Lets say in what if in the movie the Final Countdown the USS Nimitz never return back

[Akisa]

Lets say in what if in the movie the Final Countdown the USS Nimitz never return back into the 80s, and instead sunk the Japanese fleet before docking at Pearl Harbor to follow orders from the Roosevelt as the than Commander in Chief. How would the USA government respond to this high tech carrier claiming to be from the future respond?

(Lets keep grandfather paradox out of this by saying USS Nimitz was transported to parallel universe that splits off at the arrival of the USS Nimitz in the past).

I believe the USA government will try to keep the secret of the USS Nimitz as secret as possible and assign crew members to facility similar to Groom Lake. Nation fervor for WWII would not be as great in this new history and USA will still be part of the war because the Japanese did declare war on the USA (and yes prior to the Pearl Harbor attack the deceleration was delayed through missteps by both Japanese and USA governments). All technology from Nimitz will probably be treated like the BAR in World War 1, be kept home side to prevent Japan or Germany from acquiring this new technologies.

[DigoDragon]

How much information is the crew of the Nimitz going to give the US government about the way WW2 played out in their own timeline? I'd imagine that if the crew gave details, then the war would probably be shortened a bit as the US suddenly predicts the Axis' moves like a pro and destroy a lot of enemy forces.

[GloatingSwine]

How much information is the crew of the Nimitz going to give the US government about the way WW2 played out in their own timeline? I'd imagine that if the crew gave details, then the war would probably be shortened a bit as the US suddenly predicts the Axis' moves like a pro and destroy a lot of enemy forces.

Probably none at all.

Whilst it's almost certain that a nonzero number of crewmen had an interest in world war 2 history, it's probably not to the level of detail required to accurately predict enemy movements.

Especially since they just completely changed the course of the war in the pacific by their very presence, and will continue to do so with their massive range and detection advantage, even when they run out of aviation fuel and weapons and have to retire their own air wing, simply the ability to drive a CVN around with a much more powerful detection suite than anything else on the seas will change the course of the pacific war so much that their knowledge is obviated by their own presence.

[hamishspence]

There's a series about this sort of thing: John Birmingham's Axis of Time.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ure/AxisOfTime

The carrier's a bit more modern (futuristic in fact) than the Nimitz though.

[GloatingSwine]

Other things worth considering: Computation.

Nimitz will have more computational power aboard than the entire rest of the world has put together, probably by several orders of magnitude, and at least sufficient trained technicians to keep it working.

Given that its use as a direct military asset is limited by the on-hand supplies for its air wing (as a carrier it's five times the size of WWII carriers, but all that means is a higher concentration of the same materiel because that's what can be supplied, which is not neccessarily all that useful), it would be more useful as a command and intelligence centre than as an aircraft carrier.

[DigoDragon]

Probably none at all.

Whilst it's almost certain that a nonzero number of crewmen had an interest in world war 2 history, it's probably not to the level of detail required to accurately predict enemy movements.

Especially since they just completely changed the course of the war in the pacific by their very presence, and will continue to do so with their massive range and detection advantage, even when they run out of aviation fuel and weapons and have to retire their own air wing, simply the ability to drive a CVN around with a much more powerful detection suite than anything else on the seas will change the course of the pacific war so much that their knowledge is obviated by their own presence.

Again, depends if the crew has the details to give. A WW2 history buff might know things about German supply lines, where installations are, possible troop movements, etc. that the past USA doesn't have any intel on. Perhaps not exact figures, but any estimates would be helpful to point the USA on where to concentrate their forces. It could give the US a few good surprise attacks, but after the initial strikes the war's course will change and the information will no longer be useful.

The detection suite will be very powerful indeed for the war.

[Eldan]

And after the war, they can start taking it apart and retro-engineering it.

[grolim]

The biggest effects would be after the war when you can take time to reverse engineer stuff on it, but for the war itself it would still be a big help. In the movie you had a Japanese WWII buff they had enough information like the attack code for Pearl Harbor to convince the captured pilot. I doubt you would have that specific info on the rest of the war, but...an aircraft carrier has its own hospital, chapels, shops, etc so a generic library should be on board as well. I would guess it would have a decent military history section but if not even an encyclopedia would do wonders for listing names and places. Plus it would be absolute common knowledge about the Holocaust and that information could be used to get to those camps faster. Just that and a faster end to the war would stop the deaths of millions. The Manhattan Project would be not needed since you would have actual nuclear reactor techs on hand. A lot of how the govt would react would be based on how the captain reacted. He would of course immediately put the carrier and its assets to assisting in the war, but would also have to realize how dangerous it would be to release all their new tech on a world still in the beginning of the Cold War. Know that civil rights, Vietnam, etc were coming. If he plays "good soldier" and turns it over unrestricted to the govt then who knows. I think the smarter thing would be to declare itself an American carrier but an independent power and help forge a better UN. Then do things like give the medical, computer, etc tech to the world.

[LibraryOgre]

Probably none at all.

Whilst it's almost certain that a nonzero number of crewmen had an interest in world war 2 history, it's probably not to the level of detail required to accurately predict enemy movements.

You forget that an aircraft carrier is a floating city, with a library. I don't have to remember everything if I know where to look it up. While the tactical advantage will quickly fade (change too many events and people respond to how things are, not how they were in an alternate timeline), some of the strategic advantage of knowing Axis capabilities will remain.

Especially since they just completely changed the course of the war in the pacific by their very presence, and will continue to do so with their massive range and detection advantage, even when they run out of aviation fuel and weapons and have to retire their own air wing, simply the ability to drive a CVN around with a much more powerful detection suite than anything else on the seas will change the course of the pacific war so much that their knowledge is obviated by their own presence.

Hmmm... I wonder how much they'd need to change. Would the US be able to ramp up to produce F-14 quality fuel? Or missiles (or even simply rockets that could be released by the fighters)? Would the crew of the Nimitz be sufficient to serve as trainers for maintenance, if not jackleg design engineers for F-14 analogues?

[GloatingSwine]

Hmmm... I wonder how much they'd need to change. Would the US be able to ramp up to produce F-14 quality fuel? Or missiles (or even simply rockets that could be released by the fighters)? Would the crew of the Nimitz be sufficient to serve as trainers for maintenance, if not jackleg design engineers for F-14 analogues?

Fuel maybe, eventually, jet engines were in their infancy though and the fuel they had would probably not be a great thing to run an F-14 engine on.

Better to keep the two E-2Cs in the air though. The F-14As aren't that big a deal really, sure they can get local air superiority with trivial ease but their small numbers means they aren't going to be that much of a strategic advantage. The F-14Bs would be more useful due to carrying bombs and being able to strike key targets.

Having two AWACS planes though, that would be a decisive tactical and strategic advantage in every single encounter.

Guided Missiles certainly not. Modern guided missiles have all sorts of computer interfaces which talk to the plane via the launch pylon, you couldn't even think about building a Sidewinder or Phoenix with world war 2 technology, you couldn't build the computer parts small enough with the factories available, or at all without transistors which are ten years out, sure reverse engineering could reduce that but not enough because the broader production base doesn't exist, the war would be over before any kind of production could take place, bombs would be possible though, since the computation for aiming them is all done on the plane all they need is a release mechanism. Refilling rocket launchers might be possible as well, but period rockets probably couldn't be directly adapted to the launch pylons because they're not designed to be launched at the speeds the F-14 would be going at. (F-14Bs only carry bombs anyway)

(It is possible to bully the F-14 quite a lot, the Iranian airforce managed to adapt a Russian SAM design to be launched from its pylons as an air to air missile, but again the SAM already had all the launch computation)

Regarding a shipboard library, sure, there'll be one, but it's not going to have the sort of in-depth intelligence analysis that actual decisionmaking needs to be based on. Vague confirmation or disconfirmation of guesses is about what the value would be. Also remember that it's naturally going to be a relatively small collection and biased towards entertainment for the crew.

[LibraryOgre]

Regarding a shipboard library, sure, there'll be one, but it's not going to have the sort of in-depth intelligence analysis that actual decisionmaking needs to be based on. Vague confirmation or disconfirmation of guesses is about what the value would be. Also remember that it's naturally going to be a relatively small collection and biased towards entertainment for the crew.

And the crew's ongoing education. With the lack of ability to put all this on a fleet of CD Roms or a single flash drive, a lot of the material is going to be in book form, and easily accessible. It may not be exact battle plans and the like, but even broad strategy, weaknesses and missteps are going to be hugely influential... and with a population of almost 6000, an aircraft carrier's library is unlikely to be small.

[Akisa]

And the crew's ongoing education. With the lack of ability to put all this on a fleet of CD Roms or a single flash drive, a lot of the material is going to be in book form, and easily accessible. It may not be exact battle plans and the like, but even broad strategy, weaknesses and missteps are going to be hugely influential... and with a population of almost 6000, an aircraft carrier's library is unlikely to be small.

Not to mention all the TO (short for technical order manuals which describe how to operate and maintain) or the Navy's equivalent would be on board. TO can be in depth as providing Wire Diagrams on how many components worked. While I can speak mostly about the Air force many times Air force history was drilled into your head because Air Force history knowledge was part of the test to be promoted. So Libraries will tend to have some of these historical information.

[Bulldog Psion]

Since technology is not yet advanced enough to exist separate from a massive infrastructure (though I like to speculate that it will someday achieve that), I'm going to suggest that the carrier would be next to useless.

Since it cannot be restocked or resupplied, and repairs would probably tend to degrade its performance towards the level of existing WWII carriers, sending it out would be an invitation to a giant rescue mission. Sooner or later, with no resupplying possible and no effective repairs, it would break down and become a hulk with numerous Americans trapped on it, who would then need to be retrieved. It would be a colossal liability if actually put to use.

So, I think the US government would say "huh, that's interesting," and dock the thing somewhere for later study. Then they'd reassign the crew to wherever they needed to fill out their roster, and proceed exactly as they did.

I know that's kind of a dull and depressing answer, but I think that would be the actual fate of a time-traveling aircraft carrier.

[Akisa]

Since technology is not yet advanced enough to exist separate from a massive infrastructure (though I like to speculate that it will someday achieve that), I'm going to suggest that the carrier would be next to useless.

Since it cannot be restocked or resupplied, and repairs would probably tend to degrade its performance towards the level of existing WWII carriers, sending it out would be an invitation to a giant rescue mission. Sooner or later, with no resupplying possible and no effective repairs, it would break down and become a hulk with numerous Americans trapped on it, who would then need to be retrieved. It would be a colossal liability if actually put to use.

So, I think the US government would say "huh, that's interesting," and dock the thing somewhere for later study. Then they'd reassign the crew to wherever they needed to fill out their roster, and proceed exactly as they did.

I know that's kind of a dull and depressing answer, but I think that would be the actual fate of a time-traveling aircraft carrier.

I see the point you make up until they reassign the crew to whatever they need. Save for a few non technical expertise I still think they would be placed in facilities on how to recreate even if they're just use reference materials. I don't think they will be risked in a war and loose valuable information.

[aspi]

I'd say this largely depends on whether the Nimitz had nuclear weapons on board. Apparetly it was never officially confirmed or denied that carriers had nuclear weapons on board, but they weren't removed from surface vessels until 1991. So if you have nukes on a ship, a carrier is probably a good choice.

If that were the case, then I think we know how the story would have ended - the war would have been over in 1942 instead of 1945.

[Cikomyr]

Are we sure the US would have stepped into WW2?

I mean.. The Pearl Harbor attack is what finally convinced the American population to get out of its isolationism. If the Japanese Armada had been defeated by a single American Supercarrier from the future, then only the secondary strikes would have hit the US bases, and would it had been enough to convince the US population to join the War?

(Note: did not seen that movie. So if it is discussed in the movie, i apologize)

[hamishspence]

Are we sure the US would have stepped into WW2?

I mean.. The Pearl Harbor attack is what finally convinced the American population to get out of its isolationism. If the Japanese Armada had been defeated by a single American Supercarrier from the future, then only the secondary strikes would have hit the US bases, and would it had been enough to convince the US population to join the War?

(Note: did not seen that movie. So if it is discussed in the movie, i apologize)

A few secondary attacks would probably still have been enough to trigger a declaration war on Japan - and it was Hitler that declared war on America in support of his allies - not vice versa.

[Cikomyr]

With an intact Pearl Harbor? I doubt Hitler would have declared war.

But then again, he did a lot of stupid things.

[LibraryOgre]

As mentioned, Japan DID declare war on us before the attacks, notification was just delayed until after the attacks. So I think the US would enter the war, but I don't think it would've gone remotely the same way.

As mentioned, the Nimitz and its information technology would've been a HUGE boon to the Allies, as would some of the knowledge contained in the histories. Being able to act on that knowledge, even if Nimitz-tech has to be used very sparingly to preserve it, would give the US a big leg up in the Pacific, and the Atlantic. Some surface to surface cruise missiles, launched from the North Sea, with an operational distance of about 1500km? You're striking at will pretty much throughout Western Europe from the Thames.... and there's little to nothing that can be done to stop you, since they don't even have radar.

[grolim]

Not to mention there would be just one front in the war. If the movie ended differently Nimitz had already made up its mind they would take out the force attacking Pearl. Once you drop all the zeros, and you know where the fleet is, sinking pretty much the entirety of the Japanese fleet in a single day would make them rethink the whole thing. Then you could have some jets do a mach1 flyover of the emperor's palace. War in the Pacific would never really take off. If nothing else it would be trivial for them to take out the major manufacturing facilities for zeros and ships.

[Somebloke]

Short version is: America would have won the war, just faster. It was almost certainly always going to do so, given the sheer industrial output involved.

Of more interest is what would happen during the cold war that followed. The 50s and 60s were a tense standoff between the US and USSR, which had yet to fall behind in terms if technology and especially military technology. Giving the US access to technology 40 years in advance of what it currently possessed- which it can then reverse engineer and apply to its military and society as a whole- would massively disrupt the balance of power. I mean, think of the computer technology alone...

Actually, assuming the crew survived, America would also have access to the next 40 years of history. You can't tell me that won't cause some policy changes...

[factotum]

Whilst it's almost certain that a nonzero number of crewmen had an interest in world war 2 history, it's probably not to the level of detail required to accurately predict enemy movements.

There's a plot point in the movie that revolves around the fact one of the crewmen *is* a WW2 history buff--in fact, he's writing a book about the whole War in the Pacific! There's even a scene where he tells a captured Japanese pilot the exact details of how they're going to attack Pearl Harbour, complete with the names of the Japanese carriers involved and the codewords to be used.

[hamishspence]

Actually, assuming the crew survived, America would also have access to the next 40 years of history. You can't tell me that won't cause some policy changes...

In the Axis of Time series - characters start trying to change the future. Joe Kennedy takes steps that he thinks will ensure Lee Harvey Oswald never becomes a threat, for example.

Something similar may apply here.

[pendell]

War with Germany and Japan would still have happened. Japan already had a plan to take the Phillipines away from the US, said plan kicking off bare hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. In the same time period , Japan was also acting to seize what is now Indonesia with its natural resources. This was also sufficient provocation , in and of itself , for the US to go to war with Japan.

The major differences may have been that, because the Pacific Fleet was not sent to the bottom of Pearl Harbor, the war may have paradoxically inhibited the development of aircraft carriers. A lot of the reason the Nimitz and its cousins existed in the first place was because , in 1941, we were forced to rewrite our entire naval doctrine when the battleships destined for the starring role in Plan Orange were removed from the field on the first day of the war. Carriers were our only capital ships , so we had to learn to make do with them. They did so well that when the Pearl Harbor ships and their new Iowa-class cousins joined the fleet, they were relegated to support roles.

So it's possible that the Nimitz stopping Pearl Harbor may have created an alternate time line in which the Nimitz was never commissioned, and battleships still rule the seas.

As towards the war with Germany, Hitler's declaration was not so much a start of war so much as recognizing that a state of war already existed between the US and Germany. We had been fighting an Undeclared War against Germany for several months up to that time. We were shipping billions of dollars worth of military equipment and aid across the ocean to the UK. We were escorting convoys carrying those goods halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, and firing on German warships which attempted to interfere.

The Germans correctly recognized this was belligerent, not neutral, behavior. The pretense of peace was nonetheless preserved for another few months because even with this behavior it was still better than a repeat of 1917-1918.

Then Pearl Harbor happened.

The Germans, perhaps, assumed the US would be fully engaged with a Pacific War and therefore there was nothing to be lost, and much to be gained, from recognizing the state of war which we were in. Doing so meant German naval units could engage American vessels freely without having to observe the pretense of neutrality, up to that point a frustration akin to fighting with one hand tied behind one's back.

This proved to be a miscalculation. The US prioritized the defeat of Germany, the enemy who had done nothing to harm the US directly , over the defeat of the enemy which had just killed thousands of our citizens in Hawaii. The US , in fact, prioritized Europe over all other priorities. The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, in fact, originally intended for Berlin . Japan was to be targeted only after Germany was defeated.

As it turned out, the US, in partnership with the USSR, had sufficient industrial and military potential between them as to wage war on both enemies near-simultaneously.

In any event, even without Pearl Harbor I suspect the Japanese invasion of Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Phillippines would have also led the Germans to believe the Americans would be distracted for a looong time.

So I do not believe the advent of the Nimitz would have dramatically impacted the course of the war. Once the advanced munitions were used up, it would become just another deck , of which we had dozens. That nuclear reactor, however, would have fascinated Oppenheimer and scientists like him.

Because of this, I suspect the Nimitz, if it appeared and was turned over to the US authorities at the time, would have been swept immediately into the black world of Project Manhattan just as soon as military officials realized just what it was they were sitting on.

The other components, such as missiles et al, would be taken apart and analyzed. They would all be used up in a single battle anyway. There is also no source of spare parts.

Jet aircraft would also not be immediately useful because at that time we did not have the industrial capacity to manufacture JP-4 in any useable quantities. Figure it would take two years or so to make it possible to refuel them, at which point the optimum use would be to dispatch them to Europe to intercept German V-1 buzz bombs. There, too, the lack of spare parts may cause them to become hangar queens.

Possible the most valuable and important contribution would be E-2C hawkeyes. If they could be used as command and control in carrier battles, they could give a compelling advantage which would make the battles of Santa Cruz, Cape Esperence, Coral Sea, and Midway walks in the park. They would also be of great value for the air campaign in Europe.

Overall though, the great contribution of the Nimitz would be a quantum leap in nuclear and aviation technology in about the years 1946-1949. But I suspect it would make little difference to the war itself, on either the operational or strategic levels.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[The Glyphstone]

There's a series about this sort of thing: John Birmingham's Axis of Time.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ure/AxisOfTime

The carrier's a bit more modern (futuristic in fact) than the Nimitz though.

Whelp. I've got some new reading material to track down.

[Gnoman]

Guided Missiles certainly not. Modern guided missiles have all sorts of computer interfaces which talk to the plane via the launch pylon, you couldn't even think about building a Sidewinder or Phoenix with world war 2 technology, you couldn't build the computer parts small enough with the factories available, or at all without transistors which are ten years out, sure reverse engineering could reduce that but not enough because the broader production base doesn't exist, the war would be over before any kind of production could take place, bombs would be possible though, since the computation for aiming them is all done on the plane all they need is a release mechanism. Refilling rocket launchers might be possible as well, but period rockets probably couldn't be directly adapted to the launch pylons because they're not designed to be launched at the speeds the F-14 would be going at. (F-14Bs only carry bombs anyway)

First, a 198X aircraft carrier would have, in addition to F-14 Tomcat fighters, a complement of F-18 Hornet fighters and A-6 Intruder bombers, both of which are fully capable of operating any air-to-ground weapon in the WWII US arsenal, including having computers programmed for the ballistics needed. Such weapons remained in service for years (and, in fact, there is still one WWII-era gravity bomb in service today, the 750-LB bomb used by the B-52 in the conventional area-attack role. More importantly, the only difference between a MK-8X bomb and those carried by WWII aircraft is the shape of the case, with the -8X series being designed for low drag.

Second, both the -14 and -18 still have the capability to fire the AIM-9B Sidewinder, which was used by the ROC in the later stages of the Chinese Civil War, and was captured (and reverse engineered) in early 1958, and tested in 1952, long before the transistor took over. Any USN ordnance chief would be able to provide enough information to duplicate the seeker head and basic design, and 1940s US technology could handle the rest. They couldn't match the performance of 198X missiles, but that's not so important when you have a monopoly. Similarly, rigging up crude SARH missiles from existing radar and rocket tech would not be beyond a 198X USN crewman's capability.

Third, all US military jet engines are capable, if necessary, on running on the same kerosene that a civilian would put in a lamp or a space heater. It isn't an ideal fuel, but it would work well enough. With the onboard precision machine shop to manufacture spare parts, the advanced aircraft could easily remain in service as long as their electronics didn't fail. More importantly, the precision bombing that such a plane could perform with nothing but radar, CCIP targeting, and dumb gravitiy bombs means that every single aircraft has the effective striking power of the entire Eighth Air Force (because of the accuracy possible, and the high altitude rendering them immune to defensive fire, one plane could destroy targets that a thousand B-17 or Lancaster bombers would have trouble taking out), disregarding the advanced ground attack munitions that would turn any Axis attack into a massacre.

To put it simply, if the Nimitz showed up on 7 December, Angloamerican forces would be liberating Poland's eastern border by June.

[factotum]

So it's possible that the Nimitz stopping Pearl Harbor may have created an alternate time line in which the Nimitz was never commissioned, and battleships still rule the seas.

Force Z from Singapore, consisting of the battlecruiser Repulse and the battleship Prince of Wales, were both sunk by Japanese aircraft on December 10th, 1941. That, more than anything else, proved that the era of the battleship was over--the naval planners could always argue that the battleships at Pearl were sunk because they didn't have a chance to get to sea or man their anti-aircraft defences effectively, but Force Z were two fully-manned ships manoeuvring in open water and they got sunk anyway. So, no, there would never be a situation where "battleships still rule the seas" because planes still sink them, whether they're launched from land or sea.

Not to mention, of course, that in the stated scenario it's an *aircraft carrier* that repels the attack on Pearl Harbour--not even the stupidest naval planner would fail to learn from that!