We know from history how the USN struggled to counter the threat of Kamikaze aircraft in 1944 and afterwards, but what if the IJN adopted their use much earlier in the war before the vast array of AAW assets became available in the US fleet? I certainly see more US carrier and ship losses at Guadalcanal and with additional US carrier losses in the 2nd half of 1942, could Japan have taken Guadalcanal afterall?
What if Japan adopts Kamikaze tactics in 1942?
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I imagine much like OTL it achieves some temporary successes before the Allies adopt counter tactics. It will also bleed out the supply of Japanese aircraft and pilots needed for conventional defence.
We had this discussion relatively recently.
The key point was that the prewar pilot core of the Kido Butai was a precious resource that could not be thrown away on suicide attacks.
That said carrier air groups weren't really full a lot of the time. They could theoretically pull a couple of screw ups in a Kamikaze squadron on the carriers to fill out air groups.
The key point was that the prewar pilot core of the Kido Butai was a precious resource that could not be thrown away on suicide attacks.
That said carrier air groups weren't really full a lot of the time. They could theoretically pull a couple of screw ups in a Kamikaze squadron on the carriers to fill out air groups.
Quite honestly I doubt there would be more carrier losses, for the simple reason that every American carrier lost in 1942 was lost to torpedoes. Kamikazes have the grave disadvantage, especially against large ships like carriers, of letting in air rather than water. Further, use of kamikaze tactics would gut the Japanese carrier pilot corps far earlier than it did, leading to declining effectiveness by Guadalcanal and continuing over the course of that campaign.
These twin disadvantages, plus the fact that kamikazes make it even harder to accurately evaluate enemy losses, were the reasons the Japanese didn't adopt such tactics sooner:
Oh, and don't forget the command problems inherent in ordering men to go die:
And this is late in the war, when the Japanese were top to bottom desperate to defeat the Americans. In 1942, when the Japanese are at their apex? You could probably multiply the command problems generated by going all-in on suicide attacks.
It's also worth noting that the Japanese threw more planes at the US fleet off Okinawa than they were ever able to muster in one place in 1942. Per the above source, the IJN threw nearly 2000 aircraft at American forces in a three-week span off Okinawa, with attacks routinely amassing hundreds of planes. By comparison, the Japanese started the Guadalcanal campaign with 112 aircraft at Rabaul and 177 carrier aircraft they could quickly deploy via Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Ryujo. To put in another way, in three weeks the Japanese lost twice as many aircraft over Okinawa as they did in three and a half months over Guadalcanal. They simply could not muster the mass to pull off the spectacular successes they did over Okinawa.
And by the way, the source I just quoted? The direct words of an IJN air admiral. As straight from the horse's mouth as you can get.
When you dig into the details of the South Pacific air battles of 1942 you will find the Japanese senior leaders did not have a policy of discouraging 'suicide attacks. The euphanysm they used translates as something like 'body slamming techniques, or body blocking tactics, or variations thereof. I don't have a strong sense of exactly how many Japanese aviators died attempting suicide attacks vs US or Australian aircraft and ships. Possibly 1% of losses. In a broader view the willingness of these highly trained pilots to consider such tactics reflects on a 'all or nothing' and a self sacrificing attitude by the air crew. Perhaps less than 1% were killed in sucide attacks in 1942, but the same attitude led to many pilots leaving their parachute behind to save a few kilos weight, or the preference to equip only flight or squadron and group commanders with radios, to save weight on the majority of the interceptors. Both practices resulted in the loss of skilled pilots and other crew who might have survived to fight another day, or train a few more new rookies. A third practice was planning missions that left the aircraft with to little fuel reserve. When the flight did not go perfectly the plane and usually the pilot were lost. The air battles in the Solomons in 1942 crippled the IJN naval aviation & a significant part of that was the attitude that irreplaceable pilots could be sacrificed to gain victory.
Since we know after Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz that IJN aviation was never able to recover any real combat effectiveness, the idea of saving the aviators seems kind of pointless if massive damage to the Americans was available? Then came Philippines Sea when they hundreds died for nothing but I supposed before that point the IJN wouldn't know that was ahead? Still the IJA was already embracing sending their men to die en mass without hesitation such as Tenaru so ordering suicide was already a tactic being used. One might think that post Midway there already would be a sense in the IJN of being in deep trouble and drastic measures would be called for? There is also the Bushido Code instilled in all Japanese fighting men which basically said to every man your own life belonged to the Emperor and your glorious death was what he expected.
We also know that as tough as they were, an ESSEX carrier could be devastated by a single Kamikaze so imagine that happening to the earlier US carriers such as the ENTERPRISE? What if at Eastern Solomons or Santa Cruz the IJN aviators were told that given the chance, they were to dive into the American ships?
Okinawa was characterized by the Kamikaze swarms hitting the US fleet and it wasn't just brushed off by the Americans and that was late in the war when the path to victory could be seen but what about sooner in the war before the US knew they would prevail?
We also know that as tough as they were, an ESSEX carrier could be devastated by a single Kamikaze so imagine that happening to the earlier US carriers such as the ENTERPRISE? What if at Eastern Solomons or Santa Cruz the IJN aviators were told that given the chance, they were to dive into the American ships?
Okinawa was characterized by the Kamikaze swarms hitting the US fleet and it wasn't just brushed off by the Americans and that was late in the war when the path to victory could be seen but what about sooner in the war before the US knew they would prevail?
The problem is that if they go suicide tactics early in the war, then the naval aviation will die at Midway and Coral Sea rather than Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz.
That was not "ordering suicide". That was both Colonel Ichiki and his higher-ups being entirely too optimistic about how many Marines were on the island.
lol, no, there wasn't. This is pretty clear if you read up on the subject.
And they weren't wrong. The Japanese had shot their bolt offensively, but they thought, not without reason, that they could hold their perimeter on the defensive.
That doesn't mean suicide attacks. There's a vast gulf between the kamikazes and the already noted Japanese tendency for pilots who couldn't make it back to suicide themselves on American targets rather than face capture.
Both Franklin and Bunker Hill suffered the way they did because they had flight decks full of fueled and armed planes. The American carriers at Guadalcanal were in no such condition when the attacks on them came. Hornet was, in fact, hit by a plane during Santa Cruz to little effect.
Without the ability to induce such conflagrations the kamikazes don't have any real way to kill American carriers.
Two Japanese dive bomber pilots, Sato and Murai, did just that to the Hornet at Santa Cruz after their mounts were fatally damaged. They didn't need to be told. As mentioned elsewhere, an 'unwritten rule' existed amongst IJNAF personnel that if there was no hope of them returning to base be it due to mortal wounds or mortal damage to their mounts, they would endeavour to spontaneously take the enemy with them (a mentality undoubtedly fueled by their frequent refusal to wear parachutes into combat).
If anything, I consider Yorktown class carriers and Saratoga class carriers to be tougher than the Essexes. Saratoga absorbed four kamikaze hits without sinking. It took three torpedo hits, two suicide crashes and five bombs to sink Hornet. The Japanese aren't going to do very well.
People tend to overlook that the kamikazes were an all volunteer force. There are no instances of Japanese airmen being ordered on the fly to go out and deliberately kill themselves.
Hot take: I daresay the implementation of suicide tactics as early as 1941-42 would lead to mutiny amongst the Kokutais.
Theoretically. In actual practice they were so snooty with their standards that a screw up would not be permitted to go anywhere near a carrier. Even the great Saburo Sakai did not make the grade for carrier duty and did all his operational flying from land bases.
You have to separate the IJN and the IJA air fleets on doctrine. 1942 the IJN has done everything it needed and was not suffering till after Midway and even then they thought they were still ahead of the US and in some ways they were with the number of flight decks they had operational in the Pacific. The IJA on the other hand could not depend on the IJN to support them in places and could turn to that because they did not want to ask for help from the other service. If the IJA turned to that you would see the IJN laugh and tell how bad off they were and how horrible the Army pilots were compared to the Navy ones.
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The ironic thing is that the most successful kamikaze attacks were often conducted by the last remaining prewar elite among the IJNAF aircrew. Men who were capable of evading the American interceptors and dodging the flak before obtaining the correct attack angle to dive and crash into their targets. Which is of course no excuse to throw these men away. The Japanese would have been better off developing an anti ship missile along the lines of the Henschel 293.
All fair enough...just wanted to pose the idea. Certainly the USN would have been caught unprepared for such tactics and even if carriers weren't lost in such actions they stood a very good chance of being damaged so badly as to be taken out of the fight plus increased losses to USN task force escorts.
Even if the ENTERPRISE was lost in the Battle if Santa Cruz, the ESSEX carriers were not far away but could Guadalcanal have been held with no operational US carrier in the SW Pacific? That however is a whole other thread to have.
Even if the ENTERPRISE was lost in the Battle if Santa Cruz, the ESSEX carriers were not far away but could Guadalcanal have been held with no operational US carrier in the SW Pacific? That however is a whole other thread to have.
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Actually, the USN was prepared in that their tabletop exercises in the 1920's had shown that carriers were vulnerable to flight deck damage by bombs or suicidal aircraft. In either instance the carrier is mission killed. This lead to the requirement to be able to repair flight decks rapidly and 'in theater', this was the design philosophy from Ranger to Essex. They also knew that they needed 3 years to build the ships in numbers to conduct a close blockade of Japan and the Fall of France cut 18 months of this. Then there was 'how do we sustain the American peoples motivation to fight over a multi-year timeframe for a war half a planet away?' and the Japanese solved this in Dec 1941.
Perhaps the way to do this is to use the seaplane carriers and cruisers to launch dedicated suicide craft. In a way they already had this in 1941 with the 2 man minisubs whose crews regarded Tai-Atari (body slam) attacks as a legitimate use of the sub. This was discouraged by senior leadership, hence the big I-boats loitered off rendezvous points to pick up minisub crews who were not coming. The sub launched aircraft crews had similar attitude when they finished a scouting flight - why risk the 80 crewmen of the mothership to pick up 1 or 2 crew.
This is a good question. I had it as well. Then two years ago did a dive into the details of the Solomons campaign from Guadalcanal to the invasion of Bougainville.
The bottom line I found was a deep sense of unreality among the Japanese leaders. ie: When the decision was made to evacuate Guadalcanal 18th Area Army kept staff officers active on updating plans to retake that island. The Japanese Navy also possessed a large land based Air Force & this was used to sustain the air campaign in the Solomons after the aircraft carriers were spent. At times the IJN air battles over the upper Solomons were larger and more intense than the carrier battles and the air battle over Guadalcanal. For close to a year the IJN clung to the idea they were winning the air war, and the collapse of the US/Australian air forces in the S Pac was just around the corner. This was sustained by the grossly exaggerated reports on enemy aircraft destroyed in each encounter. The Japanese Navy intel officers and commanders did not apply much critical thinking to the air crews claims and estimated Allied air losses at more than double reality.
It was not until October 1943 when a series of air battles over the upper Solomons forced acceptance on the IJN commanders, from Koga down to the local air fleet commanders. They had suspected the USN was about to launch a offensive into the Gilbert islands & had a core of several hundred land based navy aircraft preparing for a counter blow to that intrusion. A month before the USN attacked the Tarawa Atoll a left hook was made in the upper Solomons. When the smoke cleared the IJN leaders finally had to admit they had lost the air battle. Their air fleet in the S Pac was badly understrength, and failed to repel the US air offensive in the Solomons, and the air fleet was to weak to decisively engage the US invasion fleet in the Gilbert islands.
The bottom line I found was a deep sense of unreality among the Japanese leaders. ie: When the decision was made to evacuate Guadalcanal 18th Area Army kept staff officers active on updating plans to retake that island. The Japanese Navy also possessed a large land based Air Force & this was used to sustain the air campaign in the Solomons after the aircraft carriers were spent. At times the IJN air battles over the upper Solomons were larger and more intense than the carrier battles and the air battle over Guadalcanal. For close to a year the IJN clung to the idea they were winning the air war, and the collapse of the US/Australian air forces in the S Pac was just around the corner. This was sustained by the grossly exaggerated reports on enemy aircraft destroyed in each encounter. The Japanese Navy intel officers and commanders did not apply much critical thinking to the air crews claims and estimated Allied air losses at more than double reality.
It was not until October 1943 when a series of air battles over the upper Solomons forced acceptance on the IJN commanders, from Koga down to the local air fleet commanders. They had suspected the USN was about to launch a offensive into the Gilbert islands & had a core of several hundred land based navy aircraft preparing for a counter blow to that intrusion. A month before the USN attacked the Tarawa Atoll a left hook was made in the upper Solomons. When the smoke cleared the IJN leaders finally had to admit they had lost the air battle. Their air fleet in the S Pac was badly understrength, and failed to repel the US air offensive in the Solomons, and the air fleet was to weak to decisively engage the US invasion fleet in the Gilbert islands.
The only transport sunk in the initial Guadalcanal landing convoy, AP-13 USS George F. Elliott, was hit by a suicide attack by a G4M Betty, that had been fatally hit by AAA.
pacificwrecks.com
Pacific Wrecks - USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) burning after Japanese air raid in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal
USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) burning after Japanese air raid in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal.
My take is that 1942 is just too early for kamikaze. They got good results by conventional attacks anyway. However, my roundabout way is to have more pilots crash into enemy ships, especially carriers, let's say 2% instead of 1% as mentioned above.
That ought to considerably alter the chain of events of the 1942 carrier battles especially. Imagine if Enterprise and Lexington have been crashed during the early raids. Not necessarily sunk, but damaged and out of action for weeks/months at least. Or Yorktown being crashed at Coral Sea, meaning it will miss Midway. Lots of butterfly from having a few extra japanese planes hitting US carriers at critical times.
The earliest the kamikaze policy starts to be necessary is 1943 when ever increasing numbers of new US fleet carriers come online. The Rabaul carrier raids look like a good opportunity for the first mass use of kamikaze attacks. And by 1944, I can't see how they could still do significant damage to the US fleet without the kamikaze. Marianas should have been mostly a kamikaze operation, at least they's still lose 400 planes but they's have some significant damage to TF58 to show for that, maybe even couple US carriers sunk.
That ought to considerably alter the chain of events of the 1942 carrier battles especially. Imagine if Enterprise and Lexington have been crashed during the early raids. Not necessarily sunk, but damaged and out of action for weeks/months at least. Or Yorktown being crashed at Coral Sea, meaning it will miss Midway. Lots of butterfly from having a few extra japanese planes hitting US carriers at critical times.
The earliest the kamikaze policy starts to be necessary is 1943 when ever increasing numbers of new US fleet carriers come online. The Rabaul carrier raids look like a good opportunity for the first mass use of kamikaze attacks. And by 1944, I can't see how they could still do significant damage to the US fleet without the kamikaze. Marianas should have been mostly a kamikaze operation, at least they's still lose 400 planes but they's have some significant damage to TF58 to show for that, maybe even couple US carriers sunk.
That damage looks surprisingly light for an impact by a twin engine bomber.The only transport sunk in the initial Guadalcanal landing convoy, AP-13 USS George F. Elliott, was hit by a suicide attack by a G4M Betty, that had been fatally hit by AAA.
Pacific Wrecks - USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) burning after Japanese air raid in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal
USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) burning after Japanese air raid in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal.