No, the problem with shortening the Pacific War is the fleet train and warships that need to be built before the US Navy can properly move into the Western Pacific. Change all you like, but unless the addition of either is sped up somehow, then the US simply isn’t going west until late 1943. Period. The Germans did not require much of either, and thus were not much of a factor in lengthening the Pacific War.
Conventional thinking. The idea is to slow down the Japanese Freight Train.
You might want to start with that one and ask yourself, what weapon has America ignored in Plan Orange?
(They did cause problems in the South Pacific, but that was a bit of a sideshow, strategically.)
Ignoring Germans for the moment; what makes Luzon so interesting from my (air power) point of view is how central a position it occupies and how vital it was to hang on to it. Not going to happen because someone gave that job to MacArthur and Brereton. That leaves this option:
(Incidentally, this is why the US could fight a two-front War so well; the two fronts had very different material requirements, though also a good number of similarities)
And as long as Japan continues to hold Truk, you can’t really shorten the Central Pacific campaign; the landings were determined by airfield placement, and can’t really be trimmed. Mine the harbors all you want, the US still needs to haul troops to a dozen heavily fortified islands.
It does not matter what Japan holds as long as their oil tankers start to explode early and often in 1942.
Speeding up the Pac war would mean to speed up Nimitz central thrust of Gilbert's to Marshalls to Marianas.
CV12Hornet is correct that the thrust to the Marshalls and Marianas while pounding/isolating the Carolines had to wait until the Essex's arrived in 43.
The Gilbert islands may be vulnerable enough in second half of 1942 and early 1943 to take.
POD is USS Yorktown survives Midway by either:
part of the dive bombers from Hornet flight to no where turn coordinates and find IJN Hiryu before launch planes against Yorktown.
USS Saratoga is sped up a few days and joins Yorktown, finds Hiryu
Planes from Midway score hits against Hiryu in the morning.
Yorktown and Saratoga support mission in Gilberts, raid of Makin is first step to gain island and turn into fighter base.
Enterprise and Hornet support main action against Guadalcanal.
Japan reaction is to fortify Marshalls.
There is no Tarawa, Tarawa is easier than otl, us marines have baptism of fire in Marshalls.
Japan has to choose in 42 to defend Guadalcanal or Gilbert's. IJN chooses Guadalcanal and strengthen Marshalls leaving Gilbert's for USA to pick off.
Is this feasible?
Try this:
Weight the western pincer more and use land based air to push in on Rabaul from the west. Bypass the Solomons.
Basically, would speed up drive to capture Marianas by three months. Bombing of Japan starts 3 months earlier as b29's come off the line.
Where would the men come from?
Same place as they did. Australia and the US.
1st marine div is still tagged for guadal
Could the initial Raiders with follow on units from Hawaii be used for Gilbert's 42?
Well... with no Solomons campaign to derail and no wrecked units to refinish and replenish? I would wait til *43 and see if Mister Corncob can get across New Guinea. My target is Luzon. and then Formosa.
The gamble is to weaken Hawaii defences of army units and army air force to set up base in Gilbert's.
Midway argument. My guess it is a good logistics risk in Early *43. Not sooner.
Are there enough men and planes in second half 42 and 43 to secure Gilbert's and defend Guadalcanal?
Marshalls are then second part of 43 and Marianas are first part of 44
No. We don't want to do that thing.
A good way to shorten the Pacific War is to have Yamamoto's fears at Pearl Harbor come true, that is Midway comes 6 months early.
If you want a Japanese victory, have them go South in 1941 without PH, the US declares war along the way but suffers a major naval loss in the beginning of the war bringing about a quick peace like the Japs wanted all along.
Luzon is across their SLOCs. They have to take it.
I've always liked the idea of a combined TF 11 and TF 14 (Saratoga and Lexington) not giving up on the relief of Wake and getting into it successfully with the Hiryu and Soryu as a first step towards a shorter Pacific War.
No. Coral Sea shows what happens. The Americans need practice and anybody but Halsey.
1936 POD simply crushes Japan. I'll toss in some changes that other people might accept as plausible.
Have the Philliphine army commanded by someone competent. Let them have a number of tanks available, as well as some AT guns and mortars to keep the ground units maneuverable even on rough terrain. Take notes from the European war once it starts. Radars - more of them, train the operators sot they are proficient in their job. Recon aircraft also need radars. Trained radar operator is worth dozen of trained pilots. Provide competition to the Rhode Island-based torpedo facility, makign sure that torpedo models are fully tested and reliable, with emphasis on submarine torpedos. Reinforce Australia with LR bombers, so the captured oil fields can be bombed if that arose.
1. Competent? Wainwright?
2. No radars.
3. Not enough B-17s.
4. Bliss Leavitt still exists.
5. There goes the ice cream and sports budgets for the USN.
6. ARM the Dutch East Indies colonial forces and start joint planning.
Twin engined bombers must include speed, range and firepower, future A-20 included. Have Marines procure A-20s, even the DB7 will make sense for the starters. Make a deal for Merlin license production in 1939. License production of the Mosquito? Train the bombers' crews in low altitude high speed bombing of ships. Make a fighter around a big radial earlier, so at least 1000 of such are produced before 1942, for all three 'combat' services. With start of war, push for fighter-bombers with that powerplant. Fighters are nothing without range, so plan accordingly to have them outfitted with drop tanks. Once P-51 is there, embrace it fully (= 3 factories at least within a year), both fighter and recon variants are needed. Flight refueling?
The 1.1in is neither fish nor fowl on a big ship, better have the 37mm AA adopted by Navy before 40mm Bofors is ready. Have the AA crews training to include both surface and air targets.
7. The A-26 Marauder is better. It can carry a torpedo (2 of them). Build early, often and train up an USN force akin to the special attack force the Japanese used to sink Prince of Wales and Repulse. Battle of the Java Sea assumes a more Battle of the Bismark Sea definition.
8. Mosquito not ready. Beaufort is.
9. How about fixing the Allison for high altitude?
10. 1.1 needs a better shell and fusing. Fire control AAA is the real hanger. Fix that prewar.
If it was automated and far more sensitive than human ears, then why not try visual display? I realise that hydrophone gives you surprisingly a lot of pieces of data, namely where is the source of noise (just azimuth, not range), and more or less what is it. The operator could discern whatever it is a whale, a diesel engined vessel - possibly sub, a fast steamer like warship or ocean liner, a slow going merchant, or this shrimp that stuns its prey with supercavitation. You can also guesstimate whatever object is closing or running away, and which way it goes compared to you (does azimuth changes to left or to right?) The automatic piece would rob you from everything but the azimuth, except unless you can process the signal digitally, which is way too advanced for WWII, and most likely for Cold War as well. But, what keeps you from having both, super sensitive array to check where your hydrophone operator should listen for things, AND standard issue one to actually listen.
Too much hindsight. The sonar USN equivalent of GHG (1947)
uses a tracking party a trained pair of listeners and graphs everything via pen repeater and in the case of the tracking party on a chart.
Actually. Is there anything that stops from using towed hydrophone arrays in WWII? That could be very useful for both subs and the ASW...
The size and vulnerability of the tube based electronic circuitry required.
I cannot, which bothers me to some extent. I agree with the first part, I read Buchenheim's Das Boot, I know that torpedoes are more like automated minisubs, rather than dumb projectiles. While I know about the crisis with US torpedoes, and know that navy responded to claims these torps do not work as intended, first with saying that crews do not know how to use and take care of them, and secondly by putting blame on individual mechanics who build them. But, wasn't it so that all the flaws that plagued the US torpedoes were in design? Mechanics in factory weren't incompetent, because they build machines according to bad plans... It is like blaming robots form Fiat assembly line, that the Multipla doesn't look like a car. Calling them semiskilled workforce as one of you does later seems to be buying into Navy's smokescreen.
Or am I missing something here?
You are missing a lot. First, it was not just the US. The UK and the Germans had terrible problems with their WW II torpedoes and among the three powers; circle runs, depth control, guidance, and initiators all traced their root faults back to the common Whitehead torpedo from which they started in 1900. As the fish became faster and longer ranged, the guidance and function variables (wander, yaw, porpoising, gyro tumble, etc.) became magnified over time. The three powers also used the same WW I German magnetic mine fuse architecture which does not work globally. What you test off Maine, Pomerania, or the Shetlands doesn't work off the River Plate or off Bunga Straits. AFAIK, only the USN even made a stab at checking for variances in the Earth's magnetic field. They tried but did not know enough to figure it out. The Germans did a partial Atlantic survey during the war but their later adoption of pure contact exploders for their later pattern runners and acoustics kind of suggests that they were not completely successful either.
And lastly about running "unsinkable"* ship through minefield. Germans did it to punch through minefields Brits sow around their U-boat bases, British did it to punch through the minefields lied by Germans, because they didn't have time to clear them, harbours had to work or the GB would starve. These ships were equipped with trawling equipment to try to make the mines explode ahead of them, were filled with all sorts of flotation aids but, yes, they were very dangerous posts, *and yes they werent really unsinkable. Why Japanese couldn't use them?
They did run ships with live crews through in critical harbors and straits. Was not necessary until the US mining campaign in *44/45.
