Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

You´re welcome, Admiral! Thats not what you can call a luxury liner! The more i see it the more i can imagine how wonderfull the smell down at the soldiers quarters must have been....

 

Well, I guess I won't be inspecting this ship any time too soon!

To get us back to the matter Col. Bobimoto brought up.

Does anyone see an acceptable alternative to us seizing the oil to the south to keep our economy afloat?

 

No Sir, in my eyes this will be at least our chance to get enough oil for our war industry and the Army and Navy! The western Nations won´t deliver it and we have no access to the oil at the Middle East countries. Only problem i will see is that such a action will bring us closer to a conflict with the USA and there we have the closing of the circuit. We need the oil for our war, we seize the countries for the oil, we get in war with the USA, we need the oil! No other way for me.

 

Esteemed Prime Minister,

Please do not misunderstand me, I would not suggest a commander put his ego before his duty. I feel that if one is commanding a strike force whose primary offensive power is composed of aircraft, it would behoove one to communicate closely with those pilots. Obviously one can never communicate directly with all the forces, but if one can speak directly to as many of the most experienced of them as possible that will improve his understanding of the battle space, will it not? This seems to me particularly true of our navy where so very few of our admirals have real aviation experience and none, so far as I can immediately recall, are pilots.

(As an aside, we might consider promoting Captain Genda to Rear Admiral. Does anyone know his time in grade? Wiki didn't have it to hand, nor could I find it in the P W Encyclopedia. I suspect we'd be jumping him ahead of a fair number of other Captains, but given his popularity with the pilots it might be worth it.)

In any case, I do not mean to suggest that we should take any of our carriers out of service now simply to refit, but if they are in for overhaul and improving the flag facilities does not overly delay their return to service I think we should do so. This will not be without complication, as it's quite a lot of weight far above the waterline. For this very reason perhaps some facilities, particularly communication facilities, could be placed below decks. I would like to see the addition of a flag bridge, a dedicated flag plot, and an air operations/direction compartment to all our carriers. Our troublesome allies in Germany have been building command theatres (see 8.1 Kammhuber Line on Vectorsite's Wizard War page) of a specialized sort to control their fighter defense. While these are quite beyond the means of the available space, perhaps it would be worth considering how we might compact them. (We needn't control so many aircraft over so much territory as the whole of the Luftwafe over Germany, after all.) Directing fighters to intercept our foes beyond the space directly over our fleets would be quite useful, and while we don't presently have the radar that would make this most effective even effective communication with dispersed surface observers would help considerably.

These are merely thoughts. But they are well worth considering. You are correct that much could be accomplished by moving our flags to cruisers or battleships, and for fleet flags we have generally done this, but I would be hesitant to do so for divisional or group flags. (And I should wish to see Rear Admirals commanding carrier divisions and Vice Admirals commanding strike groups.)

Take it as you will. To be sure, I wouldn't take a ship out of service simply for this. The facilities aren't grand, but they'll do for now.

Sincerely,
Rear Admiral Noka

 

Admiral Noka,

I believe we are in close accord in this matter. I do support expanding these facilities as time and resources permit. I also favor incorporating them into our new Fleet Carrier builds, granted this will mean they will not come about till late 1943-early 1944, but we should have the chance to improve one or more of our existing carriers prior to this time.

Is it worth the effort to incorporate these changes in the Unryu's?

 

That's a more interesting question. With the lighter displacement and tighter margins of the Unryus it might be more difficult, but I think it could be done. Perhaps Admiral Takao can answer that. On the positive side, these are the sorts of changes we can make as the building progresses if it's not too far along. They won't affect the keel or hull bottom in any way and probably wouldn't affect anything below the first platform deck or even the third deck. Still, this is a question for those more experienced with naval architecture than I. Karonado and Takao could both probably speak more fluently to this.

Sincerely,
Noka Shijin

 

Just a thought how many ships besides the BB's are capable of handling flag level communications. It may be worth seeing if the Sho and Zui are worth expanding since they are the newest. The Hi and So are too small and Im not sure if the Ak and Ka are easily done.

 

Virtually all of the newer cruisers are outfitted for flag assignments with quite ample flag bridges and flag plots. (Note the outsized superstructures on all of them.) In a pinch our carriers can and do hold flag assignments, and the facilities are adequate, though somewhat cramped. (None, for instance, have a dedicated flag bridge separate from the navigation bridge.) Kaga's communications compartments are, as I understand it from Parshall and Tully, somewhat better than Akagi's, but Akagi has served adequately at need. Of the four older carriers Hiryu has the best bridge arrangements if I recall correctly, and I believe the facilities on the Shokakus follow that model. I would guess that Shoho and Zuiho would make poor flagships since they are very small indeed and no doubt quite cramped.

I believe some of the newer designs may already take account of this problem. Taiho and the Unryus may well have flag bridges. They certainly have more generous islands. It should be no trouble to build like features into our follow on Shokakus. This may suffice. We could use one of the newer carriers as fleet flag for present for all but the largest operations. If necessary, we could anticipate using one of the newer cruisers for those too large for the facilities aboard the carriers. And in future Taiho or one of the follow on Shokakus​ could fill that role.

Sincerely,
NS

 

At some point prior to our new fleet carriers being deployed, one or more of our existing CV's ought to need a refit for AA and or Radar, It might be possible then to add the upgrade.

 

Yes. That was more or less what I was thinking. So long as it doesn't keep the ship tied to the pier too long. We probably won't be able to spare them at first. Perhaps we can gain some breathing room in mid 1942 if we can keep the Americans out of the war for a time.

 

Finally, some more merchant work:


I've been doing some work on our merchant shipping problem and I've learned some surprising things. To begin with a reorganized our large merchant list by type. The first page has a summary of our fleet. Pages 2-9 describe our general merchants. (Where I don't know the precise type of ship I have assumed that it is most likely a general merchant.) Pages 10 lists tankers, 11 lists liners, and 12 lists a few oddities like lumber ships and whalers. (WA and WF should really be corrected, as all are Whale Factory ships.) Pages 13-15 are ships that have been taken into military service. All told we have a shade under 4 million tons of large ocean going ships.

So there's our merchant fleet at a glance. We also have about 1.6 million tons of small merchants and another million of sailing vessels. (For a grand total of 5.6 million tons of shipping in merchant service.) I'm disregarding the small ships for now, as they're best suited to coastal trade, which I'm not presently considering.

When I was trying to get an idea of our needs earlier, someone had pointed me to a gaming website called ww2total where there is a summary of Japanese military production and strategic imports. From this I crafted yet another spreadsheet with estimates of the shipping necessary to transport it from our intended conquests based on the speed of that shipping, the estimated trip distances, and some wild guesses about port times. I also assumed that most of our ships would be out of service for cleaning, maintenance, and overhaul perhaps a month every year. (Yet another W.A.G.) Thus everything is predicated on the number of round trips that ships of the average speed of the relevant type could make in about 330 days. (plus a couple of days at each end for loading and unloading liquid cargoes, or several for bulk cargoes. Baled cargoes would probably take a good week, but apart from beans none of our strategic imports are likely to be baled. Perhaps rubber, I suppose. And even beans could well be dried and simply dumped into the hold. On the other hand, maybe I'm all washed up about the bulk cargoes, in which case I'll have to recalculate.)

These estimate are surely all a little rosy, as they make no account of weather but they require quite a lot less shipping than I ever would have guessed. At a guess we need, at minimum, 100,000 tons of shipping for our oil. We have over 300,000. (Even after taking ships out of service.) We need about 800,000 tons of minerals, metals, foodstuffs, and rubber. We have a bit over 2 million tons of large ocean-going general merchants. I suspect my loading times for bulk commodities might well be overly optimistic, but even if you doubled the loading times of everything, our shipping requirements should only be about a third greater. I wonder if one reason for the discrepency might be as simple as the greatly reduced trip distances and thus the significantly improved efficiencies of the ships. I'm sure there are shipping needs not addressed by this chart, but apart from foodstuffs and strategic necessities we can ration. It makes me wonder if our shipping woes aren't so great as our enemies have traditionally painted them to be.

Of course, I would still very much like to see us maintain a solid merchant construction program in order to replace losses and modernize. I look forward to suggestions and corrections to this draft estimate. But this does at least give us a place to start: we need about 8 tons of dry commodities for every ton of oil, so a starting construction program might work off a ratio of 8:1:1 (AK:AO:AP).

And like speeds will make our convoys easier.

Sincerely,
Noka Shijin

 

in the real war a lot of space was wasted because of the army navy rivalry and did you factor in the need to resupply troops? I would like to see added in to production say 2 to 3 cl and 1 or 2 ca's per year since we can expect to lose some if and when we fight America. BB's are something we need to decide are worth building or not.

 

Not every ship needs to be a fleet flagship. Within the carrier class, installing major command and communications facilities in the Shokakus, new or refitted, and Taiho should suffice. Smaller ships like the Hiryu/Unryu type should be able to accommodate a carrier division commander (rear admiral).

I've never seen it stated specifically, but the Takao class cruisers appear to have been designed to serve as fleet flagships, with their massive superstructures and multiple bridge levels; Atago and Chokai served in that role during the war. Several American heavy cruisers and the Italian Pola also had expanded flag accommodations; due to the naval treaties, cruisers were the largest modern surface combatants available.

I too would like to build new cruisers if resources permit; we seem to be in agreement that carriers, destroyers, and escorts are our top priorities. I suggested earlier reusing the surplus triple 6.1" turrets; I also think taking them out of the Mogamis was a misuse of resources. While 8" guns may have an edge in long-range daylight actions, I question the assumption that they are always superior. Other major navies have balanced mixes of 6" and 8" ships. We have eighteen 8" cruisers, so I think we would be best served by adding some 6". I envision a ship with four triple 6.1" turrets, otherwise similar to the Mogami type - 8 5", 12-16 torpedo tubes, etc. We also have a better idea of the beam and displacement needed to carry this armament, and we no longer have to pretend to comply with artificial treaty limits.

New battleships appear to be something we have to forego, although we could complete Shinano if desired; I understand her guns have already been manufactured (I am not recommending this, just acknowledging an option). I think we are basically counting on naval air power to displace the classic battle line.

p.s. the planned Ibuki class cruisers incorporate an interesting change in their torpedo armament which I suggest for any new construction. The preceding Mogami and Tone classes had twelve tubes, four triple mounts, and twelve reloads. The Ibuki has the same total of 24 torpedos, but in four quad mounts with eight reloads. That would seem adequate for most battle situations; only the most protracted and complex combat would require one to fire and reload tubes on both sides of the ship.

 

General,

If I may echo Adm. Karonada's thoughts. I too have hope we may find the materials needed to add to our Cruiser fleet, but that will depend upon factors that at present are not entirely clear.

If we can seize the SRA region with a minimal degree of devatation to its wells, mines, refineries and ports.

If we can use Adm. Noka's fine efforts to rationalize our merchant fleet in order to wring the maximum efficentcy from our transport of goods.

And If our efforts to minimize merchant hull loss to enemy action .

Then we may find the neccasary materials to lay down perhaps one Cruiser per year.

Unfortunately we could do everything right in this reguard and find that enemy actions force us to still forego any new cruisers in favor of other types. Certainly if it is in our power we shall do so.

Alas the time and expense makes any new Battleships just too difficult to contemplate. We have a fine group of such ships and they we have to meet our needs as they are.

Prime Minister

 

Admiral Karonado may well be onto something with the 6.1" suggestion. I too have thought new cruisers could be useful to us, but I've been hesitant to commit to a particular plan. But Karonado San is giving me ideas. I think he's right about the torpedo arrangements: I favor the impact of the heavier initial broadside, but carrying only the reloads needed for one side.

What about this: A cruiser with the torpedo armament specified and 12 6.1" quick firing rifles in four triple turrets. Place all four turrets forward, as in Tone, Nelson, or Richelieu. This will help to keep the area of the heaviest armor compact. We could use a six inch belt and perhaps eight to ten inch barbettes. Four inches of deck armor over the machinery and perhaps an additional two over the magazines. Sufficient installed power for 33-35 knots. Keep the torpedo spaces aft, as in previous designs, below an aircraft handling deck. And we have a largely clear fantail for catapults and aircraft handling. We should have space for at least two, and perhaps as many as four catapults. (I'd favor three if the weight will allow.) I would think such a ship could be built on a standard displacement of perhaps 15,000 tons. It could be well protected, would have good speed, and enough space for sufficient stores and munitions for good endurance. We could revert to a more traditional arrangement for the armament, but it would probably require a slightly higher displacement. And while we don't need to comply with treaties, we do need to conserve our materials, so I still favor keeping unit displacement down to the extent safely feasible. (So long as it doesn't compromise efficiency.) I would speculate the forward armament arrangement should prove quite adequate as it gives us the same chase and broadside armament we would otherwise have and if we are retreating it's most probably from a superior foe, and thus the stern armament would avail us little and we would need to rely on speed. My biggest concern with the displacement is torpedo protection, as it can be difficult to devise good torpedo protection for a ship of the relatively narrow beam that the speed and displacement would necessitate. But if we were to build up towards 20,000 tons I'd prefer to use twelve inch rifles, where the range really will be a real advantage.

Sincerely,
Admiral Noka

 

If we switch some destroyers to CL's and then add some patrol types for local ASW could that free up some materials. I worry that if we do fight the US we will run out of heavy escorts for the CV's

 

I wouldn't draw swords over it, but I'm thinking of a fairly conventional cruiser, if we have the opportunity to build them at all. The original Mogami design was overgunned, but if we drop #1 turret and use a sensible length-to-beam ratio - something better than 11:1 - and a bit more solid construction we're basically in business. perhaps eight to ten inch barbettes. Four inches of deck armor over the machinery and perhaps an additional two over the magazines is practically a battleship.

As for the Tone configuration, the small blind arc aft may not be a big issue, but again I think if we need more scouting capacity than two catapults and 3-4 aircraft per cruiser, we should put the extra investment into more aircraft carriers.

Alternatively, if we feel a need for more aircraft-carrying cruisers, we could build more Oyodos, perhaps with two catapults, and reusing the available 6.1" turrets. Their AA armament, four twin 3.9s, two Type 94 directors, is comparable to larger cruisers.

We haven't mentioned the 40mm AA gun for a while, but I would like to see at least eight twin mounts on large cruisers.

 

Cruisers, thanks to the naval treaties, are a very mixed up category. A true light cruiser is something like an Agano, for service with the fleet or flotillas, and I would suggest building no more than we need to lead our destroyer squadrons. AA escorts for CVs should be Akizuki class destroyers, and of course carrier task forces can also have a few heavy cruisers and fast battleships.

The Mogami class in their original 6.1" configuration were larger and more powerful than the Furutakas, so to me it seems a bit silly to call the Mogami a "light" cruiser and the Furutaka a "heavy". As several of us have said, if we need and can afford real cruisers, as opposed to destroyer leaders, they should be around 10,000 tons with 6.1" guns.

 

10,000 tons seems an uncomfortable displacement to me: too small to be well protected but too big to be expendable. I agree with you that we don't need "aircraft carrier hybrids", but I don't really see the Tones (or Yamato) or any other gunboat that also has modest but useful aviation facilities as that. I'm simply inclined to think that this is a better and more useful arrangement. You get good aviation facilities where you can potentially launch several scoutplanes fairly quickly in most weather without too much cost in gun armament. And as few as a half dozen scouts can search a fairly wide swath of ocean if you have a guess as to where to look. (For most purposes I'd want scouts along at least 12 vectors to cover about 120 degrees. Fly out a third of your range, cut over enough to get about five degrees clockwise of the outbound leg, come on home. That leaves about 30% reserve fuel for eventualities. You could even get fairly good coverage with two cruisers with three catapults a piece, albeit with a slight stagger. The stagger could even prove useful. If one scout makes a promising contact, the fresher scout will be able to rapidly relieve and shadow.)

But anyway, leaving aside scouting doctrine for now, I see no reason not to include aviation facilities on cruisers. I don't want to substitute cruisers for carriers, but if a cruiser that can handle six aircraft costs the same as one which can handle only four, I would lean towards the former. That would even allow our surface task forces to have a few float fighters to handle snoopers, should they be operating away from carrier cover. (Which they inevitably will be from time to time.) I don't want to build battleships, but if we're going to build cruisers let's make them useful. A six inch belt is no battleship. It's a very heavy cruiser, yes, but no battleship. (Even our treaty "tinclads" generally have a four inch belt with the [overweight] Takaos having nearly 5 around the magazines.) The biggest change I'm advocating is a heavier deck and if that's not feasible or economical scrap it. That said, if we're going to build new design multirole cruisers then I would tend to envision them as a pretty substantial ship. Not capable of lying in the line of battle and trading broadsides with a true battleship, but fearless of ought else. Which is to say I should like it to be reliably better than the treaty cruisers it will face. The Mogamis seem a particularly poor starting point to me. Small, delicate, and topheavy. If we want destroyer leaders there's no reason to make them that large. If we want cruisers there's no reason to make them that small. I agree with you that the 8" guns probably don't give much advantage over the 6"s, but I'd prefer to either see them on a solid ship capable of surviving six (or eight) inch shot at typical ranges. And if the ship comes in much over 15,000 tons, well, to heck with the "cruiser" grade guns. Dust off the old 12s from Setsu and company. We still have a number sitting around. They really do have the range on 6s and 8s. It would still be clear that she's no battleship, but a good solid cruiser with 12s ought to be able to easily take on two or even three treaty cruisers by herself. I don't think you could get that out of uprated Mogamis. You may be right about the deck armor. Let me do some work and see how some designs fall out. (Assuming I can find the program Admiral Takao pointed us all to earlier.)

 

Here's Takao's ship design program Admiral Noka.
About SpringSharp
I have tried to stay out of the discussion concerning ship construction in todays meeting, because I feel it's premature. In fact we have ships under construction right now that are languishing because we are deficient in our numbers of graving docks. Our predecessors have not allocated the resources to alleviate this bottleneck because they wished to allocate resources elsewhere and we lack some of the industrial capacity to fully support them. We have not upgraded our industrial capacity in those areas, because we are attempting to insure we have sufficient fuel/oil to supply them. That is why I suggested we discuss the economy first.
I also appreciate the fine work you've done on the merchant shipping list. I had asked that you hold off on it to avoid duplication of effort. I have had all the merchant information for some time in spreadsheet format and posted a summary way back in post #1711, April 20, 2012. Furthermore, I fear that if we can find a way to build new carriers we won't be able to supply the aircrews. Pilot training is another area we need to address. I fear we are running out of time, we need to adopt a comprehensive policy with firm dates and deadlines. We need to focus our economy within that time frame. We need to be willing to gamble all or we need to decide if we are going to give in to the west's demands.
There have been many great ideas proposed about or potential shipbuilding. Admiral Nika has done excellent work in defining what we can build when and where. We have discarded the shipbuilding program of our predecessors, except for ships already under construction or conversion. Our planning though has been based upon building ships we've already built. If we can't build enough escorts of the current types why not design some of our own. If none of our extant cruiser designs meet our needs, and I for one am also enamored by the 6" gunned cruisers, I feel ROF makes up for the slightly lesser range and weight of an 8" gunned cruiser. Why not design one that meets our needs? Why not design smaller escorts where we can build three for the cost of two? Admiral Noka broached the subject, I'd like to see him pair with Admiral's Karonada and Takao, to build something that will suit our needs. Produce several types for each class we need and bring them to the council for approval and let's schedule them. The 40mm bofors gun, I favor that also. We have captured examples. The German's are producing a version of their own as are the American's. Let's have our diplomats in Europe strike a deal for the plans and rights to produce or we can simply back engineer. I'd like to see us replace 7.7 and 13mm AA guns on our ships with a 20mm oerlikon derivative. We already have one in our aircraft. If we are going to get into ship planning now let's do it right and create a 5 year plan as the councils before us always have. And let's formulate an upgrade program. We've discussed in general terms what we'd like to do during refits. Please, let's get specific. Will we follow the extant plans for upgrading with 25mm triples or will we go with 40mm twins? If so, how many? What configuration?

I await your thoughts.