More realistic handling of hindsight-tastic Pacific War AH

There's a rather popular group of AH scenarios with PODs based on some favored faction magically gaining hindsight from years in the future and thus gaining an advantage. At its most extreme, this hindsight from the future is provided by actual time travelers, with less ASB versions relying on Gary Stu self-inserts or extreme eureka moments.

One popular version of this is giving this hindsight to (insert Gary Stu or actual Japanese officer here) and having that officer gain undue influence over Japanese decision making before the Pacific War. Common things that then happen, are the Yamatos being canceled in favor of more carriers, getting rid of the old battleships, revamping pilot training, heavy research being pumped into radar and more advanced aircraft, building a lot more merchants and tankers, etc. Doctrine also changes with much greater focus on commerce warfare, logistics, and hindsight powered political and diplomatic behavior. Then inevitably, the Japanese fleet of 10 or more fast carriers with fully developed fleet train and experience in underway replenishment still ends up showing up on December 7, 1941 to attack a U.S. Pacific Fleet with 8 old battleships and 3 carriers based in Hawaii.

My question is what changes in the other powers can be expected from these massive and sweeping changes starting in the mid 30s? What would the U.S.. Britain, and others make of Japan scrapping its battlefleet in favor of lots of carriers and would this change their pre-WWII naval thinking and buildup? Can Japan hide its sudden investment into invariably fruitful lines of research and training and what would the other powers make of it if not? And just how much magic is needed to invest the Gary Stu with this much authority and how will the other elements of the Japanese power structure react to these changes?
 
Here's my take on this:

USA: Additions to the carrier force with a possible overhaul of War Plan Orange. They won't be scrapping the entire Battle Line anytime soon, though.

UK: All the more reason to build that naval base in Singapore. To go with that, an expansion of the Navy in accordance with the defence budget allocated (considering that the UK may have to deal with a re-militarized Germany and a reduxed IJN) and sped up radar development.

Soviet Union: Stalin's too busy murdering his officer corps to care, so either nothing changes or things go south real fast for the Soviet Union when the dung hits the fan.

By the way, when you say 'cancelling the Yamato', do you mean total cancellation or class conversion to that of a carrier?
 
By the way, when you say 'cancelling the Yamato', do you mean total cancellation or class conversion to that of a carrier?

Since most of these scenarios are like playing a game of HOI, we are talking a start circa 1936, so no Yamatos at all. All Japanese heavy slips are devoted to carriers and carriers alone.
 
Since most of these scenarios are like playing a game of HOI, we are talking a start circa 1936, so no Yamatos at all. All Japanese heavy slips are devoted to carriers and carriers alone.

Damn, that sucks. I was looking forward to a fleet of Shinano-class carriers or better still - a fleet of Yamato-based hybrid battlecarriers!:)
 
Damn, that sucks. I was looking forward to a fleet of Shinano-class carriers or better still - a fleet of Yamato-based hybrid battlecarriers!:)

Hey, we are talking hindsight, not rule of cool.:D Shinano was a terrible carrier and battlecarriers... The general idea is to mass produce a lot of Shokakus and later, Taihos since they were the best actual carrier designs with hindsight.
 
This is a terrific thread, but since you're talking about dismissing away the battleship faction of the various navies in question, this thread really should be in ASB. Sorry.:eek:
 
Battleships were an important part of a balanced WW2 fleet until late in the war, scrapping them before the war reduces fighting power rather than the opposite.
 
There is no point scrapping existing battleships. In fact modernising the existing ten ships is worth doing because it prevents any news about Japan's plans being revealed and as Riain notes gives you extra strength especially at night. Japan cannot lay down any extra carriers before 1st January 1937 without breaking the terms of the Washington and London Treaties. However, the modernisation of the battleships might be different if they are intended to survive air attack by day and fight surface forces in the dark.

The change comes in 1937 as the battleship modernisation finishes. Now Japan still builds ships behind screens but they are aircraft carriers rather than battleships. It might be intelligent to make all the same statements as OTL about “not building battleships of 50,000 tons” and perhaps sell the Yamato plans to American intelligence. As noted the Shokaku design looks fairly satisfactory. However, if we have complete hindsight, we know that the TDS of Shokaku was defeated by submarine torpedoes (800 pounds of torpex) while the slightly wider Taiho design did not suffer major flooding (at least initially :)). Thus we may build slightly larger ships with angled decks, steam catapults (the IJN carriers already had lights to assist in landing) and deck edge lifts (which again pushes you towards larger ships).

Apart from the Yamatos, the other ships to disappear from the programme will be the training cruisers. If we want to be creative, we could design a class of light fleet carriers which could still be named Katori, Kashima etc. and would allow training with hangars for class rooms.

Of course none of this will actually enable Japan to win the Pacific War (only producing nuclear weapons could achieve victory). However, it will have give the Japanese confidence that they can handle the US Pacific Fleet during 1941-2, so there is no need for Pearl Harbor.
 
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Battleships were an important part of a balanced WW2 fleet until late in the war, scrapping them before the war reduces fighting power rather than the opposite.

At least, the Ises and Fusos are pretty much worthless and not worth modernizing with hindsight. And while fast battleships are useful parts of a balanced fleet, it's highly arguable whether they are worth their cost. Retaining the Kongos and Nagatos, maybe, building new ones definitely no for a power as limited in industry and wealth as Japan.

The change comes in 1937 as the battleship modernisation finishes. Now Japan still builds ships behind screens but they are aircraft carriers rather than battleships. It might be intelligent to make all the same statements as OTL about “not building battleships of 50,000 tons” and perhaps sell the Yamato plans to American intelligence. As noted the Shokaku design looks fairly satisfactory. However, if we have complete hindsight, we know that the TDS of Shokaku was defeated by submarine torpedoes (800 pounds of torpex) while the slightly wider Taiho design did not suffer major flooding (at least initially :)). Thus we may build slightly larger ships with angled decks, steam catapults (the IJN carriers already had lights to assist in landing) and deck edge lifts (which again pushes you towards larger ships).

Heh, that's more hindsight that most of these scenarios posit.:) Think of it as starting a new game of HOI in 1936 as Japan...most of the authors do. So do you think Japan could actually hide that it is completely revamping its fleet composition and has stopped building battleships?
 
So do you think Japan could actually hide that it is completely revamping its fleet composition and has stopped building battleships?
If the other countries are sufficiently enamored with their battleships the Japanese building carriers instead of battleships might even make them more complacent since they will be way ahead of the Japanese in the area that matters to them, battleships.
 

Commissar

Banned
Since most of these scenarios are like playing a game of HOI, we are talking a start circa 1936, so no Yamatos at all. All Japanese heavy slips are devoted to carriers and carriers alone.

You do realized there were more Battleship fights than Carrier fights and pound per pound, Battleship barrages delivered more ordinance, alot more accurately, and cheaply than Airpower ever did.

That is not to say the Yamatos were a good investment, they were a fundamentally flawed design. What Japan needed was an equivalent to the Iowas.
 
You do realized there were more Battleship fights than Carrier fights and pound per pound, Battleship barrages delivered more ordinance, alot more accurately, and cheaply than Airpower ever did.

That is not to say the Yamatos were a good investment, they were a fundamentally flawed design. What Japan needed was an equivalent to the Iowas.

What in the world are you talking about? There were only 2 battleship fights in all of the Pacific War, and at the later one at Surigao, the battleship was practically superfluous. Japan neither faces North Sea conditions, nor does it have an independent airforce stripping its naval air arm, nor does it really need heavy shore bombardment. And the Iowa may have been a good ship, but that's only because of the massive amount of industry and wealth sunk into it. For the price of an Iowa, you could get 3 carriers and the capital slip you built it in could have nearly built 2 carriers in the same time. That still doesn't make the class bad, but it's certainly not worth it for a nation of such limited wealth and industry and with only 4 capital construction slips like Japan.

In any case, that's not the point of this thread. This thread is on how other nations would react to Japan suddenly behaving as if a human player took over in a game of HOI.
 
At least, the Ises and Fusos are pretty much worthless and not worth modernizing with hindsight. And while fast battleships are useful parts of a balanced fleet, it's highly arguable whether they are worth their cost. Retaining the Kongos and Nagatos, maybe, building new ones definitely no for a power as limited in industry and wealth as Japan.

Even with hindsight these BBs were rebuilt in the early 30s to give perhaps 10 years of further service, and I don't think the decision to do so is unreasonable. Japan had signed threaties which limited what it and its rivals could do so I can't find fault with maximising combat power within stated limits, almost a decade before planes were invented with enough power to sink capital ships.
 
Even with hindsight these BBs were rebuilt in the early 30s to give perhaps 10 years of further service, and I don't think the decision to do so is unreasonable. Japan had signed threaties which limited what it and its rivals could do so I can't find fault with maximising combat power within stated limits, almost a decade before planes were invented with enough power to sink capital ships.

Yeah, but an extra 10 years of service doing what? Occasionally wasting fuel steaming in the Inner Sea? With hindsight, those things are too slow for nightfights, or AA escort for carriers, and Japan didn't need them for shore bombardment duty, and couldn't have afforded the fuel if they did need them, and that same hindsight also confirms that aircraft will be able to sink capital ships easily by the time Japan was ready to go to war. And since we are talking a take over circa 1936, treaty limits aren't really an issue. Japan was already not going to sign the Second London Treaty, and was planning to dump on all treaty limitations with the Yamatos and heavy cruisers. It's only an issue to the extent that it is more difficult to hide these treaty violations as opposed to the ones they were hiding OTL.

Well, how would the other powers act if they were taken over by human players too?

:DEveryone spams carriers, destroyers, and shipping. Military buildups are started as soon as the game allows and are timed to come to fruition at the time the game allows you to attack/the time the game allows your enemies to attack. But that's no fun.
 
OTL there was a debate in the IJN on building battleships versus aircraft around 1935-6. The two advocates of air power were Vice-Admirals Takahashi Sankichi, class 29, commander of the Combined Fleet and the slightly younger Yamamoto Isoroku, class 32, commander of Naval Air Command. Their strongest opponent was probably Nakamura Ryozo, class 27, Commander of Navy Shipbuilding although there were many other battleship supporters. It may not have helped that Takahashi and Yamamoto disliked each other because Takahashi had been involved in a purge of pro-treaty officers including Yamamoto's class mate and friend Hori Teikichi, so lets start with some deal that allows Hori to remain in active service. We could also assume that Koga Mineichi, who OTL assured everyone that the fleet could defend itself with AA guns, was slightly more intelligent.

However, our best chance for a plausible POD might be the February 26 Incident of 1936 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26_Incident. The planners of the coup intended to assassinate the Prime Minister Okada Keisuke, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Saitō Makoto and the Grand Chamberlain Suzuki Kantarō, who were all retired admirals. The plotters might have expected a strong reaction from the Navy especially as their success would have led to a Japan preparing much more for a war with the USSR and thus lower naval spending. So let us assume that they decide that they must make a decapitating strike at the Navy's leadership perhaps by throwing a grenade into a meeting of the Navy Councillors and also by killing Vice-Admiral Yonai, class 29, who commanded the closest navy base at Yokosuka. Here is a list of the Navy Councillors at that time with their graduation class in brackets: Minister of the Navy Osumi Mineo (24), Chief of the Naval General Staffs Prince Hiroyasu,Yamamoto Eisuke (24), Kobayashi Seizo (26), Nomura Kichisaburo (26), Suetsugu Nobumasa (27), Nakamura Ryozo (27) and Nagano Osami (28). Takahashi Sankichi had been a protegé of the Prince and would surely react strongly to an attack on him. OTL Yonai reacted while Prince Hiroyasu hesitated. The Emperor and everyone else praised Yonai and Takahashi was retired in 1939. If Takahashi brings his fleet quickly into Tokyo Bay and plays a major part in suppressing the revolt, he might with luck end up as Chief of the Naval General Staffs.with Yamamoto, Hori and Shimada (a submariner who turned against battleships from 1941 at least) perhaps promoted into some of the dead men's shoes.

What could Japan have built? Adding the light displacements of the two Yamatos to the two Shokakus suggests that six aircraft carriers of about 28,000 tons light, 30,000 tons standard and 37,000 tons full load displacement each could have been built with Taiho's hull dimensions, speed and range. There might be a problem with the availability of large slips. Yamato was built at Kure, Musashi at Nagasaki, Shokaku at Yokosuka and Zuikaku at Kobe all in parallel. There was at least one extra slipway at Nagaski as Kashiwara Maru / Junyo was on its slip at the same time as Musashi and another, possibly slightly smaller, building Kasuga Maru / Taiyo in parallel. Yokosuka later managed Shinano and Unryu in parallel at Kobe but again Unryu is significantly smaller. There were also at least three battleship sized dry docks but some of these contained large ships being reconstructed including Akagi from 1935 to August 1938 and Hiei, which was rebuilt after the London Treaty had expired. Thus we might be forced to build only four or five carriers in the first wave. There might also have been a problem with machinery as we are going from 16 shafts to 24 shafts. Yamato had 25kg/sq cm boilers while Shokaku started slightly later had 30kg/sq cm boilers (interestingly, when we come to the Kashiwara Maru / Junyo, the commercial boilers were designed for 40kg/sq cm). However, to compensate for the machinery, we won't need thick face-hardened armour. As war would show, our real problem is that we would need many more pilots and mechanics. Looking at the rest of the IJN building programmes, we could also abandon Mizuho (Circle 2 but laid down in 1937), Nisishin (Circle 3) and the 4 Katori class (1938 supplementary programme). Together those ships were about 46,000 tons standard, so we could probably build two extra medium sized carriers. Clearly two Unryo class would be the likely choice but with perfect hindsight I would try to build ships that could survive one or two torpedo hits and would sink slowly rather than explode to avoid losing aircrews. Perhaps two Centaur class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_class_aircraft_carrier analogues would be ideal. The other point is that abandoning the idea of a battleship action would make the midget submarines unnecessary. Thus Chitose and Chiyoda could be converted to carriers over 1938-40.

Could Japan have concealed its plans from foreign observers? Simply hiding the slips would be no problem as the Japanese did that OTL. It would also have been easy to hide the lack of gun and armour production, especially if plans of a 46 cm turret were sold to the USA. Hiding the increased number of pilots and aircraft would be harder but it would be hard for anyone to know that the land based units were not being strengthened. The big problem would have been hiding protests from the IJN battleship supporters from reaching the public and foreign attachés. Perhaps there would need to be an internal deception campaign saying that the Yamatos would be laid down as soon as the problems of their power plant, torpedo protection and anti-aircraft guns are solved. Fortunately, half a Yamato machinery plant could drive a medium sized carrier quite well.
 

Commissar

Banned
What in the world are you talking about? There were only 2 battleship fights in all of the Pacific War, and at the later one at Surigao, the battleship was practically superfluous.

Tell that to the men who owe their lives to 16" guns slamming into Japanese defense positions and destroying them. Many WW2 vets owe their lives to Battleship guns delivering sustained, accurate, FIREPOWER against enemy positions.

Omaha Beach would have been a lot less bloodier if American Commanders had allowed the Navy to thoroughly paste the beaches with 14" and 16" guns.

Japan neither faces North Sea conditions, nor does it have an independent airforce stripping its naval air arm, nor does it really need heavy shore bombardment.

The Japanese who survived the first attempt and second attempt to storm Wake Island would beg to differ. A Battleship would have stunned if not killed most of the defenders in a workout barrage.
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
Did the Washington Naval Treaty limit building new capital size slips and dry docks? Most HoI players build up factories and infrastructure to boost production. This is the nearest realistic equivalent I can think of.
 
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