The Nuking of Japan

[The Grand Nudger]

Plus there was the whole matter of quality of materials available. You saw something similar with the infantry weapons the Japs had available to them. Recovered Type-99 Arisaka rifles and Nambu Type-100 submachine guns prior to and during the earlier stages of the war were of very fine craftsmanship and of high quality. Towards the last two years, however, recovered models were clearly made of inferior materials and of markedly poorer manufacture. Reasons for this are obvious, of course. Their tanks and aircraft weren't fairing any better [in some cases, much worse in fact], and with poorer materials and construction comes a cost in efficiency and performance. Not to mention the loss of so many of their pilots meant their experienced veterans were mostly dead, lost in conflicts where they were more pivotal and needed and ultimately lost, whereas the higher survivability of American aircraft meant we retained and gained better, more experienced pilots throughout the war.

I love WWII aviation.

Rgr that, I mean, if you really compare nuts and bolts the BF109 had nothing going for it except that god-damned potato gun - and the battle hardened pilots behind the ball (even the roll rate which became the hallmark of the machine was actually an engineering mistake that pilots capitalized upon). The FW190 (we're talking European theatre now but who gives a shit, any excuse to talk WW2 aviation is a good one) was a fucking monster, but the 109 had cost them the pilots that would have made the 190 (or the ME262) unstop-able. The same was true of the Zeke. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20. A good airframe can go soup sandwich in a hurry if the logistics behind it go down the shitter, which is what happened with "the Japs" and to some extent, the Germans as well (though in many cases their problem was over-engineering, exorbitant use of resources for a single unit incapable of receiving field repair). The superior protection offered by American airframes (the Spitfire and Typhoons were POS in this regard, comparatively, sorry) allowed our guys to acclimate themselves to a machine that could - in competent hands- outperform its competitors. The materials were consistently "meh"......but they were consistent..and that matters.