kwaigonegin
Colonel
The IJN fleet was as capable as the USN in WWII and certainly from a ship for ship basis they are at least equal if not superior. The primary reason why they lost Midway and ultimately the Pacific thetre was due to the US being able to decipher the secret Japanese naval codes. Nimitz and his other admirals/commanders basically went into the fight knowing Yamamoto's order of battle. The entire IJN were pretty much destroyed after Midway as they never came back to strength or anywhere near it which leads to the second reason.
The secondary reason why the Japanese ultimately lost the war is because of production capacities. While they had a very potent and competent military their factories just weren't capable enough to mass produced the hardware needed to replace war attrition. Germany suffered the same fate to a similar extend. The Panzers were far superior to the Shermans but for every Sherman a Panzer destroyed, 10 news ones were being built. The US basically outproduced them. Obviously being seperated by the oceans, American factories had the advantage of being in full production mode during the entire war and weren't targeted unlike the factories in Germany and Japan.
IMHO, that strategy will not change in any forseeable war with a competent OPFOR.
You maintain air superiority if possible and you keep bombing or lobbing cruise missiles at the factories, C & C etc and pretty soon you will win. Well that or it will soon escalate into the nuclear option once conventional forces are all but depleted.
