Thach Weave Bonus vs Zero bonus???

[mdiehl]

If your statement "couldn't have worse timing" is that USN strikes were to be coordinated (which I agree they were) but were not, I can think of a multitude of circumstances that could have made US "timing" worse, (i.e. early spotting by scouting IJN subs, or not having the Japanese plans for Midway in hand in time to ambush them).

I thought that we were discussing "given the general historical circumstances." Sure, the Japanese code might not have been cracked in which case there would have been no US carriers there at all. Or maybe a giant Typhoon would have sunk Kido Butai as they sortied for Midway.

The fact that uncoordinated attacks still achieved remarkable results seems to me to render the statement "the US could hardly have had worse timing" kind of irrelevant.

Not at all. Your claim was that the US had "lucky" or "otherwise good" timing. My observation was that despite BAD timing all around the US plan succeeded because it was a robust plan. There was no fortuitous timing in favor of the US at Midway. None whatsoever. Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the US, the Japanese would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less. At a minimum no US ships sunk and perhaps the Japanese would have lost more CAs.

Your point that all 4 carriers would have been sunk at a stroke had the attacks been coordinated undermines the "worse timing " statement even more because the results are the same more or less 3 out of 4.

I observed that owing to BAD timing and BAD luck, the US strikes were weaker than they would otherwise have been. Nothing in the results historical or projected undermines my observation that the US timing was as unfortunate (for the US) as it could be under the circumstances.

Unless the loss of Yorktown due to Hiryu's momentary survival is your main point in stating "US timing couldn't have been worse".

That is definitely part of it. More to the point there was nothing about the engagement that can be described as "good timing" or "lucky timing" or "fortuitous timing" that substantially benefitted the US as you suggested. Were it not for the US' bad luck and bad timing at Midway, the US would have had no luck and no timing at all. In which case the Japanese would have suffered worse.

[Rainerle]

Oh no, mdiehl is weaving his 'USN unlucky at Midway' fairy tale again [8|]

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Rainerle

Oh no, mdiehl is weaving his 'USN unlucky at Midway' fairy tale again [8|]

Obviously the USN won Midway - what Mdiel is saying is that they didn't win out of pure luck - in fact as luck went that day, they didn't have any particular streek of good luck. I don't find that an outrageous argument.

B

[Rainerle]

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Rainerle

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

Are you suggesting that the USN was incompetant at Midway?![X(]

Wow! that's a pretty harsh standard you go by![X(]

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: Big B

ORIGINAL: Rainerle

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

Are you suggesting that the USN was incompetant at Midway?![X(]

Wow! that's a pretty harsh standard you go by![X(]

Due to wretched staff-work, TF 16s strike was arguably the most poorly-executed, by either side, of the entire war. High skill, determination, and courage on the part of the aviators redeemed the result.

[mdiehl]

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

Not at all. Rainclouds don't just magically pop up over TFs. CVs use them for cover as both sides did at Coral Sea. Good luck is on a partly sunny day finding one TF in patchy overcast (because the TF had no cover into which to duck) when you might as easily have found none at all.

Failed strike coordination at Midway was because of a conscious and deliberate departure from doctrine, emphasizing first strike in lieu of a big coordinated strike.

Oh no, mdiehl is weaving his 'USN unlucky at Midway' fairy tale again

It's only a "fairy tale" to Axis fanboys and other people who are willfully ignorant of the details.

[spence]

Not germane. It was more like zero Zeros!

Do planes

not at altitude

out of ammunition

low on fuel

count as practical CAP? No they don't. So no, they didn't.

We got lucky in timing. Even the AAA guns were depressed and many had no ready ammunition.

This is hardly a normal moment in time.

Game designers may not consider extreme datum points as norms. And this is the most extreme datum point of the entire war - unless the strike at Clark or Pearl Harbor on the opening days are considered to be such. But it is one of the top three.

The so called facts contained in this post are probably the worst case of "let's make excuses for the Nips at Midway" I've ever seen.
The Japanese were continually recycling their CAP that morning...that's why they never got off their strike...the flight deck was busy. The CAP wasn't initially at low altitude...the nearby Shotai (Soryu/Hiryu's) chose to go there to engage Torpedo 3 which they considered the most dire threat even though at least some of the pilots were aware that Yorktown's SBDs were up there. The rest: Akagi and Kaga's lacked any direction to the contrary so they jumped into the furballs that they could see; Torpedo 3 and its 6 F4F escort. They abandoned that portion of the sky into which flew Enterprise's SBDs. NEVER IN THE COURSE OF THE ENTIRE WAR DID THE COMBAT AIR PATROL OF JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS HAVE ANY KIND OF DIRECTION BY ANY AUTHORITY HIGHER THAN THE INDIVIDUAL SHOTAI LEADER AND FOR MUCH OF THE WAR HE CONTROLLED HIS WINGMAN(MEN) WITH HAND SIGNALS. THAT THE CAP MANAGED TO PROTECT THE KB AT ALL IS A CREDIT TO THE FLYERS' SKILL BUT THE JAPANESE THEORY OF FLEET DEFENSE BASICALLY REALLY STANK.

The AA guns were depressed to engage the TBDs of Torpedo 3. Smoke signals from the screening ships leave out so much information when it comes to defining the threat, don't you think? But that's how initial air threat warnings were communicated.
Speaking of stinking: Japanese heavy AA Fire Control comes to mind. Very much state of the art in 1930 - well suited to defending against low and slow level bombers such as TBDs. The 25mm's were slightly better but not much. A 15 round magasine on an automatic gun is not conducive to long bursts...so standard practice was for the IJN gunners to only use one barrel at a time on a twin or triple while they reloaded the other(s). And although it theoretically could reach out to 8000 m Japanese gunners knew that they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn at that range and held their fire til their target got within 2000 m: not much time to engage an SBD in its aiming dive.

[ChezDaJez]

Not at all. Your claim was that the US had "lucky" or "otherwise good" timing. My observation was that despite BAD timing all around the US plan succeeded because it was a robust plan. There was no fortuitous timing in favor of the US at Midway. None whatsoever. Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the US, the Japanese would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less. At a minimum no US ships sunk and perhaps the Japanese would have lost more CAs.

I don't buy it. You could paraphrase your statement to: "Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the Japanese, the US would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less." and have it be just as applicable. Both sides suffered from bad coordination, bad planning, bad timing, fortuitous timing, and both good and bad luck. To say that the US had it substantially worse than the Japanese is to ignore all of the operational and tactical errors commited by the Japanese.

To say that the US had no fortuitous timing is to simply put spin on the actual events. Bad coordination and timing is what led to the demise of VT-8, fortuitous timing was the arrival of the SBDs as VT-8 was being slaughtered by the CAP. You can call it luck, you can call it fortuitous timing but the attack wasn't planned to unfold in this manner. The US hardly had a "robust" plan because the plan itself failed and what resulted was a series of uncoordinated strikes that did manage to achieve the goal of the original plan.

The Battle of Midway was basically a clusterf--k which was decided during a 5 minute time period by a fortuitous event, the arrival of the SBDs while the CAP was engaged elsewhere. Period.

Chez

[Demosthenes]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Not at all. Your claim was that the US had "lucky" or "otherwise good" timing. My observation was that despite BAD timing all around the US plan succeeded because it was a robust plan. There was no fortuitous timing in favor of the US at Midway. None whatsoever. Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the US, the Japanese would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less. At a minimum no US ships sunk and perhaps the Japanese would have lost more CAs.

I don't buy it. You could paraphrase your statement to: "Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the Japanese, the US would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less." and have it be just as applicable. Both sides suffered from bad coordination, bad planning, bad timing, fortuitous timing, and both good and bad luck. To say that the US had it substantially worse than the Japanese is to ignore all of the operational and tactical errors commited by the Japanese.

To say that the US had no fortuitous timing is to simply put spin on the actual events. Bad coordination and timing is what led to the demise of VT-8, fortuitous timing was the arrival of the SBDs as VT-8 was being slaughtered by the CAP. You can call it luck, you can call it fortuitous timing but the attack wasn't planned to unfold in this manner. The US hardly had a "robust" plan because the plan itself failed and what resulted was a series of uncoordinated strikes that did manage to achieve the goal of the original plan.

The Battle of Midway was basically a clusterf--k which was decided during a 5 minute time period by a fortuitous event, the arrival of the SBDs while the CAP was engaged elsewhere. Period.

Chez

Nah, I agree with mdiel here.

[spence]

The Battle of Midway was basically a clusterf--k which was decided during a 5 minute time period by a fortuitous event, the arrival of the SBDs while the CAP was engaged elsewhere. Period.

Except that it was not Torpedo 8 that was drawing the Zeros away from the SBDs: it was Torpedo 3 which arrived at the same time as Yorktown's SBDs. The nearest Shotai from Soryu and Hiryu CHOSE to attack Torpedo 3 as torpedo bombers were considered a more dire threat than dive bombers. When they did some of them ended up in a fight with 6 escorting F4Fs. More distant Shotai then piled in on the fights they could see. Far too many of them chose to engage Thach and his F4Fs which posed no threat whatever to the carriers but there wasn't anybody in charge so that's understandable. Included in the more distant Shotai mentioned above were the Shotai from Akagi and Kaga which were orbiting near their carriers initially. They vacated their stations and piled in to the fight they were aware of and left the SW flank of KB wide open just as Enterprise's bombers showed up. But then again ENS NOBODI was in charge of the IJN CAP and his telepathic control must have failed him that day.

[mdiehl]

"Had the timing been modestly fortuitous, good, or "lucky" for the Japanese, the US would have suffered a substantially greater loss and achieved less.

One could make that claim. But anyone making that claim would be wholly wrong. Nothing in the Japanese plan failed because of "bad timing" or "bad luck" on the part of the Japanese nor becuase of any "good luck" on the US.

Sh*t happens. But sh*t never JUST happens. Bad operational plans invite disaster, and the Japanese plan at Midway was the mother of all bad operational plans.

[ChezDaJez]

Except that it was not Torpedo 8

You are correct. Got my 3 and 8 mixed up. VT-8 and VT-6 had already engaged and been blasted.

Chez

[barbarrossa]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Not at all. Your claim was that the US had "lucky" or "otherwise good" timing.

Read a little closer next time when you respond to what I post. I made no such claim, I merely asked you to explain why you say "the US could have hardly had worse timing"

My observation was that despite BAD timing all around the US plan succeeded because it was a robust plan.

You could only make this statement and it hold any water if you are referring to the uncoordinated US strikes raining down on KB from various vectors simply because they were uncoordinated and nothing else.

Knowing the Japanese invasion plan enabled the US to be in the right place at the right time to ambush....and I would call that good timing.

There was no fortuitous timing in favor of the US at Midway. None whatsoever.

Ridiculous claim. KB was unable to spot, much less launch strike a/c due to the continuous US uncoordinated attacks from the TF's afloat and Midway. Add the fact that the Midway strike needed to be recovered and struck below before any strike a/c could be spotted much less launched. Add to that the need to recover and the pressing need to launch and recover an ever increasing CAP due to numerous US uncoordinated attacks.

The US uncoordinated attacks were not "lucky" but they were certainly fortuitous. They kept KB from launching it's own strike against the US TF's, plain and simple.

It was a case of "bad timing" that turned out a good result because the strikes were numerous, continuous, and came in from a variety of vectors KB couldn't cope with and it eventually caught up with them.

So was it really "bad timing" to have multitudes of uncoordinated attacks?

[barbarrossa]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

Not at all. Rainclouds don't just magically pop up over TFs. CVs use them for cover as both sides did at Coral Sea. Good luck is on a partly sunny day finding one TF in patchy overcast (because the TF had no cover into which to duck) when you might as easily have found none at all.

Kind of like the US strikes found KB at Midway.

But I thought you said the US was unlucky at Midway.[:D]

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

That's because it wasn't bad luck. Failed strike coordination is called incompetence. Bad luck happened at coral sea when 50% of the target were obscured by a raincloud. This is bad luck.

Not at all. Rainclouds don't just magically pop up over TFs. CVs use them for cover as both sides did at Coral Sea. Good luck is on a partly sunny day finding one TF in patchy overcast (because the TF had no cover into which to duck) when you might as easily have found none at all.

Kind of like the US strikes found KB at Midway.

But I thought you said the US was unlucky at Midway.[:D]

Hey, you guys just don't get the point, aren't you?

the point is: US had bad luck, odds against them - but superiority of the american weapons, good planing etc, etc are responsibile for success...[:D]

It is same old story from him, like he recently tried to prove that US are capable to resuply ISS (with one mission in last couple of years) and denied imporance of Whernher von Braun and other German scienists for US space program....

[Nikademus]

So was it really "bad timing" to have multitudes of uncoordinated attacks

That was the true miracle of Midway. That so much was acheived after such a cluster-F* as Chez put it. [;)]

The US carrier attacks on the morning of 4 June certainly succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation. 3 of 4 of Nagumo's carriers sustained mortal damage before they could respond in kind. Midway was truely an incredible victory but not so much as commonly thought, in terms of the overall disparity of odds. Instead, incredible better described the chances of such a poorly framed US attack succeeding so brilliantly. The US Carriers were extremely fortunate to defeat a foe who, with a few telling exceptions, handled his aircraft far better than they did. The Achillies heel of the Japan's carrier force was defense. The American nemesis was teamwork above the squadron level. Only Fletcher's flagship, the highly innovative Yorktown (best of all US carriers in 1942) had contrived to get her planes simotaniously to the target. Spruances's effort, on which so much depended, proved very nearly a shambles.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Are you suggesting that the USN was incompetant at Midway?![X(]

Wow! that's a pretty harsh standard you go by![X(]

I agree. Such harsh language should only be used when discussing Japanese issues.

[tsimmonds]

Only Fletcher's flagship, the highly innovative Yorktown (best of all US carriers in 1942) had contrived to get her planes simotaniously to the target.

Definitely Frank Fletcher's finest hour. Not only did Yorktown launch a cohesive strike that took out Soryu (or Kaga, depending on whose claims you believe), she had also launched a search through 180 degrees that not only maintained contact with the Japanese fleet following the morning strike, but which further served as the sole intact reserve formation available for a follow-up strike. TF16 conducted no searches at all until late the following day.

[Demosthenes]

By the way,

I finally heard back from the surviving AVG Organization (that is all the members still living), and the 18 P-40s lost in combat between 12/8/41 and 1/31/42 is incorrect if those P-40s lost are all attributed to the AVG:

XXXX,

I have checked the AVG diary for the dates between December 8, 1941, and
January 31, 1942. There were five pilots killed in combat during that
period: 12/24, Gilbert and Martin; 1/23 Christman; 1/26 Hoffman; and 1/30
Cole. The only one shot down in combat, where the pilot survived, was 1/8
Mott (who became a P.O.W.).

There also were 8 accidents or crash landings (due to weather and/or fuel
exhaustion) with some minor injuries. On 1/8, Ken Merritt was killed when a
P-40 had a landing accident and crashed into the car where Merritt was
sleeping. The pilot was not injured.

I hope this helps.

Jo Neal

and:

I forgot to add one: Mangleburg was killed 12/23 but it was not in combat.
Weather-related forced landing, and he crashed into an embankment.

Jo

So the total combat losses for the AVG in that period was 6 lost in combat, and 9 aircraft lost to non-combat causes, ie..not shot down.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

The groups that attacked Rangoon on the 23rd had attacked Singpore earlier and were moved to attack it again after Rangoon. (Singapore appears to have gotten the better Japanese fighters while the Nates escorted the Rangoon attacks)

Correct. The Allies initially thought that they'd won a major victory over Rangoon after they accessed claims coupled with the fact that the JAAF did not return initially so assumed that they must have lost alot of planes (believe the estimate was 40-60) In fact only around half a dozen had been lost but the JAAF had to return to targets in Malaya. There were only several Ki-43's present, the rest were Ki-27's which made shouldered the load for the 1st Burma phase.

The groups that attacked Rangoon on the 23rd had attacked Singpore earlier and were moved to attack it again after Rangoon. (Singapore appears to have gotten the better Japanese fighters while the Nates escorted the Rangoon attacks)

A2A exchange rate: 18 P-40's + 8 Buffalos for 17 Ki-27 and 2 Ki-43 (12/8/41 and 1/31/42)