#1: this spin-off is fantastic. mods, maybe break it off in to it's own thread? either way, I'm enjoying this discussion
In 1941 there were entire warfare areas - large-scale amphibious assault and carrier warfare, just to name two - where there had been a lot of thinking and experimenting but very little practical experience. They were aggressive and had trained in what they thought would work, yes; I'm talking about the tactics they'd trained to and how effective they turned out to be. Most of the tactics and concepts developed in the 30s went out the window after first engagements with the Japanese and Germans.
I think that's always going to happen with tactics. If the only way to prove that tactics truly work is to have a succesful wartime engagement, then you're always going to be be going to war with unproven tactics.
Incidentally, one of the best moves the Navy made was to roll all the guys who'd flown in the early air battles of the Pacific to the training command. That meant that the huge numbers of novice pilots who were being churned out at least had the value of being trained by guys with experience.
Concur. The American rotation system turned out to be far more effective than the Japanese/German system of keeping guys in combat until they died. Experience was passed on and integrated in to doctrine/op art/tactics.
The USN was effectively in an undeclared war with the U-Boats from mid-1940 onwards, and there was a lot of development in ASW an convoy work going on between the RN and USN that at least gave us a running start in the Atlantic once war was declared.
Hmm. While we did conduct neutrality patrols, I'm not sure how well they prepared the US. Once Germany declared war there were ships being sunk within sight of major US cities because of unpreparedness. I tend to think that the Battle of the Atlantic is one theater of the war where we could have easily lost. I think the US was bound to win any protracted war against Japan; the Japanese just didn't have the necessary depth.
The Marines really started thinking about large-scale amphibious assault in the 30s, based on their experiences with interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. But the first landings in the Pacific (Maikin Island and Tarawa, for example) were very nearly disasters, and they learned the importance of beach reconnaissance, among other things. And despite all that, when the Army began planning for its assaults in Europe and North Africa, there were precisely zero Marines on the planning staff.
I've read that that had more to do with Army hubris than Marine reluctance to help.
So today we're in a position where we've been in one or more wars for going on 15 years. We've got very good at counter-insurgency and all the flying that goes with it, especially close air support. But the Serbs were the last bunch we went against that had their shit even remotely in one sock when it came to fighting a technological battle. If it ever goes off against the Chinese, there are a lot of doctrines and weapons that are still totally untested. We'll be much more well-trained and equipped and at least as aggressive as the guys of 1942, but it'll be just as much a plunge into the unknown. Though with the added challenge of having to fend off Su-30MKKs and DF-21s while being pinged to finish our PII and traffic safety training.
Agree completely. But I don't know how you'd get tproven tactical experience without going around starting wars with near-peer competitors. I've often wondered about the utility of using so many of our limited resources to deploy overseas and turn circles and wait for trouble to start. Maybe instead of deploying CSGs/ESGs/etc to the gulf they should be kept in the home waters and conduct large scale exercises against each other. And I don't mean the dog-and-pony international exercises that are essentially large scale airshows. Something more akin to the Fleet Problems of the 30s.
Agree with Pags here. The Navy had done some good testing via NWC to determine how best to utilize aircraft carriers and their associated aircraft, much more so than the British. In the end we had already worked up the proper role for carriers in fighting a war, as had the Japanese. (There were still some proponents of the battleship, but it wasn't like that was the only mantra in the Navy at the time.) The entire war in the Pacific had been war-gamed for some time. Once we acquired the PI and tried to figure out how to defend it we knew that any war in the Pacific would involve getting our nose bloodied as we were pushed back to HI or even CA, and then once our industry caught up we would slowly push our way back out. Turns out thats exactly how we fought the war.
The Navy knew the Carrier was going to be big in the next war. The Two-Ocean Navy act that authorized the construction of the Essex carriers was passed in July 1940; 18mo prior to Pearl Harbor.
I think the biggest difference between then and now is that now we rely less on honest war gaming, and theory testing scenarios. For many reasons we just don't allow or don't listen to that type of out-of-the-box thinking that gets us innovative new tactics, equipment, etc. And with the gear we do get, because of the broken acquisition system, we aren't allowed to run an honest evaluation and report that its broken and needs to be improved in x, y, and z areas before we accept it.
Check out my thought above about re-nstating the practice of Fleet Problems. I can't speak to the strength of our wargaming and whether its useful or whether it shows signs of Victory Disease.
I'm curious as to the content of your last post and why you'd say that? I've got 5yrs of Operational Test experience and I guarantee you that the testers do the best job they can to thoroughly and honestly evaluate a system. The reports that COMOPTEVFOR produces speak to the problem areas of systems and often result in follow on testing to correct deficiencies that were identified during initial testing.
Something that was demonstrated amply in the Battle of Midway. While Army, Marine and some Naval aviators from Midway tried all day to hit the Japanese fleet they had zero hits, it wasn't until later in the day the carrier-based dive bombers came along and hammered the Japanese carriers with brutal efficiency. While all the pilots were brave men the carrier-based dive bomber pilots were the ones that had the right equipment and training to hit moving ships while the rest did not (the torpedo plane pilots had the right training but obsolete equipment and paid the unfortunate price). That is where the pre-war training paid off since the air wings were still almost exclusively made up of pre-war aviators at that point.
I'd argue that for a unit to be effective it needs to have three Ts: tactics, training, and technology. Sometimes shortcomings in one area can be made up for by strengths in other areas, but other times large shortcomings in one area will be made up by strengths in the other. The VTs had the tactics and training. But their technology, both the Devastator, and it's primary weapons system, the Mk14 Torpedo, were completely non-effective. However, once the technology was improved with the Avenger and improved torps, the VTs became a fairly potent weapon. The VB/VSs had the three Ts and were successful throughout the war. The VFs were hampered early on by a lack of effective fighter direction control (but at least they had it. The IJN had none and their CAPs were poorly organized). Once that was improved, American CAPs were far more successful.
Anyway, point is that it's oversimplifying it to say that training paid off at Midway. A lot of guys were slaughtered using unproven tactics and airplanes in the first years of the war, too. Yes, the VB squadrons were in the right place at the right time and pressed home the attack at Midway. But the Marines in the Buffalos, entire VT squadrons lost on their runs, early-make Wildcats getting torn up by the Zeros... In a current war, there's no way we'd look at a strike on a Chinese carrier that took 60% casualties and say "well, the training paid off". And it'd be pretty damn near impossible to replace those losses, too.
I was often under the impression that the VFs were slaughtered early in the war, but "The First Team" and "Shattered Sword" show that the VFs comported themselves very well against Zeros flown by combat veterans. The IJN aviators were surprised to find that the Americans were peer competitors. To go back to my 3 Ts, the VFs did suffer from mediocre technology with the Wildcat. Once the tactics were further developed by Jimmy Thatch the Wildcat proved to be able to fight the Zero.
The VMFs flying Buffalos were woefully lacking in technology. VMFs equipped with Wildcats at Wake faired much better.