Strafing the oil field at PH?

[elkarlo]

What if the Japanese strafed the oil fields at PH? Would that be enough to destroy most of the petrol stored there?

Could strafing have pierced the armor to the of the the tanks? I know the 20mm that the zero had would have no problem. But would they cause enough leakage that the US would have trouble fighting the fires?

Would the Zero's Type 97 .30 be enough to punch additional holes in the tanks, to cause more damage and fires?
If so, could the VAls and their rear and forward .30 be used to strafing runs after they have dropped their ordnance? Just one strafing run on the return to the ship?

Same with the Nakajima with their rear .30, they could do a strafing run on the return to the carriers.

Just wondering about the plausibility, as if it was possible and somewhat effective, why not do it? As it wouldn't necessitate a 3rd wave.

 

[phx1138]

I'd say the 7.7s could easily penetrate the tanks. (AFAIK, not "armored".)

If the tanks are set on fire... How do you put that out? 140 million U.S. gallons of fuel oil?

 

[elkarlo]

I'd say the 7.7s could easily penetrate the tanks. (AFAIK, not "armored".)

If the tanks are set on fire... How do you put that out? 140 million U.S. gallons of fuel oil?

Yeah not armored, just wondering if they cab penetrate. .50 cal can easily. While 20mm there is limited ammo. So wondering if with a few runs can the tanks be set alight to a point where it would take more than a few hours to put out?

 

[phx1138]

Yeah not armored, just wondering if they cab penetrate. .50 cal can easily. While 20mm there is limited ammo. So wondering if with a few runs can the tanks be set alight to a point where it would take more than a few hours to put out?

That's a question of the flammability of fuel oil, I think. IDK if it was as volatile as, say, gasoline, nor if there would be ignitable fumes in the tanks, nor if the MG incendiary rounds (& I presume there's some in the loadout) would ignite it. The 20mm might start fires--or the explosions might snuff them.

Given you can get a fire started, tho, IMO you've got a condition that will make the Great Chicago Fire look a bit like a hibachi.

 

[NHBL]

tough to ignite...

Bunker fuel is not easy to ignite--not at all. And the grounded planes (and the few flying ones) were higher prioroty targets Even after the harbor was wrecked, there's missing American carriers. Imagine the loss of face (and rest of body) if the planes had shot up everything in sight, and were effenctively unarmed, when angry Wildcats come howling in to shoot down everything that flies.

 

[Alternate History Geek]

Bunker fuel is not easy to ignite--not at all. And the grounded planes (and the few flying ones) were higher prioroty targets Even after the harbor was wrecked, there's missing American carriers. Imagine the loss of face (and rest of body) if the planes had shot up everything in sight, and were effenctively unarmed, when angry Wildcats come howling in to shoot down everything that flies.

How would that happen when virtually all of the US planes in Hawaii had been destroyed on the ground? Also, the Japanese planes would be shooting at the oil tanks with their rear guns, and presumably ~half the fighters would leave their forward guns alone to shoot down what few US aircraft survived the attacks.

 

[NothingNow]

That's a question of the flammability of fuel oil, I think. IDK if it was as volatile as, say, gasoline, nor if there would be ignitable fumes in the tanks, nor if the MG incendiary rounds (& I presume there's some in the loadout) would ignite it. The 20mm might start fires--or the explosions might snuff them.

Given you can get a fire started, tho, IMO you've got a condition that will make the Great Chicago Fire look a bit like a hibachi.

Thing is too, that without some sort of oxidizer, or hitting the storage tanks so that the floating roofs break, you're not going to get a good fire going, and that fire would actually give the defenders downwind a very nice smokescreen.

And this is all on top of bunker oil being a bitch to ignite in the first place.

Realistically, it's a good target for a third or fourth wave of attackers, and nothing sooner.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

What if the Japanese strafed the oil fields at PH? Would that be enough to destroy most of the petrol stored there?

There was no petrol (gasoline) in the tank farms.

They held "Bunker B" - fuel oil for warships. Bunker B is extremely viscous; it has to be heated to liquify, so that it can be pumped, and so that it will burn easily. In service, the hot liquid oil is sprayed into the furnaces under the boilers; it burns much faster and hotter than if it was pumped in as a thick sludge.

Would strafing have pierced the armor of the tanks? I know the 20mm that the zero had would have no problem.

I wouldn't count on that. The tank walls were fairly thick cast iron. A square on hit by a 20mm would probably penetrate; anything at an angle would probably bounce off.

But would they cause enough leakage that the US would have trouble fighting the fires?

What fires? A few bullet holes would leak a small amount of thick tarry oil that wouldn't catch fire.

Would the Zero's Type 97 .30 be enough to punch additional holes in the tanks, to cause more damage and fires?
If so, could the VAls and their rear and forward .30 be used to strafing runs after they have dropped their ordnance? Just one strafing run on the return to the ship?

Same with the Nakajima with their rear .30, they could do a strafing run on the return to the carriers.

In Hollywood, any container of flammable anything erupts into a fireball when struck by a bullet. In the real world, it's lots harder to start fires and bullets rarely do it.

If the Japanese wanted to destroy the tank farms, they would have to use bombs, not bullets, including incendiaries.

 

[Dupplin Muir]

Rich Rostrom wrote:

There was no petrol (gasoline) in the tank farms.

I think Prange in one of his books says that there was.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Can't find any reference to gas tanks but there were diesel tanks which I suspect would be vulnerable to straffing. Set them on fire and the resulting conflagration will almost certainly set off most of the fuel oil tanks.

Certainly Nimitz thought so.

[SIZE=-1]"We had about 4.5 million barrels of oil out there and all of it was vulnerable to .50- caliber bullets. Had the Japanese destroyed the oil, it would have prolonged the war another two years..." ­ Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet Buildings[/SIZE]

Mind you - replacement underground tanks were in the process of construction and would be ready by 1942-3

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/constructpearlww2.htm

 

[NHBL]

Carriers

How would that happen when virtually all of the US planes in Hawaii had been destroyed on the ground? Also, the Japanese planes would be shooting at the oil tanks with their rear guns, and presumably ~half the fighters would leave their forward guns alone to shoot down what few US aircraft survived the attacks.

In OTL, the American carriers were not in position to do anything--but the Japanese didn't know that. So, using up too much ammunition on the tanks could be a bad idea. And, as others have said, they might not burn--and the light machine guns might not penetrate.

Had tnhey shot up the tank farms, the empty cannons wouldn't have been a big deal--but THEY didn't know that.

Also, I don't know if they could have strafed the tanks with the rear guns; it would take some fancy flying.

 

[mowque]

I'll let Calbear do the talking

The oil farm was not quite the easy target that is often imagined. While not nearly as rugged as the system that was being drilled into the lava to replace it (a replacement that was invulnerable to conventional weapons until the introduction of PGM in the late 80s), each tank was bermed, which tended to reduce the "splash" that any single bomb could create as well as tending to contain fires caused when any individual tank was damaged.

The tank and repair facilities were also not going to be targeted until a third wave, a wave that would have arrived around 14:00 local time. By then the defenses were 100% snapped on (2nd wave pilots were stunned by the amount of AAA they encountered, something that would have been even worse by the mid afternoon), the sea state where the Kido Butai was operating was poor (the 2nd wave had a number of aircraft write-offs due to landing damage onto pitching decks), and any returning 3rd wave would be landing in early darkness. Repair facilities were also remarkably robust, frequently you could simply clear debris away and the machine tools were readily usable (something that demonstrated time and again by Speer's people during the Allied Bomber Offensive in the ETO). Dry dock required quite a bit of work to kill, and the bombing conditions, thanks to the major oil fires from the ships that had been sunk and the resulting smoke, were far from the near perfect ones that had existed at 08:00.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, is the fact that the attack was not designed to do more than what it had achieved, namely take the Pacific Fleet off the table. The goal was the battleships and carriers, with cruisers as bonus targets. Submarines did not even enter into the planning as bombing targets. The entire "3rd wave" myth is the result of 100% hindsight. Had the U.S. submarine campaign not been the remarkable success that it eventually became it would never have been invented.

The Japanese fully expected to have won the war by the Summer of 1942, they had no plans to, nor the desire for, an extended war against the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, a war that they would lose. The goal was to strike fast, land crippling blows against deployed forces, and present the Western nations with a fiat accompli. There was no need for an attack against the long term infrastructure since by the time it would come into play, the war would be over.

 

[Derek Pullem]

One word on berms (or bunds in the UK) - they are designed to contain small-medium leaks.

A catastophic failure of a single tank will probably lead to the loss of most if not all of them

Buncefield had bunds

 

[Just Leo]

One word on berms (or bunds in the UK) - they are designed to contain small-medium leaks.

A catastophic failure of a single tank will probably lead to the loss of most if not all of them

Buncefield had bunds

Buncefield also had unleaded petrol, cause of the original explosion, kerosene, aviation fuel and diesel fuel. Not a drop of bunker oil.

 

[Astrodragon]

Buncefield also had unleaded petrol, cause of the original explosion, kerosene, aviation fuel and diesel fuel. Not a drop of bunker oil.

Indeed.
Avgas goes off if you look at it funny, bunker fuel is a bitch. Even kerosene wont catch fire if you drop matches in it, and bf is far less flammable. Basically it doesnt give off vapour unless heated, and its the vapour in fuel that starts off the fires.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

you aren't going to set the bunkers on fire. Your best bet is probably a raid dedicated to dropping bombs at the base of the storage tanks, to cause all the fuel to leak out all over everywhere.

but that would have required a third wave, which was never going to happen. A third wave would not hav eleft enough gasoline aboard teh carriers for combat air patrols.

As it was, Entierprise just missed the retiring force by about 7 hours.

Imaging in on Dec 8, enterprise finds and attacks the cariers who can barely put up any defenders because of lack of fuel!

 

[elkarlo]

Not saying another wave, thought I made that clear.

I was wondering if the second wave could have done enough strafing to damage or light the tanks.

And yes, I do not mean that regular machine gun fire would light anything on fire. The 20mm and the tracer rounds for the .30 could do that(possibly). Was checking to see if some mild strafing would be enough, esp if there was any AV gas, or the diesel.

That said, the fighters only needed to expend a few cannon shells each, maybe 8 total in their strafing runs, enough to ensure that they had some ammo left over to preform their CAP duties.

The bombers, they could empty most of what they carried into the tanks, as they wouldn't do much against fighters.

 

[CalBear]

That's a question of the flammability of fuel oil, I think. IDK if it was as volatile as, say, gasoline, nor if there would be ignitable fumes in the tanks, nor if the MG incendiary rounds (& I presume there's some in the loadout) would ignite it. The 20mm might start fires--or the explosions might snuff them.

Given you can get a fire started, tho, IMO you've got a condition that will make the Great Chicago Fire look a bit like a hibachi.

You can't get bunker fuel oil to burn that easily, it has already had the more volatile factors refined out to make gasoline, kerosene, propane, and lubricating oils. What you have left is about a half step above asphalt, especially the "Special Navy fuel" aka #6 heavy fuel oil. It is literally classified as a "residual" product that is left over when the distillation process is finished. It is so heavy that you actually need to heat it in order to properly pump it.

Fuel oil needs a LOT of heat to burn. It's flash point is 396F/202C (gasoline's is -45F/-43C). If you throw a lit cigarette into fuel oil it will go out, do that with gas and its goodbye eyebrows. To get it to burn you need to get some serious heat into it or have something else, like gasoline or diesel fuel act as an ignition source.

 

[Derek Pullem]

All of what Calbear says is true

*puts professional chemical engineer hat on*

But Buncefield showed that the overpressure from fuel air explosions is not well understood - the collateral damage from the initial explosion damged several other tanks and overwhelmed the bunding

At Pearl Harbour if the diesel tanks go up - and they will if strafed by 50 cal and enough holes are put in the other tanks then there will be a significant tank farm fire

 

[Just Leo]

Lucky Americans. None of the Japanese carried .50 cal. That was close.