Pearl Harbor Detected

BlondieBC

Banned
I see now the USS Lexington was also in the vicinity, i always thought only the Enterprise was near Hawaii.

I wonder what the actual result would be if both the USS Enterprise and Lexington had been spotted during the attack by the Japanese.

They are the priority target, so the Japanese do an air attack, if they are able. If not, they try to vector submarine to sink them.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Is it possible that the strategic damage to the US is actually worse, if the American carriers are used to defend PH and get damaged or sunk?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Is it possible that the strategic damage to the US is actually worse, if the American carriers are used to defend PH and get damaged or sunk?

Easily, in retrospect. Enterprise was near enough to Pearl Harbor to have planes shot down by USA AAA. Lexington was not too far away, and could have probably make it to the battle. So worst realistic case, with warning.

The USA detects the raid with an hour or so warning. Emergency recall of carriers. Ships begin to leave harbor, and two BB are hit and sunk. One by torpedoes in the middle of the harbor, and one explodes like the Arizona in the port entrance channel, disabling the port. Japanese see BB leaving port on first strike so send out search planes. Find 5 BB with second wave, two are sunk with torpedoes in the open sea. That after noon, Enterprise is found by Japanese carriers. Mutual strikes. Enterprise sunk, one Japanese carrier is damaged, unusable flight deck. Japan TF heads home. The next day, a Japanese sub finds the Lexington, and sinks it.

Three battleships sale to San Fran. USA lost 2 carrier, 4 Battleships, and one is trapped in Pearl. Killed is much higher, maybe near 6000.
 
Easily, in retrospect. Enterprise was near enough to Pearl Harbor to have planes shot down by USA AAA. Lexington was not too far away, and could have probably make it to the battle. So worst realistic case, with warning.

The USA detects the raid with an hour or so warning. Emergency recall of carriers. Ships begin to leave harbor, and two BB are hit and sunk. One by torpedoes in the middle of the harbor, and one explodes like the Arizona in the port entrance channel, disabling the port. Japanese see BB leaving port on first strike so send out search planes. Find 5 BB with second wave, two are sunk with torpedoes in the open sea. That after noon, Enterprise is found by Japanese carriers. Mutual strikes. Enterprise sunk, one Japanese carrier is damaged, unusable flight deck. Japan TF heads home. The next day, a Japanese sub finds the Lexington, and sinks it.

Three battleships sale to San Fran. USA lost 2 carrier, 4 Battleships, and one is trapped in Pearl. Killed is much higher, maybe near 6000.

The trouble with this is that it takes more time than an hour to get steam up on anything larger than a CL. With an hours warning the Battleships and Cruisers are just starting to build steam when the first strike comes in. Worst case for the Americans MAYBE the Nevada makes it farther than she did iOTL and blocks the channel if she gets moving sooner and takes her early hits while moving. Otherwise there just weren't any ships that had boilers at readiness to heat up quickly enough for an hour to make a difference to the ships.

The Carriers would be 5-7 NM closer maybe - although I can't see the Navy calling the carriers INTO port. Their Aircraft maybe but Carriers NO they are kept out of direct battle. Again 1 hour they speed up from 20 knots normal speed to 32 knots max speed but have to turn into the wind to launch fighters and search aircraft they get maybe 5-7 NM from where they were iOTL.

The big difference would be aircraft, anti-aircraft and ship watertight integrity, in 1 hour the US could have opened all the ammunition lockers on all the ships and manned all of the AA guns. Because of the state of early war AA it would not have made a huge difference but figure another 15% casualties for the Japanese and hence figure 7% less damage to ships. Second take water tight integrity - huge difference basically figure the California does not get lost they probably could have saved her iOTL but abandon ship was ordered before the full damage control survey was done, with watertight integrity and more of the crew aboard to do damage control figure California is badly damaged but still floating at the end of the battle. The Arizona is still a complete loss, nothing about this avoids the magazine hit. Oklahoma might not capsize with watertight integrity but that is doubtful since the amount of damage all on the same side was bad. The aircraft again make some difference, short term probably not a lot because the American pilots are not up to IJN standards at this point in the war but there will b more casualties on the Japanese side, the US bombers have a chance to get into the air and be out searching for the Japanese carriers rather than being sitting ducks. Figure another 15-20% INJ planes lost or damaged due to US fighters but figure the US fighters losses are basically the same as iOTL.

I don't see the USN sending out their carriers in a 2 on 6 battle and they know it is on the order of 2 on 6 because of the number of Japanese aircraft that attacked. My best guess is that the two US carriers would meet up SE of Perl and send work their way to the NE trying to avoid direct contact but if the land based air found the INJ then attack. (Maybe, I tend to be aggressive in Naval war games so I could be projecting my thoughts here...).

Tom.
 
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