Regarding the true combat performance of the P-38 (and other advanced US fighters) in the PTO from 1942-44

[Steamed_Banana]

To note, he has rewritten most of his BC/RS series in recent years and made a lot of corrections.

Good to hear, and not surprised! One useful thing, I think, is that with so many people interested in these subjects, as these types of works are released, many of the errors or flaws are quickly identified, this gets back to the authors and (hopefully) they make corrections. So that's good to hear.

 

[Shortround6]

The P-38 is a really odd case.
Because of the problems with the P-39 and P-40 (single speed supercharger and weight) there was no quick fix for them and perhaps the "planners" thought that it easier to just transition to the P-47 instead.
Timing is critical here as an Allison powered P-51 doesn't do much for the USAAC and the Merlin powered P-51 doesn't start planning until summer of 1942.
P-47 has troubles (not the lack of drop tanks, that is in 1943) in 1942. They build 171 P-47Bs and NONE are sent overseas and the first P-47C rolls out of the factory Sept 14th 1942.
But this is two weeks after there are 164 P-38s in England (most will be sent to North Africa in Nov/Dec.
This leaves the P-38 as the ONLY high altitude fighter in the US army inventory (or likely to be) for the rest of 1942 and the start of 1943.

US training is kind of strange. They are giving the pilots a good amount of hours in the first 3 phases of training but not enough training on operational types. And 15-20 hours in a P-40 doesn't do a lot of good when a pilot is posted to a P-38 squadron. There were only a handful of 2 seat P-38 trainers (2 ?) and those were converted Ls in 1944 or 1945.

Power ratings are all over the place. On the Fs and Gs the intercoolers were not good enough to maintain military power above 15,000ft and according to some manuals WER was never allowed. I think the Hs were the same. This could be questionable in the Pacific. If you are not operating at 15,000ft you may not have a problem? But if you are you don't have the 1325 or 1425hp available that you have lower down. Once the J's show up in late 1943 you have 1425hp to over 25,000ft and even to 29,000ft depending on RAM. You have 1600hp WER at 25,800 with no ram and over 28,000ft with ram.
Between the engines, intercoolers, Turbos (B-13s and B-33s), turbo controllers, generator problems and the dive flaps and ailerons there were quite a number of things going on with the P-38s. Not helped by the training by the USAAC.
Not only were the recommendations for cruise faulty for range, they were the opposite of what was needed for fast throttle response if jumped. Using low boost and high rpm meant that the turbos were spooled down and they took a while to spool up to make combat power. The engines were also running cool or cold, not a big problem in the Pacific, more of a problem over Europe. But if you are not cruising fast the props may also be pitched wrong. Even if the engine is making about the same power, when at low rpm and higher boost the turbos are spinning faster and and if the pilot jams the throttles forward he is going to get more power right away. Props may be running in coarser pitch.
This was a self inflected wound that was the Responsibility of the US Army. THEY knew better than either Lockheed or Allison on how to operate the engines.

One thing that P-38 Pilots and crews did was leave about 800 rounds of .50 cal at home. The Ammo cans would hold 500 rounds per gun (about 38 seconds worth) and the 20mm gun ran out at about 15 seconds. 300 rounds would last 23-24 seconds and save about 240-250lbs.
Please note that P-38 with 300rpg has about 2.4 times the ammo that a Ki-43 does and that is the 20mm jams on the first shot.

P-38s sucked fuel but they could carry a lot and they could fly further when the drop tanks were empty than the P-39 and P-40 could, they were faster (a little bit), they could climb better and they were better at altitude. In late 1942, most of 1943 and into early 1944 what else did the US Army have that was any better in quantities in the Pacific?

For new members there is quite a collection of manuals in the technical section which is organized by nations.

Other Mechanical Systems Tech.

ww2aircraft.net

Wartime manuals may misprints and/or revisions.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Ok just two examples of overclaiming in Clairngboulds "South Pacific Air War" Volume 6

I just opened two sections of the book at random, one in the beginning and one toward the end.

Pages 61-63 describe a raid on Japanese shipping on 7 January 1943 by twenty P40E/K from 7th and 8th FS, 49th FG, (with eight equpped as fighter-bombers with 300 lb bombs, and twelve flying as "top cover") plus eight 39th FS P-38F and G, also flying as top cover. Richard Bong of the 9th FS was flying with this unit to gain experience.

The P-38s got separated from the P-40s but engaged six A6M2 and 3s over Lae. Four of the P-40 top cover were attacked from above by a Shotai (3) Ki-43-I. Seven bomb-equipped P-40s made dive bombing attacks on Japanese transports, and then strafed them. P-40 pilots then engaged a mixed group of 18 Ki-43s and A6M3s.

Allied Claims: 19 enemy fighters - 39th FS (P-38s) claimed six (6) A6Ms as 'confirmed' destroyed, including two by Bong. 7th and 8th FS (P-40s) claimed thirteen (13) 'confirmed' victories.
Japanese Claims: 3 enemy fighters
Allied Losses: One P-40 piloted by 2LT Eugene Dickey of 8th FS ditched on the flight home, he was seem swimming to shore but then disappared and remains MiA. Three more P-40s came back heavily damaged, two landing without hyrdaulics and mutliple bullet holes.
Japanese Losses: 6 fighters: 2 x A6M with FPO2c Hori Mitsuo (apparently shot down by Lt Warren Blakely of 7th FS/P-40) and Leading Airman Akinobou Itsuo. Mitsua bailed out wounded and was rescued. Akinobou crash landed at base but his fighter was written off. 4 x Ki-43-I Sgt Major Watanuki Kiyoshi from 1 Chutai, Corporal Kai Yasu'Ichi (No. 2 Chutai) and Lt. Nakagawa Takao (no 3. Chutai) were killed, and Lt Shishimoto Hironojo wrote off his heavily damaged (by a P-38) Ki-43-1 after landing. One other Ki-43-I was lost but Claringbould believes this one was lost earlier in the day.

A bomb hit the Myoko Maru, heavily damaging it, and strafing started a fire on Clyde Maru.

So it looks like 3-1 overclaiming both by the US and also by the Japanese, but the Japanese did heavily damage three more.

---------------------------------------------

Pages 184-185 describe a fight on 11 March 1943. A strike force of 26 JAAF Ki-21 "Sally" twin-engined bombers was sent to bomb Dobodura, escorted by 40 IJN A6M2 and A6M3 consisting of nine from No. 252 Ku, thirteen from the carrier Zuiho, and eighteen from No. 253 Ku. These were intercepted by the 8th and 9th Sqns of the 49th FG. 8th Sqn was flying 12 x P-40E and Ks, 9th Sqn was flying 8 x P-38F and G. The Japanese were coming in at 24-26,000 ft, (meaning they were emphasizing survival rather than bombing accuracy). The P-38s intercepted the large Japanese force first, but their attack runs on the bombers were broken up by head-on attacks by the A6Ms. Richard Bong was there flying his Charlie Jeanne, and his P-38 was damaged. he escaped pursuit in a shallow dive from 15,000ft to sea level, and was one of the last Allied pilots to make it back to base. His escape and survival in this engagement was later written about in articles.

Allied Claims: 9 "Zekes" and 2 "Bettys" destroyed, including two victories awarded to Bong and two to William Hanning.
Japanese Claims: 18 American planes confirmed destroyed.

Actual Axis losses: Two A6M fighters destroyed, Zuiho pilot FPO1c Kitaoka Sei'Ichi listed as missing, and Superior Flyer Koyama Hiroshi listed as "self destructed" during the ramming incident with Lt Hanning. "Several" Ki-21 lightly damaged, but all returned to base.
Actual Allied losses: One P-38 flown by 1Lt William Hanning hit in an air to air collision, pilot bailed out and rescued. One P-40 damaged, pilot 2nd Lt Lee Mayo injured on his left arm by 20mm cannon fragments, but landed safely.

Bombing accuracy was minimal, five men were killed and eleven wounded at the base, two P-38s were destroyed on the ground, a B-25 and two P-400s (P-39s) were damaged.

So that is the extent of the losses. Only two Japanese pilots failed to return to base. It seems like 11 claims vs 2 actual victories on the US side (so 5-1), and 18 claims vs 1 actual victory on the Japanese side (so 18-1).


I'll post a few more later when I have more time.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

The P-38 is a really odd case.
Because of the problems with the P-39 and P-40 (single speed supercharger and weight) there was no quick fix for them and perhaps the "planners" thought that it easier to just transition to the P-47 instead.
Timing is critical here as an Allison powered P-51 doesn't do much for the USAAC and the Merlin powered P-51 doesn't start planning until summer of 1942.
P-47 has troubles (not the lack of drop tanks, that is in 1943) in 1942. They build 171 P-47Bs and NONE are sent overseas and the first P-47C rolls out of the factory Sept 14th 1942.
But this is two weeks after there are 164 P-38s in England (most will be sent to North Africa in Nov/Dec.
This leaves the P-38 as the ONLY high altitude fighter in the US army inventory (or likely to be) for the rest of 1942 and the start of 1943.

US training is kind of strange. They are giving the pilots a good amount of hours in the first 3 phases of training but not enough training on operational types. And 15-20 hours in a P-40 doesn't do a lot of good when a pilot is posted to a P-38 squadron. There were only a handful of 2 seat P-38 trainers (2 ?) and those were converted Ls in 1944 or 1945.

Power ratings are all over the place. On the Fs and Gs the intercoolers were not good enough to maintain military power above 15,000ft and according to some manuals WER was never allowed. I think the Hs were the same. This could be questionable in the Pacific. If you are not operating at 15,000ft you may not have a problem? But if you are you don't have the 1325 or 1425hp available that you have lower down. Once the J's show up in late 1943 you have 1425hp to over 25,000ft and even to 29,000ft depending on RAM. You have 1600hp WER at 25,800 with no ram and over 28,000ft with ram.
Between the engines, intercoolers, Turbos (B-13s and B-33s), turbo controllers, generator problems and the dive flaps and ailerons there were quite a number of things going on with the P-38s. Not helped by the training by the USAAC.
Not only were the recommendations for cruise faulty for range, they were the opposite of what was needed for fast throttle response if jumped. Using low boost and high rpm meant that the turbos were spooled down and they took a while to spool up to make combat power. The engines were also running cool or cold, not a big problem in the Pacific, more of a problem over Europe. But if you are not cruising fast the props may also be pitched wrong. Even if the engine is making about the same power, when at low rpm and higher boost the turbos are spinning faster and and if the pilot jams the throttles forward he is going to get more power right away. Props may be running in coarser pitch.
This was a self inflected wound that was the Responsibility of the US Army. THEY knew better than either Lockheed or Allison on how to operate the engines.

One thing that P-38 Pilots and crews did was leave about 800 rounds of .50 cal at home. The Ammo cans would hold 500 rounds per gun (about 38 seconds worth) and the 20mm gun ran out at about 15 seconds. 300 rounds would last 23-24 seconds and save about 240-250lbs.
Please note that P-38 with 300rpg has about 2.4 times the ammo that a Ki-43 does and that is the 20mm jams on the first shot.

P-38s sucked fuel but they could carry a lot and they could fly further when the drop tanks were empty than the P-39 and P-40 could, they were faster (a little bit), they could climb better and they were better at altitude. In late 1942, most of 1943 and into early 1944 what else did the US Army have that was any better in quantities in the Pacific?

For new members there is quite a collection of manuals in the technical section which is organized by nations.

Other Mechanical Systems Tech.

ww2aircraft.net

Wartime manuals may misprints and/or revisions.

Good summary. The early P-38E,F,G and H to varying degrees also had poor roll and slow turn. This started being alleviated with the J, along with some of the engine problems.

And of course they had the compressibility issues when diving.

The P39 range was significantly more limited than the P-40s, it seems. In New Guinea the P-40s were flying on strikes to Lae like in the example I listed above, P-39s never did that I can remember.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Another shorthand summary on page 79 for four days of fighting from 6-10 January during fighting around a supply and reinforcement convoy heading to Lae in Northern New Guinea. This was one of the first major clashes involving the P-38. Claringbould indicates the following summary:

Allied claims: 84 Japanese fighters 'confirmed', 36 'probable'
Actual Japanese losses: 16 fighters 10 x Ki-43-I (with 6 pilots killed or missing) and 6 x A6M

So that's about 5-1 overclaiming, just counting the 'confirmed'.

He doesn't show Allied losses or Japanese claims in the summary on page 79 but in the appendix he shows 14 bombers and 2 fighters lost by the Allies in that same period:

6 Jan - 2 x B-24D, 1 x B-26
7 Jan - 1 x B-17F, 1 Boston, 1 B-25, 1 B-26, 1 P-40E
8 Jan - 1 x B-26, 1 x B-25, 1 x B-17E, 1 x P38F
9 Jan - 1 x B-24, 2 x Beaufort,
10 Jan - 1 x B-26

2 of the Japanese transport ships were sunk in a series of bombing and strafing attacks.

 

[GregP]

Ok just two examples of overclaiming in Clairngboulds "South Pacific Air War" Volume 6

I just opened two sections of the book at random, one in the beginning and one toward the end.

Pages 61-63 describe a raid on Japanese shipping on 7 January 1943 by twenty P40E/K from 7th and 8th FS, 49th FG, (with eight equpped as fighter-bombers with 300 lb bombs, and twelve flying as "top cover") plus eight 39th FS P-38F and G, also flying as top cover. Richard Bong of the 9th FS was flying with this unit to gain experience.

The P-38s got separated from the P-40s but engaged six A6M2 and 3s over Lae. Four of the P-40 top cover were attacked from above by a Shotai (3) Ki-43-I. Seven bomb-equipped P-40s made dive bombing attacks on Japanese transports, and then strafed them. P-40 pilots then engaged a mixed group of 18 Ki-43s and A6M3s.

Allied Claims: 19 enemy fighters - 39th FS (P-38s) claimed six (6) A6Ms as 'confirmed' destroyed, including two by Bong. 7th and 8th FS (P-40s) claimed thirteen (13) 'confirmed' victories.
Japanese Claims: 3 enemy fighters
Allied Losses: One P-40 piloted by 2LT Eugene Dickey of 8th FS ditched on the flight home, he was seem swimming to shore but then disappared and remains MiA. Three more P-40s came back heavily damaged, two landing without hyrdaulics and mutliple bullet holes.
Japanese Losses: 6 fighters: 2 x A6M with FPO2c Hori Mitsuo (apparently shot down by Lt Warren Blakely of 7th FS/P-40) and Leading Airman Akinobou Itsuo. Mitsua bailed out wounded and was rescued. Akinobou crash landed at base but his fighter was written off. 4 x Ki-43-I Sgt Major Watanuki Kiyoshi from 1 Chutai, Corporal Kai Yasu'Ichi (No. 2 Chutai) and Lt. Nakagawa Takao (no 3. Chutai) were killed, and Lt Shishimoto Hironojo wrote off his heavily damaged (by a P-38) Ki-43-1 after landing. One other Ki-43-I was lost but Claringbould believes this one was lost earlier in the day.

A bomb hit the Myoko Maru, heavily damaging it, and strafing started a fire on Clyde Maru.

So it looks like 3-1 overclaiming both by the US and also by the Japanese, but the Japanese did heavily damage three more.

---------------------------------------------

Pages 184-185 describe a fight on 11 March 1943. A strike force of 26 JAAF Ki-21 "Sally" twin-engined bombers was sent to bomb Dobodura, escorted by 40 IJN A6M2 and A6M3 consisting of nine from No. 252 Ku, thirteen from the carrier Zuiho, and eighteen from No. 253 Ku. These were intercepted by the 8th and 9th Sqns of the 49th FG. 8th Sqn was flying 12 x P-40E and Ks, 9th Sqn was flying 8 x P-38F and G. The Japanese were coming in at 24-26,000 ft, (meaning they were emphasizing survival rather than bombing accuracy). The P-38s intercepted the large Japanese force first, but their attack runs on the bombers were broken up by head-on attacks by the A6Ms. Richard Bong was there flying his Charlie Jeanne, and his P-38 was damaged. he escaped pursuit in a shallow dive from 15,000ft to sea level, and was one of the last Allied pilots to make it back to base. His escape and survival in this engagement was later written about in articles.

Allied Claims: 9 "Zekes" and 2 "Bettys" destroyed, including two victories awarded to Bong and two to William Hanning.
Japanese Claims: 18 American planes confirmed destroyed.

Actual Axis losses: Two A6M fighters destroyed, Zuiho pilot FPO1c Kitaoka Sei'Ichi listed as missing, and Superior Flyer Koyama Hiroshi listed as "self destructed" during the ramming incident with Lt Hanning. "Several" Ki-21 lightly damaged, but all returned to base.
Actual Allied losses: One P-38 flown by 1Lt William Hanning hit in an air to air collision, pilot bailed out and rescued. One P-40 damaged, pilot 2nd Lt Lee Mayo injured on his left arm by 20mm cannon fragments, but landed safely.

Bombing accuracy was minimal, five men were killed and eleven wounded at the base, two P-38s were destroyed on the ground, a B-25 and two P-400s (P-39s) were damaged.

So that is the extent of the losses. Only two Japanese pilots failed to return to base. It seems like 11 claims vs 2 actual victories on the US side (so 5-1), and 18 claims vs 1 actual victory on the Japanese side (so 18-1).


I'll post a few more later when I have more time.

Again, you are assuming the Japanese and the AMericans reported all losses, none of the loss reports were lost over time, and you are assuming overclaiming. If some was shot out of the fight and made it back to base, was repaired, and flew again, the pilot who shot him out of the fight gets a legimimate victory claim. There are MANY ways those reports can be true and still not have victories add up to admitted losses.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Again, you are assuming the Japanese and the AMericans reported all losses, none of the loss reports were lost over time, and you are assuming overclaiming. If some was shot out of the fight and made it back to base, was repaired, and flew again, the pilot who shot him out of the fight gets a legimimate victory claim. There are MANY ways those reports can be true and still not have victories add up to admitted losses.

The thing is, they have the lists of pilots and serial numbers of the aircraft. They did not lose any more aircraft than the ones I mentioned on the days specified. Do you think they had dead or missing pilots that they pretended were flying missions on the next days ....? I don't understand how that would even work. Who would fly the aircraft? Clones?

In other words, it's not just the loss reports for that day. If the pilots were lost, that would show up in subsequent records... because they are short pilots. If the aircraft are lost for any reason - mechanical failure, accident, just disappeared on a mission, that gets recorded. Because again, they would have fewer aircraft available to fly the next mission. But in this case there aren't missing aircraft or pilots other than the ones listed.

And any aircraft which might have been damaged but flew back and landed at their own base under power, are not "shot down". The exception might be where the aircraft was written off due to damage but I counted those cases in the examples I posted so far. Driving an enemy aircraft away from the battle area doesn't meet the criteria for a 'confirmed victory' or 'confirmed kill' for any air force in WW2.

 

[buffnut453]

Driving an enemy aircraft away from the battle area doesn't meet the criteria for a 'confirmed victory' or 'confirmed kill' for any air force in WW2.

Well, that rather depends on how the aircraft was flying as it was driven off. If it was seemingly out of control and with smoke coming it, it absolutely could be claimed as a kill.

There are plenty of examples where pilots dove away to escape an attacker and then flew back to base much lower altitude. The attacker would legitimately claim a kill but the aircraft survived.

There are also examples of aircraft previously written off but being resurrected from boneyards. Equally, aircraft can be taken out of the front line and used as spares "Christmas trees" to keep the other aircraft in the squadron operational. It gets really messy, really quickly.

The issue of accurate records also mustn't be understated. I've first-hand experience of trawling through Allied records that are partial, contradictory, and sometimes just plain wrong. Manual recording is challenging in a high-tempo ops environment, or if your airfield as at risk of being overrun. From a command decision perspective, higher headquarters seldom cared about the odd aircraft here and there since availability could change drastically from one hour to the next; they were more interested in whether the unit could perform the tasks assigned to it. It's also worth noting that almost all squadrons have extra, "reserve" aircraft and probably a few extra pilots to help maintain front-line strength despite losses. I've seen instances where units were supposed to have 4 reserve airframes but actually had 8 or more. With so many reserves, it could take quite a few losses before the squadron actually fell below its doctrinal operational strength.

Since there's no end to the complexity of aircraft states on a squadron, I still think it's best to report claims, actual losses (if known), and, ideally, caveats on the quality of available records.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Well, that rather depends on how the aircraft was flying as it was driven off. If it was seemingly out of control and with smoke coming it, it absolutely could be claimed as a kill.

There are plenty of examples where pilots dove away to escape an attacker and then flew back to base much lower altitude. The attacker would legitimately claim a kill but the aircraft survived.

That is a completely different issue. I'm not debating the wartime claim certification process. Or trying to challenge who is an ace and who isn't. The granularity of the data doesn't really give us the opportunity to make the distinction for example of which Allied aircraft actually shot down or damaged which Axis aircraft, or vice versa. For example in the examples I posted, we don't know if Richard Bong got some of the Japanese fighters shot down or not. Looks like he could have gotten some of them.

However, what it does tell us is that for example, the USAAF did not shoot down 19 Japanese fighters on 7 January 1943. We know the USAAF fighters all together actually shot down 6 fighters. We know the Japanese did not shoot down 18 US fighters on March 11. In fact, we know they only shot down one, piloted by Lt Hanning, because all the others landed back at their base that day.

That is pretty cut and dry. It's the real losses, which is a separate entity from the claimed losses (including claimed / confirmed). Reconciling those two numbers is another matter entirely which I'm not trying to do here.

I've pointed out already 3 or 4 times in this thread that most overclaiming was most likely not intentional. The claims were estimates of what happened based on very limited information, more limited in fact than was realized at the time. The errors were the result of 'fog of war'.

There are also examples of aircraft previously written off but being resurrected from boneyards. Equally, aircraft can be taken out of the front line and used as spares "Christmas trees" to keep the other aircraft in the squadron operational. It gets really messy, really quickly.

Nope, that's a totally different issue from "was the aircraft shot down". What constitutes a claim in combat is a totally separate issue from what is or isn't done with damaged aircraft that made it back to base. Sometimes those were repaired, sometimes they weren't (and that may not actually have anything to do with the battle damage either). If they were shot down they did not typically make it back to base at all.

The issue of accurate records also mustn't be understated. I've first-hand experience of trawling through Allied records that are partial, contradictory, and sometimes just plain wrong. Manual recording is challenging in a high-tempo ops environment, or if your airfield as at risk of being overrun. From a command decision perspective, higher headquarters seldom cared about the odd aircraft here and there since availability could change drastically from one hour to the next; they were more interested in whether the unit could perform the tasks assigned to it. It's also worth noting that almost all squadrons have extra, "reserve" aircraft and probably a few extra pilots to help maintain front-line strength despite losses. I've seen instances where units were supposed to have 4 reserve airframes but actually had 8 or more. With so many reserves, it could take quite a few losses before the squadron actually fell below its doctrinal operational strength.

That might happen here and there, but not day after day. If you are taking losses, you will quickly run out of aircraft to play around with in your ostensible shadow reserve. We aren't talking about huge units here in the Solomons or New Guinea. A dozen fighters, maybe a score, is a large unit in this particular time and place. There isn't a lot of room for creative accounting. So I'm sorry, I don't think that qualifies.

Since there's no end to the complexity of aircraft states on a squadron, I still think it's best to report claims, actual losses (if known), and, ideally, caveats on the quality of available records.

Again, it's not a matter of the repair or maintenance schedule. That's a completely different issue. Whether the plane got shot down or not is really pretty simple. Most of the time it just means, did the aircraft manage to land at it's home base or another friendly base. Whether you count planes that were destroyed or written off immediately after landing is just up to how you want to count the losses, but it's the same as long as you use the same criteria for both sides. In the examples I posted I included aircraft which were immediately written off, but no others.

 

[GregP]

The thing is, they have the lists of pilots and serial numbers of the aircraft. They did not lose any more aircraft than the ones I mentioned on the days specified. Do you think they had dead or missing pilots that they pretended were flying missions on the next days ....? I don't understand how that would even work. Who would fly the aircraft? Clones?

In other words, it's not just the loss reports for that day. If the pilots were lost, that would show up in subsequent records... because they are short pilots. If the aircraft are lost for any reason - mechanical failure, accident, just disappeared on a mission, that gets recorded. Because again, they would have fewer aircraft available to fly the next mission. But in this case there aren't missing aircraft or pilots other than the ones listed.

And any aircraft which might have been damaged but flew back and landed at their own base under power, are not "shot down". The exception might be where the aircraft was written off due to damage but I counted those cases in the examples I posted so far. Driving an enemy aircraft away from the battle area doesn't meet the criteria for a 'confirmed victory' or 'confirmed kill' for any air force in WW2.

Apparently, you don't get my point, and that's OK, really.

Someone can be shot out of a fight and still make it home to land. The guy who shoots you out of the fight can, in some cases, get a legitimate victory claim. The particulars of the fight will be in the after action reports. I've seen U.S. After After Action reports and MACARs, but have never seen a Japanese After Action report. I am assuming they can have exactly the same experience. The Japanese were not very concerned with individual claims anyway.

On the surface, it looks like overclaiming above, but you have to dig some to really find out what happened, and I'm not into that research since I'm not really up on accessing the records. Instead, I work on looking at the aircraft themselves. But admitted loss lists are not the end authority for me, expecially for the Axis, all of whom suffered a lot of bomb damage and lost a LOT of records.

It's a good case above for overclaiming, but not conclusive depending on circumstances, and very particularly, the notion that someone can identify an overclaim ratio, as in 5 : 1 overclaiming. The records aren't that good and access to the data is worse than lousy. Add to thaht the fact thath the U.S. Navy doesn't even save the same information about air mission as the USAAF, much less a different air force's records. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

But, hey, we don't have to agree on it, and that's OK.

Cheers.

 

[buffnut453]

S Steamed_Banana I'm afraid I've rather lost the plot on the point you're trying to make. We can all agree that claims by one side are different from losses on an opposing side. We can also all agree that there was overclaiming by all sides, often to sizeable multiples of the actual losses sustained. However, estimating the degree of overclaiming requires us to dig into the causes of losses, and that's where the complexity comes in because data are inconsistent, incomplete or just messy.

Whether the plane got shot down or not is really pretty simple. Most of the time it just means, did the aircraft manage to land at it's home base or another friendly base. Whether you count planes that were destroyed or written off immediately after landing is just up to how you want to count the losses, but it's the same as long as you use the same criteria for both sides. In the examples I posted I included aircraft which were immediately written off, but no others.

And this is the real rub...it's incredibly hard to parse and categorize losses unless we can dig into the quality of the data. Yes, an aircraft that doesn't come home is absolutely a loss but even that simplistic binary approach has issues because the loss may have nothing to do with combat. Most aircrew casualties in WW2 had nothing to do with combat: losses during training were eye-watering to modern minds.

Yes, we can apply the same "rules" to data from both sides but we also need to understand any peculiarities within the source data. Even something as basic as unit rotations would cast doubt on some of the basic assertions being made. Yes, a unit that has lost pilots and aircraft will report them and, at face value, that means a unit will degrade over time. However, most air forces rotated units so they could regroup, while putting full-strength units into the front-line so that overall force combat effectiveness didn't change much.

You've pushed back on my comments about maintenance which is somewhat valid. However, we must recognize that any logistics system has in-built pressures that can drive reporting bias. If it's easy to get new aircraft but harder to get spares, then the incentive is to report more losses. Conversely, if new aircraft are harder to come by but spares are plentiful, loss reporting will likely reduce as airframes that would normally. be written off are kept on the books to ensure spares keep flowing. This is overly simplistic (obviously) but the point is that command pressures and process-driven biases need to be understood if we're to make real sense of loss data.

Any historian who seeks to derive meaning from loss records must be able to articulate the reliability of the records and the core assumptions and criteria they're applying to the data. That's not to suggest anything nefarious on the part of the original record-keeper, nor does it call into question the integrity of the historian. It's simply a reflection of reality that records get lost, daily returns don't get filed, errors aren't corrected etc etc, and we all impose biases in analysis of historic data. There are examples, as you cite, where we have some seemingly reasonable data but there are also plenty of cases where data are partial at best. I'm merely observing that we should comprehend how data are being used so that we can be consistent and, more importantly, sufficiently comprehensive in our analysis, which (I think) is the point you're making in the quoted section.

 

[JoblinTheGoblin]

Reading through these recent posts, I am now convinced that I will have to post, in detail (including additional context), the claims and losses as shown in Claringbould's Osprey-published works and Dunn's online articles. There may be some discrepancies between their works and other sources, such as, for instance, Pacific Wrecks' entry and Dunn's F6F article on the combat that took place on September 16, 1943, so I'll need to mention and attempt to account for such discrepancies as they come. I should have done this earlier.

As for their reliability, Claringbould appears to regard his IJNAF sources as being reliable, accurate, "hard data" when it comes to losses, and that the Allied and Japanese reports he has accessed can and have been cross-referenced to provide an accurate picture of the combat and losses each side sustained. Make of that however you will. Dunn appears to be in a similar boat, though I do not believe that he made any definitive statements of that nature. The only comment I can make in this regard is that it's clear that Japanese records can't simply be ignored outright, but from what I've seen, most sources, likely because they usually lack access to them for whatever reason, choose to forgo referencing them. Even if such records prove to be insufficient somehow, like some in this thread have suggested, they must still be considered and referred to regardless, before any final judgement on their quality and reliability can be made.

Once again, I shouldn't have expected or demanded of an expert in this forum, but it's still slightly disappointing that no one here has accessed any actual Japanese loss records...as a silver lining, however, at least one other person in this thread has provably read the works of someone who did.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

S Steamed_Banana I'm afraid I've rather lost the plot on the point you're trying to make. We can all agree that claims by one side are different from losses on an opposing side. We can also all agree that there was overclaiming by all sides, often to sizeable multiples of the actual losses sustained. However, estimating the degree of overclaiming requires us to dig into the causes of losses, and that's where the complexity comes in because data are inconsistent, incomplete or just messy.



And this is the real rub...it's incredibly hard to parse and categorize losses unless we can dig into the quality of the data. Yes, an aircraft that doesn't come home is absolutely a loss but even that simplistic binary approach has issues because the loss may have nothing to do with combat. Most aircrew casualties in WW2 had nothing to do with combat: losses during training were eye-watering to modern minds.

Yes, we can apply the same "rules" to data from both sides but we also need to understand any peculiarities within the source data. Even something as basic as unit rotations would cast doubt on some of the basic assertions being made. Yes, a unit that has lost pilots and aircraft will report them and, at face value, that means a unit will degrade over time. However, most air forces rotated units so they could regroup, while putting full-strength units into the front-line so that overall force combat effectiveness didn't change much.

You've pushed back on my comments about maintenance which is somewhat valid. However, we must recognize that any logistics system has in-built pressures that can drive reporting bias. If it's easy to get new aircraft but harder to get spares, then the incentive is to report more losses. Conversely, if new aircraft are harder to come by but spares are plentiful, loss reporting will likely reduce as airframes that would normally. be written off are kept on the books to ensure spares keep flowing. This is overly simplistic (obviously) but the point is that command pressures and process-driven biases need to be understood if we're to make real sense of loss data.

Any historian who seeks to derive meaning from loss records must be able to articulate the reliability of the records and the core assumptions and criteria they're applying to the data. That's not to suggest anything nefarious on the part of the original record-keeper, nor does it call into question the integrity of the historian. It's simply a reflection of reality that records get lost, daily returns don't get filed, errors aren't corrected etc etc, and we all impose biases in analysis of historic data. There are examples, as you cite, where we have some seemingly reasonable data but there are also plenty of cases where data are partial at best. I'm merely observing that we should comprehend how data are being used so that we can be consistent and, more importantly, sufficiently comprehensive in our analysis, which (I think) is the point you're making in the quoted section.

The truth is, if anything, the three examples I transcribed, are less egregious than many. I just picked those at random, but there are days where there were a half dozen to a score of Allied claims and the Japanese didn't lose anything. And vice versa.

I see all the points you (and Greg) are raising here but it really sounds like you haven't read through these kinds of sources. If you have, I'm sorry to say but it sounds like almost like obfuscation of the issue. But to be more generous, it may just be a lack of context.

These, again, are not huge units. We aren't talking about hundreds of planes where you could conceal a few losses by bringing in refurbished planes from the repair yards, and activating new pilots who were rotated in or something. Yes, there are some missing records. The thing is, they know which ones were missing (i.e., for certain times and places). These are indicated where encountered - for example Shores notes some missing Japanese records for certain periods in the later part of the war, i.e. 1945, in Burma.

But what we are talking about here, specifically encounters involving the P-38 and F4U in 1943 mainly, there just isn't that much wiggle room. You have a squadron (or Chutai) of 9 planes. They get in combat. The next day, the same unit having lost two aircraft and one pilot, is now flying 7 planes, and the surviving pilot either was sent to the hospital to recover from wounds or put right back into the rotation as soon as another aircraft was available. That is pretty basic. There is no way this unit in fact lost 5 or 6 planes because ... those planes are still flying! They get into combat in the next few days and weeks. There isn't a lot of room to fudge records, especially when you look at this in aggregate (eight or nine Chutai over three months) and see the same pattern over and over.

There is of course some, around the margins - there are days where combat took place where planes were also reported crashed on takeoff, suffered engine malfunction and turned back from a strike, or were lost on a recon mission to another area, and you could factor that in as a potential combat loss, but it just isn't enough to change the basic story, or to be blunt, to change the overclaiming ratio very much. You cold say overclaiming was 5-1 or 6-1 or 4-1, in a given period, depending on how much benefit of the doubt (or bending of the data) you want to engage in, but it's clearly more than we thought. It's clearly not a massive 4-1 or 5-1 or 11- "kill ratio".

This kind of data isn't just around the margins, it's a fundamental change to the story we thought we knew. It's not just one author finding this data, but multiple. As I noted previously, once one person does the initial work and finds the records in some place like Japan or Italy, other authors can also look at these, and have done so. The only exception right now is Russia due to the unfortunate resumption of the Cold War.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Apparently, you don't get my point, and that's OK, really.

I would say the same thing buddy (and sincerely, no harm detected or intended)

Someone can be shot out of a fight and still make it home to land. The guy who shoots you out of the fight can, in some cases, get a legitimate victory claim.

Again, I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread already, the victory claim may well be "legitimate" from the point of view of the pilots making the claim, in fact it usually was, for exactly this type of reason. It was also, as I noted already, routinely the case that multiple pilots thought they shot down the same enemy plane, or even that a crashed / blown up plane from their own side was an enemy plane.

But this has little reflection on the actual losses that the enemy in fact suffered.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Now all that said, I think it's perfectly valid to look at the provenance of the records. For example, a lot of the Japanese records in Burma and the South Pacific Islands were seized by Allied forces after the war. It's certainly the case that some records were lost, and some are incomplete. In some cases translation may come into question etc.

So research into that subject can only improve our understanding of all of this, IMO.

 

[buffnut453]

The truth is, if anything, the three examples I transcribed, are less egregious than many. I just picked those at random, but there are days where there were a half dozen to a score of Allied claims and the Japanese didn't lose anything. And vice versa.

I see all the points you (and Greg) are raising here but it really sounds like you haven't read through these kinds of sources. If you have, I'm sorry to say but it sounds like almost like obfuscation of the issue. But to be more generous, it may just be a lack of context.

These, again, are not huge units. We aren't talking about hundreds of planes where you could conceal a few losses by bringing in refurbished planes from the repair yards, and activating new pilots who were rotated in or something. Yes, there are some missing records. The thing is, they know which ones were missing (i.e., for certain times and places). These are indicated where encountered - for example Shores notes some missing Japanese records for certain periods in the later part of the war, i.e. 1945, in Burma.

But what we are talking about here, specifically encounters involving the P-38 and F4U in 1943 mainly, there just isn't that much wiggle room. You have a squadron (or Chutai) of 9 planes. They get in combat. The next day, the same unit having lost two aircraft and one pilot, is now flying 7 planes, and the surviving pilot either was sent to the hospital to recover from wounds or put right back into the rotation as soon as another aircraft was available. That is pretty basic. There is no way this unit in fact lost 5 or 6 planes because ... those planes are still flying! They get into combat in the next few days and weeks. There isn't a lot of room to fudge records, especially when you look at this in aggregate (eight or nine Chutai over three months) and see the same pattern over and over.

There is of course some, around the margins - there are days where combat took place where planes were also reported crashed on takeoff, suffered engine malfunction and turned back from a strike, or were lost on a recon mission to another area, and you could factor that in as a potential combat loss, but it just isn't enough to change the basic story, or to be blunt, to change the overclaiming ratio very much. You cold say overclaiming was 5-1 or 6-1 or 4-1, in a given period, depending on how much benefit of the doubt (or bending of the data) you want to engage in, but it's clearly more than we thought. It's clearly not a massive 4-1 or 5-1 or 11- "kill ratio".

This kind of data isn't just around the margins, it's a fundamental change to the story we thought we knew. It's not just one author finding this data, but multiple. As I noted previously, once one person does the initial work and finds the records in some place like Japan or Italy, other authors can also look at these, and have done so. The only exception right now is Russia due to the unfortunate resumption of the Cold War.

Please don't assume what stories I know or think I know. I never said records were fudged, nor did I deny that loss records could be correct. You seem to ignore that I gave credit regarding the examples you cited seemed to be accurate.

I was simply asserting that loss records aren't always 100% accurate. No records are ever 100% accurate in my experience. That's all I'm saying, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Please don't assume what stories I know or think I know. I never said records were fudged, nor did I deny that loss records could be correct. You seem to ignore that I gave credit in the examples you cited seemed to be accurate.

I was simply asserting that loss records aren't always 100% accurate. No records are ever 100% accurate in my experience. That's all I'm saying, nothing more and nothing less.

Sure Ok, but the implication or assumption by some folks, not necessarily you, seems to be that 'not 100% accurate' means more like "2% accurate", (i.e. irrelevant), whereas I'm suggesting it looks more like 90-98% or so, (i.e., highly relevant) and again we by now are talking about at least two dozen authors covering 4 or 5 different Theaters across 5+ years of war at this point.

 

[buffnut453]

Sure Ok, but the implication or assumption by some folks, not necessarily you, seems to be that 'not 100% accurate' means more like "2% accurate", (i.e. irrelevant), whereas I'm suggesting it looks more like 90-98% or so, (i.e., highly relevant) and again we by now are talking about at least two dozen authors covering 4 or 5 different Theaters across 5+ years of war at this point.

Please don't lump me with people who are incapable of rethinking received wisdom. I've dug into primary source records, including multiple sources that don't appear in any published books. I've pulled together information across dozens of sources to reconstruct the operational history of several units which lost records at Singapore in 1942. I'm perfectly capable of making up my own mind about situations.

IMHO, inaccuracy in reporting and documentation is as likely to increase the disparity between claims and losses as it is to reduce it. For example, an aircraft returning from a mission lands at an airfield other than its home base. The unit, not knowing the fate of the aircraft and its pilot, produced a daily report stating the aircraft was lost but, a few days later the pilot gets in touch with his unit to say that both he and the aircraft are undamaged. If the unit's daily report doesn't reflect the reinstatement of that airframe and pilot, then the loss will be recorded for posterity even when there was no actual loss.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Please don't lump me with people who are incapable of rethinking received wisdom. I've dug into primary source records, including multiple sources that don't appear in any published books. I've pulled together information across dozens of sources to reconstruct the operational history of several units which lost records at Singapore in 1942. I'm perfectly capable of making up my own mind about situations.

Fair enough!

IMHO, inaccuracy in reporting and documentation is as likely to increase the disparity between claims and losses as it is to reduce it. For example, an aircraft returning from a mission lands at an airfield other than its home base. The unit, not knowing the fate of the aircraft and its pilot, produced a daily report stating the aircraft was lost but, a few days later the pilot gets in touch with his unit to say that both he and the aircraft are undamaged. If the unit's daily report doesn't reflect the reinstatement of that airframe and pilot, then the loss will be recorded for posterity even when there was no actual loss.

Cases like this occur routinely in Claringbould, Shores, Bergstrom, Michal Piegzik etc., and they do account for these. In fact, in the fighting around New Guinea and the Solomons, landing at alternative fields due to weather, damage, or just getting lost was so routine that it was almost the norm during some periods. As were lost crews and sometimes the aircraft as well being recovered and repatriated, often after harrowing ordeals lasting weeks or even months.

But of course, these authors aren't just looking at individual squadron records, and the reports from the various bases, airfields, aircraft carriers, etc., filter up to higher-level Theater commands. Again, even totalitarian governments want to know where their aircraft and aircrew are, and how many losses they took.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Once again, I shouldn't have expected or demanded of an expert in this forum, but it's still slightly disappointing that no one here has accessed any actual Japanese loss records...as a silver lining, however, at least one other person in this thread has provably read the works of someone who did.

Please stop making these inferences about people. Also messages here are "hobby" not proof read or sub edited like in book or an article for publication, err on the side of caution.

A quote, Japanese is the best language in the world to be imprecise in. One of the few times I asked for some documents to be translated the young female native Japanese speaker found it very hard to understand the 1940's military dialect. As is well known many Japanese struggled to understand the Emperor's August 1945 speech as it was in court dialect. There are somewhere around 80 volumes of official Japanese histories for WWII containing lots of data, downloadable as well I think, as long as you can read Japanese, a few have been translated. An English speaker finds it way easier to understand the subset of military German etc. than Japanese. Translation by humans becomes expensive very quickly. There is one book that goes through the pre Pearl Harbor Japanese diplomatic messages noting how differently a lot could be translated compared with the US government versions.

Darwin Spitfires by Antony Cooper in 2011, Spitfires Over Darwin by Jim Grant in 1996, Darwin's Air War by Bob Alford, 1st edition in 1991, second in 2011. The Australians recorded 64 day or night raids on Darwin 19 February 1942 (twice) to 12 November 1943, almost exactly 1 per 10 days on average. Alford lists 105 occasions of Japanese aircraft in the area, 10 February 1942 to 12 June 1944, by including the reconnaissance sorties. The books include Japanese loss reports. Understanding the definition of loss being used is the first step. The numbers engaged and the number of engagements makes each vulnerable to missed details when calculating things like claimed and actual losses and ratios, compiling them into week/month/year helps reduce this. You can normally expect the system to accurately report losses and gains as they understand them within the usual human error boundaries assuming the front lines are static, lose bases and it is another matter. Then comes making sure the writer is aware of all the units engaged in the combats. The allies had a good handle on IJN codes long before IJA codes, the latter considerably helped by captured documents, which required capturing bases. And I Was There by Edwin Layton makes it clear how code breaking helped to cut back the believed IJN warship losses around Guadalcanal, especially from the night surface battles. The decrypts open up another avenue to investigate, often with translations provided.

There are plenty of examples of aircraft that made it back but were not repaired or further damaged after arrival (1 January 1945 Bodenplatte 8th Air Force and Bomber Command casualties come to mind) or cannibalised, or the other way, written off but later repaired. Aircraft lost on combat missions but not due to enemy action, reported missing but turned up later. The tenuous line of supplies to the South West Pacific area coupled with the weather effects on or simply time for aircraft awaiting repair would have magnified losses. Write the what is a loss section then present the data.

There is South Pacific Air War by Richard L Dunn and South Pacific Air War by Michael Claringbould and Peter Ingman (Avonmore books since 2017, no idea of the overlap with any Osprey ones) and to keep the confusion going we have the South Pacific aviation information at Australia @ War by Peter Dunn - Australia during WWII by Peter Dunn. When I asked an RAAF researcher about Claringbould and Ingman the reply came back Ingman is good, but some supplied accurate material was ignored. A USN researcher noted problems with USN fighter claims around Guadalcanal but thought the USAAF ones were worse.