They still sank 34 ships, damaged 368 others, and caused nearly 10,000 casualties, according to the U.S. Air Force:
Although not often thought of as a precision weapon, the various Kamikaze attackers that first appeared in the fall of 1944 functioned much like modern antishipping missiles, and thus can legitimately be considered a part of the precision weapon story. The Kamikaze was the deadliest aerial antishipping threat faced by Allied surface warfare forces in the war. Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception and attrition, and massive antiaircraft barrages, a distressing 14 percent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 percent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank. As soon as they appeared, then, Kamikazes revealed their power to force significant changes in Allied naval planning and operations, despite relatively small numbers. Clearly, like the antishipping cruise missile of a later era, the Kamikaze had the potential to influence events all out of proportion to its actual strength.
1.19% accuracy. If you invented a gun that worked that often, you’d have the worst gun in the world.
The real problem is that the Japanese had no clue it wasn’t working because nobody could report back on how well suicide missions did.
