War Plan Orange
War Plan Orange (commonly known as Plan Orange or just Orange) is a series of United States Joint Army and Navy Board war plans for dealing with a possible war with Japan during the years between the First and Second World Wars. It failed to foresee the significance of the technological changes to naval warfare, including the submarine, air support and aircraft carriers, and although the Battle of Midway was important, and the US Navy did "island-hop" to regain lost territory, there was no culminating "showdown" battle as anticipated by Plan Orange.
Informal studies as early as 1906 covered a number of possibilities, from basing at Gibraltar or Singapore[1] (an idea revived by the British before World War II)[2] to "a quick trans-Atlantic dash" to the Pacific.[3] The plan eventually adopted was conceived by Rear Admiral Raymond P. Rodgers in 1911.[4]
The plan was formally adopted by the Joint Army and Navy Board beginning in 1924.[5] Predating the Rainbow plans, which presumed the assistance of allies, Orange assumed that the United States would fight Japan alone.
Japanese plans[edit]
In accordance with the Kantai Kessen naval strategy, the Imperial Japanese Navy developed its own plan that allowed the US Pacific Fleet to sail across the Pacific while the IJN would use submarines and carrier attacks to weaken it. The Japanese fleet would then attempt to force a fleet action against the weakened US fleet in a "decisive battle area", near Japan, also in line with Mahanian doctrine, which Japan had enthusiastically embraced. It was the basis for Japan's demand for a 70% ratio (10:10:7) at the Washington Naval Conference, which was considered necessary to provide Japan superiority in the "decisive battle area" (taking into account that the US had naval commitments in other theaters, while Japan did not). It was also the basis of the United States' insistence on 60%, which amounted to parity.[5]
Outcomes[edit]
Actual events generally followed the plan. Although carrier battles and the use of airplanes and submarines overshadowed surface action, the "leapfrog" campaign played out largely as anticipated.[8]
The Imperial Japanese Navy, obsessed with the "decisive battle" doctrine, ignored the vital need for defense against submarines.[9] The German and American submarine campaigns against their opponents' merchant shipping demonstrated the need for an anti-submarine warfare strategy. While the Allies took extensive measures to combat the threat of German U-boats, the Japanese failed to effectively counter the American submarines which ultimately choked Japan's industrial production and paralyzed her navy. Japan also notably failed to institute an anti-commerce campaign where systematic use of commerce raiders could have made Allied operations much more complex and conquering and holding Japanese-held islands more difficult.
American war planners failed to appreciate that technological advances in submarines and naval aviation had made Mahan's doctrine obsolete and did not anticipate a preemptive strike from the Japanese. In particular, they did not yet know either that aircraft would be able to effectively sink battleships or that Japan might put the American battleship force (the Battle Line) out of action at a stroke, which actually happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
American plans changed after this attack. Even after major Japanese defeats like Midway, once the effectiveness of aircraft carriers was known, the Americans favored a methodical "island-hopping" advance, never going far beyond land-based air cover.[10] Meanwhile, a blockade was imposed from the very beginning of the war, with the first American submarine, USS Gudgeon, arriving off Japan on about 31 December 1941.[11]
A number of requirements grew out of Orange, including the specification for a fleet submarine with high speed, long range, and heavy torpedo armament.[12] These coalesced in the submarine Dolphin[13] in 1932 (only to be rejected and returned to with the Gato class in around August 1941).[14] The demand for submarines of this size also drove the development of the notoriously problematic Mark 14 torpedo (and its equally notorious Mark VI exploder), under the guidance of Commander[15] Ralph W. Christie.[16] The Navy also spent "several hundred thousand dollars" to develop powerful, compact diesel engines, among them the troublesome Hooven-Owens-Rentschler, which proved useful for railroads.[16]