Egy zárt fb csoportból, angolul, remélem, nem haragudnának, hogy bemásolom ide.
Röviden, a győztes orosz-japán háború után a japánok az amerikaiakban látták a legpotenciálisabb ellenfelet, akikkel háborúba keveredhetnek, innentől ellenük igyekeztek felkészülni. A stratégia magja egy mindent eldöntő csata volt (mint amilyennek a Sárga-tengerit tervezték, és végül Csuzima lett), ez előtt annyit akartak gyengíteni a Japán felé tartó, erőfölényben lévő amerikai flottán, amennyit csak lehetett (végkimerülésig gyakorolt kisebb éjszakai ütközetekkel, ezekben egyértelműen a világ legjobbjai voltak, majd később ezt nagy hatótávolsűgú repülőgépek támadásával egészítették ki). Igyekeztek minőségileg jobbak lenni, mint az amerikaiak (pl növelt lőtáv, ezért voltak olyan magasak a japán csatahajók felépítményei, ezért növelték az ágyúk csőemelkedését, dolgoztak ki hatékonyabb lőport, de pl ezért fejlesztették ki az oxigén hajtású "Long Lance" torpedókat, és a sort még hosszan lehetne folytatni).
Az angol szöveg:
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After the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the Japanese navy determined that the USN would be its most likely opponent in any future war. Their planning foresaw an American advance across the Pacific ocean to the shores of Japan. As a smaller naval power, the Japanese knew they would be outnumbered and hoped to offset that American numerical advantage by fighting a "decisive battle" near its own shores on its own terms. This was how they had defeated the Russian fleet at Tsushima in May 1905. Over the years the plan was modified to incorporate new weapons and technologies. Originally, the battle location was near Formosa and finally off the Marianas Islands.
Between the wars, the Japanese focused virtually their whole naval effort on this concept. Japan's battleships were reconstructed between the wars to increase their protection, speed and fire power. Towering "pagoda" masts were designed to place rangefinders as high as possible to increase visibility to over 40,000 meters. Gun mountings were modified for a maximum range of 35.500 meters (38,800 yards) for the 14" guns and over 38,000 meters (41,500 yards) with higher powder charges and a new shell design. the Japanese believed that they would outrange their American opponents and planned to open fire at 34,000 meters, 3,000 meters beyond the maximum range of their opponents.
The Japanese plan also included attacking the Americans as they moved towards japan prior to the main engagement. Japanese submarines and long range aircraft would whittle down the Americans before they reached the battle location. In the mid 1930's, the Japanese navy designed and produced twin engine bombers not to attack land targets but to attack ships at sea from island air bases.
The night before the main engagement, the Japanese planned a large scale night attack on the American main body. Two night combat groups would form, each group containing two Kongo fast battleships, a torpedo cruiser carrying 40 Type 93s, a heavy cruiser division, and two destroyer flotillas.. Their purpose was to strike the American main body using their superior torpedoes and night fighting tactics to sink ships and demoralize the Americans. Japanese cruisers and destroyers carried reloads for the day phase of the battle.
For the day phase, the Japanese planned to approach the American main force on a parallel course, the four Kongos would lead a vanguard containing two heavy cruisers divisions, the two torpedo cruisers. and three destroyer flotillas. This vanguard would be 20,000 meters ahead of the Japanese battle line. The vanguard would fire a mass salvo of 280 Type 93s at a range of 20,000 meters. The launch would not be seen and arrive at the American battle line about 20 minutes later. The Japanese hoped for 10% hits which they considered to be devastating.
The Japanese battle line would initially open fire at about 34,000 meters and close to 19 to 20,000 meters which was the optimum range for the Type 91 AP shell which was optimized to follow an underwater trajectory and strike below the enemy armor belt. Fire would be concentrated on the first few ships of the American battle line as they came into range. Three submarine tenders were designed to launch midget submarines in the path of the Americans to attack as well.
In line with other navies, the Japanese aircraft carriers played a subservient role to the battle line. Instead of striking independently, their task was to maintain air superiority over the area of the battle, shooting down enemy spotting planes.
Over the years, the Japanese refined the plan and trained for it under the harshest of conditions for realism. To build warships that were qualitatively superior to their American counterparts, treaty limits were ignored and overweight ships had sever stability problems requiring extensive rebuilding. In 1938, the battleship Nagato practiced opening fire at 34,600 meters. In 1939, the navy reported that in battle practice using spotter planes, the Nagato was able to make 12% hits at 32,000 meters.
In retrospect, the Japanese plan for a decisive battle has been poorly reviewed as archaic and too dependent on the enemy to act in concert with your desires. Changes in war plans in 1940 concentrated Japanese carriers into a single formation as an independent striking force, a concept never incorporated because of of Pearl Harbor. Japanese naval planners overestimated the American ability to logistically support such an advance to Japan with a peace time navy. Japanese battleships were unable to fire in combat as well as they had in training.
The rub here is the decisive battle never occurred, but the weapons and tactics developed for that battle stood the Japanese in good stead early in the war especially at night where their superior training, torpedoes, and night optics were a shocked to the USN in the Solomons. At Tassafaronga, a handful of Japanese destroyers on resupply mission to Guadalcanal soundly defeated a superior, radar equipped American cruiser-destroyer force, sinking one heavy cruiser and damaging three with a devastating torpedo salvo. This is a tantalizing glimpse of how Japanese torpedoes might have worked in the decisive battle. The light cruisers Oi and Kitikami were converted in August 1941 as torpedo cruisers to support the decisive battle. Both could launch two salvos of 20 Type 93s and could have been very effective in the narrow waters of the "slot". Ironically, changing war fortunes saw them converted to fast transports in August of 1941 just at the time they could have been most useful in their original role.
This information drawn from "Kaigun" by mark Evans and David Peattie."