Leadfoot wrote:

"Jeroen Wenting" wrote in message
...

"Bob Urz" wrote in message
...

I know similar scenarios were made into a movie.
But, if on Dec 1941 you had two strike eagles.
Only two. Your sortie arrived at the Japanese fleet
about the time 1/2 of the first wave was launched.

Question 1#
given the choice of any weaponry available for the F15,
(even some that may not be normally used)
what would your weapon load be? This is using all available hard points
and taking fuel out of the equation.


Just anti-air. Winders and AMRAAM would do the trick nicely.
And no, that's not enough to take out half the force that took on the

Pearl

but read on.


Too bad nuclear armed AIM-4's aren't in the inventory. Just shoot that into
the Japanese formation and no jap airplane makes it to Pearl. Then use one
or two B-61's against the Jap fleet. Then island hop (unless you give me a
KC-10) to the Phillipines and stop McArthur from screwing up. Maybe even
save PoW and Repulse.

How long will an eagles engine last on avgas?



Question #2
Given the choice of weapons above, what would your tactics be to
maximize damage to the carrier fleet and prevent as many planes
as possible from reaching Pearl. (while saving your own butt)


Nothing at all. After all, the US doesn't want to start a war by attacking
the Japanese fleet unprovoked!
Instead, shadow them and report a warning back to Pearl so they can launch
fighters to protect the installations there against a POSSIBLE Japanese
attack.
Only after the Japanese show definite hostile intent shoot down as many as
possible and provide guidance for a retaliatory strike of B-17s and B-25s
against the Japanese carriers.


Simply by being where they were they showed hostile intent. If by sheer
luck we could have had a fleet led by Halsey to intercept them no orders
from above would have been necessary.

You would have to stick with 1941 weapons, tactics, and knowledge base.
There were hard lessons learned early in the pacific on how to
deal with a zero.

Now, if you emptied the harbor of capital ships for a strike force the
Japanese spies would have relayed the information back and the jap fleet
may have turned back. Or set up for attack.

The carriers that were not in in harbor and subs would have made a sneak
strike force. But considering the skills of the carrier pilots at that
stage of the game, we might have got a jap carrier or two on surprise,
but maybe lost all of the US carrier force we had. And i doubt that
sending a bunch or B17's would have been effective except to draw flack
fire. Losing those carriers at that stage of the war may have been worse
than the pearl attack. It's not like the decks were full of
F4U's and F4F's at that time.

Even if you would have emptied the harbor and used every available asset
on short notice and went head to head with the whole Japanese fleet,
what do you think the result would be? My guess is a lot of those
antiques in the harbor were not ready to sail on a moments notice
into battle. So 6 carriers, 2 battle ships, 2 heavy cruisers, 9
destroyers, and up to 30 jap subs were in the area if this page is correct:

http://www.ww2pacific.com/pearljp.html

The end result may have been about the same only with US carrier loses.
It would have been the biggest naval battle of the war possibly if
if happened. With that many subs in the area and possible Japanese
air recon, i doubt that total surprise could have been achieved.
It would have made a good Ben Aflack Movie though.

Bob






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