Now i was wondering about the japanese because there planes look pretty crappy and the guns seem to jam allot. Are they like...more hand to hand combat type people?
The Japanese built some very innovative and excellent aircraft during the war. Designs like the Mitsubishi Ki 46 or A6M Zero were tremendous aircraft for their period. Yes, they lacked armor and other protection but, the Zero for example had an equal armament to that of the Me 109E, nearly double the range, was about equal in speed and, had far superior maneuverability. Kawanishi's N1K1-J and N1K2-J Shiden and Shiden-Kai were the equal of almost anything the Allies were flying late war even if a bit slower. I would contend that Mitsubishi's G4M bomber (the Betty) was every bit the equal and better of the He 111; the Luftwaffe's mainstay. Certainly, its heavy defensive armament of 20mm cannon was vastly superior to the 7.92mm paint chippers of 1940 Henkels and Junkers. I have no idea were you get the idea that their "guns jam alot." This is not any more applicable to the Japanese than it is to any other combatant. There were certain aerial weapons that were prone to jamming like the German Mk 108 30mm or the US Pontiac M2 37mm to name but two. I would not characterize the Japanese as "crappy" in their general war effort. True, they were handicapped by lack of an abundance of raw materials and often by lack of research, development and, production facilities. But, these did not preclude them from producing many innovative and in some cases outstanding aircraft designs. Nor did it preclude them from at least an understanding of technology even when they could not produce any quantity of it. They beat the everyone to developing centimetric radar, including the British, but couldn't put a useful set into production due to lack of resources. Germany only managed to get a set into production in 1945 just before the war ended.
I would like to add and agree with TAG's post. The very best flying boat build in WWII was the Emily flying boat. It had range, speed, and excellent firepower. Also Japanese blew away everything flying by the US, British, Dutch, and Chinese from 1930's in China to about 1943. P-39, P-40's, Wildcats, Brester Buffloe, Hurricanes ect. did not have a chance agaist Japanese Army and Navy fighters. Much of what you see in the movies and in print about the Japanese military is tainted by early WWII propanganda. The Japanese also had superior submarines than anyone else when superior torpedos to go with them and their aircraft. You only get to read and watch about how good the US was and how poor the Japanese was from 1943 onwards. You have to read past what the government gives you as truth, even today, in order to get the real truth on events.
The B-24 Liberator had wings like a leaf. Those things literally flapped in midair because they were so thin. The Japanese did not have crappy airplanes, one bit. The reason they lost the air war was not their lack of good aircraft, but our ability to destroy them (by way of better aircraft.) On the flying boats issue... what about the PBY Catalina? That was a heckuva plane, and arguable much better than the Emily. Say, if anyone's interested, check out my site: http://www.journalofhistory.com/index.html If you like it, sign up on the online forum, and see what you think!
I think that a bigger reason for winning the air war was Japan's inability to train new pilots up to the standards that they did prior to the war. Japan let their "first string" stay on the front lines until they were killed in battle whereas the United States would routinely call pilots who had served in the front lines back to train the newer pilots so as to pass on the lessons learned in combat. The Japanese also rarely rescued pilots shot down during the course of the war whereas the US used there subs as plane guards later in the war and in earlier stages go through some freat lengths searching for downed pilots. On the flying boats issue... what about the PBY Catalina? That was a heckuva plane, and arguable much better than the Emily. To accurately compare these planes I looked at the production models for each that most commonly used during the war period, these being Consolidated's PBY-5A and Kawanashi's H8K2. The table below shows how they compare; PBY Emily Max Speed 179mph 290mph Cruising Speed 117mph 184mph Ceiling 14,700ft 29,000ft Range 2,545naut mi 3,862naut Empty Weight 20,910lbs 40,520lbs Max Takeoff Weight 35,420lbs 71,650lbs As for armament the PBY carried five 7.62mm (0.3in) machine guns and up to 4000lbs of bombs or depth charges. Whereas the Emily carried 20mm Type 99 Model 1 cannons in its bow, dorsal and tail turrets and two beam hatches, 7.7mm Type 92 machine guns in its ventral, port and starboard fusalage sides and cockpit hatches along with an external bomb load of two 1,800lb bombs or eight 550lb bombs or sixteen 110lb bombs or depth charges. As for powerplants the Emily had 4 radial engines rated at up 1850hp each as compared to the 2 radial piston engines rated at 1200hp each for the PBY. From the above it is clear that in terms of its performance the Emily far outshines the PBY in every catagory. [ 06. May 2005, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Bill Murray ]
The Japs had pretty good aircraft, but as the above poster said, not enough pilots. In the end, they took bad planes, put new pilots in, and used kamikaze attacks, the most effective and accurate weapon.
Another reason that led to the downfall of the Japanese pilots was that the Japanese lacked the economy with which to create newer and better planes. Early in the war the Zero's were virtually unstoppable (I'm not sure, but I think that the US was primarily using the F2A Brewster Buffalo, which was no match for the Zero), but we later developed better planes with which to counter the Zero. The Japanese were unable to devote the resources to develop a newer and better plane. When you get right down to it, though, we won the war purely through economic might. For example, the Japanese only had 20 Heavy Cruisers through out the entire war. We had 49 when the war ended. The Japanese had 14 classes of Destroyers with 145 ships. Our Fletcher class alone had 175 ships! We had about 20 classes of Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts with a total of 995 ships. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many aircraft each side had.
ah kamikaze the way of a man about to be shot down or the way od the local drunk who "accidently" got in a plane and took off
