AHC/WI: IJN Adopts a Logistics Denial Strategy

[Delta Force]

So it's not enough for the US to start running convoys? I'd say that would be the best outcome for the US is not actually sinking the ships, but forcing the US to spend at least a portion of its construction potential on warships that don't actually end up facing off against the IJN.

Precisely. Apart from the experience of Taffy 3 at the Battle off Samar, escort destroyers and escort carriers are of no use against proper warships or in an offensive operation. They're inexpensive anti-submarine platforms. However, they are designed for construction in yards more suitable for constructing ships to commercial and merchant marine standards, and thus there is a trade between building escort ship tonnage or building additional merchant marine tonnage.

The Long Lance torpedo is also a major force multiplier. If set to high speed, it can run at 48 to 50 knots and achieve a range of slightly over 24,000 yards. That's about a fifteen minute run, giving a submarine plenty of time to escape. The significantly lessened wake also reduces the chance of detection. If/when a Long Lance hits, the 1,000 pound (500 kilogram) warhead is going to devastate something built to civilian specifications.

 

[TFSmith121]

Actually,

Precisely. Apart from the experience of Taffy 3 at the Battle off Samar, escort destroyers and escort carriers are of no use against proper warships or in an offensive operation. They're inexpensive anti-submarine platforms. However, they are designed for construction in yards more suitable for constructing ships to commercial and merchant marine standards, and thus there is a trade between building escort ship tonnage or building additional merchant marine tonnage.

The Long Lance torpedo is also a major force multiplier. If set to high speed, it can run at 48 to 50 knots and achieve a range of slightly over 24,000 yards. That's about a fifteen minute run, giving a submarine plenty of time to escape. The significantly lessened wake also reduces the chance of detection. If/when a Long Lance hits, the 1,000 pound (500 kilogram) warhead is going to devastate something built to civilian specifications.

Actually, CVEs and DEs were vital elements of every amphibious operation from the Gilberts' onward, and escort carriers had operated at the tail end of WATCHTOWER in 1942 and Attu in the spring of 1943.

Best,

 

[Zheng He]

DF, one thing to keep in mind is that any "Japan does better" thread has to be kept in the context of the fact (and yes I mean fact) that the Japanese still had no chance what so ever. Just look at the numbers:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

Also, prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first five months of the Pacific War were pretty much a Japan Wank of the first order. That is why a lot of the Pacific War ATLs on this forum deal with the Allies doing better in the first five to six months of the Pacific War - because it's hard for the Allies to do much worse and there are a bunch of spots where things were closer run than they appear at first blush simply because of how much of a shoestring the Japanese were operating on.

Like I said before, I like your idea at a macro level and I hope you pursue this but it's not going to win the war for the Japanese.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...

The Long Lance torpedo is also a major force multiplier. If set to high speed, it can run at 48 to 50 knots and achieve a range of slightly over 24,000 yards. That's about a fifteen minute run, giving a submarine plenty of time to escape. The significantly lessened wake also reduces the chance of detection. If/when a Long Lance hits, the 1,000 pound (500 kilogram) warhead is going to devastate something built to civilian specifications.

The Type 93 could not be used on Japanese submarines. They loaded the type 95 with a range of 10,000 yards or less. The Long Lance was strictly a surface ships torpedo due to its size.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm

 

[Zheng He]

The Type 93 could not be used on Japanese submarines. They loaded the type 95 with a range of 10,000 yards or less. The Long Lance was strictly a surface ships torpedo due to its size.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm

Also, as others have pointed out, we should not overstate the impact Japanese submarines as well as surface ships and aircraft could have on Allied merchant shipping. For all of the hype about the success of German submarines in the war, the combined US-UK merchant fleets never dipped below 30 million tons and in July 1942 the tonnage of merchant shipping produced exceeded the tonnage sunk and that trend continued for the rest of the war.

Yes, US efforts to choke off Japan were ultimately effective but Japan's merchant fleet was only six million tons and they did not have the capacity to add significant tonnage once the war started.

 

[Rubicon]

Also, prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first five months of the Pacific War were pretty much a Japan Wank of the first order. That is why a lot of the Pacific War ATLs on this forum deal with the Allies doing better in the first five to six months of the Pacific War - because it's hard for the Allies to do much worse and there are a bunch of spots where things were closer run than they appear at first blush simply because of how much of a shoestring the Japanese were operating on.

And that's why 99% of them are utter shite, a good story doesn't take the winning side and makes it stronger, there has to be suspense. That is why World War 2 makes for such a good story, "bad guys" do well in the beginning, the "good guys" strike back and win.

 

[CalBear]

Precisely. Apart from the experience of Taffy 3 at the Battle off Samar, escort destroyers and escort carriers are of no use against proper warships or in an offensive operation. They're inexpensive anti-submarine platforms. However, they are designed for construction in yards more suitable for constructing ships to commercial and merchant marine standards, and thus there is a trade between building escort ship tonnage or building additional merchant marine tonnage.

The Long Lance torpedo is also a major force multiplier. If set to high speed, it can run at 48 to 50 knots and achieve a range of slightly over 24,000 yards. That's about a fifteen minute run, giving a submarine plenty of time to escape. The significantly lessened wake also reduces the chance of detection. If/when a Long Lance hits, the 1,000 pound (500 kilogram) warhead is going to devastate something built to civilian specifications.

The difficulty with this is two fold.

1. The U.S. shipbuilding industry was so successful that adding more escort vessels would be of relatively minor impact. West Coast yards were more than capable of construction of destroyers and destroyer escorts, as well as CVE while still punching out Liberty ships at a pace that was staggering.

2. The Long Lance (Type 93 24"/610mm torpedo) was a surface ship weapon. Submarines used the Type 95 21"/533mm little brother. Long range torpedo attacks, especially from a submarine are more of crap shoot than anything else. You have to guess, within 300 feet, of where a ship will be in 12-15 minutes, miss rates tend to be remarkably high. Even in surface ships attacks analysis of the Long Lance shows that it was far less effective than the myth, especially at long range. Most actions where the Type 93 was deadly were at closer range, yet even then the weapon was less than overwhelmingly successful (Savo Island was conducted relative knife-fighting range, yet of the minimum 19 torpedoes fire by IJN cruisers at HMS Canberra, 17 missed).

As is generally the case with IJN equipment the weapon was greatly built up by Western writers to "explain" why Western forces were outfought in early engagements. Easier to explain that it was magical torpedoes than accept that the IJN commanders were far more aggressive and better prepared for war than their 1941-early 1942 ABDA counterparts.

 

[Zheng He]

The difficulty with this is two fold.

1. The U.S. shipbuilding industry was so successful that adding more escort vessels would be of relatively minor impact. West Coast yards were more than capable of construction of destroyers and destroyer escorts, as well as CVE while still punching out Liberty ships at a pace that was staggering.

2. The Long Lance (Type 93 24"/610mm torpedo) was a surface ship weapon. Submarines used the Type 95 21"/533mm little brother. Long range torpedo attacks, especially from a submarine are more of crap shoot than anything else. You have to guess, within 300 feet, of where a ship will be in 12-15 minutes, miss rates tend to be remarkably high. Even in surface ships attacks analysis of the Long Lance shows that it was far less effective than the myth, especially at long range. Most actions where the Type 93 was deadly were at closer range, yet even then the weapon was less than overwhelmingly successful (Savo Island was conducted relative knife-fighting range, yet of the minimum 19 torpedoes fire by IJN cruisers at HMS Canberra, 17 missed).

As is generally the case with IJN equipment the weapon was greatly built up by Western writers to "explain" why Western forces were outfought in early engagements. Easier to explain that it was magical torpedoes than accept that the IJN commanders were far more aggressive and better prepared for war than their 1941-early 1942 ABDA counterparts.

More aggressive, better prepared, and when it came to night surface actions their superior training, tactics, and optics nullified the technological wonder better known as radar.

Good stuff on the Long Lance BTW. I had no idea the miss rate was that high at Savo.

 

[ggarner57]

More aggressive, better prepared, and when it came to night surface actions their superior training, tactics, and optics nullified the technological wonder better known as radar.

Good stuff on the Long Lance BTW. I had no idea the miss rate was that high at Savo.

I think American torpedoes were so spectacularly terrible early in the war that any torpedo looked amazing.

 

[Delta Force]

DF, one thing to keep in mind is that any "Japan does better" thread has to be kept in the context of the fact (and yes I mean fact) that the Japanese still had no chance what so ever. Just look at the numbers:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

Also, prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first five months of the Pacific War were pretty much a Japan Wank of the first order. That is why a lot of the Pacific War ATLs on this forum deal with the Allies doing better in the first five to six months of the Pacific War - because it's hard for the Allies to do much worse and there are a bunch of spots where things were closer run than they appear at first blush simply because of how much of a shoestring the Japanese were operating on.

The British were almost entirely focused on Europe, and the United States was spread across two theaters of operation, heavily focused on Europe. Lengthening and widening supply lines would have helped to mitigate some of the advantages held by the United States, but not all of them, and not in the long term.

Also, it's interesting to note that the one area where the IJN didn't significantly lag behind the USN was in submarines.

Like I said before, I like your idea at a macro level and I hope you pursue this but it's not going to win the war for the Japanese.

Imperial Japan was in a hard position because it could only "win" against the United States in the same way the CSA would have had to "win". In other words, it's a war in which one side has little to no hope of conquering the other power or even fighting a large portion of the war on its territory, but rather a defensive conflict in which it has to convince the other power that the costs of victory aren't worth it. The other side isn't going to run out of resources or manpower, the only asset it can really lose is the morale to continue the fight.

It's a good illustration of why the Japanese thought they needed to hit the British Empire and USN hard enough to make them quit the war. If the war lasted more than a year or two, they would inevitably lose. At the same time, they couldn't afford any major losses or defeats within that period.

The Type 93 could not be used on Japanese submarines. They loaded the type 95 with a range of 10,000 yards or less. The Long Lance was strictly a surface ships torpedo due to its size.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm

The Type 95 is much better than the typical torpedoes of the period, but a submarine capable of carrying the Long Lance would have an even bigger advantage. I'm not sure how large such a submarine would have to be though, but it would probably be closer to modern submarine displacements.

Also, as others have pointed out, we should not overstate the impact Japanese submarines as well as surface ships and aircraft could have on Allied merchant shipping. For all of the hype about the success of German submarines in the war, the combined US-UK merchant fleets never dipped below 30 million tons and in July 1942 the tonnage of merchant shipping produced exceeded the tonnage sunk and that trend continued for the rest of the war.

Yes, US efforts to choke off Japan were ultimately effective but Japan's merchant fleet was only six million tons and they did not have the capacity to add significant tonnage once the war started.

Imagine if the Japanese and Germans had shared some of their submarine technologies and techniques with each other to maximize the threat? It wouldn't have been unprecedented, Germany shared some advanced technologies with the Japanese such as turbojets and rockets.

I think American torpedoes were so spectacularly terrible early in the war that any torpedo looked amazing.

I think most other navies simply designed them, tested them a few times to make sure they worked, and then put them into service. The Japanese conducted regular test firings in order to refine and perfect their torpedoes and other weapons, especially when budgets became constrained in the 1930s.

The ironic thing about building an advanced weapon is that cost or secrecy can make you hesitant to use it, so you never learn how to use it effectively or test to make sure it's still up to standards. It's not the last time that's happened either. More recently, it's been claimed that the reason why the AIM-54 Phoenix performed so poorly the few times it was fired was because it cost too much to do regular test firings and it was too advanced to be risked in most Cold War environments.

 

[CalBear]

The British were almost entirely focused on Europe, and the United States was spread across two theaters of operation, heavily focused on Europe. Lengthening and widening supply lines would have helped to mitigate some of the advantages held by the United States, but not all of them, and not in the long term.

Also, it's interesting to note that the one area where the IJN didn't significantly lag behind the USN was in submarines.

Imperial Japan was in a hard position because it could only "win" against the United States in the same way the CSA would have had to "win". In other words, it's a war in which one side has little to no hope of conquering the other power or even fighting a large portion of the war on its territory, but rather a defensive conflict in which it has to convince the other power that the costs of victory aren't worth it. The other side isn't going to run out of resources or manpower, the only asset it can really lose is the morale to continue the fight.

It's a good illustration of why the Japanese thought they needed to hit the British Empire and USN hard enough to make them quit the war. If the war lasted more than a year or two, they would inevitably lose. At the same time, they couldn't afford any major losses or defeats within that period.



The Type 95 is much better than the typical torpedoes of the period, but a submarine capable of carrying the Long Lance would have an even bigger advantage. I'm not sure how large such a submarine would have to be though, but it would probably be closer to modern submarine displacements.



Imagine if the Japanese and Germans had shared some of their submarine technologies and techniques with each other to maximize the threat? It wouldn't have been unprecedented, Germany shared some advanced technologies with the Japanese such as turbojets and rockets.



I think most other navies simply designed them, tested them a few times to make sure they worked, and then put them into service. The Japanese conducted regular test firings in order to refine and perfect their torpedoes and other weapons, especially when budgets became constrained in the 1930s.

The ironic thing about building an advanced weapon is that cost or secrecy can make you hesitant to use it, so you never learn how to use it effectively or test to make sure it's still up to standards. It's not the last time that's happened either. More recently, it's been claimed that the reason why the AIM-54 Phoenix performed so poorly the few times it was fired was because it cost too much to do regular test firings and it was too advanced to be risked in most Cold War environments.

The AIM-54 was also never used in its designed role, the destruction of heavy bombers like the Tu-95 and Tu-22M and cruise missiles. Its only uses were against fighter size targets that are dramatically more maneuverable, something that allowed pilots to evade the weapon. Blaming the weapon for not over-performing in a task it was never designed to fulfill is rather useless.

This being said the weapon apparently was fairly effective against Iraqi aircraft during the Iran/Iraq War. USN experience during Desert Storm showed that all it took to cause panic among Iraqi aircraft was for an F-14 to light off its fire control radars, from which it is safe to infer that the Phoenix had a deadly rep among those who had faced it in combat.

 

[mudhead]

The IJN used the Type 97, a miniaturized Long Lance, on some of their midgets - at least one was launched inside Pearl Harbour on 7/12/41.

The problem with using very large, long-range torpedoes was fire control - no submarine anywhere at the time had the sonar capabilities to achieve a target solution for an unguided weapon at anywhere near the maximum range of a Type 93, and the only alternative, visual, is severely restricted on a submerged or surfaced boat.

Putting them on a patrol boat would have been a waste of time and effort.

 

[Delta Force]

What about something like this? A major PoD is that instead of pursuing a secret battleship program, the IJN pursues a secret submarine program, including aircraft carrying submarines. The problem would be near-simultaneous execution of four different strikes. However, the Japanese were able to coordinate near-simultaneous attacks across East Asia in the days surrounding Pearl Harbor, so it might not be as large an issue.

1. The IJN attacks Pearl Harbor, focusing on infrastructure key for USN forward basing and general living in the area. They hit the fuel tanks, drydocks, and machine shops. They also strike electrical and water production facilities.

2. The IJN does the same thing at Singapore.

3. The Panama Canal is attacked by submarine aircraft carriers and/or Special Naval Landing Force commandos on a one-way mission. The destruction of a single lock could cause catastrophic flooding, but it would require the destruction of four separate gates and some means of rendering the emergency flood control gates useless (that's why the SNLF is something to consider). Alternatively, the failure of Lake Gatun could be induced, which might be easier than it would seem because it's an earthen dam that could catastrophically fail if destabilized.

4. A similar raid could be carried out against the petroleum industry in California and perhaps British Columbia. Production infrastructure would be difficult to hit, but not refineries themselves. If the Panama Canal strike worked out this would require all Pacific bound fuel to travel by rail or be carried thousands of miles by tanker from the Northeastern refineries. The United States would have to build new refineries and/or another Big Inch pipeline to carry refined fuel to the West Coast.

 

[deathscompanion1]

What about something like this? A major PoD is that instead of pursuing a secret battleship program, the IJN pursues a secret submarine program, including aircraft carrying submarines. The problem would be near-simultaneous execution of four different strikes. However, the Japanese were able to coordinate near-simultaneous attacks across East Asia in the days surrounding Pearl Harbor, so it might not be as large an issue.

Those are scattered, small, often hard targets.

Same issue.

The Panama Canal was the most heavily defended area on earth. All ships were searched and guided through by American personal and the Locks were too hard a target to get taken out easily.

Where would this be based from?

 

[Dirk_Pitt]

Those are scattered, small, often hard targets.

Same issue.

The Panama Canal was the most heavily defended area on earth. All ships were searched and guided through by American personal and the Locks were too hard a target to get taken out easily.

Where would this be based from?

Exactly this. Taking out the Panama Canal is far beyond the capabilities of the IJN.

 

[CalBear]

What about something like this? A major PoD is that instead of pursuing a secret battleship program, the IJN pursues a secret submarine program, including aircraft carrying submarines. The problem would be near-simultaneous execution of four different strikes. However, the Japanese were able to coordinate near-simultaneous attacks across East Asia in the days surrounding Pearl Harbor, so it might not be as large an issue.

Drydocks and machine shops, especially the latter, are incredibly difficult to destroy (something the WAllies found out during the Bomber Offensive). You can burn down the structures, but the tools are made of sterner stuff and can be back in operation in a few days.

Hitting the fuel tanks is a much more difficult proposal than seems to be realized. They were loaded with BUNKER FUEL, which a short step above asphalt, getting it to burn is actually a fairly difficult proposal, unlike diesel or lighter fractions like oil or kerosene. Each fuel tank had a berm around it, meaning you need a direct hit to crack it open, probably with at least a 500 pound bomb (machine guns aren't going to cut it). Once you manage to get one burning via the aforementioned direct hit, the smoke is going to obscure the rest of the tank farm, making further direct hits more than slightly difficult. The sometimes floated idea that you can get a sea of burning oil cascading down from the farms simply doesn't withstand even the slightest investigation.

More importantly, while you are attack the secondary targets, the primary targets are not being damaged. If a fuel tank or two is ruptured, the smoke will make any sort of attacks against the harbor or airfields effectively impossible. If the attempt is made after the first two strikes, the attacking aircraft will have to be from the 1st wave after it rearms and refuels. It will run into what is left of the American fighter forces (27 P-40, 16 P-36 and anybody brave/stupid enough to take up one of the 14 P-26) and a thoroughly alerted ground defense AAA force, it will also have to deal with the smoke coming from damaged ships and lowering sun angles. The 3rd wave will also have to return and land after dark, in conditions that would be marginal for daylight operations.

As far as the Panama Canal, it was, as has been mentioned, very well defended, both with AAA as well as fighters (Albrook Field, the airfield located on the Pacific side of the Canal Zone, had 71 P-40 assigned in December of 1941). The IJN had a total of 13 aircraft carrying submarines in December 1941, four J Type (these were still operating the E9W, which was not capable of carrying a bomb), two Type A1 and seven Type B1. All of these boats were involved in the Pearl Harbor operation as part of the submarine screen. The IJN could reduce the size of its submarine screening force by 1/3 in order to attempt air attacks on the Canal Locks with 160 pound bombs.

Japan wanted to get a quick kill and present a fiat accompli. These sort of efforts, attacking infrastructure are not what were needed to achieve that goal.

 

[Riain]

For me the problem with this scenario is that people get bogged down with the geostrategic futility of it all and fail to analyse the possible benefit such a campaign could have done within Japan's ludicrous position. The fact of the matter is that from Dec 6 1941 Japan was at war and had to put in its best efforts to win the war, despite the odds.

The question for me is would Japan have done 'better' if they had conducted a focused anti-logistic campaign? I personally believe that they would have, and just because they would eventually have lost the campaign doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been the best use of the IJN resources. As for results, perhaps the US offensive tempo would have been slowed a little bit in 1942-3, not much but better than nothing when stacked against the poor results of the IJN sub force IOTL.

 

[Delta Force]

For me the problem with this scenario is that people get bogged down with the geostrategic futility of it all and fail to analyse the possible benefit such a campaign could have done within Japan's ludicrous position. The fact of the matter is that from Dec 6 1941 Japan was at war and had to put in its best efforts to win the war, despite the odds.

The question for me is would Japan have done 'better' if they had conducted a focused anti-logistic campaign? I personally believe that they would have, and just because they would eventually have lost the campaign doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been the best use of the IJN resources. As for results, perhaps the US offensive tempo would have been slowed a little bit in 1942-3, not much but better than nothing when stacked against the poor results of the IJN sub force IOTL.

Japan isn't going to win the war with something like this, but that shouldn't take away from the idea itself. Essentially, the entire Japanese military strategy hinged on not losing long enough for the British and Americans to grow weary of war and give up. That's the same victory condition the Confederates had, and it's a very different and difficult type of war to "win".

 

[Delta Force]

I'm not sure if something like this would have been possible, but perhaps it would have been with more powerful engines. What about using something similar to the Noorduyn Norseman to actually land inside of locks on the Panama Canal? The takeoff distance over 50' obstacle is 1,645 feet, and the landing distance without propeller reverse is 1,300 feet. The locks themselves are 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide. If landing distance can be reduced, in theory it would be possible to land a force directly in the Canal, allowing heavier weaponry to be carried than would be possible if parachuting. It might even be possible to have the force exfiltrate again if performance is high enough.

As strong as the defense of the Canal Zone are, I don't think there is a plan for someone landing forces in the locks.

 

[deathscompanion1]

I'm not sure if something like this would have been possible, but perhaps it would have been with more powerful engines. What about using something similar to the Noorduyn Norseman to actually land inside of locks on the Panama Canal? The takeoff distance over 50' obstacle is 1,645 feet, and the landing distance without propeller reverse is 1,300 feet. The locks themselves are 1,000 feet long and 110 feet wide. If landing distance can be reduced, in theory it would be possible to land a force directly in the Canal, allowing heavier weaponry to be carried than would be possible if parachuting. It might even be possible to have the force exfiltrate again if performance is high enough.

As strong as the defense of the Canal Zone are, I don't think there is a plan for someone landing forces in the locks.

The Combat Air Patrol might have a thing to say about that though.