Oil Tanks at Pearl Harbor....

[Tim the Tank Nut]

this thread is more interesting than the one currently cooking...

[Angrybk]

Best part is that Glenn was getting warnings back in 2008!

[RichTO90]

1 hour ago, Angrybk said:

Best part is that Glenn was getting warnings back in 2008!

No, the best part is that no matter how many times you tell Frick and Frack how many tanks there were, where they were. and what size they were, they kept screwing up up how many tanks there were, where they were, and what size they were. 😂 Robdab couldn't even calculate the area correctly...even though there are these app thingies that do it for you. He must have still been nursing his burned hands after trying to rescue his sekret dokuments from his house fire.

Edited July 20, 2021 by RichTO90

[KV7]

Why didn't they consider sending in battleships to do a bombardment of the remaining targets ?

[RichTO90]

58 minutes ago, KV7 said:

Why didn't they consider sending in battleships to do a bombardment of the remaining targets ?

😂🤣 That's a different and even more lunatic thread.  😅🤣

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/23943-ww2-ijn-shore-bombardment-info/

[Stuart Galbraith]

The site was so much more vibrant back then. Mainly with lunacy, but still it was something.

[KV7]

What is the lunacy in that thread ? I am yet to identify it.

[JasonJ]

3 hours ago, KV7 said:

What is the lunacy in that thread ? I am yet to identify it.

Too much leg pulling which burns out patience and raises distrust.

[KV7]

The discussion of monitors was interesting. Something really big on a large shallow drought barge might have been useful in the pacific. Mounting say a 60 cm howitzer.
 

[JasonJ]

2 minutes ago, KV7 said:

The discussion of monitors was interesting. Something really big on a large shallow drought barge might have been useful in the pacific. Mounting say a 60 cm howitzer.
 

60cm howitzer probably would have short range, making it something only usable once superiority at sea and air has been established, in which case, BB cannons are sufficient for shore bombardment. In a similar function mass rocket bombardment was used.

[KV7]

I was thinking something moderately long barrelled but in a high elevation mount. That should be good for ~30 km range or so.

Of course you could also go for something that can out-range even the heaviest shore batteries but the effectiveness of fire at such ranges is a bit marginal.

 

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, KV7 said:

Why didn't they consider sending in battleships to do a bombardment of the remaining targets ?

Fuchida's concluding chapter in Battle that Doomed Japan covers the culture in the IJN WRT command and the attitudes of the battleship club.  It's an interesting read.  Battleships in the IJN battleship club were considered to be the alpha instrument of power, intended to win the decisive 'Tsushima' style naval battle.   Everything else, (including aircraft carriers), were just sweeping away enemy 'pawns', to clear the field for the queen.   Hitting land targets would entail some level of risk against against coastal defenses, and engaging in an action that was beneath the prestige of the battleship forces.   Sort of like, I don't know, the Queen of England being part of the Monty Python "Battle of Pearl Harbor" skit.

Had the battleships gone to Pearl Harbor, (they'd have needed more tankers) it might have looked like the Midway plan did later, with the Nagato trailing the carrier force by 300 miles or so.  But the intent of the battleship admirals would no doubt have been naval combat, not shore bombardment.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I could entirely believe that actually. Particularly when you remember how late it was before they utilized Yamato and Musashi in combat.

[JasonJ]

Of course, they did use BB shore bombardment during the Guadalcanal campaign.

[Ken Estes]

29 minutes ago, JasonJ said:

Of course, they did use BB shore bombardment during the Guadalcanal campaign.

Only at night and with the target being the airfield. The 8-inch cruisers were considered more destructive. In any case there exist no definitive BDA info.

Their repeats of that feat cost them IJN Hiei and Kirishima shortly afterwards [1st and 2d naval Battles of Guadalcanal].

[RichTO90]

6 hours ago, KV7 said:

What is the lunacy in that thread ? I am yet to identify it.

You haven't gotten to the Tina-borne IJN SNLF Paratroop Surf Ninjas taking out the "unoccupied" fire control stations and the "tunnel" from Honolulu to Kaneohe yet I guess?

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I could entirely believe that actually. Particularly when you remember how late it was before they utilized Yamato and Musashi in combat.

The earliest reference I recall for an IJN battleship shore bombardment was Christmas Island in March 1942, (Haruna and Kongo).  Then, during the Midway battle some of the staff of Combined Fleet suggested the battleships bombard Midway Island, (which was denied).   The bombardment of Henderson Field by Haruna and Kongo later in October 1942 brought matters to a head a bit because when the mission was assigned, I seem to recall that Kurita pushed back on the idea of battleships doing the job and Yamamoto responded that if he didn't do it, Yamamoto would bring the Yamato to Henderson and do it himself.   From what I've read of that attack, once the mission was actually assigned the staffs went about it with great energy and even enthusiasm, and that the planning for that attack was probably the best planning done by the Japanese during the entire Guadalcanal campaign.

But in December 1941, Yamamoto had to use all his influence just getting the carriers to Hawaii.

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by glenn239

[glenn239]

50 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

You haven't gotten to the Tina-borne IJN SNLF Paratroop Surf Ninjas taking out the "unoccupied" fire control stations and the "tunnel" from Honolulu to Kaneohe yet I guess?

Robdab I would say suffered from 80/20 blindness, that 80% of the viability of anything is composed of 20% of the available options.  That once you go beyond the 20%, the rabbit hole beckons.

Edited July 20, 2021 by glenn239

[Nobu]

1 hour ago, RichTO90 said:

You haven't gotten to the Tina-borne IJN SNLF Paratroop Surf Ninjas taking out the "unoccupied" fire control stations and the "tunnel" from Honolulu to Kaneohe yet I guess?

Jesus, lol

[Nobu]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Had the battleships gone to Pearl Harbor, (they'd have needed more tankers) it might have looked like the Midway plan did later, with the Nagato trailing the carrier force by 300 miles or so.  But the intent of the battleship admirals would no doubt have been naval combat, not shore bombardment.

Had the battleships gone to Pearl, the IJN would be doing what it wanted the USN to do in reverse. Steam halfway around the world to a site of Japan's choosing for The Day.

[Ken Estes]

Quote

 

....In spite of these interruptions, Colonel
Bryant E. Moore managed to get his 164th
Infantry ashore, along with other men
and supplies from the transports, but
trouble for the perimeter was not over. As
the second bomber strike droned away, the
150mm howitzers near Kokumbona were
finally heard from. Safely beyond counterbattery
range, these weapons began a
slow methodical registration on the field
and the perimeter. The fire was a brand
of damage and destruction the men at
Imnga lrad to live with, and so to have a
pinpoint target for their anger if not their
weapons they named this new entrant in
their war Pistol Pete.
Pete, as was most often the case with
Louie the Louse and Washing-Machine
(Xharlie, was plural. Hyakutake had
landed 15 of these howitzers. But for the
Marines and soldiers it was difficult to
imagine batteries getting that personal,
xnd Pete>s particular brand of hell was a
most personal and singular thing. So
Pete became one enemy, the devil himself—
the devil and one big gun acting as
Tojo’s personal Nimrod.
And after he thumped away at the
perimeter all that day, an enemy task force
built around battleships Haruna and
Kongo came into Sealark Channel after
nightfall to launch an 80-minute bombardment.
   This was the Japanese Battle
Division 3, commanded by Vice. Admiral
Takeo Kurita, and it also included light
cruiser Isuzu and three ships of Destroyer
Division 31 as a screen, plus a rear guard
of four ships from Destroyer Division 15.
The battleships had on board some new
bombardment shells which had just arrived
from the home islands. These had
a greater bursting radius than former Japanese
bombardment shells, and there were
enough of them for battleships Haruna
and Kongo to have 500 each.
This was the first time that battleships
had been used to bombard Henderson
Field, and the Japanese hoped these big
guns and the improved ammunition would

completely knock out the Marine air and
~clear the way for a coordinated infantry
attack. Louie the Louse illuminated the
field and the big guns cut loose. Coconut
trees splintered, buildings and huts ripped
open and crashed down, fragments and
wreckage tore into planes and men, and
more gasoline went up in bright fires which
helped Japanese gunners stay on target for
their systematic coverage of the field with
more than 900 rounds of the high explosive
shells.
....

Then, as the ships became silent and
withdrew east of Savo Island, the planes
came back. Night bombers continued their
strikes intermittently until daybreak,
and by dawn of 14 October the Cactus Air
Force could fly only 42 of the 90 planes
that had been operational 24 hours earlier.
Forty-one men had been killed and many
more -wounded and the airfield was a complete
shambles. Among the dead were
Major Gordon A. Bell, whose VMSR-141
had finally built up to 21 planes and fliers
on 6 October, and four of his pilots: Captains
Edward F. ‘Miller and Robert A.
Abbott and Lieutenants Henry F. Chancy,
.Jr. and George L. Haley.
Operations, sorely restricted by the loss
of gasoline in the fire, moved to Fighter 1
which was left in better condition than
Henderson; and a few B-17’s which had
been operating temporarily from Guadalcanal
managed to bounce aloft from a 2,000 yard stretch

of Henderson Field that still was usable and fly back to Espiritu Santo.

------------------

PEARL HARBOR TO GUADALCANAL, Vol I of
History of U.S. Marine Corps
Operations in World War II, p. 326.

 

Thus, hardly a decisive effect, especially unjustified when two sister Kongo class battleships were lost in November in the same mission.

[glenn239]

21 minutes ago, Ken Estes said:

 

Thus, hardly a decisive effect, especially unjustified when two sister Kongo class battleships were lost in November in the same mission.

Which Japanese battleships went down in combat more productively for the IJN than Kirishima and Hiei?

[JasonJ]

9 hours ago, Ken Estes said:

Only at night and with the target being the airfield. The 8-inch cruisers were considered more destructive. In any case there exist no definitive BDA info.

Their repeats of that feat cost them IJN Hiei and Kirishima shortly afterwards [1st and 2d naval Battles of Guadalcanal].

The whole guadalcanal campaign and really the whole war had great risks. If pursueing the Gaudalcanal campaign is accepted as the constant, making use of BBs (which were increasingly falling in strategic value) for the bombardment was relagively good trade off then if trying to do the damage with more air attacks from Rabual or risk more transport ships to haul over more army heavy weaponary.

With hindsight, If they had the doctine flexibility, they should have sortied Yamato and other BBs to do shore bombardment of Midway island. If they attracted a hornest nest of US attack aircraft, or even just a few squadrons, that attraction would have lessing the pressure on kido butai and their dive bombers. Better to lose BBs then losing carriers and their aircraft and pilots. Instead Yamato contributed very little in 44' and 45' in entirely impossible scenerio and ate up fuel to get to 44' and '45.

Edited July 21, 2021 by JasonJ

[Angrybk]

Guadalcanal was actually much more of a turning point for the war than Midway. Guad was where most of the highly trained IJN pilots got killed. 

[Nobu]

Disagree. Had Midway been won as decisively as it was lost, the naval battles for control of the Solomons very likely would have been as well. That is, if the USN was stupid enough to stick around minus Hornet and Enterprise versus an IJN reinforced by Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu.