ORIGINAL: mdiehl
The statement was made the A6m2's only won over junk planes.
No one has made that claim in this thread or in any other thread in which I have participated. If that statement (that I quoted above) refers to anything I have posted here I strongly recommend that you reread the thread.
Short summary. The Zero was never qualitatively superior to normal first line allied fighters & their pilots. Making that statement does not imply that no zero could beat a first line allied fighter or pilot. Likewise, making that statement does not imply that no group of zeros could ever shoot down more allied 1st line fighters in any engagement.
It does imply that the sustained loss ratios of the actual war do not warrant any special bump to the japanese specifically for pilot ability or aircraft.
You might want to read about the action at Darwin before you invoke it as a case study. The only action at Darwin occurred when Japanese aircraft conducted a surprise raid there. The P-40s shot down were literally shot down as they were taking off, or very shortly thereafter. I do not see how any reasonable person could construe cases where enemy aircraft were shot up as they were taking off are good data points for understanding much about the relative merits of the aircraft types or their pilots. The Darwin Raid combat certainly does not qualify as a "meeting engagement."
There are good explanations for Japanese early successes that do not involve pilot quality or a.c. quality. But I can only have an interesting debate about it if people are honest enough to respond to what I write, rather than some straw man version that someone wishes I would write.
I am not the one who invoked Darwin as a "case study." It was you in previous threads and again in this one that tries to convey the impression that the japanese could not win unless they had surprise or the allies were short of supply. You specifically mentioned Darwin as a case where surprise was achieved.
As to the Darwin raid, the Japanese did achieve complete tactical surprise despite the Australians having at least 45 minutes warning of inbound Japanese aircraft. There were 5 P-40's on patrol and five on the ground. Four of the five on patrol were quickly shot down. Only Lt Oestreicher was able to avoid being shot down and he claimed 2 Vals. 4 were shot down shortly after takeoff. Another taking off crashed due to pilot error. The Japanese lost 6 Zeros, all to groundfire or accident.
Ok, so that's the carrier raid of 19 Feb 42 on Darwin in a nutshell. The japanese had overwhelming superiority of position and surprise. Big deal. What does this raid have to do with the justifying or denying the Zero bonus? Seems to me this is your strawman argument... an attempt by you to cloud the issue.
So let's clear it a bit if you can.
Please educate me as to what actions occurred anywhere
during the first 5 months of the war where allied fighters swept the air of A6M2s, or at the very least inflicted subtantially more losses than they received. If you want, we could also apply your "criteria" and exclude any action where surprise, poor logisitics, bad airfields, etc, etc... could be blamed. What the heck, just list any and all actions without your criteria applied. Shouldn't take too long, it's bound to be a very short list.
Bottom line is that there is far more data supporting the inclusion of a Zero bonus than there is against it, excepting your a priori analysis of course.
I don't suppose you would care to list what your a priori analysis yielded, would you? I'd really like to see that data, in detail. I don't suppose that you could provide it so the rest of us could be enlightened.
But I guess the critical question is (and one that you have ducked): Why do you care so much about a feature of a game you don't own, you don't play and you seem to hate with a passion? Seems to me that you are going to an awful lot of trouble to educate us poor, silly, ignorant players. Now I understand this is a free forum and open to everyone but really now, what's the point?
Chez
