Editing Tokyo Express (section)

==Strategic implications==
The Tokyo Express ended up being a lose-lose gambit for the Japanese, because many destroyers were lost during the fifteen months of the Tokyo Express, for no gain. These ships could not be replaced by the stressed Japanese shipyards, and were already in short supply.  In addition, they were desperately needed for [[convoy]] duty to protect Japanese shipping supplying the [[Japanese archipelago|Home Islands]] from the depredations of American submarines.<ref>Parillo</ref>

The Imperial Japanese Navy was caught in a [[Catch-22]], since American airpower from Henderson Field denied the Japanese the use of slow [[cargo ship]]s. Compared to destroyers, cargo ships were much more economical in fuel usage while having the capacity to carry full loads of troops plus sufficient equipment and supplies, and having efficient cargo loading and unloading equipment. However, they were slow and comparatively unmaneuverable, and thus easily sunk – not merely sending irreplaceable supplies and freighters to the bottom but leaving their increasingly desperate troops unprovisioned and ever less able to fight.

As a result, the Navy was in essence forced to "fight as uneconomical a campaign as could possibly be imagined", since in using destroyers they had to "expend much larger quantities of fuel than they wanted" considering Imperial Japan's disadvantage in oil supply, and this "fuel was used to place very valuable (and vulnerable) fleet destroyers in an exposed forward position while delivering an insufficient quantity of men and supplies to the American meatgrinder on the island".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.combinedfleet.com/guadoil1.htm |title=Oil and Japanese Strategy in the Solomons: A Postulate |website=www.combinedfleet.com |access-date=2024-12-26}}</ref>  Even at its best (with only one-fifth of the supplies dropped ever making it to shore) the destroyer strategy amounted to waging a losing war of attrition on land and an extremely expensive rolling naval defeat.

Thereafter, the Japanese increasingly relied on convoys of barges escorted by armored boats to replenish or evacuate their forces. A typical configuration allowing for the transport of 1,000 men, 300 miles, would consist of 2 [[Soukoutei-class armored boat]]s as escort for 2 special large landing barges ([[Toku Daihatsu-class landing craft|''Toku Daihatsu'']]), 40 large landing barges ([[Daihatsu-class landing craft|''Daihatsu'']]), and 15 small landing barges ([[Shohatsu-class landing craft|''Shohatsu'']]).<ref>{{Cite web |first= |last= |authorlink=   |title= =Japanese Use of Military Barges, from ''Tactical and Technical Trends'', No. 43 |website=lonesentry.com |date=January 27, 1944 |url=https://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt09/barges.html |access-date=2024-12-26}}</ref>