Just had lunch with a buddy of mine who is a Marine Hornet driver. He was stationed in Okinawa for a 3 years or so. We had this conversation, fighting the Japanese pilots...he fought both the Japanese F-15 and F-4 and said they weren't very good....very one or two dimensional.
Can anyone expand on this? Fairly curious.
I flew with them for 3 weeks out in Guam, they were okay. Professional, competent and decent flyers but just okay when it comes to the fighting. That, and when the weather was bad they really didn't fly
. The reason I think they are only okay, no combat experience in over 60 years. Things are easy when it is only an exercise.
Also once heard their "Navy" is the 2nd best in the world now that Britain's is soo tiny. Truth?
Second best? That is pretty judgmental and hard to quantify, second 'largest' in terms of numbers of destroyers in frigates is probably what you heard. Plus, the Brits have the unique experience of continuing to operate around the world in all sorts of environments regularly, combat included. Probably only us and maybe the French can say that as well.
Japan may not be allowed any "carriers" but that doesn't mean they don't have have any. Flying around the harbors they actually have what they are calling a "DDH" that looks remarkably like something sized between an LHA and a CV. Can't speak for their fixed wing capability, but I will say that technology wise their rotary aircraft are far beyond what we operate.
Those DDH's are not all that big and can only operate about 10-11 helos max. Their appearance did cause some controversy in the region when they first showed up but the Japanese have no plans to acquire fixed wing CV-capable aircraft and the ships are a bit small for that anyways.
Hyūga class helicopter destroyer
DDH Controversy
As for their helos being much better technology-wise, again, it is in the matter of employment that they are just okay.
