US Intelligence & Japanese Air & Naval Power 1920-1941 - Answers #Navy Chat

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Game: World of Warships

Pyke, Justin Zachary: Blinded by the Rising Sun? American Intelligence Assessments of Japanese Air and Naval Power, 1920-1941

» FURTHER REFERENCES «

Asada Sadao. From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Barnhart, Michael A. Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Evans, David and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012.

Ford, Douglas. The Elusive Enemy: U.S. Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Fleet. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011.

Ford, Douglas. “US Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Fleet during the Washington Treaty Era, c. 1922-36.” The Mariner’s Mirror 93:3 (2007): 281-306.

Hone, Trent. “‘Give Them Hell’: The US Navy’s Night Combat Doctrine and the Campaign for Guadalcanal.” War in History 13:2 (2006): 171-199.

Lundgren, Robert. The World Wonder’d: What Really Happened off Samar. Ann Arbor: Nimble Books, 2014.

Mahnken, Thomas G. Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918-1941. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Muir Jr., Malcolm. “Rearming in a Vacuum: United States Navy Intelligence and the Japanese Capital Ship Threat, 1936-1945.” The Journal of Military History, 54:4 (1990): 473-485.

Parshall, Jonathan B. and Anthony P. Tully. Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005.

Prados, John. Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II. New York: Random House, 1995.

Tully, Anthony and Lu Yu. “A Question of Estimates: How Faulty Intelligence Drove Scouting at the Battle of Midway.” Naval War College Review 68:2 (2015): 85-99.

» CREDITS & SPECIAL THX «
Song: Ethan Meixsell - Demilitarized Zone

[justinpyke]

17:42

CORRECTION: It didn't feel right after I said "all variants" and I did some research. It turns out that my suspicion was well founded: the Germans were in the process of phasing out unprotected Bf-109s during the Battle of Britain. From what I read, the E-3 was the last Bf-109 variant to lack armour protection. During the Battle of Britain E-3s were being upgraded to the E-4 standard, which introduced an armour plate behind the pilot. My overall point that unprotected aircraft were not unheard of outside Japan in 1940-41 still stands however. Protection was becoming standard in 1940-41 as powers began to upgrade existing designs or introduce new ones, but it wasn't almost universal outside the IJNAS until 1942 onward.

Always own your mistakes. :)

[Oxide_does_his_best]

Why this has so little views I do not know. This is wonderful work

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

Re: Range and "Turkey Shoot" - This is, to my mind, the crucial factor of the Pacific War. Not only could the IJN not produce the planes and ships they needed to compete with the USN, they didn't realize that their most valuable resources were their trained aircrews and their highly trained officers like Yamaguchi and Kaku at Midway.

[MadnerKami]

Love those chats and Q&As, MOAR plixlp0x :)

[kawaiikantai]

I feel like listening you stream podcasts will change my accent
nice ships btw

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

Re: "Range obsession" 15:40 - Long Lance = a win, 18" guns = doubtful, aircraft - a disaster given the sacrifice of trained aircrews.

[WildBillCox]

The Japanese learn from their mistakes.

Before WW2 there were few Nihon Kaigun officers willing to audit a course on mines and minelaying. Today, however, there are a great many minecraft players in Japan.

Minecraft FTW!

[Oxide_does_his_best]

Also, I've always heard that the American battleships had for the most part superior night fighting capabilities than Japanese ones. Guadalcanal for example had several night engagements but I've heard mixed talk about who had the advantage during night. What navy in general had the best night fighting capabilities? I think this goes well into your discussion of Japanese out ranging and out speeding American battleships, because if the Americans were to close within range undetected it would be very likely to happen at night.

[nomobobby]

Can you get these in a Playlist MHV? It would make finding these much easier, especially given how informative they are. Keep up the good work!

[Raptor]

21:35

The reason why the IJN was so obsessed with outranging the enemy was probably because of the Battle of Tsushima Strait, where the IJN's ability to outrange their Russian opponents with effective fire allowed them to decimate the Russian battle line (though a significant part of this was due to more than just outranging them). Once again, the Japanese took their experience from that battle and took it up to 11, without even really understanding most of the factors that led to their victory.

As for why they didn't utilize this advantage at Midway: because the entire operational plan behind Midway was a catastrophe from the start, the culture of the IJN and Japanese nation as a whole was fundamentally flawed and contradictory to reason and intellectual and moral honesty/courage, the Japanese had already launched their primary strike force at Midway Atoll and didn't have the time to spot a strike before landing the primary strike force before it ran out of fuel, because they were under constant (but ineffectual) air attack until the moment three of their carriers got turned into infernos, because their recon plan/practice was so minimal (more of a formality and an afterthought than a serious attempt at ensuring no enemies were present--notably, the strike was launched well before any scouting craft could have determined their flanks clear of enemy carriers), and because even after the Americans's decisive attack, the Japanese were determined to close the distance to continue the fight (mainly via surface action). This included Hiryu, who sailed alongside Nagumo's surface combatants towards the enemy (who were trying to initiate a surface action). Hiryu didn't stop sailing straight towards the enemy until after she had launched a second strike at Yorktown.

[Raptor]

The range advantage of IJN carrier planes was more significant than you think; while the Japanese weren't particularly good about maximizing this advantage until the Battle of the Philippine Sea (partially because their scouting doctrine was so lackluster), the range disadvantage became clear for the USN from the start. Fighters were notoriously short-legged, to the point where the Wildcats had to cruise at something like just over 100 knots to conserve fuel as much as possible, making them extremely easy prey for enemy fighters (they learned to tell pilots to cruise at higher speeds, lower range be damned), and their ability to escort the bombers was rather compromised by this (their time over target was very limited, and if the target was at the extreme end of the bombers' range, the fighters had to turn back early). In the Battle of Midway, a lot of Hornet's aircraft had to ditch because they lacked the range to make it back to the carrier, and many headed for Midway to land there since they didn't think they had the range to make it back to the carrier. Enterprise's dive bombers almost turned back because they were running dangerously low on fuel.

The long range of their aircraft meant that their land-based aircraft could have a much greater operational radius--important in the vast expanses of the Pacific. It enhanced their ability to attack Allied bases and targets in the southwestern Pacific during the first several months of the war. For their bombers, this also meant that land-based bombers could attack ships from incredible range, like with the Prince of Whales and Repulse. Japanese scouting aircraft tended to have the ability to remain on station for longer periods of time, too.

The idea that IJA aircraft were better protected than American aircraft seems nonsensical to me. IJA aircraft tended to go down just as easily as their IJN counterparts, whereas American aircraft were well-known for their ruggedness and ability to absorb punishment, especially in cases like the P-47 and B-17.

[alejandrobetancourt]

Decisive battle al la Mahan is the riskiest sort of naval warfare even if you have a superior force. Ask the Spanish at Trafalgar.

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

Re: IJN antisubmarine warfare shortcomings - I keep referencing "The Japanese Navy in World War II" edited by David Evans, Naval Institute Press, but another of the great essays in that book is "Why Japan's Antisubmarine Warfare Failed" by Atsushi Oi. It's been decades since i read the essay, but what I recall is his frustration at being unable to get qualified naval officers to participate in an activity that gave them such a poor chance of dying gloriously.

[HjalfnarFeuerwolf]

Very interesting, thank you for the insight!

[apudharald]

New youtube quote: quashuns for questions.
It is all part of the distinct character of this channel, though.

[MadGnu]

started this video and minimized as I loaded up a game of WoWS; got really confused

[alexwest]

One of Japan’s own subs were sunk by Japanese mines when she came back from Germany under the yanagi trade but they were able to salvage some of the German equipment like aa guns forgot the name of the sub tho

[Raptor]

Question: why did American intelligence not realize that Japan had indeed been producing indigenous aircraft designs, considering they knew about the IJN carriers, and also knew that no other nation producing carrier aircraft (the US and Britain) were selling any to Japan?

Also, why did the USN not realize that Japanese torpedoes were much longer ranged than their own until so late in the war, despite battles like Java Sea clearly showing that this was the case?

[Raptor]

There are other reasons why the Japanese focused exclusively on offensive capability beyond just the decisive battle obsession--their culture was based on fanatical aggression and the belief that willpower and determination would make up for massive material and numerical disadvantages, among other things. They also placed such low value on their human capital that survivability was a very minor concern compared to offensive power--take their aircraft, for example. Not putting in armor or self-sealing fuel tanks meant that the aircraft were lighter, had longer range, were more maneuverable, and were faster--of course, this came at the cost of their planes being glass cannons for the most part (and pilots frequently dying in the process of being shot down).

Furthermore, Japan has always eschewed survivability and protection in favor of offensive power. Part of this was a lack of quality metal/resources, so armor was not widely used and was typically light and not very durable.

Lastly, the obsession with the fanatical warrior culture led to an extreme disdain for non-offensive operations (like ASW, convoying, logistics, etc).

[toxicmongerofthehatefulbro]

Have you guys talked about bad things in the US(Allies) doctrine in the Pacfic (Besides the seemingly lackluster information gathering early on), and if not could you guys add a bit in? I would like to hear if you guys know of any hiccups that had or could had gone horribly wrong.