Fast Task Carrier Force in WWII, Task Force 58 and the Marianas Turkey Shoot....

[Lucky13]

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[Gnomey]

Good video!

 

[Wayne Little]

Agreed, nice.

 

[Ralph Haus]

Wow! Time warped back to the .25 cent matinees, the news reels before the main show. The late 1940 and early 50's that was. Kind of wish times were like that again. Not the war of course!!

 

[parsifal]

Marianas was a battle in which the IJN finally achieved the battle conditions that had eluded its carrier forces in the 5 previous carrier battles with the USN. Namely that its carriers were so placed as to outrange the USN carrier based aircraft, whilst its own aircraft were retained the range to hit the USN effectively. Moreover IJN battle recon was considerably superior to the USN, such that the IJN remained pretty well informed as to the dispositions of the US fleet. The USN in contrast was relatively ignorant of the locations of the IJN.


Nevertheless, in the pre-battle manouverings the IJN allowed itself to be bushwacked. It was distracted by the invasion of Biak, and really became stuck on the preconceptions of their planning. They had wanted the Americans to attack further south, in the Carolines, and had distributed their assets in a great ring around that area for the purpose of destroying the USN in combined land based and carrier based airpower. This was in recognition that the IJN in terms of carrier capacity was severely outnumbered, some 450 a/c maximum to a maximum fast carrier carrying capacity of well over 1000. By attacking the northern arm of the inner defence ring , the USN was able to catch the IJN and its land based air force off guard and defeat the Japanese in detail, without the Japanese ever being able to concentrate their forces effectively. Moreover, it is estimated that a whopping 30% of the land based air assets were lost in the emergency transfers north as the IJN struggled to reposition the forces to meet the actual MLA of the USN rather than the anticipated MLA. These attritional losses also affected the surface forces, two large fleet carriers, the Taiho and the Shokaku were sunk by the US submarine pickets as they rushed north.


The actual battle was decided by the superior quality of the US pilot training and the corresponding poor quality of the IJN aircrew. Much is made of the impressive performance of the Hellcat fighter. The reputation of this fighter is thoroughly deserved, but it was not the hellcat that was responsible for the loss of aircrew quality in the IJN. Of the 7000 odd combat losses suffered by the IJN up to that point of the war, more than 6000 had been lost to earlier types like the F4F. In many respects, the IJN lost its battle in the central pacific by what happed in the south and SW pacific where a relentless attrition was inflicted upon them during 1942-3. For me, this means the accolades for the aircraft that won the phil sea battle are going to the wrong aircraft. The real heroes of the battle didn't take part in the battle, aircraft like the P-40, F4F, P-39, b-25, b-24, Beaufort even the P-38. More important than these fighters were the long range bombers used by the allies. Nearly as many aircraft were lost in two days by the Japanese at Hollandia and Wewak to bombers (and subsequent amphib landings) than were lost during A-GO.


The shortcomings of the Japanese military machine used in are obvious, and inevitably led to a massive defeat for them. But Phil sea was a battle they were never going to win. With that in mind, the interesting bit for me is whether the US admirals outperformed the IJN admiral or vice versa. I would say it's a bit of a mixed bag actually. Ozawas pre-battle dispositions were very good and he managed to do what no other IJN commander had. His land based counterparts were pretty abysmal, with their false claims of sinking American carriers and outstanding successes where no such success was evident.


The US admirals also played a near perfect game for what they were tasked to do. Spruance never lost sight of his primary objective. He has been criticised for his lack of attack, but I think that its completely unreasonable.


So who "won" on the basis of superior generalship? This is a matter of opinion but I tend to think Ozawa was the superior admiral of the day. Many would disagree…..

 

[Peter Gunn]

*SNIP*


The actual battle was decided by the superior quality of the US pilot training and the corresponding poor quality of the IJN aircrew. Much is made of the impressive performance of the Hellcat fighter. The reputation of this fighter is thoroughly deserved, but it was not the hellcat that was responsible for the loss of aircrew quality in the IJN. Of the 7000 odd combat losses suffered by the IJN up to that point of the war, more than 6000 had been lost to earlier types like the F4F. In many respects, the IJN lost its battle in the central pacific by what happed in the south and SW pacific where a relentless attrition was inflicted upon them during 1942-3. For me, this means the accolades for the aircraft that won the phil sea battle are going to the wrong aircraft. The real heroes of the battle didn't take part in the battle, aircraft like the P-40, F4F, P-39, b-25, b-24, Beaufort even the P-38. More important than these fighters were the long range bombers used by the allies. Nearly as many aircraft were lost in two days by the Japanese at Hollandia and Wewak to bombers (and subsequent amphib landings) than were lost during A-GO.

*SNIP*

So much this ^^ I always thought the F6F was, much like the Mustang, "the right tool in the right place at the right time", and if I was a carrier pilot I'd have no qualms about taking the Hellcat into battle, but even in 1944 I think a well flown Zeke/Zero could still give it all it could handle. I'm not trying to take anything away from the Hellcat, but I think many who sing the F6F's praises miss this part of the equation.

 

[buffnut453]

Let's not forget the supporting technologies and functions that enabled the victory in the Marianas, specifically US radar and signals intelligence. The latter, in particular, enabled optimal positioning of the Hellcats to intercept Japanese formations...essentially, the USN was listening into the IJN aircraft formation commander which provided far greater tactical situational awareness, enabling US admirals to play "an almost perfect game."