Influence of the Akutan Zero in Allied tactics

parsifal said:

Hi nik

With regard to the way fights tend to develop, i couldnt agree more with you, but its here that training comes into its own.

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I agree. If you havn't yet, I would strongly recommend Jay Stout's book "The men who killed the Luftwaffe" Have been meaing to post here a retraction of an earlier viewpoint on his book when a thread announced it last year. The title led me to think it was a biased back patting account of the USAAF fighter arm so had expressed publically that i had no interest in reading it. When i went 'Kindle' this year i opted to give it a spin.

While I 'do' still think the title of the book to be a rather unfortunate choice of words...... I found it to be the polar opposite of another recent book that examines an Axis airforce......Alan Zimm's Pearl Harbor attack book (A very disrespectful and biased account IMO). Mr Stout objectively lays out the mechanics of the machine that was the American pilot program while still retaining respect for the courage, training and experience of the Luftwaffe and it's top aces. The gist of his book was to well lay out said USAAF training program in far greater detail than say Donald Miller's Masters of the Air, (which covered the entire Air war over Germany)......how it was organized....the massive numbers of would be pilots and crew inducted....the number of Flight Hours per level of instruction etc etc. He clearly showed that while there was always room for improvement and that the pilots graduated were still "green" vs. a hardened veteren they neverless had been well prepared with the "tools" of aerial warfare and mated with the unending supply of quality aircraft and a growing cadre of experienced veterans to lead/guild them.....the result was inevitable for the Luftwaffe....whose own pilot program simply could not keep abreast the crushing attritional pace of the air war over Germany.

His choice of book title was inspired by his focus on USAAF fighter escorts during the daylight campaign and it's direct impact on the Luftwaffe's pilot pool. My only real criticism of the book is that i think he too easily dismisses the contributions of the VVS. while he does correctly point out that BC's efforts at night did not attrit the Luftwaffe's pilot pool given the nature of that struggle.

My opinion, with regard to the Japanese, is that because they tended not to rotate their pilots, everybody tended to die in the finish. There was no clear tactical school of thinking that could be passed onto the next generation of pilots, so unlike the Allies, Japanese pilots, as a group, did not learn, evolve and grow.

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Agreed. Germany had the same problem. Vets fought till they dropped. As they dropped....and as pilot training got more and more condensed as the need for bodies rose.....quality dropped further. A no-win situation. Seeing the industrial war that WWII was does tend to take the glamour out of the war. Its a nice thought to have Fighter Ace A with 2000 flight hours and a fast car and what difference he (or she) could make but in the end if your facing 30 Fighter graduates with 500 hours of good instruction in a plane thats nearly as fast or competetive. Fighter Ace A is going to lose....eventually. He might take 3-4 with him....maybe even 10. Still leaves 20 Fighter graduates with 500 hours of good training and now some seasoning as well.

i agree wholeheartedly it is all about the "bounce". if you can see your enemy before...or better yet he doesnt see you at all...you have the moment to win or lose. many of the air victories ( on both sides ) in all theaters were due to one ac bouncing another.

JoeB, it wasnt my intention to portray tex hill as taking on zeros in the early days of the AVG. i was merely stating what he said in an interview about their tactics and those of the other air wings. i am sure not not all the avg pilots stuck strictly to that tactic. but it was what chennault preached and tried to impress on them. in the air they had the choice to fly as they wished. targets of opportunity or other temptions could entice them to abandon what they had learned....maybe with good or fatal results. like you said...there is a degree of luck in any dogfight. but as parsifal said that is where training and discipline come into play as well. iirc from the stuff which i read on teh tigers and the avg...which was many moons ago. chennault did provide intel to the air corps as to what he knew about jap tactics and what he was doing that was successful. like germany at in the beginning they had better ac and seasoned pilots....they had been practicing for war it just didnt come to them one day. the allies were behind the learning curve and had to take some licks before figuring it out...but they did.

FLYBOYJ said:

Zeros destroyed 4 aircraft in the air during the Pearl Harbor Attack while losing 9 or 10, mainly to ground fire. P-36s brought down 2 Zeros while losing one (ground fire) and P-40s brought down at least 3 Zeros. 2 P-40s were brought down at Bellows Air Field while attempting to take off. These aircraft were on a training mission and it is not known if they were armed or not.

I don't know your references about "Hawaiian based pilot accounts of combat with Zeros" as there seems to be very little written about the aerial combat over Pearl Harbor with regards to tactics and engaging the enemy. It seems that most if not all of the Zero victories achieved by AAF fighters over Pearl were accomplished at high rates of speed with little or no "dog fighting" occurring (If someone finds a documented reference stating otherwise, please post). The fighting over Pearl was very chaotic and I know of no pilot report from the Pearl Harbor attack mentioning the maneuverability of the Zero.

"Dogfighting" with the Zero WAS possible providing you didn't slow down to speeds where the Zero could exploit its abilities (Under 200 mph). At higher speeds the controls of the Zero became concrete

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I suggest you read the narratives By Phil Rasmussen and Lew Sanders of the 15th Pursuit group, about their combats with Zeros on 7 December at Pearl Harbor. Equally telling are the those of Joe Moore and
Randy Keator, the only pilots of the 20th Pursuit Squadron to get into the air during the Clark Field attack.

Duane

varsity078740 said:

I suggest you read the narratives By Phil Rasmussen and Lew Sanders of the 15th Pursuit group, about their combats with Zeros on 7 December at Pearl Harbor. Equally telling are the those of Joe Moore and
Randy Keator, the only pilots of the 20th Pursuit Squadron to get into the air during the Clark Field attack.

Duane

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I have and the ones I read say nothing of either Rasmussen or Sanders speaking of the Zero's maneuvability. It appears he and the other P-36s initally dove on their targets and engaged them at high speeds. I have found numerous articles about Rasmussen getting his canopy shot off and having 2 cannon shells lodged in his radios.

Let's say you are one of the decision makers in Washington looking through pilot reports of engagements with the Zero and you perceive our boys are having trouble with them. Now, is it an aircraft with unusual capabilities or have we come up against some very excellent pilots? Could it be a combination of the two?

Compare that with being able to touch the plane, sit in the cockpit, define the testing you want done, watch it fly overhead and talk to the test pilots.

barney said:

Let's say you are one of the decision makers in Washington looking through pilot reports of engagements with the Zero and you perceive our boys are having trouble with them. Now, is it an aircraft with unusual capabilities or have we come up against some very excellent pilots? Could it be a combination of the two?

Compare that with being able to touch the plane, sit in the cockpit, define the testing you want done, watch it fly overhead and talk to the test pilots.

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Also consider who is reading those reports to begin with. Open minded intelligence officers or those biased by biggoted perceptions of the Japanese...

barney said:

Let's say you are one of the decision makers in Washington looking through pilot reports of engagements with the Zero and you perceive our boys are having trouble with them. Now, is it an aircraft with unusual capabilities or have we come up against some very excellent pilots? Could it be a combination of the two?

Compare that with being able to touch the plane, sit in the cockpit, define the testing you want done, watch it fly overhead and talk to the test pilots.

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That may be true Barney, but by the time Koga's Zero was discovered, repaired, and flown, most of the intel on the Zero had all ready been well known and put into practice. The below is a portion of the article on wiki regarding Koga's Zero. Granted this is a wiki article, but I believe it to be a accurate description if events.

The capture and flight tests of Koga's Zero is usually described as a tremendous coup for the Allies as it revealed the secrets of that mysterious aircraft and led directly to its downfall. According to this viewpoint, only then did Allied pilots learn how to deal with their nimble opponents. The Japanese could not agree more... Yet those naval pilots who fought the Zero at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal without the benefit of test reports would beg to differ with the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane. To them the Zero did not long remain a mystery plane. Word quickly circulated among the combat pilots as to its particular attributes. Indeed on 6 October while testing the Zero, [Akutan Zero test pilot Frederick M.] Trapnell made a highly revealing statement: 'The general impression of the airplane is exactly as originally created by intelligence—including the performance'.[37]

I would say as has been posted before that the info gathered from flying and evaluating the Koga Zero only backed up the all ready well known info that had been circulated throughout the military about the Zero's strengths, weaknesses, and the all ready used effective tactics for dealing with the Zero in the air. To me the deciding factor in determinging how important finding Koga's Zero was would be to ask could the allies have dealt with the Zero effectively had Koga's Zero not been found, and I say the answer has to be yes, they all ready were ending the Zero's domination. The outcome would have been the same with or without finding Koga's Zero. The writing was all ready on the wall by the time Koga's plane had been found. It would not have been a major blow to the allies if Koga's plane had not been discovered as tactics were all ready in place to deal with the Zero.

FLYBOYJ said:

I have and the ones I read say nothing of either Rasmussen or Sanders speaking of the Zero's maneuvability. It appears he and the other P-36s initally dove on their targets and engaged them at high speeds. I have found numerous articles about Rasmussen getting his canopy shot off and having 2 cannon shells lodged in his radios.

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Here's a couple of links from a 318th FG site talking about Sanders' experience with the Zero's manuverability.

new

~318thFighterGroup.Canton.html

Duane

Her's the other one.

new

Duane

"Sanders got on the tail of another fighter and as they climbed, he found himself being badly outmaneuvered. He was somehow able to disengage with a newfound respect for the highly nimble Zero. Intelligence would later try to tell him the Japanese had no aircraft so maneuverable, but Lew Sanders had just been there and done that!"

I've seen that - written from a third party and perhaps un confirmed interview quotes. This is what I'm talking about....

http://www.warbirdforum.com/vmf221.htm

Regardless an interesting site, thanks for posting

The performance of the Zero may well have been common knowledge to pilots shortly after the beginning of the conflict in the Pacific. However, that is not enough to win. That water war was won by hulls in the water, the right mix of planes on the deck and the correct strategy. Look at the time line.

The Akutan Zero made its first test flight in American hands on September 20, 1942, flown by Lieutenant Commander Eddie R. Sanders.

The Casablanca Conference occurs 14 to 24 Januanry 1943 with Churchill, Roosevelt, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Eisenhower, Admiral King and Field Marshal Alexander present amongst others.

I'm not going to say anything about the conference other than that the plan for the rest of the war was laid out there.

FLYBOYJ said:

Also consider who is reading those reports to begin with. Open minded intelligence officers or those biased by biggoted perceptions of the Japanese...

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If they were reading American propaganda, they were biased.

barney said:

If they were reading American propaganda, they were biased.

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Thats just plain baloney. Just because people read biased reports, or even propaganda, does not make those officers or even politicians biased. It only makes them (the people) biased, if they read them, and accept them at face value.

After Pearl harbour, nobody under-estimated the Japanese capabilities. There was bias, but not to the extent that it affected operational assessments. People knew the Japanese were a formidbale and implacable enemy, and whilst there was racially motivated loathing, there was also grudging respect for their abilities as soldiers

parsifal said:

Thats just plain baloney. Just because people read biased reports, or even propaganda, does not make those officers or even politicians biased. It only makes them (the people) biased, if they read them, and accept them at face value.

After Pearl harbour, nobody under-estimated the Japanese capabilities. There was bias, but not to the extent that it affected operational assessments. People knew the Japanese were a formidbale and implacable enemy, and whilst there was racially motivated loathing, there was also grudging respect for their abilities as soldiers

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You'd be surprised of the racism that many WW2 vets carried before and after the war within the US. Not saying "all" but many - and I'd bet dollars to donuts that entrenched racism sometimes biased military intelligence, at least from what I witnessed from "some" WW2 vets that I have met over the years.

Undoubtedly there was racism at all levels and scales. One only has to read the intelligence assessments that underestimate the Japanese prior to Dec 41. British intelligence certainly had a mental hierarchy of non-caucasian nationalities, with the Chinese falling somewhere below the Indians. The inability of the Japanese to subdue the Chinese proved , to many, that the Japanese military wasn't very effective. How wrong they were! Of course, the flipside also applies from early 1942 onwards when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and the myth of the "invincible Japanese" gained currency. Neither position was correct and it took a long time for the Allies to find an effective answer to the problem and develop the right ground tactics to overcome such a tenacious and dedicated adversary.

so if the "machine" reacted to the Japanese threat rather incorrectly, I guess it stands to reason that the individual was likley to as well......

Nikademus said:

I agree. If you havn't yet, I would strongly recommend Jay Stout's book "The men who killed the Luftwaffe" Have been meaing to post here a retraction of an earlier viewpoint on his book when a thread announced it last year. The title led me to think it was a biased back patting account of the USAAF fighter arm so had expressed publically that i had no interest in reading it.

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The only thing that book ever wanted, was to be loved!

parsifal said:

so if the "machine" reacted to the Japanese threat rather incorrectly, I guess it stands to reason that the individual was likley to as well......

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Yes, and when reality struck the tendency was to blame everyone else. One other interesting part of this whole equation is the constant trotting out of the belief that Japan would struggle against "a first class opposition" and yet nobody in British high command paused to ask whether the defences in Malaya really constituted that "first class opposition".

Yes, and when reality struck the tendency was to blame everyone else. One other interesting part of this whole equation is the constant trotting out of the belief that Japan would struggle against "a first class opposition" and yet nobody in British high command paused to ask whether the defences in Malaya really constituted that "first class opposition".

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There were clearly aspects of japanese equipment that were obsolete, particularly their armour and their artillery. In some respects the Japanese Army (in particular) was boorish and ultra conservative. But it was also a well trained force, and in 1941 possessed a very advanced doctrine for fighting in rough terrain. Their hook tactics, and the exhortations by Colonel Tsuji along with some personal kit issued to the Japanese made the japanese a formidable foe for a considerable period. The decentralization of firepower to battalion level was another feature of the Japanese TOE. The allies really had nothing to match the 70mm Bn gun, or the slightly larger 75/24 Mtn gun in the Jungle. Japanese hook tactics repeatedly confounded the allies. In the face of mounting logistics difficulties took realistic expedients. For example the Japanese were not above reducing the squads firepower from 2 LMGs to just one, mostly to save ammunition....at least they could keep fighting that way. Japanese soldiers made good use of surprise, camourflage and entrenchments. above all else, a feature of the IJA was its iron discipline....it could take losses in its frontline units and keep fighting as effective units almost until the very last man. no other army, not even the SS can compare to that level of fanatical discilpine. In many ways the IJA was as hard on its own personnel as it was on the prisoners that it took

The Japanese small arms were nothing to shout about either. The Akutan Zeke was finally vanquished by the "Beast". An SB2C taxied into it and destroyed it.