What if the attack on Pearl Harbor was an utter disaster?

When you think about Pearl Harbor galvanized domestic support but was not strategically significant.Regardless of whether the Pearl Harbor battleships survived with little damage there was not much they could have done to support the Philippines, Malaya or the Dutch East Indies.Since the Kido Butai did not play much of a role there either you have to assume that Japanese would have captured all three.Even if several of the Japanese carriers were destroyed essentially you are moving Midway up by six months.
Task Force 34/54 was almost completely made up of ships launched after December 7, 1941.I do not see how the construction timetable could have been moved up if Pearl Harbor was a decisive American victory.Consequently I do not see any significant change in the pace of American conquests.

The Japanese carriers represented an irresistible force of deterrence that kept USN AND RN fleets from daring to come outside of their own land-based air, except for pinprick raids.
 

CalBear

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Somebody on the NavWeaps Discussion Boards wrote a one-shot story where four escort carriers-actually converted pre-dreadnought battleships-manage to catch the Kido Butai right after they launch their second strike and sink two Japanese carriers.

Of course this would require no WNT, so everything would be so vastly different that you would need an Atlanta class CLAA to hold off the plane sized butterflies.
 
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