Can’t. Japan doesn’t have the resources to design one themselves and in 1936 there isn’t a gun on the market in that caliber better than the Type 96 except the Bofors - and the Japanese proved incapable of building the gun to a reasonable quality.
Can’t. Japanese shipbuilders were being outcompeted by European, even despite massive government subsidies. That’s a big reason so much of their trade was carried on foreign shippers.
I'll echo your sentiment that "Just make more and better things" and "Just get a better economy" is the least creative suggestions for improvement compared to shifts in priorities, leadership, or doctrine.
What the A6M needed from the very start was a nice good 1200 horsepower engine like the Kinsei. Maneuverability is the least important attribute for a fighter plane; speed is life.
If it helps this is a link to the last thread on the subject.
That got me curious so I googled the cost of the Long Lance (20,000 yen) and the battleship Yamato (250 million yen). That's 12,500 torpedoes per battleship. Non-dud torpedo hit rates I don't think were better than about 3% at the best of times, which if so would translate to about 375 hits for a number of torpedoes equal to the expense of a Yamato.
Yeah... note that you can't really make such a comparison. If you want to compare, check something like "main batery shells required to sink a BB vs torpedoes". One torpedo can, with very little luck, ruin the day even of a BB (hello Bismarck!). Italian torpedoes would regulary send RN ships, even cruisers, straight into dry dock with single hits (italian torps were very good). You can hit a BB with a dozen heavy shells or more and it will still keep floating and even (poorly) fighting. You hit it with 2-3 torps and it's bye bye HMS Barham... 1v1 a torp is better than a shell. The problem is scoring the hits. And that's where the IJN failed: they were far too optimistic in their assessment. They saw the torpedo as not just a very dangerous weapon but war-winning one almost on it's own...
Lay down 4 Nagatos in 1916-17 rather than 2 Nagato and 2 Tosas 3 years later. At the WNT this is 70% not 60%.
I was pointing out the cost equivalent. They had capacity to have 4 ships on slips at any one time although Nagato was built in a drydock so there is little extra capacity. Limiting factor will be turrets, guns and armour plate. I'm sure private industry will jump in if the Navy throws more money and you may have 6 'post-Jutland' ships complete by Nov 1921. In the years ahead, you can lay down more Kamikaze and Mutsuki class destroyers and a greater number of Type A cruisers, perhaps skipping the 5000ton type in the late WW1 period for 'Ocean Scouts' proto-Furutakas perhaps 10 or 11 by the early 1920s.
If you think the US and Britain would allow that I have a bridge to sell you. OTL the Japanese had to burn all their political capital just to keep Mutsu.
What private industry? The Japanese shipbuilding industry had just barely gotten off the ground in the late 1910s, it was in no shape to be helping out more than it did.
Or nice fat lands with nice juicy resources... /flashbacks of Civilization III
Pretty much this. Any increase in numbers will have to be very limited. OTL, even the tank industry suffered with the drains of limited steel to the navy. Pretty sure one could increase the numbers of convoy escorts and maybe destroyers, but cruisers (specially the beasts the IJN loved) and BBs?... doubt it.
