ARMY vs NAVY - Fighter Pilot Tactics in WW2 Japan (EP 1/4)

[@philipdavis7521]

I've a friend who is a Japanese speaking historian and its always interesting to hear about just how distorted a lot of war histories are in English due to so many historians relying solely on secondary sources or western sources for details about the Japanese military. The view is very different from those who have gone into the primary sources - so thanks very much for this, it's enlightening and good to see so many myths about Japanese fighting busted.

[@dogloversrule8476]

You should try out the book “Shattered Sword” by John Parshall. It’s about what really happened during the battle of Midway from the Japanese side of things. It’s a really well done book

[@danielstickney2400]

Years ago I read "Blossoms in the Wind", a book about survivors of the various Kamikaze programs. One of the interviewees was a Ki-44 shotai leader who saw late war replacement pilots stall and spin in because they tried to fly the Ki-44 like the Ki-43s they'd been trained on. Poor and inconsistent fuel received several mentions, one biplane pilot survived because his engine failed and his survival instincts kicked in when he landed in the water. It's not an aviation book but it's the only English language book I know that explores the kamikaze from the Japanese survivor's perspective.

[@picklerick8785]

I've read in Prados's "Combined Fleet Decoded" that the Ki-61 was codenamed "Tony" because they believed that it was a licence built copy of an Italian Macchi C.202 fighter, which totally makes sense when you look at them because both use the DB 601.

[@dogloversrule8476]

A good book to read to learn about IJN naval doctrine & what not is John Parshall’s “Shattered Sword” which is about the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective using known doctrine of the time, surviving reports of the battle & more.

[@chriscarbaugh3936]

Wow, you guys need to read Dunn's South Pacific Air War. He has a huge amount of Japanese operation data which refutes alot of the radiational narrative. You would enjoy it, completely backs this up

[@chartreux1532]

Griaß di! Just wanted to share as a Bundeswehr Combat Veteran of the Gebirgsjägerbrigade 23 and Heeresbergführer, now working as Historian mainly for the IFZ in Munich nowadays that i'm really proud to see a German doing such great Videos regarding History on KZbin. Usually it's just Americans or the British and your Content from all i watched (and shared with Colleagues) has been really good! Now i personally didn't focus too much on the Luftwaffe in the past 10 Years, all of my Family were either in the W-SS, Gebirgsjäger or Fallschirmjäger (me myself also having served as Gebirgsjäger of the 23rd Gebirgsjägerbrigade with 2 Tours in Afghanistan, wounded by an IED in the 2nd Tour and 1 in Kosovo via KFOR) and currently helping out training Ukrainians via EUMAM-UA regarding "Harsh Terrain Warfare". So it's nice to have some properly researched Content on Topics i'm not too educated on regarding WW2 that isn't either pure Clickbait or takes a lot of Liberties to leave out certain Facts or over-exaggerate other Facts just in Order to get more Views and Engagement in the Comments (sadly a very common Thing among certain popular "History" KZbin Channels) So keep up the good Work! Prost & Cheers from the Snow-Covered Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps

[@cannonfodder4376]

A most informative discussion. It's always great to hear from Justin.

[@chris_bianchi13]

Thank you for your content Chris!

[@davidbalogun7569]

Really interesting video, especially how the army attitides were different from the navy. Id be really interested to see a deep dive on the Ki-84, which in my opinion was their best fighter and one of the best overall in the world, even better than the Navy's N1K2 in my opinion. Fast, good climb rate, good weaponry and still a great turn rate, interesting that you mention them actively trying to counter western designs even when still in the ki 43 mindset, iirc the ki 84 startes development pretty early into the 43s combat life

[@DoubleyouCeeGee]

Would love to eventually see a series on Italy's air force in WW2 as well.

[@andreashansen1475]

Really good video! I learn so much

[@johnfrench1239]

Superb, interesting content thank you!

[@GTX1123]

Pearl Harbor happened 21 yrs before I was born. But I got to see it...well, sort of. In 1969 I lived in on Oahu on the west side of the inlet to Pearl Harbor. One day I walked out my front door and saw a large formation of Japanese Zeros flying low over the jungle right near my house LOL. I ran back inside and said "mom, didn't we already beat them?!" LOL. My mom chuckled and said "oh, they're filming a movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbor"; i.e. "Tora, Tora, Tora"

[@dogloversrule8476]

That’s neat

[@doomedwit1010]

Great video.

[@MangoTroubles-007]

Wonderful Thank You 😃

[@voldavkuk]

Ich hab mir damals als Kind (erste Mal "Pearl Harbour") noch nichts dabei gedacht, dass ein amerikanischer USAC/USAAF Pilot, der in den Staaten P-40 flog, dann freiwillig nach England ging um für die RAF in Spitfires gegen Bf-109/Bf-110/Do-17+217/He-111/Ju-88+87 zu kämpfen, nach Hause (Pearl Harbour) kommt und beim Angriff der Japaner am 7. Dezember weiß, dass die P-40 keine Zero/A6M2 auskurven kann! Irgendwann dachte ich mir dann, woher soll er das (gerade aus dem europäischen Kriegsschauplatz kommend) wissen!? Dank eurem Video weiß ich nun, dass er laut Handbuch genau vom Gegenteil ausgehen musste. Auch der Kanal "The fat Elictrician" erwähnte, dass die P-40 in China (AVG) hit and run Taktiken verwendete, da die japansichen Maschinen besser kurven konnten, gut dass mag allerdings von Erfahrungen des Gründers her stammen, der selbst eigene Erfahrungen in China geasammelt hatte.

[@dogloversrule8476]

Could you maybe also do a part of this series with Drachinifel? His specialization is in warships which would allow him to have some interesting inputs & insights when discussing IJN carrier doctrine. Also, can you please do a series like this for the US Army Air Corps & USN in WW2 Pacific as well?

[@Cuccos19]

I would be also curious about the poor combat performance of the Spitfire Mk.Vb Trop and Vc Trop over Darwin, Australia, against the A6M2/A6M3 variants.

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[@Baerinho]

I see Justin Pyke on japanese aviation and i click.

[@edged1001]

Did the rivalry between the Japanese Navy and army hurt Japan? For example the Nakajima Ki-43 and Mitsubishi A6M appear to have the same performance so why waste resources building both planes?

[@MilitaryAviationHistory]

Great question, I‘ve noted it down for another episode

[@danielstickney2400]

The rivalry wasn't just limited to the aircraft themselves: the imperial army and navy even used different but functionally equivalent autocannons and machine guns firing similar but incompatible cartridges. Navy guns wouldn't fit army planes, army guns couldn't fire navy cartridges, duplication and confusion all around.

[@ohger1]

The attack on Pearl was a B+. Even if the Japanese navy managed to get all the battle ships and the carriers as well (not at Pearl), the U.S. would have regrouped although it would have taken much more time. As it turns out, the A bomb would have still ended the war in 1945 no matter how perfect the attack on Pearl was.

[@matsv201]

I see two issues that tend to happen for authoritarian government in there military time after time. The first one is stats optimizing. The M6 Zero for example is fast, maneuverable, have long range, more so then say American planes at the time. Its far to easy to say that Japanese was just better at making planes, but here i would say the authoritarian government and the internet warriors are doing the same mistake. Stats optimization. We select the 4-5 most important stats and try to fill them as good as possible. While american planes had a more coherent over all design. One is fire power. While it very early on (before USA entered the war) Japan found out that the 7.7 lack the range of the larger calibers. The larger guns was retrofitted, and they could only fit one in each wing. This was party true for UK and Germany as well, but consider Hurricane and spitfire upgraded typically from 8 7,7 to eventually 4 20mm that was still considerably higher fire power. And US aircraft mostly had 6 12.7mm guns, that allowed mid range, but considerably higher fire rate. I would also think that the 7,7 and 20mm mix was sub optimal considering that most European fighters (that also started of 7,7mm) eventually went to a 12,7 and 20 mix or a pure 20mm configuration. Again something M6 could not due to size and weight constraints. The US planes was also considerably sturdier, some thing Japanese naval aircraft designer simply had no choice in the matter. If they want to fly fast and long distance with a low power engine, building it light was the only option on the table. The effect of this is that american planes hit by a few bullet often made it back, or some times manage to crash close to there own lines to be rescued, while Japanese tend to not make it back. Apart form that the pilot rescue service tend to work better on the US side. While Japan may have had the better pilots early in the war. Those degraded faster than on the US side. Also have to consider that when USA push forward the Japanese supply lines did become shooter, gaining back some of there ability. But at this time USA fielded aircraft with simulacra or better stats optimized performance while also being a better all around weapon of war. The radio and radar was also a similar issue like that. The fact that US fighters could be guided to target of known quantities gave them a huge advantage. Maybe possibly the largest advantage of them all. That the claimed shutdown was exaggerated during the war was well known even at the time. According to the famous french fighter pilot a reasonable estimation would be to take British fighter reports and divide them by 2, american by 3 and bomber crew by 7. This was written during the war, and after war data (that is between western front and Germany, so not the Japanese front) showed this was a fairly accurate estimate. While the force of operation may be fairly balanced the first year USA entered (with US having better operations, while Japanese had more experience), when the experience started to even up there was just no way Japan would won by that point. On top of that did USA both outproduce and out developed the Japanese. The other part is exercise. And i would say this is one point where Russia failed really hard in Ukraine. They did very little exercise, so a lot of there system was not cross compatible. And of cause, exercise is really freaking expensive and give you as a totalitarian nation nothing unless you go to war. I would say, this is probobly the most important factor of everything

[@christianfranzen7854]

Thanks! What does the IJA and IJN doctrine say about CAP? How many, where, what altitude, reinforcements on stand-by etc? And how does that compare to USAAF/USN and RAF/RN?

[@SubParFlyFisher]

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[@marksarcevich9824]

Please do something about B24 and there missions in the pacific