"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:lyr2d.206258$Fg5.67066@attbi_s53...


The Pearl Harbor debacle is often blamed on lack of resources caused by
inadequate support from the politicians. Wrong. Short and Kimmel had
both quantitative and qualitative superiority but were hopelessly inept.


While agreeing on the ineptitiude its clear that the IJN had a clear
superiority in terms of modern fighter aircraft.

At Pearl Harbor? I don't think so. The most they got over the target at one
time was about 45. Just about any time P-40s or F4Fs took on Type 0 Kansen
on equal terms they did reasonably well with losses being pretty close to
one-to-one. When the Americans really got wacked they were usually out
numbered 2 or 3 to one. The Hawaiian Air Force had 64 P-40s and 20 P-36s in
commission that morning. Even the Far East Air Force only suffered about
one-to-one loss ratio in air combat on December 8th. The problem was they
were only able to get about 12 of their 72 P-40s into combat against about
100 Type 0s.


Keith