Kamikaze tactics

True. You out 'nitteed' me.

 

So you won't mind when we strap a suicide bomb vest to your son's chest, slap on a timer, and send him off? Or your brother, or father?

Maybe we should start telling stories about virgins waiting in Heaven to these 20 year-old kids we are telling to die for us? Its despicable, and wasteful, not only from a moral aspect, but even on the economical side.

You start down a slippery slope, because the command has already accepted that they are going to die. Therefore, they don't need armour plating protecting the pilot and crew, they don't need self-sealing tanks, because it's only a one-way trip. Defensive weapons are stripped off the aircraft, in order to cram more explosives in. The Aircraft then becomes much more vulnerable to various means of interception, as it is overloaded with explosives affecting performance. The pilots only need limited ability to fly the plane, they don't need the full proper training (this saves money and time), Furthermore, the training given is of much worse caliber; who can be bothered to teach someone who is only going to die? As a coach I'm not going to invest the energy I would in a kid not going on a suicide misson, but wants to do his best to stay alive. The quaity of the airframe used drops; often times its not maintained properly, its old, its slow, its inadequate, its passed its useby date on the battlefield. Lastly, as the crew is determined to die, evasive actions are less fluid, Ultimately, these factors causes their success rate to drop dramatically, Which is exactly what was witnessed in the Pacific.

A big part of the economy of Aircraft, is their ability to be reused. That the attack can be broken off, and the airframe and crew return to base, still a threat, which the enemy somehow needs to counter. A Kamikaze aircraft is far less likely to abort for any reason, but runs a higher risk of not finishing the misson, and once used, it is no longer a threat.

Its a waste of manufacturing effort, instructional effort, there is little hope of getting feedback about what went well or what didn't work, its a waste of enthusiastic youth, as poorly trained pilots sit around waiting for a suitable suicide misson, as they are not capable of participating in other flight activities. You also want to seperate the groups of suicidees from other pilots, as you don't want to affect morale, nor have the suicidees having second thoughts at the last minute.

 

You seem to be judging the Kamaikaze idea against an alternative of everyone living happily ever after. But that wasn't really the choice, was it?

The second Schwienfurt raid lost 60 bombers and 650 men...around 20%.

My understanding is that the odds of surviving a tour of duty in an 8th AF bomber crew during the 1943/44 time period were significantly less than 50-50.

This is the context within which the idea should be judged, and I'm certainly grateful that no part of my life has been lived within such a context.

Different people have different estimations of how effective the Kamikaze plan would really be, and what would be the most effective wat to impliment it, but I believe the choice would come down to a situation where you are statistically certain to lose, say, 200 men with standard bombing tactics vs. losing, say, 50 men in a Kamikaze operation, and getting similar results on the target. It's interesting that people accept losing the 200 men more easily than the 50, just because you would know in advance who the 50 were going to be.

It's an interesting moral dilemma and I also find it interesting to speculate on the best tactics/aircraft/targets etc.

"And what happens if the target is obscured by weather?
Your also almost assuredly going to want a navigator along.
A much higher percentage is likely to be shot down as well."

Obviously weather was a concern for any sort of raid. Could you maybe have navigators in a few planes with beacons of some sort for everyone else to follow? A higher percentage shot down as compared to what? If you're using Mosquitos, I think a much lower percentage would be shot down as compared to a standard B17 raid.

 

if you send 50 Mosquitos rather than 500 B-17's then if more than 5 are lost the percentage is higher than if 50 of the former are lost. Given that there will be more fighters per bomber available and there won't be as much defensive fire or likely any escort if 50 B-17's were lost there's a decent chance the whole raid would be lost as well.

If you have manned planes and your primary target is socked in you can divert to a secondary, or a target of opertunity, and in any case return home. Especially if you don't have navigators even a secondary target becomes more problematic for you one way planes and if both primary and secondary targets are socked in you just lost your planes and pilots to no effect.

 

No, its a falsehood that you'd be getting "similar results". You'd not be getting similar results at all. You'd be getting much worse results in the long term, as well as probably not even achieving the same results as could be managed by other means, for that particular mission. It was only ever applied as a desperate measure that was only grabbed at when the country in question was plainly doomed. Consider that.

As such compare the Dambusters raid, to the Luftwaffe's attempt to blow up the bridges and slow the Soviet Juggernaut in 1945. The last was a complete and utter mess, just a waste of airframes and people's lives to no consequential effect. Precisely because of the reasons I've listed, using suicidal people to pilot overladen aeroplanes packed with explosives doesn't work nearly as efficiently as you believe.

Not even the fanatical Japanese with their Divine Wind really achieved much per airframe and pilot, because pilot quality had degraded so much as to be basically useless.

According to a U.S Air Force webpage:

Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception and attrition, and massive anti-aircraft barrages, a distressing 14 percent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 percent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank.


In total almost 4,000 IJN and IJA pilots sacrificed their lives.

Of the 2800 vs the USN, 1,19% success rate is pretty effing awful.

 

One thing that caught my attention was the kamikaze's didn't even manage a 2:1 kill raio or 4:1 casualty ratio. I'm not sure if that counts the kamikazes that were never sighted either.

They might have done considerably more damage if Olympic had taken place though. The much shorter warning times and the use of surface and subsurface versions as well as different targeting had potential. Of course none of those pluses would have applied to the western allies use of them vs Germany. The improved V-1s were a much better option but even they were questionable in my book.

 

The Japanese were going after an obvious target (the allied fleet) within a relatively limited area, in the face of absolutely overwhelming air superiority and concentrated AA firepower. I believe they were often using out of date planes as well as poorly trained pilots. The Japanese Kamikaze success rate should be compared to their success rate using normal tactics in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, where they lost around 600 planes and sunk zero US ships.

in 1943/44 over Germany, the Luftwaffe had an advantage, but not such a large one. Mosquitos were as fast or faster than German fighters. That's going to make interception very difficult, as the Mosquito proved repeatedly in other roles. I believe they were also difficult to track with radar. I think the success rate is going to be vastly greater than that of the Japanese. I think the loss rate for Mosquitos in the actual missions the did fly was less than than 5%, and I don't see why it would be substantially higher on the way to a Kamikaze attack.

Maybe sending 50 at once would not be the best tactic. Maybe just one or a handful at a time, continuing at erratic intervals until the target is destroyed.

 

Is a Mosquito with a full load of bombs going to be faster than German fighters though? Certainly the photo recon versions were but I question whether the ones with a full bomb load would be.

It's also not likely that it will be all that hard to track one with a full bomb load by radar, especially without all the other planes in the air.

Sending one at a time you have no hope at all of saturating the defences. It might work ok for short range missions but any distance into Germany would be a problem especially once the Germans start looking for them. Note that it also means the AAA can concentrated on a single target. Then there's the fact that medium caliber AA (37mm for example) can be used against them in a terminal defence mode where it's useless vs the heavies over 10,000 feet.

 

The main problem is either letting the pilot out early, but not having a way to control the bomber to its target or sending the pilot on a one way mission. Since directing the plane would mean the pilot would either have to suicide or bail out and be captured.

 

There's a (mistaken) assumption here that a hit on a particular building in a factory complex would halt production in that factory. In fact, by 1944 much of German industry was dispersed with critical manufacture moved to disguised or even underground complexes.

An industrial complex isn't a ship where one large hit can knock it out. You might sacrifice several planes and crews to hit a building that is only an assembly area, or even no longer in use. By keeping that same plane in the air, you might bomb the same factory 25 or 50 times and do far more damage over time.

 

Look at the stats. <1% casualty per sortie over 27,000 missions flown by the Light Night Strike Force. It worked in practice.

 

Im suprised more "agents" werent used...no need for suicide bombers either...surely agents could be sent or sourced from local towns and cities...most would know where factories were and what was being produced, many in suburban or city locations making security very difficult. Home made or "dropped" explosives wouldnt be too diffcult to source either...i have had a daydream/fantasy for years about watching factories during the day and sneaking in at night to plant explosives in strategic places...and when it rebuilt, go in and do it again, and again...until security would make it impossible, then move onto more targets...was the size of the charge the problem here? in other words could a person or group of people "carry" sufficient explosives to do the job?

 

Using agents (or bandits as the Germans defined saboteurs, today they would most likely be called terrorists) would have been a war crime with big consequences, in occupied countries blurring the line between civilians and combatants is a very bad idea, in Germany itself the small pool of people capable of passing for native Germans, and willing to take such risks, is much better used for intelligence gathering.

The Mosquito worked because the bulk of the German fighters were geared towards heavy bomber interception and radar technology was not good enough to make specialized anti mosquito units effective, At night night fighters with their bulky radars carried less payload than a loaded Mosquito but the antennas produced considerably more drag so for a given horsepower (the Mossie had around 3000Hp a Me 110 or Ju 88 slightly less than that) the bomber is likely to have a speed advantage. But if the allied bomber mix changed the Germans could easily deploy stripped down Me 109 with boosted engines (against unarmed bombers a better choice that the more robust Fw 190) for day interception or He 219 for night interception in such numbers as to make operations by unarmed bombers very high risk, the high speed of the Mossie made escort by fighters impractical.

 

Kamikazes rarely flew at night. However, one that they did was a dismal failure, with the majority of their aircraft returning or ditching due to mechanical failure. AFAIK, only two made it to Ulithi, where one crashed into the aft end of the USS Randolph, and the other crashed into the "largest" carrier he could find - a small island.

 

The Kamikaze aircraft varied greatly during the war, however the truly out-of date stuff did not really appear until the bitter end. Further, in the beginning the Kamikaze pilots were not that poorly trained, they were regular pilots who volunteered and later student pilots who were "drafted" in. However, the training of the Japanese carrier pilots at the time of the Philippine Sea was the
"low ebb" of Japanese carrier aviation. These mostly green pilots did not have the required time in type - the newer Japanese carrier aircraft were high performance aircraft that required more training to handle well, as opposed to the Vals & Kates of the "glory days." Also, The Battle of the Philippine Sea occurred, well, at sea, in a vast area clear of any radar interference - as opposed to Okinawa were the many islands allowed for a many more hiding spots from American radars.

The Mosquito was faster than most German aircraft, however this was only at high altitudes above 23,000 feet, and the Mosquito had to have the newer Merlin engines & not the older, IIRC, Merlin 25s. The Mosquito's "protection" was it's high speed at high altitude, however, in the lower realms it was not all that fast. Since I doubt your Mosquitoes will Kamikaze from 25,000-30,000+ feet, but will be operating at much lower altitudes - where the German fighters come into there own, I cannot see the success rate being near as high as you claim. Even the older FW-190A5s found the Mosquito to be good kills at lower altitudes. Also, the Mosquitos will not be harder to track unless they are "hugging the ground". You see, while the aircraft are made mostly of wood, they have these two big spinning metal thingys on them, some call them propellers, they do tend to reflect radar beams.

 

I believe they are judging the Kamikaze idea on it's merits. But to paraphrase a recent webcomic called "Schlock Mercenary"(some may have know it)
"We can fly this mission and maybe die or we can fly that mission and definitely die" followed in the next panel by "We have the option to definitely die, but I have decided against it."
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2013-11-10
Which option would you choose "maybe die" or "definitely die"?
Somehow, I believe that most, if not all Allied pilots would take the "Maybe" option.

You can argue statistics all you want, but human nature is human nature. So long as the you are not faced with certain defeat, Kamikaze is not an option. Even the Japanese only took to the idea after they were facing certain defeat, as Kamikazes were not used until the Philippine invasion in late-'44. Up until that time any suicide dives were the decision made by the individual pilot's = both Allied & Axis.

 

The Germans were aware of the threat posed by fast bombers and reconnaissance did deploy fighters to try to intercept them, including the deployment of the first batch of Me262 fighters in the summer of 1944. The only aircraft the Germans had which were fast enough to catch a Mosquito could not do so when carrying an airborne radar and an operator needed to find one at night and in poor visibility.

The RAF also flew night intruder missions with the fighter variant of the Mosquito.

There is still some doubt about whether the allied strategic air offensive achieved as much damage to the German economy as iot cost to mount . However, it did force the Germans to expend effort on air defences and the USAAF's day bomber offensive did force the Germans to fight an air battle over Germany which eroded the strength of the German day fighter force, enabling D Day to take place with air superiority.

 

When the loss rate for the Mosquito is so low, why on God's Green Earth would you throw it away, and the pilot as well...

This is supposed to be a tactic for winning?!?!?!

You are going from an assumed 5% loss rate, to 100% loss rate for no added benefit. How long can you sustain that? Those airframes, are going to be unsuitable for any other missions

As KB mentioned: go have a look at a real factory. One bomb, even in the right place, isn't going to do much real, long lasting damage. You need to do massive damage: power, stocks, offices, assembly lines, communications, transportation, which simply isn't going to happen with 10, 20, or 50 one way suicide bombings.

Its one thing to look at the heaviest raids, and even then consider that 90% of the aircraft returned. Of those 10% that were "lost", what percentage of their crews survived? Either to be taken captive, or escape back to blighty?

I'll take a 90% chance to return and Kick A again over a 100% loss rate any day of the week.

It doesn't matter if the chances of surviving a tour of duty is very low (for example 7%) as the chances of surviving each individual mission are favourable: 90%. Those chances look far, far worse for a kamikaze pilot.

And once again, you should not compare the Japanese kamikaze pilots effectiveness against what they couldn't achieve in the Phillipines; it is precisely because pilot quality had degraded so far, and their situation so dire, that they were forced to implement the Divine Wind. Instead, compare to what their pilots achieved early in the war. Had they endorsed a different policy they could've maintained a much higher quality of pilot, and used newer airframes to achieve so much more.

You can keep your elite Judean People's Front Suicide Bomber Squad for yourself.

I really am failing to see how these bomb-laden suicide mosquitos are in any way more accurate than what the Mosquito itself achieved.



Goodbye to Mr Gestapo in Copenhagen.

 

My point exactly.

PS There is smoke rising from two buildings hit in that image. One is the Gestapo building. I think the second is the Jeane d'arc school, which was bombed by several aircraft after a Mosquito crashed into it accidentally. A combination of the bombing, fire and the efforts by the fire service to douse it killed 86 students, and 18 adults. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Carthage

 

But wasn't part of that due to very well trained pilots? And weren't a lot of the missions fairly close to home? If you are going to be loosing the plane and the pilot (even if he bails out he's not likely to get back to Britain and for most of the war if he got back he wouldn't be flying over Germany again due to RAF policiy if I remember correctly).

That's not to say that using the Mosquito more would probably have been a very good idea especially looking back with 20:20 hind sight but that's not the question at hand.