Maneuverability vs Speed

[GregP]

It all boils down to Maneuverability versus Speed, huh?

 

[tomo pauk]

GregP has a point, I will not discuss the wickedness levels of respective tyrants in this thread anymore.

 

[Vincenzo]

The best studies are from the 1980's into the early 1990's when the CCCP collapsed and their records became available. One figure that is never even attempted to be calculated are the extra judicial killings that plagued the country for decades. Rough estimates for those are 1 to 1.5 million per year.

No at time the study give much lower number, only later following the great victory in the cold war the numbers go up.
this is last reply you are just a troll,

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Never claimed otherwise. I probably should have focused on British jet design instead, though admittedly, it has been overshadowed by German jet design, and as such, I was too worried about how much the latter had influenced the former, if at all. Either way, the Japanese were lagging behind all major powers across the board, except perhaps Italy, who had largely been defeated as early as 1943, arguably. This would appear to have been, in part, a consequence of the maeuverability doctrine the Japanese were said to have followed during the war, which was the main point of the topic. Why this country and this doctrine, and whether or not any other nation could have followed similarly as well.

The Italians and to some extent the Soviets also focused a great deal on maneuverability. So did this British and Americans - the Spitfire, Hurricane, P-36 and P-40 were all quite maneuverable fighters. It's just the Japanese surpassed them, and not at the expense of speed. The A6M wasn't the fastest fighter in the world in 1941 or 1942 but it was certainly not the slowest, it was about as fast as major fighter types like the Hurricane and Bf 110, and faster than the MC.200 and the I-16. The limited speed was due mainly to having a less powerful engine. The Japanese were indeed somewhat behind on aircraft engines compared to the British, Germans, and US.

But the A6M was certainly competitive with fighters anywhere in the world when it first arrived, and was the only major fighter type I know of with a 1,000 mile range at that time. The range really matters a lot because it confers an operational and a strategic flexibility which acts like a force multiplier, and not only if you are fighting in the Pacific or China.

I am uncertain about the 12:1 kill ratio that the A6M supposedly achieved. Against whom? The ill-equipped and inexperienced Chinese air force?

I never said anything about a "12:1 kill ratio". But the Japanese forces did not just fight in China. They cleared out the British from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya, the Dutch from the Netherlands East Indies, and the Americans from the Philippines, all in a matter of weeks. In the process decimating British, Dutch and American fighters, including P-40s, Hurricanes, F2As and others. I don't know what the exact ratio was, but it was very high, as in, all of the Western air forces on Philippines, Java and Malaya were wiped out in a short period of time, and even Darwin was soon being bombed. To wit, as late as 1943, the A6M proved quite formidable against Spitfire Mk Vs too. So there is no reason to assume they were inferior to the best fighters in the world at that time, in my opinion.

Besides that, it's lightweight aluminum had equivalents in America, and maybe elsewhere, if I remember correctly, and its large range involved numerous sacrifices.

Duralumin and similar alloys were in wide use among the major aircraft manufacturing nations.

Not particularly innovative, so beyond that kill ratio, its hardly an uber weapon on the level of the bomb or the jet.

That is a matter of opinion, and that opinion was not shared by pilots facing them in 1942. And without meaning to be rude, you don't come across as highly informed on the subject of Japanese aviation. The capabilities of the A6M were extraordinary and world class, and they clearly enabled swift victories everywhere they were encountered. It was only after superior tactics and improved aircraft were developed that the US began to pull ahead of them.

Pilot training, the real reason for its success anyways, had some deficiencies, such as training in deflection shooting, among others, and is not a hard technology which would seemingly be more difficult to conceive, develop and produce in large quantities in the initial phases.

I don't think you actually have good understanding of what the training skills of the Japanese were, or which factors contributed to their victories.

The Japanese struggled to put out newer aircraft carriers, and older designs were still in service for much of the war, one of the reasons why newer, heavier carrier aircraft were late to be produced by the Empire. As for battleships, which is fairly unrelated to the conversation, the Japanese were said to have inferior projectiles, speed, range, radar, and, while armor could be thick enough to be impenetrable, was, in terms of technology, inferior in design.

I call B.S. Inferior to whom? What battleship was superior to the Yamato?

With the advent of missiles, submarine aircraft carriers, already irrelevant to the war for numerous reasons, including radar among others, would largely become a dead-end technology.

And when did that happen precisely?

Improved, higher calibre, radar-guided AA would have made life difficult for the Ryusei. The Germans also had rocket-equipped aircraft, though the effectiveness of that type of aircraft, especially against heavily armored columns, has been disputed. Japanese rocket-equipped aircraft was slow to arrive.

My point is as follows. I have seen, in this discussion and elsewhere, that a worsening war situation, coming with increasing bombing raids crippling logistics, hindered the ability of the Japanese to reliably deploy or develop more sophisticated designs, yet, the Germans were putting out increasingly sophisticated designs, to a point yes, but still, they were advancing in technology even as the war turned bleak for them, as opposed to the Japanese. Is there not a disparity here? Japan a great power?

Obviously they were. The US, a much larger country with vastly more resources, spent an enormous amount of effort, money, and casualties for three years to defeat them.

Edit: 'Coincidentally', the first and third images of the "Random Media" slideshow were of an American pilot showing off a tally of kills against German aircraft, and a tipped over Tiger. Look, Mr. ww2aircraft.net, I am not a diehard fan of the long-dead Nazi regime at all, I was just pointing out their advanced technology an example for a comparison with Japanese aircraft. They were not unique in sophisticated technology. They did have some sleek aircraft and bulky tanks though.

I don't have any idea what "Random Media" slideshow you are referring to.

 

[GregP]

GregP has a point, I will not discuss the wickedness levels of respective tyrants in this thread anymore.

Actually, I couldn't resist. Wasn't exactly complaining. Just thought it was funny ...

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Well I think that point has been made, some people have ideological filters. Enough said.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Speed kills. Since most air to air kills were the result of bouncing an unaware opponent, the advantage of speed to catch your quarry is paramount. The Poles, prior to the onset of hostilities believed their piloting skill was sufficient to defeat their foes. Once confronted with bombers that could outrun their obsolete Pzl 11s, not to mention Germany's superior fighters, they were in for a shock.
A similar shock was experienced by the 23rd FG in 1943 with the introduction of the Ki-44 in China. Their P-40s dominated the Ki-27s and Ki-43s, but were at a distinct disadvantage against the high powered Ki-44.

I would really like to see some hard numbers on that. I don't 100% disagree necessarily, and I have seen some comments by 23rd FG personnel that they were alarmed by the Ki-44 and wanted some faster planes, but the combat numbers i've seen don't reflect a major problem as far as losses. In fact, 23rd FG P-40s also faced Ki-84s in a couple of engagements and didn't come off so badly there either.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Japanese struggled to put out newer aircraft carriers, and older designs were still in service for much of the war, one of the reasons why newer, heavier carrier aircraft were late to be produced by the Empire. As for battleships, which is fairly unrelated to the conversation, the Japanese were said to have inferior projectiles, speed, range, radar, and, while armor could be thick enough to be impenetrable, was, in terms of technology, inferior in design.

The USS Saratoga (CV-3) entered service in the 1920's and served throughout WWII.
The USS Enterprise (CV-6) entered service in the late 1930's and served throughout WWII.
The USS Ranger (CV-4) entered service in the early 1930's and served throughout WWII.
A large share of USN Battleships in service (several damaged or sunk at Pearl Harbor) were from the 1920's and 1930's and one of the oldest, the USS Texas (BB-35), entered service in 1914 and served throughout WWII.

So please, explain again about "older designs"...

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Improved, higher calibre, radar-guided AA would have made life difficult for the Ryusei. The Germans also had rocket-equipped aircraft, though the effectiveness of that type of aircraft, especially against heavily armored columns, has been disputed. Japanese rocket-equipped aircraft was slow to arrive.

I forgot to note that the I am skeptical of your assessment that the B7A would be excessively vulnerable to AAA, considering that it had equivalent to or superior performance to the A-36, SB2C, P-40, Ju-88, Pe-2, Hurricane IV, TBF etc. all of which were successfully used as strike aircraft, dive bombers or fighter-bombers through the end of the war. It is, as I said, clearly superior to the Ju-87, being ~100 mph faster, and having three to five times the range (depending on Ju 87 variant). I believe it also out-ranged all of the other dive bombers, tactical fighters and fighter bombers, even arguably the P-51D.

And on that note, I also think B7A competes pretty well as a strike aircraft with the more modern fighter bombers such as P-51, P-38, P-47, F4U, F6F, Fw 190, Typhoon etc. It was not as fast at high altitude, but it was quite fast at lower altitudes and extremely agile, had better range than all of the above except maybe the P-51, and since it could dive bomb, it was likely much more accurate as a bomber. And none of those fighters, so far as I know, B7A could carry a torpedo. The closest competitor on that level would be a Beaufighter.

Air strikes were quite risky for pilots of just about all of the strike aircraft in wide use during the latter half of the war, but the B7A was armored, fast, pretty well armed (two 20mm cannon) and strongly built, and had excellent agility and handling, which is not something you can say for all the Allied aircraft on this list.

An aircraft like that would have been particularly helpful in the naval strike role for the Germans, such as during the conquest of Sicily and Italy. They did try to use missiles, and sunk a couple of ships, but the clunky Do-217 bombers which launched them were swiftly wiped out, and did nowhere near the kind of carnage that the D3A inflicted in the Pacific. B7A could both dive bomb and carry torpedoes.

 

[SaparotRob]

I have read numerous passages stating that Soryu, Hiryu (ok, the island was in the wrong place), Shokaku and Zuikaku were arguably* the best aircraft carriers in the world when built. Shokaku took several beatings and returned to action. I believe the same can be said about Zuikaku as well.

* Has anyone else noticed they always say "arguably"?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The major technical deficiency of the IJN was its inferior radar, and its reliance on visual targeting as a result. Their visual targeting was outstanding, except in bad weather and smoke. The lack of quality radar also limited their ability to detect threats at night or in weather.

The other technical deficiencies that come to mind: AA defence, and ASW capabilities.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The major technical deficiency of the IJN was its inferior radar, and its reliance on visual targeting as a result. Their visual targeting was outstanding, except in bad weather and smoke. The lack of quality radar also limited their ability to detect threats at night or in weather.

The other technical deficiencies that come to mind: AA defence, and ASW capabilities.

Radar seems to have gradually become a factor starting in late 1942 and into 1943, but that only partly compensated for the major Japanese advantage in night combat (when most of the major surface engagements in the Pacific seem to have taken place), and it took quite a while for this to confer to a major US advantage. I don't think it was decisive until late 1943 or into 1944. This was in part due to training, which took a while to catch up to the technology, and the technology itself which was initially very crude. It was hard to distinguish a radar contact and know friend or foe among other things.

The classic example of where surface radar first really helped the USN was the meeting engagement of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (Nov 1942) which was a fairly closely matched meeting engagement, with two battleships on each side (although the Japanese ships were maybe more like battle cruisers). The Americans won largely because of the radar on the BB Washington, though it wasn't an entirely free victory, as they lost 2 cruisers, 7 destroyers, and BB South Carolina had a major maintenance issue and was unable to contribute to the fight, and was heavily damaged.

But if you look at many of the surface battles in 1942 and 1943, including Savo Island (Aug 1942), Tassafronga (Nov 1942), Komandorsi Islands (March 1943), Kolombangara (July 1943), Vella Lavella (Oct 1943) the Japanese were still winning naval engagements. In surface combat, they continued to have an advantage particularly at night.

Part of the reason of course was that the American torpedoes were still not working very well, whereas the Japanese torpedoes were excellent. Part of the reason was that the Japanese ships were very good, and part of the reason was that the Japanese navy was extremely well trained in surface night combat.

One other turning point was the battle of Cape St. George, which was in November of 1943. This was a small night time meeting engagement - 5 US destroyers plus some PT boats, vs 5 Japanese destroyers which were landing troops. 3 of the Japanese destroyers were older types being used as transports, two more modern types as escorts. The US destroyers, commanded by Arleigh Burke, detected the Japanese with radar 12 km away, and the radar by this time was working a lot better than the crude system at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal back in 1942). They used this to advantage and sunk 3 of the 5 destroyers, damaging another, for no losses.

For anyone seriously interested in the surface naval combat in WW2 in the Pacific, I highly recommend Neptune's Inferno. It might change your impression of what pushovers the Japanese supposedly were, if you do feel that way.

AA defense was something the Japanese were lagging on, and though they did improve that as time went on, it was never quite as good as the US. You might be right about ASW I'm not sure on that front, though the problems with the US torpedoes largely sidelined US submarines (and torpedo boats) through the middle of the Pacific War.

I think one major technological advantage for the US which came a bit later in the war but was indeed somewhat decisive, was the proximity fuse. I don't recall if that was a US or British invention but it sure seems to have made AAA a lot scarier for pilots - more so than radar I would say.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I like the look of that book, and it's cheap on Abe books...

Just got Vol 2 of William Green's Fighters book. Wow! I am extremely impressed. Just short of delighted. Maybe some of the data has aged some, and it's so small I will certainly need glasses to read this. But it has several major advantages over a lot of modern books on the same subject. I wish Wikipedia was organized like this.

It has every major variant, not just one entry per type. So like half a dozen entries for Spitfire, based on the major differences. That alone is huge for me.

It has three-view line drawings of every aircraft listed. Wonderful!

It has a lot of the lesser known types. Miles M.20!

Very pleased with this, thanks to all of y'all who recommended it or mentioned it. I think I'm going to get another set of these for a friend.

 

[Shortround6]

I forgot to note that the I am skeptical of your assessment that the B7A would be excessively vulnerable to AAA, considering that it had equivalent to or superior performance to the A-36, SB2C, P-40, Ju-88, Pe-2, Hurricane IV, TBF etc. all of which were successfully used as strike aircraft, dive bombers or fighter-bombers through the end of the war

A major problem is that the Japanese aircraft were operating in a different environment than the Allied planes.
The US and British were the only forces that were using proximity fuses on their heavy AA guns and that was a real force multiplier.

Now the Americans were pretty much the only force fighting the Japanese Navy so we can skip over the British after early 1942 as far as naval engagements go until late 44 and 45.
The Americans had more radar and like may other things, the radar fit changed constantly. By late 1944 and into 1944 the Americans were putting radar on 40 mm gun directors let alone the 5in gun directors. Another force multiplier, much better fire control for the guns that were fitted.

And the Americans were fitting more and better AA guns on most of there ships so there was more force to begin with.

US was able to do so much to the Japanese ships by air attack in 1944/45 in part, because the Japanese had not really advanced beyond 1942 levels of AA except adding more 25mm guns which weren't that good.

The British invented the proximity fuse but invention was a lot different than development. Some people equate the proximity fuse to Atomic bomb in terms of the R&D and manufacturing. In 1942 they were manufacturing miniature radar sets that would fit in a 5in shell and survive being fired out of the 5 in gun (acceleration and rotation) and being treated as a round of ammunition ( fired without checking or testing after months in storage) and made by the thousands in 1942 and by the hundreds of thousands in the later years.

There is also interrelating technology, The use of proximity fuses speeded up the rate of fire. Move the shells from the shell hoist to the breech of the gun and fire. No need to move the shell from the hoist to the fuse setter and from the fuse setter to the gun breach.

The whole 40mm Bofors to 25mm is actually two different classes of weapons.


The Americans were certainly not invulnerable to dive bomber attack but the Japanese were facing about the best AA in the world in 1944 and since the A-7M didn't go into production until April/May of 1944 they were too late to have any effect on the war in General.

Japanese army AA was poorer than Japanese Navy AA in both Quantity and Quality.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I don't disagree with any of that.

B7A was delayed until 1944 but largely due to teething problems with the Nakajima Homare engine, and I suspect a matter of prioritization since it's ride, the big Taihō-class Japanese carriers, weren't available. But was flying since 1942. That's why I suggested it could have been available say by 1943.

If I had been in charge of Japanese planning in say early 1942 I would have put a brick on the accelerator to develop that thing.

 

[Shortround6]

Going back to Russian vs Germany, without lend lease the Soviets may have stopped the Germans in 1942, maybe not.

What the Soviets could not do was drive the Germans out in 1943-44-45.
What is over looked a lot is not the number of tanks and trucks and aircraft supplied but the amount of raw materials.
Steel, both normal and armor plate.
Fuel.
Food.
clothing/shoes.
Explosives for shell and bomb filling.
Propellents for small arms ammo and for artillery shells.
Radios and radio parts
raw chemicals.
There are several thousands of items that were sent (some make little sense, like floor wax) and sometimes even 10-20% more "stuff" than a country can supply itself makes all the difference.

The Soviets did make a lot of stuff but trying to drive the Germans out with way less ammunition and food/basic supplies either would not have happened or taken much longer, And the Soviets' were running out of men in 1945.

Also be very careful of some statics. There was one claim that LL only supplied less that 10% of the calories that the Soviet Army was using.
But calories alone do not tell the whole story. Most of the Soviet army walked, and in winter the human body needs more calories (and different kinds) than in summer.
Proteins and fats are needed to keep an army marching on it's feet healthy enough to keep marching for weeks. Or to survive in winter weather. You can't do it on bread alone.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Sure, I don't disagree with that either. Just pointing out something that seems to get forgotten a lot - Stalingrad was mostly a Soviet victory. There was some Lend Lease kit on hand - including some aircraft I think, but this was down mainly to Soviet engineering, tactics, etc. We had not shipped that much LL by then. And I think Stalingrad was such a catastrophic disaster for the Germans, it really put them on their back heels. Could they have rallied after that enough to stabilize the Eastern Front? maybe. But they sure overextended themselves and the counter was so extremely devastating, it is certainly in doubt, even without Lend Lease. I think it also had a major effect on morale and cohesion among senior military and political leadership.

But for sure gas and butter and iron etc. was very important in the aftermath. As were the P-39s and the M4 and Valentine tanks, and all those trucks.

I would also note however, maybe even more important was the truce or treaty between the Soviets and Japanese, allowing for the Siberian Transfer, which was not just a matter of a very large number of troops brought over from the East, but also stuff. Supplies.

And one other final thing - the Soviets were a bit like the Borg in Star Trek. Slow to react at first, to the result of taking horrific casualties. But after some time, it's clear that they did learn lessons. They had this ruthless system of prioritization. Launch five attacks. Three bog down or fail. They get cut off from supply. Two succeed, they get the supplies from the cut off units. The Soviet leadership don't know necessarily why one attacked failed and the other succeeded (so it's quite unfair to those in the attacks that didn't succeed), but they supported the units, and the leaders, who made it work whether through luck, kit, terrain, training, quality of opposition, or the support of the Virgin Mary. This is how you ended up with leaders like Marshal Zhukov, who was not exactly a failure in combat. In fact... did he ever lose a battle? And units like the various Guards and Shock divisions and so on, which were becoming more and more formidable over time.

The Soviet war machine started out clumsy and awkward, like most of the Allied armies in 1939-1942 but more so. But by 1944 however, they were in many ways a much more fearsome force than the Western Allied armies. Certainly they had a lot more formidable tanks and self propelled guns like IS-2, Su-100, Su-152, Su-122, T-34/85. And they had a whole lot of rockets.
One indication of the change is comparing the famous battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939, one of Zhukov's first victories, which was ... hard fought and very bloody for the Soviets (25,000 casualties) with the Soviet attack on the relatively similar Japanese armies in roughly the same area in 1945, which was on a scale twenty times larger (665,000 Japanese troops, compared to 30,000 in the 1939 battle) but the Soviets lost half as many casualties and utterly smashed the Japanese forces in 10 days.

This is the difference between this

And this

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

For anyone seriously interested in the surface naval combat in WW2 in the Pacific, I highly recommend Neptune's Inferno. It might change your impression of what pushovers the Japanese supposedly were, if you do feel that way.

Great recommendation.

In your other points, you're essentially correct -- the technological gap didn't start producing results really until the middle of 1943. This was assisted by Nimitz's directive establishing CICs, allowing the USN to make the most of what edges they had.

For ASW, on the other hand, Japanese depth-charges had two settings: 100' and 300'. That gave American subs a semi-safe zone around 200', a fact which was known and used by submarine commanders. Source for that is Capt Toti on https://www.youtube.com/@UnauthorizedHistoryPacificWar/videos, though I can't remember the exact episode. They also had inferior sonar fittings, and though not related to technology, their doctrine was nowhere near as advanced. They also lacked hedgehogs and other DC throwers.

I'm under no illusions that they Japanese were pushovers of any sort. I've read widely on the Pacific naval campaigns and completely agree with you that they were badasses, even if they lacked some of the tech the Americans (often mis-)used.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Wow that's really interesting about the depth charges.

As for mis-use of tech - well that kind of goes with the territory. There is always a lag both in training and policy when you make new tech. The Germans arguably mis-used their jets and ramjets and rockets

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Just as an aside, and a stupid thread drift on my aprt, this is one of the kind of things you constantly read about in war, which is in part why I don't think zombie / ghoul armies would be so formidable as they are portrayed in that particular cinematic / computer game / literary genre. People adapt to warfare in such unbelievably cunning ways. I don't think mindlessness works. I suspect humans will find loopholes in AI / autonomous vehicle behavior which they will also be able to exploit.