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Originally Posted by m21sniper
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Easily? How can you say that when historically they failed utterly at even taking Midway? Do you know how many divisions of troops the US could have flooded the Hawaiin Islands with? Not just infantry, but armor as well. And hundreds, if not thousands of fighters.
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the whole point of this discussion is to speculate on what would have happened if we'd lost the naval battle of midway. the japanese invasion only turned back because they lost air superiority. the marines on the island simply could not have held.
imagine losing the enterprise and hornet as well as the yorktown. most of the enemy carriers survive. the japanese then have almost ten months before the first essex class shows up. they base bombers out of midway, land on kaua'i, and put up a fighter strip there.
the p-38s are all going to europe. the pacific command has to beg for everything they get. the sub fleet is still crippled by torpedo problems. and surface ships are useless without air cover. it only makes sense to withdraw the fleet back to san diego.
armor almost pointless on a jungle island. and the enemy could have cut off and starved any army there. exactly the way macarthur and nimitz treated most of their strongholds. look at how corrigedor and the phillipines fell.
american industry would win eventually. but the war goes on 2-3 years longer.