Flying torches

[mdiehl]

Japanese Ace Yukiyoshi Wakamatsu
18 Kills, including...

Assuming that photo came from Yukiyoshi's a.c., I am willing to accept the claim of "one probable P-40." I have no confidence in the "18" claim.

[Ike99]

At higher speeds the Wildcat cornered inside the zero. THAT is the problem. It's because the control systems attached to the very large control surfaces on the Zeke (which large control surfaces made it very maneuverable at low speed) were not sufficiently robust to operate those control surfaces at high speed. This is an established fact for which there are numerous substantiating Japanese pilot accounts.

Please post some of these established factsand numerous claims.

Assuming that photo came from Yukiyoshi's a.c., I am willing to accept the claim of "one probable P-40." I have no confidence in the "18" claim.

Of this I have no doubt. If Pacific history was written by some of those on this thread the entire Japanese Army and Navy would have a total of 3, confirmed air to air victories in 4 years with 4 more probable, with an added ¨I doubt it¨ at the end of their sentence.

[:D]

[mdiehl]

Please post some of these established factsand numerous claims.

Sure. Here are some references:

Bergerud, Eric M.
2001 Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific. Westview Press, Boulder.

Lundstrom, John B.
1985 The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

1994 The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

If Pacific history was written by some of those on this thread the entire Japanese Army and Navy would have a total of 3, confirmed air to air victories in 4 years with 4 more probable, with an added ¨I doubt it¨ at the end of their sentence.

Hard to know. If Pacific history were written by me, I'd do what John Lundstrom did. I'd trust Japanese unit records to account for a.c. that they lost, and I'd trust allied unit records for where and when allied a.c. were lost. Then I'd try to match up the aircraft lost on specific days with the engagements in which they fought, and dig through both sides' pilots AARs to figure out who shot down whom and under what circumstances.

[Ike99]

Bergerud, Eric M.
2001 Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific. Westview Press, Boulder.

Lundstrom, John B.
1985 The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

1994 The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

mdiehl, these are not ¨numerous claims¨ and ¨facts¨...

these are books.

With two out of the three being published by the ¨The United States Naval Institute Press¨

Ahh, now that´s an objective source for you! [:D]

I wonder who their target buyers are and what they want to hear?


No, let´s skip the middle person and avoid any spin and look at source material and interpret it ourselves. Again, post me some actual ¨facts¨ for what you claim.

Flight envelope graphs, pilot interviews, etc. Things of this sort. Surely in the back of these books they have references for what they claim.

[mdiehl]

mdiehl, these are not ¨numerous claims¨ and ¨facts¨... these are books.

That is true. Citing them, however, provides you with several peer-reviewed published sources that are critically well receieved by historians all over the world in which the various examples of Wildcats turning inside Zeroes when operating at high speed can be read. It also saves me the effort of quoting a whole bunch of text that anyone who isn't lazy can simply obtain for themselves.

With two out of the three being published by the ¨The United States Naval Institute Press¨ Ahh, now that´s an objective source for you!

It is an objective source, no doubt about that. USNIP operates under the same scholarly peer-review standards as all major academic presses. Knowing a bit about that process, I suspect that the Lundstrom volumes were reviewed by at least three different independent well-known PTO scholars, and these scholars found the work to be authoritative, informative, well-researched, and not driven by bias (which are the usual criteria for scholarly publications qua, for example, works of fiction, or autobiographical books).

I wonder who their target buyers are and what they want to hear?

Immaterial. One could engage in the same sort of petty conspiracy theorizing about pretty much any published work and, in ignorance, reject the source as biased.

No, let´s skip the middle person and avoid any spin and look at source material and interpret it ourselves. Again, post me some actual ¨facts¨ for what you claim.

I do not understand. The one detailed instance that I discussed of Bauer turning inside a zero and shooting it down you have rejected on the grounds of the faulty logic that Bauer having been shot down is obviated as a credible source despite the fact that he shot down some 12 other zeroes before hand. One can question your wisdom in using such logic, because if the fact he was shot down leads inevitably to the conclusion "A wildcat should never dogfight with a zero," then the fact that he shot down his assailant leads equally to the conclusion that "A zero should never dogfight with a wildcat."

On a more general level you have posted a whole bunch of assertions that "everybody knows" that the Zero was a better fighter and more maneuverable. Yet you, yourself, have not provided a single peer-reviewed book or article that substantiates that claim. While I know of some pilot anecdotes that support your contention, the plain fact is that other pilot anecdotes do not support that contention. And the combat records of the two a.c. don't make the Zero look superior at all.

So, if you're not willing to educate yourself by actually READING some of the many works on the subject (for which I have provided three very good sources), there is hardly any point in me choosing a few anecdotes on the matter. Given your rejection of the one particular example I offered, I don't see any merit in offering you a few decontextualized anecdotes when you draw the wrong conclusions from them, and when you can't bother to go to the broader, more detailed historical treatments from which I could choose a few anecdotes.

[Ike99]

That is true. Citing them, however, provides you with several peer-reviewed published sources that are critically well receieved by historians all over the world in which the various examples of Wildcats turning inside Zeroes when operating at high speed can be read. It also saves me the effort of quoting a whole bunch of text that anyone who isn't lazy can simply obtain for themselves.

Sure. Here is some good quotes for you to research mdiehl.

A report was made from 40 fighter pilots from VMF-121, 212 and 251 and VF-71 in October 1942.

“A Zero is faster, more maneuverable, and has a higher rate of climb than our F4F-4s” (Observations).

¨Zeros are faster than the F4F-4's at all altitudes and more maneuverable…¨ (Performance).


¨...we just couldn't stay with them at all, and dog fight at any altitude.¨

[SuluSea]

Ike99 said

No, let´s skip the middle person and avoid any spin and look at source material and interpret it ourselves. Again, post me some actual ¨facts¨ for what you claim.

Flight envelope graphs, pilot interviews, etc. Things of this sort. Surely in the back of these books they have references for what they claim.

You say "avoid spin", yet that's all you do.

Somehow I don't think you'll be posting any interviews that speak on bombing the USS Neosho and calling it a "sunk carrier" or who knows how many times the Jap pilots claimed to have sunk the Yorktown.

mdiehl said

On a more general level you have posted a whole bunch of assertions that "everybody knows" that the Zero was a better fighter and more maneuverable. Yet you, yourself, have not provided a single peer-reviewed book or article that substantiates that claim.

Welcome to Ikes world. More of the same here I'm eagerly anticipating his next installment. My guess is it will be how superior the Marus were over the Liberty ships.[;)]

[HansBolter]

All I have ot add at this point is that the Green Button worked for me! [8D]

[mdiehl]

Sure. Here is some good quotes for you to research mdiehl.

I don't doubt you found 'em somewhere. But "a report said thus and so" has about as much credibility as a toothpaste commercial unless you specify the report. And I already noted that there are some anecdotal accounts that make the Zero look more manueverable and others that make the Zero less maneuverable at high speed. So you seem to at once be making two errors:

1. Cherry picking your quotes.
2. Failing to provide a useful citation that allows one to id the source of your quotes.

As I said before, anyone can cherry pick anecdotes. On August 30 1942, John L. Smith (VMF223) entered a low-speed turning engagement with his F4F against two A6M2s, shot one down, and discovered that the other A6M driver had disengaged or got lost from the fight.

He [Smith] looked around. Both he and Lt. Kendrick were hit by many pieces of the last aircraft. Smith descended, trying to meet up with Kendrick, so they can go into the field together. He got down to 800 feet, along the north shoreline, but still couldn't find his wingman. Instead there were two Zeros which apparently had been strafing the field. Attacking two maneuverable Zeros at low altitude with a single Wildcat was very risky, but Smith lined one up and fired. He stayed with his twisting victim, which soon began to stream smoke and flame; it went right into the ground. The other Zero was nowhere in sight.

http://www.acepilots.com/usmc_smith.html

Being anecdotal, it's not worth much to me, because as I have noted numerous times, anyone can cherry pick anecdotes until their fingertips bleed and still not know one thing regarding the subject whereof they speak.

Empirically, the relative merits of the F4F and A6M are well characterized by their actual success rates in battle. No matter how much you try to spin it, USN drivers in F4Fs shot down more IJN drivers in A6Ms in carrier vs carrier engagements at ranges that generally favored the Zero than the IJN Zero pilots were able to shoot down in F4Fs, beginning with the battle of Coral Sea. At Guadalcanal, the best IJN air group eked out a slight victory, empirically speaking, against a mixed bag of F4F pilots stationed at Guadalcanal through September 1942.

Overall in 1942 including both USN and USMC victories, the kill ratio between F4Fs and A6Ms was about 1:1. Therefore, the only empirically supportable conclusion is that the F4F+pilot was about equal to the A6M+pilot throughout 1942. If one stipulates that the Zero was a better plane, then one must conclude that Zero pilots were on the whole inferior to F4F pilots. Since that does not seem warranted by the training and prior combat experience of the A6M pilots, one must conclude that the relative balance of capabilities of the a.c. were more complicated than are characterized by simplistic descriptive phrases such as "better plane" or "better fighter plane." Either the F4F was a better plane in some arenas of the flight envelope or else F4F pilots were simply better pilots overall.

[tocaff]

You are batting your head against the wall as he will never relent.  A preconceived idea will never bend no matter what you put in front of him.  He will always offhandedly dismiss your facts as tainted because his facts are the only true ones. 

He's probably the only person on the forum with more green buttons than Marky in the WITP forum because he's so abrasive, stubborn and narrow minded.

[Ike99]

Instead there were two Zeros which apparently had been strafing the field. Attacking two maneuverable Zeros at low altitude with a single Wildcat was very risky, but Smith lined one up and fired. He stayed with his twisting victim, which soon began to stream smoke and flame; it went right into the ground. The other Zero was nowhere in sight.

mdiehl is this a dogfight? Your Smith decended down on a Zero, lined it up and and shot it. Did the Zero pilots even know he was there before he fired? From what you said here, no.

And where did the other Zero go?. I´m assuming both Zero pilots were probably out of ammo and had been focussed on strafing the airfield, as it says, and not paying much attention to what was going on around them. Smith comes down on one and shoots one.

Not much of a dogfight by anyones account and a very weak ¨anecdote¨ a Wildcat is as manuverable as a Zero. In fact, there is nothing here where Smith himself claimed he felt his Wildcat could out maneuver a Zero.

Nothing.

Is that the best evidence your ¨world renowned¨ historians can give that makes Wildcats as manuverable as Zeros?

It´s very weak. And besides, perhaps you need to look at some other historians who do not publish revistionist works out of the US Naval Institute Press for a target buyer group.

I don't doubt you found 'em somewhere. But "a report said thus and so" has about as much credibility as a toothpaste commercial unless you specify the report.

Well, unlike your claims, I can give credible sources for my claims that make Zeros more maneuverable than Wildcats. The Allied pilots themselves who said so, over, and over, and over again in an overwelming general concensus among intelligence and post combat interviews during the war.

Go to your own national archives and look up the ¨Bureau of Aeronautics¨ interviews. The ¨United States Pacific Fleet, South Pacific Force, Naval Air Combat Intelligence¨ reports of that time.

Not much of a toothpaste commercial for you. I think, spin free, the actual historic record is crystal clear. Zeros were much more manuverable than wildcats.

If you had been at Guadacanal in 42´, from reading the pilot interviews, there would have been you, and then there would have been you, who believed a Wildcat could out manuever a Zero. And if you had tried it with your magic, out turn a Zero at 270 mph number, I suspect it wouldn´t have taken you long to find out why the Allied pilots and reports said, don´t dogfight Zeros. You would have been another one of those ¨probable, but I doubt it¨ or ¨unreliable¨ and ¨suspect¨ Japanese air victories.

[OG_Gleep]

I think it was implied that the Jap pilot noticed he was being shot at and couldn't shake him.

[tocaff]

No matter what anybody claims the kills vs the loses say it all.  If you insist that the Zero was so superior then the Japanese pilots must've been horrible not to obtain better than a 1 to 1 kill ratio.  We all know that the pilots weren't crap so explain away the #s that say it was even.

[Denniss]

There's no question, the Zero was superior to the Wildcat in maneuverability. But not under all circumstances. The higher the alt and the faster the speed the closer the gap between these two. The US pilot were also very quick to adopt better air combat tactics.
And the US side had the better aircraft if it comes to durability and survivability. Some machine gun hits could be absorbed by the Wildcat if not hit in critical areas whilst the Zero was always in danger of receiving a critical hit by the .50 or to burst in flames.

Edit:typo

[Charbroiled]

It's kinda funny. When mdiehl argued that the Wildcat could hold it's own against the zero in the WITP forum, everybody ganged up on him to dispute it. Now Ike is arguing the opposite and everybody is ganging up on him in the UV forum.

Personally, I think both have valid arguements. As far as kill ratios go, while the zero may (or may not) be more manouverable, the Wildcat had better armor and more firepower, while the zero was lightly armored and (I could be wrong) carried less ammo. The kill ratio could be explained that the Wildcat could take numerous hits and keep flying, but only a few hits were all that was needed to take down a zero.

EDIT: Denniss beat me, saying about the same thing[&o]

[tocaff]

So there's more to how tight a plane can turn, fast it can fly, speed of dive, climb rate, roll rate, fire power, armored protection, self sealing tanks, etc.  The driver has tons to do with it and this'll be argued to kingdom come without anybody giving an inch.  So pilot training and skill along with tactics are probably the great equalizers.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

So there's more to how tight a plane can turn, fast it can fly, speed of dive, climb rate, roll rate, fire power, armored protection, self sealing tanks, etc.  The driver has tons to do with it and this'll be argued to kingdom come without anybody giving an inch.  So pilot training and skill along with tactics are probably the great equalizers.

I would say "yes" in most cases, but if I was inexperienced, I would choose a tank over a rifle every day.

[tocaff]

I'd prefer a survivable, hard hitting plane too as this way I might live long enough to get good at being a fighter jock.  

[OG_Gleep]

Ya I've felt bad for Ike. IMHO his tone changed when the entire tone changed and he got nailed for it.

I don't think Ike ever disputed that the Wildcat held its own did he? From what I have seen his over-riding point was that the Zero was a better dogfighter than the Wildcat. Atleast that was what it was when this rollercoaster kicked off.

A number of factors that had nothing to do with the plane helped the Wildcats cause. Something that a Pilot from the Enterprise who flew a wildcat in 42 (Battle 360..they were up to Saipan as of Friday). Anyhow, he said he had never been in a dogfight. All his fights were either head on, or when he dropped in on their tail. Otherwise he got the hell out of there. They never knew what hit them. Paraphrasing but tried to quote accuratley. Thats  a pretty significant statement imho.

[OG_Gleep]

zero was lightly armored and (I could be wrong) carried less ammo

 
Didn't they only carry 60 rounds of cannon ammo?