Was the Zero too good?

Was the A6M Zero too good?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 26.3%

  • No

    Votes: 14 73.7%
  • Total voters
    19

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Actually the war with USSR in 1939 was a wake up call for the Japanese but the lesson learnt was the USSR was too strong so have a war with USA instead.
Stupid lesson to be sure. If you dont want a war with the USA then dont invade Phillipines or bomb Pearl Harbour or take thousands prisoner and send them on a death march.
The Italian fighters used German engines but so? P-51 used a Rolls Royce engine. Not sure the point here.
The Macchi C.202 and Kawasaki Ki-61 were pretty much analogues and the C.202 first saw combat in 1941 and the Kawasaki in 1943. So a delay there plus the C.205 was 400mph in 1943 so certainly ahead of any 400mph Japanese fighter.
The 109 Emil was matching the Kawasaki in 1939 so the Ki-61 fisrt saw service in 1943 and was only as good as an Emil or early mark of Spitfire. Hardly sparkling.

The Fw-190 and the Ki-43 Hayabusa both first saw service in late 1941 which again is a hopeless match up and in a 1940 Battle of Britain style combat the best Japanese fighter was the Ki-27 Nate. Which again is outmatched by any Spitfire.

The modern Japanese fighters you mentioned were all pretty much 1944 in service designs that did 400mph. That would be 3 years behind the 109 Fredrich and the Fw 190 and the Spitfire mk9 was flying combat missions in 1942. So again the Japanese were always behind the curve.

The fighter prowess of early Japanese fighters were mainly because it was against Hurricanes and Buffalos and Wildcats which had similair ball park perfromance and so hid the relative weaknesses.
 
Japanese politics in the 1920s and 1930s were driven by an aggressive, hyper-nationalistic ideology that is inseparable from their military policies and the behavior of their military leadership.

Back to the Zero. In 1941, it was, arguably, the best carrier-based fighter ("best" is highly dependent on pilot training and tactics; in 1941, the IJN's pilots were probably the best trained and many had combat experience). Its design was heavily, perhaps excessively, influenced by pilot experience, possibly eschewing analysis of trends in aircraft design and air combat tactics.
 


Test in August 1943 between Spitfire V and Zero mark 2.

"Both pilots consider Spitfire outclassed by Hap at all altitudes up to 20,000 feet"

Yep, Zero was total junk......

Someone hurry up and say that the Zero's didn't actually shoot down the Spitfires over Darwin/northern Australia, the Spitfires just ran out of fuel, because a Zero flying 500 miles one way and running a Spitfire out of fuel over his own airfield before flying back home totally reinforces the idea that the Spitfire was better
 
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I agree with both The Basket and Pinsong's points. The Basket said that in general Japan was behind the curve of fielding world-class airplanes. Pinsong pointed out that in mid-1942, the A6M-32 was at least as good as a Spitfire V (with Trop filter - but they were fighting in tropical conditions so it is apples-apples). The zero was an island of excellence in a sea of mediocrity. My thesis that the Zero was "too good" is that the Zero was good enough to have a good shot at initial conquests, but the zero never had teh legs to sustain or defend those conquests, and more to the point. Japan's industrial base een if everything went right, could not match the Allies, especially the US. In other threads we speculated what would have happened if the US had never built the Hellcat or the Corsair. I am with those who say the war wouldn't have changed very much. Overwhelming numbers of F4Fs would have swamped the Japanese Pacific Empire. It just would have taken a little longer, and the US would have suffered higher casualties. The FM2 "wilder wildcat" had a 7-1 kill ratio, even though, on paper, its specs aren't much different from the F4F-3 from 1941. (It was better at low altitudes - worse up high.) The converse though, that without the Zero, if the Japanese would have had to make do with a different plane, one that was not as optimized for the technology available, for example the Ki-43, the conquests of December 1941 to May 1942 would have been impossible. The A6M-21 was within 10% or so of the top speed of the best fighers fo the day. On the other hand, the Zero had a combat radius that in some case doubled the best fighters of the day - and it could operate from aircraft carriers.
 

Hello The Basket,
The point I was addressing was your rather unfavorable comparison between Italian fighter design and Japanese fighter design.
Please don't try to obfuscate.
While the Macchi C.202 and Kawasaki Ki 61-I both used engines derived from the German DB 601Aa, the path taken was quite different.
The Italians were quite content to build the engine as a copy. The Japanese tried to rework the engine to reduce weight and raise the critical altitude which they achieved. The Kawasaki Ha-40 engine with a critical altitude of 4300 meters is only a couple hundred meters below the DB 601A-1 which the Germans did not export.
The point remains that the Italians were never able to produce a competitive fighter using domestic technology while the Japanese did.

I was not claiming Japanese fighter technology and development was particularly advanced by European standards but it was quite competitive against what was fielded against them in the Pacific theatre. They simply never had the numbers and didn't have the pilot quality at the end to exploit the qualities of their aircraft..... or supplies to run them or the ability to maintain production quality....


Fighters are designed to the requirements of the services that use them.
The Ki 43 Hayabusa would never have fit the German philosophy and the FW 190A didn't really fit the Japanese philosophy.
If you look at the J2M Raiden, in performance, it was similar at least in concept to the FW 190A, but it wasn't particularly popular with the Japanese even though Allied evaluations were quite favourable.

Regarding your 400 MPH standard: That was not high on the priorities for the Japanese. Note that in the discussion of requirements for the 12-Shi fighter that became the A6M, Genda favoured maneuverability while Shibata favoured speed. Genda won the argument and we know the result.
As an example, Americans at the time favoured speed over maneuverability and climb as can be seen by the development of the P-37 / P-40 from the P-36. The Japanese didn't share that opinion.

By the way, when did the Italians ever develop a 400 MPH fighter using their own technology?

- Ivan.
 
The Basket said:
What's a Zero Mark 2?
Click to expand...

The Japanese called the A6M2 Model 21 a Type 0 Mark I and the A6M3 (Model 32, Model 22) and A6M5 (Model 52) were the Type 0 Mark II.
They considered the Mark I to be superior at "Medium and Low altitudes, but the Mark II becomes progressively better at 8000 meters and above".
It is interesting to note that Pinsog's evaluation is all below 8000 meters.

- Ivan.
 
I would note that the Japanese did field for trials a small number of the Ki-44 at the end of 1941 which puts them not quite as far behind the FW 190 as it looks at first glance.
Japanese may have gotten the licence for the DB 601 a bit later?
Italians could not supply all their own needs for DB 601 engines from their own factories and were dependent on importing engines from Germany in order to keep production numbers up. A Luxury Japan did not have.

Itis one thing to design and airframe, it is quite another to have a powerful, compact and light weight engine to go with it at the right time.
I would also note that trying to Machi 202s in the south pacific might not have gone well given their shorter range/less fuel capacity. And the 202 was certainly no advance over the Ki 61 in firepower.

Speed is not the only criteria to go by.
 
pinsog said:
Legit question because "Zero Mark 2" isn't a designation. They also called it a Hap instead of a Hamp
Click to expand...

See my earlier post. "Hap" was the initial name given to the Model 32...right up to the point where Hap Arnold expressed his displeasure at his name being associated with an enemy aircraft. A ensuing scramble resulted in the name being changed to "Hamp".
 

It's a valid comparison of 2 fighters that would, could and did meet in combat. It has been expressed multiple times both in this thread and all over this forum that the Zero was at best a 2nd rate fighter that could not compete with European fighters and only got its reputation from battling worn out cast off planes flown by untrained incompetent pilots.

Yet, right here we have 2 pilots flying both planes saying it is superior to the Spitfire V under 20,000 feet. Same test says the Spit "slightly outclimbs the Zero at 26,000" and "the Spitfire does not posses any outstanding qualities that allow it to gain an advantage over a Hap in equal circumstances"

Appears to me that the Zero could fight a Spit V on equal footing after flying 500 miles 1 way, then fly home. Could a Spitfire, 109 or 190 do that? Nope.

Since a Spitfire and 109 were almost always on par with each other, it stands to reason that a Zero could probably hold its own with a 109 as well.

That doesn't sound like the Zero was the overestimated turd it is accused of being. That being said, I would not want to be in a Zero and tangle with an FW190 (the 190 being so close to a Corsair in overall performance)
 

I agree 100%. I read that same article. Funny, Hap Arnold was not amused!
 
The test went all the way up to 27,000 feet. I just didn't post it all. It said above 20,000 or so, if the Spitfire had 3-4,000 feet of altitude over the Zero then it could boom and zoom at will. Well hooray, an F4F-3 could do that to a Zero with 4,000 of alititude. Almost any contemporary fighter could do that to its foe with a height advantage like that
 
I believe the Zero had 3 issues:
1. Roll rate. Above 300 it simply couldn't roll. If you had altitude in an American fighter, doesn't matter which one, P39, P40, Wildcat or even Buffalo, point nose down attain 300 mph, roll right and pull out. If the Zero could roll like a P36 none of the early fighters could break contact unless a friend shot the Zero off him

2. Pilot armor. It didn't need 500 pounds of armor. A simple 100 pound plate behind pilot would have barely lowered performance and yet saved countless Japanese pilots.

3. Fuel tanks. It's my understanding that Zero fuel tanks were form fitted within the wing and when hit by 50 BMG bullets would cause structural damage when they ruptured as well as burning (much like shooting a full can of beer or coke with a rifle). If this is true, then the tanks should have been redesigned with space between them and aircraft skin and self sealing added later.

If these 3 things had been done (I rate the roll rate as most important) then it would have been even more dangerous than it was historically
 

Hello Pinsog,
I believe there were a couple more issues with the Type Zero Fighter.

4. Its maximum diving speed Vne was very low. In the manual, it is stated that the long wing variants (A6M2 Model 21 and A6M3 Model 22) had a maximum diving speed of 340 knots or 391 MPH. The short wing variants (A6M3 Model 32 and A6M5 Model 52) had a 360 knot or 414 MPH limit. These are extraordinarily low numbers when compared to its opponents.

5. It's structural strength is very low. Maximum G load is somewhere between 6.3 and 7.0 or possibly even as low as 6G depending on the source of information.

- Ivan.
 
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