# Was the IJN's carrier aviation force a paper tiger? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 9, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687 "2011-09-09T02:44:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/21 "2011-09-09T18:23:24Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > In one regard they were a paper tiger. They had the striking power to seriously mess up what they aimed for. But, in addition to the defence issues above, they were not able to hold off attackers or survive the ones that got through their CAP. I think we’re using the wrong idiom here. A “paper tiger” is something that appears fierce but is harmless. “Glass cannon” is the term I’d use for something capable of hitting hard initially but unable to take a pounding. > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > That’s been pretty well disproven. Yeah, for those unfamiliar, the recent-ish addition to the Midway canon that establishes this most clearly is _[Shattered Sword](http://shatteredswordbook.com/)_, by Parshall and Tully. > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > the IJN air group commander who has long been judged even in Japan as having lied to save face for all sides. Fuchida. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/22 "2011-09-09T18:52:26Z")
Japan had several decent aircraft designs (like this [Nakajima Ki-84 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-84) ) that were decent. Japan’s problem was that it’s war industry and training programs weren’t flexible enough for rapid expansion, and most strategic materials had to be imported into the country from overseas, making the blockade strategy an eventual winner. I agree that “paper tiger” is not the right phrase, and “glass cannon” is closer. But it took a year and a little more to grind down what Japan was able to field. They fought ferociously in a war of attrition in the solomons. As late as November of '42, 5 months after Midway, the Japanese were still able to get ships in to bombard the Marines on Guadalcanal. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/23 "2011-09-09T22:16:20Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The IJN started the war with the excellent Zero fighter-which was fast and maneverable-better than any USN fighter. But they were still flying the Zero in 1945. The British were still flying the Spitfire, the Germans were still flying the Me-109, and the USA was still flying the Flying Fortress and the P-39. But in each case the plane was quite substantially upgraded. The Zeros being flown in 1945 were much more capable than the ones in 1939. Really, the Japanese couldn’t have won the war if they had somehow come up with a thousand P-51s. Far too much was stacked against them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/24 "2011-09-09T22:43:19Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > I know the Japanese couldn’t hope to match American industry, but did they have the designs to even try? What I mean is that American designers were probably getting feedback from British and Russian aviators as well as their own from varied theaters on what worked and what didn’t. There had to be a lot of knowledge, hard won from fighting the Germans, that the Americans had access to. Did Japan have anything like that? The Germans did send them some (disassembled) examples of the Me-109 and FW-190, but the Japanese either weren’t capable of or weren’t interested in building them via license. ---
**Author:** ![Wotdazog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@Wotdazog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wotdazog)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/25 "2011-09-10T13:33:07Z")
The japanese fought ferociously, doggedly, magnificiently. Paper tigers they were not individually. I however posit than in such an industrial war equal numbers were never the same as equal opponents. The IJN and friends were essentially doomed by time scale once America decided to get their dick into gear. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/26 "2011-09-10T13:46:54Z")
WEll, the IJN certainly had a quality control problem. The last aircraft carrier the launched (thge Shinano) was torpedoed by a S submarine. Becuase watertight dors were not working, gasoline fumes spread through the ship, reslting in a tremendous explosion. the ship sank in 30 minutes. Not even rudimentary damage control procedures were employed. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/27 "2011-09-10T15:25:15Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > WEll, the IJN certainly had a quality control problem. The last aircraft carrier the launched (thge Shinano) was torpedoed by a S submarine. Becuase watertight dors were not working, gasoline fumes spread through the ship, reslting in a tremendous explosion. the ship sank in 30 minutes. > Not even rudimentary damage control procedures were employed. Nitpick: while you’re right about poor design (particularly the location of the avgas tanks) and abysmal damage control, the carrier in question was the _Taiho_. The _Shinano_ hadn’t even completed fitting-out — many of the watertight doors hadn’t been installed — but it was decided to move her to a location that was safer from air attack. She was torpedoed en route. One critical difference between the two navies seems to have been that while in the USN the entire crew was trained in at least the basics of damage control, in the IJN it was the responsibility of specialists. At Midway, the initial blasts wiped out most of the damage control teams, making the loss of the carries pretty much a foregone conclusion. (The fact that bombs and torpedoes from multiple armament switchovers involving the second Midway strike force were left on deck rather than being returned to the magazines certainly didn’t help matters . . .) ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/28 "2011-09-12T00:16:02Z")
it certainly was not. at some points during the long slogging match at guadalcanal, the US navy sometimes ended up with just 1 operational carrier west of hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687/29 "2011-09-12T03:19:00Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > it certainly was not. at some points during the long slogging match at guadalcanal, the US navy sometimes ended up with just 1 operational carrier west of hawaii. And at times the _Enterprise_ being operational was only true in the “for some values of . . .” sense. For example, after she was patched together after Santa Cruz, they didn’t dare lower the forward elevator because nobody was sure whether they could raise it again. This put a sizable crimp in its ability to switch between launch and recovery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-ijns-carrier-aviation-force-a-paper-tiger/595687.md?page=1)