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The Brits had shown that cariers could operate within disputed airspace with even only moderately performing aircraft and limited numbers. The Jaopanese were an altogether different proposition, that much i will concde, but it is at least plausible that the RN could have repeated it achievements in the med against the European Axis, ie operate for extended periods in enemy controlled airspace.
According to the official history, Australia produced 12,987 sea mines.
That's why you needed intel that could be shared with other interested parties so that a unified, concerted effort could be brought to bear. There were no guarantees that the Japanese fleet was going to invade Malaya and Thailand until the first troops hit the beaches. Brooke-Popham would have done far better had he stuck to the original indicators of impending attack - the arrival of short-range Japanese fighters.
With this intel, it might (stress might) have been possible to convince Washington and Bangkok that a more cooperative defence approach was needed, enabling MATADOR to be called perhaps as early as 5 Dec - it's a slim margin but it would probably be enough, with Thai troops supporting, to make life much more difficult for Yamashita.
Agreed, but there is no guarantee that this would work.
I would certainly have no problem with planning for Matador, and with a better mix of assets, (ie: tanks) the mission would be much more viable, even if the Japanese landing had already taken place.
However, I wouldn't want to depend on some foreign power (Bankok or Washington) for the success of the mission. Better to assume that Thailand would remain neutral and make plans for that event. If they later agree to participate - great - but if they don't I would want a "Plan B" ( Plan C).
If the Matador plan isn't used (or they lose control of the port) I would propose a major strategic strike to disable the port facilities. Continued night strikes would continue to keep the port out of action. Destroying the airbase would be helpful too. Even if Japan is able to reopen the port for use sometime later, the added logistics demand of repairs, AA and port defence will eat away the supplies needed for the 25th Army.
The US and Great Britain were totally unprepared for a war against Japan. The loss of Singapore was foreordained once Japan commenced the war.
But the key issue was time. The Allies needed time to reinforce Malaya whereas the Japanese needed to take Malaya quickly before the reinforcements arrived. Singora was the vital ground, together with the road/rail links from there south. Denying that port would have forced Yamashita to undertake the long, overland invasion from French Indochina which was much more difficult and would have taken much more time.
Even if Commonwealth forces in Singora had folded quickly, there was a much greater chance that The Ledge could have been destroyed, essentially halting any major infiltration into Malaya from Singora. Yes, the Japanese had the capacity to undertake landings at various points along the peninsula but these were typically small affairs and without an equivalent major port, like Singora, would have been very difficult to keep resupplied
Also, removal of The Ledge would have really hurt Japan's ability to employ its tanks
the Japanese a few month later demonstrated what could be achieved in sea denial with the Ryujo in the Bay Of bengal....why is it less possible for two or three british Carriers to do the same or similar? Say the Ark Royal had not been sunk (a plausible assumption IMO) and she was married to say Indomitable and Implacable (not completed until 1944, but should have been ready
1941) that gives the RN a potent strike capability....of around 200 a/c. .
But that was the nub of the problem. Brooke-Popham was not allowed to order MATADOR until the Japanese attacked but by that time it was too late. Lack of tanks, or even decent anti-tank weapons, was a critical shortfall on the British side during the campaign - even relatively modest provision of such weapons would have helped prevent the filleting of entire formations by the hard-charging Japanese tanks.
Which is essentially what happened. London didn't want to implement MATADOR unilaterally for fear of:
1. Giving Japan a pretext for invasion.
2. Turning American public opinion against Britain if it was perceived that we were invading a sovereign, and neutral, nation.
The consequences of this political conundrum are well documented - British forces were somehow expected to prepare simultaneously for an advance into Thailand for MATADOR whilst also establishing defensive positions in northern Malaya (this was, essentially, the format of Brooke-Popham's "Plan B"...there was no "Plan C"). What I'm proposing is that intelligence, properly applied, could have broken the political log-jam to enable a mutually-agreeable defensive posture for both Malaya and Thailand, and to do so without upsetting American sensitivities.
Entirely agree but AHQFE lacked the heavy bomber forces to implement such attacks, although the job would have been much easier if, per my point above, British forces had been able to set demolition charges in Singora harbour before any withdrawal. I'd add the Haad Yai (Hat Yai in your map illustration) railhead as another target - that was vital to the movement of supplies from Singora down the Malaya peninsula.
That's not how I would interpret it.
The carriers were an excellent tool for control of the seas and neutralizing enemy sea power. (eg. Sinking of Bismarck, V. Vento damaged at Matapan etc)
However only when operating beyond the range of shore based air power, otherwise the enemy will overload carrier defences and sink or put out of action the carrier.(Illustrious Formidable in the Med)
Given the fact that there are already 2 carriers out of action (in summer '41) attempting to interdict the Japanese in the Gulf of Siam is too risky a prospect. (IMO)
The task would be better done by aircraft (that's why they built the airbases in the first place
There are other minor Thai ports in the gulf of Siam and a rail line to Singora, but it would make supply much more difficult.
Hold on a minute, are you mixing up the two routes?- the "Ledge" blocked the road from Kroh, Malaya to Patani, Siam - not the road/rail link from Singora.
I don't think so. The Ledge was key to preventing Japanese forces from attaining the main road which ran down the western side of Malaya from the Thai border all the way to Johore. There was a rail line on the eastern side of the peninsula but no major road and so the going down the eastern side was much harder.
They forced the Japanese into making direct frontal assaults onto heavily defended positions, much as the Americans did on guadacanal. First successes using this "funelling" method are traditionally attributed to Milne Bay.
If they realized it, they certainly didnt practice it, either during the campaign in Malaya, or in any of the other jungle campaigns up to and including Arakan. British armies were repeatedly flanked and defeated because of that one failing.
FB, I know you know what those plantations in Johore are like. They are as bad as natural jungle as far as access is concerned. They might as well be jungle because whelled vehicles cannot get access to them. The British had no end of trouble with the Japanese around KL
Yamashita thought the fighting around Johore was relatively easy. He said repeatedly in post action reports that there was litle effective resistance in the battles around Johore
I am unware of any evidence to support that. Japanese Infantry formations sliced through Allied positions so easily there was never any opportunity to set up solid lines of defence in the manner you described, and where is was tried, the Japanese simply outflanked it, knowing the British would obligingly retreat every time their "lines of communication" was threatened.Note - To do so they will need to have brought in better troops, and enough air assets to at least challenge Japanes air superiority.
nice map incidentally. Whats the simulation. is the one you were asking me about a couple of months ago. if so, any good?
Their lack of understanding about the new naval tactics shows with the Repulse, Prince of Wales debacle and Ceylon.
their ground forces did not cope well with the tactics of the Japanese Army in the PI and at Malaya and Java. The British were kicked out of Burma.
The British may have had more army assets than the US but they were unable to break loose the splendid Australian and NZ troops to send them home and the US had to take over the defense of Australia.
The US and Britain were totally unprepared for the concept of naval warfare that Japan had developed and executed with Kido Butai
Not all these condition existed for 25th flotilla in the south china sea. RN carriers could operate well clear of the coast, there were just 60 torpedo bombers and a few search planes, and just 25 fighters as escort . Brit carriers could operate with virtual impunity in those conditions. In December 1941, the Brits retained potent night strike capability (as demonstrated in their attacks against bismarck and the italian fleet). Time needed to be spent working up an Integrated TG to support the carriers...about 2 months would have been needed to integrate the fleet.
The best chance of retaining Malaya remains a naval solution, given the forces available to the japanese and thei other committments. problem of course is that the japs would probably deploy their carriers to intervene roughly D+30
I don't mean to say that the US was totally responsible for the defense of Australia or NZ but I believe they sent troops there to form a garrison because the Aussie and Kiwi guys were too heavily involved in N Africa.
There are two major problems here Parsifal:
First: is the same problem that Matador ran into - the British can't take any offensive action against Japan until Japan has attacked Thailand and/or the Allies, or else they risk losing US support if it's seen that Britain is the aggressor in the conflict.
The Foreign Office had warned that Japan might send a flottila of ciilian ships into the Gulf of Siam to try to provoke a conflict, so they really had no choice but to wait. So Force Z (with added air cover) is left either hanging around off of Kota Bharu and subject to attack, or else dispatched after Japan has already landed. (which is what happened)
Second: The British do not have prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor, so they would have to assume that all 6 Japanese fleet carriers are available either in the Philippine Sea, South China Sea and/or Gulf of Siam on D +0, not D + 30.
Also, there was no way to know how many bombers the Japanese have available, it could be 60 or 360.
Sending a fleet into the Gulf of Siam is not something that I woud risk, if there are better options available.
The best policy is to have the fleet operate with freindly ground air cover, and beyond the range of Japanese ground based fighters.
I would be more inclined to use the naval assets to block Japanese from gaining entry into the Celebes Sea and Makassar Strait, provided that there is enough air power to counter Japanese movement in the Gulf of Siam.
One question though: While the RN didn't use "deck park" in the Atlantic, the first British fleet carrier operating in the Pacific in late 1942 used deck park to bring capacity up to about 60 aircraft.
Was there any RN analysis of the concept in 1941, and could they have introduced US or Japanese style "deck park" at that time?
.Sending British carriers v the Japanese in 41-early 42 would have been just multiplying the same historical error of underestimating the Japanese compared to the Italo-Germans. This was a problem in US and British approach to the Japanese, and it's telling that the same mentality is still prevalent in some people so long after
Besides the successes of RN carriers well beyond the range of enemy landbased fighters (the role the RN had mainly conteplated for them pre-war), they also had some success marginally within the range of such a/c in the Med.
But marginally. Early on, RN carriers operated in areas where *good interservice coordination by the Italians* would have made it too dangerous, but that cooperation didn't exist. A bit later, the dedicated German anti-ship strike units demonstrated the vulnerability of carriers (eg. Illustrious) that close to land based air which the carriers had no power to suppress, but those German units still didn't have strong or well coordinated single engine fighter support.
Later still, Italo-German strike units supported on paper by large single engine fighter contigents sometimes failed against British convoys covered by carriers (most importantly in Pedestal in August 1942). But in reality the short range of the single engine fighters and again only partial coordination meant that the escorts hardly in fact interfered with the small FAA fighter contingents. And, on average Italo-German antishipping a/c were simply far less effective per unit than IJN ones of late '41-early '42. The best German and Italian units were on a par, but there was lots of 'filler' of Italian, and German as well, bomber units which had quite low hit %'s v ships even after getting past fighters, as compared to JNAF units, even as shown v the RN (so it's not a question of USN ships being easier to hit or less able to defend themselves with AA).
Aggressively committing the available RN carriers to the FE in earl '42, absent coordination with the USN carrier force (which is an interesting what if) would highly likely have meant simply losing them. The limited number of ships and small fighter contingents, partly of obsolete types like the Fulmar (as far as fighter combat, at least) were simply not enough to effectively defend them against the JNAF level of anti-ship capability and long range single engine fighter escort capability.