Luckier IJN at Leyte

I don't think that the Japanese naval forces around the Philippines could have achieved anywhere near the decisive success that they wanted, the IJN did have some luck at Leyte, managing to get a fleet near to the landing fleet without encountering the USN carriers. Then getting another fleet to get the drop on a group of escort carriers when their ships slipped out of the Sibuyan Sea when it wasn't covered.

While the Japanese ultimately proved doomed, how many other mistakes could have been made by US forces to allow for some damaging looses to the landing fleet around the Philippines?

Or rather if the Japanese Sho plan had gone off just as planned what would the USN have had to have done wrong to allow for minor IJN success?
 
In one of the previous discussions of this topic, someone said that the landing fleet was accompanied by a lot of destroyers. They compared the Yamato and its compatriots arriving in the landing zone to three bears facing a pack of wolves and how the Japanese would be doomed eventually.

Would be an epic fight, although the torpedo punch destroyers carry might make it a short one.
 

CalBear

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Luckier?

That the Yamato and as many surface combatants survived Leyte as did iss close to the 1st Order Miracle. That Admiral Kurita had a single ship escape Samar is remarkable, given the huge number of American aircraft able to strike at him from the Taffy formations and the fact that TF 38.1 had aircraft over the battle scene within three and a half hours of the start of the engagement.

If Japan had had just the normal breaks they would have never gotten a surface ship to within 50 miles of the landing zones. For that matter the hit that managed to sink the Princeton was rather remarkable, ONE D4Y3 gets through the air defenses and manages to hit the CVL with a single bomb that starts a fire AND disables to sprinkler system?

There were more than 60 destroyers in range to make attacks against the Japanese, had they attempted to proceed to the anchorage. These ships mounted well over 1,000 torpedoes, a 5% hit ratio would have been enough to sink Kurita's forces a couple times over.
 
How much more luck could IJN ask for?:confused: They had Halsey ignoring a captured copy of the plan & chasing CVs he knew were empty...:rolleyes: And leaving no covering force...:rolleyes:
 

sharlin

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I agree that the IJN was bloody lucky as it was, where it went wrong for them was their lookouts somehow mistaking the CVEs for full blown carriers and fearing that he was going to be overwhelmed before the fleet could form up into a battle formation Kurita ordered a general attack which turned the fleet into a madly charging mob which left the Yamato and Nagato far behind as they could not keep up with the Kongo's, cruisers and destroyers.

The result was a mob, not a fleet attacking. Also the IJN's gunnery was shockingly bad on the day, the Yamato may have hit once, the Kongo once, the Nagato once but that was it, even their cruisers and destroyers gunnery was poor when it mattered.
 
I agree that the IJN was bloody lucky as it was, where it went wrong for them was their lookouts somehow mistaking the CVEs for full blown carriers and fearing that he was going to be overwhelmed before the fleet could form up into a battle formation Kurita ordered a general attack which turned the fleet into a madly charging mob which left the Yamato and Nagato far behind as they could not keep up with the Kongo's, cruisers and destroyers.

The result was a mob, not a fleet attacking. Also the IJN's gunnery was shockingly bad on the day, the Yamato may have hit once, the Kongo once, the Nagato once but that was it, even their cruisers and destroyers gunnery was poor when it mattered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taffy_3
Look at the figures of ships involved and look at the casualities. 3 US destroyers and 4 US Destroyer escorts against 4 japanese battleships, 6 heavy and 2 japanese cruisers along with 11 destroyers shouldnt really end up with the japanese loosing half of their heavy cruisers sunk and the remaining damaged.
 
I don't think that the Japanese naval forces around the Philippines could have achieved anywhere near the decisive success that they wanted, the IJN did have some luck at Leyte, managing to get a fleet near to the landing fleet without encountering the USN carriers. Then getting another fleet to get the drop on a group of escort carriers when their ships slipped out of the Sibuyan Sea when it wasn't covered.

While the Japanese ultimately proved doomed, how many other mistakes could have been made by US forces to allow for some damaging looses to the landing fleet around the Philippines?

Or rather if the Japanese Sho plan had gone off just as planned what would the USN have had to have done wrong to allow for minor IJN success?


The Japanese Plan SHO-GO was a traditional one shot plan, with all available forces thrown in a futile all or nothing campaign. The Imperial Command never thought of defeating the Allied Advance completely, as the overwhelming power of the Allies was all too clear to them, but given Japanese traditions, the nation would go down fighting to the last breath. What better than to use all forces available at the time, with just unsuitable units left behind. (Uncompleted naval vessels mainly, mostly nes aircraft carriers with no airgroup yet ann small forces for the ASW roles.)

The mistakes the USN made in the OTL were calculated for by the Japanese, as they knew Vice Admiral Halsey was in overall command and his character was well known. For this purpose alone the Northern Force was created as a decoy, with the four available Aircraft Carriers. It was hopend for Halsey would take teh bait and draw away all aircraft carriers to the North, leaving the large convoys of transports unguarded by hit Fleet, appart from surface ships and escort carriers. (The CVE's had only the primary role of providing fire support for landings and were not expecting a confrontation with shipping.) This all wa common knowledge to the Japanese.

What more could the USA have done wrong? Actually not much, as the forces involved were flexible enough to counter most sorts of Japanese opposition. Halsey could have gone away hunting gosts, but the firepower left at the beaches was more than enough to counter whatever was to come. Taffy 3 was one of these elements and as an supportgroup, it wea bascially expendable, as long as the trooptransports were left unharmed. So with the three Escort Carrier Groups present, Japanese surface attack groups always had to fight a sort of fight, they were not designed for, in this case dodging aircraft attacks, even when the aircraft themselves were mostly armed with landattack weapons and not anti shipping weapons. If Kurita somehow had destroyed Taffy 3 completely, there still were eleven other CVE's nearby of Taffy 2 and Taffy 1, with more than enough aircraft to make his life very unpleasant. His OTL reaction was the right one: withdraw and leave the battlescene in the hopeless situation the Japanese were in.

Tactical errors the USN could have made were many, but the overall plan was sound. Kinkaid commanded the forces near the beaches, while Halsey was in general command of the fast Carrier forces. The Japanese were not longer capable of stopping the Allied Advance, as the Allies were by now too powerful, with more ships and men available, than the Japanese could counter.

Tactical mistakes the US could have made were the more spreading out of the Taffy's, making it less easy top support eachother directly. In the end, it would not have mattered though, as Kurita could not press home his attack, due to the agressive counterattack by Taffy 3 elements. He thereby lost precious time, which cost him a (Phyrric) victory.
Another mistake could have been made by local commander Oldendorff at the Southern Flank. His advance deployement of PT boats and a DesRon in the Strait of Surigao already slowed the advance of the Southern Force as well as Force C, by removing the sting out of it (Only one damaged BB, one damaged CA and one undamaged DD got through, while one BB and three DD's were eitehr crippled, or sunk). Had Kinkaid not deployed these foreward forces in the Strait, his main forces would not have been warned in advance, but he had plenty of ships already, so the outcome was always the same. (although the IJN might have caused more damage in return.)

Just to name a few things.
 
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