Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

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ORIGINAL: Misconduct

Does anyone have actual accounts of Japanese Pilots taking down huge numbers of B-17's and B-24s? I mean I never remember hearing any after action reports on american sides suggesting the japanese had any success at any part of the war in taking down 4 engine bombers. Some creditable claims I have read that further disprove every Japanese Fan boy here, are aces like Saburo Sakai who sat behind an F4F and put almost 1,000 rounds of 7.7mm into it and the plane wouldn't drop, were talking F4F here not a B-17.

The ki-43's in Burma, what level of success were they having? How many were being brought down 1-2? or typical japanese over-excelled combat reports with hundreds of "B24's shot down".

Ki-43's brought down 22 B-24's over the course of the Burma campaign in exchange for 18 of their own number. Typical actions tended to be squadron level bombing runs which was a norm outside of the massive strategic bombing campaigns of Europe and over Japan in 44/45. Interceptors similarily were small in #.

4E's were generally the toughest to bring down but it could still be done. Bergerud documented one notable occurance where A6M's downed 4 x B-17's in one mission and shot up the survivors. USAAF mission planners never discounted the danger of enemy fighter defenses and planned their missions to minimize their apperance and impact. The obtainment of long range escorts was a major priority of air commanders like Kenney. Loss of a bomber (and crew) was only one part of the equation (and the worst case scenario). Damage to plane, wounding and death of crewmembers and disruption or aborting entirely of a mission were all factors that could occur if enemy defenses were strong. Wargamers tend to get "tunnel vision" and focus on kills only. Granted, in games like WitP, this is understandable as often with the exponential effect of large-mass formations, only outright kills yield tangible results [in-game]. When players get pounded by air to ground and protest, the argument naturally orbits around kill result comparisons creating the disconnect.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

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ORIGINAL: SuluSea

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ORIGINAL: FatR

Even the most cursory examination of actual combat episodes reveals that unescorted 4E raids against major and active Japanese bases weren't even contemplated until the advent of B-29s.

This has been refuted numerous times already, my work here is done.

You know very episodic bombing of absolute backwaters like Nauru and Wake does not really refure this even one time. Edge cases can always be found, but your own source only confirms, that unescorted Allied LBA should not be able to suppress Japanese bases before B-29s, and historically it wasn't even tried.