The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

Pearl Harbor was made to cash in on the wave of movies like Titanic. In Real Life, the one thing that Tora! Tora! Tora! got right was that the War Department thought that the battle was going to start in the Philippines. Hence the B-17's were being ferried to Pearl sans guns and bombs.

I hated Bay's film because, like Skids and Mudflap from Bayformers, there was a character with a stutter Bay Played for Laughs. He exists only to try and say "The Japs!" with effort. And this guy is supposed to be a Captain!

The IJN shooting up a hospital and shooting at downing sailors was typical Bay being over the top. The man caters to the dumbest moviegoers and the lowest expectations. The movie execs wanted a "Love story" and he gave it to them, along with characters out of Film/Idiocracy and action scenes dreamed up by an 8 year old putting black cat firecrackers in his models.

The action scenes were over the top, the characters stupid and the plot had little to do with the real attack. At least they got the name right.

edited 12th Jul '14 4:04:59 AM by TairaMai

He also adds Japanese pilots strafing civilians, which they didn't actually do. I find it rather ironic that Bay couldn't seem to find one of the many real Japanese war crimes, so he invented one.

This is Michael "Bayhem" Bay. I did better historical research in middle school.

Yes they did strafe civilians. Namely the ones at the civilian airport in a commercial craft on the ground. The Japanese also attacked other privately owned civilian aircraft in the air shooting down three civilian aircraft in the general vicinity. Most civilians were killed or injured because they were near or around the targets the Japanese were after. There were even a few killed by errant AA fire.

edited 12th Jul '14 7:31:42 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Collateral damage is rather different to what Bay shows them doing, which is strafing the local hospital, presumably because they are foreign and therefore personae non grata in a Bay movie. IIRC, the Japanese pilots were even ordered to avoid civilian casualties (for once).

edited 12th Jul '14 7:34:55 AM by Achaemenid

Avoiding civilian casualties. So that is what you call attacking the civilian air port and shooting down commercial and private craft.

edited 12th Jul '14 7:41:49 AM by TuefelHundenIV

I'm not arguing they were diligent in following their orders. Simply that Bay's depiction of the evil Japs shooting up the hospital is inaccurate.

It should be pretty obvious that attacking the civilian airport just might produce civilian casualties. Now I could maybe understand the civilian aircraft being in the general vicinity and overly excited and unsure pilots being a bit trigger happy.

Yes how horrible of Bay. What a total monster never mind that others have already pointed out it very likely wasn't his call to make. Yes all Bay's fault because he totally does movies like Pearl Harbor all the time never mind the other producer and incidentally a big part of the production other then the company, Jerry Bruckheimer, was also involved with films like Top Gun the blatant navy recruitment ad, Black Hawk down a at best questionable representation of the events that took place in Somalia and his other films which have some "creative interpretation" of "the bad guys". Give the bullshit festival rest. The Bay is evil meme is worn to nub.

edited 12th Jul '14 8:17:31 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Those are both fair points, actually. I always just assumed it was Bay's fault - he is on record defending the film's supposed accuracy after all, and he does make films like that a lot - but if it can be blamed on Bruckheimer (who is almost as bad) then I have no objections to that.

edited 12th Jul '14 8:33:04 AM by Achaemenid

I would be more surprised if a director bashed their own movie for being inaccurate. That and Bay has worked with him before to get movies out if he undermined one of their joint projects he might not be able to call on him to help him get out future projects. Its probably a bit of column A and a bit of Column B.

So this makes me think. Who Would Win in a test of equal pilots? A Japanese pilot of an A 6 M Zero? Or his German opponent in a BF-109?

Both were initially superior to nearly all their opposition, so what if they faced each other?

My money says the Zero owing to superior maneuverability and the higher visibility cockpit.

Surely even a "sterile" test like that would depend on a lot of factors like sun placement, weather, etc?

And the altitude, the initial positions of the aircraft, fuelstate, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I'd say the Messeschmitt's better climb rate and sufficiently higher speed give it the edge. That, and the fact that it actually has some armour.

BF 109s generally had cooler paintjobs so it wins by default.

And it looks cooler.

edited 12th Jul '14 11:03:35 AM by LeGarcon

The BF-109 has a higher rate of climb, higher effective ceiling, more air speed, and is not as lightly built. As for weapons its kind of a mix and match. The 109 has two .50 cal MG's and a 20mm cannon. The Zero has two 20mm's and two .303's.

Choosing when and where you fight is a big advantage, isn't it? Would the Bf-109's better ceiling and speed give it an edge in that, since it can run from the Zero if it sees it coming?

edited 12th Jul '14 11:30:48 AM by Achaemenid

Sort of. The skill of the pilot and the general situation are also factors. A lot really goes into those kinds of conflicts.

I wonder if anyone ever did any studies on that, like the US Army's investigation into tank-on-tank engagements after the war.

edited 12th Jul '14 11:49:05 AM by Achaemenid

That's a big if. The Bf-109 had some of the most notoriously poor cockpit visibility of any aircraft of the war. In even mid to late-war production models the BF-109 could really only see what was directly in front of it effectively. It couldn't see in any direction to its rear. The Zero had some of the best, their pilots could see in every direction quite well.

Achae:Possibly. I am certain they have simulators that could run it.

edited 12th Jul '14 12:28:11 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Starting position is very important. If you started both planes flying head-on towards each other, there are a lot of aircraft the Zero will lose against, due to the lack of armor. Japanese pilots were instructed to avoid head-on confrontations with Allied aircraft for this reason.

Regarding the civilian airport, is it possible that some overeager Japanese pilots mistook it for one of the numerous military airfields around the base? Ditto for the civvie airplanes? I mean, it's also possible that there were a few assholes among the Japanese fliers as well.

Yeah, but according to the internet accidentally failing at target identification is still a war crime.

Valid point.

Except the civilian airport was no where near the military airfields and would look quite a bit different. You know the total lack of anything military on the field and around it being a really big damn clue.

The First Clear Pictures Of Japan's Stealth Fighter Emerge — The ATD-X is a technology demonstrator, BTW.