Surface Naval Combat

The high metacentric height of Japanese warships to the point where they capsized in rough seas? (See Chidori class)

I think both were executed reasonably well given that they had no hope of success against their opponents.

At least the german's had subs. Japan lost her carriers and then never had a chance. Germany never had carriers, but they knew how to use subs better then the Japanese. Of course, the german sub campaign paled to the American sub campaign against the Japanese.

Americans had the most advance targeting computer in the world. Period.

Japs were also fighting across the Pacific, which is a little bit bigger than the Atlantic.
Germans had a valid strategy and plan, and got outpaced technologically (and, you know, lost everywhere else too) but the Japanese were just hoping the Americans would give up.

Strategically, they had no hope. They fought well enough excepting that, though. The IJN was quite modern and quite competent.

Well, Americans had the most advanced targeting computer in the world if you ignore the Admiralty Fire Control Table the British used. Brits had radar gun laying before the Americans as well, and put it to good use in several situations.

Sorry, torpedo computer.
The American subs had some serious advantages. Having a targeting computer when your enemy doesn't is legit, but when you have a literally world-class one?

(Though their torpedoes...)

I agree with that, although the torpedo thing was because the mag pistols were crap. The contact pistols worked fine. American sub campaign is very rarely taught in history classes, but man did they sink tonnage.

Who /Hearts of Iron/ here?

IIRC, it didn't have the strategic impact of the German one.
The US could actually wage a full-on naval war. The Germans couldn't, so they settled for something they could manage, asymmetric naval warfare. And their enemy was an island, so interdiction did have a valid prize.

From what I understand, the US was just pressing every axishehe of attack they could, wasn't like sub combat was an integral part of their strategy.

The Americans were fighting an Island as well. They sank more then half of all the merchant shipping of the Japanese, and collapsed the japanese economy.

Very pivotal effect on the war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_submarines_in_the_Pacific_War

I love big gun ships! Still seem incredibly powerful, even when put against aircraft carriers and modern ships.

Probably just nostalgia, but old Battleships are just cool.

Kongos were glorified battlecruisers, though,

Kongos were improved Lion class Battlecruisers. Almost every Japanese ship was either built by the British, or a copy of a British ship. Most of the internal systems were quintessentially British as well. The Japanese sucked at building their own designs.

I was always partial to the Panzerschiffs.

>Is there anything more embarrassing than Japan's Pacific Campaign?
Tsushima. Just Tsushima.

One shamefur dishpray for my ancestors.

I really need to get around to getting good at BICE.

Rather, the japs relied on visual targeting and had no radar. Their strategy is to have the biggest gun to one-hit the enemy. Where as, the Americans opted for accuracy where every shot counts.

The problem is that the IJN actually made their two 16-inch battleships slower after their one refit because they were still faster than the 16-inch designs they were intended to counter, and never sortied them in a sensible way. Their 14-inch classes were given multiple refits and rebuilds, which allowed the Kongo class to keep up with carriers. And then they sortied them in surface engagements, losing two in surface action or subsequent air raids, one to a submarine after being damaged by aerial attack, and one at her moorings, too dry to run her turbines. The old 14-inch battleships were hopeless even after the refits.

Basically they had too few ships to start with, couldn't replace their losses, and never once did anything sensible with them.

>wondering if anyone else played big gun battleship games?
I did Hood V Bismarck a couple days ago, testing out an anons rules over in the historical wargame threads /hwg/ Both ships slugged the hell out of each other, but Bismarck was able to critically damage Hoods main dynamo, putting its fire control out of action for a few turns, and giving it the lead in damage. There was no catastrophic explosion like irl, but the chance that it could have happened was there, I just didn't roll any fatal explosions.

I've done Russo-Japanese naval battles and modern naval using harpoon in the past as well. Lots of fun!

The Japanese sucked. The germans were outdated. Only the Italians were competent in the axis fleets.

>Almost annihilated the entire US fleet in one fell swoop
>Captured one of the largest territories ever in the pacific and china
>Sucked
And thats just WW2. They totally raped the Russians in the Russo-Japanese Wars

>Italians
>Competent
Is this bizarro world?

Also, any kind of evidence for your prior two claims. The IJN was modern, the Kriegsmarine laid down 75% of the design work for modern boomers. In fact, modern subs in general. Dat Type XXI.

The Russian Navy Comedy Committee will be remembered for a long long time

Of the three Axis navies, only the Italians managed to achieve their objectives. They kept the British fleet split and not concentrated against Germany. They also managed to get their convoys across the med to supply their forces. So they achieved their two strategic objectives, unlike the Japanese and the Germans.

Pearl Harbor did not eliminate the US Fleet like you claim.

It was a feel good tactical victory at best for the Japanese. They sunk 4 battleships, two of which were easily recovered. They failed to damage a single carrier. They brought a huge industrial power into a war against them, despite evidence that it would not end well.

The Prosperity Sphere was only the largest territory because most of it was unuseable water. Capturing a few islands and knocking over peasants in China means nothing if you can't hold it. Everytime the Japanese came upon even token resistance they got their teeth kicked in.

> The IJN was modern
Modern for a WW1 fleet on steroids.

>the Kriegsmarine laid down 75% of the design work for modern boomers.
Not true. The US Navy pioneered a good portion of modern systems and features literally on the eve of WW2 (long range, air conditioned boats, advanced targeting computers for torpedoes, etc. Germans are remembered for their excellent work on torpedoes, propulsion and their pioneering work on late war underwater hull design. Otherwise the US and Germans were tied in overall innovations of submarine technology.

I'd argue the American Silent Service was better, since it built long range boats that actually strangled an Island economy into submission by sinking more then half of Japan's merchant shipping.

You can't blame the Americans for Japan being retarded.

The Kriegsmarine did amazingly well when you consider that they were ridiculously outnumbered (the entirity of Germany's high seas fleet was destroyed during or after world war 1, so only capital ships they had were the ones they had managed to build between Hitler's rise to power and the beginning of the war), caught completely unprepared when the war started (Hitler had told grand admiral Raeder that England would not join the war until 1945 at earliest, which he had completely believed until the war actually started), and hampered down by byrocratics (one of the reasons they never got aircraft carriers was because the Lufwaffe opposed anybody else but them havign airplanes, and the navy was generally quite underfunded, especially in what turne dout to be their most useful branch, the submarine weapon).

The fact that the Kriegsmarine managed to do so much with so little is a testament to the skill of their commanders and bravery of their men. When he heard that England had declared war on Germany, grand admiral Raeder said that with their current equipment, even if they were to throw everything they had at the Royal Navy, all they would accomplish was to show that the German navy could die with honour. He turned out to be right, on both counts.

pic related

They sunk a few outdated battleships at Pearl Harbor and failed to strike any of the carriers.

The Regia Marina were the exception to the Italian rule, like said. Their naval forces actually seemed quite competent. Their land forces, well... You know.

I have a copy of Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame, and if you can find a group to try that out, I would highly suggest it. My friends and I have played with 1/700th scale ships ina large room on the floor. Super fun game designed to teach good naval tactics, rather than reward chance/random rolls. Shooting is done by pointing and guessing range, and progressive damage weakens/slows ships until they finally sink. Its pretty real feeling. Even have rules for aircraft and subs (though subs are hard, since the game is a lot of information control)

A large amount of the American submarine fleet's success can be attributed to Japanese incompetence when it came to ASW and shipping protection.

Play as the SMS Möve next time.

Uhh, all they did was got sunk.

American sub commanders were just overall better then the germans.

Just stopping by to post my favourite Big Gun ship.