Comparing aircraft production (CVO baseline revised)

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: flanyboy

The Japanese Navy was of in general very high quality however their army throughout the war was like a WWI army trying to fight WWII armies. It worked for them because China was in even worse shape, the British didn't initially have the manpower or the resources to focus on Japan (the British were also fairly foolish in their deployment early in the war) and it also worked because of the terrain they were fighting, India/Burma isn’t exactly what I am talking about, if the British don’t have to focus on Germany they can switch their forces over and crush Japan easily there, I am referring more to the fact that vs the USA the Island nature of the terrain allowed a very technically inferior army to bloody the nose of a far superior armed forces.

This is a curious concept: most armies in the world during WWII "were like a WWI army trying to fight" in WWII. That is normal: today the US Army probably is fairly geared to fighting a Cold War era enemy - and not at all well geared to fighting PLA or WOT. The lack of heavy weapons on the Allied side in PTO early in the war was a result of ignorance, hubris and the necessity of devoting resources to a desperate fight in ETO. But the lack of heavy weapons in the area was not entirely irrational: the infrastructure was not suitable for heavy vehicles. [Curiously, the US fielded some very heavy armor which then was not used - because it was not suitable for use in the area.] If you read the numbers on the cement on the bridges in the area, there is a remarkable consistency for "major highway bridges" - at 10 tons. If IJA had unlimited funding and unlimited industrial capacity - it would have been unwise and ineffective to invest in really heavy vehicles. One senior US Army officer I know loves to point out that "a different choice is not necessairily an inferior choice: it may be appropriate for the conditions." There are lots of examples of adequate - and some cases of superior - engineering in all sorts of Japanese technologies - it is not limited to ships. The perception that it is must be due to a combination the attention ships get in our histories - and lack of information about the others. Certainly aircraft is a case few would dispute were competative. And there were cases involving vehicles and weapons, electronics, even atomic energy.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Talking about Japanese industry during the 1970's is absolutely worthless for comparisons, as it had all been rebuilt from the ground up after 1945 along the lines of the US example (with some very Japanese varients and ideas mixed in).

I must be older than you think: I was not talking about Japan in the 1970s, but earlier. Nor do I think Japan rebuilt its industry along the lines of the US example. But then, I spend some time as a field engineer, an industrial engineer, and a computer engineer - and I actually went to Japan - and got to see how things were. If I no longer believe the legends I grew up with - it is because they are utterly false: I don't depend for knowledge on what is written in some book somewhere. The idea Japan built its industry on the US example AFTER WWII is backwards: it was far more dependent on US concerns before WWII. Ford, General Motors and Federal in particular. By my time - it was the other way around - and at Chevrolet we were importing Mazda and Isuzu engines to study because there was reason to think they were superior.

I made the assumption you were about my age (60). Japan did re-build along US mass production lines after the war. But while they were perfecting quality control and worker/company loyalty, we were "pissing it away" with fat Union Contracts and a self-satisfied smugness of management. They copied us in the late 40's and 50's..., went their own way in the 60's and 70's and we wound up trying to copy them by the late 70's and 80's. All of which is edifying---but has nothing to do with performance during WW II. Nor does anything you observed unless you were visiting duting 1940...

[el cid again]

I must regretfully agree with Mike about how we allowed union contracts and workplace ethics and standards decline post WWII. While I was home ported in Japan in the 1960s, what I learned was both related to that era and earlier ones. I examined a number of historical sites and equipments, and I also visited new ones. I didn't expect to learn that the things we believe are often untrue - and at first this or that item didn't cause me to come to a general conclusion either: it took time to notice the pattern. An awful lot of what I was taught turned out to be false - and I see exactly those sorts of statements on the board - so I don't think our ignorance, hubris, and assumptions have generally changed very much. But it was undoubtedly worse during the war. You can read books and see a wonderful movie about the Nazi takeover of the "largest heavy water production facility in the world" in Norway. And that facility did exist, was sabotaged, was indeed restored rapidly to production because of the forsight of storing replacement separators, and involved a horrible sacrifice of civilians when a ferry was sunk to prevent its product from reaching Germany. The only thing wrong with the story is the "world's largest" claim - which belonged - and ALWAYS belonged - to the Noguchi plant at what we call Hungnam (but Japan called Konan in that period). Nogouchi was a remarkable man - and not least of his talents was a grasp of science and matters technical. He had a source of almost free electrical power - a TVA scale hydro plant system which was - and remains to this day - the world's most efficient (due to the gigantic static head) - ideal for hydrolosys of water. He understood that heavy water meant the possibility of natural uranium reactors - and personal wealth (heavy water is usually very expensive). The actual industrial, scientific and technical history of Japan in that era is littered with instances where we had no clue what they had, and where what they had was leading the world. So while the industrial capacity of many sorts was lower, in some cases (this is only one - there are others) it was larger. It is neither respectful of factual history nor useful to edify students of strategy to make sweeping statements which, because they are not properly qualified, are quite false - and tend to prejudice listeners to think the situation was far more one sided than it was. Japan suffered far more from its lack of organization - or rather from its too numerous competative organizations not pulling together in a common way - than ever it did from lack of resources. Nations at war usually lose because they defeat themselves - we are no exception to that - and we regularly proove we can screw up a contest in spite of vast industrial and technical resources. It is a wholly unwise policy to assume and believe the enemy must be weak. If you are wrong you can be badly hurt. It is much better policy to assume the enemy is competent, organized and dangerous. If you are wrong, at least it won't hurt you. I always am surprised by how little the enemy did compared to what he might have done - in real situations. But I always think in terms of what he might do/could do - because that is the path of wisdom.

[Mike Scholl]

I don't think in general we are that far from agreement on most things. We just look at things from different sides and through different lenses.

[trollelite]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: trollelite

Jap military in 1941 is basically a world war I type, prepared to fight another great war or even Russo-Japanese war 1904-05. In this meaning, they could be called as French Army East Asian Version.

Quite true. The US military in 1941 was not even prepared to fight another great war. Only one division was in fair shape - the Hawaii Division. Even Gen Patton was writing why a man on a horse was harder to hit with a bullet than a man on foot. The Two Ocean Navy was being funded - but we had a lot of shipyards yet to build - and the rate of steel production was very slow to change. We planned to build 100,000 aircraft - but were still building handfuls of P-43s and would START making an even less capable P-66 a year later. The US divided control of merchant ships between three different bureaucracies - Army - Navy and Civil - just like Japan. Many professional soldiers expected to be hurt badly - and in 1942 (not 1941) my mother was trained to make cameras and developer from household chemicals - in case we had NO industrial capability during an invasion! She was (with her entire class - the first enlisted women in the US military) put into B-17s and asked to identify things on the ground - "to free a man to be a combat aviator". If things didn't get as bad as expected, it was not irrational to be concerned they might. So lets not pretend that we were some sort of WWII superman - in 1941.

U.S. could afford to make all these blunders, Japan simply could not. She could fight the war very effectively, far more effective than history, just as some Jap players do in our game. Despite this change victory is never guaranteed.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

I don't think in general we are that far from agreement on most things. We just look at things from different sides and through different lenses.

This is also my impression. You are one of the most likely to use qualifiers and to conceed a point here and there. And your initial position always has a foundation.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: trollelite

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: trollelite

Jap military in 1941 is basically a world war I type, prepared to fight another great war or even Russo-Japanese war 1904-05. In this meaning, they could be called as French Army East Asian Version.

Quite true. The US military in 1941 was not even prepared to fight another great war. Only one division was in fair shape - the Hawaii Division. Even Gen Patton was writing why a man on a horse was harder to hit with a bullet than a man on foot. The Two Ocean Navy was being funded - but we had a lot of shipyards yet to build - and the rate of steel production was very slow to change. We planned to build 100,000 aircraft - but were still building handfuls of P-43s and would START making an even less capable P-66 a year later. The US divided control of merchant ships between three different bureaucracies - Army - Navy and Civil - just like Japan. Many professional soldiers expected to be hurt badly - and in 1942 (not 1941) my mother was trained to make cameras and developer from household chemicals - in case we had NO industrial capability during an invasion! She was (with her entire class - the first enlisted women in the US military) put into B-17s and asked to identify things on the ground - "to free a man to be a combat aviator". If things didn't get as bad as expected, it was not irrational to be concerned they might. So lets not pretend that we were some sort of WWII superman - in 1941.

U.S. could afford to make all these blunders, Japan simply could not. She could fight the war very effectively, far more effective than history, just as some Jap players do in our game. Despite this change victory is never guaranteed.

I must agree with you that "Japan simply could not" [afford to make all these blunders]. The Russo Japanese war is a case where Japan did much better management - against an opponent relatively as large then as the US was in WWII (ten to one economically speaking). Better management = better outcome.

And I further must agree with you that "victory is never guaranteed." In the case of Japan vs the Allies - not just the US but the US with friends - in the context that it must also maintain a major force watching (and eventually fighting) the Russians - victory is not very likely - whatever Japan does. Japan needs the Allies to screw up - to lose so many troops the politics shifts dramatically in the USA. [That is always possible too - and FDR and Gen Marshall worried about it - and at times had trouble raising the funds needed for the war - which was not popular enough to automatically finance itself]
Wars are more often lost than won - and Japan doomed itself by its policy/management. [So did Germany] What Japan might have done was take Hawaii - and offer to give it back - or neutralize it - just as Yamamoto wanted to do - as a way to end the war. IF it were going to cost too much to go to Japan - it might have worked. And of course, basing ops on Hawaii is very different than on San Francisco. Taking Hawaii changes the focus of the war itself - and makes contesting the SRA far less feasible for the USA. The problem with that strategy is - what if the effort to take Hawaii fails? For everything there is a price - and for every strategy there is some risk. Japan can never hope to take Washington DC and "dictate peace terms in the White House." I don't think it can take San Francisco (Nemo might disagree - and there were real fears and many rumors about an invasion of Southern California out of Mexico). But it can take Hawaii - or it could if it could get the Army to agree well before the op. Short of doing that - Japan might contest the SLOC - as it thought about but rarely did in strength. But sooner or later it is going to be a defensive campaign - with Japan just hoping that the attacks are ineffective enough to persuade its enemies to stop trying. That is not a forlorne hope - but it is always a long shot. It is better to have the initiative than to conceed it to the enemy - which a defensive campaign implies. But while Japan can take the SRA, Hawaii - possibly India (not as a colony but as an ally) - and perhaps even defeat China - what then? It cannot really defeat the USA - only hope the USA is too incompetent in its attempts to come back that it must conceed the contest. [War is really about psychology. "An enemy is only defeated when he is defeated in his mind" (Ceasar). Modern war is not just about the psychology of the opposing head of state, but also the opposing population. It IS possible to win a psychological victory - even if it is not objective necessity on paper: witness Viet Nam. Somehow the failed enemy offensive called Tet convinced the US population that the war could not be won!]

[trollelite]

Vietnam is very different thing. She could live, or die, could win, or lose. No one really cares. The war between big guys never ended that way.
 
And you compare a 1905 Russia vs. 1941 US, say they are equals.  They are not.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: trollelite

Vietnam is very different thing. She could live, or die, could win, or lose. No one really cares. The war between big guys never ended that way.

And you compare a 1905 Russia vs. 1941 US, say they are equals.  They are not.

Go back and reread what I said. Russia in 1905 is as big RELATIVE to Japan as the USA is RELATIVE to Japan in 1941: 10:1 - economically measured. It is probably even bigger in terms of military assets. Japan had no respect as a power in 1905 (but did afterward) - and the essential idea of fighting a more powerful nation at a great distance was the same.

As for Viet Nam - that is an irrational thing to say. Many people cared - and I was one of them. There are sound geostrategic reasons a defeat of that sort should not be permitted as a matter of national policy - regardless of your politics. If there was anything more foolish than fighting in Viet Nam, it fighting but not being willing to win. And my point remains: US popular opinion can force the end of a war - if it is unpopular enough - no matter how unwise it is as policy to be defeated.

[ChezDaJez]

What the Japanese had and when isn't as important as did it work well enough to be of use. It's fairly obvious at Midway that the IJN had nothing working in the area of "air search radars" from the "visual spotting formation" they assumed for air defense and the fact that the US Divebombers caught them with their pants down. Nor does their "surface search radar" appear to be a factor in the Soloman's fighting (their initial advantage is one of visual optics and night-fighting doctrine---and it errodes away as US radar sets and command doctrine improve).

Japan did have air search radars onboard ship that worked after Midway. The Shokaku detected aircraft on her radar (Lundstrom, "The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign", page 124) during the Battle of Eastern Solomons in Aug 1942.

What they didn't have until late-war was a fighter direction equivalent so they had no means to interpret and plot the tracks for air intercept. Of course, their ship-air communications system left a bit to be desired also.

Chez

[el cid again]

That actually may not be the case. The first AA control center for warship use was designed before the war - for the Shimikaze class - which was building then the war began. It is likely that this AAFDC was able to direct fighter interception. It also is likely that an anti-air control center was built into later carrier types - e.g. Taiho and Shinano and Unryu classes. The IJN took air defense very seriously BEFORE WWII began - and its PRE WAR AA training simulators were superior to anything in any other country at any time during the war (see On Air Defense). The design of AA cruisers (there were several kinds - including modifications like Isuzu - and a Mogami type) and destroyers are clear indications of this serious interest. Not that these were ideal designs. Neither were ours - we later reduced the number of 5 inch on our AA cruisers from 16 to 12 - but actually increased their effectiveness in the process. Radar was not well integrated in any Navy - not even the German one that introduced it first - at least not in the eyes of a person trained a generation after the war.

I think that the outcomes of battles combine with ignorance of ships plans and operating methods to cause false conclusions along the lines of "they didn't have" - when it isn't the case. What is the case is that IJN air defense was not well integrated in by LATER USN standards. Anyone who thinks EARLY USN standards were high should contemplate Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea and Midway. [If PH seems an unfair charge - defense was an Army responsibility after all - nevertheless it was the Navy that had hours of warning and failed to call to the colors or tell the Army the enemy was very close indeed. And the naval air stations did not cover themselves in glory either - because in part there were no effective air defense centers on them. The Army was trying to bring up one - but its almost untrained people didn't do well either.] But not effective and non-existent are not the same thing.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

What the Japanese had and when isn't as important as did it work well enough to be of use. It's fairly obvious at Midway that the IJN had nothing working in the area of "air search radars" from the "visual spotting formation" they assumed for air defense and the fact that the US Divebombers caught them with their pants down. Nor does their "surface search radar" appear to be a factor in the Soloman's fighting (their initial advantage is one of visual optics and night-fighting doctrine---and it errodes away as US radar sets and command doctrine improve).

Japan did have air search radars onboard ship that worked after Midway. The Shokaku detected aircraft on her radar (Lundstrom, "The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign", page 124) during the Battle of Eastern Solomons in Aug 1942.

Good point Chez..This is also reflected by Richard B Frank in GUADALCANAL, and he describes the event as a rare moment in history when the Japanese air search RADAR worked better than that on the American carriers.
I was kinda surprised to read that.

What they didn't have until late-war was a fighter direction equivalent so they had no means to interpret and plot the tracks for air intercept. Of course, their ship-air communications system left a bit to be desired also.

Chez

[el cid again]

RHS CVO AI vs AI test for the next version - in which Japan is set similarly to the Allies -

BUT in with NEITHER side honors the ramping rule (AI being too dumb to turn planes on - all factories are set to repair)

we get:

Initial: Japan 350 capacity Allies 733 capacity
2 Feb: Japan 550 capacity Allies 943 capacity
21 Mar: Japan 599 capacity Allies 959 capacity
15 May: Japan 628 capacity Allies 1001 capacity


Now in both cases the capacity is higher than it should be on all dates after initial: the fully repaired factories when new types cut in insures a slightly too high capacity at any given later date. The Japanese will want to stop producing obsolete types, and that will dramatically (albiet temporairily) reduce production capacity. Nor do the Japanese EVER produce near capacity - due to engine and HI and probably supply considerations. Some locations capacity is either never used at all - or only very marginally used. But being strictly historical, CVO has the factories where they "should" be - even if they don't work well in WITP game mechanics terms. The Allies never have engine problems, almost never have HI or supply problems, and never convert a line manually (setting it back to 0 production). Nevertheless - these are baseline values that crudely indicate how the game will go: The Allies start out better than 2:1 - and dip to about 1.6 to 1 - before building back. In CVO they should achieve 3:1 rather sooner than in EOS family - which occures about the end of 1943 there.

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

That actually may not be the case. The first AA control center for warship use was designed before the war - for the Shimikaze class - which was building then the war began. It is likely that this AAFDC was able to direct fighter interception. It also is likely that an anti-air control center was built into later carrier types - e.g. Taiho and Shinano and Unryu classes. The IJN took air defense very seriously BEFORE WWII began - and its PRE WAR AA training simulators were superior to anything in any other country at any time during the war (see On Air Defense). The design of AA cruisers (there were several kinds - including modifications like Isuzu - and a Mogami type) and destroyers are clear indications of this serious interest. Not that these were ideal designs. Neither were ours - we later reduced the number of 5 inch on our AA cruisers from 16 to 12 - but actually increased their effectiveness in the process. Radar was not well integrated in any Navy - not even the German one that introduced it first - at least not in the eyes of a person trained a generation after the war.

I think that the outcomes of battles combine with ignorance of ships plans and operating methods to cause false conclusions along the lines of "they didn't have" - when it isn't the case. What is the case is that IJN air defense was not well integrated in by LATER USN standards. Anyone who thinks EARLY USN standards were high should contemplate Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea and Midway. [If PH seems an unfair charge - defense was an Army responsibility after all - nevertheless it was the Navy that had hours of warning and failed to call to the colors or tell the Army the enemy was very close indeed. And the naval air stations did not cover themselves in glory either - because in part there were no effective air defense centers on them. The Army was trying to bring up one - but its almost untrained people didn't do well either.] But not effective and non-existent are not the same thing.

They may have taken air defense seriously but their solution was effectively nonexistant. Japan failed to develop an integrated air defense during the early war for a variety of reasons including inadequate AA suites onboard ships, no dedicated fighter directors, supbar (and often non-existant) ship-air communications and naval formations that were too spread out to sufficiently protect the HVUs. They simply failed to put the pieces together until they had nothing left to protect.

US air defense was also poor early war... one need only study the Marshall Islands raids in Feb 42 to see that. The difference between the US and Japan though was that the US used their poor air defense performance in the Marshalls as a wake-up call and effected serious upgrades to their AA defense doctrine and equipment (including IFF) within a very short time. The rest of 1942 provided a steep learning curve for the US but learn they did and from 1943 on, they had the finest TF air defense system in place. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough.

Chez

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

ORIGINAL: el cid again

That actually may not be the case. The first AA control center for warship use was designed before the war - for the Shimikaze class - which was building then the war began. It is likely that this AAFDC was able to direct fighter interception. It also is likely that an anti-air control center was built into later carrier types - e.g. Taiho and Shinano and Unryu classes. The IJN took air defense very seriously BEFORE WWII began - and its PRE WAR AA training simulators were superior to anything in any other country at any time during the war (see On Air Defense). The design of AA cruisers (there were several kinds - including modifications like Isuzu - and a Mogami type) and destroyers are clear indications of this serious interest. Not that these were ideal designs. Neither were ours - we later reduced the number of 5 inch on our AA cruisers from 16 to 12 - but actually increased their effectiveness in the process. Radar was not well integrated in any Navy - not even the German one that introduced it first - at least not in the eyes of a person trained a generation after the war.

I think that the outcomes of battles combine with ignorance of ships plans and operating methods to cause false conclusions along the lines of "they didn't have" - when it isn't the case. What is the case is that IJN air defense was not well integrated in by LATER USN standards. Anyone who thinks EARLY USN standards were high should contemplate Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea and Midway. [If PH seems an unfair charge - defense was an Army responsibility after all - nevertheless it was the Navy that had hours of warning and failed to call to the colors or tell the Army the enemy was very close indeed. And the naval air stations did not cover themselves in glory either - because in part there were no effective air defense centers on them. The Army was trying to bring up one - but its almost untrained people didn't do well either.] But not effective and non-existent are not the same thing.

They may have taken air defense seriously but their solution was effectively nonexistant. Japan failed to develop an integrated air defense during the early war for a variety of reasons including inadequate AA suites onboard ships, no dedicated fighter directors, supbar (and often non-existant) ship-air communications and naval formations that were too spread out to sufficiently protect the HVUs. They simply failed to put the pieces together until they had nothing left to protect.

US air defense was also poor early war... one need only study the Marshall Islands raids in Feb 42 to see that. The difference between the US and Japan though was that the US used their poor air defense performance in the Marshalls as a wake-up call and effected serious upgrades to their AA defense doctrine and equipment (including IFF) within a very short time. The rest of 1942 provided a steep learning curve for the US but learn they did and from 1943 on, they had the finest TF air defense system in place. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough.

Chez

I cannot disagree with these generally cogent observations/opinions - except insofar as the USN NEVER developed adequate air defenses. The late war air threat was regarded as horribly unacceptable - and a number of technical solutions were not completed in time. These included replacing the quad 40mm mountings with twin 3 inch of a new type (which were removed from ships as "ineffective" some years after they were introduced), development of a 6 inch AA cruiser (which ultimately prooved too expensive to use), and radar picket submarines (most of which didn't make it in time, and none of which worked out as hoped). According to J.F. Dunnigan, "the problem of the kamakaze was never really solved, and would still be a problem today." [I think he meant even in WWII era aircraft it would be a problem today - and if that is what he meant - he is right. Fleet defense is the primary focus of my specialty - anti-air warfare - and we had a devil of a time dealing with primitive ASCMs - which were regarded as "unstoppable" even though they are easier to stop than a kamakaze.] Omitting this point implies US air defense somehow ended up in good shape - and it did not. It was RELATIVELY better than IJN air defense. But late in the war Japan found even single aircraft (or more properly especially single aircraft) would penetrate - so a unit would launch a stream of attackers - a few minutes apart - and these never drew the attention a major raid did - so most would never face fighter opposition at all - and many would penetrate the unalerted AAA. [See in particular comments on the A6M5 and later zeros in attack roles] The US developed the bad habit (a big problem to this day) of "always radiate with everything possible" - a serious defect in terms of preserving the secrecy of the identiy or location of task groups (even in 1941 Japanese aircraft road the radio waves into Pearl Harbor - it was not an unknown concept - and by late in the war Japanese sailors had learned to use their radar in passive mode - because it had more range and yielded more information: see the remarks of the senior officer to survive from Shinano - she detected her hunter first - and but for misinterpretation of the data - could/should have evaded). Lets not perpetuate the legend "the US got everything right/nearly perfect - and there was little room left for improvement." With respect to fleet air defense, the problem was (quoting Dunnigan again) "never solved" - and it has never been solved since either. [I thought we had solved it in 1968 - and we defeated every aircraft and missile attack for the next four years. IDF defeated 54 out of 54 attacks a year after that - so I was overconfident. But a US frigate in the Persian Gulf - many years into a shooting war where 80% of the missiles hit bouys - so the idea the missiles somehow "knew" what ship they were hitting was clearly nonsense - a US frigate got hit so bad her back was broken. Her captain wrote a book in which he discloses he never had been trained to know how to even detect such attackers - had never attempted to use the systems on board to do so - and had none of his weapons stations manned. A 'solution' must include software - the training of the fleet - or it isn't a solution.]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
I cannot disagree with these generally cogent observations/opinions - except insofar as the USN NEVER developed adequate air defenses. The late war air threat was regarded as horribly unacceptable - and a number of technical solutions were not completed in time. These included replacing the quad 40mm mountings with twin 3 inch of a new type (which were removed from ships as "ineffective" some years after they were introduced), development of a 6 inch AA cruiser (which ultimately prooved too expensive to use), and radar picket submarines (most of which didn't make it in time, and none of which worked out as hoped). According to J.F. Dunnigan, "the problem of the kamakaze was never really solved, and would still be a problem today." [I think he meant even in WWII era aircraft it would be a problem today - and if that is what he meant - he is right. Fleet defense is the primary focus of my specialty - anti-air warfare - and we had a devil of a time dealing with primitive ASCMs - which were regarded as "unstoppable" even though they are easier to stop than a kamakaze.] Omitting this point implies US air defense somehow ended up in good shape - and it did not. It was RELATIVELY better than IJN air defense. But late in the war Japan found even single aircraft (or more properly especially single aircraft) would penetrate - so a unit would launch a stream of attackers - a few minutes apart - and these never drew the attention a major raid did - so most would never face fighter opposition at all - and many would penetrate the unalerted AAA. [See in particular comments on the A6M5 and later zeros in attack roles] The US developed the bad habit (a big problem to this day) of "always radiate with everything possible" - a serious defect in terms of preserving the secrecy of the identiy or location of task groups (even in 1941 Japanese aircraft road the radio waves into Pearl Harbor - it was not an unknown concept - and by late in the war Japanese sailors had learned to use their radar in passive mode - because it had more range and yielded more information: see the remarks of the senior officer to survive from Shinano - she detected her hunter first - and but for misinterpretation of the data - could/should have evaded). Lets not perpetuate the legend "the US got everything right/nearly perfect - and there was little room left for improvement." With respect to fleet air defense, the problem was (quoting Dunnigan again) "never solved" - and it has never been solved since either. [I thought we had solved it in 1968 - and we defeated every aircraft and missile attack for the next four years. IDF defeated 54 out of 54 attacks a year after that - so I was overconfident. But a US frigate in the Persian Gulf - many years into a shooting war where 80% of the missiles hit bouys - so the idea the missiles somehow "knew" what ship they were hitting was clearly nonsense - a US frigate got hit so bad her back was broken. Her captain wrote a book in which he discloses he never had been trained to know how to even detect such attackers - had never attempted to use the systems on board to do so - and had none of his weapons stations manned. A 'solution' must include software - the training of the fleet - or it isn't a solution.]

While I cannot argue with your basic statement (people on the recieving end regard no system as "adequate" if anything gets through)..., comparatively speaking the USN had the most effective system around in 1944-45. The Japanese were the first to make massive use of "guided missles" (Kamikazes), and while they were frightening to face, they were unable to effectively slow down the USN's progress...., so you would have to call it's air defenses "adequate". Not perfect, but adequate to the task at hand.

[el cid again]

It is not something we brag about - but we never came close to "adequate" anti-kamakaze defense - and that is what Dunnigan posted on FYEO. The life of a destroyer on the northern station off Okinawa was about two hours - before it was sunk or unfit for action. The defense was not able to prevent attacks even on carriers - neither by major strikes nor by leakers. The Navy was desparate to find better solutions - and many things were being worked on when the war ended. Some came to pass - some didn't - and of those that did - none worked out as hoped. The 5 inch and 3 inch and 6 inch guns were disappointments. The SAMs were disappointments. The radar pickets were disappointments. We are very lucky we never had to face Soviet attacks - and modern Russian attacks (with very large numbers of missiles PER PLANE would be much worse). The systems we wanted at various times either never came to pass at all (e.g. Typhoon) or were not built in numbers (we have - what - 6 SAM ships in experimental anti-ABM format?) Typhoon was the ONLY system ever designed to survive in a hostile jamming environment - and we never tried for it again. We KNOW the present systems are NOT secure - but we can pretend otherwise because no one is attacking and jamming at once. We are using a system at heart as bad as the first German ASMs - with radio command. The new systems don't even ride the beam - they are purely radio command. I won't go into more detail - but I assert Dunnigan - privy to the top level advisors of USN - is perfectly 100% dead on correct. We never solved that problem - and it remains unsolved.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

It is not something we brag about - but we never came close to "adequate" anti-kamakaze defense - and that is what Dunnigan posted on FYEO. The life of a destroyer on the northern station off Okinawa was about two hours - before it was sunk or unfit for action. The defense was not able to prevent attacks even on carriers - neither by major strikes nor by leakers. The Navy was desparate to find better solutions - and many things were being worked on when the war ended. Some came to pass - some didn't - and of those that did - none worked out as hoped. The 5 inch and 3 inch and 6 inch guns were disappointments. The SAMs were disappointments. The radar pickets were disappointments. We are very lucky we never had to face Soviet attacks - and modern Russian attacks (with very large numbers of missiles PER PLANE would be much worse). The systems we wanted at various times either never came to pass at all (e.g. Typhoon) or were not built in numbers (we have - what - 6 SAM ships in experimental anti-ABM format?) Typhoon was the ONLY system ever designed to survive in a hostile jamming environment - and we never tried for it again. We KNOW the present systems are NOT secure - but we can pretend otherwise because no one is attacking and jamming at once. We are using a system at heart as bad as the first German ASMs - with radio command. The new systems don't even ride the beam - they are purely radio command. I won't go into more detail - but I assert Dunnigan - privy to the top level advisors of USN - is perfectly 100% dead on correct. We never solved that problem - and it remains unsolved.

My point was that if the USN's "air defense system" hadn't been "adequate" in 1944-45, then the invasions at Okinawa and Iwo Jima would have been driven off by the Kamikazes. They weren't..., so the system was "adequate". Not as good as we wanted or hoped or thought it would be, but "adequate". As this is a WW II forum, I'll leave the post-war speculation to you and JFD.

[herwin]

Morse and Kimball go into this. The operational analysis included 477 cases where a Japanese plane was headed towards a specific ship. 172 hit, sinking 27 ships.

Class Attacks Percent hits
BB/CA/CL 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD/APD/DM/DMS 241 36%
AP/APA/AKA/AKN 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small craft 37 22%

For large units, manoeuvring decreased the percentage of hits. For small units, it was the reverse, due to the resulting degradation of their AA.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again

It is not something we brag about - but we never came close to "adequate" anti-kamakaze defense - and that is what Dunnigan posted on FYEO. The life of a destroyer on the northern station off Okinawa was about two hours - before it was sunk or unfit for action. The defense was not able to prevent attacks even on carriers - neither by major strikes nor by leakers. The Navy was desparate to find better solutions - and many things were being worked on when the war ended. Some came to pass - some didn't - and of those that did - none worked out as hoped. The 5 inch and 3 inch and 6 inch guns were disappointments. The SAMs were disappointments. The radar pickets were disappointments. We are very lucky we never had to face Soviet attacks - and modern Russian attacks (with very large numbers of missiles PER PLANE would be much worse). The systems we wanted at various times either never came to pass at all (e.g. Typhoon) or were not built in numbers (we have - what - 6 SAM ships in experimental anti-ABM format?) Typhoon was the ONLY system ever designed to survive in a hostile jamming environment - and we never tried for it again. We KNOW the present systems are NOT secure - but we can pretend otherwise because no one is attacking and jamming at once. We are using a system at heart as bad as the first German ASMs - with radio command. The new systems don't even ride the beam - they are purely radio command. I won't go into more detail - but I assert Dunnigan - privy to the top level advisors of USN - is perfectly 100% dead on correct. We never solved that problem - and it remains unsolved.

My point was that if the USN's "air defense system" hadn't been "adequate" in 1944-45, then the invasions at Okinawa and Iwo Jima would have been driven off by the Kamikazes. They weren't..., so the system was "adequate". Not as good as we wanted or hoped or thought it would be, but "adequate". As this is a WW II forum, I'll leave the post-war speculation to you and JFD.

The Battle for Okinawa is the only major battle involving both services in US history in which the Navy lost more casualties than the Army. It was by far our worst showing in PTO - and it is thought by one at least Truman scholar (Bernstein) to have convinced him not to permit Operation Olympic to proceed in any case. The administration - and the Navy - knew that we risked losing political support for continuing the war if we didn't lower the attrition rate. And we knew that the attrition rate would be much worse as we reduced the range to enemy bases: Okinawa was a much more difficult air target than Kyushu would be. After the war we learned about the number of aircraft - and some other air weapons - which we didn't know about in 1945 - and we concluded things might have been exactly as Japanese strategists hoped for: so expensive we would leave and go home. Now this is one of the "dirty little secrets" of WWII - a deliberate reference to a book by Dunnigan of that title although not a quote from it (at least not that I remember). It is one of the things AAW types study at the Fleet Anti Air Warfare Training Center - lest we be victims of the usual "Americans are best hubris" so widely believed in patriotic circles. Fleet air defense is in some ways very easy - insofar as the enemy rarely can hide behind mountains (San Carlos Water was an exception) from our sensors - and we are usually presented with ideal "constant bearing decreasing range" targets. Nevertheless, we always understood that "saturation" of the air defense systems was a real possibility - and even given perfect performance - it was possible to calculate when it must occur - at levels most would consider alarming. This was far worse in the WWII period than today in some senses: guns today are about twice as efficient, fire control systems are far more efficient and timely, and we have somewhat functional SAMs. [Not only were there none in WWII - our first generation didn't work at all: see When The Birds Didn't Fly - US Naval Institute Proceedings] During Viet Nam, we averaged 60 rounds per kill (for SAM systems) - twice the loadout carried by my DDG. We were able to address that to some extent - but the point remains that if we lack the ability to prevent saturation at low levels today - we certainly lacked it in WWII. We finally got fancy phased array radar (sort of fire control and search and height finging all in one package) to work - but we never did get the birds we originally intended to work with it - and we are so worried about commanding them modern US AAW ships carry "illuminators" that no longer have the original function of SPG radars: they are simply high powered transmitters it is HOPED MIGHT send commands through in a jamming situation. The only good news for the defense is this: it is not easy to mount an effective saturation air attack - and it has never been done. But our bad habit - dating from the general issue of radar during WWII - of "always radiate with everything" means that finding us is (and was in WWII) far easier than it should be. [A few courageous admirals who did NATO games by being quiet were able to survive - even in the Med - because the land or sea based "enemy" could not find them - but those lessons are now forgotten]

It was the specific doctrine of Gen Marshall (the historian, not the WWII COS) that "we cannot learn from our mistakes unless we tell the truth - in particular the unpleasant technical truths which are politically unpopular." I always respected his dictim: figure out what the problem really is, and use that as the basis to figure out what to do about it. UNLESS we admit this - generally - on a consensus basis - there is ZERO chance the Navy will EVER get a proper SAM system - because it is expensive to build something like Typhoon (or to retrofit with Patriot - which was considered but rejected on cost grounds). As long as many believe the myth "we have adequate fleet air defense" we will continue to put our sailors in harms way at grave risk of catastrophic losses - provided we ever meet an enemy organized enough to mount out a saturation air attack - of any kind - even with WWII Kates and Vals vs today's ships. [It takes more of them than jets or rockets - but not enough more to mean it cannot be done] At least in WWII ships mounted multiple, redundant weapons and sensors. Today a typical "warship" in USN has one of everything - or else maybe two close in weapons of some kind. Not for us the Russian principle (two close in weapons PER QUARTER - eight per ship) or the Chinese principle (three per QUARTER - referring to the carrier design). We took the AAW capability out of our former DP 5 inch guns - never mind that guns are far more efficient today than in WWII - at least a ship then had several or many guns to play with. And don't get me started on our CWIS - which was specified in my era in two forms: 20 mm "war emergency" for Viet Nam and 30 mm for long term service (to get knock down power). The 20mm gun existed - for the F-4 - and the 30mm didn't - so we could not get it fast. Well - we NEVER got the 20 mm in service at all for the war - it took 11 years. And while the 30 mm got built - for the A-10 - it NEVER was fitted to Phalanx - never mind we designed it for that gun - and never mind USEC DEF Fred Ikle wrote "you are probably right" that we should still retrofit to the original standard - we NEVER got it at all. Live fire tests (vs ships we were willing to sink) eventually showed our theory - that 20mm would destroy the missile or jet but not prevent the flaming mass from hitting the ship with catistrophic consequences in this age of unarmored ships - were correct. But there is zero interest in buying a weapon with knock down power - because the myth is so nice - "fleet air defense is adequate" - we don't need to spend the money. IF we must sail in harms way - I first impress on the commanders how vulnerable we are - and THAT is why we dare not run around broadcasting on every possible equipment "here we are, this is who we are, track us, organize your attack at your convenience" - and certainly we should not be transmitting TACAN signals which automatically give bearing and range to hundreds of aircraft (or missiles) at one time (unless we want to consider buying a TACAN deception device - nah - that costs money).