RE: Allied CV tactics

RE: Allied CV tactics (Full Version)

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dtravel -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 5:47:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: spence quote: As for the historical basis....the Japanese had an established (and well practiced) multi-carrier doctrine. The USN didn't initially. Even when USN CV's were in the same "TF" they conducted their flight ops seperately. This for the most part is true. The KB's flight operations were only optimized for attack however. Defensive operations such as occurred at Midway tended to muck up the works...continuously recycling CAP prevented an offensive deck spot. CAP was not coordinated amongst the carriers in the KB...each carrier launched/landed CAP at the discretion of its own "flight deck officer". The small cannon magazine capacity of the A6M and the very low lethality of the its 7.7 mm's ensured that confronting a series of attacks such as at Midway required continuous use of the flight deck for landing and rearming CAP. Shattered Sword details practically minute by minute the flight deck and hangar operations of the 4 KB carriers at Midway and makes it apparent that the 1020 "Miracle at Midway" was all but inevitable (that is to say given the historical arrival times of the strikes that made contact). It also suggests that had the Japanese altered their doctrine and designated certain carriers as having CAP responsibility for the whole fleet the others might well have gotten off a timely strike at the Americans. American carrier doctrine (the coordination rule) is more or less hard coded. American carriers were probably not up to conducting TF38/58 type ops in 1942. But neither was the IJN when it came to defending itself. Maintenance of the CAP was as noted above avery haphazard affair. Once a CAP fighter was in the air there was NO CONTROL OF IT AT ALL (beyond the IJN pilots basic alertness and desire to get at the enemy). At best there were "suggestions" from the fleet below: "hey there guys, I'm laying down a smoke screen cause I've seen some enemy planes over this way". Rudimentary as the Fighter Direction in US TFs was there was someone who could order something along the line of; "Red Dog Four, intercept bandits, vector 310, 12,000 ft". And IJN doctrine for flak defense was worse. Each carrier had only its own guns, its own speed and manueverability, and the flak support of exactly 1 DD. The other screening ships were deployed too far away to provide effective flak support. And the reason was so that they might detect enemy aircraft sufficiently far away for them to "suggest" (via smokescreens or main gun salvos in the water) that the CAP intercept. I guess it's only fun for the IJN guys if only the good stuff is modelled. How else can they run rampant for 3 times as long as their historical counterparts did. In other words, yes the Japanese could launch large co-ordinated strikes. As long as there was no chance at all of enemy aircraft attacking them. Somehow, under the same conditions, one suspects that US carriers could do the same thing. [;)]

bradfordkay -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 7:40:51 AM)
I believe that another part of the Japanese carrier doctrine was a wide separation of ships to allow high speed maneuvering. I think Lindstrom talked about that in The First Team (but I'm not positive that is where I read it). Unfortunately it reduced AAA coverage.

Ron Saueracker -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 3:51:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bradfordkay I believe that another part of the Japanese carrier doctrine was a wide separation of ships to allow high speed maneuvering. I think Lindstrom talked about that in The First Team (but I'm not positive that is where I read it). Unfortunately it reduced AAA coverage. And to make up for lack of radar....they used ships for last ditch early warning. Their TF AAA should being pathetic. Just another of Gary Grigsby's selective use of history. If it favours Japan, err on the side of Japan.

Nikademus -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 4:47:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel In other words, yes the Japanese could launch large co-ordinated strikes. As long as there was no chance at all of enemy aircraft attacking them. I think it would be hard for any carrier to spot and launch a strike of any kind if it were under attack. quote: Somehow, under the same conditions, one suspects that US carriers could do the same thing. [;)] You'd think, but that was often not the case as Spruance found out. IJN Fleet defense was not quite as haphazzard as is being suggested. There was a methodology to it. Usually a shotai was assigned to cover a specific sector and each carrier would be assigned to cover a specific vector of the TF. The "Haphazzard" part came in the form of their being no centralized control. Each carrier essentially controlled it's own CAP and there was no dedicated fighter control team, the man (The Japanese term is unavailable to me here at work) who directed flight operations also controlled the CAP or an officer would be temporarily assigned the duty. Poorly working radios further compounded the situation so that for the most part, once the CAP was in the air, it was on it's own. It was a natural tendancy for the pilots to go after the most immediate threat and one that affected USN pilots similarily. By latewar, however the USN had ironed out these problems, including the quelling of undisciplined chatter on the radio channels allowing the air controllers to calmly direct and reroute fighter elements to developing threats. For the IJN, as long as the weather was good, and enemy threats came in on a single vector, the CAP was capable of a good or at least credible defense, but if the weather was poor and/or threats came in along simotanious multiple vectors, then there would be problems. I've always found it ironic that it was at Midway that the Japanese CAP put in it's best preformance of the four carrier enagements of 42 yet they are usually damned due to the unique sequence of events and the results that occured. Weaknesses are jumped on and expounded and the achievements discounted or ignored. Another "irony" is that after the disaster, the Japanese learned from their perceived 'error' and placed a well organized CAP over the Hiryu which included assigning elements of the CAP at different heights . Yet the incoming DB attack largely evaded the CAP. High fatigue was part of the reason why but still.....it showed that you can follow the numbers correctly and still roll a snake eyes.

anarchyintheuk -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 9:03:21 PM)
I think the KB's cap doesn't get that much credit precisely because of the unique series of events that led to their cap to face one of the most advantageous sets of conditions ever experienced in cv-cv combat; namely, isolated strikes by individual squadrons of either obsolete aircraft (Vindicators and Devastators) or untrained/undertrained crew (B-26s using torps/Hornet's air group) that were completely uncoordinated and without adequate escort. They still failed.

Nikademus -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/21/2006 10:09:05 PM)
Looking at it from another direction, they were succeededing very well up till the last attacks. I doubt a US CAP would have done any better under the same set of circumstances. (Nor did their CAP' stop the far small attacks on the Yorktown) In the end, the Japanese shot down near 40 enemy aircraft.....not bad....but ultimately not enough to save them from a bad plan. Yes they still failed in the end, my point was that the results are often used to highlight weaknesses of Japanese Fleet Defense without taking into consideration the challenges faced. Yes the isolated single vector nature of the strikes contributed to the Japanese defense, but also contributed to it's demise. Given the current development level and fighter plane availability of the US TF's, they would have had equal problems meeting all incoming strikes with adequate fighter defenses. (A repeated string of attacks would also have prevented US offensive ops) Ultimately the real failure, was that KB was placed in such a scenario in the first place.

dtravel -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/22/2006 2:29:14 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Nikademus quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel In other words, yes the Japanese could launch large co-ordinated strikes. As long as there was no chance at all of enemy aircraft attacking them. I think it would be hard for any carrier to spot and launch a strike of any kind if it were under attack. That wasn't quite what I meant. Let me rephrase, "As long as they were so certain they couldn't be attacked that they didn't fly any CAP". Better now rabbit? [:'(]

jeffs -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/24/2006 11:44:23 AM)
Somebody mentioned it previously, but it is a hugely different game stock vs Nik mod...Stock has a winner take all (moron) formula that basically says the bigger force wins (I am assuming that both sides are using elite pilots and Wildcats vs zeroes)......And wins it all in terms of getting through... In Nik mod, even with inferior numbers, many planes can get through (this was also one nice part of UV)....So this means one can get lucky even with an inferior force....

saj42 -> RE: Allied CV tactics (7/24/2006 3:12:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jeffs Somebody mentioned it previously, but it is a hugely different game stock vs Nik mod...Stock has a winner take all (moron) formula that basically says the bigger force wins (I am assuming that both sides are using elite pilots and Wildcats vs zeroes)......And wins it all in terms of getting through... In Nik mod, even with inferior numbers, many planes can get through (this was also one nice part of UV)....So this means one can get lucky even with an inferior force.... More planes get through in Nik Mod because they are damaged and not shot down, but the survivors have a reduced accuracy.

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