Midway What If? Massive Surface Engagement

Why would they sit ther ewaiting for the bombardment to fall on them?

Because it's 2 in the morning.


Depends on where TF 16 is on the afternoon of the 8th & how badly the want the planes. if there has been a surface battle on the 6th or 7th, the US carriers are liable to be operating further east than OTL, & they may have lost more aircraft than OTL.
There's no surface battle. If Kondo continues to charge through the 5th then Spruance continues to run southeast throughout the 5th, launching attacks as he goes. Let's say Yamamoto gets lucky and both Akagi and Hiryu's engine spaces prove to be intact, then maybe by midnight on the 5th they're underway. Let's say Yamamoto doesn't get lucky and they're gutted, then by midnight on the 5th they are scuttled. Spruance continues to run southeast throughout the night (he can't risk an encounter), but Kondo breaks off to the north - by midnight they are diverging at a combined speed of maybe 40kt.


Then there is which direction the US fleet goes that night? I dont think Fletcher, or Spruance, is going to send Pye & Co rushing off into the sunset.
Pye was 3,000 miles away. Pye can do whatever Pye wants off the coast of California - it'll have no effect whatever on the Battle of Midway.

At this point I'm thinking they will stand east as OTL until dawn, so depending on which direction the Japanese force/s are headed means there may be no night battle as everyones first assumption suggests
No one thinks there would be a night battle.
 
One of the B26 skimmed the flight deck before crashing in the water. Thats a interesting WI: had it dropped a few meters lower & rammed the side of the hanger deck half full of fuel.

Akagi might blow up. Yamaguchi takes over air operations and launches around 0830 with the three carriers at the surface contact. The position was off by 40 miles so there's a good chance the strike misses. He'll land the Midway strike immediately thereafter (Akagi's Vals will recover to the other carriers), then launch a second dive bomber strike around 0930-1000 with the rearmed Midway wave. The Americans show up at 1025 and paste the Soryu and Hiryu (both arming bombers) but Kaga's hangers are empty and it shrugs off its bomb hits and sails clear (flight deck disabled) at 25kt.
 
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Midway's commanders had direct orders from Nimitz to evacuate the B-17s and PBYs if things got too hot.

If Kurita bombards he hits Midway around 2am without warning and what's coming is about 80 rounds per minute (40 x 8" gun at 2 rounds per minute each). It's all over in an hour - there will be no chance for anything to ready for takeoff in the middle of a bombardment.

Not sure if Kurita had Type III incendiary shells or not, but if he did, Midway's air wing is basically cooked - PBY's and B-17's are much larger targets, so also more likely to be hit by an incendiary. If 7th CRU only had HE and AP then more aircraft would survive.
 
Midway with Zuikaku [and other carrier variations on the theme]

[P.o.d. is less planes lost at the Coral Sea operation]

On 24 May 1942, Zuikaku of the Japanese 5th carrier division was ordered to participate at Midway after Coral Sea was over following a decision to replace its air group. [Everything else is similar to reality until 4 June 1942.] During the morning of 4 June 1942, a scouting plane from Zuikaku detected the carrier Yorktown and launched strikes on the carrier, sinking it after damage. However, the Japanese carrier was attacked by a few of Yorktown's refugee dive bombers. Over the battle, carriers Akagi and Kaga were sunk and Hornet's dive bombers were able to damage Soryu to the extent of a floating wreck. The counter-response managed to sink Enterprise before the final attack sank Hiryu. Zuikaku managed to strike at Midway's airfield and inflict heavy, but repairable damage before being sunk by Hornet's planes. USS Hornet received a torpedo for final damage before being sunk by submarine I 168.

No Coral Sea
Shokaku and Zuikaku located carriers Yorktown and Lexington and they managed to sink Lexington. Then, the American carriers struck the Japanese Navy as in reality. Over the battle, the Japanese lost 6 carriers and the Americans 4 carriers as the Shokaku class launched airstrikes on Enterprise and Yorktown that sank them before being sunk by planes from Enterprise and Hornet. USS Hornet was later sunk by 'homeless' planes and submarine I 168.

No Aleutian diversion
Ryujo and Zuiho [Junyo replacing the latter] diverted American plane attention and the carriers were sunk by USS Enterprise at 10:25 a.m.. Then, carriers Akagi and Hiryu launched revenge strikes that sank the Yorktown and fatally damaged the Enterprise. A counterattack sank carrier Akagi before night while Hornet and Enterprise's planes sank the Hiryu on 5 June. [Combined with the second scenario, every fleet carrier except for Akagi was sunk over 4-5 June. Akagi would be sunk after defeat in the battle for Midway island following damage by planes, while USS Saratoga would be fatally damaged in action by a submarine and scuttled.]

Yamato or fast battleship escort for the carriers
No effects other than a battleship and cruiser sunk or damaged each for Japan and another American carrier [or two] sunk. In the scenario, Yamato intercepted several American planes and Kaga was severely damaged. Akagi counterattacked and sank the Hornet while Yorktown suffered its actual fate faster. Akagi was sunk by USS Enterprise later on 4 June while Hiryu was sunk on 5 June, with total losses of 4 Japanese carriers and 2 or 3 American carriers.
[more to be posted later]
 
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Akagi might blow up. Yamaguchi takes over air operations and launches around 0830 with the three carriers at the surface contact. The position was off by 40 miles so there's a good chance the strike misses. He'll land the Midway strike immediately thereafter (Akagi's Vals will recover to the other carriers), then launch a second dive bomber strike around 0930-1000 with the rearmed Midway wave. The Americans show up at 1025 and paste the Soryu and Hiryu (both arming bombers) but Kaga's hangers are empty and it shrugs off its bomb hits and sails clear (flight deck disabled) at 25kt.

Regarding the hypothetical strike and the wrong position as communicated by Tone 4 which might cause said strike to miss the americans, remember that the IJN search planes had some sort of homing device that they were to activate to guide a strike and also help the ships confirm/measure the scouts position more accurately. According to SS in OTL this is what Tone 4 was told to do, and how Kobayashi's strike was guided to Yorktown (the scout that replaced Tone 4 activated it's homing device allowing Kobayashi to home in). Of course, this system will not be pinpoint accurate, but if it gets a strike to within visual distance (20 miles or so) of target, it is enough.
 

burmafrd

Banned
It always ticked me off how Spruance was treated by the US Navy airdales.

As history showed he was dead right in every major decision. In every battle.

Contrast that with Halsey.

Yet to their dying day a lot of the airdales looked down on him.

And to top it all off Spruance never got his 5th star because a POS US senator and Halsey homer blocked it.
 
It always ticked me off how Spruance was treated by the US Navy airdales.

As history showed he was dead right in every major decision. In every battle.

Contrast that with Halsey.

Yet to their dying day a lot of the airdales looked down on him.

And to top it all off Spruance never got his 5th star because a POS US senator and Halsey homer blocked it.

Totally agree with that one.
 
Nowhere as worse as Fletcher. It was under his command that the US carrier force held off (and crucially defeated at Midway) the IJN carrier force from May to August 1942. He could have easily lost any or all of those battles with catastrophic consequences for the americans, but he didn't. So yeah the americans should have kissed his feet and build him a statue, name one of their CVNs after him and so on.
 
Regarding the hypothetical strike and the wrong position as communicated by Tone 4 which might cause said strike to miss the americans, remember that the IJN search planes had some sort of homing device that they were to activate to guide a strike and also help the ships confirm/measure the scouts position more accurately. According to SS in OTL this is what Tone 4 was told to do, and how Kobayashi's strike was guided to Yorktown (the scout that replaced Tone 4 activated it's homing device allowing Kobayashi to home in). Of course, this system will not be pinpoint accurate, but if it gets a strike to within visual distance (20 miles or so) of target, it is enough.

The Soryu dispatched its D4Y Judy scout around 0830 to work the Tone 4 contact. It flew to the reported position instead of the actual position, then found the American fleet later on its own. This suggests something went wrong with the direction-finding procedure.
 
It always ticked me off how Spruance was treated by the US Navy airdales.

As history showed he was dead right in every major decision. In every battle.

Spruance has generally got about as bad press as one can get and still be on the short list for the greatest American admirals of all time. He did well at Midway, avoided Guadalcanal, and settled into fleet command quite nicely. But he did let Ozawa go at Marianas....
 
It always ticked me off how Spruance was treated by the US Navy airdales.

As history showed he was dead right in every major decision. In every battle.

Contrast that with Halsey.

Yet to their dying day a lot of the airdales looked down on him.

And to top it all off Spruance never got his 5th star because a POS US senator and Halsey homer blocked it.

I personally think that Halsey should have been court-martialed after Leyte Gulf.
 
It always ticked me off how Spruance was treated by the US Navy airdales.

As history showed he was dead right in every major decision. In every battle.

Contrast that with Halsey.

Yet to their dying day a lot of the airdales looked down on him.

And to top it all off Spruance never got his 5th star because a POS US senator and Halsey homer blocked it.

plus Spruance never ran his fleet into typhoons ... twice.. and got men killed and ships lost
 
Spruance reminds me a little of the 1927 Yankees. Scarily competent at his job but not overly flashy (well when you leave out Babe Ruth).
 
After the second typhoon it was recommended by a board of inquiry that Halsey be reassigned, but Nimitz declined.
 
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