richard schwab
Recruit
- 5
- Jan 25, 2009
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There are some fundemental differences between knocking out a refinery and setting fire to an oil tank.Comparing Ploesti to Pearl Harbor is a little far fetched, don't ya think?!?
It is my opinion that with heavyer losses, that IJN might of taken out the oil tanks and the repair yards that they so crucially missed.
A lot of the supporters of the 3rd wave over estimate the amount of damage that could have been done. A 3rd wave would NOT have finished off everything left. And even supposedly vulnerable targets were harder than made out to be.
Fuel tanks.
View attachment 464340
Please note the each tank has a containment wall around it. Burning fuel from one tank could not run to adjoining tanks and set them on fire.
There may have been different fuels in some of the tanks but the majority was bunker C which is pretty heavy stuff, yo have to heat it to just over the boiling temperature of water just to get it to flow through pipes, nozzles and to atomize so it burns in a boiler.
Now Admiral Nimitz did say on a tour of the damage "Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply." when listing 3 mistakes the Japanese made.
This may have been a statement to help bolster morale.
View attachment 464341
Sample of Bunker C. Setting fire to this stuff with MG ammo seems a bit dubious. Certainly ONE airplane setting fire to over a dozen tanks seems doubtful. Bunker C is what is left after tanking a lot of the better stuff (like gasoline) out of the crude stock so it is even harder to set on fire than crude oil at a well. Crude oil has a a bit of everything so the light stuff can help get the heavy stuff going.
One old poster mentioned the 29 destroyers. Yes the Japanese could have attacked the destroyers or the subs but each ship/sub is going to require at least one direct hit. The Japanese simply do not have the number of aircraft to target the number of ships/subs/oil tanks/ docks that were left even assuming a superhuman standard of accuracy.
A 3rd wave would have done more damage but not anywhere near the level most pro 3rd strike posters are expecting. AS far as destroying the dry docks, see the St Nazaire Raid, 4 1/2 tons of explosive in the bow of the destroyer that rammed the lock gates plus commandos placing charges on the lock gate machinery and the pumps. much of which was below the level of the dock that people and vehicles traveled on. A few 500lb aircraft bombs (with 250lbs ? of explosive) stand a very small chance of taking out a dry dock for very long.