Japan strikes America

[LineDoggie]

If all you want to do is hit something and do some damage, the Japanese couldn't have hardly missed by firing on a major city on the West coast. If they got lucky, the missile would come down on some factory or military installation. A piloted missile would have a greater chance of both.

SF harbor area defences included numerous land based 90mm, 3 inch, 40mm batteries with Early warning radar and the US had Proximity fuses @ Forts Cronkite, Barry, Baker, Miley, Winfield Scott, Mason, Funston. And not going to count USAAF air bases with Fighters or USN airfields

[OpanaPointer]

But the early warning system consisted of two guys on a Ferris wheel.

[T. A. Gardner]

But the early warning system consisted of two guys on a Ferris wheel.

True...



And, the send this guy to intercept them...

[OpanaPointer]

"Deep in the Heart of Pomona"

[Carl Schwamberger]

...As for the MXY 7 Ohka, the model 43 using a Ne 20 turbojet engine (Jumo 004 copy) was intended for just this purpose--launching from a submarine by catapult. It had an estimated range of 150 nm. The rocket propelled model 11 (~ 20 nm) and 22 with a motorjet engine (~50 nm) were actually used but not fired from a submarine. The Model 22 might have been an acceptable alternative to a V-1 for this scenario so long as it didn't run into AA fire or enemy interceptors as its top speed was only about 275 mph.

My thoughts keep turning back to this Model 43. Has the range to reduce detection risk. The speed is not all that, but with four to six submarines launching 2-4 each then between surprise and numbers only a minority are liable to be intercepted. Target selection is important. Oil refineries have been mentioned, but US capacity was such even a permanent shut down of the largest in SoCal is not going to hinder the US effort. Randomly hitting ships in the ports wont accomplish much, even a sucker carrier or several oil tankers are shrugable. It would be a intel coup to locate and properly identify a ammo loading site, but hitting one of the sites reserved for loading ammunition would have a large impact. Six of these precision guided missiles hitting ammunition ships and a nearby dump might actually be noticeable for a couple months.