mdiehl
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Joined: 10/21/2000
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quote:
No it had not "switched". It was switching.
What are we talking about here? You seemed to assert that the 4 plane section did not develop until after USN pilots encountered the Zeke. If that's what you mean then you're wrong. Doctrine was a 4-plane section prior to 7 Dec 1941. Thach and Flatley's use of a six plane section was an experiment to see whether or not "more makes better" in re the beam defense.
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The assertion I keep seeing is, "the Allied airforces knew how to fight the zero, so the zero bonus is bogus".
Fine but that is not the assertion that is being made. The assertion made is that whatever you think vis aircraft, pilots, training, and doctrine, the fact remains that historically AT NO POINT IN THE WAR did the A6M achieve kill ratios against the F4F that you see in WitP. One factor that contributes to this antihistorical outcome is the "Zero bonus."
The fact remains that in other respects USN pilots knew about mutual support and all were practicing it by the time that the IJN got at any of them. They were not all using the beam defense but the beam defense isn't the only support tactic. It never was. Heck it was only specifically designed as a countermove to be used by F4Fs who found themselves at a positional disadvantage.
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Certainly the AVG had developed energy tactics, and Thach's group had both set up the two plane divisions and the Thach weave, but from his words, I infer that the doctrine was not well established, certainly not before May of 42, and possibly later. As late as October of 42, there is evidence to suggest the doctrine was still being toyed with.
That's because you've confused the beam defense ('Thach weave') with USN/USMC doctrine. The beam defense was a specific tactic for use in specific combat circumstances. The doctrine of mutual support predated the final word on the beam defense by at least a year. That is why when you read "The First Team at Guadalcanal" you find USMC pilots saying that they (a) had not been trained in the Thach Weave, and (b) had been trained to give mutual support.
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First, Thach's quotes support the position that the US did not universally employ 4 plane divisions, nor had they perfected those tactics.
Name one battle in WW2 in which the USN did not use it. Just because Thach did not mention it specifically does not give you license to assume it was not used. The USN revised its formation in late 1941 primarily in response to more than a year of studies of UK pilots in the Battle of Britain. The USN was responding to new doctrinal information long before the USN was officially "at war."
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The four plane section advantage you claim was not enjoyed in late 41 and early 42.
That is not correct.
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One group developing a successful tactic does not imply all groups will immediately use it. The doctrine takes time to formulate, train, convince others of it's value, and then propogate.
And yet units not trained in the Thach Weave (which was a specific maneuver for a specific circumstance) flew mutual support. That is the point here. In a more general sense if you wanted to model how information about combatting ZEROS specifically got around you might look to a virus transmission model. Probably by August 1942 every Allied pilot had a general idea of "no no's" when faced with a zero.
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Your quotes have no bearing on the disucussion because they are from experiences derived 3 months after the bonus is already set to expire.
These guys did not just wake up on Guadalcanal and say "Jeez I think I'll rewrite doctrine t'day. Anyone want to join me? Sure Joe..." They had been substantially trained in mutual support all along.
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From Thach's statements, he clearly felt that the Thach weave was still being adopted and experimented with in late 42. People arguing that "they knew about the Zero" and the fact that a unit or two "knew how to fight it" means every unit in the Allied OOB did is just wrong.
Again, you seem to think the "Thach Weave" was the only tool in the box for fighting the Zero, and that the "Thach Weave" was the only form of mutual support. You keep saying things that suggest that you believe that if a unit had not been trained in the execution of the Thach Weave then it had no knowledge of how to fight Zeroes. If you mean anything remotely like that, then you are wholly, completely, and manifestly misinformed.
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Then you have not been reading. The movement afoot is to eliminate the zero bonus.
Its a good movement. The problem is that things attributed to the abstract "Zero bonus" may well be simply the consequence of lots of preparation and good logistics on Japan's part vs. shoestring logistics and inadequate preparation (lousy airfields, no reserves of spare parts, suddenness of Japanese attack) on the Allies' part. And against the USN Japan never achieved remotely the results routinely turned in by Zeroes in WitP.
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Read the title of the post, if nothing else will convine you. Your own post suggests that there should be a blanket elimination of the Zero bonus for USN/USMC airgroups. Do me a favor and at least be internally consistent in your posting.
Do me a favor and grow up. I advocate eliminating the Zero bonus in general because no one can make a substantive historical case that it should exist. The Zero trounced the F2A3 in Burma -- a match up that pits a plane that was superior in EVERY way (the A6M) against an inferior one --- and that relationship is correctly modeled in the planes' respective maneuverability and airspeed ratings. Despite that, people like you seem to think that this mismatch has something to do with something intangible generally involving "fear of the zero" or "arrogance and lack of intel briefs" or some other unsupported, wierd claim. Likewise when you look to Indonesia and northern Australia you find lots of P-40s shot down in landing formations or when taking off. Again, that has nothing to do with something abstract and godly about Japanese pilots or their planes. It is completely a consequence of immediate tactical positional advantage -- a characteristic t hat is alread modeled in the game.
My fall back position is that if it must be kept (in order to produce for the Japanese player, without requiring him to earn the result the way the real Japanese did, a 4:1-8:1 kill ratio in Indonesia), it should at minimum be eliminated when Japanese pilots face USMC/USN pilots. IRL, Zero pilots did not fare well when facing F4F pilots at any time during the war.
Even at Midway, the VMF pilots who had never been in combat, never seen a Zero, and never been trained in the beam defense shot down more A6Ms than they lost. That observation, along with an unfavorable kill ratio for the A6M facing F4F VF pilots, and a slightly favorable ratio at Guadalcanal (with an overall ratio of about 1.2:1 favoring the US) undermines any claim that the "Zero bonus" has any historical merit.
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Again, read the title of the post, straw man. Again, the issue is what happens in late 41 and early 42. What happens even in fall 42 is less important, because by suggesting elimination of the zero bonus, you are suggesting that the completely perfected tactics were in widespread use on 12/7/41. They were not.
You continue to fail to understand the difference between doctrine and the Thach Weave. Until you understand what these two concepts mean and how they differ, you will continue to (a) be incorrect, and (b) misunderstand my arguments here as well as the others.
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Isolated pockets of capability existed at war's start, yes. That did not equate to a "well-entrenched and utilized doctrine" overnight. From my reading, I would actually lengthen the Zero bonus, not shorten it.
See above. "Lengthen it?" It does not follow from anything that you have said so far, but whatever.
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And when were those kill ratios achieved? And by whom? Aside from Coral Sea and Midway, when did Marine and Navy Wildcats engage Zeros, and what did they truly shoot down, bombers or Zeros? etc.
VMF at Midway. Actual losses not pilot claims and definitely "Zele vs Wildcat". Outcome 2:1 favoring the F4Fs. VF at Midway (IIRC it's been aa long time, see Lundstrom's "The First Team") 16:10 favoring the F4F, actual losses not pilot claims and only Zekes vs Wildcats. At Coral Sea, similar outcome. Nik claims otherwise but I suspect he has attributed "missing, presumed lost" to "KIA." In both subsequent carrier battles the Wildcats had a favorable ratio vs the A6M2s.
At Guadalcanal the ratio was about 1.2:1 favoring the Japanese.
So were one to abstract that as a "rule" for a game and ignore context (logistics, supply, combat fatigue on Guadalcanal from shore bombardments, and other factors) then a "simple model to express the relationship between an A6M + pilot vs an F4F + pilot" would be "treat them as identical in all respects." That model would give you approximately historical results, all other things being equal.
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Were those loss claims, or information supported by IJN and USN loss records? So far, all you have quoted is a sustained 1:1 kill ratio and information from August/September of 1942.
There are three excellent sources in this matter. 1) Richard Frank's Guadalcanal, which if you like will give you overall campaign stats. 2) John Lundstrom's The FIrst Team, 3) John Lundstrom's The First Team at Guadalcanal.
While we're about it, if it is invalid to include data from November 1942 onward then there should be no Zero bonus. Since no A6M ever fought an F4F prior to the Coral Sea engagement (where the Zekes lost that confrontation plane-wise) then it is no more appropriate to claim that the Zero bonus is justified in the absence of data any more than it is appropriate to use data from a point "after which teh Zero bonus expires" to argue against the Zero bonus.
At least ONE of us has data of some kind. Overall they indicate parity between the F4F and A6M or a slight advantage to the F4F, no matter what interval of time you choose in 1942.
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If the sustained kill ratio include late 42, or even worse later war years, it is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Odd that data from November 1942 should be rejected, but the complete absence of valid data prior to April 1942 is deemed sufficient to justify the Zero bonus vs the F4F. As I said above, at least ONE of us has data to support their claim.
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It would not suprise me in the least if the combined loss ratio for the entire war was 1:1.
Then you cannot have read much on this subject. For the entire war the actual combat loss ratio of F4Fs vs A6Ms is to the best that anyone can get at it, around 3.5:1 fvaoring the F4F.
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However, I would expect the ratio to start high and go lower as a result of IJN pilot attrition and development/refinement/propogation of better USN/MC tactics. Quote me actual loss data (Zeros versus Wilcats, Zeros versus P-40's) from December of 41 through May of 42 if you want to convince me.
I can't offer the P-40 information. Some of it has been summarized above but as it has already been noted, context in those cases has not been offered. I have on three occasions now posted the A6M vs F4F data on this forum and the GGPW forum and my observations have been independently substantiated by several others (and rejected by one famous pro-Axis slanted individual). You are free to do your own tally. I recommend the John Lundstrom books because the effort in those was made to identify cases of Zekese shot down by Wildcats, and Wildcats shot down by Zekes, based on unit records not pilot claims. The data are, IMO, about as good as you can expect to get.
< Message edited by mdiehl -- 12/12/2005 9:07:53 PM >
_____________________________
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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RE: Proposal for CHS - Remove the Zero bonus. Any opini... - 
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