Rn vs IJN (1 Viewer)

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He could be hard to take at times, and I had a rhubarb or two with him myself, and being on the receiving end of his slags. I do think he brought a bit to the table and I certainly learnt stuff from his posts. It's a shame he couldn't find a happy medium.
 
Actually the Japanese long range torpedo doctrine was RN in origin. The RN developed the concept of "browning shots" before the Great War.
 
The most impressive British torpedo tech I've ever seen is at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence. They have a Victorian-era wire guided torpedo station.



In 2005 I accompanied Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on a trade mission to China. I got bored of the meetings, so skipped out and went to the fort. I think I spent four hours there, and I was the only person there - clearly the locals have little interest in British military history.
 
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The hits the TBDs achieved at Coral sea were against the completely overmatched Shoho, which had one Zero and Two Type 96 fighters in the air when the SBDs started their attack. After battling the SBDs the two type 96s tried to attack the TBDs but were driven off. The TBDs were not facing a serious defense. The Shoho had already been crippled by the SBDs before TBDs scored their hits.
The Shoho did mange to launch 3 Zeros before her flight deck was obliterated but these went after the SBDs.
Two obsolete fighters and one Zero were facing 10 F4Fs, 25 SBDs and 12 TDBs in the first wave alone. Obviously over whelming odds.
On the second day the odds were more even and the F4Fs did defend the TBDs but on the other hand the TBDs failed to score a single torpedo hit,
 
The hits the TBDs achieved at Coral sea were against the completely overmatched Shoho, which had one Zero and Two Type 96 fighters in the air when the SBDs started their attack.

While Shoho was certainly overmatched in aircraft carriage, according to Jon Parshall she was a pretty maneuverable ship, which would appear to fit in with IJN doctrine of using maneuver to defend against aerial attack.
 
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My understanding is that relative to CAP the Japanese and US carrier doctrines were almost the same pre- and early-war. Both Navies carried about the same number of fighters (somewhere around 18-24) as standard, with the rest of the air group made up of attack aircraft. Both Navies would use CAP when possible, and always use evasive maneuver on the part of the carrier to increase the odds of the enemy missing.
 

American carriers used evasion less, though. They relied on a ring of AAA from themselves and supporting vessels. They did use maneuver, true (see that footage of Enterprise dodging bombs at [I think] Santa Cruz), but not to the extent the IJN did doctrinally.
 
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Well, the Japanese ship captains were depending on 13.2mm and 25mm Hotchkiss AA guns so maneuver (dodging) was more attractive than maintaining a stable firing platform
Japanese Light AA needed to climb several rungs on the ladder to reach dismal.
 
Japanese escort destroyers / light cruisers were to be built at around four per carrier during the war
but the ship building capacity wasn't there to build the projected carriers and the escorts.

As noted re the AA capability escort vessels would not have been a great add on anyway.
 

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