IJN and the Panama canal

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pascaly	IJN and the Panama canal	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1433 (18-Dec-2007 03:53:55) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I've been reading recently about the IJN I-400 class subs and the plan to use them (or their aircraft at least) to attack the U.S mainland as well as the Panama canal. I hadn't heard of this plan before and it strikes me a quite interesting. The attack on the U.S would seem to be virtually useless (no real strategic value, even if the very large fleet of subs proposed originally was built in time to be useful). However, the attack on the canal to me at least, offers some interesting possibilities. Lots of different options; how much U.S shipping travelled through the canal? How heavily defended was it? The plan was to attack the eastern end, something that may have been more successful that the western end. What are some other issues? What if this plan had been pulled off? Say the 3 subs, as built, were operational 12 months earlier and struck the canal's east end and destroyed a number of locks?, what effect would this have had on the war? How much shipping that came out of the U.S west coast could be sent the long way round? Were there better ways to close off the canal? EDIT: added tags, typo Last Edited By: pascaly 18-Dec-2007 03:58:02. Edited 2 times.
bager1968		#1	[-]
Posts: 2688 (18-Dec-2007 09:00:39) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, for all the warships (virtually all fleet CVs, BBs, Cruisers) built, and all those stationed, on the east coast/Caribbean Sea, add at least 1 month (if not more) to their transit-to-Pacific operating area times... and multiply Australia's importance greatly, as they would be staging through Australia a major part of the time (safe passage through the Straights of Magellan only goes about 5 months of the year, and the IJN subs would be concentrated there). More task forces would be forming in Aussie waters than historic, and MacArthur would be in a far more advantageous position to control the counter-offensive than historic as well.
E F Draaijers		#2	[-]
Registered Member Posts: 63 (18-Dec-2007 18:28:06) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Strategically the difference of the Allied wareffort would have more likely shifted to the European front even more than already in the real war. The warships were not an issue here, since these could transfer to the Pacific via the Maghalan Strait or over South Africa and Australia, as already mentioned. The real proble was the shifting of material and liftcapacity to the Pacific, which was not so easy, since using the Atlantic Ocean meant battle against the U-Boote, so a transfer of ships to the Straits of Maghalan, or Capetown and Australia would seriously have been affected by it, meaning no offensives possible for a considerable time in the Pacific, until Europe was secured (meaning the U-Boote were silenced). Most likely the war would have lasted a year longer, perhaps two.
bennett0	IJN and the Panama canal	#3	[-]
Posts: 266 (19-Dec-2007 03:06:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Cargo and transport ships would only have to go around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope once. Once they got to they Pacific they would stay. The US rail network was more than capable of moving all the troops and supplies of all kinds needed for the Pacific to ports up and down the west coast of the US. I seriously doubt loss of the canal would have caused to US to shift any more to the European/Mediterranean theaters than historical. The delay in getting ships from the east to west coast would have been measured in weeks at most. It could have also caused the US to lean hard on Argentina and Chile to provide assistance (harbors, fuel, repairs, etc) and possibly have brought them into the war on the Allied side.
emc		#4	[-]
Posts: 3330 (19-Dec-2007 05:32:51) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I think that the difficulty of destroying the locks is being underestimated, too. The I-400's carried, what, 3 aircraft with a bombload of about 1800 lb each? I suspect that the locks could be damaged, possibly severely enough to take them out of service for a few weeks, but that would be the limit. The only way that Japan could keep them out of service would be to keep them under virtually continuous attack.
xht1sw		#5	[-]
Posts: 18 (24-Dec-2007 07:03:19) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	All good points made here, especially by bennett0. It's not brought up often, but it's a matter of historical record that the US rail network made a substantial contribution to the US war effort. The US rail system was so important to the war effort that railroads were still able to get new locomotives even in the middle of 1943, when production of most all civilian goods were severely curtailed. Bottom line is that new USN warships coming from east coast yards to the Pacific theater would have had a longer delivery trip. A "successful" attack by all three subs and their air group, taking out a lock or something, would have been inconsequential. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400_class_submarine Now let's take a step back and imagine what might have happened if the IJN were able to have all 18 planned boats - with the combined air group of 54 planes or so - operational in late 1944 or so for a massed air raid on the canal... All bets are off then.
emc		#6	[-]
Posts: 3347 (27-Dec-2007 02:04:38) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	xht1sw wrote: All good points made here, especially by bennett0. It's not brought up often, but it's a matter of historical record that the US rail network made a substantial contribution to the US war effort. The US rail system was so important to the war effort that railroads were still able to get new locomotives even in the middle of 1943, when production of most all civilian goods were severely curtailed. Bottom line is that new USN warships coming from east coast yards to the Pacific theater would have had a longer delivery trip. A "successful" attack by all three subs and their air group, taking out a lock or something, would have been inconsequential. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400_class_submarine Now let's take a step back and imagine what might have happened if the IJN were able to have all 18 planned boats - with the combined air group of 54 planes or so - operational in late 1944 or so for a massed air raid on the canal... All bets are off then. I'm going to stand by my initial post on this topic: sporadic attacks won't be effective. For the IJN to keep the Panama Canal out of service, they will have to maintain frequent -- I would hazard a guess at least semi-weekly -- attacks. After one or two attacks, the USAAF moves a few squadrons of fighters, and a fighter direction center, to the Canal Zone, and the IJN's penny-packet attacks will lose most of their effectiveness.
xht1sw		#7	[-]
Posts: 19 (27-Dec-2007 05:35:34) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Agreed. As soon as the ditch gets fighter protection, forget about making any sort of effective attack. XHT1
SubsRUs		#8	[-]
Posts: 3 (27-Dec-2007 11:49:50) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Are you saying that there were no fighter aircraft or ASW forces protecting the canal and its approaches during WWII? That hardly seems likely with over 65,000 US "troops" stationed in Panama. An attack with four fleet carriers might have done the trick!
emc		#9	[-]
Posts: 3349 (27-Dec-2007 14:29:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I believe there were both fighter squadrons and naval forces stationed there; the latter's ASW elements were probably concentrated on the Caribbean side (iirc, a normal transit of the Canal takes something like 12 hours, constrained by the cycle times for the locks). I have anecdotes from veterans who had been stationed there, mostly of mind-numbing boredom, so I would hazard a guess that the readiness of the forces in the CZ was not of the highest level. This would improve very quickly after an attack. I suspect that an effective air defense would require an early warning radar and some sort of fighter direction center; I don't know if either was present.
BP	It was not just the Panama Canal that was of concern........	#10	[-]
Posts: 1124 (13-Jan-2008 03:42:59) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	There was a lot of planning about which targets would have been critical in case of war in early 1940's. The Panama Canal was just one area that was highly considered. The canal defense was not just in the canal area but included the entire Caribbean area. The general idea being to have an in depth type defense where a sea borne attack or invasion fleet could be detected and countered. Here is the type of link that describes a lot of the thinking of the time. http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Guard-US/ Many areas were studied and some got quite a bit of work prior to the war. The Panama Canal did get quite a bit of planning. One thing was they stocked repair kits to the gates. The real worry was not attacks on the locks themselves but losing the water in Lake Gatun. One thing comes out if you look at all the preperation in the prior war years. Too much of the big decisions only got done if pushed at the highest levels. President Roosevelt had to approve buying extra pencils. A lot of the planning was more on paper and way too much was incomplete. The one big area they did do a bunch of work on was how to quickly organize the economy in case of war. That might have paid off more than most plans. Question as to what might have been the results if the IJN had attacked the canal the same time as Pearl Harbor. Late in the war was probably not much chance. The forces in the canal zone and entire area where well built up, intell was very directed looking for any threats and the force levels and hardware was more than adequate for the defence. They did think and have AAA type units in Panama before the war. Also once the war was underway, they did a lot of air patrols out from that area. Just ask the USN boats that had to transit the canal. They were routinely attacked even with lots of procedures to ensure it did not happen. Any type of submarine in the canal area was considered hostile. Friendly boats got a surface DD escort in many cases way out of the danger areas. Whole bunch of the type sources that gives the thinking and state of affairs like I gave above. They knew a war was coming but the general impression I have was the threat was not addressed in a total enough manner in too many areas.

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IJN and the Panama canal

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