Heres a hypothetical. Say a modern day Nimitz class aircraft carrier magically found itself transported back to the pacific on the morning of the Pearl harbour attack, finding itself directly in the flightpath of the Japanese aircraft. The Japanese see the carrier and immediately decide to attack it with everything they have.
How well would they do?
Does the carrier have the anti-air weaponry to take out all the planes, easily or not? Would the planes have the weaponry to do more than superficial damage to the carrier? Who would win?
I’d bet against anything but incidental damage to the carrier. If they’re allowed to get a couple of F-18s in the air, the Japanese planes would be wiped out in minutes. If not, the ship’s AA would eliminate most of them before they could strike or drop a torpedo.
No escorting ships to hunt subs and throw up flack? It’s best asset is its speed and range. Get the hell away from Nagumo’s 4-6 carriers if it has no plans of sinking them. How many missiles do those two squadrons of F-18s have, along with their cannon? Same with the AA batteries. Planes have to land to refuel and re-arm. Nagumo can launch several waves of attack planes and one of those need to get lucky only once. We’re not even counting Kamikazes, which as of FC hasn’t entered anyone’s vocabulary, and the possibility that a Japanese submarine comes within torpedo range while the carrier’s fighting off planes.
A Nimitz class has radar, so they’re going to detect incoming aircraft. I don’t know if in this scenario if they’ve got a BARCAP and if there’s an alert squadron on cockpit alert, 5 minute alert or what. If they’ve got an E-2 Hawkeye up, they’re going to spot it coming very far off and they’ll get the alert squadron off and a pretty good start on another squadron. And they’ll probably call Battle Stations to have all AA and CIWS stations manned or armed up. Strategically, the best thing the Americans can do is take out the 4-6 Japanese carriers. Losing the Nimitz wouldn’t have much effect on the US winning the war.
Another factor is that the Nimitz is a lot bigger than any WWII carrier. In terms of tonnage, the Nimitz is almost four times the size of a WWII Essex-class carrier and can take a lot more damage.
Let’s pretend the Nimitz doesn’t defend itself. Would the attacks that sank Yorktown, Lexington or Hornet or the four Japanese carriers at Midway be able to sink Nimitz?
Nope. Japan launched about 350 airplanes against Pearl Harbor. A pair of F-18s would be very lucky to kill even 10% of that force. We’re talking every single missile kills an attacker, and incredible efficiency with gun kills kind of lucky. In other words, the kind of lucky that just doesn’t happen in the real world.
An aircraft carrier would have CIWS and a RAM (rolling air frame missle) launcher (it moves around to face the target). However, the CIWS only lasts so long and it takes awhile to reload. The RAM, IIRC, has 11 missles. The thing about CIWS is that you would have to kill the pilot to stop the plane. Hitting the plane won’t do much unless it explodes in some way.
There are also M25 AA turrets on the ship. That would be the better defense and can be reloaded much faster. But, still takes some time.
Who would win would depend where and how the carrier was hit. The USS Enterprise has 8" thick belt of aluminum armor in the hull. That’s a lot. The planes colliding would do a lot as they have both mass and speed so if you had repeated hits on the flight deck and the hull you make your way through, eventually. But, you would need quite a few.
Accepting the constraints of the OP, where the Nimitz class carrier is in the flight path of the first attacking wave, it has to contend with up to 174 aircraft in a very short time, as comprised of the following:
(of these, six aircraft were unable to launch). There are another 40 Zeros flying defensive CAP not that far away, but the Japanese are not going to attack immediately with those,
Shortly after the launch, the flight paths separated of the groups separated, so the above is the maximum number the carrier has to contend with for the immediate attack.
Advantages for the Japanese: Primarily the large number of aircraft. The bombs are powerful enough to cause major damage, knock out catapults, and cause other problems while they swarm the carrier. If the aircraft are close enough when the Final Countdown moment happens, this number of enemies could cripple the carrier.
Disadvantages for the Japanese: Their aircraft are fragile, lack armor for the pilot and do not have self-sealing gas tanks. The CIWS will make mincemeat of the ones they can get. If the carrier is able to get any interceptors in the air, they will also enjoy easy picking.
Lack of radios in the Japanese planes, making on-the-fly changes difficult. The Japanese will not be able to make coordinated attacks, which will benefit the carrier, but with the great numbers of attackers, coordination isn’t necessary.
Japanese war doctrine proscribed close adherence to detailed attack plans. Although there would be this inviting target directly in their path, the question would be how many squadrons would join the attack and how many would continue on to their assigned targets. The resultant confusion would be the major disadvantage to the Japanese and it could prevent them from taking advantage of their numbers.
The number of torpedo bombers, which would have an extremely difficult time against modern AAA.
Advantages for the carrier:
The AA capabilities. CIWS or RAM could destroy a fair number of Japanese planes. Modern AA would have a close to 100% kill rate for everything they could attack. As pointed out above, it only problem is the reload rate.
It the Japanese were at the further limits of visual range when the event occurred, the carrier could start to select targets at a greater distance.
Modern damage control techniques are much more advanced than in early WWII. In fact, the US got much better during the war, and this was a factor in preventing the loss of more ships during the end of the conflict.
My WAG:
Were the carrier to appear right below the first wave, the Japanese would win, albeit with the loss of many aircraft.
If the carrier were to be in the flight path of just Groups 1 and 2, at a further distance and with several planes in the air or on the catapults, the win could go to the carrier.
If they have the time/range, I suspect an air-burst tactical nuke (surface or air launched) would be the (one-shot) game changer. With the deck buttoned down and the yield dialed back the carrier could survive quite a close burst.
^
The 10-kiloton bomb at Hiroshima detonated 500 meters above the city. Temperature at ground zero went past 4,000 degrees c. No ship can survive that.
And even if they could survive that, I don’t think they’d use a nuke even in desperation against a non-nuclear attack.
Someone mentioned Final Countdown, aside from that, the book The Seventh Carrier also deals with that hypothetical. If we assume that the carrier has appeared right as the planes are attacking, then they’ve got a big problem. Surprise is a huge gamechanger regardless of technological differences. If Fort Benning was suddenly attacked by a Roman Legion out of the blue, I’d put my money on the forces of Caesar.
I did specify sufficient range - close is a relative term, and 500m is not close, it is target zone. 15 - 20 kms for an airburst is much more survivable, maybe less.
Tactical nuclear weapons against large-scale conventional aircraft attacks was considered in the past, and nuclear air-air missiles were part (albeit limited) of the US armory. Against 150 odd incoming aircraft armed with bombs and torpedoes, I think the possibility of such a strike would be considered.
During the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fuchida, the leader used flares to signal the beginning of the attack.
The bombers were able to more effectively utilize their radios, as they had more crew.
For the detailed attack plans, this was part of the Japanese war philosophy, and Admiral Yamamoto was no exception in his love for detailed plans. Some of the greatest battles, including the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Leyte Gulf were impossibly complicated.
The Japanese had planned and trained for this mission for months. Finding a lone carrier, I can easily see them deciding to not completely change to attacking it with all aircraft, as it would be reasonable for them to assume that they could sink it with less than all of their forces.
For the US carrier to survive, it would require that the Japanese to attack in piecemeal, and for enough time to launch, what, a dozen or so fighters before the Japanese could swarm it. Now if the carrier had any of its task force along, it would be a different story.
When I read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf for the first time, I learned about the plan before I learned of the outcome. As I was reading I was thinking, “That sounds like a good plan. The Japanese must have won that one.”