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Summary: A Flawed Blueprint for Naval Superiority
Review: "Kaigun" traces the meteoric ascent of the Imperial Japanese Navy from its modest beginnings during the post-Tokugawa era to its apex at the outbreak of the Second World War. In order to obtain a comprehensive picture of how the Imperial Navy performed in the Pacific War, this book should be read in conjunction with Dull's "A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy," and Peattie's "Sunburst: The Rise of the Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941."In its struggle to attain naval parity with the United States, its notional enemy during the interwar period, the Imperial Navy emphasized qualitative prowess over material superiority; this was highly evident in the development of Japanese naval doctrine, tactics and equipment. The Imperial Navy pioneered many innovations in weapons and tactics, such as the development of the oxygen-propelled torpedo, the use of destroyers in offensive operations, and employing midget submarines to offset the material superiority of the enemy. But masking these undeniably vital innovations were many fatal shortcomings. Truly, the devil was in the details, and the Imperial Navy ignored what may be considered the less glamorous but arguably equally important 'back-end' of naval operations. For instance, in a pre-Deming Japan, shipyard efficiency was abysmal, especially in view of the efficiency levels attained by US yards. In constructing one class of Japanese destroyers, the Japanese took one year on average to complete one vessel, while US shipyards turned out one destroyer every six months on average. The Imperial Navy was fittingly proud of its elite core of naval professionals, which was highly instrumental in allowing the Navy to win two major naval engagements in the first thirty years of its existence. The careers of prime movers in the Navy such as Togo Heihachiro, Yamamoto Gombei and Sato Tetsutaro are discussed in the book. However, the presence of the crème de la crème might have actually blinded the Navy to the fact that its recruitment policies were intrinsically flawed; its elitism allowed it to become complacent and to overlook the need for a sizeable body of naval reservists. When the Navy undertook Operation Hawaii, it was actually undermanned by approximately two thousand officers, according to a study cited in the book. The laundry list of shortcomings included logistics, intelligence, electronics, cryptography and so on. For me, a novice in military history, the book held many surprises. Foremost among them is that the Combined Fleet attained glory in the Russo-Japanese War only after so many initial foibles. The preliminary maneuvers involving destroyers can be likened to a comedy of errors if not for the fact that night fighting is inherently difficult. The tome has many illustrations and tables, making it useful for citations and referencing. However, sticklers for good information design would undoubtedly be perturbed with some of the graphs, because they appear to have been amateurishly formatted on Microsoft Excel. Despite its graphical quirks, "Kaigun" should be a valuable addition to a history collection, primarily because of its reliance on many Japanese-language sources.
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Summary: the briefing book the USN should have had in December 1941
Review: An excellent study of how the Japanese navy grew into the mighty force that fell upon U.S., British, and Dutch territories in December 1941. Arguably, the Japanese carrier force was the best in the world at that time. Naval buffs will doubtless groove on the battleship saga, and Japan's shifting strategy for the "decisive battle" that would destroy the American fleet and save the homeland from retaliation, but in fact battleships were pretty much irrelevant in the Pacific War (except on the American side, when they provided a source of heavy guns to batter Japanese defenses on shore). The artwork is exquisite.
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Summary: Important new work on Japanese naval doctrine and tactics
Review: I did some of the illustrations for the book, so maybe I am biased, but this book will be read by people interested in this area of naval history for years to come. David Evans and Mark Peattie have researched this work meticulously, (including using previously untranslated Japanese primary sources from the Japanese Self-Defense Force archives) to construct a view of the changing inter-workings of technology, strategy, and tactics in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The writing is excellent, the layout is elegant, and the maps and illustrations (ahem) are superb. The book also contains excellent back-matter in the endnotes, bibliography, and index. A MUST for any serious student of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
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Summary: Fascinating Analysis of IJN War Making Capability
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It provided a unique introduction to the the organizational behavior and technology influencing the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) up to the "The Pacific War". The authors pursue a four pronged approach, describing how the political history, the Japanese culture, the organizational behavior of the Navy, and the development of the technology "grew" the IJN and to a certain extent led the country into war with the Allies. Techies will appreciate the detail provided on ship classes, including ship diagrams. In particular, I appreciated how clearly the authors managed to show how the perceptions of the IJN's commanders about "how a war WILL be fought" effected the force structure of the IJN. The book is not without faults. The formatting of the book is in some ways amateurish. The scale of certain ship illustrations could have been chosen more carefully. I also found the comparison charts very difficult to understand, despite clear supporting prose. Finally, The authors could have been more clinical in their analysis of the IJN's errors. The contrasts to the "formidable logistics capability" of the U.S. Navy or the superb U.S. Marine amphibious assault capability were a bit too vivid. Navalists will value this book for its technical content and its analysis of the decision making that led to the birth, growth, and demise of the IJN. Recommended.
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Summary: Recommended
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn a lot more of the technical aspect of the Japanese Navy and how they started World War II with the 3rd largest Navy and why it contained the ships it did. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: I've read a lot of books about Japanese Navy during WWII time but no other books match the depth of details it cover. If you want to know tactics & design philosophy of naval airplane & ship, this is the one to consult on. For example, during the 30s, the Japanese simply thought that an aircraft carrier should only have "attack" plane instead of a mix of fighter/attacker that you saw in Pearl harbour and afterwards in Pacific warfare. It was the "Chinese Incident" in the 30s that changed their point of view. This was the time when Genda Minoru & Co's idea of using fighter to protect attacker came it. It is this kind of tactics changes that you want to know after reading much-talked-about how a Japanese fighter didn't protect its pilot as good as it should have been, ..., etc.
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Summary: Probably, the definitive book on the topic
Review: In my opinion, this book is a masterpiece. Maybe japanese scholars are able to find some mistaken dates in it, but it is more than perfect for the western historian. The authors explain how Japan was able to build a modern navy from scrap in some few decades including arsenals, academies, tactics and technology. Defects and virtues are carefully described and exposed. War actions are also well explained and their consequences carefully analyzed. This book has been written using exclusively primary sources, anybody interested in the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy will be very satisfied with it.
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Summary: Fascinating
Review: Kaigun Strategy is a book that I had a lot of trouble putting down. This is perhaps strange for a book which discusses things such as the development of dry steam as a more efficient mode of propulsion, change in the composition of steel as it related to battleship construction and other very technical subjects. In a way the book said a lot about the Pacific War that had been said before. Yet in a way it was as startling revelation of the development of Japanese Society from the Meiji Restoration to the end of the second World War. The book is a discussion about the development of Japans Navy. Until 1945 the Japanese spent the staggering amount of 27% of their national budget on the navy. The reason for this lies with the now forgotten writings of Admiral Mahon. Mahon was an American who in his day was as famous as Marx and Lenin. He wrote a history of sea power a book that argued that the reason for the wealth of great nations was the control of an empire through control of the sea. The Japanese were converts to his doctrines and being an island power thought that the key to the national destiny was the acquisition of empire. Kaigun Strategy is a study of how the Japanese Navy tried to develop a navy that would give them preponderance over that of the much stronger American Navy. The book goes into great detail about how the Japanese studied the most modern technology to develop a numerically inferior but well trained modern Navy. The belief in empire and the need to ensure oil supplies put Japan on a collision course with the United States of America. The end of the war has led to Japan sheathing the sword and seeking to build up a strong economy. This has led to Japan becoming one of the richest and strongest countries in the world. How more productive that has been rather than putting most of the national wealth into a Navy which ended up on the bottom of the sea. The book is fascinating at showing that whilst a large amount of Japans planning and development showed tremendous skill and intellect, at the same time ridiculous errors were made. Thus whilst Japan build up a modern fleet and air wing it failed to: · Adopt a convoy system during the war or to arm enough destroyers with sonar equipment to protect its merchant marine. · Did not realise till after the war started that there were not enough tankers in the possession of Japan to move enough oil from its new possessions to keep both the navy and industry going. · Made no attempts to develop code breaking in the way that its Axis Partner Germany and the Allies did. · Were not able to adopt the strategy once it became obvious that the war was evolving into one of attrition rather than a single decisive battle. The book is a fascinating one and shows how the history of nations can be molded by the history of ideas.
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Summary: A Masterful Description of Nihon Kaigun
Review: The authors present an analysis of the development of the Imperial Japanses Navy, the strategies, tactics and weapons developed to defeat supposed foes from 1887 to 1941. It covers the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars as well as the lessons Japan learned from Jutland during WWI. Japan prepared strategically for a great decisive battle against the United States in the Western Pacific (the avowed enemy since 1907) but failed to actually practice the tactics set forth in their tactical manuals. Contained in this book are fascinating ship plans, weapon specifications and aircraft performance data to underline the Japanese intentions. The Japanese planned to outrange the US Navy and strike from a distance on the surface, in the air, and underwater. The authors included the best detailed analysis yet of Japanese deployment against US Plan Rainbow Five. Ironically, even after the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, the Naval General Staff still sought the all out decisive battle in which the US Pacific Fleet would be finally annihilated. This was to be at Midway. I could go on and on. This book is the best analysis of how Japan built her navy and why said navy could never win. If I could give it six stars I would. It is a must read for historians, modelers, wargamers, anyone with an interest in the War in the Pacific in World War II.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterful Description of Nihon Kaigun
Review: The authors present an analysis of the development of the Imperial Japanses Navy, the strategies, tactics and weapons developed to defeat supposed foes from 1887 to 1941. It covers the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars as well as the lessons Japan learned from Jutland during WWI. Japan prepared strategically for a great decisive battle against the United States in the Western Pacific (the avowed enemy since 1907) but failed to actually practice the tactics set forth in their tactical manuals. Contained in this book are fascinating ship plans, weapon specifications and aircraft performance data to underline the Japanese intentions. The Japanese planned to outrange the US Navy and strike from a distance on the surface, in the air, and underwater. The authors included the best detailed analysis yet of Japanese deployment against US Plan Rainbow Five. Ironically, even after the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, the Naval General Staff still sought the all out decisive battle in which the US Pacific Fleet would be finally annihilated. This was to be at Midway. I could go on and on. This book is the best analysis of how Japan built her navy and why said navy could never win. If I could give it six stars I would. It is a must read for historians, modelers, wargamers, anyone with an interest in the War in the Pacific in World War II.
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