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Greetings Tomo,This is perhaps better suited for the 'What-if' forum.
(yes, we'd have a blast discussing this, at least Shortround6 and myself are sharpening the respective keyboards...)
Greetings All,
Reflecting on a number of recent threads in the Forum featuring extended discussions about long range escort fighters, Luftwaffe bombers capabilities, early Spitfires, Hurricanes and Zeros, it occurred to me that one of the missed opportunities of the Germany Japan Technology Exchange was that it appears Japan never shared the design of the Zero at a time when the design of a long range fighter could have been useful to the Luftwaffe, prior to the Battle of Britain. Even if Japan had shared design details, I don't believe it would have altered the path Germany took. It would have required a suspension of the bias the Nazis had against non-German engineering as well as a massive improvement in the Nazi procurement system for the Luftwaffe to benefit. That said, I would be interested in your thoughts about a German advancement of the basic Zero design pre-Battle of Britain? To me, there are a number of obvious questions:
1. Who would be selected to advance the design? Heinkel seems like an obvious choice given the effort put into the HE 100D
2. What power plant? The BMW 801 is quite a bit larger and heavier and would require an entire new airframe. The Rhone-Gnome?
3. How much weight would be aded to the airframe for armor?
4. Would the Luftwaffe even understand the value of a long range fighter?
Your thoughts?
Three things Japan desperately needs in technological exchange with Germany:Greetings All,Even if Japan had shared design details, I don't believe it would have altered the path Germany took.
If the Germans want a long range fighter they can simply add the later Bf 109G's greater internal fuel and drop tanks. I suspect the German reviewers would reject the Zero outright for its flimsy construction, tiny armament and ammunition load and lack of both a working radio and any pilot or fuel tank protection.Greetings All,I would be interested in your thoughts about a German advancement of the basic Zero design pre-Battle of Britain? To me, there are a number of obvious questions:
4. Would the Luftwaffe even understand the value of a long range fighter?
Greetings Adm Beez,Three things Japan desperately needs in technological exchange with Germany:
1) A strong radial engine to allow for fighters with superlative performance AND protection (armour, self sealing tanks) and heavy armament (with good magazine loads)
2) Shipborne radar
3) Aircraft radios resistant to electromagnetic interference.
Problem is, what technology can Japan offer Germany?
If the Germans want a long range fighter they can simply add the later Bf 109G's greater internal fuel and drop tanks. I suspect the German reviewers would reject the Zero outright for its flimsy construction, tiny armament and ammunition load and lack of both a working radio and any pilot or fuel tank protection.
They had radios. They just didn't work. Radio Systems in the Early A6M ZeroThere's also a commonly held belief that the Zero didn't have radios. The original design brief included radios as well as RDF.
Insufficient shielding of the ignition system of the aircraft caused interference with reception of signals to a great degree, as did static charges generated by the passage of the airframe through the atmosphere. It seems that there were very few officers at fighter group level who were familiar with radio systems or who cared to conduct effective programs to maintain them. The resulting poor performance quickly led fighter pilots to cease using the radios and resort to the old visual methods. In the case of some land-based groups, they removed all radio equipment to enhance the performance of the planes.
Per Wikipedia...3. How much weight would be aded to the airframe for armor?
Greetings GrauGeist,The A6M was far from flimsy, it was vulnerable to gunfire because of it's lack of armor or self-sealing tanks. Otherwise it was quite rugged.
In regards to Germany using Japanese technology, Heinkel had aircraft engineers in Japan for most of the war as well as military attachés, so they were aware of what Japan had and weren't too interested in what Japan had to offer.
Japan needed the long range aircraft because she was a maritime nation and vast distances were often part of their operational criteria as opposed to European aircraft which (initially) didn't require such ranges.
As it happened, Germany did posses a fighter that had nearly double the range of the Bf109E: the He112, however the Germans preferred to stay with the Bf109 because they felt the Heinkel was redundant.
Greetings Adm Beez,They had radios. They just didn't work. Radio Systems in the Early A6M Zero
I would argue that the lack of radios contributed to the IJN Zero pilots fighting as individuals as opposed to organized groups. The Luftwaffe definitely has nothing to learn from the IJN about the doctrine of bomber escorting.
Greetings Beez,The only thing the Zero offers the Germans in the BoB is endurance. The Germans weren't dumb, if they wanted a high endurance single engine, single-seat fighter they would make one. What the Japanese might do is demonstrate its benefits in time for the Bf 109G's long range to be applied to the BoB era 109E.
Greetings Conslaw,The problem of the hypothetical German A6M would be timing. The time Germany needed it most was in the late summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain. This is the same time the first service-test aircraft were being tried out in China, 13 practically hand-built A6M-11s. Until the service-test deployment, even the Japanese didn't know the zero's potential. When would Germany have been able to start deploying either an German-built A6M or a domestic design inspired by the A6M? Perhaps a year and a half? That would be mid-1942 at the earliest. Unless the German Zero was markedly superior to the historical Japanese version, it would have had its hands full with the Spitfire IX, which was first deployed in July 1942. A long-range fighter, even one with vulnerabilities, may have been more useful on the Eastern Front, showing up in places the enemy would not expect.