Rising Sun over Hawaii....

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Subject: Rising Sun over Hawaii....
Godofgamblers 3/3/2008 2:03:12 AM

IN this scenario, the IJN invades Hawaii instead of a hit and run attack on Pearl. One of the invasion groups that struck Wake, or Indonesia, instead re routed to Hawaii and siezed enough real estate to make it unusable as a resupply/logistical center. The US lines of communication with Australia-NewZeland-Philipines would have been broken irrevocably for at least a year and a half. All points west severed it also catches the US oil stock and fleet repair assets in the port. Nobody can argue I think that the US forces could have repelled the invasion by say 15,000 Japanese Marines fresh from duty in China. The entire Japanese gambit in WWII was to make the US sue for peace rather than fight it out in a protracted conflict. We know what happened when the Japanese missed our carriers and ran off. In my new scenario the battle of Guadalcanal never happens because the IJN have successfully severed the artery in the middle of the pacific.

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larryjcr 3/23/2008 1:49:53 PM

But you seem to
miss the point that Spruance didn't even KNOW about Browning's
screw-up until mid-morning the next day. Moreover, it's clear
that Spruance was far less upset than you portrayed him. He
simply made a decision on the problem and ignored the resulting
tantrum. To do anything else would have been out of character.
If he had been as upset about Browning as he was with Mitscher, he'd
have let Nimitz know about it, and Browning got a decoration for his
'brilliant contribution to the victory at Midway".

Browning never got that award from Spruance. Fletcher put it
in. Spruance didn't lose his temper in public because as Samuel Eliot
Morison pointed out, ?throwing an admiral's tantrum would have been
deleterious to the smooth functioning of the battle staff.? You
will note who walked off the job, and abandoned his post in the
middle of battle. I would have SHOT him, but not until after the
battle was won.

And how do you blame "lack of training" for the fact
that in the second strike on 4 June, Mitscher simply didn't order the
launch of the second deck load of the strike?? Hornet's a/c
didn't arrive until after the Enterprise and Yorktown (flying from
Enterprise) a/c finished with Hiryu because they'd spent nearly half
an hour circling the ship waiting for the rest of the strike to join
them, while Mitscher sat on his bridge, deep in thought, with the a/c
sitting on deck waiting to go. When it was finally brought to
his attention, he decided that it was too late and sent the first
half along on its own, without the CAG or the two squadron leaders,
all of whom were with the second load. Spruance would probably
have passed on the awkward and mis-directed first strike as lack of
experience, but the second seems pretty hard to explain.

Mitscher's FU's like any physical events were local. You can't
fix what you don't know about until you find out after the fact now
can you?

Fletcher has been systematically marginalized and discredited for
a very good reason: he represented a threat to the ongoing 'coup
d'etat' that the aviation community within the Navy officer corps was
carrying out against the 'gun club'. The whole basis of their
take-over (ever since, surface warfare officers have been the 'poor
relations' and the best route to flag rank in the US Navy has been
aviation) was that the carrier was the new centerpiece of naval
power, and ONLY aviators could command carrier forces properly.
Fletcher was a blatant demonstration that surface officers COULD
command carrier forces effectively. Pushing him aside during
the war wasn't hard, since Ernest King didn't like him, and the early
port-war historians when with the opinions of the aviation admirals
who later 'won the war'. S.E. Morison set the mold on this, and
his opinions have been generally accepted for decades, even though
his critical references to Fletcher were often inconsistent with his
view of other officers.

Well Morison didn't have much kind to say about Halsey, and the
fact that Spruance a gunnery officer rose to command the carrier
fleets and was the go-to guy for both Nimitz (a submariner) and King
(another submariner) seems to make nonsense of that whole thesis
doesn't it? Sure Spruance knew jack diddly about carrier operations
initially, but what did that matter when he kept winning and
learning? And boy how he he learned. The one thing he constantly
hammered away at in his battle critiques was reconnaissance,
reconnaissance, reconnaissance. He forgave bungled sorties, poor
strike co-ordination over the target, missed execution of transmitted
instructions in the middle of battle; but he always harped on the
poor reconnaissance reports he received from his own aerial scouts,
from the USAAF, or from supporting land-based naval

viation. He remarked in the after
action reports from the Marianas Turkey Shoot that the only decent
reconnaissance and tracking reports he received during the whole
battle came from USS Albacore and USS Cavalla, SUBMARINES who were
rather busy themselves sinking Japanese carriers and evading Japanese
depth charges at

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Herald12345 You know........ 3/24/2008 11:34:38 PM

I spent six hours reading every !@#$%^&*() action report, admiral's report , and excuse for the mistakes made at Midway and the FUs at Guadalcanal, trying to validate ljr's assertions. I will deal with those in a moment.

Rocky the Japanese should have gone after the drydocks and oil tank farms. That was all the ammunition they had available. I reviewed the magazine loadouts and confirmed that the Japanese were caught short. The primary reason was air operations in China. They were desperately short of 250 kg and 500 kg fragmentation bombs, had NO incendiaries. The armor piercers were converted 14 inch shells-not more than 400of those. The torpedoes were the obsolete Type 91 fitted with the drogue and fin collars that made them shallow splashers. There were less than 100 of these kits made between October and the middle of November!

JRKY's comments ignore a few things about production contracts. Let me be BLUNT. The size of a specialist production run in peacetime was spelled out in that contract.; If your service specifies a production run of 100 torpedo planes-the production run for the contract will be 100 aircraft. Douglas delivered an excellent little plane in the Devastator in 1935. By 1940 it needed a much better radial engine in the 1000-1100 HP [745-775Kwatt] range. mThis meant an uprated Hornet just to keep pace with the Kate. This is the only engine that could be backfit to the Devastator without total redesign. The Douglas air frame was aerodynamically excellent and could take the armor and self sealing tanks if there was additional horsepower/kilowatts to drive it.

The Devastator failed because it had no fighter cover and it had a LOUSY Mark 13 torpedo. There were also not enough of them.

ljr:

1. McCain flatly failed. Fletcher alibied about requesting reconnaissance. Turner flatly demanded SoPac fly air recon up the slot. McCainn demurred because he didn't want to risk his planes in rough weather.

2. Fletcher had a search range of 3 hours endurance [200 nautical miles] if he didn't burden his scout bombers. What do you mean he didn't have the range?

3. Ghormley FUed. He should have used that Tulagi seaplane base for its designed purpose. Why did he hold backl on the Catalinas? Never explained.

4. If you want to blame anybody for FUed communications, blame Fletcher. He specifically complained about this at Midway, that the command arrangement was confusing. He was OTC at Guadalcanal, he should have demanded the authority to kick McCain in the backside. None of his alibis hold up.

5. You do realize that it was a RNZAF Hudson that picked up Mikawa? That befuddled pilot flew back to his base eventually, and filed his contact report through the allied traffic chain seven hours late, didn't identify the five cruisers and three destroyers he saw properly. He saw three seaplane tenders? How the hell could you mistake a Furutaka for a Tone class seaplane tender? Well he did. On top of that he failed to follow standing SoWestPac orders which were to report immediately all contacts and describe the forces contacted. What makes this more horrible is that the New Zealand pilot followed the Mikawa force to try to make sure he identified what he saw and to get the position and course right. Everything he did right except file the report and identify the ships properly. Note that for once you can't blame MacArthur for this FU? As soon as his staff received the report they kicked it it over to Turner.

6. Spruance at Midway had his hands full of Browning and the Enterprise, whose own appallingly slow sortie rates kept him occupied. Hornet, he was aware, was FUed: but aside from urging on Mitscher, what the hell could he do? Relieve Mitscher in the middle of the battle? I would have, but then I'm an !@#$%^&. Besides Enterprise wasn't doing so hot herself.

Carrier operations.

The three aircraft. [Specs. from the MANUFACTURER]

Devastator;

Specifications
Range:
First flight:	April 15, 1935
Wingspan:	50 feet
Length:	35 feet
Height:	15 feet 1 inch
Ceiling:	20,800 feet

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Heenanc01 Wow!! 3/25/2008 2:49:49 PM

Herald losses another argument - Classic

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larryjcr To Herald 3/25/2008 3:44:04 PM

Specifications
First flight:	April 15, 1935
Wingspan:	50 feet
Length:

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larryjcr few comments 3/25/2008 5:18:12 PM

Herald. You quoted production figures for the F4F, but those figures include total production, not what would have been available in Dec. '41. I'll give you the numbers for that. Total USN F4F-3 and 3A assigned as of 31 Dec., '41. VF3-10, VF41-17, VF42-18, VF5-19, VF6-18, VF71-18, VF72-17, VF8-21. Not counting VF2 equiped with F2As, that was ALL the USN fighter squadrons. Outside the squadrons there were available for testing, training and as replacements a total of 33 and another 11 recently delivered and awaiting assignment. The Marines had another 47. Also note that those numbers DO NOT deduct for those lost to VF6 at Pearl Harbor (to friendly AAA) and to the Marines in Hawaii and at Wake. Each fighter squadron should have had 24 a/c, but there just weren't enough to go around.

You also state that there was no commonly accepted operating system on carriers until Spruance took command of 5th Fleet. Not quite correct. In June of 1943, CinCPac issused PAC 10, a standard doctrine developed from the combat experience gained in the first year of the war. The committee that worked it up was heavily weighted with aviators, but was supervised by Spruance in his capacity as CinCPac CoS. Along with many other things, it finally buried the 'single carrier in a screen' concept that Ernest King had ordered on advice of the pre-war aviators, and about which Fletcher had been so opposed. Requiring each carrier to operate in its own, individual screen (the Japanese used one screen for up to six carriers) made co-ordination and defence much less effective, and due to the limited number of DDs available, nearly always left the carrier with an inadequate screen. This, and the lack of appreciation for the performance of the 'Long Lance' torpedo were the primary cause of the loss of WASP, and the torpedo damage to SARATOGA and NORTH CAROLINA in the South Pacific.

Please note that I have never put down Spruance in this thread. He was an exceptional officer (as Fletcher certainly believed). He was certainly much more of the intellectual than Fletcher. On the other hand, Fletcher's combat experience as a carrier Task Force commander as in a class of its own. When Nimitz picked Spruacne as his CoS and sent Fletcher to the South Pacific as OTC for the carrier force, he clearly made chose the best man available for EACH job.

To compare Spruance and Fletcher as carrier force commanders isn't really possible. The conditions of 1942 and 1944 were just too different. Except for being given command in a battle already won, and charged not to lose it, at Midway, and the few weeks of patrolling afterwards, Spruance commanded in only one real battle. He was in many invasions and raids, but only once was he up against an opposing fleet. And at Philippine Sea, every advantage except a/c striking range lay with Spruance and Mitscher. Better a/c, better trained and more experienced pilots, far better electronics (radios and radars), much superior shipboard AAA, and, above all, overwhelming numbers. They made a good job of winning a battle that they shouldn't have been able to lose.

In 1942, the US had only three tactical advantages over the Japanese: better AAA, more compact, lighter and more reliable radios, and radar (such as it was in '42). Against that, the Japanese enjoyed better a/c performance, air crews that were at least as well trained and far more experienced, superior numbers of flight decks and a/c, and above all, far superior doctrine for both carrier and air operations. In spite of the odds, Fletcher, who commanded in three out of the four carrier duels of 1942 managed to get solid victories on at least the operational and strategic levels in all three. The forces he commanded sank six Japanese carriers for the loss of two, and savaged the IJNs carefully developed corps of highly experienced pilots.

To only slightly torture a quote credited to Al Copone: "Once can be an accident. It don't mean nothing. Twice can be coincidence. It don't mean nothing. Three times and you know that something's going on."

You can type: Fletcher Pfui as many times as you like. He was the most successful carrier commander of the Second World War in terms of accomplishments.

In his report to Nimitz after Midway, Spruance described Fletcher's decision to relinquish command as : "wise and gernerous." Fletcher had the right to go aboard HORNET and take command of TF16. But that would have meant a chang

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JFKY 3/25/2008 9:53:19 PM

Herald keeps talking about what MIGHT have occurred starting in 1938, but I think a critical piece of information undermines this. In 1940 the US spent 1.7% of GDP on Defense. This is after the outbreak of war in Europe...The US was NOT interested in defense spending until after 1940...defense spending more than tripled in 1941 to 5.7% GDP. My point being that there was NO impetus or desire prior to 1940/41 for there to be any more money spent on defense than was being spent. There was NO chance, realistically, that any President Class CV's or new aircraft were going to be authorized in 1938. The industrial capacity was there, but not the will...and to discuss it as if it were truly possible is just silly.

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Herald12345 3/26/2008 5:05:04 PM

This will take a while, probably more than one post.
Starting at the bottom, Sea Wolf was not prototyped at 'about the same time' as the Avenger. First flight of TBF prototype. 1 Aug. '41. First flight of XTBU was 22 Dec. '41 (note - that's only one month before the first PRODUCTION TBF was completed. The Sea Wolf needed more tweeking than the Avenger, and more time was lost due to transfer of the program to Consolidated. The production contract for the TBY wasn't even placed until September '43.

1.5 months difference. Prototype for Sea Wolf to production model 01 would have been eight months because of the tail flutter problem. That design fix was a 30 day solve and fabricate already in hand when the prototype flew in December. Also remember that the Avenger was rushed into production with SERIOUS design faults such as the bomb release mechanism malfunctioning and the CG problem they never quite solved. .

2. The production contract wasn't placed until September 1943? The dedicated government built PLANT wasn't ready until September 1943. The order was March 1942. This was part of the bungling to which I referred when I blamed BuAir for assigning nitwits to manage the government end of this fiasco. The reworked prototype after weapon proofing was tail ripped off by an inept aviator, and after repairs; had its tail chewed off again by some brain-dead naval cadet who ran into it with a trainer. That plus Consolidated monkeying around cost six months.

The TBD could have gone back into production with a larger engine, but I have serious doubts about a power increase of 50% without a major re-design of the structure. He engine would have fit into the hole, but handling the increased power loading in something else. Anyway, an even bigger problem was that Douglas already had its hands full with production of the SBD, A-20/DB7 and C-47 series, all of which were high priority. By 1943 the US a/c production had radically increased, but that was NOT the case in two years earlier.

You must be kidding? You have to boost the engine power. You've no choice in this: as it was quite apparent in exercises that the TBD would have to circle chase a fast target to set up a quarter attack much less a beam attack. You remember that the cruising speed was 120 mph? THAT was the maximum speed burdened with an 800 HP engine. That bird was seriously underpowered. The Kate wasn't much better but still...... With a 1100-1500 HP engine you could increase the cruise speed [160 mph] and the jink phenomenally. This was a Douglas built bird. Only Grumman built them tougher. The problem you have with the Devastator is the torpedo and the balancing for the extra 300 pounds of engine. Wing-loading on that large wing would have gone up a half pound per square foot. Insignificant.

We do agree on the Japanese failure to hit the fuel and support installations rather then the BBs. I'd commented on that earlier. The Japanese made the same old mistake of thinking tactically instead of logistically.

As did the Germans and the British and us. CREF my comments on Mitscher's glory boys not bagging the tankers at the Philippine Sea..

Your comments to me:

1. Fletcher requested the searches as I described earlier during the final planning for WATCHTOWER.

He did but he didn't follow up on it, and I pointed that out..

2. I mean exactly what I said. From his patrol area south of Guadalcanal (the only practical location),

2. The production contract w

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larryjcr back to Herald 3/26/2008 7:50:38 PM

You keep repeating you beliefs as if they were facts. That was a very nice print of Spruance's report, that neiter changes nor contradicts anything that I've posted.

Planes from TF16, under Spruance's command did indeed, sink AKAGI, KAGA and HIRYU (but not SORYU), and did so WHILE THAT TF WAS UNDER FLETCHER'S COMMAND AS OTC, AS SPRUANCE HIMSELF REPEATEDLY ACKNOWLEDGED. Why is it so hard for you to accept that simple FACT??? To claim otherwise it like saying that Spruance had nothing to do with the Philippine Sea battle because the planes that did the fighting flew from carriers commanded by Mitscher! What part of that are you having trouble with?

Both Spruance and Fitch were personal friends of Fletcher over many years. Neither of them had any trouble giving him credit for what he accomplished. Yes, I have read Lundstrom, and feel that he's done a good deal of original, careful research and proven his point. If you can show me where he is wrong, do so. But that will require more than these seemingly obsessive rants against Fletcher. Fitch never claimed to have been in command at Coral Sea. Spruance never claimed that he wasn't under Fletcher's command during the first days strikes at Midway. That claim was MADE FOR HIM after the war by Morison et al. I've quoted Spruance's letter to Fletcher. He was under Fletcher until released to act independently at 1811 hrs. The four IJN carriers were sunk by forces UNDER FLETCHER'S COMMAND.

The map I am using is of the Solomon Islands. You should check the Richard B. Frank book, GUADALCANAL which maps out the search areas in use, and Midawa's route. I'm not sure that I follow the logic of your answer. Fletcher was NOT staying beyond IJN search range with his CVs. He was fully expecting to be located and attacked during the two days he was covering the Guadalcanal landings, and was very surprised (and very lucky) that the Japanese patrol missed him. There was simply no way he could do the patrols beyond the SE tip of New Georgia with SBDs. He had no direct control of McCain's forces, and no way to check on their efforts on a day-by-day basis. That would have been up to Gormley. It seems to me that you're just so obsessed with blaming Fletcher for absolutely everything that you won't look at the time-space relationships here.

The PBYs operating out of Malaita were protected by the fact that the Japanese didn't know they were there. Seaplane basing out of Tulagi would have been spotted by the Japanese a/c raiding Guadalcanal. Actually, the Zeros were running close to the edge of their range going to Guadalcanal as it was.

As I've pointed out before, Nimitz kept Fletcher in spite of King's dislike for him. King disliked Nimitz as well, and had NOT wanted him in the CinCPac slot, but FDR had picked Nimitz personally before King replaced Stark, so (unless he really screwed up) King couldn't get rid of him. I've gone thru King's motives already.

My earlier statement stands, in spite of my growing concern about your blood pressure.

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larryjcr back to Herald 3/26/2008 8:07:12 PM

As 5th Fleet CinC, Spruance was certainly very successful, and was just the man for the job. The had the sheer intellect to handle a job that large, which I doubt that Fletcher could have managed.

That said, 5th Fleet met the IJN in battle only once, at the Philippine Sea. That, and the latter portion of Midway, were Spruance's total experience in carrier battles. He sand four carriers, three at Midway (which I credit to both he and Fletcher as his TF16 launched the attacks while under Fletcher's command). Fletcher sank six carriers at Coral Sea, Midway and Easter Solomons. Spruance completed one victory, Fletcher won three. This is not a put down of Spruance. I don't think that Fletcher was enough of the intellectual to co-ordinate some of those landing operations. But I am talking about Carrier Duels. There were just five in the war, and the last one, the Philippine Sea (as I've already mentioned) was entirely different from the four in '42. In 1944 the odds were so long in favor of Spruance and Mitscher that it would have been hard for them to lose. In any one of the battles Fletcher commanded, it would have been very, very easy to lose.

You defend Spruance for not launching a quick follow-up strike as ordered due to lack of target information, and reaction to ditching losses due to Brownings errors. I've already pointed out that Spruance didn't become aware of Browning's errors until the next day, and it is at best unclear, how seriously he took them at that time. A search-strike centered on the location of the prior attack would have been quite possible. Spruance's message to Fletcher and Nimitz is the tip off. He thought that ALL the IJN CVs had already been knocked out, so there was no need for a quick strike. Fog of War stuff. He was wrong, but his judgement was understandable within what he knew at the time. Fletcher understood that and let it go.

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Herald12345 3/29/2008 7:56:11 AM

You keep repeating you beliefs as if they were facts. That was a very nice print of Spruance's report, that neiter changes nor contradicts anything that I've posted.

How many times do I have to tell you that just because a fool sits in the chair doesn't mean he makes the decisions that count. Fletcher made two wrong decisions and one right decision. He didn't scout properly, he didn't run into the squalls like he should, and he gave up control of a battle that passed out of his control when he lost Yorktown.

CREF above. Fletcher himself admits that he let Spruance run his own battle at Coral Sea [who had the staff?] and he further stated that he let Fitch run air operations during Coral Sea, He most certainly left Noyes holding the bag in the Eastern Solomons. THAT you read from the action reports. I don't give a damn who was friendly with whom. They were all Halsey's friends and didn't criticize him. If I had my way, I would have shot that son of a bitch for incompetence. He's the Genius who lost Hornet and Wasp, you'll remember when he forced Kincaid into battle before he was ready?

The map I am using is of the Solomon Islands. You should check the Richard B. Frank book, GUADALCANAL which maps out the search areas in use, and Midawa's route. I'm not sure that I follow the logic of your answer. Fletcher was NOT staying beyond IJN search range with his CVs. He was fully expecting to be located and attacked during the two days he was covering the Guadalcanal landings, and was very surprised (and very lucky) that the Japanese patrol missed him. There was simply no way he could do the patrols beyond the SE tip of New Georgia with SBDs. He had no direct control of McCain's forces, and no way to check on their efforts on a day-by-day basis. That would have been up to Ghormley. It seems to me that you're just so obsessed with blaming Fletcher for absolutely everything that you won't look at the time-space relationships here.

I think you need to rethink your own calculations my friend. The Japanese were not patrolling to the southwest of Guadalcanal as that was limit of their landbased air out of Rabaul. Malaita on an entirely different axis though was within reach.

The Nells were within range. It was fighter cover out of Henderson that actually protected McCain after it was established . Don't be obtuse. In the November battles when Kincaid fought Second Guadalcanal, there was Zeke cover for that Japanese troop convoy he intercepted. Kincaid made the simple astute decision to base Enterprise strikers out of Henderson Field to intercept that convoy. His fighters were necessary as the CAP breaker as the convoy had Zeke cover The reason Kincaid had to land his aircraft at henderson was because Fletcher managed to get Enterprise wrecked so badl

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