Brady
Posts: 10701
Joined: 10/25/2002
From: Oregon,USA
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"The Japanese Navy's losses in aircrew at PH and Coral SeA constituted about 1/3 of their annual output of carrier trained pilots"
During the war their outpit skyrocketed,while this may of represented prewar out put it certainly did not represent war time out put.
Below are some excerpts from previous posts on this subject all are my own words or quoted passages from books:
The Myth is that the Japanese had during the war very low numbers of piolets and very porly trained ones.
The reality is that initialy they had a slow perioud during the first year of the war whear they had piolets coming off the training line at prewar pace, then later in the first year 42, we see the ramping up of the programe, and then what was for Japan large numbers of piolets becoming available..then a Boom in numbers..somthing like slow...fast...warp drive..then very slow (Late 45).
Skill leval was good Beter than the west, then on par with the west then not so good.
This is a simplifacation to be shure but prety much how it happened, like many things were fighting an uphill battle aganst what has been for many years commonly preceived to be true of somthing that has to do with Japan in WW2.
From the Book, Imperial Japanese Naval Aviator 1937-45 by Osama Tagaya:
p.9: "During the 1937-45 war , some 18,900 Yokern of all classses were killed in action out of 241,463 entering trainess. (This figure does not include the old Sohren programe priour to its incorperation into the Hei-Class Yokaren, or any of he commissioned Officer programs)
Most all Japanese Naval avators were enlistedmen.
"In retrospect the IJN maintained a rigorously exclusive policy in it's avaitor programe for to long. The otsu Yokaren admitded little more than 200men anualy up to 1938, and class size did not excead 1,000 untill may 1941. Otsu Yokaren Class No. 19 of December 1942 still had only 1,500 recutes. The figure then sudenly Jumped to 2,951 in the following Class No. 20 of May 1943. Among the Ko Yokaren by far the largest of the Yokaren programs , anual class sizes remained in the 250-260 range for most of the China War perioud. Numbers did not excead 1,000 until class No. 10 od Aprial 1942. A year later Class no. 12 counted 3,215, divided into three groups. The figure then exploded to almost 28,000 in class No. 13, divided into two groups in Otc. and Dec. 43."
"The Leveal of piolet skill remained High throught most of 1943"
"In 44 Carrier piolets were being introduced to flight deck landing with barely 150 hours flying time under their belts."
Japanese Naval Airmen who were the product of Pre war and early war traing were exceptionaly well trained, it would be fair and accurate to say that those trained in the mid war period were still very well trained and then those in the late war period were only trained. Pre war anywhear from 500(priour to the China war) to 200(during and after, up to 44 when it went down to 150) hours was normal for piolet traing priour to Being introduced to Carrier landings.
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Apendix C
Naval Fighter Piolets(By Class)
1. This table shows all Naval piolets who have specialized in fighters from the day that Naval avation was boarn through the Pacific war, aranged by class. Because of the fact that the Oficial records are not complete, we enlisted the help of many other people. It was not posable to prepare a complete list as such; in adation, because of page limations, the following have been omited: 40th class [also 41st and 42nd], Avation Student Course; Hei 7th class; Ko 8th class; Otsu 14th class; and classes after the 12th class, flight reserve student course.
2. Marks following the names have the following meaning:(H) Honors reciepent, (K) Killed in actioj, and (A) Accedential deth.
3. Parentheses around a name indicate piolets who changed from specialising in one type of aircraft to another. In 1936, with the seperation of the land atack forces,a large number of personnel changed to a diferent brach.
4. Piolets who converted from other specialities to that of fighter piolet are grouped together, at the end of each class listing. from the middel od the Pacific War on their were a large number of personel who converted from seaplane fighters and from two seat recon-float planes.
5. Piolets of Night fighters and flaot fighters units are not included.
6. Designations of types of aircraft are in acordance with practices of the perioud: Carier based planes, seaplanes, ect...
..................
The book then goes into the listings for each clase example:
Hei 6th Class (flight trainee course 23rd class) (September 1942; Omura Air Groupe, graduates, twenity seven persons, Tokushima Airgroupe graduates 30 persons, Oita Air Groupe graduates, unknow number)
Hideo Iijima (K)
Tokio I-ishi (K)
Kane-ichi Ishi-i (A)
..........The list goes to name all these men...they ALL died, all but 4 in combat, the 4 were accendital deths.
This is just one class and a small one at that, another example:
54th Class (May 1941; Oita Air Groupe graduates, carrier fighter, twenity one persons)
55th Class (JUly 1941 Oita Air groupe graduates carrier fighters 9 persons)
56 th class ( (July 1941; Oita Air groupe graduates, carrier fighters, ninteen persons.)
So as you can just so far their were different names for the piolet training progame, and different clases running concurently, and as the preface above notes not all those are included hearin, and of those running not all the info is avilable.
Another example:
Otsu 11th class:
(21st class of flight trainee course; July 42 graduates 14 persons)
(23rd Class September 42 graduates Oita Air Groupe 48 persons.)
........
Ko 6th Class (July 1942 graduates of 21st class flight traniee, carrier fighters 41 persons)
All but two of this class KIA.
.......
Yo 11th Class November 43, total of all types 85 persons, and 37 Carrier fighter persons.
......
OK, as you can see it is complex and confuing at best to decifier, these clases ran concurently and their were different programes, the Yo for example were I beelave reserve piolet trainies, though asigned to front line units...Then we have the List's:
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Their is on several pages a totaled list of piplets trained for various periouds, example:
Ko 13(class)
28,111(graduates)
Oct. 43-July 44 (time frame)
38-42 (Classes)
Now that is one of the biger ones, their are as I say several pages of such listings.
......................
Some quick and shoty math generates a figure aproaching 2500 per month on average for the 8 years, this would of been much higher for the mid war perioud of course. And again this figure is not inclusive of all the programs in this time frame that fed piolets into the Navy, Officers came from other programs for example. These men were also funneled into the Following training programs specificaly geared toward their fininal assinements, Atack planes (Kats, Jills, ect), Dive Bombers, Fighters,Float planes, Ea planes, Land Atack Planes (Bettys, Nells,Peggys, ect...).
Some further coments on this insainly high figure:
A couple things to remember hear as we discuss this:
2500 is a rough estimate of the NAVY (Not Army)aircrew, it only refers to new inducties, not those drawn from withen the service as many were, nore the Oficers who were trained seperatly:
p.9: "During the 1937-45 war , some 18,900 Yokern of all classses were killed in action out of 241,463 entering trainess. (This figure does not include the old Sohren programe priour to its incorperation into the Hei-Class Yokaren, or any of he commissioned Officer programs"
About 20% of the entering number did not finish the programe in the prewar years, howeaver it should be noted that Pre war traing included up two 3 years of schooling before Flight traing was undertaken, during the war it was was around 1 year of classes before the flight traing was undertaken(and most admited made it). Pre war 200 to 500 hours of flight traing was the norm before the trainie was sent to a unit. During the war this was around 200 unit till 44 then it droped to about 150 hours. Also apon entering flight traing the men were divided into specific traing groups for the plane type they were to fly, Float plane, Atack, Fighter, ect...
The flight training part of their education lasted for 10 to 12 months, during which they got on avaerage 200 hours of flight time, the first 6 months was on initial flight traing whil the last 6 was on operationaly types advanced training. This was the routine in 41 (12 months on average) and in 42 and 43 (10 months on average). In 44 it droped to about 6 months of traing on average.
It should also be Noted that WiTP does not model the entire Japanese ecenomy, we dont have to bother witth the traing of Calvery troops and the nightmear that feading all those horses and acquiring them was, nore the traing of tank crews, paratroppers ect...
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"still, for the planes, it was the fuel that made the planes top rate, weak, shoddy fuel, does not make a high performence plane (lots of reports on how the ground crew, used buckets to pore gas into the planes, what ever was in the bucket, was also in the fuel tanks) "
This is not entirely the case German planes as an example did not run on High octane fuel, their have been some very informative posts int he past regarding this Lemurs did some very good stuff on this, in a nut shell it depeneds on the fuel type the plane was designed to run on if designed to run a lower octane fuel at peak preformance a higher octaine fule is not going to realy give it a boost in preformance, do a search for the Ki-84 and Lemurs.
"test reports in the states, were getting 30-50 MPH more, then they were seeing in combat "
Again I beleave this had more to do with the condation of plane and not the fuel see the abve search tip thier is more on this their.
"and the landing gear was not a hassle that was corrected later, it was a hassle that was caused by the way the planes were being made "
Take the George for example, the N1K1 had a mid wing designe and very long landing gear that was complex and notiourios for being problem matic, the revised the airframe in the N1K2 and the landing gear changed as a result and the issue was largely stoped, thuse it was corected later...
"at least 2 of the testers has stated that, you are getting too many replacement pilots to start with, looks like the designers and the testers are somewhat in the same place as to how many should be given "
While it may be that initialy the Japanese are geting a few to many, these figurs are based to a degree on battles that the player may never fight, if you speaking from day one and refering to just those piolets available right before the war started you may well be corect, I personaly dont have a source that say they were short on day one, though I dont have reasion to question this at present, howeaver if you look above you will see that did not last to long, espichaly if you remove the losses from the batles that occured historicaly, given this they should have plenty of piolets and well trained ones at that.
"ahhh, what late war CV pilots ? why were they training CV pilots for ? you need CV's to put them on "
The Japanese had several fleat CV's in 44.
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" flying an aircraft that was far better then the Soviet aircraft he encountered"
Many Russian fighters were Better in many ways than the The German fighters, particularly the La-5's and La-7's, if memory serves Hartman got 7 P-51's in one day at Polistie.
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Beta Team Member for: WPO PC CF AE WiTE Obi-wan Kenobi said it best: A lot of the reality we perceive depend on our point of view
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Printable Version
RE: Japan a Superpower!!! - 
As someone who didn't participate in any of the testing, and who tends to play the Allies, it would have taken me quite a while to figure this one out on my own. BTW, does anyone know if the AI is programmed to train Japanese pilots?
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