What Can Japan Do To Improve The Performance Of Its WW2 Submarine Fleet?

[Band in China]

What is so ridiculously optimistic about destroying the Eastern Fleet in a week? In the OTL Summerville enjoyed amazing luck that Nagumo failed to put out what should've been an SOP recon search pattern. Just doing what they did at Midway would've found Force A in the late morning of April 5th. The first day of fighting would've likely ended with Indomitable & Formidable at the bottom of the sea along with the 2 CA's. On April 6th a second attack would've gone after Summerville's battleships, now with no air cover. The raid on the 9th would like in the OTL sink the Hermes.

That's a bit of a jumble. After the 9th in the OTL most of the strike aircraft on Ceylon were destroyed and if the IJN finds them Force A is destroyed too so the airfields can be attacked again at leisure and a landing follow right after.

This is all assuming the Japanese do different things while the British with strategic-level intel will do the exact same things. I'll say it again lazy POD, Japan does something different and everyone doesn't react. Also luck is always a factor especially with carriers and scouts, IOTL 9 Blenheim bombers approached in a blind zone of Hiryu's experimental radar from the rear and all missed-they could've hit the floating gasoline tanks called Japanese carriers just well as Nagumo getting a better scout off but you've decided it only goes the Japanese way. That adding an invasion fleet that needs its own defenses, scouting, and air strikes somehow leads to more air assets available for scouting on the same number of decks as IOTL.

What's the goal here? IOTL Japan scaled down Operation C since it wasn't seen as helping to conquer China unlike the conquest of Burma-how does anything of this makes sense towards the goal of conquering China or securing the Southern Resource Area to conquer China (while Australia was right next door) from the Japanese perspective? IOTL the 11 divisions of the Centrifugal Offensive were the best the IJN could pry from the IJA out of their duties in China .

Yes, if the Japanese decide to invade, they will factor in supplies.

And they may be wrong again, just like the close call in Singapore without the luck of fighting in a region where the Commonwealth stored its least competent leaders. New Guinea and U-Go would also disagree with your assessment, the Allies didn't have air superiority but the Japanese failed at supplying their men and starved anyways.

The IJA will fly in aircraft from the Andaman Islands, and the IJN will send some of their land-based aircraft because they want to do something as irrational as win. With air superiority over Ceylon, it's not so easy for the Allies to sail ships east of the Island to attack supply ships.

Right, and all the IJN has to do is loan a few hundred pilots and aircraft from its limited pool of high trained pilots and modern aircraft to control a region the size of the Great Parries while the British and Indians across the straits are too dumb to setup new airbases, fly in aircraft, or use roads as airfields despite an active air campaign happening in Burma at the same time.

Already covered.

Feel free to ignore logistics or British reaction, you'll fit in just fine with Imperial Japanese planners. Not very convincing.

So, Australians have a natural affinity for living and fighting in jungles and need no training. They did so well in Malaya. The moment they landed they just laid into the Japanese and completely out fought them. Actually the 8th Australian Division fought bravely but joined the other Commonwealth forces in a fighting withdraw that ended with their capture. What would make anyone think the 16th & 17th Brigades on Ceylon would do any better?

First of all Malaysia was understood to be undefendable on the British side but Churchill's wishful thinking gave the order for the troops to delay the advance despite knowing sufficient reinforcements couldn't be arranged in time. In fact a British Far East Command report detailing this was captured by the German naval raider Atlantis and forwarded to the Japanese. Being committed to a lost battle with a bad strategic position isn't an indication of an unit's combat strength.

Second of all the composition of forces were different, the Malaysian defenders had lower-priority for equipment and many of its ranks were underequipped green colonial troops with parts of the 8th division among them and hence not a one to one comparison.

Third, Arthur Percival in charge of Far East Command was a sub-par commander. He didn't want to construct defenses as "Defences are bad for morale – for both troops and civilians", failed to replace his subordinates Sir Lewis "Piggy" Heath and Gordon Bennett (8th div) despite their strained and ineffective relation, fixated on the defense of the Singapore Naval Base to the exclusion of the rest of the island, refused to send reinforcements when the rest of the island was under attack because of his fixation on the Singapore Naval Base, and refused to honor Murnane's request for "ten lorries and a hundred Royal Engineers" to fix the water supply leaks caused by Japanese bombing and shelling despite agreeing to it earlier.

Fourth, the Japanese were able to secure Thai ports and airports across the border before the invasion of on Malay. A luxury they won't get in Ceylon.

Fifth, the British were caught off guard by the range of Japanese bombers in 41 and had learned by in 42. Which is why Trincomalee had a radar network by Operation C and why the historical Japanese raid was costed the IJN a disproportional number of irreplaceable pilots.

Sixth, the British were spread out across the Malay peninsula whereas Ceylon only has two major ports without which any invasion can't be sustained- the defenders wouldn't be spread out and vulnerable like Malaysia they'd be fortified at Trincomalee and Colombo.

Seventh, the Battle of Singapore-despite Percival being in charge, the men having endured two months of defeats, and Japanese air and naval superiority took a week. But you intend to secure Ceylon with just a week while fighting the Eastern Fleet at the same time on the assumption that Summerville will cooperate and suicide enough ships and aircraft to give Nagumo air and naval superiority within a few days of out a week and that the remaining days is enough to take on prepared urban positions?

And lastly, timing. the 8th division was sent out to the NW of Johor in an area with only scratch defenses due to Percival's indulgence, outflanked due to Percival putting them into unfortified and vulnerable position, forced to retreat for a month with parts of its division like the 22nd brigade trickling in Feb 2 two months into the retreat without much time to organize or dig in due to Churhchill's refusal to accept the strategic outmatch. The defenders of Ceylon would be dug in and rested on the only two ports that mattered on the island.

Not the point I was making. My point was troops were available to invade Ceylon.

Okay so as long as we disregard shipping, supplies, and historical priorities of the contestants then if Ceylon is as pivotal as you claim then I don't see why the British wouldn't bring in any of 23rd, 25th, 28th, 36th Indian infantry divisions available in India at the time and/or the 43rd Indian Armored division.

That does happen when the enemy has air superiority, which would not be the case in Ceylon. In both New Guinea, and the Solomons local food resources were fairly limited, so food had to be shipped in. There was local food on Ceylon.

If they were looting, they wouldn't have as much effort to devote to taking Ceylon within a week would they?

Your analysis of Japanese planning, and capabilities seems contemptuously dismissive.

Rightfully so given it was Japanese doctrine, that strategically Japan let junior officers start a land war into China: a high populous, remote, and hostile land with some of the best defensive and guerilla terrain on earth. That instead of censuring the junior officers it institutionally doubled down on a larger war in China without a clear goal which strained the Japanese economy and military by 39 while alienating all of its neighbors. That instead of scaling down the Chinese operation given Japan's full mobilization by 40 decided that the ideal solution was to conduct war against the two largest navies and economies on earth with only the vague hope that the whimpering white man will sue for peace while Japanese soldiers were raping, enslaving, and murdering their citizens across the Pacific.

That tactically Japanese plans were always too complex and consistently under-estimated the opposition. Something which worked out against colonial troops and peacetime garrisons in 41 during the Centrifugal offensive, but failed once the Allies adjusted and shipped in properly trained and equipped forces.

400,000 tons of shipping wasn't 1/2 a percentage point of American capacity. The Americans never had 80,000,000 tons of shipping. It was putting a serious crimp in Allied operations. I never said the Japanese should have 12 subs on station in the Indian Ocean. I said they should base 6 boats on Ceylon, and that the Germans should send 6 Type IX U-Boats to join them. Considering the Allied weakness in ASW forces in the Indian Ocean they could do an awful lot of damage.

Your right on the percentage, I should've checked that. IOTL the Americans produced 5,479,766 merchant ship tons in 42 and 11,448,360 in 43, the USA alone was building them faster than the Axis could sink them with more drydock capacity to spare. The Nazis refused to send subs IOTL since their focus was on the USSR and the UK alongside the difficulty of getting any sort of maintenance or resupply in the Indian Ocean around the cape of Good Hope, so it's now two PODs requiring Hitler to have a change of mind.

Japanese intel on Ceylon & the Indian Ocean in 1942 was actually pretty good.

Got a source to back that up? I genuinely can't find much on this outside of Bose.

The IJA aircraft wouldn't be coming 2,000 km from Burma, but from about half that distance from the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Fair, they probably would build airfields if Operation C was expanded.

Yes, bombers do dominate ocean areas when there are no enemy fighters present.

Great plan, assuming the British vacate the entire ocean of fighters and keep it that way like dim-witted baboons. Oh and pull out the air corps already in the Burma campaign

The Japanese don't need to win a popularity contest against the British 6 months after they land. In fact, mass panic would breakout even before they landed. That panic would've impeded Commonwealth defense efforts and still leave plenty of available manpower for their needs.

And give the British intel while erasing Japanese presence in the countryside just like the Philippines.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Also luck is always a factor especially with carriers and scouts, IOTL 9 Blenheim bombers approached in a blind zone of Hiryu's experimental radar from the rear and all missed-they could've hit the floating gasoline tanks called Japanese carriers just well as Nagumo getting a better scout off but you've decided it only goes the Japanese way.

My understanding is that no radar had been fitted to any of the Kido Butai ships at Ceylon and no Japanese carrier mounted it until the post Midway Solomon Island battles - Kido Butai's lookouts simply failed to detect Ault's Blenheims as they approached. If I recall correctly the Allies had no clue the Japanese largely lacked radar well into 1942 and were stunned to discover this fact after the war. But yes, Ault's force could have made a serious mess of the Akagi.

 

[Band in China]

My understanding is that no radar had been fitted to any of the Kido Butai ships at Ceylon and no Japanese carrier mounted it until the post Midway Solomon Island battles - Kido Butai's lookouts simply failed to detect Ault's Blenheims as they approached. If I recall correctly the Allies had no clue the Japanese largely lacked radar well into 1942 and were stunned to discover this fact after the war. But yes, Ault's force could have made a serious mess of the Akagi.

Yeah they also didn't have decent air controllers or radios early war. Zero pilots just all decided on their own initiatives to attack whatever sometimes leaving the carriers woefully uncovered like Midway.

 

[HexWargamer]

Whilst I've been reading the last few pages with great interest, I do have to ask the qestion "whats all this got to do with the Japanese submarine force ?"

 

[RanulfC]

Whilst I've been reading the last few pages with great interest, I do have to ask the question "what's all this got to do with the Japanese submarine force ?"

Submarine aircraft carriers being a "topic bridge"?

Randy

 

[Belisarius II]

This is all assuming the Japanese do different things while the British with strategic-level intel will do the exact same things. I'll say it again lazy POD, Japan does something different and everyone doesn't react. Also luck is always a factor especially with carriers and scouts, IOTL 9 Blenheim bombers approached in a blind zone of Hiryu's experimental radar from the rear and all missed-they could've hit the floating gasoline tanks called Japanese carriers just well as Nagumo getting a better scout off but you've decided it only goes the Japanese way. That adding an invasion fleet that needs its own defenses, scouting, and air strikes somehow leads to more air assets available for scouting on the same number of decks as IOTL.

Not much is changed in this ATL. The Eastern Fleet is still vastly over matched. Summerville's intel grossly underestimated the size of Nagumo's carrier force which is why he risked getting so close to the Japanese fleet. Once he realized his error he retreated to the other side of the Indian Ocean. To try to stay around and defend Ceylon would've been nearly suicidal. Blenheim bombers had two chances to hit Hiryu, slim to none. Hiryu had no radar set of any kind. The Malay force with a light carrier, 6 cruisers, and 4 destroyers could escort the invasion force. Considering the British have virtually nothing to intercept them with that would be more than adequate.

What's the goal here? IOTL Japan scaled down Operation C since it wasn't seen as helping to conquer China unlike the conquest of Burma-how does anything of this makes sense towards the goal of conquering China or securing the Southern Resource Area to conquer China (while Australia was right next door) from the Japanese perspective? IOTL the 11 divisions of the Centrifugal Offensive were the best the IJN could pry from the IJA out of their duties in China .

Why would Operation C be scaled back? Invading the Island would require more activities not less. Not all Japanese operations were directly related to defeating China. Invading Ceylon would strike a devastating blow against the British and the Allied cause. Losing the last major source of natural rubber and threatening strategic lines of communication in the Indian Ocean would force major changes in Allied strategy. That you fail to see this surprises me because it's so oblivious. It was obvious to the British who expected the Japanese to do it and were racing to send reinforcements to Ceylon to forestall it. The invasion of Australia was a logistical and tactical impossibility.

And they may be wrong again, just like the close call in Singapore without the luck of fighting in a region where the Commonwealth stored its least competent leaders. New Guinea and U-Go would also disagree with your assessment, the Allies didn't have air superiority but the Japanese failed at supplying their men and starved anyways.

I find it interesting that the fall of Singapore is usually attributed in Western accounts to Allied incompetence and not to the Japanese being more dynamic and better prepared. The assumption is that somehow if only an Allied A Team was running the show the campaign would've been won by the West. All battles are won or lost by the relevant balance of forces between the two sides. In the Case of Malaya, the Japanese army was better prepared, had a better understanding of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses.

The British completely underestimated Japan's capabilities on land, sea, and air. Many of these assumptions were based on racist feelings of superiority that proved totally misplaced. That the Japanese out fought the British forces can't be attributed to the Japanese being so good but that the British were so bad. Those are all relative terms. In jungle warfare the Allies weren't able to match the Japanese till 1944, and even then, only when they had heavy advantages in manpower, air superiority, air mobility, and armored forces.

I'm sorry but the Allies did have air superiority in New Guinea, the Solomons, and during U-Go. Events like the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and the leapfrogging along the New Guinea Coast isolated and starved the Japanese. It wasn't because of Japanese logistical incompetence but Allied air superiority, and McArthur's excellent strategy. Yes, I know McArthur is a despised figure on this site but in 1943-45 he rolled up victory after victory in the SW Pacific.

Right, and all the IJN has to do is loan a few hundred pilots and aircraft from its limited pool of high trained pilots and modern aircraft to control a region the size of the Great Parries while the British and Indians across the straits are too dumb to setup new airbases, fly in aircraft, or use roads as airfields despite an active air campaign happening in Burma at the same time.

It's amazing that on an alternate history site it's so hard to imagine that the Japanese could've deployed their force differently. Anything the Japanese can do would be instantly countered by the Allies who have infinite resources to call upon. After all the Allies won the war and had much greater production so Japan could never have them at a disadvantage. In fact, in mid 1942 Allied fortunes were at a low point, and getting that production to where it was needed, and on time was a big problem. Just casually saying they can open a new air front based in South India and simple take back Ceylon shows a complete lack of understanding of the Allied position at the time. The Allies were stretched near their limit at the time.

Feel free to ignore logistics or British reaction, you'll fit in just fine with Imperial Japanese planners. Not very convincing.

Just tell me what the British reaction would be, and what forces they would send from other fronts of the war? Do they divert forces from Burma, Egypt, Australia, Malta, equipment bound for Russia or China. It's not at all realistic that hundreds of modern aircraft are just going to materialize in Southern India and overwhelm the Japanese on Ceylon, or that amphibious shipping will just appear to load up all these spare Indian divisions to reconquer the Island.

First of all Malaysia was understood to be undefendable on the British side but Churchill's wishful thinking gave the order for the troops to delay the advance despite knowing sufficient reinforcements couldn't be arranged in time. In fact a British Far East Command report detailing this was captured by the German naval raider Atlantis and forwarded to the Japanese. Being committed to a lost battle with a bad strategic position isn't an indication of an unit's combat strength.

Surely in 1941 when the British thought the Japanese had garbage aircraft and were too nearsighted to be good pilots that they could hold Malaya.

Second of all the composition of forces were different, the Malaysian defenders had lower-priority for equipment and many of its ranks were underequipped green colonial troops with parts of the 8th division among them and hence not a one to one comparison.

Again, it's always the British lost because they were the B or C team, not that the Japanese were any good.

Third, Arthur Percival in charge of Far East Command was a sub-par commander. He didn't want to construct defenses as "Defences are bad for morale – for both troops and civilians", failed to replace his subordinates Sir Lewis "Piggy" Heath and Gordon Bennett (8th div) despite their strained and ineffective relation, fixated on the defense of the Singapore Naval Base to the exclusion of the rest of the island, refused to send reinforcements when the rest of the island was under attack because of his fixation on the Singapore Naval Base, and refused to honor Murnane's request for "ten lorries and a hundred Royal Engineers" to fix the water supply leaks caused by Japanese bombing and shelling despite agreeing to it earlier.

By that point in the campaign the Commonwealth forces were pretty demoralized. Everything they tried to do from the start had failed, and the Japanese had completely outfought them. To expect to pull a victory out of the ashes of defeat at the last moments on Singapore Island is kind of clutching at straws.

Fourth, the Japanese were able to secure Thai ports and airports across the border before the invasion of on Malay. A luxury they won't get in Ceylon.

Fifth, the British were caught off guard by the range of Japanese bombers in 41 and had learned by in 42. Which is why Trincomalee had a radar network by Operation C and why the historical Japanese raid was costed the IJN a disproportional number of irreplaceable pilots.

Sixth, the British were spread out across the Malay peninsula whereas Ceylon only has two major ports without which any invasion can't be sustained- the defenders wouldn't be spread out and vulnerable like Malaysia they'd be fortified at Trincomalee and Colombo.

Thinking that the Japanese can only make a frontal assault landing against a defended port shows no imagination. The island was full of small ports, and sheltered beaches that Japanese landing craft could use. Defending the island by holding up in the two main ports and leaving the rest of the island to the enemy would make Japanese victory easy. The air defenses were grossly inadequate. Operation C destroyed half the aircraft on Ceylon and the Japanese lost 18 aircraft. For an invasion Nagumo would come back and finish the job. Those two ports would be under air attack, and blockade and wouldn't hold out too long.

Seventh, the Battle of Singapore-despite Percival being in charge, the men having endured two months of defeats, and Japanese air and naval superiority took a week. But you intend to secure Ceylon with just a week while fighting the Eastern Fleet at the same time on the assumption that Summerville will cooperate and suicide enough ships and aircraft to give Nagumo air and naval superiority within a few days of out a week and that the remaining days is enough to take on prepared urban positions?

Again, it's that rotten Percival. A decent British general would've won the battle. You really don't seem to understand how close Summerville came to having his fleet destroyed.

And lastly, timing. the 8th division was sent out to the NW of Johor in an area with only scratch defenses due to Percival's indulgence, outflanked due to Percival putting them into unfortified and vulnerable position, forced to retreat for a month with parts of its division like the 22nd brigade trickling in Feb 2 two months into the retreat without much time to organize or dig in due to Churhchill's refusal to accept the strategic outmatch. The defenders of Ceylon would be dug in and rested on the only two ports that mattered on the island.

Already delt with.

Okay so as long as we disregard shipping, supplies, and historical priorities of the contestants then if Ceylon is as pivotal as you claim then I don't see why the British wouldn't bring in any of 23rd, 25th, 28th, 36th Indian infantry divisions available in India at the time and/or the 43rd Indian Armored division.

The 23rd Division started forming in May 1942, and was sent to the Burma Front that month to train. The 25th didn't start forming till August 1942. The 28th was an Indian Brigade that was part of the 6th division and was lost on Singapore. The 36th Division didn't start forming until December 1942. The 43rd Indian Armored Division started to form up in July 1942 and never saw combat. So, none of the units you list were available in the spring or summer of 1942. Nor was there any amphibious shipping for them to invade Ceylon.

If they were looting, they wouldn't have as much effort to devote to taking Ceylon within a week would they?

Employing local manpower, and requisitioning food doesn't mean mass looting. I didn't say they would take Ceylon in a week. I said Nagumo could destroy the Eastern Fleet, and almost all the aircraft on Ceylon in a week. After that the air task would be taken over by land-based aircraft.

Rightfully so given it was Japanese doctrine, that strategically Japan let junior officers start a land war into China: a high populous, remote, and hostile land with some of the best defensive and guerilla terrain on earth. That instead of censuring the junior officers it institutionally doubled down on a larger war in China without a clear goal which strained the Japanese economy and military by 39 while alienating all of its neighbors. That instead of scaling down the Chinese operation given Japan's full mobilization by 40 decided that the ideal solution was to conduct war against the two largest navies and economies on earth with only the vague hope that the whimpering white man will sue for peace while Japanese soldiers were raping, enslaving, and murdering their citizens across the Pacific.

That's really a Non sequitur since it involves the political instability of Japan in the 1930's. Japan went to war with the West out of desperation after having its oil supply cut off. Both sides made terrible miscalculations leading up to Pearl Harbor. Both sides had racist perceptions going into WWII. What we're having is a debate about military strategy not so much about the screwed-up nature of everyone's political systems.

That tactically Japanese plans were always too complex and consistently under-estimated the opposition. Something which worked out against colonial troops and peacetime garrisons in 41 during the Centrifugal offensive, but failed once the Allies adjusted and shipped in properly trained and equipped forces.

Once again, the Japanese can only succeed if the Allies are screwed up. Yes, the IJN tended to make overly complex battle plans.

Your right on the percentage, I should've checked that. IOTL the Americans produced 5,479,766 merchant ship tons in 42 and 11,448,360 in 43, the USA alone was building them faster than the Axis could sink them with more drydock capacity to spare. The Nazis refused to send subs IOTL since their focus was on the USSR and the UK alongside the difficulty of getting any sort of maintenance or resupply in the Indian Ocean around the cape of Good Hope, so it's now two PODs requiring Hitler to have a change of mind.

The Germans wanted the Japanese to invade Ceylon. If they did it, they would adjust their strategy accordingly.

Got a source to back that up? I genuinely can't find much on this outside of Bose.

How many do you need?

Fair, they probably would build airfields if Operation C was expanded.

Great plan, assuming the British vacate the entire ocean of fighters and keep it that way like dim-witted baboons. Oh and pull out the air corps already in the Burma campaign

The RAF won't be flying many fighter sweeps east of Ceylon because over water navigation is a hazardous thing for fighters to do.

And give the British intel while erasing Japanese presence in the countryside just like the Philippines.

The Philippines was a pretty unique situation. Ceylon was a much more politically divided country in WWII. The British were colonial masters, the Americans had already given freedom to the Filipinos. The Americans were fighting to liberate the Philippines, the British were fighting to reestablish colonial rule. The Japanese slogan of Asia for the Asians had more resonance than most Westerns wanted to give credit for. They had very mixed results in gaining local support across SEA. Once the myth of the White Mans invincibility was shattered in 1942 it could never be put back together again.

 

[Belisarius II]

Whilst I've been reading the last few pages with great interest, I do have to ask the qestion "whats all this got to do with the Japanese submarine force ?"

What I was suggesting is if the Japanese capture Ceylon it would provide a strategically valuable base for Axis submarines. A key part of submarine warfare is gaining bases near enemy convoy routes.

 

[Band in China]

The RAF won't be flying many fighter sweeps east of Ceylon because over water navigation is a hazardous thing for fighters to do.

What kind of nonsense is this? Did the IJN not sortie Zeros across the South China Sea and Bay of Thailand for the Centrifugal Offensive? Did the RAF not fly cross the Malacca strait? Do carrier fighters not sortie against other ships in open ocean? Did you just not claim in your post about the IJN flying in Zeros from the Andamans over open ocean or are the British too cowardly to fly over water?

If you want to believe that 12 subs and just bombers in the Indian Ocean will be unopposed and shut down an entire ocean then so be it. You win, enjoy.

If you can entertain the idea that you may be wrong, then there's an entire thread of people more knowledgeable than I ripping the idea apart here: Japanese invasion of Ceylon after winning Midway?

 

[Belisarius II]

What kind of nonsense is this? Did the IJN not fly Zeros across the South China Sea for the Centrifugal Offensive, did the RAF not fly cross the Malacca strait? Do carrier fighters not sortie against other ships in open ocean? Did you just not claim in your post about the IJN flying in Zeros from the Andamans over open ocean or are the British too cowardly to fly over water?

If you want to believe that 12 subs and just bombers in the Indian Ocean will be unopposed and shut down an entire ocean then so be it. You win, enjoy.

The Zero's flying across the SCS were flying with bombers which have better navigational equipment, and trained navigators. The Zero's and Oscar's flying into Ceylon would have bombers, and recon aircraft with them to help guide them to their new bases. Just sending fighters hundreds of miles over open waters is risky and isn't something you want to do all the time. In the Solomons Allied & Japanese fighters had islands that could be used as reference points so that helped but still operational loses were high. The Japanese because of their great range often self-deployed all the way from Japan and suffered high attrition rates.

When Allied bombers attacked Rangoon, they would come in over the water and leave the same way because JAAF fighters didn't like to fly too far out to sea to chase them. Japanese strike aircraft could attack any sighted shipping they chose, and the RAF could try to cover them if they were close enough to coordinate aircover. That range isn't their maximum combat range. They have to fly out and find the friendly ships. That isn't so easy a task. Japanese strike aircraft on Ceylon would effectively close the Bay of Bengal to Allied shipping. That would put a serious crimp in Allied efforts to build up and supply forces in Assam.

Axis submarines could easily hunt off the West Coast of India the Straits of Hormuz, and the approaches to the Red Sea.

 

[TDM]

What kind of nonsense is this? Did the IJN not sortie Zeros across the South China Sea and Bay of Thailand for the Centrifugal Offensive? Did the RAF not fly cross the Malacca strait? Do carrier fighters not sortie against other ships in open ocean? Did you just not claim in your post about the IJN flying in Zeros from the Andamans over open ocean or are the British too cowardly to fly over water?

If you want to believe that 12 subs and just bombers in the Indian Ocean will be unopposed and shut down an entire ocean then so be it. You win, enjoy.

If you can entertain the idea that you may be wrong, then there's an entire thread of people more knowledgeable than I ripping the idea apart here: Japanese invasion of Ceylon after winning Midway?

good thread link, cheers!