I recently investigated all navies of WW2 (not quite done yet) and discovered that about 98% of all Japanese ships were sunk during the war while only about 60% of all German craft were sunk. Is there some sort of explanation for this?
Hello there Andreas, im not sure of the meaning of your question? As far as I can guess, its just that maybe the japanese ships were much easier found and thus more were destroyed. I know that there are supposed to be more than 100 ships lost in Iron Bottom Sound just off of Guadalcanal. This includes, American, British, Australian, New Zealand, and Japanese ships.
Andreas, Carl, I have heard that the ocean waters with many of the Japanese cargo ships were anquored were shallow with little or no flak gun type protection. The B-25 Mitchell with it's array of heavy armament and the Beaufighter did some incredible damage according to my father in-law who served on a Tin-Can in the Pacific. The Beaufighter being also equipped at times with rockets.......ouch ! E
I agree and also, I dont recall ever hearing that there were huge convoys of Japanese merchant ships in a group. In alot of documentaries I have and or seen, usually you see Japanese ships in singles or only in groups of two or three. Makes it much easier to attack singles and small fleets. I remember seeing that footage of then future President George Bush, as he was firing into a lone Japanese ship off Chi Chi jima, where he was shotdown and later rescued by a Destroyer.
Part of my question is why did either almost all Japanese warships get sunk or why did so many German ships survive? Just why was the naval victory in the Pacific so total? Did the Japanese simply not give up an inch of searoom and send in their vessels in suicidal uncomplicated tactics? Why didn't they pull back around Japan under air cover or something?
Germany didnt lose all too many warships because she was soo careful when using them(she didnt have all to many to lose), the japs were all too ready to use her fleet, and in the end sacrifice it where as the germans tried to conserve theirs you can see that when she did comit them the british would go after them with just about all its home fleet FAA and RAF so the germans stopped bothering
