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Table of kill ratios

Discussion in 'Aircraft' started by KnightMove, May 17, 2012.

  1. R Leonard

    R Leonard Member

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    Whatever number of Japanese planes lost aboard carriers, or even simply dropping into the ocean from fuel exhaustion with no where to land, at the Battle of Midway (or any other action for that matter) are not rolled into any losses credited as suffered at the hands of US fighters and therefore were one to record the number of enemy planes credited to F4Fs (about 980 for just F4Fs and if you want to add the FM-2 credits - though the USN counts them separately - then a total of about 1408 credits) none of which would count Japanese aircraft lost shipboard for any reason nor any shot up on the ground. Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. What you are suggesting is statistical nonsense.
     
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  2. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Were the US pilots for fighters etc fighting all the the time in war? Or was it a period and you got to go home? The Germans and Finns fought all through the war. Like five years altogether. Does that explain the Allied ace numbers? Not saying I got it right but did the Allied pilots have in Europe a number of flights before going home? I know from Bomber Command some started another period even if they seem to have done their flights?
     
  3. Greg Pascal

    Greg Pascal New Member

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    Hi,

    Newbie here. Attached is my table of WWII cumulative aerial victories for the U.S.A. I have a file for the world, too, with Aces, but it took more than 20 years to compile it and I'm not too sure about sharing it for public download. Anyway, here is the table for fighters used by the U.S.A. .

    Ahhh ... well, it won't allow a .xlsx file, which is native Excel for more than 10 years now.

    If you guys want the file, make a .xlsx file acceptable. Otherwise, I can answer questions about the file.

    Cheers, all. :)
     
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  4. Brutal Truth

    Brutal Truth Active Member

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    Hi, K-P, always good to read your entries! The US had a policy to alternate the service of their pilots between front-line duty and duty at home as instructors. That allowed experienced pilots to pass their knowledge to newbies and increased training effectiveness. The Japanese - and the Germans too, in general - kept their pilots at the front for the "duration", which for most of them meant until they were killed. Those few who survived became real "bad-ass" aces, especially considering that Japanese prewar recruitment was very selective and training extremely intense. But that also meant that new recruits couldn't benefit from the experience of the veterans. By the end of 1942 a large part of the prewar crop of Japanese pilots had been killed, and the stringent selection policy meant that there was no significant reserve pool of trained pilots. Thus new pilots were given a shortened training without the benefit of the lessons learned by the veterans, were rushed to the front and suffered great losses. As the war proceeded, shipment losses caused a scarcity of fuel in Japan, which further restricted the training of new pilots. All this spiraled into a situation where in 1944 many pilots were sent in combat with very poor skills, and often piloting inferior airplanes, so the results were catastrophic, like during the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Air Battle of Formosa. By then Japan had in service new aircraft models that were very good, but their weak industrial base prevented them to produce them in great numbers, and their effectiveness was reduced by the scarcity of certain materials, poor workmanship and low-grade fuel. The new models were also more demanding and the scarcity of skilled ground crews and pilots further reduced their impact. In general it seems that Japanese and German procedures produced a small number of amazing pilots, while Allies policies with time resulted in superior "average' performance.

    From 1943 on the Japanese Navy also committed a key mistake: they relied more and more on ground-based airplanes and in several instances they reinforced their ground bases with aircraft from the carriers. Carrier pilots were especially trained to operate from the flattops and were very difficult to replace. A lot of them died in air operations from ground bases and the carrier fleet was left with few trained pilots. The result was that most of the carrier pilots at the decisive battle of the Philippine Sea had only a few months training. In theory relying on ground planes made sense for the Japanese, as they had a network of bases on their island barrier across the Pacific, which were considered "unsinkable carriers". The problem was that bases cannot move. The Japanese had to spread their air force to cover an immense area, while the American carrier task-force could concentrate and strike wherever they chose, often surprising and destroying the enemy planes on the ground. Before the Battle of Leyte Gulf the Japanese tried to concentrate their air force in the Philippines and Formosa. But by that time the quality of their pilots was so low that during October "As Japan kept feeding planes south, the U.S. planes kept destroying them" (Paul. S. Dull, A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy). During the Battle of Leyte Gulf there were too few ground-based airplanes left in the Philippines to support adequately the Japanese fleet.
     
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