Japanese Zero vs Spitfire vs FW 190

[XBe02Drvr]

People tend to think that the tropics are hot and therefore icing will not be a problem. The reality is that the very high humidity means that icing is a serious problem and extends far higher than in temperate and cold weather climates.

(Off topic for a second): Phantoms in SE Asia used to experience a phenomenon called "mach bite", where the honeycomb filled entire outer wing panel aft of the leading edge/spar D tube would get saturated with moisture during the monsoon season and freeze at altitude, bulging the skin outward. If the plane then flew fast enough to generate a shock wave, the entire panel aft of the spar would pop right out leaving the spar and D tube giving the proverbial "one finger salute". This didn't constitute much of an emergency, as there were no flight controls or plumbing out there, just an extra 15 knots on final, bingo ashore if carrier based, and take the wire on landing. We had one come in at Boca Chica after a midair collision that took off the entire panel, and it was a nugget pilot at the controls with a 2 'Nam tour RIO in the back seat practicing his oratory skills. Piece of cake. The plane was fixed in time to fly the last cycle of the day.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[michael rauls]

MAW vol. 1, page 252-253, describes the combat rather differently. Caldwell was jumped by Schroer and his P-40 lit up, but the flames died out so he stayed with the plane.
Schroer returned to base without damage and no losses to his unit.

Now im really scratching my head. I read an article about a year ago in which Schroer himself was quoted about the combat wherein he mentioned the loss of his wingman. I suppose the author could have made it up or quoted someone who made up the quote( that sort of thing happens) but l like I said scratching my head a bit here.

 

[Glider]

Taking this one part at a time

I agree with parts of this as well. But if I'm repelling an attack on my carrier, I would much prefer and F4F-3 with 4 50's and 400 rounds per gun than 2 20mm with 60 rounds per gun. (I know 20mm were never put on the Wildcat)


Luck and or good shooting makes a difference as well. I have also read several stories of 20mm bursting inside the cockpit and not killing the pilot. (Certainly didn't do him any good either) which 20mm with which bullet makes a big difference, the fuses may not always work causing the shell to burst on the skin of the aircraft or over penetrate and burst after exiting.

As with everything we discuss on here there are infinite variables for infinite outcomes

By the time the USA were involved in the war then the standard UK Spitfire 20mm had 120 rpg not the 60rpg limitation. Granted this still gave you less firing time that the F4F-3 but this was often sufficient.
Which brings us to the second part or the debate, which would you rather have? The USN were very keen to switch to 20mm but at the time US 20mm were very unreliable so they generally stayed with the 0.50. The F6F-5 were all designed and built to accept 2 x 20mm plus 4 x 0.5 but essentially all, with very few exceptions had 6 x 0.5 for that reason. Why would the USN be so keen? because they cannot afford to let one bomber get through to the carrier. To stop that they need the maximum impact in the minimum period of time and for that, you need the 20mm.
2 x 20mm had approx. 50% more impact than the 4 x 0.50 in the Wildcat and reliability was still an issue with the early F4F-3 whereas the bugs had been wrung from the 20mm.

There are arguments for and against both options, but for me what swings it is the UK 20mm were supplemented by 4 x 303, whilst being far from the most effective aerial weapon I agree, but capable doing fatal damage to the early Japanese aircraft

 

[XBe02Drvr]

20mm were supplemented by 4 x 303, whilst being far from the most effective aerial weapon I agree, but capable doing fatal damage to the early Japanese aircraft.

So could 4 or 6 .50s. USN's early carrier losses weren't due to ineffective firepower of the Wildcats, they were more a function of less than optimum fighter direction of the CAP. It was the few "leakers" that got through the fighter screen that did the damage. Integrating radar into CIC and multiple carrier coordination was a steep learning curve, and when it finally reached a fine art it was already Hellcat time. The Japanese had coordinated multi carrier ops pretty well worked out by Dec 1941, even without radar and effective fighter direction, where as USN still operated carriers as "lone wolves", even when together in a task force, as late as Midway. If the strikes had been coordinated rather than piecemeal at Coral Sea and Midway the results would have been more effective and less costly.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Actually the higher velocity is without doubt. The M1 ball and M1 AP had muzzle velocities of 2500fps or just over. The M1 incendiary wasn't adopted until after the M2 ball and M2 AP were adopted. All three had a muzzle velocity of over 2800fps and closer to 2880fps. The M8 API which is what was shown in the video, has the higher velocity and came into use in 1943 for the most part.

Hello Shortround6,

I am actually very surprised seeing this from you. From what I recall, the muzzle velocity of a .303 with a 174/175 grain bullet is also around 2500 fps. Some are a bit lower, some are a touch higher but not by much. but that is at the muzzle.
How fast are they moving at the typical aerial engagement distances of perhaps 300 yards?
I don't know how poor the shape of the M1 bullet was, but it would have to be pretty poor to lose out to a rifle caliber round at a few hundred yards.

1 round, 50 bmg into a 55 gallon barrel of water. Imagine if that is a fuel tank on an airplane. Just punching through armor doesn't tell the whole story of the superiority of the 50 bmg over any 30 caliber bullet.
.......
30 caliber bullets just poke a small hole.

Hello Pinsog,

You beat me to it.
I figure this might have been one of the reasons Spitfire V wasn't killing all that many A6M2 while Wildcats were.

What's oil or fuel doing up in the turtledeck? Isn't that where ADI fluid lives?

Hello XBe02Drvr,

There is a big drum shaped fuel tank behind the cockpit and the two other tanks are just below the cockpit.
They might have been punctured by some rifle caliber rounds also from the Me 109?

- Ivan.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

On the subject of fitting the Kinsei to the A6M, the Kinsei 50 series was in production in 1941 and was fitted to the H6K5 flying boat, which was ordered into production in case the H8K was seriously delayed and delivered over 1941 and early in 1942 with production stopped once the H8K was seen to be a success. They were also used by the G3M3, the last G3Ms produced.

Hello Cherry Blossom,

At about the same time I was reading Nuuumannn's response, I also came across some detail for the Kinsei 46 that was installed in the H6K3 which had a critical altitude equivalent to Sakae 12 should have given pretty similar performance.... Almost. The problem was that I could not find the production date for this engine.

Using data from q‹ó‹@ƒGƒ"ƒWƒ"ˆê——E"ú–{ŒR (Goodwin and Starkings agrees but leave some numbers as question marks), for take off we have 1300 ps at 2600 rpm for the Kinsei 51 and 1130 ps at 2750 rpm for the Sakae 21. At 6200 metres, the Kinsei 51 gave 1100 ps at 2500 rpm while at 6000 metres the Sakae 21 gave 980 ps at 2700 rpm (both translated as military power). The Kinsei weighed 640 kg compared to 590 kg for the Sakae.

The problem here was that this would have been 1941 and the bugs in A6M2 had been worked out and it finally met the requirements that were called for in the initial specification. Whether those requirements were intelligent is a subject for another discussion.
Did it make sense to replace the engine to most likely decrease the range and NOT meet the original requirements?

Thus a 1941 A6M8 would have lost the two 7.7 mm machine guns, increased in weight and probably in fuel consumption but benefited from an extra 120 ps at altitude. The Kinsei 60 series was first used in December 1942 for the Ki-46 III prototype. The variant powering the real A6M8 gave 1250 ps at 5800 metres and 2600 rpm (probably with an extra bearing to allow higher rpm but with an increase in weight to 675 kg). The A6M8's quoted max speed of 356 mph suggests that we would see about 341 mph with a Kinsei 50 series engine ignoring the slight difference in weight. However, the A6M8 was able to dive significantly faster than a 1941 Zero due to thicker skinning and carried a heavier armament.

The 1941 A6M8 could not have lost the 7,7 mm MG and still have been useful. First of all the 7.7 mm MG were part of the required armament in the original specification.
We already agree on the range issue.
The increase in engine weight isn't simply the engine but the propeller as well. The Sakae 12 used a 2.90 M propeller, the Sakae 21 and later used a 3.05 M, and from what I can find, the Kinsei used either a 3.05 M or 3.20 M propeller.
Now assuming that the 7.7 mm guns could not be deleted and had to be added to the wings and additional fuel had to be added in a wing and / or a fuselage tank, the decrease in agility also might not meet the original requirements.
By the time the actual A6M8 came around, the strategic situation and requirements were no longer the same.

- Ivan.

 

[pinsog]

So could 4 or 6 .50s. USN's early carrier losses weren't due to ineffective firepower of the Wildcats, they were more a function of less than optimum fighter direction of the CAP. It was the few "leakers" that got through the fighter screen that did the damage. Integrating radar into CIC and multiple carrier coordination was a steep learning curve, and when it finally reached a fine art it was already Hellcat time. The Japanese had coordinated multi carrier ops pretty well worked out by Dec 1941, even without radar and effective fighter direction, where as USN still operated carriers as "lone wolves", even when together in a task force, as late as Midway. If the strikes had been coordinated rather than piecemeal at Coral Sea and Midway the results would have been more effective and less costly.
Cheers,
Wes

I agree with you on this with one small exception or addition: fighter direction was one problem, the 2nd problem was US fighter performance. The fact that the Wildcat has such a horrible climb rate often meant that they simply couldn't get high enough in time to intercept dive bombers and sometimes couldn't catch a Kate torpedo bomber if the Kate passed over them in a slight dive. I think it was John Thach that said "we need something that gets upstairs faster"

You are certainly right about the Wildcat firepower not being a problem, if the Zeros weren't around to interfere, Wildcats would generally decimate Japanese bombers

 

[MiTasol]

(Off topic for a second): Phantoms in SE Asia used to experience a phenomenon called "mach bite", where the honeycomb filled entire outer wing panel aft of the leading edge/spar D tube would get saturated with moisture during the monsoon season and freeze at altitude, bulging the skin outward. If the plane then flew fast enough to generate a shock wave, the entire panel aft of the spar would pop right out leaving the spar and D tube giving the proverbial "one finger salute". This didn't constitute much of an emergency, as there were no flight controls or plumbing out there, just an extra 15 knots on final, bingo ashore if carrier based, and take the wire on landing. We had one come in at Boca Chica after a midair collision that took off the entire panel, and it was a nugget pilot at the controls with a 2 'Nam tour RIO in the back seat practicing his oratory skills. Piece of cake. The plane was fixed in time to fly the last cycle of the day.
Cheers,
Wes

The early Airbus models had a composite leading edge on the fin that would do the same and Airbus had to replace quite a few for Singapore Airlines (and others) with an improved unit with a thin metal sheath that prevented the moisture penetration. Part of the problem was that rain drops hitting the surface at high speed could produce micro cracks in the paint allowing the water to penetrate into the composite

 

[tomo pauk]

I agree with you on this with one small exception or addition: fighter direction was one problem, the 2nd problem was US fighter performance. The fact that the Wildcat has such a horrible climb rate often meant that they simply couldn't get high enough in time to intercept dive bombers and sometimes couldn't catch a Kate torpedo bomber if the Kate passed over them in a slight dive. ...

(my bold)
Bolded part, 100%.

 

[Schweik]

That's why they hated the F4F-4 so much. Even worse performance. They should have probably kept a few slightly stripped down -3s just for CAP duties.

 

[tomo pauk]

That's why they should've had the navalized P-36s instead of Buffaloes in the 1st place, and move on with a fighter designed around a big radial ASAP.

 

[Schweik]

Interesting idea but I'm not sure if P-36 could be navalized, or if it would be better than a Wildcat once you put the arrestor hook and armor and protected fuel tanks in it. And heavier guns. I bet you end up with something pretty slow. How quickly could they have made a Wildcat variant like the FM-2?

But who knows maybe. One of the limitations of carrier aircraft was that they tried to make them so generalist. Too much so. Sure you need the flexibility but it's hard to imagine a day where a given aircraft carrier doesn't need to send out some ASW planes, some search planes, and some CAP. Even if it's only 3 or 4 of each. So I always thought, why not have a small number of planes which are slightly more specialized for their specific niche roles. Say keep a half a dozen specialized interceptor types for CAP, something maybe a bit more like a Fulmar for search maybe.

 

[PAT303]

You beat me to it.
I figure this might have been one of the reasons Spitfire V wasn't killing all that many A6M2 while Wildcats were.

That's like saying Wildcats didn't kill many Me109's or FW190's. They fought in different theaters.

 

[Schweik]

That's like saying Wildcats didn't kill many Me109's or FW190's. They fought in different theaters.

I think Wildcats did kill a few Bf 109s. They also shot down a fair number of P-36s and D.520s.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

That's like saying Wildcats didn't kill many Me109's or FW190's. They fought in different theaters.

So Australia is a different theater than SW Pacific?

 

[Schweik]

It's a bit odd though that Fulmars, Sea Hurricanes and Sea Gladiators and so on seemed to bear the brunt of a lot of the convoy fights, I think mainly just because the (probably more effective) Martlets were slow to arrive and be readied for action. But there were some around in the Med when convoy fights were still going on.

 

[PAT303]

I think Wildcats did kill a few Bf 109s. They also shot down a fair number of P-36s and D.520s.

Spitfires shot down a few Japanese planes too, but the Spitfire spend the war fighting the Luftwaffe, the Wildcat the Japanese, you can't shoot down what you don't fight.

 

[Schweik]

I see your point.

 

[PAT303]

So Australia is a different theater than SW Pacific?

Spitfires ended the war with a 6-1 kill ratio over the Japanese, the amount of fighting the Spit did against the Japanese was minor compared to what it did against the Luftwaffe.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Spitfires shot down a few Japanese planes too, but the Spitfire spend the war fighting the Luftwaffe, the Wildcat the Japanese, you can't shoot down what you don't fight.

Yes, but the initial comment was specifically in reference to the Spit V's poor performance in Australia against the same aircraft types the Wildcats were facing.