - Akagi is sunk but also the Lexington.
The Hiei is finished off by a US submarine - and the Enterprise crawls back to San Diego. And Yamamoto is recalled to Tokyo - his thoughts are to finish off Wake, and follow up with Midway.

So what happens next, does Yamamoto get congratulated, or canned? What can FDR transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific initially based at San Diego? Is the RN in a position lend any help? How long before Pearl Harbor is back to being useable?

The US's only consolation (although they probably don't know it) is that the Japanese have lost a lost of aircraft and crew, will take time to restock and retrain before the next operation.

First off, Mr. Gingrich's and Mr. Forstchen's supposition that a third strike could do that much damage is very much in doubt from previous discussions:

{snip}

Casualties in this scenario would soar, and the ship losses would be actual losses, not refits (which most of the BB at Pearl needed in any case).

I tend to disagree with the potential for a 3rd strike being that crippling. Dry docks and repair shops are surprisingly resilient. One of the striking photos from the raid shows Dry Dock One on the aftermath of the attack. The two destroyers in the dock are wrecked and the USS Pennsylvania was ht by both bombs and parts of the destroyers (including a 1,000 pound torpedo mount). The one way to damage the dock seriously was to torpedo the caission, something that the Japanese attempted in the first wave, all of those efforts failed.

As as demonstrated during the Combined Bomber Offensive machine tools are really hard to destroy. Buildings are one thing, the tools themselves are much less likely to be destroyed. working without full enclosure is much less of an issue in Hawaii than would be the case in a cold weather location.

A third wave would also be forced to deal with the very heavy smoke that was coming from the ships in the harbor, something that would be vastly increased if, as is generally proposed, the tank farm was attacked. Each tank was separately protected by earthen berms, only a direct hit from either a dive bomber or high level bomber would be sufficient to set fire to the bunker fuel, a couple tracer rounds wouldn't do it. Once a tank or two is hit the resulting smoke would obscure the target from that point forward (this is a serious issue when each aircraft has a single bomb, even more than is the case with strategic bombing with massed heavy bombers).

That third wave would also face a fully manned defense. Pearl Harbor had a very robust AAA capability, as is illustrated by the fact that, even in the madhouse of OTL's two waves, the attack waves suffered not just the usually discussed 27 aircraft lost over the target, but an additional 40-50 (figures vary) that made it back to the fleet and were pushed over the side as being beyond reasonable repair. All told, despite the absolute surprise and rather woeful readiness of American defenses (most AAA batteries had no ready ammunition stored at the mount, the ammo as locked away, in many cases it as necessary to use fire axes to get into storage lockers) 28% of IJN aircraft (101 out of 353) received damage either from AAA or from the limited number of defensive fighter that managed to launch. Any third wave would have had to refuel, rearm and return to Oahu, there would have been at least two, more likely three, hours between the departure of the 2nd wave and the arrival of a 3rd. It would have flown into a fully armed and manned defense, with around 20 P-40s and 10 P-36.

What CVLs in the KB? The IJN CVLs were all tasked to support other operations.

The two IJN BCs plus the non-existent CVLs could try to bombard the Honolulu area which had multiple US Coastal Defense batteries which ranged from 3" to 14". It would not do much damage to shore installations but would result in the destruction of those vessels from coastal defenses, land based airpower and the remaining USN vessels. Plus keeping the other KB elements loitering while the BCs went on their death ride could result in some of the DDs running out of fuel on the journey back to Japan.
 
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As long as the US comes out with operational and/or repairable aircraft carriers they will be ok. In six months all the battleships except Oklahoma and Arizona are salvaged and back at sea after Pearl Harbor.They will maintain the battle until they deliver the crushing blow to the Japanese navy at Midway
 
As long as the US comes out with operational and/or repairable aircraft carriers they will be ok. In six months all the battleships except Oklahoma and Arizona are salvaged and back at sea after Pearl Harbor.They will maintain the battle until they deliver the crushing blow to the Japanese navy at Midway

thats expecting the Oklahoma and Arizona get that much damaged as in OTL. Could be they are salvagable too.

The missing of 2 carriers puts the US back a bit more in their war effort and the battle of Midway goes differently with less and other ships present.
 

Geon

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Worst Case Scenario

This thread bring up an interesting question I was thinking of posting separately. However, here is as good as anyplace. Assume the U.S. has a big run of bad luck.

  1. Pearl Harbor occurs on schedule. However both carriers are in port and there is a third wave of attackers. Both carriers are sunk or badly damaged as well as all the ships listed as sunk or damaged in the attack in OTL.
  2. Coral Sea still occurs with the same results - one carrier exchanged on each side.
  3. Midway occurs with the last of the carriers in the Pacific sunk and perhaps one carrier - say the Akagi sunk on the IJN side.
Being familiar with the Combined Fleet statistics which show industrial strength and capability for both sides I would like to ask the following questions.

  1. Does a worst case scenario like above influence the "Germany First" strategy the allies agree upon?
  2. How does a worst case scenario like the one above influence the first two years of the Pacific War in the strategies of both the Allies and the Japanese?
  3. How much longer (or shorter for that matter) does the war continue? Would a major series of Japanese victories put a demand on the Manhattan Project for quicker results?
 

CalBear

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So, Yamamoto violates every principal that had been drilled into him since he was a cadet, places TWO of Japan's irreplaceable battleships (the Japanese did not lay down/complete one full BB throughout the war) into range of substantial shore batteries (a violation of basic IJN policy dating back to Admiral Togo) plus the guns of at least two battleships that were still partially operational. I assume he does this AFTER being demoted from overall command of Combined Fleet to assume a slot that is at least one, more likely two levels below his rank.

Maryland was down by 5.5' at the bow, having suffered a total of four KIA, with all guns manned and with full power including her eight 16" guns and Tennessee had two undamaged turrets and full power. Maryland's main battery out-ranged the Japanese ships guns, and were more than capable of tearing both of them into furless bits (I would point out that Hiei was effectively destroyed by 8" gunfire at the 1st Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, leaving her a hulk to be sunk by air attack once the sun rose and that Kirishima was literally torn to pieces by Washington in under half an hour the next evening.

So the Japanese lose both BB without achieving their mission. The ships would have had to silence the guns on both BB and the shore batteries, especially the 14" rifles before they could even start to fire on other target. While they are engaging the two American BB, which are at a substantial disadvantage being immobile due to sunken ships moored outboard, and trying to disable the disappearing 14" batteries guarding the harbor, every submarine and destroyer in the harbor sorties to conduct torpedo attacks. The only question is if the ships die from gunfire or torpedoes before achieving a bloody thing.

The entire concept of this sort of scenario is fatally flawed. It assumes that Japanese were planning to fight a long war against the U.S. (the dry dock and tank farm only matter if the war extends at least a year, more likely two)). No one in the Japanese command, not even the most irrational, thought, on December 7, 1941, that they could get into a long term slugging match with the U.S. The reason the war started when it did was because the Japanese realized that they were at their maximum point of advantage. American construction was starting to turn out battleships like they were cookies (between April 1941 and August 1942 the U.S. commissioned SIX fast BB) and had 13 Essex class carriers already ordered. Japan was planning for a flash knock down, secure a defensible perimeter, and cut a deal. They utterly misread the American mindset, assuming the U.S. would react as if this was a colonial empire dust-up where some territory changes hands, maybe a few bucks, and everyone plays nice afterward(rather like the Europeans had been doing for several centuries). Instead the U.S. reacted with a crusade that was never going to stop until Japan had been ground into the dirt.

I understand why the authors wrote the story. Doesn't mean it makes and bloody sense.

Regarding what what would have happened if the two Pacific Fleet carriers had been in port -

1. Saratoga reached Pearl inside of a week, followed by Yorktown and Hornet by the end of January.

2. Coral Sea likely happens as IOTL, except the U.S. may have a third deck available.

3. Midway almost certainly never happens. The operation was in reaction to the Doolittle Raid, something that convinced Yamamoto that he had to finish off the U.S. fleet. With two fewer decks available the U.S. is very unlikely to throw the dice as was done IOTL.

4. The big fights happen either near Guadalcanal or in the Gilberts. If it is near the latter the U.S. has at least seven decks available (which was what was in place at Tarawa, despite the USN loss of four carriers prior to that operation).

5. Japan is pounded flat as a sheet of glass.
 
thats expecting the Oklahoma and Arizona get that much damaged as in OTL. Could be they are salvagable too.

The missing of 2 carriers puts the US back a bit more in their war effort and the battle of Midway goes differently with less and other ships present.

Japan lost carriers also so Midway may come out the same, either way Japan would lose the war because we would be able to produce more ships and trained pilots while Japan could not replace their losses.
 
nbcman:

It's a long time since I read the first book, but in the third wave were successful with torpedoing the caission.
The light carriers Hiryu & Soryu were used to cover the Battleships and act as spotters - a night-time bombardment. In OTL they may well have had other tasks, I'm just relaying what was happening in this one.

Aircraft losses are given as:
- 1st & 2nd waves 29 planes lost + 35 damaged (10 so badly cannibalised for spares then jettisoned),
- 3rd wave 27 lost, 21 damaged (7 reduced to spares),
- total of at least 86 aircraft no longer combat effective.

As far as I can recall he just insisted that as the attack was his 'baby' he had to be there to direct!. I think he was motivated to go the 'extra mile' because he realised the effect on the US of the undeclared War, as opposed to his earlier expectations of what the Foreign had planned

Neither in this book do I recall any mention about US coastal guns in action. In the story, of the BBs only the Hiei is sunk.

In this scenario would the Philippines fold quicker, with the forces in OTL lost, used elsewhere?
 

nbcman

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nbcman:

It's a long time since I read the first book, but in the third wave were successful with torpedoing the caission.
The light carriers Hiryu & Soryu were used to cover the Battleships and act as spotters - a night-time bombardment. In OTL they may well have had other tasks, I'm just relaying what was happening in this one.

Aircraft losses are given as:
- 1st & 2nd waves 29 planes lost + 35 damaged (10 so badly cannibalised for spares then jettisoned),
- 3rd wave 27 lost, 21 damaged (7 reduced to spares),
- total of at least 86 aircraft no longer combat effective.

As far as I can recall he just insisted that as the attack was his 'baby' he had to be there to direct!. I think he was motivated to go the 'extra mile' because he realised the effect on the US of the undeclared War, as opposed to his earlier expectations of what the Foreign had planned

Neither in this book do I recall any mention about US coastal guns in action. In the story, of the BBs only the Hiei is sunk.

In this scenario would the Philippines fold quicker, with the forces in OTL lost, used elsewhere?

Ok. I see what the timeline is for the book according to the Wiki page.

BC Hiei is lost (sunk 30 miles southwest of PH?? KB was northwest) along with CV Akagi. CV Soryu is damaged. There is a mention of DDs and at least one CA being involved in attacks on the BCs but there is no mention of shore batteries being engaged other than 'confused return fire' after 2 BCs caused 'severe damage to the harbor and Honolulu' in their night time bombardment. EDIT: per CalBear's post, there should have been more USN ships involved as there were 2 CAs, 6 CLs and over 20 DDs present along with lightly damaged BBs. EDIT2: From the previous book by the authors, apparently the 3rd wave not only damaged the docks / oil farms it sunk or damaged many of the remaining ships including all the moored SS. The 3rd wave lost 1/3 of the aircraft involved but 300 aircraft were available for operations on the next day.

So the IJN lost 1 CV and another CV would be in drydock. As the KB was not involved in actions against the PI IOTL, there would not be an appreciable change. But the Soryu was one of the two CVs that were detached to assist in the landings at Wake. Probably the KB would stick together and no CV would go to Wake due to aircrew losses. There also would be follow on impacts on other attacks such as Rabual, Darwin, the invasions in the NEI, plus the Indian Ocean Raids.
 
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3. Midway almost certainly never happens. The operation was in reaction to the Doolittle Raid, something that convinced Yamamoto that he had to finish off the U.S. fleet. With two fewer decks available the U.S. is very unlikely to throw the dice as was done IOTL.

ah yes, there is that of course.
 


Being familiar with the Combined Fleet statistics which show industrial strength and capability for both sides I would like to ask the following questions.

  1. Does a worst case scenario like above influence the "Germany First" strategy the allies agree upon?


  1. Very little or none. The Germany first came out of long term considerations. One of those was the knowledge a new, larger, & better Pacific fleet would be operational in late 1943, Another was the knowledge that most of the material used against Germany would be useless against Japan. Aside from air power & cargo shipping there was not much else to add. Masses of infantry regiments, 65 independent battalions of tanks 60+ engineer battalions, ect… were simply not needed. Even with only 20% of the total resources of the US sent to the Pacific the US was able to conduct a second unanticipated series of offensives across the south Pacific.

    [*]How does a worst case scenario like the one above influence the first two years of the Pacific War in the strategies of both the Allies and the Japanese?

    Not much in strategy. Operationally it means the 1942 air battles in the S Pacific are even more land based than OTL.

    [*]How much longer (or shorter for that matter) does the war continue? Would a major series of Japanese victories put a demand on the Manhattan Project for quicker results?

    Might create demand, but the results won't come much faster. The project was approaching the pace where hasty mistakes were slowing things.
 
3. Midway almost certainly never happens. The operation was in reaction to the Doolittle Raid, something that convinced Yamamoto that he had to finish off the U.S. fleet. With two fewer decks available the U.S. is very unlikely to throw the dice as was done IOTL.

If not the Tokyo raid then something else. The escalating series of raids had already gotten the attention of the IJN. The February massacre of the naval bomber group was bad enough, but the March attack that scattered the 17th Army convoy off the New Guinea coast was a humiliation that could not be concealed. Other damaging raids would have been substituted for the home islands attack.
 

CalBear

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Ok. I see what the timeline is for the book according to the Wiki page.

BC Hiei is lost (sunk 30 miles southwest of PH?? KB was northwest) along with CV Akagi. CV Soryu is damaged. There is a mention of DDs and at least one CA being involved in attacks on the BCs but there is no mention of shore batteries being engaged other than 'confused return fire' after 2 BCs caused 'severe damage to the harbor and Honolulu' in their night time bombardment. EDIT: per CalBear's post, there should have been more USN ships involved as there were 2 CAs, 6 CLs and over 20 DDs present along with lightly damaged BBs. EDIT2: From the previous book by the authors, apparently the 3rd wave not only damaged the docks / oil farms it sunk or damaged many of the remaining ships including all the moored SS. The 3rd wave lost 1/3 of the aircraft involved but 300 aircraft were available for operations on the next day.

So the IJN lost 1 CV and another CV would be in drydock. As the KB was not involved in actions against the PI IOTL, there would not be an appreciable change. But the Soryu was one of the two CVs that were detached to assist in the landings at Wake. Probably the KB would stick together and no CV would go to Wake due to aircrew losses. There also would be follow on impacts on other attacks such as Rabual, Darwin, the invasions in the NEI, plus the Indian Ocean Raids.

How kind of the USN to leave everything that could sortie sitting the harbor waiting to be attacked. Even seeing the remaining BB on Battleship Row with the extensive smoke would be a miracle. Sinking them would be beyond that. Golden BB like the Arizona are called that for a reason.

I get stretching credulity. This goes a step beyond. Actually it goes a half marathon beyond using perfect 20/20 hindsight.
 
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nbcman

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How kind of the USN to leave everything that could sortie sitting the harbor waiting to be attacked. Even seeing the remaining BB on Battleship Row with the extensive smoke would be a miracle. Sinking them would be beyond that. Golden BB like the Arizona are called that for a reason.

I get stretching credulity. This goes a step beyond. Actually it goes a half marathon beyond using perfect 20/20 hindsight.

The Japanese would have had many golden BBs to successfully damage the dry docks & oil tanks when they had zero prior training attacking those structures at the same time damaging / sinking almost every surviving and fully alerted vessel, destroy almost every remaining alerted airplane, plus blow up Admiral Kimmel at his HQ. If the Japanese had that hit rate in the first 2 waves, they wouldnt have needed to do the 3rd wave.
 
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