Somes notes about the Imperial Japanese Navy

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Saukko

I had this picture on my harddrive, showing the damage of USS South Dakota after the battle of Guadalcanal.

I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where parts of this ship were (are ?) laid out in a huge park/memorial.

It was very interesting.

[Danelov]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Hmmm. Think of all the decent carriers and escort ships the Japanese could have built with the material and effort they sank into the 2 Yamato class battleships they did launch. Not to mention the wasted effort in trying to finish one uncompleted one as a carrier (Shinano)and then having it sunk while undertow to be fitted out. Japan did build some very good carriers. The Shokaku and Taiho class were excellent. Unfortunately for them the battleship mentality won out.

In this year of 1944 the central problem was not the carriers availability ,the problem was the pilots.Despite the pressure in the aircraft industrie by the terrible losses by the USN submarines and all this raw materials taking the way to the bottom of the sea, the planes were more easy available ,A6M5s for example , but the pilots , and specially pilots for carriers , that was a terrible lacking aspect for the IJN.
In the best of the situations the pilot can performe a fair take off of the carrier but for the return was forced to land at some land base; near impossible to expect a carrier landing by this so few trained pilots.
Before the operations in the Mariannas by Jun 1944 Admiral Ozawa had fixed a short training programme for his pilots ,but he was obliged to cancelled this one to avoid more losses in accidents.
And by the Battle of Leyte Ozawa had only some 135 planes in his carriers.
Carrier Katsuragi and others of the class Unryu were near of entry in service by 1945 ; the problem, no pilots for his future air groups, same for the Hybrid Ise and Hyuga , no floatplane fighter pilots available to give a minimum of Air Groups to this Hybrid Battleship-Carriers for the Leyte operation.Shinano never received a assigned Air Group and finally was decided to convert this one in a transport of Okha flying bombs with alternative as support carrier.And yes, his conversion had taked a lot of time,work and efforts.
Yes, the mentality battleship in IJN was very strong, and quite contradictory by one Navy showing the good demostrations of all possibilities of carrier aviation.Certainly all this materials and time utilised in the Yamato class could have better utilised in escorts or subchasers , but the construction of this Battleship was something of very symbolic and prestigious for Japan and the future consequences of the lack of a real effective antisubmarine force were impossible to imagine in early 1940-1941.

[Torplexed]

I agree. Japan would have had to pump up it's pilot training programme to make use of additional carriers. Which would have meant dropping some of their very rigorous standards for pilots. They also had a bad habit of keeping veteran pilots at the front until killed or wounded, instead of rotating them back to help train the green recruits.

More escorts wouldn't have helped them either because escorting merchants was considered disdainful and unhonorable duty by most Japanese naval officers. That's a mentality issue they also would have had to address along with the material one.

In any case, the war probably would have ended the same way. Japan just didn't have the resources to take on a major industrial power ten times it's size.

[Danelov]

[quote=Torplexed]
In any case, the war probably would have ended the same way. Japan just didn't have the resources to take on a major industrial power ten times it's size.

Certes, technical speaking Japan was defeated in the latter 1943, but the problem was how can ended this war.The militar factions at the power under Togo were at the direction of the nation, and the words defeat, armistice or rendition was something impossible to admite, assimile or consider,under the code of bushido, save the face,and the mentality of this time. CO Yamamoto was very concient of the perspective of loss the war , and his idea before his death was to arrive a some type of armistice to avoid the complete destruction of Japan in short time.The japanese troops were deployed in thousand of different spots, tiny islands, selvage spots ,in Manchurie, Burma, etc , how can arrived to control so many areas and arrived to fix a possible honourable rendition or something other in this style ?

In Europe the things were more easy , the territory was mainly continental and of relative easy access. Also here , Germany was defeated soon as early 1944 , after the catastrofic defeats at Stalingrad, Kursk,the landings at Sicilia-continental Italia and the loss of North Africa. The next operations by the German militar forces were to protect home and retard the inevitable longtime as possible, and all that at the cost of the live of more millons of people.The intentions of the Germans and this stage of the war was to try to change the course of the conflict, arriving at some kind of peace with the British and Americans ,and then all together to fight the Russian, with Germany in the middle as "arbitre". They were the spoirs of Hitler, the S.S. and some generals of the Wehrmacht.

[Steeltrap]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

Great read. My biggest concern is that of the japanese destroyer's quality in submarine warfare. I'd be pretty bored if most of my engagements in SHIV is taking free pot shots at unarmed and unprotected merchants. Were the japanese ASW team as good as the atlantic? And if they were not, isn't this going to make SHIV feel like "easy mode" compared to SH3? Lots of free apples for the picking isn't my idea of a good game. There has to be a challenge.

This is a point I have made in a number of threads. When it comes to the threat level posed by the various ASW forces, the Pacific is a cakewalk compared with the Atlantic. Why?
- the distances are HUGE, so there are plenty of places where there simply is nothing to threaten you (mind you, there's also nothing there, so we're talking a lot of time spent simply getting to/from ops).
- Japanese were ad-hoc about their convoy formation. Important ships - especially troop transports - woiuld be escorted, but there were plenty of single ships or small (5 or fewer) groups with little/no escort.
- many escort vessels were not actually directly part of the IJN (the organisation of this arm of forces is somewhat confusing!).
- Japanese were well behind in significant technologies (especially radar - surprise attacks from the air were very rare - and sonar). This gave American subs substantial advantages compared with the situation in the Atlantic where the escorts had the better technology.

That doesn't mean the sim can't/won't be fun, but don't expect the sort of situation you've faced in the Atlantic. 52 boats is plenty for those on board, but really quite small in comparison with the U-Boats (even in straight % terms). Read some of the excellent books on the subject by those who were there - especially Dick O'Kane on Wahoo and Tang - and compare them with the experiences of U-Boat aces and you'll soon get the idea as to the differences. One item of interest, for example, is that the Pacific often contained thermal layers and subs regularly dived below them and secured from GQ and motored off even while an escort remained on the surface looking for them!! Compare that with the descriptions of Allied ASW efforts by Peter Cremer in U-333....a different world.

[dize]

well well, what should i say. ofc im looking forward to sh4 very much, as every ww2 sim enthusiast. seing the "easyness" of the upcomming subexperience, compared to the atlanitc war, i can only again express my disappointment about the fact that they would not do a sh3 finishing expansion, which would iron out alle the shortcommings of the current sh3. yes i know about gw etc, but these are just mods, who cant deal with the negs, hidden in the hardcoded gamefiles.