Force Z: what was the supposed mission

[bz249]

Reading the "what was the plan of Japan" thread Henry IX made an interesting comment on how everyone underestimated everyone else (or so)... and I started thinking about the sinking of PoW and Repulse and what they could have planned to do.

So basically Phillips had a modern fast BB, and old but still capable BC and 4 DDs (2 as a donation from the Museum of Naval History to support the war effort)... there were a CA underway to Singapore and a few USN DDs, but for some reasons he chose not to wait.

Ok Phillips was arrogant, because he did not take the threat of aircraft into account, but hey PoW was a modern BB with a strong AAW capability so it is fine. Even if it is not true for the other ships of his task force, but PoW can defend them if needed.

On the topic of submarines... well 4 DDs are not ideal, but it is a fast task force so unless there is an extreme unlucky situation no SS is able to intercept them, so ASW is not ideal but acceptable.

BUT the mission is to seek surface action against the IJN with 2 BC-s, half dozen CA-s and a dozen of DD-s. With his 4 DD-s and no air cover he cannot organize an efficient scouting element, so the chance of being ambushed is high. What could have been his plan if a surface action did took place? How his force is going to defend against the torpedo armed Japanese ships (ok... Long Lance was unknown, but the fact that cruisers and destroyers carry torpedoes was well known).

Did the British so seriously underestimated the Japanese that they though that they could achieve anything? Or was it ghost of Admiral Byng which haunted the Royal Navy that day?

 

[Henry IX]

The purpose of the sortie was to disrupt Japanese landings on the Malaysian peninsula. The British both grossly misunderstood and underestimated the Japanese.

1. The British believed that the Japanese were going to go for a 'Northern strategy' against the Soviets, and hence the forces involved in the Malaya operation would be weak, secondary forces.

2. The British massively underestimated both the technical and tactical capabilities of the Japanese airforce. They believed the RAF squadron in Malaysia would be sufficient to contain Japanese airpower and defend the task force. It wasn't.

3. The Japanese would have to defend their landing with surface forces - they were in a predictable position. So long as they were covering landing they would be unable to ambush the British effectively.

4. The KGV battleships were modern British battleships crewed by British crews. Of course they would win against the inferior Japanese in a surface engagement. Right...? More seriously, there were really only a handful of Japanese ships capable of going toe-to-toe with the PoW, and none of them were in the area. The BCs were badly outmatched and the lighter ships could only defeat the PoW with torpedoes, which require getting relatively close to the target to be useful.

5. No capital ships at sea had ever been sunk by aircraft. In addition, Admiral Phillips believed that only level bombers would be present in Malaya, which posed minimal risk to his ships.

Overall, the British made poor assumptions about Japanese intentions, leading to far too little airpower being located in Malaya and a dire underestimation of Japanese intentions, leading to the use of the task force in a reckless manner. However, had the PoW been able to threaten the landings there was a high chance that they would have to be abandoned and had the Japanese fleet accepted battle there was a decent chance they could lose a number of ships. It was a high risk gamble, but not completely stupid, at least when viewed through the lens of what the British thought and knew.

 

[bz249]

The purpose of the sortie was to disrupt Japanese landings on the Malaysian peninsula. The British both grossly misunderstood and underestimated the Japanese.

Overall, the British made poor assumptions about Japanese intentions, leading to far too little airpower being located in Malaya and a dire underestimation of Japanese intentions, leading to the use of the task force in a reckless manner. However, had the PoW been able to threaten the landings there was a high chance that they would have to be abandoned and had the Japanese fleet accepted battle there was a decent chance they could lose a number of ships. It was a high risk gamble, but not completely stupid, at least when viewed through the lens of what the British thought and knew.

It put 40% of the fast RN capship on the stake... in a time when their CV-s were already decimated. So it was a really high risk game.

3. The Japanese would have to defend their landing with surface forces - they were in a predictable position. So long as they were covering landing they would be unable to ambush the British effectively.

On the other hand the British come from Singapore and if the Japanese can patrol that area (which they did) then it would be the British whom are coming from a predictable direction and the Japanese organise their forces to intercept them. And since force Z cannot detach a scout/patrol element they are completly blind on the tactical level. IRL the Japanese cruiser force missed them to a few miles, while the Japanese aircraft tried to attack their own cruisers.

4. The KGV battleships were modern British battleships crewed by British crews. Of course they would win against the inferior Japanese in a surface engagement. Right...? More seriously, there were really only a handful of Japanese ships capable of going toe-to-toe with the PoW, and none of them were in the area. The BCs were badly outmatched and the lighter ships could only defeat the PoW with torpedoes, which require getting relatively close to the target to be useful.

If nothing more the battle of River Plate is a good example where a squadron of individually weaker ships forced the opponent to erratic maneuvers via the threat of torpedo attacks. Ok Langsdorff was a neurotic, while the Royal Navy would perform outstandingly using a ship not meant for tropical service.

Of course the Japanese could always chose go toe-to-toe in a classic battleline formation and not capitalizing their overwhelming superiority on cruisers and destroyers. But it is a plan based on the stupidity of the enemy.

2. The British massively underestimated both the technical and tactical capabilities of the Japanese airforce. They believed the RAF squadron in Malaysia would be sufficient to contain Japanese airpower and defend the task force. It wasn't.

5. No capital ships at sea had ever been sunk by aircraft. In addition, Admiral Phillips believed that only level bombers would be present in Malaya, which posed minimal risk to his ships.

These are the parts somewhat justifiable based on the level of knowledge Phillips had... but even that aside the chance of achieving something IMHO is based on that the Japanese not going to patrol the area (thus their a chance of surprise) and/or behave dumb have an actual surface engagement taken place.

 

[Henry IX]

These are the parts somewhat justifiable based on the level of knowledge Phillips had... but even that aside the chance of achieving something IMHO is based on that the Japanese not going to patrol the area (thus their a chance of surprise) and/or behave dumb have an actual surface engagement taken place

Yes. The British displayed arrogance and hubris and paid for it. The only point I was making was trying to explain why Phillips thought it was a good idea to sortie out against the Japanese. It clearly wasn't a good plan...

 

[CV10]

Just to add, David Hobbs has a good discussion of Force Z in his book on the British Pacific Fleet. I think his book highlights the main problem of Force Z in that it deployed to Singapore it part to act as a deterrent. The British government hoped it would dissuade the Japanese from attacking Malaya. A lot of senior naval officers were leery of Force Z's deployment. By the time it arrived, its purpose was pretty much moot.

Just to add to the good points already made about why Philips decided to sortie, Hobbs notes that there was a belief among many of the senior officers in Force Z that the Royal Navy could not stand idly by or run away when the Army and the RAF were fighting (and losing). So you have pride as a factor as well.

 

[Victor1234]

I think the mission was a bit muddled to begin with. As I understand it, some felt that the ships should be in Singapore as a deterrent for invading Malaya, but some also felt that the British could replicate the success which the Bismarck had enjoyed in that year, in the sense of a modern battleship going raiding in the sealanes, causing havoc with shipping and/or tying down large groups of enemy capital ships to give chase.

Airpower was clearly underestimated as a factor in both aspects of the mission (and would be the downfall of the Bismarck as well).

 

[Director]

Force Z was originally intended to include an aircraft carrier, which ran aground and went into repair instead. As CV10 said above, the main purpose was to deter the Japanese from going to war by posting a fast, modern(ized) squadron on their flank. If war did come, the expectation was that any Japanese push be a direct amphibious invasion of Singapore itself, where upon the fortifications and Force Z, plus the airpower at Singapore, would let the defenders hold out until a fleet could come from Britain.

Reasons to think Force Z could have good effect:
1) the capital ships were new or modernized, fast and capable (Repulse held gunnery records). Aircover was provided, either from Singapore or from the carrier
2) the Royal Navy was very good at night-fighting, including making carrier strikes, which would permit a small, fast force to raise a lot of Hell
3) any war might be general, with the Japanese forced to counter the American, Dominion and Dutch forces also, so a small but fast and powerful force could serve as a serious check
4) everyone knew that Japanese airpower was mediocre or poor and both Prince of Wales and Repulse had excellent AA guns
5) no-one could move a major army down the length of Malaya, so the invasion would have to come close to or at Singapore
6) in fact, the Japanese were so stretched for ships, covering the Pearl Harbor attack and simultaneous amphibious assaults

Negative points:
1) No carrier, no cruisers, very few destroyers and only two capital ships. Britain sent what could be scraped up, not what was needed, because commitments in the Atlantic and Mediterranean were equally or more important
2) the Japanese were the best at night-fighting, at least before gunnery radar, and could in theory have handled a night attack with torpedo strikes from cruisers and light forces
3) the war was general, but the American fleet was taken off the board on day 1
4) Japanese land-based naval airpower was not only good but plentiful - PoW and Repulse were attacked with far more aircraft than even good AA could handle, and the AA proved not to be as good as expected
5) the invasions happened farther to the north than the British expected, exactly so as to be out of range of Singapore, and the Japanese forces was able to roll down the Peninsula without risking naval units near Singapore
6) the Japanese were unable to provide much in the way of capital ships for the convoys but they did have (I think) two Kongos, at least 4 CAs and a number of DDs in the area, which would have been sufficient to damage and drive off Force Z

Force Z wasn't a bad idea, given carriers, two or three more capital ships (like King George V and Nelson and Rodney) and appropriate escorts. If also given a stout defense of Malaya and a deployment of good, modern aircraft then perhaps the Japanese might have been seriously hampered in taking their major goals - Malayan resources and Indonesian oil. But - if that size force had been sent - then the carriers coming back from Pearl Harbor would have been available and Italy and Germany would be free to use their own navies.


So: it was politically necessary to show the Dominions and colonies that they would be defended, but impossible to send enough to do any good.

 

[Director]

Yes. The British displayed arrogance and hubris and paid for it. The only point I was making was trying to explain why Phillips thought it was a good idea to sortie out against the Japanese. It clearly wasn't a good plan...

Phillips was on the spot with reports of invasions, little or no hard intelligence and a complete lack of intelligence as to the kind and number of land-based naval torpedo-bombers the Japanese had on hand. No-one else used land-based naval airpower, meaning the pilots were based from an airfield but trained in naval strike tactics. This was the first use of the idea, so Phillips' estimate of his chances against land-based planes was seriously off.

It was not a suicide run like that of Yamato, it was a clear case of not being given the necessary tools, being expected to pull out a miracle, and trying and dying. There was no way he could avoid the risk of using his ships since he didn't really understand the level of risk in the first place. He was (if I remember) something of an expert on air operations but did not have air cover and did not know the Japanese had dozens if not hundreds of planes available - planes whose pilots were trained to attack naval targets. Even modest air cover might have saved his ships - witness the Malta convoys; better knowledge of Japanese capability surely would have changed his actions.

Or, a torpedo hit anywhere but in the propeller shaft would likely have let Prince of Wales get away and Repulse also. That one hit left PoW sinking and left Repulse alone against waves of torpedo bombers. It was the same sort of hit that doomed Bismarck but more immediately deadly... British torpedo protection held up pretty well otherwise, so if that one hit had struck somewhere else, Phillips might have gotten his ships home damaged but safe.

 

[bz249]

Force Z was originally intended to include an aircraft carrier, which ran aground and went into repair instead. As CV10 said above, the main purpose was to deter the Japanese from going to war by posting a fast, modern(ized) squadron on their flank. If war did come, the expectation was that any Japanese push be a direct amphibious invasion of Singapore itself, where upon the fortifications and Force Z, plus the airpower at Singapore, would let the defenders hold out until a fleet could come from Britain.

Reasons to think Force Z could have good effect:
1) the capital ships were new or modernized, fast and capable (Repulse held gunnery records). Aircover was provided, either from Singapore or from the carrier
2) the Royal Navy was very good at night-fighting, including making carrier strikes, which would permit a small, fast force to raise a lot of Hell
3) any war might be general, with the Japanese forced to counter the American, Dominion and Dutch forces also, so a small but fast and powerful force could serve as a serious check
4) everyone knew that Japanese airpower was mediocre or poor and both Prince of Wales and Repulse had excellent AA guns
5) no-one could move a major army down the length of Malaya, so the invasion would have to come close to or at Singapore
6) in fact, the Japanese were so stretched for ships, covering the Pearl Harbor attack and simultaneous amphibious assaults

Negative points:
1) No carrier, no cruisers, very few destroyers and only two capital ships. Britain sent what could be scraped up, not what was needed, because commitments in the Atlantic and Mediterranean were equally or more important
2) the Japanese were the best at night-fighting, at least before gunnery radar, and could in theory have handled a night attack with torpedo strikes from cruisers and light forces
3) the war was general, but the American fleet was taken off the board on day 1
4) Japanese land-based naval airpower was not only good but plentiful - PoW and Repulse were attacked with far more aircraft than even good AA could handle, and the AA proved not to be as good as expected
5) the invasions happened farther to the north than the British expected, exactly so as to be out of range of Singapore, and the Japanese forces was able to roll down the Peninsula without risking naval units near Singapore
6) the Japanese were unable to provide much in the way of capital ships for the convoys but they did have (I think) two Kongos, at least 4 CAs and a number of DDs in the area, which would have been sufficient to damage and drive off Force Z

Force Z wasn't a bad idea, given carriers, two or three more capital ships (like King George V and Nelson and Rodney) and appropriate escorts. If also given a stout defense of Malaya and a deployment of good, modern aircraft then perhaps the Japanese might have been seriously hampered in taking their major goals - Malayan resources and Indonesian oil. But - if that size force had been sent - then the carriers coming back from Pearl Harbor would have been available and Italy and Germany would be free to use their own navies.


So: it was politically necessary to show the Dominions and colonies that they would be defended, but impossible to send enough to do any good.

It was highly unlikely that the RN would have sent a fleet carrier. At that point they had 2 plus Indomitable which was in the process of commissioning (they run aground but it was a minor issue).

The Japanese had a dozen of cruisers in the general vicinity and twentysomething destroyers. And they were seeking the chance of battle once they spotted the British... which is quite telling on the balance of power.

 

[Director]

Sending Force Z was a, shall we say, 'matter of contention' between Churchill and Admiral Pound. While Indomitable was never actually cut orders for Force Z it was widely assumed she would be sent - until her grounding in Jamaica. On every point, Churchill and Pound disagreed and Churchill got his way, so I think we can assume a fleet carrier would have been sent if possible.

Whatever mis-estimations the West made of the Japanese before WW2, it was plain that Japan had six to eight fleet carriers...

As I said in my earlier post, Britain didn't send more - including a carrier or carriers - because they didn't have more. The Ark Royal was supposed to be the type of carrier wanted for the Pacific - less protection and a bigger air group - but there were no follow-ons to her design and the Ark herself was taken out by a U-boat.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

What Director said.
Also considering the difficulties the Japanese had during their landings those ships showing up would have spelled disaster for them.
Another factor is the Japanese had no close Airbase and the ability of the Netties to deliver a bomb or Torpedo at insane ranges was rather unknown. (like most Japanese modern aircraft)
Still a handfull of Buffalos present could have saved those ships.

In the end bringing them to Java and detesting the DEI or lower PI would been surely more effective but hindsight and all that.

 

[Director]

I don't know that 'detesting' the DEI would have helped... you meant 'defending' I think?

If that squadron had survived - and been reinforced - then the whole Japanese timetable in the Pacific would have been thrown out of gear.
The Japanese were pushing to get to Java in order to secure the oil and refineries. As it turned out it didn't matter because the Dutch destroyed facilities anyway... but needing the oil as desperately as they did, and with their capital ships spread all over the Pacific, a strong force defending the DEI would have made the Japanese pretty frantic - and interfered with their invasions of places like the Philippines.

A counterfactual that would have a serious effect would be for Force Z, with carrier, to be reinforced by the Dutch , Australian and American fleets. Politically not possible because it took a while after Pearl Harbor to set up - but if something like that had been do-able before the outbreak of war then Allied chances improve by a lot.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

I don't know that 'detesting' the DEI would have helped... you meant 'defending' I think?

If that squadron had survived - and been reinforced - then the whole Japanese timetable in the Pacific would have been thrown out of gear.
The Japanese were pushing to get to Java in order to secure the oil and refineries. As it turned out it didn't matter because the Dutch destroyed facilities anyway... but needing the oil as desperately as they did, and with their capital ships spread all over the Pacific, a strong force defending the DEI would have made the Japanese pretty frantic - and interfered with their invasions of places like the Philippines.

A counterfactual that would have a serious effect would be for Force Z, with carrier, to be reinforced by the Dutch , Australian and American fleets. Politically not possible because it took a while after Pearl Harbor to set up - but if something like that had been do-able before the outbreak of war then Allied chances improve by a lot.

Uh yes I had contesting in mind, defending is fine too

 

[Director]

Yeah, contesting is a better choice.

I do hate autocorrect LOL.

 

[bz249]

I don't know that 'detesting' the DEI would have helped... you meant 'defending' I think?

If that squadron had survived - and been reinforced - then the whole Japanese timetable in the Pacific would have been thrown out of gear.
The Japanese were pushing to get to Java in order to secure the oil and refineries. As it turned out it didn't matter because the Dutch destroyed facilities anyway... but needing the oil as desperately as they did, and with their capital ships spread all over the Pacific, a strong force defending the DEI would have made the Japanese pretty frantic - and interfered with their invasions of places like the Philippines.

A counterfactual that would have a serious effect would be for Force Z, with carrier, to be reinforced by the Dutch , Australian and American fleets. Politically not possible because it took a while after Pearl Harbor to set up - but if something like that had been do-able before the outbreak of war then Allied chances improve by a lot.

Alone the fact that a British full admiral leading would have been an improvement as there would have been a clear chain of command. It would not make ABDA a potent force, but at least they could show some coherence.

 

[Lord Tim]

So: it was politically necessary to show the Dominions and colonies that they would be defended, but impossible to send enough to do any good.

Politics demanding something be done is often bad news for the military. An example from earlier in the war was the British commitment to Greece - which the Greeks weren't entirely happy about as they feared it would mean the Germans would come their way - that Churchill insisted on, meaning the campaign in the Western Desert stalled before any attempt to push on to Tripoli. Again, Churchill demanded it as a sign of the UK commitment to allies. Whether a drive on Tripoli was possible is another question, logistics would have been really hard to manage at that stage of the war and German troops were arriving that would certainly have done better defending it than the Italians had in the rest of Libya.

And of course the biggest issue was that the UK was playing at being a world-wide great power without the resources to do that. The RN was fighting the Batttle of the Atlantic, had forces in the Mediterranean both running supplies to Malta and ready to fight the rather large Italian fleet, had started running convoys to Murmansk, and had to be ready to defend the home islands too. The army had home defence, the desert campaign, and was also garrisoning various colonial possessions (including sending Canadian troops to defend Hong Kong late in 1941!) and wanted support in Malaya. And the RAF was supporting the war in the Desert, sending pointless fighter sweeps across France because they wanted to fight the Battle of Britain in reverse, and was gearing up for what they believed would be the war winning strategic omber campaign. There was too much to do and too little resources.

 

[olm]

British were spread really thin, but to some extent same could be said about Japanese who were busy invading whole lots of stuff at the same time across the vast distances of Pacific, while also in war at China. Malayan campaign turned out to be pretty much unmitigated disaster to Brits, but if things had gone just a little better then the first Japanese campaign could have been repelled, forcing them to fall back to regroup and allowing Brits to hold Singapore a few months longer.

 

[Director]

@olm - it would be off the subject for me to write a book on the issues of British Army leadership from, say, the Crimean War to the end of WW2. Percival of Singapore seems, to me, to have been one of the worst not just of the British Army but of any army of WW2. (Yes, there were a lot of really good men in the lower levels of British leadership, but the higher levels seem to me to have been of minimal if not negative military value). A number of army leaders did not perform well when the war started; there are examples from every nation. But Percival was a perfect choice to maximize the amount that could go wrong in a critical, urgent situation.

I do think that a competent, energetic 'fighting general' could have held the Malay peninsula and Singapore a lot longer than Percival did. The value to Britain of a heroic, stubborn defense of Malaya would have been immense, in propaganda value at home, in encouraging other armies to not see the Japanese as miraculous 'jungle-fighting' supermen, and of course in deterring the Japanese from rash or risky movements in Burma and India.

That effort would have been greatly aided by a strong naval presence... Yes, Singapore did not have modern aircraft, or enough of them, or tanks, or enough artillery and so on and so forth. But what it had was Percival, who doesn't seem to have known what to do even if he'd been lavishly equipped. In hindsight, sending Force Z was a mistake simply because it was Percival in command.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

I seen Pericval always as a scapegoat. His plans got rejected, he got outdated equipment, second rate troops and never got the stuff he wanted. Wavell and Churchill made the decisions and he got the blame for the bad hand he been dealt. I doubt a Zhukov would have been perormed much better in his shoes.

 

[Henry IX]

I seen Pericval always as a scapegoat. His plans got rejected, he got outdated equipment, second rate troops and never got the stuff he wanted. Wavell and Churchill made the decisions and he got the blame for the bad hand he been dealt. I doubt a Zhukov would have been perormed much better in his shoes.

He outnumbered his enemy by better than 2:1, was on the defensive, had a superiority in artillery and knew where the enemy was going to attack from. He failed to protect the water supply to the island of Singapore, failed to use his reserves to mount a single counter attack, allowed his forces to be repeatedly outmaneuvered by an enemy with no actual mobility advantage and surrendered to an enemy who had virtually run out of supplies.

His '"outdated equipment" was better and more plentiful than his enemies, his second rate troops included commonwealth forces (Australian and Canadian) that were generally considered to be the best fighters under British command. Not only could Zhukov have thrashed the Japanese with the forces available but even a thorough mediocrity like Paulus could have held Singapore. The British had literally every material military advantage except air superiority over the Japanese, and even here the British had fighters to contest the airspace at critical moments. The Japanese had air superiority but not air supremacy.

The best comparison to Singapore was Sevastopol, which was held for slightly longer...

If Percival had managed to grow a spine for a few more days (literally 48 hrs) the Japanese would have to had retreat for lack of supplies. His abject cowardice and criminal incompetence were staggering. Percival was not the only person who caused the defeat, a catastrophe of that dimension takes a whole host of idiots and bad decisions, but to claim he was nothing but a scapegoat and that no general could have saved the situation runs contrary to everything I have ever read or seen about the Malaya campaign.