sandiego89 wrote:
John Dupre wrote:
I have long thought that one of the keys to Germany's and Japan's defeat in the air was the catch as catch can nature of thier training programs. While the USA and the UK designed and implemented entirely new huge training programs to turn out pilots, navigators, gunners and mechanics it seems the Axis powers just tried to run more people through thier prewar system with very little expansion or streamlining of the system until it was too late. Sabura Sakai related how his brother washed out of flight training prewar with more hours than a graduate would have had in 1944. I have seen Germans brag about how many light trainers they flew in aerobatic practice before ever seeing a 109 or 190. Yet American and Commonwealth pilots by 1944 while only flying 4 or 5 types could report for combat with 400 to 600 hours total time 2 to 3 times thier opponents. Germany could have turned most of Poland into an Empire Pilot Training School and Japan might have done the same in Korea or China.
Good point, and likely follows their thoughts of a short war. The plan was to steamroll the opposition with very good equipment, and well trained crews. Their plan may have worked if it had turned out to be a shortish war, but it wasn't. After the highly experienced crews were mostly lost, they lacked the capacity and as you say methods to train new crews.
The "Short War" hypothesis works for Germany, but not for Japan. Japan had been waging war on the Chinese mainland for quite a while before escalating to the BIG war in the Pacific.
On the other hand, the airwar over China was the JAAF, who had the training and attrition problem brought home to them in the border skirmish with the USSR in Mongolia (Khalkin Gol - THE most important 20th Century battle no one has heard of), while the war in the Pacific was waged mostly by JNAF. The internal political divide between Army and Navy is the driving force behind the Japanese war aims, so Not Invented Here, or 'The Army lost face, we should ignore them' probably explains that too.
The demand by Hitler to supply Stalingrad by air at all expense probably also contributed. Pilots, aircraft and fuel were diverted from the training programs to support that lost cause that may have made a difference.