WI: Maximally Effective Pearl Harbor attack?

Obviously sinking / mission killing the carriers as well as the Battleships!

Perhaps add more carriers to the force and conduct a 3rd Strike intended to take out the Fuel storage and other facilities - ie drydock

This will mean that the carriers will have to move closer to the island in order to conduct 3 strikes before sundown which is obviously a risk - but if you are going all in......
 
One possibility that is sometimes mentioned is for the US to detect the attack shortly beforehand, so that the fleet sorties (and is thus in significantly deeper water when the first strike hits). Ships that are sunk thus can't be raised (OTL, basically all the useful ones were) and most of their crews go down with them (instead of OTL, when most of the crewmen survived even if their ships sunk).

It still won't win the war, but it will be an even nastier butcher's bill.
 
Have all three PACFLT carriers in port. Kill the carriers and the submarines, also sink more of the cruiser force and the destroyers (the things that escort the carriers). The tank farms and facilities are not as important as is generally thought because they are much harder to destroy and a lot easier to regenerate.

Wrecking the facilities at a large base like Pearl Harbor is hard even in this day of PGMs. Keeping it down requires constant and persistent re-strikes, something that was well outside the capabilities of the Kido Butai.
 
The Japanese would probably not find the fleet since I do not think they had scouting aircraft in the area (did not want to give themselves away). The maximum effect would have been if the carriers had been in port as the first two responses noted.
 

CalBear

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They succeeded beyond their greatest hopes. It would have been better if the carriers had been in port, but the Kido Butai orders expected 8 capital ships, 4 BB & 4 CV (the U.S. only had 3 CV assigned to the Pacific Fleet, this indicates just how weak the IJN's Intel actually was) and specified that any battleships were to be hit first (Kido Butai Order #3), followed by carriers. Second wave was dedicated to aircraft and aircraft hangers. No other targets were to be struck. If conditions warranted, any additional wave was to attack other shipping (the specifics are that any aircraft capable of carrying torpedoes should do so until the supply was expended, with carriers becoming the first priority of the potential 3rd wave, followed by cruisers and battleships.

There is always a lot of discussion regarding the fuel farms and the machine shops (along with the submarine base). These never appear on any IJN order list. Machine tools are extremely difficult to destroy (as the Combined Bomber Offensive in the ETO demonstrated time and again, even with far larger forces than those available to the IJN). The Tank Farms were far more difficult a target than is sometimes supposed, especially by the time of potential 3rd wave, when the air was full of oil smoke, and even if attacked the tanks themselves were all individually bermed, requiring a direct hit to even breech the tank (fire would be questionable, not impossible, but bunker fuel is a step above asphalt, and very hard to ignite).

Best thing they could have done was ensure the declaration of hostilities was in American hands at least a hour before the strike. At least then the American electorate would't have been quite as over the top due the "sneak attack".
 
Perhaps add more carriers to the force and conduct a 3rd Strike intended to take out the Fuel storage and other facilities - ie drydock
In for a penny, in for a pound, so throw the lot in. Use every carrier that can be put into service. IJN has 68 fleet submarines in Dec. 1941. Position the subs around the port to kill anything that moves.
 
In for a penny, in for a pound, so throw the lot in. Use every carrier that can be put into service. IJN has 68 fleet submarines in Dec. 1941. Position the subs around the port to kill anything that moves.
And what would that do to their other offensives? It isn't like they had a massive resource pool. Greater emphasis at Pearl means a lack elsewhere, maybe a fatal lack.
 
One possibility that is sometimes mentioned is for the US to detect the attack shortly beforehand, so that the fleet sorties (and is thus in significantly deeper water when the first strike hits). Ships that are sunk thus can't be raised (OTL, basically all the useful ones were) and most of their crews go down with them (instead of OTL, when most of the crewmen survived even if their ships sunk).

It still won't win the war, but it will be an even nastier butcher's bill.

There's no way the US Navy would send out their battleships against the Japanese carriers without carriers of their own.
 
You should take a look at a book written by Alan D. Zimm call Attack on Pearl Harbor Strategy, Combat, Myths and Deception. He goes into great detail on the attack. He concluded that the Vals were misused and that while Yamamoto wanted to sink the battleships the fliers were looking for carriers. As for destroying the Fuel farms he concluded that even had the tanks been destroyed the Americans could easily replace the fuel as for the fuel farms he commented that the steel needed to build a destroyer or two would all that would be needed to rebuild the fuel farm and that repair facilities could easily build the replacement fuel tanks. The books and interesting read and I do recommend it. By the way he has a poor opinion on the planning and how the attack was carried out and he proposes that if the Japanese would have done that attack a bit differently it would have been a lot more successful
 
Actually, Zimm is incorrect in his statement that the fuel could be easily replaced. The USN lacked sufficient fleet oilers and it hampered their activities through the fall of 1942. There is an interesting article, Oil Logistics in the Pacific War in the Air Force Journal of Logistics that documents the problem. Pearl had storage for about 4.5 million barrels of fuel but the USN oilers capacity was about 750,000 barrels.
If the Pearl stockpile had been destroyed, it would have taken every tanker in the Pacific 6 trips to replenish the supply. At an average speed of 15 knots, it would take a fleet oiler 9 days one-way and add a day for loading/unloading and you are looking at approximately 120 days to refills the tanks. In the meantime, no Task Force would have any underway replenishment capability.
 
I went and rechecked the book, Zimm states that three commercial tankers were delivering 40000 to 50000 thousand ton of fuel a month. So hire more commercial transports to ship more fuel. I don't know how big those commercial tankers were but I figure it the navy needed the fuel they could find 3 to 6 more commercial tankers of equivelant size in the merchant fleet even if they had to bring them in from the atlantic to rebuild the fuel supply and support the war. The capacity of the Pearl Harbors tanks at the time of the attack was according to Zimm the total capacity of the fuel farms were 563,000 tons. He also states that the 5.4 million barrel underground complex of 20 vaults was not in existence at the time and the first one of the vaults did not come line until ten months after the attack.
 
They succeeded beyond their greatest hopes. It would have been better if the carriers had been in port, but the Kido Butai orders expected 8 capital ships, 4 BB & 4 CV (the U.S. only had 3 CV assigned to the Pacific Fleet, this indicates just how weak the IJN's Intel actually was) and specified that any battleships were to be hit first (Kido Butai Order #3), followed by carriers. Second wave was dedicated to aircraft and aircraft hangers. No other targets were to be struck. If conditions warranted, any additional wave was to attack other shipping (the specifics are that any aircraft capable of carrying torpedoes should do so until the supply was expended, with carriers becoming the first priority of the potential 3rd wave, followed by cruisers and battleships.

There is always a lot of discussion regarding the fuel farms and the machine shops (along with the submarine base). These never appear on any IJN order list. Machine tools are extremely difficult to destroy (as the Combined Bomber Offensive in the ETO demonstrated time and again, even with far larger forces than those available to the IJN). The Tank Farms were far more difficult a target than is sometimes supposed, especially by the time of potential 3rd wave, when the air was full of oil smoke, and even if attacked the tanks themselves were all individually bermed, requiring a direct hit to even breech the tank (fire would be questionable, not impossible, but bunker fuel is a step above asphalt, and very hard to ignite).

Best thing they could have done was ensure the declaration of hostilities was in American hands at least a hour before the strike. At least then the American electorate would't have been quite as over the top due the "sneak attack".

Have anyone thought of this: If the carriers are in port, so are the pilots and aircrafts. More important, so is Halsey. Since he already was at a war mentality apperantly he would only allow half the pilots to have shore leave on Saturday and have some of the pilots up at sunlight just to have them get used to fly in the morning just in case there was a war. Maybe Halsey would even man some of the AAs on the carriers for a exercise every morning. Calbear, your opinion?
 
There's no way the US Navy would send out their battleships against the Japanese carriers without carriers of their own.
Sure they would. The idea of carriers>>battleships wasn't really established yet, and having the ships on the move (instead of sitting ducks at port) would seem attractive even to anyone who did feel that way. Just ask the Prince of Wales and Repulse a few days later. Besides, from a more practical perspective, they would have support from land-based air from Hawaii, so it's not like they would have been defenseless.
 
Sure they would. The idea of carriers>>battleships wasn't really established yet, and having the ships on the move (instead of sitting ducks at port) would seem attractive even to anyone who did feel that way. Just ask the Prince of Wales and Repulse a few days later. Besides, from a more practical perspective, they would have support from land-based air from Hawaii, so it's not like they would have been defenseless.

I'm still not convinced. The standard-type battleships at Pearl Harbor had a top speed of 21 knots, while the slowest carrier in the Kido Butai, Kaga, had a top speed of 28 knots.
 
I'm still not convinced. The standard-type battleships at Pearl Harbor had a top speed of 21 knots, while the slowest carrier in the Kido Butai, Kaga, had a top speed of 28 knots.
Which means, in the worst case, the Japanese are driven away from Pearl Harbor without achieving their objectives, at least as far as the US thinking would go. More generally, if they assumed the Japanese were preparing for a fleet battle (and remember, the exact specifics of the Japanese fleet likely wouldn't be known at first detection, only that it was large), they'd certainly want their ships underway, if only to prevent being trapped in port.
 
Which means, in the worst case, the Japanese are driven away from Pearl Harbor without achieving their objectives, at least as far as the US thinking would go. More generally, if they assumed the Japanese were preparing for a fleet battle (and remember, the exact specifics of the Japanese fleet likely wouldn't be known at first detection, only that it was large), they'd certainly want their ships underway, if only to prevent being trapped in port.

A more likely scenario would be that the Kido Butai lures the Americans out of the range of land-based air cover before launching their strike.

Once again, we have the American battleships get sunk in the open seas with no way of salvaging them.
 

CalBear

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Have anyone thought of this: If the carriers are in port, so are the pilots and aircrafts. More important, so is Halsey. Since he already was at a war mentality apperantly he would only allow half the pilots to have shore leave on Saturday and have some of the pilots up at sunlight just to have them get used to fly in the morning just in case there was a war. Maybe Halsey would even man some of the AAs on the carriers for a exercise every morning. Calbear, your opinion?
Unlike OTL practice, carriers did not fly off all their aircraft before entering port. The majority of the aircraft would have been in the hangers, helpless. The landing evolution wasn't worth the effort in peacetime. The pilots, at least most of them, along with many of the crew would either be in Honolulu or in their racks nursing hangovers the size of Montana (same as the rest of the fleet). You didn't have to go off base to get a few cold malty beverages, not if you were an officer, there was an O Club on base (probably an NCO and enlisted club as well). You might not be able to get as hammered on base as off, but you could be very, very relaxed.

There may have been a nominal "Dawn Patrol", but not enough to make a difference. Even if Enterprise put all of her aircraft up (which would only happen if Halsey was REALLY pissed off at the VF squadron that would only be 16 F4F. They would be outnumbered better than 3-1 (the first wave had 54 A6M as escort) and the Japanese would already been war mode with weapons free. Granted the Japanese came in in very ragged formations, but 3-1 is still 3-1.
 
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