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Even if the Japanese informant found out the fleet was leaving Pearl Harbor that evening, how would he alert the KB?  He didn't have direct contact with them, and by the time he got a telegram or phone call to Japan and they decided to tell the strike force the KB would almost be in position and ready to launch.  This is assuming that the PacFleet began recalling their crews off of shore leave the evening of the 6th, btw.

I want to thank everyone for their comments. I have learned quite a bit. The reason I asked the question is to use AE, when available, to try various alternative situations to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
One scenario has Pearl Harbor alerted to a carrier attack with the KB unaware that the fleet has sortied, radio problems or something of that sort that would have prevented them from knowing (please indulge me here).
 
Anyway, I don't know what the pre-war doctrine would have produced in the way of a response. I don't want my game response to be implausible.
 
So, the KB is coming unaware. We know it is a carrier strike force but actual composition unknown. We know generally what direction they are coming from.
 
Out of the list of possibilities, I wonder which ones would have been likely responses.
 
1.  If time permitted, have Enterprise join the battleship fleet and attempt to engage. Have Lexington attempt to intercept independently.
 
2.  If time did not permit, attempt to engage or drive away the enemy fleet with the battleships, without air cover(pre-war belief that the battleships can defend themselves against air attack). Have Enterprise and Lexington attack independently as soon as they could.
 
2a. Same as 2 but keep the battleships within land based air cover.
 
3.  Withdraw the battleships to safe waters. Still have Enterprise and Lexington attack independently.
 
4.  Withdraw the battleships to safe waters. Order the carriers to not engage but re-join the fleet.
 
Or none of the above, these are just the ones I can think of, I'm sure there are others.
 
At this point, I'm not really concerned with guessing the outcomes of these events (I'll let the AE combat system decide that). Again, I am interested in what the decision makers of that time would most likely have done.
 
Thanks again.

Interesting question.  One of the reference books I have back in my library recounts that Kimmel did react to one of the early alerts in November 1941 with a sortie against a suspected Japanese strike.  He slipped out of Pearl just after dark and made for the area from which the KB would launch the it's own air strikes on December 7th.  If this had happened on December 7, the sun would have come up with four US battleships and the Lexington with their escorts in contact with KB from first light.  The LBA on Oahu would have been on alert to support the fleet. 

It would seem to me that the outcome would have entailed:

• Sinking Lexington and the battleships.  Any cruisers at sea would have probably also been sunk or damaged.
• Disrupted the strike on Pearl Harbor itself so the CAP would have had a reasonable chance to break up the attack, certainly the contact reports from the radar station on Oahu wouldn't have been dismissed.
• The Americans would have had a slim chance of damaging one or more of the KB's carriers with gunfire, air strikes from Lexington or air strikes from Oahu. 
• The KB would have almost certainly suffered higher than historical air crew losses from the alerted US defenses.

In WitP, the result would be far more favorable to the US.  The KB would have it's strike aircraft on a "Port Attack" or "Airfield Attack" while the Lexington would have a "Naval Strike" selected. The battleships would have been in a second TF on a "surface combat" mission. The residual CAP over the KB would probably stop most of the bombers, but some lucky SBD's might punch a couple of bombs into a carrier.  The alerted LBA at Pearl would launch their own naval strikes from high altitude and do little but give Japanese pilots victories.  However, the CAP would at least winnow the strike on Pearl.  The remaining ships in harbor would be pummeled.  After the air strikes were resolved sinking or badly damaging the battleships in Pearl Harbor and wrecking the air fields, there would possibly be a surface action with four dreadnoughts plus escorts versus the KB.  The presence of a damaged carrier might well be decisive there in terms of prolonging the engagement.  How that battle resolved would cast a shadow on the rest of the war. 

This would go down in the history books as insanely good fortune for the US that would be been rewarded or punished by the events of the day. However, historically, the Japanese got the breaks. This would have just tilted the table the other way.

Miller's War Plan Orange talks about Kimmel's war plans in detail.  He shared the sentiment that the KB would probably stay in the western Pacific supporting the attack on the Philippines or SRA at the outset of the war.  His operational plans called for an offensive sweep into the Marshalls with the battle line as bait and his carriers operating in consort to ambush anything that the Japanese sortied to engage the Pacific Fleet. 

engineer, it was Enterprise that was close to PH on 12/7, Lexington was much farther away. I agree with your analysis, BTW. Even in a surface engagement the KB would have had some punch. They did have a lot of torpedoes present, didn't they?

No, Enterprise was out towards Johnston Island. I think she arrived at Pearl soon after the attack, on either the 8th or 9th. The sortie I described was back closer to Thanksgiving, before Lexington made her run out to Wake to deliver Marine fighters to the island. 

Of course you know I respect your opinion tremendously Enginneer, but how is it that the KB strike would necessarily _both_ tangle with the Oahu CAP / pummel the remaining ships in harbor _and_ sink the lead ships in two different but converging TFs (Lex from the south-southwest and Kimmels BB TF from Oahu?).

Depending on the exact timing of sightings, wouldn't it be equaly plausible that:

6:00 AM KB launches her first wave pre-dawn, meanwhile Lex TF and Kimmel BB TF are steaming more-or-less in their direction.

06:00 The first wave of the Japanese attack takes off for Hawaii from ships anchored north of the islands.

06:26 Japanese pilots bound for Pearl see the sun rise, and the vivid shafts of light bring to mind their naval flag.

Sunrise comes, and the second wave of KB is in preparation to launch, as is suggested by the information at this site

Near Oahu - At 7:15 a.m., a second attack wave of 167 planes takes off from the Japanese carriers and heads for Pearl Harbor.

I note from the wiki page for Pearl Harbor attack that out of the total planned CAP 48 fighters, only "nine fighters from the first wave."

In all, 405 aircraft were intended to be used: 360 for the two attack waves, 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave.

The first wave was to be the primary attack, while the second wave was to finish whatever tasks remained. The first wave contained the bulk of the weapons to attack capital ships, mainly torpedoes. The aircrews were ordered to select the highest value targets (battleships and aircraft carriers) or, if either were not present, any other high value ships (cruisers and destroyers). Dive bombers were to attack ground targets. Fighters were ordered to strafe and destroy as many parked aircraft as possible to ensure they did not get into the air to counterattack the bombers, especially in the first wave. When the fighters' fuel got low they were to refuel at the aircraft carriers and return to combat. Fighters were to serve CAP duties where needed, especially over US airfields.

So assuming your scenario is correct and Kimmel sorties in the middle of the night to the area from which KB launched her first wave, then we could pretty safely assume that (a) KB would not know, unless a sub saw the fleet sortie; and (b) by about 6:15 am (10 minutes before sunrise) the bulk of the weapons for attacking capital ships would be in the air in the 183 planes of the first wave and on their way to the harbor, where, in actual history, they arrived and began to attack at 7:48 am.

A _LOT_ could depend on the exact sequence of events between 6am and 8am.

KB's second wave did not launch until 7:15AM, so if planes from Lex happened to spot KB sometime between 6:26 and 7am they would only have had a cap of 9 fighters to contend with. If at the same time, an LBA and US TF with multiple BBs (why would it necessarily have been only four of them?) etc. are bearing down on the KB with only two BBs, two CAs, one CL, sundry DDs . . . well it seems like there are a whole range of possible outcomes.

I thought you meant if they had sortied on Dec 7, in which case Enterprise was the closer one. BTW, I'm not sure how far away she was on the morning of Dec 7, but close enough that a few of her planes were in combat with some KB planes near PH.

Had Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett been around in 41', things wouldn't have been as bad.
 
 
I've heard too many things to really form an opinion of the whole thing..... I think we had an idea something was going to happen, somewhere...that is about all the farther I stick my neck out to argue with anyone I come around.

IIRC Enterprise was close enough to have actually entered Pearl Harbor the afternoon of the 7th, but Halsey stayed out for a day longer to patrol south of Oahu.  Some of his planes landed that afternoon at Ford Island and a couple were shot down by trigger happy gunners.

The alt-history account would probably entail retasking Enterprise to substitute for Lexington's role in the November sortie (since the Wake mission was reasonable while Enterprise was simply on patrol).  Kimmel was smart enough not to operate nakedly with out air cover, plus the Dauntlesses on Enterprise would provide much better recon than his catapult search planes (and not slow down the TF for recovery)
 
I'm thinking that dawn would find the KB and Kimmel on reciprocal courses and closing at a combined rate of 40 knots with range at less than 50 miles. The destroyers would almost certainly spot smoke where nothing should have been.  Here's where real life and WitP diverge.  In WitP, the pilots say to hell with all those battleships down below, but Fuchida and Nagumo would have to think their operational security was blown to find battleships on their doorstep.  Enterprise, I think she already had radar, would have spotted the incoming aircraft from the KB and launched her own strike on a reciprocal bearing (bold, but dawn on December 7 would have been no time for hesitation). 
 
The If's start piling up in a hurry.  Does Nagumo order the 1st wave to proceed to Pearl or drop on Kimmel? Does Fuchida override what-ever Nagumo orders as the officer on the spot? Does the 2nd Wave get re-armed for purely anti-shipping ordnance?  Does Enterprise get her strike off before dodging an attack from the 1st wave?  Does Nagumo scramble extra fighters for CAP out of the 2nd Wave escorts?  Do the pilots from Enterprise find a premature Midway by falling on the KB while the 2nd Wave is rearming? 
 
Those are all operational questions that actually a layer below where WitP operates. 
 

The one problem I see with most of these theoretical USN sorties (as proposed in this thread) is that we were expecting the Japanese to attack from the southwest, not the northwest. So, unless we received definite intel regarding the location of the KB, our sorties would likely have headed off in the direction of the Japanese Mandated Islands - the expected axis of attack. 

bradfordkay

our sorties would likely have headed off in the direction of the Japanese Mandated Islands - the expected axis of attack. 

 
But is that true?  I thought the USN suspected the IJN would stay in the western Pacific and SE Asian waters.  That's what was behind the various "Rainbow" plans of the immediate prewar period.  Kimmel's plan to sweep the Marshalls was not approved by Washington, it was strictly something that was thought up within Pacific Fleet HQ.  Finally, the one sweep that Kimmel made prior to 12/7 was to the north.  
 
I need to run down that reference I mentioned up above on Kimmel's sweep and verify the sourcing.