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Pearl Harbor was a temporary tactical success, but a strategic failure. The IJN failed to destroy the fuel storage at Pearl, or to block the harbor. They also f
by greedo 4y ago
Pearl Harbor was a temporary tactical success, but a strategic failure. The IJN failed to destroy the fuel storage at Pearl, or to block the harbor. They also failed to destroy much of the maintenance and repair facilities.
Midway would have been an abject failure for the USN if it weren't for the codebreakers. The B-17s at Midway and most of the other aircraft were pretty useless in the battle itself. This was one of the closest naval engagements in the war, and the US was lucky to come away with the victory. But in the end, the defeat of the Kido Butai wasn't a necessary requirement for defeating Japan.
The Battle of the Atlantic was also more dependent upon code breaking than aircraft for success. Combined with the convoy system, the U-boats effect peaked in 1942. After that it was all downhill. Air power in the form of B-24s and escort carriers helped, but were not instrumental.
And the Battle of Britain, there was no chance Germany could ever successfully invade the British Isle. They simply didn't have the Navy to cross the channel.
Air power helped in many campaigns, but was not instrumental in the outcome of the war.
- WalterBright 4y ago> They simply didn't have the Navy to cross the channel. The plan was to crush the RAF, which would then have made it easy for the Luftwaffe to prevent the Royal Navy from stopping them from crossing. Ships without air cover are nothing but big, fat, juicy targets, which was proven time and again in WW2. For another example, a single Stuka sank a Russian cruiser in WW2. The objective of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to destroy the aircraft carriers, not the battleships. The attack was a failure because the carriers were not there. Midway was the next attempt to destroy the US aircraft carriers. Instead, it destroyed Japan's carriers, and that was the end of Japan's naval ambitions. B-17s were never designed to attack ships. Frankly, I have no idea why they were at Midway. Maybe long range reconnaissance.
- euroderf 4y agoEven without RAF air cover, the Royal Navy was to forge into the channel at any cost to break up an invasion. It would have been messy.