Jutland, Jellico, Beatty and Castles of Steel

[Berkut]

This is great stuff.

There is so much gamesmanship in it all, and so much stupidity from brilliant people.

The German naval buildup just doesn't make any damn sense if you step back and look at the big picture, and it is pretty obvious it doesn't make any sense if you can take yourself out of the role of the people with agendas.

Same with the French.

And lets not even get started on Japan and WW2. They make Tirpitz look like a genius in their level of just straight out dumb. But it's interesting how far you can go down an untenable path once you

1. Take the first step, and
2. Refuse to ever re-evaluate whether that first step was such a great idea.

[grumbler]

In the case of japan, it wasn't even that everyone refused to re-evaluate; most of the leaders did, but couldn't endure the shame of being the first to admit that the prewar plan had failed and that Japan was inevitably going to be defeated.  Once the Emperor took that step, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief and agreed.  Even for the Emperor, though, the most he would concede was that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

Shame-based cultures suck at making meaningful re-evaluations of personal decisions or the decisions of superiors.

[The Minsky Moment]

Questions

1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?

[grumbler]

Another Jutland myth is that the British battlecruisers that blew up did so because they were not as well-armored as their battleship sisters.  As it turns out, none of the fatal hits would have been resisted by a battleship, either, as they were turret hits.  The problem was that measures taken by Beatty to improve the BCF's rate of fire involved removing features that kept the flash from a turret hit out of the magazines.   Lion was almost sunk via the same means, but the mortally wounded Q turret commander got the magazine flooded in time.

[grumbler]

Questions

1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?

The book Case Red goes into this.  The French spent* about Ff150B from 1925-1935, and a bit less than 40B of that was spent on the Navy.  The base at Mers-el-Kebir cost more than the Maginot Line during that period.  The army got around Ff95B from 1925-1935, the air force around $15B.

Italy had no significant building program for most of this period.  The French battlecruisers were an answer to the pocket battleships, and the Richelieu class to the Twins.  The Italian battleships were a response to the French battleships.  There was certainly an element of prestige to the naval buildup, but what was spent far exceeded what was gained, particularly as the French Navy had no ships equipped with sonar and only a handful of the destroyers even had depth charges.


* all of these numbers are very rough, rounded off and generally the result of assuming budgets were distributed the same in 1935 as in 1930.

[Berkut]

In the case of japan, it wasn't even that everyone refused to re-evaluate; most of the leaders did, but couldn't endure the shame of being the first to admit that the prewar plan had failed and that Japan was inevitably going to be defeated.  Once the Emperor took that step, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief and agreed.  Even for the Emperor, though, the most he would concede was that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

Shame-based cultures suck at making meaningful re-evaluations of personal decisions or the decisions of superiors.

I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"

By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed. I think plenty of them knew it was as well. That was already WELL down the path of "Ooops, this isn't working out quite the way we planned...."

[grumbler]

I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"

By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed. I think plenty of them knew it was as well. That was already WELL down the path of "Ooops, this isn't working out quite the way we planned...."

I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started.  None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario.  By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it.  They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history).  Banzai!

it wasn't just the leadership, though.  Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.

[The Minsky Moment]

Questions

1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?

The book Case Red goes into this.  The French spent* about Ff150B from 1925-1935, and a bit less than 40B of that was spent on the Navy.  The base at Mers-el-Kebir cost more than the Maginot Line during that period.  The army got around Ff95B from 1925-1935, the air force around $15B.

Italy had no significant building program for most of this period.  The French battlecruisers were an answer to the pocket battleships, and the Richelieu class to the Twins.  The Italian battleships were a response to the French battleships.  There was certainly an element of prestige to the naval buildup, but what was spent far exceeded what was gained, particularly as the French Navy had no ships equipped with sonar and only a handful of the destroyers even had depth charges.

* all of these numbers are very rough, rounded off and generally the result of assuming budgets were distributed the same in 1935 as in 1930.

Interesting.
I found a table of naval expenditures here:  https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-1-349-09154-6%2F1.pdf
From this book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-09154-6
Cant vouch for accuracy but seems legit.

Normalizing to the 1913 price levels, naval spending was (millions of francs):

1920   181   0.06
1921   320   0.11
1922   381   0.08
1923   267   0.09
1924   309   0.13
1925   244   0.13
1926   234   0.19
1927   397   0.18
1928   421   0.22
1929   570   0.25
1930   589   0.17
1931   747   0.19
1932   580   0.14
1933   750   0.17
1934   772   0.20
1935   837   0.17
1936   916   0.22
1937   858   0.20
1938   997   0.19

The second number is an estimate of the proportion of total military expenditures taken by naval spending; the French budgetary figures come from  Flora, Peter et al. 1983. State, Economy and Society in Western Europe, 1815-1975 - see here: https://gpih.ucdavis.edu/Government.htm.  I am not that certain about those proportions as Flora/Peter did weird things with their new/old Franc conversions but the trends across time should be about right.

The big push on naval spending occurs in the 1927-31 period; proportionately 1928 and 29 stand out. This provides support for the theory that the pocket battleship program had on impact of French naval spending, assuming I have the construction dates right. However, the late 20s increase also coincides with the defeat of the Left and the installation of the Poincare ministry so political considerations may have had an effect.  There is obviously a lot going on during time, including the final withdrawal from the Rhineland and the planning of the big fortification program.

[The Minsky Moment]

I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"

By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed

The two are inextricably connected because of the need for oil and the reality of where that oil was located.

[grumbler]

I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"

By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed

The two are inextricably connected because of the need for oil and the reality of where that oil was located.

Also the fact that Japan's economy couldn't long survive without US iron, steel and scrap metals.  The US embargoes started a timer that, when it expired, would leave Japan unable to wage war.

[Berkut]

But that is exactly my point.

The initial step (war of conquest in China) doesn't seem SUCH a bad idea, but once they started down that path, there wasn't a lot of exits that don't end with "War with the USA" given their absolute dependence on trade with the US to supply exactly that war, and the eventual US reluctance to be part of that.

It's a classic case of small, reasonable steps, each of which isn't THAT bad of an idea, but the sum of which is absolutely disastrous - and not really even that unpredictable, at some point. But still seemingly impossible to turn course.

It's like you are driving your car pretty slowly, and you know there is a cliff up ahead, and you are definitely going to die if you don't turn, but there is some yummy and delicious treat on the road....and surely someone else will turn later....we don't have to turn NOW, right?

And then you drive the fucking car right off the cliff that you could see coming a mile away, but could never just summon the will to turn away from....I find this stuff fascinating, and not a little depressing. It's not like every society doesn't do similar things. Hell, we are all doing it right now in regards to climate change. Later! We will totally handle that later!

[The Minsky Moment]

Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits.  Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals.  By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA.  But it could have gone differently in theory.

[Jacob]

I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started.  None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario.  By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it.  They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history).  Banzai!

it wasn't just the leadership, though.  Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.

... and if the data you get in is garbage, it makes it even harder to make rational leadership decisions.

Interesting to me that Japanese industrial management in the 80s corrected for those flaws quite successfully, as I understand it. Certainly, Toyota didn't - and doesn't - operate like that. I idly wonder where and how that changed. It's tempting to conclude that the lessons of the loss of the war led to improvements, but I have no idea if it did. But the "Japanese management revolution" certainly seems to not have those sorts of problems.

[grumbler]

I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started.  None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario.  By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it.  They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history).  Banzai!

it wasn't just the leadership, though.  Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.

... and if the data you get in is garbage, it makes it even harder to make rational leadership decisions.

Interesting to me that Japanese industrial management in the 80s corrected for those flaws quite successfully, as I understand it. Certainly, Toyota didn't - and doesn't - operate like that. I idly wonder where and how that changed. It's tempting to conclude that the lessons of the loss of the war led to improvements, but I have no idea if it did. But the "Japanese management revolution" certainly seems to not have those sorts of problems.

W. Edwards Deming was extremely influential in postwar Japan, with his model of statistical (objective) quality control and his idea that workers and management should both be focused on improving quality as the main driver in improving sales and profits.  This fit very neatly into the Japanese concepts of perfectibility and individual responsibility, and enabled the Japanese to establish a reputation for quality that made their goods desirable world-wide.  Ironically, US industry , for whom he developed his ideas originally, remained convinced that sales was driven by price and advertising, and that consumers didn't much care about quality.

[PDH]

W. Edwards Deming

UWyo boy