It 540 2d 2019: Fill & Download for Free

In any reasonable version of events, this would count as an overwhelming victory (to the point of slaughter) by the US.First, though, the dicey part. Ordinarily, a carrier operates as part of a carrier group, with 6 or 8 other ships forming a screen. A carrier operating alone would feel horribly exposed, and the pucker factor would be pretty high. Especially, the onboard ASW (anti-submarine warfare) assets would be operating at full tilt.With that said, the first order of business would be to intercept the IJN scout planes. Given that a Nimitz-class carrier carries 4 or 5 AWACS aircraft, this should not be real problem, and the CAP should have no difficulties making sure that the scouts would never get within 100 miles of the carrier. At the same time, the current AWACS aircraft, the E-2D, has a radar range of at least 300 miles, which means that the Japanese fleet would have been detected even before launching on Midway.A Nimitz carries 4 strike fighter squadrons. It would make sense to launch two of these in an attack, while reserving two for defense of the carrier. Assuming 100% aircraft availability, that’s 20 F-18s, each carrying two Harpoon anti-ship missiles. These would be launched from beyond visual range, and the Harpoon is a high-subsonic sea-skimmer. Experience over the last 40 years has established that conventional anti-aircraft defenses simply don’t work: the missile is only visible from the target for a few tens of seconds before impact. And the Japanese fighter force won’t be of any help either. The top speed of the Zero was 351 mph, while Harpoons attack at something like 540 mph. That, coupled with the fact that the Japanese would not know what to look for, would pretty much ensure a very high success rate.The Japanese attack force only comprised 21 ships, with another 6 in a supporting force. Under attack from 40 missiles, the only question would be if any Japanese ships survived the first wave. This might well happen, since most missiles would be targeted on the carriers, with probably no intentional attacks on the 12 lighter destroyers.If the first engagement takes place at a distance of about 200 miles from the US carrier, the first thing the Japanese would know of the American presence is when carriers start blowing up. Harpoons are intended to be launched at 50 or 60 miles, far beyond the horizon. With their ordnance expended, the US fighters would head back to the carrier to rearm. This might well take 2 or 3 hours. Then they would launch again to mop up stragglers, all under the watchful eye of the AWACS.If the carriers were killed after the launch of the first wave of attack aircraft, they would be able to fly for quite some time (the Zero had an endurance of 6 to 8 hours), but they would be configured for ground attack, and even if some of them found the Nimitz and overwhelmed the defending CAP though numbers, they would not be able to inflict fatal damage. The tough decision for the Nimitz commander would be how many fighters he would divert from ship-killing to whittle down the numbers attacking Midway. Although he has about 40 fighters available, there were 36 dive bombers, 36 torpedo bombers and 36 Zeros in the attack, for a total of 108. An F-18 can be configured to carry 12 Sidewinders, but it should be kept in mind that the Vietnam success rate for Sidewinders was 18%. The backup 20mm Gatling has 548 rounds, and this should come in very handy, especially against the bombers.TLDR - There is no obvious reason for any Japanese ship in the Midway attack to survive the experience if the only US opposition is a Nimitz-class carrier.