Buckrock
Posts: 578
Joined: 3/16/2012 From: Not all there Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury The Japanese were in trouble! according to HP Willmotts "Empires in Balance" I quote: "With or without war and with or without the indies, the Japanese had problems -- if their calculations were accurate. It almost goes without saying, however, that their figures were wildly inaccurate. The Japanese vastly overestimated their own potential and drastically underestimated their requirements. The notion of a single major engagement showed that the navy really had no inkling of the kind of war it was going to fight. In the first year of the war the navy used 60 percent more oil that it was allowed under any review or plan. Its operations consumed 30,520,000 barrels - 80 percent of the assessed national needs for 1941-1942. Its declining needs thereafter reflected its losses, not its commitments. The Indies maximum production was about 16,670,000 barrels in 1943, actually more than allowed for in the August review, but outflow to Japan fell 60 percent in 1944, mainly because of tanker losses and direct fueling of the navy in southern ports. Domestic production never exceeded 3,400,000 barrels in a year (1943)" The plans he is referring are: - Estimates done by the joint Army-Navy committee done in June 1941. This assumed a shortage of 4.4 million barrels in September 1944 - Navy revision done in August 1941: this saw a period of crisis - low reserve, no shortage - from September 1943 to September 1944. The navy revision assumed significant increases in production in the 3rd year of war, for both the DEI (30,000,000 barrels) and domestic production (4,500,000 barrels). This estimates were very far away from reality I was only addressing the relative fuel oil cost of conducting the Midway/Aleutian operation in relation to Japan's actual 1942 supply (including the better than planned early output from the East Indies). Willmott's figures though are a good guide as to Japan's problems in getting through a war they expected might take up to three years. Even before the war they had recognized a "slight" problem if it went into a third year. It's little surprise then if they were prepared to ignore their oil budget during 1942 in the hope that some decisive victory against the USN might be gained early.
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