WI Survivability is design/doctrinal priority of kido butai?

Let's have Japan make survivability a design/doctrinal priority for their carrier forces. The IJN knows they will face the USN carriers in larger and more replaceable numbers, and thus needs IJN carriers that can take punishment and either keep on fighting (i.e. operating aircraft) or survive to be repaired and fight again.

The focus on survivability is based on damage mitigation and control. Everyone onboard is trained in damage control. The ships and air ops are designed to mitigate damage. Design audits and testing of theories (such as Taiho's fixed avgas cells in elevator wells) are undertaken.
 
Let's have Japan make survivability a design/doctrinal priority for their carrier forces. The IJN knows they will face the USN carriers in larger and more replaceable numbers, and thus needs IJN carriers that can take punishment and either keep on fighting (i.e. operating aircraft) or survive to be repaired and fight again.

The focus on survivability is based on damage mitigation and control. Everyone onboard is trained in damage control. The ships and air ops are designed to mitigate damage. Design audits and testing of theories (such as Taiho's fixed avgas cells in elevator wells) are undertaken.

What do they lose in exchange for this doctrinal change is the question to ask?

The Zero etc had a huge maneuverability advantage BECAUSE they put that ahead of survivability. Japanese planes left off self sealing fuel tanks, were lighter built etc, design is a matter of compromising, to get more of one thing you have to forego something else.

The IJN was much better at night fighting in WWII than the USN, and showed it at Savo Island and other places. The USN was better at damage control, the USS Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway kept coming back from damage that would have doomed an IJN ship was an example of this.

The difference was a result of where priorities were put in the 1930's, as I understand it anyway. IJN emphasised getting better at night fighting, the USN put the equivalent effort into improving its damage control. So if the IJN decides to dramatically improve survivability the range and maneuverability of its aircraft drops seriously, and Guadalcanal would go differently if the night fights are more even.

Or they have to lose something else. TANSTASFL, There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
 
One of the trade offs would be a smaller fleet. The numbers available in 1941 were obtained by cutting corners. More attention to robust and better features means reducing the fleet by at least 10%.
 

hipper

Banned
if they had been given the same aviation fuel protection as British carriers
( fuel tanks surrounded by water tanks)

then they would have mostly Survived Midway.
The cost would be lower sortie capacity.
ie each carrier would be able to refuel its aircraft fewer times.
Or you could substitute fuel oils torque instead giving each carrier a lesser range without refuelling.

British aircraft carriers in Ww2 carried 1/2 to 2/3 reds the fuel of American Carriers. So that's the sort of reduction.

Cheers Hipper
 
One of the trade offs would be a smaller fleet. The numbers available in 1941 were obtained by cutting corners. More attention to robust and better features means reducing the fleet by at least 10%.
One could argue that the IJN lost many of its fleet CVs because of poor damage control (on a USN carrier, everyone is on damage control) and/or aircraft handling procedures (including re-fueling and re-arming protocols). I don't see a mandatory trade off on numbers or capability of CVs in the above.
 
If Japan thought they were going to be in the kind of war that needed those measures, they wouldnt have gone to war.

The only way to win was to knock the US out in the first round. In that case you dont need 'survivability', you need the maximum possible punch.
 
One could argue that the IJN lost many of its fleet CVs because of poor damage control (on a USN carrier, everyone is on damage control) and/or aircraft handling procedures (including re-fueling and re-arming protocols). I don't see a mandatory trade off on numbers or capability of CVs in the above.

Yes there is a trade off, due to things like steel vs cast iron water mains, redundancy in portions of the system, extra valves. More steel in frame of bulkheads, more steel in decks, more fire fighting equipment, redundant components in the electrical system, more emergency equipment on hand, emergency electrical power systems. All these things add up in cost.

Even things like damage control training cost. There are only a finite number of hours in a day & the leaders have to choose where the training priorities are. More hours for damage control means fewer for flight ops, or night ops, or…
 
If Japan thought they were going to be in the kind of war that needed those measures, they wouldnt have gone to war.
Come on, then why have anti-aircraft guns, deck armour, protected avgas and ammunition storage, dedicated damage control personnel, blast curtains in hangars, or fire suppression systems at all? The IJN incorporated all of these survivability measures into their carriers; they just did a sh#tty job of it.
 
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