Quote:
Originally Posted by varmint
if the japanese could only land one division, how did they get two on luzon in 41, with armor? we underestimated them then. guess we still do today.
i don't know american strength on the islands at the time. i doubt more than ten percent were combat troops. and there are dozens of islands in a chain over a thousand miles long. were we supposed to defend them all?
still waiting for some explanation of how the navy was supposed to defend the islands, and the sea lanes with nothing that could stand up to the IJN.
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If midway falls the US has months to reinforce Hawaii. As far as how the Japanese landed so many troops on Luzon, they did it in waves. That's not a viable option in an attack on Hawaii. Luzon is much, much closer to Japan, and it's supply lines could easily handle such a task. The exact opposite of the scenario they'd have faced at Hawaii.
There is an OOB for the Hawaiin defense in Shattered Sword, i'll look it up tommrow night and post it for you.
As to how the US defends the sea lanes to Hawaii, they use air power(B-17s and P-38s among others), and submarines.
Augmented with escort carriers protecting the convoys, this should be quite sufficient to stop the remnants of Kido Butai. (Even if the Japanese won midway with no carrier losses, they'd have lost many of their
IRREPLACEABLE elite pilots in the carrier attacks against Yorktown, Hornet, and Enterprise).
The critical flaw the Japanese made was in sending only 2 carriers into the Coral Sea. The Whole of Kido Butai should have been employed. That force should have never been used penny packet. Ever.
As it was, 2 of the 6 fleet carriers were knocked out in the Coral Sea, as well as 2 whole airwings. It was this more than anything else that cost the Japanese victory at Midway.
Their convoluted and idiotic plan to attack an island wholly unsuited for thier needs based on poor intel was not exactly helpful either. Why would we expect they'd behave any differently if attacking Hawaii? Plus, the US had broken their code. We'd know when they were coming on top of it.