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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 12, 2017 13:50:41 GMT -6
LESSON 3
One of the oldest ideas in military history is that if you wish to draw your opponent into battle, attack something he must defend. This is lesson three. Simply, if you attack a land base to draw his naval forces out, focus on that objective; the destruction of the opposing naval force. Do not take your eye off of the ball and over expend forces and time destroying that base. This is the primary mistake made by the IJN at Midway.
When the initial plan for Midway was submitted, the objective was to draw our carrier forces to defend Midway Island, the gateway to the Hawaiian Islands. Those carriers had been missed at Pearl Harbor and Yamamoto wanted finish them off in a decisive battle. Somehow, during the development and sand table exercises in preparation, this objective was either not emphasized, or it was simply lost.
When Nagumo received the message from the Midway attack group that a second attack was necessary, he and his staff made the fateful decision to rearm the ship attack group for a land attack. This would require almost one hour. During that time, the land attack group was arriving overhead, with damaged aircraft and low fuel tanks. It had to be landed. So, now that second attack group had to remain in the hanger awaiting their landing. During all this, a scout found the US carriers and radioed their position to Nagumo and his staff. It was now imperative that the second land attack group be lower back to the hangar and rearmed with ship attack weapons. This caused more time to be lost. Time is critical in war, and many battles have been lost due to lost time. While all this was going on, the US had spotted the Japanese force and launched. The torpedo bombers arrived at the target, and drew all the CAP Zero's down to the deck. It also prevented the ship attack force from being lifted to the deck for a launch. Now, the coup de grace, the dive bombers arrive with their escorts over the carriers, and three carriers were lost, a fourth later.
A carrier task force is a pulse weapon, not a salvo weapon. It sends out one or two pulses per day, and it has to destroy or cripple its target in those two pulses. Every time you launch and recover, you will lose aircraft and slowly the air wing is depleted. Even with two or three carriers in a carrier force, those losses will still accumulate. Don't expend unnecessary aircraft and crews trying to flatten a land target. More importantly, don't waste time, its your enemy. That target is not going anywhere. Focus on the objective: the opposing naval force.
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Post by firefox178 on Mar 12, 2017 23:06:19 GMT -6
Gotcha. Find a balance between offense and defense. But don't forget to have a dedicated scouting planes, and the doctrines to support them. Get the necessary tech to make launching aircraft as efficient as possible. Aircraft carriers are fragile as well as their air groups. Do not launch too many air strikes. Operational attrition will lower effectiveness. Aircraft carriers are designed for limited but powerful air strikes. They are not designed for a continuous bombing campaign. Leave that to land based aircraft or if near the coast use naval bombardment. And finally, focus on ones objective. Do that first and foremost. Naval targets can move. Land based ones cannot or will take considerable amount of time. Also, take note that force concentration is important for carriers. The less need to coordinate between carrier air groups the better. Also that capital ships are expensive, spamming them is not really possible. Therefore, think very carefully before comitting to smaller carriers with specific goals and objectives.
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Post by bcoopactual on Mar 13, 2017 6:57:12 GMT -6
oldpop2000, acknowledging that we have the hindsight of history, what, if any, are some doctrinal changes that the Japanese might have been able to make with what they had available that would have aided their cause at least in the early period before they were just buried under an avalanche of superior production? Things that maybe a player in RTW-2 could experiment with. For example, could they have kept the fleet carrier's focus on offensive strikes and used one of the smaller CVL types to carry a dedicated scouting group. I'm not a fan of trying to use float planes because of the need for the recovering ship to slow/stop to recover them from the water and because (I assume) that float planes would be more vulnerable to enemy CAP while they are trying to shadow the enemy force and gather information. I could be wrong about that last, I'm not familiar with the typical performance of float planes like the Kingfisher or the Japanese equivalents. I've read there was some talk in 1943 about using the Independence's as dedicated CAP carriers for the Fast Carrier Task Groups but the idea was shot down, perhaps by ADM Nimitz himself. Were any of the Japanese CVL's in 1942 capable of acting as either a dedicated scout or CAP carrier for Kido Butai? The Japanese would have still been hamstrung by the poor radios in the Zeros (if they even carried one) and the lack of fighter direction from the ships themselves but that is something that either would be fixed in-game by hindsight or perhaps just wouldn't be simulated in the first place depending on how detailed they can get.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 13, 2017 8:40:44 GMT -6
oldpop2000 , acknowledging that we have the hindsight of history, what, if any, are some doctrinal changes that the Japanese might have been able to make with what they had available that would have aided their cause at least in the early period before they were just buried under an avalanche of superior production? Things that maybe a player in RTW-2 could experiment with. For example, could they have kept the fleet carrier's focus on offensive strikes and used one of the smaller CVL types to carry a dedicated scouting group. I'm not a fan of trying to use float planes because of the need for the recovering ship to slow/stop to recover them from the water and because (I assume) that float planes would be more vulnerable to enemy CAP while they are trying to shadow the enemy force and gather information. I could be wrong about that last, I'm not familiar with the typical performance of float planes like the Kingfisher or the Japanese equivalents. I've read there was some talk in 1943 about using the Independence's as dedicated CAP carriers for the Fast Carrier Task Groups but the idea was shot down, perhaps by ADM Nimitz himself. Were any of the Japanese CVL's in 1942 capable of acting as either a dedicated scout or CAP carrier for Kido Butai? The Japanese would have still been hamstrung by the poor radios in the Zeros (if they even carried one) and the lack of fighter direction from the ships themselves but that is something that either would be fixed in-game by hindsight or perhaps just wouldn't be simulated in the first place depending on how detailed they can get. HI: Thanks for joining in this discussion and asking a good question. The Independence class light carriers did provide at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, forty percent of the fleet carrier fighters and some of its torpedo bombers. They were Cleveland class cruiser hulls so they had the speed to stay with the Fleet Carriers when they turned into the wind and prepared for launch. This was vital for any light carrier. This brings us to the problem for the IJN. The Japanese escort carriers were built on merchant hulls and as such did not have the speed to maintain coverage with the fleet carriers. The fleet carriers like the Soryu's and Shokaku's could do 34 knots and when launching, they would use almost all of that speed. The best light carrier they had built was Ryujo and she could do 28 knots. The other classes like the Taiyo class, HIyo class, Shoho class, the Chitose class could not attain over 29 knots, almost 5 knots slower. So this is the first issue to deal with. If you decide to use light carriers for CAP for the fleet carriers, then they have to be able to maintain the same speed. The second issue is the coordination of combat air patrol aircraft while in the air. You will need good air search radar with IFF and radio communications to perform that function; commonly done from a fighter direction center on board the fleet carriers. Lastly, the matter of economics enters the picture. Carriers are expensive and so are the air wings. You have to decide if your country has the resources to be able to build fleet carriers and escort carriers plus equip and train air wings. This means air bases near the main fleet base to support those air wings. Carrier warfare introduces a whole new world of complication for governments. This same rationale applies to scouting. As to your first question about doctrinal changes for the IJN, I would say that they made the mistake of making an operation overly complex and dispersing their efforts. They did not focus their combat power at the point of attack. Midway is a perfect example. The Aleutian portion of that operation took two carriers away from the First Striking Fleet both of which could have supplied scouts and CAP had they been present. We can even say the same thing about Operation MO, the Port Moresby invasion which led to Coral Sea. Had the Japanese focused on that operation and sent all of their carriers to the operation, we might have lost all of our carriers and then at Midway, we probably would have had possibly only two carriers at best available; Hornet and Enterprise. Hornet's air wing was new and was not combat ready so Midway might have been the decisive battle that Yamamoto wanted with the results he was seeking. One common measure is a 3 to 1 advantage in combat power generally will give you a victory. If you follow this, you should be successful. For the IJN, they lost two carriers at Coral Sea and instead of waiting until Zuikaku's air wing was fully outfitted and trained, they went ahead with just four carriers. Unfortunately, they did not realize that Yorktown was not sunk and by extraordinary action, was returned to service. This established a ratio 4: 3 in combat power and our air wings were bigger, so in fact, they had almost no advantage. The damage to Shokaku could have been repaired in one month, so they could have had at least a 2:1 advantage had both the Shokaku's been available. Another doctrinal possibility is that the Japanese always had poor ship identification and this led to mistakes like sending an air wing to sink a carrier and it turned out to be a fleet oiler and her escort. This wastes ordnance and pilots along with putting more unnecessary combat hours on aircraft. They also had poor combat results from their missions which again led to mistakes. Many times the Japanese pilots claimed to have sunk battleships that never existed, were not anywhere near the area. Combat intelligence is important, and signal intelligence vital. This was the one key to victory for us; the IJN was usually never able to conduct an operation without us knowing about it. Even at Savo Island, we had the information that the cruiser force was coming, we just did not do a very good job of coordinating our defenses. I hope this answers your question. If not, give me more ideas and information and I will answer you.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 13, 2017 10:05:46 GMT -6
There are, in my opinion two other issues that should have been addressed by the IJN. These failures stem from their decision that the war in the Pacific had to be a quick war, and as such certain procedures or doctrinal issues were not addressed.
The first is a to implement convoying and development of proper ASW techniques. Once the Southern Operation was commenced, bringing the natural resources from Southeast Asia to the home islands became an issue. The Japanese navy was never prepared for such an undertaking which is amazing since the Southern Operation was their plan completely. They never developed destroyer escorts with adequate range nor a plan for conducting convoy operations. They paid a dear price for that lack of foresight.
The second issue is their failure to pursue electronic technology. This is not only in the area of radar and radar countermeasures, but communications, navigation aids, MAD, RDF and many other electronic devices and systems to provide better detection and coordination for their naval and air forces. In the area of IFF, the army and navy used different frequencies so they were unable to interrogate each other. Their radios were unreliable, and heavy. So heavy that the Zero's at Rabaul, the -32 models took out the radios to save weight and used hand signals which really did not work well in combat with our F4F's. Although they did peruse prior to the war, sonar in the form of hydrophones, they were always behind the curve in all other areas.
This must be a high priority in the new game, put electronic technology on high and leave it.
Wars are not lost because of one doctrinal issue, generally its a result of the domino theory. This theory states that accidents result from a chain of sequential events which are metaphorically like a line of dominoes falling over. This theory is applicable to war. For the Japanese, this theory explains much of what happened to them and it took just one key factor is begin the chain reaction. IMHO, it was the failure to coordinate between the army and the navy. Both were at cross purposes with the army focusing on China and the IJN on the Pacific. There was the key factor that started the dominoes to fall.
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Post by firefox178 on Mar 13, 2017 10:47:39 GMT -6
I think part of what contributed to their poor doctrines in other areas was the political and cultural climate at the time. Being heavily influenced by the warrior ethos, they focused on the combat aspect more and barely paid any attention to support or non-combat roles. Hence, why the Southern Operations were poorly thought out in terms of securing their logistics. They got the conquest part, but failed on the non-glamorous but still essential part of supply preparation and security.
But the good news in RTW is that the player isn't beholden to the historical political and cultural climate at that time. And we also have the benefit of hindsight. So we know what essential preparations to make, or at least a general idea of what to expect.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 13, 2017 10:56:10 GMT -6
I think part of what contributed to their poor doctrines in other areas was the political and cultural climate at the time. Being heavily influenced by the warrior ethos, they focused on the combat aspect more and barely paid any attention to support or non-combat roles. Hence, why the Southern Operations were poorly thought out in terms of securing their logistics. They got the conquest part, but failed on the non-glamorous but still essential part of supply preparation and security. But the good news in RTW is that the player isn't beholden to the historical political and cultural climate at that time. And we also have the benefit of hindsight. So we know what essential preparations to make, or at least a general idea of what to expect. Good comment and partially true. As you have stated, RTW should not have that problem, so with hindsight, Japan might be an opponent to be reckoned with.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 13, 2017 11:52:30 GMT -6
I want to point out that the Japanese society had not been in the industrial age until 1878 after the Meji Restoration. Other nations such as Britain, US, France had to come in and help them build up their industrial base. Their military officers were sent to academies and schools to learn the nature of industrialism and modern economics. They really did not have any real experience with logistics which is really a management genre. Their two wars were all close so logistics were never an issue. This is really why they did not perform well in modern military logistics. The sociopolitical atmosphere was a factor along with the warrior ethos but the average Japanese was never really trained or schooled in industrialism.
Another issue that stands out and I just had the idea reiterated to me in a book is that the US is what Japan wanted to be. Rich in resources, internally strong and dependent on no one. However, our ideal of trade and government were contrary to the Japanese. This is where the belligerency came from and would manifest it in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The other issue is the image of Japan in the US. This manifested itself in the 1920-1921 and also later in many of the issues about Japanese in the US.
The Japanese did prepare for full mobilization. In the 1920's they did setup a resources bureau to devise a plan. They realized they did not have the natural resources to maintain full mobilizations. The rest is history.
One other point, they did not have the shipping necessary to provide the mode of transportation from the source of the resources to the point of processing. Eighty percent of their oil was carried pre-war by the US or other nations. This is another point to remember, BTW.
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Post by firefox178 on Mar 14, 2017 10:14:03 GMT -6
Interesting points. I did not know that the Japanese had set up a resource bureau in 1920. Or that the Japanese did not even have enough local merchant ships for their own use. I would have thought that they would at least have prepared to have enough cargo ships and tankers before hand. In fact, increasing those would not have been seen as dangerous as say increasing ones navy. I had thought that their logistics problem was the result of shipping losses to submarines. And not because they did not even have enough merchant ships in the first place. So what was their plan to secure more shipping? Surely they would have at least have asked such a question during their planning stages.
Thinking about the logistics with merchant ships brought an idea to me. Maybe RTW 2 could allow the player to build something like the Liberty and Victory cargo ships. With the player of course funding them. And to make it more balance and fair they would follow the way armed merchant men were implemented. E.g. you could only build them during war time. That way a player won't be immediately at risk, because the merchant ships got hit particularly hard for several turns in a row. The A.I. of course is given this choice as well.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 14, 2017 12:49:56 GMT -6
Interesting points. I did not know that the Japanese had set up a resource bureau in 1920. Or that the Japanese did not even have enough local merchant ships for their own use. I would have thought that they would at least have prepared to have enough cargo ships and tankers before hand. In fact, increasing those would not have been seen as dangerous as say increasing ones navy. I had thought that their logistics problem was the result of shipping losses to submarines. And not because they did not even have enough merchant ships in the first place. So what was their plan to secure more shipping? Surely they would have at least have asked such a question during their planning stages. Thinking about the logistics with merchant ships brought an idea to me. Maybe RTW 2 could allow the player to build something like the Liberty and Victory cargo ships. With the player of course funding them. And to make it more balance and fair they would follow the way armed merchant men were implemented. E.g. you could only build them during war time. That way a player won't be immediately at risk, because the merchant ships got hit particularly hard for several turns in a row. The A.I. of course is given this choice as well. Let me try to tell the story, as succinctly as possible. The first warship constructed in Japan was at the Yokohama Iron Works in 1865. In 1872 the Imperial Army got its own arms factories and by 1880 was producing its own rifle by design. At the end of the RJW, the military could field and support a million man army and the IJN had defeated the tsar's best fleet. Of course, this process increased the demand for iron, steel and other essential raw materials that a modern war would require. This includes chromium, copper, rubber, oil, nickel, and many others. For the Japanese, the Asian wars were small affairs, over quickly and they were supported by the neutral powers. However, with the advent of WW1, the Japanese now had reports from Japanese officers about the mobilization requirements for modern, long term wars. This galvanized the staffs of the army and navy. They realized that the nation needs iron ore and many other items. They needed sources of raw materials and China was the answer. The first comprehensive plan for mobilization was in late 1917. It was titled the Munitions Mobilization Law. To administer this law, they created the munitions bureau. This bureau surveyed the economic capacity for war to develop plans for mobilization. For some reason, in 1922 that bureau was abolished. The next board was in 1927 titled the Cabinet Resources Bureau. This bureau finally came to the conclusion, that Japan lacked adequate quantities of nearly all the materials needed for the modern war. This generated the desire to acquire territories in China and later, by the navy to seek other areas in Southeast Asian and the Southwest Pacific. This is a complex story, about which whole books have been written. I have a couple of those. One of the sticking points in all this planning was the lack of transportation. In other words, shipping. The Japanese realized by the late 1930's and early 1940's that their best opportunity was south Asia and that's where they would encounter the US and Great Britain. They had to acquire the territories but maintain the sea lanes open to move the raw materials to their processing locations on the home islands. The Japanese ministers calculated that by 1941, their steel output would be dropping. As a war progressed, that figure would go down more without any further increase in raw materials. The whole issue then rested on being able to transport the raw materials from Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Borneo and other areas, to Japan but the military was requisitioning transports for moving military supplies. It also meant keeping those sea lanes open. For the Japanese, they had always counted on the US not declaring an unrestricted submarine mandate due to our continued protests against such a move by other nations. Yet, within a few hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, that was exactly what we had did; declare unrestricted submarine warfare. The time was 1445 on December 7th, 1941 when the message was issued from Admiral Hart. The Japanese were ill prepared for such a move and it was only our poor performing torpedoes and officers that prevented much damage in the first two years of the war. Once the problems were solved, the cork was in the bottle. I will gather some figures that are available and put some number on this story. It takes time.
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Post by steel selachian on Mar 14, 2017 18:41:47 GMT -6
Interesting points. I did not know that the Japanese had set up a resource bureau in 1920. Or that the Japanese did not even have enough local merchant ships for their own use. I would have thought that they would at least have prepared to have enough cargo ships and tankers before hand. In fact, increasing those would not have been seen as dangerous as say increasing ones navy. I had thought that their logistics problem was the result of shipping losses to submarines. And not because they did not even have enough merchant ships in the first place. So what was their plan to secure more shipping? Surely they would have at least have asked such a question during their planning stages. Thinking about the logistics with merchant ships brought an idea to me. Maybe RTW 2 could allow the player to build something like the Liberty and Victory cargo ships. With the player of course funding them. And to make it more balance and fair they would follow the way armed merchant men were implemented. E.g. you could only build them during war time. That way a player won't be immediately at risk, because the merchant ships got hit particularly hard for several turns in a row. The A.I. of course is given this choice as well. Even if Japan had been clear-eyed about the logistical requirements, it becomes a question of resources - which the Japanese went to war to acquire. Could they have instituted a large-scale buildup of mass-produced merchant shipping and convoy escorts before starting offensive operations in China and eventually the Indo-Pacific? Japan was at an approximate 10:1 industrial disadvantage to the US; if instituted after the start of hostilities I can't see their shipyards keeping up with merchant losses even if they instituted a design like the Liberty ship.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 14, 2017 19:22:55 GMT -6
Interesting points. I did not know that the Japanese had set up a resource bureau in 1920. Or that the Japanese did not even have enough local merchant ships for their own use. I would have thought that they would at least have prepared to have enough cargo ships and tankers before hand. In fact, increasing those would not have been seen as dangerous as say increasing ones navy. I had thought that their logistics problem was the result of shipping losses to submarines. And not because they did not even have enough merchant ships in the first place. So what was their plan to secure more shipping? Surely they would have at least have asked such a question during their planning stages. Thinking about the logistics with merchant ships brought an idea to me. Maybe RTW 2 could allow the player to build something like the Liberty and Victory cargo ships. With the player of course funding them. And to make it more balance and fair they would follow the way armed merchant men were implemented. E.g. you could only build them during war time. That way a player won't be immediately at risk, because the merchant ships got hit particularly hard for several turns in a row. The A.I. of course is given this choice as well. Even if Japan had been clear-eyed about the logistical requirements, it becomes a question of resources - which the Japanese went to war to acquire. Could they have instituted a large-scale buildup of mass-produced merchant shipping and convoy escorts before starting offensive operations in China and eventually the Indo-Pacific? Japan was at an approximate 10:1 industrial disadvantage to the US; if instituted after the start of hostilities I can't see their shipyards keeping up with merchant losses even if they instituted a design like the Liberty ship. That is exactly right, besides the issue of getting resources to the processing point, there was the problem of limited shipyards. If you are in a war, then you have to repair ships and they did not have enough yards to build and repair at the same time. Sometimes, ships that were needing repair had to wait for a yard. They only had, I think, one repair ship available for other ports like Truk, the Asahi, and she was torpedoed and sunk in May 1942. So they had multiple issues.
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Post by steel selachian on Mar 14, 2017 21:09:34 GMT -6
Even if Japan had been clear-eyed about the logistical requirements, it becomes a question of resources - which the Japanese went to war to acquire. Could they have instituted a large-scale buildup of mass-produced merchant shipping and convoy escorts before starting offensive operations in China and eventually the Indo-Pacific? Japan was at an approximate 10:1 industrial disadvantage to the US; if instituted after the start of hostilities I can't see their shipyards keeping up with merchant losses even if they instituted a design like the Liberty ship. That is exactly right, besides the issue of getting resources to the processing point, there was the problem of limited shipyards. If you are in a war, then you have to repair ships and they did not have enough yards to build and repair at the same time. Sometimes, ships that were needing repair had to wait for a yard. They only had, I think, one repair ship available for other ports like Truk, the Asahi, and she was torpedoed and sunk in May 1942. So they had multiple issues. The other issue at hand was that whatever they did, the US could counter it with compound interest. We had a total of 18 shipyards producing Liberty ships with a total output of 2,710 vessels from 1941 to 1945; add to that the C-series freighters, T-series tankers, Victory ships, and others. I doubt Japan would have been able to produce a fraction of that ... and at the same time the US produced close to 200 fleet subs, a massive carrier force, and plenty of long-range maritime patrol and bomber aircraft that would have made life miserable for them without far stronger escort forces than Japan managed to produce during the war.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 14, 2017 22:13:09 GMT -6
That is exactly right, besides the issue of getting resources to the processing point, there was the problem of limited shipyards. If you are in a war, then you have to repair ships and they did not have enough yards to build and repair at the same time. Sometimes, ships that were needing repair had to wait for a yard. They only had, I think, one repair ship available for other ports like Truk, the Asahi, and she was torpedoed and sunk in May 1942. So they had multiple issues. The other issue at hand was that whatever they did, the US could counter it with compound interest. We had a total of 18 shipyards producing Liberty ships with a total output of 2,710 vessels from 1941 to 1945; add to that the C-series freighters, T-series tankers, Victory ships, and others. I doubt Japan would have been able to produce a fraction of that ... and at the same time the US produced close to 200 fleet subs, a massive carrier force, and plenty of long-range maritime patrol and bomber aircraft that would have made life miserable for them without far stronger escort forces than Japan managed to produce during the war. This is the interesting and for Americans, the hardest part to understand. How could a nation enter a war, knowing that their opponent would probably crush them in time.... and they did know. At Pearl Harbor the Japanese destroyed about 350 aircraft. At the rate of production at that time, in the US that was about 15 days worth. In other words, we replaced those planes in 15 days. By the 1944 numbers, that was 15 minutes. That's right, fifteen minutes. That was what they were up against. Our prewar navy defeated the Japanese fleet then the wartime navy wiped it out. We built, essentially two navies.
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Post by firefox178 on Mar 14, 2017 23:18:23 GMT -6
I see, so the reasons for the lack of shipping were both limited shipyards and lack of resources. Thanks for the insight. Those numbers about the production of aircraft are impressive. I wonder how RTW2 would implement the production of aircraft.
Thinking further about shipping. What doctrines and tactics would a carrier force use in convoy raiding. Say for example that the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was completed and used. And how would the British react to such a scenario?
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