What if japan hit the fuel stores at pearl harbour?

marathag

marathag

Banned
rascal1225 said:
Actually, the majority of the PH fuel storage tanks were built as cheaply as possible for the 1923/4 era by oil companies involved in the "Great Teapot Dome Scandal"
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Cite:?
Teapot Dome was about future Oil leases, not hardware construction shortcuts. You skimp on tanks, and they collapse, like the Molassas Tank in Boston.
That was recent enough in memory that would be unlikely to have happened at the 2nd most important Naval Base in the Pacific.

Thicknesses of the plates do differ, you have typically have twice(or more) the thickness at the base as you do at the top
 

rascal1225

Banned
OOPS !

My bad gents ... make that 85 big fuel tank targets, not just 84 on Oahu ... because I was so tired after my long flight home, I overlooked the Lubricants Storage building, located on the southern side of Merry Loch, Its internal steel frames held up 54 x 25,000 gallon steel tanks filled with every type of lubricant required by the USN warships based at PH. And was covered only by thin asbestos cement sheets intended to keep the rain out. Not 250kg bombs or even 30kg IJN incendiaries.

Once THAT burned, there would been NO salvage, repair or even basic maintenance done within Pearl Harbor, until it was replaced from CONUS.

Please see https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=HABS+No.+Hl-401&atb=v338-1&ia=web for further details.

In a curious coincidence, when the OT USS Neosho moved away from Battleship Row between the 1st and 2nd KB waves, she tied up very near to that same (and ONLY) Lubricants Storage building ... a potential case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" ?
 
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rascal1225

Banned
marathag said:
Cite:?
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Try https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/hi/hi0600/hi0642/data/hi0642data.pdf it makes an interesting read.

Also, don't miss https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/hi/hi0400/hi0495/data/hi0495data.pdf for more tank construction details.

marathag said:
Teapot Dome was about future Oil leases, not hardware construction shortcuts.
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You are mistaken ... please see the above cite ... and a US government official or two went to jail over it IIRC ... or maybe that was the oilman ? somebody was fined big time too ... Some of the PH fuel storage tanks went unfilled for years because they leaked even before their construction was fully completed

marathag said:
You skimp on tanks, and they collapse, like the Molassas Tank in Boston.
That was recent enough in memory that would be unlikely to have happened at the 2nd most important Naval Base in the Pacific.

Thicknesses of the plates do differ, you have typically have twice(or more) the thickness at the base as you do at the top
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In this historical case, the number of rivets was increased lower down and their spacing apart was reduced but only 1/2" plate was used top to bottom.
 
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jlckansas

Why would you turn off all the tank farm heaters? You keep the lines on the uneeded fuel tanks at the minimal temp and pressure in the steam lines and only when you are going to pump into or out of the tank do you bring them up to the operating temps/pressure to make the Bunker C flow. Part of the safety for the tanks is the fact that you do not keep all the tanks ready to go at all time in case of an accident.
 

YYJ

Here is an interesting and wide ranging article on the role of oil in the Pacific war. It touches on the specific topic at times.

The author suggests that attacking the tank farms at PH, coupled with a sustained wolf pack type submarine blockade of the US West Coast concentrating on sinking tankers could have prolonged the war for 2 years. This would also be counter to Japanese doctrine.

The Japanese knew all about those oil storage tanks. Their failure to bomb the Fleet’s oil supply reflected their preoccupation with tactical rather than logistical targets . . . . Nagumo’s mission was to destroy Kimmel’s ships and the airpower on Oahu. If Yamamoto and his advisers chose the wrong targets, or insufficiently diversified ones, the mistake rests on their shoulders. 82. Prange, Miracle at Midway, 4.
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Admiral Chester W. Nimitz summed up the situation best, “Had the Japanese destroyed the oil, it would have prolonged the war another two years.” Prange, Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History, 510.
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rascal1225

Banned
jlckansas said:
Why would you turn off all the tank farm heaters? You keep the lines on the uneeded fuel tanks at the minimal temp and pressure in the steam lines and only when you are going to pump into or out of the tank do you bring them up to the operating temps/pressure to make the Bunker C flow. Part of the safety for the tanks is the fact that you do not keep all the tanks ready to go at all time in case of an accident.
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I've never claimed to be a fuel oil storage tank expert ... all I know is that my previous home used hot water radiators for heating and adjusting those up by even a few degrees took a full day to increase that small home's internal temperature .... just how long would it take to heat the oil contents of an 80,000 BARREL or 120,000 BARRELL or 150,000 BARREL fuel oil storage tank to "pumping" temperature ... I'm guessing several days, if not weeks ...

We ARE making progress in that you have now admitted that some degree pf CONSTANT heating was required inside those Oahu fuel storage tanks .... IIRC heat RISES so the internal temperatures inside those fuel storage tanks would be highest just under their thin conical steel roofs .... just where a Japanese bomb would be most likely to impact and explode, thus instantly raising those vapor temperatures there, even more .... presto, an oil vapor fire starts and quickly heats that upper level oil even more .... FIREBALL !

I would also point out that rivet holes are merely the starting points of cracks/ splits which are awaiting some high energy "kick" to start them running ... the rooftop blast of a 250kg Japanese bomb would, I believe, deliver more than enough energy to split any of those 1923/4 vintage PH oil tanks, WIDE OPEN, with the now heated oil contents sloshing out in wave form, over the surrounding (only) gravel containment berm surrounding almost every PH storage tank ... (only the 9 avgas storage tanks out on Ford Island had 6' high concrete circular berms) ... such berms were designed to contain only slow dripping leaks, NOT the catastrophic bursting of a full tank ...

Think of the overflow difference between a person slowly lowering themselves down into a full bathtub verses just jumping in ...
 
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Glenn239

Sekhmet_D said:
Actually I would say that by the time a third wave hits, the American fighters are going to be swarming like angry bees. And they would far outnumber the A6M escort.
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3rd wave escort would probably have been around 45-60 Zeros. This would be more Zeros than the entire number of USAAF CAP sorties flown all day on the 7th after the attack. So no, I strongly doubt that US fighters would have outnumbered the escorts. Probably the opposite.

The second complication was the altitude of the attacking force. The morning attack came in low. A 3rd wave , ifdoing a level bombing attack, is coming in at 18,000 feet or higher. The available radars could not tell altitude, so defending fighters would probably have been positioned far too low and struggled to gain altitude to intercept.
 

Glenn239

Butchpfd said:
The Japanese were prepared to tow, and if necessary scuttle DDs if fuel got too low. The oilers had been sent back to the Home Islands. Japanese fuel stores were located at the Home Islands, Korea, Formosa, an Truk.
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The oilers rendezvouzed with the strike force on December 9th and performed refuelling tasks at that time. KB then hit bad weather and refueling became impossible for several days.
 

rascal1225

Banned
On a related tangent, what might have happened had one (or more) of those 800kg Japanese AP bombs historically dropped on Battleship Row, hung up for a few seconds and then fallen on the USS Neosho, tied just ahead of those USN battleships, at the F4 fueling pier ?

We know that she had finished unloading avgas into those 9 big Ford Island avgas tanks at about 0750 and would be FULL of potentially explosive gasoline fumes as a result ... I can't see her venting those tanks that close to the inhabited USN battleships on that Sunday morning ...

Would an 800kg AP bomb actually detonate on hitting her or would it have just punched thru her and deep into the PH bottom mud ? In order to pump her avgas cargo out some air must have been allowed into her numerous fuel storage tanks BUT would that have provided an EXPLOSIVE gas mixture inside any those ship's tanks ? If so, would an 800kg bomb passing thru her steel deck /tanks without exploding, have generated sufficient sparks to detonate that gas mixture ?

Was there anything else inside her, other than her main engine, heavy enough to trigger the ignition of that 800kg bomb's AP fuse ?

Would detonating in the harbor mud below Neosho generate enough of fireball to ignite that gas mixture still inside the tanker hull above her ?

And last but certainly not least, IF such a blast had occurred, what would have been the likely effects on those moored nearby USN battleships ?

Your thoughts gentlemen ?
 
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rascal1225

Banned
Glenn239 said:
The oilers rendezvouzed with the strike force on December 9th and performed refuelling tasks at that time. KB then hit bad weather and refueling became impossible for several days.
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Can you provide details of the OT fuel tonnages that the KB's 7 tankers returned to Japanese waters with, post Pearl Harbor ?
 

Butchpfd

rascal1225 said:
On a related tangent, what might have happened had one (or more) of those 800kg Japanese AP bombs historically dropped on Battleship Row, hung up for a few seconds and then fallen on the USS Neosho, tied just ahead of those USN battleships, at the F4 fueling pier ?

We know that she had finished unloading avgas into those 9 big Ford Island avgas tanks at about 0750 and would be FULL of potentially explosive gasoline fumes as a result ... I can't see her venting those tanks that close to the inhabited USN battleships on that Sunday morning ...

Would an 800kg AP bomb actually detonate on hitting her or would it have just punched thru her and deep into the PH bottom mud ? In order to pump her avgas cargo out some air must have been allowed into her numerous fuel storage tanks BUT would that have provided an EXPLOSIVE gas mixture inside any those ship's tanks ? If so, would an 800kg bomb passing thru her steel deck /tanks without exploding, have generated sufficient sparks to detonate that gas mixture ?

Was there anything else inside her, other than her main engine, heavy enough to trigger the ignition of that 800kg bomb's AP fuse ?

Would detonating in the harbor mud below Neosho generate enough of fireball to ignite that gas mixture still inside the tanker hull above her ?

And last but certainly not least, IF such a blast had occurred, what would have been the likely effects on those moored nearby USN battleships ?

Your thoughts gentlemen ?
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A hit on any of the deck pumps, might, if it is an AP bomb, no matter the fuse delay most likely puts the bomb in the mud. It would break Nesho's back. Imo, blast from fuel vapor not as bad as Arizona's magazine blast.
 

YYJ

rascal1225 said:
On a related tangent, what might have happened had one (or more) of those 800kg Japanese AP bombs historically dropped on Battleship Row, hung up for a few seconds and then fallen on the USS Neosho, tied just ahead of those USN battleships, at the F4 fueling pier ?

We know that she had finished unloading avgas into those 9 big Ford Island avgas tanks at about 0750 and would be FULL of potentially explosive gasoline fumes as a result ... I can't see her venting those tanks that close to the inhabited USN battleships on that Sunday morning ...

Would an 800kg AP bomb actually detonate on hitting her or would it have just punched thru her and deep into the PH bottom mud ? In order to pump her avgas cargo out some air must have been allowed into her numerous fuel storage tanks BUT would that have provided an EXPLOSIVE gas mixture inside any those ship's tanks ? If so, would an 800kg bomb passing thru her steel deck /tanks without exploding, have generated sufficient sparks to detonate that gas mixture ?

Was there anything else inside her, other than her main engine, heavy enough to trigger the ignition of that 800kg bomb's AP fuse ?

Would detonating in the harbor mud below Neosho generate enough of fireball to ignite that gas mixture still inside the tanker hull above her ?

And last but certainly not least, IF such a blast had occurred, what would have been the likely effects on those moored nearby USN battleships ?

Your thoughts gentlemen ?
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If Neosho was full of avgas fumes, I would think even the sparks caused by being hit by an AP bomb would set everything off.
 

rascal1225

Banned
CaptainCalvert said:
Good point for medium and longer term, but in the short term tankers are the practical answer.
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I don't believe that to be the case ...

Yes, the Allies started WW2 with something like 547 tankers of all sorts BUT by Dec.7'41 that total had been considerably reduced by German U-boat attacks.

If you are going to "park" many US tankers inside of Pearl Harbor to act as floating replacement fuel storage tanks, you are taking those same tankers completely OUT of the Allied convoy system ... you don't lose just one tanker delivery, you lose every tanker delivery possible by that vessel for as long as she is tied up within PH.

At that time EVERY Allied tanker was desperately needed for fuel deliveries world wide. Goralski's fine book "Oil Wars" is almost completely available for a preview read on the WWW and goes into great detail wrt the Allied tanker system's problems ... for instance Hitler declared war on the US shortly after Dec.7'41 and ordered 12 U-boats into Caribbean / Gulf of Mexico and US East Coast waters. Only 5 U-boats actually made those war voyages but the results were DEVASTATING to Alled tanker numbers beacuse the US had NOT nearly enough patrol warplanes or ASW vessels available to even remotely protect those HUGE areas against the 5 prowling OT German U-boats ... and now you expect to strip even MORE US tankers off of those convoy routes to be "parked" within PH ???

IIRC Goralski points out that the ENTIRE British convoy ESCORT system faced running out of fuel oil within 4 short WEEKS around March/April of 1942 ... stripping out 50 or so MORE US tankers to store replacement fuel within PH could only advance that schedule GREATLY. Which quickly results in catastrophic U-boat Atlantic kill numbers against Allied Lend/Lease convoys bound for Britian, Russia and the Mediterranean area ... Malta falls ? ... the Suez Canal falls ? ... Britain falls ? Russia drops out of the war ?

Its a staggering list of potential failures.

No, all I can see would be a USN Pacific Fleet retirement back to the US West Coast ...

For a further education on the state of the art in American fuel tankfarm construction circa 1941/2 I would recommend that you look up "Operation Bobcat" which was the OT attempt to build a US refueling facility on the Pacific Island of Bora Bora ... historically a "keystone cops" style shitshow which I'm sure will sort out your ideas on the likely timeline for rebuilding any burned out US tankfarms on Oahu. You will be AMAZED, but NOT positively so ... the troubled start of the famous SeeBees ...
 
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Butchpfd

OK folks; Here are the Japanese Oilers assigned to 1st Air Fleet(AKA Kido Butai)
Research IJN Oilers of 1st Air Fleet

Tonnage Speed Cargo

Nippon Maru 9.9k 18-20kts 14590m3

Toho Maru 9.9k “ “

Kyokuto Maru 10k “ 16100m3

Toei Maru 10k “ “

Kokuyo Maru 10k “ “

Ken’yo Maru 10k “ “

Shinkoku Maru10k “ 16100m3

This link will take you to a specific Oiler, but scroll down the page you get all the IJN Oilers and Fleet assignments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_fleet_oiler_Kazahaya
 

rascal1225

Banned
Butchpfd said:
OK folks; Here are the Japanese Oilers assigned to 1st Air Fleet(AKA Kido Butai)
Research IJN Oilers of 1st Air Fleet

Tonnage Speed Cargo

Nippon Maru 9.9k 18-20kts 14590m3

Toho Maru 9.9k “ “

Kyokuto Maru 10k “ 16100m3

Toei Maru 10k “ “

Kokuyo Maru 10k “ “

Ken’yo Maru 10k “ “

Shinkoku Maru10k “ 16100m3

This link will take you to a specific Oiler, but scroll down the page you get all the IJN Oilers and Fleet assignments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_fleet_oiler_Kazahaya
Click to expand...

Many thanks ... digesting all of that should "keep me off of the streets and out of the bars" for several evenings ...
 
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