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The Avenger had 1700hp and didn't appear in USN CV service until Aug 1942. The first 65 Zeros had fixed wings and were not carrier capable. A total 328 in service by Dec 1941 including 228 carrier capable with folding wing tips. Almost no CV capable Zeros in 1940. A5M4 still in service on all CVLs in Dec 1941 and was in production until 1940. Total D3A1 Val production was 430 by Aug 1942. Production of biplane D1a2 ended in 1940. 26 CV based + 68 land based D3A1 by Dec 1941 - almost none in service in 1940. The Zero, Val and Kate had no armour and no self sealing tanks - this allowed them to achieve a very light weight and use low powered engines, but this would have been unacceptable to the RN (and USN) after 1940. None of the IJN aircraft would have been approved for RN CV service even if the IJN gave them away. The F4F-3 didn't enter USN carrier service until early 1941 and the Martlet was not in RN CV service until Sept 1941 (early models were not carrier capable for a variety of reasons) and of course folding wing F4F/Martlets don't appear until 1942. The HSH predated the Martlet into RN CV service.
As I have stated repeatedly the RN planned to have the Firefly in service in 1942, and in 1942 it is not inferior to either the F4F-4 or the A6M, since it was a better fighter than the F4F-4 in the typical altitudes naval air combat took place in, and the F4F-4 and Zero proved to be roughly equal to each other in combat.
AFAIK, the only air combat the Firefly engaged in was in 1944 and 45 when they shot down 6 Ki-43-2s and Ki-44 after attacks on Indonesian oil refineries and 5 Sonia DBs over Japan, all without loss. One Firefly was lost over the oil refinery, and where the Fireflys acted as strike fighters to suppress flak and as close escorts to the Avengers (where they shot down the IJN fighters) on the return trip to the carriers, after the top cover of F4Us failed to intervene in time.
The Avenger had 1700hp and didn't appear in USN CV service until Aug 1942.
The first 65 Zeros had fixed wings and were not carrier capable. A total 328 in service by Dec 1941 including 228 carrier capable with folding wing tips. Almost no CV capable Zeros in 1940. A5M4 still in service on all CVLs in Dec 1941 and was in production until 1940.
Total D3A1 Val production was 430 by Aug 1942. Production of biplane D1a2 ended in 1940.
126 CV based + 68 land based D3A1 by Dec 1941 - almost none in service in 1940.
The Zero, Val and Kate had no armour and no self sealing tanks - this allowed them to achieve a very light weight and use low powered engines, but this would have been unacceptable to the RN (and USN) after 1940. None of the IJN aircraft would have been approved for RN CV service even if the IJN gave them away.
The F4F-3 didn't enter USN carrier service until early 1941 and the Martlet was not in RN CV service until Sept 1941 (early models were not carrier capable for a variety of reasons) and of course folding wing F4F/Martlets don't appear until 1942. The HSH predated the Martlet into RN CV service.
577 B5N1s, 16 B5N2s and 55 D3A-1s produced by 1 Jul 40 and 577B5N1s, 106 B5N2s and 118 D3A-1s by 31 Dec 40.
The fixed wing A6Ms were carrier capable but the elevator clearence was so tight that IJN decided that it was better use them as land-based fighters. I cannot find out when the Model 21 (with folding wingtips) was included in IJN CAGs but it seems that when Hiruy operated off Hainan in Sept. 40 it still had A5M4s in her fighter component. So you might well be right that A6M wasn't a 1940 CV fighter but 1941.
Kaga embarked 12 Mitsubishi A5M fighters, 24 Aichi D1A dive bombers and 36 Yokosuka B4Y torpedo bombers.
Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So you might well be right that A6M wasn't a 1940 CV fighter but 1941
Here is a well considered passage about the FAA's pre-war approach to fighter development made by Jeffrey Quill, Supermarine test pilot and a rather astute individual who knew more about the subject than me at least. Quoted directly from his brilliant book Spitfire, a test pilot's story;
"...as aeroplanes developed in performance and load carrying capacity, the Admiralty became faced with the problem of providing the fleet at sea with a defence not just against reconnaissance aircraft but also against a potentially devastating form of air attack - the air launched torpedo. At this stage the doctrine that it takes an aeroplane to destroy an aeroplane still held sway, but later, in the inter-war period the Navy's attitude towards the air defence of the Fleet changed. It was considered that the best defence against high level bombers and torpedo launching aircraft would be the intense and concentrated anti-aircraft fire which could be mounted in capital shps, rather than dependence on the then uncertain and unreliable operations of single-seat fighters."
Gunnery was the Navy's stock-in trade and they placed great faith in certain technical developments in anti-aircraft gunnery which were being studied in the early 1930s. Therefore they reasoned that carrier borne fighters should be confined to the minimum required to destroy enemy shadowing aircraft. But common sense and the restricted space available on aircraft carriers demanded that the fighters that were embarked should at least have a dual role. Since enemy carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft were unlikely to be of very hgih performance it was argued that the fighters to intercept them need not be of very high performance either. These views, taken with the concept that naval fighters should be capable of attacking enemy aircraft carriers and putting their flight decks out of action with machine gun fire and by dive bombing attacks with light bombs so as to immobilise their aircraft very early on in a fleet action led to the Skua, a dive bomber with a fixed gun armament and just sufficient performance to fulfil the now secondary task of defending the fleet against enemy shadowing aircraft. Thus by the late 1930s the single-seat fighter had all but disappeared from the Navy except for the small force of Sea Gladiators which was retained to protect the older carriers, Furious, Glorious, Courageous and Eagle, whose flgith decks were not armoured and whose anti-aircraft fire was not yet up to the latest standards."
"It should be remembered that until the late 1930s the single-seat fighter suffered from severe limitation, especially at sea. It had no bad-weather capability, no navigation capability when out of sight of land or the fleet, very little night capability, very restricted range and firepower and no radio communication air-to-air or air-to-ship. Their Lordships could hardly be expected to commit the safety of the Fleet to such a dubious mode of defence. The gunnery policy, however, failed to take fully into account the advances made in the late 1930s in the land based bomber in terms of speed, range and bomb load or the extent to which the Fleet in war would find itself operating within range of such shore based bombers."
"This was to be brought home forcibly to the Admiralty very early in the war when on 25 September 1939 the Home Fleet put to sea from Scapa Flow to cover the rescue by the cruisers and destroyers of Humber Force of a British submarine in trouble near the Horns Reef off the coast of Denmark. The Home Fleet included the aircraft carrier Ark Royal with the Skuas of 800 and 803 Sqns on board and the battlecruiser Hood. Early next day the fleet was detected by three German reconnaissance flying boats (Do 18s) and in accordance with their design function the Skuas were launched to intercept. One of the flying boats was destroyed by a Skua of 803 Sqn (the first German aircraft to be destroyed by the Fleet Air Arm in the war) but the other two managed to escape to radio a sighting report back to base."
"The result was an attack on the fleet by four Ju 88s from the Island of Sylt operating as dive bombers in the course of which one of the Ju 88s planted a 1,000 lb bomb just off Ark Royal's bow throwing a huge wall of water over the forward end of her flight deck and another scored a hit on HMS Hood, fortunately without the bomb exploding. This was a let off for both ships and significantly no German aircraft were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire. Weather conditions were overcast, which no doubt influenced both the effectiveness of the German attack and the ships' anti-aircraft fire but obviously the incident called into question the wisdom of having no high performance interceptor fighters at sea."
Here's the complement of the IJN's newest fleet CV in Dec 1939:
Hiryu: 12/1939; 16 A5M2 20 D1A2 38 B4Y1
HIRYU aircraft carrier (1939) - Aircraft Carriers - Aircraft Carrying Ships - Japan - Ships - Navypedia
So except for the A5M2 the rest are biplanes.
Kaga in Dec 1940 after re-entering service after a rebuild:
So Kaga in Dec 1940 still operated the A5M along with biplane TBs and DBs.
We have discussed how the Firefly had a delayed entry into service after their nominal production starts and it is pretty obvious that the same held true for the Zero, Val and Kate. One look at the B5N1 specs and it's 770hp engine, should be enough to cause any cautious researcher serious doubts about it's ability to operate off a CV while carrying a worthwhile weapons load.
The very idea that the RN would not attempt to make a fighter interception in favour of AA is completely ludicrous.
This is not the point and you guys are aware of it. You're haggling over petty semantics and avoiding the fact that the IJN's potential in 1940 - whether these aircraft had indeed embarked on carriers or not was still greater and more advanced than anything the FAA had in service in 1940 or in the next year or two. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, the two-seat fighter, regardless of when it entered service was an outdated pre-war concept based on FAA doctrine that had been found to be lacking once the war began.
Thanks for the IJN CAG info but if you think that B5N1 had inadequate power with 770hp engine how about Swordfish with 690hp engine? And when operated from rather small Ryujo in the Bay of Bengal one B5N1 managed to drop a 800kg bomb during the attack on an Indian harbour Vizagapatan, usually they carried around 500kg loads during that operation.
Juha
And this alone betrays your ignorance and your refusal to let go of a pre-war policy that had little justification in the war. Clearly every other carrier armed nation preferred single-seat fighter defences before and during WW2 to the FAA's approach. It was the FAA that changed its policy - as Quill states, not any other nation. Remember, the RNAS instigated ship based aircraft during WW1 and introduced single-seat fighters aboard seaplane tenders firstly in the form of Bristol Scouts and Sopwith Pups and Camels, then HMS Furious and Argus once those two ships entered RN service. The Fairey Flycatcher was one of the best inter-war biplane fighters amd served the FAA well. Quill is right; the FAA changed its policy. So it is you who is ill considered.
You haven't provided anything that justifies your statement that Quill's quote is not accurate. It's fact and when time and time again evidence has been provided that singe-seat fighters were the way ahead in modern carrier warfare, you just won't accept it. How can you sit there and make such a unqualified and - using your words - ill considered statement when Quill was there and his words are clearly right? "obviously the incident called into question the wisdom of having no high performance interceptor fighters at sea." Both the IJN and USN flew long range sorties in their single-seat fighters in the Pacific, which totally nullifies the FAA's reasons for hanging on to two-seat fighters.
Claiming that fighters would not have made a difference due to the weather again betrays your ignorance. Many combat ops at sea were flown in overcast conditions and yes, it does affect accuracy, but if there were single-seat fighters swarming about, the Ju 88s would not have had much chance to affect an attack. You don't necessarily need radar at such close range.
The fact is that Quill's book and his description of the FAA's requests for folding wing Seafires is a lot more complex than you imply. The Admiralty, according to Quill requested 50 folding wing Seafires in Jan 1940 (after making preliminary inquiries), but it was the RAF who argued against the request due to anticipated development time, and the loss of 200 Spitfires to the RAF from the already low Spitfire production numbers leading the Admiralty to drop the request.