Was that known at the time, though?Sea Skimmer wrote:That production capacity meant Japan could have sunk the entire US Pacific fleet at midway for no losses of its own, and still been hopeleslly outgunned by early 1944. In hindsight the outcome of the battle didn't matter.
I meant it was decisive because the action relied solely on the carrier's flight wing, which ushered in the role of the aircraft carrier and left behind the role of the battleship. Sorry if I wasn't clear. After Midway carriers would become the capital ship. Before Midway it was the battleship.It was decisive because it had carriers? So then what does that mean Tsushima (a battle fought using only surface ships with guns and torpedoes, in which almost the entire remaining Russian navy was annihilated) was? Sorry but Midway wasn't very decisive as such things go, a huge chunk of the IJN force was never even spotted let alone attacked or damaged by US forces.
Yeah, I never said it was the first carrier on carrier battle. Give me some credit. Both carriers at the Coral Sea were destroyed, while at Midway 4 Japanese carriers were sunk in contrast to America's Yorktown. The used carriers to defeat the enemy and lost fewer units; that's significant, surely?And it was not the first carrier on carrier battle. That was the Battle of the Coral Sea, which was also the first naval battle in which neither side's vessels ever spotted each other.
