Quote:
Originally Posted by CDM
The Pacific is a much bigger ocean, Japanese radar was never that good, their airborne ASW was never that good and with fuel and airplane shortages got worse instead of better as the war went on. The "realism" of the constant harassment by aircraft in SH4 is on the wrong side and in the wrong theater.
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I heartily agree. Though aircraft allotted by the Japanese to the role of ASW and maritime protection multiplied until 1945, the supply never met the need. As the war continued into its final year, air cover became truly scarce, sometimes disturbingly so. One Japanese officer bitterly commented that "when we were near a base where we could request air cover, the only planes that showed up were American." The shortage of planes often precluded the possibility of antisubmarine sweeps in areas of beyond the immediate convoy routes. As a result it became common practice to send unarmed training flights over open water in the hopes that their presence might discourage any submarines that happened to be in the area.
In addition, with aircraft (as with surface vessels) availability more than suitability was the more influential benchmark for assignment to anti-submarine work. The Japanese had nothing comparable to the B-24 which could carry 24 depth charges on patrols reaching over 1,000 miles from shore. True, the Japanese navy did have the excellent Kawanishi flying boats and some float planes quite appropriate for maritime protection duty, but their production run numbers were few and many lacked the proper equipment.
The radar installed on these planes, when they were lucky enough to be so equipped was often not reliable. Ten miles was the maximum distance at which airborne Japanese radar could pick up a surfaced US sub. During daylight hours most pilots preferred their own eyesight, as it had greater range.
I've always been at something of a loss for mods that try to make Japanese aerial ASW the equivalent of Coastal Command in the Atlantic. (and the ridiculous number of Japanese aircraft aloft in the stock version of the game was out of whack, too.) I do suppose it is the make the game more tense and exciting, but it can't help but be at odds with history.