The evolution of the carrier air wing in the Pacific from Pearl Harbour to Santa Cruz
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- Опубликовано: 21 фев 2023
- Today we take a look at how the air wings of the USN and IJN fleet carriers changed over the course of 1942, the most critical year of carrier development in the Pacific.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
When will part three of your destroyers series be coming out.
Drach think you may have missed something at the Coral Sea levels of TBD's the US Navy had Hornet and Wasp working up air groups at that time. Think this reflects more on experienced crews being pulled off to train new torpedo plane pilots. In "A Dawn like Thunder" Hornficher mentions that only 2 of VT-8 had actually dropped torpedoes on the day of attack. Those two Waldron and I think his Exec would have been pulled from active VT squadrons post Pearl Harbor.
Did Adm Hart make the right assessment of the situation in the Philippines and pulled what ever he could out and head south?
Could you also do a video discussing German anti ship tactics and the aircraft they used?
Briliant work. can i sugest a simmilar video detailing the ecolution of cataputplanes on cruisers and battelships ? the realy dont get a lot of love.
I suppose the reason that the Japanese more significantly valued their torpedo bombers was that they had torpedoes that actually worked.
And torpedo bombers that were actually competitive.
Basically. Meanwhile their dive bombers were shit, the inverse of the USN situation (at least until the Avenger and Helldiver came along and flipped things back in favour of torpedo bombers).
@Bk Jeong by then fighter bombers ruled the day. An F4U could carry a 2000lb bomb, 2x 2000lb bombs, or 3x Tiny Tim heavy anti ship rockets.
They also used Kates as high level bombers, so its dual purpose probably played a part in having so many.
Things change drastically in 1943
Last time I was this early rosevensky still had fifty binoculars
I like the snake that drank
Do you see torpedo boats?
Has anyone seen the Kamchatka anywhere?
@@jamesfieweger8648 - Kamchatka have seen you.... Aboard your Japanese torpedoboat....
@@TheEDFLegacy In Mother Russia, you don't go to zoo, zoo come to you.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly US battle doctrine evolved in the Pacific theater. You can see in the rapid increase in both total aircraft and fighters as a percentage that our planners immediately realized the importance of establishing air superiority at both the tactical and strategic level. The American military in all theaters was very diligent to conduct After Action Reviews and learn the lessons.
Its too bad we haven't done the same since.
Right, one thing you can definitely say about the Americans is that they adapted quickly. They weren't in very good shape at all going into the war tactically or in terms of doctrine (on land more so than at sea tbf) so it was certainly good they fixed things up quick
U would have to think the increase in fighter is a direct response to shooting down/non returning of so many SBDs at Coral Sea and TBD annihilation at Midway. No one likes to see empty chair or bunks when these bombing crews return from their mission. They adapted because the bomber crew pleaded their case well to carrier leaders (what a waste of resources, training and flying hours etc) and they listened
@@Wayne.J Yes, using the first contact at Midway as an example, US carrier air warfare doctrine HAD to improve. Uncoordinated attacks by the different types of aircraft and different carriers resulted in appalling casualties. It took some time for the US to learn how to coordinate its strike groups. Having multiple carriers in the same zone required even more coordination. And at the same time, the US was trying to perfect the use of radar in all aspects of combat operations. I can imagine the troops griping about the "changes of the day", as stuff evolved so fast.
@@Wayne.JI'm guessing there was likely a shortage of TBD aircraft and crews as they were in the middle of switching over to the Avenger.
Nice video! Couple of comments: 1) the IJN used the "chutai" or 3-plane division for their air groups, which explains why their numbers are so often divisible by 3, and they also tended to group three chutai into a larger formation, which explains why they sometimes jumped from 18 to 27 or vice versa. 2) the US increase in fighters correlates to the switch from the fixed wing F4F-3 to the folding wing F4F-4 which allowed them to pack a lot more fighters onto the carrier without decreasing substantially the bomber or torpedo planes.
A few slight corrections on IJN air group and squadron organization. What follows is pretty simplified (see SHATTERED SWORD or SUNBURST it you are into the details), and I've probably made a mistake or two myself, but hopefully this is helpful.
It should be noted what follows is an attempt to explain how the Japanese organized their fighting units. I am not, for example, documenting administrative ratings, where a buntaichō leads a division of flight personnel called a buntai. With that said...
Japanese hikōkitai (roughly air group) were named after their carrier. AKAGI Hikōkitai was what the USN would call "AKAGI Air Group". Hikōkitai were led by a hikōtaichō (a command rating similar to but not the same as a USN Air Group Commander), usually a LCDR or senior LT. Often times a hikōtaichō was an observer and not a pilot, such as with Fuchida Mitsuo at Pearl Harbor. Also, because hikōtaichō was a command rating, it wasn't unusually for a carrier to have more than one hikōtaichō (AKAGI had three at Pearl Harbor, if memory serves; Fuchida, Murata Shigeharu, and Itaya Shigeru). Finally, in the time period covered by this video, the tail of their plane had three command stripes, usually one above the tail number and two below.
A daitai was analogous to USN squadrons and were nominally made up of 18 or 27 aircraft. Depending upon the unit, they were led by a junior hikōtaichō or a senior buntaichō (a command rating similar to a USN division leader). Additionally, the squadron CO typically also led one of the squadron's chūtai. As with hikōtaichō, a buntaichō may have been an observer rather than a pilot. Buntaichō aircraft sported two command stripes on the tail, one above the tail number and one below.
A chūtai is nine-plane unit roughly equivalent to a USN division, led by a buntaichō. Each chūtai was nominally made up of three, three-plane shōtai, with each led by a shōtaicho (a command rating similar to a section leader). The aircraft of a shōtaicho had one command stripe on the tail, above the tail number.
Nominally, most IJN carrier hikōkitai were comprised of three 18 or 27-plane daitai, themselves divided into two or three chūtai of 9 planes each, each in turn made up of three shōtai. Three chūtai squadrons were typically found on the larger carriers, and at the beginning of the war tended to be carrier bomber or carrier attack squadrons.
This is, of course, the nominal strength. As Drach mentioned, special occasions like Pearl Harbor saw carriers embark larger air groups than their nominal strength, and CarDiv 5 went to Coral Sea under their nominal 72-plane strength for various reasons. The Japanese, like the US, were flexible when they didn't operate in their nominal strength, with Type 0s often operating as two-plane shōtai when the need arose.
Excellent point about the switch to folding-wing fighters. As I recall, the F4F-4 started entering service with the carriers right before Midway, so that helps explain why the really big increases in fighter complement begin there.
@@Wolfeson28And the USN learns that defense works (more or less), but escorts also work, so you can't ignore either one. You just *need* more fighters.
With their wings folded, the TBF Avenger is considerably more compact than the TBD Devastator, despite its great size. That's because of the wing fold location (closer to the fuselage) and the 90 degree twist that folds the wing back along the sides of the fuselage instead of up and meeting over the cockpit. There are other considerations for carrying torpedo bombers, such as storage for torpedoes (a serious limit, and not something that you can increase easily) and provision for 2000 lb bombs in the magazine, which require a bit more space and much stronger mounts and tie-downs (you do *not* want a one-ton cylinder rolling around inside your ship). My point is that it was *possible* to carry more TBFs based on deck space.
@@chrishawkinson8846 See, also, John B. Lundstrom, "The First Team", V1.
@@chrishawkinson8846
Well said. Great overview
The Japanese also carried spares and at Midway, Air Group 6 was carried about as well for use at Midway after it capture.
So at any time, 72 planes could be extended to keep up the nominal/operational strength of planes even during battles and campaigns.
"Torpedo bombers . . . "
(Kamchatka starts sweating): "What?! They're coming from the air now, too?!"
They were firing at seagulls after learning that
“Flying torpedo boats!”
Fortunately, no birds were harmed.
HMS Repulse: "Yes, they are. Let me tell you about the time I dodged 18 of those bastards..."
I should point out Drach that by the time of Pearl Harbour. That both Nakajima and Douglas ( the manufacturers of the Kate and Devastator, respectively) had stopped production of them.
You beat me to it. TBFs were starting to arrive by Coral Sea, and it's possible that TBD crews were being rotated back stateside to learn on them.
Along with just the sheer lack of airframes. I'm not sure about the B5N but there were not many extra devastators out there. Especially for their loss rate
@@Silverhks Devastators ceased production in 1939. There were no replacements other than the TBDs on hand.
@@alancranford3398 Alan
There’s also the not-insignificant, three-fold disadvantages that torpedo bombers faced in general. 1. Big. 2. Slow. 3. Necessity of flying low. IF they could actually make an attack run, they COULD inflict devastating damage. But, by and large, they were just victory flags waiting to be painted under some fighter jock’s canopy.
The difference in F4F complement for Coral Sea vs Midway is partially due to the change from F4F-3 (non-folding wings) vs F4F-4 aircraft.
Exactly, two folded up F4F-4's has roughly the same footprint as a single Non-folded F4F-3.
Furthermore having some of the deck parked aircraft hanging over the side with their tail wheel in a rigging also increased the operational deck space.
It is very interesting how at the start of the war, the attitude in both navies was, "We've got a lot of strike aircraft; maybe we should have a few fighters, too", while towards the end of the war it was (at least for the US) like, "We've filled the ship with fighters, do you think we can fit in a few strike aircraft?".
"And strap bombs to our fighters for good measure"?
In the pre-war and early war eras, the lack of radar meant that it was virtually impossibly to detect an approaching raid. Which meant fighters would not be able to intercept anyway. So the idea was "we carry a few to look for scouts and provide a minimum escort and maximize the number of bombers". Radar changed _everything_ ; now you had a way to either launch interceptors or vector in any fighters allready in the air.
forgot to add: this meant that latter attacker groups needed greater escorts.
I wouldn’t call 1/3 and 1/4 of the entire air complement (for the IJN and USN respectively) of carriers being filled with fighters “not being concerned with fighters”.
Obviously both sides kept adding even more fighters at the expense of strike aircraft, but they still had a decent number of fighters from the start.
I'd point out that by the end of the war, pretty much every fighter carried aboard a US carrier was capable of being a strike aircraft.
This Channel is Run by a Person who you can tell by the in-depth research and time spent. REALLY loves this subject. professionals all over the world refer back to the Spread sheet work. Tables. Etc properly Scholarly piece of work ! If he isn’t already a professor ( phd) in NAVAL history and HISTORY in general then he’s earned it. 10x over. I love this channel THANK U
Very interesting video, thank you. A small, admittedly pedantic point, but the allied reporting names for Japanese aircraft were only introduced from the middle of 1942 and entering widespread use by the end of that year. So to call an Aichi D3A a "Val" is technically anachronistic at Pearl Harbor. Though, I guess if you referred to it as a Navy Type 99 Carrier Bomber Model 11, I would just accuse you of showing off 😁.
Hi 😮
I've always wondered when exactly that practice started. Good to know, thanks!
@@tymncycle Tym
@@tymncycleif you Google Japanese aircraft reporting names, the Wiki entry on the subject comes up and is reasonably accurate from what I recall of reading elsewhere. The American USAAF officer Captain Frank T. McCoy was IIRC given the job by an Australian RAAF Group Captain, whose name seems to have been lost to history, unless anyone knows otherwise 😃.
The shift in USN doctrine toward a more fighter-heavy air group composition actually happened before Midway - that's why you see 27 F4Fs aboard the _Yorktowns_ there. Then the introduction of the folding-wing F4F-4 allowed that change in doctrine to reach its full flower, as it were, by the time of Santa Cruz.
_"Hiryu had 17 at Pearl Harbor; she's now actually picked one up and has 18. And Soryu had 17 as well, she's lost one and down to 16. Who knows? Maybe they swapped one."_
*Hiryu:* Hey Sori, I really appreciate you loaning me that extra Val.
*Soryu:* No problem, Hiri. Your older "sis" will always look out for you. Just make sure to return it to me after we get back from Midway.
Japanese pilot: " oh no I landed on the wrong ship I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get back"
USN: "we got you mate"
Nearest available filling station...
@@thehandoftheking3314 didn't a japaneese plane actually mistakeningly try to land on a US carrier somethime?
@@jeffbybee5207 At Coral Sea, yes, the evening before the main battle. The Japanese plane quickly figured it out when the Americans started shooting at him though.
Montemayor has an excellent video on the battle.
@@klakkat One wishes Montemayor would upload more regularly.
"But Enterprise is still around"
Japanese: We're trying, really we are.
Radar, once it's capabilities and limitations were understood, changed everything. Now the fleets would have sufficient warning to make fighters useful in defense. HF radios were heavy and required the use of Morse code. UHF radios, especially FM, were line of sight and could carry voice transmissions. Now, not only could enemy strikes be detected, fighters could be directed to meet the strikes 20-75 nm out from the center of the force. It helped that by the late 1930s, such radios were lighter and more reliable. The use of a circular formation by the USN, adopted in the early 1930s, aided this defense, allowing the force to change directions for air operations without the carrier having to leave the formation. Based on gaming and exercises and initial reports from Britain, the USN was already planning on expanding its fighter complement on its carriers to 27 aircraft from 18 in 1940. The use of the deck park made this possible as there was simply not enough hanger space. This allowed the carrier to send fighter escorts with its strikes and retain a viable number of fighters for defense. The increase in fighters was constrained by the condition of the US aviation industry from the inter-war period of pacifism, limited government budgets and the Great Depression, despite the FDR Administration's use of economic recovery funds to build warships and aircraft for the USN through 1937. With the demands on US resources by the French, British and then Soviets, it was May 1942 before there were (barely) sufficient F4F-3 fighters to increase the VF squadrons complements. Despite the numbers of F2A-3 fighters available, USN pilots were unhappy with the continuing failure of the landing gear and the evidence of sabotage of aircraft by the Brewster work force and they were assigned to USMC squadrons. Around 1943, the RNAS adopted the deck park (the RN had actually looked at adopting the deck park in the early 1930s but was vetoed by the RAF). Previously, the doctrine of limiting air groups to hanger space had led to carriers as large or larger than USS Ranger and USS Wasp, which carried (and operated) 72 aircraft, operating 33 aircraft. This doctrine had another effect in that British carriers had significant amounts of flight deck area which couldn't be used for parking aircraft because of the "round down". Still, the "Illustrious" class could park as many as 56 aircraft, depending on type. Most of the additional aircraft were fighters, now critical to the defense of the Fleet, thanks to radar and radios. The problem for the RN was that the constraints imposed by a carrier originally designed for 33 aircraft. The fuel and ordnance load was designed for two or three days of operations for 33 aircraft of mid-late 1930s endurance and fuel requirements. Additional fuel could be carried in portable tanks on the flight deck, but ordnance had to be stowed in protected locations in the hull. The USN would suffer this problem to a lesser extent as aircraft grew in size and consumption of fuel and ordnance.
Prior to 1940, USN fighters had been restricted in size, as far as length and wing span, by the size of the elevators on American carriers. It was felt that wing folding mechanisms were too heavy and would pose too much of a performance penalty, the USN having experience with folding wings on its bombers. The major impact here was the growing availability of powerful, 1,000-1,300hp aircraft engines, that could lift and maintain performance against the additional weight of folding wings, pilot armor and self-sealing gas tanks. Even more powerful engines were available, with the XF4U-1 lifting a 1,800hp XR-2800 that made it the fastest US single engine fighter (not just carrier fighter, and the twin engine XP-38 had exceeded 400mph in level flight in 1939) when it flew in 29 May 1940. With the folding wings of the F4F-4, USN carrier air groups could now carry 36 fighters into battle. Again, the deck park allowed this number of aircraft to be operated, even as the size of USN fighters grew with the F4U and F6F of 1942-43. This growth was balanced by the adoption of folding wings on dive-bombers (SB2C) and the method of folding used by the VTs (TBF). The increasing numbers of carriers began to match the numbers of aircraft the NWC showed as early as 1921 would be needed to execute War Plan "Orange". The increased performance of USN aircraft and the maintenance of the carrier wing size and the availability of catapults resulted in an operational and tactical over-match at the Battle of the Philippine Sea as IJN carriers faced the problem of larger aircraft stowed in the same hanger size, reducing the size of their air groups and forcing the adoption of fighter-bombers on smaller carriers.
The final impact on USN VF size and component of the carrier air group was the kamikaze. Initial tactics reflected conventional strike tactics and were more easily countered by the USN carrier task forces. It was the adoption of "swarm" tactics, with aircraft coming from seemingly every direction and at all altitudes that overloaded fighter defense. Fighter defense had to be decentralized to control ships like destroyer radar pickets, which required more fighters to cover all avenues of approach. At one time, the number of VF reached 72 on an "Essex" class carrier. Strike capability was retained to a point as all USN VF were now equipped to carry ordnance, such as 1,000lbs bombs and rockets. But VFBs were not as effective as VSBs in delivering ordnance on target and toward the end of the war with the invasion of Kyushu in prospect, VFBs begin to be replaced by VSBs.
This is just a quick look at the subject. I would highly recommend Norman Friedman's "Fighters Over the Fleet: Naval Air Defense from Biplanes to the Cold War" as both a primary reference and a starting point on this subject, along with Lundstrom's "First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway" and "First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942". Hata, et al "Japanese Naval Air Force Fighter Units and their Aces, 1932-1945", Hobbs "British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories", Norman Friedman's "British Carrier Aviation" and others.
Great video! I do think there is a doctrinal shift in the Japanese composition to more fighters, but it's hidden in the Santa Cruz numbers by the presence of the non-fleet carriers. The Japanese did recognize the importance of fighters in both attack and defense but wanted to rely on the smaller carriers for CAP to free up the big ones for strike duty (including strike escort duty) because, as they found out at Midway, it's really difficult for a single carrier to support CAP and launch a strike. I think that's why you see such a large drop in fleet carrier fighters for this battle (more than attrition would probably account for). The extra fighters were based on the smaller flight decks. The extra space is then used for more strike aircraft.
When I saw the thumbnail, I was immediately hooked. My father served on ENTERPRISE right through this time frame. I'm typing this before watching; I want to take the time to sit down and watch it closely. I doubt that I'd recognize him, but any film of ENTERPRISE's flight ops may have him somewhere in the frame.
"His blood was in her steel; her steel was in his blood"
The 3d illustrations were terrifically helpful in giving a proper feel to the scale of the air wing complements. Top work, Drach!
I wish they were labeled. Though any video by Drac is always welcomed.
@@ctvtmo I agree with you in loving any drach videos wish the planes looked different or were labeled so to keep them straight
@@jeffbybee5207 Yes, I agree with you two. Some Labeling would have been great, the grey 3D planes just look too similar to my untrained eye. I personally would also have liked an alternative (or maybe underlying/interposed) simple Column-Diagram - also as a tool for comparison between the battles/sides. Kinda like the graph in the end.
@@jeffbybee5207 Bybee
There were just over 100 TBD Devastator torpedo bombers in the US Navy in December 1941, and the model was out of production. The TBF Avenger was publicly displayed for the first time on December 7th, 1941. So any losses by the active Torpedo Bomber squadrons could not be replaced until after the Battle of Midway even though they had enough crews. With 5 Fleet carriers having Torpedo Bomber squadrons. There just were not enough TBDs available to have bigger squadrons.
Actually, December 7th was the day the new factory to produce Avengers was dedicated. During the ceremony someone came up and handed the speaker a note stating that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
Is your statements available in undergrads section if the community College spec
This video certainly seems to have generated the best comments collection I've seen for Drachinifel...
Excellent work by both video author and comments authors, IMHO...
Finally, this Nation's ability to quickly turn to a war-manufacturing footing and build and replace losses in both planes and well-trained pilots was a major factor in winning the war on a scale that no longer exists...
Again, IMHO as an 89 year old who remembers his Dad joining the Marine Corps in Feb 1942 and his Mother going to work in a shipyard as a welding intern in May 1942...
I think your silhouette diagrams would be even better if each category was labeled, number, the battle, and maybe for attrition/increase aircraft marked red/green.
Also given US aircraft carrier doctrine is developed in the Pacific and has continued to today, it may be worth examining the average air wing during Korea (and the transition to the jet age), Vietnam, and modern day (whatever that is). Or Midway Class, Forrestal/Kitty Hawk, Enterprise, Nimitz (and Ford).
In particular you identified the air wing at the end of WWII has a significant number of fighters to both escort the strike aircraft, as well as fleet air defense.
This is why the US operates fleet/super carriers now at 100,000 ton displacement, to support an air wing that can both escort and strike, as well as defend itself (and why smaller aircraft carriers or pseudo amphibious assault ships are considered insufficient to meet this operational/survival doctrine).
Whereas other countries have either lost the capability, have to operate in a larger battle group (another air wing), or the carrier is only for fleet air defense and is not a strike platform (Soviet/Russia).
In the Royal Navy the transition from Audacious, Invincible, nothing/helicopter, to Queen Elizabeth (arguable if it can operate independently in the same manner even at 65,000 tons). Or French Clemenceau to Charles de Gaulle.
Lastly the air wing composition changes after WWII also say something about WWII. Besides the change in types of aircraft, the trend in the last several decades has been to homogeneity of the air wing (multi-role), primarily because of maintenance (attrition).
The IJN losing its three man torpedo bombers, or trying to press them into level bombing, or the relative inflexibility at Midway, is less of an issue if there is an aircraft that serve multiple roles.
Notably in the US Navy, the F-18 takes over fleet air defense from the F-14. Arguably this was a capability loss, given the Super Hornet (a larger and basically different aircraft than the legacy Hornet) was not in service. Then again, the F-14 had more maintenance and lacked the AIM-120, so a F-18 was considered good enough for both strike and air defense roles, even if maybe it wasn’t the best at either.
One of the major maintenance problems with the F14 was that it was using older designs for its electronics. Grumman submitted a design to upgrade and update the F14's electronics but the powers that be decided that they didn't need a plane that had the range and speed pf the F14. We are now paying the price for that mistake. It may have been the right choice given the condition of the time but you need to look into the future and try to see a potential adversary is going.
Animarchy finishing his Enterprise series and this video. It has been a good week.
Now if only someone would make the Shokakus vs. Yorktowns special.
Probably will go down as the greatest capital ship rivalry (or even warship rivalry in general) in all of history.
Americans just realised that fighters are actually "Armor" of the carrier, at least when air threat is concern.
*sees video about evolution of the carrier air wing*
Me - The sky's the limit with this one!
Drach, you should do a collaboration with Greg from Greg's planes and automobiles for some aircraft stuff
I know that its about carrier airwings but it puts Enterprise into context so much more. She just keeps coming in battles where everyone around her is sinking during the worst times of the war. Then goes on to keep going for nearly 3 years. Perhaps Enterprise v Japan really is appropriate.
American Industry: How many aircraft do you want?
American Admirals: Yes
The Japanese actually deck-parked some aircraft for the Pearl harbor strike, thus the higher numbers. The Midway numbers have extra fighters that were embarked for transfer to Midway (and were in flying condition) plus Soryu swapped in 2 Judy prototypes for 2 Vals.
Prange's book, "Miracle at Midway" excellent source material on this.
The PBJ-1 is the Navy B-25 but was still a land based bomber.
The Peanut Butter Jelly Time plane
1942 in the Pacific, aka the Shokakus vs. Yorktowns contest while every other Japanese and American carrier in the theatre is dying and/or being shoddy conversions or (for Saratoga) being drydock queens.
Given she was the most important ship of the Pacific War, it's a shame Enterprise didn't become a Museum Ship/Memorial.
@@Jon.A.Scholt
Agreed. Far more historically important and worthy than the six fast battleships that were preserved (speaking of which, the one American fast battleship that actually did anything significant, that being Washington, also sadly wasn’t preserved).
@@bkjeong4302 Maybe South Dakota contributed to saving Enterprise at Santa Cruz? Apparently they did an amazing job of staying close and in sync with CV6 through a lot of manuevering, and put up a lot of AAA.
@@gordonculp8381 SoDak’s AA performance at Santa Cruz was FAR worse than what her crew claimed, especially when cross-referenced with Japanese sources showing their aircraft losses during the engagement.
The ENTIRE AMERICAN AA FIRE COMBINED at Santa Cruz downed just over a dozen planes (most Japanese losses came from the Wildcats instead), far less than the number SoDak alone claimed to have shot down.
Rather than leave this to Military Aviation History, perhaps consult again with Jonathan Parshall, the premiere English-speaking authority on Imperial Japanese Navy Air service? To whit, he (or co-author Anthony Tully) wrote the following in Shattered Sword:
"The Pearl Harbor operation had resulted in aircraft being stripped from other units to beef up Kidō Butai. After the operation had concluded, some of those units had been returned, but many of the smaller carriers were still little better than paper tigers. These flattops were flying fewer aircraft than they could carry and in several cases were being forced to use planes that weren’t fit for frontline service. Japan had not started the war at a running start in terms of aircraft production, either. Of the major manufacturers devoted to carrier aircraft production-Mitsubishi, Nakajima, and Aichi-only Mitsubishi’s fighter line was running well. Rumor in the fleet had it that there were production problems back at the other two, because carrier attack aircraft in particular were in short supply.38
In fact, Nakajima had stopped production of the Type 97 altogether in anticipation of fielding the new Tenzan torpedo bomber and had to be asked to restart production to meet war needs. Aichi, the builder of the D3A Type 99 dive bomber, was in the same position. It was focusing all of its efforts on ironing out the production issues associated with the new D4Y and was neglecting production of the older platform. Consequently, by the middle of 1942, production of carrier bombers and attack aircraft had temporarily ground to a near halt and was completely insufficient to replace ongoing combat and operational losses. Japan would produce just fifty-six carrier attack aircraft during all of 1942-a pathetically low figure. Thus, even though Japan had won a string of stunning victories and its combat losses had been extraordinarily light for the territory it had gained, Japan’s aircraft industry was not keeping up with even these modest demands. The result was a dramatic shortage of aircraft making their way to the fleet.39"
Shattered Sword, pg 89.
Japanese industry produced a grand total of 56 carrier attack planes during the entirety of 1942, and there is a distinct possibility that the IJNAS took delivery of less than the full total. Industrial policy dictated Japanese aircraft carrier doctrine in 1941-42, and arguably was the central factor influencing all IJN decisions throughout the war.
As for the U.S. military, a note on carrier aircraft construction--while American manufactures delivered almost 6,000 SBD Dauntlesses, almost 8,000 F4F Wildcats, and almost 10,000 TBF/TBM Avengers, the entire production run of the TBD Devastator amounted to 130 aircraft. Every time a U.S. fleet carrier embarked a full-strength Devastator-equipped VT squadron, this represented 13.8% of the total ever produced. This plus the fact that the USMC also operated torpedo bombers throughout the war and the inherent difficulty to switchover an entire operation from one type of aircraft to another during wartime, certainly contributed to a fall-off in torpedo bomber availability throughout 1942.
Nevertheless, there was a major doctrinal shift in American aircraft carrier operations with a very discernible date--7 August 1942, the day the USMC went ashore on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, capturing Henderson Field. Three USN flattops covered the invasion, embarking 86 on Enterprise, 86 on Saratoga, and 68 on Wasp. The increased numbers on the two ships Drach considers full fleet carriers (I do not exclude Wasp because she embarked 79 aircraft, the same as Enterprise, when the Big E's TBFs found and an airstrike of 39 planes out of the the 72 aboard Saratoga sank Ryujo on 24 August 1942) were significantly greater in number than carriers embarking modern monoplanes ever operated up until that point aboard Lexington-class and Yorktown-class carriers, the discrepancy entirely explained with Enterprise embarking 36 and Saratoga 34 F4Fs. But these aircraft were not tasked for the permanent air contingent at Henderson Field, as those 31 F4Fs and SBDs did not arrive until they launched from the escort carrier USS Long Island on 20 August 1942. Excepting the Battle of the Eastern Solomons four days later, U.S. fleet carriers would typically enter combat embarking 85-90 aircraft (and sometimes quite a few more that that) until the advent of jet carrier aircraft.
Saratoga seemed to pioneer the 36 fighter, 36 dive bomber and 18 torpedo bomber standard USN air group, which naval aviators flying from Essex-class carriers called the "Sunday Punch." The 15-year old carrier embarked 90 aircraft (albeit with a 37/37/16 breakdown) when she sailed from Pearl for the Southwest Pacific on 7 July 1942. Rendezvousing with Wasp and later Enterprise, the force formed Task Force 61 before Fletcher's fleet practiced air strikes and covering a 30 July 1942 USMC amphibious assault exercise on Koro Island before doing it for real a week later. When Task Force 15's USS Independence launched the F6F that scored its first ever kill over Marcus Island on 1 September 1943, the combat debut of the three carriers of TF 15 (Essex, Independence and Yorktown) marked the countdown to the invasion of Tarawa, where the four covering fleet carriers each embarked a Sunday Punch; dooming the Japanese Empire.
Thanks much. I never realized how these big carrier battles all took place in less than a year.
There is a reason both sides were down to one barely-operational fleet carrier, one fleet carrier in drydock and a bunch of dead fleet carriers by the end of 1942.
Britton
I've used both autumn and fall here in the US. Interesting presentation.
Excellent overview of US/Philippines relations and our sometimes bad history together. Glad you included it.
very nice video. while Chris can add to this so could Greg of Greg's planes and autos. he has lots of the NACA and performance for the planes. his video series on the Frank is very good.
Very ambitious and generally well done piece; thank you.
Couple of things;
The IJN Val’s only had folding wing tips, while the B5N’s entire wings folded up.
At Santa Cruz; while I understand why you want to stick to your “large fleet carrier only” methodology, you have to take into account Junyo’s airgroup because Junyo carrying 18 DBs explains why the 2 large carriers had fewer of these type. Well that and Hiyo being out of action.
Cheers
Great video. And well done on the information display. It made the relative comparisons between the two navies pretty clear. Thanks.
Very good vid. Loved the way you did it, good quality.
Hope you had a great trip Drach !!! ♥
Thanks drach for this. Great job 👍
Thanks for making this video Drach!!! I'm planning on making a set of midway dioramas and I was researching the exact airwings of both sides. This video is a great help to my projects and enjoyable at the same time. Keep it up and thank you again!!!
Great video, thanks for doing this!
The decline in the size of the Devastator squadrons at Coral Sea and Midway is not surprising, given that the US was already starting to produce and deploy its replacement, the Grumman Avenger. I would suspect by this time there were probably not too many spare Devastators around.
Greatly appreciated.many thanks……just what I have been into these last fee months.
The graphics were great. Always excellent subject matter and presentation on your content. I like colors and shapes.
That's it for this commentary. Thanks for reading.
You Sir do an exceptional job at articulating specific details in history. Thank you 👍
Loved this as a whole.
Excellent video and the graphics were very useful in visualising the changes.
To add that the fighters were also starting to be used as light bombers and for flak suppression so their roles increased with their numbers.
If you haven’t already, and if you have the time and interest, I highly recommend John Lundstrom’s books on WWII naval aviation. They are excellent. Tradeoffs required in fighter characteristics interest me as a design engineer…folding wings on the F4F-4 enabled the great leaps in number carried, but also greatly reduced their fuel capacity, and thus range, with resulting effects on overall air wing performance…
You also get an idea of the impact that the wartime expansion of the Navy had on performance…those early battles had very highly trained US pilots in the Wildcats, but Santa Cruz had the surviving pilots mixed in with new pilots, lots more professionals distributed to new squadrons in training, etc. Long term, this of course had greatly improved results in air wing performance, but short term, as you noted, it took a bit for that to materialize, and indeed, at Santa Cruz it might even have taken a hit.
Very good books.
Hiya. I've really enjoyed watching many of your vids. I'd love to see you tackle the black hole in RN WW2 history which was Coastal Forces. You've done stuff on the USN boats but your take on our light forces would be very welcome. Vospers, sloops, Dog Boats, trawlers .... there's masses of stuff and I'd love to hear someone tell their story. Cheers V
Another good reason to keep the VS squadrons in this analysis is that VS squadrons continued as part of the modern CVW in the Navy all the way to 2009, when the last carrier based S-3s were retired.
45 scripted minutes of drach, perfect Wednesday
Another very insightful video Drach.
I do get the impression with the Japanese that their carrier CAGs are far more constrained by the limitations of their training methods (I.E. that pilots get the bulk of their operational training in situ with their squadrons) which heavily limits their ability to train a surplus of pilots to allow them to modify their air wings on the go. This is just my impressions from the data, other stuff I've read and my own experiences with similar situations. I work in the rail industry in the UK, and as I'm sure you've seen on the news some train operators are suffering from a severe lack of drivers, and at least some of the problems with that come down to inadequate abilitiy to do training at a local level due to the staff shortages, and that means the places most in need of extra staff are the ones least able to train extra staff. I would not be surprised to find there's a similar problem with Japanese carrier pilots, where it's a case of the more of a type of pilot they need, the less able to train that type in adequate numbers they are.
Whereas if the US wanted to train a surplus of carrier trained pilots of any one type, they had large centralised schools to train pilots to a good standard, and a significant industrial capacity to produce a surplus of planes ready for them once they were trained. Once you have that surplus, you can start moving your pilots around as you see best, not merely to desperately try to plug gaps and meet demands.
Also probably worth noting that Shokaku and Zuikaku were tasked with ferrying 9 Zeroes to Rabaul prior to operation MO, but failed on both attempts due to poor weather. 1 Zero had to ditch so they carried 8 extra into battle. At Midway the carriers were carrying an extra 21 Zeroes that were to be stationed at Midway after the Japanese occupied it. As in neither case were any of these extra fighters actually members of the carriers' air groups, if we delete them you do see more of an upward trend in the proportion of fighters throughout 1942. That being said, these were all fully assembled planes with pilots on the ships and therefore absolutely could have been used in combat.
Excellent coverage Drach, and I'd love to see both the evolution of the RN air groups in Europe, and the USN/IJN going forward in the Pacific.
Great information! Thanks
Perfect timing! I am just on the last chapter of Shattered Sword so going to kick back & watch this 🙂
Thank you that came out great.
Great information!
Nicely presented.
I had never appreciated how far naval air war was about attritting air groups as much (maybe more) than flight decks. Very interesting
Japan is a good example of this: their pilot losses during the Guadalcanal campaign was far more of a problem than the four (older and less capable) carriers lost at Midway.
Awesome Drach!
Really enjoyed this Drach! Would like to see it extended through the war.
One issue with looking at '42 aircraft numbers is a lack of production. At the beginning of the Pacific war, the Devastator was out of production for awhile despite all the new carriers coming online. Available spares were limited and spread around on both coasts. The Avenger production was starting, but it took time to ramp up numbers before squadrons could be deployed. New pilots would be trained on the Avenger and not the obsolete Devastator, so replacement pilots would be limited.. So losses to the torpedo squadrons were harder to replace than dive bombers. Some of the large losses at Midway were explained away by lack of escorts and obsolete aircraft. It was only in GC that I think they really started to question the future of torpedo bombers.
Wildcats were in limited supply due to the RN getting priority in '41, and demand was higher than production for this early period. So the US still had Buffalos in service and until they were replaced you couldn't increase the fighter numbers by much in the first 6 months.
So, I think for the first 6-8 months, some of the number shifts were due to whatever was available, with the gradual trend towards more fighters being the only clear trend. It's only late'42/early '43 that you see what war doctrine that the US was developing for fighting a near peer. From post Marianas Campaign, the changed were a reflection of how the war balance had changed. It was now more of a doctrine shift towards fleet air defense and bombing ground targets for invasions, as the IJN fleet was no longer a threat that could destroy a US taskforce.
Ironic, then, when confronted with the Musashi and Yamato, that they called up the torpedo bombers again as the real ship killers.
I appreciate you stopping at Santa Cruz! All this math makes my head hurt. Thx for the great videos!
The echoey voice over doesn't put me to sleep like the other recordings do. I enjoy falling asleep to these videos.
Could there be another video looking at carrier vs land-based aircraft battles (or battles heavily including them); that could have more material form the European theatre?
Great topic!
Excellent.
Thank you.
Brilliant. thanks Drach. :)
USN pre and early war doctrine saw the fighter, besides offensive escorts, defensive against divebomber attack and their escorts. The Dauntless was intended to defend against torpedo bombers. Based on maneuvers pre war, the Dauntless had the performance against the Devastator to justify this belief. The Battle of the Coral Sea disproved this theory.
This video is a pacific-theater historians dream! Love the detail, thanks Drach!
I am so excited for this one
Hmmm… The trend(s) that were beginning when my Dad was flying his combat tour with VF-19 aboard USS Lexington (CV-16) in 1944 began earlier than I thought. After his Air Group was rotated home and he was assigned a new squadron, (VBF-150), carrier air group complements were modified in late '44 and early '45 so that at least some air groups were 75% fighters (either F6F or F4U-4), with relatively few VT and even fewer VB. Part of that might be because the SB2C was not seen as much of an improvement over the SBD as a dive bomber, while the Avenger had proved itself adequate as a glide bomber.
Speaking of Air Group 19. They would have returned home on Enterprise. When she was recalled to Pearl Harbour to be converted to night operations
@@ph89787 You are correct about Enterprise as AG 19's ride back to the 'states. They came home about a month prematurely after Lexington was hit by a kamikaze on November 6, 1944 (42 killed, 132 wounded).
@@rayschoch5882 and took on Enterprise’s Air Group 20
There was also not much need for dive bombers, as the Japanese had very few surface ships left in commission by that time.
@@douglambert990 Not named Yamato. But TF 58 corrected that. Although with the night air groups aboard Enterprise and Saratoga, they did away with the dive bombers and kept the Hellcats and Avengers
I love the way the RN figured out the Corsair before the country that built it did first, so there is certainly a difference between wings on different countries carriers. Great content as always 👍
Yes. The FAA did some very valuable development work on the Corsairs. One thing about the USN though - was that they had a perfectly good fighter in the F6F so they didn't really need the F4U's whereas the FAA, after being stuck by the RAF with ... not such good Carrier Aircraft - was much more interested in developing the Corsair.
Even after the FAA had figured out the Corsairs glide path solution it was also the modification to it's landing gear the USN had undertaken, that took more time to implement.
Here the Corsairs were used as land based aircraft for a long time - partly because they didn't want to have double the logistics by supporting two different fighters aboard the carriers. It was with the advent of the Kamikazes - that the USN very much wanted the additional speed of the F4U's in order to intercept them as far from their ships as they could.
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Largely because the British Navy was struggling with the Seafire, which was difficult to land on a carrier, while the US Navy had Wildcats and Hellcats, which were designed specifically to land on carriers. British pilots already had the necessary skill.
@@tomhath8413 there was an account of a Corsair pilot enroute somewhere, came across a large number of parked Corsairs. On inquiring, he found out that these were being shipped back to the US for overhaul, on having reached 500 hours of engine operation. He asked if he could swap, and was told sure, (I supposed the shipment only specified the number of Corsairs and not the serial numbers). He decided not to because the Corsairs were USN blue, while his was British green. British policy was to overhaul at 2500 hours.
This is still a myth. The USN had F4Us operational on CVs in fall of 1943 (aboard CV-12 and CV-17), months before the first Corsair was delivered to the FAA; but PACFLEET preferred to concentrate on a single type of fighter aboard the Fleet carriers for logistical reasons, and the F6F won out because Grumman was building them faster. So the carrier-based F4U squadrons were given the choice of sticking with the F4U but operating from land, or staying aboard the carrier but transitioning to Hellcats. But the type was operational, aboard US carriers, _in theater_ in the South Pacific, before the RN took delivery.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw Very well put. The F6F was already very much getting the job done perfectly for us, and the RN had a hard time getting the Spitfire into the Seafire because obviously they never designed it to be on a flight deck. 👍cheers
One perhaps small factor in the increase in numbers of US Navy aircraft at Midway could have been that Yorktown’s surviving airgroup from Coral Sea was reinforced by Saratoga’s air group. The air frames were just sitting around, waiting for their airstrip to have yet another torpedo hole patched up, so they were sent along on the Yorktowns to Midway.
I knew torpedo bombers were bigger than their fighter contemporaries but when I didn't realize how much bigger! As an example a F4F Wildcat has a roughly 38ft wingspan and an empty weight of 5000lbs. A TBM Avenger has a wingspan of >54ft and an empty weight of 10,000lbs.
Renders were great and helpful!
The US emphasis on fighters in carrier air wings continued through the war, and by 1945 the standard air wing for Essex class carriers was 72 fighters (36 F6Fs in a VF fighter squadron and 36 F6Fs or F4Us in a VBF fighter bomber squadron), 15 dive bombers, and 15 torpedo bombers. This was enabled by the fact that the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair were both very good in the strike fighter role, so the USN wasn't giving up much offensive punch with so many fighters.
Mark
By this time, you also needed fighters to intercept land based bombers and especially kamikazes. Also, the IJN had effectively ceased to exist, so planes that specialized in attacking ships (dive and torpedo bombers) were just taking up space. Fighters, especially Corsairs, could drop bombs on islands just as well as Helldivers and Avengers could.
@@PaulMcElligott Hello 👋
Nice job
By 1942, the Devastator was no longer in production, so replacement was limited to reserves on hand.
What's really interesting is that by war's end, the F4U corsair was arguably the best dive bomber in the Navy, while doubling as a fighter. Also, had the war gone on the A-1 Skyraider would have joined the fight, leaving basically two aircraft to fill all roles, aside from a TBM or two per carrier.
F4U takes the role of fighter and dive bomber, while the A-1 takes the role of dive bomber and torpedo bomber. You end up with more fighters, as well as more bombers.
I for one liked the visurals, things get even more interesting in the later stages when the US starts changing from Dauntlesses to Helldivers. The TBM's during this time also do more bombing than torpedo dropping in the island hopping campaigns
EXCELLENT - THANKS ! ! !
🙂😎👍
I so wish Enterprise and Saratoga had been preserved.
the three-D was good, easy to read and comprehend with the script
@14:43 when you said the US aircraft were smaller than the Japanese I perked up as I had never heard that before. I think you meant the graphic size used is smaller...not the aircraft.
I listened to it again, got the same impression. Oh well.
Drach, really excellent presentation. I agree with what you included and excluded (what to use as typ0e quantity, ships to include and those not to). You show good common sense in these decisions. I enjoyed this video.
everything looked good. I really appreciate the graphs. As a fellow engineer, I must be honest, I was going to be upset if I didn't see one.
Good video, excellent approach to the subject. Can you imagine how pilot experience changed overt this same time period?
Oh fantastic!
One small critique as far as presentation: I think it would have really helped to actually put some numbers on the screen while you were going through the air groups for each battle. The silhouettes were nice, and yes most of us can count by 3s fairly quickly, but it's still a distraction from trying to focus on what you're saying. As a teacher myself, I know it tends to lose people's focus if I'm verbally throwing tons of numbers at people without visually showing any of them. The whole point of the video was the numbers of different aircraft types and looking at the trends, but we never got to actually see any of that until the last part.
Just putting a number under each aircraft type, along with maybe an indicator of how much it's increased or decreased since the previous battle, would have made a big difference.
Also, different subject and just me obsessing a bit, but the Japanese light carrier's name is Ryujo ("RYU-jo"). I can't help chuckling a bit when you always pronounce it "RU-jyo"
ruclips.net/video/Ql6BP0hTv2c/видео.html (man that video was a while back 😁)
This was interesting. Thanks for doing the homework on this. The 3D renders were great and helped visualize the percentages.
US Navy doctrine was to use the SBD as anti-torpedo CAP during 1942. The Dauntless was too slow for this, but because as late as the summer of 1941 a large number of F3F biplane fighters were still in service as fighters, the SBD was at least as good as the F3F.
The Devastator ceased production in 1939 and the Avenger began production in December 1941. No wonder the number of torpedo bombers on American carriers dropped. Something like 100 TBFs arrived in Hawaii too late for the Battle of Midway to replace the obsolete Devastator entirely--six of those made it to Midway, but the six TBFs only made one sortie each--five were lost and one returned too damaged to fly again. Along with the B-26 losses, the Devastators actually were more successful than the newer planes but there were only 39 Devastators left in the US Navy after Midway and the TBD was out of production for about 3 years. The number of TBD couldn't be increased because there just were not any new TBDs to be had--whatever was on hand at the end of 1939 was the maximum possible number of TBDs that could have been assigned carrier duties. Since operational losses were a thing even in peacetime, the TBD supply was going to run out eventually. TBDs remained on the Atlantic aircraft carriers until sufficient Avengers rolled out the factory doors, then switched entirely to training units until 1944, about two years after Midway. Both the TBD and TBF/TBM had Norden bombsights for high altitude level bombing missions--the US Navy developed the Norden bombsight and used them on PBY flying boats and other aircraft.
The TBF was modified to carry a radar set and given additional forward-firing guns above its single .30 caliber cowl gun as the US Navy's first radar-equipped carrier-based night fighter, with ordinary Hellcats accompanying the Avengers. That's beyond the scope of this video, but until the air intercept radar was improved and installed on Corsairs and Hellcats, the Avenger was used for night interception of aircraft. I don't know if the night fighters were used against surface ships and submarines at night--it's something to consider in a future carrier air group video, especially for the CVE because anti-submarine work was a staple mission for CVEs on convoy escort duty and for the more aggressive hunter-killer groups. Convoy guards not only had to worry about submarines, but the fear of German surface raiders still haunted Atlantic convoys and the few Luftwaffe aircraft "diverted from important work" to interdict Allied shipping were best dealt with by carrier-borne fighter aviation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_TBD_Devastator
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_TBF_Avenger
This is enlightening! I read long ago that after the massacre of the VT squadrons at Midway, the USN de-emphasized torpedoes for bombs. Unless the Avengers were used as bombers, your graphics indicate that this might not have actually been the case.
The Avengers were quite capable of bombing, even having dive brakes, but were generally used as torpedo bombers in anti-shipping.
omg this looks fascinating - watching later
I always know what to watch during Lunch Break on Wednesdays; thanks Drach for "Rum Ration Wednesday!"
I understand the reason but a comparison of the RN carriers and IJN carriers in the Indian Ocean would have been interesting.
Good morning Wednesday video!
Very nice can't wait your follow up video when the US navy start there carrier offensive in late 43 till the end of the war but an idea would be if you could do one on USS Robin please thank you an keep up the great work you are doing
The Japanese fighter strength at Midway was augmented by the carriers bringing the intended garrison fighters for the Midway base. Their pilots were on TAD (temporary assigned duty.)
J J
Very good video. I liked the visual comparisons and the graphs. There are some interesting side twists to the Japanese numbers that I have only seen mentioned in Tully and Parshall's Shattered Sword, though with a LOT of digging I actually found other sources to back them up.
Incredibly, just before Pearl Harbor, the Naval General Staff ordered Aichi (the makers of the Val Dive Bomber) and Nakajima (the makers of the Kate torpedo bomber) to cease production and prepare to convert to newer designs. Aichi moved very slowly on this, because they were aware that the Judy Dive Bomber was not ready for production, so when the order was reversed, they had only lost about a month's production. Not so with Nakajima. They went at preparation to convert production with abandon, and as a result they produced no aircraft for several of months while the Kate line was restored. In fact, production went from over 100 in 1941 to only 56 in 1942. By 14 July, when the new air fleet reorganization was published, production of Kates had only just restarted and to compensate for the lack of air frames available, more Vals were added to the air groups. As the Kates arrived, the air groups were reorganized to compensate for their availability.
One other thing I noticed was that you included a number of aircraft 6th Kokutai, being carried aboard the four Japanese carriers in their fighter totals. Akagi had 6, Kaga had 9, and Soryu and Hiryu each had 3. These aircraft were semi-disassembled and were to be assembled and flown off once Midway had been captured. However, IIRC, some of the pilots did manage to fly CAP missions on the day of the 4th in fighters from the organic fighter units aboard.
Ryujo and Junyo, involved in the ongoing Aleutians operation at the time, did carry the 6th Kokutai aircraft in full operating condition, mainly because they had scratch air groups that were not up to full strength. The 6th Kokutai fighters onboard Junyo did double duty because Junyo's air group was so understrength.
Chuck
IT is worth noting that the drop in dive bombers in us carrier fleets are partially due to fighters taking up the role. Many navy fighters had dive brakes and were trained to conduct dive bombing.
technically the B-25 wasnt part of the Navy's Carrier wing, they were definitely in service both with the Marines but also the navy proper as emergency stop gap patrol planes.