Shipbucket

Hi Oberst,

Just to clarify, you have additional cargo ships over and above the 2,700 of these ... well, "auxiliary cruiser" wouldn't go amiss as a term for them, would it? I'm unsure, given the vast resources you can devote to escort duty - you've got 200+ of the Zmeya-class, don't forget, before we even get to the DEs that I assume you've got knocking around somewhere - who would even survive long enough to threaten the transports in the first place.

I get that you want to create an impressive Navy, that's cool. But as you detail your fleet I'm wondering what eruption of hubris could lead any nation to thinking that an attack on Rossiya could be anything other than a complex way to become a part of the Rossiyan Empire (even if such a thing never exists, I'd imagine that's how your targets are going to be thinking). From the force levels you have detailed, you could take on the USN and still fight the IJN with the balance of your Navy, and yet we have the IJN picking a fight with the both of you - and the IJN only went for the Americans on the understanding that they could wipe out the entirety of an American fleet and consolidate their gains before the USN could respond (even if they'd completely succeeded they'd have probably been wrong just on American production numbers, but that's a different debate).

In this AU, though, when the IJN should be running rampant all over South-East Asia they've instead got to be planning for assaulting Svyatoslavovich Naval Air Base - just because of the amount of hostile forces involved this would take priority over Burma, DEI, New Guinea, Solomons, Singapore, Bali, Timor, Java and Sumatra, which the Japanese had polished off by March 1942 in real life. No sensible planner would attempt all of this at once as well as another assault on a heavily defended position such as Svyatoslavovich Naval Air Base, surely?

I guess the wider point that I'm trying to make is that a lot of IJN WWII strategy was based on the knowledge that they would have fewer ships, fewer planes than their most likely adversary, so they made significant changes to their doctrine to stack win-loss ratios in their favour (for instance, torpedo-heavy destroyers launching torpedoes that outranged the torpedoes they'd be facing). From the torpedo analysis I've seen on Navweaps they didn't end up with the win-loss ratios that they were after, but I can follow the reasoning behind the design. OK, now we've thrown another USA-and-a-half at them in addition to the USA they were already facing. Anybody in the Japanese staff who can count will know their projected win-loss ratios (that turned out to be optimistic!) and recognise that they don't have a hope - their destroyers literally do not carry enough torpedoes, for one thing - of fighting it out against these people. The sheer fact of Rossiya's existence would prevent any rational Japan from engaging in WWII for years, perhaps enough that Germany stands and falls by itself before Japan gets into the act.

The thing is, the drawings are good (hey, they're better than mine, so I'm definitely not going to cast stones!) but you are drawing such a grand arc through history that the story behind it disconnects from everything almost the instant it starts. You could literally cut the navy in half, still have the same drawings and it'd be a better story.

Regards,
Adam

Hi Oberst,

I was aware that you hadn't yet started your build-up, but are you sure that 1920s-1930s warships would be considered "obsolete" - bear in mind that the IJN was using some WWI refurbs at this point. The RN was using KGV-class battleships and the Nelson-class - both Treaty designs - too.

This also changes the tactics. If your opponent has a large number of obsolete, (presumably) easy kills and a massive infrastructure just waiting to flood the battlefield with new, lethal designs, you kill the shipyard, not the naval base, no? Pearl Harbour tactics would work reasonably well against the yards or you could just ram a destroyer laden with explosives into the drydock.

Regards,
Adam

Oh, also, I think this may be what you'd need for a WWII oiler:



Regards,
Adam

The situation was so bad as Rossiya only had 90 warships protecting her home waters and these were complete made of World War 1 warships which had not be modernized since 1920. That is why the Rossiyan South East Asian Flotilla was comprised of World War 1 ships because that was all they got at that time.

It's your AU, of course, I just see that being a more "in-character" move for the Japanese than the other.

Regards,
Adam