Nice CGI from IJN perspective
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
That was very entertaining. I now have an urge to check out Drachinifel's stuff again.
- Thread starter
- #3
Admiral Beez
Captain
When those Zero pilots surrender their altitude advantage to dive upon the Devastators I'm saying to the iPad, idiots, leave some CAP at altitude to deal with the inevitable dive bomber strike. You know the USN has both TB and DB, same as the IJN.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
..and I kept thinking "don't look up. Look down for submarines!"
- Thread starter
- #5
Admiral Beez
Captain
It goes to show the impact the lack of radios in the Zeros, lack of radar on the carriers, lack of centrally coordinated fleet air defence, and the Zero pilots training and doctrine to fight as one and focus on dogfighting, not as a team focused on the bigger picture led to much of their defeat at Midway. If you kill five Wildcats but a Dauntless gets through, you've lost.
Have the Kido Butai of late 1941 fitted with both German-sourced radar for the carriers and radios for the fighters (the IJN radios suffered badly from interference that they were removed as dead weight), and have centralized fleet air defence on the carriers to track and priortize threats and allocate fighters to respond, and Midway is an entirely different day for the Kido Butai. It's as if they set out to make the best carriers strike force in the world, with the biggest and best fighters, strike aircraft and carriers.... but totally ignored the technological advancements in fighter direction seen since 1939 in Europe.
But technology aside, the IJN didn't plan to fight as they fight, with massed strikes of LA TBs attacking simultaneously with HA DBs. To strip your HA CAP to deal with the LA TBs was just dumb. There was already a LA CAP to tear apart the Devastators, the HA CAP should have remained where it was to deal with the inevitable Dauntless strike from HA.
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Good one!
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
The problem with IJN plans was the damn yankees never carried out their appointed roles in their own destruction.
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- #8
Admiral Beez
Captain
Actually they did. The USN was baited out to protect Midway, just as the IJN has planned. And the IJN had more carriers and more planes than the USN, exactly how the IJN's force concentration doctine dictated. The IJN controlled both the place and the superior numbers of the engagement. The IJN just screwed up in execution. Had the IJN sent more scouts, and maintained mulitiple level CAPs they would have done a lot better.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I never thought I'd disagree with the Admiral.
Admiral Yamamoto was trying to get the demoralized Yankees to fight. The plan was to take Midway. Force the American carriers out of Pearl to take it back. Baffled by majestic fleets sailing about the Pacific, the Americans would have no clue. They don't even have water at Midway! Okay, that whole Coral Sea thing? The Yankees weren't in the proper position. No need to change recon protocol. The Yankees will follow the script next time. The IJN did war games and they won, except when they didn't. The officers playing the Americans that won just did something wrong, that's all. Midway was bait indeed, just not the way the IJN planned.
Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
Mmmm... Not sure about that, the USN wasn't "baited" out to protect Midway, Nimitz et. al. were spoiling for a fight, he believed that his carriers and air crews were as good as the IJN. That could be debated but to some extent but I think he was correct. USN VF's were every inch as good as their IJN counterparts and the VB's were certainly as good as the Japanese. Plane numbers were almost equal, remember, Midway had a sizable air group, what they did or did not accomplish is immaterial on June 4, the numbers were there.
If anyone was baited it was the IJN, they were completely flanked by TF 16 and 17. And Rob is correct, the American's were expected to blunder into their own destruction according to IJN planning, too bad the IJN had such a low opinion of their enemy because it bit them in the ass HARD.
As far as the IJN wargames, they were a total joke, anytime the officers playing the Americans did ANYTHING outside of "the plan" the umpire's nixed it in favor of what the American's were "supposed to do".
Also remember, Nimitz didn't sent Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown out on a "do or die, protect Midway at all costs" mission. In fact, had the IJN got the upper hand early they were to withdraw and let Midway fend for itself, which BTW, it could have done quite handily. If lost, Nimitz knew he could retake it at his leisure.
And with regards to IJN CAP, well, incompetent comes to mind. Read Shattered Sword for a detailed analysis of how it worked and you'll be shaking your head with disbelief.
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It seems the IJN really didn't take defense of their carriers very seriously, which sort of makes sense in a culture dedicated to "attack! attack!", and which had never had its carriers seriously threatened until a month ago. The lesson hadn't sunk into the culture or the procedures yet.
Absent centralized control, it's hard to imagine aggressive young fighter pilots with an altitude advantage forgoing easy kills below them which are threatening their ship. Combat successes tend to outweigh "minor" breaches of discipline. And the Devastators just kept coming, one flight after another. And those of the land of the "Long Lance" had reason to have a special fear of torpedoes, even the yankee variety. They tended to think of the torpedo as the ultimate anti-ship weapon, which theirs were.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
The Japanese might have had good reason to fear American torpedoes. At the battle of the Coral Sea, Shoho was hit by five WORKING torpedoes. Might have been the only five we had that did work.
The Kido Butai really had about the same combat experience as the USN at Midway, carrier vs carrier. The Indian Ocean raid wasn't up against Task Force 17. The IJN at the Coral Sea had different leadership. The Shokaku and Zuikaku and their combat experienced crews (against the USN) weren't there. Both sides were still learning. Hence the loss of focus of IJN cap at Midway. Battle with American fleets wasn't like strafing gunboats on the Yangtze River.
The Kido Butai really had about the same combat experience as the USN at Midway, carrier vs carrier. The Indian Ocean raid wasn't up against Task Force 17. The IJN at the Coral Sea had different leadership. The Shokaku and Zuikaku and their combat experienced crews (against the USN) weren't there. Both sides were still learning. Hence the loss of focus of IJN cap at Midway. Battle with American fleets wasn't like strafing gunboats on the Yangtze River.
Actually USN had a slight edge; Yorktown's air group were veterans of Coral Sea and none of Kido Butai was.
And in the end Shoho actually absorbed seven fully functional US torpedoes. Certainly a record up to that point in the war.
Oh, for radar and a CIC! Tinker to Evers to Chance, and who's on first?
Wars are won by those who can learn their lessons, adapt to the new realities, and not let old habits, tradition, or cultural bias get in the way. Hard to do in a 5,000 year old society.
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Who's on second. What's on first.
If you've read the timeline in "Shattered Sword", you know that by the time the Dauntlesses arrived Kido Butai had been under pretty much continuous air attack for the longest two hours of its life from both land and carrier based aircraft, almost all of it low level. (B17s excepted..."what are they doing here?") This was unprecedented in their experience, and not according to the IJN game plan. (Can you spell "hornet's nest"?) Up to this point, their string of triumphs had come from sticking faithfully to the plan. An entrenched mindset, and Nagumo was no Yamamoto.
They were having trouble keeping the CAP fueled, armed, and airborne in the midst of the wild evasive maneuvering, and with no centralized fighter control, and most of the CAP pilots without officer training, there was a shortage of "big picture" thinking aloft and a lot of "finger in the dike" reaction.
The question remains, if IJN had availed itself of German radar and communications technology as the admiral suggests, could they have used it effectively, so early on the learning curve? It takes awhile to sort this gee-whiz stuff out. Japanese society was not rife with mechanical and electronic experience as America and Europe were. Japanese kids didn't grow up tinkering with Model Ts and crystal radios.
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Which brings up a "hidden" catastrophe for Japan. Many books mention the loss of experienced aircrews as well as their aircraft. Most of the IJN aircrews had been rescued.
It was the loss of the aircraft maintenance crews which really hurt. As XBe02Drvr pointed out, Japanese society was short of backyard mechanics. How long to train mechanics? How long until they're good at it?
It was the loss of the aircraft maintenance crews which really hurt. As XBe02Drvr pointed out, Japanese society was short of backyard mechanics. How long to train mechanics? How long until they're good at it?
December 7, 1941 was day one of the Fast Carrier Task Force Era. The first day of a new game nobody had ever played before. It's hard to imagine now, but they were learning the ropes on the field of battle. Before you can set out to acquire that newfangled German technology, you've got to perceive the need for it. Obvious to us today, not so then. In their world of permanent air superiority, CAP and scouting had always done the job. The hornet's nest they encountered at Midway was outside their experience and heretofore inconceivable. A culture that worships the glories of its past often fails to envision its needs for the future.
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I was always so amazed that US torpedoes worked at the Coral Sea battle that I never remembered how many.
