Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

That would be the easiest solution for our problems. If so we can pull out some Divisions for other duties! If it works we only have to hold up enough troops to show Chiang that it will be a bad idea to anger us.

 

The quality of Chiangs troops are such that they would be mostly useless for an assault.

 

Unlike the others, I do not place high hopes for a diplomatic outcome with Chiang. We have offered the Kuomintang government increasingly generous terms over the past few years and all have been rejected. Indeed, our latest offer in early July, 1941 was quite favorable to the Chinese, they, of course, rejected it.

The longer Chiang holds out, the more money and materials he gets from his US and British Allies. The more money and materials he gets, the stronger his position is against us and the communists. The stronger his position is, the less likely we are to defeat him. The less likely we are to defeat him the more generous our offers for peace become. The longer this "diplomatic" cycle continues, the weaker we become and the stronger he gets. Chiang knows this, and that is why he continues it. If he accepts our terms, all he gets, is what we wish to give him, but his Allied aid dries up. As long as he continues to hold out, he keeps sucking in the Allied aid, and bleeding us of our men and material.

We must break this cycle of "diplomacy" if we are expected to disengage from China, the way I see it, we have three options: A) A major military operation to crush China once and for all(very unlikely), B) Move our forces in China back to a shorter defensive line of occupied Chinese territory, or C) Pull our troops out of China completely.

 

That is why I wish to offer him support against the communists. We are also fighting them. The reason Chiang does not wish to fight us is he wishes to go after Mao, but his supporters are making him fight us. If he actually give Chiang territory back and actually recognize him then there should be room for agreement. I would even be willing to offer him Hong Kong after we take it. Of course we wont say anything until after. The main reason I am willing to try is to end this unwinnable fight. A possible stick is the threat we may try to reach an agreement with Mao.

 

1.) Shinano - can we get an estimate of the cost of completing her vs. that of a new carrier? Unless we have solid information to the contrary, I still support scrapping her and No. 111 and devoting the materials to Unryu type carriers (more on this below). As I mentioned earlier the Shinano powerplant, 150,000shp, is almost the same as that designed for Unryu (152,000shp). A one-of-a-kind ship of radically different characteristics from our other carriers will be minimally useful; we already have several odd converted types that we are trying to integrate effectively.

2.) We have the Kuma class of light cruisers ....... Could a usable light carrier be converted out of them?

I agree these ships are too small to make useful carriers, and I doubt a hybrid conversion would be very worthwhile either. I would suggest rearming all the 5500-tonners with AA guns as resources and operations permit.

3.) I think we will need to lay down new CV's, we have the Tahio building which was laid down in July of 41. Should new CV construction be of this class or of the Shokaku class or the Unryu (improved Hiryu) class which the preceeding regime was considering producing?

Taiho is larger and more expensive than the new American carriers, but carries only a few more planes than Unryu, and has the same two elevators. Under our current circumstances I think the Unryu class is our best opportunity.

4.) The question of carrier escorts has come up several times. Should we consider the construction of a light cruiser class with a heavy AA armament similar in concept to what the US produced in the Atlanta class for carrier task force protection?

If we can devote more resources to AA escorts for carriers, I suggest increased production of the Akizuki class destroyer.

5.) Should we look at converting the Yamato and Musashi and providing a very powerfull AA fit by deleting the port and starboard 6" turrets and refitting with 3.9" or 5" mounts, 40mm bofors and 20mm Oerlikons?

Since the ships already carry 5"/40 guns, it would be easier to add more of that type. We will be mounting 3.9s on most new construction. I ran across this in the wiki article on Musashi:

"Towards the end of fitting out, the ship's flagship facilities, including those on the bridge and in the admiral's cabins, were subjected to change orders stemming from Combined Fleet's desire to have the ship equipped as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, as the Yamato was too far along for such changes. These alterations, along with improvements in the secondary battery armor, pushed back completion and pre-handover testing of the Musashi by two months, to August 1942

......so it might be feasible to incorporate added AA armament in her prior to commissioning. Yamato is scheduled to commission Dec 16, 1941, so changes to her could be done in a later refit.

 

I too share Adm. Takao's feeling's reguarding a China aggreement. I suspect that nothing less than our Complete Withdrawl of all areas of Occupied China will induce Chaig to come to the peace table. I think we all agree that we cannot go so faras this without gravely weakening our economy.

Further there is no certainly that if we do this that the flow of western aid would cease, or that China might of its own choice or as a condition of continued aid, might formally ally with the west and conduct offensive actions against our interests in Korea.

Then also there is the fact before Chaing would deal with the Communists, he move to reoccupy those areas we withdrew from, both to add to his power and to prevent them turning to Mao. This could take years for Chaing to complete considering the limited capacity for offensive Chinese military action at this time.

 

Sorry. I've been trying to say that I think you're quite correct. The training carrier I'm suggesting is little more than your "swimming flight deck." (No hangar facilities, no armament, no crew quarters, etc.) And we could surely paint a carrier outline on a runway somewhere, or even install arrestor wires. In fact, I should hope that we've already done so, as I'd consider this a crucial part of carrier flight training and the first step in carrier qualification.

As to the crash barrier, I wouldn't use it because I can't see what safety function it would play with undamaged aircraft landing singly on a flight deck. We use them aboard our fleet carriers since the consequences of a missed hook are so grave: crashing into aircraft parked forward on the flight deck. I'm proposing that we do not have aircraft parked forward on our training carrier when we land student pilots. If they miss a hook, they can simply fly off and come around again. If we rig a crash barrier we guarantee that if they miss a hook they will crash. Barrier landings are hard not only on airframes, but also on pilots and crew. There's still a chance, of course, that the rookie pilot will crash while attempting to land, but there's no way we could rig a barrier quickly enough to deal with that. The same is quite true of a pilot landing on a conventional airstrip, where barriers are also not generally used. There could, and probably should still be horizontal nets surrounding the flight deck. We use them principally to protect crew adjacent to the flight deck from landing accidents, but they can also serve to snag an aircraft that would otherwise end up in the water. These are quite different from the crash barrier to which I was referring.

 

I await the analysis to be seen on the Imperial Council thread as to the China situation. I too suspect, as Admiral Takao and the Prime Minister have said, that Chiang will take nothing less than full withdrawal. We will see the consequences of that later.

For now, I will reconsider new construction. I have been thinking more about my earlier suggestion for an up-armored Unryu with an armor scheme emphasizing the horizontal and based on earlier "protected" cruisers. This is a fairly radical departure from any carriers we (or anyone else) have yet built.

In our previous naval conflicts we took a policy of fewer, faster, better armed, and better armored ships used with skill against more numerous, generally poorer opponents. This served us well and was used as the basis for the planning of all our subsequent gun and torpedo armed ships. Of our carriers, only Shokaku and Zuikaku completely reflect this philosophy, which is why they are so much more expensive than the planned Unryus. The "armament" of our carriers is, of course, the aircraft that they carry. The aircraft serve as the sole offensive and principal defensive armament. None of our aircraft reflect this philosophy completely. This may be a flaw. Our resources will always be fewer than our most likely naval opponents. We need them not only to defeat our opponents, but to survive and win again.

Perhaps a modified Shokaku would, in fact, be a better basis for the design of our next carrier. We can complete 3 Uryus by late 1944 and perhaps an additional 2 by late 1945. The displacement of a Shokaku is about 50% greater, about 30,000 tons to about 20,000. It might profit us more to build two improved Shokakus than three improved Hiryus. The armor, 4 inches over the machinery spaces, is better even than the planned Essex class carriers. I would still delete the belt in favor of improved horizontal armor, underwater protection, and increased subdivision. Further, we could achieve better separation and survivability for our engineering spaces on a larger displacement. The larger displacement would also provide a better radius of operation, thanks to a more efficient engineering plant and better bunkerage.

I wish to revise my earlier suggestion of an improved Unryu to an improved Shokaku. We cannot hope to match the Americans hull for hull. Our best chance is to make ours better.

It might, however, be worth considering the construction of two standardized designs: a large fleet carrier at our major shipyards and a smaller light carrier for escort, ASW, and aircraft transportation duties at smaller shipyards.

 

Noka Shijin,

apologizes for my misunderstanding! Is there a problem to use those nets at the end of the starting strip to catch them before they will fall into the sea? And i dont mean the horizontal nets, i mean the vertical one that goes along with the runway.

The China Operation is a hard nut to take. A complete withdrawal isn´t to make, no matter what Chiang will say! He can get the way of freedom and support that we will provide him or he will force us to start up with very unpopular methods like aeal bombings of his Cities. To have a chance to get the territories we want to have, i´ll need intelligence reports on important supply depots, supply routes main traffic routesand so on to destroy them or if close enough to capture such positions. It is important to minimize the supply for his troops, to slow down their moving abilities and force them in battles in smaller units and destroy them. A huge battle isn´t to make for ther mass of soldiers he has. So i would like to use the tactic of the thousand needles, including blowing up bridges, dams, mining of the rivers destroying of important railway crossing, main traffic roads, airfields and so on. If we can keep them busy with repairs he will use a lot of his soldiers at there and to secure this objects in future. And we will have lees soldiers to fight against. This won´t be easy but to me there is no alternate way to go.

 

If we were to go up against the Americans I believe our best hope is using the Phillipines as a massive carrier. If we pack the islands with planes we should be able to inflict enough damage for our carriers to finish them off. I am playing out this scenario in WITP. WIll see what happens

 

The issue with the Chinese is that there is as much fighting in our controlled area as out of. I would estimate there are at least 100 million Chinese under our control and we cannot control everywhere.

 

Gen. Nishio,

Yes, I believe there is a problem with using the nets vertically across the flight decks. A net like this would be much like the "crash barriers" we use to stop landing aircraft from crashing into parked planes on the forward end of the flight deck. On conventional land airstrips it is, to my knowledge, never to land an aircraft until the runway is clear. Each landing aircraft immediately taxis clear of the runway onto an adjacent taxi way or parking strip, thus landing aircraft have the complete length of the runway in order to affect a landing and to stop. If an aircraft has insufficient runway to stop, but sufficient speed to take off again I believe it is the practice to take off and come around for a second attempt. With a clear runway there is no impediment to doing so.

On aircraft carriers there is no place to taxi. The only "adjacent" parking area, aside from a very limited number of spaces at the extreme edge of the deck fore and aft of the island which often require outriggers for their use, is the hangar deck. Access to this is somewhat slowed by elevator cycles. In order to affect landing of an airwing in a modest amount of time, it was deemed necessary to forgo clearing the deck for each landing cycle, thus aircraft are moved to the forward portion of the flight deck and a wire "barrier" is raised to prevent the next aircraft overrunning the wires and crashing into the parked planes. (This has been known to happen from time to time anyway, as aircraft will sometimes jump the barrier with disastrous consequences.)

However, the downside to this barrier, or any like it, is that it "fouls" the flight deck, theoretically preventing an aircraft from moving past it. It is naval practice to land at speeds just above the stall speed of the aircraft. Only the arrestor wires slow the aircraft below those speeds. Thus an aircraft that did not "catch" the wires would still have sufficient speed to remain airborne were there a clear flight deck. Learning to catch the wires is quite difficult and rookie pilots often fail on their first attempts. (And even on many subsequent attempts.) In the event of such a failure in a training situation it is the usual practice to simply lift off again and make a second attempt. This requires a clear flight deck, thus one not only shouldn't, but really can't use any kind of barrier to "catch" aircraft that miss the wires. It is preferable that they, in fact, fly off the opposite end of the flight deck and, remaining airborne, try again. Does that make sense? I believe the Americans calls such a thing a "touch and go." I believe that it is the usual practice to have pilots make landing approaches like this before ever attempting to land aboard a carrier; to touch the wheels to the deck with the hook up and without any intention to stop in order to learn the correct approach.

 

Noka Shijin,

thank you for enlighten a old Land Warhorse on naval topics! You´re right about that fact! I better should go back and maintain my tanks which means, do the things that you are able to do.

Sincerely

General Nishio

 

Gen. Nishio, I for one am always grateful for your suggestions even in the naval arena. There's nothing wrong with a fresh perspective from an insightful outsider. Without them we tend to get a little clubbish and stuck to our pet theories. Keep them coming. You were quite right about the swimming flight deck and flight deck painted on land. So long as we all work together and stay focused on the task the fruits the Western empires have been growing in our yards should fall into our laps.

Noka

 

For practicle game matters I suspect that the ideas Symph' has proposed comes under Basic flight training and is not something we can infulence in real terms. That doesn't mean it has been without value, as Bob pointed out to me we have all learned a great deal about the difficulties of producing able pilots. Part of this is fun of course, but equally it is a chance for us and those watching what we do to learn practicle matters about the nuts and bolts of making war with out those nasty war crime trials after you lose.

 

Symphonic Poet wrote:

Indeed you are correct, Sir.
Many a night in the Western Pacific my CG-5 Oklahoma City followed the USS Kitty Hawk or Midway on plane guard duty. The pilots ran touch and gos for hours at a time to get valued experience. We were directly behind the carrier in the event somebody went into "the drink". No one ever did, on our watch, thankfully.

My 2 cents - Evaluate B after initiating it. B should include Kunming (we can push up the rail line from Hanoi) if feasible. Go for C if B does not free up some required number (that we agree on) of divisions and materiels.

Good idea. These undisciplined officers could be sent to the frontier penalty squads, if their offense(s) are not of a capital nature?

 

I agree we should only offer Chiang two options surrender and we will allow him to go into exile in America or death when we crush his army.

Chiang is not a very good general, he is allied with a number of warlords, and is quite oppressive of his own people. He is a prima donna interested only in increasing his personal wealth and power. We need to cut him off from western aid. If we can avoid getting side tracked with expansion into new territories such as India, we can deprive him of many areas under his control, isolate him from his aid from the western powers and defeat him. This is another reason we should delay war with the US, so we can concentrate on ending his control over parts of China. One reason we have avoided an all out war against him is that we did not wish to invoke US neutrality laws that would have cut off US trade. This has now happened. There is no reason not to go full bore. We have another problem in China, our own army. Many of our officers in China have at times acted of their own accord, despite directives to the contrary from our government. We now have a strong general (General Nishio) in charge of our forces in China. He must abide by the decisions of the Imperial Government and not act in the manner that the China army faction would prefer. I think the Prime Minister should give him the power to, and require that he does, bring officers that act in conflict with orders to trial by Courts Martial and execute or subject to lengthy prison terms if found guilty. We need a disciplined command in China.

We need a combination of A & B, only we don't move our forces back, but move offensively to seize key terrain to establish a stronger defensive perimeter. We also need to train large, lightly armed Chinese military formations and use them to hold key population centers. (more like police on steroids than true combat formations) We should move our forces to the outskirts of these areas so we can intervene if necessary, but the Chinese populous doesn't see our forces in these areas and associate them with being occupied. We must give the Chinese the illusion that we are acting in their best interests and are in the process of pacifying the country in order to turn it over to a democratic-indigenous government.

 

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Kwantung Army

The link above includes the order of battle for 12-7-1941. Interesting information here. The Imperial Council has a lot of data on the China Campaign which could be used to improve the situation from 10-1941 onward.

Interesting - it is amazing they didn't just fold up altogether. See below. http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/h/China.htm

 

Another interesting tidbit

 

most honourable sirs, perhaps we should just send our troops in a massive advance on chunking,if we are lucky we might capture chiang or force him to run even further away or even perhaps go into exile. your most humble servant, kano matsudaira.