I read somewhere that this was wargamed rather extensively and the IJN could pretty much have taken Midway even without Kido Butai. Taking Midway was never really the aim, the attack was purely designed to draw the US carriers out to be destroyed. The simple fact was that Japan could probably have captured the islands but could not have kept them. The logistics were simply impossible. Keith Taking Midway was indeed an aim, the Midway Invasion Force (2nd Fleet) under VADM Nobutake Kondo contained a Transport Group under RADM Raizo Tanaka that consisted of 12 transports carrying troops, 3 patrol boats carrying troops and an oiler. It also contained a Seaplane Tender Division with: Chitose (CVS)

Now, how long before there can be another airstrike, and how long before there can be another broadside?  That is the key point here, well, aside from accuracy differences, on which BBs win. Yeah, right, BB shore bombardments were devastingly accurate and knocked shore defenses by the hundred, ROTFL, I'll take multiple airstrikes with napalm and HE bombs every time. If battleship shore bombardment was so effective, how come most landings in the pacific ran into virtually undamaged shore defenses that had to be taken out by close in bombardment & air strikes and hand to hand combat. This myth that BB made good shore bombardment vechicles is laughable.

Other than that exception, I'd say that carriers were unquestionably in charge no later than the time at which surface-search radar for both ships and carrier a/c became available, along with weapons able to mission kill or sink any BB.  I.E., 1943 at the absolute latest. More or less. The question also contains such variables as, night ops, see Ching Lee at Gaudalcanal, whose action with 2 BBs occured both at a time when there were not more carriers available, nor any capable of sinking BBs at night. Andre

You'd rather have CVs do pre-invasion strikes than have BBs shell islands and atolls in the Pacific? No, I'd rather have a combination of CA, DD and airstrikes than BBs which were singularly innefective in that role. Funny thing then, that the RN, after the Bismarck affair, still kept BBs around, to be able to sink German BBs... Maybe they understood that their CV aircraft of the time could *not be guaranteed* to sink, on their own, German BBs... Andre

IIRC there were some Essex class carriers in reserve very quickly after the end of WW2 - not because they were obsolete, but because they weren't all needed to be active at that point in time. Read my lips.... *I didn't say WHY they weren't in service*, I merely stated, *correctly*, that they.... *weren't in service*. Duh ! Andre