Historical Fantasy: Pearl Harbor Attack Fails

[chequita guevara]

Suppose on the day of the attack, the American battleship fleet wasn't in the harbor (or a most, on a couple of battleships), but had actually gone to sea for excercises. As a result, the Japanese attack flotilla shows up, but has very little to attack. How is history changed?

[RGBVideo]

"Pearl Habor"? Edit it fast to it's correct form and it gets changed on OT main page.

[chequita guevara]

thanks

[Darsnan]

Re: Historical Fantasy: Pearl Harbor Attack Fails

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Suppose on the day of the attack, the American battleship fleet wasn't in the harbor (or a most, on a couple of battleships), but had actually gone to sea for excercises. As a result, the Japanese attack flotilla shows up, but has very little to attack. How is history changed?

Actually a better scenario would be that, because American radar picked up the incoming Japanese aircraft formations, what if the officer on duty that day had acted on this info and scrambled the base's defenses? Instead of a sneak attack the Japanese would have been walking into a hornets nest and been massacred/ or mauled drastically! At the very least this would have significantly impinged the Japanese Imperial Navy's ability to hold sway over the South Pacific over the next year, especially in how deep they penetrated (i.e. the aerial bombardment of Darwin), and would have brought about the downfall of the Imperial Navy much more quickly.


D

[Colonâ„¢]

Japan gets defeated a bit quicker.

[Adam Smith]

I think it makes no difference at all.

The naval war in the Pacific was about carriers, and the US carriers were gone from Pearl Harbor already. With limited air power there is no chance that the entire US fleet could have done anything to stop or slow the Japanese advances thorugh SE Asia on the far side of the Pacific. Note that the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft just three days after Pearl Harbor.

Existing US capital ships were clearly inferior to the Japanese capital ships, which had been built at about the same time but repeatedly modernized over the intervening 20 years. The later South Dakota class battleships were about equal to what the Japanese had in 1941. Only with the Iowa class did the US exceed Japanese design.

In 1941 Japanese naval avaition was by far the best in the world. And this is what mattered up through Midway, maybe even until the Marianas campaign, by which time the US was far outproducing Japan, US naval aircraft were passable, and the Japanese had lost too many experienced pilots.

If the scenario is that Hawaii picks up the attack on radar, I still think the Japanese do significant damage because their naval aviation was so much better to start with, they had long since planned the attack, and still had a significant element of surprise.

A more interesting scenario might be what happens if the three US carriers had been in port. I dont know if the Japanese could manage to take or hold Hawaii, but they surely get all of SE Asia, maybe Australia, and the war probably lasts a year longer. (Need to replace lost fleet, Hawaii's usefulness as forward base diminishes, takes longer to get to B29 bases in Marianas.)

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
I think it makes no difference at all.

[Kuciwalker]

A more interesting scenario might be what happens if the three US carriers had been in port. I dont know if the Japanese could manage to take or hold Hawaii, but they surely get all of SE Asia, maybe Australia, and the war probably lasts a year longer. (Need to replace lost fleet, Hawaii's usefulness as forward base diminishes, takes longer to get to B29 bases in Marianas.)

What about the bomb? That timetable wouldn't be affected.

[chequita guevara]

If you can't get the bomb to Japan, it don't matter.

Adam Smith, but if the battleships weren't in harbor, would the U.S. have adapted to carrier warfare as quickly as thy did, or would they have instead, tried to engage the Japanese in battleship duels, and seen their fleets get wasted at Coral Sea and Midway?

Even the Japanese admirals hadn't fully appreciated the usefulness of carriers, as seen during the Guadalcala campaign. They repeatedly chose to engage in direct combat instead.

[Qilue]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
A more interesting scenario might be what happens if the three US carriers had been in port. I dont know if the Japanese could manage to take or hold Hawaii, but they surely get all of SE Asia, maybe Australia, and the war probably lasts a year longer. (Need to replace lost fleet, Hawaii's usefulness as forward base diminishes, takes longer to get to B29 bases in Marianas.)

An even more interesting scenario would be Japan not attacking the US at all and instead, concentrating their remaining resources towards alternate supplies.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
If you can't get the bomb to Japan, it don't matter.

Couldn't we have done a Doolittle style raid?

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara but if the battleships weren't in harbor, would the U.S. have adapted to carrier warfare as quickly as thy did, or would they have instead, tried to engage the Japanese in battleship duels, and seen their fleets get wasted at Coral Sea and Midway?

Hmmm ... good question. The sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse might have been instructive, but I can see how wholesale change might have required a cataclysmic event.

[Jaguar]

We'd need new carriers to do it, still. Doolittle used a carrier.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
If you can't get the bomb to Japan, it don't matter.

Adam Smith, but if the battleships weren't in harbor, would the U.S. have adapted to carrier warfare as quickly as thy did, or would they have instead, tried to engage the Japanese in battleship duels, and seen their fleets get wasted at Coral Sea and Midway?

Repulse, Prince of Wales, Bismarck, and even punching Pearl Harbor but coming up empty would all have been very instructive.

Even the Japanese admirals hadn't fully appreciated the usefulness of carriers, as seen during the Guadalcala campaign. They repeatedly chose to engage in direct combat instead.

These were more because of political divisions within the navy, and the balance of power (and extreme rivalry predating even Ni-Ni-Roku, than a lack of appreciation of carriers per se. The usefullness (and outright superiority) of carriers was secondary to the politics of who got to fight and how.

[snoopy369]

An interesting question - if they don't sink a good number of our existing ships, do we fail to build as many new ones (and focus as much on carriers), and end up doing *worse*?