Drachinifel on Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

[nitflegal]

On 4/14/2021 at 1:13 PM, R011 said:

A dozen Type VII clones in lieu of the three I400 wouldn't have made much difference and by the time those subs would be in service, the USN had learned enough from the Battle of the Atlantic that they wouldn't be nearly as successful as one might hope.  

Before the war got near to the Home Islands, they had to deal with the fact that the Pacific and Indians Oceans theatres were so much larger than the Atlantic that bigger boats were needed - boats like the US fleet submarines and the German Type IX.

Didn't the Atlantic prove that even large numbers of submarines were going to be ineffective once people figured them out?  The Japanese weren't fools to go for the decisive battle doctrine, they were well aware of US production capability so they really only had one option (an awfully bad one to be fair).  Their submarine doctrine didn't work but it seems to me to be the doctrine that best fit their only even slightly possible way of winning a war of aggression.  

[Stuart Galbraith]

I'm not so sure. There was the war scare in the 30s when it looked possible the US would go to war with the British Empire, apparently to get US access to dominion markets to help the US recover from the great recession. That they were working on War Plan Red as early as 1927, the year after the Wall Street Crash, tells it's own story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

So you are left with a possible war for economic advantage, probably defended in the language of an anti imperial struggle.Ok, so it never happened, but there was a clear intent to break the status quo. As Britain gave in to US demands, the threat of force seemingly worked. We can only guess how serious the intent was.

I do wish someone would make a good computer wargame based on Red....

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by Stuart Galbraith
Bloody Kindle Spellcheck

[R011]

8 hours ago, Nobu said:

"If" the Japan and Japanese of that era "understood those were the choices" being the operative phrase in this instance. I am sure there may have been some  Australians in government who were uneasy about their treatment of the Aboriginal people up to the turn of the century.

For their voices and influence to be developed enough to give the Australian people a choice between complicity in cultural genocide vs Aboriginal reconciliation would require Australians of the 19th Century to be Australians of the mid-to-late 20th Century.

How is this stuff about Australia relevant?  There is no choice between bad or worse here.  There was no information available the nineteenth century Australians that would make them act much differently. The strength of American economy and industry between the wars was not in the least obscure.

[R011]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I'm not so sure. There was the war scare in the 30s when it looked possible the US would go to war with the British Empire, apparently to get US access to dominion markets to help the US recover from the great recession. That they were working on War Plan Red as early as 1927, the year after the Wall Street Crash, tells it's own story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

So you are left with a possible war for economic advantage, probably defended in the language of an anti imperial struggle.Ok, so it never happened, but there was a clear intent to break the status quo. As Britain gave in to US demands, the threat of force seemingly worked. We can only guess how serious the intent was.

I do wish someone would make a good computer warfare based on Red....

 

Plan Red was never seriously considered as more than a paper exercise and remote contingency.  There was never any serious thought about war with the British Empire.  The Crash, by the way, was October 1929.

[JasonJ]

6 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

How were the 30s different in terms of the US throwing its weight around? you seem to forget the Banana wars And that didn't change post-war: https://military.wikia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_the_Dominican_Republic_(1965–1966)

You are either unaware of US interventions (which it seems) or think that Japan somehow got singled out unfairly (it didn't, see the previous examples). 

Why did the UK and France comply in 1956? because the US was way more powerful than they were. Japan elected to ignore this fact to its peril, and got to pay the piper for its troubles.

My latest post fully addresses that. 

[R011]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I think what finished us off was the idea (real or otherwise) the US would call in the wartime debt. Which was substantive, I don't think we finished it all off till the 1990s. We would have been bankrupt overnight.

It cost the Americans in the end though. Through not keeping Egypt under control, they as good as invited the Soviets in, and destabilised Israeli security for the next 2 decades. It also I think paved the way for the US and NATO being booted out of France. There is also the case that not propping up the old Empires a little longer, cost the US a lot more ultimately in Yemen and Vietnam.

I love the US, but the idea that Japan was the only Empire the US shafted absolutely doesn't stand up. Ask the Mexicans and the Spanish. It was a fetish of the US to kick over Empires.

The UK didn't pay off it's four billion dollar post war loan until 2006 because it had an extremely long term, extended several times, at very low interest rates (2%) not because it was extraordinarily high.

[JasonJ]

4 hours ago, nitflegal said:

Didn't the Atlantic prove that even large numbers of submarines were going to be ineffective once people figured them out?  The Japanese weren't fools to go for the decisive battle doctrine, they were well aware of US production capability so they really only had one option (an awfully bad one to be fair).  Their submarine doctrine didn't work but it seems to me to be the doctrine that best fit their only even slightly possible way of winning a war of aggression.  

War of "aggression" is propaganda. It was certainly expansion but the use of the word aggression is to psycologically put feeling into it as somehow unreasonable and aggressive. US terms was diplomatic aggressive. And colonial possessions by the others, particularly in South East Asia make "war of aggression" hypocritical.  

Edited April 15, 2021 by JasonJ

[R011]

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Well, their founding moment was breaking free from an empire after all. Though I just read a paper that argues American anti-colonialism was more in words than action in the WW II and Cold War period as the US didn't want instability and to cross its allies. I think the real actionable conviction was in not allowing new colonial conquest (Japan in China from 1931, Italy in Abyssinia from 1935) as that was something belonging to previous centuries. The Monroe Doctrine basically expressed the same sentiment of "okay we're not going to actively interfer with existing possessions, but keep the fuck out of trying to get more, and there's no way back to colonial status for countries that have already become independent". 

The US was notably anti colonial until the choice was old colonial power or pro Soviet communism.  Even then, MDAP aid was not always permitted to be used in colonial wars.

[JasonJ]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I think what finished us off was the idea (real or otherwise) the US would call in the wartime debt. Which was substantive, I don't think we finished it all off till the 1990s. We would have been bankrupt overnight.

It cost the Americans in the end though. Through not keeping Egypt under control, they as good as invited the Soviets in, and destabilised Israeli security for the next 2 decades. It also I think paved the way for the US and NATO being booted out of France. There is also the case that not propping up the old Empires a little longer, cost the US a lot more ultimately in Yemen and Vietnam.

I love the US, but the idea that Japan was the only Empire the US shafted absolutely doesn't stand up. Ask the Mexicans and the Spanish. It was a fetish of the US to kick over Empires.

Well yeah, if mentioning Spain, there's Guam and the Philippines as well. In basic form the US competed similarly to how the other major powers competed as well. So I don't want to take it too far with this. But if the point about the US is going to always smash an empire to bits sooner or later, then that sort of lends better reasoning to Japan to not "comply" in 1941. The whole "Japan couldn't win so shouldn't have tried" argument that seems to persist and but seems designed for a argument that is not being made here but more of generic MSN created conclusions which would probably be something like "Japan could win with big chance because of super Japan" or "Japan has no excuse for being nuked because they couldn't win so shouldn't start". 

 

[Ken Estes]

On 4/14/2021 at 4:30 PM, JasonJ said:

Had the FDR administration been willing to seek settlement, then the Pacific War would not have happened. As pointed out, the US was by far more powerful, a GDP of about 5 times greater and plentiful resources multiplying that, hence their confidence to use that power as leverage. Obviously Japan had no means to endanger any part of the US mainland. So its hard to see the US side for pushing those terms on Japan as reasonable. But as usual, the Pro-FDR contingent will continue to upheld the FDR position was 100% correct and the Japan side as 100%-should-have-kowtowed by playing dumb relying on abundant ignorance abound to keep the gameplay inconspicuous.

 

Here's a funny result..

Beginning in late September 1945, 50,000 United States Marines, mainly of the 1st and 6th  Marine Divisions, were deployed to North China to assist Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in disarming and repatriating the Japanese in China and in controlling ports, railroads, and airfields.[4] This was in addition to approximately 60,000 U.S. soldiers remaining in China at the end of the war. On 15 October 1945, the United States Marine Corps accepted the surrender of more than 500,000 Japanese troops in Tientsin. Over the next few months the Marines continued to accept the surrender of and repatriate Japanese forces. The Marines occasionally rearmed the Japanese to protect them from vengeful Chinese. In one instance, Marines transporting a large number of Japanese troops were surrounded by a much larger contingent of Chinese communists. The Marine officer in charge rearmed several hundred troops under their Japanese major. After the Chinese Communists retreated, the Japanese major disarmed his men and the repatriation resumed. The United States Marines remained in China for four years, guarding American property and civilian personnel, but gradually withdrawing southward in the face of the communist advance. During this period, more than 70,000 Marines served in China. The Marines finally departed in June 1949.[5]

http://www.taiwandocuments.org/japansurrender.htm

 

The British took the same measures in Indonesia, taking Japanese troops, rearmed, into suppression of the anti-Dutch independence movement when India requested the return of their troops. One Japanese tank regiment commander was so effective that he was nominated for a UK Military Cross, which was quietly ignored. At the same time, JA and IJN troops had been assisting the rebels with training, arms and so forth. Talk about strange bedfellows!

[JasonJ]

3 hours ago, Ken Estes said:

The British took the same measures in Indonesia, taking Japanese troops, rearmed, into suppression of the anti-Dutch independence movement when India requested the return of their troops. One Japanese tank regiment commander was so effective that he was nominated for a UK Military Cross, which was quietly ignored. At the same time, JA and IJN troops had been assisting the rebels with training, arms and so forth. Talk about strange bedfellows!

That's an interesting example. I reckn there are more examples. The examples if side switching that happened after the surrender is odd to hear at first.

There's one case of a captured IJA soldier captured in Manchuria IIRC and joined the Chinese communists as a mechanic.

A rather notable example is Hiroshi Nemoto, a IJA general that joinned the Nationalists on the run to provide advice for the last defense at Kinmen island. He was personally thanked and gifted by CKS.

Before Japan's surrender, there seemed to be a fair number of cases of Chinese changing sides between the Nationalists, the Communists, and Wang Regime, some going full circle through all three even. Some were captured and were quick to just go along with the who captured them so not really much real allegence for any but just staying alive. Some for secretly doing intellegence gathering for one side while operating in one of the others.  Some for really changing allegence after having had enough with the side they were on.

[Nobu]

5 hours ago, R011 said:

How is this stuff about Australia relevant?  There is no choice between bad or worse here.  There was no information available the nineteenth century Australians that would make them act much differently. The strength of American economy and industry between the wars was not in the least obscure.

Neither was Japanese racism or the unthinkability of losing face to the Chinese. Stuff of relevance indeed.

[R011]

2 hours ago, Nobu said:

Neither was Japanese racism or the unthinkability of losing face to the Chinese. Stuff of relevance indeed.

So they lost face and got badly beaten.  How was that better?

[Stuart Galbraith]

8 hours ago, R011 said:

The UK didn't pay off it's four billion dollar post war loan until 2006 because it had an extremely long term, extended several times, at very low interest rates (2%) not because it was extraordinarily high.

Or was that the WW1 loan? Ive a distinct memory of our paying off the WW1 loan just before the crash.

[Stuart Galbraith]

8 hours ago, R011 said:

Plan Red was never seriously considered as more than a paper exercise and remote contingency.  There was never any serious thought about war with the British Empire.  The Crash, by the way, was October 1929.

Yes, but there is some evidence the British Government believed it. As did Canada. Lets look at an example, Ukraine right now. Perhaps Russia has absolutely no aim to invade, but how are you going to perceive it if you are Ukrainian?

There may have been no intent to use force in 1956 either. Who would take a chance on it?

Even if there is no real intent to use force, its still aggression, in the same way I could walk in a bank with an unloaded shotgun and still face and armed robbery charge.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Stuart Galbraith

[R011]

I don't know about London, but as far as Ottawa was concerned, the threat was not taken seriously enough to do anything at all save have a staff officer make up an unrealistic plan for preemptive attack which was promptly filed and forgotten.  Given that the only power that then could attack Canada directly was the US, it tended to show up in any speculative Army plans.  Real war plans were things like setting up shipping control and naval intelligence structures for Imperial use in war time as part of worldwide RN strategy.

[R011]

33 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Or was that the WW1 loan? Ive a distinct memory of our paying off the WW1 loan just before the crash.

That was the 1946 loan.  The UK and France defaulted on their WW1 debt to the US in 1934 and never paid it back. 

Long term government debt is interesting. The British government did decide to redeem all War Bonds issued in the thirties to consolidate war debts, presumably mostly held by Britons, in 2017.  The South Sea Bubble debt from 1720 was finally paid off in 2015, nearly three centuries later.

[Ken Estes]

50 minutes ago, R011 said:

I don't know about London, but as far as Ottawa was concerned, the threat was not taken seriously enough to do anything at all save have a staff officer make up an unrealistic plan for preemptive attack which was promptly filed and forgotten.  Given that the only power that then could attack Canada directly was the US, it tended to show up in any speculative Army plans.  Real war plans were things like setting up shipping control and naval intelligence structures for Imperial use in war time as part of worldwide RN strategy.

I thought Maj Brown's plan for a surprise offensive far from the usual Niagara front to be a real gem. No US plan likely treated the defense of the Red River Valley [irony there]  and the 'fall of Fargo ND' might have missed notice. Talk about upsetting the apple cart!

It may have been filed but not likely forgotten. Gutsy, that.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

That was the 1946 loan.  The UK and France defaulted on their WW1 debt to the US in 1934 and never paid it back. 

Long term government debt is interesting. The British government did decide to redeem all War Bonds issued in the thirties to consolidate war debts, presumably mostly held by Britons, in 2017.  The South Sea Bubble debt from 1720 was finally paid off in 2015, nearly three centuries later.

Yes, you appear to be quite right, it was much more recently than I remember, and seems to have been the war bonds.

[RETAC21]

10 hours ago, JasonJ said:

My latest post fully addresses that. 

No,, it didn't. The point, again, flew over your head.

Japan didn't want to comply with what was asked of it by the US, who applied progressive pressure on Japan. They could have stopped or pulled back from most of China, which was a sinkhole of resources anyway, but they decided to stick with it, hoping to batter the US into submission like they did with Russia.

it didn't work.

Re War of aggression, it's what happens when one country invades another, that's not propaganda, it's particularly bad for the agressor when it's not the biggest kid in the block. Germany and Japan know that now.

[RETAC21]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

That was the 1946 loan.  The UK and France defaulted on their WW1 debt to the US in 1934 and never paid it back. 

Long term government debt is interesting. The British government did decide to redeem all War Bonds issued in the thirties to consolidate war debts, presumably mostly held by Britons, in 2017.  The South Sea Bubble debt from 1720 was finally paid off in 2015, nearly three centuries later.

Russia had to pay the Tsar's debts of WW1, which the Soviet Union didn't recognise, before being able to get loans again in the 90s.

[JasonJ]

1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

No,, it didn't. The point, again, flew over your head.

Japan didn't want to comply with what was asked of it by the US, who applied progressive pressure on Japan. They could have stopped or pulled back from most of China, which was a sinkhole of resources anyway, but they decided to stick with it, hoping to batter the US into submission like they did with Russia.

it didn't work.

Re War of aggression, it's what happens when one country invades another, that's not propaganda, it's particularly bad for the agressor when it's not the biggest kid in the block. Germany and Japan know that now.

Asked? lol

 

 

 

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/45591-drachinifel-on-fleet-admiral-ernest-j-king/&do=findComment&comment=1527314

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/45591-drachinifel-on-fleet-admiral-ernest-j-king/&do=findComment&comment=1527360

 

Progressive pressure all stemmed from general same disagreement over China and in the background the general naval rivalry and that the US was not some sort of righteousness to double down on it to the extent of an oil embargo. 

 

I would add that the end of the Japanese empire had some good results. One was Korea getting independence although that value was greatly reduced because of it getting cut in half with the impact of it still live today. Another was an end of Unit 731. The loss of own self decurity responsibility did give the population a break from military minded matters. Another factor is the huge cost to other places and people as a result of the war although that's a concern to the US as well. The basing of US forces in Japan presented an opportunity for both sides to work out a new relation and both sides applied efforts to make it work. With the US presence, I reckon its almost like free study abroad for Japan to see how the USFJ operates and live. It also reduces the breadth of possible suspicion of each other with the increase of close contact on regular and often mundane daily business, even if the positive relation was no given and partly possible due to common grounds in anti-communism. It still took work and a future oriented perspective from both sides to enable it. But my opinion on pre-PH and negative results to the region after the defeat of Japan is as I have already stated here and elsewhere.

Edited April 16, 2021 by JasonJ

[RETAC21]

43 minutes ago, JasonJ said:

Asked? lol

 

 

 

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/45591-drachinifel-on-fleet-admiral-ernest-j-king/&do=findComment&comment=1527314

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/45591-drachinifel-on-fleet-admiral-ernest-j-king/&do=findComment&comment=1527360

 

Progressive pressure all stemmed from general same disagreement over China and in the background the general naval rivalry and that the US was not some sort of righteousness to double down on it to the extent of an oil embargo. 

I would add that the end of the Japanese empire had some good results. One was Korea getting independence although that value was greatly reduced because of it getting cut in half with the impact of it still live today. Another was an end of Unit 731. The loss of own self decurity responsibility did give the population a break from military minded matters. Another factor is the huge cost to other places and people as a result of the war although that's a concern to the US as well. The basing of US forces in Japan presented an opportunity for both sides to work out a new relation and both sides applied efforts to make it work. With the US presence, I reckon its almost like free study abroad for Japan to see how the USFJ operates and live. It also reduces the breadth of possible suspicion of each other with the increase of close contact on regular and often mundane daily business, even if the positive relation was no given and partly possible due to common grounds in anti-communism. It still took work and a future oriented perspective from both sides to enable it. But my opinion on pre-PH and negative results to the region after the defeat of Japan is as I have already stated here and elsewhere.

"politely ordered"

We don't know if the results would have been even better with no Japanese empire to start with, do we?

[JasonJ]

3 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

"politely ordered"

We don't know if the results would have been even better with no Japanese empire to start with, do we?

Obviously, my welcome has run out again.

[JasonJ]

One other thing is that so much focus is always on Japan but with complete 100 absence of the effects of the Soviet Union and communism in China as well. If one wanted to apply the wish away entirely what-if, it could also be done to the Soviet/Russia/communism afterall Harbin was Russian made as well as the northern railroads, the insertion of communism with Mao and party on condition for Sun yet-sen to get aid from SU, and the Soviet propped up Soviet China republic smack in the middle of the China mainland taking up 5 years of war drain against the Nationalist.

 

How about this...

Sod the fuck off.