Better Japanese Submarine policy?

.. Of course, that also means the Saratoga's never put out of commission, so you could see 4 carriers at Midway, which might mean 4 carriers finishing Midway if they end up split into two groups of two.

It bears repeating; the Sara was twice removed from action by sub attack, and another was sunk entirely from sub attack. So, two carriers would be back into the the equation into November.
 
It bears repeating; the Sara was twice removed from action by sub attack, and another was sunk entirely from sub attack. So, two carriers would be back into the the equation into November.

OT: Carl, are you the same Carl Schwamberger who worked on alternate PL/PB counters and scenarios? I've been revisiting the Imagiative Strategist website the past couple of days.
 
Carl Schwamberger said:
It bears repeating; the Sara was twice removed from action by sub attack, and another was sunk entirely from sub attack. So, two carriers would be back into the the equation into November.
And I wonder what happens if IJN boats increase mining, especially at Pearl. Yorktown comes back after Coral Sea & is mined. Maybe blocks the channel, maybe not. Either way, she's out of action for Midway, & until the channel & approaches are swept, so are Enterprise & Hornet.:eek:

Same could apply to Sara: she might be missed by torpedo (tho probably not, since CVs would still be a high-priority target); she might instead be mined leaving Puget Sound, or entering Pearl, or off Guadalcanal...
 
One thing that might help Japan submarine policy is to have someone realise that all those mini-subs they were so focussed on were a really bad idea.

They even had an idea that a couple of special cruisers could drop these things off the back in front of the advancing enemy fleet to cause havoc, in the "big fleet battle" they were so focussed on.

The mini subs, and the fiddling about with carrier subs and carrier cruisers etc were a sheer waste of resources. The same can be said of the German beiber(?) type as well.

Maybe have a test exercise where a few pre-placed prototypes futilely attempt to get hits on an "aggressor" fleet attempting to cross their patrol line?.

The only mini subs that really provided a useful bang for the bucks invested were the Italian "chariot" design, and less so for the UK X-craft. Both types concentrated on placement of demolition charges on targets tied up in harbour rather than firing of full-sized torpedoes at under-way ships.

Japan does have a "Ninja" tradition - so perhaps some staff officer can have the idea of using the failed (post the exercise) miniature vehicles to deliver swimmer charges instead (and this being Japan, come the war "special duty" suicide missions where the whole mini-sub does an X-craft type explosion under the keel, but without the need to have drop-off charges fitted..).
 

NothingNow

Banned
One thing that might help Japan submarine policy is to have someone realise that all those mini-subs they were so focussed on were a really bad idea.

Not really. Midget Subs made sense in the Pacific. They're a way to get a pair of Type 97s up a constrained waterway you can't fit a fleet boat in. They were pretty survivable too, when in use both by the IJN and pretty much every other navy around.

They even had an idea that a couple of special cruisers could drop these things off the back in front of the advancing enemy fleet to cause havoc, in the "big fleet battle" they were so focussed on.
That was just Kitakami, which was only used to test out the suicide submarines.
 
Subs or no subs?

It's a fairly pointless question, because if Imperial Japan had never embarked on building submarrines/never been sold submarrines post Great War, then she may have never gone to war in the Pacific because she wouldn't have been a 'Great Naval power'...

...Or rather the Imperial Navy would have had far less say in many matters in the lead up to milliterisation from 1935-1940, hence the 'Advance South Policy' may never have got off the ground.

It's a fairly big butterfly to get rid of the submersible branch of the Imperial Japanese Navy, even if it didn't have the prestige of the other vessels of the fleet.


I actually think that Imperial Japans doctrine for submarrine usage was about as good as she was going to get. On the procurement side of things, there was a lot of effort wasted in producing smaller submarrines and of far too many types. The admiralty should have concentrated on the large and medium ocean going designs, and used them more or less as they were used, but perhaps been a lot more flexible in creating a seperate form of co-ordination for submersible use, rather than viewing them as an extention of the surface fleet and relaxing engagement rules.

In terms of developing a commerce raiding submersible fleet, I doubt it would have Imperial Japan any favours, nor would have it advanced their war effort significantly.


While the midgit subs Imperial Japan produced were technically capable, they also didn't do much damage anywhere. I can only think of the Sydney harbour incident off the top of my head where they were successful.

Part of the trouble is that the Japanese developed them partly as a 'submersible torpedo boat', and hence thought that it may be good to use them in close in coastal defence. Hence many were lost unaccounted for. In reality the best use of such vessels in the era was harbour infiltration, yet following becoming the 'masters of the pacific' there were very few harbours they were left in range of that they could infiltrate.

Hence the ~300 midgit submarrines Imperial Japan ended up building over the war years ended up being a waste of resources overall.
 
OT: Carl, are you the same Carl Schwamberger who worked on alternate PL/PB counters and scenarios? I've been revisiting the Imagiative Strategist website the past couple of days.

Yes. Have a question? PM or email me. I still dabble in the PB/AIW scenario thing. To little time to accomplish much :(
 
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