Brittle Bushido?
 

One thing that perplexes me. IJN flag officers seem to have ordered withdraws on a suspicious number of times after a short engagement. Win or lose they would leave their mission uncompleted.
The sorts of things I am thinking about were usually fairly hard calls. At Samar Kurita could reasonably claim that the landing forces were probably ashore, and there was almost certainly overwhelming forces ahead. In Savo Island and other Solomons actions, the Americans had local air superiority and would be able to apply it as soon as daylight. And yet so many times when there seem to have been arguments both ways the Japanese made the cautious choice strategically(not as often tactically).
This could be acounted for by the fact that the "decisive battle" doctrine said that the IJN should reduce Allied capacity incrementally before coming to conclusions.
But could there be cultural factors? Could it be that a code so demanding as that of the Japanese might have rather an opposite effect to what is intended at times. Could it be that officers, especially those with long service records they did not wish to besmirch were secretly more terrified of proving a failure, or even worse, a coward, then they let on? In effect could they have been like people who fold when seeing the stakes rise.
Whether that speculation is true or not-and it was probably true in some cases-it would be useful in game terms for making a Secret.

Re: Brittle Bushido?
 

'Would rather not try than try and fail'?
Interesting ... and quite common in psychiatry as well. May be something in that...

Re: Brittle Bushido?
 

Loosing a surface force of a given amount of ships means that they are gone for years. The Japanese ship construction rate was pretty low compared the Allies. IJN officers knew this and had to keep that in mind when when launching surface attacks.

Pressing an attack to accomplish the mission, when the loss of your own ships cancels out any success, makes the attack an unnecessary risk.

Re: Brittle Bushido?
 

The Japanese veteran (Tameichi Hara) that wrote Destroyer Captain also mentioned this, though he was more concerned with the fact that surface units were deployed in 'penny-packet' elements and not in massive crushing armadas. He also found fault with many leaders, stating that so-and-so's previous experience did not leave him prepared for being in charge of large forces or other operations.

While conceding that as a DD captain he had his own problems to worry about, he also noted deficiencies in early Allied surface Ops and their gradual improvement; he was also present in the massive surface fight off Guadalcanal that saw a mixed US force of Ca's and DD's take on Japanese battlewagons at night and freely conceded the mistakes he and his own side made.

Re: Brittle Bushido?
 

INTELLIGENCE

INTELLIGENCE

INTELLIGENCE

Mikawa at Savo knew he'd just won a shattering victory. He also knew of the eight ships he started with he had two left. He also calculated it would take 3 hours to reform and attack. He also knew Wildcats had intercepted Betty's in A.M. So US CV here. The risk of losing his fleet to surface & air did not seem worth it after a victory of this magnitude. So he withdrew. He didn't know Fletcher and CV's were long gone.

At Cape Esperance Goto thought he was hit by friendly fire and withdrew. Ironically as he sailed over the horizon the US fleet having no targets left shot each other up awhile.

Re: Brittle Bushido?
 

And not pressing attacks at the only time when victory is vaguely possible can be a fatal risk.

In any case I already accepted that there were arguments for the action at each time. My point was that deciding in favor of caution when the call could go either way was suspiciously common.