ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury
I agree, but when you read all the ingenuity that the British had in finding a short term solution to their significant challenges, then you have to question if the Japanese did enough. I once again highly recommend http://www.armouredcarriers.com/ webpage.
By early WW2 they didn't have anything other than Sea Gladiators, plus an emergency program that would yield the Fulmar. Seeing the gap, they quickly decided to convert RAF Battle of Britain leftover Hurricanes and Spitfires into some working, if highly compromised, designs. The early Seafires were prone to deck landing crashes, both were very short ranged, neither had folding wings (early version), Sea Hurricanes didn't fit in the elevators, etc. But they worked out solutions like using the Fulmars for long patrols while keeping the Sea Hurricanes ready on deck to launch when the enemy was spotted.
And it can be argued that Japan was in a different situation, having a working design in the Zero, but overall, you can see more rigidity in their problem solving compared to the Allies. By the way technology was advancing, the Zero replacement should had been ready by late 1942/ early 1943
If you consider that the A6M5’s performance was roughly similar to that of the Seafire II (although with a much longer range), the IJN did keep up with the Fleet Air Arm through mid-war, until the FAA started using Corsairs.
Technology was not advancing at the same pace around the world – the Allied manufacturers were not sharing their technology with the Axis manufacturers after 1939 (notwithstanding the fact that the Bf-109 and Ju-87 prototypes were powered by mid-30s British engines). The Japanese in particular lagged behind in supercharger technology for high altitude performance (few of their aircraft had auxiliary-stage superchargers). They also suffered from too few highly skilled machinists needed to fabricate the specialty tooling that would have enabled their large pool of low-skilled workers to produce mass quantities of tight-tolerance aircraft components.
Japan simply didn’t have the breadth of engineering and skilled blue-collar worker talent enjoyed by the U.S. and Britain. The IJN issued the 16-Shi spec for the A6M’s replacement in 1940, but had to withdraw it because Mitsubishi’s design staff was fully deployed on improvements to the A6M and on the design of the J2M. The similar 17-Shi spec was finally issued in mid-1942, resulting in the A7M program. But the same shortage of designers and skilled workers delayed completion of the first A7M prototype until April 1944.
In retrospect, the IJN might have done better to focus solely on a carrier-based fighter. Although the J2M performed better than the A6M in some areas, it didn’t have the range of the A6M and, more importantly, it robbed Mitsubishi of the design staff needed to answer the 1940 16-Shi spec.
FYI – Francillon provides some decent background on what was going on with Japanese designs. I am also trying to find a monograph published in the 1980s (I think) by the Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association concerning the evolution of the Japanese heavy tool industry in the defense sector. I came across the English-language on Google books a couple of years ago, but lost the link. The author included some good information concerning Jiro Horikoshi’s efforts in 1940 with the tooling subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to enable the mass production of the A6M. I seem to recall the author quoting him as saying “I want this airplane to be built by students and housewives”, or something similar. He was apparently successful, since some 10,000 A6Ms were eventually built (compared to 5,900 Ki-43s, 1,200 Ki-44s, 3,500 Ki-84s, 1,400 N1K Shindens, and 900 J2Ms).
