Battle of Midway, a better plan

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

a few points if I may.

How some of the existing fighters got to Midway.


Lower photo at a different time.
I am not saying they could NOT or DID NOT use carriers but it wasn't as common as it might appear.
A Sister ship was at Pearl in July of 1942 but I have no idea of movements before then. There is a photo of the sister ship carrying a Catalina as deck cargo later in the war.

Adding a dozen or so fighters to the defense probably wouldn't screw up anything but as the numbers go up it becomes more difficult.

Even if each fighter arrives with loaded guns and fuel tanks part filled, even well over half, how long does it take to put 20-40 gallons each in 70-90 planes? Using the same ground crew trying to service all the other aircraft.

How many planes can take off per minute form the existing runways and how many can land per minute on undamaged runways and how many can land per minute on damaged runways, this affects the numbers of aircraft in the air at a given time or affects their range/endurance. A plane that is forced to ditch due to low fuel after orbiting the air field for 20-30 minutes waiting for it;s turn to land is lost just as assuredly as one that ditched 60 miles from the Island.
 
Ponsog, I am afraid your scenario could not be accomplished. The time frame is wrong. In May It had been only six months since the US suffered the gut blow of Pearl Harbor. In spite of the Tokyo raid, America was still reeling trying to recover from the shock and was in the process of organizing for defense. At this time, the Navy only had three carriers operational in the Pacific theater, the Japanese had ten. The Navy had no battleships available, the Japanese had seven. The Japanese Navy could roam the Pacific at will. Because of code breaking at the first of 1942, the Navy knew a major Japanese offense was underway but there was a great debate on where the strike would occur. Nimitz thought Midway, HQ Washington thought Aleutians, Hawaii, or US. Force deployment, even prepositioning could not occur until the target was identified because no one would be willing to weaken their defenses if they could be the target. Verification of the target did not occur until mid May(see reference), about TWO WEEKS BEFORE FORCES NEEDED TO BE IN PLACE AT MIDWAY. That means he would have to convince the various commands to provide support, which the Army, which Nimitz had no control over, would not do, and that is depleting defensive forces at Hawaii to save Midway (see RAF response to request of help from France at the start of WWII), muster the forces, organize the transportation, and execute deployment. All in one week. Impossible. Then on arrival, forces had to be organized, integrated and dispersed, in a week. Very difficult. And certainly not without alerting possible Japanese spies in Hawaii.

In my opinion, with the Japanese massive fleet at sea and with the location unknown, Nimitz's, hands were tied and could not mobilize. Once the target was verified, with two weeks to fight, Nimitz, who had a far better understanding of available asset than we do, mobilized everything available and did a miraculous job in a high risk environment.

Ref.
Preparations for the Midway Operation
 
Possible spies is a huge consideration. If they exist, and it isn't possible at the time to know, and they see Oahu stripped of defenses then the target could shift. Losing Oahu, of even more damage at Oahu, is a bigger deal than losing Midway.
 
Greg P: 100% agree with everything you said. Thach flew a 175 mile one way escort, fought, flew back, landed, fuel, oil, ammo, flew against dive bombers, fuel, oil and then fought torpedo bombers. If it needs more than fuel, oil, ammo and maybe oxygen it isn't going to fight.

Greg Boeser: I am aware of P36 performance.i would have a sheet of armor installed behind pilot, (they had 2 or 3 weeks to get them ready at Pearl) and the engines overhauled or changed. Otherwise they fight as is. US committed Buffalos to battle in this fight so I don't see why they wouldn't use a P36. Everything but the 15 Yorktown fighters could go out with Enterprise and Hornet. The Yorktown planes came in on Yorktown, gotten into best shape as possible in 3 days and shipped out in Yorktown. I understand training on 1 ship would be affected but I would trade a couple days of training for 66 extra fighters.

They absolutely flew combat ready planes off carriers all the time. Wasp flew 2 loads of Spitfires to Malta. 30 P40's were flown off Wasp to Iceland.
USS Ranger:
Steaming to Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, Ranger loaded 68 Curtiss P-40Es and put to sea on 22 April, launching the Army planes on 10 May to land at Accra, on the Gold Coast of Africa (Ghana).[37] She returned to Quonset Point on 28 May, made a patrol to Argentia, then steamed out of Newport on 1 July with another 72 Army P-40s, which she launched off the coast of Africa for Accra on 19 July.

Runway space at Midway was mentioned early on, but remember that 20 or so B17's flew out before dawn freeing up runway for fighters to use all day.

Nothing else changes in this. All these fighters could have been available without changing anything else in the timeline.
 
Gentleman, 'possible spies' missed 3 carriers and 2 task forces, 1 carrier with 1,200 men working on it round the clock to get in shape, all the aircraft restocked on 3 carriers, 20+ B17's, etc etc etc. Were they really going to notice 22 'obsolete' AAF fighters disappearing?

Davprlr, I know they wouldn't release any P39 or P40's. Only reason I thought they might release P36 is because it was 'obsolete'. Talking them into it is just implied, I am not sure anyone would approve of it, just saying 'it happened' and then the scenario. (Yours is a valid point)
 
Even if they did notice the P-36s going away, it was probably too late for any remaining spies to do anything about it. With a war on, no Japanese Consulate on the island, radio transmissions scrutinized, and all local Japanese suspect, they would have had to rely on secure but slow means of getting their info to Tokyo.
ComPacAAF surely would have noticed and not been happy with the idea. With Kido Butai on the loose, position unknown, destination SUSPECTED, he would have been most unwilling to give up his reserves. Army didn't have anywhere near as much faith in "that den of spooks led by a damn degenerate" as the Navy did. "Hell, he goes to work in bathrobe and bedroom :slippers! No sense of military bearing, dress or tradition at all!"
Cheers,
Wes
 
Last edited:

Excellent point. Might be why they couldn't tell them the carriers were gone. Maybe they knew and no way to tell it.

AAF may indeed have been cranky about giving up their P36's, training for one thing (gunnery training to be specific) and another line of air defense behind P39's and P40's
 
 
Pretty well thought out, Pinsog.

The thing a lot of people seem to miss is in caps ... try to fight the battle without hindsight.

That is, we'd do as we did, the Japanese would do as THEY did, but we'd have had a few more planes. That equals more probable damage to the enemy. I fail to see why that is so hard to see.

There are enough runways, enough runway space, and enough fuel for a 3-day fight. If any land-based planes go down for maintenance that is more than a quick-fix, disperse them together to be possible targets ... line them up. It gives any attackers a place to shoot at where there will be the least damage while remaining a prime target.

Meanwhile, if you find their carriers, you KNOW how long it takes to get back to the carrier. If you DON'T find them, you'll not sink any. In the event, we DID find them. Give them that transit time, plus 20 - 30 minutes to be in the middle of refueling / rearming, and attack with carrier planes at max effort. Do this each and time you can, and you have a good chance of getting a fair number of their carriers sunk. You might at least damage almost all of them. That assumes some good luck; to be sure.

But, battle plans rarely survive first contact unless it's an ambush. So, you better be flexible. Not so flexible as if nobody in the squadron had a radio, but flexible. Engage targets of opportunity whenever and wherever possible. Attack if you can, and don't run out of fuel. Better to survive and attack again.
 
Shortround6,

as i said, I tried to fight this as if I didn't know the future. If I know the future, I would also have left behind every single torpedo bomber from the carriers and had the entire fighter force waiting at 20,000 feet at 0600.

I believe that a fighter force that large, in position, and I think they should get into position in the time allotted, would take a huge toll on the first wave.

If my plan worked like I wanted, I would have the 22 P36's at the front of the group, PBY pilot radios sighting of first wave attack at 0544, the P36's launch immediately and join the 20 CAP Wildcats at 20,000 feet. This 42 fighters move out to the historical point 40 miles out and jump the Zero escort. I would think the Zeros would assume 42 fighters to be the entire Midway fighter force so they all stay and fight, drawing entire Zero escort away from the bombers leaving 36 cals and 36 Kates vs 33 more Wildcats and 21 Buffalos waiting for them over just out of flak range of Midway. Zeros have no radios so once out of sight, the bombers can't call for help.

Meanwhile a completely undetected and unmolested US carrier force waits say 100 miles south east of Midway as Midway fighters thin out the Japanese (especially the Kates, which I consider the most dangerous by far) If the plan worked like I think/want, the 1st wave is horribly worked over (not sure how the Zeros would fair, but the bombers, if the Zeros did not interfere, should be decimated). The Japanese, being Japanese, never quit no matter what, would likely launch a second wave, which after having to re-arm the Kates should give plenty of time to re-fuel and re-arm the US fighters that survived and, hopefully, they could do the same to the 2nd raid.

Finally, after the Japanes carrier aircraft numbers have been whittled down, the US carriers, have been moving into position, launch a huge strike from near Midway (easier navigation for all US pilots, they can always fly back to Midway and get directions to carrier or land on Midway, or ditch or bailout over Midway eliminating all the US pilots that died from getting lost.
 
GregP,

I agree with what you said

If everything else went as historical, it should, I only added more fighters and put US carriers SE of Midway, then the Japanese carriers should be spotted at 0530 as historical.

IF somehow the US carriers got spotted, Midway is a giant unsinkable Radar picket with 95 fighters than can thin the heck out of an attack force before it gets to the 81 Wildcats the US carriers had.

No reason the US carriers should ever get spotted, there were 0 submarines and recon planes SE of Midway during the engagement. Also, a B17 or 2 or maybe a Catalina or 2 could fly anti sub patrol for the US fleet.
 
The reason they had 3 runways (and there may have been 6, I am no Midway expert and don't know when the the 2nd airfield went in)
is that you use the one facing into the wind or closest to facing into the wind. A triangular layout gives you six options and in some cases the triangle is "squished" to accommodate prevailing wind directions.
Not all runways were equal either.
Nov 1941.
Trying to use multiple runways at the same time sounds like something the New Jersey DOT would do (plenty of cousins/brother-in-laws with tow trucks/body shops)

I would also question your P-36 refurbishment plan.

i have no idea what shape the P-36s were in and many of them may have had engines with a quite a bit of life left. Opposing that is that there probably weren't very many spare engines at Pearl for them. Possible engine doners would be C-47s and Catalinas.
F4F engines won't fit without a LOT of hammering and sawing (two stage supercharger) and the Navy is unlikey to hand over any spare engines anyway.
The P-36 had one .50 cal in cowling, it might be possible to replace the cowl .30 cal with a 2nd .50 cal. but trying to add .50 cal to the wing or under wing is probably not possible in the time available. I have never heard of an early P-40 ever getting .50 cal guns in the wings for example.
You have no self-sealing fuel tanks unless you can strip some out of the P-40 wrecks at Pearl (a source for pilot seat armor?)
 

Reasonable, well laid out position.

The 15 Yorktown Wildcats could have been worked on as soon as the landed (I mean they flew CAP all the way home, but my guess is they could use some attention) They do as much as they can to get them in as good a shape as possible and them deck park them on the Yorktown when she heads out.

10 replacement Wildcats that were left at Pearl could be loaded on the Hornet or Enterprise along with everything else, no issues there.

The P36's, that is a simple chat between 2 higher level officers. Navy says we would really like them, here is our plan, you think they are 'obsolete' anyway. AAF guy, or maybe Navy guy in charge of Pearl decides whether they can do without them or not. If so, I would prefer to change all their engines if they are worn and need it, change both synchro guns to 50's and add a sheet of armor behind pilot. Then they are loaded by crane onto Hornet or Enterprise and they sail on schedule.

That is 25 Wildcats and 22 P36's and it is 'plausible'. Its not an over the top delivering P38's or Mustangs or P47's months before they are built. This 'could' have been done. You may not like the idea (thats no problem, be a boring site if we all agreed) but it could have been done.

The 21 Marines at Noumeou (spelling?) island would have had to be brought back by Halsey on a whim.
 

See, thats why I like chatting with you. I may not always agree with your assessment, but you use facts and lay it out nicely, thank you.

I believe you misinterpreted my runway question. You use the runway heading into the wind, but are those runways WIDE enough for fighters to take off SIDE BY SIDE 2 or more at a time? I have NO idea, maybe that is a stupid question, but since I don't know, I am going to ask you people that do. Can they take off side by side 2 at a time or 3 at a time or is it 1 at a time?
How much interval between fighters taking off? 10 seconds? 15? 20? 30?

Updating P36:
Agree, don't know what engine time looked like, maybe some were fresh, maybe all fresh,. maybe all were worn out and needed replaced.

It would need to be the correct engine, a bolt in engine change, I agree a Wildcat engine wouldn't work.

Armor I believe could be done pretty easy.

2 50's? I don't know, hoping you could tell me. I would prefer that, but if they fight with 1 30 and 1 50 at least they are there and shooting (I wasn't going to try to put any 50's in the wing or under. 2 50's or 1 50 and 1 30 synchronized isn't a lot of firepower, but the KI43 brought down a LOT of well armored allied fighters with the same arrangement)

I don't see self sealing tanks happening, didn't expect to bother trying. If your plane is on fire, you need to leave immediately!!

Does that help the 'plausibility' a bit?
 
Last edited:
How does the Noumea command feel about Halsey stripping the fighter defense he just delivered to them on a whim? Never been in the Navy but I don't think Halsey could have just said, "hey bring those back", weren't they allocated to another base?

While I believe I get your reasoning, I'm still hazy on why the American carriers are SE of Midway instead of North, you know, on the flank of the IJN, where Nimitz expected to spring his trap from. Again, I've never been an admiral in charge of a fleet (in that I'm sure I'm not alone here) but Nimitz et. al. (the trained professionals) did what they did for a reason.

Also (again), the Navy and AAF sent everything that Midway could handle, the quip that if they sent one more airplane the island may sink comes to mind. You know, these ground crew, repair teams (ship and plane) and supply folks are already working pretty hard to get the traditional resources ready for battle, now their taxed with getting obsolete fighters from training command combat ready. Adding guns and armor, swapping engines, at some point your system becomes overloaded and grinds to a halt.

I said it before, these guys that did this in real life were digging into every possible scenario to prepare for the battle, I'm fairly sure they would have considered a batch of P-36's but came to their senses pretty quick. A case can be made I suppose using the few Buffaloes that were sent as a reason to add the P-36s, but that's already been addressed earlier I believe because they were not only advanced trainers but a strategic reserve of sorts.

I'll bow out for real this time as I really don't see this going anywhere, I don't think it's a bad idea, just not one the professionals would have done (and didn't).

It's a nice "what if" but I think it's already out lived it's shelf life.
 

Hey it's all fun, a detail here and there can make a big difference.

The P36's would be shaped up at Pearl before they left, not at Midway. Your right, Midway did not have the time, people or equipment to work on wore out P36's. All fighters sent to Midway would only need fuel and oil topped off to fight the first raid.

How would Noumeou feel about losing their fighters? Maybe not good, but that happened everywhere, fighters, tanks, bombers, trucks, etc are sent 1 place instead of another. How did the entire Pacific feel about being 2nd or 3rd or 4th place to Europe, Africa and Eastern front?

I feel 21 fighters isn't enough to do anything anyway, (Midway springs to mind!) so let's concentrate and bunch up fighters together and attack en mass instead of piecemeal them out like at Wake and Midway. We know they are coming, let's set an ambush

Carriers are SE of Midway because that puts Midway with 95 fighters between them and 72 Kate torpedo planes and 72 Val dive bombers. If the historical US fleet had been spotted by a sub and reported, before the June 4 morning attack, I believe a Japanese 1st strike would have wiped them out. In my scenario, the US carriers are in an area where Japanese subs were not AND no Japanese recon planes ever looked for the entire battle. 95 US fighters would work over the Japanese air groups, the first wave being a complete ambush catching the Japanese off guard and hopefully decimating the first wave. If they can do it to the 2nd wave, then the US carriers can move up near Midway and strike virtually defenseless Japanese Carriers while US carriers are at 100% and hopefully there is still a strong fighter presence on Midway to provide an oversized escort for the US strike.

Also putting US carriers SE of Midway, moving up close to Midway for launch, gives pilots a fixed position to navigate back to. We lost a lot of airplanes, pilots and people that couldn't find the carrier after the attack
 
Last edited:
I know it might seem obvious but all these changes to the P36 will add a lot of weight and its handleing which was a real bonus will almost certainly be significantly reduced. Problems with COG are also certain to arise, an increase in drag and of course performance in particular climb. Val without a bomb load may well fancy its chances against such an opponent
The assumption that the US could set an ambush is also optimistic. Being able to crack codes is one thing, to get them decoded in time and distributed to those who need them in as close to real time as possible is quite another.
It's also quite a complex plan and they have a high probability of going very wrong
 

Hello Glider: The only change to the P36 would be, instead of 1 50 and 1 30 synchronized through prop, exchange the 30 for another 50, so now you have 2 50's. That adds 46 pounds for the gun and 17 pounds for ammo. (Shortround6 wasn't sure that was possible, if it wasn't then they fight with 1 30 and 1 50) The only other thing is a sheet of armor immediately behind pilot. 1/4 inch armor behind pilot was an option on the P36, but US P36's didn't have it. Spitfires first armor weighed 73 pounds, so 75 or so pounds for that. Thats 138 pounds total, shouldn't cause any issues.

I don't see this as complicated. I assume you have read about the Guadalcanal campaign? The US bitterly dumped a bunch of guys on a muddy, mosquito infested cesspool and told them to hold it. The 'airfield', was a muddy straight line sort of cut out of the jungle. No facilities, the airfield was a muddy unfinished mess and the Japanese continually assaulted from the land, sea and air. Marine, Navy and AAF fighters and bombers were funneled in as best they could, some sent in when their carrier was sunk or damaged, supplies were questionable, constant bombing from air and from cruisers and battleships. They held and also had a 1 to 1 exchange with the Zero flown by the best pilots Japan had to offer.

In contrast: Midway was a modern well supplied base, 3 paved runways, triangle shaped, well defended on land, no land assault from Japanese, no cruiser or battleship bombardment, and radar for early warning.

Plan is simple, aircraft available at Pearl Harbor are deck loaded onto Hornet. Enterprise escorts her to somewhere SE of Midway and launches 31 Wildcats and 22 P36's. They are fueled and armed when they leave the ship. They land on Midway a day or 2 or 3 before the attack and are refilled with fuel and oil. Yorktown arrives when she historically does and flies off the 15 Wildcats that she historically left at Pearl Harbor. They wait, a few fly CAP missions, B17's and Catalinas fly search as is historical. Morning of June 4, all the B17's and Catalinas launch early, as historical, on search missions. Put up say 20 Wildcats for CAP. Every other fighter pilot is in his cockpit, engine running, as is historical, nothing new except instead of 27 fighters and 37 bombers sitting on the strip, it is 95 or so fighters. PBY sights fleet at 0530, sends radios message in the clear at 0534, as happened historically. A second PBY sights the incoming raid and signals in the clear at 0544 "Many planes headed Midway". US carriers are safely circling together 100 or so miles SE of Midway, away from any search planes Yamato has launched. Midway Radar picked up raid a couple minutes later and began launching all planes at 0552. Historically, Midway runways were empty by 0600 per The First Team. They launched 60+ fighters and bombers in 8 minutes according to The First Team. In my plan, 20 are on CAP, 75 are left on the runway, engines running, pilots in the cockpit. Add a couple minutes if you want to for a few extra fighters (I would think fighters could scramble faster than bombers) Last pilot lifts off at 0605.

Japanese level bombers started attack at 0630, dive bombers at 0634.

That leaves 25 minutes for the 75 fighters to get into position. I would have them broken into type, 22 P36's fly together, CAP would be the 21 Marines, rest of wildcats are together, 21 Buffalos together.

P36's would be first in line, they climb to 20,000 in 7.6 minutes. They can join Marine CAP at 20,000 and jump Japanese as far out as possible. Everyone else assemble over the field and attack when bombers are in sight.

21 Wildcats and 22 P36's jump Zeros at 40 miles out, that should be plausible. Zeros stay and fight, they have no radios, should think that this is all of Midways fighters, its a reasonable assumption on their part. They get separated from bombers and the 32 Wildcats and 21 buffalos give the now unescorted 72 Japanese bombers a warm welcome starting just out of flak range and stay with them as long as they want, unmolested by 36 Zeros who are busy about 40 miles away with 43 US fighters.

US carriers circle comfortably 100 miles SE of Midway, waiting for Midway to thin out Japanese planes and pilots with 100 percent of her fighters and bombers intact and undetected, waiting for the proper time to do a counter strike.

As far as cracking the codes: The US did crack the codes, they were so confident in the cracked codes they deployed 3 carriers, and reinforced Midway with a bunch of fighters and bombers and parked the 3 carriers in the middle of nowhere and ALL the planes on Midway on morning of June 4 were in the cockpit with the engine running! That is pretty dang confident!!

So what if the US was wrong? Leave the P36's, fly the Wildcats back to the carrier and head back to Pearl Harbor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

G
Better Dambusters
2
Replies
25
Views
2K
GTX
S
Battle of Britain:
Replies
15
Views
1K
fubar57
M
USAAF aircraft lost through transport sinkings during Battle of the Atlantic?
Replies
2
Views
436
fubar57
Aircraft in Battle of Păuliș? Hungary vs Romania 1944
Replies
0
Views
638
CHen10
France airforce FAF Order of Battle
Replies
3
Views
682
Barrett
B
Menu
Log in
Register