![saburo+sakai[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qlnGccj.jpg "saburo+sakai[1].jpg")
How did the IJN pilots get such an overblown reputation?
>muh invincible zero
Their record against the F4F is pretty much even.
>muh dominance over malaysia and philippines
Massive numerical advantage, tactical and strategic surprise, always having altitude advantage, destroyed most of enemy planes on the ground.
>muh highly trained pilots
There is no reason to suppose that Japanese training was somehow better than western training and every reason to assume that it was dogshit.
Also the cream of the crop in the IJN would not have become pilots since they were not officers, whereas in the USN pilots had to be officers.
Pic related: a guy who had about a dozen kills at most, i.e. 1/4 of Dick Bong's confirmed kills.
>>29466907
They didn't. They sucked. They lost. You're just a weeb.
>>29466933
>y-you question nippon superiority!
>you weeb!
This is retarded even for /k/.
>Win a couple fights early while other nations play catch up
>Stop winning so handily when nation's begin to match your tech
>Muh honobru samurai fighting against overwhelming odds
>The popular narrative never goes away anyways
People are drawn to what they don't see every single day and love little easily digestible factoids. Pop history is balls, but the internet has spread it everywhere. The same thing is happening to the sciences.
>>29466952
I meant to say "if you believe otherwise, you're a weeb".
>>29466907
>How did the IJN pilots get such an overblown reputation?
Same way the Germans did: fought an enemy who could barely fly airplanes and padded their kill counts with them. Germans had the Soviets, Japan had the Chinese.
>>29466907
>How did the IJN pilots get such an overblown reputation
Alongside sniping chinamen in outdated aircraft, there was the fact they tended to focus on individual combat more than working as a team.
as a result you have all their aces remaining on the frontlines getting kills instead of training young pilots on how not to die.
and then the aces die
and then there are only young pilots who can barely fly their training biplanes
and then they die too.
>>29468045
Thatch Weave is the only dogfighting team move I know
What are some other good ones?
>>29466907
what overblown reputation?
mostly you hear about how they got turkey shot and had to resort to kamikaze because none of their pilots could survive trying to breach a carrier group's "big blue blanket" the conventional way.
>>29468439
Actually people regularly make the claim that Japanese pilots were best in the world in 1941-42.
>How did the IJN pilots get such an overblown reputation?
They didn't.
You're a liar basing a thread on a false premise.
>>29468457
Fucking horseshit and you know it. You can't even begin to try to back up that point.
>>29466965
It's not so much "play catchup" as "busy fighting Hitler"
The Royal Navy usually forward deploys more ships at Singapore, and the RAF has more fighter squadrons in the Far East.
Then the battleships got pulled to Europe to protect the convoys, and the fighter squadrons got pulled to stop the blitz. What was left in the Far East was whatever the Brits could spare, and Americans were in the process of handing over the Philippines to the Filipinos. In 1930 the US had 3 divisions garrisoned in the Philippines, by 1941 they had one.
The US and UK sensed that Japan might be making a move, and started moving more assets into the far east after the oil/scrap metal embargo, but their timetable was too slow and the Japanese hit before enough preparations were complete.
>>29468457
maybe at the start, they all got kill because they didn't rotate out pilots
>>29468466
>http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/F/i/Fighter_Pilots.htm
>The Japanese had a clear edge in pilot skill when war broke out, but the Pacific War was characterized by a steady improvement in Allied aircraft pilot skills and a steady degradation in Japanese pilot skill.
Seriously though, you are either extremely dumb or intentionally claiming ignorance to avoid confronting the fact that Jap pilots were overrated.
>>29468532
>maybe at the start
Highly unlikely that Jap pilots were better than German and Brit pilots who had been fighting 2 years of real war against actual competition.
>>29466907
every IJN Pilot had around 800 hours of flight. The Naval Aviation training and conditioning was also the toughest in the world at it's prime.
however, they were trained for individual performance more than they were trained in tactics, whereas the American Naval Doctrine concentrated on superior tactics and superior machines over individual pilot skill.
in early 1941 Japan had the highest trained naval aviation in the world, but their elite was wiped out at Midway.
Now the Japanese Army Aviation was never that distinguished, and their machines never had an edge like the Zero did in the pacific.
>>29468546
>Uncited claim on a podunk website
Boy that sure is people regularly claiming huh
>>29468629
>in early 1941 Japan had the highest trained naval aviation in the world, but their elite was wiped out at Midway.
They lost like 80 pilots at Midway.
And this supposedly elite corps lost the air battle at Coral Sea before Midway.
>>29468640
Read anything about the F6F or the F4U.
America was sold the idea that they were getting btfo in the skies until better iron arrived.
>>29468629
>Now the Japanese Army Aviation was never that distinguished, and their machines never had an edge like the Zero did in the pacific.
The Zero was dogshit. Categorically worse than an F4F.
If green American pilots could avoid trying to play the Zero's game.
>>29466907
>How did the IJN pilots get such an overblown reputation?
The same way the AK47 did
>>29468581
most than reasonable.
