Worst aircraft of WW2? (Continued)

[parsifal]

[quote=slaterat;401533]


Actual Japanese losses over Singapore were at least 102 aircraft, that's from Japanese sources. The 3rd Composite Air Division suffered total losses from all causes of 331 aircraft form the start of the war to the fall of Singapore.

Bloody Shambles p385.

At the outbreak of the Pacific War, the JAAF consisted of five hikoshidans (air divisions) with a total of about 1,500 aircraft. One of these was assigned to home defense, another to Manchuria, and a third to China, leaving two to go on the offensive in the South Pacific. The 5th Hikoshidan took part in the invasion of the Philippines, its heavy bombers flying from Taiwan to hit targets in northern Luzon, while its fighters and light bombers operated from airfields seized in the opening days of the war. When U.S. and Filipino forces were driven back upon the Bataan Peninsula, most of the 5th Hikoshidan returned to Taiwan for reassignment (most were initially sent back to China, from where they had been drawn in the first place).

Meanwhile, the 3rd Hikoshidan operated against British Commonwealth forces in Malaya, along with three sentais (squadrons) detached from the 5th. They were based in French Indochina until fighting began, afterward moving to bases seized in Thailand and Malaya.

The 3rd Hikoshidan (as reinforced) had a total air strength of 357 A/C at the start of the campaign, however, one of the four Hikodans (Air brigades) that were constiuent to the division (the 10th), plus two additional Chutai (Air regiment, or more commonly, Air Wing) being the 60th and the 98th of the 7th Hikodan which followed some days after the official movement orders, which were issued about 21-12-41, were detached for operations into Burma. As the majority of the air division up to that point had not been able to come to grips with the allies, because of a combination of short range, and a lack of operational air bases in Malaya, until the middle to end of December, it is just impossible for any great level of attrition to have occurred in anything but the long range bombers and fighters that were the only units capable of reaching Malya from IndoChina. Since it was the LR aviation bomber elements mostly that redeployed to Burma front, and these units had not suffered great attrition since the outbreak of the war, it is highly unlikley that the JAAF had suffered any significant losses at all over Malaya up to that point...perhaps 30 aircraft at maximum. The 1st line fighters were retained in Malaya for the time being, and this subsequently led to very heavy losses over burma for the Bomber formations sent there. The AVG had a field day over rangoon, but thats a different story....

That detachments for Burma amounted to 172 aircraft of the peacetime establishment, but by the time the deploymewnts actually occurred, this figure had been reduced to a fraction over 150 aircraft, 91 departing on the 22nd December, and the rest departing about the 26th. So, in summary, the 48% of the force structure of 3rd Hikoshidan had suffered just 20 losses in 14 days of a campaign that lasted 7 weeks (there was no organized air resistance after the 30 January 1942). So effectively what your "Japanese" source is saying is that the remainder of the force remaining in Malaya, suffered catastrophic losses to the force structure, amounting to a casualty rate of 168% of the remainder left in Malaya.......yeah right

I suggest you cross check your sources

"That no warplanes appeared over Rangoon until December 23 was a tribute to the resistance put up by Commonwealth air forces in Malaya: only after the situation was well in hand there did General Michio Sugawara make his first move against Burma."

[ratdog]

what about the CR 42 built by good ol Mussolini? it was outdated before the great war

[kool kitty89]

??? The CR.42 may have been obsolete (as all biplane fighters were), but it was one of the best biplane fighters in service. (allong with the I-153, Gladiator, and a couple other contenders)

And where did you get the idea it was outdated by WWI standards???

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by ratdog

what about the CR 42 built by good ol Mussolini? it was outdated before the great war

But was a great a/c in it's class

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by ratdog

what about the CR 42 built by good ol Mussolini? it was outdated before the great war

The CR 42 took on Hurricanes and other allied aircraft - it performed its mission and while outdated still had use - it was one of the best and last biplanes built, far from being the "worse" aircraft of WW2.

[ratdog]

ok so it was outdated as were some if not most of the foreign aircraft of wwII so what about the LWS-4 Zubr it was underpowered, prone to stress fractures, and couldn't carry even 800kg's. not to mention it was an ugly mother too.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by slaterat

1. The summaries are the actual results.The 102 figure is admitted combat losses of the JAF and the JNAF 22nd Air Flotilla.

2. Trying to reconcile them with the day to day combat results is impossible, the daily records are incomplete. Many ORBs were destroyed and rewritten much later.

3. You have stated previously that you only count daily combats for which records exist for both sides, by definition that is incomplete.

4. I don't believe that using only fighter vs fighter stats is accurate either as the prime role of the defenders would be to break up the bomber formations first/ save your own a$$ later.

1. The 102 is 92 losses to all causes of the Japanese Army's 3rd Air Division and 10 known losses to all causes of the Navy's 22nd Air Flotilla. That should be fairly clear from the quote in BS p. 385, but it's clearer still if you look back to the original sources of those figures, which are volumes 24 and 34 of Senshi Sosho ('War History Series'), the Japanese official history.

2. Right, impossible to go from total losses to all causes on summary level to air combat losses on summary level, because the latter info is simply not provided on summary level. That's why we go to detailed descriptions in the *SAME BOOK* and build from the bottom up. Again your approach basically says to read two pages of a big two volume book which has the combat by combat information. That makes no sense.

3. 21 out of 28 combats reported in the book have a detailed RAF/Dutch and Japanese description. I'm not reconciling anything to the summary of total losses to all causes, simply saying here are the air combat loss results from a balanced sample of 21 combats for which we know the air combat losses of each side in each of those combat. There's no reason to believe the other 7 combats had very different results. Your approach depends on (mis)reading 'losses' as 'combat losses', then trying to guess which of the supposed 'combat losses' were 'air combat losses'. I don't see any doubt which of those methods is more valid.

4. Again, go through though 21 engagements, you have the book. When did the RAF fighters prevent Japanese bombers performing their missions or inflict serious losses on them? Seldom. Which is no surprise since there are few cases in air combat history where one side's fighters were battling enemy fighters at a ratio of 1:4+ but managed to inflict serious damage on escorted non-fighters, and this wasn't one of them. Adding their few non-fighter victories improves the Hurrican/Buffalo 1:4+ ratio a bit, but adding the more numerous Allied non-fighter victims of the Japanese fighters' ratios increases their ratio from 4+:1 by more.

There's a big hint here, the title of the book we're talking about: "Bloody Shambles"

Joe

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by ratdog

ok so it was outdated as were some if not most of the foreign aircraft of wwII

You wanna try and explain that?

Lets see, while you are at it, explain in detail how each of these foreign aircraft was outdated:

Bf 109
Fw 190
Me 262
Ar 234
Ju 88
He 162
Hs 129
Do 215
Fw 200
Do 217
He 177
Ju 188
Ju 288
Ju 290
Ju 390
Me 264
Do 335
Ta 152
Ta 183
He 219
Ho 229
Ju 388
P.1101
Fi 282
Ar 232
Bv 222
Go 244
Me 163
G.55
C.202
C.205
Re.2005
Re.2001
SM.79
Aichi B7A
Mitsubishi J2M
Kawasaki Ki-61
Kawasaki Ki-100
Nakajima Ki-84
Kawanishi N1K
Il-2
LaGG-3
La-5
La-7
Mig-3
Yak-1
Yak-3
Yak-9
Lancaster
Mosquito
Meteor
Vampire
Sea Fury
Tempest
Spitfire

You might want to actually do some research.

[ratdog]

i meant as in they were outdated before the war you are putting planes like f-190 and meteor they were designed and built while it was going on im talking about planes that were outclassed out gunned or worse when the war started.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by ratdog

ok so it was outdated as were some if not most of the foreign aircraft of wwII so what about the LWS-4 Zubr it was underpowered, prone to stress fractures, and couldn't carry even 800kg's. not to mention it was an ugly mother too.

Now that's when you have a "bad" aircraft - when it doesn't perform to its design requirement.

Originally Posted by ratdog

i meant as in they were outdated before the war you are putting planes like f-190 and meteor they were designed and built while it was going on im talking about planes that were outclassed out gunned or worse when the war started.

There were plenty of aircraft as you described - some out gunned, some out dated, but most performed to their design requirement. To call them "bad" isn't necessarily correct - even some very obsolete aircraft performed well (Buffalo in Finland, Swordfish, even the F4F) and pilot skill also had a play. When you had aircraft that were not only dated but couldn't perform to begin with (LWS-4, Breda Ba 88 ) then you have a point.

[kool kitty89]

Originally Posted by ratdog

i meant as in they were outdated before the war you are putting planes like f-190 and meteor they were designed and built while it was going on im talking about planes that were outclassed out gunned or worse when the war started.

I think you need to be clear by what you meant by "foreign aircraft" being outdated.

If you meant non-US aircraft that would be wrong as the best operational fighter we had was the P-40 which had performance slightly pooer than the BF 109E or Spitfire I. (similar in speed, but poorer in climb, albeit range was significantly longer) The only other fighter the USAAC that came close was the P-36 which was outdated and underarmed in its operational configuration.
Of course there's also the USN/USMC to consider with the F2A and F4F which had decent performance by contemporary standards but not superior to that of the Spitfire I of Bf 109E.


And BTW the Fw 190 was in development (and entered flight testing) prior to the start of the war.

[ratdog]

by prior to the war you mean what, before we entered after pearl or before Germany's Reich started to invade Poland and other European countries and Britain got involved?

[Venganza]

I have to agree with Ratdog on the Zubr (Bison). The Polish built some good airplanes (the P.7 and P.11 in their day, the Los, which could have turned into a very good bomber if the war hadn't ended its development) - however, the Zubr wasn't one of them. One of the priceless nuggets about the wretchedness of the Zubr is that the rectractable landing gear was so unreliable that it had to be fixed on service planes. If only looks could kill, the Zubr would've been a worldbeater. It was like the Medusa; anything looking at it should have turned to stone, it was so ugly.

[kool kitty89]

Originally Posted by ratdog

by prior to the war you mean what, before we entered after pearl or before Germany's Reich started to invade Poland and other European countries and Britain got involved?

By prior to the start of the war I mean the Fw 190 V1 (the first prototype) flew on 1 June 1939, 3 whole months before Germany invaded Poland.


And, technically speaking the P-40 didn't enter service until mid 1940. And the F4F didn't enter service until December of 1940. (and scored its first kill on Christmas day with the FAA)

So, technically speaking, the best frontline fighters in US service when war broke out in Europe were a handful of of F2A-1's, and the P-36.

[parsifal]

QUOTE=JoeB;403267]1.
2. Right, impossible to go from total losses to all causes on summary level to air combat losses on summary level, because the latter info is simply not provided on summary level. That's why we go to detailed descriptions in the *SAME BOOK* and build from the bottom up. Again your approach basically says to read two pages of a big two volume book which has the combat by combat information. That makes no sense.


Joe

Are we on the same wavelength here? I am saying that total losses to the Japanese over Malaya in December-January 1942 are not possible to be 331 (which is the figure quoted by Slaterat....he says that there were 102 losses to combat, and 331 to all causes). If this were the case, the whole air division would simply cease to exist in two months. it was not receiving regular, or significant reinforcement until after March, so to lose 331 aircraft means that the air force no longer exists by theend of January. This, in my opinion is patently untrue.

I approach the problem a bit differently (and admittedly a bit less accurately) than eityher you or slaterat. I look at the history of the units involved, and the strengths of those units at those times. The case in point are the strengths of the units sent to Burma, in late 1941. Basically 48% of the 3rd Air divs forces were detached for use over burma, This 48% had dropped from a starting strength of 172 at the beginning of the war in December, to a strength of 153 aircraft (+/- 2 or 3 aircraft) by the start of 1942. In other words, half the force had suffered only 20 losses in the time frame we are talking about.....does that accord to what you are thinking???

4. Again, go through though 21 engagements, you have the book. When did the RAF fighters prevent Japanese bombers performing their missions or inflict serious losses on them? Seldom. Which is no surprise since there are few cases in air combat history where one side's fighters were battling enemy fighters at a ratio of 1:4+ but managed to inflict serious damage on escorted non-fighters, and this wasn't one of them. Adding their few non-fighter victories improves the Hurrican/Buffalo 1:4+ ratio a bit, but adding the more numerous Allied non-fighter victims of the Japanese fighters' ratios increases their ratio from 4+:1 by more.

I am the first to challenge the size of the losses being touted here. i thik its a total crock. However, the Allies were not outnumbered 4:1 by Japanese fighters at the beginning of the camapign. There were 26 Zeroes, and 35 (or 41, the records confuse me) Oscars, and about 60-80 Nates. The Nates lacked the range to be effective, or get into the battle until later, and were mostly transferred to Burma anyway, so it was down to the Zekes and the Oscars really. The Zekes I believe were reinforced at the beginning of jauary, by about 60 Zeroes drawn from the Tainan air corps in Formosa

Even today, it irks many westerners to admit that they, the western powers, were completely outclassed by an oriental power. Contrary to popular opinion, the Japanese did not massively outnumber the Allies in the far east. They outnumbered them, but not by much. They massively outclassed them qualitatively, and were shooting down the allies at a massively lopsided rate, until well into 1942