It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.
Apologies for missing the last OT slot. I've been busy and just didn't get around to doing overhauls in time.
Overhauls are A Brief History of the Aircraft Carrier, Harpoon, The 6th Battle Squadron Part 2, Phalanx and for 2023, my review of Frontiers of Flight, Inc's Introduction to Artillery, Excitement in the Bab el Mandeb (sadly still relevant today) and The Problem with Air Museums.
Comments
Here's a thought (motivated by my recent reading of Shattered Sword). What should Japan have done instead of Midway? Like, if we are doing alternative history and you are dictator of Japan.
The obvious answer is `don't get into war with the US in the first place.' Don't do Pearl Harbor, avoid the Philippines, and focus on attacking the British and Dutch, and trust that FDR won't be able to twist Congress's arm into declaring a war against a Japan that hasn't shot a single bullet in anger against Americans. Maybe try and use your regional naval superiority to conquer the middle east (and the oil you desperately need). With Britain tied down by Germany in the European theater, you might just be able to consolidate an Asian empire, as long as the US doesn't enter the war as an active belligerent.
OK, now suppose that the time machine that beams you back can only go as far as January 1, 1942. Now what?
I think at this point your goose is basically cooked - imperial Japan could never have prevailed against the US. But what's the least bad plan from here on? Seems to me that probably you follow the historical plan through the conquest of Singapore and Indonesia, but then what? It's not clear that there are any good options. You can switch to the strategic defensive, but this only delays the inevitable. Is there any kind of hail mary plan that can lead to victory? I don't see it, unless maybe you try and invade Hawaii, succeed, and hand it back in exchange for peace.
Alternatively, there is the galaxy brain perspective that `don't change a thing,' because losing the war and becoming an American protectorate worked out pretty well for Japan in the long run.
@Humphrey Appleby
It's a long shot, but: go on the defensive in China and Oceania and send most of your spare forces toward South and Southeast Asia. Put all your weight behind Indian and Burmese independence and try to cut off British access by sea. If an independence war gains traction, you've cut off supplies to the Chinese Communists (giving you a shot at winning in that theater) and deprived Britain of useful resources (hopefully prolonging the war in Europe). Build up your air force and make the Americans come to you before they've developed confidence and expertise in carrier operations; if you catch them within range of your airfields and get lucky with the engagement, you can sink enough ships to make their amphibious operations extremely risky. That buys you until after D-Day to consolidate your land gains and force Chiang Kai-Shek to surrender, after which you can set up a Chinese puppet state that will fight the Communists and British for you and give your land forces a much needed break.
Meanwhile you're negotiating hard with Stalin to establish a secret non-aggression pact and partition Manchuria. (If Hitler can do it, so can you!) The US is still bogged down in the South Pacific and New Guinea when Germany falls, at which point it quickly becomes clear that the Soviet Union and the West are going to be long-term adversaries. Leaving the A-bomb aside, because holy cow is alternate history a can of worms there, it seems reasonable to posit that the Western powers won't have the stomach for a further prolonged war against all of Asia. Eventually we end up in a Cold War But Japanese with a frozen conflict in the East Indies and no hope for Korea, Vietnam, etc. At which point you'll still sorely need to modernize to win the long term geopolitical scenario, but that's not my problem anymore.
@Humphrey Appleby In my opinion, the best way involves following through on the conquest of Malaya, Burma, and then the Indies, but after that to not try and go for Port Moresby or the Solomons. The main thrust should be against China, but it shouldn't be like Ichigo because we aren't worried about American bomber bases here. I would start with Ko-go to get an easy victory against the despised and starving KMT garrison of Henan which would reduce Chinese morale (and reopen the Jinghan railway) and then launch a two-pronged offensive at Chongqing, the first going north through Xi'an and Hanzhong and the second going south through the Yangtze valley. Towards the beginning of this the Doolittle Raid would happen and cause great political pressure for an offensive in Zhejiang, which I will try to avoid, but if I must divert troops for it I will avoid using biowarfare because it was mostly ineffective and sometimes ended up disabling Japanese forces. The troops and materiel for this will come in part from cancellation of operations in the SW Pacific, but also from the Kwantung Army which had been reinforced in 1941 following Barbarossa and was still maintained at an unnecessarily large size for years after. After all, the USSR is fighting for its life right now and Japan has a non-aggression pact with them. After Chongqing and Xi'an are fallen, Chiang Kai-Shek has lost almost everything he controls directly and may be amenable to negotiations (provided I can keep the terms at 'Wang-Chiang merger' and not be pressured by victory-diseased officers into going back to the First Konoe Statement). If I can end the war in China, it severely weakens the American victory strategy which gives China far more importance than it actually has, so if I can avoid losing a great fleet battle then America might negotiate. @hnau The Chinese Communists weren't really supplying from India, is the problem. Their supplies mostly either came from their Chinese/Japanese enemies or local manufacturing within the Base Areas. Also, as I've mentioned, Japan already had an NAP with Stalin post-1941.
Both the
China first' and theBurma/India first' strategies are army centric strategies though. It's not easy to see how (temporary) naval superiority can be leveraged for either. And we might be asking the Army to do more than it's capable of. It was already incapable of conclusively winning the China war, now you want it to subdue and control a second massive theater?Like, maybe it's true that starting in 1942 the marginal yen should be sunk into the Army rather than the Navy, but given the blog we are on, what should the Navy be doing in that time? This (to me) is the appeal of `go for the middle east' - that's something that naval power could plausibly enable (turn the Indian ocean into a Japanese lake, then grab the middle east, which also has the advantage of simultaneously securing crucial oil supplies for yourself and denying them to the British and Dutch (who are also your enemies).
Doesn't help you much with the Americans though. And there you have no path to victory, your best case outcome is a negotiated peace. But how do you get a negotiated peace after Pearl Harbor? A halfway plausible answer might be to have a change of government in Tokyo, and then ask for a negotiated peace, handing over some scapegoats (on whose head you will heap the entire blame for pearl harbor) as a gesture of good faith.
Alternatively, it seems to me that Hawaii is the only possible
naval centric conquest' in the Pacific which would actually significantly increase Japanesestrategic depth.' Midway, the Solomons etc just seem like irrelevant sideshows on which to throw away your limited naval power. And if you were able to conquer Hawaii, you might actually have a shot at a negotiated peace (offering the return of Hawaii, possibly along with some scapegoats, in return for a cessation of hostilities).(A) don't go to the decisive battle with only 2/3s of your carriers. If the japanese had showed up with 5 or 6 carriers instead of 4, the battle goes much better for them, especially since shokaku and zuikaku could take hits without bursting into flames.
(B) don't fight so close to the biggest US base and so far from your own. yorktown couldn't have made it to the fight if it hadn't been so close to pearl. Espiritu santo would have been a better target, especially if you can bring in air support from the Solomons.
None of this really changes the outcome of the war, there's an essex horde coming online in late 43 that the japanese can't hope to match, but either of those decisions makes the early war a lot less fun for the US.
@Cassander in what sense was Midway `decisive'? The end result was massively overdetermined, so? All this strategy does is to buy a few extra months of local air superiority. Having it is better than not having it, to be sure, but what are you going to do with that temporary local air/naval superiority.
Like, maybe an IJN following the Cassander strategy secures tactical victory in the next battle after Coral sea, but this tactical victory is going to have roughly the same strategic import as the Zulu tactical victory at Islandlwana, no?
@Humphrey Appleby The IJA was entirely capable of conducting the offensives laid out. The reason the war in China was in a stalemate from 1938 (Capture of Wuhan) to 1944 (Ichi-go) was because the Japanese diverted most of the army elsewhere (first to Manzhouguo for conflicts with Russia, then to the Pacific) and gave a single corps-size formation (the 11th Army) the sole responsibility for nearly all of the following offensive operations until 1944. For this reason they adopted a strategy of attacking Chinese troop concentrations to try and inflict maximum casualties and then leaving. Given the inability of the NRA to halt these Japanese offensives at any defensive lines, it's simple to assert that with a much larger offensive force which could be taken from Manzhouguo, an offensive taking large amounts of territory could be pressed successfully.
Additionally, the Japanese have an advantage beginning after Pearl Harbor in that by starting a war they were able to take Hong Kong and the Shanghai International Settlement. This destroyed the financial operations which were keeping the Chinese state and the Fabi currency afloat. The result was an unstoppable economic crisis and hyperinflation in Free China, which hurt the morale of the soldiers and, as the NRA's always-dubious logistical corps turned to smuggling, even their physical condition.
I think the Indian operation is unfeasible because of the massive amount of shipping it would take to sustain Japanese forces there, in range of British submarines. Even Burma was hard to resupply until the Thai-Burmese railway was finished. Also, I don't think that the Indians who would rise up would be a very capable force. Sepoys were generally loyal to the Raj unless they were captured, and the INA was pretty bad despite having Japanese arms and some training, which Indian rebels would not have (leaving aside logistics, Japan generally struggled to arm their friends). Also, it's dubious that mainstream Congress leaders or the ever-popular Gandhi would sanction a rising alongside a Japanese invasion, let alone the more pro-British leaders like the Princes, the Muslim League, or the Communist Party. So by 1943, you'd be saying to Hirohito, "I did not realize the Indian hinterland was so vast". A Middle East conquest would not be in question without India. Also, we don't need the Middle East's oil. There was plenty of it in the East Indies, the problem was that Japan couldn't spare enough shipping to transport it where it was needed.
As for Hawaii, that's also realistically impossible. The distances were vast, and you'd need to take some islands on the way (like Midway) to supply the expedition. Plus, after Pearl Harbor Hawaii became very well-garrisoned.
I agree that it's hard to get peace with America, but a change in government would certainly not do anything. Japan changed cabinets twice in the war and it didn't lead to any softening of Washington's attitude.
@Humphrey Appleby "in what sense was Midway `decisive’? The end result was massively overdetermined, so? All this strategy does is to buy a few extra months of local air superiority. Having it is better than not having it, to be sure, but what are you going to do with that temporary local air/naval superiority."
I'm not cassander, but I can take a stab at this. Midway wasn't decisive, true, but Yamamoto really, really wanted it to be. That being the case, he should have vetoed committing major Combined Fleet assets to secondary operations in New Guinea and Alaska until after Operation MI was successfully concluded. We know he at least potentially had the leverage to do this - that's how he got the Pearl Harbor attack approved in the first place - he just didn't think it was worth the fight this time.
@5shi Did any of those cabinets offer to hand the previous cabinet over in chains, while swearing that the previous guys were the only ones that had anything to do with Pearl Harbor? Because that’s a load bearing part of the Appleby plan.
@humphrey
I was going to say what Philistine said. midway was an attempt to seek a decisive battle and they fucked it up. the japanese do a lot of strange peripheral shit that doesn't seem to make any sense,
On top of that, the choice of midway was a terrible idea, they almost certainly could not have taken the island even if they won the battle, and they certainly couldn't have kept it. taking out espiritu santo would have been more feasible and more useful. it would have isolated australia and limited the ability of the US to counterattack in the south pacific for a long time.
The real crime was breaking up kido butai. those 6 carriers were a lot more powerful together than apart, and the Japanese couldn't afford to lose them. I believe parshall says at one point that there were objectives that were worth sending 6 carriers after and those worth sending none, but none worth sending 2 or 4, because that just risked some of them being destroyed.
The japanese got sloppy and overconfident, and it shows. Even the carriers they did send didn't have their full complement of aircraft. At pearl harbor, by contrast to the pearl harbor operation where they smuggled in some extra planes on decks.
Overall, of course, the japanese are totally doomed. the US builds more aircraft carriers during ww2 than the japanese build surface warships of all kinds combined. even if the japanese had sunk every single pre-war US carrier and never lost one of their own, they would have been outnumbered by late 43, and by 2:1 by early 44. And those carriers were full of substantially superior aircraft.
One might argue that they could have started the war with dramatically larger naval air corps and aircraft industry, such that they could deploy a couple thousand aircraft to far flung bases. In theory, that would let them counteract US carriers at a lower cost. But even if the navy had realized that was necessary, gotten the resources (which, to be clear, didn't exist), and not made any blunders, you'd still run into the problem of inferior japanese aircraft, increasingly effective US AA, and japan's many other shortcomings.
The US beat japan while spending most of its effort fighting germany. They could have made the whole thing take longer, but the outcome was foreordained.
The problem with Espiritu Santo as a substitute for Midway is that the Japanese would never have thought of it - as demonstrated by their repeated half-assed moves toward Port Moresby, Milne Bay, and Guadalcanal, nobody in Japan ever seems to have understood how violently the USN would react to threatening the sea lanes to Australia. So when Yamamoto was looking for a target that would provoke a maximum effort response from the USN, he picked the target the IJN would have found most threatening instead of the target the USN would have found most threatening.
@Philistine incidentally, why the violent reaction to threatening the sea lanes to Australia? Australia is really big, and had plenty of high quality infantry there (their own, plus American). It's not plausible that Japan could have invaded and conquered the whole island. (A beachhead on a remote uninhabited part, maybe). Certainly if Hawaii was too heavy a lift to be credible, then Australia was doubly so. So why the panic?
First and foremost, there was just a lot of panic going around in 1942. Especially in the first half of the year, when it seemed like the Japanese were running the table in Asia and the Pacific much as Germany had (apparently) done in western Europe. Insane as it sounds in hindsight, some people - including people who really should have known better! - were concerned about Japan trying for an amphibious landing, not in Hawaii, but in California! So there was actually some concern that the Japanese somehow might be able to pull off yet another upset.
Second, Australia in 1942, especially early 1942, didn't have "plenty of high quality infantry" - yet. They'd sent a bunch of troops to the Mediterranean, and when Japan had started rolling across the western and southern Pacific, the Australians had been unable to defend outlying territories like Rabaul, New Guinea, and the Solomons. US troops didn't start arriving in numbers until much later - reaching 150,000 only in December 1943. Australia was also severely short of every other resource needed to fight an industrial war, including the factories to turn raw materials into war materials.
And after Midway, when the IJN was on the back foot, the US wanted to use Australia as a base from which to start rolling back Japanese advances. Supplying that kind of offensive meant keeping the sea lanes open, because Australia couldn't pick up that load.
India is large, the whole IJA is too small to maintain a continuous front from, let's say, Cuttack to Benares. Then you have a non-mechanized Japanese army playing war-of-maneuver with a mechanized Western Allied army. Eventually you're out maneuvered back the Burma border. Taking North Australia is also not a game winner. It's literally nowhere. You can't send an army from Darwin to Alice Springs in the face of aerial attack. Because supply. Taking West Australia is almost as bad. Because supply. There are no good solutions to being at war with the USA and the Commonwealth.
Had Japan not been so stupid as to attack the US they probably could have gotten peace with Australia on favorable terms, without more help that Australia would've gotten from a neutral US victory was just not possible but Japan would have a very hard time invading (at least anything that isn't North of Brisbane which is the only part worth invading) so both sides would have had an incentive to come to an agreement.
Though Japan was not exactly very rational during that time so might have to try before negotiations but an alternate Japan rational enough not to pick a fight with the US might not have to try. Then again, a Japan that wouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor might never have done a lot of other things they did.
Points taken about India. I still think there's something to be said for just holding the fleet back on defense (conserving fuel and pilots as well as ships), conquering China and the East Indies, and focusing on reaching an arrangement with Stalin. That has to be the endgame in a war with the US and UK. I still don't know how you avoid getting nuked in 1945 but hanging onto the First Island Chain is surely step one. Major carrier actions, especially early ones, can easily come down to a roll of the dice and you don't need to win that many. Keep Yamamoto alive, pull off big set-piece battles close to your own airfields when the Americans try to land, and you have an outside chance to cause enough pain that they'll accept a peace that leaves you with a bunch of East Asia.
Japan doing better in a war with the US means instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it'd be Tokyo and Osaka that got nuked.
There is simply no path to gain for Japan that involves fighting the US so any sensible strategy on the part of Japan involves keeping the US neutral.
hnau:
The US didn't strictly speaking need Iwo Jima, it was just nice to have for when a B-29 broke down so that is very unlikely to be enough. Even to delay it they'd need to hold Tinian until sometime in 1945.
Nothing to add one way or another on the Japan v. U.S. alternate history other than to say that I have quite enjoyed the discussion back and forth.
IIRC, per Symonds' book (which had some decent discussion on Japanese strategy leading up to the battle), the alternate being discussed in Japanese circles was trying to capture Fiji. This was actually viewed as a nightmare by Nimitz (would cut off the supply line to Australia was the big fear). So for a purely naval-perspective on "What should the Japanese if decide to not go with Operation MI", that's the answer.
One thing that needs to be remembered when understanding Japanese strategy is that the Japanese command viewed itself as fighting a long, brutal war of extermination on multiple fronts against a ruthless foe, namely "the other service" (ie the Teikoku Kaigun against the Teikoku Rikugun). So it's nice to imagine scenarios where the Japanese do something different, any reality-based analysis has to comeback to "what can the IJN do without the IJA being involved" (which is one thing that takes off invading Australia-that requires more than the Special Naval Landing Force), which is a limitation.
Interestingly, if you ask me "How can Japan come up with the best outcome in WW2", my answer is probably "They win at the Battle of Imphal and that causes India to fall apart and takes Britain out of the Pacific Theater, and probably cuts off a lot of support to China." That still save them from the US, though.
Midway was the right target for what Japan was trying to accomplish at Midway because, check it out, the USN did in fact send every available aircraft carrier to do battle with whatever the Japanese were bringing to Midway. And that was the right thing for Japan to do at that point, because most of the faint hopes for Japanese victory started with "destroy the American carrier fleet".
The question is, what can be done to improve their odds at Midway. The obvious answer is to go all in on Midway, and save e.g. the Port Moresby operation for later. That gives the Japanese a full-strength Kido Butai, though the Americans in that case get Lexington and an undamaged Yorktown so it's only a marginal improvement for Japan.
Simplifying the Japanese plan would also have been a marginal improvement; most of the complexities in the plan were just wasted effort rather than actual impediments to the part of the plan that mattered, but even so.
A better scouting doctrine would have helped immensely, but that's hindsight and maybe unreasonable to expect the Japanese to have figured out that their existing doctrine was inadequate.
The one significant change I might have made is to keep the Kido Butai (whether four or six CVs) safely north of Midway, and leave the initial bombardment of Midway to the Second Fleet (Two Kongos, four heavy cruisers, and give it two light carriers with a fighter-heavy air group cor cover). They can approach through the night to hit the island at dawn with I think enough naval gunfire to neutralize it as an immediate threat. The Kido Butai is then available for action against the American carriers whenever and wherever they arrive, undistracted by the "bomb Midway" thing.
Given superior American intelligence and scouting doctrine, it still probably wouldn't have worked. If it does, we can look at all the other operations that have been suggested (Fiji, Port Moresby+Solomons, Indian Ocean) with any of those being much easier to achieve if the United States doesn't have a viable Pacific fleet for the next year.
Okay, but Nimitz didn't commit the carriers to defend Midway because holding Midway was critical, he committed the carriers because he saw a chance to bushwhack the Kido Butai. Being right for the wrong reasons gets Yamamoto half credit at best.
@Blackshoe sez: “They win at the Battle of Imphal and that causes India to fall apart and takes Britain out of the Pacific Theater, and probably cuts off a lot of support to China.”
Any "turning point" that happens in 1944 does not change Japan's fate. The fatal die was cast when the launch order was given to attack Pearl Harbor. The things that could (in theory) have been done could not have been done in practice - convoying merchanters, having a different plan for what ended up being the Battle of Midway, expanding pilot training, &c.