"The Pacific" from the makers of "Band of Brothers"

[Tarmac]

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as what ive know henderson airfield is not yet 100% operational when it was taken by the marines, if japan sucessfully finished the airfield it could cut the only supply line and support for australia, making australia vulnerable to invasion....

Incidentally, Henderson field is named after Maj. Lofton Henderson, a Marine squadron commander who perished in the Battle of Midway.

[salbahis]

I don't know how big of a turning point the Philippine campaign was. It was important, for sure, but there was a lot of debate between Nimitz on one hand and Macarthur on the other about the need to to retake the Philippines. Some commanders wanted to save time by bypassing the Philippines altogether and going straight to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. After all, the Americans already had their naval base in Ulithi, a logistics center in Guam and the B-29 base in Tinian from which bombing missions were flown against the Japanese home islands.

Some wanted to take Formosa (present-day Taiwan) instead of the Philippines as this was much closer to the US and to China (where the Japanese were still firmly ensconced), but this was discounted because the local population was deemed hostile to the Americans. In any case, Macarthur got what he wished for and waded ashore on a Leyte beachhead in October 1944.

well it was here in the philippines that almost all of japan's navy destroyed, including the yamato's sister ship....

afaik only few ships was able to return japan after the battle in leyte gulf...

[Tarmac]

well it was here in the philippines that almost all of japan's navy destroyed, including the yamato's sister ship....

afaik only few ships was able to return japan after the battle in leyte gulf...

Para nako, the real turning point in the naval war in the Pacific (as against the ground war)was the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944. In the space of only three days, the US carrier force sank three Japanese fleet carriers and destroyed over 500 airplanes, 200 downed in only one day in what would be known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot".

By the time the two navies squared off in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the IJN had ceased to be an effective fighting force. The four Japanese carriers involved in the battle had only a few planes between them. They were in fact sent out as sacrificial lambs, decoys to lure Admiral Halsey's fast carrier task force away from the invasion fleet at Leyte Gulf, leaving other Japanese task forces free to attack the American transports. Halsey took the bait and the ruse almost worked.

After the Battle of the Philippine Sea the Japanese still had their formidable surface battle forces (including the superbattleships Yamato and Musashi) but we all know that airplanes, not big guns, determined the course of the naval war in the Pacific.

As far as the ground war is concerned, Guadalcanal may well have been the turning point, and this is where The Pacific kicks off.

[KE-25]

Good opinion on turning point, yup saw several versions on several networks ie the History channel ..

[Tarmac]

Good opinion on turning point, yup saw several versions on several networks ie the History channel ..

Don't you just hate it that History Channel isn't on Sky Cable Cebu?

Reason why Battle of the Philippines Sea rather than Midway is the real turning point is because after Midway, the Japanese still managed to score naval victories against the Americans, notably in the Battle of Savo Island in Aug 1942 and the Battle of Santa Cruz in Oct 1942, both part of the Guadalcanal campaign.

Savo Island was mostly a surface engagement where the Americans lost 4 cruisers and over a thousand men for no Japanese ships sunk and only a few men killed.

In Santa Cruz, a carrier battle a la Midway, the US fleet carrier Hornet and a destroyer were sunk for no Japanese ships lost. By the time the smoke cleared, the United States had only one operable carrier left in the Pacific, the heavily damaged USS Enterprise.

However, it was only a matter of time before the industrial manufacturing might of the United States churned into high gear and by 1944, the United States had several times more carriers and planes than the Japanese could ever hope to manufacture. American airmen were also being trained by the hundreds of thousands whereas the Japanese system of training replacement airmen was too slow.

Hence the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

[KE-25]

Fortunately we can access some shows in U tube , I agree there were scores of japanese victories post Midway but another way to look at it would be a number game, the US had a lot of resources to patch up holes in the overall campaign. And boy was the I Want You slogan working, everyone in the States pitched in from manufacturing, resources, manpower - and I believe recruitment never stopped ...

[Tarmac]

Fortunately we can access some shows in U tube , I agree there were scores of japanese victories post Midway but another way to look at it would be a number game, the US had a lot of resources to patch up holes in the overall campaign. And boy was the I Want You slogan working, everyone in the States pitched in from manufacturing, resources, manpower - and I believe recruitment never stopped ...

That's why Admiral Yamamoto himself never believed they could win against the United States.

Aside from manufacturing might, one other thing swings the pendulum. In warfare, nobody will ever beat the United States when it comes to logistics. And while tactics and strategy win battles, logistics is what wins wars. As military men like to say, "Amateurs talk strategy, real professionals talk logistics."

[vern]

I've been looking forward to this series for a while. It's looking to be an epic mini-series from the first episode alone. Semper Fi!

[moz_k2]

ako gi check gabii naa na episode 2.

[rodsky]

As military men like to say, "Amateurs talk strategy, real professionals talk logistics."

Which is why I practically lost every battle I fought in this game:

Ed_Burge's reader review of War in the Pacific for PC

It's different from Gary Grigsby style wargames.



-RODION