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ORIGINAL: OG_Gleep

...If you ran the F4F-4 and A6M2, A6M3 through a simulator, the Zero would have a significant statistical advantage. By that standard, it is a superior Dogfighter.

War can't be simulated though.

Actually it can and it's called UV, but it isn't a perfect simulation. Then again, even if it was, there still would be unhappy people on this forum.

The Wildcat/Zero debate reminds me of something I once read: after VE day, some Spitfire pilots were transferred to the PTO. Before they tangled with IJ fliers, they were introduced to an American pilot who had experience vs. the Zero.

The pilot briefed the Brits, who had previously tangled w/German aces and apparently thought that the Japanese would be pushovers; well, they weren't, and many of the Spitfire pilots quickly got shot down.

Lesson learned; whichever plane is/isn't aerodynamically superior, it would be very foolish to underestimate its pilot.

Objectively speaking, it clearly wasn't suicide. At high speed the F4F could easily outmaneuver the A6M. I understand that you don't like that conclusion, but there are dozens of pilot anecdotes that demonstrate the same. Again, I refer you to various works by John Lundstrom, Eric Bergerud, Eric Hammel, among others. I'm not very fond of anecdotes, however, because people tend only to pay attention to the ones that they feel support their version of reality.

mdiehl, what is your basis for stating a Wildcat is more manuverable than a Zero? Objectively speaking of course.

Do you have a graph of the Wildcat and Zero flight envelopes? Corner velocities, etc, etc or any other factual, statistical information on Zero and Wildcat flight characteristics? If you do produce them.

Because the overwelming general concensus among Allied aviators who flew the Wildcat against Zeros testify, Zeros are more manuverable. Do not dogfight with them, do not try to turn with them, do not try to out climb them, etc., etc. As well the testing of the nearly intact Zero captured in Alaska by the US said Zeros are more manuverable than our fighters.

This is, and has been the ¨party line¨ as someone said earlier for almost 70 years. If this new theory of Wildcats being as manuverable as Zeros is true, where is the evidence? The only thing you provide is a single aviator who said go right in and start twisting and turning with a Zero. Well he was killed fighting Zeros. Anything else to submit as far as evidence?

There are still flyable Wildcats and Zeros in the world today. Did any of these authors, before making their claims of Wildcat parity in manuverability with a Zero do any actual testing with any before publishing their works? I would find it highly suspect an author, who wishes to break from 70 years of traditional thought would make a statement such as this without it. If they didn´t, then they much wear the title of ¨revisionist¨

Yes, I have no doubt a Zero looses performance at higher altitudes, but, every aircraft loses performance at higher altitude because the air is thinner and less ¨grip¨ on the flight surface. Where is the evidence a Zero looses more performance than a Wildcat at altitude ¨X¨ besides, ¨He said so¨??

As well, where is the factual evidence a Wildcat turns tighter than a Zero at speed ¨X¨?

Of course it is possible a Zero going say, twice as fast as its corner velocity will be out turned by a Wildcat travelling at its corner velocity. This does not make a Wildcat more manueverable than a Zero though.

This is cherry picking specific points in a flight envelope and not any actual measure of manuverabilty. Actual dogfighting is not a game of chess, it is a very fluid affair with altitudes and speeds constantly changing. To believe a heavier, slower and square winged plane is going to be able to out manuever a lighter, faster, broader winged plane is really wishful thinking on some peoples part.

You people are really trying to put a dress on a pig with this Wildcats are more manueverable than Zeros thing.

Todd- I´m still scratching my head trying to figure out how Evita ties into Zeros and Wildcats. [:D]

If your question is what was the pilot survivability % between Zero and Wildcat pilots, I don´t know. Certainly for the Zero pilots it was quite low. They went home if ill or wounded. The Allied flyers rotated their pilots out of the combat area after so many missions yes? But they had the luxury of a much larger pilot pool.

That is not correct. Pilot interviews are only insightful as to the capabilities of the aircraft that they actually flew. They're really not useful for much else. They're poor sources for learning how many enemy a.c. were downed in any given fight. They're poor sources about the opponents' intentions or motivations, training, doctrine, or habits. And they're poor sources about the capabilities of enemy a.c.

Hrm this doesn't make much sense. Especially the bolded.

Actually it can and it's called UV, but it isn't a perfect simulation. Then again, even if it was, there still would be unhappy people on this forum.

As far as UV goes, I'd count it as really lucky to hold the Japanese to a 1:1 ratio, atleast F4F vs Zero.

Ike keeps talking about specs and performance that's okay if you're at a air show or a race track. This wasn't a race however. These machines were made to kill people and the F4F fought the Zero to a standstill, the statistics already mentioned bear that out.

The Zero was cutting edge in some aspects but as a warfighter it was an overated plane.

Someone mentioned gun cameras earlier and I happened to record a show with the creative title of "Gun Camera".
 
Number of clips of Zeros being shot down, and what was interesting is how quickly they went down, especially compared to their German Counterparts. The camera is triggered when the er...trigger is depressed and plays for a few seconds after release. The Zero kills were always really really short clips. One poor bastard was nailed with one burst but had enough time to bail out. His chute deployed....only it delpoyed 20 feet from the man. His pack had a nice gentle trip down. Bad day to forget to buckle you chute correctly.

As a tangent here, as we touched on it briefly in another thread, is anyone versed on the other matchups of Allied Planes vs the Zero? Both sides agree on one issue, that kill ratio wise, Wildcat and Zero were about equal.

AWhat about other matchups? Especially in 42? P-39, P-40 Kittyhawk/Warhawk, P-38, Beaufighter VIC etc.

How did those units account for themselves? Not a :"what plane is better" question....more along the lines of what actually happned. I know next to nothing about Army Units, and absolutley nothing about RAAF and RAF units and how they held up against the zero.

From what I've read via another thread on the witp forum, the P-39 performed well enough at 10000 feet and below enough make the japanese think before droping to that altitude. And Vice-Versa. Disclaimer, all my info has come from the link posted to the WITP thread and that by any standard is a poor source.l

In UV: the P-40 can hold its own vs. the Zero when it has home field advantage; I would only use the P-39 as fighter escort, but only when I'm out of every other fighter escort, while the Beaufighter is a long range escort that's almost worthless vs. the Zero.

But the Beaufort if a good fighter-bomber; when it carries a fish, it's as effective as a Betty; I don't risk them as fighters.

[quote]
The Zero was cutting edge in some aspects but as a warfighter it was an overated plane.

It did have amazing range. It also was introduced several years earlier.


That said, it seems pretty foolish to say one was conclusively better than the other in total performance (clearly they had strengths and weaknesses compared to the others).

They fought each other pretty much equal. And that pretty much says it all.

Reading the book Guadalcanal (by Frank) the wildcats seem to have gained an advantage over the zeroes as the battle went on. But it seems due to the declining quality of the IJN pilots.

I think also situation matters a great deal...for example if you are defending a flight of dive bombers, one has a responsibility to stay close to that formation and might limit certain tactics. My guess is it would help a zero as agility becomes more important.

Comparing to other planes...The zeroes hated the the P-38 as they had little defense against the dive/slash attacks. The P-38 was not good at turning, but great at boom/zoom.

[quote]
The Zero was cutting edge in some aspects but as a warfighter it was an overated plane.
It did have amazing range. It also was introduced several years earlier.

That said, it seems pretty foolish to say one was conclusively better than the other in total performance (clearly they had strengths and weaknesses compared to the others).
They fought each other pretty much equal. And that pretty much says it all.
Reading the book Guadalcanal (by Frank) the wildcats seem to have gained an advantage over the zeroes as the battle went on. But it seems due to the declining quality of the IJN pilots.
I think also situation matters a great deal...for example if you are defending a flight of dive bombers, one has a responsibility to stay close to that formation and might limit certain tactics. My guess is it would help a zero as agility becomes more important.
Comparing to other planes...The zeroes hated the the P-38 as they had little defense against the dive/slash attacks. The P-38 was not good at turning, but great at boom/zoom.

Mdiefl I am agreeing with you and yes sometime an A/C is so superior to it's opponet that even a rookie can shoot down the other A/C. But with proper tactics the rookie will be able to do the same more than once. And when you have A/C that are even, or one having superiority in one area and the other in another then tactics make the difference.

A good example of this is the Typhoon, and the FW190. The FW was superior to the Typhoon above 10,000 feet, so at least one British squadron use to go out looking to get bounce by high flying FW's. Waiting for the FW to commit to their dive and get almost in firing range before breaking. The effect of this tactic was to bring the FW's down to an altitude where the Typhoon was superior.

This is a very interesting discussion, on the merits of the Wildcat vs the Zero but it seem to be limited to a one to one comparison of the two A/C. Which was a very rare occurance, there was always another Zero or Wildcat getting involved in the dogfight.


"If you are in a fair fight you did something wrong" [:-]

As a tangent here, as we touched on it briefly in another thread, is anyone versed on the other matchups of Allied Planes vs the Zero? Both sides agree on one issue, that kill ratio wise, Wildcat and Zero were about equal.

I can think of some factors that probably attributed to the parity in kill ratios.

Fram Rabaul to Guadacanal and back again is over 1,100 miles. That is an 8 hour trip in a Zero and the Zero pilots were not just flying that once a day but sometimes twice a day.[X(]

Doing this over and over undoubtedly took a physcical toll on the pilots and degraded their performance.

Another attributing fact I would think is the radar at Quadalcanal. The Wilcat pilots knew when the Japanese were coming and could use the time to climb to a higher altitude, and if possible put themselves up in the sun to dive down on a flight of unsuspecting Zeros. They didn´t stop and start mixing it up with Zeros if it was avoidable though, they knew better...

Major John Smith, USMC

¨The only thing we ever tried to do, if they saw us before we saw them, was to turn into them and take advantage of our six guns. Then, if we couldn't shoot them down, we would go right straight ahead and get out of the way, because if we didn't every time they'd be right on our tail in a short time.¨

I am curious though about Allied claims of Kills. Joe says the Allies kept 1/4 kills, 1/8 kills and so on. How does someone shoot down a 1/4 of an airplane?

ORIGINAL: Ike99


I am curious though about Allied claims of Kills. Joe says the Allies kept 1/4 kills, 1/8 kills and so on. How does someone shoot down a 1/4 of an airplane?

Surely you can't be serious. The answer should be obvious to some one who claims to be so higly educated as you. [X(]

One DOESN'T shoot down 1/4 of an airplane to get 1/4 credit for the kill. One gets 1/4 kill credit for being one of 4 who conributed to a kill that cannot easily be attributed to any one of the four contributors.

Please give us a break. [8|]

DUH!  For the umpteenth time.  Ike, it's not Quadalcanal.  It's Guadalcanal!  Talk about facts and getting them right...................

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Ike99

I am curious though about Allied claims of Kills. Joe says the Allies kept 1/4 kills, 1/8 kills and so on. How does someone shoot down a 1/4 of an airplane?

... One DOESN'T shoot down 1/4 of an airplane to get 1/4 credit for the kill. One gets 1/4 kill credit for being one of 4 who conributed to a kill that cannot easily be attributed to any one of the four contributors.

Case in point: who got the credit for shooting down the Betty that carried Yamamoto? In all the confusion, it wasn't until 1973 that the AF decided it should be shared between two P-38 pilots namer Barber and Lanphier.

From Rex Barber's obit, the NYT (1 Aug 2001):

"In September 1945, the War Department gave Mr. Lanphier, by then a lieutenant colonel, sole credit for shooting down Yamamoto, based on his account that he hit the lead bomber with a burst of fire that sheared off a wing. He wrote of his exploit in first-person newspaper articles and became a hero.

But in 1973, the Air Force decided that Mr. Barber had not been properly credited in the downing of Yamamoto. It took away sole credit from Mr. Lanphier and gave each man half credit, determining that both pilots had shot up the admiral's plane. Neither fighter had a camera on the gunsight, precluding certainty as to who did what.

That belated ruling received little publicity, and when Mr. Lanphier died in 1987 he was remembered as the pilot who shot down Yamamoto. Mr. Barber, who also gained half credit, together with Lieutenant Holmes, for downing Ugaki's plane, eventually sought to gain sole credit for the shooting down of Yamamoto. But the Air Force stood by its belated shared recognition, and in 1996 a federal appeals court rejected Mr. Barber's request for intervention."

The Betty bearing Yamamoto's chief of staff, Vice Adm. Matome Ugaki, was shot down over water, but Ugaki made it to shore.

Surely you can't be serious. The answer should be obvious to some one who claims to be so higly educated as you.

DUH! For the umpteenth time. Ike, it's not Quadalcanal. It's Guadalcanal! Talk about facts and getting them right......

Would either of you like to carry on the discussion in my language?

Didn´t think so. [;)]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

... Fram Rabaul to Guadacanal and back again is over 1,100 miles. That is an 8 hour trip in a Zero and the Zero pilots were not just flying that once a day but sometimes twice a day.[X(]

Doing this over and over undoubtedly took a physcical toll on the pilots and degraded their performance.

Operational losses: in my last game vs. Todd, my Zeroes would get the better of him in the air, but the intel screen revealed all my ops losses; the further I flew -- i.e., from Lunga to Lungaville 2X per day -- the more a/c I lost regardless how well the planes performed in combat.

Operational losses: in my last game vs. Todd, my Zeroes would get the better of him in the air, but the intel screen revealed all my ops losses; the further I flew -- i.e., from Lunga to Lungaville 2X per day -- the more a/c I lost regardless how well the planes performed in combat.

I have to salute you joe. You are staying on discussion and not having a ¨bush-ite¨ knee jerk defense reaction like some others.

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Surely you can't be serious. The answer should be obvious to some one who claims to be so higly educated as you.

DUH! For the umpteenth time. Ike, it's not Quadalcanal. It's Guadalcanal! Talk about facts and getting them right......

Would either of you like to carry on the discussion in my language?

Didn´t think so. [;)]

Want to have your cake and eat it too aye?

You claimed in your private message to me to be able to read and write in three languages in an obvious attempt to impress me with your level of intelligence.

Now you want to be cut some slack because the World's Language is not your first one......

Ok, I'll opt for the latter...I'll cut you some slack over your pidgin English while rejecting your claim on the prior. [;)]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Operational losses: in my last game vs. Todd, my Zeroes would get the better of him in the air, but the intel screen revealed all my ops losses; the further I flew -- i.e., from Lunga to Lungaville 2X per day -- the more a/c I lost regardless how well the planes performed in combat.

I have to salute you joe. You are staying on discussion and not having a ¨bush-ite¨ knee jerk defense reaction like some others.

Here is a new word in that language you're having difficulty with for you to look up the definition of and learn for yourself: hypocrisy


knee jerk nationalist slurs will get you banned here....please please please keep it up.

ORIGINAL: Ike99

I have to salute you joe. You are staying on discussion and not having a ¨bush-ite¨ knee jerk defense reaction like some others.

Bush-ite? Bet you don't know I got a commendation from his father in my hometown newspaper!