There's nothing in "basic human nature" that causes an average person to suppose that the moment events go ahistorical that the outcome will be a highly improbable one, such as the USN losing the war or Kido Butai having hundreds of aircraft shot down. This type of heated insistence on extreme outcomes is the realm of dramatists and story tellers. When Kimmel thought of the potential of a third wave, he wasn't thinking the USN could lose the war. He was thinking that he might suffer addition damage, maybe lose the Enterprise. When Nagumo declined to send it, he wasnt' thinking he'd lose 50 or 100 planes shot down, he was thinking he might lose another 20 and that the law of diminishing returns was in play. They were thinking of AVERAGE results, not nonsensical off the charts jingoist outcomes.
Third Wave at Pearl Harbor: American Pacific Fleet relocates to California?
- Thread starter Polish Eagle
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There's nothing in "basic human nature" that causes an average person to suppose that the moment events go ahistorical that the outcome will be a highly improbable one, such as the USN losing the war or Kido Butai having hundreds of aircraft shot down. This type of heated insistence on extreme outcomes is the realm of dramatists and story tellers. When Kimmel thought of the potential of a third wave, he wasn't thinking the USN could lose the war. He was thinking that he might suffer addition damage, maybe lose the Enterprise. When Nagumo declined to send it, he wasnt' thinking he'd lose 50 or 100 planes shot down, he was thinking he might lose another 20 and that the law of diminishing returns was in play. They were thinking of AVERAGE results, not nonsensical off the charts jingoist outcomes.
That is not in the Japanese plan of operations at all.
Now you are flipping what you actually said and meant.
US airpower is destroyed. I can think of the sub base, and base housing and barracks as legitimate targets for the third wave, also the machine shops on Ford Island in the anti-personal sense. IOW, you have NO IDEA what the Japanese could do to "soft targets" to really mess up Pearl Harbor and rock the Americans. Personnel kills in specialist categories would have been devastating to PACFlt. Here at Pearl, these were clustered in concentrated well-defined areas.
I was thinking of Midway in its entirety and how close it was to presaging round two. If Yamamoto had kept his nerve, it would have been so. THAT was in the Japanese planning.
Actually... I think you need to read "The Shattered Sword" again, and have a lot of your wrong thinking corrected by some real research.^1
^1 One minor correction; the torpedo bombers bought time for the dive bombers to get there and they drew the Japanese CAP off in the wrong direction too far to the northeast for them to work back in time to meet the Dauntlesses coming in from the WEST and southwest. Even the good researchers get the altitude myth wrong and repeat it ad nauseum.
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The Japanese "plan of operation" covered the first two waves. After that everything was contingency, and the contingency as laid down by Combined Fleet was that if repeat attacks were being made, the oil tanks were in 7th priority.
Evading the question does not answer it.
Nagumo's 3rd wave if all dropping bombs had the firepower of about 25 Lancaster bombers, or about 50 B-17 bombers. That places an upper boundry on the amount of damage that could be done.
So then, two flying boats randomly bombing the surf doesn't constitute a reason for the USN to abandon Oahu? Good to know.
Huh?
The IJN never stopped a large dive bomber attack in WW2 and would not have done so at Midway either even if no torpedo bombers had diverted any IJN fighters.
VT-3 and VT-6 approached from the south and southeast. As for VT-8's course, Shattered Sword is a book, and the battlefield off Midway is intact on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. VT-8's planes are down there, every one within about 500 yards of where it was shot down, with the line of advance clearly marked by the line of the planes on the ocean floor. Is that line running northeast to southwest, or southwest to northeast? The answer will probably be provided in the next decade.
OTL Japan lost 29 planes that were shot down, but they also had 74 planes damaged out of 414. A third wave would recquire the planes from the first wave to land, refuel and go up and attack. According to wikipedia US had 390 airplanes avalible Before the first strike, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged. That is 347 airplanes. Of the 40 remaining, how many were fighters and how many of the 159 damaged could be repaired in an hour and sent to battle a possible third wave?
And according to wikipedia the AA intensified between the first and second strike. If a third wave came there would be more AA meaning more japanese losses.
And according to wikipedia the AA intensified between the first and second strike. If a third wave came there would be more AA meaning more japanese losses.
After the 2nd wave the U.S had the following undamaged aircraft available:
USAAF
16 P-36A
25 P-40B
2 P-40C
14 P-26 (yes, I know)
3 B-10
4 B-17
11 B-18
5 A-20
USN
7 F2A
4 F4F-3
1 SBD
Enterprise reached practical flight operations range well after dark.
The P-36A did very well at Pearl shooting down two A6M for the loss of one Mohawk of the five engaged. Another Mohawk, from Haleiwa Air Filed was lost to "friendly" ground fire.
1st Lt. Lewis M. Sanders, 2nd Lt. Gordon H. Sterling, 2nd Lt. Harry W. Brown and 2nd Lt. Philip M. Rasmussen were each credited with a kill flying the P-36, and the wreck of a Kate that Brown claimed as damaged was found later, giving him 2
And he did it with only one working .30
Rasmussen's was a shot up mess by time he landed.
There weren't 'a stream of oilers' available in late 41 early 42. One of the main limiting factors in the carrier raids in early 42 was the availability of oilers to support the task forces. On top of that the general shortage of tankers was made worse by the u-boat campaign off the east coast U.S. in early '42. As a side note in Naval parlance an oiler is a tanker used for fleet replenishment. A tanker is used to transport petroleum products between supply points.
Tank farms are tough to destroy. In general the target is the pumping and distribution system not the storage tanks (unless you are using large formations of strategic bombers)
The Problem, as I recall, is that the Japanese probably COULDN'T launch a third strike. They were already extremely low on fuel as it was, and wasting any more time around Hawaii would see the specter of them having to scuttle the entire destroyer force. Now admittedly that isn't THAT big a dissuasion for the cult of Offensive at All Costs, but all it would take is one American Carrier stumbling across the poorly defended tanker force...
So Zimm made a typo on page 318 when he said the computer model he was using indicated that up to 389,000 tons of oil (best case IJN scenario) could be destroyed by one bombing raid of 280 x 500lbs bombs?
The IJN destroyers were fully topped up prior to beginning the run in. The DD Akigumo took on 250 tons 48hrs after the raid was over. It's fuel capacity was 600 tons, meaning that in the 48hrs of the high speed part of the attack, she was burning about 5 tons per hour. So, at the moment Nagumo made his decision to withdraw, (around 36 hours after the high speed run commenced), Akigumo would have had about 420 tons of oil aboard, or about 70% capacity - more than ample to cover a 3rd wave. Had Nagumo decided to stay for the 8th, he might have refuelled the destroyers that night from the capital ships - this was part of the operational plan.
For a third wave the Army batteries would be operational. However, the bulk of the anti-aircraft around the tanks and docks was aboard ships, and the ships were sorting to sea as quickly as they could - every ship that exited the harbor was that many fewer AA guns.
Also, with the fires there was a lot of smoke which would hinder both the bombing as well as the anti-aircraft (optically guided).
If the US have warning they will send up all the fighters including the P26 and that will be around 50 fighters waiting for the japanese WHOs pilots have greater experience but have been up and flying since daybreak. Ok, i guess that the US pilots will have a hungover, but also angry. Rookie aircrew vs experienced pilots mean that the rookies will be experienced if they land safe. The japanese will lose every pilot that is shot down and only aggrevate the pilot training problem.
My guess is that the beached Nevada will be a burning hulk beyond salvation if the japanese break through
Agree with your analysis, but if you read the final part, they could indeed have come to a supplementaryconclusion. And launched a third wave.
Sure, if you don't mind losing the bombarding ships when about 8 cruisers and 25+ destroyers plus some submarines and PT Boats swarm out of the harbor like angry bees. Even the early war American torpedos are going to get lucky if you fire enough of them.
Or you know, the totally untouched coastal defense batteries intended to defend against exactly this.
The Oprana point (and other) radar installations were not integrated into the air defense doctrine of Oahu as of yet. They were still experimental. So on the 7th it was not, as you are imagining, that "50" fighters were sitting warmed up waiting for the call from Oprana Point. They were launching standing patrols of six or twelve fighters in rotation. I think in total after the attacks the USAAF managed on the 7th about 24 fighter sorties in something like 4 patrols.
Yes, but why would the IJN attack the oil farm with ships when a rudimentary analysis would tell them that a level bombing attack by B5N2's stood to do a reasonable amount of damage?
Enterprise sent half (18) of its SBD's forward to Oahu, of which 5 were shot down and others damaged. Of the remainder, I think some were used for scouting. On board she had about 16 fighters, 18 SBD's and something like 14 TBD's. The attack doctrine apparently had the SBD's dropping smoke to aid the attack of the TBD's and the total number of escorts for a strike might have been about 4. So, the best anti-carrier asset in the US arsenal (Enterprise's 36 x SBD dive bombers) were not going to be a cohesive force, and would be trying to penetrate a CAP of 36+ fighters with next to no (or no) escort.
The Army aviation had the wrong ship attack doctrine and so were highly unlikely to hit anything.
DougM
Donor
One thing I think many people seam to lose site of. We here in 2018 have perfect hindsight and an amazing amount of knowledge. We know how bad the Navy was hit, we know how few aircraft are available to defend Peril. We know where the Aurcraft Carriers are. We know that the US did not know the location of the Japanese. But in 1941 the Japanese did not truly know any of this.
They had guesses about the damage to the ships and aircraft and that was it,
As far as they knew the US could know there location by simply following behind the air strike as it returned. And the US could be sending god knows how many bombers out to visit. And it was possible that any and every sub in the area was closing in. And that a strike from the Carriers was inbound.
Think about this. A lone plane tracks the strike back to the Carriers. Meanwhile the us Navy sorties every ship they have left and every sub in the area. Once they have the location the US sends out a suicide strike thinking it is “all or nothing “. remember as far as the US knows the Japanese are planning to invade the next day. So it is “now or never”. Meanwhile the US Air Corp Sends out lord knows how many B-17s and everything else that can fly. And timed so that the “missing Aircraft Carriers “ that just HAPPEN to be perfectly located send out everything they have. All of this timed coincidentally to hit JUST as the 3rd wave is landing. So we have a massive attack from both the Air Corp and Navy that hits at the same time the Subs And remaining surface fleat began there suicidal death run scream “Remember Peril Harbor”. In a death before dishonor attack and more then willing to trade there lives and ships for revenge.
Was this likely to happen? No but as far as the Japanese know on Dec 7 it was possible no matter how unlikely. And this is the kind of thing they had to balance against any possible results from a third wave. The Japanese had achieved the main goal. They devastated the Pacific Fleat and suffered practically no damage in exchange. But as if the morning of December 7th it was still very much possible to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. It was much better for the Japanese to inflict a completely one sided defeat the to do more damage but suffer damage themselves. Remember they were trying to convince the US to give up. And letting the US score against them would only seam to give the US a propaganda advantage. “They surprised us but in the end we made them pay for it with one of there Carriers and 1500 men”. Is not the story Japan wants as a headline on Dec 8th. As it is not as damaging to moral as “US Fleet devastated, Japan suffer No Damage”
So understandablely they got while the getting was good.
They had guesses about the damage to the ships and aircraft and that was it,
As far as they knew the US could know there location by simply following behind the air strike as it returned. And the US could be sending god knows how many bombers out to visit. And it was possible that any and every sub in the area was closing in. And that a strike from the Carriers was inbound.
Think about this. A lone plane tracks the strike back to the Carriers. Meanwhile the us Navy sorties every ship they have left and every sub in the area. Once they have the location the US sends out a suicide strike thinking it is “all or nothing “. remember as far as the US knows the Japanese are planning to invade the next day. So it is “now or never”. Meanwhile the US Air Corp Sends out lord knows how many B-17s and everything else that can fly. And timed so that the “missing Aircraft Carriers “ that just HAPPEN to be perfectly located send out everything they have. All of this timed coincidentally to hit JUST as the 3rd wave is landing. So we have a massive attack from both the Air Corp and Navy that hits at the same time the Subs And remaining surface fleat began there suicidal death run scream “Remember Peril Harbor”. In a death before dishonor attack and more then willing to trade there lives and ships for revenge.
Was this likely to happen? No but as far as the Japanese know on Dec 7 it was possible no matter how unlikely. And this is the kind of thing they had to balance against any possible results from a third wave. The Japanese had achieved the main goal. They devastated the Pacific Fleat and suffered practically no damage in exchange. But as if the morning of December 7th it was still very much possible to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. It was much better for the Japanese to inflict a completely one sided defeat the to do more damage but suffer damage themselves. Remember they were trying to convince the US to give up. And letting the US score against them would only seam to give the US a propaganda advantage. “They surprised us but in the end we made them pay for it with one of there Carriers and 1500 men”. Is not the story Japan wants as a headline on Dec 8th. As it is not as damaging to moral as “US Fleet devastated, Japan suffer No Damage”
So understandablely they got while the getting was good.
The carrier force was relatively safe from land based air, however, it should be kept in mind that the ineffectiveness of heavy bombers against maneuvering warships was not known at the time. Enterprise was, as noted earlier hours away from strike range (she would have needed to be within 100 miles of Oahu to launch a full strike, and this assumes that the TBD could recover on Oahu).
Nagumo also had to account for THREE or more carriers that had been expected to be a Pearl (the Frag for the attack specifically called for four BB and four CV to be struck in the first wave and for up to five carriers to be struck in the 2nd wave). The Japanese, quite literally, were not sure which carriers the U.S. had in which Ocean. We now know that there were only two American carriers in play, both operating independently and separated by several hundred miles, with the third PacFleet deck (the Sara) just entering San Diego Harbor, Nagomo (and the rest of the IJN) were not aware of this. There was, in the eyes of the planners and Commander on scene, a small, but real, possibility that a SUPERIOR force, at least in aircraft carried, was simply waiting for the Japanese to make the first move before springing their own trap.
The IJN planners also had to account for the near certain presence of USN submarines in the region.