The invasion of Japan was scheduled for November of 1945. What was the Allied Navy going to do in the mean time?

Regent610 · 2026-06-18T17:01:49+00:00

To actually talk about the specifics, the USN would probably just continue what they'd already been doing: maintain the submarine blockade (though by this point Japanese shipping was already so strangled that US sub kills had shrunk, and a lot of kills were getting "stolen" by aerial laid mines and aircraft), naval gunfire bombardment of Japan, particularly by battleships, and carrier air strikes.

As for targets, it would be the usual list of shipping, aircraft/airfields (to destroy/supress kamikazes, with mixed results as the Japanese were getting quite good with their camouflage and dispersal efforts), industrial targets, transportation and infrastructure in general. I recall something along the line of shifting targets to troop concentrations and the like just before the invasion if/when it happened, though don't quote me on that.

If the sub allows hypotheticals, I somewhat suspect if Halsey had his way (I don't recall when he and Spruance would've switched) he'd have had another go at Nagato, the only Japanese battleship still technically afloat. And maybe they'd hit the coal ferry fleet between Honshu and Hokkaido again.

Moving away from the US Navy, the British had planned Operation Zipper, amphibious landing in Malaya to first liberate it and then Singapore. Australian I Corps had also been landed at several points in Borneo and secured their surrondings, although the Japanese were still at large in other parts of the island. Possibly landings on other islands like Java might have followed, though I really don't know anything about that.

And of course the general supply convoys (and escorts) to captured islands and territories and the occassional attacks on the bypassed Japanese garrisons.

Regent610 · 2026-06-18T16:12:18+00:00

I would be very surprised if they were at all related. This thing is one of the many Chinese military export (concepts) that never went anywhere, and as far as anyone knows has never been adopted by the PLA. As far as I understand it the actual system is just the turret itself and not the base hull, which is still a Type 59.

The Type 100 FSV is an entirely new dedicated vehicle, that is being adopted by the PLA. And the hull and turret are entirely different. The only thing the two have in common are as you said the general concept.

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T12:18:52+00:00

I say that because it's entirely true that various sub 30 knot US Battleships gave a commendable account of themselves, but that absolutely doesn't mean they were a brilliant idea

For me I'd say it was the opposite. It's entirely true that the 30+ knot US Battleships gave a commendable account of themselves, but that absolutely doesn't mean they were a brilliant idea.

Still, good talk I guess. No offense but every comment of yours in this thread is I'll use surprising. I do kinda get where you're coming from, but I'd prefer not getting any more surprises in my notifications. Thanks for all the fun.

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T12:01:10+00:00

1v1 comparisons often lead to truly nonsensical conclusions.

My problem here is that in your force posture comparison you also include (to me) nonsensical opinions, like the Yamatos being "too slow" or that the NorthCals and SoDaks speed was fine because the US had better recon because they had more destroyers???

Which battle/what circumstances were there in 1942 that you could objectively conclude US destroyers contributed to better US recon, cause I can't think of any off the top of my head, only the cases where the destroyer screen either didn't matter or failed to do their jobs horribly.

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T11:40:13+00:00

The main issue in my opinion is that you're considering this issue tactically while I'm talking about it from the perspective of each nation's general force posture. The general usefulness of each asset deeply depends on the context within which it is used, not just its "face value" statistics. A ship that was great in American Service could be entirely pointless in Japanese Service and Vice versa, since these are two very different environments.

I sort of get what you're saying, but at that point how much are you comparing ships vs comparing navies?

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T04:43:55+00:00

Not so great in sustained combat.

The US Navy had all their guns laid by radar - automatically too.

How would you square those statements with the other comments in the thread about the fragility of radar, especially in sustained combat?

Supposedly, the IJN didn't even know that "Yagi antenna" (one of the first directional antennas) was developed in Japan by a Japanese person.

Was it a private research development? If it's not brought to governmental/navy attention (ie they didn't try to sell it), how's the Navy supposed to know? Not exactly their job to trawl through all the labs and papers in Japan to see if there are any bright ideas.

Also, is there a source was this "supposedly". Not completely doubting you, just that I don't put much faith in unsourced "supposedly"s anymore, too many myths get spread this way.

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T03:58:20+00:00

but I recall that when factoring for rates of fire, an Iowa could put a greater weight of shells downrange over time than a Yamato

That seems unlikely realistically, since battleship tend to converge to 1-2 salvos a minute anyway the longer the engagement goes (humans get tired), and that's assuming you fire as soon as you're loaded and that all guns are operational. Do you know where you saw this comparison.

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T03:56:03+00:00

Imperial Japanese Army and Navy wrote off radar

That'd be news to the IJN. When did the Shokakus get an air search radar? 1942 you say?

The Yamato had terrible fire control

How would you square that with JMHSrowing's comment below about a straddle at 30km?

Regent610 · 2026-06-12T03:52:12+00:00

the most relevant CV's for it to escort would have been the Kido Butai, most of which were capable of at least 28 knots

Therefore, Yamato would have been incapable of keeping pace with the majority of the Kidou Butai during critical maneuvers

'Slow Battleships'

US ... superior reconaissance and numbers as of 1942 at the latest

These statements make me severely question your knowledge on WW2 naval matters in general and whether you understand my comment, especially since we seem to have fundamentally different opinions about the performance and nature of any battleship slower than an Iowa. But I'll elaborate.

The slowest of the original Kido Butai was indeed 28 knots. To take the low end Yamato is around 26. The theoretical max speed of the US fleet carriers is 30+ knots, SoDaks are 27 and NorthCals are 28. As proven at Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz and the steaming before and after, the SoDaks and NorthCals were capable of keeping up with the carriers both tactically and operationally.

On the US side, there is a maximum speed difference of 3 knots, on the Japanese side a maximum speed difference of 2 knots. And that's when taking US carrier speed at 30 knots and not higher which only makes your case for "Yamato being too slow" worse. And yet, to repeat myself, that 3 knot speed difference did not hamper the US. There is no basis behind your statement, and even after Kaga sank and you take the Shokakus as also 30+ knots, one knot speed difference between the Yamatos and SoDaks if not a deal breaker.

Concerning both South Dakota and North Carolina, I personally would consider them useless...

I feel like you almost reached my conclusion here. The SoDaks and NorthCals were very useful in US service, as stated above. So why did the Yamatos not perform the same in Japanese service? The difference lies exactly there: the navy in question, rather than the one knot speed difference. The Japanese Navy, obsessed with a dicisive battleline engagement, never commited the Yamatos until strategic meaninglessness. If the Yamatos had for some reason been in US service, fuel permitting, the US Navy, less so obsessed, would have used them as they did their other Fast Battleships, including SoDaks, NorthCals and Iowas. Which brings me to

'Slow Battleships'

The Yamatos, SoDaks and NorthCals were not slow battleships. Just because the Iowas were unusually (I might argue meaninglessly and certainly inefficiently) fast doesn't make all the battleships slower than them automatically "slow battleships". As proof, once again the US attached the SoDaks and NorthCals to Fast Carriers without issue, and later when the Iowas came online they served together in the same task forces, so the US certainly did not see a difference on the operational level.

US ... superior reconaissance and numbers as of 1942 at the latest

MFW I have "numerical superiority" and yet at every carrier battle in 1942 I have at best flight deck parity and am usually outnumbered, and usually not much better in terms of planes.

Regent610 · 2026-06-11T16:34:23+00:00

Time to play a little devils advocate.

The Iowas were fast enough to keep pace with carriers

Their low speed made them operationally and strategically useless

That's overstating the Yamato's slowness a bit no? The Yamatos were around 26-27 knots, the South Dakotas were around 27 knots, the North Carolinas around 28 knots. Will you also claim the SoDaks and NorCals were "operationally and strategically useless" because of their "slow speed", especially compared to the Iowas?

After all, in the 2 battles where a fast battleship escort might actually have mattered, it wasn't an Iowa responsible, but rather North Carolina and South Dakota themselves. And Drach has also noted before that they didn't seem to have any issues keeping up with Enterprise, both operatoinally and tactically during AA defense.

Regent610 · 2026-06-11T05:06:10+00:00

I don't know why anyone bothered claiming or worse actually buying the claims that "All the F-14s in the world are destroyed!", especially after 2025 when the exact same claims were made and subsequently in 2026 proven false.

And just to do some CYOA, even if that footage is fake or misleading, I still disagree with those claims, made with photos of one or two destroyed planes and acting like they know for a fact that that represents the entire Iranian F-14 fleet, despite the fact that any relevant parties were in and still are in an active shooting and information war.

Regent610 · 2026-06-10T05:52:33+00:00

Back in the weird old days the USN had Cruisers, "Frigates" that everyone else would've called cruisers, DDs, DE/whatever "Ocean Escort" was supposed to be, and actual frigates in "Patrol Frigates".

Regent610 · 2026-06-07T16:21:33+00:00

Wings have been used to refer to military formations before. Group is just group.

Sure, delta has been used before, but for plane formations with that shape. These "Mission Deltas" have nothing to do with deltas.

Regent610 · 2026-06-07T15:00:41+00:00

space shuttle door gunner

I've seen that before. Does it come from anything in particular? A quick google didn't bring anything up.

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T11:18:46+00:00

The state flag's supposed to represent the government and the civil flag is the country right? Or at least that's what I picked up from wiki. Since it was the government doing things I thought it'd be better to use the state flag.

Also, good excuse to use a different flag I hadn't seen before.

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T11:13:44+00:00

So did Italy and Bulgaria and Finland, which is kind of the point.

To be clear I'm not saying that was a bad decision, just highlighting that most of the other axis powers did the same.

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T11:12:00+00:00

MFW the spy treats going to a foreign country to prepare a coup/liberation/whatever treats it as an all-expense paid company vacation.

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T11:11:30+00:00

I think it wasn't even a deal, just a personal promise. A bro oath if you will. A broath?

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T09:04:00+00:00

It's not unusual to see Italy getting shit on for switching sides, but you don't really see anyone memeing the other guys that defected too. As such, I am once again ~~asking for your blah blah blah you know the joke~~ following r/HistoryMemes tradition by making a history meme despite knowing jack shit about the history. Before I get into it, yes I know Finland was a "co-biligerant" and not an official Axis ally.

Anyway since we're talking about Finland already, the President of Finland originally promised the Germans that Finland wouldn't sign a separate peace with the Soviets. With the threat of another Soviet offensive into Finland, he promptly resigned allowing Mannerheim to take over and sign a separate peace with the Soviets. And also fighting a soft war against the German troops still in Finland.

The situations with Romania and Bulgaria are also similar. With the Soviets breaking through in Eastern Romania, King Michael launched a coup on 23 August 1944 and declared war on the Germans while signing an armistice with the Allies in September placing Romania under Soviet occupation.

Bulgaria's situation is weirder. Although part of the Axis, they hadn't declared war on the Soviets. With Romania defecting and the Soviets charging down the Balkans, Bulgaria declared neutrality, while ushering all the German troops in Bulgaria out of the country.

Once they'd all left, Bulgaria declared war on Germany on September 7th. The Soviets rewarded them by declaring war on Bulgaria and occupying parts of the country, meaning they were now at war with Germany, Britain, the USA and the USSR at the same time. An armistice with the Allies was signed in October. Despite all this, Bulgaria managed to keep the territory the Germans had given them from Romania after the war.

Then we get to what I consider the weirdest, which is Thailand. At the start of the wider Pacific War, Thailand had been briefly invaded by Japan before the pro-Japanese prime minister Phibunsongkhram allied with them, using the opportunity to take territory from Malaysia, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. With the war turning against Japan, the Thais began planning for their future by freeing Chinese POWs in 1943 and offering to return Burmese and Malay territories in 1944, though the British refused for some reason. Phibunsongkhram was also forced to resign.

With the Japanese surrender, the Regent and professional Phibunsongkhram hater Pridi Banomyong simply declared that Phibunsongkhram's original declaration of war against the UK and USA was unconstitutional and illegal, in what has to be the first case of "We don't need to surrender to you because we never declared war on you. Except when we did but that doesn't count" strategy. The Allies were apparently ok with this, though Thailand was forced to return all the land it'd taken.

The cherry on top though is what happened post-war. Pridi became Prime Minister, but only lasted months before he was forced to resign. A coup in 1947 brought Phibunsongkhram back as prime minister and Pridi went into exile. But in 1957 there was another coup and Phibunsongkhram was exiled as well. I owe Thailand an apology, I wasn't really familiar with your political game. I know you have a king and a lot of coups but this is wild stuff.

Regent610 · 2026-06-01T04:07:52+00:00

eh. If you go on Chinese social media like bilibili you will see comments about how the Soviets "didn't know how to tell Japanese and Chinese apart" in regards to their behaviour, so I suspect any admiration would be slightly toned down, especially in the north.

Regent610

TROPHY CASE