Japan attacks somewhere else other than Pearl Harbor?

[Barry Bull]

As if PH didn't anger USA.

No one said the Japanese plan was good. But atleast PH strike did give IJA and IJN about 6 months of time to act freely in the Pacific.

 

[McPherson]

How many major naval victories did the British have against Imperial Japan during WW2? Now compare with the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse, the destruction of the ABDA fleet and invasion of the Dutch East Indies, and the way Somerville ran away from the Indian Ocean raid and still managed to lose ships. Oh yes: and as another poster mentioned, the Imperial Japanese managed to attack British shipping, at one point, as far away as Madagascar - fortunately for the British they were able to scrape together enough force with the help of South Africa to flip Madagascar over to the Free French before Imperial Japan could establish an outpost there to permanently operate from.

Now compare that with the regular beatings that the USN regularly handed out to the Imperial Japanese, once the USA got its act together and engaged brains and employed decent commanders.

Funny how my own words are used to make untenable arguments.
1. The British were not really in a position, base-wise to mount a campaign in the Pacific. They had Singapore and Aden. Lost Singapore and it is Aden, because they were paranoid about India and did not Commonwealth them when Britain had a chance in the late 19th Century. Bad mistake. Operation TRIDENT shows what Indians can do at sea.
2. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the British were trounced in the Indian Ocean. But it is kind of hard to fight and win when the odds are 3x to 1, the enemy IS Kido Butai, your recon ability at that stage of the war is ZERO, because your previous best in the world ability is now DEAD, the trained replacements are green and NTG and your own best flattop and SAG operators are in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
3. ABDA was not just the British. There were Americans, Australians and Dutch who got clobbered, too, all working at cross purposes. Again I will not sugarcoat it. The British, west of Java, ran a bit early. They had their reasons and those reasons were not good ones, then or now.
4. Britain will do parity in western Indonesia about 1945 because they fixed 2 and somewhat 3. Never could fix 1. ; because of 2.

The British managed to run a major submarine (and air) campaign in the Mediterranean against Axis shipping to North Africa, and to play 'incapacitate one another's battleships' quite well with the Italians. (The British raided Taranto with aircraft; the Italians raided Alexandria with frogmen.) And it took them a lot of the war, and American help, but they eventually managed to just about get on top of the German submarine problem.

5. The British TAUGHT the Japanese the art of naval aviation in the 1920s. Taranto was the playbook for Pearl Harbor. USN asleep on that one.
6. The British TAUGHT the Americans about WWII ASW.
7. Don't underestimate the Italians at sea. TOUGH ASW customers, tough small craft brawlers, and they ran the best SLOC operation of the war.

But the British were also driven out of the Pacific and even at one point the Indian Ocean by Imperial Japan, and didn't come back until the USN had well and truly broken the IJN.

8. The USN was driven out of East Asian waters where it had operated since 1898 for the same exact reasons as the British. (Lost Manila and Subic Bay.). USN/Marines American army/USAAF comeback took almost 36 months to repair what the IJN/IJN took in 180 days.
9. Lack of preparation and preplaced infrastructure and mistrust of the Filipinos (Sound familiar?) was the reason that 1. happened.
10. After Coral Sea, Midway and Eastern Solomons, just where was the "invincible USNAS"? DEAD. Santa Cruz was a repeat of Tricomalee because the USN pilot replacements were green and NTG. Fletcher was on the beach with serious wounds and HALSEY (GRRR.) turned in a Halsey performance of the wrong kind at the wrong time and place. Fortunately, and I mean fortunately, Coral Sea, Midway and Eastern Solomons had torn the guts out of Kido Butai, so the IJNAS was somewhat neutered too.
11. Surface brawls: 19 of them. Record = 9/6/2 in favor of the IJN. If those had been British admirals and captains in those night fights, the results would have been a bit better for the allies. The British were much better night fighters at that stage of the war than the Americans with better torpedoes and gunline drills. Won't see comparable USN performance until the Americans learn how to use radar and the destroyer ambush (Burke, McMorris and Lee... November 1942, which is fast, but the Americans still take pastings until Kolombangara.)

The USN did not participate in surface and aerial actions in Atlantic until 1941 and in the Med until 1942. The blunt of the fighting in these area was carried by RN carrier and surface fleet.

One word; "Pedestal". British did well under almost impossible conditions. I rank it as a bigger victory than Matapan.

 

[Barry Bull]

Funny how my own words are used to make untenable arguments.
1. The British were not really in a position, base-wise to mount a campaign in the Pacific. They had Singapore and Aden. Lost Singapore and it is Aden, because they were paranoid about India and did not Commonwealth them when Britain had a chance in the late 19th Century. Bad mistake. Operation TRIDENT shows what Indians can do at sea.
2. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the British were trounced in the Indian Ocean. But it is kind of hard to fight and win when the odds are 3x to 1, the enemy IS Kido Butai, your recon ability at that stage of the war is ZERO, because your previous best in the world ability is now DEAD, the trained replacements are green and NTG and your own best flattop and SAG operators are in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
3. ABDA was not just the British. There were Americans, Australians and Dutch who got clobbered, too, all working at cross purposes. Again I will not sugarcoat it. The British, west of Java, ran a bit early. They had their reasons and those reasons were not good ones, then or now.
4. Britain will do parity in western Indonesia about 1945 because they fixed 2 and somewhat 3. Never could fix 1. ; because of 2.



5. The British TAUGHT the Japanese the art of naval aviation in the 1920s. Taranto was the playbook for Pearl Harbor. USN asleep on that one.
6. The British TAUGHT the Americans about WWII ASW.
7. Don't underestimate the Italians at sea. TOUGH ASW customers, tough small craft brawlers, and they ran the best SLOC operation of the war.


8. The USN was driven out of East Asian waters where it had operated since 1898 for the same exact reasons as the British. (Lost Manila and Subic Bay.). USN/Marines American army/USAAF comeback took almost 36 months to repair what the IJN/IJN took in 180 days.
9. Lack of preparation and preplaced infrastructure and mistrust of the Filipinos (Sound familiar?) was the reason that 1. happened.
10. After Coral Sea, Midway and Eastern Solomons, just where was the "invincible USNAS"? DEAD. Santa Cruz was a repeat of Tricomalee because the USN pilot replacements were green and NTG. Fletcher was on the beach with serious wounds and HALSEY (GRRR.) turned in a Halsey performance of the wrong kind at the wrong time and place. Fortunately, and I mean fortunately, Coral Sea, Midway and Eastern Solomons had torn the guts out of Kido Butai, so the IJNAS was somewhat neutered too.
11. Surface brawls: 19 of them. Record = 9/6/2 in favor of the IJN. If those had been British admirals and captains in those night fights, the results would have been a bit better for the allies. The British were much better night fighters at that stage of the war than the Americans with better torpedoes and gunline drills. Won't see comparable USN performance until the Americans learn how to use radar and the destroyer ambush (Burke, McMorris and Lee... November 1942, which is fast, but the Americans still take pastings until Kolombangara.)

One word; "Pedestal". British did well under almost impossible conditions. I rank it as a bigger victory than Matapan.

Most people, even most ameteur military historians, have no idea what "Pedestal" is.

 

[Johnrankins]

I am Chinese-Canadian myself and i have been mistaken for being Korean or Japanese before.
And this is the 21st century with all it's globalization.
I doubt the US inspectors can tell the difference, especially with all the racism back then.

Which means they would probably assume your Japanese and keep an eye on you . This isn't going to help the Japanese sabotage anything.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

No one said the Japanese plan was good. But atleast PH strike did give IJA and IJN about 6 months of time to act freely in the Pacific.

That was six months they were always going to have. Hell, if not for Midway they might have had it for much longer. To get the short war with a negotiated peace they wanted, attacking Pearl Harbor was always going to be counterproductive. Not attacking Pearl Harbor would be the kind of gamble the Japanese would need to take to actually have a chance of getting the settlement they wanted. Hitler took similar gambles, such as leaving his border with France lightly defended during the Czechoslovakian crisis, and the invasion of Poland. A perceptive leader, Hitler sensed that for all its power on paper, and its geographic location near Germany's industrial heartland, France was actually in no state to attack.

A similarly perceptive Japanese leader could have looked past the threatening position of the Philippines and realized that the Americans actually had no decent offensive force there, nor with the limited base infrastructure and extended lines of communications available at the time did they have the ability to build one up quickly. A really perceptive leader backed by some decent intelligence might have divined that the USN plan was to abandon the Philippines and fall back to Hawaii in the event of war, and thus that a surprise attack on the US fleet earned Japan a political disaster for no actual military gain, since the freedom of action such an attack would ostensibly grant was going to be given to the Japanese anyway.

A far better operational plan would be to force the Pacific Fleet to come to Japan before it had had a chance to build overwhelming force. Trying to lure the US Fleet into battle around the Philippines - which entirely lacked the infrastructure to properly support it - early in the war would be the best way to achieve this. This was identified by the USN as one of the few ways they could lose the war, and so an early deployment in force to the Philippines was expressly forbidden in pre-war naval plans (MacArthur's assumption that he would be saved if he held out is mind boggling since the Fleet never had any intention of relieving him, and shows a serious disconnect between Army and Navy planning) but if the Japanese could engineer a situation where the Americans had to declare war first, political pressure to act offensively might overrule the Navy's sound pre-war plans to react defensively, and the American public might be ambivalent enough to allow the possibility of negotiated peace, then they might actually have their best chance of the decisive battle and short war they planned for. There is, admittedly, a lot of "mights" in this sentence. If nothing else, the murder of American PoWs in stuff like Bataan is quite likely enough to keep the war fervor going, particularly when word of their treatment reached home, unless our hypothetical Japanese leadership manages to restrain their troops torture/murderboners somehow. But a bunch of "mights" is better then the "not a chance" the Japanese OTL plan brought them.

The very strong sentiment in Japan that America had to be attacked wasn't a rational argument, beyond the sense that America was the big kid in the Pacific, and Japan would have to challenge the US to win its own destiny. Rational arguments about goals, objectives, balance of power and chance of success couldn't stand before all the emotional bullshit.

 

[McPherson]

Snip.

I could develop the nuts and bolts of "attrite and decrease", but that would just duplicate. The important thing is FDR listened to his admirals and he would have vetoed "Through Ticket to Manila" if someone like Wilkie had yammered for it. Murphy, even anyone besides Roosevelt would have to listen to Marshal and King if he demanded they relieve MacArthur. Leaders propose, but logistics disposes.

P.S.

Excuse me, Leahy or Stark. King is not CNO, yet.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The important thing is FDR listened to his admirals and he would have vetoed "Through Ticket to Manila" if someone like Wilkie had yammered for it.

Perhaps, perhaps not. We don't fundamentally know, since Roosevelt was never put in a situation where there was widespread clamoring from the public for such an action that would threaten the war effort if it wasn't met. Pearl Harbor made sure of that.

 

[DougM]

Not sure how old you folks are but my Grand Parents were in their early 40s at the start of the war. My Aunts build the equipment yo fight the way, my uncles fought the war and my parents were kids during the war. And I can tell you nothing short of sinking every US ship built from 1941 through 1946 and or standing in the White House with a gun to FDR head was going to get them to agree to any peace treaty with(and I am quoting here) those (insert racially insensitive shortening of Japanese here) Bastards that attacked Peril Harbor“ end quote.
The people back then were willing to put up with a lot more then we are today. many had lived through the “Spanish Flu” and WW1 as well as the Great Depression and were harder then we can prob understand today. And they new how to hold a grudge
I was talking with a WW2 vet at the VA Hospital back in February while waiting for my father and that guy was STILL not happy with the Japanese.
So this idea that one or two big victories is basically just not going to happen.
So Japan is either going to win a military victory or they are going to lose one because the whole idea that the US would give up is frankly a Japanese pipe dream.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

...But it is kind of hard to fight and win when the odds are 3x to 1, the enemy IS Kido Butai, your recon ability at that stage of the war is ZERO, because your previous best in the world ability is now DEAD, the trained replacements are green and NTG and your own best flattop and SAG operators are in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean...

And right there 'the enemy IS Kido Butai' you emphasise how enormous the gulf in training and doctrine was between the British and the Imperial Japanese. Imperial Japan were leagues ahead of the British when it came to surface operations stuff. (As we discussed in the worst commanders thread, the British were barely on a level with Germany by 1941, with what was supposedly their naval best as shown by the run-in with Bismarck. They misread German intentions, botched their surveillance/reconnaissance in terms of losing track of Bismarck, lost Hood, saw Prince of Wales put in the repair yard (and if Prince of Wales hadn't needed time out for yard repairs, would the crew and ship have maybe worked better and lasted a few hours longer in December versus IJN?), only reacquired Bismarck's location and heading by sheer good luck, almost sank one of their own cruisers by air attack trying to stop/slow the Bismarck, and without a fluke rudder hit wouldn't have been able to slow Bismarck enough anyway to catch it and zerg rush it and get the sinking in.)

...5. The British TAUGHT the Japanese the art of naval aviation in the 1920s. Taranto was the playbook for Pearl Harbor. USN asleep on that one....

I'm sure it's come up in threads before on this forum that the IJN were already honing their torpedo attack ability before Taranto. Taranto simply confirmed for the IJN that yes, what they were doing, could be really effective.

Although past a point, this doesn't get us closer to the destruction of lock gates on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.
Do you have any data on what warships, reconnaissance aircraft (and for that matter, radar, I suppose), and anti-submarine measures the USN had in place there on December 8th/7th 1941?

 

[McPherson]

And right there 'the enemy IS Kido Butai' you emphasise how enormous the gulf in training and doctrine was between the British and the Imperial Japanese. Imperial Japan were leagues ahead of the British when it came to surface operations stuff. (As we discussed in the worst commanders thread, the British were barely on a level with Germany by 1941, with what was supposedly their naval best as shown by the run-in with Bismarck. They misread German intentions, botched their surveillance/reconnaissance in terms of losing track of Bismarck, lost Hood, saw Prince of Wales put in the repair yard (and if Prince of Wales hadn't needed time out for yard repairs, would the crew and ship have maybe worked better and lasted a few hours longer in December versus IJN?), only reacquired Bismarck's location and heading by sheer good luck, almost sank one of their own cruisers by air attack trying to stop/slow the Bismarck, and without a fluke rudder hit wouldn't have been able to slow Bismarck enough anyway to catch it and zerg rush it and get the sinking in.)

How about some background to show what really happened?

1. To begin with the contention that the Japanese were leagues ahead in aircraft carrier operations is ridiculous. They had 4 years of war experience to the RN's 2. The Japanese were originally taught by the British such basics as reconnaissance, deck handling and strike below and how to conduct an arm and refuel cycle. The British taught them the wrong ways to do it and the Americans would kill Kido Butai shortly after Tricomalee because of it, but that is not the issue of doctrine and training during the Indian Ocean Raid. The Japanese IJNAS in the Indian Ocean Raid were at their peak when they tangled with a depleted FAA in area operating with 2nd line carriers and air crews. Nagumo was not a good admiral, but neither was Somerville. The First Air Fleet staff was doing most of the Nagumo's thinking for him, and until Spruance killed most of them at Midway, they were rather good. Somerville's staff were not that good. They would live to lesson learn though.

2. Japanese air anti-ship tactics were … lousy. They could barely execute a beam torpedo attack on a sitting duck aircraft carrier (Hermes). The direct comparison is Shoho, another sitting duck one month later at Coral Sea, herring boned and dive bombed in a rub-out that was almost an overkill bomb-ex by USS Lexington's strike package.

3. What makes Kido Butai's reputation is that they could get an alpha strike up and arrive together over target en masse based on their China War experience. If anyone got that kind of first shot in, that would be the killer blow in a flattop duel. Witness Spruance at Midway.

4. Somerville tried to do that at Tricomalee. He planned a night attack if he could find and shadow Nagumo. He could theoretically do that thing because the British were trained (Badly, here, as it turns out; for Somerville's air admiral a RADM D. W. Boyd had a green staff who could not put together an air op order or night recon plan worthy of the name. If it had been Lumley Lyster, that could have been a different outcome, or at least I think it would be, because a successful air op lives or dies in the air op order. ) in night carrier operations. The IJN tried that trick themselves at Coral Sea and they lost 1/3 of their air group to American air defenses. Nobody will show successful sustained night attack capability against ships at sea except the British until the Americans learn how from... guess who? The British. ASV or night radar search and vectored attack was a British thing developed against U-boats. It will work against invasion convoys as Simard's fliers will demonstrate to VADM Kondo during Midway. Somerville's people just were not good enough to do it.

5. You know, I've had run-ins with both Rule Brittanioids and Wehrbois about Lancelot Holland and Gunter Lutjens. Here is what I have learned in those clashes. Lutjens was completely disconnected from events and frankly mishandled his part of Denmark Strait. Lindemann was doing most of the thinking on the German side and even he was not doing too well in the op-art SAG department since he had the bearing of approach warning on Holland from Prinz Eugen's GsG sound gear and did not convince his admiral to angle more acutely the merge OR TO RUN FOR IT as he should have. Holland, whether he could have hung back and shadowed or should have waited for his destroyers and cruisers to catch up with him, or charge in rather than risk losing Lutjens and letting the Germans slip past him is a justified debate. If Holland had reasonable local air assets for the lousy weather conditions (Catapulted planes from his cruisers, for example.) that could keep tabs on Lutjens in such a chase, is something that is unclear in the record, which being proved an option would have convinced me to argue that Holland should shadow Lutjens and whistle up Tovey, but the fact is that he charged, and in his charge, he had a good plan that should have worked to close to armored belt punching distance and really give Bismarck a good going over. He gambled with the %s which told him that if he could get within 10,000 to 7,000 meters of Bismarck, PoW and Hood could take Prinz Eugen and her in a parallel order running gunfight. Rodney and KGV would do that days later, so he was not wrong. He even got the merge angle almost right so as to maximally protect his own ships. Just one random golden BB changes things. It happens. If it had been SoDak and Washington, with Lee at the merge? Shrug. Lee was a much better admiral than Holland, but SoDak was as "unlucky" as Hood. It comes down to those mechanical fail factors sometimes.

As for POW and her own golden BB and botched damage control? Ask me about the USS Pennsylvania.

I'm sure it's come up in threads before on this forum that the IJN were already honing their torpedo attack ability before Taranto. Taranto simply confirmed for the IJN that yes, what they were doing, could be really effective.

I suppose you know that the IJN did not even have the torpedo mods in hand in August 1941 when the first cloud cuckoo land proposal for Pearl Harbor came out Genda's and Fuchida's fevered imaginations? Those were not ready until early OCTOBER 1941. The Kido Butai's torpedo plane crews got barely a month to train with these new NOSE CONTROL Type 91 torpedoes before the fleet had to sortie. Almost a year after the British had demonstrated positive nose control cable retarded drop at Taranto. (11 November 1940.)

The HELL OF IT is that LANTFLT knew it, and how it was British done and a famous American admiral Royal E. Ingersoll (Who would become LANTFLT Actual.), warned that damned fool, Husband E. Kimmel, that the British had solved the shallow torpedo drop problem and beware of the IJN aircraft carrier forces because of it.

Although past a point, this doesn't get us closer to the destruction of lock gates on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.
Do you have any data on what warships, reconnaissance aircraft (and for that matter, radar, I suppose), and anti-submarine measures the USN had in place there on December 8th/7th 1941?

Yes I do. It was mostly an American army show, though.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

...Yes I do. It was mostly an American army show, though.

So there's what? The 'Panama mobile force' - infantry in trucks, I'd guess - the 'aircraft warning' at Fort Clayton (some sort of aircraft detecting radar on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus is that?), 'Coast Artillery' at each end, plus maintenance, bakery, and logistics and that's it?
(Wikipedia, for what it's worth claims an airfield was added in 1942 -'Howard Field'.)
So in December 1941 it's all-or-nothing on the coastal artillery (including any kind of anti-aircraft capability they have) to detect and deal with any kind of submarines, warships, or aircraft looking to cause mischief without intending to land? (Edit: Wikipedia has a picture of a 16 inch coastal gun, so I guess it may be a bad day if you are a warship which they range and fire on, but that supposes they range and fire on you before anything happens.)

 

[McPherson]

Ignoring the fact that the Japanese could not even reach that far... an examination of the OOB would reveal;

Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the War Department instructed its department commanders to put the Rainbow 5 plan into effect. This was the Orange Plan, which identified the Japanese as the primary aggressor, and singled out the Panama Canal as one of the key defense initiatives.

By the time the build-up was complete, defenses consisted of nine airbases and airdromes, 10 ground forces posts, 30 aircraft warning stations, and 634 searchlights, antiaircraft gun positions and miscellaneous tactical and logistical installations. Twelve outlying airbases were also constructed in Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. An outer defense parameter of 960 nautical miles from the Canal was established and patrolled by air and sea.

Let's see further...

When the United States found itself enmeshed in a two ocean war, the Panama Canal suddenly became the most strategic point on the globe. The convergence of naval and merchant fleet traffic at this point offered German U-boats a vital and tempting target. As a result, it became necessary to ring the canal's ocean approaches with protective bases. Agreements with the governments of Caribbean, Central American, and South American countries made it possible to secure sites for new bases throughout the area. The Lend Lease Agreement, consummated with Great Britain in September of 1940, yielded still other possible bases in this crucial locale. Not only were new base sites rapidly acquired, but United States bases already in existence were enlarged. Under the Greenslade Program of 1940, the three pre-1939 naval installations located in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Panama Canal Zone were all expanded.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Ignoring the fact that the Japanese could not even reach that far... an examination of the OOB would reveal;



Let's see further...

So you're saying that the United States government felt, after the war had already started that the defences of the Panama Canal were inadequate, and started to build them up. (possibly including the 'Howard Field' Wikipedia mentions.)
At this point the limitation on Imperial Japanese ambitions, you seem to be indicating, for an attack on the canal (to sabotage/damage) on the 8th/7th of December 1941 seems to me to be solely whether they (Imperial Japan) can get anything capable of dealing serious damage in range.
(Of course: even if Imperial Japan do manage to shut the Canal down in December 1941 they still lose the war in the end anyway; it's just that it may be at the wrong end of more atomic bombs than they took in the original timeline, if they manage to slow the progress of the USN in the Pacific sufficiently...)

(Off topic I found the article on torpedoes you linked to in the previous post interesting... especially the fact that it said that due to their military spending and ability to carry out live-fire exercises, Imperial Japan were actually one of the leading developers of torpedoes in the 1930's, and that the Italians and Americans at least (possibly also the British) subsequently adopted some features (such as wooden stabilizing fins on aerial torpedoes) in the 1940's which the Imperial Japanese had already devised and implemented.)

 

[McPherson]

So you're saying that the United States government felt, after the war had already started that the defences of the Panama Canal were inadequate, and started to build them up. (possibly including the 'Howard Field' Wikipedia mentions.)
At this point the limitation on Imperial Japanese ambitions, you seem to be indicating, for an attack on the canal (to sabotage/damage) on the 8th/7th of December 1941 seems to me to be solely whether they (Imperial Japan) can get anything capable of dealing serious damage in range.
(Of course: even if Imperial Japan do manage to shut the Canal down in December 1941 they still lose the war in the end anyway; it's just that it may be at the wrong end of more atomic bombs than they took in the original timeline, if they manage to slow the progress of the USN in the Pacific sufficiently...)

(Off topic I found the article on torpedoes you linked to in the previous post interesting... especially the fact that it said that due to their military spending and ability to carry out live-fire exercises, Imperial Japan were actually one of the leading developers of torpedoes in the 1930's, and that the Italians and Americans at least (possibly also the British) subsequently adopted some features (such as wooden stabilizing fins on aerial torpedoes) in the 1940's which the Imperial Japanese had already devised and implemented.)

1. The US started in 1939.
2. US defense perimeter was pushed out 960 miles....1540 kilometers. If you know your American aircraft, that is B-17 tactical anti-ship strike radius.
3. This is what Japan did.

Source: JMSDF IJN I-400

It was a stupid idea.

The hanger casings leaked in saltwater through the doors. This would have/and did ruined the Seiren planes designed to be used as kamikaze manned missiles from those noisy, slow diving, very clumsy and fragile pieces of shallow diving junk.

 

[Athelstane]

At this point the limitation on Imperial Japanese ambitions, you seem to be indicating, for an attack on the canal (to sabotage/damage) on the 8th/7th of December 1941 seems to me to be solely whether they (Imperial Japan) can get anything capable of dealing serious damage in range.

Even if they could somehow get something in range - and they can't - the defenses of the Zone were simply too strong for even the entire Kido Butai to make any significant mark on. By December 1941 the Canal Zone had to be one of the best defended places on the planet (admittedly, more so on the Caribbean side, but even so). Unlike Oahu, its radar sets were fully operational, and there were regular air patrols. There was really just not the same possibility of sneaking up on the Zone like there was at Oahu.

The only faint hope might be some kind of suicide attack on the Gatun Dam. But I've never seen evidence that Japanese intelligence was aware of, or even examined, the vulnerability posed by the dam; and in any case, merely damaging canal locks is a far cry from any kind of conquest or disabling of any military forces in the Canal Zone.

No, if Japan is not attacking Oahu, then - if we are talking attacks on American territory - then it is simply going to be a matter of them hitting all the other U.S. bases west of the Date Line that they *did* hit on December 7-8: Wake, Guam, and the Philippines.

 

[Athelstane]

Let's imagine a larger and more prepared force for the Panama Canal.

Understand that the Zone was defended in December 1941 by 58,000 troops, 11 16 inch batteries...I mean, I could go on and on, but you'd be talking about a ground force the size of the Philippine and Malaya operations put together to even begin talking about it.

 

[Cymraeg]

So let me get this straight. The first suggestion on here seemed to be for Kido Butai to raid the Panama Canal. That, from the measurement I just made with my Mark I eyeball, is about 14,000-ish kilometers. To get there they would have to a) be overloaded with fuel to the point where any major vessels would be overloaded with nice inflammable oil drums and b) they'd have to get past Hawaii and all those curious people who might wonder where a major Japanese naval force was heading with all those carriers. If Yamamoto had suggested such a raid he would have been locked up and his head inspected for a concussion. So - no, not happening, implausible, utterly unrealistic, NO.
Then we got to a suggestion of somehow seizing the Canal Zone, or at least the Western Pacific side of it. Given that the Japanese assault plan in the Pacific was a complex one that used some units on multiple targets in succession, any force (and seaborne lift) used to attack Panama means that something else will not be attacked. Guam? Malaya? The Philippines? The whole point of the war is to get that oil. Panama does not get you that oil at all. So, the IJA will not agree to this.
We moved on then to something out of a bad movie from the 1940's, in which the forward thinking Japanese have saboteurs on a ship coming home through the canal, who are presumably all sooper seekrit NINJA saboteurs with a special telephone that allows them to contact Godzilla. That concept died on arrival.
And finally various posters decided to attack those nasty British for being not as good as a highly trained and extremely competent group of Japanese naval aviators who were the best in the world at what they did right up until the moment that their luck finally ran out due to mistakes on a tactical level.
Is that all, or will we have more?

 

[nbcman]

So you're saying that the United States government felt, after the war had already started that the defences of the Panama Canal were inadequate, and started to build them up. (possibly including the 'Howard Field' Wikipedia mentions.)
At this point the limitation on Imperial Japanese ambitions, you seem to be indicating, for an attack on the canal (to sabotage/damage) on the 8th/7th of December 1941 seems to me to be solely whether they (Imperial Japan) can get anything capable of dealing serious damage in range.
(Of course: even if Imperial Japan do manage to shut the Canal down in December 1941 they still lose the war in the end anyway; it's just that it may be at the wrong end of more atomic bombs than they took in the original timeline, if they manage to slow the progress of the USN in the Pacific sufficiently...)

(Off topic I found the article on torpedoes you linked to in the previous post interesting... especially the fact that it said that due to their military spending and ability to carry out live-fire exercises, Imperial Japan were actually one of the leading developers of torpedoes in the 1930's, and that the Italians and Americans at least (possibly also the British) subsequently adopted some features (such as wooden stabilizing fins on aerial torpedoes) in the 1940's which the Imperial Japanese had already devised and implemented.)

I've already quoted part of this from this website regarding the Alert of 1941:

The Alert of July 1941​

Although the command was now organized along theater lines, the safety of the Panama Canal was still the chief concern. Rumors and fears of a Japanese attempt against the Canal had developed at the beginning of July when affairs in the Far East began to edge toward a crisis. The Navy Department's bulletin to the President on 3 July reported the probability of a Japanese move against Russia "about 20 July" and the fact that the Japanese Government was beginning to divert shipping out of the Atlantic. One shipping company, it was stated, had ordered its vessels to be west of the Panama Canal by 25 July regardless of passengers or cargo; another had instructed its ships to discharge all their cargo at west coast ports. Among numerous other memorabilia, the bulletin further reported the following: "Possible torpedo attack on Panama Canal between 1st and 15th of July is reported from a reliable source . . . ." This information was sent to the War Department at once and was immediately relayed to General Van Voorhis as follows: "Report from questionable source indicates torpedo attack on Canal between July 1 and 15. In Washington, much more significance was attached to the news of Japanese shipping diversions. General Van Voorhis was directed to take added measures of protection against sabotage and to tighten up the surveillance of ships in transit. He was to delay all Japanese ships, ostensibly for the purpose of searching them, until he received further instructions from the War Department.22 General Van Voorhis tended to discount much of what had been reported. Japanese ship movements were normal, he radioed Washington, and in fact on 3 July a large Japanese freighter had passed through the Canal into the Atlantic, bound for Baltimore. As for a torpedo attack, he had been given a similar report by the military attaché at Bogota, and it was clear he did not put much stock in it. However, he immediately placed a series of defensive measures into effect. War channels through the mine fields at both ends of the Canal were put in use instead of the usual straight channels; antisubmarine and torpedo nets were placed in operation in front of the locks; and a vigilant guard was maintained. The only unusual activity was a concentration of small boats on the Pacific side of the Isthmus, possibly fishing craft, reported General Van Voorhis, and in order to maintain surveillance over them he requested that he be provided with two high-powered speed boats. Meanwhile, someone in Washington had figured out that Japanese shipping movements were scheduled so as to place one or more vessels in the Canal each day during the period 16-22 July. Although the War Department was unaware of its purpose, the schedule looked definitely suspicious and countermeasures were considered imperative. The result was that General Marshall and Secretary Stimson decided to restrict Canal traffic for an indefinite period "for the purpose of effecting repairs." What this amounted to was an exclusion of Japanese shipping; all other vessels were permitted to pass through. When the Japanese Ambassador inquired about the seeming discrimination, he received a very noncommittal reply from Acting Secretary of State Welles, who had been informed by the War Department of its intentions and who was in complete accord with them.

So the potential use of torpedoes or sabotage to get to the Canal would not be happening after July 1941. Also from the same website it describes the searching and the provision of armed guards on ships going through the Canal since August 1939 in case of saboteurs hiding in merchant ships. So this whole concept of any attack on the Panama Canal in late 1941 is unrealistic at best.

 

[Athelstane]

So the potential use of torpedoes or sabotage to get to the Canal would not be happening after July 1941

Yeah. Just about zero chance of that.

Short of possibly Norfolk/Hampton Roads, the Canal Zone had to be the hardest hard target the United States had at the end of 1941.