Rn vs IJN

[Shortround6]

They didn't have it at Midway, but they actually did have radar, including on carriers. Shokoku got air search radar with a 100km range by August of 1942.

Their carrier fleet was superior in many ways to the USN fleet. It was vastly superior to the RN / FAA in almost every respect (number of aircraft carried, technical capacity to launch aircraft, quality and capability of naval aircraft etc.), and continued fighting effectively and posing a serious threat to the USN, which was their only serious opponent (or potential opponent) for a long time after Midway. Needless to say the RN needed to stay well away from them until the end of the war when they had already been beaten.

I agree with a lot of you post but we have a slipping time line here.
We also have some confusion as to the RN's actually abilities.
Japanese Navy had been beaten by 1944, the Battle of the Philippine sea showed that they had not recovered from the battles of 1942, there were no carrier duels in 1943.
It was the US that beat them in 1942 and not the RN but the RN in 1944 (using US planes) might have been fair match. Maybe using British planes?
The Japanese failed to maintain their technologic lead in carrier aircraft and in 1944 it showed.
So did the Japanese failure to maintain the standards of training needed.
What that battle showed was that things often do NOT follow the expected path. Of the 3 Japanese carriers sunk (out of 9, 3 fleet and 6 light) 2 (fleet) carriers had been taken out by submarines and poor damage control.

In 1942 only occasional Japanese ships had radar. The proportions varied with type, the large ships getting it generally first with smaller ships getting it, in general, much later.
The Hamakaza (Kagero class) was the first Japanese destroyer to get radar in late 1942 while undergoing refit in Japan. Many Japanese destroyers got radar during 1943, the No. 22 type for surface search. Some did not get this set until 1944. The No 13 Air search radar did not show up until 1944.
Basically Japanese destroyers were useless as pickets or scouts until late 1943 or 1944.
Japanese destroyers were very good (best in the world) torpedo launchers in 1942 and early 1943 but were nearly useless for anything else. As the US got better with radar the opportunities for night torpedo action got fewer and fewer. The US not as good as the British with radar in 1942-43.
Not saying the Japanese can't get some successes. Just not as often or as big on average.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Well there were two major carrier battles in 1942 after Midway - Eastern Solomons in 8/42, Santa Cruz in Oct 42, and the IJN proved to be pretty effective in these. Battle of Santa Cruz Islands was considered a Japanese victory, albeit a costly one.

With radar, there are several layers of usefulness, and I really don't know the answer to this, but as far as detecting an air raid goes, how many ships do you need with a radar that has a 60 mile range? The first level of useful aspects of radar is detection that the enemy is near. It would be better to place picket ships with their own radar say another 20-30 miles further out, but that may not always be possible (or safe, due to the risks of air attack) in close-in environments like the Solomons.

The IJN did also have scout planes, which could function day or night, and they had their big flying boats and some of those had radar too.

 

[Shortround6]

The IJN did also have scout planes, which could function day or night, and they had their big flying boats and some of those had radar too.

Ah, yes, the Japanese Ninja scout aircraft that could see in the dark (or clouds) as well as they could in daylight with their superior Japanese optics.
Everybody had planes that could fly at night, wither they should is different. The question of scouting at night is different. Doing a night take-off or landing in order to be over the target zone (patrol area) during daylight (dawn or dusk) is different than actually trying to find ships in the dark. and again lets look at timing. The British were finding ships with airborne radar in early 1941 if not in 1940 (reliability got better).

from Title
this may or may not be 100% accurate so amend as needed.

Airborne Search Radars-type H-6, became operational: August 1942

Regarding the omnipresent big flying boats. (Emily's) they built 1 in Dec 1940, they built 2 pre production aircraft in 1941 and they built 14 production H8K1 production aircraft in 1941-42. These used Kasai 11 or 12 engines. The H8K2s with Kasai 22's don't show up until 1943-45.

The British could do in early 1941 what the Japanese could do in late 1942 (at the earliest) with radar.

according to the site the Japanese built 30 different types of radar sets during the war.
They built 7256 sets total of all kinds during the war.

They built 6 different types (or got 6 types operational) before April of 1944. This is ground/sea and air.

British were sticking radar on everything short of tanks in 1944. Ok Exaggeration but a lot of 4 engine bombers had two radars apiece, the H2S and the Monica tail warning radar.
They had radar on hundreds of MTBs and MGBs and just about anything bigger.
By late 1943 Beaufighters were getting 3cm radar in thimble noses.

Well there were two major carrier battles in 1942 after Midway - Eastern Solomons in 8/42, Santa Cruz in Oct 42, and the IJN proved to be pretty effective in these. Battle of Santa Cruz Islands was considered a Japanese victory, albeit a costly one.

The Battle of Santa Cruz was the pyric victory for the Japanese, they won but lost so many planes/crewmen that recovery to previous standards became impossible. Even a 1 1/2 year gap was not enough regain performance standards. And the US got better in the meantime.

 

[Glider]

If I can turn the clock back a little regarding the effectiveness of the Japanese gunnery. I have been looking at the 2nd Battle of Java when the Exeter already damaged and limited to 23 kts, faced off against four Japanese Heavy Cruisers. These were the Ashigara and Myōkō, with the Nachi and Haguro.

The Japanese opened fire at 10.20, but didn't hit the Exeter until 11.20 when she was hit in the Boiler Room and was reduced to 4kts, effectively stopping her. Only then did the Japanese overwhelm the Exeter when she was hit a number of times and finished off by torpedo's.

That's hardly impressive shooting

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Ah, yes, the Japanese Ninja scout aircraft that could see in the dark (or clouds) as well as they could in daylight with their superior Japanese optics.
Everybody had planes that could fly at night, wither they should is different.

In this case I'm not talking about could or should, but did. They did use their scout planes at night, mainly for naval gunnery spotting / dropping flares, but also for scouting. E7 and E13 type. That is what gave me the notion, not wishful thinking but reading the operational history.

The question of scouting at night is different. Doing a night take-off or landing in order to be over the target zone (patrol area) during daylight (dawn or dusk) is different than actually trying to find ships in the dark. and again lets look at timing. The British were finding ships with airborne radar in early 1941 if not in 1940 (reliability got better).

from Title
this may or may not be 100% accurate so amend as needed.

Airborne Search Radars-type H-6, became operational: August 1942

Regarding the omnipresent big flying boats. (Emily's) they built 1 in Dec 1940, they built 2 pre production aircraft in 1941 and they built 14 production H8K1 production aircraft in 1941-42. These used Kasai 11 or 12 engines. The H8K2s with Kasai 22's don't show up until 1943-45.

They never did have a lot of any type of the big flying boats, especially the H8K, but I believe they had a good number (about 200) of the less impressive but still capable H6K types by 1942. These were being mounted on bombers and flying boats from Sept 1943.

Japanese "General purpose radar" (type 22) was being put on newly made destroyers and on the Kongo class battlecruisers in August and October of 1942, respectively, and then on June of 1943 on light cruisers. The more powerful type 21 was put on the Shokaku in August 1942 and on four light carriers in January 1943.

The British could do in early 1941 what the Japanese could do in late 1942 (at the earliest) with radar.

Agreed, though it seems that the British ships didn't all get radar at the same time, based on some other informative posts in this thread.

according to the site the Japanese built 30 different types of radar sets during the war.
They built 7256 sets total of all kinds during the war.

They built 6 different types (or got 6 types operational) before April of 1944. This is ground/sea and air.

This site seems to be a pretty good overview The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Radar

British were sticking radar on everything short of tanks in 1944. Ok Exaggeration but a lot of 4 engine bombers had two radars apiece, the H2S and the Monica tail warning radar.
They had radar on hundreds of MTBs and MGBs and just about anything bigger.
By late 1943 Beaufighters were getting 3cm radar in thimble noses.

Beaufighters with radar were definitely dangerous, no argument there. That would be one of the best assets for the British, especially once they are carrying torpedoes.

The Battle of Santa Cruz was the pyric victory for the Japanese, they won but lost so many planes/crewmen that recovery to previous standards became impossible. Even a 1 1/2 year gap was not enough regain performance standards. And the US got better in the meantime.

It seems from what I've read, the real damage to the IJN was in the Guadalcanal / Solomons fighting through the end of 1943, and to a lesser extent New Guinea. Which just ground them down in attrition war.

Santa Cruz may have been a pyrrhic victory for the Japanese, but that is cold comfort to the crew on the Hornet.

My point though wasn't that they didn't pay a price for battles, but that they were a tiger that very much had teeth after Midway. The IJN in October 1942 could have still annihilated any fleet the RN could put together at that time.

I think the biggest problem the IJN had as far as aircrew was really their failure to implement a robust search and rescue system for their pilots. They really treated it as an afterthought, whereas the US put a great deal of effort and assets into it.

By the way, vis a vis AAA as discussed previously, the flak seemed to have made an impression on the IJN pilots (from the Wiki):

"Lt. Cmdr. Masatake Okumiya, Jun'yō's air staff officer, described the return of the carrier's first strike groups:

We searched the sky with apprehension. There were only a few planes in the air in comparison with the numbers launched several hours before... The planes lurched and staggered onto the deck, every single fighter and bomber bullet holed ... As the pilots climbed wearily from their cramped cockpits, they told of unbelievable opposition, of skies choked with antiaircraft shell bursts and tracers.

Only one of Jun'yō's bomber leaders returned from the first strike, and upon landing he appeared "so shaken that at times he could not speak coherently".[67]

 

[Shortround6]

In this case I'm not talking about could or should, but did. They did use their scout planes at night, mainly for naval gunnery spotting / dropping flares, but also for scouting. E7 and E13 type. That is what gave me the notion, not wishful thinking but reading the operational history.

Visual Scouting at night, even when you have good idea of where to look (between certain Islands) is rather weather/condition dependent. Moonlight/starlight vs overcast.
The planes with radar are going to be more successful, on average.

Japanese "General purpose radar" (type 22) was being put on newly made destroyers and on the Kongo class battlecruisers in August and October of 1942, respectively, and then on June of 1943 on light cruisers. The more powerful type 21 was put on the Shokaku in August 1942 and on four light carriers in January 1943.

Nobody is really arguing this, the point is that they are about 2 years behind the British, in scale of fitting (how many ships or what percentage of the fleet) and in practice Using radar for over a year or for just a few weeks). Practice in using radar in tactical planning, same sort of deal. It wasn't magic and took a while to sink into some commanders heads. It helped if they had had radar for months and leaned how much they could trust it and how much they couldn't (or trust the crew/s).

Agreed, though it seems that the British ships didn't all get radar at the same time, based on some other informative posts in this thread.

Nobody has been arguing that either. Point is that in 1942 the British had a much, much higher percentage of ships with radar than the US did let alone what the Japanese had. The US was fitting radar a bit quicker at the end of 1942 but then they had fewer ships with radar at the beginning of 1942. Not saying that all British ships had radar at the beginning either.
It gave them a fair amount of redundancy.

Also remember that communications was still rather primitive. Both ship to ship and internal. Just because the ship with radar knew something was out there night time communications could be signal lamps. to let another ship know. Intership voice radio was single channel and subject to interception. This changed as the war went on, both with multi channels and with directional antennae's that reduced the chances of interception.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think the biggest problem the IJN had as far as aircrew was really their failure to implement a robust search and rescue system for their pilots. They really treated it as an afterthought, whereas the US put a great deal of effort and assets into it.

I think it was just as much, if not more, a matter of training regime and pilot rotation. The Japanese took a looooong time training each pilot early on, and also kept veterans on the line until they were lost, as opposed to our practice of rotating experienced pilots back stateside to train new recruits or new squadrons.

That cultural retention of experience made a difference in both ETO and PTO.

 

[WARSPITER]

The type 21 and 22 radar as fitted to many IJN vessels was nowhere near good enough to use for fire control
as it's accuracy and resolution were too poor.

USN and RN ships were already getting radar that could read back shell splashes as opposed to the target without
any need to see the target. Way in front.

The Japanese radars were also poorly manufactured with a maximum time between breakdowns of around two
hours. The valves used generally only had a rate of manufacture of one in a hundred that actually worked.
On Yamato it was found that on average 1 in 6 to 1 in 5 times the radar sets wouldn't even start up as yet
another valve had blown. Technicians to be aboard ship were in short supply as well so most of the time
(if not all), when a valve or resistor blew the reason wasn't traced. The broken item was simply replaced, leaving
it ready to fail again at any time.

If I can turn the clock back a little regarding the effectiveness of the Japanese gunnery. I have been looking at the 2nd Battle of Java when the Exeter already damaged and limited to 23 kts, faced off against four Japanese Heavy Cruisers. These were the Ashigara and Myōkō, with the Nachi and Haguro.

The Japanese opened fire at 10.20, but didn't hit the Exeter until 11.20 when she was hit in the Boiler Room and was reduced to 4kts, effectively stopping her. Only then did the Japanese overwhelm the Exeter when she was hit a number of times and finished off by torpedo's.

That's hardly impressive shooting

Just to add to that, the IJN cruisers fired 1,171 8" shells for two hits at around 18,000 yards.

Samar at Leyte saw 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers taking on 6 escort carriers,
3 destroyers and 4 destroyer escorts (frigates) over two hours in daylight. The result, 2 escort carriers, 2 destroyers
and one escort sunk. Although US aircraft were used many were not armed for ship attack. In the end the IJN
also lost 3 heavy cruisers.

Again, in 1942, Hiei, Kirishima and the cruiser Chikuma vs destroyer USS Edsall. 1,335 rounds for one hit which didn't
sink the destroyer. So many rounds used and still aircraft had to be called in to finish off the destroyer.
The Japanese action report summary rated this action as a fiasco.

IJN gunnery proved to be bad even by World War One standards due to lack of training for long range engagements
coupled with poor fire control where all inputs had to be collated manually and calculations were also manual.
Both RN and USN systems already used mechanical inputs. Compared to allied systems the IJN manual system
in real combat was almost unusable.

 

[EwenS]

By late 1943 Beaufighters were getting 3cm radar in thimble noses.

Which radar are you thinking about?

AI. Mk.VII/VIII/VIIIA went into thimble nosed Beaufighters from Nov 1941. It was a 10cm set.

That radar was taken and modified as ASV.Mk.XII (still 10cm AIUI) for use in Beaufighter TF.X strike aircraft with the first production aircraft to be fitted with the radar, as opposed to simply the aerodynamic thimble nose, being delivered on 2 Dec 1944.

While a number of 3cm radar types entered service with the RAF & RN from early 1944, I'm not aware of any reaching operational status on the Beaufighter. And the 3cm ASV Mk.XIII entered service in 1946 on the Bristol Brigand.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Visual Scouting at night, even when you have good idea of where to look (between certain Islands) is rather weather/condition dependent. Moonlight/starlight vs overcast.
The planes with radar are going to be more successful, on average.

Don't disagree with that. My point regarding radar, is that the biggest advantage provided by early radar was for early warning. Assuming they had charts, enemy vessels or fleets would stand out and alert the commanders that it was 'game on'. Japanese tended to do quite well in this circumstance.

In general I think the best chances for the RN in any fight with the IJN, whether surface combat or carrier warfare, is during squalls.

Nobody is really arguing this, the point is that they are about 2 years behind the British, in scale of fitting (how many ships or what percentage of the fleet) and in practice Using radar for over a year or for just a few weeks). Practice in using radar in tactical planning, same sort of deal. It wasn't magic and took a while to sink into some commanders heads. It helped if they had had radar for months and leaned how much they could trust it and how much they couldn't (or trust the crew/s).

Again, I don't disagree here. Though this process does not seem to be fully resolved by the British either in the first year or two of the historic Pacific war. So I question the extent to which the advantage applies. The RN had a decidedly mixed record in several surface combats with both German and Japanese warships. Maybe this is something to look at more closely.

The RN did, as I've learned in this thread, make good use of radio transponders for tracking though, which is very interesting.

Nobody has been arguing that either. Point is that in 1942 the British had a much, much higher percentage of ships with radar than the US did let alone what the Japanese had. The US was fitting radar a bit quicker at the end of 1942 but then they had fewer ships with radar at the beginning of 1942. Not saying that all British ships had radar at the beginning either.
It gave them a fair amount of redundancy.

Fair points re: redundancy. But as you note, by late 1942 the US had a fairly high number of radar sets deployed. How soon were RN warships equipped with functional combat radar suitable for gunnery? I guess what I'm seeing so far is that radar was very useful for early warning pretty early on, but of limited use for targeting until later. What the precise dates are here I am not yet sure.

Also remember that communications was still rather primitive. Both ship to ship and internal. Just because the ship with radar knew something was out there night time communications could be signal lamps. to let another ship know. Intership voice radio was single channel and subject to interception. This changed as the war went on, both with multi channels and with directional antennae's that reduced the chances of interception.

That was the case that there were serious communications problems on both sides in some WW2 naval battles, but in general this seems to be something the IJN did fairly well.

 

[Glider]

Taking aircraft out of the equation I don't see why the RN would be concerned about a naval battle with the IJN. You mention that the RN had a mixed record in naval combat with the German and Japanese fleets. Granted there will be days when the RN does better than on other days, but I cannot think of one where they did badly. The loss of the Hood so quickly had a lot to do with luck, that aside I cannot think of any bad examples.

Radar would increase the advantage at night, but the standard was pretty good by day or by night

 

[WARSPITER]

An improved Type 284 radar for gunnery control was introduced first on Duke of York in January 1942. Other
vessels already had the earlier version fitted. RN battleships ended up with several types of radar for different
uses including type 285 AA introduced in 1941 and refined throughout the war.

Cruisers and battleships also had the electromechanical Admiralty fire control table fitted which allowed faster
calculations to target in eluding predicted positioning given current course and speed. Radar was used to
gain information for this process and the whole thing was far superior to the manual recalculations required
for IJN ships.

The end result was that japanese radar tended to be two to three years behind and fire control was inefficient
from the start.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The type 21 and 22 radar as fitted to many IJN vessels was nowhere near good enough to use for fire control
as it's accuracy and resolution were too poor.

As i was saying, if you are talking about the early year or two of actual WW2, and specifically with night battles, I think the early warning aspect of radar was pretty important. Radar controlled gunnery was very nice once it was really working, but I think it took a while to figure that out, as there were a lot of elements that needed to be sorted out. Including by the RN.

USN and RN ships were already getting radar that could read back shell splashes as opposed to the target without
any need to see the target. Way in front.

The Japanese radars were also poorly manufactured with a maximum time between breakdowns of around two
hours. The valves used generally only had a rate of manufacture of one in a hundred that actually worked.
On Yamato it was found that on average 1 in 6 to 1 in 5 times the radar sets wouldn't even start up as yet
another valve had blown. Technicians to be aboard ship were in short supply as well so most of the time
(if not all), when a valve or resistor blew the reason wasn't traced. The broken item was simply replaced, leaving
it ready to fail again at any time.

That's interesting

Just to add to that, the IJN cruisers fired 1,171 8" shells for two hits at around 18,000 yards.

And how many hits did Exeter score in that time period? Or the three British destroyers? How many hits did Exeter score in the second engagement?

Exeter got hit by a torpedo from about 14,000 meters and got very lucky that it didn't detonate. A Dutch destroyer was hit and sunk around the same time. As it was Exeter was badly damaged, nearly crippled by gunfire by Japanese warships, not the other way around. Overall I don't think this engagement puts the RN in a good light by comparison with the Japanese.

Samar at Leyte saw 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers taking on 6 escort carriers,
3 destroyers and 4 destroyer escorts (frigates) over two hours in daylight. The result, 2 escort carriers, 2 destroyers
and one escort sunk. Although US aircraft were used many were not armed for ship attack. In the end the IJN
also lost 3 heavy cruisers.

You failed to note that this battle took place amid a series of heavy squalls, which Allied ships made very good use of and were able to hide in, while their radar guided guns (this being October of 1944) enabled them to shoot through squalls accurately. Samar is also noted as an outlier in terms of near suicidal courage, aggression and good (legendary) seamanship by the crews of the USN warships (and good flying by the pilots).

I think you are doing a little bit a cherry picking here.

Again, in 1942, Hiei, Kirishima and the cruiser Chikuma vs destroyer USS Edsall. 1,335 rounds for one hit which didn't
sink the destroyer. So many rounds used and still aircraft had to be called in to finish off the destroyer.
The Japanese action report summary rated this action as a fiasco.

This was indeed a fiasco, but it was also one of the first engagements of the war, and they made changes. Again, I think this is a bit cherry picking. The RN made a lot of mistakes in their first few WW2 naval battles as well, including against the IJN.

IJN gunnery proved to be bad even by World War One standards due to lack of training for long range engagements

I think this is hard to defend. The IJN prevailed in all the naval battles around Java.

Here's another example, their next battle after Java.

At Savo Island (August 1942), the Japanese detected the allied ships first, blasted their first targets (US destroyers) out of the water with a perfectly coordinated salvo at 01:31 am. Then Japanese sighted the rest of the Allied force at a distance of 16km, and launched torpedoes, and float planes (take note, Shortround6). These then dropped flares just behind the heavy cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago, perfectly silhouetting them. Chicago was then hit by a torpedo, and a shell hit the mainmast, and Chicago retreated (without notifying other US ships). Canberra was hit by IJN heavy cruisers 24 times within two minutes, crippling the ship, leaving her listing to starboad. She was then possibly hit by a US torpedo.

Ultimate result - four Allied heavy cruisers and two destroyers sunk, 1,000 Allied sailors killed. 2 IJN cruisers and 1 light cruiser damaged, 58 killed.

Overall I'd say the IJN showed pretty good gunnery, and excellent overall tactical performance by the IJN, though the Strategic results (failing to follow up and destroy US transport ships) wwas considered a blunder, in a pattern fairly typical for the sometimes overcautious IJN commanders.

coupled with poor fire control where all inputs had to be collated manually and calculations were also manual.
Both RN and USN systems already used mechanical inputs. Compared to allied systems the IJN manual system
in real combat was almost unusable.

I think the above shows this to be not only untrue, but absurd. We can look at many others if needed.

 

[RCAFson]

Radar in the RN:

As of 28 Sept 1941 (Howse, p.99-101) :

84 RN ships had at least one FC radar (284/285)
48 cruisers and larger ships has at least one type 79/279/280/281 AW radar
303 RN ships had AW/SW radar (Type 286/286P/290) and 40 had centimetric 27X series radars.

These numbers would have increased somewhat by 6 Dec 1941.

 

[SaparotRob]

Time for some cage rattling.
The RN was the single most experienced surface naval force to that time. In a surface engagement, day/night, no airplanes, I'd bet on the RN.

No, ABDA doesn't count.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Time for some cage rattling.
The RN was the single most experienced surface naval force to that time. In a surface engagement, day/night, no airplanes, I'd bet on the RN.

No, ABDA doesn't count.

If there's no European war, the RN doesn't get that experience.

 

[z42]

Time for some cage rattling.
The RN was the single most experienced surface naval force to that time. In a surface engagement, day/night, no airplanes, I'd bet on the RN.

No, ABDA doesn't count.

Second only to the Chilean Navy, taught by Cochrane himself!

 

[SaparotRob]

The RN has been doing that stuff since Drake received his draft notice. Which navy had the most training and experience since, say about 1890? Tsushima? Manilla Bay? How does that compare to the experience of the Battles of the Dogger Bank, Jutland, Coronel, Falklands, Zeebrugge, ASW,...? Okay that's all I can think of now. My head hurts

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The RN has been doing that stuff since Drake received his draft notice. Which navy had the most training and experience since, say about 1890? Tsushima? Manilla Bay? How does that compare to the experience of the Battles of the Dogger Bank, Jutland, Coronel, Falklands, Zeebrugge, ASW,...? Okay that's all I can think of now. My head hurts

I didn't know Drake knew how to use radar!

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Time for some cage rattling.
The RN was the single most experienced surface naval force to that time. In a surface engagement, day/night, no airplanes, I'd bet on the RN.

No, ABDA doesn't count.

Spoken like someone who really doesn't know much about the navy or naval warfare.