WI: Japan at the Battle of Leyte (Gulf)

Err...

With no Decoy Force to "decoy" Halsey, he keeps the Third Fleet in the vicinity of the Philippines and uses his aircraft carriers to give the Combined Fleet a good kicking while it passes through the Sibuyan Sea. Then he forms Task Force 34 under Lee and orders him to pass through the San Bernadino Strait and mop up what's left.

A very good point, if the IJN kept its forces together then the USN would too and there's nothing to draw them off. The USN is not going to go "Sir, they are massing their fleet and keeping it together as they advance, what's your plan?"

"Send our carriers running off many many many miles away to a patch of empty seas so they are out of range of everything."

"Umm...."

If the IJN kept all its carriers and BB's together (which is going outside of their doctrinal approach of wide spread units acting in concert, something they'd adopted and refined in the 20s and 30s and clung to like a lunatic throughout the OTL WW2, so such a direct approach is highly unlikely) then the USN will keep its carriers and BBs all together as well and then just drown the IJN in aircraft. And if they keep pushing forwards there's going to be lots of fresh battleships, cruisers and destroyers all waiting for them.
 
Moving the mountain to Mohamed

In OTL the oil shortage made the Japanese move the fleet to Singapore so that it was closer to the oil supply.

In Post 43 I suggested that the Japanese move the flying training schools to the Dutch East Indies to be nearer the oil supply so it would be easier to train them, but nobody bit.

Is it feasible to build complexes of airfields around the oil refineries? How early would that have had to be done to be effective for October 1944.
This proposal has not been drowned in scorn yet. Does that actually mean that its a good idea that the Japanese had the resources to carry out?

If it is then there are also the hundreds of shore based aircraft lost defending the Marinas Islands IOTL, but not used ITTL and therefore still survive in October 1944. In common with the carrier based aircraft not lost at the Philippine Sea ITTL I want them sent to the East Indies where the more plentiful fuel supply allows them to train more intensively.

It was my indention that they would be added to the strength of the First Air Fleet in the Philippines. However, when I was writing this it occurred to me that they could have had some carrier training and be flown onto the Japanese aircraft carriers from a conveniently placed island airstrip to replace losses. The US Navy used the same principle to top up the air groups of the Fast Carrier Task Force with aircraft flown off from escort carriers.
 
its still a case of shipping, you've got to move the resources to make the airfields, then you've got to ship men over there to train, and you've got to ship the aircraft, and in 1944 you've got the seas thick with US subs who are looking for kills. So whilst moving them does make a good amount of sense so the pilots are near their oil etc. You've still got to get the men there and all their equipment, and build up these large, expensive and resource intensive bases. And then you've got to get those resources to build this from somewhere, probably in the teeth of the army going "NO NO NO NO NO!!!!" or you not having enough shipping capacity to move the pilots etc. Also you'd probably see worse fatigue on the airframes as the DEI isn't exactly the place you want to put planes of that era in the outside for too long.
 
A very good point, if the IJN kept its forces together then the USN would too and there's nothing to draw them off. The USN is not going to go "Sir, they are massing their fleet and keeping it together as they advance, what's your plan?"

"Send our carriers running off many many many miles away to a patch of empty seas so they are out of range of everything."

"Umm...."

If the IJN kept all its carriers and BB's together (which is going outside of their doctrinal approach of wide spread units acting in concert, something they'd adopted and refined in the 20s and 30s and clung to like a lunatic throughout the OTL WW2, so such a direct approach is highly unlikely) then the USN will keep its carriers and BBs all together as well and then just drown the IJN in aircraft. And if they keep pushing forwards there's going to be lots of fresh battleships, cruisers and destroyers all waiting for them.
Actually I had thought of having the TTL 4th Carrier Division with the first 3 Amagi class carriers in Japan in October 1944 because they weren't completed until August - October 1944. Therefore the Japanese still have a Decoy Force with 162 aircraft aboard 3 aircraft carriers instead of the 116 aboard 4 aircraft carriers. That is a difference of 46 aircraft.
 
But the USN would be more wary, if there's going to be a larger number of IJN aircraft carriers lurking around we can't really go "Well they get this but the USN then goes and does EXACTLY as it did as per OTL with no changes." because they'd not do what we know they did, they would adapt and change.
 
its still a case of shipping, you've got to move the resources to make the airfields, then you've got to ship men over there to train, and you've got to ship the aircraft, and in 1944 you've got the seas thick with US subs who are looking for kills. So whilst moving them does make a good amount of sense so the pilots are near their oil etc. You've still got to get the men there and all their equipment, and build up these large, expensive and resource intensive bases. And then you've got to get those resources to build this from somewhere, probably in the teeth of the army going "NO NO NO NO NO!!!!" or you not having enough shipping capacity to move the pilots etc. Also you'd probably see worse fatigue on the airframes as the DEI isn't exactly the place you want to put planes of that era in the outside for too long.
I thought of most of that too.

The other thing the East Indies have a lot of apart from oil is people. If necessary the Japanese can conscript some of them to build the airfields. Therefore as long there is a sufficient local supply of concrete I think the runways, hangars and other buildings required could be built with local labour. Furthermore the British Eastern Fleet and RAAF were conducting bombing raids on the oil installations so sending the shore based aircraft not lost in the Philippine Sea there would strengthen the air defences of the oil wells and refineries.

How to get the men and equipment for the training schools there...

If it was too dangerous to send the aircraft down there as deck cargo on the tankers that carried the oil back to Japan I thought that the instructors could fly their aircraft there via Formosa, the Philippines, Borneo and the smaller islands in between. The trainees and ground personnel could be flown there if it was too dangerous to send them by ship. The Japanese had quite good transport aircraft because they were building the Douglas DC series and Lockheed airliners under licence. Admittedly there is still the heavy equipment to move there.

The POD for this is the second half of 1942 when the Japanese realise that they have got themselves into a long war. IOTL the British had been using their aircraft carriers as troop transports since the 1920s and AFIAK Shokaku, Zuikaku, Hiyo and Junyo spent most of 1943 kicking their heels in the Inland Sea, Truk or Singapore so I though they could have been used as fast transports in the equivalent of the Italian Battleship Convoys to Libya in early 194. Their high speed and destroyer escort would make it harder for the American submarines to sink them than slower unescorted freighters.

Finally this does fit in the OTL Japanese strategy of having a large shore based naval air force that could be moved to trouble spots via a network of airfields. The problem in the Marinas in the middle of 1944 was that the islands were too small to accommodate enough airfields to be self-defending and too far away to be self-supporting against the scale of attack the Americans were capable of making. That's why I think they should not have tried to defend them with aircraft and conserve them for the defence of the Philippines where a more concentrated land based air defence was possible.

That's a place where some of the shipping and ground defence equipment could come from. Build fewer airfields in the Marinas Islands because the number they built IOTL feel between two stools and use the resources to build and equip more in the Philippines and East Indies.
 
But the USN would be more wary, if there's going to be a larger number of IJN aircraft carriers lurking around we can't really go "Well they get this but the USN then goes and does EXACTLY as it did as per OTL with no changes." because they'd not do what we know they did, they would adapt and change.
I can't refute that. Aerial and submarine reconnaissance will probably tell the Americans that there are 9 Japanese aircraft carriers coming from Borneo and 3 from Japan. If I was Halsey I'd concentrate on the group of 9.
 
The Japanese surface fleet had been stuck in the East Indies due to the trouble of getting oil to Japan.They hadn't had live target practice PR been able to properly calibrate their gunsights for close to a year,no surprise they couldn't hit anything.
 
Can i shamelesly bring up again my pet idea of operation Yu-Go being carried out? Perhaps this can be somehow be used to result in a different Leyte.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/U-GO.htm
Imo Marianas being japanese possessions, they had to fight for it regardless isn't it, even if not sending the carriers, they would probably send the airgroups to shore bases in the region, and probably be destroyed as in OTL, so somehow avoiding that in a realistic way might allow the japanese to have a much more formidable carrier force at Leyte. So in addition to the earlier PODs about the Unryus, Ibuki, Shinano, Ises etc. which i fully agree with, perhaps we can play with the Yu-go plan? At the intended dates for the attacks to take place, 10-11 April and 20-21 May, the US carriers WERE in the anchorage! I am fascinated by the possibilities of such an attack.

As for planes, i'm sure an appropriate POD could give the japanese one or more of the N1K3-A, A7M2, A6M8 in service by Leyte, if we can go in that direction. Regardless of the planes and ships, imo kamikazes MUST play a central part, which i envision as a much stronger Ozawa carrier force launching kamikaze attacks against Halsey's carriers, disabling if not sinking half a dozen of them would make a big difference, like much weaker strikes against Kurita's force and so on.
 
Can i shamelesly bring up again my pet idea of operation Yu-Go being carried out? Perhaps this can be somehow be used to result in a different Leyte.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/U-GO.htm
Imo Marianas being japanese possessions, they had to fight for it regardless isn't it, even if not sending the carriers, they would probably send the airgroups to shore bases in the region, and probably be destroyed as in OTL, so somehow avoiding that in a realistic way might allow the japanese to have a much more formidable carrier force at Leyte. So in addition to the earlier PODs about the Unryus, Ibuki, Shinano, Ises etc. which i fully agree with, perhaps we can play with the Yu-go plan? At the intended dates for the attacks to take place, 10-11 April and 20-21 May, the US carriers WERE in the anchorage! I am fascinated by the possibilities of such an attack.

As for planes, i'm sure an appropriate POD could give the japanese one or more of the N1K3-A, A7M2, A6M8 in service by Leyte, if we can go in that direction. Regardless of the planes and ships, imo kamikazes MUST play a central part, which i envision as a much stronger Ozawa carrier force launching kamikaze attacks against Halsey's carriers, disabling if not sinking half a dozen of them would make a big difference, like much weaker strikes against Kurita's force and so on.

It would all be bloody, not sure how it would change anything though. Just more lives lost.
 
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