Was the Zero too good?

[Conslaw]

The question to debate: Was the A6M Zero too good in 1941? By that I mean, did confidence in the zero cause the Japanese military to have an overly optimistic notion of their odds in a war with the Western powers? If they hadn't had the Zero would they have never tried the military expansion in December 1941?

 

[swampyankee]

There was quite a lot of arrogance and wishful thinking on the part of the Japanese government, probably worsened by early successes. Throw in a hyper-nationalistic, militarily aggressive regime, with a tendency to punish naysayers, and calm analysis quickly leaves the room.

The Japanese had other early successes, and any one would be touted and the losses would be fake news

 

[Conslaw]

Do you think Japan would have the nerve to undertake its campaign of December 1941 if it had to rely on the A5M Claude as its naval fighter? The Zero-21 was the only single-engined fighter in the world that had the range to fly from Formosa to Luzon, fight and return. If the Phillipines were to be taken without the Zero, the front-line carriers would have had to provide the A5Ms to support the campaign. That would have meant no Pearl Harbor attack, and the main US Pacific Fleet would have been untouched.

 

[Shortround6]

The A5M actually flew the month before the Grumman F3F biplane. The likelihood the Japanese would have kept the A5M as their first line fighter till the end of 1941 is close to nil. The odds are they would have developed some sort of retractable gear fighter. It might not have been as good as the Zero. Now would they have gone to war with this fighter or not.
The easy victories the Zero helped them get in the early part of the war may have led to overconfidence after the first few months though.

 

[The Basket]

Japanese expansion would have happened if the main fighter of the IJN was a hot air balloon.
The Hayabusa came out roughly same time as the Zero so the IJN would have had a comparable fighter of some type.
By 1941 the Zero was not good and was no match for any modern 109 or Spitfire or Fw 190. You don't need a jet fighter when the enemy has Brewster Buffalos.

 

[GrauGeist]

The A6M and KI-43 were both premier designs for their time, but much like the RLM, the Japanese high-command did not place a high priority on suitable replacements until the situation became dire.
Towards the end of the Pacific War, the Japanese had several types that were on a par or better than what the Allies were fielding at the time.
However, as was the case with the Luftwaffe: too little, too late...

 

[Shortround6]

The high command did place some importance on replacements. The problem for the Japanese in this area was that their ambitions exceeded their capability. The country was too small to support their ambitions. There weren't enough engineers to both design new aircraft in a timely fashion and update the existing ones. Issuing specifications for specialized aircraft (interceptors in addition to general purpose fighter) didn't help.

 

[tomo pauk]

The A6M and KI-43 were both premier designs for their time, but much like the RLM, the Japanese high-command did not place a high priority on suitable replacements until the situation became dire.
Towards the end of the Pacific War, the Japanese had several types that were on a par or better than what the Allies were fielding at the time.
However, as was the case with the Luftwaffe: too little, too late...

Welcome back, Dave
IJA have had a requirement for other fighters, the Ki-44 and Ki-61 followed the Ki-43 with reasonably expediency. I will not agree that Ki-43 was a premier design for it's time.
The IJN, however, wasted too much time (a most precious resource) with dedicated floatplane fighter/recon from Kawainshi, while specifying the J2M without regard to the ability to be operated from carriers.

 

[Shortround6]

The Ki-44 was a bit of a mistake-fumble in that the Japanese could not afford multiple types of slightly different fighters for each service.
If the Japanese needed a radial engine fighter of higher performance than the Ki-43 (and they did) then it should have been a replacement for the Ki-43 and not a supplement/special use aircraft.

 

[yulzari]

The A6M was the right answer to the Japanese strategy. Gambling everything on long range with effective fighter performance against it's immediate likely enemies. It was for a bold aggressive strategy to seize territory too fast for effective enemy defence. The strategy presumed this would be followed by negotiations in which Japan would get what it needed and could withdraw. All in as short a time as possible. When it failed and Japan found itself in an (inevitable) war of attrition and comparative resources it was entirely the wrong answer for what was needed for a defensive fighter. For it's intended role it was second to none. For it's actual role later on it was second to most opposition. Still a technical tour de force for a fighter with Bristol Mercury like power in 1941.

 

[Peter Gunn]

The A6M and KI-43 were both premier designs for their time, but much like the RLM, the Japanese high-command did not place a high priority on suitable replacements until the situation became dire.
Towards the end of the Pacific War, the Japanese had several types that were on a par or better than what the Allies were fielding at the time.
However, as was the case with the Luftwaffe: too little, too late...

I second Tomo - Welcome back, you were missed.

When I read "Shattered Sword" for the first time, one of the things that struck me was in the description of Nagumo while he was attending a conference with designers and pilots to address the Zero's replacement. What I got from it was the pilots were all too enthusiastic and saw no reason for concern while the designers seemed to be saying "look, the Americans are bound to field new fighters very soon, we need to stay competitive".

Nagumo seemed to be agreeing with the designers but, as memory serves, didn't push either way. To me it sounds like the design team realized they needed to push forward but the pilots in the field said no and high command was ambivalent on the subject.

I could be way off base here, after all, I'm just the guy in the back with the beer making either snarky comments or asking the dumb questions.

 

[Conslaw]

Japanese expansion would have happened if the main fighter of the IJN was a hot air balloon.
The Hayabusa came out roughly same time as the Zero so the IJN would have had a comparable fighter of some type.
By 1941 the Zero was not good and was no match for any modern 109 or Spitfire or Fw 190. You don't need a jet fighter when the enemy has Brewster Buffalos.

The A6M-21 did well against the Spitfire V. The Brewster 239 (Buffalo) was very successful against the bf-109 in the hands of the Finns.
The Ki-43 Hayabusa barely made it to a few front line units by December 7, 1941. It was inferior to the Zero in speed, firepower, and most critically, range. Let's say they had a carrier-capable Ki-43 in December 1941. It would not have been capable of attacking Luzon from Formosa, and it would have been inferior to the P-40s at Pearl Harbor.

 

[Conslaw]

The IJA did a better job at following up on the Ki-43 than the IJN did following up on the A6M. Over 3,000 Ki-61 were built and over 1,200 Ki-44. Even saying this, numerically the Ki-43 was still a common front line fighter at the end of the war, even though more than 3,500 of the excellent Ki-84 "Frank" fighters were manufactured. The IJN's replacement fighters were produced in too few numbers to be significant. (J2M 671 built, N1K 1532 built) For a variety of reasons, the Zero's planned replacement, the A6M "Reppu" (code name "Sam") never made it into mass production.

 

[swampyankee]

Do you think Japan would have the nerve to undertake its campaign of December 1941 if it had to rely on the A5M Claude as its naval fighter? The Zero-21 was the only single-engined fighter in the world that had the range to fly from Formosa to Luzon, fight and return. If the Phillipines were to be taken without the Zero, the front-line carriers would have had to provide the A5Ms to support the campaign. That would have meant no Pearl Harbor attack, and the main US Pacific Fleet would have been untouched.

Yep. Remember, there is a story Yamamoto was sent to sea because he was not a strident cheerleader for war against the US

 

[Vincenzo]

The Brewster 239 (Buffalo) was very successful against the bf-109 in the hands of the Finns. .

Afaik was very successful vs soviet fighters, at time of lapland war the 239 saw limited service

 

[taly01]

I think the problem with the Zero been too good was that it meant its replacement never entered service. The "original" Zero A6M2 model 21 is one of the greatest overall designs ever. For sure it emboldened the Japanese entering war vs the USA.

However design effort spent in continual upgrades for the Zero was about as effective as putting an ash tray on a motor bike. The A6M3 with the improved Sakae motor was a "dud" and only improved high altitude speed with its 2 speed supercharger, and the A6M5 really only improved dive speed. This was not enough to counter Corsairs and Hellcats. In retrospect diverting Jiro Horikoshi with the J2M Raiden project was disasterous, The Raiden was the answer to a non-existing problem! While the need for a successor for the Zero was certain.

 

[The Basket]

In a nutshell in comparison to America, Japan was a poor country with no oil and a weak industrial base. So it's final defeat should be no surprise.
Ki-61 as mentioned was ok for 1940 but not for 1943. And have you seen Japanese tanks? Or lack of?
The Buffalo in Finnish service is not important to the Zero story.
As mentioned before Japan did not intend to go to war with America but to knock it out of war early so it runs away.
One word described Japan perfectly is hubris and from that single word all fits and falls apart.

 

[buffnut453]

The Zero wasn't "too good", it's just that it was exactly the right airframe at the right time to accomplish Japan's immediate objectives in the period Dec 1941 thru May 1942. It was a great aircraft when used on the offensive against adversaries that lacked integrated radar-based C3 and it had enough performance to deal with the, frankly, second-string Allied types that were arranged against it in that timeframe. The Allies under-performed because of Japan's impeccable timing in attacking right at the moment when the Allies were at their weakest, and hence unable to respond rapidly.

As the strategic situation evolved, the weaknesses in the Zero became all too apparent. What was great when on the offensive proved challenging for sustained attritional or defensive campaigns.

 

[Shortround6]

The Zero was both enabled and handicapped by it's engines. The initial engine gave it just enough power to do it's job and got great mileage to boot at low power settings, which enabled the great range. The 2nd version with 2 speed supercharger gave more power (but not enough?) but was bulkeir and thristier. The 3rd version with water injection failed in the hoped for boost in power and no substitute was considered for far too long, which doomed the Zero to degrading performance and a choice between protection and increasingly inadequate fire power or no protection and better fire power. However with no large increase in performance the Japanese pilots had a harder and harder time getting the firepower they did have into position to use it, made worse by the falling standard of training of the pilots.
A more powerful but thirstier engine may have allowed a better defensive fighter to be built, better protection to allow more pilots to live long enough to gain experience, adequate fire power to deal with American planes and adequate performance even if muchshorter ranged than the models they started the war with.

 

[tomo pauk]

Installing a more powerful, new engine type on the Zero was long overdue after 1942.