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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 13, 2018 21:15:10 GMT -6
Don't assume that all US aircraft production would go to the Pacific; a majority was dedicated to the Atlantic theater. Please see previous post: "I believe that they are partially responsible but we have to add the Emperor and the Army because the Japanese Army tried to control the Kwantung Army of Manchuria whose goal was to make Manchuria an autonomous state." I can't see that it is reductionist; it sounds to me like we both said the same thing. Let me provide more stats to prove what we are saying. In 1943 total aircraft production was 85,433 aircraft compared to the Japanese 16693. Two-thirds of our aircraft were earmarked for the European War. So, we can assume that about 29,999 aircraft approx. were assigned to the Pacific for both the US Navy, Marines and the USAAF. The ratio of our production against the Japanese only got worse. In 1943, much of our production was headed to the Strategic Bombing Campaign in Europe which had just begun. This was not the case in 1941, but we were still providing the British with Hudson bombers, Catalina flying boats and F4F Grumman Martlet aircraft. I will have to research the numbers.
Update: From March to December 1941 we exported to Britain 2400 aircraft. This includes aircraft sent to British Forces in Egypt. Lend-lease did not start until mid-1941. So, if we produced 19,433 aircraft in 1941, only 12% were supplied to England.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 27, 2018 23:15:26 GMT -6
For a long time, I've believed that Hirohito failed to stop his country's march toward war with the US. Now, a memo has been released that documents a meeting just before Pearl Harbor that shows that he had no problem with the attack and does bear some responsibility for starting the war. I hope this memo will revive an examination of why Hirohito and the government allowed this war to start. They bear the responsibility for the death of all those people in their cities. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/released-memo-points-to-hirohitos-role-in-pearl-harbor-raid/ar-BBL7rZC?OCID=ansmsnnews11
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Post by hardlec on Aug 6, 2018 17:33:46 GMT -6
One thought to sneak in here:
The Aircraft at Pearl included many obsolete craft replaced by newer, better aircraft.
What the US lost at Pearl harbor was not only replaceable, but needing replacement.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 6, 2018 21:00:51 GMT -6
One thought to sneak in here: The Aircraft at Pearl included many obsolete craft replaced by newer, better aircraft. What the US lost at Pearl harbor was not only replaceable, but needing replacement. Yes that is very true. The P-26 Peashooter was obsolete and the Brewster F2A while still being used, set for replacement by F4F Wildcats, when enough were available. Remember that the most modern aircraft for the Army went to the Philippines and the Navy had replaced most of the F2A's with F4F except on Lexington and the Marines at Midway.
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Post by dorn on Aug 7, 2018 3:13:47 GMT -6
One thought to sneak in here: The Aircraft at Pearl included many obsolete craft replaced by newer, better aircraft. What the US lost at Pearl harbor was not only replaceable, but needing replacement. Yes that is very true. The P-26 Peashooter was obsolete and the Brewster F2A while still being used, set for replacement by F4F Wildcats, when enough were available. Remember that the most modern aircraft for the Army went to the Philippines and the Navy had replaced most of the F2A's with F4F except on Lexington and the Marines at Midway. How fighters compare to other nations? Zero and Bf109, Spitfire is much better, how about British Fulmar or Hurricane?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 7, 2018 8:03:45 GMT -6
Yes that is very true. The P-26 Peashooter was obsolete and the Brewster F2A while still being used, set for replacement by F4F Wildcats, when enough were available. Remember that the most modern aircraft for the Army went to the Philippines and the Navy had replaced most of the F2A's with F4F except on Lexington and the Marines at Midway. How fighters compare to other nations? Zero and Bf109, Spitfire is much better, how about British Fulmar or Hurricane? Ask and it shall be given you: www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/sl-wade.htmlHere is the link to the whole website - www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/
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Post by oaktree on Aug 24, 2018 6:13:50 GMT -6
Yes that is very true. The P-26 Peashooter was obsolete and the Brewster F2A while still being used, set for replacement by F4F Wildcats, when enough were available. Remember that the most modern aircraft for the Army went to the Philippines and the Navy had replaced most of the F2A's with F4F except on Lexington and the Marines at Midway. How fighters compare to other nations? Zero and Bf109, Spitfire is much better, how about British Fulmar or Hurricane? Fighter comparison is much more complex since you have to take into account pilot skill, training, and tactics in addition to the machine itself. Plus the difference between carrier capability or not, especially for Pacific operations. As well as range since many of the fighters had limited range in terms of escort ability, the Zero being a major exception. (And it paid for that ability in terms of armor and general sturdiness.) Logistics also plays a role since a fighter sitting at an airfield awaiting parts or fuel is not one that is fighting - just being a target.* Lundstrom (_The First Team_ and _The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign_) covers the early war USN aviation and mentions that there were shortages of F4F Wildcats for a while. He also mentions that the USN fighter pilots practiced deflection shooting quite a bit and that was a valuable asset in making attacks on Japanese aircraft, especially Zeros that were difficult to dogfight against. And the USN pilots preferred the F4F-3 with four .50 MG to the F4F-4 with six .50 MG since the former was lighter and had better climbing performance. And the Fulmar was a 2-seater. Too ungainly for fighting Bf109, and I expect it would do poorly against Zeroes as well. Good range though, so I expect it would have a decent role as a scout plane perhaps. Though the USN used the Dauntless in that role - which carried a 500lb bomb while doing so. * - From that standpoint the C-47 is actually one of the most valuable aircraft of the war. Especially in the Pacific Theatre since the campaigns, especially in New Guinea, was essentially hopping from one airbase to the next one.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 24, 2018 8:37:11 GMT -6
How fighters compare to other nations? Zero and Bf109, Spitfire is much better, how about British Fulmar or Hurricane? Fighter comparison is much more complex since you have to take into account pilot skill, training, and tactics in addition to the machine itself. Plus the difference between carrier capability or not, especially for Pacific operations. As well as range since many of the fighters had limited range in terms of escort ability, the Zero being a major exception. (And it paid for that ability in terms of armor and general sturdiness.) Logistics also plays a role since a fighter sitting at an airfield awaiting parts or fuel is not one that is fighting - just being a target.* Lundstrom (_The First Team_ and _The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign_) covers the early war USN aviation and mentions that there were shortages of F4F Wildcats for a while. He also mentions that the USN fighter pilots practiced deflection shooting quite a bit and that was a valuable asset in making attacks on Japanese aircraft, especially Zeros that were difficult to dogfight against. And the USN pilots preferred the F4F-3 with four .50 MG to the F4F-4 with six .50 MG since the former was lighter and had better climbing performance. And the Fulmar was a 2-seater. Too ungainly for fighting Bf109, and I expect it would do poorly against Zeroes as well. Good range though, so I expect it would have a decent role as a scout plane perhaps. Though the USN used the Dauntless in that role - which carried a 500lb bomb while doing so. * - From that standpoint the C-47 is actually one of the most valuable aircraft of the war. Especially in the Pacific Theatre since the campaigns, especially in New Guinea, was essentially hopping from one airbase to the next one. The first F4F-2 did not make it's first flight until September 2, 1937 at Bethpage, Long Island. Testing lasted until April 1938. However, Grumman got a contract to build the F4F-3 which had a more powerful engine along with longer wings, squared tips to the tail plane, rudder and the wings. The flight of this version wasn't until Feb 1939. The first production models were not in flight until February 1940. The first unit to receive those aircraft was VF-4 on the Ranger in December 1940. That is only one year before Pearl Harbor. The first production models were delivered to the RN FAA which had gotten the 100 ordered by the French but the fall of France changed that. The first Navy version was not given to a squadron until August 20,1940. This group of aircraft sailed aboard the Ranger and the Wasp, in the Atlantic. The first F4F-4's with folding wings began to arrive on the Wasp and on the Hornet. By May of 1942, most of the Navy and two Marine units had the new F4F-4. In 1942, 1164 F4F-4's were delivered to the Navy. It takes time after building the first aircraft to deliver a sufficient number aircraft. It has to move through testing at the flight center of the factory, the military flight test center then it is approved and finally production starts. It's a two to three year process in peace time, during war its accelerated. Three more factors that have to be considered for comparison of aircraft is as you indicated pilot training but also taking experienced pilots out of combat to train. There are two more; radio communications between the ship and air to air. This is vital for combat tactics and scouting for the carrier. Another is combat tactics. We used the finger four which gave the element leader a wing man to protect him and was much better at protecting the whole flight, which might have 3 or 4 elements. The Japanese use the three plane Vic which meant that in combat, it was every man for himself and with their poor radio communications, you could not protect another pilot. In this case, the best aircraft and pilot just did not have a chance. One last factor is the fact that we put at least 27 fighters on board the carriers by Midway and 36 after that. The Japanese only had about 18 fighters to perform both CAP and bomber escort. As to the issue of the six versus four .50 caliber Machine Guns, the pilots simply had two of the guns removed and replace by more ammunition. It wasn't a major problems for them. As you probably know, our carriers had a VSB squadron of SBD's for scouting and with the 500 lbs. bomb could, when a target was discovered, dive on the target after reporting the coordinates of the target and type. My dad said they did not just dive, many times it was not wise since they might be all alone. I agree about the C-47 and would add the C-54 Skymaster.
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