Late War German vs Japanese Pilot Quality

[drewwizard]

I highly recommend books written by the pilots on both sides. They tell far more about what challenges the pilots faced. Think about how the P-40's of the flying tigers took on Japanese Zero fighters. The Japanese kept using the same poor tactics with no change to counter the P-40 dive, shoot, and run. Like soldiers marching in rows at Verdun. I am now into books written by Christer Bergstrom who researched the battles down to the pilot level on the eastern front.

 

[Vincenzo]

Flying tigers took on japanese Zero?
Never happened

 

[DarrenW]

Flying tigers took on japanese Zero?
Never happened

I think Drew is referring to the "Army Zero" (Nakajima Ki-43)....

 

[parsifal]

don't agree entirely with the explanation of why german pilots racked up big scores. At least some of the reason was that certain pilots would be credited with kills made by other LW pilots in the same unit so as to boost the prestige of the unit.

In the 1990s, the German archives made available microfilm rolls of wartime records, not seen since January 1945, available to the public. These showed that while in theory the Luftwaffe did not accept a kill without a witness, which was considered only a probable, in practice some units habitually submitted unwitnessed claims and these quite often were accepted as confirmed. This was particularly true for claims if they were made by pilots with already established records. In theory the Luftwaffe did not accept shared claims, but it happened and often because of the unit citation system, a claim would be credited to the lead scorer, and then also to the person who actually did the shooting as well.

In 1943 the daily OKW communiques of this period habitually overstated American bomber losses by a factor of two times or more. Defenders of German fighter pilots have always maintained that these were reduced during the confirmation process. But the microfilms prove this not to be the case. Some 80 - 90 percent of the claims submitted were confirmed or found to be "in order" for confirmation up to the time the system broke down altogether in 1945.

Another thing worth noting is that the Japanese airforces, I have read, had the most stringent confirmation requirements for claims, whereas the germans on the eastern front had about the worst. Japanese kills had to be confirmed by a pilot from another unit also flying in the area, something not easy to do. german claims could be confirmed by anyone as I understand it.

The reason the Japanese Airforces did not rotate aircrews for training was two fold. The first was that there were simply not the reserves available to allow proper unit rotations. whereas the US entered the war with somewhere between 5-10000 reserve aircrews , the Japanese entered the war with less than 1000. The lower levels of technology related education in Japan made aircrew training a slow process, with a high wash out rate. Later when the Japanese realized the crisis was happening and they began to churn out large numbers of low quality pilots the numbers of experienced aircrew available had dropped even further. there simply weren't enough experienced pilots to spare to go sending them off to the training schools to re-form shattered formations.

This leads into the second problem facing the Japanese. Their garrisoning requirements were so vast, and shipping so scarce that they simply did not have the thruput capacity to afford the luxury of rotating formations correctly. The general movement of shipping for the Japanese was to ship out military supplies and hardware from the home islands, transfer that shipping after offloading back to the resource areas of the far east and then return to japan laden with those resources. this increased the efficiency of shipping use by reducing its 'down" time, but would have meant long delays in unit restoration if shattered units had been transported back to the home islands for training. Whereas the LW shifting of training functions was a wilful and irresponsible misuse of manpower, the Japanese had no choice, they were forced by circumstance to make bad decisions.

 

[Greyman]

Another thing worth noting is that the Japanese airforces, I have read, had the most stringent confirmation requirements for claims ...

Reading through Shores' Bloody Shambles series - this really doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[parsifal]

Shores would know better than me. What does he say?

 

[Greyman]

Plenty of occasions where engagements and claims appear to have been completely fabricated, as well as battles in which the overclaiming was just as high as the highest instances from other nations.

 

[Vincenzo]

I think Drew is referring to the "Army Zero" (Nakajima Ki-43)....

That was army type 1

 

[swampyankee]

There are several complicating factors to comparing late-war to early-war Japanese and German pilot quality. One is that the comparison is being made, at least partly, by their relative combat success, which merely shows that their quality relative to Allied pilots and their aircraft is declining.

Instead of looking at relative combat success, perhaps one should look at accident rates.

 

[Dimlee]

I highly recommend books written by the pilots on both sides. They tell far more about what challenges the pilots faced. Think about how the P-40's of the flying tigers took on Japanese Zero fighters. The Japanese kept using the same poor tactics with no change to counter the P-40 dive, shoot, and run. Like soldiers marching in rows at Verdun. I am now into books written by Christer Bergstrom who researched the battles down to the pilot level on the eastern front.

Bergstrom is very good source for Eastern front air war studies. Just please keep in mind that he began to write his trilogy Black Cross Red Star many years ago. Some information has outdated since. Still excellent reading. By the way, 4th book will be (hopefully) published later in 2018 - if author succeeds in crowdfunding. More information on his web site.

 

[DarrenW]

That was army type 1

Yes you are correct, and early on it was often called the "Army Zero" :

Nakajima Ki-43 - Wikipedia

The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was often called the "Army Zero" by American pilots because it bore a certain resemblance to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero......

 

[Vincenzo]

Yes you are correct, and early on it was often called the "Army Zero" :

Nakajima Ki-43 - Wikipedia

The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was often called the "Army Zero" by American pilots because it bore a certain resemblance to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero......

We are in the 2018 we can easily called the fighter with their right name not with fantasy name

 

[DarrenW]

We are in the 2018 we can easily called the fighter with their right name not with fantasy name

Ok, sorry....

 

[swampyankee]

Instead of looking at kill ratios vs Allied pilots, which are complicated by improving Allied aircraft, tactics, and pilot quality, and worsening Axis supply situations, what about looking at non-combat losses aircraft losses?

 

[Shinpachi]

I would hate to be called Jap in 2018 but Army Zero helps me to understand the battlefield situation at the time better.
No problem at Japanese side at least.

 

[Milosh]

Instead of looking at kill ratios vs Allied pilots, which are complicated by improving Allied aircraft, tactics, and pilot quality, and worsening Axis supply situations, what about looking at non-combat losses aircraft losses?

Of the Bf109 JGs that participated in Bodenplatte, they lost 243 due to accidents and had 487 combat losses in Dec 1944. Dec 1 1944 they had 1129 a/c on hand. At month end there was 612 on hand.

 

[DarrenW]

Of the Bf109 JGs that participated in Bodenplatte, they lost 243 due to accidents and had 487 combat losses in Dec 1944. Dec 1 1944 they had 1129 a/c on hand. At month end there was 612 on hand.

A 21 percent accident rate must have gotten the attention of high command. Or were these numbers a common reality this late in the war?

 

[pbehn]

A 21 percent accident rate must have gotten the attention of high command. Or were these numbers a common reality this late in the war?

Bodenplatte was a little "special", a lot of inexperienced pilots attacking at low level, some accidents were friendly fire by troops unaware that the attack was taking place, others were hitting poles or pigeons while some more were battle damaged planes crashing on landing.

 

[Milosh]

The numbers are for Dec '44, not Jan '45 when Bodenplatte took place.

 

[parsifal]

By late 1944 the LW was living a hand to mouth existence for pilots, and in most situations pilot training had been reduced to a few toe hops in gliders, maybe one or two flights in a primary trainer , and then it was off to the front to do battle with the enemy.

It was a force that was thoroughly broken in other words.