Allied Opinion of IJN vs. IJA Fighter Pilots

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

To be honest I have no idea why the USAAF did not attempt as far as is known to me to develop any specific tactics to deal with the known capabilities of the Japanese. It should be pointed out that the development of the Thach Weave was an individual initiative of John Thach and not an official affair. It also should be pointed out that contrary to popular opinion, IJNAF training emphasized teamwork and hit and run tactics rather than dogfighting. They also made use of deflection shooting although problems arose with the fact that the Zeke was an inferior gunnery platform compared to the Wildcat. Visibility over the engine was not as good making full deflection shots difficult and poor aileron control at high speed made aiming in diving attacks difficult. It is true that the IJNAF pilots faced great difficulties in the Guadalcanal campaign but the same can be said for the USN/USMC pilots based on the island. Conditions were primitive in the extreme, sickness was rampant, supplies and spares in very short supply and let us not forget that Henderson Field was routinely bombarded by the IJNAF, the IJN and the IJA, not to mention a number of ground offensives designed to retake the airfield. Anecdotes are interesting but it should be always kept in mind that these are highly subjective personal accounts and may or may not be reflective of the general situation. I have come across comments by Japanese pilots that engaged the enemy over Guadalcanal that make reference to the excellent teamwork and shooting of their opponents so one can find any number of personal accounts that support this or that point of view. Finally, some numbers. According to John Lundstrom, the IJNAF lost 14 Zeke and three Claude fighters while the USN lost 10 Wildcat fighters in aerial combat up through Midway. He states that the IJNAF lost 25 Zeke fighters whereas the USN lost 31 Wildcat fighters in aerial combat over Guadalcanal. According to Richard Frank, the IJNAF lost approximately 70 Zeke fighters versus 70 USMC Wildcat fighters in aerial combat over Guadalcanal. These figures are based on the losses, not claims, of both sides so should give us a quite accurate idea of the state of fighter versus fighter combat between the IJNAF and US/USMC in 1942.

Horrido!

Leo

[GuerraCivil]

To conclude it was about equal between Japanese Navy and US Navy pilots and their machines in 1942. By the late 1942/early 1943 the war of attrition started to show their toll on Japanese and the balance turned decisively in favour of US and other Allies.

Japanese had also much greater difficulties to maintain their supply lines, fuel reserves and spare part services than Americans and Allied (and not least because of US uboats sinking Japanese supply vessels).

At the late stage of Pacific war even the technical reliability of Japanese planes was questionable while Allied in general flew with more reliable new planes. One IJA pilot commented that his Ki-84 was excellent fighter if one forgets such little things like take off and flying.

The Guadalcanal air combat 1942/1943 was in my opinion advantegous for US as there was clear homebase advantage - perhaps even more clear than the one which RAF enjoyed in Battle of Britain. There were also some USAAF units with P-39´s, so all the fighting was not left solely to the resources of Wildcat pilots. As a war of attrition it was the US which had more resources and therefore better chances to win.

For what I have read the USAAF pilots did not make it so bad with much maligned Airacobra P-39 in 1942. It may well be that Airacobra pilots managed to shoot at least as many Japanese planes as they lost themselves in combat. To tell the difference against IJA or IJN units may be difficult as Oscars were so often misidentified as Zeros.

However Japanese accounts (both personal and official) considered P-39 units to be easy opponents as well as those flying with P-40. After the war some P-40 pilot veterans studied Japanese records and found it strange how low Japanese combat reports valuated Warhawk units when compared to their own experience. They were not wiped out of sky and managed to inflict losses to Japanese.

The stats study of USAAF/Allied P-40/P-39 units vs. IJN/IJA units may give more balanced view in future. The little that I have read about this subject shows both sides to have shot down more planes than they lost themselves!

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

I think that the crucial difference was that the Americans utilized their resources to better advantage than the Japanese did. At that stage of the war the IJN actually outnumbered the USN in the south Pacific yet it was the Japanese failure to develop forward air bases that ultimately cost them the campaign. Pre-war doctrine held that the Japanese were to hold their conquests through a series of bases supported by the fleet and at Guadalcanal they were to see this policy vindicated but at their expense by the Americans who used their land- and carrier-based air power to neutralize the IJN. It is true that there was one P-400 unit, the 67th Fighter Squadron (aka the Jagdstaffel), but after a disastrous aerial combat on 30 August 1942 where four were shot down and another five written off these were utilized in the ground-attack and anti-shipping role with considerable success as they were considered to be completely unsuitable for engaging enemy fighters.

Horrido!

Leo

[Graham Boak]

There's a couple of points here. One is that the Japanese did not have the resources that the US did. They didn't develop more forward bases because they couldn't. The other is that the Russians found the P-400/P-39 perfectly capable of dealing with enemy fighters, so this kind of sweeping generalisation just isn't right. The important point being perhaps that they were not dealing with the same fighters.

[mars]

In the air combat over Guadalcanal, JNAF Zero pilots had to fly 5 hours before they could reach the target area, then after the combat, they would have to fly another 5-hour trip back, that means they could not stay in the area over their target much more than 15 minutes if they wanted to have enough fuel left to bring them back home. If their plane was damaged or they were wounded, then there was a high chance that they would have to ditch in a shark-infested ocean with little chance to survive, not because Japanese Navy did not care about their pilots, it was because Japanese Navy simply did not have enough resource to deploy enough ships or submarines along such a long route for rescue mission. Finally because of the intensity of the combat, even they survived, they would have to come back again and again, very quickly they would be physically and mentally exhausted, So of course, Americans enjoyed a huge home base advantage above Guadalcanal

[mars]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

But if we are to believe the story of Sakai surviving alone from the attack by 15 US Navy Hellcats which did not manage to get a single bullet hole in his Zero, it does not give a picture of good skills when it comes to deflection shooting. This is not the only story of its kind - another Japanese pilot told in afterwar interview that he managed to survive from the attacks of several Corsairs while flying a Val divebomber in a hopeless mission. Corsairs shot two of his wingmen down rapidly but found the remaining third Val difficult as the experienced pilot did the best tricks that he knew to safe his and gunners´s skin. Somehow Corsair pilots managed to overshoot and miss every time when they attacked his alone Val. Was it that he was simply so good or were Corsair pilots rookies like those Hellcat guys who did not manage to bring Sakai´s Zero down?

GuerraCivil, the "Samurai!" is more close to a finction novel than a biography, though there are some real personal experience in that book, but be very careful if you want to use it as your source because Mr Caiden was a little bit too creative while writing this book, for example, it was Mr Caiden invent that Sakai shot down 64 allied aircrafts in the WWII, to be sure Mr Sakai never claimed he had 64 kills in the war, he was actually puzzled by this claim, according to Japanese records, Mr Sakai shot down around a dozen enemy planes.

[Leo Etgen]

Hi guys

I am not making a sweeping generalization when stating that the Americans considered the P-400 unsuitable for aerial combat over Guadalcanal. For example, Vandegrift reported to Ghormley on 2 September 1942 that "P-400 entirely unsuitable for operations. Will not be employed further except in extreme emergencies." Commander, Aircraft, South Pacific Force evaluated the P-400 as "No good at altitude and disheartening to the brave men who fly them." The 67th Fighter Squadron's historian wrote "We can't manoeuvre and dogfight with the Zero - what good are we?" As regards to the limited Japanese capability to build forward bases it was not just a matter of limited resources but also the result of a lack of attention before the war to logistics and the development of airfield construction techniques and equipment, as well as the units, necessary to build air bases and maintenance facilities. The Japanese had built a network of excellent bases before the start of the war but it was their lack of foresight regarding forward based heavy maintenance and engineering units with heavy earth moving equipment that limited their ability to construct bases not to mention the chronic shortage of shipping to transport these. Logistics and supply may be less glamorous than offensive action but if you wish to prevail in a war with a modern industrial power it is a vital aspect to consider and the Japanese failed to do so.

Horrido!

Leo

[bearoutwest]

I'm sidetracking a little from the original question, but heck – when it’s interesting, let’s go with the flow.

I think there’s a more fundamental reason for the Russian success with the P-39/P-400. They wanted to fly them! The USAAF in the Pacific, always operated P-39s under disadvantageous conditions – climbing to combat, bounced by endless numbers of Zeros, unable to reach the bombing altitudes of the G4Ms, suspicions about tumbling instability in manouevring flight, etc, etc. It’s not unnatural that they would wish to be flying something else…P-40, P-38, P-47, P-51….almost anything else.

The Soviet VVS considered the P-39 as an upgrade from their Polikarpovs and early MiG-3s. There are two biographies of Soviet Airacobra (*) pilots where it was said that the superb radio set up of the Airacobra was as much an advantage as flight performance and firepower. The way in which the Soviets used the P-39, was for mainly fighter sweeps, bomber escort or air interdiction over the battlefront. So they were able to put reasonable numbers of P-39s into the air at any time. They took heavy losses, but were able to inflict reasonable losses on the Luftwaffe. Over a length of time in an attrition battle, the P-39 Regiments (together with the modern Soviet Yaks, Lavochkins, etc) would eventually gain an upper hand.

...geoff


(*) Attack of the Airacobras is one book. I can’t think of the name of the second.

[Leo Etgen]

Hi Geoff

I honestly can not really comment on the Airacobra in service with the VVS but Christer Bergström is on record as having stated that he did not have the impression that Russian pilots generally had a good opinion of the type nor that it performed particularly well on the Eastern Front. I do not have any data on claims recorded by the units equipped with the type but known losses in combat per year regarding the VVS-KA (Army) were:

1941: 0
1942: 49
1943: 305
1944: 486
1945: 190

Those regarding the VVS-VMF (Navy) were:

through 21 June 1943: 17
from 22 June 1943 through 21 June 1944: 77
from 22 June 1944 through 4 September 1945: 30

He goes on to state that he seriously doubts the Airacobra units were able to bring down an equivalent number of German fighters and that combats between the Airacobra and German fighters usually ended in favor of the latter.

Horrido!

Leo

[bearoutwest]

Howdy Leo,

I don't disagree with you in an overall sense. In terms of an exchange rate of losses, the better trained Luftwaffe pilots are going to be on top. But when you consider what the exchange rate is between the earlier Polikarpovs vs Bf109E/Fs, being given a faster, heavily armed and radio equipped P-39 was a major step up for the VVS pilots.

The French Normandie Regiment were given their choice of fighters to operate, selected the lighter, more nimble Yak-3s in 1943. So better Soviet-produced aircraft were eventually available, but for a time there, the P-39 was available in nimbers and better than most of what the Russians had (including Hurricanes considered too lightly armed, and the P-40B/C's which had major engine unreliablily issues in the Northern/Lenningrad Front).

What Christer Bergström had read & researched on the subject would be in greater depth than my knowledge, so I'm happy to defer to him on the matter, but it would be interesting to see if those Soviet pilot opinions are dependant on the timescale of the conflict (i.e. consistently evident in 1941, 42, 43, 44, or whether they were dependant on the availability of other types)?

Food for thought anyway.
...geoff