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No, losses were growing but I already quoted above a report Lt. Cdr. Mitsuo Kofukuda. He indicated that protection for the fuel tank is needed. As the Navy lagged behind in development of rubber protection the first and immediate solution was a CO2 fire extinguisher which was widely produced since 1943 and you could find it on aircraft like J2M, A6M, G4M ...Need, whether absolute or not, arose in second half of 1942.
I dont really want to break the bubble but Ha-41 and Ha-109 were 110 milometers wider, first one was 100 kg and second one 200 kg heavier. I dont even bring Kasei, which ... you know what they had to do to keep J2M as aerodynamic as possible.It could. The Zero carried one drop tank (66 gals?) and ~150 gals of fuel internally. Use two drop tanks and 170 gals internally. With Ha-41, a bit more with Ha-109 or Kasei.
Army installed first protection actually earlier, first fuel tanks with basic protection were adopted in second year of Ki-21 production (so with Ki-21-Ib) which is actually before British or American bombers received such features. Some attempts to provide armor were also made. Last produced Ki-27b as I mentioned also were tested with rubber coated fuel tanks.So we have two problems. One is well known - Army and Navy don't love each other, no information exchange. Another - 4 years until Army is installing meaningful protection, compared with eg. 1 year for RAF? Another year for Navy.
Here is a very cool website in English presenting differences between early and late models of A6M5 : Variation of Zero fighterAgreed.
Absolutely, I have a bit of a feeling that we have hijacked the threadNot everything revolves around Zero.
Thank it is a different story, I thought it was about fitting a bigger engine to the Zero fuselage. But Ha-41 is not a good choice, it was shortly out of production as Ha-109 replaced it.A brand new fighter needs to be designed around Ha-41.
The Americans designed aircraft to be machine made. Forming a wing or fuselage rib took seconds in a large press. The Brits were far more into wing ribs and other components made from dozens of small parts all riveted together - massively time consuming.
That is what I'm aware of. Point is that there are three problems I can think of :Ha 41 and Ha 109 are the members of same familiy of engines, Nakajima's NAL. The Ha 109 makes greater RPM and has 2-speed S/C. Thing is that Ha 41 is available one year earlier, 1940 instead in 1941 (for token number of engines), so the airframe designes can start with their job earlier. Once Ha 109 is available, switch to that engine; altitude power was in the ballpark with BMW 801C and ASh-82, but with far better reliability than BMW.
Wait, I thought the idea was to design new fighter around Ha-41/Ha-109, thus improving Zero would be pointless.I know that we disagree, Zero (and Ki 43) needed better engines by mid/late 1942 than what they received. Having 4 carriers sunk by air power in one day looks like emergency to me, though Zero is only partly to blame for that.
I dont see any reason to blame A6M2 for the loss of the carriers. From the perspective of numbers of aircraft they shot down or damaged in relation to own losses A6M2 performed exceptionally well.Having 4 carriers sunk by air power in one day looks like emergency to me, though Zero is only partly to blame for that.
True Graugeist but the point I was making was that you design and operate differently for different production volumes. When the spitfire was designed war was a possibility when the P51 was designed it was a fact and when the P51B/D were designed orders for thousands were guaranteed and the government was throwing up 1million sq/ft fatories to do it. Even now you do not set up a production line for small scale production, the cost and inflexibility make it counter productive.When the U.S. switched to a wartime production, numbers of produced units escelated dramatically, of course.
That is what I'm aware of. Point is that there are three problems I can think of :
- dry weight of Ha-109 has increased by 100 kg over Ha-41
- Ha-109 fuel consumption is higher by 20-30 liters
- Ha-109 has second critical altitude 5200 meters, thats lower than Sakae 21. And I thought one of the issues to address is altitude performance ?
Wait, I thought the idea was to design new fighter around Ha-41/Ha-109, thus improving Zero would be pointless.
I dont see any reason to blame A6M2 for the loss of the carriers. From the perspective of numbers of aircraft they shot down or damaged in relation to own losses A6M2 performed exceptionally well.
Ok, I see what you meant.True Graugeist but the point I was making was that you design and operate differently for different production volumes. When the spitfire was designed war was a possibility when the P51 was designed it was a fact and when the P51B/D were designed orders for thousands were guaranteed and the government was throwing up 1million sq/ft fatories to do it. Even now you do not set up a production line for small scale production, the cost and inflexibility make it counter productive.
Ok, so lets suppose this could happen. Lets suppose such fighter was possible.Main thing is to adress performance at all altitudes. So we don't have a situation where Allies deploy fighters with 1500-2200 HP at low level, with only IJA/IJN fighters with 1100-1150 HP to compete. We also avoid situation where a 300 mph bomber slips by and performs mast-height or skip bombing.
Sakae 21 makes 980 HP at 6 km, the Ha-109 will do ~1100 HP there (all metric HP, ie. CV).
Most of the fighter aircraft that name received heavier and more powerful engines as war progressed. Hurricane, Bf 109, Spitfire, P-51, MC.200, indeed Ki-44 and host of Japanese and Soviet fighters. One of the things that made them better than prevoius types. The 'no free lunch' rule applies as ever.
Ok, that occupies more resources but could be that way.Improving Zero is an insurance in case the new fighter encunters problems during design, production and/or service. It was done by all major ww2 participants.
The amount of victories in this operation in tasks they were dedicated to, indicates that Zeros did exceptionally well in protecting their own fleet. Better than F4F certainly.Purpose of fighters was not to make great victory:loss ratio (that would mean Germany won the ww2), their purpose is to deny the enemy from their goal. American fliers scored their goals.
Let's recall that IJN fighter screen, made up by Zeros, was penetrated by Blenheims, B-17s and B-26, flying without fighter escort.
Ok, so lets suppose this could happen. Lets suppose such fighter was possible.
Who would make it than ?
Mitsubishi is engaged in process of upgrading Zero, building J2M and until 1943 wont have enough engineers (including Horikoshi) to dedicate to a new project. Besides, Mitsubishi should work hard on replacement for this 1400 HP stopgap, aka they should keep doing what they were doing with A7M, just without Navy "suggestions".
Interestingly Horikoshi wanted initially to built A7M as much faster aircraft than it ended up, with smaller wingspan and wingarea - sort of similar to F8F.
Nakajima had last experience with Naval fighter in mid 30s and new aircraft would most likely require few years of polishing until in a good state.
Kawanishi, Aichi and Kawasaki are companies without any experience in this field
The amount of victories in this operation in tasks they were dedicated to, indicates that Zeros did exceptionally well in protecting their own fleet. Better than F4F certainly.
I think you put that blame wrong, fighter is only a machine piloted by a human and directed by other human on board of Aircraft Carrier. With no radar there was no possibility to envision where next wave is coming from, and they were coming from various directions and at various altitudes. SBDs really had some luck. But luck is also needed
Indeed B-26s penetrated it, but at a price of one machine shot down in flames, other carried torpedo attack from too great distance and their fish scored no hits. Then another one was shot down.
In regard to B-17s, they were flying high and entered the scene while Zeros were already fighting Major Henderson SBDs.
*SNIP*
The Americans designed aircraft to be machine made. Forming a wing or fuselage rib took seconds in a large press. The Brits were far more into wing ribs and other components made from dozens of small parts all riveted together - massively time consuming. There is a video atView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi6PdWHSVG8
showing how the fuselage frames on the Me108 were made. That makes the Brits look efficient.
*SNIP*
There were 15,000 AT-6 produced and 885 Me108. If you ask a company to produce 885 aircraft in 10 years it will be done as in the video, if you want 15,000 in the same time you do it as NA did it.Holy Mother of God, so how many AT-6 Texan/Harvards rolled out of Inglewood in the time it took the lederhosen wearing Messerschmidt boys there to fit together that 108? 17? 18? Just... Wow...
Alright, poor Raiden, one of the more interesting designs, but very well. It's your idea.There is no J2M in my scenario. Mitsubishi designs a next-gen naval fighter, that will be also used from ground bases, and, if we're that desperate, as a floatplane fighter/recon.
I give them a lot of credit. Especially that many of them became after the war in some car business or rocket research like Hideo Itokawa.RAF, or any other air force, never used Supermarine's fighter before Spitfire, yet that one went to the greats. Fw 190 - 1st Focke Wulf's fighter, also great. Bf 109 - 1st fighter by BFW. P-38, 1st Lockheed's fighter, turned out to be pretty good. So let's give the japanese designers some credit, they did come out with good stuff more times than not.
It was incapable to deal with decent formation of B-17s flying at 20,000 feet when all CAP was already engaged much lower by SBDs.It was incapable to deal with B-17s, only one of four B-26s was downed before entering the torpedo launch zone, the cannon ammo capacity was insufficient to the point of letting the bombers, that dropped their weapon, to escape.
Still few were even shot down by defensive fire.No BP glass means rear gunners can still kill or wound the precoius pilots, before we talk about no fuel tank protection that will see the Zero desintegrate if a heavy burst hits home.
Many of this things could be said about B5N as well you know, with the exception to torpedoes and crews however. And yet they scored hits in their desperate attack. Despite lower number of aircraft.The US torpedo bombers were slaughtered because of several things - lousy torpedo launch envelope (heads should've rolled all around Rhode Island and DC because of the torpedo scandal), way too slow TBs on themselves, bad defensive armament, many inexperienced crewmen,next to no escort. Several US squadrons never saw the enemy. So there is more to the loopsided loss of US aircraft than just Zero.
Henderson deliberately choose the "skip bombing". He was flying the way he decided to due to limited skills of his unit.Let's also recall that Zeros were fully unable to forestal any SBD attack, other than from green Henderson's squadron that came too low for real dive bomber, yet too high to somehow hide themselves behind the horizon
That's not true. First of all the entire CAP was exactly at the mentioned opposite side engaging Henderson.The B-17s were coming towards Kaga and Soryu from NW, while Henderson's squadron came from almost opposite direction, the two attacks being separated by quite a distance. Yet Zeros were not capable to climb up to 20000 ft in order to hit the B-17s, that is no single Zero.
However, the B-17s overhead proved to be tough customers. Kaga's Yamaguchi immediately took two of his wingmen up in pursuit of them, joining Soryu's Zeros. However, the attacks by both groups of fighters were desultory at best. They managed to damage a few of the Flying Forts, but none seriously. Lt. Col. Sweeney's pithy summation afterward was that "their heart was not in their work."This was probably simply confirmation of what everybody in the force below already knew–the Zero was no great shakes at high-altitude combat. Not only that, but after four hours in the air, Soryu's fighters were almost at the end of their tether in terms of fuel and ammunition.
And if Saburo Sakai had bullet proof glass, he may not have sustained near-fatal injuries from defensive fire.[/QUOTE]Still few were even shot down by defensive fire.
Pappy Boyington had the known and sturdy F4U with all kinds of protection and yet he and his wingman were shot down in flames.And if Saburo Sakai had bullet proof glass, he may not have sustained near-fatal injuries from defensive fire.
For a Wildcat six .50 caliber guns were main armament to fire any time. For a Zero there were only two 7.7s, as cannon was considered a weapon to finish the target. Thus if pilot conserved his 20 mm rounds and used them only when he had good firing position, this could be enough to take down 2-3 enemy single engine aircraft.American pilots complained about Wildcats with 240rpg ( 18 seconds firing time) when they switched to 6 guns. The 20mm cannon on the Zero were good for about 7 seconds. Larger drums were available from before the war if anybody cared to use large bulges over the larger drums.
Using essentially the same armament as a 1940 109E in the summer of 1942 is showing a definite lag (although head and shoulders ahead of the Army)
Indeed, but thats something someone should tell the Navy. They were the ones forming a new programs for new machines.The Japanese just couldn't afford such side shows no matter how clever/inventive they were.
Holy Mother of God, so how many AT-6 Texan/Harvards rolled out of Inglewood in the time it took the lederhosen wearing Messerschmidt boys there to fit together that 108? 17? 18? Just... Wow...
...
The case with cannon ammo insufficient is true, but so could be said about MG FF in Bf 109s or Hispano cannons in Spitfires II and V, until later models which received greater capacity loads. That certainly though hindered the defensive abilities, as Zeros had to land and rearm once in a while.
Many of this things could be said about B5N as well you know, with the exception to torpedoes and crews however. And yet they scored hits in their desperate attack. Despite lower number of aircraft.
And in regard to escort, VT-8 had escort in form of 10 VT-6 Wildcats. Only one to blame for lack of cover at the approach was Lt. James Gray. He also missed their own VT-6's call for assistance minutes later.
Henderson deliberately choose the "skip bombing". He was flying the way he decided to due to limited skills of his unit.
And yes, Zeros failed to intercept SBDs before they managed to drop their bombs (even though shortly after that SBDs suffered losses) as they were already engaged in dealing with VT-6, then materialized attack from VT-3. High above VT-3 were flying VB-3 covered by clouds. Not to mention that VT-3 actually had some escorts that engaged Zeros, and according to Thach he managed to concentrate on him almost a third part of the CAP.
Zeros were simply lower and under continuous action, being spread due to attack from various directions and distances. For a fighters without any kind of vectoring provided by Carrier that is very hard to predict another threat. And Carriers could provide no more details due to absence of radar.
That's not true. First of all the entire CAP was exactly at the mentioned opposite side engaging Henderson.
Second, B-17s actually were attacked and damaged although not seriously by nine Soryu Zeros and few more from Kaga, which went after them in a steep climb and made firing pass. From Shattered Sword :
<snip>
Again, I see no particular lack of Zeros here as interceptors except for limited ammunition for Type 99 cannons. The true lack was in absence of radar.