In-Vulnerable Fortresses?

Milosh said:

Don't think the 2 12.7mm mgs of the Ki-43 would be that effective in shooting down recon B-17s.

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Whether it was 7.7mm or 13mm (or any types in between), they will make holes in a B-17 (or any other aircraft, for that matter) and holes are not a good thing: especially when there's crewmen, oil/fuel tanks, oxygen bottles, hydraulic lines, flight controls or engines in the bullet's path.
A B-17 (or F-9) did not pack a great deal of armor and even a single 12.7mm penetrating can wreak havoc.

Agh yes, the Golden BB.

Difficult to shoot down does NOT mean impossible. The Japanese did manage to shoot down B-29s after all.

However the B-17 was not an easy aircraft to shoot down on average.

For performance try : http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/B-17/B-17E_41-2399_PHQ-M-19-1315-A.pdf

Please note that an under 6,000lb increase in gross weight was responsible for about a 15mph drop in cruising speed. The 20 plus ton B-17 is also NOT going to accelerate from cruising speed to top speed very quickly and in fact climbing at the higher altitudes might be a better tactic. However "recon" at the higher altitudes is less effective. Aerial recon was rather un-reliable at identifying ships as it was (even numbers of ships) and flying 5-15,000ft higher certainly wasn't going to help.
also note that at 243mph at 15,000 the "light" B-17 was burning 1440lbs of fuel per hour in "auto-lean" while moving to 271.5mph required going to "auto-rich" and a fuel burn of 2520lbs per hour. Cruising at 228mph required only 1144lbs of fuel per hour. Running at top speed could burn fuel 3 times faster than cruising at 228mph even if the engines would stand up to it.
While the B-17s might have accomplished more if not destroyed on the ground a couple of squadrons more or less was not going to change the Philippine campaign to any large extent.

Not sure I entirely agree with your last comment. Had the B-17s been launched to neutralized Japanese air power in Taiwan, things might have been much harder for the Japanese. Preemptively blunting IJNAF's "surprise" attack would leave the USAAF in the PI with more assets and reduce the need for dispersal that so hindered mission coordination during the campaign. Having an ability to focus more airpower more decisively may not have changed the outcome of the campaign but it would have made it much more difficult for the Japanese.

According to Wiki there 34 B-17s in the Philippines at the start of the war, even 60-68 B-17s could not have "neutralized Japanese air power in Taiwan". Hurt it yes, but not taken it completely out of the fight.
Your scenario also requires different weather conditions than existed. Japanese air attack was delayed around 6 hours because of fog over Taiwan. An early strike by the Americans might have put them over fog shrouded Japanese airbases/targets for a rather ineffective "strike".
Japanese had mustered 541(?) Navy and Army aircraft (some float planes) before allocating some to the Burma attack in the last week of November.

An improved defense of the Philippines required a different command mind set, improved logistics, more satellite bases, and other things in addition to a few dozen more aircraft.

buffnut453 said:

Not sure I entirely agree with your last comment. Had the B-17s been launched to neutralized Japanese air power in Taiwan, things might have been much harder for the Japanese. Preemptively blunting IJNAF's "surprise" attack would leave the USAAF in the PI with more assets and reduce the need for dispersal that so hindered mission coordination during the campaign. Having an ability to focus more airpower more decisively may not have changed the outcome of the campaign but it would have made it much more difficult for the Japanese.

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Too few B-17s to do much damage through the fog bank apparently covering the Taiwan airfields. There were a fair number of PI dispersal airfields that did provide a refuge for some P-40s after the initial strike, but they had very limited facilities. Not much more than fuel drums with hand pumps and essentially no communications with HQ in Manilla or Clark Field. Seems to me that most combat began with the already airborne and RADAR-alerted P-40E pilots looking up at the much higher flying IJN A6Ms and bombers on December 8. Not an auspicious way to start an a-2-a fight. The P-40 was at best, a marginal aircraft employed as an interceptor. These problems were compounded by an utter lack of situational awareness demonstrated by the Manilla-based air defense command center. As I recall, Manilla maintained a large fraction of its airborne P-40E force orbiting, to no effect, over Manilla Bay while Clark was bombed. Yet, even if they'd been over Clark or Iba they'd have done little to prevent the destruction of those bases until the escorts came down to strafe.

Once the greatly diminished interceptor force retreated to Bataan and became more concentrated, it was apparently more easily managed at a few heavily camouflaged, dispersal airfields. As the A6M threat somewhat diminished as they were called away from the PI to be employed for other purposes, The few P-40s experienced a bit more success attacking surface and naval targets as fighter bombers and as interceptors attacking low flying recce birds and strike aircraft or the more primitive Nates.

The US didn't operate the right aircraft anywhere in the world to properly defend the PI at this stage of the war. Spitfires, Hurricanes and Beaufighters might have made a difference in the outcome. But it seems to me that the USAAF just wasn't yet possessed of either the right equipment or a war mentality to mount an effective PI defense.