MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Firstly I was replying to the claim that At the beginning of the war there was one fighter that was markedly superior to the Zero. That was the P-38 Lighting. I was not comparing the A6M to the Spit XIV, P47D or P51D although the latter two are in the same report.
However, what pray tell happens to your 400 mph when you enter a tight turn of any sort - other than when putting your nose seriously down? Your 400mph is history from the moment you start your turn, and, as the TAIC report shows if you are in a P-38 chasing a zero in a climbing spiral after 1 1/2 turns he has you in his gun sight. The TAIC report is clear for all three AAF types - hit then dive away immediately. Fortunately for us the Japanese never fixed the high stick forces at high speed problem or the A6M or it would have been an even more lethal unit.
As someone else suggested earlier to another poster, I would suggest you spend a few dollars and shout yourself some flying lessons or maybe a hard ride in an aerobatic aircraft and see for yourself how fast speed decays once you leave the straight and level and start pulling even moderate Gs.
You will then realize why the TAIC report includes ... Only when AAF fighters slowed or turned after a pass could the Zeke get in a shot.
Also, even though the P-38 first flew three months before the Zeke, the A6M was in active service long before the P-38. I am dismissing the RAF Lightnings because they did not have counter rotating engines and turbos so are not "true" P-38s and the RAF soon realized their error on those omissions.
I hate quoting Wiki because it is full of errors but it says The first Lightning to see active service was the F-4 version, a P-38E in which the guns were replaced by four K17 cameras.[63] They joined the 8th Photographic Squadron in Australia on 4 April 1942.[36] Three F-4s were operated by the Royal Australian Air Force in this theater for a short period beginning in September 1942.
On 29 May 1942, 25 P-38s began operating in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
On 9 August 1942, two P-38Es of the 343rd Fighter Group, 11th Air Force, at the end of a 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long-range patrol, happened upon a pair of Japanese Kawanishi H6K "Mavis" flying boats and destroyed them,[36] making them the first Japanese aircraft to be shot down by Lightnings.
The Pacific war was 9 days short of 6 months old when the first P-38 entered the combat zone on May 29 and those early P-38s were notorious hangar queens.
The A6M series never had that reputation and had been in combat with the AVG in China long before Pearl Harbour and had destroyed hundreds of USAAF aircraft before 9 August 1942.
Regarding the P-47 and P-51 Neither of those were in US service in 1941 but, being later designs having the benefits of the RAFs combat experience against Germany incorporated in their designs, both were superior to the P-38 in many aspects in the comparison, although the A6M was always a threat if the pilot did not stick their nose down and accelerate away. The TAIC report is clear for all three AAF types - hit then dive away immediately. Fortunately for us the Japanese never fixed the high stick forces at high speed problem, which may have been as simple as a servo tab, and never fixed the slow dive problem, which was more likely a major redesign, or the A6M or it would have been an even more lethal unit. The Allies in comparison developed the Spitfire 1 and P-51A into very different and vastly better aircraft than the first models in service, and developed every other major type far more than the Japanese developed the A6M series.
So At the beginning of the war there was one fighter that was markedly superior to the Zero. That was the P-38 Lighting is not supported by any facts and thus remains opinion.
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