Tainan Kokutai

[Tanaka]

Sakai’s Tainan Kokutai became known for destroying the most enemy planes in the history of Japanese military aviation.

The exploits of the unit were widely publicized in the Japanese media at the time, at least in part because the unit spawned more aces than any other fighter unit in the IJN.

This group was composed of many of the highest experienced pilots from the war in China.

Considering the history of this most elite unit should not this group have a least 75 experience and 90 morale the same as the other top Japanese fighter groups aboard the Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu?

Why so much lower than these considering that this unit was the best?

[LiquidSky]

Did it start as the best? Or did circumstance and the war allow it to gain the experience to become the best? I have a carrier that managed to fight many AA battles with somewhat less then stellar allied air, and so it is now sporting a rather large number of aces, or near aces, and has gained a fair bit of experience. Barring any sort of disaster (like running into a floating flak factory), it should become even better until the allies get strong enough fighters to shoot them down.

If they had a record of fighting/training before the war, then perhaps it should be raised, but one has to be careful about giving a unit experience based on what it did historically, when we are the ones writing history.

[jomni]

make them the best by managing them well.

[Gilbert]

Tanaka, I totally agree with you, especially because most of the unit's original pilots were veterans of aerial combat in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainan_Air_Group

Regards
Gilbert

[xj900uk]

I agree, Sakai's unit (the Lae Wing I think he called them) were amongst the best in the IJN,  carrier pilots without a carrier!  They started off good and got better.  Very few survived the war thoguh,  I believe most of them died based at Rabaul doing long distance runs to Guadacanal and back (why the Japs didn't finish the base at Shortlands so they could operate from there I will never ever know...), often not the direct result of aeriel combat...

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

(why the Japs didn't finish the base at Shortlands so they could operate from there I will never ever know...)

It obviously took too much time to unoad those engineer units from xAKLs.[:D]

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky


Did it start as the best? Or did circumstance and the war allow it to gain the experience to become the best? I have a carrier that managed to fight many AA battles with somewhat less then stellar allied air, and so it is now sporting a rather large number of aces, or near aces, and has gained a fair bit of experience. Barring any sort of disaster (like running into a floating flak factory), it should become even better until the allies get strong enough fighters to shoot them down.

If they had a record of fighting/training before the war, then perhaps it should be raised, but one has to be careful about giving a unit experience based on what it did historically, when we are the ones writing history.

Both. It started as the best because circumstances and the war in China allowed it to gain experience to be the best. All of these pilots had huge experience from the war in China and many were already aces before Pearl Harbor...

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky


Did it start as the best? Or did circumstance and the war allow it to gain the experience to become the best? I have a carrier that managed to fight many AA battles with somewhat less then stellar allied air, and so it is now sporting a rather large number of aces, or near aces, and has gained a fair bit of experience. Barring any sort of disaster (like running into a floating flak factory), it should become even better until the allies get strong enough fighters to shoot them down.

If they had a record of fighting/training before the war, then perhaps it should be raised, but one has to be careful about giving a unit experience based on what it did historically, when we are the ones writing history.

I do see some of your point but well if we go by this logic then should not every group start out with experience and morale of 0? [&:]

[crsutton]

It has been said that Japanes pilots learned all of the wrong lessions (dogfighting) while fighting against the Chinese. If I recall Sakai himself said that his own group was not that good in formation tactics and in the cooperative tactics needed to bring down American bombers. Should they be that good? I don't know.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

It has been said that Japanes pilots learned all of the wrong lessions (dogfighting) while fighting against the Chinese. If I recall Sakai himself said that his own group was not that good in formation tactics and in the cooperative tactics needed to bring down American bombers. Should they be that good? I don't know.

It was good dogfighting experience lessons they learned in China until the Americans started to adjust to Japanese tactics in late 1942. The Japanese could out dogfight at that time but yes the teamwork was what they lacked and later the Americans adjusted to the dogfighting tactics they were losing against when they formed their teamwork groups. Whatever their ratings should be all I am saying is that they should rate at least on par with the other best Japanese air groups at that time for obvious reasons. I dont see how you could argue that this was not the best group or at least not on par...

[bklooste]

Also the Navy did not have anywhere near as much experience vs the Chinese than the army so best of the Navy in China is not that great. At start some of the better army squadrons should be equal to Tainan Kokutai which is the case.

[Tone]

The Tainan wing was formed of very experienced carrier trained pilots or pilot teachers not needed on the carrier divisions support fighter wing

Tainan wing was considered the top naval support fighter wing in the imperial navy before the war start