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!

F-14 vs Zero

Ever see that movie The Final Countdown (1980), seriously its got to be one of the worst plots ever made but its still quite a good movie, it watched it because I was interested in seeing the shots of the USS Nimitz. The movie is typical eighties with the music basically turned up above any in movie audio, its about the carrier being time warped back to 6/12/41 near Hawaii and actually shows a bit with two Navy F-14 Tomcats versing two Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes, think about that for a minute.

VS

How it was actually done was quite interesting since the Zeroes really were converted AT-6 Texans but close enough in design and speed, note that for most of the fight in the movie the F-14's were going at stall speed which is visible the way the wings are out until near the end.

About three minutes of playing with the Zeroes and the F-14's preforming maneuvers like diving toward the water and pulling up at the last second, feats impossible for World War II-era planes. When they are given the order to fire the F-14's kick ass bringing down both Zeroes in less than a minute.

Pretty cool stuff but I wonder if this really did happen what it would be like, obviously the F-14 would never slow itself down to fight with a prop plane, even an F-14 that wasn't armed would probably be able to go to full speed, nearly Mach 2 and fly near the Zeroes would rip the weak plane apart without even a shot being fired.