Third Wave at Pearl Harbor: American Pacific Fleet relocates to California?

[Carl Schwamberger]

The IJN as a rule did not bombard land positions with battleships.

When they did first break doctrine it did not go well for the two capitol ships committed. In Japanese thinking into 1942 shore bombardment was a task for destroyers or cruisers. Usually light cruisers.

Back in the 1920s the US Army and USN had tested their cannon ammunition vs concrete structures & learned at least a little bit about the destructive limits. I don't know what tests or experience the Japanese had, but their assumptions were for great results from the smaller caliber ammunition. After their destroyers, light cruisers, & then heavy cruisers failed to put Henderson Field on Guadalcanal out of action for more than a morning, they tried reinforcing the bombardment force with a pair of Kongo class ships.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Difficult. Australia had a III class facility at Whymalla and a II class facility at Sydney. That means destroyers and cruisers only. Building the oil storage facilities would have taken a year. Building a casern drydock to take capital ships at least twice as long. Floating drydock? 1 year to build, 3 months to transport. All of this should have been done pre-war during the Menzies administration. Once the war was on, events spiral out of control and things like major ship repair have to be sent back to the United States' west coast. So many simple things like building a railroad to Darwin and building up airbases or dredging and building a large drydock or building the oil bunkerage needed, just was not done.

Wellington was chosen as the primary S Pac base. What did it have for bunker fuel storage?

 

[McPherson]

Wellington was chosen as the primary S Pac base. What did it have for bunker fuel storage?

I cannot speak for British naval decisions with regard for ANZAC. Well I could but it would be presumptuous arrogant and somewhat ignorant of me, so I will not and let my betters in that subject area answer that question from the British perspective.

Sydney Harbor.

Wellington Harbor

Several things are immediately apparent. One is that currents and tides allow for for easier boom and net defense against submarine intrusion.

I see some geological problems with siting an oil tank farm at Sydney. Nothing major, but the shoreline is cluttered and something has to be cleared out on the suitable hardground. Oil tanks filled up are heavy.

Three spots immediately. the island, the finger inlet to photo right or the foreground, if the housing has to be removed. Plonk in an oil tank farm and park a floating drydock. Wellington harbor bottoms out at 20 meters, gentle current, caldera shaped by geology, and easily boomed and netted. Sydney runs a stronger current, is shallower as one heads into the harbor main, is built up, has a bridge awkwardly placed and has a "complex sea frontier" to defend. Just my opinion. (YMMV and it should.).

Some information on US infrastructure construction in the South Pacific.