If the carrier in the film had nukes, just run like hell in the opposite direction and nuke the task force, ships and planes.
I am no expert but
Refueling may not be a problem, WWII has diesel fuel, the problem is where to land.
I dont think a WWII era carrier is equipped to land a modern fighter jet.
Re-Arming wont be possible, not for the missiles anyways.
Perhaps the ammo for the cannon exists, but 520 rounds is not much
Dog Fighting a craft that can fly very slow compared to the jet, but have full maneuverability may be difficult, being the jet was not designed to fight that game.
It may be hard to efficiently engage a small target that can fly 200 to 300mph and is fully capable of complete ACS at those low speeds, the jet may have a lot of trouble over shooting etc, because their only real option of engaging is an extreme boom N zoom.
They were designed in a world full of other jets, where things move at speeds where
old school gun ammo is not terribly useful.
On the flip side, the prop fighters could never catch the jets, but if they were observant, and could predict where the jet was going to be, they could try to place them selves for an oncoming shot.
If we are talking about a pearl harbor scenario, i think the jets would better serve events by going balls out to the japanese carriers, even if they could not sink them by munitions, a jet making a sonic boom speed pass over an object at close range is not a good day for that object.
And i think it would take a while for any japanese gunners on board to adapt to targeting something moving that speed.
I got to think that if suddenly the IJN thinks the americans have an unknown number of super secret warp speed fighters with guided missiles etc, they would recall the attack for fear of 300 more light speed attack craft showing up and sinking the entire task force.
Going plane to plane though, would be hard for the modern fighter though i think.
like i said, the enemy planes are slow but fully maneuverable.
Enemy planes can land refuel and rearm at ease (so to speak)
Taking some WWII air battles into account, the jets might be looking at more prop planes in the sky in one place than they carry total bullets, you dont usually see jet fights where the sky is blotted out by the amount of planes.
Some of their guided munitions may not be able to track a prop plane properly.
Any piece of equipment stuck outside its environment and cut off from its support systems kind of fails to do much efficiently.
As people have noted, the fighters against the fighters is one thing, the Nimitz against the expeditionary force is quite another, sink the carriers, lose 100% of the aircraft.
OTOH, fighter to fighter you have to ask if the Japanese pilots have been briefed (obviously not, in the movie). But consider the real life story of the Soviet nightwitches vs the Luftwaffe; biplanes, with a max speed slower than the stall speed of the messerschmitt were so hard to shoot down, it was an automatic iron cross to bag one.
Hmm, how well could the Nimitz have defended itself against Zero kamikazes, I wonder.
Previous thread from 2010 on related topic: USS Nimitz vs the Japanese fleet - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
From 2004 even more directly on-point: F-14 Tomcat vs WWII Zero - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
Per those threads, dogfighting Zeros would be difficult but not impossible.
To directly answer the OP’s question, we figured to get at most 20 bursts out of a load of ammo for the cannon, with 15 being more typical.*
So assuming the pilot is skillful enough to get a good track on one of the WWII era planes he’d kill at best 20 with the gun. Missiles would be good for another 2 to 6 depending on how many they were carrying.
Given any maneuvering by the Zeros an F-18 or F-14 is not going to kill anywhere close to 20 before they’ve run out of fuel.
In all, picking the IJN aircraft out of the sky one at a time is not a winning strategy. It’s not totally ineffective; it’s just not playing maximally to your strengths and the IJN weaknesses.
The way the Nimitz wins is drive out to near where the IJN fleet is, then sink all the carriers at 2300 on the 6th while it’s dark and they can’t see to shoot back. The combat radius of the Nimitz’ aircraft is large enough that no matter how spread out the Japanese were (I’m too lazy to look it up) they could drive to a place where everything is within their simultaneous striking range.
Without the rest of the DoD’s satellites, Nimitz would be blind compared to their idea of normal combat ops. But even knowing generally where the IJN fleet is from half-remembered high school history class would be good enough to launch long range patrol aircraft earlier on the 6th which can spot the IJN via radar while still being undetected themselves.
Then you send out a squadron of A-6s with some EA-6 jamming support and send the IJN carriers to the bottom. Along with their airplanes, pilots, admirals, and all the rest.
You can pick off the battleships later. Or not at all.
To address a side topic indirectly mentioned up above. …
A Nimitz class carries one hell of a lot of fuel and ammo and missiles and bombs. The whole point of the nuclear powerplant is to free up the space and the weight carrying capacity that would otherwise be ship’s boiler fuel. And almost all of that is turned over to munitions and jet fuel. They can go balls out for a lot more days than it would take to destroy the whole IJN fleet.
- You can’t naively divide the ammo count by the max rate of fire to get a firing duration. When firing short bursts the gun’s spin-up & spin-down time is significant, reducing the effective rounds per second. Which in turn leads to more bursts being possible if you keep them short enough. One third of second is about the practical minimum, with 1/2 being more realistic.
Question about the vulcan, or really any rotary cannon. Does the cannon actually fire during spin-up/down? Or does it wait until its at max spin before firing? I remember having this discussion with friends a million years ago in high school. I tend to think its the former, because the ammo belt is pulled through as it spins, right?
I don’t understand how the Zeroes would be too slow to target. Don’t modern fighter jets attack stationary targets, too?
Halfway through the thread, it dawned on me that a night attack would be the way to go. I spent like half an hour looking up info, developing my plan and typing it out, then decided to check the rest of the thread, only to find you ninja’d the hell out of me.
The only difference is that I’d spend all evening picking out the important ships using the F-14’s long range nose camera, then send in S-3 Vikings to simultaneously attack the carriers, then Intruders and Corsairs to bomb the hell out of whatever is left. I looked, but couldn’t find any info about Corsairs and Intruders being used in an anti-ship mode, while the S-3 can be. Plus the Vikings aren’t as agile as the others so I’d let them be the surprise attackers.
Even if the Japanese heard the first wave, they wouldn’t know what it was and probably wouldn’t fire a shot. But if I really felt like spending taxpayer money- and why not, jeez, I just went through a time warp- I might send up some Tomcats to put on a loud light show high enough to be out of AA range while the S-3s slipped in close and blew everything up.
If anyone is interested, in 1980, Carrier Air Wing 8 aircraft assigned to Nimitz had:
2 squadrons of 12 F-14 Tomcats
2 squadrons of 12 A-7 Corsairs
1 squadron of 10-12 A-6 Intruders (but it included an unknown number of KA-6D tankers)
1 squadron of 10 S-3 Vikings
And a mixture of other electronic, helicopter, cargo, and non-attack aircraft
And just alerting Pearl Harbor would do a lot of good. If they won’t listen to some crazy guy on the radio who doesn’t have the right codes, then just bomb a couple of storage sheds. Nothing to put Pearl Harbor on red alert like some actual bombs going off half a day before the IJN gets there.
yes.
But a flying target that is evading you has numerous degrees of freedom…
it can turn left right up or down, it can speed up or slow down…
This sort of aerial mismatch occurred in the Iran Iraq war. One Iranian fighter pilot took 8 years to notch up 11 kills… He knocked out the 50’s designed Mig 21 and the 60’s designed Mig 23 and Su22.
The point is the same… the F14 is great at aerial DEFENSE. Can’t attack the enemy real well, the enemy just turns and flies away. But they can’t fly toward their target because thats a long distance into Iran and they can’t perform evading tactics for all that distance and still have fuel to return… They can evade for a while but soon they have to turn for home…they used up fuel in afterburners and power climbs and in going in circles.
The OP’s question is about shooting the aircraft literally. I guess he knows its rather hard to ensure a bullet strike on an aircraft is fatal to the aircraft. The bullet just passes through. Especially in the older technology. A modern aircraft may be so jam packed with technology that a single hit could disturbs the pilot to fly to his training. But the WWII which flies with all mechanical control , its rather resilient.
What would happen in the F14 vs Zero’s is that the damaged aircraft would be easier pickings. You’d fly the F14 above or below and use your vastly superior rate of pitch and rate of climb to suddenly come at them perfectly lined up. So you damage two or three out of the squadron and they are slower and seperated from the rest of the squadron.
So what to do ? If you are told you must knock them out of the sky, you go after after the damaged aircraft. But that leaves the remainder of the squadron to proceed to target.
If you are told to defend the target as the priority, then what you do is get onto the squadron again and again and again. Soon you have the air so thick of airplanes you some of the the attackers have to do turn around to avoid excess density. You fly the F14’s along a line in front of the attacking front, and disturb the squadrons. On coming squadrons get are following the leader, and at first they turn off too, hoping the leaders are evading a distant threat. Soon the attackers are in a holding pattern as they are following the others in their evasion circling… its like the ants going around in a circle, following the leader…
Well no single aircraft wants to fly toward target on their own, as they know they will be picked on by multiple F14’s. So the pilots which find that the attack is going pearshaped give up and go home… Braver squadron leaders would be trying extrame evasion manouvers but the F14’s see all this on radar and can see any aircraft successfully progressing toward their targets. So the F14’s spread out and patrol the “front” so that they don’t just get in each others way going after one group (plane,squadron, group of squadrons, randoms). Some of the F14’s might fly as spotters and not break off from patrol… “Hey, there’s a break out to the south … 19 ,21, and … 45, break off from patrol and go after them and get them, let me know when you rejoin my patrol line”.
Well so the F14’s can be used great for defense, but they are disturbing the attack not downing air craft.
If they go mad and design to go for kill count, then they can go after the damaged aircraft and cowards retreating to the mothership. This is a bit of a suicide run, because F14’s are going to get hit by bullets from the swarm of enemy aircraft, and they cant tolerate damage very well. So the F14’s could down aircraft as they return to land, but its not 100% nor fast, the enemy are breaking up and circling and shooting back. Remember there’s over 100 aircraft in perfect condition still out there and coming back some time… the kills don’t come that fast.
The thing is that when you fly 10 aircraft at a group of 30 air craft, you can get 1 or 2 of the enemy… but then 30 enemy aircraft see your 10 and just fire their 5 ? guns each in the general direction of the 10… 150 guns firing at 10 air craft … some are going to get hit.
Besides the airspace is getting dangerously crowders and there is risk of collisions. while you are forcing the enemy to collide, the F14’s are having lots of close calls with enemy aircraft and degrading due to unavoidable debris… one’s down a gun, another’s lost a radar…
Executive summary, fighters are for defense, attack aircraft go after surface targets.
The carriers and escort ships (minus the oilers which had been detatched) were all together as a group.
The Japanese could operate the First Fleet with all of their six fleet carriers as a single task force, which concentrated far more firepower than what either the British or Americans were doing.
This becomes the question. Do you take out their carriers before they launch the attack and ensure US entry into the war or sink them in the dark without warning?
The Japanese were waiting for a signal from the First Fleet raiding force before launching the other attacks. That would have been one hell of a rough meeting when they get word back that all of their fleet carriers were at the bottom of the Pacific.
This was a major problem for WWII class carriers. They just couldn’t carry enough munitions.
On one message board, some guy figured out the amount of storage for bombs for the Japanese fleet and calculated that they didn’t have enough to take out the oil farm, let alone the sub base or dry dock facilities.
WWII class carriers had a difficult time supporting a full-on invasion and it wasn’t until much later in the war that the US could bring enough firepower to take on places with large air bases. This is one reason why an invasion of Hawaii is simply laughable.
The IJN had six fleet carriers and then four much smaller, light carriers which had various problems.
They really weren’t successful in later campaigns attempting to use the light carriers as small fleet carriers.
The IJN had an elite cadre of top pilots, more experienced and better trained than the US at the beginning of the war. However, they had a horrible training / replacement program and were unable to replace the aircrew they lost.
The only fighters were the Zeros. They had the Kate level/torpedo bombers and the Val dive bombers.
The US had (from here):
Airplane Total Destroyed Damaged Combat Ready
B-17 D… 12… 4… 4… 4…
B-18 A… 33… 12… 10… 11
A-20 A… 12… 2… 5… 5
P-40 C… 12… 5… 5… 2
P-40 B… 87… 37… 25… 25
P-36 A …39… 4… 19… 16
P-26… 14… 0… 0… 14
Total… 223… 64 …82… 77
The five P-36s which actually got airborne in the actual attack did well, shooting down two Zeros for the loss of one. The P-40s would have done even better of course, and even the obsolete fighters could have done damage against the Kates and Vals.
Had the US been aware of the attack or been on guard, they would have had enough fighters to go against the Japanese attacks. Not enough to completely protect everything but enough to mix it up fairly well.
Fighters from the Nimitz could help tremendously by helping break up the Japanese bomber and fighter formations.
If the Nimitz wanted to allow the attack to begin but then cause maximum damage, they could wait until the first wave took off, then sunk the six carriers.
From wiki the first wave consisted of 183 aircraft as follows
1st Group (targets: battleships and aircraft carriers)[83]
49 Nakajima B5N Kate bombers armed with 800 kg (1760 lb) armor-piercing bombs, organized in four sections (1 failed to launch)
40 B5N bombers armed with Type 91 torpedoes, also in four sections
2nd Group – (targets: Ford Island and Wheeler Field)
51 Aichi D3A Val dive bombers armed with 550 lb (249 kg) general-purpose bombs (3 failed to launch)
3rd Group – (targets: aircraft at Ford Island, Hickam Field, Wheeler Field, Barber’s Point, Kaneohe)
43 Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters for air control and strafing[82] (2 failed to launch)
The US WWII fighters outnumbered the Japanese counterparts and if the F-14s help take out the Zeros, then the WWII fighters can concentrate on the bombers. As seen in the Battle of Midway, torpedo bombers without fighter coverage get chewed up really quickly.
Actually Japanese planes were particularly weak as they lacked the amour and self-sealing gas tanks which the other powers used.
A few rounds into the pilot, the gas tank or engine was enough to knock out many of them. The G-4 Betty was referred to as the one-shot lighter because of its tendency to explode or catch on fire when hit in the wing tank.
The Japanese were surprised at the punishment which the US planes could take.
Hits to the cooling lines were another source of engine failures, and without armor around the engineers, the Japanese planes were more vulnerable.
I don’t actually know if the pilots were so pissed at the engineers that armor was required in the design office, but obviously I meant “engine.” :smack:
All the good and right steps have already been posted while I was thinking about and researching the question so I’ll just do a summary.
First and foremost, we want this engagement to remain a good movie so a night attack is right out.
Locate the Japanese carriers with the E-2s or get one of the books in the ship’s library that will tells where they will be.
In the movie, the senator tried to alert Pearl Harbor by radio but they didn’t believe him. Send a few jets to fly over Pearl, that will get their attention and be on alert if some Japanese aircraft or the mini subs manage to get through. Also drop a few sonobuoys around the harbor.
Send the A-6 and A-7 aircraft to bomb the carriers and tankers shortly after the Japanese first wave takes off so any remaining aircraft have no home to return to.
Send the F-14s to intercept the first wave, targeting group leaders from long-range with missiles; this encourages the undamaged aircraft to break off the attack. The F-14s can then leisurely use guns on the retreating aircraft.
On their return trip to the Nimitz, vector the A-6 and A-7 flight to intercept the remaining Japanese aircraft to engage with missiles and guns.
Film all of it to send to the Japanese, with a cc to Germany and Stalin.
Award me an Oscar and the Nobel Peace prize.
If they did, they skipped over that part in The Wind Rises. (And in the book Zero Fighter.)
Hawk Among The Sparrows by Dean McLaughlin
Dang it, I Googled that!
Thanks, MrDibble!
A P-40 had two confirmed kills of bombers.
You’re welcome.
I have it (in the New World Science Fiction anthology), so I didn’t have to Google
There is no ammo belt in the .50 cal disintegrating link style The ammo rides as loose shells in a chute. Built into the chute is a toothed conveyor belt with one pocket per shell. The chute has gaps where teeth reach in and move the shells along sorta like a sprocket engaging a sloppily-linked bicycle chain.
The feed and the gun’s rotary breech are synchronized. If one is moving, so is the other.
The first shell entering the gun is fired as the gun (and ammo feed) spins up. Each shell in turn enters the gun, rides around about 3 stations as the breech closes, is fired electrically at the 4th station, then the empty case (or live round if a dud) is extracted over the next couple stations and fed back into the chute/conveyor belt assembly and carried back into the ammo storage drum.
When the firing signal is removed the gun drive cuts off, the brake is applied and the gun spins down from 1000 revs/min to zero in about 2 revs. Every shell that passes the firing position during spin-down is fired. Once the gun has stopped, it goes into reverse just enough to back every shell out of the 4 breeches at and upstream of the firing position. This renders the gun empty & prevents cook-offs. No live shells get through the gun unfired. None are wasted. Nothing is dropped overboard except the projectile and the gun exhaust gasses.
**Isilder **has quite a mishmash of good and confused info, but he hit the nail with maneuverability being the key issue. Traditional aerial combat is all about turn rate and turn radius. The standard physics equations of centripetal force, vs radial velocity versus omega all apply. Plus one more: max centripetal force = max Gs is limited at high speed by aircraft structural strength. And at low speed by the wing’s ability to generate that much lift without stalling. The latter limit is the one that counts here.
At WWII Zero (or modern helicopter) speeds, a fast fighter is going too slow to maneuver aggressively without stalling. So he can’t generate high centripetal force and his rate and radius are larger than the slow-mover who can pull more Gs can achieve. The fast-mover can zoom about at higher speed, but that raises the problem of squirting out in front of the opposition. See my post in the 2004 thread I linked to above for a more complete treatment of this.
Good point on the first.
Not so much on the second.
You neglected the point that most WWII aircraft, and especially in the early days, were armed with machine guns firing .30 or .50 caliber inert slugs. The F-14s were armed with 20mm (~.80 caliber) exploding shells with warheads designed for shredding aircraft structure. The consequences of one hit are vastly different. You don’t punch a 1/2" hole in the fabric of a tail; you create an explosion that rips half of it off. You shred so-called self-sealing fuel bladders and set the escaping torrent of fuel on fire. etc.
As well, the dispersion of several separately mounted machine guns on a WWII fighter is huge compared to the tight firehose coming out of the F-14s M61. Finally, with a radar computing gunsight, the F-14 knows when he fires that he’s gonna get a hit and a lot more than one of them.
Modern cannon firing doctrine is very short bursts with high confidence of hits.
I was going to say not to rain on anyone’s parade, but the Nimitz didn’t have any F/A-18s in 1980, she still had A-7E Corsairs, as did the entire US carrier fleet in 1980; the F-18 didn’t start entering USN service until 1984:
But I’ve been beaten to the punch a bit.
Not in 1980, the Phalanx had just begun entering service in the USN in 1980. The Nimitz didn’t get hers until a year long overhaul in 1983-84:
Not that it would have mattered that much, the Phalanx wasn’t designed with stopping saturation piston engine aircraft attacks in mind. It was designed to provide a last-ditch chance to make a hard kill against missiles either sea-skimming at high subsonic speeds or missiles performing terminal Mach 4.5 dives from 90,000 feet. They’d get maybe a dozen or so kills each, then they’d be out of ammo and that’s all she wrote. The ammo drums only held 989 rounds.