another Zero post

Thanks guys, if I screwed up posting that OP, it wasn't on purpose nor with evil intent. As a matter of fact I found it so interesting I thought that it had probably been posted many time before and someone would tell me to stop re-posting stuff.

KTK

 

While it is true that the tactic was designed as a defensive measure, it proved to be a truly elegant solution as it provides a quick transition from defense to offense when numbers are favorable. Thach refered to his tactic as the Beam Defense Maneuver - the "Thach Weave" moniker was created by others. The "weave" is not continuous but is only initiated when one aircraft (or pair) falls under attack.

Thach's tactic survives in various forms to present day. Most air forces use a "combat spread" cruising disposition in which two aircraft (or pairs) fly abeam separated by approximately 1 turn radius at current cruise speed. The USN refers to its cruise disposition as "loose deuce". The tactic provide mutual support for defense purposes but also good offensive position when approaching bogeys head on. Which ever aircraft the bogey turns to engage, he is presenting his tail to the wingman and will find himself sandwiched between the two.

Here is another article that discusses both the "Thach Weave" and the testing of Koga's Zero. Some guy named "Leonard" keeps showing up in these articles.
http://www.history.navy.mil/download/ww2-25.pdf

 

Did get around a bit, didn't he?

R

 

That's why they're called "simulators" and not "duplicators".

 

It was a nightmare initially coming up against the Japanese fighters and their pilots: mostly their pilots. They were ruthless fliers, as noted above by hounding the Catalina crew to their death by strafing. Nothing more horrible if not senseless. Hours in the cockpit counts more so than the technology for the time. Gen Claire Chennault knew it, hiring pilots who were older, way out of the norm for regular Army pilots. Maybe that's how his son was able to be successful in the Aleutians. The The Japanese Navy A6M Type 0 was probably the most prolific and advanced fighter to show up over Asia, particularly China in 1941. It had a terrifying reputation, outperforming British, Chinese, or American platforms. Pilots of the Curtiss Tomahawk/Warhawk P40 and Hawker Hurricane mitigated this by being better, smarter. (there's a few other allied aircraft that could outmatch the Japanese inventory like the Beaufighter, Lightning, mosquito, &c) Same for the airmen engaged in the Battle of Britain where almost raw talent coupled with a darn good aircraft stemmed the Axis tide. Many of the so-called "Zeros" reported by allied personnel were actually the Ki43 NAKAJIMA/Hyabusa fighter. These were the few aircraft that could reach the B-39 Superfortress altitudes. Japanese successes were from both technology and tactics, but certainly experience. The Allies quickly caught up.

 

Surely you are not implying that the AVG under Chennault fought against the A6M2, that would be historically incorrect. The AVG fighter-to-fighter actions were against IJAAF units, not IJN units . . . the A6M2 was exclusively IJN.

I’d also point out that the majority of pilots (60%) hired into the AVG were naval aviators, navy and marines, not army pilots, most with between three and five years experience. And as aside, my father, a lieutenant (jg) in Ranger’s VS-41, who reported aboard in February 1941, just before the squadron was redesignated to VF-42, remembered well the AVG recruiters coming around and the loss of some fairly experienced members of the Ranger air group.

Supposedly all these IJN fighter pilots obtained vast experience operating over China. Well, what about all this much touted China combat experience? Bombing raids blasting relatively, by later standards, undefended villages, towns and cities or the odd USN or RN river gunboat. Fighter-wise, this meant flying strike escort for these practically unchallenged air raids, shooting up columns of troops, and, on extremely rare occasions cornering a bunch of Russian built and Chinese flown I-15 biplanes or a rare I-16 monoplane . . . jeez, I bet that was tough. I mean, really, for just A6M2's, 30 A6M2's, in combat for 60 days, shooting down 266 Chinese aircraft, and no A6M2 air combat losses . . . give me a break. . . I might believe no losses, but, really, 266 with the known Japanese penchant for over-claiming? And 30 planes for 60 days hardly qualify as providing all this grand experience to the IJN A6M2 pilots. Also, consider that IJN air units had considerably less involvement in China than IJAAF air units. That’s not to say the IJN flyers had no combat experience, but to posit instead that it was, perhaps, a “low quality” combat experience . . . more like overly realistic training. The entire argument of the IJN pilots having all this vast combat experience must rest on some fairly unlikely presuppositions, such as:

1.All IJN pilots/air groups went off to China and obtained this combat experience and:
1a. all fighter sorties resulted in air to air combat action (they did not)
1b. all fighter pilots received air to air combat experience (they did not)
1c. all fighter air to air combat experience was obtained flying the A6M2, (they did not) and

2. All IJN pilots/air groups went off to fight the Americans with no pilot without this experience which means:
2a. no permanent change of station transfers out (there were)
2b. no operational casualties (there were)
2c. no assignment of new pilots fresh from whatever advanced training (there were)
2d. no permanent change of station transfers in from pilots who were busy elsewhere during the China adventures. (there were)

So the theory is that these inexperienced USN/USMC pilots faced all these, to a man, lean, mean, combat experienced, multiple victory, mature late 20's to early 30's, rock steady, hardened professionals. Nonsense. I’d be the first to say that the IJN pilots had a rigorous training program, but what do you think the USN/USMC pilots were doing ... sitting around the officers clubs at Chambers Field or Kaneohe NAS just a-twiddling their thumbs? Did they just suddenly materialize on December 8th fresh from Pensacola?

The pre-war, up to 7 December 1941, USN/USMC pilots, and, yes, this means of the fighter pilot variety. too while not combat experienced, were, in most cases, well trained, well led, and possessed of sound tactical doctrine. Their squadron commanders and execs were experienced aviators who had received their wings by the very late 1920's and early 1930's, the division and section leaders, for the most part, had anywhere from three years to slightly less than a year in type community.

A typical example would be the aviators from one fighter squadron, Fighting-42, who fought against the Shoho, Zuikaku, Shokaku, Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu, and Kaga air groups, as well as aircraft stationed at Tulagi. The experience level for the squadron, reported on 30 April ‘42 ranged from 3019.3 hours (LCDR Flatley, the exec) down to 274.4 hours (ENS Gibbs, who joined the squadron on 8 December ‘41). Average pilot hours for the squadron worked out to 989.4. (One might note that 3.8 hours flying a day, 5 days a week, for a year would net you 988 hours flight time. One could realistically expect a pilot to acquire not more than about 10 hours a week if he really worked at it, or about 520 hours a year. Ten hours a week was about the number of operating hours a USN fighter pilot might expect to accumulate while deployed in forward areas in 1945. The squadron average, therefore, represents almost two years worth of flying experience. And flying experience doesn’t mean just boring holes in the sky; it includes many, many training sorties.) This squadron suffered no combat casualties until the Battle of the Coral Sea, where they lost 2 planes/1 pilot in air to air combat. A month later, at Midway, where Fighting-42 pilots made up 64% (16 of 25) of the VF-3 pilots engaged on June 4th, they lost 2 planes/2pilots in air to air combat. Of claims credited to pilots flying with VF-3 at Midway, 17 of 27 went to the VF-42 contingent. Of a total of 21 pilots assigned to this squadron from 7 December, 1941 to the end of June 1942 when it was disestablished, only 4 planes/3 pilots were lost in air to air combat. This was the only US fighter squadron whose pilots fought both at Coral Sea and at Midway.

You may wish to note the comparison of losses which appears in post 20. Hardly the results one might expect from the IJN super pilot mythology. Most of the IJNs fighter success resulted from instances where surprise and superior numbers in a superior tactical situation, and sometimes against inferior aircraft or tactics, presented them with some good opportunities, not from being any sort of supermen.

 

I think you might have meant the Ki-84 Nakajima "Hayate".

 

Maybe, the plethora of so-called intelligence reports from the SWPTO and prior to 1942 were stemming from the IJN raids rather than IJAAF which were not part of most combat operations throughout the southern pacific until lodgment bases were more established. The Military Intelligence Bulletins never provided errata regarding "reports" from the Philippines, Singapore, or even Australia. Not until data was concretely published in the aftermath of the Aleutian Islands campaign did statistical data and ideas come forward. Maybe married with those of the AVG, which were either summarily ignored by the USAAF/nee MID because they were considered pilots for profit despite folks like Arnold and Doolittle supporting those efforts. Doolittle suggested to other Army pilots to either cruise up to Canada or directly over to England and fight. That was a smattering.

Also, the Japanese army and navy did not cooperate on aerial matters. I got it that Japan, although seemingly advanced in aerial tactics, entered the war with a meek aerial doctrine (like the US because it ignored Billy Mitchell, largely), insufficient numbers of aircraft because they thought war would be a short duration, and those of generally poor design, which the Allied forces soon found out (maybe excluding the Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero to some extent). Again, I woudl argue that experience makes up for the lack of technology and capability to a point in the war. Where too few aircrews and inadequate logistics for a war of attrition exacerbated Japan from realizing its supremacy. Neither its army nor its naval air forces were prepared for the duration. Certainly not the retributable violence or sophistication of allied capabilities that adapted rather quickly. Japan's tactics collapsed.

IJAAF were subordinate to ground force commanders, not independent entities like the US became. IJN forces were tied to operations of the Fleet, with naval officers, rather than air officers, making major air decisions. Heavy IJN losses forced the Admiralty to request IJAAF assets. There are statistics too now available that discuss immature and inadequate maintenance for all Japanese aircraft (poor fuel, oils, parts, &c), but this stems into inadequate SOPs and TTPs regarding airfield development and sustainment. Some of these stats allude to the poor quality of pilots, too, entering the theater of operations in the South West Pacific. Japan's pilot strength had not increased at all and the vast majority of prewar veterans were dead or disabled, and their replacements had no experience, obviously, but consciously lowered the number of new pilot-trainees.

Granted, the US, had a population of about 149 million, where Japan's was 90 million. The actual pool of prospective pilots was substantially larger than the comparable Japanese pool. Of course, the output of American pilots were divided between the Pacific War (South Pacific Theater, South West Pacific Theater), the CBI Theater, and the European Theater of Operations (well north Africa). Arguably, per capita, In the pre-war years, the IJN and IJAAF chose to a very small number of pilots to a very high degree. Same for the US and those with capability and younger age were kept behind to train.

-276,000 aircraft manufactured in the US. 43,000 planes lost overseas, including 23,000 in combat. 14,000 lost in the continental US alone.
-The US sent to war with absolute minimums of training; some fighter pilots entered combat in 1942 with less than one hour in their assigned aircraft
-Under various preflight curricula, students spent four to five hours daily in a trainer aircraft; almost instantly, close-up views of the principal American aircraft; After a considerable number of teachers had attended the six-week program, a brief transition phase was introduced as they progressed through the "normal" stages of pilot training-When war broke out, the average Japanese Navy pilot had 700 hours' flying time while US Army pilots logged less than 600 because of austerity. Japanese naval pilot training emphasized quality over quantity, too, like we all try to think. Prior to May 1941, flight training for American naval pilots was followed by operational demands or constraints that lessened flight hours from a mere 75 to that of a high 150 hours: both USMC and Navy specific.

I'm sure there's more numbers to bring in this comparison and provide more argument. I'd have to do more research.

 

Your first sentence is a little hard to follow, but I’d ask exactly what plethora of reports? Can you cite one or two? (and in the interest of being up front, this is one method by which can I determine whether you really know about that which you write or if you're just repeating someone else' mis-information.)

One might also note there was no SWPTO before 1942.

And going back and correcting previously published information? Not the way it worked and thus the nature of intelligence reports . . . they reported what they had at the time. As time went on data became more refined. Not going back to correct previously published information is a red herring . . . did you really expect someone to go back and provide an errata sheet for the 10 March 1941 edition of FM-30-38 “Identification of Japanese Aircraft”? Hot flash, the next edition of that manual issued on 16 March 1942 had even more erroneous information to the point of showing the A6M as an Army plane. Maybe they should go back to the 25 June 1940 edition which mentions not the A6M in any form and add errata pages there as well? An exercise in futility; I am certain all had much better things to do with their time.

Good reliable information on the A6M did not really start to come out until after Eddie Sanders took to the air in September 1942 in the restored model recovered from Akutan. Even then, there was still the quaint clinging to the thought of two different A6M2 versions, a Nagoya type and a Mitsubishi type, well into 1943. But, not to be disappointing, no one was going to go back and re-write a manual, report, or other document . . . the practice was to simply produce a new one with a disclaimer along the lines of “. . . information herein presented is the latest available and supersedes any previous . . .”

Surprise! there were no AVG reports on the performance of the A6M2 because when the reports, and here’s a clue, there were three of such, came out of China there was no AVG. You seem to forget that the AVG:

1. Did not enter combat until AFTER the attack on Pearl Harbor and
2. Did not engage in combat with the IJN A6M2s, period.

If you want to discuss pre-war intelligence on the A6M2 we can do that, but I would suggest when we do that we stick to the historical record . . . I’ve a few of those reports at hand and contemporary commentary from practitioners on other reports, do you? You dance around the subject in generalities . . . we can talk about available information in detail in another thread if you wish; tell me what you know and I’ll reciprocate.

The INA and the IJN did not cooperate at all on anything as a general rule and when they did they were always ready for a lot of finger pointing at the other service to explain away failures.

You are casually ignoring the development of the A6M program. The A6M of the 1941-12 era was a wonderful plane if your adversary was willing to fight as did the Chinese Air Force, such as it was, before the US entered the war. When they ran up against folks who did not play by that particular rule book, then the IJN had a problem. I’m sorry, but I can’t help but hear the ghost of the golly-gee-whiz-superdooper-japanese-pilots-and-airplanes breathlessly reported a la Caiden in the 1950’s. The tactics espoused by the IJN fighter pilots in the early days of the war were great if you wanted to fight the First World War in the air all over again, you know, three three plane elements in nine plane divisions (what we call a 3-9 formation) . . . right out of the western front. Had a lot to do with look-out doctrine with bi-planes and a complete waste of assets in mono-planes. The IJN did not even adopt the 2-4 formation until 1944. And nice highly maneuverable planes, but only when operated within a small optimal window of lower speed, in a world where now speed was life.

Bottom line is when you look at IJN operations during the time that they were striding across the Pacific in their ten-league boots, most of the reported overwhelming success of the A6M was primarily in shooting up airplanes parked on airfields as a Hickam, Wheeler, Clark or Nichols, not in the air against other fighter adversaries. One should read a little closer.

And frankly, history would show that Mitchell had not a clue . . . you could not sink maneuvering and shooting back warships with level bombing, you’d be extremely lucky to score a single hit; and while yes, the bombers would probably get through to their land targets, but absent escorts you’d better be prepared for 15% plus losses on every mission (how long do you think even the Americans could sustain those kinds of losses, the reality was bad enough, an almost criminal expenditures of lives in my opinion); and you really don’t want to get into bombing accuracy in those same loss filled missions. Strategic bombing as envisioned and advocated by Mitchell could not, and for that matter, cannot, win wars all by itself.

The entire Japanese strategy, despite their rapid expansion across the Pacific and southward was actually defensive-minded in nature in that it was predicated on a war of short duration where their gains could be quickly consolidated and the western, read, Americans mostly, powers would be powerless to prevent the expansion (largely true), and, here is where they calculated very poorly, those same powers would be unwilling to spend the blood and treasure necessary to prosecute a war to the fullest extent in breaching their established and interlocking defenses of various island bastions with the intention of putting the Japanese Empire out of business. This was a serious miscalculation to say the least, wouldn’t you say? But that was the plan. They bought totally into the fallacy that an interlocking land-based stationing of aviation assets would be able to repulse any enemy seaborne force . . . something even some corners of the USN believed . . . until it was amply proven that carriers could pretty much go where they wanted and work whatever mischief desired regardless of defending aviation assets.

And that “experience” was against the Chinese, not the Americans. Not to disparage the Chinese, they did what they could, with what they had, in what they knew, and in the face of some insurmountable internal political problems . . . Moving the game over against the Americans and expecting them to play as did the Chinese was really pretty stupid. See above comments.

You are aware, are you not, that the greater majority of IJN aviation assets were land-based, including fighters? The almost ubiquitous disregard for logistics on the part of the Japanese, both army and navy, is well known. Bergerud covered the problem of aircraft maintenance quite nicely in his “Fire in the Sky” (2001), so no surprises here. Other than the loss of the carriers themselves and all the aircraft involved, the biggest hit to the IJN aviation program at Midway was not, contrary to popular belief, in pilot losses, but rather in the losses of skilled maintenance personnel. Also, I’d point out that there was plenty of fighting going on in the Pacific Theater in places other than in the SWPTO.

And so what? Suggest you look more into numbers of pilots trained rather than aircraft produced, that would be a whole another discussion. Without drivers, airplanes just sit.

You mean like . . . “you’ve had your check ride, sonny, now here they come, go up there and get them, tiger!” Utter nonsense. This comment, to me, illustrates a lack of knowledge on training programs. Note above post re VF-42. The Marines operating F2As at Midway had more than single digit hours in type and the six who were assigned to the newly arrived F4F-3s just before the battle were some of the most experienced flyers in the squadron and, more importantly, has at least some F4F time in their log books. Frankly the hoary tales of this that or the other pilot going into action with but one hour it type are legend, repetition does not make them so. Show me a pilot log book that substantiates such a claim. Some of that would also apply to those tried and not so true tales of the straight from Pensacola pilots in VMSB-241.

Again, this it not an accurate representation, unless, of course, you really need to be a whole lot clearer. If this is your belief, then you are the victim of a lot of pop-history, repetition makes it true, poorly researched reporting. You are free to have your beliefs, but if you wish to make such claims of flight hours of USN or USMC pilots you’d best be able to cough up the report that illustrates your contention for I can cough up one that blows it out of the water. Further, I again suggest a little more investigation into flight training. I can’t and won’t comment but generally on USAAF training simply because I’ve no interest, but if you want to start a thread about naval aviation and numbers of pilots trained and their training programs for naval aviators, I’m at your service.

Indeed.

 

I have read that there was a USN naval attache in Japan prior to the start of the war who filed a fairly accurate report on the Zero but apparently it was not taken seriously. Not sure where I read it though.

 

Yep, that would be, then, Lieut Stephen Jurika, USN, who while assigned in Tokyo as a Japanese language officer actually sat in the cockpit of a parked A6M2 in January 1941 and took notes on all he saw. His report, rolled into other information disseminated by ONI, mostly in write-ups combining information from USN personnel in both China and Japan by Maj Ronald Boone, USMC, may have been ignored in some circles, and certainly so decried in the pop-history, but there were indeed folks on the soon to be pointy end of the stick, one John S Thach, for example, who were paying attention.

 

And with regard to intelligence reports . . . a typical opener, this from a report on the A6M2 issued on 4 September 1942 by HQ USAAF Directorate of Intelligence “Informational Intelligence Summary No. 59” which was based on examination of crashed aircraft. This opening of this report reads:

“For sometime past, incomplete, confusing and occasionally conflicting information has prevailed regarding the Japanese Zero Fighter. In recent weeks, examinations and investigations of crashed Zeros in various parts of the world have clarified the situation.”

So, this is, as alluded to in an above post, a "this is what we know now which supersedes what we knew before" type disclaimer. And the date, September 1942, just about the time Japanese expansion in the Pacific, though not in China or Burma, was running out of steam.

 

A bit OT but here's a paper on ONI's intel on the Yamato at various times. It illustrates, I think, how information is synthesised from various sources and changes over time.
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-084.htm

 

Has anybody read John Prados's "Combined Fleet Decoded"? It was some info about intel of the Zero and Yamato too.

 

When talking combat experience we are forgetting the rather large air battles associated with the Russo - Japanese clash of 1939 something more than the "occasional I-16" there. But I would agree that Japanese doctrine and effectiveness was underestimated before the war and overestimated to justify the initial defeats after. Combat experience was roughly even, actually with the desert veterans or FAA squadrons the allies had the edge, What failed was command doctrine, the Japanese had a plan, the Allies were unable to seize the initiative despite often having "on paper" superiority. A bit like the French debacle in 1940 with the difference that while the Germans had a big advantage in tactical doctrine, and German tactical doctrine remained first class until the end, while the Japanese didn't have a doctrinal advantage, just better operational planning. Lack of modern doctrine (and in many cases tailoring the equipment to "the wrong war" here again the Maginot comes to mind) was a big contributor to the Japanese failures even before they where simply overwhelmed by allied numbers and materials superiority.

 

Of course, the air clashes between the Japanese and the Soviets did not involve any IJN units, so there were no lessons for the IJN to draw from these except that the IJA and IJAAF would probably have a pretty hard time exercising the "northern resources option" thus making the casting of eyes to the south all the more attractive.

 

Yes, Prados does provide some fodder for thought on the subject. He certainly dispells the "no one knew anything" theory.