Kido Butai if Pacific war averted in 1941-42

I don't think the Japanese would give up on the Yamatos. Even though their carrier doctrine was the most advanced in the world by late 1941, they too had a "gun club" of admirals who defined naval power in terms of BBs afloat and their relative power.

Admiral Beez said:

With immediate war averted and Japan running on a peacetime economy, I would see the IJN rationalized, with smaller CVs disposed of and PH-era liner-conversions (Hiyō, Jun'yō, Ryūjō, etc.) never built, and instead focused on new builds.

Hōshō and Ryūjō scrapped
Kaga and Akagi converted to full deck (same as historical), but to be later deleted and replaced by two Taihō class
Sōryū/Hiryū program expanded with two additional units to replace Hōshō and Ryūjō
Shōkaku/Zuikaku program expanded, with two additional units to replace Hiyō and Jun'yō

This will give Japan ten fast fleet carriers. Further rationalization of the battlefleet will be needed. I'm not sure what to do with the first of five planned Yamato class then (by 1937) laid down. Maybe skip the lot, make the first, Yamato into an aircraft carrier or cancel the program. Focus on aviation, submarines and cruisers.

After which I'd have Japan look to reenter the naval treaties with London and Washington.

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So 4 new large carriers to be built over historical (The Hiyo & Junyo would still have been built as liners) plus a new generation of battleships ( it is still a battleship centric world). What is your new timescale for this?

The problem with this is the capacity of the Japanese shipbuilding industry to build these large ships. Some information on that here:-

As for a new naval treaty, nothing less than parity with Britain & the USA would be acceptable to Japan. The refusal to agree to this was what made up Japan's mind to announce on 29 Dec 1934 that it would leave the Treaty system on the expiration of the Washington Treaty on 31 Dec 1936.

Why are Britain and the USA suddenly going to change their minds and accede to that demand?

Alternatively, why would Japan suddenly drop that demand, when it was something they had been fighting for since Washington in 1922?

If Japan and the USN don't get into a slugfest, then the carrier as a strategic weapon wouldn't be fully realized yet.

So I don't see Japan (or the USN) eliminating their Battleships anytime soon, so Yamato, Musashi, Shinano, 111 and perhaps 797 are built.

GrauGeist said:

If Japan and the USN don't get into a slugfest, then the carrier as a strategic weapon wouldn't be fully realized yet.

So I don't see Japan (or the USN) eliminating their Battleships anytime soon, so Yamato, Musashi, Shinano, 111 and perhaps 797 are built.

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Good point, but without commencing a war economy there's only so much cash around. Something has to give. Mind you, if there's no war in China there's little need for a massive army expense.

The Japanese were also mindful of the Royal Navy and more so, the US Navy.

In the time period of this discussion, the USN has the North Carolina class (2 ships) laid down and preparing to have the South Dakota class laid down (3 in 1939, 1 in 1940).
And these battleships are in contrast to the two carriers under construction at the time - Wasp (CV-7) and Hornet (CV-8).

Japan would need to maintain naval parity with the U.S.

GrauGeist said:

The Japanese were also mindful of the Royal Navy and more so, the US Navy.

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On the former if Britain can come to an agreement with Japan we might not see much of the Royal Navy in the Far East at all. Australia was one of Japan's top trading partner, a big proponent of Britain's recognition of Manchukuo, with courtesy naval visits throughout the interwar period.




Cooler heads in Tokyo and London may have the IJN escort troop convoys from Oz to North Africa. Japan's best counter to US power is to foster solid relations with Britain and the Empire/Commonwealth.

GrauGeist said:

But if Japan is not going to war with the U.S. in 1941, then they could turn their attention to the Soviet Union in support of Germany's invasion.

Historically, they used the non-aggression pact with the USSR to their advantage by not having to focus on defenses in their west coast and in the region between the home islands and Asia proper.

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I've read it as being the other way around. After the Soviets soundly thrashed them in 1939, it extinguished any desire of the Japanese to push in that direction, and thus looked elsewhere for what they wanted.

33k in the air said:

I've read it as being the other way around. After the Soviets soundly thrashed them in 1939, it extinguished any desire of the Japanese to push in that direction, and thus looked elsewhere for what they wanted.

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I think the Soviet-Japan nonaggression pact arose from the Japanese knowing they didn't want to have a war with the Soviets, and that treaty came about before the Japanese had decided whether to go north or south (which decision came later in 1941). Hotheads in the Army still argued for the move north, but the Navy won the strategic fight and Japan attacked south.

So I don't think it extinguished all desires, but it certainly convinced rational minds in the Japanese government to lock something into place via treaty. It didn't hurt that the Soviets also wanted to pacify one front in order to focus on the other.

There's also the fact that while Siberia is rich in resources including oil (as we know now), those resources were largely undeveloped, while a move south would be against already-developed oil fields, rubber plantations, tin mines, and so on.

The skirmishes between the Soviets and Japanese were largely done by the Kwantung Army, who largely acted independently of Tokyo.

One more important factor is that there was no unified China after the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1912, until Mao took power in 1949.
Manchukuo was the most advanced region at the time. Both Mao and Chiang were obliged to rely on its infrastructure to rebuild China even after Japan retreated.

Admiral Beez said:

On the former if Britain can come to an agreement with Japan we might not see much of the Royal Navy in the Far East at all. Australia was one of Japan's top trading partner, a big proponent of Britain's recognition of Manchukuo, with courtesy naval visits throughout the interwar period.

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Cooler heads in Tokyo and London may have the IJN escort troop convoys from Oz to North Africa. Japan's best counter to US power is to foster solid relations with Britain and the Empire/Commonwealth.

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Don't overstate the relationship of Australia and Japan interwar. The overwhelming relationship was between Australia & Britain.

Despite the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster in 1931 giving Australia Dominion status, Australia chose not to ratify it until 1942 (backdated to Sept 1939). One result of that was that Australia felt bound to consider itself at War on 3 Sept 1939 when Britain declared war. As Robert Menzies put it in his radio broadcast to the nation (with my emphasis)

"....Great Britain has declared war on her [Germany], and that, as a result, Australia is also at war....."

This contrasts with your nation, Canada, which had embraced the Balfour Declaration etc and made its own separate Declaration of War on Germany on 10 September 1939 after due due consideration and approval by the Canadian Parliament.

So Australia, by its own choice, did not have the kind of freedom in its foreign policy during the 1930s that an entirely sovereign nation had. So any overtures to Japan were strictly limited in nature.

And I note how you described the trade relationship. Australia being Japan's biggest trading partner. That ignores the fact that Britain was by far Australia's biggest trading partner, followed by the US. Some 60-70% of Australian exports went to Britain compared to less than 10% to Japan. One of Australia's biggest concerns in the 1930s was increasing tariffs levied by Britain on its meat exports. You will find import /export tables here.

When it came to Defence, again Australia looked to Britain. Australian politicians might have had little faith in the Singapore strategy and expressed such doubts in London throughout the 1930s, but they still looked to Britain to defend them. Australia could have done a lot more in the 1930s in that regard, but its politicians chose not to spend the money.

As for Japanese naval visits to Australia inter war you make it sound unusual. The RN and USN also made such visits. Showing the flag is what navies do in peacetime as part of diplomatic efforts between nations.

[Edit:- the Japanese sent the heavy cruiser Ashigara to participate in the May 1937 Naval Review for the Coronation of King George VI held at Spithead in the Solent off Portsmouth. She stopped off at Singapore, Aden, and Malta while en route. After that event she visited Kiel in Germany, where she celebrated both the Japanese Navy Day (victory at Tsushima) and the Kriegsmarine Day (German Victory at Jutland!) before heading for home]

As for Japan escorting ANZAC troop convoys, history shows there was no need to. The RN, RAN (6 cruisers) and RNZN (2 cruisers) together managed to deploy sufficient resources to protect these throughout the period 1940-42.

And would Japan have wanted to participate if Italy was at war? With Italian Naval Forces based at Massawa on the Red Sea and other East African ports, would they have wanted to run the risk of becoming entangled in a European war, thousands of miles from where their real interests lay? After all, their experience of helping Britain and France in WW1 had hardly been rewarded in the way they had wanted or expected. Look at the rejection of the racial equality clause at Versailles and the refusal to grant parity in the Washington and London Naval Treaties. No matter how rosy the glasses, these kind of changes are not going to happen in a 1930s world.

GrauGeist said:

The skirmishes between the Soviets and Japanese were largely done by the Kwantung Army, who largely acted independently of Tokyo.

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A non-IJA government in Tokyo may struggle to keep the KA under control. But if there's no ongoing war in China the relevance of and spending on the army may be reduced.

What are our thoughts on changes to the IJN's aircraft development. Without war or sanctions Japan may have access to more powerful engines, reducing the need for the A6M to be so daintily built.

EwenS said:

There were only 11 Essex in the 1940 Programme (CV-9 to CV-19) ordered July-Sept 1940 and scheduled for completion between April 1944 and April 1946.

Two more were added in Dec 1941, 10 in Aug 1942 (8 completed to original configuration + Oriskany in 1950) as part of the maximum war programme, 3 in June 1943 (2 completed) and 6 planned in 1945 (none laid down)

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While I appreciate the effort, mayhap you missed my point (which was rather obscure I admit), once war is declared it's game on and there wasn't a snowballs chance Japan was going to even come close to matching the U.S. economy or its shipbuilding capacity. Which is perhaps what I should have said initially.

Peter Gunn said:

While I appreciate the effort, mayhap you missed my point (which was rather obscure I admit), once war is declared it's game on and there wasn't a snowballs chance Japan was going to even come close to matching the U.S. economy or its shipbuilding capacity. Which is perhaps what I should have said initially.

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The sooner the peacetime Japan government realizes that the sooner they won't try to match the USN. The US isn't going to declare war on a peacetime Japan, and if Japan has achieved its diplomatic goals in Manchukuo and is free of oil sanctions, there's no reason for Japan to feel desperate enough to declare war on the US. My feeling is that once the US is at war with Germany, which will happen once unrestricted submarine warfare starts, Japan will sit back and watch. I wonder what Japan's relations with FIC (and Thailand) will be once France falls in spring 1940.

Unrestricted submarine war was already in practice by 1940.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Unrestricted submarine war was already in practice by 1940.

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Perhaps the Germans will sink a few Japanese flagged ships in the Indian Ocean. That should push Tokyo towards once again siding with Britain. They'd make quick work of the likes of Admiral Scheer or similar that ventures into the area after war is declared by Japan.

Admiral Beez said:

Perhaps the Germans will sink a few Japanese flagged ships in the Indian Ocean. That should push Tokyo towards once again siding with Britain. They'd make quick work of the likes of Admiral Scheer or similar that ventures into the area after war is declared by Japan.

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I'd think the Kriegsmarine would be a little more careful around its allies. Did the U-boats sink any Italian ships in the Med?

My point was that unrestricted submarine warfare did not draw America in until the fall of 1941, and even that was undeclared (in the legal sense) due to American public opinion. It wasn't the impetus IRL that you're saying it would be in your alt timeline. I don't think that would have changed because America still needs to have two ocean-going forces, and still has isolationism to deal with.

It seems a bit of a stretch to me.

I'd think the Kriegsmarine would be a little more careful around its allies.

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The Japanese are neutral.

Admiral Beez said:

The Japanese are neutral.

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The U-boat commanders were not too careful about that.

Admiral Beez said:

The Japanese are neutral.

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So they haven't signed into the Axis?