Kamakazis

[scottsmm]

no Kamikazis started officially after the Great marianas turkey shoot but you have to think that officially they started from the second a person decided to (if he was going down) take out as much of the enemy as possible meaning that suicide attacks were truthfully used by both sides and could be dated back to as soon as WWI. And when I mentioned after Gudalcanal I was refering to a "what if" scenario. I agree that suicide attacks are a sign of desperation and will usually only take place by the despreate side in the war but not specificaly that side alone. As for the Chinese pilot theory same thing "what if" scenario as there was no documentation of this but I said mainly because of china's huge population and thought that it would solve any manpower shortage you have. Your also probably right if it did happen they probably wouldn't have gone after any enemy ship but most likely to a neutral or allied country. Only problem with that is the "red meatball" on there plane would make it hard for them to say they were chinese instead of japanese.

[scottsmm]

I meant to say until before after in my first sentence

[scottsmm]

Battleboy your absolutely correct the only diffrence between Banzi and Kamakazi is that one is a land attack and the other is an air attack (usually aimed at US ships).

[jon_j_rambo]

Lots of good opinions, anybody research the statistics on the Kamakazi attacks in regards to planes, pilots, and damaged dished out?

[thetwo]

I make it just more than 3,900 Japanese pilots and aircraft lost for 49 ships sunk. (Some numbers go well over 7,000 which I find a stretch.) Others damaged (three or four times number sunk if I remember right). A ship's survivability was related to its size as one might expect. A list of the sunk ships can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze. This list compares well with my memories of when I researched US naval ship losses in the Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet, 1945 edition, many years ago. You will see there are no major combatants on the list. Of course, many more ships were damaged and among them were major fleet units of the Allied navies.

Sinkings as a percentage of sorties yields 1.2% for 100% losses for the attackers. The resources consumed to combat the threat were vast as would the repair chain on Allied ships over a prolonged campaign.

One item of note is the number of Japanese pilots killed is only about 20-25% smaller than the number of Allied sailors killed. The Allied wounded approximately equaled the number killed.

The campaign was cut short on the orders of the Emperor after the surrender and the kamikaze units rebelled. We can safely assume that the attacks would have continued as long as aircraft were available. The success of the campaign would likely have suffered over time from increased interdiction from carrier aircraft and land-based aircraft once the invasion gained a foothold. Night combat operations were increasingly common among American naval aviation and some land-based long-range Army Air Corps units. These would have been well suited to attacking Kamikaze staging airfields before they could launch.

The Wiki page uses some numbers referred to by footnote [19] that don't seem to add up very well and the footnote did not come up as valid for me. I am inclined to think the reference, from a US Air Force page might have a somewhat interesting history behind it as it looks to be intended to support a certain point of view. (One of the things I don't like about Wiki pages is how unreliable and erratic the data and conclusions can be. In this case, Gordon's numbers are quite good and well supported, then the Air Force quote that doesn't balance well with the Japanese numbers before it and Gordon's data after.)

[arado234]

Also by that time one little Island was taking on the whole world.Can anyone say utter futility.Goes to show how crazy people can get.

[Blashy]

Also by that time one little Island was taking on the whole world.Can anyone say utter futility.Goes to show how crazy people can get.

We say that but look at today, Hezbollah kicked out Israel of Lebanon and USA is being pushed out of Iraq by resistance forces. Mind you both are well supplied and organized by Iran.

Japan was going for the american souls at home who would get sick of dying soldiers and they could then motion for peace on even terms... so they hope. But then ... KABOOM!!!

[arado234]

I dont know Blashy.The Amis.were pretty pissed about Pearl Harbour,but yea your right about people getting tired of having their loved ones killed.Same with Vietnam.Never lost a major battle but got tired of all the killing.

My friend at work is Iranian and the Iranian govt.was actually quite pleased about the U.S.going in and wipeing out Saddam.They guessed rightly that eventually the U.S.would start to grow tired of all the lives lost and the fact that the whole affair is one giant money pit.Since the U.S.economy is taking a beating right now ,who knows how long they can keep this up.The only problem is that now Iraq has no way to defend themselvs now that their armies have been wiped out.

People sure are stupid sometimes.

[jon_j_rambo]

Thanks for the info. So, how do this incorporate into this size game? Is it a "random type event" with triggers.....and feature which can be turned off? Is there Kamakazi zones like the board game Axis & Allies Pacific? Or could actual pieces be made?