Possible End of the ww2

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Truman did not work well with Stalin because the war was over. No president would have worked well with Stalin after the war. You have to remember that England and the US were not really friends with the Soviets they just had a mutual enemy to take care of first.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

even during the war Stalin didn't really like us, he was extremely reluctant to let us launch raids against the tirpitz from bases in russia...........

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Oh it was obvious the whole time they did not like each other. The US, England and the Soviet Union were very open about how they felt and the Soviets were very open about there ideas of Expanisionism also.

 

[Nonskimmer]

Well, Churchill had Stalin pretty much pegged from the start. I think Roosevelt was a bit more hopeful about him, at least initially. Some "ally" he turned out to be.

 

[trackend]

As churcill said he would make allies with the devil if it mean't beating Germany. As you say Skim Churchill had no illusions about Stalin after all he did coin the phrase about the Iron curtain falling across post war europe

 

[Chiron]

By the way, was Japan advanced in R D in comparison with Germany? I herd that Japanese actually did try to develop atomic bomb......

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

By the way, was Japan advanced in R D in comparison with Germany? I herd that Japanese actually did try to develop atomic bomb......

I dont really think so. The Japanese took most of there ideas from the Germans. They used projects such as the Me-262, Me-163, V-1 rockets, and so forth. There Submarine (they did not use them as extensively as the Germans) were based off of German designs. The Germans were trying for an Atomic Bomb also and came way closer then the Japanese and may even have detonated a small dirty bomb in 1945. The uranium that that the Japanese were going to use was being sent to Japan on a German U-Boot and was captured by the allies.

 

[MP-Willow]

Japan did have some good R D, but they had problums with quality control and testing. Engines being the main issue. I do not understand why they did not use the subs more. They could have really done some damage, well more then they did.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

You know it is funny neither Japan nor any of the Allies had that extensive of a sub program. The German's obviously believed in them and then after that I think it was the US that used the second most.

 

[MP-Willow]

I would agree. I just cannot understand why with the resurch and commitment to a Navey they did not use subs more.

Question, dose anone know why the RN did not have more subs?

 

[Glider]

I think you wil find that the Japs did have quite an extensive force of Submarines. The problem was in how they used them. They believed in going after the warships not the cargo ships or oil tankers. They would take one if they found it but the plan was to go for the warship.

Some German U boats passed to the Japs when Germany surrendered but they weren't used much and they never followed the advice og the German captains.

Small point about the R&D. The Japenese had a working operational MAD system that sank a number of US submarines. The problem of course was that the aircraft were very vulnerable to attack and despite the losses they sufferred anti submarine warefare was nearly always a low priority.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I know the Japanese did some extensive R&D on them and had quite a respectable submarine force but compared to its large surface fleet it is relatively unknown. The Japanese even built the largest submarines of WW2 and were not even surpassed in size until the 1950's.

Japan had what was easily the most diverse submarine fleet of any nation in the Second World War. These included manned torpedoes, midget submarines, medium-range submarines, purpose-built supply submarines (many for use by the Army), long-range fleet submarines (many of which carried an aircraft), submarines with high submerged speed, and submarines that could carry multiple bombers.

Because of the vastness of the Pacific, Japan built many boats of extreme range and size, many of which were capable of cruises exceeding 20,000 miles and lasting more than 100 days. In fact, Japan built what were by far the largest submarines in the world, indeed, the only submarines over 5,000 tons submerged displacement, or submarines over 400 feet in length until the advent of nuclear power. These same boats were credited with a range of 37,500 miles at 14 knots, a figure never matched by any other diesel-electric submarine. These large boats could each carry three floatplane bombers, the only submarines in history so capable. Japan built 41 submarines that could carry one or more aircraft, while the vast submarine fleets of the United States, Britain, and Germany included not one submarine so capable.

During the Second World War, there were 56 submarines larger than 3,000 tons in the entire world, and 52 of these were Japanese. Japan built 65 submarines with ranges exceeding 20,000 miles at ten knots, while the Allies had no submarine capable of this feat. By 1945, Japan had built all 39 of the world's diesel-electric submarines with more than 10,000 horsepower, and all 57 of the world's diesel-electric submarines capable of 23+ knots surface speed.

The Japanese navy also built submarines with the fastest underwater speeds of any nation's combat submarines. They employed 78 midget submarines capable of 18.5 to 19 knots submerged, and built 110 others capable of 16 knots. As the war was ending they completed four medium-sized submarines capable of 19 knots submerged. This exceeds the 17.5-knot performance of the famed German Type XXI coming into service at the same time. As early as 1938, Japan completed the experimental Submarine Number 71, capable of more than 21 knots submerged.

Japanese submarines employed the best torpedoes available during the Second World War. The Type 95 torpedo used pure oxygen to burn kerosene, instead of the compressed air and alcohol used in other nation's torpedoes. This gave them about three times the range of their Allied counterparts, and also reduced their wake, making them harder to notice and avoid. The Type 95 also had by far the largest warhead of any submarine torpedo, initially 893 pounds (405 kg), increased to 1210 pounds (550 kg) late in the war. All Japanese torpedoes made during the war used Japanese Type 97 explosive, a mixture of 60% TNT and 40% hexanitrodiphenylamine. Most importantly, the Type 95 used a simple contact exploder, and was therefore far more reliable than its American counterpart, the Mark 14, until the latter was improved in late-1943. Japan also developed and used an electric torpedo, the Type 92. This weapon had modest performance compared to the Type 95, but emitted no exhaust and, therefore, left no wake to reveal its presence. Similar electric torpedoes were used by several nations.

Given their size, range, speed, and torpedoes, Japanese submarines achieved surprisingly little. This was because they were mainly employed against warships, which were fast, maneuverable, and well-defended when compared to merchant ships. Japanese naval doctrine was built around the concept of fighting a single decisive battle, as they had done at Tsushima 40 years earlier. They thought of their submarines as scouts, whose main role was to locate, shadow, and attack Allied naval task forces. This approach gave a significant return in 1942 when they sank two fleet carriers, one cruiser, and a few destroyers and other warships, and also damaged two battleships, one fleet carrier (twice), and a cruiser. However, as Allied intelligence, technologies, methods, and numbers improved, the Japanese submarines were never again able to achieve this frequency of success. For this reason, many argue that the Japanese submarine force would have been better used against merchant ships, patrolling Allied shipping lanes instead of lurking outside naval bases. Bagnasco credits the Japanese submarine fleet with sinking 184 merchant ships of 907,000 GRT. This figure is far less than achieved by the Germans (2,840 ships of 14.3 million GRT), the Americans (1,079 ships of 4.65 million tons), and the British (493 ships of 1.52 million tons). It seems reasonable that an all-out blitz of the American west coast, the Panama Canal, and the approaches to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and India would have caused the Allies more difficulty than did the naval deprivations that were actually achieved. Losing a significant number of merchant ships, and also needing to spread meager defenses even more thinly along two coasts, would surely have had some substantial consequences for the United States in 1942.

The Japanese did, of course, make some attacks on merchant shipping in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but these were the minority of missions. Frequently, they waited for fleets that were never seen, supported spectacularly brave but inconsequential reconnaissance flights, or toted midget submarines about, all of which achieved rather less than was possible with so valuable a resource as the Japanese submarine fleet. Worse from a naval perspective, Japanese submarines were increasingly employed in running supplies to the starving garrisons of isolated islands. The Japanese expended hundreds of sorties in this way, which might have otherwise been used offensively against the Allied war effort. A submarine's cargo capacity was much less than that of a relatively inexpensive freighter. However, Japan was understandably reluctant to let island garrisons starve. Additionally, many practically unarmed submarines (including 26 built for Army use) were built specifically for the supply role, consuming production resources as well.

For their disappointing achievements, Japanese submarines paid heavily. Japan started the war with 63 ocean-going submarines (i.e., not including midgets), and completed 111 during the war, for a total of 174. However, three-quarters of these (128 boats) were lost during the conflict, a proportion of loss similar that experienced by Germany's U-Boats. Most of the surviving boats were either dedicated to training roles or were recently completed and never saw combat. Of those which saw significant combat, the toll was very grim indeed. For example, of the 30 submarines that supported the Pearl Harbor attack, none survived the war.

Compared to German submarines, Japan's huge boats were relatively easy to sight visually and with radar, slow to dive, hard to maneuver underwater, easy to track on sonar, and easy to hit. Japanese hulls were also not as strong as those of German boats, and therefore could not dive as deeply nor survive such rough treatment. Also, they lacked radar until the first sets were installed in June 1944, and never had sets as good as the Allies possessed.

Compounding these deficiencies, Japan was at war with the United States and the United Kingdom, two nations embroiled in a vast conflict with hundreds of U-Boats in the Atlantic, and hence two nations which poured lavish resources into anti-submarine warfare (ASW) research and development. As an example of the fruits of this research, in June 1944 the US Navy sank the I-52 by using code-breaking to discover her schedule, finding her at night with radar-equipped carrier-based aircraft, tracking her underwater with sonobuoys dropped by those aircraft, and sinking her with acoustic homing torpedoes dropped by the same aircraft. The Japanese could achieve none of these technological feats at that time.

In the face of such disadvantages, morale declined within the Japanese submarine force. This is reflected in a post-war report prepared by the US and British Navies which states, "It was frankly impossible to believe that submarines could spend weeks on the US west coast 'without contacts,' or spend more than 40 days running among the Solomons during the Guadalcanal campaign 'without seeing any targets.' Even the Japanese commanding officers could not disguise their embarrassment when recounting these tales. Further enlightenment is found in the extremely large number of times the target was 'too far away to attack.'"
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ss.htm

Sen Toku Type

While Japan built many submarines that were larger than those of other Navies, the three Sen Toku boats were far larger than anything ever seen before. Some 60% larger than the largest contemporary American submarine, USS Argonaut, they had more than twice her range. The most unusual feature was that they each carried three floatplane bombers (and parts for a fourth), a feat never achieved by any other class of submarine. These aircraft folded to fit into the 115-foot cylindrical hangar, which was slightly offset to starboard and opened forward to access the catapult. The huge double hull was formed of parallel cylindrical hulls so that it had a peculiar lazy-eight cross section, and may have inspired the Soviet Typhoon-class built some 40 years later. Although aircraft must be considered their primary armament, they also carried a formidable torpedo battery and the usual 14cm deck gun. Anti-aircraft armament included ten 25mm cannons in three triple mounts and one single. Each of these boats had radar and a snorkel.

The aircraft were the Aichi M6A1 Seiran, also carried by the Type AM submarines. Each of these monoplanes could carry one aerial torpedo or a bomb weighing up to 800kg. Powered by the 1,400hp Atsuta 32 engine (similar to Germany's DB601) they had a top speed of 295mph and were credited with a range of 642 nautical miles. The Sen Toku submarines carried four aerial torpedoes, three 800kg bombs, and twelve 250kg bombs to arm these aircraft. These aircraft had their assembly points coated with fluorescent paint to ease assembly in the dark, so four trained men could prepare an aircraft for launch in seven minutes. All three aircraft could be prepared, armed, and launched in 45 minutes.

Unfortunately for Japan, the war situation deteriorated so rapidly that these boats were never allowed to show what they could do. On 26 July 1945, I-400 and I-401 set out on a combat mission to launch their aircraft in Kamikaze attacks on the American fleet anchorage at Ulithi. In coordination with a Kaiten attack, they were scheduled to launch early on 17 August, but by then hostilities had ceased. Both boats therefore returned to Japan and were surrendered to the Allies. After the war, these two were taken to the United States, examined, and finally scuttled in the Pacific in 1946. I-402 was converted to carry precious fuel to Japan from the East Indies, but never performed such a mission. She was scuttled off Goto Island in 1946. Construction of two further boats of this design, I-404 and I-405, was stopped before completion, although I-404 was 90% complete. A further 13 boats were canceled before construction started.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/sen_toku.htm

Units 3 (all survived)
Ships I-400, I-401, and I-402
Year(s) Completed 1944-1945
Displacement 5,223 tons / 6,560 tons
Dimensions 400.3 ft x 39.3 ft x 23 ft
Machinery 4 diesels: 7,700 hp
electric motors: 2,400 hp

Speed 18.75 knots / 6.5 knots
Range 37,500 nm @ 14 knots
Armament 8x533mm TT fwd + 1x14cm/50 cal. (20 torpedoes).
Max. Depth 100 m (330 feet)
Crew 144 officers and men

 

[MP-Willow]

Thanks for the help. I have read some about the I-401. I did not realize that the doctorine was so different. but I do want to look for the MAD design. I know Germany used it on a BV-138.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

MAD design? Are you talking about he mine sweeping aircraft. Germany actually used it on the Ju-52 before they used it on the Bv-138's.

 

[mosquitoman]

The only Aliied plane to use MAD was the Cat, RAF planes used ASV.
MAD was used with retrobombs, designed to fire backwards as the plane passed over the target

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think I am confusing myself with something else.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The only Aliied plane to use MAD was the Cat, RAF planes used ASV.
MAD was used with retrobombs, designed to fire backwards as the plane passed over the target

The B-18 used MAD equipment stateside.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

What exactly is MAD? I thought I knew what it was but I am not sure of it now.

 

[evangilder]

Magnetic Anomaly Detector

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Used for mine sweeping warfare correct? Aha I was correct. I was confusing myself for nothing. I knew I was not going crazy! Yeah it was used on the Ju-52's before it was used on the Bv-138s