The Direct Approach

[Chiteng]

Nope, sorry Chiteng. Mdiehl wins this round. Assuming you actually said that Mac and Nimitz were wrong to try a two-pronged approach, you're licked. The statement - if made - presumes you believed that they had the assets available to successfully execute a single-pronged advance and, therefore, should have done so. Now in WitP, having been allocated the same forces they were allocated, you say you cannot make a single-pronged approach cannot work. I don't see King coming into this equation at all. Either you can successfully execute a single-prong attack through the Central Pacific with the forces historically allocated or, if you can't, I think you've got to admit that the historical strategy is somewhat validated.

BTW my opponents tend to NOT quote what I actually say.
Nimitz didnt want a two-pronged strategy. It was FDR parsing that forced that.

[madflava13]

Chiteng,
Just a quick note - you may have been able to produce more Gatos than actually came out historically, but there's no chance you could man them with trained crews. As it was, most fleet boats were going on patrol with approximately one third of their crews taking part in their first patrol. If you produce more boats, you dilute the pool more = ineffective (or sunk) subs = not an effective weapon. I don't think more Gatos wins the war at all. Not even close.

[Chiteng]

Chiteng,
Just a quick note - you may have been able to produce more Gatos than actually came out historically, but there's no chance you could man them with trained crews. As it was, most fleet boats were going on patrol with approximately one third of their crews taking part in their first patrol. If you produce more boats, you dilute the pool more = ineffective (or sunk) subs = not an effective weapon. I don't think more Gatos wins the war at all. Not even close.

How odd the Germans managed to solve that problem, and yet you say the US could not? I find that very hard to believe.

[mogami]

Hi, The Germans did not solve that problem and the results show that as the Germans lost their good crews having more boats did not produce more sinkings. Go check how many U-boats ever actually sank a ship.

[madflava13]

To follow Mogami's post up - After mid-1943, the Germans withdrew their U-Boats from active service in the Atlantic. Losses were too prohibitive - go look at the percentage of U-Boaters who actually survived the war. All the good crews are on the bottom of the Atlantic still.

[mogami]

You grossly overate the transport assets. We barely fed Berlin.
You seriously state you could feed 35+ million people with air transport?

Hi, The Japanese do not need to import coal and heating oil (Berlin did) Japan does not begin the war in a state of crisis. With no active war front the Japanese can use the period while the USN builds, trains and deploys the massive sub fleet to safely haul food. (The war industry can also be fed to a lesser extent. Then the air transports will begin operations with a stockpile at home. I'm betting Japan could produce wooden ASW vessels faster then the USN can send in new subs. The bulk of the Japanese army are in the food producing regions so USN subs alone will never win the war.

[Chiteng]

To follow Mogami's post up - After mid-1943, the Germans withdrew their U-Boats from active service in the Atlantic. Losses were too prohibitive - go look at the percentage of U-Boaters who actually survived the war. All the good crews are on the bottom of the Atlantic still.

Ahh so it didnt have anything to do with allied technology outpacing German,
and the German codes being compromised?

It was all inept crews? I am amazed they were willing to sail then.

[mogami]

Hi, Chiteng did you miss the great U-boat debate? (In the Gary Grigsby interview thread-we hijacked it with U-boats.)

[Chiteng]

Hi, Chiteng did you miss the great U-boat debate? (In the Gary Grigsby interview thread-we hijacked it with U-boats.)

Nope, but I wasnt that interested AND I have my own opinions.
Donitz was no fool. If training was the issue, they would have trained more of them. It was that the allies were sinking them.

And since we have all read Ultra and Bodyguard, we know HOW they were
sinking them. It wasnt inept crews, it was allied ASW.

[madflava13]

Chiteng,
Of course ASW advances, Ultra and changes in tactics all played significant roles in the ASW war in the Atlantic. Just because I don't mention it doesn't mean I am ignoring it - I just don't have time to write a book here. You overlook how technical and complex submariner training is though. To qualify for submarines, every sailor must be able to diagram and explain the inner workings of every piece of machienery on a submarine. Do you have any idea how many pieces of machinery there are on a WW2 sub? That's just basic training (usually accomplished underway and while on your first war patrol). Neither Germany nor the US could simply train more submariners as you suggest. Were it only so easy...

To serve on a sub (in the US), you must volunteer after passing basic training and meeting certain qualifications. You must undergo training in New London, CT at one of the most demanding (technically and psychologically) schools in the military, and then you must qualify aboard the boats... Thats not a rubber stamp proposal. It takes months, even years. You can mass produce the boats (maybe), but you cannot mass produce the people.

The United States may have had the ability (by shortchanging something else) to produce Gatos/Tenches faster than was historical. I stand by my previous statement though - there is absolutely nothing in history or common sense that suggests it was possible for ANY nation to speed up submariner training to keep up with such an increase in submarine production.

Again, without the properly trained and seasoned crew, you just have pretty piece of metal at pierside. Gatos cannot win the war alone...

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, Nope. With just submarine production you don't shut down the Japanese. With no demand on the economy the Japanese could simply build air transports.
Use the rail net and move everything to ports (Shanghai amd Pusan) and then fly it to Japan. Convoys could be supported by massive ASW TF's and the Japanese Airforce could spend all it's time hunting subs.
I think all you'd do is doom thousands of bubble heads. The Japanese war machine needs to be stretched, over worked and destroyed not forced into specialized measures.

By no stretch of anyone's imagination should the "solution" you suggest be
workable. Thae capacity and rolling stock of the railways you suggest using
are in no way capable of replacing seaborne transport. These aren't the
Norfolk & Western, the Baltimore and Ohio, or the Union Pacific. The roadbeds
aren't that good, the rail weight too light, the engines not that powerfull, the
bridges too light-weight, and the infrastructure too weak. If you figure a
really generous 500 tons per train load, it takes 20 trains to replace one Ten
Thousand ton freighter. And the demand a lot more fuel and time and effort
to cover a much longer distance (railroads have to go up, over, around, and/or through terrain much rougher than an ocean). The Railroads you propose using
just didn't have the capability to replace that much shipping.

And as to "flying" it in transport planes from Asia to Japan, what have you been
smoking? Do you have any idea how much avgas per ton this would require?
For the distance you suggest, it's about 1 ton for every ton moved. Even the
United States couldn't afford what you suggest. Even if Japan could build the
aircraft needed (and the pilots), they couldn't fuel them. Please tell me you
were just being tongue-in-cheek when you made this suggestion.

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, The Japanese do not need to import coal and heating oil (Berlin did) Japan does not begin the war in a state of crisis. With no active war front the Japanese can use the period while the USN builds, trains and deploys the massive sub fleet to safely haul food. (The war industry can also be fed to a lesser extent. Then the air transports will begin operations with a stockpile at home. I'm betting Japan could produce wooden ASW vessels faster then the USN can send in new subs. The bulk of the Japanese army are in the food producing regions so USN subs alone will never win the war.

Actually Mogami, Japan needed to import 7-8 million tons of coal a year---
mostly from Manchuria. If your Air Transport brings in 2 tons a trip, that's
about 4 MILLION round trip flights. Lot's of Luck!

[mogami]

Hi, Japan needed to import 7 million tons to run the war economy. If the war is limited to ASW the demand for other resource will be lower. The railnet was already moving the goods to ports for pickup by transports. I don't see my solution adding to it's burden (It just keeps doing what it already was doing)

Remember the whole issue is Gato's forcing Japan to surrender. I'm not saying I can keep everyone fat dumb and happy but I can avoid the need to surrender.
Also I never stopped using the merchant fleet. Only it moves between Korea and Shanghai (short distance and shallow water) with heavy escort and air patrol.

The war scenario is Japan invades and captures SRA and USA response is to build submarines.

[Chiteng]

You forget that subs can lay mines. And they did.

Also PBY and B-29...however I suspect that using a B-29 to lay mines
would grate on High Command.

Its a moot point.

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, Japan needed to import 7 million tons to run the war economy. If the war is limited to ASW the demand for other resource will be lower. The railnet was already moving the goods to ports for pickup by transports. I don't see my solution adding to it's burden (It just keeps doing what it already was doing)

Remember the whole issue is Gato's forcing Japan to surrender. I'm not saying I can keep everyone fat dumb and happy but I can avoid the need to surrender.
Also I never stopped using the merchant fleet. Only it moves between Korea and Shanghai (short distance and shallow water) with heavy escort and air patrol.

The war scenario is Japan invades and captures SRA and USA response is to build submarines.

That figure is PRE-WAR. It was needed to keep the PEACETIME (but already heavily rationed) Japanese functioning. Do you think that War-time needs
for iron, steel, power and the like are going to shrink? The Japanese had
begun national rationing of almost everything up to several years before the
war began---even FOOD was being rationed at not much above starvation
levels by the Spring of 1941. Months before the outbreak of the WITP.

I enjoy your posts and willingness to share information a great deal. But in this
instance your "solution" is a total pipedream that ignores the realities of trans-
porting material in bulk. This is a very simplistic table, but will give some idea
of the relative relationships:

Transport by water is the most effecient method for moving large quantities of
anything. It is ten times as effecient as moving it by rail; which is ten times as
effecient as moving it by road; which is ten times as effecient as moving it by
air. Water is 1000 times more effecient that air for shipping.

I mean, why did the Allies spend all that treasure and manpower building the
"Ledo Connection" to the Burma Road when they were already "flying the Hump"?
Why build the Panama or Suez Canal instead of a much cheaper and faster task
of building a RR? Why build the "Big Inch" Pipeline when RR's and Roads were
already there? You've really "missed the boat" in this instance.

[Chiteng]

The subs options was polemical, I apologize. Interservice rivalry would prohibit
such an option in any case.

Look at what happened to Arnold for simply trying to get the B-29 to work.

[mogami]

That figure is PRE-WAR. It was needed to keep the PEACETIME (but already heavily rationed) Japanese functioning. Do you think that War-time needs
for iron, steel, power and the like are going to shrink? The Japanese had
begun national rationing of almost everything up to several years before the
war began---even FOOD was being rationed at not much above starvation
levels by the Spring of 1941. Months before the outbreak of the WITP.

I enjoy your posts and willingness to share information a great deal. But in this
instance your "solution" is a total pipedream that ignores the realities of trans-
porting material in bulk. This is a very simplistic table, but will give some idea
of the relative relationships:

Transport by water is the most effecient method for moving large quantities of
anything. It is ten times as effecient as moving it by rail; which is ten times as
effecient as moving it by road; which is ten times as effecient as moving it by
air. Water is 1000 times more effecient that air for shipping.

I mean, why did the Allies spend all that treasure and manpower building the
"Ledo Connection" to the Burma Road when they were already "flying the Hump"?
Why build the Panama or Suez Canal instead of a much cheaper and faster task
of building a RR? Why build the "Big Inch" Pipeline when RR's and Roads were
already there? You've really "missed the boat" in this instance.

Hi, This is not Japan at war on all fronts but Japan versus the all submarine war.
I'm saying that Japan can survive in a war where the only enemy employed is submarines. I'm not claiming I can increase production or conduct operations other then ASW (both air and surface) Anti mine and mine laying (I clear my routes and block Sub routes) And transport. In the shallow waters between Shanghai/Korea and Japan. There is enough resource/oil/food that can be brought to ports via rail and then transported by sea. My air transports do not have to carry the whole load.

The U-boat had the Atlantic gap to lay in wait for enemy convoys. Before the CVE arrived there was no air cover. Japan does not have this problem. There is no part of the SRA or China Sea that can not be patroled by air. Without the need to supply advanced bases and combat ops Japan will not have many of the historic problems. I bet Japan could sink more subs then subs sink Japanese transports. (Esp if we keep the historic torpedo problems)