B-29 Superfortress vs Japanese Fighter Tactics

[@TempusFugit1159]

The Japanese were working on high-altitude interceptor versions of the Ki.84 and a Shiden 21 with a two-stage, three-speed supercharger to improve its climb against the B-29 but the war ended before these projects got anywhere. It was all just going through the motions anyway, as Japan didn't have the production capacity to make them or enough good pilots to get the most out of them in combat. Thanks for another fine feature!

[@delta5297]

Was the Zero actually a threat to the B-29s, or was it mostly the late-war models?

[@TempusFugit1159]

@@delta5297 The Zero had begun to be badly outmoded by the time the B-29 offensive started, but some model 52s were modified for the interceptor role, with two 20-mm cannon in each wing and another 20-mm cannon mounted behind the pilot slanted to fire upwards. The Japanese Navy wanted to replace the Zero with the Mitsubishi J2M1 Raiden (Jack) as a pure interceptor that put speed and climb over maneuverability but engine problems and other technical issues slowed down its development and only 470 were produced.

[@AhnkoCheeOutdoors]

My mother was a young teenage nurse in Tokyo during the napalm bombings. She treated countless burn victims, and I believe it left her scarred emotionally. I am surprised she even accepted my American Army officer Dad`s marriage proposal. My dad arrived in Aomori, Japan just a few days after the surrender, arriving directly from Manila, Philippines. When he arrived in Aomori he was shocked at the amount of damage one fire-bombing raid on that city produced. He disposed of the weapons of war while accepting the surrender of troops stationed there, first of the US occupation forces.

[@thomasvandevelde8157]

Interesseting story, unique to say the least. One cannot remain emotionally detached from horror on such a scale. No matter how "strong" (or should we say, detached?) person you are, it's going to leave an impression that last for the rest of your life. My father recovered physically from World War Two, but never mentally.

[@Mechanized85]

it's conflict and war, you cannot expect everything to go well and be perfect.

[@sjb3460]

Thanks for your story about your Dad and Mother. I am sure both of them had a lot of stories and history to tell. I hope they were able to write their stories.

[@IamScoHo]

Things had to be done. But had the Allies lost, could you imagine the war crimes?

[@wisconsinfarmer4742]

@@Mechanized85 I do not see anyone expecting everything to go well and be perfect, so who are you lecturing here?

[@ronboe6325]

The two nuclear bombs really over shadowed (in the public's perception) just how devastating the fire bombing campaign was. In the end, they were simply small islands with very limited resources - the war was lost in any event. The Allies just wanted to avoid a very costly land invasion -- which they were able to do. A lot of "what if's" for arm chair strategists.

[@WoobooRidesAgain]

"The Land Invasion Happened" is practically its own Alt History subgenre at this point, so that last remark is pretty on point.

[@octagonPerfectionist]

the reason they dropped the bombs was more for geopolitical reasons to send a message to the rest of the world, not japan. they knew japan was going to surrender and had already lost well before they dropped the bombs. that and they wanted an unconditional surrender on american terms, without the soviets being anywhere near the negotiating table.

[@Astrawboy_NameAlreadyInUse]

Why bother putting soldiers of the country in danger when you can safely operate in the sky, it's more strategic you know. It's not like these people back in the days had the excess luxury of thinking things like "Well we all worth the same, let's not be racist and favor both men. Land invasion is more fair than bombing one-sidedly, even though the political tension against Japanese people are pretty high in US." If the country you live in is in a war and your family or your fiend's family lost dear ones against them, you would really hate them. Putting the fellow men in a danger is not very respectful to the people of the country.

[@thomaswaldron5215]

Yes, and the Chinese people wanted to avoid the 100,000 civilian deaths per month inflicted by the IJA. Counting civilian deaths by IJA in East Indies and SE Asia close to a quarter million civilian were dying per month. The war's end stopped the slaughter. It avoided the invasion and set the ground for peace. A good for all parties.

[@hodaka1000]

​@@thomaswaldron5215 At war's end my father was hiding and close to death in the jungle in Japanese occupied central North Borneo having survived the POW camp at Sandakan the first Death March and escaping from the extermination camp at Ranau Without the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan that ended the war my father may not have survived and my family children and granddaughter would not exist, either would millions of others including most of the Japanese population as it exists today I enjoy "The Big Boom Celebration Days"

[@RyanCarlson-zl2fj]

This is anecdotal, but my grandfather Vince Baldi (Bombardier on the B-29 "Sothern Comfort" P-26R crew) told me that the only Japanese fighter tactic that worried them was when you got a really good Japanese pilot that made a near vertical attack from below. Without any belly gunner position that was the major B-29 blindspot, but only very few pilots ever attempted it. Apparently the only time they had a crew member wounded was from such an attack.

[@TheGhost-xj8fu]

2:06 I would be interested in hearing more about these early B-29 raids/flights. My grandfather was part of these. Would be interesting to hear what he was up too. He was part of the 678th squadron, 444th bomb group, 58th bomb wing of the 20th airforce. His squadron, the 678th is still around. It’s called the 10th reconnaissance squadron now.

[@silverbird425]

you could ask their squadron historian -- or the Air Force historian -- about that too

[@jcorbett9620]

It appears that although there were losses of B-29's, both to fighters and AAA, they were never sufficiently high enough to threaten a change or cessation of the bombing campaign as it was being undertaken. It was clear in the European theatre, that bomber losses were responsible for changes in tactics to try and combat these losses. As an example, the USAAF introduced the Mustang as a long--range escort, to try and combat air-to-air losses and then interdict the airbases themselves, the RAF introduced "windows" to try and jam German radar systems and radar equipped Mosquitos to hunt the nightfighters roaming in the bomber streams. The USAAF operating in the Pacific theatre appear to have never really pushed for any of these types of changes in tactics, so the effect (or lack therof) of the Japanese defence was clearly within acceptable ranges.

[@off6848]

I don't understand how so many were lost to AA because that was the whole point of strategic bombers being 40,000 ft in the sky what the hell guns were reaching that high?

[@MexicoAquaBill]

Keep in mind that LeMay opted for low level incendiary missions, at that point they would be vulnerable to AA. So they did change tactics, not so much because of loses but out of a desire to inflict even more damage and pain.

[@off6848]

@@MexicoAquaBill Yeah that makes sense

[@RonJohn63]

@@MexicoAquaBill 300-something planes knocked down out of 22 *thousand* missions is pretty darned ineffective.

[@jaman878]

High altitude precision bombing (HAPB) was not effective in Europe. They tried in in Japan and it wasn’t effective either, but for difference reasons. Japan was clouded over much of the time add to this the B-29s were running into high altitude winds including the jet stream spoiling the aim. LeMay was a change in leadership (like Dolittle in Europe). LeMay abandoned HAPB and ordered the B-29’s to go in low. That made the B-29s vulnerable to AAA and fighters. They even pulled the turrets to reduce weight and speed. Then they changed to incidecindiaries and night attacks. That was pretty effective. So there were changes in both leadership and strategy.

[@packardroadsta]

Definition of Apadaption: An adaptation that has been misspelled.

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

That's on me :D

[@NickDeGraeve]

And what of "Firendly Fire"? Extra fiery friendly fire?

[@pRahvi0]

@@NickDeGraeve Fierce friendship :D

[@johnwhitaker6988]

@@MilitaryAviationHistory Can you correct the error?

[@ManicSalamander]

I apadapted to the chaotic spellings.

[@hctim96]

150 tonnes of bombs "and other things" ... classic! and subtle...Great review

[@Lensman864]

The other things were also bombs ...

[@Teh0X]

150 000 tonnes Don't forget the Zeroes in Pacific War.

[@88porpoise]

You know, things like propaganda leaflets and warnings about some upcoming fireworks demonstrations.

[@AlexejSvirid]

The problem is Devil runs the world. He is lier and murderer. This is the reason why Hitler got the power, but Christ was executed as "blasphemer" and "rioter" by denunciation of clergy. That's why we've got the Gospel about the God's kingdom. Jehovah would put everything in order. The dead will be resurected and we'll meet our beloved ones again! :-)

[@Thumpalumpacus]

Tactics were forced to change, from high-level daylight "precision" bombing to low-level, at night, using incendiary ammo -- not because Japanese air defense was so rugged, but because the jet-stream meant that the USAAF paradigm didn't account for 100+ mph winds at the levels -29s flew at. The Japanese had few planes that could fly and fight at those altitudes, maybe one pass at best. That's also a result of industry-starvation. No superchargers = no high-altitude fighters. But with bombs scattered hither and yon by high winds on top of the inherent inaccuracy of high-level bombing, Hansell with his "precision-bombing" approach was supplanted by LeMay and his approach of low-level incendiary attacks at night. This didn't happen because of formidable Japanese defenses; it happened because the earlier American results were unsatisfactory.

[@PxThucydides]

The postwar strategic bombing survey showed that precision bombing was actually working. The shift to mass murder- bitterly opposed by much of the army air force officer class- was actually a mistake.

[@luisangelgonzalezmunoz7071]

Japanese fighters had superchargers, of the centrifugal type. What they did not have was turbosuperchargers in their fighters. Only the US used turbosuperchargers in their fighters for the P-38 and P-47 models. Turbosuperchargers were more efficient than centrifugal superchargers at very high altitudes, but were expensive and needed a lot of space, so you had to build a very big, very expensive fighter. But centrifugal superchargers were very common, almost all the WWII fighters had them.

[@Thumpalumpacus]

@@luisangelgonzalezmunoz7071 All true, but that is not what drove the change in tactics for the American bombing campaign.

[@hugowiberg1843]

Lemay

[@prycenewberg3976]

@@luisangelgonzalezmunoz7071 And yet, the Germans, who didn't deploy any turbo-charged fighters, managed to fight at those altitudes. Multi-stage, multi-speed supercharging was very effective in WW2. The Japanese, however, did not have sufficient numbers of fighters with multi-stage, multi-speed supercharging. They certainly had them, but not in great numbers. Their most famous fighter had only one stage at only one speed (near as I can discover, technical information is very hard to find for Jap WW2 airplane technology).

[@patrickshanley4466]

What I remember from Sakura Sakai’s “ SAMURAI “, is that the ZEROS had a hard time getting to same altitude as B-29’s, let alone choosing an attack vector. Seems most of this discussion would be more towards Japanese RADEN, SHINDEN KAI, and maybe FRANKS. 🥸

[@BleedingUranium]

That would be the N1K Shiden, not the J7W Shinden :P

[@MrLBPug]

You do not have to YELL all the Japanese aircraft you APPARENTLY know about, as YELLING is also considered rude ON THE INTERNET, Patrick.

[@kornalbabua2000]

@@MrLBPug HES YELLIN CAUSE U ALL AINT HEARIN HIM...

[@dukecraig2402]

Yea, by the end of the war the Zero was pretty much washed out, it didn't have a high altitude supercharger on it's engine, at the altitude B29's operated at in daylight it took Zero's quite a bit of time to get to that altitude and once they did they were seriously clawing for air. Fighter's like the Frank were vastly superior to the Zero, it's prime was early on when it was fighting Chinese biplane's and the first couple months of the US's involvement fighting against inexperienced and sick pilots who were cut off from supplies and most of them were suffering from malaria and other diseases and fighting in planes that were essentially sick to from being cut off from getting pure aviation gas and spare parts, but those guy's learned quick and once supplied with pure aviation gas instead of gas that had regular motor gas mixed in with it to stretch out supplies and proper medical supplies to get the pilots healthy they quickly turned the tables against the Zero's even before the F4U, F6F and the new P47's arrived in theater (the story of P47's in the Pacific is often ignored but once there and equipped with the Australian made 200 gallon Brisbane drop tank they achieved an impressive record).

[@charlesc.9012]

*Raiden, Shiden-Kai. They both mean different kinds of lightning and kai denotes whether the design had been updated. The zero does not have the supercharger gearing or multi-stage supercharger technology for high- altitude performance, and only ever had about 1000 hp at sea level, which degrades severely at high altitude. The wings are also fragile, and unable to accelerate past 650-750 km/h without disintegrating. The low chord wing also doesn't generate great lift for high altitudes, and the high parasitic drag affects high speed performance Its light weight and large frontal cross-sectional also means it won't reach a high speed in a dive, so you won't get great interceptions even if it climbed high.

[@jeffjones4135]

Another great video. I noticed in an earlier video you had some Tintin posters. Glad to see younger people enjoying older comics.

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

Tintin is required reading.

[@Riceball01]

@@MilitaryAviationHistory What about Asterix?

[@martinschneider7130]

The Texts you Show need 3x more time to Reed then you give !

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

Asterix is required reading.

[@PhelippeMitsu98]

@@MilitaryAviationHistory absolutely their historically accurate video documentaries show how small villages of celts and Gauls kept resisting the Roman empires with the help of a highly sophisticated weapon

[@PalleRasmussen]

B-29, the most expensive weapon of WW2, and also the most beautiful Hv bomber of that war IMO.

[@SpiritOfMontgomery]

I have to agree, but I also think the Lincoln is in with a shout (even though it didn’t see service - it’s a souped up Lanc, and the Lanc is a beaut)

[@jeffyoung60]

The B-29 Superfortress was indeed that marvelous, cutting edge super bomber as you mentioned. But it came at a high price. Books about the B-29 Superfortress over the past twenty years have emphasized that the B-29 was still an immature weapons system when committed to battle in the spring of 1944 from northwest Chinese air bases. Boeing and the USAAF committed Herculean efforts to fixing and correcting some 70,000 technical and mechanical bugs with the B-29 during prototype testing and early mass production. But the urgency of the B-29 meant that it would have to enter combat sooner than later. Had it been peacetime the B-29 would have spent probably another 4 years of development and prototype testing. The end result was that as a still relatively immature weapons system, many USAAF crews lost their lives in crashes than to Japanese aerial opposition. Despite four engines of 2,200 hp apiece, should one engine fail or even lose power during take-off, the overloaded B-29 would crash and explode, killing all aboard. The B-29 engines themselves needed more time in testing and research development. Engine problems would plague the B-29 to the end of its service life.

[@smartbomb7202]

i think the A bombs were a bit more expensive than the B29s dummy

[@PalleRasmussen]

​@@smartbomb7202 you may think so, but you would be wrong. B29 design and production - $3 billion Manhattan Project, total - $1.9 billion

[@davecoz4227]

@@smartbomb7202 Ouch smartbomb, not smart enough to use google before you typed!

[@MrEsMysteriesMagicks]

If you're going to put up information in boxes for the viewers, please leave it up long to let us finish reading it. The general rule of thumb is to leave captions up long enough to read through twice.

[@Navigator001]

I simply paused the video to read it, and then I don't miss anything he said also. Easy Peasey.

[@MrEsMysteriesMagicks]

@@Navigator001 Yes, that's what I did, but it's a pain in the butt especially if you have to keep doing it.

[@oxcart4172]

U can control the speed of the video.

[@neoisolationist8790]

I'd like to recommend a very good youtube channel, 'WWII US Bombers'. Videos run about 10 minutes each. Content is technical and excellent.

[@bat2293]

Second that. Top notch analysis. A little more focused than this channel (not a bad thing).

[@icewaterslim7260]

Honda Minoru of the IJN 343rd claimed a B29 on a steep approach from above so that he'd be out of the top turret's gun's travel arc. He said staying conscious for the pullout was the hard part. Aircraft was an N1K2-J. His big problem in approaching the bombers seems to have been P51 escorts. I think the Ki 84s on Okinawa preferred chasing down cripples out of Saipsn, mostly from overheating or engine fires.

[@vanceb1]

His video is on this channel: @-juno-takaleon3830 There are a bunch of videos of Japanese WWII pilots. Fascinating stuff.

[@linnharamis1496]

Thanks!

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

The WW2 US Bombers channel is worth checking out.

[@restitvtororbis5330]

I'm honestly surprised he didn't even mention the channel. He has an entire playlist for the b29, its effectiveness, the effectiveness of its turret emplacements, how to operate them, and detailed breakdowns of how they were attacked. Best part is that he has photo copys of actual US army airforce internal documents going over the statistics. That channel never gets as much love as it deserves tbh

[@dukecraig2402]

​@@restitvtororbis5330 Yea, that channel is the gold standard when it comes to information on US bombers in WW2, every single bit of information is backed with pictures of the USAAF records and reports from the front covers to the actual pages themselves with the information highlighted so there's no confusion or doubts about it's accuracy, he's dispelled more myths than you can count about the bombers and the bombing campaigns. I'm really hoping that he starts doing some videos on the medium bombers like the B25 Mitchell and the B26 Marauder, the B25 would be good for an entire series with all the different bombing techniques they used and all the different gun configurations they put on them to make them strike aircraft, being an ex air defense gunner I like all the videos he's been doing lately on German AA guns but I'd rather see videos on those two bombers, they're always being overshadowed by the bigger 4 engine bombers.

[@sergeipohkerova7211]

It would suck being in a Zero and everything is copacetic and then 12.7mm AP and HE rounds turn your hotrod sportscar of a plane into a summer camp bonfire.

[@zxcven]

what are these 50 cal HE rounds you speak of

[@dukeoftoast2420]

@@zxcven, he probably meant Incendiary rounds

[@Kuschel_K]

Would Zeros even attack B-29s? I thought that was more the Japanese Army job? 😵‍💫

[@richardletaw4068]

@@Kuschel_KThat is pretty much the topic here, so yes. Undoubtedly other aircraft were used, including essentially experimental models, but only in small numbers. The 29 was designed for high-altitude attacks. There weren’t many planes that could fly to or be effective at such heights.

[@Kuschel_K]

@@richardletaw4068 Zeroes where operated by the Japanese Navy. If B-29 bombed the Japanese mainland, I'm pretty sure they would be engaged by Army aircraft like the Ki-43, Ki-44 and Ki-61.

[@djpenton779]

Yikes. I didn't realize B-29 losses were that high. It may not have been enough to change the course of the war, but flying a superfortress over Japan was still a dangerous thing to do, it seems.

[@guyalmes8523]

Very interesting as usual. When I think about the B-29 offensive against Japan (and ignoring the early flights from China), I think of two very different phases. First came the daylight high-altitude mostly HE "precision" attacks in late 1944. Essentially, 8th AF tactics. Second, under LeMay, came the nighttime low-altitude mostly incendiary attacks of 1945. Essentially RAF BC tactics. My main critique of your presentation is the lack of distinguishing between these two. Obviously, from an American offensive point of view, this was a huge difference. But, germane to your presentation, there were obviously big differences from a Japanese defensive point of view. But your statistics lump the two together. For example, you explain that Japanese AAA downed more B-29s than fighter interceptors. Was this true for both phases?

[@mainiacjoe]

I would like to know more about the B-29 naval mine operations. How many sorties, how much ordinance dropped, what were the losses, did these casualty rates differ from land bombing operations?

[@restitvtororbis5330]

Check out the channel WWII US Bombers, he has a video about the b29 naval mining operations that goes over how many and how effective they were. Can't remember if he goes over their losses compared to land bombing, but I imagine they were significantly lower EDIT The video you're looking for is `Operation Starvation' on the WWII US Bombers channel, that's all about the b29 sea mining operations. If you just want to know the reported losses, it was 15 b29s, so significantly lower than land bombing.

[@sidefx996]

I'm just gonna copy and paste this because it's great info for those who don't know and I'm too lazy to retype it... The USAAF lost about 360 B-29 Superfortresses during WW2 to all causes, ie. enemy action, operational accidents, et al. The Japanese shot down under half of that number, approximately 160 plus. Incredibly the rest were due to accidents, crashing upon take off or more rarely on landing. The later B-29 books make it clear that the B-29 was still in some ways an immature weapons system rushed into combat operation because of the pressing needs of war. In peacetime the B-29 may not have flown and gone into production until the late 1940s. The U.S. felt compelled to push forward B-29 operational use in the late spring of 1944. During its early production phase, the B-29 continued to undergo technical debugging and technical corrections and improvements mounting to an astronomical 70,000. This was a heroic effort and even still the B-29 was really not fully ready upon deployment. The B-29's powerful, four engines were still troublesome on occasion. The B-29 was actually slightly underpowered when overloaded with bombs, fuel, and 0.50 caliber machine gun ammunition. If just one engine lost power during takeoff, a crash was inevitable. According to B-29 history, this happened too often. On take-off for a combat mission in an overloaded B-29, the crews had to cross their fingers, say a prayer, or do whatever they felt necessary to ensure all four engines remained at full power. Survival if a crash ensued was nil. Survival was possible, even if still hazardous, on the return trip when the bombs were gone, most of the fuel had been consumed, and much of the 0.50 ammunition had been expended, greatly lightening the aircraft and making it far less flammable. The costly acquisition of Iwo Jima saved many a B-29 crew who had to crash-land on Iwo on the return trip in their damaged aircraft.

[@wrathofatlantis2316]

Still a fairly optimistic assessment... "Troublesome on occasion": It was a bit worse than that... Including War Wearies, in barely 6 months of serious use (meaning once or twice a week), about 600 B-29s were written off in only 180 days of real use, plus 100 more in China on a small handful of raids... Leaving only 950 operational out of the 1650 war time production (2300 far more reliable B-29s were built in the 10 months after the War, the wartime non-B or non Silverplate lemons being promptly scrapped). Only 150 were lost from Japanese actions, out of 485 outright losses, plus over 250 War Wearies. B-29 crews absolutely feared their mounts, being forced to fly much slower than specs (about 220 mph, easy speed for Japanese fighters) by keeping the cowl flaps open with enormous drag, to avoid death from burning engines. Even with the cowl flaps open, plus 2 months of low altitude night raids (which greatly relieved their murderous engines), about 200 losses were by engine fires alone, while over 110 outright disappeared with their crews(!). The only reliable Wartime B-29s were the 300 B-29Bs produced without turrets, and the Silverplates Atomic bombers. The rest were unreliable junk carrying 8000 pounds of often ammo-less turrets, flying far below rated speed with cowl flaps fully open, and basically losing 600 airframes in 6 months against non-existent opposition... They mainly burned civilians and laid mines, bringing back a smell of barbecue in their bomb bays from the night raids. No one but the US could afford the cost needed to make such a weapon work. Although the turrets were left without ammo for the 2 months of night raids, they did make the B-29 nearly impervious to fighters (6 times the effectiveness of B-17G guns per round): They were the one thing on the B-29 that really worked...

[@ndenise3460]

The biggest fire problem in the B29 was.The magnesium engine accessory cases. Flying at high altitude caused high engine temps, add a fire and when the magnesium lot off all you could hope for was that the engine fell off prior to melting a spar

[@wrathofatlantis2316]

@@ndenise3460 Indeed. Magnesium was used only on the B-29 engines and avoided thereafter...

[@alexhubble]

​@wrathofatlantis2316 magnesium is a very.... bold choice. I wasn't much of a chemist but,,, yes, very bold.

[@wrathofatlantis2316]

@@jackgee3200 Magnesium is not used in areas potentially exposed to extreme friction heat, such as when a prop fails to feather and rotates without oil lubrication. I know the 3350 engine was used until the early 1980s, but the areas where magnesium was used on the WWII B-29 engines were not repeated on other designs. Except for the silver plate atomic bombers, and the 300 turretless B-29Bs, B-29s in WWII had to fly in most conditions with the cowl flaps open, which is a big design failure, as it drastically lowered speed, bomb load, range and other performance aspects.

[@jmullner76]

Good find in the archives, sir.

[@pRahvi0]

Gotta love the gunner silhuette in 9:38 :DD

[@salemengineer2130]

I have the impression that the B-29 (prior to the change to incendiary bombing) operated a higher altitude than the B-17 and B-24. I wonder what impact that had on Japanese fighter tactics. For example, attacking from below might simply be the result of fighters scrambling from below and attacking as soon as they approached the B-29's altitude.

[@thomasvandevelde8157]

Yes, I suspected something similar. After all, the higher you go with a piston engine (or any air breathing engine) the less oxygen, the less power it generates and hence the less speed. The B-29 was a lot faster than both B-17 and B-24, so you combine these two effects and you end up with a situation that it's become (near) impossible to attack from above, unless you've got a long time to prepare that position. And the Japanese weren't exactly good at this either.

[@jiyushugi1085]

The inability to produce high-octane avgas also limited the performance of Japanese fighters that would otherwise have done better against the 29s.

[@whya2ndaccount]

5:47: "Apadatation" - Adaptation perhaps? :)

[@jeffyoung60]

There was a problem with Japanese Imperial Navy and Imperial Army fighter pilots. By mid-1944, there were two distinct groups of pilots for both services. The first group comprised surviving experienced and skilled pilots dating from before 1941 and into 1943. This group continued to shrink with constant aerial combat against increasing American fighter pilots and pilots. The second group comprised young, inexperienced, and inadequately trained pilots, many still teenagers and others as reluctant conscripted college students. The shining glory of military aviation had long dissipated among young Japanese men by late 1943 as growing losses became known among the Japanese People. Young men went out in the air against American naval and army pilots and did not return home. But the biggest Japanese problem was technical. While the last generation of Japanese Navy and Army planes exceeded expectations and could take on and best the vaunted F6F-3 and 5 Hellcat and compete against the F4U-1D Corsair and P-51B and D Mustangs on an equal basis, none had the requisite high-altitude performance to deal with the high-flying B-29 Superfortresses. What the Japanese really needed were high-altitude capable interceptor aircraft like the German Messerschmidt 109K-4 and the Focke-Wulf 190D or the cutting edge Me-163 Komet and the Me-262 Swallow jet, none of which Japan possessed. The Japanese had to resort to desperate tactics such as ramming a B-29. Japanese pilots planning to do this usually attached a 'dead man's' ripcord from their parachutes to their chairs. During an impact against a B-29, often the Japanese pilot was thrown clear of his fighter plane but unconscious. The deadman's cord opened his parachute automatically. Several Japanese pilots were saved this way. A few others did not use a deadman's cord or forgot to attach it and subsequently died when thrown clear but unconscious after impact.

[@dukecraig2402]

Later war Japanese fighter's like the Frank had much better supercharger's that worked at high altitude, by the end of the war the Zero was pretty much washed up due to it's supercharger that didn't give high altitude performance, it's service ceiling was 33,000 ft which was the altitude B29's bombed from in daylight, so once up there, and it took them a while to get that high, they were seriously clawing for air and didn't have much performance, but the Frank's service ceiling was 38,000 ft, they could get to altitude much faster and could climb above the B29's to make slashing attacks. However, when it comes to their effectiveness against the B29, this should answer your question, the defensive guns of the B29 gave it an 11 to 1 kill to loss ratio against Japanese fighter's, that's higher than the P51's 10.2 to 1 kill to loss ratio against Japanese fighter's that were sent to escort the B29, that statistic being upside-down from what you'd expect was addressed in a post war USAAF report that said that sending P51's on escort mission's with the B29 was determined to be a waste of fighter resources that could have been better utilized elsewhere.

[@dibblah68]

Always interesting when you tackle a topic I haven’t read much about 👍

[@dennisnichols2411]

Great video and learned a few things. One thing I'm interested in is how effective Japanese air defenses were once LeMay switched to the night fire raids? Your video also has me wondering a) Since most Japanese aircraft had poor performance at B-29 altitudes, how was this overcome? b) Usually it is stated that Japan had crude radars, that were limited and sparse as far as deployment, with early warning provided chiefly by fishing boats- what role did radar play in B-29 interceptions and how did this situation affect the ability of IJN and IJA interceptors to get to a useful attack altitude and position?

[@tomhutchins7495]

Did you find any data on how the losses vary between high and low level bombing? I would assume that AA would be more effective against low-flying bombers on incendiary raids, as low level allows even light weapons to be effective. But was this the case?

[@flubardus7398]

On another youtube channel (don't want to promote another channel on yours) there is an interview with Honda Minoru. He describes how he shot down a B-29 in N1K2 using a inverted 90 degree angle attack and said that is the only one that works.

[@vmoney9106]

N1K2

[@flubardus7398]

Sorry was doing from memory and IO'm dyslexic @@vmoney9106

[@juaniravaioli3741]

Great video!

[@paultraynorbsc627]

Thanks for Sharing Chris 🙏

[@rand0mn0]

In the broadest context of the war, Japan had essentially lost by mid-1942. Japan did not have the strategic economic resources necessary to inflict sufficient damage to the Allied war machine to fight the Allies to a draw. Insufficient petroleum, strategic metals, industrial capacity and manpower doomed Japan. It didn't help that the highest levels of Japanese leadership failed to comprehend the "terrible resolve" that that filled the hearts of the American people following the Pearl Harbor attack. Because of the *way* that Japan carried out the raid, the American people were very unlikely to accept any negotiated settlement to the Pacific war. It was almost inevitable that it would become a war of attrition, draining Japan of its most fanatical and unreasonable men of fighting age.

[@PxThucydides]

In the broader context Japan lost the war on December 7th, 1941. Everything including the atomic bombing was just clockwork after that.

[@off6848]

@@PxThucydides I don't think so they had some very critical blunders in Coral Sea and Midway and had the potential to severly degrade the US navy enough to keep things even. After 3-4 major blunders it was over although they still had 17 million ready to defend the homeland

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

At the beginning, you mention the "National Archives". Does that mean the US archives? Now you've got me curious about the differences in all the archives you've used. German for sure, apparently US, and I bet British since you're going to school there. Any chance you could do a video comparing them? Ease of use, bureaucracy, cost, etc. You've bitched several times about German copyright nuisances. How about remote access -- how much of them are digitized and available from the web, how much has to be researched in person, how well organized are they ...

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

This would be from the British National Archives. The files were compiled by both the US and UK and part of intelligence sharing. German archive is fast improving with a few legal caveats here and there. UK is straightforward with a few access restrictions due to high demand. US has a unbelievable amount of stuff but is limited by understaffing and financing imo.

[@Franky46Boy]

You show in the animations a lot of Mitsubishi Zeros attacking B-29s. Was that the aircraft of choice for attacking B-29 bombers? I rather think they would use Nakajima Hayate (Frank) and Kawanishi Shiden-Kai (George) fighters.

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

From the files I have it was a mixture, so for the footage I standardised on the Zero (which was also mentioned in the files) as it is the most well known plane. This all relies on correct identification of Japanese aircraft in the first place, which was a common source of confusion among Allied aircrews.

[@Franky46Boy]

@@MilitaryAviationHistoryThanks for the prompt answering. Many other channels are not good at this. Yes, Japanese fighters were misidentified from the beginning of the war in Asia. Dutch aircrews claimed 'Zeros' in the fighting over Malaya and Sumatra, where none were present at that time! They must have mistaken Nakajima Hayabusa 'Oscars' for Mitsubishi Zeros...

[@MakisGirg]

After this clip, the answer to the meaning of life is #42 apadatation. As a recovering autocorrect victim i feel you and thank you for all your wonderful videos, your content quality is unbelievable.

[@danpatterson6937]

Terrific presentation.

[@gtdcoder]

Great topic. Very interesting and not often discussed.

[@anitarobertson4479]

My father was a bombardier on a B29 stationed on Tinian. He told us so much, unlike a lot of veterans, dad willingly discussed his experiences. When not dropping bombs, his job was to take pictures. The ones he told about was over Hiroshima the day after the atomic bomb, and the signing of surrender by the Japanese in Tokyo Harbor.

[@grognard23]

Chris, perhaps you make an addendum video detailing a breakdown of the altitude of some of these raids and losses to fighters (in consideration of the difficulty in attaining sufficient altitude to attack the bombers due to either insufficient early warning and Japanese fighter altitude limitations) as well as detailing whether any of these losses were during night raids? Did the Japanese ever field an effective night fighter? I understand they never fielded any in sufficient numbers, but were there even any fully operational night fighter squadrons?

[@off6848]

They couldn't get the radars but had lots of capable night fighter craft they were hamstrung by lack of radars

[@billyhouse1943]

Thank you.. good info… I like the way you describe things and your diction is easy for my 80.5 yo ears. Keep up the good work….

[@elessartelcontar9415]

The B-29 had a service ceiling twice that of almost all Japanese fighters and higher than Japanese antiaircraft fire. The B-29 did suffer some losses over japan and while the B-29s were difficult to intercept in the right circumstances it was not invincible. There were a handful of Japanese aircraft capable of matching the B-29's service ceiling, mainly the Ki-45 and Ki-84 but there were damn few of them left in 44 and 45. While these 2 ery limited Japanese planes could get up to close the altitude of a B-29 they were very difficult to maneuver and get a gun solution near their service ceiling. It's also worth mentioning that late in WW2 the bombing campaign over Japan switched from high altitude day raids to low altitude night firebombing which put the B-29s in the range of more interceptors. So B-29's did take some combat losses, but a much lower percentage compared to the B-17. What's also interesting is that the biggest cause of losses for B-29's was not AAA or fighters, but accidents, mechanical failures, and engine fires. The B-29 was a superweapon hence the name "Super Fortress". It's many guns were remote controlled, it was pressurized and the crew area was heated. The bomb bay was not heated and the guys that had to arm the atomic bombs nearly froze while arming them. It had been agreed upon by all involved that taking off with the atomic bombs armed was too great of a risk and that it must be done while underway to Japan. Even with the huge amount t of money spent on The Manhattan Project (about $1.5 billion) the B-29 project cost over $3 billion! Special "Silver Plate" B-29s were created solely for dropping atomic bombs.

[@The_Modeling_Underdog]

Interesting commentary, Chris. It comes to prove that the Army, at least, still had a cadre of capable pilots and groundcrew in spite of the onslaught of the New Guinea and later on Philippines campaigns. IJAS pilots were still a threat on the CBI and China at the time and reading from several actual serious sources does support the idea. Fuel and material shortages, asthmatic engine performance and early warning systems countered those favourable points. Cheers.

[@roberthohlt469]

The air currents over Japan often made hitting the ground target harder. Curtis Lemay switched to night raids with the B9s because his aircraft were not hitting at altitude. At night and lower altitude the B29s did much better.

[@notknown4393]

On a BF110 C4 would the rear gunner get out of the hatch that he has to open in order to fire the MG? or is there a side hatch. I know the G4 had the side hatch and couldnt have the back open cause of the Skrey musik

[@Firefox131]

No mention of Japanese ram tactics. Suicide runs were not only conducted against ships, but B-29’s as well.

[@hodaka1000]

I don't know if it's true but I heard the first organised Kamikaze group while flying to their intended target came across a flight of the hated B-29s and so instead crashed into the B-29s and destroyed the entire flight

[@enzofaria777]

I was thinking about how i didnt know much about this topic a few weeks ago. Thanks for reading my mind german airplane man!

[@Shannon-ij1pm]

As I understand it the initial bombing was traditional high altitude bombing with a transition to low level incendiary bombing in 1945. If this is true, I would be interested in seeing shoot down statistics between the two strategies. Interesting because I also heard that LeMay also stripped out everything, including the 50 cals, to pack as much incendiary munition as possible into the planes.

[@Dennis010204]

Excellent analysis of a little known aspect of the war in the Pacific.

[@nigelconnor6960]

Japanese resorted to 'ramming attacks' called Kai-attari, or something, not actual suicide ramming like kamikazes onto ships, they tried to damage the B29s by say smashing the cockpit canopies, or rudders, disabling the bombers, but hopefully still being able to return home to fight another day without to much damage to their in short supply fighter aircraft. It was proposed, but how many missions took place is a good question, maybe it was more the choice of individual pilots after exhausting their ammunition? Germany did similar with KG100 battle group Elber, the Luftwaffe's ramming unit in the last week of the war. Strange what you will try even when you know your beaten!!!! Great video, thank you. 👍.

[@brealistic3542]

This is actually a very interesting topic that no one looks into. Good choice

[@anthonysherry2628]

Those pop up boxes with info are hard to read as they disappear before you can read them.

[@GregoryHawkins-d2p]

Thank you for teaching us about this.

[@TristanTzara100]

This is fascinating. My understanding had always been that Japan really struggled against the B-29 because latter was simply able to fly a lot higher than any Japanese fighter of the day. So to hear that they actually were able to attack from above truly makes me re-think this. Thank you.

[@BleedingUranium]

Neat to see the Bf 109 C-1 in the War Thunder clips (it was added recently), the Bf 109 C isn't something you hear much about, let alone actually have playable somewhere. :)

[@jockellis]

My poly sci prof at North Georgia College was a B-17 pilot during WW II. He told us of a general being transferred to the ETO from the Pacific. Flying co-pilot, he saw a German fighter coming toward his plane. He grabbed the wheel and started to engage the German. The pilot, a 2nd lieutenant grabbed a fire extinguisher and cold cocked the general and got back into formation. When they got back the general had the pilot courtmarshalled. When the court heard the general’s story they laughed him out of court.

[@linnharamis1496]

Thanks - great video!👍

[@gagamba9198]

The USAAF had a weekly publication distributed to fliers in Asia such as _Fifth Air Force Weekly Intelligence Review_ . You might want to dig up copies of it. The reports were timely. For example, when Japan announced a new law decreed on 14 June stipulating male citizens aged from 15 to 61 (volunteer) and 16 to 60 (conscript) and female citizens aged 17 to 40 (45 for volunteers) were to serve in the 'volunteer' corps, be drafted as required, and be incorporated in the Volunteer Fighting Corps (国民義勇戦闘隊), this was disseminated to all squadrons in the 21 June edition.

[@richardletaw4068]

To “Mr M.A.H.”: While your spoken English is perfect, onscreen captions suffer from numerous spelling and grammar errors. (The most egregious today was “Apadatatation” for “Adapation” in one of the chapter headers.) None are serious enough to affect meaning, which is always perfectly clear; it just detracts slightly from the almost scholarly tone of your excellent broadcasts. I urge you to run such text through a spelling and grammar checker such as that in Microsoft Word (or the free Open Office word processor, if you don’t have Word). As a retired linguist, editor, and proofreader, I might offer to help at first. But the software tools are good enough that they should be adequate. Thanks for all you do! Your pieces are always highly informative, and often touch on subjects no one else approaches. Vielen Dank!

[@paulwoodman5131]

I actually liked the misspelled. "Firendly Fire." At 13:09 😅🔥🌇

[@anitarobertson4479]

Since dad's duty station was in the nose of the plane, he had a good view. He told about seeing a plane, probably a zero, approaching from the side. Quickly he told the pilot, "pull it up"! And the zero flew under them.

[@alexany4619]

5:46 "Apadatation" ?

[@johngaither9263]

Dad's plane arrived late in the war. He only flew 8 missions. The last one was a weather recon over Nagasaki about 2 hours before it was A-bombed. He said by that time Japanese fighters would not enter a formation of B-29's at all. He did witness a kamikaze attack on the lead bomber once. The fighters would try to lob 20 mm cannon shells at the bombers from a distance but were very poor shots and in his opinion were not very good pilots either.

[@martindice5424]

Tactics can be outstanding- but unless they are the tool of strategy and logistics they are nothing. Winning battles doesn’t count for much of you lose the war. Love the B-29. Flawed but magnificent!

[@olafverheij1192]

Around 13:50 you mention the amounts of bombs dropped. However, you leave out the naval mines dropped, especially in operation Starvation. Arguably a more effective or efficient use of the B-29 than the carpet bombing raids.

[@amelierenoncule]

It is said, mes amis, that sometime after the first B-29 aeroplatform did a low level recon-mission o'er Tokyo, the Empress Nagako (the wife of Emperor Hirohito), wrote in a letter: “Every day from morning to night, B-29's fly freely over the palace making an enormous noise. As I sit at my desk writing and look up at the sky, countless numbers are passing over. Unfortunately... the B-29 is a splendid plane.”

[@johnflynn-pk2mk]

Our U.S. history buff's with the atomic bomb, I hope they will back me up, their were six atomic bombs altogether. Third in-line Atomic bomb to be dropped was nicked named "The Gadget", fourth in-line to be dropped was called "Watch-cha-maw-call it"???, the fifth Atomic bomb to be called "The Mouse???.

[@norman3605]

Please make a video on relative loss ratios of Japanese fighters during strategic bomber attack sorties compared with German losses. In other words: Which side took higher loss rates during attacks on strategic bomber formation.

[@pattschetter]

The Japanese fighters vs. B-29's were more effective than I'd ever thought, in that they could actually take some down. As an American growing up watching American WWII documentaries I hadn't thought they had much of anything for fighters that could get to the operating altitude of especially the B-29's (though I was imagining here the B-29's flying at European-theater type of altitudes), or that they still had many skilled pilots left for the homeland after the attrition of the Allied China and island-hopping campaigns.

[@supercheese7033]

5:48 What is Apadation? They didn't have tablets back then... lol

[@crystallineentity]

Good video Chris, I was surprised the US lost so many B-29s, didn't know that

[@leeharrison2722]

Interesting video on a topic that we don't see much else on .. kudos for doing something new. WRT the early preference for low attacks, particularly head-on low attacks ... remember that all early B-29 doctrine was high-altitude; that is what the bomber was designed to do, also a key part of its range (lower drag up there). Japan never had ground radar anything like that of Germany, UK, etc. Japanese fighters were usually climbing to engage bombers on short notice ... B-29s would try to be at altitudes over 30,000 ft -- zeros could get up there but with difficulty, and they were not optimized as high-altitude interceptors at all. Japanese fighter deployments also were desperate to conserve fuel by this time in the war, also Japanese production and repair were in desperate shape so loitering fighters aloft was too expensive in what they had desperately little of. While it certainly is of interest to try to understand what the Japanese fighters did -- the fact of the matter is that throughout the B-29 operational history in the war the dominant losses were from ground fire, failures and accidents, and this trend increased as the Japanese AF was attritted. The B-29s had a wide range of serious early-model "teething problems." The most serious of these, that lasted throughout the war, was that the engines did not cool well at high altitude, particularly at rated load. This forced the AF to start carrying less, and the utility of the B-29s was in doubt because of it. Frantic work to improve the engine (and principally head & exhaust valve) cooling did help ... but it remained such a problem that the value of the B-29s were questioned. The early raids from China were effectively an operational failure -- few missions, the logistics of supply of the bases in China was awful, and on the raids they did make bombing accuracy was dreadful. High-altitude bombing didn't appear to be viable for anything other than "area bombing," and this was what the B-29s turned to. The capture of the Marianas made bombing Japan operationally feasible in a paper accounting of resources, but the operational problems of the B-29 were serious, and "accident" losses were too high to sustain. Most of these accidents were associated with struggling to take off with very high bomb loads, failing to maintain airspeed. Famously LeMay sent O'Donnell the following: "Dear Rosy, In June Strategic Air Command had fourteen accidents. Eleven of the fourteen were in the Fifteenth Air Force. Do something. Sincerely, Curtis E. LeMay, Lieutenant General, USAF, Commanding." Seeing this history -- there is the valid argument that even though Japanese fighter performance against B-29 was poor and came at high cost, it must be considered a "success" (until it didn't) because it kept the B-29s flying at high altitude where bomb loads were smaller, bombing accuracy was poor, and B-29 loss rates were unacceptably high. One wonders whether any of the Japanese realized this. O'Donnell was relieved and LeMay took over -- and LeMay made the only "do something" decision possible .. that arguably O'Donnell would have been sacked for making: abandoning the high-altitude bombing, that was the whole rationale for the B-29, and Army Air Force doctrine. This decision recognized that fighter losses just didn't matter much (particularly by this time). Flying low cooled the engines, allowed much high bomb loads (aided by stripping out defensive guns!) ... and the B-29s started to pulverize Japan.

[@Raphix]

What were the altitudes the B-29 flew over and near Japan?

[@mebeasensei]

I believe that only 150 b29s were lost in combat over Japan. Your number seems high. And everything I have read suggests that the b29s had little to bother about in respect to the would-be-interceptors the Japanese could field, all of which were inadequate at altitude when the b29s were high at the beginning, or lacking radar for nights, when the bombers flew low in the dark.

[@syme9925]

It is interesting to hear that the Japanese interceptor pilots were skilled and effective as my interest is generally in naval matters and at this point in the time the IJN experienced pilot cadre had been eviscerated.

[@pat8988]

(2:19) Cluster firebombs ???

[@neilwilson5785]

The attacks at about 11:00 in this video suggest that these complex attacks would need talented pilots. There would be less of these at this point in the war.

[@cannonfodder4376]

A most informative and concise explainer on the subject.

[@ManicSalamander]

In years of casual study of WWII, it seems to me inescapable that we won by sheer volume of everything. More people, more machines, more newer machines under development, more people trained on an ongoing basis. More manufacturing capacity. The quality of German and Japanese thinking, strategy, engineering, were better than ours at first. But once we found our feet and started developing improvements in hundreds of weapon types at once, then manufacturing them (and training operators!) in unthinkable quantities, we were able to sandpaper the German and Japanese war machines down to the elderly, crippled and untrained. It cost us a lot of lives and materiel, but in the end we could spare it. We were the infinite, rampaging hordes, more than the brilliant technical strategists, when it comes to what we had over them. If we ever get into it with China, it will not go well for anybody, even if their tech is crappy. And someday it may not be.

[@danl.909]

Was it not also true that Japan was never able to field a fighter with sufficient high-altitude performance in sufficient numbers to form an effective counter to the B-29?

[@TheCityofTownsville]

Yes. They also had ridiculous lacks of fuel and material.

[@augustosolari7721]

The Hayate?

[@dobridjordje]

​​@@augustosolari7721It was the best they could grasp, and didn't suffer as much as other fighters but pilots were inexperienced and quality of production was lacking but they were absolutely capable of shooting any US aircraft down when piloted by a seasoned veteran even B-29 on multiple occasions.

[@lewiswestfall2687]

Thanks MAH

[@whbrown1862]

I knew a girl in graduate school, whose father was a gunner on a B-29. He mentioned that the Japanese fighters were extremely fast, and by the time he located one - the fighter had already flew past his position. He never claimed any kills.

[@dukecraig2402]

The computer augmented defensive guns of the B29 gave it an 11 to 1 kill to loss ratio against Japanese fighter's, that's higher than the P51's 10.2 to 1 kill to loss ratio against Japanese fighter's that were sent to escort B29's. Due to those statistics after the war a USAAF report determined that sending P51's to escort B29's had been a waste of fighter resources that could have been utilized better elsewhere.

[@dobridjordje]

@@dukecraig2402 I believe the Ki 84 was the most dangerous thing a B-29 could meet especially the hei version with two 30mm cannons next to two 20 mm regular HO-5, they would shred a B-29 in no time but only less than 100-200 of those were ever built.

[@kenneth9874]

​@@dobridjordjeactually there were over 3,500 built

[@danpatterson6937]

Excellent academic review of a titanic struggle.

[@吳秉樺-b7j]

How high did the B29 cruise?

[@guidor.4161]

I would have thought few Japanese would have enough performance to even reach the B-29s at altitude. That would make it very challenging for them to attain a higher altitude for a diving attack. Not to mention they would have to be vectored in very well by ground control.

[@martinbunchdd412]

You didn't mention the change to night operations with napalm fire bombing. The air attacks were not as much of a threat but the AAA was still bad.

[@ADC61UTUBE]

An interesting addition could be why if the Japanese fighters were generally ineffective in deterring US high altitude daylight precision raids Curtis LeMay switched to low level night time area raids?

[@KevinSmith-ys3mh]

From my past reading of the campaign history, the Jet Stream(often 200mph) was meandering all over 1944 Japan (not unusual at that latitude) at the same time the B-29 force was trying to achieve precision strikes. Without a weather metrology unit on the ground or sea near the target (unlikely at the time) to derive aiming corrections due to various wind speeds and directions over the entire path of the bombs, it was a complete crapshoot where they landed. Precision strikes were impossible from 4+ miles up under those conditions. The aircraft and crews were being wasted with poor results. Additionally the lower altitude bombers with turrets and ammo stripped out put less stress on the engines (the Achilles heel of that aircraft) while allowing higher speeds, less drag, more bomb load that actually HITS the targets. The same atmosphere effects occur with long range surface or AA Artillery; many years ago we launched helium weather balloons with a radar reflector to track, and derived winds at altitude data before long range gun shoots. Doppler weather radars may be able to do it these days, ala Tornado chasers.

[@johnd2058]

16:30 the tactics? Increasingly 'tricky', like anime swordfighting.

[@robertmoyse4414]

Probably worth a mention that the B-29 Project cost more than than the Manhatten Project (nukes) and maybe more than the entire Japanese war effort. Size matters and the US economy was vast.

[@_Saracen_]

I wonder if the Japanese picked up that air to air bombing tactic from the initial German success early on? Heinz Knocke talks about it in his book "I Flew For The Fuhrer". Goring apparently telephoned him personally, congratulating him, high command seemed pretty elated about it. The tactic never quite caught on though, proved pretty unreliable and way too much effort on the part of each squadron on the whole. Needed the right circumstances to really work properly as well.

[@philipdavis7521]

Interesting - I'd always assumed that the main problem the Japanese had was that their fighters simply couldn't operate high and fast enough to effectively intercept the B-29. They tried hard to build a good high altitude interceptor, but a shortage of effective engines seems to have been their main problem. From what I've read, the only real tactical success was with AAA - it forced the B-29's to attack at a high altitude higher, so somewhat reducing the accuracy of their bombing, at least for the first few weeks of missions.

[@generalsb6332]

I may be wrong, but in very general terms, only the U.S. Had the materials, manufacturing, and transportation infrastructure to out manufacture and supply the allies against the axis powers. Geographically, only the coasts were vulnerable but a lot of the material production and manufacturing was unreachable with the available technology of the time. The U.S. was able to produce and deploy needed equipment and munitions without enemy harassment. This allowed us to build tanks at a high volume and basically overwhelm the vastly superior German tanks like ants attacking a beetle. In the Pacific, again the U.S. supplied men and materials that the Japanese couldn’t keep up with. The Japanese however were willing to fight to the last soldier. With the last 2 bombs Japan’s will was broken. Another poster wrote that the 2nd bomb was more impactful because it showed there was more than one bomb of its type and for all Japan knew, that wasn’t the last. It was a terrible way to attempt to force an end to the war but it probably saved countless lives on both sides of the conflict.

[@georgecase188]

In terms of military aviation, there really wasn't a 1944-45 Battle of Japan to compare with the 1940 Battle of Britain or the concentrated 1942-45 Battle of Germany. Why? Japan had already lost too much territory to post a forward defence (like the Luftwaffe in Occupied Europe); it had already lost too many skilled pilots and did not have enough qualified recruits to replace them; and it had lost its key sources of oil and other supplies that were vital to a functioning air force. In sufficient numbers, newer designs like the Mitsubishi Raiden, the Kawasaki Hien, tthe Kawanishi Shiden and he twin-engine Kawasaki Toryu might have made worthy challenges to the B-29 raids, and forced the US Air Force to change tactics, but ultimately Japan lacked the population and the industrial base to stave off the attackers. Credit to the Japanese for achieving as much as they did in defending their homeland - and credit to the Americans for an overwhelming victory.

[@EJBert]

If you want to sum up the Pacific WW2 campaign here is the one key statistic that shows why Japan's was a lost cause, literally from the beginning: Over the entire war, the Allies commissioned a total of 181 carriers of all types compared to Japan's total of 19. Japan just couldn't match this production and keep in mind the US was also supplying the Allies in Europe at the same time!

[@Warmaker01]

They did alright considering their situation by 1944. But as you pointed out that even with the Germans who had all these tactical and technological measures in place, it did not matter. They weren't stopping the air onslaught. The same held true for Japan at this stage in the war. Japan lost the air war in the South Pacific and New Guinea.

[@nigellakin2318]

Brit here, we won the Battle of Britain by having the luxury of the thirties to prepare. Radar, AA, Observer Corps & lots of aircraft factories. Who in Japan then could have foreseen huge enemy bomber fleets being able to attack them. Their Navy was supposed to defend them from this fate but by 1944 it had been defeated.

[@kenneth9874]

American high octane fuel....

[@jaikumar848]

Was there any instances where japanese were able to take out B-29 ?

[@LastGoatKnight]

There was apparently. The earlier versions of the B-29 were harrassed by Ki-64s if I remember correctly

[@sidefx996]

Did you watch the video? There were apparently lots of "instances."

[@dobridjordje]

Ki 84s shot most of B-29s down whilst suffering moderate losses but Zeros were toast when fighting against them.

[@JefferyTheriault]

My father's aircraft ( he was navigator/bombardier, they were all trained for two positions) lost two engines on one side, one to flak, and the other to an accidental ram by a Japanese fighter, which knocked the engine off the mount. Took the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer more than 20,000 feet of altitude to re-learn how to fly the plane that way. They got back to Tinian in ground effect. So, yeah, there were lots of instances.

[@jerryle379]

If you wonder which plane intercept b29 it aint zero , for the navy it j2m for army it ki44-61-84-100

[@dobridjordje]

Ki 84 was the best by far if you got the one with good quality production

[@shaider1982]

I the B29 has a highee top speed that a Zero. Must have beem hard to intercept one.

[@alanlord3098]

I was waiting to see the crucial difference in Japanese tactics following Curtis Le May's involvement: at first, B-29's were bombing from 30,000 feet during daytime - which was totally inaccurate and pointless. I suppose the tactics you showed was when they were doing this. Then, Le May had the B-29's bomb from 3000 feet AT NIGHT. which was HIGHLY effective. But this crucial consideration was not mentioned at all in your presentation - which was still highly informative. Please explain!!!