The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.

[buffnut453]

Are you choosing to ignore the near starvation of Britain by U-boats and the arctic war on the Murmansk run? Hmmm, Murmansk: nobody seems to acknowledge the crushing drain on German resources imposed by the Soviets. This was huge among the tide turning causes.
IIRC, the first US hostilities in the war were pre-Pearl Harbor, in protecting convoys from U-boats.
"Oh what were their names, tell me what were their names"
The men who went down on the good ship Reuben James?"
Cheers,
Wes

Wes,

You beat me to the punch...and I agree wholeheartedly.

The point I was going to make was that, while Japan had the largest Axis naval fleet, the threat was almost entirely tactical in nature. It posed very little threat at the operational and strategic levels. For example, even if Japan had taken Guadalcanal, Midway and even Hawaii, it would not have resulted in outright victory for Japan because none of those geographic areas were critical to the survival of the US and its Allies. Yes, the threat to Australia would have increased but the likelihood of a successful attack by Japan is vanishingly small given the distances involved and the forces necessary for a power that was already stretched to breaking point. The use of the IJN to support operations into India was also unlikely to do much. As it was, the bulk of the Japanese Army was ground down in the jungles of Burma. Having even long-range fires from battleships and throwing in a number of aircraft carriers isn't going to change that, not least because the IJA and IJN just couldn't cooperate effectively. Japan was a regional power going up an established global power and an emerging global superpower. The ultimate end-state was predetermined.

Compare that with the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic and the story is very different. While the actual Axis force was smaller, the operational and strategic effect was disproportionately larger for both the US and the UK. The Battle of the Atlantic was a "must win" campaign whereas pretty much every battle in the Pacific could afford to be lost. Thus the actual threat posed by German convoy attacks was of far greater import than any number of Japanese aircraft carriers.

Just my two penn'orth.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[pbehn]

Are you choosing to ignore the near starvation of Britain by U-boats and the arctic war on the Murmansk run? Hmmm, Murmansk: nobody seems to acknowledge the crushing drain on German resources imposed by the Soviets. This was huge among the tide turning causes.
IIRC, the first US hostilities in the war were pre-Pearl Harbor, in protecting convoys from U-boats.
"Oh what were their names, tell me what were their names"
The men who went down on the good ship Reuben James?"
Cheers,
Wes

I agree completely here is a map of U Boat sinkings around the USA coast
US Coast - The U-boat War in Maps - uboat.net

 

[Schweik]

Are you choosing to ignore the near starvation of Britain by U-boats and the arctic war on the Murmansk run? Hmmm, Murmansk: nobody seems to acknowledge the crushing drain on German resources imposed by the Soviets. This was huge among the tide turning causes.
IIRC, the first US hostilities in the war were pre-Pearl Harbor, in protecting convoys from U-boats.
"Oh what were their names, tell me what were their names"
The men who went down on the good ship Reuben James?"
Cheers,
Wes

No I certainly wasn't ignoring any of that by choice or otherwise, and it would be absurd to imply that I had - I was speaking of the scale of the naval war. The ghosts of the people who died in the Rape of Nanking or the Siege of Madrid and so on would also prefer not to be ignored either. Did you choose to ignore them? If you make any kind of general statement about WW II, true or false, you inevitably leave some out. Please don't pretend that I was doing so capriciously since we both know I was not.

I have in fact in this very thread as well as several others more recently argued about the importance of the Soviet part of the war and therefore voted the Soviet fighters and Sturmovik as more important than perhaps all the rest, at least when it comes to the destruction of the Germans. Stalingrad was by far the most important 'tipping point' for the Germans.

As for supplying the Soviets, lets not forget that Murmansk was not the only route. They could be and were also supplied via the Pacific, ASLB route and others.

In the context of the claim that was made that the Swordfish was the type most important to the outcome of the war I don't even think you can make a solid case that that aircraft type won the Battle of the Atlantic. With it's short range and limited efficacy that would be a hard concept to prove.

The Strategic relevance of the Pacific Theater vs. the North Atlantic or the Med is an interesting subject to debate, but it's a separate argument from what I was saying - which was that the biggest naval battles and by far the greatest Axis navy by far were in the Pacific.

However I would say that if China completely fell to the Japanese early on and the IJN was able to claim mastery of the Pacific, taking Hawaii and even threatening Australia, they would have certainly made their presence felt to the English in their important colonial asset of India and furthermore critical supply and logistics support to the Germans could have come from the Pacific Rim via Africa. That could have made a big difference.

It is hard to imagine them breaking out into the Atlantic or the Med but who knows.

 

[buffnut453]

The problem is you're looking at everything from a naval perspective and equating intensity of action with threat and results. Just because a battle was particularly intense does not mean it was particularly significant to the overall war.. Japan did not pose an existential threat to the Allies whereas Germany did...that's why Germany was prioritized over Japan.

I think this is one area where we're going to have to agree to disagree.

 

[Schweik]

I agree completely here is a map of U Boat sinkings around the USA coast
US Coast - The U-boat War in Maps - uboat.net

View attachment 557225

And yet, shipping losses world wide were pretty heavy on the Pacific Rim as well.

Furthermore, if you notice India has no land bridge to England. Many important resources came to England from India. And manpower too. The huge concentration of sunk ships you see on that map along the Pacific Rim would have extended far more into the Indian Ocean had the Americans not stopped the IJN, and a wide variety of rare and useful materials ranging from rubber to aluminum ore to oil and magnesium, could have gotten to Germany and Italy via East Africa and / or the Suez canal (if Rommel had captured and held Egypt)

Could the IJN have helped in the war in the Middle East if they were there? The track record of Spitfires and Hurricanes v.s Zeros says yes they could have.

 

[buffnut453]

I'm losing track of all the "what if's" in this argument.

 

[Schweik]

The problem is you're looking at everything from a naval perspective and equating intensity of action with threat and results. Just because a battle was particularly intense does not mean it was particularly significant to the overall war.. Japan did not pose an existential threat to the Allies whereas Germany did...that's why Germany was prioritized over Japan.

I think this is one area where we're going to have to agree to disagree.

I agree they are two different arguments - two different subjects, but for the US, the truth is that even though we made an official decision to that effect Germany was not in fact prioritized over Japan. The results of losing control of the Pacific would have been very serious for the US, as they were for the UK as well but even more so, and would have been impossible for the US to ignore. The US didn't really make strong commitments across the Atlantic until they had won some substantial victories against the Japanese.

So from the point of view of dealing with the Germans, even if you reject the points I made about the vulnerability and importance of India to the British, US victory in the Pacific ensured that the US (and the important British Commonwealth Alllies of Australia and New Zealand) stayed in the war and that the US in particular could focus on the Germans. The US was therefore able to supply a lot of resources to Russia and Britain, to commit to winning the Battle of the Atlantic (where the B-24 and PBY were so important), to the war in the Med, and the bombing campaign against Germany by 1943. But if you look at the timeline, the Americans got a grip on the situation in the Pacific before significant efforts were made against the Germans.

Coral Sea - May 1942
Midway - June 1942, first major defeat of Japanese
Guadalcanal - Aug 1942 (started, continued into Feb 1943)
Torch (US invasion of North Africa) - Nov 1942
Second El Alamein - Nov 1942 (First major battle in Med with significant help from the US in terms of US made tanks and US air assets)
Battle of Bismarck Sea - March 1943
Allied invasion of Sicily - Aug 1943
Allied invasion of Italy - Sept 1943
D-Day June 1944

No doubt operations like Torch were already in the works during Midway etc., but does anybody really think they would have been able to send as much men and materiel across the Atlantic if Midway had been lost and the Pacific war had taken a catastrophic turn?

That is my point, and I just want it to be clear. I'm Ok with "agreeing to disagree" from here on if you still don't get where I'm coming from.

 

[Schweik]

I'm losing track of all the "what if's" in this argument.

Here is a simpler version:

1. The UK needed supplies from India.
2. They got to England via ship.
3. Japan had access to the Indian ocean.
4. The Japanese navy could have blocked those supplies and sunk the ships.

 

[pbehn]

And yet, shipping losses world wide were pretty heavy on the Pacific Rim as well.
.

I am aware of that the Pacific rim is close to Japan I pointed out losses close to the USA coast which continued up to 1945, the Atlantic war started as soon as the war started in 1939.

 

[Schweik]

I am aware of that the Pacific rim is close to Japan I pointed out losses close to the USA coast which continued up to 1945, the Atlantic war started as soon as the war started in 1939.

U.S. Ships sunk or damaged on Alaska coast, West coast of U.S., Pacific Ocean area, Philippines, or Okinawa During World War II

 

[buffnut453]

Here is a simpler version:

1. The UK needed supplies from India.
2. They got to England via ship.
3. Japan had access to the Indian ocean.
4. The Japanese navy could have blocked those supplies and sunk the ships.

But were those supplies critical to the war effort? By March 1942, the British had already lost Malaya which was the largest producer of natural rubber, and one of the largest producers of tin. These were vital strategic resources and yet their loss didn't bring Britain to its knees. What makes you think that cutting supply lines from India to the UK would have a greater impact?

 

[Schweik]

Well, I don't know. I think it was pretty important - in a lot of reading about the war and battles in North Africa and the Middle East, the raison d'être of the struggle over Egypt and the Suez canal, was in large part to keep those supplies coming from India (and perhaps South Africa too to some extent). Lets also not forget that 2.5 million troops from India were fighting with the Commonwealth and 87,000 of them gave their life to defeat the Axis.

The alternative to supplies from places like India was to get more stuff from the US, but if the US was still in a death struggle with Japan (i.e. losing) in say 1943 or 44, they would not have been able to send so much help to the UK (or Russia).

 

[buffnut453]

The alternative to supplies from places like India was to get more stuff from the US, but if the US was still in a death struggle with Japan (i.e. losing) in say 1943 or 44, they would not have been able to send so much help to the UK (or Russia).

But that's my whole point. At no stage during the war, nor under any conceivable set of circumstances was the US in a "death struggle" with Japan. Japan was in a death struggle with the US but not vice-versa. America was never under threat of defeat, so any action by the IJN would probably have extended the war but it's very doubtful, IMHO, that it would have altered the result.

I think we need to stop talking about fish-heads and get back to aircraft, though.

 

[rednev]

All well and good saying this aircraft sank x amount of destroyers or so many battleships but what aircraft sank the most freight tonnage or troopship tonnage .

 

[wingnuts]

No I certainly wasn't ignoring any of that by choice or otherwise, and it would be absurd to imply that I had - I was speaking of the scale of the naval war. The ghosts of the people who died in the Rape of Nanking or the Siege of Madrid and so on would also prefer not to be ignored either. Did you choose to ignore them? If you make any kind of general statement about WW II, true or false, you inevitably leave some out. Please don't pretend that I was doing so capriciously since we both know I was not.

I have in fact in this very thread as well as several others more recently argued about the importance of the Soviet part of the war and therefore voted the Soviet fighters and Sturmovik as more important than perhaps all the rest, at least when it comes to the destruction of the Germans. Stalingrad was by far the most important 'tipping point' for the Germans.

As for supplying the Soviets, lets not forget that Murmansk was not the only route. They could be and were also supplied via the Pacific, ASLB route and others.

In the context of the claim that was made that the Swordfish was the type most important to the outcome of the war I don't even think you can make a solid case that that aircraft type won the Battle of the Atlantic. With it's short range and limited efficacy that would be a hard concept to prove.

The Strategic relevance of the Pacific Theater vs. the North Atlantic or the Med is an interesting subject to debate, but it's a separate argument from what I was saying - which was that the biggest naval battles and by far the greatest Axis navy by far were in the Pacific.

However I would say that if China completely fell to the Japanese early on and the IJN was able to claim mastery of the Pacific, taking Hawaii and even threatening Australia, they would have certainly made their presence felt to the English in their important colonial asset of India and furthermore critical supply and logistics support to the Germans could have come from the Pacific Rim via Africa. That could have made a big difference.

It is hard to imagine them breaking out into the Atlantic or the Med but who knows.

I did not say the Swordfish turned the tide of the war, just that it played an important part that is often overlooked. My original vote for the aircraft that did most was the Spitfire/Hurricane combination AND the SBD, followed by the C-47.

 

[Kevin J]

I did not say the Swordfish turned the tide of the war, just that it played an important part that is often overlooked. My original vote for the aircraft that did most was the Spitfire/Hurricane combination AND the SBD, followed by the C-47.

Let's add Hellcat and Superfortress in the Pacific, Liberator and Swordfish in the Atlantic. The P-40 in North Africa. The Yak / Sturmovik combo on the Eastern Front.

 

[Beejay]

Judging by the numbers built (36,000+ during the war and another 6,000+ after) and how long it was used as a front line combat aircraft (1941-1972), the Ilyushin Il-2 (& -10) Shturmovik ('attack aircraft') surely is "the airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war"?

 

[Kevin J]

Judging by the numbers built (36,000+ during the war and another 6,000+ after) and how long it was used as a front line combat aircraft (1941-1972), the Ilyushin Il-2 (& -10) Shturmovik ('attack aircraft') surely is "the airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war"?

Along with the Dakota.

 

[Shortround6]

I saw the Wikipedia quote I just don't think that's true. There is a lot of daffy stuff on Wikipedia. I'd like to see a side by side comparison with the real heavy hitters like the SBD and TBF. I googled it a little bit today ... and there are a bunch of sites which say the same thing about the SBD for example:

Douglas SBD Dauntless (Dive Bomber) | Pearl Harbor Museum

"In total, the Dauntless sank more enemy shipping than any other Allied bomber. "

National WW II museum says more or less the same thing

"By some accounts, the Dauntless sank more Japanese ships than any other plane. "

"Slow But Deadly" - Douglas SBD Dauntless Dive-bomber with 26 Photos

One site says 300,000 tons, another mentions "six Japanese carriers, fourteen cruisers, six destroyers, fifteen freighters "

From another thread on here - total sorties:

Some info on tonnage sunk

As for the TBF, History of War.org credits the Avenger with "being involved in the sinking of" 11 battleships, 19 cruisers, and 25 destroyers.

Helldiver is once again given credit for sinking the greatest amount of enemy tonnage of every Allied bomber on several sites like this one and this one

...though I take that with a grain of salt.

I think we need to see hard numbers.

I think we we need to see numbers that at least reflect some version of reality. I know you are just posting the tables and did not make them. but lets look at table 1 in your post.

The US Navy is supposed to have made attacks (total sorties) of 4989 against armored ships and 6582 against unarmored warships.

This paints a rather distorted picture as the same target was attacked many times and in fact could have been attacked multiple times (over the course of several years)

It could also be padded by counting the number of ships/hulks sunk in Japanese harbors at the end of the war. An ex Russian war prize of the 1904-5 Russian Japanese war may "count" as an armoured ship for statistical purposes but does skew the results

The Japanese Navy went to war with 6 battleships and 4 battle cruisers that dated to before 1922, (heavily upgraded) 13 light cruisers ( single 5.5 in guns for the most part) and about 50 destroyers of 859-1300tons. Whether they are "armoured" is certainly subject to question. A bit of bullet proof plating around the bridge?

The Japanese added from 1922 on (an some of the above were actually completed after 1922) 2 battleships. about 25 carriers (of assorted effectiveness and lineage) about 32 cruisers that ranged from repeats of the old 5500 tons ships to the modern 10 gun heavy cruisers. and about 155-160 destroyers, destroy escorts and steam torpedo boats. There were more escort and sub chasers but you get the idea.

The two charts also give no dates. a number of the numbers of ships sunk may date to the last few months of the war when the US carrier forces ravaged the Japanese home Islands.

The Izumo and her sister ship were both sunk at Kure by carrier aircraft in July of 1945 for example.



.

 

[Shortround6]

. But if you look at the timeline, the Americans got a grip on the situation in the Pacific before significant efforts were made against the Germans.

Coral Sea - May 1942
Battle of Gazala on 27 May 167 Grant tanks.
Midway - June 1942, first major defeat of Japanese
M3 tank depot established in Egypt. June 1940 for training British troops on the M3 and M4.
Rhode Island US July 1st. P-40Fs are loaded onto the USS Ranger for shipment to NA. They are off loaded on the west coast and flown across the middle of African and then up to Egypt.
Guadalcanal - Aug 1942 (started, continued into Feb 1943)
Torch (US invasion of North Africa) - Nov 1942
Second El Alamein - Nov 1942 (First major battle in Med with significant help from the US in terms of US made tanks and US air assets)
Battle of Bismarck Sea - March 1943
Allied invasion of Sicily - Aug 1943
Allied invasion of Italy - Sept 1943
D-Day June 1944

No doubt operations like Torch were already in the works during Midway etc., but does anybody really think they would have been able to send as much men and materiel across the Atlantic if Midway had been lost and the Pacific war had taken a catastrophic turn?

AS M4s showed up in North Africa the M3s were taken out of service and shipped to the Far East.
about 200 Grants were shipped before Gazala, another 250 showed up in June of 1942 (shipped when?) and by 2nd Alamein over 600 Grant and Lee tanks were in the Mideast along with about 300 M4 tanks (270 in service for the Battle). This does not count Stuart light tanks or any other vehicles (1/2 tracks?)
The P-40F was 2nd best US army fighter available at the time after the P-38. The vast majority went to North Africa as fast as deliveries would allow.
Before Torch all aid/material (except aircraft) that went to NA had to go around Africa and up to Egypt which meant a supply line measured in weeks and often several months.

Using the benefit of hindsight the Japanese ability to operate in either the Atlantic Ocean or western Indian Ocean for any period of time would have been severely hampered by fuel shortages. it is about 2000 miles from Ceylon to Somalia where the choke point is. It is about 1800-1900 miles from Singapore to Ceylon.