Re: What IF: ... Japan had more Oilers for Dec.7'41 ?

dabrob wrote:
> On Aug 28, 2:44 pm, Stephen Graham  wrote:
> 
>> I suspect that you don't know anything about the Philippine
Insurrection
>> or the Moro Rebellion.
> 
> Considering that I am proposing AH Pearl Harbor scenarios here, why
> would I want to ?

Because you're also discussing operations in the Philippines. You need 
to have at least a vague familiarity with the historical background.

>> How much have you really looked at the political events running up to
>> the outbreak of the Pacific War? The oil embargo only kicks in when the
>> Japanese seize northern Indochina. There's a long period of operations
>> in China before then with only grumbling from the United States.
>>
>> In any case, this really doesn't address the point I made that the
>> entire mess wasn't in Japan's best interest.
> 
> I have no doubt that the Japanese fervently wished that they were not
> in that mess and I have little interest at all in the political events
> leading up to the outbreak of the Pacific War.

Then frankly your AH scenarios aren't worth discussing.

Political events drive the opening plans and days of any war so strongly 
that they have to be understood and referred to if you're changing the 
military events.

>> If it's tying down assets that could be used against BCE forces, what's
>> to object to ?
> 
> In my particular case, I'd rather defend my own property/family that
> rely on someone that I don't even know, and who likely cares more
> about his own property and family than he does about mine, to do a
> good job of it.
> 
> I'd imagine the Australians would take a similar view of the pre-war
> (mostly untrained) Philipine Armed Forces under "Bugout Doug"
> MacArthur. Not aht Commonwealth troops did any better at Hong Kong and
> Singa****e, to be sure.

The Australian Official Histories are on-line. Why don't you go look at 
them and see what the Australians actually thought with regards to the 
historical flow of events?

(http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/volume.asp?conflict=2)

> Possibly but how many fi****ng boats that can see about 2 miles off
> either side at night, is it going to take you to provide the
> coverage ? You are not talking about fi****ng boats here, you'll need
> entire fi****ng fleets. Where do the radios and spare parts come from ?
> Where do the trained operators come from ? Why do the Japanese RDF
> units not notice a correlation between unexplained mid-ocean radio
> messages and sinking tankers ? What happens to your fi****ng fleets
> after a Japanese patrol boat finds the first radio on board one of
> them ?

You need a couple of fi****ng boats so equipped, mixed in with the 
hundreds of other fi****ng boats that are out there.

>>> Since the kind of unremarkable fi****ng boat that I believe you
>>> describe is only about 6' above the waves,
>> They have masts that are taller than 6 feet.
> 
> And will no Japanese officer wonder why suddenly there are men perched
> in the masts all day ling when there hadn't been for 100 years
> previoiusly ?

How do you think fishermen spot schools of fish? Or avoid getting run 
over by other ****pping? It's not as if they have radar.

>> Until they're convinced they have a problem, the Japanese oilers will
>> use predictable routes (because they did historically). That's what you
>> have to cover, not every single square meter of ocean.
> 
> By definition the Japanese will know they have a manageable problem in
> bypassing the PIs.
> 
>> And coverage doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to catch some of
>> the ****pping.
> 
> How many is "some" ? 1 in 10, 1 in 100 or 1 in 1,000 ?

One in ten is more than sufficient.

> You are really "grasping at straws" with this one. Much better to just
> establish a spy ring near the tanker loading ****ts. The radio signals
> originating there will mask any other secret transmissions and Allied
> submarines could be vectored in towards those ****ts to intercept
> before the tankers had time to be hidden by the vastness of the ocean.

That's another solution.