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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I guess what I'm saying is that I believe his statement of the results and I believe it was generally normal ops. I'm just not at all convinced that knocking down "only 53" a.c. with flak by Sept 1943 is an inappropriate result. The Japanese were not proficient at it. They didn't have anything like the radar nets used to defend land installations that could have sections firing at targets of known elevation and speed with lots of advanced warning, as was the case in the UK. Their ships had the crudest possible AAA fire control, lacked redundancy in range finders and directors, had poorly placed AAA armament, used poorly designed guns with poor rof and poor turret traverse. They weren't known to be flak monsters in the slightest.

I wouldn't be surprised if USS South Dakota shot down more Japanese a.c. using flak just at the Battle of Santa Cruz than the entire IJN shot down up to that point in in the war.

ORIGINAL: Big B

Nice to see you again mdiehl [8D]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I guess what I'm saying is that I believe his statement of the results and I believe it was generally normal ops. I'm just not at all convinced that knocking down "only 53" a.c. with flak by Sept 1943 is an inappropriate result. The Japanese were not proficient at it. They didn't have anything like the radar nets used to defend land installations that could have sections firing at targets of known elevation and speed with lots of advanced warning, as was the case in the UK. Their ships had the crudest possible AAA fire control, lacked redundancy in range finders and directors, had poorly placed AAA armament, used poorly designed guns with poor rof and poor turret traverse. They weren't known to be flak monsters in the slightest.

I wouldn't be surprised if USS South Dakota shot down more Japanese a.c. using flak just at the Battle of Santa Cruz than the entire IJN shot down up to that point in in the war.

*** IGNORED *** - 2/21/2012 2:36:42 PM

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Big B

Nice to see you again mdiehl [8D]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

I guess what I'm saying is that I believe his statement of the results and I believe it was generally normal ops. I'm just not at all convinced that knocking down "only 53" a.c. with flak by Sept 1943 is an inappropriate result. The Japanese were not proficient at it. They didn't have anything like the radar nets used to defend land installations that could have sections firing at targets of known elevation and speed with lots of advanced warning, as was the case in the UK. Their ships had the crudest possible AAA fire control, lacked redundancy in range finders and directors, had poorly placed AAA armament, used poorly designed guns with poor rof and poor turret traverse. They weren't known to be flak monsters in the slightest.

I wouldn't be surprised if USS South Dakota shot down more Japanese a.c. using flak just at the Battle of Santa Cruz than the entire IJN shot down up to that point in in the war.

Agreed! [:D]

*** IGNORED *** - 2/21/2012 2:36:42 PM

The most significant losses for the Japanese Navy, however, were in aircrew. The U.S. lost 81 aircraft along with 26 pilots and aircrew members in the battle.[75] The Japanese, on the other hand, lost 99 aircraft and 148 pilots and aircrew members including two dive bomber group leaders, three torpedo squadron leaders, and 18 other section or flight leaders. Forty-nine percent of the Japanese torpedo bomber aircrews involved in the battle were killed along with 39% of the dive bomber crews and 20% of the fighter pilots.[76] The Japanese lost more aircrew at Santa Cruz than they had lost in each of the three previous carrier battles at Coral Sea (90), Midway (110), and Eastern Solomons (61).

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Big B

Nice to see you again mdiehl [8D]

Agreed! [:D]

*** IGNORED *** - 2/21/2012 2:36:42 PM

Actually, a long time ago somebody posted here the official after action report by the Captain of the SD (or the TF commander) for the battle of Santa Cruz. He was very critical of the ship's and TF's AA fire and found it to be very lacking. He cited the poor performance of the 5 inch guns and poor fire control and coordination of all guns. Apparently they did not shoot down very much. These deficiencies were quickly remedied by the American Navy and their AA fire soon became lethal but the take away here is that even at this stage of the war American AA was not that good.

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Japanese flak was remarkably ineffective, IRL.

The overall loss rate for Navy and Marine aircraft on action sorties was 1.5 percent. Of
the losses on action sorties, 47 percent resulted from enemy antiaircraft, 21 percent from combat
with enemy aircraft and 32 percent from operational causes. The loss rate on action sorties
by carrier aircraft was 2.0 percent (49% to antiaircraft, 16% to enemy aircraft, and 35$ operational
causes). The action loss rate for land-based aircraft was only 1.0 percent of sorties;
this difference reflects the greater employment of carrier aircraft against heavily defended
advanced tarEets, while a major employment of land-based planes was in clean-up operations
against by-passed enemy bases or secondary targets.

ORIGINAL: Quixote
This thread almost 3 years old,

ORIGINAL: RisingSun

Wondering if Germany had any effective fire controls shoot down aircrafts, if so why they didn't share that techs with Japan? Heard that German had some nice hardware to shoot down enemy planes.