Corsair vs Zero

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The Corsair is a good 130 mph faster than the Zero, if the Corsair pilot never goes below 350, the Zero really does not have a chance. The inability of the Zero to fight at speed made them easy meat for the Hellcats and Corsairs. Weak armament and lack of armor also hurt.

If you look at the history of it, the Zero did very poorly after 1942. There was not much the Zero pilot could do against the much faster, better armed, tougher planes like the Corsair.

The air battle over the Marianas wasn't called the "Turkey Shoot" for nothing.

=S=

Lunatic
 
the lancaster kicks ass said:
are you aware of how good and determined jap aces were?? especailly the early war ones..............
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Yes. But it didn't matter. Have you read Sabaru Sakai's book?

Determination is great, but it is not going to help you much when you're in a plane with a 230 IAS performance limt and your fighting planes with a 350 IAS performance limit. All you can do is try to survive their attacks.

=S=

Lunatic
 
I think its simply that the Zero was out of date by the time the Corsair came on the scene. in its heyday the A6M was untouchable and a brilliant machine but the Japanese just couldn't keep up with the US's advances in R D.
 
trackend said:
I think its simply that the Zero was out of date by the time the Corsair came on the scene. in its heyday the A6M was untouchable and a brilliant machine but the Japanese just couldn't keep up with the US's advances in R D.
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Yes it did fairly well early in the war. But even against the Wildcat, once the Zero's weaknesses were uncovered, it did not fare that well.

The Zero was a plane of a few notable strengths, but many notable weaknesses.
 
Has anyone stopped to consider that most of the aircraft lost by the Japanese at the Battle of the Philippine Sea were bombers? And even then is was more poor pilots than poor planes that caused the losses.

The Zero was a remarkable aircraft. On merely half the horsepower of its rivals, it attained very impressive performance (pit an A6M5 against the similarly powered P-36 and see what happens). It was certainly the best fighter available in that part of the war at the start of the war and (despite the rapid advances in technology) never became truly obsolete (though it did need to be replaced).
 

The Zero's didn't even do that well against the Wildcats once the plane was understood. It could not take hits, it could not fight at speeds above 230-245 IAS (varies a little with model), it could not manuver to the right at speeds much above 200 IAS, its terminal dive speed was very low (depends on initial altitude), and it had a weak gun package and horrible sights.

Skilled Zero pilots fighting inexperianced enemies who had no idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the Zero did very well early in the war, mostly against even older designs. However, within a year they were at best holding there own and after that they were getting beat consistantly. Once the faster planes such as the Corsair and Hellcat came into the war, the day of the Zero was totally over and it got slaughtered.

The Zero design compromised everything for range.

=S=

Lunatic
 
In the latter part of the War, this is most evident during the Marianas Turkey Shoot.....

But in the opening years of the conflict, the Zero was unmatched....
Pre-production A6M2's of the 12th Rengo Kokutai were rushed to China for Operational Trials, where they were remarkably successful against Soviet I-15's and I-16's.... The Zero scored its first victory on 9/13/40, and by the end of the year the single Zero Squadron had claimed 59 kills without the loss of a single aircraft......

In the early years of the war, the Allies basically had the use of 4 aircraft, the Buffalo, P-36, P-40, and the Hurricane..... None of these aircraft could handle a dogfight with an experienced Zero pilot....

After Petty Officer Koga was forced to land on a remote island in 1942, and the first captured Zero was in the hands of the Allies, America was able to design the next generation of fighters to combat the weaknesses of the Zero.....
 
Apparently, the AVG destroyed 286 Japanese aircraft, and Chennault was aware of the Zero's turning-dogfight ability....and the idea wasn't to get into a turning fight, but dive to get speed...the inline shape of P-40's were always faster in the dive than the radial Zero, so one zoomed down then climbed, then dived with a firing-pass...Chennault always advocated a head-on attack, but otherwise, don't dogfight the Zero...which, going by my reading, the AVG did tangle with Zeros.......

The Corsair first began operations in October 1942, and it's obvious the pilots knew by then the abilities of the Zero...The Corsair clobbered 2,140 Japanese aircraft for the loss of 189, in combat.....

Also, essentially the Zero was a Naval fighter, and in the big sea battles of the Pacific, as the Japanese started to get what they got, their best-trained pilots were obviously becoming seriously depleted as they were pushed back up the Pacific......Consequently, with ever-improving Allied aircraft and well-trained pilots, against slowly decaying Japanese forces, which didn't have new more modern fighters coming on stream, or suitably trained pilots, let alone seasoned ones to train them, they were doomed......Also, I feel the only reason the Hellcat enjoyed the highest score in the PTO, was because they became the main carrier fighter, which to the Japanese, the enemy carriers were the priority, as to try and protect their own......The Corsair was 'broken-in' by the 'Leathernecks' and did most of their work off landing-strips, and exceptional ground-attack work they did....but my feeling is that they were the Best American Fighter, ground-attack was just their specialty, they endeared themselves to all because it was more than a match for the Zero........
 

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I'm still trying to find that information on the Rangoon raid. Can someone give me some info and pictures of the Oscar then, if they kept mistaking them for the Zero.
 
Here is a nice three view and also a plate of the Oscar. I don't think it looks all that much like a Zero but the mistake was commonplace and I can understand it. Most of the quick recognition features are similar (radial engines, bubble canopy, rounded wings). In the heat of battle mis-identification was common (Fw-190s as P-36s for example). Add to the fact that the Allies knew next to nothing about Japanese aircraft at the start of the war and it becomes quite easy to understand. Any Japanese fighter flying rings-around its competion was likely to be called a Zero regardless of what it was.
 

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plan_D said:
Cheers for that. So, was the Oscar any good or what?
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More info on Oscar: http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/rdunn/nakajima_ki43arm.htm

In general, the Oscar probably turned a little better than the Zero. It had good range, but the range of the early model was not as good as that of the Zero and it could not carry drop tanks. And of course, it was not a carrier capable plane. Most notably, it had very poor armament. While 12.7 mm guns are shown, evidently in practice these were rarely used until quite late in the Oscar's life because the Ho-103 was quite unreliable. Most Oscars were armed with just two 7.7mm guns (at least until it was facing later model Allied fighters). The A6M2 was a little faster and climbed notably better than the Ki-43-I, but both out climbed early Allied fighters by such a margin that it hardly mattered.

Both planes had similar problems at higher speeds. The Japanese emphasis on individual dogfighting and manuverabiltiy resulted in large control surfaces which became nearly unusable at high speeds.

As you can see from the images in LG's post, it is easy to see how Allied pilots might mistake these two types. The most distinctive visual difference is the tail, on the Oscar the rudder does not extend back past the elevators, on the Zero it does. But in the heat of combat, such a distinction would be difficult to make even if you knew to look for it, which of course Allied pilots in 1940-1942 did not. If it had a radial engine, rounded wingtips, and meatballs it was a "Zero".

=S=

Lunatic
 
the lancaster kicks ass said:
never heard them called meatballs though...........
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The big red dot was often referred to as a "meatball".
 
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