WI: No Battle of Philippine Sea?

What If No Battle of Philippine Sea?

As you all know the Battle of Philippine Sea was a total disaster for the IJN. What if instead the Japanese had cancel Operation A-Go and opt to further build up their capabilities. How would this impact the war? At what later date could the Combined Fleet have come into play? Would Leyte Gulf be butterflied or occur as per OTL?

I was looking for other threads on this topic couldn't find much, see any let me know.;)
 
and opt to further build up their capabilities. [/QUOTE said:
How exactly does this take place? The American build-up of capabilities had already far far surpassed Japanese capabilities to counter.
 
I suppose if the Japanese didn't commit to Saipan you could have a real carrier force at Leyte instead of a decoy.

Maybe at Leyte you could then put Zuiho and maybe another carrier with central force to fly some CAP and submarine patrol.

But its hard for the Japanese to pick at fight anywhere and really win, maybe they can shoot up some transports maybe repel an invasion somehow, but the American carrier and Battleship force will remain intact and the submarine will relentlessly sink Japanese shipping and B29s burn their cities.

Really its almost better to go all in, Leyte style in at Saipan, commit the old Battleships to attacking the American landing etc..

When the all in at Saipan fails like it did at Leyte OTL, then you surrender (almost unconditionally) before your cities burn under the B29s.
 
I suppose if the Japanese didn't commit to Saipan you could have a real carrier force at Leyte instead of a decoy.


Really its almost better to go all in, Leyte style in at Saipan, commit the old Battleships to attacking the American landing etc..

When the all in at Saipan fails like it did at Leyte OTL, then you surrender (almost unconditionally) before your cities burn under the B29s.


Agreed...

Let say after their Carrier Forces decimated, Ozawa deployed all his remaining assets (battleship, cruisers, destroyer, et all) against the American fleet and got wiped out to the very last ship, at very least they might sunk several American ships.

(I know this move is beyond the realm of common sense. But somehow I always feel if Yamamoto was in command that day, he will act like this)

And with the Combined Fleet literally exterminated in one go, no doubt this will be a massive shock wave in Japan. The Peace Faction in Japanese Government can bargain some sort of "surrender with honor" with the hardliner.

Maybe (this is a very big maybe...) the war can ended in 1944.
 
That would mean Shokaku, Tahio and Hiyo would live to fight another day while Junyo would not have been damaged. It would also have prevented the loss of 550-650 (according to Wikipaedia) pilots giving them more time to train (if sufficient fuel was available) for the next battle.

The next action is likely to be the Formosa Air Battle which took place nearly 4 months to the day after the Philippine Sea. That would (according to Wikipaedia) mean the Japanese air forces were increased from 1,250 aircraft to up to between 1,800 and 1,900.

However, I doubt that it would help the Japanese. I think the most likely result is that the aircraft and aircrew not lost at the Philippine Sea IOTL would be lost at Formosa instead for no significant increase in American losses. If the Shokaku, Tahio, Hiyo and Junyo survive this battle unscathed then they get sunk at Leyte Gulf, if there is enough fuel for them to take part.
 
Wether or not the Battle in the Phillipines Sea was to be fought, or not, the outcome was never in doubt, given the vast Industrial and kilitary might of the USA opposed to the more limmited Japanese. So if teh Philippines Sea battle was not to have been fought, the same sort of battle would have been fought in the pre-invasion battles beofre the invasion of the Philippines, as the USN were certainly not amused by the still present IJN fighting capabilities and these had to be removed first, in order to secure the invasion and its supplylines.

In other words: the Leyte operation would have been started with an active search for battle by the massive USN Carrier forces, in order to remove this threat posed by a still very much alive IJN Carrier force. Once this threat was removed, the invasion itself would be executed more or less as in the OTL.

By the way, the Japanese helped the Allies by sending trained carrier pilots with their aircraft to scattered land bases, where they were slaughtered by marauding USN carrier planes. It is not just the presence of a carrier force in the IJN, but wether or not they had teeth to bite with. This flawed IJN strategy was one of the main causes why the few available IJN aircraft and pilots were deployed so badly, with equally bad results.
 
Wether or not the Battle in the Phillipines Sea was to be fought, or not, the outcome was never in doubt, given the vast Industrial and kilitary might of the USA opposed to the more limmited Japanese. So if teh Philippines Sea battle was not to have been fought, the same sort of battle would have been fought in the pre-invasion battles beofre the invasion of the Philippines, as the USN were certainly not amused by the still present IJN fighting capabilities and these had to be removed first, in order to secure the invasion and its supplylines.

In other words: the Leyte operation would have been started with an active search for battle by the massive USN Carrier forces, in order to remove this threat posed by a still very much alive IJN Carrier force. Once this threat was removed, the invasion itself would be executed more or less as in the OTL.

By the way, the Japanese helped the Allies by sending trained carrier pilots with their aircraft to scattered land bases, where they were slaughtered by marauding USN carrier planes. It is not just the presence of a carrier force in the IJN, but wether or not they had teeth to bite with. This flawed IJN strategy was one of the main causes why the few available IJN aircraft and pilots were deployed so badly, with equally bad results.

The nonsense of putting air groups ashore where they got chewed up started in the Solomons.
 
That would mean Shokaku, Tahio and Hiyo would live to fight another day while Junyo would not have been damaged. It would also have prevented the loss of 550-650 (according to Wikipaedia) pilots giving them more time to train (if sufficient fuel was available) for the next battle.

The next action is likely to be the Formosa Air Battle which took place nearly 4 months to the day after the Philippine Sea. That would (according to Wikipaedia) mean the Japanese air forces were increased from 1,250 aircraft to up to between 1,800 and 1,900.

However, I doubt that it would help the Japanese. I think the most likely result is that the aircraft and aircrew not lost at the Philippine Sea IOTL would be lost at Formosa instead for no significant increase in American losses. If the Shokaku, Tahio, Hiyo and Junyo survive this battle unscathed then they get sunk at Leyte Gulf, if there is enough fuel for them to take part.

OTOH if the Japanese see that the Battle of Formosa is a softening up operation for the invasion of the Philippines they might hold back the aircraft saved from the Philippine Sea for the actual invasion.

This means that at Leyte Gulf they potentially have enough aircraft and reasonably trained aircrew to deploy the 9 aircraft carriers that took part in the Philippine Sea and the first 3 Unryu class for a total of 12 aircraft carriers.

Along the lines of what has already been suggested, the 4 smaller carriers (Chitose, Chioyda, Ryuho and Zuiho) accompany the battleship forces to give them some fighter and ASW cover, while the 8 larger ships were assigned to the decoy force, but Ise and Hyuga sail with Fuso and Yamishro.

Nishurima's force is still wiped out, but the stronger decoy force takes longer to destroy and Task Force 38 might loose enough aircraft to make a difference when it turns back to support the Seventh Fleet. Kurita does not loose the Musashi to air attack and the ASW aircraft prevent American submarines from sinking and disabling some of his cruisers. Thus he attacks the escort carriers in greater strength and he might know that's what he's attacking because he is forewarned by reconnaissance aircraft from his aircraft carriers. But that does not necessarily mean he can go on to destroy the other 2 escort carrier groups, Oldendorfs battleships and the invasion transports before The Third Fleet returns from destroying the Carrier Decoy Force.
 
Thing is NOMISYRRUC you're looking at it from only one direction the IJN's one and not taking into account the USN's reaction.

If the IJN had an active carrier fleet available then the USN is probably not going to go as per OTL with its operation. They would want to force a battle with the IJN who by now are at the short end of the stick in terms of aircraft development and training. Even if the IJN somehow managed to re-pool all its aircraft together this would not happen as they would then be taking aircraft from everywhere along their defensive perimiter, as well as somehow assuming that the IJN kept its air groups together instead of basing them out of land bases where they were mauled to death (see Solomons).

Realistically the IJN could not keep its air groups together and had to spread them around as per OTL with all the effects that incurred. At the Philippine Sea the poorly trained IJN pilots were ripped apart, you've basically got no cadre to train them so unless the IJN withdrew ALL air support for the island defences and concentrated soley on preserving and enlarging its airgroups and training up new pilots this really won't do much and is basically impossible to enforce.

The three Unryu's were nowhere near completion and again getting the aircrews who were trained to land on carriers was a HUGE problem. Also finding the aircraft themselves to do it was an issue, as not every IJN/IJA plane was a carrier one.

And then you've got the USN's reaction.

Lets go with the IJN somehow still having 13 decks available. The USN will be going after them with everything they have and would probably mass their carriers together to do so. They might even delay any ground offensives until they are sure the IJN carrier arm has been defeated. But this would probably require them attacking somewhere that the IJN MUST defend. Lets assume that if the IJN somehow does not come out to play and their entire senior staff are not fired for cowardice etc, then when the USN attacks Iwo Jima forces the IJN to come out to play in a winner takes all gambit that is basically a roll of the dice. This gives them the worst possible place to attack. Because at least in the Phillpines you've got places to hide and terrain, on the approach to Iwo its just open sea. And if the USN knows the IJN is coming out to play (and they probably would due to the Japanese codes being so comprehensively cracked) then you're going to have every scoutplane, seaplane and floatplane the USN has looking EVERYWHERE for them, along with all the subs they can get on station etc.

also you've got the IJN's mindset to consider. Their love of stupidly over complex plans, the cult of the offensive. Getting them to not do the Phillpines Sea battle would require an act of god in itself.
 
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Lets go with the IJN somehow still having 13 decks available. The USN will be going after them with everything they have and would probably mass their carriers together to do so. They might even delay any ground offensives until they are sure the IJN carrier arm has been defeated. But this would probably require them attacking somewhere that the IJN MUST defend. Lets assume that if the IJN somehow does not come out to play and their entire senior staff are not fired for cowardice etc, then when the USN attacks Iwo Jima forces the IJN to come out to play in a winner takes all gambit that is basically a roll of the dice. This gives them the worst possible place to attack. Because at least in the Phillpines you've got places to hide and terrain, on the approach to Iwo its just open sea. And if the USN knows the IJN is coming out to play (and they probably would due to the Japanese codes being so comprehensively cracked) then you're going to have every scoutplane, seaplane and floatplane the USN has looking EVERYWHERE for them, along with all the subs they can get on station etc.

also you've got the IJN's mindset to consider. Their love of stupidly over complex plans, the cult of the offensive. Getting them to not do the Phillpines Sea battle would require an act of god in itself.

Interesting scenario. I guess kuribayashi ends up getting the naval/air support for Iwo Jima just not in the way he thought....

The only POD I can think of for them calling off the attack would be something revolving around the commanders being killed. Japanese are too disorganized to mount the attack and decide to call it off.
In March 1944, Admiral Koga was killed when his aircraft flew into a typhoon and crashed.[11] A new Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, was appointed. He continued the current work, finalizing the Japanese plans known as "Plan A-Go", or "Operation A-Go"[13] The plan was adopted in early June 1944, then within weeks quickly put into place to engage the American fleet now detected heading for Saipan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea
 
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Interesting topic, i too had something in mind about Koga, but in my ATL he does not die in the typhoon hence operation Yu-Go is carried out in May. Whatever happens, there will be no Phillipines Sea battle.

It is very hard to realistically prevent them initiating A-Go otherwise imo, because the Marianas were japanese territory. They had to fight for it no matter what, if only for political/propaganda reasons. Perhaps a more remote posibility is them commiting some if not all the carrier groups to the airfields in the Marianas rather than sending the carriers, like they did in 1943 in the Solomons, the argument in favour of that being the barely carrier qualified pilots with much too insuficient training being better off (in theory) flying from land bases.
 
Thing is NOMISYRRUC you're looking at it from only one direction the IJN's one and not taking into account the USN's reaction.

If the IJN had an active carrier fleet available then the USN is probably not going to go as per OTL with its operation. They would want to force a battle with the IJN who by now are at the short end of the stick in terms of aircraft development and training. Even if the IJN somehow managed to re-pool all its aircraft together this would not happen as they would then be taking aircraft from everywhere along their defensive perimiter, as well as somehow assuming that the IJN kept its air groups together instead of basing them out of land bases where they were mauled to death (see Solomons).

Realistically the IJN could not keep its air groups together and had to spread them around as per OTL with all the effects that incurred. At the Philippine Sea the poorly trained IJN pilots were ripped apart, you've basically got no cadre to train them so unless the IJN withdrew ALL air support for the island defences and concentrated soley on preserving and enlarging its airgroups and training up new pilots this really won't do much and is basically impossible to enforce.

The three Unryu's were nowhere near completion and again getting the aircrews who were trained to land on carriers was a HUGE problem. Also finding the aircraft themselves to do it was an issue, as not every IJN/IJA plane was a carrier one.

And then you've got the USN's reaction.

Lets go with the IJN somehow still having 13 decks available. The USN will be going after them with everything they have and would probably mass their carriers together to do so. They might even delay any ground offensives until they are sure the IJN carrier arm has been defeated. But this would probably require them attacking somewhere that the IJN MUST defend. Lets assume that if the IJN somehow does not come out to play and their entire senior staff are not fired for cowardice etc, then when the USN attacks Iwo Jima forces the IJN to come out to play in a winner takes all gambit that is basically a roll of the dice. This gives them the worst possible place to attack. Because at least in the Phillpines you've got places to hide and terrain, on the approach to Iwo its just open sea. And if the USN knows the IJN is coming out to play (and they probably would due to the Japanese codes being so comprehensively cracked) then you're going to have every scoutplane, seaplane and floatplane the USN has looking EVERYWHERE for them, along with all the subs they can get on station etc.

also you've got the IJN's mindset to consider. Their love of stupidly over complex plans, the cult of the offensive. Getting them to not do the Phillpines Sea battle would require an act of god in itself.

The thing is Steamboy, is that Hasdrubal Barca asked what if No Battle of The Philippine, not I. Therefore you post should be addressed to him, not me.

I agree with your last paragraph, but I have to add half seriously and half sarcastically that Japan did have an god who could act in June 1944.

I didn't say anything about the Japanese altering the way they used their carrier aircraft before June 1944 because they don't. What I did suggest was that they didn't try to defend the Marinas Islands with their fleet or base hundreds of shore based aircraft there. My idea was that they conserve the carrier aircraft they had in June 1944 and carrier qualify the shore based aircrew that were lost in the Philippine Sea IOTL for the defence of something the fleet would have to fight to the death for, like the Philippines, Formosa or the home islands, but not Iwo Jima.

If the Philippine Sea had not happened its very likely that the Americans would still have attacked Formosa in October 1944 as a prelude to an invasion of the Philippines, which would still be planned for November.

The objective of the American attack on Formosa IOTL was to soften up the shore based aircraft and destroy the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers. It's exactly the same objective ITTL, except the Americans would be expecting stronger opposition because more Japanese aircraft carriers remained. The result would be that all the aircraft saved and aircraft carriers saved from destruction in the Philippine Sea would instead be destroyed four months later in a sea battle around Formosa. I wrote that in my first post.

However, I doubt that it would help the Japanese. I think the most likely result is that the aircraft and aircrew not lost at the Philippine Sea IOTL would be lost at Formosa instead for no significant increase in American losses. If the Shokaku, Tahio, Hiyo and Junyo survive this battle unscathed then they get sunk at Leyte Gulf, if there is enough fuel for them to take part.
My second post, outlined Japan's second option, but it was much more likely that they would go for the first.

As for the availability of the first 3 Unryu's, I checked my copy of Conway's before writing the first post and it said that the first 2 were completed in August 1944 and the third in October. IOTL Tahio took part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea although she had only been completed 3 months earlier. Therefore Unryu and Amagi could have been added to the Carrier Decoy Force at Leyte Gulf and IOTL they would have been if their air groups hadn't been destroyed a month earlier in the Formosa battles. Katsuragi had only been in commission for about a month, but as it was a now or never, all or nothing operation she would have been sent too.
 
Obviously Japan still loses the war but it would be interesting to see a TL where the Japanese decided to not commit the fleet in the summer of 1944 and keep it in reserve to counter the expected US move against the Philippines. I don't know how much a few more months of being able to train their pilots is going to help them but it won't hurt.

One butterfly is we probably don't see Kamikazes used in the Philippines. Of course as others have posted how the US deploys and employs its forces will be different too.

Possible good TL, Japan husbands its strength and does for the Decisive Battle around the Philippines in October 1944. You should try and write it.
 
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