CNO William Pratt doesn't put so many (or any) restrictions on the use of the USS Ericsson as a target. aa not-so big charge here could have some drastic consequences, for one, if they take higher losses at PI and later DEI, as well as their logistics fleet they might not come down with victory disease, which would make things easier.
WI: Japan surrenders early?
- Thread starter UrbanRedneck
- Start date
sharlin
Banned
I would also say that you NEED a Doolittle raid, yes it accomplished very little apart from a propaganda coup but it gave the Japanese the impetus to choose the central pacific strategy, a row that had been echoing round the militarys halls of power for a while. This lead to Midway. Without that you would probably have the IJN head south.
NothingNow
Banned
Actually, it's possible to hold it indefinitely. All you need is a more competent and agressive commander, another couple of experienced Brigades, and a few more anti-tank guns or M2A4/M3 Light tanks. All they need to do is bleed the IJA a bit more and hold out for another couple of weeks.
This, but more importantly, it keeps the IJN from trying to take Sumatra.
Feh. The Doolittle stunt's over emphasized.
It's better for the IJN to head south, and be picked off piecemeal in the East Indies. At best, it expended sixteen B-25s that could've been used elsewhere. Like Java or New Guinea.
It would've been far better to have Hornet and her escorts (or Task Force 11, freed up by Hornet's earlier presence in the pacific) at Makassar Strait (which occurred during the preparations for the Dolittle raid,) or even seconded to ABDACOM at all.
Hell, having a carrier and some B-25s in the region in early February 1942 and Malaya/Singapore holding out till about that time would allow ABDACOM to not only launch a relief operation for Singapore if needed, but to counter pretty much every attempt by the IJN and IJA to land in the Malay archipelago, and on New Guinea.
That'd certainly light a fire under the IJN's ass, and get them to focus on figuring out a way to get rid of the USN Carrier Fleet, especially after the RN regains use of Singapore, and the Allies have a chance to get their shit together.
This'd lead to *Coral Sea and *Midway, but with an already bloodied IJN going into it.
One of the long unknown benefits of the April raid on Japan was a windfall of information for the US signals intelligence. A bit earlier the Japanese navy had changed the key of their critical JN25 code system. They had done this several times before, usually a few week before a major operation. The key change shut the US cryptologists out of the Japanese message text. From earlier experience they did not expect to break back into for another month.
When the US bombers appeared over Tokyo the naval leaders in the home islands went into panic mode & bombarded their ships and admirals at sea with requests for reports and instructions for locating and attacking any US ships still in the area. This large volume of messages were sent under extreme pressure and the operators & their supervisors made some errors in their haste. This mass of messages, many redundant, and containing assorted "cribs" or openings allowed the US sigintel. to began decrypting JN25 encrypted messages within a few days again. While the JN25 message traffic was the primary benefit, messages in other IJ Navy & Army codes spiked as well.
It is possible that had this not occured the US might not have begin reading the necessary messages in time to ferret out the Midway operation.
When the US bombers appeared over Tokyo the naval leaders in the home islands went into panic mode & bombarded their ships and admirals at sea with requests for reports and instructions for locating and attacking any US ships still in the area. This large volume of messages were sent under extreme pressure and the operators & their supervisors made some errors in their haste. This mass of messages, many redundant, and containing assorted "cribs" or openings allowed the US sigintel. to began decrypting JN25 encrypted messages within a few days again. While the JN25 message traffic was the primary benefit, messages in other IJ Navy & Army codes spiked as well.
It is possible that had this not occured the US might not have begin reading the necessary messages in time to ferret out the Midway operation.
NothingNow
Banned
Also, thinking about things, getting the Republic P-43A into service earlier with a turbo-supercharged version of the R-1830, and self-sealing fuel tanks along with a bit more armor. As they're as fast as a P-40, sturdier, and a lot more maneuverable, with a higher flight ceiling (we're talking Hellcat like performance in early 1941.)
The only real down-side was the lack of protection and the limited armament of only 4 x Browning .50s.
The only real down-side was the lack of protection and the limited armament of only 4 x Browning .50s.
NothingNow
Banned
Can you imagine the hell that would be rained on IJAAF at Coral Sea, Midway, & Guadalcanal if the VFs & VMFs had been equipped with F4Us?
True, but the corsair had a ton of development issues to work through. There was no way they'd have been in service significantly faster than IOTL.
The P-43A OTOH was a fairly cheap and trouble-free design, already in production in mid-1941, and would've been superior to everything else at the time, until the 400mph fighters were fully combat ready.
Adding a Supercharger would've just improved climbing performance to offset the few hundred pounds that the armor and self-sealing tanks that would've been added to make them acceptable to Allied brass, and much more survivable.
They'd have been a serious step up from the aircraft that were being used in the Pacific theatre in the period, and also been suitable escorts for B-17s and B-24s flying strike missions until higher performing and longer-ranged fighters were available in December 1942/early 1943, when they could be safely passed off to the Chinese, Dutch or Australians. (The RNZAF of course deserving much better aircraft.)
NothingNow
Banned
True. Clip the wings by 8 inches from the prototype earlier, and wiring the upper cowling flaps shut would really solve a good portion of the problems.
Still, that wouldn't do anything for the Army. Which really could use a good high-altitude interceptor/dogfighter early on.