Nikademus
Posts: 25684
Joined: 5/27/2000
From: Alien spacecraft
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The capture of bases for use as air platforms to use against naval vessels was an important consideration and motivation during the Pacific war, however it was not the only reason, nor do i see what this has to do with discussions that revolve around both the effectiveness of level bombers flying at low range against shipping (and especially warships) and the apparant lack of consequence for doing so.
To answer the historical perogative and put things into persepective here, lets acknowledge that air/bases were taken to provide a variety of services, of which sea control and sea denial was only one of them.
Bases were important as logistical focal points, way points and safe havens for ships as well as jumping off points for future operations.
Sometimes they were also used strictly to coherce the enemy into battle, such as Midway for example. Yamamotto's ONLY reason for attacking Midway was to draw out the remains of the US fleet and get that "Decisive Battle" he so badly wanted, one that would force the US to the negotiation table and lead to a "short war".....the only war that Japan had a chance of winning with the Industrial Giant in the east.
The fact that Midway was an airbase was important only in what losing it to the enemy would mean to the Americans, hence Yamamotto's train of thought that the USN would "have" to do something about it. Capturing Midway would both impede US efforts to return to the central Pacific and more importantly would provide Japan with an air platform to stage potential airraids on Pearl Harbor itself...rather important a consideration given that PH was the "Normura" of the entire Pacific theatre for them.
Attacking ships at sea was if anything, a low factor and a bonus at best but with so much ocean out there, it would have been easy for the US shipping routes to go south to keep the lifelines to Australia open.
Philippines:
Yes and no regarding the "ship" issue......aircover "was" important.....because in the real world even a single errant bomb hit means one less merchant or warship on the front lines doing it's job as opposed to sitting idle in a harbor. But that was hardly the only factor. More importantly having control of the air makes it the most threatening to merchant shipping, less so warships though that "threat" is there too. Another big threat, and one far far far more important than attempting "Sea control" out on the greater ocean is what can happen when an *unmoving* transport fleet at anchor is trying to unload it's troops and supplies and from there get them off the beaches and into the front lines where they are less vulnerable. By that virtue it is "essential" that the invading force have air superiority. Hitting moving ships is not a factor here.
Having air superiority also is a vital component to assisting the ground pounders themselves once the fighting has started, both in direct ground support as well as logistical interdiction.
Finally....and this was one of the BIGGIES.....Japan had to attack the airfields of Clark and others because of the obvious presence of strategic bomber elements based there which in turn could bomb the bejeevus out of the major Japanese air bases on Formosa, from which much of the Japanese air component would be launched. Losing that component or having it interdicted would have majorly F**** up the entire Japanese invasion time-table for the whole region
In other words, of course the Japanese had to take the airfields....this of itself is not an indication of the effectiveness of level bombers against moving warships (and merchants)
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12/10/41
An odd example to use in my opinion (no offense to anyone). What killed the Prince of wales and Repulse? one a modern battleship designed to survive in an environment which included modern aircraft?
Not bombs.......and those few that hit did *nothing* of consequence.....those little bombs were incapable of piercing the thick skin of the PoW and didn't make much of an impression on the old Repulse either (Britian's weakest capital ship)
No gents....."Torpedoes" were the killer here, delivered in then "exotic" fashion by twin engined level bombers designed or modified to carry them with crews trained to operate in that fashion. I'm not sure the Allies were even aware that the enemy operated in such a fashion, certainly the general assumption before the war was that the IJN and IJA operated obsolete junk with medicore pilots at best.
wrong. :)
**
Solomons......UV et all
Dgaad is correct in one thing....the "threat" of LBA is real enough that it must be taken into account, but we must remember that here, as in other areas, is a key difference between one who "wargames" and real life. In a wargame a player can be bold and daring because his job and his life are not at stake, thus he can act more rashly and maybe get away with it, or if not, noones gonna call him on the carpet. Just as with the tactics we are debating here, we must keep that in mind as well
that said......
What was Rabaul's greatest threat to carriers..? Again it was torpedo carrying twin engined bombers if the range was long. If the range was short....single engined types just like those carried by the carriers themselves.......If the US wasn't aware of the long range threat before the Brits got spanked then they had to be aware of it now.
However one thing to remember.....IIRC Rabaul did engage a carrier early in the war, either before or during Coral Sea. Due to the extreme range the attacking Beattys, unescorted, suffered greatly at the hands of the CAP (believe this is the one where one USN pilot became an "ace" in one battle, shooting down 5 beattys)
The point here, is three fold.
1) the enemy was attacking at low level, with torpedoes (a ship's worst enemy. A commander has to take them seriously by default as there's no such thing as a "good underwater hit" One hit.....just one hit would be enough to send a precious carrier back to the States for repairs.....alot can happen in the time it takes....ask the Saratoga which kept getting torpedoed by submarines on the way to the front lines!
2) Such an attack, even thwarted would throw a scare into any but the most insane or bullish carrier commander (so i'm little unsuprised that Jack Fletcher, who was not bullish and prone to excessive caution) gave LBA bases such as Rabaul a wide berth
3) We see the Pro and Con issues missing from UV The potential "threat" and reward of a LBA low level attack on a carrier TF, but coming at a steep price in hacked down level bombers due to flak and CAP ministrations.
As with the Phillipines, airpower played far too broad a role in the sequence of events for it to be IMO portrayed as some kind of vindication of the effectiveness of LBA against moving ships.
First and formost the massive level bomber forces primary influence in this theatre was New Gineau where their presence made IJA ground operations hell on earth. As for anti ship operations......largely ineffective outside of scouting until the development of skip bombing attacks which were mostly effective against ill prepared and/or ill defended merchant convoys...thus creating a hammer and anvil effect
the hammer......pound the enemy troops and bases, making it a combat and logistical hell
the anvil......complete the maneuver by denying and hindering the enemy's troop and supply convoy efforts.
As for the Solomons chain itself......what made Henderson field so deadly to the Japanese?
Answer: dive bombers and fighter bombers.
Dive bombing and even glide bombing (for fighters not suited for the stresses of diving at high angles) is far more effective against warships, especially merchants vs level bombers.
Level bombers were important though for recon, and most importantly for plastering ports and air bases giving them the air superiority to march up the chain with little threat from enemy air assets. they could also be devastating against stationary ships such as during one of Yamamotto's last great reinforce efforts that preceeded the Third battle of the Solomons where after Henderson was all but knocked out, raiding B-17's from Santos caused havoc at the Japanese beachhead (along with the ragtag survivors of Henderson itself)
The threat against ships is there too, but is only one component of this strategy.
More importanly, the American "leap frogging" strategy was born not out of the need for airbases but out of a need of a quicker, less costly solution to trying to assault heavily defended IJA/N bases for at this point one thing the Japanese had aplenty was troops.....unfort they did not have the air and sea assets to go with it.
What were the primary air weapons used here? Fighter-bombers and single engined dive bombers. With a chain of small to medium bases it was enough to control the seas and make life hell for any warships, merchants.....and even barges that tried to slip in.
As for the warships......well lets put it into perspective again....when the IJN massively reinforced Rabaul with over a half dozen heavy cruisers and attendant destroyers shortly before the US assault on Bouginaville, they detected this buildup.....a serious potential threat...particularily given the dearth of USN surface assets at the time (most gearing up for big effort in the Central Pacific)
Did they unleash big clumsy level bombers against this formidable naval force using low level attacks or even "skip bombing"?
nope....they sent in a carrier TF armed with fighters, dive and torp bombers.
back to Japan goes the majority of the IJN assets with interest and the invasion is on.
**
1944 onward.
Back to what i was saying earlier. Yes air superiority is important but by this time anti-ship operations were hardly the major goal.....the USN had it's burgening mobile airbases by then...the carriers, armed with planes designed for anti ship with pilots trained for it.
Saipen was needed first and formost to provide an LBA platform for heavy bombers to attack Japan. (perhaps forcing an early surrender? one could hope at the time)
It also provided a logical way point for the US fleet train so that the USN could continue it's penetration of the IJN inner defence line.
**
return to the Philippines.
An obvious magnet......politically MacArthur vowed to return and he'd campaigned hard for it bending the ear of Roosevelt. He got his wish....there were obvious strategic reasons as well......taking it back would cut off the Empire from it's South seas conquests and make the stranglehold on Japan's sea lanes all the more complete. LBA would also be assisted by having bases close enough to Japan to assist long range fighters
Anti-ship again....a small but pertient component but hardly the overriding factor.
One must also consider the role of aircraft types as well. Even in the earlier logistically strained days, the aircraft that would make LBA's the biggest threat to enemy naval forces are single engined aircraft. Dive and torpedo bombers which can counter-attack carriers and benefit from basing on an "unsinkable" carrier and escorted by fighters can negate the new mobile weapon of the two navies.
Level bombers are a threat too, but one substantially less so, unless, like the IJN you train and equip your twin engined planes to carry torps. One should also ask why they did this in the first place if level bombers are such great ship killers as they were orig designed
**
Let me clarify a point here. I am not, repeat **not** advocating making LBA ineffective against ships....warships or merchants. I've played plenty of past wargames where this was the case. Games such as Carrier Force , or Carrier Strike, or to a lesser degree.....PacWar.
However, those games did not allow you to control altitude settings so a doctornal "default" was set in place. Good in one way as it did well to simulate the lackluster ability of level bombers hitting dedicated warships at sea, bad in a sense as it did at times make a gamer wonder what use at all land based aircraft were (part of this due too, to the tactical scope of the games in question as well, where only carrier battles mattered)
The "problem" here, is that players are exploiting a micro-management feature to put forth a strategy that inflates the effectiveness of level bombers ****without consequence****
and that is wrong.
Alot of good ideas have been put forth on this, including a few by me (well in my opinion anyway ;) ) To bury our heads in the sand on this issue is to do a diservice to the wargaming community.
I'm all for level bombers being used "agressively" which is probably the best overall term to describe things here, but one should also have to pay the piper on it in the form of shot down and shot up bombers and shell shocked (fatiqued) crews, increased down time for said bombers (when said level bombers might be needed to support operations they were better suited for such as recon.....ground support, base interdiction etc)
You might get lucky and score that bomb hit.......especially if you catch a fat and slow merchant convoy with little protection.....but then again you might catch a hornet's nest of warships or a heavily defended convoy that pours flak into the nice exposed big bellies of these clumsy brutes with all their racks of bombs.
Its up to the players to decide their priorities.
Right now its a no brainer....because there's no "con" to the argument. So keep all those twin and four engined bombers attacking at 100 - 1000 feet.
:(
Gotta admit too...i cringed at the Billy Mitchell example......all that farcical publicity stunt proved was that level bombers were capable of sinking unmanned, motionless ships, some at ridiculously low altitudes (to ensure hits for the cameras)
And the "unsinkable" Ostfriesland....."dreaded" (hoo!) German battleship? Mitchell could have sunk her with a carpenter's hammer in the shape she was in (previous flooding unattended too, bringing unprotected glass scuttles below the current waterline.
She would never have been in danger had she been crewed at the time, even if anchored.
Potential was there....but only potential and even in WWII it wasn't nearly as effective as thought. Italian high level attacks were total failure. Taranto was a triumph of carrier based single engined boldness (using torps again)
PH raid used carrier aircraft designed for anti-ship and again , the most devastating weapons were the torps (the one exception the converted 16.1 inch naval shells lugged into the air by the B5N's......KO'ing the USS Arizona, (which wasn't moving at the time or firing back)
Perspective.....its not just for breakfest anymore ;)
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