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The Ki-43 would have had to have been substantially strengthened to conduct carrier operations.
Seems to me one of the biggest problems the Japanese had with regard to improving their fighters was with their engines.
I actually think facing p40s with A5Ms at this stage is not as hopeless as it might look at first glance. At that point in the game everyone was still turnfighting, tactics to use speed and if possible altitude to neutralize the moaenuverability advantage of Japanese types had not been developed. In low or medium speed turning fight between an A5m and a p40 I'm not sure the p40 comes out on top. I think things are going to be alot closer than we might think with our knowledge of tactics that were developed later.Where's your samurai spirit, Saburo? Those Curtiss jockeys haven't yet been infested with the deadly up-and-down dogfighting virus, and you've got the best round 'n round dogfighter in the world! Tennoheika banzai!
Oh, but they had! Unfortunately, this was done by the heretic, Chennault, which rendered it unpalatable to the air combat orthodoxy of USAAF. It took costly lessons to vindicate his tactical lessons to the Establishment.At that point in the game everyone was still turnfighting, tactics to use speed and if possible altitude to neutralize the moaenuverability advantage of Japanese types had not been developed.
A virgin prewar P40 pilot, uncontaminated by Chennaultism, would be meat on the table for any reasonably competent A5M driver.In low or medium speed turning fight between an A5m and a p40 I'm not sure the p40 comes out on top
Pilots not wearing parachutes was also a problem...
Seems to me one of the biggest problems the Japanese had with regard to improving their fighters was with their engines. One comparatively easy solution to that was by borrowing German ones like the Italians did. They had what I would call a partial technology transfer of the DB 600 series engine, an early (I think 601A) version which was adapted to the Ki 61. The problem is that Japanese industry had trouble adapting to the new engine, and probably could have used more help. Communications with the Germans was very limited and difficult. By the mid-war any physical transfer of artifacts such as engines, parts, blueprints or machine tools had to be done by submarine, and those were often being caught and destroyed by US or British naval assets.
If they had been able to start robust production of a reliable DB 601E some time around 1942, which probably would have required the Germans sending maybe a couple of people and a lot of documentation and machine tools, that Ki-61 could have become much more of a problem for the Americans. That might have given the Japanese a viable replacement to the Ki-43 and possibly also the A6M in time to make a difference until their own radial engine designs caught up.
apparently the engine was not popular from a mechanic's standpoint.
When an aviation maintenance monoculture suddenly has to cope with a new and radically different technology which stands all of their practices and procedures on their heads, it tends to disrupt things a little.were unreliable because there were too few trained mechanics to tune them
Both the A6M and Ki-43 seats were designed to be used with parachutes so you needed a parachute to sit in them. Shinpachi and others have blown that myth away multiple times.
Unlike any of our fighters the A6m had an excellent flotation system to give the pilot time to evacuate the aircraft after ditching. See the Zeke 32, Design Analysis article
My fathers only drama as a stoker on a destroyer in WW2 was hitting an iceberg, I stupidly said "why didn't you learn to swim dad", "what the hell would I swim to in iced water"? came the curt reply. For some naval aviators saving the weight was a rational decision if your chances of being rescued were close to zero.