actually with the awesome firepower, excellent fighters and airmen, and inferior Japanese crews and airframes (for the most part) the best the US ever did was 90% against the Kamikazes.
Pretty sure the kamikaze loss rate was 100% in strikes making contact with the US fleet, if I understand the term correctly.
But why in your estimation was Coral Sea cancelled and the Japanese carrier fleet inactive after Santa Cruz? Historians say it was because of crippling aircrew losses.
Actually, Zuikaku searched for Yorktown after the battle, on the 9th or 10th (forget which), the intention being to sink it. But Fletcher had already departed the scene. Why Hara retreated initially on the 8th I personally think is because Shokaku got pasted and he didn't want to risk his division by losing his last operational deck.
Zuikaku's trom is here. You can go through the various carriers to get an idea of what went on after Santa Cruz., Zuikaku was operational again it looks like at the end of December 1942, Shokaku about May 1943.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Zuikak.htm
Santa Cruz was the first battle in which IJN strike losses approach the levels you're projecting for Pearl Harbor. The problem? This was because of 40mm and 20mm AA, (and maybe some 5" proximity). None of which were at Pearl Harbor.
The Shokaku and Zuikaku airgroups were assigned airfield suppression because they were considered less trained and experienced.
When I said Aichi 99 Kanbaku says 5th CAR DIV's Val pilots came from 12th and 14th Ku in China, that ends the discussion on these units - they were composed in large part from combat vets. The fighter pilots probably came from the same source.
Even if the numbers are just increased to 30 aircraft shot down by fighters (from 10 historically) which we seem to agree is not an unreasonable assumption if the fighters are actually in the air at the start of the battle makes that 49 aircraft lost. If we double or triple the torpedo planes shot down (also not unreasonable as only the last of the attackers were engaged ... the 5 shot down were at the tail end of the torpedo attack) that makes it 59 aircraft lost. The fleet guns manned with sufficient ammunition flow (remember they only had their ready boxes initially and exhausted them before a steady flow of ammunition could get going) is bound to get at least 5 or so of the level bombers (of 50). That makes 64 shot down.
65 shot down in the two raids (combined) against fully alerted defenses is a defendable opinion, provided the defending fighters manage a mass interception. Not 100s shot down. Not 200. (Zimm goes full jingo on his hypothetical kill estimates, IMO).
The entire attack force was only around 360 aircraft (as fighters were kept back for CAP over the fleet). That is an 18% loss rate even in your most pessimistic view point. Generally speaking anything over 5-7% was considered a severe loss in the ETO Bomber Offensive.
65 would send Nagumo on his way. The raid would be a strategic failure, but from a tactical perspective, indecisive for either side.
If torpedo aircraft losses are higher, and flak is more effective against the level bombers, the flak available to meet the Second Wave is less suppressed thus the fleet is more likely to achieve more against that wave as fewer ships are hit or suffering catastrophic damage.
The second wave flak was about as active as can be imagined, so call it 9 kills and leave it at that.
This all adds up. It doesn't require many changes to get to 25%. If better command decisions had been made by the US Army (specifically), then more fighters would have been available, the flak guns would have been at their assigned defense areas instead of parked. More losses in the airfield suppression attacks result. If the fighters had been in their hardened shelters instead of parked on the ramp fewer of them are lost, and more are available for the Second Wave.
The USAAF didn't put around 130 fighters on Oahu because flak was effective. It had them there because AA was garbage. In terms of USAAF fighters, we're assuming these scrambled to meet the first wave, so revetments are only used for non-operational fighters.
You are asserting that nothing the US could have done would have inflicting crippling damage to the Japanese.
No, what I said is that it took about 350 fighter sorties to shoot down 100 IJN planes in 1942. So, if you're projecting 100 or 150 lost, if I were writing it, I'd have it the USAAF prepositioned 350 fighters on Oahu for an ambush. If you want 200 shot down, maybe pre-position 900 fighters on Oahu.
A number of books, including General Kenny's memoirs, and this outstanding work "Fire in the Sky" as well as "Guadalcanal:Starvation Island" look at South Pacific Campaign and its daily attrition which exceed the rate of Japanese ability to replace losses as the key to the air war in the Pacific. But you knock out 18-30% of the principal Japanese strike force (its aircrews and aircraft) on the first day of the war and that attrition already starts to become a serious problem.
So, if the Japanese lost 8,000 planes and pilots in the Solomons, those 100 lost at an AH Pearl Harbor (1/80th of that total) mean what?
Coral Sea and Midway demonstrate very strongly that far higher losses could have been inflicted, with the equipment and weapons available at the time of Pearl Harbor. That doesn't require pixie cannons or magic.
Not pixie cannons specifically, but either them or 40mm and 20mm cannons; between Coral Sea and Midway, 122 US fighters shot down 41 aircraft against about 63 escorts. At Oahu they've got 90 and there are around 80 escorts.
also your numbers for Wake Island seem very low.. is that from the first day or for the duration of the campaign?
At Wake there was 1 air battle where IJN carrier aircraft tangled with defending fighters. Two IJN Kates were shot down, two F4F's were shot down, one Kate pancaked back at the fleet, (crew recovered).
In my timeline I gave the American fighters about a 30% effectiveness against fighters, while giving the Japanese about a 50% effectiveness (on average as some where fighting P36s).
I'd recommend something like 10% effectiveness against the Zero, 25% against escorted strikes, 50% against unescorted strikes. Doing a quick estimate, those 350 fighters shot down about 22 Zeros. In the raids, when looking at escort strength, when this was 20 or fewer Zeros they lost about 87 planes shot down on 259 defending fighters (vs 89 escorts, or 3:1). When it was 36 or more escorts, they lost 21 planes shot down, (91 fighters vs 144 escorts, or about 1.6 to 1 in favor of the Zeros.
I gave US fleet and Army flak variable effectiveness ratings depending on whether it was engaging low flying torpedo bombers, level bombers flying at 10,000 feet in a predictable flight path and a much lower effectiveness against dive bombers (assuming that those destroyed mostly would be splashed as they pulled out and a small percentage lost vs damaged by ground fire).
Call it maybe 25 to AA against alerted defense, both waves, total. More torpedo bombers shot up and ditched back at the fleet.
One other important thing about Pearl Harbor... it doesn't really matter what the US losses in pilots are (well except obviously to the men involved). They can be replaced very readily, as were their aircraft losses. The Japanese do not have that luxury or ability, particularly in terms of carrier aviators.
Santa Cruz says that once the 20mm and 40mm were in numbers in the US fleet, IJN pre-war aviator doctrine was useless. Therefore, that the time to use these units was in the first six months of the war.
Even if both US CV are lost engaging the Japanese, if they manage to knock 2 of the Japanese out of the war for several months through damage or casualties to their airgroups, they are inflicting crippling losses.
When this combined wave of defending fighters rips into the attack and shoots down 30 aircraft, then 25 more fall to AA and 10 more to damage later, there isn't going to be a carrier battle. Nagumo will scoot.