Kamikaze: Ever had a chance of success?

[Civettone]

How far is the horizon on a clear day at 20,000-25,000 feet ?

You've got some fairly experienced pilots on this forum, i'm not one of them. But I can imagine myself as a newby pilot though, brecause i'm not far above that level right now.
I can imagine me at the 50 hour level of experince flying around trying to find something, maybe with a pair of binoculars, i'd soon merge with the ground.
I'm very experienced with search from the air over ground from the Army aviation, plus have helped the CAP in some downed aircraft searches, it's not something you do with inexperinced pilots, unless you want to add to the aircraft downed.

I am not convinced. FIghter plane pilots did not have more trouble finding enemy task forces, than bomber crews. I agree that more eyes is useful. But I am sure a flight of 30 Baika/Ohka crews would be able to spot a task force of a dozen major warships plus smaller supporting ships, while still being able to keep their plane in a straight line and at constant speed...

Also, kamikaze flight formations were lead by experienced pilots. I assume the same would have happened with a formation of Baikas/Ohkas.

Credit where credit's due, but this idea that inexperienced pilots cannot spot ships nor fly a plane straight, is IMO grossly exaggerated. Reminds me a bit of those pilots who used to discredit the idea of UAVs, believing their experience and flying capabilities were indispensable.

Kris

 

[tyrodtom]

Fighter pilots, again, experienced pilots. In radio comunication with each other.
And I think you need to do a more indepth study of the UAV program before setting it up as a example of sucess.

 

[altsym]

So what does 神風 mean????
...

Divine wind. In Japanese, the formal term used for units carrying out suicide attacks during 1944–1945 is tokubetsu kōgeki tai (特別攻撃隊), which literally means "special attack unit". This is usually abbreviated to tokkōtai (特攻隊). More specifically, air suicide attack units from the Imperial Japanese Navy were officially called shinpū tokubetsu kōgeki tai (神風特別攻撃隊, "divine wind special attack units").

 

[parsifal]

Divine wind. In Japanese, the formal term used for units carrying out suicide attacks during 1944–1945 is tokubetsu kōgeki tai (特別攻撃隊), which literally means "special attack unit". This is usually abbreviated to tokkōtai (特攻隊). More specifically, air suicide attack units from the Imperial Japanese Navy were officially called shinpū tokubetsu kōgeki tai (神風特別攻撃隊, "divine wind special attack units").

thankyou and exactly right

 

[FLYBOYJ]

, but this idea that inexperienced pilots cannot spot ships nor fly a plane straight, is IMO grossly exaggerated.

As far as spotting ships, probably a different subject all together, but I suggest talking to someone who has flown aircraft at high speeds (300 mph plus) and let them tell you have difficult it could be for a low time or even student pilot to maintain altitude and directional control, it takes a while to understand and master using trim, especially in pitch attitudes.

You mentioned yourself that Kamikazes had 30 hours training - a PPL requires 40. How proficient do you think these pilots really were, especially if the only training aid was a glider (in the case of flying an Okha)?

 

[Civettone]

If you are flying at a constant speed and in a straight line, how much time, percentage wise, do you need to devote solely on trim control?

I have trouble believing a flight of experienced pilots are better at seeing a US TF in open ocean, than inexperienced pilots. Add an experience pilot to lead the flight and I think they will be fine. And yeah, I guess then the real difficulty is controlling the plane in a straight high-speed dive towards US carriers without spinning out of control and missing the target. That part seems more credible than the inability to even fly a simple-to-fly plane like the Ohka is said to have been, in a straight line and at constant speed.

Kris

 

[FLYBOYJ]

If you are flying at a constant speed and in a straight line, how much time, percentage wise, do you need to devote solely on trim control?

You are continually trimming to maintain pitch attitude and this will vary with speed and attitude. During abrupt maneuvers you are "muscling" the aircraft as you maneuver, once you level off you start trimming to maintain a cruise altitude and attitude. The first several hours learning to fly is devoted to this, it is a constant action that must be learned and initially you have a student "all over the place" when trying to make coordinated turns or maintaining altitude.

I have trouble believing a flight of experienced pilots are better at seeing a US TF in open ocean, than inexperienced pilots. Add an experience pilot to lead the flight and I think they will be fine.

Things look very different in the air, although that may sound simplistic its the truth. Unless you have some experience in the air, "things" on the ground seem to all blend in. I've had a student of mine fly right over an airport and didn't even know where they were.

And yeah, I guess then the real difficulty is controlling the plane in a straight high-speed dive towards US carriers without spinning out of control and missing the target. That part seems more credible than the inability to even fly a simple-to-fly plane like the Ohka is said to have been, in a straight line and at constant speed.

Kris

Understand that when you start applying power (or thrust) there is a tendency on most aircraft for the nose to pitch up and unless you trim rapidly, you're really putting muscle on the stick to counter act that upward pitch. This even happens in small GA aircraft when you're in a landing configuration and you power up in a go-around, so imagine a 30 hour pilot who may have never flown faster than 120 knots suddenly at 10,000' in a rocket at 450 knots.

 

[Jenisch]

The Ohka was essentially a rocket glider. But given the short wings, the things must have had a very poor glide ratio. Not that it was bad, it was actually necessary to have lower drag and get the benefit of the rocket engine.

 

[tyrodtom]

When you're at sea you've got nothing to sight on to know if you're going straight, all you've got is a horizon To stay level by.
Unless you're flying straight into the wind, or away from the wind, you've got wind drift.
A newby pilot isn't going to be able to scan the few gauges he had to keep a compass course.
And a formation of 30 hr level pilots following a experienced pilot sounds like a situation guaranteed to produce a lot of mid air collisions.

 

[razor1uk]

I think of the Ohka as a descent/thrust glider when its rockets are on, without power, its just a like an aerodynamic stone with a long lance warhead in it and a human guidance componant... which AFAIK wasn't welded or chained in/up as allied wartime propaganda would have you believe.

Mind due, the Japanese apparently had the largest home islands reserve of combat able a/c for directing against the invasion fleet - and of the axis powers late war, they probably had the better trained pilots as far as average hours went for verses the other axis powers.

Not that would stand up against the million plus combatants propossed invasion force - it was planned to be bigger than Normandy after the difficulties encountered during the island hoping battles - but the A-bombs became 'online' and so, lives were inevitably saved on all sides. (methinks that the 3rd bomb was still being made/processed, and when ready, was used in the 'Baker' test in '45/'46 - hence why the quick use of the 2nd upon Nagasaki, to create the appearance of more waiting, and weaken the nearest regional command centre to the propossed invasion axis via Kyushu after the next invasion step onto Honshu, which was the 1st bomb target of Hiroshima... sorry I am getting off-topic.)

 

[stona]

Minor detail, he third bomb was ready to go. The "hardware" was already shipped and the nuclear component was ready to go. Truman stopped it, according to Oppenheimer and others.

Cheers

Steve

 

[VBF-13]

Minor detail, he third bomb was ready to go. The "hardware" was already shipped and the nuclear component was ready to go. Truman stopped it, according to Oppenheimer and others.

Cheers

Steve

Now there's something I totally didn't know. I "knew" this, though. After that Nagasaki bomb, the Japanese had to be thinking, there's more where that came from.

 

[parsifal]

Not that would stand up against the million plus combatants propossed invasion force - it was planned to be bigger than Normandy after the difficulties encountered during the island hoping battles - but the A-bombs became 'online' and so, lives were inevitably saved on all sides. (methinks that the 3rd bomb was still being made/processed, and when ready, was used in the 'Baker' test in '45/'46 - hence why the quick use of the 2nd upon Nagasaki, to create the appearance of more waiting, and weaken the nearest regional command centre to the propossed invasion axis via Kyushu after the next invasion step onto Honshu, which was the 1st bomb target of Hiroshima... sorry I am getting off-topic.)

After Phillipines Sea and Leyte, very few in Japan believed they could achieve victory. The battles in 1945 were about making the achievement of final victory by the allies so expensive that better terms than those offered at potsdam could be obtained. The Japanese in 1945 had two basic war aims....that any peace treaty respect the authority and person of the emperor, and secondly that the Home Islands not be the subject of foreign occupation. They achieved one of those aims.....the empereor was respected, his position in the government retained of sorts. He had to make declarations after the war that he was not a deity, but the Americans did honour their undertakings (only ever given verbally) that neither he or any member of his immediate family would be subject to war crimes trials or similar. Thats a bit of an embarrassment, since at least one senior memeber of the royal family was responsible for the massacres at Nanking.

The A-Bombs had an undoubted effect on japanese thinking, but a more important element in their final agreement to surrender was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria

One discussion of this alternative viewpoint can be found here...

Why did Japan surrender? - The Boston Globe

The article doesnt bring it out so well, but if you get the relevant transcripts from the japanese war cabinet, it imedialtely becomes apparent that the bombs were not their prime motivation for surrender. The cabinet was essentially deadlocked, they asked the emperor for guidance and he indicated that surrender was the best option.....the cabinet then discussed why that might be so, and it was the Russian invasion that influenced them far more than the bombs.

"In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan's surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.

"Hasegawa has changed my mind," says Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." "The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings."


President Truman's decision to go nuclear has long been a source of controversy. Many, of course, have argued that attacking civilians can never be justified. Then, in the 1960s, a "revisionist school" of historians suggested that Japan was in fact close to surrendering before Hiroshima - that the bombing was not necessary, and that Truman gave the go-ahead primarily to intimidate the Soviet Union with our new power.


Hasegawa - who was born in Japan and has taught in the United States since 1990, and who reads English, Japanese, and Russian - rejects both the traditional and revisionist positions. According to his close examination of the evidence, Japan was not poised to surrender before Hiroshima, as the revisionists argued, nor was it ready to give in immediately after the atomic bomb, as traditionalists have always seen it. Instead, it took the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, several days after Hiroshima, to bring the capitulation".

 

[Civettone]

it is a very very stubborn Western myth that the Japanese surrendered because of the A-bombs ...

Just looking into the records as well as the timing of the war cabinet meetings around that time clearly indicates that the A-bombs were not the major concern.



Kris

 

[tyrodtom]

First bomb probably not, but the second bomb just a few days later and the uncertainy of when and where the 3rd bomb might drop would have had them concerned.

 

[Civettone]

Look up the transcripts of their meetings and you will see just how little it mattered to them. They talked more about the Russians, the expected invasion, their honour and the emperor, than about the A-bombs. They had become immune to the carnage around them.


These guys were not like you and I. They were far far detached from the suffering around them. Even in the last meeting, they could not agree on a capitulation, so they asked the emperor.

Kris

 

[tyrodtom]

But the bombs mattered to the emporer, so much so that he even mentioned them in his surrender address to his people.
The order of decussion proves nothing, sometimes it's last but not least.

 

[VBF-13]

Japan was suing for peace before the first bomb and before Russia entered the War. They played poker to the end. The bombs finished them.

 

[gjs238]

Perhaps the Soviets finished them.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Japan was suing for peace before the first bomb and before Russia entered the War. They played poker to the end. The bombs finished them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan