"December 7th, A Day that will Ring with Victory!"

That requires a lot more then a unlikely intelligence coup. That requires a literal intelligence miracle.

I was also thinking of a Submarine patrol line North and west of Hawaii that comes across the task force either just after launch or during recovery. My main point is to break the idea that the only counterstrike HAS to be by the American carriers.

Maybe we have S boats patrolling near the various US Pacific Islands and cause heavy losses on the Wake and Guam invasion forces as well as the Philippine invasion.
 
Wouldn't you need the entire U.S Pacific fleet plus carriers in order for the USN to stand a chance, and then you need the commanders at Pearl Harbor to believe that the Japanese could actually attack and act on that warning. Only problem is the U.S believed that an attack on the Philippines or Dutch East Indies, was more likely and they didn't hold the Japanese in high regard to put it lightly.

As far I know it has been discussed that If the Pacific fleet did sail out to meet the Japanese task force they would lose.
 

CalBear

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Okay, before any discussion about the rest: FDR allowing the attack to take place is an ASB level event. It would also allow FDR to be the answer to the follow Final Jeopardy question: "Name the only man to be elected to the U.S. Presidency three times and also be impeached and then hanged for High Treason?"

As to the rest of the question - If the U.S. is fully ready and armed for bear, the Pearl Harbor mission is cancelled. Nagumo had strict orders to abort if discovered before midnight of December 4th local time, decision to abort was at Nagumo's discretion on December 5th. It is vanishingly unlikely that the U.S command structure would leave the fleet in port simply acting as bait, so the chances that Nagumo would be overflown on or before December 5th approach unity.

The Kido Butai also had both agents in place report through the Japanese Consulate on ship movements in the days leading up to the strike as well as a pre-strike air recon by float plane early on December 7th. If either reported a dry hole, the mission would have been aborted or altered to seek out the U.S. fleet.

There are numerous threads on the Board regarding the potential outcome of the attack with varying periods of warning to Pearl. You may want to take a look at them. Some run into the double digit of pages.

The rest of the Japanese attacks go as planned (IOTL the Japanese actually started their attacks against Malaya several hours before the strike on Pearl took place) If all the potential targets are on full alert, with troops properly deployed and reserves activated Japan will have a fairly difficult time of it, even if the Pearl attack does not result in any significant losses to the 1st Air Fleet.
 

CalBear

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I was also thinking of a Submarine patrol line North and west of Hawaii that comes across the task force either just after launch or during recovery. My main point is to break the idea that the only counterstrike HAS to be by the American carriers.

Maybe we have S boats patrolling near the various US Pacific Islands and cause heavy losses on the Wake and Guam invasion forces as well as the Philippine invasion.


The U.S. had two subs off Wake, USS Tambor (SS-198) and USS Triton (SS-201, lost on her 6th patrol on or about 3/15/43) neither ship was able to impede the Japanese in any manner, although Triton did make an unsuccessful attack against one of the IJN cruisers involved in the initial landing effort. The Tambor suffered an engineering casualty and had to return to Pearl without engaging the enemy.

Guam was utterly indefensible. Any change in that reality has to be put in place starting in early 1941.

The U.S. had three boats, USS Plunger, Pollack, & Pompano(SS 179, 180 & 181 respectively) on Patrol northeast of Oahu, as well as USS Thresher (SS 200) en route back from Wake to the South of Oahu. None of them even got a sniff of the Japanese.

The Asiatic Fleet had TWENTY-SEVEN (!) subs (3 in overhaul) on 12/7/41. Four were "S" boats, the rest were Porpoise, Salmon, Sargo class "fleet boats" albeit of earlier types. This was roughly a third of the USN's "modern" submarine force at the time. The number of boats present in the PI was enough to have been a massive problem for the IJN across most of the WestPac; unfortunately between poor torpedoes and poor handling they had quite limited success (12 confirmed sinkings between the start of the war and the Fall of Corrigidor).
 
Maybe a technical problem comes up with the B-17s formerly due on the morning of the 7th, and the arrival is instead delayed till sometime on the 8th or possibly 9th. If the bombers aren't due that morning, Lieutenant Tyler probably won't brush the attack off, but will instead make further queries, then get an alert out, which could easily result in less damage to the US forces (even if the aircraft are just towed out of line, the Japanese won't be able to wreck nearly as many), and probably somewhat more to the Japanese attackers.
 
Narrowing the focus a bit, Lets ay the results of the attack are that the Japanese lose 3 carriers due to US Aircraft and subs and very heavy losses amongst their aircraft and pilots. On the US side minimum damage done to US carriers and Pearl Harbor itself. The biggest loss is Admiral Kimmel who is struck down by a random bullet.

The invasion of the Phillipines goes better for the Japanese. MacArthur is blamed for the US failure in this theatre and he decides to go down fighting on Corregidor. MacArthur is captured in the fighting when Corregidor finally falls. Angry Japanese troops take out their hostilty on the American Garrison and the event comes to be known as "The Corregidor Massacre"

Hitler decides against leaping into war with another subpar partner.

Yamamoto being fully disgraced and depressed on what he sees as the inevitable outcome of the war commits suicide

First New Aircraft Carrier to be launched by the United States is the USS Kimmel.

Anyone have any thoughts on the British view of this scenario?

How it effects Singapore and the rest of British/french/dutch holdings in the Pacific?

What does bring the US into the war with Germany? Fall of the Pillipines? An attack on US shipping in the Atlantic?
Operation Pastorius?
 
ObssesedNuker said:
Uh... not exactly. What Nimitz had a mania for when it came to submarines was using them to sink every Japanese vessel they could find.
Yeah, that's why he had them covering the approaches to every damn IJN anchorage in the Pacific, instead of concentrating on the most productive patrol areas: Bungo & Kii Suido, Tsushima Strait, Yellow Sea, & Luzon/Formosa Strait.:rolleyes:
ObssesedNuker said:
The biggest hiccup was the numerous mechanical faults in the torpedoes of the time.
The Mark XIV was much less important than usually credited. Doctrine played a part. The biggest problem was the nitwit in San Francisco Customs who caused Japan to change her maru code,:mad: which ONI was reading at the time;:eek::rolleyes: OP-20-G didn't break it again until January 1943.:eek:
ObssesedNuker said:
What? Once the resources and range was available, Nimitz ordered the navy to mine the shit out of Japanese ports.
So why didn't he use Withers/English's boats to mine the approaches, rather than waste boats on close surveillance?:rolleyes: He could have done that from the first day he took charge. This would have bottled up IJN units very nicely, & avoided the repeated TGBs & wasted patrols.:rolleyes: Not to mention losses from operating off the most heavily defended places in the damn Pacific.:rolleyes::mad:
bsmart said:
puts several subs in place on 'reconnosance' before war is declared then activates them to attack the task force when it is returning to base
After attacking Pearl Harbor? Still a major defeat for the U.S.

Plus, do you have any idea how damn hard it is for a fleet boat to close & attack a task force?:eek::eek: Fast, heavily escorted ships in company, with disciplined crews--&, in these conditions, air overhead.:eek: In 1941? Most USN skippers wouldn't have come up above 150 feet to shoot; they'd have done what doctrine called for, fired on sonar bearings, & counted on the Mark XIVs to work (which, since they were designed for use against warships, they might just have...)--& cursed when one of six hit (if that many actually did, & 4-5 didn't premature).
bsmart said:
And if the American S boats in the Philippines were laying off the invasion beaches and sunk most of the transport force before the landings took place
Why Asiatic Fleet's boats weren't stationed off known harbors in Formosa, ready to intercept the transports, IDK. Why there was all of one:rolleyes: Sugar boat in Lingayen Gulf (Chapple's S-38?), IDK. Wilkes or Hart (IIRC Blair blames Hart) appears to be an idiot...:rolleyes:
bsmart said:
I was also thinking of a Submarine patrol line North and west of Hawaii
English tried that before Midway, with more boats than he had in '41. Didn't work at all...
CalBear said:
The Asiatic Fleet had ..[f]our ..."S" boats,
I'd have sworn there were more...& Blair puts the number at six in Oct '39 (still way less than I recall...:eek:), all in SubDiv 201.
 
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Narrowing the focus a bit, Lets ay the results of the attack are that the Japanese lose 3 carriers due to US Aircraft and subs and very heavy losses amongst their aircraft and pilots.
Unlikely, the US aircraft would be right at the limits of their range if they actually knew where to go, which they don't.

Hitler decides against leaping into war with another subpar partner.
Except that the Japanese have taken the Philipennes, so they're not exactly looking sub-par.

Yamamoto being fully disgraced and depressed on what he sees as the inevitable outcome of the war commits suicide
He didn't OTL, and he knew the score then.
 
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