This is from First Team, V1 (from my post 240):
It was the USN themselves that stated that the F4F-4 performed poorly, with a very poor climb rate:
"Fighting Six spent the last few days of March learning about the new model Grumman they would take into battle. They were not impressed: "The planes are like a TBD with a fish,"(7) a grave insult. On 1 April, Gray led a division of four F4F-4s out to the Enterprise at sea for training exercises. He observed the mock torpedo attack on the carrier by Torpedo Six, then landed on board to demonstrate to the air department the features of the F4F-4. That day the squadron took delivery of fifteen F4F-4s just arrived from the West Coast. This was the beginning of a big exchange of aircraft, so Fighting Six would have all available F4F-4s. Gray turned over most of his F4F-3s to Fighting Three and ended up with twenty-three F4F-4s and four F4F-3s. Fighting Six was the first carrier fighting squadron to attain the recommended operating strength of twenty-seven airplanes.
On 3 April with the Enterprise back in port, Fighting Six shifted back to NAS Pearl Harbor to install new gear and commission the factory-fresh planes. Three days later Gray shot off a rocket to Halsey offering his opinion of the Grumman F4F-4 fighter.(8) The performance of the folding wing Wildcat was "exceedingly unsatisfactory." The weight, he felt, simply was too much for the available horsepower, a fact most detrimental to the aircraft's climb and maneuverability. He noted that the F4F-4 had the "feel of a fully loaded torpedo plane." In tests, VF-6 pilots discovered that the climb rate of a fully loaded F4F-4 was only 1,500 feet per minute up to 15,000 feet. Thereafter even that anemic climb rate fell off drastically to 600 feet per minute at 22,000 feet of altitude. Gray found it took almost forty minutes and nearly half of the fuel supply to coax an F4F-4 up to 32,000 feet..." (Lundstrom, First Team).
After Midway, where 28 IJN strike aircraft, in two strikes were able to penetrate the USN GCI directed air defence where the USN had about 60 available fighters, Nimitz sent off a message urgently requesting Merlin engined fighters:
"..Spruance and Browning rated the Grumman Wildcat "greatly inferior'' in comparison with the nimble Japanese
Zero. On 20 June Nimitz relayed their fears to King, noting the "extreme and apparently
increased superiority performance of 0 fighters'' was mitigated only by the vulnerability
of Japanese planes and the superior tactics of the U.S. Navy fighter pilots. "Overall results
have been bad and will be serious and potentially decisive with improvement that must
be expected in enemy tactics.'' Remarkably he called for army Curtiss P-4OF Warhawk
fighters to replace navy F4F Wildcats and Brewster F2A Buffaloes in all marine fighting
squadrons defending forward bases and even asked that the P-4OF "or comparable type"
be tested for carrier suitability; In the meantime the F4F-4s must be lightened, and their
ammunition supply increased even should that require reverting to four guns in place of six.
The swift introduction of the Vought F4U-1 Corsair fighter was an "absolute priority.'' Thus
after Midway the top fleet commanders experienced a serious crisis of confidence over the
effectiveness of the basic U.S. carrier fighter, a worry that would soon influence Fletcher's
most controversial command decision..."
(Black Shoe carrier Admiral, p.200)
The problems in USN GCI fighter direction are detailed in Friedman's Fighters Over the Fleet, but it exacerbated the issues with the F4F-4, since they had such a poor climb rate that it was essential that radar GCI directed them accurately and in sufficient numbers to break up the IJN attacks. By Mid 1942, the RN FAA had had over two years experience with radar GCI and they used it to make effective use of the Fulmar, for example, which had a similarly poor rate of climb:
"The aircraft on board the British carriers were inferior to the
attackers [PEDESTAL] in performance, but that was more than balanced by superior
tactics based on radar fighter direction. The US Navy agreed that at this
point British fighter control was superior. In July 1943, with the US
carrier force badly drawn down, Victorious operated with Saratoga in the
Southwest Pacific. Because her fighter-control techniques were considered
superior, she was made fighter carrier, with all the fighters of both
carriers on board: thirty-six Martlets and twenty-four US F4F-4s." (Friedman, Fighters Over the Fleet)
