You're Captain Yelland of the USS Nimitz and...

[Galvatron]

...you've just destroyed the Japanese fleet, thereby preventing the attack on Pearl Harbor. It's late morning on December 7, 1941 and you're in command of a US Navy aircraft carrier from 1980. What do you do now?

Yeah, I just saw The Final Countdown again, but I never saw this question really put to the think tank that is SD.net. This scenario, of course, assumes that you never returned to your own time.

[adam_grif]

I probably run out of bombs and jet fuel fairly quickly. The carrier itself will last longer since it's running on the ol' green rocks.

If there are any nukes on-board (I'm unfamiliar with whether carriers normally stock any) that would surely be something that the US would love to dissect. Even without that, anybody on-board who is reasonably knowledgeable about them and/or project manhatton's history may be able to expedite the project.

[Galvatron]

I probably run out of bombs and jet fuel fairly quickly. The carrier itself will last longer since it's running on the ol' green rocks.

If there are any nukes on-board (I'm unfamiliar with whether carriers normally stock any) that would surely be something that the US would love to dissect. Even without that, anybody on-board who is reasonably knowledgeable about them and/or project manhatton's history may be able to expedite the project.

Could the US make jet fuel compatible with the Nimitz fighter wing in 1941?

Get blown up by a Japanese destroyer from 2005?

Is that from a fanfic?

[Ted C]

Do I actually destroy the Japanese fleet? I know perfectly well that if Pearl Harbor isn't attacked, the US might still sit out the war until Britain fell. Maybe I ought not retaliate until the first bombs drop. At that point, my counterstrike can wipe out the Japanese fleet.

At the very least, I need to find some way to contact the White House. Might be a little tricky to get them to believe me at first. If they put me off as a crank, I at least have an excuse to hold fire until an American asset is actually attacked.

Following the actual exchange of fire, getting to talk to the President and Congress should be easy. The fleet at my disposal is ample proof of my claims. My fleet should have some tactical nukes; Congress and the President can authorize their use.

I'm curious, though, how the presence of the Nimitz task force would affect the political climate. We might demand that Germany and Japan surrender on threat of nuclear retaliation. On the other hand, Congress might insist on further isolationism, since they now have a stick big enough to repel any threat for some time.

[Galvatron]

Wouldn't the wholesale destruction of the Japanese fleet be good enough to convince Hitler and Mussolini to back down as well?

[Ted C]

Could the US make jet fuel compatible with the Nimitz fighter wing in 1941?

Isn't it pretty close to kerosene? I think 1940's refineries should be able to manage it.

Does an aircraft carrier keep detailed schematics much of the onboard hardware? Certainly the 1940's government is going to want to study every bit of technology in the fleet to try to reverse engineer it. Some of it wouldn't even be out of scope, although it would probably be years before they could do anything with the advanced electronics.

[Galvatron]

Hell, wouldn't it give the US military enough of an advantage if the Nimitz could cough up schematics for the B-29? How much of a difference would that plane have made early in the war?

[Ted C]

Hell, wouldn't it give the US military enough of an advantage if the Nimitz could cough up schematics for the B-29? How much of a difference would that plane have made early in the war?

Quite possibly a lot, but why would the Nimitz have them?

I'm more interested in things like...

Do they have the chemical formulas for advanced military explosives?
Do they have the structural designs for jet engines?
Do they have anything on the metallurgy of jet parts and missile parts?
Do they have sufficient science and engineering texts to help contemporary scientists and engineers understand just what's going on in some of the 1980's equipment? They've known what a transistor is since 1925, but making replacements for 1980's parts?

[Ted C]

As for you, I don't know what kind of technical library an aircraft carrier in 1980 would have, but I would think that between whatever it does have and the knowledge contained in heads of the crew, they should be able to uplift American technology by a few years at least. Right?

Oh, certainly. Many of the basic principles used in equipment on the Nimitz are already understood by 1941. The tech base for reproducing it doesn't exist yet, but the scientists of the time will at least be able to understand what's going on, especially if they have access to decent technical manuals and knowledgeable technicians. The really miniaturized stuff will be the hardest to grasp, like the computer parts.

At the very least, access to advanced working models will drastically accelerate the development of jet engines, rockets, nuclear reactors, and nuclear weapons, all of which are being actively worked at this time.

[Ted C]

You mean you wouldn't arm Patton with a bunch of 1980-tech enhanced tanks and send him to Moscow to overthrow Stalin?

I wonder just how drunk with power the 1940's US government would get if they had access to a dozen or more nuclear warheads already equipped with long-range (by their standards) delivery systems. That's the most obvious history changer that the Nimitz brings.

[Ted C]

Would even Stalin have the balls to proceed normally if the US had the Nimitz?

It's not just the Nimitz, even. If I recall correctly, the whole task force went through the vortex in The Final Countdown.

[Galvatron]

The Nimitz was alone in the movie. Was there a book?

[Stofsk]

Ted C might be confusing the film with an unrelated-but-similar-in-concept novel called 'Designated Targets' which had a future joint international task force go back in time but they stay there permanently.

[Ford Prefect]

Now that I think about it, there's a book version of the premise in The Final Countdown, called Weapons of Choice. It's was totally abysmal, incidentally.

[Stofsk]

Now that I think about it, there's a book version of the premise in The Final Countdown, called Weapons of Choice. It's was totally abysmal, incidentally.

Right, I somehow mistook the second book of the trilogy for the first one...

[MKSheppard]

...you've just destroyed the Japanese fleet, thereby preventing the attack on Pearl Harbor. It's late morning on December 7, 1941 and you're in command of a US Navy aircraft carrier from 1980. What do you do now?

Return to Pearl and drop anchor; and then do like Yelland suggests:

"After that, we take our orders from the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces."

As for wondering about technical advances; there was a line in a declassified CIA report I read once:

U.S. engineers conducted a detailed comparison between the Russian engine (R-11) and the U.S. J-79 fighter engine of the same vintage and gross level of performance.

Although the Soviet engine was acknowledged to be an outstanding design, the philosophy and approach on which it was based were quite similar to those of Soviet engines and Soviet weapons more generally.

The Soviet engine had 90 percent fewer parts than the American engine (2,500 versus 22,500).

Standard gauge materials throughout increased weight but reduced materials costs.
Lower turbine inlet temperatures allowed use of conventional materials.

The raw material cost per pound was estimated to be 60 percent less than for the U.S. engine.

Open clearances reduced manufacturing costs and resulted in some teststand performance degradation, but these levels did not degrade further in operations, as was the case for the more precisely manufactured U.S. engine.

Although the Soviet design was highly innovative in aerodynamics design and overall concept, it was conservative in execution. Parts were stressed to about half the U.S. levels.

Estimated production costs (using U.S. prices and wages, but duplicating the Soviet manufacturing process) of the MiG-21 engine was roughly one-third that of the American.

The analysts judged that the R-11 could have been produced with U.S. technology of the 1930s.

So clearly we need to have a MiG-21 being secretly transported in a crate on the USS Nimitz during the Final Countdown event.

EDIT:

Even more amusingly, we need to have a R-11 turbojet in it's crate, complete with technical diagrams in russian sent back in time to the United States in 1931; so that US companies can build the R-11, and associated jet bombers; so that Hitler never invades Poland in 1939; because he fears the Armee d'air and RAF with hundreds of transsonic jet bombers at their command, bought from US companies.

[Galvatron]

Return to Pearl and drop anchor; and then do like Yelland suggests:

"After that, we take our orders from the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces."

Okay, and then what?

[Simon_Jester]

Well, that part's kind of up to President Roosevelt, no? If he tells you to go blow up the Imperial Palace in Japan, you by God go blow up the Imperial Palace. If he tells you to go nuke Hitler, then by God you go nuke Hitler (assuming you have nukes, which I would infer you do, on account of you being a Cold War US carrier task force). Et cetera.

It's not your decision anymore.

[MKSheppard]

Okay, and then what?

Well, the first thing that everyone on Kimmel's staff would want to know is the basic capabilities and performance of the NEEMETZ, so you can begin to plan operations around it.

The performance of the A-6 would make a lot of things possible -- a two seat aircraft capable of delivering 14,000 lbs of bombs (28 x Mk 82 500 lb bombs) out to a combat radius of 500 nautical miles with an advanced radar bombing system allowing you to bomb in all weather, including night?

The ten A-6s on the NEEMETZ would be able to replicate the effort of 46 B-17s flying with 6 x 500 lb bombloads (or 7 B-29s with 40 x 500 lb bombloads) and they'd do it with much less weather related aborts and get much more accuracy out of their bomb drops -- like be able to flatten that refining plant or rail yard in a single mission.

The A-7 Corsair (of which NEEMETZ has 24) are no slouches. They can deliver 4,000 lbs of bombs (8 x Mk 82 500 lb bombs) to a combat radius of 600 nautical miles with drop tanks. They also have pretty decent daylight bombing accuracy due to their CCIP/HUD (The A-7 was one of the first planes to get it). This is roughly equivalent to two squadrons of B-17s, albeit much more accurate.

Just conventionally, Nimitz has firepower equal to 1.6 Heavy Bomb Groups with B-17s or about 1 squadron of B-29s. That's a lot of firepower in the 1940s for a carrier.

And the planes fly much higher and faster than anything in the world (yet).

And of course, there's the whole force multiplier thing from the E-2; making it almost impossible to strike the Nimitz; since they'd spot you well away from the carrier and have more than enough time to whittle you down with F-14s and A-7s; even if we restrict them to just 20mm gunfire.

Then of course, there are the special weapons deep in the carrier. Officially at one time, the Forrestals got credited as having 1,650 tons of conventional ordnance and 150 tons of nuclear.

If we applied that same ratio to the 2,000 tons of ordnance Nimitz has; then about 180~ tons is nuclear weapons.

The A-6E was cleared to carry the Mk 28 (1,700 to 2,300 lbs), Mk 43 (2,060 to 2,125 lbs) and Mk 57 (500 lbs).

At an average weapon weight of 1,500 lbs; that's only 240 nuclear devices available.

Given that there won't be much credible information coming out of the Japanese fleet before it was sunk; and that the authorities will have clamped down on Pearl Harbor well before the Nimitz arrives; Hitler won't be working on credible information about the new arrivals; and he might well just try declaring war on the US.

In that case; what's likely to happen is that FDR orders the NEEEMETZ to do a full power run to the North Atlantic -- at 30 knots, the 10,500 n.mile journey would take 14~ days, plus a few transiting the Panama Canal under tight secrecy.

Then from a point somewhere in the Barents Sea, the Nimitz launches F-14s with TARPS pods to fly over the eastern front and photograph the Nazi Horde overrunning Russia. A few more days pass; then she launches several nuclear strikes that tear the heart out of Army Groups North, Center and South.

Remember -- at this point in time, US policy is not massive strategic bombardment -- I've got some old TIME LIFE "This year" in review minibooks that have FDR all basically teary eyed over 'indiscriminate' civilian bombardment. So him authorizing a nuclear strike on Berlin at this point in time is not yet in the cards...but blowing Guderian, Rundstedt, von Bock, etc to ashes is attractive.

Of course, there'd be follow up conventional strikes within Germany itself, I'm thinking about putting a WALLEYE right into the Fuehrerbunker itself and taping the TV targeting feed.

[Thanas]

Roosevelt is not going to unilaterally declare war. No way.

[Galvatron]

Shep, is all of that logistically possible with only the resources that the Nimitz already carries or would the US military be able to keep her running somehow?

[MKSheppard]

Roosevelt is not going to unilaterally declare war. No way.

You know, that reminds me of something that I was thinking about --what's going to happen over the Japanese strike force we just sank?

I mean, the Japanese won't have anything other than crazy scattered gibberish from the radio operators, who will be transmitting in morse code; and thus slower than voice.

If we used Walleye from A-6s to cripple the carriers or battleships before we went in with A-7s and Iron bombs; they're not going to literally know what hit them.

We'd have the Japanese first wave on video with the cameras on the F-14s; including some nice shots of the bombs and torpedoes hung under the aircraft -- along with their flight path (towards Hawaii).

But I don't know if that even would be admissible in world opinion. Or even if FDR wants to reveal said video at all, and hold his cards close to his chest regarding said CVAN.

[MKSheppard]

Shep, is all of that logistically possible with only the resources that the Nimitz already carries or would the US military be able to keep her running somehow?

With only the resources Nimitz carries. They'd be able to keep the fancy stuff running for a month or two of hard operations, but by then the stuff would start breaking -- like for example, the A-6's bombing radar, reducing us to daylight attacks.

[Galvatron]

So what then? And at what point does the Nimitz and her aircraft become unusable?

[MKSheppard]

So what then? And at what point does the Nimitz and her aircraft become unusable?

The reactor is good for "15 years" according to documents I read at the US Navy yard.

Other sources I have read suggest that the USN reached reactor lives of 10,000+ hours at full power by the late 1960s.

In real terms; that translates to about 300,000 nautical miles of range at 30 kts before Nimitz needs refueling.

The advanced electronics like the radars, the NTDS link to the E-2, etc etc all depend on how much actual life we ask of them. We can make them last for several years...if we don't use them that much.

If we however demand wartime readiness around the clock, then they'll be shot pretty fast.

The jet engines should last a reasonable amount of time -- as should the airframes. It's just that the advanced electronics that make them so awesome -- will die before that.

The weapons? Well, you can have the aircraft drop iron bombs (it would be a minor matter to have bomb plants shift over to produce low drag iron bombs, and ammo plants to produce the 20mm cartridges used by the M61.)

The real advanced stuff like TV Guided Bombs, Air-to-air missiles, and nuclear weapons would be useless in about 10 years, even if you didn't use them. Some stuff could have their seals and rocket motors remanufactured, albeit at lower fidelity; but a lot would just become more and more unreliable.

I think the greatest value that Nimitz would have is in showing that things are possible, namely nuclear propulsion, supersonic aircraft, accurate night radar bombing, surface to air missiles (The Nimitz would have Sea Sparrow), etc.