strategic impact of japanese kamikaze attacks

[teg]

It is a well known fact that Japanese kamikaze sunk or damaged many American ships. But what what was teh strategic impacts of their attacks? Did they ever forced Americans to change the planning or making their military operations?

[steverodgers801]

It helped in the decision to drop the bomb. The US was quite worried about the casualties that landing in Japan would entail, there was serious debate about imposing a blockade.

[Takao]

Japan was already under a fairly effective blockade, between Operation Starvation(the B-29 mining campaign) & the US submarine campaign, with US surface naval forces also prowling around the vicinity of the Japanese home islands. With regards to the dropping of the atomic bomb, it is hard to say what part the kamikazes had to play. Japan had been putting up increasingly stubborn defensive battles the closer the Americans got to the home islands - Kamikazes were only one part of their overall defensive strategy.

Strategically, the Kamikazes had little influence on the war. B-29s were diverted from bombing Japanese cities to bombing Japanese airfields for a time, but that was about it.

Also, The US Navy had shifted the make-up of their carrier air groups around with the main focus being on fighters which could also double as fighter-bombers - with a corresponding reduction in the size of their torpedo-bombers and dive-bombers(with the dive-bombers seeing a greater reduction in their numbers). That said, I don't know if this would be a strategic impact or a tactical one.

[steverodgers801]

I should say leaving the blockade in place instead of invasion

[LWD]

It did focus the navy on going from the 50 cal to 20mm for fighter armament and for switching from 50 cal and 20mm to 40mm for ship board light AA.

[mescal]

Also, The US Navy had shifted the make-up of their carrier air groups around with the main focus being on fighters which could also double as fighter-bombers - with a corresponding reduction in the size of their torpedo-bombers and dive-bombers(with the dive-bombers seeing a greater reduction in their numbers). That said, I don't know if this would be a strategic impact or a tactical one.

I would say Tactical.
And the replacement of attack aircraft by fighters was far less of a problem than it seems at first glance :
The Helldiver was not a resounding success, and the reduction in torpedo-carrying aircraft was not very significant at a time when the IJN heavy units were already at the bottom of the ocean or immobilized in harbor for want of oil.

Still in the tactical impact, the USN also adapted many doctrinal innovations to tackle the threat, notably the forward deployment of radar picket ships (which paid a heavy price) and associated long-range interceptions.

From a material point of view, it led to the adoption of heavier close AA guns : the 20mm were woefully inadequate to bring down a Kamikaze, and the 40mm Bofors barely enough, and were replaced in new classes by the 3"/50RF (but it came in service too late to see combat in ww2).

Perhaps a more significant impact was on the morale of the USN personnel. IIRC there were many report stating that the madness associated to the Kamikaze behavior, as well as the rising losses had a deep impact on the nerves of all blue-jackets.
However, no actual breakdown of morale occured, even in a campaign as long and bloody as Okinawa.

[Takao]

It did focus the navy on going from the 50 cal to 20mm for fighter armament and for switching from 50 cal and 20mm to 40mm for ship board light AA.

USN warships began the conversion from .50 caliber to 20mm very early in the war(41-42).

[Pips]

Is there a list anywhere of the number and types of ships destroyed, and damaged, by kamikaze attack?

[Takao]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Al ... ck_weapons

[teg]

I wonder the detailed number of losses on LST 460 and LST 749. Morrison wrote that they both lost 107 men killed. And what were wounded numbers?

[ChristopherPerrien]

No , this is not a realistic propositional statement.

The Kamikaze attack was an obsolete, STUPID, and useless method of attack long before those battles. US fighter/CAP group control through CiC's and radar, and at closer range, the radar directed proximity fused 5" guns, made it so

Smaller guns could not blow an aircraft out of the sky, and most Kamikazes never got close to their diving attack because of US CAP tactics and the gun-fire technology by that time.

Surely the Kamikazes inflicted losses on mere picket ships , but the damage inflicted on major ships/fleets was negligible. And had no effect on even tactical operations of the USN. So there was no strategic impact at all.

No Japanese Kamikaze or USN pilot or 20mm/50cL gun/gunner means anything compared in such a scale..