Shortround6
Major General
The thing with the Zero was that it was a good airplane, in fact it was very good at number of things.
It just wasn't quite as good as it's opponents believed it to be. Or perhaps not as good as they pretended it to be to cover some of their own mistakes. Like the British and Americans depending on 2nd (or even 3rd) rate aircraft for defense in the Pacific in 1941/early 42.
The Zero (and Ki 43) being better than expected caught the British and Americans off guard. With veteran pilots flying them (and veteran bomber crews) the Japanese inflicted disproportionate losses on the allies almost wherever they showed up.
This doesn't mean the Japanese planes were invulnerable or couldn't be shot down. It means their loses (of planes anyway) were acceptable given the results. Elimination of existing forces in the areas the Japanese were interested in.
The Allies countered with better planes, however in some cases these were still not the best that could be built/provided. British didn't send Spitfires for quite some time. Americans used P-39s and P-40s because that was what was in production to help cover things (hold the line) while the planes the Army really wanted were being worked on (P-38s and P-47 had been ordered in 1940).
US planners also bumbled things by installing too much armament for the airframe/engine in the P-39/P-40 as opposed to the Japanese Army that installed too little in the Ki 43.
The Zero failed to keep up, though not from lack of trying. Unfortunately adding guns, ammo and decent protection without increasing power put them in the same situation as the P-39s/P-40s. A late model Zero had the firepower of a P-40 or F6F/F4U, just not as much ammo as the last two. But trying to carry that amount of guns on 11-1200hp killed some of the performance.
I would note that a great many planes were fitted with more powerful engines than they were designed for and worked pretty well.
P-36 first flew with an experimental 900hp engine that never entered production. It ended as the P-40 with Allisons of 1400-1500hp in WER. Spitfire went to the Griffon engine. A number of Italian fighters went from 840/870hp engines to 1100hp engines and one went to 1475hp ( the other two used new airframes). The Japanese swapped engines on the Ki 61 to make the Ki 100.
It just wasn't quite as good as it's opponents believed it to be. Or perhaps not as good as they pretended it to be to cover some of their own mistakes. Like the British and Americans depending on 2nd (or even 3rd) rate aircraft for defense in the Pacific in 1941/early 42.
The Zero (and Ki 43) being better than expected caught the British and Americans off guard. With veteran pilots flying them (and veteran bomber crews) the Japanese inflicted disproportionate losses on the allies almost wherever they showed up.
This doesn't mean the Japanese planes were invulnerable or couldn't be shot down. It means their loses (of planes anyway) were acceptable given the results. Elimination of existing forces in the areas the Japanese were interested in.
The Allies countered with better planes, however in some cases these were still not the best that could be built/provided. British didn't send Spitfires for quite some time. Americans used P-39s and P-40s because that was what was in production to help cover things (hold the line) while the planes the Army really wanted were being worked on (P-38s and P-47 had been ordered in 1940).
US planners also bumbled things by installing too much armament for the airframe/engine in the P-39/P-40 as opposed to the Japanese Army that installed too little in the Ki 43.
The Zero failed to keep up, though not from lack of trying. Unfortunately adding guns, ammo and decent protection without increasing power put them in the same situation as the P-39s/P-40s. A late model Zero had the firepower of a P-40 or F6F/F4U, just not as much ammo as the last two. But trying to carry that amount of guns on 11-1200hp killed some of the performance.
I would note that a great many planes were fitted with more powerful engines than they were designed for and worked pretty well.
P-36 first flew with an experimental 900hp engine that never entered production. It ended as the P-40 with Allisons of 1400-1500hp in WER. Spitfire went to the Griffon engine. A number of Italian fighters went from 840/870hp engines to 1100hp engines and one went to 1475hp ( the other two used new airframes). The Japanese swapped engines on the Ki 61 to make the Ki 100.