Could Japan Have Won Midway?

>>3118347
iirc the Japs were real close to winning midway

I mean like what USA failed 3 waves or so with the last one catching the zeros on deck and sinking all but the Hiryu.

Plus Japanese recon had some huge issues

The Akagi was essentially sunk with a single fortuitous bomb

Two of the SBD strike groups that deal the three carrier blow only found the Japanese by following the wake of a destroyer delayed by an American submarine

And even just being up a single carrier would be critical for Japan in the coming months, where for about a year at one point the United States only had a single aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Guadalcanal would indeed be very different. Of course the Japanese would still lose in the end, but maybe a year later.

>>3118422
According to the Japanese official records on Akagi it was two bombs and a near miss. So Dick Best believing that his two wingman helped may not be wrong after all!

>>3118347
Midway was a trap for the Japs, they couldn't win

>>3118443
Of course they did, but it really was Best's bomb that did all the work! Compare that with say the Yorktown which completely recovered from 3, albeit smaller bombs. Best had the luck of not only hitting the ship, but hitting the ship in a place where it all burned. Also with three planes, a two hits and a near miss really is nice, compared to the double digit attackers on the Kaga and Soryu.

>>3118453
Even if they did Nimitz pretty much ordered if things took a turn for the worse for the American carriers to withdraw. In other words all three American carriers sinking is highly unlikely.

There's no point discussing hypotheticals. Any faction can win if the other side goes full retard.

>>3118502
>There's no point discussing hypotheticals
There goes 3/4 of the fun in history.

>everybody forgetting the entire reason the Japs were there

If they had somehow managed to take the island, it could have been pretty bad for the US.

>splitting up your forces to take the Aleutians

Full fucking retard man.

>>3118513
Actually, there goes any meaningful statements in history, because anything not tautological is an implied counterfactual.

>>3118513
'no'
The problem with hypotheticals is you have a clear end result in your mind of what one change would make and then argue to that end, creating a shoddy trail that would fall apart under any real scrutiny, and you don't give the other side any agenda or ability to adapt to your hypothetical change. Just like in The City On The Edge of Forever, you may think a small change can be for the greater good but the end result can be wildly different due to forces and actions you couldn't possibly conceive.

>>3118534
actually taking Midway would have been a good start. That way even if a Jap carrier got sunk the aircrews could have landed on the island.

On that note having the Yamato closer around than it was could have been a massive boon to the Japs, as it would have been an irresistible target for American aircraft.

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How would things have turned out if the Americans did not realize what "Plan MI" was all about? I mean, they intercepted messages and it was thanks to clever code breaking that things happened the way they did. What would have happened if, say, the guy who broke the code had some tropical fever in the day and so didn't managed to break it?
As for Japanese planes sinking American carriers in one go like what happened to Akagi, not even in your dreams. Japanese carrier architecture was far different from American carrier architecture. Japanese carriers were like sponges, full of holes in the hull, making them extremely fragile, anyone blast can spread like wildfire and there isn't any internal blast containment. American carriers, on the other hand, are built like floating bricks. No holes on their architecture, no gaps. One single bomb can't do much damage.

>>3118347
What this guy said:
>>3118453

Pretty much the only way they could have won is if they never split their force up for a diversionary attack on the Aleutians.

>>3118347
Anyone could have one any carrier battle in WW2, anon. All treaty carriers pre-Essex/ Shokaku/ Illustrious were flimsy fucks. It all came down to finding the other guy before they found you.
At Midway, Japs sank 1 carrier with just the Hiryuu's depleted strike force....twice. If they had found the second TF, Hiryuu alone might have sank 2 of 3 murrcan carriers. Given just how close the USN came to losing *its* carrier force at Midway, there's no reason to think Midway's outcome was predetermined.
Now, whether winning Midway would have done anything for the Japs is a different story.