What if the US Pacific Fleet remained based on the West Coast over 1940-1?

Japan would not attack PH just to wreck the facilities (docks, shops, oil farms etc.). They were not really on the target list when they did attack (a big mistake). No attempt was made to even temporarily hit runways.

For the IJN the target was the US fleet (the ships). If the fleet had been assembled at Guam or Manila, those places would have been hit hard to sink the ships.
 
I agree

I agree to a point: Japan could not sucessful invade Hawaii and hold it. It would have been a logistical nightmare for any person brave enough - or perhaps crazy enough - to try and get a ship through if they had. However from a tactical standpoint heavily attacking PH early would added all kinds of problems to the USN. The sub fleet typically oufitted at PH prior to making their war patrols, as well as the repair facilites available, and the availability of topping off the fleets fuel tanks after coming in from SD. This reduced (somewhat) the need for extra fleet tankers to go out and rendevous with the fleet.

While the fleet could have easily made it to Australia as a tempoary base close to the fighting PH offered things that they could not. If PH had been heavily damaged and still rebuilding many of its facilities it would have virtually impossible to our carriers in position at midway. The damage to the Yorktown and the distances required would have been almost impossible if the fleet had to return to SD following the battle at Coral Sea. I could be wrong, and I will admit it if shown otherwise. I just ask that you be polite when/if you do so.

The question I would ask would be this: if the fleet is based out of SD what units/facilities would have been at PH? Tactically it would have a ripe target to at least try and marginalize or limit its ability to be used
 
Thing is Japan would not attack the Fleet Base without the Fleet there, their whole plan was essentially defeat the USN in battle and have the US sue for peace, essentially a repeat of the Russo-Japanese war

They would assume that the US would sue for peace after loosing the navy in a decisive battle or two, thing is the US was not 1905 Russia, we were in no danger of a major revolt and we had the capacity to quickly rebuild our fleet and try again and again and again
 
If the Pacific Fleet isn't out at Pearl by the attack, it will be pretty soon after. There's no way to threaten Japan from the West Coast, and the IJN gets their decisive battle. Of course, Japan only has one fleet, America has as many as Newport News can build.
 
and furthermore the US stated they would go to war if Japan attacked the DEI and were most likely going to from what I have heard on the board
Actually Roosevelt stated that, but he'd have had a heck of a time getting a DoW just to protect European Imperial interests.

I suspect the Japanese's best chance might have been to ignore the Philippines. OK, so there's only a 10% chance the US doesn't enter the war against them (eventually), that's still better than doing Pearl and guaranteeing it. Still, that's 20/20 hindsight.
 
jaybird, no reason to assume Japan gets a decisive battle as IJN officers during the war, particularly during Midway, were repeatedly going insane when it became clear that the USN would not offer battle on the terms Japan was willing to offer.
 
I suspect the Japanese's best chance might have been to ignore the Philippines. OK, so there's only a 10% chance the US doesn't enter the war against them (eventually), that's still better than doing Pearl and guaranteeing it. Still, that's 20/20 hindsight.

Not necessarily, the US could choose at any moment to cut off the supplies they went to war for in the first place, leaving the Japanese vulnerable at all times.
 
jaybird, no reason to assume Japan gets a decisive battle as IJN officers during the war, particularly during Midway, were repeatedly going insane when it became clear that the USN would not offer battle on the terms Japan was willing to offer.

Okay, fair enough. It's still vastly more likely for the decisive battle to happen when the Americans still have all their battleships, though.
 
WHy is it more likely that the presence of the battleships will persuade any of the likely US commanders to accept battle under unfavorable terms?:confused:
 
No Tora Tora Tora no war?

The whole rational for the IJN war plan by late 1941 was the attack on Pearl to gain the decisive early advantage they needed. To sell the idea of a Pacific war on the middle of a war in China they needed a trump card. Without the Pearl Plan would the empire go to war in 1941? Or would they wait a few months to see how things turned out in Europe?

They knew it was either war or backing down in China. But the choice would have been a mauch more difficult one. It goes from:
"we have a plan to take out the US fleet and seize all we want while they rebuild" to " we are going to provoke a war, the US will react when and how they want and we will risk all in a decisive battle we think we might win..."
 

Daffy Duck

Banned
Agree

The whole rational for the IJN war plan by late 1941 was the attack on Pearl to gain the decisive early advantage they needed. To sell the idea of a Pacific war on the middle of a war in China they needed a trump card. Without the Pearl Plan would the empire go to war in 1941? Or would they wait a few months to see how things turned out in Europe?

They knew it was either war or backing down in China. But the choice would have been a mauch more difficult one. It goes from:
"we have a plan to take out the US fleet and seize all we want while they rebuild" to " we are going to provoke a war, the US will react when and how they want and we will risk all in a decisive battle we think we might win..."

i have to agree with this one..and well written!
could the ruling clique convince everyone to get on board with a declaration of war against the U.S. without this? I highly doubt they would have turned north against the Soviets (the Hokushin-ron option). The Japanese were screwed without oil and they knew it and, more importantly, they were almost out of it. They had to attack south to get the resources they needed.
 

Flubber

Banned
The whole rational for the IJN war plan by late 1941 was the attack on Pearl to gain the decisive early advantage they needed.


Utterly wrong. You have the tail wagging the dog.

To sell the idea of a Pacific war on the middle of a war in China they needed a trump card.

Completely wrong. The war in the Pacific was seen as a necessary adjunct to the war in China.

Without the Pearl Plan would the empire go to war in 1941?

Definitely. As has been repeatedly explained on these boards, Pearl Harbor was a very late addition to a preexisting set of war plans. It was not the rationale behind the war and it was very nearly not approved.

When "selling" the idea of the Pearl attack to the Naval General Staff, Yamamoto faced resistance because it was a very late addition to a complicated series of operations, because it risked assets needed for those other operations, and because it turned Japan's prewar naval strategy on it's head.

Japan had planned for decades to attrit the US Navy as it advanced across the Pacific prior to a decisive battle whose predicted location had slowly shifted from off Japan to off Okinawa to off the Philippines. Yamamoto challenged that thinking and the planning behind it.

Japan was going to war in late 1941 with the Western powers regardless of where the US Pacific fleet was stationed. All the move to Pearl did was put that fleet (barely) within reach of Japan's carrier forces and thus allow Japan to risk the raid whose 70th anniversary we're marking today.

Quite frankly, Pearl Harbor is discussed so often on these boards I find it exceedingly odd that someone could be so unaware of the basic facts of the raid.
 
Utterly wrong. You have the tail wagging the dog.
Definitely. As has been repeatedly explained on these boards, Pearl Harbor was a very late addition to a preexisting set of war plans. It was not the rationale behind the war and it was very nearly not approved.

When "selling" the idea of the Pearl attack to the Naval General Staff, Yamamoto faced resistance because it was a very late addition to a complicated series of operations, because it risked assets needed for those other operations, and because it turned Japan's prewar naval strategy on it's head.

Japan had planned for decades to attrit the US Navy as it advanced across the Pacific prior to a decisive battle whose predicted location had slowly shifted from off Japan to off Okinawa to off the Philippines. Yamamoto challenged that thinking and the planning behind it.

Japan was going to war in late 1941 with the Western powers regardless of where the US Pacific fleet was stationed. All the move to Pearl did was put that fleet (barely) within reach of Japan's carrier forces and thus allow Japan to risk the raid whose 70th anniversary we're marking today.

Quite frankly, Pearl Harbor is discussed so often on these boards I find it exceedingly odd that someone could be so unaware of the basic facts of the raid.

I'm sorry, I believe you are misunderstanding the reasoning behind the PH attack.
Japan would, in an ideal world, probably have preferred the USA and the Dutch to keep supplying them with the raw materials they needed to fight ni China, while NOT supplying the Chinese with weapons. If that had been the case, I think it highly unlikely they would have attacked the USA at that point.

However....
The IJN doctrine of attrition on the US fleet as it sailed westward, while the theme in the 20's and early 30's, was being subject to revision, or at least re-evaluation. This was because technical factors (for example, the increasing reliability of the ships), mean that the level of attrition was reducing. This meant the IJN needed more ships and planes. However there was a limit to what the IJN could build and support (yes, even the IJN didnt have a bottomless war chest).
Secondly, in 1940 the US congress had a fit over the fall of France, and passed the funding for such a massive naval program that the IJN simply couldnt match it.

Now the IJN is looking in a few years at a navy so large the attrition/decicive battle strategy simply wont work. So either they admit that what they do in the Pacific and China is basically at US sufferance, or they do something about it.

The PH scheme was a brilliant solution to the problem the IJN had (remember, their promlem as they see it isnt necessarily as WE would see it). By seriously damaging US naval power, before the big buildup was ready, it meant that the decisive battle would again be to the IJN advantage (remember, just because the USN had no interest in fighting one, especaiily with its BB's sitting on the putty at Pearl, doesnt mean the IJN didnt think they would).
No other scheme had anything like the chance of rigging the decisive battle in the IJN favour nearly as much.

And it wasnt that late an addition. The IJN had been considering some sort of attack for a long while, but never really had a good plan that had a reasonable chance of success. That changed after Taranto, when the FAA demonstrated that torpedoes could work in a shallow harbour (like Pearl). But they had been loking at an attack already, however the ability to use torpedoes(which at that time were THE way of sinking a BB, in anyones navy), meant that serious planning would raise far fewer objections.
 
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