First and foremost the figures he gives are flatly wrong; he gives
[ul]
[li]B-26 4189 square feet[/li][li]B-17 7800 square feet[/li][li]G4M 500 square feet[/li][/ul]
The actual dimensions of the aircraft are (dropping inches for the sake of simplicity):
[ul]
[li]B-26 58x71 feet=4118 square feet[/li][li]B-17 74x103feet=7622 square feet[/li][li]G4M 65X81 feet=5265 square feet[/li][/ul]
So he’s making the G4M out to take up 10 times less square footage than it actually does. Not a promising start. Now for why simply determining square footage alone can’t be used the way he wants: 2 B-17s occupy about 15,000 square feet, 3 G4Ms occupy about the same square footage. Now park the two B-17s wingtip to wingtip, they occupy a space 74x206 feet. You can’t cram 3 G4Ms into that same space even though they occupy about the same square footage; wingtip to wingtip they take up a space 65x243 feet. They make different shapes; you can’t saw off the bits that don’t fit. This is without even addressing the space requirements for housing plane crews, ground support staff, fuel trucks, bomb trucks, maintenance and spare parts, etc, etc. At best you can get a guestimate of the number of one type of plane you could swap out for another, and a very rough and sloppy one at that.
Thanks.
Yeah, as mentioned above, logistics becomes a big problem for basing a large number of planes anywhere, especially on a small island without a lot of space or established permanent facilities. The hardware the Americans had at Midway was part of a temporary surge. I’d be curious to learn if they could have sustained that deployment for very long, and how much of a strain it would put on supply shipping and the like.
All planning, including military planning, concerns “possible future” events.
By your logic, then, no planning is serious. But that is an absurd conclusion,
so your premise must be unsound.
Nor do your problems merely consist of confusing rhetoric with logic. You suffer
from contradiction by the historical record as well. See link:
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
From link, all emphasis added:
Addressed above.
Addressed above.
We are not arguing about the wisdom of a Japanese invasion of Hawaii, or about
odds of success.
Inadequate shipping was an early objection made by Yamamoto’s opponents within
JN. Yamamoto’s prestige was so great that he has able to carry the day within the Navy.
The Japanese Army originally refused to support the operation, but the Doolittle raid
changed made the Army change its mind.
I mentioned it because Truk is an atoll, and you seemed confused about how big
an atoll can be.
It would have been firm ground if I had noticed Wiki used different units of measurement
for US planes and Japanese planes. However, I should have realized 20x25’ would not
be enough for a WW2-era high altitude horizontal bomber.
My point is not that Japanese air assets on Midway could have succeeded in anything.
My point is how much the US would have earmarked to make sure they could not succeed.
Also, the analogy you suggest is corrupt. You fail to appreciate that while one bomb hit
on Henderson would definitely not cause inability to conduct air operations except for a
trivial amount of time, one hit a carrier flight deck definitely would cause inability to conduct
air operations for days to weeks, and might even sink the ship.
The thousands came from an off-the-cuff estimate of a need for at least a 10-1 ratio
of fighters to enemy land-based bombers. The number is wrong but the ratio is reasonable,
particularly if the enemy bombers could count on fighter escort, and particularly if the
defenders also had an anti-ship mission.
Each carrier was, in fact, a thin-skinned giant fuel tank and ammunition depot waiting
for a single bomb to be dropped on it. The US already had over 200 defenders in Hawaii
without a land-based air threat. Given the threat one sole bomb represented it would
have been reckless not to maintain a 10-1 ratio of defenders.
The section you refer to was carelessly written.
I am never disingenuous. From Wiki in re defensive multipliers I mentioned earlier:
Air battles over Henderson Field and strengthening of the Lunga defenses
(from link):
Addressed.
Pearl Harbor was uniquely vulnerable. For example, no other belligerent had a theater
naval HQ and primary base on an isolated archipelago 2000 miles from all supporting resources,
dependent for all needs except water.
Singapore had been in a vaguely similar situation, but Singapore had fallen, and one reason
it fell was its grossly inadequate airforce assets.
Addressed in post #84
Funny you should mention Shattered Sword. See my post #84 again.
As I said in that post I am not making a case for a successful Japanese invasion of Hawaii. I am making a case for Japanese intention to mount an attack on Hawaii, and Shattered Sword clinches it. I am also making a case for need for a 1000+ plane air defence of Hawaii in the event the Midway’s outcome was reversed, and the US was left with none of the capital ships it had started the Pacific war with, and no new ones scheduled for commissioning for several months.
I don’t see where.
You’re misunderstanding it. The fact that the Japanese planners were hopeful of attacking Hawaii doesn’t mean that they had anything like the power to pull it off, and it was never seriously planned, not in any way military leaders would consider “planned.”
I don’t get what you’re saying here. IF the Japanese had destroyed all the US capital ships, the US wouldn’t have been able to contemplate offensive action – at which point, it’s JUST FINE to garrison Hawaii defensively, in fact, it becomes the best move.
So your point is that, under an extremely unlikely longshot scenario, the US would have been forced to use the obvious and most effective countermove? Shrug.
It makes the case that 1000+ fighters would not have been over-garrisoning.
For the last time, I am not suggesting a Japanese plan to attack Hawaii was a good plan, or that it had a good chance of success.
You either did not read the damn post, or you did not understand it despite the plain English, or you have fallen into a state of certifiable psychological denial. Give it another try, OK?:
(from post #84, quoting from Shattered Sword):
(page 28):
“On December 9, 1941 he (Yamamoto) had ordered (Rear Admiral) Ugaki (Yamamoto’s Chief of Staff) to reexamine the notion of an invasion of Hawaii…”
“It has commonly been supposed that any successful Japanese operation in the Central Pacific would have culminated in an invasion of Hawaii. Certainly this is what Yamamoto had in mind.”
(page 37):
“…(As of April 12, 1942 Japanese Navy Command HQ had accepted Yamamoto’s Hawaiian objective, but) operations against Hawaii had not been authorized, because Army ratification would have been required for such a plan.”
(page 38):
“**After seizure of Midway, Johnson and Palmyra would be taken, setting up an invasion of Hawaii…**the Navy optimistically anticipated that this operation would be launched with the cooperation of the Army. It was this plan that (JN General Staff chief) Admiral Nagano personally submitted to the emperor on 16 April.”
(page 43):
“On 25 May (1942) just days before the Nagumo force was slated to sail for Midway, the Army issued orders to several units to begin preparing for an amphibious attack against Hawaii. Training for the assault was to be completed by the end of September. Thus, against great odds, Yamamoto had achieved his goal- operations in the CP aimed at the destruction of the American fleet and the subsequent capture of Hawaii”
The defenders would not have categorically passed up any chance to attack a enemy ship that got within range.
“Obvious and most effective countermove?” “Shrug”? Excellent!-- I take it you are on board with 1000x defenders after all.
The fact that certain Japanese elements wrote about a plan does not mean in any military sense they had one. Part of a serious attack plan is having designated forces and logistics. All the history books I’ve read – including Shattered Sword – are quite clear the Japanese never came close to actually organizing an attack. Maybe these plans were just paper tigers to appease higher-ups, or something.
What? Putting masses of fighters on Hawaii doesn’t mean you can’t also put masses of bombers there. Who said anything about passing up attacking ships?
I’ve made the case that lots (1000s is stretching it, but would easily have been doable) of fighters would have been a good move and easily affordable by the US, and they could be re-purposed later after the situation changed.
So yeah – cheap, safe, effective, doesn’t take away from doing anything else – why wouldn’t I be on board with it?
Rubbish. A “plan” in any sense, including military, is in the beginning no more than intent and partially organized ideas in the mind of the planner. Furthermore, whatever stage intent and ideas were in, for them to be sublitted by the highest JN naval authorities to the Emperor Himself is proof that the plans were serious, and no amount of Clintonesque quibbling over the definition of a word like “serious” is going to change that.
We had been discussing US action against enemy air attack, then I mentioned the same defenders might take action against enemy forces afloat, at which point you made your “offensive action” objection. I reasonably assumed your “offensive action” would include seeking out and attacking enemy ships.
I’ll take your “stretching it” to mean you have no serious objection.
I take this to to signify wholehearted agreement with what I have been saying all along. Obvious, isn’t it? Now if I can only get you to see the equally obvious in re Japanese planning.
I suppose I had better change the following passage from post #84:
“It would have been firm ground if I had noticed Wiki used different units of measurement…”
to:
“It would have been firm ground if Wiki had used the same units of measurement…”
Well, it’s pretty hard to interpret your intent in these posts. I thought you were saying that the Japanese taking Midway would impose some sort of serious difficulty for the US, and you seemed to be arguing it would be undesirable to station a lot of fighters in Hawaii as defense (and still ignore my point that Hawaii was bound to have a lot of fighters anyway at that point in the war, to prevent another Pearl harbor.)
Now you are “agreeing” that it wouldn’t have been burdensome to the US and would have been a good idea? Thus disagreeing with your (apparent) original point? Or what?
It would-- see my “unsinkable aircraft carrier” remark.
You just can’t read.
I said: “1000+ fighters would not have been over-garrisoning.”
I said: “I am also making a case for need for a 1000+ plane air defence of Hawaii in the event the Midway’s outcome was reversed.”
I said: “The thousands came from an off-the-cuff estimate of a need for at least a 10-1 ratio of fighters to enemy land-based bombers. The number is wrong but the ratio is reasonable, particularly if the enemy bombers could count on fighter escort, and particularly if the defenders also had an anti-ship mission.”
I said: “I should add that even the possibility of attack by 100+ enemy bombers with fighter escort would make it mandatory to reserve 1000 fighters for defence at all times.”
And that is as far back as I am going to go.
I do not recall commenting on whether 1000+ fighters would have been “burdensome” or not. I suspect that in 6/42, barely 7 months into the war, it would have been burdensome, given that armament production, and pilot induction and training were not yet ramped to the max, and given the competing needs of the ETO. What we might have done if sufficient air assets were not available is another topic.
I am now tired of this discussion and will drop out unless somone comes up with some twist that absolutely must be answered.
And MY point was that with Midway taken, and the US fleet presumably wrecked, there would be literally nothing to do offensively, and therefore putting lots of fighters on Hawaii wouldn’t have posed a serious problem for the US, while at the same time completely forestalling the putative Japanese attack on Hawaii.
The problem with Midway as a base to launch a major air offensive over Hawaii was that there simply isn’t much room on the place. As mentioned before, those 100+ planes will need fuel, ammo, spare parts, crew, mechanics, support personnel, food for the crew, mechanics, and support personnel, some place for all of these people to sleep, not to mention anti-air defenses, to include the crew, mechanics, spare parts, ammo, etc. for all of that.
Meanwhile, all the Americans on Hawaii need to do is send a big enough force of bombers and fighters to steamroller through the paltry 100+ planes (which would include bombers of negligible use to air defense, and which in fact serve as additional targets, and bomb the unholy hell out of the airfield, the planes, the air defenses, the fuel, ammo, spare parts, support personnel, housing, etc.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Get a movie made about it by Micheal Bay or Joel Schumaker that will get all of the historical details wrong. It worked on the continent of Europe with the relatively small plot of Britain to serve as a base, it would work on Midway Atoll with the relatively huge plot of Hawaii to serve as a base.
Said movie must include a “love interest” to appeal to a broader set of movie goers. Include shots of the woman staring out to sea, wondering if the love of her is ok.
If this is what passes in your mind as logic its no wonder you have such a hard time making sense of the world. A serious plan is actually you know, planned. Not just referenced as the target of possible future operations. That’s not planning. That’s talk of possible future planning. It’s not a very difficult concept. It’s hard to believe that you arrive at the conclusion you do from what was said. There was never any serious planning for invading Hawaii. Your own cite says as much. The only reference to a plan is from page 38, which if you read closely isn’t a reference to a plan to invade Hawaii; it is a referencing to the plan to invade Midway, Johnson and Palmyra.
You may not be, but those of us with our feet in reality are.
It was an early objection because Japan did not have the shipping to carry the operation out. Full stop. Yamamato’s prestige was not going to make enough shipping warp into reality. They did not exist. Japan barely had the shipping to carry out their opening moves in the war and ship the fruit of their successes back home. They did not have the lift to move 4 or so divisions for the assault wave of an invasion of Hawaii to such a distant target, fuel also becomes a consideration and with it the lack of enough oilers available to the IJN.
Your inability to come to logical conclusions continues to astound. I can assure you that you are alone in reading what I wrote and concluding I’m unaware of the sizes of atolls. Speaking of inability to determine size, any comment on your incredibly shrinking G4Ms that are only 1/10th of actual size in your world?
This is a flat out lie. The different units of measure that Wiki uses that you claim to be unaware of are feet and meters. I took the dimensions from Wiki myself for the G4M, B-26 and B-17 and was unconfused by Wiki’s use of both the English and metric measurements. It’s not exactly something unique to Wiki done to confuse you.
Further, you still would remain on unsound ground had you not been using miniature 1/10the scale Bettys for the reasons I explained in post 81.
No, it is yet again your attempt at logic that is corrupt. As I noted, Hawaii is not one huge fuel dump waiting for a spark to ignite the entire island. How exactly do you leap to the conclusion that any bomb dropped anywhere in the vicinity of Hawaii is going to be magically drawn to the flight deck of any nearby carrier?
In other words, you pulled it from where everyone knew you pulled it out of.
Not only is the number wrong, the ratio is anything but reasonable. It is entirely absurd. No nation ever considered anything near a 10-1 ratio of fighters to attacking bombers to be anything but absurd overkill, much less the numbers required at a minimum. By this absurd ratio the Battle of Britain must have been a complete disaster and loss for the British as they didn’t have the 10,000+ fighters needed to stop 1,000 Luftwaffe bombers.
Aside from the fact that nobody maintained a 10-1 ratio of fighters to bombers on their aircraft carriers or land based airfields.
The section I refer to was written by you.
You are not only disingenuous, you remain unable to stay on topic. Your disingenuousness was in listing the aircraft on hand at Rabaul at the start of the Guadalcanal campaign and comparing it to the number of planes available at the height of the campaign at Henderson Field as if there was some useful relation to be drawn between the two. The proper comparison to the planes at Rabaul when Guadalcanal began would be to the planes on Henderson Field at the start of the campaign, which is the grand total of zero.
I can assure you those of us reading what you imagine passes for a discussion tired of you long ago. By the by, it’s not the 1960s anymore and you’re not programming in COBOL. You can type more than 80 characters per line.
Moderator Notes
colonial and Dissonance, dial it way back. Some of your comments are way too snarky for this forum. I’m not going to try to read through the whole thread to find out who started it, but it’s going to stop now. If you can’t discuss this civilly, you’ll be liable for a warning.
This goes for everyone.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
50/50 chance of her either being Japanese (and probably played by an actor of Korean or Chinese descent) or of being the popular female actress du jour.
Coincidentally, today both Midway and the Solomon Islands (one of which is Guadalcanal) are in the news – Midway for a 63-year-old albatross who hatched a chick, and the Solomons for an earthquake/tsunami that’s killed at least 5 people.
This is a good analysis.
It can be added that the Japanese were actually quite conservative in their invasion strategies in South East Asia in 1941 and 42. They hop frogged with building airfields to support landings, and supplemented with carriers when necessary.
Hawaii was simply too far away and after December 8th, would not be easily attacked by surprise again.
It would not have taken 1,000 fighters to defend it.