USS Enterprise sunk at Pearl Harbor

Bearcat

Banned
The Alaska's were not started yet, so would not be ready before late 1944, when redesigned and actually constructed. When there was a need for flightdecks fast, this would not be a serious option.

This.

By '44, you have Essex boats up the ying yang.

The whole point of the CVLs was to get decks late '42 / early '43. A few were finished later, but by then the crisis had really passed.
 
Since I pointed out that the Ranger was used in a non-combatant role after suggesting that it was a viable option for limited combat duty (do you dispute this?)


I don't dispute the order in which you made your comments. What I do dispute is the "possibilities" you suggest can be inferred from Ranger's Atlantic "combat" experience.

You wrote...

CV-4 was smallish (though she could embark 86 aircraft, certainly an adequate number for some operations), and her protection though limited, was acceptable for light-to-moderate combat operations. She spent almost 2 years in the Pacific in a non-combat role...
... and I've continued to point out that Ranger's two combat operations in the Atlantic were laughable by Pacific standards and thus are no predictor of any use in the Pacific.

In Torch, Ranger was just one of several CVEs, a little larger than the rest so she carried the admiral in charge of the CVEs, but she was used in the same fashion as those CVES and the only threat she faced was a limited one posed by submarines. In her other combat mission, the two day, shoot & scoot, Norway shipping raid, submarines were again the main threat and she faced all of three Luftwaffe aircraft.

Any operation in the Pacific would take place in a much more threatening environment against, when compared to the KM and LW naval arm, a much more dangerous navy and naval air force.

We certainly disagree about the viability of the Ranger for combat operations...
Yes, we disagree. You are also disagreeing with the USN commanders of the time who knew more about the Ranger and her actual capabilities than you and I ever will.

Finally, your comment regarding MacArthur is telling...
It would be if I hadn't failed to explain the MacArthur/King tussle in a manner that allowed you to understand the point I was making. The fault there has been mine and mine alone, so I'll try again.

King was a man of towering passions. It would be hard to list all the people and organizations he loathed because a list suggests he hated some more than others. In reality, King hated them all equally.

He loathed MacArthur not only because MacArthur was "army" but also because MacArthur was MacArthur. King and the entire USN were hesitant to send any ships to the southwest Pacific because, once sent, MacArthur very rarely sent them back. (The Indianapolis tragedy was fueled in part by this perception.) When MacArthur screamed for another carrier to assist Lexington, King would be damned if MacArthur was going to get anything, let alone the new Essex decks just arriving in 1943.

When King's political masters finally ordered him to provide MacArthur with a carrier, King looked over his limited options only to go hat in hand to another nation and organization he hated as much as MacArthur and beg Britain for a Royal Navy carrier.

That's the telling part of the story. King had swallow his pride and beg a carrier from Britain for less than 90 days work in light combat operations. King had to beg a carrier from one organization he loathed, the Royal Navy, to assist someone else he loathed, MacArthur, because King believed he had no other options.

Here's the point I've been failing to get across to you: If King thought USS Ranger could have done that "simple" 90 day job, he never would have been forced to beg Britain to loan HMS Victorious. If he had seen Ranger as an option, King, who had already been forced to "lose" to MacArthur, would not have also been forced to "lose" to the Royal Navy.

If that little story about King and HMS Victorious doesn't explain to you how the USN felt about Ranger's suitability for combat operations, nothing will.
 
To go back to the original premise, that Enterprise was caught at Pearl and sunk, I think there are a couple of consequences. First, the Japanese aren't as worried about the location of the US carriers, and launch wave three at Pearl. They lose a number of planes, but severely damage dry docks and fuel storage. With US down to two carriers in Pacific, Japanese push into the solomons is more successful, followed up by an attack on New Hebrides, Fiji and New Caledonia. New Caledonia becomes Guadalcanal.....

Coral Sea battle leaves US with one carrier.

Marginal increase in progress in New Guinea, but Aussies hold out.

No real need for Midway conquest leads to second major incursion into Indian Ocean to disrupt supply lines and get at British Carriers.

Overall, the war ends the same way, but Okinawa is not taken before A-bomb.
 
To go back to the original premise, that Enterprise was caught at Pearl and sunk, I think there are a couple of consequences. First, the Japanese aren't as worried about the location of the US carriers, and launch wave three at Pearl. They lose a number of planes, but severely damage dry docks and fuel storage. With US down to two carriers in Pacific, Japanese push into the solomons is more successful, followed up by an attack on New Hebrides, Fiji and New Caledonia. New Caledonia becomes Guadalcanal.....

Coral Sea battle leaves US with one carrier.

Marginal increase in progress in New Guinea, but Aussies hold out.

No real need for Midway conquest leads to second major incursion into Indian Ocean to disrupt supply lines and get at British Carriers.

Overall, the war ends the same way, but Okinawa is not taken before A-bomb.


The actual timeline would not be much different, appart from the unlikelyhood of several early raids, especially the Doolittleraid, since the USA would lack the needed number of flattops in 1942. Augmenting it with USS Wasp and USS Ranger was not an option, since Wasp was by then under British command in the Homefleet for the early half of 1942, not possibly released from her duty there, as the USA also considered her worth more in Europe than in the Pacific at that time. The same is true for USS Ranger. These carriers were needed to stabilise the European front by shipping in aircraft for Malta and allowing the damaged British carriers to get repaired and refitted, since the UK always was short of this type of warship. The USA would not want to allienate from her only ally, by going on an offensive in the secondary theater of the war, since Europe came first.

After the second half of 1942, USS Wasp could be transfered possibly as historically was done, but she always was the weakest USN carrier, lacking both protection and speed to come up with her better equipped fleet consorts. She would likely be lost in her first deployement, as more or less was happening in thre OTL.

Untill halfway 1943 the USN would need time to built up forces, especially carrierstrength, to counter any Japanese offensive, but this would have stopped anyway already, since the objectives of the Japanese had been reached already, and the smaller ones not reached yet had proven to be beyond its capabilities. Japan would simply wait and prepare for the USN to strike back, as it would become clear the USA and the Allies were not going to seek peace at the negotiationtables. Any Allied counteroffensive would not be scheduled before early 1944 at its best, when the needed liftcapacity was available in the Pacific, since most went to Europe first.
 
Don, Don, Don...

You take disagreement rather personally...lighten up....grin...

Regarding King going to the Brits on the Victorious, the explanation seems a bit simpler to me than you make it out. The USN did NOT want to underwrite MacArthur's little adventure in the SWPacific (Morrison's history covers this in horrific detail, though I am sure you can find other excellent sources), and diverting scarce resources to do so (even when ordered to do so) was anathema to them, as it would reduce their own available reserves. With this in mind, getting the Brits to provide a carrier was far preferable to providing one of their own (admittedly marginal) ones, whatever King might wish or not wish to do. The USN was a whole lot more than King, and getting him to 'take one for the team' (asking the Brits for support and swallowing his own rabid anglophobia) doesn't strike me as such an unreasonably difficult thing.

In any event, I will let you have the last word here....enjoy yourself...
 
MacArthur's ego was no secret.

As I mentioned previously he once sent a telegram to Churchill protesting that Lord Mountbatten was infringing on his sphere of command. Churchill went to a globe, measured the difference between Sydney and New Delhi and commented:

"6600 miles apart. Do you think that's far enough?"
 
To go back to the original premise, that Enterprise was caught at Pearl and sunk, I think there are a couple of consequences. First, the Japanese aren't as worried about the location of the US carriers, and launch wave three at Pearl. They lose a number of planes, but severely damage dry docks and fuel storage. With US down to two carriers in Pacific, Japanese push into the solomons is more successful, followed up by an attack on New Hebrides, Fiji and New Caledonia. New Caledonia becomes Guadalcanal.....

Coral Sea battle leaves US with one carrier.

Marginal increase in progress in New Guinea, but Aussies hold out.

No real need for Midway conquest leads to second major incursion into Indian Ocean to disrupt supply lines and get at British Carriers.

Overall, the war ends the same way, but Okinawa is not taken before A-bomb.

The possibilty of a 3rd wave is a myth. Please read all the previous postings on this.

The Midway attack wasn't 'needed' in OTL either. By then, I would expect US reinforcements. In any case, Miday is an elephant trap for the Japanese. Later incursions into the Indian Ocean are likely to be far more probematical for Japan, as the EMpire forces just get stronger with time. Look at the forces they committed to Madagascar, a marginal need. Put those in Ceylon, and life just gets more difficult for the IJN. In any case, why?? Whats the strategic pint of going all that way and attacking a few bases (thats all the carriers can do, raid).
 
MacArthur's ego was no secret.

As I mentioned previously he once sent a telegram to Churchill protesting that Lord Mountbatten was infringing on his sphere of command. Churchill went to a globe, measured the difference between Sydney and New Delhi and commented:


"6600 miles apart. Do you think that's far enough?"

Not for Dugout Doug it isn't! Probably take the whole Sol System, or Orion's Arm!:D
 
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