Battle of the Philippine Sea - can you afford your battle plan?

Battle of the Philippine Sea 80 years ago (19–20 June 1944) wrecked carrier aviation of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Much was told about qualitative and quantitative superiority of the US Navy in this battle. Indeed, those were a factor in battle. 

Less is told about battle tactics of the opposing commanders.

Spruance’s tactics of “wait and see” was unimaginative. But he could afford it, after all IJN simply had to come to Saipan to save IJA garrison, where USN was waiting in force.

Ozawa’s tactics of outranging the enemy and aiming not for sinking the enemy carriers, but for eliminating their flying decks, was very bold and novel. But could he afford it?

To find the enemy at great distance Ozawa needed good reconnaissance crews. Which he didn’t have. As a result a lot of his force was simply wasted due to errors of recce crews.

To eliminate many US carriers’ flying deck at once, IJN strike groups were ordered to spread into many targets – failing to hit a single US carrier.  BTW, much-praised US fighters failed to intercept a single attack against US CVs.

After the defeat Ozawa bemoaned, that his force was of poor quality and was unable to fulfill his bold plans. That’s true. But isn’t it commander’s duty to make plans according to the actual quality of his force and not some fantasies?

Airborne Brigade, Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, organization c.2010

OOB of BMD-armed airborne brigade. 

UAF had only one such brigade - 25th Airborne Brigade, formed in 1993.

Seems its organization and armament changed little between at least 2003 (if not 1993) and 2015. 

When lawyers decide on warship building

 When lawyers decide on warship building.

"Akagi" postcard from https://www.oldtokyo.com/

Based on her early photo without turrets.

See the upper hangar has open sides? Why is this? After all, wet surrounding is not the best place to store aircraft.

The reason for this is LEGAL. At postcard’s bottom is an official displacement of "Akagi" – 26500 tons. Within the limits of Washington Naval Treaty. What if your ship is going to be above the treaty limits? – You remove walls of upper hangar and declare hangar not a part of the hull, but upper deck with rain cover in from of the flying deck. Such arrangement does not count against ship’s displacement.

I’d really like to know the name of the lawyer, who came up with this idea.

This arrangement wouldn’t last long. It turned out no Washington Naval Treaty member was eager to make a fuss over some minor treaty violations, so in a year sides of upper hangar were plated to ensure proper aircraft storage (see 1930 photo below).

Some more photos and postcards of "Akagi" in 3-flying deck configuration:

Airmobile Brigade, Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, organization c.2007-2012

Interesting attempt to combine airmobile helicopter-borne infantry and helicopters in one brigade. As in other countries, such arrangement proved unsuccessful, because even better armed armies haven't got enough helicopters for this.

There was only one such brigade the Ukrainian Armed Forces - 79th Airmobile Brigade (Mykolaiv), formed in 2007 from the 79th Airmobile Regiment and the 11th Army Aviation Regiment. 

In 2012 Army Aviation Regiment was removed from the brigade. To keep the brigade status, new airmobile battalion was formed.

At the same time the 80th Airmobile Regiment (Lviv) had similar composition, but without Army Aviation Regiment.

Mechanized Brigade, Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, training OOB, 2018.

 Mechanized Brigade, Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, training OOB, 2018.

This is how ideal brigade looked in the eyes of Ukrainian generals in 2018. Note the whooping number of UAVs - 6. It was considered quite impressive by then standards.

IJN chain of command 1941-1945 from Japanese Monograph No.116

 

Midway Battle 1942 - Myth on unwise IJN battle deployment

I was surprised to find out, that some people really believe IJN plan for Midway operation was to send Nagumo’s carriers into US ambush, while deliberately keeping other forces too far away to help. 

Of course, this is incorrect. IJN forces were to be spread broadly only during an approach march. For battle IJN forces to be organized into 3-5 mutually supporting groups. Their deployment to be covered with submarine picket lines (crimson dotted line) and air reconnaissance, which covered whole area of planned battle with US fleet (yellow dotted line). See planned IJN disposition for the battle with US fleet - in crimson.

Of course, IJN had no idea that USN was reading their codes and waited for IJN in an ambush. So part of IJN fleet was ambushed and destroyed during pre-battle operations. And USN was too cautions to get lured into ambush, organized by IJN as “plan B”. So IJN had to withdraw.

I expect a logical question: why IJN couldn’t approach battle area in few mutually supporting groups? It could hardly help Nagumo’s carriers, but “plan B” could be played much better. The reason is weird belief of IJN leadership, that USN is lacking will to fight. If the whole might of IJN will arrive to Midway, US fleet will “chicken out” and remain in Pearl Harbor.

So the bait was necessary: big enough to send whole US fleet to defeat it, but small enough to be easily defeated by US fleet. Nagumo’s carriers and Kondo’s cruisers were this bait. And the rest of the IJN fleet has to hide until US fleet will approach Midway.

This was the reason for IJN forces spreaded so broadly during an approach march – even if US submarine will find one group by accident, it won’t be able to report the actual strength of whole fleet.

This part of IJN plan actually worked – USN was unable to uncover full IJN order of battle and thought IJN forces were much smaller, than they actually were. The irony – this lack of knowledge allowed US commanders act way bolder, then if they knew they are facing almost whole IJN fleet.