[Consim-l] CV Session Report

[Dave Kohr]

Thanks Mike for that excellent AAR!

On 1/5/07, Mircea Pauca <mircea.pauca at gmail.com> wrote:
>    Another question, now on historical doctrine:
> was it relevant for Japanese (or other amphibious powers)
> to have completely dedicated Carrier, Bombardment and
> Landing task forces ? wouldn't have been better for ships
> to join and detach as needed, for more mutual protection ?

In retrospect, a more flexible sort of organization probably would
have been more effective.

The largest TF I can think of during this time was the Japanese force
that struck Pearl Harbor, which consisted of 6 fleet carriers. I
wonder if in 1941-2 there were command/control problems that made it
infeasible to form larger task forces. Even later in the war, the huge
US carrier task forces such as TF 58 consisted of up to a half dozen
task groups, each containing just a few carriers. (See
http://pacific.valka.cz/forces/tf58.htm )

Also, I think the slow speed of troop transports made it necessary to
split them off into a separate task force during the approach to an
invasion target. Once a battle developed, certainly you would want
fast carrier and battleship forces to manuever independently as needed
to find and defeat the enemy fleet, or to screen the vulnerable
transports and landing site.

Yet another reason the Japanese fleet was split in this way was that
it was simply the favored Japanese command doctrine at that time. The
Japanese plan for Midway was quite elaborate. As Mike's AAR mentioned,
the invasion of Midway was supposed to bait the US into responding,
and then being ambushed by the main Japanese carrier task force. On
top of that, there was an invasion of some of the Aleutian islands
(near Alaska), both to confuse the American commanders as to Japanese
intentions, and also give them even more reason to sortie a fleet in
response. As for setting ambushes, the Japanese had not only their
carriers, but also a large screen of submarines, deployed on the
likely route the US fleet would take from Pearl Harbor to Midway.

One book that covers the planning on both sides pretty well, with
interviews of many of the participants, is Walter Lord's "Incredible
Victory".

Ultimately, though, the Japanese were doomed at Midway by the fact
that their doctrine in general, and the plan for Midway in particular,
badly under-emphasized air search for the enemy fleet. As Markus has
pointed out in the past, they relied mostly (solely?) on slow float
planes to find the enemy fleet. On the approach to Midway, they
couldn't even get them all in the air on time! The one particular
float plane that ultimately found the Yorktown had been launched hours
late due to technical problems, with the result that the US carriers
struck first and won a huge victory. In contrast, US doctrine placed 2
squadrons of SBD Dauntlesses on each fleet carrier, one nominally for
bombing, the other for scouting.

Dave