Interesting one for y'all tonight...

Take a guess, get it right, win a post!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:41 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Whenever a nation has more than one branch of its military, something of a cordial disliking will invariably spring up between them.  For example, here in the US the Army doesn't much care for the Navy, the Navy has a mild distaste for the Army, and nobody likes the Marines.  When it comes right down to it however, all three know they've got to work together and when the time comes, they set aside their rivalries and land on their enemies like a ton of bricks.

And then there was the Imperial Japanese military in World War II.  The Army and the Navy didn't cordially dislike each other, they flat out hated each other.  Each had their own plans on how to conduct the war and only deviated from them when they needed something from the other.  The only reason you couldn't say that, say, the IJN's main enemy was the IJA was that the two services didn't openly shoot at each other.  This open distaste extended to the designs of each forces' aircraft.  While the US Army Air Forces and the US Navy designed planes that were radically different, that's because each service had different requirements.  Strangely, the requirements for the IJN and the IJA were pretty much identical, save for the need for Navy planes to land on a carrier.

Both the Navy and the Army needed replacements for their front-line fighers, the A5M (Claude) and the Ki-27 (Nate), two very similar designs.  Mitsubishi won the design contract for the Navy with the A6M, the famous Zero.  Nakajima's design for the replacement of their own Ki-27 was the Ki-43 Hayabusa.

To say that there was a resemblance to the Zero would be something of an understatement.  Both fighters used the same Sakae radial engine, at least to begin with.  Both were slim, with slightly bent cantilevered wings.  However, the Zero was nearly 700lbs heavier at all-up weight.  This made the Hayabusa (Allied code name "Oscar") even more maneuverable than the already outstandingly nimble Zero.

Unlike the Zero, which passed its initial flight tests with ease, the Hayabusa was something of a dog right off the drawing table.  In fact, the plane was nearly rejected on the grounds of being rather UNmaneuverable.  Over the course of ten preproduction aircraft, the Oscar was modified with a larger wing, had its weight cut, and finally had a set of butterfly (or "combat") flaps installed.  This proved to be the fix the fighter needed, and it was ordered into mass production.

One can safely assume that the main weight difference between the Zero and the Hayabusa was that the latter did not need the sort of structural strength a plane requires to land on an aircraft carrier.  One drawback of this was that the Zero, which was never what one would call a sturdy aircraft, was by comparison to the Hayabusa carved out of a single block of iron.  Another way the Hayabusa saved weight was in the form of weaponry.  For most of the war, the Ki-43 carried only a pair of 7.7mm machine guns, the exact same armament as a Sopwith Camel from World War I.

At the beginning of the Pacific War though, this was enough.  In combat, the Hayabusa was nearly as successful as the Zero.  Being able to outturn and outclimb anything in the skies, once an Oscar got on a plane's tail, it could pretty much stay there at will.  It was only a tiny bit slower than a Zero as well.  All of this meant that it was a dangerous package.  It even had some armor for the pilot and rudimentary self-sealing fuel tanks to boot. 

The Hayabusa's main weakness was that it was ridiculously fragile.  While less prone to catching fire like the Zero, it tended to come apart under Allied gunfire.  Indeed, hits that even a Zero could shrug off were often enough to cause the Ki-43 to shatter like porcelain.  The hard part was landing a blow on the nimble little plane in the first place. 

Upgrades were applied to the Ki-43 over the course of the war.  First, a larger engine was installed that gave better performance at high altitudes, then the guns were upgraded to 12.7mm.  However, these upgrades were never going to be enough to keep up with newer Allied planes like the Hellcat, Corsair or Seafire.  Replaced by the Ki-44 (Tojo) and Ki-61 (Tony), it was never entirely phased out and stayed in front-line service for the entire war.  As with most other Japanese planes, it ended the war in a Kamikaze role, but not until nearly 6000 were built, making it the second-most popular Japanese fighter... behind only the Zero.  Every IJA ace got the majority of his kills in the Oscar, and one source in my collection even claims that the Ki-43 was responsible for shooting down more Allied planes than the Zero.  Not a bad record for a fragile, slow, undergunned fighter that was overshadowed by the A6M.

Today, only six Ki-43s are known to exist, and only one of those is in flyable condition.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The year is 1904 and James Arbuthnot Fisher had reached the absolute pinnacle of his career.  After fifty years in his chosen profession, he was arguably the most powerful man in the world.  You see, James Arbuthnot Fisher was better known as "Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jackie Fisher, First Sea Lord."  As such, he was the commander of the British Royal Navy, the strongest military force under the sun, answerable only to His Royal Highness, King Edward VII. 

In the past, Admiral Fisher had shown two interesting traits: an innovative mind, and a love for anything fast.  Some 10 years earlier, he had essentially created the class of ship we now know as the destroyer.  Now he had the power to push through his greatest idea yet: a battleship armed with nothing but one size of large-caliber guns.  She was to be named HMS Dreadnought, and her very existence made the rest of the world's battleships obsolete at a single stroke.  Obviously well-armed, well-armored, and (of course) fast for her time, the Dreadnought was a marvel. 

And then he had to go and create a companion for the Dreadnought design.  The concept was a good one: a ship able to chase down and kill commerce raiders in independent action, and able to act as the eyes of the battleline in a fleet action.  It was to be able to outfight anything it could outrun, and outrun anything it couldn't outfight.  To do this required two things: high speed, and high firepower... a tall order, even for today's technology.

For the early 1900s, there was only one solution... take away weight.  In essence, what Admiral Fisher wanted was to build a Dreadnought-class ship, but without all that pesky armor.  And, being First Sea Lord of His Majesty's Royal Navy, what Admiral Fisher wanted, Admiral Fisher got.  What he got was the HMS Invincible, the world's first battlecruiser.

Weighing the same as the Dreadnought within a couple hundred tons, the Invincible carried eight 12" rifles in four twin turrets.  While this was two guns fewer than the Dreadnought,  better positioning of the two wing turrets allowed them to fire to their opposite side.  As a result, she could fire the same strength broadside as the bigger ship, which had only six guns on the center, and two wing turrets that could only fire to their respective sides.  The Invincible had 31 boilers driving four turbine-powered shafts, generating anywhere from 41000 to 46000 shaft horsepower, nearly twice the shp of the Dreadnought.  As a result, the Invincible could make 25kts, and nearly reached 27kts during builder's trials.  Her larger cousin could only make 21kts.  But all that speed came at a dramatic cost.


more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:08 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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While we wait for my brain to function long enough to complete the battlecruiser post, I figured I'd give you folks a treat... another Mystery Ship contest!  Here's tonight's contestant:

Name the ship, win a post!  Operators are not standing by to take your call.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:41 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Arrgh!  Why did you post this so late on a weeknight?  I have work tomorrow! 

Other than what appears to be a workshop or offices built on top of a pre-Dreadnaught battleship or cruiser, I've got naught so far...

Posted by: Siergen at June 23, 2011 11:27 PM (/P7QN)

2 The best I can come up with the USS Kearsage or Kentucky after conversion to a barracks or receiving ship.  I can't find any photos or write-ups for this, but several bow details seem to match.

And now, a few hours sleep before I need to go to work....

Posted by: Siergen at June 23, 2011 11:49 PM (/P7QN)

3

The bow looks like WWI.

I assume that the part at the rear that sticks out on the side is a latrine, right?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 23, 2011 11:52 PM (+rSRq)

4 USS Prairie State (IX-15), better known as USS Illinois (BB-7).

Posted by: flatdarkmars at June 24, 2011 01:39 AM (zxqxC)

5 flatdarkmars does it again.  Name your post, sir, or should I just do another one as usual?

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 24, 2011 06:24 AM (n0k6M)

6 Why did they feel the need to leave all that steel buried underneath an office building for thirty years?  Couldn't they have used all that armor-quality steel in some more productive fashion?

Posted by: Mitch H. at June 24, 2011 09:31 AM (jwKxK)

7

Mitch, that's simple: it's not an office building.  After the USS Illinois was changed to the Prairie State, she was also converted to become an armory ship.

That armor is, presumably, containing cordite, shell and shot by the thousands of tons.  It probably wouldn't do much good if it all went up, but it's likely better than nothing.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 24, 2011 09:53 AM (OS+Cr)

8 Hmmm your topic is... something to do with German surface commerce raiders in either the 1st or 2nd World War... I'll leave it fairly non-specific so you have some latitude to pick something interesting.

Posted by: flatdarkmars at June 24, 2011 12:13 PM (zxqxC)

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Down in the comments section of the post "The Reason for Midway", there's a sight to warm the heart of any blogger: an energetic argument discussion.  Longtime readers CXT and Avatar are doing a fine job of carrying the flag of disagreement with Bob, I wanted to pay closer attention to something he said at the very beginning of his comments.  To whit:

"These discussions are interesting but so narrow as to be misleading.  The entire Midway exercise didn't matter, regardless of outcome."

It will come as no surprise to readers of The Pond that I vehemently disagree with this statement.  To be honest, in one way I do agree with Bob in that Japan had no chance of winning an overall military victory against the forces of the United States, Britain, Australia and the Dutch.  However, that does not mean that Midway didn't matter, any more than it means that Guadalcanal/the Solomon Islands, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, or even Attu and Kiska, didn't matter.

Once the first A6M2s, D3A1s and B5N2s lifted off from the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku on their way to Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, sterile discussions over such concepts that Bob mooted became academic: win or lose, the die was cast and everything mattered.  Only in hindsight can we say "it was pointless and the Pacific War shouldn't have been started".  The fact of the matter is that it did start, men did fight, and it did matter... every bullet fired, every torpedo launched, every bomb dropped, every grenade thrown, mattered.

It mattered to 3400 men at Midway.  29000 men at Iwo Jima.  38000 men at Guadalcanal.  7000 men in the Aleutians.  12000 at Peleliu.  And hundreds of thousands more at dozens of other locations across the Pacific.

To suggest that these battles "didn't matter", no matter how large the stack of scholarship one may bring to the table, is ridiculous and insulting to those who participated and survived, those who were there and were injured, and to those who fought and died on both sides.  Don't take my word for it, however... walk up to a Pacific War veteran and tell him his actions didn't matter.  Just let me know where and when you intend to do it, so I can bring popcorn.

Regarding the first part of Bob's statement, it seems clear that he doesn't read The Pond overmuch.  Very nearly by definition, I blog about "the narrow", because that's where my interests lie.  Sure, I could write about the geopolitical situation surrounding the beginning of WWII in the Pacific, but I'd hate every moment of it.  I'm an amateur historian of the military actions of the Pacific War, with an emphasis on naval battles, and a particular emphasis on the Battle of Midway, because that's what I like... and I write about what I like.  I won't apologize for being "too narrow" for someone's taste.

Particularly when it "doesn't matter".

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:31 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Unless you're like me, and heaven help you if you are, you may not have noticed one of the most surprising facts surrounding the Battle of Midway.  That is, where are all the pictures of the Japanese carriers?   Now, I can hear you saying "Wonderduck, there's plenty of pictures of Kido Butai at Midway out there!  Just look at this one of the Akagi!"

"Or this one of the Soryu!"

"Or this one, it's the Hiryu!"

"Or this one, of the Kaga... er... hey!"

I'm sure there are variants of the above three pictures in the National Archives, but for all intents and purposes, those are the only images of the Japanese carriers involved at the Battle of Midway that we have.  Taken from B-17s on the morning of June 4th, 1942, they represent the entirety of the US photographic effort during the battle.

Or do they?
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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Reader Siergen asks: "Assuming that the Japanese had succeeded in taking Midway, did they have any plans to actually use it, such as for land-based bombing of Pearl harbor?  Or was it intended solely as bait to lure the US carriers out and sink them?"

A fine question.  Indeed, there was a strategic reason for the Japanese to take Midway.  However, in my estimation, their reasoning was somewhat... flawed.  As the War in the Pacific drew close, the Japanese military knew that they could not realistically go toe-to-toe with the United States for more than a year or so, two years maximum (let that sink in: they started a war they could not win militarily... and knew it).  Instead, they intended to win politically, by inflicting such heavy losses on the US and her allies that they'd give up and go for a political settlement.  In the political realm, they believed that they'd have a strong case for keeping their conquests (primarily the Indonesia area, with her rubber, tin and oil deposits) and become both self-sufficient and the unquestioned master of Asia.

To do this, the Japanese adopted a strategy that relied on the concept of a defensive perimeter.  They figured that if they captured enough island bases, like Wake, Guam, Rabaul, and the Philippines, then improved them to stronghold status so they'd be impossible to re-take, they'd be able to create an impassible border that would keep the Japanese Home Islands secure.  Along the way, they'd also attempt to sever the lines of communication between Australia and the US, though that would be more of a bonus than a goal.  It's hard to imagine the strategy without looking at a map, so let's use a simplified one: the board for the game Victory In The Pacific, by Avalon Hill.

This would be the situation going into June, 1942.  The shaded zones are controlled by the Japanese, the lighter areas by the US and her allies.  The defensive perimeter is starkly evident this way, along with the one weak area in the strategy: there are two open paths directly to the Home Islands.  The first is from the "Hawaiian Islands" area directly through the "Central Pacific"; the other, through the "North Pacific" and "Aleutian Island" zones. 

Prior to the Doolittle Raid, there was quite a bit of debate in the Japanese military command as to what the next targets would be... in effect, they had been so successful so quickly, they outstripped their own plans.  But then the attack using B-25 medium bombers, flying from the deck of the USS Hornet, made clear that the Home Islands were still vulnerable, and the plans to attack Midway and the Aleutians were approved.  Capturing those "areas" would prevent any attacks to slip through without being discovered and countered, either via ships sailing from Truk or from Japan proper

There was never any plan to use Midway as a point to launch aerial attacks on Pearl Harbor; even for the incredibly long-legged Japanese aircraft, the 1300 mile flight was too far a distance.  Instead, it would be a self-defending base able to send reconnaissance flights out to patrol the waters around it.  Just how the Japanese would be able to keep Midway supplied was never really answered; they would figure it out when the time came.

The flaw in this strategy is that the real world isn't a game board with zones of control that prevented enemy movement, yet in effect that's exactly how the Japanese were looking at it.  The Pacific Ocean is huge, particularly in the Northern and Central Pacific areas, with vast stretches of open sea where ships could sail without ever being noticed.  Indeed, the fleet used in the attack on Pearl Harbor took advantage of this fact on its approach.

The attack on Midway had the goal of sinking the American aircraft carriers, no mistake about it... but defending the Home Islands was the primary goal.  That the strategy behind the goal probably wouldn't have worked was apparently never considered.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:54 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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1 Thanks for the response!  I also read that the natural resources in the captured territories were insufficient to make up for the embargo from the US - and the Japanese knew it before they started the war.  If true, that meant not only did the Japaneses need for America to give up militarily within a year or two, but they also needed the US to "forgive and forget" and lift the trade embargo...

Posted by: Siergen at June 04, 2011 10:45 PM (FiHIo)

2

I don't know that this was really correct. It's true that they never did get the Indonesian oil fields up to the kind of production they really needed, but that wasn't foreseen before the war.

Their biggest problem was shipping, and not just because of the American submarine blockade. They handled their cargo ships suboptimally, because the Navy insisted on owning some of them and the Army did the same, and they didn't really coordinate their usage. So when the Army sent out ships full of troops and supplies to some region, they came back empty instead of bringing back raw materials. When ships were sent out to get raw materials, they went out empty. They could have substantially increased the efficiency of their cargo shipping if only the Army and Navy were more willing to cooperate.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 05, 2011 01:09 AM (+rSRq)

3

It was not simply a misallocation of shipping.  Japan, despite having the third largest merchant fleet in the world in size, and the most modern and efficient in quality, did not have enough shipping under the Japanese flag to handle the traffic needed in peacetime, let alone the higher shipping requirements in war.  And this does not include the shipping needed for various campaigns (During the later days of the Guadalcanal campaign, the Imperial Army was pressing for major diversion of merchant shipping to support the campaign, despite being told to their face that such diversions were going cripple the overall war effort.) or the requisition of merchant ships for other purposes (Like conversions to escort carriers, minelayers, auxilary cruisers, etc.).

In fact, at the outbreak of the Pacific War, 60-75% of the Japanese merchant fleet had been requisitioned for direct use by the service or in the opening campaigns, leaving very little support the war effort as a whole.  For the tanker fleet, it was >80%.  No Allied planner would have dared being stupid enough do something anywhere like that.

Posted by: cxt217 at June 05, 2011 02:56 PM (PKA/z)

4 These discussions are interesting but so narrow as to be misleading.  
The entire Midway exercise didn't matter...regardless of outcome.  The overall outcome was foreordained by the differential in GDP and the resulting delta in war production.  While I have some issue with specific entries, this web site is directionally correct ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II  . The war was decided on the size of the prewar industrial base and the ability to ramp.  The military efforts were heroic and certainly helpful, but the outcome was decided in the dull, boring (pick your term) factories of domestic USA.  The Japanese didn't have even two years...if not for the forced entry into the European conflict, Japan would have been finished years earlier.  
Japan could not have been certain of simultaneous entry of the US into the European conflict.  Any Japanese planning for a short war absent US involvement in Europe was idiocy even if only public source information was available.  Note the 1938-1941 difference in GDP between Japan and the USA.  The GDP impact is cumulative. 
Even if the US had been pushed back to continental US the outcome would have only been worse for the Japanese.  In this case, the wars human impact on the US population would have been quite modest and the resurgent economy (due to war production) would have made it 'easy' to stay the course.  Imagine a Japan in 1946 that owned the Pacific but was facing a US with long range bombers, scores of carriers and hundreds of nuclear weapons.  The post war period saw the development of 700 nuclear bombs by the end of 1950.  Imagine a wartime scale up of the nuclear production!  Forget Japanese cities....think of Japanese fleet or forward airbase survival in the face of a single bomb that only had to be somewhat close.
After 60 years we should be able to take a step back and understand what really happened.  And what was really important.

Posted by: BobReisner at June 07, 2011 02:29 PM (/ZWI/)

5

Bob, none of those things matter if the people of the rich country, or its leaders, don't have the guts to see the thing through.

The Japanese thought that was the case about the Americans. Even if you outproduce your enemy five to one, it still costs blood to win a war, and the Japanese thought that the Americans wouldn't be willing to shed enough blood to win.

That was their plan: after Pearl Harbor, to take and hold so much territory that the butcher's price of taking it back would be so high that the Americans would give up and make terms.

They weren't the first to make that mistake about America, and they weren't the last.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 07, 2011 02:58 PM (+rSRq)

6

Everyone on the Japanese side thought the US would outproduce and outmass them if and when the Pacific War broke out.  Everyone.  You can argue they underestimated the production imbalance between the themselves and the US, but that is a different matter.

And barring the more extreme delusionists (Gerhard Weinberg in A World At War make for interesting reading on some of the more grandoise schemes of the Axis.), no Japanese thought it was possible to subjugate the US militarily - though quite a few Japanese recognize the US could do so to Japan.

Those were not the points.  The Japanese thought they could wear down the Americans' will to continue fighting, that the Americans, confronted with an invincible Germany on the other side of the world (And YES, the Japanese WERE assuming the Germans would play a role against the US - by knocking Britain and the Soviet Union without Japan having to do anything, if nothing else.) would come to terms with Japan that would leave the Japanese in control of a vastly larger empire.

Posted by: cxt217 at June 08, 2011 08:01 AM (PKA/z)

7 I understand the assumption of foreign states of a lack of resolve by American citizens and an expectation of a US citizen desire to end any conflict early and at any cost.  I understand this because I see this assumption being made repeatedly over the centuries.  But, I also believe the foundation for these assumptions is not scholarship but simply wishful thinking.  Any review of American open source history should have warned them otherwise.
American history from the French & Indian War to modern day is a history of substantial citizen minorities acting with incredible violence over protracted time spans.  The American Revolution was a long war that was violent and resulted in a significant number of Americans being exiled from their homeland.  Modern warfare (WWI & WW2 style) was created by the American Civil War...violent, industrial, encompassing the whole of society, and with little quarter given.  If the Civil War was an example of American brother on brother violence, why would any foreign entity expect that the American reaction to foreign assault would be less violent and with less resolve.  It was a very indifferent citizenry that was dragged into WW1.  But still a speed and size of mobilization that was shocking even to the 'experienced' European warriors.  WW1 was a war without real passion on the part of the American citizen, but American history and politics clearly showed that an aroused citizen minority could hold a grudge for a very long time.  
While the Japanese right of passage on to the world stage was the war with Russia, could they not have not noticed the American crushing of a similarly waning power, Spain, with even less effort.  Could the Japanese not notice that the Depression crushed America, indifferent to foreign affairs, had the blue water navy that they were most concerned about?  In 1931 (Depression well underway), the Navy had 3 Carriers, 12 Battleships, 107 Cruisers/Destroyers, and 56 Submarines.  On December 7, 1941: 8 Carriers, 17 Battleships, 222 Cruisers/Destroyers and 112 Submarines.  ( http://goo.gl/9KAMi )  A Navy of this scope does not happen overnight, it is an activity that takes generations.  And the Navy of late 1941 was a product of an economically distressed country under a great measure of political upheaval.  It is worth noting that by late 1943 (only 2 years after Pearl Harbor), the US Navy size was greater than the combined fleets of all other countries on the planet.  Was their not a single Japanese analyst in the prewar period who could extrapolate existing shipbuilding capacity (1941) to a war time condition and determine that annual ship production was quickly going to be greater than the total Japanese 1941 fleet size.
In an open society there can be significant minorities that will protest for peace visibly and even irrationally.  American history shows that the 'war like' minority always holds sway and, while there can be noise, the ability of the American government to mobilize huge armed forces and the supporting industrial society for long periods and across varying economic conditions is always the case.  Perhaps our enemies are distracted by our discordant environment, something that doesn't exist in closed monolithic societies.  But it doesn't matter.  In matters of life and death, our enemies are under a societal obligation to develop the analytical resources that can see past the noise to the true conditions.  They never do and are doomed to make unfounded assumptions that cause their societies to collapse.  The information to make a correct assessment about American capacity and 'will' were in the open and available to the Japanese (Yamamoto knew).  The "Two Oceans Navy Bill" (July 1940) authorized 1.3MM tons of new warships, the 1939 Industrial Mobilization Plan gave the world notice of massive mobilization, in May 1940 the Office for Emergency Management and National Defense Advisory Commission were created to accelerate war planning, and in January 1941 things really started rolling with the new Office of Production management ---  years before open hostilities, the American society was years into a long term commitment to war.  All in the open.  For anyone to see.
It was over before it started.  Midway didn't matter.  The Japanese had many better options and would have likely pursued them had they had a rigorous analysis of the American reality, economic and strength of will.

Posted by: BobReisner at June 08, 2011 11:08 AM (/ZWI/)

8

You make a lot of good points, Bob, and we can agree to the preposition that any war started by Germany and Japan against the Allies was ultimately doomed to defeat (Though it was not apparent to all the participants at the time.).

But in many ways, it did not matter.  Both the Japanese and the Germans knew that once America entered the war, they would be outproduced - heck, the British outproduced Germany in ships, aircraft, and tanks by themselves.  And the Japanese were under no illusions about the possible size of the US Navy after the Two Ocean Navy bill/Stark Plan.

But it was the Japanese' consideration about whether the US had the will to fight them - especially with a victorious and apparently invincible Germany waging war against them at the same time - that represented their thinking.  That actually has some validity to it, since as Richard Franks pointed out in Guadalcanal, the Japanese had gotten a pretty sense of the domestic mood within the US in 1930s and 40s, including how the Selective Service was renewed by a margin of a single vote in the House.  Any doubts about both American and Western will to fight was shared, in private, by none other than Winston Churchill, following the fall of Singapore and Tobruk.  And the willingness of the Japanese to fight and die to literally the last man, and how that would impact American preceptions - that was what the Japanese expected before the war which did cause American concern during the war.

The huge productive advantage the US had is what caused the Japanese to plan on a short, decisive war of conquest before coming to terms with US - similar to how the mighty hosts of her surrounding enemies had caused two generations of the German General Staff to plan for a short, decisive war to knock out their opponents in sequence before they could be fully mobilized and act in concert.  Given the Japanese' apprisal of American opinion and the massive increase in US naval strength that was coming, that seemed a workable strategy to them.  The fact it was myopic is correct but in many ways, irrelevent. 

Posted by: cxt217 at June 08, 2011 10:33 PM (PKA/z)

9 So the japanese believed they would win. What if Japan would never have attacked Pearl Harbor, what if they had left US alone and concentrated on carving a huge empire from China, Soviets and european colonial possessions? Would US have done anything? What could have been the triggering point?

Posted by: Ari at June 09, 2011 01:22 AM (QXAzG)

10 The problem is that Japan wasn't completely independent of the US. They required significant shipments of raw materials, including a lot of scrap steel, in order to keep their economy going.

One of the triggers that prompted Pearl was the suspension of oil and steel exports to Japan in mid- to late 1941, in response to their continued invasion of China. Once they were in that position, they couldn't just coast along as they were; access to oil was absolutely required in order to continue with the military obligations they had and the civilian economy. So they had to get access to oil, and that either meant moving against SE Asia or backing down in China.

It's extremely questionable whether backing down in China was actually an option. Any civilian government that tried it without the military would have immediately been turfed out - the Japanese system required the army and the navy to provide a minister each, and they could undo a government by refusing to do so. On top of that, anyone who advocated such a policy would have been highly likely to be assassinated.

Could Japan JUST have attacked SE Asia without the US? Eh. It's not impossible. But if the US decided to make a point of it, it would have been easy to base the fleet at Manila, and there wasn't any way to run oil tanker convoys past a hostile Philippines. So they ran the risk of being pulled into war under circumstances that would have been much more favorable to the US, while still being at risk of getting fuel-choked at any time.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at June 09, 2011 12:37 PM (44ahZ)

11 I intend to post a response to Bob tonight.  It will come as no surprise that I strongly disagree with his initial statements.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 09, 2011 12:57 PM (OS+Cr)

12

Avatar: I would argue that a Japan that avoided war with the US and only attacked British and Dutch interest would have gotten away with it, at least for a little while.  They had two domestic US factors going for them - the strongly isolationist mood of the US population at the time, and intention of FDR to go to war with Germany first while trying to maintain peace as long as possible with Japan.  A US public that saw the Japanese avoid attacking American interests (In the Philippines and elsewhere.) and avoid attacking Pearl Harbor, would not have been in a mood to declare war on a Japan that was overrunning Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

Furthermore, the Philippines were not logistically prepared for a large American force to be based on - primarily because of its vulnerability to being attacked by the Japanese.  The ability of a December 1941 Pacific Fleet to do so was also questionable, given the priorities and allocations of forces to the Atlantic and against Germany - something that frustrated Husband Kimmel and his staff to no end.

Posted by: cxt217 at June 09, 2011 02:23 PM (PKA/z)

13 cxt217 in #12 get's it exactly right.  By late 1941, the US had clearly decided that Germany was the opponent of choice.  A relatively small island nation that knew it's limitations would have seen a path to real victory as anything other than an attack on the US.  A treaty that limited China area conquests to Korea, Manchuria and northern China would have taken 'China' off the table and the American population would have lost total interest.  Since France and the Netherlands had been conquered by Germany, Japanese protection in force of these and also German assets in the pacific would have likely been welcomed.  Think of Japan assuming the role of a limited regional power that allowed the US and Britain to focus on the European/Mideast/Africa theaters.  Japan could have easily positioned itself as an ally.  An ally that would have been welcomed and whose activities to 'keep the neighborhood safe' would have been overlooked (think about treatment of Russia).  It would have taken generations to integrate the arc from Indonesia to Manchuria into a real East Asia co-prosperity sphere, by 1941 japan had conquered almost all it really needed to be strong for the next 100 years.  And it would have had some very appealing post war geopolitical considerations...a strong ally aligned against a weak China (likely communist) and a resurgent Russia.  A very different Pacific and maybe a very different world picture with Russia having a heavily militarized Japan on the ground in Asia just below the empty Siberia.

Avatar in #10's point about a base in Manila is a stretch.  A fleet would be hard to supply and Manila would be vulnerable to submarine blockage and air attack from Formosa.  Plus what cxt217 said in #12.  A smart Japan could publicize American attacks on still 'friendly' Japanese shipping and it would be extremely difficult for an America at war with Germany to get popular support for an attack on the Japanese fleet.  Again, the only thing Japan had to do was to go out of the way to NEVER declare war on the US and to never engage in a first strike.  Germany was at war with Britain for 2 years without the US stepping in as a declared partner of Britain.  Yes we defended convoys, took some aggressive actions in the Atlantic and beefed up western hemisphere defense but we did not engage Germany despite provocation.  Based on this example, why did Japan think the US would actively engage Japan in defense of Britain in the face of Japanese aggression against British conquests.  Just another case of bad analysis and bad thinking.

Again on Avatar #10, I think the issue of US oil and scrap steel export to Japan (or rather lack of export) was not really important.  Any war with the US would be the same as the export ban....nothing would come from the US to Japan with a state of war in place.  

But Avatar in #10 makes my case exactly when he states the very true statement that NO Japanese government would have survived a China retrenchment or likely any military stand down / stabilization.  The combination of an insular society, emperor worship and the blind desire for territorial conquest created the perfect storm to assure that all problems had the same answer of military expansion.  Post war documents clearly showed that Japan had no realistic plan to stop and that there was no real post war plan, plan to end hostilities or even to 'integrate' the conquests into a rational economic system.  True analysis and realistic selection of realistic options was not possible in the religious and political structure that was Japan.  The choices made were to recover from ethnic/societal slights and feed the military desire to acquire territory.  What other possible explanation could there be for so many bad strategic decisions.  It wasn't random bad luck.  Ari's point in #9 is so obvious, how could the smartest people in Japan 1941 missed that train of thought.


The linchpin of the discussion rests on two apparent thoughts about the American people by the Japanese leadership:  the Americans didn't have a stomach for a long war and they were too 'soft' to fight a determined enemy.  We know that these statements are not true but it is my contention that the Japanese could have determined this in 1941 from a careful reading of public source information and American history.  Their (the analysts) desire to support ethnic supremacy, their feeling that other societies were structurally inferior, and that they must provide analysis that supports the predetermined conclusions of the emperor and military caused the Japanese disaster known as WWII.  I won't repeat all of the prior points but I want to address some of the examples in #10.  A close vote on Selective Service was nothing compared to the draft riots of the civil war (which did not affect the conduct of that war).  Again, the American revolution and civil war showed conclusively that Americans would fight each other to the last man!  If Andersonville showed how Americans would treat their own, what lesson should Japan have taken away?  The American propensity for violence was in every newspaper every day....machine gun toting bank robbers, gangland wars in New York, Chicago and Detroit, UAW and other union organizing activity, veteran pension marches (and the government response), California efforts to restrict 'immigrants' from the mid west, ethnic violence on every group that ever migrated to the US in size (Irish, German, Italian, Jews, Chinese, etc.), and of course White on Black actions.  As all of this is compared to the relatively peaceful, very structured, very stable Japanese society, I can only ask: Exactly what information were the Japanese analysts missing?  A violent people that could hold grudges across many decades.

I do understand that casual viewing of dissent in American political life (and in America in general) could lead those with limited information and understanding to a conclusion that the American society could not be mobilized for war (despite what happened in the Spanish American War and the BUND rallies in the 30's).  I do understand that isolationist marches and vocal 'peace at any price' fringe groups could make an impression of weakness on the ill informed.  All white people look and act alike so yes, America should collapse like the French, Poles, Austrians, etc did in the face of German intensity (forgetting that Germans were also 'white').  And Roosevelt and his team didn't know about war and were only interested in the domestic economy.  And so on. BUT, the analysts and war planners are not supposed to be casual viewers of limited information.  These analysts were expected to be 'the best and brightest'!  They should have made the effort to learn and understand.  They had 2 decades and no externally imposed resource constraints...one less battleship in a 20 year period would have provided the funds to send hundreds of soon to be senior staffers to the US for a decade to learn about us.  Of course, the 'visitors' would be so contaminated by the US that they could never assume a senior analysis position in the Japanese hierarchy!

America is a noisy society with many components wanting isolation and peace at any price.  My belief is that America always has a range of opinion and it is a specific vocal minority that carries the day.  The guy's with the guns.  About 1/3 (an unsupportable guess) of America is deeply 'conservative' and they tend to run the important government agencies (Senate, State, Defense, local governments), banks, industry, religion, and the actual military.  While other minorities can have impacts on the edge and minorities overlap, there is a core to the US that has acted in a very predicable way (not necessarily right) since our founding.  We see it and others can as well (or should).

It wasn't Midway, just really bad staff work.  All the answers were available.  There were good choices to be made (from their view).  The only impediment was a closed mind.  Turns out to have been a pretty big impediment.

Posted by: BobReisner at June 09, 2011 04:35 PM (/ZWI/)

14

Bob, sorry but as much as you have some valid and good points - you are not going to win this argument.  Your argument about the Japanese' lack of looking at American history ignores that fact that it was very much the Present America and World of 1940-1941 that was the determining factor in Japan's (And Germany's, to a lesser extent.) decision to go to war, in so far it as the apparent lack of will in Americans to fight a war.  The Draft Riots of the Civil War are interesting for a Japanese examining American history - it is also largely irrelevent to determining whether Japan was going to war in 1941.  Much, if not most, of the American history you cite as being 'missed' by the Japanese were completely irrelevent to the deliberations at hand.

Also, if we are going to look at American history - how about the fact that Americans previously have seldom enjoy unanimus support in going to war?  There are been a large segment in almost every war (Barring WW2 - and that still did not prevent one congresswoman from voting against a declaration of war on Japan.) that believed their fellow Americans were making a grave mistake in going to war against whomever.  Sometimes this has led to more active anti-war efforts during the conflict.  That would seem to argue that the Japanese assessment of Americans might be correct?  Likewise, determining how European countries would react to Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, by the using the European history regarding the mood in August 1914 might a tad off.

It is important to read the other guy's history but you have to be careful reading significance into it.  Japan's defeat at Midway and in the Pacific War was the outcome of a whole host of factors, some of which no one could anticipate and some which could and should have been anticipated by the people of the time - but your overall position really is not one of them and, in my view, not supportable.

Posted by: cxt217 at June 09, 2011 05:19 PM (PKA/z)

15 Sorry to hear that cxt217 in #14 thinks we are having an arguement....I really do think it is a discussion ;>)

I'm also a poor communicator...most of the comments in #14 I agree with and feel support my point of view!

The Civil War draft riots were brought up as a counterpoint to the comment about the Selective Service Act being passed by a single vote margin and how this shows a reluctant America...that by implication would 'freeze' aggressive action by the government.  The riots didn't and a single vote wouldn't.  I also think that other countries should look at the long history of a people.  Clearly much of France, to pick one example, has been and continues to be influenced by the French revolution, Napoleon, 1870, 1914 and of course WWII.  The distant past is important.  I believe this is true for most countries European, Asian, etc..and of course the USA.  

I'd ask (cxt217) why you think American history in general and my specific references to the violent nature of Americans in the 1930's doesn't serve as an indicator that Americans can be violent (and self organize for violence) and hold grudges for a long period.  As well as a multi year defense ramp up being well underway by 1941.  cxt217 says "...how about the fact that Americans previously have seldom enjoy unanimus support in going to war?..."  My point exactly!  With the possible exception of the Spanish American War (made unanimous by a 'sneak attack'!), the US had a long history of going to War with significant (perhaps majority) dissension.  How could the Japanese have missed this?

I'll respond to the third paragraph of #14 in a post on the next thread but my line of discussion is NOT about the Japanese defeat at Midway being "...the outcome of a whole host of factors...".  Of course it was.  My point was and is that the Battle of Midway, while heroic, was not really important in the outcome of the War.  And that with the perspective of 60 years after the fact, we should start to acknowledge this.

(Not having to do with this discussion, the cxt217 comment "... Likewise, determining how European countries would react to Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, by the using the European history regarding the mood in August 1914 might a tad off..." seems inappropriate on its face.  In 1914 Europe went to war on the basis of an assasination of a single person who wasn't really all that important.  So if Europe could go to war over a single death, why not a possibility over a single country?  Most historians weren't surprised...the exhaustion of WWI created the anomily of Austria and Czechoslovakia, not the other way around.)

Posted by: BobReisner at June 10, 2011 03:01 PM (/ZWI/)

16

First, I was error when referring to this as an 'argument' the way I did.  We are having a discussion - all parties are advancing their arguments (i.e. position.) in the discussion.

The point is that trying to read history as an example what a nation or a people will do later, can be dangerous if you put more significance than the part of history is worth.  Yes, America has gone to almost all its wars with large segments of the population dissenting (I would argue even the Spanish-American War qualifies, since there were a number of people, up and including William McKinley, who thought it was very bad idea.) and it has impair but not froze its action.  I suppose the Japanese could have read that as warning - but they could also read that any war in 1941 that involved the US would not be whole-heartedly supported by the people, and would have a major segment of the American population seek negotiations and peace as soon as possible, and that the peace movement who not freeze the effort - but it would impair so much that the US government would not able to concentrate its whole attention on the war and would spur the US (Especially faced with an invincible Germany too.) to seek peace with the Japanese.

Note that historically, the US has ended every war prior to 1941 except the Civil War with...a negotiated settlement.  And had the stalemate that persisted outside Richmond/Petersburg and Atlanta lasted longer in 1864, we might not have the exception either.  That would suggest to a Japanese studying American history that the US would eventually come to the negotiating table with Japan as equals to end the war - after all, Americans always become war weary and want it to end, one or another.

And the build-up of American military power prior to 1941 would have argued for Japan to wage a short, decisive war so everything could be settled before the US could bring its greater production to bear.  Actually, that is was brought up by the Japanese in the deliberations on the road to war - and before that as well, because they ALWAYS assumed the US would have the numerical advantage in the correlation of forces and productive capability.  And it is strikingly similar to a German General Staff that, understanding their neighbors had the ability to steamroller them when they finished mobilizing and acted in concert, planned to knock them out in sequence before that occurred.

Now, we know the Japanese were concentrating on the Present America and Present World of 1941 when considering going to war with the US.  Except for the US military build-up, very little else from American history was relevent to their decision making, though the war weariness/isolationism of the 1920s-1930s was certainly a factor.  But even if they did study American history more, it would not have supported your position.  No one, least of all me, will argue that past has no effect on the present, behavior or otherwise.  But you have to read it with the correct appreciation of its significance.

Finally, my comment about trying to predict the European reaction to the invasion of Poland in 1939 through the lens of a 1914 Europe was actually a callback to an observation by Barbara Tuchman in The Guns of August, where she mentioned that 1914 Europe seemed 'bored of peace' which led them to eagerly marched off to war.  You certainly can not say Europe was eager to go to war in 1939 - not even Germany - and thus you can not use that past to explain the present.  Those are hardly all the reasons for either war, but it does show that care needs to be taken when examining the events of the present through the filter of the past.

And yes, Midway was important - the Japanese defeat meant the initiative was knocked out of their hands and into the air for anyone to try to grab it.  That the Allies only grabbed it when they started the Guadalcanal Campagin does not reduces the importance of Midway.

All other commets will go in Wonderduck's post on the subject.

 

Posted by: cxt217 at June 10, 2011 08:58 PM (G3oVK)

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When one thinks of the Battle of Midway, images of Dauntless dive-bombers plummeting down towards Japanese carriers immediately leap to mind.  Or perhaps the tragic story of the massacre of the three torpedo squadrons flying TBD Devastators is the more dramatic, and therefore more memorable, saga.  Whatever the military buffs out there think of, it's unlikely that the Brewster F2A Buffalo would get more than a derisive snort, if even that.

That's somewhat unfair to what was the US Navy's first monoplane fighter.  As originally designed, the Buffalo was actually quite nimble and well-liked by its pilots.  Indeed, its wing-loading was only slightly higher than that of the Zero.  No less a name than Marine pilot Pappy Boyington praised the Buffalo, saying "they were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but the little plane could turn and roll in a phone booth."  The most glaring weakness of the F2A was its armament: two machineguns in the nose, one .50cal and one .30cal, a most odd combination.  The landing gear was considered marginal for use on carriers, but good enough.

But then the Navy accepted it for service... with a few modifications.  Armor plate was added, as was a larger-capacity self-sealing fuel bladder.  Further, two wing-mounted .50cal guns were also added... all of this on just a 900hp engine.  Performance in the form of top speed and climb suffered badly in a plane not great in either category.  By 1941, the Buffalo had turned into the F2A-3, with a 1200hp engine (the benefit of which was mostly lost by the increased weight it added, both in its size and in the larger airframe required to mount it), even more armor, and a bigger wing with integral fuel tanks.  This increased the range to nearly 1000 miles, giving it much longer legs than the F4F Wildcat, but ruined the plane's one true feature, its handling.

By the Battle of Midway, the Buffalo had become too slow, too heavy and too lethargic, a bad combination for a fighter plane.  However, as someone many years later said, "you don't fight wars with the military you want, you fight wars with the military you have," and when the Japanese planes were approaching Midway Atoll, what the defenders had were the 21 Buffalos and seven F4Fs of Marine Fighting Squadron 221.

The result was both better and worse than anybody could have expected.  Despite being outnumbered by the 36 Zeros escorting 72 bombers, 17 Japanese planes were shot down by VMF-221, but at the cost of 13 Buffalos and 2 Wildcats (and all of their pilots) lost.  Of the remaining planes, only two were still airworthy after the fight.  F2A pilots were vociferous in their condemnation of their planes afterwards, one going so far as to state "(the)F2A-3 is not a combat airplane... ...it is my belief that any commander that orders pilots out for combat in a F2A-3 should consider the pilot as lost before leaving the ground."

After the Battle of Midway, all remaining Navy Buffalos were sent to the US mainland as advanced training aircraft, which duty it performed until 1944.  Because of the infamous quality that Brewster built their planes with (i.e., none at all), there are only three F2As known to survive.

Outside of the US Navy, however, opinion of the Buffalo is much higher.  The British, Australian, Dutch and Finns all used an export variant of the plane.  The Finnish Air Force in particular used the B-239E variant to great effect in the air war against the Soviet Union, with one squadron (Lentolaivue 24) registering 459 kills, while losing 15 B-239s.  It's notable that these variants did not have the extensive armor plating and heavy self-sealing fuel tanks of the F2A, and therefore kept its maneuverability.  To be fair, however, the Finns were not fighting against Zeros flown by crack pilots, but poor Soviet pilots with lousy leadership and, at least at first, obsolete planes. 

In conclusion, the F2A deserves more respect that it is shown.  It was an acceptable enough fighter to begin with, but by the time the Navy was finished throwing stuff into it, it had become a pig.  Consider it a lesson learned, similar to the one the US Army learned with the P-39 Airacobra.  That it was outclassed by the Zero isn't a mark of shame; everything was outclassed by the A6M2 in 1942.  Without the Buffalo being present at Midway, the Japanese might have done more damage to the base there.  Enough to render it unusable?  Probably not, but with the F2A present, they certainly didn't. 

It wasn't a great plane, but it was there.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:26 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Today, June 4th, is the 69th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.  At Naval bases around the world and on board ships at sea, commemorative events have been taking place over the past couple of days, remembering both the Navy's greatest victory and those who lost their lives during the Battle.

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As all good Pacific War otaku know, the 69th anniversary of the Battle of Midway is coming up early next month.  Regarded as the most stunning and important victory in the history of Naval warfare, three US aircraft carriers, supported by aircraft flying from Midway Atoll, attacked and sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers, three of them in the space of just a handful of minutes on June 4th, 1942.

While the US was outnumbered by the Japanese in the number of aircraft carriers present at the battle, the Americans had broken the Japanese radio codes and had a detailed knowledge of their plans for the whole skirmish.  Taking advantage of this, the US Navy in effect ambushed the Japanese fleet.  Of course, the victory did not come without cost.  Three squadrons of torpedo planes were effectively wiped out, and one of the American carriers, the USS Yorktown, was sunk.

The Japanese presumed the Yorktown to have been sunk a month earlier, at the Battle of the Coral Sea.  Indeed, she had been beaten up, but the first and possibly greatest of the "miracles" of Midway had occurred in the intervening time.

Or had it?
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In 1915, things were looking grim for the British Isles.  Unrestricted submarine warfare was slowly strangling the country, cutting off the flow of supplies to the nation.  Stocks of fuel, armaments, supplies and food were all at desperately low levels... the Allies were losing the Battle of the Atlantic.  At that time, defenses against submarines were rudimentary at best.  Sonar was non-existent, depth charges were crude and for the most part ineffective, and the homing torpedo wasn't even thought of yet.  The only realistic chance that a defending ship had to sink a submarine was to catch it on the surface.

While it's hard to imagine a submarine allowing itself to be caught on the surface these days, things were different in 1915.  At the time, submarines were what would be called "submersibles" today: able to descend under the waves for a short time only, while doing most of their movement on the surface.  Because their underwater time was limited, a sub would "go under" only when preparing for an attack run... and not always then.  The torpedoes of the time were cranky, ill-tempered beasts that were often unreliable, and always in short supply.  It was quite common for a submarine to sneak up on a target, surface, then engage with a deck gun.  Of course this would only work against an unarmed freighter or transport; it goes without saying that an actual warship would receive a torpedo fired from underwater.

However, even this limited method of attack was extremely effective against unarmed merchant craft... so effective that England was on the verge of starving.  The obvious defense, convoying, or putting a large number of merchant vessels in one group while defending them with one or more warships, was ruled out by the ship-strapped Royal Navy.  There just weren't enough warships to go around.  Something had to be done, and quickly.  Two innovations arose from this desperate need.

The first was the armed merchantman.  More of a throwback than a true innovation, at its heart the armed merchantman was a descendant of the age of sail, when almost every East Indiaman had a good number of cannon lining its rails to fight off pirates and privateers.  The generic armed merchantman of WWI-vintage would have the firepower of a destroyer or light cruiser, six 6" guns and various numbers of smaller guns as a secondary battery.  Since they were built as merchant vessels, they were however fragile: little in the way of compartmentalization to prevent flooding, little if any armor (other than raw size) to prevent damage, with a slow top speed that prevented running away.  Armed merchantmen were mostly for use against commerce raiders as a self-defense measure: if a warship came upon an armed merchantman, at least there was some way to fight back.  However, with their guns carried on deck, they were just as likely as a battleship to attract a torpedo from a submarine.

The second innovation was the Q-ship.  Take a freighter and turn it into an armed merchantman... then hide the guns inside false panels or deck structures or belowdeck.  When a submarine approached, it'd see a nice big fat undefended target, surface and engage with the deck gun... at which point, the Q-boat would drop the false panels, run out the guns and with the element of surprise blow the submarine out of the water.  To be sure, they could take on a surface vessel as well, but their weapons were more designed to engage fragile submarines: a hole or two would prevent a sub from diving, trapping it on the surface.  Q-ships had no set armament loadout, but multiple 3" guns were common.

Despite the clever idea, Q-ships were generally ineffective against submarines in WWI, accounting for less than 10% of all kills scored.  Instead, they were more of a psychological weapon, preying upon the mind of a U-boat captain.  If any freighter could be heavily armed and just waiting for you to surface, the sub captain might be more reluctant to do so, and either let the freighter go or waste a precious torpedo on it.

During WWII, there was a repeat of the WWI Battle of the Atlantic, and the Q-ship concept was revived.  It was even less successful than in WWI, mainly because advances in submarine technology meant that a sub could spend less time on the surface, torpedoes were much less prone to failure and in greater supply.   The Royal Navy commissioned nine Q-ships in 1939, two of which were sunk on their first mission.  None of them sank a U-boat, and they were quietly retired in 1941.  The US Navy converted five cargo vessels to Q-ships, one of which was sunk and the other four failed to engage a submarine during their two-year run.

And then there was the USS Anacapa.
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By popular demand, the "Name This Mystery Ship" contest is back!  Here's the rules: no cheating by using photo-matching programs or things like that.  Otherwise?  Free game.  The winner gets a post on a topic of his or her own choosing (within limits: no pr0n, religion or politics).  If it looks like nobody is going to get it, I may decide to post a hint or two.

Here's the mystery ship:

Good luck to you!

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1 To my land-lubber eyes, the rigging looks like some sort of radio gear.  I searched for either a radio-navigation beacon ship, or perhaps an intelligence vessel performing radio direction finding/intercepts.  Unfortunately, I could not find any vessels which both performed those missions and resembled your photo... 

Posted by: Siergen at May 18, 2011 08:44 PM (ole2J)

2 Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Posted by: Wonderduck at May 18, 2011 09:00 PM (n0k6M)

3 Can duck's bill actually produce the sound "Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha"?

Posted by: Siergen at May 18, 2011 09:12 PM (ole2J)

4 My first guess was a SIGINT ship, or maybe a RADAR picket.  But I can't come up with a matching profile.  The hunt continues...

Posted by: David at May 18, 2011 09:15 PM (Kn54v)

5 Baralong?

Posted by: Brickmuppet at May 18, 2011 09:27 PM (EJaOX)

6 Oops. USS Anacapa, (I figured it was a Q ship)

Posted by: Brickmuppet at May 18, 2011 09:30 PM (EJaOX)

7 Darn, now that Brickmuppet gave the name, I found it right away.  For some reason I figured you wouldn't choose a Q-ship again...

Posted by: Siergen at May 18, 2011 09:44 PM (ole2J)

8 Q is for Quack!

Posted by: Brickmuppet at May 18, 2011 10:08 PM (EJaOX)

9 @Siergen: ...again?  I haven't done a Q-ship before.

@Brickmuppet: I'm not going to ask how you knew this one. 

There's a good story behind the Anacapa, which I'll tell tomorrow (oooh, teaser).

Posted by: Wonderduck at May 18, 2011 10:53 PM (n0k6M)

10 You haven't?  I could've sworn you had...

Posted by: Siergen at May 19, 2011 12:16 AM (ole2J)

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The USS Iowa was the namesake for what was arguably the best class of battleships ever built.  Launched in 1942, she was commissioned in 1943.  Displacing 45000 tons, her engine rooms could still move her through the water at a blistering 33kts.  Her main armor belt was 12" thick, while her three main turrets were armored to nearly 20" in thickness.  Those turrets carried three 16"/50cal rifles each, and each of those guns could fire a 2700lb shell over 23 miles.  Twenty 5"/38cal guns formed her secondary battery, and could be used for both anti-aircraft or anti-surface work.  Four of the mammoth warships were built.

But only one had a bathtub.

Late in 1943, the heads of state for the three major Allied countries, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt, were to meet in Tehran for a strategy conference.  The US Navy choose the USS Iowa to take President Roosevelt on the first leg of the journey to Iran, crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  But there was a small snag.  President Roosevelt had developed an illness in 1921, at the time diagnosed as polio, that had paralyzed him from the waist down.  He could only walk by swinging his legs laboriously via a twist of his torso, and leg braces and crutches were mandatory.  FDR was also pretty much incapable of standing without assistance from one or two individuals.  This ruled out his use of a shower, at the time the only form of bathing available on US warships.  As the trip would take quite some time, something had to be installed for his use.  That something was Iowa's Bathtub.

Who knew?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:02 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Roughly halfway between the west coast of America and Japan, there lays a small atoll consisting of two significant islands and a handful of smaller ones, mostly surrounded by a low-lying reef.  Called "Midway" for obvious reasons, it was first a location for guano mining.  Later, Pan Am used the atoll as a stopover point for their "China Clipper" service.  As World War II approached, the US military recognized it as having an important location for the defense of the west coast.  Barracks, runways, gun emplacements, a seaplane base, and even a submarine base appeared, seemingly overnight.

Of course, we remember Midway as the namesake location of one of the most important battles of any sort in history.  One aspect of Midway atoll that seemingly every history of the Battle remarks upon are the ubiquitous avian residents, the Laysan Albatross.

Better known as the Gooney Bird for their goofy, clumsy appearance on land, nearly a million of these birds live on Midway today, and there's no reason to think any fewer were there during WWII.  Gooneys are known to have extremely long lives, with the oldest known to be over 60 years old, and possibly older.  It's quite possible that some Gooneys alive today were present on Midway during the battle.

Lost among the tragic news reports coming out of Japan in the wake of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and huge tsunami that followed it, were bulletins from Midway atoll.  Sand Island, the largest of the islands that make up Midway, was 20% covered by water from the tsunami's five foot tall waves, while Eastern Island had been 60% covered.  Spit Islet, the largest of the minor land masses that make up the atoll, was completely inundated.  As a result of this, over a thousand adult Gooney birds were killed, and many thousands of flightless chicks were drowned as well.  "We may see just a slight decline in breeding birds next year, next year and the year after that," said Barry Stieglitz, project leader for the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuges. "There will be a gap in the breeding population when these birds that would have grown up this year, would have matured and started breeding for the first time."

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In 1905, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) showed the world that is was at least the equal of any Western navy by its complete domination at the Battle of Tsushima.  In this climax to the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese battle fleet, commanded by Admiral Togo, annihilated the Russian Second Pacific Squadron at the cost of three small torpedo boats.

By 1906 though, the Japanese fleet was made obsolete by the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in the British Royal Navy.  Realizing that evolving technology had laid their fleet to waste (and terrified by that fact), the IJN made plans for a new and improved fleet of ships.  Called the "Eight-Eight Fleet", it was to be based around eight new Dreadnought-style battleships and eight cruisers.  Designed to be capable of going toe-to-toe with the US Navy, even at this early date thought to be Japan's most likely foe, this battleline was considered the only way the nation of Japan could be made safe.  Though the country had been practically bankrupted by its war with the Russians, the first batch of ships was approved in 1911.

Events on the other side of the world again worked against the IJN's plans.  While Japan had sided with the Allies in World War I, for all intents and purposes she had little to do with the European theater of war.  Instead, she had little spats with far-flung German possessions in the Pacific.  Meanwhile, the war in the Atlantic led to massive improvements in naval technologies for the combatants there.  Suddenly, the IJN again found themselves with seemingly obsolescent ships while their rivals had honed their fleets against the whetstone of war.

The decision was made to scrap the first Eight-Eight fleet plans and start a second.  This second fleet was to be built around a nucleus of the newest vessels of the first, two completed battleships of the Nagato-class, two Tosa-class battleships that were in the process of being built, and four Amagi-class battlecruisers that were in various stages of construction.  They were to be joined by four battleships of an unnamed class that was to carry 18" guns, and four "fast battleships" to accompany the battlecruisers.

The Amagi-class was to tip the scales at over 41000 tons, be capable of 30kts, and carry ten 16" guns on a hull some 826 feet long.  As with all battlecruisers, the Amagis were not particularly well-armored; they were designed to be able to outgun anything they could outrun (cruisers of all sizes and destroyers), and outrun anything that outgunned them (battleships, mostly).  While in retrospect it's clear that the battlecruiser concept was deeply flawed, the thinking of the time was that speed, not armor plating, would be a battlecruiser's best defense. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1

Another sweet article, Duck.

 

When are you going to cover CL55?

Posted by: The Old Man at March 15, 2011 10:58 AM (TcNy+)

2 Thanks for the great article!  And since it was an article that I "won" in one of your ship identification contests, does this mean it's time for another? 

Posted by: Siergen at March 15, 2011 04:54 PM (Gqqsw)

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In the 100 years that navies have taken airplanes to sea, there have been some truly creative methods employed to get an organic aircraft capability onto ships.  Barges towed behind destroyers.  Launching platforms on the turrets of battleships.  Explosive catapults on the bows of merchant ships.  Submarines with floatplanes.  Merchantmen with a rudimentary flight deck laid over their cargo areas.  The list could go on forever, but none of them were really a success.

During the Allied invasion of Sicily, there was a need for artillery spotting airplanes.  The usual plane used, the L-4 Grasshopper (better known in civilian use as the famous Piper Cub), didn't have the range to actually fly to Sicily from Allied bases, and aircraft carriers decks were too valuable to ferry them there.  Having them transported in a knocked-down state was possible, but it was time-consuming to have to put them back together.  Knowing all this, a US Army pilot named Captain Brenton Devol, suggested a solution: put a flight deck on a LST.  And lo, was the tiniest aircraft carrier created.

LST-386 was fitted with a flight deck made of timber and pierced metal runway mats.  It measured 216 feet long by 12 feet wide, and it took just over 36 hours to build.  It could carry four Grasshoppers, plus its normal load of cargo and troops in her tank deck. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:54 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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In 1918, the Royal Navy commissioned the world's first ship to be easily recognizable as an aircraft carrier, the HMS Argus.  In 1922, the Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned the first ever ship designed and built as an aircraft carrier, the Hosho.  In between, the US Navy sent to sea the first of an unbroken line of carriers that led directly to today's nuclear-powered supercarriers. 

But on the face of it, the American carrier had a very odd beginning.

The USS Jupiter (AC-3) joined the fleet in 1913 as the first electric-drive ship in the US Navy.  A collier, her job was to provide underway replenishment to the fleet.  This task led to her most distinctive feature, the vertical towers, called kingposts, amidships.  These were structural supports for coaling booms, which would be lowered when a ship was alongside.  Coal would then be sent down the booms to the decks of the receiving vessel.

These kingposts proved to be one of the reasons she was selected to become the basis for the first US aircraft carrier.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:21 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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After that headline, you're probably rolling your eyes... what seaplane tender changed the world?

That one... and I'm working on a ship profile on it.  I intended to have it up tonight, but it's not happening.  It will be up sometime Monday, as I've got the day off, so look forward to it!

(ps - no, this isn't a "name that ship" contest, I just wanted to put a teaser picture up, though if you want to take a shot, go ahead)

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:47 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In my own personal shorthand, there is a category I call 'hero ships.'  These vessels, for one reason or another, just stick in the mind as incredibly important... even if they really weren't in the grand scheme of things.  Sometimes it's just because they have a cool name, sometimes it's because they seemed to be in the midst of all the action, sometimes it's because they were particularly influential.  Ships like USS Enterprise, or HMS Ark Royal (the greatest name for a ship ever).  The IJN Yamato is a 'hero ship,' even though it didn't do much in WWII.  So are the Bismarck and the HMS Hood, fated to be forever joined on history.  The doomed USS Indianapolis and USS Arizona.  There are probably dozens of others in my head, ships that anybody with any knowledge of WWII have heard of.

Then there's the ship we're discussing here.  Imagine if you will a vessel that was present at the following battles: the Doolittle raid; Midway; the attacks against the Solomons; Guadalcanal; New Georgia; Wake Island; the Gilbert Islands; the Marshall Islands; Truk; the Marianas battles; Luzon; the naval raids on the Japanese home islands; Iwo Jima; Okinawa; Tokyo Bay.  She also just missed the Coral Sea.

And yet, nobody considers her a 'hero ship'... and they really should.  For without her and her sisters, the US would have had a much harder time of it in the Pacific War.


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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:07 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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When one thinks of battleships, what leaps to mind?  The gleaming Iowas, usually.  Others would think of the hulking Yamato-class, still the largest battlewagons ever built.  Or perhaps the menacing Bismarck and Tirpitz, pride of the Kriegsmarine would hold primacy over all.  If you have a sense of history, classes like the Nevada/Pennsylvania, with their cage masts and one of which, the Arizona, is now one of the US military's most hallowed sites.  Or the first of them all, the Dreadnought.

And then there's me.  I'm a weirdo, because my favorite battleship class is one that few people know or (historically) care about.  You see, I'm a fan of the Nelsons. 

I can hear you now: "The whichnow?"  These:

The sharper-eyed amongst you have already noticed the obvious difference.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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