Doesn't sound right. Only 5 A6Ms and 1 Ki-43 were lost over Darwin in 1943; the win-loss ratio for the Spits was 1 to 1, but only if you include Japanese bombers downed. In terms of pure fighter versus combat, the Japanese had the Spits beat.
True if you take only the early May raid alone

but my point was that due to changes in fighter tactics and training the situation was much changed in less than two months
In 4 raids after that (2 small , 2 Larger) the ratio was 5:1 in fighter PLUS many bombers in favour of the Spits
(though to be fair the RAAF sometimes had numbers on their side due to better radar interceptions)
 
Doesn't sound right. Only 5 A6Ms and 1 Ki-43 were lost over Darwin in 1943; the win-loss ratio for the Spits was 1 to 1, but only if you include Japanese bombers downed. In terms of pure fighter versus combat, the Japanese had the Spits beat.
Well it is an interceptor - its job would be to shoot down the bombers and not the fighters

The A6m and Ki-43s job would be to stop them
 
I'm wondering if Fleet Air Arm pilots, used to fight the fast and nimble Italian biplanes in their heavy Fulmars, could teach a thing or two to their land-based colleagues in Singapore.

I just finished reading Cull and Gelea's book on 806 NAS and it really was a good read. It's amazing what these man achieved with the Fulmars really. They knew the limits of their aircrafts and they learned to exploit its advantages.
 
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I don't know if you meant to compliment the abilities or capabilities of the Hurricane when used properly.
Simply that, yes. I only mentioned the Poles of 303 because they were among the best Hurricane drivers at the time, if not THE best. Much more aggressive than the average Fighter Command pilot defending British airspace during the dark days of 1940.
 
Doesn't sound right. Only 5 A6Ms and 1 Ki-43 were lost over Darwin in 1943; the win-loss ratio for the Spits was 1 to 1, but only if you include Japanese bombers downed. In terms of pure fighter versus combat, the Japanese had the Spits beat.
Why on earth would anybody not count the downed bombers? Defending fighters doing their job, i.e. going after the bombers rather than tangling with the escorts, does not equal being "beat"
 
Every bomber lost to an allied fighter is a failure for the escort fighters. The allied fighters are there to kill the bombers and prevent the destruction of the target on the ground. Every bomber that fails to hit the target is a win for the defence.
A single Betty carries seven crew so shooting down one bomber inflicts the same numerical personnel loss as seven Zeroes. Also the Allies have home turf advantage regarding recovery of aircrews.
Counting fighters losses only is not IMHO a useful metric TYMMV.
 
Every bomber lost to an allied fighter is a failure for the escort fighters. The allied fighters are there to kill the bombers and prevent the destruction of the target on the ground. Every bomber that fails to hit the target is a win for the defence.
A single Betty carries seven crew so shooting down one bomber inflicts the same numerical personnel loss as seven Zeroes. Also the Allies have home turf advantage regarding recovery of aircrews.
Counting fighters losses only is not IMHO a useful metric TYMMV.
Where's the bottleneck for the IJA bomber force replacements - pilots, engines, or airframes?
 
Where's the bottleneck for the IJA bomber force replacements - pilots, engines, or airframes?
All three potentially :).
Crews, they can get more pilots, but after the pre war ones are deployed, the quality will plummet as their allocation of fuel means limited hours. Flying over Pacific distances, you tend to need good ones.

Engines, the main issue is they don't develop as quickly as the Allies so have a growing horsepower deficit. Lots of planes OTL had to struggle on with older designs.

Airframes, a combination of lack of proper mass production, coupled with poor ground crews/facilities meaning a lot of aircraft that could be repaired were not (The US got machines to evaluate by just combing through captured hanger queens), mean the numbers game is lost once again the last of the pre war stocks are deployed.

You can add in logistics as well, they ended up with a lot of aircraft on the smaller islands that lacked fuel or bombs.
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
I can never figure out just where The Ledge is actually located. I can follow (Google Earth) the road north on Thailand 410 and come to a bridge over a stream. I have to guess that it's the one mentioned. There was a French site named loadmap which had a compilation of the AMS, GSMS and Soviet Army maps. Unfortunately, they went offline just as I became curious about the Malaya campaign.
Ah, the famous 'Ledge'. I'm sure we'll have a good discussion about it's importance, location, and what historically happened in the future, as there will be a few stories around it a bit further along the track, so to speak. ,
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
belated apologies for the multiple edits to complete this post
My Hands, and eyes once again not cooperating very well :confounded:
Don't apologise Alan, always please to read your contributions to this and many other threads. So you bang away at that keyboard my son, and we'll happily take an error or too from you.
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
I'm wondering if Fleet Air Arm pilots, used to fight the fast and nimble Italian biplanes in their heavy Fulmars, could teach a thing or two to their land-based colleagues in Singapore.

I just finished reading Cull and Gelea's book on 806 NAS and it really was a good read. It's amazing what these man achieved with the Fulmars really. They knew the limits of their aircrafts and they learned to exploit its advantages.
Hi HMS St.Lawrence, whats maybe not always appreciated is the fact that Fleet Air arm, with their use of ship borne radar, were the first to practice the art of fighter direction, making the Fulmer's effectiveness that much better.
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
By mentioning/introducing the 303 Squadron, does this bring into Malaya a RCAF group composed of volunteer American pilots and support staff who want to kill, er, fly? Is there anything specifically prohibiting the Polish Gov't from allowing deployment of their air assets, such as the 303rd outside of the European theatre? (I'm practicing Canadian here, eh.) In the OTL, there didn't seem to be any statutes limiting Americans from volunteering for service with other English speakers, be it in Europe or Asia.

Ha ha, nice try Nevarinemex, but no Polish 303 Sqn in Malaya, and no Volunteer American pilots there either, creates too many ripples, and very hard to justify on historical grounds, as well as how this TL is shaping.
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
Where's the bottleneck for the IJA bomber force replacements - pilots, engines, or airframes?
Interesting question GarethC.

None of it is good reading for the Japanese, all aircrew training was in relatively small numbers, nothing like as big as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, see

Nor the numbers the Americans trained.

But initially they had a decent pool of very experienced aircrew. It was replacing these is where air crew problems began

All aircraft production was also a lot less than the western allies, Japan's industrial base was smaller, and once war began they quickly started to use cheaper, and more readily available alternatives to the high quality metals required in aircraft. But I'll stick my neck out and say production was in front of pilot training in the early years of the war, forcing them to deploy poorly trained aircrew.

The other thing to remember about the Japanese attitude to the use of their air assets was, they intended a short successful war, heavy losses, although regrettable, were considered acceptable in pursuance of the set objectives. Historically, knowing the outcomes, we tend to view this as very wasteful of both aircrew and aircraft, but IF it had achieved its aims, those losses would have been nothing more than a footnote.

Both IJN and IJA air plans, tactics and problems will get a lot of airing once the shooting starts.
 

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
All three potentially :).
Crews, they can get more pilots, but after the pre war ones are deployed, the quality will plummet as their allocation of fuel means limited hours. Flying over Pacific distances, you tend to need good ones.

Engines, the main issue is they don't develop as quickly as the Allies so have a growing horsepower deficit. Lots of planes OTL had to struggle on with older designs.

Airframes, a combination of lack of proper mass production, coupled with poor ground crews/facilities meaning a lot of aircraft that could be repaired were not (The US got machines to evaluate by just combing through captured hanger queens), mean the numbers game is lost once again the last of the pre war stocks are deployed.

You can add in logistics as well, they ended up with a lot of aircraft on the smaller islands that lacked fuel or bombs.
Apologies pjmidd, I didn't scroll down and read your post before replying, and I think you made a better job of it than me too!

:rolleyes: Note to self, scroll down for further posts before replying!
 
MWI 41052710 A Trading Of Queens

Fatboy Coxy

Monthly Donor
1941, Tuesday 27 May;

There she was, 25,000 yds away, under the heavy grey sky, and a rising sea, a north-westerly gale blowing, limping along, a snail’s trail of leaking oil trailing. The big ships took range and four minutes later Rodney opened fire, quickly followed by King George V. Returning fire straddled Rodney, but the British ships pressed on undaunted, salvo after salvo, while the distance slowly closed. Less than fifteen minutes, a major hit, a 16-inch shell on the forward superstructure, its shrapnel killing the senior officers on the bridge, and damaging the main fire control director. Further shells from the salvo damaged the forward main battery. The aft fire control station took control, but three salvos later was also knocked out. From then on returning fire was erratic, and the big ships closed in, to complete the execution.

With no return fire now, the superstructure ablaze from stem to stern, Rodney closed to 3,000 yards, every shot a hit, while King George V held back, hoping for a plunging hit through the decks. But still the grey mammoth floated, despite being down at the stern, and a 20-degree list to port. Admiral Tovey had seen enough, and order his battleships away, back to port signalling the heavy cruiser Dorsetshire to come close and administer the coup de grace. She did this with torpedoes, and the pride of the Kriegsmarine the Bismarck, slide under stern first, leaving about 800 survivors in the water out of her crew of 2,200. British escort ships moved in to pick them up, but a false Uboat alarm caused them to withdraw having saved just over a hundred.

Operation Rheinubung was the German Kriegsmarine’s plan to breakout into the North Atlantic, the new battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugen, on a convoy hunting mission, hoping to better, the havoc caused by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in February/March. Unfortunately, they were unable to evade the Royal Navy patrols in the icy waters between Greenland, Iceland and Scotland, and on the evening of 23 May, they were picked up by the radar equipped heavy cruiser Suffolk, in the Denmark Straits. Quickly moved in to intercept was the newly commissioned battleship Prince of Wales, so new she hadn’t finished her crew shakedown, still had some mechanical problems and even carried some ship worker’s continuing work on board! And with her was the pride of the British Fleet, HMS Hood, Britain’s Queen on the chess board.

Despite knowing the Germans position, due to a loss of radar contact for a short while, the British ships engaged at a slight disadvantage, instead of the clever planned one of the Germans being silhouetted against a setting sun. Nevertheless, with the two heavy cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk in tow, Vice Admiral Holland moved to engage, confident in his 2-1 superiority. Although Hood opened the battle at a range of 26,500 yds, Holland closed the gap, aware of the dangers of plunging fire to the thin deck armour of the battlecruiser Hood. Despite having to steer into the wind, and angle in on Bismarck, leaving his rear turrets unable to bear, it was the British who scored the first hits, Prince of Wales scoring a minor hit, a second underwater hit, flooding a generator and adjoining boiler room, causing a loss of 2 knots, and a third which went through Bismarck’s bow without exploding, but caused flooding and the gradual loss of 1,000 tons of fuel oil, trailing a slick behind her. Bismarck scored a minor hit on Hood, and then Holland had his ships turn, so as to allow the aft turrets to bear.

A fluke, bad luck, fate, call it what you will, a shell from Bismarck came in low, below the 12-inch armoured belt, and hit the side of Hood deep in the trough of a wave, if it had hit the water first, it was likely it wouldn’t have been so bad, but this was akin to striking her Achilles Heel. The shell penetrated deep into Hood, before exploding in the 4-inch aft magazine, a bolt of flame shot up through the ventilation shaft, emerging near the main mast like a blow torch, and then the explosion below met the 15-inch magazine. A split second later, this magazine went up, the eruption, not only blowing both 15-inch gun turrets off, but tearing the ship in two, the aft end going almost straight down, the bow, rising up, high into the air, before quickly sliding back down, leaving just three men out of a crew of 1418.

Alone now, the Prince of Wales, commanded the attention of both Bismarck and Prince Eugen, both of whom scored hits on her, and with several of her own guns malfunctioning, turned away, making smoke, on the orders of her commander, Captain Leach, to save her from Hood’s fate. Elation on the German ships, turned to disappointment as, despite their captain’s urging, Admiral Lutjens chose not to pursue the opportunity to go after the PoW, neither retire back to Norway to make good his damaged bow fuel tanks, the loss of fuel would now drastically restrict his range of operations. Thinking more of the greater strategic picture, he continued out into the North Atlantic, with the idea of making for Brest, where, after repairs, he could link up with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and make further raids on merchant shipping from an easier jumping off point.

The British followed, and Lutjens turned Bismarck back onto the British ships shadowing her, exchanging a few salvos with PoW, who had been able to rectify her mechanical problems and had nine of her ten guns working again. In the confusion of the short action, he ordered Prince Eugen to break away unnoticed, and to continue the raid, while the British remained fixed onto the Bismarck. Then he turned towards France, at high speed, the British struggling to keep up, having to zigzag due to fears of being dragged across a Uboat line. Desperately, the British launched a Swordfish torpedo attack, flying off the carrier HMS Victorious, but the only hit was on the armoured belt and did little damage. Following this, Lutjens ordered Bismarck into a sprint, and trying to keep up while zigzagging, the British lost him off their radar, the wily fox then circled round back behind them.

Bismarck now had a straight run home, and would escape the British unless they found him, causing a frantic search. But now the pendulum began to swing the other way. Several intelligence reports gave clues that the Germans were preparing to welcome Bismarck in France, so the British continued to gamble on that heading. And then yesterday, Monday 26, a Catalina flying out of Northern Ireland found her, too far away for the British ships to intercept her, and a day’s sailing away from safety. However, Force H, sailing up from Gibraltar, included the carrier HMS Ark Royal, who launched another Swordfish torpedo attack. Two torpedoes struck, another amidships hit, causing some minor flooding, but a second hit on the stern, port side, jammed the port rudder at a 12-degree turn, and the big ship found herself helplessly sailing a wide circle.

HMS Sheffield, and the destroyers of Force H, closed and made contact with the limping ship, a few rounds from the German keeping them at distance, but all night they harried and probed, as Bismarck continued her despairing circling, allowing the big ships of the British Home fleet to close. With daybreak, Rodney and King George V arrived, and the execution began. With the ship a total shambles above the waterline, a 20-degree list to port, and slowly settling by the stern, the surviving German officer ordered the scuttling charges blown and abandon ship. The German queen was off the chess board, it was revenge on the loss of the British queen three days earlier.
 
Hi HMS St.Lawrence, whats maybe not always appreciated is the fact that Fleet Air arm, with their use of ship borne radar, were the first to practice the art of fighter direction, making the Fulmer's effectiveness that much better.
Yes, the authors go in lenght describing the radar interception tactics developped in the Med. The key factor was (unsurprisingly) altitude. When the enemy was detected, the Fulmar diving speed allowed it to attack the bombers and escape before the escort fighters could intervene. Fulmars were tough enough and their airframes reportedly sustained dive speeds up to 450 mph.

Nice chapter about Hood and Bismarck, here's hoping we'll se more of Prince of Wales soon enough and not in too bad circumstances... I like how the fatal hit to Hood is described in details and your title is on point!
 
The other thing to remember about the Japanese attitude to the use of their air assets was, they intended a short successful war, heavy losses, although regrettable, were considered acceptable in pursuance of the set objectives. Historically, knowing the outcomes, we tend to view this as very wasteful of both aircrew and aircraft, but IF it had achieved its aims, those losses would have been nothing more than a footnote.
This was a Japanese attitude in general and can absolutely be seen in their deployment of the IJA during the Russo Japanese war. High casualties often sustained but if that took the objective and destabilised the less flexible Russians and leveraged the position then all to the good. They did this time and again all the way to Mukden
 
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