Okay, please try to respond to my actual question, even if its only a short sentence, like - i dont know - after you said IJN didnt want to lose battleships, the whole attack on PH was poorly though out or that Japanese ASW weaponry and efforts were lacking and so were their pilot training programs, or other things that are not directly related. I am quite interested whether my thoughts make sense.
For the record the questions of mine are: would it be possible to bombard PH from the western approaches of the island, near the place i mentioned, without encountering coastal guns, and what would be its effect, and second, if Japanese merchant marine could implement convoys without devastating impact on Japanese economy. I know, horribly specific questions.
They could have made convoys, Japan had around 1000 merchant ships. ASW escorts would have been the bottleneck. Even a bunch of Japanese destroyers had no ASW at the start of the war.
If I remember right those who had some had the lacklustre type 95 dept charge.
Late in the war the Japanese build some excellent ASW escorts. Sadly there been no merchant ships to escort anymore.
Hm, so you are saying they did/could not make convoys because they did not have escorts for them, so running single ships was not much of a difference from running a convoys from safety perspective?
Well, thats one thing, but i am also interested in whether, if by some chance, they had enough escorts, they still could not make convoys because of the ineffiecency of convoy system i mentioned in OP. I dont remember how big was their merchant marine, but i remember that it was strained, especially during the initial offensive where shipping already came at a cost of production. So, if the Japanese convoy efficiency is similar to what British had (no idea what affects that), then i guess having only 30% of your shipping power is not acceptable.
On a side note, i played silent service extensively when i was little. How was i amazed that German subs could dive thrice the depth of US ones! That was unfair i say, being able to dive deeper would save my ass so many times.
Re: convoys. Japanese had minimal concern for convoys and logistics. Warriors didn't worry about that sort of thing. This is why Japanese I-boats were trained to hunt capital ships, not merchantmen. Meanwhile the US wolfpacks learned everything they could from the Germans, and outperformed the Germans in the Pacific at commerce raiding.
Perhaps. Or, perhaps, some important dudes at the ministry of production and transportation or whatever decided they could not make convoys without stopping their economy?
I think the problem with bringing the battleships to Pearl was related to two things: Speed and time. They had a few that were fast (30+ knots speed) but they were too valuable as escorts for the carriers to be brought into gun range of pearl harbor - indeed I believe they were with Nagumo's strike force as escorts. The slow battleships couldn't make the trip - the risk that they would be caught after the raid and sunk was to great because they couldn't run away fast enough topping out at around 25 knots - to slow to expect to outrun or evade a pursuit if one occurred.
Yes, thats true. Hiei and Kirishima. Battlecruisers apparently. On the more positive note, their guns had a range of 35km, putting everything comfortably into range from the south-west coast of Oahu. Let me check... there were two more of them, Kongo and Haruna. Thats four. In a pinch, Nagato and Mutsu at 27knots could bring their somewhat larger guns too.
The other problem is time on target. The Japanese didn't know where the U.S. aircraft carriers were, and had no clear idea how long it would take before the remaining ships and planes at Pearl would sortie out in a counterattack. To do a lot of damage with a battleship bombardment takes a lot of time to fire off all those shells - and you have to be a lot closer too - the odds that they are discovered before they get to attack, or are successfully counterattacked during the attack are much much higher. Any bombardment with battleships would be inherently MUCH riskier than a carrier strike.
Yes, it is riskier. Arguably, way too riskier to sail up close to the Oahu pre-war. So the idea of surpise shelling is probably out of the question. Though, would it be smart to follow up the airstrike with the idea i described? After the second wave, dont turn back, but sail the 6 battleships near the western approaches of Oahu, keeping CVs on guard for possible american CV counterattack (LBA from Pearl are not dangerous at this point i think), and proceed to wreck the base and the damaged ship completely?
Yes, it is risky, but would the risk be acceptable? And what would be the outcome and other consequences (like in the other regions, like what were the other 4 BBs doing at that point, that they would not be doing here)
As for the merchant marine - the leadership of Japan at that time was dominated by the Army - after all Tojo was a general - not an admiral. for the Japanese leadership WWII was ALL about the ground war in China and S.E. asia. The entire campaign in the Pacific and against the U.S. was sort of hand waved away as a diversion to keep the U.S. from meddling and not taken seriously. It wasn't until roughly 1944 that they realized that the 'side' naval campaign threatened to obliterate the entire nation and that China was the sideshow.
Not sure how that relates to my question about convoys.
