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If the goal was simply to keep the US out of the action for a few months, I still think that destroying the ammo dumps, dry-docks, and fuel dumps would have done the job.  Even if the Japanese believed that was not the case, You would HAVE to destroy or at least damage the aircraft carriers. As it was, it still took 6 months for the US to get it's carriers into action in the battle of the coral sea.  Arguably, the Japanese would have been left alone in any event (thought that is 20/20 hindsight)

Without destroying some other stuff, all blowing up the battleships did was piss us off.  And there's no reason that Yamamoto should not have been able to figure that out, seeing as he pretty much said as much, and was developing war plans based on air power.  All when the Japanese fleet could not even survive the losses of a single defeat.

I'm sensitive to the 20/20 hindsight rule, but so much of what Yamamoto said/did is really just  
   

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I have never affirmed that to be the case.  It is not.  I am stating as a matter of historical record that U.S. armed forces were waging war on the Germans before Pearl Harbor.

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The vast amounts of fertilizer in the hands of American farmers would be a far more formidable arsenal than any amount of rifles.

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The battleships of the Pacific Fleet constitutted a "fleet in being".  Look at how much of the Royal Navy was tied up by the handful of ships that Germany had, for almost the entire duration of the war.  For Japan to gain the territory she wanted, with the fleet she had, the battleships at Pear HAD to be knocked out of action.  Otherwise, her initiative and freedom of action would have been so restricted that she could not have a good chance of getting the settlement she wanted from the western powers.  If those ships still exist, even if they had been pulled back to the west coast, Japan could never know when they would sortie, and the fleet could, and later in the war was, supplied from tankers, barges, and ammo ships.

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We didn't have two million men fighting the Germans on Dec 7th.  

The other points are interesting, however.

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Then you best not attack until you can take out the carriers too.  As we saw through the war, and as the Japanese certainly should have known at the time, they were the more valuable asset.

I'm not saying that the battleships had no value, just that the Japanese priorities for targets was totally wrong.

Without the carriers, we would have been stuck with no real power projection capability, and our other vessels would have been vulnerable to air attack.

Without fuel and ammo in Pearl, offensive operations would have been very difficult to sustain, and it would have made our supply line even more critical––and vulnerable.

Without the drydocks, time to repair damaged vessels vastly increases, also significantly reducing our ability to conduct offensive operations.  Without the battleships, we are somewhat less effective, and have to be more careful in choosing our battles.  That's the tactical reality as I see it.  And if you are going to sink the battleships, wait until they are in the channel, harder to refloat, and restricting access to the harbor.

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Which would have a very shaky support structure and have to be guarded constantly to prevent things like thermite "accidents"

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While in general I agree that explosives are more important than small arms to partisans, I don't know how well ammonium nitrate work in such a scenario. Ammonium nitrate is quite hygroscopic, so care must be taken when storing it. I doubt the storage conditions in occupied territory are very good.

To all of those saying that American hunters could stop a military force, how many rounds of ammunition do you think the average hunter has on hand?

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While in general I agree that explosives are more important than small arms to partisans, I don't know how well ammonium nitrate work in such a scenario. Ammonium nitrate is quite hygroscopic, so care must be taken when storing it. I doubt the storage conditions in occupied territory are very good.

To all of those saying that American hunters could stop a military force, how many rounds of ammunition do you think the average hunter has on hand?

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This thing is still going...huh

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"As we saw through the war" is hindsight - not available to any party at the time.





"  ... as the Japanese certainly shoudl have known at the time..."  - no such thing. They were executing a coup de main against an enemy technically not at war with them.  They were using the only asset that could do so.  Neither they, nor anyone, had any reason to believe such actions could work against an enemy fully alerted and at war.  Had the radar station been headed, it might not have.  The fact that we were able to use carrier strikes early in the war was largely due to having nothing else to use, and the paucity of the Japanese early warning radar and picket ship network at the time.  Later on it succeeded due to overwhelming force and technological development of the aircraft themselves.

Again, I submit this is hindsight.






Youknow there are army air bases on Hawaii, right?  

Yes.  But you can't have everything.  Japan was so weak that they could not afford to leave the 6 carriers of the strike force at risk long enough to hit everything, and each successive wave faced greater resistance and loses.  Plus there were the missing carriers - those six Jap flattops would have been very vulerable if they had been caught launching or recovering by the missing U.S. carriers.   So how many strikes you gonna stick around to launch?  The risk grows with each one, and destroying the BBs is the job you are there to do, to thwart Plan Orange and get the negotiated peace the leadership is banking on.

That last bit requires you to stick around while they get up steam, and then time it to catch them in the channel. Not such an easy thing to do.  Meanwhile, you give the Americans more time to find you, and hit you with a carrier strike, land-based air, or a coordinated submarine attack.

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Actually a pretty good and respectful discussion.  I may disagree with the points some posters make, but they are logical, well thought out, and supportable.  I am really enjoying this, and thank everyone, regardless of their take on the topic.

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Where would they have gotten the troops? They were already fighting in China, Burma, the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, etc.  

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Taking over the US would be a nightmare, there are simply too many skilled shooters in the US.  Tanks, Artillary and aircraft are not very effective against individuals or small groups.

If an army invaded the US, there would be so many gun owners trying to take a shot at the enemy that most people would never even be able to get into the fight.  I'd imagine that most dead enemy soldiers after they were massacured would probably still be shot up by gun owners that didn't get to shoot at them when they were alive.

I'm sure I will be corrected by a DU troll, but fact is, american gun owners are the largest and most dangerous army on earth.

Quoted:I would propose that the idea that aircraft carriers were the future was already known to much of the leadership on each side by Pearl.

 They had already been used with success in Italy, and you already brought up the sinking of the Bismark.  I would agree that the sinking of the battleships forced the issue for us, and that WAS an unforseeable consequence.  But again, consider the Japanese were attacking Pearl exclusively withe aircraft carriers, and that they were concerned about the location of those carriers, it seems apparent that they did get the value of them....  And then they just said, "screw it, attack anyway"  I think that was a HUGE error.

Which would have only covered ships within a few hundred miles of the islands, but not offensive operations.  Sending battleships alone to the Coral Sea or midway would have been a bloodbath.

Like I've said before, they should not have launched even the first wave unless they could get the carriers.  And if you want a negotiated peace, going after the battleships is a bad plan.  Yamamoto understood the symbolism of those ships.  

I agree that would have been hard to do.  But I seem to recall that we almost did have a couple sunk in the channel.

I get that the whole thing was a huge gamble for Japan, and I think their leadership (at least the admiralty) understood that.  But I think they got a lousy hand and failed to fold... And then they didn't even play the cards they did get well.  

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It was proposd by some, who came to be very influential as the war progressed.  However, the "black shoe" admirals were very much in charge on all sides ante bellum, and this can be seen in the procurement programs of all combatants.  Carriers had to be improvised from ocean liners, battleships (Japan), light cruisers, fast merchant ships, (U.S., Britain) because the priorities for building did not reflect an enhanced value for naval aviation.



They didn't have a choice about the timing - a declaration of war was being sent, and simultaneous operations were underway for the Phillipines, Indonesia, the British possessions, China, etc.   They had no choice but to execute, and execute RIGHT NOW.


This is a good point.



I think Saratoga or Enterprise would have had a similar effect if hit.




One.  Nevada IIRC.  But you can't count on that kind of luck or timing.


Were I in charge of Kido Butai, I would have launched at least one more strike.

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It was proposd by some, who came to be very influential as the war progressed.  However, the "black shoe" admirals were very much in charge on all sides ante bellum, and this can be seen in the procurement programs of all combatants.  Carriers had to be improvised from ocean liners, battleships (Japan), light cruisers, fast merchant ships, (U.S., Britain) because the priorities for building did not reflect an enhanced value for naval aviation.

They didn't have a choice about the timing - a declaration of war was being sent, and simultaneous operations were underway for the Phillipines, Indonesia, the British possessions, China, etc.   They had no choice but to execute, and execute RIGHT NOW.

I think Saratoga or Enterprise would have had a similar effect if hit.

Were I in charge of Kido Butai, I would have launched at least one more strike.

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This.  Logistics, logistics, logistics.  The Japanese had a hard enough time keeping hold of Indochina, Manchuria, the Phillipines, and the various Pacific Islands. They simply didn't have the troops or ships to invade and hold any part of the US.

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Stopped by my dads house the other day and he handed me some info a guy he works with gave him, don't know the accuracy or source of the info but thought in was interesting non the less.  It a little long so hang in there.  Here it goes.

"True story and most people will never know it.  After the Japanese decimated our fleet in Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, They could have sent their troop ships and carriers directly to California to finish what they started.  The prediction from our Chief of Staff was we would not be able to stop a massive invasion until they reached the Mississippi River.  Remember, we hgad a 2 million man army and war ships... All fighting the Germans.

So. why did they not invade?

After the war, the remaining Japanese gernerals and admirals were asked that question.  Their answer....They know that almost every home had guns and the Americans knew how to use them..  The world's largest army....America's hunters!  I had never thought about this....

A blogger added up the deer license sales in just a handful of states and arrived at a striking conclusion:

There were over 600,000 hunters this season in the state of Wisconsin...Allow me to restate that number.  Over the last several months, Wisconsin's hunters became the 8th largest army in the world.

More men under arms than in Iran...

More than France and Germany combined.

These men deployed to the woods of a single American state to hunt with firearms, and no one was killed.

That numbers pales in comparasion to 750,000 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania and Michigan's 700,000.  Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virgina and it literally establishes the fact that the hunters of those 4 states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

The Point?  America will forever b e safe from foregin invasion with that kind of home grown firepower.  Hunting...it';s not just a way to fill the freezers.  It's a matter of national security.  That's why all enemies, foreign and domestic, want to see us disarmed.  Food for thought when next we consider gun control."

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Logistics is a bitch.

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Stopped by my dads house the other day and he handed me some info a guy he works with gave him, don't know the accuracy or source of the info but thought in was interesting non the less.  It a little long so hang in there.  Here it goes.

"True story and most people will never know it.  After the Japanese decimated our fleet in Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, They could have sent their troop ships and carriers directly to California to finish what they started.  The prediction from our Chief of Staff was we would not be able to stop a massive invasion until they reached the Mississippi River.  Remember, we hgad a 2 million man army and war ships... All fighting the Germans.

So. why did they not invade?

After the war, the remaining Japanese gernerals and admirals were asked that question.  Their answer....They know that almost every home had guns and the Americans knew how to use them..  The world's largest army....America's hunters!  I had never thought about this....

A blogger added up the deer license sales in just a handful of states and arrived at a striking conclusion:

There were over 600,000 hunters this season in the state of Wisconsin...Allow me to restate that number.  Over the last several months, Wisconsin's hunters became the 8th largest army in the world.

More men under arms than in Iran...

More than France and Germany combined.

These men deployed to the woods of a single American state to hunt with firearms, and no one was killed.

That numbers pales in comparasion to 750,000 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania and Michigan's 700,000.  Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virgina and it literally establishes the fact that the hunters of those 4 states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

The Point?  America will forever b e safe from foregin invasion with that kind of home grown firepower.  Hunting...it';s not just a way to fill the freezers.  It's a matter of national security.  That's why all enemies, foreign and domestic, want to see us disarmed.  Food for thought when next we consider gun control."

Quoted:Certainly there was a battleship mafia in those days.  Agreed.  I still think Japan was more aware of the value, hence the willingness to convert battleships to carriers.

Agreed.  

I think we all agree that Japan really overextended themselves by going to Pearl in the first place, and maybe there was no good battle plan with the resources and capabilities they had.  I think the overall Japanese war plan, frankly, sucked donkey balls.  Being able to succesfully overtake China (which was in the middle of a civil war already, as China often was, and who really didn't have a modern military) created a tremendous amount of overconfidence within the Japanese military.  Nor did Japan never had the resources to defend the area of the pacific that they did overtake.

I think Japan had two separate and distinct goals at Pearl.  One was to prevent the success of War Plan Orange, and the other was to get the US to sue for peace early and allow Japan to keep much of their conquered territory. I would propose the individually, those plans require significantly different strategies, and Japan did not have the resources to "get both".  In fact, to some extent, I think they are mutually exclusive of each other.