Debunking the Kamikaze Myth
- Thread starter Evie
- Start date
True Kamikazes had very little effect in general on the outcome of the war, but they did alow the Japs to use untrained civilians quickly teach them to fly and send them against us in operation ten-go when Japan had lost all of their trained pilots. This is also very significant to history because it marks the first time ever that humans would give their lives away for their country in massive numbers.
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Oda, I agree wholeheartedly with Wild Wolverine on this one, and couldn't help but scratch my head at your reasoning here.
First, if excluding damage to ships made your analysis too difficult to pull off, then you shouldn't have started in the first place. Kamikazes were not by their nature ship-killing weapons, like, say, a torpedo. The damage to ships was far out of proportion to ships sunk. Tactically, they did make several adjustments after Okinawa; the doctrine in the event of OLYMPIC or CORONET being launched would have seen concentrations of aircraft focus almost exclusively on transports and even beaches, seeking to slaughter vulnerable troops and avoid the well-defended BBs, CVs and picket AA destroyers which so many previous attackers had fixated upon and failed to destroy.
Secondly, Kamikaze attacks had an incredibly corrosive impact on morale, which is particularly important at the end of the war, given US impatience with Japanese intransigence. Several USN sources describe the effect on morale as crisis-like, comparable (as WW noted above, I believe) to the impact of buzz-bombs on the supposedly near-victorious British population.
Third, your conclusions based on the presented statistics are flawed, insofar as measuring Kamikaze effectiveness against the sinkings throughout the does not measure their relative effect properly. If they truly did account for 7% of ships lost to enemy action in the - what, twelve months? Fourteen? Eight? - that they were used in numbers, that is a spectacular result, given the high volume of shipping the USN lost in the period Dec. 1941-June 1943 to more conventional means.
That said, I agree that having them as a UU is both in poor taste and unrepresentative of Japan as a whole.
First, if excluding damage to ships made your analysis too difficult to pull off, then you shouldn't have started in the first place. Kamikazes were not by their nature ship-killing weapons, like, say, a torpedo. The damage to ships was far out of proportion to ships sunk. Tactically, they did make several adjustments after Okinawa; the doctrine in the event of OLYMPIC or CORONET being launched would have seen concentrations of aircraft focus almost exclusively on transports and even beaches, seeking to slaughter vulnerable troops and avoid the well-defended BBs, CVs and picket AA destroyers which so many previous attackers had fixated upon and failed to destroy.
Secondly, Kamikaze attacks had an incredibly corrosive impact on morale, which is particularly important at the end of the war, given US impatience with Japanese intransigence. Several USN sources describe the effect on morale as crisis-like, comparable (as WW noted above, I believe) to the impact of buzz-bombs on the supposedly near-victorious British population.
Third, your conclusions based on the presented statistics are flawed, insofar as measuring Kamikaze effectiveness against the sinkings throughout the does not measure their relative effect properly. If they truly did account for 7% of ships lost to enemy action in the - what, twelve months? Fourteen? Eight? - that they were used in numbers, that is a spectacular result, given the high volume of shipping the USN lost in the period Dec. 1941-June 1943 to more conventional means.
That said, I agree that having them as a UU is both in poor taste and unrepresentative of Japan as a whole.
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Here's a "partial" list of destroyers sunk/dmgd at Okinawa; note that the damaged are as numerous
And here's a more detailed list of attacks: note how often CVs are hit - Mitscher even has to change flagships
...and on that link, note the bit at the bottom:
23 carriers - despite their thick AA! 5 BB's!
That would be enough to scare the bejesus out of me.
And here's a more detailed list of attacks: note how often CVs are hit - Mitscher even has to change flagships
...and on that link, note the bit at the bottom:
23 carriers - despite their thick AA! 5 BB's!
That would be enough to scare the bejesus out of me.
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
A "nice" page with specific hits to CVs, CVL/Fleet and CVEs in the RN/USN
Again, note that several of these carriers were put out of action for weeks or months at a time, with fearsome casualties. Not a real morale booster...
Again, note that several of these carriers were put out of action for weeks or months at a time, with fearsome casualties. Not a real morale booster...
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
Yes, American carriers took rather heavy damage. Two notes should be made here :
1-In MANY Cases, ships that were still able to perform operations were pulled back to repair damage - something the allies simply could afford at that point. One carrier more or less doesn't matter much when you have 20+ carriers operational.
2-American carrier were rather poorly armored on the flight deck side. This means it was relatively easy to heap damage on the flight deck.
Now, on to American carriers damage (according to your link). Let's be honest, pulling a carrier out of operation for less than two weeks is nothing. Damaging a carrier so that it's able to continue operation but is pulled back simply because the other side can afford to isn't brilliant either.
Thus, here is the list of "hits" that removed CVLs or CVs from action in a significant fashion (and not just because the US could chose to pull the carrier back despite it being still operational) :
USS Saratoga (once)
USS Enterprise (once)
USS Intrepid (twice)
USS Franklin (once)
USS Ticonderoga (once)
USS Randolph (once)
USS Bunker Hill (once)
USS Belleau Wood (once) (CVL)
So, their hunting bag for "big ship put out of action" tops at :
8CV
1CVL
IN addition, they scored 1 BB, the USS New Mexico (which had to be repaired, not Stateside nor even at Pearl, but merely at Leyte).
Where the US Navy had available in early 45 :
25CV (British ones not withstanding)
9CVL
22BBs
Even had all the seriously damaged carriers been damaged at once (and they weren't, of course), America would still have been able to maintain an easy 10-15 fleet carriers in operation in the pacific, plus an extra 4-5 from the Royal Navy, plus a good 6-7 CVLs, making for anywhere from 20 to nearly 40 carriers still operational - and again, that's crediting the kamikaze with taking out all the carriers they took out at once. Which, of course, didn't happen.
Finally, note that the most devastating japanesse attack on a carrier even in teh closing months of the war was *not* a kamikaze attack : it was a bombing run by a single bomber that dropped two bomb, leving the USS Franklin dead in the water.
Not to say that people should not have been worried about kamikaze attack. But simply put, kamikaze attack weren't all that impressively efficient considering the cost involved (2550-odd attack, 475 connected on US ships, sinking a total of 30-odd ships, and no big ones (no, CVEs do not count as "big" ships with their 10 000 tons or so displacement - that's smaller than quite a lot of heavy cruisers), and inflicting SERIOUS damage to about 10 large ships (ships being damaged repeatedly counted as often as they were actually damaged).
Considering a total of 2550 planes, that's not too good on a purely strategic level.
To any extent, I have extensively altered my original post to reflect the information you presented me about damage, in addition to other information I researched personally (namely on the battleships, carriers deck damage et al).
1-In MANY Cases, ships that were still able to perform operations were pulled back to repair damage - something the allies simply could afford at that point. One carrier more or less doesn't matter much when you have 20+ carriers operational.
2-American carrier were rather poorly armored on the flight deck side. This means it was relatively easy to heap damage on the flight deck.
Now, on to American carriers damage (according to your link). Let's be honest, pulling a carrier out of operation for less than two weeks is nothing. Damaging a carrier so that it's able to continue operation but is pulled back simply because the other side can afford to isn't brilliant either.
Thus, here is the list of "hits" that removed CVLs or CVs from action in a significant fashion (and not just because the US could chose to pull the carrier back despite it being still operational) :
USS Saratoga (once)
USS Enterprise (once)
USS Intrepid (twice)
USS Franklin (once)
USS Ticonderoga (once)
USS Randolph (once)
USS Bunker Hill (once)
USS Belleau Wood (once) (CVL)
So, their hunting bag for "big ship put out of action" tops at :
8CV
1CVL
IN addition, they scored 1 BB, the USS New Mexico (which had to be repaired, not Stateside nor even at Pearl, but merely at Leyte).
Where the US Navy had available in early 45 :
25CV (British ones not withstanding)
9CVL
22BBs
Even had all the seriously damaged carriers been damaged at once (and they weren't, of course), America would still have been able to maintain an easy 10-15 fleet carriers in operation in the pacific, plus an extra 4-5 from the Royal Navy, plus a good 6-7 CVLs, making for anywhere from 20 to nearly 40 carriers still operational - and again, that's crediting the kamikaze with taking out all the carriers they took out at once. Which, of course, didn't happen.
Finally, note that the most devastating japanesse attack on a carrier even in teh closing months of the war was *not* a kamikaze attack : it was a bombing run by a single bomber that dropped two bomb, leving the USS Franklin dead in the water.
Not to say that people should not have been worried about kamikaze attack. But simply put, kamikaze attack weren't all that impressively efficient considering the cost involved (2550-odd attack, 475 connected on US ships, sinking a total of 30-odd ships, and no big ones (no, CVEs do not count as "big" ships with their 10 000 tons or so displacement - that's smaller than quite a lot of heavy cruisers), and inflicting SERIOUS damage to about 10 large ships (ships being damaged repeatedly counted as often as they were actually damaged).
Considering a total of 2550 planes, that's not too good on a purely strategic level.
To any extent, I have extensively altered my original post to reflect the information you presented me about damage, in addition to other information I researched personally (namely on the battleships, carriers deck damage et al).
wildWolverine
L'Etat, c'est moi
For the record, almost every single carrier used in WW2 had wooden decks, or wooden decks covered by an inch of steel (not really enough to "strengthen" it against bomb attacks).
I'm not sure that I wouldn't call a near 20% success rate not "all that impressively efficient" when you factor in that most of these "pilots" had very little training, and the cost per kamikaze was pretty low.
I'm not sure that I wouldn't call a near 20% success rate not "all that impressively efficient" when you factor in that most of these "pilots" had very little training, and the cost per kamikaze was pretty low.
wildWolverine
L'Etat, c'est moi
That could be indeed possible. I mostly study the pacific theatre when I'm in a naval mood... The only Brit. carrier I know anything about is the Ark Royal, and I thought it was wood as well, but I could easily be wrong. Weren't most British carriers converted cruisers?
wildWolverine
L'Etat, c'est moi
Thanks for the info -- good to know. However, due to the distinct lack of British carriers in the Pacific, I think my point pertaining to the Kamikaze remains valid...
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
Has been done, see some of the links above. They survived the Kamikaze attacks with considerably less damage.
R.II
R.II
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
One factor to note is that while they took considerably less damage that would render them unoperational immediately, but the way they were built caused them to be far more worn off quickly.
Comparatively, UK carriers were a lot harder to take out of operations, while US ones were far easier to take out. But on the other hand, UK carriers due to their structure eventually became unrepairable far swifter than US ones from the shock damage and warping of the metal structure. Thus, many of the UK carriers were found to not be worth the cost of putting back up to full capacity in the late 40s whereas the Essex went on serving for a while. On the other hand, for the duration of the war, the British, with fewer carriers, could ill afford to lose more than one or two at a time, so being able to keep them operational for a longer time was a definite plus. And it did work out at Okinawa.
Thus the paradox is, American carriers took such dreadful damage from kamikaze because they could afford to. With 25 fleet carriers out and about, the US had the means to afford pulling them off for two-three months of repair. And, with the way they were built, once repaired there would be little to no remaining structural damage to the rest of the ship. Even the USS Franklin, once rebuilt (from the double-bomb hit, not the kamikaze one) was kept in reserve for possible conversion or reactivation for a while - it was back in top shape.
Comparatively, UK carriers were a lot harder to take out of operations, while US ones were far easier to take out. But on the other hand, UK carriers due to their structure eventually became unrepairable far swifter than US ones from the shock damage and warping of the metal structure. Thus, many of the UK carriers were found to not be worth the cost of putting back up to full capacity in the late 40s whereas the Essex went on serving for a while. On the other hand, for the duration of the war, the British, with fewer carriers, could ill afford to lose more than one or two at a time, so being able to keep them operational for a longer time was a definite plus. And it did work out at Okinawa.
Thus the paradox is, American carriers took such dreadful damage from kamikaze because they could afford to. With 25 fleet carriers out and about, the US had the means to afford pulling them off for two-three months of repair. And, with the way they were built, once repaired there would be little to no remaining structural damage to the rest of the ship. Even the USS Franklin, once rebuilt (from the double-bomb hit, not the kamikaze one) was kept in reserve for possible conversion or reactivation for a while - it was back in top shape.
timerover51
Deity
A few comments on this. The Lexington was hit during the Battle of the Coral Sea by both bombs and torpedoes, it is true, but the main factor in the loss was the explosion and resultant fire caused by leaking gasoline vapor for the damage suffered. The improvements in US Navy damage control and firefighting (by the middle of the war, the US was far and away the leader in damage control and firefighting) that resulted from that loss, along with that of the Wasp, probably would have resulted in the Lexington surviving if hit in 1944 or 1945. Yorktown was sunk by a Japanese submarine's torpedoes following the Battle of Midway, and if the sub had not happened to be in the right spot at the right time, the Yorktown would have been successfully salvaged and returned to combat. The Hornet was abandoned while afloat by the US Navy following unsuccessful attempts to take her in tow, and then sink her because of the approach of Japanese naval surface forces. Again, without the nearness of the Japanese surface fleet, the Hornet would have had a good chance of surviving.
As for the influence of the Kamikaze, the US Navy was in a crash program mode to come up with some answers to the attack. I did a study for another game company of WW2 air attack accuracy of the US and the Japanese. The study was based on a considerable amount of research at the US National Archives, using US Navy Operations Evaluation reports, and combat narratives. At the start of the war, the Japanese and US dive bombing accuracy was comparable, at about 40% hit rate. That declined through 1942 as the prewar pilots were lost. By 1944, the US hit rate for Helldivers was 8%, Dauntless was 25%, and the Japanese hit rate was also 8%. However, prior to attack, the Japanese were experiencing losses on the order of 90%, between fighter interception and anti-aircraft fire. The average hit expectancy of a Japanese conventional air strike was therefore less than 1 hit per 100 attacking aircraft with bombs. Torpedo plane accuracy did not significantly decline, the problem there was surviving long enough to drop. By 1945, that was pretty much impossible. The kamikaze hit rate was 30%, and with saturation attacks, more planes were getting through. If the Japanese had continued conventional attacks, without resorting to kamikaze tactics, damage to the US Navy during the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns would have been minimal.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Interesting old thread you've disinterred here!
I've always thought that the main effect the kamikazes had was on morale - not so much because of the fear of the attacks as such (bad enough), but because of what it suggested about the Japanese will to fight.
Think about it: would you have wanted to land on an island peopled by fanatics willing to throw their lives away to kill you?
This on top of having experienced such fanatical resistance retaking the Pacific islands.
I've always thought that the main effect the kamikazes had was on morale - not so much because of the fear of the attacks as such (bad enough), but because of what it suggested about the Japanese will to fight.
Think about it: would you have wanted to land on an island peopled by fanatics willing to throw their lives away to kill you?
This on top of having experienced such fanatical resistance retaking the Pacific islands.
timerover51
Deity
The major effect was on morale, and the thought of what might happen if we had actually invaded Japan. I have never met a WW2 Pacific War vet who had any qualms whatsoever about dropping the nukes on Japan. Based on some of the research that I have done in the National Archives, neither do I.
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
Wow, old thread here.
Just to point out a few things:
1-This thread was largely written in answer to people who suggested that, in the Civ 3 Conquests "War in the Pacific" scenario, Kamikaze should be exclusive to Japan and Nukes exclusive to America.
2-Nice statistics, timerover. It seems to be in line with what I later concluded on kamikaze (I don't know if I ever discussed it in the thread) - that they weren'T an entirely stupid idea, but that they were indeed a desperation tactic from a nation that had nothing more to hope for from conventional attacks. (As opposed to a specific "reasonable" tactics Japan came up with)
3-Definitely, the moral effect is what I should have spent more time on in the original article.
Just to point out a few things:
1-This thread was largely written in answer to people who suggested that, in the Civ 3 Conquests "War in the Pacific" scenario, Kamikaze should be exclusive to Japan and Nukes exclusive to America.
2-Nice statistics, timerover. It seems to be in line with what I later concluded on kamikaze (I don't know if I ever discussed it in the thread) - that they weren'T an entirely stupid idea, but that they were indeed a desperation tactic from a nation that had nothing more to hope for from conventional attacks. (As opposed to a specific "reasonable" tactics Japan came up with)
3-Definitely, the moral effect is what I should have spent more time on in the original article.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
I would suppose the main damage the kamikaze had on the US Navy was psychological.
I think your post just doesn't put across your final thoughts very well. It focuses solely on the deficiencies of kamikazes and gives very little mention to the advantages and why it was more practical.
The kamikazes failed to affect US naval strength, as what losses they caused could easily be covered by other assets.
An effective attack run by bombers would be more effective than a kamikaze strike.
An effective bombing run was more difficult to pull off and required a much more skilled pilot or a lot of luck.
Kamikazes were just plain cheap compared to other ways of getting to a ship.
The Japanese simply had no other option by the time they were implemented. Not time or resources to train pilots, no submarines or surface fleets capable of doing the job.
I can't say the actual morale effect, I know it is portrayed in the media as pretty bad, but I refrain from judging that without hard numbers or personal accounts.
Also, imagine the damage that could have been caused by the change in tactics mentioned previously, large numbers hitting loaded transports heading to beaches and infantry crowded on their beachhead. That could have been devastating.
I would also challenge your point that putting F4Us on CAP didn't affect ground support. My knowledge says that they were regularly used as ground support and quite effective in that role, maybe not at hitting hard points, but general support, which at the least would divert dive bombers to strike the harder targets. It is possible that this change occurred later and I am mainly thinking of the Korean War, though.
I don't know anything about F6F's in ground attack roles.
This isn't really important but just a small thing.
The Germans had at least two programs intending to crash their planes into the enemy. One was hopeful of pilot survival, the other (I believe) was intended as suicidal. neither was deemed effective enough to account for their cost and continue.
Along with this were suicide torpedoes and such used.
All that said no program was used on near the scale, or effect, of the kamikaze attacks or were as publicized in Western media at the time. These make the kamikaze program a completely different thing, and unique at the time.
The kamikazes failed to affect US naval strength, as what losses they caused could easily be covered by other assets.
An effective attack run by bombers would be more effective than a kamikaze strike.
An effective bombing run was more difficult to pull off and required a much more skilled pilot or a lot of luck.
Kamikazes were just plain cheap compared to other ways of getting to a ship.
The Japanese simply had no other option by the time they were implemented. Not time or resources to train pilots, no submarines or surface fleets capable of doing the job.
I can't say the actual morale effect, I know it is portrayed in the media as pretty bad, but I refrain from judging that without hard numbers or personal accounts.
Also, imagine the damage that could have been caused by the change in tactics mentioned previously, large numbers hitting loaded transports heading to beaches and infantry crowded on their beachhead. That could have been devastating.
I would also challenge your point that putting F4Us on CAP didn't affect ground support. My knowledge says that they were regularly used as ground support and quite effective in that role, maybe not at hitting hard points, but general support, which at the least would divert dive bombers to strike the harder targets. It is possible that this change occurred later and I am mainly thinking of the Korean War, though.
I don't know anything about F6F's in ground attack roles.
This isn't really important but just a small thing.
It was a tactic used by all sides, if they really wanted to take out a target they would throw themselves at it. Not to say it was common. Crash your plane into the enemy plane, tank, ship, building, whatever, especially if you have taken damage and don't expect to return home even if you try. Of course, the more desperate you are the more likely you are to do this.
The Germans had at least two programs intending to crash their planes into the enemy. One was hopeful of pilot survival, the other (I believe) was intended as suicidal. neither was deemed effective enough to account for their cost and continue.
Along with this were suicide torpedoes and such used.
All that said no program was used on near the scale, or effect, of the kamikaze attacks or were as publicized in Western media at the time. These make the kamikaze program a completely different thing, and unique at the time.
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