What are plausible decisions Imperial Japan could have made after Pearl Harbor to improve their performance in the war?
- Thread starter Captain Homicide
- Start date
marathag
Banned
It was the IJA who did ASW far better for the Army Ships, than the IJN for the Navy ships.
Seek terms. Quickly.
Concentrate on China and the former colonies of the European powers
McPherson
Banned
Four against six, Enterprise, Hornet, Lexington, Saratoga. It would be Halsey, not Fletcher. Guaranteed disaster.
He can only delay the operation. It would have to be fought.
The reason I gave the illustrated con-op the Japanese have, is to illustrate what results if the Japanese 1st Mobile Fleet raids unmolested. I think Nagumo is sans Kaga, (Still being repaired from running aground.) but he might be filled out with Jun-yo or Hiyo, though I would use them as a support force for the Tulagi part of the operation as designed.
The Australian east coast takes a terrible beating from Freelander to Thursday Island. Given that Darwin has already been Pearl Harbored, that would be a psychological, political and moral setback the Americans cannot afford to see happen to a future logistics base they need. the Australians cannot be left hanging.
Hope MacArthur slips on a golfball, Brereton dies in a plane crash, and Halsey gets the shingles? That would leave Wilson, Fletcher, Spruance and maybe Fitch? Army side, well we had this little discussion in another thread and it looks like Krueger/McNarney. Only then and with crossed fingers, do I see a good outcome.
My guess is that he will redistribute some land based airpower and maybe LISTEN to Uda, Shintara and Yagi, Hadetsuga? Offensive operations need some tweaking. See the comment I made about combined operations. I would look at Kokoda Trail and the Milne Bay end-around. Also postpone a month to do the logistics and op-planning right.
Change the plan. Play the hunch that the enemy might guess intent. It has happened in Malaya (Yamashita did it. Just on a hunch, the British had guessed.). So why not again?
McPherson
Banned
Each navy developed personnel policies based on their "traditions". In the IJN, community as in the ship's crew/company was very important to their idea of morale. In the RN, this started, but the IJN carried it further. The American navy based on the American civil war and the utter ad-hockery of their service (Go anywhere and fight anybody, as is, without rhyme or reason.) thought of people as plug and pull assets to be sent where needed and used to accomplish the mission and to hell with "unit cohesion".
Funny story. about this fundamental difference: the RN used to make fun of all the inexperienced "book learned" no practical seamanship USN. It was kind of true. The RN with all of its traditions could OJT anybody into a Tar, but it took months or years. The USN, once it turned into a Steel Navy, Germanized and took to navy schools in a big way. The rates went to schools, the officers went to schools and everybody so educated was drowned in textbooks that elaborated on theory. The USN might not have the years practical at sea, but ANY gun captain of that service could give you the physics behind ballistics; chapter and verse. Probably more so than with most other navies. The USN was indeed book smart.
Then WWII came and the disadvantages of that kind of approach showed up. Practical RN types would know from experience the idiosyncracies of the system and navy he trained upon and within. The American, fresh from school, would be thrown into battle, without any of that practical experience. It showed at SAVO ISLAND, when officers who had no grounding in working together as teams and men were not cohesive as crews. They lost track of the battle and had their commands sank as individuals; willy nilly. One of them, even turned chicken and ran. (USS Chicago/Bode).
So break out the school of the ship, the comic books and SIMPLIFY procedures. The school was still in, but everything was dumbed down, for officers and rates to: "See the funny pictures? Do it that way; everybody." That way the USN had a pool of people they could send everywhere to fight anybody and do it quickly. It was applied to naval tactics and to naval technology. Dumb it down, train to the same exact standard and everyone does it the same exact standardized way. People became interchangeable. It has enormous drawbacks as you start out, but over time, everyone understands the basics and the experience about the nuances comes quickly. So with interchangeable people, you can do this:
Fleet Tactics.
Any hodgepodge of USN ships thrown together then, after the 1942 reforms understood the wagon wheel, the onion, the adam formation, the dog formation, threat vectors and the specified responses. Each subunit crew and person in it, knew automatically what was expected and demanded. THAT is what made it possible for reservists and called to the colors men in the Samuel D. Roberts and the Johnston to do what they did. Those guys did not have 300 years RN tradition and officers who spent decades in mock combat like the RN did. They were 50 years school ashore tradition and 1 year book learning a new system. Most were thrown together as strangers willy-nilly, yet they beat a navy modeled in the fashion of the RN and they beat them SOUNDLY.
Rote learned navy? Not really. Once the shooting stopped, the USN went back to book learning intensely. A missile tech, USN trained, is an instant candidate for Space-X. In a peacetime navy that works. In a wartime navy? Call it naval warfare for dummies.
Then WWII came and the disadvantages of that kind of approach showed up. Practical RN types would know from experience the idiosyncracies of the system and navy he trained upon and within. The American, fresh from school, would be thrown into battle, without any of that practical experience. It showed at SAVO ISLAND, when officers who had no grounding in working together as teams and men were not cohesive as crews. They lost track of the battle and had their commands sank as individuals; willy nilly. One of them, even turned chicken and ran. (USS Chicago/Bode).
So break out the school of the ship, the comic books and SIMPLIFY procedures. The school was still in, but everything was dumbed down, for officers and rates to: "See the funny pictures? Do it that way; everybody." That way the USN had a pool of people they could send everywhere to fight anybody and do it quickly. It was applied to naval tactics and to naval technology. Dumb it down, train to the same exact standard and everyone does it the same exact standardized way. People became interchangeable. It has enormous drawbacks as you start out, but over time, everyone understands the basics and the experience about the nuances comes quickly. So with interchangeable people, you can do this:
Fleet Tactics.
Any hodgepodge of USN ships thrown together then, after the 1942 reforms understood the wagon wheel, the onion, the adam formation, the dog formation, threat vectors and the specified responses. Each subunit crew and person in it, knew automatically what was expected and demanded. THAT is what made it possible for reservists and called to the colors men in the Samuel D. Roberts and the Johnston to do what they did. Those guys did not have 300 years RN tradition and officers who spent decades in mock combat like the RN did. They were 50 years school ashore tradition and 1 year book learning a new system. Most were thrown together as strangers willy-nilly, yet they beat a navy modeled in the fashion of the RN and they beat them SOUNDLY.
Rote learned navy? Not really. Once the shooting stopped, the USN went back to book learning intensely. A missile tech, USN trained, is an instant candidate for Space-X. In a peacetime navy that works. In a wartime navy? Call it naval warfare for dummies.
Last edited:
This we see as foolish but at the time was Doctrine developed pre-war, which to all intents and purposes was working and was one of the reasons why the KB air groups were so good in the first year or so of the Pacific war.
The downside was that it became difficult for the IJN to replace casualties and already at Midway we see the Air groups of CarDiv 1 & 2 at approx -20% strength
But it was Doctrine which was working.
Until it wasn't
Unfortunately for the IJN the deficiencies in its doctrine, mainly inferior Recce with reliance on heavy cruisers to provide the bulk of the recce (and not also using the 4 Mogamis of 7th CruDiv which would have provided Nagumo with 12 more recce aircraft), 'regimental system' for its Air groups and the reliance on all 4 carriers contributing to a given strike (rather than perhaps keeping one deck free to perform pure CAP and/or as Suggested using Zuikaku with Shokakus airgroup) all showed themselves over a 5 minute period on 4th June 1942.
Usually doctrine can be changed due to the best lessons being learned by the survivors and all that - but early warnings had been ignored (the results at Coral Sea were written off as a fluke/less experienced 5th Car Div) and the lessons not absorbed in time.
But Ultimately the whole thing would not have happened if Yamamoto was not fixated on using 'his' very expensive national asset to destroy the USN Aircraft carriers (who had dared to attack Japan) using a high risk/ low reward very complex plan that relied totally on the USN doing exactly what he expected it to do and totally ignoring any and all war game results that suggested that the KB might be in for a spanking.
RousseauX
Donor
Keep the Carriers together for every single battle, the Japanese at Coral Sea/Midway basically sent 2 fleet carriers to Coral sea, 4 to Midway, with the results well known. Just always keeping the 6 carriers together will probably prevent the big diseasters like otl Midway from happening in 42-43.
They are still sunk in 1944 though.
RousseauX
Donor
In otl, he wasn't sure how many carriers the Japanese had and was willing to go in with 2 carriers.
The US midway plan as basically, ambush the Japanese and just run away as fast as possible if the going gets tough.
Keep in mind that there were two plots in 1943-44 to kill Tojo: one in the Navy centered around RADM Sokichi Takagi, who blamed Tojo-and Admiral Shimada, his Navy Minister, for Japan's failures from Nov '42 onward. He assembled a group of like-minded Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders who felt both men should be....liquidated. Admiral Takagi decided to focus on Tojo, and consulted several ultra-right wing organizations (experts on assassination). After tailing Tojo and determining his routine, an "Automobile Accident" would do: a heavy truck would be driven into Tojo's official car, and the plotters would then emerge and riddle the car's occupants with Tommy Guns. They would then go to the Atsugi Naval Air Station, and hop a Navy plane for Formosa, while Admiral Takagi stayed to pick up the pieces, and, if necessary, take the rap. The plan had the tacit support of Prince Takamatsu, who was one of the Emperor's brothers, and a serving IJN officer (and Etajima Graduate) with the rank of Commander. it is believed that Admiral Koga (CINC-Combined Fleet and Yamamoto's successor) and Admiral Toyoda (Koga's successor after he was killed in a plane crash) supported the scheme. Tojo's resignation on 18 Jul 44 after the fall of Saipan shelved the plot.
The other plan was in the Army, where a group of hot-headed Majors and Light Colonels also plotted Tojo's removal from this life. They decided on a bomb being thrown into Tojo's car as it slowed down for a curve prior to crossing the bridge over the moat at the Imperial Palace. The plan was blown (pardon the pun) when one of the plotters got too drunk at the Tokyo Military District Officer's Club, and blabbed. Prince Chichibu (another brother of the Emperor, a graduate of Ichigaya, the Japanese Military Academy and a serving IJA Lieutenant Colonel) denounced it as "Treason against the Throne." The plotters were all court-martialed and condemned to death, but were immediately given stays of execution and Tojo ultimately commuted their sentences-sending them to Burma. Tojo didn't want word to get around the Army that people wanted him dead.
Incidentally, after the Fall of Saipan, Mrs. Tojo got a rash of anonymous phone calls, wondering why her husband hadn't committed suicide yet.
The other plan was in the Army, where a group of hot-headed Majors and Light Colonels also plotted Tojo's removal from this life. They decided on a bomb being thrown into Tojo's car as it slowed down for a curve prior to crossing the bridge over the moat at the Imperial Palace. The plan was blown (pardon the pun) when one of the plotters got too drunk at the Tokyo Military District Officer's Club, and blabbed. Prince Chichibu (another brother of the Emperor, a graduate of Ichigaya, the Japanese Military Academy and a serving IJA Lieutenant Colonel) denounced it as "Treason against the Throne." The plotters were all court-martialed and condemned to death, but were immediately given stays of execution and Tojo ultimately commuted their sentences-sending them to Burma. Tojo didn't want word to get around the Army that people wanted him dead.
Incidentally, after the Fall of Saipan, Mrs. Tojo got a rash of anonymous phone calls, wondering why her husband hadn't committed suicide yet.
Missed your additional edits here, McPherson, - sorry.
Toyoda is able. He'll use any advantage he can.
But given the industrial and management advantages the U.S. was putting into full gear, there really is not much any Japanese CinC can do. Except fortify and dig.
It's a good point. It came back to bite the U.S. later. Germany paid vastly less for them in 1899 than the U.S. would have to pay in 1944.
But it looks like your argument here is with McKinley, not me.
But this all came up because of the question of a negotiated settlement. That made sense in 1898, because of the kind of world it was at that point and the context in which the war came about. But there isn't going to be any negotiated settlement to the Pacific War, and Japanese leadership never understood that until the very end. No, all that Japanese leaders get to sign is the unconditional surrender document, if there are any of them left to sign it when the time comes (see The Red's Decisive Darkness timeline for what it could have looked like if there had been no one left to sign).
Toyoda is able. He'll use any advantage he can.
But given the industrial and management advantages the U.S. was putting into full gear, there really is not much any Japanese CinC can do. Except fortify and dig.
It's a good point. It came back to bite the U.S. later. Germany paid vastly less for them in 1899 than the U.S. would have to pay in 1944.
But it looks like your argument here is with McKinley, not me.
But this all came up because of the question of a negotiated settlement. That made sense in 1898, because of the kind of world it was at that point and the context in which the war came about. But there isn't going to be any negotiated settlement to the Pacific War, and Japanese leadership never understood that until the very end. No, all that Japanese leaders get to sign is the unconditional surrender document, if there are any of them left to sign it when the time comes (see The Red's Decisive Darkness timeline for what it could have looked like if there had been no one left to sign).
All too true. But the OP asks for what you'd do after Pearl Harbor, not before.
Surrendering sounds like a good idea, though I expect you'd get a pack of heavily armed colonels showing up at your office door within the hour....
No, two. At the time of MO, Halsey (with Enterprise and Hornet) was still en route to the South Pacific (having just completed the Doolittle Raid), and got there several days too late to take part in the battle. Fletcher's orders from Nimitz gave him discretion to give battle, because Nimitz knew that Inoue only had a single carrier division with him. Two against two was a fair fight.
The Japanese, meanwhile, believed that there was only a single American carrier in the area. They didn't anticipate any opportunity for decisive battle. (If they had, they would have sent more than Shokaku and Zuikaku!)
Of course, as I said, this raises the question of when our hypothetical CinC Toyoda would stage his larger offensive in place of Operation MO. We are talking about a whole new timeline here, months in. But my only point here is, if Nimitz only has two carriers on hand when Toyoda *does*, Fletcher is not going to have discretion to launch an attack. If all four carriers are on hand, it's a different story. Because while two against two is a fair fight, two against six (or five, if Kaga is unavailable) is little short of suicide.
LOL. To sleep, perchance to dream...
Ay, there's the rub. The IJA had the flexibility to do things like that. The Navy didn't work like that.
I think you need some more fundamental point of departure than just changing the guy at the top, because in this regard, they all thought the same. I don't see how the Japanese could figure out that their codes were being read in Honolulu and Canberra, but perhaps you could have something else happen, like a code machine falls into American hands in the first few months (or at least, the Japanese come to believe this has happened), and the Japanese frantically overhaul their codes in response.
Last edited:
nbcman
Donor
I thought that the other 3 IJN CVs that were returning from Op C were sent on a snipe hunt after Enterprise and Hornet after the Doolittle raid while Shokaku and Zuikaku were detached to take part in Op MO. If anything, the whole Op C force (5 CVs) would have been sent on a futile chase to Shangri-La and Lex & Sara would have a clear field against Shoho.
EDIT: Kaga was in drydock after hitting a reef in Palau while Op C & Op MO took place.
Last edited:
Re: The Doolittle Snipe hunt. Yes, that happened, but...
The timeline as I understand it unfolded like this:
April 1942, Week 1: Operation MO is put into active planning. At this point, a carrier task force based only on Kaga is designated by Yamamoto to offer cover to the Tulagi and Port Moresby task forces and Goto's escort force.
April 9, 1942: FRUMEL briefs MacArthur that their codebreaking has the outlines of Operation MO.
April 12, 1942: Inoue, assigned to the carrier force, complains that one fleet carrier is not enough for his part of MO. Yamamoto relents and assigns him instead 5th Carrier Division with Shokaku and Zuikaku.
April 18, 1942: While passing Formosa, Shokaku and Zuikaku detach from Kido Butai with destroyers HAGIKAZE and MAIKAZE. Arriving at Makou the carriers embark provisions, while the destroyers are sent back to rejoin Nagumo. Shortly thereafter, word arrives from Tokyo of the Doolittle Raid; the remainder of Second Fleet spends the next few days on its snipe hunt for possible American carriers.
I suppose they could have recalled Shokaku and Zuikaku for the snipe hunt, too, but Yamamoto apparently decided against that. He didn't want to delay the operation (and he was not very sanguine that his snipe hunt would find anything anyway).
Given Inoue's agitation (among other things), I think it's unlikely that Yamamoto would let Operation MO go ahead without any fast carrier protection, especially if IJN intel really did conclude that there was one American carrier in the area. If necessary, I think he would delay the operation until they were available.
Of course, if he does that, then Halsey probably has enough time to show up for the dance with Enterprise and Hornet...
Actually, this could be a really interesting timeline for someone to try. Have someone in Tokyo *insist* that Yamamoto send ALL of his carriers hunting for Halsey (well, they don't know it's Halsey) after the raid, and this ends up delaying Operation MO for up to a week. As a result, both Fletcher AND Halsey are now on hand in the Coral Sea when Inoue arrives on ...hmm, let's add seven days, and call it May 12. The Americans, with double Inouei's air strength and detailed intel on the entire operation, almost certainly gain a much more decisive victory as a result, probably sinking both of Inoue's carriers along with Shoho. Yamamoto, shocked, now must reconsider whether he will go ahead with the Midway operation....
Last edited:
Key asset of the IJN is it's force of aircraft carriers. So tailor the assigments accordingly, don't deploy the carriers piecemeal. For example, scratch the operations where single islands are to be taken, go for whole archipelagoes, or go after a really big island, like New Guinea. Crush enemy opposition with your hundreds of aircraft. No enemy in range? Retreat a bit.
About techicalities - press on with radars to be installed on ships, and on aircraft if/when possible.
About techicalities - press on with radars to be installed on ships, and on aircraft if/when possible.
At the end of the day it's all mute, if the Japanese do better come 45 they get more a bombs.. They can't win, plain and simple. They can't bloddy the nose of the USA who is gearing up to be the industrial powerhouse of planet earth for the next 40 years before outsourcing it.
At the end of the day it just doesn't matter, look they are dug in on some coral Reef, kaboom.. What coral reef...
Hey whats the population of the Japanese islands.. Kaboom.. - 1 city.. Kaboom..
Etc
Even in China, the soviets once done in Europe were moving troops around and had a large contingent in the east. They would come in for spoils if it drags on much longer.
I agree with what your saying so don't get me wrong.. but its all mute come mid 45.
They new it, win big or go home, problem was and they did pretty darn well all considering, they couldn't touch the enemy for the most part where it mattered.
Heck the USA could have lost everything but and heck even Hawaii and it wouldn't effect the USA 48 proper in reality. Invading the USA was never a real plan. So the plan to bloddy our nose and hope we say eh.. Go ahead.. Was what they had as a best bet. It went well for a year.
The Japanese in Ww2 were wNked our time line about as good as it got.
Number 1 thing to do.. Rotate the codes more, change ciphers, heck the US was reading the codes before they got into the war, so creating a system by which the Americans didn't know what was coming would be pretty useful.. Just saying.
Geon
Donor
Of course, that assumes that the U.S. is able to bomb Japan in 1945. Using the strategy I describe above it's possible the Japanese are able to delay the U.S. getting close to the home islands until 1946. A lot depends on how much damage the Japanese can do from fortified positions with the IJN supported by land-based naval bombers. Now, to be sure, assuming all things are equal and Germany falls in 1945 that means the U.S can now concentrate on the Pacific Theater. Of course, Russia will join the war. But, will the U.S. be in a position to use its long-range bombers in 1945 or is it going to be another year?
There's no question the Japanese are going to lose. But, once the Soviets enter the war would the U.S. want them to gobble up all of Manchuria, the Korean Peninsula, and the northern Chinese industrial areas? I'm not thinking of a Soviet amphibious invasion of Hokkaido as some have elsewhere on this board. I'm not convinced the Soviets had the ability to launch an amphibious attack against a well-armed, entrenched enemy at this point. In any case would the U.S. and the U.K. be willing if the war dragged into 1946 and the Soviets were doing very well in China to "do a deal" with Japan? If so, what kind of deal would be accepted?
Be that as it may, how far reasonably could the U.S. get if Japan keeps to its original war plan? Granted the nuclear bomb is ready for delivery in July, 1945. Would the U.S. bombers be in range by then if the Japanese were able to turn every island chain into another Guadalcanal?
With no Midway you probably won't have the Mariannas Turkey Shoot because the Japanese don't lose experienced personnel as a result of a naval disaster at Midway, so it's a longer harder slog.