A stochastic salvo model analysis of the Battle of the Coral Sea

Historians and ‘armchair admirals’ are fond of speculating about how military leaders might have altered history if they had made just one decision differently. Michael Armstrong and Michael Powell provide a more quantitative approach to such speculation for the 1942 carrier battle that saved Port Moresby from Japanese invasion. They consider ‘what-if’ questions such as: What if one more USN aircraft carrier had been sent south to the Coral Sea, instead of west to the Doolittle raid on Tokyo? They do this by combining historical data with a recently developed stochastic model for salvo combat.