Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

jmbm wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Actually, no. The Russo-Japanese War exactly demonstrates the validity of what I'm saying about entire navies and infrastructures.

Hi RFC,
Didn't you develop a naval board game on the Russo-Japanese war in your board gaming days ?. I remember reading something you wrote about it. Or it might be just your playing it instead.
jmbm

Yep, I built one 40 years or so ago. I still have a couple of large ring binders — we didn't have computers than — full of the data I assembled. Believe it or not, my handwriting was actually legible at the time.

runsforcelery wrote:It was an even more convincing demonstration of what the British shipbuilding industry was capable of, and should probably suggest why there were a lot of British analysts who thought Jackie Fisher was insane to build Dreadnought and make the 50 or so battleships in which so much had been invested obsolete overnight. In many ways, Fisher probably was a lunatic, but it’s certainly fair to say he was right a lot more often than he was wrong (of course, when he was wrong, he tended to be spectacularly wrong, but that’s another matter). The truth is that other nations — specifically, Japan and the United States — had already committed to the construction of what became known as “dreadnoughts” before Fisher got the Admiralty and Parliament to sign off on Dreadnought herself. If he’d waited another six months or so, the new type probably would’ve been known as South Carolinas which, as an American, I think would’ve been pretty neat but which really sounds pretty dorky compared to dreadnought. The Brits were always copping the really cool warship names.

Sorry RFC but we Brits have a way with the language both in coming up with names and hacking it too pieces as well

I think that would have to be one of the nicest things someone has said about Jackie Fisher - I know my Great-grand-father said a few other things (both good & bad but not in polite language, about Fisher). He served on Dreadnaught and quite a few of the others - he was also at Jutland.

Great summation of the status of the RN and other naval powers during the 1870-1890 period.
Now get what Dilandu was trying to get across - though I do still feel most Nations at the time didn't really want to cross swords with the RN.

Hi Dilandu,

Please.

You know darn well it didn't sortie against the RN again.

Operations in the Baltic, specifically Operation Albion [guess what that means?] to take the Estonian islands, yes.

Big deal; they were fighting the Russian navy, wracked by revolution, pitiful training, and such obvious obsolescence it was almost suicidal.

The Russians were always brave, but there were times it seems they went knowingly and to their deaths, somehow hoping their submissive sacrifice would eventually create a Russian victory somewhere, appalling as it sounds.

Were their losses worth it?

In the end were the German losses worth it?

Now imagine if they'd done that early in Barbarossa, besides using the navy to flank the front; and land east of Tallinn etc to trap all those nasty communists fleeing east along the coast road, or at Riga etc behind the Russian armies.

Perhaps they might have been exchanged for all the Balts Stalin sent to the death camps the previous 18+ month's.

Probably not of course, if you didn't die for mother Russia, Stalin thought you were a traitor, and surviving the German death camps only proved it.

When you're dealing with wacko's like that, being a patriot will only get you killed.

L

Dilandu wrote:

Good point on Japanese being the smaller fleet in the Russian-Japanese War, but at Scarborough the Germans had the greater quantity.

And if Ingenol advanced at Scarborough - that was completely possible, because the german navy actually seek the possibility to ambush some part of RN - what could save the Warrender and Beatty?

Without the Warrender's ships, the Royal Navy would be limited to only 17 dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts up until the 1915, when the first three QE and "Canada" would be avaliable. And it's all assuming that the German Navy wouldn't inflict more casualites in late 1914 and early 1915.

By the way,

but then retreated to port never to sortie again,

You are some mistaken here. There was a german navy sorties after Jutland.

[quote="lyonheart"]Hi Dilandu,

Please.

You know darn well it didn't sortie against the RN again.

Operations in the Baltic, specifically Operation Albion [guess what that means?] to take the Estonian islands, yes.

/quote]

Actually, Lyon, he's right. Scheer sortied again twice in 1916 --- August and October, I think --- but there was no contact between the main fleets. That was partly because in the August sortie, at least, the HSF had zeppelin recon that actually worked.

Scheer had no intention whatsoever of trying conclusions with the main British fleet again; that much is true. And for the August operation (I think the plan was to bombard another British town in hopes --- again --- of provoking an action with a subunit of the GF) he had only 2 BCs in operating condition so he fleshed out the attack force with BBs, which could have been interesting given the BBs' lower speeds. IIRC, one of the BBs was Bayern, which gave the possibility of its being the Brits' turn to run into 15" fire, too.

Nonetheless, your basic point is accurate: the HSF never again sortied to meet the GF head-on. On the other hand, the HSF never sortied to meet the GF head-on. Nothing could have been farther from German intentions!

The psychological trauma of seeing an entire horizon ablaze with muzzle flashes stuck with every member of the Imperial German Navy who saw it, and no one who had seen it ever wanted to see it again. Still, I think the Germans would have continued to attempt attritional operations except for 3 factors. (Well, there were undoubtedly more than 3, but these are the ones that stand out to me.)

(1) The Brits always seemed to be at sea, in strength, waiting for them. They never realized that was because Room 40 was reading their signal traffic, but they were certainly aware that it was happening.

(2) They'd realized that no conceivable loss rate had any realistic chance of being in their favor, especially after the USN came into the war and sent a battle squadron to join the GF.

(3) Probably most important of all, they'd made the decision to invest their supreme naval effort in the U-boats. That both relegated the HSF to "fleet in being" status with a primary measure of tying down the scores of escorts the GF required to prevent them from being used for ASW work and simultaneously siphoned off the best, most aggressive officers and ratings for the U-boats. When Scheer and Hipper hatched their plan for a final sortie in October 1918, the personnel who might have carried it through had largely been dispersed to the U-boat arm and too many of those who were left remembered the nightmare of Jutland and were well aware that the GF was much stronger than it had been then, both absolutely and proportionately.

As Albert Camus once said, any rational army would run away when confronted by a battle. By October 1918, with the war well and truly lost, the enlisted men of the Imperial German Navy had become very rational, indeed.

OK, my first post so be gentle please. For those of you interested in an anglophile look at the rise of the dreadnaughts and through to Juland, may I suggest "Castles of Steel" and" Dreadnaught" by Richard Massie to get a starting place. Not too technical but a good foundation you can build upon.

JP

Thanks RFC and other Forum members, these discussions are better than several collage courses.

Additionally, "Six Frigate" by Ian Toll is as good start on the US frigates as well.

Hi Thrandir,

I'm sorry it took so long to respond, my apologies.

"Always with the negative waves, Moriarty" - "Kelly's Heroes" 1971.

Make it a root beer.

What brands of root beer do they have in Oz?

In England the similarity of a certain toothpaste was enough to put most Brits right off ever trying root beer, even at McDonald's etc.

We used a certain very mild flavored cream soda and Hire's extract to make a reasonable facsimile of Hire's, though our family always preferred the A&W Drive-in's in the '60's; I remember their nickle bags of Frito's with a cup of chili poured over it for 15 cents, but those are bygone days...

Seriously, I've always liked Australia particularly its war record in WWII, and like England proud to have them as allies, as I told a 7th Armored Division "Desert Rats" SP artillery crew in Iraq, NTM being amused by the tales my cousin told [her husband was in the FBI] of their time in Australia as well as other friends.

When I was in DC in 2005, the embassy staff were very kind, letting me study some of their remaining books on the war including the industrial [casting the sentinel tank in ~November 1941 etc] after they'd donated most to the Congressional library [but some weren't yet processed apparently when I requested them].

When I was in England during the '76 Olympics, I had a few Brits tell me they cheered everyone but the Americans, because they thought we were so stuck up, guess we may have learned it from somebody.

Again as I've stated on another thread I'm quite proud of my English ancestry, NTM the Scotch, and all the heroes in between like Winston Spencer Churchill, etc.

Regarding the hapless RN captains expected to win against the American as opposed to the French 44's, it might be argued such a comeuppance was bound to happen sooner or later, like the SLN.

Neither RFC or I had or have ever stated that we thought Britain had lost the war when she signed the Treaty of Ghent.

If you haven't, read CS Forrester's "A Fighting Age of Sail" [1956], to get a Brit view that's more objective or at least favorable to the American position, than most Brit accounts, especially up to that time.

If you haven't or can't, read anything by CS Forrester; including "Payment Deferred" and "Daughter of the Hawk" etc, he was an amazing story teller; supposedly he wrote screenplays for Hollywood 6 month's of the year then wrote what he wanted the other six, sometimes doing a bit of travel for 'research'.

About 20 years ago, I was amazed to find a rather large collection of all his books in the very small town library of Guernsey, Wyoming 30 years after he died, to give an example of his popularity in the States.

He points out it got so bad with the RN officers claiming there were so many Brits aboard the American Frigates who knew how to sail and shoot etc, while the RN frigates were too full of untrained landsmen and Americans etc, that Teddy Roosevelt stated in his history, if the RN officers were to be believed, that they lost because all the Americans aboard the RN ships [it wasn't just frigates the RN lost] refused to shoot at their flag, while all the Brits aboard the American ships would.

On the other hand, since almost all the captains or commanders were exonerated in their courts martial, they all must have had patrons or influence.

Again this isn't to say Madison etc and the western war hawks etc weren't loons, they were.

Personally I think the Democratic-Republicans deserved to lose the war of 1812, because they kept trying to lose, until more practical men like Monroe and the late war crop of US Army officers managed to hold those British regulars off until sanity finally hit both sides simultaneously.

Regarding Wellington, his Spanish and Portuguese campaigns were remarkable, the advance into France is generally ignored though it shouldn't be; but he really came into his own only after Waterloo, where credit should also go to Blucher; who when invited to London afterwards to celebrate, is reputed to have been amazed by its thousand square mile expanse even then and stated "what a city to sack!"

Again this is too long, but I wanted to assure you my true feelings for Great Britain are rather warm and friendly.

L

Thrandir wrote:Geez Lyonheart what's with the aggression?
Come to Oz and I'll buy you a beer

Admittedly I did get carried away a bit but what I stated about the Ghent Conference is historically correct - Britain did not see she had lost.

Unlike some I freely admit the faults of British pride - but it seems when a Briton points something out we are always labelled arrogant (aggressively assertive/presumptuous) - not that we might have a point or could even be right.
Generally Britons are being extremely proud (one of the definitions of arrogant) of our heritage but it seems Britons are not allowed to be proud of our heritage - everyone else is but we aren't; sorry but that does not stack up in any argument.
Before anyone says anything I am being the latter not the former.

Thanks RFC and I totally agree with your summation of British attitudes and thoughts of the time. The trouble with the British Government at the time was they didn't want to listen to Wellington - while he had friends in the Government he also had his detractors who were always quick to point out his mistakes in his campaigns - they glossed over the fact that he more often than not came out on top.
Thirsk reminds very much of Wellington in that he has some very powerful opponents in Government and some very powerful supporters as well.

From some of the logs and other historical records I have read from RN officers who fought the big 44's they all said the same thing - purposely built large frigates were the way to go. They argued long and hard for the RN to adopt the concept - after-all they had enough evidence to show that a purpose built heavy frigate was going to out-muscle and if handled correctly out manoeuvre a smaller 5th and 6th rate. The RN didn't think much of the French 44's because IMHO the French rarely used them as they could have been used.

The RN had a huge shock when they initially encountered the big American 44's and lost or if able to run away. At the time ALL RN commanders were expected to win against any enemy irrespective of the odds.
The RN had a tradition of winning, not all the time but when they really had their backs to the wall the right person stepped up to give them victory.
When they didn't it was not good for morale and the commander concerned had better have good patronage back in Britain if he wasn't to be thrown to the wolves for losing.

runsforcelery wrote:
It's an American idiom. "I don't have a dog in the fight" means that I'm, neutral in whatever's under discussion. In this case, it means that since I'm neither Russian nor Japanese, I'm not invested in demonstrating that "my" side (whichever it might be) was right/better/smarter/etc. Now, if the USN had been a belligerent, things would be different, of course!:lol:

Ah, i understand. Thanks for explanation.

Well, i'm patriotic, but rationally patriotic.

The loss of two of their own battleships to mines screwed up their calculations,

There was also a situation, when the Vladivostok's Cruisers Squadron sunk a steamer with the whole supply of japan heavy siege howitzers... So, actually the IJN screwed twice at least.

the Russians would have to fight their way through the IJN (which would have torpedo boats while the Russians didn't)

Actually. the russian navy at Tsusima have a nine torpedo boats. Not too many, i must admit, but there were a reasonable doubts about the possibility of torpedo boats attack in open sea.

in ships with badly fouled bottoms and machinery that was likely to need servicing badly . . . and that didn't even count the fact that they knew the Russians would have to sail with heavy deckloads of coal. They had a very, very good notion of what that was going to mean in material terms.

Hm. in that i must agree - that could be predicted actually.

I'll give you that Russian gunnery was very good --- indeed, much better than most non-Russian sources allow --- but it wasn't that much better than other navies.

Well, in Yellow Sea, the "Mikasa" was hit 20 times during the early phase of battle, and no russian ship during that phase - were the russian fleet was controlled - have sustained so much damage.

My sources (admittedly, none of which are Russian) would seriously dispute the fact that Russian gunnery was better than the RN and the French.

Well, during the WW1 - i admit, it was later - the russian engagements with "Goeben" demonstrated that. As i recall, in november 1916, the "Imperatritsa Ekaterina" ("Imperatritsa Maria"-class) engaged "Goeben" at the 20000 meters into the sun, and the third salvo hit less the 50 meters out of the target, damaged the enemy with fragments. And later there was another similar incident with "Breslau" ,that was engaged on the more than 22000 meters

I'm not at all sure that that would have been true in 1905 when no one (including the Russians)expected true long-range gunnery engagements.

Actually, Makarov expected that - it was one of the reasons, why the First Pacific Squadron was so good in gunnery. It wasn't the wholke russian navy, i must admit, only the ships that was under Makarov control.

The Russians were in trouble even before Witgeft was killed, although I will certainly agree that thw hit on his flagship's bridge was the decisive moment of the engagement. Russian formation discipline was poor, compared to that of the IJN.

Well, that was the problem, i must admit.

My sources suggest that both Russia and Japan were unhappy with their respective gunnery results during the Russo-Japanese War and both took steps to address the shortcoming post-1905.

Yes, that's right. The russian navy was satisfied with the penetration power of their shells... but was completely dissatisfied with their fuses, that simply doesn't work in most times.

As I've explained above, the Japanese knew that the fight between their entire navy and the Port Arthur squadron would be long over (Ione way or the other) before the Baltic Fleet ever put in an appearance.

Yes, but the point is, that the IJN started the war wothout any industrial or naval superiority even in local therms. With all respect, the IJN superiority wasn't so overwhelming to guarantee for the Japan victory over Pacific Navy without expecting heavy losses on the japanese side. And if the japanese lost enpugh ships dealing with First Pacific Squadron - what they are supposed to do when the larger Baltic Fleet appeared? With all respect, i didn't think that the Togo would be able to repeat his Tsusima sucsess with only two or three battleships and three or four armoured cruisers in action.

My point, that the japanese started the war without any reservations (as they usually do ). They threw all they got in battle in expectation of complete sucsess (and as you pointed prevoiusly - actually screw it). But they were still able to commence the victory against much larger naval and industrial power.

Now, as to the military potential of the two sides post-Tsushima and post-Mukden, neither one of them was in good shape to continue the war. Russia was on the verge of Revolution; Japan was on the verge of collapse. Russia had no Navy left; the Japanese Army was at full stretch and the Russians were shipping in supplies. Both sides later resented Teddy Roosevelt's role in brokering the peace treaty at Portsmouth, but --- at the time --- both sides were glad to accept it before something even worse happened to them!

Well, actually there was a russian fleet that still could be used... the Black Sea Fleet (that was one of the reason why the Japan were ready to gave many of their claims to end the war). They have the "Knyaz Potemkin-Tavricheskyy", the "Rostislav", the "Dvenadtsat Apostolov" and "Tri Svyatitela" in comission, and even without them the power in older ships to keep the Ottoman navy in bay. But generally, it's true, that both sides were unable to fight any longer.

The problem was, that the russian internal problems wasn't something that Japan could claim as their actions. At least, not more than triggering it.

Dilandu wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
It's an American idiom. "I don't have a dog in the fight" means that I'm, neutral in whatever's under discussion. In this case, it means that since I'm neither Russian nor Japanese, I'm not invested in demonstrating that "my" side (whichever it might be) was right/better/smarter/etc. Now, if the USN had been a belligerent, things would be different, of course!:lol:

Dilandu wrote:Ah, i understand. Thanks for explanation.

Well, i'm patriotic, but rationally patriotic.

runsforcelery wrote:The loss of two of their own battleships to mines screwed up their calculations,

Dilandu wrote:There was also a situation, when the Vladivostok's Cruisers Squadron sunk a steamer with the whole supply of japan heavy siege howitzers... So, actually the IJN screwed twice at least.

True, but finding replacement siege guns was a little easier than getting battleships back up off the bottom!

runsforcelery wrote:the Russians would have to fight their way through the IJN (which would have torpedo boats while the Russians didn't)

Dilandu wrote:Actually. the russian navy at Tsusima have a nine torpedo boats. Not too many, i must admit, but there were a reasonable doubts about the possibility of torpedo boats attack in open sea.

That's true; I'd forgotten them. But would they properly have been considered torpedo boats or torpedo boat destroyers? I don't have a source handy to check at the moment.

runsforcelery wrote: in ships with badly fouled bottoms and machinery that was likely to need servicing badly . . . and that didn't even count the fact that they knew the Russians would have to sail with heavy deckloads of coal. They had a very, very good notion of what that was going to mean in material terms.

Dilandu wrote:Hm. in that i must agree - that could be predicted actually.

runsforcelery wrote:I'll give you that Russian gunnery was very good --- indeed, much better than most non-Russian sources allow --- but it wasn't that much better than other navies.

Dilandu wrote:Well, in Yellow Sea, the "Mikasa" was hit 20 times during the early phase of battle, and no russian ship during that phase - were the russian fleet was controlled - have sustained so much damage.

runsforcelery wrote: My sources (admittedly, none of which are Russian) would seriously dispute the fact that Russian gunnery was better than the RN and the French.

Dilandu wrote:Well, during the WW1 - i admit, it was later - the russian engagements with "Goeben" demonstrated that. As i recall, in november 1916, the "Imperatritsa Ekaterina" ("Imperatritsa Maria"-class) engaged "Goeben" at the 20000 meters into the sun, and the third salvo hit less the 50 meters out of the target, damaged the enemy with fragments. And later there was another similar incident with "Breslau" ,that was engaged on the more than 22000 meters

IIRC, Slava's gunnery was very good in the Battle of Riga and the Moon Sound action, as well.

runsforcelery wrote:I'm not at all sure that that would have been true in 1905 when no one (including the Russians)expected true long-range gunnery engagements.

Dilandu wrote:Actually, Makarov expected that - it was one of the reasons, why the First Pacific Squadron was so good in gunnery. It wasn't the wholke russian navy, i must admit, only the ships that was under Makarov control.

Um. That fits with most of what I've read of him. On the other hand, I've sometimes wondered if his reputation hasn't grown in the telling, as we'd say over here, because of his stature as the one Russian admiral who showed up really well in the entire war. We Americans have a tendency to venerate officers who don't necessarily deserve it (fully, at least) on the merits because they had good press or were a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy war situation. William Bainbridge would be one example. "Hard Luck Bill" managed to lose the schooner Retaliation in the quasi war with France (by sailing right up to two French frigates he thought were British without checking assumptions first). Then he lost USS Philadelphia by running her onto a shoal in Tripoli Harbor (and surrendering her after a five hour "bombardment" in which, IIRC, he hadn't lost a man). He wasn't exactly stellar in several other commands, either, and he actively connived at getting Stephen Decatur killed in a duel with a fellow USN officer because of professional jealousy and a grudge he carried over a scathing report from a board Decatur had chaired years before. (I should mention, I suppose, that one reason he hated Decatur was that after he surrendered Philadelphia --- and the tide floated her back off the shoal --- Decatur led the boarding action which destroyer her right under the guns of the enemy. In the duel in question, however, he masqueraded as Decatur's friend, acted as his second, and then worked actively to make sure either Decatur or his opponent got killed, which would have finished --- and did effectively finish --- the career of whoever survived, as well.) Despite that, the USN's named several ships for him, including the first nuclear-powered cruiser in US service. Another example, of a slightly different sort, would be Bill Halsey, who achieved iconic status as a "fighting admiral" during the darker periods of the war in the Pacific but made several questionable decisions (including the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and his movements during the Battle of Leyte Gulf) which tend to be overlooked by those who worship at his shrine.

I've always wondered if there might not be a little of that in Makarov's case, since I've actually read relatively little about him in English-language sources.

runsforcelery wrote: My sources suggest that both Russia and Japan were unhappy with their respective gunnery results during the Russo-Japanese War and both took steps to address the shortcoming post-1905.

Dilandu wrote:Yes, that's right. The russian navy was satisfied with the penetration power of their shells... but was completely dissatisfied with their fuses, that simply doesn't work in most times.

They weren't the only ones having that particular problem at the time! Good AP fuzes were something of a dark art for everyone.

runsforcelery wrote:As I've explained above, the Japanese knew that the fight between their entire navy and the Port Arthur squadron would be long over (Ione way or the other) before the Baltic Fleet ever put in an appearance.

Dilandu wrote:Yes, but the point is, that the IJN started the war wothout any industrial or naval superiority even in local therms. With all respect, the IJN superiority wasn't so overwhelming to guarantee for the Japan victory over Pacific Navy without expecting heavy losses on the japanese side. And if the japanese lost enpugh ships dealing with First Pacific Squadron - what they are supposed to do when the larger Baltic Fleet appeared? With all respect, i didn't think that the Togo would be able to repeat his Tsusima sucsess with only two or three battleships and three or four armoured cruisers in action.

My point, that the japanese started the war without any reservations (as they usually do ). They threw all they got in battle in expectation of complete sucsess (and as you pointed prevoiusly - actually screw it). But they were still able to commence the victory against much larger naval and industrial power.

I understand your point, but I also think you're misestimating the actual balance between Japan and Russia at the time. Japan was looking at the enormous advantages of location it possessed, and its strategy --- starting with the surprise attack on Port Arthur --- was designed to grain and keep the upper hand both strategically and psychologically over the Russians. They also had a pretty good idea of the lethargy of the Russian leadership in Port Arthur and planned to capitalize on it. and while it's true that the Russians suffered some bad luck during the war, but so did the IJN, yet the IJN resoundingly defeated the Russian Navy in the end. There's another English language idiom --- the proof is in the pudding --- which means that the only way to judge the real effectiveness of an effort is by the way it works out in the end. By that metric, the Japanese were entirely correct in their estimate of their capabilities vis-à-vis those of Russia and her navy.

runsforcelery wrote:Now, as to the military potential of the two sides post-Tsushima and post-Mukden, neither one of them was in good shape to continue the war. Russia was on the verge of Revolution; Japan was on the verge of collapse. Russia had no Navy left; the Japanese Army was at full stretch and the Russians were shipping in supplies. Both sides later resented Teddy Roosevelt's role in brokering the peace treaty at Portsmouth, but --- at the time --- both sides were glad to accept it before something even worse happened to them!

Dilandu wrote:Well, actually there was a russian fleet that still could be used... the Black Sea Fleet (that was one of the reason why the Japan were ready to gave many of their claims to end the war). They have the "Knyaz Potemkin-Tavricheskyy", the "Rostislav", the "Dvenadtsat Apostolov" and "Tri Svyatitela" in comission, and even without them the power in older ships to keep the Ottoman navy in bay. But generally, it's true, that both sides were unable to fight any longer.

The problem was, that the russian internal problems wasn't something that Japan could claim as their actions. At least, not more than triggering it.

I'm aware of the Black Sea Fleet, but how was Russia going to get it out of the Black Sea and send it off to Asian waters? And even if they[d managed it, what about the additional ships Japan could have added to her fleet while it was getting itself together to make the voyage? In fact, several of the surrendered Russian prizes which were eventually taken into Japanese service could probably could have been refitted and put into Japanese service by the time a third Russian wave could have gotten to the Pacific.

You're right that they couldn't have counted on the wave of unrest which swept through Russia, and I think it's entirely fair to say that they seriously underestimated the degree of economic strain their war effort would impose on their own government and economy. And it's definitely true that they hideously underestimated how long the capture of Port Arthur would take and how much it would cost them in casualties, as well as time. On the other hand, war is always a high-risk enterprise, and it's more common than not for one or both sides to have seriously misestimated the risks involved. The imperial Russian government certainly underestimated Japan disastrously! And if the Japanese had no way to know the unrest was coming, the Russian government should have . . . and did, in many ways. Does the phrase "What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution" sound familiar? I think some hack SF writer stole it for the title of a novel one time . . . .

I will agree with you about the pre-WW II Japanese proclivity for charging into exceptionally high-risk gambles, however. In 1904, they happen to have gauged the odds correctly, judged by the outcome. In 1941, they tried to repeat the same roll of the dice on a far larger scale and crapped out disastrously. Indeed, their success in 1904-05 was key to their disaster in 1941-45. They knew there was no way they could ultimately out build Russia or the US, although in 1904-05 they could at least hope to buy additional vessels overseas from their good friends the UK to help redress the balance somewhat. In 1941,the US was in the process of actively building a naval strength they knew they couldn't defeat, especially since it wasn't going to be divided between the Pacific, Baltic, and Black Sea when the US needed it. The 1941 decision was made on the calculation that the new US programs established an ever-narrowing window which would, within one or two years at the outside, make it impossible --- as opposed to highly unlikely (by any rational measure ) --- that the IJN could defeat the USN. So they made what amounted to a do-or-die decision, guided (at least in part) by their experience against Russia and a serious misreading of the character of the US electorate, and embraced a strategy in which war weariness was supposed to preclude the Americans from paying the price demanded for victory. Among other things, they read American pacifism and the hoops through which FDR had to jump just to get Lend-Lease through an isolationist Congress as an indication that the US would have no stomach for the task, and their experience in 1904-05 played a major role in making that particular blunder in evaluating their enemy. The US in 1941 was most emphatically not Russia in 1904 in terms of domestic cohesion, however, and FDR and the US military never had to fight the Japanese while worrying that the country might go up in revolution behind them! Not only that, but virtually every sector of the US public "had a dog in the fight" in this instance, whereas the Russian war effort against Japan never really had that sort of fervent support from the bulk of the population, if only because the bulk of the population was excluded from significant participation in Russian political life and policymaking.