Prinz Eugen

[Thorgalaeg]

Battle of Tsushima was decided by barnacles.

 

[PhroX]

Thing is, the Japanese did get the decisive battle they were looking for. At Midway.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

the Japanese were utterly bent on one single gigantic battle to defeat the USN . Understandable , because America is far too big and it has millions and millions of factories with raw resources to match . If they can't win at once the Japanese will be caught in a vice of attritional warfare . Especially if they win a "little" initial victory . Americans will then simply skulk at port , waiting for a couple of years to get a massive amount of ships . Hence the Japanese submarines are geared for engaging America battlefleets in case they catch them . A campaign to attack American Merchant Fleet is bad , detracts from the primary mission . Likewise escort ships are bad , steel for them better used for Fleet Destroyers to fire Long Lances on American battlewagons .

Thing is, the Japanese did get the decisive battle they were looking for. At Midway.

True story.

Also, I don't think the majority of Japanese leadership really thought they'd be caught in a war of attrition. They were either willfully ignorant of US industrial capacity or had imagined in racist fever dreams that the US would be cowed by the great victory of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Japanese offensive to throw in the towel quickly. That the US would go on a building spree the likes the world had never seen before just to throw tens of thousands of men at worthless islands just to dislodge them so they could get close enough to throw tens of thousands of more men at the next worthless island chain was beyond their comprehension. Or so it seems with hindsight anyways.

And I think it's fair to say that no one predicted the extent of the vicious air campaign over Japan that followed on the heels of the GIs.

 

[Lexicus]

Also, I don't think the majority of Japanese leadership really thought they'd be caught in a war of attrition. They were either willfully ignorant of US industrial capacity or had imagined in racist fever dreams that the US would be cowed by the great victory of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Japanese offensive to throw in the towel quickly. That the US would go on a building spree the likes the world had never seen before just to throw tens of thousands of men at worthless islands just to dislodge them so they could get close enough to throw tens of thousands of more men at the next worthless island chain was beyond their comprehension. Or so it seems with hindsight anyways.

Yeah, I think they understood the industrial capacity, they just drastically underestimated the determination to use it. But naturally, the US capitalists weren't about to let some second-rate power like Japan shut us off from China's markets.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Battle of Tsushima was decided by barnacles.

Unlike the Boxer Rebellion; Which failed to answer one the greatest questions of all time: Boxers or Briefs?

 

[Evie]

Thing is, the Japanese did get the decisive battle they were looking for. At Midway.

Midway is overrated. It was a halting blow to Japan, but it still left them with enough forces in the Pacific to engage the 1942-vintage USN at something very much like parity. They also had a fair chunk of their pilot corp left standing.

In a very real sense, to the extent that any battle in the Pacific can be described as "decisive", Guadalcanal is much closer to the crown than Midway. Midway was an idiotic plan that backfired but left the Japanese forces more than able to match the USN in the Pacific. Guadalcanal - an assault on the Japanese defensive perimeter, fought within striking distance of their fortress at Rabaul, where they would be able to muster and deploy for maximum effect - was the perfect condition and the one chance the Japanese had to fight something remotely approaching their concept of the decisive battle.

So naturally they committed piecemeal to it, made it a campaign of attrition, and squandered much of their remaining strength (particularly in trained pilots) to no effect. And waited until the Marianas and Philippines to try for a decisive battle, by which time they were completely outmatched in pilots, planes and ships alike.

 

[Cutlass]

True story.

Also, I don't think the majority of Japanese leadership really thought they'd be caught in a war of attrition. They were either willfully ignorant of US industrial capacity or had imagined in racist fever dreams that the US would be cowed by the great victory of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Japanese offensive to throw in the towel quickly. That the US would go on a building spree the likes the world had never seen before just to throw tens of thousands of men at worthless islands just to dislodge them so they could get close enough to throw tens of thousands of more men at the next worthless island chain was beyond their comprehension. Or so it seems with hindsight anyways.

And I think it's fair to say that no one predicted the extent of the vicious air campaign over Japan that followed on the heels of the GIs.

The Japanese political leadership thought that the US political leadership,or public, didn't have the stomach for a major war. They were too wrapped up in their warrior cult to admit that anyone else was the fighters that they were. So they discounted the size, and ability to build arms, that the US had and that they did not. Their top admiral, Yamamoto, knew better. But was not listened to. For too many of the others in Japanese leadership, at all levels, anything that didn't fit with their beliefs was fake news. The Japanese missed out on not just American industrial capacity, not just on willingness to fight, but also on American skill at fighting. They were certain that they would be better. They were so certain that they would be better fighters, and have more will to fight, that even information that they should have known didn't really register with them.

USS Lexington CV-2 was sunk in May of 1942. USS Lexington CV-16 was launched in October of 1942. 4 months. USS Yorktown CV-5 was sunk in June of 1942. USS Yorktown CV-10 was launched January of 1943. 6 months. Now we didn't build those ships that fast. Those ships were already under construction when their namesakes were lost.

And that information was known.

The Japanese already knew we had the replacements for anything that they might sink half built. But they discounted that information. And so when they could not replace losses, we could. They knew this. They just didn't act on it. It was all fake news to them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ermmmm...I think the Japanese counted more on "the war in Europe will be their focus" than any "they will just let us get away with this because" reasoning, and they were mostly correct. They just misjudged the ability of Germany to bring the war to a negotiated conclusion rather than getting their hats handed to them and leaving Japan on their own to defend the territory they had snapped up.

 

[Evie]

No, they did count on an American lack of stomach for war.

Which they weren't entirely wrong on - Vietnam wasn't that long after the Pacific, and America tried its darnedest to stay out of both World Wars. America's stomach for war isn't all that strong. What they failed to appreciate was that America's lack of appetite for prolonged wars does not extend to a lack of appetite for revenge. Hurt America, and America will blow you to kingdom come right back.

But in 1941, nothing of the sort had happened in 50 years (since the Spanish-American war), so it was an easy distinction to miss, all the more so as Spain had done very little to actually hurt the US in that war. Unfortunately for Japan, it was also a fatal distinction to miss.

In hindsight, the best play for Japan (beside the impossible "get out of china") would have been to ignore the US entirely - just go after the West Indies. If you really want to get the US, go after the Philippines, but DON'T conquer them. Leave the US forces embattled there long enough for the Pacific fleet to come out to play. Then have your decisive battle, but in a situation where it's the US navy that looks completely outmatched - not in a situation where the Japanesse navy look treacherous and backstabbing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The overall strategic approach was still appropriate for a "fast grab, negotiate settlement" plan that had a lot of merit. Any "fight to the bitter end" plan was inevitably going to end with US industrial capacity determining the wining side, but a negotiated settlement that allowed the axis powers to keep even a quarter of their conquests would have been a win...and who really expected the US to be unwilling to cede a slice of the USSR and China to Germany and Japan?

 

[Evie]

Anyone who knows how the US reacts when attacked.

After just the Spanish-American war (not a real attack, but that's how the US viewed it), it might be excusable to not realize that, so Japan sort of has an excuse. But today, after Pearl Harbor and 9-11, anyone who doesn't get just how *terrible* an idea it is to attack the US...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think the idea was a negotiated settlement before any attack on the US. Summer of 1941 would have been a really good time to bring hostilities to a close. Japan would have been really well served to give SE asia back to "France," who had more than enough problems at that point and would have ended up with a madhouse of "free states" where Japan would have had significant influence anyway, in exchange for being allowed to keep Manchuria and maybe a little more of their acquired territory in China. I'd say their strategic error had more to do with overestimating Germany than underestimating the US.

And if Hitler hadn't overestimated Germany himself the summer of 1941 would have been a good time for him to settle as well. Is there any reason to believe that England really wanted to go to the mat for France?

 

[Berzerker]

I dont know why the Japanese thought we wouldn't commit to war, surely they must have known FDR was itching to get into it with Hitler

Hell, WWII was basically over for the Germans when they failed in Russia

 

[Cutlass]

It's not like the US didn't have a history of being unprepared for war, and then going all out for whatever it took to win. Mexican American War, Civil War, Spanish American War, WWI. All fit the pattern that Japan didn't see.

 

[onejayhawk]

The overall strategic approach was still appropriate for a "fast grab, negotiate settlement" plan that had a lot of merit. Any "fight to the bitter end" plan was inevitably going to end with US industrial capacity determining the wining side, but a negotiated settlement that allowed the axis powers to keep even a quarter of their conquests would have been a win...and who really expected the US to be unwilling to cede a slice of the USSR and China to Germany and Japan?

By that standard, Pearl Harbor was tactically misdirected, strategically unsound and politically suicidal. Pretty much the same as the other standard.

J

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, I think they understood the industrial capacity, they just drastically underestimated the determination to use it. But naturally, the US capitalists weren't about to let some second-rate power like Japan shut us off from China's markets.

The Japanese political leadership thought that the US political leadership,or public, didn't have the stomach for a major war. They were too wrapped up in their warrior cult to admit that anyone else was the fighters that they were. So they discounted the size, and ability to build arms, that the US had and that they did not. Their top admiral, Yamamoto, knew better. But was not listened to. For too many of the others in Japanese leadership, at all levels, anything that didn't fit with their beliefs was fake news. The Japanese missed out on not just American industrial capacity, not just on willingness to fight, but also on American skill at fighting. They were certain that they would be better. They were so certain that they would be better fighters, and have more will to fight, that even information that they should have known didn't really register with them.

USS Lexington CV-2 was sunk in May of 1942. USS Lexington CV-16 was launched in October of 1942. 4 months. USS Yorktown CV-5 was sunk in June of 1942. USS Yorktown CV-10 was launched January of 1943. 6 months. Now we didn't build those ships that fast. Those ships were already under construction when their namesakes were lost.

And that information was known.

The Japanese already knew we had the replacements for anything that they might sink half built. But they discounted that information. And so when they could not replace losses, we could. They knew this. They just didn't act on it. It was all fake news to them.

I agree with Cutlass and Yamamoto was going to be the guy I brought up to illustrate the point. Some did understand the industrial capacity and a lot of the leadership surely had some level of understanding that it was there but they didn't fully grok it.

And I think Cutlass is actually underselling the point on the replacement carriers. Yes, those particular ones were under construction when their namesake sunk. But the US was able to pump out so much material that in couple of years they had more than they knew what to do with in some instances. There was another Japanese admiral I read about that finally groked what US industrial capacity was all about when he found out that a concrete mixing ship had been converted to an ice cream tanker (with three flavors because it had a three-step mixing system) because they didn't need it.

At one point around this time, fully half of all things built in factories on the entire planet came from the US. Of course the destruction of everyone else had a lot to do with that.

 

[r16]

like Pearl Harbour gets dissed as a gross distraction from what might have won the war for Japan .

 

[Cutlass]

Pearl Harbor could not have won the war for Japan. It could of at most made the war last a year or 2 longer.

 

[r16]

it certainly lost the war for Japan , if one wants to be open hearted for it . Not in making Americans angry , but unbalancing them greatly . Without it , Americans could have sailed into harm's way , full of racial prejudices , a contempt for the art of war at sea and all that and get fully blown off the water off Philipinnes . A Leyte in January 1942 , without radar and F6F and the Japanese would be almost the tech level of '44 .

 

[Lexicus]

And I think Cutlass is actually underselling the point on the replacement carriers. Yes, those particular ones were under construction when their namesake sunk. But the US was able to pump out so much material that in couple of years they had more than they knew what to do with in some instances. There was another Japanese admiral I read about that finally groked what US industrial capacity was all about when he found out that a concrete mixing ship had been converted to an ice cream tanker (with three flavors because it had a three-step mixing system) because they didn't need it.

There are a number of basically true anecdotes and jokes about Axis prisoners being housed and fed better in US prison camps than by their own militaries, especially in 1944-5.

At one point around this time, fully half of all things built in factories on the entire planet came from the US. Of course the destruction of everyone else had a lot to do with that.

This was true right at the end of the war - the US accounted for half the world's industrial output in 1945.