WI japanese suicide planes were in use a year earlier

What would have happened if Japan used suicide planes a year earlier and V bombers

  • Japan would have won WW2

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  • aircraft attacks successful but shipping attacks not

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WI Japanese divine wind suicide 'planes were in use a year earlier could the tide of war have changed. Also what would have happened if these were used aircraft to aircraft.
 
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Than Japan wastes good pilots and planes/ the whole idea of kamaikze is that they don't have pilots who can actually stand up to the Americans. It would also be a waste to use them in air to air, since it's easier to replace a plane and pilot than a ship; plus there are less casulties which completely defies Japanese doctrine in tryng to bleed the U.S. into a peace.
 
Well aircraft to aircraft really does not make sense. You are spending 1 aircraft + pilot to knock down 1 aircraft + pilot. Not a recipe for success in a war where your opponent can out produce you in AC and pilots 10 to 1.

The only way that Kamikaze tactics "made sense" were to trade something "cheap" - 1 aircraft + basically untrained pilot for something expensive 1 ship (or at least damage to a ship).

Starting a year earlier means that Japan has to recognize that they are going to fail in 1943? I don't think so they still thought they could win (in some meaningful meaning of the word win) in 1943.
 
I don't know about how good a tactic starting kamikaze attacks a year before the Battle of Leyte Gulf (right?) is, but I think it could have serious psychological warfare effects.

They're sacrificing their pilots really soon after the pushback has begun. This might shake US doctrine up, bigtime.
 

CalBear

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The JNAF, in 1943, was more than capable of sinking American shipping without throwing away aircraft. What you did have in early 1943 was a lack of ways for either side to really get at the other. The IJN was training up replacement pilots (and subsequently feeding them into the meatgrinder of the Solomons) and the USN was gathering up new decks and aircraft.

It sometimes isn't fully understood that before mid-1944 the Japanese navy believed that it could still win the war. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the first major carrier engagement since Santa Cruz Islands and none of the players really understood exactly how far the scales had tipped. The U.S had an inkling, thanks to the successes in the South Pacific against land based airpower, but a major fight in the open sea was a different matter. By the time the Turkey Shoot was over both sides knew who far things had moved, that the U.S. had developed what was close to an insurmountable technical and tactical advantage, with a similar advantage in pilot quality.

The kamakazi was an act of despair, not a war winning tactic. It was an act of defiance, the last strike from the grave of a defeated military. To view it as anything else, or to imagine that it would have been adopted before all was lost ignores the reality of the kamakazi.
 
It might have actually accelerated Japanese defeat. In exchange for a few more crippled/destroyed US carriers, Japan would have lost its remaining trained aircrews and first line aircraft earlier.

I can imagine only two instances in which changedtctics might have made a difference: (1) As a basic part of Japanese strategy and aircrew training from the beginnning - with designated manned missle units attached to all Army and Navy squardons (using pilots who were washed out during training as auxilliaries flying older combat-weathered planes), or (2) not employing any kamakazis at all until one decisive invasion (probably during the US invasion of the home islands). Neither is very likely, nor would they change the basic outcome, but option 1 might have some significant impact in 1941-1943 when the Japanese still could secure local command of the air and provide the manned missiles with a safer environment in which to operate. Now, if the Ohka manned missle was developed and in use by 1941, this could really be interesting.
 
I actually posed this very question in another thread. My feeling is initial US losses will be higher but Japan still loses. More fighters will be carried earlier on and development of the Hellcat pushed forward. Likewise I see a push to carrier-qualify other aircraft.

I'm not sure if development of the proximity fuze can be accelerated but if it can it will be.
 
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