Corsair vs Zero

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Dogfighting is not an end in itself, a fighter is there to allow something else to happen, shooting down a fighter is only significant if it means the enemy has fewer fighters and good pilots the following day, or allows your mission to succeed/theirs to fail. If the Japanese were attacking a target the Zeros job is not to dogfight but to stop the enemy taking out the bomber/torpedo planes, not quite the same thing. The Japanese suffered heavy losses trying to break through organised protective screens of fighters protecting a fleet, getting involved in a fight with the screening fighters is what the defenders want you to do, it stops you doing the actual mission you were sent on.
 

Exactly! As the old line goes, "fighter pilots make movies, bomber pilots make history!"
 
FLYBOYJ said:
Exactly! As the old line goes, "fighter pilots make movies, bomber pilots make history!"
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The RAF found out in France what sending fighters over to "dogfight" with an enemy who doesn't really care what you bomb results in, they only want to "play" when they hold all the aces. Lots of bounces and few dogfights.
 
FLYBOYJ said:
As you become more educated here you'll learn that there is much discussion about claims vs. actual kills. It is well know that ALL sides overclaimed aerial victories
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Of course, and that's why comparing claimed victories against actual losses is not very accurate.

Over Darwin, based on Wildcat's compilation of sources, the overclaim rate was a bit more than 2:1. I know it's not entirely warranted, but let's pretend it is, and let's apply it to late war Corsair record. Then from 11:1 we are at 5:1. Most of those were not Zeros. I would expect the enemy fighter to do better than other aircraft.

Very rough estimation, but probably better than taking claimed victories at face value.

The training disparity was especially high by the end of the war. USN pilots graduated with about 600 hours in the air, Japanese with as little as 90.

Therefore it's difficult to assess comparative qualities of those two planes based on combat record.
 
I don't see engaging the enemy fighter screen as a mistake, but maybe I don't understand something. What do you propose they did instead?
 
bakters said:
Therefore it's difficult to assess comparative qualities of those two planes based on combat record.
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And both aircraft were evaluated after the war by pilots of equal skill and training - the F4U was the better combat aircraft by leaps and bounds, it's just plain silly to try to say anything to the contrary.
 
bakters said:
I don't see engaging the enemy fighter screen as a mistake, but maybe I don't understand something. What do you propose they did instead?
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It's simple:
The escorting fighters are there to ensure that the bombers get through the screen to score hits against the enemy.

To wander off in a show of bravado and engaging the defenders leaves the bombers wide open to being ravaged. It is the escort's duty to remain near the bombers and drive off the defenders.

A CAP mission is free to intercept and engage the enemy, but an escort mission carries different responsabilities.
 
Bakers,

I would evaluate the two aircraft by putting two very good pilots in each. Tell them to fight their a/c's best fight and see who wins the most out of 10 times. My money would be on the F4U due to its ability to stay or go at will. That means I fight only until I start going defensive, then separate (get range until I turn back in) or leave. The Zero would have no option but to stay until the adversary chose to end the fight. I have fought this battle many times Eagle vs Hornet. Same strengths and weaknesses as the older metal. Once you know your adversaries plus/minuses it becomes a formula you use agin and again. You can actually learn it to the extent the adversary pilot is almost removed from the equation.

Cheers,
Biff
 
bakters said:
I don't see engaging the enemy fighter screen as a mistake, but maybe I don't understand something. What do you propose they did instead?
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The zero fighters job is to stop the enemy getting a shot on the bomber/torpedo plane, to make them pull out of an attack but still stay with the bomber. You could say a series of "Thatch waves" making a kill isnt important, making the enemy pull out of his attack on your friend is. As soon a zero takes on a fighter in a dogfight it is out of the game, the planes that he is escorting is gone and without an escort is dead meat.

An escorts job was to make sure their big friends got through to the target, an interceptors job was to get the bombers/torpedo planes. The US navy would not be happy to be told that every Zero was downed but ten torpedoes took out 5 ships, the IJN would not be happy being told that zeros took out 100 corsairs with no loss but not a torpedo or bomb reached the target. Ridiculous exaggerations I admit, just to illustrate the principle.

I dont know so much about the Pacific theatre but generally aeroplanes did not operate alone. One on one combats did occur but they were not the norm. If I was a pilot flying alone over the Pacific and saw an enemy flying alone, unless I was sure he hadnt seen me and absolutely sure he didnt have friends above that I couldnt see (how are you ever sure) I would probably decide that discretion is the better part of valour and do what I was planning/ordered to do, or call up any friends I have in the area.
 
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bakters said:
Of course, and that's why comparing claimed victories against actual losses is not very accurate.
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That totally makes no sence. If Compare "CLAIMS" to "ACTUAL LOSSES" you determine how accurate your claims were!!!

You cannot quantify and compare fighting over Darwin to the entire F4U war record, the entire scenario was different in so many areas, you need to do some research and understand all the environments the F4U and Zero operated under.


bakters said:
USN pilots graduated with about 600 hours in the air, Japanese with as little as 90.
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Your source for that?!?
bakters said:
Therefore it's difficult to assess comparative qualities of those two planes based on combat record.
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Again, you're making a statement about pilot experience when it varied through out the war. Obviously Japanese pilot skill diminished as the war continued. Corsair pilots with "600" hours did not always engage Japanese pilots with "90" hours, to believe that is just plain silly!!!!

Here is a page that tells the ACTUAL pilot training story at the start of the war. There is also a page on here that shows even if the IJN didn't lose many of their most experienced pilots during Midway, they still would have suffered severe attrition because of the demands made on choosing pilots before the war started...

Support: Pilot Training Is Out of Gas

" In 1941, a Japanese pilot trainee 700 hours of flight time to qualify as a full fledged pilot in the Imperial Navy, while his American counterpart needed only 305 hours. About half of the active duty pilots in the U.S. Navy in late 1941 had between 300 and 600 hours flying experience, a quarter between 600 and 1000 hours, and the balance more than 1000 hours. Most of these flight hours had been acquired in the last few years. But at the beginning of the war nearly 75 percent of the U.S. Navy's pilots had fewer flying hours than did the least qualified of the Japanese Navy's pilots.



On the down side, the Japanese pilot training program was so rigorous that only about 100 men a year were being graduated, in a program that required 4-5 years. In 1940, it was proposed that the pilot training program be made shorter, less rigorous, and more productive, in order to build up the pool of available pilots to about 15,000. This was rejected. Japan believed it could not win a long war, and needed the best pilots possible in order to win a short one.



Naturally, once the war began, the Imperial Navy started losing pilots faster than they could be replaced. For example, the 29 pilots lost at Pearl Harbor represented more than a quarter of the annual crop. The battles of the next year led to the loss of hundreds of superb pilots. This finally forced the Japanese to reform their pilot training programs. Time to train a pilot, and hours in the air spiraled downward. By 1945 men were being certified fit for combat duty with less than four months training. In contrast, the U.S. Navy was actually increasing its flight time, while keeping pilot training programs to about 18 months. In 1943, the U.S. Navy increased flight hours for trainees to 500, while Japan cut its hours to 500. In 1944, the U.S. hours went up to 525, while Japan cut it to 275 hour. In 1945, a shortage of fuel had Japanese trainee pilots flying on 90 hours before entering combat. In the air, this produced lopsided American victories, with ten or more Japanese aircraft being lost for each U.S. one."
 
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bakters said:
I don't see engaging the enemy fighter screen as a mistake, but maybe I don't understand something. What do you propose they did instead?
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how much damage is a fighter going to inflict on a country? maybe shoot down a plane or 2...strafe a train or barge. how much damage is loaded bomber going to inflict? exponentially way more....take out a factory, knock down a bridge, destroy a rail yard. the germans tried to bait the fighter escorts to give chase after them and it they did...another swarm of lw fighters would freely attack the unprotected bombers. in the beginning fighters were ordered to stay with the bombers.
 
bakters said:
Therefore it's difficult to assess comparative qualities of those two planes based on combat record.
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You are seeking a purist answer that cannot be given. One of the Japanese aces quoted on the thread states "we did not have radar" another that I provided by a link showed that the Japanese sometimes did not have radios at all or functioning ones at least. Regardless of an aeroplanes qualities even in WW2 with no radar or radio you are starting almost all engagements at a disadvantage. Take radio from any side in the Battle of Britain and you decide the winner, take Radar from the RAF and they lose, it would certainly have changed the Pacific war.

You could produce exact new copies of the Corsair and the Zero and fly them off together to decide which is best, history shows that the Corsair as part of the US military outperformed the Zero as part of the Japanese. The actual performance of the two aircraft in the air one v one relative to each other is just a small part of that.
 
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bobbysocks said:
how much damage is a fighter going to inflict on a country?
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You can take out your enemy's top admiral in an ambush, but you need a few thousand of your best brains at home figuring out the systems to do it, another illustration that the fighter is just the equipment that meets the enemy, there must be a whole nation behind it to make it work to best effect.
 
GregP said:
Hey Biff,

Many of us just don't believe the bomber quote. It's a team effort, and the bombers won't get through without the point players. Fighters are always on point.
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Greg,

You are right it is a team effort. One does not do well without the other and a ton of support behind both! Recruiting, training, mentoring, procurement, logistician, crew chief all contribute to the guy in the flight suit in the air. Then the fighters, bombers, tankers, AWACS, and a bunch more aircraft all contribute SA, munitions, and presence to the battlefield. Without a group effort there would be no success!

Cheers,
Biff
 
I can only agree with that to a point (no pun intended). Most of the fighting over Rabaul and New Guinea 1942-3 was undertaken with heavily armed heavy and medium bombers which used their massed firepower to either keep the japanese at bay or force their way to their targets. Its an old fashioned way, I admit, but in the pacific, where the numbers of fighters and the geographical distribution of targets greater than in more concentrated ETO environments.

There were of course exceptions to this. over carrier TFs, vital targets like Japanese cities, high value military targets. but Japanese air defence was never in the same league as their german counterparts, their defensive fighters more vulnerable and flimsy , and the targets often dispersed, so unescorted raids were feasible for the allies,
 
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