No, you have demonstrated with ONE (1) source that they were worried about a carrier air group-sized attack i.e. several DOZEN aircraft minimum.Certainly I have demonstrated with sources that the highest levels of the US military and civilain command structures, up to and including the American Secretary of War , were indeed greatly worried about the destructive abilities of bomb attack against the Gatun Dam.
Don't make statements like that without proving them. Sec. Of State for War Stimson probably had QUITE a lot of responsibility for and within his own Departmentand probably the President that he reported it to
You keep mentioning this visiting expert but have NEVER provided ANYTHING about him/her/them or a link to their so-far fictional report.One inspecting expert reported that there were three Gatun Dam points that could be diabled with but a single bomb hit which would take the Canal "offline".
And the "one bomb" scenario you're talking about was the Fleet Problem where ONE simulated hit on the dam was seemn to count as a penetration of the Canal Zone defences, not the destruction of the Dam.
Becuase, AS you've been frequently told...I've never understood why you gents all seem to feel this question to be so important.
1/ anyone hearing or seeing aircraft in the vicinity of the Galapagos when they're NOT supposed to be there would be A/ concerned they were in trouble and report them, and B/ be concerned that they were in neutral territory unscheduled and report them.
2/ a civil OR military air presence in the islands will increase the chances of the Chitose and/or her aircraft being spotted. BTW - are you proposing the IJN would manage to winch out fuelled and ARMED aircraft without the benefits of [ilights....?
Compare it yourself with the top ten feet of damage done to the Sorpe Dam by THREE tons of explosive...If you were to examine the photo at https://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/Soldie ... 92336_.htm that I previously listed you could compare the amount of earth fill installed beside the right hand buttress of the spillway structure, with the 42' width of the spillway gate clearly visible there in the photo. That thickness of grass covered soil is hardly 42' let alone the 300-400 yards that you claim.
Three lots of 800lbs of explosive dropped in three places is NOT going to excavate a channel through which "water flow" will even BEGIN, to further erode after that.then I think that you would now have a far better appreciation of just how fast rushing water can erode down thru an earthfill dam once the waterproof layer is breached and water flow thru the dam itself begins
Robert, I think NOW you should PROVE from the extensive material available that what is there IS indeed "soft soil".I have very clearly indicated that the 3 Japanese bombs would be deliberately dropped into the soft soil behind that wingwall, not in any attempt to directly or repeatedly hit the narrow top edge of that wingwall
Silly me - up until now I and others have been assuming you'd actually READ how the Dam was constructed. It appears NOT.How so ? The Gatun Dam is an earthfill structure what has a unreinforced concrete wingwalls installed as part of it's centre concrete spillway.The vast majority of the Gatun Dam is dirt/rubble excavated from other cut areas of the Panama Canal project.
Robert, you've got that @rse-about-face; it's the DAM behing the curtain wall that reinforces it in this instance by absorbing blast and shock.It appears to me that each unreinforced concrete wingwall segemt has east and west end concrete pier supports but nothing save the dirt of the dam itself in support between those buried piers
And what do these underground piers DO? Do you think they're there to make a pretty diagram? They're there to reinforce the curtain wall.It appears that there are underground piers within the body of the dam at about the same 45' spacing as is visible in the nearby comcrete spillway structure.
Robert, either you really are NOT a civil engineer...or you'd know an "earthfill" dam IS a rammed-earth dam; the material forming the Dam is allowed to settle and compact under its own weight when being built. It's the WEIGHT of its own material that rams it. I suggest as I've said above that YOU go and make yourself more aware of the construction techniques used in the Dam's construction before you embarass yourself further.Other than several unsourced repetions from you, I have seen no indications anywhere that the Gatun Dam was a "rammed earth" structure rather than just an earthfill dam built with a roughly centred concrete spillway