The 20mm hits harder but the Wildcat is a tough plane, the .50's have less individual hitting power but there's more of them and the A6M has a glass jaw
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The 20mm hits harder but the Wildcat is a tough plane, the .50's have less individual hitting power but there's more of them and the A6M has a glass jawBut how much metal is thrown downrange and what is the energy?
20mm is more destructive per gallon than 50 cal.
Not sure Kongos and cruisers would be able to approach unspotted, Midway was running it's Catalina's pretty far out on search patterns starting pre-dawn every day. They probably would have spotted this and ID'ed it correctly as a bombardment force seeing as so much heavy metal was in it.Use the carriers as air cover. Send in A few Kongos and cruisers and destroyers and shell Midway to bejesus under cover of darkness.
Use float planes to drop flares for BDA and direction.
Then retreat before dawn to the carriers for air cover.
A few overflights to assess damage.
Carriers are outside effective Midway strikes and the islands are a mess.
If you lose a cruiser or destroyer then price of doing business.
Can anyone see any flaws? Pretty air tight.
This and Baskets case (ha! I crack the wise as well) were never going to happen, it simply wasn't in the IJN mindset. Yammamoto and most of the IJN staff thought the USN was totally cowed, hiding in its base and needed to be enticed out and led to its own destruction. They never considered that the Americans were spoiling for a fight, talk about NOT knowing your enemy.The IJN's first mistake was letting Kido Butai range ahead of the fleet.
Yamamoto should have closed with Midway Atoll and shelled the island with his battleships and cruisers while his carriers (he had six) provided fleet cover and interdiction.
Instead, allowing the first and second carrier divisions to take the lead against the well defended Atoll was literally letting his arse dangle in the breeze.
Considering how Wake Island put up a ferocious defense despite the odds only a few months prior, they should have learned from that and expected a similar reception and planned accordingly.
Yo' Gunn, gimme another couple of posts. I need to add an "agree" as well as a "funny". "Baskets case". How long were you waiting to use that line?Not sure Kongos and cruisers would be able to approach unspotted, Midway was running it's Catalina's pretty far out on search patterns starting pre-dawn every day. They probably would have spotted this and ID'ed it correctly as a bombardment force seeing as so much heavy metal was in it.
Other than that it seems a reasonably sound plan but...
This and Baskets case (ha! I crack the wise as well) were never going to happen, it simply wasn't in the IJN mindset. Yammamoto and most of the IJN staff thought the USN was totally cowed, hiding in its base and needed to be enticed out and led to its own destruction. They never considered that the Americans were spoiling for a fight, talk about NOT knowing your enemy.
The IJN was was never going to apply the hammer of brute force, they were into deception and misdirection, and Midway was the last place to try that. Remember, they still considered the Battleship the final arbiter of any naval encounter, which is why KdB was out front and the BB's were dicking around as "distant support" ready to "spring" into action... 200+ miles away, if that makes any sense.
Just reading the battle plan the IJN came up with for Midway leaves you scratching your head, true, there had been only one CV v. CV duel so far but any junior planner could see the best way to take Midway, pretty much how you two described it. The Japanese would find out the hard way how to take an island by force, they'd get lessons on that over and over as the war in the Pacific carried on.
BasketYo' Gunn, gimme another couple of posts. I need to add an "agree" as well as a "funny". "Baskets case". How long were you waiting to use that line?
Case.Yo' Gunn, gimme another couple of posts. I need to add an "agree" as well as a "funny". "Baskets case". How long were you waiting to use that line?
Why rely on the Kongos?I needed a name for internet.
And there was a wicker basket on the table. And that's where basket came from. True story Bro.
The Kongos would sail in under cover of Zeroes. Then bombard under cloak of darkness. Then egress until daylight when it will have to be CAPped by Zeroes again.
No Catalina going to survive long against a Zero. Going to need 14 inches of shell that only a Kongo can provide. Turn Midway into the Moon and thats all she wrote.
The Nagatos (Mutsu and Nagato) were good for about 25 knots.Were the Kongos faster than the Nagatos?
HiThe Nagatos (Mutsu and Nagato) were good for about 25 knots.
The Kongos (Kongo, Hiei, Kirishima) were good for about 30 knots.
However, the Kongos had 14 inch guns while the Nagatos had 16 inch guns.
Of course, there was the Yamato, good for 27 knots and had 18 inch guns.
Why rely on the Kongos?
You had two Nagato class battleships: Nagato and Mutsu
You also had the Yamato herself, who was equipped with serious basement diggers.
There were also quite a few heavy cruisers in the mix.
Any or all of the above would be able to move in at sundown and commence the mother of all poundings and be off before first light.
Japan should have kept everything together, including waiting for Zuikaku and thrown the lot at Midway. Codebreaking can only help the US so far when faced with a single force of seven carriers fielding close to four-hundred aircraft (incl. Zuikaku's renewed CAG), seven battleships, ten heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, fourteen destroyers, thirteen submarines, and thirty-five support/invasion ships.Use the carriers as air cover. Send in A few Kongos and cruisers and destroyers and shell Midway to bejesus under cover of darkness.
Well, to blame the Zero of the losses of those carriers seems too much, given that there were a multipicity of factors that influence those battle outcomes (lack of radar, unrealiable radios, overagressive attitude of the Zero pilots, insufficient damage control).One of the few times the Zero seems to have saved its carrier(s) from crippling damage or destruction by air strike is at Ceylon where the A6M encountered Blenheims and Fulmars. Otherwise, the Zeros fail to protect at least eleven IJN carriers from USN air attack: Shōhō at Coral Sea; Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū at Midway; Ryūjō at Eastern Solomons; Zuikaku, Zuihō, Chitose and Chiyoda at Leyte Gulf; and Hiyō at Philippine Sea. Only the Fairey Fulmar in the Med (allowing crippling strikes on Illustrious, Formidable and Indomitable) appears to be a worse fleet air defence fighter.
I expect the 12" Kongos would have been converted to carriers. The only 12" dreadnought Britain ever made for a foreign market was HMS Agincourt, though Spain's Espana class used British made 12" turrets and guns, shown here as a coastal defence gun.A bigger shell has more room for explosive. So yeah but 14 inch shell will do great guns.
Vickers 14 inch naval gun Yo!
British! Oddly Kongo was supposed to have 12 inch gun but that was changed. Kongo may have been obsolete had she kept the 12 inch. And so would Ise and Fuso.
So Rule Britannia.
Well yes, that's the entire point of this thread. We're giving the the Kido Butai radar, CIC (to coordinate air defence), reliable radios and disciplined team-based pilots. Given these four items I expect the Zero would have done better.Well, to blame the Zero of the losses of those carriers seems too much, given that there were a multipicity of factors that influence those battle outcomes (lack of radar, unrealiable radios, overagressive attitude of the Zero pilots, insufficient damage control).