What Have Our Carriers Done For Us? – Follow Up

Well, that post certainly didn’t go well.  Few people were able to grasp the ‘what if’ nature of the premise.  So, instead, I’ll offer my take on it.
 
 
Mission
 
Beginning around 1950, we would have recognized that the Air Force (AF) was the guarantor of our national security and sovereign existence. 
 
 
Budget
 
The untold billions that have gone towards carriers, carrier aviation, maintenance, nuclear operations, annual operating costs, etc. would, instead, have gone to the AF.  Plenty of money!  With that recognition of the AF’s core mission, would have come the realization that we needed a worldwide network of bases.
 
 
Bases
 
So many people started the basing question from today’s reality.  We don’t have bases.  We have no territories.  No host country is going to allow us to operate freely.  Well, in this alternate reality, recall that we started with possession of most of the bases, post WWII, and didn’t give them up so today’s reality is null and void (that’s what a ‘what if’ is, right?).  Perhaps this might have consisted of retaining ownership of a single island from amongst a group for basing purposes and allowing the remainder of the territories to revert to self-governship.  We could have established wholly owned, sovereign US bases across the breadth of the Pacific.
 
The process of base acquisition would have continued throughout the world.  Methods of acquisition would have covered the gamut of soft, friendly, mutually beneficial arrangements to hard core threats and coups.  We have done all the above at various times in our history.  It would have just been more of the same.
 
One of the conditions for forming and joining NATO might have been inclusion of independent bases in each member country?  Don’t like it?  Don’t join.  Fight Russia on your own.  That’s hardball but that’s the way the game is played, if necessary.
 
For any specific potential base location, ask yourself, what was the status of that location immediately after WWII?  Odds are we either had control of it or could have with little effort.
 
Finally, for those who extoll the virtues of the mobile, sovereign airfield that is an aircraft carrier, note that we have only about nine functioning, combat-capable carriers right now.  Surely, in our alternate reality, we could have had many dozens/hundreds of bases (we already do and could have had many more!).  Doesn’t that seem significant?
 
In short, basing doesn’t seem like it would have been a problem.  It’s become a problem in our reality because we never prioritized it like we would have if the AF were the only source of aircraft.
 
By the way, one astute reader noted that an base can be repaired easier than a carrier.  If a carrier is sunk, it takes us 5-7 years (optimistically) to get a replacement.  We can repair a base in hours or days, depending on the type of damage (fuel being the biggest vulnerability).
 
 
Aircraft
 
With a hugely increased budget, the AF would have developed many more types of aircraft and acquired many more of them.  For example, instead of a fleet of just 180 F-22 stealth fighters, we might have acquired several hundred.  Instead of a fleet of 21 B-2 bombers we might have acquired two or three hundred.  Larger aircraft numbers would have required a greatly expanded fleet of tankers, AWACS, ISR, and cargo aircraft.
 
Imagine fleets of B-2 bombers sitting at bases around the world instead of just 15 or so flyable B-2’s sitting in one location back in the continental US.
 
Imagine squadrons of F-22 fighters based all around the globe.
 
In addition to numbers, the AF would have developed additional types of aircraft to carry out its mission.  Imagine fleets of arsenal bombers or converted commercial airliners carrying 70 anti-ship cruise missiles, each!  There’s your ‘naval’ battle!
 
Imagine squadrons of gunships of various sizes and capacities supporting our low end endeavors.
 
Imagine a follow on F-22 fighter with truly epic range to cover the Pacific area.
 
 
Operations
 
Now, imagine swarms of AF aircraft operating from a global network of bases, each base being capable of air defense, short range strike, and very long range strike.  There would be no areas of the world where we couldn’t bring major firepower to bear.
 
Imagine multiple divisions of Army troops operating in conjunction with local AF bases.  We already have Army airborne units but imagine many more such units, dispersed around the world so that combat response is always just a matter of hours away instead of a Marine Corps MEU being, likely, days or weeks away.
 
Imagine joint Army/AF units operating in an integrated fashion with armor, troop, heavy transport, fighter cover, and strike support, all available from the same base.  There’s your truly effective MAGTF!
 
Imagine swarms of bombers able to launch several hundred anti-ship missiles against any naval force anywhere in the world and doing so with fighter and EW support.
 
Imagine base defense with layers of very long range interceptors and short/medium range fighters.
 
Imagine being able to put hundreds of fighters into the air over, say, Taiwan.
 
 
Conclusion
 
We opted to go the carrier route but consider the alternate reality that I’ve described above and ask yourself whether carriers have accomplished the same or more, in our reality?  It’s far from a sure thing that they have.  Had we fully (and intelligently!) committed to AF aviation instead of carriers, could we have accomplished more than we have with carriers? 
 
Aside from fun, one of the practical uses of this thought experiment is to highlight potential beneficial changes to our current reality, going forward.  Should we be emphasizing the AF more?  Should we be expanding our carrier fleet instead of shrinking it?  Should we be far more aggressively acquiring bases?  Should we be altering our operations and doctrine one way or the other?  Should we be developing some of the aircraft types that were mentioned?  Should the AF have a bigger role in a naval battle?  And so on.
 
The potential is certainly there although the devil is in the execution.  We could easily have screwed up the alternate reality just as much as our current reality.  Still, it’s intriguing to think about.

If The Navy Had Its Way

We’ve talked about the various attempts by the Navy to early retire the Aegis cruisers among other misguided actions.  Thank goodness Congress slapped them down.  However, chillingly, have you ever thought about the consequences if Congress and other factors hadn’t intervened over the years?  Just for fun, let’s pull together all the Navy’s attempts and see what kind of Navy we’d have if the Navy had gotten its way the last couple of decades.

 

Here’s what the Navy has attempted to do:

 

• Retire all the Ticonderoga Aegis cruisers
• Build 55 LCS
• Early retire 2 carriers at their mid-life refueling and overhaul points (Washington in 2014 and Truman in 2019)(1)
• Build a class of LCS-based frigates

 

 

 

	Current	Attempted
Carriers (Nimitz, Ford)	11	9
Cruisers (Ticonderoga)	22	0
Destroyers (Zumwalt, Burke)	72	72
Frigate (LCS)	0	20?a
LCS	23	55

 

 

^a Assumes a 20-ship build as with the future Constellation frigate class

 

 

 

What jumps out from the table is the shift that would have occurred from the current number of high end and highly capable ships to low end, less capable ones.  That is what the Navy wanted to do.  Thankfully, Congress and other factors stopped them.

 

Frightening.

 

 

 

______________________________

 

(1)Breaking Defense website, “Pentagon To Retire USS Truman Early, Shrinking Carrier Fleet To 10”, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., 27-Feb-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/02/pentagon-to-retire-uss-truman-early-shrinking-carrier-fleet-to-10/

What If?

The US Navy and Marine Corps has grandiose plans for future combat based on sterile, clean, carefully orchestrated concepts of networks, sensors, and data all seamlessly and flawlessly linked to every unit and individual on the battlefield.  Our forces will have perfect situational awareness, perfect synchronicity, and a degree of omniscience almost unimaginable, all carefully controlled by massive artificial intelligence-aided command and control software. 

 

Let’s set aside the fantasy aspects of the preceding vision and just ask ourselves one simple question:  what if we find ourselves in a position where our assumptions are not valid?  What if?  … What then?

 

Here’s a highly relevant quote from retired Marine Gen. Charles Krulak,

 

“Where were we weak? We were weak in any kind of close terrain. If we got into urban environments, if we got into woods, if we got into any place where our systems, our overhead systems, couldn’t see, if they were able to get us dispersed, if we weren’t able to bring together our combat power, if we were dumb enough to continue to drive down the same roads, to walk like we did in Vietnam or drive like we did in Iraq, they would blow us up.” (1)

 

There it is;  the key assumption and key weakness in today’s vision of battlefield omniscience:  if we get into a situation where our systems can’t see.  If we get into a situation where our sensors can’t see or, seeing, can’t communicate their data or the data can’t be disseminated over the network.  If that happens, our entire concept of battlefield dominance breaks down and we lose.

 

Why might our systems not be able to ‘see’?  The list of possible reasons is long and, in the aggregate, quite likely:

 

Weather – Bad weather is still a reality and still negatively impacts sensor performance.  Clouds obscure and degrade lasers and satellites.  Rain impacts radar, infra-red (IR), lasers, and electro-optical (EO).  Fog impacts electro-optical, laser, and IR.  Waves degrade radar.  Wave clutter obscures targets.

 

Attrition – The enemy is going to do everything they can to destroy our sensors and platforms like the P-8 Poseidon, MQ-9 Reaper and similar large, slow, non-stealthy UAVs, MQ-8 Fire Scouts, etc. are going to have battlefield lifetimes measured in minutes, at best.

 

Obscurants – Multi-spectral chemical obscurant clouds hinder all forms of surveillance. 

 

Cyber – China, NKorea, Russia, and Iran have repeatedly proven their competence at conducting cyber warfare right now, during supposed peacetime, so one can only assume that the degree of cyber attacks will increase dramatically in a real war.  Those attacks will degrade and negate our communications, command and control, sensor nets, unmanned control systems, and many other aspects that we haven’t even thought of yet.  Won’t we be surprised when our F-35s are cyber attacked through their vaunted APG-81 AESA radar (if it can receive signals, it can be cyber attacked) and we lose control of various aircraft functions?  Also, if we go to war with any one of those enemies, you can be sure that the rest will drastically ramp up their cyber attacks against us in support of whoever we’re fighting.  We’ll be fighting a 4-front cyber war.

 

Jamming – Old fashioned and highly effective.  Jamming has evolved to become a computer controlled, frequency hopping weapon and, of course, there’s always good old, reliable, broad spectrum, high power jamming.  We’ll find our communications and signal links degraded or eliminated.

 

Fog of War – Since time immemorial, combatants have understood that nothing ever goes as planned and confusion reigns supreme on the battlefield.  To this day, despite all our vaunted technology, we constantly suffer confusion, often with fatal results, during our daily, peacetime operations.  We suffer friendly fire, ship collisions, uncertainty about whether we were actually attacked by anti-ship missiles (the Yemen affair), and so on.  In war, our UAVs will be shot down, our comm links will be disrupted, our networks will fail, and we’ll be completely confused.  Confusion is the normal state of affairs on the battlefield and all of our technology can do nothing to change that.

 

Cover – Buildings, foliage, caves, tunnels, camouflage netting, etc. all provide cover, to a greater or lesser extent, from radar, IR, EO, lasers, and satellites. 

 

Decoys – Decoys don’t hide anything but they degrade sensor performance by presenting false targets, adding to the previously discussed confusion.

 

 

What if any, many, or all of these mitigating conditions exist on a battlefield (and they will ! )?  Our omniscient sensing will be suddenly rendered suspect or useless.  What then?  Our entire foundation of future battle is based on a concept whose failings and vulnerabilities are readily anticipatable.  What then? 

 

What if our sensors, networks, communications, and artificial intelligence command and control systems are degraded or rendered useless?  What do we actually have to fall back on?  Frighteningly, the answer is … nothing.  We have no fall back mode of operation.  No alternatives.  No safety net.

 

What should be the ‘what if’ solution?  What do you fall back on when everything else falls apart?  Why, firepower, of course … broad area, high explosive, non-precision, erase entire grid squares, raw firepower.  Firepower makes up for a whole lot of mistakes, capability gaps, sensor failures, and intelligence shortcomings.  Not sure exactly where the enemy is?  No problem … blanket any suspect areas with high explosives and you’ve solved the problem.  You can figure out later which area they were actually in … if you can find any pieces of them large enough to identify.

 

The problem is that we’ve been eliminating firepower.  The Marines have shed all their tanks and much of their artillery.  We’ve allowed our anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, to become obsolete with only the possibility of the LRASM to replace it and budget constraints make that a dubious proposition.  We’re dropping thousands of VLS cells as we begin retiring Ticonderogas and Burkes and replacing them with small, weak, unmanned vessels.  We’re dropping the already weak 5” gun in favor of the 57mm overgrown machine gun.  We’ve got a looming submarine shortfall.  We’ve significantly cut back our SSBN deterrence in terms of both numbers of subs and numbers of missile tubes.  The Marines have eliminated their large 120 mm mortars.  Our offensive mine inventory is almost non-existent.  The SSGN is being retired without replacement.  The Perry class frigates were replaced by the non-combat LCS.  And the list goes on.

 

Any good battle operation planner routinely plans for failure scenarios, for the the things that can go wrong.  Contingency plans are drawn up to account  for and compensate for the unexpected and for the things that go wrong because … things always go wrong.  This is just good, solid, battle planning and yet, we have no such contingency plan for when our entire future combat model falls apart – and it will.  The only question is to what extent it will fail and considering the sheer number of failure modes, the extent of failure is likely to be significant.  The contingency plan should be pure, raw firepower and yet we’re divesting ourselves of firepower.  We need to reverse this trend and begin emphasizing firepower as we always have in the past. 

 

What’s the downside to building our firepower back up?  There isn’t one!  Worst case – meaning if it turns out that our networks work flawlessly – we’re left with excess firepower that didn’t get used.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

 

 

 

___________________________________

 

(1)Defense One website, “Want to Understand the Future of War? Talk to Chuck Krulak”, Tobias Naegele, 3-Feb-2018,

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/02/want-understand-future-war-chuck-krulak/145665/

Japanese Invasion of Pearl Harbor

Here’s another ‘what if’ version of history:  what if the Japanese had immediately invaded Hawaii after attacking Pearl Harbor?  How would the war have progressed from that point?  Let’s see.

Note:  Credit for this idea goes to blog reader ‘Purple Calico’ who suggested the topic during the recent open post discussion. (3)

The initial premise is that the attack on Pearl Harbor and all the related events happened exactly as history records except that the Japanese fleet contained an invasion force and the Japanese continued on to Pearl Harbor rather than turning away.

To review, the Japanese strike fleet consisted of 6 aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku) with well over 400 aircraft, protected by 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and 9 destroyers (all actual).  Accompanying the strike were 8 tankers (actual) which would prove crucial in our alter-history by sustaining the fleets while the island was being secured.

In addition, 23 fleet submarines (actual, 4) were assigned to provide containment around Pearl Harbor to prevent any surviving US ships from escaping to open waters (1) and screening for the strike and invasion fleets.  A third were assigned to screen the fleet to the east of Oahu, another third capped the Pearl Harbor channel to the south, and the remaining third patrolled the waters to the west of Oahu.

The alter-historical addition to the Japanese strike fleet is an invasion force consisted of an armored division with 10,000 men and 270 tanks plus dozens of artillery and anti-tank guns plus an infantry division of almost 25,000 men supported by several dozen artillery guns, all loaded on dozens of transport vessels. 

The attack on Pearl Harbor came from the north with the 1^st wave launching around 220 miles north of Pearl Harbor.  The strike fleet continued to sail east and launched the 2^nd wave from the northeast. 

The first two attack waves succeeded in sinking or damaging nearly all the battleships and cruisers and eliminated effective aerial resistance.  Of the 402 American aircraft in Hawaii, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged, 155 of them on the ground (actual).

Note:  An outstanding map of Pearl Harbor ships and facilities at the moment of attack can be found on the National Geographic website. (2)

What follows is a descriptive alter-historical summary of events beginning immediately after the 2^nd assault wave of Japanese aircraft.

A 3^rd wave was launched from east of Oahu and focused on the ten or so destroyers which had been largely untouched in the first two strikes and any remaining aircraft on the ground.  By the time the 3^rd wave was finished, there were very few undamaged ships in Pearl Harbor. 

The strike fleet continued sailing in a clockwise circle around Oahu, escorting the transport vessels.  The land assault would be focused on the militarized island of Oahu which contained the Pearl Harbor naval base, Marine barracks, and multiple air fields.  The remaining Hawaiian islands did not need to be occupied.  This allowed the Japanese to concentrate their resources on a single small island only 20 miles or so across.

With no American air power to worry about, the two Japanese battleships raced ahead of the rest of the invasion and strike fleets and entered the Pearl Harbor channel at dusk.  Their mission was to destroy any remaining ships, bombard the facilities that the Japanese didn’t need to occupy and reuse, and to distract from the assault force that began their landings at the same time.  There was risk with attempting an evening landing rather than waiting for dawn but it was felt that the risk was worth it to maintain the shock and confusion that the reeling Americans were under.

As it turned out, the Japanese battleships were hugely successful with the Americans firing on their own ships as much as the Japanese did due to the darkness, confusion, and panic.  With reports of Japanese troop landings, and the evidence of Japanese ships in the harbor, American troops began firing on their own ground forces as they were totally untrained and unprepared for night combat and had not trained for friendly forces identification.  By morning, the Japanese ground forces were well established and by the end of the day on the 8^th were in control of the Pearl Harbor facilities.

Japanese Forces Landing on Oahu

The USS Enterprise, returning from delivering Wildcats to Wake Island, was 215 miles west of Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacks began.  Several of Enterprise’s SBDs had flown ahead to Pearl and were shot down by friendly fire.  Enterprise spent the day of the 7^th searching for the Japanese strike fleet but found nothing since the Japanese fleets were on the opposite side of Oahu.  As reports of Japanese invasion forces reached Enterprise, Admiral Halsey headed southeast and began to assemble an aerial strike force.  Unfortunately, that brought Enterprise into the teeth of the Japanese submarine screen and a Japanese submarine found her and put three torpedoes into the ship.  Over the next several hours, a second Japanese submarine was able to approach and hit Enterprise with two more torpedoes.  Her fate was sealed.  Enterprise was a blazing wreck and eventually sank during the night of the 8^th.

Enterprise Torpedoed and Sinking

Meanwhile, Lexington, which had been on a mission to deliver planes to Midway, found herself caught halfway between Midway and Pearl Harbor and with her escorts low on fuel due to previous refueling difficulties (actual).  With Enterprise sunk, the Japanese dispatched four carriers to search for Lexington and, on the 12^th, found her, thus setting the stage for the first carrier battle where the opposing ships never saw each other.  Both sides launched nearly simultaneous attacks.  Lexington, with only a single air group which included over a dozen older Brewster Buffalos, was unable to fight off the Japanese attack and suffered two bomb hits, two torpedoes, and a damaged Japanese plane that dove into the carrier.  Lexington’s strike, facing the defensive CAP of four carriers, managed to score two bomb hits on the Kaga which damaged the carrier enough to curtail flight operations but did not sink it.  Both sides recovered their strikes but the Japanese, with greater numbers, were able to launch a second, standby, strike before Lexington could effect repairs sufficient to assemble another strike.  The second strike finished off the Lexington. 

This left Saratoga, which was training her air group in San Diego, as the only US carrier in the Pacific.  Yorktown, Hornet, and Ranger and Wasp were training in Norfolk.  Ranger was considered unsuited for the Pacific and was destined for Atlantic and European operations.  It would be many weeks before Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp could be moved to the Pacific and the Japanese used that time to secure Pearl Harbor and set it up as their forward base.  Japanese army aircraft fighters were ferried to the island along with long range patrol planes and bombers.

One of the major benefits for the Japanese in seizing Pearl Harbor was the presence of the drydocks which they had wisely and carefully avoided damaging in the initial attacks and which were captured largely intact and quickly returned to service.  Damaged Japanese ships which might otherwise have had to return to Japan for repair, were able to be serviced locally, at Pearl Harbor, and returned to combat much quicker.  This was significant as even the base at Truk lacked significant repair facilities.

Fall of Wake – On 11-Dec-1941, Wake defenders fought off the first Japanese landing attempt, sinking two Japanese destroyers with coastal defense guns and Wildcat aircraft.  A second assault initiated shortly after midnight on 23-Dec-1941 succeeded and the island fell later that same day.

Seizure of Tulagi and Port Moresby (Coral Sea) – The Japanese planned to seize Tulagi and Port Moresby in operations that began in April 1942.  The Americans were able to intercept and decipher Japanese signals and knew the general location and timing of the operations.  Having lost Pearl Harbor, the threat to Australia as a forward base was considered strategically vital and an operation to intercept the Japanese in or around the Coral Sea was initiated.  The carrier Yorktown, recently arrived in the Pacific, was patrolling in the area to the west of Australia and Saratoga was dispatched from San Diego to join her and meet the Japanese invasion fleet.  The Japanese sent the Carriers Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Shoho to screen the invasion forces from the north and a surface force centered around the battleship Yamato approached from the northeast from Pearl Harbor.  Despite the efforts of their respective scout aircraft, the two sides stumbled across each other during the night of 6-May with the Yamato group sighting the Yorktown and Saratoga which had joined up the previous day.  The Japanese and American destroyer screens made contact and exchanged fire in a wild night battle which the Japanese cruisers and the Yamato quickly jumped into.  When word came that a Japanese battleship was part of the attack, the American carriers conducted an impromptu and untrained-for night launch and attack.  Despite the darkness and their lack of training, the untrained flyers succeeded in hitting Yamato with one torpedo and a cruiser was hit with two bombs.  Unfortunately, in the darkness, confusion, and co-mingling of the ships, the flyers also torpedoed and sank a US destroyer.  As dawn approached, and fearing further aerial attacks, the Japanese broke off the attack and steamed away.  

Yorktown and Saratoga Night Attack on Yamato 

However, with the US carrier force now located, the Japanese carriers launched a heavy dawn attack which caught the US carriers and their exhausted pilots unprepared.  Saratoga was heavily damaged by multiple torpedoes and bombs and Yorktown suffered two bomb hits.  When the attack ended, Yorktown, whose dawn scouting planes had located the Japanese carriers, was still able to conduct flight operations and launched a counterattack which caught the Japanese carriers refueling and rearming their aircraft.  Shoho was sunk and Shokaku was heavily damaged.

After recovering her aircraft, Yorktown broke off the engagement and retired to the southeast and back to San Diego for repairs.  Saratoga was taken under tow but the Yamato group, reversing course and returning to the area to mop up, fell upon the carrier and sank it with gunfire.

The Battle of the Coral Sea, as it came to be known, was a tactical draw but because the US was unable to stop the Japanese invasion fleet which still had sizable carrier and surface forces in the area to provide protection, the Japanese were able to complete the seizure of Port Moresby which was then used as a staging area to threaten Australia directly.

With the loss of Saratoga, only the Hornet, Wasp, and damaged Yorktown remained from the pre-war US carrier force.

The Japanese then seized Midway, costing the US the valuable PBY Catalina patrol and scouting base.  Despite having knowledge of the Japanese intentions via signals analysis, the US simply didn’t have the naval strength to contest the Japanese invasion.

The US was now forced to operate from Australia, the Aleutians, and San Diego.  None of these options was desirable although Australia was, at least, near the action due to the Japanese seizures.  US efforts for the next several months centered on reinforcing Australia and beefing up its defenses.  If Australia fell, the US would be effectively ejected from the Pacific theatre.

Taking a cue from the Germans, the Japanese began conducting aggressive Australian convoy interdiction using submarines based out of Pearl Harbor.  The Battle of the Pacific, mirroring the Battle of the Atlantic, became a logistic supply contest with the US attempting to reinforce Australia and the Japanese attempting to cut the supply line.

The Japanese, having essentially secured the Pacific now focused on a holding strategy in an attempt to force the US into a negotiated peace.  The Japanese believed that the US, already occupied with the war in Europe, would grow weary of fighting a difficult war in the Pacific and lacked the stomach for the casualties such an endeavor would entail.  

To that end, in late 1942 the Japanese dispatched a strike force of carriers and battleships to the west coast of the US to conduct bombardment raids which, it was hoped, would further discourage a demoralized populace and force the US to negotiate.  The strike force arrived off the coast of Washington and began moving south, bombarding cities and targets of opportunity as they went.  The intent was to inflict some casualties and instill fear in the populace rather than achieve any specific military success.  After 24 hours of nearly continuous bombardment, the group turned away and retired to avoid the inevitable surge of US naval forces to the area from San Francisco and San Diego.

Japanese Battleship Bombarding Washington Coast

While the operation was executed flawlessly the reaction of the American people was a surge of anger, defiance, and cries for revenge and retaliation.  As a result of the raid, US determination to defeat Japan was greater than ever, much to the disbelief of the Japanese strategists.

There was little doubt that the US needed to recapture Pearl Harbor to support the war with Japan.  However, by this time, Japan had had a year to fortify the base and seizing it by a direct assault with the closest support being the US west coast was not immediately feasible.  Instead, US military strategists opted to seize Midway atoll first and then use Midway to screen and support a subsequent assault against Pearl Harbor.  An invasion force consisting of Maj. Gen. Vandegrift’s 1^st Marine Division and supported by the carriers Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp, and the newly arrived Essex along with RAdm. Willis ‘Ching’ Lee’s battleship group of North Carolina, Washington, Indiana, and South Dakota was assembled in the Aleutians at Dutch Harbor and sailed for Midway in May 1943. 

As the force approached Midway from the north, the carriers broke off and circled to the east to take a position to the southeast of Midway, somewhat between it and Pearl Harbor.  As expected, the battleships and troop transports were spotted by long range patrol planes from Midway.  The Japanese surged four carriers and their escorts, including the battleships Yamato, the newly arrived Musashi, and the older battleships Nagato, Mutsu, and Fuso from Pearl Harbor to intercept the American force. 

The US transport fleet hung back while the battleship group and its escorts took the lead.  As the US fleet approached Midway, the Japanese launched two aerial strikes of high level bombers from Midway.  The concentrated anti-aircraft fire of the US battleships and escorts, combined with the inherent inaccuracy of high level bombing resulted in only two hits:  one bomb hit the South Dakota resulting in only minor damage and a more serious hit on a cruiser which was forced to retire northward.

Having yet to spot any US carriers, the Japanese saw the chance to engage the US battleships in the long-desired battle line confrontation.  The Japanese battleships sprinted ahead to meet the US battleships.

Japanese Battle Line Steaming To Meet US Battleships

Shortly after, scout planes from the Japanese and US carrier forces located each other, roughly simultaneously and both sides launched strikes at the other’s carriers.  Each realized that the carriers were the priority targets and that their respective battleship forces would have to take care of themselves without the benefit of air cover.

The Japanese strike aircraft reached the American carriers first and managed to penetrate the carriers CAP and escort screen to put two torpedoes into Hornet and one into Wasp.  Essex and Wasp were each hit by two bombs.  The US strike failed to achieve any torpedo hits but put three bombs into Akagi, and two into Soryu.  At the end of the exchange, Wasp was left ablaze and drifting while Essex worked frantically to control internal fires and patch her flight deck.  Hornet was slowed due to flooding but otherwise operational.  On the Japanese side, Japanese damage control measures proved to be less effective than US efforts and Akagi was left a wreck and Soryu was badly damaged but working to regain operational ability. 

A brief pause ensued while both sides worked on damage control and refueled and rearmed for a follow up strike.

Meanwhile, to the northwest, the US battleships, using their SOC Seagull and OS2U Kingfisher scout planes, were aware of the approaching Japanese battleship group and moved to meet them. 

While the two forces sailed towards each other, the carriers launched their second strikes.  This time, the US carriers were able to turn their strike groups around a bit faster than the Japanese and struck first.  The pilots bypassed the blazing Akagi and concentrated on Kaga and Hiryu, managing to put a single torpedo into Kaga along with three bombs.  Hiryu suffered one bomb hit and two near misses.  The Japanese strike found Hornet and Essex and put three torpedoes into Hornet along with two bombs and Essex was hit by another bomb and a torpedo.  Both strikes returned to their carriers and both carrier groups broke off from the engagement, too damaged to continue. 

By this time, the approaching battleship groups were entering into range of each other.  This turned into the classic battle line engagement with the two groups turning to face each other.  Thanks to the Yamato and Musashi the Japanese battleships held an initial range advantage and opened fire at around 44,000 yds.  The American battleships, being outranged, continued to close thus presenting the Japanese with the opportunity to ‘cross the T’ at long range.  South Dakota, in the lead and seemingly a hard luck ship, was straddled several times and suffered one direct hit from an 18” shell which knocked out one of the forward turrets. 

As the US ships reached 35,000 yds, they turned onto a nearly parallel course, closing slowly.  At this point, all the battleships were engaged, each picking their targets at will.  The older Japanese battleships proved to be susceptible to the US 16” shells and suffered several direct hits causing extensive damage and slowly reducing their firepower as mounts were hit and disabled.  Yamato and Musashi proved quite resilient and several hits from 16” shells destroyed secondary guns and started fires but were unable to silence their main batteries.  The US battleships were hit multiple times, except for Washington, and were slowly being pounded down. 

At this point, the three older Japanese battleships fell behind and out of the battle as did the South Dakota.  That left the Yamato and Musashi engaged with Washington, North Carolina, and Indiana.  The US had a greater combined rate of fire while the Japanese had heavier firepower.  As the battle dragged on, all the ships suffered additional hits and were slowly being worn down but the greater volume of fire from the American ships began to tell.  The Japanese broke off the engagement and the battered Americans were quite willing to let them go. 

Mutso and Fuso eventually sank, as did the South Dakota.  The remaining ships on both sides would be out of the war for several months.

South Dakota Fighting Mutso and Fuso

In the aftermath, the battle was a tactical draw with the Japanese losing two carriers, Akagi and Kaga, plus two older battleships and the US also losing two carriers, Hornet and Wasp, plus the South Dakota.  However, strategically, the Japanese failed to stop the American invasion force and Midway was seized thus setting the stage for the eventual recapture of Pearl Harbor.  Historians view the Battle of Midway as the turning point of the war.

After Midway, the US war industry began to hit its stride and new Essex class carriers began arriving along with the new Iowa class battleships and replacement aircraft and pilots.  Japan was unable to match the industrial output and could not replace their losses as readily.  This trend would continue and worsen as the war progressed.  The end was inevitable although four more years of bitter fighting still lay ahead.

__________________________________

(1)Naval History and Heritage Command website,

“An Advance Expeditionary Force of large submarines, five of them carrying midget submarines, was sent to scout around Hawaii, dispatch the midgets into Pearl Harbor to attack ships there, and torpedo American warships that might escape to sea.”
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/wars-and-events/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor-raid/japanese-forces-in-the-pearl-harbor-attack.html

(2)National Geographic website, Map of Pearl Harbor facilities: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/12/pearl-harbor-maps--atlas-of-WWII/

(3)Navy Matters blog, “Open Post”, 27-Mar-2019, Purple Calico March 27, 2019 at 7:22 AM

(4)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

What If - D-Day In Reverse

It’s time for the big ‘what if’!

We just discussed the ‘what if’ idea of how Germany might have been able to stop the Allied D-Day invasion.  In addition to what we talked about, there was one other possibility to stop the invasion and that would have been for Germany to invade England, first.  In fact, Germany formulated plans for exactly that operation, calling it Sea Lion.  Most post-war analysts and historians do not believe the plan could have succeeded and, indeed, Hitler’s own military leaders expressed little support for the idea.  Still, could it have worked?  Sounds like another ‘what if’!

As it happened, the invasion was war gamed in 1974 at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  Wiki has a good write up on the event and it makes for fascinating reading. (1)  Let’s examine Sea Lion as a ‘what if’ and take a look at how the war game played out.

Let’s start by looking at the war game results.  To put it succinctly, the game demonstrated that the initial invasion wave was readily able to cross the channel and land.  However, the follow on waves were decimated and the invasion died due to lack of supplies.  The German forces in England were defeated and surrendered.  As I said, Wiki has a nice description of the game and I won’t make any great effort to repeat it but there are a few items that are noteworthy.

The game was heavily biased against the German effort and in favor of the English.  This started with the initial inclusion of a map of the landing area which instantly triggered a massive surge of units straight to the area as opposed to maintaining the landing site uncertainty that would have accompanied a real invasion.  We saw the negative impact that site and timing uncertainty had on German defenses and there is no reason to believe that the same uncertainties wouldn’t have negatively impacted English defenses.

The German cross-channel transport vessels were severely underrepresented in the game, leading to limited troop and supply transport.  From the Wiki article,

The Germans had only converted river barges available as transport ships. Not a great deal was known about the invasion fleet at the time of the wargame. This represented a gross simplification relative to shipping plans discovered later, which involved nearly 4,000 vessels, including 150 merchant ships and 237 light or auxiliary close escorts, in four invasion fleets.

The invasion fleet naval assets were limited to some E Boats, U-Boats, and destroyers.

The British Home Fleet was sent south to interdict the invasion force contrary to historical intent.  From Wiki,

In real life, both Admiral Charles Forbes, commander of the Home Fleet, and Admiral Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord, said they would not send capital ships into the Channel unless the Germans did so, too.

The first two days of the game included weather conditions which prevented the German invasion fleet from launching.  Nonetheless, the previously mentioned map issue which revealed the landing site enabled the English to spend two days surging ground forces to the future landing site secure in the absolute knowledge of the site’s location.  Thus, the English had a two day start on the game.

The initial assault wave was able to land relatively unimpeded and managed to advance 12 miles inland and captured the ports of Folkestone and Newhaven.

German minefields shielded the invasion force.

The Luftwaffe conducted bombing attacks on London instead of directly supporting the assault forces.

The game was decided when the German’s second assault wave was intercepted and destroyed by a Royal Navy (RN) force of 17 cruisers and 57 destroyers.

Clearly, the game was heavily slanted towards the British.  Despite this, the initial assault wave made it ashore in good order and achieved some degree of success.

Now, let’s ‘what if’ the concept the right way and see if it could have succeeded.  Of course, being a ‘what if’, we wouldn’t invade Russia, thus doubling our available resources!

We need to start with defining the goals of an invasion and there would be two main goals. 

1.  To seize a port for follow on unloading of troops, supplies, and equipment.  Only a functioning port can provide the volumetric throughput of supplies necessary to support a large scale invasion.  Depending on a detailed study of available resources, seizure of a second port would be a desirable goal, as well.

2.  To seize an area suitable for an airfield.  This could be an existing airfield or just an open flat area that could be quickly converted to an airfield.  The purpose of such a field would be to allow critical supplies to be flown in and to allow local staging of the Luftwaffe rather than having to sortie from mainland Europe.  Local staging would enhance fighter cover and allow effective close air support by enabling aircraft to launch, attack, and land to refuel and rearm in short cycles.  Additional fields would be developed as the invasion progressed.

To accomplish this, our version of ‘what if’ starts out with many of the aspects discussed in the previous post and include:

• Refocusing the U-boat effort on sealing the northern approach to the English Channel, hunting British cruisers and destroyers, and bottling up the Home Fleet.
• Extensive laying of minefields at both ends of the channel and in lanes protecting the invasion fleet’s approach routes.
• Use of the Luftwaffe to destroy bridges, railways, and roads that would be used to move British reinforcements to the landing area.
• Use of the Luftwaffe to hunt British cruisers and destroyers.
• Co-ordinated use of the German battleships and heavy cruisers to screen the invasion fleet from British cruisers and destroyers.
• Use of E Boats to screen the German naval force.

With those measures in place, the actual assault would consist of the following operational steps,

• Airborne assault to secure the selected port.
• Airborne assault to secure the selected airfield.
• Amphibious assault to support the port seizure and isolate/screen the port from counterattack.
• Amphibious assault to support the airfield seizure.

Students of history will note the similarity between this operational plan and the Allies D-Day plan.  Many people think the D-Day assault was all about pushing troops across the beach and then straight on to Germany but the real purpose was to seize ports for the critical follow on supply effort which was the only way the subsequent large scale European combat could be supported.  The actual D-Day landing was all about seizing the ports.

Having laid out the goals, plan, and methods, we are now led to ask, would it have succeeded?

The wargame, even heavily slanted towards the British, demonstrated that the initial assault wave would have successfully landed and moved inland.  In our ‘what if’, we’ve enhanced the chance of success with more numerous, more substantial, and specific measures aimed at isolating and screening the invasion fleet.  Thus, there is every reason to believe that the initial assault would be quite successful.

Recall that the Allied D-Day assault landed in the teeth of extensive fortifications at the beach.  England had no such defenses, never believed an invasion was a real threat, and had no plans to fortify beaches.  There is every reason to believe the assaulting forces would have been able to land and move inland with only minimal resistance.

Airborne forces always enjoy initial success in terms of landing.  The question becomes whether they can assemble and organize once on the ground to the extent necessary to enable them to become combat effective and achieve their objectives.  As seen by the Allies’ D-Day efforts, the airborne element did succeed, though at a cost.  The Allied airborne effort was hampered by landing dispersed in somewhat featureless and difficult terrain which made assembly and subsequent effective combat problematic.  I would submit that landing an airborne force in and around a port city would be far more practical and easy.  Orientation of the forces, once on the ground, would be easier because a city is full of recognizable landmarks and the confusion factor for the defenders is immense.  I would aim a portion of the airborne landings directly on the port facilities and the remainder in and around the city to screen the port.

In the game, a port was seized.  Thus, there is every reason to believe that the initial port seizure objective could be accomplished quickly and easily.

The same reasoning applies to seizure of an airfield area.  Being, presumably, out in the country and isolated, an airborne landing and follow up support from amphibious troops would almost certainly ensure the successful seizure and establishment of a functioning airfield.  Thus, the assault would benefit immensely from the rapid establishment of a local airfield for fighter cover and close air support.

Where the game failed for the Germans was the second wave was intercepted by British cruisers and destroyers and completely destroyed.  This resulted in the initial force being ‘starved’ of supplies and the invasion died out.  It is no great surprise that the entire assault hinges on the follow on effort.  This is the logistics portion of war that ultimately determines military success or failure.  The measures we’ve outlined here should have been sufficient to ensure the success of the follow on supply effort.  That being the case, the entire assault would have had a fair chance of success. 

The importance in this ‘what if’ of Germany not attacking Russia cannot be overstated.  Being able to double the resources available to be brought to bear against England would have been incalculably beneficial.

We see, then, that the concept of an invasion of England was feasible and would have had a fair chance of success.  However, it would have been necessary to gear the entire German war effort toward this goal.  From the beginning, the Germans would have had to have been working toward this goal by not squandering U-boats and their surface ships, not attacking Russia, working to lay minefields and isolate the English channel, etc.  In other words, they would have needed a strategy on day one of the war that had this goal in mind. 

The importance of a coherent strategy cannot be overstated and offers a lesson for us, today.  What is our strategy towards Russia, China, Iran, and NKorea?  We haven’t got one.  How can we expect success, then?  But, I digress …

Had Germany been able to successfully invade England, how would the war have progressed beyond that point?  Would the US have prosecuted a war against Germany without England as a base of operations or would the US have attempted to negotiate a peace settlement of some sort?  If the US had opted to continue the war, would Africa have become the base of operations?  What role would Russia (not having been attacked by Germany) have played, subsequently?

What if?

_________________________

(1)Wikipedia, “Operation Sea Lion (wargame)”, retrieved 11-Mar-2019,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

What If - Stopping D-Day

It’s time for an invigorating round of historical ‘what if’.  The discussion portion of our recent post on Chinese amphibious capabilities took an inexplicable detour (as post discussions often do!) to debating what Germany could have done differently to defeat or prevent the Allied D-Day invasion.  The usual list of suspects was discussed including unified command and control, air superiority, better intel, etc. 

ComNavOps, always believing that the best defense is a good offense, suggested that, rather than waiting on the defensive and then trying to stop the assault, the Germans would have been better served to go after the buildup of troops, supplies, and equipment in England and stop the invasion at its source, before it ever started.  This is analogous to conducting ASW not by fighting subs out in the open ocean but by attacking the factories that produce the subs and the ports where they are serviced.  It’s easier to destroy the source of submarines and their support facilities than to battle them one-on-one at sea.

Had Germany been able to significantly impact the buildup, the invasion would have been indefinitely delayed.  Of course, this is easier said than done.  Let’s kick around some ideas and see if it could have been done.

D-Day - Could This Have Been Prevented?

First, it is necessary to understand that the Germans would not have had to destroy 100% of the men and materiel – an on-going destruction of, perhaps, 20% would likely have been sufficient to disrupt the training and buildup to the point of causing perpetual delays in the assault timing, thereby accomplishing the goal of ‘defeating’ the invasion before it ever began.

So, understanding the fairly limited scope of the task, what methods could the Germans have used to accomplish this task?

Strategic Bombing – Instead of focusing on bombing London, the Luftwaffe could have focused on troop, supply, and equipment concentrations.  Yes, men and material were dispersed across England but it’s impossible to prepare a D-Day size invasion and not have significant concentrations of men and materiel.  In fact, the very dispersal that was used, to the extent it was, would have worked against the RAF’s defensive efforts since they would have had to disperse their defending aircraft as well.

Recognizing that, ultimately, an amphibious assault depends on transport ships, the bombing should also have focused on the transport ships.  These would have been relatively known, fixed point locations and easy targets (neglecting, of course, the surrounding anti-aircraft (AA) defenses and RAF!).

It is also worth wondering if, instead of massed bombing attacks, the Germans should have engaged in smaller, low level, nighttime aircraft raids.  Launched against known depots, troop concentrations, and transport vessels, such raids ought to have been difficult to detect, nearly impossible to predict the targets, difficult to defend against, and fairly effective since total destruction would not have been the goal – 20% overall destruction should have been fairly easily achievable.

German Bombers Attacking Depots, Troop Concentrations, and Transport Ships

Commando Raids – The very short distance across the English Channel and North Sea (ranging from 60 miles at the SW end to a narrow point of around 20 miles at the Calais-Dover area and back out to 100 miles between Belgium/Netherlands and England across the North Sea) lends itself to undetected transport of small raiding units across the Channel.  Raids from Company down to squad size units would have been undetectable and difficult to defend against.  E Boats were able to routinely operate undetected in the Channel and nighttime, small transports would have been very difficult to detect and interdict.  Again, total destruction would not have been the raider’s goal.  Constant disruption would have sufficed to indefinitely delay the planned invasion.

German Brandenburg Commandos Attacking Allied Supply Depot

U-Boats and Mining – The Germans might have been better off concentrating a portion of their U-Boats not to direct sinking of ships in convoys in the mid-Atlantic but to continual clandestine laying/re-laying of mines at each port.  It doesn’t matter how many ships arrived from the US if they couldn’t get into a port to unload.  This would also have had the effect of avoiding direct combat with the Royal Navy (RN), thereby preserving U-Boats.  Of course the RN would have heavily patrolled the port approaches but without the U-Boats ‘announcing’ their presence in the form of revealing attacks, detection would have been much more difficult.  Extensive mining would also have taken a toll on the RN destroyers and rendered their defensive efforts much more difficult and dangerous.

Type TMB Mine Being Loaded Aboard U-Boat To Seal The English Ports

E Boats (Schnellboot) – German E Boats should have focused on finding and destroying landing vessels more so than merchant vessels or warships.  Sneaking near or into ports and sinking transports would have definitely caused invasion plans to be postponed.

E Boat Attacking Transport Vessels

Naval Bombardment – The time frame in question, here, is 1940-1944.  Especially during the early years, Germany had the use of Bismarck (later Tirpitz) and several heavy cruisers.  With co-ordinated support from the Luftwaffe, dedicated Luftwaffe anti-torpedo plane screens (English torpedo planes of the time were barely advanced beyond WWI levels and should have been easy prey for German fighters), E Boat screening, and U-Boat support and mining to prevent the British Home Fleet from approaching, bombardment raids aimed at the Allies transport vessels could have been conducted with a reasonable chance of success. 

Bismarck Attacking Transport Vessels

Shore Artillery – Though not capable of direct attacks on Allied men and materiel in England, shore artillery at the Calais-Dover chokepoint could have sealed the northeast entry to the Channel from RN naval forces.  The fact that such artillery was fielded and produced very little success wouldn’t have changed the thinking at the time that the RN couldn’t risk that approach.  Combined with mining, the northeast approach would have been secured from Allied naval intrusion thereby facilitating the above listed methods.

Calais-Dover Shore Artillery

Summation and Lessons for Today - With some effort and refocusing of priorities, the Germans could have turned the English Channel into an A2/AD zone and a fairly secure base from which to indefinitely disrupt the Allied buildup for the Normandy invasion. 

The major lesson to be gleaned from this is that defense, ultimately, seldom succeeds.  The best defense is a good offense.  This is relevant today for the US Navy.  Our entire fleet is heavily slanted towards defense (Aegis, AMDR, BMD).  Our carriers with their shrinking and short ranged air wings have almost reached the point of existing merely to protect themselves.  We have produced no offensive ship or weapon in decades.  Navy leadership has recently publicly acknowledged exactly this and now claims to be focusing on offensive operations – yeah, we’ll see.

Another major lesson is strategic thinking.  The German military’s strategic thinking was dominated by Hitler, personally, both in his explicit orders and the stifling effect he had on his military leadership.  No one ever accused Hitler of being a strategic genius.  Had Hitler not elected to attack Russia in June 1941, Germany would have had double the men and materiel to oppose the Allied invasion and would have been in a far stronger position to carry out the actions listed above.  Today, our military and Navy suffer from the same complete lack of intelligent strategic thinking.  Witness our absolutely floundering and nearly non-existent response to the Chinese annexation of the South China Sea.  Witness our complete lack of a military strategy for war with China.  We need to begin serious offensive strategic thinking and wargaming.

Mine warfare is another obvious lesson for us, today.  The power of mines has been demonstrated time and again throughout history and yet, for practical purposes, the Navy has no offensive mine warfare capability.  We need new, more capable mines and multiple ways to deliver them.  We need to integrate mine warfare into our operational planning (you know, whenever we get any operational planning).

This kind of ‘what if’ thought exercise is not only enjoyable but it offers insights and lessons applicable to our situations today.