The Battle at Dawn: The first battle between the United States and Japan December 7-10, 1941

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edgeworthy

Mike Snyder said:
The "normally meticulous" Gingrich and Fortschen had the USS Enterprise armed with 40mm and 20mm guns in Dec 41. And in another series completely missed that one regiment and half of another in Custer's brigade were armed with Spencer rifles.
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As far as I can discover the first 40mm Bofors USN Mount was not installed until June 1942 on board USS Wyoming, at least two weeks after Midway.
However, their a hell of a lot better than some other AH writers, Tsouras, Conroy, or Harrison.
(And some posters here)
And didn't go completely "American Exceptionalist".
 

NoOneFamous

edgeworthy said:
As far as I can discover the first 40mm Bofors USN Mount was not installed until June 1942 on board USS Wyoming, at least two weeks after Midway.
However, their a hell of a lot better than some other AH writers, Tsouras, Conroy, or Harrison.
(And some posters here)
And didn't go completely "American Exceptionalist".
Click to expand...

Since I don't like Newt's politics, I will not read his books, after all why should I give him my money
 

galveston bay

NoOneFamous said:
Since I don't like Newt's politics, I will not read his books, after all why should I give him my money
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that is what public libraries are for (I too am not a fan of him politically or personally)

His 3 on the alternate Gettysburg are superb, certainly my favorites in the genre, both Civil War and alternate history

the two Pearl Harbor books has sufficient flaws that troubled me that I found them weaker, and 1945 was fun but too rushed at the finish

I caught a few of Newt's lectures at the National War College on C-Span. I have to admit I would enjoy him as an instructor
 

rob2001

I enjoyed Newt's books to. I do wish that he had made a sequel to 1945, hate it when authors leave you hanging in their novels, including Harry Turttledove.
 

GTStinger

What is worse?
No sequel, or 9 sequels where 20% of the text refers to Sam Carsten's sunburn or Irving Morrell complaining what could have been done if tank development had been properly funded? :)
 

rob2001

I wasn't just talking about the Southern victory series. But what about the story about the invasion of Hawaii, or the war that came early series.
 

Unknown

Several things about this universe:

1. The Roosevelt knew theory will simply not happen in TTL...
2. The movie From Here to Eternity (and, indeed, any movie about Pearl Harbor) will be very different from OTL...
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

OK, so I'm way behind on this. Sorry. Still, here are some thoughts.

galveston bay said:
to support them Yamamoto adds 4 more destroyers and 4 more fleet oilers to the Striking Force.
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The IJN was desperately short of oilers. Did they have 4 more? What operation to the south are they stopping to free them up?

galveston bay said:
Admiral Yamamoto meets with Genda and after reviewing the initial plan overrules some of the assumptions made. He points out that with the American Fleet Problem XXIII and the likely American reaction to that means that surprise can be in no way be assured. The attack must be prepared to fight its way in from the start, and that means that Genda's original plan is less likely to meet with the needed success.
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My understanding was that the plan was that if they were discovered, they were to abort the operation; that they knew that fighting a prepared foe that far from home was too risky.

galveston bay said:
In early November, General Harmon finally gets a deputy commander in the form of General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell who takes command of the newly organized I Corps.
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Stilwell was originally slated for the American command of Torch, filling the post the Eisenhower got, instead. I don't see him being 'deputy'anywhere.

The only reason he got stuck with China is that he was fluent in Chinese.
 

galveston bay

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
OK, so I'm way behind on this. Sorry. Still, here are some thoughts.


The IJN was desperately short of oilers. Did they have 4 more? What operation to the south are they stopping to free them up?


My understanding was that the plan was that if they were discovered, they were to abort the operation; that they knew that fighting a prepared foe that far from home was too risky.


Stilwell was originally slated for the American command of Torch, filling the post the Eisenhower got, instead. I don't see him being 'deputy'anywhere.

The only reason he got stuck with China is that he was fluent in Chinese.
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Stilwell was in CA in 1941 and thus available

The Japanese and Yamamato are going in prepared to fight a decisive battle, so discovery or not they are going in

Those oilers are not available for operations planned elsewhere that are not in this story (but I did account for them)

note that to make this happen the seizure of the Gilbert Islands was postponed, and as a result of this story operations later on are much delayed or significantly changed also.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Wow. Excellent TL!!
Thank you
We've often discussed 'what if PH were defended properly', and it's about time someone actually did it. That you did it so well is just icing on the cake.
Again, thank you.
 

Griffon

galveston bay said:
I like Gingrich/Forstchen and their two works, but I had a number of quibbles while reading it.
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I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts -- I thought their two books were great. I also enjoyed their Gettysburg series, though some things there were a bit of a stretch.
 

markvet

edgeworthy said:
As far as I can discover the first 40mm Bofors USN Mount was not installed until June 1942 on board USS Wyoming, at least two weeks after Midway.
However, their a hell of a lot better than some other AH writers, Tsouras, Conroy, or Harrison.
(And some posters here)
And didn't go completely "American Exceptionalist".
Click to expand...
its called alt history, its not a documentary
 

Asp

markvet said:
its called alt history, its not a documentary
Click to expand...

You have to catch details like that, at least if you want to be taken seriously. You can take some dramatic license but you can't take randomly insert entire classes of weapons that didn't exist at that point without explanation, especially when it's likely to affect the course of the battle. The Bofors 40 mike-mike was a big improvement on what came before it to the point where it would likely have that affect.

Nobody said alternate history, especially on the world wars, was easy.
 

galveston bay

Asp said:
You have to catch details like that, at least if you want to be taken seriously. You can take some dramatic license but you can't take randomly insert entire classes of weapons that didn't exist at that point without explanation, especially when it's likely to affect the course of the battle. The Bofors 40 mike-mike was a big improvement on what came before it to the point where it would likely have that affect.

Nobody said alternate history, especially on the world wars, was easy.
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It was asked upthread what one of my concerns were about "Day of Infamy" and "Pearl Harbor". That detail regarding AAA guns on the Enterprise were one of them. There were some others like the Japanese shelling of Pearl Harbor which seemed to have no problems from the American heavy coast defense guns near its entrance at Pearl Harbor and at Honolulu (14 inch guns, 12 inch mortars). I had issues with the cable to the mainland being cut and all of the long range radios being down and while I understand poetic license to reduce characters, not all of the Admirals of the Pacific Fleet were at Pearl Harbor base and most definitely they would not have been during the third attack (in the book). For that matter there are plenty of Army generals and colonels around, not to mention Marine and Navy senior officers, to organize the air attack better.

so I tried to address that issue in this timeline.
 

Glenn239

galveston bay said:
There were some others like the Japanese shelling of Pearl Harbor which seemed to have no problems from the American heavy coast defense guns near its entrance at Pearl Harbor and at Honolulu (14 inch guns, 12 inch mortars).
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Maximum range of the Japanese 14" gun firing HE was just over 30,000 yards, (36,000 with AP, but AP is useless for shore bombardment). Battery Closson (2x12") was about the same range as that, batteries Williston and Hatch (2x16" each) were over 40,000 yards. The other batteries on Oahu, including the 14", did not have this type of range. The 16" were the main obstacle - a few hits from these could ruin your day.
 

galveston bay

a few minor retcons

Halsey is available for duty in July 1942 and is sent to Britain for a special operation where he remains for several months. Wearing an eye patch, with a hook for a left hand and with a limp, and sporting the Medal of Honor, to the British public he seems almost like the second coming of Admiral Nelson.

Story adjusted to take into account the Wasp and Ranger appearance in "Flattops and Flyboys"
 
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