...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided
- Thread starter DaveJ576
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McPherson
Banned
Hmm. Warship 111 gets cancelled incomplete and the material goes into converting Ise and Hyuga and into Katsaragi.
biggrin and leads to an interesting butterfly. Shinano deferred means that the drydock space is available for Unryu and Amagi. Katsaragi will have to have an additional weigh (actually an existing Kure modified slip weigh modified as I look at Japanese shipbuilding capacity) built for her. Taiho is being built at Kobe, so we may be able to actually run her forward as at OTL.
Given how dependant Japan was on resources they did now have locally, and the weaker state of their industry in general, if Shinano is delayed for a year or more, they're probably not going to lay her down at all. They could build her later of course, but then they would be sucking resources from elsewhere. Delaying Shinano helps in terms of tonnage and a drydock saved, but from years of working in manufacturing, I can tell you for certain that some things don't just appear out of thin air.
It might also be likely that some of the merchant vessels or auxiliary warships that where converted later in the war haven't been ITTL. Given much higher shipping losses, one or two OTL hulls might have been sunk, and others might just be needed more in their current role or assignment.
One thing I'm wondering, youv've focused heavily on the US and Japanese. How has the greater damage the US has inflicted impacted the British? I don't see Singapore being saved or anything, but the idea of them getting one or two extra blows in that they didn't or couldn't OTL isn't unreasonable.
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McPherson
Banned
I really had to do a lot of resource shuffling to get it to work out, but I probably still can get Shinano killed as scheduled.
So then where exactly are the resources coming from then. If you still build Shinano, albeit a year later then OTL, and pour enough resources and manpower into her that she meets her OTL fate at the same time and date, what projects aren't going to get done.
The Japanese already started to war with so little merchant shipping available that they really didn't have much if any margin for error. Here you've gutted them even worse then OTL and much, much faster. You could build Shinano of course, but that will mean a later start date plus the war going badly faster will mean if they do complete her same as OTL, other projects will be negatively impacted compared to OTL.
McPherson
Banned
A Little Bit Of a Problem With HIJMS Ise And HIJMS Hyuga…
Short version, the Japanese need aircraft carriers after the Midway Massacre. They actually go through their list of battleship conversion candidates and decide for reasons of aircraft carrier bodyguard mission and or too slow a speed that the only two candidates they have are HIJMS Ise and HIJMS Hyuga. The reason these two candidates are selected is not because they are the best conversion candidates; it turns out that they are the most seriously defective as battleships. That is it in an example of backwards reasoning that seems to cloud Imperial General Headquarters on the naval side at this moment in the war. Totally deranged thinking in my view. In OTL, the Japanese are desperate for resources and time. They recognize that they lack both time and resources to create proper Kaga type conversions. So they go for the quarterdeck flyoff platforms for rump seaplane groups. This has led to the popular misconception that these hybrids were intended to replace the HIJMS Chikuma and HIJMS Tone in the seaplane cruiser reconnaissance role for Japanese aircraft carrier task forces. Not so, the two demi-carriers were supposed to foist (I like the word because I think it describes them perfectly, McP.). seaplane attack squadrons.
So they came up with these concrete topped Hogwarts botches that have come to be infamous in the "What were they thinking?" mélange of aircraft carrier mistakes. In this ATL, I have to do better than that RTL mess. In fact reaching into RTL history, I can do better than that RTL mess.
Short version, the Japanese need aircraft carriers after the Midway Massacre. They actually go through their list of battleship conversion candidates and decide for reasons of aircraft carrier bodyguard mission and or too slow a speed that the only two candidates they have are HIJMS Ise and HIJMS Hyuga. The reason these two candidates are selected is not because they are the best conversion candidates; it turns out that they are the most seriously defective as battleships. That is it in an example of backwards reasoning that seems to cloud Imperial General Headquarters on the naval side at this moment in the war. Totally deranged thinking in my view. In OTL, the Japanese are desperate for resources and time. They recognize that they lack both time and resources to create proper Kaga type conversions. So they go for the quarterdeck flyoff platforms for rump seaplane groups. This has led to the popular misconception that these hybrids were intended to replace the HIJMS Chikuma and HIJMS Tone in the seaplane cruiser reconnaissance role for Japanese aircraft carrier task forces. Not so, the two demi-carriers were supposed to foist (I like the word because I think it describes them perfectly, McP.). seaplane attack squadrons.
So they came up with these concrete topped Hogwarts botches that have come to be infamous in the "What were they thinking?" mélange of aircraft carrier mistakes. In this ATL, I have to do better than that RTL mess. In fact reaching into RTL history, I can do better than that RTL mess.
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McPherson
Banned
I'm going through British scholarship about the Indian Ocean and their Southeast Asia campaigns. Of particular interest right to me now is The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters by Andrew Boyd. Seriously I can accept the conjointment of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Indian Ocean as a single strategic problem set as one of his major theses, but there is a lot of "questionable" scholarship he puts into the book about what is actually going on RTL and what severe handicaps the RN actually faces. He bean counts too much and does not adequately cover how far the British (and the Americans) have fallen behind Japanese operational art as to naval aviation. The British have superior skill sets with reconnaissance and air traffic management and by 1940, they have ASV radar for air to surface search and superior ability with the vectoring of CAP for raid interception, but they lack a certain basic understanding or concept of how to use the aircraft carrier as the naval arm of decision. They do not even have the proper aircraft for anti-ship strike packages in the 1942 time period. I just do not see the British eastern fleet getting "a blow or two" in under the circumstances. They would have to fight and lose their version of the Coral Sea to learn enough. The chance of that comes in April at Sri Lanka in 1942, and they muff it. Not that Somerville did not try, but it just was not in the cards.
And that's where the Soviets got the idea for the Kiev class during the cold war!!
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
This gives a rather accurate and interesting summary of Japaness vs US industrial capability, figured it might be worth looking into.
McPherson
Banned
Working plan model.
Summary: Inside the model described, there was a huge untapped reserve cushion of potential that was "demand economy" rationalized to make up for shortfalls and work around bottlenecks. The 1939-1945 Germans did something like this in occupied Europe without being too rational or efficient in the doing because of their regime's criminality. In the case of Japan, the reserve cushion present is Manchukuo, which was never effectively rationalized, either because frankly the Tokyo government was stuck in a 19th century colonialist imperialist mindset or the Japanese militarists were not imaginative enough. Projects like synthetic rubber plants from coal or from alternate plant biomass, uranium separation facilities and an expanded mainland Asia steel and manufacturing investment was never contemplated as the militarists in Tokyo were not modern economists or industrial planners. The Zaibatsu (財閥) (literally "economic princes" or "financial clique") however were. They were in OTL quite efficient and very adaptive as postwar Japan proved. They were often overruled or ignored by the government ministries who supervised them during the war. Might see some movement on that front.
Example of how the Japanese mismanaged their potential resources... It should be noted that the Japanese were the first to investigate isotope separation by weight via centrifuges. (Note, there are other huge bottlenecks, such as a source lack of fissionable materials and the clear lack of the multiple lines of investigation one should have seen, so let us not make the mistake of assuming I argue they could have Manhattaned their way to a device. They flatly could not. They had no Hanford or Oak Ridge effort present to show this possibility at all.)
However, if we return to conventionally available means, the Japanese underutilized or ignored the Chinese infrastructure and manpower potential within their parvenu. Shipyards and industry there was a plenty in their occupied territories. if someone had the wit to just use it properly...
This is the problem.
What about Shinano, (See what I do with her a little later. McP.) Ise and Hyuga.
Could the Japanese technologically pull something like I propose off? (^^^)
Probably, but it would be sloppy work full of unforeseen "surprises".^1
Still the Japanese scientist and engineer classes are nothing to ignore, despite the goofery (^^^) they often produced.
From the underutilized east Asian cushion I have to find the steel and other raw materials, trained workers, even the designers and the time to make it happen. It will not be easy. For example, I am prepared to sacrifice a lot of the 1943 mismanaged Japanese navy escort program (Korea was part of that effort.) to get it done.
^1 The report is about the defects discovered in IJN ships learned from post battle damage analysis.
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So basically ASB. Got it. Changes you're talking about aren't something that will happen overnight, not in the time you're imagining. Changes you're looking to make would need to be made back in the 1920s or earlier.
@CalBear might be better able to explain things then me perhaps.
McPherson
Banned
If you think it is ASB, then you are wrong. The discrete engineering (naval constructor) changes for the hulls have to start in April 1938 which is when the final decisions on the Unryus is made. THAT is the earliest date I need for the ships, could be as late as January 1939. As for the Shinano conversion, that was 17 days after 4 June 1942. They had to tear the hull down and gut out barbettes (raze it) to fit a flight deck. Later on the weigh ITTL (one year delay), less work involved to modify the incomplete hull, less steel and time wasted.
The problem (^^^) as I correctly pointed out is what happens to Ise and Hyuga. Their conversions were hideously time and material wasteful for the meagre results achieved.
As for the spare industrial effort, I pointed out the problems and what I propose to solve it 1942 onward. Or in Japanese terms, modify their shipbuilding program.
Maybe, but I think he would understand what I have in mind. Korea was more rationalized and integrated than you imagine into the Japanese system. I am counting on that "cushion".
Japan was the only colonizer to locate various heavy industry is in its colonies. By 1945 the industrial plants in Korea accounted for about a quarter of Japan's industrial base. Japan's colonization of Korea was therefore much more comparable to the relationship between England and Ireland then that of European colonization of Asiaor Africa. Japan's push to create colonial industry lead Japan to build a vast network of railroads, ports, and a system of hydro-electric dams and heavy industrial plants around the Yalu River in what is now North Korea. The Japanese to facilitate and manage the industrialization of a colony also put in place a strong central government. Although Japan's colonial industrialism in Korea was aimed at advancing Japanese policies and goals and not those of the Korean populace; colonization left Korea with distinct advantages over other developing countries at the end of World War Two. Korea was left with a base for industrializing, a high level of literacy, experience with modern commerce, and close ties to Japan. Japan's colonial heavy industrial plants were located primarily around the Yalu River in North Korea. Because of this the North had an edge in industrialization. For many years the North had the fastest growth rates of the communist countries, and its cities were on par with those of Eastern Europe. It was not until the early 1970's that the South surpassed the North in levels of industrialization. Because most of the heavy industrial plants were either located in North Korea or destroyed by the Korean War the groundwork for industrialization that South Korea received from Japanese colonialism consisted mostly of social changes.
Further scholarship here.
25% cushion in Korea is just enough @Viper91
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Is it. What type of industry are we talking about. How much was used in shipbuilding OTL, and how much could be realocated to shipbuilding ITTL?
Also, as you're bringing forward the construction and operation of three fleet CV by over two years ahead of OTL, you're going to have to give the US at least one or two extra CV earlier on as well, major changes like what you propose don't just randomly happen in a vacuum.
Nor does this seem to take into account the premise of this timeline, ie better working US torpedoes. Even if the Japanese make better use of their razor thin extra production above OTL somehow magically, it's not going to matter much if they lack the ability to transport the raw materials needed from abroad, or the ability to ship their finished goods to the front. Maybe unicorns or something?
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I'm more curious to the political aspect of earlier construction of Unryū-class aircraft carrier, IOTL they were built as belated reaction to the Two Oceans Navy Plan, if their construction began in 1939, it require of different balence of power within IJN, as Air Power Faction got a clear upperhand, how to made it happen ITTL?
McPherson
Banned
Here:
North and South Korea are nations that while filled with contempt for Japan have used the foundations that Japan laid during the colonial period to further industrialization. Japan's colonization of Korea is critical in understanding what enabled Korea to industrialize in the period since 1961. Japan's program of colonial industrialization is unique in the world. Japan was the only colonizer to locate various heavy industry is in its colonies. By 1945 the industrial plants in Korea accounted for about a quarter of Japan's industrial base. Japan's colonization of Korea was therefore much more comparable to the relationship between England and Ireland then that of European colonization of AsiaWHICH or Africa. Japan's push to create colonial industry lead Japan to build a vast network of railroads, ports, and a system of hydro-electric dams and heavy industrial plants around the Yalu River in what is now North Korea. The Japanese to facilitate and manage the industrialization of a colony also put in place a strong central government. Although Japan's colonial industrialism in Korea was aimed at advancing Japanese policies and goals and not those of the Korean populace; colonization left Korea with distinct advantages over other developing countries at the end of World War Two. Korea was left with a base for industrializing, a high level of literacy, experience with modern commerce, and close ties to Japan. Japan's colonial heavy industrial plants were located primarily around the Yalu River in North Korea.^1 Because of this the North had an edge in industrialization. For many years the North had the fastest growth rates of the communist countries, and its cities were on par with those of Eastern Europe. It was not until the early 1970's that the South surpassed the North in levels of industrialization. Because most of the heavy industrial plants were either located in North Korea or destroyed by the Korean War the groundwork for industrialization that South Korea received from Japanese colonialism consisted mostly of social changes. During colonialism Korea's populace in increasing numbers moved to cities and became urbanized these new urbanites worked in factories and were used to the organization of modern commerce. The Japanese also let a small number of Koreans develop into a semi-elite. Although this group never held powerful positions many of them were educated in Japanese schools, and became either involved in the military or worked as businessmen, bureaucrats, lawyers, and doctors. This elite provided much of the leadership and framework for post World War Two Korean Government in Korea. They had an intimate knowledge of Japanese companies, language, organizational structure, and government. The Korean elites that emerged after the liberation of 1945 and helped steer Korea's economic policies under Park Chung Hee had an intimate knowledge of Japan. Some of them like Park had been educated in Japanese schools, some had worked for the Japanese, and nearly all of them spoke fluent Japanese. It was this closeness to Japan both geographically and culturally that made it natural for the Koreans to use the Japanese model of industrialization when Japan's economy
^1 Hydroelectric power to run steel mills. Hydroelectric power to run shipyards. Hydroelectric power to run other factories.
and here.
and here.
and here.
and Hyperwar.
Map 1.
Map 2
Map 3.
I have devoted over 40 pages to explaining logistics geography (infrastructure see Australia and the Japanese convoy routes (^^^) shown and described above, endurance limits as radii of action for US subs.) and how it physically shapes the Pacific War.
A bit of history.
Here is a summary of operating ITTL limits.
1. Whether the torpedoes achieve 50% PK/ship per salvo of 6 which has been my ITTL goal of the OTL actual result of 10.8 fish fired, the geography, the infrastructure and the basic outlines of what the operating US and Japanese air and sea forces do not change that much. The Inland sea is still almost inaccessible, the Sea of Japan remains out of reach and patrol endurance for a GATO in the East China Sea is still limited to 200-280 hours or until the torpedoes run out. The Mackerels off Borneo have less than 160 hours.
2. Kill tonnages sunk are limited by flow patterns and target priorities assigned. A further limiting factor is the number of submarines at sea. In 1942 (the year in which we are still ITTL.) the average of US submarines on patrol per month is about 20-25 boats. There are surge events (Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomon Islands, and Santa Cruz when the numbers approach 30-35 boats a month. Miracle torpedoes are not going to change the facts that 25 boats are hors de combat for over a year because their HOR engines have to be swapped for Fairbanks Morse or GM diesels.
3. The Japanese can cross ship rice, steel, coal and chemical nitrates from Korea up until 1945.
4. Modified coast defense and ASW program for the IJN involves a lot less steel patrol boat and a lot more wooden gunboat construction. Guess what the Koreans do well?
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The Japanese need 2 free slipways and 80,000 tonnes of ship hull metal and 2 years to achieve the changes I postulated. I checked these figures, three times to make sure. If 111 is broken up early and Shinano is floated out and delayed a year, they can do it. Nothing else has to change except the program to modify Ise and Hyuga. I knew that would be the show stopper and I searched desperately for some means to make that one happen. I found it in Kure. It can possibly happen. even by November 1943 which is the OTL conversion date if the conversion is a straightforward raze and superstructure flight deck replacement is done as illustrated.
The ITTL conversion allows for operating 16 to 24 Yokosuka (横須賀) D4Y Suisei (彗星 "Comet"/ US reporting name "Judy") dive bombers and or 4 to 6 Aiichi E13A (US reporting name "Jake") reconnaissance floatplanes.
Remember, these guys laid down or planned conversions of other ships into 15 "attack" aircraft carriers and finished 7 of them during the war. It only takes 3 more completions to make it all work out. I accounted for that one objective by shoving things back two years in the start dates for the Unryu program. That is how close the Japanese were to having 10 in the water instead of the 7 conversions and new builds that they finished and which the USN sank for them before they were shipbuilding kaput in January 1945.
McPherson
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The problem is these changes never got mentioned till now. If the Japanese were doing things differently then why have there not been any real changes to the fleet before October 1942 in your narrative? It does seem you want to do something and are forcing things to an end, handwaving in a POD retrospectively as a figleaf so you can say its not ASB or whim.
McPherson
Banned
Hmm. Call it a belated USN ONI discovery. Remember the Yamatos?
About the only things I've tried to change from OTL is the timing on the Unryus, the fate of #111, the delay on Shinano and the Ise and Hyuga which all of course are precisely within the time frame we have for Santa Cruz as to when the USN should discover it. I mean the British Malaya radar bolo is still hanging in the wind and the USN is just beginning to absorb that knowledge and disseminate that factoid. Imagine their surprise when they are lit up at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, or do you think that air battle (see map below with the features highlighted) was not a clue about it?
McP.
P.S. I cannot say I have not gone back and tweaked like this earlier, you know? Java Sea, Midway and a lot of the sub sinkings had to be back edited and cleaned up or modified, I mean, as an example, I sank the Asashio three different times in three different places and had to fix it four times to make everything fit in the narrative. I goof and I fix it.
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