Hans, we are talking what fighter was better here. Wildcats or Zeros. It´s the Zero.
The problem here is that the word "better" is an utterly meaningless pangloss. When you use it, you either have to justify it by talking specifics about the particular models you are comparing and their performance stats, or you have to find a panglossian index for betterness (which for me amounts to kill ratios). In general USN F4Fs driven by carrier-based USN pilots shot down more Zeroes driven by ANY kind of IJN pilot than F4Fs lost to said Zeroes. Thus, empirically, the panglossian index of "betterness" demonstrates that the F4F was a better fighter than the Zero. At Guadalcanal, however, Zeroes shot down more F4Fs than they lost to F4Fs. Thus, the panglossian index of betterness makes the Zero a better plane than the F4F. Taken together, these two empirical facts suggest that the two were "about equal."
Now, if you want to gauge the quality of a consim product, kill ratios strike me as a good standard. If you want to know WHY F4Fs and Zeroes sometimes won and at other times lost individual engagements (taken here to be a fight on the order of a few minutes on a particular day) you have to look at the performance characteristics.
Interesting, the performance characteristics show that the F4F had substantial advantages at high speed and the A6Ms had substantial advantages at low speed. Overall, however, the absence of substantial protection for the pilot and the plane cost the Japanese pilots that they may not otherwise have lost. In contrast, the substantial ruggedness and protection of the F4F saved many USN/USMC pilots who were absolutely beaten and shot down, but who escaped to live another day. Having an F4F on a Zeke's 6 was close to a death sentence. Having a Zeke on an F4Fs six was hugely bad news, but an event that many defeated USN pilots lived to talk about. In that sense, then, which plane allowed its pilot to kill the enemy and come home, the F4F had a clear edge.
For almost 70 years everyone has generally agreed the Zero was a better fighter than a Wildcat and for good reason. Because a revisionist comes out with a book saying the Wildcat was a better fighter than a Zero doesn´t make a Wildcat better than a Zero.
"Revisionist" is an ugly term that is generally associated with lack of sound methods and an a priori agenda. A dissenting historical treatment of a subject is not a "revisitionist" history. Otherwise, all histories of anything would be "revisionist." Bergerud's work is generally sound. In my opinion it relies a little too heavily on anecdotes. Past histories of PTO combat in 1941-1942 likewise relied too heavily on anecdotes -- especially on Sakai's volume. It's a good source on how to fly a Zero. It's a lousy source for knowing how well the two types (F4Fs and A6Ms) matched up against each other.
Bergerud's work is substantiated by parallel work done by John Lundstrom in two volumes, and by Richard Frank's work on Guadalcanal, and Eric Hammel's work on the Solomons Campaign carrier battles. And that gets us back to the start of the conversation.
"Better" is am ambiguous term. If "received wisdom" has taught you that "The Zero was a better plane than the F4F" and "Japanese naval aviators were better pilots" then "The F4F shot down more enemy fighters in CV vs CV engagements, and about as many enemy fighters as they lost through September" 1942, then Occam's razor forces one to conclude that either the received wisdom is wrong or else the word "better" has no utility for understanding anything about F4Fs and A6Ms as employed in the PTO during WW2.
Roll rate, smoll rate and flimsy airframe my butt. A Wildcat was not the equal of a Zero. It was an inferior fighter when going against Zeros.
That claim is not substantiated by losses, nor by the performance specs of the a.c.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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