Comparison of Pacific, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and North Atlantic naval combat

It is written by Terence Kelly, a Hurricane pilot of 258 Squadron, who actually fought against Zeros and KI 43s. So its based on combat experience.

XBe02Drvr said:

And how about sending it in a format my Android can read?

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What would that be?

Here are some files on Hurricane dive performance.

The Hurricane was an ok diver, better than the F4F and the Zero.

Try this

So if the Hurricane was superior to the A6M, how was it that the battle over Ceylon saw the Hurricane get beaten so badly?

GrauGeist said:

So if the Hurricane was superior to the A6M, how was it that the battle over Ceylon saw the Hurricane get beaten so badly?

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This was addressed in earlier posts; on 5 April the IJNAF achieved nearly complete surprise. On 9 April things were a bit more equal but the Hurricanes were still badly outnumbered.

The Hurricane II wasn't really 'superior', but not inferior either, if flown to take advantage of it's strengths.

RCAFson said:

...if flown to take advantage of it's strengths.

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You mean like Nichizawa, who was downing F6Fs with an A6M as late as 1944?

slaterat said:

Try this

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That comes to me as a ".bin" file, which my phone refuses to open. The image shows a logo that resembles Adobe Acrobat, but my Acrobat won't open it. How about ".doc" or ".rtf", or ".pdf"?

GrauGeist said:

You mean like Nichizawa, who was downing F6Fs with an A6M as late as 1944?

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Yeah, the A6M never had any upgrades, did it?

RCAFson said:

Yeah, the A6M never had any upgrades, did it?

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About as much as the Hurricane.

Not much difference between the A6M2 and the A6M5 when compared to what the Allies were fielding at the time...

This is part of an official RAF summary of the air war over Burma and it couldn't be clearer in stating that the Hurricane was outclassed by the Ki43. I should add that on this forum there was an official comparison between the Zero and the Spit V and the result was that the Spit V was in many cases was matched and sometimes inferior to the Zero. So unless the Hurricane has had a major boost in performance that makes it better than the Spit V, my money is on the Ki43 and Zero when up against the Hurricane

"All Allied aircraft except the Hurricane at present enjoy advantages of dive, straight and level speed, zoom, and in the case of the Spitfire, climb, when compared to all but the latest types of Japanese aircraft."

Yah I think that is pretty definitive, and matches what I have always read. Slaterats performance tests however do seem to indicate Hurricane could reach very high dive speeds. Maybe the issue was more dive-acceleration than ultimate dive speed?

This issue of diving was also mentioned many times in the MTO, where it was also a standard escape maneuver for Kittyhawks but not Hurricanes.

Glider said:

This is part of an official RAF summary of the air war over Burma and it couldn't be clearer in stating that the Hurricane was outclassed by the Ki43. I should add that on this forum there was an official comparison between the Zero and the Spit V and the result was that the Spit V was in many cases was matched and sometimes inferior to the Zero. So unless the Hurricane has had a major boost in performance that makes it better than the Spit V, my money is on the Ki43 and Zero when up against the Hurricane
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Ground attack Hurricanes were heavily loaded with armour, armament (typically 4 x 20mm or 12 x BMGs) carried external hard points with bombs and trop filters. These aircraft are not comparable to Hurricanes configured as pure fighters. They were strike aircraft and suffered for it.

We can get a very good look at comparable A6M2 and Hurricane IIA performance via these three references:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/hurricane/Hurricane_II_Z-2974_Level.pdf
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/hurricane/Hurricane_II_Z-2974_Climb.pdf

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/intelsum85-dec42.pdf

And with boost limited to 9.5lb(instead of 12 or 14-16 by late 1942-44) the Hurricane IIA has a much superior climb rate compared to the tested A6M2 and is generally faster, and of course far superior to an F4F-4.

Hurricanes were relegated to ground attack due to their extremely poor performance in air to air combat, not the other way around.

Schweik said:

Hurricanes were relegated to ground attack due to their extremely poor performance in air to air combat, not the other way around.

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Compared to Luftwaffe types the Hurricane was obsolescent by 1941 and this led to a relegation to the ground attack role and production and development was directed toward ground attack. Not surprisingly this led to issues when combating lightweight IJAAF fighters at low altitudes, which is where ground attack Hurricane most frequently encountered fighters.

Similarly, the F4F-4 was phased out in favour of the lightweight FM2, as superior naval fighter types were introduced which took over fleet carrier fighter roles.

So are you saying that Hurricane IIB, IIC etc. were ground attack types? Because I believe those saw extended use in Burma, and took heavy losses.

The only one I know of as a dedicated ground attack type was the IID with the big 40mm guns and those had somewhat limited success from what I remember reading. MK IV later had the ability to be configured as a ground attack or fighter type.

Are you saying that the FM2 was a ground attack design?

I would say though the design certainly had limitations, and was barely adequate, with good training and the right tactics the Wildcat clearly held it's own in air to air comabat through 1943. The Hurricane was basically phased out of air to air combat (as much as it could be) in the Western desert by the end of 1941 or early 1942.

In Burma and India they seemed to remain in use longer and their aircrews suffered for it. Even the Mohawk was considered better.

I would say it was obviously also obsolescent compared to the predominant Japanese Navy and Army types by the end of 1941. As was the Sea Hurricane, though it could still be useful in places where it didn't face land based fighters or carrier aircraft. The Fulmar was obsolescent when it came out.

Schweik said:

So are you saying that Hurricane IIB, IIC etc. were ground attack types? Because I believe those saw extended use in Burma, and took heavy losses.

The only one I know of as a dedicated ground attack type was the IID with the big 40mm guns and those had somewhat limited success from what I remember reading. MK IV later had the ability to be configured as a ground attack or fighter type.

Are you saying that the FM2 was a ground attack design?

I would say though the design certainly had limitations, and was barely adequate, with good training and the right tactics the Wildcat clearly held it's own in air to air comabat through 1943. The Hurricane was basically phased out of air to air combat (as much as it could be) in the Western desert by the end of 1941 or early 1942.

In Burma and India they seemed to remain in use longer and their aircrews suffered for it. Even the Mohawk was considered better.

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The IIB/C/D and MkIV were used as ground attack aircraft and configured for that role, which led to increased weight and much reduced performance and almost constant operations at low altitude where IJAAF almost always had an altitude advantage.

I am saying that the F4F-4 was phased out as it's original role was taken over and the airframe redesigned and repurposed.

The F4F-4 was clearly inferior to the Hurricane II as a fighter aircraft so any successes that it had were due to the unique tactical situations in which it operated. Logically, a better performing aircraft, should do at least as well.

RCAFson said:

The F4F-4 was clearly inferior to the Hurricane II as a fighter aircraft so any successes that it had were due to the unique tactical situations in which it operated. Logically, a better performing aircraft, should do at least as well.

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Putting aside the rivalry for the moment, can you really be sure all this is true?

This is I think one of the dilemmas of understanding WW2 air combat, or any military history. How much of what happened is down to morale, to weather and environment, to logistics, to training and discipline, and just plain luck, and how much due to the properties and performance of kit? This is an issue going far back into history - how much of an advantage were iron spearheads over bronze? How much did the longbow matter at Agincourt compared to the weather and the terrain?

Once you get into as artificial an environment as four miles into the sky and 300 mph, the kit starts to matter a lot more. One man with a pointy stick - or one man with an automatic rifle - is only so much different than another. But we know for sure that an I-16 was at an almost insurmountable disadvantage against a Fw 190. But the skill of the pilot, the rain or fog, the quality of maintenance, training and discipline, all these things still did matter of course. It's hard to determine precisely how much. But we still see aces flying Buffalos and Fiat G.50s in 1943.

When it comes to Hurricane II vs. F4F-4, I don't see such a sharp difference in performance. Speed is about the same, Hurricane turns better, Wildcat probably rolls slightly better (I show Hurricane Mk I at 64 degrees per second at 230 mph, 30 lbs of force, Wildcat at 69 degrees per second. Hurricane Mk II is probably a bit worse), dive is a bit confusing in light of slaterats evidence, but pilots seemed to say that the Hurricane dived poorly. I don't know how to reconcile that. Hurricane climbed a bit better - so long as the engine was performing properly. But there are a lot of reports of overheating. Hurricane also had a radiator which made them a bit more vulnerable to gunfire. Japanese pilots were trained to target the radiator.

The Hurricane had heavier guns, but only 60 rounds of ammunition for the 20mm when you are talking about the IIC. I would say therefore that the Wildcat is actually a bit better armed. (I know that many wouldn't agree with that). The four wing cannon apparently also affected maneuverability on the Hurri.

Overall, I'd say on paper performance looks similar. I certainly wouldn't rate the Hurricane as better. So the difference could be training or circumstantial, or even luck, but considering the number of iterations I'd say there is a pattern which shows the F4F had the edge.

For example, many papers have been written about Agincourt. It has been proven definitively that longbows can't shoot through iron armor. Elaborate tests have been done which show the extreme difficulty of the environment for the French. Some people concluded that the longbow wasn't really a factor. But the thing is, there was more than that one incident. English victories at Crecy and Poitiers also hinged on the longbow. So did victories in Scotland and Flanders and as far away as Spain and Italy, and Lithuania. Taken together, it's enough variety in all the other random factors to assume that the longbow really did make a difference, just like everyone said it did back in the 14th and 15th century.

I don't think the relative success of the F4F was a fluke, though I can't be certain what the actual reason was. I don't think it was pilot training because my understanding is that the FAA and RAF pilots were well trained.

RCAFson said:

Ground attack Hurricanes were heavily loaded with armour, armament (typically 4 x 20mm or 12 x BMGs) carried external hard points with bombs and trop filters. These aircraft are not comparable to Hurricanes configured as pure fighters. They were strike aircraft and suffered for it.

We can get a very good look at comparable A6M2 and Hurricane IIA performance via these three references:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/hurricane/Hurricane_II_Z-2974_Level.pdf
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/hurricane/Hurricane_II_Z-2974_Climb.pdf

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/intelsum85-dec42.pdf

And with boost limited to 9.5lb(instead of 12 or 14-16 by late 1942-44) the Hurricane IIA has a much superior climb rate compared to the tested A6M2 and is generally faster, and of course far superior to an F4F-4.

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I am sorry but you are now saying that the Hurricane II was heavily loaded with armour and that is the reason why it's performance suffered? I thought the Mk IV was the GA version with extra protection

I haven't been able to find the actual flight test comparison between the Spit V and Zero A6M3 but I have found a good summary which follows. In summary below 20,000 ft the Zero had a number of significant advantages over the Spitfire and over 20,000 ft the Spitfire was able to start gaining the upper hand. Unless you believe that a Hurricane II has a better performance than a Spitfire V, your argument holds little, if any, water. I obviously recognise that a Ki43 is different to a Zero but its characteristics are very similar, speed, agility, acceleration are of the same order

Link is as follows
darwinspitfires.com/index.php?page=spitfire-vc-versus-the-zero

It should also be noted that air to air combat over Burma was very unusual, the vast majority of sorties were GA missions so of course the aircraft are going to be equipped with bomb racks and other additions. It's a fact of life. All allied aircraft spent most of the time on GA missions. It should also be noted that a number of Ki43 aircraft had similar additions so it wasn't always one sided.
All the links I know (including the one you posted) state that to combat the Japanese fighters you need to keep the speed above 300 mph. A Hurricane after spending some time in Burma would be lucky to get over 300mph beside which the Japanese fighters also had a similar top speed, and had a better acceleration so the difference is marginal.