Midway bombardment

Status
Not open for further replies.
Point of Divergence: Two Kongo-class battlecruisers are dispatched on the night of 3/4 June, to bombard the airfields at Midway Atoll under the cover of darkness, just like was attempted repeatedly IOTL at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.


The IJN had both failures and successes when this was attempted at Guadalcanal, thwarted when American surface forces accepted nighttime battles. A bombardment could deprive the Americans of scouting and strike capacities with ramifications for the rest of the battle. The mission risks carefully husbanded IJN capital ships. At the same time, American attacks directed towards these dreadnoughts are a distraction from the Japanese carriers.
 
What keeps this

Forewarned by Pacific Fleet codebreaking, Midway's patrol planes searched out hundreds of miles along probable Japanese approach routes. First contact was made with a pair of minesweepers some 470 miles to the west southwest at about 0900 on 3 June 1942. Within a half-hour, another PBY spotted the enemy's transport group, heading east about 700 miles west of Midway. Later that day, six Army B-17s bombed the transports, the Battle of Midway's first combat action, but only achieved near-misses. The Japanese were undeterred.
During the evening, four PBY-5A amphibians took off to make a night torpedo strike. Encountering the Japanese transport force in the early hours of 4 June, the slow patrol planes hit the oiler Akebono Maru with one torpedo, the only successful U.S. aerial torpedo attack of the entire battle. However, the damaged Japanese ship was able to keep up as the formation continued on.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/midway/mid-1m.htm


Battlecruisers will get far more attention that the transports got


You need two PoDs


1. Battlecruiser raid approved


2. remain undetected for hundreds of miles from 700 mile 'Strawberry' PBY scouting flights from VP-23 and VP-44
 
So it seems likely the battlecruisers would be detected; what would the American reaction be? One takeaway point from the Battle of Midway was that the United States Army Airforce was not using optimal tactics to attack warships, that the B-17 did not single-handedly make navies obsolete. I assume if the Kongos faced air attack, it would be from land-based planes, mostly from the U.S. Army (although I know the U.S. Navy had planes on Midway too). The planes from Midway that attacked the Japanese fleet IOTL were admittedly facing a CAP and the escorts associated with a carrier task force. They might be more successful against battlecruisers without air cover, but then again, there were three times later in 1942 Japanese battlecruisers approached within striking distance of an airfield by night without being deterred by air power. Could the Americans vector submarines towards the approaching surface force? Would the Kongos be treated as primary targets for planes from the Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet?
 
Wouldn't the American submarine pickets around Midway Is. Had pick up the IJN TF heading in to bombard the island....?
 
They might be more successful against battlecruisers without air cover, but then again, there were three times later in 1942 Japanese battlecruisers approached within striking distance of an airfield by night without being deterred by air power.

Henderson Field didn't have a Submarine Picket and two squadrons of PBYs flying patrols.

And advance elements of the 22nd and 69th Bomb Squadrons, B-26 Marauders with Torpedoes, plus the PBY proto Black Cats

OTL, four B-26s took off at 3:15am June 4 to attack the IJN at 7:05am

June 3 1942 had the Moon, Waning Gibbous@76%
 

sharlin

Banned
Don't you need an even earlier PoD, to have high-explosive shells for the warships?

Nope, HE shells were a part of most warships shell room inventory from the late 1800's when they were developed, the IJN's BC's would have had a mix of AP and HE aboard as standard.
 
Night or day the cruisers will have to come uncomfortablly close to the Atoll to spot any thing of value. From a thread I'd posted on elsewhere:

Carl Schwamberger said:
It is certainly a huge equalizer. I was just reviewing the NGF fire support in assorted other landings & in those it is clear the ships were unable to do any precision or timely support without fast ship to shore communications. Even off Omaha Beach the destroyers that came to the surf line had severe difficulty locating the German MG & cannon positions. One officer aboard a destroyer off Omaha described watching a US tank ashore firing for a while & then fired where they guessed the target might be based on impacts of the tanks 75mm ammunition. They could see the 75mm ammo detonating, but not the camoflaged bunker. In many cases they were unable to see the intended target due to it being in defilade, or smoke & haze on the target area. In this case it is clear that point blank ranges of 800 to 1200 meters still had major issues in target spotting by the ships. In the end it required the radio communications to be restored to make the NGF as effective as necessary. Off Salerno a German tank regiment manuvering towards the beach on forward slopes could not be spotted by the NGF ships 5000 to 10,000 meters off shore. Radio comm to spotting teams and infantry CP did lead to accurate fires on the manuvering German Pz Div @ Salerno.

So why is getting close enough to spot bunkers & such dangerous? There is the small possiblity the crusiers wont be aware of how far north of Sand and Eastern islands the reef extends. Its about three nm. If the cruisers apporach from the north and the wind is right they could be onto the coral head before it is spotted. But, that is a long shot. More important is this:


If you can locate a copy of Lt.Col. Robert Heinl's Marines at Midway, June 1942, it contains a pretty good map. The basic organization was:

6th Defense Battalion (Reinforced) – c. 2,130 O&EM
Commanding Officer Col. Harold D. Shannon
Commanding Officer, Eastern Island Group Maj. William W. Benson

Seacoast Artillery Group
Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Lewis A. Hohn
Battery A (2 5-inch)
Battery B (2 5-inch)
Battery C (2 5-inch)
Sand Island 7-inch Battery, Provisional (2 7-inch; manned by Battery B)
Eastern Island 7-inch Battery, Provisional (2 7-inch; manned by Battery A)
Sand Island 3-inch Navy Battery, Provisional (2 3-inch; manned by Battery C)
Eastern Island 3-inch Navy Battery, Provisional (2 3-inch; manned by Battery A)

6th Defense Battalion Antiaircraft Group
Commanding Officer Maj. Charles T. Tingle
Battery D (4 3-inch AA)
Battery E (4 3-inch AA)
Battery F (4 3-inch AA)
Battery G (searchlight)

6th Defense Battalion Special Weapons Group
Commanding Officer Capt. Robert E. Hommel
Battery H (24 .50-caliber MG)
Battery I (24 .30-caliber MG)
Tank Platoon, Provisional (5 M2A4 Light Tanks)

3d Defense Battalion Antiaircraft Group
Commanding Officer Maj. Chandler W. Johnson
Battery D (4 3-inch AA)
Battery E (4 3-inch AA)
Battery F (4 3-inch AA)

3d Defense Battalion Special Weapons Group
Battery K (8 37-mm)
Battery L (18 twin 20-mm on 40-mm carriage)

Provisional Infantry Group
Detachment, 2d Raider (Each company included a weapons platoon of 2 60-mm mortars and 2 .30-caliber M1919A4 MG.)
Company C
Company D
Provisional Marine Companies (Each company included a weapons platoon armed with 2 60-mm mortars, 2 .30-caliber M191A4 MG, and 2 M1916 37-mm guns.)
22d Provisional Marine Company
23d Provisional Marine Company


If you missed it there are six five inch, four seven inch, and sixteen rapid fire three inch long range guns. All of which can reach out over 8000 meters. They also have nice range finding equipment set out on a wide parallax and state of the art fire control computers (analog in 1942, not digital). Best case for the Japanese is they stand off & scatter ammo at the islands at long range. Maybe they hit some aircraft, & if really luck blow up some ammunition. Worst case is they come in much to close, and after opening fire are smothered in a couple minutes by several tons of HE and AP ammo. They may very well not be sunk, but the superstructure damage will be ugly and the internal damage... bad.
 
A 14" He shell by weight of explosive was worth about half a 250kg bomb. Two BC's could carry about 1,600 of them, whereas KB could deliver about 234 x 250kg bombs in one morning. The secondaries on the BC's might be worth 1 x 250kg bomb for every 10 shells fired.

Assuming that a bombardment mission was preplaned, a 75/25 HE/AP loadout could have been ordered. So, 1,200 HE rounds plus, call it, 1,200 secondary rounds = 600+120 x 250kg bombs = 720 x 250kg equivelents.

That's the firepower of three full strength airstrikes from KB - probably enough to do significant damage to Midway's air wing, but not its coastal defences.
 
Wouldn't the American submarine pickets around Midway Is. Had pick up the IJN TF heading in to bombard the island....?

Yeah they'd have run the picket sub gauntlet but even if found and one of the subs got into firing position it'd be a greater miracle then the 6 months Japan had run wild if it worked.
 
Admiral Halsey said:
Yeah they'd have run the picket sub gauntlet but even if found and one of the subs got into firing position it'd be a greater miracle then the 6 months Japan had run wild if it worked.
That notional "gauntlet" wouldn't be a huge hazard for a couple of CBs, even assuming the subs spotted them (by no means certain). Never mind the lousy Mark XIVs,:rolleyes: you'd have to be damn close & damn lucky to get a shot off at a target going by so damn fast.:eek:

Better question, IMO, is why they'd violate IJN doctrine on not shelling islands?:confused:
 
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top