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Originally Posted by Rammstein0991
They werent exactly put through the kind of training needed to get to the level we and Britain enjoyed in OUR DD's I think, part of that is no doubt Japan's racist beliefs of the time that they were invincible geniuses and that we were stupid subhuman beasts who couldnt even hold a gun properly, meaning (in their minds) they didnt need to worry about our subs having any success against them.
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I don't know if I would put Japan's issues down to just contempt or arrogance, although it played a part. A big factor was just the pre-war philosophy behind the IJN which was obsessed with winning another decisive Tsushima like battle such as they had won against the Russians in 1905. Actually one Imperial Navy officer after the war summarized it best. "The Japanese naval authorities had confounded the war with battle. We built a fleet for fighting battles instead of one for fighting a war."
This philosophy also hampered Japan in other areas than escorts. Japan never had enough fleet train units, minesweepers, troopships, tenders, MTBs, specialized amphibious craft and logistical ships as well. It was all mostly spent on the battle fleet. To a degree this was true of other nations as well, but Japan was shorter in industrial resources than the USA or Britain, so the disparity was greater.