Spitfire mk VB/Seafire vs Zero

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by DauntlessDriver

The Spitfire Mk.V is more maneuverable than the Zero at low speeds... but the Spitfire is heavier than the Zero... how is this so? I would think lighter means less maneuverable in a fight.

What makes you think the Spitfire Mk.V is more maneuverable than the Zero at low speeds !!!!!!

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Parsifal, this is what I have for Spitfire losses due to enemy action in this period.

Mar 15 :- 452 sqn - 2 spits
54 sqn - 2 spits

May 2 :- 457 sqn - 1
452 sqn - 2
54 sqn - 1
Plus a further 10 a/c lost due to fuel or engine problems.

May 10 :- 457 sqn - 1 (hit the ground whilst dogfighting)

May 28 :- 457 sqn - 2

Jun 20 :- 452 sqn - 2

Jun 30 :- 452 sqn -1
54 sqn -4

July 6 :- 457 sqn - 3
452 sqn - 1
54 sqn - 1

Sep 7 :- 452 sqn - 2
54 sqn - 1

Thanks Wilcat. Your figures are pretty close to mine. Do you have total figures for the Darwin theatre (ie all types).

Also do you have any estimates on Japanese losses in this period a well. Thats the $64 question really, and one that nobody wants to tackle.

[HoHun]

Hi Driver,

>The Spitfire Mk.V is more maneuverable than the Zero at low speeds... but the Spitfire is heavier than the Zero... how is this so? I would think lighter means less maneuverable in a fight.

You're right with the latter ... with regard to the former, let me try to explain the diagrams: In the turn rate comparison, the main thing is to get a high sustained turn rate at whatever speed, which means that you have to look for the peak of the graphs.

How far to the right the graph runs below the peak mainly determines how much energy and power reserve there is for an instantaneous turn ... if you pull into an instantaneous turn at a faster speed than that for the maximum turn rate, you'll gain a bit of turn rate while speed decays.

Once you've reached maximum turn rate, there is no quick pulling back to increase the turn rate anymore unless you can sacrifice some altitude for that.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by parsifal

For example, you mention that the sdsole resistance was the 202nd Kokutai. This is not the case, In fact an analysis of just one airfield in the area, Babo (at the end of the VogelKop peninsula), reveals the presence of the following units at various times

Japanese Units Based At Babo
202nd Kokutai (formally 3rd Kokutai - Zeros) early 1943 - March 1944
311th Hikotai of the 153 Kokutai - (A6M3-5 Zeros)
753rd & 732nd Kokutai - Betty (possibly based)
JAAF 7th Air Division
61st Sentai (Ki-49 Helen)
24th Sentai, 1st Chutai (Ki-43-II Oscar) Sumatra May 1943 to Dagua
34th Sentai (Ki-48 Lily) 1943
59th Sentai (Ki-43-II detachment) Malang 3-43 - 4-43 to But maybe longer
70th & 73rd Dokuritsu Chutai (Ki-45 Nick)
45th Sentai (Ki-45 Nick) 16 arrive February 19, 1944 to Wakde
75th Sentai (Ki-48 Lily)
25th Special Base Unit (Betty & Topsy Transports)

I am suspecting that the losses you are quoting are just those that relate to the 202nd, when in fact there were a lot of other units in the area. If there were a lot of other formations, it follows that there were a lot of other losses as well.

Determining Jap losses is an extremely difficult affair...

Babo is in Irian Jaya, ie. western New Guinea in the then Dutch East Indies. The raids to the Darwin area were flown from Timor, only place within reach of the Darwin area by even the long legged Japanese single engine fighters. There was more than one thing going on, elements of the 202nd were also used in Western NG before and after the Darwin operations.

But I'm not assuming the 202nd was the only fighter unit involved over Darwin or by some extension claiming it was the only one anywhere in the Dutch East Indies. I'm quoting specific Japanese descriptions of each Darwin raid, which specifically say it provided the escort, giving the number of planes in each case, on the specific dates in my summary above except one, the JNAF raids. That other raid, June 20 1943, was by the JAAF, escorted by the 59th Sentai, lost 1 'Oscar'. Altogether those include each date on which the Darwin Spits recorded combats with Japanese fighters (they intercepted unescorted recon a/c etc on some other days). Neither the Navy nor Army say they did any of those missions jointly (w/ exception of 202nd's escort of Army 70th Ind Chutai 'Dinahs' in Sep '43) and they very rarely did, so no plausible reason to assume that.

Most of the other units you mentioned were not fighters. I did mention the losses of non-fighters over Darwin in the list. The 753rd AG was the 'Betty' unit in the Navy raids, the 61st and 76th Sentai's provided the bombers on the Army's single escorted raid.

Of the other fighter units you listed:
24th Sentai: defensive duty in Sumatra, then action v 5th AF in Western NG (where Dagua is), no battle credit for Darwin, which 59th did get, see Hata/Izawa "Japanese Army..." pgs. 125 and 154.
Ki-45 units: the Spits didn't claim to encounter any twin engine fighters
153 Kokutai: was an E13A 'Jake' recon seaplane unit for at least most of its existence, the pacificwrecks.com site where that list came may have that wrong, anyway 202nd was the Navy fighter unit in Timor escorting Navy raids on Darwin.

The other fighter unit in the immediate area was the 934 Kokutai, Type 2 Float Fighters (A6M2-N 'float Zero' or 'Rufe') which engaged Beaufighters in defensive fighter-fighter missions on a number of occasions in that period but didn't meet Spits.

I don't see any good reason so far to doubt that the 202nd AG (and 59th Sentai on that one occasion) were the only fighter units met by Spits over Darwin. I think the best course for further learning about the Japanese side of things is to read the sources mentioned above which give that info. Fresh eyes so to speak on that might lead to more convincing arguments why to doubt the basic completeness of those accounts. Or alternatively positive evidence of other Japanese losses or involvement by other units would be more convincing.

Now, in my frank opinion, doubt about the completeness of those Japanese losses mainly, though implicitly, rests on the idea the Spits couldn't have overclaimed that much. But plenty of WWII fighter units overclaimed that much and more, including Brit/CW ones in some other cases, and certainly the Japanese did; in this case 202nd and 59th were credited with around 110 Spits v 31 (or perhaps fewer) actually downed.

On Spit losses, I just quoted Price to give general picture of claims and losses on each side, my main point was the Japanese fighter losses, which I cross referenced a few other places. He has 31 ostensible Spit combat losses, plus other non-combat ones on combat missions. I'm sure "Soleil" throws more light on that, very detailed on both sides; so far I just skimmed through for new info on Japanese stuff. Might be worth remembering though, we're assuming all the Japanese losses were due to combat. Their accounts don't actually say *that*.

Joe

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by parsifal

Thanks Wilcat. Your figures are pretty close to mine. Do you have total figures for the Darwin theatre (ie all types).

No, I haven't looked into that as of yet.

Originally Posted by parsifal

Also do you have any estimates on Japanese losses in this period a well. Thats the $64 question really, and one that nobody wants to tackle.

Again no, the only losses I have are the ones JoeB provides! I'm hoping that French book gets translated and becomes available here.

Originally Posted by JoeB

Babo is in Irian Jaya, ie. western New Guinea in the then Dutch East Indies. The raids to the Darwin area were flown from Timor, only place within reach of the Darwin area by even the long legged Japanese single engine fighters. There was more than one thing going on, elements of the 202nd were also used in Western NG before and after the Darwin operations.

I was always under the impression that most of the Darwin raids were only staged through Timor, the a/c coming from bases further away, such as Babo. I think this is what Parsifal was gettin at.

Joe, on Aug 10, 1943, F/O Young and P/O Coombes of 452 sqn claimed one Pete destroyed and one damaged in a combat off Millingimbi Is. What unit would they be from? From the floatplane base at Taberfane?
Also after the 2nd May raid, 4 Beaufighters from 31 sqn were dispatched to attack the Japanese strike force once they landed at Penfoei, this they did claiming 2 fighters and 2 bombers left burning. I don't suppose you have any info about these claims regarding whether these a/c were actually destroyed or merely damaged.

[slaterat]

You have to be willing to keep an open mind when cross referencing claims/kills from WW II. Sometimes you might not believe or like what you find.
Overall I suppose the average unit overclaimed 100%,but it can vary greatly. Some units and pilots claims can be verified at 80%+
As a general rule the larger the fight the greater the overclaiming. The AVG did some shocking overclaiming in Burma too, that was often matched by their JAAF opponents.


Slaterat

[parsifal]

we are kinda stuck, I guess. One thing is clear, the spits over Darwin suffered relatively heavy casualties. Would they have done better if equipped with the other RAAF mainstay of the time, the Kittyhawk?

[HoHun]

Hi Parsifal,
>Would they have done better if equipped with the other RAAF mainstay of the time, the Kittyhawk?

With regard to the Spitfire tactics, I read a couple of comments on these by USAAF pilot Clay Tice, who flew P-40s with 9th FS (I believe) from Darwin. Clay typed these on Avsig forum while reading a book by the title "Spitfires over Darwin". (Unfortunately, I don't have his original posts anymore as the program that stored them ate the database.)

The comment I best remember was something like: "I'm glad we did not have any combat experience like the British and just scrambled at the first sign of danger, attacking the Japanese flat-out with no regard for formation tactics."

Apparently, the Spitfire outfit thought it could apply the lessons learned in the Battle of Britain, and they were not ready to listen to the pilots who already had experience fighting the Zero. They seem to have favoured radar over coast watcher reports though radar was unreliable and did not have the range of the coast watcher network, and along with the delay caused by assembling their formations, this usually left them in a poor position for an intercept.

At least, that's what I remember from that Avsig thread some ten years back - I'm sorry I can't offer anything more specific, but as the database is gone, I have to rely on my imperfect memory.

On a more general line, when I Clay Tice about their tactical doctrine of the time, his answer showed that the tactical expertise of Chennault's Flying Tigers was not transferred to Clay's unit at least. He was also unaware of the results of the evaluation of the Akutan Zero and commented that if the USAAF ever distributed the report to the combat units, it certainly did not reach him.

Another Pacific War veteran, MF Kirby (P-39 and P-38), commented that their hit and run tactics were not the result of tactical training (which had only consisted of tight "welded wing" formation training and one-versus-one dogfighting between aircraft of the same squadron) but rather out of "fear". In my opinion, that was a very modest way of telling the audience that the pilots in his squadron independendly assessed the relative strengths of US vs. Japanese fighters and recognized that dogfighting was not going to yield results.

It's my impression that both Clay's and Kirby's units frequently relied on "drag" tactics against Japanese fighters (when equipped with the fast P-38 - they were not very confident in the speed advantage of the earlier types).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[parsifal]

Thankyou HoHun

What are "Drag tactics"

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by HoHun

Apparently, the Spitfire outfit thought it could apply the lessons learned in the Battle of Britain, and they were not ready to listen to the pilots who already had experience fighting the Zero. They seem to have favoured radar over coast watcher reports though radar was unreliable and did not have the range of the coast watcher network, and along with the delay caused by assembling their formations, this usually left them in a poor position for an intercept.

AFAIK there were no Coast Watchers in the Darwin area from 1943 onwards. There were CoastWatchers on Bathurst Is in early 42, however they were only utilised until the Radar sites were up and running. I believe Radar was the only form of early warning from Jan 43 onwards.

Originally Posted by Parsifal

Would they have done better if equipped with the other RAAF mainstay of the time, the Kittyhawk?

I guess we'll never know, when RAAF P40 squadrons defended Darwin from Aug 42-Jan 43 they never encountered Zero's and all the Japanese raids were conducted by night during this period. Dick Cresswell from 77 sqn downed a Betty during one of these night raids. However when the 49th FG defended Darwin with P40's I have the following claims.

22 Mar 42 - 1 C5M Babs PO Shigiki Mari and PO Shinobu Nagasawa killed.

28 Mar 42 - 2 Apr 42 - 2 Bettys and 1 Zero for 1 P40 lost

4 Apr 42 - 2 zeros and 3 Bombers for 2 P40s lost

25 Apr 42 - 8 Bombers and 3 Zero's (PO1c Shiro Murikami killed)

27 Apr 42 - 3 bombers and 4 Zero's for 4 P40's lost

13 Jun 42 - 2 Zeros ( WO Katsuji Matsushima and Mikio Tanikawa killed) for 3 P40's lost.

14 Jun 42 - 4 Zeros for 1 P40 lost

15 Jun 42 - 6 Zeros for 2 P40's lost

16 Jun 42 - 1 Bomber and 1 Zero for 3 P40's

30 Jul 42 - 6 bombers and 3 Zero's for 1 P40 lost

23 Aug 42 - 7 Betty's and 8 Zero's (Lt Tanadsune Tokaji, PO Nobutoshi Furukawa, PO Isutzo Shimizu and PO Yoshijuki Hirata killed) 1 P40 lost.

[HoHun]

Hi Parsifal,

>What are "Drag tactics"

Drag tactics have the defensively engaged (=attacked) fighter in a section fly a path that enables the free fighter of the section to attack the bogey trailing the engaged fighter.

There are various implementation of these tactics like the sandwich and the half-split, but they work even if a section gets separated and re-joins during the battle.

It requires coordination between the pilots though and is facilitated by a performance advantage over the enemy. From what I heard from Clay and Kirby, they considered neither the P-39 nor the P-40 to have this kind of performance advantage over the Zero.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Wildcat,

>AFAIK there were no Coast Watchers in the Darwin area from 1943 onwards. There were CoastWatchers on Bathurst Is in early 42, however they were only utilised until the Radar sites were up and running. I believe Radar was the only form of early warning from Jan 43 onwards.

Thanks for the correction - I'm afraid I must have confused a separate discussion of coast watchers with the Darwin raids history discussion. If I only had the original posts!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by slaterat

1...when cross referencing claims/kills from WW II. Sometimes you might not... like what you find.

2. The AVG did some shocking overclaiming in Burma too, that was often matched by their JAAF opponents.

1. In all frankness that's what I see in statements that we're 'stuck' on Japanese fighter losses over Darwin. They are pretty clearly stated in quite detailed accounts, what would be necessary to get 'unstuck'; for them to agree better with Spit claims? I think that's actually the answer from some points of view.

2. That's a good comparison. Using the same kind of sources (the relevant vol. of the Japanese official history, in that case Vol.34, corroborated by research by people like Izawa etc among veterans) Japanese losses were on average around 40% of the AVG's claims for its whole period of operations, Dec '41 to early July '42. The overclaiming was much worse than that in some early combats in Burma (featuring such typcially overclaim increasing factors as: unit new to combat, big furball combats, actual kill ratio ~1:1 or even against the claimants), but their claims were considerably more accurate later on (more accuracy friendly situations: more AVG experience, smaller combats, real kill ratio considerably in favor of the AVG).

Counting the same way, what each side recorded as losses in specific combats for which both sides give a specific account, the AVG had about a 3:1 kill ratio v Japanese fighters, all of them JAAF, around 70% Type 97's (Nate), remainder Type 1's (Oscar) and a few Type 2 2-seat fighters (Nick). So IOW when we compare the AVG's or USN sdn's in Solomons or RAAF Kittyhawks in New Guinea 1942 v Spit results over Darwin, we are comparing apples and apples basically as long as we use comparable Japanese sources. Those who would claim this misrepresents the *relative* outcomes of different Allied units not only have to raise residual doubt about completeness of Japanese accounts at Darwin but show they are *less* complete than those in the other situations among which we're comparing Allied performances.

In fact Darwin is one of the cases where they are relatively more likely to be complete: mainly JNAF, more of whose original records survived (to be quoted in the official history) and simple set piece battles with units involved, even pilots involved, named in detail. Completeness of known accounts is a real issue in some cases, we touched on it already for August 15 1945 Seafire/Zero combat. The only accounts I've seen have 1 Zero lost and 1 pilot WIA plane not lost from two different Air Groups, but in that case it's more plausible other units might have been involved, losses the Japanese attributed to F6F's were really to Seafires, etc in multiple engagements of small formations of at least 3 air arms in the same area (still we can't state the 7 or 8 Zero losses to Seafires 8/15/45 as fact, or even some subset the claimants were *really* sure about; it just didn't work that way).

Joe

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

However when the 49th FG defended Darwin with P40's I have the following claims.

22 Mar 42 - 1 C5M Babs PO Shigiki Mari and PO Shinobu Nagasawa killed.

28 Mar 42 - 2 Apr 42 - 2 Bettys and 1 Zero for 1 P40 lost

4 Apr 42 - 2 zeros and 3 Bombers for 2 P40s lost

25 Apr 42 - 8 Bombers and 3 Zero's (PO1c Shiro Murikami killed)

27 Apr 42 - 3 bombers and 4 Zero's for 4 P40's lost

13 Jun 42 - 2 Zeros ( WO Katsuji Matsushima and Mikio Tanikawa killed) for 3 P40's lost.

14 Jun 42 - 4 Zeros for 1 P40 lost

15 Jun 42 - 6 Zeros for 2 P40's lost

16 Jun 42 - 1 Bomber and 1 Zero for 3 P40's

30 Jul 42 - 6 bombers and 3 Zero's for 1 P40 lost

23 Aug 42 - 7 Betty's and 8 Zero's (Lt Tanadsune Tokaji, PO Nobutoshi Furukawa, PO Isutzo Shimizu and PO Yoshijuki Hirata killed) 1 P40 lost.

There was one other relevant engagement, and another Zero loss in one engagement you mentioned:
March 14 '42 Japanese raid on Horn Island, the 49th claimed 4 and actually downed 2 Zeroes, of the 4th Air Group (Ltjg Nobuhiro Iwasaki, PO1c Genkichi Oishi) for 1 loss. The Zero opponents in all other engagement were 3rd Air Group.
Jul 30: PO Shigeru Mukaki was lost ("Soleil Levant sur L'Australie" by Baeza)
August 23: "3/202 Kokutai" by Pajdosz/Zbiegniewski says another Zero was lost whose pilot survived, not named, but "Soleil" doesn't mention it.
Otherwise the apparent Zero losses were the pilots you named.
Other losses of non-fighters:
March 28: 1 Nell, not escorted so not counted below
April 4: 3 Betty's lost (7 were claimed, also 4 Zeroes damaged).
April 25: 4 Betty's outright 1 ditched 1 forcelanded due to combat, 2 others operational
April 27: 1 Betty lost
Aug 23: 1 Betty plus 1 destroyed in a crashlanding

The 49th FG's total record in the period was 10-11 Zeroes and 12 escorted bombers per Japanese accounts for 19 P-40's, while Spits downed 5 fighters (4 Z's+1 Oscar) and 14 escorted bombers (including all 'force lands'/'crashlanded' in both cases) for mid 20's+ Spit combat losses, again not counting interceptions of unescorted non-fighters in either case.

Joe

[Wildcat]

Joe, great info mate, thanks for the input. I've been looking at the claims made by the Spits against Japanese Dinahs over Darwin and was wondering if you had any others to add. AFAIK Dinah's weren't encountered by the 49th ??

6 Feb 43 - 1 Ki-46 destroyed (Lt Kurasuki Setaguti & Lt Fumio Morio)

7 Mar 43 - 1 Ki-46 destroyed (Lt Yutaka Tonoi & Lt Chokiti Orihara)

23 May 43 - 1 Ki-46 damaged

18 Jul 43 - 1 Ki-46 destroyed (Capt Shunji Sasaki & Lt Akira Eguchi)

17 Aug 43 - 4 Ki-46's destroyed ( Lt Kyuichi Okomoto & Lt Yasuro Yamamoto).
(Lt Saburo Shinohara & Lt Hideo Ura). (Lt Shir-Ichi Matsu-ura & Lt Kiyatoshi Shiraki) and (Sgt Tomihiko Tanaka & Sgt Kinji Kawahara)

6 Nov 43 - 1 Ki-46 damaged

12 Jun 44 - 1 Ki-46 destroyed (Lt Katsutoshi Tsutsui & Lt Keisuke Shimazaki)

20 Jul 44 - 1 Ki-46 destroyed (Lt Kyoshi Iizuka & Lt hisao Ito)

All Japanese aircrew KIA.