IRL how much have Japanese got from conquered territories

[Dili]

Historically for oil, fuel, resources(minerals) . Anyone knows, i guess somewhere, someone might have made that calculation.

Also interesting would be to know how much they lost in transit from total.

[spence]

A good deal of an answer to your questions can be found here in this article by Jon Parshall:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/guadoil1.htm

Another one which speaks to the amount of resources lost in transit:

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/l ... -wwii.html#

[LargeSlowTarget]

From "War, Economy and Society, 1939-1945" by De Alan S. Milward:

[Dili]

Thanks.

Parshall says that "practically" all refineries were in Japan, what does he means by that? i am not aware that those in Palembang, Borneo and Balikpapan were destroyed.

[spence]

Since the British decided pre-war not to defend their possessions it seems that the refinery near Miri was mostly destroyed right away following the Pearl Harbor attack. The Dutch destroyed most of the facilities at Tarakan before capture as well. At Balikpapan some facilities were destroyed although from the article it remains a bit unclear how many (In both cases the Dutch pow's were executed for those transgressions). It seems that the Japanese did not initially benefit much from the refineries captured from the Dutch/British on Borneo. Anyways the article is here:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/BorneoOil.htm (same site, different author)

Apparently the Navy "got" Borneo and the Army "got" Sumatra.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/SumatraOil.htm

Interesting that the Japanese "owned" one of the major refineries for a month when a delayed demolition charge set by the Dutch blew up and pretty much destroyed the whole refinery.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Thanks.

Parshall says that "practically" all refineries were in Japan, what does he means by that? i am not aware that those in Palembang, Borneo and Balikpapan were destroyed.

Part of the reason may be simply the availability of enough tanks in the holds of tankers and other ships. Crude oil is one product - you can fill the whole tanker with it and ship it.
Once distilled into various oil products, you need separate, clean tanks for each kind of product - bunker fuel, avgas, motor fuel, diesel, benzene, propane, butane, lubricating oils, etc. Much easier to send it to Japan for refining and use smaller tankers to distribute the various products.

[inqistor]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Thanks.

Parshall says that "practically" all refineries were in Japan, what does he means by that? i am not aware that those in Palembang, Borneo and Balikpapan were destroyed.

Main air training facilities were moved to Philippines, and Sumatra, because of proximity to fuel sources. So I doubt they delivered AVGAS there, back from Home Islands.


I had somewhere page with percentages of Japanese cargo lost during transit. Numbers were pretty low until 1944. In 1945 it was something like 56%, or maybe even over 60%.

[Yaab]

I remember reading somewhere about Jap ships hauling rice from Thailand to the Home Islands during the war, so they also imported foodstuffs for civilian consumption, which is not simulated in the game.

[spence]

I remember reading somewhere about Jap ships hauling rice from Thailand to the Home Islands during the war, so they also imported foodstuffs for civilian consumption, which is not simulated in the game.

It would seem that all those workers who make steel (HI), ammunition (LI), airplanes, and etc have to eat. IRL the Tokyo Times was publishing "tasty recipes" for grass (the green stuff on the front lawn, not the smoking kind) by the end of 1944 due to the sinkings of so many ships bringing food to the Home Islands. The mining campaign by B-29s in the last few months of the war caused widespread starvation. Being relieved of any necessity to supply food to the civilian workers is a major boon to the IJ Player.

As I recall from a lecture I heard long ago much of SE Asia exports a great deal of rice to other Asian countries. A few other observations might be germane too. From the picture book about the Russian Front by Paul Carrell (can't remember the name)there was a chart that showed that it took 250 or more bomber sorties to equal the sinking of one 5000 ton merchant ship in terms of destroyed cargo. It seems in-congruent that an island nation that starts the war with a deficit of a millions tons of shipping should find it possible to park half its merchant fleet in some out of the way port safe from attack until they need a replacement to move oil/fuel/resources to their Home Island industries.

[rustysi]

so they also imported foodstuffs for civilian consumption, which is not simulated in the game.

Just as 'supply is supply', 'resources are resources'. Just because its resources doesn't mean its oil, fuel, rubber, or tin. It could just as well be food. Can you say abstraction?[:)]

[spence]

Can you say STARVATION. It was not a war crime in the 1940s and the US employed it forcefully and successfully against Japan then. The IJ Player gets to hide half his merchant marine in out of the way ports because he doesn't have to feed his workers (or his soldiers). Airplanes, tanks and bullets don't taste that good and are not nutritious at all.

[PaxMondo]

Refineries:
These consume a surprising amount of material in terms of just normal maintenance. Then, twice per calendar year there are major, scheduled maintenance cycles that require a huge amount of material (pipe, catalysts, etc) and the orchestration of enormous number of contractors (electricians, pipe fitters, welders, labor, etc). To create this plan requires intimate knowledge of the refinery units.

Given the distances and the fact that local expertise was not available after 'acquisition', IJ would have been hard pressed to keep just the distillation towers running, forget any reactors. My understanding is that is essentially what happened. IJ was understandably loathe to ship experts into the field, so the refineries only ran basic units upon capture (distillation). The exception was Singers where they kept the alkylation unit (reputedly the only one in asia at the time) to make AvGas The unit was small, sized to support British requirements in Singers only, but still of value. I did hear that even this unit eventually "failed" after a couple of years. The failure may have been assisted by locals ...

[PaxMondo]

Resources:

As noted above, they got a lot … even more than they had planned. The Philippines alone was a veritable wharehouse of resource that the US had developed over the preceding 20 years. Many strategic elements were present that IJ had no access to elsewhere.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Resources:

As noted above, they got a lot … even more than they had planned. The Philippines alone was a veritable wharehouse of resource that the US had developed over the preceding 20 years. Many strategic elements were present that IJ had no access to elsewhere.

The greatest "what if" for me is what would have happened if the Japanese had went in with a "liberating" mindset rather than a colonial one.

I've spent some time reading on the Japanese occupation of the DEI. For the first three months, the Indonesian people felt this was their chance at freedom and welcomed the Japanese invasion. Over time it became clear that the Japanese were just replacing the Dutch.

The war would have taken a drastic turn if the Japanese had established popular national government under their umbrella from the start. A complete fantasy given the Japanese mindset of the time, but interesting nonetheless.

Being relieved of any necessity to supply food to the civilian workers is a major boon to the IJ Player.

Ditto with the Allies relived of any necessity to be loss averse due to the political fallout.

[MakeeLearn]

Japan's (Home Islands) refining capabilities were slow. They were still cracking Mexican and California crude until late '44. I would guess that was pre-war bought oil.

Japanese ships could burn oil as fuel in their boilers, although with a decrease in engine performance and a increase in needed maintenance.

Allied POWs were worked in the fields. Sugar beets were one of the crops they grew.

Shipping stuff back to Japan, along with the Convoy System in general, was lacking in guidance and motivation.

[spence]

The greatest "what if" for me is what would have happened if the Japanese had went in with a "liberating" mindset rather than a colonial one.

Seems to me that that is asking the leopard to change his spots. The greatest "what if" from my point of view would be "what if the Japanese had attacked the British in Malaya and the Dutch in the DEI without starting a war with the US by attacking Pearl Harbor or any of the US possessions/colonies in the Pacific (at least right off the bat). I figure that Roosevelt would ultimately have gotten Congress to declare war on Japan but exactly when and at whose initiative could be an interesting situation to explore.

I am an unabashed Allied only player (the blush is way off the rose as far as production is concerned). I've only reached June of 1943 in any of my games twice and in both games long range recon of several ports over several turns showed a whole bunch of merchies just sitting around doing nothing. To me it is notable that none of those responding to this thread, all of whom do play the Japanese, has said that they keep 'every merchie employed all the time' instead of squirreling a bunch away in safe rear area ports.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: spence

The greatest "what if" for me is what would have happened if the Japanese had went in with a "liberating" mindset rather than a colonial one.

Seems to me that that is asking the leopard to change his spots. The greatest "what if" from my point of view would be "what if the Japanese had attacked the British in Malaya and the Dutch in the DEI without starting a war with the US by attacking Pearl Harbor or any of the US possessions/colonies in the Pacific (at least right off the bat). I figure that Roosevelt would ultimately have gotten Congress to declare war on Japan but exactly when and at whose initiative could be an interesting situation to explore.

I agree.

[MakeeLearn]

"FBI Maps of Japanese Nationals and Economic Interests in the 1930s"
https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2018/01/fbi- ... the-1930s/

[BBfanboy]

Well there's the problem - the Japanese were not getting enough coffee!

[MakeeLearn]

There is more info in these .pdfs. Especially the Fuel and Lubricants

REPORTS OF THE U. S. NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN
https://web.archive.org/web/20141211145 ... MJ_toc.htm