Rn vs IJN

Thumpalumpacus said:

And all that is another way of writing that the difference was with the personnel and not the A5M's alleged superiority, which is the only contention I take issue with right now. All planes have strong and weak points. The wise pilot fights to his plane's strengths while masking its weaknesses. That is not a quality of the airframe, that is using the qualities of the airframe.

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There is always a bit of both. You could certainly argue it either way with the A5M. But the pretty similar Ki-27 seems to have generally done better than most of the early Allied fighters.

Normally I go by the operational histories, there just isn't much with the A5M except in China against mostly Russian types (where it did pretty well).

In general the Axis had better training standards in the early years of the war, a bit worse in the later years of the war. The Allies were the opposite, though it varied by unit and Theater.

But based on the testimony of the Allied pilots themselves, it seemed to be more the performance / agility of the Japanese aircraft that concerned them. Certainly Kido Butai had very high standards and their pilots were experienced from China. Not every IJN was at that standard.

Many of the Allied pilots were not experienced, but once again, you can see a marked difference between Allied types. Buffalo, P-39, and Hurricane did fairly poorly in the Far East (losing considerably more than they claimed, even). P-40, Wildcat did about even. P-38s, once they arrived, did well in New Guinea and the Solomons, and about even in CBI.

I would say the Wildcat holding it's own was down to good training and tactics by the USN. The P-40 was at least partly down to advantages of the type, simply because so many of the pilots flying them in the first year of the war had very little training on type, though most did adapt the new tactics pretty quickly.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

There is always a bit of both. You could certainly argue it either way with the A5M. But the pretty similar Ki-27 seems to have generally done better than most of the early Allied fighters.

Normally I go by the operational histories, there just isn't much with the A5M except in China against mostly Russian types (where it did pretty well).

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Applying Occam's Razor, I'd bet that the difference boils down to pilot experience (and inexperience) here.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Applying Occam's Razor, I'd bet that the difference boils down to pilot experience (and inexperience) here.

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It's possible.

I think maintenance, and adaptation to Theater also made a difference somewhat unexpectedly.

If you have 16 planes on paper, but only 5 or 6 of them are flying most missions, you are going to do worse.

I think the Hurricane and Spitfire would have done a lot better if not for the trouble they had with the Vokes type Tropical filter. With hindsight, they should have developed a better / more efficient one earlier and that might have saved a lot of lives.

Bad pilots frankly tend to be blamed by a lot of British historians, on the theory that the less talented got sent to the Tropics, especially to Burma. But I doubt that is the case, simply because there were clearly some very good pilots flying in these Theaters, and I'm not sure how advanced the science of predicting who was going to be a good combat pilot really was in the early / pre-war.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

All things being equal, the extremely maneuverable Japanese fighters - A5M, Ki-27, Ki-43, A6M, tended to usually defeat almost every Allied aircraft type they encountered

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I suggest we need a companion thread to What was it about the black crosses on the wings that made German aircraft the best? , titled "What was it about the red circles that made Japanese aircraft the best?"

unless the latter adapted special tactics.

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Eh, you make it sound as if the Allies had to resort to "cheating" to win. Now, it's true that a turnfight is the simplest most obvious form of dogfighting, and perhaps the Allies went into the war trusting that a turnfight would give them victory, resulting in them getting their noses bloodied. I don't think anyone here is arguing that any(?) Allied fighter could outturn the Japanese ones. So they had to adopt different tactics better suited to the advantages of their planes and the disadvantages of the Japanese.

Now I'm not a WWII fighter pilot, but with my limited experience of flight sims under my belt, I'll say that "energy fighting", while it sounds simple, is actually pretty hard to execute competently. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest if inexperienced Allied pilots, under the stress of combat, would make mistakes that would lead them to getting sucked into a low energy turnfight which they almost inevitably would lose. But conversely, it's also true that a competently flown good energy fighter plane is almost untouchable by a turnfighter. Hence the "speed is life" maxim.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

It's possible.

I think maintenance, and adaptation to Theater also made a difference somewhat unexpectedly.

If you have 16 planes on paper, but only 5 or 6 of them are flying most missions, you are going to do worse.

I think the Hurricane and Spitfire would have done a lot better if not for the trouble they had with the Vokes type Tropical filter. With hindsight, they should have developed a better / more efficient one earlier and that might have saved a lot of lives.

Bad pilots frankly tend to be blamed by a lot of British historians, on the theory that the less talented got sent to the Tropics, especially to Burma. But I doubt that is the case, simply because there were clearly some very good pilots flying in these Theaters, and I'm not sure how advanced the science of predicting who was going to be a good combat pilot really was in the early / pre-war.

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Your point about maintenance affecting operational readiness is good, thanks.

z42 said:

I suggest we need a companion thread to What was it about the black crosses on the wings that made German aircraft the best? , titled "What was it about the red circles that made Japanese aircraft the best?"

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The flipside is "What was it about the blue and red roundels or white stars that made British / American aircraft the best?"

There is all kinds of jingoism around these issues.

I am not anywhere near being a Japanese supremacist of any kind.

I just read as much of the operational histories as I can, especially now that data from both sides is much more widely available, and point out what the data seem to show and then hear back from everyone else. Some resulting threads like this one are pretty informative. I've learned a lot about radar, torpedoes, all kinds of things.

But there are also inevitably angry reactions because the long standing tropes sometimes get overturned. I think there is a lot of bullshit tropes about how inferior the Japanese supposedly were, and I think it's a good idea to file those in the round file. I'm just putting the data up for scrutiny, and inviting others to do the same.

As the result, I've learned a lot, though my overall opinion that the IJN was a crack outfit in 1942-43, has not changed.

z42 said:

Eh, you make it sound as if the Allies had to resort to "cheating" to win.

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Ah, no. That was a sentiment held by some RAF and RAAF officers during 1942 (sadly contributing to the death of the very brave commander of 75 Sqn RAAF, among others) but I certainly do not hold that opinion. A fighter pilot, or any warplane crew, should use every tactic that can keep them alive, IMO. That would be obvious if you had read much of the thread.

z42 said:

Now, it's true that a turnfight is the simplest most obvious form of dogfighting, and perhaps the Allies went into the war trusting that a turnfight would give them victory, resulting in them getting their noses bloodied.

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I think that is indeed what happened, though both the 'turnfight' and 'hit and run' concepts are a bit oversimplified in these discussions.

z42 said:

I don't think anyone here is arguing that any(?) Allied fighter could outturn the Japanese ones. So they had to adopt different tactics better suited to the advantages of their planes and the disadvantages of the Japanese.

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Apparently P-36 / Hawk 75 could turn with them. But most could not.

z42 said:

Now I'm not a WWII fighter pilot, but with my limited experience of flight sims under my belt, I'll say that "energy fighting", while it sounds simple, is actually pretty hard to execute competently. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest if inexperienced Allied pilots, under the stress of combat, would make mistakes that would lead them to getting sucked into a low energy turnfight which they almost inevitably would lose.

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I agree, but be careful referring to flight sims in here, some people get mad! (not me necessarily. I think they can be educational, if you keep in mind the limits)

z42 said:

But conversely, it's also true that a competently flown good energy fighter plane is almost untouchable by a turnfighter. Hence the "speed is life" maxim.

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That seems to very much depend on the missions being flown, if you follow the operational history. See the Ki-43 thread on that.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Your point about maintenance affecting operational readiness is good, thanks.

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One tactic I've learned was of much greater importance than I had ever realized was the US using medium and heavy bombers like B-25s, B-26s, B-17s and especially B-24s in bombing Axis airfields. Both in the Pacific and CBI, and in the Med.

One Osprey book I have on Japanese aces notes that after Rabaul started getting hit, they went from about 50% serviceability, to 25%, mostly due to mechanics that had gotten killed by heavy and medium bomber raids.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

Bad pilots frankly tend to be blamed by a lot of British historians, on the theory that the less talented got sent to the Tropics, especially to Burma. But I doubt that is the case, simply because there were clearly some very good pilots flying in these Theaters, and I'm not sure how advanced the science of predicting who was going to be a good combat pilot really was in the early / pre-war.

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My own view is that the pilots were or would have been OK given better training. I don't believe they separated out the pilots into good and bad and assigned them accordingly.
I think (suspect) that a lot of the units sent to the far east got a disproportionate number of "green" pilots. They got some veterans/experienced pilots but perhaps not enough?
Not all experienced pilots make good instructors and you actually have fly training missions for the lessons to really sink in. Tactics that worked against the Germans were going to get people killed against the Japanese so in some cases having experienced pilots sent east was a two edged sword.
There is a difference in just giving pilots more flying time and giving them combat training and gunnery training.
If you have Hurricane pilots mock dogfighting each other they are going to use the "tricks" that worked against flying officer Jones when they get into combat with Japanese pilots in Ki-43s and those tricks are not going to work.

Blaming the pilots get the higher ups (in charge of training) off the hook.

The British did a lot of things right and at times (how often?) were the least jingoistic of the major nations, at least as far as adopting foreign weapons/equipment.
Bren gun, Besa, Browning, H-S, Oerlikon, Bofors.

At other times they could be among the most jingoistic in regards to other nations abilities (under rating them) or their own (over rating them).

This makes it difficult to use blanket statements.

A lot of British equipment was rather variable. A consistent down fall seems to artillery shells. Like the 25pdr was a very good gun, it had a few idiosyncrasies but was solid, reliable, had decent range, was pretty long lasting, had a fairly wide range of ammunition. One flaw was that the HE shell was a bit lacking in HE. So were a lot of other British shells (or they were late, 2pdr and 6pdr) or bombs. Which means you need more of them, which kind of cancels out the cheap to begin with part of the equation.
The Naval shells may not have been part of this. Naval shells don't get used up by the 10s of thousands per day like WW I army shells.
British ships tended to be designed for reliability, not for spectacular speed. British ships did breakdown, they also steamed a lot of miles. British also tried to buy in numbers so a certain percentage of ships could be undergoing refit and repair at any given time. Not as much as they wanted but better than some other navies.

There is also the trying to use things thousands of miles away from the factories thing. Ships, aircraft, army equipment.

Shortround6 said:

British ships tended to be designed for reliability, not for spectacular speed. British ships did breakdown, they also steamed a lot of miles. British also tried to buy in numbers so a certain percentage of ships could be undergoing refit and repair at any given time. Not as much as they wanted but better than some other navies. There is also the trying to use things thousands of miles away from the factories thing. Ships, aircraft, army equipment.

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With their focus on operations closer to home, and their abundance of overseas bases it makes sense why they did not, but it would have been useful had the RN invested in at sea replenishment. The Brits were early pioneers of RAS, Underway replenishment - Wikipedia but it the USN led the development and application, especially the parallel course method rather than over the stern RAS.

Admiral Beez said:

With their focus on operations closer to home, and their abundance of overseas bases it makes sense why they did not, but it would have been useful had the RN invested in at sea replenishment. The Brits were early pioneers of RAS, Underway replenishment - Wikipedia but it was the USN had led the development.

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The British were never really focused on close to home, at least after about 1600
They always considered the requirement of world wide trade and trade protection.
They lead the way in using oil fuel despite have the worlds best supply of steam coal, which was a major pain in the butt to supply and keep stocked at a variety of oddball. out of the way coaling stations around the world (like the Falkland Islands). And the fact that it tool 3-4 days of back breaking work by all hands to re-coal (and several days of cleaning afterwards).

for the British they often just put in oil tanks at the coaling stations rather than build fleet tankers. Money was tight from 1918 to the late 30s.

Shortround6 said:

The British were never really focused on close to home, at least after about 1600

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Once the threat of German naval expansion was seen, Britain focused on the home. Admiral Jackie Fisher famously recalled the fleet from overseas once the Anglo-Japan alliance was signed.

Shortround6 said:

My own view is that the pilots were or would have been OK given better training. I don't believe they separated out the pilots into good and bad and assigned them accordingly.
I think (suspect) that a lot of the units sent to the far east got a disproportionate number of "green" pilots. They got some veterans/experienced pilots but perhaps not enough?
Not all experienced pilots make good instructors and you actually have fly training missions for the lessons to really sink in. Tactics that worked against the Germans were going to get people killed against the Japanese so in some cases having experienced pilots sent east was a two edged sword.
There is a difference in just giving pilots more flying time and giving them combat training and gunnery training.
If you have Hurricane pilots mock dogfighting each other they are going to use the "tricks" that worked against flying officer Jones when they get into combat with Japanese pilots in Ki-43s and those tricks are not going to work.

Blaming the pilots get the higher ups (in charge of training) off the hook.

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yes I agree with all this 100%

One curious thing about the RAF in the early war, if I understand this correctly, is that the highest scoring pilots in the flying schools were usually sent to bomber command or other bomber squadrons in coastal command or the FAA etc. I'm not sure how long this lasted. But a lot of very bright pilots died early on flying Battles, Blenheims, Beauforts, Skuas, and other even more vulnerable rigs.

On the other hand, you did get some pretty 'ace' pilots flying Swordfish who accomplished a great deal with very little, and later on (not sure if this training preference was still in place) mosquito drivers etc. who also accomplished many remarkable and daring feats.

Flying a bomber is in some ways more difficult, you have to remember more, fly in tight formations, navigate longer distances, fly at night more often, etc. but obviously it's a different set of skills from bomber to fighter pilot.

Admiral Beez said:

With their focus on operations closer to home, and their abundance of overseas bases it makes sense why they did not, but it would have been useful had the RN invested in at sea replenishment. The Brits were early pioneers of RAS, Underway replenishment - Wikipedia but it the USN led the development and application, especially the parallel course method rather than over the stern RAS.

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The USN got a lot of good ideas and technology from the British. One thing the British certainly were during WW2 was generous to the yanks with sharing intelligence, technology transfers, actual machines (spitfires, mosquitoes, beaufighters) best practices and so on. It helped enormously. Contrast this to the bitter rivalry and rank distrust between the IJN and IJA, or between the Germans and the Italians in North Africa, between the Heér and the SS, or even to some extent between the Luftwaffe and the Heér, certainly at some key points.

The British, kind of riffing off of the French so to speak, also kind of saved or created a lot of what turned out to be very good US aircraft designs which the US military itself was not very interested in. P-51 of course is the most famous case, but also things like the PBY, the Boston, the Hudson, the Baltimore and many others. I'm going to do a separate thread on this.

Admiral Beez said:

Once the threat of German naval expansion was seen, Britain focused on the home. Admiral Jackie Fisher famously recalled the fleet from overseas once the Anglo-Japan alliance was signed.

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With the Italians joining the Allies (France and Britian) in WW I to counter the Austro-Hungarians things got a bit easier in the med too.
But the British needed those formal alliances before they could recall the overseas units (or replace them with older/smaller ships).
The British spent a lot time chasing German raiders in 1914-15.

While the USN is seen as having wonderful RAS capabilities in WW2 you need to look carefully at the dates when this actually developed.

On 3 Sept 1939 the USN had 17 oilers, 3 of which were laid up and recommissioned in 1940, that dated back to 1914-21, plus the first 2 of 12 of the big Cimarron class it acquired between 1939 & 1941. It was then early 1942 before it started acquiring further vessels for conversion to fleet oilers. Interwar the USN viewed oiling at sea as something of an emergency procedure that might be needed in wartime and which was only practiced occasionally. The oilers' main task interwar, was to haul oil from the refineries to the various USN naval bases to keep the tanks topped up. Consequently when war broke out in the Pacific, there were only about 4 oilers available to the Pacific Fleet that were equipped for RAS. That force increased to about 62 by the end of WW2, with many the old ships being relegated to other duties.

On 3 Sept 1939 the Royal Fleet Auxiliary had a fleet of 43 oilers plus another 10 in Reserve. 8 of these had entered service 1937-39. With the worldwide network of bases and oil depots, the main function of these ships was to haul the oil from refineries to the depots. In the early war period, when RN vessels required replenishment from oilers, this was done in the safety of sheltered anchorages.

By Aug 1940 trials were underway with an RFA tanker refuelling cruisers at sea in the South Atlantic. March 1941 saw Force H fuelled at sea. That same month the Admiralty set up a Committee to investigate its needs for oiling Battleships and Cruisers at sea and to review German methods. By then the RN was refuelling its destroyers alongside capital ships, using the ships' boat cranes. By Oct 1941 trials were underway with alongside RAS. One of the problems was developing suitable hoses (both flexible rubber and buoyant) with captured German equipment being examined and tested. The RN problem was acquiring fast tankers for fleet support, production being of freighting tankers to bring oil into Britain. It was 1943 before the first of the 15knot Wave class was laid down and July 1944 before the first pair completed. But much of the rest of the wartime completions were used to haul oil across the Atlantic, that being the priority.

Incidentally, it was Feb 1945 before the USN began to transfer ammunition while underway, with other stores happening around the same time. By this time the RN was only a few months behind.

In Neptune's Inferno, fuel limitations are cited as one of the main reasons they did not send US Battleships into the Solomons area

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

The USN got a lot of good ideas and technology from the British. One thing the British certainly were during WW2 was generous to the yanks with sharing intelligence, technology transfers, actual machines (spitfires, mosquitoes, beaufighters) best practices and so on. It helped enormously. Contrast this to the bitter rivalry and rank distrust between the IJN and IJA, or between the Germans and the Italians in North Africa, between the Heér and the SS, or even to some extent between the Luftwaffe and the Heér, certainly at some key points.

The British, kind of riffing off of the French so to speak, also kind of saved or created a lot of what turned out to be very good US aircraft designs which the US military itself was not very interested in. P-51 of course is the most famous case, but also things like the PBY, the Boston, the Hudson, the Baltimore and many others. I'm going to do a separate thread on this.

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The PBY was developed for the USN and entered service with them in 1936, becoming its main flying boat type until the PBM and PB2Y came along in WW2. They acquired some 200 pre-war.

EwenS said:

The PBY was developed for the USN and entered service with them in 1936, becoming its main flying boat type until the PBM and PB2Y came along in WW2. They acquired some 200 pre-war.

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But it was about to be phased out, from what I understand, the British order of 30 planes in Nov 1941 revived it. It was basically supposed to be replaced by the PBM Mariner which was better armed and had better performance, but also some significant issues.

Once combat experience began to be felt, it was clear that the PBY was still a very valuable asset. But anyway we should probably save this discussion for the other thread I'm going to do on this general subject (British purchases which saved or revived US aircraft designs).

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

yes I agree with all this 100%

One curious thing about the RAF in the early war, if I understand this correctly, is that the highest scoring pilots in the flying schools were usually sent to bomber command or other bomber squadrons in coastal command or the FAA etc. I'm not sure how long this lasted. But a lot of very bright pilots died early on flying Battles, Blenheims, Beauforts, Skuas, and other even more vulnerable rigs.

On the other hand, you did get some pretty 'ace' pilots flying Swordfish who accomplished a great deal with very little, and later on (not sure if this training preference was still in place) mosquito drivers etc. who also accomplished many remarkable and daring feats.

Flying a bomber is in some ways more difficult, you have to remember more, fly in tight formations, navigate longer distances, fly at night more often, etc. but obviously it's a different set of skills from bomber to fighter pilot.

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My understanding was that generally speaking the best pilots went to Bomber and Coastal Command for the whole war.