Japanese sink US carriers at Pearl Harbor, what next?

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Based on the Maximally Effective PH Attack thread, assuming that there is a maximally effective strike on PH that include the sinking of the majority of BB and all the Pacific Fleet's carriers, who in this scenario are in port, what happens next? Clearly in the long run the US fleet building program would replace any losses and more, but in the meantime the Pacific Fleet is out of commission and the Japanese have no carrier opposition in the Pacific, what do they do? Clearly the carrier battles of 1942 aren't going to be happening.

Also could the US carriers be refloated and repaired or were they pretty much done for?
 
Based on the Maximally Effective PH Attack thread, assuming that there is a maximally effective strike on PH that include the sinking of the majority of BB and all the Pacific Fleet's carriers, who in this scenario are in port, what happens next? Clearly in the long run the US fleet building program would replace any losses and more, but in the meantime the Pacific Fleet is out of commission and the Japanese have no carrier opposition in the Pacific, what do they do? Clearly the carrier battles of 1942 aren't going to be happening.

Also could the US carriers be refloated and repaired or were they pretty much done for?

They might look at land based campaign, so based in Australia air power would have to cover the shortfall in carriers.

Meanwhile an overland attack through Burma to Saigon would be an option.

Using land based air power in New Guinea, and going through Burma are very tough though as the supply routes are not good.
 
Everything that took place in OTL occurs, with the added bonus that the Japanese take Port Moresby and probably execute Operation F-S. There is now no more need to force the USN into a decisive battle, but if Yamamoto got his way they might have tried to move against Hawai'i.

Alternate possibilities potentially include pressing the offensive against Chiang (Operation No. 5), revisiting the Indian ocean, or tightening the noose on Australia.
 
It buys them 3 extra months. Carriers can be moved from the Atlantic. however if the time is taken to consolidate said victory, maybe immediate attack and take midway and other key islands this would help to also buy time.

While I agree land offensive is se Asia would be good options I don't see an invasion of Australia, lots of arid land.

I would think consolidating China would be a priority and trying to end th never ending war there. You still have Formosa, the phillapenes, Dutch East Indies .. The Japanese were way in over there heads.

Now an interesting side effect would be once the bomb comes into play and we are not on the door step of an invasion of the home islands , the Soviets decide to jump in... What then? The United States is not going to loose against Japan, that is clear, but it could get very messy if they have a few extra months to consolidate.
 
One impact will not be in the PTO. USS Wasp likely gets pulled out of the Atlantic right away (like Yorktown was OTL) meaning Wasp is not running Spitfires to Malta in May 1942. USS Ranger may also get pulled out (yes I am aware of the Ranger's limitations) meaning the deckloads of P-40s she flew off IVO West Africa for duty in China/India and North Africa have to get there by other means. USS Hornet was working up and probably has her transit through the big ditch expedited as well.

If Lexington and Enterprise are sunk (Saratoga was on the west coast), the USN can still have a fleet of four carriers - Saratoga, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp within a few weeks, five if Ranger is also sent although she may stay in the Atlantic. That means a lot of the OTL raids happen in one form or another although the Doolittle Raid may not happen. Then again it might as it was one of FDR's pet rocks.

The question is how quickly the reconstituted Pacific carrier force can start making itself annoying? It is possible Yamamoto may push for more aggressive actions either toward Hawaii or Ceylon thinking he has got the breathing space to do something.
 

Deleted member 1487

One impact will not be in the PTO. USS Wasp likely gets pulled out of the Atlantic right away (like Yorktown was OTL) meaning Wasp is not running Spitfires to Malta in May 1942. USS Ranger may also get pulled out (yes I am aware of the Ranger's limitations) meaning the deckloads of P-40s she flew off IVO West Africa for duty in China/India and North Africa have to get there by other means. USS Hornet was working up and probably has her transit through the big ditch expedited as well.

If Lexington and Enterprise are sunk (Saratoga was on the west coast), the USN can still have a fleet of four carriers - Saratoga, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp within a few weeks, five if Ranger is also sent although she may stay in the Atlantic. That means a lot of the OTL raids happen in one form or another although the Doolittle Raid may not happen. Then again it might as it was one of FDR's pet rocks.

The question is how quickly the reconstituted Pacific carrier force can start making itself annoying? It is possible Yamamoto may push for more aggressive actions either toward Hawaii or Ceylon thinking he has got the breathing space to do something.
Thanks for the info. So there will be major carrier battles still, but perhaps they don't do as well as they did IOTL and leave the East Coast bare. Might it focus US public and military attention more to the Pacific than IOTL? What do the British do without the US Club Run to Malta?
 
The Japanese never actually had any serious plans on the table for an invasion of Australia. The IJN wanted to try it, but the IJA led by Tojo shot that notion down by pointing out that a proper assault would take at least 12 divisions skirting the coast and a massive logistics effort. The alternative of a few limited landings in the north was also frowned upon for reasons of diminishing returns; the most they were looking at was simply isolating the continent from the east flank.

Based on what we know of Japanese strategic planning at the time the sequence of events after the fall of Port Moresby probably would have included F-S followed by an invasion attempt on Hawai'i.

Might it focus US public and military attention more to the Pacific than IOTL?

Absolutely. Despite its stated intentions the US committed at least as much manpower and materiel to the Pacific as it did to the war against Germany all the way up until 1944. Under the OP circumstances "Japan First" might become de facto policy.
 
Convair B-36 gets accelerated development over the B-29

USAAF approved the XB-36 mockup on July 20, 1942 in San Diego.
OTL it was sidelined so they could prioritize on the PBY and B-24
 

CalBear

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So they get two decks. Enterprise and Lexington. Sara was en route to San Diego from Bremerton, scheduled to pick up her VF squadron which had just been checked out on the F4F while she was in refit.

That leave Sara, Ranger, Yorktown and Wasp, along with Hornet, which is still shaking down. At least two of the Atlantic fleet ship will have to stay put, probably Wasp and Ranger.

First thing that goes is the Wake relief effort. No chance. The early Marshall Islands strikes may be scrubbed. The Doolittle Raid just went from risk to unacceptable risk. Without the Doolittel Raid the U.S. will have three decks for Coral Sea. That might turn into a major U.S. victory or could remain that tactical draw of OTL.

From there forward it is likely close to business as usual. There is a chance that the Midway operation is taken off the table, since at least part of the justification for the operation was to prevent a re-occurrence of that Raid.
 
Indeed it depends a lot of how many carriers are sunk at PH. If as Zheng He says Lex and Enterprise are sunk at PH, first there is the factor of whether Saratoga is still torpedoed or whether another carrier involved in the early raids gets damaged (they were at a hairs breath away on two occassions in OTL), secondly even a reduced number of pinprick raids will still have Yamamoto determined to attack at Midway to finish them off. While the Doolittle raid indeed shuffled opposition to his plans, that doesn't mean that without the raid he will not get his way.

If somehow they don't have any carriers damaged before that, the USN could still fight at Coral Sea with say Saratoga and Wasp and execute the Tokyo raid with Yorktown and Hornet, but if Coral Sea results in both US carriers sunk or damaged (Wasp is slower and less battle damage resistant compared to Yorktown), there will be only two at Midway. They stand a high chance of loosing them there even if they might inflict significant damage (whether they do take Midway or not is another discussion). So likely for the rest of 1942 Kido Butai will be relatively free from opposition for operation FS at least. But it would have still taken significant attrition in planes and pilots though so committing them to an attack on Hawaii would be very risky, imo i don't think Yamamoto will go for it in the end even if they take NG and most of the FS objectives (again, this being not necessarily guaranteed in light of the continuing stiffening of US resistance) by autumn 1942, especially after getting updated info on the sort of air and land strength being built there, at least not immediately anyway.

He might try to take the closest islands to PH like Johnson and Palmyra to put some kind of land based air pressure on PH, but with hundreds of fighters at PH this will be quickly abandoned. So there could be likely a kind of stalemate on that front, the japanese might be working to contain Australia and make some moves on the asian continent or Ceylon (i don't have enough expertise on operations in those areas to comment more though), but by the end of 1943 the US counteroffensive will start from farther east and will have to face the bulk of Kido Butai, and depending if the japanese pilots situation is better, the USN might loose a number of Essex and Independence hulls in the process, ditto for troop losses.
 
Submarines are of course the huge wild card. Sara will not get torpedoed on that date by that submarine because ITTL she is likely in a different place but that does not mean a US carrier does not suck up a torpedo at some other point and time.

The Japanese sinking two carriers are PH does not translate into any major amphibious assaults anywhere - not Hawaii, not Darwin, not Ceylon, not Madagascar, and not anywhere else. They did not have the shipping and more important the army did not have the spare troops and would have balked at any such suggestion.

What this mainly does is to Nimitz is he now has much less room for error before the Essex class carriers start showing up than he did OTL so he may be less aggressive and I agree with CalBear, the Doolittle probably doesn't happen but that also frees up the decks for that raid for action elsewhere.

Overall, Yamamoto probably behaves like he did OTL. He'll view the PH attack as having given him the breathing space he needs and he'll proceed as planned. Nimitz will start using his carriers to make attacks around the periphery and sooner or later those attacks will become annoying enough that Yamamoto will have to start using his carriers to counter Nimitz. Depending on what else is going on, he will likely not have all six of his big decks at any one time and at some point and time there will be a meeting engagement between two more or less equal fleets. While a Midway style win (for either side) is a possibility, the end result is probably more along the lines of both sides giving each other a badly bloody nose.
 
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The Japanese sinking two carriers are PH does not translate into any major amphibious assaults anywhere - not Hawaii, not Darwin, not Ceylon, not Madagascar, and not anywhere else. They did not have the shipping and more important the army did not have the spare troops and would have balked at any such suggestion.

....

Folks getting their history off the TV or the web generally fail to understand what limited resources the Japanese had. The six millions tons of cargo shipping available in mid 1942 were not adaquate for supplying Japans industry, every cargo hull retained for military operations meant lost production in Japans factories. The stock piles set up prewar varied. In some cases like steel the reserves were good for over a year. In other cases like bunker fuel for the navy & cargo fleet there was barely six months reserve. it says a lot that the overly aggresive Army leaders thought campaigns like invading Hawaii were beyond practicality.
 

CalBear

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I sometimes get the impression that authors of ATLH scenarios around PH believe that ALL the USN carriers could have been at PH that day.
The Japanese thought so too. The operational orders for the Kido Butai specifically mention four USN CV in one section and 4-5 CV in a later section.

In another thread I recently remarked on how the IJN operational plan was a reflection on the haphazard state of Japanese intelligence gathering. What REALLY makes it odd is that they had agents right there. One Japanese agent took the tourist boat and airplane tour of Oahu/Pearl Harbor. Still they expected maybe 4 BB and 4-5 CV.

The BB were also noted as the primary target. If there HAD been two CV in the harbor, along with the full battle line, I sometimes wonder just how much attention the carriers would have received.
 
I'm not sure how sinking a few US carriers allows japan to attempt an invasion of Australia or Hawaii. The Japanese in this scenario have managed to deny the US several key assets yes, but they haven't magicked up 15 extra divisions worth of supplies and men for invasions.
 
The BB were also noted as the primary target. If there HAD been two CV in the harbor, along with the full battle line, I sometimes wonder just how much attention the carriers would have received.

Utah, even after being disarmed, looked like enough of a BB for her to get two torpedoes.
uss-utah-ag-16-print-9.gif

Anything afloat would get hit by IJA (err IJN) pilots with 'Buck Fever'
 
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The Japanese thought so too. The operational orders for the Kido Butai specifically mention four USN CV in one section and 4-5 CV in a later section.
It's as if the Japan high command forgot the US has two oceans, and has been at a near state of war in the Atlantic for more than a year. With that in mind, why would they assume the bulk of the USN carriers would be at PH?
 
I forgot that the OP alo states the battleships would sink as well. I at first thought it could cause naval doctrine to to shift less in favor of carriers.
 
Hypothetically, USS Saratoga could not have been damaged by I-6, on Januari 11th, 1942, but sunk, so lost forever. USS Wasp, ferrying spitfires to Malta could have been lost simmilarly as HMS Eagle on august 11th 1942 in the same region to a submarine attack as well, so not available as well. USS Hornet, was still on a shakedown in the Carribean Sea, possibly being hit on the eastcoast as well by marrauding U-Boote.

That would leave only USS Yorktown available, as she already departed quickly to the Pacific, prior to the U-Boote starting their assault on the US Eastcoast.
 

jahenders

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Based on the Maximally Effective PH Attack thread, assuming that there is a maximally effective strike on PH that include the sinking of the majority of BB and all the Pacific Fleet's carriers, who in this scenario are in port, what happens next? Clearly in the long run the US fleet building program would replace any losses and more, but in the meantime the Pacific Fleet is out of commission and the Japanese have no carrier opposition in the Pacific, what do they do? Clearly the carrier battles of 1942 aren't going to be happening.

Also could the US carriers be refloated and repaired or were they pretty much done for?

I think the other questions are:
1) Are any of the carriers, BBs, or other ships sunk in such a way as to more fully block the channel?
2) Are the carriers sunk so as to be unrecoverable?
3) Does the fact that the carriers aren't then looming out there as a threat to the Japanese task force, do the Japanese do another wave or even 2?

Assuming they DO do another wave, they'll likely get the dry dock and the oil tanks, as well as further damaging/destroying more ships. Couple that with more general clutter in PH and PH is largely out of business for months.

The US can shift a few carriers from the Atlantic, but that'll take time and they'll likely initially focus on screening the area between PH and CA and around HI. It'll be quite a few months before the US does anything offensive in the Pacific.

Among other things, there's no Doolitle Raid with its positive effect on US morale and the affects on the Japanese of defending more strongly.

In 1942, likely no Coral Sea, no Midway, and the Japanese hold and build up Guadalcanal.

In general, the Japanese probably take Port Moresby and solidify a few other islands before they have to focus on new US forces.

The movement of the carriers and other ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific also has some effects in the European theater -- less support for Torch, Malta, etc.
 

CalBear

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There surely must be some misunderstanding, as you say Yoshikawa was giving the IJN and Nagumo everything they needed to know, as i understand it the day of the attack Nagumo knew there were no carriers in the port but there were 8 BBs, all this coming from Yoshikawa. The figures you mentions surely must refer to planning sometime in the autumn, i interpret that as meaning that the plan was in the eventuality that the totality of the Pacific Fleet was in port, they were to focus on four carriers and four BBs, hence the carriers had top priority. If the BBs had top priority, the orders would have specified forget the carriers and get all 8 or 9 or whatever BBs! And regardless, if any carriers were in port they would have been top priority target for the IJN pilots, no matter of what the top brass might have been saying.
Maybe the pilots would ignore orders. Japanese personnel weren't exactly renowned for independent initiative at the lower ranks, but maybe they would.

The order list potential targets and attack order was issued 11/23/41, three days before sailing.
 

CalBear

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There surely must be some misunderstanding, as you say Yoshikawa was giving the IJN and Nagumo everything they needed to know, as i understand it the day of the attack Nagumo knew there were no carriers in the port but there were 8 BBs, all this coming from Yoshikawa. The figures you mentions surely must refer to planning sometime in the autumn, i interpret that as meaning that the plan was in the eventuality that the totality of the Pacific Fleet was in port, they were to focus on four carriers and four BBs, hence the carriers had top priority. If the BBs had top priority, the orders would have specified forget the carriers and get all 8 or 9 or whatever BBs! And regardless, if any carriers were in port they would have been top priority target for the IJN pilots, no matter of what the top brass might have been saying.
Maybe the pilots would ignore orders. Japanese personnel weren't exactly renowned for independent initiative at the lower ranks, but maybe they would.

The order list potential targets and attack order was issued 11/23/41, three days before sailing.
 
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