Comparing aircraft production (CVO baseline revised)

[Historiker]

Which amount of monthly produced AC is possible for Japan in mid 42, when every other production goes on, so i.e. no merchant shipyards turned off?

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


The narrowness of the roads in parts also created problems for travel by means other than oxcart. In the town of Komaki, halfway along the route, the loads grazed the eaves of the houses as they passed between..."

And so on... and this was in Sept 1939. Perfect example of Japan's basic problems. By dint of concentration of effort she had stayed current (and in a few cases, ahead) with the rest of the world in many types of military hardware. But to do so, the rest of her economy was starved, as was her population. When the time came to expand during the war, she had much less economic "slack" to mobilize

Chez

But also a perfect example of a cultural - actually geographical - misunderstanding. Japan has less tillable land than any other first world country. It has less land suitable for major industrial facilities than any other first world country. It has almost no land suitable for wide roads. Japan has an extraordinary amount of mountains - very rough mountains - and these sorts of things are as daunting for our engineers as for theirs.
[/quote]


Cid? Just what the heck does this have to do with the passage you're quoting? Yes, Japan is a rather small and rugged set of islands..., but it has the same amount of land available for industries today (when it is a major industriaal power) as it did in the '30's. And the US pushed railroads and paved highways through the Rockies..., which are taller and more rugged than anything in Japan.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I have one quibble: while the British did give us the cavity magnetron, they did not invent it. It was one of the last things sent out of France to UK before the surrender! And - FYI - the cavity magnetron was independently invented in Japan.

Who did then? I have British scientists Randall and Boot conducting the first test of their Cavity Magnetron on Feb 21, 1940 in Great Britian.

The details are in the Doubleday book on the WWII French Navy: French Warships of WWII or something like that. I no longer have a copy - and it isn't in print. But it was spirited out of France and apparently was the one that led directly to the form we used during the war.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

Which amount of monthly produced AC is possible for Japan in mid 42, when every other production goes on, so i.e. no merchant shipyards turned off?

It depends on several factors:

1) which scenario (or mod) are you playing?

2) what specific settings were made for what specific engines - along with where they were made - and when they were set?

3) what specific settings were made for what specific aircraft - along with where they were made - and when they were set?

But a general answer is that the THEORETICAL capacity of game aircraft industry should be in the high hundreds by mid-1942. [Remember, you NEVER get as many aircraft as capacity for Japan - ever - under ideal conditions]. By mid 1943 that capacity should exceed 1000. Assuming balanced production, phasing in of new types, etc. IF one were to go for numbers only - one might produce vastly more one engine light aircraft - say Ki-36s - focus on one engine and one plane in Dec 1941 - and let it grow as great as it will. IF one adopted a Nemoesque strategy (as many four engine bombers as possible) it might be less than half as many.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


The narrowness of the roads in parts also created problems for travel by means other than oxcart. In the town of Komaki, halfway along the route, the loads grazed the eaves of the houses as they passed between..."

And so on... and this was in Sept 1939. Perfect example of Japan's basic problems. By dint of concentration of effort she had stayed current (and in a few cases, ahead) with the rest of the world in many types of military hardware. But to do so, the rest of her economy was starved, as was her population. When the time came to expand during the war, she had much less economic "slack" to mobilize

Chez

But also a perfect example of a cultural - actually geographical - misunderstanding. Japan has less tillable land than any other first world country. It has less land suitable for major industrial facilities than any other first world country. It has almost no land suitable for wide roads. Japan has an extraordinary amount of mountains - very rough mountains - and these sorts of things are as daunting for our engineers as for theirs.

Cid? Just what the heck does this have to do with the passage you're quoting? Yes, Japan is a rather small and rugged set of islands..., but it has the same amount of land available for industries today (when it is a major industriaal power) as it did in the '30's. And the US pushed railroads and paved highways through the Rockies..., which are taller and more rugged than anything in Japan.

[/quote]

Japan indeed has just as many mountains today as it did then - and they are a big problem - specifically explaining the lack of broad roadways in the passage. Nor did we find pushing broad highways across the Rockies easy. There is a place where the vaunted superior American engineers didn't listen to the locals - and an Interstate runs along a route that is dangerously blind during white out ground blizzards every year (which, unfortunately, I managed to find out the hard way). Building roads and rail lines in Japan costs a great deal more than it would in other places - and there is no major developed territory anywhere that has such a high proportion of rounh terrain. On the order of 96% of Japan is not suitable for agriculture, industry or even habitation.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I have one quibble: while the British did give us the cavity magnetron, they did not invent it. It was one of the last things sent out of France to UK before the surrender! And - FYI - the cavity magnetron was independently invented in Japan.

Who did then? I have British scientists Randall and Boot conducting the first test of their Cavity Magnetron on Feb 21, 1940 in Great Britian.

The details are in the Doubleday book on the WWII French Navy: French Warships of WWII or something like that. I no longer have a copy - and it isn't in print. But it was spirited out of France and apparently was the one that led directly to the form we used during the war.

From:
http://www.radarworld.org/england.html

Because Randall and Boot built a cavity magnetron, the claim that the British invented radar is made. This is simply not true. The book "History of Communications-Electrics in the United States Navy", 1963, on pg. 447 claims, "British scientists took an American invention, the cavity magnetron, and improved it to where it was . . . ". "This device was invented by Dr. A.W. Hull, of the General Electric Co., in 1921." However, Dr. H.E. Hollmann's book Physik und Technik der ultrakurzen Wellen, Erster Band, 1935," Chapter 4 deals with the history of the magnetron in its many variations. Hollmann states that Greinacher in Germany first discussed the theory of the magnetron and then Hull further developed it. See the schematic of the Hull Magnetron transmitter taken from Hollmann's book. Also in 1921, a German physicist by the name of Habann developed a split tube magnetron generator working on a wavelength of 3 cm. Habann is generally given the credit of being the inventor of the magnetron from which the cavity magnetron evolved. Furthermore, in 1935, Dr. H.E. Hollmann filed a patent on the multicavity magnetron well ahead of Randall and Boot's work.

All of the patents filed by Telefunken in Germany were also filed in the USA. These were most of H. E. Hollmann's patents, W. Runge, director of Telefunken, patents and tens of thousands of other relating radar patents. These patents were available to all General Electric Co., GEC, technical personal. You see, Telefunken owned the German company, AEG which was allied with GEC and traded all patents with GEC. In this way, most of the German radar secrets, were available to the Allies. The Allies, England and America primarily, used these patents to develop their radar systems.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Nikademus




Who did then? I have British scientists Randall and Boot conducting the first test of their Cavity Magnetron on Feb 21, 1940 in Great Britian.

The details are in the Doubleday book on the WWII French Navy: French Warships of WWII or something like that. I no longer have a copy - and it isn't in print. But it was spirited out of France and apparently was the one that led directly to the form we used during the war.

From:
http://www.radarworld.org/england.html

Because Randall and Boot built a cavity magnetron, the claim that the British invented radar is made. This is simply not true. The book "History of Communications-Electrics in the United States Navy", 1963, on pg. 447 claims, "British scientists took an American invention, the cavity magnetron, and improved it to where it was . . . ". "This device was invented by Dr. A.W. Hull, of the General Electric Co., in 1921." However, Dr. H.E. Hollmann's book Physik und Technik der ultrakurzen Wellen, Erster Band, 1935," Chapter 4 deals with the history of the magnetron in its many variations. Hollmann states that Greinacher in Germany first discussed the theory of the magnetron and then Hull further developed it. See the schematic of the Hull Magnetron transmitter taken from Hollmann's book. Also in 1921, a German physicist by the name of Habann developed a split tube magnetron generator working on a wavelength of 3 cm. Habann is generally given the credit of being the inventor of the magnetron from which the cavity magnetron evolved. Furthermore, in 1935, Dr. H.E. Hollmann filed a patent on the multicavity magnetron well ahead of Randall and Boot's work.

All of the patents filed by Telefunken in Germany were also filed in the USA. These were most of H. E. Hollmann's patents, W. Runge, director of Telefunken, patents and tens of thousands of other relating radar patents. These patents were available to all General Electric Co., GEC, technical personal. You see, Telefunken owned the German company, AEG which was allied with GEC and traded all patents with GEC. In this way, most of the German radar secrets, were available to the Allies. The Allies, England and America primarily, used these patents to develop their radar systems.

The "cavity magnatron" that Randall and Boot perfected did not allow radar..., it made possible much shorter wavelength radar and much smaller and lighter sets. The kind that could pick a submarine conning tower or even a schnorkel out of the ocean's wave clutter. Or be mounted in a bomber for navagation and targeting.

As to developing radar, the British were the first to make practical use of the technology with the erection of their "chain home" system. There is a big difference between doing the research, and making a practical product.

[el cid again]

The Invention That Changed History is supposed to be scholarly and comprehensive, but it only has details of British cavity magnetron development. It does begin with these tantalizing notes, however:

At tge time only a few feasible ways existed to generate microwaves, none of them yielding the substantial powers need for a radar system...[spark gap & Barkhausen-Kurz valve]...Another possibility lay in the magnetron, a special form of diode invented around 1920 by Albert W. Hull at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectedy, New York. Although originally concieved as a low-frequency alternative to the vacuum tube triode, the magnetron had been adapted for very high frequency power output independently in Japan and Europe.

Regretfully, while Japan is clear, "Europe" is not: does that mean Germany, France, Britain - or Switzerland - which often led in this sort of research? Or all of the above. But it is interetingly this 1996 scholarship does say it was independent in Japan. It also implies it was originally a US concept - although it distinguishes between the original magnetron and the cavity magnetron - which it attributes to 1939 research in UK - which would be simultaneous with 1939 research in France.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: el cid again




The details are in the Doubleday book on the WWII French Navy: French Warships of WWII or something like that. I no longer have a copy - and it isn't in print. But it was spirited out of France and apparently was the one that led directly to the form we used during the war.

From:
http://www.radarworld.org/england.html

Because Randall and Boot built a cavity magnetron, the claim that the British invented radar is made. This is simply not true. The book "History of Communications-Electrics in the United States Navy", 1963, on pg. 447 claims, "British scientists took an American invention, the cavity magnetron, and improved it to where it was . . . ". "This device was invented by Dr. A.W. Hull, of the General Electric Co., in 1921." However, Dr. H.E. Hollmann's book Physik und Technik der ultrakurzen Wellen, Erster Band, 1935," Chapter 4 deals with the history of the magnetron in its many variations. Hollmann states that Greinacher in Germany first discussed the theory of the magnetron and then Hull further developed it. See the schematic of the Hull Magnetron transmitter taken from Hollmann's book. Also in 1921, a German physicist by the name of Habann developed a split tube magnetron generator working on a wavelength of 3 cm. Habann is generally given the credit of being the inventor of the magnetron from which the cavity magnetron evolved. Furthermore, in 1935, Dr. H.E. Hollmann filed a patent on the multicavity magnetron well ahead of Randall and Boot's work.

All of the patents filed by Telefunken in Germany were also filed in the USA. These were most of H. E. Hollmann's patents, W. Runge, director of Telefunken, patents and tens of thousands of other relating radar patents. These patents were available to all General Electric Co., GEC, technical personal. You see, Telefunken owned the German company, AEG which was allied with GEC and traded all patents with GEC. In this way, most of the German radar secrets, were available to the Allies. The Allies, England and America primarily, used these patents to develop their radar systems.

The "cavity magnatron" that Randall and Boot perfected did not allow radar..., it made possible much shorter wavelength radar and much smaller and lighter sets. The kind that could pick a submarine conning tower or even a schnorkel out of the ocean's wave clutter. Or be mounted in a bomber for navagation and targeting.

As to developing radar, the British were the first to make practical use of the technology with the erection of their "chain home" system. There is a big difference between doing the research, and making a practical product.

But the British were NOT first to exploit radar operationally. Probably Germany was. Instruments of Darkness reveals that when it was learned German warships had OPERATIONAL radar in 1938 - this in 1940 - "it would be over a year before British warships would have any." As for Chain Home, it was remarkably like the Japanese Army system, which was operational before WITP began - and the main Japanese army air search radar series in RHS (Tachikawa 6/7/8) has its "6" to indicate that. These devices are combined because they always have the same range - although they keep getting smaller in size. Early warning radar in both countries (UK and Japan) was unknown by their respective enemies. [Graf Zeppelin - conducting the first true ELINT mission in history in 1939 - failed to identify the Chain Home stations that tracked it. At that time German radar was higher in frequency - and they guessed the British would use similar frequencies if they had any. They DID actually detect Chain Home signals- but misinterpreted them as atmospheric research signals - because that was how those low frequencies were used in Germany. But note that - in this story - the introduction for Instruments of Darkness - the Germans ALREADY have operational radar - and are unsure if the British do - and want to know before the war starts.]

I will risk saying more. I am a US Navy electronic warfare specialist who has studied radar of all nations for half a century. During WWII - according to the data published by the DOD Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center - Germany AT ALL TIMES has the "best" radar operational. If by best one means the longest range, aircraft detecting and tracking, and the most precise in location, in terms of both range and bearing resolution, and by mid war - also in terms of altitude resolution. AT NO TIME do ANY Allied radars ever compare in all these criterion simultaneously. Not the way the story is usually told - not popular with those who must believe "US technology is always best" mythology - but an objective interpretation of the data made by a person who didn't expect to see such data (me).

Finally, note that when the very first B-29 raid flies to Japan - across China - all the way from India - the few ELINT equipped aircraft in the raid (6 or so) detected about 80 Japanese radars along the route - even in the interior of China where they were wholly unexpected. This isn't how the radar story is usually told in hyperbole or legend either. In fact, the very first Japanese radar we captured was - at Guadalcanal. A not yet operational air base already was working up its radar - implying this was SOP for Japanese air stations at that period. Both of these matters are described in Instruments of Darkness, a very current assessment of the radar war (2006 if I remember right). An older study - On Air Defense - records that both US POWs in Japan and civilians in Japan report that, without exception, Japanese civil defense sounded sirens two hours before major air raids - implying at least two hours warning. This was attributed either to radar as such, or to a radiodetection system that isn't exactly radar - but does detect aircraft using radio waves. The usual view that "Japan had no radar" - or "Japan had almost no radar, of almost no range, of almost no meaningful operational value, and Japan virtually never had meaningful air warning" - is bunk. No other word really fits. So is the "Japan produced almost no radar, and all of that very late" allegation. We don't actually know how much radar was built in Japan. But we DO know that (a) Japanese air warning radar stations were operational before Dec, 1941 and (b) just a single model had production of over 6,000 sets. So we know that "almost none, and all of that very late" is bunk as well. [We captured radar on Guadalcanal. We detected radar from the moment we tried - after alerted by Guadalcanal we started listening - and lo - there it was. Had we listened BEFORE the war began - like the Germans on Graf Zeppelin - we would have detected it even then.]

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: treespider
Because Randall and Boot built a cavity magnetron, the claim that the British invented radar is made. This is simply not true. The book "History of Communications-Electrics in the United States Navy", 1963, on pg. 447 claims, "British scientists took an American invention, the cavity magnetron, and improved it to where it was . . . ". "This device was invented by Dr. A.W. Hull, of the General Electric Co., in 1921." However, Dr. H.E. Hollmann's book Physik und Technik der ultrakurzen Wellen, Erster Band, 1935," Chapter 4 deals with the history of the magnetron in its many variations. Hollmann states that Greinacher in Germany first discussed the theory of the magnetron and then Hull further developed it. See the schematic of the Hull Magnetron transmitter taken from Hollmann's book. Also in 1921, a German physicist by the name of Habann developed a split tube magnetron generator working on a wavelength of 3 cm. Habann is generally given the credit of being the inventor of the magnetron from which the cavity magnetron evolved. Furthermore, in 1935, Dr. H.E. Hollmann filed a patent on the multicavity magnetron well ahead of Randall and Boot's work.

I think this subject is an example of how "simplified" language can end up being misleading. Inventions as complex as these are almost always built upon the work of others beforehand, as in this case where work in the United States and Germany is improved by the British in 1940, which is explained in this extract provided by Treespider. Items of such complexity are not usually developed from scratch by one person or team.

So the British cannot be said to have invented the Cavity Magnetron, although - and this is more important in a wartime situation - they were the first to develop it into a much more powerful and useful device than was the case beforehand.

[treespider]

At the following site an excellent article (underline and italics at end of quote added for emphasis)
http://www.cap.ca/wyp/profiles/Redhead-Nov01.PDF
 
 [font=bookantiqua,bold][left]T[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]HE [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]I[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]NVENTION OF THE [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]C[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]AVITY [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]M[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]AGNETRON [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]A[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]ND ITS[/left][/font][font=bookantiqua,bold][left]I[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]NTRODUCTION INTO [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]C[/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]ANADA AND THE [/font][font=bookantiqua,bold]U.S.A.[/left][/font][font=bookantiqua]
by Paul A. Redhead
 
p.3[/font][font=bookantiqua][left]In Japan, research on magnetrons started in the 1920's.[/left][left]K. Okabe [/font][font=bookantiqua][12] [/font][font=bookantiqua]working with H. Yagi at the Tohoku College[/left][left]of Engineering developed a split-anode magnetron in[/left][left]1927 [(b) in Fig. 1], its lowest operating wavelength was[/left][left]12 cm [/font][font=bookantiqua][13][/font][font=bookantiqua]. In 1933 a coordinated program of magnetron[/left][left]research between the Japanese Navy and the Japan Radio[/left][left]Company was started and, by 1939, the Japan Radio[/left][left]Company had developed an 8-cavity, water-cooled magnetron[/left][left]at a wavelength of 10 cm with a continuous output[/left][left]power of 500 W. The water-cooled anode block was[/left][left]inside a glass envelope. Cavity magnetrons with wavelengths[/left][left]as short as 7 mm were later produced. In 1941[/left][left]JRC produced a prototype cavity magnetron at 10 cm[/left][left]wavelength using a permanent magnet, this magnetron[/left][left]was an all-metal design, [/font][font=bookantiqua,italic]i.e[/font][font=bookantiqua]. the anode was part of the[/left][left]vacuum envelope and water cooled. This design was[/left][left]very similar to the first cavity magnetrons manufactured[/left][left]in the UK except that it was water cooled rather than air[/left][left]cooled; this Japanese magnetron was not manufactured in[/left][left]any quantity because of a shortage of material for the[/left]permanent magnet and of manufacturing facilities [/font][font=bookantiqua][14][/font][font=bookantiqua].[/font]
[font=bookantiqua][/font] [font=bookantiqua][font=bookantiqua]
14. S. Nakajima, in R. Burns, [/font][font=bookantiqua,italic]op.cit[/font][font=bookantiqua]., p. 243.[/font]
 [font=bookantiqua][font=bookantiqua][left]R. Burns editor, [/font][font=bookantiqua,italic]Radar Development to 1945[/font][font=bookantiqua], Peter Peregrinus,[/left]London, 1988.[/font][/font][/font]

[Mike Scholl]

Cid. I don't think anyone ever said the Japanese or the Germans didn't have radar. As to if the Germans or the British first made practical use of it is more of a question..., but one that really doesn't concern the WITP community. As to who's was the best, the question is "the best at what?" Radar came in multiple sizes and shapes and wavelengths for various purposes. Britian and Germany fought the "wizard war" in this respect pretty much between themselves with the advantage flipping back and forth. In Europe.

As to the B-29 raid detecting 80 Japanese radar sets along it's route, wouldn't the real question be if the Japanese radars had detected the B-29's? What the Japanese had and when isn't as important as did it work well enough to be of use. It's fairly obvious at Midway that the IJN had nothing working in the area of "air search radars" from the "visual spotting formation" they assumed for air defense and the fact that the US Divebombers caught them with their pants down. Nor does their "surface search radar" appear to be a factor in the Soloman's fighting (their initial advantage is one of visual optics and night-fighting doctrine---and it errodes away as US radar sets and command doctrine improve).

Postwar studies generally state that the Japanese were at least 2 years behind in radars and other electronics..., which isn't that hard to accept. The Japanese had no civilian consumer market before the war..., and thus no large civilian consumer electronics base to draw on during the war. No General Electric, no Westinghouse, no Phillips..., and nothing like the resources available to the Europeans or the Americans in this regard. By 1944 the IJN were able to detect incoming airstrikes. Unfortunately for them, by the time they reached this "1942 US level of capability", the US had moved on to a very sophisticated and interwoven system of Fighter Direction that allowed vectoring of the CAP out to meet incoming A/C raids at a distance..., and the Battle of the Philippine Sea became the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot".

I am not "knocking" Japan or it's culture..., simply stating the obvious. A third rank industrial power locked in a death struggle with 1st rank industrial powers is at a considerable and insurmountable disadvantage in the long run. Even if they can design weapons, they simply lack the wherewithall to put them into the field in a timely manner. Japan was even worse off in that virtually all the raw materials she needed to "stay in the race" had to be imported over ever more vulnerable sea routes. The "Bushido Spirit" inculcated in the Japanese Military simply made the situation worse.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

I think this subject is an example of how "simplified" language can end up being misleading. Inventions as complex as these are almost always built upon the work of others beforehand, as in this case where work in the United States and Germany is improved by the British in 1940, which is explained in this extract provided by Treespider. Items of such complexity are not usually developed from scratch by one person or team.

So the British cannot be said to have invented the Cavity Magnetron, although - and this is more important in a wartime situation - they were the first to develop it into a much more powerful and useful device than was the case beforehand.

I agree and I think Mike's interpretation most sync'd with my own, hence my querry. No book i've read thus far has ever credited Randall, Boot or the UK in general with the invention of "Radar" as it was under simotanious development. I was also aware of the "Magnetron's" co-development in several countries at various times including an example in '27 from Japan. However in terms of a practical definitive "Cavity Magnetron", Randall and Boot were the first to produce a practical design that revolutioned the already existing science of "radar" and paved the way for the lighter, shorter wave (i.e. centimeter) radar sets. Clay Blair, despite his USN centric writing gave the UK cudoes for their contribution to the Allied effort in this area.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

I am not "knocking" Japan or it's culture..., simply stating the obvious. A third rank industrial power locked in a death struggle with 1st rank industrial powers is at a considerable and insurmountable disadvantage in the long run.

From the limited reading i've seen on the subject, the impression i got was that the Japanese military simply wasn't quick to take notice of the developments, even those occuring at home from types such as Kinjiro Okabe in 1927 until well after the other major powers had begun large scale integration after the start of WWII, at which point they [the military] were roughly two years behind curve. Kind of similar to USN flag officers who when "introduced" to the "new" radar in mid/late 42 were behind the curve in terms of trusting and best utilizing the new tool.

It might have been a question of funding too in regards to allocation of resources.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Cid. I don't think anyone ever said the Japanese or the Germans didn't have radar. As to if the Germans or the British first made practical use of it is more of a question..., but one that really doesn't concern the WITP community. As to who's was the best, the question is "the best at what?" Radar came in multiple sizes and shapes and wavelengths for various purposes. Britian and Germany fought the "wizard war" in this respect pretty much between themselves with the advantage flipping back and forth. In Europe.

REPLY: I don't disagree - except with those who believe the advantage and superiority were always and uniformly US and UK; since the part about long range, high resolution, aircraft detection radar is an exception - where the advantage ALWAYS lay on the other side - and since this is not published in books of the sort people read (as far as I know) - I just put it out as an interesting FYI.


As to the B-29 raid detecting 80 Japanese radar sets along it's route, wouldn't the real question be if the Japanese radars had detected the B-29's? What the Japanese had and when isn't as important as did it work well enough to be of use. It's fairly obvious at Midway that the IJN had nothing working in the area of "air search radars" from the "visual spotting formation" they assumed for air defense and the fact that the US Divebombers caught them with their pants down. Nor does their "surface search radar" appear to be a factor in the Soloman's fighting (their initial advantage is one of visual optics and night-fighting doctrine---and it errodes away as US radar sets and command doctrine improve).

REPLY: It is difficult to know if you are detected by enemy radar - particularly with the experties and instrumentation of WWII - but it is almost certain that B-29s, at altitude, in numbers were detected by every set in range. At Midway - there was only a single Japanese radar set on a ship - and that ship was not present (and old BB - Ise if I remember correctly).
So radar was not a factor on the Japanese side. As for the dive bombers - they were so lucky one USMC historian - telling the tale - said "this is the one moment in history that prooves beyond reasonable doubt there is a God, and He is on the American side." The dive bombers were lucky in so many ways - including a wrong interpretation of a DD as a CL - a convoluted double error in where it was going and why - the sacrifice of Torpedo 8 at just the right moment - and other things - I am not sure one can say much about the US except it was lucky. Only one of three carriers had a cohesive air strike (Yorktown). Going against four enemy CVs, that was a dangerous and sloppy way to do things.

Postwar studies generally state that the Japanese were at least 2 years behind in radars and other electronics..., which isn't that hard to accept. The Japanese had no civilian consumer market before the war..., and thus no large civilian consumer electronics base to draw on during the war. No General Electric, no Westinghouse, no Phillips..., and nothing like the resources available to the Europeans or the Americans in this regard. By 1944 the IJN were able to detect incoming airstrikes. Unfortunately for them, by the time they reached this "1942 US level of capability", the US had moved on to a very sophisticated and interwoven system of Fighter Direction that allowed vectoring of the CAP out to meet incoming A/C raids at a distance..., and the Battle of the Philippine Sea became the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot".

REPLY: Japan could detect air strikes long before 1944. But it was not often Japan could do more than evacuate civlians into shelters and man the AAA. When it could put up fighters - they used a very sophisticated system that (as far as I am aware) no other country ever used: recon aircraft detected the bomber streams and vectored the fighters into them, real time data. B-29 crew who survived and were captured who had encounted a patrol line of fighters from Central Honshu to Kyushu were impressed with the way tiny numbers of fighters (a patrol line spreads them out to the limit of line of sight) could work a stream. Aircraft detection is not always a matter of radar technology. [My biggest problem in US electronics is convincing people to NOT use radar - because radar gives away your position and identity. Japan was able to exploit that bad habit even in WWII.] But note I have at no point said that Japan was at the same level in radar technology. I don't like the "2 years behind" only because it is a meaningless general assertion: they were either ahead, the same or behind, case by case. WE were behind in some technologies. We were ahead in others. And we did not use our advantage well more often than not, particularly early on. Radar DID detect the raid on Pearl Harbor - but to no avail. It was ignored at Savo Island as well. And this has not changed: you can always shoot yourself in the foot - and we do so regularly. A US frigate captain still blames his radar for not detecting cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf - see his book. Yet search radar never detects cruise missiles, and we put intercept gear on his ship to detect them - but he didn't use it. We had an AWACS that detected the strike aircraft and the missiles, but we didn't outfit USAF and USN to talk to each other until some years later. I am the sort who gets into the technical detail, looks for where we get it wrong, so we can fix it - IF we are willing to fix it.

I am not "knocking" Japan or it's culture..., simply stating the obvious. A third rank industrial power locked in a death struggle with 1st rank industrial powers is at a considerable and insurmountable disadvantage in the long run. Even if they can design weapons, they simply lack the wherewithall to put them into the field in a timely manner. Japan was even worse off in that virtually all the raw materials she needed to "stay in the race" had to be imported over ever more vulnerable sea routes. The "Bushido Spirit" inculcated in the Japanese Military simply made the situation worse.

I still hear a lot of hubris in this last paragraph. Japan was hardly "a third rank industrial power." It built the largest battleships in the world, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the most dangerous torpedoes in the world, and according to my Chief, the "best warships generally". While one might disagree with the chief, their warships were certainly competative - anything but "third rate." Same for aircraft. Even if "second rank" were justified - you have to say "third rank" because of the way we have been taught to think. Living in Japan, visiting Japanese industrial plant and company museums, changed me in that respect. I must admit to you - US factories are NOT up to Japanese standards - nor is US industrial labor. Yet when working for a major US industrial firm (GM - Chevrolet Engineering) - I STILL encountered this hubris. No one believed me at all when I said "we either change our ways or we will not stay the biggest auto company in the world."

You are correct: the strategic raw materials problem Japan has is the worst of any industrial nation. It also is the cause of the war. WE forced Japan to industrialize - and GUARANTEED access to the materials to do so - on the basis "you won't have to drown girl babies in years of famine". [We threatened to bombard cities with battleships - just AFTER European navies DID bombard Kagoshima with battleships - if we didn't get Japan opened up to trade] The embargo on iron ore, rubber and oil was intended to cause the war to appear to be started by Japan - a cold blooded calculation made in certain knowledge Japan had no other option it would consider - the only other actual option being "let the US dictate Japanese policy - forever" - for once they backed down - we hardly would fail to use the same tool again. The disadvantage of such great need to import resources is well offset by the interior lines of communications and vast distances between Japan and the USA or UK. USN estimated it took two ships to keep one in service in the neighborhood of Japan. Strategic advantages and disadvantages are facts of geography - and part of what strategists must consider. They don't make a country great or less so.

[trollelite]

Jap military in 1941 is basically a world war I type, prepared to fight another great war or even Russo-Japanese war 1904-05. In this meaning, they could be called as French Army East Asian Version.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: trollelite

Jap military in 1941 is basically a world war I type, prepared to fight another great war or even Russo-Japanese war 1904-05. In this meaning, they could be called as French Army East Asian Version.

Quite true. The US military in 1941 was not even prepared to fight another great war. Only one division was in fair shape - the Hawaii Division. Even Gen Patton was writing why a man on a horse was harder to hit with a bullet than a man on foot. The Two Ocean Navy was being funded - but we had a lot of shipyards yet to build - and the rate of steel production was very slow to change. We planned to build 100,000 aircraft - but were still building handfuls of P-43s and would START making an even less capable P-66 a year later. The US divided control of merchant ships between three different bureaucracies - Army - Navy and Civil - just like Japan. Many professional soldiers expected to be hurt badly - and in 1942 (not 1941) my mother was trained to make cameras and developer from household chemicals - in case we had NO industrial capability during an invasion! She was (with her entire class - the first enlisted women in the US military) put into B-17s and asked to identify things on the ground - "to free a man to be a combat aviator". If things didn't get as bad as expected, it was not irrational to be concerned they might. So lets not pretend that we were some sort of WWII superman - in 1941.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
I still hear a lot of hubris in this last paragraph. Japan was hardly "a third rank industrial power." It built the largest battleships in the world, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the most dangerous torpedoes in the world, and according to my Chief, the "best warships generally". While one might disagree with the chief, their warships were certainly competative - anything but "third rate." Same for aircraft. Even if "second rank" were justified - you have to say "third rank" because of the way we have been taught to think.

I said "third-rank industrial power" because that's what Japan was. As I mentioned earlier, by dint of concentraiting her efforts in a few specialized areas, she was able to develope and maintain some first class military equipment. But the breadth and depth of her industrial economy was very thin overall..., which is why during the War itself Japan's entire national production wound up being basically equivilent to that of General Motors.

Talking about Japanese industry during the 1970's is absolutely worthless for comparisons, as it had all been rebuilt from the ground up after 1945 along the lines of the US example (with some very Japanese varients and ideas mixed in).

[histgamer]

The Japanese Navy was of in general very high quality however their army throughout the war was like a WWI army trying to fight WWII armies. It worked for them because China was in even worse shape, the British didn't initially have the manpower or the resources to focus on Japan (the British were also fairly foolish in their deployment early in the war) and it also worked because of the terrain they were fighting, India/Burma isn’t exactly what I am talking about, if the British don’t have to focus on Germany they can switch their forces over and crush Japan easily there, I am referring more to the fact that vs the USA the Island nature of the terrain allowed a very technically inferior army to bloody the nose of a far superior armed forces.
 

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Talking about Japanese industry during the 1970's is absolutely worthless for comparisons, as it had all been rebuilt from the ground up after 1945 along the lines of the US example (with some very Japanese varients and ideas mixed in).

I must be older than you think: I was not talking about Japan in the 1970s, but earlier. Nor do I think Japan rebuilt its industry along the lines of the US example. But then, I spend some time as a field engineer, an industrial engineer, and a computer engineer - and I actually went to Japan - and got to see how things were. If I no longer believe the legends I grew up with - it is because they are utterly false: I don't depend for knowledge on what is written in some book somewhere. The idea Japan built its industry on the US example AFTER WWII is backwards: it was far more dependent on US concerns before WWII. Ford, General Motors and Federal in particular. By my time - it was the other way around - and at Chevrolet we were importing Mazda and Isuzu engines to study because there was reason to think they were superior.