I think one of the best naval fighters was the A6M 'Zero'. The Zero first appeared in 1939 and was used to escort Japanese bombers to China and back during the Sino-Japanese war that began in the early 30s and continued into WW2. The Zero entered service with the Japanese Imperial navy in July 1940 - it was completely dominant in the Pacific theatre proving superior to anything the Allies could put into the air - it was robust, manouvorable and had a lightweight construction. Instead of being structured in many different pieces it was only built in two parts, these were attached to each other using a ring of 80 bolts. The only disadvantage it had against Allied fighters was that it had no armour for the pilot and it had no self sealing fuel tanks which meant it could not absorb as much battle damage. As records show one well placed burst of fire could cause the plane to disintegrate - which meant the Japanese pilots had to be more skilled and vigilant than Allied pilots as their plane was more fragile and vulnerable to attack (hence why Japan produced so many excellent pilots)
One of its many success stories was the Battle for Java. On the last day of fighting (8th March 1942) Zero fighters engaged the Allies and shot down 550 allied aircraft including large numbers of fighters such as Brewster Buffalows
, Curtiss-Wright CW.21 'Demons'
, Curtiss Hawks, Curtiss P-40 (a sad day for the Curtiss company for certain
) and Hawker Hurricanes
Japanese losses in that battle were extremely light.
A supercharged model of the Zero was built and flew into service shortly after this battle in 1942 - it was named the model 32 and had a supercharged 1300 Sakae 21 engine.
By 1943 it was becoming obvious that the Zeros dominance over the Allied fighters was coming to an end so the Japanese developed the Zero Model 52 retaining the supercharged engine but making the wings shorter, more ammunition on board and the wings were strenghened. Various other sub-types were designed around this model with more improvements such as more armour, rockets and cannon weapons installed
as well as self sealing fuel tanks (one wonders what took them so long!
) in an attempt to keep the Zero on a par with its opponents. The model 63 was designed for use on Kamikaze runs of which 465 were built. A version was even designed with float planes on for out-to-sea patrol usage.
All in all great and varied career for any fighter and greatly loved by Japanese pilots (among the bravest during the war i think)
Although i wouldn't be silly enough to say it was 'the best' i still think it was one of the best and deserves credit as an outstanding fighter that easily belongs somewhere near the top of great fighters of WW2.
I've seen one cut open at the imperial war museaum and i must say it is very simple in design - although all planes from that period looked pretty bleak this one really was rough and ready but it really did the job!