Hurricane Mk IIC vs. A6M2 Zero

[Colin1]

For, given the right conditions, for example the conditions available to the Battle of Britain pilots (which is to say, reasonable parity of numbers and sufficient warning to enable the formations to climb to maximum, or near-maximum altitudes) it is quite clear that the Japanese pilots would have been faced with an insoluble problem. They would not have been able to attack the Hurricanes until the Hurricane pilots chose to descend to lower altitudes and after an attack on themselves, or on the bombers they were escorting, they would not have been able to follow the Hurricanes down because beyond a certain speed (which as will be seen the Hurricanes could accept with ease) the Zero's wings would simply have folded up. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which shall we say 27 Japanese bombers escorted by 50 Zeros are attacked by an equal number of Hurricanes working to the previously worked-out plan of a series of flights of say 10 aircraft which attack in turn, half-roll, pull out with maximum G, clear the area, climb and resume the process.

Sadly, no such opportunity occurred. The maximum number of Hurricanes I ever heard of in an operational flight was 14 and by the time (when we got back to Java where at least we usually had ample warning) and were able to use these tactics, like Scott for a time in Malta, we had 4 aircraft left.

It may be interesting to pause for a moment and speculate on how this fiction that the Zero outclassed the Hurricane came about. The only people who can advise on the relative merits of the two fighters in combat are the people who flew them in combat. When in the Battle of Britain, pilots returned, the first man they went to see was the Squadron Intelligence Officer who took it all down and out of the mass of information he, and all the other squadrons, collected, a picture could be built up from which the various strengths and weaknesses of the enemy aircraft could be deduced.

If we had Intelligence Officers with us in Singapore, they were conspicuous by their absence. Certainly on no occasion that I recall did anyone take down any notes of the various actions. Life wasn't of that order for it wasn't that kind of war. Life was to do with jumping from an aircraft after landing and running like mad to some slit trench and keeping fingers crossed for those trying to take off in the teeth of all this mayhem.

Thus, with no documentary evidence, judgement can only be made via the opinions of the pilots who fought the Japanese, survived and escaped from Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. These comprised 11 from 258 Sqn and about 16 others from 232 and 488 Sqns ie 27 out of the original 100 or so. Out of this 27, about 10 got to Australia by various means, about 12 to Ceylon and 2 or 3 to England. By no means all of these had been in action and of those who had, some had been shot down and injured on the first sortie or simply crashed through fuel exhaustion or instrument defect. I suppose that had a good Intelligence Officer been able to get all these pilots together to cross-question them in depth, some consensus of the relative merits of the two aircraft under consideration would have emerged, although even then it has to be remembered that of the 27, only the 8 who got to Australia had the luxury of reasonably early warning before meeting the Japanese in combat.

I have re-met all but 3 post-war and none of them recalled any close questioning. I doubt if there was any. Everything was in too much of a mess, too disorganised. And anyway, it was already known that the Zero outclassed the Hurricane so why bother to ask the pilots who actually flew against them. It was, after all, a convenient fable - when terrible disasters such as the fall of Singapore occur, it is very convenient to be able to blame it on machines rather than on men.

 

[buffnut453]

Thanks for sharing this, Colin. I'm a huge fan of Terence Kelly - his writing still retains its immediacy, even though his books were written long after the events he describes. I fear your last 2 posts may well get dragged into the thread about the impact of additional RAF aircraft on the outcome of the Malayan Campaign and the British surrender of Singapore.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Colin1]

I fear your last 2 posts may well get dragged into the thread about the impact of additional RAF aircraft on the outcome of the Malayan Campaign and the British surrender of Singapore

I was in two minds
as to where to put it but not for long, I think the post is more relevant to this thread but I linked it into the more recent thread to emphasise the 'disorganised chaos' point over the 'more aircraft isn't the issue here' point.

 

[buffnut453]

I was also thinking about Kelly's comments about the number of fighters escorting the IJAAF bombers. There are certain individuals who believe that the 22nd Air Flotilla's A6Ms did the bulk of the work to gain air superiority for the Japanese. Kelly's comments demonstrate the odds the RAF was up against in the Malaya/Singapore Campaign.

By the time the Hurris arrived on the scene, there really was no hope. The leadership had no answers to the speed of the Japanese offensive and even ignored "best-practice" and available intelligence when laying out the Army defensive dispositions around Singapore.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Jerry W. Loper]

It was written in Brian Cull's Hurricanes Over Singapore that the Hurricanes used in that theatre had a top speed of only 250 m.p.h. Is that true, or an exaggeration?

 

[slaterat]

A tropicalized Hurricane II a/b has a max speed of about 265 mph at sea level, at higher altitudes around 20.000 ft a speed of 330-335 should be attained.

Statistics like raw kill/death ratios can be very misleading. There are other statistics that can be used to draw a more complete picture perhaps.

I did a small analysis of Hurricanes vs Japanese fighters over Singapore. Using the numbers from Brian Culls "Bloody Shambles" and only counting encounters where the numbers of fighters employed from both sides are known, on a day to day average Hurricanes were outnumbered by a factor of 3.7 to 1. This figure does not include any bombers.

Additionally , because of the lack of an effective EWS the Japanese fighters usually had an advantage in altitude.

At similar power settings the Hurricane/Zero/KI 43 have similar performance.

I believe that Terence Kelly's assessment is correct. Basically too much was expected from far too few Hurricanes. Out numbered nearly 4 to 1 by a fighter equal to their own what should one expect the outcome to be?

Slaterat

 

[Ivan1GFP]

I'm in the discussion late, but my vote in a 1V1 fight is the A6M2. It is faster, more maneuverable and has a slightly better climb. The limiting speed in a dive was very low (400 mph IAS), but from what I have read, the initial acceleration was quite good.

Roll rate at high speed is noted to be poor, but at low speeds, it is very good. Those huge ailerons are good for something. FWIW, there are You-Tube films of the Hayabusa and a A6M5 Zero rolling. Observe those with a stop watch and you will find that those roll rates are quite good. What I see is a half roll in about ONE second with the Hayabusa and just a touch slower with the A6M5.

Regarding climb rates, the reported numbers are all over the place, but with the power to weight ratios remaining nearly constant throughout the life of the Zero, I don't think ANY of them were extraordinarily fast climbers.

As for altitude performance, the USN Test of Koga's A6M2 put the service ceiling at 38,000 feet and that is with the Sakae 11 single stage single speed supercharger.

- Ivan.

 

[Just Schmidt]

I might be stating the obvious, but in the tactical situations prevailing it should be a big advantage for the japanese fighters that their pilots' vision to the rear was superiour to the hurricanes.

 

[buffnut453]

The tactical situation whereby the Japanese could concentrate their fighters and attack targets of their choosing while the RAF had to spread its defensive fighters across an entire front is probably more significant.

 

[Colin1]

I might be stating the obvious, but in the tactical situations prevailing it should be a big advantage for the japanese fighters that their pilots' vision to the rear was superiour to the hurricanes.

A little ironic
to describe a situation whereby a Japanese pilot looks over his shoulder to find his rear plexiglass full of angry Hurricane as a 'big advantage'

 

[Ivan1GFP]

It beats the heck out of NOT seeing the Hurricane back there.


- Ivan.

 

[karprin]

What you wrote makes a lot of sense even from the perspective of my 1970's board games that I loved to play. (Avalon Hill's Air Force/Dauntless) If the Wildcat could hold its own against the Zeros and Oscars, I think that the Hurricanes and Spitfires should have also been able to. In game terms, and I'd like to think that the game's plane qualities roughly correlated to real performance, no plane could win a turning fight with the Zero or Oscar, not even the later planes that performed so well against them. The Hellcats, Corsairs, and other army planes did not generally fight them that way. They would use the diving tactics you described. They would also fight in the vertical, climbing, diving, rolling and scissoring to get on another plane's tail. This is how planes like the F-4 and F-104 could defeat highly maneuverable Mig 17's and 21's in later years. When using these kinds of tactics while playing the game I was almost always able to defeat the Japanese planes, even if it was a head on pass, because the Allied planes had better armor and fire power.

 

[Al. S. Neworth]

An interesting extract from Terence Kelly's book Spitfire and Hurricane Pilots at War:



These men no doubt came to accept the fable, which has long since taken root elsewhere, that the Hurricane, on which no doubt initially they pinned great hopes, was outclassed by the Zero. (Incidentally, much of the fighting believed to have been between Hurricane and Zero was in fact between Hurricane and Hayabusa. In many cases which follow where the name Zero is used, the aircraft could well have been an Oscar).

I have read book after book in which this nonsense about the superiority of the Japanese fighters is written. It simply was not so. The Hurricane was not outclassed by the Zero, or as we knew it, the Navy O or Navy Nought, nor by the Hayabusa. The Hurricane was at least the match of either machine and had the battles between them been fought on equal terms would have coped quite comfortably. Such was my opinion at the time and so it remains to the present day and although the majority of pundits appear to disagree I do at least have the support of the Commander of the 14th Army in Burma, Field Marshall Sir William Slim who in his splendid book Defeat into Victory states that: 'Speaking generally, all the Japanese fighters were inferior in performance to the Hurricane with the exception of the Navy O which was approximately equal to them.'

It is true that the Allied fighter squadrons in Singapore and the Dutch East Indies were largely eliminated by their Japanese opposite numbers but to discover why one has to look far beyond a comparison of the qualities of the aircraft involved. The Japanese won the air battle because they had a huge superiority in numbers (normally of the order of 8:1), because almost invariably they had the advantage of height and because most of their pilots were battle-hardened men - although admittedly against only negligible resistance from the Chinese. Over Singapore, the bomber formations were escorted by 50, 60, 70 or more Japanese fighters and, because of the ludicrous decisions of those who gave the orders, against these were pitted mere handfuls of Hurricanes as they became available for service. There were never 100 Hurricanes available for flying in Singapore, there were never 50 or even 20. There might perhaps, at best, be 12 at any juncture and usually there were less.

The first time 258 Sqn engaged the enemy, out of 48 Hurricanes which had flown off the Indomitable, exactly 8 were ready for combat. These 8, of whose pilots perhaps not more than two or three had ever fired their guns in anger before, had to climb up to attack a bomber force which was protected by a swarm of Japanese fighters just waiting for them. 2 Hurricanes were shot down and three of the remainder so badly mauled as to be, for the time being at least, unserviceable. In the course of a single hour, 8 had become 3. This was to become the pattern: Hurricanes taking off in petty numbers, often in the teeth of strafing fighters to engage swarms of the enemy comfortably ready to receive and deal with them.

As to the qualities of the two aircraft, the Zero certainly had advantages. It was manoeuvrable, it was marginally faster up to heights of about 15,000ft and it had a far longer range. Its mixed armament of machine guns and cannons roughly matched the 12 (but later 8 when 4 were removed to improve manoeuvrability and speed) machine guns of the Hurricane and while there are arguments about relative rates of climb, I have it on good authority that pilots from my own squadron escaped from Zeros by climbing away from them. The Hurricane for its part had several very distinct advantages. It had a better ceiling, the aircraft could take punishment which would have made the lightly-built Zero disintegrate, it was faster at higher altitudes and the pilot had the protection of resealing fuel tanks and an armour plate shield behind his back.

Thus it will be seen that tactics were the vital thing, that pilots must avoid giving battle in conditions where the advantages lay with the enemy. The Hurricane pilot must not start mixing it in dogfights at lower altitudes, the Zero pilot must avoid finding himself outmanoeuvred in terms of height. Early on this was little if at all appreciated by the Allies and possibly not by the Japanese. When my own squadron's 8 Hurricanes took off to challenge that first Japanese air armada not only were they force majeure choosing a battle ground which was the Navy O's ideal, but they were doing so on the assumption that should a dogfight ensue, the Hurricane being (as they had not been disabused) the world's most manoeuvrable modern fighter, the advantage would be theirs - for no one had briefed us on the Zero or even heard of the Hayabusa. When we flew off the Indomitable, it was to clear the Japanese wooden biplanes from the skies. I beg the reader not to believe this to be exaggeration.

On Indomitable, we knew nothing of either aircraft and the first intimation the Zero even existed was gleaned amongst the gloomy, defeatist attitude which hung like a pall over Singapore on that evening when we landed at Seletar a mere 36 hours before we were to be in action.

So we were dribbled away piecemeal. Hurricanes would be ferried up in batches from Java only for some to be damaged landing across the deep ruts left by Flying Fortresses at the midway refuelling airfield known as P2 near Palembang or jumped by waiting Navy O's or Hayabusas whilst taking off or landing. Strength could never be built up sufficiently for properly planned defence. And tactics were hardly a matter for discussion when the one thought hammering at the mind of each of perhaps half a dozen scrambled pilots racing with thudding hearts to their Hurricanes was that with a horde of Japanese mere minutes away from Singapore he must somehow gain height before they came down en masse and clobbered him.

The alternative to this useless waste of valuable men and machines to no real purpose, was, to my knowledge at the time, put forward by only one senior RAF officer, Wing Cdr Harold Maguire, who, as previously mentioned had been my CO at 56 OTU at Sutton Bridge and was now in command of the proposed 266 Wing to be formed from 232, 242, 258 and 605 Sqns. His plan was that the entire force of Hurricanes should be withheld until all aircraft were operational, all pilots locally knowledgeable and a coherent tactical scheme had been formulated. Had his wise counsel been accepted, his plan adopted, quite different pages would have been written in the Operational Record Books.

Well said! I too had read Terence Kelly's book. A fine read it is, too.
Personally, I could never understand the claim Zero was more manoeuvrable than the Hurricane, but less so than the Mk. V Spit, when the IIC Hurri had retained the manoeuvrability edge over the Spit V in Europe.
It was therefore a pleasure to discover Kelly's book.

 

[Gpoll]

In the right circumstances Hurricanes might have been able to compete on even terms with Zeroes, but it was never demonstrated in action. Hurricanes and Zeroes met in combat 6 times for which both sides' losses are known (and only another 1 or 2 more where both sides' losses aren't known). The score in those combats was 6:38 in favor of the Zero, and the Zeroes won every combat. 5 in 1942 over Malaya, DEI and Ceylon, one other 5 December 1943 in the JAAF/JNAF combined raid on Calcutta, 0:3; Army Type 1 fighters downed or force the crash landings of another 6 Hurricanes in that raid also without loss to themselves (the Hurricanes downed 1 Army bomber).

Even using the Type 1 as proxy for the Zero, probably an optimistic assumption from the Hurricane's POV, the Hurricane's record v the Type 1 was also disastrous in the opening campaigns of 1942 and even as of late 1943 the Type 1's in Burma were at least holding their own in actual outcomes v Hurricanes, outscoring them more often than not, though by then there were at least some cases of combats actually won by Hurricanes v Type 1's (needless to say, measuring by British claims the Hurricane was pretty successful v the Type 1 by then, measuring by Japanese claims the Type 1 was overwhelmingly successful).

'Depends on pilots', of course that's the correct answer for almost any match up unless completely one sided, but there's no actual operational evidence of the Hurricane performing well against the Zero in combat, or even v the Type 1 on a consistent basis. The much better record of the F4F v the Zero is not proof IMO that the Hurricane would have done as well even with the same pilots and situation, because it neglects the real possibility that less tangible performance factors put the Hurricane at more of a relative disadvantage than in appears to be on paper.

Joe

The truth is that Hurricane pilots have said time and again that they had no problems engaging zeros and we're usually caught on the ground and the zeros had numerical advantage. Zero could not follow a hurricane in a dive because it's wings would fold over the cockpit. FACT. Listen to pilots not historians or myth makers.
Hurricane proved it could out turn a 109 in one turn with the 109 on its six and do the same to a spitfire within two turns. One v one tests were flown and documented.

 

[Jock Tamson]

I have voted that it depends on the pilots.

Having read many ww2 pilots accounts of aerial combat there often wasn't a dogfight in the conventional sense of the word. Many kills or aerial victories were scored as a result of the element of surprise, and or altitude advantage. The Hurricane did not perform well at high altitude according to Tom Neil's account in his book "Gun Button to Fire".

If two equally experienced pilots went up against each other one on one i wouldn't be surprised if the Zero came out on top owing to its legendary maneuverability. However the Zero's very real disadvantage lay in its unprotected fuel tanks and lack of armor protection for the pilot.

 

[Gpoll]

I have voted that it depends on the pilots.

Having read many ww2 pilots accounts of aerial combat there often wasn't a dogfight in the conventional sense of the word. Many kills or aerial victories were scored as a result of the element of surprise, and or altitude advantage. The Hurricane did not perform well at high altitude according to Tom Neil's account in his book "Gun Button to Fire".

If two equally experienced pilots went up against each other one on one i wouldn't be surprised if the Zero came out on top owing to its legendary maneuverability. However the Zero's very real disadvantage lay in its unprotected fuel tanks and lack of armor protection for the pilot.

There are many 1v1 flight tests between planes these mock combats were flown and results well known. I really do not care for writers who distort the truth or sentimental attachment. Japanese pilots like there german counterparts did not like the idea of been shot down by Hurricanes and swore that it was spitfires even when spitfires were not in their sector.
They flew hurricanes (pilots views) is probably the best book. Combat tests carried out by Australia plus the UK and USA are the best information. If the combat
reports and test mock combats can be put up I will do so but there is also a site with the same documents.
What use would altitude advantage be to a plane that collapsed in a dive. What audience was Tom Neil writing for.
Interesting topic though. You really should read They flew Hurricanes.
No doubt Tom was a hero but cannot trace any information on him flying against the japanese.

 

[Gpoll]

Terrence Kelly (his own words). 258 squadron the second unit in the far east.
" I have read book after book in which the nonsense about the superiority of the Japanese fighters is written. It simply was not so. The Hurricane was not outclassed by the Navy 0 or the Oscar. The Hurricane was at least the match of either machine and had the battles between them been fought on equal terms would have coped quite comfortably. Such was my opinion at the time and so it remains to the present day. He then goes onto say that the zero was more manoeuvrable, marginally faster up to heights of 15,000 feet and had longer range. The hurricane had very distinct advantages it had a better ceiling, could take punishment, faster at high altitude had resealing petrol tanks and armour plate behind pilots back. The Japanese pilots could not follow the Hurricane in a dive because its wings would have folded up.

 

[CORSNING]

Well, I have read all the posts. I will agree that under certain circumstances
it would be possible to snap the wings back on the A6M2 (as any A/C under
certain conditions), it did not happen as often as the statements seems to be
suggesting. The A6M2 model 21 was a very well built aircraft for the purpose
it was designed for, carrier based air superiority fighter.

The A6M2 model 21 completely outclassed the Hurricane in the classic dogfight
at speeds up to 250 mph.

In my conversations on this site I have found it critical to know the performance
of the fighters involved before making any statements. This helps to prevents
foot-in-mouth disease.

The following information on the Hurricane IIC comes from two graphs titled
HURRICANE IIC AT 7,560 lbs. 15 January 1941 and 4 December 1941.
PS: with some help from William Greene.

WWII Aircraft Performance. Mike and Neil are the best. Henning's not to bad
either.

Altitude/Speed/Climb
Meters / mph / fpm / minutes to altitude
S.L..........288/2530/----
1,000..302/2495/-1.3
2,000..306/2460/-2.6
3,000..307/2457/-3.9
4,000..305/2050/-5.4
5,000..309/1975/-6.9
6,000..323/1730/-8.9
7,000..319/1385/11.0
8,000..308/1045/13.7
9,000..295/.-725/17.4
10,000..278/.-390/23.6

Full Throttle Height M.S. gear: 305 mph./3,800 ft. (1,158 m.)
Switch M.S. to F.S. gears: 303 mph./15,000 ft. (4,572 m.)
Full Throttle Height F.S. gear: 327 mph./20,200 ft. (6,157 m.)

Critical Altitude M.S. gear: 2425 fpm./10,000 ft. (3,049 m.)
Switch M.S. to F.S. gears: 2065 fpm./12,500 ft. (3,811 m.)
Critical Altitude F.S. gear: 1955 fpm./17,500 ft. (5,335 m.)

Combat Ceiling: 26,800 ft. (8,169 m.)
Operational Ceiling: 31,750 ft. (9,677 m.)
Service Ceiling: 35.650 ft. (10,866 m.)

Armament: 4x20mm/90 rpg.

Range (internal fuel): 460 ml. (740 km.)
Range (maximum external): 970 ml. (1,560 km.)

Engine: Merlin XX: 1,320 hp.@+12 lbs. and 1,490 hp.@+16 lbs. boost.
Combat Weight: 7,560 lbs. (3,428 kg.)
Wing Loading: 29.36 lbs./sq. ft. (Excellent for a WW2 fighter)
Power Loading: 5.727 lbs./hp.@+12 lbs. and 5.074 lbs./hp.@+16 lbs. boost.
Turn time at 1,000 m.: 19 seconds left / 20 seconds right (USSR tests)
Roll Rate: 40 deg./sec@90 mph., 57 deg./sec@160 mph., 65 deg./sec@220 mph.
53 deg./sec@300 mph.

These are the very limited facts that my many years of research have uncovered at this time.
Fact: I have just recently been looking deeper into the ability of this aircraft.

I must get ready for church now guys but hope to post information on the Ki 43-IIa and
A6M2 model 21 later today. Please look over the information I have posted and make
educated comments.

Thank you, Jeff

 

[Glider]

I am sorry but the Hurricane was totally outclassed by the Oscar and the Zero which was a match for a Spit V.

This isn't a personal view but the official view of the RAF.

 

[alsaad]

Putting it in historic perspective at the time when these two aircraft types were flying in combat IJN still had superior pilot training and I would dare to say better pilots in average which could take 1 on 1 fight. On the other hand just few .303 API rounds could set Zero on fire. Voted for Zero.