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Bristol flew a prototype fighter that was an almost copy of the Zero...it is spooky how close it is...1938 if I'm not mistaken.
The RAF totally rejected it as the Spitfire was way better. Range was never an issue in the early days of the 109 or Spitfire.
High-performance fighter with air-cooled engine for overseas (hot climate) use
There was only one bona fide combat between Zeroes acting as fighters and Seafires. Seafires claimed other fighters attacking carrier groups as kamikazes in a few cases. The one real fighter combat was the last day of the war, August 15 1945. The Seafires claimed 8 Zeroes for 1 loss (and loss of one Avenger being escorted), but in the Spit V Darwin case (1: several ratio against the Spitfire) we are counting (or should be) losses recorded by both sides, not claims. But there aren't clearly complete Japanese accounts of that last day's combat, whereas the accounts of the Darwin combats seem to be, we know the 202nd Air Group was the only (Zero, one mission v Darwin was by JAAF Oscars) unit involved.It is often pointed out correctly that the Spit V did not score well against the Zero, it isn't often mentioned that the Seafire, which is a heavier Spit V with less performance did do well against the Zero. The difference being the tactics.
A 20mm Mauser cannon put out about twice as much kinetic energy as an equivalent Allied 20mm weapon.
There was only one bona fide combat between Zeroes acting as fighters and Seafires. Seafires claimed other fighters attacking carrier groups as kamikazes in a few cases. The one real fighter combat was the last day of the war, August 15 1945. The Seafires claimed 8 Zeroes for 1 loss (and loss of one Avenger being escorted), but in the Spit V Darwin case (1: several ratio against the Spitfire) we are counting (or should be) losses recorded by both sides, not claims. But there aren't clearly complete Japanese accounts of that last day's combat, whereas the accounts of the Darwin combats seem to be, we know the 202nd Air Group was the only (Zero, one mission v Darwin was by JAAF Oscars) unit involved.
In the August 15 combat the 252nd Air Group lost one Zero to Seafires, pilot survived, and the 302nd AG recorded one pilot WIA by Seafires though plane apparently not destroyed. USN F6F's made a number of claims in basically the same series of combats, similar area and time, and the Japanese attributed several other losses to F6F's. But, there's more potential for confusion and incompleteness in that accounting than the Darwin combats.
Quite likely. However re, the attacks on the Kamikazes some were awarded as Kamikaze kills and others as 'normal' kills as the Zero's in question were shot down as they moved to intercept the Spitfires. Again I will have to get back to you on that.But the main point is it's one real fighter combat, can't draw a broad conclusion from that. You might say Seafires *would* have done a lot better, and you might assert tactics *would* have been the difference but there's no actual comparison that conclusively proves or disproves that exact reasoning. One other fairly obvious difference was the Spit V's at Darwin in 1943 faced the 202nd Air Group (redesignated from 3rd AG) which had gained extensive favorable experience defeating various Allied fighter units in 1942 but hadn't been attrited in the Solomons campaign nor apparently seen a large personnel turnover (though by same token had relatively old A6M2's even in 1943). The opponents August 15 '45 were run of mill 1945 JNAF units, a somewhat different proposition.
Totally agree with you. The range (or lack of it) with the advantage of Radar direction gave the defenders, be they British or German fighters, a huge advantage.In general the most clearly wrong statement on this thread I saw was along lines that range wasn't a big deal for Bf109 and Spit in early war: quite the contrary. The lack of range, hence combat persistence even over southern Britain, of the Bf109 was arguably the key factor in the German failure in the BoB. Likewise the LW over France ca. 1941 did have a quite favorable actual fighter exchange ratio v the RAF, considerably better than it had had in BoB, and that was true even before it introduced better types like Fw190. The lack of combat persistence of the Spitfire over France, as opposed to over Britain, was an important reason for that shift.
I don't bug people why they don't respond to my posts, I might not like the answerHi Joe,
>One other fairly obvious difference was the Spit V's at Darwin ...
Talking about the Far East, have you seen my response to your post over in the Hurricane thread?
I'd appreciate any more FAA details on these ops, but, we're never going to establish actual outcomes of combats with one side's accounts, it's just a bad habit to try to do that for WWII combat IMO, leads to very distorted conclusions, over and over for 60 years that's obscured the truth in many situations. Even in 1945 over Japan, Allied claims were still sometimes quite overstated apparently, and highly variably, just can't go by them in any given combat. I was happy to come across what I related about the August 15 '45 combat from Japanese side in a couple of good Japanese language sources, just recently. Again while that might be incomplete, or the Japanese mistaken that Seafire victims were F6F victims etc. if the Seafires had 4-5 'pretty certain' and really knocked down 1 or 2, that wouldn't be unusual, as you may already know, in any given WWII air combat.I will need to dig around in my papers but if I remember it correctly the SPits were awarded 7 kills the additional kill being awarded to the Avengers Gunners. Of the 7, I think about 4 or 5 could be called pretty certain the others more likely to be survivable, but I will get back on that.
Quite likely. However re, the attacks on the Kamikazes some were awarded as Kamikaze kills and others as 'normal' kills as the Zero's in question were shot down as they moved to intercept the Spitfires. Again I will have to get back to you on that.
To my knowledge both Zero and the Bristol fighter were different but came to the same conclusion. How to get as much performance out of a weak engine. Don't think the Bristol fighter was well known to be copied.
The only fighter I know which was influenced by the Zero was the Grumman Bearcat and that could chop up Zeroes all day long...but missed the war by a whisker.
When I said early days about the range of the 109 and Spitfire I meant the 1930s not actual combat experience...the 109 and Spitfire were what they were. A long ranged fighter of the same design era would have to have two engines to carry enough fuel. You either accepted a short ranged single engine fighter or went down the Bf 110 road. The Zero first flew a good 3 years later so could learn from the early monoplanes.