Oyster Bay != Pearl Harbor

I was having a fun conversation over coffee and sticky buns the other day. One of the joys of the HH books is introducing them to others and watching them discover this universe.

We were discussing the word play involved with "Oyster Bay". One of the observations was how different Oyster Bay was from Pearl Harbor.

First off, Oyster Bay is looking to be far more strategically effective than Pearl Harbor was. If Oyster Bay killed off a bunch of old-style Manticoran SDs and left the Keyhole II SD(P)s intact it would be much more like Pearl Harbor. Also, at Pearl Harbor there was far, far less manufacturing and shipbuilding capability destroyed than Oyster Bay managed.

Second, Pearl Harbor involved a potential enemy the Americans knew about, had studied, and trained to fight. Maybe not as well as they should have, and they certainly greatly underestimated the Japanese. But Oyster Bay was an attack by an enemy that the Manticoran Alliance barely knew existed.

Third, the forces involved at Pearl Harbor had rough technological parity and were symmetric. The Oyster Bay attack involved new technologies that the Manticoran Alliance never suspected were possible.

Fourth, Pearl Harbor showed how effective carrier-based air attacks could be. Interestingly, the Americans seemed to learn that lesson better than the Japanese did. On the other had, to some extent, I suspect that the spider drive ships are going to be something of a one-trick pony. Once the GA figures out how to find a spider drive ship, the fact that they are much slower and have many more vulnerable aspects than an impeller drive ship will likely make them of questionable value as warships.

Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked.

phillies wrote:Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked.

The Battle of Taranto was nearly a month before Pearl Harbor. The British had also solved the same problem.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:Fourth, Pearl Harbor showed how effective carrier-based air attacks could be. Interestingly, the Americans seemed to learn that lesson better than the Japanese did. On the other had, to some extent, I suspect that the spider drive ships are going to be something of a one-trick pony. Once the GA figures out how to find a spider drive ship, the fact that they are much slower and have many more vulnerable aspects than an impeller drive ship will likely make them of questionable value as warships.

just like the MA has shown how effective a spider drive ship could be in a sneak attack. I am not arguing that if they are found the lenny dets will be destroyed, but the problem is finding them.

RFC says that there is not going to be a magic detection system and the spider drive ships are not going to be a one trick pony. Both the grazer torpedo and the MA's powered missile pods are delayed action weapons, the ship launches them and goes elsewhere at a different direction.

Just one hour at 150G's and the ship is 9.5Mkm away in another direction. That is 31 light seconds on a drive that can't be detected more than 1 light second.

For an comparison, think of WW2 ships trying to find a nuclear submarine that can launch a torpedo from 10 miles away.

The biggest problem with this is that such a vessel is really only good for attacking fixed targets. Just like in WW2 simple evasive routing will solve a lot of problems as they can't get a good read on where you will be by the time the torp gets there.

Not concerned about missile pods as they show up like a sore thumb as soon as they light off the drive only the torps are really stealthy weapons and they seem to be fairly slow and myopic. (maybe they have more capability but none shows) also they loose a massive ammount of destructive capability if the target has a sidewall.

Finally as an energy weapon good radar/Lidar watches and PD will nail them in a military engagement unless they are literally stealthed in the F117/F22 sense. basically they have to get to knife-fighting range by modern standards to actually work so a good radar picket destroyer screen will solve most of the problems in a fleet setting.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:

phillies wrote:Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked.

The Battle of Taranto was nearly a month before Pearl Harbor. The British had also solved the same problem.

Yes and no on the Taranto attack, the IJN had been planning and practicing for almost a year and had been gathering intelligence for close to three years before the attack. Also IIRC the Taranto attack wasn't as much a success as everyone thinks it was. IIRC all of the ships sunk were eventually salvaged and returned to service. Pearl Harbor was just as bad remember all but AZ OK and UT were returned to service eventually. What PH really do was royally piss off the American public to a very high degree.

saber964 wrote:

drinksmuchcoffee wrote: quote="phillies" Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked. /quote

The Battle of Taranto was nearly a month before Pearl Harbor. The British had also solved the same problem.

Yes and no on the Taranto attack, the IJN had been planning and practicing for almost a year and had been gathering intelligence for close to three years before the attack. Also IIRC the Taranto attack wasn't as much a success as everyone thinks it was. IIRC all of the ships sunk were eventually salvaged and returned to service. Pearl Harbor was just as bad remember all but AZ OK and UT were returned to service eventually. What PH really do was royally piss off the American public to a very high degree.

It kept those sunken ships out of play for a considerable period of time and required a large investment of resources to raise them and refurbish them. Perhaps not as good as dropping them into deep water but definitely a worthwhile effort, at least for the British, who didn't have to worry about the Italians getting pissed off at them.

Edited to correct my quote reformat error

phillies wrote:Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked.

What do you mean the Japanese made a breakthrough? As early as 1931 the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet included settings on their torpedoes for air dropping in Taranto Harbour which was a shallow harbour. When WW2 came along all they did was dust off their old plans. What is more the British warned the US Navy just how vulnerable Pearl Harbor was & they were ignored. A classic case of NIH Syndrome.

Make that 'more than a year before'. Long enough for the IJN to get a good look at the attack and it's results - which should have been enough to make them think twice about sinking the Pacific Fleet in shallow water. OTOH, Yamamoto knew that he had to win in less than a year or Japan was hosed, even if his superiors wouldn't accept that, so keeping the capital ships out of action for that long would do the job.

AFAICT, the British and Japanese solutions to the problem were quite different, so it isn't inaccurate to say the Japanese made their own breakthrough.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:

phillies wrote:Pearl Harbor was possible because the Japanese made a technological breakthrough permitting them to make torpedo attacks in shallow water. It was a very simple breakthrough, but it worked.

The Battle of Taranto was nearly a month before Pearl Harbor. The British had also solved the same problem.