What if Pearl Strike Fails

[bklooste]

Originally if the strike failed the main battle line of the Japanese fleet would have sailed for Pearl ( which is why the Escort carrier was there instead of the PI ) and in fact they did sail historically. This kind of puts paid to the fuel arguments as there were a ton of fleet oilers with this fleet.

What would have happened if only 1 BB sunk and the Japanese fleet sailed ? And is it repeatable in the game.

[sven6345789]

sure, if you are the japanese player, move the BBs out to sea.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Originally if the strike failed the main battle line of the Japanese fleet would have sailed for Pearl ( which is why the Escort carrier was there instead of the PI ) and in fact they did sail historically. This kind of puts paid to the fuel arguments as there were a ton of fleet oilers with this fleet.

Can you provide your source for this statement? It runs totally counter to all pre-war Japanese plans for "The Decisive Battle"; which called for the US Fleet to come toward Japan (being "whittled down" along the way) and meeting them in the Marianas. With most of the "Decisive Battle's" support elements (CA's, CL's, DD's, etc.) spread out all over SE Asia this seems a very unlikely operation.

[bklooste]

Thats what i thought but when i look at the really detailed sites eg OOB / Detailed Movement sites it states the Battle fleet and sailed eg

http://combinedfleet.com/nagatrom.htm

8 December 1941: Operation "Z" – The Attack on Pearl Harbor:
BatDiv 1 sorties from Hashirajima to the Bonin Islands with the First Fleet's BatDiv 2's ISE, FUSO, YAMASHIRO, HYUGA, CarDiv 3's light carrier HOSHO, escorted by DesDiv 21's WAKABA, NENOHI, HATSUHARU and HATSUSHIMO and DesDiv 27's ARIAKE, YUGURE, SHIRATSUYU, SHIGURE, MIKAZUKI and YUKAZE.

If you look at the OOB a stack of fleet oilers went with them . When they learned of the Pearl success they headed back.

Note they headed East.

Maybe they figured the strike + subs would do enough attrition to be able to defeat the US battle line.

[Hokum]

Originally if the strike failed the main battle line of the Japanese fleet would have sailed for Pearl

That's simply not true. Pearl Harbour was supposed to be the decisive battle. Yes, a huge gamble. The battleships were supposed to support the KB if it ran into trouble.

And if it had failed... well I'm not sure it would have changed much. If anything, it made rainbow 5 more intolerable for Admiral King.

[bklooste]

The battleships were supposed to support the KB if it ran into trouble.

mmm That may explain why they sailed in the direction of Pearl and had all those fleet oilers. However how can the battleships who are 3 days steaming at least away from KB save it ? Maybe if the US Pacific fleet sailed and chased KB West ( does not seem likely though) . The Pacific fleet couldn't catch KB unless one of the ships was damaged but if it chased it would result in a Mahan style clash.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Thats what i thought but when i look at the really detailed sites eg OOB / Detailed Movement sites it states the Battle fleet and sailed eg

http://combinedfleet.com/nagatrom.htm

8 December 1941: Operation "Z" – The Attack on Pearl Harbor:
BatDiv 1 sorties from Hashirajima to the Bonin Islands with the First Fleet's BatDiv 2's ISE, FUSO, YAMASHIRO, HYUGA, CarDiv 3's light carrier HOSHO, escorted by DesDiv 21's WAKABA, NENOHI, HATSUHARU and HATSUSHIMO and DesDiv 27's ARIAKE, YUGURE, SHIRATSUYU, SHIGURE, MIKAZUKI and YUKAZE.

If you look at the OOB a stack of fleet oilers went with them . When they learned of the Pearl success they headed back.

Note they headed East.

Maybe they figured the strike + subs would do enough attrition to be able to defeat the US battle line.

They sailed to the Bonin Islands and returned in 5 days..., and where are you getting the OOB with "a stack of Fleet Oilers? Your interpretation doesn't make a lot of sense..., surely if they were actually going to Hawaii they would have brought Nagato and Mutsu (their two best BB's at the time) and sailed several days earlier to be in position to support Nagumo if he "came a cropper".

You sure this isn't just one of those odd "sorties of honor" the IJN was prone to (like having a large chunk of the fleet "escort" Yamamoto's body back to Japan from Truk...., or the goofy notion that the BB's were providing "distant support" for Midway by wasting a lot of fuel sailing several hundred miles behind Nagumo.)?

[romanovich]

I remember reading that the movements of the BBs were a diversion. The U.S. had knowledge of their whereabouts; what they had lost track off were the carriers. Moving the BBs around in the distance would keep the U.S. pre-occupied with their movements - and unsuspecting that trouble might just be brewing much closer to home.

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl





They sailed to the Bonin Islands and returned in 5 days..., and where are you getting the OOB with "a stack of Fleet Oilers? Your interpretation doesn't make a lot of sense..., surely if they were actually going to Hawaii they would have brought Nagato and Mutsu (their two best BB's at the time) and sailed several days earlier to be in position to support Nagumo if he "came a cropper".

You sure this isn't just one of those odd "sorties of honor" the IJN was prone to (like having a large chunk of the fleet "escort" Yamamoto's body back to Japan from Truk...., or the goofy notion that the BB's were providing "distant support" for Midway by wasting a lot of fuel sailing several hundred miles behind Nagumo.)?

No , im sure look at the records of movement of all the Oilers attached to Batdiv 1 etc .. They sailed but turned back when the strike was successful. The contingency plan was they were heading east , whether this was to protect the KB or seek battle with the survivors i don't know. I did read somewhere they were to try to seek battle with the Pacific fleet but cant find the source atm. Pitty there is so little information on this interesting and planned contingency. It also explains why the Battle line and the CVE was not covering Malaya and PI .

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: romanovich

I remember reading that the movements of the BBs were a diversion. The U.S. had knowledge of their whereabouts; what they had lost track off were the carriers. Moving the BBs around in the distance would keep the U.S. pre-occupied with their movements - and unsuspecting that trouble might just be brewing much closer to home.

They left port on the 8th (7th in Hawaii). Hard to see how much diversion they could be after the fact.

[romanovich]

Hey, thanks for the constructive contribution. Read your post and learned a lot from it. Keep up those informative posts!

The main fleet body was held back by the Japanese so as to not tip their hand in regards to the whereabouts of Kido Butai. That worked; if you look up details of the Hewitt inquiry, it revealed that U.S. intelligence focused on the location of Combined and First Fleets, which to the day before PH were thought to be in Kure, giving no reason to worry. There was a lot of traffic that was picked up heading South, but that certainly wasn't of any concern to PH.

As to BatDiv 1 - they left port before the strike on PH had commenced on December 7 (Hawaii time). Remember that Kido Butai did not communicate with Tokyo, as that would have given away their location. So the Japanese had no knowledge of where Kido Butai was, or what they were up to either. There were, however, contingency plans. This is from hyperwar - good source, recommended read: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USS ... PTO-2.html

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Movement of Pearl Harbor Task Force

In accordance with instructions from CinC Combined Fleet, the Task Force [Kido Butai] sortied from Hitokappu bay at 0600, 26 November and proceeded along the track shown in Appendix 2. On 2 December instructions were received to the effect that negotiations had failed and that 8 December was designated as "X"-day. The refueling was successfully completed on 3 December without mishap. (In the event of failure of the fueling operation it had planned to continue without the destroyers.) After refueling, the Task Force proceeded along the track without incident. No shipping was encountered and the force successfully escaped detection. During the approach, the following instructions were in effect:

If discovered prior to "X"-minus-2-day, the Task Force was to return to Japan without executing the attack.

If discovered prior to "X"-1-day, the decision as to what action to take was the responsibility of the Task Force Commander.

If discovered on "X"-minus-1-day or the morning of "S"-day the Task Force was to continue with the attack.

If at any time during the approach to Pearl Harbor the negotiations with the United States had been successful the attack would have been cancelled.

If, at any time during the approach to Pearl Harbor the American Fleet attempted to intercept the Japanese Task Force, the Japanese planned to counterattack. If the American Fleet advanced into Japanese home waters in pursuit of the Task Force it was planned to commit the Main Body of the Japanese Fleet as a support force.
If, after arriving in Hawaiian waters, it was found that the American Fleet was at sea and not in Pearl Harbor, the Japanese planned to scout a 30-miles radius around Oahu and attack if contact was made; otherwise they were to withdraw..

During the approach the main force in the Inland Sea and land-based air units in the Kyushu area carried on deceptive communications designed to indicate that the Task Force was still in Japanese waters. The Task Force arrived at the launching point 200 miles north of Oahu at 0730, 7 December (Hawaiian time).

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They also concluded that:

General Information

The attacks on Pearl Harbor were not continued or followed up by surface craft bombardment because the sole objective of the attack was to destroy the capital ship strength of the United States Pacific Fleet in order to delay any United States advance across the Pacific. Hence,, since this objective was achieved by air attack, no further attack was considered necessary. Also, since the whereabouts of the American carriers was unknown and the chances of locating them by air search were small, it was considered that a quick withdrawal would be most advantageous. Consideration was also given to the probability of a counterattack by the estimated 50 or more large land-based planes that remained in Hawaii after the attack.

No landing operation was planned because insufficient time was available to make all preparations during the month of November and also it was recognized that the problems of ship speed and logistics would have made it impossible to execute the initial attack without detection during the approach.

During the Pearl Harbor Operation the following units were diverted to secondary targets:

The Midway Neutralization Unit (Akebono, Ushio) left Tokyo Bay about 1 December, arriving at Midway during the night of 7 December, bombarded the air base and returned to the western part of the Inland Sea.

It had been planned to conduct an attack on Midway while returning to Japan but the operation was canceled because of weather. On 16 December however, while proceeding to Japan from Pearl Harbor, two aircraft carriers (Soryu and Hiryu), two cruisers (Tone, Chikuma), and two destroyers (Tanikaze, Urakaze) were diverted to Wake Island to assist the invasion on 23 December.

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So, based on that, I would think it likely that BatDiv 1 did engage in a diversionary maneuver. Second possibility, they were already shifted into position for the contingency that the American Fleet was to advance into Japanese home waters in pursuit of Kido Butai.

Cheers.

[bklooste]

Thx for that looks all very well planned  , if the weather was better the Miday area would have been interesting with the US carrier heading east.

So if the strike was unsuccessful the Main fleet would sail east and meet  the KB prob in the vicinity of Marcus Island. I doubt the US fleet would have followed WPO or followed KB , though without a successful strike they may have had more faith in Battleships .  With 20/20 hind sight it seems suicide to chase KB.

[Hokum]

mmm That may explain why they sailed in the direction of Pearl and had all those fleet oilers. However how can the battleships who are 3 days steaming at least away from KB save it ? Maybe if the US Pacific fleet sailed and chased KB West ( does not seem likely though) . The Pacific fleet couldn't catch KB unless one of the ships was damaged but if it chased it would result in a Mahan style clash.

*shrug*

This was a contingency plan. Maybe a sizable element of the USN could have been at large, or the carriers could have lost a lot more planes, or could have been damaged by a US counter-strike.

or the goofy notion that the BB's were providing "distant support" for Midway by wasting a lot of fuel sailing several hundred miles behind Nagumo.)?

This. The japanese navy never envisioned anything but a naval clash between two rows of battleships. They were kept in this psychological carcan even at midway. The carriers were there to provide air cover/support and, at best, the weaken the enemy lines.

It is often said that the french army was preparing a rerun of 1914 in 1940, and, well, the japanese were preparing a rerun of 1904.

[bklooste]

[/quote]

This. The japanese navy never envisioned anything but a naval clash between two rows of battleships. They were kept in this psychological carcan even at midway. The carriers were there to provide air cover/support and, at best, the weaken the enemy lines.

It is often said that the french army was preparing a rerun of 1914 in 1940, and, well, the japanese were preparing a rerun of 1904.

I think this is a bit harsh though with 20/20 Hindsight this is true for all nations in terms of blue water policy, both nations adopted different strategies after PH. They obviously saw some threat as the escort carrier sailed with the main battle line ( and the Pearl strike itself) . Yet if you look at only 5 years ago ( 1936 when most Naval plans were made) very few planes could penetrate 4" of deck armour , still the effect of 1000lb bombs on a 4-8" deck on a moving ship with CAP and with AA fire was anyone's guess. What changed the development was the development over the war especially the much faster and larger aircraft later.

In terms of preparing for war Japan had 6 fleet carriers almost as many as their battle line and I would say they hedged their bets. The US ( and all other nations) had far fewer CVs compared to the battle fleet , while the IJN build the Yamatos the US were building the South Sakota and later the Iowas as well. I would say Japan was more prepared for a carrier based war than any other nation. Obviously under ideal circumstances each Yamato was 4-5 Soryu's which is a bad trade with 20/20 hind sight but so was the Iowas and South Dakotas.

[xj900uk]

But the Japanese knew that they would never be able to keep up with US production & ship building once the war dragged on, even the most die-hard military protagonists admitted that they couldn't match the US - instead they maintained that 'superior Japanese fighting spirit' would see them through against the odds.
Yamato's plan (which linked in to the 'Decisive Battle' so mooted by the theorists) was that somehow the IJN could lure the US (especially teh carrier forces) into a trap where they would be annialated and the US would be forced to sue for a cease-fire, or, at the worst possible case Japan would have gained more time.
That was what the 'Midway Operation' was all about, to lure the US carrier forces into a trap where they could be spotted & destroyed at great range by the IJN carrier forces.  All in all it was a sound idea but sloppily conceived, also the Japs had no idea that the US had broken their security codes and, on the day itself, faulty reconissance and plain bad luck were against them.