Launch in the evening from 1,000 miles out (ie, no return flight) and you'd miss most of it wouldn't you? If you do it at night you'll only get spotted by radar.Dudicus, do you have any idea what the shipping lanes that close to the AMerican mainland are like, not to mention how close the Japanese are going to have to get, add to that, the American war department is ANTICIPATING the very attack your talking about so blithely.
Yes, but the US has a big coastline, so it wouldn't be impossible (though you'd have to be really lucky) to get close enough.The American Navy and AAC are ASSUMING the Japanese are going to try this.
We're talking a single carrier here, not the whole KB, so the fuel you're carrying is going to go further. of course, having most of your oilers to hand with very few destroyers and nothing heavier to protect them is going to make a really nice target. You could extend the range just a fraction more by writing off some of the destroyers as well and just carrying the crews home in the (now empty since there's few aircraft left) hanger.Now just in case you might have forgotten, the Japanese are operating not at the very limit of the logistical range, but now for a west coast raid they are far beyond the end of the logistical fuel and supply chain.
And they were deck loading fuel drums just to get to Hawaii.
Basically, IMO it could be done, but if everything went right it would make the Doolittle Raid look well executed, and if anything at all went wrong it would make Leyte Gulf look well executed.
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