Was the 特別攻撃隊 or the kamikaze successful as a weapon?

Compared to Pearl Harbor... And pretty much every other plane assault.. No.

There's a pic out there of a kamakazi plane that hit a ship and barely left a dent.

>>30499431
Happened more than once actually. The Mighty Mo' took a kamikaze with only a bit of damage, and another ship has what looks like a bugsplat on its side (actually a plane).

>>30499431
what about compared to Cape Engano, where Jap aircraft failed to damage a single ship?

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>>30499431
Kamikazes were a waste of young men and planes. Their kill ratio was really shitty.

>>30499405
>successful as a weapon?

>no major ship kills
>most kills were small targets or picket forces
>carrier kills were jeep carriers, and the USN was literally shitting them out
>fleet sizes were big enough that even if a ship got smacked by a plane it could be pulled back without affecting the group's strength
>Japan tosses away 3800 planes because of shitty training doctrines shooting them in the foot and industrial capability unable to keep up with the US shitting out fighters
>kamikaze pilots were sitting ducks during their runs and were often smothered by the Big Blue Blanket or shrekt by proximity-fuzed AA munitions
>allied damage control was good enough that US ships could be brought back into action while UK ships were "Sweepers, man your brooms"

Scary? Probably.

Effective? No.

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Usually their damage was rather weak, since the plane doesn't penetrate almost any armor.
>>30499692
Hitting from top might have helped a little, but dropping a 250kg bomb would have worked better.
Only Bakas might have done some serious damage if their mother plane ever reached a real fleet.

Considering how expensive airplanes are it's a waste to have them destroyed like that.

Were they packed with explosives at least ?

>>30500233
Airplanes were not expensive in WW2. A P-51 cost $50,000 in 1945, or about 50 mid-range sedans.

>wasting aircraft and pilots in suicide missions

Only the nips would think this is a smart idea.

>>30500233
The planes that were intended only for that role were often outdated models loaded with varying amount of explosives.
Kamikaze A6Ms had a fixed 250kg bomb.

>>30499692
Issue is that it was more effective than the alternative, which was sending pilots with 25-50 flight hours to their names to fight an experienced american air force and navy and lose both the pilots and planes for no gain anyways.

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>>30499405
Did the nips win the war? Then it wasn't a very successful weapon, now was it?
>Pic related. It's a successful weapon.

Successful in making a large impact in USN forces? No. Successful in the homeland for propaganda purposes and shit? Extremely.

It was seen as an extremely honorable thing to do, and since they brainwashed the fuck out of their population, there was exactly ZERO shortage of motherfuckers willing to die for their country, and it was seen as even more honorable to know that you were going to commit suicide for your country.

You gottta remember, these are people who cut their OWN FUCKING GUTS OUT before surrendering.

Most japs that "surrendered" were caught before they could commit suicide.

>>30499405
It was the only weapon capable of actually hurting the navy at the time. Also, it is incorrect to say that they were ineffective because they sunk only a few ships. This is like saying landmines aren't effective because they mostly maimed instead of killed. They damaged hundreds of ships that had to be repaired. Any memoir of that time period would describe kamikaze attacks as effective, from the lowest ranks to the highest echelons.

>>30502852

How did Macarthur gather enough top brass from japan to keep the occupation government running? Where the upper parths of the leadership not drinking the coolaid or did he have to go out and find technocrats in Japan to help lead the nation so it wouldn't become mess?

>>30502958
>Taking memes seriously
Top kek.

>>30502958
Friendly japanese forces and contacts had already been established, even before Pearl Harbor. You have to remember that many, many people didn't like what Hitler and Co were doing, there were many saboteurs, many people who reached out to American forces in the area.

It's not finding an enemy that is upset with their leaders to turn that is difficult, it's stopping them from making a mistake that makes their allegiance known. These guys were never trained as spies, they simply sought safety for them and their families after the war, and some even a free relocation to the EU/States.

Same as any other war, really.
>Obligatory "War, war never changes."

>>30502852
Marines didn't take prisoners so surrendering wasn't exactly an option.
Jap captive rates increased significantly once the brass started offering ice cream for captured Japs.

>>30503058
>Jap captive rates increased significantly once the brass started offering ice cream for captured Japs.
Find a single source for this. Just one. I couldn't.

>>30503076
My source is the greatest springwell of information on the net.
It is [spoiler] /k/ [/spoiler].

>>30503092
Yeah, that never happened.
Also:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_prisoners_of_war_in_World_War_II

Take information from here with a grain of salt until someone has some decent source material, even if it is just the list on the bottom of a wiki article.

People on this board have a bad habit of just spewing shit out of their mouth.

>>30503058
>>30503092
>marines didn't take prisoners
What? They did, they just were reluctant because muh racism. Japs treated Allied soldiers like shit and executed them, Allies returned the favor.

Also: http://www.psywarrior.com/ICeaseJap.html

The US Gov did all kinds of shit to turn both the civilian and military japanese population against their own government and into the sweet, sweet hands of democracy. This included, specifically, NOT treating prisoners like shit, accepting surrenders, proper nutrition for them, etc.

>>30503142
If the Marines were into accepting surrenders there wouldn't have been a need for a program to convince them to let the Japs surrender, now wouldn't there?

>>30499868

It's a bit more complicated than that.

Japan's problem is that they ran out of trained pilots. Landing a bomb on a ship isn't easy, it was much easier to crash a plane into one.

Consider this, during the battle of the Phillipine Sea (the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot), Japan lost 350 planes making a conventional attack on the US Navy.

They got 1 bomb hit that killed 17 people, their conventional attacks made at leyte didn't do much better.

Compared to that, Kamikaze were effective, since Kamikaze made it to their target about 2% of the time.

That is significantly better than the 0.3% that the Japanese got during the Philippine sea. Their brass looked at the numbers, and decided to go all Kamikaze.

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When you think about it, the kamikaze was an "effective" measure, since it turned the allies off of the idea of invading the mainland because it made the allies realize that the whole island was full of suicidal nutjobs willing to strap themselves to bombs and throw themselves at enemy warships.

There was no land invasion of Japan. The main island never had an enemy soldier set foot on it and invade during the war. The kamikaze did its job in preventing the -allied naval armada- (and i do emphasize the -naval armada- part) from moving in and invading.

Of course then the allies dropped the A-bombs, rendering the whole thing moot.

Great plan, Japan.

>>30503364
That had nothing to do with it. The fighting on Okinawa and Iwo Jima was what persuaded them to drop the bomb instead of invading.

>>30503157
Saying "Marines didn't take surrenders" made it sound like was a doctrine decision, not a personal choice.
You should have said "Marines didn't readily accept enemy surrenders due to X,Y,Z"
The English language kind of sucks, and there's several interpretations of that sentence.

>>30499692
>Their kill ratio was really shitty.

Proximity fuses. This was a massively underrated tech advance for the US.

>>30503433
And defenses of both islands included waves upon waves of human-guided missiles.

>>30500290
That cost comes out to about $664K in today dollars. Still not a bad price.