Quote:
Originally Posted by nikimcbee
We were really lucky that the Japanese (in the early war) didn't take undersea warfare seriously.
|
You could make the case that we lulled them into a false sense of security.
At the war's beginning the Japanese had no overall shipping protection organization nor any standard communication plan or escort doctrine. Escorts were on the bottom of the priority list for building. However, for the first two years due to poor US torpedoes and lack of submarine numbers this system seem to work in their eyes. Once the torpedo defects were ironed out and US submarines began showing up deep behind enemy lines in increasing numbers it came at a bad time for the Japanese, who were still trying to make up for losses suffered at Midway and in the Solomons. The mass-produced purpose built escorts which Japan finally starting rolling out in 1943-44 were too little and too late to stem the tide and were often poorly built due to lack of proper resources and shipyard space. For example the hulls of the
Kaikoban Type Cs were of a very simple design having neither sheer or camber to simplify building, and some had to be modified to burn coal. And forget radar, there weren't enough sets or qualified technicians to go around.