Drachinifel on Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

[Ken Estes]

On 4/9/2021 at 2:45 AM, RETAC21 said:

He won, what more you want?

The Paciifc wasn't going to be a war of dazzling strategies, but one of slogging from island to island building bases for the next jump. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it hadn't been done before, much less with airpower being a factor, and the first days of the war had shown that the classic symbols of naval power, the battleships, were vulnerable to aircraft both at port and at sea. Nimitz took a number of decisions early on that would have significant impact, such as discarding the previous submarine doctrine of fleet cooperation and using the boats for strategic warfare.

Bypassing Truk was a typical Nimitz initiative, typical of the level of command influence that he wielded. He had no direct command over men, aircraft and ships for the most part, although his beaching Halsey and elevating Spruance just before Midway was exceptional, also insightful.

[Ken Estes]

On 4/9/2021 at 1:35 PM, TrustMe said:

That was down to strategy. What I stated was Doctrine issues. 

Note: The pre-war IJN plan's ultimate goal was for an attack on the Panama canal from long range, submarine launched, float planes. They had to build very large submarines for this purpose, much larger than that of other nation design's. I doubt it could of worked due to the technology of the time as it would of been a one way mission 🤨

 

Any attempt to dominate the Pacific against the US and UK demanded exceptional long range fleet submarines. The IJN in the event copied the U-Cruisers of the WWI German Navy to create their big I-Boats. Operationally the IJN sub force remained sub par and the floatplane raid they planned later in the war would have been easily thwarted by the Panama Canal defense force, which was not asleep as was the case at Pearl Harbor. 

[sunday]

3 hours ago, Ken Estes said:

Operationally the IJN sub force remained sub par

This is an interesting aspect. They underperformed despite having excellent torpedo armament, and good construction techniques.

Would you say the IJN submarines' performance was because of their inadequate doctrine?

[MiloMorai]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

This is an interesting aspect. They underperformed despite having excellent torpedo armament, and good construction techniques.

Would you say the IJN submarines' performance was because of their inadequate doctrine?

They did prefer to go after warships and not cargo ships.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, the Japanese submarine problem was seemingly doctrinal, not hardware. In fact in late 1941 they DID attack shipping on the US West Coast (Horrywood!) and were fairly successful for a short period.(They also seem to have a fairly successful run off the coast off Australia a little later) But I gather they preferred to keep them for fleet actions, so they don't seem to have stuck with it. 

Its not quite so odd, even the US Submarine Fleet was not prewar built with pure merchant attacks in mind. They were also supposed to operate with the US Fleets, hence the term Fleet Submarines. You could make a plausible case it was only the relative lack of ships in the Pacific that allowed them to be given their head in attacking merchants.

[RETAC21]

5 hours ago, sunday said:

This is an interesting aspect. They underperformed despite having excellent torpedo armament, and good construction techniques.

Would you say the IJN submarines' performance was because of their inadequate doctrine?

Much is said about their doctrine of supporting the fleet rather than going after US lines of communication but let's note that the same factors that led to defeat of the U boats in the Atlantic were at play in the Pacific, in the form of broken codes, lack of support for the submarines, inadequate numbers and strong defences, so even if they had adopted the Dönitz approach, they would have been defeated.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, I dont disagree.

In fact, the Japanese did, along with the Germans, flirt with trying to sink British shipping in the Indian ocean. On one occasion, one of them managed to grab a group of British survivors out the water and behead them one by one on the submarines coaming.

So the Japanese clearly did flirt with it. Its clear though they really didnt put anything as like as much effort into it as the allies did. 

[sunday]

32 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Much is said about their doctrine of supporting the fleet rather than going after US lines of communication but let's note that the same factors that led to defeat of the U boats in the Atlantic were at play in the Pacific, in the form of broken codes, lack of support for the submarines, inadequate numbers and strong defences, so even if they had adopted the Dönitz approach, they would have been defeated.

Of course they would have been defeated, if only because of technological differences, like RADAR, and SONAR, and signals intelligence. But the U-booten did overperform during periods of time, assertion that could not be said of the IJN submarine arm.

Then there is the question of sea lines of communication being key for the national economies of the Allies in the Pacific - I think they were not, especially for the USA. The Japanese SLOCs were vital for them, however.

[Stuart Galbraith]

British India, Australia, New Zealand, all depended on sea communications. And clearly the Americans needed merchant ships to bring supplies up. Thats not counting that they used the Western Seaboard to move oil and materials about. Its difficult to envisage that the Americans could have advanced all the way to Japan if all their oilers were getting sunk.

There was a picture on the USNI twitter feed the other day, US Marines and Sailors guzzling cut price beer that had been salvaged by the USN out of a Australian freighter that had been sunk. Which illustrates quite how useful the merchant marine was in sustaining the pacific campaign.

It would have had a big pay off for Japan if they had got their act together. And clearly when their Submarine forces were allowed to perform unchecked, they were actually fairly successful for their small number.

[DougRichards]

On 4/10/2021 at 6:57 AM, Angrybk said:

Yeah this is a thing I keep going on and on about on this forum, but both Japan and Germany had this totally bizarre idea that the US was this nation of pushovers, which had no historical evidence whatsoever. US was fighting bloody wars since US was even a country. 

Even against their own......

[DougRichards]

On 4/10/2021 at 8:11 AM, R011 said:

Yeah, but they hadn't kept the blood pure and even though Germans were a major ethnic group, they were still a minority amongst a mixture of other races including Slavs, Jews, and Blacks.  besides, American culture was completely tainted and made soft by affluence..

Didn't stop Hitler naming his train 'Amerika'.

[RETAC21]

36 minutes ago, sunday said:

Of course they would have been defeated, if only because of technological differences, like RADAR, and SONAR, and signals intelligence. But the U-booten did overperform during periods of time, assertion that could not be said of the IJN submarine arm.

Then there is the question of sea lines of communication being key for the national economies of the Allies in the Pacific - I think they were not, especially for the USA. The Japanese SLOCs were vital for them, however.

Indeed, but while the Japanese couldn't perform economic warfare vs the US, they could menace their logistic lifelines, or at least make running Pearl Harbour costlier. In terms of priorities, and with the benefit of hindsight, the Japanese subs should have been used to train their own ASW forces first and foremost, rather than waste them in fleet support.

[sunday]

1 minute ago, RETAC21 said:

Indeed, but while the Japanese couldn't perform economic warfare vs the US, they could menace their logistic lifelines, or at least make running Pearl Harbour costlier. In terms of priorities, and with the benefit of hindsight, the Japanese subs should have been used to train their own ASW forces first and foremost, rather than waste them in fleet support.

Indeed, indeed.

Japanese submariners had some spectacular successes against American warships, so they were competent.

[RETAC21]

3 minutes ago, sunday said:

Indeed, indeed.

Japanese submariners had some spectacular successes against American warships, so they were competent.

They got the best ever torpedo attack in history!

"A spread of six Type 95 torpedoes was fired at Wasp at about 14:44 from the tubes of the B1 Type submarine I-19. Wasp put over her rudder hard to starboard to avoid the salvo, but it was too late. Three torpedoes struck in quick succession about 14:45; one actually breached, left the water, and struck the ship slightly above the waterline. All hit in the vicinity of the ship's gasoline tanks and magazines. Two of the spread of torpedoes passed ahead of Wasp and were observed passing astern of Helena before O'Brien was hit by one at 14:51 while maneuvering to avoid the other (structural damage from this torpedo hit would eventually lead to O'Brien's sinking a month later). The sixth torpedo passed either astern or under Wasp, narrowly missed Lansdowne in Wasp's screen about 14:48, was seen by Mustin in North Carolina's screen about 14:50, and struck North Carolina about 14:52."

[Markus Becker]

4 hours ago, sunday said:

Then there is the question of sea lines of communication being key for the national economies of the Allies in the Pacific - I think they were not, especially for the USA. The Japanese SLOCs were vital for them, however.

The convoys the US send across the Pacific were usually military ones carrying W&E or troops and both less frequent and better escorted than the trans Atlantic ones, weren't they? 

Then the are the distances. Brest - Newfoundland is 2,000nm. That will get you from the Marshalls to Hawaii. The US west coast is another 2,000nm away. 

AUS/NZ? Rabaul - NZ is more than 2,000nm, the north of AUS is closer but there was nothing important there. Population and industry was south of Brisbane. That's 1,300nm from Rabaul and one would send any commercial shipping along the south of AUS. 

[sunday]

13 minutes ago, Markus Becker said:

The convoys the US send across the Pacific were usually military ones carrying W&E or troops and both less frequent and better escorted than the trans Atlantic ones, weren't they? 

Then the are the distances. Brest - Newfoundland is 2,000nm. That will get you from the Marshalls to Hawaii. The US west coast is another 2,000nm away. 

AUS/NZ? Rabaul - NZ is more than 2,000nm, the north of AUS is closer but there was nothing important there. Population and industry was south of Brisbane. That's 1,300nm from Rabaul and one would send any commercial shipping along the south of AUS. 

Exactly, and neither Australia, NZ nor the USA depended on sea lanes for importing food, on top of that. Anzacs could need American oil, however.

[shep854]

15 hours ago, Ken Estes said:

Bypassing Truk was a typical Nimitz initiative, typical of the level of command influence that he wielded. He had no direct command over men, aircraft and ships for the most part, although his beaching Halsey and elevating Spruance just before Midway was exceptional, also insightful.

How might Halsey have fought Midway differently?

[Ken Estes]

Probably no difference; Halsey was so ill he likely would have let his air planner Miles Browning run the show, which is what Spruance did in the event. By sending Halsey to the hospital, this capable combat leader was then able to take over the Solomons naval campaign at a time of greatest need.

10 hours ago, sunday said:

Indeed, indeed.

Japanese submariners had some spectacular successes against American warships, so they were competent.

Certainly individual skippers had some success with their number 1 priority, sinking enemy warships, but their commanders failed miserably in the way they botched scouting for their own fleet and providing screening barriers against enemy task forces. This arguably cost them dearly at Midway, when they were a week late in finding the US carrier force, and their screens in 1944 were usually mopped up by USN hunter killer units working off of broken IJN codes. Thus,  the IJN sub force remained a gross failure.

[Ken Estes]

On 4/9/2021 at 4:48 AM, TrustMe said:

 

The Japanese didn't believe in a 'War of Attrition' but one of 'Win the Decisive Battle'. They believed this ever since the 1905 war, where the Japanese Navy fought a pitched naval battle and won against the Russian Empire. When WW2 happened, the Japanese again fought a decisive battle in Pearl Harbour and won. They then attempted this at Midway and lost. All this time, the modern mobile elements, including the two Yamato class battleships were kept in the reserve to await the 'Decisive Battle' not realising that the war had become one of a 'Battle of Attrition'. The USN instead, deployed several 'State of the Art' Battleships against the JN in the battles of Guadalcanal. The JN should of released there modern Battleships for this campaign, but they were kept in reserve awaiting 'The Decisive Battle' and so they lost. The rest is history.

Note that the Japanese lost the 'War of Production' but that's a different story.

 

On the contrary, the IJN doctrine for engaging the USN was based upon the prewar Diminution Plan explained best in 1969 by Captain and later AF General Genda: Specifically a plan of attrition waged upon the advancing USN until it was too weak to win a battle line engagement in the vicinity of the Marianas

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44641120?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

 

As for a war of production, both Japan and Germany went to war with broken finances and insufficient production capacity to overcome the Allies, most of which were safe from immediate invasion.

[JasonJ]

If the German U-boat campaign couldn't succeed in stopping the ally supply convoys, its doubtful the Japanese subs could. If there was anything the US had more of than carriers and cruisers, it was transport ships and materials.

Ally ASW naturally became very good in the second half of the war as a response to the german u-boats. And Japanese subs were slow at diving, making them easy pickings for the newly developed ally ASW force.

For 1942, the Japanese sub fleet seemed to be doing their expected role fairly well.

Additionally, later in the war, Japanese subs were tasked in doing supply runs for island garrasons, taking away potential sorties for warship hunting.

[Stuart Galbraith]

its accumulation. Its whether the German Submarine fleet and the Japanese submarine fleet could sink more tonnage than the allies could build. Thats clearly a no, but it would certainly slow us down one hell of a lot. You think how far the British have to take kit to fight in Burma, they have to run 2, maybe 3 blockades if you count the Italians.

We could possibly have built up India to make more arms and make the region self sufficient, but I doubt they could do that in short order.

You are right Japanese boats were slow diving. But they were operating in a lot of ocean where allied MPA's couldnt operate. If you look at the Indian Ocean, I suspect for a lot of it the only threat they had to seriously worry about was Carrier air. Even the German IXD's could and did operate safely there, and they had a long diving time held against them as well.

[JasonJ]

If doing so then that would be taking partly or fully away what the submarines did achieve in 1942 which was finishing off Yorktown, sinking Wasp, and putting Saratoga out of action on two occassions. On top of the actual circumstances there's a layer that consists of a  range of possibilities with fortunate luck or bad luck to both the US and Japan side as each of the following events comes next. It seems like the Japanese submarine contribution moved up the possibility of a critical stratigic win for the conclusion 1942 rather than the sort of short term marginal tactical win that was really a strategic defeat.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Fair one, but in the industrial disparity that Japan had with the US, it strikes me it would have been a lot better to have built a LOT of boats. Much as I love the I400's for their scale, something like a fleet of German Type 7's would probably have served a lot better. At least when the battle got to the home islands.

[JasonJ]

Yeah, trade out the I400s for ASW training sub efforts similar to how RETAC21 put it.

[Rick]

Always found it interesting comparing Japanese military failure in the 1940's compared to their business success in the 1980's.