Don’t feel bad, all public unions are varying levels of useless. That’s just how they function
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Stupid Japanese. I'm reading a history of the IJN.
The plant that made the Zero used oxen to haul the planes to the nearest airfield 20+ miles away. When the oxen got old, they used percherons. Building an airfield at the plant never occurred to them.
Their original naval aviators were basically kids on the PHD track in high school. Over 90% washed out because training was so harsh. They would literally beat them.
The aviators would be put on the front lines forever. Never rotated back to train others or allowed to get rest. And no plan to replace lost pilots. The aviators were not systematically interviewed on how to make things better.
The Navy had both officers and enlisted flying planes. The enlisted would come back after flying then made to stand watch, do KP, shine the officers shoes, etc. The officers were arrogant pricks who could not fly yet made all the decisions.
Every time senior IJN leadership would plan an operation but not validate their assumptions. Senior leaders were not visiting every base constantly.
The IJN had a habit of not focusing on the goal of the operation. They did it over and over and over again. At Pearl Harbor, they did not follow ups with a third or fourth strike or bombard Pearl and the US installations. As a result the dry docks, harbor facilities, runways, construction equipment, fuel depot, and stores were all intact. The IJN always got cold feet. The Indian Ocean raids, Guadalcanal, Battle of Philippines - and many others - the IJN did not go for the jugular.
A lot of other Americans when war-gamed Pearl, would have had the heavy battleships empty their magazines into Pearl with the planes flying CAP. Pearl was the main base of the US in the Pacific - I would have landed a Division and taken it. Razed it.
Admiral Kimmel's predecessor, ADM James Richardson was considered the number one expert on Japanese warfare.
Yet he was still fired for talking too much about a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
I cannot find anything he might have said after the raid that might have sounded like "I told you so."
And yet they kicked ass.
Maybe would have continued kicking ass if we hadn't nuked them.
My stars did not align. Had a nice elk herd sleeping in the equipment line up. Made a deal with the hoe operator to lift, help me skin and put him in my pickup. I got there early and set up on the two track the herd used to mosey away each day when the Cat's lit up. Nothing. Gave up, waved at the hoe hand and headed off to make soft rock out of hard rock. A few hundred yards down the ROW I met Manuel, labor foreman, we stop and he asked "How'd you do"? "Nothing, didn't see them". He looked at me and said " You should been here, 9 elks, 2 bulls, one was 6 point, the other was Biiigg!!
As most of y'all know, here, we only count points on one side. Tag soup that year.
Thank you,
MrSmith
If it was easy they would call it shopping!
Next year! Nothing for me this year but pheasants!
Sirhr
One of the most underappreciated weapons we used in the Pacific Theatre was the submarine. I cannot find the quotes now but the Japanese military leadership cited American submarine warfare as the number one reason that they lost the war.
The source for the graph above is:
One of the most underappreciated weapons we used in the Pacific Theatre was the submarine. I cannot find the quotes now but the Japanese military leadership cited American submarine warfare as the number one reason that they lost the war.
The source for the graph above is:
That's even with the failure issues with the Mk14 torpedoes...
Had this coup the night before the surrender succeeded, the war would have dragged on...
If you have a subscription to History Vault, you should watch "The Last Mission".
https://watch.historyvault.com/specials/the-last-mission
About the movie:
Four days after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, American airmen are flying the last and longest bombing mission of the war. In Tokyo, a fanatical group of Japanese officers stage a daring coup d'etat in an effort to prolong the war. As the rebels take over Japan's Imperial Palace, and with it - Emperor Hirohito; radio operator Jim Smith and the men of the 315th Bomb Wing are facing their own dangers in the sky above Japan. In a development not anticipated by generals or world leaders - the Last Mission and the coup d'etat converge, helping to bring an end to the most destructive war the world has ever known.
The Japanese never instituted a convey system to protect their supply lines against the submarine threat.One of the most underappreciated weapons we used in the Pacific Theatre was the submarine. I cannot find the quotes now but the Japanese military leadership cited American submarine warfare as the number one reason that they lost the war.
The source for the graph above is:
Admiral King (USN) also failed to institute an effective convey system against the U-Boat threat leading to the "Second Happy Time" during operation drumbeat.
Congratulations, I have 6 days left in the IBEW and then I am screwing off fulltime. I'll get absolutely nothing from the union except a $1750 dollar annual savings in union dues. I am finished next Tuesday with shift work and I come in the next week to drop off keys and cancel access badges.
Next summer I'll be shooting plains game in South Africa for a couple of weeks.
I’d forgotten about my hooking partner sending out a flying black “Light one” til the above referenced post. Couple hunters were below the yarder with a fresh killed black bear, studying how they’d get him out. They kept watching fairly large red/white fir/larch and cedars getting ramrodded uphill like they were toothpicks. One of em hollered at my partner, who was a short ways downhill and on the other side of the skyline. They talked a minute, while I set my chokers, stopped the carriage above me and sent out my turn.
Carriage comes back, short radio reply-“pullin wide”- toot. A minute or so later, toot. “Got a light one”-toot, toot…
When that bear got to the carriage, I swear I heard the operator laughing from 1000’ away. Short toot-toot, toot-He jammed it in high gear and as the line bounced up and down, it looked like the bear was flying, flapping his wings up and down to the top of the hill. There was a decent amount of beer at the yarder when we finished the line.
Most of the guys Cat-side used their equipment to load elk in the truck. Dangle-heads, skidded and the feller-buncher
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King also wanted to court martial CPT Dan Gallery after his task force captured the U-505 until some members of his staff told him about the treasure trove of equipment and information Gallery got with the submarine.
Or it occurred to them that airfields tend to attract aircraft.
For better or worse, quite a lot of the parts that went into the planes were built in smaller shops and then transported to a final assembly plant. Since these shops were so dispersed, it was more difficult for the bombing crews to destroy all of them.
Before LeMay took over, bombing was done for high altitude and used mostly high explosive bombs. This was ineffective and Lemay switched to low altitude incendiary bombing. Some my not know that more civilians were killed in the fire bombing raids than when Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped.
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They got their ass handed to them at the Coral Sea and at Midway. Wake Island defended itself from the first attack and had there been more support, they would have won the second attack.
During the battles of the Savo Sea, US Destroyers closed to feet with the IJN capital ships and fought with not only deck guns, machine guns, AA but even small arms. The IJN ships commanders ran away rather than crush the US ships.
Even the IJN admirals were impressed with the bravery of US fliers.
Many IJN fliers deliberately avoided battle by flying away.
In hand to hand fighting on Guadalcanal the marines dominated. There are lots of reports of Japanese small units deliberately avoiding movement to contact. The Japanese infantryman was beaten and abused most every day of his life.
One of the most underappreciated weapons we used in the Pacific Theatre was the submarine. I cannot find the quotes now but the Japanese military leadership cited American submarine warfare as the number one reason that they lost the war.
The source for the graph above is:
Had the USN torpedo dud issue been fixed sooner, the war would have ended sooner. It took two years to get the torpedo makers to fix it.
The USN put aggressive and innovative skippers in charge and fired most of the pre-war skippers who could not lead their boats to sink ships.
The Army Air Force developed and perfected skip bombing and gun ship concept using B25s. These were ruthlessly used to slaughter front line transports and destroyers laden with troops.
Strafing and Skip Bombing: how American A-20 and B-25 bombers beat Japanese destroyers during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea - The Aviation Geek Club
Strafing and Skip Bombing: how American A-20 and B-25 bombers beat Japanese destroyers during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea
theaviationgeekclub.com
The IJN never put resources into Ant-submarine warfare. And they looked down on destroyer and merchantmen. Part of the "I am an officer and a prick" culture of the IJN. And part of the "death for the Emperor" death cult.
The US and Brits by contrast took the losses seriously and focused on an integrated approach to defeating the submarines using DF, air, and convoy systems with aggressive destroyer screens integrated with a ir. They also added jeep carriers.
The USN did not have a Fox Connor to weed out officers who would not fight and to groom the fighters and protect them.
FDR had a lot of back channels in the Navy thanks to his time there during WWI. The selection of Nimitz to lead in the Pacific changed a lot of things.
During the runup to Pearl, most of the US military was not thinking it would fight soon. Pacifism dominated politically and even FDR was publicly talking down war.
An invasion on Hawaii was a perennial topic of G2s posted there. Same for the folks in the Navy. Its easy to say "such and such" was prophetic...
The end result of shit scattered all over is a much lower production rate, poor coordination, much higher costs, and lack of innovation.
it also makes the supply chain very vulnerable to disruption due to many issues including labor shortages.
I’m pretty sure the German navy submarine force lost a lot more people than the US did….
I worked for a company around 1990 that had a union. When I came on they tried relentlessly to get me to join but I wouldn’t. I told the main union guy once that if he approached me again I would catch him outside and beat his ass.
I had to go to meet with some higher ups because I wouldn’t donate a piece of my check every week to the United Way. They wanted 100% participation and just a handful said no.
I got a sweet job inside the company because I deserved it and the damn union did everything it could to reverse it. They claimed it should have gone to a union guy
I would respectfully disagree with historians who believe that Midway and Coral Sea were turning points.
IMHO, Doolittle's Tokyo raid was the turning point. The raid scared the Japanese to death. After the raid, Yamamoto's plans for Midway were accelerated and for good reason. Midway could be used as a staging base for future raids.
After learning that post strike bases were in China, the Japanese increased their war effort in that theater and diverted a couple of aircraft carriers from operations in the Aleutian Islands.
Even though the raid had little immediate military effect the psychological effect it had on the Japanese military leadership and their decision making served to be a force-multiplier.
Probably.
But was only counting good guys.
Though I guess by that standard, the Red army gets the dubious honor. But they were only temporary good guys.
So I’ll clarify with “any American MOS…” so to speak! And it may be as a percentage. Because we lost a ton of aircrews over Europe, too.
Sirhr
They also had a problem with circle runners. This caused the demise of the USS Tang in 1944. The skipper, Richard O'Kane died in 1994.
It was said that on his deathbed, he was calling out to fellow crew members that were lost on the Tang and was trying to swim out to see to rescue them.
He's posturing on the ground. Sign of a serious brain injury. One kid's going to hospital for a long time and will have permenant long term issues , the other is getting charged with a serious assault.
Two lives fucked up over words.
Wife’s great granddad is amongst the soul’s still on board, may they all rest in piece.
Not to mention that in century bombs were fairly cheap to produce… compared to what it cost to make weapons grade plutonium, and uranium.
The only time nukes have become a potential wonder weapon is when we changed the B61 bomb into a smart bomb (the Mod 12).
So now we can put 150kT nuke through a doorway from 20 miles away…. Using a fighter to deliver it at Mach 1.5…
