Pearl Harbor WI: Lady Lex outs the Kido Butai on December 6th

All very true. But as said, as long the Master of the Pacific War has not yet spoken I will try not to speculate any further.
 
A days warning will be good, the USA never lost any Battleships sunk at sea OTL, Pearl Harbor was the only time the USA lost any to aircraft at all

Remember these ships will have full damage control parties, be at battle stations, have 5x the AA firing and be maneuvering, and have land based aircraft in support

At a minimum the Japanese will likely lose 9 vessels, destroyers, they almost had to abandon them OTL, here they likely will have to be abandoned as they run for home to avoid a slugging match where their heavy gun vessels will be outnumbered 4 to 1, going faster uses more fuel and they cannot afford to be caught by the Battleships
 

BlondieBC

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I watched a TV show where they had an American admiral play a war game with 3 hours warning. He immediately order the battleships to sail southeast of Pearl, and for the carriers proceed at full speed to join the battleships. He lost few ships (3BB), but since they sank fast, more died, fewer wounded. The Japanese plane losses more than doubled from 75 to 200. This admiral state he was following the standard battle plan and orders for Pearl Harbor a the time. The other side said they were following the standing orders for the Japanese.


The assembling the battleships southeast of Pearl Harbor and having the carriers steam to their position at full speed seems very reasonable. So does the Lexington not attacking 6 carriers. Nagumo being less than 24 hours from the attack likely executes the attack as planned, with far heavier losses due to prepared anti-air. Then a full day naval battle develops where the two fleets look for each other, and if found, both sides seek the decisive naval victory. If not found by late in the day, the Japanese sail home. The Japanese expected to lose carriers and knew that surprise was not assured. Nagumo will at least need to neutralize the airfields at Hawaii in the first strike, while his scout planes look for the American Fleet. The range of outcomes range widely form the Japanese losing a few carriers and the USA losing very little, to the Japanese killing most of the USA carriers and Battleships for heavy losses to the aircrews.
 
Thing is the Japanese fleet was running on fumes OTL, they can't stay more than a few hours extra, they can't wait around for a full day, they almost lost some ships due to low fuel OTL
 
OR they can try and find & attack the US fleet at sea. I agree that the US fleet, lets say supported by only the Lex, will get seriously hurt BUT the Kido Butai will suffer way more than OTL, and while any ships sunk at sea can't be salvaged like (some) at PH sinking or seriously damaging some of the IJN on 12/7/41 more than makes up for it. While the salvaged battleships were "nice to have", with exception of the Nevada, they took 18-24 months to get back in to service & the US could have done without them - especially if the attrition of the Japanese Navy begins 12/41 as opposed to 5/42.
I agree that the US battlefleet is not indespensible, and that the Kido Butai will suffer much worse. However, I still think this is a much better outcome for the Japanese than historically. The US had 223 aircraft in Hawaii in December 1941, plus those on the Lex. The IJN brought 414 planes. Even is every piece of US land-based air manages to stay over the US fleet (likely at the edge of their range), they are still at a severe numerical disadvantage. I don't think the US battle line is going to come into play--the Japanese will simply launch their aircraft from too far away. It will be an early Coral Sea, with no gun battles. This early in the war, the AA suite on the ships of all nations is quite poor, so that's not much help. Finally, the Japanese will know they are in a carrier vs. carrier battle, so the Lex will be their first target.

The Lex will be sunk, chances are. A lot more BBs will survive, but so what? Your comment about the destruction of the IJN happening before Midway is only half true--with the Lex gone, there won't be a Midway. Torch will be delayed, too. With only one carrier in the Pacific (plus the Ranger, if they bring that in), the US simply cannot go on the defensive. By 1943, the US will have finally built enough CVs to take the iniative, but the Japanese still have more carriers than historically, they had more time to build up island defenses, and more time to bring in oil from the DEI.

Even if the US gets lucky and destroys one of the carriers in the Kido Butai, it won't be a Miway. The Japanese are better off.
 
Six aircraft carriers launching their fighters and swarming a carrier-less battle group...
Are you forgetting the fighters based on PH itself? Also, Pearl receives a half-dozen B-17s later that day, so it's not just the battleships who go carrier hunting.

The Lex will be sunk, chances are. A lot more BBs will survive, but so what? Your comment about the destruction of the IJN happening before Midway is only half true--with the Lex gone, there won't be a Midway.
Lex was Sunk at Coral Sea OTL, I don't your point.

Torch will be delayed, too.
How?

With only one carrier in the Pacific (plus the Ranger, if they bring that in), the US simply cannot go on the defensive.
Down Lex. earlier than OTL, CVL/CVE production is stepped up a notch to cover the shortfall.
 
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CalBear

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That's why I want Calbear here:D

Sorry I'm late. :p

The way the course tracks worked out the Lexington doesn't have any practical way to be where she need to to allow this to happen. The Japanese weren't scouting out much beyond 200 miles and either was Lexington. If Lexington leaves earlier, she is even further away from the Japanese launch point since that point was north of Oahu and Midway is close to due West.

As this map shows the Japanese went to considerable effort to stay well away from Midway and her flying boats. The operations order specified that no element, except the bombardment group of 2 CA & 2 DD, was to approach closer than 800 miles to the island.
 

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CalBear

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A days warning will be good, the USA never lost any Battleships sunk at sea OTL, Pearl Harbor was the only time the USA lost any to aircraft at all

Remember these ships will have full damage control parties, be at battle stations, have 5x the AA firing and be maneuvering, and have land based aircraft in support

At a minimum the Japanese will likely lose 9 vessels, destroyers, they almost had to abandon them OTL, here they likely will have to be abandoned as they run for home to avoid a slugging match where their heavy gun vessels will be outnumbered 4 to 1, going faster uses more fuel and they cannot afford to be caught by the Battleships

The U.S. never lost a battleship at sea for a reason, actually a couple of them. Fighters, gun laying radar, and the 5"/38 DP gun. All of these would have been in short supply in this scenario.

The Battle Force would have been in a LOT of trouble if they had been caught at sea. The fleet's AAA was not close to what it was later in the war and several of the older BB (Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma) were close to helpless against aircraft (a dozen 5"/25 and some 1.1" simply wasn't up to the task) None of the U.S. ships was noticeably better in protection than Repulse, and they were somewhat inferior in overall protection, especially against torpedoes to the Prince of Wales and all of the U.S. ships were MUCH slower and less maneuverable than either of the RN ships that the IJN air arm dispatched so readily.
 
It gets sunk. It is one flattop against six, it has no chance.
It hopefully runs like hell before it is located, otherwise yes it gets sunk.
Probably, the fleet sails out to meet the Japanese.
Nimitz stated his belief that the US fleet on 12/7/41 was fortunate to be surprised in harbor. Had they seen the Japanese coming, they certainly wold have steamed out of harbor to confront them. The Japanese superiority in aircraft (US carriers outnumbered even if they weren't absent) would certainly have lead to a devastating loss for America in deep ocean waters, from which there would have been a far greater loss of life and no salvage of half-sunk battlewagons.
 
Are you forgetting the fighters based on PH itself? Also, Pearl receives a half-dozen B-17s later that day, so it's not just the battleships who go carrier hunting.

The B17s, as Midway showed, stunk at carrier hunting. Great for other purposes, sure, but not that one.
 
What if she leaves a couple days earlier, delivers the planes, and then takes a more northerly return route to head back to Pearl. At some point in the afternoon on December 6th her scouts detect signs of the Kido Butai and in return her task force is also detected.

How does Nagumo respond?

How does the Lex respond?

What does Pearl do when alerted?

The Lexington would have to take a VERY meandering return route to get her anywhere near the course of the KB. Maybe she could have been given a secondary assignment for after Midway plane delivery to see whether she could get into place to do a real time exercise to try and detect the B-17s in course on December 7th heading for Oahu? Its a tenous POD, no doubt.

The POD states the spotting occurs in the afternoon. Depending on how late in the afternoon (after 2pm? even earlier?), would it even be possible for either side to launch a strike before it gets too dark to land the returning planes?


I think Nagumo would move ahead with a strike on Pearl for the 7th anticipating it already being on alert. Also on anticipating an alerted Pearl, could he launch scouts pre-dawn, say 4am-ish to be in place over Hawaii at dawn to see whether the US fleet has already sailed and if so where. Then he could divert the strike toward a sailing US fleet.

No doubt if there is an air battle with the Lex, she is going to get sunk.

Were the planes delivered to Midway in addition to the Lexington's normal plane contingent, or is she now down an air group?


IMHO, the Lexington would be insane to do anything other than call it in to Pearl and get the hell out of dodge.


Pearl would unfortunately send out its Battleship line and they would get severally mauled. Is the higher loss in life of experienced, trained sailors more important than actually losing the antiquated battleships? IOTL, where did the surviving shipless sailors get reassigned to? There must have been thousands of them.

Despite getting the Pacific Fleet mauled, there would be higher damage to the planes and crews of the Kido Butai. How much more? What's the tipping point in damage for making it worthwhile to "sacrifice" the Pacific Fleet's battleships? Twice, three, four times the damage as IOTL? And how damaging could it be to their later operations at Wake Island and in the DEI and the Indian Ocean?

Is saving Wake by the Kido Butai not being able to detach 2 carriers for the second attempt worth 6 sunk battleships and 5,000+ dead sailors?

Another poster also mentioned they'd burn more fuel, and they were already at the end of their logistics tether.
 
Diplomacy...

One option for Roosevelt: Call the Japanese ambassador and ask, "Why are 6 carriers here?" and wait for an answer. That tells the Japanese, "We know you're coming--do you want to go to war anyway?"

At the same time, Pearl Harbor goes to full alert.

People are missing one important point about the fleet being in port: More of the sailors survive to fight again than would have if the fleet had been smashed at sea.
 
Earlier today i checked the aircraft figures for the USA at Pearl on Dec 7. http://www.ww2pacific.com/aaf41.html

Airplane Total Destroyed Damaged Combat Ready
B-17 D 12 4 4 4
B-18 A 33 12 10 11
A-20 A 12 2 5 5
P-40 C 12 5 5 2
P-40 B 87 37 25 25
P-36 A 39 4 19 16
P-26 14 0 0 14
Total 223 64 82 77
 
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