The Japanese Pacific Strategy (Warning: WW2 Thread)

[Spino]

Even if the US lost most of the major battles in the Pacific through mid-1943 the outcome of the war with Japan was never in question. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war from Nazi Germany the US was out for blood and was backed by a ridiculously powerful industry to give its thirst for vengeance the means to express itself.

Now about the battle of Midway...

Camoflage played little to no part in the battle of Midway and had little effect on most of the naval engagements of the war, especially the mid-later years. Camoflage, per the use of those fancy angluar paint schemes on the sides of warships, was meant to fool enemy ships and submarines into making erroneous judgments regarding their actual size, class and course. Not to say that naval camoflage was completely useless but it really was a solution for a bygone era dominated by naval gunnery. Superior optics, aerial reconnaissance and especially radar with its long range, relatively hard to fool detection methods made camoflage obsolete and most navies abandoned its usage as the war progressed.

Ships, especially large capital ships, are easily spotted from the air by their obvious size and wakes. The presence of numerous smaller support vessels such as cruisers and destroyers also gives an aerial observer a clue as to the size, nature and value of the larger ship(s). This is not to say aerial observers didn't make false ID calls when spotting enemy fleets. When viewed from a considerable distance aircraft carriers were often confused with large tankers or other support vessels of comparable size and shape. For those American pilots to spot the 'red meatballs' painted on the flight decks of the Japanese carriers tells me they were close enough to make a fairly accurate ID call regardless of whether they saw the 'meatballs' or not.

Even though the Americans knew the Japanese were going to attack Midway the battle could have been much closer and could have easily gone the other way. Most historians love to overlook a few simple facts which helped contribute to the scale of the US victory...

1) The two most modern and effective Japanese carriers, the Zuikaku and Shokaku, were scheduled to participate in the Midway campaign but were unavailable due to battle damage (Shokaku) and air crew losses (Zuikaku) sustained at the battle of Coral Sea.

2) On the morning of the initial attack on Midway all but one Japanese observation plane took off on time for its reconnaissance patrol. That particular float plane took off from its cruiser roughly 20 minutes later than scheduled thanks to technical problems with the catapault. Guess which reconnaissance plane spotted the American fleet too late for Admiral Nagumo to properly react? Had Nagumo been given that information in a timely fashion he would have never ordered a second strike on Midway and instead would have had ample time to follow through with a massive strike against the American carriers. But, as luck would have it he was given news of the location of the US fleet while his carriers were in the middle of re-arming for a second strike against Midway. His carriers were not only found but caught with their pants down when the Americans attacked.

3) The initial American strike on the Japanese carriers was an unofficial disaster until three squadrons of SBD Dauntless dive bombers arrived on the scene. Three TBD Devastator torpedo squadrons (as in ALL available torpedo squadrons from all three American carriers) were virtually annihiliated by Japanese fighters and anti-aircraft fire and their F4F Wildcat fighter escorts fared no better. Even the Devastators that somehow managed to get through the fighters and flak and drop their torpedoes had no effect due to misses or duds. Early war US torpedoes were notorious for their high dud rate and the US Navy's early war 'aerial' torpedo was no exception. It was so unreliable and finicky with regard to proper airspeed and drop altitude that many either traveled too low beneath a target ship's hull or didn't explode at all. They were that bad! Those three SBD squadrons that eventually arrived were on their way back from a fruitless search for the Japanese fleet and literally stumbled upon a destroyer that was rejoining the main fleet after chasing an American submarine. The dive bombers then followed the destroyer back to the main fleet and the rest is history. Furthermore those three squadrons of Dauntless dive bombers were so low on fuel that after the attack many were unable to make it back to their carriers and had to ditch in the sea. Just imagine if they never found the Japanese fleet! Any subsequent attacks from the American carriers would have probably been too little too late.

Basically Midway was a much closer affair than most people think. An overwhelming Japanese victory at Midway might have affected the outcome of the war in the Pacific by prolonging it for another 6 months or so but not much else. By mid-late 1944 the US had an obscene number of fleet and escort carriers, far more than the Japanese could handle!