Japanese aircraft were behind in timing to Allied aircraft.

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They may have had reasons, but I can't really think of any good ones.

Maybe it's just as simple as recognizing the problem faced by planes like the Ju 88, Fiat Br 20 (used by the Japanese) and many others including Japanese types, in which gunners who either had other responsibilities or were in charge of multiple guns and often weren't ready to shoot at an enemy fighter in time. So they wanted a dedicated gunner for each gun (which may or may not have been a good solution to the problem, but may have been the answer the people writing the specs decided on).

Junk guns and heavy guns
One issue that comes up a lot is the ammunition capacity (or small magazine size) of defensive guns on Japanese planes, especially the 20mm cannon. This is interesting, but maybe could use some perspective. When a fighter is attacking a bomber, unless the fighter pilot is very inexperienced, it will be in a very rapid pass lasting at most a few seconds in which either aircraft is in range of the other. It's not like trench warfare in that sense. A defensive gunner will likely only have time for one or two very short bursts before the enemy fighter flashes by. Where ammunition capacity comes into play is where they are being repeatedly attacked and by multiple fighters either in formation or in series (a tactic developed by many nations during the war). But the 8th AF situation is somewhat unique and was not typical of most of the Theaters of the war in WW2.

Small ammunition capacity, lack of power traverse and limited numbers of guns are mitigated to some extent by bombers flying in formation so that multiple gunners can open fire on the enemy fighter(s) when it is making a pass. So even if they all have 15 round clips on those 20mm Ho-1, or 60 rounds on the Type 99, an enemy fighter would potentially be targeted with multiple bursts from the heavy guns of 3, 6, 9 or 12 aircraft as they make their approach.

Sr6 has made a lot out of the 'junk guns' of the Japanese. There is some truth to that. They had rather poor small arms and crew served infantry weapons as well, but they were able to make them work well enough to sweep aside British and American forces in Malaya and the Philippines, and to prove quite a challenge in many subsequent land battles in China and in various Pacific Islands. I think to a point quality of the firearms matters but a .30 caliber rifle or machine gun is still pretty lethal, and a 12.7 or 20mm gun definitely is.

So I don't believe Japanese defensive gunners posed a trivial threat, particularly the heavier guns but not just them. Even very successful units like the AVG routinely took losses to defensive gunners of IJN bombers, including relatively flimsy and poorly defended aircraft like the Ki-21. Gunners on the G3M, G4M and Ki-49 were somewhat feared due to their 20mm guns and allied pilots took steps, like attacking from below or from the front, to avoid them. The Japanese pilots were particularly well known for their tight and precise formation flying - this was in part done (and emphasized in their training) to increase the defensive firepower from their guns. If you came up slowly behind a formation of G3Ms or G4Ms or Ki-49s in an Allied fighter, you stood a fairly good chance of being hit and even one shell from the 20mm could be devastating. The later Ki-49s actually had multiple 12.7mm Ho-103s replacing the 7.7mm as well.

Turrets
Once again we tend to look at this issue almost exclusively from an 8th AF point of view, and maybe a little bit from the British perspective. But in the Pacific (and the Med) defensive guns on bombers did make a difference and did indeed cause problems for fighter pilots. The US made planes like B-25, B-26, Baltimore, B-24 and B-17, and even the Hudson, which had power turrets, did prove to be a problem for Axis fighters. They had to develop special tactics to attack them, and in the Pacific it was not at all unusual for these bomber types to go on raids without escorts. They still needed escorts in the Med, and this was the role of the P-40 for light and medium bombers and the P-38 for the heavy bomber, both of which had somewhat extended range compared to the German and Italian types, and this conferred an operational advantage, allowing the Allied planners to make strikes in a wider array of target areas which were difficult to predict and defend. The Japanese had a similar advantage in the Pacific and China / Burma / India, as Just Schmidt pointed out, quite capable fighters were available which could in fact escort the bombers, further than any of the US types except maybe the P-38.

Speed
I do think gun turrets and heavy defensive guns mattered, but so did speed, even where very fast fighters were available. In the Med, the Boston / A-20 / DB-7, the Martin 167 Maryland, and Martin 187 Baltimore all proved quite successful and took relatively low losses in large part due to their speed. The speed was largely used for egress from the target area, or to evade and abort if they were intercepted by fighters early. Faster speed means that there is a shorter window for the fighter to intercept. It makes it harder for AAA gunners to target the bombers. Yes some fighters were available that could climb 4,000 feet per minute and fly 370-400 mph, but to do so they burned through fuel at a rate which quickly left them depleted, and with enemy fighters in the area they may need that fuel to defend themselves.

Now of course, once you are later in the war where the Allies have air superiority and there are relatively few Axis fighters still around, interceptors have a little more leeway, needless to say.
 
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Pulling back to a wider view for a moment, the combination of 300 mph speed with a 20mm defensive gun (and later 20mm plus five 12.7mm) looks pretty good compared to other light and medium bombers around the world. The US types were more heavily armed but either slower or had much shorter range. Until the "5th Airforce revolution" in 1943, they were not necessarily any more effective in terms of the operational history than the Japanese bombers were.

The German types were not particularly impressive in comparison, with the exception of the dive bombing ability (for a while) of the Ju 88. The Italian and Soviet and British types don't compare that well either.

The Japanese bombers weren't spectacular but then, what bomber was in 1941 or 1942? They all had design flaws. The only real standout is the Mosquito, and it took a long time to be developed into a successful bomber.
 
Looks cool, has some impressive traits, but wasn't exactly breaking the enemy's back in 1941-1943. The main problem in the Pacific was that they couldn't hit anything.

The versions used by the 8th AF were much improved over the earlier designs, and became effective once they had long range escorts.
 
(in theory they could have strapped a torpedo to the bottom of a B-17 and made a pretty scary ship killer out of it, but alas the US torpedoes, unlike the Japanese, basically did not work during the first half of the Pacific war). If I'd been on Kenny's staff or say, Pappy Gunn's bartender, I would have suggested strapping a British torpedo to one.
 
I think the B-17 did actually hit stuff, someone here might remember better than I. I'm not talking about that Japanese cruiser that sank very quickly near Midway either. In 1941 or 1942, nobody had the number of bombers to break anyones back. In comparison to any other air force's bombers, it was spectacular. Your adjective, spectacular, leaves the B-17 at the top of the heap. Lancaster? Bet you every centine Marcel has that the Fortress could easily outrun a Lanc at 32,000 feet, with a useful bomb load. G4M (giggle)? The Russian Pe-whatever? (derisive snort). Screw the years given, how about the Greif? (Outright laughter).
In 1941 (There's a great movie with that title, check it out), the B-17 was spectacular!
 
I think the B-17 did actually hit stuff, someone here might remember better than I. I'm not talking about that Japanese cruiser that sank very quickly near Midway either.

Let's put it into perspective. 1941 -1942, even 1943 B-17, did hit a few things in the Pacific. I have the operational histories. But not too many. You are talking like once out of 20 missions. Japanese bombers did a lot better than that. D3A Val's hit rate was 50% in some strikes. G3M and G4M also routinely drew blood, albeit at a high cost.

B-17

Looks - spectacular
Theoretical performance - spectacular
Ability to survive missions - very good (Pacific), good (Med), poor (NW / Central Europe)
Ability to hit ground targets - fair
Ability to hit ships - poor

They did do one low-level raid on Rabaul with B-17s which was successful (and pretty close to the original design mission of this aircraft), and they even hit ships a couple of times, but the ratio of destruction of any significant enemy targets per mission was very, very low. In terms of the true role of the B-17 in the Pacific, it was a maritime armed recon plane which could harass ships and sometimes hit a few planes at airfields and once in a while, a ship or two.

In the Med it was a bit more effective against airfields etc. in 1943, (with many 8th AF planes transferred south for a while) but short of spectacular. B-24 had more impact in that Theater though it too had it's flaws.

In 1941 or 1942, nobody had the number of bombers to break anyones back. In comparison to any other air force's bombers, it was spectacular. Your adjective, spectacular, leaves the B-17 at the top of the heap.

Well, I would note, pertinent to this thread, that the Japanese Navy sunk most of the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. Then pretty much all British shipping quite swiftly around Malay and Singapore, including their strategic naval assets (battleships) by using, incidentally, G3M and G4Ms. Then all the US shipping around the Philippines. So I would say that was a fairly significant blow struck mainly by bombers.

Lancaster? Bet you every centine Marcel has that the Fortress could easily outrun a Lanc at 32,000 feet, with a useful bomb load. G4M (giggle)?

G4M sunk more ships than the B-17

The Russian Pe-whatever? (derisive snort).

Helped the Soviets break the German war machine during these exact years. Stalingrad was in 1942.


Screw the years given, how about the Greif? (Outright laughter).
In 1941 (There's a great movie with that title, check it out), the B-17 was spectacular!

I get the joke, and I like B-17s too, but it wasn't quite the world beater at that stage of the war.

B-17 was originally meant to be a coastal defense, maritime patrol bomber. It was pretty good in that role, but that wasn't a decisive mission. Like I said, if you put a (working) torpedo on it, it would have been pretty scary IMO.

They adapted it to Strategic bombing, by improving it and providing excellent escort fighters. That did end up being decisive but that wasn't until 1944. And by 1944, I don't think you can make the case that the German army had a chance to defeat the Soviet army any more regardless of how many ball-bearing factories we bombed.
 
 
The question isn't whether the Japanese aircraft were competitive with the aircraft the Allies chose to use against them, it is whether the Japanese were behind the Allies in design in general. The fact is that the Japanese were not facing the best at least as far as the RAF is concerned.
 
The B-17 was the pioneer skip bomber at least for the US. I don't know what success it had
 
The thing with the Japanese guns is that they were crap. they may have been hot stuff in 1918, but in 1940-41????????

The Japanese copied the German MG 15 machine gun that was being used in the Spanish civil war.

At least it fired at about 1000rpm. The 75 round drum was a little dubious.
The JAAF called it the Type 98 and the Japanese Navy called it the type 1.
Both chambered the standard German 7.9mm ammo which didn't do a whole lot for Japanese logistics.

The Japanese had how long t figure out that this was not the answer?
First 3 Ki-67 prototypes had them in the bow and the two waist positions and that was in Dec 1942 through March of 1943. And kept them for the beam positions until the 20th airframe.

US had stopped using single .30 cal Brownings in the summer of 1942 for the most part.
Blenheim's were using twin .303 Brownings in 1940-41.

It wasn't quite a turret but it allowed for power traverse and power elevation over a large part of the upper rear of the aircraft with 2200-2400rpm and the belt feeds didn't require co-operation by the attacking fighters to reload the guns. Wasn't anywhere near enough and the British tried resorting to four gun turrets on some bombers but I guess the British and Commonwealth gunners just weren't as good as the Japanese gunners.

Nothing was 100%, the fact that the Japanese managed to shoot down some attacking fighters with their defensive guns didn't mean the attacking fighters didn't shoot down the Japanese bombers in large quantities.

Most Japanese bombers went through 2-3 stages of armament and two stages of engines with marked differences in performance so identifying which versions is kind of important.
Like the version of the Betty that used four 20mm guns (tail, dorsal, and both sides) didn't show up until Oct/Nov of 1944.
 

Well, I believe I have addressed that.

Spitfires don't seem likely to have done very well in the Pacific prior to when they were used.

Mosquitos, as good as they were, did get used in Burma or India and had trouble with the tropical conditions.

I'm not sure what else I'm missing. Lancasters? Typhoons? Gloster Meteors? Whirlwinds?
 
Neither Lancasters or Typhoons were used by the RAF in the Pacific. Tiger Force was supposed to use Tempest IIs, Hornets, probably Mustangs, as well as Lancasters (later versions) and Lincolns. But the war ended before Tiger Force was well established and operational.

Also of note there is that the RAF didn't use P-47s in Europe (though they obviously tested them), but used them in the CBI.
 

How many ships did Blenheims sink? I see them taking a lot of losses and doing very little damage, in say, the Indian Ocean, Malaya, Singapore, and North Africa. I don't necessarily think that means British gunners were worse than Japanese, but I do believe (I know some people here disagree) that 12.7 and 20mm defensive guns have a longer effective range. I'd rather have the heavier and longer range gun than the faster firing .303s. YMMV.

I think there is more to whether a bomber does well or not besides the raw numbers, but I also suspect the higher speed of some of the Japanese bombers may have also helped them survive.

That said, although in 1942, all things being equal, I personally would probably rather be a crew on a Ki-49 than a Blenheim, I'm not arguing that Japanese bombers were superior to British, I'm arguing that they were not inferior. Which is a bit different.

(for the record though in the Pacific I'd rather be on a B-17 - we may not hit anything but we probably wouldn't get shot down)
 
Neither Lancasters or Typhoons were used by the RAF in the Pacific.

I know.

Tiger Force was supposed to use Tempest IIs, Hornets, probably Mustangs, as well as Lancasters (later versions) and Lincolns. But the war ended before Tiger Force was well established and operational.

That's interesting

Also of note there is that the RAF didn't use P-47s in Europe (though they obviously tested them), but used them in the CBI.

That's even more interesting. Know any details?
 
You said spectacular bomber. Singular. I thought the goalpost was elsewhere.
 
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Which one are you saying is spectacular, the G3M or the G4M, or both?
 
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As far as Tiger Force, this will give the basics, it seems though that the main aircraft used were to be Lancasters, Lincolns and Tempest IIs (no mention of P-51s or Hornets, though the Hornet was developed as a long range fighter):


Interestingly, they did plan on using Liberator cargo/transport planes set up for air to air refueling as well.

As for RAF use of the P-47 in the CBI, here's this. Again, it's Wikipedia, so should be taken either as broad, basic info, and/or maybe a grain of salt and doesn't go into a ton of detail:

"P-47s were operated by several Allied air arms during World War II. The RAF received 240 razorback P-47Ds, which they designated Thunderbolt Mark I, and 590 bubbletop P-47D-25s, designated Thunderbolt Mark IIs. With no need for another high-altitude fighter, the RAF adapted their Thunderbolts for ground attack, a task for which the type was well suited. Once the Thunderbolts were cleared for use in 1944, they were used against the Japanese in Burma by 16 RAF squadrons of the South East Asia Command from India. Operations with army support (operating as "cab ranks" to be called in when needed), attacks on enemy airfields and lines of communication, and escort sorties. They proved devastating in tandem with Spitfires during the Japanese breakout attempt at the Sittang Bend in the final months of the war. The Thunderbolts were armed with three 500 lb (230 kg) bombs or, in some cases, British "60 lb (27 kg)" RP-3 rocket projectiles. Long-range fuel tanks[26] gave five hours of endurance. Thunderbolts flew escort for RAF Liberators in the bombing of Rangoon. Thunderbolts remained in RAF service until October 1946. Postwar RAF Thunderbolts were used in support of the Dutch attempts to reassert control of Batavia. Those squadrons not disbanded outright after the war re-equipped with British-built aircraft such as the Hawker Tempest.[27]"
 

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