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Or heck, even if you do want the propaganda of dead Americans, just send out a patrol of all three pacific carriers plus Maryland and West Virginia. Let the Japanese commit their attack at dawn on the 7th. Then use radar to intercept the Japanese fleet during the night. Dreadnoughts might only go 21 knots but the Japanese were operating at long distances and needed to be cruising at 14 or 15 knots while the dreads could steam full speed. At Guadalcanal, we see an American battleship firing at night at 7.7 km and landing more then one hit a minute. Suppose the dreads sink and damage one Japanese carrier each before the Japanese scatter. On the morning of the 8th, the carriers mop up the survivors. The American public has a day or two to be outraged at the Japanese then news comes in of the glorious victory.
The material implications of such a counterstroke would be massive, the Japanese would have lost five of their six fleet carriers and two of their four fast battleships. Most British forces used to counter the Japanese are available for North Africa instead. Rather then recapturing islands from the Japanese, the American marines could be landing in Taiwan and Okinawa in '42, opening a supply line to the Chinese. A much shorter war in the pacific means that American weapon for the Soviets dont have to go halfway around the world through the Persian corridor, instead they can send them straight to Siberia in unlimited amounts. And since we are imagining an evil scheming
In short the US battleships get sunk where they cant be recovered and the US carriers likely also get lost.
Congratulations Admiral, you just added another year of war.
Also Taiwan and Okinawa in 1942 ?
You cant just apply results of Guadalcanal here. The US crews had much more experience and more important good radar at this point.
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Was it really necessary for the US to be so hellbent on getting into WW2?
Britain seemed quite capable to keep stalemating the Axis given how inept the German Navy and Air Force was in strategic terms,not to mention all the stuff Britain could simply buy from the US to keep itself afloat together with its quite sizable empire.
In terms of the USSR the USA could have known of 2 possible outcomes:
1.The Reich and USSR stay at peace,in which case there is a giant power in Eurasia keeping Japan and Germany restrained.
2.Those 2 will try to kill each other at which point the US can simply prop up the USSR just enough for Germany to get trashed at which point Britain can waltz into the continent and liberate it.
Even in East Asia it should have been obvious by 1941 that Japan wasnt going to conquer China,simple math would state that the effort was doomed,especially when one takes into account Stalin's support for the Chinese.
As such i really dont see why the US HAD to get involved directly,hence why i dont have much faith in these conspiracy theories.
If anything it seems the US embargoing Japan and letting its guard down was pure incompetence.
Giving Japan the noose(oil) to hang itself with would have allowed them to keep bleeding white in China while also having an incentive to not spread the war further.
Britain seemed quite capable to keep stalemating the Axis given how inept the German Navy and Air Force was in strategic terms,not to mention all the stuff Britain could simply buy from the US to keep itself afloat together with its quite sizable empire.
In terms of the USSR the USA could have known of 2 possible outcomes:
1.The Reich and USSR stay at peace,in which case there is a giant power in Eurasia keeping Japan and Germany restrained.
2.Those 2 will try to kill each other at which point the US can simply prop up the USSR just enough for Germany to get trashed at which point Britain can waltz into the continent and liberate it.
Even in East Asia it should have been obvious by 1941 that Japan wasnt going to conquer China,simple math would state that the effort was doomed,especially when one takes into account Stalin's support for the Chinese.
As such i really dont see why the US HAD to get involved directly,hence why i dont have much faith in these conspiracy theories.
If anything it seems the US embargoing Japan and letting its guard down was pure incompetence.
Giving Japan the noose(oil) to hang itself with would have allowed them to keep bleeding white in China while also having an incentive to not spread the war further.
I don't disagree at all, but given the pre-war underestimation of the IJN, I wouldn't be surprised to have seen them make the attempt if this had been an intentional conspiracy (of silence or otherwise). Remember that the US doesn't know yet that just how dangerous the IJN is, and thus might actually think that the two Colorados and a mere three fleet carriers (still being used in accordance with pre-war doctrine as fleet scouts first and a strike arm only second) would be enough to challenge the Kido Butai in 1941. After all, the Kido Butai itself only has two battleships; what harm could those six carriers do?
EDIT: Actually, the US might not even have known the ships were battleships, even if they were aware of the Kido Butai and had an idea of its composition. I don't recall, but was the US fully aware of the extent to which the Kongo-class ships had been refitted and uparmored in violation of the Washington Naval Treaties? They might still think of them as battlecruisers rather than fast battleships.
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Well properly sinking the West Virginia would have freed up drydock space, so it is a plus not a minus (she joinded the fleet July 44 as a modernized but still slow as hell battleship... you could get another Iowa instead). Maryland was a different can of worm, since she was back at action Jun 42 she was moderately useful.
But why would the US carriers and battleships get lost anyway? As far as I understand the Japanese commit their two strike waves as IRL (since Maryland and West Virginia is not there the ammo consumption is probably less... but highly likely that the pilots just bomb something else instead). Now as IRL the Japanese are low on ammunition, they lose 20-40 aircraft as IRL (probably less than the historic 29 because the AA of Maryland and West Virginia would have been missed, probably more, because the land based 3" guns could have been manned).
This is where the US carriers come into play who know where the Japanese are while the Japanese do not know where they are.
Did the Japanese detect the Enterprise IRL? It was west of the Japanese forces in a perfect interception position for a supposed battle of 08. Dec
Not to mention that all three US Carriers fighter squadrons been understrenghth and the Lexington still had Buffalos onboard.
Given the example above, it should be noted that the key operation in the US counter strike on December 8th was made public in the 1980s when the US Navy produced a historical documentary about a little known event that occured that day: as the final countdown approached, a hole opened in time and space and a United States Nimitz class CV arrived, helmed by Spartacus, who was governed by the Federation's Prime Directive . . . . . Why is this not taught in schools? Classic cover up.
So how exactly do the Japanese find the American battleships? With the reconnaissance aircraft sitting in hangers? The prototype radar sets sitting in a workshop in Tokyo? The midget submarines that will be nowhere near the battleships?
See above.
Because the entire premise is that FDR intentionally ignored reports from planes, subs and radar that Japanese carriers are to the north of Pearl Harbor.
The US doctrine had wholeheartedly embraced carrier aviation at every level before Pearl Harbor. They knew what carriers could do. They thought Japan didn't have as many modern planes as they did but they were planning their entire naval strategy around carriers.
However the scenario in this mental exercise is that Japan has just exhausted it's carrier aviation against Pearl Harbor at the time of the American counterstrike. While the Japanese outnumbered the Americans 400 carrier planes to 250, the Americans have some 400 additional aircraft from Hawaii and are taking advantage of the fact that Japan is exhausting it's pilots attacking Pearl Harbor, meaning they wont be at peak readiness for an American counter attack the next day.
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Hiei, Kirishima, Tone and Chikuma all have recon planes that would not be considered part of the strike package. Not to mention, there is a light cruiser and a destroyer squadron as a screening force.
Hey, the Bat Corps was a Strategic Bombing tool; while theoretically effective against bamboo and paper houses, tiny bats with incendiary devices are largely ineffective against steel carriers. Also, the Bats did not seem to be effective in places where the Joker or the Riddler might hang out.
That doesn't particularly matter in a night battle before the first Japanese naval radar set. The Kongos could spot the dreadnoughts at about 5 kilometers. The dreadnoughts could use radar to find the Kongos at about 12 kilometers and fire effectively at that range (although not as effectively as if they closed the distance first). And these dreadnoughts were built after the Kongos, they are superior in firepower, armor and fire control, speed is all the Kongo's have. The obvious thing for the Japanese to do would be withdraw their Kongos along with the aircraft carriers. Even if we teleported Yamato forward in time and add it to the Japanese fleet it's ability to counter attack would be quite limited.
In fact that Japanese might even be confused as hell and not realize that the Americans are using radar directed fire. If they think that the Americans are in visual identification range the Japanese might not react correctly. Then instead of them salvaging most of their fleet with superior speed, they might end up sticking around and letting the dreads do even more damage.
We have already accounted for the Space Bat Corps, they are the ones who delivered the warning about the Pearl Harbor attack that FDR and his admirals kept secret in order to get Americans killed at Pearl Harbor. Once we add that into the equation, all the American fleet needs to do is perform competently. It would take extraordinary luck for the Japanese to detect the missing battleships and the Americans were well aware of what their battleships could do.
Only two of which were launched, both sent south to Pearl Harbor. The odds of them spotting a US force to the east or west is precisely zero.
Not one of which has a radar set. So their ability to spot American ships during the daytime is about 8 kilometers and at night is about 5. Meanwhile some or all of the American screening ships would have radar that could detect the Japanese ships as far away as 30 miles and have pretty solid locations at 10 or 12.
How did this suddenly descend into the realms of ridiculousness?
Conspiracy theories are generally regarded as 'theories' for just that reason. The third hand story of some random dude doesn't constitute proof.
Conspiracy theories are generally regarded as 'theories' for just that reason. The third hand story of some random dude doesn't constitute proof.
I'm not saying FDR knew. I'm saying that in the Alien Space Bats territory of FDR knew, the US would have easily put that knowledge to use. This is related to the absurdity of the conspiracy theory. Rather then defeating the Japanese quickly and moving onto Germany (which the conspiracy says was the goal), we are supposed to believe that the US chose to spend the next 6 months getting it's ass kicked, diverting vast resources from Germany to Japan.
Well that and it's fun to imagine a scenario where battleships get a last hurrah before disappearing.
And frankly I'm starting to get annoyed by people purposefully misreading what I'm saying and then acting all smug.