Text 10221, 51 rader
Skriven 2007-01-16 20:37:18 av Jeffrey MacHott (13641.babylon5)
  Kommentar till text 10196 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (13616.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Suspension of disbelief - an open debate
====================================================
Wesley Struebing wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:12:54 GMT, Jeffrey MacHott
> <Raguleader@netzero.net> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
>>>> Well, true, it only bugged me because I happened to know about it, but I 
>>>> still can't figure out how the character himself was supposed to have 
>>>> come across that information, unless he spent some time after the Battle 
>>>> of Britain fighting for the Chinese Imperial Air Force with Claire 
>>>> Chennault (actually given everything else the characters did in the 
>>>> movie, this explanation actually does make sense within the film's 
>>>> internal context). <<
>>> Well see, as a layman, I'd have just assumed (if someone had explained to
me 
>>> that it was pretty unusual knowledge for him to have) that, as a pilot,
he'd 
>>> be interested in the planes of other countries' armed forces.  No?
>>>
>>> Amy
>> Yes, but generally speaking, none of the American pilots KNEW about the 
>> performance of the Japanese planes.  That's why the first 6 months of 
>> the war was so unpleasant, it wasn't that the Americans couldn't ever 
>> get fighters up to fight the Japanese, it's that they always tried to 
>> turn to stay with the enemy in a fight, which was not the P-40's 
>> strongsuit, so they were getting shot out of the sky like flies.  It 
>> wasn't until the Battle of Midway that they developed a suitable 
>> strategy for dogfighting the Japanese beyond high-speed diving 
>> hit-and-run attacks (the "Thatch Weave", which American pilots continued 
>> to use against MiGs as late as the Vietnam War.  Think of the move Wedge 
>> did to help Luke during Star Wars).
> 
> OK, with "generally speaking", but Americans DID know about the Zero.
> They fought them in Burma and for the Chinese (check out Claire L.
> Chennault).  Of course they weren't fighting "for America", but many
> of the tactics they evolved stood us in good stead after Pearl Harbor
> until our fighters improved.

Well, like I said in a previous message (that no doubt probably won't be 
posted for 20 minutes so nobody's read it yet), the Flying Tigers didn't 
start operating in China until late in December of 1940, after the US 
had declared war on Japan.  IIRC, the preferred tactics for American 
pilots throughout the war was a combination of Chennault's hit-and-dive 
tactics and John Thatch's weaving maneuver where one pilot baits a more 
agile enemy plane into his buddy's gunsights.

-- 
--Jeffrey MacHott

"Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua"
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