The Aircraft Carrier War

[lyman]

Japanese torpedoes were a closely guarded state secret. We actually knew a torpedo could be oxygen fueled but the fear of the hazards involved kept us from making one. Our "surprise" at the torpedoes was fueled by, among many other things, racism, as well as the Japanese wisely understating the performance of almost every thing they could. It might have helped if we had actually tested our torpedoes but made an executive decision that they were too expensive to expend in tests !!! Then to add insult to injury the Navy Bureau of Ordnance refused to even consider defects for almost a year blaming all problems on "operator error" and prohibiting troubleshooting.

we almost literally torpedoed ourselves early in the war

[Art]

The Aircraft, American

The Douglass TBD "Devastator"
Crew: 3, Pilot, Torpedo Officer/Navigator, Radioman Gunner
Range: 455 miles
Speed: 206 miles per hour.
Armament: 1 forward firing .30 caliber machine gun, one .30 machine gun in the rear cockpit.
I Mk 13 Torpedo, or one 1,000 pound bomb, or2 500 pound bombs, or 12 100 pound bombs

This was a very advanced aircraft in 1935 when first delivered but by 1942 was outclassed by almost everything, slow, sluggish and with a comparatively light payload it was retired in mid 1942 due partly to its obsolescence but mostly due to all most all of them having been lost in combat.

The Graumann TBF "Avenger'
Crew: 3, essentially the same as the TBD
Range: 900 miles
Armament: 1 - .30 cal. mg nose, 2 - .50 cal mg wings, 1 - .50 mg dorsal turret, 1 - .30 mg ventral tunnel.
1 Torpedo, Mk 13 or anti submarine homing "Fido" most common
or 2,000 pounds of bombs.
8 3.5" or 5" High Velocity Aerial Rockets
Bomb and torpedo payload carried internally.

From the outhouse to the penthouse. The gold standard of torpedo planes, almost 10,000 built. The last user didn't retire them until 1960.

Douglass SBD "Dauntless."
Crew: 2 pilot, radio operator/gunner
Speed: 255 mph.
Range: 300 miles
Armament: 2 - 50 cal machine guns in the engine cowling. One or two .30 caliber machine guns in the rear cockpit.
2,250 pounds of bombs in various configurations

Interestingly it had a second set of controls minus the landing gear let down in the rear cockpit. Some pilots would regularly let the rear seat guy take the controls for a while. More rear seater than you would think eventually became pilots.

the best carrier borne dive bomber pre 1944 and a case could be made for all time. Like its counter part the Japanese D3Y it destroyed more Japanese shipping than any other type. It performed very well re Enforcing the CAP with some pilots actually being transferred to fighters. As a pure dive bomber only the Stuka with its 90 degree dive and automatic pull out was probably its equal and you didn't see those on ships, though the Stuka sure sank a lot of ships.

Grauman F4F "Wildcat"
Crew: 1
Speed: 331 mph
Climb: 2,303 ft. min
Range: 700 miles
Armament: 4 - .50 cal. machine guns.

Grossly inferior on paper to its early war opponents in the pacific, it was especially handicapped by an abysmal climb rate. BUT a combination of ruggedness, fine piloting, and tactics allowed it to mostly hold its own. Even after superior types appeared it retained a niche on escort carriers and soldiered on for the whole war.

Range = Combat radius for all planes, both sides.

[barretcreek]

So are we preparing to fight the 'last war' except with missiles?

[jon_norstog]

So are we preparing to fight the 'last war' except with missiles?

Not mentioning any names, but I think a certain country has been working for 30+ years on ways to take out our CVAs.

jn

[togor]

A terrific book from both the US and Japanese perspectives on Midway, which was the decisive carrier battle of the early war.

https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Swo...s%2C162&sr=8-1

Not that it has to be bought from Jeff Bezos of course.

[Art]

The Men

The Japanese:

The Japanese military system, while it looked similar to European models and adopted much from them was also profoundly different. The officer class was more restrictive and the soldier, or sailor regardless of specialty was merely "The Sword of the Emperor." It was his entire value. In this scheme the vast majority of aircrews were enlisted men, including the pilots who were petty officers. They were also almost unbelievably well trained. Japanese pilots, especially were the benficiaries of intensive training that lasted for years and resulted in a corps of naval aviators of almost unparaled skill. The other crew members, middle seaters in torpedo planes and the radio operator/gunners were highly skilled and all were instilled through rigorous indoctrination in the defense of the God Emperor and the Empire of Japan. A quick word on radio operator/gunners. Gunner was their secondary role. All were proficient in Morse Code and were responsible for maintaining the communications link with the fleet. Unlike the U.S. Navy the highest ranking crew member of an aircraft was the aircraft commander regardless of job on his ship.

The bad news. The Japanese started the war with about 1,000 extremely well trained air crew who could not be replaced in that skill level if lost. Especially the pilots.

Speaking of radios. Much has been made of the practice of land based navy units removing their radios to save weight. This was out of the question in the carriers. Getting home was a big deal.

The ships were crewed by men trained through relentless hazing and beatings that could and did results in what anywhere else would have been an unacceptable number of suicides even in the Russian military. The Japanese sailors who crewed the Imperial Navy's ships were, resultingly, instantly obedient and incredibly brave. They were also pretty darned efficient while being also pretty darned inflexible.

The Americans:

American pilots were no slackers. The average American pilot of 1942 was extremely well trained and usually a long serving highly motivated veteran, Pearl Harbor motivated them more. Their back seaters, who had the same roles as Sons of Nippon were every bit as proficient as their Japanese equivalents. American training was more flexible, quicker and very good. It would pay off later.

The men who crewed the ships had higher mechanical skills when enlisted than the average Japanese equivalent which did make a difference, especially when training new people. American training while strict was also more humane, geared to not just to compliance but allowing a bit of innovation which also paid off.

The Japanese had an initial advantage but it was surprisingly short lived.

[barretcreek]

This is getting into 'thread drift' but we had a carrier war because we needed to control the seas in order to go island hopping. China wants Taiwan and to turn the westpac into their exclusive economic zone. Does this call for the same reaction?

[Art]

The Battles, 1942

The carrier strike forces fought four major battles in the central and southwest pacific in 1942. There was a lot of feeling out, both sides were pretty much operating without a net. The battles were also closely fought between roughly matched personnel using roughly matched equipment. American superiority in signals intelligence was a major factor.

The Japanese maintained a numerical superiority in carriers even after Midway.

The orders of battle will be attached to each post, they can be quite interesting.

[Art]

The Coral Sea

After Pearl Harbor the Japanese pressed their advantage, seizing the fuel resources that were there principal objective in Southeast Asia, and expanding far into the central Pacific. They also conducted a series of carrier raids that rendered the Royal Navy almost combat ineffective for a spell in the southwest pacific and Indian Ocean requiring the deployment of forces needed elsewhere.

The Japanese now plotted the next move. Thought was given to an invasion of Northern Australia, an idea so far fetched it was rejected almost out of hand. Instead it was decided to re inforce the big base at Rabaul by capturing Tulagi in the eastern Solomons and Port Moresby in New Guinea. Naval close air cover was to be provided by the CVL Shoho, distant cover by the big CVs Shokaku and Zuikaku and their escort screens.

Unfortunately for the Japanese we were reading their mail to the extent that we knew something was up and about where it would happen.

When the Yorktown and the Lexington with a surprisingly large screen showed up to contest the invasion it was a surprise to say the very least. The really bad news was the Americans were between the Japanese heavy cover CVs and the invasion force. The good news, this was also an opportunity to, at least partly correct the mistakes of Pearl Harbor.

Misidentifications limited the success of the first days fighting, but if you think you've found a carrier find an oiler and a destroyer, why waste the ordnance. So when a carrier contact turned out to be the detatched fleet oiler Neosho and Destroyer Sims, 36 D3Y Vals promptly demolished the Neosho and Sims before returning to base to re arm. The Americans had a better day finding the CVL Shoho. A quick note here on attrition. The Japanese were already starting to feel a pinch in planes and pilots. Hosho normally had an air group of 30. On this day she carried 18, 6 "Kate" torpedo planes and a mixed bag Zero and obsolete A5M2 "Claude" fighters. The US strike had been sent to find a carrier and they did. 53 Dauntless dive bombers and 22 Devastator torpedo bombers escorted by 18 Wildcats bored in. The Japanese had six Zeros and two Claudes in the Cap. The plight of the Shoho was near indescribable. The hits were almost uncountable. Even the Devastators looked good. Out of a crew of almost 900 less than 300 survived.

During councils of war at night both sides thought of attacking with their powerful screening forces. This was rejected due to the confusion of night fighting and the very high speed of fleet aircraft carriers making them very good at escaping.

The next day the fight resumed. The Americans launched a coordinated attack which resulted in three 1,000 pound bomb hits on Shokaku which put her out of the fight and in a yard for months. She almost foundered in a storm on the way back.

For their part the Japanese were now down half their strength but Zuikaku struck back hard. A "Hammer and Anvil" torpedo attack put two type 91s into Lexington. These were fatal, rupturing an avgas tank and eventually triggering explosions that sank the ship. The bomb hits were just window dressing. Yorktown took a 550 pound semi-armor piercing bomb (the heaviest a Val could carry) through the flight deck. This weapon penetrated four decks causing serious damage. As a side note; the battle between the US CAP Wildcats and Dauntless against the screening Zeros, while decided in favor of the "Zekes" was supposed to be one for the books.

While losses favored the Japanese, the battle was an American victory, the Rabaul offensive was thwarted and for the first time a Japanese offensive failed. An important issue, aircraft losses were about a wash but the Japanese lost enough more aircrew to matter.

[Art]

A little note. This has been a subject of interest of mine for a very long time. New stuff comes up all the time that modifies the narrative, for example and things that complicate the popular concepts formed in the war and immdiately after are sometimes, not exactly ignored, but not given enough attention.

I am aware that almost all of us are pretty knowledgeable of what happened in the Pacific in WWII, especially at Midway. After all, it was our daddy's war. Hopefully this stuff I've accumulated will result in in a little bit of new, different, or even contrary information.

I'd been thinking about putting this out for a while and finally de-lazied myself enough to do it. I admit it's been a little fun to write.

I had hoped to post NAVWEPS orders of battle but they defy hot linking. They provide some fascinating stuff.