Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Yes I've been to the UK, secondly having another 20 minutes of fuel will allow flexibility to organise and manage your fighters when raids come in and the weather plays no part, home chain was still able to plot bomber forces building up before they crossed the channel, with only 85G of fuel fighter command had to wait till the last minute to launch because they didn't have the fuel to loiter, the reason they wanted very high RoC, with an extra 30G internal you don't need it, once the incoming bombers turn for England launch your fighters and have them at 25,000ft ready to pounce the moment the enemy force is over mainland England.
I'm going to agree with you here, you only have to look at the endless numbers of youtube video's to see almost all of them focus on high dash P47's, L series onwards P38's and D series Mustangs when talking about the air war, not the trials and tribulations that made up the slug fest from 1940-43 that got them there.
Note the speeds at altitudes:I would recommend reviewing this post contributed to the thread by Thomas P.
How bad would a Euro-spec A6M Zero be?
They can't, the engine isn't quite ready yet. While they didn't stick the engine into the A6M8 until 1945 the engine was ready earlier, It was used in the D4Y3 starting in May of 1944 and might have been used a bit earlier? But not 1942. Lower powered versions were used.ww2aircraft.net
3700 km / 2300 miles at low speed (330 km / hr - 205 mph)
1200 miles (with 20 min combat and 30 min reserve) at 250 mph TAS,
Lundstrom:
(It seems that the the above range is in NM)
I suspect that things like Vmax and WEP might be a bit tough to accurately determine on a captured aircraft, but fuel consumption should be easier to do. In any event TAIC used captured aircraft manuals where possible:
The point is that Guadalcanal was at the very limit of the A6M2-21's range, even with optimal overwater cruise conditions that would never be feasible in the ETO.
Considering the RAF went to mostly might missions fairly soon after trying unescorted daylight bombing, you likely ARE defining air combat too narrowly. You might recall the U.S.A. in the ETO flew 754,818 sorties amd dropped 1,456,423 tons of bombs. The British flew 687,462 sorties and dropped 1,307,117 tons of bombs. That's pretty darned even, any way you cut it. 57.2% to 47.3% of sorties, and the bomb tonnage was even closer.
Those calculations are flawed. The fuel usage per hour increases as the TAS increases, and there's no allowances made for Warmup, TO and climb to cruise altitude.
Well, I did bring it up in the context of a fair comparison of combat capabilities between two aircraft.
I misinterpreted your statement, taking 'annihilated' as being synonymous with 'dominated' or similar, though still, my previous point stands, at least partially. There were still other factors I touched on in my previous post besides the technical capabilities of the Japanese aircraft that would have allowed such crushing victories, among them overwhelming numbers and pilot training.
I never considered the factor in bold before. I am largely in agreement with your points here.
I must admit my shortcomings in this aspect of the war especially, as discussion or sources on this particular issue are somewhat difficult to find. Even if there were adequate pilots assigned to those areas, would they have had the necessary training and experience to take full advantage of their equipment and as well as they could have under different circumstances? This question concerns the RAF and RAAF pilots especially, as criticism is often levied at them specifically.
What of the AM-35? It managed to reach production as an engine powering the rather fast Mig-1, however little that aircraft contributed to the war, and it had further improvements that distinguished it from its predecessor. Compare this effort to to non-existent efforts of the Japanese, who had largely forgone designing liquid-cooled engines of any type whatsoever.
...it if was for the valid reasons you have mentioned here. Even so, I have never heard of any attempts by the Japanese to make any further improvements to the engines they had licensed from the Germans unlike the Soviets with their licensed engine(s), nor any attempts to design their own, for that matter, and issues with complexity are mentioned frequently as a reason for the Japanese largely avoiding this type of engine. This deficiency, an inability to mass-produce "complex" designs, paints a rather dim image of Japanese technical ability in regards to aircraft engines. The Ha-201 engine in the Ki-64 had an unusual design as part of its unconventional configuration, but it was otherwise a pair of DB 601 engines coupled together, and the plane itself was a failed prototype regardless.
I will acknowledge this, at the very least.
A longer time than helpful, if it's flawed design was ever fully fixed.
I have no objection to this statement in the scope of this discussion, that is what I will say about it.
Apparently, large amounts of documentation was destroyed, both towards the war's end and afterwards, though I'm not certain how much this applies to the case of the Ki-98 exclusively.
I guess I must retract my statement, if only because the PTO, beyond all Japanese aircraft in truth, is largely overshadowed by the ETO.
I suppose I should have brought up the British Gloster Whittle as opposed to German jet aircraft as my example previously...still, the first aircraft to exceed 1000kph was the German rocket-powered Me 163A "V4" aircraft, and a variant of the German V2 rocket was the first man-made object ever to break the Karman Line and reach space. These examples are relevant to WWII aviation I would say, as well as this topic, especially the former, and the Japanese had nothing comparable in terms of speed or jet/rocket technology, which doesn't speak well to Japanese aviation as being anywhere near 'the pinnacle' ever, as that article that I can't find claims (and I swear it exists, or existed, however irrelevant of a source it may be). I will walk back my claim that Japan wasn't a major power, in that its navy appeared to outweigh those of the other powers such as France or Italy, and was fairly competent. It's army still seems to be of a lower standard in comparison, less so compared to Italy however.
I guess I would have to agree with that view somewhat.
To defend my intentions, I will say that I wanted inquiring about the reasons behind the seemingly slower speeds and weaker engines of Japanese fighters, and why they are held in high regard, especially for their maneuverability, when the other powers were producing increasingly faster aircraft, and did not place as much emphasis on maneuverability, largely, at the very least. In addition to this, I also wanted to discuss the claim that the Japanese, the IJA especially, favored maneuverability, and range, over speed, a claim that has been brought up here and elsewhere.
I'm looking at TAIC 38:
As I wrote, the FC had certain thought-out nterception procedures, the convoy battles of July 1940 reinforced the thinking when so many of the British pilots who parachuted into the sea died, the British sea rescue system was still quite undeveloped compared to the German system, starting with personal equipment. And the endurance of Hurricane Mk. I or Spitfire Mk. I was not hopeless. On 9 Sept 1940 Spits of 66 Sqn durations sorties were 1 h to 1 ½ h including a climb to 22,000 feet and an aerial battle or two, some managed to rally after the first battle, others continued as lonely hunters. More fuel would have been nice as would four 20 mm cannon with 150 rpg, more protection etc, but with 1030 hp engine one could not get all niceties, and especially late during the Battle, against fighter bombers and heavily escorted Ju 88 raids heavier interceptors would have been a bad choice.
