WWII era US Pacific Fleet vs. Modern Day Pacific Fleet

[Stravo]

The US Pacifioc fleet of WWII era at its height, thoudands of ships, etc. versus the Modern Day US Pacific Fleet. The Modern day fleet has all ships and crews as of now, fully stocked.

The modern day fleet must defend the Japanese home Isles from invasion. They have access to the Japanese army and marines for ground defense so all they have to worry about is trying to stop the mighty American juggernaut steaming towards Japan.

Does sheer weight of numbers carry the day or does modern US equipment and training win the day from a conscript navy half a century behind them?

[Vympel]

The modern US Navy assrapes the WW2 one. Modern SSNs, anti-ship missiles, carrier air power against WW2 prop fighters and battleship guns, as well as utterly ineffective against modern jets anti-aircraft fire? The biggest concern is running out of missiles.

[irishmick79]

The modern navy would be able to acquire the WWII navy without much of a problem. Hordes of missiles would already be streaking to their targets well before the WWII fleet was aware of any form of approaching danger.

[Stravo]

Does the modern navy have the missile stores to take out the vast armada? I mean I imagine it owuld take a few harpoons to take out the battleships, and the jets arefacing hundreds if not thousands of prop planes, I guess what I'm seeing is that the tech advantage is just so massive that numbers in this sense don't matter.

[Batman]

How would modern missiles perform against targets that are seriously armoured?
The massive air and sub advantages mean the outcome is painfully clear-the WW2 fleet gets trounced, and royally so-but I'm curious about that one point.
Can a TASM hurt an Iowa, or even a heavy cruiser from that time?

By all means prove me wrong if I am, I'm just honestly curious here.

[Batman]

Does the modern navy have the missile stores to take out the vast armada? I mean I imagine it owuld take a few harpoons to take out the battleships, and the jets arefacing hundreds if not thousands of prop planes, I guess what I'm seeing is that the tech advantage is just so massive that numbers in this sense don't matter.

While I wonder if the missiles will be all that effective against the warships (see my above post), I don't see a problem. Wether or not the missiles are too few or simply useless, the WW2 fleet can be attacked with impunity with LGBs or even 'dumb' bombs. Modern jet attack speeds are simply too high for WW2 forces to handle.
As for the prop planes, same deal. The modern forces can attack from range with missiles, and no RWR or countermeasures from the prop birds means every functional launch is effectively a kill.
Hell, those planes could propably killed with 5in guns before they come into attack range. Add high-speed gun passes by the jets and shipboard antiair missiles (which will NOT have to deal with enemy missiles) and it'll be a turkey shoot.

EDITed to fix typo, but in the most pain-free and humane way possible

[Typhonis 1]

*L* imgine what an anti runway munition will do to the wooden flight decks they used back then.Most modern missles use Jet fuel to start fires in there targets even a deck fire would be bad for the CAs and BBs.

[Striderteen]

The US Pacifioc fleet of WWII era at its height, thoudands of ships, etc. versus the Modern Day US Pacific Fleet. The Modern day fleet has all ships and crews as of now, fully stocked.

The modern day fleet must defend the Japanese home Isles from invasion. They have access to the Japanese army and marines for ground defense so all they have to worry about is trying to stop the mighty American juggernaut steaming towards Japan.

Does sheer weight of numbers carry the day or does modern US equipment and training win the day from a conscript navy half a century behind them?

The submarines alone can send the entire WWII Pacific Fleet to the bottom without loss.

[Howedar]

Not without resupply.

[Striderteen]

How would modern missiles perform against targets that are seriously armoured?
The massive air and sub advantages mean the outcome is painfully clear-the WW2 fleet gets trounced, and royally so-but I'm curious about that one point.
Can a TASM hurt an Iowa, or even a heavy cruiser from that time?

By all means prove me wrong if I am, I'm just honestly curious here.

The lovely thing about modern antiship missiles is that they're accurate enough that you can target specific parts of a ship. Hence, you can target the weakest armor on the WWII ships -- the warhead on a Harpoon can penetrate up to six inches of armor, and even an Iowa has only four inches on the decking.

Modern torpedoes like the Mark 48 ADCAP aren't significantly more powerful than their WWII counterparts in terms of raw explosive yield, but they're *much* deadlier because they won't ever miss -- there's no way any WWII ship could dodge an ADCAP homing in on it at sixty-plus knots.

[Howedar]

It should be mentioned that by far the deadliest part of the missiles is the fuel load. Equipment to fight the jet fuel fires didn't exist for some time after WW2.

[Striderteen]

It should be mentioned that by far the deadliest part of the missiles is the fuel load. Equipment to fight the jet fuel fires didn't exist for some time after WW2.

Indeed...damage control is going to have a very unpleasant surprise trying to deal with rocket and jet fuel fires.

[Sea Skimmer]

Does the modern navy have the missile stores to take out the vast armada? I mean I imagine it owuld take a few harpoons to take out the battleships, and the jets arefacing hundreds if not thousands of prop planes, I guess what I'm seeing is that the tech advantage is just so massive that numbers in this sense don't matter.

It doesnt need missiles, though the USN has about 5000 Harpoons. Laser guided bombs will work just fine. The Essex swarm is going down before it can get its planes within range.

[Sea Skimmer]

The lovely thing about modern antiship missiles is that they're accurate enough that you can target specific parts of a ship. Hence, you can target the weakest armor on the WWII ships -- the warhead on a Harpoon can penetrate up to six inches of armor, and even an Iowa has only four inches on the decking.

Actually Iowans main armor deck is 6 inches and a Harpoon would explode before it hit that. However a single MK48 will at the minimal cripple such a vessel. Two will be fatal for sure, and the modern Pacific fleet has several dozen nuclear subs.

[Howedar]

Presumably the WW2 airfleet can be ignored in this simulation entirely, as the carriers will be sunk before anyone even knows that the aircraft need to be launched.

[Sea Skimmer]

Not without resupply.

They've got somthing like 400-500 Mk48's between them all plus Harpoons, thats enough to sink every cruiser, battleship, aircraft carrier both fleet and escort along with some of the major transports.

[Montcalm]

Another one-sided thread WWII era fleet do not stand a chance.

[Howedar]

Yes, but there are still countless smaller craft. I don't doubt that the US Navy's submarine force could eliminate most WW2 assets, but they simply don't have enough ordinance to truly eliminate the fleet.

[Sea Skimmer]

Can a TASM hurt an Iowa, or even a heavy cruiser from that time?

Yes it can, but all TASM's where converted to land attack weapons some time ago. The main belt of a battleship would be safe, but its lighter armor, and everything on a heavy cruiser, could be penetrated. And the blast of the warhead would do heavy damage striking above the armor, modern anti ship weapons hit high in the hull or dive into the deck and explode before they'd hit the main armor deck of a battleship. Then we have the fuel load, the equipment to fight a jet fuel or solid rocket fuel fire will not exist until the 50-60's. Fire kills more ships then flooding.

[Howedar]

Then we have the fuel load, the equipment to fight a jet fuel or solid rocket fuel fire will not exist until the 50-60's.

I literally can't count the number of times you've said that.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yes, but there are still countless smaller craft. I don't doubt that the US Navy's submarine force could eliminate most WW2 assets, but they simply don't have enough ordinance to truly eliminate the fleet.

Yes, they can't kill the hundreds of destroyers and other escorts. But a single sortie with a jet can destroy one or two of those. Once there dead the transport fleets are fairly easy game, though unless the fleet get access to its shore side bomb dumps it would run out of ammunition before it could actually sink them all. The USN had something like 35,000 vessels in the Pacific in 1945.

[Stravo]

What if we bump up the opposing fleet to Vietnam era Pacific fleet? Considering the buildup for Nam the Pacific fleet should be sizeable and at least they have jet aircraft. Do the odds change significantly, does it turn into a slugfest or another cakewalk.

Would love to see Marines from the 60's vs. modern day Marines slugging it out on an island hopping campaign to take Nippon.

[Sea Skimmer]

Then we have the fuel load, the equipment to fight a jet fuel or solid rocket fuel fire will not exist until the 50-60's.

I literally can't count the number of times you've said that.

10-15 on these borads. Most people don't understand that fire is what kills most warships, not flooding. And they also don't understand how venerable the massive unarmored portions of a ship are to such fires. Smacking down battleship wankers is a regular task for me.

[Sea Skimmer]

What if we bump up the opposing fleet to Vietnam era Pacific fleet? Considering the buildup for Nam the Pacific fleet should be sizeable and at least they have jet aircraft. Do the odds change significantly, does it turn into a slugfest or another cakewalk.

What year exactly?

Its still going to be very one sided though. Warship mounted guns cannot defeat an attack by jets. IN 1958 this was demonstrated very well with a Gearing destroyer and an F-8 Crusader. The Crusader was able to approach the ship from the beam and make an attack pass before the vessels guns could finish training on them. The F-8 then turned around and made another pass down the length of the destroyer, once more before any guns could be brought to bear. This is why the USN so aggressively pushed its SAM programs from 1945 onward.

The only real change is that the 1945 subs could pose a much greater though still low threat, and the 1960-70's Pacific fleet's own boats wont be nearly as effective, indeed many are just upgraded Gato's. However they would still take down most of the battleships and carriers.

[Batman]

Can a TASM hurt an Iowa, or even a heavy cruiser from that time?

Yes it can, but all TASM's where converted to land attack weapons some time ago. The main belt of a battleship would be safe, but its lighter armor, and everything on a heavy cruiser, could be penetrated. And the blast of the warhead would do heavy damage striking above the armor, modern anti ship weapons hit high in the hull or dive into the deck and explode before they'd hit the main armor deck of a battleship. Then we have the fuel load, the equipment to fight a jet fuel or solid rocket fuel fire will not exist until the 50-60's. Fire kills more ships then flooding.

Which, quite neatly, eliminates my reservations about SSMs against WW2 warships. Much obliged.

What's that about TASMs being converted to TLAM roles? I agree that with the demise of the russian empire there don't seem to be many targets which NEED a TASM to kill, but wouldn't the range advantage alone be in favor of keeping at least SOME TASMs?