FLUFF: HERE IS SOME OF THE CAST OF CHARACTERS ONE NEEDS TO FOLLOW IN THIS AU; AND SOMETHING ABOUT RADIO AND CABLE INTELLIGENCE OF THE 1930S THAT MAY HAVE ESCAPED NOTICE.
Admiral Frank Schofield (PacFleet Actual)
R. Admiral Harry E. Yarnell (TF 10.1 Actual) Flagship USS Saratoga
Captain Ernest King USS Lexington
Captain Frederick J. Horne USS Saratoga
Captain Frank McCrary USS Cowpens
R. Admiral Henry Varnum Butler (TF 10.2 Actual) Flagship USS Yorktown
Captain George W. Steele USS Trenton
Captain Rufus F. Zogbaum USS Yorktown
Captain Frank A. Berrien USS Ticonderoga
R. Admiral Claude C. Bloch (10.2.1) flagship USS California
V. Admiral Joseph Mason "Bull" Reeves 10.1.1 flagship USS Maryland
FLUFF: HOW DID PLAN DOG EVOLVE? IT IS NOT EASY TO BE AFFIRMATIVE.
Blame Fleet Problem VII through X and Hector Bywater’s published account of how a Pacific war between the United States and Japan could erupt and spread. The American navy Fleet Problems off Nicaragua and in Hawaiian waters; quickly show that Orange cannot be allowed the opening move in such a war. The damage Orange could inflict parallel the same kind of paralyzing effect that prove to be the Russian fleet’s undoing after the surprise attack on Port Arthur during the Russo Japanese War.
Plan Dog is one of four Alternate Universe Orange war plans. These plans are:
1. Plan Affirmative: relief of the Philippines after a Japanese invasion of the Archipelago
2. Plan Baker: relief of the Shanghai Enclave after a Japanese attack in the Jiangsu Province.
3. Plan Cast: defense of the central Pacific island possessions.
4. Plan Dog: imposition of a blockade on the Japanese islands.
One can ascribe the plans to these putative authors;
Sims; Plan Affirmative about 1903
Butler; Plan Baker about 1918
Marine Major Ellis; Plan Cast about 1924
Reeves; Plan Dog about 1930
THE SITUATION STRATEGICALLY.
As in the RTL, the USN is in a position of inferiority. It is usually at this point that the beancounters want to see a table to show the disparity, so here is a table to satisfy them (AU of course):
Nation …………………………………………….US (Pacific) …………………………………. Japan………………….. Holland……………….US (Atlantic)
Ship type
Battleship ……………………………………….8 (4 slow, 4 fast)……………………………7 ………………………………………………………..4 (4 slow)
Battlecruiser …………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 …………………………. (2)
Aircraft carrier ………………………………..6 (6 large) ……………………………………..5 (3 large, 2 small)……………………………..3 (3 small)
Aircraft carrier aircraft embarked ….6x60=360 ………………………………………65+62+60+31+27=246 ……………………….3x45=135
Fleet based air scouts …………………….53 …………………………………………………~100 ……………………(25)……………………..28
Land based air
………… Fighters ……………………………… ~400 (US total) ……………………………In Japan ~400 ………(50) Indonesia
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………In China ~500
………… Bombers ……………………………. ~500 (US total) ………………………… .In Japan ~100 ……... (50) Indonesia
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...In China ~200
…………Scouts …………………………………. ~200 )US total)………………………….. In Japan ~100 ……..(50) Indonesia
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………In China ~200
…………Transports …………………………….~100 (plus ~400+ civil aviation)….In Japan ~100……….. ?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………In China ~100
………..Trainers ………………………………….~100 (plus ~700+ civil aviation)….In Japan ~400 ……..(50) Indonesia
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………In China ~100?
Scout cruiser ………………………………………6…………………………………………………2 ……………………………………………………………..4
Heavy cruiser ……………………………………10………………………………………………12 ……………………………………………………………..2
Light cruiser ………………………………………12 ……………………………………………..11…………………………… 4 ……………………………..6
Heavy destroyer (over 2500 tonnes)..25 ……………………………………………..21 …………………………………………………………….25
Light destroyer (~1500-2000 tonnes). 50 ……………………………………………….6 ……………………………12 ……………………………50
Corvette (below 1000 tonnes) ………… 10 …………………………………………….22…………………………….15…………………………….20
Submarines………………………………………. 47 …………………………………………….98 (70 available)………………….…………………….20
Oiler……………………………………………………16 (plus 50 Merchant marine)…..8 (plus 15 Merchant marine)……………………4
Ammunition ship ……………………………….5………………………………………………. 4 ……………………………………………………………….4
Stores ship …………………………………………5……………………………………………….3………………………………………………………………..3
Floating drydock ………………………………...3………………………………………………. 1………………………………………………………………..2
Tender, submarine……………………………..2……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3
Tender, seaplane ……………………………….3 ……………………………………………..4………………………………………………………………..2
Tender, destroyer ………………………………5 ……………………………………………..2 ………………………………………………………………10
Command ship…………………………………….2………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2
Hospital ship ……………………………………….3………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1
What the AU table does not indicate is the following:
a. The AU US slow battleships are slower than their four Japanese battlecruiser counterparts, and equivalent in speed to their Japanese slow battleships counterparts. The Japanese are in the middle of their battlecruiser to fast battleship modernization program, so ship availability is only eight of the eleven ships they plan to have. Of further note; the Japanese battleships are armed with a mix of 14 inch (35.6 cm on 8 ships) and 16.1 inch guns in main battery (41 cm on 3 ships). The Americans are uniformly armed with 15.75 cm (40 cm guns on 8 ships in the Pacific fleet + the 4 ships in the Atlantic fleet). Theoretical shell throw weight
Japanese battle-line 24,000 kg (Nagato class) + 61,000 kg (other Japanese battleship classes) = 85,000 kg
American Pacific battle-line 64,000 kg (8 battleships) + Atlantic reserve 32,000 kg (4 battleships) = 96,000 kg
The actual shell throw weight ratio with just the Pacific battle-line forces: works out to about 75% ratio with the advantage Japanese. It holds this ratio to about that uniform value on a fleet wide basis up and down the ladder of ship classes. If it is a Jutland replay, for which the Japanese plan, the odds do not look so good for Uncle even if the Americans bring in the Atlantic circus.
b. This is the mistake many bean-counters make. Leadership, geography, situation awareness, and just plain overall competence applied to the task at hand often matters more than mere numbers. How much arrives at the point of contact, and how effective it is, can be said to be more deterministic to outcomes. Plans, methods, and execution based on situation awareness; matters as much as hardware, sometimes even more than hardware. Certainly in a naval war, which is simpler and more fundamental in basics than land warfare in 1931; this is so. So you are an American and you have a war in your lap.
What are the AU American advantages?
Thanks to the ONI and the FBI: the American government/naval service can read Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Dutch, French, Italian, British, and even
German diplomatic radio traffic. This is a situational awareness advantage that not even the British possess. The Americans can basically estimate who, where, what, how, and why the players in the Pacific are and what they do. From this advantage, once the SS Milliard Filmore Incident occurs, what do the Americans know?
Vice admiral Kichisaburo Nomuro in command of the Japanese 3rd Fleet and the China Expedition Force is a political appointment and has extensive questionable personal issues that inhibit his command style and unit combat efficiency. At Shanghai (1932 RTL Shanghai Incident) the Americans operationally quickly become aware of his military incompetence. They will exploit his personal weaknesses.
The Japanese are like the Italians, embarked on a massive fleet modernization program, 1928-1935, which will ultimately take up to a third of the fleet out of service (1931). This is especially true of the Kongo class battleships. As for the carriers, (In this AU; the Akagi, Amagi and Atago), the Japanese are so new to the business, that these ships still sport the atrocious three bow fly-off platforms and short main flight deck. This allows for about sixty-sixty five aircraft per carrier and a slow launch cycle. These carriers are not in the modification que as the battleships are. They are at sea working up,
under British tutelage (Sempill Mission), how to operate the weapon system. It is not generally understood, that
the Japanese in 1931 have not figured the aircraft carrier out. It will still be a mystery until around 1937 when they get the Akagi built right.
The Japanese fleet, because of the Second Sino-Japanese War, shift (RTL 1931-1933; AU about the same time frame) about half of their fleet usually based at Yokusuka Inland Sea base complexes, to the Sasebo and Kogashima naval complexes to support the China coast operations. This shift affects the way that any American pre-emptive attack would have to be oriented. For if the first Plan Dog is weighted toward Honshu; then the fifth rework puts the weight of emphasis on Kyushu where it properly belongs.
Although not a part of signals intelligence or cryptanalysis, radio direction mapping plays a part of economic intelligence. The Americans pioneer it in 1938 (RTL), but in this AU it is 1928. ONI generates a rather good time map of what the Japanese merchant marine does. The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research provides its own input about what the Japanese economy is and where it is vulnerable. After the surprise attack, there must come the blockade (Mahan and Colbert). American submarines will hunt oil tankers and grain ships to put them in the dark and keep them hungry.
1931,
the British are helping the Japanese. One does not care about the Angl;o-American brothers in arms mythology post WW II because it is post facto revisionism of the 1930s. The whitewash is quite faded by now as the truth comes out.
Sempill had
semi-official British crown sanction to commit his treason (from a strictly American point of view.), until about 1940, when the Americans find out about “the gentleman”.
It is not until 1942 that the British muzzle him. He dies peacefully, unpunished, in 1956. Now one must recognize that the US
is aware that the Japanese do British aviation type things the British way because the Americans Read Everybody’s Diplomatic Mail and the Americans can also compare what they see in the Pacific. The Americans have a ship that passes among the Japanese carriers exercising off Hokkaido as they practice for Blue RTL 1930 and the same thing happens for the British carriers exercising in the eastern Mediterranean in their anti-Italian wargames. Can one imagine “Bull” Reeves in 1931 when he reads about what is uncovered in his daily intel reports? How about Schofield or King? The USN leadership is not a happy bunch of sailors about what the evidence reveals. (Richardson, Turner, and Tower are other Anglophobes who can be explained by this all too real history, too.)
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