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Japanese Naval Aviation Losses, 41-42

Discussion in 'War in the Pacific' started by Triple C, Nov 26, 2009.

  1. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    IIRC, the average IJN pilot had about 600 hours at the start of the war. I think that by 1944 they were going into combat with 100-200 hours. This was, functionally, Darwinism in action – only the natural (and lucky) Japanese pilots could survive for any appreciable length of time. On the other side, USN training standards were improving throughout the entire war.



    So you admit in a round about fashion that you pulled a stupid assumption out of your ass.

    I posted in reaction to the comments about the loss rates between the Wildcat and Zero fighters in 1942. Trying to get the data for the whole war in 1942 would be a great deal of work, but I thought that if we limited it to just the carrier actions, it would be possible. I’m sure there’s a few actions missing. For example, I believe Enterprise fighters shot down at least one A5M Claude over the Marshall Islands during the February raid.

    Expanding the discussion to include all bomber shoot downs would be interesting. Will you go and collect the data for us and post it?



    No one argues but that USN doctrine and technique were superior, so stop beating a dead horse. The question at hand is why USN technique failed to deliver adequate performance in the 1942 carrier battles, so much so that it cannot be said to have been much superior to IJN methods. Vague comments such as the ones you give here are useless. Be specific. We already have identified the May 7th twilight strike as a good USN intercept, and the Midway CAP action against the Hiryu’s Val dive bombers. Did you have any other examples?



    Again - examples?



    For example, the SBD-3 had a bullet proof windscreen, self-sealing fuel tanks and armor protection for the crew at an empty weight of 6,400 lbs. The Val had none of these things at 5,666 lbs.
     
  2. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    Hardly. I guess I made my point since you seem to have no repsonse, except personal insult.

    So, out of laziness, you just decided to go with a few, probably non-representative examples, and wing it with your conclusions. Typical.

    No.

    That data is susceptible to the same problem you choose to ignore in the limited data set you presented.


    The original post gave all the examples necessary for any objective reader. As for admitting that USN doctrine was superior, now you're waffling on the issue.

    There is no question as to why USN doctrine failed to consistently deliver 100% performance in 1942. It was a complicated and new doctrine which required experience and coordination, as well as some technical refinement to produce flawless performance. In other words, there was an understandable learning curve which had to climbed.



    The May 7th. intercept, Midway....

    So what? Doesn't prove anything statistically.
     
  3. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    I've taken another look at the data from the following actions:

    Rabaul (Feb 1942), Coral Sea (some carrier actions May 7th, May 8th), Midway (including Aleutians), Guadalcanal (August 7th, August 8th), Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz.

    This infomation is a quick draft done at high speed and will contain errors. Were I to pull it through to audit-quality, the total numbers would no doubt increase and migrate a little bit between catagories a little. However, for the purposes here it should be good enough - it gives the overall trends of 1942.

    Aircraft losses

    Total IJN aircraft losses in the actions listed are 518 aircraft. Total USN losses are 305. Loss by cause breaks out as follows:

    IJN

    Shot down.....151...29%
    Anti-Aircraft....54...10%
    Ditch/crash.....92....18%
    CV sunk.........221...43%
    Total.............518

    USN

    Shot down....147...48%
    Anti-aircraft...3......1%
    Ditch/crash....83....27%
    CV sunk.........72....24%
    Total............305

    The answer to the original question is that IJN losses were higher because:

    1 - They lost 6 carriers in these battles and the USN lost only 3.
    2 - Because USN TF's had radar, their carriers had warning to launch aircraft as a precautionary measure, and so tended to have fewer aircraft aboard at the time of the fatal attack. The average aircraft compliment of a sunken IJN carrier was 57, and the average number of aircraft aboard was 37 (65% of capacity). The average aircraft compliment of a sunken US carrier was about 80, and the average number of aircraft aboard was 24 (about 30% capacity)
    3 - USN anti-aircraft was much more effective than IJN anti-aircraft. This will have been due to both better USN equipment and methods as well as the fragility of IJN attack aircraft.

    Combat Air Patrol performance

    I looked at CAP performance in cases only where a carrier was the originally intended target. CAP shoot-downs are divided into two categories: bombers shot down before release and bombers shot down after making their attacks.

    IJN CAP Performance.

    Participating: 201
    Lost: 24
    Kills achieved: 81
    Enemy escorts: 55
    CAP/Escort ratio: 3.66 to 1
    Performance ratio*: .55 kills per CAP fighter
    DB or level bomber kills prior to release: 13
    TBD/TBF/MDM Torp kills prior to release: 39
    Total kills prior to release: 52
    Kills per CAP fighter prior to release: .26

    * - Performance ratio is: Kills/(CAP-Escort)

    USN CAP Performance (with Rabaul action)

    Participating: 265
    Shot down: 34
    Kills: 97
    Enemy Escorts: 71
    CAP/Escort ratio: 3.62 to 1
    Performance ratio: .5 kills per CAP fighter
    DB or MED bomber kills prior to release: 34
    Kate kills prior to release: 12
    Total kills prior to release: 46
    Kills per CAP fighter prior to release: .17

    USN CAP Performance (without Rabaul action)

    Participating: 258
    Shot down: 34
    Kills: 97
    Enemy Escorts: 71
    CAP/Escort ratio: 3.62 to 1
    Performance ratio: .43 kills per CAP fighter
    Val bomber kills prior to release: 25
    Kate kills prior to release: 12
    Total kills prior to release: 37
    Kills per CAP fighter prior to release: .14

    These numbers put to rest the myth of superior USN CAP performance in 1942. Neither side was very effective at shooting down aircraft before they bombed, and both sides experienced significant leakage. Both sides achieved their best performances when enemy escorts were not present. USN CAP benefieted from the fragility of IJN bombers, the IJN benefieted from the slow speed of USN torpedo bombers.

    With respect to the claims of superior USN CAP performance, these simply are not borne out by the numbers. In the actions where US carriers were actually bombed by IJN carrier aircraft, a total of 201 Val and Kate bombers attacked. Of these, only 22 Val and 7 Kate were shot down before they attacked the target (14%).
     
  4. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Can you really? Certainly if a plane is shot down on the way in before it encounter AA fire you can make a strong case. But even there could be previous damage, mechanical failure, poor maintence, bad gas, etc. Either as the cause or as a contributer. And how many times was it clear once the planes came in that they didn't recive any damage from the fighters before hand? Certainly on the way out it is far from clear that any one soucrce was completely the cause.
     
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  5. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    I concur. Attempts to pin down the cause of air losses are fraught with dilemmas which are quite unresolvable with our present knowledge, an probably will always remain so.
     
  6. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    Do they? I don't think so.

    No one has claimed that USN CAP performance was superior in 1942, only that USN CAP doctrine was superior. Actual performance was affected by training, experience, and to a much lesser extent, equipment in 1942. The numbers, if anything, show that the superiority of USN CAP doctrine balanced Japanese superiority in plot experience and training. While the performance of the USN CAP was not significantly worse than Japanese CAP performance during 1942, the doctrine (i.e. the way fleet air defense was managed) was very different. It's significant that the USN continued to use essentially the same doctrine until the end of the war, while the Japanese attempted to adopt American CAP doctrine as their own later in the war. As for more Japanese planes being lost than American planes during the aerial battles of 1942, the reasons still seem to be attributable to a number of factors with no one factor being dominant.
     
  7. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    The IJN numbers for CAP performance overlooked the sinking of the Ryujo. Add about 9 Zeros to the IJN "participating" total (increases from 201 to 210), and whatever number of F4F's that sheparded that strike to the IJN's "Enemy Escorts" total (Probably about 8, but I'll have to verify). No USN bombers were lost during that mission, so this will negatively impact the IJN's numbers by about 1%.

    It's possible to get the vast majority of aircraft losses into general catagories that allow the answer the original question. It's not possible to go beyond that in a manner that isn't increasingly speculative. For instance, good luck trying to assess the overall impact of CAP in harrassing an attacking bomber into a missed shot. (For example, it appears clear that during the Rabaul raid the first bomber wave was so shaken up by the F4F's that their bombing of Lexington went wild).

    It can be seen from the data that the reason the IJN lost more aircraft in carrier battles in 1942 was because they had the more fragile attack aircraft, had more carriers sunk, tended to have more aircraft aboard when sunk, and faced lethal USN anti-aircraft. If we remove losses caused by sunken carriers and anti-aircraft, the IJN had 243 planes go down and the USN had 230. One can wish or try to split hairs beyond that point, arguing that this ditched plane had .50 cal rounds in it and that ditched plane made a wrong turn. But the fact is that both planes wound up in the Pacific Ocean.

    The Japanese themselves had concluded their CAP doctrine was faulty before the Battle of the Coral Sea. Later in the war, any attempts to improve it were hampered by poor equipment, poor electronics, inadequate pilot training, hopelessly obsolete aircraft types, and being steeply outnumbered in planes and carriers available. In those circumstances, the only direction for IJN carrier doctrine to evolve towards was to ignore CAP and have their carriers try to deliver maximum effort strikes from beyond the range of USN forces.

     
  8. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    That's the point. Your numbers aren't hard data, just conjecture.



    Yeah? Like at Philippine Sea? I recall Ozawa put up a CAP over his carriers there.
     
  9. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    The Japanese carrier fleet in June 1944 had a strength of 450 aircraft. The document here:

    http://dreadnoughtproject.org/friends/dickson/Japanese%20Mono%2090-3.pdf

    On page 4 it states that only 80% of 450 planes were ready for combat on the first day of the Battle of the Philipine Sea. The wikipedia article here:

    Battle of the Philippine Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Says,

    "The four Japanese air strikes involved 373 carrier aircraft, of which 130 returned to the carriers, and many more were lost on board when the two carriers were sunk on the first day by submarine attacks."

    Meaning that the Japanese tactics during the Turkey Shoot were maximum-strength strikes, leaving next to nothing at all for combat air patrol. This, a radical departure from IJN (1942) or USN doctrine, is confirmed by the statement here in these PDF’s,

    http://dreadnoughtproject.org/friends/dickson/Philippine Sea 3.pdf

    Pg 89 says that 3rd DIV’s attack (both the recalled one and the real one the next day) used virtually all available fighters (only one Zero not employed, and this was undoubtedly non-operational).

    PG 100 indicates that virtually all strength was used for searches (43 aircraft) and air strikes, drastically curtailing ASW and CAP activities over the Japanese fleet. (Thus contributing to the loss of 2 fleet carriers to submarines).

    The IJN’s carrier operations had evolved in a different direction than the USN’s; all fighters were to be used in attacks, and ranging tactics were to be employed (instead of advanced CAP techniques) to protect friendly forces.
    PG 150 says 68 Zero types scrambled for CAP during US attack of the next day – everything the Japanese had. But this was the next day after the Turkey Shoot, when Ozawa launched no massed strikes against the US fleet. I would therefore be at a loss to imagine why the Japanese would not employ all available aircraft in self-defense. Your comment,

    "I recall Ozawa put up a CAP over his carriers there."

    Is explained by the fact that his fighters had no massed strikes to escort.

    It appears that the CAP units employed during the US attack used no special techniques in comparison to their 1942 counterparts. Which makes perfect sense; by 1944 Japanese fighters were so poor in comparison to USN fighters that any such training efforts would be a complete waste of resources and precious training time. Pilots would probably be killed on the first day anyway, and would probably stop only a small fraction of incoming attacks. At least in the attack role, a plane might knock out a US carrier.

    IJN and USN evolution in carrier doctrine after 1942 in each case made sense in terms of each navy’s available resources and objectives. The USN developed the necessary heavy engagement capability against large air bases, and so required superlative defense techniques against air fields that could never be sunk. The IJN embraced all-out attack methods to try to overcome shortfalls in numbers and training. Since all fighters were required for such strikes, they had little incentive to emphasize fleet defense methods which could not win them a battle, and would never be required should their carriers stay outside USN carrier strike range.
     
  10. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    It means no such thing. Ozawa fed his planes piecemeal into the battle on 19 June, by launching four widely separated strikes, none of which could be described as "all-out" efforts. Strike one consisted of 68 aircraft (13% of Ozawa's operational aircraft), Strike two consisted of 109 aircraft (29%), Strike three consisted of 47 aircraft (13%) and strike four consisted of 49 aircraft (13%). These strikes were spread from about 10:00 in the morning to late afternoon. It would appear that no one strike was "maximum strength" and all strikes left plenty of aircraft on Ozawa's flight decks.



    Not only does your own reference contradict this conclusion, but states flatly (page 100) that at least part of the Japanese force enjoyed CAP protection and that such aircraft dispositions were contrary to Japanese Naval doctrine;

    "Because of the allocation of aircraft to air searches and air strikes, only combat air patrols were flown over FMF and no aircraft were available for anti-submarine patrols. This cutting of corners, contrary to Japanese doctrine, was to be disastrous."

    So Ozawa DID put up CAP over his own carriers and DID NOT engage in "all-out" or "maximum strength" strikes at the Battle of the Philippine sea. Further, it is noted that the four air strikes utilized only 273 planes out of a total operational of 373. That leaves 100 planes potentially avilable for CAP. Admittedly some of these planes would be numbered among those lost during the aerial searches, but certainly not anywhere near the entire 100.

    So say you, but the facts say otherwise.

    Yes,Ozawa's carriers picked up the incoming US raid on air search radar and launched a large number of fighters which were vectored to meet the incoming strike. That bears an uncanny resemblance to what the USN would have done, but then we have your opinion that IJN doctrine varied from that of the USN, don't we?

    No, my comment referred to 19 June, when, as we've seen, Ozawa fed his planes into the meat grinder a few at a time; there were no "massed strikes" on 19 June. The largest Japanese strike represented fewer than 30% of their operational aircraft. And, in any case, your own reference indicates Ozawa ordered a CAP force over his own carriers on that day.
     
  11. Triple C

    Triple C Ace

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    Guys, I think its important that I clarify my original question since it has sparked a controversy that I do not intent. From what contributors have posted so far, Japanese a/c combat loss had been comparable to and at times higher than the USN. My original question has largely been answered, that the aircraft losses reflected the parity of USN aviation with its Japanese counterpart.

    Now lopsided personel casaulties: I recall that Japan virutally had no search & recovery capabilities and I imagine their medical services at sea was not up to par with the US. Would that be the correct assumption?
     
  12. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    I think that would be a fair assumption. The fact that the Japanese often stretched their aircraft range in missions in the Solomons especially accounted for many of the personnel losses. If an aviator on either side went down in the jungle, he was pretty much a write off. If he went down at sea, he had a slightly better chance, but the chances of Allied aviators were better by far, because the Allies would almost certainly launch a search and rescue attempt, whereas the Japanese might, or might not, depending almost entirely on the whim of the local air commander. Also, because the Japanese seldom carried radios in their fighters, Japanese fighter pilots were more likely to be lost because they had no way of notifying their base of any difficulties.

    One last factor was the indigenous population; in a few areas they were friendly, or at least not overtly hostile, to the Japanese, but in most areas the natives were hostile to the Japanese and either turned them over to the Allies or killed them.
     
  13. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    The increased IJN losses (not including seaplanes, BTW) relative to the US Navy in 1942 during the carrier battles was a direct result of the greater number of Japanese aircraft carriers that were sunk, the higher number of aircraft aboard these when sunk, the effectiveness of USN anti-aircraft (especially in the second half of the year) and the fragility of IJN attack bombers.



    In terms of air/sea recovery, the Japanese were pretty bad - but note the numbers of aircrews recovered after the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.


     
  14. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    So Ozawa DID put up CAP over his own carriers and DID NOT engage in "all-out" or "maximum strength" strikes at the Battle of the Philippine sea.

    The IJN may have put around 20 or 30 fighters on CAP on the 19th, sure. The USN put 300 or 400 on CAP. The difference in these numbers was a direct reflection of the methods by which admiral intended to win the battle.

    Yes,Ozawa's carriers picked up the incoming US raid on air search radar and launched a large number of fighters which were vectored to meet the incoming strike. That bears an uncanny resemblance to what the USN would have done…

    http://dreadnoughtproject.org/friends/dickson/Philippine%20Sea%204.pdf

    Pg 149-150 details the Japanese defensive efforts. There is mention of radar detection at about 40 miles, but nothing about controllers directing Japanese fighters into distant intercepts from the carriers. Can you clarify your statement please?

    Note that on page 150 it states that 68 Zero fighters participated in the defense. These will have been, by and large, survivors from the 130 aircraft that had returned to the fleet the previous day. It is impossible that the Japanese had the 100 aircraft you suppose on CAP on the 19th. Had they, then when they were attacked the next day they would have put more like 170 fighters in the air and not the 68 they actually mustered.

    Further, it is noted that the four air strikes utilized only 273 planes out of a total operational of 373.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea

    The four Japanese air strikes involved 373 carrier aircraft, of which 130 returned to the carriers, and many more were lost on board when the two carriers were sunk on the first day by submarine attacks. After the second day the losses totaled three carriers and over 433 carrier aircraft and around 200 land based planes. Losses on the U.S. side on the first day were only 23, and on the second 100, most of them resulting from the night landings.

    373 aircraft (of a total of around 450 embarked) were involved in the strike operations (strikers, searchers, special). Note that the link I posted indicated that "20%" of the 450 carrier types were non-operational just before the battle.

    Not only does your own reference contradict this conclusion, but states flatly (page 100) that at least part of the Japanese force enjoyed CAP protection and that such aircraft dispositions were contrary to Japanese Naval doctrine

    The statement says that not flying ASW planes was contrary to doctrine and cost the Japanese dearly.


     
  15. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    I checked on IJN air crew recovery at Santa Cruz. Looks like a few rescues were made, but nothing statistically meaningful. Overall then, there are no 1942 carrier battles where IJN air/sea services are worth a damn.

    As DA has not provided the requested reference for his claim that the IJN employed radar directed intercepts during the 1944 Marianas battle, I'll check some sources and report.
     
  16. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    At first your statement was that Ozawa launched "maximum strength" strikes and left no planes for CAP duties.

    When that nonsense got shot down by the facts, you back tracked and admitted the "IJN may have put around 20 or 30 fighters on CAP on the 19th.....". That was my point, regardless of the relative numbers, Ozawa DID resort to CAP over his carriers.



    Yes, I'm sure that the Japanese went to all the trouble to install air search radars on their carriers and then, when in combat, detected an incoming raid, launched a CAP force and then simply let it mill around directly over their carriers. Just because there is no mention in your source of controllers vectoring CAP fighters onto an incoming strike isn't evidence that it didn't happen.

    First of all, I qualified the number 100 by saying some of that number may have been accounted for by the search planes that were lost, so admitted the possibility that the Japanese CAP numbered less than 100 planes. It should also be noted that some of the search planes sent out on the 19th. actually came from Guam, further reducing the likelihood that Ozawa had lost a large number of planes during that search. In fact, you have no definite numbers either, all of your numbers are derived from conjecture.

    Second, the book "Carriers In Combat" by Chester G. Hearn states (page 172), that when attacked on June 20, Ozawa was able to launch 75 Zero fighters to defend his carriers. Obviously, he had plenty of fighters for CAP duty on the 20th. (even minus his two carriers lost to submarines), where were they on the 19th? Are you going to claim they were survivors of the escort fighters that went with the strike planes? If so, I want to know how you know that; in other words, no conjecture as to numbers of planes, just hard data. How many of the escort fighters were sent out, how many were lost, and how many returned to the carriers?



    Not according to the numbers mentioned in my sources (
    Battle of the Philippine Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) kindly supplied by you. Only a total of 273 Japanese planes were sent on the four strikes. Moreover, most of the search planes Ozawa launched on the 18th. and 19th. returned to their carriers to be used in subsequent strike missions. as for the "non-operational" planes you cite, we need to know how many were fighters and how many were rendered "operational" by the 19th. and 20th.

    Only if read selectively.

    The actual statement reads; "Because of the allocation of aircraft to air searches and air strikes, only combat air patrols were flown over FMF and no aircraft were available for anti-submarine patrols. This cutting of corners, contrary to Japanese doctrine, was to be disastrous."

    To me,
    the "cutting of corners" described as "contrary to Japanese doctrine" refers both to "only combat air patrols were flown over FMF" as well as "no aircraft were available for anti-submarine patrol", otherwise the author would have made a distinction between the two phrases.
     
  17. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    I have found no source that gives any reason to suppose this theory of yours is true. No source I checked indicates anything other than Ozawa's carrier forces used CAP tactics virtually identical to those of 1942. No source indicates contact with defending Zeros until over the Japanese fleet.

    You have ignored the request to provide a source for your claim of IJN radar directed intercepts at a distance from the fleet, as per US doctrine. Do you have a source to cite, or do you not have one? Please clarify.

    The observation I made is that IJN CAP tactics did not evolve past the 1942 doctrine. At Philippine Sea, it is possible that Ozawa employed as many as 20 or 30 fighters on CAP. But he did not employ the US doctrine of 200-300 fighters on CAP, nor did the IJN use distant intercept by way of radar-direction.

    Indirectly then, you here admit that you have indeed been doing some searches for a source - any source - to provide substance to your claim of IJN radar directed fighter intercepts. Obviously, you found nothing to substantiate your statement, otherwise you would have posted a quote.

    Ozawa managed to place 68 Zeros plus a mixed bag of a few bombers up for CAP, totalling 75 aircraft; so your source is in error because he counts the bombers as Zeros. The number of fighters that returned to the fleet after the Turkey Shoot was 61. So that means no more than 61 out of 68 fighters in the CAP action were survivors of the previous days' debacle.

    I understood your meaning the first time you posted. When I responded, I was not intending a further discussion of your viewpoint. Rather, I was clarifying that my interpretation of the sentence was that the disaster the author mentioned pertained to the lack of ASW flights. This is because CAP spent no time looking for submarines, instead being positioned much higher to detect and attack incoming aircraft.

    Rather than await you posting anything useful, I've researched the question myself. IJN carrier doctrinal summaries here:

    http://dreadnoughtproject.org/friends/dickson/Strike%20Force%20Tactics%201-18.pdf

    http://sites.google.com/site/ijndoctrine/carrierdoctrine

    Page 13 of the first reference indicates that 27 fighters (9 per carrier) would be left on CAP and 216 aircraft would be used in the maximum-effort strike IJN doctrine called for.

    If you read through these extracts, you will find many references to tactics used in the attack, diversionary, flanking, and ranging methods and next to nothing at all about CAP. After 1942, the IJN and USN simply took different doctrinal paths. You stated that IJN CAP tactics moved along the same line as USN's. You are wrong; it did not. The IJN evolved tactics for all-out attack, and did so for a host of reasons that the USN did not have to deal with.
     
  18. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    373 aircraft were employed in strike operations, (strikers, searches, special). The composition of the 4 strikes were about: 71, 128, 47 and 82 aircraft (about 328 planes).



    I stated,

    "Meaning that the Japanese tactics during the Turkey Shoot were maximum-strength strikes, leaving next to nothing at all for combat air patrol. This, a radical departure from IJN (1942) or USN doctrine, is confirmed by the statement here in these PDF’s"

    "Next to nothing" does not mean, "nothing". 30 fighters on CAP is 6.6% of strength.

     
  19. Glenn239

    Glenn239 Member

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    The composition of the 4 strikes were about:

    1 - 61 Zero, 8 Jill, 2 Jill contact.
    2 - 48 Zero, 27 Jill, 53 Judy
    3 - 40 Zero, 7 Jill
    4 - 40 Zero, 9 Judy, 27 Val, 6 Jill

    = 328

    Total Zero number employed in the attack were:

    61+48+40+40 = 189

    Total Zeroes embarked in the fleet were 222. Some of these will have been part of that 20% unserviceable total. Some will have been part of the 23 planes that were sunk with Taiho and Shokaku. So, that doesn't leave much past the 20-30 Zeros I estimated for CAP.
     
  20. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    Nor, obviously, have you found anything to indicate that my "theory" is incorrect, otherwise you would have posted it.

    Perhaps you could answer the question, why would the Japanese bother to mount air search radar systems in their carriers if they didn't intend to use it in a manner similar to the USN?

    BTW, feel free to cite any sources you can find that are contrary to my theory. By "sources", I mean those with statements actually pertaining to Japanese Fleet air defense doctrine, not sources that look impressive but carry no useful data, as is your wont.

    But they obviously did; the Japanese had air search radar on their carriers in 1944, why wouldn't they use it in ways which gave the greatest advantage? i.e as the USN did. You, of course, can cite a source to prove your statement that the IJN didn't use radar to vector their fighters? why don't you?

    It was USN doctrine to use 200-300 CAP fighters? Can you cite a source for that number? I believe the USN doctrine on CAP was to get the greatest number possible vectored out as far as possible; it wasn't limited to 200-300 planes, nor was that considered the "ideal" number..

    As for the "20-30" number of planes Ozawa had on CAP duty on the 19th., your source, please?

    No, I was reading your citations (which don't always agree with you) and saw a book that I happen to own referenced; decided to see what it had to say.

    Just as obviously you haven't found any sources which support your position, otherwise, we'd be reading them now.

    At first you claimed Ozawa put up 65 planes when attacked, why has your number changed to 68? My source actually counts the FIGHTER-BOMBERS as Zeros, which, in fact, they were when not carrying bombs. The number of Zero escorts which returned to the fleet after the raids may have been 61, but don't forget that Ozawa also had at least "20-30" (your numbers) Zeros that he retained for CAP on the 19th. That's 30+61=91 possible CAP fighters on the 20th. Of course, it's probable that some of the 61 returning escort Zeros may have been damaged, so putting up 75 Zeros (including fighter bomber versions without bombs) in Ozawa's CAP on the 20th. is certainly a reasonable number.

    No you obviously didn't understand my meaning, you were simply surprised by the fact that your own source contradicted what you had written.

    The statement mentions CAP and ASW patrols and lumps them together as "cutting corners". I don't really care about your interpretation as it is narrow and incorrect.

    As for no planes looking for submarines, how do you explain the pilot of the plane that spotted a torpedo headed for the Taiho and dove into it? If he could see a torpedo underwater he was certainly low enough to counter a submarine.

    Speaking of "useful", I note that the first document you reference is merely a "lessons learned" essay and does not purport to be any statement of official doctrine, contrary to your assertion. Moreover, it is dated an entire year prior to the Philippine Sea battle. The second source appears to be a collection of documents over a period of time that touch on carrier doctrine. Nowhere in either document can I find any statement that it is official IJN doctrine to ignore opportunities to vector, utilizing radar bearings, defending CAP fighters toward incoming air raids. Nor do I ever expect to find such a statement among IJN operational documents since such a proclamation would be absolutely absurd.

    I am correct in asserting that IJN carrier doctrine moved toward USN practice as that was the only logical direction it could take. Why install an air search radar system if not to use it to enhance fleet air defense? Your theory about "maximum strength air strikes" is discredited by the Japanese strikes at the Philippine Sea which were most certainly NOT maximum strength.
     

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