Could Two Modern US Destroyers Have Saved Pearl Harbor In 1941? (WarGames 168) | DCS 

If the enemy knows enough to wild weasel the missiles then the defenders would know not to have them in port blocked by terrain.

Can you imagine the terror for the Japanese pilots if they started taking losses 40-50 miles out from the targets?

2 Arleigh Burke that detect the the strike group and fire on the carriers would be a little more fair

DCS really needs to update their game models to include ships using their 5 inch guns in anti-air mode. The Burke's used missiles, Bushmasters, and Phalanx systems, but the 5 inch gun mount never fired. Kudos' for Cap and the Reapers team for making a fun and interesting video, even if it was hampered by "a thing happened" beyond their control.

I'd like to see this run again with the aircraft running off the carrier (including humans) as the main advantage of the Arleigh-Burkes (range) was pretty much nullified here, and I think the "wild weasel" operation of the 21st century humans that understand the defensive weapons also skews the result a lot when spawning in from short range with the cover of the islands.... Fun video anyway! Thanks guys 😀

I'm going to be honest, i know this series isn't all about the science but most of the potential science value from this episode is eroded by the human players ability to wild weasel half the missiles away. And I think that the argument that the Japanese would have worked it out eventually is mitigated by the fact that the DDGs would have humans aboard as well and would avoid targetting the obvious decoys. However, having said this, the episode was incredibly fun and entertaining as usual, you guys never fail to entertain. Even if there's little science to be had it was worth it for the boom boom :)

if the US ships could engage at full range over open ocean it Would be so different since there is no hills or trees to hide behind. Additionally the hour warning would change everything.

The Arleigh Burke #112 is the USS Michael Murphy. My son in law is currently stationed on that ship in Pear harbor. I find these videos very interesting and entertaining.

You guys keep pumping out fun videos! I instantly click and I've never actually played DCS myself.

what if the island was surrounded by 2 or 3 patrol boats? so certain players don't waste the missiles

Interesting. But the Burke's Aegis system would have provided Pearl with ample warning to get the 7th Air Force in the air and for the Pacific Fleet to get to battlestations well in advance of any incoming Japanese aircraft. The Burke's helos also detect and take out the Japanese mini sub that breached harbor defenses (the one that likely succeeded in torpedoing the West Virginia). There also lot more flak that the fleet sends up. The destoyers need not shoot down the entire first wave of attacking planes on their own. And with each destroyer having one or two Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawks, there wouldn't be much of a problem detecting the Japanese fleet that would be well within its range. The helos also have up to two Mk-54 air-launched torpedoes each. If they get within range of the IJN fleet, there's going to be a couple carriers sunk or at least put out of action. And if the Burke's fire their Tomahawks, it's going to be a very short war.

I wanna see a recreation of the scenario from The Final Countdown. I always felt cheated that we didn’t get to see an entire fleet defense airwing go head to head against the Imperial Navy.

They ran on high octane gasoline. I'm a refinery engineer and our 100 year old company made a lot of it during WW2.

@Grim Reapers - Cap this is one of my favorite types of videos that you have done. I would recommend moving the DDG’s to different locations. 1 DDG farther out into the center of the main harbor and 1 DDG outside of the harbor completely. The terrain is definitely in favor of the enemy so moving your defensive assets out a little farther will give a little bit better line of sight.

The strategic situation after those losses would be devastating for the IJN; losing half the (best available) pilots in the first attack of the war would have completely changed the early engagements and probably the expansion goals of the high command.

The AB's would still have significantly changed the war- the amount of planes and pilots lost would have significantly impacted Japans ability to fight in the pacific

The AI defense should have included the many US aircraft that took off from airfields. The modern destroyers would probably have been more effective if there had been one at each end of the harbor. If a human or two had been on the defender side, that would have been cool.

If you're going to run a simulation, you should tell your guys that the Japanese would not be wild-weasling the SA-2's, ffs.

The damage models for WW2 things usually seem to be able to shrugg off too much damage.

Lots of fun! Maybe don't stack the deck and run it again. Separate the destroyers so they don't duplicate so much and make it harder for Bird to trick them. Weasels? Really? Don't get me wrong, I loved it but you tied the Burke's hands. I love it that you post something every day. Addicted to you guys.

The movie, "The Final Countdown" had the newly deployed USS NIMITZ, close to stoping it....until fate, stopped the ship and crew, from singlehandedly wiping out the Japanese taskforce. The F14 vs. Zeros alone, is worth the watch.

Oh Sweet! This should be extremely exciting!!!!! Thanks CAP and Team!!!!

Requested Pooch comment. You sir, have a style and grace which is your own.

If your a Grumman child , or a Tomcat lover, there's a movie about this where a carrier goes through a worm hole and ends up from the 1980s to the day of Pearl Harbour, and F-14s are buzzing Zeros , and its just a great movie...

Good evening from Australia, valued Grim Reapers.

I'd say this is a fun "What if" scenario, though that the biggest issues with this analysis are... 1. Fear factor: The Japanese would be flying over 50 miles offshore (barely able to see Oahu) when their buddies next to them suddenly exploded into fireballs. They didn't have radar, they wouldn't know what was happening, just that all of a sudden dozens and dozens of airplanes were vaporized in seconds. The shock would be a TREMENDOUS moral destroyer as they were wholly going on surprise in the actual raid and now have to try and imagine what the Americans have in store for them. 2. Radar. Biggest issue here. The two destroyers would have located the vast squadrons of fighters and given their location to Pearl Harbor, Hickham, and the other bases. All the American planes would have been scrambled to meet this threat, the sailors would not have been caught sleeping, and ships would be underway. So it wouldn't have been hundreds of Japanese planes vs two destroyers. It would have been hundreds of Japanese planes, vs 100's of American planes and the entire US fleet ready to meet them. 3. Accuracy: You nailed this in your analysis that the game wasn't good enough to get the missile hit rate where it would be. Pilots in the 40's did not have to contend with missiles, just machine gun fire or land based fire. Each missile would be 1 plane destroyed. Having modern day people piloting 1940's planes to try and avoid radar would not have happened back then. It would have been the Marianas Turkey Shoot a few years early. But that is my in depth analysis on this. Just one destroyer would have been enough to "wake up" the American fleet and airpower to be mobilized to meet the bombing raid. With most Japanese aircraft ladened with bombs and torpedo's and not enough fighters, the Japanese force would have been obliterated, and the Arleigh Burke would have pinpointed the location of the Japanese fleet before they even knew their planes had been destroyed.

Have the Arleigh Burkes circle the Island. They would not be in port if tasked with defense They would look for subs too. That would shut down the wild weasel.

I just happened on your videos guys and they are amazing. Have to catch up with a lot of videos. Keep them coming

This is George. WWII Fuel: An overly simplified description. 1) The first two years of WWII both British and German aircraft use 80/87 octane fuel. It used 0.5 grams of lead per gallon. Addition lead was not added as it fouled plugs and made valves stick. It had a red dye. 2) A breakthrough in fuel technology from a Chemist in the American oil company Sun Oil, The Cracking Tower. It allowed for better fuel and allowed for more lead with fouling nor valve sticking. 3) The majority of Allied fuels were changed to 100/130 with 3 grams of lead per gallon with a green dye. 4) Some allied aircraft were using 130/145 with between 4 and 6 grams of lead per gallon and used a purple dye. 5) Modern piston aviation fuel (100 Low Lead or 100LL) has 2 grams lead per gallon. 6) The most lead ever used for motor car fuel (MOGAS) was 0.5 grams lead per gallon; 4 times what is STILL used in aviation fuel. 7) JET-A is similar to Diesel #2 but Jet A has considerably more sulfur. 8) JP-8 is JET-A with an added corrosion inhibitor. 9) Diesel #2 has added lubrications considered unnecessary for turbine engines. 10) While JET-A can physically run in a piston diesel engine, it will not pass an emission test while doing so as there is too much sulfur. Again Overly simplified.

For some reason, when you said you could make a pnecil disappear, my mind skipped over the Batman reference and immediately went to Damp's capability to make a banana disappear. - President, Damp Sok Valued Viewer Fan Club

Simba has really got his 'long toss' down (if you've got it, flaunt it 😉)

I’d like to point out that radar was a new concept, land based was new, sea based was very new, airborne was extremely new possibly even a couple months away from development, I highly doubt the Japanese would have determined that they were being blown out of the sky by object traveling many times the speed of sound guided by wavelengths of light, sure they’d have determined the destroyers as a threat early on but they didn’t even start putting radar on their ships until later in to the war so distraction tactics would in my opinion, never have been considered

To be fair, the 1940s pilots would not have had the knowledge of modern missile systems so there would have been a high % of hits on incoming aircraft which would would have caused the admiral to recall his remaining aircraft so the 2 modern destroyers would have stopped the attach early.

If 184 SAMs killed 184 Japanese aircraft (and not counting CIWS or Bushmaster kills) that's over 50% of the 353 planes launched by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. Historically, those pilots lost were the best the Japanese had. That would have meant the Japanese replacing all their air groups for Midway six (6) months later with inexperienced pilots. The Japanese would have been defeated at sea by 1943 instead of 1944 at the Marianas "Turkey shoot". Great video!

Bird is the fly that disappears as soon as you pick up the flyswatter.

It would be interesting to see 76mm Oto Meleras in game. Italian FREMMs and Horizons. carry multiple mounts.

Poosh’s death was a Shatner-Over The Hedge-level performance

I think the defense was quite strong. The amount of aircraft that the Japanese lost compared to the damage they did in this attack would rate a failure. Most of the heaviest damage to the fleet was made in the first wave of the attack on pearl harbor. Those two ships would have fended off a good portion of that wave with both its missiles as well as guns. Also the Japanese would not have known to do those deception like attacks to draw missiles. In reality the whole scenario doesn't work with planes spawning so close and no torpedo planes. One how to account for Japanese surprise. Would the ships radar detecting the approach of the Japanese planes cause an alert. I would then just do the first wave of the attack since that would be the most important wave. It was the wave that did the most damage on the American fleet. Spawn the Japanese planes where they would be doing their attach runs with the correct number of planes. If the two ships defend this attack wave I would basically deem the Japanese attack to been a failure. For if many of the planes attack were taken out then would the US have a larger cap up along with more of an alert status for air defenses. This simulator seems limited to set up a detailed simulation so yes just do the first wave and either give the Japanese the element of surprise of some sort and not use what the human players keep doing. Human players should make an actual real approach on the ships for that is what the Japanese would have done. Other wise this is mostly just a fun scenario and no real conclusions can be made from it.

Have GR ever tried the reverse and using a small force of more modern aircraft to attack Pearl Harbour (defended by AIs)? I can't remember. Also wondering if GR ever tried defending with period aircraft? (How many would be required to successfull defend Pearl Harbour's fleet? If the US had advance warning and had their carriers ready and waiting as well as the land forces... But the poor server wouldn't stand a chance, unless things were scaled down.)

So, apart from planes, what else are you able to control? Ships? Subs? Tanks?

The German and Japanese aircraft ran on low-octane gasoline (some of it was 70 octane) and at the end of the war, Japan was digging up tree stumps to distill wood alcohol (methanol) for aviation fuel.

I had a chat with the AI crews, they were having "Action Snacks" and got distracted.

My request, a modern Pearl Harbor attack. China and Russia have put all their active carriers into the South Pacific for massive war games, including the normal surface ships for each. Suddenly, they start a direct attack on Pearl with everything they have. How would the average ships stationed there hold up, maybe including one carrier group sent to shadow the war games fleets? P. S. Thanks for all the great fun you provide!

Avgas, highly flammable and explosive. The Zero was built for speed, range and manueverabilty. Protecion was not considered. The USA supplied high octane avgas to the British and the Soviets. The Japanese and Germans could not match that.

Are we sure these were Flight III Burkes? I thought the Flight IIIs only had one CWIS? If they weren't the right ships, that could be why they ran out of missiles too soon.

In brief, I would like to see this simulation re-done with three Arleigh Burke class destroyers without human players or advanced A.I. dodging and weaseling missiles. Although the human factor as Cap pointed out is real and a vital part of any battle, that human factor to adapt is crippled on the American side in this scenario as DCS gives limited real-time control of ships and tactics for naval assets. My guess is that three Arleigh Burkes might be able to hold off the bulk of the invasion if they are able to: maneuver effectively, store more s6 missiles, be tactically smarter by delaying the deployment of missiles and lastly, storing more sea whiz ammunition. With only one 10 inch cannon, it also might be smarter to install another sea whiz system on each of the destroyers if physically possible. My guess is that many if not most of the warbirds might still get through but their effective damage upon the stationed fleet would be much less. The active destroyers would also buy time for many of the personell on the ships to effectively fight and or abandon the ships when they become critically hit. In any case I suspect any of the Arleigh Class destroyers would prefer to sail with at least one Nimitz class carrier or even an Ohio class submarine. I enjoy the Grim Reapers videos and appreciate the hard and often frustrating amount of work, time, money and resources put into the videos. I also appreciate the camraderie and joy the members of Grim Reapers bring to these videos. ty cap and GR. Also, reading through a comment, the destroyers were in an effectively reactionary and defensive mode when they are capable of lethal offensive capabilities. By deploying advanced cruise missiles, tomahawks. torpedoes (if the ships can maneuver properly and timely) and ship killing missiles like harpoons they might be able to cripple a few of the Japanese naval assets enough to critically slow the progress of the invasion. Another brilliant commentator also pointed out that Arleigh Burkes are capable of fielding helicopters. By deploying a few Apache class helicopters with harpoons and hellfire (torpedoes?), 20mm gatling guns and perhaps a sikorsky with decent radar and intel gathering capabilities the entire Japanese fleet could be stopped, half sunk and in dissarray. At that time the limited radar capabilities would be too weak to prevent a stand-off attack from missile carrying helicopters let alone a stealth class helicopter.

Cool Video guy's! Thanks Again..... Ya CWIS didn't have enough ammo either. What about a Ready Carrier Strike group 50-75 miles offshore on the opposite side of the Island kinda like we did in the Midway Island fight. But use a Modern Us Carrier Strike Group! That seems to me like a good battle. 1- US Modern Carrier Strike Group against the Japanese Invasion Fleet of Pearl Harbor. Also I would throw an Airbase with either Warbirds, A-10's, or Apache's for some land based help that I think they will probably need. But no F-16's or 15's cause that would just tip the scale too much I think. So maybe 2-4 Squadrons of Ground based assets.

Why wasn't the 5" cannons on the Arleigh Burke's firing in anti-air mode?

Hi Cap & GR Crew, In the spirit of modern fighters vs WW2/Early Gold War missions: Could DPRK MiG-29s have turned the tide at the Battle of Incheon in 1950? Or Could modern attack helicopters have saved Pearl Harbor with Hellfires/AAMs?

Now that I have seen a few minutes of live action, I have changed my mind! It will all come down to how accurate the CWIS is. Cause they are going to run out of Surface to Air Missiles....

You could add the P40s and F4fs with a couple of humans just to add some of the US aircraft that actually got into the air on Dec 7.

As far as the tracers on CWIS, could you please add the tracers back in for dramatic effect? GR kept in missile smoke and even color coded them for the same reason. I miss my tracers! 🥺

13:15 - sorry Simba, but when there's dozens of dirty big holes in a WWII fighter, the pilot has to be dead.

would love to see a naval reenactment of the battle of Guadacanal where they fought at night. I want to see navy ships lighting eachother up with all those tracers at night and explosions. I know you said RU-vid screws up the compression for night videos but it would be lovely to see if possible.

With a half hour warning most of the ships would have more than enough time to get guns ready. I'm sure the big guns don't take that long.

Some of the most fun videos ever! And I vote Pooosh for the most stylish death!

To be fair, the enemy would never press the attack. A real US crew would send the standard missiles out against the long range higher altitude attackers only and would watch what hits and what doesn't. Once random Japanese aircraft start randomly blowing up for "no reason", they would turn around. There is a limit to the number of aircraft that could just "explode" in mid-air for unknown reasons before they would stop what they are doing. Supersonic Standard Missiles would be "god-like" weapons to the Japanese and long before they were all destroyed, they would turn tail and run home. Further, the modern destroyers would not stay in Pearl Harbor, they would put to sea as their systems are more effective in the open water and underway.

idea for the future, when you have a more resilient server: pearl harbor with a couple of squadrons of modern helicopters defending it. questions: why have the Japanese fleet present? if you're not spawning the planes on the carrier, and the players aren't coming after them, they're just taking up space in the server's brain. what skill level did you have the Japanese pilots at? just asking because having them at anything other than the highest skill level would be a disservice to their side. irl, those were some of the best pilots around. can you add some Kates? I'd love to see those big, honkin' 800kg AP bombs at work.

Obligatory comment complementing Poosh on his glorious death at 12:35 per Cap's orders

Love the video. The big thing is the destroyers would have held off the Japanese long enough to allow the fighters from the airbases to get in the fight and not be destroyed on the ground.

How about this, no wild weasel until after the first human or two die from missiles.

“Could Pearl be defended by two modern destroyers, but not actually because one of us is going to fly around, not attack and draw fire and then hide because they know how the missiles work” FTFY *The Japanese, approaching Pearl and being gutted in their formations, would not have worked it out that quickly as to develop Weasel like tactics within an hour of being exposed to missiles.

I love these anachronistic battles that you set up. It would probably have taken five or six Arleigh Burkes to properly defend against that attack; and it would need for some of them to be outside the harbour so as to reduce the effectiveness of the weaseling.

Maybe move the destroyer outside of the port like one on each side of the island maybe add one more so they actually have enough missiles to do the job

I think if the destroyers knew where the planes were coming from they would send the tomahawks and game over 😂

cool scenario, i imagine the destroyer captains once they recovered from their time-travel event and established comms with the local USN, they'd strongly recommend making full steam for AshM SM-6 range of the IJN carrier group, same missile vs a carrier is way more efficient than vs a zero

How this WW2 ACFT can survive a SM-2 DIRECT HIT

I think the ships will keep Pearl Harbor Pretty Safe! They might sink one Vessel. If they were smart they would target the firing ships first...

Those CWIS R2D2s alone would protect the fleet. Cruise missiles are a cherry on top with striking the japanese navy fleet. Even then if they existed during pearl harbor it would have definitely protected a few ships minimum.

It would have been sweet to allow the humans to fly P-40 off of Wheeler

Can you imagine the difference even a single APS-124 search radar sitting at 10k feet would have made. the APS-124 search radar was made to work with the Tico's and Berks system, allowing them to target cruise missiles and sea skimming missiles. with a max range of 296.3 km against carrier sized targets... it would be able to spot anything about 160 kt miles out from pearl. They would have been able to detect the aircraft out to about 80 miles... for anything flying below the horizon.

That death sequence was, in fact, sexy poetry.

Ex- US Navy here. A few things that need to be different to make this more realistic on the Arleigh Burke Destroyers. and I know this would take time to remodel and such. For slow targets, the destroyers would have been using 5 inch, 25mm Bushmaster, and M2 .50cal machine guns. The 5-inch would have been HE and they have a Cannister round meant for anti swarms. The Bushmaster should have been obliterating the aircraft with their HE rounds. It really looked like the aircraft was just shrugging off the 25mm rounds when in reality it should have been blowing off their wings at 4 Miles out. Lastly is the .50cal gunners, who in reality would not have a good effective range or accuracy, they would be a kind of last line of defense. each .50 cal mount would have about 4-6 belts. CWIS could be reloaded in a combat scenario, it's not fast but possible. The Destroyers themselves would have went underway as soon as they detected the threat strategically positioning themselves to provide ample coverage and to remove terrain from being an issue for their missiles and radars. They would have set up no fire zones to reduce the chance of firing on the same target, and they would be using real time data between the two ships to select targets and to track such a large amount of targets. I'm sure there is more others have stated, but I'm sure you get the idea. Overall I like the videos and it's true, 2 destroyers trying to take down 300+ anything would be a massive challenge.

A glorious and cinematic death, Poosh! Salute!

you should have had 1 destroyer on each side of the island there is no reason why those DD should have been parked up on alert in a harbour.

Simba is always a badass, we don`t call him the people's champ for no reason . . . now do we..

So this proves that even if the US had known the attack was coming a few hours ahead of time, we could not have changed the outcome. Even if all of the land-based aircraft had been able to scramble, it is doubtful anything would have changed. So how many modern destroyers would it take to reduce the damage to, say, 10% of what it was historically.

Octane for warbirds in WWII era, was WELL over 100. I'd still like to see the results from a simulation of an infantry batallion armed with stinger missiles.

14:14 "Make a pencil disappear" *THWACK* "Ta-da! Magic!"

That humans controlled Wild Weasels and AI controlled Arleigh Burked and Japanese strike aircraft seems to unrealistically tip the scales. If humans are running Wild Weasels, it would stand to reason that a human Anti-Air Warfare officer would have recognized that and not mindlessly dumped 70 missiles on them. Also, the lack of a human on the Japanese strike side failed to model the devastating effect on morale that would have occurred had 90 planes from the first wave had been shot down. Another channel modelled a battle between a modern US Marine company (100+ men) versus 10,000 Roman legionnaires. The Romans advanced on the Marines and 1,000 Romans were killed before they even go close. The remaining 9,000 Romans did not automatically advanced into the kilming zone. Hard to think hsving the first wave essentially wiped out would not gave tge Japanese pause. It's an interesting scenario, but the selective involvement of humsn intervention made the results not particularly illuminating. Furthermore, it seems like the 5" guns of the Arleigh Burkes didn't fire for some unknown reason.

Meanwhile in Summoning America....... Gra Valkas: Can we? America: Don't even try lmao.

12:30 a good death is its own reward

Amusing as always...

I wonder if one day you'll do truk Lagoon? The Japanese south Pacific pearl harbour cap?😊

Problem is: The human factor wasn't accounted for on both sides. It's interesting and fun to watch what could happen if someone was able to spoof modern tech with old tech, it'd be nice to see a re-run with a more accurate human factor - proper Wild Weaseling takes a heck of a lot of training to the point that the Russians still haven't mastered it in 2023, and were there humans in command of the 'Burkes, they'd have waited and not wasted so many missiles on one or two pilots running the same circuits. After the first couple, they'd pay attention to the pilot but wouldn't robotically fire 70 missiles at one pilot. The risk of letting him through would be outweighed by the ability to use those missiles elsewhere. STILL, it is interesting to watch nonetheless. Maybe a "realistic" run and a "do whatever you can" run back-to-back?

Human attackers using knowledge that the Japanese wouldn't have does more to ruin the hypothetical than it does to add entertainment value

This is basically Zipang, but those 2 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are the main characters

Good one!

advice for players wild weasling: drop your bombs early. save that gas, be a little faster.

I'd like to see this again but with the two destroyers parked either side of the island. That should minimize the enemy's ability to use the island's terrain to their advantage.

Could you model in the fact that if x2 modern ships were fending off an air attack from range that the Army Air Force would have time to scramble fighters? I feel like that would make even more of a significant advantage if they managed to get up a few squadrons in CAP.

Entertaining as always but to me a valid “could they have defended Pearl” scenario would be against only the 183 planes of the first wave. Also only about 1/2 of those went after the fleet, the rest attacked the airfields. So the missiles should have been launched against all planes (they wouldn’t know which plane was tasked to bomb which target) but somehow only a portion of those that get through should attack the fleet. As far as a second wave, I think those destroyer captains might have launched a few anti-ship missiles during the first wave so my thought is the roughly 28 ships of the Kido Butai would have had 90 or so missiles raining in them (assuming the skippers’ only used half their munitions). With an average of 3 missiles / ship I imagine no ship would doing anything but desperately fighting fires and not thinking of another wave. And finally if the destroyers’ radar allows for any advanced warning then more of the USAAF would have gotten airborne and each flying plane is not only saved but will likely have had some adverse impact on the first wave. So even if the missiles only took down 90 or so planes, then the remaining 90 would face more CAP assets and not all would attack the fleet. In the end I imagine there would be minimal damage and that the fleet would then sortie to finish off any ships not sunk by 3 cruise missile hits. All that said, I love how you run these scenarios- such fun.

An AEGIS destroyer firing salvos of SMs to WW2 fighters.. now where did i saw that before? ... enter Zipang

The delays in the first wave being cut apart by the modern Destroyers allowed the WW2 ship crews time to man all their guns and with massive overlapping fields of fire it totally shredded the Japanese second waves.

the Burkes 5inch gun never fired

I'm betting it's the cone angle, the plane is shorter than a modern fighter, and the missiles are designed to hit the engines.

In order to solve the more planes than middle problem, why don't you load all the vls launchers with ESSM middles quad packed with more middles; just a thought?

5:30: Plus if you put in an AWACS it wouldn't be two destroyers defending it any more.

What if the island defenders joined in with the defense given they have early warning( p40s, F2s and the ships AA

12:39 Poosh went "sploosh" 😊