Posted on 06/05/2012 1:21:45 PM PDT by moonshot925
Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown are sunk with their 231 aircraft. The Japs take Midway. All 4 Jap CVs are undamaged.
Can the Japanese launch an invasion of Hawaii before the American carriers roll off the line in 1943?
4 Essex class CVs and 5 Independence class CVLs will be in commission by 1 July 1943.
7 Essex class CVs, 9 Independence class CVLs and 19 Casablanca class CVEs in commission by 1 January 1944.
How else to attack the Japanese Empire in the 1940s?
“Then at least 5 million Americans, men and women with guns and the knowledge to use them would be behind every rock, tree, building, sand dune”
The famous quote is that we’d be behind every blade of grass, which I think is a better image and much scarier.
By August 1945 the American war machine was just getting “warmed up”. There were 15 long-hull Essex class CVs, 2 Iowa class BBs and 5 Montana class BBs planned. In early 1946 the production of atomic bombs was ramped up to 3 a month.
US would have had to supply Hawaii at the end of a very long logistical train. IJN submarines would have had the use of Midway as a base. Of course, Japan would have had to supply Midway ...
“Then the war would have taken an extra 2-3 years, but the result would have been the same...the A-bomb development would not have changed.”
These two comments don’t jive with eachother. I should think that even with Japan possibly in Australia and Hawaii and without Americans on the homeland (if Okinawa is actually Japanese homeland), Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be too much to walk off.
Not bad for a computer guy. I was sufficiently impressed to get a signed copy & give to my youngest son in law, also a Marine and naval aviator.
For those interested in Navy history, also try our Sea of Thunder.
Oh I agree, but I did not want to plagiarize so I made up my own. Churchill’s fight them on the beaches etc. was also pretty good.
There was a story that Gen. DeGaulle was in a conference with some staff around Dec. 7, '41 when an officer rushed in and breathlessly declared that Japan had attacked America. DeGaulle told his staff "We have won the war". (This was even before Germany committed suicide by declaring war on the U.S.) His staff looked at him as if he was crazy, as their backs were against the wall.
DeGaulle knew that America's industrial might would crush the enemy. As did Yamamoto.
“And where would those bombers have taken off from?”
Where did Doolittle’s raid, which was prior to Midway, take off from? The Japanese homeland was within reach even without island hopping. Maybe not reliably, and maybe those in charge would be reluctant to risk so expensive a thing as a nuke on a suicide mission. But it was possible, and unlike with conventional bombing runs it only takes one plane and one hit.
“Japan was working on the Atom bomb as well and was very close, if not already successful in 1945”
That’s not true at all.
The Japanese nuclear research project was FAR FAR FAR behind the Manhattan Project.
The Japanese didn’t have the knowlage, resources, facilities or technology to produce weapons grade HEU or a working bomb.
Agreement with most all here. Maybe would have taken a little longer. Outcome was never in doubt. Americans were urinated! Even if several atomic bombs had gone boom in several cities in America, Americans were urinated enough to walk through the fires of hades to eliminate tojo. No doubt here.
As long as we’re recommending reading, Eric Hammell’s trilogy on the Guadacanal campaign is must read material for armchair admirals, as well.
we’d be speaking Japanese in the Philippines....the US might have fought back but it would have taken time, and a truce with Japan (letting them keep their Asian conquests) might have made sense since Hitler was much more dangerous.
“One now has to wonder why the liberal governmental policy post-WWII worked so feverishly to destroy that industrial capacity and leave the US so dependent on other nations and “outsourcing” that we can’t even build our own refueling planes but give the order to Airbus, and buy Eurocopters too. Never mind all the bogus computer chips from China that infect our military hardware”
This is inapt criticism. First of all, since when outside of countries planning on endless imminent wars has it been necessary to remain forever on a war footing? More importantly, how do you think it was pre-WWII? What were we, like a billionth in order of most mobilized nations? If we started basically from scratch in WWI and II, we are ever so much further along now.
Our problem isn’t whatsoever in the federal government not being capable of overtaking and directing national production. Quite the opposite, actually.
The Soviets would have gotten involved eventually, once Hitler was done away with, and would have claimed at least half of Japan. Setting up an inevitable Civil War, like Korea.
“a truce with Japan (letting them keep their Asian conquests) might have made sense since Hitler was much more dangerous”
A truce before Pearl Harbor would have been even better. I realize Japan was the out and out aggressor, that the oil embargo was not an act of war, and that what they did to China and the Pacific rim was inconscienable. But why we cared so much about China and what we were doing with our fleet in the Pacific remains a mystery to me.
I suppose that after WWI, or perhaps even the Spanish-American war, sticking our noses in other people’s business was inevitable. We were always an imperial power on our continent, and maybe it was only a matter of time before we stretched that out by steps to the Western hemisphere and the entire globe. But I keep thinking there must have been a time to stop and say no more, that’s enough.
I am bolstered in this opinion by the not entire but partial futility of trading the Nazis in Europe and Japs in the Pacific for commies in both.
inconscienabl = unconscionable
First published on FR in 2005 as "How today's media would have reported the Battle of Midway". (My apologies for confusing the Mogami with the Mikuma)
June 7, 1942
The United States Navy suffered another blow in its attempt to stem the Japanese juggernaut ravaging the Pacific Ocean. Midway Island, perhaps the most vital U.S. outpost, was pummeled by Japanese Naval aviators. The defending U.S. forces, consisting primarily of antique Buffalo fighters, were competely wiped out while the Japanese attackers suffered few, if any, losses.
In a nearby naval confrontation, the Japanese successfully attacked the Yorktown which was later sunk by a Japanese submarine. A destroyer lashed to the Yorktown was also sunk.
American forces claim to have sunk four Japanese carriers and the cruiser Mogami but those claims were vehemently denied by the Emporer's spokeman.
The American carriers lost an entire squadron of torpedo planes when they failed to link up with fighter escorts. The dive bombers had fighter escort even though they weren't engaged by enemy fighters. The War Dept. refused to answer when asked why the fighters were assigned to the wrong attack groups. The Hornet lost a large number of planes when they couldn't locate the enemy task force. Despite this cavalcade of errors, Admirals Fletcher and Spruance have not been removed.
Probably Alaska.
These were built to attack Germany from the mainland US, designed when it was not a sure thing that England would stay free:
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