Japanese aircraft were behind in timing to Allied aircraft.

Credit where credits due, the JAAF focused their fighter attacks on single aircraft maximising their firepower and it worked, the number of kills was small compared to the ETO but so were the numbers of planes in general so fantastic improvisation and execution.

Juha3 said:

Yes, I noticed when rechecking from the Young's booklet last night that also on 1 Dec 43 both 7th and 308th participated the attack on Insein locomotive repair shop in Rangoon. After 14 B-24 aborts 44 bombers attacked, there were some 50 defending fighters from 21st (Ki-45s), 64th and 204th Sentais, both of the latter had Ki-43s. 6 B-24s were shot down but two of them were first damaged by AA and dropped out from formation and then finished off by fighters. The loss of the lead plane of the 308th formation just before the formation had started its bomb run. In the confusion that followed 5 a/c flew past the primary target , three more missed it with their bombs and only 15 dropped on the railway works. The 64th Sentai claimed 7 B-24s shot down, while the 204th 2 and the Ki-45-equipped 21st one. So the loss rate of the B-24s reaching the target area was 13.6 % in spite of the small escort force.

And on 24 Aug 1943 over Hankow China Ki-43s shot down 4 out of 7 attacking B-24s losing one to defensive fire and 2 to 6 escorting P-40s. And on 15 Sept 43 4 out of 5 B-24s attacking Haiphong in French Indo-China were lost to 35 Ki-43s, one Ki-43 was lost.

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Were there any P-40 losses?

One other area I would like to emphasize where the Japanese had some very good designs is dive bombers. The D3A was unprotected and started taking heavy losses in later 1942, but it was a lethally accurate dive bomber, with quite a good range (much better than a Ju-87) and not as vulnerable as you might think. Certainly you can see in the operational history they had a reasonably good chance to survive against fighters depending on the mission profile (much better than equivalent torpedo bombers). I would say it compares well overall with the Ju-87, certainly in the maritime role. I put it in a tie with Ju-87 and SBD as the best dive bomber in the war.

The Yokosuka D4Y suffered from protracted teething problems like a lot of mid-war planes did, and though it was designed in 1940, the first functional variant, D4Y-2 didn't arrive until 1943, which was too late as they soon ran into the buzz-saw of F6Fs. But it was very fast (340 mph), had pretty good range (910 miles) and was apparently quite accurate - hitting several US ships even in 1944. The last variant D4Y-4 had armor and ss tanks, while retaining good speed and range, and excellent accuracy. It just came much too late.

Same can be said of the B7A, which was both a torpedo and a dive bomber. Superb speed, handling and performance, excellent range (1800 miles according to the Wiki) and it was protected from the get-go, and heavily armed with two 20mm cannon and a 13mm defensive gun. Came too late and in too few numbers to have an impact on the war, but as a design, I would say it compares very well to the late war and even post-war US and British planes (Wyvern, Firebrand, Firecrest, Spearfish for the UK, Mauler, Skypirate, Skyshark for the US). Only what became the A-1 / AD Skyraider can really compare with it - it turned out good in the CAS role, but we don't really know if the AD would have been a good ship-killer. (you could also perhaps compare it to the excellent Italian Fiat G.55 in torpedo bombing mode). The Skyraider wasn't a dive bomber and wasn't normally fitted for torpedoes, in fact I think they got rid of the internal bomb bay. The fact that the British and Americans made so many (basically failed) attempts to make something similar to the B7A shows that there was still an interest in this type of Naval strike aircraft.

Needless to say, the B7A definitely looks better than the wartime SB2C or the Barracuda, and in terms of performance and maneuverability (which also had long and painful development cycles). The real (high angle) dive bombing capability and the ability to hold bombs internally, and to carry a torpedo (I think externally), it looks like it was good enough that it may have been preferable to using fighters in the fighter-bomber role, which is what replaced the SB2C in service.

Some would argue that missiles and rockets made dive bombers obsolete, but I don't really buy that. Though it had problems, the fast dive bomber variant of the Mustang, the A-36, proved to have a quite useful niche even in the extremely hairy AAA and flying environment of mountainous Italy. The plane didn't hold up to the structural challenges of pulling out of repeated dives but it proved very handy at knocking out bridges. I think a 350 mph Stuka would have also been welcome, had the Germans been able to develop one.

Rockets, as we know, were not that accurate. They may have been fine for attrition warfare, for sinking ships and ground targets of secondary importance late in the war, but for accuracy such as needed to sink capital ships or troop transports, they probably weren't good enough. Early missiles and glide bombs could be quite effective, but the Allies (I think the British?) quickly developed pretty effective counter-measures against these, reducing their effectiveness, and the launch platforms, such as Do-217s, seemed to be excessively vulnerable. Specifically Do 217s did sink some Allied ships with Fritz X and HS 293 weapons during amphibious operations around Italy, and they missiles / glide bombs were very sophisticated for the time, but Do 217s took such crippling losses in making these strikes that the units were swiftly eliminated.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

The numbers shown, assuming they are accurate, give a roughly even number of single crew fighters for four engine, 11 crew bombers. That is a fairly good trade for the intercepting fighters. I'm not sure a Bf 109 could score at that rate, in fact I don't think they did where they were facing B-24s over North Africa and Italy.

If that alone doesn't show you that the Ki-43 still had considerable bite that late in the game, I'm not sure what evidence could ever convince you of anything.

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While that's a trade only general would make a fighter should do better than one to one. If you look at the the Schweinefurt missions for example the Germans shot down an average of 60 bombers and lost an average of 30 fighters. Flak accounted for some of the bombers but Allied fighters accounted for some of the German fighters.

This link references the work of Bill Marshall, a regular contributor on the website
The tables seem to show
very few German fighters shot down by heavy bombers in comparison to heavy bombers shot down by German fighters.

Reluctant Poster said:

While that's a trade only general would make a fighter should do better than one to one. If you look at the the Schweinefurt missions for example the Germans shot down an average of 60 bombers and lost an average of 30 fighters. Flak accounted for some of the bombers but Allied fighters accounted for some of the German fighters.

This link references the work of Bill Marshall, a regular contributor on the website

The Battle Over Munich – April 24, 1944

The tables seem to very few German fighters shot down by heavy bombers in comparison to heavy bombers shot down by German fighters.

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It's certainly true that the German fighters got much better at shooting down heavy bombers than anyone else including the Japanese, and I would also add that the heavy bombers active over NW Europe by late 1943 were more heavily armed than the ones in the Pacific, at least until the arrival of the B-29 which the Germans never had to face.

But to get into high efficiency bomber killing mode, the Germans did things like adding gun pods to their single engine fighters, and deploying their comparatively slow and ungainly heavy fighters and twin engine night fighters, sometimes adding all kinds of extra ordinance to those like big guns, rockets, mortars, everything you can think of. This was very effective at knocking down B-17s and B-24s, but those same aircraft proved to be very vulnerable to Allied fighters once they did start to be able to reach the target areas. Ultimately as we know, the daylight bombing campaign in Europe, so brutally and effectively checked at Schweinfurt, became far less dangerous for the US bomber crews and in fact, in the long run took considerably fewer losses than the night bombing campaign by the RAF.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

It's certainly true that the German fighters got much better at shooting down heavy bombers than anyone else including the Japanese, and I would also add that the heavy bombers active over NW Europe by late 1943 were more heavily armed than the ones in the Pacific, at least until the arrival of the B-29 which the Germans never had to face.

But to get into high efficiency bomber killing mode, the Germans did things like adding gun pods to their single engine fighters, and deploying their comparatively slow and ungainly heavy fighters and twin engine night fighters, sometimes adding all kinds of extra ordinance to those like big guns, rockets, mortars, everything you can think of. This was very effective at knocking down B-17s and B-24s, but those same aircraft proved to be very vulnerable to Allied fighters once they did start to be able to reach the target areas. Ultimately as we know, the daylight bombing campaign in Europe, so brutally and effectively checked at Schweinfurt, became far less dangerous for the US bomber crews and in fact, in the long run took considerably fewer losses than the night bombing campaign by the RAF.

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The B-24s in the Pacific had pretty much the same armament as their European counterparts. Hawaii and Australia depots added asorts of guns to B-24s including front turrest.

From 380th BG History -- Part V: Aircraft Types

Also note the much greater effectives of the 20mm. If the Oscar had 20mm cannon perhaps they shot down 50% more instead of merely damaging them and that is the object of the exercise.

Moving to the Ki-61 and keeping it brief.
Actual production started in Aug-Sept (1 and 3) 1942 but deployment started in early 1943 for plane that was about the equivalent (performance and armament) of a Macchi MC 202 that entered service in Aug 1941. Or note that the MC 205 entered operational service in Feb 1943.
P-40F ends production in Jan 1943 and the Merlin powered P-40L stops at the end of April, takes several months to get some of them overseas.
Peak production of the Ki-61 was in June, July and Aug of 1944 with nearly as many built in those 3 months than in all of 1943.
Pick any other Western fighter (British, American, Italian or Soviet) introduced into combat in late 1942 or early 1943.

Reluctant Poster said:

The B-24s in the Pacific had pretty much the same armament as their European counterparts. Hawaii and Australia depots added asorts of guns to B-24s including front turrest.
View attachment 728491
From 380th BG History -- Part V: Aircraft Types

Also note the much greater effectives of the 20mm. If the Oscar had 20mm cannon perhaps they shot down 50% more instead of merely damaging them and that is the object of the exercise.

View attachment 728490

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I would note that Japanese .30 Caliber (actually 7.7mm and 7.9mm) was the most common defensive weapon for bombers/torpedo planes.

Shortround6 said:

As far as B-24s vs Ki-43s (or any other fighter) goes..................
They have different jobs.
The B-24s are supposed to be bombing things and going home to come back and bomb again.

The Ki-43s (or other fighter) are supposed to stop them from bombing to start with and failing that, keep them from coming back.

For the B-24s (or other bomber) shooting down fighters is down on the list. Sort of a bonus. Keeping from getting shot down is 2nd goal after putting bombs on target. Shooting down fighters is 3rd.

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I'd say there are two jobs - the bomber's job isn't necessarily to shoot down fighters, in most cases (though you could argue that was in part what the 8th AF was for), but the fighter's job is to shoot down bombers, as well as to disrupt the bombing mission. Which one of those two takes priority depends a lot on the target. If you are defending a carrier, disrupting the attack is priority number one for sure. If you are defending some docks... I'd say both factors come into play. And no country, even the United States, could afford to trade four engine bombers for single engine fighters for very long.

RCAFSon does have a point about what percentage of aircraft are involved (and boy, I'd really like to see the numbers on those Hurricane sorties in Burma, how many Hurricane squadrons were there? The US only had one fighter group in Theater until pretty late in the game). But I know they didn't have a ton of B-24s in the CBI so I think 30 bombers in a realitvely short period of time like that is certainly a little painful. And we can also see from the account of that raid on Rangoon that the Japanese Army pilots did in fact at least partly disrupt the raid, in part by the precision of their attack (taking out the formation leader).

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

Were there any P-40 losses?

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No mention of possible P-40 losses. The booklet focused strictly to B-24 vs Ki-43 combats.

Getting to the Ki-84

First combat deployment early Aug 1944 (?) in China against the 14th Air Force.

vs US fighters In Asia/Pacific

F4U-1; Feb 12th 1943 Guadalcanal
P-47C; Aug 1943 348th fighter group 5th AIr Force New Guinea.
F6F; end of Aug 1943 land based at Guadalcanal and USS Essex, Yorktown, Independence. Sept 1st USS Princeton and Belleau Wood.
P-51B; April 1944 5 P-51Bs arrive at First Air Commando Group in Burma, June 1944, the 23rd Fighter group starts replacing P-40s and P-51As with P-51Bs.

The question is not of the Ki-84 was good, the question is if it was late and if so, by how much.

It sure looks late to me.

Is there such data as above for P-38 and P-51A?

mack8 said:

Is there such data as above for P-38 and P-51A?

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Yes but I figured the P-38 and P-51A as earlier generation aircraft, I also didn't want to get into arguments about the different P-38 aircraft, a P-38F having different level of performance from a late model P-38J for example.

Answers from AHT
P-38s, Aug 1942, P-38s shoot down two flying boats in the Aleutian Islands. P-38s show up at Guadalcanal in Oct/Nov 1942.

P-51A; June 20th 1943 P-51A's arrive in India. Sept 1943, 23rd Fighter Group obtains some P-51As in Kweilin China. There is one squadron of A-36s mixed in somewhere in the 311th Fighter Bomber Group.

That's interesting that there were some F6Fs in Guadalcanal already in 1943. When I looked into the F6F history, it seemed like the ones on carriers were doing a lot of training and work-up in 1943 but didn't see combat until 1944.

The dates for the other aircraft look correct to me, but it's worth noting at least in 1942-1943 they were coming in quite small numbers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there were more than a couple dozen P-38s operational in the Pacific through 1943 (they were mostly being committed to the Mediterranean at that time in the hopes that they would have a big impact there).

That said, even the very early P-38s seem to have been unusually effective against the Ki-43s and A6Ms, which is why Kenney was soon clamouring for more of them. Guys like Richard Bong were flying P-38s already in 1942 IIRC.

F4Us also came in pretty piecemeal in 1943, a few dozen flying in the Solomons right? Two or three squadrons? They weren't on carriers until later in 1944 IIRC. They definitely helped the war effort though for sure, even in small numbers.

What kind of numbers were those P-47s in at New Guinea? That's interesting I didn't know they were there so early.

I would agree though that Ki-84 came probably at least a year too late. It also didn't have quite the impact you might expect in China either, maybe because of the quality of the remaining pilots.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

That's interesting that there were some F6Fs in Guadalcanal already in 1943. When I looked into the F6F history, it seemed like the ones on carriers were doing a lot of training and work-up in 1943 but didn't see combat until 1944.

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A lot people focus on the Carrier to carrier battles and there weren't any in 1943.
There were a lot of carrier supported Island invasions or attacks though in the last 4 months of 1943.
The Solomons operations.
6 carriers attack Wake on the 5th and 6th of October.
Carrier raids on Rabul in Nov
Operation Galvanic (Attack on Tarawa) had about 450 F6Fs between the Air Support group and the 11 light and fast attack carriers in 4 different carrier groups.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

The dates for the other aircraft look correct to me, but it's worth noting at least in 1942-1943 they were coming in quite small numbers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there were more than a couple dozen P-38s operational in the Pacific through 1943 (they were mostly being committed to the Mediterranean at that time in the hopes that they would have a big impact there).

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You may be right.
On Dec 15th Gen Harmon had 41 P-38s.
General Kenney was on a replacement schedule of 15 P-38s a month but wasn't even getting those in Feb 1943.
There was also a shortage of personnel. In March Kenney is told he can the planes for a fighter group of P-38s but not the personnel. Kenney says to send the planes, he would find the personnel.
Two P-38 squadrons take part in the battle of the Bismark Sea.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

F4Us also came in pretty piecemeal in 1943, a few dozen flying in the Solomons right? Two or three squadrons? They weren't on carriers until later in 1944 IIRC. They definitely helped the war effort though for sure, even in small numbers.

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Numbers changed all during 1943. By June there were 3 US Marine Squadrons using F4Us on Guadalcanal (I don't know it they were full strength)
One June 30th 4 Marine squadrons and 1 navy Squadron support landings in the Georgia Island group.
By the end of July there are 8 Marine Corsair squadrons in the Solomons.
Note that this before VMF-124 (the Black Sheep) even show up.
Oct 31st 1943, F4U-2 night fighter makes the Navy's first successful radar guided interception.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

What kind of numbers were those P-47s in at New Guinea? That's interesting I didn't know they were there so early.

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They were in small numbers. Again the New Guinea operation seems to have gotten the short end of the stick. Kenney was trying to like crazy to get working drop tanks on the P-47s. during the summer of 1943.
P-47s had been authorized in place of P-38s but out of the 350 authorized only 207 arrive in Australia from Oct-Dec of 1943.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

I would agree though that Ki-84 came probably at least a year too late. It also didn't have quite the impact you might expect in China either, maybe because of the quality of the remaining pilots.

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They were also out numbered and were facing better airplanes. P-47s were showing up in the China/Burma theater, the P-51As/A-36s were being replaced by Merlin P-51s and the P-38 squadrons were getting newer models. By the time the Ki-84s show up P-30s and P-40s are being replaced, maybe not all right away but the quality of the allied fighters had changed. What did not help was that the 1944 production of Ki-84 was only about 73% of the production of the Ki-43. Few squadrons or even groups of Ki-84s in any one theater was not enough to keep back the large number of Allied aircraft.

VF-17 was equipped with 36 F4U-1 when Bunker Hill arrived in the Pacific in mid-Sept 1943. But to simplify logistics in the fleet it was swapped out for the 36 F6F-3 of VF-18 while she was at San Diego. VF-17 was then sent to fly from shore bases in the Solomons.

During the raid on Rabaul in Nov 1943 the shore based F4U squadrons used the carriers as a refuelling point to extend their time on CAP.

It was then Dec 1944 before F4U squadrons from USMC units went aboard the carriers again to boost the number of fighters in view of the kamikaze menace. 10 squadrons were involved aboard 5 Essex class carriers through to about May 1945. By then USN equipped F4U squadrons had begun to show up.

F4U-2 night fighter detachments also operated from a number of Essex class carriers during 1944.

Shortround6 said:

A lot people focus on the Carrier to carrier battles and there weren't any in 1943.

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I follow the non-carrier actions but my focus is mainly 1942 through roughly mid-1943

Shortround6 said:

There were a lot of carrier supported Island invasions or attacks though in the last 4 months of 1943.
The Solomons operations.
6 carriers attack Wake on the 5th and 6th of October.
Carrier raids on Rabul in Nov
Operation Galvanic (Attack on Tarawa) had about 450 F6Fs between the Air Support group and the 11 light and fast attack carriers in 4 different carrier groups.

Click to expand...

Wow! Interesting. That is way more than I was aware of that early in the game. 450 F6Fs is pretty scary for the Japanese I bet. I stand corrected. How early were F6Fs in action? Oct 43?

Shortround6 said:

You may be right.
On Dec 15th Gen Harmon had 41 P-38s.
General Kenney was on a replacement schedule of 15 P-38s a month but wasn't even getting those in Feb 1943.
There was also a shortage of personnel. In March Kenney is told he can the planes for a fighter group of P-38s but not the personnel. Kenney says to send the planes, he would find the personnel.
Two P-38 squadrons take part in the battle of the Bismark Sea.

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Like i said, they seem to have had a somewhat outsized impact, though they were still in quite small numbers. Also fairly challenging to maintain IIRC.

Shortround6 said:

Numbers changed all during 1943. By June there were 3 US Marine Squadrons using F4Us on Guadalcanal (I don't know it they were full strength)
One June 30th 4 Marine squadrons and 1 navy Squadron support landings in the Georgia Island group.
By the end of July there are 8 Marine Corsair squadrons in the Solomons.

Click to expand...

Wow ok yeah that is again more than I thought. That's quite a ramp up!

Shortround6 said:

Note that this before VMF-124 (the Black Sheep) even show up.

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I think you mean VMF 214. I was trying to figure out when their first mission was but couldn't find it.

Shortround6 said:

Oct 31st 1943, F4U-2 night fighter makes the Navy's first successful radar guided interception.

They were in small numbers. Again the New Guinea operation seems to have gotten the short end of the stick. Kenney was trying to like crazy to get working drop tanks on the P-47s. during the summer of 1943.
P-47s had been authorized in place of P-38s but out of the 350 authorized only 207 arrive in Australia from Oct-Dec of 1943.

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Yeah that sounds like what I expected

Shortround6 said:

They were also out numbered and were facing better airplanes. P-47s were showing up in the China/Burma theater, the P-51As/A-36s were being replaced by Merlin P-51s and the P-38 squadrons were getting newer models. By the time the Ki-84s show up P-30s and P-40s are being replaced, maybe not all right away but the quality of the allied fighters had changed. What did not help was that the 1944 production of Ki-84 was only about 73% of the production of the Ki-43. Few squadrons or even groups of Ki-84s in any one theater was not enough to keep back the large number of Allied aircraft.

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In China the P-40 units seemed to be holding their own quite well. Somebody a long time ago posted the outcome of a fight involving some P-40s vs Ki-84s and some other planes and IIRC the P-40s came out on top. For whatever reason ('m still not entirely sure myself) China / Burma seems to have been an ideal environment for that fighter. P-38s and P-47s, P-51As and even Mosquitos didn't work out too well in that Theater. I think the first really effective replacement for the P-40 there was the P-51C, and by that time the war was basically won

So from all the stuff you just posted, and further clarified, it sounds even more like the F6F was the death-knell for the Japanese. Almost 2 years of F4F, mostly the sluggish F4F-4s, and all the sudden, hundreds of F6Fs. I would love to see the loss numbers but I bet Japanese aircraft losses shot up as soon as they were facing those kinds of numbers of ~380 mph+ fighters vs what they had gotten used to. More F4U in 1943 than I realized as well, also can't be a welcome change for the Japanese.

I recall a story where a Hellcat was following a Zero in a climb during a dogfight. The Zero pilot climbed a bit and was expecting the Grumman to stall. Wrong Grumman.

SaparotRob said:

I recall a story where a Hellcat was following a Zero in a climb during a dogfight. The Zero pilot climbed a bit and was expecting the Grumman to stall. Wrong Grumman.

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That extra 1,000 hp is a bitch...