ORIGINAL: mdiehl
So here's what happened. In face to face engagements in 1942, USN F4F drivers defeated A6M drivers in every battle, when you measure "defeat" in terms of number of wildcats and zeros shot down. That was mostly accomplished without using the beam defense and despite the fact that the Wildcats were operating at very extended range. The reasons for that were two: (1) USN pilots were every bit as good as Japanese pilots. Japanese pilots especially had a tendency to pull up in front of F4Fs at ranges that were lethal to the Zero because the Japanese simply weren't as expert at deflection shooting and therefore did not expect anyone else to be especially good at it. (2) The Wildcat was a tougher plane, and more maneuverable at high speed.
The Aleutian Zero evaluations weren't widely known until 1943, long after the introduction of the beam defense in October 1942, and long after the USN pilots broke the back of the IJN pilot corps in April and June 1942. The only effect that the Aleutian zero tests had was to hasten the transition of Grumman A.C. from F4F production to F6F production (by turning over production of the F4F to General Motors who produced it as the FM1 and then later the upengined FM2).
Incorrect.
On 7 Aug 42, 17 Zeros of the Tainan group engagd 18 VF-5 Wildcats and shot down 9 of them for the loss of two Zeros.
For the entire Guadalcanal campaign, 31 Wildcats were shot down by Zeros. Wildcats shot down 25 Zeros in return. After 7 Aug 42, losses tended to even out. The side with an altitude advantage tended to win the engagement. Source: Lundstrom's "The First Team and Guadalcanal Campaign" page 529.
Without long range early warning provided by radar and coastwatchers, the Wildcats would seldom have been able to achieve a favorable attack position due to their very poor rate of climb. This was the single greatest advantage the Wildcat had over the Zero.
I would agree that US NAVY pilots were as well trained as Japanese NAVY pilots. What was lacking was experience in combat which was gained throughout 1942. As to deflection shooting, Japanese pilots were every bit as good at deflection shooting and numerous examples are detailed in Lundstrom's book. The Japanese also tended to have more experience in type aircraft in that they tended to stay in fighters once assigned during training.
One fact everyone overlooks is that deflection shooting wasn't part of the US Navy flight training program prewar. It wasn't until the development of the Carrier Replacement Air Group (CRAG) concept in late 1942 that deflection shooting began receiving greatly increased emphasis in the training command. Prior to that, deflection shooting was taught at the operational unit level. Jimmy Thatch covers this with some detail and its omission in the 1940 flight training syllabus is telling. Source: U.S. Navy Flight Training Syllabus 1940 and Naval Aviation News magazine published by the U.S. Navy.
The use of .50 cal MGs is what allowed US pilots to hit with great effect at long range. The 7.7mms MGs on the Zero couldn't provide the same punch. Deflection shooting had little to do with that.
As for Koga's Zero, intelligence first began to be released to fleet units in Spetember 1942. Flight testing results were released in November 1942 and comparison testing vs US fighters was released in December 1942. Flatley saw preliminary flight testing data prior to arriving in the Solomons in OCtober 1942. This data gave details about the Zero's lack of roll rate above 250mph and rolled more slowly to the right than left. It told pilots that the best evasion method was to corkscrew dive at high speed. Source: "Koga's Zero" by Jim Reardon.
The beam defense was Flatley's term for Thatch's "weave" which was first used at Midway, not Oct 1942 as you state.
All US fighters received incendiary coated bullets in their standard load out. The weren't needed to kill Zekes. The .50cal had an impact energy at 300 meters of about 9,000 foot pounds. What set zekes on fire was the fact that a 700 grain bullet hitting the flimsy gas tank with 9K foot pounds of energy tended to burst the tank, and bullets are generally hot, without incendiary coating, and tend to give off sparks when they hit metal. The incendiaries were gravy. Made it that much easier to kill Japanese planes which was important when taking on a.c. with two engines like Betties.
Partially incorrect. Aluminum is generally considered a non-sparking material except when in powder form.
The tanks generally did not burst but were punctured which allowed fuel to stream from the aircraft. From that point, any number of ignition sources existed to light it off including hot exhaust, incendiary bullets or electrical sparking from damaged wiring.
I was commenting about Zero losses in the Coral Sea and Midway campaigns, not counting Zeros that went down with their ships. F4Fs in both those campaigns were mostly operating at the end of their range. One of the Coral Sea sub-engagements only turned out favorably for the Zekes because the F4Fs went into the battle at relatively low power settings due to lack of fuel at range.
...snip...
As to Guadalcanal, the Zeros there were operating at their end of the extreme range, a fact that almost compensated for the F4Fs at Guadalcanal operating under very poor logistical and billeting circumstances.
My bad. I could have swore you said 1942.
Of course, we are forgetting that Zeros owed their extremely long range to very low power settings as well.
And we are overlooking the fact that at Guadalcanal, Zeros were often forced to fight with belly tanks attached due to a lack of fuel at range. Which, in effect, puts them under the same limitations you claim for the Wildcat at Coral Sea.
And, Rabaul, of course, was the equivalent of the Hilton.
"Too bad that no one mentioned to IJN pilot corps that its back has been broken before July 1942."
No one needed to mention it. All that was and is needed is to look at the losses they took in A2A combat in April and June 1942. The better part of four carriers worth of pilots was basically erased. The pilots that filtered into the IJN replacement pool weren't as good as the ones the USN shot down at Midway and Coral Sea. Japanese sources make note of that. USN sources make note of that. It's pretty much an unavoidable established fact that the Zeroes tended to lose, from the outset, when they faced F4Fs. Things just went from bad to worse for the Zeroes when the F4F drivers started using the beam defense. About the only Allied a.c. that the Zero could regularly defeat without the element of surprise were the P-39, The F2, and the Hurricrate.
Shouldn't that be losses in May and June 42?
The majority of Japanese fighter pilots survived those clashes so could hardly be considered erased. Their units, yes, not the pilots themselves. That the Japanese naval pilots were of increasingly poor quality as the war went on is a given. But it wasn't due to losses at Midway.
And it's pretty much an unavoidable established fact, at least according to Lundstrom, that Zeros shot down more Wildcats than they lost.
And its pretty much unavoidable established fact that the reason the Wildcat was as successful as it was had little to do with the aircraft itself. Without being on a defensive posture, without long range early warning, and without team tactics, the Wildcat would not have been as effective as it was. Zeros had none of these advantages.
