Topic: For the WWII history fans.

[Sirgod]

just click the link, you won't be disappointing. (Large amount of pictures warning for those on slower connections warning.)

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1FvuKi/stories-etc.com/hidden.htm

Stephen

[Brush Wolf]

Nice find there. I had seen the first two pictures but not the others. The Germans actually camouflaged a port to throw off the allied bombers although unfortunately I can't find a link to that at this time. 

[Sirgod]

I believe I have seen what you referred to here Brush. Alas, I am unsure of a link also.

It's kind of funny, The way this was found, was due to a lengthy Discussion, (read Flame war) between a Texan, a guy from NJ, and me the okie, over No-euclidean Geometry.  Needless to say, the topic devolved, and I was introduced to this page.

Stephen

[762_XC]

That's pretty cool...a lot of effort to guard against something the Japanese never could have pulled off (course they thought that about Pearl Harbor).

[Lono]

AMAZING!!!

 

Very very cool - thanks for sharing that!

(reminds me of that new PC game R.U.S.E. I just picked up on steam)

[knightstorm]

That's pretty cool...a lot of effort to guard against something the Japanese never could have pulled off (course they thought that about Pearl Harbor).

Actually, the Japanese did launch one air attack against the continental United States using a float plane deployed from a submarine.  Their target was a forest since they felt that a forest fire would force the US to divert resources away from the war.  But an attack on the Lockheed factory could have been possible.

[762_XC]

Germans landed on the east end of Long Island too, but I would hardly call that an invasion. The IJN could never have dreamed of mounting any sort of large scale raid on the west coast without capturing Pearl first.

The Doolittle raid was a far greater undertaking, yet in terms of actual damage (morale notwithstanding) was militarily insignificant.

[Kreeargh]

That's pretty cool...a lot of effort to guard against something the Japanese never could have pulled off (course they thought that about Pearl Harbor).

Actually, the Japanese did launch one air attack against the continental United States using a float plane deployed from a submarine.  Their target was a forest since they felt that a forest fire would force the US to divert resources away from the war.  But an attack on the Lockheed factory could have been possible.

There was a spoof movie made about this event i dont recall the name but it was funny Japs attacking a amusement park thinking it was a factory. The local puplic ended the issue.

[knightstorm]

Germans landed on the east end of Long Island too, but I would hardly call that an invasion. The IJN could never have dreamed of mounting any sort of large scale raid on the west coast without capturing Pearl first.

The Doolittle raid was a far greater undertaking, yet in terms of actual damage (morale notwithstanding) was militarily insignificant.

How would you know that?  A major part of Japan's "strategy" involved trying to demoralize the US.  A risky attack on the continental US would fit right in with that.

[762_XC]

How would I know that? Because I understand naval logistics from that period.

Pearl Harbor was a severe stretch for them (hence why naval planners in the U.S. didn't think it could happen). California would be simply impossible.

[Starfox1701]

That was pretty damn cool thanks man

[Lieutenant_Q]

It may have been a good strategy.  But ships of that time were limited in how far they could range from their bases.  Ships could only carry so much fuel.  Pearl Harbor was at the outer edge of their range limit.  Now, had they captured Pearl, all bets were off and strikes at the California coast were not only possible, but in fact guaranteed.

We get kinda spoiled today by the fact that Nuclear powered craft can sail for months without stopping (and they need to stop to take on fresh food supplies, not to refuel), but back in the World War II era, ships could only range as far as their oil tanks allowed, sailing across the Atlantic was hard enough, going across the Pacific with out a stop was impossible.  (and Combat Operations has to include the return trip)

[762_XC]

Their overall strategic objective was to prevent U.S. interference with their expansion into the "Southern Resource Area" (aka southeast Asia). It was, oddly enough, a defensive strategy in the sense that they were only concerned with protecting the assets that they had seized and planned to seize, and their sea lines of communication. Pearl Harbor was well outside the defensive cordon they had marked out for themselves. California might as well have been the other side of the world.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was designed to do one thing, and that was cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet and give them six months of "running wild" as Yamamoto put it. Their unrealistic hope was that once that was accomplished the U.S. would negotiate a peace favorable to Japan.

Once they realized they had missed the carriers at Pearl, and Coral Sea underscored how problematic that would be for them, destroying them became their new operational focus, culminating in the Midway campaign (which was designed to do just that). The west coast was never even on the drawing board, and nor was capturing Pearl.

[knightstorm]

California was within range of a Japanese Submarine.

As for Japan's strategy, they were trying to re-fight the Russo-Japanese war, or at least how they perceived that war to have been thought after decades of propaganda.

[762_XC]

A submarine is not a carrier fleet. And logistics entails more than steaming range.

U-boats operated in the Gulf of Mexico. That doesn't mean the Kreigsmarine could have put a fleet there.

[knightstorm]

Who said anything about putting a fleet?  The Japanese had submarines that could deploy float planes.  I'm arguing that it wouldn't have been beyond their capabilities to use them to launch a few air attacks against the west coast in an attempt to instill panic, and that the Lockheed plant would have been a target.

[762_XC]

That would have been insignificant beyond belief. They had only a few of these things, and the planes could carry one bomb each of <2000 lbs. It would have made the Doolittle raid look massive by comparison, which as I said, was materially insignificant. These were small torpedo planes, not B-25's. Airpower then was not like today, where a handful of fighter-bombers can do significant damage with precision-guided munitions.

The operation they had planned against the Panama Canal would have probably yielded a much greater result, had they gotten it off in time, and had they used kamikaze attacks as they decided to do later in the war. The operation called for ten planes, the most they could conceivably get into the air off of submarines, and the canal was probably the only target that ten planes could do enough damage to to matter.

[knightstorm]

Like I said, the real damage would have been its potential to cause panic.  The entire Japanese war plan was based on the US becoming demoralized and suing for peace.  If they could have caused a brief interruption in the Lockheed plant's operation so much the better.

[762_XC]

That was their war plan in 1941-2. After Midway their war plan was based on desperately trying to hold ground, and damage the U.S. fleet in any way they could.

The I-400 class wasn't even in service until 1945.

[knightstorm]

They did have smaller aircraft carrying submarines, which were in service as early as 1940.

[Lieutenant_Q]

An issue with this point however, is that, while the army believed that the Americans could be scared into suing for peace, the man responsible for the navy, Yamamoto, was not convinced.  The difference here, was that Yamamoto had been to the United States and saw what the American people were doing during the Great Depression.  He was convinced that the Americans were sturdier people than their propagandists propagated.  The Army officers though, they bought the propaganda hook, line, and sinker.  They overruled the one man who had been there, and ordered him to draw up the attack plans.  Pearl Harbor really wasn't about trying to force the American Surrender, it was about getting the Carriers.  Yamamoto realized that the only way they were going to have a chance in this war was to sink the three US Carriers, and then to follow it up with quick decisive strikes that put the US on its heels.  Had the Carriers been there, and sunk, I think a follow up operation to take Hawaii would have been worked out.  But when they missed the Carriers, Yamamoto knew the war was lost, because they could not hope to keep up with American Industry, and those three Carriers were all the Americans needed to hold their operations at bay long enough for the US to build who knows how many more (we do know, now, but back then they didn't).  Which is why Yamamoto tried desperately to engage and sink those Carriers in early 42.

[762_XC]

Had they sunk the carriers, taking Hawaii would have been moot. Even taking Midway was only a strategic feint to draw out the carriers.

[knightstorm]

I disagree with you guys about Pearl Harbor.  The goal of the attack was to take the battleships out of action, although they definitely would have liked to remove the carriers from the board also.  In 1941, the prevailing view was that battleships were still the key players in naval warfare, although there was an increasing recognition of the role of naval airpower.  Carriers were still viewed as supporting players.  Like I said, the Japanese were trying to re-fight the Russo-Japanese war, by opening with a crippling strike against the enemies Pacific fleet.  I will agree that Yamamoto realized that the US in 1941 was not Russia in 1904, but he was over-ruled by his superiors.

[762_XC]

"It was a disappointment and anxiety to all of them that they had not found the American carriers at anchor...the rational course was now to withdraw the fleet from danger - who knew where the American carriers might be steering?"

- John Keegan, The Second World War

It was perhaps the prevailing view of the old guard. But that did not include Yamamoto and Nagumo, especially after Taranto.

[Lieutenant_Q]

Yamamoto was one of the visionary military men of the Second World War.  He saw that the age of the Battleship was at its end.  The advent of naval air power rendered them obsolete.  The naval air power, still in its infancy at the time, was shown time and time again to be able to down the heavier ships, whose sole purpose was to sink other ships.  Destroyers, really a new class of ship at the time, with anti-air guns (and eventually anti-submarine weapons), would become the support elements of the new Carrier Fleets.

I'm reading Guderian's Memoirs right now, and Guderian was one of the other visionaries of the war.  He was one of the first to realize that tank warfare was not about supporting the infantry, as British, French and German strategists of the time espoused.  It was he who bears a large responsibility for the Blitzkrieg doctrine that dominated the Second World War in Europe.

[knightstorm]

"It was a disappointment and anxiety to all of them that they had not found the American carriers at anchor...the rational course was now to withdraw the fleet from danger - who knew where the American carriers might be steering?"

- John Keegan, The Second World War

It was perhaps the prevailing view of the old guard. But that did not include Yamamoto and Nagumo, especially after Taranto.

Taranto and Pearl Harbor both involved the sinking of Battleships in surprise attacks while they were at port.  People still believed that a battleships at sea would be superior to carriers.

[Lieutenant_Q]

If a Battleship came along side a Carrier, yes.  Battleships win.  But the key to Carriers, and Taranto proved that first, was that Carriers could strike at Battleships without endangering the Carrier.  The Swordfish bombers that the British used were useful in Torpedoing the Italian fleet.  Yes the Battleships were at anchor, but there was no reason to assume that even if the Battleships were at sea, trudging along at 20 knots, that they wouldn't be any more difficult targets.  Yamamoto and Nagumo both realized that the Carrier was superior to the Battleship, but that the Battleship had its place, supporting their Carriers.  But the cost of building new Battleships would quickly outstrip their usefulness in their new role.  A role that would be taken by Cruisers and Destroyers in the next era.

[Brush Wolf]

That's pretty cool...a lot of effort to guard against something the Japanese never could have pulled off (course they thought that about Pearl Harbor).

Actually, the Japanese did launch one air attack against the continental United States using a float plane deployed from a submarine.  Their target was a forest since they felt that a forest fire would force the US to divert resources away from the war.  But an attack on the Lockheed factory could have been possible.

There was a spoof movie made about this event i dont recall the name but it was funny Japs attacking a amusement park thinking it was a factory. The local puplic ended the issue.

I think the movie you are thinking of is 1941.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078723/

[762_XC]

I'm reading Guderian's Memoirs right now

I finished Panzer Leader a little while ago. Be sure to read Lost Victories (Manstein's memoirs) next if you haven't already.

[762_XC]

People still believed that a battleships at sea would be superior to carriers.

Again, some people. But not the ones in charge of operational planning for either side.

After Yamamoto lost his carrier force at Midway, he still had five battleships with which to challenge Enterprise and Hornet, not counting the two with Kondo's invasion force. Yet with only one CVL to provide them with air cover, he knew it was hopeless, so he withdrew.

[knightstorm]

People still believed that a battleships at sea would be superior to carriers.

Again, some people. But not the ones in charge of operational planning for either side.

After Yamamoto lost his carrier force at Midway, he still had five battleships with which to challenge Enterprise and Hornet, not counting the two with Kondo's invasion force. Yet with only one CVL to provide them with air cover, he knew it was hopeless, so he withdrew.

I'd say there's good evidence the people in charge of the US operational planning still believed that as most of the battleships sunk at pearl harbor were raised and modernized, and 10 additional battleships were completed by war's end.
The key term in your post is at midway.  By that point, the destruction of Force Z, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the fighting earlier in the day had driven home the point about the effectiveness of the carrier.

[762_XC]

Well, you were talking specifically about the goal of the attack at Pearl Harbor, which was planned by Yamamoto.

Yamamoto was a driving force in naval aviation in the IJN, like Q mentioned. So there is little doubt the carriers were primary targets even then.

The plan was executed by carriers...how much doubt do you think Yamamoto had about their effectiveness as capital ships?

I don't think anyone thought battleships were useless...no one is arguing that. But to say that they were the primary target over the carriers would be a mistake.

[Lieutenant_Q]

I'm reading Guderian's Memoirs right now

I finished Panzer Leader a little while ago. Be sure to read Lost Victories (Manstein's memoirs) next if you haven't already.

A couple years ago, there was a brand new wargame out, one that we played considerably for about a month at our Wargaming night.  (one that I haven't been to in over a year now, unfortunately) Manstein's Backhand Blow.  1943 Ukrainian counter-offensive.  It was a well thought out game, and since that one, I've taken a good interest in him.  I'll have to find Lost Victories sometime this summer.  Unfortunately my summer reading list just keeps growing.  And I do want to get through Decision Points (Bush's Memoirs) some time before Christmas.  Not too mention all the Civil War era books I keep pushing back because I find something more interesting to read first.  (Not that the Civil War is dis-interesting mind you...)  Sigh... maybe I need to break my leg and unplug my computer...

[Grand Master of Shadows NCC37385]

That's pretty cool...a lot of effort to guard against something the Japanese never could have pulled off (course they thought that about Pearl Harbor).

Actually, the Japanese did launch one air attack against the continental United States using a float plane deployed from a submarine.  Their target was a forest since they felt that a forest fire would force the US to divert resources away from the war.  But an attack on the Lockheed factory could have been possible.

There was a spoof movie made about this event i dont recall the name but it was funny Japs attacking a amusement park thinking it was a factory. The local puplic ended the issue.

"1941" with John Belushi.


edit: Oooops, did see that Brush Wolf had already answered that.