March until October of 1940: fighters' ranking (1 Viewer)

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I'd suggest I-16 type 29 instead of type 24. Slightly better armament, drop tanks and radio by default,
 


Hiya GG, according to Parshall and Tully in SS, cycling the CAP was an impediment to spotting the bombers for the strike against USN ships, but just as big if not bigger a factor was the continual air attacks combined with the the carriers maneuvering to avoid same. It's obviously dangerous to arm and spot a/c on a deck that's rolling through maneuvering. Japanese arming carts were man-powered, they'd sure hate to have an 800kg torpedo get away from a crew.

There was a 50-minute window between 9 and 10 AM between CAP ops on Akagi. I'm not sure that would be enough to get a large strike spotted and the engines warmed up (warm-up couldn't be done in the enclosed hangars), nor am I sure of the timelines for the other three decks. I'll browse my copy of the book in a little bit and see what i can find to that end if you're interested.
 
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Thanks for the link. It amazes me just how light the Zero is. Did the weight of an American radio and other gear compensate for the lower weight from the lack of ammo?
 
Hi Thump. Things gradually getting back to normal, but with such a long lay-off, it was like starting all over again going to old venues and picking up work again.

(Apologies to Admins - Thump and I go back a long way re internet forums)

Glad to hear it's coming back to norm. If you do still post at MLP tell the usual suspects I said "hi" if you would please?

/derail
 
But we are comparing 1940 era aircraft. Put away the retrospectroscope.
But this is my point, one of the advantages of the Zero in our hypothetical BoB is that it can reach all over Britain or loiter over London, it doesn't have the ammunition capacity to do that.
 
The carriers were in the process of arming for the next strike on Midway when they became aware of the Yorktown.
The decision to quickly change from a land strike mission to a ship strike mission saw the removed ordnance left strewn about the (hangar) deck.
That decision also stopped the process of bringing up the attack force for spotting and launching - if the Yorktown hadn't been spotted and/or the USN launched their strikes a bit earlier, the attack force intended for Midway would have been assembling topside, which might have mitigated the damage to the IJN's carriers, since the extra ordnance would have remained stowed.

But in the end, the point is that IJN doctrine dictated that the flight decks were to remain clear until a force was to be launched or recovered.

That doctrine predated the battle of Midway by years and had nothing to do with "Zeros landing to rearm" as stated earlier.
 

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