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engineer -> RE: Pearl Harbor Alerted (4/30/2009 9:24:04 PM)
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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.
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