Hi all,
ORIGINAL: mdiehl
The difference between a good operational plan and a cruddy one is the degree to which a single error does not ruin the plan. The Allied plan at Midway was a good one. The Japanese plan at Midway was a bad one. The Allied plan at Balikpapan was a good one. The Allied plan on 8 August with respect to disposition of forces was a poor one. The Japanese plan that night was a good one.
Like I wrote in my message preceding this Japanese had terrible plan that only seem to suit their military philosophy and ancient ways (they simply loved to create humongous multitask multilayer plans)...
But as well, you can't deny, that even best initial plan must be updated and having good commander and staff on spot is better than having multi branch "what if" scenarios prepared in advance.
None of those things were ideal. Indeed, they almost certainly HURT the US effort at Midway far more than they helped. There was a strong likelihood that a series of strung out attacks would occur, owing to the operation from 2 TFs and a land base making uncoordinated attacks with respect to each others' launches. One cannot view some other general set of conditions in re the timing of American airstrikes as likely, or even reasonably plausible. If, however, one insists on pretending that somehow the "wearing down of the IJN CAP" was a factor, you have to consider the alternative. More than 120 USN naval aircraft arrive as a coordinated effective mass, wholly overwhelming the paltry Japanese CAP, rather than allowing them to defeat the first couple waves in detail. In addition, B17s attack at a time when IJN ships are unable to maneuver to avoid all possible attacks concurrently, along with B26s and Midway based SBDs and TBDs. It's a recipe for slaughtering Japanese ships that makes the real event look like a lucky outcome for Japan.
No thing is ideal.
But, it turned out that way since all pieces of puzzle perfectly come together for US at Midway (i.e. all events leading to big finale of destruction of Japanese CVs)...
Now flip the coin on its head. You are a Japanese operational planner. You have a major enemy land-aerodrome operating against you, and possibly one enemy CV operating in the area. It's challenging to maintain effective CAP-cac... despite your pilots' experience you've never before faced a prepared enemy capable of opposing you with real force, w;though your comrades on Sho and Zui have. Coral Sea, an action that occurred some weeks before, has taught some of your peers you that your uberpilots in their uberplanes ARE NOT capable of stopping an Allied air strike in its tracks, and that Bushido Spirit will not prevail, nor the gods intervene to protect you, if a moderate force is projected against you. You lost 1 CVL, almost lost a CV (escaping by the skin on your cuticles) and had several IJN air groups wiped out both to the operational exigencies of operating CV-based airgroups in a real carrier battle against pilots and equipment that were better than you imagined them to be.
Now there's Midway, and possibly a US CV. Your plan can assume that you will have the usual plane-handling snafus, that there can be errors in the search etc, and that the US, like you, will probably not have any propensity to coordinate land based strikes with CV based strikes. So you do, as Strike Force did at Midway, put up the same CAP as a force structure, and assume all the Allied pilots will fly like dunces like the propaganda said they would, despite previous experience to the contrary? Moreover, you assume that the opposition will arrive at a time and place of your own choosing and of the greatest convenience to you?
I would have done it way way differently... [;)]
For one thing I would have shut down the Midway airbase with ship bombardment during night.
Midway was small flat island with no hiding place and would be ideal target for big ships (like BBs) bombardment at night. Imagine several BBs (and Japan had plenty of fast powerful BBs for that) pounding that small island during night and state of its facilities in the morning...
I would keep my CVs on lookout for US fleet end never se them to suppress the Midway.
In other words instead of complex multiprong historic Japanese plan I would:
#1
Keep all my CVs (no Aleutian stupidity) for fleet battle cover only (since US was expected to intervene).
#2
Shut down Midway airbase with surface ship during initial night bombardment (that bombardment would precede all other actions).
#3
Keep all ships together (in coherent way) and concentrated on single task - invading Midway and destroying US fleet if it tries to intervene.
Isn't this plan (from naval amateur) much better than historic Japanese one?
If this was done no way US could have won even with in advance warning via "Magic" and all preparation in the world...
And people act like the fact that the Japanese CAP was overwhelmed was an unlikely or even unforeseeable event. Jeesh! [8|]
The unforeseeable event was failure of 1st CV strike to shut down Midway. They believed almost 100% certain that the Midway would be shut down...
Leo "Apollo11"
