Carriers Sink, Torpedoes Work: What US Strategy?

Tyg

One can't help but notice the commentary in Pacific War threads regarding the importance of American torpedo failures in delaying the defeat of Japan. Similarly, the progress of offensives against Japanese island holdings can only occur effectively when and if sufficient allied carriers are available for support. Fortunately, the US didn't lose any carriers at Pearl Harbor, and maintained an increasingly favorable balance throughout the war.

What if however, the US had to rely on the silent service (with effective torpedoes) to take the war to Japan, given the loss of carriers at Pearl and in initial battles like Coral Sea, or an attempted relief of Wake?

Now yes, I know the US will eventually build enough carriers to win through overwhelming force, even if via divine intervention the Japanese sink existing American carriers in the Pacific and any transferred from the Atlantic fleet. Still, if there are heavy losses of US carriers in the opening months of the war, 1942 and much of '43 will be spent relying on allied submarines to put the hurt on Japan, and raid into its waters.

Could working torpedoes mean an accelerated loss for Japan, even with a delayed island-hopping campaign that must wait on new construction?
 

TofuTanker

I don't really understand exactly what it is you're saying. You're asking what would happen if more American carriers were sunk in the early part of the war and submarines were used against Japanese carriers?
 

Mike Stearns

KyleB said:
I don't really understand exactly what it is you're saying. You're asking what would happen if more American carriers were sunk in the early part of the war and submarines were used against Japanese carriers?
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Partially. I think what he is really asaking if what the American submarine corp had reliable torpedoes from the outset of the war?
 

TofuTanker

Mike Stearns said:
Partially. I think what he is really asaking if what the American submarine corp had reliable torpedoes from the outset of the war?
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More merchants sunk, I guess. Then the US simply closes in on Japan faster and more bloodlessly, but I don't think that the surrender would happen any sooner than it did.
 

Tyg

KyleB said:
I don't really understand exactly what it is you're saying. You're asking what would happen if more American carriers were sunk in the early part of the war and submarines were used against Japanese carriers?
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My apologies.

It was a two-part question, "What if the United States had working torpedoes from the beginning in the Pacific War, but suffered early crippling losses of carriers?"

I don't expect that US submarines would be employed specifically against Japanese carriers, as they'd be better focused on merchant shipping, particularly tankers.

My question was whether and how the US would plan a strategy that had to rely on submarines as the primary weapon against Japan before sufficient new carriers were available to support offensives against Japanese-held islands.
 

Color-Copycat

Yeah, the US would still need to pursue an island hopping campaign to secure airfields for strategic bombing of the Home Islands. Forcing those Japanese strongholds to wither on the vine might help a bit in taking the islands, but I don't think a submarine blockade would end the Japanese fighting resolve as effectively as strategic bombing.
 

Markus

Banned
I guess the island hopping could get easier. less merchant ships mean more problems supplying and reinforcing the garrisons. also the japanese industry would be hit hard by the shortage of imported raw materials.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
With better torpedoes earlier in the war I would consider it possible that with the earlier losses of Japanese merchant ships it is entirely likely that they would change their strategy and thought regarding antisubmarine warfare since it would before apparent that something would have to be changed to increase their ability to fight the US.

The Imperial Japanese Navy starts an intense crash program updating its antisubmarine warfare tactics and US submarine losses rise by late 1943 that operations are suspended in the waters immediately around Japan. The island hoping campaign is slower since crucial garrisons are well supplied. The Shinano enters service as an aircraft carrier and is eventually sunk at the Crossroads nuclear bomb test site.
 

DuQuense

I think working Torps -Withor Without Carriers would shorten the war significantly............ Provided the US starts a program of targeting Tankers & Troopships from Early 1942.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Several thoughts. If the US has better torpedoes from the beginning, Japan will take losses. One of the main problems wasn't so much a lack of torpedoes, so much as a lack of boats, and some of the early war crews where not up to par with what they had to do.

Early on, expect a dozen or so extra merchant ships and transports sunk. Throw in another couple of destroyers and cruisers.

The big advantage will be when the US carriers attack with working torpedoes. An AU Coral Sea with the US having an extra carrier and working torpedoes for the torpedo planes will ruin Japanese southern movements.
 

Don Lardo

Hyperion said:
One of the main problems wasn't so much a lack of torpedoes, so much as a lack of boats, and some of the early war crews where not up to par with what they had to do.
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This.

As with every other WW2 navy, US pre-war training for sub commanders was lacking, especially the emphasis on tactics which, while worked well in theory, proved nearly unworkable in practice. Quite a bit of "dead wood" needed to be weeded out of the CO and PCO ranks once the war began.

There was a learning curve for the flotilla commanders ashore too. The US sub force wasn't immediately or solely directed at Japan's merchant traffic or oil tankers the weakest link in that traffic. The emphasis on commerce destruction didn't take place until late '43 and subs were still regularly diverted by Ultra decrypts on low odds intercept attempts against IJN warships throughout the war.

Working torpedoes and more Gatos in 1941 won't disembowel Japan's merchant fleet in 1942 as long as the men and the thinking commanding the boats and choosing their patrol areas remain the same.

The big advantage will be when the US carriers attack with working torpedoes. An AU Coral Sea with the US having an extra carrier and working torpedoes for the torpedo planes will ruin Japanese southern movements.
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Agreed, although it was more the case that the torpedo design hadn't kept up with the advances in the design of the plane dropping it. It had worked well enough with a lower plane flying at a lower altitude.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Don Lardo said:
This.Agreed, although it was more the case that the torpedo design hadn't kept up with the advances in the design of the plane dropping it. It had worked well enough with a lower plane flying at a lower altitude.
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Really US torpedoes across the board where bad early on. Heck, the US Navy had a perfect chance to smash a Japanese invasion convoy using nothing but 4 old destroyers, and the majority of the torpedoes the tin cans used didn't work.

Wouldn't have stopped the Japanese advance, but would have sure slowed them down a few days. I'll send you the link if you don't know what I'm talking about.
 

Don Lardo

Hyperion said:
Really US torpedoes across the board where bad early on.
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I'm in complete agreement with you regarding US torpedoes. Thanks to various institutional and systemic failures they were pretty much utter shit.

However, one of the many problems with the aerial version was that it was being dropped at a faster speed and greater height it had originally been designed for. I'm not suggesting it was a good torpedo design before that, I'm am suggesting that using it outside it's original performance envelope didn't help matters. especially when we remember that aerial-dropped weapons - if they had survived the drop - were going to get more angled impacts where the detonator worked than sub-launched weapons would.
 

Byzer Bob

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Bearcat

Banned
Don Lardo said:
However, one of the many problems with the aerial version was that it was being dropped at a faster speed and greater height it had originally been designed for. I'm not suggesting it was a good torpedo design before that, I'm am suggesting that using it outside it's original performance envelope didn't help matters. especially when we remember that aerial-dropped weapons - if they had survived the drop - were going to get more angled impacts where the detonator worked than sub-launched weapons would.
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Advances in AA gunnery and the speed of fighters were changing how ships needed to be attacked. A plane like the Devastator was a pretty solid platform in 1936. By 1941, it was perilously vulnerable to the new, faster fighters.

New planes soon arrived, but now you had, as you point out, another problem: your torpedoes were designed to be dropped by something like a TBD, flying very low, in a straight line, at something ridiculously slow like 90 knots. Dropping them at higher speeds caused them to break apart when they hit the water and such.

Later in the war, the Mark 13 could be dropped at something like 400 knots, and from some thousands of feet of altitude. So it became a viable weapon again. However, the increasing lethality and speed of fighters, and of shipboard AA defenses, quickly outstripped even those numbers.

Postwar, the US experimented with a homing torpedo, delivered by a short range missile - the AGM-41 Petrel. But again, defenses quickly outmatched it. The days of using heavy air-launched torpedoes for ship attack had passed.
 

Markus

Banned
Hyperion said:
Really US torpedoes across the board where bad early on.
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But not equally bad. The plane dropped Mk.13 did work fine against Shoho at Coral Sea.
edit: The old torps still used by the WW1-vintage S-class boats were IIRC without any flaws.
 

HMS Warspite

With torpedoes that did work, the USN would most likley not have increased its destructive power over the IJN, but more likely over the Japanese Commerce and supply convoy's, as this was their primary target. USN submariones in the start of the war rarely sighted and attacked large IJN surfaceships, simply because they were deployed in the richer grounds of the coast of Japan and in the region's were Japanese supplylines were. IJN large warships mainly operated elsewhere. With the right target, namely the Enemy lift capacity of cargo and supply, the war would likely have been a bit shorter, if the effect of this all would be starvation of Japan. This too would make its mighty navy less problematic, as it would also be starved of fuel.
 
Talwar

Talwar

Julius Vogel said:
Didn't someone (Calbear?) run a brief TL last year on the "what if the torpedoes worked better?" limb of the question?
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I think you're right, but don't recall the particulars.

If I can take the thread on a tangent - if all the carriers get sunk early on, does this change how the USN designs/deploys the next generation of carriers?
 
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