he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
The Japanese Admiral who beat the Russians thought he was the reincarnation of Nelson and in all fairness he did achieve a great naval victory although he didn't die doing it so I'd say he was underrating himself tbh
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
I hold the somewhat unpopular view that Yamamoto was actually kind of a shit admiral and Japan probably would have been better off if he'd kacked it of a heart attack or something even earlier. Certainly before he overruled the Navy board to send the fleet to Midway for sure. If you look at the battle plans for Operations MI and AL (Midway and the Aleutians respectively) they are a clusterfuck.
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
As with everything, there's a bit more to it than that.
It has been an extremely popular pastime since Hector had to bail his little brother out of trouble cos he couldn't keep it in his pants. Again.
EDIT: Incidentally I highly recommend rooting through Drachinifels' back catalogue for more extremely interesting and often amusing boat-story type stuff.
V1m on
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
I've heard the argument that most people in the Japanese high command knew the Pacific War was a long shot, but felt they had to go for it cause other wise the Second-Sino Japanese War would be lost as well.
So the options were basically admit you lost now, or go for double or nothing. It makes sense in a very detached from humanity way that most war plans are.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
I've heard the argument that most people in the Japanese high command knew the Pacific War was a long shot, but felt they had to go for it cause other wise the Second-Sino Japanese War would be lost as well.
So the options were basically admit you lost now, or go for double or nothing. It makes sense in a very detached from humanity way that most war plans are.
yamamoto himself knew a protracted war was untenable
japan did not have the resources or manpower compared to the u.s.'s
"People refuse to admit they lost and waste millions of lives in a conflict that has largely been decided." pretty much sums up the war from 1943 till the end.
I mean I would say the main reason the Japanese lost the naval war in WW2 was that the US' naval industrial capacity was ludicrously greater than theirs. Tactically the IJN accomplished most of their short term tactical goals and it an be argued that at least in the first year or so of the conflict they used their naval resources way better than the Allies... but from strategic standpoint it was moot.
edit: Japan continuing to build giant ass battleships that were expensive and that they couldn't properly protect was a stupid idea, but battleships=imperialism and Japan really, really wanted to enslave some peoples.
Gundi on
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
I mean I would say the main reason the Japanese lost the naval war in WW2 was that the US' naval industrial capacity was ludicrously greater than theirs. Tactically the IJN accomplished most of their short term tactical goals and it an be argued that at least in the first year or so of the conflict they used their naval resources way better than the Allies... but from strategic standpoint it was moot.
and then you get to the tanks that were built for 1930s era conflict with china and lol
I think that if everyone had just gotten along a little nicer Japan and Germany and the States could have all had their own pan-continental empires, everybody getting along to really stamp some human faces forever
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
I think that if everyone had just gotten along a little nicer Japan and Germany and the States could have all had their own pan-continental empires, everybody getting along to really stamp some human faces forever
*vibrates in english and russian*
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I mean I would say the main reason the Japanese lost the naval war in WW2 was that the US' naval industrial capacity was ludicrously greater than theirs. Tactically the IJN accomplished most of their short term tactical goals and it an be argued that at least in the first year or so of the conflict they used their naval resources way better than the Allies... but from strategic standpoint it was moot.
edit: Japan continuing to build giant ass battleships that were expensive and that they couldn't properly protect was a stupid idea, but battleships=imperialism and Japan really, really wanted to enslave some peoples.
They also specifically targeted the battleships in pearl harbor and not the aircraft carriers.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
he was an active military commander and received considerable training (he was very bad at it)
Hey man the Kaiser said we can beat japan and why would he lie to me the Russian Tsar were bffs
The Russo-Japanese War was super interesting for a bunch of reasons.
And to be fair, Japan winning it was kinda a shock to everyone.
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
I've heard the argument that most people in the Japanese high command knew the Pacific War was a long shot, but felt they had to go for it cause other wise the Second-Sino Japanese War would be lost as well.
So the options were basically admit you lost now, or go for double or nothing. It makes sense in a very detached from humanity way that most war plans are.
Per the video I linked, they were absolutely aware that they couldn't match the US's output. The theory was to have a 'decisive battle' with a US fleet that, by the time it had made it's way over to the other side of the Pacific, had been whittled down by submarines, air attacks, and night raids by destroyers with more torpedo launchers (more than what, you ask? Just more). Then win that battle against a damaged US fleet at the end of long supply lines with their fresh, undamaged mighty battleships and heavy cruisers, potentially under the umbrella of land based air forces. After losing this decisive battle, the US would have to build another fleet, trek it across the Pacific again, and meanwhile the Japanese would still have most of their original fleet plus whatever else they'd built meanwhile, and have consolidated their gains and set up resource supply lines, and so the US would basically nope out and come to some kind of peace deal.
It was based on the assumptions that if you want to win a big sea battle then it was battleships that really counted, and that land based air cover would generally beat carrier based air cover, especially as US carriers and carrier aircraft were kind of C to B- gear at best when the plan was being put together.
The plan worked out in the usual way of strategic plans that were absolutely fucking perfect for winning the previous war but that required prolonged co-operation from the enemy to win the current one. The US Navy switched from using Battleships as the main strike platform to Carriers (also gitting gud at building both carriers and carrier aircraft) and mostly demoting the battleship to convoy escort and shore bombardment. The whittling down was suddenly way harder, and even more irritatingly, the USN went way off script and started doing a bunch of whittling itself.
Now, of course, we know that the Japanese would have been much better advised to have spent the cost of a few of those battleships in discretely buying up local newspaper and radio stations and persuading the US public that militaristic fascism was a great idea and to be applauded insofar as they should care about it at all.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I mean I would say the main reason the Japanese lost the naval war in WW2 was that the US' naval industrial capacity was ludicrously greater than theirs. Tactically the IJN accomplished most of their short term tactical goals and it an be argued that at least in the first year or so of the conflict they used their naval resources way better than the Allies... but from strategic standpoint it was moot.
edit: Japan continuing to build giant ass battleships that were expensive and that they couldn't properly protect was a stupid idea, but battleships=imperialism and Japan really, really wanted to enslave some peoples.
They also specifically targeted the battleships in pearl harbor and not the aircraft carriers.
Listen, I have it on good, bug-eyed, hoarsely shouted authority that FDR had the aircraft carriers out on maneuvers so that he could tempt the Japanese into bringing America into the war.
the japanese also essentially believed that the west would cede some/all of its "colonial" possessions to a dominant local regional power (i.e. japan.) Basically they just wanted to play the colonial game that the european powers had been playing for generations, and thought this was the way they'd get their seat at the table so to speak (after having whiffed in the league of nations negotiations.)
What they underestimated was the extent that western public opinion really had turned against wars of conquest, and probably also the extent to which the U.S. viewed hawaii as a part of itself as opposed to as a colony.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The video mentions that the Japanese didn't think about what to do after their decisive battle, but I wonder if that wasn't so much not thinking about it so much as there just not really being much you could do.
So, the idea of the naval theory they were drawing this strategy from was that you'd have that decisive battle where you crushed their fleet, and then you'd use your control of the seas to cripple their trade and wreck their economy. But it's America, it's too far away to be able to keep up a blockade, there's way too much coastline to blockade in the first place, and even if you did pull off a blockade you've only blockaded the west coast, and the US can just build up a fleet in the Atlantic and then sail through the Panama canal and break your blockade.
So their strategy was missing what was theoretically the whole point of having a decisive battle, but I feel like basically any naval doctrine they could think of would run into the problem that they can't actually do anything to America. In the end, they just have to kick the American navy's ass so hard America decides that it's just not worth it to try again. And I guess one big battle where you crush their fleet in one go has as good a chance of that as anything.
The reason why Japan pushed early on for big decisive battles is that on some level they realized that the calculus of the war would quickly turn against their favor over time.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
The video mentions that the Japanese didn't think about what to do after their decisive battle, but I wonder if that wasn't so much not thinking about it so much as there just not really being much you could do.
So, the idea of the naval theory they were drawing this strategy from was that you'd have that decisive battle where you crushed their fleet, and then you'd use your control of the seas to cripple their trade and wreck their economy. But it's America, it's too far away to be able to keep up a blockade, there's way too much coastline to blockade in the first place, and even if you did pull off a blockade you've only blockaded the west coast, and the US can just build up a fleet in the Atlantic and then sail through the Panama canal and break your blockade.
So their strategy was missing what was theoretically the whole point of having a decisive battle, but I feel like basically any naval doctrine they could think of would run into the problem that they can't actually do anything to America. In the end, they just have to kick the American navy's ass so hard America decides that it's just not worth it to try again. And I guess one big battle where you crush their fleet in one go has as good a chance of that as anything.
decisive battle was founded in a pre-industrial understanding of military production
Japanese leadership convinced themselves that their attack on pearl harbor would just be another bit of great game maneuvering, and that the US would be fine with some sort of peace treaty, or at least a state of passive hostility. There was also an element there where like, they required access to the US's oil supplies to maintain their military power, and if they ceded to the US's demands on this issue then they'd still always just be a secondary power. Self-sufficiency was seen as a matter of national defense. So they felt like attacking the US was basically their only real option.
Of course a big reason for that thinking was that Japan's politics at this point were so incredibly dangerous that any sort of public support for backing down would at a minimum result in public disgrace, and quite possibly in assassination. So rational clear sightedness was not exactly something you'd be rewarded for. Everyone must be a cheerleader for the war, and we must always act like victory is just another few months away, and if you act like you think otherwise then it's your fault when we inevitably don't find victory a few months later.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
One thing I've always been interested in researching further, but have never really gotten around to, is the degree to which the Russo-Japanese war ended up shaping a lot of the death cult mentality of later imperial Japan.
Like Japan ends up more-or-less winning the war but both sides take really heavy casualties, and there were decent doubts at the time whether Japan could have really kept fighting that much longer. Japan was salty as fuck that they didn't receive sweeping concessions at the negotiation table, as they felt like they had won a sweeping victory, and nobody else really agreed with them. And the Japanese government had made big declarations to the Japanese people that this bloody war was a decisive victory and would result in great gains for their country, which then didn't happen.
So as the years go on and the official Japanese histories and educational textbooks are being written, an ongoing trend is that they increasingly begin to emphasize the glory of those war dead, and how dying for the emperor is the highest honor anyone can attain, etc etc. This was not a position widely held in Japan during the actual fighting of the war, but it basically absolved the Japanese government of wasting a bunch of Japanese lives for no real gain, because dying in battle is good, actually. So for the later generation of soldiers who would end up fighting the Pacific War, they grew up with those sorts of propaganda stories in school.
There's plenty of other, simpler explanations for Japanese brutality during the Pacific War as well of course, the most obvious of which is that the Japanese soldiers themselves were chronically mistreated. But it's an interesting little bit of (partial) unintended cause and effect.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Japanese leadership convinced themselves that their attack on pearl harbor would just be another bit of great game maneuvering, and that the US would be fine with some sort of peace treaty, or at least a state of passive hostility. There was also an element there where like, they required access to the US's oil supplies to maintain their military power, and if they ceded to the US's demands on this issue then they'd still always just be a secondary power. Self-sufficiency was seen as a matter of national defense. So they felt like attacking the US was basically their only real option.
Of course a big reason for that thinking was that Japan's politics at this point were so incredibly dangerous that any sort of public support for backing down would at a minimum result in public disgrace, and quite possibly in assassination. So rational clear sightedness was not exactly something you'd be rewarded for. Everyone must be a cheerleader for the war, and we must always act like victory is just another few months away, and if you act like you think otherwise then it's your fault when we inevitably don't find victory a few months later.
Yeah a bunch of more rational actors thought it was a terrible idea but were either not in a position to stop it, or were unwilling to face the serious backlash from suggesting it was a terrible idea.
Also it's true that Japanese politics and especially Japanese military politics circa the early twentieth century are super interesting. (If scary and creepy.) Basically the army got infiltrated by numerous almost cultish secret societies which slowly indoctrinated soldiers, and upon each realizing they weren't the only secret society operating in the military they decided to tenuously work together (this did not work out equally well for each faction) to decouple Japanese military policy from Japanese civil authorities, before eventually orchestrating a putsch. (By the time they did it they had most of the Japanese armed forces either onside or at worst ambivalent towards them, so it required remarkably little bloodshed... not counting Manchuria.)
I've always thought that if you look at a lot of these early 20th century/late 19th century wars a lot of them are predicated in a strategic sense on the idea that the enemy is weak and decadent, they'll not fight on. I think it struck me when I read something Hitler said about the British and Americans in like, 1943 and something that Wilhelm and the German Field Marshal, I forget the name, were saying in 1914. Essentially that we can strike hard and strike fast and defeat their army in the field and then they'll cave because they don't have the grit to keep fighting.
Same with the IJN before Pearl Harbour, Same with the Russians before the Russo-Japanese war, same with Von Rauken before Barbarossa, same with the British in the Boer war, same with the American South in the US Civil War. Same with Vietnam I guess. It's always that we have the initiative, and overwhelming military force; we will cruise in and crush them and because they fear us, they will lose. Because they are weak, they will capitulate.
And I just think it's interesting because it is almost always a total miscalculation and it's almost entirely a psycho-cultural failing. It's always some crusty old guys and a monarch sat in a room, convinced that they are better, their fighting spirit is not matched by the enemy. And when you see guys who don't share those views, they are much more realistic! In the 2nd Balkan War, all of the guys in charge basically had just fought a hard, brutal war against the Ottoman Empire side by side, and they all basically said "yeah guys this is going to be fucking rough" because there's no better way to know just how hard (for example) the Serbian Army will fight when you're a Bulgarian General who saw it happen last year, and were pretty grateful they were on your side.
Like, a lot of military history doesn't really interest me so much any more, but stuff like that absolutely does. The repeated strategic misstep of "we'll crush them in the field and they'll surrender" they never fucking surrender!
I've always thought that if you look at a lot of these early 20th century/late 19th century wars a lot of them are predicated in a strategic sense on the idea that the enemy is weak and decadent, they'll not fight on. I think it struck me when I read something Hitler said about the British and Americans in like, 1943 and something that Wilhelm and the German Field Marshal, I forget the name, were saying in 1914. Essentially that we can strike hard and strike fast and defeat their army in the field and then they'll cave because they don't have the grit to keep fighting.
Same with the IJN before Pearl Harbour, Same with the Russians before the Russo-Japanese war, same with Von Rauken before Barbarossa, same with the British in the Boer war, same with the American South in the US Civil War. Same with Vietnam I guess. It's always that we have the initiative, and overwhelming military force; we will cruise in and crush them and because they fear us, they will lose. Because they are weak, they will capitulate.
And I just think it's interesting because it is almost always a total miscalculation and it's almost entirely a psycho-cultural failing. It's always some crusty old guys and a monarch sat in a room, convinced that they are better, their fighting spirit is not matched by the enemy. And when you see guys who don't share those views, they are much more realistic! In the 2nd Balkan War, all of the guys in charge basically had just fought a hard, brutal war against the Ottoman Empire side by side, and they all basically said "yeah guys this is going to be fucking rough" because there's no better way to know just how hard (for example) the Serbian Army will fight when you're a Bulgarian General who saw it happen last year, and were pretty grateful they were on your side.
Like, a lot of military history doesn't really interest me so much any more, but stuff like that absolutely does. The repeated strategic misstep of "we'll crush them in the field and they'll surrender" they never fucking surrender!
I've seen arguments that in Germany's case it's an artifact of Prussian Military experience. For much of its existance Prussia was outnumbered, so their military successes involved taking the offensive and decisive battles. As time went on military thinkers always tried to avoid wars of attrition because those suck, but by the 20th century "try to win by decisive battle" has shifted into "we will definitely win", without recognising the industrial revolution's impact on staying power. Possible bad outcomes are not considered, save beyond "well we'll just avoid them", minus a how.
Well I think that if you look at the kind of philosophical and political writings at the times, there's a huge amount of nationalism, ethno-nationalism, racial supremacy stuff isn't there? It's just so common at the time for writers to be talking about the Germanic "qualities" etc like these guys lived in a time when it was seen as eminently scientific to engage in racial essentialism, no less
I feel like the great military blunders of the time often came about as a result of a complete misallocation of qualities to themselves that The Enemy doesn't possess, and weaknesses that The Enemy possesses in abundance. And military engagements are merely the most obvious and easily identified/measured version of that (i.e. you can say, before Barbarossa, this is what they said, then it happened, then they were wrong, and they lost like its very measurable, unlike political agreements which tend to be messier) but then you realise that probably this mode of thinking was very common to probably most government officials at the time.
I think once you put a lot of the decisions made by governments in the context of these people are all raised with a hugely incorrect idea that there is a scientific basis to racial essentialism then you realise that a lot of foreign policy decisions, for example, of the Imperial Age are actually pretty consistent (and stupid!) with each other even though they seem very bizarre. Why did the British feel like the Russians would definitely invade India? Why did the British and French feel that the Sykes-Picot Line would not cause massive issues? I think if you look at it from the point of view of, because they thought the Russians were inherently violent and aggressive, because they thought the Arabs would fight over basically anything but can always be paid off (and therefore you might as well put it anywhere) I dunno I guess that it's becoming more of a thing to be like, put yourself in the mindset of people living in a different rhetorical/cultural/social world to you when considering these things, but I think it's definitely something that we don't realise enough.
I wonder if older photography would also shift the discussion back in time is there like a dageurrotype of Bolivars taut steely buttox
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Do you think somebody out there still has a copy of the first boner photo ever taken?
Like they just have it in box somewhere and they refuse to share this historical artifact with the world?
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Posts
"what do you mean our 30 year old navy is losing to a brand new modernized one traditionally known for its naval dominance????"
Though I guess other people wouldn't have access to a good diet comparably
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
I mean, even before modernization Japan was capable of terrorizing China.
the japanese navy at the start of the first sino-japanese war was modernized and trained/modeled after the royal navy
the army on the otherhand was technologically not great, but then again the chinese military in the region was not great either
If it's any consolation to the Russians, the naval doctrine of decisive battle that the imperial Japanese navy developed as a result of the battle of tsushima strait is what ultimately led them to lose against the United States navy so catastrophically forty years later. They were extremely unprepared, mentally, materially and doctrinally for the concept of prolonged naval warfare.
Yeah one of the recent lions led by donkeys was about the war and boy is it a RIDE
getting their boy merced after losing the first major conflict of the pacific hurt a bit too
I hold the somewhat unpopular view that Yamamoto was actually kind of a shit admiral and Japan probably would have been better off if he'd kacked it of a heart attack or something even earlier. Certainly before he overruled the Navy board to send the fleet to Midway for sure. If you look at the battle plans for Operations MI and AL (Midway and the Aleutians respectively) they are a clusterfuck.
As with everything, there's a bit more to it than that.
This has been Keen Historical Insights With Jedoc
EDIT: Incidentally I highly recommend rooting through Drachinifels' back catalogue for more extremely interesting and often amusing boat-story type stuff.
"what if we built naval guns that were so powerful we couldn't accurately fire them because they went too far beyond the curvature of the earth"
I've heard the argument that most people in the Japanese high command knew the Pacific War was a long shot, but felt they had to go for it cause other wise the Second-Sino Japanese War would be lost as well.
So the options were basically admit you lost now, or go for double or nothing. It makes sense in a very detached from humanity way that most war plans are.
yamamoto himself knew a protracted war was untenable
japan did not have the resources or manpower compared to the u.s.'s
"People refuse to admit they lost and waste millions of lives in a conflict that has largely been decided." pretty much sums up the war from 1943 till the end.
edit: Japan continuing to build giant ass battleships that were expensive and that they couldn't properly protect was a stupid idea, but battleships=imperialism and Japan really, really wanted to enslave some peoples.
and then you get to the tanks that were built for 1930s era conflict with china and lol
*vibrates in english and russian*
They also specifically targeted the battleships in pearl harbor and not the aircraft carriers.
Per the video I linked, they were absolutely aware that they couldn't match the US's output. The theory was to have a 'decisive battle' with a US fleet that, by the time it had made it's way over to the other side of the Pacific, had been whittled down by submarines, air attacks, and night raids by destroyers with more torpedo launchers (more than what, you ask? Just more). Then win that battle against a damaged US fleet at the end of long supply lines with their fresh, undamaged mighty battleships and heavy cruisers, potentially under the umbrella of land based air forces. After losing this decisive battle, the US would have to build another fleet, trek it across the Pacific again, and meanwhile the Japanese would still have most of their original fleet plus whatever else they'd built meanwhile, and have consolidated their gains and set up resource supply lines, and so the US would basically nope out and come to some kind of peace deal.
It was based on the assumptions that if you want to win a big sea battle then it was battleships that really counted, and that land based air cover would generally beat carrier based air cover, especially as US carriers and carrier aircraft were kind of C to B- gear at best when the plan was being put together.
The plan worked out in the usual way of strategic plans that were absolutely fucking perfect for winning the previous war but that required prolonged co-operation from the enemy to win the current one. The US Navy switched from using Battleships as the main strike platform to Carriers (also gitting gud at building both carriers and carrier aircraft) and mostly demoting the battleship to convoy escort and shore bombardment. The whittling down was suddenly way harder, and even more irritatingly, the USN went way off script and started doing a bunch of whittling itself.
Listen, I have it on good, bug-eyed, hoarsely shouted authority that FDR had the aircraft carriers out on maneuvers so that he could tempt the Japanese into bringing America into the war.
What they underestimated was the extent that western public opinion really had turned against wars of conquest, and probably also the extent to which the U.S. viewed hawaii as a part of itself as opposed to as a colony.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
So, the idea of the naval theory they were drawing this strategy from was that you'd have that decisive battle where you crushed their fleet, and then you'd use your control of the seas to cripple their trade and wreck their economy. But it's America, it's too far away to be able to keep up a blockade, there's way too much coastline to blockade in the first place, and even if you did pull off a blockade you've only blockaded the west coast, and the US can just build up a fleet in the Atlantic and then sail through the Panama canal and break your blockade.
So their strategy was missing what was theoretically the whole point of having a decisive battle, but I feel like basically any naval doctrine they could think of would run into the problem that they can't actually do anything to America. In the end, they just have to kick the American navy's ass so hard America decides that it's just not worth it to try again. And I guess one big battle where you crush their fleet in one go has as good a chance of that as anything.
decisive battle was founded in a pre-industrial understanding of military production
Of course a big reason for that thinking was that Japan's politics at this point were so incredibly dangerous that any sort of public support for backing down would at a minimum result in public disgrace, and quite possibly in assassination. So rational clear sightedness was not exactly something you'd be rewarded for. Everyone must be a cheerleader for the war, and we must always act like victory is just another few months away, and if you act like you think otherwise then it's your fault when we inevitably don't find victory a few months later.
Like Japan ends up more-or-less winning the war but both sides take really heavy casualties, and there were decent doubts at the time whether Japan could have really kept fighting that much longer. Japan was salty as fuck that they didn't receive sweeping concessions at the negotiation table, as they felt like they had won a sweeping victory, and nobody else really agreed with them. And the Japanese government had made big declarations to the Japanese people that this bloody war was a decisive victory and would result in great gains for their country, which then didn't happen.
So as the years go on and the official Japanese histories and educational textbooks are being written, an ongoing trend is that they increasingly begin to emphasize the glory of those war dead, and how dying for the emperor is the highest honor anyone can attain, etc etc. This was not a position widely held in Japan during the actual fighting of the war, but it basically absolved the Japanese government of wasting a bunch of Japanese lives for no real gain, because dying in battle is good, actually. So for the later generation of soldiers who would end up fighting the Pacific War, they grew up with those sorts of propaganda stories in school.
There's plenty of other, simpler explanations for Japanese brutality during the Pacific War as well of course, the most obvious of which is that the Japanese soldiers themselves were chronically mistreated. But it's an interesting little bit of (partial) unintended cause and effect.
Yeah a bunch of more rational actors thought it was a terrible idea but were either not in a position to stop it, or were unwilling to face the serious backlash from suggesting it was a terrible idea.
Also it's true that Japanese politics and especially Japanese military politics circa the early twentieth century are super interesting. (If scary and creepy.) Basically the army got infiltrated by numerous almost cultish secret societies which slowly indoctrinated soldiers, and upon each realizing they weren't the only secret society operating in the military they decided to tenuously work together (this did not work out equally well for each faction) to decouple Japanese military policy from Japanese civil authorities, before eventually orchestrating a putsch. (By the time they did it they had most of the Japanese armed forces either onside or at worst ambivalent towards them, so it required remarkably little bloodshed... not counting Manchuria.)
Same with the IJN before Pearl Harbour, Same with the Russians before the Russo-Japanese war, same with Von Rauken before Barbarossa, same with the British in the Boer war, same with the American South in the US Civil War. Same with Vietnam I guess. It's always that we have the initiative, and overwhelming military force; we will cruise in and crush them and because they fear us, they will lose. Because they are weak, they will capitulate.
And I just think it's interesting because it is almost always a total miscalculation and it's almost entirely a psycho-cultural failing. It's always some crusty old guys and a monarch sat in a room, convinced that they are better, their fighting spirit is not matched by the enemy. And when you see guys who don't share those views, they are much more realistic! In the 2nd Balkan War, all of the guys in charge basically had just fought a hard, brutal war against the Ottoman Empire side by side, and they all basically said "yeah guys this is going to be fucking rough" because there's no better way to know just how hard (for example) the Serbian Army will fight when you're a Bulgarian General who saw it happen last year, and were pretty grateful they were on your side.
Like, a lot of military history doesn't really interest me so much any more, but stuff like that absolutely does. The repeated strategic misstep of "we'll crush them in the field and they'll surrender" they never fucking surrender!
Could the Maus Tank have saved Caesar from assassination?
I've seen arguments that in Germany's case it's an artifact of Prussian Military experience. For much of its existance Prussia was outnumbered, so their military successes involved taking the offensive and decisive battles. As time went on military thinkers always tried to avoid wars of attrition because those suck, but by the 20th century "try to win by decisive battle" has shifted into "we will definitely win", without recognising the industrial revolution's impact on staying power. Possible bad outcomes are not considered, save beyond "well we'll just avoid them", minus a how.
I feel like the great military blunders of the time often came about as a result of a complete misallocation of qualities to themselves that The Enemy doesn't possess, and weaknesses that The Enemy possesses in abundance. And military engagements are merely the most obvious and easily identified/measured version of that (i.e. you can say, before Barbarossa, this is what they said, then it happened, then they were wrong, and they lost like its very measurable, unlike political agreements which tend to be messier) but then you realise that probably this mode of thinking was very common to probably most government officials at the time.
I think once you put a lot of the decisions made by governments in the context of these people are all raised with a hugely incorrect idea that there is a scientific basis to racial essentialism then you realise that a lot of foreign policy decisions, for example, of the Imperial Age are actually pretty consistent (and stupid!) with each other even though they seem very bizarre. Why did the British feel like the Russians would definitely invade India? Why did the British and French feel that the Sykes-Picot Line would not cause massive issues? I think if you look at it from the point of view of, because they thought the Russians were inherently violent and aggressive, because they thought the Arabs would fight over basically anything but can always be paid off (and therefore you might as well put it anywhere) I dunno I guess that it's becoming more of a thing to be like, put yourself in the mindset of people living in a different rhetorical/cultural/social world to you when considering these things, but I think it's definitely something that we don't realise enough.
Like they just have it in box somewhere and they refuse to share this historical artifact with the world?
I bet Simón Bolívar was ripped af.