What if all available US submarines and submarine aces ambushed Japanese Center Force along its route?
Short answerCenter Force is either destroyed or rendered operationally ineffective by the scale and quality of the submarine attacks.
NotesRoughly forty or fifty submarines could be positioned along the known approach. Escorts can prosecute only a limited number of threats while preserving formation and speed. Repeated attacks by experienced crews would therefore accumulate damage faster than the Japanese force could suppress them. Even if every capital ship were not sunk, the formation would be too damaged and disrupted to complete its mission.