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Originally Posted by Cowperson
Actually, they were specifically targetting America's aircraft carriers, which were not in the harbour at the time.
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True, The Japanese wanted to roll up the carriers and the battleships. Destroyers and Cruisers ment nothing because they can't project power. Carriers project power hundreds of miles around a battlegroup. Battleships in their own way at the time could project power due to the 25 mile range of their primary guns. Before the war Yamamto was asked by the Japanese Prime Minister if he could win the war, he honestly said that he couldn't but he could cause trouble for the American's for a year or two. When the Japanese missed the carriers, he still had the large advantage of ships and planes, but the American's had better trained pilots, and as the war carried on a greater gap in aircraft technology.
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Originally Posted by Cowperson
That was Yamamoto's "Oh frak" moment.
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Yup, and he knew right then and there that he was probably going to use the war. Its not like the three carriers left the day before the attack, they had been missing for some time. The Japanese however didn't have reliable intelligent assets in Pearl that could tell the difference between a battleship and a carrier.
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Originally Posted by Cowperson
If I'm not mistaken, Japan had the largest carrier fleet in the world at the time and were heavily influenced by the British carrier assault on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
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Yes, but there was certainly a split in Japanese naval doctrine, but the Japanese continued to build battleships at a more accelerated pace then carriers.
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Originally Posted by Cowperson
It is true that Japan did have two of the largest battleships in the world as well.
Saw the first episode of Pacific last night and am still getting emotionally invested in the characters but the particular terrors of jungle warfare are already starting to come to the fore. They don't know it yet, but even those lovely streams they were floating in contain bugs that will kill or disable them.
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I hate to sound like a coward, but I preferred anything else as oppossed to fighting in the tree's especailly at night. The Island hopping battles were more of a preview for Vietnam then the Korean war was.
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Originally Posted by Cowperson
The most alarming statistics of these battles in the Pacific were the fact the Japanese, who might have numbered in the many tens of thousands, dying virtually to the last man. America's first real experience with suicide fighters.
Cowperson
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Towards the end the Americans the American's were not showing to much mercy towards Japanese soldiers and airmen because of their fanatic nature. A Japanese soldier was more likely to pull the pin on his grenade rather then accepting medical treakment or humaliating capture. Because of this, American troops were more likely to finish off the wounded as oppossed to risking their lives saving them,