Military History: Which high ranking American officer...

[MSimon]

Luck is an important part of any military operation.

In any case it wasn't luck. America had a plan enunciated by George Keenan and stuck to it. There may have been a better plan. The better plan was unnecessary because the plan adopted worked. Economy of force.

You have read the chapter on Grand Strategy in Hart's Strategy haven't you D?

[rjaypeters]

Had Stanislav Petrov done what many soviet officers would have done, you would all now be on my side denouncing the utter stupidity of letting the soviets reach nuclear parity.

Perhaps we would be debating the point, it is more likely we would be dead.

Stanislav Petrov has many counterparts in the USAF. Ballistic missile warning through satellite observation was (perhaps is) no walk in the park. The people who do the work are painfully aware of the stakes and do their best to get it right every time. Sometimes the technology makes it hard to do.

[Luzr]

The salient point is that it was sheer insanity to allow someone to build weapons that will kill your entire nation. We risked the annihilation of millions of our citizens just because we couldn't stomach the casualties of preventing it.

The point you miss is that your 'prevention' would not only cause casaulties of soviets, most of them innocent, but also would mean anihilation of millions of citizens of Western Europe and USA.

Surely, you can anihilate everything on Earth and claim victory. Unfortunately there will not be many left to enjoy it.

[Roger]

Maybe we got lucky at the Battle of Midway, maybe not. We knew when the Japs were going to show up, where, their order of battle, and we had every technological advantage.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-1.htm

We had the Jap codes before Coral Sea.
US Carriers carried more planes. Were faster.
F-4's were armored, Zeroes, not so much.
US Vacume tubes were mass produced and superior in every fashion to the Japs. Radar was better, longer range, so was radio.
US carriers purged aircraft fuel lines on deck with inert gas. This left little aviation fuel to burn when bombed.
Dedicated Fire control teams a first in Naval warfare.
At Coral Sea The Lexington, was burning and listing heavily, the Crew put out fires, sealed leaks, got the Lex underway and no less than 90 minutes later headed into the wind and initiated offensive air operations. The Lex was hit again, and later abandoned and sunk.

The Yortown was hit bad at Coral Sea too, but made it back to Pearl.

The point here is that our carriers were damned near impossible to kill compared to a Jap carrier. The Japs had to kill the Lexington and Yorktown 2 times.
The Japs lost one carrier at Coral Sea, but one more carrier was hit bad , another carrier didnt have enough Planes. Both returned home and did not take part in Midway.

So in effect, when it comes time for Midway, Coral Sea cost the Japs 3 carriers. And they thought we lost 2 carriers but the Yorktown survived.
http://www.history.navy.mil/history/CoralSea.htm

Jump to Midway.

We know Midway is going to happen, Yorktown spends 3 days in drydock and is sent back out to Midway. The Japs think they sunk her. SUprise, SUprise.

Japs have 4 carriers, we have 3 plus land based aircraft and Bombers. Rough Parity. Plus Nimitz actually knew the Japanese Order of Battle.

After sinking the 4 Jap carriers and a cruiser, defeat in detail, a Jap sub got lucky spotting the Yorktown under tow. What was real luck, due to a series of US errors, US Planes were delayed finding the Jap carriers, when they found the Jap carriers they were in the middle of switching bombs and torpedoes. IF US planes had found the Jap carriers earlier, it might be true that the Japs would not have lost all 4 carriers. So the carrier count may have been 3-1 instead of 4-1. Maybe not. From the US Navy:

Yorktown’s air group was the only one of the three to attack as a group. Their providential arrival simultaneously with that of Enterprise’s VB-6 and VS-6 spelled the doom of Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu.

http://www.history.navy.mil/history/mid ... lesson.htm

The reason is the Yorktown had far more experience, From Adm. Fletcher on down. Thats not so much luck as making your own luck because you know what the Fook you're doing.

If not for the loss of Japanese carriers at Coral Sea, Midway might have turned out differently. But we went into Coral Sea 3 carriers to 2, and pasted them. Call it first blood for the US Navy, they knew they could go toe to toe with the Japanese Navy and come out on top, a huge moral boost. IMHO this plays into Midway as an intangible. Our guys knew they could beat their guys.

I have "heard" that later in the Pacific, the New Jersey was head hunting. Using radar fire control the NJ didnt have to see Japanese ships to hit them, and supposedly went after the Japanese flagship's bridge during the Turkey Shoot.

Its clear that vs the Japanese our equipment was technologically superior as well as our intel. Aces Like Bong and Macguire were brought back to teach new pilots. Our Subs dove deeper, were faster, had better SONAR. OK our torpedoes sucked, but we fixed that.

The facts are that at both Coral Sea and at Midway we had fewer carriers and still pasted the Japanese carriers. And dont under value the Lex being hit hard, but recovering to continue the fight, and Yorktown came to Midway with a few notches on her belt from Coral Sea.

BTW, Yorktown was commissioned in 1937
http://www.history.navy.mil/history/CoralSea.htm

[choff]

Changing the subject a little, it seems the North Koreans are suffering a rather nasty outbreak of foot and mouth disease, serious for them because they rely very heavily on oxen to pull plows. Apparently an army unit working down on the farm refused orders because they hadn't been fed for days.

[ladajo]

Maybe we got lucky at the Battle of Midway, maybe not. We knew when the Japs were going to show up, where, their order of battle, and we had every technological advantage.
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-1.htm

Not true. We did not know where/when - we had an idea, and guessed. It was a good guess. We did not know the order of battle either. Again, an idea. One of the great myths, we did not read all the traffic. We only read a small percentage. That, tied with traffic sources and volumes allowed us to make educated guesses. Thus the need to conduct the Water Purification Plant failure ruse to confirm Midway as a target.
Strategically, taking Midway made no sense. It was a conflict of strategy between Japanese Naval Command, and Yamamoto. He got the upper hand politically, and got what he wanted (at a price), the attempt to draw out the US Fleet for a decisive engagement, and a staging to drive on Hawaii. The price, which cost him the battle, was his forces got split. The Japanese had extensive experience in concentrated coordinated CV tactics, while we had none. The splitting of Japanese Forces, and their failure to follow their own doctrine was the decisive stage setter. They sent units to the South Pacific (CarDiv 5), as well as against the Aleutians. Midway got four carriers, Yamamoto's main body got one, the landing force got one, and the aluetians got two. Two were also out of the game following Coral Sea, one for repairs, the other for air wing reconstitution. The Aleutians Attack was not a part of the Midway attack, it was a seperate operation that took resources. Although, even with the force split, had the Japanese had an actual plan for Midway, vice winging it, and had they followed their doctrince even with the reduced assets, they would have won.

We had the Jap codes before Coral Sea.

Not true, we had limited ability to read traffic only. Not total.

US Carriers carried more planes. Were faster.
F-4's were armored, Zeroes, not so much.
US Vacume tubes were mass produced and superior in every fashion to the Japs. Radar was better, longer range, so was radio.
US carriers purged aircraft fuel lines on deck with inert gas. This left little aviation fuel to burn when bombed.

Yes, US CV's had larger wings, but they were not coordinated. We also did not coordinate between CV's for strikes, and thus typically launched a mob, vice a strike force. Midway is a clear example of this lack of experience, skill and doctrine on our part. It is a wonder for sure that we made succesful attacks. The Hornet's aircraft completely missed the bus due to this, and the only ones to get in the game, VT8, got wiped out. Hornet also lost a number of aircraft by running them out of gas. I have to look it up, but I think when said and done, they went the first round, had nothing to show for it, and lost half the air power aboard, with most aircraft never seeing the Japanese at all, let alone getting a hit. All in all, we (US) lost 70 carrier aircraft the morning of 4 June. 12 Fighters, 21 Dive Bombers and 37 Torpedo aircraft, 40% total attrition. The net result, was we could field about a single carrier wing afloat from the three combined decks. That takes skill.
Yes, Japanese aircraft were unarmored, and yes they lost a lot of skill this way, but they were faster and turned better. Thatch presented his multi-ship weave during Midway, and found they could hold the line against the Zero's doing it, but not decisively beat them. The Japanese learned that they did not have enough cannon rounds in the aircraft magazines, and thus had to deck cycle more often to reload. The Japanese (over the long run) also failed to bring the experienced pilots home to teach the youngin's unlike we did. However at Midway, the quality and experience level of the average Japanese pilot was a magnitude higher than US pilots. One US Dive squadron was so bad, that they actually tried glide bombing the Japanese without support and got cuts to pieces doing it. You also had the catastrophic losses to the VT sqaudrons because they failed to coordinate attacks, and had really crappy planes to boot. The Japanese torpedo planes were twice as fast, and carried much more potent torpedoes in comparison. They also knew not to attack without fighter cover and a coordinated dive bomber attack, unlike our US pilots.
The Japanese did not have radar at Midway. That came later. They did have much better night optics and tactics than we did, and thus we went to great pains to avoid night engagements. Had the Japanese got their shyte together and not made a bad group management call, they would have forced a night engagement and crushed us either the first or second nights.
The aircraft fueling lines were in the hangers, and yes we purged them between operations, we also re-fueled and re-armed on deck, not in the hangers. We learned the fuel lesson at Coral Sea with the loss of Lexington. Both lessons were learned by the Japanese during Midway, and changed subsequently. Specifically, what cost them the fight was allowing the mulitple simultaneous hits to be made. If they had a corodinated air defense plan, unlike the mob approach they used, they would not have drawn fighters like stink on shyte to each US encroachment. By accident, the lack of coordination in US strikes, caused the Japanese CAP to mob each strike package, and thus leave the guys coming form the other way alone. A failure point on their part brought on by not following thier own doctrine regarding CAP and strike packages, as well as dividing the CV force between missions. Had they massed as usual, this would not have been a factor, as they would have followed doctrine and would not have had conflicting asset assignments and use. We would have faced bombing on Midway, CAP over the CV fleet, and strikes on our own units simultaneously. Would they have taken some licks? Yes, probably. Would we have been annihilated? Absolutely, both in the air and afloat.

Dedicated Fire control teams a first in Naval warfare.
At Coral Sea The Lexington, was burning and listing heavily, the Crew put out fires, sealed leaks, got the Lex underway and no less than 90 minutes later headed into the wind and initiated offensive air operations. The Lex was hit again, and later abandoned and sunk.

The Yortown was hit bad at Coral Sea too, but made it back to Pearl.

The point here is that our carriers were damned near impossible to kill compared to a Jap carrier. The Japs had to kill the Lexington and Yorktown 2 times.

The Japanese did not have a large and dedicated DC organization like we did. They only trained a limited number of crew for it. As we say, every marine a rifleman, every sailor a fireman. The Japanese CV's were durable, especially when you consider the amount of damage they took and still floated. The primary design difference between us and them was our ability to section of the hangers with hard walls vice curtains, and the fact that our hangers were open to weather on the sides. Thus we could fuel and warm up an aircraft below, and cycle it on deck to spot and launch quicker. We also armed on deck. The Japanese conversely, fueled and armed in the Hanger, but could only do warm ups on deck.
Most of the Japanese Carrier damage did not come from US bombs, it came from a poor DC organization that could not contain fires, a subsequent ordnance and fuel sympathetics. Of note is that the Japanese scuttled all their CV's at Midway. They were not sunk by us. All four were eventually torpedoed by Japanese ships. Kiryu for example took four 1000# bomb hits and two torpedoes and did not sink. Kaga and Soryu also took multiple hits. Akagi as well.
A change in practices from lessons they learned at Midway helped them, but did not ever reach the levels that we operated at. Had a US CV had a half a hanger full of fueled and armed aircraft and taken multiple dive bomb hits, I doubt it would have survived either, as the Japanese found, the sympathetics will finish the game. On a side note, of the two Japanese cruisers that took air attacks, the one that was lost, Mikuma, was undamaged (other than minor collision damage on her side, but failed to jetison long lance torpedo stores, and subsequently took a bomb hit there. They both knew they would get attacked by aircraft, but only one the Mogami, thought to prepare the ship for it, and thus survived. She did take precautions, such as dumping her torpedoes, and her subsequent bomb hit there did not doom her.

The Japs lost one carrier at Coral Sea, but one more carrier was hit bad , another carrier didnt have enough Planes. Both returned home and did not take part in Midway.

So in effect, when it comes time for Midway, Coral Sea cost the Japs 3 carriers. And they thought we lost 2 carriers but the Yorktown survived.
http://www.history.navy.mil/history/CoralSea.htm

The Shokaku and Zuikaku (Carrier Division 5) were part of Nagumo's Kudo Butai and were missed. But both Survived Coral Sea. One undamaged. The light carrier Shoho was lost. They both returned to service by the end of June. The two Aleution island operation carriers were also missed. The two carriers attached to Yamamoto's main body were missed as well. The Japanese knew that at most we could field five CV's at Midway, and expected four. They (Yamamoto) wanted all we could field of them. He wanted to wipe them out, that was his purpose. But the politics of getting his mission approved, constrained his resources and caused him to have to split up his carrier assets. Had he kept Kudo Butai with its normal six carriers, or even beefed it up further for the decisive fight, things would have been drastically different for us. As it was, there were eight Japanese carriers available to go to Midway, but only four assigned. Yamamoto also failed to provide direct and clear mission guidance and supervision for its conduct and adherance to doctrine. In this, they were set up for failure.

Jump to Midway.

We know Midway is going to happen, Yorktown spends 3 days in drydock and is sent back out to Midway. The Japs think they sunk her. SUprise, SUprise.

Japs have 4 carriers, we have 3 plus land based aircraft and Bombers. Rough Parity. Plus Nimitz actually knew the Japanese Order of Battle.

After sinking the 4 Jap carriers and a cruiser, defeat in detail, a Jap sub got lucky spotting the Yorktown under tow. What was real luck, due to a series of US errors, US Planes were delayed finding the Jap carriers, when they found the Jap carriers they were in the middle of switching bombs and torpedoes. IF US planes had found the Jap carriers earlier, it might be true that the Japs would not have lost all 4 carriers. So the carrier count may have been 3-1 instead of 4-1. Maybe not. From the US Navy:

Yorktown was not really "under tow", the tug Vireo was only making 3 knots. Yorktown as a carrier was done at that point, before I-168 got her, and not by luck, as he was looking for her. She had taken three direct hits, as well as two torpedoes. I-168 added two more torpedoes, as well as a bonus kill of USS Hammann in the attack.
Yes the air forces were parity in numbers for Kido Butai, but not skill and capability. The Jap's had us there. In actuality, if Yamamoto had pooled his forces, even after the four carriers were out of play, he still outnumbered and outclassed the US forces (air and surface). It has been argued several times that he should not have run, he should have pressed. If he had, it would not have gone well for our guys.
Other than soaking up Japanese bullets, the aircraft from Midway played no direct part in the victory. The B-17's might not have even been there. The Marauders were four in number, and got really lucky with the one hit they made using the improvised torpedo rig. But it was not decisive to the battle at all. If anything, we proved again that we could not manage our assets in a coordinated effective manner. It was mismanagement that undermined Japanese advantages, and shear stupidity in some cases that forced the victory on us, regardless of how we tried to get out of it.

Yorktown’s air group was the only one of the three to attack as a group. Their providential arrival simultaneously with that of Enterprise’s VB-6 and VS-6 spelled the doom of Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu.

http://www.history.navy.mil/history/mid ... lesson.htm

The reason is the Yorktown had far more experience, From Adm. Fletcher on down. Thats not so much luck as making your own luck because you know what the Fook you're doing.

I beg to differ. Japanese leadership was of higher experience and quality. These guys were the A-Team, Kido Butai under Nagumo had been very busy and successful lads. They had a long string of un-matched victories and success. Politics and smugness was their undoing. They were very experienced in multi CV tactics and warfare, while we were babes in the woods. It was the Japanese failure to give us credence, and lack of an actual plan that followed proven doctrine, all based in self conceit, that handed us victory.

If not for the loss of Japanese carriers at Coral Sea, Midway might have turned out differently. But we went into Coral Sea 3 carriers to 2, and pasted them. Call it first blood for the US Navy, they knew they could go toe to toe with the Japanese Navy and come out on top, a huge moral boost. IMHO this plays into Midway as an intangible. Our guys knew they could beat their guys.

There were four other carriers that could have been assigned. They also were not sunk. One was damaged, the other lost a number of aircraft. That is why CarDiv 5 did not sorty with Kido Butai. And yes, I agree, the message was lost on the Japanese at Coral Sea, that we, the US could fight. Self conceit was rampant. I would also not call Coral Sea a pasting. The Japanese certainly did not see it that way.

I have "heard" that later in the Pacific, the New Jersey was head hunting. Using radar fire control the NJ didnt have to see Japanese ships to hit them, and supposedly went after the Japanese flagship's bridge during the Turkey Shoot.

Our gunnery control was never good enough to selectively target points on a ship. We did not gain this ability until recently with the introduction of optical gunnery with laser range finders on main battery mounts. Even CIWS 1B is not that selective, or can reach. It is not the mythological bullet laser as many believe. It is in fact designed to have a dithering to create a wall of "flak" if you will for the intended target. In surface mode, it is optically controlled. IN radar based control you can introduce offsets into your shots to best guess bias a round towards (or away)/ left or right from your target, but this is guesswork at best. If you want to impact a selected point, you do it optically. And without a good range finder (like a laser, or precision digital radar), good luck. I have no idea who might have suggested such a thing to you.

Its clear that vs the Japanese our equipment was technologically superior as well as our intel. Aces Like Bong and Macguire were brought back to teach new pilots. Our Subs dove deeper, were faster, had better SONAR. OK our torpedoes sucked, but we fixed that.

The facts are that at both Coral Sea and at Midway we had fewer carriers and still pasted the Japanese carriers. And dont under value the Lex being hit hard, but recovering to continue the fight, and Yorktown came to Midway with a few notches on her belt from Coral Sea.

BTW, Yorktown was commissioned in 1937
http://www.history.navy.mil/history/CoralSea.htm

Our equipment was not better than the Japanese. They just built their stuff to different ideas than us. In many was they had better equipment. We never matched them for gunnery nor optical sighting. The introduction of radar gunnery was an advantage (for a while), until they did the same. All in all, we won the war not on better stuff, but more stuff. We could replace our losses in equipment and people way better than they could. We had a larger pool both manufacturing and body wise to draw on. We also, as you noted, brought home our experts to train the new batches, while they did not. There is a noted and much studied decline from the starting quality of Japanese service personel with the ending.

You should review the Japanese designs for the Yamato and Mushashi, as well as the Super CV's they were working on. They were much better than what we brought to the game.

Edit: corrected details and added a little more depth.

[ladajo]

Japanese order of battle underway during Midway.

Midway Force:
Kido Butai (1st Striking Force under Nagumo)
(Carrier Division 1) Akagi, Kaga
(Carrier Division 2) Hiryu, Soryu
Missing: (Carrier Division 5) Sukaku, Zuikaku (recovering from Coral Sea)
2 BB, 2 Cruisers, 12 DD's

Main Body (Under Yamamoto)
(Carrier Group) Hosho
3 BB (including Yamato), 10 DD's
Guard Force - Aleutian's Screen (Under Takasu)
4 BB's, 2 Cruisers, 12 DD's
Midway Invasion Force (Under Kondo)
(Carrier Group) Zuiho
2 BB, 8 Cruisers, 22 DD's

Aleutians Force (2nd Carrier Striking Force under Kakuta)
Carrier Group
(Carrier Division 4) Ryujo, Junyo
7 Cruisers, 13 DD's

All told, they pushed out 8 Carriers, 11 Battleships, 19 Cruisers, 69 Destroyers and 21 submarines.

Who thinks that we could have beaten this force if it joined as one force against Midway instead of splitting up and going for three seperate objectives at the same time (US Carrier Fleet - TF 16 & 17, Midway Island, Aleutian Islands)?

Even with the defeat of Kido Butai's four carriers, if Yamamoto had pulled the remaining force together, and pressed an attack, we would have lost Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown.

[Diogenes]

Luck is an important part of any military operation.

In any case it wasn't luck. America had a plan enunciated by George Keenan and stuck to it. There may have been a better plan. The better plan was unnecessary because the plan adopted worked. Economy of force.

You have read the chapter on Grand Strategy in Hart's Strategy haven't you D?

You do remember my reference to the Grandmother and the Cricket? (Mulan) Her plan was to use the magic of the cricket to protect her from harm.





That appears to have been the plan we followed as well.

[Diogenes]

Had Stanislav Petrov done what many soviet officers would have done, you would all now be on my side denouncing the utter stupidity of letting the soviets reach nuclear parity.

Perhaps we would be debating the point, it is more likely we would be dead.

A point I decided not to make at the time because I thought it distracted from my main thrust. (That we only consider the plan brilliant because things worked out okay in the end.)

Stanislav Petrov has many counterparts in the USAF. Ballistic missile warning through satellite observation was (perhaps is) no walk in the park. The people who do the work are painfully aware of the stakes and do their best to get it right every time. Sometimes the technology makes it hard to do.

I personally did not enjoy the feeling of living under the threat of Nuclear annihilation. (We still are, but at least we feel that things are more stable now.) Movies like "War Games" and "Fail Safe" pretty much characterized the potential for a serious chance of Armageddon. I think Curtis LeMay was right to argue for avoiding being put into that circumstance.

[Diogenes]

The salient point is that it was sheer insanity to allow someone to build weapons that will kill your entire nation. We risked the annihilation of millions of our citizens just because we couldn't stomach the casualties of preventing it.

The point you miss is that your 'prevention' would not only cause casaulties of soviets, most of them innocent, but also would mean anihilation of millions of citizens of Western Europe and USA.

Surely, you can anihilate everything on Earth and claim victory. Unfortunately there will not be many left to enjoy it.

We armchair quarterbacks can debate what would have happened, but the people most knowledgeable and who had done the most research, indeed it was their JOB to understand this as close as humanly possible, were Curtis LeMay and his officers at SAC.

They did the research, and they concluded that the most sensible thing to do was to prevent the Soviets from reaching parity. They were highly effective and Successful military officers, and they probably even read that book that MSimon is constantly going on about. If anyone on earth knew the best course of action, it is most likely to have been these men, and they all said GO!


Let me show you this again.


Before.

Curtis LeMay believed he knew a way to end the invasion as quickly as it had begun. " We slipped a note kind of under the door into the Pentagon," he recalled in retirement, "and said, 'Look, let us go up there... and burn down five of the biggest towns in North Korea- and they're not very big- and that ought to stop it." Well, the answer to that was four or five screams -' You'll kill a lot of noncombatants,' and 'it's too horrible.' The only lesson LeMay thought he learned in Korea was "How not to use the strategic air weapon."

After.

"So we went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea too. We even burned down [the South Korean port city of] Pusan-an accident, but we burned it down anyway....Over a period of three years or so, we killed off-what-twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure? Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody, but to kill a few people at the start right away, no, we can't seem to stomach that. "

So who had the better idea? If Curtis LeMay's idea had worked, far more innocent lives would have been saved by burning down those Cities in North Korea than by killing 20% of the Korean population and leaving the issue unresolved.

Understand this. The killing from the Korean war is not over yet. We may see hundreds of thousands if not millions more dead over that conflict. Curtis LeMay's idea might have stopped it all.

Brilliant strategy we followed right?

[rjaypeters]

...Movies like "War Games" and "Fail Safe" pretty much characterized the potential for a serious chance of Armageddon.

Forgive the aside, when I first saw the movie "War Games" and junior and senior officer descending to their capsule, their conversation was obscured, but it sounded to me like they were talking about growing marijuana. I wasn't and am not part of the drug culture, but I don't think "sensimilla" comes up in conversation anywhere else.

Did anyone else notice the conversation?

[Roger]

Not true. We did not know where/when - we had an idea, and guessed.

These 2 web sites contradicts your cliam.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

Admiral Nimitz had one priceless asset: cryptanalysts had broken the JN-25 code.[41] Commander Joseph J. Rochefort and his team at Station Hypo were able to confirm Midway as the target of the impending Japanese strike, to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle.[42]

Who thinks that we could have beaten this force if it joined as one force against Midway instead of splitting up and going for three seperate objectives at the same time .

The point is they didnt send 8 carriers, and we knew it, dont offer up a hand waving "what if". If we knew they would send 8 carriers to Midway, we wouldn't have sent3 carriers to Midway. And to suggest that Numitz would so is nothing but hand waving.

I have no idea who might have suggested such a thing to you.

A couple of guys who were there, thats all.
Start with an electronics tech who operated radar on a US Carrier starting in 1943.

I beg to differ. Japanese leadership was of higher experience and quality.

Obviously true, which is way I was comparing US Carriers, something you missed, utterly.

[ladajo]

Not true. We did not know where/when - we had an idea, and guessed.

These 2 web sites contradicts your cliam.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

Admiral Nimitz had one priceless asset: cryptanalysts had broken the JN-25 code.[41] Commander Joseph J. Rochefort and his team at Station Hypo were able to confirm Midway as the target of the impending Japanese strike, to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle.[42]

The confirmation came with my above mentioned ruse. The comms shop came up with the idea to have Midway transmit in the clear that the water purification plant was down. In turn, the Japanese added a water tanker to the assault force, and this was found in the traffic.
I will look up that actual numbers of readible traffic that we and the Brits were able to achive against the Japanese and let you know. It was a surprisingly small amount. Thus we focused our efforts to where it mattered in order to maximize return.
The US navy history is still somewhat based on US centric views, as well as using Fuchida as a primary source, who subsequently has been determined by us and the Japanese to have made stuff up in a self and nationalistic serving manner. On eof the most famous being the presence of an aircraft strike package on the decks of the Japanese carriers during our strikes, thus saving us at the last minute from annihilation.

Who thinks that we could have beaten this force if it joined as one force against Midway instead of splitting up and going for three seperate objectives at the same time .

The point is they didnt send 8 carriers, and we knew it, dont offer up a hand waving "what if". If we knew they would send 8 carriers to Midway, we wouldn't have sent3 carriers to Midway. And to suggest that Numitz would so is nothing but hand waving.

Actually, we did not know what the Japanese force construct was. It is not hand waving. We had an idea that they had sailed, not who and where. If fact, if we had known the extent of the force employed, there is a good chance we would have only gone for a harrassment, and not sought a decisive. But, in our ignorance, we still were set up for success by the force splitting of the Japanese for competing objectives.

I have no idea who might have suggested such a thing to you.

A couple of guys who were there, thats all.
Start with an electronics tech who operated radar on a US Carrier starting in 1943.

Yeah, he is pulling your leg. There was NO radar fire control with that type of resolution. In fact today, we still do not have it. Maybe if someone came up with an ISAR system tied to a gun, possibly. Selective targeting, both then and now is done optically. Be it electronics based optics, or an eyeball with a crosshair sight. A while back, I was trained as a Navy RADAR Electronics Tech. specifically for the SPS-10, but have dealt with many others in the years since past. Radar gunnery was still being worked out by the time of Midway, the primary use of Radar was early warning.

I beg to differ. Japanese leadership was of higher experience and quality.

Obviously true, which is way I was comparing US Carriers, something you missed, utterly.

[/quote]

We did not get our step up carrier force until after Midway, and then with a vengeance. Yes, we approached some design ideas differently than the Japanese, but that is not to say we had a decisive technical advantage. Arguably, we were fairly even at that point. Practices were the main difference. They were way better than us in multi-carrier ops, we were better at single ship ops due to mostly training and crew quality. Especially as the war progressed after Midway.

[Roger]

The Mark 13 3cm radar had 5m range accuracy and could detect individual 16 inch shell splashes at over 40,000 yds.

The Mark 8 mod 2 can detect 16 inch shell splashes at 20,000 yds.and had a range accuracy of 5m.

[Roger]

Radar gunnery was still being worked out by the time of Midway, the primary use of Radar was early warning.

I never said it played a role at Midway.

Though on the other hand the use of optical sightings were pretty much obsolete, or going to be.

The Mark 8 came out in late 1942. Both Mark 3 and 4 were introduced in late 1941.

By the time the Iowas were out they used a Mark 13 3cm radar, Mark 41 Stable Vertical(gyro), two Mark 38 Gun Fire Control Systems, Mark 8 rangekeeper.

Unfortunately the debate you wish to have cannot include many citations of actual ship of the line exchanges, there just weren't that many. Certainly no Iowa vs Yamato scenarios. The Washington and West Virginia each were involved in firing at night to good effect. The Iowa class beat on cruisers and destroyers.

So you wouldn't aim at the bridge?

...that is what were talking about, no?