Yeah, but the technique I've described is HOW they did it, plus the fact that Japan was banking on a short war, and squandered their best-trained pilots too early...After the big sea-battles that cost them so many pilots, the replacements were 'barely' trained, whereas the US had by then a truly awesome flight-training programme that was in full-gear...The point I was trying to make, and it was in no-way disparative of those truly-great US fighters, was simply that the Spits were always very manoevrable,[and Hurricanes], as well as having a better altitude-factor; US fighters were generally heavier, as well as more plentiful by then...In a down out dogfight, one on one, the Spitfires were perhaps the only fighters to be able to successfully engage them...I'm currently reading a US book of the first Kodachrome colour-photos seen of the Pacific War, entitled ' WWII Pacific War Eagles ' which clearly states on page 144, what I've just said, and it's beside a photo of 476 [RAAF] Sqn. Mk. LF VIII's Spitfires, [at Morotai] and it goes on to say ,' they had 1580hp Merlin 66's, a top speed of 404mph and a ceiling of 41,500ft, [which wasn't really needed in SEAC], mentioning particuarly Zeros Oscars, as on even terms, and what ''a valuable commodity'' they were '...C'mon Lightning, are you gonna argue with your OWN authors about it ???!!...As a Commonwealth person, it's exasperating sometimes to have Americans ramming down the throat that they were BEST at every **** thing....If you like, get the book and have a look, and look in particular at the photos where they bulldozed ALL these great US fighters in a heap an TORCHED THEM at war's end....lots of bloody LIGHTNINGS too...[ the book is ISBN 0-9629359-3-X]...Fair go, it's chaps like me that lend abit of EQUITY to this site.....