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To: mountn man
You sir have no idea about logistics. As much as Japan was over extended (I agree with you on), Pearl was 2600 miles away from San Diego. IF the carriers were taken out, The US Navy would have sucked up tight and left Pearl for a later date. Kind of hard to mobilize The arsenal of democracy if the majority of your capital ships are underwater (and I don't mean subs).

I know a hell of lot more about logistics than you do. First of all, you make up all of these hypotheticals to prove nothing. Why don't we just posit that the Japanese invaded San Diego and took over our naval facilities there. This is an exercise in how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

Are you saying the Japanese wiped out all of our carriers or just those in the Pacific Fleet? Or all of our capital ships in Pearl or our entire inventory worldwide? I hope you are aware that the entire US Navy was not based out of Pearl Harbor. We had carriers and capital ships in the Atlantic.

The Essex was the first Carrier to enter in WWII. That wasn't until July of '43.

Do you mean the Essex class of carriers? The USS Essex (CV-9) was launched 31 July 1942 and commissioned in December 1942. Construction was accelerated after Pearl Harbor as were two other Essex class carriers. A total of 24 Essex class carriers were built.

There were other alternatives that could have been used if our Pacific carrier fleet had been wiped out. We could have transferred some carriers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, taken some ships out of mothballs and fitted flight decks on them, and accelerate carriers that were already under construction. The bottom line is that I have no doubt that we would have met the challenge. And there is no way we would have written off Hawaii. We certainly would reposition our naval forces to protect the West Coast.

Again, Without the capital ships, everything else is just harassment. Without capital ships, convoys don't safely sail. Without convoy ships, Pearl doesn't get rebuilt. Without Pearl being rebuilt ships sunk in harbor stay there. Without Pearl active and viable, we can't project any force in the Pacific. Can't project in the Pacific and Japan keeps moving (and over extending) but still reinforcing.

As I indicated, we had other ships on the West Coast and the East Coast. Wiping out Pearl Harbor did not wipe out the US Navy. Pearl Harbor would have been rebuilt because it was vital to our national security not to mention that close to half a million of our fellow citizens lived there and needed to be supplied with the necessities to live.

First, there was a USS Yorktown carrier (CV-5) that was a Yorktown class sunk at the battle of Midway. The Essex class Yorktown (CV-10) was commissioned in 1943. It was not the first Essex class carrier. The USS Essex (CV-9) was.

In other words, the little bit longer you talk about, would probably be about 1-1/2 years.

Besides the fact that you are making it up as you go, I can just as authoritatively state that it would have only slowed us down by 6 months.

In '45 we had 3 total nukes. One was popped in Alamogordo as a test. Then Hiroshima. Then Nagasaki. If Japan didn't surrender then, then we were going to have to go in. Change the timeline 1-1/2 years and Japan WOULD NOT have surrendered in '45 after Nagasaki.

Japan was ready to surrender after the first one. We had more than three bombs. Groves expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use on August 19, with three more in September and a further three in October. On August 10, he sent a memorandum to Marshall in which he wrote that "the next bomb ... should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August." On the same day, Marshall endorsed the memo with the comment, "It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President." Truman had secretly requested this on August 10. This modified the previous order that the target cities were to be attacked with atomic bombs "as made ready"

You can recite all the happy horsesh-t platitudes you want. The fact remains, change Japans 2 blunders and it changes the dynamics of the Pacific theater.

LOL. You make up these scenarios out of whole cloth and reject any one else doing the same thing. At least mine are based on fact. The US provided two thirds of all the weapons used by the allies. In 3 and one-half years we had created the greatest war machine ever seen. At the end of the war we were turning out a Liberty ship a day. You can create whatever nonsense situation you want, but the America of 1941 was far different than what we have today. Americans were united and involved in the war effort with women doing many jobs heretofore done by men. Factories were converted to produce weapons and parts and ammo 24 hours a day. My "platitudes" are based on demonstrated performance.

Now, what happens in 1-1/2 years in China, if the US isn't able to launch reasonable campaigns? At some point Japan goes from being over extended in areas, to conquerors able to make use of the resources and infrastructure.

More fantasy.

214 posted on 08/03/2015 10:20:33 PM PDT by kabar
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To: kabar
First you say "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, what a fine world we would have."

Then you make another comment of "First of all, you make up all of these hypotheticals to prove nothing. Why don't we just posit that the Japanese invaded San Diego and took over our naval facilities there. This is an exercise in how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. "

This whole thread is about one BIG IF
What Would Have Happened IF Germany Had Invaded the U.S. During World War II?

In the interim we got side tracked into talking about Japan and Pearl.

Here's the deal. The BIG IF I was talking about, taking out the US carriers was Yamamoto's main goal. Yamamoto understood the future of naval warfare was carriers over battleships. That's why he had a carrier task force 200+ miles away from Pearl, not a battleship force.

That BIG IF was a main objective, so it needs to be legitimately looked at.

Secondly, the other BIG IF was the failure to launch a third wave, which was immediately questioned at the time. The third wave would have specifically targeted the fuel farms, dry docks and the already damaged ships.

As a logistics man, you should know that a fleet floats on fuel.

Now, lets look at your other arguments.

First, the carriers. The US had seven at the time. NONE in mothballs. 3 were in the Pacific, though the Saratoga was in San Diego after drydock. The rest were in the Atlantic.

As a logistics man, you should know that the carriers in the Atlantic were needed in the Atlantic. The Hornet was coming out of its shakedown cruise. The Ranger and Wasp were on ferry duty and patrol in the Atlantic.

IF 2 of the 3 Pacific carriers would have been lost at Pearl, the smart thing to do would have been to pull back until Hornet and or Yorktown could make it from Norfolk.

You mention mothballed ships being converted to carriers. Do you have ANY CLUE as to how long it would take to convert an old cruiser to a carrier, man her and perform a shakedown cruise???

1-1/2 years. That is IF there were drydocks open to perform the task. Remember, the US went into high gear to build NEW ships. You can use a drydock to buid a new ship or modify an existing one. Can't do both at the same time.

It seems you were trying to correct me about when the Essex and others came around.

Being a Navy man and a logistics specialist, you should know the difference between the commission of a ship and its actual battle ready. The dates I quoted were when they were ready. After their shakedown cruises.

So I'll stick with the dates mid '43 to early '44 before replacement carriers. Whether new or modified mothballs.

Without replacement, Midway wouldn't have happened.

Remember, Lexington was lost a month earlier at Coral Sea.

As a logistics man, you should know if you don't have the ships you can't move the fleet.

Midway was a success because we had multiple carriers to form a trap.

Without Midway, Japan doesn't lose 4 carriers.

The US wouldn't have had carrier parity until early '44.

That's not propaganda. That's not platitudes. Those are cold hard facts.

Saying otherwise is just wishful thinking.

220 posted on 08/04/2015 6:31:11 PM PDT by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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