Jack vs. Tojo - Which was better? Why?

[Greg Boeser]

And yet, the Pacific Ocean Area is where the Hellcat gained the majority of it's kills. After the Guadalcanal campaign wrapped up, there was not a lot of carrier action intil the arrival of Essex. After a few minor raids, they went out and smothered Wake Island. The Japanese put up 22 fighters to oppose three carrier air groups. I call that overwhelming superiority.

 

[AerialTorpedoDude69]

And regardless - this would not have been a game changer. There were plenty of other alloys that were used successfully in aircraft that dominated the Zero so it goes back to the fact that the Zero, although a great performer at the start of the Pacific War was not some leading edge design. It was quickly surpassed in performance and became quickly obsolete.


Errr, no, not even from a flimsy gun. 7075 offered advantages but wasn't the only reason why "most Japanese aircraft had better power to weight ratios than their contemporaries." The design of structure and weight saving design methods (stamped parts, milling some structural components, lightening holes in structure, minimal structural members to achieve maximum G loading, etc.) were part of the equation that helped achieve light weight but effected strength and durability. I can tell you at the end of the day 7075 was not much lighter than 6061 and depending on the application, 6061 was the better material. Bottom line you weren't saving that much weight by using 7075!

So your comment "the Allies didn't have the alloys or construction techniques necessary to build ultra light aircraft" is simply not true. The fact that 7075 was not available to the allies is irrelevant. There were plenty of allied designers who "could have" easily gone into a lightweight design concept but were not directed that way due to the mandate from their customers.

Lastly, the Zero, like many other Japanese combat aircraft of the period had terrible interchangeability characteristics. I think this included the Tojo and Jack.

Here a comparison of 7075 to 6061 that goes into laymen's explanations

6061 Aluminum vs. 7075 Aluminum – Differences in Properties, Strength and Uses

This article presents a brief comparison of the properties, strength, and applications between 6061 and 7075 aluminum.

www.thomasnet.com

Again, thank you for a thoughtful comment. But you are reading things that I didn't want to write, perhaps because of my unclear writing and bad grammar.

Here's my point: The Zero had advanced technologies in it that the Allies didn't have. I mentioned 7075 because it was just one example. I didn't mention magnesium because it was a much poorer option compared to aluminum. And IIRC it required using electric arc welding to build into airframes and it was more expensive. I'm not sure why you bring it up as it was never adapted to mass manufacturing AFAIK for WW2 aviation... and I can only think of one prototype that used it.

But I do see your point that there were other lightweight materials that the Allies could have used in a prototype. My point, though, was that the Allied aviation industry was not suited to build ultralight fighters. (Although tomo pauk did pretty much cripple my argument by mentioning the Spitfire MK I which was only slightly heavier, had more horsepower, etc... although it was at the expensive of firepower, range, etc..)

I did not mean to imply anything about component interchangeability, about 7075 being universally better than other aluminum alloys, or magnesium being a substitute for 7075 and I apologize for having made so many distracting side comments.

To recap, as with all mass produced components that go into an aircraft, 7075 was (just as you say) one of many techniques that the Japanese used to make their aircraft lighter. As I mentioned earlier, the Allies couldn't have built a lighter aircraft because they did not invest resources in it the way the Japanese did. Although I'm sure if the US wanted to, it could have built anything in a lab because they had the technical capacity to do almost anything.

Regarding 7075, according to Horikoshi, IIRC, it was primarily used in wing spars because of its tensile strength and light weight. So it wasn't used in the parts of the aircraft that needed ductility (as you say). But regardless, it was still one of many reasons Japanese aircraft weighed a lot less than Allied ones. (As an aside: I was under the mistaken impression that wing spars need quite a bit of ductility in order to avoid breaking and just going off my basic understanding of flight engineering, am not sure why 7075 received so much credit for being "30% lighter than alternatives" now that I think about it.)

Anyway, one last thing: i just want you to know that I respect your expertise and writing skill on this forum and my comment comes from a place of respect and admiration. Please don't take offense at anything that I've written as that is not my intent.

We can compare the Spitfire I with A6M2. Fully loaded, the former weighted 300 kg more, a good deal of it being that Merlin III was heavier than the Sakae 12 by 110-120 kg, and because of the presence of the liquid cooling system (another 150-200 kg?). Stick the Sakae on the Spitfire I istead of the Merlin it's ancilliaries and now it weights ~2350 kg instead of 2640 kg (5820 lbs) - between the A6M2a (2338 kg) and A6M2b (2421 kg).
(figures for the Zeros are without the drop tank, source is the Shinpachi's translation)

SAI 403 was good for 575 km/h - see here.

Ah, thank you for the link that was amazing.

Regarding comparisons in weight, I don't think fully loaded is the best comparison as the A6M2 carried large amounts of fuel, whereas the Spitfire carried very little even compared to some of its European theater opponents. But even so, it's pretty obvious that the Spitfire was a very lightweight aircraft, as was the BF-109E. So clearly the Japanese construction technology used to achieve light weight wasn't a magic bullet. It just led to slightly lighter power loadings.

 

[GregP]

And yet, the Pacific Ocean Area is where the Hellcat gained the majority of it's kills. After the Guadalcanal campaign wrapped up, there was not a lot of carrier action intil the arrival of Essex. After a few minor raids, they went out and smothered Wake Island. The Japanese put up 22 fighters to oppose three carrier air groups. I call that overwhelming superiority.

That's very true, but the Hellcats came from carriers for the most part, and weren't all that numerous relative to land-based IJA aircraft. When they DID get into a major battle, a lot of kills came from hitting the carrier defence force right around the carriers. And, in the major battles, that's where you could find 12 vs 12 or even slightly more, but only the Japanese put up ALL their assets and left their carriers defenseless. They never got the change to make that mistake again after Midway because their carrier force never recovered sufficiently to have another major carrier battle.

They lost Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, leaving only the Hiryu floating. After we lost the Yorktown, the Hiryu was sunk, leaving the Japanese attack force with no carriers that sailed with the original task force. All the planes that were on those carriers were lost, whether they were airworthy or not because they had no place to land. All counted as victories, though the ditched planes were not aerial victories for SBDs.

I don't really know if the majority of F6F victories were over land-based or carrier-based enemy fighters, but I DO know the aerial battles were, for the most part, not very large relative to ETO battles, numbers-wise if only because there were never a large number of either Allied or Japanese aircraft concentrated in any one area. Even IJA land-based units had lower numbers of airplanes, if only due to the fact that the Japanese never built all that many aircraft to start with, relative to U.S. aircraft numbers.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Again, thank you for a thoughtful comment. But you are reading things that I didn't want to write, perhaps because of my unclear writing and bad grammar.

Here's my point: The Zero had advanced technologies in it that the Allies didn't have.

Again, what are they??? (outside the 7075 discussion) If you look at the bigger picture, they really didn't, they just did some things a little differently to achieve their mission goals.

I mentioned 7075 because it was just one example of an advanced technology. I didn't mention magnesium because it was a much poorer airframe option compared to aluminum. And IIRC it required using arc welding to build into airframes and it was more expensive. I'm not sure why you bring it up as it was never adapted to mass manufacturing AFAIK for WW2 aviation... and I can only think of one prototype that used it. But I do see your point that there were other lightweight materials that the Allies could have used in a prototype. My point, though, was that their aviation industry was not suited to build ultralight fighters. Although tomo pauk did pretty much cripple my argument by mentioning the Spitfire MK I which was only slightly heavier, had more horsepower, etc... although it was at the expensive of firepower, range, etc..

Again there's nothing specific there. Yes, the discovery and use of 7075 was an achievement but at the end of the day it really wasn't that great of an advancement

I did not mean to imply anything about component interchangeability, about 7075 being universally better than other aluminum alloys, or magnesium being a substitute for 7075 and I apologize for having made so many distracting side comments.

OK And my point about interchangeability involved finished component parts - a very basic part of aircraft manufacturing that the Japanese seemed not to get right.

To recap, as with all mass produced components that go into an aircraft, 7075 was (just as you say) one of many techniques that the Japanese used to make their aircraft lighter. As I mentioned earlier, the Allies couldn't have built a lighter aircraft because they did not invest resources in it the way the Japanese did. I'm sure if the US wanted to, it could have built anything it wanted to.

And that's the real point - the Allies more than had the means and capability of doing so, the doctrine of aircraft design directed by those at places like Wright Patterson said otherwise

Regarding 7075, according to Horikoshi, IIRC, it was primarily used in wing spars because of its tensile strength and light weight. So it wasn't used in the parts of the aircraft that needed ductility. But it was one of many reasons why Japanese aircraft weighed a lot less than Allied ones. (I was under the mistaken impression that wing spars need quite a bit of ductility in order to avoid breaking off and just going off my basic understanding of flight engineering, am not sure why 7075 received so much credit for being "30% lighter than alternatives" now that I think about it.

And even that statement is a stretch. 7075 is not great to machine so you would have to look at two similar components that can both be machined the same way. Because of stiffness/brittleness of 7075, certain components wouldn't be able to be manufactured in certain applications

Anyway, one last thing: i just want you to know that I respect your expertise and writing skill on this forum and my comment comes from a place of respect and admiration. Please don't take offense at anything that I've written as that is not my intent.

Many Thanks!

Ah, thank you for the link that was amazing.

And again, many thanks!!!

Regarding comparisons in weight, I don't think fully loaded is the best comparison as the A6M2 carried large amounts of fuel, whereas the Spitfire carried very little even compared to some of its European theater opponents. But even so, it's pretty obvious that the Spitfire was a very lightweight aircraft, as was the BF-109E. So clearly the Japanese construction technology used to achieve light weight wasn't a magic bullet. It just led to slightly lighter power loadings.

Agree!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

AerialTorpedoDude69 Here's a great link that provides a design analysis of the Zeke 32 "Hamp." You will find that it's construction and internal components are pretty contemporary for the technology of the day.

Design Analysis of the Zeke 32 (Hamp - Mitsubishi A6M3)

 

[AerialTorpedoDude69]

Again, what are they??? (outside the 7075 discussion) If you look at the bigger picture, they really didn't, they just did some things a little differently to achieve their mission goals.

Again there's nothing specific there. Yes, the discovery and use of 7075 was an achievement but at the end of the day it really wasn't that great of an advancement

OK And my point about interchangeability involved finished component parts - a very basic part of aircraft manufacturing that the Japanese seemed not to get right.

And that's the real point - the Allies more than had the means and capability of doing so, the doctrine of aircraft design directed by those at places like Wright Patterson said otherwise

And even that statement is a stretch. 7075 is not great to machine so you would have to look at two similar components that can both be machined the same way. Because of stiffness/brittleness of 7075, certain components wouldn't be able to be manufactured in certain applications

Many Thanks!

And again, many thanks!!!

Agree!

(One of those comments was meant for Tomo btw, sorry for the confusion)
We might have to agree to disagree about the significance of 7075 but a hint as to its significance is that it took the US four years to adapt it to production and that they chose to invest four years of effort in adapting it for mass production.

7075 is still used today, just as you might expect for any advancement in metallurgy. So, to recap, I don't mean "ancient aliens" or something when I say "advanced technology", we're talking about breakthroughs. And while you might trivialize 7075, I prefer to give credit where credit is due.

My understanding (from reading Horikoshi and Sumitomo's report as well as other post-war analyses) is that a combination of labor-intensive construction methods, such as building the wing "integral" with the fuselage, bracket placement, "drilling" out holes (which later Allied aircraft used extensively), early use of flush riveting, and other techniques (see the article for details) led to the Zero being ahead of its time in its deployment of new weight-saving technologies. That didn't mean the Allies never developed them. It just meant that Horikoshi's team were among the first to adopt them.

Getting back to the original discussion, the Tojo vs. Jack, I wish we knew more about whether the technologies used in the Zero were used in the Tojo or Jack. Because Horikoshi was somewhat involved with the Jack, it may be why it used so many "cutting" edge weight saving technologies and why the Tojo was a more conventional aircraft.

EDIT: You dropped in the same link that I linked to in my comment, while i was responding. Great minds think alike?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

(One of those comments was meant for Tomo btw, sorry for the confusion)
We might have to agree to disagree about the significance of 7075 but a hint as to its significance is that it took the US four years to adapt it to production and that they chose to invest four years of effort in adapting it for mass production.

Again, a great development but not earth shattering.

It was a welcomed technology but again was not a real game changer. the Zero could have used 6061 in many of it's components and at the end of the day came out with the same result IMO.

BTW - the first US military aircraft to use 7075 was the P2V IIRC

7075 is still used today, just as you might expect for any advancement in metallurgy. So, to recap, I don't mean "ancient aliens" or something when I say "advanced technology", we're talking about breakthroughs. And while you might trivialize 7075, I prefer to give credit where credit is due.

I'm well aware of 7075 being used today. I have fabricated parts from it, driven rivets into it, and inspected hundreds of machined parts made from it, it's only one component in the bigger piece of the pie. 7075 was an advancement but I can tell from experience there's nothing magical about it, then or now.

My understanding (from reading Horikoshi and Sumitomo's report as well as other post-war analyses) is that a combination of labor-intensive construction methods, such as building the wing "integral" with the fuselage, bracket placement, "drilling" out holes (which later Allied aircraft used extensively), early use of flush riveting, and other techniques (see the article for details) led to the Zero being ahead of its time in its deployment of new weight-saving technologies.

The same methods were being used in the United States and Europe during the same time period, the article doesn't mention that. Drillmatic and automatic riveting machines were being designed and introduced in the US during the late 1930 and into the 1940s (I believe the same in the UK and Canada). What was grossly being dismissed was the Japanese ability to manufacture aircraft almost in the same capacity as western manufactures, that was a surprise to some who were very closed minded about Japanese ability during period.

That didn't mean the Allies never developed them. It just meant that Horikoshi's team were among the first to adopt them.

Not really. Read my previous post. What he accomplished was good, very good, but it wasn't earth shattering. There were many manufactures that were on par and even ahead of his design team and manufacturing methods. If the methodologies were so great, production should have been on par or exceeding what allied factories were putting out, and I'm talking early in the war.

Getting back to the original discussion, the Tojo vs. Jack, I wish we knew more about whether the technologies used in the Zero were used in the Tojo or Jack. Because Horikoshi was somewhat involved with the Jack, it may be why it used so many "cutting" edge weight saving technologies and why the Tojo was a more conventional aircraft.

They probably were.

EDIT: You dropped in the same link that I linked to in my comment, while i was responding. Great minds think alike?

They do, lol! But look into how the zero was constructed and compare it to its contemporaries. There's no raving advancements there, just a good formula that gave the Japanese a few years of aerial supremacy.

 

[GregP]

One place the Japanese had a lead was aerial torpedoes. Of course, almost the entire world had better torpedoes than we did when WWII started.

The Japanese were able to design an aerial unit that could be dropped into Pearl Harbor without hitting the bottom of the harbor. At the time, U.S. torpedoes were not very good and were never able to be dropped in quite as shallow water.

 

[PAT303]

Let's not forget that the "lightness" of early Japanese aircraft was something of a necessity given the relative low horsepower engines available to them at the time. The original version (A6M1) had a 780 hp engine. Even the A6M2 with the Sakae still had a sub 1000 hp engine. The original specs stated that manuverability will equal the A5M and to achieve that with the engine used the aircraft had to be made as light as possible.

You raise a good point, the A6M was designed for the low power of the available engines, that caused the design to have limited growth, it was also designed for outstanding agility, trouble is that agility came at a cost of high speed maneuverability, every flight report you read about the A6M will quote exceptional low speed turn performance but heavy controls at 250mph and solid over 300, the opposite to western aircraft.

 

[PAT303]

My understanding is that 7075 was mass manufactured in such quantities that it was in all Japanese aircraft, which would explain why most Japanese aircraft had better power to weight ratios than their contemporaries.

Armor protection, SS tanks, navigation/communication equipment, bigger guns, more guns, more ammunition even the life raft added weight, Japanese fighters had better power to weight but it had nothing to do with the alloy they were made from.

 

[PAT303]

lightening holes in structure,

There's no better example of the different philosophy's between the Western and Japanese forces. How many of you would pick the Zero seat when .30 .50BMG 20mm SAPI rounds start coming through the rear fuselage?.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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There's no better example of the different philosophy's between the Western and Japanese forces. How many of you would pick the Zero seat when .30 .50BMG 20mm SAPI rounds start coming through the rear fuselage?.

Exactly

 

[Shortround6]

One place the Japanese had a lead was aerial torpedoes. Of course, almost the entire world had better torpedoes than we did when WWII started.

The Japanese were able to design an aerial unit that could be dropped into Pearl Harbor without hitting the bottom of the harbor. At the time, U.S. torpedoes were not very good and were never able to be dropped in quite as shallow water.

The British don't get the credit they should, their torpedoes worked, both airborne and submarine. (problem with magnetic exploders) and the British figured out how to drop them in shallow water about 13 months before Pearl Harbor.

 

[PAT303]

The British don't get the credit they should, their torpedoes worked, both airborne and submarine. (problem with magnetic exploders) and the British figured out how to drop them in shallow water about 13 months before Pearl Harbor.

Didn't the Japanese study the Taranto raid as proof of concept before deciding the Pearl Harbor attack was feasible?.

 

[GregP]

The British don't get the credit they should, their torpedoes worked, both airborne and submarine. (problem with magnetic exploders) and the British figured out how to drop them in shallow water about 13 months before Pearl Harbor.

Maybe they don't get the credit because they didn't have a wildly-successful aerial torpedo attack that took a country out of the war for quite awhile. The Taranto attack in 1940 was pretty well done by Swordfish, true, but the Italian fleet wasn't exactly a huge threat to the UK as the U.S. fleet was seen by Japan. Prior to WWII, the U.S.A. embargoed most raw materials from Japan and we were seen as a threat to Japanese national survival that had to be addressed. The Italians could have made life a bit difficult for the UK, had they chosen to do so, but they weren't a serious threat to national survival of the British Isles.

Still, you hit the nail on the head there, Shortround, the British got it right when they needed to get it right, and also came up with angled flight decks for carriers. They first demonstrated the steam catapult on the HMS Perseus in 1950, with the USS Hancock being the first commissioned carrier to be fitted with the system in 1954. All in all, the Brits have been very much in the forefront of development in many technologies and military advances. I'm glad we're allies!

 

[Shortround6]

Well they sure screwed up the Italian fleet and altered the balance of power in the Med for quite a while.
They also scored 5 hits for 9 torpedoes dropped (?) which is an excellent percentage. Especially in shallow water and with over 4,000 meters of torpedo nets deployed.
I don't know how many torpedoes were dropped in clear water and how many had to avoid hitting the bottom and sneak through the opening between the bottom of the nets and mud. An error of a few feet would have stopped the torpedo either way.

 

[GregP]

I said something a couple of pages back I need to retract. I said:

"Not too sure about that, Greg. Carriers didn't carry all that many aircraft, and unless it was a major battle, airplanes that ran into each other over open ocean were most like 4 vs 4, 4 vs 8, or 8 vs 8, all flying from carriers. If one side or the other came from a ground base, there might be more on one side. Most often it was 4 vs 4 out over water. The decline in Japanese pilots wasn't nearly as bad in late 1943 as it would be a year later in late 1944, still with 8 months left to fight.

Add to that the fact that only 2.5% of all WWII combat sorties were flown in Pacific Ocean Areas, and you have very few engagements relative to other areas. The only areas qualifying as reportable "theaters of operation" with fewer combat sorties were Alaska (0.3%) and the stand-alone 20th AF (1.6%) B-29s."

Unfortunately, I used the Statistical Digest of World War II for those numbers and that's a USAAF document. The correct document for Navy statistics is Naval Aviation Combat Statistics World War II, Air Branch, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, Washington, D.C., OPNAV-P-23V No. A129, 17 June 1946.

The real numbers will have to wait for tomorrow, but it's not really sharp on my part to base Naval numbers on an Air Force document! In reality, the Naval aerial action sorties amounted to a bit over 284,000!

Duhhhh!

 

[Juha3]

3 pilots rescued out of how many?, have you looked into what happened to the survivors of the Kutai Butai after they returned to Japan?.

In this case 3 out of 3 IIRC, at least one of them was still around in April 1943 and participated I-GO operation against Guadalcanal.
I checked some 9 Zero aces of Kutai Butai who survived the sinkings and they were transferred to other carriers in July 1942, e.g. to Shokaku, Zuikaku, Junyo, Hiyo and Zuiho.

 

[spicmart]

The Raiden must have been quite an aerodynamically clean airframe. It featured a laminar flow profile wing and although the front section was 20 cm wider in diameter than the Zero's it was less draggy because of the careful shaping of the cowling and windscreen.
Anybody know more about that?

 

[Reluctant Poster]

I agree that pilots are hard to replace, and that the Japanese lost a lot of aircrew in 1942. That being said it wasn't the Zero pilots taking the heavy losses, it was the bomber crews. I would agree that the bombers should have been better protected as they had to absorb punishment in order to successfully complete their missions. As I have pointed out in past posts the USN claims for Zeros shot down was greatly exaggerated. The losses suffered were not so significant that a decent training program couldn't have made up the losses, which was the real issue. USN aircrew losses in 1942 were very high as well. The life expectancy of a torpedo bomber crew was basically 1 mission. The difference was that the Americans were training their replacements. The other advantage the American had was their emphasis on air sea rescue. A Japanese pilot who was lost on a strike mission was lost forever, whereas the USN tried to rescue as many as possible. As an example, at Midway, of the 10 pilots from VF-8 that had to ditch 7 were rescued and lived to fight another day.

According to Lundstrom the Japanese lost 3 AM97 and 13 Zero pilots in air-to-air combat with F4F in 1942 up to and including Miday. The USN lost 7 F4F pilots to Zeros. Some of those Zero pilots could have been rescued. How many of those pilots would have been saved by self-sealing tanks or armor? Plenty of pilots on both sides died after ditching or bailing out. Regardless, the 9 extra dead pilots that may or may not have been saved by better protection is irrelevant in the overall scheme of things. I don't have the numbers, but I would wager the Japanese lost more Zero pilots when their ships were bombed than in the air-to-air combat. I would also wager that they lost more Zero pilots in training.

In any event the real problem wasn't its performance advantage over the F4F, it was the need to climb fast enough to intercept bombers. USN action reports are chock full of complaints about the F4Fs being unable to climb fast enough to intercept before the bombers attacked. Naval fighters had two main roles in 1942 (fighter bombers weren't a thing at that time in naval warfare,) destroying enemy bombers before they could hit your ships and protecting your bombers from being destroyed so that they could sink the enemy. Fighters playing knights of the air jousting with one another was very romantic, but it isn't the real business of war. Fighters existed because bombers existed.

The Japanese were limited in aircraft design due to their lack of powerful engines. They had to make compromises in design and the case can be made that they made the right choices for the Zero. In addition to their fast rate of climb which would have been tremendous advantage in defense if they were properly directed, their long range and great endurance was a big advantage in strike missions.

I did some further research on Lundstrom's books to find out how many more Zero pilots died in due to lack of protection.
At the end of each of his books Lundstrom summarized the performance of the F4F and Zero in combat against each other. Note that his summaries are for USN F4Fs flying from carriers and from Guadalcanal and do not include Marine F4Fs flying from Guadalcanal.

From The First Team (covering the 1st half of 1942)
"From February through June 1942, the Navy's fighting squadrons shot down seventeen Japanese carrier fighters (three Mitsubishi A5M4 Type 96 carrier fighters and fourteen Zero fighters with sixteen pilots killed), while losing to them in aerial combat only ten Wildcats (seven pilots killed)."

From Guadalcanal and the First Team (covering the 2nd half of 1942)
"In strictly fighter vs fighter combat, the ratio of losses was approximately thirty-one Navy F4Fs (twenty-three pilots killed) to twenty-five Zeros." F4Fs claimed 54 Zeros overclaiming by more than 2 to 1
Going through Lundstrom's narratives it appears that at least 2 Zero pilots survived leaving 23 Japanese pilots killed.

Ignoring the obsolete Type 96, the results are pretty evenly matched in aircraft shot down with the Zero slightly head at 41 to 39. There is a greater disparity in deaths with the F4F ahead at 36 to 30. In other words, 6 Japanese pilots died who might have survived if Zeros were equipped with self-sealing tanks and armor. That being said some of those Japanese deaths might have been attributable to the poor Japanese rescue service. Also note that a slower, less maneuverable Zero might have resulted in more Zeros being shot down. In any case in the overall scheme of things 6 extra dead pilots is trivial especially compared to the suffering of bomber aircrews. Further note that 2 of the surviving American pilots were captured by the Japanese, so the net difference in the number of pilots needing to be replaced was actually 4. 75% of F4F pilots shot down died.

Lundstrom's books also show the SBDs supposed mastery of the Zero to be nonsense. He does not do a neat summary of the SBD vs the Zero as he did for the F4F vs Zero so I waded through both books in detail and found that SBDs were over claiming by a factor of about 10 to 1. Out of the 55 claims I have found in his books (11 Type 96s and 44 Zeros) SBDs actually shot down 5 or 6 Zeros (and 0 Type 96s) with fatal consequences to the pilots. The majority of SBD claims were by the rear gunners, which like B-17 gunners were enthusiastic over claimers. As an aside Lundstrom documents several instances of a single B-17 claiming to shoot down 5 or so Zeros when in fact none were shot down. Around 20 false claims were made in these instances.

Lundstrom summarized the Zero's performance in combat as follows:
"In common with other Japanese aircraft, the Zero lacked pilot armor and self-sealing tanks. Despite these critical drawbacks the high caliber of the Imperial Navy's fighter pilots and the superb performance of the Zero itself rendered combat losses very light."
This says it all.