Apollo11
Posts: 24082
Joined: 6/7/2001 From: Zagreb, Croatia Status: offline
|
Hi all, quote:
ORIGINAL: mdiehl quote:
As far as the six carrier go , I don't see it. Six CVs are what would have been required to give the Japanese a fighting chance of a draw with respect to CV losses under those circumstances. If your consim doesn't generate lopsided US victories given the historical order of battle at Midway then your consim is broken. Both navies knew at the time of the historical battle of Midway that if the enemy showed up with even light CV forces while you were engaged with suppressing a major land base then you were going to lose CVs. That's why the Japanese battle plan required the absence of the US CVs. That's why the US CVs during the early war strikes against Japanese positions on the edge of their perimeter were conducted in a context of operational intel placing Japanese CVs to far from the scene of the raids to respond. The Japanese operational plan for Midway was, basically, to capture the island by surprise, and then do to the US CVs that which the US CVs historically did to them. Their plan was to use Midway in exactly the way that, in the historical battle, the US used Midway against the Japanese. The problems were well-known to both navies. What was not known and has not been very well described until "Shattered Sword" came out was just how hopelessly flawed the Japanese operational plan turned out to be. It was the mother of all lousy operational plans. I fully agree with "mdiehl" on this (and yes this can happen)... BTW, few years ago we talked about this problem on WitP board IIRC. In that discussion thread I suggested that Japanese, perhaps, had chance to use fast moving TF to suppress / kill Midway air base using ship artillery during night (Midway is, as we all know, pretty small and there is no room to hide - several hundred heavy HE shells would obliterate it for sure). What I wonder is if that was possible / feasible / realistic ? BTW, if it worked with Guadalcanal - perhaps it would work even better with Midway (i.e. nowhere to hide on small Midway)? Leo "Apollo11"
_____________________________
Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance! A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE
|