Recent content by Francis marliere

Gentlemen, I am looking for the oob of Coastal Command and Lutwaffe in France and Norway in January 42. Do you know where I may find that ? Thanks for any help, Francis Marliere

According to Norman Friedman (Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery), the first use of proximity fuse was in January 1943. The AA weapon that made its debut at Santa Cruz was the 40 mm Bofors (albeit in small numbers). Best, Francis Marliere

Gentlemen, please forgive me to open a new can of worms ... I try to make a small database with the performances of some WWII aircrafts. I downloaded a lot of things on the web (especially WWII Aircraft Performance ) and tried to make a synthesis of the data. Unfortunately the data is more...

double post

Parsifal, thank you for your long answer. With respect, I won't answer to your kind words such as "you need to do some research before saying things like that", " you are mistaken", etc. English is not my native langage and I sometimes fail to understand somes shades of meaning. Such words in...

Parsifal, apparently, we don't agree on the term "opposed landing". IMHO, the Japanese did not make amphibious assault against strong defense in WWII, except at Wake. The landings in Malaya, PI, Dutch East Indies or Rabaul were not "assaults" because the defenses were very weak. I may be...

Parsifal, as far as I understand the author's arguments, the Japanese did have experience, doctrine, training and hardware for amphibious operations, not for amphibious assaut. The Japanese used to land troops on unopposed (or lightly defended) beaches then attack. The only amphibious assaut...

Parsifal, as far as I understand things, the arguments of the authors were : - Japan has no amphibious assaut doctrine nor training. Japan's doctrine and training called for unopposed landings then a quick move toward the enemy. - Hence IJN has no training, doctrine and communication system for...

I fear that it would not change much things, because the main problem is the absence of effective fire control for AAA aboard DD.

Yes, you're right, I wrote too fast (as always) and made the confusion between the 5"/50 (DD SP gun) and the 5"/40 (BB CA DP gun). I also mixed the CA and BB for light guns. My bad. Anyway, we agree that Japanese AAA was not very effective and that IJN relied more on evasive maneuvers than...

Balljoint, all relies on what you mean by "could have". Battleships had the physical capacity to shoot at Midway, hence could have bombarded Midway (if not sunk or damaged by planes during their progression toward the island, but that's another story). But that was not part of Japanese...

Conslaw, I may be mistaken, bur I think that there are few references of ships damaged by rockets because rockets were not effective against warships. Hence planes did use weapons more suited for the task : bombs and torpedoes. Best, Francis Marliere

With respect, the Japanese battleships could hardly provide AAA support. The IJN wisely estimated that AAA (at least at this stage of the war) was not effective. Ships were not expected to shoot down or deter many planes and had to steer evasively at high speed to spoil attacks. Hence distance...

Gentlemen, I am not surprised that there is few records of ships damaged by 5'' rockets during the battle of Samar. While these rockets may (or may not) be a good ground attack weapon, it has IMHO a too small warhead to be really effective against a warship. I have read several times that...

Shortround, thanks for your reply. I understand that things are complicated and one can't have the exact numbers. However, what I am looking for is an approximation. I gess that speed loss for a loaded plane may be about 20-25%. I assume that the penalty is more important for climb rate (50% ?)...