Let's put it this way - I really wish you were right. Like I wrote I love Spits, but I doubt this number within this context nonetheless. 70 claimed and 65 actually lost? Unheard of.
The 65 mentioned are the total losses as admitted in Japanese records. Japanese records don't go into detail as to aircraft damaged and then written off or DNR, often because of the chaotic conditions that existed within the Japanese networks themselves. Im using a third party and am happy to defer to superior sources, but you arent producing that, Im just seeing opinions based on what? back up your claims with some evidence other than your opinions please. .
Spitfire was designed as a defensive fighter. If it failed at this task, that's because it wasn't faultless, not because the task was inappropriate.
It faced failure in early 1943 because it was faced with a difficult task and applied inappropriate tactics in response to those challenges. I agree, the spit wasn't faultless never claimed that.
First about pilots using wrong tactics. How long does it take to gather some basic info about the enemy which you know will try to kill you? People would have to be stupid not to nose around for it. I bet they did, and I bet they knew what to do, at least roughly.
There were deep problems in the Darwin command that could only be solved slowly. It was endemic of far deeper problems that dogged the allies in that first year. Far from answering a glib, ill considered question with a glib ill-considered answer, I will recommend that you read a little, and get yourself a copy of Anthony coopers Darwin spitfires, to understand some of the issues. I will post bits and pieces myself in response to this question, because it is quite clear to me that this was a critical issue in the whole development of the 1943 campaign
Then I doubt that this marked improvement actually happened. In war there is always some pressure on showing positive results. But of course it's possible that the pilots were taught what to do better, and figured out some better ways of fighting on their own too.
Read the book
But this reminds me, there were pilots fighting Japanese in Burma in Hurricanes with expectably poor results. High charge sent them a lecturer, to teach them how to do it properly. They listened to the lecture carefully, then kindly asked the lecturer to jump into the Hurricane and simply show them.
Hurricanes in Burma were primarily a bomber were they not?
People can learn mighty quick if their life depends on it. I doubt there was much the pilots didn't know already.
Many of the pilots of 1 FW had fought in the ETO, where the Spitfires ability as a manoeuvre fighter stood in well against the opposition in that war. When you've learnt methods that time and again have saved you, and you don't understand the nature of your opponent and their strengths, I think it would be unlikely that pilots would try other things easily.
but again, read a little and find out rather than making assumptions.
People lived in Darwin, so there was a supply chain in action. Ships?
Darwin was a dusty and sleepy little town of under 5000 people before the war. There were two or three ships per year delivering essential items, and a bullock track connecting to the south. There was an unsealed track from alice to the south and a single line rail to Adelaide. After the attacks in February 1942, the seaborne route was closed down and reliance on the track ordered. however the track was not all weather, so for 4 months of the year, from early November through to February this supply route also shut down.
efforts were put in hand after Fenruary 1942 to upgrade the track, which began to improve the situation by September 1942. This work continued through to the end of the war, such that by July 1943 the Australian High command considered that an all weather overland supply line did exist. it was the major engineering feat of the SW pacific to build that link, constructed in a similar vein to the great northern highways to Alaska and the Burma Road. difficult engineering solutions to difficult supply problems, that
eventually were solved
