Best transporter

[GermansRGeniuses]

Dear God lanc...


Anywho, the "mike mike" I kept saying above is Vietnam slang for Millimeter and "Tally Ho" means visual confirmation.

 

[Lightning Guy]

The Japanese had a number of fascinating aircraft Lanc. You might enjoy taking a look at this site as it has info for most of the major fighters.

http://www.kotfsc.com/

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

Anywho, the "mike mike" I kept saying above is Vietnam slang for Millimeter and "Tally Ho" means visual confirmation.

there's plenty of steroetypical english sayings to that effect..................

 

[MP-Willow]

LG -that site is a very nice one! I found it while ago and used it to read up on Japanese and Russian planes. I like how it presents the information and the different groups are helpful.

The Ki-84 was the best Army fighter but the Navy vor political and turff war reasons never to my knowledge evaluated it. The Zero was good but it like the 109 needed to be upgraded. The 109 was but the Zero and most Japonese planes were fare behind in upgrades and developent. As I understand it they were slow and the A7M program was falterig badly.

 

[Lightning Guy]

Well, if you know much about the Japanese aviation industry, you know that the military had serious problems with interfering in the designers work. The A7M was initially designed to use a Mitsubishi Ha 43 engine of 2,200hp. The Navy suggested a more developed but less powerful engine requiring series re-enginering. When it was finally flown it was shown to be a nice plane but seriously underpowered. By the time the IJN pulled its thumb out and agreed to use the more powerful engine, B-29s were laying waste to the cities of Japan.

 

[MP-Willow]

True you reminded me of reading that.

But the maine problum was Japan had no safe production or testing areas. That and the B-29s were taking out cities one a a time, and then running out of places to go

 

[Lightning Guy]

Well, if the Japanse had gotten serious about producing new fighters, the A7M probably could have been entering service in early 1944 before the B-29s were much of a threat and the IJN still had a few carriers to ship them on.

 

[MP-Willow]

Ok say that was the case would the A7M had made a difference given pilot skills? We have said before that the USN / USMC pilots can be average but to get the most out of the IJN planes the pilots needed to be better, and they were out numbered.

 

[Lightning Guy]

If it had entered service in 1944 in might have prolonged the war. The A7M was supposed to have the maneuverability of the Zero with performance better than the Hellcat and matching most of the other American fighters. Japan still would have been facing an uphill battle because of the production situation, but at least the pilots would have had a good chance of surviving combat.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

they would have benn allot beter if the IJN could train their pilts to the standard they were at the start of the war...................

 

[Lightning Guy]

But that took forever! Plus, the Japanese pilots at the start of WWII were so good because they had already seen YEARS of action against the Chinese.

 

[MP-Willow]

I agree the IJN had been able to fly in Chia for 4 years or more developing the skills and more to the point the aircraft. One could say that China had poorer quality planes but they did put up some strong resistance.

As we have said the production of the US was a prblum that only Gerany, Russia, and The UK could compeate with. Do you know if Japanese subs sat off the USA WEst coast to down ships as did u-boats off New Jersey?

 

[plan_D]

Germany and the UK couldn't compete with the US for production. The Soviet Union could only compete because of British, German, French and American skill, technology and tools.

 

[Lightning Guy]

No. The Japanese were never real keen on the idea of using submarines independently of the main fleet. Their primary role was to scout for the fleet and maybe to sneak in a shot or two at an American warship. All in all, that was probably good for us as the Japanese had some of the best subs and the very best torpedoes in the world.

 

[MP-Willow]

So the Japanese had the oposite tactic for use of Subs then Germany? Interesting. One would think they would have been more agressive.

 

[Lightning Guy]

The war in the Pacific was more dependant on convoys and troop transports that the war in Europe. If the Japanese had employed their submarines in a more offensive role, it could have been very bad indeed.

 

[dead parrot]

The Japanese capability to produce planes seemed to have been severly hurt by a couple of big earthquakes in 44/45. Production of the Ki.67 Hiryu for example was really hurt by a slowdown in engine deliver due to a Dec 44 earthquake.

Deteriorating quality control and dwindling supplies hampered what production there was left of existing planes. Later models of the Ki.84 were cobbled together basically from whatever was handy, which must have made for a fragile plane...

 

[dead parrot]

The war in the Pacific was more dependant on convoys and troop transports that the war in Europe. If the Japanese had employed their submarines in a more offensive role, it could have been very bad indeed.

The big plan for the subs was to shadow and weaken the main American fleet before the decisive battle, but war exercises in '39 and '40 showed they weren't up to the task. There were not enough of them, and even though the fastest had a 24 knot surface speed, it wasn't enough to allow them to maintain repeated attacks on a fleet.

Meanwhile, American subs were doing in the Pacific what the Germany's wolf packs tried to do to in the Atlantic: sending the entire enemy merchant marine to the bottom of the ocean...

 

[Lightning Guy]

I had mentioned that as being the invisioned mission of the Japanese surface fleet. I was merely pointing out that they would have been better off if they had adopted the tactics being used by the USN and the Kriegsmarine.

 

[dead parrot]

Right, and I was agreeing with and expanding on your point. Instead of trying to chase down US fleets, they should have been attacking supply shipping like the US subs were...