A Question About Plan Orange

I've noticed that around here Plan Orange doesn't have a very good reputation and I was wondering why that is. I thought I had read that it formed the basis of the US plans for WW2 in the Pacific and that while outdated in the details it was still valid as an overall plan, but I haven't found many good sources on it. So can someone please sum up Plan Orange and explain why it's not considered to be very good?
 
The American war planners failed to appreciate that technological advances in submarines and naval aviation had made the doctrine obsolete. In particular, the American planners didn't understand that aircraft could easily sink battleships, nor that Japan might put the U.S. battleship force (the Battle Line) out of action at a stroke, as in fact it did at Pearl Harbor.

Just added to the Wikipedia article of this.
 
I've noticed that around here Plan Orange doesn't have a very good reputation and I was wondering why that is. I thought I had read that it formed the basis of the US plans for WW2 in the Pacific and that while outdated in the details it was still valid as an overall plan, but I haven't found many good sources on it. So can someone please sum up Plan Orange and explain why it's not considered to be very good?

For a quick overview, check out these two links. The main problem with War Plan Orange was that it would have exposed the U.S. Pacific Fleet to prolonged air attack from island-based bombers and small surface forces as it sailed west to relieve the Philippines, Guam, or both. The Pacific Fleet, after having undergone attrition across half the Pacific, would be vulnerable to the "decisive battle" that was predicted by Japanese planners.

In short, it would have given the Japanese the initiative.
 
The primary flaw of the original Warplan Orange was the lack of enough support in the erea, where the battle was to take place, namely the Phillippines. There were hardly enough airbases to support the lfeet in action, while the harbor and dockyard facillities in the region could not support a large fleet. Only far away Pearl Harbor was capable of doing so, but that base was too far away to be effective.

Much of the plan was focused on what the enemy (Japan) would do as planned, which was by coincidence the case in reality, since the IJN also had a warplan, simmilar to the US Warplan Orange. The only big "if" was that the IJN was planning to fight closer to its homeland, than the USN had planned.

Basically the essentials of Warplan Orange were good, namely that the Japanese had to react on any US advance in the direction of the Phillippines in case of war. The territory of the Phillippines was too close to be confortable for the Japanese, as the geographical possitioning made it strategically powerfull enough to block the entire southern acces of Japan from the rest of the world. In WW2 the Warplan was effectually excecuted in the US assault on the Phillippines and the resulting Battle of Leyte, although with much more modern means of Naval Aviation and submarines.
 

Bearcat

Banned
The general outline of Orange was fine when it was first conceived, before WW1.

After WW1, the Japanese fleet was far stronger, and Japan got the Mandates. The whole strategic situation was different.

By the 30s, while no one had figured out what to do instead, it was common knowledge in the Navy that the US did not have adequate forces to relieve the Philippines.

No one wanted to be the one to officially declare, 'the PI are to be written off in the event of war'.... but everyone knew it.

I know its an article of faith among some that the USN would charge Lemming-like into the jaws of the Japanese.... but it just was never going to happen that way in 1941. Carriers were seen as too vulnerable to land-based aircraft, our battle line was too slow, and most importantly, the advanced bases, oilers and other logistic requirements for a massive Pacific offensive did not exist.
 
To be fair, the versions of Plan Orange that had the USN racing across the Pacific to the Philippines had largely been abandoned by about 1921, except for a brief revival under one CNO under the influence of some army & political types with skewed views on strategy around 1926 or so.

Certainly, the versions of Plan Orange in effect by the mid-1930s projected a war lasting at least 2 years, dictated largely by the time requirements of mobilization and building all the supporting assets such as transports, fleet auxiliaries, lighter combatants, advanced base 'kits', and the trained personnel necessary to use them. Those versions divided the war into 5 basic phases, the Marshalls, the Carolines, the Marianas, the Philippines, and a blockade of Japan to force submission, with the projected decisive fleet actions occurring in phases 3 or 4. The forces on hand, including reserves and other stuff that would become available upon initial mobilization were only considered adequate to start operations in the Marshalls, with the timetables for those operations projecting a start at least 60-90 days after mobilization.

By about 1930, the USN planners considered aviation to be a vital component of the war, with suitability for airbases for flying boats or land-based planes being a major consideration in targeting and obtaining additional carriers through conversion of suitable merchant ships a big part of mobilization planning.

Proposals to forward base major fleet elements in the Philippines in case of a crisis were generally rejected post-1921 as sticking the fleet too far out on a limb.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Subic bay was not big enough or anywhere near developed enough to put a major part of the Pacific Fleet there. There would have had to have been a major build up of it and the supporting air fields and the like. The US was going to give the Phillipines its independence soon so no way was that kind of expenditure going to happen- not after WW1 anyway.

The Brits tried to convince us to station a large part of the Pacific Fleet at Singapore late in the 30's as it became clear that the Germans would be a major threat and so would the Japanese at the same time. And the Royal Navy was not big enough to handle both. Needless to say that would not have happened either from a political view or from a logistical view.
 
Subic bay was not big enough or anywhere near developed enough to put a major part of the Pacific Fleet there. There would have had to have been a major build up of it and the supporting air fields and the like. The US was going to give the Phillipines its independence soon so no way was that kind of expenditure going to happen- not after WW1 anyway.

The Brits tried to convince us to station a large part of the Pacific Fleet at Singapore late in the 30's as it became clear that the Germans would be a major threat and so would the Japanese at the same time. And the Royal Navy was not big enough to handle both. Needless to say that would not have happened either from a political view or from a logistical view.

Even before the WNT, proposals to build an advanced base in the Philippines or on Guam were generally shot down, for a number of reasons, one of the most important being that losing such a base would leave the fleet elements there in a precarious situation. Furthermore, Congress didn't want to really pay for anything, let alone the massive naval base & surrounding fortress necessary, while a force large & sufficiently supplied to hold enough of the Manila Bay area to make it a safe anchorage until relief could arrive from the US (all the suitable anchorage areas, such as Subic, Cavite, Marivales were overlooked by heights that heavy artillery could be emplaced on by an attacker, which would make the anchorages and inner defenses untenable, like what happened to the Russians at Port Arthur once the Japanese took 203-Meter Hill) would have exceeded the entire peacetime establishment of the US Army. Compounding it was the fact that dividing or isolating a large part of the fleet was considered doctrinally unsound.

The institutional knowledge left over from those studies is more or less what led to the British proposal to base major US fleet elements at Singapore out of hand, as even if the logistical could be resolved, with the world situation that existed when the proposal was made (IIRC late 1940 or early '41), USN strategists saw it as impossible to sufficiently reinforce & resupply Singapore in time, which would leave any fleet elements based there in a very dangerous trap, as pretty much happened to most of the Allied surface combatants committed to that area in 1941 & early 1942.
 
Top