Japanese Dive-Bomber Attacks: The Weakest Link?

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Timecodes
00:00 - Dive-Bombers
00:51 - Aichi D3A
03:12 - Formations
03:51 - Tactics
06:22 - Evaluation (Sources)
07:42 - Evaluation (Preliminary)
09:32 - Task Force Admiral

Audio
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound

[MetalRodent]

A carrier was sunk by the 250kg bomb: HMS Hermes. However given she received ~40 hits and near misses, and was an old poorly armoured ship it's hardly the most useful case study lol

[grizwoldphantasia]

I *vaguely* remember some discussion of Japanese dive bombing tactics which had the two wingmen not releasing until they saw how the leader's bomb hit, then adjusting their aim to correct for his errors, assuming they were due to wind and ship maneuvering. It doesn't quite add up. That's a lot of delay between the drops. But I do have that *vague* memory.

[UJLite]

Thanks Chris. Watching young Bismarck grow into one of most respected military aviation histriographers has been quite the ride. Regards from Canberra. 🇦🇺

[xraydelta]

I have read that the Val dive bomber was responsible for destroying most of the shipping during the Japanese "runaway" period, Dec.1941 through July, 1942. I have that same quote from Rand McNally color illustrated guide of world war II airplanes volume 2 published 1977.

[cristiangarces]

As a fan of Japanese aviation, you've been spoiling me a lot lately haha ​​

Excellent video as always!

[warwatcher]

8:10 That makes sense. The bombs the Val were using were on a small side. Unless you get a lot of hits, like Hermes during the Indian Ocean raid, you're really unlikely to sink someting like an aircraft carrier. Yorktown and Hornet would have definitely survived if it wasn't for the torpedo attacks.

[JohnSmith-jjyd]

Similar to the Kamikaze video, using sinking as the metric is, while certainly definitive and objectively measurable, not a true reflection of effectiveness. Achieving a mission kill, or damaging targets to degrade a ship's capability to be finished off by someone else are essential to assessing effectiveness of any given system or platform. Outside of causing major secondary explosions (e.g Kaga & Akagi), single bombs are not going to sink any major fleet units, even 1000lb bombs. The truest way is to assess them as a component of a system, and the effectiveness of that system. Separating them from the B5Ns is like arguing a boxer's left hand isn't that dangerous because it's his right hand that landed all the important blows.
(That said, I am loving the current focus on Japanese/Pacific subjects, and whoever chose the Elmer Fudd and Major Kong graphics needs a promotion! 😂 As always, keep up the great work!)

Less then 16 Seconds for the first "dive" pun. Those are good numbers!
Nice to see some Task force Admiral making it to youtube. I have been looking forward to well illustrated Pacific war content featuring that game for a while.

[littlebeardedman]

I've been hyped for TFA for years, awesome to see it coming to fruition

[Pwidow]

I recommend the book "Fist From The Sky" buy Peter C. Smith. It covers one of the most famous Japanese Dive Bomber pilots Takashige Egusa. Strangely there seems to be no photos of his Val that was decorated with flames.

[sillyone]

That very famous picture of an HE bomb exploding on the deck of USS Enterprise always puzzled me on why it didn't penetrate the deck. 2:35 explained it to me for the first time!

[drakenred]

I suspect even the Japanese saw their dive bombing as being more of a harassment attack to improve the odds of the torpedo bombers than a battle wining effort as in the dive bombers were ecpected to strip AA mounts and optics than punch through and sink ships, given that the avtual armor piercing nomb used by the imperial navy was used by toroedo bombers, while the us mabyd equivalent was used by divebombers as well as horizontal bombers

[Riccardo_Silva]

Since when i was very young, that is to say, when "The Battle of Midway" was screened here in Italy (1976?), i was puzzled at seeing the japanese using a paltry 250 kg bomb. What the heck, it's a disparity, compared to US 454 kg bombs, like a 10 inch gun vs a 12 inch one. Moreover, as Drachinifel pointed out, such a bomb would have proven ineffective against the armoured decks of the british carriers.

[victorkrawchuk]

It's hard to believe that the Japanese didn't keep statistics on dive bombing and torpedoing activities. During the war, the government even kept detailed statistics on political graffiti that was found in public places and the subjects that were mentioned. From these statistics they deduced that the Communist Party was the strongest internal opposition force and the most likely group to stage a coup had the opportunity arisen. I'm more inclined to believe that bombing/torpedoing statistics were actually kept but were lost or destroyed at the end of the war.

[jasonmccaslin]

You have been collaborating with Jeremy a lot very obviously. Very good. He's an excellent source of information in this field of study. STUKA BOOK HUH? Great! I look forward to having it on my shelf. 💯%

[michaelguerin]

Cheers. I already have your Stuka book😁!

[kevindolin]

I'd like to address a complaint that has run throughout this series on Japanese air warfare: the lack of references in English. My smart phone has an app that can translate via its camera. I've found it not only useful but fairly reliable in translating things from aircraft model kit instructions and histories to how to use a product from the supermarket. (I've lived in Japan for almost 40 years, so I know what I'm talking about.) I've also used it to good effect on the 日本航空機総集 (The Encyclopedia of Japanese Aircraft: 1900 - 1945 ), edited by Nozawa Tadashi, 1972~83, that I have (sadly incomplete). There are a number of Japanese Optical Character Recognition software sites on the internet, some with built in translators. There's always the caveat that sometimes the English can be a bit wonky because the languages are so different, but if your English is up to snuff, it's not that hard to iron out the bumps. I would think that historians of all things Japanese would be jumping all over this. It's translation of straightforward information, not poetry, so it's not that difficult. I think a conversation about that would be in order.

[saxon]

I love the nuts and bolts (pardon the American idiom) of this video. Thank you and i will seek out the rest.

[michaelporzio]

Thanks Chris for these videos on Japanese aviation during WWII. You have filled a big gap in my knowledge of WWII aviation. I'm impressed how good the Japanese were until attrition and bad decisions wore them down.

[rthompsonmdog]

I believe Dorsetshire and Cornwall might show large combatants than destroyers were vulnerable to the 250kg bomb.