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Suppose USA's ships got spotted before the Battle of Midway and got smacked by battleship fire. I think there was some convoluted plan and the submarines were suppose to spot the Americans.

Whatever the original plan was...

Let's say this is the result. The Japanese suffer the loss of a single cruiser and 30 shot down planes. Akagi suffers light damage and the runway is not flat enough to launch planes. USA loses 4 heavy cruisers and all 3 carriers. The carriers are all taken down by battleship fire. 90 American planes are shot down. Basically, as lopsided as the OTL Midway, except this time the side with more tonnage wins.

But... the planes can land at Midway Island.

OTL Midway lacks fuel and ammunition to support all the carrier planes. Let's say that our second POD is that Midway island is stocked with 3 years of food (for the marines and the crewmen), lots of fuel, lots of amour-piercing bombs, lots of anti-aircraft shells, and some torpedoes.

So... does the American material losses at midway even matter that much? The planes can still operate from the island. The AA of a base is surly more formidable than a carrier (plenty of room!).

The island can't be taken by force with American air superiority, can it?

And surly the defenders have something to hunker down in during bombardment right?
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