Yep.
Posted on 05/29/2012 4:51:04 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
This is usually a pretty civilized thread -- especially considering the gruesome war it reports on.
Got to wonder what would get somebody so riled up it, and apparently out of the clear-blue, that it would need Moderator intervention?
Must have been a doozy. ;-)
Yep. And I believe Rommel will get 33,000 prisoners, a mountain of supplies, and a Field Marshal’s baton out of it. Just guessin’.
The Midway operation has all the hallmarks of a Japanese naval operation.Too complex, too many ‘little’ units, too many objectives. Whatever sense of proportion the Japanese had at Pearl Harbor and the move south is long gone.
Unfortunately for the Japanese, they are up against the cruel math of American production and the tyranny of logistics.
Even had they sunk the entire US Fleet at Midway, and somehow taken the island, despite being outnumbered by the defenders, Japan still loses.
They can’t hold Midway, it is too far from Japan to support. It will either be used as target practice for new American carriers, and as a practice for taking a fortified island by the Marines. Or, it will just be left to wither on the vine and starved out.
As far as ships go, the charts on this page tell the tale:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Japan in mid 1942 is at the limit of her expansion, she cannot truly maintain what she has already.
She hopes to fight a decisive battle to force America to the peace table. But after Pearl Harbor, nothing will do that. And time is on the side of the US.
In two years, Japan will be fighting a US Navy that has more aircraft carriers and aircraft, better aircraft carriers and aircraft, and a fleet train that supports them at sea for weeks to months at time.
Japan is doomed, no matter what.
Japan shouldn’t have attacked the US just as Germany shouldn’t have attacked Russia. Both bone-head moves from bone-head dictatorships. On the German side it was Bone-Head One calling all the shots, of course. I’m not too clear on how many bone-heads were calling the shots on the Japanese side.
And too inflexible. Molke the Elder once said that no operational plan survives first contact with the enemy. When thing began to go wrong for Nagumo’s force there was no way to make the adjustment necessary to even attempt to correct the situation. The northern force was too far away to shift and give aid. The shifting from torpedoes to bombs and back to torpedoes on the Kaga and Akagi made them floating powerder kegs as Nagumo was trying to react to the situation. Air crews were wedded to their carriers making the option of using one of the CVL’s as a CAP screen carrier an impossible option. Even the Shokaku and Zuikaku show the Japanese inflexibility. One ship is damaged, one is missing its flight compliment. You would think they could have shifted the planes and pilots from the damaged ship to the one missing the airmen and have a 5th main carrier for the battle, but they couldn’t even make this simple adjustment.
This is very true. The Japanese Navy were strong believers in Mahanian strategic thought. They believed that only the “decisive battle” could win them their war against the United States. After Pearl Harbor this was a fallacious thought on their part. If they had sunk all three of the American flattops in the Midway battle it would only had strengthened the American resolve all the more. As you said, they were doomed.
If you haven’t read it, got a book for you:”Midway Inquest”, by Dallas Woodbury Isom, Indiana University Press.
turned what I thought I knew about 70 degrees off course.And while Nagumo has his share of screw ups, it’s pretty plain that the major share for the failure at Midway is Yamamoto.
Hell, if he’d scrapped the Aleutians operation, and taken his fleet out with those ships, and Nagumo’s, he could have put a loudspeaker on YAMATO, like some sort of seaborne demented MR. SOFTEE truck, playing “I’m Here”! over and over again.
Yep.
I read that book. It was pretty good, but I found Midway by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya to be a far better book on the Japanese perspective. I gave Homer a book review on this book for the Midway attack. It comes to many of the same conclusions but doesn’t totally exhonorate Nagumo either. As you will see in my book review, I touch on the cultural aspects of it a bit as well. I didn’t want to go too deep into that because much of that is based on my own perception based on several readings on the Japanese during this time and I wanted to keep it narrowed to what you would get out of this particular book.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.