Failure of the Japanese to learn from WWII Europe air war (2+ years of time)...

[rockmedic109]

ORIGINAL: wwengr

ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Funny - if Japan industry was third rate - which one was second rate?

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
How did they do so WELL? Let's see..., they suprised and jumped several powers who by circumstance or agreement were forced to fight them with one hand tied behind their backs by the War in Europe.

What really USA had in Europe in 1941-1943? So is it better to say that they had at most tied a finger?

They did this by cutting back on lots of other needed items.

Like? Name only important things.

Lend-Lease -

• 50 Destroyers to the UK in 1941
• 1,981 Locomotives to the USSR through the War
• 18,700 Aircraft to the USSR
• Hundreds of thousadns of trucks to Britain and the USSR
• Tanks, rifles, munitions, machineguns, etc.

Through the war there were 1400 merchant ships engaged in the Arctic Convoys, how many vessels of all types were in the Pacific?

Wellllllll......the 50 destroyers were old four pipers. When the Brits expended one {Cambletown...sp?} in an effort to blow up the dry dock at St. Nazaire, one British Admiral said it was the best use for them.

[mdiehl]

True, the US contribution wouldn't have been much different in 1942, but after that? Japan was a third rate power trying to ride Germany's coat tails.

I do not think that is fair to the Japanese. They did not receive any particular assistance from Germany and achieved all their gains quite well on their own. Moreover, without a European war there still would not have been a whole lot more assets available for the PTO in 1942. True, those 4-stackers we loaned to the UK could have done great service in the early months of 1942 (Balikpapan redux), but the plane fact (pun intended) is that the Allies had little logistical capability outside of continental Australia, the US and the Hawaiian islands, and not too many aicraft. In the end it was Japanese airpower that allowed the Japanese to isolate Malaya, Indonesia, the Phillippines, and the central Pacific islands, and I can't see how in 1942 the US could have changed much of that. Even with an early successful Midway style op that trades an American CV or two for six Japanese CVs, at most the US could have, umm, dented any line of advance, until August 1942. For ex, the US might interfere very well with any Japanese ops in the Marshalls, with carriers, but who would the US have put on the ground there?

[mdiehl]

What really USA had in Europe in 1941-1943? So is it better to say that they had at most tied a finger?

In 1941-1942 the US had scarcely mobilized at all. The US did not put lots of troops on the ground in Europe until November 1942 because the US didn't have the divisions to put there. It was a major concession by the JCS to allow CINCPac to accelerate the deployment of the 1st USMC division, and later to divert the Americal division from MacArthur's ops in New Guinea to Guadalcanal.

Bear further in mind that in September 1939, when the European war started, by comparison, the Polish army had more field-ready divisions than the United States army, and the Rumanian air force had more combat planes than the USAAF. From 1939-late 1942, the US was primarily a naval power. A large, fully mobilized army of ground units had not existed in the United States since 1865.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
Right! Britian, France, and Holland were all free to concentrate their efforts and forces in the Pacific.

Sorry: France - with army consisting of 2 BRIGADES? Navy not much better: one Battleship, few destroyers, submarines and littorials - you call it a superpower?

And you call Holland a superpower?

And Russia - I need to remind you that Russians were not fighting Japanese until it was almost all over.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I do not think that is fair to the Japanese. They did not receive any particular assistance from Germany and achieved all their gains quite well on their own.

The "Seetakt", "Freya" and "Wurzburg" existed from late 1930's... Germans just didn't want to share their technology with Japanese (even though they were nominal allies the Germans disliked the "little yellow men" almost as much as US/UK/Dutch inhabitants after the Japanese attacked starting with Pearl Harbor)... just remember who made the famous line "Yellow Peril"... it was old German Keiser...


Leo "Apollo11"

[mdiehl]

Exactly. With respect to actuall assistance, Japan received bupkis from Germany, until it became clear in Germany that the Allies were winning in Europe. At that point, technical assistance was provided to Japan in the hope that Japan could distract the Allies long enough to allow Germany to concoct some sort of new formula for victory or else to compel a negotiated peace.

There's a really good commentary in The Onion: Our Dumb Century on the Tripartite Alliance. As I recall, the byline was "Japanese Ally with White Supremecists in Well-thought-out Scheme."

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

The real question is, considering that Japan's industrial base was close to third rate (not quite second) is how did they did so well?

By having a first rate military and a good operational plan. The weakness of her industrial base began to tell as the war extended....an occurance that was accelerated mid-war by poor choices from the upper command echelons. They threw away their one card.

Were the Allies in the Pacific weak in 1941? yes. So were the Russians when Germany attacked. Obviously given the choice, one would prefer to attack an opponent when they are weak vs. when they are strong. Would the Japanese and German offensives have still won? Probably...but the cost would have been higher. The Japanese and certain German leaders were themselves suprised at the level of success acheived at small cost on their respective Fronts. Underestimation of one's opponent was not a small factor either.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: crsutton

The real question is, considering that Japan's industrial base was close to third rate (not quite second) is how did they did so well?

By having a first rate military and a good operational plan. The weakness of her industrial base began to tell as the war extended....an occurance that was accelerated mid-war by poor choices from the upper command echelons. They threw away their one card.

Were the Allies in the Pacific weak in 1941? yes. So were the Russians when Germany attacked. Obviously given the choice, one would prefer to attack an opponent when they are weak vs. when they are strong. Would the Japanese and German offensives have still won? Probably...but the cost would have been higher. The Japanese and certain German leaders were themselves suprised at the level of success acheived at small cost on their respective Fronts. Underestimation of one's opponent was not a small factor either.

Commitment to purpose hides a multitude of weaknesses.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

True, the US contribution wouldn't have been much different in 1942, but after that? Japan was a third rate power trying to ride Germany's coat tails.

I do not think that is fair to the Japanese. They did not receive any particular assistance from Germany and achieved all their gains quite well on their own. Moreover, without a European war there still would not have been a whole lot more assets available for the PTO in 1942.

And I will contend that without the War in Europe, Japan would have just kept piddling around in China. Without the distraction of Russia (whom they feared) and to the Royal Navy (whom they respected), tackling the US (who was in the process of constructing a larger Navy than Japan had, and already in posession of one as big as Japan could build) would have seemed a pretty grim prospect. Not to mention that without the distraction of a war in Europe, all the colonies Japan coveted would have had larger and better prepared garrisons.

[Dili]

What really USA had in Europe in 1941-1943? So is it better to say that they had at most tied a finger?

Let's see... the first big American Invasion was in North Africa Nov 1942...The second in Sicily Jul 43...

[mdiehl]

It's a reasonable contention. I only note that Japan had no expectation that Germany would DoW the US if Japan attacked the US. Also I note that Japan's ability to continue operations in China (I disagree with your characterization of their efforts as piddling -- the Japanese war effort in China was bleeding Japan dry economically) was destined to come to a screeching halt as soon as the west imposed the oil embargo. Natcherly, ABSENT a European war, Japan might have been able to obtain Caucasus oil from the USSR, or synthoil technology from Germany, in which event there may not have been a need to fight the west at all, while maintaining a high pace of operations in China.

My only point before was that Japan achieved what Japan did achieve on their own, without help from Germany, and there is probably very little that the Allies could have done differently to prevent such a Japanese expansion, with or without a European war, had the Japanese wished to start a war. It's not like for example that the US had substantially more a.c. to deploy to the Phillippines or Hawaii absent a European war. Likewise, most of British military power projection capability was well removed from Southeast Asia owing to sheer lack of infrastructure.

[Alfred]

Well if there was no war in Europe since September 1939, nor any prospect of one developing, the old Singapore strategy could have been fully implemented by the British.  With 300 modern fighters on the malay peninsula plus sufficient infantry to garrison all the British air bases (together with a properly prepared flying column to move into Thailand, not to mention a properly constituted British fleet in Singapore, its hard to see even Percival not being able to stop cold the Japanese.  Where then would Japan have moved in the DEI if Singapore and Malaya still held for the Allies.
 
Would an undefeated France have allowed Japan to take over bases in Indochina.  Were would the Nells which destroyed Force Z then have been based.  How easy would it have been to transit the South China Sea for Japanese convoys without those air bases being in Japanese hands?
 
Of course such Allied resources were not available because of the European war, but it just goes to show how Japan benefited from there being an European war.
 
Alfred 

[mdiehl]

All entirely valid considerations. Nonetheless, 'hanging on Germany's coattails strikes me as an inadequate metaphor.'
 
I wonder, if Japan had made its intention to attack Britain very clear, whether France would have participated in any particular petroleoum boycott against the Japanese.

[bradfordkay]

That's an interesting point. Without the European war, French Indochina would not have been as ripe for the plucking. Certainly Japan could have taken it, but that would have caused the implementation of the Fortress Singapore buildup.

In order to pull this off, Japan would probably have needed to invade the PI, French Indochina, the NEI and Malaya nearly simultaneously. Now, that would be an interesting mod...

[Howard Mitchell]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Also, how much weight would proper armor for pilot and other vital parts of Japanese aircraft add?

How much would self-sealing gasoline tanks weight?

How much aircraft performance would suffer because of that?

Would center of mass shift so much to alter the aircraft behavior?

Would more powerful engines be needed or range would be sacrificed instead?

A report compiled by Commander Sheldon Brown, USN, in October 1945 from an interview with Japanese Army research metallurgist Major Koinumaru gave the following:

Ki-43 Hayabusa (Oscar)
Behind pilot’s head – 16mm
Behind pilot’s body – 16mm
Approximate weight of armour – 40 kg

Ki-44 Shoki (Tojo)
Behind pilot’s head – 16mm
Behind pilot’s body – 16mm
Approximate weight of armour – 40 kg

Ki-84 Hayate (Frank)
Behind pilot’s head – 8mm
Behind pilot’s body – 16mm
Approximate weight of armour – 40 kg

The Japanese had investigated double or triple layers of armour with the optimum distance between being equal to two bullet lengths and the Ki-84’s armour appears to have been an example of this; all the other where one single sheet. The table in Brown’s document does not state the exact model of aircraft but they were presumably late-war versions. Other sources give 13mm pilot armour for the Ki-84, and it had a 65mm thick armoured glass windscreen and self-sealing tanks.

No use was made of deflector plates as in American and British aircraft. In comparison, a Spitfire V in 1942 had:

6mm steel armour behind the pilot’s head and knees, front header tank and in front of the magazines in the wings
4mm steel armour on the front fuel tank, base of windscreen and back seat
10 swg alcad deflector plates on the top and side of the fuel tanks and the top and bottom of the magazines
8 swg dural deflector on the bottom of the pilot’s seat
41mm armoured windscreen
Self-sealing fuel tanks

Unfortunately I don’t have a weight for all of this, but it shows how deflection armour was built in to the design.

Looking at American aircraft, the P-40E had two pieces of armour, one forward and one behind the pilot, the front one 10mm and the back 8mm. They totalled 111 pounds. On the P-40F armour weighed 149 lbs, on the P-40K 136 lbs, and on the P-40N 130 lbs. Armour was therefore between 50 and 68 Kg

The F-4U had a 25 lb cowl deck to deflect gunfire with was 3mm thick. 53 lb armour protected the pilot from behind. The huge R-2800 engine was considered armour enough against frontal fire together with an armoured windscreen. Total armour was therefore around 35 Kg. The self-sealing tanks cost an extra 177 lbs (80Kg).

Performance was certainly reduced by armour, but it would depend on the amount carried, the overall weight of the aircraft, and the engine power available, so it is difficult to make general statements. Weight allocated to armour could not be used for fuel or bombs and so range and payload would also suffer (this was the reason why RAF Bomber Command resisted attempts to equip it with heavily armoured aircraft such as the armoured Lancaster proposed in June 1941).

[Howard Mitchell]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Would center of mass shift so much to alter the aircraft behavior?

Not too much. Armour was concentrated round the pilot, who usually sat near the centre of gravity. Bothe Spitfire and Hurricane originally flew without armour, but it was possible to add it later without much difficulty.

For aircraft other than single-engined fighters it could be more difficult though. The Me-410 had problems with poor armor around its engines because its balance would have been too badly affected if more had been added. Extending the armour on the originally single-crewed IL-2 to cover the added rear gunner made it necessary to alter the wing plan as the c-of-g shifted backwards.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Thanks for info! [:)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Barb]

40kg of armor in light aircraft powered with weaker engine is much more than 40kg in heavy aircraft powered with powerfull engine in the end.
In other words same amount of armor in light aircraft will hamper it much more than in the heavy aircraft.

[witpqs]

True. Useful measures then would be (% of total weight) and (thrust to armor weight ratio).

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Howard Mitchell

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Would center of mass shift so much to alter the aircraft behavior?

Not too much. Armour was concentrated round the pilot, who usually sat near the centre of gravity. Bothe Spitfire and Hurricane originally flew without armour, but it was possible to add it later without much difficulty.

For aircraft other than single-engined fighters it could be more difficult though. The Me-410 had problems with poor armor around its engines because its balance would have been too badly affected if more had been added. Extending the armour on the originally single-crewed IL-2 to cover the added rear gunner made it necessary to alter the wing plan as the c-of-g shifted backwards.

I had read that the rear gunner was usually from the gulag or other prison systems, and they didn't bother armouring his position.