"Japanese Navy VS US Navy of 1904 ?" Topic

Who would win this if the two were at war in 1904 instead of 1941 ?

America, eventually.

What is the setting, what are the campaign aims? Allies? Political background? etc.

Say a similar size navy force against each other . I quess my question should be who's ships and tactics and training would faire better in a single fight ?

Might be interesting considering the Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty of 1902 which was renewed in 1905 and 1911. Had it been a straight up fight between the USA and Japan, the UK would have, under the terms of the treaty, remained neutral but had anyone come in on the US side – and the Russians, Germans and French were all also spoiling for a fight with Japan after their occupation of the Liaodong Peninsula and, subsequently, the actual war with Russia which was ongoing in 1904 – the Brits could easily have been involved. The Royal Navy had formally adopted the Two Power Standard in 1889 and it was still in force. Make of that what you will.

If in 1904 Japan had become embroiled in a conflict with the USA instead of Russia, and if that conflict was to be fought in western Pacific waters, I would not necessarily bet against the Japanese.

Looking at the ships, the USN had a 12 to 6 advantage in battleships, and even if they left the low freeboard Indianas and the light hitting Iowa at home, they would still have an 8 to 6 advantage, if we include ships that went into service in 1904. And the most modern USN battleships could out gun the IJN ships in main armament as well as quick-firing secondary guns.
However, the IJN had a big advantage in armored cruisers, but they would have had to put at least two in their line of battle, like they did at Tsushima.
In protected cruisers there wasn´t much difference between the two navies, although many of the older USN ships were not fitted with torpedo tubes (to my knowledge) even though space was allocated for them.
Where the IJN had a huge advantage was in destroyers, but torpedoes in 1904 were not what they were in 1941.
Still, if logistics come into play, then the USN would have had a hell of a long way to go just to get to the fight, and that would have had a huge influence on the outcome.
With manpower, I think both navies at that time were pretty much even. They had both recently defeated an inferior enemy (Japan against China in 1894 and the US against Spain in 1898)and their morale was quite high.
In the end I think the battlewagons would have won the day, so USN just barely over the IJN.

Of course, that is only my opinion and one never knows what luck and weather would have done to confuse the issue.

I like this fictional war so much I started developing a campaign for it, but I moved the date out to 1907-1908 to balance the scenario a bit, and I made it a territorial war over the Philippines to limit and define the scope. Since the RJW is over, Russia can't interfere, the other Europeans are more reluctant to try a war in such a distant theater, and the Japanese fleet gets bolstered by some captured Russian vessels and a few semi-dreadnoughts (and semi-battlecruisers…?). The limit to the Philippines clearly defines the theater, provides a clear end point (full loss of Philippines for one side), and a terribly long and fragile logistical tail for the USN (meaning lots of potential cruiser/convoy battles). The Japanese are in a race against time, since the USN has its first dreadnoughts working up, presumably available by late 1908 if it becomes an emergency.

If you keep the JAW (Japanese-American War) in 1904, the US has a material advantage already, and as mentioned above, the other European powers (esp. Russia) would be more emboldened to eat away Japan's regional interests on the fringes (China, Formosa, Korea, etc.) since none of them yet believe Japan can win a war against Europeans.

- Ix

Hi TJ,
Not sure about those VIRGINIA class BBs being ready for war service in 1904.

BB13 Virginia – L. Apr 04; C. May 06
BB14 Nebraska – L. Oct 04; C. Jul 07
BB15 Georgia – L. Oct 04; C. Sep 06
BB16 New Jersey – L. Nov 04; C. May 06
BB17 Rhode Island – L. May 04; C. Feb 06

L. = Launched; C. = Commissioned.

B

Hi Blutarski,

You are certainly right about the Virginia class, but the most modern ships I was talking about were the Maines. I believe all three were commissioned by 1904, and they would have been very tough against the IJN ships, with Mikasa being the most modern.
I imagine the Indiana class would have stayed home, as well as Iowa, but the less than ideal Kearsage and Kentucky would be in the line of battle, along with the Illinois and Maine classes.
The only advantage for the IJN in the big ships that I can see (aside from the very significant logistical advantage) is all of their battleships being faster than the USN´s older ships, while being equal in speed to the Maine class.

@Yellow Admiral

Setting the fight later does make it more fun. Aside from the bigger Japanese ships you also get to play with those big Pennsylvania and Tennessee class armored cruisers!

To quote an answer I wrote on Quora about this scenario:

I'm going to disagree with everyone else, and say Japan would win.

Yes, the USA had a similar advantage in population as they would later enjoy in WWII, and their advantage in industrial capacity was in fact far more marked (most of the Japanese fleet in 1905 had been constructed in Europe).

But taking about industrial capacity presupposes total war, and total was was extremely unlikely in 1905. Why?

First of all, Japan was allied with Great Britain. The USA was allied with no one. If the Americans attacked the Japanese, they would also end up at war with the British Empire (and the Americans were not that stupid; they would have gotten their address handed to them).

So this means a Japanese attack on US possessions would likely be the casus belli. As actually happened in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan being the aggressor would free Britain from any treaty obligations, leaving the war a one-on-one.

But the Japanese would have had an extremely difficult time managing a "Pearl Harbor" against America in 1905. In 1905, all warships were coal fueled. Coaling is an extremely dangerous, time consuming, complicated and inefficient process that left the crew exhausted (they had to carry it into the ship and stow it by hand). Coaling at sea was possible, but was a logistical nightmare. Attacking across the Pacific would have been impossible for the Japanese. Yes, Roosevelt's Great White Fleet was able to circumnavigate the globe with cooperation from friendly governments, during peacetime. What friendly coaling stations were there to help the Japanese battle fleet cross the Pacific? They would have been limited to invading the Philippines and hoping to lure out the Great White Fleet.

Why would the Japanese win? Remember that the Americans would be fighting in the Japanese backyard for all intents and purposes. Unlike in 1941, the Philippines were not a friendly, pacified colony in 1905. The Americans had just spent years pacifying the place with extreme brutality, and in fact the fighting was still going on in places. At best, the Japanese would treat the Filipinos in the same manner; but they might just as easily make allies of rebel groups, multiplying the problems the Americans would have. Not only that, but there was a large amount of controversy in the USA as to whether they should have been colonising the Philippines at all. While Japanese aggression would certainly have led to war, it's questionable as to how committed the USA would have been to winning the islands back. Invasion and occupation of the Japanese home islands would certainly have been beyond their capacity at the time.

Of course talking about what might happen in the Philippines presupposes that the Americans could even get there in force during wartime. In 1905, the American battle fleet wasn't based in Pearl Harbour; in fact it wasn't even on the Pacific. It would have to sail down around South America (there was no Panama Canal in 1905), unite with the rest of the fleet in California, and then cross the Pacific Ocean, the largest body of open water on Earth. All this with the labour-intensive coaling mentioned above, and a hostile Japanese fleet waiting on the other side.

And what about that fleet? Fighting in 1898 against the Spanish, the USN achieved hits 3% of the time at ranges of 2,000 yards. In 1905 (against the Russians), the IJN achieved hits 20% of the time at 6,500 yards. Technological development meant that the USN would have been shooting at the same ranges as the Japanese by 1905, but the difference in accuracy speaks for itself. In fact, the IJN in 1905 are the all-time gunnery accuracy champions, according to available statistics! Not only that, but the shimose filling in their shells was the most powerful explosive in the world at the time—the Russian ships they actually encountered were blasted to flaming wreckage by it, and, given the massive superiority in Japanese shooting, there's no reason to suppose the Americans would have fared better.

So, combine a large qualitative naval superiority, a much shorter logistical tail (from Japan/Korea, as opposed to from the USA), domestic opposition to American involvement in Asia, and visceral Filipino hatred towards the American occupation, I would posit an American-Japanese war in 1905 would have ended in a negotiated settlement favouring the Japanese… With an inevitable second clash later.

Essentially, logistics would have mattered more than tactics.

KS – I'd be a bit skeptical of a hitting rate of 20pct at 6500 yards for any navy of that era. Japanese sources cited by Evans and Peattie in "Kaigun" quote contemporary internal Japanese post-action estimates of a 4 pct overall hitting rate and mention that the hitting rate at ranges over 3500 meters was expected by the IJN to be about 1 pct.

FWIW.

B

Blutarski-

I'll accept that. But even a 4% overall hit rate would have made the Japanese the gunnery champs of the day. Certainly the contemporary Americans were doing no better.

Regardless, I think my point remains valid: things would never have devolved into a fair fight between the opposing battle fleets. The logistical factor was just stacked too heavily against the Americans in an age of coal fuel. Manila, the only important American naval base in Asia at that time, is much closer to Japan than to California, and the Japanese would almost certainly have opened hostilities by seizing it in a surprise attack.

Denied suitable coaling and refitting facilities in the theatre of operations, the American fleet would have arrived at the fight much like the Russian ships did at Tsushima, in miserable shape with coal-strewn decks and major wear and tear on their machinery.

Additionally, with so much of the American battle fleet being brand new in 1904, they would again have faced the same dilemma as the historical Russian Baltic fleet: either to leave the best and newest behind, or else send then to battle with green crews and inadequate shakedown trials.

Counting hulls, guns, and armour thicknesses is perhaps the wargamer's natural tendency, but in 1904 tactical capabilities would have been massively affected by logistical considerations. And remember too: a Japanese coup-de-main against Manila would deny the Americans the ability to set up minefields, making the naval war even more stacked against them.

Hi KS,
I quite agree that the USN of 1904 was simply not logistically able to prosecute a war on the far side of the Pacific Ocean. Apart from logistical limitations, I also see some technical issues with the ships of the US battle-line compared to their IJN counterparts:

1 – They were small ships compared to those of the IJN by several thousand tons on average.

2 – They were very short-legged.

3 – The earlier ships were wet (insufficient freeboard).

4 – They had poor habitability in warm weather (bad ventilation).

5 – The explosive filler of USN projectiles was black powder (Explosive D was not developed until 1906).

6 – The 13in/35 in 1904 was a v e r y s l o w firing weapon (Friedman mentions a firing cycle of 320 seconds between rounds – over 5 minutes!).

7 – The early ships carried BL, not QF secondary guns and in limited numbers.

B

Sounds bad for the US Fleet so far . Let suggest the US knew this was coming for some time and logistics was not an issue and had most of there fleet available ? Thanks for all your inputs , this has be quite interesting .

To fight in 1904, you still have to hand-wave a lot of USN ships into existence early to fight all the way across the Pacific, or hand-wave a lot of Japanese preparations to get all the way to the West coast of the US (which they didn't even manage in WW2 after decades of build-up and industrialization…). You might be able to posit some small cruiser fights over distant Pacific stations (similar to 1898 Manila Bay), but big fleets weren't going to fight in the Pacific in 1904 without big local bases.

Texas Jack said:

Setting the fight later does make it more fun.

It's also just about the latest date to still qualify as the "pre-dreadnought" era, which is the real reason I chose it. :-) I had a 1/3000 scale RJW Japanese fleet, a friend had a 1/3000 scale Great White Fleet, we wanted to see them duke it out, so… I invented a context.

Even in 1907 or 1908, I generally agree with the above criticisms that a Japanese-American War was impossibly unlikely, and logistically intractable for either side across thousands of miles of Pacific ocean, for all the reasons listed and more. Some other things to think about:

• It's about 720 nautical miles from Taipei to Manila
  
• It's about 1400 nautical miles from Kure to Manila
  
• It's about 6600 nautical miles from San Diego to Manila
  
• The nearest US base to the Philippines was Guam (1400 nautical miles) and it wasn't properly fortified until after WWI (Wikipedia even says that when the US interned the SMS Cormoran in 1914, the ship's crew outnumbered the base personnel.) If Japan opened the war with a surprise attack on Manila (which is what I posited), the IJN would probably also take Guam just to remove a stepping stone for the USN.
  
• The next nearest US port was Pearl Harbor (about 4900 nautical miles from Manila, 4000 nautical miles from Japan), and it was just a commercial harbor (Congress authorized the naval base in 1908). The Japanese didn't have the logistical means to consider attacking this until at least the 1920s.
  

OTOH, nearly all pre-dreadnought wargames are fantasies, because there were so few historical wars to choose from, so we have to hand-wave away some inconvenient realities to get most "what if" PD fights. Also, the entire history of the Imperial Japanese Navy reads like a wargamer's implausible fantasy, so it seems like less of a stretch to imagine the Nihon Kaigun extending the empire to the Philippines than, say, Jutland 1904 or Trafalgar 1905. The post-RJW period also has a few other advantages as a setting for the JAW:

• the Russians are already defeated and can't interfere
  
• Europe's other major navies are pre-occupied with an arms race
  
• the USN is quickly building in strength, and the Japanese already considered the US a future foe, so an early attack while the logistical advantages pertained actually kinda makes as much sense as the historical decades-long build-up to WW2
  
• the Philippines were still in partial turmoil, so the Japanese could probably have courted rebels for assistance in the conquest (at least until they show they're no better than the previous overlords…)
  
• In late 1907 the Great White Fleet was already en route to the Pacific, which some Japanese interpreted as a threat.
  

And so on, ad absurdum.

- Ix

Pretend Japanese hostility indicated to the US the need to take some precautions before the war started. A supply and repair fleet is dispatched Guam and upon an honorable declaration of war the combat fleet is dispatched there as well. The Japanese attack the Philippines, the US Asiatic fleet withdraws towards Guam and by the time the Japanese pursue there is a US Battle fleet ready to sortie and attack them. Also, I'd give the US player an option: Take the shallow water battleships but a. there's a chance you'll lose one to a typhoon on the way there and b. there's a chance the sea will be too rough on the day of battle for the ship to be useful.

The 'easiest' handwave would be the USN suddenly realizing that coal fuel sucks and oil is much easier to work with, a process that is only 5ish years ahead of it's time historically.

Though honestly, you'd have to get the USN on a crash program to change over from coal to oil, as the lesson was learned in the Spanish-American War. With our hypothetical Japanese-American War in 1904, that's just 5 years to completely refit the fleet. (Historically, oil refits started in 1910)

Like Ix I've done this one years ago in 1908. It works out quite well.