ORIGINAL: bklooste
300K tanker capacity with a 4 week round trip to the DEI is 12 * 300K or ~7M. Note they demanded 3.8M from the DEI .
"Although Japan had well over 587ktons of tanker capacity at the beginning of the Pacific War, the Navy required 270,000 tons of that [having ceased to build AOs in the 1920s], leaving only about 30000 tons for nonoperational purposes ... "
If you're going to cite a quote that someone has given, then it behooves you to cite it
correctly.
The original quote, directly from the book cited, was
300 ktons ... not the almost doubled figure you have ... accidentally ... changed it to.
If you disagree with the citation's source, which I provided, along with the relevant page number, so it could be checked, then that's fine ... provide your
own citation (with title and page number too, so it can be checked as well ... turn about is fair play) that disputes it. Don't "accidentally" change the original so that your following arguments make more sense.
ORIGINAL: bklooste
This quote has issues ..and even a simple reading says it absurd since 300K tons is not enough to fuel the economy in 1941-1942
So? Just because you don't believe that the source is correct doesn't mean that it isn't. Given that books have to have a peer review to get published.
Of the two authors ...
Mark Peattie: Is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was the visiting professor at the University of Hawaii in 1995.
Peattie is a reader for Columbia University Press, University of California Press, University of Hawaii Press, Stanford University Press, University of Michigan Press, and U.S. Naval Institute Press
The book has been well reviewed in academic circles and is 4.5 stars or so on Amazon.
So, unless you can provide something that casts doubt on the facts and figures it provides ... and which postdates its publication in the late 1990s (and which is therefore not based on outdated scholarship) ... I believe that the statement from Kaigun ... the
original one, not the one you "accidentally" changed ... stands unchallenged.
ORIGINAL: bklooste
Just before their attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan had only 49 merchant tankers of about 587,000 tons and [ in addition ] the IJN had but nine slow fleet oilers. Despite its prewar stockpiling of two years of petroleum products, Japan had to rely on imports from its conquered South Asia territories for survival.
I never said this. The cite
I provided refers to
300 kton of tankers,
not 587 kton.
If you are citing someone else or some other source then
you need to be clear
who you are citing and, if a book or magazine article, the author, title and page number of the cite ... if a website, the URL.
Or is this an extended "accidental" misquotation of the original citation that I provided and which is easily checked to be found correct?
ORIGINAL: bklooste
Like all navies, oil was the lifeblood of the IJN. As a result, the IJN requisitioned 77 merchant ships from their owners for conversion to auxiliary oilers.
Thus the Navy createds its own oilers before the war as can be seen , all of the 8 AOs in the PH OOB are AOs converted from merchants and build in the late 30's.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Yusosen.htm
[/quote]
And, if you'd actually read what I wrote rather than misquoting parts of it you would have noted that I said that the IJN did exactly that. The only thing we disagree on is the number and tonnage of tankers available ... and that seems to be entirely because you haven't actually read the source that you are citing.
And I can assure you that, if you check (Kaigun is available on Google books and is easily searchable), the citations I provided are close to word for word perfect. Certainly the figures are entirely correct.
I suppose that Prof Peattie
could be deliberately lying and
all of his reviewers are backing up his deliberate lies ... but, on balance, I doubt it.
Also note that your cite, combinedfleet.com, also states ...
"This page will cover the activities of 127 fleet and coastal tankers - 67 merchant tanker auxiliaries, 18 Navy fleet oilers and 35 civilian merchant tankers in Japanese national service and six captured and one German vessel in Japanese service."
Making it plain that the figures are for
the whole of WW2 - and there is no breakdown as to how many were
coastal tankers ... that is, ones that never left Japanese coastal waters and which, therefore, are excised from the total available in 1941 by Peattie et al as they are irrelevant to transporting oil back from the DEI or for operational use by the IJN, unless based in home waters.
You could also check out this page ...
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Especially where it provides Merchant shipping production rates for the US and Japan ... which, of course, includes Tanker production ...
Year USA Tonnage Japan Tonnage
1939 ~376 kton ~320 kton
1940 ~528 kton ~293 kton
1941 ~1 megaton ~210 kton
1942 ~5.48 megaton ~260 kton
1943 ~11.45 megaton ~769 kton
1944 ~9.28 megaton ~1.7 megaton
1945 ~5.84 megaton ~599 kton
Totals ~34 megatons ~4.15 megatons
And, of course, that doesn't include British or British Commonwealth production.
The comment of the author of the page is telling ...
"Every time I look at these number, I just shake my head in amazement. The United States built more merchant shipping in the first four and a half months of 1943 than Japan put in the water in seven years. The other really interesting thing is that there was really no noticeable increase in Japanese merchant vessel building until 1943, by which time it was already way too late to stop the bleeding."
Also note his comments on "Kaigun" in his review of the book ... yes, he reviewed it ...
"This work fills a major gap in the Western literature concerning Japanese naval doctrine. No other study to date has covered this topic as completely. The authors, who are both Japanese linguists, make extensive usage of Japanese primary sources to support their arguments. The bibliography and back-matter are most impressive."
Phil
If they didnt need oil they wouldnt have attacked as their is no need to and defeat likely.
