Does anyone else think the USA CV pilots are over skilled for 1941?

[Dereck]

Japanese were initially better at night naval fighting for two main reasons:

1) They had the Long Lance torpedo which they developed and tested using actual torpedoes and ships to ensure that it worked. The US had torpedo problems because we never had actual tests to see if the torpedoes ran at proper depth or would explode.

2) The US treated gunnery training as a competition. As such you needed to score the gunnery which meant the US Navy only held gunnery practice in perfect weather where the gunnery could be scored. The Japanese treated gunnery training as just that training and practiced at night which the US Navy never - or rarely did.

[WiTP_Dude]

The P-40s easily best the Zero in head to head matchups in January 1942. I worry about what will happen to the Zero even in January 1943 against better aircaft.

[Jon_Hal]

I think the histroical record shows that when USN and IJN Carrier aviators clashed in '42 that it was at best a draw in combat. Factor in the fact the the Japanese had superior aircraft then the USN at the time. I'm sure the Zero- Wildcat matchup has been argued may times but the fact that the Pre-war USN aviators held their own against Japan's first Teams while flying inferior planes speaks to the training that those USN pilots recieved. The Japanese aviators tore through everything they met. Army, MArines, Brits and Dutch but when the bumbed heads with the USN "first team" they met thier match.
I think that the quality of the Pre-war USN avitators is constantly underestimated. They, flying inferior aircraft, held their own against the best the Japanese had. I think the Litmus test should be if the actually results of ww2 were translated to a WiTP would you complain that the USN scored as well as it did against the IJN?

For those interested see John Lundstroms book " The First Team" excellent and detailed and fair acount of the time period and pilots we are talking about

Regards, Jon

[tsimmonds]

double post, wtf?

[tsimmonds]

Doesn't prove anything, but it is interesting, and I greatly admire this author and respect his opinion. From H.P. Willmott's The Barrier and the Javelin, p.20:

Men willing to fight to the death--indeed, to die in order to fight--proved the one and only clear-cut advantage the Japanese held over their enemies throughout the war, but it should not obscure the extremely high standard of training that obtained throughout the Imperial Navy, particularly in its aviation branch. Many arms of the navy had gained combet experience in the conflict with China. The grisly realism of navy training frequently claimed a hundred lives during a single routine exercise in the stormy waters of the northern Pacific, and the training of the aircrew involved in the Pearl Harbor attack broke virtually every safety rule in the manuals. In almost all aspects of fighting, and notably in the most hazardous aspect of naval warfare, night fighting, the Japanese were at least the equal of their enemies.

Clearly, training meant something far different to the IJN than it did to the USN.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

I think the histroical record shows that when USN and IJN Carrier aviators clashed in '42 that it was at best a draw in combat. Factor in the fact the the Japanese had superior aircraft then the USN at the time. I'm sure the Zero- Wildcat matchup has been argued may times but the fact that the Pre-war USN aviators held their own against Japan's first Teams while flying inferior planes speaks to the training that those USN pilots recieved. The Japanese aviators tore through everything they met. Army, MArines, Brits and Dutch but when the bumbed heads with the USN "first team" they met thier match.
I think that the quality of the Pre-war USN avitators is constantly
underestimated. They, flying inferior aircraft, held their own against the best the Japanese had. I think the Litmus test should be if the actually results of ww2 were translated to a WiTP would you complain that the USN scored as well as it did against the IJN?

For those interested see John Lundstroms book " The First Team" excellent and detailed and fair acount of the time period and pilots we are talking about

Regards, Jon
I agree completely..
Aerodynamically,the P-40 had a better roll rate than anything in the early war years,but the Zero could out-turn it because weighing less,and having a greater wing surface,it lost less speed in turns(weight to power ratio).Ergo,it would be foolish to dogfight a Zero..
The Wildcat was also not a "dogfighter,but the American fighters almost all had 6 .50 cal Colt/Browning MG's,which throw a pretty heavy AP round.The Zero did not have armor and the early Japanese pilots did not wear parachutes,so even a "lucky shot" could blow the best Japanese pilot into the next world(as Saburo Sakai lamented in his book "Samurai").
While his book pretty much made it sound his group "trounced" and played with Brewsters,P-39's,etc,it was an altogether different game when he met the USN over the Solomons,(where he lost an eye and a plane to an Avenger which he mis-stook for a Wildcat).
While the "experience" rating may seem too high,I suspect some of that rating is also abstractly representing the tactics of "hit and run" rather than just the planes (or pilots') abilities.
BTW,The Brewster has been described as a plane which cornered so bad,"it could not get out of it's own way".If that plane was picked over the Grumman initially,(as it was),you can imagine the Grumman was not a whole lot better,(even though the F4F-3 did have some slight improvements to get accepted.
The fact the USN pilots knew they were flying an inferior dogfighter,forced them to fight smart,not hard,and that is their telling legacy..

[tsimmonds]

The Americans only managed two torpedo hits on carriers in 1942 - one each by TBDs and TBFs

According to Japanese sources, the TBDs put seven torps into Shoho, but seeing as how she was nearly dead in the water at the time, that almost should not count.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Just a few thoughts regarding the subject...


Training is great way to prepare but even if it takes long long time an even if it is as close as possible to "real thing" it would never ever be nothing more than very poor substitute for actual combat.

Combat is combat and nothing on earth can simulate it.

When you can kill or can get killed - that is something different from anything soldier can experience.

Thus Japanese airmen combating poorly trained (and for most part poorly equipped) Chinese means that they had _HUGE_ experience leverage over their US (and other allied) counterparts.

Why?

Because "they tasted blood" and their US (and other allied) counterparts didn't.

It is as simple as that and every soldier who was in actual combat where he was in position to kill or get killed would tell you that.

Only in actual combat you can see how a soldier would behave...


Also let us not forget that in WWII there were no trainers capable of teaching pilots 3D combat.

The art of deflection shooting (essential in aerial combat and with sight technology that existed then) was something that had to be inside pilot.

I remember reading that, at the beginning of WWII, many outstanding fighter pilots that were considered masters of the skies were actually discovered to be utterly useless because they were unable to master the art of feeling for deflection shooting (high speed fighters that com into service at the end of 1930's introduced 100% different tactics and
100% different set of problems in aerial combat).


Leo "Apollo11"

[Central Blue]

If we can count Japanese air experience in China, can we also count Marine experience with CAS in the Carribean? The Marines didn't get sucked into the Mitchell/Douhet strategic approach. Nor did the USN.

If the Solomons campaign includes Guadalcanal, where did the IJ airforce tear through the Marine and Army aviators of the Cactus airforce?

When it comes to evaluating the airwar at Guadalcanal it may not all be about planes and pilots. I'm reading from Richard B. Frank's book on the Guadalcanal campaig; the Japanese complained about their inability to build airbases closer to Guadalcanal and Vandegrift credits the coast-watchers that provided the early warning system till they could get radar to Henderson field.

If we're talking about doctrine... We should consider whoever it was in the US that decided to put so much effort into protecting pilots in planes and recovering pilots after their planes were shot down. Frank makes the following point when discussing casualties:

"American losses included 150 members of the United States Army Air Force and 130 Naval and 140 Marine personnel for a total of 420. Japanese losses exceeded this figure by from two to four times, essentially because more of their missing aircraft contained multiple crewmen and proportionately many fewer of their flight crews survived their aircraft. Moreover, the Japanese losses occurred primarily among their top-quality and best trained aviation personnell...at the beginning of the war the Imperial Navy's air service mustered about 3,500 pilots. Of these, the carrier air groups featured the 600 or so most skilled pilots, with an average of 800 hours of flying time. At Guadalcanal approximately 125 carrier pilots fell, most of who came from this select band of 600."

My apologies for any typing errors; that wasn't a cut and paste.

While Japanese air crew losses were apparently 2 to 4 times higher than US losses, the loss of planes broke out at 615 Allied to 682 IJ according to Frank's definition of the Gudalcanal campaign.

[tsimmonds]

While Japanese air crew losses were apparently 2 to 4 times higher than US losses, the loss of planes broke out at 615 Allied to 682 IJ according to Frank's definition of the Gudalcanal campaign.

A striking illustration of just one of several disadvantages of fighting over the other guy's airbases. If you don't have clear local superiority before you begin an offensive, or if the defender can quickly out-reinforce you, you are going to get smoked.

[BoerWar]

If we can count Japanese air experience in China, can we also count Marine experience with CAS in the Carribean? The Marines didn't get sucked into the Mitchell/Douhet strategic approach. Nor did the USN.

If the Solomons campaign includes Guadalcanal, where did the IJ airforce tear through the Marine and Army aviators of the Cactus airforce?

When it comes to evaluating the airwar at Guadalcanal it may not all be about planes and pilots. I'm reading from Richard B. Frank's book on the Guadalcanal campaig; the Japanese complained about their inability to build airbases closer to Guadalcanal and Vandegrift credits the coast-watchers that provided the early warning system till they could get radar to Henderson field.

If we're talking about doctrine... We should consider whoever it was in the US that decided to put so much effort into protecting pilots in planes and recovering pilots after their planes were shot down. Frank makes the following point when discussing casualties:

"American losses included 150 members of the United States Army Air Force and 130 Naval and 140 Marine personnel for a total of 420. Japanese losses exceeded this figure by from two to four times, essentially because more of their missing aircraft contained multiple crewmen and proportionately many fewer of their flight crews survived their aircraft. Moreover, the Japanese losses occurred primarily among their top-quality and best trained aviation personnell...at the beginning of the war the Imperial Navy's air service mustered about 3,500 pilots. Of these, the carrier air groups featured the 600 or so most skilled pilots, with an average of 800 hours of flying time. At Guadalcanal approximately 125 carrier pilots fell, most of who came from this select band of 600."

My apologies for any typing errors; that wasn't a cut and paste.

While Japanese air crew losses were apparently 2 to 4 times higher than US losses, the loss of planes broke out at 615 Allied to 682 IJ according to Frank's definition of the Gudalcanal campaign.

When considering experience at the start of the war the head to head analysis should stop in May/June 42 after Coral Sea and Midway. The best pilots were gone at that point and not due to a lack of performance. Good intel and good luck gave the US a major boon at Midway by killing the best Japanese pilots.

I think the Japanese should start with an experience advantage when it comes to fighter pilots. The Dive and torpedo bomber pilots should be about even in the mid 70's. From what I've seen so far with WITP experience should be gained at a faster rate from combat. A great part of "experience" is gaining the confidence that your tactics and equipment work. Flying into combat once or twice and surviving can impart a great amount of confidence. The early highly successful suprise attacks imparted a great amount of confidence in the Japanese pilots. This eroded quickly after Midway.

[SpitfireIX]

ORIGINAL: KPAX
Midway showed, amoung other things, that the Allied pilots are comparable to the IJN pilots.

We have to be cautious about the lessons we draw from Midway. Practically all the damage to the Japanese was done by aircraft from Enterprise and Yorktown, the two most combat-experienced US CVs at the time. Hornet, whose air group had no prior combat experience, made no contribution to speak of, except for the valiant sacrifice of Torpedo 8.

Having said that, I feel that the starting ratings for Enterprise's air group are about right. Someone earlier mentioned the Navy's "E" for efficiency--here is a quote from The Big E, by Edward P. Stafford.

Already, at the age of three, Enterprise had a reputation, earned in the strict sweat of peacetime training where the discipline is harsh and quick and the old proven traditions insisted upon. She was known in the fleet as an effective, efficient ship, where somehow things always "clicked," where everyone got along with everyone else, and the job got done and well done. Because "E" stands for Enterprise and excellence and the coveted Efficiency award, for which all ships of the fleet compete each year, and because she was young and big-muscled and her crew loved her, they came to call her The Big E, and that is the only nickname that ever really stuck. (pp. 13-14, 1974 Ballantine edition)

[SpitfireIX]

ORIGINAL: dereck

Japanese were initially better at night naval fighting for two main reasons:

1) They had the Long Lance torpedo which they developed and tested using actual torpedoes and ships to ensure that it worked. The US had torpedo problems because we never had actual tests to see if the torpedoes ran at proper depth or would explode.

2) The US treated gunnery training as a competition. As such you needed to score the gunnery which meant the US Navy only held gunnery practice in perfect weather where the gunnery could be scored. The Japanese treated gunnery training as just that training and practiced at night which the US Navy never - or rarely did.

These are good reasons, but I think you should also include the Japanese special selection and training of lookouts with outstanding night vision (although I've been told that not all IJN ships actually had these). Also, the Japanese use of low-flash powder was a significant advantage, IMO.

[Jon_Hal]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11


Thus Japanese airmen combating poorly trained (and for most part poorly equipped) Chinese means that they had _HUGE_ experience leverage over their US (and other allied) counterparts.

Why?

Because "they tasted blood" and their US (and other allied) counterparts didn't.

Howdy again.

Not to nitpikck that statement is all fine and good but where is the historical proof of that statment regarding IJN and USN naval aviators? The historical outcome does not indicate that the IJN were superior to their USN pilot counterparts. If they did have such a massive experience level over the USN pilots and flew marked superior plane (The Zero) over ther Wildcat then why then didn't the Japanese just wipe the skies with the USN?
Remember the fact that Jimmy Thatch tauch his pilots the Beam Defense manuever right before Midway and implimented it to great success. This adaptation is a trademark of USN training. The Japanese training was incredible and intense but it did not breed a corp of pilots that had independent thinking.
Just a thought to consider, what if the tables were reversed? How would those pre-war USN pilots have faired against the Japanese flying the Corsair? rather then the Wildcat?

Also let us not forget that in WWII there were no trainers capable of teaching pilots 3D combat.

The art of deflection shooting (essential in aerial combat and with sight technology that existed then) was something that had to be inside pilot.
I remember reading that, at the beginning of WWII, many outstanding fighter pilots that were considered masters of the skies were actually discovered to be utterly useless because they were unable to master the art of feeling for deflection shooting (high speed fighters that com into service at the end of 1930's introduced 100% different tactics and
100% different set of problems in aerial combat).

From the mid 1920's on the USN was the one of a tiny group, The IJN was not, that taught defelection shooting to it's pilots. It was one of the tactics that the USN put to great use and success in the Carrier battles of 1942.

Just some thoughts!

Have a good one

Jon out!

[SpitfireIX]

ORIGINAL: m10bob
BTW,The Brewster has been described as a plane which cornered so bad,"it could not get out of it's own way".If that plane was picked over the Grumman initially,(as it was),you can imagine the Grumman was not a whole lot better,(even though the F4F-3 did have some slight improvements to get accepted.
The fact the USN pilots knew they were flying an inferior dogfighter,forced them to fight smart,not hard,and that is their telling legacy..

Your reasoning is incorrect in this case--Brewster won the contract because the prototype XF4F-2 had an unusually large number of development problems (possibly due to the fact that the XF4F-1 originally on Grumman's drawing boards was a biplane, and the XF4F-2 was hastily converted to a monoplane design to compete with the F2A). After Grumman got the bugs worked out, the Navy was sufficiently impressed that they ordered the Wildcat into production as a "backup" for the Buffalo--however, by the time of Pearl Harbor, the F4F was well on its way to completely supplanting the F2A. See here.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

Not to nitpikck that statement is all fine and good but where is the historical proof of that statment regarding IJN and USN naval aviators? The historical outcome does not indicate that the IJN were superior to their USN pilot counterparts. If they did have such a massive experience level over the USN pilots and flew marked superior plane (The Zero) over ther Wildcat then why then didn't the Japanese just wipe the skies with the USN?

Well for the first 6 months they did just that... Japanese ruled the skies and the sea without any significant opposition...

Remember the fact that Jimmy Thatch tauch his pilots the Beam Defense manuever right before Midway and implimented it to great success. This adaptation is a trademark of USN training. The Japanese training was incredible and intense but it did not breed a corp of pilots that had independent thinking.

The "Thatch Wave" was defensive tactics only.

As for training I know that USN and USAAF pilots were good and had good training - but same thing can be said for Japans pilots who were schooled before the war.

I would speculate that pre-WWII Japanese pilots and their USN and USAAF counterparts were equal.

But when you add to this fact that Japanese pilots actually fired their guns in combat and shoot down enemy over China one side gains significant advantage.

Being in actual combat is something training (no matter how good) can't substitute.

Also add to this Zero factor.

Zero was almost invincible if piloted by good pilot and if adversary choose to dogfight it (natural tendency, sad but true, of almost all pilots on all sides at the beginning of WWII was to enter circling fight - the "boom-and-zoom" tactics were something that come later)...

From the mid 1920's on the USN was the one of a tiny group, The IJN was not, that taught defelection shooting to it's pilots. It was one of the tactics that the USN put to great use and success in the Carrier battles of 1942.

Interesting info...

But how would that deflection training be done in practice?

Crude simulator?

Actual flying (but how would you know if you are hitting something or now at angle)?


Leo "Apollo11"

[denisonh]

I have a question about "historical" effectiveness.

Is it historical for the huge kill ratios that result in the game between the F4Fs and Zeros? (can we say Uber-Zero?)

This topic was run to ground in the UV thread, and think that we are going to go down that same road again.

One of the premises that differentiate "world class" military establishments is superior doctrine and training. Superior trained troops with better doctrine will defeat an enemy with battlefield experience (US Army vs the Republican Guards for example).

There are serious doubts as to the "value" of the Japanese experience in China, particularly with respect to doctrine and tactics. The US, the USN in particular, paid a great deal of attention to unit operations. Given that combat is a collective excersize, it collective skill in the form of superior leadership, tactical employment and doctrine will generally beat individual skill and equipment (something like the France in 1940).

So framing this discussion with historical evidence (kill ratios would be a good start) and an understanding of the synergistic effects of the unit on combat (the principle of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) will have more credibility IMHO.

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

Not to nitpikck that statement is all fine and good but where is the historical proof of that statment regarding IJN and USN naval aviators? The historical outcome does not indicate that the IJN were superior to their USN pilot counterparts. If they did have such a massive experience level over the USN pilots and flew marked superior plane (The Zero) over ther Wildcat then why then didn't the Japanese just wipe the skies with the USN?

Well for the first 6 months they did just that... Japanese ruled the skies and the sea without any significant opposition...

Remember the fact that Jimmy Thatch tauch his pilots the Beam Defense manuever right before Midway and implimented it to great success. This adaptation is a trademark of USN training. The Japanese training was incredible and intense but it did not breed a corp of pilots that had independent thinking.

The "Thatch Wave" was defensive tactics only.

As for training I know that USN and USAAF pilots were good and had good training - but same thing can be said for Japans pilots who were schooled before the war.

I would speculate that pre-WWII Japanese pilots and their USN and USAAF counterparts were equal.

But when you add to this fact that Japanese pilots actually fired their guns in combat and shoot down enemy over China one side gains significant advantage.

Being in actual combat is something training (no matter how good) can't substitute.

Also add to this Zero factor.

Zero was almost invincible if piloted by good pilot and if adversary choose to dogfight it (natural tendency, sad but true, of almost all pilots on all sides at the beginning of WWII was to enter circling fight - the "boom-and-zoom" tactics were something that come later)...

From the mid 1920's on the USN was the one of a tiny group, The IJN was not, that taught defelection shooting to it's pilots. It was one of the tactics that the USN put to great use and success in the Carrier battles of 1942.

Interesting info...

But how would that deflection training be done in practice?

Crude simulator?

Actual flying (but how would you know if you are hitting something or now at angle)?


Leo "Apollo11"

[Jon_Hal]

ORIGINAL: Jon_Hal

Not to nitpikck that statement is all fine and good but where is the historical proof of that statment regarding IJN and USN naval aviators? The historical outcome does not indicate that the IJN were superior to their USN pilot counterparts. If they did have such a massive experience level over the USN pilots and flew marked superior plane (The Zero) over ther Wildcat then why then didn't the Japanese just wipe the skies with the USN?

Well for the first 6 months they did just that... Japanese ruled the skies and the sea without any significant opposition...

They wiped the skies Until the met the USN in places like Coral Sea, Midway and the 'Canal. If the Japanese were so superior in Training and aircraft then why is this not borne out in combat results? the superiority of the Zero over the Wildcat is well established but there is no proof in the histroical record that the Japanese Carrier aviators were superior to their USN counterparts.

Remember the fact that Jimmy Thatch tauch his pilots the Beam Defense manuever right before Midway and implimented it to great success. This adaptation is a trademark of USN training. The Japanese training was incredible and intense but it did not breed a corp of pilots that had independent thinking.

The "Thatch Wave" was defensive tactics only.

Fine and dandy. the Thatch weave was a defensive tactic that worked and when first used the Wildcat's were on an offensive mission. The Wildcat didn't permit many offensive options besides Shoot and Scoot.

I would speculate that pre-WWII Japanese pilots and their USN and USAAF counterparts were equal.

But when you add to this fact that Japanese pilots actually fired their guns in combat and shoot down enemy over China one side gains significant advantage.

Being in actual combat is something training (no matter how good) can't substitute.

Also add to this Zero factor.

Again, against USN Carrier pilots this claim can't be backed. Vastly superior pilots in vastly superior planes should have wiped out the USN Navy pilots they encountered.. they didn't. why is that?

From the mid 1920's on the USN was the one of a tiny group, The IJN was not, that taught defelection shooting to it's pilots. It was one of the tactics that the USN put to great use and success in the Carrier battles of 1942.

Interesting info...

But how would that deflection training be done in practice?

Crude simulator?

Actual flying (but how would you know if you are hitting something or now at angle)?

The USN used towed sleeves from aircraft and practiced that way. Again, see John Lundstrom's "The First Team" for good discriptions of training. Combat experience is great until you consider that perhaps they learned the wrong lession. the USN never was big on dogfighting even in 1941. They specialized in defection shooting. Japanese combat experience didn't mean bubkiss if their enemies didn't dogfight with them.[:)]


regards,

Jon

[mdiehl]

A couple points:

They, flying inferior aircraft, held their own against the best the Japanese had.

I agree with your sentiment. The USN pilots were as good as the IJN ones perhaps even better, as is indicated by the various kill ratios. But I would not be too quick to call the Japanese a/c "superior" or the USN ones (apart from the TBD) "inferior." They had different qualities to be sure, and their flying characteristics varied with airspeed. Looking solely at fighters, the F4F was more maneuverable, by every measure (roll rate, turn rate, turn radius) at high speed than the A6M and more vulnerable at low speed. Since most strategic games cannot accommodate a really sophisticated flight profile it is commonplace to gloss over these facts with a simple system designed for effect.

Second, training can be as good as combat for increasing survivability of friendlies and loss rates of enemies. Suggestions to the contrary strike me as either unsophisticated false "common sense" or, when offered by veterans, a sort of "survivor's vanity." The USN/USMC top gun school is designed to give pilots "combat like" training in manifestly non-lethal circumstances. And the effects of such training have been demonstrated favorably and routinely in several wars now.

Then there's the cases of the 332 and 99 FGs (extensively trained before released to combat). The 99 flew P-40Es and shot the sh1t out of veteran Luftwaffe pilots flying Me109G2s flown by Luftwaffe veterans. The 332 flew P51s and had the best kill ratio of any western front air group of the war. In short, training works, more training works better, and flying a good plane makes up the other half of the equation.

That said, most pilots don't go through much advanced combat training so the extent to which programs like top gun (there was a WW2 USN precursor but I forget the program name) should affect overall parameters in a dfe strategic game are anybody's guess.

[mdiehl]

Well for the first 6 months they did just that... Japanese ruled the skies and the sea without any significant opposition...

That is at best simplistic hyperbole with respect to the subject at hand. For the first six months of the war the Japanese faced little opposition because there were relatively few aircraft opposing them. The P40 pilots who did won the battle in China, did quite well in the Philippines until unfavorable logistics wore the planes out, and held their own in New Guinea. The loss rations probably favor the Japanese slightly in New Guinea, but otherwise there is nothing spectacular in Japanese performance. They executed a well conceived set of early operations and employed a superior strategic position and overwhelming numerical advantage to good effect for their cause.

The "Thatch Wave" was defensive tactics only.

That is incorrect. The Thach (not "Thatch")-Flatley beam defense was both defensive and aggressive. Its purpose was to put an enemy plane in front of the guns of a US plane. And it worked quite well towards that end.

But when you add to this fact that Japanese pilots actually fired their guns in combat and shoot down enemy over China one side gains significant advantage.

You would not know that from the actual loss numbers. Based on losses, the F4F+pilot combination through June 1942 was superior to the A6M+pilot combination. So whatever "advantage" you derive from the limited combat experience of a *few* Japanese pilots in China flying against relatively unarmored, slow a/c piloted by very poorly trained pilots, it apparently did not serve them well against first class opposition.

Being in actual combat is something training (no matter how good) can't substitute.

Again, that is just hyperbole. It's a matter of knowing how combat differs from combat simulation. I'd say the chief effect of combat is in weeding out people who can't figure out when to disengage with a crippled aircraft or how to get home in one that is really shot up.

Zero was almost invincible if piloted by good pilot and if adversary choose to dogfight it (natural tendency, sad but true, of almost all pilots on all sides at the beginning of WWII was to enter circling fight - the "boom-and-zoom" tactics were something that come later)...

That is incorrect in so many ways. 1. The Zero was good at low speeds. The F4F at high speeds. The Zero paid the price for its low speed superiority by being almost criminally fragile. The F4F brought many an injured pilot home, and brought many a rookie pilot home in a badly shot up plane. 2. The claimed "tendency to dogfight" is mostly applicable to RAF pilots whose experience against Germany was to win turning engagements in the Battle of Britain. The USN trained for mutual support before the war began (the beam defense was conceived in 1940 and first used in combat training exercises in Spring 1941). In the CBO theater, Chennault stressed "boom and zoom" tactics and the tendency in the USAAF was to try to use these with the P40. Unfortunately, in the early going, many of the USAAF units were deployed with the P-39, and the RAAF was saddled with P400s in many cases.

But how would that deflection training be done in practice?

Combat flying exercises with live opposition. After flying combat training against within-service pilots, the USN and USAAF had combat exercises against each other annually starting in 1937. In 1941, Thach and Flatley demonstrated the beam defense for the first time, using it to "win" the Army-Navy exercise that year against USAAF pilots flying P40s. Judges reviewed post combat results using gun cameras (obviously not live rounds). In addition, all US pilots trained at deflection shooting using live ammunition against towed targets. Typically these exercise required the attacking pilot to approach the towed target along a given quartering approach.