"Worst Military Decision of WWII (Round 1B)" Topic

Overconfidence and failures are not decisions. One does not simply decide to fail.

Hitler's decision to not retreat helped solidify the lines during the counter attack in the winter after Moscow. Other applications (Falaise, Stalingrad) were less optimal.

Japan did not decide to have the carriers gone from Pearl just bad luck/timing now not striking the oilers was their call

My feeling about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was that it had the slimmest possibility of forcing the US out of the Pacific War. As said above, the Japanese had no control of the US carriers being in or out of port. However, a lot of reading I have done said that the bomb tonnage needed to effectively destroy the oil storage was beyond their capacity. They did severely (temporarily) hurt the US surface fleet and pretty much destroy the long range aircraft. There was obvious concern about the missing carriers but I wonder about moving the battleships within range to bombard the harbor facilities and oil storage. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Japan attacking the US did not turn out so well but I am sure they had a lot of choices – the oil embargo had them in a hard spot

Now, if the Japanese and Germans had acted like real allies and attacked the USSR together- but that's another story

Germany declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbour.. has to go down as a classic. It changes the Battle of the Atlantic, massively increases US aid to UK & Russia, etc.. It's an interesting 'what-if', coupled with the Russo-Japanese stand-off.