Japanese technology used by the Allies?

[Georg Schwarz]

It is widely known that the Allies made use of certain German technology
during and after the war, e.g. jerrycan or rockets. Did they also profit
from any Japanese inventions?

[m***@netMAPSONscape.net]

Post by Georg Schwarz
It is widely known that the Allies made use of certain German technology
during and after the war, e.g. jerrycan or rockets. Did they also profit
from any Japanese inventions?

Not to the extent of the German technology, but the Japanese were involved
in many similar projects throughout the war. No doubt, the Allies took
some refinements from some of them. The US also gave out some blanket
immunities to top members of Unit 731, believing they (the US) would get
valuable information about biological warfare. The Soviets apparently built
a bio-weapons facility, using documents captured in Manchuria from the
unit. Whether that's "profit" or not, well...

Mike

[Bay Man]

Post by Georg Schwarz
It is widely known that the Allies made use of certain German technology
during and after the war, e.g. jerrycan or rockets. Did they also profit
from any Japanese inventions?

I can only think of the I-400 sub, for a short while, but for firing
missiles not planes. We ever used kamikaze.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by Georg Schwarz
It is widely known that the Allies made use of certain German technology
during and after the war, e.g. jerrycan or rockets. Did they also profit
from any Japanese inventions?

The main weapons where Japanese methods or design where superior
appear to be:
1: Light carrier-borne aircraft (e.g. Mitsubishi Zero);
2: Torpedos.
Case 1 appears not easily appropriated (from one country's manufacturing
industry to another. It appears US forces first acquired a testable
Mitsubishi Zero only in July 1942 (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Zero )

Case 2 so far as US forces were concerned was obscured by earlier intra-
USN disputes concerning torpedo design and deployment (see references in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo#World_War_II
" . . . fully functioning torpedoes only became available to the USN 21
months
into the Pacific War.")

I.e. it appears Allied forces did not attempt to profit from Japanese
innovations,
and may have lacked capacity to identify and specify them.

[k***@cix.compulink.co.uk]

Post by Don Phillipson
I.e. it appears Allied forces did not attempt to profit from Japanese
innovations,
and may have lacked capacity to identify and specify them.

The superiority of Japanese surface launched torpedoes was not
confirmed until after the war ended. In fact the loss off Allied ships
to torpedoes early in the war was put down to Japanese subs rather than
surface launched ones. All of the Allies relied on standard air and that
just did not give comparable performance. RN experience with enriched
air found that the additional performance was not worth the
complications and the presence of O2 generators aboard ship was
dangerous. The only RN ships to get enriched air torpedoes were Nelson
and Rodney and those had reverted to normal air by 1941.

After the war RN research used Hydrogen peroxide rather than O2 as that
at least avoided the starting problem.

Ken Young