Response to Spinetta Article - Part 5 of 5
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Yet these figures underestimate the contribution of land-based aircraft to the maritime fight. Land-based airpower also destroyed large numbers of barges and small vessels—of less than 500 tons gross weight—not counted in the totals. (Sea-based aircraft destroyed relatively few small ships because they spent little time patrolling the coastal waters and harbors.)
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Barges and small, under 500 gross tons vessels . . . as did USN carrier and land based aircraft . . . for example for the period 10 July 1945 to the end of the war, operating off the coast of Japan in 13 strike days interspersed with refueling, re-arming, and dodging a couple of typhoons, USN carrier aircraft sank or damaged over 800K tons of enemy vessels, merchant and naval, including:
Sunk: 31 warships at 118K standard tons – 1 BB, 1 BB/XCV, 1 CA, 1 CL, 2 old CA, 2 AM, 2 SS, 4 SSM, 3 DD, 4 old DD, 7 DE, 2 PC, 1 WARC; 55 Merchants vessels at 113.5K gross tons – 8 Train Ferries, 1 SAL, 2 SAI, 4 SAS, 2 SBL, 1 SBS, 2 SCL, 12 SCS, 7 , TC, and 16 FTD. Total 86 ships at 231.5K tons plus an additional 207 (here’s your under 500 tons types) luggers and other small craft sunk.
Damaged: 73 warships at 301.2K standard tons - 1 BB, 1 BB-XCV, 1 CA, 1 CL, 4 CV, 1 CVL, 2 CVE, 2 old CA, 2 AG, 1 CM, 1 WAG, 2 AK, 9 SS, 6 SSM, 5 DD, 4 old DD, 23 DE, 3 PC, 2 LSM, 1 APD, 1 AVP; 115 Merchant Ships at 267.5K gross tons – 1 Train Ferry, 1 Passenger Ferry, 1 TA, 2 TB, 1 SAL, 4 SAI, 7 SAS, 4 SBL, 4 SBS, 3 SCL, 23 SCS, 1 FA, 2 FB, 1 FU, 1 FTA, 3 FTB, 16 FTC and 40 FTD. Total damaged 188 vessels for 568.7K tons plus an additional 411 luggers and other small craft.
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The Army Air Forces attacks compare favorably to the efforts of the other services—the AAF devoted less effort but dropped more bombs and sank a greater number of ships than the other services.
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Really?
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AAF's Pacific forces flew 7,250 (1.5 percent) of their sorties to maritime interdiction and sank 265,360 tons of enemy shipping. In comparison, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft flew 25,657 (9.9 percent) of their sorties against merchant shipping and sank 102,702 total tons.
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Not knowing all that much about USAAF performance statistics, I shall presume Spinetta’s AAF numbers are correct. And his count of USN gross tonnage? Sorry, but it looks to me as though Spinetta is off by quite a bit more than an order of magnitude. According to USN sources, total tonnage of Japanese merchant ships of 500 gross tons or more sunk by USN aircraft works out to 1,543,000 gross tons. And his USN sortie count? He's a little closer, but the USN count looks to me like 26,460 sorties (14,388 against merchant vessels over 500 gross tons, 10,987 against merchant vessels under 500 gross tons, and 1,085 against tonnage unreported shipping), which works out to 10.2% of all USN action sorties. This number includes both
land-based and
carrier-based USN and
USMC sorties in the Pacific operating areas.
Of course, one wonders how each service counts sorties, and, I suspect, there is a differing sortie accounting system which skews the data. Perhaps another subject at another time. I know how the USN counted sorties, I’d be interested to know how the USAAF counted sorties.
Now then, if Spinetta wants to talk about carrier-based results against Japanese merchant shipping
(remember that was his thesis from which he keeps wandering),
12.9% of carrier-based strike sorties were against merchant vessel targets (8.9 greater than 500 GT, 3.6 under 500 GT, and 0.4 unreported GT) and 7.2% of land-based sorties (1.8 greater than 500 GT, 4.9 under 500 GT, and 0.5 unreported GT). What does this mean in real numbers? Note that “strike sorties” means exactly that and does not count fighter-to-fighter action sorties.
So, how many strike sorties is this?
Well, total carrier-based strike sorties were 137,904. Of these strike sorties 12,257 were against merchant vessels over 500 GT, 5,035 under 500 GT, and 488 unreported GT, for a total of 17,780 sorties against merchant vessels. The numbers for total carrier-based aircraft gross merchant tonnage sinkings I can find are only for those merchant vessels of 1000 GT or more and comes to 1,293,875 GT in 275 sinkings (and just for the sake of clarity, land-based USN sinkings of merchant vessels over 1000 GT came to 182,583 tons in 50 sinkings). What does that mean?
Again, presuming that Spinetta’s AAF sortie count and credited tonnage are correct, as I would presume that he would want to show the USAAF in the best possible light, then, carrier-based aircraft flew 2.45 times the number of maritime strike sorties as the USAAF. It also means that the USAAF averaged some 36.6 GT sunk per shipping strike sortie. And using the now corrected carrier-based aircraft anti-shipping strikes numbers results in something more than 105 GTs per shipping strike sortie (taking into account the difference between the reported 500 GT sortie rate and the 1000 GT sinkings tonnage . . . i.e., the error is on the conservative side, less tonnage, more sorties). This means that, per anti-shipping sortie per merchant gross ton, the carrier-based aircraft 2.9 times more efficient.
Somehow I don’t think this is the result Spinetta is looking for.
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The AAF sank 2.5 times the enemy tonnage with less than a third of the sorties devoted to the mission.
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Demonstrably untrue.
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The disparity in relative effectiveness is magnified when you include Twentieth Air Force's mine-laying campaign. Twentieth flew 28,826 sorties and delivered 9,875 tons of mines, which sank 287 enemy ships and damaged 323 others.
After April 1945, mines dropped by B-29s in Japanese harbors and inland waterways accounted for half of all enemy ships sunk or damaged.
This aerial mining crippled Japanese merchant shipping, denied damaged ships access to repair facilities, closed strategic waterways, and threw the administration of Japanese shipping into hopeless confusion.
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But again, none of those mines could have been delivered without someone capturing the Marianas (remember the guys who stand on a smoking piece of ground with bayonet tipped rifles?) and that would not have happened without an invasion fleet, and that would not have happened without aircraft carriers.
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There are limits to what constitutes acceptable risk as well. Losing a single aircraft is bad enough, but, security affairs writer Robert Kaplan has warned, ‘The effect of a single Chinese cruise missile's hitting a US carrier, even if it did not sink the ship, would be politically and psychologically catastrophic.’
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Another earth shattering statement . . . and it would be catastrophic for the Chinese as well. This guy hangs with some real geniuses.
The rest of this article is USAF propaganda . . . looks to me like they are afraid naval aviation will be getting a larger piece of the budget pie when someone looks close at air operations in the Afghan and Iraqi wars.
It is late; I’m not going to waste any more time on Spinetta’s nonsense.
Regards to all,
Rich
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