warshipguy
My point is that, while sinking over half of all Japanese shipping, the carrier war gets the overwhelming majority of credit for winning the war against Japan. That hardly seems fair to the submariners, who suffered a huge casualty rate.
Be a little leery of Roscoe's statistics. Generally good material, but not without it's bias and problems due to records that hadn't been declassified when he was writing. The stats I see are a little different than what you've listed; the Strategic Bombing Survey's Summary report states the following for merchant shipping:
Of the 8.9 million tons of merchant shipping sunk or damaged, the Bombing Surveys "Summary Report" credits 54.7 percent to submarines, 30.8 percent to air attack, 9.3 percent to mines (largely dropped by B-29s), and the remainder to gunfire and accidents.
Also, the Carriers should get a lot of credit. As I said, subs are important, but they couldn't take and hold land, and really could only chip away at serious forces.
Now, I do think that the US subs do get credit in some circles. Where they fail to as much is on TV, where there's less footage and certainly less exciting footage. There's lots of footage of ships firing, turning, on fire; airplanes moving on carriers, diving, etc. Producers want excitement and engagement, so they'll give submarines less attention because what do you have? A sub coming in and our of port, maybe some footage shot of tense sailors looking at the overheads.... a few blurry periscope shots, but I don't know that there's any real video footage through a periscope of something burning and sinking.
Mines are even more ignored - I don't think you'd ever see a History or Military channel TV show on mining in WWII. A good work to read is Mines Away! - The Significance of US Army Air Forces Minelaying in WWII. Note that it covers more than just USAAF mining, but that is its main focus.
Exceprts:
The PBY-5 Catalinas used by the RAAF were amphibious aircraft that provided good results. Out of
1,130 successful sorties that laid 2,498 mines, the Australians lost nine aircraft, a 0.8 percent loss rate.
Altogether, the postwar U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey estimated these mines sank 90 ships totalling
250,000 tons, or approximately 40 percent of Japanese losses in the Netherlands East Indies.
This is an area that US submarines were operating in as well.
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On August 10, 1944, fourteen B-29s laid their first mines on a mission from China Bay, Ceylon to the refineries at Palembang, Sumatra. The mines sank or damaged seven ships and closed the Moesi River entrance to tankers for a month
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Altogether, the British laid 3,450 mines in 697 sorties from July 1944 until July 1945. By mining
the harbor at Penang, Malaya, they closed the submarine base used by both the Germans and Japanese.
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Mining along Southeast Asia/s northern coast began on October 18, 1943 when a lone
Fourteenth Air Force B-24 dropped three mines in Haiphong Harbor. A single bomber repeated the
attack on November 12th. This operation demonstrated the potential of even a small number of mines to destroy and disrupt shipping. The first mines sank a merchant ship, and the second mining another. A
ten ship convoy then refused to enter the port, but as it diverted to Hainan Island, Fourteenth Air Force
planes attacked it and sank six ships. Afterwards, no traffic larger than junks approached Haiphong.
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Aerial photography revealed the extent of Japans unpreparedness and the immediate impact
mining had on ship traffic. Mines closed the Shimonoseki Strait for almost two weeks and so restricted
Japanese naval traffic that the only passable route was through the Bungo Strait--the Inland Seas
southeastern exit. If ships attempted to sortie through this passage, they faced almost certain detection.
Here, on April 6th, a B-29 sighted an Oklnawa-bound task force led by the battleship Yamato. The next
day, carrier-based torpedo and dive bombers intercepted and sank Yamato with most of her escorts.
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Then, summing up:
Of the approximately 13,000 mines laid in Japans "outer zone," aircraft dropped 9,254 from
3,231 sorties to create 108 minefields. Across this large area, aerial mining sank or damaged as many as 405 ships amounting to 776,260 tons at a cost of 40 Allied aircraft.6 Though difficult to measure, the
Bombing Survey stressed, "Even more important was the fact that vita] shipping was greatly hampered
in its movements and delayed for periods ranging from a day or two to a month."7
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Indeed, "Operation Starvation" sank more ship tonnage in, the last six months of the war than the
concentrated efforts of all other sources combined. The Twentieth Air Force flew 1,529 sorties and laid
12,135 mines in twenty-six fields on forty-six separate missions. Mining demanded only 5.7 percent of
the XXI Bomber Commands total sorties, and fifteen B-29s were lost in the effort--just under a one
percent loss rate.13 In return, mines sank or damaged 670 ships totaling 1,251,256 tons.
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Though mining/s contribution appears small, it primarily represents the four and a half month effort in
1945 compared to the forty-four and a half month submarine campaign.
warshipguy
Of the ship models being discussed, we should also mention that Trumpeter is coming out with a 1/350 USS Indianapolis in a few months. She was certainly in service on 12/7/41.
Actually, both Academy and Trumpeter are releasing a kit (different molds and not reboxing), but both are 1945 fit.