Quote:
Originally Posted by Broncazonk
It's absolutely shocking--the documented Japanese over-claiming in particular--to the point that the constant, daily, every single mission 5x and even 10x over-claiming had (in my opinion) a significant effect on the outcome of the entire Solomons campaign.
Bronc
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Hello Bronc,
As you can see from Lundstrom’s book, claims are an unreliable statistic
As for the effect of this on the campaign, I am less certain. The Japanese lost air superiority because they did not have enough trained aircrew and good aircraft to decisively win the carrier battles. They might have been able to hang on for an extended period even without a carrier victory, had they been able to knock out US aviation on Guadalcanal. However, that would have required very close cooperation between surface ships and the land-based air forces, which was almost impossible because of the low quality and quantity of Japanese radios. The US victory in the Pacific was over-determined after Midway, the problems encountered during the Guadalcanal campaign can be exaggerated.
Regards,
Paul