Kamikaze missions (Full Version)

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JustJoe -> Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 7:43:29 AM)

What is the benefit for using airgroups as Kamikazes instead of thier normal bombing missions? Is there a greater chance of them getting thru the CAP and flak? Do they inflict more damage?

What are the best aircraft for Kamikaze missions? Is this a good use for those seemingly worthless Night Fighters?

Any tips on the use of Kamikaze missions would be greatly appreciated.



wild_Willie2 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 8:12:31 AM)

The "good" thing about Kami's is the fact that your untrained late war 30-40EXP crews get a "small" chance of actually hitting something (although they will only get ONE chance [:D][:D][:D][:D]).

Best plane's for the job are Torp carriers (they are big planes with a BIG torpedo warhead= BIGGER boom) 

Usual tactic to beat late war allied UBER CAP is to attack with kami groups set to extremely high and extremely low altitudes, doing so "might" give a chance of scoring a hit...  

If you can use kami's, you can ALSO use ohka's, which in fact are REALLY big boom kami's. (although they have an even smaller chance of hitting a target than kami's have)



Charles2222 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 1:05:24 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: wild_Willie2

The "good" thing about Kami's is the fact that your untrained late war 30-40EXP crews get a "small" chance of actually hitting something (although they will only get ONE chance [:D][:D][:D][:D]).

Best plane's for the job are Torp carriers (they are big planes with a BIG torpedo warhead= BIGGER boom) 

Usual tactic to beat late war allied UBER CAP is to attack with kami groups set to extremely high and extremely low altitudes, doing so "might" give a chance of scoring a hit...  

If you can use kami's, you can ALSO use ohka's, which in fact are REALLY big boom kami's. (although they have an even smaller chance of hitting a target than kami's have)


Do you have any expertise in this area? The subject of kamis comes up hardly at all, and from what I've seen on the forum, they are not even close to historical performance. Recall history showed at least 20% of them "hitting" or near-missing enough to cause damage to the ship. Do you have any idea what sort of percentage chance they have. Would 2-3% be about what the game allows? Of course historically there wasn't any such thing as uber-cap to affect the chances.



greg_slith -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 4:23:04 PM)

In the AE threads it was said that Kami's work... it's just the all powerful UberCap that makes them useless.  One of the big issues (for me anyway) is that the AI turns EVERY plane into a kami.  It leaves nothing for CAP, ASW, recon etc.  [X(]



Feinder -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 5:36:13 PM)

The most basic way to think of a Kami is that the plane acts just as normal, except you get a small accuracy bonus, and it's a one-way trip.  A DB/FB Kami attack is resolved with a 250kg AP bomb vs. deck armor.  A TB Kami attack is resolved with a torpedo.  I don't know if it resloves vs. deck or belt, but a torp obvioulsy penetrates both so it's moot.

But be advised that your 250kg AP Kami will be just as effective against RN CVs and BBs as they were previously - not very.

Also, it doesn't do you any good to convert Transports to Kamis, because they don't carry bombs (I can't remember if Recons carry bombs, if not, there's not point in converting them either).

Kami's are not nearly as effective in WitP as they were historically (largely due to "uber CAP").  I'd have to actually crunch the numbers, but at least for the RN (who suffered propotionatly more Kami hits than the USN for a variety of reasons), but it "feels" like the Kamis had about a 10% hit ratio (vs. about 2% or less in WitP).  Forgotten Fleet does actually give a good account of "this many planes came in, this many were killed by CAP, this many killed by flak, this many missed, this many hit), but not in any sort of table form (in in reports).

However, I'll also throw in the point that there are far more Kamis -available- in WiTP than there wer in real life as well.  Historically, there were maybe 7 - 8 times in 6 months that they threw 150+ Kamis at the fleet.  Most of the time, they were in nickle-packets of 4 - 5, rarely more than 10.  But in WitP (even in the 45 scen without optimized production), you can throw out 300+ plane strikes just about every week, far more than were actualy conducted historically, simply because of number of available squadrons and air-frames.

So just make sure both sides of the equation get "fixed".  "Uber CAP" does NEED to eb fixed.  But I'd suggest if you convert a squadron to Kami, after it's used the squadron should not return for 90 days or more.

-F-



wild_Willie2 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 5:36:20 PM)

To be honest, I have never even gotten as far into the game as to actually use/recieve kamie's. Al I know is from AAR's. Against the AI I ALWAYS win an autovictory by 1944 and then I dont want to play anymore because by then I have sunk the ENTIRE jap fleet and am bombing the home isles to dust....



Panther Bait -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 6:41:00 PM)

Also, in real life the kamikazes were much more effective near islands or other coastal areas where they could either be staged locally or come in from "behind" the land's radar shadow.  Both techniques drastically reduced the detection and interception times for the Allies with a direct decrease on both air-to-air interceptions and AAA effectiveness.  WitP (and AE) don't directly model those benefits, although AE is supposed to reduce both the overall CAP and AAA effectiveness to allow more "leakers".

Another reason kamikazes were very effective, particularly at Okinawa, was that the penny packet attacks had a tendency to target the RADAR picket ships.   The pickets had basically only their own AAA, and rarely had constant CAP overhead.  Combine that with the small size/lack of armor of most picket ships (DDs, DEs, LCIs mostly) and they were very vulnerable. 



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/30/2008 6:46:40 PM)

quote:

A TB Kami attack is resolved with a torpedo.


That makes no sense, unless one imagines that the kamikaze flew that last several hundred meters under water. As I recall, very few kamikazes were sent out with torpedoes, and of those that hit targets, very few torps went off. When they did go off, their effects was basically that of aerial GP bombs, because they struck their targets well above the waterline.



JustJoe -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 4:31:30 AM)

If bomb loads equate damage in the game then using fighters would hardly be worth the loss of the plane as the damage would be negligible? 

Since at this stage of the war LB level bomber missions are suicide anyway, i.e. Hellen/Peggy,  they might be a good plane to use in the kamikaze roll. 



Feinder -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 5:19:42 AM)

Well, it's the ordinance that they carry (on the information screen), not the 'max load' value.  Most IJN  fighters carry the 60kg GP bomb (not very effective), but most later war IJA fighters carry 250kg AP bomb (quite effective). 

-F-



RUPD3658 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 5:44:59 AM)

I used them in a stock PBEM and had very little success.

On one occasion my opponant was trying to get an AK sunk to get rid of a AC fragmet. 40 Sallys attacked the lone AK and 3 hit it. It did not sink until hit by non-kami units the next day.

Not a good return on 40 planes.

On another occasion several night fighters rammed 2 LCVPs and sunk them. These were the only ships I sank with kamis. All other attacks were shredded by uber CAP.



Charles2222 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 3:05:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ecwgcx

In the AE threads it was said that Kami's work... it's just the all powerful UberCap that makes them useless.  One of the big issues (for me anyway) is that the AI turns EVERY plane into a kami.  It leaves nothing for CAP, ASW, recon etc.  [X(]

Yes, that's a real AI bummer when you consider that even IJ wasn't wacky enough to propose using over 50% of the planes ready for operation Olympic, slated as kamikaze.



Charles2222 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 3:11:10 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

The most basic way to think of a Kami is that the plane acts just as normal, except you get a small accuracy bonus, and it's a one-way trip.  A DB/FB Kami attack is resolved with a 250kg AP bomb vs. deck armor.  A TB Kami attack is resolved with a torpedo.  I don't know if it resloves vs. deck or belt, but a torp obvioulsy penetrates both so it's moot.

But be advised that your 250kg AP Kami will be just as effective against RN CVs and BBs as they were previously - not very.

Also, it doesn't do you any good to convert Transports to Kamis, because they don't carry bombs (I can't remember if Recons carry bombs, if not, there's not point in converting them either).

Kami's are not nearly as effective in WitP as they were historically (largely due to "uber CAP").  I'd have to actually crunch the numbers, but at least for the RN (who suffered propotionatly more Kami hits than the USN for a variety of reasons), but it "feels" like the Kamis had about a 10% hit ratio (vs. about 2% or less in WitP).  Forgotten Fleet does actually give a good account of "this many planes came in, this many were killed by CAP, this many killed by flak, this many missed, this many hit), but not in any sort of table form (in in reports).

However, I'll also throw in the point that there are far more Kamis -available- in WiTP than there wer in real life as well.  Historically, there were maybe 7 - 8 times in 6 months that they threw 150+ Kamis at the fleet.  Most of the time, they were in nickle-packets of 4 - 5, rarely more than 10.  But in WitP (even in the 45 scen without optimized production), you can throw out 300+ plane strikes just about every week, far more than were actualy conducted historically, simply because of number of available squadrons and air-frames.

So just make sure both sides of the equation get "fixed".  "Uber CAP" does NEED to eb fixed.  But I'd suggest if you convert a squadron to Kami, after it's used the squadron should not return for 90 days or more.

-F-

There's a flaw in your historic account. The kami's and all planes for that matter, were largely being saved for the invasion of the Home Islands, so that for the proposed Operation Olympic they had over 7000 planes ready with over 3500 slated for kamikaze. I rather doubt they would be used in much penny packets in such a case, but you never know. I have never seen anything to suggest how they would be used at that point.



Feinder -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 4:08:10 PM)

quote:

There's a flaw in your historic account.

There's no flaw in my historical account.  [;)]

Most of  us (myself included) are all very well aware of the fact that that Japan had roughly 7000 planes they were "saving" for Operation Olympic.  I was simply stating that during the course of 1945, there were only 7 - 8 days that Japan launched an "all out" Kamikaze attacks on the US/UK fleets.  There is nothing incorrect or misrepresentative about that statement.

The Historical Picture - Japan chose to save those 7000 planes for Operation Olympic, both sides knew they were looking at November-ish for the assault (the summer/fall being hte typhoon season).  They saved those planes because had they used them in June/July/August, they would NOT have been available in November.  And FYI, despite popular perception, Japanese aviators were generlly -NOT- rushing to bang down the doors of the Kamikaze recruiting office.

The WitP picture - Let's say it's July 1945 in-game, and you have that 7000 plane reserve available to you to sling at the Allied fleets.  You mirror the historical situation.  If you want to sling those 7000 planes at the Allied fleets, go ahead - that's 1500/planes a month = 5 or 6 250+ plane strikes per month.  Difference being, in WitP you can replace many of those planes by November (altho 7000 planes in 4 months is a bit ambitious, I'd say you could replace 5000).

-F-



castor troy -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 4:41:13 PM)

Itīs correct that the planes can be replaced but with pilots average experienced 35 only one out of 400 will break through CAP and flak fire to hit a ship. Then itīs perhaps only a barge, an AK or perhaps a DD. If youīre unlucky then the kamikaze bounces off a BBīs armor. For me it just doesnīt matter if my Japanese opponent replaces those 5000 planes that he lost in May sometime in November to send them out again as they donīt do him any good. They only increase my score and drain his HI pool.

People already mentioned that often enough, number of planes doesnīt matter that much, if you use them with pilots in the mid 30s. And you canīt train kamikaze daitais with ground attacks, so aircraft numbers in kamikaze daitais matter even less than aircraft numbers in normal daitais (which CAN be trained with ground attacks).



Feinder -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 5:09:42 PM)

quote:

Itīs correct that the planes can be replaced but with pilots average experienced 35 only one out of 400 will break through CAP and flak fire to hit a ship.


Correct, that's why I'm saying that *both* sides of the equation are broken.

-F-



herwin -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 6:10:33 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Itīs correct that the planes can be replaced but with pilots average experienced 35 only one out of 400 will break through CAP and flak fire to hit a ship. Then itīs perhaps only a barge, an AK or perhaps a DD. If youīre unlucky then the kamikaze bounces off a BBīs armor. For me it just doesnīt matter if my Japanese opponent replaces those 5000 planes that he lost in May sometime in November to send them out again as they donīt do him any good. They only increase my score and drain his HI pool.

People already mentioned that often enough, number of planes doesnīt matter that much, if you use them with pilots in the mid 30s. And you canīt train kamikaze daitais with ground attacks, so aircraft numbers in kamikaze daitais matter even less than aircraft numbers in normal daitais (which CAN be trained with ground attacks).


There was a study of kamikazes by the USN. Almost 500 made it to the point that they were seen to be headed for a specific ship, of which about 36% hit. How do those figures fit the game model?



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 6:11:05 PM)

The plain fact is that most kamikazes got nowhere near an allied ship and most that hit ships did not sink the ships they hit. Something like 35-50 vessels in total were sunk by kamikazes, and most of these were lost as a consequence of fire damage that occurred after multiple kamikaze hits. For many ships, especially the heavily armored ones, a kamikaze hit be it by a kate, val, or anything else, was mostly a threat to personnel.



herwin -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 6:30:25 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

The plain fact is that most kamikazes got nowhere near an allied ship and most that hit ships did not sink the ships they hit. Something like 35-50 vessels in total were sunk by kamikazes, and most of these were lost as a consequence of fire damage that occurred after multiple kamikaze hits. For many ships, especially the heavily armored ones, a kamikaze hit be it by a kate, val, or anything else, was mostly a threat to personnel.


27 sunk.

Class Attacks Hits
CL/CA/BB 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD 241 36%
AP/APA/AK/AKA 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small Craft 37 22%

Morse and Kimball, 1951.



Panther Bait -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 8:11:32 PM)

The Kamikaze's were much more dangerous to crews, particularly exposed crews like lookouts and AAA personnel or crews on unarmored ships like DDs/DEs than the ships, but the Kamikaze's did eat into the available escort vessels off Okinawa.  DD/DE losses, not just sunk but ships damaged to the extent that they could not stay on station, were getting severe enough to cause a lot of concern.  Morale on the pickets was taking a hit as well, since they felt they were very exposed when on station.  There were some hard feelings between the USN and the Army, since the ground campaign was taking longer than anticipated and army units were providing much of the CAP along with the CVEs.  TF 58/38 was usually out on offensive missions, like airfield suppression on the HI or neighboring islands, not providing CAP at the beach.

Convoy escort and ASW patrols were thinned out to make up losses in the AAA pickets.  Luckily the IJN subs by 1945 were not much of a threat to the USN/RN. 



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 8:20:39 PM)

quote:

The Kamikaze's were much more dangerous to crews, particularly exposed crews like lookouts and AAA personnel or crews on unarmored ships like DDs/DEs than the ships, but the Kamikaze's did eat into the available escort vessels off Okinawa. DD/DE losses, not just sunk but ships damaged to the extent that they could not stay on station, were getting severe enough to cause a lot of concern.


That's true. My point is that as a weapon system, kamikazes were reasonably effective at getting hits if they could get through the flak and cap -- which was rare if one considers the numbers of a.c. that made the effort. When they got hits, most of the time they did not do critical damage to the ship, although there were some spectacular exceptions. In particular, also, the idea that a torpedo bomber kamikaze would do similar damage as a successful non-kamikaze torpedo attack is silly, because in most instances if you drop a torpedo against the superstructure or side of a ship, you've dropped a heavy, penetrating, non-exploding missile that gets tossed overboard.

I don't have a problem with late war allied uber cap. Reading the AARs it is clear that kamikazes are less effective than historically. But it is late and inadequate compensation for the exaggerated Japanese power projection capability of 1941-1943, and for exaggerated Japanese production from 1943-1945..



Feinder -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 8:28:31 PM)

quote:

27 sunk.

Class Attacks Hits
CL/CA/BB 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD 241 36%
AP/APA/AK/AKA 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small Craft 37 22%

Morse and Kimball, 1951


Harry, can you give a little more info on that table?

What is considered an "attack"? An attack episode (multiple per day)? A days worth of attacks by Kamis? The ship as the object of the attack?

How many planes involved in the attack?

How many planes hit of total? (reflection of accuracy).

Example, against flight-decks, does that 41% mean that 44 flight decks were attakced, and 18 were damaged? Or there were 44 attacks against CVs (so you might have 5 attacks against the same CV (such as Formidable).

You usually produce good documentation, but please to expound a little more on what you've got in that table.

Thanks,
-F-



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 9:59:03 PM)

Bill Gordon, around a decade ago, retallied USN ship losses to Kamikazes and put the tally as follows (which anyone can read by checking Wikipedia entry from Kamikazes):

three escort carriers: USS St. Lo, USS Ommaney Bay, USS Bismark Sea
14 destroyers
3 high-speed transport ships
5 LST
4 LSM
3 LSM(R)
1 auxiliary tanker
3 Canadian Victory ships
3 Liberty ships
2 high-speed minesweepers
1 Auk class minesweeper
1 ocean tug, USS Sonoma
1 submarine chaser
2 PT boats
2 LCS
1 LCI (Large)

These efforts (and damaging another 100 or so ships) cost roughly 4,000 Japanese a.c.



Speedysteve -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 10:46:14 PM)

LOL....2 PT boats. KABLAMMO!



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (1/31/2008 11:06:53 PM)

The thought does inspire in the mind a vision of, errm, the sudden creation of lots of, umm, toothpicks.



Panther Bait -> RE: Kamikaze missions (2/1/2008 1:47:21 AM)

I did a tabulation of an Appendix in Morrison's 14th Volume of his USN History.  It's a list of USN Ships sunk or badly damaged (i.e. out of action for at least 30 days) from Feb 17-30 July 1945 (basically Iwo Jima and Okinawa operations).  I tried to weed out the ships hit only by bombs from a non-kamikaze, but I probably missed a few.

BB - 2 Damaged, inc. 1 not fixed until after VJ Day (Maryland)
CV - 5 Damaged, inc. 3 not fixed until after VJ Day (Bunker Hill, Enterprise, Franklin)
CVE - 1 Sunk, 2 Damaged, inc. 1 (Sangammon) that was scrapped/decom before fixing
CA - 1 Damaged (Indianapolis)
CL - 1 Damaged (Birmingham)
DD/DM - 13 Sunk, 47 Damaged, inc. 18 not fixed until after VJ Day and 13 that were scrapped/scuttled/decom before fixing
DE/APD - 1 Sunk, 16 Damaged, inc. 4 not fixed until after VJ Day and 5 that were scrapped/scuttled/decom before fixing
Mine/Patrol - 2 Sunk, 3 Damaged, inc. 1 not fixed until after VJ Day
AP/AK/AV - 3 Sunk, 10 Damaged, inc. 5 not fixed until after VJ Day
LCI/LCT/LSM/LST - 9 Sunk, 15 Damaged, inc. 7 not fixed until after VJ Day and 4 that were scrapped/scuttled/decom before fixing



herwin -> RE: Kamikaze missions (2/1/2008 2:00:23 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

quote:

27 sunk.

Class Attacks Hits
CL/CA/BB 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD 241 36%
AP/APA/AK/AKA 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small Craft 37 22%

Morse and Kimball, 1951


Harry, can you give a little more info on that table?

What is considered an "attack"? An attack episode (multiple per day)? A days worth of attacks by Kamis? The ship as the object of the attack?

How many planes involved in the attack?

How many planes hit of total? (reflection of accuracy).

Example, against flight-decks, does that 41% mean that 44 flight decks were attakced, and 18 were damaged? Or there were 44 attacks against CVs (so you might have 5 attacks against the same CV (such as Formidable).

You usually produce good documentation, but please to expound a little more on what you've got in that table.

Thanks,
-F-


Individual incidents. Attacks were single kamikazes that reached their terminal dive on identifiable ships. I don't know how many kamikazes took off, but this was the number that actually made through the CAP and long range AA. CVs were attacked 44 times, resulting in 18 hits.



Charles2222 -> RE: Kamikaze missions (2/1/2008 3:03:42 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

quote:

There's a flaw in your historic account.

There's no flaw in my historical account.  [;)]

Most of  us (myself included) are all very well aware of the fact that that Japan had roughly 7000 planes they were "saving" for Operation Olympic.  I was simply stating that during the course of 1945, there were only 7 - 8 days that Japan launched an "all out" Kamikaze attacks on the US/UK fleets.  There is nothing incorrect or misrepresentative about that statement.

The Historical Picture - Japan chose to save those 7000 planes for Operation Olympic, both sides knew they were looking at November-ish for the assault (the summer/fall being hte typhoon season).  They saved those planes because had they used them in June/July/August, they would NOT have been available in November.  And FYI, despite popular perception, Japanese aviators were generlly -NOT- rushing to bang down the doors of the Kamikaze recruiting office.

The WitP picture - Let's say it's July 1945 in-game, and you have that 7000 plane reserve available to you to sling at the Allied fleets.  You mirror the historical situation.  If you want to sling those 7000 planes at the Allied fleets, go ahead - that's 1500/planes a month = 5 or 6 250+ plane strikes per month.  Difference being, in WitP you can replace many of those planes by November (altho 7000 planes in 4 months is a bit ambitious, I'd say you could replace 5000).

-F-

So what do you mean by "saving" a/c? That seems to suggest they had no choice. It was a strategic decision on their part, despite that it might has been the only practical one left after the Marianas. When you make a strategic decison to either pull back your a/c from other spots, or at least not reinforce them and keep them at home, that is all a matter of saving them. What else could you call it if you disagree with that simple term I used? So you would call it chickening out or something? Please do tell.

As far as your assertion that 7-8 15-+ raids were in the minority, or to be more precise that peeny packets were the majority, we have to come to a matter of definitions. If you meant by that, which would seem really simplistic, that there were more "attacks" that were peeny packets, well that is meaningless, because given we can trust the info you threw in there 10 attacks of on eplane apiece is more attacks than 8 150+ attacks, but of course FAR less kami sorties, which is what I was talking about. Anyway I will assume we're talking sorties instead. Usinig your data again, and understand we are talking Operation Olympic here, not the totality of HI attacks to come.

Do you think that OO was to be almost enitrely a USN attack (IOW little to no RN)? If so, then I will present what is not the totality of the kami attacks agaiinst the USN, but the Okinawa ones anyway, and you will see on that alone, how the penny packet sorties were not the majority. See here:



During just the Okinawa campaign, the Japanese Army and Navy combined lost 1,900 aircraft in suicide attacks, 2,255 in combat operations, 2,655 in operational accidents and more than 1,000 that were destroyed on the ground. In contrast, the USN lost 565 aircraft and the British Pacific Fleet lost 203 - 32 destroyed by Kamikazes, 30 in the accidental hanger fire on Formidable, 33 in combat, 61 (mostly Seafires) in deck-landing accidents and 47 from other causes. As the British Pacific Fleet started out with 218 operational aircraft, these losses put a severe strain on the replenishment system.

USN Ships Sunk and Damaged by Kamikazes3
Sunk Damaged
Ship Type Qty Ship Type Qty
CVE 3 CV 16
DD 13 CVL 3
DE 1 CVE 17
DMS 2 BB 15
SC 1 CA 5
AM 1 CL 10
APD 3 DD 87
LST 5 DE 24
ATO 1 SS 1
Auxiliary 1 DM 13
PC/PT 3 DMS 15
Total 34 AGP/AGS 3
AH 1
AK/AKA/AKN 6
AM 10
AO 2
APA/APD/APH 30
ARL 2
ATF 1
AV/AVP 4
CM 1
LST 11
PC/PT 3
YDG/YMS 7
Total 288


Find it here: http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-042.htm


Now, taking your 8 150+ sortie strikes you get ballpark 1200 kami's. Notice the kami sorties listed here, 1900 (which would leave 700 for penny packets). Especially since the kamis enjoyed so many hits, I see no reason why they wouldn't at least achieve a good number of larger raids during OO, because I think you infer to penny packet is tantamount to failure, and usually to amass a good number of planes like that is to use them at least in the ratiio you had displayed against the USN, but, again, it anybody's guess. Maybe IJ considered their kami attacks as failures at Okinawa (I've no idea) and so they abandon the kamis before OO, but why would you have them ready for that role otherwise?

I also don't agree when you infer that the 3500 planes would not had been used for kamis, because people weren't allegedly beating down doors to fly that way. Study just the Okinawa raids and see a different picture. If you can manage 1900 in such a short period of time, and arguably OO could had been shorter, what makes you think they can't fill another 3500 which might had even been filled during Okinawa? True, there were more Okinawa standard sorties used than kamis (standard procedure to escort them), but I don't see that as being enough to assume that defense of the very HI's themselves wouldn't had seen the same ratio. But, think what you want to think, that's fine. We all enjoy our speculations.



Panther Bait -> RE: Kamikaze missions (2/1/2008 4:30:08 PM)

One thing to note about the Kikusui raids (large scale kamikaze attacks during the Okinawa campaign) is that they weren't typically a single strike of 150+ kamikazes.  Those sorties happened over the course of the day (sometimes multiple days).  They were usually staging from multiple airfields spread across the region from the HI, Formosa, other islands in the Ryukus, etc.  Those raids hit the invasion fleet as individual strikes.

The most successful Kamikaze attacks were the ones that snuck in undetected until the last minute, since it was very difficult to overwhelm the US/RN CAP and AAA with one big raid by this time.  Many of the attacks happened around dawn or dusk when visual spotting was difficult and before the CAP (particularly USAAF CAP) was up and in place.



mdiehl -> RE: Kamikaze missions (2/1/2008 7:34:14 PM)

quote:

The most successful Kamikaze attacks were the ones that snuck in undetected until the last minute, since it was very difficult to overwhelm the US/RN CAP and AAA with one big raid by this time.


The most successful kamikaze strikes were the ones that were nowhere near task groups that operated CAP. Had it come to an actual invasion of Japan, the US would likely have employed J. Thach's (yeah, *that* Thach), "Big Blue Blanket" strategy which was, for want of a better term, "Uber CAP."



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