Midway Island Siege?

I've never thought of midway as a miracle victory. The miracle is in the margin of victory. A less lucky America could well have won losing an extra carrier and with Japan losing a carrier less.

# of Torpedo Sqd's attacking / # of US CV's crippled.

1 / 1 (Coral Sea)
.5 / 1 (Midway)
2 / 1 (Santa Cruz)

Total:

3.5 squadrons / 3 cripples.
Midway average result: 2.3 squadrons (reserve wave) = 2 cripples.
4.3 squadrons (full strength) = 3.7 USN cripples.

The "average" result from the attack of the reserve wave is about 2 US carriers disabled. But a full strike is more like 4. So, a less lucky USN admiral can lose all three carriers.
 
Yeah the first waves of american planes got absolutely slaughtered. It was all a matter of bad timing and unlucky decisions that made it such a devastating defeat for the Japanese.

The one Japanese scout plane taking off later than the rest and thus spotting the carrier force waiting for them just a tad too late is the real doozy. Almost like an ASB intervention.
 
But I was mainly talking about a WI an awesome Japanese victory, not how to get there.

Also, the scout juuust getting the timing off isn't ASB, it's a highly unlikely event which is physically possible, so even if it wasn't OTL, it's viable for AH events. Except that since it was OTL, it's plain H.

Answer: Not much. They can't take the island. Capturing Dutch Harbor as a follow up is out of the question, even Adek might be stretching it. For Japan, carrier and airmen are irreplaceable and for the Americans experienced airmen are valuable while flattops are... well losing them but saving the people is just an expensive headache
 
.... They can't take the island...

Yamamoto earmarked 5,000 troops to take on 3,000 top-quality defenders. At sea he committed to the venture something like 6 carriers, 11 battleships, dozens of cruisers and destroyers, supported by about 15 tankers, (call it about 120,000 tons of oil available for extended operations).

So the US carriers are sunk on the 4th of June. Let's say Kusaka did the dual phased search and spotted the US carriers at 5am, so quickly that even the Midway strike was successfully diverted. Whatever. Now, the land invasion is going in on the 5th backed by corps level artillery support. Can this attack take both islands? No, certainly not. Can it take one of the two? Unlikely, but maybe. Can it attain a foothold on one or both islands, but then get bogged down? That's the most likely outcome.

If so, on June 7th Yamamoto is looking at a bridgehead on one of the two islands with the defenders holding fast and the attackers spent and reverted to the defensive. If so, his options are either (a) evacuate or (b) reinforce. If reinforcing, then what he would do would be to land more 'troops' from his warships (ie, shore parties) to bolster the bridgehead, then arrange for a brigade sized IJA force to come to Midway, perhaps for around the 20th of June. Since the US carriers are sunk he would not need to maintain a large fleet near Midway and would strip it down to a carrier force, backed by ample tanker support so that it could blockade Midway until the (scratch) invasion force had arrived 2 weeks later.

That's the 'reinforce' scenario, the premise of which is that if the invasion has a bridgehead the side that can reinforce will take the island. The 'evacuate' scenario is that Yamamoto on the 7th decides the island isn't worth the trouble, or the IJA says in response to the navy's plea that they're not sending a brigade to Midway. Either way, the key is sea power allowing the side with it to choose what to do, and your premise is that the Japanese have it.
 
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Since the US carriers are sunk he would not need to maintain a large fleet near Midway and would strip it down to a carrier force, backed by ample tanker support so that it could blockade Midway until the (scratch) invasion force had arrived 2 weeks later.

Except the US Airmen and the Grumman f4f planes from the carriers are now at Midway. So the carriers are gone, but the planes themselves are not. Combined with local AA, they can fight off any Japanese attempt to use their planes to support their beachhead. On the flip side, the Americans can't safely dive bomb Japanese ships since they would be fighting the IJN pilots above their AA fire. My point being, Midway is an unsinkable strip. In OTL, it wasn't supposed to support 3 extra carrier wings. In TTL, there is fuel, bullets, and armor piercing bombs to spare, although since the base still isn't supposed to support all those extra planes, there is a problem with storing them. The planes themselves would likely be randomly on and around the strip when not in use.
 
If the US carrier aircraft somehow made it to Midway and established local air superiority beyond what Japanese resources could tackle, then there would be no IJN invasion on the 5th to be defeated. The invasion would have been cancelled. If only American remnants got there and KB's groups were in reasonable shape then they'd have attacked the aircraft on Midway to eliminate them completely to make way for the invasion. Either way, it's going to be IJN air superiority over Midway or no invasion at all.

In terms of AA it would not have stopped air attacks or inflicted significant attrition in either direction. If the USN SBD's were operating from Midway as you suggest they'd have pummelled the invasion transports like it was the 2nd Battle of Guadalcanal. If the IJN had air superiority then they'd be working over the island with their aircraft to soften up for invasion, and US AA couldn't have done much about it.
 
The one Japanese scout plane taking off later than the rest and thus spotting the carrier force waiting for them just a tad too late is the real doozy. Almost like an ASB intervention.

It's been a long time since I read The Shattered Sword but didn't that Tone scout plane taking off later actually benefit the Kido Butai since the pilot altered his course and covered an area that had already been covered by another scout plane that found nothing (because of clouds), while he did find one of the USN task forces? If so, had this scout plane taken off with the rest it would have likely stayed in its expected course and covered its expected area with no enemy forces so the Japanese would have found later than in OTL that there were enemy aircraft carriers nearby.
 
It's been a long time since I read The Shattered Sword but didn't that Tone scout plane taking off later actually benefit the Kido Butai since the pilot altered his course and covered an area that had already been covered by another scout plane that found nothing (because of clouds), while he did find one of the USN task forces? If so, had this scout plane taken off with the rest it would have likely stayed in its expected course and covered its expected area with no enemy forces so the Japanese would have found later than in OTL that there were enemy aircraft carriers nearby.

That's the claim but it's speculation, (Parshall and Tully wanted to show that Nagumo was not subject to bad luck); there is no direct evidence Tone 4 deviated from its flight plan. Visibility that morning was 50 miles, meaning that a ultra-long range spot along its regular route, between patches of cloud, was possible. Had Tone 4 not spotted TF-16 at 0728 it would have continued around its dogleg and arrived nearby to TF-16 after 0800, perhaps getting the message to Nagumo sometime around 0830. With the Midway strike by then fully rearmed Nagumo would have had little choice but to attack "as is".
 
One of the variables not yet discussed are likely Japanese aircraft losses sinking three US carriers. A quick glance at the losses @ the Coral Sea battle, & damaging the Yorktown suggest bomber losses from combat and accidents would be serious.
 
Nagumo does not have to sink the carriers, only disable them after which the IJN surface forces could close the distance and dispatch them, as per Hornet at Santa Cruz.
 
If the U.S. is really smart, they'll give Midway to Japan. It's a bunch closer to Hawai'i than Japan or the Yellow Sea, so the Sub Force can get there a lot faster & in larger numbers & sink the large numbers of transports Japan'll need to keep it supplied. (Where those will come from, when Japan's shipping is marginal already, I have no clue, but let's say.) Plus which, this will burn enormous amounts of fuel oil Japan simply cannot spare. (Maybe not as much as the Tokyo Express {DDs burn lots}, but a bunch). These are good things for the U.S., & very bad ones for Japan.

Of course, even without "3yrs supplies" stored up, Japan has no real prayer of taking Midway to start with...
 
... so the Sub Force can get there a lot faster & in larger numbers & sink the large numbers of transports Japan'll need to keep it supplied. ... Plus which, this will burn enormous amounts of fuel oil Japan simply cannot spare. (Maybe not as much as the Tokyo Express {DDs burn lots}, but a bunch). ...

Japanese may evacuate as they did in Alaska when these things became a issue.
 
1,200nm both ways over water just to bomb an outpost? If such a complete and total waste of Allied resources was in the offering for the scarce USAAF bomber fleet in the Pacific, then taking Midway might have an upside for the IJN.
Okay, if I'm Nimitz, I'll make MacArthur this deal: he can have all the bombers in Hawaii if he gives up all the subs in Oz & never asks for any of them to deliver supplies to the P.I. (If it happens, Japan is even more screwed...)
...Dammit! Your target was Eastern! NOT SAND ISLAND!
LOL.:cool::cool:
 
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