@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy Jamie,

I've spent 6-years sussing out Japanese Okinawa electronic warfare razzle dazzle in context.

There were a total of 19 fighter director teams on the USN DD's screening Okinawa. By day 46 of the operation -- which was 82 days long -- the USN had lost 12 of 19 teams.
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy That is a 63% attrition rate, with four teams gone from stress, and most of the remaining eight teams being dead or severely wounded.

This is intense infantry combat rates of loss.

The USN flew in four replacement fighter director teams and grabbed a team off of one of
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy ...one of the AGC command ships (Mt McKinley) by day 46.

Japanese Flag Ranks were engaged in "fantasy reality" power games at Okinawa. They simply could not be responsible for the Japanese success in killing fighter director teams.

We have Adm Ugaki's diary after all.
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy What you saw in the attrition of the USN FD teams was IJN pre-war doctrine and good, adaptive, EW/ELINT tactics by the IJN pathfinders and "masters of ceremony" that were created by that pre-war doctrine.
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy The "adaptive" part was integrating survivable versus American fighters radar snooper tactics into their fleet spotting and tracking plus substituting Kamikaze for pre-war low level torpedo attacks.
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy This was pure samurai in the "47 Ronin" style -- aka smart, persistent and, above all, deadly.

It was IJN naval ratings, warrant and junior officers doing their best with what they had against the USN naval ratings, warrant and junior officers who triumphed through their...
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy ...shear ability to take it. While the senior leaders on both sides just got in the way this EW move/countermove game.

In the particular context of Okinawa, the RN's slightly faster FD plus the Seafire's climb rate advantage were enough to beat the IJNAS snooper/pathfinder team
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy So, when I say the Seafire was more than adequate.

This was the context I meant.

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More from @TrentTelenko

23 May
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy Jamie,

Here is a bit more context for you. It turns out that the British Pacific fleet was well aware of the IJN's radar pathfinder planes we have discussed.

The called them "Gestapo planes" because they thought they were "minders" there to report on the personal...
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy ...performance of each Kamikaze for possible secret police retribution against Kamikaze pilot families.

This in the kindle edition of David Hobb's "The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force."

See:
amazon.com/dp/B00K5B2VZ6/…
@ArmouredCarrier @Bruce437t @thehistoryguy This particular viewpoint was so horridly wrong WRT Japanese culture that I don't know where to begin.

Suffice it to say that the wartime UK Military was not well attuned to Japanese thinking.

They had a lot of American company.
Read 4 tweets
21 May
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History That is far too simple an explanation because it lacks the multiple intelligence intuitions -stupid- involved.
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History How the USA did long range air navigation in WW2 was fundamentally different from the rest of the globe (See link). The Japanese Navy used UK Royal Navy/Continental European style interwar radio-navigation.

THE ARMY AIRWAYS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE
ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/V…
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History From what little bits I've put together, the IJNAS radio navigation in the SCS somewhat like the German one in continental Europe described here:

The British Meacon System
weaponsandwarfare.com/2016/02/06/the…
Read 15 tweets
19 May
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History Eugen,

Just because you have a piece of kit doesn't mean you have the TTP to use it properly.

The Japanese Operations 100, 101 & 102 strategic bombing campaign in the summers of 1939-40-41 against Chongqing/Chungking were where the IJNAS got fighter escort signals techniques.
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History Sussing out what the IJNAS was doing signals wise requires an operational template to understand equipment limitations at the time.

This is a good one:

Colgate calling: offensive strategic fighter control, ETO, 1943-45.
cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec…
@EugenPinak @CBI_PTO_History This wikipedia page actually has some of the best operational template data on those raids to compare with the Colgate template.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o…
Read 8 tweets
14 May
@IntelCrab @IntelCrab, you may have just made the single most important observation of the 2021 Gaza War.

Underground fiber optic cables are extremely & uniquely vulnerable to the seismic shock from high order detonations. They stop transmitting light when subjected to them.
1/
@IntelCrab This fact was used in the 1991 Gulf War Scud Hunt. Saddam used fiber optic cables to communicate to Scud hide sites.

Many air strikes US SF teams called down in the western Iraqi desert were to "sanitize" an area of fiber optic cables after flushing a Scud launcher.
2/
@IntelCrab The collapsing Hamas commercial internet bandwidth, decreasing Hamas ability to coordinate large rocket launches, and the IDF's sustained bombardment of North Gaza combined with that GW1 fact tells me the IDF is destroying underground fiber optic cables.
3/
Read 4 tweets
12 May
@boys_ian @Steveho25139795 @clark_aviation Radar proximity fuzes were a UK concept & engineering development that it took American industrial capacity to make real. (photo)

Time fuzes came in 2 flavors.

Flavor 1 was mechanical like an old Swiss watch. Flavor 2 was a burning pyrotechnic fuze.

Flavor 1 kept better time
@boys_ian @Steveho25139795 @clark_aviation Flavor 2 was far lighter and MUCH cheaper.

This meant barrages and director controlled pointer fire using mechanical fuzes were much more consistent in altitude.

But the pyrotechnic fuzes could reach higher flying USAAF bombers in 1944 that mechanical could not.
@boys_ian @Steveho25139795 @clark_aviation This article (link) is a good one for explaining German AA gun defenses as a system.

The key pacing item for German flak defenses were the directors, mechanical-analog fire control computers. (photos)

nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/ge…
Read 10 tweets
11 May
@lookner

This James Dunnigan strategypage.com article lists the export customers for the Israeli Iron Dome system. The listed nations are as follows:

Azerbaijan
India
Romania
USA

Air Defense: It Just Works
strategypage.com/htmw/htada/art…
@lookner
Text from the posted article:

"Using Iron Dome effectively has always been a matter of numbers. In the 2014 50-day war with Hamas, Iron Dome intercepted 735 Hamas rockets, which were 90 percent of those headed for populated or military base areas...
...That was up from the eight-day 2012 war where there were 421 intercepts and of those 84 percent were headed for populated or military base areas.

@lookner
Read 4 tweets

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