Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

You might be a Japanese fanboy if, for example, if you think that as a viable 'alternative history' (a) it is reasonable to assume that the USN CVs might have been in Pearl Harbor at 7:30 AM on 7 December 1941 and (b) it is unreasonable to assume that USN CVs might have been together in a TF 125 miles away from Kido Butai launching a surprise airstrike at 7:30 AM on 7 December 1941.

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U.S.S. ENTERPRISE
At SeaNovember 28, 1941
BATTLE ORDER NUMBER ONE
1. The ENTERPRISE is now operating under war conditions.
2. At any time, day or night, we must be ready for instantaction.
3. Hostile submarines may be encountered.
4. The importance of every officer and man being speciallyalert and vigilant while on watch at his battle stationmust be fully realized by all hands.
5. The failure of one man to carry out his assigned taskpromptly, particularly the lookouts, those manning thebatteries, and all those on watch on the deck, mightresult in great loss of life and even loss of the ship.
6. The Captain is confident all hands will prove equal toany emergency that may develop.
7. It is part of the tradition of our Navy that, when putto the test, all hands keep cool, keep their heads, andFIGHT.
8. Steady nerves and stout hearts are needed now.
G. D. MURRAY,Captain, U.S. NavyCommanding
Approved: November 28, 1941.W. F. HALSEY,Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy,Commander Aircraft, Battle Force

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U.S.S. ENTERPRISE (CV6)
CV6/A16-3(11-Kz) At Sea,
November 28, 1941.

BATTLE ORDER NUMBER TWO - 41

Subject: Supervisor - Instructions for.

The Supervisor of the Watch will see that the following provisions for action against hostile craft are carried out whenever conditions warrant: Current developments have changed the "challenging" situation to some extent, in that we are now on a war basis and must be ready to open fire without hesitation should suspicious contacts be made.

Carrier doctrine - for exercise or for war - still requires use of evasive tactics in all cases of possible hostile contact. ENTERPRISE must not disclose its presence by challenging or opening fire unless we are obviously being sighted or will soon be sighted. Fire emergency identification signal if ENTERPRISE comes under fire or appears in danger of being fired upon and immediately thereafter open fire if the correct answer to challenge is not properly made.

If a submarine is encountered at close range immediately turn toward or away, depending on whether she is forward or aft of the beam. Open fire, and if turning toward, attempt to ram the submarine, unless she makes the proper recognition signal. In that case give submarine as wide a berth as possible and have plane guard check on identity.
At night, if the plane guard fails to challenge when a contact with any unknown vessel, other than a submarine, is made, ENTERPRISE shall challenge immediately and open fire without delay, unless proper identification is made by the stranger.

Until the return of ENTERPRISE to port, the Supervisor, as direct representative of the Captain, will consider all submarine contacts to be hostile vessels and will take immediate necessary action to avoid attack and will order fire to be opened when deemed necessary, without waiting for the Captain's arrival on the bridge.

Fire against aircraft, or vessels other than submarines, will not be opened without reference to the Captain, except when it is evident that an actual attack on ENTERPRISE is being made.
(Signed) G. D. MURRAY
Captain, U.S. Navy,
Commanding.
APPROVED, November 28, 1941.
(Signed) W. F. Halsey
Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy,
Commander Aircraft, Battle Force.

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MEMORANDUM FOR: SUPERVISORS and DECK WATCH OFFICERS.

Subject: Current information.

AIRCRAFT:
Readiness:

Normal Condition of Readiness of the Air Department is Flight Quarters or Condition III.
4 VF planes in Condition II daylight to sunset.
1 VB plane in Condition II with 2 depth charges loaded.
All VF, VB, VS, and VT planes on board are loaded to capacity with free and fixed gun ammunition.
Bombs are in ready condition in the magazines.
Torpedoes with war heads in ready condition in torpedo storage.
Every plane leaving the ship will carry 3 message droppers.

Plane sighting submarine will:
Zoom it.
Drop float light
Open fire with machine guns
Report position by radio ONLY in case it is evident no surface vessel's attention has been attracted.

BATTERY:
Readiness: - Fire Control is in Condition of Readiness III, with ready ammunition at the guns as follows:

50 rounds per 5" gun
20 clips - 160 rounds per barrel - 1.1" guns.
1000 rounds per barrel .50 caliber machine guns.

RADIO:
Ship and aircraft will observe strict radio silence except for contacts. Merchantmen will be reported by aircraft message drops.

A watch-in-3, Officer Watch, is being maintained in Radar Plot and the Radar instrument being continuously manned and operated, at prescribed intervals, day and night.

SHIP CONTROL
Condition of Readiness III.
At least once each watch all lookouts will be inspected to ascertain that men are familiar with sectors to be covered and clearly understand that they will not abandon search of their own sector when contacts have been reported in another sector.

Control Officers will have their attention brought to the necessity of ascertaining that all battery officers understand their assigned sectors and are familiar with the location of own ships within those sectors.

The Officer of the Deck will maintain current familiarity with challenge and recognition signals and require necessary changes to be made at times specified.

The Supervisor, Officer of the Deck and Junior Officer of the Deck will keep themselves currently informed of the disposition and the location of ships therein.

FLOATING OBJECTS
All floating objects whose character is in anyway uncertain should be avoided. Mines may be secured to dummy periscopes, water-logged boats, or to wreckage or to other objects or they may be tethered in pairs to floating objects.
(Signed) T. P. JETER
Commander, U.S. Navy,
Executive Officer.
CC: OOD Order Book
All Officers

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The consternation of the men and officers was considerable. Commander William Buckner, Halsey's Operations Officer, confronted Halsey immediately after the briefing: "Goddammit, Admiral, you can't start a private war of your own!" "I'll take [responsibility]. If anything gets in the way, we'll shoot first and argue afterwards," replied Halsey.

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I'll take [responsibility]. If anything gets in the way, we'll shoot first and argue afterwards," replied Halsey.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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The Japanese aces did score that many kills.

Nope. The problem is that the number is based on "claims" then subsequently revised downward by Japanese review as "confirmed kills." When you look at the unit records for the units against which Japanese "confirmed kills" occurred, you still find Japanese kills overestimated by anything from a factor of two to an order of magnitude.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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Does it make me an Japanese fanboy to think that they could have done even better than historically?

You might be a Japanese fanboy if, for example, you think that "Midway was a result of luck."

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Interesting...do you have a source that actually lays out the evidence that kills are overestimated by 2X to 10X?

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It was bad luck on the Japanese part that the one seaplane that had spotted the US had radio problems...it was good luck on the overall US part that the Devestator torpedo squadrons arrived first on the scene with little to no fighter escort..although bad luck on their part. It was bad luck for the Japanese that most of the fighter cap got involved in chasing down the torpedo planes. It was good luck on the US part that at the moment of the devestators demise..two dive bomber squadrons from two seperate task forces arrived nearly at the same time over the top of the Japanese. It was bad luck on the Japanese that they had just begun launching their own strike and had left munitions lying all over the place at the when the Dauntless's arrived overhead. It was bad luck..although not critical at the time, that the Hornet dive bomber squadron couldn't find the Japanese and were forced to divert to Midway.

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It was very fortunate that the 2 carriers were at sea at that time. But even had a 3rd strike against pearl been launched..and if the one US carrier enroute to Midway been successful in finding the Japanese, it is highly unlikely that a single carrier could have caused much concern to a 6 carrier task force and would have most likely itself been sunk.

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Frankly, I'd trade Enterprise for 2 Kido Butai CVs on 7 December any day. It means that the force ratios in subsequent engagements are going to be more favorable for the USN.

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If Midway were fought 1000 times, it would turn out more or less the same for the US or even better for the US 999 times. The fundamental problem was, from the outset, that Japan's CVs were mission-overtasked with simultaneous mandates to (1) suppress/eliminate Midway atoll as a operational base, (2) maintain CAP, (3) attack enemy CVs that were not supposed to be there in the first place. The fact that this problem was pointed out prior to the battle by Japanese operational planners and never resolved points out how willfully Nagumo and the operational planners simply wished to disbelieve in the known realities of carrier ops in 1942.

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One wonders how Midway would have turned out if as little as a single key search plane had been shot down ...

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Not out to lunch. The people who are out to lunch are the ones who think that any other result was likely. Frankly, I view the "sh1t happens" approach to understanding anything to be remarkably useless, since it eschews the development of a good understanding of cause and effect.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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One wonders how Midway would have turned out if as little as a single key search plane had been shot down ...

Another search plane would have made the identification?

We know how it would have turned out if Tone No.4. had not flown its delayed recon mission. The Yorktown would never have been spotted.

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ORIGINAL: Sabre21

There was plenty of luck on the US part at Midway. Yes..we laid a trap for the Japanese..but we still had to destroy their carriers and stop the invasion of Midway.

It was bad luck on the Japanese part that the one seaplane that had spotted the US had radio problems...it was good luck on the overall US part that the Devestator torpedo squadrons arrived first on the scene with little to no fighter escort..although bad luck on their part. It was bad luck for the Japanese that most of the fighter cap got involved in chasing down the torpedo planes. It was good luck on the US part that at the moment of the devestators demise..two dive bomber squadrons from two seperate task forces arrived nearly at the same time over the top of the Japanese. It was bad luck on the Japanese that they had just begun launching their own strike and had left munitions lying all over the place at the when the Dauntless's arrived overhead. It was bad luck..although not critical at the time, that the Hornet dive bomber squadron couldn't find the Japanese and were forced to divert to Midway.

So there was plenty of luck to go around that day.

Sabre21

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The "sh-t happens" approch is a fundamental to understanding nearly everything. It's trendy formulation is chaos theory, but the ideas have been around forever.

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The reason it partially eshews traditional cause and effect (i.e. determinism), is because it is impossible to understand all the potential causes of a given outcome in a complex system (like, for instance, a battle involved 1000's of individuals and machines - in which each individual and machine is itself a complex system whose actions cannot be predicted with certainty).

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Since it is impossible to model or understand all the potential causes and how these causes interact with one another, you can never really know the outcome of a complex system with certainty. That is just a fact of life. To think that you can predict this outcome with certainty is hubris.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Incorrect. Consider that the IJN at Midway lost 2 CVs to Yorktown in the initial strike. Had Enterprise launched a surprise airstrike on 7 December it is completely plausible that Japan would have lost two or three CVs without ever locating Enterprise. Frankly, I'd trade Enterprise for 2 Kido Butai CVs on 7 December any day. It means that the force ratios in subsequent engagements are going to be more favorable for the USN.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

You have no idea what Halsey might have been inclined to do. As for the general context of the discussion, the point, which you seem to have missed, is that if one can imagine such a deviated set of historical circumstances that puts 2 US CVs at PH on 7 December then it is entirely an equally appropriate to imagine that 2 US CVs had their full compliments of aircraft and were in strike range, undetected, of Kido Butai, in the early dawn hours of 7 December 1941.