WWII air tactics between USA and JAPAN?

Question

in the early stages of the war the japanese fighters had the upper hand, what was the changing factor that swayed the advantage back to the allies, was in the introduction of better aircraft like the hellcat, p47 p51 or were the pilots better trained. or did the allies develope a different tactic to handle the zero's maneuverability?

Answer 1

Well, you start off with a false assumption. In fact, a P-40 could turn inside of a Zero, though for some reason the myth persists that it could not and it's only advantage was in a dive.

P-40's were saddled with the Allison engine. One model had the Packard (license built Rolls Royce Merlin), because priority was given to the P-51's (which were better, but only marginally so).

Japanese fighers were consistantly under armed and under armored. The American fighters were usually superior. But they were often outnumbered. It really was in Naval battles that the Japanese were ahead at the begining, not in the air.

Perhaps one of the most influencial aircraft for the Americans was the P-38. Of the top 5 U.S. pilots (in terms of "kills"), 4 of them flew the P-38. The top 2 operated in the pacific.

The Japanese (like the British), had .303 calibre machineguns in their planes. Later, they added some 20mm Cannon. Very few had heavier guns (I want to say just some bombers). .303 (7.7mm) proved to really just be too light to be effective. Decent rate of fire, but if your target is armored, hard to penetrate. 20mm had plenty of punch to it, but had a comparitively slow rate of fire. You'd try to aim your (otherwise somewhat useless) .303 tracers at the target, and pray that the 20mm would kick in and fire when you happened to still be aimed at the target. A lot of Japanese fighters had 2 .303 MGs and 1 20mm cannon. Some had 2 MGs and 2 cannon. Only very late war models were more heavily armed.

The Americans prefered the .50 caliber machineguns (12.7mm). These had a decent enough rate of fire (actually comparable to the .303), but when they hit, they were powerful enough to actually do some damage. In the long run, this proved more effective than the Japanese / British guns.

Most American fighters had 6 .50 cal MGs - 3 in each wing. The P-47 had 8 (though this typically proved overkill against aircraft, but was more useful for straffing, so the P-47 was often used for ground attack, not because it was a bad fighter, but because it was more effective than other fighters in that role - plus it could take a lot of damage and keep flying, which is important in ground attack too). The P-38 had 4 .50 cal machineguns, plus a 20mm cannon - and here's the important part - in the nose. Being twin engined, it could have the guns in the nose, which made them easier to aim. It has some decent .50's, and occasionlly the slower rate of fire 20mm would go off at the right time to score a hit with that too! It was really kind of a best of both worlds, which is probably why so many of the top aces were P-38 pilots.

The P-38 did have a problem. See, at the back end of the wing is a "dead spot" of air (they did not understand this back then). The faster you go, the bigger this "dead spot" grows. Well, the P-38 could go fast enough that the dead spot completely enveloped the flaps. The only time it could go that fast, was in a dive. So, you could get yourself into a dive that you could not get out of. The remedy eventually was discovered in the field when some pilots installed "dive brakes" off of Douglas Dauntless dive bombers. If they got themselves into a dive and the controls stopped responding, they could pull the dive brake and slow down to the point where they regained control. But I digress.

Okay, so typically Japanese fighters did have good manuverablity. But this allowed them to survive as long as they did because they were under armed and under armored and were thus outclassed by most American fighters. Initially the Japanese outnumbered the U.S. (bear in mind, the war in Europe, which had higher priority, got a bigger share of existing resources). But U.S. production capacity outstripped the Japanese, and a chronic shortage of raw materials was problematic for the Japanese too. That's why they invaded Manchuria.

Something else to bear in mind - a faster airplane can beat one that is more manuverable. Just do barrel rolls. The faster but less manuverable fighter will make wider "cork screw" circles, whereas the more manuverable airplane will make tighter circles, thus making more forward progress, thus forcing it to pull out ahead of you, so you are now on their tail. manuverablity isn't everything.

America did have a better training program. We had a policy - fly X number of missions, and we send you home. The pilots who survived X missions were "the best", and they then trained the newcomers. Everybody else wanted to keep their "best" action. Eventually, someone would get lucky and shoot your "best" pilot down, so for the Axis, this did not work well, because eventually they would loose their best pilots (and their knowledge with them). The Americans, on the other hand, essentially built "good pilot factories" by taking their best pilots and using them to train the new pilots. It proved to be a better philosophy in the long run.

Answer 2

The answer is the first and third reason in your question and also the best pilots of Japan were becoming extinct, and Americans were stepping up their training and becomeing more expereanced in the art of the dorgfight .

In the early days the Zero had better trained fighter pilots with combat experence (That is a big help) an amazing plane that the west has never seen, and the west had not plane to match it in a standard Turn and Burn Dogfight. The Best navy fighter was the F4F Wildcat and the Army's P-40 at the time and the best move was to go high, go down on him fast and hard, and get the hell out of their. Then the US recived a God-sent, a almost perfect Zero that had no one alive in it at Alaska. The plane was taken and used to find the weakness of the Zero that the pilots could use against it like a right turn steap dive which is hard for a Zero because the Alerons don't work well in a steap dive. Also that the plane had nothing to protect the fuel tanks and not any armor for the pilots they concluded that the best place to shoot at a Zero was at the rear base of the wings because it would hit the fuel lines and tear the wing off, instant kill. Then the US kept hitting the Japanese and killed off their pilots that were so highly trained and with a weaking training regament thanks to fuel shortages that the new guys were not mesuring up to the more experenced US pilots and after a amount of combat flights they are sent to the training school to teach the new recruits how to fight the Zero in the field. Then with the adoption of newer and better planes like the Grumman's replacement for the F4F, the F6F Hellcat, Vought's F4U Corsair, Republic's P-47 Thunderbolt with space for move fuel for the pacific, and the North Amercian's P-51 Mustang the Japanese were being swated out of the sky

*****ADD ON*****
Thanks rz, I forgot that the Japanese were just like the Germans, fly till you die, injured, or shot down and captured.

Answer 3

In my humble opinion it was a mixture of faster and better planes and better training for the pilots. It was as if Japan had stagnated on the Zero and could not get past the Zero's limited capabilities or speed. Do not get me wrong, the zero was much faster than our planes at the start of the war, but the allies very quickly pulled ahead in speed and maneuverability and kept that edge the rest of the war.

I would like to point out that you did not mention the one airplane the Japanese feared most. It was the P-38 Lighting. I want to share with you a tid bit of information that was shared with me from a Lighting pilot WWII vet about 18 years ago. He told me that they learned a trick with the Lighting's 50 cal. machine gun on its nose. Because of the guns location on the nose they could move the stick around and saw the zero in half like a saw. It is my understanding that the Lighting was the most feared by Japan and the nose placement of the machine gun was one one the main reasons, besides being very fast. Another P-38 pilot (I drill these WWII vets every chance I get) told me the Germans called it the fork tailed devil. And that same pilot said the P-38 lighting was the most demanded plane by recruit pilots even though the 51 and 47 both were faster. Anyway those are my thoughts.

Edit Update, 12/05/07: I just remembered another story shared with me by a WWII vet concerning the Lighting. He was a sailor in the US Navy (I am so sorry as I did not get the ship he was on) and the ship he was stationed on was sunk by Japan. As him and his shipmates were stranded in the water of the Pacific, the Japanese Zeros were strafing them and picking them off one at a time. He was about to make peace with his maker when he herd another aircraft in the distance coming their way. You guessed it, it was the P-38 and he said that the Zeros did not have a chance as the P-38's butchered them and he and the rest of his buddies were rescued. To this day the P-38 remains his favorite WWII airplane.

I want to say one more thing. If you are a true history buff then now is the time to hit these WWII vets up for eye witness accounts of that war and what really happened. As the saying goes: there are those that know the path and there are those that have walked the path. Yes there are well educated experts out there on the subject of WWII and no disrespect to them but the vets who walked that path were there and we are losing more of them every day. If you discover one, shake their hand and thank them for helping make a free world and then ask them what happened and most are glad to share. One day that chance will be gone and all we will have left are the ones who know the path.

Answer 4

Most people have touched on it. simply put, in the beginning the Japanese had better pilots and planes. As the war advanced training became very important. The Japanese didn't bring their aces back to help train new recruits like the US did. By the time the next generation of planes came out for both sides the skill of the pilots was firmly on the Allied side to go along with better tactics and planes.

Answer 5

My Mellow Americans, It is no secret that our now great ally in the Pacific region, Japan, has in the past been a mortal enemy. It is also no secret that Japan's greatest strengths lie in current technology and particularly in their anti-submarine capability - which arguably is the best in the world. This indicates the ability on the part of Japan to severely limit any submarine campaign which could effectively cripple that country again - as did the US submarine campaign in world War II - which incidentally had a far greater impact on Japan than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and effectively isolated the Home Islands long before even the very effective bombing campaign and naval losses. As for the end of World War II - some argue that Japan has since engaged in a form of economic warfare - rather than outright military conflict - against the United States - a war these people say Japan is winning. This does not, however, take into account the rather odd structure of Japanese manufacture and its continuing economic reliance on trade - something that is currently under heavy strain right across the world. As economic issues take a stranglehold on international relations, and the impending collapse of the petroleum based economy looms - you can expect old allies and friends to fall our over access to resources. Thus a wise man would take stock of all potential enemies. This prudence should not be confused with sabre-rattling or with preparation for war - or with a serious level of tension - at this time. We should continue to watch and evaluate carefully. Your Prez.

Answer 6

The sinking of more than half of the Japanese carrier fleet in the battle of Midway was a huge turning point. Breaking the Japanese military code tipped the US off about an attempted surprise attack by the Japanese and we turned it around and anihilated their feet.

Also, the US tactic of island hopping was very successful. We kept taking small islands which were less heavily defended and using them to build airbases from which to stage attacks on the islands which were heavily defended.

the biggest factor though might have been the overwhelming industrial power of the US. We just kept making planes and ships faster than the Japanese could and overwhelming them was inevitable.

Answer 7

it was a combination of all the factors you listed: we replaced the slow, cumbersome F4F Wildcat with the fast, heavily-armoured, heavily armed F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair, etc., and simultaneously we also recovered intact some crashed A6M Zero-Sen fighters and discovered that they were weakly armoured and couldn't perform certain maneruvers. they had no self-sealing flame-resistant fuel tanks; we did. they sent their best pilots into battle and lost them; we sent our best and brightest back home to impart their wisdom to the next batch. in the end, Japan failed to innovate fast enough to keep up with us, and the loss of most if not all competent pilots before 1944 doomed them to defeat in the air, and hence on the high seas (Yamato was sunk because she lacked air cover)

so in the end, we always had mostly better pilots, that's how we didn't totally have our asses handed to us in the Wildcat (the Buffalo was different), but with the advent of better planes, we trounced the Japanese soundly in the air war in the pacific

Answer 8

As the Japanese were declining in numbers of Good pilots,the US was increasing in the number of good pilots. Air and naval superiority were decreasing for the Japanese as the US was increasing in both.

Answer 9

By July 8th of 1942 only two dozen of the over 300 Japanese Naval aviators who had attacked the U.S. in Hawaii were still alive. Not only could dead men not fly aircraft, dead men could not train the next generation of aviators either.

Answer 10

They made some new planes that could outfly the zero, plus they did make several tactics like weaving with another pilot, stuff like that. Its pretty interesting how these tactics work.