"Nagumo would have had to sent a 3rd wave to strike the oil storage, meaning they'd be returing after dark. He'd either have to stay blacked out and and lose most of that strike force, or light up so the returning aircraft could find him, and also possibly also attract the US carriers that might be just over the horizon for all he knew".
HUH? Midday/early afternoon to launch the third wave I'd think, recover late afternoon? I'd have to see what remained behind, what came back from Wave 1. Pretty sure they rearmed immediately. edit: I have the IJN fleet 250 miles out...an hour and change of flight time at cruise speeds. 2nd wave launched (started launches?) at 715 and reached Oahu at 0850 ending an hour later.
"The Japanese, as Peatty Evans wrote in "Kaigun", prepared for battle, not for war. They did not think enough about logistic. It was not in their mindset to attack targets like oil storage, especially when there were a lot of cruisers and destroyers undamaged.
As Dr. Zimm points out, the land targets as the oil storage could not easily be damaged. They were hudge targets that could only be destroyed by far more ordnance than the carrier planes could deliver. The Japanese were perfectly aware that a new strike would cost a lot of planes and crews (that Japan could not easily replace) and would achieve very little. In short, it was not a good trade-off."
Oh really? I'll have to read up on this Dr. Zimm. Sounds like complete scholarly BS to me. I've seen oil tanks burn nicely from accidents....much less bombs. Have you seen these storage tanks at Pearl? Big. Lots of them. Some good size bombs on a few of these, incindaries for effect... and you'd have a serious fire...probably spreading. I'd agree, 3rd wave would hit these vs obscure the 'real targets' in the water. Did not have to take them all out, just most of them. Hit the fuel pumping and transfer. IIRC, the tank farm was full or near full, takes months to fill these babies up from stateside. By omission, the IJN attack left the USN well set with at least fuel oil for operations. A small strike could have levelled the tank farms, stranding the US Fleet....wag the dog
edit
consider the risk to the IJN fliers:
Alerted US bases and ships. 3rd wave would have been a real morale crusher. Wondering what was left flyable for the US. Pretty sure they uploaded/prepped what planes they could if the IJN planes came back, just no number comes to mind. I'd say the IJN fliers would face some opposition, have losses....but they would have gotten through IMHO. They expected huge losses in attack 1 and 2, did not happen.
risk to IJN fleet:
aha..... Where are the USN aircraft carriers? Sure that played on ADM Nagumo. From what I read, the IJN thought 4 carriers were based at Pearl Harbor not just the two we knew that were there. Not certain what planes we had aboard then.