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I think it should be obvious, the tactic wasn't 'to fly straight and allow yourself to be shot at' but that assuming a Japanese fighter got behind you don't try to turn, exposing the cockpit (and other vital parts) to deflection shots. If energy to dive do that, otherwise skid and bob up and down but again don't turn. By early 1944 the 5th AF's tactics manual had a similar admonition for P-40's out of energy with 'Zero' on tail, but the USN/USMC apparently reached the conclusion earlier. And there weren't necessarily a lot of unknown cause loss disappearances of F4F's in the Guadacanal campaign (as Renrich suggested it might be useful to actually read about it, to try to understand some of these issues). It's beyond what I would call anecdotal.>On F4F 'pin cushion' tactic, that's mentioned in enough places, sourced back to quotes and reports of the time, to be more than an 'anecdote'.
The anecdotal nature is due to the pilots who did not survive flying in the sights of a Zero for a prolonged time did not come back to have the 7.7 mm holes counted. (It would be interesting to know the number of holes in the machines that made it back, though.)
>how much such a tactic explains of the substantial superiority in realworld
Flying straight and allowing yourself to be shot at? I'd be delighted to see the cause-and-effect relationship of that move to a general "substantial" combat superiority explained
Hi Renrich,
>Henning, I said what I said about the members here with respect, not being critical.
Well understood - I just couldn't resist trying to be funny
>However when the RAF took over all flying, against the strong advice of David Beatty, the FAA languished as well as Coastal Command.
Hm, I've just browsed into Brown's "Wings of the Navy", and he actually attributes a lack of boldness (or vision) on part of the institutions that drafted the specifications for naval aircraft for the poor state of the art in WW2. I'm not sure that this means he blames the RAF - it's my impression that the specifications were prepared by the Royal Navy, but I'll admit that I'm not really sure of that.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
1. Back to a common theme, 'markedly inferior' isn't well grounded in fact when it comes to *combat effectiveness v the Zero* which is what we're talking about. The F4F was slower than the P-40 but turned better (your 'calculated' graphs showed IIRC P-40 and F4F as similar, both much inferior to Zero, but that's at odds with tests v captured Zeroes which showed the F4F's turn performance closer to the Zeroes than other US fighters, though still inferior). There's no formula to resolve a speed disadvantage/turn advantage into a *quantified* combat effectivness advantage/disadvantage.1. Even assuming the F4F could be exposed to fire of that sort for a longer period than the P-40, the Wildcat's markedly inferior performance...
2. If there are statistics on the number and calibre of hits the F4Fs that went down during the Guadalcanal campaign received in that book,
3. If you'd ask me for the likely reason of the good results of the USN's F4F units, I'd suggest that the extensive gunnery training...
4. ... that the P-40 was able to achieve similarly good results against the Ki-43, which had characteristics comparable to the A6M even if it lacked the latter's cannon armament.
5. However, while the Navy adjusted their tactics according to the information they had about the A6M, the USAAF seem to have ignored Chennault's findings ...