IJN Fleet Mis-Management

[Werner]

Also considering the age difference between me and him I'm happy with were I am on the start of my 10year research project.

Come on. I've authored or coauthored a comparable number of articles in my career. Of course, later in your career you wind up in the author list because your graduate students were required to submit their idea to you before and their article afterwords.

[chuck]

They were neither the ultimate winner nor the most enduring overall leader. But they were a 1st league contender thorughout almost the entire period.

[chuck]

So why should Japan be considered in design terms in the Interwar period as the undisputed master?

Because Chuck lives as a survivor or the 1970s-1980s "Saturday Night" cult of Nippon worshipers.

With quality like this I can believe you coauthored about 678 articles during your professional career.

[Laurence Batchelor]

They were neither the ultimate winner nor the most enduring overall leader. But they were a 1st league contender thorughout almost the entire period.

That can be easily stated just by looking at the size and power of their fleet!

Come on. I've authored or coauthored a comparable number of articles in my career. Of course, later in your career you wind up in the author list because your graduate students were required to submit their idea to you before and their article afterwords.

I know of many retired Profressors at my University during a lifetime of research probably never hit more than 150 refereed journal articles and 10 books.
I guess we have perhaps different standards over here.

I'm certainly going for quality rather than quantity in my naval research

[Werner]

I know of many retired Profressors at my University during a lifetime of research probably never hit more than 150 refereed journal articles and 10 books.
I guess we have perhaps different standards over here.

I'm certainly going for quality rather than quantity in my naval research

In vertebrate paleontology we are somewhat more prolific, because the publication of a new species is rather common. I think Bakker has over 10,000 articles.

[Guest]

They were neither the ultimate winner nor the most enduring overall leader. But they were a 1st league contender thorughout almost the entire period.

That can be easily stated just by looking at the size and power of their fleet!

And it applied to the overall quality of their fleet, as well as many key technical aspects.

[Werner]

That can be easily stated just by looking at the size and power of their fleet!

And it applied to the overall quality of their fleet, as well as many key technical aspects.

I seriously doubt Suzuya would have done very well pitted against a British "Town", Wichita or her true equal Baltimore. History is on my side. This is a ship that needed two refits to get the hull right and another to put the correct armament aboard.

And then, of course, is the historical record. Suzuya evidently never hit a target further than 13km away. From a third party standpoint, the Japanese did everything they could to improve the reputation of their fleet. From a technical standpoint, they lagged somewhat behind the other fleets.

[Laurence Batchelor]

And it applied to the overall quality of their fleet, as well as many key technical aspects.

I'm not so sure to generalise their whole fleet in that manner.

Their fleet destroyers for a surface engagement I would say yes.
Cruisers generally no, interms of stresses, F/C and their gunnery record would state to the contrary.
Battleships overall no, as topweight, stability and survivability would be questionable on all rebuilds.
F/C would be questionable in all BB classes, and also their gunnery record doesn't really underpin the words of technical quality.
There doesn't seem much wrong with their submarines, just an inability to know how to use them properly.
Carriers well they were good as long as they didn't get hit!

[Werner]

Their fleet destroyers for a surface engagement I would say yes.

The Japanese had a three year march on the rest of the world in destroyer design and tactics.

Of course, based on the self-inflicted damage caused to Japanese ships following damage to the torpedo plant, offsets to some degree the advantage of these torpedoes.

It is slightly amusing that one of the most glorious victories of the cruiser squadron containing Suzuya -- Seventh? was the destruction of vast numbers of Japanese landing ships in Indonesia.

One only needs to look at the 1943 engagements of Moosebrugger, Francis X. McInerney, and Burke to see the USN had completely eclipsed the enemy's night battle powers.

[Filipe Ramires]

It is slightly amusing that one of the most glorious victories of the cruiser squadron containing Suzuya -- Seventh? was the destruction of vast numbers of Japanese landing ships in Indonesia.

Don't you mean Mogami and Mikuma instead?

[gs]

I suspect that the quality of the Japanese navy ships not up to that of the United States & UK due to the backwardness of Japanese industry. The quality of Japanese goods had a very poor reputation prior to the late 1950s. Japan was a poor country with a much smaller industrial base than the US & UK and was behind in scientific research.

Japanese submarines were very poor. They lacked good radar & sonar and had shallow maximum dive depths. In at least a few cases they were delivered with numerous deficiencies that had to be corrected during service.

However, even with ships that are slightly inferior, battles can still be won. It is not all about hardware. During the Napoleonic period, French-built ships-of-the-line were considered superior to British-built ones by most writers.

[Guest]

I suspect that the quality of the Japanese navy ships not up to that of the United States & UK due to the backwardness of Japanese industry.

I agree with the backwardness of Japanese industry in general. But I do not agree with the contention that pre-war Japanese ships were broadly not up to US and UK standards. They made different design trade offs and sought a diferent balance of characteristics than were considered by the Navies of US and UK. There were also a sense that Japanese designers were more encouraged to take risks and were less susceptible to administrative consequences of taking too much risks unless something goes really spectacularly wrong. But in the quality of actual implementation of their design trade off decisions, they like all others had their own ups and downs, but were on the whole abreast with others.

[Werner]

They became acceptable combat units not through conscious design, but through a band-aid approach which took them well over the agreed treaty limits before they were comparable to their European and American counterparts.

They also made up for other defects (like low-pressure, low-temperature steam) by making sacrifices in habitability and stability which would be unacceptable in Western navies.

They had one superb weapon and they were not shy in training with it or improving it. The 24" oxygen torpedo. It was a two-edged sword, though, with several Japanese ships destroyed when fire or explosion touched the oxygen plant. Their submariners proved they could do perfectly well with a 21" otto-cycle torpedo.

In the end, it appears that they spent all of their effort and money on the beautiful torpedo to the neglect of gunnery at medium and long ranges, where the West had been busy between the wars.

It's worth noting that a Baltimore's engineering plant is something like 120 feet shorter than Mogami's

[Guest]

And Baltimore was stopped dead in the water by 1 torpedo hit where as Takao steamed home after 2

[Guest]

They also made up for other defects (like low-pressure, low-temperature steam) by making sacrifices in habitability and stability which would be unacceptable in Western navies.

Japanese steam condition were not out of line with much of contemporary international practice. Germany was the only power to adopt true high pressure high temperature steam plants of around 60 KG/cm*cm on a broad basis for ships completed near WWII. US adopted medium - high pressure plants of around 40 KG/cm*cm on a broad basis, and everyone else adopted medium low pressure plants of around 20-30 KG/cm*cm. Majority of Japanese first line warship completed during WWII era had plants in the 25-30 KG/cm*cm range that compared favorably with British, Italian and French plants in efficiency and steam condition. The Japanese also did built a significant number of ships with medium high pressure plants of 30 -40 KG/cm*cm range. They also had better marine diesels than anyone except the Germans. So in marine engineering the Japanese were a little ahead of the middle of the pack.

[Guest]

It's worth noting that a Baltimore's engineering plant is something like 120 feet shorter than Mogami's

Baltimore's engineering plant were new designs completed in 1938, Mogami's engineering plant was a standard Japanese large cruiser plant that had been used since 1927 and were direct derivatives the engineering plant designed in 1918 for the Amagi class battlecruiser cancelled in 1922.

[Guest]

If one area of backwardness is to be found in basic Japanese warship engineering, it was in the electrical system. Japanese warships relied heavily on steam powered auxiliary machinery and thus feature modest electric demand. Even so they generally had low generating capacity that did not provide adaquate reserves even relative to their modest electric load. Mushashi's loss was attributable at least in part to inadequate electrical generation reserve. They also had no board AC generating capacity except in very few ships completed towards late 1930s. Where electrical equipment calls for AC power, they use on-site rectification.

So Japanese on-board electric system were backwards compared to French, American and German ships. They were behind the middle of the pack, but nevertheless still abreast of the British and the Italians in this area.

[Guest]

Back to the original subject of the thread.

It is quite true that the Japanese fleet was mismanaged immediately before and during the war. The Japanese did not think through the consequences of a long war not just in the sense of inevitable national defeat, but also in terms of what sort of demands it would place on the fleet. They could never have won, but they could still have been more effective in 1943 and 1944.

The Japanese naval organization were above average in general but not really elite amongst traditional naval powers as far as ability to promote the right men and giving them the right responsibilities. It could be said that vast majority of Japanese admirals were very capable men. They had to have been very capable for very few of them were placed in roles that suited their talents.

It is probably true that had Yamamoto been the navy minister rather than the C-in-C combined fleet, Japan would have been in much better shape. Yamamoto was a extremely brilliant man with an usual mixture of an overpowering personality and an ability to engender loyalty. He is one of the few men who rose to the top of a Japanese institution who said what he thought and thought nothing of speaking truth to power. He was also a talented but inexperienced strategist. But his fault is he was brilliant enough to intimidate people who are more experienced but less intelligent. He broke through the staid and conservative Japanese admiral culture and led Japanese navy to achieve amazing feats. But those were ultimately the wrong sort of feats. Had he been in the cabinet and available to overpower Tojo, Japan would be better off in every way.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Moving away from warship Engineering and going back to the idea of mis-management.

It would seem Yamamoto in hindsight was the wrong CinC for the IJN in WW2. He made many questionable decisions and dispositions.

He seems not always to have selected the right Admirals under him and he seems was not strong enough to stand up against the Army.
Though I suppose that was a good thing as if you stood up against Tojo et al. you normally got assassinated!

Furthermore old friends of his like Kondo were allowed to keep their commands after a series of blunders through the Pacific war and was only relieved when he ahd already committed about 3 tactical blunders.
He would also seem to be a questionable commander as he was quite old too I believe.

Sorry to qoute Hara again (I'm re-reading the new version of Japanese Destroyer Captain at present) but he seems highly critical of the above 2 officers and others many of which were his friends.

[Werner]

It's worth noting that a Baltimore's engineering plant is something like 120 feet shorter than Mogami's

Baltimore's engineering plant were new designs completed in 1938, Mogami's engineering plant was a standard Japanese large cruiser plant that had been used since 1927 and were direct derivatives the engineering plant designed in 1918 for the Amagi class battlecruiser cancelled in 1922.

Baltimore's plant was the same one used from Atlanta on. Two plants made for the big ship, one plant for Wasp. Interestingly, BuShips complained that the manufacturers exceeded the design spec by 10-20% in output without documenting this feature, and future contracts ought to take that into account for even greater cost savings.

A slightly different plant powered all the Essex and Alaska ships.

There is a huge difference between a 235 psi plant and a 650 or 800 psi plant in terms of the amount of energy generated and transmitted to the propellors. By the end of the war 1200 psi was on the table.