RE: Lately stuck on WW2 history.
December 6, 2018 at 3:36 pm
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2018 at 3:44 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(December 6, 2018 at 3:00 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:(December 6, 2018 at 2:55 pm)Deesse23 Wrote: The A6M climbed better and had a better sustained turn rate at any given speed than the P40B
The P40B was slightly faster.
The Zeke didn't have self-sealing fuel tanks or any appreciable armor.
BUT: During the Korean War the US offered a bounty for the MiG-15. One pilot got rich and a free ticket to the US. Then they gave the plane to the test people. Chuck Yeager took an F-86 against the MiG and won. Then the pilots swapped planes. Yeager won again. Pilot matters more than machine.
The zero was highly optimized for twisting, turning type of dog fight. It was supremely maneuverable at low to medium speed and low to medium altitude. It was also wonderfully acrobatic in these regimes, with marvelous control characteristics. The Japanese naval pilots were highly trained for this type of air combat, and the zero was superbly designed to make the most of Japanese pilot skill in this type of battle. When fighting in this regime, the zero was unbeatable by other modern fighters of the era.
P-40 could dive faster, and was faster at higher altitude. If it refuses to twist and turn with the zero and this allow its speed to bleed away, then it hold its own against the zero by using speed, climb and dive to making it difficult for the zero to draw a bead on it with ordinary maneuvering.
Overall the zero was absolutely the better air combat fighter, that doesn’t mean it can crush the P-40 in every encounter scenario. It can crash the P-40 in most scenarios, and hold its own in the remainder.
If you look purely at low to medium speed, low to medium altitude combat maneuverability, the zero was good, but not without equal. Many 1930s biplane fighters and a few early light fixed wheel monoplane fighters were just as maneuverable as the zero. What made zero expectional was it didn’t give up the maneuverability that were normal in an earlier generation of fighters, but which most other modern fighters gave up in favor of heavier firepower, higher performance. But the zero kept the maneuverability but nonetheless matched most other modern fighters in firepower and performance.
Of course the designers of other modern fighters knew aerodynamics and physics just as well as Mitsubishi. So the zero could not have achieved this feat without some sacrifices compared to those other fighters. That sacrifice was in a the form of light, thoroughbred structure that can’t stand up to battle damage.
One other thing often overlooked in assessing the zero’s combat record is the Japanese fighter pilot was trained to fight as an skilled individual pilot, with relatively little emphasis on collaboration within a section much less on squadron level. So some of the combat record has to account for the fact that allied pilots coordinate better than Japanese pilots.