What if - we had not been caught with our pants down.

[Thanas]

Carriers had been proven to be superior to battleships earlier in the war. The Pearl Harbour attack was directly inspired by the Royal navy's attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto. In that battle, 21 obsolete aircraft (half of which attacked the fleet while the other half dropped flares and acted as a diversion) were able to penetrate the Italian defences and sink one battleship while crippling 2 others. Even if the attack on Pearl Harbour had not been as successful, I believe that the fact that the Japanese were able to launch an all out attack at the heart of US naval operations would have proven the carrier's worth. And don't forget that in this scenario the Americans would have known that had they not been warned beforehand, the results would have been far worse. Perhaps both sides would be slower in fully utilising the potential of carriers, but I think they still would have known that the days of the battleship were over.

No, I disagree with that. If anything, point to the Bismarck example as that actually involved a ship in fighting condition and underway (and even then it was a very lucky hit). Taranto just proved what everybody already knew - that stationary ships are vulnerable to air attack. Something which had been proved already during the Norway campaign.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So if the USN hadn't lost a significant chunk of it's battlewagons, would it have kept it's carriers in the support/scout role for the battleships? Since they didn't have to rely on carriers as their primary capital ships, would they then take correspondingly higher losses later when IJN carrier planes attack battleship forces on the high seas?

[Tribble]

@ Thanas

hahaha- I WAS going to use Bismark as an example, but then changed my mind last minute. I didn't think Bismark had as much of an influence on the Japanese as Taranto, which is why I chose the ladder instead. You made a good point.

@Eternal_Freedom

Well if that were the case you could argue the Japanese would not even mount another large scale air attack. If Pearl Harbour had been a failure, would the IJN keep using their carriers as primary capital ships, or would they have delegated them to a support/scout role as well? Or would the sheer distances involved when fighting in the pacific persuade the admirals to adopt carriers as primary capital ships anyways?

[Borgholio]

Carriers were used because there was no other choice...for both sides. The Japanese used them because there's no way they could launch an air attack on Pearl with land-based planes, and if the Japanese tried a traditional naval attack, even though our standard-type battleships were aging, they were still more than a match for what the Japanese had at the time. Add in our land-based planes...a conventional sea attack would have been futile. So the Japanese were forced to use carriers for this.

As for Americans, we were forced to use carriers because that's all we had left after we lost battleship row. I'm sure we would have tried to maintain the use of the BS as the core of our fleets for awhile if we hadn't lost them in the attack because some still believed Battleships were the king of the seas. That changed during the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. In both engagements, we used carriers because we simply didn't have anything else to use. But the silver lining is that we learned just how damn effective carriers can be in long-range naval combat.

[Simon_Jester]

Generally when you have multiple weapons per enemy plane, and the enemy planes have no armor what so ever, planes start falling out of the sky. Beyond that, well for one example, the single Japanese attack on Midway, conducted with the same aircrews and planes (basically the attack was equal to one wave of the Oahu strike), and against similar but much smaller numbers of fighters and land based anti aircraft weapons on Midway, but fully alerted, suffered about 23% losses of downed and damaged planes.

We can therefore infer that the Kido Butai would have suffered extremely heavy losses in both waves, unless the second wave was ordered to turn back. This would probably have made the outcome of Pearl Harbor a wash even if all historical damage to the battleline took place on schedule, because killing 100-150 (a guesstimate) of the Kido Butai's pilots on the first day of the war would have made them considerably less effective at all later times.

There could be one negative consequence for the Americans if they had fought the battle prepared. Pearl Harbour was specifically designed to be a surprise attack. When the Japanese realise that the Americans had been prepared for them, they may come to the conclusion that their plan had been compromised. Although they maintained radio silence both before and during the attack, they may have changed their naval codes to be on the safe side. Again, long term America still curb-stomps, but it would mean a period of time where the Americans would have less intelligence available than they did.

On the other hand, the physical reduction to Japan's ability to wage a carrier war might well compensate, since it would tend to neutralize their qualitative edge over the USN, much as Midway did in real life.

[Spoonist]

I feel that the nature of the attack itself was part of their mistake. ...Had the Americans been formally at war with Japan a couple of days before Pearl Harbour I doubt their response and buildup would have been quite so overwhelming and fast.

First, the funny thing is that according to plan the declaration of war would have been a day (or hours depending on where on the globe you are) before the attacks. Yamamoto got rightly pissed by the mistakes of the Japanese embassy to US for not declaring war on time.
Secondly, I have great difficulty dreaming up a scenario where the US senate/house wouldn't do what they did regardless of the declaration of war being a few days earlier or not. That war was coming and that the japanese would launch a suprise attack was something seen as more and more likely by Rosevelt and advicers, so being attacked wihtout a declaration of war wasn't such a biggie. The attack on Indonesia was mere hours after Pearl Harbour. Instead its the "what the fuck" moment of being hit on your own turf where you didn't think it was possible and with naval losses thought to be improbable that brought the senate to approve everything and the kitchen sink. I mean the Atlantic Charter and the Victory Program was both before Pearl Harbour.
http://www.general-wedemeyer.com/victoryplan1.html
The only difference that might happen is that the amero-japanese internment camps might not be as fast in the making.

[Sea Skimmer]

So if the USN hadn't lost a significant chunk of it's battlewagons, would it have kept it's carriers in the support/scout role for the battleships? Since they didn't have to rely on carriers as their primary capital ships, would they then take correspondingly higher losses later when IJN carrier planes attack battleship forces on the high seas?

US carrier doctrine was highly offensive before the outbreak of war. The battleline would have trailed behind several independent single carrier groups that went out to find things to sink or attack. The historical US plan in 1941 in the event of war with Japan was to go carrier raid the Marianas islands in support of Wake and Gaum, and have the battleships follow up to see if Japan could be induced to fight. This wouldn't have gone very well.

We can therefore infer that the Kido Butai would have suffered extremely heavy losses in both waves, unless the second wave was ordered to turn back. This would probably have made the outcome of Pearl Harbor a wash even if all historical damage to the battleline took place on schedule, because killing 100-150 (a guesstimate) of the Kido Butai's pilots on the first day of the war would have made them considerably less effective at all later times.

I kinda doubt they would loose over 100 planes, they still have large advantages in training and numbers with a non trival escort. No way will the second wave be aborted, it was already in the air by the time the first wave strike across Oahu. Also the second wave planes are important for protecting the Japanese carriers themselves, by destroying as many American bombers on the ground as possible. This is all the greater risk if the Americans were found alert.

The harm would be considerable for the Japanese, but it wouldn't stop them from using it intensively in south asia straight through the Indian Ocean Raid. Nothing existing in that direction that could stop it even weakened. It might however mean Japan declines to foolishly split its strength for the Coral Sea, thus leading it six carrier strength intact for the next major battle, be that Midway or elsewhere. No victory disease ect... it isn't for nothing as soon as they broke it up it was defeated. Four US carriers active in the Pacific was too many to be gambling against.

[Tribble]

I disagree with Spoonist to an extent. While the American government may have been preparing for war, those preparations remained secret because the public wasn't too keen on the idea. I feel that if the Japanese had made the declaration of war before hand, the public wouldn't have felt that they had been blindsided quite so much. I think that their desire to "avenge Pearl Harbour" might not have been so keen if they had been at war for a few days expecting an attack. Does that change much in the long run? No, but it might have slowed things down just a bit. Recruitment might have been a bit lower, the senate may have debated issues a bit longer etc etc. Not enough to have affected the outcome of the war of course, but just enough to be noticeable.

[Spoonist]

I disagree with Spoonist to an extent. While the American government may have been preparing for war, those preparations remained secret because the public wasn't too keen on the idea. I feel that if the Japanese had made the declaration of war before hand, the public wouldn't have felt that they had been blindsided quite so much. I think that their desire to "avenge Pearl Harbour" might not have been so keen if they had been at war for a few days expecting an attack.

I don't think that the publics opinion at that point was anti enough not to be swayed by the senate and house. Earlier that year two-thirds said yes to "Should the United States take steps now to keep Japan from becoming more powerful, even if it means risking a war with Japan?" http://ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/Gallup%201941.htm Also check out the income tax values the public was willing to set in the 242-K Question #12, and that is for defense outside of a war.

I think you underestimate the feeling of closeness, when it was a war faraway that none cared about - like China or the Philipines or somesuch people didn't feel it as much, but Pearl Harbour felt close. It made the war much more real to most americans.
I also think you underestimate the shock of Pearl Harbour by itself, and americans' (and people in general) drive for vengance, without any regards to whether or not Japan had declared war before. All the fence-sitters or undecided jumped on the bandwagon immediately. Even most of the pacificsts stopped opposing the war, and they were pacificst.
I mean "remember the Alamo", the sinking of USS Maine and 911 worked perfectly as rallying points regardless of any declarations of war to sway public opinion to revenge.
All of the propaganda pieces would work regardless, they didn't focus on the missed declaration because that is not a rallying point.


But really all of that is moot since what mattered for the budget and the draft was house and senate, not public opinion.

Why do you think that the declaration of war being days earlier would have such a large effect? There are hundreds of examples from properly declared wars everywhere around the globe that if you get hit hard early you use that to instill a want for revenge which is very effective to raise public opinion. Why would the US in 41 be any different?

[Korgeta]

The strike on pearl Harbour both in surprise and attack on American soil was seen as personal, cowardly and intrusive and without a declaration of war. The willingness for the American public to go to war with Japan may have been less certain had the attack on pearl harbour not gone ahead at all, but the manner of how Japan attacked Pearl Harbour (and it's success) made everyone jump off the band wagon, including those who wanted America neutral of all world affairs.

If the U.S got a day's warning there would still be casualties and public outrage, even if war been declared a few days before. Most likely the Japanese would had learnt on this and called their forces back, Japan didn't have that many forces, it's population was small and was reliant on merchant trade, Britain spent about 10 times on convoy protection then the Germans did on U boats. There was going to be no way in the long term that Japan can spend resources on a war with China, supply it's colonies, prepare against USSR, attack Hong Kong and the Philippines whilst thinking that a pre-emptive strike on the US would de-stable an industrial giant and yet not worry about merchant shipping that accounted for about 75% of food to Japan.

The only thing that will change would be the casualty rate, had Japan attacked and the U.S were prepared there still be losses and outrage, but the U.S was going to win and they would had no intention anyway of seeing an Asian superpower challenge their interests. At best it might had been better for the U.S to declare war and japan been on the defensive and try to grind the war long enough that it becomes unpopular. However Pearl harbour gave the U.S a moral cause to fight to the end.

I am a firm believer that had the germans been successful at Dunkirk the british would had been more willing to sue for peace against the empire of japan, meaning they would had resources and territory and pearl harbour may never had happened. I also firmly believe that had the Japanese army had prepared to support Germany in it's invasion of the Soviet Union then Japan would had been more able to secure a tighter stronghold on the pacific. In short Japan's campaign was doomed because of their inability to co-ordinate an attack on Russia.

[phongn]

I am a firm believer that had the germans been successful at Dunkirk the british would had been more willing to sue for peace against the empire of japan, meaning they would had resources and territory and pearl harbour may never had happened. I also firmly believe that had the Japanese army had prepared to support Germany in it's invasion of the Soviet Union then Japan would had been more able to secure a tighter stronghold on the pacific. In short Japan's campaign was doomed because of their inability to co-ordinate an attack on Russia.

Uh, no.

[Simon_Jester]

To expand on that:

At the time of Dunkirk, Germany and Japan were not at war. The only way a German success at Dunkirk leads to Britain yielding to Japan in the far east is if Britain surrenders outright to Germany and becomes a German puppet. Because said German puppeteers MIGHT compel Britain to yield concessions to Japan, like Vichy France did. On the other hand, they might not. And even then the US is still equipped to jump up and down on Japan, even fighting more or less alone, if Japan got even a little more provocative.

So much for Korgeta's first point.

As for the second point, the 'fight Russia versus fight in the Pacific' choice was very much a zero-sum game for Japan, and they knew it, which is why the two schools of strategy were labeled 'northerner' and 'southerner.' The northern strategy would require large reserves of steel and fuel and so on which would NOT have been available for the southern strategy, and vice versa. Meanwhile, the USSR didn't do a single thing to attack or undermine the Japanese position in the Far East for at least three and a half years; they were very much busy fighting Germany.

So if Japan had attacked Russia, this would have been convenient for the Germans, sure. So what? Germany was in no position to help Japan in the Pacific. And even if it weakens the Russians rather badly, that still doesn't really impact the resources the British and Americans have available to fight Japan. And it makes fighting Japan even more urgent because now the USSR is calling for war on two opponents.

[Beowulf]

It gets worse: the Japanese and Soviets fought near the beginning of the war, and the Japanese got soundly trounced, resulting in an armistice agreement between the two. Japanese army technology didn't advance sufficiently during the war to keep up with new Soviet tech. It's unlikely that situation would have been remedied enough to let the Japanese actually put up a fight.

[Purple]

It gets worse: the Japanese and Soviets fought near the beginning of the war, and the Japanese got soundly trounced, resulting in an armistice agreement between the two. Japanese army technology didn't advance sufficiently during the war to keep up with new Soviet tech. It's unlikely that situation would have been remedied enough to let the Japanese actually put up a fight.

It's not unlikely but flat out impossible. As history teaches us.