Re: What IF: ... Japan had more Oilers for Dec.7'41 ?

In message 
<febce3a9-6dea-480e-b57a-be7b84dd2a58@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, 
dabrob <dabrob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes
>On Aug 27, 3:54 pm, Paul J. Adam wrote:
>> Though it begs the question - if thirty minutes of radio jamming isn't
>> enough to trigger any useful US response, why bother with it at all? If
>> the comms nets are so utterly pointless, why bother trying to disrupt
>> them?
>
>Because historically the Japanese of Dec.1941 didn't KNOW that the US
>defenses were as bad as they turned out to be. Just as those same
>Japanese didn't know of the US radar net being constructed on Oahu and
>so cannot take any steps to avoid being detected by it. If it's
>working that is ...

It's not allowed to work - the commanders are forbidden to turn it on in 
case it breaks down. It seems your entire US military is run by RASC 
storemen... "I can't issue you that, it would reduce my holdings!"

>> Since historically tank farms weren't rejected as proven firetraps,
that
>> assertion seems questionable.
>>
>> Similarly, you keep claiming "continuing attack", but seem terribly
>> uncertain about how long this attack will continue for. When pressed on
>> the lack of endurance, and the practical problems of strafing through a
>> firestorm, you change the story to suggest that actually the strikers
>> will hit and run quickly. Until you then claim that firefighters will
>> all be machine-gunned to death by the prowling Zeroes overhead.
>
>Paul, when you read about the firat two attack waves the accounts are
>full of recollections Zeros doing ground straffing as the other
>Japanese bombers made their own attacks. There was no "hanging about"
>by the Japanese to shoot up firetrucks but such did happen
>historically and I have already provided one source to prove this.
>
>I would imagine that an AH 3rd wave attack would feature similar Zero
>straffing attacks on anything that looked like a good target, just as
>happened historically during the first two waves. There is no great
>mental leap required here.

So there are no "continuing attacks" and we can discard all your 
references to such.

>> Since you seem so determined to demand sources every time your
>> assertions are challenged, I'm afraid I have to press you on this one.
>> The notion of a tank farm erupting in unquenchable flame, sending
>> miles-long rivers of blazing oil flooding in all directions to
>> incinerate all in their path, is so marvellously spectacular that
*some*
>> author must surely have highlighted cases of it occurring. If nothing
>> else, it would be marvellously photogenic.
>
>Yet again you sidestep the issue of just how anyone from 1941 is going
>to fight a blazing fuel tank fire, let alone how they will do so while
>under ongoing bombing.
>
>Do your own research.

I have. Not one example of such an incident to be found.

I even checked the Operation ALLIED FORCE Weapons Evaluation Team 
re****ts on strikes on POL storage facilities in Serbia and Kosovo; 
hitting elderly and undefended (and by then unmanned) facilities, using 
laser-guided thousand-pound bombs, the results achieved fell *far* short 
of your claims despite repeated strikes. Oil tanks could be burst, could 
even be ignited, but the conflagration didn't handily leap from tank to 
tank nor drown half of Kosovo in burning petrochemicals despite nobody 
fighting the fires with *any* sort of equipment. The damaged tanks that 
were ignited, burned themselves out: the ones that didn't catch fire 
from the attack, didn't light off later. This on an elderly facility 
built to Eastern Bloc safety standards and entirely unmanned at and 
after the time of the attack.


So I'd say that "doing my own research" pretty thoroughly disproves the 
claim that igniting one or two tanks will incinerate all of Oahu in an 
unstoppable firestorm.

>> You're bringing a much larger force to Hawaii with very little increase
>> in its sup****t tail. That's not "removing" difficulties, it's
>> handwaving.
>
>What, other than more fuel, do the KB or the CF require for the "hit &
>run" type of raid that we have discussed here in my 4 related
>threads ?

Much more fuel, more tankers to carry and transfer it, and more 
destroyers to screen the various units and detached forces - which cause 
their own complications, since it's not just "bringing the fuel", it's 
being able to schedule the RAS programme such that you have time to 
refuel everybody before the first in the queue runs dry.

This isn't helped by the notorious stability problems of Japanese 
destroyers, which leaves them dangerously top-heavy well before their 
fuel gets towards zero, and means they need to RAS pro****tionately much 
more often: which also opens more gaps in the screen, meaning you need 
more destroyers, which rapidly turns the operation into the proverbial 
self-licking lollipop. It's made worse by having torpedo attack groups 
prowling in one sector, battle****ps in another  and the Kido Butai in a 
third disposed for the set-piece Decisive Battle, since you either need 
to split your oilers and hope you judged consumption correctly, or else 
learn to organise a DELBOY schedule very quickly (which needs even more 
destroyers to escort the oilers, which become absolutely Mission 
Essential Units)

Also more ordnance and a way to rearm at sea, since part of your 
storyline involves fighting the Decisive Battle just off Hawaii - but 
the carriers need to rearm for that.

And underway repair ****ps, unless vessels damaged in the Decisive Battle 
are to be abandoned off Hawaii.



In other words, the Japanese only need to do in 1941 what it took the 
USN until 1944 (and nobody else managed it by then, the RN was trailing 
well behind and nobody else tried) to achieve in the field of underway 
logistics and sustaining a fleet well beyond its bases. Out for a 
one-day raid and back is doable: out with enough force for the Pearl 
Harbor raid and _then_ the Decisive Battle, not just hitting and running 
but then staying on station long enough to fight and win a battle, then 
get back nursing any damaged units; that is a very large step that took 
a great deal of climbing.


-- 
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
                                                            -Thucydides


paul<dot>j<dot>adam[at]googlemail{dot}.com