The Final Countdown (movie)

[Aesop]

A week of what?

Of "nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Russkies," quoting Major Kong?... perhaps.
Seven days of combat against the equivalent of WWI cloth and balsa crates would be about 5 days more than would be required to dispatch same.
As noted, they could jet wash most competing designs out of the sky without the expenditure of a single round.
Everything on the carrier but the humble COD plane and helos would exceed the capabilities of anything else flying until about 1960, and could operate in darkness better than most 1941 contemporaries could operate in daylight, suggesting that most enemy planes would be taken out while still parked on the apron, if there was anybody still wanting to rumble after the first few multi-kiloton strikes took out entire grid squares, and made any sort of coordinated C&C a quaint fantasy.

Battle would look like War Of The Worlds, and be as one-sided. As more contemporary commanders have observed, their idea of a fair fight would be clubbing baby harp seals, and that's pretty much what CVN vs. anything from 1941 would look like. It would make ants vs. a magnifying glass look like a better percentage match-up.

Six months or a year out, there might be some issues, but by then, one presumes some pretty groundbreaking technology leaps would have been made, and by two years, most of the Navy would be operating off of supercarriers made from converted BBs.

One can only imagine what happens when PT boats are upgraded to carrying a gatling gun or two based on the Vulcan/CIWS, and having the Airborne division(s) come ashore forty miles from the beach on helicopters and land well inland from the beach, really anywhere they choose, and in coherent, ready-to-fight formations a la the 1st Aircav circa 1970 would have made coastal defenses pretty much everywhere an exercise in futility. This is all bearing in mind that a strike package from one A-6 squadron would take out industry in Japan or Germany overnight, assuming they didn't simply decapitate both countries' leadership the first chance they got, given that erasing their locations would be the equivalent of a trip to the market.

Besides which, the Manhattan Project, including time spent and expenditures, would have been made obsolete and unnecessary in the first 30 seconds, and all that effort would be transitioned into making a nuclear arsenal and missile technology, and perfecting manufacture of reactors for naval vessels by the end of the first week. Particularly for submarines. Skipping generations and going straight to the Los Angeles class boats, even with ordinary torpedoes, obsoletes every ship on the ocean as certainly as launching the Monitor and Merrimac did in the 1860s. The first Polaris equivalent cashes in everybody's else's chips for a long, long time. Probably by 1944. We're the only nation in space by 1945, and we're on the moon by 1950. The nearest equivalent would have been giving the Romans the technology to make steamships, tanks, and machineguns in 50 A.D., or dropping off a couple of SF weapons sergeants with a boxcar of .50BMGs, miniguns, ammunition, and spare parts at the Alamo on day one, or swapping Custer's 7th Cavalry with a WWI MG Company at Little Big Horn.

It'd have been like a chess game where one opponent gets to reach over and remove a handful of the opposition pieces each turn before moving, on a whim. Good luck playing against that.

[Jericho941]

A week of flying. There is no greater threat to aircraft than the crew's own pencils.


"Aw gee chief, we gotta ground her. RWR ain't working."
"...the Japanese barely have radar to begin with. Not only is it fine, you don't even need it."
"Fuck no, she's hard broke. Fix it."
"CND."
"We're not accepting that excuse. Throw a part at it."

[dfwmtx]

This is why I never liked "The Final Countdown". The writers of the script never had the balls to actually show what would be done.

There's bound to be a few Anapolis grads on the boat who remember enough history to let America avoid some of the later 20th century pitfalls. "Hey, Algier Hiss, and the Rosenbergs.....we might want to investigate them and lock them up. Oh, and keep an eye on this Lee Harvey Oswald dude, let's make sure he stays in Russia. And be sure to read my paper "How Not To Fuck Up Vietnam".

Were this situation to happen, I believe colonialism would last into the 21st century. Stopping the Japanese invasion of French Indochina would enable France to have the manpower to hold onto its colonies. Much the same for other countries and their colonies, India included.
Also, I imagine such a strike on Japan would help the Chinese Nationalists. I imagine if Japan surrendered after retaliation for a failed Pearl Harbor, it would leave a civil war going between Chinese Communists and Nationalists. Not sure who'd win.

And I'm not even sure if a 1980's nuclear carrier defeating the whole IJN would help much with defeating the Imperial Japanese Army. Yes, a 1980's carrier backed up by a 1940's US military could easily rule the airspace and the sea lanes of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere, but there's still the Imperial Japanese Army to deal with. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a knockout punch to an enemy we had on the ropes, not one who was still strong and flush with victory.

[skb12172]

Even if so, destroy their military bases and six cities instead of two. They would come around.

[dfwmtx]

It's been years since I've seen the movies, so I forgot if the carrier has nuclear weapons.

If they can launch nukes at Japanese citiies and military bases, then yes, they'd eventually come around, like in the original timeline.
If they're relying on conventional weapons, even ordinance with advanced guidance, I think the IJA would still be a tough nut to crack. We firebombed Tokyo and other cities, and they didn't give up. Even with precision bombing removing supply and transport lines, and command and communication, I think the warped spirit of bushido would still keep the IJA fighting.

[skb12172]

That's fine too. Eventually, they would run out of population.

[Mike OTDP]

Let's assume no nukes.

The most powerful thing in the CVBG is the ship's library. And the knowledge of the crew.

You can go to General Marshall and tell him point-blank to turn Patton loose on whatever foe is to be defeated - and slap a gag on MacArthur and Mark Clark. Use Eisenhower as a chief of staff, but not as a top commander. Tell the War Department that the M4 Sherman will be OK for 1943, obsolescent by 1944. Tell the Air Force to eat their pride, ditch the Allison V1710, and license the Rolls-Royce Merlin. BTW, put that engine in the P-51 from the outset.

Then head over to BuAer with a book on oleopneumatics and fix the F4U's bouncing problem from day 1. Get working on jet engines. And for Heaven's sake, don't buy K-class blimps, rush the M-class into service. Maybe jump directly to N-ships if you can. And fix those torpedoes ASAP, the magnetic detonators won't work. Here's the schematics for a homing torpedo - can you replicate that guidance system with tubes? Go get Hedy Lamarr and have her work on it.

You'll win the war in about two years.

[randy]

The IJAN totally cut off from supplies, reinforcements and even reliable communications with the home islands is, at least, going to be much less than effective.

A quick run to the Philippines to wipe out that invasion fleet, the Wake Island force never shows up, they don't even try to move into New Guinea... etc. etc.

[evan price]

Guns- the 50 cal and 30 cal are the same, right?

Not 20mm, IIRC.

The lack of spares would render the whole pile irrelevant in a week.

Didn't they have a 20mm Bofors already? Obviously not interchangeable, but the manufacturing capacity in the mainlands would be there. A gun is a gun and the ballistics are known, as well as propellant formulations used in WWII.

Maybe won't be loading up for six months with anything better than WWII munitions, but the next supply ships could come steaming in with some good stuff.

[blackeagle603]

Ya'll have any idea how much ordnance is in a modern carrier's magazine? Running out of ammo to take care of 1941 Japanese Navy? The Rockeyes alone could pretty much end with spares left over.

On the way out of WesPac we'd have a couple full nights and days of ammo pallets crossdecking to the relief carrier by way of an AO. That's a full flight deck of pallets and a hanger of pallets Vertrep and Unrep simultaneously. 4 helos swinging loads non-stop. A couple highlines running non-stop. Bomb elevators running from the magazines to the hanger and roof constantly to fill in the new gaps in the queue.

Then spend most of our 3-4 days at the pier in Subic offloading. Then more stuff nobody could confirm nor deny would leave for the bunkers when we made it back to North Island.

The bombs and missiles would just keep coming to the roof. First time you saw it you'd wonder if it was some sort of candid camera clowns in a VW joke, "Seriously? Where's all that coming from?"

You'd walk out on the catwalk for you morning coffee and wonder what was different... Then when it dawned on you, you wonder how much ordnance it taken to make a CV float that many feet lower in the water?