Noob Question: Why didn't the Japanese just build more merchant shipping?

I've heard it stated in many threads from many forums that the crucial problem of Japan was in that they didn't have enough Merchant shipping even before the allies started sinking what she did have.

This begs the rather obvious question, why didn't Japan just build more merchant shipping?

(note: This is NOT a NOOBDWBI, I'm genuinely interested in an answer to the question. Please don't snark at me.)
 
At first they thought they didn't need to. Later on they just couldn't do it. Japanese ship building was not efficient. Nothing was standardized, the shipyards were stuck in the 19th century mode of production.
 
Matter of limits to available funds and resources too. What do you have to cut out of the budget to build/buy Merchant ships? Carriers? Cruisers? Aircraft? Tanks? Guns?

If they avoid the OTL quagmire of China and the political will of the IJA, maybe they could spare the steel, etc., but you'd still need the facilities and processes.
 

CalBear

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The Japanese industrial base couldn't handle the task. It was unable to keep up with wartime losses in WARSHIPS much less merchants. The Liberty Ship, which allowed the U.S. to build merchant hulls fast than the Germans could sink them, wasn't something that the Japanese could do, either in steel or in efficiency.

Japanese yards were about 50% slower than U.S. constructors even before the wartime revolution in building techniques.

Overall, it is another example of the Japanese economy being vastly over matched.
 
Same reason Germany couldn't just build a fleet of aicraft carriers or atomic bombs. They didn't have enough facilities or expertise, as CalBear said. If they diverted reasources from elsewhere, I suppose they could, but this would be in a less tense TL.
 
. Japanese ship building was not efficient. Nothing was standardized, the shipyards were stuck in the 19th century mode of production.

I thought you were writing about British shipbuilding :) Japan did produce a line of standard merchants ships, some 140 Type A ships, but this was too little and too late due as Japan was economically (and her military leadership mentally) challenged compared to the Allies.

On the other hand, Japanese merchant ships built pre-war included a number of very modern, efficient and even beautiful motor vessels. Especially cargo liners such as Noto Maru of Japan-New York service were impressive, with 9800dwt and 15kts. Japanese merchants had greater engine efficiency than her rivals due to single propellors even on fast ships and thus had higher speed.

noto.jpeg


Many of these motor ships later on gained notoriority as they were used for prisoner transportation.

EDIT:

For a study on Japanese Merchant shipbuilding, the relevant portion of US Strategic Bombing Survey is online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/japanesemerchant00unit

EDIT2: New link for easier reading...
 
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I agree with Jukra, the Japanese ships were generally very modern and efficient. However, that was a problem. As Japanese tankers were faster than those of other nations, the Japanese needed fewer ships prewar. Also 40% of cargos arriving prewar were in ships from other nations.
 
I agree with Jukra, the Japanese ships were generally very modern and efficient. However, that was a problem. As Japanese tankers were faster than those of other nations, the Japanese needed fewer ships prewar. Also 40% of cargos arriving prewar were in ships from other nations.

I think it was scarcity of shipping and the idiotic use of merchant marine which doomed Japanese merchant marine, not the speed of the ships which itself was very beneficial for wartime. A fast merchant, say a 15kts liner (and Japanese liners were approaching 20kts during late 1930's) or a convoy composed of them is much harder to intercept than a, say, 5kts tramp. US subs had about 20kts max speed.

Now, what I'm really curious about is the technologically backward state of British merchant marine pre-war and the decision to make Liberties and Empires rather slow steam-engine ships? Speed was life both for efficiency of shipping and survival against U-boats. Fast cargo liners would have been much more useful, more survivable and could have been even fairly easily converted to auxiliary uses (CVE, various fleet tenders etc).
 

Thande

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This may be a Western exaggeration/Flanderisation, but I thought that in addition to the points raised above, the traditionally militaristic culture prevailing in the IJN meant that facilities tended to be thrown entirely into warship manufacture while neglecting support craft in general?
 

CalBear

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The Liberty ships were designed to be built as rapidly as possible and to be fast enough for operational needs. They were effectively disposable, wartime use & throw away designs. Allied ocean escorts had a top speed of 16 knots (in the case of the Flower & Castle corvettes) so a 20 knot merchant wasn't of any particular use. Even the larger and far more costly USN DDE classes only were designed for 19-20 knots. Type VII U-boats would only make max of 7.5 knots submerged and 17.5 surfaced so a merchant with a constant speed of 11 knots was actually not an easy target for a U-boat to stalk, especially as radar became more common..


The U.S. did construct the later Victory ships with 16 knot speed (just short of 600 of them) as well as the C-2, C-3 (the source hull for a number of CVE), & C-4 merchants, some of which could approach 19 knots. There was also the T-2 tanker, with a speed of 15 knots.

One reality of speed is that it increases cost rather dramatically as well as construction times. The Liberty ships were designed to be cheap and quick to build (average time was about six week from first steel to commissioning).

I think it was scarcity of shipping and the idiotic use of merchant marine which doomed Japanese merchant marine, not the speed of the ships which itself was very beneficial for wartime. A fast merchant, say a 15kts liner (and Japanese liners were approaching 20kts during late 1930's) or a convoy composed of them is much harder to intercept than a, say, 5kts tramp. US subs had about 20kts max speed.

Now, what I'm really curious about is the technologically backward state of British merchant marine pre-war and the decision to make Liberties and Empires rather slow steam-engine ships? Speed was life both for efficiency of shipping and survival against U-boats. Fast cargo liners would have been much more useful, more survivable and could have been even fairly easily converted to auxiliary uses (CVE, various fleet tenders etc).
 
The Liberty ships were designed to be built as rapidly as possible and to be fast enough for operational needs. They were effectively disposable, wartime use & throw away designs. Allied ocean escorts had a top speed of 16 knots (in the case of the Flower & Castle corvettes) so a 20 knot merchant wasn't of any particular use.

AFAIK, specifications for pre-war escorts were designated to be able to escort slow merchants, so if the general speed level of merchants was higher then the escorts would have been faster (and less in numbers). As for faster merchants (primarily liners, banana ships etc.), they were in OTL, AFAIK, independently routed with tolerable losses due to being very hard to intercept by U-boats.

The U.S. did construct the later Victory ships with 16 knot speed (just short of 600 of them) as well as the C-2, C-3 (the source hull for a number of CVE), & C-4 merchants, some of which could approach 19 knots. There was also the T-2 tanker, with a speed of 15 knots.

Yes, and it shows that a large number of fast ships could be constructed even in wartime. Of course we must remember that even convoys composed of these fast late-war ships would have been easy to intercept by Type XXI's operating without benefit of aerial reconnaissance... :D

One reality of speed is that it increases cost rather dramatically as well as construction times. The Liberty ships were designed to be cheap and quick to build (average time was about six week from first steel to commissioning).

That's right, the last knot is always the most expensive one. But in hindsight it still seems that Liberty and Empire / Park -ships weren't ambitious enough, it would have been probably better to produce more fast ships of the types you mentioned. Although I'm still curious why did British and US ships use steam turbines in fast merchants even during Second World War? AFAIK, turbines are much harder to produce, consume more fuel and are more labour intensive to operate than diesels of the era.
 
Although I'm still curious why did British and US ships use steam turbines in fast merchants even during Second World War? AFAIK, turbines are much harder to produce, consume more fuel and are more labour intensive to operate than diesels of the era.

Perhaps to save petroleum-based fuels for planes and warships? :confused:
 
One can look at the jump in US industrial efficiency in the 20's, and once more during the war, and the massive jump in efficiency of Japan's industry during the 50's and 60's, and notice that there is one thing in common: Scientific Management. There you have it ;)
 
It can be argued that this was not only a matter of industrial capacity. One thing that both major Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Japan) had in common was the clear militaristic belief that wars were won only by courageous, well trained men with adequate numbers of good weapons. In such cultures, less attention is paid to what often counts as much, such as logistics (ships, transport planes, and trucks), personal equipment, and food. When resources get scarce, what gets built are things like destroyers, guns, subs, tanks, and fighter planes, not merchant shipping and good trucks. I would argue that Studebaker trucks, Kaiser ships, and C-46s/C-47s did as much to win WW2 for the allies than M4 shermans, T-34s, and B-17s. The Germans and Japanese never figured out because each in their own way elevated the militaristic arts at the expense of support and logistics.
 
A Few Comments Regarding US Ship Propulsion

Industrial production considerations dictated the choice of propulsion plants in US shipbuilding in World War 2. Throughout the war, as a result of insufficient production facilities, there was a comparative shortage of reduction gearing for steam turbines, which were needed for just about every type of surface ship, and diesel engines, which were needed for submarines, DE's, landing craft, minesweepers, patrol craft, several types of fleet auxiliaries, as well as locomotives. This manifested itself in a number of ways.

One is the variety of propulsion systems and DE classes. Although the DEs tended to be designed for speeds in the 24-26 kt range, with many of them, a powerplant of the appropriate power wasn't available and a less powerful plant had to be substituted. The shortages can also be seen in the variety of plants used, as depending on the class, a DE could have a diesel-electric, geared turbine, diesel, or turbo-electric powerplant, and to introduce further variation, there was a short-hull design with the diesel plant, and a series of long-hull designs which could have any of the plants, and either 3x3"/50 or 2x5"/38 guns. Friedman's book on US destroyers goes into some detail on this.

Another is the choice of reciprocating engines for the Liberty Ships & the Casablanca-class CVE by the Maritime Commission, which did much of the design work for both classes. The Maritime Commission was aware of the shortage of geared turbines & diesels, and searched for an engine that was not in great demand anywhere else, simple to install using the unskilled labor at the Kaiser Shipyards, and would also be fairly simple and reliable so that a relatively inexperienced crew of hastily-trained wartime enlistees could operate them effectively. These considerations led them to the Skinner Uniflow reciprocating engine, which was considered adequate for the tasks put upon it.

There are also some comments regarding the diesel-powered CVEs converted from C3 freighters in both US & British service in Friedman's book on US carriers that suggest that the diesel C3 had some issues, particularly when it came to sustained high-speed cruising. Both navies found these ships to be slower than expected and suffered from some mechanical reliability issues, which, combined with the production issues, led to the remaining C3 conversions being of steam-turbine ships, and the choice of the reciprocating engines for the Casablancas.
 
Time is also an issue here.

The Japanese did not expect the war to go on for so long. They hoped to secure South East Asia, destroy British presence there and then inflict such damage to the US forces, that the Allies would want to negotiate with the Japanese.

Basically it was a bit like the Germans sending the Wehrmacht into Russia without any winter equipment in 1941. They too hoped that the war would be over soon with the collapse of Moscow before the winter sets in. Then it didn't work out for them and troops started freezing to death.

A misallocation of resources.
Two divisions less during Barbarossa, but therefore proper winter equipment for the all the Germans would have been a better idea.
The same goes for the Japanese. A couple of new aircraft carriers less after 1942 but therefore more merchant marine would have probably also been a better idea.
 
I've heard it stated in many threads from many forums that the crucial problem of Japan was in that they didn't have enough Merchant shipping even before the allies started sinking what she did have.

This begs the rather obvious question, why didn't Japan just build more merchant shipping?

(note: This is NOT a NOOBDWBI, I'm genuinely interested in an answer to the question. Please don't snark at me.)


Japan already had quite a large merchant fleet before WW2 started, but failed to give the needed support to it, when war finaly broke out. The ASW and other escort vessels were completely insufficient in both numbers and capabilities, while the strategy of the Japanese ministry of Transport was flawed. (Too many small and weakly protected convoy's, in stead of a few, much larger, well protected ones.) Japan simply could not keep up with the losses of tonnage, when war prolonged longer than the expected 6 months at best.
 
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