TopHatter

Bigross and I were talking about the merits of surprise attacks on the Vehicles board and decided to move to a more appropriate thread.

My thought was this: Excluding societal standards of "decency" at the time, striking Pearl Harbor made perfect military sense.
I find it quite amazing that the same country (the US) that screamed bloody murder over Pearl Harbor had no problem at all with surprise attacks conducted later in the 20th Century either by the US or it's allies.

Any thoughts on the "right" or "wrong" of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor?

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If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
~John Quincy Adams

Praxus

It was bad militaryily because they could have never won a war against the United States, and they knew that. Even if they did knock out our Carriers, if they were there. We still would have beaten them.

If they wanted oil, they could have invaded Russia, while they were busy with the Nazis.

By the way, the problem was not the fact that it was a suprise attack but that they were talking peace to us, while they plotted for war.

2DREZQ

The distinction was drawn, at the time, between peacetime and wartime attacks. FDR's speech declaring war was calculated to inflame the American public by emphasizing the unfair sneakiness of it all. I really don't think it was nessesary to emphasize anything. We were attacked, declared war or otherwise, that was enough for the average American.

BTW, I don't think the course of the war would have been altered, other than timewise, even if the carriers had been caught in Pearl that day.

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USS North Dakota

2DREZQ

Constructing a scenario in which the Japanese could have won in the Pacific is problematic.

Doing the same in Europe is easier. The war was Hitler's to win, he threw it away in 1941.

TopHatter

I think that people were schocked at the time, but personally I think the Japanese gave America an overdue wake-up call that the world is not a nice place and if you walk around with a blindfold on, you're likely to get mugged (or worse).
I personally don't have any anitpathy towards the Japanese for using the element of surprise. They used what they had to fight the war.
The Americans convienently forgot that they [the Japanese] did the same thing during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, 37 years earlier! . Some officers and officials knew this but everybody wanted to stick their head in the sand and not cause waves. What they didnt realize is that Hurricane Isoroku was just offshore.
I further find fault with commanders in the Phillipine Islands. They KNEW that Pearl Harbor had been attacked and STILL got caught with their pants down, their planes on the ground. It was absolutely disgraceful and it was the tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers that paid the price, in blood.

Ironduke

The Russians gave the Japanese one hell of an ass-whooping in a 1938 battle on the Siberian-Manchurian border.

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The Buck Stops Here

Stinger

Well for one thing if Operations MI (attack on Midway) and MO (the attack on Port Morseby) had gone of at the same time(as they were supposed to) instead of MI being put back one month then the strategic difference would be striking. Midway in Japanese hands and the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu still afloat with a land based airfield, meanwhile Enterprise and Hornet would have been the only 2 CV's available for counterattack (Yorktown and Lexington would have been facing down the Zuikaku and Shokaku in the Coral sea).

If the Carriers had been in port on December 7 then Hawaii and the west coast would have been very much in jeopardy. It might not have made a difference on who one the war whoever it would have made a huge impact on who SURVIVED the war.

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Your look more lost than a bastard child on fathers day.

TopHatter

Yeah, that sure as hell was a wake-up call for the Japanese Army.
One thing about that though, after Barbarossa, Stalin was walking on eggshells with the Japanese, not wanting a second front. Surely they could have thrashed the Japanese again (have you seen those things the Japanese called tanks??) but it was still one of the highest priorities to have only a one-front war.
Meanwhile the Japanese Army was still smarting from the rough handling by Zhukov and was content to maintain the status quo.

Officer of Engineers

It was the wrong attack because the IJN did not take out Pearl. It remained operational.

Concerning the IJA in Manchuria, they were in no position to invade Siberia. They were bleeding and bleeding big time in China (China was their Vietnam).

Both Stalin and Tojo knew that war was coming between them. Just that neither one was in a position to strike the 1st blow until late into the war. The IJA was going on the defence as more and more units withdraw to face the Americans.

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Chimo

Anon

In the 20th century the United States has achieved strategic surprise exactly once.

The invasion of Cambodia.

All other instances where surprise was achieved at all were tactical surprise only.

The other guys were expecting us.

TopHatter

Strategic surprise is often as not a political exercise, which probably explains America's lack in this category...
On the other hand, in the last few weeks before 12-7-41, the Japanese were losing strategic surprise. Unfortunately for the PACFLT Battle Force, they didnt need it. (I won't rant on the P.I. commanders again)

Officer of Engineers

M21,

Grenada, the bombing of Lybia, Operation Joint Endevor (ie IFOR), the Persain Gulf Tanker War (a strategic trap).

All strategic surprises.

Ironduke

What was the Persian Gulf Tanker War?

TopHatter

Operation Earnest Will

Iraq attacked Iran in September 1980, launching a war that would last eight years. By 1982, more than 100,000 people had died. The war was costing each side $1 billion a month and devastated both countries' oil industries. In the so-called "tanker war", both belligerents launched attacks on neutral merchant vessels transiting the Gulf, prompting several Gulf states to seek protection from foreign navies.

In March 1984, Iraq initiated sustained naval operations in its self-declared 1,126-kilometer maritime exclusion zone, extending from the mouth of the Shatt al Arab to Iran's port of Bushehr. In 1981 Baghdad had attacked Iranian ports and oil complexes as well as neutral tankers and ships sailing to and from Iran; in 1984 Iraq expanded the so-called "tanker war" by using French Super-Etendard combat aircraft armed with Exocet missiles. Neutral merchant ships became favorite targets, and the long-range Super-Etendards flew sorties farther south. Seventy-one merchant ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with forty-eight in the first three years of the war. Iraq's motives in increasing the tempo included a desire to break the stalemate, presumably by cutting off Iran's oil exports and by thus forcing Tehran to the negotiating table. Repeated Iraqi efforts failed to put Iran's main oil exporting terminal at Kharg Island out of commission, however.

Iran retaliated by attacking first a Kuwaiti oil tanker near Bahrain on May 13 and then a Saudi tanker in Saudi waters five days later, making it clear that if Iraq continued to interfere with Iran's shipping, no Gulf state would be safe. These sustained attacks cut Iranian oil exports in half, reduced shipping in the Gulf by 25 percent, led Lloyd's of London to increase its insurance rates on tankers, and slowed Gulf oil supplies to the rest of the world; moreover, the Saudi decision in 1984 to shoot down an Iranian Phantom jet intruding in Saudi territorial waters played an important role in ending both belligerents' attempts to internationalize the tanker war. Iraq and Iran accepted a 1984 UN-sponsored moratorium on the shelling of civilian targets, and Tehran later proposed an extension of the moratorium to include Gulf shipping, a proposal the Iraqis rejected unless it were to included their own Gulf ports.

Iraq began ignoring the moratorium soon after it went into effect and stepped up its air raids on tankers serving Iran and Iranian oil-exporting facilities in 1986 and 1987, attacking even vessels that belonged to the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Iran responded by escalating its attacks on shipping serving Arab ports in the Gulf.

As Kuwaiti vessels made up a large portion of the targets in these retaliatory raids, on 1 November 1986, Kuwait, a nonbelligerent, announced it would seek international protection for its ships. The Soviet Union responded first, agreeing to charter several Soviet tankers to Kuwait in early 1987. Washington, which has been approached first by Kuwait and which had postponed its decision, eventually followed Moscow's lead. On 7 March 1987, the United States offered to reflag 11 Kuwaiti tankers and provide U.S. Navy protection. Kuwait accepted.

On 17 May 1987, an Iraqi attack aircraft fired two Exocet missiles, killing 37 sailors and wounding 21 others aboard USS Stark (FFG 31). Iraq apologized, claiming "pilot error."

Ironically, Washington used the Stark incident to blame Iran for escalating the war and sent its own ships to the Gulf to escort eleven Kuwaiti tankers that were "reflagged" with the American flag and had American crews. Iran refrained from attacking the United States naval force directly, but it used various forms of harassment, including mines, hit-and-run attacks by small patrol boats, and periodic stop-and-search operations. On several occasions, Tehran fired its Chinese-made Silkworm missiles on Kuwait from Al Faw Peninsula. When Iranian forces hit the reflagged tanker Sea Isle City in October 1987, Washington retaliated by destroying an oil platform in the Rostam field and by using the United States Navy's Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) commandos to blow up a second one nearby.

Within a few weeks of the Stark incident, Iraq resumed its raids on tankers but moved its attacks farther south, near the Strait of Hormuz. Washington played a central role in framing UN Security Council Resolution 598 on the Gulf war, passed unanimously on July 20; Western attempts to isolate Iran were frustrated, however, when Tehran rejected the resolution because it did not meet its requirement that Iraq should be punished for initiating the conflict.

American units had already found a dozen mines in Persian Gulf shipping lanes when the Navy began escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers during Operation EARNEST WILL in July 1987. During the very first escort mission, a mine ripped into the re-flagged supertanker Bridgeton. That first month, three tankers hit mines and minesweeping operations by Navy helicopters began. Later that summer, U.S. forces captured the Iranian minelayer Iran Ajr while it was deploying mines in international shipping lanes and U.S. helicopters repelled an attack by Iranian speedboats. In October 1987, U.S. surface forces destroyed an armed Iranian oil complex in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker.

In early 1988, the Gulf was a crowded theater of operations. At least ten Western navies and eight regional navies were patrolling the area, the site of weekly incidents in which merchant vessels were crippled. The Arab Ship Repair Yard in Bahrain and its counterpart in Dubayy, United Arab Emirates (UAE), were unable to keep up with the repairs needed by the ships damaged in these attacks.

It was during these operations that USS Vincennes (CG 49) shot down an Iranian commercial Airbus A300B2-202 airliner [Iran Air Flight 655] on 03 July 1988 after mistaking it for an Iranian F-14. The total of 290 dead civilian passengers, included 66 children. On 22 February 1996 the United States agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million in compensation ($300,000 per wage earning victim, $150,000 per non wage earner) for the 248 Iranians killed in the shootdown.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...rnest_will.htm

TopHatter

Operation Praying Mantis
On 14 April 1988, watchstanders aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) sighted three mines floating approximately one-half mile from the ship. Twenty minutes after the first sighting, as Samuel B. Roberts was backing clear of the minefleld, she struck a submerged mine nearly ripping the warship in half. Working feverishly for seven hours, the crew stabilized the ship. Samuel B. Roberts was sent back to the United States for repair.

Three days after the mine blast, forces of Joint Task Force Middle East executed the American response -- Operation PRAYING MANTIS. During a two-day period, the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force units of Joint Task Force Middle East destroyed two oil platforms being used by Iran to coordinate attacks on merchant shipping, sank or destroyed three Iranian warships and neutralized at least six Iranian speedboats.

Operating in conjunction with USS WAINWRIGHT (CG 28) and USS BAGLEY (FF 1069), USS SIMPSON (FFG-56) was assigned to the strike on the Iranian oil platform at Sirri, and shelled the platform. In response, the Iranian Navy missile patrol combatant JOSHAN approached the three U.S. ships. When JOSHAN was warned to stand clear, she responded by firing a Harpoon missile at the group. SIMPSON was the first ship to return fire, striking JOSHAN with the first of four successful missiles she fired that day. After JOSHAN was disabled by missile fire, she was sunk by gunfire. As a result of that action, SIMPSON and her crew were awarded the Joint Meritorious Unit Award and the Combat Action Ribbon, along with numerous personal awards received by individual crew members.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ing_mantis.htm