The real combat history of the Ki-43

[MiTasol]

The only thing I agree with Keith1967 on is that sometimes primary sources are not correct with the misidentification of aircraft types being a good example. There is no shortage of early Pacific war records showing the Japanese flying Me109s and other German aircraft in the Philippines and what is now Indonesia and the regular A6M/Ki-43 thing.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The only thing I agree with Keith1967 on is that sometimes primary sources are not correct with the misidentification of aircraft types being a good example. There is no shortage of early Pacific war records showing the Japanese flying Me109s and other German aircraft in the Philippines and what is now Indonesia and the regular A6M/Ki-43 thing.

That part of his post is not why he was his banned.

And for those who love to attack our moderation choices, he originally was only going to have a thread ban, not a forum ban. The thread ban became a forum ban because of his insults. (This part was not directed at you MiTasol)

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

He won't be posting here anymore.

Oh, I know, I'm just funnin'.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's a

People are too much of a spelling nazi these days. Most of the typing errors actually come from the automatic spellcheck these days.

I am a fanatic for proper spelling and grammar -- in my own writing. But as a student of communication, I know that if I can understand the message, pointing out its flaws -- or worse, dismissing it for simple errors -- makes it plain that I'm not interested in communicating.

Trafficking in ad hominems is the surest sign of either a flawed argument, or deep insecurity.

 

[MiTasol]

That part of his post is not why he was his banned.

And for those who love to attack our moderation choices, he originally was only going to have a thread ban, not a forum ban. The thread ban became a forum ban because of his insults. (This part was not directed at you MiTasol)

Agreed.

I always fully support the mods because you all have a job that is not only difficult but requires you to commit many hours every week for no personal gain. Time that you could easily use in other ways and that can never be replaced.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Despite its short range, the Vengeance was an excellent dive bomber in both theatres. The RAAF was happy with them and only replaced them because General Kenney wanted them off New Guinea airfields to make room for more fighter bomber aircraft. They were excellent weapons and obtained excellent results against jungle-clad targets. The army boys seemed to appreciate their accuracy.

I finally ordered a model kit of a Vultee Vengeance from Ebay. Looking forward to seeing it. Given the size of my queue it may be a while before I actually make it!

Now I have to figure out if I make it an RAAF or RAF version...

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Sorry but you are just wrong, and ignoring the Reed quote, the Clostermann quote, and just about every informed quote I have ever found in 30 years.

I have an account from a 190A-8 pilot reversing, in a right turn, a tailing P-51D, on the deck, in less than 3X 360s.

And yet, we know P-51s shot down probably more Fw 190s than any other type.

And you are ignoring, oh, merely the top Spitfire ace of them all? (In a turning fight near water level):

-Johnny Johnson (top Spitfire ace, 32 kills) "My duel with the Focke-Wulf": "With wide-open throttles I held the Spitfire V in the tightest of vertical turns [Period slang for vertical bank]. I was greying out. Where was this German, who should, according to my reckoning, be filling my gunsight? I could not see him, and little wonder, for he was gaining on me: In another couple of turns he would have me in his sights.---I asked the Spitfire for all she had in the turn, but the enemy pilot hung behind like a leech. It could only be a question of time..." (Johnson escaped when he abandoned the turn fight, and dived near a Royal Navy ship that fired AAA at his pursuer)

J. Johnson was also the top Allied FW-190A killer at 20...

He seems to be talking about vertical turns here, that is different from a horizontal turn. Right?

-RCAF John Weir interview for Veterans Affairs (Spitfire Mk V vs FW-190A-4 period): "A Hurricane was built like a truck, it took a hell of a lot to knock it down. It was very manoeuvrable, much more manoeuvrable than a Spit, so you could, we could usually out-turn a Messerschmitt. They'd, if they tried to turn with us they'd usually flip, go in, at least dive and they couldn't. A Spit was a higher wing loading... The Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spit, and the Spit was probably, we (Hurricane pilots) could turn one way tighter than the Germans could on a Messerschmitt, but the Focke Wulf could turn the same as we could, and they kept on catching up, you know."

Maneuverable doesn't necessarily mean turning, it often means roll. Fw 190 had the best roll rate of the war, for a while, which is one reason why they made the clipped wing Spitfires, which had even better roll at low speed (200 mph), though Fw roll peaked at higher speed (280 mph). I don't know if you have seen this before or not, but if you look at the chart you can see that the P-51B rolls better than the Fw starting at 350 mph. I believe this is why the P-51 was such a good Fw killer.

The very fast roll basically meant the Fw 190 could change direction very quickly. It's basically a function of agility. A Spitfire (normal wing) might roll into a turn and start turning to follow a Fw, the Fw could switch directions and turn the other way, or at right angles. This, combined with superior speed allowed it to outmaneuver the Spit V. The clipped wing Spitfire was more competitive especially at lower altitude, and the faster Spit VIII and IX closed the speed gap and added to the advantage in climb, to even things out.

-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2): "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their superior turning circle. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence... We lost 8 to their one that day..."

In fact, I have never found ONE instance of the Spitfire out-turning, during multiple circles, a FW-190A. One circle after a dive, yes (that is precisely the "superior turning circle" in the singular), but even that is rare.

I think the issue here is that there is no reason for the Fw 190 to remain in a tight bank turn. It had a much higher wing-loading. A Fw 190 A-8 had a wing loading of 49 lb / sq ft. A Spitfire Mk V had a wing loading of 27.3 lbs / sq ft. Almost half. There is no way a Fw 190 is going to win a turn fight, certainly not at low speed, with any Spitfire. Or Hurricane. But it has no reason to make the attempt. It's almost 40 mph faster than a Spit V, and rolls between 20-100% faster, depending on the relative speeds. It could easily disengage, separate a bit, and attack again.

But really the Clostermann quote should put an end to it, because it fully explains the difference between low speed turning and high speed turning. Clostermann describes watching thousands of gun camera reels to illustrate his wartime conferences to fellow pilots...

After the Clostermann quote, God himself could come out and contradict him, and it would only mean even "He" sometimes doesn't know what he is talking about...

But it would illustrate how terrible is the general level of knowledge about this.

Clostermann, who I like, did say some things that turned out to be incorrect. I wouldn't contradict a wartime pilot and an ace, but he himself contradicts many other pilots on this and other matters. Most German Fw 190 pilots acknowledged it did not turn with a Spitfire.

 

[PAT303]

The very fast roll basically meant the Fw 190 could change direction very quickly. It's basically a function of agility. A Spitfire (normal wing) might roll into a turn and start turning to follow a Fw, the Fw could switch directions and turn the other way, or at right angles. This, combined with superior speed allowed it to outmaneuver the Spit V. The clipped wing Spitfire was more competitive especially at lower altitude, and the faster Spit VIII and IX closed the speed gap and added to the advantage in climb, to even things out.

The fact that both Supermarine and RR clipped the wings and developed the Merlin 66 giving the RAF the MkIX LF version specifically to counter the FW190 to me dispels any myths about it's effectiveness and the threat it posed to RAF pilots. The 190 did out roll the Spit, a quick left right roll was a good maneuver to break away from an attack but once in the turn the MkV could get away, it was the only advantage the standard MkV had over the butcher bird in the early years.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

yes, agreed 100%

 

[nuuumannn]

The idea that the Hurricanes stopped the Japanese advance is dubious, IMO.

It seems that it's impossible for some people to admit that any RAF aircraft was ever less than ideal in any way. But regardless of the feelings of some people, I'm not going to play along with that.

Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true. I would rather take Jackson's opinion given he is a prolific author and researcher, whereas you're just some opinionated dude on the internet.

Regarding impossible for some people to admit that any RAF aircraft was less than ideal? Don't presume to think you know my intentions at all. That is just arrogant of you.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true. I would rather take Jackson's opinion given he is a prolific author and researcher, whereas you're just some opinionated dude on the internet.

Regarding impossible for some people to admit that any RAF aircraft was less than ideal? Don't presume to think you know my intentions at all. That is just arrogant of you.

I'm just noticing a pattern.

In terms of published literature, I see wartime tropes repeated over and over, until very recently when the data from the other side emerges. Then a lot of the older published work comes into question, to say the least.

Online, well, try it yourself. Any criticism of any RAF aircraft here or anywhere else on the open internet gets a very predictable reaction.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I just finally ordered "Bloody Shambles" vol III a couple of days ago, maybe that will change my perception of the Hurricane...

 

[Shortround6]

A lot of times opinion/s tend to swing in pendulums.

And a lot of time people confuse cause and effect.

And a lot of times histories are written by people that don't want to place the blame on living high ranking politicians or Military staff (or piss off influential relatives of dead ones).

The British did a lot of things right and they did a lot of things wrong. So did everybody else. Plenty of room to pick and choose examples for arguments.

Poor training and bad tactics are very hard to pinpoint compared to top speed or turn or climb. Poor specifications (equipment fit) is harder. But poor training (and the officers responsible) are a lot harder to identify. Poor training can negate any advantage in firepower.
We can ague for months about if the Japanese Navy had better pilots than the US navy in 1942. But there is little doubt that some of the US pilots were very good. Which is why the USN managed to survive using F4Fs so well. Good flying, good gunnery and good tactics made up for deficiencies in aircraft performance.
O'Hare's performance was a classic, but extreme example. Two other Wildcats were lost the same day trying to use stern chase zero defection shots against Japanese bombers. Attacking slowly (trying to overtake the Betty bombers) into the best defensive gun on the Betty (the tail 20mm gun) gave the Japanese their best chance. Not good tactics. O'Hare's diving defection shooting from the side made return fire difficult (single 7.7mg fighting the slipstream) and gave him a bigger target. From an aircraft standpoint, the F4F-3s large ammunition capacity allowed for 4 attack runs and putting bullets into 7 (?) aircraft.

For some reason, in some military forces, many leaders thought their service men were not able to do certain tasks. The British spent a lot of time, money, effort trying to get around teaching air to air gunnery. Teaching air to air gunnery takes time, effort, fuel/ammo maintenance costs.

Where to place the blame for operational results (or lack of) gets difficult.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

A lot of times opinion/s tend to swing in pendulums.

And a lot of time people confuse cause and effect.

And a lot of times histories are written by people that don't want to place the blame on living high ranking politicians or Military staff (or piss off influential relatives of dead ones).

The British did a lot of things right and they did a lot of things wrong. So did everybody else. Plenty of room to pick and choose examples for arguments.

Poor training and bad tactics are very hard to pinpoint compared to top speed or turn or climb. Poor specifications (equipment fit) is harder. But poor training (and the officers responsible) are a lot harder to identify. Poor training can negate any advantage in firepower.
We can ague for months about if the Japanese Navy had better pilots than the US navy in 1942. But there is little doubt that some of the US pilots were very good. Which is why the USN managed to survive using F4Fs so well. Good flying, good gunnery and good tactics made up for deficiencies in aircraft performance.
O'Hare's performance was a classic, but extreme example. Two other Wildcats were lost the same day trying to use stern chase zero defection shots against Japanese bombers. Attacking slowly (trying to overtake the Betty bombers) into the best defensive gun on the Betty (the tail 20mm gun) gave the Japanese their best chance. Not good tactics. O'Hare's diving defection shooting from the side made return fire difficult (single 7.7mg fighting the slipstream) and gave him a bigger target. From an aircraft standpoint, the F4F-3s large ammunition capacity allowed for 4 attack runs and putting bullets into 7 (?) aircraft.

For some reason, in some military forces, many leaders thought their service men were not able to do certain tasks. The British spent a lot of time, money, effort trying to get around teaching air to air gunnery. Teaching air to air gunnery takes time, effort, fuel/ammo maintenance costs.

Where to place the blame for operational results (or lack of) gets difficult.

Agree with all that, and I'd also note, it looks pretty clear that US Navy dive-bomber training was top notch as well, which becomes obvious when you compare the operational outcomes of SBD flown by US Navy dive bomber or scout squadrons, vs SBD flown by USMC squadrons, vs. A-24 (USAAF version of SBD) flown by US Army pilots and by various Allies. It's really night and day, both in terms of mission survival rates and ships hit and sunk.

It's possible that is the main difference between US P-39 pilots and Soviet. The Soviet pilots seem to have gotten a lot of training on type, at least initially.

You can do similar with the Wildcat. British FAA pilots seem to have done fairly well with the type, outcomes are generally good (I don't know the entire operational history of the Martlet / Wildcat in FAA service but outcomes seem positive in the cases I'm aware of, including against land based fighters like Bf 109)

As for the tail-end pursuit, I think there is a shakeout phase even when the training and tactics are good. AVG made several mistakes like that in their first couple of engagements, and lost some guys, but word got around pretty quickly. I think USN pilots shifted into 'best practices' pretty swiftly overall, but there will always be exceptions in the stress of combat.

Similarly, you can see British and Commonwealth pilots flying both Hurricanes and Tomahawks or Kittyhawks in North Africa, under the same higher leadership and the same training regimens. In some cases this is clearly augmented by quasi-insubordinate insistence by certain Commonwealth pilots on instituting reforms (Clive Caldwell establishing 'shadow shooting' as field expedient gunnery training, and various Australian pilots personally testing his Kittyhawk on higher than regulation bomb loads to prove fighter-bomber viability).

But from the outset, you can see that P-40s had better outcomes, in terms of friendly losses and (especially) enemy losses than the Hurricanes in North Africa.

Just as you can see US units flying P-40s in the Solomons and New Guinea, doing much better, as in twice or three times as well, as P-39 units from the same air force flying out of the same airfields. And at least a few of the P-38 pilots pulling way ahead of everyone else.

Or British pilots in Burma and India flying Hurricanes, right next to their peers flying Mohawks - admittedly a very small sample but they seemed less likely to get shot down.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

P-40 and P-51A units flying side by side.... there is a sharp disparity in outcomes.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, and they all stink.

Please try and play nice…

 

[Shortround6]

The Mohawk is interesting but without really looking at numbers the statistical sample may be too small.
Only two squadrons, one from May 1942 to June 1943 on the front lines (got first Hawks in Dec 1941 in Calcutta, over 500 miles to the south west). Hawks replaced by Hurricane IIC and IIds.
The 2nd squadron flew Hawks from Aug 1942 to Jan 1944, replaced by Spitfires.
Hawks may simply have been worn out in addition of being less capable. (less bomb load, no drop tanks, etc)

The two squadrons may have been hundreds of miles apart and performed different missions on average than the Hurricane squadrons?

 

[EwenS]

The Mohawk is interesting but without really looking at numbers the statistical sample may be too small.
Only two squadrons, one from May 1942 to June 1943 on the front lines (got first Hawks in Dec 1941 in Calcutta, over 500 miles to the south west). Hawks replaced by Hurricane IIC and IIds.
The 2nd squadron flew Hawks from Aug 1942 to Jan 1944, replaced by Spitfires.
Hawks may simply have been worn out in addition of being less capable. (less bomb load, no drop tanks, etc)

The two squadrons may have been hundreds of miles apart and performed different missions on average than the Hurricane squadrons?

The entire pool of Mohawk IV that ended up in India to support those 2 squadrons over those two years was about 90 (researchers have been unable to pin down the exact figure). Then figure attrition over two years, both operational and non-operational.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

They just show up 3-4 times in that Osprey book on Oscars but they seemed to acquit themselves well. I'm looking forward to what Shores has on them.

 

[EwenS]

You can track their movements around India here

5 sqn

No. 5 Squadron (RAF) during the Second World War

A brief history of No. 5 Squadron during the Second World War.

www.historyofwar.org

155 sqn

No. 155 Squadron (RAF) during the Second World War

No.155 Squadron was a fighter squadron that served in India and over Burma, performing reconnaissance, ground attack and bomber escort missions.

www.historyofwar.org