Slitherine

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Why is this counted as US victory?

Because Japanese invasion Admiral lost his nerve and Port Moresby convoy turned around (which was 100% unnecessary).

The only way Coral Sea battle can be counted as USA victory sf fact that both Japanese Carriers were unable to participate in Midway battle (due to Japanese problem with pilot training resulting in pilot shortage).

And even such Midway was one _BIG_ lucky thing for USN.

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Tacitacally, therefore, we considered the Coral Seab battle as victorious for our forces. Future events proved this evaluation to be faulty for, as stratigic moves would clearly reveal, the Coral Sea battle proved a serious Japanese setback.

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Fine and dandy. the Thatch weave was a defensive tactic that worked and when first used the Wildcat's were on an offensive mission. The Wildcat didn't permit many offensive options besides Shoot and Scoot.

What I meant was that "Thach weave" was devised to save lives of USN fighter pilots when attacked by Zero fighters - it was not tactics meant to destroy the Japanese Zero fighters.

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Again, against USN Carrier pilots this claim can't be backed. Vastly superior pilots in vastly superior planes should have wiped out the USN Navy pilots they encountered.. they didn't. why is that?

Japanese did great in all air battles vs. USN up until Midway (CV Yorktown was sunk after all with just handful of planes) and even after that in Solomon carrier battles.

What Japanese were missing were additional excellent pilots that needed to replace their lost comrades...

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ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

Hi again everyone. Enjoyable thread. but in an effort to keep this from going round and round I thought I would quote some people far more knowledgable then me.

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Why is this counted as US victory?

Because Japanese invasion Admiral lost his nerve and Port Moresby convoy turned around (which was 100% unnecessary).

The only way Coral Sea battle can be counted as USA victory sf fact that both Japanese Carriers were unable to participate in Midway battle (due to Japanese problem with pilot training resulting in pilot shortage).

And even such Midway was one _BIG_ lucky thing for USN.

From the Book "Zero"

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Tacitacally, therefore, we considered the Coral Seab battle as victorious for our forces. Future events proved this evaluation to be faulty for, as stratigic moves would clearly reveal, the Coral Sea battle proved a serious Japanese setback.

This was written by Masatake Okumiya, a air staff officer present at most of the carrier battles in the pacific. If the US considered it a victory and the Japanese a "serious setback" I'd rather not argue with them :-) Seriously thouhg no battle is in a vaccum. coral Sea set the stage for the US victory at Midway.

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Fine and dandy. the Thatch weave was a defensive tactic that worked and when first used the Wildcat's were on an offensive mission. The Wildcat didn't permit many offensive options besides Shoot and Scoot.

What I meant was that "Thach weave" was devised to save lives of USN fighter pilots when attacked by Zero fighters - it was not tactics meant to destroy the Japanese Zero fighters.

Agreed - However it was a defensive tactic that resulted in Japanese Zeros being shot down. :-)

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Again, against USN Carrier pilots this claim can't be backed. Vastly superior pilots in vastly superior planes should have wiped out the USN Navy pilots they encountered.. they didn't. why is that?

Japanese did great in all air battles vs. USN up until Midway (CV Yorktown was sunk after all with just handful of planes) and even after that in Solomon carrier battles.

What Japanese were missing were additional excellent pilots that needed to replace their lost comrades...

I would disagree witht that statement. The Japanese did great against the USN up until Midway. There was only one other battle between USN carrier pilots and Japanese Carrier pilots. At Coral Sea. Remember the scope of this thread was US Carrier Pilots. According to John Lundstrom's research the USN to IJN ration was 14 Zeros shot down to 10 Wildcat losses for the total two Carrier battles Midway and Coral Sea. Where does the Statement the "Japanese did Great" come from?

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Eastern Solomons? Where two Jap carriers sank the Hornet and put the Enterprise out of action?

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Eastern Solomons? Where two Jap carriers sank the Hornet and put the Enterprise out of action?

But you're quite right. The USN did start making a come back on its own well before the new aircraft types and ships showed up.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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Also being in combat is something that can only help

I fundamentally disagree. When you look at Coral Sea you can see some fine examples of veteran Japanese pilots losing their lives because they learned the wrong lesson in China. I can name three wrong lessons they learned as they died. 1. Don't cross ahead of an F4F within range, even at a high deflection angle, because unlike Chinese pilots, USN pilots can and routinely do kill you with a snap shot. 2. Don't engage an F4F in a head to head attack because the F4F can take what you can dish out, but the A6M can't take what the F4F can dish out. 3. Under the right circumstances, an F4F can and will turn with you or even ahead of you and kill you.

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You can only see what soldiers are made of when someone is shooting at them and trying to kill them.

"You can only see what soldiers are made of" is hyperbole. There's no there there. In ground combat, veterans can crack and run like hell. Rookies can stand and fight. Unit morale and cohesion can be there, go away, and return. Training can and does make a huge difference even in the intangible things like morale, initiative, espirit de corps. Like other false "common sense" the "experience trumps all" perspective is just crap and demonstratably so in numerous circumstances. Consider the 20th Me. In one prior combat (Fredericksburg) their only mission was to advance across an open ground, be shot and die. Not much learning there since everybody knew that frontal assaulting a fortified position sporting artillery was suicide. In their second battle (Gettysburg Day 2 L. ROund Top) they executed a series of complex maneuvers in combat that most units never used in combat. They'd never used them in combat before. These included a doubling of the interval under fire, followed by refusing the left flank, followed by a bayonet charge that began with a left forward wheel. These things worked (and resulted in the capture of some 400 CSA veterans-of-numerous-battles) solely because of intensive training.

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Training is great but only in combat you can see who is fit for war and who is not (especially true for commanders and pilots)...

It's true that combat provides the test of personal courage and skill. It is not necessarily true that surviving combat makes one either more skilled or more courageus. There's not much evidence that, for example, Montgomery, or McClellan, ver improved much as generals as a result of any lessons that they learned in combat. They started out utterly devoid of talent (McC) and mediocre (Monty) and stayed talentless and meidocre respectively.

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I'm also a combat veteran,so it's fairly easy to detect when somebody is proffering an opinion they really don't know anything about..

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ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

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ORIGINAL: denisonh

I have a question about "historical" effectiveness.

Is it historical for the huge kill ratios that result in the game between the F4Fs and Zeros? (can we say Uber-Zero?)

This topic was run to ground in the UV thread, and think that we are going to go down that same road again.

One of the premises that differentiate "world class" military establishments is superior doctrine and training. Superior trained troops with better doctrine will defeat an enemy with battlefield experience (US Army vs the Republican Guards for example).


There are serious doubts as to the "value" of the Japanese experience in China, particularly with respect to doctrine and tactics. The US, the USN in particular, paid a great deal of attention to unit operations. Given that combat is a collective excersize, it collective skill in the form of superior leadership, tactical employment and doctrine will generally beat individual skill and equipment (something like the France in 1940).

So framing this discussion with historical evidence (kill ratios would be a good start) and an understanding of the synergistic effects of the unit on combat (the principle of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) will have more credibility IMHO.

You can't compare USA vs. Japan in WWII with USA vs. Iraq nowadays.

That would simply be ridiculous.


Japan was truly world power in WWII with extremely highly trained 1st class Navy, Army and Air Force.


Also I don't see any suggestion of super (or "Uber") in both UV and WitP games.

You can ask my PBEM opponents - when I play as Allies I kill enemy Zero fighters - when I play as Japanese I kill with my Zero fighters.


Also let us not forget that historical truth is that Zero _DID_ surprise USA and that it was very very effective weapon at the begging of the war (i.e. entering dogfight with Zero meant certain death).

When time passed proper tactics (like _NEVER_ dogfight Zero) were introduced and Zero shortcomings become very obvious...


If you want to amuse yourself you can read USA reports from the beginning 1942 when it was firmly believed that:

- German pilots fly for Japanese (because all Japanese were small people with thick glasses).

- German planes are in fact Japanese planes (because Japan is such technologically inferior country unable to produce anything complex).


Leo "Apollo11"

"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

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ORIGINAL: Caltone

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ORIGINAL: denisonh

Combat experience in and of itself is not going to create a more effective unit.

Experience can be helpful, but well trained unit with solid Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, quality leadership, and doctrine that matches personnel and equipment for the battlefield task is bettter prepared to suceed on the battlefield.

Codifying experience into knowledge on how to collectively solve battlefield problems is in great part a function of doctrine and training.

Expereience is wasted if the right lessons are not learned.

Absolutely. It goes without saying that the NCO's and Officers need to be of high caliber to insure the proper lessons are learned and bad habits are corrected. But when conducting a recon of the perimeter, you don't put the new guy on point.

"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

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Please take my example in context. The Republican Guards were the cream of the Iraqi army, and had much more "combat experience" than the US forces facing them in Gulf War I.

The US superiority rested in training, tactics, and doctrine.

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Did they let their pilots go inland though?

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ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Japanese did great in all air battles vs. USN up until Midway

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ORIGINAL: tigercub

So if some of you guys still think that the us cv pilots should be 90 exp were do you fit these pilots with real kills mostly flying ME109s what 200 exp give me a break!! .
This list very nice reading i must say.... the top pilots here would eat aces with 5 kills for breaky think about it, this why i say no pilot should have more than 80 exp with out combat exp....
"Bubi"

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The P 40 was never a patch on the Me 109 /fighter vers anytime!!

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In small unit operations veterans are the ones more likely to:

1. Know how to load a rucksack and adjust your webgear
2. Know what to carry
3. Know how to load a magazine
4. Spot a problem with non combatants
5. Recognize a bad situation before it gets ugly

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You mention that the pilots of WWII fought in a high tech arena, while that is true for that time, its very low tech compared to the advancements we've made since. No, I wasn't there, but I suspect the furballs back then were very much a close in affair and traits similar to what I mention above would play a key role.

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Let me finish by saying that the xp of pilots feels about right in the game. In evenly matched encounters, we see 1 for 1 losses, as I'd expect. For Japan to win a carrier battle, they have to overwhelm the USN, as I'd expect.

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This list very nice reading i must say.... the top pilots here would eat aces with 5 kills for breaky think about it

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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The P 40 was never a patch on the Me 109 /fighter vers anytime!!

Thanks for that. I almost inhaled my coffee laughing. I'll put your comment right next to other pieces of "wisdom." Stuff that sounds smart but ain't supported by the facts, like, for example, "Never hunt deer with anything less than a .300 Wby Magnum because anything less just can't get the job done."

I direct you to, for example, "An Army at Dawn" by Rick Atkinson, any of the unit records of the Tuskegee airmen, or any comprehensive set of stats on the P-40 and comparable-year models of the Me109. Bottom line is that the early variants of the P40 were somewhat undergunned, sporting 2x rifle caliber MGs and 2x.50 BMGs. The P40 N was faster at altitudes below 17,000 feet (where most of the combats in the North Africa theater occurred), and had a better climb rate. With 6x.50BMG it could penetrate any armor on an ME109 from any angle, fark up every surface or structure that it hit, shoot at longer range than the 30mm slug thrower in the ME109, shoot more ammo into the target area per unit of time, and shoot for more time overall. It was also, below 18,000 feet, somewhat more maneuverable with a greater turn rate and a smaller turn radius than the ME109.

At altitudes above 21000 feet the 109G was faster and more maneuverable and had quite the edge in air to air combat. But then, those combats tended only to occur in the context of strategic bombing. The USAAF did not use the P40 for high altitude bomber escort.

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ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

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Eastern Solomons? Where two Jap carriers sank the Hornet and put the Enterprise out of action?

But you're quite right. The USN did start making a come back on its own well before the new aircraft types and ships showed up.

Eastern Solomons was the Enterprise and Saratoga against the Sho, Zui and Ryujo. THe Ryujo was lost to the Damaged Enterprise

the Battle of Santa Cruz. The Japanese had 4 carriers to the Enterprise and Hornet the USN lost a larger carrier but it turned back a large Japanese surface force headed for the 'canal when it could have turned the tide there.

regards, Jon

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And because of the superiority of the P-40, the USAAF employed the P-40N battling Me 109Gs...?

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Okay. I somehow amalgamated Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz into one battle. When it was all over and the Sara and Wasp had been torpedo-ed (Sara only damaged), the USN had one fleet carrier (Enterprise) left in the Pacific versus 3 or four Jap carriers so at that point Jap carrier air was still ahead, so they were doing sort of okay.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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In theory any tactics can be viewed as defensive and/or offensive in some degree. But you can't deny the fact that "Thach Weave" was primarily devised as a mean to save USN pilots when they encounter Zero fighters and dogfight occur (natural tendency for almost all pilots in all sides at that time in history was to enter circling dogfight)...

It was not the natural tendency of pilots to enter a circling dogfight. The beam defense was a way for two F4Fs to handle the enemy when outnumbered. The way of handling the enemy was to shoot the enemy down. Killing the enemy is an offensive move. The result of killing the enemy is that fewer of them increases your own safety. But as to the natural tendency to enter circling dogfights, for the USN that's just not the tendency. When you look in detail at the Coral Sea engagements you see F4F pilots flying boom and zoom tactics alot -- especially Thach and Flatley. You also see a high degree of situational awareness to not allow airspeed to drop and pilots routinely bugging out when they found themselves low on airspeed and returning to the combat after gaining speed and altitude. This does not mean that every pilot flew boom and zoom or that even good pilots did not at time find themselves out of airspeed. All it means is that the actual combats were, from the get go, much more complicated than the "Japan ruled the skies" point of view embraces.

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think that Japanese did quite well against USN and against British (many BoB veterans were flying against Japanese) as first class opposition.

I guess.. if "quite well" means that more Japanese A6Ms were shot down by F4Fs at the Coral Sea than F4Fs were shot down, or that more Japanese A6Ms were shot down by F4Fs at Midway than were shot down. I honestly don't know how the IJN comes off looking "quite well" when in direct, head to head, fighter vs fighter engagements, they consistently lost more planes than they shot down. That doesn't strike me as a good record, even if the Japanese could have found enough replacement pilots to recover their losses.

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Also being in combat is something that can only help

I fundamentally disagree. When you look at Coral Sea you can see some fine examples of veteran Japanese pilots losing their lives because they learned the wrong lesson in China. I can name three wrong lessons they learned as they died. 1. Don't cross ahead of an F4F within range, even at a high deflection angle, because unlike Chinese pilots, USN pilots can and routinely do kill you with a snap shot. 2. Don't engage an F4F in a head to head attack because the F4F can take what you can dish out, but the A6M can't take what the F4F can dish out. 3. Under the right circumstances, an F4F can and will turn with you or even ahead of you and kill you.

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You can only see what soldiers are made of when someone is shooting at them and trying to kill them.

"You can only see what soldiers are made of" is hyperbole. There's no there there. In ground combat, veterans can crack and run like hell. Rookies can stand and fight. Unit morale and cohesion can be there, go away, and return. Training can and does make a huge difference even in the intangible things like morale, initiative, espirit de corps. Like other false "common sense" the "experience trumps all" perspective is just crap and demonstratably so in numerous circumstances. Consider the 20th Me. In one prior combat (Fredericksburg) their only mission was to advance across an open ground, be shot and die. Not much learning there since everybody knew that frontal assaulting a fortified position sporting artillery was suicide. In their second battle (Gettysburg Day 2 L. ROund Top) they executed a series of complex maneuvers in combat that most units never used in combat. They'd never used them in combat before. These included a doubling of the interval under fire, followed by refusing the left flank, followed by a bayonet charge that began with a left forward wheel. These things worked (and resulted in the capture of some 400 CSA veterans-of-numerous-battles) solely because of intensive training.

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Training is great but only in combat you can see who is fit for war and who is not (especially true for commanders and pilots)...

It's true that combat provides the test of personal courage and skill. It is not necessarily true that surviving combat makes one either more skilled or more courageus. There's not much evidence that, for example, Montgomery, or McClellan, ver improved much as generals as a result of any lessons that they learned in combat. They started out utterly devoid of talent (McC) and mediocre (Monty) and stayed talentless and meidocre respectively.

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had very poor Air force in 1940 - let's be honest here.

That is neither substantive in its scope, correct in the broadest sense, nor honest. It's also not "1941" as stipulated in the thread title. The USN pilots of 1940 were every bit as good as any IJN pilot in 1940 and better than most other nations' pilots (in part because of their unparalleled skill at deflection shooting). By 1941, even the USAAF had absorbed many of the lessons of the Battle of Britain in consultation with UK and Commonwealth air forces. IN 1941-e.1942 the chief disasters that befell USAAFFE and the PH contingents had *nothing* to do with pilot quality and everything to do with strategic position and logistics.

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Some pilots may have been training some advanced concepts but in general USA pilots at that point in time (i.e. history) were no different in mentality than pilots in other nations...

That is manifestly and documentably different for USN pilots. No other nation trained intensively at deflection shooting. That may be one of the reasons why F4F pilots facing Me109s in the North Africa campaign shot down three German veterans per F4F lost. Not bad considering that the Me109 was definitely a better plane than either the F4F or A6M.

As for the USAAF, the basic problem there remained the use of substandard aircraft in the PTO. In North Africa, unblooded USAAF pilots in P40s acquitted themselves quite well against veteran Luftwaffe units flying Me109G2s and Italian units flying the MC in-line thingie (MC 201 or 202 I forget which) which was a pretty good plane.

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IMHO the accomplishments of Chennault was much publicized for propaganda sake while actual results were not that great (and add to that fact that they did _NOT_ encounter Zero fighters although they constantly claimed so).

When you stop reading the propaganda written in 1942 and start reading about the AVG you will see that, discounting the "confirmed kills" and taking a realistic assessment of the claims and unit records, the AVG lost 1 aircraft in combat for every six Japanese aircraft shot down by P40s. That includes AVG pilots lost in ground attack. So "actual results were not that great" is the only remaining propaganda. The Zero question is more difficult to tackle. There are some good reasons to believe that Japanese units that faced off against the AVG in the CBO had some Zeroes. The debate is really extensive and not resolvable by us.

The thing is we can predict the outcome. The P40 boom and zoom tactics used by the AVG were every bit as effective against A6Ms when non-AVG units flying in New Guinea began routinely to employ them after mid-1942. Since the AVG pilots were that much better at it (having been trained in them at the get go), I think the results of deploying A6Ms rather than Ki-43s against the AVG would not have differed substantially. The Zekes would still have the snot shot out of them and would have acquitted themselves poorly, regardless of the experience of the Japanese pilots flying them, against the AVG.

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

I would disagree witht that statement. The Japanese did great against the USN up until Midway. There was only one other battle between USN carrier pilots and Japanese Carrier pilots. At Coral Sea. Remember the scope of this thread was US Carrier Pilots. According to John Lundstrom's research the USN to IJN ration was 14 Zeros shot down to 10 Wildcat losses for the total two Carrier battles Midway and Coral Sea. Where does the Statement the "Japanese did Great" come from?

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I think there is a myth that the only way the US beat Japan was because either we were "Lucky" or outnumbered them with state of the art aircraft. Midway's luck was the result of a lot of hard work done in the intelligence area to get the US forces there in time to bushwack the Japanese. Any major battle can hinge on one of a million slightly different outcomes that you could chalk up to luck? Sure was lucky for the Japanese that the Fuel lines cuaght fire on the LEx in Coral Sea or else their might have been four carriers at midway. IT was "lucky" for the Japanese that none of the TBD's connected with a torpedo just as it was "unlucky" for them to be plastered by the SBDs.
The outcome was already decided in the Allies favor well before Corsairs, Hellcats and Helldivers swarmed the skies. Men flying Wildcats, P-40s and P-39s manged to beat the Japanese air force and break it's back over Gaudalcanal, Coral Sea and Midway. pretty impressive legacy to those fighting men, don't you think?

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Again thanks for an enjoyable thread.

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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ORIGINAL: JohnK

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ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Japanese did great in all air battles vs. USN up until Midway

Then why is there no example of Zeros dominating USN Wildcats?

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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This is from my other message in this same thread (i.e. this is what I meant):

Japanese did well in general because they were able to penetrate defense and execute attack (and sink USN CVs for example).

Japanese strike packages escorted by Zero's were thus successfully and, in that respect, they did what they were supposed to (and in my book that means that they overall "did quite well")...


Leo "Apollo11"