Battle of Midway

[Cutlass]

Japan would still have lost the war. But it might have taken a year longer without the forward base of Hawaii. Assuming the US lost 2-3 carriers and Japan lost only one, the US would have still had a larger number of carriers, ships of all other types, and trained air crews in the time period of 1-2 years after Midway. And our aircraft and ships were becoming notably better individually, while the Japanese were not notably improving them.

So as a whole I say possible the same result 1 year or so later for the whole war.

 

[Cutlass]

You're absolutely right. I'm just saying that New Guinea is actually easier to invade than Hawaii, not that it's a simple, straightforward job.

I remember reading about the Battle of Coral Sea a long time ago. It's unique in military history, not only because it was the first ever naval battle in which there was no contact between opposing ships, but also because of the result. I don't remember the numbers, but basically Japan actually sunk or forced the scuttling of more or stronger vessels than she lost, BUT, the vessels Japan lost were far more crucial to them in the long term. Something along the lines of two carriers outright destroyed, and one damaged too badly to take part in Midway as planned, leaving the Japanese down three crucial ships.

This made it a very rare case of a tactical victory, that was also a strategic defeat. That doesn't happen often.

I would have to look up the exact quote, but some Japanese admiral said something to the effect of 'any more victories like that and we will surely lose the war'.

 

[Sharwood]

I would have to look up the exact quote, but some Japanese admiral said something to the effect of 'any more victories like that and we will surely lose the war'.

I remember hearing that myself, although, like you, I don't remember who said it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Yamamoto.

 

[Evie]

Actually, it was one escort carrier lost, and two heavy carriers too badly damaged to take part in Midway.

 

[Sharwood]

It qualified as a tactical victory because the Allies lost more than the Japanese. Admittedly, the Japanese were forced to curtail their operations in the region, but they shouldn't have been risking carriers that close to what was supposed to be the major naval battle of the war anyway.

 

[Evie]

Yeah, it does under what seem to be the most used definition of tactical victory (after looking into it, which is why I edited the above post).

IMO it's a stupid definition (inflicting more casualties does not make a victory), but I can't exactly change the words.

 

[Sharwood]

Agreed, a very stupid definition. There have been many occasions throughout history where the victor of a conflict has actually suffered casualties more than the defeated party, doesn't necessarily mean they've lost. Look At Stalingrad and Kursk for examples.

 

[Cutlass]

For the Coral Sea battle, the Americans lost heavily in terms of what they had available at that moment, but the Japanese lost more in terms of what they would have available for the remainder of the war. It meant that they did not have the available resources to conduct their planned operations.

 

[Evie]

That's one other reason the "tactical victory" label irritates me here. Usually, in land battles, casualties involve killed, missing and wounded. Whereas in naval warfare, people tend to just look at ship sunk, and ignore ships "wounded" (so to speak).

Considering full casualties, and not just sinkings - it was at best a tie.

On the morning after Coral Sea, both sides had one vaguely operational carrier left in the region (Shokaku was unable to conduct flight operations) - Yorktown and Zuikaku. Yorktown was damaged but had a full airwing ; Zuikaku was effectively undamaged but had a half-strength airwing.

In effect, because of the damage to these two/their airwings, both sides had lost their entire carrier strength in the Coral Sea region. The difference being, Yorktown could be and was back off the casualties list much quicker than the other two.

Which meant that, on the morning of the battle of Midway, Japan and America actually had parity in terms of operational large carriers in the Pacific - Akagi, Kaga, Hiryuu and Soryuu for Japan (all at Midway), versus Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown (also at Midway), and Saratoga (racing hard from the west coast toward Midway, but too far away to make it in time)

 

[Cutlass]

There's is also the consideration that at Coral Sea and Midway the pilots lost were replaced by well trained men on the American side where increasingly the Japanese replacement pilots were poorly trained and unable to stand on even terms with the Americans. So the loss of every trained pilot hurt Japan far more in the long run than it did for America.

 

[mrpwn3r]

What if Yamamoto had decided to launch the third wave on Hawaii and destroyed Hawaii's oil and supplies, then followed that up with crushing victories in Midway, Coral Sea, and Hawaii? (No loses to Japan carriers, complete loses of American forces.)

Would America still have the strength to face a fully armed Hitler in Europe and a well defended Japan as well?

I actually thought Japan had the capacity to invade Hawaii. Don't forget the Japanese were right outside Alaska at the peak of the Japanese Empire.

Maybe I'm wrong though. AP books are unfortunately useless...

 

[Cutlass]

What if Yamamoto had decided to launch the third wave on Hawaii and destroyed Hawaii's oil and supplies, then followed that up with crushing victories in Midway, Coral Sea, and Hawaii? (No loses to Japan carriers, complete loses of American forces.)

Would America still have the strength to face a fully armed Hitler in Europe and a well defended Japan as well?

I actually thought Japan had the capacity to invade Hawaii. Don't forget the Japanese were right outside Alaska at the peak of the Japanese Empire.

Maybe I'm wrong though. AP books are unfortunately useless...

Same thing really, but possibly a greater effect. The reality is that we didn't have much in the way of important forces at Pearl before the attack, and even less after. The battleships that were repaired had little use for the remainder of the war. The base itself was of more importance than everything in it combined. Had we lost the base it would have been difficult to recover it and then move on with the war. But it wouldn't have delayed the final result more than a year or so.

 

[Evie]

Yes. Sinking Nevada had it gotten into the chanel, or destroying the oil tanks would have been a serious blow to the US war effort.

Not enough for Japan to win, mind, but enough to dramatically affect the outcome of the war.

Really, though, the best two things Japan could have done to help their odds in the Pacific are

1)Declare on the Allies alone and leave the US to be.
or
2)Stuck to the various conventions on warfare, including the one that say "declare first, shoot later".

The one would have allowed them to gobble up all the Pacific but Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines and make it impossible to reinforce the Philippines, and the other would have at least given them some slightly faint odds of avoiding total war.

 

[Sharwood]

I seem to remember that, technically, Japan was going to do the right thing and declare war about five minutes before her planes arrived at Pearl Harbour, but something happened to the message. That may just be bs propaganda though, and it wouldn't excuse the fact that it was still a sneak attack. Really though, by this point I don't think there was any way, short of capitulating to America's demands, that Japan could have avoided war with the US. I think Roosevelt had done a great job of gearing the US up for eventual war with Germany, and any aggressive Japanese moves towards the underdefended British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific would have provoked a response.

Remember, the closest the US came to entering the war prior to Pearl Harbour was when Mussolini attacked a crippled France on June 10 1940. The American people were outraged at such an opportunistic and cowardly attack, and Britain and France used every ounce of their diplomatic might to entice America to join the war, but France collapsed so quickly the US essentially forgot about Mussolini.

 

[Evie]

Yes, the original plans was to declare war a short time before the attack. IIRC, the embassy typist didn't have the security clearance to view the document, so the typing was slow and had to be done again because it was horrendously bad.

Coupling an earlier declaration of war with a knock-out blow (ie, destroying the infrastructure at Pearl) MIGHT have allowed Japan to walk away with some form of negociated peace with the western powers. Might.

Then again, it might have gotten Tokyo atomized.

 

[Sharwood]

I doubt the yanks ever would have dropped a nuke on Tokyo. They wanted the Emperor alive to ease the occupation, and they wanted Japan strong enough to contain the USSR. Not to mention the fact that, contrary to popular opinion, the two nukes they dropped on Japan were the ONLY two they had at the time. It would have taken them some time to make more, which Stalin knew, which is why he boldly claimed he wasn't afraid of atomic weapons.

 

[mrpwn3r]

I doubt the yanks ever would have dropped a nuke on Tokyo. They wanted the Emperor alive to ease the occupation, and they wanted Japan strong enough to contain the USSR. Not to mention the fact that, contrary to popular opinion, the two nukes they dropped on Japan were the ONLY two they had at the time. It would have taken them some time to make more, which Stalin knew, which is why he boldly claimed he wasn't afraid of atomic weapons.

I agree. Contrary to popular opinion, a nuclear bomb on Tokyo would have ended any peaceful conclusion to the war. With the Emperor dead, Tojo would have effectively ended the Japanese race as a whole and probably ended hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American lives.

 

[Evie]

I doubt it would have happened, but the point I was making is, if the American counterattack had been delayed a year or more in the Pacific, there is no telling how things might have turned out.

As events turned out in our reality, nuking Tokyo was not an acceptable solution. But who's to say how events would have unfolded in a reality where Japan had knocked Pearl Harbor out of the war as an effective military base?

 

[Sharwood]

Point taken. A desperate America might be more than willing to take out Tokyo, in much the same way Moshe Dayan was considering nuking Cairo during the Yom Kippur War.

 

[rilnator]

1)Declare on the Allies alone and leave the US to be.
or
2)Stuck to the various conventions on warfare, including the one that say "declare first, shoot later".

The US was already having run ins with U-boats in the North Atlantic and their presence in the Philipines showed they had huge interests in that part of Asia. No way they were going to let the goodies (the Dutch, British) be overrun by the upstart Japanese.

Sticking to the 'conventions of war' is even more laughable.