KanColle - Historical references and History discussion

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by JokerD

An interesting point about oil. After the loss of the Philippines, the navy had 2 choices for the ships, stay in south where the oil is and suffer the lack of manpower and ammo, which was manufactured in Japan. Or return to Japan for ammo and suffer the lack of fuel since they had none in their north asia holdings

This was basically the rationale for the total committment of the IJN to Leyte Gulf. With the IJN in no position to help defend the homeland after a loss of the Phillippines (and unwilling to surrender) the only option was to throw in the kitchen sink in an attempt to derail the American landings by getting after the invasion fleet.

Speaking of working with the Japanese, they actually raised an Indian army in Singapore in the hopes of getting India to rebel against British rule. Didn't work too well I think.

Yeah, the Indian National Army recruited from the prisoners captured after the fall of Singapore led by former INC leader Subhas Chandra Bose. Who by the way made quite a journey to get to Singapore. After put under house arrest by the British he first escaped to Germany via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in 1941. And in 1943 he made his way to Singapore by first getting on board a German sub, travel around the Cape of Good Hope before getting on board a Japanese sub near Madagascar.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Kakurin-san

This number's a bit misleading since most of them were small escort carriers which were of very limited use in fleet combat. Most of them were used to protect convoys and provide some support during amphibious landings. More useful, but no less impressive, is a look at true fleet carriers commissioned. Namely the Essex-class. Until 1946 the US completed 24 of them and the rain of Essexes started in 1943 with six of them put into service. The IJN compared to that only completed four true fleet carriers during the entire war - Taihō, Unryū, Amagi and Katsuragi. The latter three weren't of any use since they were completed after the Battle of the Phillippine Sea which practically eliminated the Japanese carrier arm. Moreover they were based on Hiryū's design, meaning they were significantly inferior to the American Essex-class, or the Shōkakus and Taihō for that matter.

Fair point, and the Combined Fleet link did mention that. A more salient point would be DD production totals: Japan built 63 DDs from 1942 to 1945. The US built 128 destroyers in 1943 alone and 82 DDs in 1942. Yep, the US built more DDs in one year than Japan did in four years.

[gral]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Fair point, and the Combined Fleet link did mention that. A more salient point would be DD production totals: Japan built 63 DDs from 1942 to 1945. The US built 128 destroyers in 1943 alone and 82 DDs in 1942. Yep, the US built more DDs in one year than Japan did in four years.

IIRC, the US built more warship tonnage in 1944 than Japan had in the 1930-1944 period.

[Ithekro]

Yamamoto knew that. He did warn that if Japan went to war with the United States, Japan would have six months to get the Americans to leave the conflict. Any longer and the industrial weight would begin to hit Japan. Interesting that it was actually a year to a year and a half before the industrial might of the Americans was really felt in the Pacific. The Americans were aiming to liberate Europe first than deal with Japan.

[Wild Goose]

Basically what Stalin said was true: quantity has a quality of its own. The problem when fighting America is that America has both quantity and quality.

[Qikz]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Basically what Stalin said was true: quantity has a quality of its own. The problem when fighting America is that America has both quantity and quality.

Just look at the Red Army's tanks. The Tiger and Panzer III/IV were pretty much better in every single way compared to the T34, but the sheer ease of production and sheer scale of the Russian manufacturing of them meant that even the Panzer divisions of Germany eventually fell to them. Russia just had more men and more tanks to throw into the meat grinder and they eventually wore down the German advance with a little help from old mother Winter and the Germans own missmanagement of their forces to go on an insane counter push straight to Berlin. It wasn't the quality of the T34 that won the Russians the Eastern Front, it was the quantity.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Basically what Stalin said was true: quantity has a quality of its own. The problem when fighting America is that America has both quantity and quality.

Quality isn't always a good thing either though. - let my bring an example in human ressources:

One of Enterprise's top pilots vanished during the first US Night Air combat ever and neither his plane nor his corpse has been found up to today.
He was a someone the other pilots looked up to with one hell of a battle record.
Now try to imagine the moral blow him being listed as MIA caused on board of the ship.

In a later mission, something similar happened to another one of her top pilots.
He was later found though and was worth tons of icecream right from Enterprise's kitchen .

[bhl88]

Did the Aleuitan Zero ensure the loss of Japan?

[Ithekro]

No. It made it easier, but American pilots were already using tactics that could defeat the Zero.

The outcome, if one looks at just the numbers, was an inevitable Allied victory. It might have taken longer, but the only thing that would stop the Americans would be if the people finally got tired of it at home. Major losses bring down morale at home, and a massive defeat around Midway or a failure in the Solomons could have done it for Japan and got the Americans to sue for peace.

Japan wins and they get to do whatever they please in Eastern Asia and in the island west of Hawaii. The Americans then decide to shift everything to crushing Hitler.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Yamamoto knew that. He did warn that if Japan went to war with the United States, Japan would have six months to get the Americans to leave the conflict. Any longer and the industrial weight would begin to hit Japan. Interesting that it was actually a year to a year and a half before the industrial might of the Americans was really felt in the Pacific. The Americans were aiming to liberate Europe first than deal with Japan.

And yet Yamamoto himself was perhaps the greatest threat to the Imperial Navy. The person who knows keenly the US economical potential ironically pushed outdated policies which crippled the navy's warmaking. There's very good reason he is roundly criticized both in Japan and outside

Putting aside his role in the policy of hitting Pearl Harbor, his over emphasis on battleships, his bullying of other officers to get his way, his overly complex plans which he forced through against opposition from others and strangely, his squandering of the same battleships he championed by sequestering them in Truk instead of having Rengo Kantai meet the Guadalcanal invasion force in open battle are just some examples

Originally Posted by bhl88

Did the Aleuitan Zero ensure the loss of Japan?

More like irreplaceable aviator losses and the inability of Japanese industry to produce (NOT DESIGN) newer planes.

Tech-wise the Zero was a stopgap that would be replaced by the Reppu and Shiden-kai. Japanese plane design did always keep pace more or less with Western ones. It's just their industry was too broken to produce them in the quantity of the Zero


So no...getting a wrecked Zero alone would not have meant much in the way of advantage to the allied side had the above not been a factor.

Also, a competently flown A6M5 could hold its own against the later F6Fs and pre F4U-4 Corsairs. Competently being the key

[bhl88]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

No. It made it easier, but American pilots were already using tactics that could defeat the Zero.

So they didn't make the tactics after capturing one (after piloting it and realizing that it had its own fair share of problems besides the plane being made of paper [a few shots setting the plane on fire])

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by bhl88

So they didn't make the tactics after capturing one (after piloting it and realizing that it had its own fair share of problems besides the plane being made of paper [a few shots setting the plane on fire])

They had to make tactics to fight the zero until the Enterprise finally got her Hellcats, which were more than just a match for the Zero.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by bhl88

So they didn't make the tactics after capturing one (after piloting it and realizing that it had its own fair share of problems besides the plane being made of paper [a few shots setting the plane on fire])

The tactics were taught as early as 1941

[bhl88]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

The tactics were taught as early as 1941

Oh okay so even without the Zero, they would have won anyway....

http://www.history.com/news/the-akut...n-world-war-ii (got the idea from this one)

[Cosmic Eagle]

Yes....due to economic reasons mainly.

And without the Aleutian Zero, the F4Us would still be made anyway while the numbers of Shiden-kai and Hayates would still be too low to counter them for much of a difference


Or put simply, the Zero was not, in Jiro Horikoshi's eyes, a finished product. The Nakajima Sakae did not provide the horsepower he wanted (2000+) and this was the Zero's biggest weakness...it was too slow compared to late war planes.

Meanwhile the Pratt and Whitney engines for the Corsairs were readily available when the engine Horikoshi wanted did not arrive until the war's end

[Ithekro]

Helped win the war is a thing. It did provide valuable information that the Americans did not have yet. But They had started using anti-Zero tactics at Midway with F4F-3 Wildcats. The P-40s in Asia were also learning to deal with the Ki-43 "Oscar" which has similar performance to the Zero and the same problems of the Zero (didn't have the 20mm wing cannons of the Zero however).

What they learned was more about how advanced the Japnese actually were. The Zero is an impressive engineering feat. The American pilots were impressed by its tight turning radius. But the captured Zero mainly confirmed what pilots in the field had already figured out. The Zero could be taken in a dive. While the Zero could turn tightly, it could not keep up with the Allied fighters in high speed maneuvers. They had seen Zeros blow up at Midway and the like. The captured Zero just proved that the Zero's fuel and pilot were poorly protected. American and British machine gun fire would be enough against a Zero, while the Zero had to use its big 20 mm cannons to quickly down the heavier and armored American fighters.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Most of which would be known from combat anyway. Knowing your opponent has no armour whatsoever only tells you that your standard 6 x 50 cals are enough, while using your higher speed is a natural consequence of having a stronger engine.

Use your own strengths to the max is something pilots on both sides did as a matter of intuitive logic and the capture of the Aleutian Zero served simply as a confirmation of the principle than provide anything new

[Ithekro]

There are a limited number of countries with battleships to choose from that are not German (and not Japan of course) If they say they are going to add a foreign battleship , but not a German ship...than what is left?

Historically this is what was around in World War II.

British (lots - 12 super dreadnoughts, 3 super dreadnought type battlecruisers, 6 fast battleships)
American (lots - 15 super dreadnoughts and 10 fast battleships)
French (some - 3 dreadnoughts and 4 fast battleships)
Italian (some - 4 dreadnought and up to 4 fast battleships)
Russian (three dreadnoughts of Kongo's age, but with 12 x 12" guns)
Argentia (two dreadnoughts, American built)
Brazil (two deadnoughts, British built, older than Kongo)
Chile (one super dreadnought, served in Royal Navy as HMS Canada, fought at Jutland)
Turkey (one old German battlecruiser about Kongo's age.)
Greece (two American pre-dreadnoughts)
Netherlands (three coastal defense battleships from the early 1900s)
Norway (Four old coastal defense battleships from about 1900)
Sweden (three modernized coastal defense battleships)
Finland (two relatively new coastal defense battleships)

For completion:

Japan (lots - 4 super dreadnought type battlecruisers, 6 super dreadnoughts, 2 fast battleships)
German (some - two pre-dreadnoughts, three armored cruisers (the pocket battleships), four fast battleships)

That is it.

[JokerD]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Most of which would be known from combat anyway. Knowing your opponent has no armour whatsoever only tells you that your standard 6 x 50 cals are enough, while using your higher speed is a natural consequence of having a stronger engine.

Use your own strengths to the max is something pilots on both sides did as a matter of intuitive logic and the capture of the Aleutian Zero served simply as a confirmation of the principle than provide anything new

Which goes back to pilot rotation. The US had the ability to rotate the old aces from the front line back to the states to become instructors and pass on this information to the newbies. Japan couldn't.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by JokerD

Which goes back to pilot rotation. The US had the ability to rotate the old aces from the front line back to the states to become instructors and pass on this information to the newbies. Japan couldn't.

Partly also due to the way they kept the air corps elite... unlike the US air program, Japan never accepted large numbers of cadets until it was too late


Germany had a similar type of problem in that their aces fought until they were killed...no rotation (Japan did rotate aces into instructor roles)


Japan vs US is in a simple way...katana vs a bulldozer. You need to ensure the blade is sharp and strong enough and wielded skillfully to fight the raw brute mass of the opponent...and the top brass of Imperial Japan is infamously incompetent politically and militarily