imagine the firepower of the USS Nimitz in 1941

The question is put forward by the character played by Martin Sheen in the 1980 film The Final Countdown in which the super carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is time warped back to December 6th 1941 just off the shores of Hawaii.

I enjoyed the movie for the scene in which two F-14's splash two Japanese A6M Zeroes and was eagerly awaiting the finale in which several squadrons of F-14 Tomcats and F-8 Crusaders were launched to counter the attacking strike force of Zeroes prepared to attack Pearl Harbor!



Of course at the last minute they are prepared to be time warped and abort their strike force leaving me wondering about what would have happened and how awesome it would have been!



I would assume that if they hadn't averted the strike they would've used the AIM-54 Phoenix armed F-14 Tomcats to take down at least 4 Zeroes each from long range and then close in and hunt down the remaining of them with smaller missiles and even the cannons.

Obviously the Japanese strike force of 1941 wouldn't stand a chance against a squadron of mighty AIM-54 armed F-14A Tomcats.


www.military.com

But could the USS Nimitz take on 1941 Japan on its own (with no support ships), remember it could have taken out the six aircraft carriers that attacked it with a single nuclear warhead dropped in the water;


Like this only dropped from a plane

Now the Nimitz (in this scenario) operating on its own would be on full alert (remember 1980 deck configuration);

A CAP of two F-14's at a time both armed with six AIM-54's while bombers escorted by other AIM-54 armed F-14's could carry out a series of nuclear esq Doolittle Raids against strategic targets (unlike the real life Doolittle raid) such as the Yokosuka naval base and other large air fields around Japan at all times of the day.

This being said we shouldn't forget the lessons we learned in history from ships such as the USS Bunker Hill since it would be hard to keep F-14's on constant rotation one being only able to hold off a guaranteed 12 interceptors, and remember Japan had at least 4,000 Zeroes alone at the time!



This is big, bigger than the colony and a 48 hour series of strikes against Japan couldn't ensure that they would not only just cripple their military and civilian infrastructure but would have had every second warship and warplane in the Imperial Japanese forces coming down on the one lone Nimitz!

That being said I would much rather have the "Old Salt" on my side.

* "Old Salt" is the nickname given to the USS Nimitz by its crew in case you're wondering what the hell I'm on about!