Pearl Harbor vs. open seas

At the Battle of the Coral Sea, the entire USN anti-aircraft defense potted about 3 Japanese aircraft over the US task force. At Midway, also about 3 Japanese planes were shot down over the course of two raids on Yorktown. Lexington’s group had no solo A-A kills during the raid on Rabaul, with long range fire being noted as nowhere even close to the attacking Japanese aircraft. At Pearl Harbor, not a single IJN level bomber was shot down during either raid; the defenders went 0-for-103 against high flying Kates despite firing somewhere between 5,000 and 12,000 3” and 5” rounds.

These were abysmal performances. Close in defences were better, but of the revenge variety due to the lack of hitting power and range of the 50-cal. If Kido Butai catches Kimmel with full strength attacks, then 3-5 battleships will probably be sunk with the defenders losing about 8-10 planes to A-A. Defending fighters may disrupt the attacks to an extent, but it is equally as likely that the types of mistakes that hounded the USAAF elsewhere, and the British in Malaya, would lead to all sorts of costly defending errors.

Genda's maximum-strength attack doctrine was formulated precisely because defense was not easy, and even little mistakes could lead to the near complete failure of the CAP.

The Japanese lost 20 aircraft in the second wave. About 9 to the wall of anti-aircraft being raised by every gun in the Pacific Fleet, and about 11 to USAAF fighters that, like foxes in the henhouse, got unfettered access to the Japanese bombers at low level as their escorts were off attacking air bases. In a sea battle, the Japanese escorts will be all over the attacking fighters.

Judging by early war performance (up to Midway), the CAP will probably be set too low and have great trouble intercepting prior to push-over. Maybe 5% or 10% of the defending fighters might get a pass before the bombers are directly over Kimmel's battleships. Murphy will probably rear his head with the inexperienced defenders committing numerous mistakes and cause mess-ups in coordination that will prove costly.

Damaged planes are of little consequence. Dead pilots and sunk battleships - that's of consequence. My hit estimates assume disruption. If it were a target practice without return fire, then call it 35 torpedo hits and about 40 dive bomb hits.

It would not have looked like Santa Cruz. It would have looked like Force Z or the sinking of the Hermes.

High speed is crucial to allowing a ship to avoid attacks.

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... In a sea battle, the Japanese escorts will be all over the attacking fighters.
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Historically the Japanese used a close escort which essentially gave defending fighters at least one free pass vs the bombers.

But again it's not dive bombers that the BB's have to worry about its the torpedo bombers and your CAP placement gives them an odds on chance of intercepting them.

I disagree. Damaged planes are more likely to miss their targets or not make it back or crash land once they get back or be out of commission for follow ups.

 

The USS Nevada was placed in a sinking condition by about 12-15 dive bombers during the Pearl Harbor raid. She took 5-6 x 250kg bomb hits, and the damage was so severe that had she been at sea she was going to the bottom.

Historically in 1942, about 85% of IJN attacking bombers were able to drop their weapon on target. This was despite the fact the US Navy was well trained in interception doctrine, had plenty of fighters available for CAP in most actions, and outnumbered escorting Zeros on an average of about 3.5 to 1.
To suppose that the USAAF on 7 December 1941 - with poor training in interception techniques, many inexperienced pilots, little real war experience, no numerical advantage to speak of, interservice coordination issues, and other missions (airfield protection) pulling its limited resources elsewhere – is going to do anything but worse than the US Navy did in the first year of the war is unsustainable. The USAAF dropped the ball everywhere on the first day of the war because it simply did not have the experience.
Nimitz left his battleships well clear of Midway in June of 1942 for exactly the same reason that an attack at sea on 7 December is unthinkable; he knew that they were slow old tubs with inadequate A-A that could be massacred by carrier air power at little cost to the enemy.
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Where are the American Counter-attacks? I see points that say the US will be crushed but nothing about what the US could do to the Japanese. Coral Sea and Midway have been put up as points of interest in what the Japanese could do in an attack, and American inability to stop it, but no discussion on how the US forces dished back equal or more damage in both those examples.

 

Tried to fix the quoteing and screwed things up even worse. PLS delete

 

That's not at all clear and you are ignoring the torpedo hit.

If that's the case then looking at the 3 battles I mentioned earlier your P(H)' are off a bit.

 

Was she really in sinking condition though? Or did they just not want to risk it in the channel? Especially since the Japansese apparently concentrated on her because she was moving?

 

While it may be somewhat similar I think there are some important differences. Nevada was under some pretty intense attack and had little reason not to expect more. Furthermore it's not clear what the utility would be in having a damaged vesel make it out of the harbor. While exiting she would also have been little more than a sitting duck and having her sink in the channel would have been a disaster. Thus her captains decision was a very correct and prudent one. However if she had been at sea and incurred the same damage would she really have been in a state from that damage to be considered in a sinking condition? From what I've read the bomb damage seems to be mostly topside. She had taken a torpedo and had counter flooded which was all the flotation damage I found reference to. However I'm far from an expert in this area or the most knowledgeable. Does anyone have access to her damage report?

 

The main point being that dive bombers demonstrated during the attack that they were a threat to US battleships.

There is no certainty in a non-linear event like a sea battle or a Superbowl. IMO, the Japanese were favoured and may have run away with the score. I don’t think a single American admiral in the Second World War, or historian since, has lost a moment’s sleep worrying about the “missed” American opportunity on December 7th.

I think the final word on the matter should be Nimitz’s at Midway, when he placed Pye’s TF1 3,000 miles from the fighting. If the USN BB's had their 1944 A.A. armaments, I'd be the first to suggest they could attend the party.

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Nevada was experiancing a great deal of flooding forward in section A of the ship due to a bomb hit on the forecastle. This bomb had damaged a ventilation duct system there that due to poor design allowed for progressive flooding of a number of compartments that became difficult to control. The risk was that at sea with further damage the Nevada could have become unstable or sufficently flooded to imperil the ship.
It was decided to beach her in the channel instead to prevent the possibility of a sinking if she proceeded to sea.

The California likewise only sank because of a combination of poor decisions and lack of proper material condition. She was in condition X-Ray and had a number of tanks and voids open for inspection. The damage she took allowed some progressive flooding over the 3rd (damage control) deck and gave her marginal stability. The senior officer present (a lieutenant as I recall) ordered abandon ship prematurely. On the arrival of the captain the ship was remanned but had been largely abandoned for nearly an hour.
Had the ship been at Zed and the crew fought the damage and flooding California would not have sunk.

One should also note that the torpedo defense system of California and West Virginia did not fail from the hits received. W. Virginia simply took so many hits that such a large section of the side of the ship opened up that her sinking was practically inevidable. Hit seven struck her above the armor belt while 5 and 6 hit the belt.
It was seven that pretty much doomed the W. Virginia. That hit allowed a massive progressive flooding to occur over the 3rd deck and finished the ship. She settled on the bottom.

 

te only thing that occurs to me at this point is the crappy IJN air recon. In Operations C march 1942 Nagumos carriers fumbled about for several days, failing to find Sommervilles carrier group or battleship group. They did stumble across the Hermes & a pair of crusiers, but were often less that 300 miles from the Brit fleet and failed to locate it. At Midway & Coral Sea the IJN air recon did better but was still unimpressive.

It is not impossible in this scenario Nagumos air recon will fumble their mission here as well. If the USN lucks out I'd say all bets are off.

 

I didn't see much on Nevada on that specific page but in other parts of the document there was some interesting data:
HyperWar: Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal (Chapter 9)

and
HyperWar: Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal (Chapter 13)

Flooding continued for a month!

 

There never was a question that dive bombers could damage US BBs. The question is whether or not they were likely to sink one. Especially one capable of maneuvering on the high seas with water tight integrety and guns manned. That was not demonstrated.

 

If anything, the tests conducted by the USN with the USAAC between the wars showed that bombing and sinking a battleship was a difficult proposition.... Billy Mitchell's stunt with the Ostfriedland not withstanding.

 

Pye had 6 or 7 battleships in June 1942.

A large portion of ships that sank in WW2 had some sort of sob story associated with their loss, and a convincing case could be made that under slightly different circumstances they’d have been saved instead. If Nevada was going to sink on account of a lucky hit, then this is no more remarkable than Ark Royal being sunk with one torpedo and a litany of damage control errors, or Hood going down to the first major calibre hit it had ever suffered.
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So now you are saying it would take a "lucky" hit? And how many hits should we expect before one gets "lucky"? A battle ship that is tied up in port as Ark Royal was is often not water tight and may not even have a full damage control crew on board. In such cases a single torpedo hit can be devestating. Hood was not sunk by the "first major caliber" hit suffered. The point was dive bombers are not likely to sink battleships. Is the above a tasit admision that that is the case?