This topic and poll are meant to discuss the Japanese Special Attack Force, Kamikaze —Divine Wind— in WWII.

Such a force has no equivalent and no comparisson in military History.

Please, even if you're not PTO buffs, I'd like to hear everyone's opinion.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

The short of Kamikazes was this:

Cost wise the Japanese were losing 75% + of a strike from Midway on against US naval targets in conventional attacks.
In terms of damage and losses Kamikaze losses approached 100% and had about 3 times the number of hits conventional attacks did.
On the whole, given the above two facts Kamikazes were a good utilization of resources.

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Truth is stranger than bullshit!

As to comparisons, the German special naval attack forces using Niger human torpedos achieved no hits for almost 100% losses of crew and equipment. While the scale was much smaller and the German leadership's position was that these were not suicide craft the results essentially show they were. But, their effectiveness was far lower.

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Truth is stranger than bullshit!

Kind of depends on what you call military history. The men and women who blow theirselves up in the middle east and the World Trade Center are looked at as terrorist in some parts of the world and heros in other parts. They do have great results in changing the way people live and they get good media attention for their cause. If the western goverments spent all the billions they spend on war in the middle east on a solution to the problem instead then they would not have to blow theirselves up anymore and kill innocent bystanders.

As for the Japanese pilots, yes they had great psychological effect on the sailors but no effect on the out come of the war.

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PS To add to what TA wrote, I think if the Kamikaze pilots could have hit more carriers and sunk them then they could have had an effect on the war, but they hit mostly smaller ships instead. I guess they were not trained on ship identification or some other reason. I know they only hit very few carriers and many destroyers.

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Thanks for your inputs, gentlemen.

But Kamikaze attacks have no comparisson to suicide bombers or 9/11 attacks.

A Japanese pilot was a trained man from his country's military who deliberately killed himself by crashing a military aircraft against an enemy military target in order to reduce or neutralise the enemy's strategic and tactical advantages in the battle field in the middle of an open, total declared war.

A religious fanatic who hi-jacks a civilian commercial plane full of civilians and crashes it against a civil building full of civilians in order to kill them and terrorise a whole nation…

Can both be compared? NO, NO and NO.

Kamikazes were a resource highly-criticised within the Imperial High Command and it was originally intended as small units to be used to neutralise American carriers during 'Operation Sho' in October 1944. By that time, the Japanese air forces were outmatched in number and quality by the Americans, thus making conventional attacks suicide for the pilots and useless for the war effort. Kamikaze attacks were so successful in the Philippines campaign that the Imperial High Command realised that Special Attacks were the only possible tactic with any chance of success they had at the time, and that's why they generalised it.

During the campaign at Okinawa, US Navy commanders seriously considered the withdrawal because the naval losses they were having because of Kamikaze attacks were unbearable —1/5 of the attacking force was put out of action by Kamikaze attacks.

Here are some cyphers:

Philippines, October 20th 1944 - January 20th 1945
Kamikaze attacks: 424
US Navy losses: 16 ships sunk, 87 damaged

Okinawa, April 1st 1945 - June 23rd 1945
Kamikaze attacks: 1.915
US Navy losses: 36 ships sunk, 368 damaged, 5.000 KIA, 4.800 WIA.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Yes I thought you would say that but some people in the middle east view the US, England, and Israel as military enemys and as military targets. They don't have conventional weapons so they use human bombs to attack their enemys and it is effective. (not nice but very effective !)
Would you view the Zapitista Rebels as terrorist or Freedom Fighters ? Depends on whose view you ask. They were and are still effective at making changes in Mexico. (Could be a good career change for you, subcommander third class Fried !)

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.