Today we look at an overview of the last major fleet operation of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Operation Ten-Go
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Was the Yamato even a good idea? Or was the cost-benefit analysis dropped in awe of her sheer size?
I guess it would be reasonably useful in a theoretical decisive battle between battleship forces, although obviously with hindsight it is quite clear that another pair of Shokaku class CVs would have been far more useful in practice.
The Yamato was a great WWI battleship, with a massive shell weight and huge range. The pounding she absorbed before she sunk also indicates the quality of the design. Unfortunately, she lacked the radar-controlled gunnery of a late war battleship and was simply outclassed by the American battleships built during WWII. This is in addition to the simple fact that airpower had made her obsolete from the day she was launched.
IF the naval war in the Pacific had gone as the Japanese had planned and there was a major battleship engagement in 1941-42 then the Yamato may have played a crucial role, and to that extent, she was not a bad idea when she was planned. You can't blame the planners in the mid-1930s for not realising how naval warfare would be transformed over the next decade.
Assuming there is a massive battleship battle in 1942... how the battlelines supposed to form? A slow line with Ise, Hyuga, Fuso, Yamashiro and a fast line with Yamato (Musashi) Nagato, Mutsu. Or a single slow line? Or the 26 knot ships+ Kongos detached from carrier groups?
It is hard to create a nice battleline from the IJN and on the reverse side it is hard to integrate the Yamatos to a CTF.
To be fair that's a problem with many of the battle lines - the pre-treaty battleships however modernised, just don't compete with the newer generation of ships.
True... however Yamato is still somewhat a neither nor case. Not really fitting for the pre-treaty battleline, but as compensation they are neither really good for CTF (which even the South Dakotas could do if we are a bit lenient).
So i'am still interested how they supposed to fight according to the naval planners.
I just wonder if she was worth her price. Sure, as planned she would have been superior ship-for-ship, but also manhour-for-manhour?
If a battleship is armoured so she can withstand the biggest guns the enemy mounts and her guns are big enough to reduce any ship in the enemy fleet to scrap in a few salvos then she will dominate the enemy battle lines to a point that engaging any battle line she is in becomes near suicidal. The Yamato was designed to be the Dreadnaught of her generation - a ship that makes the entire enemy battle line obsolete. In this case, she is excellent value at any price.
However, the sad (from the IJN's perspective) reality was that the Yamato was a giant white elephant, huge and expensive and obsolete from the day she was launched. Even in the case of a battleship duel the changes in gunnery technology (including over the horizon radar aiming and new fuse technology) meant that the entire design concept that emphasised gun calibre, armour thickness and speed, over all else, was an obsolete idea. The Yamato was a revolutionary battleship for a different era and was a huge waste of resources whatever way you look at it.
Sounds to me like a Japanese Maginot Line. Perfectly designed for the last war, a huge waste for the war she actually entered.
Hammer and Anvil I presume. Send the faster BBs and the Kongos ahead to try and corral screens and cross the T, while the slow line continues up the flank.
This is another discussion but the Maginot actually worked just fine. The problem was that the French were incredibly slow to mobilize their "B" divisions which would plug the Ardennes. It was a massive force multiplier for the French.
No-one except the most die-hard airpower enthusiasts anticipated the rapid increase in aircraft performance, or the ability to carry out strikes with hundreds of planes, that occurred in the 1940s. So all of the major powers built battleships under the assumption that they would be attacked by a dozen or so aircraft, and any post-treaty BBs could reasonably be expected to come through that.
One problem was that Japan built the Yamato class to fight and win a decisive battleship engagement... and then opened the war by smashing the US Pacific Fleet's battle-line. The survivors spent time in the yards being modernized and then were either on escort duty in the Atlantic or swinging around their anchors at places like Fiji, partly because there was no fuel for them and partly because the US could not force a daytime surface battle under friendly air cover.
So Japan's super-battleships were basically sidelined by the successful Pearl Harbor attack. But if there had been a decisive battleship clash after, say, mid-1943 (couldn't have happened before then because the US couldn't play), then the Japanese would potentially have been seriously outnumbered and outmatched. Disregarding fuel constraints and leaving out the very aged Arkansas, Texas and New York, an all-up US line looks something like this.
21-knot: Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Idaho, Mississippi, California, Tennessee, Colorado, Maryland, West Virginia
26-knot: North Carolina, Washington, South Dakota, Indiana, Massachusetts, Alabama
I can't say for certain if Iowa and New Jersey could be ready by that date but I doubt it.
Japan's line-up looks like this:
Old BB's: Fuso, Yamashiro; possibly Ise and Hyuga (who were actually being converted to partial aircraft-carriers)
Modern BBs: Nagato, Mutsu (if she didn't explode), Yamato, Musashi
Fast BBs: Kongo, Haruna; possibly Kirishima and Hiei (if not sunk at Guadalcanal)
So that's maybe 16 on the US side against 12 Japanese (and more-likely 7, given the conversions and wartime losses). The Kongos are fast but weak, and the US can double or triple-team the Yamatos with 16" guns from the modern BBs. Japan is, barring a miracle, going to lose badly while the US will take damage and lose ships, but prevail.
There are of course issues with this - not all US BBs would be present, whereas Japan would presumably have the initiative and have all of theirs present. But there's so much hand-wavy history here that I'm just going to stop.
The Yamato class were excellent ships for the kind of battle the Japanese thought they would fight in the early 1930s (when the design work started), but in fact advances in aircraft performance meant the only battleship engagements in the Pacific would be fought at night, where aircraft could not play a role. Japan, essentially, bought two really good, really expensive swords and then used a gun to show their enemy how useless a sword was...
One problem was that Japan built the Yamato class to fight and win a decisive battleship engagement... and then opened the war by smashing the US Pacific Fleet's battle-line. The survivors spent time in the yards being modernized and then were either on escort duty in the Atlantic or swinging around their anchors at places like Fiji, partly because there was no fuel for them and partly because the US could not force a daytime surface battle under friendly air cover.
So Japan's super-battleships were basically sidelined by the successful Pearl Harbor attack. But if there had been a decisive battleship clash after, say, mid-1943 (couldn't have happened before then because the US couldn't play), then the Japanese would potentially have been seriously outnumbered and outmatched. Disregarding fuel constraints and leaving out the very aged Arkansas, Texas and New York, an all-up US line looks something like this.
21-knot: Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Idaho, Mississippi, California, Tennessee, Colorado, Maryland, West Virginia
26-knot: North Carolina, Washington, South Dakota, Indiana, Massachusetts, Alabama
I can't say for certain if Iowa and New Jersey could be ready by that date but I doubt it.
Japan's line-up looks like this:
Old BB's: Fuso, Yamashiro; possibly Ise and Hyuga (who were actually being converted to partial aircraft-carriers)
Modern BBs: Nagato, Mutsu (if she didn't explode), Yamato, Musashi
Fast BBs: Kongo, Haruna; possibly Kirishima and Hiei (if not sunk at Guadalcanal)
So that's maybe 16 on the US side against 12 Japanese (and more-likely 7, given the conversions and wartime losses). The Kongos are fast but weak, and the US can double or triple-team the Yamatos with 16" guns from the modern BBs. Japan is, barring a miracle, going to lose badly while the US will take damage and lose ships, but prevail.
There are of course issues with this - not all US BBs would be present, whereas Japan would presumably have the initiative and have all of theirs present. But there's so much hand-wavy history here that I'm just going to stop.
The Yamato class were excellent ships for the kind of battle the Japanese thought they would fight in the early 1930s (when the design work started), but in fact advances in aircraft performance meant the only battleship engagements in the Pacific would be fought at night, where aircraft could not play a role. Japan, essentially, bought two really good, really expensive swords and then used a gun to show their enemy how useless a sword was...
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I wonder if the Japanese might have been better served with their original war plan, let the US attack, wear them down as they advance across the pacific and hopefully win a decisive all-out-battle around the Philippines. Particularly if Japan had let the USA open hostilities.
I doubt a 1942 slug out in the Phillipine sea would work to their advantage.
Maybe the Japanese plan and execute it better than the US. Maybe the US underestimates the Japanese since they haven't flexed like at Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea and come in dumb. Even if the Japanese win a decisive victory exactly like they expected and send a lot of shiny ships to the bottom, I don't see it changing Japan's prospects.
Unless they score another Tsushima, the us combat power won't be as relatively reduced as it was by Pearl Harbor. Maybe they also get the carriers this tme? Ok, but US can still operate air out of the Philippines and crucially, subs. If Japan hasn't seized the East Indies then they are royally screwed on fuel and if they *try* to do it now the phillipines on their supply lines make it impossible. If they tried to do it before the US attacks then Britain, Australia, etc are on the US side and we have the same war anyway only this time no defensive perimeter and marching down the Malayan peninsula is suicide.
If Hitler still sticks his oar in and makes this part of the wider conflict then even another Tsushima can't change the industrial disparity.
Then there's the possibility that the battle is inconclusive or even goes against Japan. That honestly would be the best outcome for everybody.
Maybe the Japanese plan and execute it better than the US. Maybe the US underestimates the Japanese since they haven't flexed like at Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea and come in dumb. Even if the Japanese win a decisive victory exactly like they expected and send a lot of shiny ships to the bottom, I don't see it changing Japan's prospects.
Unless they score another Tsushima, the us combat power won't be as relatively reduced as it was by Pearl Harbor. Maybe they also get the carriers this tme? Ok, but US can still operate air out of the Philippines and crucially, subs. If Japan hasn't seized the East Indies then they are royally screwed on fuel and if they *try* to do it now the phillipines on their supply lines make it impossible. If they tried to do it before the US attacks then Britain, Australia, etc are on the US side and we have the same war anyway only this time no defensive perimeter and marching down the Malayan peninsula is suicide.
If Hitler still sticks his oar in and makes this part of the wider conflict then even another Tsushima can't change the industrial disparity.
Then there's the possibility that the battle is inconclusive or even goes against Japan. That honestly would be the best outcome for everybody.
Even if the Japanese wiped out the US fleet and occupied the Philippines afterwards, this wouldn't change much materially, for the US could, just as they did historically, simply overwhelm in the long (and let's be frank, medium) run.
I was thinking of something else entirely instead. Some of the smarter Japanese realized that they couldn't force a peace on the US, instead, they would need the States to throw the towel, due to the war not being worth it anymore.
After Pearl Harbor though, the USA were thirsting for revenge and willing to absorb quite a lot of casualties to see Japan brought down. Without Pearl Harbor, with the US declaring war for Japan attacking colonial possessions of some European powers, would the USA be as unified? Would a defeat not through a surprise attack but in an open, "honest" battle galvanize the Americans or lead to outraged questions how this could possibly have happened?
Not a good chance, but all I see Japan even potentially having.
You're right, but unless we find a specific departure point where the Japanese start planning to trigger such a war, Japan doesn't have the fuel to do *anything* unless they seize the DEI.
If we're positing that the 1941 Oil Embargo is in place and Japan decides it must go to war, it can't do this without securing more oil and there wasn't anyplace to get it other than the DEI. With that inescapable problem, subsequent Japanese planning and decision make sense.
If the Japanese decide that pearl harbor is too risky and that they will instead try to provoke the US into attacking them and being lured into another Tsushima then they are staking the survival of their nation on one battle that has to go completely their way. An inconclusive result won't help them as there's no time to set up another fight. With the oil consumption the fleet would use up just sailing to the battle field Japan's economy grinds to a halt within the year. Even a major victory that doesn't result in the US immediately throwing in the towel is useless. They can't afford to wear down the US, It's way too risky.
Now if we mean going back to 1935 and the Japanese then decide to stockpile oil and manufacture some diplomatic coup over the long term to force the US into a war that's another thing. . . it might work. However back then the Japanese were still thinking about Russia for expansion and China wasn't such a sticking point in US relations yet.
What about the Japanese doing what they planned: hit Pearl gain the 6 month required for securing DEI, Philippines ,and Malaya, plus the perimeter thingy.
And then let the Americans grind their way through. So no Midway and no Solomons, because the gains do not justify the risks.
Early deployment of USN in the western end of Pacific needs a point of departure on the US side. The plan to fortify Guam into major well garrisoned naval base must be approved. This was debated in late 1938 so serious work could probably not begin until US fiscal year 1940, which would give them about two years. The base must also be held early in the war. Otherwise, without developed bases west of Hawaii, US will advance more methodically and with assumption that Philippines will fall.