Blocking Pearl Harbor entrance

[fbs]

Big Japanese liner, force all passengers out, arrive simultaneously with air attack with skeleton volunteer crew - and kaboon at PH enhtrance.

Very japanese - decisive and reckless.

What do you guys think - Feasible? Or not?

Thanks,
fbs

[Kwik E Mart]

Reminds me of a high school friend who went on to do some work with the Rand Corp and gaming the possibilities of a Cold War scenario in which the Soviet Black Sea fleet sortied into the Med and starting causing havoc. He was given charge of all the Nato forces in the area and promptly scuttled a US battleship in the Dardenelle(sp?) Straits in Turkey...end of scenario

[DrewMatrix]

Better:

Run Yamato into the Pacific end of the Panama Canal Locks at 25 kts and have it wedge there. It will take the US an enormous amount of time (years) to repair and until then they have to go around the Cape.

I would point out that is more use than the IJN got out of the Yamato in real life and you don't need oil for the return voyage.

[jazman]

ORIGINAL: Beezle

Better:

Run Yamato into the Pacific end of the Panama Canal Locks at 25 kts and have it wedge there. It will take the US an enormous amount of time (years) to repair and until then they have to go around the Cape.

I would point out that is more use than the IJN got out of the Yamato in real life and you don't need oil for the return voyage.

True, but that is something you can know only in retrospect. While that big battlewagon is sitting there in port, it may yet win The Decisive Battle.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: fbs


Big Japanese liner, force all passengers out, arrive simultaneously with air attack with skeleton volunteer crew - and kaboon at PH enhtrance.

Very japanese - decisive and reckless.

What do you guys think - Feasible? Or not?

Thanks,
fbs

You'd need a different game engine - won't work in AE!

[Knavey]

Best start programming for ALL the what if scenarios! When can we expect that...Patch 4 or Patch 5?

[bradfordkay]

The civilian port at Honolulu is not in Pearl Harbor, so any passenger liner making for that entrance would attract a lot of attention right away. How well was this patrolled? I don't know - but when you consider that the USS Ward was on patrol off the mouth of PH on Dec 7 whgen no other patrols were out my guess is that they were carefully watching that entrance....

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: fbs


Big Japanese liner, force all passengers out, arrive simultaneously with air attack with skeleton volunteer crew - and kaboon at PH enhtrance.

Very japanese - decisive and reckless.

What do you guys think - Feasible? Or not?

Thanks,
fbs


NOT! Pearl Harbor was a US Navy Base, not a civilian port. Any foreign ship, civilian or not, would have been stopped or sunk when it tried to enter the "exclusion zone".

[fbs]

Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

Thanks,
fbs

[oldman45]

You were close with the idea of the Yamato, but what you want to do is destroy the lochs at the lake in the canal. If those lochs on the Atlantic side are destroyed, the canal is useless because the lake will empty. To my knowledge there is no way to fix it until you rebuild the loch and the lake refills.

[ckammp]

ORIGINAL: fbs


Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

Thanks,
fbs

Co-ordinating this type of naval attack with an aerial attack without using radios would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And had the Japanese used radios, they most likely would have been discovered. As it was, the air attack actually went in 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Also, a main focus of the US Army on Oahu was the prevention of sabotage; for the Japanese to plan to use a commercial liner in such a way would have definetly aroused suspicion.

It is, however , certainly an interesting scenario.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: ckammp

ORIGINAL: fbs


Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

Thanks,
fbs

Co-ordinating this type of naval attack with an aerial attack without using radios would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And had the Japanese used radios, they most likely would have been discovered. As it was, the air attack actually went in 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Also, a main focus of the US Army on Oahu was the prevention of sabotage; for the Japanese to plan to use a commercial liner in such a way would have definetly aroused suspicion.

It is, however , certainly an interesting scenario.

Well, I am sure Ben Affleck would have blown up the ship outside of the harbor entrance right after shooting down many Zeros.

[ckammp]

ORIGINAL: stuman

ORIGINAL: ckammp

ORIGINAL: fbs


Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

Thanks,
fbs

Co-ordinating this type of naval attack with an aerial attack without using radios would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And had the Japanese used radios, they most likely would have been discovered. As it was, the air attack actually went in 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Also, a main focus of the US Army on Oahu was the prevention of sabotage; for the Japanese to plan to use a commercial liner in such a way would have definetly aroused suspicion.

It is, however , certainly an interesting scenario.

Well, I am sure Ben Affleck would have blown up the ship outside of the harbor entrance right after shooting down many Zeros.

He didn't have time; after shooting down all the Zeros, he had to immediatly report to Col. Doolittle on the Hornet, since he was, of course, the premier bomber pilot in the US, as well as the premier fighter pilot![:D]

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: stuman

ORIGINAL: ckammp

ORIGINAL: fbs


Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

Thanks,
fbs

Co-ordinating this type of naval attack with an aerial attack without using radios would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And had the Japanese used radios, they most likely would have been discovered. As it was, the air attack actually went in 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Also, a main focus of the US Army on Oahu was the prevention of sabotage; for the Japanese to plan to use a commercial liner in such a way would have definetly aroused suspicion.

It is, however , certainly an interesting scenario.

Well, I am sure Ben Affleck would have blown up the ship outside of the harbor entrance right after shooting down many Zeros.

[:D]

Actually, my brother and I laughed so much at that it was painful. When the guy was shot down over the English Channel and then suddenly appeared at Pearl Harbor, I snickered and said "No way... the dude swims all the way from Britain to Hawaii and didn't even mess his hair".

Cheers [:D]
fbs

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: ckammp

ORIGINAL: stuman

ORIGINAL: ckammp





Co-ordinating this type of naval attack with an aerial attack without using radios would have been very difficult, if not impossible. And had the Japanese used radios, they most likely would have been discovered. As it was, the air attack actually went in 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Also, a main focus of the US Army on Oahu was the prevention of sabotage; for the Japanese to plan to use a commercial liner in such a way would have definetly aroused suspicion.

It is, however , certainly an interesting scenario.

Well, I am sure Ben Affleck would have blown up the ship outside of the harbor entrance right after shooting down many Zeros.

He didn't have time; after shooting down all the Zeros, he had to immediatly report to Col. Doolittle on the Hornet, since he was, of course, the premier bomber pilot in the US, as well as the premier fighter pilot![:D]

I also forgot that his greatness spanned two Air Forces and three continents.

[Q-Ball]

Question: How many Japanese Liners were at sea on December 7th? How many Japanese Merchant ships period were at sea on December 7th?

My understanding is that they had pulled all merchies in the week previous

[ckammp]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Question: How many Japanese Liners were at sea on December 7th? How many Japanese Merchant ships period were at sea on December 7th?

My understanding is that they had pulled all merchies in the week previous

There was at least one:

On 2 Dec, the Tatsuta Maru, a 17,000-ton passenger liner, left Yokohama for San Francisco. This was the ship's regular route, but this voyage was a ruse designed to fool the US into thinking Japan had no intentions of going to war. The ship's captain had secret orders to return to Japan on 7 Dec.
During the war, the Tatsuta Maru was used as a troop transport. She was torpedoed and sunk by USS Tarpon on 8 Feb 43.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: fbs


Yeah, but from Honolulu habor entrance to Pearl Harbor entrance it is like 4 miles from Google maps. At 25 knots (28 miles/h), that's about 9 minutes.

Any Japanese merchie approaching Oahu at 25 knots would be under suspicion at a far greater range than 4 miles. Large ships can't "stop on a dime", so her actions would draw immediate attention.

The commander of a destroyer would have to be quite brave to shoot at a civilian liner until it was quite close to the entrance, and even then it would take more than a few gun rounds to stop it...

How many torpedoes? Not to mention 14" rounds from Ft Kameamea. I'm not saying it could never have happened..., but war warnings had been flying around for months, and anyone in the US Navy probably knew all about the Japanese attempt to sink blockships at Port Arthur at the start of the Russo-Japanese War. While an air raid might have seemed unlikely, this was exactly the kind of sabotage the US Military WAS expecting on Oahu.

Thanks,
fbs

[fbs]

I agree, I'm not saying it would easy or certain. At best it would be quite reckless and risky, but then the British managed to raid St. Nazaire, in the middle of the war, against prepared defenses. Even if the chance of success is small (perhaps 20-30%), that makes an interesting "what if" scenario.

By the way, I don't think it would take all that much time to remove one such ship, specially a merchant. Brokers cut a whole ship to pieces in India in a week, so I reckon the heavy engineering resources in PH could remove it in, dunno, 10 days. I don't think it would have much effect.

Thanks,
fbs

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

I'm not saying it could never have happened..., but war warnings had been flying around for months, and anyone in the US Navy probably knew all about the Japanese attempt to sink blockships at Port Arthur at the start of the Russo-Japanese War. While an air raid might have seemed unlikely, this was exactly the kind of sabotage the US Military WAS expecting on Oahu.

Exactly right. The Japanese actually made two separate Block Ship attacks at Port Arthur. And not just with one freighter, but multiples (5 or 6 in each attack). And neither succeeded. This is a lot harder than it sounds:

1) First of all it takes quite a while from the time a ship is first spotted until the time it actually enters the channel. The US guard ships would not stand idly by and let a freighter enter the channel unopposed, even if the rails were lined with civilians. There would be plenty of time for warning signals and warning shots, and if those were ignored, then you can bet shells would quickly turn the bridge of an unarmored passenger ship into a fiery hell. Long before she reached the channel, nobody would be driving her.

2) Ships don't sink in a matter of seconds, at least not by opening the sea cocks. Even if the ship somehow survived to reach the channel, she would have to maintain position against the flow of the current (to say nothing of gunfire) in order to sink exactly in the center. One Japanese ship did reach the channel at Port Arthur, but the current swept her to the side as she sank. Bottom line? The Russians marked the position as a navigation hazard and still had plenty of room to make several full-fleet sorties.