WI: Japanese Victory at Midway

The US of 1941 wasn't the US of 1945. For the first half of the 20thC the US had the physique of a world power and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to act like one, in any capacity beyond immediate self interest.

The Empire was the world police having to act for all and getting a bit of extra benefit on the side. The US was the rich kid who could afford all the good toys with no interest outside his own back yard. It would take WWII to get the US to act to its potential and well into the 50s to get good at it.

*This isn't a criticism of the US. Every growing power has a similar phase where they work out what they want to do with their power.
 
Did you mean to say "A lot of American lethargy was based on failure to recognize that Japan was ignoring American public opinion" because that, I agree with. And that is consistent with the underlined portion of your statement. As originally written the two sentences are mutually contradictory.

I’m not seeing the contradiction?

I heartily agree. And we had two major powers do something strategically mad in 1941 alone (Germany and then Japan), and two other powers who were caught by surprise in large part because they did not accept the degree of their potential attacker's madness (the USSR and USA)!

Quite.

Imagine defense spending in the late 1930s, say after the Panay incident, at a higher level, like one of the "hollow army" periods of the Cold War period (FY1950 or FY1976 for example). Compare those resources against what Japan has. If that amount of resources goes to the Navy, Army, service aviation and things like fortification and the training of local forces, are the Philippines, Guam and Wake really being lost causes? I think that kind of resourcing means the Philippines survive until relief and Wake holds out. Or, even more likely, the Japanese do not dare attack at all.

The fundamental problem is that the Philippines and Guam had no means to support forces being deployed too them without continual outside supply. The Japanese could just isolate and stave the whole garrison. It was a terrible position. And the prospect for fast enough outside relief simply was never in the cards. The USN wargamed the situation repeatedly throughout the 30’s and found that without the extensive logistical build-up under wartime mobilization and systematic securing of a line of bases across the Pacific via island hopping, sending the fleet to the Phillipines nearly always resulted in its destruction, defeated by an IJN bolstered by operating very close to its own naval bases, in a decisive battle far from the American fleet's own bases of supply and repair.

Wake Island’s a bit different as it lay far enough east that supply routes could conceivably be secured and the islands held. It was actually the furthest westernmost base the US Navy expected to have any chance of being able to hold onto in the event war and thus made up the westernmost limit of USN operations for the first two years of war in pre-war planning.

From the 30's onward the Navy's basic plan was always to let the Japanese attack first, abandon the Western Pacific while retaining Hawaii and the Eastern Pacific as an inviolate sanctuary; skirmish with the Japanese in the Central Pacific while America built up overwhelming strength; and then return to the Western Pacific in strength in two years or so and crush Japan, ending with a final decisive battle with the Japanese fleet around the Home Islands between a weakened IJN and a USN now grown to titanic strength. This is basically what happened historically, minus a few hiccups like the raid on Pearl, the Japanese (over)extension to the South Pacific, and the fact that the Japanese were far more willing to engage in fleet battles further from home (most of which they lost) than USN planners had anticipated. For all the flak the American navy gets for Pearl Harbor, which was an anomaly, they actually had an excellent operational and strategic plan.
 
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The reason why the US military was slow to build up Guam and the Philippines was because they were both lost causes until the 1944 fleet was in commission, and it had other priorities that were not lost causes. The SLOC were just not going to be there in 1941/42. Now, had the war not broken out by 1943, different story.

Speaking just to Guam, I find Calbear's timeline on this not implausible.

The U.S. could have made the defense of the Philippines more expensive and protracted than it was with very modest changes. Obviously we all know the difficulty its overall strategic situation posed to the U.S., which was reflected in Orange's effective write-off.
 
Also, this raises a larger question about the Naval Arms control treaties. It seems to me the non-fortification pledge of 1922 ill-served U.S. and probably also U.K. interests in a big way. No deal at all, and instead saying to the Japanese, "Hey, we will spend what we want and think we need on our Pacific defenses, and you are welcome to do the same" would have been superior to the OTL treaty. The inner monologue for the U.S. could be, "Who gives a rat's patootie if the Japanese build up to fleet parity, they'll just bankrupt themselves and if we then raise the ante ourselves Japan will be unable to repeat the process again."

Hard to argue with that.
 
. He was being flippant in order to highlight his displeasure with intelligence losing track of them.

He knew the carriers could be a threat and didn't like the fact that their location was unknown.

But he wasn’t and he didn’t, so clearly the navy wasn’t expecting a carrier attack.

The original point was that Oahu had 150 fighters to defend against a possible carrier attack, since this was far too many planes for any other conceivable purpose.

More like flat out underestimation. But in any case I can’t help but notice the contradiction here where you are simultaneously arguing that the US was preparing to defend against a carrier air strike against Hawaii... yet also assumed the Japanese were incapable of overcoming the logistical-operational difficulties in mounting a serious carrier strike against Hawaii. So which is it? Did the USN believe a carrier strike was possible or didn’t it?

The fighter and anti-aircraft establishment on Hawaii indicates that Washington believed a carrier attack was possible and had taken active measures to defend against it. The most recent were the radar stations working up to operational to detect an incoming carrier attack - the Oprana unit actually being in operation that morning. The complacency of the 14th District in security measures against carrier attack indicate that thinking there was that Oahu would not be attacked. Kimmel barely avoided a courtmarshall over this lax attitude.
 
The fundamental problem is that the Philippines and Guam had no means to support forces being deployed too them without continual outside supply. The Japanese could just isolate and stave the whole garrison. It was a terrible position. And the prospect for fast enough outside relief simply was never in the cards. The USN wargamed the situation repeatedly throughout the 30’s and found that without the extensive logistical build-up under wartime mobilization and systematic securing of a line of bases across the Pacific via island hopping, sending the fleet to the Phillipines nearly always resulted in its destruction, defeated by an IJN bolstered by operating very close to its own naval bases, in a decisive battle far from the American fleet's own bases of supply and repair.

Luzon required a successful defense of Singapore to be viable, but I don't think the US Navy was too interested in relief scenarios that would divert budget to the Army. Guam, as you correctly suggest, was completely hopeless.

Wake Island’s a bit different as it lay far enough east that supply routes could conceivably be secured and the islands held. It was actually the furthest westernmost base the US Navy expected to have any chance of being able to hold onto in the event war and thus made up the westernmost limit of USN operations for the first two years of war in pre-war planning.

Wake was certainly a more defensible outpost than Guam, but still highly unlikely to be held.

From the 30's onward the Navy's basic plan was always to let the Japanese attack first, abandon the Western Pacific while retaining Hawaii and the Eastern Pacific as an inviolate sanctuary; skirmish with the Japanese in the Central Pacific while America built up overwhelming strength; and then return to the Western Pacific in strength in two years or so and crush Japan, ending with a final decisive battle with the Japanese fleet around the Home Islands between a weakened IJN and a USN now grown to titanic strength. This is basically what happened historically, minus a few hiccups like the raid on Pearl, the Japanese (over)extension to the South Pacific, and the fact that the Japanese were far more willing to engage in fleet battles further from home (most of which they lost) than USN planners had anticipated. For all the flak the American navy gets for Pearl Harbor, which was an anomaly, they actually had an excellent operational and strategic plan.

The USN plan worked quite well in the defensive phase. In the counterattack phase the USN brass engaged in more amphibious assaults than necessary and failed to rapidly exploit the Japanese weakness after Marianas.

In terms of the South Pacific, the Japanese were overcommitted rather than overextended. Far too many troops went to Lae and Rabaul, far too much IJN airpower was engaged in the Solomons. Once the Guadalcanal campaign was lost Tokyo should have written off the whole South Pacific to delaying action and sent the bulk of reinforcements to the inner ring, with special emphasis on Saipan. Generally speaking, with the strategy being to take the NEI then sit there and hope to get an offer from Washington, strong offensive action in the Eastern Pacific in mid to late 1942 was too late in the game.
 
He knew the carriers could be a threat and didn't like the fact that their location was unknown.

A threat, sure. But not to Pearl. Kimmel himself didn't put a huge stock (although he put some) in carriers given that his own plans called to use American ones as bait.

The original point was that Oahu had 150 fighters to defend against a possible carrier attack, since this was far too many planes for any other conceivable purpose.

Other then routine basing for fighters in the largest American military installation in the Central Pacific. You look over at San Diego and Norfolk and you'd find similar air and AA forces... possibly even larger.

Luzon required a successful defense of Singapore to be viable, but I don't think the US Navy was too interested in relief scenarios that would divert budget to the Army. Guam, as you correctly suggest, was completely hopeless.

I don't see how whether Singapore holds remotely affects the situation on Luzon, given that even without Singapore the Japanese bases in Indochina and other parts of SEA would be enough to block relief and resupply from that direction. The USN wasn't interested in relief scenarios that would result in their forces getting destroyed. Their wargames on this front during the 1930s consistently found that any premature attempt to relieve the Phillipines would be disastrous. They found that trying to deploy the fleet forward would result in it suffer continual attrition from Japanese air and submarine attacks, while remaining unable to effectively blockade Japan or to bring the Japanese fleet to battle... until the Japanese fleet chose to do battle, likely when it had the advantage. While it is unlikely the Japanese would have destroyed so powerful a force as the Pacific Fleet in one fell swoop, the catch is that with it overextended to the Philippines they didn't have to. Damaged ships escaping a lost battle would have no safe harbours, and the Japanese would have had the luxury of pursuing either to Manila, which was in range of even their land based bombers, or harrying a battered and fleeing Pacific fleet back across the Ocean to Australia or to Wake. It was a mugs game and there's a good reason the American Admirals declined to play it.

Wake was certainly a more defensible outpost than Guam, but still highly unlikely to be held.

Possibly. For the USN plans, though, it was fundamentally unimportant whether Wake held or not.

The fighter and anti-aircraft establishment on Hawaii indicates that Washington believed a carrier attack was possible and had taken active measures to defend against it.

More like Oahu was a major military installation in the Central Pacific and such defenses were a routine part of massive military installation. You'd find similar extensive fighter and AA establishments in bases which didn't have the slightest chance of seeing a hostile aircraft.

The USN plan worked quite well in the defensive phase. In the counterattack phase the USN brass engaged in more amphibious assaults than necessary and failed to rapidly exploit the Japanese weakness after Marianas.

The counter-offensive largely went as the USN plan called for. The amphibious offensives and methodicalness did not represent any fundamental flaw given that they did everything they were supposed too. Indeed, a focus on a slow and steady advance hopping from one island to the next across the Pacific while steadily grinding down Japan's strength was a feature of USN pacific war plans since 1936.

In terms of the South Pacific, the Japanese were overcommitted rather than overextended.

Fundamentally, they were both. Their land, naval, and air forces in the South Pacific suffered from a constant lack of supply that curtailed their operational tempos and meant they got less out of those forces then their raw strength might have indicated, which is a clear sign that they were supporting too many forces over too far a distance. The "too many forces" is overcommitment, the "too far a distance" is overextension.
 
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I don't see how whether Singapore holds remotely affects the situation on Luzon, given that even without Singapore the Japanese bases in Indochina and other parts of SEA would be enough to block relief and resupply from that direction.

You don't see how, that if the British hold Singapore, this could allow for the supply of Luzon?


More like Oahu was a major military installation in the Central Pacific and such defenses were a routine part of massive military installation. You'd find similar extensive fighter and AA establishments in bases which didn't have the slightest chance of seeing a hostile aircraft.

I didn't go through the whole thing, but here, on page 157 it shows that Hawaii's 1940 aerial OOB was premised on a 2-carrier attack,

https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/ch6.htm

Under the revised 54-group air program of June 1940, Hawaii was allotted some additional pursuit and light bomber strength for close-in defense purposes and was scheduled to receive 68 heavy bombers- B-17's -instead of mediums. But the premises behind the new allotments were still a maximum 2-carrier threat and performance by the Navy of all long-range reconnaissance


The counter-offensive largely went as the USN plan called for. The amphibious offensives and methodicalness did not represent any fundamental flaw given that they did everything they were supposed too. Indeed, a focus on a slow and steady advance hopping from one island to the next across the Pacific while steadily grinding down Japan's strength was a feature of USN pacific war plans since 1936.

Yes, it went as planned. That does not obviate the fact that more amphibious landings were made than necessary and that the Navy failed to exploit the opportunity afforded by the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and instead allowed the Japanese 8-12 months to fortify Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Why have the Navy break a sweat in August 1944 when the Marines can assault a fortress in 1945 instead?

Fundamentally, they were both.

The Solomons and South Pacific were suitable to a delaying action on the cheap using a limited number of infantry formations supplied out of Truk and Rabaul via locally manufactured diahatsus, backed by naval task forces or land based air attack on occasion. Where they Japanese fell down, where they went from 'on the cheap' to 'overstretch' was in overcommitting too many infantry and land based air assets in an attempt to hold the line. When the Guadalcanal counterattack was called off in November 1942 the high command should have written off Rabaul and Truk and concentrated the bulk of aerial and infantry reinforcements to the inner parameter, especially Saipan and Philippines. It was not an active defense of the South Pacific that was the mistake, it was making that defense anything beyond a delaying action.
 
You don't see how, that if the British hold Singapore, this could allow for the supply of Luzon?

Nope. Even if the British held onto Singapore, supply to the Phillipines would still be blocked by Japanese forces operating out of Indochina and northern Malaysia. A glance at a map would be able to tell you that.

I didn't go through the whole thing, but here, on page 157 it shows that Hawaii's 1940 aerial OOB was premised on a 2-carrier attack,

https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/ch6.htm

Under the revised 54-group air program of June 1940, Hawaii was allotted some additional pursuit and light bomber strength for close-in defense purposes and was scheduled to receive 68 heavy bombers- B-17's -instead of mediums. But the premises behind the new allotments were still a maximum 2-carrier threat and performance by the Navy of all long-range reconnaissance

You probably should have, because the context of your paragraph essentially states the Americans prior to Pearl Harbour believed they could detect and bomb Japanese carriers before they managed to get into position to launch their own strikes on Hawaii but did not allot enough fighter aircraft. This fits with what I know about the thinking surrounding carrier (that the best way to stop a carrier air strike was to sink them before they could launch their strikes) but is rather the opposite of all the evidence you've been trying to muster for your claim that the US was seriously worried about a carrier strike that has mainly centered around the fighters and . The fact that these reconnassiance aircraft then comprehensively failed to detect the approach of the Kido Butai also shows that the US was incorrect about it's belief that it could detect (and hence bomb, since that is predicated on detection) the IJN's carrier forces. It also states that many of the fighter aircraft were inoperable for the lack of spare parts and most of the operable ones were being used for training rather then air defense purposes, that these fighters "all but worthless as defense equipment in the absence of an effective warning system, and Oahu had none before the attack on Pearl Harbor", and that the anti-aircraft armaments on the islands were inadequate, all of which is rather the opposite of what you've been claiming. So that the US military pre-war underestimated the carrier threat and overestimated it's ability to deal with it remains.

Yes, it went as planned. That does not obviate the fact that more amphibious landings were made than necessary and that the Navy failed to exploit the opportunity afforded by the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and instead allowed the Japanese 8-12 months to fortify Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Why have the Navy break a sweat in August 1944 when the Marines can assault a fortress in 1945 instead?

Given that the difficulties in taking Okinawa and Iwo Jima did not at all stem from Japanese naval and air forces, which were the main losses in the Marianas Turkey Shoot, I don't see what difference rushing ahead would make except to move up the time in which the Marines suffer those casualties. The forces which mounted the defense of these islands were already in place. In fact, rushing ahead would be liable to make Marine casualties worse, since the month's long isolation and bombardment of Iwo Jima and Okinawa did take a toll on the strength of the island garrisons and left them shorter on supplies when they invasions began then they would have otherwise been.

The Solomons and South Pacific were suitable to a delaying action on the cheap using a limited number of infantry formations supplied out of Truk and Rabaul via locally manufactured diahatsus, backed by naval task forces or land based air attack on occasion. Where they Japanese fell down, where they went from 'on the cheap' to 'overstretch' was in overcommitting too many infantry and land based air assets in an attempt to hold the line. When the Guadalcanal counterattack was called off in November 1942 the high command should have written off Rabaul and Truk and concentrated the bulk of aerial and infantry reinforcements to the inner parameter, especially Saipan and Philippines. It was not an active defense of the South Pacific that was the mistake, it was making that defense anything beyond a delaying action.

Sure, but that'd require the Japanese to view the outer perimeter as a means to delay the Americans rather then the barrier to keep the Americans out that they envisioned it as and hoped to exhaust the Americans upon. That's a rather major shift in Japanese strategic thinking.
 

nbcman

Donor
{snip}
Yes, it went as planned. That does not obviate the fact that more amphibious landings were made than necessary and that the Navy failed to exploit the opportunity afforded by the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and instead allowed the Japanese 8-12 months to fortify Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Why have the Navy break a sweat in August 1944 when the Marines can assault a fortress in 1945 instead?
{snip}

The why is not very hard to determine. There wasn't a single advance in the Pacific but dual thrusts that were competing for resources. The Navy wasn't the branch that pushed for an invasion of the Philippines after the Marianas were secured - it was MacArthur and his desire to make good his promise to return.
 
I've long thought that the IJN's 1944 carrier strategy was wrongfooted. Their doctrine was to go straight after TF-58, which was like marching into the lion's den armed with a whiffle bat. Send the carriers against the SLOC and avoid the US carriers. A ship like the Shinano, if completed as an oiler by January 1944 with limited flight operations capability, might have been able to hold 50,000 tons of oil and 150 (disassembled) aircraft spares.
What SLOCs? Or rather, what SLOCs that matter? There are two SLOCs that matter: MacArthur's South Pacific thrust, which at the start of 1944 was in Bougainville and northern New Guinea, and the just-launched Central Pacific thrust. Anything else is irrelevant or sitting behind the forces dedicated to these thrusts.

Here's the problem: both would basically be feeding Japan's carrier air groups into a woodchipper for little gain. As you noted, throwing them against the American carriers is not a good idea. But I've also looked into Allied air strength in the South Pacific at the start of 1944; the Japanese do not have the carrier capacity at the start of the year to suppress the New Guinea airfields, and I don't like their odds against the Solomons airfields. And then a few months in the Americans level Truk and operations against the South Pacific become something of a moot point.
 
Here's the problem: both would basically be feeding Japan's carrier air groups into a woodchipper for little gain. As you noted, throwing them against the American carriers is not a good idea. But I've also looked into Allied air strength in the South Pacific at the start of 1944; the Japanese do not have the carrier capacity at the start of the year to suppress the New Guinea airfields, and I don't like their odds against the Solomons airfields. And then a few months in the Americans level Truk and operations against the South Pacific become something of a moot point.

To add to this, by 1944 developments in fighter and air intercept technology and organization had reduced (although obviously not eliminated) the offensive edge that made carrier tactics in 1941-42 so attack-oriented. The Americans demonstrated at battles like the Marianas Turkey Shoot and Phillipines Sea that large numbers of fighters guided by experienced fighter controllers using radar could reliably butcher an incoming strike, even a very large one. Compare that to 1942, where both the Americans and Japanese lacked adequate enough radar and fighter control. This forced them to use inefficient fighter CAPs which had only a modest chance of detecting an incoming enemy bomber in time to do anything about it.

The problem for the Japanese is that their technical-industrial limitations meant they never developed the necessary advances in radar and fighter control as the Americans did, so they were stuck in the 1942-paradigm in 1944 while the Americans had moved on.
 
Nope. Even if the British held onto Singapore, supply to the Phillipines would still be blocked by Japanese forces operating out of Indochina and northern Malaysia. A glance at a map would be able to tell you that.

If the British had held onto Singapore then Luzon could have been supplied far more easily than trying a relief operation from Oahu.

You probably should have, because the context of your paragraph essentially states the Americans prior to Pearl Harbour believed they could detect and bomb Japanese carriers before they managed to get into position to launch their own strikes on Hawaii but did not allot enough fighter aircraft.

You stated that fighters were not on Oahu to ward off carrier attack. Yes, they were.

Given that the difficulties in taking Okinawa and Iwo Jima did not at all stem from Japanese naval and air forces, which were the main losses in the Marianas Turkey Shoot, I don't see what difference rushing ahead would make except to move up the time in which the Marines suffer those casualties.

Giving the Japanese 8-12 months to fortify Iwo Jima and Okinawa increased casualties and missed the opportunity right after the victory at Marianas. The USN was plodding and deliberate on the offensive, rarely showing any signs of opportunism.

Sure, but that'd require the Japanese to view the outer perimeter as a means to delay the Americans rather then the barrier to keep the Americans out that they envisioned it as and hoped to exhaust the Americans upon. That's a rather major shift in Japanese strategic thinking.

The major error the Japanese committed in the South Pacific was to exhaust their airpower and to overcommit ground troops that needed to be on Saipan and in the Philippines. That is to say, their errors after losing the Guadalcanal campaign were more serious than the ones in the SPO before that point.
 
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What SLOCs? Or rather, what SLOCs that matter? There are two SLOCs that matter: MacArthur's South Pacific thrust, which at the start of 1944 was in Bougainville and northern New Guinea, and the just-launched Central Pacific thrust. Anything else is irrelevant or sitting behind the forces dedicated to these thrusts.

The idea being, sink TF-58's tanker train and TF-58 will then have a logistics problem. Go after TF-58 itself and they won't have an operational carrier force left to contest the USN drive.

Here's the problem: both would basically be feeding Japan's carrier air groups into a woodchipper for little gain. As you noted, throwing them against the American carriers is not a good idea. But I've also looked into Allied air strength in the South Pacific at the start of 1944; the Japanese do not have the carrier capacity at the start of the year to suppress the New Guinea airfields, and I don't like their odds against the Solomons airfields. And then a few months in the Americans level Truk and operations against the South Pacific become something of a moot point.

IJN carrier forces in 1944 were strong enough to contemplate going up against an isolated US base, say like Midway. Certainly not anything like tackling New Guinea or Manus.
 

nbcman

Donor
The idea being, sink TF-58's tanker train and TF-58 will then have a logistics problem. Go after TF-58 itself and they won't have an operational carrier force left to contest the USN drive.
How does the IJN Mobile Fleet get past TF-58 to get to the fleet train? They are approaching from the west per their plans for an optimal approach since the prevailing winds blow east to west plus the IJN has been staying closer to their fuel sources in the DEI.
300px-Battle_Philippine_sea_map-en.svg.png

{snip}[/QUOTE]
 
If the British had held onto Singapore then Luzon could have been supplied far more easily than trying a relief operation from Oahu.

How? The British had great difficulty just projecting power out to Singapore, given that Europe and the Med was absorbing the preponderance of their resources, so how are they then supposed to mount an offensive to secure the SLOCs then? Are you proposing that the US rebase the entire Pacific fleet to Singapore? Because the logistics of achieving that'd probably take just as long as the historical strategy (if not longer), which means Luzon still falls long before the USN can get there.

You stated that fighters were not on Oahu to ward off carrier attack. Yes, they were.

Your own source says that it was the bombers who were there to ward off carrier attack, which they obviously failed to do. For the fighters, it says they were there for training:

"Superficially, Oahu's needs for pursuit craft appeared much better met. During most of the time between May and December 1941 it had about 150 Army pursuit and fighter planes, two-thirds of them modern P-40's. But a chronic shortage of spare parts kept many of these planes out of commission, and the ones available had to be used intensively for training. The greatest qualification was that pursuit planes, however modern, were all but worthless as defense equipment in the absence of an effective warning system, and Oahu had none before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

When your own sources are contradicting you, it's probably best to stop digging.

Giving the Japanese 8-12 months to fortify Iwo Jima and Okinawa increased casualties and missed the opportunity right after the victory at Marianas. The USN was plodding and deliberate on the offensive, rarely showing any signs of opportunism.

Spending 8-12 months blockading and bombarding the forces on those islands deprived them of much of their supplies, denied them any prospect of reinforcement, and reduced their strength, while allowing the US to marshal additional forces for the attacks, all of which probably reduced casualties. The USN on the offensive was moving just as fast as it should have been. As was always the case in the Pacific War, the passage of time saw US forces grow stronger while those of the Japanese grew weaker.

The major error the Japanese committed in the South Pacific was to exhaust their airpower and to overcommit ground troops that needed to be on Saipan and in the Philippines. That is to say, their errors after losing the Guadalcanal campaign were more serious than the ones in the SPO before that point.

The exhaustion of air and ground power was indeed an issue, but the commitment of naval forces also badly sapped Japanese strength there. Their errors during and before the Guadalcanal campaign were probably just as serious, if not more so, then those afterwards. Forcing the combined-seas fleet to chase the Americans hither and yon not only burnt up scarce fuel, the actual combat also consumed ships at an unfavorable rate to the Japanese and badly hurt the Japanese navy even before the USN's proper island hopping campaign got under way. The impact upon the merchant marine was also pretty bad: Guadalcanal cost the Japanese Merchant Marine 200,000 tons of shipping. That's not just 200,000 tons of shipping sunk, but 200,000 tons of shipping sunk in the ass end of the Pacific while it was doing nothing to bring back the resources that Japan needed, which would have been a much bigger contribution to the Japanese war effort then trying to shuttle troops and supplies to a doomed battle.

The main effect the South Pacific campaign had, from beginning to end, was that it allowed the US to be able to grind the Japanese forces down piece meal even before it had built up the strength for the main offensive into the western pacific. The entire concept of the perimeter was shown to be militarily bankrupt. Japan could not support the forces at the island perimeter, could not defend it, and proved unable to anticipate attacks on it or effectively respond to them. It was a strategic millstone.
 
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The idea being, sink TF-58's tanker train and TF-58 will then have a logistics problem. Go after TF-58 itself and they won't have an operational carrier force left to contest the USN drive.
As nbcman pointed out, how are the Japanese supposed hit TF-58's fleet train without taking out TF-58 first? The Japanese have to approach from the west due to geography and the axis of advance; this dramatically limits their ability to try and swing around.

Furthermore, I just did some digging, and the US Navy wasn't stupid; the carrier forces used for the Tarawa landings refueled south of Guadalcanal. Any Japanese force trying to get at the fleet train would either have to hit it on the way from Hawaii to Tuvalu, or else face the full wrath of American airpower in the South Pacific.

Movements for the carriers and the fleet train.
 
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