Lesforan wrote:I don't believe Nimitz would have dawdled in Yorktown's repairs in any case. He must have been acutely aware that with his battleships either sunk or disabled .
Nimitz did command a Battleship Force that by April consisted of 7 Battleships escorted by Destroyers: Task Force #1. Leading up to Coral Sea, Nimitz left his Battleship force out of plans to meet the Japanese with all available USN Naval strength. Because he could not support the BBs with logistics, screening ships [these were needed for the Carrier Forces] or Aircraft. But especially because the BB force could not keep up with the Carriers. So inspite of the common wisdom that the USN was short of BBs due to Pearl Harbor, the USN had an intact and Battle Ready 7 BB task force. For obvious reasons, the force played no part in the Naval War at that time. April-June 1942.
In fact the battleship force did sortie to a defensive position off the west coast in early June as an overlooked part of the Midway deployment. It was send there as a hedge against the chance that the JN-25 message traffic decoded at Pearl Harbor was in fact a gigantic ruse and the Japanese were really planning some other spectacular deep thrust Pearl Harbor style raid as revenge for the Doolittle raid.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
Remember, in 1942 the USN is also having logistical problems shifting from a peace footing to a war footing. The thirsty battleships were stationed at the end of the rail pipelines for a reason - to release tankers and supply ships for US forces in the Atlantic, ground troops in Iceland and Northern Ireland, lift and escort for the British war effort.
Nimitz probably knew the battleships were a supply nightmare and could not be employed profitably in "hit and run" strikes.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
For the record, the Second Mobile Force's "racetrack" was at 170W between 40N and 45N.
At 0500 3 June, TF17 Indianapolis & Honolulu was at 154W 50N, having departed Oahu 29 May.
For your alternative history, you could take the assumption that Fletcher would follow the track the cruisers laid out, or perhaps a little more Westerly. (Roughly 1,900 miles in 5 days; 380 miles a day).
With the attack on Dutch Harbor being a "total surprise", the Americans would have had 24-36 hours to depart and steam North before the reports from Midway came in. Assume an 8 hour communications delay and you can set the "panic point" at which the USN carriers would go West to Midway or carry on North to protect the Continent.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Werner wrote:
Nimitz probably knew the battleships were a supply nightmare and could not be employed profitably in "hit and run" strikes.
This is true Werner. It was probably Number 1 on Nimitz's list of reasons to fight any pressure to use Task Force #1. When asked to use his BB force Nimitz argued that he would be wasting his Carrier forces trying to give cover to the BBs instead of using his Carriers as the central element of US Naval strike power in the Pacific. I would need to consult my sources, but I believe Nimitiz was under alot of pressure to get the BBs into the fight. He wanted no part of them, and was happy to park them on the West Coast and give them a little 'busy work'. I believe he did send his first escort carrier to exercise with the BB force, looking into Escort Carrier's potential as Air Cover units for BBs. Both being fairly slow. The main question for Nimitz and the Japanese in early 42 was "What really can we do with these BBs"? It seems pretty clear from both sides that no "Pacific Jutland" was about to break out anytime soon.
Bob, I notice that the Japanese battleships were only a minor factor as well in this engagement, a day's sail behind the mobile force of carriers.
The exception, of course is the Haruna class, which had been specifically revised in the '30s to escort the carriers and serve as a counter to the American or British 8-inch cruisers, scouting for them at the edges of the main force.
The Japanese and US idea for employment of cruisers and destroyers was rather differently formulated; the torpedo bearing ships were expected to engage the US main body in the night prior to the main battle, they would take heavy losses but would "more than level the odds" for the morning gunfire engagement expected in Japanese op-plans.
This is the reason a few cruisers were converted into super-torpedo cruisers with 40 tubes on a 5,500 ton hull. It's also the reason they did so well in the Solomons. That kind of night-time engagement was part of their pre-war training.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
