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The major factor in winning the Pacific battles was code breaking the Japanese communications. Doctrine doesn't matter when you know what the enemy is doing or
by jalla 2y ago
The major factor in winning the Pacific battles was code breaking the Japanese communications. Doctrine doesn't matter when you know what the enemy is doing or planning.
- whythre 2y agoThat is crazy reductive to the point of ignorance. Doctrine does matter. You might know what your enemy is doing but if you fight wrong, even with foreknowledge, you will not win.
- woooooo 2y agoFor one important example, the battle of Midway was a close thing even with the intelligence they had. Execution matters.
- wkat4242 2y agoThe problem with code breaking is that you can't benefit from it too much because your enemy will realise you're reading their messages and change their practices. For this reason the allies had to let convoys be hit sometimes, because they couldn't always be too suspiciously at the right place at the right time. Luckily the German confidence in Enigma was so high that their top leaders ignored reports of enigma being broken, they thought it literally impossible. I'm not sure how this played out in the Japanese war. But the point remains. You can't use signals intelligence too much unless it's literally ending the war in a couple of days.
- HPsquared 2y agoOnboard radar (cavity magnetron, later adapted to the microwave oven) was another pivotal technology in the battle of the Atlantic.