IJN Carrier availability chart

[ChuckBerger]

And here come the carriers. No big surprises in piecing this together, but 2 things did jump out at me.

First, at the time of Leyte Gulf, Japan could in theory have deployed 5 CVs (Zuikaku, Junyo and 3 Unryus) plus 5 CVLs (Chitose, Chiyoda, Zuiho, Hosho, Ryuho) plus the Ise/Hyuga mistakes, for a total aircraft capacity of around 500-600. Not enough to win against the US at that point, but had they had the aircraft still a dangerous carrier fleet, with more capacity that the original Kido Butai. It really was the lack of pilots and planes, not carriers, that limited Japan in 1944.

Second, reading WitP AARs, it seems many Japanese players use the CVEs in combat role, as part of raiding forces, amphibious cover, or even as a mini-KB. Without judging that tactic in the game, clearly this is not historical use. The ships weren't cut out for it. The CVEs were used only as convoy escorts or aircraft ferries. The only combat they saw was getting torpedoed by subs. A lot.

[ChuckBerger]

By the way, what should I do next? Subs? Destroyers? Tankers and Oilers? Icebreakers. I think I'll do the icebreakers. Oh, there's only just one of them...

[jamesjohns]

Interesting that the only carrier to serve the entire war and survive was the oldest and one of the smallest. Also how it was used for training later in the war and the only light cruiser Kashima to serve entire war & survive was also used for training.

Thank you for doing this, interesting charts!

[wdolson]

I always thought it interesting that the Zuikaku was never hit until the day after the Shokaku was sunk.

Bill

[SierraJuliet]

Great work. Very graphic presentation of the sudden loss of KB and then the couple of months to take it all in and belatedly embark on a new round of carrier building. I had not known that Unryu had already been ordered in December '41. It took some time to get the build going.

Would be very interested in the destroyer chart. That is going to be a lot more involved.

[ChuckBerger]

I've just started on Destroyers, but that will take more time of course.

Also, still trying to work out what to include and what not. Leaning towards including Minekaze and Kamikaze classes, excluding the smaller Momi and Wakatake classes, and including the late-war Matsu class. But all are close calls, as none of them were really fleet destroyers, more akin to escorts. On the other hand, some of the older DDs saw quite a lot of front line service, especially in the early expansion phase.

[wdolson]

A destroyer chart would be pretty long, but it would probably illustrate how few were built during the war.

Essentially by the six month point in the war, the IJN was in crisis mode. The only scenario under which Japan could win was if the US gave up and it was pretty clear the US was not giving up.

A couple of years back I posted a chart of the numbers of each type of ship commissioned by the USN and IJN during the war. It's pretty obvious the US simply out produced the Japanese. Vancouver Washington produced more aircraft carrying capacity in a couple of years than every other navy had ever produced. And those were the CVEs.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: ChuckBerger

I've just started on Destroyers, but that will take more time of course.

Also, still trying to work out what to include and what not. Leaning towards including Minekaze and Kamikaze classes, excluding the smaller Momi and Wakatake classes, and including the late-war Matsu class. But all are close calls, as none of them were really fleet destroyers, more akin to escorts. On the other hand, some of the older DDs saw quite a lot of front line service, especially in the early expansion phase.

You could make two charts, one for modern fleet destroyers and one for secondary/older destroyers.

Bill

[SierraJuliet]

The Japanese destroyers will be an undertaking.... imagine doing a US version. Then again you would not be putting many red crosses at the end of their time lines.

[Leandros]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

A destroyer chart would be pretty long, but it would probably illustrate how few were built during the war.

Essentially by the six month point in the war, the IJN was in crisis mode. The only scenario under which Japan could win was if the US gave up and it was pretty clear the US was not giving up.

A couple of years back I posted a chart of the numbers of each type of ship commissioned by the USN and IJN during the war. It's pretty obvious the US simply out produced the Japanese. Vancouver Washington produced more aircraft carrying capacity in a couple of years than every other navy had ever produced. And those were the CVEs.

Bill

Hm, I suppose the problem was the Japanese didn't know it. Except maybe took it as propaganda? I suppose the US building program was pretty easy to deduct from
official sources?

Fred

[wdolson]

The Japanese did know it. They attacked Pearl Harbor in part because they thought they could knock the US out of the war with a stunning and big blow right out of the gate.

The wiser generals and admirals usually know it, but if a country has won a war in the past with a given strategy, the politicians and less wise brass will believe that they can win the next war with the same strategy, even if the enemy is very different.

The Japanese shocked the world when they handily beat the Russian Navy in 1906. The Russians lost both their Pacific and western fleets to the Japanese in two decisive battles and they sued for peace soon after.

The Russians had very little native ship building capacity and the navy was an afterthought in their military planning. Russia was a continental power and few continental powers ever have commanding navies. The US is one of the few that ever did. They had to have other nations build many of the ships to replace the ones lost, which cost a lot more money and a lot of time, so they had little choice but to run away.

Many in power in Japan thought that any power would fold if you hit them hard enough and showed how superior the Japanese naval strength was. After all, that was their history since the Meiji Restoration. They had a few military setbacks such as Kolin Gol, but overall they had been fairly successful and were clearly the strongest power among Far Eastern countries and had the strongest navy in the western Pacific.

Nobody really knew exactly how the Americans would react. Quite a few Americans were very isolationist, even on the eve of war and nobody had launched any kind of attack on the US since 1812. Other incidents like the Maine and Pancho Villa's raid on New Mexico were very small and isolated incidents and whether the Maine sank due to an accident or sabotage is still a matter of speculation today. Nobody had ever made a major attack on the United States, especially a surprise one. There were many in the Japanese government who thought the US would run away like a beaten dog.

Yammamoto was unusual among the Japanese high command. He had spent time traveling around the US and got to know the American psyche better than most Japanese. He didn't know for sure either, but he speculated that the US would not back down if it was attacked and tried to counsel against the Pearl Harbor raid. The Japanese government couldn't quite get it's mind around how big and how industrialized the US was. Many had not traveled the world extensively.

The US had 50% of the manufacturing capacity of the planet in 1940. When someone asked Goering if that concerned him, he joked that the only thing the Americans could make was refrigerators and he wasn't afraid of them. The Japanese were probably less worldly than Goering on average.

Even today many Japanese can't quite get their mind around how big the US is. A friend ran a freight forwarding business in Seattle and did a lot of business with Asia. She had a lot of Asian business because she was fluent in many Far Eastern languages. Anyway, she had a client in Japan who had a shipment held up in New Jersey and he couldn't get his mind around why she wasn't just willing to drive over there and sort it out. The distance between Seattle and New Jersey is 300 miles more than the distance from London to Baghdad. 2800 miles to New Jersey. It takes most of the day to fly coast to coast when you take into account waiting for planes, ground transport on each end, etc.

Japan knew the US had laid down a lot of warships before the war started, but figured they would cut and run rather than fight an obviously superior foe like Japan. The US leaders knew that Japan didn't stand a chance in the long run. Even if every individual ship was twice as good as anything the US could build, the US would have 4-5 times the ships by 1944-45.

It's said that when Churchill found out about Pearl Harbor, the first thing he said was "it appears we have won after all."

Bill

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: SierraJuliet
Great work. Very graphic presentation of the sudden loss of KB and then the couple of months to take it all in and belatedly embark on a new round of carrier building. I had not known that Unryu had already been ordered in December '41. It took some time to get the build going.

Yes, Unryu was a study in "surviving the plans". She was part of Circle Five (Dai-Go-Ji Kaigun Hoju Keikaku) of May 1941. This was the armaments supplement plan that included the fifth Yamato (# 797), 2x A-150 Super BBs (# 798, 799), 2x Type-A BCs (# 795, 796), 1x Kai-Hiryu (our buddy, Unryu # 800), 2x Kai-Taiho G-14 CV (# 801, 802), and 150 other hulls. The Navy Ministry expected that it couldn't even be started until 1942, and that it would take nine years (until 1950) to finish all the units in the plan.

And they was right ! Circle Five was superseded by the wartime Urgent Circle (Maru Kyu Keikaku) of July 1941 (activated September 1941). Unryu was the only cap ship laid down under the new program. Some remaining Circle Five ships were consolidated into the modified Circle Five Replenishment Program of September 1942 (to begin in early 1943 and finish in 1948), but most of that didn’t get done either.

Really like the charts, Chuck.

Ciao. JWE

[jwolf]

Another great chart, super job. Can you do the IJN battleships next? Pretty please? [:)]