Air war between Japan and the USSR in a hypotetical 1941 conflict

[Marcelo Jenisch]

Folks,

Going directly to the point: do you considerate that had Japan attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Japanese would have a decent chance of establishing air superiority? I'm specially interested in heard your views in regard to the participation of the Japanese naval aviation, it's Zero fighters and the capability of the Japanese to disrupt the Transiberian railway stations by launching relatively deep bombing missions into Soviet territory using the G3M and G4M bombers.

[ChristopherPerrien]

IMO , it would be a toss up exchange, much like the Khalkhin Gol incident.

Hard to say if the IJA(Imperial Japanese Army) would have improved their fighters up to the Oscar -Ki-33 from the K-27 Nate , in this "secondary?" area by 41. The IJA did not use the IJN Zero or the Claud which were comparative fighters to the Oscar and the Nate. Also the IJA used "Sallys" and "Gwens?" bombers not sure how they related to the Betty(IJN) Judy(?) or Nell(?) or their Designations.

There is a fair table of air losses in the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol

[Marcelo Jenisch]

Initially the IJAAF would have only the Ki-27 (and maybe some Ki-10s). The Ki-43 did not enter in combat service before late '41, and even so the bulk of the IJAAF in late '41 was composed of the Ki-27.

As for the IJNAF, they had 420 Zeros in the Pacific by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. In this scenario, which I guess it would be realistic to say that would occur by September 1941, I don't know the number of Zeros which were active for combat deployment. And above all: how many Zeros would be able to take part in the offensive.