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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Valid points. Not sure if dive speed was an issue when facing earlier allied fighters, before 1943. For instance, in tests, the Zero and Wildcat dived at the same speed, but the Zero engine cutout from negative G in a pushover where the Wildcat didn't and of course the Wildcat could roll at high speed and Zero couldn't. I have also read accounts of P39 and P40 pilots that dived several thousand feet and the Zero stuck right with them until shot at by another pilot.
 

I can't speak for the entire forum 'cos I haven't read every single thread )) but I think you're overstating the comments on this thread. It's clearly not the case that the Zero suddenly became a turd as soon as it faced half-decent opposition but, equally, much of the Zero's mystique back in WW2 and ever since results from its performance in the period Dec 41 thru about May 42 when it was up against second-rate airframes and relatively inexperienced (not untrained and not incompetent!) pilots.

The Zero was a remarkable aircraft but it had a number of deficiencies that were thrown into stark relief when Japan lost the strategic initiative. Its armament wasn't the greatest and its maneuverability fell off rapidly at higher speeds. The latter attribute is particularly telling since the Zero provided exactly what IJN pilots asked for...but, unfortunately, that was not what was needed as the war progressed.

I'm intrigued by the statement in the test report that "the Spitfire does not posses any outstanding qualities that allow it to gain an advantage over a Hap in equal circumstances". Frankly, if any fighter pilot is allowing the enemy to engage on an equal footing then he's doing it wrong. Why on earth would you seek to engage an adversary "in equal circumstances"? That's grossly unsound from a tactical perspective. You want to engage when it best suits your aircraft and the attributes it possesses.

I wonder if there isn't some "Zero mythology" creeping into the report...or, at least, some political spin in an attempt to secure higher-performance aircraft for the theatre (not unreasonable, I must add!). Some of the contradictions in the report suggest that this latter point may be pertinent, for example "the Spit is outclassed by the Hap at all altitudes up to 20,000 feet" and yet "at a speed of 330mph it was much more difficult for Hap to follow Spit in diving aileron rolls." That speed is still well short of the Spit MkV's maximum speed, even with a Vokes filter. I'd really like to know how the test was set up and what were the starting conditions for each run. Such details can have a marked impact on the results.

Finally, yes the Zero Model 32 may have met the Spit MkV in combat but that still doesn't mean they're contemporaries. The Gladiator met the Me109 in combat but I don't think anyone would suggest they were contemporaneous. The key point is that, for all its many attributes, the Zero was still lagging behind fighter development in other countries in a number of key performance parameters and Japan lacked the resources to overcome those shortfalls, particularly given the intense rivalry between the IJN and IJA. The Zero was a remarkable aircraft for 1940, sweeping all before it during the early months of the war. However, that performance came at a cost. There's no free lunch in aircraft design and the Zero simply couldn't keep up with the opposition as the war progressed.
 

Post #5 on this thread.

Agree 100% that the Zero design could not be stretched like many other designs late war.

Agreed that Zero wasn't perfect, but if it could only have rolled at high speed, pre 1943 fighters could not have escaped it.

The Spitfire had no "ace in the hole" maneuver to escape a Zero. A P40, with some altitude, could roll and dive away from a Zero or Spitfire. A P36 could outroll, loop, or out turn a Spitfire or 109. A P47 could outroll and dive away from a 109. These are all examples of last ditch, ace in the hole escape maneuvers. The Spitfire didn't have one of these plans against a Zero, climb was virtually the same, speed below 20,000 was too close for Spitfire to use as escape, turn a couple times and your speed is below 250 and your dead. These pilots were trying to figure out how not to die against the Zero, they weren't getting new planes no matter what the tests said because the Brit's were worried more about Germany and couldnt/wouldn't give any more planes.

On top of all this, NOTHING in Europe had the ability to escort anything much past the end of the airfield. The Zero could escort bombers 500 miles 1 way, fight a Mark V Spitfire on at least equal ground and then fly home.

Was the Zero the greatest fighter ever? No. But to say it wasn't a 1st line fighter at least equal to anything in Europe except the 190 is revisionist. Any Allied fighter pilot in that theater at that time was fully aware of how scary the Zero was. I for one am glad it couldn't roll at high speed or there would have been countless more allied pilots that never made it home
 
Again, it rather depends on which mark of Spitfire you're talking about. You can't take one example of the Spit MkV and apply it to all variants of the type. Compare the Model 32 against the contemporaneous Spit MkIX and I suspect the outcome of the trial would be rather different.

As to the range question, yes that was remarkable...but, then again, Japan HAD to have that kind of range in order to achieve its strategic objectives. It all comes back to my prior point about Japan not thinking about the strategic consequences of it's rapid gallop across the Pacific. Japan HAD to have long-range fighters because the various island outposts weren't mutually supporting. This issue became readily apparent at Guadalcanal where, despite having the ABILITY to reach a distant target and engage the US fighters, the Zero proved incapable of wresting air superiority from the Wildcats and P-39s defending Henderson Field.

It's all well and good flying a long way and fighting...but you have to achieve some kind of outcome. The Zero failed to meet that objective.
 

Hello Pinsog,
The equivalent listing in the manual for the F4F-4 is 475 knots or 546 MPH and the F4F-4 is certainly a contemporary.
Another problem with the A6M series was that their elevator got very heavy in a "high speed" dive.
In fairness, the roll rate of the Wildcat wasn't really that high. I believe at its best, it was only about 70 degrees / second. At lower speeds, the huge ailerons on the A6M gave it a very high roll rate.
I haven't found a good reference for how much of that roll rate is lost for each aircraft under G load though.

I believe that this evaluation misses a very important performance advantage of the Spitfire Mk.V.
It was about 30 MPH faster at its best altitude and that wasn't much over 20,000 feet. I believe part of the problem of the "no advantage to the Spitfire" was that the pilots were trying to play a maneuvering game against Hap and it is stupid to fight the way the other fellow fights best.

Hello The Basket,
The Macchi C.202 Folgore is certainly Italian. It just happens to use a German engine, thus does not qualify as all domestic technology. I would consider an imported engine design pretty significant help from abroad, wouldn't you?

- Ivan.
 
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Quick note here, I'm not a Zero lover, I'm not a Spitfire hater. What I perceive here is, right or wrong, the same thing you see when some mega sports star finally loses, i.e. Rhonda Rousey, Mike Tyson, Alabama football team, whatever your sport is. Rhonda Rousey dominated her sport for several years, her matches were many times measured in seconds, when she finally gets beaten it becomes "she wasn't really that good" "Mike Tyson wasn't really that good", "XXXX wasn't really that good". I see that with the Zero.

I meant to add this earlier, you don't on purpose start a fight with a Zero on an equal footing. But sometimes you don't have a choice, Wildcats might not have time to get above them, P39 and P40 were UNABLE to climb above them at all. A Spitfire might start the fight by making a pass at a Zero from 30'000, maybe the Zero out turns him, maybe another Zero turns into the Spitfire, the Spitfire breaks off and dives. Zero follows him, they do a few turns on the way down, suddenly they are below 20,000 feet. Now the Spitfire has no advantage, speed difference isn't enough for him to run away, he doesn't have enough fuel if the Zero is between him and his airfield. He can't out climb the Zero to escape. He is in deep trouble. He is out of options and it quickly turns into a turning fight, airspeed bleeds off and suddenly he is right in the Zeros wheelhouse.

You are correct that the Zero did not achieve all the strategic objectives. But neither did the 109 at the Battle of Britain. Neither did the 109 in the desert campaign vs mostly Hurricanes and P40's. Neither did the 109 and 190 over Russia. Sure they overran the Russians for a little while and shot up a lot of I16's and such, but they eventually lost. Does that make the 109 or 190 a bad plane?

When did the Spitfire achieve air superiority over someone else airspace?

How would the start of the war gone for Japan if they had the F4F4 Wildcat and the US had the Zero? I would say not very good.
How would the war have ended if Japan had the F4F4 Wildcat and the US had the Zero? Exactly the way it did historically, with a huge mushroom cloud over 2 major cities.

Nothing the Japanese did would have changed the outcome of the war (unless they developed nukes). The US could have eventually established total air supremacy over Japan with B17's if they had chosen simply because they could have built more B17's than Japan could build any and every type of plane they built.

That being said, strategic failures, many if not most attributed to poor planning by high level officers should not take away from the abilities the Zero fighter possessed. It was indeed a worthy adversary for any allied plane before 1943 and one of the best of the early war. Like the Zero or not, no other fighter of that era could do what the Zero did.
 
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Hello Ivan.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/intelsum85-dec42.pdf

I tried to copy the one paragraph on the Zero vs F4F4 but it wouldn't let me. In mock combat they say on here that they were equal in dive speed except for the pushover where the Zeros engine cuts out
 
The 'on paper' outdated - Hayabusa was, in late 1943, conclusively proving to the RAF Hurricanes over Burma,
which of the two of them - was, truly outdated..

Well, that is, until the latest Spitfire Mk VIII's arrived, & ironically - by adopting the same 'boom & zoom' tactics
which the LW 109/190s used against them - proved the point.

A an experienced Kiwi Spitfire pilot, who'd fought the LW in Africa & Europe, Alan Pearl - when interviewed by
Norman Franks noted:

"They were not heavily armoured, & our .303s could put a lot of destructive metal into them. The cannons
caused obvious & serious damage. This was not the case with Me 109s, where I have hit one with M-Gs
from behind, only to see the bullets ricocheting off."

I'd add that the noxious lack of cooperation between IJN & IJA, wasn't limited to the forces of Nippon,
the RAF too, was notorious for its attitude towards the 'senior service', with detriment to the FAA,
& I don't doubt - the centuries old US inter-service rivalry surely continues yet..

'Remember gentlemen, the Nazis/Nips/Commies - may be our adversary, but the Navy is our Enemy!'
 

I am sadly deficient in my knowledge of the Burma campaign mid war time line. You are saying the Zero was beating the Hurricanes until the Spitfire Mk VIII arrived? (I hope so, that is what I think happened)

By late 1943 the Zero was in trouble with the current frontline fighters, F6F, F4U, P38, P47 and late model Spitfires. They all had the power and speed to dictate terms of engagement.
 

Hello Pinsog,
I have seen this as well. I can tell you that the numbers I listed came out of the manual for each aircraft.
I suspect that the IIS 85 test report was done without benefit of having the flight manual of the A6M2b that was being tested and perhaps they were really meaning dive acceleration rather than maximum dive speed. I am not in a position to resolve this.
By the way, J.A.W was referring to the Army Type 1 Fighter Hayabusa, not the Navy Type 0 Fighter.

On a somewhat irrelevant note, I am also a fan of Ronda Rousey, but after her fight with Bethe Correia, it was pretty obvious that her defence was not that good against a striker and that sooner or later someone was going to land a really hard shot to take her out. I would have wanted to see her retire on top though.
I am also convinced that Mike Tyson would have beaten the count against Buster Douglas if he hadn't gone looking for his mouth piece and who know where the fight would have gone after that....

Hello The Basket,
There is a pretty big difference between an imported cannon design and an imported engine design. The cannon was not essential to the A6M's flight performance while the DB 601Aa was quite essential to the design and performance of the Macchi C.202 and most late war Italian fighters.
This is somewhat pitiful when one considers the Macchi racing floatplanes that competed back in the 1930's.
I also did not list the A6M among the competitive late war Japanese fighters in any case.

- Ivan.
 

Not from me. I'm just telling it like it was.

pinsog said:
I meant to add this earlier, you don't on purpose start a fight with a Zero on an equal footing. But sometimes you don't have a choice, Wildcats might not have time to get above them, P39 and P40 were UNABLE to climb above them at all.
Click to expand...

Correct...and yet the US air assets at Henderson still succeeded and the Zero failed.



So much assumption in this section that I don't even know where to start. Firstly, one-on-one combats were absolutely the rarity and so this type of hypothetical scenario in a complex multi-aircraft (or even multi-formation) environment adds little to the reality of understanding of the situation. As to the comment that "he doesn't have enough fuel if the Zero is between him and his airfield" is absolute nonsense, I'm afraid. You make it sound like the Zero could remain on-station indefinitely while the Spitfire had to RTB after 5 minutes. And, yet again, you're treating all Spitfires as being the same which is patently not the case.



You can't compare a large scale air campaign against widespread assets like the Battle of Britain with something like Guadalcanal where the fight was over a single airfield. Even in North Africa, the air campaign ebbed and flowed. I don't get the impression that air superiority over Henderson was ever seriously in doubt...yes, it was under threat of being overrun by ground forces but air superiority remained under American control.


pinsog said:
When did the Spitfire achieve air superiority over someone else airspace?
Click to expand...

I'd say Burma would be a good candidate.


pinsog said:
Like the Zero or not, no other fighter of that era could do what the Zero did.
Click to expand...

Again, it was not a good fighter for the entire era. It was a great fighter in 1940 but by 1944 it was inadequate at best. That's evolution for you...and the Zero didn't or couldn't.
 

You may be correct, I don't know either. I always assumed that the Wildcat could and did dive faster and I was surprised to read in this report that (as I interpreted it) they dived at the same speed with initial acceleration going to the Wildcat due to Zeros engine cutting out. I could easily be convinced either way.[/QUOTE]
 
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Ultimate dive speed is not the same as practical or useable dive speed.

IF you don't accelerate rapidly in a dive then you don't get out of gun range quick enough to save yourself.
reaching a significantly higher speed after your opponent runs out of ammo doesn't do you any good.

I believe the F4F was the Last Navy fighter that had to pass the terminal velocity dive test. The USN required that a test plane climb up to a certain altitude and then perform a vertical dive such as the plane simply would not go any faster, drag equaled force of gravity.

THis could take thousands of feet to achieve and obviously varies with the height the dive was started and the density of the air the plane was going through. It also points to the F4F not diving fast enough to really run into compressibility problems.
 
In my head this made sense, but I should have defined "era" as Zero introduction to january 1 1943. In my previous posts I stated "against pre 1943 Allied fighters". Also said in post 72 "By late 1943 the Zero was in trouble with the current frontline fighters, F6F, F4U, P38, P47 and late model Spitfires. They all had the power and speed to dictate terms of engagement."
 

To clarify Shortround6, would you say "practical diving speed" of the Zero and F4F was the same? That would mean the F4F didn't actually draw out of range, but instead got fast enough to roll out of the way of the Zero after his controls stiffened up.
 
For sure SR6, acceleration in the dive, & control at/over Vne,
- to enable 'drawing a bead' on fleeing 'quarry', & the structural integrity to
safely accept coarse control inputs - when evading hard-out - are important.

Not many WW2 roll charts extend out that far though..

 
I'm having to bash the Spitfire (which I actually like) to make a point about the Zero (which I respect more than I actually like). So many things in debates like this do not make sense. The plane with the best record against the Zero, pre 1943, was the plane that had NOT 1 single performance advantage against the Zero, the F4F. Now it could roll at high speed, but thats it. It was slower, climbed slower and turned worse. The plan in an F4F was to let your buddy shoot him off you or fly straight and level and let him shoot you until he ran out of ammo. Thats the plane that has the best record. This makes no sense to me and probably to no one else, but it was a fact.

The Zero was a fine aircraft with a few flaws or compromises (just like any other fighter). Fantastic range, fast enough for early war time period (pre 1943), climbed well and at an extremely steep angle. Weapons were fine for the time period (pre 1943). Needed armor, self sealing tanks and high speed roll rate fixed. I think it would have held its own against the 109, it did hold its own against the Spit V with tropical kit installed and would have done poorly, very poorly against 190.
 
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