Since the Pacific War (ironic name!) is on the DUgenda today, about kamikazes...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The official USA line on the Kamikaze pilots attacks was mocking indifference, and with good reason. We didn't want to encourage them!

For years the suicide pilot campaign was described in documentaries as a nuisance.

In actuality, the Kamikaze was one of the greatest leaps forward in military technology ever, and had Japan started the war with Kamikazes the USA would have had to either sue for peace or follow suit. (One can debate which would of those two would be a greater spiritual defeat for America.)

Japan invented the cruise missile at least 30 years early. (Sorry Condi Rice... your claim that "nobody could have imagined airplanes as cruise missiles" was off by more than half a century)

In our GPS-guided precision-weapon world it is hard to recall that throughout WWII (and most other wars) the big problem was aiming. Soldiers took 50 shots to hit something. Artillery had to be "walked in." Torpedoes were a fire-and-hope proposition.

We routinely dropped bombs 5 or ten miles from where they were supposed to go. And at night... forget about it. The value of night-time bombing was largely terroristic, just to keep everyone on edge. Germany terrorized England with rockets that were kind of like giant bottle-rockets.

Kamikazes routinely disabled and sometimes sank ships. One man, one fighter plane taking out a ship was very "asymmetrical" warfare. The ability to pilot a load of explosives was a serious, serious threat.

Fortunately the program started after the war was all but lost. The Kamikaze was not a game-changer but rather a desperation gesture. The planes were modified stock models stuffed with explosives. Had Japan actually designed optimized Kamikaze bombs it would have been decisive. (More explosive, front-loaded armor penetrating designs and a super-fast straight-down but aimed terminal drop that anti-aircraft fire couldn't hope to catch)

And this raises a familiar question... The problem with terrorism is that a suicide attacker offers an incredible advantage. This benefits a fanatical and/or suicide culture wherever one exists. Islam is not a suicide culture, of course, but the small Jihadi cults are.

But suicide weaponry poses a recruiting problem.

Western men in war will often walk into "certain death" but will seldom be ordered into "CERTAIN death." Our "suicide missions" are presented as long odds, but never actual straight-up suicide. Recall that suicide is a mortal sin in Christianity!

In today's world the suicide bomber is a tool of the relatively technologically backward army. Palestinians would probably be happy to lob some GPS Guided mega-bombs into Tel Aviv but they cannot. For that matter, they would probably be delighted to send androids strapped with suicide vests in night-clubs, but have no androids.

For a first-world state actor, however, the suicide warrior is not so useful anymore because we can aim things better with computers than people can.

And that is probably for the best... or maybe not. (We seem to drop our smart bombs with stupid abandon sometimes. Maybe it is too easy and antiseptic.)

[tridim]

1. I just read recently that the pilots were all given meth before their flights.

That kind of skews the harsh reality of certain death.

[fishbulb703]

2. Ugh, your lack of logistics makes your OP sound rediculous.

A well-trained and well-armed frogman can do damage multiples of that of a kamikaze, lets just forget the robotic miniguns installed on modern day ships. The gunmen in India caused more havoc and damage than any suicide bomber could do, and guess what, they got away! (besides one) I can only assume this is one of those nostalgic, "things were so much simpler in the old days" posts. Unrec for stupidity

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. You are without a clue... sorry, it's just what it is

"A well-trained and well-armed frogman can do damage multiples of that of a kamikaze"

Yes, to a ship in port. Funny thing is that not a lot of frogmen in WWII were overtaking battleships in open sea. Isn't it funny that you are so smart, yet somehow the US never figured out this cool frogman idea for use in pitched naval battle during WWII?

"lets just forget the robotic miniguns installed on modern day ships."

Yes, let's please forget them since they didn't fucking exist during WWII, the topic of the OP

"The gunmen in India caused more havoc and damage than any suicide bomber could do, and guess what, they got away! (besides one)"

Wow... more awesomeness from you. The Mumbai attackers killed 173 people and wounded 308... something no "suicide bomber could do"... wow! They did way less damage than the 9/11 hijackers who were, as I recall reading somewhere, suicides. You really don't get this at all, do you? Of course people can shoot people and plant bombs. And if every one of the Mumbai attackers had ended his campaign with a suicide vest then the death toll would be high-er (You so that little "er" on the end of the word? It means more.)

"I can only assume this is one of those nostalgic, "things were so much simpler in the old days" posts. Unrec for stupidity"

I don't give fuck-all about what you assume. You are astonishingly stupid which is fine in itself, but you are one of those "I am arrogant about what a fricking half-wit I am" types and that cannot be defended.

[Tesha]

4. I have *NEVER* understood why we pretend to be so shocked by "suicide bombers" or...

19 guys that manage to trade their lives for over
3,000 lives of their sworn enemies.

From a tactical point of view, it's a perfectly
reasonable choice. It's the sort of decision that
we expect our "troops" to take any given day. Of
the many of soldiers storming the Normandy
beaches, many of them knew that that assault
would be their last day. How different is that
outlook from that of the kamikaze or the "terror-
ist suicide bomber/hijacker"?

Tesha