Was IJN Shinano Worth The Effort to Build Her?
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- Today's 'self-explanatory title' in a way. This video will ask the question of if Shinano was worth the effort spent converting her.
Now, obviously, the answer is 'no, not really'.
However, it's still an interesting 'what-if' question. What if, for some reason, the Japanese had a capable navy when she was completed? Was the effort worth it, then? Or not?
Questions like this are fun, as a thought experiment if nothing else.
The U.S. Navy, which had plenty of fleet carriers to support in 1943 and afterwards, never gave a thought to having a "support carrier" to play the role conceived for SHINANO. They invested their far more abundant resources in building more fleet carriers. The only instance I can think of where a U.S. fleet carrier played a "support" role was in June 1942 where SARATOGA, having missed the Battle of Midway, was stocked full of aircraft and sent northwest to replenish the depleted air groups of ENTERPRISE and HORNET. Of course the engagement was over by then.
The US Navy used escort carriers (jeep carriers) to replenish fleet carrier air groups, rather than build a floating workshop
@@josemariaserrano181And built more than a hundred of them...
Actually, both the US Navy and Royal Navy used smaller carriers to ferry aircraft throughout the war. The most famous example would be the reinforcement of Malta's squadron. Of course, the idea of dedicating entire fleet carriers for the job was downright bizarre.
🤔 Yeah, "support carrier" is a bad idea. IMO, a "support super-battleship" would've been far more useful! Think about it... She could've cruised around, supplying other battleships with replacement main & secondary guns. When each of the Yamato, Musashi or Nagato's main guns had been fired several hundred times, the Shinano could've showed up and supplied them with newly re-lined barrels on the spot.
Seems like a smart use of 70,000 tons of resources and millions of man-hours of construction! When asked about their biggest regret, the American WW2 naval elites always said they were disappointed in not ordering a fleet of "support battleships" to ferry re-lined barrels around the world's oceans.... (Lol)
Had Yamato and Musashi been built as fleet carriers, in addition to Shinano, and given air wings of the same quality as at the start of the war, the three would have been a formidable core to the IJN fleet.
From what I can recall, Shinano's maiden voyage lasted around a rather short sixteen hours. This means that each minute of this video equates to roughly ninety-six minutes of her life.
It’s not a good sign when a video about a warship lasts over 1% of the ship’s entire service history. At least it’s better than the Vasa, who has videos with durations exceeding the length of her entire career.
It seems Shinano simply cannot catch a break, even in an alternate universe with a resurgent IJN enabled by bored alien space bats. After all, she still has to face the Essex swarm and the Midways, not to mention the British contribution.
If only the alien bats hadnt refused to supply the IJN with force-field technology. Then the Japanese could've built entire fleets of 70,000 ton support carriers, which would've been 100% immune from 1940s era weapon attacks! Well, unless a rival alien species had hooked us up with anti-force-field lasers. The History Channel produced a whole series on the topic....
If only her sister ship, IJN Yonaga hadn't been trapped in the Antarctic ice....
I'd bet if Shinano was still lingering around after WW2 she would have ended up at Bikini Atoll.
Yup. World's largest floating nuclear target.
No doubt!
Well! look at it this way. She was almost 50% complete as a BB by the time of her conversion. That means most of her armor and machinery are already in place which account for most of the heavy stuff.
How long will it take to scrapped her?
-I think it would take a long time
How long will it take for her scrapped metal to be put to use?
-Even longer I guess
How long will it take for the IJN to build a new carrier in her drydock if she was scrapped?
-Her drydock would only account for another carrier which the IJN may or may not be able to finish by 1945 depending on ship class.
How much more steel was needed to complete her conversion?
If she needed 20000 tons of steel more to finish her conversion, I say it’s WORTH IT. Having a complete carrier is better than having no carrier.
To scrapped her means a lost of time, and still no immediate steel for building. you already have a hull ready. Also, In 1942-43 IJN still have a lot of Frontline carriers but they were lacking in support carriers. well, even in early 1945, they still got lots of offensive carriers.
Shinano could in essence feel a big role as a support carrier for that with ferrying 120+ planes, For example: if 4 Unyru class carrier lost 50% of their strike group in an offensive operation, she would be able to replenish atleast all of them with her complement of aircraft and also refuel them and their escorts instead of going back to Japan like Shokaku, Zuikaku or other IJN carriers always do when they lost their airwings.
I would say Shinano didn’t fail the IJN rather the lack of Foresight of the IJN officers on their doctrines failed Shinano. The lack of planes and pilots falls into this category.
I’m not really sure how this works. If your a repair carrier how do you get the damage planes on the ship to get repaired?
My understanding is that Shinano was such a rush job so that her massive 18" gun turret barbette rings were not even removed which is required for a proper conversion to a fleet carrier. For a massive 70k ton displacement, she only had a single hangar deck which sits above the barbette rings. That resulted to an abysmal 48 aircraft wing. She should've been converted to an armored, close bow carrier like the Taiho especially the conversion work started right after the Midway debacle. IJN desperately needed large fleet carriers. Then even if she did get a Taiho treatment, the poorly trained damage control crew would have doomed her anyway in the end, just like the Taiho.
They could have made her a 28 knot super tanker if she made one supply run she would have done more the in her real life form.
NGL, I _love_ that idea for Shinano's conversion. She could embark fuel oil, av gas, diesel, and even carry a bit of cargo, stores, and aircraft parts. Her torpedo bulges and additional armor give her an advantage that typical auxiliary ships don't have. Impractical? Maybe, but it would've been pretty damn awesome to see. Historically, the Japanese did put Hayasui, a very unique tanker/seaplane carrier, in the water... for four months until she ran across a couple of American submarines.
That was a case of the wrong ship at the wrong time. Time was running out for Japan and Shinano in particular.
She was an amazingly useful to put allot Japanese steel on the ocean floor, so worth it for the USN not so much the IJN.
Let's play another alternate history game. I always wondered what would have happened had the Yamato, Musashi, or Shinano, as a battleship, been available and the IJN had gotten over their reluctance to commit these ships to battle. What if two of the class had been committed to the Guadalcanal campaign instead of the likes of Hiei and Kirishima? It would have be interesting to contemplate the effect that would have had on the campaign.
To be frank, outside of Second Guadalcanal they wouldn’t have done anything a Kongo couldn’t have done, and used up even more fuel, so overall it would have made things even worse for the Japanese.
@@bkjeong4302The destructive power of 18" guns is much larger than that of 14" guns, yes?
If Henderson Field had been struck by 18" HE shells it would have been a bad time. If covering forces had been encountered it would have also been bad for them, whether cruisers or battleships.
The IJN simply chickened out, using close waters and fuel as excuses. In their minds they had decided upon the "one big battle" model and then lost track of what they actually needed to do.
@@mbryson2899
It wasn’t as if 14” shells weren’t already overkill against grounded aircraft…
@@bkjeong4302 True, but I was thinking more about the runway and heavy equipment. Not to mention the blast effect on personnel (I believe the 18" shell was about 50% more potent than the 14").
One thing that should be mentioned is the fact that the japanese were short of oiler ships at the start of the war. They not only had to supply their warships at Rabaul, they also needed oilers to bring crude ool from their faraway conquests to Japan. As such, the yamato and the Musashi mainly served to replenish the destroyers engaged in Tokyo express opérations, wich meant 30 knots runs, burning LOTS of fuel. Ironically, because of the scarcity of oilers, the only way to keep the destroyers going was to use the oil bunkerage of the big units like cruiser and battleships, which significantly hampered the Japanese ability to deploy ships in operations. Given the astronomical fuel comsumption of the Yamatos, actually deploying them would have been a major headache since it would have meant starving others warships since, as I mentioned, there were not enough oilers for the Japanese to go around. So for the jaoanese, the Guadalcanal campaign was a logisticsl nightmare. And I am not even mentioning the aviation fuel issue here..
There was one more critical resource the Japanese didn't have in 1945 that made this ship a useless effort that should have been aborted...fuel. Japan was out of fuel to send it's ships to sea at anything other than close defense ranges. And Shinano, like her sister ships were fuel hogs. She was never going to have an impact on the war. Even if the time and effort would have spent building more Taiho class, the lack of fuel, steel, planes and pilots was already to profound.
To be honest why didn't the Japanese invest more in submarines and use the tactics that Germany used with Wolf packs in the Atlantic?
We usually think of "wolfpack tactics" and the German U-Boats of the early war, but it was the Americans who really perfected that tactic in the Pacific War in 1944-1945.
The japanese were still running under the doctrine of having sub go after naval target rather than merchant marine like the Germans and Americans. They even made a aircraft carrier sub.
The Japanese had massive numbers of submarines built - including three dozen submarine aircraft carriers.
The Germans wolf pack tactics however meant that the allies forces were very very good at anti submarine operations by the time Japan entered WW2.
If the Americans had functioning torpedoes before the end of 1943, WW2 would have ended much earlier.
Because German wolf pack tactics sucked. You're forgetting that submarines back then were already known, they weren't new. WW1 already showed what they could do, and back then they were actual threats. Sure, a ship could try to shoot a submarine, but depth charges and other big ASW countermeasures hadn't been developed and put into actual use until 1916. Then we got carriers and ships with planes who could bring forth depth charge attacks from planes meaning you didn't have to run down and drop them on subs or gun down submarines in hopes to hit them. Germany had invested many resources, since you need a wolfpack to make them effective, into many submarines. And they were still losing. Because the Allies were used to it, quite so. And Japan, while not to the same extent as Germany, was also hard pressed for resources. The resources to invest in enough submarines to make an impact would have been great. And again, by that point, ASW was already pretty developed. Carriers were definitely the way to go. The only problem is that the Japanese kinda sucked at naval warfare. Germany failed WW2 more because of the lack of resources than the lack of intelligence, Japan failed WW2 more because of the lack of intelligence than the lack of resources. Even though Japan invested in carriers, which were the good option, they used them too poorly. Who is to say they wouldn't fail with subs, but even worse?
@@DarkSharkDomilian The Japanese failed at subs. Their operational plan called for a “decisive battle” where the opposition’s fleet was to be destroyed BEFORE attacking merchant ships (which doesn’t mean that they didn’t attack merchant ships - but overwhelming priority was given to chasing military vessels).
The Americans reading the Japanese naval cyphers didn’t help but the Japanese having actual working torpedoes (unlike the US) did…
Had she been able to be completed much earlier in the war, say 1943, she absolutely would have been worth it. She could have been a very effective fleet carrier if used as such, but Japan didn't have the time or resources to complete her in time for her to make a difference.
Had the there been a delay in the happening of the battle that historically was The battle of the Philippines Sea, such the Shinano was completed beforehand, she would have been faster, more reliable & far more useful than Ryuho was, and so likely would have replaced Ryuho in that battle.
And with a modest reworking of her huge hanger space to increase storage she likely could carry a full airgroup of 24 zeros/18 D4Y/18 B6N +6 deckparked scoutcraft, more useful than Hiyo or Junyo for that matter. With her able to make 28 knots & massive flight deck (2nd longest in the fleet at that time after Taiho) she would be able to launch a strike of at least 27 attack aircraft + fighters.
Who knows, if the US march across the Pacific is delayed 5-6 months Shinano (or Taiho) might even get B7A attack planes before operation A-GO is activated. ( not that any of this would materially change the outcome of that battle or the war), but it’s fun to consider.
Shinano was the steroid equivalent of the Lexington and Saratoga conversions, under emergency wartime conditions for Japan. The Yorktown class on 20,000 tons was as effective as the 33,000 ton Lexington, but just like Japan, how do you turn a pig into beef? You can’t, so the pig just gets more feed so it becomes pig plus.
From what I read in the book published about the subject, the Japanese thought so. Some counted on it being the weapon to turn the tide of the war; being the largest carrier ever built (until the USS Forrestal, that is) it was seen as able to deliver whole squadrons of planes anywhere they were needed, even serving a purpose for launching kamikaze strikes of much greater proportion. But it turned out not to be; the carrier was hastily converted from the battleship it was originally laid down to be, and with the American pressures getting closer and closer to the mainland, they failed to do proper construction on it to withstand torpedo attacks. The Archerfish actually took quite a risk in torpedoing it, not sure just how much damage they could do; it was fortuitous that their attack was enough to sink the ship, what with its hull weaknesses, incomplete fire-control systems, and a poorly-trained crew...all of which were a result of acts of desperation by the Japanese to finish that ship while still keeping its existence their best-kept secret. They should not have tried to move it when they did; but they felt they had to, because the harbor it was originally being built in was in danger of potential attack.
Funny thing is, when Commander Enright tried reporting his kill upon return to base, nobody believed him at first. The Navy Department didn't have intel about this ship being built. It took quite a while afterward for them to discover that what he reported was in fact accurate, and give him and Archerfish credit for destroying Japan's largest carrier.
I kinda wonder what might have happened if Japan went absolutely all in on interceptor aircraft development and pilot training after midway instead of naval replenishment. Just had their own battle of Britain attempt. I doubt it would have been any less bloody of an outcome though
They would have done likely worse than the Germans did against the B-17s & B-28s. But imagine the cost might have been higher for American aircrews. One thing to keep in mind about The Battle of Britain is it was mostly unsupported medium bombers against the RAF on their home ground. The Battle of Japan would be Heavy Bombers with fighter support.
I really like the support carrier concept even, even if she was a desperation play
If she had survived the war. All I can see her is being weapons tested and studied extensively by United States Government and military before being nuked at Bikini Atoll.
No way they let the Japanese keep her for any purpose.
If she had been fully fitted as in the OTL. She eventually be sunk by a different submarine or bombed by USAAF or naval aircraft. And suffer the fate of Amagi & Katsuragi of being bombed at harbour.
Those Urnyu Class carriers had no squadrons at all cause there was not enough pilots to fill them.
Even if the Pacific War was delayed or more favorable for Japan. I still cannot see her surviving the war.
Japan should have looked at Zuiho Class and pressed the "Reprint button" to use as transport and support
1n 1941, early 192 it would have probably been worth the effort.
Coral Sea, Midway, etc may have turned out different if the Japanese had a ship that could sent over replacement pilots and aircraft while having a few aircraft of her own.
1944/1945, however, she was completely useless since their few remaining carriers didn't even have planes and aircrews.
There werent enough experienced air wings to man her. That being said, major ships are planned years in advance and it is impossible to just conjure up what is needed at a moments notice.
This was fantastic always love your content.
Have you done a video on the Yamato?
I like the idea of an Incomplete Shinano completed Post-War as the first American Supercarrier.
Skynea, I think that had SHINANO been still afloat at the end of the war, she would have been expended as a target like NAGATO was. I agree with you. SHINANO was a waste of finances,; that should have been scrapped on the slipway.
Regardless of carrier numbers at the time, the IJN should’ve realized they would suffer losses and moved expeditiously to convert Shinano to a front line fleet carrier with completion being as soon as possible. If completed along those lines and timeline, with as many attack planes as Shinano COULD’VE carried under such a plan (130-150??), it would’ve been a huge attack boost for the IJN.
I disagree with your statement that Japan had no aircraft left in 1945 when in reality they had between 10,000-12,500 stationed in the home islands for defense. Half of which were kamikaze’s.
What do you suppose went through the mind of the first guy who saw this monster through the periscope 😮 ?
It can be argued that both Musashi and Yamato were wasteful, too. Keeping these super battleships secret meant that even as propaganda they were NOT useful. The only battle Musashi took part in got her sunk. Yamato took part in two battles and was driven off by the insane American tin can sailors and swarms of American aircraft at the Battle of Samar. Yamato's death run demonstrated why she had to respect naval aviation.
by the time her death run happen. Japan lack the ship and air crew to cover her. any warship would had been sunk giving how many flights were sent after her. America really wanted her sunk
The Yamatos as a whole were wasteful, but so were all their contemporary battleship designs.
Thank you ...
The problem was that the construction was too far along - the reason she couldn’t hold an aircraft complement commensurate with her size was that she had her barbettes already installed.
Given Shinano was literally sunk on her maiden voyage by an American sub that got lucky and ambushed her, the answer is a definite no. Especially given the massive loss of life of civilian shipbuilding contractors who were aboard her finishing her construction who could have been put to use building anti-sub destroyers (who were the key destructive force starving the Japanese Islands of the materials they needed to sustain their war effort).
No. I covered her years ago. No pilots and no fuel but they kept wasting time and resources on her. Why? Japan never had a "carrier shortage" like the US did in late 42/ early 43. That is to say they never had more pilots then their active carriers could handle. Even at the end of the war they had (I wont could Hosho) Junyo, Ryuho, Amagi, Katsuragi, Kasagi, Aso, Ikoma, and Ibuki all completed (and damaged) or nearing completion. It's not as impressive as TF58/38 but properly supplied even TF58/38 would have taken the threat of 6 medium and 2 light carriers seriously. She would have been better off completed far soon as a large and fast tanker. Just run fuel from Singapore/Sumatra to the home islands starting in 1943. That would have been useful.
Even today Shinano makes an excellent artificial reef!
It was important for reasons other than it's use. At this time of the war what else were they going to do? Not only keeping your population working and busy helps keep them from falling into idle despair, idle hands in time of trouble is dangerous. It also gives the population a false sense that if they can build something like this then they're not beaten yet.
Very interesting!
I never new Japan had a 3rd super battle ship under construction!
They even had a 4th Yamato class, "nr 111", under construction, it was scraped after Midway when the hull was about 30% compleated !
@@niclasjohansson4333 hi. Thanks for letting me know. It goes to show that there is always more to a subject you originally thought there was!
Same as the German V2 rockets, which required a (nonexistent) nuclear warhead to justify their construction expense.
Not really . If we assume that shinano John is this hybrid garage. The embedded aircraft on the carrier for totally inadequate for defense let alone offense.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooo.
Haven't watched the video yet, but imagine if the Japanese had focused on aircraft carriers instead of the Yamato class: one Yamato battleship is equivalent to about 2.5 Shōkaku carriers.
So Kido Butai would attack in December 41 with at least 9 carriers.
No, it wouldn’t, because the Japanese do not have enough infrastructure to build that many extra Shokakus regardless of how much steel they have to build them out of. One Yamato may displace 2.5x times as much as a Shokaku….but one Shokaku uses up the same number of building slips as one Yamato and takes about as long to put into service, meaning that cancelling both Yamato and Musashi only gets you another two Shokakus in time for PH (and given that both Shokakus were rushed into service to meet the deadline, even that’s debatable, and the two additional Shokakus may well end up joining the war effort only in 1942).
A better trade for the Japanese overall but not nearly enough to hold back the Essex onslaught later on.
@@bkjeong4302 You have clearly recognized the weakness of my model 🙂
🥰
This is not an easy question to answer due to delays in conversion. Shinano's potential cannot be second guessed in anything resembling accurate due to her short operational history.
Ultimately, the decision to build the Yamatos was were the real mistake was made. These were ships designed for a war that was already over and a form of warfare that would never be seen again, except in the rarest of incidents.
Agreed, though it’s worth mentioning the IJN wasn’t remotely the only navy at the time making that mistake.
@@bkjeong4302 Hence those rare instances where these weapons found license.
I would say that all three of these super-ships were a waste of material and effort. Japan could have used six more heavy cruisers and maybe 1 dozen light cruisers far more than the Yamato, Musashi, and this carrier. Of course, that is with the benefit of hindsight.
Where are they getting the infrastructure to build that many extra cruisers…?
@@bkjeong4302 The very same slipways were the keels of these three beasts were built could build the much smaller cruisers in far less time, so all would not be built at once, but over time would give them more usable ships for the same effort.
@@scottpeters8640
First of all, given the sizes of those slipways, if the Japanese try to build anything other than the Yamatos in them they’re going to go for carriers; and given when the Yamatos were built that means more Shokakus, which historically took as long to build as the Yamatos.
Second, while you can build cruisers faster than you can build battleships or carriers, I doubt you could build them fast enough that you can build 6 heavy cruisers-never mine 6 heavy and 12 light cruisers-in the available time with just three extra slipways to use.
I'm currently preparing the garden for winter and I don't have the time to look:
In your video the Shinano has a weight of 72,000 tons, so it corresponds to a Yamato battleship. Shinano is missing the three large gun turrets (2,500 tons each?) + all other superstructure of a Yamato battleship. Shouldn't it be a lot "easier"?
The materials in shinano at this point of the war are all strategic
Even if Shinano was carrying 100 aircraft that is less than 2 Essex class....
It was never a good idea. Those resources could have been used in a better way. There were no trained pilots left to man her.
The whole idea of a large support carrier seems like a waste. If you need a support carrier, you can pull a fleet carrier off the line and have her play support for a while. Plenty of USN fleet carriers ferried aircraft around at some point in their careers. But if you build a large support carrier that can't field a large air group or generate sorties like a fleet carrier, you get the cost of a fleet carrier without the offensive ability. Given Japan's need for flight decks after Midway, it seems a far better idea to complete Shinano as a fleet carrier. The decision was made before the outcome of the war was a forgone conclusion, so the decision is baffling.
She was worthwhile if you're looking for a giant artificial reef.
Absolutely not but neither was the Ise or Hyuga. Got to wonder who was making those construction decisions.
Desperate times often lead to "wonky" decisions by people who would not normally do so-a la kind of "any port in a storm"!
Anyone remember the Alaska class. Kinda like that, by the time they were built they just didn't have a use that something else couldn't do
Complete the thing as an anti aircraft battleship. without the weight of the 18" guns you could have deck armor that would laugh at 1,000 lb bombs. It's sheer size would attract the attention of pilots. loaded down with anti aircraft guns, it would a be useful carrier escort.
…..what’s stopping the pilots from just ignoring it and going after the actually important carrier?
If it's loaded with aa then why would a pilot attack it and without main guns it's not making a threat to other ships, kinda pointless
@@bkjeong4302 Just trying to find a use for the thing. It could operate close to the carrier.
Was she worth the cost and effort? Given the divrsion of manpower and resources. I'm pretty sure th US Navy did.
Also Shinano was poorly built the ship has issues on the boilers and water type door and the crew are lack of training.
Now if they had possessed the ability to convert her to one like Yonaga. In the novels not the game some one made
Hell, the Pacific War would clearly demonstrate that not only was Shinano a waste of resources, but Yamato and Musashi were as well. Throw in Kashino and you've got almost 200,000 tons of materials, months of design work, and countless man-hours to pour into other ship types that could've actually contributed to Japan's war effort.
Yamato and Musashi were wastes but that was something that applies to WWII-era battleships in general (and for the same reason of battleships as a whole no longer having a strategically viable purpose by that point). Shinano, however, stands out because she was so awful and UNIQUELY useless.
@@bkjeong4302 American battleships provided round-the-clock shore bombardment for amphibious landing forces. In the Pacific Ocean, that's a pretty significant contribution.
@@Kwaj
Which was largely done via the old pre-existing Standards, not the fast battleships, which only entered service after battleships were strategically nonviable.
And even the Standards weren’t originally built for the role of shore bombardment, because building a capital ship just ti play a supporting role is insanely strategically wasteful.
@@bkjeong4302 You make a very good point. I suppose heavy cruisers could've filled the bombardment role, and even they'd follow the battleships down the path of obsolescence.
As much as I hate battleships, Shinano was a case where turning a battleship into a carrier probably made her worse overall, especially given they didn’t have enough pilots anyways.
A crime sir a great crime
Even if she was still around at the end of the war she'd have been seized and used as a target ship for atom bombs.
Simply: NO
useless CV.
Alternate title: Like HMS Unicorn, But Compensating!
Over compensating
OF course not. Bluntly speaking the other two ships in that class were wasted as well. IF instead of BBs and a stupid half assed carrier conversion all that material had been used in building destroyers, you could have had 100 more Akizuki class destroyers for the IJN.
Late 1945... and everything is radioactive
The only way she might have been worth it would have been if they could have had full length upper and lower hanger decks. With the aircraft capacity she had, she was worthless.
In 1942 Japan had a population of about half what the US had, yet they fell _far_ behind in training new pilots.
Add in that they had terrible communication between departments and branches, mediocre (at best) logistics, and a relatively tiny industrial capacity, making the _Shinano_ an utter waste of resources and time.
Just like her sisters, her mission was completely outside of reality.
The Japanese should have negotiated peace in 1942. They would have had about two years to exploit their gains as the rest of the world smacked down the Nazis. They were too greedy and delusional, though.
No! Isn’t it interesting although it lays just off Japan no one can locate her???
Well ship finding expeditions are expensive and even then the best we got is a very very wide and general location, even then who knows how accurate that is and in what condition shinano s in to even identify her
I see various depictions of this ship and others that're painted green. Any particular reason for painting an ocean going warship green?
Different navies have differing camouflage philosophies. Many Japanese navy ships used the overall green scheme and when you consider many ocean waters tend greenish as much as blue it seemed as effective as many other schemes!
If everything Japan said about it was true, it was terrible.
E
Japan needed a carrier to replace looses
Just took too long to make her
Japan needed to get a proper reserve pilot training program first.
God damn alien bats.