Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Z.Flisowski "Burza nad Pacyfikiem"

Aircraft ready to counter Home Islands invasion:
Army: 800 fighters, 3000 ready for kamikaze
Navy: 5145 planes (2500 of it were trainers).

When? What is the date for the figures? Though in fact, if half of the Navy's were trainers, there's probably good reason to suspect that a considerable number of the Army's were as well..., which would make that figure of 4100 First Line Aircraft sound pretty accurate.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Z.Flisowski "Burza nad Pacyfikiem"

Aircraft ready to counter Home Islands invasion:
Army: 800 fighters, 3000 ready for kamikaze
Navy: 5145 planes (2500 of it were trainers).

When? What is the date for the figures? Though in fact, if half of the Navy's were trainers, there's probably good reason to suspect that a considerable number of the Army's were as well..., which would make that figure of 4100 First Line Aircraft sound pretty accurate.

Just a guess, but I think you're approaching that incorrectly. I'm not saying I agree with the figures, but apparently if you were to state that one branch had 2500 trainers to use, it would be pretty dumb to then exclude mentioning such a large number from the other branch.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Z.Flisowski "Burza nad Pacyfikiem"

Aircraft ready to counter Home Islands invasion:
Army: 800 fighters, 3000 ready for kamikaze
Navy: 5145 planes (2500 of it were trainers).

When? What is the date for the figures? Though in fact, if half of the Navy's were trainers, there's probably good reason to suspect that a considerable number of the Army's were as well..., which would make that figure of 4100 First Line Aircraft sound pretty accurate.

Just a guess, but I think you're approaching that incorrectly. I'm not saying I agree with the figures, but apparently if you were to state that one branch had 2500 trainers to use, it would be pretty dumb to then exclude mentioning such a large number from the other branch.

Yes. It's an unjustified extrapolation based on the data presented. But hardly an unwarrented one. If the IJN was so desperate for aircraft to use in this "final decisive battle" (Must be about the 10th "decisive battle" of the war), it is a reasonable supposition that the IJA would also be having problems. And "trainers" don't necessarily mean "biplanes", they would also include obsolescent A/C such as Nates and Claudes and such from the early war period. These would not qualify as "First Line A/C" in 1945. My point was simply that the two sets of "data" were not "mutually exclusive", but gave a good apparence of being "mutually supportive"..

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ELIMINATION OF JAPANESE CONVENTIONAL AIR POWER
Japanese production of aircraft of all types rose from an average of 642 planes per month during the first 9 months of the war to a peak of 2,572 planes per month in September 1944. The rise was particularly great during 1943, after the Japanese had learned the lessons of the 1942 campaigns. Aggregate production during the war was 65,300 planes.

Japanese army and navy plane losses from all causes, both combat and noncombat, rose from an average rate of some 500 planes per month in the early months of the war to over 2,000 per month in the latter months of 1944. Aggregate losses during the course of the war were of the order of magnitude of 50,000 planes, of which something less than 40 percent were combat losses, and something over 60 percent were training, ferrying, and other noncombat losses.

The Japanese were thus able to increase the numerical strength of their air forces in planes, in almost every month of the war. Numerical strength increased from 2,625 tactical planes at the outbreak of the war to 5,000 tactical planes, plus 5,400 Kamikaze planes, at the time of surrender.

Aggregate flying personnel increased from approximately 12,000 at the outbreak of the war to over 35,000 at the time of surrender.

United States aircraft production and pilot training exceeded the Japanese totals by wide margins, but only a portion of this strength could be deployed to the Pacific. United States first line strength in the Pacific west of Pearl Harbor increased from some 200 planes in 1941 to 11,000 planes in August 1945. It was not until late 1943 that we attained numerical superiority over the Japanese air forces in the field. Even in 1942, however, the relatively few United States air units in the Pacific were able to inflict greater losses than they sustained on the numerically superior Japanese. Aggregate United States plane losses during the course of the Pacific war, not including training losses in the United States, were approximately 27,000 planes. Of these losses 8,700 were on combat missions; the remainder were training, ferrying and other noncombat losses. Of the combat losses over 60 percent were to antiaircraft fire.

As previously stated, Japanese pilots at the outbreak of the war were well trained. The average Army pilot had some 500 hours before entering combat and Navy pilots 650 hours. These experienced pilots were largely expended during the bitter campaigns of the opening year and a half of the war. The Japanese paid far less attention than we did to the protection, husbanding and replacement of their trained pilots, and were seriously hampered in their training program by a growing shortage of aviation gasoline. Average flying experience fell off throughout the war, and was just over 100 hours, as contrasted to 600 hours for United States pilots, at the time of surrender. Inadequately trained pilots were no match for the skilled pilots developed by the United States.

At the time of the initial Japanese attack, Japanese fighter planes, although less sturdily built, more vulnerable and weaker in fire power than the United States fighters, had certain flight characteristics superior to those of United States fighters then available in the Pacific. The Japanese improved the quality of their planes during the war, greatly increased the power of their aircraft engines, ultimately exceeded United States fighters in fire power and had first-class aircraft in the design and experimental stage at the end of the war. They lacked, however, the widespread technical and industrial skill to match the United States in quantity production of reliable planes with increased range, performance and durability. After the initial campaigns, the United States always enjoyed superiority in the over-all performance of its planes. By American standards, the Japanese never


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fully appreciated the importance of adequate maintenance, logistic support, communications and control, and air fields and bases adequately prepared to handle large numbers of planes. As a result, they were unable to concentrate any large percentage of their air strength at any one time or place. Neither did they appear to have the ability to control large formations in the air with any degree of efficiency.

Local air control and its tactical exploitation the Japanese understood and achieved in their early offensives.

But along with all other military powers prior to the war, the Japanese had failed fully to appreciate the strategic revolution brought about by the increased capabilities of air power. The ability to achieve general and continuing control of the air was not envisaged as a requirement in their basic war strategy, as was the planned destruction of the United States Fleet. Had this basic requirement been well understood it is difficult to conceive that they would have undertaken a war of limited objectives in the first place. Once started on a strategic plan which did not provide the means to assure continuing air control, there was no way in which they could revise their strategy to reverse the growing predominance in the air of a basically stronger opponent who came to understand this requirement and whose war was being fought accordingly.

CONVERSION OF JAPANESE AIR FORCES TO KAMIKAZE FORCES
By the summer of 1944, it had become evident to the Japanese air commanders that there was no way in which they could equal the United States air arms at any point. Their losses were catastrophic, while the results which they were achieving were negligible. The one and only asset which they still possessed was the willingness of their pilots to meet certain death. Under these circumstances, they developed the Kamikaze technique. A pilot who was prepared to fly his plane directly into a ship would require but little skill to hit his target, provided he got through the intervening screen of enemy fighters and antiaircraft fire. If sufficient Japanese planes attacked simultaneously, it would be impossible to prevent a certain proportion from getting through. Even though losses would be 100 percent of the planes and pilots thus committed, results, instead of being negligible, might be sufficient to cause damage beyond that which we would be willing to endure.

From October, 1944, to the end of the Okinawa campaign, the Japanese flew 2,550 Kamikaze missions, of which 475, or 18.6 percent were effective in securing hits or damaging near misses. Warships of all types were damaged, including 12 aircraft carriers, 15 battleships, and 16 light and escort carriers. However, no ship larger than an escort carrier was sunk. Approximately 45 vessels were sunk, the bulk of which were destroyers. The Japanese were misled by their own inflated claims of heavy ships sunk, and ignored the advice of their technicians that a heavier explosive head was required to sink large ships. To the United States the losses actually sustained were serious, and caused great concern. Two thousand B-29 sorties were diverted from direct attacks on Japanese cities and industries to striking Kamikaze air fields in Kyushu. Had the Japanese been able to sustain an attack of greater power and concentration they might have been able to cause us to withdraw or to revise our strategic plans.

At the time of surrender, the Japanese had more than 9,000 planes in the home islands available for Kamikaze attack, and more than 5,000 had already been specially fitted for suicide attack to resist our planned invasion.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22
I think I have more evidence to support my view Mike. Take those figures for exactly what they say. That's 3,800 army planes and 1645 navy planes. Add them together and you get 5445 planes, which is very close to the 5000 figure my book had for Olympic. I gave my interpretation that a failure to mention trainers for the army meant they weren't including them for some odd reason, whereas they felt comfortable doing that for the navy. My other take is that it's natural to assume that if they just forgot to mention army trainers, and if they were in fact part of that number, then it would also be more likely that you could follow the navy ratio to make a stab at that, which, though you didn't state a guess that is what I thought you were thinking. In any event you can see that if you took 445 planes as trainers from the army, a much smaller ratio than the navy planes, you would then attain the 5000 Olympic ready figure. So getting back to the alleged 4100 planes for the entire pacific (this wouldn't include China as part of the Pacific I would take it) when the planes were plummeting each interval, just how does that jibe with the higher figure for Olympic? I made a special note that the figure said front-line "combat" aircraft, so it is quite possible that they did not regard kamikaze as combat aircraft, which from Okinawa onwards would certainly be worth accounting for.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Hi Chez:

OTOH I think Sonias and other such planes find very little difference in quality when used in the kamikaze role. The only way quality matters in a flying bomb is if it doesn't have enough range, and having the home islands invaded would certainly irradicate that concern, or if it needs to get into any form of evasive action against interceptors. Sonias being armored would actually make them better than a lot of planes such as A6M2's for a certain amount of withstanding flak when used as kamikazes.

But by 1945, they wouldn't qualify as "First Line Aircraft" any more than a Stuka would.

One sidenote. I think Mike earlier thought Japan would have some large problem getting enough fuel for their planes, to which I pointed out that with an Olympic type fight that wouldn't be much of a problem given that the distance is so short, but one more thing came to mind. It may had been just some generall mish-mash I picked up , but I recall reading at one time that the kamikaze planes I was reading about, maybe not all of them, had actually had their fuel cut in half or more (not filled up) such that they would use even less fuel flying out. Since they didn't want them coming back, there was no point in giving them enough fuel to do so.

No...., what I said was that the poor schmucks stucking flying these missions had virtually no fuel to TRAIN with, and might be making their first flight, let alone combat flight. And that the "militarists" who had led Japan "down the garden path" to War were a bunch of gutless scoundrels and craven moral cowards who would rather see everybody dead than stand up and take responsibility for their own stupidity.

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But by 1945, they wouldn't qualify as "First Line Aircraft" any more than a Stuka would.

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No...., what I said was that the poor schmucks stucking flying these missions had virtually no fuel to TRAIN with, and might be making their first flight, let alone combat flight. And that the "militarists" who had led Japan "down the garden path" to War were a bunch of gutless scoundrels and craven moral cowards who would rather see everybody dead than stand up and take responsibility for their own stupidity.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos
Z.Flisowski "Burza nad Pacyfikiem"

Aircraft ready to counter Home Islands invasion:
Army: 800 fighters, 3000 ready for kamikaze
Navy: 5145 planes (2500 of it were trainers).

When? What is the date for the figures? Though in fact, if half of the Navy's were trainers, there's probably good reason to suspect that a considerable number of the Army's were as well..., which would make that figure of 4100 First Line Aircraft sound pretty accurate.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22
I think I have more evidence to support my view Mike. Take those figures for exactly what they say. That's 3,800 army planes and 1645 navy planes. Add them together and you get 5445 planes, which is very close to the 5000 figure my book had for Olympic. I gave my interpretation that a failure to mention trainers for the army meant they weren't including them for some odd reason, whereas they felt comfortable doing that for the navy. My other take is that it's natural to assume that if they just forgot to mention army trainers, and if they were in fact part of that number, then it would also be more likely that you could follow the navy ratio to make a stab at that, which, though you didn't state a guess that is what I thought you were thinking. In any event you can see that if you took 445 planes as trainers from the army, a much smaller ratio than the navy planes, you would then attain the 5000 Olympic ready figure. So getting back to the alleged 4100 planes for the entire pacific (this wouldn't include China as part of the Pacific I would take it) when the planes were plummeting each interval, just how does that jibe with the higher figure for Olympic? I made a special note that the figure said front-line "combat" aircraft, so it is quite possible that they did not regard kamikaze as combat aircraft, which from Okinawa onwards would certainly be worth accounting for.

TRUTHFULLY? You have no justification or "evidence" at all...., because you still have failed to give the DATE of the figures you're quoting. You are attempting to compare "July, 1945" with "oranges". None of your "evidence" is worth "squat" until you provide that key point. "Olympic" is 8 months after "July, 1945" ("Coronet" is four months after). Who knows how many "First Line Aircraft" Japan might have had had the war not ended 7 months earlier?

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Mike:

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But by 1945, they wouldn't qualify as "First Line Aircraft" any more than a Stuka would.

Uh, yeah, sort of, but then recall that not every nation's front line aircraft included a kamikaze role. If you're using a Sonia conventionally at that point of the war you are correct, and I can't say they were not, but if you're using them in a role where it don't matter very much (such as a Stuka in an area of air superiority) and clearly the kamikaze role was a front line role, then they at least qualify in a vague way as they are quite the capable plane in that limited situation.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Okey dokey here's the info I've been promising, however my figures were grossly off, and therfore, if true, makes the 4100 IJ plane total look even more absurd, and given this projected Olympic for NOVEMBER 1, 1945 with Coronet following on MARCH 1, 1946 this gap is widened even more.

Firstly the book is Excerpts of the History of the Second World War. I take this to be a military history magazine that the compiled together into one hardback book. I mention that because it appears not all articles were written by the author of the information in question, which is called "Planning the Last Invasion".

Pg. 2551 had the chart for the numbers of the possible invasion. Nowhere is the quality of the planes and such discussed. The article goes more into the plans and less into specifics of the weapons involved. The chart does show something of parity in numbers between the two sides aerial forces, but in numbers the Japanese have more numbers a significant edge from that standpoint, though with so many being kamikaze it certainly means the allies wouldn't have much aerial opposition for too terribly long, not that IJ planned to do that anyway. The figures are 9,000 allied planes versus 10,700 IJ planes. It shows precisely half of the planes as kamikaze and doesn't get into splitting them between the branches of service, so naturally they didn't specify trainer amounts either.

So there you have it. That other report claimed 4100 IJ planes for 7/45. Apparently by 11/45 they dig up over 6,600 more. NO,,,. it didn't. It said the Japanese had 4100 FIRST LINE A/C in July of 1945! You're numbers are tossing in 2nd and 3rd line A/C as well. You aren't talking about the same things!

The article was written by K. Jack Bauer who received his BA from Harvard in 1948 and his MA and PhD from Indiana University in 1949 and 1953 respectively. He later served with both the Marine Corps and Navy Historical Sections in Washington, DC, and was assistant to Sam Elliot Morison for the concluding volume of History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II. The author of many articles on naval and maritime subjects in American and foreign journals, he is currently Associate Professor of History at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

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ORIGINAL: jolly_pillager

I think people might be missing another point as well...

The U.S. sent as many aircraft to the Pacific as they felt were needed (at least after, say, '43). To say that they only had 45% of their airforce in theater and that this is all they should get regardless of Japanese actions is silly.

If the Japanese had increased fighter production to the point where (as an example) they were forcing the Hellcat pools to run dry from attrition, then more Hellcats would have been made available. Period.

Any game that remotely allows the Japanese Empire to outproduce the U.S. in airframes...or even seriously compete with it in late 43 onwards is simply wrong.

This being said, I think that this is hiding a much larger problem...bombing bases unopposed to gain astronomical experience ratings far too quickly.

If a barely trained rookie has a 30 experience and a trained (that is to say proficient) pilot has a 55, then it should take 3 months to get from one to the other (which is, coincidentalt, as much as it takes on the 'training' mission...which was researched for accuracy in this regard).

Using ground attack missions to get the same results in a fraction of the time is a game exploit. It doesn't matter how many people do it...it doesn't matter if it MUST happen to keep the game going, it is an intentional abuse of the game rules to achieve a result not intended by the design (which clearly assumes training will advance at a historical rate...why else put in the training mission?).

The upshot of this exploit is to create unrealistically heavy attrition which leads to much greater stress on airframe manufacturing then was historical...which favors the side that can customize it's production, naturally.

The point is that there are many variables at work here interacting with each other, and the only good way out is to push for maximum historical accuracy at every turn for OOB and production abilities and then tweak the results generator to get historical loss ratios. Model history well and you will get historical outcomes.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Mike:

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But by 1945, they wouldn't qualify as "First Line Aircraft" any more than a Stuka would.

Uh, yeah, sort of, but then recall that not every nation's front line aircraft included a kamikaze role. If you're using a Sonia conventionally at that point of the war you are correct, and I can't say they were not, but if you're using them in a role where it don't matter very much (such as a Stuka in an area of air superiority) and clearly the kamikaze role was a front line role, then they at least qualify in a vague way as they are quite the capable plane in that limited situation.

Doesn't make a bit of difference. The term "First Line Aircraft" as it was used in Nic's figures has a specific meaning. Those fit for front line service during that particular period of the conflict. The latest models with the most current improvements. In this case, the George's, Frank's, Tony II's, Peggy's, Frances's, Jill's and such. Oscar's, Betty's, Nell's, most Zeke models, Val's, Kates, and the like were still around, but were no longer considered "first line A/C" Didn't mean they couldn't be of use..., just that they were "dog meat" for the other side's "first line A/C". And these "second line" (and sometimes "3rd line") aircraft were the ones primarily used for Kamikaze Service. They were more "expendible, and also generally easier to fly than the newest A/C. Not an inconsiderable factor given the "skill" of most of their pilots. But when Nic's table cites "First Line Aircraft", they aren't included - because they aren't "1st Line". You've trying to compare apples and applesauce. So the "points" you are making make no sense.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Okey dokey here's the info I've been promising, however my figures were grossly off, and therfore, if true, makes the 4100 IJ plane total look even more absurd, and given this projected Olympic for NOVEMBER 1, 1945 with Coronet following on MARCH 1, 1946 this gap is widened even more.

Firstly the book is Excerpts of the History of the Second World War. I take this to be a military history magazine that the compiled together into one hardback book. I mention that because it appears not all articles were written by the author of the information in question, which is called "Planning the Last Invasion".

Pg. 2551 had the chart for the numbers of the possible invasion. Nowhere is the quality of the planes and such discussed. The article goes more into the plans and less into specifics of the weapons involved. The chart does show something of parity in numbers between the two sides aerial forces, but in numbers the Japanese have more numbers a significant edge from that standpoint, though with so many being kamikaze it certainly means the allies wouldn't have much aerial opposition for too terribly long, not that IJ planned to do that anyway. The figures are 9,000 allied planes versus 10,700 IJ planes. It shows precisely half of the planes as kamikaze and doesn't get into splitting them between the branches of service, so naturally they didn't specify trainer amounts either.

So there you have it. That other report claimed 4100 IJ planes for 7/45. Apparently by 11/45 they dig up over 6,600 more. NO,,,. it didn't. It said the Japanese had 4100 FIRST LINE A/C in July of 1945! You're numbers are tossing in 2nd and 3rd line A/C as well. You aren't talking about the same things!

The article was written by K. Jack Bauer who received his BA from Harvard in 1948 and his MA and PhD from Indiana University in 1949 and 1953 respectively. He later served with both the Marine Corps and Navy Historical Sections in Washington, DC, and was assistant to Sam Elliot Morison for the concluding volume of History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II. The author of many articles on naval and maritime subjects in American and foreign journals, he is currently Associate Professor of History at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

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ORIGINAL: Charles_22
If they didn't make any sense then you wouldn't have broke them down so well. I was trying to emphasize the point, that while Japan may had more true second-line planes as first-line (in the case of the kamikaze) when you are using a set of planes in a way nobody else does, which the true first-line planes are of little more value doing the same thing, it does make the line between first and second-line, or even third a little more blurred. True, a second-line kamikaze going against a first-line allied plane was fairly dog meat, but then most planes bombed up are anyway and I doubt there were many interested in aborting any attached bombload even if they were being attacked by fighters.

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human is fine if he leaves production alone or if he sets them to 0 and then builds to his hearts content. I don't understand why this is so difficult to understand.

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ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, OK for about the 1000th time.  REMOVE ALL THE RD FACTORIES AT START AND SET THEM TO SIZE 0!!!!!! Now the Japanese player will not reach production numbers anywhere near those posted.  I wonder when I first mentioned human players should keep their furry dog like paws off the RD factories.  (EARLY 2003!!!)
I am in late 1943 and my monthly production is less then half what everyone is worried about. (and it is more then enough)