Japanese defensive strategy...

[mdiehl]

Did any equipment left out in the open at Tarawa survive?

Only four virtually unarmored 8" gun turrets, two tank platoons, forty or so anti-tank gun and artillery pieces and aa guns, several wooden observation towers, and about 40 or so buildings (well, intact enough to still look somewhat like buildings). Do you count soldiers in shallow foxholes as "in the open?"

Did "everything in the open" get "vaporized" in the several sustained naval bombardments of Henderson field?

Doh!

[Mike Scholl]

ACTUALLY. The Tarawa Preliminary Bombardment is considered to be 'WOEFULLY
INADEQUATE' in all the after action studies. Later invasions featured much more
thorough "softening up" (sometimes a full day or two). By 1944, the Japanese
were learning to pull back from the beaches (Saipan, Okinawa) or dig in so deep-
ly that nothing short of a "Tall Boy" or "Grand Slam" bomb was going to reach
them (Iwo Jima). But certainly an atoll was more vulnerable than other types of
islands simply because there were no "reverse slopes" or "cave infested ridges"
for a defender to dissappear into.

[jnier]

We all know the bombardment was inadequate. But the Japansese pretty well dug in, so most survived precisely because they were not "out in the open."

Not that it will matter to mdeihl, but I would check out http://www.tarawaontheweb.org/aerial.htm

I don't see a whole lot "out in the open" (although it is true that not EVERYTHING above ground was destroyed). A gun emplacement or a pillbox or a person in a foxhole are not "out in the open." Although I suspect that mdeihl will have a different definition of "out in the open" than I do. And, of course his definition is right and mine is wrong.[&o]

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

The basic problem is not could you take Midway or not. Of course you can take Midway if you want to.

Once you have Midway, now what?

It has a large airfield and a VERY small port. Not a good combination. Supplies to keep the troops alive will be unloading very slowly, supplies to keep aircraft flying offensive missions will be unloading very slowly.

The closest port large enough to use for Damaged ships is in the Home Islands, a fair distance away when you are trying to avoid having a ship sink on you. Japan damage control sucks, having the nearest disbandable port that far away should give you pause for thought.

On the other hand, look at the USA. The closest port is PH, a monster of a port with the best repair facilities one can offer.

It falls in the interesting catagory of "Now what?". Pretty to look at, but rather pointless. Seems more effective to me to let the USA load it up with aircraft and simply sweep it now and then with a fast BB bombardment group to maul the aircraft stacked there, gaining points quickly and wasting a lot of tasty USA prime aircraft.

You are 100% correct on this... Japanese assumption was not to take Midway - it was to force USN for decisive battle...

Since whole Japanese naval strategy between WWI and WWII was based on assumption of one single battle that would decide the outcome (of course Japanese would win) this is all very easy to understand...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

I have no idea but your "QUOTE" line is always wrong... you quote the text I wrote but there is someone else's name cited... strange...

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
That was exactly the thinking behind the bombardment at Tarawa. By the way, Tarawa is smaller than Sand Island (at Midway atoll), and every bit as flat. Your assumption that a few BBs or whatever will simply vaporize everything on the Island is incorrect and, moreover, it is demonstrably incorrect; it was attempted several times during WW2. It failed.

In my imaginary plan the whole point of bombardment of Midway was to destroy its airfield, aircraft and airbase equipment.

This all is in open, unprotected and easy to destroy (no shelter to hide and protect that stuff).

Invasion might or might not come at all and that's not connected with initial night bombardment at all since all that bombardment needs to do is stop air activity from Midway.

That is 100% achievable.

Since you have clarified that you would keep all your ships in one giant TF, so much the better for the USN. You have made recon/detection a 100% surety of success unless weather conditions are so foul that the IJN is incapable of flight ops. From a historical POV I would look forward with glee to all the IJN ships colliding and crashing into each other while under attack, as happened on numerous occasions when the IJN attempted to maneuver large task groups under battle rather than set-piece conditions. One huge IJN task force has ten times the likelihood of being squashed, as your mission-overtasked TFs attempt all the historically attempted missions and, in addition, providing CAP for a bloated fat tick of a TF strewn all over the ocean. In that event, the odds of IJN victory decline to something like 1/10,000.

I am very confused now...

Are you telling that what I wrote (in essence the USN way of doing things in 1944/1945) is wrong?

The USN put many dedicated TFs in close cooperation (and close together) but even under heavy kamikaze attacks there were no significant ship collisions and/or disorganization.

Also, we very well know that high altitude level bomber attacks are almost useless against moving ships and that would be the only way to attack the approaching Japanese armada in my imaginary Midway plan.

IMHO the deadly and determined Japanese kamikaze attacks in 1945 should have caused much more mayhem on attacked TFs than 1942 high altitude level bombing... [;)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: jnier
check out http://www.tarawaontheweb.org/aerial.htm

Good site, superb pictures!! Thanks, jnier!

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Hehe... sure, you are wrong and he is right... or you are an axis fanboy...

so it is useless to talk with him. If you give him provement that his facts are wrong, you lie.... if you distrust his sources, you are a rookie...

just him is the one who know everything. If you try to discuss things, as soon as someone mention only in a very small way that the USN/US Army/US Airforce wasn´t allways the best and in a game it should be so and so, because otherwise it is ahistorical...

sad, because he could do a great job, he has a lot of knowledge, sadly he just use it to prove his own reality....[;)]

But for midway.... my opinion (attention, i did not say i know it) is that the japanese had luck and made huge errors and the usn, even if knowing "anything" about their enemy had a lot luck and made errors, some of em were "good" in hindsight..

I bet, if you replay Midway 1000 times, you get a lot fully different results... because a pilot could do so or so... but this could mean 50 miles gap or not.... a whole fleet could slip between such a gap and if this happens, even a battlegroup could mess carriers (like it nearly happend at leyte, just wondering why the usnavy did not forsee this ? no, wait, it was all a plan... they knew that they could panic the japanese by shelling the ships with small calibres... or was it that a escort carriers guns easily should sink a battleship ? Sorry, this is the soley picture this person created in my mind... sadly, he seems to have influence on the game, so as american player you loose all fun because you win normaly in april 42... if you are good, in december 41..[8|]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

I have no idea but your "QUOTE" line is always wrong... you quote the text I wrote but there is someone else's name cited... strange...

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
That was exactly the thinking behind the bombardment at Tarawa. By the way, Tarawa is smaller than Sand Island (at Midway atoll), and every bit as flat. Your assumption that a few BBs or whatever will simply vaporize everything on the Island is incorrect and, moreover, it is demonstrably incorrect; it was attempted several times during WW2. It failed.

In my imaginary plan the whole point of bombardment of Midway was to destroy its airfield, aircraft and airbase equipment.

This all is in open, unprotected and easy to destroy (no shelter to hide and protect that stuff).

Invasion might or might not come at all and that's not connected with initial night bombardment at all since all that bombardment needs to do is stop air activity from Midway.

That is 100% achievable.

Since you have clarified that you would keep all your ships in one giant TF, so much the better for the USN. You have made recon/detection a 100% surety of success unless weather conditions are so foul that the IJN is incapable of flight ops. From a historical POV I would look forward with glee to all the IJN ships colliding and crashing into each other while under attack, as happened on numerous occasions when the IJN attempted to maneuver large task groups under battle rather than set-piece conditions. One huge IJN task force has ten times the likelihood of being squashed, as your mission-overtasked TFs attempt all the historically attempted missions and, in addition, providing CAP for a bloated fat tick of a TF strewn all over the ocean. In that event, the odds of IJN victory decline to something like 1/10,000.

I am very confused now...

Are you telling that what I wrote (in essence the USN way of doing things in 1944/1945) is wrong?

The USN put many dedicated TFs in close cooperation (and close together) but even under heavy kamikaze attacks there were no significant ship collisions and/or disorganization.

Also, we very well know that high altitude level bomber attacks are almost useless against moving ships and that would be the only way to attack the approaching Japanese armada in my imaginary Midway plan.

IMHO the deadly and determined Japanese kamikaze attacks in 1945 should have caused much more mayhem on attacked TFs than 1942 high altitude level bombing... [;)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[mdiehl]

I have no idea but your "QUOTE" line is always wrong... you quote the text I wrote but there is someone else's name cited... strange...

Something about the default parameters in the new software. Don' blame me, I only talk here.

In my imaginary plan the whole point of bombardment of Midway was to destroy its airfield, aircraft and airbase equipment. This all is in open, unprotected and easy to destroy (no shelter to hide and protect that stuff).

I understand what your claim is. I do NOT agree that it is all that easy to destroy, even when in the open. That's why I have suggested that you consider the Japanese bombardments at Guadalcanal. You have essentially idenitical circumstances, yet in no bombardment was the airfield shut down for more than an hour or so and in no circumstance were all the aircraft destroyed. As a result a/c that were on the airfield prior to the bombardment were still around attacking Japanese vessels immediately after the bombardment. While from a game standpoint it is unlikely that, say, 3 SBDs will ruin your day (in UV and in many paper stratsims), in the real world the real problem was that even 3 SBDs could ruin your day. You could lose a CV to one. THAT is why the IJN absolutely positively absolutely absolutely and without any doubt in any of the operational planners' minds (on the IJN side) GUARANTEE that Midway was not operational as an airbase. To DO that you MUST use aircraft.

Invasion might or might not come at all and that's not connected with initial night bombardment at all since all that bombardment needs to do is stop air activity from Midway. That is 100% achievable.

I'll bite. Name one instance in WW2 where a naval bombardment stopped air activity at a modest-sized airbase for any decisive interval of time. You say it is 100% achievable and I say it's almost 100% guaranteed not to work. I say look to Cactus for some prime examples.

Are you telling that what I wrote (in essence the USN way of doing things in 1944/1945) is wrong?

If you are asserting that the USN way of doing things in 1944-1945 was to shut down airbases via naval bombardment then I am asserting that you do not know how the USN shut down enemy airbases. Suppressing Japanese airbases was the mandate of fast carriers, not bombardment TFs. The Japanese also used CVs for that task. Both parties at the time understood that the only sure way to shut down an airbase was with airstrikes.

The USN put many dedicated TFs in close cooperation (and close together) but even under heavy kamikaze attacks there were no significant ship collisions and/or disorganization.

IMO the USN was better at it (but by 1944 they'd had alot more time to get good at it than, say, in 1942). In many of the high speed naval and air actions involving Japanese ships oeprating in close proximity there were collisions. Mikuma vs. Mogami. At least one collision in the sequence of battles around the Leyte gulf. One major collision IIRC in the night actions in October near Guadalcanal. Another major collision in the action in Surigao Strait.

Also, we very well know that high altitude level bomber attacks are almost useless against moving ships and that would be the only way to attack the approaching Japanese armada in my imaginary Midway plan.

I can't imagine why you'd be that cocky. The SBDs based on Midway got in their licks against the IJN TF, but they missed. One USN PBY at Midway torpedoed a Japanese auxiliary. If the Japanese TF is not using its a/c to suppress Midway, then the position and composition of the Japanese TF will be known to the USN throughout the battle. Under such circumstances you can almost guarantee that a USN coordinated strike will find you before you find the USN.

Your plan seems to rely wholly on improbable results. Even the real Japanese were not so blinkered as to pretend that they could either ignore Midway or get close enough to bombard it without dedicating a substantial amount of CV based air power to the job, and even the real Japanese knew that but a few enemy strike craft could pose a very mortal threat.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

The basic problem is not could you take Midway or not. Of course you can take Midway if you want to.

Once you have Midway, now what?

With Midway the Japanese can torpedo bomb any transport fleet coming in to Perl Harbor. They could also do nightly attacks on the ships in port. It would mean that Pearl Harbor would no longer be considered a safe place to repair badly damaged ships. They would have to be sent to the West coast.

Anyway, taking Midway is nice, but the main purpose would be to draw out the numerically inferier US fleet and smash them.

[mdiehl]

With Midway the Japanese can torpedo bomb any transport fleet coming in to Perl Harbor. They could also do nightly attacks on the ships in port. It would mean that Pearl Harbor would no longer be considered a safe place to repair badly damaged ships. They would have to be sent to the West coast.

It'd almost be worth letting the Japanese HAVE Midway just to see them send unescorted waves of Betties against Honolulu. The slaughter among the Japanese bomber crews would be legendary.

Were I playing as the Allies and lost Midway, I'd be in no hurry to fall into a reverse-Midway trap. When I returned to Midway it'd be with 8 fleet CVs after some long range saturation bombing by B17s operating from Kwajalein.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

With Midway the Japanese can torpedo bomb any transport fleet coming in to Perl Harbor. They could also do nightly attacks on the ships in port. It would mean that Pearl Harbor would no longer be considered a safe place to repair badly damaged ships. They would have to be sent to the West coast.

It'd almost be worth letting the Japanese HAVE Midway just to see them send unescorted waves of Betties against Honolulu. The slaughter among the Japanese bomber crews would be legendary.

Read carefully. I said NIGHTly attacks. Night attacks don't face cap and it is quite possible to do serious damage to ships over a long period. It is unlikely that the US would keep high valued ships in PH for long once the attacks started. They would move them to the West coast.

[mdiehl]

I'd have night interceptors on station after the first raid. Before that even if the MAtrix oob allows it. Between them and flak the Betties would be scr3wed.

Initially it would be crude. Day fighters vectored by radar as the UK used in the earliest days of the blitz. Radar-operating fighters would follow within a week or so. For interceptors I'd use P38s and lightened B25/26s. You don't HAVE to lighten the B25, but if you send up a 3 man crew with only forward firing ordnance your plane would be considerably faste, and much more suited to the night-intercept role. Both the P38 and medium bomber airframes would fit the earliest plane-portable air-search radar sets that entered production in the US in late 1940.

Sine you will probably ask where the US gets the radar, I'll direct you to the 1940 Tizard mission to the US in which the UK MarkIV radar with magnetron was shared with the U.S. National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). NDRC's Division 14 (October 1940) was directed to produce a U.S. 10-centimeter radar under MIT's supervision. The first US MIT designed microwave radar was tested in March 1941 with a slant-angle detection range of 8 miles and low ground clutter. Early US SCR-520s (10cm UK design) were shipped to the UK and installed in Douglas Boston's (so the precedent is there for converting a bomber to a night fighter). So in 1942 it would be quite reasonable to put SCR520s in US medium bombers or in a P38 and hunt down Japanese raids over the HI.

[Mr.Frag]

Read carefully. I said NIGHTly attacks. Night attacks don't face cap and it is quite possible to do serious damage to ships over a long period. It is unlikely that the US would keep high valued ships in PH for long once the attacks started. They would move them to the West coast.

I guess you missed the point about the size 1 port that takes longer to unload supplies then you eat flying missions. Until you overbuild the port (something that takes a lot of time, a lot of engineers and a lot of supply), you will not be sending the kiddies off to play at PH.

[Bulldog61]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Read carefully. I said NIGHTly attacks. Night attacks don't face cap and it is quite possible to do serious damage to ships over a long period. It is unlikely that the US would keep high valued ships in PH for long once the attacks started. They would move them to the West coast.

I guess you missed the point about the size 1 port that takes longer to unload supplies then you eat flying missions. Until you overbuild the port (something that takes a lot of time, a lot of engineers and a lot of supply), you will not be sending the kiddies off to play at PH.

Not to mention the US can park 25 to 30 subs around Midway.

[TIMJOT]

How about a night bombardment followed by a dawn air attack. That at least might have eliminated a need for a immediate second strike and subsequently allow for the reserve strike to remain armed for naval attack. I have to say that adding a bombardment even in combo would be an improvement to that wretched Yamamoto plan. It isnt as though air attack had an proven ability to surpress an airfield any longer than a bombardment. Can anyone give an example of air attack by CV or LBA being able to destroy ALL aircraft and surpress an airfield longer than a few hours in 1942?

As for taking Midway. The invasion was to simply deny that airfield to the USN for the expected impending Decisive battle, becuase after all an airfield can not be supressed indefinitely. The occupation need only be temporary.

Mdiehl, you dont really mean to imply that the IJN would have been worse off if they had concentrated their forces do you? Dispersal of force was ONE of the major flaws in the plan.

The funny thing is even if the plan had worked out as expected, with the USN not showing up for 3 - 4 days. The IJN would have been facing 4 US CVs intead of 3. The Saratoga was just days away when the battle actually took placed.

[Mr.Frag]

Planned perfectly, you can have 400 aircraft supporting you for the actual capture of the base and 300 Nells/Bettys standing by to plunk there instantly as the airfield is already size 6. That lets you pick on PH during night attacks until you are kicked out (costing you 300 planes and some very valuable base units and a Air HQ that is required to keep the planes flying)

I just did it, the results were not particularly worth the effort. It is a pain in the arse trying to keep the pilots motivated to fly.

The problem is that PH is 20 hexes away from Midway. Your Betty has a range of 20 and the Nell of 21. This means you are light on payload and taking major ops losses. For this, you are basically stripping the very forces that are keeping Clark Field and Singapore suppressed. Doing it later in the war instead of right off the bat means you don't have all those tasty wounded ships in port so the value (in my eyes) is nowhere near as high.

The only saving grace is that Midway is out of range for any air units to help support the recapture. I looked at it from the standpoint that since the USA only has two CV's (both with understrength airwings) available, if you are going to do this you might as well make it your opening play, having KB retire to Midway after the PH strike.

[mdiehl]

Mdiehl, you dont really mean to imply that the IJN would have been worse off if they had concentrated their forces do you? Dispersal of force was ONE of the major flaws in the plan.

There comes a point where concentration is not an asset. I think the proposed plan of lumping everything together into a combined bobmardment/CV TF is an extreme over-correction. It means that the IJN CVs have to sail right up to the horizon vs. Midway and have to defend (CAP) a greater surface of ocean in order to protect the TF.
As a result, their position is going to be known ALL THE TIME to the USN, and the IJN will have little idea where the USN TF will be. I think the result is to almost dead-certain guarantee that the USN will hit you with a surprise air strike with most of your planes caught on deck.

At the time, CVs made effective javelins but lousy shields. They were really incapable of defending themselves from even modest air strikes, much less all the ships serving as their escorts. Both sides started with understrength CAPs and lousy CAC. As the war progressed the USN became much more proficient at CAP command and control. Radar and IFF gave the US a slight lead in the beginning, but there is a universe of difference between USN plan handling and CAP control in 1942 vs. 1944.

The funny thing is even if the plan had worked out as expected, with the USN not showing up for 3 - 4 days. The IJN would have been facing 4 US CVs intead of 3. The Saratoga was just days away when the battle actually took placed.

Then I think you have a formula for a USN disaster. Because now it'd be the USN that has to simultask suppressing Midway while, at the same time, locating and attacking Kido Butai, while the Japanese could conduct effective recon from Midway and dedicate Kido Butai to killing the USN CVs.

The way I see it, whoever wants to take Midway needs to be able to dedicate 3 CVs solely to suppressing Midway and 3 more CVs to hunting the enemy's carriers.

[TIMJOT]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

The only saving grace is that Midway is out of range for any air units to help support the recapture. I looked at it from the standpoint that since the USA only has two CV's (both with understrength airwings) available, if you are going to do this you might as well make it your opening play, having KB retire to Midway after the PH strike.

I agree, taking Midway as an opening play would be much more favorable. Wake can be left alone. Taking Midway isolates it and can be mopped up later. Placing Bettys on Midway in Dec 41 would make things difficult for the USN player early on, but I dont think IJN player can maintain a base at Midway for very long.

[mdiehl]

As an opening play it would be very doable. You'd probably have a decent chance of pulling it off through the end of 1941 even. After that everything is up in the air.

I can think of one very good reason to take Midway. Forward recon base for long range flying boats. I don't think Japan could really hope to even mildly sting US TFs in and around the Hawaiian Islands or in Pearl Harbor using Midway-based Betties. They're just to fragile, there's too much US fighter opposition (even at night), and the range (as was pointed out earlier) is extreme. But a good Japanese player could put Emilies up from there and snoop-scout PH for a while I think.. until USMC/USAAF dedicated night-fighting interceptor units come along. Said Emilies could also reduce the effectiveness of USN sub ops.

[TIMJOT]

By concentration, I mean close enough for mutual support and coordination. It would also imply the Aluetians force would be included, which would give you the Junyo, Ryjuo, Zuhio to support the Bombardment TF and leave the 4 Big CVs to stand off. I still think a Night Bombardment, Dawn air attack combo is an improvement to the original plan.

I agree that, bad as the plan was the only chance it had was with all 6 Big CVs. Which makes the fact that the Alluetians folly was not cancelled after Sho & Zui were knocked out even more inexcusable. I dont know why Yamamoto so often gets a free pass. It seems to me no one was more inflicted with "victory desease" than him. Especially when you consider that he insisted under threat of resignation that ALL 6 CVs must be used for the PH attack or it shouldnt be attempted at all. 6 months later he proposes to take Midway and fight the decisive battle with Just 4.