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re: Midway: if we lose our carriers and the Japs lose just one,
Posted on 10/24/19 at 2:22 pm to TheFlyingTiger
Posted on 10/24/19 at 2:22 pm to TheFlyingTiger
a couple of more Essex class carriers might have been completed as well as what we know as the Midway class....by the end of 1943, we would have outnumbered the Japanese again in carrier strength...and that's not counting the light carrier cruiser conversions...
1
Posted on 10/24/19 at 2:54 pm to vl100butch
The aspect that gets forgotten in all this is logistics.
The distances involved in that theater are just beyond what most people can fathom in terms of sheer distance from SF to Hawaii to Midway to Tokyo.
The question isn’t just can you achieve air and naval superiority, it’s can you land enough troops via transport to take an island and then can you supply it afterwards.
Even if the Japanese had taken Midway, they would’ve been bled white in terms of merchant shipping trying to hold it as we would’ve feasted on their freighters via sub warfare once we figured out our torpedo issues.
We also had their codes at that point. By listening to their radio traffic we could’ve drowned an invasion force headed to HI which in turn would’ve resulted in irreparable damage to their troop transport capabilities.
Losing midway would’ve hurt, losing HI would’ve been a disaster, but neither would’ve prevented us from winning. It probably just would’ve happened in 1946 instead of 1945.
The distances involved in that theater are just beyond what most people can fathom in terms of sheer distance from SF to Hawaii to Midway to Tokyo.
The question isn’t just can you achieve air and naval superiority, it’s can you land enough troops via transport to take an island and then can you supply it afterwards.
Even if the Japanese had taken Midway, they would’ve been bled white in terms of merchant shipping trying to hold it as we would’ve feasted on their freighters via sub warfare once we figured out our torpedo issues.
We also had their codes at that point. By listening to their radio traffic we could’ve drowned an invasion force headed to HI which in turn would’ve resulted in irreparable damage to their troop transport capabilities.
Losing midway would’ve hurt, losing HI would’ve been a disaster, but neither would’ve prevented us from winning. It probably just would’ve happened in 1946 instead of 1945.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 3:08 pm to doubleb
Doesn’t matter. We just keep Hawaii tied down for a few years while the American industrial complex cranks out a dozen carriers. I doubt the Japs ever had plans to invade Hawaii anyway. They could have done it at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and chose to just disable our Navy while they expanded their grip in the western and southern pacific.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 3:18 pm to FightinTigersDammit
Pretty much the only Japanese pilots to survive the war were the ones in the initial push.
They never had a chance to rotate back to train new people like our crews.
They never had a chance to rotate back to train new people like our crews.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 3:25 pm to keks tadpole
quote:
If you lose Hawaii in the Pacific Theater, and Great Britain in the European Theater, where does the US stage for counter-offensives.
Africa. Operation Torch was launched from the US.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:00 pm to tide06
quote:
We also had their codes at that point. By listening to their radio traffic we could’ve drowned an invasion force headed to HI which in turn would’ve resulted in irreparable damage to their troop transport capabilities.
Losing midway would’ve hurt, losing HI would’ve been a disaster, but neither would’ve prevented us from winning. It probably just would’ve happened in 1946 instead of 1945.
their biggest mistake was not invading Hawaii on 12/7/41
Even if their occupation force was later repelled, they could have wreaked havoc on the facilities there.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:05 pm to LSshoe
We studied Liberty ships in school, they built one in 4 1/2 days, from keel up and launched into the water at the end of 1942. That's almost unfathomable.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:10 pm to 200MPHCOBRA
quote:
We studied Liberty ships in school, they built one in 4 1/2 days, from keel up and launched into the water at the end of 1942. That's almost unfathomable.
My grandmother was a "Rosie the Riveter" at that Brooklyn Naval Shipyards. She spoke proudly of the work the did to aid the war effort.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:17 pm to Spaceman Spiff
quote:
Not really. In 1944 alone, the US built more war machines than Japan did their entire war. The production wouldn't have changed.
Destroyers and landing craft were the biggest bottleneck in our timeline, so much so that MacArthur and Nimitz had to take turns going on the offensive because there weren't enough to go around.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:31 pm to LB84
Warfare is a mindset. We can look back now and postulate about the industrial capabilities of the US which proved to be the difference in both Europe and the Pacific. We were on our heels after Pearl in the Pacific. Midway was in a lot of ways a Hail Mary that worked due to our intelligence and luck.
Had we lost our carriers at Midway you have to consider the resources that would have to be shifted. We didn’t know at that time that they were not a threat to Hawaii, Alaska, or the West coast. Midway bought us breathing room. To think that the Japanese would not have trained more pilots, built more ships, built more planes is nonsense. Midway would have given them breathing room as well. They did not get that. We were at Guadalcanal not long after and pressed them all the way to Okinawa.
You have to remember that the Battle of the Coral Sea was a draw that cost us a sunk carrier and a wounded carrier. Dire times. I think Midway and the subsequent Guadalcanal and Tarawa “Successes” were pivotal in victory in Europe that most realize. I am biased as my grandfather was a Marine floating around on a boat waiting to invade mainland Japan when the bombs were dropped.
I do not think that the Pacific theater gets its just due in history vs the European theater.
Had we lost our carriers at Midway you have to consider the resources that would have to be shifted. We didn’t know at that time that they were not a threat to Hawaii, Alaska, or the West coast. Midway bought us breathing room. To think that the Japanese would not have trained more pilots, built more ships, built more planes is nonsense. Midway would have given them breathing room as well. They did not get that. We were at Guadalcanal not long after and pressed them all the way to Okinawa.
You have to remember that the Battle of the Coral Sea was a draw that cost us a sunk carrier and a wounded carrier. Dire times. I think Midway and the subsequent Guadalcanal and Tarawa “Successes” were pivotal in victory in Europe that most realize. I am biased as my grandfather was a Marine floating around on a boat waiting to invade mainland Japan when the bombs were dropped.
I do not think that the Pacific theater gets its just due in history vs the European theater.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 4:42 pm to doubleb
quote:
How soon can we bounce back
6 months. The Japanese were so bogged down in China and Indonesia that futzing around the central Pacific around Hawaii would have been counter productive and the US would have been churning out carriers in safe places like Puget sound, Long Beach and Alameda.
Once the American industrial capacity went full online it was over. Japan should be grateful we sunk those carriers because if those carriers had survived the beat down on the main Japanese islands by 1945 would have been far worse than what they were through August of 1945.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 7:27 pm to OldmanBeasley
quote:
Anybody know when the newest hardcore history(Supernova in the East pt3) is coming out?
It's coming out within the next 17 or so hours. LINK
quote:
Holy Francis Ford Coppola Batman this last podcast took a while to do. But longer wait equals longer podcast...so a big HH heading your way in the next 24 hours sometime (I think! Barring last minute disasters...which already happened last night so hopefully we filled our quota!)
quote:
Pace yourself on this next HH release gang. It's a long one. I wanted to make it a mere 3 1/2 hours and failed.
Posted on 10/24/19 at 7:41 pm to doubleb
quote:
There is no right answer, good stuff.
Do you believe FDR could have slow played Japan as we did to a certain extent if Japan had done as you surmised and took Hawaii and was raiding up and down the West Ciast?
That's the problem/question.
Had Germany not stupidly declared war in the USA after Pearl Harbor, FDR would have been prohibited from going into Europe ("Yes, Japan attacked us, wrecked our fleet, sacked the Philippines and is menacing Hawaii and the West Coast, but we need to go into Europe").
Kinda the same thing under the hypothetical. Once the Pacific becomes the greater domestic threat in 1942, if FDR doesnt throw the full weight of the US war effort to the Pacific, he may not be reelected in 1944.
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